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The nation's largest left-wing dark money network raised more than $1.5 billion in anonymous donations to bankroll liberal endeavors in 2021, tax forms reveal.

The secret money network, which consists of five nonprofits managed by Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Arabella Advisors, also combined for nearly $1 billion in total spending last year, the documents further show.

In recent years, the Arabella-managed nonprofits have solidified how Democrats benefit from substantial amounts of dark money as they simultaneously rail against its influence in politics by targeting right-leaning organizations.

"These latest tax returns prove that the Arabella Advisors network remains the largest dark money player in American politics," Americans for Public Trust executive director Caitlin Sutherland told Fox News Digital.

GROUP LEO DICAPRIO FUNNELED GRANTS THROUGH TO FUND CLIMATE LAWSUITS MOVED TO LARGEST US DARK MONEY NETWORK

The Arabella Advisors-managed dark money network has greatly benefited Democrats in recent years. (REUTERS/Leah Millis)

"After raking in nearly $1.6 billion in anonymous contributions, and spending nearly $1 billion, this network has established itself as the preeminent hub on the left to finance efforts to defund the police, pack the Supreme Court, enforce radical green energy policies, and prop up the Biden administrations failing agenda," Sutherland said.

The network's web of groups sits under five Arabella-managed nonprofits: the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund, Hopewell Fund and North Fund.

Each fund acts as a fiscal sponsor to other left-wing nonprofits by providing their tax status to the nonprofits housed beneath them. This setup allows the fiscally sponsored groups to avoid filing tax forms to the IRS. The five funds also move massive sums to progressive groups outside their network.

"As we've stated in the past, Arabella Advisors is a business dedicated to making philanthropic work more efficient, effective, and equitable," Arabella spokesperson Steve Sampson told Fox News Digital. "We are proud of the work we do for all of our clients, including our nonprofit clients who hire us to provide HR, legal, payroll and other administrative services. Like all service providers, we work for our clients, not the other way around. They make their own decisions on strategy, fundraising, and programmatic goals."

Billionaires, including George Soros, have passed money through the Arabella Advisors-managed dark money network. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP)

The five Arabella-managed nonprofits also hide donor information on their respective tax forms, keeping the public in the dark to the full extent of who is using the network as a conduit to fund left-wing initiatives.

The New Venture Fund remains the largest nonprofit in the network. In 2021, NVF collected $955 million in donations while racking up $553 million in total expenses, including $326 million in grants pushed to outside groups. America Votes, Community Change and the Economic Innovation Group are just a few of the dozens of outside groups to receive its cash, its newest tax forms show.

The Windward Fund, which focuses on environmental initiatives, raised roughly $273 million and spent $107 million, including $72 million in grants to outside groups last year. The Sixteen Thirty Fund raked in $190 million and reported $173 million in expenses. They funneled more than $107 million in donations to organizations outside their network, according to its tax forms.

The Hopewell Fund, meanwhile, took in nearly $123 million in donations, and the North Fund received almost $43 million from secretive donors. Those two groups tallied a combined $155 million in total expenses, including $75 million in grants to outside left-wing causes.

ARABELLA ADVISORS: FIRM OVERLOOKING MOST POWERFUL LEFT-WING DARK MONEY NETWORK IN AMERICA EXPANDS OPERATIONS

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 01: (L-R) Hansjorg Wyss, Michael Bloomberg and Sam Waterston attend Oceana's 2015 New York City benefit at Four Seasons Restaurant on April 1, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Oceana)

Arabella Advisors recently expanded its operations as it deals with massive amounts of cash raised and poured into progressive causes across the country.

The firm recently acquired New York-based Kiwi Partners, which provides nonprofit accounting and consulting services. The group previously told Fox News Digital that the acquisition "deepens Arabella's capacity to support the nonprofit sector."

The network contains dozens of liberal groups ranging from Campaign for Our Shared Future, which formed this year to push back against opponents of Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools, to Governing for Impact, which quietly works behind the scenes with President Biden's administration to shape policy.

Influential Democratic donors use the network to funnel cash to projects, including billionaire George Soros, who provided millions to Governing for Impact and its action fund, Fox News Digital previously reported.

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Other financiers - such as Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss - also pass money through the expansive dark money network.

Arabella Advisors collected nearly $47 million in payments from the five funds for administrative, operations and management services in 2021, making it a highly lucrative business.

Joe Schoffstall is a politics producer/reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @joeschoffstall
China launches Global AI Governance Initiative, offering an open approach in contrast to US blockade

08:54, October 19, 2023 By Wang Cong and Yin Yeping ( Global Times

China on Wednesday launched the Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance Initiative, offering an open, inclusive and fair approach for the development, security and governance of emerging artificial intelligence technologies and services, in stark contrast to the US' restrictions and blockade aimed at preserving its hegemony.

Even as China stressed fairness and non-discrimination in AI development so as to benefit all countries and regions, the US intensified unilateral restrictions over normal global cooperation in AI and other technologies. Western countries have also been seeking to set rules for AI, which experts say is mostly aimed at protecting their own interests.

The Global AI Governance Initiative, announced at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing, represents another Chinese proposed solution for global AI governance, which has brought both tremendous opportunities as well as challenges and risks, underscoring China's approach of openness and inclusiveness in global cooperation and development, experts said.

In a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the third BRF, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China will launch the Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance Initiative at this year's forum.

The initiative covers various aspects of AI governance, calling for adopting a people-centered approach and upholding the principles of mutual respect, equality, and mutual benefit in AI development that benefits countries and regions, according to the Cyberspace Administration of China.

"We should respect other countries' national sovereignty and strictly abide by their laws when providing them with AI products and services," the initiative read. "We oppose using AI technologies for the purposes of manipulating public opinion, spreading disinformation, intervening in other countries' internal affairs, social systems and social order, as well as jeopardizing the sovereignty of other states."

The initiative also called for the establishment of a testing and assessment system based on AI risk levels and the establishment and improvement of relevant laws, regulations and rules, so as to ensure personal privacy and data security. It also urged the adherence to the principles of fairness and non-discrimination, and to avoid biases and discrimination based on ethnicities, beliefs, nationalities, genders, etc., during the process of data collection, algorithm design, technology development, and product development and application.

"The Initiative presents a constructive approach to addressing universal concerns over AI development and governance and draws up blueprints for relevant international discussions and rule-making," a spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. "China stands ready to have exchanges and practical cooperation with all sides on global AI governance and deliver benefit for all human beings through AI technology."

China's cooperative and win-win approach is conducive to not only its own development but also common progress in technological innovation for all countries participating in the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), said Sun Yuzhong, a researcher at the Institute of Computing Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Especially in cutting-edge fields such as AI, we can jointly promote the improvement of scientific and technological levels in various countries, rather than just our own progress and hindering the development of others," Sun told the Global Times on Wednesday.

China's AI governance initiative came as the US continues to intensify its arbitrary restrictions on normal cooperation in AI chips and other technologies.

On Tuesday, the US further tightened the export restrictions on artificial intelligence-related chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China, and added a number of Chinese entities to the "entity list" of export control.

The move prompted a harsh response from China on Wednesday. In a statement, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said it firmly opposes and deplores the US' abuse of export controls and unilateral bullying tactics. It urged the US to immediately drop such restrictions and vowed to take all necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.

Apart from the US' unilateral restrictions, Western countries have also been "competing to write the definitive rules for artificial intelligence," and they have hit major bump as "they all want to win," US news outlet Politico reported in August. Such an approach is not conducive for global AI governance, which should include input from all the countries and regions, Chinese experts noted.

"China's proposal is that regardless of the capabilities of different countries in the field of AI, all countries, including those that are relatively lagging behind, should be able to participate in setting the rules, instead of being spectators or being forced to abide by rules set by others," Ma Jihua, a Beijing-based senior industry analyst, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

China's approach is starkly different from that of the West, which put more emphasis on the participation of the strong, Ma said, noting that the announcement of the Global AI Governance Initiative at the BRF underscored China's commitment for win-win cooperation in not just traditional projects but also technological development with all the BRI partners.

Given China's rising capabilities, countries are hoping that China plays a greater role in promoting technological cooperation in Asia and beyond.

Kairat Sarybay, secretary-general of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measure in Asia, said that the 28-member multi-national forum for enhancing cooperation toward promoting peace, security and stability in Asia is also promoting economic cooperation, specifically technological exchanges.

"So I hope that China, because of its new weight in economic and technological development, can help," Sarybay said in an interview with the Global Times on Monday.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
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SUAMICO  Kim Pytleski could barely sleep the night before. She replayed the PowerPoint slides in her head, packed her notebook and took a deep breath.

The clerk from a rural Wisconsin county north of Green Bay was preparing for a public meeting to explain the election process to residents. She didn't know who she would encounter. Would some deny the results of the last presidential election? Would the conversation get combative? Most importantly, would she get through to anyone?

They were questions Pytleski never expected to ask herself when she started the job in Oconto County more than 14 years ago. But since then, election conspiracy theories have taken root in the rural, heavily Republican county in northeastern Wisconsin. It's among large swaths of the country where distrust of voting and ballot-counting, fanned by former President Donald Trump's false claims of a stolen election, maintains a stubborn grasp.

Pytleski, who was born and raised in the county, hears conspiracy theories nearly everywhere she goes: Democrats are paying people to stuff ballot boxes with illegal votes, absentee voting allows rampant fraud, voting machines are hacked by foreign powers. She receives skeptical letters and emails.

When she's defended the election process, Pytleski, a lifelong Republican, has been called a RINO  a Republican in Name Only.

"You know pretty much everyone," she said of the towns that make up Oconto County, which has consistently leaned Republican in presidential elections over the past two decades, except when former President Barack Obama won here in 2008. "The joke is that if someone moves here, you have to live here 30 years before you're considered a local. It's a warm feeling, being in a place like this."

But, she added, "election denialism has gotten its hold on it."

For elections officials and grassroots democracy groups in the presidential swing state, it has been an uphill fight to combat the doubts and the people who continue to spread them. They describe grappling with an almost faith-like pull of conspiracy theories perpetuated by online misinformation and far-right figures.

Still, they press on, taking on the issue one community event and one conversation at a time, hoping for a half-step forward.

Battleground state

"This state is vital, and it's ground zero in this fight to save our republic," said Reid Ribble, a Republican who represented the area in Congress until 2017 and is an adviser to the nonprofit Keep Our Republic. The group is holding town hall-style forums throughout Wisconsin hoping to restore faith in elections and has plans to do the same in two other states that will be pivotal to next year's presidential race, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The group's efforts come as distrust in elections has gained a persistent foothold across the country, especially in rural areas. That has led to attempts to ditch voting machines in favor of less accurate and less efficient hand counts, threats of violence against election workers and the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Polling from last summer by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that only 22% of Republicans have high confidence that votes in the 2024 presidential election will be counted accurately, compared to 71% of Democrats, while a solid majority of Republicans continue to believe President Joe Biden's election win was illegitimate.

Partisan divisions

The deep partisan divide comes amid a relentless campaign of lies from Trump that the 2020 election was stolen as he seeks a second term in the White House.

Wisconsin has been an epicenter of the efforts to undermine faith in elections. The state Supreme Court, then with a conservative majority, came within one vote in 2020 of overturning the presidential results, and Republicans in the Legislature later launched a partisan investigation seeking evidence of widespread fraud. That probe eventually landed before a judge who declared that it had uncovered "absolutely no evidence of election fraud."

Instead, multiple audits and recounts have affirmed Biden's 21,000-vote win in the state. Yet the doubt remains.

With Coke cans and paper plates stacked with pepperoni pizza slices, about 50 community members filled a fire station on a recent evening in Suamico, a town of 13,000 that borders Oconto County on the shores of Lake Michigan, just outside Green Bay.

Flanked on either side by U.S. and Wisconsin flags, a panel of local officials brought together by Keep Our Republic walked attendees through the election process, from how voting equipment is tested to the process of certifying the results.

"We're arming people with facts," said Kathy Bernier, state director of the nonprofit group, which emphasizes that it is nonpartisan. "The best way to help people understand is to bring the experts to them and connect with them like this. Then they can spread that information to their own friends, family and neighbors."

'Truth is on my side'

Bernier, a Republican former state senator, broke with her own party to criticize those who disseminate false election claims. The event in late September was the second in a series she is planning in Wisconsin.

"I've been yelled at more times than I can count," Bernier said. "People have sent out press releases chastising me. But I'm going to stand my ground because the truth is on my side, and this work needs to be done."

It's not without obstacles. Bernier and others involved in the effort said the public is still largely unaware of what happens behind the scenes during elections, leaving them vulnerable to misinformation.

People also consume news that confirms their biases and move to areas where they are surrounded by people who think as they do, Bernier said. In addition, when many people see Trump and others who spread election misinformation as "some sort of savior," election denialism can become almost like faith.

"If you've closed your mind to the truth, there's not always a lot we can do," Bernier said. "We're working on those who are hovering around the middle."

Mixed messages

The effort to provide a clear view of how elections work comes as other groups are spreading a conflicting message in Wisconsin  that elections are rigged, not secure and that fraud is rampant. Their efforts are aided by prominent voices in the election conspiracy movement, including MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and Douglas Frank, who has visited Wisconsin regularly to speak at events spreading false claims of 2020 election fraud.

These narratives have fueled an ongoing fight over an effort by legislative Republicans to fire Meagan Wolfe, the state's nonpartisan elections commissioner and potentially replace her with someone favored by the GOP in time for the 2024 presidential election. Wolfe is scheduled to speak at another town hall hosted by Keep Our Republic later this month.

They also were reflected in a flood of questions from residents during the Suamico town hall: How are absentee voters being vetted, are ballot drop boxes secure, are dead people and undocumented immigrants voting? A meeting scheduled for three hours stretched to five as residents lingered until 10:30 p.m.

"I can't say for sure that we changed hearts and minds, but they were engaged, that's for sure," Bernier said.

Some not convinced

The forum didn't seem to budge several of those who showed up and have become deeply skeptical of the election process.

Connie Streckenback, from Howard, a town of about 20,000 just outside Suamico, said she "saw cheating" while serving as a poll observer in the Green Bay area. For example, she said she saw over a dozen women register to vote with the same address. When she later drove by the building, she saw a single-family home.

Local officials offered possible explanations, such as that the women could have been roommates, but Streckenback, 59, remained convinced they could not have all lived in the same home.

"It was fraud," she said. "Everyone was very nice, but people were acting like I was making a big deal out of nothing. ... I don't believe the explanations."

She added, "This has not improved my trust in the election process."

Another poll observer from the same town, 79-year-old Mary Verheyen, said she trusted the election officials at the meeting but that it didn't make "any difference at all" in her trust in the system as a whole.

"I believe the people here think like I do and are doing their jobs," she said. "That doesn't mean everyone is."

Seeking solutions

Verheyen's comments illustrate a challenge faced by election officials across the country, especially in rural areas. In close-knit communities where residents rely on each other, improving trust in local election officials is possible, said Michelle Bartoletti, the Suamico Village clerk. But it's harder to persuade residents to trust the system as a whole, especially in urban areas.

In Suamico, the election administration was ranked number two, just under the fire department, in a survey last year asking residents to rate the village's services, Bartoletti said. Even with that level of local trust, the false belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen permeates the community.

"It's really difficult to combat that kind of attitude," she said.

There's no perfect solution, said clerks and experts who've participated in Keep Our Republic efforts. In addition to more community events, the group is planning social media campaigns to combat online misinformation and is organizing talks at high schools. They may even work with voting machine companies to create explanatory material that counties and cities can send to residents.

Bartoletti is putting her faith in one-on-one conversations and community forums like the one in Suamico.

"We just keep trying because that's all you really can do," she said. "What other option is there? This is too important to just throw our hands up and give up."

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP's democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
MIDDLE EAST | ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN WAR

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip  Israel said Wednesday it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came one day after a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza doctors treating the many wounded as medical supplies ran out.

The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies came as rage over Tuesday night's blast at al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the explosion. Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying almost 500 were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released video, audio and other information that it claimed showed the blast was due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified the claims or evidence. Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

The al-Ahli carnage threw the siege's impact into sharp relief.

Hundreds of wounded were rushed to another hospital, nearly out of supplies and fuel for its generators, and doctors performed surgery on the floors, often without anesthesia.

Biden said Egypt's president agreed to open the crossing and, to begin with, let in 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, "it will end," he said. White House officials said the aid would flow as early as Friday.

Egypt must still repair the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the Rafah crossing, Gaza's only connection to Egypt, said the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed.

Supplies will eventually go in under supervision of the U.N., Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. He did not specify the number of trucks. Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: "As long as the crossing is operating normally and the facility has been repaired."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel "will not thwart" deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don't go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

Relatives of roughly 200 people who were taken hostage and forced back to Gaza during Hamas' attack reacted in fury to the aid announcement.

"Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals," the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. But "the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers."

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed Wednesday after a 12-hour lull, and Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, including on cities in the south that Israel described as "safe zones" for civilians.

Biden visit

In his brief visit, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing U.S. support for Israel, while containing alarm among Arab allies. He embraced Netanyahu and expressed concern for the suffering of Gaza's civilians.

Biden said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israel's fault and cautioned Israelis not to allow outrage over Hamas' attack to consume them.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi warned that the war was "pushing the region to the brink." After the hospital blast, Jordan canceled a meeting between Biden, Jordan's King Abdullah II and the Palestinian and Egyptian presidents.

The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, said the hospital, run by the Episcopal Church, received at least three Israeli military orders to evacuate in the days before the blast. Israeli shelling hit it Sunday, wounding four staffers, he said. Israel ordered all 22 hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate last week.

Naoum declined to cast blame on either party for the blast. "We just want to let people see what is happening on the ground and hope that people will come to the conclusion that we've had enough of this war," he said.

Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south.

Death toll in dispute

The death toll was in dispute. The Health Ministry initially said at least 500 died, but revised that number to 471 on Wednesday. AlAhli officials said the toll was in the hundreds.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas' deadly incursion, in which the fighters took about 200 hostages into Gaza.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes  roughly half of Gaza's population. Most have crowded into the territory's southern half. Many families say they have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink contaminated water amid worsening shortages.

"It's not just that people are going hungry. People are at the risk of starvation," said Alia Zaki, a spokesperson for the World Food Program.

With troops massed along the border, Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

With Israeli airstrikes relentlessly pounding the Gaza Strip, displaced Palestinians increasingly feel that no place is safe. Palestinians in northern Gaza and Gaza City have taken refuge in the homes of their relatives further south after an Israeli military evacuation order.

The Israeli military says it is targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers and accuses the militants of hiding among civilians.
The Iowa County Sheriff's Office said a motorist died Thursday at an intersection that has seen 34 crashes over the last three years.

David Koning, 74, of Monroe, was found dead at the scene of the crash at the intersection of Highway Y and Highway 18-151, east of Dodgeville, just after noon.

Koning had been going north on Y when he was hit by a semitrailer driven by a Missouri resident, the Sheriff's Office said. Koning was alone in the vehicle.

The crash was the sixth fatal crash in Iowa County this year.

The Sheriff's Office and Iowa County Coroner's Office are investigating the crash.

A few hours later, the intersection was the scene of another crash involving two vehicles. The extent of injuries was unavailable.
An attorney for a man accused of bringing a gun into the state Capitol while trying to see Gov. Tony Evers said the man made absolutely no threat to use the gun he had with him.

Joshua Pleasnick, appearing with attorney Michael Covey, was released on a signature bond after a court appearance Thursday in Dane County Circuit Court. He is charged with carrying a firearm in a public building, a misdemeanor, for an Oct. 4 incident in which Pleasnick sought to speak with Evers, who was not in the building, about men who have been abused by domestic partners.

At the time, though, Pleasnick, 43, was openly carrying a handgun.

There seems to be a misunderstanding or public perception that Joshua went to the Capitol with the intent to cause harm to the governor or somebody else, Covey said during Pleasnicks initial appearance before Court Commissioner Scott McAndrew. And I can understand why people would be scared of that. But thats actually not the case that we have before us.

McAndrew agreed to set a signature bond for Pleasnick and ordered conditions banning him from the Capitol Square; from Cambridge Road in Maple Bluff, where Evers lives; and from within 1,000 feet of Evers or members of his family.

Pleasnick is also banned from possessing any weapon, including firearms.

State Department of Administration spokesperson Tatyana Warrick said Thursday one gun was seized as evidence by Capitol police and two others are being held by Madison and Capitol police for safekeeping.

After the court appearance, Pleasnick left the courthouse with Covey and did not answer questions from reporters. Covey later said in a telephone interview: There was absolutely no threat.

Frankly, I think there was a massive misunderstanding, Covey added.

Pleasnick, of Madison, has worked as a chef at several local restaurants. Covey said he currently does not have permanent housing.

At the Capitol

Earlier, Deputy District Attorney William Brown apprised McAndrew of the events leading to Thursdays court date. On Oct. 4, he said, Pleasnick was at the Capitol and went to the governors office to seek a meeting about abuse and the way men are treated in the criminal justice system.

Essentially he had a somewhat bizarre constituent complaint, Brown said.

He was told to fill out some forms, Brown said, but he refused to leave the office. It was apparent, Brown said, that Pleasnick was openly armed with a gun, which is not allowed inside the Capitol.

I think its fair for you to be aware, Brown told McAndrew, that Mr. Pleasnick at no point threatened to kill the governor. If he had he would have been charged with terroristic threats or something of that nature.

Pleasnick was arrested for carrying the gun into the Capitol, and because it was a low-level crime, he was able to post bond without having to go to an initial court appearance. He noted Pleasnick was having a mental health crisis at that point and went to get a rifle, then went back to the Capitol but remained outside.

Police spoke to him, Brown said, but Wisconsin law allows the open carry of weapons in public, so no law was violated. But it was evident to everyone, Brown said, that Pleasnick was in a bad mental health state, so he was taken on a mental health hold to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute near Oshkosh for an assessment.

In treatment

Brown said he has since learned that Pleasnick has consented to a mental health commitment, called a Chapter 51 commitment, which means that he is receiving treatment and is prohibited from having guns.

On Tuesday, Pleasnick was brought back to Madison from Winnebago and was arrested again by Capitol police, on probable cause of having a concealed expandable baton in his backpack during the Oct. 4 incident outside the governors office at the Capitol.

He is not being charged with a crime for that, Brown said.

If you eliminate a bunch of facts, you think that he showed up three times to try to hurt or kill people at the Capitol, Brown said, when in fact he actually went in the Capitol one time, but all this relates to the same 12-hour period on one night where he was in a mental health crisis.
A 17-year-old girl was arrested for battering a Madison East High School student on Tuesday morning, Madison police reported.

Officers were sent to the school at 2222 E Washington Ave, about 10 a.m. Tuesday for the battery of a student that stemmed from a dispute on social media, police spokesperson Stephanie Fryer said in a statement.

The 17-year-old girl was arrested on tentative charges of physical abuse of a child, strangulation and disorderly conduct, Fryer said.

The injuries to the student who was battered were not considered life-threatening, Fryer said.
An armed man died Wednesday after at least one Watertown police officer fired their gun, authorities reported.

At about 11:15 a.m. Wednesday, Watertown police responded to a report of criminal damage to property at an apartment in Watertown, the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation said in a statement.

A man fled the apartment prior to the arrival of police, but was found later in a parking lot on Tower Drive. The man turned toward police with a handgun and at least one officer fired their gun. Lifesaving measures were performed, but the unidentified man was pronounced dead at the scene, DCI said.

DCI did not say whether the man was hit by any bullets.

No one else was injured in the incident, DCI said.

The officers who were involved in the incident were equipped with body-worn and squad cameras. The officers have been placed on administrative leave, per agency policy, DCI said.

DCI said it is leading the investigation and is assisted by the Wisconsin State Patrol, Jefferson County Medical Examiners Office, and a DCI Crime Response Specialist, with all involved law enforcement fully cooperating with DCI in the investigation.

DCI said when its investigation is complete, it will turn over its reports to the Jefferson County District Attorney.
In its first public hearing, a bill that Republicans said would bring Wisconsin closer to a nonpartisan mapmaking model received sharp criticism Thursday from liberals who had long advocated for such a change but dont trust this version.

Republicans, who have built an impregnable majority in the Legislature in large part through control of the maps, are motivated to adopt the plan before the newly liberal-majority Wisconsin Supreme Court rules on a lawsuit challenging the maps.

This bill coming forward is really an attempt that we can perhaps avoid ending up in litigation when we do redistricting and keep it to truly a legislative process with a nonpartisan commission, said Sen. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown.

But Democrats maintain the Republican bill, which passed the Assembly in September without a public hearing, still gives the Republican Legislature too much control over the maps and said it was a red herring intended to distract from GOP efforts to impeach liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz for participating in the redistricting lawsuit despite calling the current maps rigged during her campaign.

Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, also noted that the proposal wouldnt force new maps to be implemented before the 2030 decennial redistricting process, while Democrats want the maps redrawn before next years election.

Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick, questioned whether the public should trust the Legislature with drawing new maps after it churned out whats widely regarded as being among of the countrys most gerrymandered legislative maps.

But Rep. Travis Tranel, R-Cuba City, said sudden Democratic opposition to the idea, now that liberals have a majority on the Supreme Court, is probably where we have some trust issues.

If you truly believe that nonpartisan redistricting will give you better government ... this is your opportunity to advance this legislation, Tranel said. You can nitpick it apart all you want. But at the end of the day, either you believe nonpartisan redistricting is going to lead to better government or you dont. Its as simple as that.

Jay Heck, executive director of government watchdog group Common Cause of Wisconsin, said the fact that Republicans put the plan on such a fast track makes supporters of nonpartisan maps suspicious.

A month ago, there was no even inkling that most Republican members of the Legislature were supportive of redistricting reform, he said. And so the matter of believability and trust, I think, really comes into play here as we begin this process.

The Iowa model

Republicans have said their plan, which Democratic Gov. Tony Evers will almost certainly veto, reflects the Iowa redistricting model that Democrats have endorsed and promoted in Wisconsin.

Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, said that during the past decade the party in legislative power has been generally against nonpartisan redistricting proposals.

We should be in a unique situation right now, where neither party is confident that theyre going to draw the next maps, he said. So, we could maybe implement something like this. Unfortunately, Democratic leadership seems confident that the Supreme Court is going to draw maps that gerrymander in their favor.

Under the proposed redistricting bill, the mapmaking process would be in the hands of the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.

The Legislature would be free to reject maps drawn by the LRB; so would the governor, through veto power. At that point, the agency would be required to draw the maps again, taking into account lawmakers or the governors concerns and submit the new boundaries back to the Assembly and Senate.

If the second version of maps is also rejected, the agency draws up subsequent proposals, again taking into account any concerns put forth by lawmakers or the governor. Theres no built-in mechanism for what happens next if the governor and Legislature cant agree on a proposal.

Similar to the Iowa redistricting model, the districts under the GOP plan would have to be contiguous, coincide as much as possible with political subdivision boundaries and be compact.

Both the Iowa model and the latest Wisconsin proposal allow their respective legislatures to amend the proposal as much as theyd like if they dont approve the nonpartisan maps on the first and second attempts.

But under the Iowa constitution, if the parties cant implement a map by a certain deadline, the state Supreme Court must step in to adopt a map.

Under the Wisconsin plan, there would be a similar deadline to adopt the maps, but neither the state constitution nor state law requires the state Supreme Court to step in to force the Legislature to adopt new maps, according to the LRB.

The bill, however, doesnt preclude courts from getting involved in the redistricting process, LRB chief counsel Joe Kreye said.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, previously said he would support a constitutional amendment in Wisconsin clarifying that courts have a role in redistricting, but he added that the amendment would be unnecessary since redistricting disputes are routinely resolved in Wisconsin courts already.

Bipartisan

Republicans amended the bill in September to require that any map presented to the Legislature be passed on a bipartisan vote.

Bipartisan isnt defined the bill, something that Spreitzer said would mean only one Democratic member has to vote for the bill for it to pass. He questioned why the proposal didnt require a three-fourths approval vote in both chambers.

Kitchens said thats a crazy high threshold given that many current lawmakers will be negatively affected by the proposed maps.

Another change prevents anyone on the map-drawing agency from abstaining from a vote, while another prevents the commission from voting without all five members present.

Despite the changes, Democratic lawmakers pushed back on the proposal in the Assembly, partially because it was taken up on the floor just two days after being unveiled  without any committee hearings or public comment.
MARSHFIELD  As a doctor trained in the bustling cities of India, I am accustomed to the unpredictability of life  from the chaotic streets brimming with color and clamor to the countless medical cases that streamed through hospital doors.

When I moved to the United States for further training in internal medicine, I naively believed I was trading that chaos for a more structured environment.

But one winter evening, aboard a Metra train in Chicago, my perceptions shattered in an instant. A fellow passenger, his eyes wild and posture erratic, brandished a gun, threatening those around him.

The Metra cars mundane sounds of conversations and rustling newspapers was engulfed in a stifling silence. As an international doctor, I was trained to handle emergencies, to be the calm in the storm. But this was a storm I had never imagined.

The haunting reflection of the guns metal, the fear in the eyes of fellow passengers, and the weight of our collective breaths hanging in the air left an indelible mark on my psyche. As the train pulled into the next station, a brave passenger managed to distract the man, providing others an opportunity to escape. The man was eventually subdued and apprehended by police officers who were alerted by vigilant bystanders.

That evening, I confronted a side of America I hadnt anticipated, and it forever changed my perspective on the urgent crisis of gun violence. As I delved deeper into my new homes culture and history, I realized my Metra encounter was just a small fragment of a nationwide crisis.

In 2022 alone, more than 44,000 lives were tragically cut short due to gun violence, the majority of which were suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive. A staggering 38,500 more were injured. While mass shootings are chilling and heartbreaking traumas to our communities, they make up less than 1% of the annual deaths from guns in the United States.

In Wisconsin, where I now reside, the numbers are equally jarring. On average, 678 individuals lose their lives to guns annually, according to Everytown For Gun Safety. Thats a gun death rate of 11.5 per 100,000 residents. Shockingly, from 2012 to 2021, this rate surged by 62%, outpacing the national increase of 39%. Suicides, the silent majority of these tragedies, rose by 33%, while homicides nearly doubled.

In 2020, firearms had become the leading cause of death for children and adolescents aged 1 to 19 in the U.S., according to the New England Journal of Medicine. As a physician, this statistic wasnt just a number. It represented potential patients, families torn apart and futures unfulfilled.

Americas deep-rooted gun culture further compounds the problem. Its a nation with more civilian-owned guns than any other, even outstripping Yemen, a country riddled with conflict. About 1 in 3 U.S. households owns a gun. This pervasive exposure to firearms means that almost three-quarters of adults have fired a gun, two-thirds have lived in households with guns, and half grew up in homes with firearms, according to the American Journal of Medicine.

Many Americans believe that owning a gun makes them safer, according to Gallup. Yet the presence of a firearm in a household significantly increases the risks of both suicides and homicides, according to the Pew Research Center.

The question then arises: Are we truly safer?

Despite these grim statistics, there is hope. More states are considering commonsense approaches to gun violence prevention, such as extreme-risk protection orders, options for voluntary safe gun storage during high-risk times, universal background checks on all gun sales, and sales tax exemptions on safe storage equipment such as safes and gun locks. The majority of Americans, gun-owning or not, can agree on these measures. The majority can take a comprehensive approach to public health and reducing harm from firearms  just as we were able to make motor vehicles safer.

As a medical professional, my training has always revolved around preserving life. Its a principle Ive held dear.

We cannot stand idle with the stark reality of gun violence impacting countless lives. Individuals, communities and policymakers must rally together for sensible gun reforms. We must champion community education on firearm safety and initiate open conversations about the profound effects of gun violence.

Together, we can chart a new course toward a safer America. The urgency is clear, and the time to act is now.
In the wake of the carnage wrought by Hamas in southern Israel, killing at least 1,300 people; with bombs still raining on Gaza, having killed at least 3,000; and with 199 children and adults held hostage, the horror is increased by the prospect of this violence begetting more.

The U.S. hopes two aircraft carrier groups in the eastern Mediterranean, non-stop shuttle diplomacy by the secretary of state and a presidential visit to Israel will see off the twin spectres of even greater humanitarian disaster in Gaza and regional catastrophe drawing in Hezbollah in Lebanon and perhaps others. Officially, President Joe Bidens visit to Israel on Wednesday demonstrates the U.S. stands with Israel. It may offer Benjamin Netanyahu, disgraced in the eyes of his nation, a political lifeline.

But if it is a warning to Hezbollah and Iran, it is also being used to rein in Netanyahu. The U.S. reportedly agreed to the trip only after Israel agreed to move on humanitarian aid and safe areas for civilians to avoid the bombing.

But the statement that the two countries will develop a plan for delivery is noticeably modest. Even if implemented, it might not hold. Though Israel told the U.S. it would restore the water supply to southern Gaza, those on the ground reported only tiny quantities getting through. And while aid is essential, delivering food and medicines is hard to do and of limited use while air strikes continue.

More critical may be that the U.S., with its own disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq in mind, is pressing Israel to think hard about its plan for Gaza. President Biden warned publicly that occupying Gaza would be a mistake. ... At that point, a ground incursion was regarded as imminent. But his visit has pressed pause, and the IDF spokesperson Richard Hecht remarked: Everyones talking about the ground offensive. It might be something different.

What happens in Gaza is likely to determine what happens in the north. Israel gave an unprecedented order for residents close to the Lebanon border to evacuate south. The area has already seen rocket and missile attacks and border skirmishes. Hezbollah and Israel have trodden carefully since the 2006 war, for which Lebanese civilians mostly paid, though the militant group has built up its fire power and tested the boundaries.

But Hezbollah has indicated that it has two red lines: the forcible displacement of large numbers of Palestinians outside Gaza -- though Egypt has made it clear it does not want them -- and a ground invasion aiming to destroy Hamas: Israels stated intention. Behind Hezbollah stands Iran. Its foreign minister has warned of multiple fronts opening against Israel if it continues to kill civilians in Gaza.

Iran does not want to lose Hezbollah, its main proxy force. But nor does it want to see Hamas wiped out. If that looks likely, experts suggest it would probably also ask Iraqi militias to deploy to Syria or Lebanon. Washington has sent clear warnings to Tehran to stay out of it, while also indicating that it is not looking for a fight. The danger is that while neither the U.S. nor Iran want to be drawn in further, the dynamics on the ground have their own momentum.

The unendurable violence witnessed this month in part has its roots in the belief of the U.S. and other governments that the conflict at the heart of the Middle East was unsolvable but manageable, and could be sidelined. Many warned at the time that was wrong. It appears all the more impossible to manage now -- and yet that is precisely why the U.S. and others must attempt to do so.
For more than a decade, the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board has been calling for a public hearing on Iowa's proven model for nonpartisan redistricting.

Today, it's finally going to happen.

Hallelujah!

Iowa's process for fair maps has prevented both parties from gerrymandering for political advantage in that state. Instead, a nonpartisan state agency draws legislative maps to respect all voters and ensure fair representation.

HOW TO WATCH Watch today's public hearing on the Iowa-style bill for nonpartisan redistricting via WisconsinEye at: go.madison.com/fairmaps. Or attend in person at 9 a.m. in Room 411 South at the state Capitol in Madison.

The Senate Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections and Consumer Protection will take public testimony at 9 a.m. today at the state Capitol. Please attend or watch the hearing online if you can to learn more about Assembly Bill 415 and its Senate version, SB 488.

The bill appears solid -- and much better than Wisconsin's current process of blatant partisan gerrymandering. It would require the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) to be "strictly nonpartisan" in drawing voting districts for the Assembly and Senate. The LRB could not favor any political party, incumbent, person or group (though it must comply with the federal Voting Rights Act). It could not consider where incumbents live, the political affiliations of registered voters or previous election results.

The LRB would be required to draw contiguous and compact districts that follow municipal boundaries. As amended by the Assembly, AB 415 would no longer allow the politicians to change the LRB maps for political reasons before approving them. And any final vote would require bipartisan support.

All of that sounds good and even improves on the Iowa model in some ways. Yet key questions must be fleshed out. The biggest is: What happens if the Legislature and governor can't agree to pass the fair maps drawn by the LRB?

In Iowa, that state's high court would decide the question, and have a couple of versions of nonpartisan maps to potentially pick. Under AB 415, it's not clear what happens if the LRB's fair maps for Wisconsin aren't approved by a Jan. 31 deadline.

Presumably, the courts would have to get involved, though that's not spelled out. It should be. Neither the Legislature nor the governor should be able to run out the clock to avoid a fair process.

The bill also fails to assign the LRB to draw congressional voting districts, which is another flaw.

Today's hearing should explore these and other questions. A nonpartisan expert from Iowa is set to testify. Sponsors and critics of the bill as well as the general public will get their say. We urge the governor to engage on the issue if he's serious about fair maps. He should negotiate with Republicans on a final bipartisan bill.

This hearing should be the beginning of the end to partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin. The Iowa model, if done correctly, would respect voters of all stripes.

Wisconsin State Journal editorial board The views expressed in the editorials are shaped by the board, independent of news coverage decisions elsewhere in the newspaper. STAFF MEMBERS KELLY LECKER, Executive editor SCOTT MILFRED, Editorial page editor PHIL HANDS, Editorial cartoonist COMMUNITY MEMBERS JAMES L. HOWARD JENNY PRICE
More than a million people have fled their homes in the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected Israeli invasion that seeks to eliminate Hamas leadership after its deadly incursion. Aid groups warn an Israeli ground offensive could hasten a humanitarian crisis.

Israeli forces, supported by U.S. warships, positioned themselves along Gazas border and drilled for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle the militant group. A week of blistering airstrikes have demolished neighborhoods but failed to stop militant rocket fire into Israel.

The war that began Oct. 7 has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides, with more than 4,000 dead. The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded. More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed, and at least 199 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israel.

Currently:

1. U.S. President Joe Biden will visit Israel on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced. 2. A shortage of potable water continues across Gaza, leading humanitarian workers to warn of the risk of disease from drinking untreated water. 3. Overwhelmed doctors at the territorys largest hospital struggle to care for patients as supplies of water, fuel and medicine run dangerously low. 4. Hundreds of civilians killed in the Hamas attacks have yet to be identified by Israeli forensics teams.

Here's what's happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:

NEW YORK GOVERNOR ANNOUNCES A TUESDAY VISIT TO ISRAEL

NEW YORK  Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a written statement Monday evening that she will travel to Israel on Tuesday for a solidarity mission.

She said she plans to meet with diplomatic leaders and communities devastated after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israeli towns.

During these difficult times, its more important than ever for New York to show up in support of Israel, Hochul said.

New York has the largest percentage of Jews among all the U.S. states, according to the American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN TO VISIT ISRAEL WEDNESDAY, US SECRETARY OF STATE ANNOUNCES

TEL AVIV  President Joe Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday to show support for the U.S. ally amid concerns the Israel-Hamas war could become a larger regional conflict, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said early Tuesday in Tel Aviv.

Biden will then go to Jordan to meet with Arab leaders, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Blinken's announcement followed hours of talks with Israeli officials, as well as an invitation from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip grows more dire, Blinken also said the U.S. and Israel had agreed to develop a plan to enable humanitarian aid from donor nations to reach civilians in Gaza, "including the possibility of creating areas to help keep civilians out of harms way.

We share Israels concern that Hamas may seize or destroy aid entering Gaza or otherwise prevent it from reaching the people who need it, Blinken said.

IRAN WARNS OF POSSIBLE PREEMPTIVE ACTION AS GAZA GROUND OFFENSIVE NEARS

JERUSALEM  Irans foreign minister has warned that preemptive action is possible if Israel moves closer to its looming ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The comments by Hossein Amirabdollahian follow a pattern of escalating rhetoric from Iran, whose theocracy provides support to Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel cannot do whatever it wants in Gaza and then go after other resistance groups after its done with Gaza, he told state television. Therefore any preemptive action is possible in the coming hours.

He did not elaborate on what form any action might take.

If the limited and extremely tight windows of opportunity available to the United Nations and political actors are not used over the coming hours, opening new fronts against the Zionist regime is inevitable, he said.

UN HUMANITARIAN CHIEF PUSHES FOR AID TO BE ALLOWED INTO GAZA

UNITED NATIONS  Calling this the worst of times, the U.N. humanitarian chief said the United Nations is in deep discussions with the Israelis, Egyptians and others about getting aid through the Rafah crossing, hugely helped by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken who has been traveling in the region.

Martin Griffiths, who is heading to Cairo on Tuesday to try to help in the negotiations, said in an interview with the U.N. Monday that he was hoping for some good news soon.

Griffiths said the U.N.s overwhelming priority is to get access to Gaza, saying humanitarian rules of war are being violated.

You cannot ask people to move out of harms way without assisting them to do it, by providing safe places and humanitarian aid, and right now Israel has not made these provisions for Gazans moving from the north to the south, Griffiths said.

He also called for the immediate release of all hostages taken from Israel, many of them children, women, the elderly and the sick, which he said is unacceptable and illegal.

AIR RAID SIRENS PUNCTUATE BLINKEN'S RETURN TO ISRAEL

TEL AVIV  Air raid sirens interrupted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinkens return to Israel three times on Monday, twice as he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet for discussions over Israels war with Hamas.

The sirens signaling incoming rocket fire followed by the loud booms of Iran Dome air defenses intercepting rockets underscored an often-daily reality for Israelis, especially in the past week.

Blinken and his team got their first taste of the warning system and Iron Dome response as they drove from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, minutes after sirens sounded in both cities causing motorists to pull over and take cover.

Blinkens motorcade did not slow or alter its route but sped quickly to the Israeli Ministry of Defense as motorists on the shoulders of the road returned to their vehicles.

Later, Blinken and his aides were meeting Netanyahu and his war cabinet at the prime ministers office when sirens sounded again. Blinken, Netanyahu and the others took shelter in a bunker, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

Others huddled in defense ministry stairwells until the all clear was given.

ISRAEL HITS SOUTHERN GAZA WITH MORE AIR STRIKES

RAFAH, Gaza Strip  Israeli air strikes continue to lay waste to Gaza, hitting homes sheltering people seeking safer ground and wiping out 18 members of the same family.

Three families who had fled Gaza City were in a house that was struck early Monday in the southern city of Rafah. The attack killed a dozen people and left nine buried in the rubble, according to surviving family members.

A vast crater marked where the building had stood.

In the Nuseirat refugee camp in the middle of the besieged Gaza Strip, the bodies of 18 members of the Ghabayen family were loaded onto a truck.

This is an entire family, said Mustafa Ghabayen, a relative. Eighteen martyrs and three are still under the rubble.

PUTIN URGES PEACE IN PHONE CALL WITH NETANYAHU

MOSCOW  Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his desire for peace between Israel and the Palestinians in a phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Kremlin said Monday.

The Kremlin said Putin also urged a quick end to hostilities in earlier calls to Egyptian, Iranian, Syrian and Palestinian leaders.

Speaking to Netanyahu, Putin expressed his sincere condolences to the families and friends of deceased Israelis and emphasized his strong rejection and condemnation of any actions that victimize the civilian population.

The Kremlin said Putin reiterated his desire for a peaceful settlement through political and diplomatic means.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION VOWS TO TRIPLE AID TO GAZA

TIRANA, Albania  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday that the European Union will increase humanitarian aid to Gaza starting with two flights this week via Egypt.

She said the Commission has tripled humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza to 75 million euros ($79 million) and would keep working with our partners in the region to assess and address the needs on the ground.

Von der Leyen denounced the heinous Hamas attacks and said Israel has the right to defend itself in line with humanitarian international law."

The Commission head was speaking in Tirana at the end of a summit with Western Balkan leaders.

FORENSIC TEAMS STRUGGLE TO IDENTIFY THOSE KILLED IN HAMAS ATTACKS

TEL AVIV  Some 400 of the 950 Israeli civilian bodies sent to the National Center of Forensic Medicine following the Hamas attacks remain unidentified, the head of the center said Monday.

The amount of charred bodies that we receive now, the proportion is high, Dr. Chen Kugel said. I dont know how long it will take.

He said there were DNA, dental records and CT scans to help identify the dead.

More than 1,400 Israelis were killed, the vast majority civilians, in the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,750 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched counter strikes.

PENTAGON SENDS DEPLOYMENT NOTICES TO 2,000 U.S. TROOPS

WASHINGTON  The Pentagon has sent prepare to deploy orders to about 2,000 U.S. troops to be ready to respond to the Israel-Hamas war, two U.S. officials said on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that has not been announced yet.

The troops would cover a variety of support roles, such as additional medical support or explosive ordnance support, such as providing additional security at gate crossings, one of the officials said.

They would not be sent to Israel but could be sent to countries in the region, one of the officials said. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the orders.

Associated Press writer Tara Copp contributed to this report

SHIN BET HEAD TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR NO WARNING BEFORE HAMAS ATTACK

JERUSALEM  The head of Israels Shin Bet security service has taken responsibility for the bloody Oct. 7 Hamas rampage that killed over 1,400 Israelis.

In a message sent to Shin Bet workers and their families over the weekend, Ronen Bar wrote that despite a number of actions we took, unfortunately, on Saturday we were unable to create enough early warning to prevent the attack.

As the person at the head of the organization, the responsibility for that is on me, he added. There will be time for investigation  now is a time for war.

The letter was obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.

The Shin Bet leads Israels efforts to track and monitor Palestinian militants. The Israeli news site Ynet has reported that on the eve of the attack, Bar was summoned to the office because of abnormal activity detected in Gaza. But officials believed that only a limited attack would take place, according to the report.

HEZBOLLAH SAYS IT ATTACKED ISRAELI POSITION NEAR LEBANON

BEIRUT - Lebanons militant Hezbollah group says its fighters have targeted an Israeli position along the border directly hitting a Merkava tank.

Hezbollah said in a statement that the Sunday evening attack hit an Israeli position near the Lebanese border village of Duhaira. It gave no other details about the attack.

EU LEADERS TO MEET TO DISCUSS ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

BRUSSELS  European Union leaders will hold an emergency summit Tuesday as concern mounts that the war between Israel and Hamas could fuel inter-communal tensions in Europe and bring more refugees in search of sanctuary.

The leaders will also attempt to restore some order after a series of social media messages, statements and visits by EU officials sowed confusion about the 27-nation blocs intentions after Hamas attacked southern Israel.

The conflict could have major security consequences for our societies, EU Council President Charles Michel said Monday as he announced the video summit. The meeting will also focus on getting aid to civilians and working with other countries in the region to stop tensions from spreading.

TWO PROPOSED RESOLUTIONS GO TO THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL

The U.N. Security Council is set to vote Monday on dueling resolutions on the Israel-Hamas war. A Russian proposal calls for a cease-fire while a Brazilian draft seeks humanitarian pauses to let aid flow and urges Israel to rescind its order for the evacuation of northern Gaza.

Either draft, if adopted, would mark the first collective statement on the war from the U.N.s most powerful organ.

Both draft resolutions, obtained by The Associated Press, call for releasing all hostages. In somewhat different language, both also condemn violence toward civilians, express concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and seek the provision of food, fuel and other aid.

But the differences are significant. Ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive in Gaza, Russias proposed resolution calls for a humanitarian cease-fire. The Brazilian draft calls for humanitarian pauses and encourages establishing aid corridors and a notification mechanism to protect U.N. facilities, humanitarian sites and aid convoys.

The council has become increasingly divided due to Russias war in Ukraine. Russia is a veto-wielding member. Brazil, a two-year member without a veto, currently holds the rotating presidency.
THURSDAY-NOV. 25

Innovation in Rural America Exhibition Spark! Places of Innovation, a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian, highlights how innovation has shaped small towns across the country. The free exhibition examines the ingenuity and tenacity of rural America. The Herrett Center for Arts & Science and the surrounding community have been chosen by the Idaho Humanities Council to host Spark! as part of the Museum on Main Street program  a national/state/local partnership to bring exhibitions and programs to rural cultural organizations. The Herrett Center for Arts and Science is located on the northeast side of the College of Southern Idaho main campus in Twin Falls. The museums public hours are Tuesdays and Fridays 9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturdays 1 to 9 p.m.

THURSDAYSATURDAY

Evil Dead The Musical Magic Valley Repertory Theatre is presenting Evil Dead The Musical live on stage at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday at the Orpheum Theatre, 146 Main Ave. W. in Twin Falls. This show takes all the elements of the cult classic films The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness and combines them into a crazy theatrical experience. Five college students go to an abandoned cabin in the woods and accidentally unleash an evil force that turns them all into demons. Blood flies. Limbs are dismembered. Demons tell bad jokes ... and all to music. Rated R.

THURSDAY

Dungeons & Dragons Every other Thursday, Dungeons & Dragons players meet in the Twin Falls Public Library program room at 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. to play D&D (5th edition). Beginners and experienced players are welcome to join. Contact CJ at crasmusson@tfpl.orrg to find out how to join. For ages 13+.

FRIDAY

Preschool storytime Preschool Storytime, from 10:30 to 11 a.m., at the Twin Falls Public Library, is designed for kids who are 4 to 5 years old. This storytime uses the five early literacy practices  sing, talk, read, write, and play. Each storytime features a letter, books that are a little longer and a little more complex to get us ready to sit in a classroom, and lots of fun rhymes and songs.

Trunk or Treat Primary Therapy Source will host a trunk or treat from 5 to 7 p.m. at 254 River Vista Place, Twin Falls, to celebrate National Physical Therapy Month.

Computer basics class Join us for our monthly computer basics class from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Twin Falls Public Library This is a free class. In this monthly class, well teach you the basics of how to navigate your computer, use word processing, access your email and use the internet.

Wendell Community Trunk or Treat The third annual Trunk or Treat takes place from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Wendell High School parking lot with games, bounce house, face painting, balloon artist, prizes, food vendors and candy. There will be a best costume contest, raffle, mini-train and free hot chocolate. Want to be part of this event and add a trunk? Call or text 208-421-3490.

Space Park 360 Travel the universe from the seat of virtual thrill rides set to the music of indie/alternative artist Maggie Smith, in nine exotic, extraterrestrial locations. And you get to choose the order! From 8 to 9 p.m. at the Herrett Center, 315 Falls Ave. in Twin Falls.

Kids 2 Kids Evening Grief Group This free event hosted by Because KIDS Grieve takes place at 459 Shoup Ave. in Twin Falls. Youth, ages 6-17, and parents/guardians who mourn the death of a loved one are invited to attend the monthly K2K evening grief group held at the BKG Grief Center. The evening includes dinner at 6:30 p.m., breakout groups for parents/guardians, children/teens with theme related activities and interactions. Check in time begins at 6:15 p.m. and the evening concludes at 8:30 p.m.

SATURDAY

Fall Mini-Cassia Craft Fair This fall tradition in the Mini-Cassia area is held at the Oregon Trail Recreation District in Burley and has been going on for over 30 years. Shop from 100 local vendors from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be food and a wide variety of vendors. Cost is $4.

Kiddie Day at Haunted Swamp Bring the kiddies in their costumes to the Swamp from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 646 South Park Ave. in Twin Falls. Trick or treat through the swamp in a non-threatening way (no scary costumes), play games, bounce pad and meet Disney princesses. Free hair painting and face painting. Free hot dogs and soda.

Jerome Firefighters Winter Coats Fundraiser The Jerome City Firefighters are partnering with Idaho Central Credit Union, Valley Wide Country Store, Idaho Milk Products, Snake River Bros MC and Walmart to raise money to purchase new coats. The event takes place starting at 9 a.m. at Idaho Central Credit Union, 2355 S. Lincoln Ave., and Valley Wide Country Store, 1466 S. Lincoln Ave. Coats will be given out Nov. 11 at Fire Station 2, 110 W. Yakima from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. or until the coats are gone.

Those Two Chicks Fall Market The third annual Fall Market takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Episcopal Church of the Ascension, 371 Eastland Dr. N. in Twin Falls. This is a family-friendly event with local vendors and local food/coffee trucks.

Pet adoption event Broken Hearts Rescue will have a pet adoption event from noon to 4 p.m. at Petco, 1957 Fillmore Street in Twin Falls. Come meet our adoptable Adoptable dogs/cats.

Autumn Festival Mid-Columbia Bus Company is hosting a pre-K through 6th grade autumn event from 2 to 5 p.m. at the South Hills Middle School gymnasium, 1550 Harrison St. S., Twin Falls. There will be face painting, bobbing for apples, pumpkin painting and fun-filled games. Costumes welcome. No scares here, just wholesome autumn fun.

Buhl Music Booster Gala This event hosted by Buhl Music Booster Club, Cedar Draw Cider and others will include live music, food, fundraising and fun. Gala will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Dinner is served by Creative Cravings and auctions will end at 7 p.m. (must be present to win). A portion of the proceeds from dinner and drinks will be donated to the Buhl Music Boosters.

Filer Fun Festival This festival at the Filer Community Park from noon to 4 p.m. will raise money for the Community Pool with the Filer Recreation Department. There will be a bounce house, petting zoo, games, corn hole tournament for adults, raffles, silent auction, dunk tank and vendors. Food tickets available for sale at the event. If interested in becoming a vendor or for information on the cornhole tournament, please email Jess at idahojess28@gmail.com

Parkrun Join us at the Twin Falls Visitors Center at 8:50 a.m. for a 9 a.m. start time for a free 5K run/walk.

Estate planning Join guests from Johnson May Law from 1 to 2 p.m. at Twin Falls Public Library for free information on estate planning, and learn the top 10 mistakes people make regarding estate planning and what is included in a complete estate plan.

Observe the Moon The International Observe the Moon Night event will take place from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Centennial Observatory at the CSI campus. No charge.

Free movie matinee See a free family movie matinee at 3 p.m. every Saturday at the Twin Falls Public Library. To find out whats playing, visit the Library and pick up a calendar, or call 208-733-2964, ext 2.

Write Out Join the Youth Services Department from 10 a.m. to noon at the Twin Falls Public Library as they Present Write Out with Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument. Step back in time and embark on a prehistoric journey with Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument for a hands-on experience where kids will have the opportunity to explore fossil casts and tap into their creativity to write their own poetry.

MONDAY

Child sleep series Join us for the first in a three-part series at 6:60 p.m. at the Twin Falls Public Library on child sleep. This week is Newborn Sleep (0-4 months). Registered nurse and sleep specialist Kailey Warburton will present a free class for caregivers on how to help their children with their sleep. There will be classes for different ages, and it is best if the child is left with another caregiver during the program.

WEDNESDAY

Thriller dance Come see the CSI Dance team at 4:30 p.m. at the CSI Fine Arts Center as they have their annual performance of Thriller and other spooky songs. It doubles as a food drive for Gilberts Pantry, a food pantry that helps students, staff and faculty in need.

Medicare information Medicare open enrollment ends Dec. 7. Attend this free event to learn about your choices and how to navigate the Medicare system with ease. Presented from 3 to 4 p.m. by Lisa Maas. This weeks topic is extra care, help and how to apply.
The Ketchum Main Street reconstruction project is a collaborative effort between the City of Ketchum, Ketchum Urban Renewal Agency, and the Idaho Transportation Department. It is scheduled to commence in spring 2024 encompassing the full reconstruction of Main Street from River Street to 10thStreet, with a focus on critical pedestrian improvements.

To preserve and enhance the unique character of this beloved mountain town, Project Main Street has been a subject of great interest and ongoing effort.

In addition to ensuring that our residents are well-informed and involved, we also want to make sure our visitors are aware of the project and can easily find their way around town when visiting our city.

Project Main Street is not only for the benefit of Ketchums residents but also for the many tourists who flock to our beautiful town. We aim to make Ketchum a more welcoming and accessible destination, and the input from our neighboring communities is invaluable in achieving this goal.

In this spirit, two upcoming public outreach events are scheduled for Nov. 8 and Nov. 9. These events will provide our neighbors, local businesses, and residents with the opportunity to learn more about the projects progress, ask questions, and provide their input.

Nov. 8 at Limelight Hotel, 5:30 p.m.:

This evening gathering will be an informal and informative session, designed to engage with visitors, residents, business owners, and other stakeholders. Refreshments will be provided, and a no-host bar will be available for those who wish to unwind over a drink while discussing the project. To ensure adequate accommodations, we encourage RSVPs to participate@ketchumidaho.org.

Nov. 9 at Ketchum City Hall, 11:30 a.m.:

This will be a repeat of the previous presentation, providing a second opportunity for the public to participate in the discussion. You can also participate in this meeting via Webinar. Light refreshments will be served, and, just as with the Nov. 8 event, an RSVP is requested. You can reserve your spot by emailing participate@ketchumidaho.org or sign into the Webinar at projectketchum.org.

These outreach events are integral to the success of the project. They allow the public to stay engaged, stay informed, and share their thoughts and ideas as the project progresses. The projects success is deeply rooted in community involvement, so whether youre a longtime resident, a new face in town, a visitor, or one of our neighboring communities, your voice and perspective are valuable.
The sharp increase in human-caused fires in Idaho continued throughout the summer and into the fall, with Idaho Department of Lands officials investigating 206 fires caused by people so far this year, state officials said Tuesday.

The 206 human-caused fires reported by the Idaho Department of Lands so far in 2023 compare with 78 fires caused by lighting over the same time period.

In 2022, state officials investigated 127 human-caused fires and 153 fires caused by lighting, Idaho Department of Lands records show.

Idaho Department of Lands Director Dustin Miller briefed Gov. Brad Little and the other members of the State Board of Land Commissioners about the 2023 season during a meeting Tuesday at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise.

Once reimbursable costs are accounted for, the states cost for fighting fires is expected to hit $17.4 million for 2023, Miller said. That should leave the state with about $64 million in its firefighting fund heading into next year.

During Tuesdays meeting, Little noted that $64 million is about what the state spent on fighting fires during the 2021 fire season alone. The 2021 fire season was the most recent big fire season in Idaho, marked by larger fires and heavy fire activity north of the Salmon River, Miller said.

Although he was concerned by the increase in human-caused fires, Miller said the good news is that the states team of wildland firefighters worked hard to catch, contain and extinguish the fires safely. Although the number of fires was in line with the states 20-year-average, Miller said the number of acres burned was only 10% of the 20-year average.

Thats a pretty impressive feat given the kind of acreage that our folks are protecting, Miller told the land board. With the new eastern Idaho district, we are looking at more than 9 million acres. (We are) really proud of the work our men and women did on the fire line this summer.

Fire officials in Idaho, Washington investigating increase in human-caused fires

Fire officials in Idaho and Washington have been warning the public about an increase in human-caused fires for months, the Idaho Capital Sun and the Washington State Standard have reported.

We also have more people living and working near the wildland-urban interface, near endowment lands, and so we are seeing more unwanted human-caused fires, Miller said. So thats kind of been the trend, seeing an uptick in human-caused starts. But again, our folks did a phenomenal job this year jumping on those fires and keeping them small.

State fire officials previously told the Sun that neglected and abandoned campfires that had not been doused and fully extinguished are one of the biggest problems they are facing.

The largest fires in Idaho in 2023 occurred on federal U.S. Forest Service lands, including the Elkhorn Fire in the Payette National Forest and the Hayden Fire in the Lemhi Range.

Miller presented data Tuesday showing that 64,789 acres of U.S. Forest Service lands burned this year in Idaho, accounting for the majority of the 86,942 total acres burned across the state. The rest of the fires occurred on a mix of U.S. Bureau of Land Management, private, state, tribal and other federal lands.

Depending on where a fire starts in Idaho and what type of land it is on, different agencies are responsible for fighting it. The Idaho Department of Lands is now responsible for protecting more than 9 million acres of land in Idaho, Miller said. Meanwhile, more than 34 million acres in Idaho are managed by the federal government, about two-thirds of the states land mass.

Miller told the land board he hoped Tuesdays briefing will be the final update necessary for the 2023 fire season. Snow has already begun falling in several mountain ranges across the state, and lower temperatures are in the forecast for next week.
The Idaho State Department of Agriculture and Idaho Fish and Game Commission have agreed to reopen fishing, hunting and trapping starting Thursday within the highwater mark from Highway 46 Bridge upstream to and including the partial bridge structure in the Snake River at the bottom of Yingst Grade, often called the Broken Bridge or Interstate Bridge.

Lifting the hunting, fishing and trapping closure is in conjunction with Idaho State Department of Agriculture lifting its access closure into the same area. Portions of the river upstream remain closed to all public entry, as well as for hunting, fishing and trapping.

Terry Thompson, spokesperson of Idaho Fish & Game, said Centennial Waterfront Park will reopen Friday, but just the park area only. The stretch of water from Twin Falls Dam to the Broken Bridge will remain closed to the public.

We appreciate the publics cooperation in staying out of this section of the river while it was being treated to kill quagga mussels, Magic Valley Regional Supervisor Craig White said. Now were able to reopen a section of it for hunters, anglers and trappers, but please remember the importance of cleaning, draining and drying all your boats and gear that come in contact with the water.

All watercraft that enters the reopened area should be taken to the wash station at Twin Falls Visitors Center for decontamination after exiting the river.
TWIN FALLS  Officials from the Idaho State Department of Agriculture are conducting post-survey treatments to determine the effectiveness of the initial 10-day quagga mussel treatment after larvae and an adult muscle were found in a stretch of the Snake River.

The surveys will likely take to the end of the month, said Lloyd Knight, assistant director for the ISDA.

We are watching and waiting to see what well see, Knight said.

One reason for optimism is the mussel that was discovered in 16 feet of water near Shoshone Falls is dead, Knight said, along with other non-quagga mussels in the river.

But even if sampling over the next two weeks comes up clean, he said the ISDA will continue very regular and relatively intense monitoring of the six-mile section of the river from Centennial Park to the Twin Falls Dam over the next handful of years to check for signs of quagga mussels.

If the treatment worked as anticipated, Knight expects that water samples could show non-viable veligers. Even if that is the case, the stretch of river would be considered positive for quagga mussels, and it would take five years worth of negative test results for the stretch of water to be considered mussel-free.

State officials plead with public to 'stay away from the Snake River' TWIN FALLS  "Stay away from the Snake River" is the warning multiple agencies are shouting from the rooftops.

Knight is now tasked with developing a plan that would allow the public access to the river, but have a safeguard in place that would ensure decontamination of watercraft to make sure the invasive mussels dont spread.

Such a plan, which Knight hopes to be in place in a few weeks, could require the help of law enforcement and Idaho Department of Fish and Game officers.

If mussels were to gain a foothold in Idahos waterways, officials warn it could cost upwards of $100 million a year to deal with them as they clog pipes and other infrastructure while wreaking havoc on the ecosystem.

Adult mussels dont normally reproduce in water below 59 degrees, about the temperature of the river last week when Knight was on the river.

At some point, any mussels that are left that survived the treatment wont be viable because of water temperature, he said.

Applying the treatment, which included two 96-hour treatments of a copper-based product from the stretch of river from Shoshone Falls to Pillar Falls due to a plume of larvae discovered there, along with treatments at Twin Falls and from Pillar Falls to Centennial Park, went as planned, Knight said.

The treatment ended Friday, but additional spot treatments might be required later on to kill the mussels, officials said at an Oct. 1 briefing at Twin Falls City Hall.

ISDA staff, a contractor that applied the molluscicide, as well as chemists for the company that manufactures the product, called Natrix, were on hand during the treatment.

All three legs of the stool were working very hard together, Knight said.

The target was to get the treatment at 1 part per million, he said, and we made sure calculations were correct and accurate.

Concentrations of the copper-based treatment are at low-level background levels at the Idaho Highway 46 bridge near Gooding, Knight said.

He said that it is important that people who take boats into the water in non-closed areas still clean, drain and dry their watercraft to prevent possible spread of the mussel.

Effects on the river

ISDA Director Chanel Tewalt has warned the public that there would be downsides to the treatment, including fish and plant kill.

It might take time, but the river will recover, officials say.

We expect the impacts to be temporary, Knight said, and expect the river to bounce back to what it was.

Fish & Game spokesman Terry Thompson agreed, saying, Rivers are resilient.

Thousands of fish have died, including about 40 hatchery-raised sturgeon.

The overwhelming majority of dead fish, however, have been found are non-game fish including largescale suckers, common carp and northern pikeminnow, he said.

Largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, perch and panfish are the common game fish found in the river.

Fish & Game will soon conduct an electrofishing survey which will help determine the extent of fish kill, comparing the current fish population to pre-treatment levels.

Many dead fish are not being taken from the river to help provide nutrients as they decompose.

While we are sensitive to the deaths, Thompson said, natural decomposition will provide nutrients that will help the river recovery.

Thompson said the copper-based treatment doesnt poison fish. Instead, it interferes with how the fish breathe, essentially suffocating the fish.

Treatment plan to kill quagga mussels underway The plan calls for using a copper-based treatment in an effort to eradicate the mussels, which could cost Idaho hundreds of millions of dollars if they establish themselves in waterways.

The level of Natrix in the water is now below a lethal level for fish, Thompson said.

If people observe dead sturgeon in the river, they are asked to notify Fish & Game, so they can collect data.

Fish & Game will develop a plan to re-populate the fishery, possibly through stocking, relocation, or relying on natural migration upstream, Thompson said.
I know its tradition for Idahoans to hate the federal government.

That is, unless it serves Idahos interests. Lets not forget that 61% of Idaho voters approved Medicaid Expansion, which brought health care to 145,000 state residents. Many of those people  Im speculating  probably have a beef with the feds, even if they cant articulate what it is.

Regardless, they are receiving health care services  many for the first time  and we are a stronger and healthier state as a result.

Now, the feds are having another impact on Idaho in a way that a majority of your elected leaders are on board with. Namely, federal funds are being utilized by state leaders to help improve Idahos State Park system.

Darn those feds.

If only Idahoans liked to hike, hunt, raft, bike, climb, fish, and camp all over our great state.

So, heres the deal. The feds are kicking in $45 million on a $140 million deal to improve Idahos 30 state parks. Thats nearly one-third of the funding. Its being called a once in a generation investment in Idahos state parks by one Meridian representative and its hard to debate that logic. Parks, after all, are a vital feature of our great state and making improvements is long overdue.

Those darn feds.

Quote Everyone in southern Idaho voted to improve our parks  except Republican Reps. Julianne Young of Blackfoot and Glenneda Zuiderveld of Twin Falls. Why they would vote against improving and even adding to our state parks is beyond me.

Not that Idaho is passive in this endeavor. Far from it. The state is using $95 million in surplus funds to make this happen, thanks to Senate Bill 1196 from last session. Everyone in southern Idaho voted to improve our parks  except Republican Reps. Julianne Young of Blackfoot and Glenneda Zuiderveld of Twin Falls. Why they would vote against improving and even adding to our state parks is beyond me. Investing in the open spaces so many Idahoans use is just about the most value-add proposition I can think of.

In other words, Idahoans are getting a major bang for their buck with this investment. Apparently, those legislators arent as fiscally conservative as they claim to be.

As someone who lives in one of the fastest-growing cities in America, I am thrilled Idaho will be expanding its park portfolio.

Using federal funds, the state bought Challis Hot Springs to expand Yankee Fork State Park.

A new observatory opened in Bruneau Dunes State Park, with plans to build a new planetarium.

Finally, Eastern Idaho residents can look forward to better access to the 30-mile Ashton-Teton Trail which has amazing views of the Teton Mountains. Right now, the trail is gravel. However, using state/federal funds, the state is prepared to pave the trail which runs along an old branch of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Having driven, biked and walked along gravel, I prefer pavement. Call me soft, but Im guessing Im not alone.

This state/federal investments will also allow state park officials to clean up a backlog of maintenance issues that have been on the books for a while now. Whether its damaged trails, aging buildings or a simple lack of facilities, the state now has the resources to tackle 93 active projects  many of which have been on the backburner for some time.

We all benefit from this investment, and we have the Feds to thank  in part.

I understand Idahoans beef with the federal government. The Gem State is home to one of the highest percentages of federal land in the country. If youre someone who believes the feds play an outsized role in our lives here in Idaho, I get it. I may not totally agree, but I understand the sentiment.

However, if you plan to enjoy our state parks in the coming years and you notice the improvements, please know the feds played a big role in that. You should also realize it was the fiscally conservative thing to do, given how much value we will get out of the upgrades.

I just wonder why a couple southern Idaho state legislators didnt see it that way.

Rail against the feds all you want, but even they get it right sometimes. They sure did this time.
About 62 percent of overseas Filipino professionals plan to relocate back home within the next five years, due to personal reasons such as to take care of aging parents and be closer to family.

This represents an increase from 2021, which saw 54 percent of respondents consider coming home, according to a recent poll by recruiter Robert Walters.

However, the disparity in compensation and benefits offered locally and a perceived lower standard of living conditions are making these professionals think twice about relocating back, it says.

The poll was conducted among over 120 overseas Filipino professionals across various industries, including banking and financial Services, information and communication technology, consumer and retail, manufacturing, digital and e-commerce.

As the number of overseas Filipino professionals returning home continues to grow, it presents a valuable opportunity for local employers. These returning professionals often possess enhanced technical skills and a more adaptable mindset, honed through their experiences in diverse international environments, says Alejandro Perez-Higuero, director of Robert Walters Philippines.

Their agility in responding to the changing business landscape can provide a significant advantage to organizations as they are able to come up with innovative strategies to help achieve business objectives, says Higuero.

The survey reveals that 56 percent of those who are willing to come back cited the desire to take care of their aging parents and family as the top reason for wanting to return to the Philippines. This was followed by those (44 percent) who retained a strong emotional, social and cultural connection to the country.

About 65 percent of overseas Filipinos surveyed say they considered the current economic situation as a factor when deciding whether to relocate back to the Philippines. About 46 percent of respondents with a positive outlook on returning mentioned confidence in the Philippines economic stability, growth prospects, and opportunities for entrepreneurship or business projects as encouraging factors for their desire to return.

Only one in three (30 percent) of overseas Filipinos have no intention of returning to the Philippines.

Respondents show low confidence in the countrys economic stability, with 38 percent expressing reluctance to return due to economic concerns. A significant majority of them (80 percent) believe that the economy is more stable overseas.

Other factors contributing to the hesitancy included a more favorable salary-to-cost-of-living ratio abroad (60 percent) and better government initiatives and incentives in foreign countries that are provided (47 percent).

Salaries in the Philippines continue to be a significant concern with 75 percent of respondents hesitant to return, emphasizing the differences in compensation and benefits as a major issue, and 56 percent of them highlighting a lower standard of living conditions in the Philippines, based on public facilities, security concerns and community resources.

About 33 percent of respondents say they would only accept a Philippines compensation package that is market-aligned for their experience and the role being offered.

As business priorities undergo continuous transformations, it becomes imperative to address the ongoing shortage of highly skilled talent in the country. Hiring managers should explore creative strategies to secure talent that aligns with their organizations needs, says Higuero.

Through our Balik Bayan program, we offer a solution to identify and secure Filipino talent returning from overseas, catering to specific timelines. We also provide support in managing candidate expectations, ensuring a seamless recruitment from start to finish. This program serves as a valuable resource connecting returning Filipino professionals with suitable job opportunities, aligning their skills with the needs of local businesses, says Higuero.
Political leaders of Bataan have offered the provinces business viability to a Taiwanese mission from Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.

Bataan Rep. Albert Garcia and Vice Governor Cris Garcia welcomed delegates from Linhai Industrial Park, an industrial hub based in Kaohsiung, and discussed investment opportunities in the province.

The Linhai Industrial Park consists of several heavy industries like steel production, petrochemical complex, and fuel production, according to the provincial information office.

Abul Khayr Alonto II and Benjamin Co of Bataan Public Private Partnership and Investment Center presented the advantages and opportunities in investing in the province, citing upcoming big-ticket projects such as the Bataan-Cavite Interlink Bridge and the Bataan Transshipment Hub.

Bataan Peninsula State University President Ruby Matibag, Vice President for Research, Extension, and Training Services Monica Hipolito, and IT-TBM Director Dr. John Ryan Dizon also held presentation for possible projects with the Taiwanese guests.

Dizon pushed for a partnership to train BPSU students in Taiwan industrial park.

Peter Chao Hsien Lai, chairman of the manufacturing association of Linhai Industrial Park, said they wish they had visited the Philippines earlier and expressed his groups willingness to explore the province more, said the report.

The provincial information office said the strategic location of Bataan and having access to various markets complements the objectives of Linhai Industrial Park.
As Association of Southeast Asian Nations is poised to issue a statement on its stand on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas militants, the Philippines expressed profound sadness by the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, which killed hundreds of innocent civilians, adding to the growing list of casualties in the Israel-Hamas war.

The Department of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday night called on the warring parties to protect civilians, saying all parties involved should do their utmost to do so in times of war and conflict.

The Philippines is profoundly saddened over the recent bombing of the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, DFA said in a statement.

We grieve for the hundreds of innocent lives lost in this tragic incident, non-combatants which include medical practitioners, children, the wounded, and displaced individuals who only sought shelter at the facility, it added.

The Philippine government said it is supporting the efforts of the United Nations to provide humanitarian relief in the conflict areas, as fighting between the two sides continues is already severely affecting the civilian population.

Israel declared war against Hamas militants, who control the Palestinian territory of Gaza, after the latter made a surprise attack on the Jewish state on Oct. 7.

DFA Undersecretary Eduardo Jose de Vega said, in a press conference, that the Philippines was putting its trust in the Israeli government to ensure the safety of the Filipino people.

Were confident in the promise that they would protect Filipinos, de Vega said.

Meanwhile, the ASEAN will soon issue a statement on its stand on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas militants.

DFA Undersecretary for Bilateral Relations and Bilateral Affairs Ma. Theresa Lazaro said that the 10-member regional bloc will release a statement possibly within the day, or on Thursday.

This came after Indonesia initiated the move for the group to issue a statement based on its capacity as the current chair of ASEAN.

Lazaro did not provide much details about the statement, but said the bloc would issue a condemnation on issues only limited to terrorism and violence.

Meanwhile, she said, the Philippine government was also concerned about the developments in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

This is a concern not only of us, by the Philippines, but even whole of ASEAN, she said.

Leaders from ASEAN and the Gulf Cooperation Council are also expected to raise their concerns on the developments in the Middle East once they discuss regional and international issues during the ASEAN-GCC Summit on Oct. 20.
Thousands rallied across the Arab and Muslim world on Wednesday to protest the deaths of hundreds of people in a strike on a Gaza hospital that they blame on Israel, despite its denials.

Condemnation was widespread across the region and angry crowds gathered after calls from Lebanons Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Palestinian factions for mass mobilisation.

Death to America, death to Israel, hundreds of Hezbollah supporters chanted at a rally in Beiruts southern suburbs.

The Israelis will try to target more hospitals, rescue workers, civil defence volunteers and Gazas residents without flinching, in order to push Gazas people out, senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine told the demonstrators.

Protesters took to the streets of the West Bank city of Ramallah and Nablus, shouting Free, free Palestine.

Israel and Palestinian militants have traded blame for the hospital strike late Tuesday, with the Israeli army saying later it had evidence that militants were responsible.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which both established ties with Israel in the Abraham Accords of 2020, criticised Israel for being behind the strike, as it hits back at Hamas militants over a deadly attack on October 7.

The United Arab Emirates strongly condemns the Israeli attack resulting in the death and injury of hundreds of people, the UAEs official WAM news agency said early on Wednesday.

In Bahrain, which also normalised ties with Israel in 2020, dozens of protesters marched towards the Israeli embassy in Manama before being dispersed by police, witnesses told AFP.

Saudi Arabia, which has halted talks on potential ties with Israel since violence flared, called the blast a heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces.

Qatar, one of Hamass main backers, slammed the brutal massacre.

Morocco, another country that recognised Israel in 2020, also blamed it for the strike, as did Egypt, which became the first Arab country to normalise relations with Israel in 1979.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli bombing of the Ahli Arab hospital, which led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent victims among the Palestinian citizens in Gaza.

 War crime 

Turkey saw its second day of protests Wednesday with thousands gathering outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, demanding its closure.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meanwhile declared a three-day mourning period over the deadly hospital strike, saying on X, formerly Twitter, We, Turkey, feel in our hearts the deep pain felt by our Palestinian brothers.

In war-torn Yemen, demonstrators took part in a massive pro-Palestinian protest in the capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

Hundreds also took part in protests in government-held Taez and Marib.

Algeria condemned the strike as a barbaric act carried out by occupation forces while in Tunisia, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the French embassy, condemning Western support for Israel.

Some waved Palestinian flags while others demanded the ambassador be expelled, accusing France of being among the Western allies of the Zionists, AFP journalists reported.

Libyas Tripoli-based internationally recognised government called the hospital strike a despicable crime as several hundred people protested in Tripoli and other Libyan cities.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan also called for region-wide protests on Friday and Saturday, demanding the expulsion of the ambassadors of the Zionist entity in all Arab and Islamic capitals.

Jordan said Israel bears responsibility for this grave incident.

Some 10,000 Jordanians gathered outside the Israeli embassy, demanding the expulsion of Israels diplomatic mission.

Security forces blocked off roads leading to the embassy but the size of the demonstration swelled due to the anger in Jordan, which is home to many Palestinian refugees.

No Zionist embassy on Jordanian land, protesters chanted, brandishing Palestinian flags.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, also blaming Israel, called it a war crime, a crime against humanity, and organised state terrorism.

Gulf Cooperation Council secretary general Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi said it was glaring evidence of the serious violations by the Israeli occupation forces.

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on Tuesday for leaders to stop this tragedy immediately.

Iraq, which also blamed Israeli authorities, demanded an immediate and urgent resolution from the UN Security Council to stop Israels Gaza onslaught, as around 200 protested in Baghdads fortified Green Zone.

In the Syrian capital Damascus, hundreds of people with Palestinian flags gathered near parliament, many wearing T-shirts bearing the image of President Bashar al-Assad.

Martyrdom or victory, one banner read.
BeijingChina has formally arrested a Japanese man detained this year on espionage allegations, Tokyos embassy in Beijing said on Thursday.

We can confirm that the Japanese national detained in March has been arrested, an embassy official said in a statement to AFP.

China said in March the man was suspected of engaging in espionage activities.

The man, an employee of Japanese pharmaceutical firm Astellas, has reportedly worked in China for two decades.

He had planned to return to Japan before his sudden detention and was previously a senior executive of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in China, according to Kyodo News Agency.

Beijings foreign ministry said Thursday it did not have more specific information on the case.

This Japanese citizen has been subjected to criminal coercive measures by relevant Chinese authorities in accordance with the law, ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.

As a country ruled by law, China will handle this case in accordance with law and protect the legitimate rights and interests of this person, she said.

In October 2019, Chinese authorities detained a Japanese professor, reportedly on suspicion of spying.

He was released and returned to Japan the following month.

In March 2020, Chinas foreign ministry said it had arrested a Chinese man reportedly working as a university professor in Japan who they claimed had confessed to spying. AFP
Beirut, Lebanon  The Israeli government struck a Syrian military position in the war-torn countrys south, a war monitoring NGO said on Wednesday.

Sounds of explosions rang out in the province of Quneitra after an Israeli strike against a Syrian army position, said the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a vast network of sources in the country.

The sound of explosions also rang out in the Golan Heights, the NGO said, without specifying their source.

The strike in Quneitra caused material damage, the organization said, and has not yet been mentioned by official Syrian media.

The raid coincides with an announcement by the Israeli army on X, formerly Twitter, of strikes against terrorist positions of Hezbollah  an ally of the Syrian regime and enemy of Israel  in Lebanon, which borders Golan.

Since the start of the war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants on Israel on October 7, exchanges of fire between Hezbollah militants and the Israeli army have likewise increased around the Israel-Lebanon border area.

Clashes there have left at least 18 people dead on the Lebanese side.

Most of the dead have been combatants, including 10 Hezbollah fighters, but they also include a Reuters journalist and two civilians.

On the Israeli side, at least three people have been killed.

On October 10, for the first time since the Hamas surprise attack, the Israeli army announced that it had fired shells into Syria from the Golan Heights  in response, it claimed, to projectiles being fired on the territory, occupied by Israel since 1967.

An Israeli airstrike on Saturday targeted the Aleppo airport, injuring five people and putting the airport out of service.

Previous Israeli raids on October 12 targeted the airports of both Aleppo and the capital Damascusboth controlled by the Syrian governmentrendering them inoperable, according to state media.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes it carries out on Syria, but it has repeatedly said it would not allow its arch-foe Iran, which supports Damascus, to expand its footprint there. AFP
The United States looks forward to closer cooperation to help the Philippines find ways to combat cybercrimes and cyber attacks in light of the spate of hackings of government websites over the past weeks

US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson, in a roundtable discussion Wednesday, said there is yet no specific request for assistance from the Philippines, but communication is ongoing on ways to address all types of cyber-attacks.

We are already working closely on cyber issues, Carlson said. We have a very active coordination on how we can together combat cybercrimes and cyber-attacks of all types.

She said cyber security is central to the Philippines-US relations given that data from the US is also tied to Philippine data, especially with the countrys large business process outsourcing sector.

When Wall Street closes down a lot of those backroom operations transfer out here so its not just Philippine data that is endangered by any attacks here, its US data, its data globally that could potentially be affected, the envoy said.

This is an important issue for US-Philippine relations and we are working very closely with the Philippines on ways that we can combat cyber attacks, she added.

The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. was earlier subjected to a ransomware attack, with cyber hackers demanding roughly PHP17 million for the compromised database.

This month, the Philippine Statistics Authority also suffered a data breach in its Community-Based Monitoring System.

Makati City Rep, Luis Campos Jr. has called for additional funding of up to P3 billion for the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) to bolster the governments cyber security defenses.

Campos cited the need to reinforce the CICC with a highly advanced data fusion hub and a round-the-clock security operations center for threat detection, response and prevention.

We must bolster the CICC with all the necessary cutting-edge technologies to swiftly produce actionable intelligence against all types of threat actors  from thrill seekers and hacktivists to cybercriminals and cyber terrorists, Campos said.

Campos noted that the CICCwhich is the inter-agency body created by the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 to suppress criminal activities that either target or use a computer, a computer network, or a networked devicehas a budget of only P347.7 million in this years General Appropriations Act.

Campos said the center has only P320.8 million under the proposed 2024 national budget.

The center integrates the cybercrime-fighting divisions of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippine National Police, and the Department of Justice

We must also improve the centers digital forensics and electronic evidence management systems, Campos said.

Campos, citing the San Antonio, Texas-based business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, said the Philippines could be incurring up to US3.5 billion (nearly P200 billion) in economic losses every year due to cybercrimes.

Cybercrime costs include stolen money, data damage and destruction, lost productivity, personal and financial data theft, intellectual property theft, embezzlement, fraud, post-attack business disruption, forensic investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems, and reputational harm.

On Tuesday, 4Ps party-list Rep. JC Abalos and Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan jointly filed House Resolution 1392, urging the House Committee on Information and Communications Technology to conduct an investigation on the cyber attacks on the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), and the House of Representatives.

PhilHealths database was hacked through the Medusa ransomware, affecting 72 workstations and the e-claims, member portal, and collection systems.

To contain the issue, the agency resorted to a temporary shutdown of its website and implemented the manual processing of services.

It was followed by another hacking of the Community-Based Monitoring System of the Philippine Statistics Authority and the website of the House of Representatives.

Abalos said the resolution signifies a pivotal step in safeguarding data privacy in the Philippines.

These incidents highlight the threat to the security and integrity of the digital platforms of our agencies, emphasizing the necessity of implementing additional measures to prevent such occurrences, Abalos added.
The United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Wednesday calling for a humanitarian pause in the raging Israel-Hamas conflict as the text did not recognize Israels right to defend itself, the US ambassador said.

Twelve out of 15 Council members voted in favor of the resolution put forward by Brazil, which also condemned the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas, while Russia and the United Kingdom abstained.

The United States was the only vote against, but as one of the bodys five permanent members, its vote counts as a veto.

The United States is disappointed this resolution made no mention of Israels rights of self-defense, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote.

The move came as US President Joe Biden was on a solidarity visit in Tel Aviv to show strong US backing, but also to urge Israel to allow aid into the besieged Gaza Strip amid warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged territory.

Israels ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan thanked the United States for vetoing a very bad resolution, and said Washington continues to stand with us in times of need.

Addressing the Security Council, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour warned that killing more Palestinians will never make Israel safer.

The resolution said the Council firmly condemns all violence and hostilities against civilians and all acts of terrorism.

It said the body unequivocally rejects and condemns the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas and the taking of hostages.

The text also urges all parties to fully comply with their obligations under international law.

Human Rights Watch condemned the US veto, saying in a post on X it prevented the Security Council from acting on Israel and Palestine at a time of unprecedented carnage.

The Foreign Ministry of Brazil, which this month holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, likewise said it regretted the blocking of the vote. AFP

Brazil considers it urgent for the international community to establish a ceasefire and resume the peace process, the ministry said in a statement.

The vote comes after the Security Council on Monday rejected a Russian resolution condemning spiraling violence in the Middle East.

That resolution did not single out Hamas for its surprise attack on Israel on October 7, and it was rejected by permanent members the United States, the United Kingdom and France, as well as Japan.

The assault on Israel left at least 1,400 people dead and saw Hamas militants take 199 people hostage.

Israel has retaliated with air strikes that have now claimed the lives of 3,478 people, according to health officials. AFP
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday said the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) will be operational before the year ends despite his recent order to suspend its implementation.

The concept of the Maharlika Fund as a sovereign fund or an investment fund  the concept remains a good one and we are still committed to having it operational before the end of the year, the President said in a speech before departing for a summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

I was a bit alarmed by the news reports early this morning that I read in the newspapers that we have put the Maharlika Fund on hold. Quite the contrary, the President said.

The organization of the Maharlika Fund proceeds at a pace. And what I have done though is that we have found more improvements that we can make specifically to the organizational structure of the Maharlika Fund, he added.

The President said people should not misinterpret the suspension of MIF and pass judgment on its rightness or wrongness.

He said he had consulted with various economic managers and personalities that would be involved in the sovereign wealth fund.

This has been in consultation not only with our economic managers but also with the people, the personalities who will actually be involved in the fund. And thats why their inputs have been very important and that is why we are now going to utilize them to make it a better organization, Mr. Marcos said.

The President is on his way to participate in the ASEAN-GCC Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

One of the important aspects of this trip will be for us to introduce the Maharlika Investment Fund to the rest of the world and certainly more specifically to the Middle Eastern countries, the President said.

Meanwhile, Senator Francis Escudero said the MIF Act can no longer be scrapped since it is already a law.

However, the President has a choice on the laws that will be implemented and funded.

Escudero said there are five trillion pesos worth of laws that have not been implemented due to lack of funds.

So if he was not really convinced on this (MIF), its just simplehe should not fund it, he said.

He added that there is nothing wrong about studying and scrutinizing the sovereign wealth fund.

He also advised the Land Bank and Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) to take back the funds for the MIF which they put in the National Treasury.

In the first place, Escudero said, the banks should not have given out the money as the Maharlika Investment Corp. had not yet chosen its chief executive and board members. There were also no implementing rules and regulations (IRR) at the time.

Escudro said the MIF Act lacked direction.

As I said, where will they invest? he asked.

An economist on Thursday said the Land Bank and DBP seeking regulatory relief from the central bank was one reason the Palace suspended its IRR.

Thats one of the triggers for the review of the IRR, said Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist Michael Ricafort.

It might be prudent to review [it], amid [the] mandate on economic development and the effect on the capital adequacy ratio of the government banks that contributed to the fund, Ricafort said.

Ricafort said the review could be a balancing act on sound banking regulation. Most importantly, Ricafort said the review might be needed for fine-tuning since it [MIF] was rushed.

Ricafort added that openness to change is a good thing.

For his part, Security Bank Corp. economist Robert Dan Roces said as with any financial institution, risks dont disappear even if regulatory relief is granted.

They may simply be deferred or mitigated [the problem] to some extent, thus the need to take proactive steps to rebuild its capital base and ensure long-term stability, Roces told Manila Standard.

He said the DBP and Land Bank probably sought some time to rebuild their capital adequacy ratio while servicing the MIF.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Eli Remolona said last week that the two state-run banks remained compliant in terms of capitalization even after they remitted their contribution to the MIF.

In principle, we can provide forbearance, Remolona said, as he confirmed that the two state-owned bnaks sought regulatory relief.

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said Thursday that the MIC advisory body subscribes to the wisdom of the President in suspending the IRR of the MIF.

This is not just an economic strategy for us but a historic first sovereign investment fund. The economic team will work closely with the President to prudently review all provisions line by line and make sure that all things are in order, Pangandaman said in a Viber message.

We will also take this opportunity to engage in more multi-stakeholder groundwork in preparation for the launch of the MIF, she said.

An Oct. 12 memorandum signed by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin directed the Bureau of Treasury (BTr), in coordination with LandBank and DBP, to suspend the implementation of the IRR of RA 11954 or the MIF Act of 2023 pending further study thereof.

The advisory body of the fundcomposed of the heads of the Budget Department, the National Economic and Development Authority and the Bureau of the Treasuryhas already transmitted the final list of MIC nominees to the Office of the President.

MIC has a nine-member board of directors which consists of the secretary of Finance as the chairperson in an ex-officio capacity; president and CEO of MIC; president and CEO of the Land Bank of the Philippines; president and CEO of the Development Bank of the Philippines; two regular directors, appointed by the President for a term of three years; and three independent directors from the private sector, appointed by the President for a term of one year.

Also on Thursday, the vice chairman of the House appropriations committee, Aklan Rep. Teodorico Haresco Jr., said the President must have good reasons to make sure there are safeguards built into the MIF.

He said that that is the stewardship role expected of him.
A fourth Filipino has been killed in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Thursday.

I regret to inform the nation that we have received confirmation from the Israeli government of another Filipino casualty in Israel, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said on the social media platform X.

Out of respect for the wishes of the family, we shall be withholding details on the identity of the victim. But we have assured the family of the governments full support and assistance, he added.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega identified the fatality as a Filipina caregiver who was killed in the Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Thats why we Filipinos are praised there, when Hamas came in, they didnt abandon their loved ones, because they are caregivers of the elderly. They are really heroes, De Vega said in a radio interview.

During the surprise attack on Oct. 7, the Palestinian group fired thousands of rockets from Gaza and its gunmen streamed into Israelshooting, mutilating, or burning to death some 1,400 people.

Authorities earlier announced the deaths of three other Filipinos in that attack.

De Vega said two other Filipinos remained missing as of Thursday.

There are some 30,000 Filipinos in Israel, mostly working as caregivers, officials earlier said.

There are 135 Filipinos in Hamas-run Gaza.

Israels military campaign to destroy Hamas, which is holding 199 hostages in the besieged territory, has claimed the lives of 3,478 people, health officials said.

Foreign nationalsincluding the Filipinosare trapped in the Palestinian enclave, which has been sealed off by Israel and Egypt.

Meanwhile, the DFA has cautioned Filipinos living in southern Lebanon and northern Israel against the possible escalation of hostilities between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters amid fears that the war in Israel would spread.

In southern Lebanon, the embassy already informed the 3,000 Filipinos there to evacuate, because of possible retaliation [from Israel] because of attacks of Hezbollah, De Vega said.

Around 2,700 Filipinos in southern Lebanon and 70 in northern Israel could be affected if the Israeli government advances its counterattack on Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which also launched a small assault on Israel following Hamas deadly attack.

Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim political party and a militant group based in Lebanon. It has the backing of Iran, which warned Israel of a possible regional escalation if it intensifies its attack on Gaza.

In northern Israel, they already moved, De Vega said.

De Vega said contingency and evacuation plans are already in place for Filipinos in both countries.

So far, no Filipinos have been affected in the skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah fighters.

De Vega said the DFA is still waiting for the recommendation of the Philippine Embassy in Beirut with regards to alert level status for Filipinos in Lebanon. Israel remains under Alert Level 2, which means new deployments of Filipinos are restricted.

This is a regular thing. They know what to do in Israel. In southern Lebanon, were waiting for the final recommendation of our embassy in Beirut, but well ensure that they are safe, the DFA said.

In Gaza, most of the 135 Filipinos are already seeking repatriationbut remain trapped due to the closure of its borders.

In a briefing, Manalo told lawmakers that a 24-hour opening of a humanitarian corridor from Gaza to Egypt would be enough to transport 78 Filipinos who want to leave the Palestinian enclave and bring them to Cairo, Egypt, and from there to Manila since most of them are already near the southern the border.

Manalo said during the briefing that the longer this operation takes, the greater the humanitarian loss and consequences.

Kabayan party-list Rep. Ron Salo, chairperson of the House committee on overseas workers affairs, urged the DFA to exhaust all diplomatic means to bring the Filipinos home.

We need the support and cooperation of the United Nations and other countries for the opening of a humanitarian corridor. Thus, the DFA should do all that it can to coordinate with the entire international community for this purpose, Salo said.

Salo commended the DFA, the Department of Migrant Workers, and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration for their ongoing efforts to address the situation, including the successful repatriation of the first batch of 17 Filipinos from Israel this week.

Meanwhile, Senator Raffy Tulfo, chairman of the Senate committee on migrant workers, vowed the governments full support for Filipinos returning from Israel and Gaza.
Chinese President Xi Jinping told Egypts prime minister on Thursday that Beijing hoped to work with his country to bring more stability to the Middle East, state media reported, as the Israel-Hamas conflict cast a shadow over the region.

China is willing to enhance cooperation with Egypt and inject more certainty and stability into the region and the world, Xi told Mostafa Madbouli at a meeting in Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

China and Egypt are good friends who share the same goals and trust each other, and good partners who work hand-in-hand for development and common prosperity, CCTV reported Xi as saying.

At present, the international and regional situation is undergoing profound and complex changes, and the world is experiencing rapid changes not seen for a century, Xi added.

Beijing was also willing to work with Cairo to jointly safeguard international fairness and justice as well as the common interests of developing countries, he said.

Since the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas this month, Egypt has mostly kept closed its border with the Gaza Strip, where the humanitarian situation has become increasingly desperate.

But Cairo said Thursday it would allow the sustainable passage of humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing.

Relations between China and Egypt have strengthened in recent months, with Cairo set to become an official member of the BRICS group of emerging economies from next year.

China congratulates Egypt on joining the BRICS cooperation mechanism and believes that this will inject new impetus into BRICS cooperation, Xi told Madbouli, according to CCTV.
MoscowRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday criticized the US and its allies Japan and South Korea for pursuing a dangerous military policy towards North Korea, as he held talks with officials in Pyongyang.

Like our North Korean friends, we are seriously worried about the intensification of military activity of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the region and by Washingtons policies, he told journalists at a press conference in Pyongyang.

We oppose this unconstructive and dangerous line, he said, adding the US was placing strategic infrastructure, including nuclear elements in the region.

He did not elaborate.

Lavrov said Russia backed a regular negotiating process on security issues in the Korean peninsula, adding that Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang were seeking to propose constructive alternatives to de-escalate tensions in the region.

The veteran envoys meetings in Pyongyang are expected to lay the groundwork for a future visit by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who was invited by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month at a high-profile summit in Russias far east.

Like our North Korean friends, we are seriously worried about the intensification of military activity of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the region and by Washingtons policies we oppose this unconstructive and dangerous line, Lavrov told journalists, according to Russian news agencies. AFP

We oppose this unconstructive and dangerous line, he said, adding that the United States was placing strategic infrastructure, including nuclear elements, in the region without elaborating.

In the face of a record-breaking series of weapons tests by Pyongyang this year, Seoul has moved to strengthen its security relationship with traditional ally the United States while entering a trilateral defense arrangement that also includes Japan.

Seoul and Washington have staged joint military exercises with advanced stealth jets and US strategic assets, while an American nuclear-armed submarine in July made a South Korean port call for the first time in decades.

A B-52 bomber capable of carrying a nuclear payload currently sits at Cheongju airport, about 100 kilometers south of Seoul, marking the first time one has landed in the country since at least 2000.

Local media reports this week said the bomber would take part in a joint aerial drill near the Korean peninsula on Sunday that would involve South Korea, the United States and Japan.

But North Koreas relationship with Russia has also been tightening, Lavrov said Thursday.

After the landmark summit we can say confidently that relations have reached a qualitatively new, strategic level, Lavrov reportedly told North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui at a meeting.

Moscow is also keen to assist North Korea with its energy needs, a constant source of struggle for heavily sanctioned Pyongyang, he told Russian outlets.

There is geological exploration, there are also plans for the supply of energy resources and other goods that our friends from the DPRK need, Lavrov said, using the acronym for North Koreas official name.

Both energy issues would be discussed at a joint meeting slated for November, he added.

Lavrov, who laid wreaths at monuments to former North Korean leaders Kim Sung Il and Kim Jong Il in the morning, arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday night after accompanying Putin on a trip to Beijing.

At a welcome dinner, he praised Pyongyangs support for Russias ongoing war in Ukraine.

We highly value your principled, unambiguous support for Russias actions in connection with the special military operation in Ukraine, Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russias RIA Novosti news agency.

Kim last month traveled to Russia aboard a specially built bullet-proof train for a face-to-face meeting with Putin, declaring bilateral ties with Moscow his countrys number one priority.

The two leaders met at Russias Vostochny Cosmodrome, roughly 8,000 kilometers from Moscow, a location seen as symbolic given North Koreas space aspirations.

The September summit fanned Western fears Pyongyang might provide Moscow with weapons for its drawn-out war in Ukraine.

On Friday, the United States said arms shipments were already under way, with North Korea delivering more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia in recent weeks.

According to a graphic provided by the White House, a load of containers was shipped by sea from North Korea to Russia between September 1 and October 1.

They were then delivered by rail to an ammunition depot about 290 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Pyongyang was seeking a range of military assistance in return, including advanced technologies, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Moscow this week denounced the allegations, insisting Washington had no proof that weapons were being shipped. AFP
Promoting Islamic banking and finance in the country is met with challenges, but the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) remains up to the task given its commitment to the financial inclusion agenda.

Financial inclusion is a state where there is effective access to a wide range of financial products and services by all.

In the case of the Philippines, currently, there is only one operational Islamic bank that offers Shariah-compliant financial products. To add, the development of Islamic banking and finance in the country is still in its infancy stage. Thus, the low awareness on Islamic banking and finance and relevant regulations among investors and other stakeholders. Potential customers may also have no or little knowledge on what an Islamic bank is and how it can service their needs.

Advocating Islamic finance may be challenging, but the BSP ambassador for Islamic banking and finance, Assistant Governor Arifa A. Ala, who herself is from the Muslim community, is up to the task.

The promotion of Islamic banking and finance is paramount because it can provide access to alternative financial products and services to all Filipinos. Given the enabling regulations and initiatives that the BSP has put in place, I am excited about the future and confident that the time will come when Islamic banking and finance is a thriving industry in the Philippines.

In charge of the BSPs Financial Supervision Sub-Sector III, Assistant Governor Ala is backed by strong credentials that are fit for her role. She is a certified public accountant, a lawyer, and a career central banker with extensive technical experience in banking supervision and regulation.

As the BSPs point person for Islamic banking and finance, Assistant Governor Ala is heavily invested in the development of enabling policies for the industry. She also takes the lead in stakeholder engagements, such as forging partnerships and collaborations. For instance, the BSP signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority on encouraging investments in Islamic banking and finance in the country. Assistant Governor Ala has also appeared in several media interviews with the goal of raising awareness of Islamic banking and finance in the Philippines.

The BSP official chairs the Islamic Finance Coordination Forum (IFCF), which facilitates collaboration and coordination among government agencies on the promotion of Islamic banking and finance.

Other members of the BSP-led IFCF are Securities and Exchange Commission (vice chair); Bureau of the Treasury; Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation; Department of Trade and Industry (DTI); Bureau of Internal Revenue; Insurance Commission; Financial Reporting Standards Council; National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF); Bangsamoro Government; Auditing and Assurance Standard Council; and Asian Development Bank.

Assistant Governor Ala also sits in the Philippine Halal Export Development and Promotion Board (Halal Board) as an alternate representative of the BSP Governor. The Board aims to promote the growth and ensure the integrity and quality of Philippine Halal exports. The Halal Board is composed of the heads of the following agencies: DTI (chair); NCMF (vice chair); Department of Health; Department of Agriculture; Department of Science and Technology; Department of Foreign Affairs; Department of Tourism; BSP; Mindanao Development Authority; and two Muslim professionals from the academe, law, industry, or food science who have experience in Halal industry development as appointed by the President.

In her public engagements, the Assistant Governor stresses the BSPs promotion of a level playing field across the banking industry, where Islamic banks are generally subject to the same regulations as conventional banks, as applicable. This will allow Islamic banks to viably operate alongside their traditional counterparts as well as encourage the establishment of similar institutions in the country.

Assistant Governor Alas contributions to the development of the Philippine banking system have been recognized internationally. She received the WOMANi Professional Award for 2022 from the Cambridge Institute of Islamic Finance for being one of the most influential women in Islamic business and finance. This recognition was given during ceremonies held on 12 December 2022 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

On behalf of the BSP, the Assistant Governor also received the Islamic Banking and Finance Institution Malaysia (IBFIM) Outstanding Industry Collaboration Award on Feb. 25, 2023 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This recognition acknowledges the BSPs calibrated efforts and strong commitment to expanding its personnels knowledge and expertise in Islamic banking and finance.

Assistant Governor Ala said the huge potential presented by Islamic finance prospects in the country is already ripe for the picking, amid regulations and policies in place to foster a sound Islamic banking system.

It is important that we use various tools and venues to promote Islamic banking and to expand our financial inclusion agenda. The Philippine banking system has been liberalized and so foreign investors can establish Islamic banks in the Philippines, in the form of a branch or a full-fledged subsidiary Islamic bank, she stressed.

The BSP is rolling out a communication campaign to send a signal to the market that the Philippines is very much ready to accept Islamic banking players. Another goal is to improve the awareness and appreciation of Filipino individuals and businesses on Islamic banking services.

With our enabling regulatory environmentbrought about in part by the enactment of Republic Act No. 11439 or the Islamic Banking Act and the domestic economys recovery momentum from the COVID-19 crisisthe Philippines is poised to attract Islamic banking investments, Assistant Governor Ala said.

Assistant Governor Ala earned her bachelors degree in business administration majoring in accounting from the Mindanao State University. She also obtained a law degree from San Beda College, Manila. She also has masters degrees in business administration from the Ateneo de Manila University, and in public management from the National University of Singapore and Harvard Kennedy School.
While strides can be seen in the most recent Virginia Standards of Learning assessments for area schools, the numbers mirror state scores in demonstrating significant and persistent learning loss in reading and math.

All schools in the city of Martinsville and the counties of Henry and Patrick are accredited, in the annual release from the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) on Sept. 7, with Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School in Henry County and Patrick Henry Elementary School in Martinsville accredited with conditions.

Overall, Patrick County led all three school districts with a pass rate of 84 in reading, down from 85 a year ago; writing pass rates increased from 72 to 81; history was down from 79 to 78, math decreased from 82 to 81, and science was up from 78 to 80.

Henry Countys reading passing rate was at 65, down from 67; writing decreased from 50 to 41; history increased from 58 to 61; math was up from 63 to 65; and science dropped a fraction of a percentage, remaining at 59.

Martinsville increased in reading pass rates from 61 to 63, writing was down from 41 to 40, history increased from 52 to 53, math was up from 59 to 63 and science was also improved from 46 to 53.

I am very pleased with the hard work of our students, parents, and teachers after dealing with the pandemic, said Martinsville Superintendent Zeb Tally. Martinsville City Public Schools continues to have seven consecutive years with all schools having some form of accreditation. In addition, 75% of our schools have the highest form of extended accreditation. We will continue to work hard in order to rebound from our past pandemic losses.

In Henry County, while overall raw pass rates indicate the district did not meet the state benchmarks, the administration said adjusted rates and accreditation statuses for each school indicates students met expected growth.

The impact of COVID-19 will be far-reaching for many years to come, said Henry County Superintendent Amy Blake-Lewis. The learning loss experienced by our students is significant. Henry County Public Schools is leveraging all available resources and working diligently to address the needs of students, families, and community.

In Patrick County, the pass rates this year exceeded the average state pass rates in all subject areas.

Our overall performance improved in 2022-2023, and once again Patrick County Public Schools scores are a shining example for the rest of the state as Patrick County is ranked 9th in the commonwealth out of 131 school divisions, said Patrick County Superintendent Jason Wood. We know that Patrick County Public Schools provides one of the highest-quality education opportunities in the state and our performance shows that and we want to continue to build on our success with the help of parents and students.

Throughout the state, more than half of third through eighth graders either failed or are at risk of failing their reading SOL exam, and nearly two-thirds of third through eighth graders either failed, or at risk of failing, their math SOL exam.

Grade three through eight Virginia Students are still struggling to recover the learning loss from the pandemic and are not performing as well as their pre-pandemic peers, said Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons. The 2022-2023 SOL data demonstrates just how important school attendance is for students academic success.

Martinsvilles pre-Covid change shows a drop of 6% in reading, down 33% in writing, a loss of 24% in history, a decline of 21% in math, and a drop of 23% in science.

The SOL assessments are conducted at four schools in Martinsville.

Albert Harris Elementary scored a pass rate of 53 in reading, 66 in history, 53 in math, and 56 in science.

At Martinsville High School, the reading pass rate was at 85, a rate of 7 was given for history and the unusually low score was not confirmed nor explained by officials, math was was 77, and the science pass rate was 53.

At Martinsville Middle School, reading stood at 63, writing was 40, the history pass rate was 68, math was at 64, and science was 55.

Patrick Henry Elementary scored a reading pass rate of 54, history was at 38, math was 55, and science was 43.

In Henry County, the pre-COVID change indicated a 13% drop in reading, a 40% loss in writing, an 18% decrease in history, 21% decline in math, and a 25% loss in science.

There are 13 schools in Henry County that participate in the SOL assessments.

Axton Elementary scored a pass rate in reading of 72, a 78 in history, 82 in math, and 76 in science.

Bassett High School earned at 78 passing rate in reading, 49 in history, 79 in math, and 60 in science.

Campbell Court Elementary scored 65 in reading, 51 in history, 66 in math, and 69 in science.

Drewry Mason Elementary received a 66 passing rate in reading, 68 in history, 75 in math, and 73 in science.

Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School scored 62 in reading, 36 in writing, 75 in history, 59 in math, and 54 in science.

G.W. Carver Elementary received 64 in reading, 76 in history, 70 in math, and 57 in science.

For Laurel Park Middle School reading was scored at 61, writing at 45, history with 52, math with 55, and science at 43.

Magna Vista High School at an 86 passing rate in reading, 59 in history, 74 in math, and 65 in science.

For Meadow View Elementary reading was scored at 61, history at 76, math at 63, and science at 64.

Mount Olivet Elementary received a 55 reading pass rate, 68 in history, 57 in math, and 29 in science.

Rich Acres Elementary scored 72 in reading, 85 in history, 80 in math, and 77 in science.

Sanville Elementary received 61 in reading, 76 in history, 66 in math, and 55 in science.

For Stanleytown Elementary, a passing rate of 61 was earned in reading, 62 in history, 55 in math, and 74 in science.

Patrick County had a pre-COVID change indicating a 1% drop in reading, but recorded a 12% increase in writing, an 8% decrease in history, 12% decline in math, and a 4% loss in science.

There are seven schools participating in the SOL assessments in the Patrick County School District.

Blue Ridge Elementary scored an 82 passing rate in reading, 80 in history, 81 in math, and 81 in science.

For Hardin Reynolds Memorial School, reading stood at 81, history with 78, math at 73, and science at 62.

Meadows of Dan Elementary earned an 87 in reading, 74 in history, 66 in math, and greater than 50 in science. There was no explanation provided as to why a specific number was not available in science.

Patrick County High School received an 86 pass rate in reading, 81 in writing, 73 in history, 85 in math, and 82 in science.

For Patrick Spring Primary, reading received an 80 passing rate, and math was at 82.

Stuart Elementary received an 85 in reading, 89 in history, 87 in math, and 88 in science.

Woolwine Elementary scored 85 in reading, 81 in history, 87 in math, and 83 in science.

Our focus continues to be on accelerating learning in all of our schools, said Patrick County Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Andrea Cassell. Patrick County Public Schools continues to analyze specific student data to improve and provide the resources schools and students need.

At Martinsville City Public Schools, intervention and enrichment built into the school day has been a key part of our academic recovery, and we are pleased with the results we are seeing, said Martinsville Assistant Superintendent Dr. Angilee Downing. Moving forward, we will continue our focus on identifying and addressing learning gaps and incorporating high-intensity tutoring based on individual need.

Lisa Millner, Henry Countys assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, emphasized the importance of continuous collaboration among staff, administrators, leadership, and families to address student needs.

Henry County Public Schools continues to work with students and teachers to address learning loss and close achievement gaps in literacy, said Millner. This year, a dyslexia and literacy coordinator was hired to work with schools and teachers in diagnosing student needs in literacy, and implementing evidence-based interventions to address those needs.

Across the state, the VDOE said pass rates for every elementary and middle-school grade are behind 2018-19 pass rates, both in reading and in math.

The pass rates are even more alarming when considering the large number of students who are in the low proficient level and would have likely failed the SOLs with earlier assessments, the release stated.

Chronic absenteeism is considered to be a problem statewide with the number of students who miss more than 18 days in a school year are double the number before the pandemic.

Statewide, the VDOE says they are working with all school districts and parents to increase attendance by expanding breakfast after the bell programs, ensuring that every child has a trusted adult at school, and reducing barriers to attendance such as transportation and mental health challenges.
I'm chairman of the South Central Virginia Business Alliance (SCVBA), and a fervent advocate for the potential of solar energy. With both a business perspective and personal experience, I've witnessed the profound advantages of solar projects, particularly for small enterprises like the company I work for, Red Oak Excavating.

SCVBA plays a crucial role in connecting local businesses with diverse opportunities in the solar energy sector, from construction to maintenance, fostering growth and making our region the preferred choice for local business endeavors.

Having worked on a Henry County solar project, I'm keen to see more local businesses actively participate. On Sept. 20, in South Boston, SCVBA hosted a pivotal event, offering local businesses and stakeholders insights into the solar landscape. We welcomed members of the Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce, and we aim to engage more in the future. Attendees benefited from the wisdom of Southside Planning Commissioners, County Administrators, and experienced solar contractors who shared insights into local solar projects.

This event reinforces our commitment to building informed, sustainable, and prosperous communities. Our hope is that, together with our community members, we can embrace clean energy, ensuring solar projects not only meet our energy needs but also bolster the economic vitality of Henry County.

Lane Gunn

Red Oak
On Sunday afternoon, a memorial boulder commemorating the incarcerated workers who gave their lives to build the railroad in the 1870s will be unveiled at a special ceremony near the McDowell-Buncombe county line.

The public is invited to attend a special ceremony at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22 at 391 Yates Ave. near Ridgecrest and Black Mountain. The ceremony will unveil a memorial boulder to the incarcerated workers who labored and died during the construction of the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad in the 1870s.

Marion Mayor Steve Little is a railroad historian who has devoted many hours researching and writing about this chapter of western North Carolinas past. He has even done a first-person impression of one of the convicts who labored to build the railroad under brutal conditions.

The construction of the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad took place in the 1870s following the Civil War. This section of railroad between Henry Station, just west of Old Fort, and the Swannanoa Gap at Ridgecrest, was and still is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest human accomplishments in both engineering and construction in the entire United States at the time it occurred. The railroad provided the first dependable access to and from all of North Carolina and opening up the western part of the state to the flow of commerce and people.

At least 97% of the laborers who built the railroad up the mountain were inmates from the North Carolina State Penitentiary in Raleigh. They were transported while shackled in crude boxcars to the work site near Old Fort. From October 1875 through October 1879, approximately 3,000 incarcerated African American men and a few hundred African American women were compelled to work on this massive project. All were former slaves. Many were convicted on scant evidence, and all received longer sentences than others who were convicted of the same offenses. The work they did to build the railroad was extremely brutal, said Little in previous stories by The McDowell News.

In October 2018, the RAIL Project leaders held a dedication ceremony for the memorial to these workers at Andrews Geyser near Old Fort. At the geysers park, visitors can see the railroad tracks looping around and above the site. On that memorial are engraved the known names of incarcerated workers discovered in census records.

This Sunday at 3 p.m., its counterpart will be unveiled near Ridgecrest. Little said the ceremony will not be held in downtown Black Mountain.

People coming from Marion and Old Fort wishing to attend should take Exit 66 on Interstate 40 (the only exit for Ridgecrest), turn left at the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp and cross over Interstate 40, then turn left onto the first paved road (Yates Avenue, but the street sign is hidden by bushes) and drive about one-half mile on Yates Avenue. The site will be on the left, just past the side road labeled Tripoli Lane. People will need to park on the shoulder of Yates Avenue, said Little.

Attendees can bring a folding chair. Some chairs will be available.

Ray McKesson, president of the McDowell County chapter of the NAACP, will start the ceremony at 3 p.m. Little, who has written books about the railroads construction, will talk about the history of the incarcerated laborers. Both McKesson and Little performed similar roles at the dedication of the Andrews Geyser memorial in 2018.

The Rev. Mary Scott, pastor of Mount Zion AME Zion Church in Marion, will deliver a memorial prayer and Greg Conley will sing Amazing Grace, followed by the unveiling of the two-ton memorial boulder to which a bronze plaque has been attached. The whole dedication ceremony service should last no more than 45 minutes, Little told The McDowell News.

The memorial boulder is part of a local RAIL Project groups ongoing effort to uncover and highlight some of the tragic history of the railroad that opened and transformed western North Carolina, but at a huge human cost, according to a news release.

Its important for us all to begin to understand the scale of human exploitation that occurred to connect western North Carolina to the rest of the state by rail, said historian Anne Chesky, a member of the RAIL Project board, and director of the Asheville Museum of History.

Thousands of incarcerated laborersmost of whom were African-Americans unjustly arrested under Jim Crow laws put in place as an extension of slaverylabored under dangerous, brutal and unhealthy conditions to lay track and cut seven tunnels through the mountains from Old Fort to Ridgecrest in the late 1870s.

Though the exact number may never be known, it is likely hundreds of incarcerated laborers died of exposure, disease, overwork, accidentsor were shot as they tried to escape.

For a significant portion, this turned into a death sentence, said RAIL Project Chair Dan Pierce.

The memorial boulder, placed not far from the western portal of the Swannanoa Tunnel, where records indicate workers may have died during a cave-in, is the most recent effort to memorialize the incarcerated laborers. It represents part of the ongoing work of the historians, community members, archaeologists, and geologists involved with the RAIL Project.

Blair Tormey, a research scientist at Western Carolina University, worked with both ground penetrating radar and historic human remains detection dog teams to try to locate possible burial sites of the many people who died during railroad construction.

An informational kiosk will be installed later this fall at the intersection of Yates Avenue and Old Highway 70, according to the news release.
Five men have been jailed for 12 years each in Nigeria after they were convicted on October 17, of exhuming a human skull.

They had planned to take it to a traditional doctor who said it was needed for rituals that would make them rich. The men pleaded guilty after being caught with the skull in a bag. The prosecutor told the Court that the men had dug up a body buried three years earlier at a Muslim cemetery in the north-central Niger state.

They said the herbalist informed and promised all of them that they would share the wealth from the said criminal activity and directed them to look for the human skull, the prosecutor was quoted as saying by the privately owned Daily Punch newspaper.

Security officers had arrested the young men, who are aged between 18 and 28, in early September 2023 as they transported the remains to a third party, on the instructions of a traditional doctor.

A Court in Minna, the capital of Niger state, declared the men guilty on the charges of criminal conspiracy, trespassing on burial grounds and unlawfully possessing a human skull.

The traditional doctor was not arrested and charged. Belief in juju  sometimes known as voodoo or magic  is fairly widespread in Nigeria, with many combining it with either Christianity or Islam, according to a 2010 report by the Pew Research Centre.

Such beliefs, especially that human body parts and charms can produce money from a clay pot, have led to a recent wave of gruesome murders in Nigeria, often targeting individuals seen as vulnerable, including children, single women and people with disabilities.
The UN expressed concern on Tuesday October 17 about the risk of direct confrontation between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, which have been at loggerheads since the reappearance of the M23 rebellion in eastern Congo at the end of 2021.

This risk was raised by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a recent report on the situation in the DRC, and highlighted on Tuesday by his special envoy to the region, Huang Xia, at a Security Council meeting devoted to the troubled Great Lakes region.

The risk of a direct confrontation between the DRC and Rwanda, who continue to accuse each other of supporting armed groups (), is very real, said Mr. Xia, noting that over the past six months, the security and humanitarian situation has not improved at all, on the contrary.

Last year, the M23 rebels seized and continue to occupy large swathes of territory in North Kivu province. Kinshasa blames Kigali for its support of this predominantly Tutsi rebellion, while Kigali in turn accuses Kinshasa of collusion with the FDLR, an armed group of Rwandan Hutu origin.

After six months of precarious calm, fighting resumed in early October, notably involving militiamen presented as patriots fighting against the M23. The military build-up by the DRC and Rwanda, the absence of direct high-level dialogue and the persistence of hate speech are all worrying signals that we cannot ignore, said Huang Xia.

The representatives of the member countries of the Security Council took it in turns to call for restraint, dialogue and a political solution. At the end of the meeting, the representatives of Rwanda and the DRC denounced Kinshasas lack of political will and Kigalis aggression, while reaffirming their desire to find a peaceful solution.

Contrary to UN fears about tensions between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya has indicated that direct confrontation or even war is not an option for Kinshasa.
Sonangol once again won the National Oil Company of the Year award during African Energy Week, which took place in Cape Town. Gaspar Martins also thanked the companys tutelage and partners. The African Energy Week awards ceremony took place on October 17th, in South Africa.

African Energy Week distinguished Sonangol for the remarkable efforts and investments that the company has dedicated to the stability of the national and continental oil and gas sector.

The award is also due to Sonangols commitment to sustainability and the energy transition. On behalf of the companys Board of Directors, director Osvaldo Inacio received the award. Sonangols CEO, Gaspar Martins, believes that the trophy is the result of teamwork and the step-by-step achievement of the objectives set.
Moroccan authorities announced on Thursday the arrest of four ISIS operatives who were preparing terror attacks in a bid to undermine the countrys security and stability.

Aged between 25 and 32, members of the cell were nabbed by anti-terror units in the cities of Tangier, Tetouan and Inezgane Ait Melloul. Police searched their homes and found electronic devices, bladed weapons, Daesh propaganda literature, a guide detailing how to join the extremist organizations training camps in the Sahel, photos of terrorist attacks carried out by Jihadists and a publication on ISIS secret operational rules.

The four captured Jihadists pledged allegiance to the Islamic state and planned attacks against key facilities and security institutions, said a press release issued by Moroccos National Police.

One member of the cell engaged in physical training in the forest and mountainous areas in preparation for his criminal acts, while another one had tried to join the Sahel before dropping the idea and shifting his evil project taking aim against his homeland.

This new anti-terror operation comes amid a growing threat posed by Daech and other terrorist organizations around the world due to increasing global instability.
King Mohammed VI chaired over a Ministers Council in Rabat this Thursday, during which Finance Minister Nadia Fettah Alaoui made a presentation on the highlights of the 2024 draft budget.

According to the draft budget, the Moroccan government expects an economic growth of 3.7% and a narrowing of the fiscal deficit to 4% next year.

The earthquake that struck on Sept 8 had no impact on the macro-economic assumptions of the draft budget as the government expects to further cut the deficit from 4.5% expected this year to 4%.

Morocco has reacted efficiently to the earthquake through a multi-pronged program worth 120 billion dirhams ($12 bln) that targets 4.2 million people in the affected areas, said a royal office statement following the Ministers Council.

The draft budget targets a swift earthquake relief response, addressing water supply challenges, implementing social dialogue deal and backing citizens purchasing power.

It also provides for forging ahead with the generalization of safety nets and the beginning of cash handouts to needy households starting from this years end.

Direct financial aid to the needy would target 60% of households who do not benefit from social assistance, the statement said.

Few days ago, Morocco has announced an aid program to improve access to housing offering assistance of 100,000 to citizens acquiring a house that costs less than 300,000 and 70000 to homes whose prices ranges between 300,000 and 700,000.

The draft budget also attaches priority to the overhaul of the sectors of health, education, and the reform of the judiciary.

During the Ministers Council and in accordance with the provisions of article 49 of the Constitution and on the proposal of the Head of Government and on the initiative of the Interior Minister, the King appointed a number of walis and governors.

Likewise, on the proposal of the Head of Government and on the initiative of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Sovereign appointed several ambassadors. These include Ahmed Tazi, Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates; Fouad Akhrif, Ambassador to Jordan; Mohamed Ait Ouali, Ambassador to Egypt; Ms. Samira Sitail, Ambassador to France; Abdelkader El Ansari, Ambassador to China; and Youssef Amrani, Ambassador to the United States of America.
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Trauma-based Interventions for Collective Healing. Credit: Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s11013-023-09835-3

A study led by researchers in the School of Medicine at the University of California, Riverside, has found that in communities of color in Inland Southern California, historical, cultural, and social traumas induce fear and mistrust in public health and medical, scientific, and governmental institutions, which, in turn, influence these communities' hesitation to get tested and vaccinated for COVID-19.

The study, published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, underscores the need for community-based health interventions that consider structural and social determinants of health to address such traumas experienced by racial/ethnic minority populations in the U.S.

From January to March 2021, the researchers, led by Ann Cheney, an associate professor of social medicine, population, and public health, conducted 11 virtual focus groups (5-10 people attended each focus group) who identified as Black/African American, Latinx/Indigenous Latin American, and/or Native American/Indigenous. Participants shared information on the cultural and structural factors that shaped their COVID-19 testing and vaccination.

"We found the intersection of historical, cultural, and social traumas contributed to fear and mistrust in institutionsgovernment, medicine, and public health," Cheney said. "These different levels of trauma intersect and shape decision-making around COVID-19 testing and vaccination in the current pandemic."

Evelyn Vazquez, the first author of the research paper and a community psychologist, led the data analysis of the 11 focus groups and used the findings to develop a theoretical model, called the "Continuum of Trauma," to show how the different types of trauma shape COVID-19-related decisions among disadvantaged populations. The model crosses temporal, cultural, and social spaces among communities of color.

"This model describes the shared grief, assault on collective identity, and marginalization among racial and ethnic minorities in Inland Southern California," said Vazquez, an assistant professional researcher in the Department of Social Medicine, Population, and Public Health. "We found that collective experiences of trauma across the continuum have induced fear, hesitancy, and institutional mistrust among marginalized communities."

Key findings from the focus groups:

All participants discussed historically based trauma as grounded in structural racism and histories of government and public health abuses.

Black/African American and Native American/Indigenous community participants talked about the U.S. government's falsehoods and lies.

Latinx/Indigenous Latin American community members spoke about classism they faced, the loss of religious leaders during the pandemic, fear and mistrust in public health, and fear of job loss.

All participants shared how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their collective identity.

All participants found social trauma and racial- and income-based inequities were pronounced in the current pandemic.

Many faced job-related stress, childcare concerns, and housing inequities.

Many experienced discrimination in health-care settings.

Many distrusted government institutions, feared seeking medical care, and were reluctant to get tested and vaccinated for COVID-19.

"Trauma exists along a continuum and contributes during the COVID-19 pandemic to health disparities as well as fear and mistrust in institutions," Vazquez said. "For collective healing, we need community-based approaches. For example, transformative interventions that impinge upon structural and social determinants of health can address the fear and mistrust of institutions."

Vazquez explained that this fear and mistrust stem from historical trauma and colonizing practices in the history of medicine.

"Fear and mistrust are also linked to cruelty enacted by the U.S. government towards racial/ethnic minorities and loss of community elders and their knowledge," she said.

Cheney stressed that interventions could transform three types of power in historically marginalized groups: political, economic, and social.

"Interventions can promote community-level health equity and freedom from trauma by promoting health education and literacy and providing access to community-based interventions developed by communities of color for communities of color," she said. "To succeed, interventions must be culturally sensitive and responsive."

Cheney and Vazquez were joined in the study by Michelle Burroughs of UCR, Preeti Juturu of UCLA, and Juliet McMullin of UC Irvine.

The research paper is titled "Continuum of Trauma: Fear and Mistrust of Institutions in Communities of Color During the COVID-19 Pandemic."

More information: Evelyn Vazquez et al, Continuum of Trauma: Fear and Mistrust of Institutions in Communities of Color During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s11013-023-09835-3
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People who have uncontrolled high blood pressure or diabetes before getting COVID-19 may be at higher risk of hospitalization or being placed on a ventilator, according to new research that also shows an increased risk of death if diabetes isn't kept in check.

The study of nearly 1.5 million adults in the U.S. with COVID-19 is the largest of its kind, said lead author Dr. Sandra Jackson, a lead health scientist in the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. And unlike other studies, the new research looked at high blood pressure and diabetes control in people before they contracted the coronavirus, rather than using measurements taken during COVID-19 illness.

"These results underscore the importance of chronic disease control to pandemic preparedness," Jackson said.

The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, included people who had COVID-19 between March 2020 and February 2022. Overall, 43% of patients had high blood pressure, or hypertension, and 12% had diabetes. Data on control rates was available for most of them.

Compared to participants who had their high blood pressure under the best control, those with the least-controlled high blood pressure had about 30% greater odds of being hospitalized, 30% higher odds of receiving critical care, and 32% greater likelihood of needing a ventilator to help them breathe.

Among participants with diabetes, those with the least controlled A1Ca blood test to monitor blood sugar levelhad about 61% greater odds of being hospitalized, 42% greater chance of receiving critical care, 12% higher likelihood of being on a ventilator, and 18% greater odds of death compared to those with the most controlled A1C level.

The researchers adjusted for age, race, smoking status and other factors that could have influenced the results, but they lacked the necessary information about COVID-19 vaccination status.

Adults with hypertension or diabetes can work with their doctors to monitor and effectively treat these conditions, Jackson said. In addition, she said that "to help avoid serious illness from COVID-19, patients with hypertension and diabetes can adhere to vaccine recommendations and can seek early treatment if they do become ill with COVID-19."

The CDC recommends everyone ages 5 and older get the updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect against serious illness from COVID-19.

Dr. Sandeep Das, a cardiologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said the new study adds to what's known about COVID-19 in the U.S.

"A key strength is that it captures data on a very large number of people prior to hospitalization, thus allowing description of rates of hospitalization, ventilation and mortality, which are uncommon outcomes in the general COVID-infected population," said Das, who was not involved with the study.

"The authors have clearly identified a population of patients with COVID-19 who are at increased risk of worse outcomes, and this information can be valuable in informing public policy," he said. "Although this study didn't directly examine the effects of COVID-19 prevention or early treatment strategies, these are good targets for future investigation."

The COVID-19 pandemic struck a blow to chronic disease management by disrupting health care access and people's daily health routines, leading to fewer ways for adults to obtain preventive health care or engage in behaviors known to promote hypertension and diabetes control, the researchers wrote. In emphasizing the importance of disease management during a pandemic, they recommend telehealth appointments as well as education and support to help people better manage their conditions.

American Heart Association statistics show nearly half of adults in the U.S.about 122 millionhave hypertension, which is defined as a reading of 130 mmHg or higher as the top number (systolic) or 80 mmHg or higher as the bottom number (diastolic). Yet only an estimated 1 in 4 has their high blood pressure under control. Meanwhile, about 29 million adults have been diagnosed with diabetes, and another 9.7 million have diabetes but don't know it. High blood pressure and diabetes each increase the risk for heart disease, stroke and other serious health problems.

This latest research comes as new hospitalizations for COVID-19 increased from 6,479 in early July to 16,766 in early October, according to CDC tracking. Infectious disease experts and scenario models indicate that this fall and winter season is likely to bring a moderate COVID-19 wave similar to last year, but the peak could come earlier compared to previous years.

More information: Sandra L. Jackson et al, Association Between Hypertension and Diabetes Control and COVID19 Severity: National PatientCentered Clinical Research Network, United States, March 2020 to February 2022, Journal of the American Heart Association (2023). DOI: 10.1161/JAHA.122.030240 Journal information: Journal of the American Heart Association
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New research reveals that the nation's most widely prescribed type of sedative may be less effective than clinicians and scientists have been led to believe, based on publications in medical journals.

The study, which published today in the journal Psychological Medicine, examined both published and unpublished data from five randomized controlled clinical trials reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration for alprazolam, known by the trade name Xanax XR. It is one of a class of sedatives known as benzodiazepines, widely prescribed since the 1970s to treat medical conditions such as anxiety and insomnia.

In recent years, benzodiazepines have been associated with serious clinical risks, including dependence, withdrawal, falls and cognitive impairment.

"Clinicians are well aware of these safety issues, but there's been essentially no questioning of their effectiveness," said senior author Erick Turner, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine and former FDA reviewer. "Our study throws some cold water on the efficacy of this drug. It shows it may be less effective than people have assumed."

Turner and co-author Rosa Ahn-Horst, M.D., M.P.H., a resident in psychiatry at Harvard University, reviewed publicly available FDA data from phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials conducted for extended-release alprazolam for the treatment of panic disorder. The extended-release formulation was approved by the FDA in 2003, while the original immediate-release formulation was approved in 1981.

They found that five trials had been conducted, but only three of them had been published in medical journals. Further, when the FDA reviewed the drug company's trial results on how well the drug performed compared with a placebo, Turner said they determined that only one of the five trials had a clearly positive outcome.

Using meta-analysis, a statistical method of combining all study results, they found that alprazolam extended-release was still superior to a placebo, but not as much as the published data had conveyed. Specifically, they found that publication bias inflated the drug's efficacy by more than 40%.

Turner said the findings may be especially relevant to patients and clinicians who haven't used benzodiazepines previously, as opposed to those who use the drug infrequently or who have already become physically dependent.

"This study will reinforce being cautious about starting a prescription," Turner said.

More information: Rosa Y. Ahn-Horst et al, Unpublished trials of alprazolam XR and their influence on its apparent efficacy for panic disorder, Psychological Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1017/S0033291723002830 Journal information: Psychological Medicine
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The EU said Thursday it had given the green light for US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's $43-billion acquisition of biotech firm Seagen, specializing in innovative cancer treatment.

The European Commission, the bloc's powerful anti-trust authority, said it had "unconditionally approved" the transaction after a market investigation.

It said the deal did not raise competition concerns and would not negatively impact prices of treatments.

Pfizer announced in March its deal with Seagen, which is based in Washington state and leads in the research, development and commercialization of cancer treatments.

The firm came to major drugmakers' attention with its work on antibody-drug conjugates that are "designed to preferentially kill cancer cells".

"Based on its market investigation, the commission found that the merger would not significantly reduce competition in the markets where their activities overlap within the EEA (European Economic Area)," the commission said in a statement.

It added the purchase would not cause issues where there are overlapping lines of research and that it did not foresee a loss of innovation.

"The transaction was unlikely to have negative impact on prices, given that the parties' offerings are differentiated and complementary and that the markets for the treatment of the various cancer types examined are sufficiently competitive," the commission said.

 2023 AFP
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A 2,000-year-old practice by Chinese herbalistsexamining the human tongue for signs of diseaseis now being embraced by computer scientists using machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Tongue diagnostic systems are fast gaining traction due to an increase in remote health monitoring worldwide, and a study by Iraqi and Australian researchers provides more evidence of the increasing accuracy of this technology to detect disease.

Engineers from Middle Technical University (MTU) in Baghdad and the University of South Australia (UniSA) used a USB web camera and computer to capture tongue images from 50 patients with diabetes, renal failure and anemia, comparing colors with a data base of 9,000 tongue images.

Using image processing techniques, they correctly diagnosed the diseases in 94 percent of cases, compared to laboratory results. A voicemail specifying the tongue color and disease was also sent via a text message to the patient or nominated health provider.

MTU and UniSA Adjunct Associate Professor Ali Al-Naji and his colleagues have reviewed the worldwide advances in computer-aided disease diagnosis, based on tongue color, in a new paper published as part of the The Fourth Scientific Conference For Electrical Engineering Techniques Research (EETR2022).

"Thousands of years ago, Chinese medicine pioneered the practice of examining the tongue to detect illness," Assoc Prof Al-Naji says.

"Conventional medicine has long endorsed this method, demonstrating that the color, shape, and thickness of the tongue can reveal signs of diabetes, liver issues, circulatory and digestive problems, as well as blood and heart diseases.

"Taking this a step further, new methods for diagnosing disease from the tongue's appearance are now being done remotely using artificial intelligence and a cameraeven a smartphone.

"Computerized tongue analysis is highly accurate and could help diagnose diseases remotely in a safe, effective, easy, painless, and cost-effective way. This is especially relevant in the wake of a global pandemic like COVID, where access to health centers can be compromised."

Diabetes patients typically have a yellow tongue, cancer patients a purple tongue with a thick greasy coating, and acute stroke patients present with a red tongue that is often crooked.

A 2022 study in Ukraine analyzing tongue images of 135 COVID patients via a smartphone showed that 64% of patients with a mild infection had a pale pink tongue, 62% of patients with a moderate infection had a red tongue, and 99% of patients with a severe COVID infection had a dark red tongue.

Previous studies using tongue diagnostic systems have accurately diagnosed appendicitis, diabetes, and thyroid disease.

"It is possible to diagnose with 80% accuracy more than 10 diseases that cause a visible change in tongue color. In our study we achieved a 94% accuracy with three diseases, so the potential is there to fine tune this research even further," Assoc Prof Al-Naji says.

More information: Abdulghafor Khudhaer Abdullah et al, Computer-aided diseases diagnosis system based on tongue color analysis: A review, The Fourth Scientific Conference For Electrical Engineering Techniques Research (EETR2022) (2023). DOI: 10.1063/5.0154231
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A McMaster University-led analysis published in the BMJ on Oct. 19, exposes high rates of injuries with forceps and vacuum delivery in Canada that have been documented for over a decade without efforts to address them.

The paper, titled "Maternal and neonatal trauma during forceps and vacuum delivery must not be overlooked," was authored by perinatal epidemiologists, obstetricians, urogynecologists, community advocates and patient partners, and calls for increased recognition, transparency and action to prevent these injuries.

As part of the analysis, researchers present data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that show that since 2010, Canada has had the highest rates of maternal trauma during forceps and vacuum deliveries when compared with other high-income countries.

The most recent data from 2019 shows Canada with the highest rate at 16.3%, followed by Denmark at 12.7% and the United States at 11.1%.

The paper's lead author, Giulia Muraca, an assistant professor in the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact at McMaster University explains that while benchmarking against other countries is informative, the key facts are about how this is affecting Canadians.

"More than 35,000 infants are born each year in Canada with the use of these instruments and maternal injuries are occurring at an alarming frequency. We are not doing a good enough job sharing information about these risks with pregnant people or putting enough effort into reducing them."

Maternal trauma describes a group of injuries to the pelvis and surrounding organs that occur during childbirth, such as severe perineal and cervical lacerations. These injuries have several short- and long-term consequences, such as pelvic pain, sexual problems, and anal incontinence. One in four people sustain these injuries following forceps deliveries (25.3%) and one in eight with vacuum deliveries (13.2%).

"We're calling for a national response to recognize the frequency and severity of these injuries in Canada. We have neglected to address them for far too long, and we are urging the maternity care community to make a commitment to reducing them," says Muraca. Similar national initiatives to reduce maternal trauma have been underway in other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Australia.

As part of the analysis, researchers worked with patients who have experienced the trauma caused by forceps and vacuum deliveries firsthand. One of those patients is Laura Ralph, who suffered a pelvic floor injury during her son's delivery due to the use of forceps.

"I remember a cesarean delivery being discussed, but I don't recall whether one was offered to me. I was also completely uninformed of the risks of cesarean versus forceps delivery," Ralph said.

"I often think of that conversation about cesarean delivery and wish someone had taken a few minutes to explain the pros and cons of each potential outcome with me."

Ralph has long-term complications as a result of her delivery. She had to use a pessarya device inserted into the birth canal to provide support after pelvic prolapse and feared having more children because of the trauma she endured.

In the analysis, several potential reasons for these high rates of injuries are discussed, such as policies in Canada regarding labor interventions and challenges with training. However, the researchers caution against reflexive recommendations to increase training.

"If we expect these injuries to decrease by simply investing in the existing training paradigms, we run the risk of harming even more people and families, and further stigmatizing people with these injuries," says study co-author Roxana Geoffrion, an associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of British Columbia.

"Efforts to change the culture around these injuries need to take precedence, including improving informed consent practices, and engendering a culture in which these injuries are acknowledged as severe, avoidable complications."

The researchers hope the analysis will spur a national conversation about these injuries and the impacts they can have on birthing parents.

"During labor, it is often difficult to make informed split-second decisions surrounding different modes of delivery," adds Geoffrion, whose clinical and academic practice is devoted to patients with pelvic floor disorders following childbirth trauma.

"Through this research, we hope to encourage more thorough conversations between patients and their maternity care providers to establish informed consent for various modes of delivery during pregnancy and well before labor begins."

More information: Giulia M Muraca et al, Maternal and neonatal trauma during forceps and vacuum delivery must not be overlooked, BMJ (2023). DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2022-073991 Journal information: British Medical Journal (BMJ)
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Credit: University of Akron

The Medical Device Design team, a group of University of Akron (UA) students dedicated to solving the medical needs of the Summit community, has successfully created a new assisted technology device to enable a local resident to "reel" in the joy of fishing.

Despite his deep love for fishing, William (Willie) Tresz, of Barberton, Ohio, had been unable to pursue this passion due to his diagnosis of Muscular Dystrophy, that causes progressive weakness and breakdown of muscles over time. The disorder prevented him from fishing due to hand control.

Through a collaborative effort involving the Medical Device Design Team, Summit Developmental Disabilities (Summit DD), TechVerse and Inclusioneers, the group achieved the remarkable feat of helping Tresz, achieve his long-held dream of fishing once more by creating an adaptive fishing pole.

Lena Eljaouhari, a junior biomedical engineering major from Brunswick, Ohio, shared her enthusiasm for the project. "As a biomedical engineering student, I already have an interest in creating engineering solutions for medical problems. We're able to look into the design process of things that will make people's lives better. It's such a cool experience to work with Summit DD and be able to work out something from start to finish and see what it evolves into by seeing the actual prototype and then to see our customer using it." Credit: University of Akron

This adaptive fishing pole project was initiated in the fall of 2022, which involved introductory meetings, measurements and initial planning. The design options were solidified as the spring 2023 semester began and ideas were presented to Tresz. The decision was made to proceed with a sip-and-puff switch, a battery powered device that would enable the user to control a device by using their mouth to "sip" (inhale) or "puff" (exhale) on a straw, tube or wand. Tresz' device was modified as a "puff" switch, a puff of air through the straw, which provides him with the control to stop or start reeling in the fishing line independently. This was the simplest and most effective way to give him the ability to fish.

Haylee DeSonne, community support specialist at Summit DD, explained, "The problem is accessibility: Willie doesn't have access to fishing. The adaptive pole needed customization and Willie told us the scope of the project. He made the decisions to the design path (eye gaze versus puff switch) and determined the best ways he could access fishing (puff switch)."

The team consisted of five UA students who collaborated closely with mentors from Inclusioneers. These mentors, focused on finding inclusive engineered solutions to help the disenfranchised enjoy the same facilities, events, and activities, that are commonly taken for granted by the mainstream population, not only offered expertise in electrical engineering but also provided valuable professional insights that greatly contributed to the team's successful prototype development.

The students primarily focused on the mechanical aspects of the project, ensuring that the interface effectively simulated the typical actions involved in fishing. To achieve this, they mounted the fishing holder on a stand that was connected to the wheelchair's arm, thereby ensuring that everyone had a substantial and meaningful role to play in the project.

"It's rewarding to witness the results of the efforts of numerous individuals. The products are subtle, the engineering is really hidden and that's how we like it. We want it to be invisible, to feel and look as natural as we can," said Mike Furtha, president of Inclusioneers, "To me that's the beauty of what we try to accomplish. That it meets their expectations and it's a great reward."

Like most long-term projects, roadblocks did arise whether that be delays in the design process, engineering techniques not working or scheduling issues. However, the design team faced them together and, in the end, ended up with a meaningful end-result.

"Seeing Willie use the design we made was more fulfilling than the issues we had this semester, "stated Eljaouhari. "Just seeing our design works and used by someone who has these problems that we wouldn't even think about. So just being able to solve one of those for him was just a good feeling."
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5% of bills were enacted of those introduced between January 1, 2023, and May 22, 2023, addressing school entry vaccination requirements, non-medical exemptions, and scope of practice for providers to administer vaccines. Credit: Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University

Between January 1, 2023, and May 22, 2023, legislators in 43 states and the District of Columbia introduced 196 bills addressing school entry vaccination requirements, non-medical exemptions, and scope of practice for providers to administer vaccines.

Of those 196 bills, only about 5% (11 bills) were enacted, according to new data published by the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University Beasley School of Law.

The new legal data capture school entry vaccination requirements, non-medical exemptions to school vaccination requirements, the reallocation of authority to determine vaccination requirements for schools, and expansions to provider scope of practice to administer vaccines in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

"Vaccination around COVID-19 opened the door for discussions and legislation on vaccination more generally, but it was mostly just a lot of debate and introduced bills, with very few laws enacted so far," said Lizzy Platt, JD/MA, director of research and operations at CPHLR and a lead researcher on this project.

Of the domains tracked, only two types of vaccination legislation were successfully enacted:

In 27 states, legislators introduced 63 bills to expand scope of practice for providers to allow them to administer vaccines. Eight of those bills were ultimately enacted in Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Montana (two bills), North Carolina, and West Virginia (two bills).

Nearly one-third of the bills included in the dataset72 bills across 25 states and the District of Columbiasought to prohibit school entry vaccination requirements. Three of those 72 bills were enacted: Florida Senate Bill 252 and Tennessee companion bills House Bill 252 and Senate Bill 644, which became Public Law 296.

This research is part of a broader effort by researchers and public health law experts to understand how legislatures are considering the role of public health departments, health providers, and government in response to public health issues and emergencies after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among the legislation tracked, the researchers identified 18 bills in 10 states that sought to reallocate determinations of vaccine requirements from health agencies. None were enacted.

The data also reveal other unsuccessful efforts to:

This dataset was created using a scientific legal mapping process developed by the Center, in collaboration with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials as a part of the Act for Public Health initiative. These data join a growing suite of legal data produced by CPHLR for the Act for Public Health initiative. All the data on this topic, and more, may be explored for free on LawAtlas.org.
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A conceptual model of cerebral microvascular hemoglobin concentration in two different causes of brain swelling: cerebral edema or venous congestion. Credit: Illustration by Rose Perry-Gottschalk, NIAID Research Technologies Branch

Unusually high levels of blood congestion in vessels feeding the brain may lead to severe swelling, scientists have found in a discovery that solves a longstanding malaria mystery: how the infection deleteriously impacts the brain of children.

Malaria is a staggeringly relentless and insidious infection, a mosquito-borne disease that infects an estimated 219 million people annually and claims 400,000 lives, mostly children under the age of five, according to the World Health Organization.

One of the most difficult-to-treat complications in pediatric malaria is swelling of the brain, which is marked by fluid accumulation and vascular congestion of red blood cells. The problematic swelling can lead to coma, and in many cases, death.

The disease itself occurs with the bite of a blood-sucking female Anopheline mosquito when its proboscisa veritable hypodermic needlepierces a blood vessel and transmits protozoan parasites. Four species of Plasmodium protozoa exclusively infect humans who serve as intermediate hosts in the parasites' development. The four protozoan species are: Plasmodium falciparum; P. vivax; P. ovale and P. malariae. Of the four, P. falciparum causes the most devastating manifestations of the disease.

Scientists in the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, have been conducting research to determine the cause of pediatric brain swelling triggered by malarial infection. All of the children in the study were from Malawi and infected by P. falciparum, which dominates on the African continent.

Currently, there are two dueling hypotheses that hold sway over the cause of brain swelling in cerebral malaria. The first contends the swelling arises from cerebral edema, excess fluid that dangerously collects in the brain. The second implicates "sticky" red blood cells that obstruct blood flow in brain vessels. Regardless of which is correctand the new investigation was designed to find the answerthe hope was to better understand this life-threatening manifestation of malaria.

Reporting in Science Translational Medicine, Dr. Rachel L. Smith in the physiology unit of the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research at NIAID, knew it would require sophisticated imaging technology to help uncloak the cause of this potentially lethal complication. Working with colleagues at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and Blantyre Malaria Project of Kamuzu University in Malawi, researchers emphasized that their investigation would open a new window of understanding into malaria's impact on the brain.

"Brain swelling is associated with death from cerebral malaria, but it is unclear whether brain swelling is caused by cerebral edema or vascular congestiontwo pathological conditions with distinct effects on tissue hemoglobin concentrations," Smith wrote in Science Translational Medicine.

"Cerebral edema is associated with increased brain tissue water content and intracranial pressure as well as compression of small blood vessels, which lowers cerebral hemoglobin concentrations. In contrast, in venous obstruction, blood vessels become engorged with blood, resulting in an increase in cerebral hemoglobin concentrations," Smith asserted. "We used near-infrared spectroscopy to noninvasively study cerebral microvascular hemoglobin concentrations in 46 Malawian children with cerebral malaria."

All together, 108 children were involved in the research project, which included healthy children who took part in the study as controls. As a result of their research, Smith and colleagues were able to gather enough evidence to support the second hypothesis that sticky erythrocytes obstruct blood flow in brain vessels, setting off the cascade of deleterious events leading to cerebral swelling.

To better understand the roots of brain swelling, the team not only relied on non-invasive infrared spectroscopy technique to study blood-flow dynamics in the brain, they also studied each child's brain via MRI as another method of obtaining a view of cerebral vasculature.

In addition to the 46 children with cerebral malaria who were examined in the research, an additional 33 children with uncomplicated malaria and 29 healthy children underwent imaging. Those with brain swelling had higher concentrations of hemoglobin in brain microvessels, which correlated with greater severity of brain swelling.

Malaria is a growing global health concern, even amid the arrival of promising new vaccines. The first immunization against malaria, called RTS,S developed by GlaxoSmithKline, was recommended by WHO nearly two years ago. A second immunization, R21/Matrix-M, recommended by WHO two weeks ago, was developed by Britain's University of Oxford. That vaccine will be ready for global distribution next year. Neither shot will beat the mosquito-borne infection into retreat anytime soon.

Climate change is driving the expansion of malaria's mosquito vectors across an increasingly broader geographical range. And an unexpected spate of malaria cases that didn't occur as a result of travel but emerged locally in several U.S. states this year, stirred public health officials who called for greater surveillance and vigilance.

Studies, such as those by Smith and her collaborators, will help scientists better understand a devastating complication of the infection and devise new ways to monitor it.

"These findings may help to elucidate the mechanisms responsible for brain swelling and coma in children with cerebral malaria," Smith concluded. "Continuous near-infrared spectroscopy monitoring could be used to further understand cerebral malaria pathophysiology, monitor its progression, and measure response to treatment."

More information: Rachel L. Smith et al, Increased brain microvascular hemoglobin concentrations in children with cerebral malaria, Science Translational Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adh4293 Journal information: Science Translational Medicine

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Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The more positive the personal attitude of psychology students toward video psychotherapy and the greater the positive expectations and experiences, the more they are willing to offer video psychotherapy after graduation. This was discovered by a research team led by Professor Kai Kaspar at the University of Cologne's Department of Psychology.

Scientists from Cologne's research area in social and media psychology conducted a study with 255 students of psychology who want to work as psychotherapists in the future. The study "Understanding psychology students' perspective on video psychotherapy and their intention to offer it after graduation: A mixed-methods study' was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Not least due to the COVID-19 pandemic, video psychotherapy has gained enormous significance. Whether this form of therapy is offered ultimately depends on the therapist's individual therapeutic attitude and motivation. The study investigated the extent to which the intention to conduct video psychotherapy is related to personal characteristics of future practitioners.

"We found that four variables in particular are positively associated with the intention of psychology students to offer video therapy after graduation. The personal attitude toward video psychotherapy was the most important variable. The other important factors are the expected usefulness of this therapy method, personal satisfaction with previous video conferences and the perceived social pressure to offer video psychotherapy," said lead author Kaspar.

In addition, the study participants were asked about the perceived advantages and disadvantages of video psychotherapy. Based on more than 1,700 responses, 17 advantages and 18 disadvantages were identified. "We find that there is a tendency to identify more disadvantages than advantages, but overall the results show a very differentiated and balanced perspective of the students on video-based psychotherapy," explained co-author Jennifer Meier.

The most frequently mentioned advantages include low-threshold therapeutic offers in a familiar environment, greater flexibility, no travel necessary, and reduced mental and physical barriers. Protection against contagious diseases is also frequently cited, as well as an overall better accessibility to the therapeutic offer, for example in the form of shorter waiting times and better patient care.

The most frequently mentioned disadvantages include a lack of closeness between patients and therapists, reduced non-verbal communication opportunities, technical problems and lack of safe spaces for patients. The study participants also express concern that video psychotherapy is inappropriate for certain disorders and treatment methods and could lead to a reduced commitment and motivation of the patients.

Finally, the prospective psychotherapists were asked what specific learning opportunities they would like to integrate into their studies in order to feel as prepared as possible to carry out video psychotherapy. Training courses for technical skills, role-playing games for practical testing of the method, as well as detailed information on video psychotherapy including legal aspects are particularly sought after. Other mentioned learning opportunities are the training of communication techniques and how to develop a therapeutic relationship via video conferences.

The students also wanted in-depth insights into appropriate methods and practical examples, as well as information on how to deal with difficult situations in video psychotherapy. "What is striking is that the students demand the same learning opportunities regardless of their study progress. In addition, the students attribute a high to very high relevance to all the content they wish to learn in order to feel well prepared for the implementation of video psychotherapy," said co-author Josephine Noel.

"The new generation of psychotherapists will play a decisive role in how the therapy will be designed in the coming years and whether video-based formats will be established permanently and on a broad scale," said Kaspar. "Against the background that the training of psychologists and psychotherapists at German universities is currently undergoing a fundamental reform, our results provide a good basis for the design of appropriate training content. In our study, we outline what this process could look like."

More information: Jennifer Virginie Meier et al, Understanding psychology students' perspective on video psychotherapy and their intention to offer it after graduation: a mixed-methods study, Frontiers in Psychology (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1234167 Journal information: Frontiers in Psychology
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Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

When neurobiologist David Corey showed up at a rare disease conference in 2017, he had no idea that he would enter a race against time to develop a treatment for it.

The conference was for Usher syndrome type 1F. Patients with this condition have a gene mutation that causes them to be born deaf and gradually lose their vision as they grow up. Corey, the Bertarelli Professor of Translational Medical Science in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School, had devoted decades to studying the defective gene in a different context.

So when Corey happened upon an announcement for an Usher 1F conference in Boston, he knew he had to attend.

There, he introduced himself to Elliot Chaikof, chief of surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Johnson and Johnson professor of surgery at HMS, his wife Melissa, and their adult daughters, Rachel and Jessica, both of whom have Usher 1F. The Chaikofs had organized the conference through the nonprofit research collaborative they founded to find a treatment for the blindness part of the disease.

Meeting the Chaikofsand especially Rachel and Jessicastirred in Corey a powerful desire to help.

"We really felt that we know so much about this gene, if we don't try to do something for the disease, who else is going to?" Corey said.

Six years later, the Corey lab has three candidate gene therapies for Usher 1F blindness. Each takes a different approach to correcting the disease-causing mutation.

The researchers are now testing the therapies in animal models and are confident that at least one will move to clinical trials in humans to become a successful treatment.

Defining the problem

Usher 1F is a particularly severe form of Usher syndrome, in which a gene mutation causes cells in the eye and ear to stop producing an essential protein. Rachel and Jessica's gene mutation is most prevalent in the Ashkenazi Jewish community.

People with Usher 1F are usually born deaf and lacking the ability to balance. They develop an eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which causes a progressive loss of vision as the retina degenerates. Night vision often disappears first, followed by peripheral vision. For Jessica, this has meant giving up driving and getting a service dog to help her navigate the world around her. Eventually, people become completely blind.

"Everyone with Usher 1F has a unique experience, but one of the biggest challenges for me is slowly losing my independence as I lose my vision," Jessica said.

Like many people with Usher 1F, Rachel and Jessica have benefited from cochlear implants, which have improved their ability to hear and communicate. However, the Chaikofs learned soon after their daughters were diagnosed that there was almost no research on the condition and virtually no therapies to treat itso in 2013, they established Usher 1F Collaborative.

"Essentially there were zero research groups working on this particular problemnothing, nobody," Elliot said.

A call to action

While the Chaikofs were seeking answers, the Corey lab in the Department of Neurobiology at HMS was studying a protein called protocadherin-15 and its role in deafness.

The researchers figured out that protocadherin-15 in the inner ear helps sensory receptors called hair cells convert mechanical vibrations into electrical signals, which the brain interprets as sound. Without protocadherin-15, the conversion doesn't happen, and the brain is unable to detect sound.

They also found protocadherin-15 in light-sensing cells, or photoreceptors, in the eye. However, they weren't sure of its exact function there, nor did they know why people lacking the protein in their eyes lose their sight over time.

In the course of the research, Corey had become aware that in Usher 1F, a mutation in the gene that makes protocadherin-15 causes cells in the ear and eye to stop producing it.

Connecting with the Chaikofs gave Corey a new motivation for his research and reinvigorated the family's quest for a cure.

"Because David understood the gene so well, he basically leapfrogged ahead of where the research was and hit the ground running," said Melissa, who is chair of Usher 1F Collaborative.

"For the first time we felt as if we had someone who could truly make a difference on this particular problem," Elliot added.

A daunting endeavor

The Corey lab chose to focus on the blindness aspect of Usher 1F, in part because patients are born profoundly deaf and lacking hair cells, making it unlikely that a therapy could restore their hearing. However, they are born with normal vision that gradually deteriorates, allowing time to intervene to preserve their sight.

The team found the perfect point person in Maryna Ivanchenko, an instructor in neurobiology at HMS who joined the lab to learn about gene therapy for deafness, but by serendipity is also an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon.

"Maryna has been absolutely central to this project because she understands both the hearing and the blindness aspects of this disease," Corey said.

The researchers decided the way forward would be to design a gene therapy that either replaces or repairs the defective DNA that codes for protocadherin-15. Delivered inside eye cells, such a therapy would allow the cells to make the missing protein.

But the team encountered a major challenge: Protocadherin-15 is a huge protein, and the DNA that codes for it is too large to fit inside the usual delivery vehiclea small capsule made from a non-infectious virus.

With the clock ticking for Rachel, Jessica, and thousands of others with Usher 1F, the team knew that their best hope for quickly developing an effective gene therapy would be to work on three different potential solutions at the same time.

Three shots on goal

The logistics of such a project are daunting.

Because there is no good model for Usher 1F blindness in mice, Corey and colleagues started with a mouse model of deafness to test whether each therapy can restore protocadherin-15 production. They then moved to zebrafish, which offer a better model for progressive blindness. Testing continues in human eye cells grown in a dish, to be followed by tests in non-human primates. Only then can a therapy be deemed safe and effective enough for a human clinical trial.

"The project has been enormously complex because we're testing three different strategies in two different organs and four different species," Corey said. "Every time you add something, it multiplies the effort."

Even so, the Corey lab has made considerable progress on all three strategies:

The most promising so far is the mini genea shortened but still functional version of the protocadherin-15 gene that easily fits inside the viral capsule that carries the DNA into a cell. In a recent study, the researchers showed their mini gene can restore hearing in mice, and early experiments in zebrafish suggest that it can also restore vision.

The second strategy, called the dual approach, involves cutting the DNA in half. Each half is small enough to fit in the viral capsule. Once inside the cell, the halves reconnect, and can begin making the full-length protein. The approach has been used for other genes, Corey noted, and seems to be well suited for protocadherin-15. The researchers have tested this approach in mice and are starting to test it for safety in non-human primates.

The final strategy involves putting gene editing tools into the viral capsule instead of loading it with a replacement gene. Once inside the cell, the gene editors would correct the protocadherin-15 gene mutation. Many mutations cause the condition, but the researchers are designing the tools to fix the most common one, R245x. The researchers recently demonstrated that their approach can counteract hearing loss in mice.

Corey and his collaborators, including Marcos Sotomayor at The Ohio State University and Artur Indzhykulian, HMS assistant professor of otolaryngology head and neck surgery at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, hope at least one of these therapies will safely stop and perhaps even reverse vision loss in patients with Usher 1F.

"This is an outstanding example of how basic science can be translated to therapies," Elliot said. "The progress that David has made in a very short period of time has been remarkable."

The lab has plans to partner with a biotech company that will continue working on any therapies that succeed in initial testing.

Finding hope

If any of the strategies clear the hurdle of animal testing, the next step would be a clinical trial. Yet therein lies another challenge: Because Usher 1F is an orphan diseasemeaning it affects fewer than 200,000 people in the United Statesit will be hard to enroll enough people in a randomized controlled trial.

To get around this challenge, Usher 1F Collaborative has initiated a natural history study on vision loss in people with Usher 1F. The study will follow participants over four years to assess how their vision loss progresses naturally, essentially establishing the control group for a clinical trial ahead of time. That way, if and when a trial does happen, all participants can receive the therapy.

"We're on a parallel track with David's research so that when the natural history study is completed, we'll be ready for the clinic," Melissa said.

It's not clear which, if any, of the therapies will succeed, nor when it will happen, but the possibility that they could make a tangible difference in people's lives keeps Corey, Ivanchenko, and others motivated as they work long hours in the lab.

And the Corey lab's three shots on goal have become many: Eight other groups at universities in the United States, Canada, and Australia are also working on treatments for Usher 1F.

"There are a lot of patients and families whose world is about to go dark, and they need everyone's best ideas," Elliot said.

"I keep telling myself that there will be a time when I can finally stop letting my life revolve around Usher," Jessica said. "Being able to see the research is what keeps me sane; it's what helps me get through the day."
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Graphical abstract. Credit: Gastroenterology (2023). DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2023.09.050

In a significant breakthrough that could eventually extend the survival of patients with one of the deadliest of all malignancies, an international team of researchers have devised an investigational blood test that might one day help doctors detect pancreatic cancer earlier.

The team from the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan created and tested a biomarker panel that detects small amounts of RNA genetic material that breaks off from pancreatic cancer cells and circulates in the bloodstream, known as circular RNA or circRNA, according to results of a study published in the journal Gastroenterology.

The U.S. team members include City of Hope; Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), part of the City of Hope; and HonorHealth Research Institute.

More than 50,500 Americans are predicted to die this year from pancreatic cancer, making it the third leading cause of cancer-related death behind lung and colon cancers. Both the number of cases and deaths due to pancreatic cancer continue to increase year after year. Only about 11% of those diagnosed with this type of cancer survive more than 5 years.

One of the primary reasons for the dismal survival rates in pancreatic cancer is that most patients are usually diagnosed in late stages when the disease has already spread to other parts of the body. Because the pancreas is deep within the abdominal cavity, this type of cancer usually does not cause pain or inflammation in its early stages, symptoms that might otherwise reveal the presence of disease. Fewer than 15% of pancreatic cancer patients are diagnosed at a stage when the cancer can be surgically removed, the study said.

'Urgent' need for early detection test

"These data highlight the urgent, unmet clinical need to identify and develop diagnostic methods that could precisely detect pancreatic cancer at its earliest stages, when the disease is still confined to the pancreas and surgical resection is still an option," said Ajay Goel, Ph.D., AGAF, the study's senior author.

Dr. Goel is professor and founding chair of the Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope and associate director of basic science for City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Previous diagnostic efforts using imaging and blood levels of CA 19-9, a cancer antigen, have proved inadequate and misleading. Pancreatic cancer does not always produce detectable amounts of CA 19-9 in early stages, leading to false negatives. It also is elevated in other gastrointestinal cancers and conditions.

"We hypothesized that circRNAs might offer diagnostic potential in pancreatic cancer. Recent evidence indicates that circRNAs might have untapped potential as biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis," said Caiming Xu, M.D., Ph.D., the study's lead author and a visiting post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Goel's lab. Dr. Caiming also is part of the First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian (China) Medical University.

Because they form in a circle, circRNAs are more stable and have longer half-lives compared with linear RNAs, and circRNAs are abundantly expressed in the bloodstream. It has only been in recent years that genetic sequencing technology has advanced sufficiently to precisely detect, process and analyze circRNA.

Using genome-wide expression profiling, researchers undertook a systematic and comprehensive review of patient samples to discover pancreatic cancer biomarkers based on circRNA that could distinguish pancreatic cancer tumors from adjacent normal tissue specimens, especially among those patients with early-stage disease.

Blood panel had 'robust diagnostic accuracy'

Five candidate biomarkers were used to devise a blood-based panel testa non-invasive, liquid biopsy-based assayfor early detection of pancreatic cancer; a test that "exhibited robust diagnostic accuracy," according to the study. The predictive performance of these biomarkers "improved remarkably" when analyzed in conjunction with CA 19-9, the study said.

Blood-based liquid biopsies have multiple advantages over tissue-based traditional biopsies, including their noninvasiveness, ease of sample collection, and accurate results, which can be exploited as an important tool in the early detection of cancers and patient disease management.

"When pancreatic cancer is caught early, the chance of survival is so much greater than when diagnosed in the advanced stage. Therefore, there is a great need to develop novel ways to detect pancreatic cancer," said Erkut Borazanci, M.D., research director of the Cancer Research Division at HonorHealth Research Institute, and one of the study's authors.

"By collaborating with City of Hope, TGen and other centers working together, we are making strides where we hope for a future reality in which pancreatic cancer is detected early, and that we are talking about cures for more people," Dr. Borazanci said.

Study researchers, all part of the Pancreatic Cancer Detection Consortium, concluded that addition tests should be conducted to determine if there are any differences due to patients' age, sex or other factors: "Although the performance seems promising, further investigation is warranted for our circRNA-based panel of biomarkers to be found eligible as a reliable clinical test."

Nearly a decade in the making

Still, the results of this study go a long way toward achieving the goal of better cancer diagnostics, said Daniel Von Hoff, M.D., a Distinguished Professor at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), part of City of Hope, and one of the study's authors. Dr. Von Hoff has worked for nearly a decade with Dr. Borazanci to discover a way to detect pancreatic cancer in its early stages.

"Perfecting a method of early detection for this extremely aggressive cancer would be a substantial step in providing better care for patients with pancreatic cancer," Dr. Von Hoff said. "It could also be the basis for eventually developing early-detection tests for other cancers, as well."

The study"A circulating panel of circRNA biomarkers for the noninvasive and early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma"was published Oct. 13.

More information: Caiming Xu et al, A circulating panel of circRNA biomarkers for the noninvasive and early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, Gastroenterology (2023). DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2023.09.050 Journal information: Gastroenterology
These six students hauled on chest waders for class.

They toted tripods, Topcon Auto Levels, stadia rods, 100-meter measuring tapes, gravelometers and other assessment gear.

For the next few hours and days in late September and early October, they experienced a close encounter with the Clark Fork River and its troubled history.

They saw streambanks layered with saffron-colored contaminated mining and smelting tailings and clear evidence of copper. The tailings were deposited during a catastrophic flood in 1908.

More than 115 years later, the students worked to gather data to help inform the Clark Forks ongoing Superfund cleanup.

Specifically, at 16 spots along the river, the students collected key measurements of the Clark Forks parameters before remediation starts up again next fall.

The students examined width-depth ratios for the river at all 16 cross-sections. They examined stream pebble counts to assess siltation. They evaluated bank stability and vegetative cover.

Rob Thomas, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Montana Western, routinely brings environmental field studies students to the Clark Fork River for a firsthand immersion in specifics no textbook or lecture could adequately convey.

Our baseline study this year was focused on the existing stream morphology, in both cross section and along the bottom longitudinally, with the purpose of showing how it changes after the post-remediation study is conducted, Thomas said. It is a way of evaluating whether the desired results of the remediation, at least regarding stream morphology, were achieved.

According to one definition, stream morphology describes the shapes of river channels and how they change in shape and direction over time.

The same measurements will be taken after the cleanup. That means the state and federal agencies involved will have a much clearer sense of how remediation has altered the river and its environs. What about channel width? Channel depth? Bank stability? Silt?

Many observers have complained that remediation work to date on the Clark Fork has all but ravaged the upper rivers once-robust brown trout fishery by removing riparian vegetation important for shade and cover, by adding sediment and metals and eliminating undercut banks. The link between remediation and fisheries decline has not been firmly established but it seems quite possible, fisheries biologists say.

For the students, its classic science: Collect data. Later, other students or scientists will collect the same data after an intervention (remediation) and examine what has changed. Pre-test and post-test.

Alex Leone, restoration policy manager for the nonprofit Clark Fork Coalition, said the students work examining cross-sections of the river at locations in the vicinity of the Racetrack Pond upstream of Deer Lodge has great value.

The Clark Fork Coalition is ecstatic that Professor Rob and University of Montana Western have continued their assessment work on the upper Clark Fork this year, Leone said. With the fishery languishing, and decades of cleanup work remaining, its crucial that we leverage partnerships like this to improve outcomes for the river.

This stretch of river is referred to by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality as Phase 7. The DEQ is in charge of the rivers cleanup, but the EPA and Natural Resource Damage Program are also involved.

The 12 journeys by Thomas and students from Dillon to the Deer Lodge Valley occurred during the colleges block system scheduling. It allows students to devote three-and-a-half weeks to a single course.

Leone said the system benefits students and river research.

University of Montana Westerns block system provides a unique opportunity to partner and complete an applied research project on the Clark Fork over a relatively short period of time, Leone said.

Its an awesome resource for those of us working on the Clark Fork and a great workforce training opportunity for the students, he said. Professor Robs students are collecting invaluable baseline data on the current state of the channel in Phase 7 prior to the scheduled cleanup work next fall.

Student Lauren Holston joined five classmates on the river during the first week of October.

I dont think I could learn this material sitting in a lecture hall, she said.

Standing nearby, Mia Thorne agreed.

For me, I feel like there is certainly no comparison, she said. And well get on a job someday already having some experience.

Thomas acknowledged that the long-running debate about how to remediate the Clark Fork River has the potential to be a distraction.

This is a complex system up here with a lot of different people involved and a lot of different agendas, he said. My job is to educate these students.

And during their field work they encounter geomorphology, hydrology, hydrogeology, sedimentology, geochemistry, geology and more. The class incorporates GPS and GIS skills, too.

And if organizations and agencies find value in the students data, all the better, Thomas said.

Other students on the river in early October were Alex Becker, Tommaso Long, Howie Viguers and Rachel Howard.
For centuries colonial powers stomped around the globe, crushing indigenous resistance, enslaving their people and stealing their resources. It was called The Great Game by the likes of Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, the Dutch and many others competing for control, influence, and wealth. In the end, their illusion of geopolitical control collapsed like the myth it always was.

Then came the rise of the United States, blessed by and entire continent chock full of natural resources, there for the taking after slaughtering any Indians who resisted their quest for almost unimaginable wealth.

That was not enough, though, and we jumped into the new version of The Great Game. Our politicians said we had to exert spheres of influence encompassing entire hemispheres of the planet we considered ours.

To quiet the populace, we were told terrible enemies were threatening our very existence  and the existence of the great democracy we claim to hold superior over all other systems of governance on the planet. This despite a former president with a penchant for praising dictators, who thinks democracy means my way or the highway.

Now, its no longer huge galleons bristling with cannons that project the illusion of power. No, its nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines, jets, intercontinental ballistic missiles with enough nuclear warheads to burn the planet to a cinder.

But like the superpowers of the past, this supposed geopolitical control is equally illusional. Whats not an illusion is the impact it has on our own people.

Thousands of miles away from us one country, Russia, decided to invade another country, Ukraine. Nothing new there, as Europe has been embroiled in wars basically forever. But thanks to that far away conflict and the disruption in the far away grain market, suddenly the nice Montana lady who sells farm eggs says she doesnt know if shell be able to keep her chickens because the price of grain to feed them has skyrocketed.

Mind you, this is Montana, where every day mile-long trains haul our golden waves of grain to the coast for export. Those same trains do not bring Ukrainian or Russian grain into Montana on their return trip. In fact, its doubtful weve ever seen a single kernel of Russian or Ukrainian wheat.

Likewise, the latest imbroglio in the tar pit of the Middle East sees Israel and the tiny enclave of Palestinians embroiled in a brutal war that has so far taken its terrible toll in civilian, not military, lives. But lo and behold, suddenly the price of gas in the Big Sky State is through the roof  despite the fact that neither Israel nor Palestine are supplying the world, let alone Montana, with oil.

Yet Montanans wait patiently at railroad crossings while more mile-long trains of black tanker cars export oil to the coast. Exporting, not importing. The cost to produce the oil from here has not changed because two tiny and far away countries have once again gone to war over their religious differences. But its our citizens who suffer from being gouged at the pump due to concern over a wider conflict in a part of the globe that has seen those conflicts for thousands of years.

Geopolitical control by any one nation or cluster of nations, including ours, is a tragic illusion. Tragic because of the useless waste of dwindling resources necessary to project power. Tragic because of the impacts on our own people who have exactly nothing to do with the conflicts around the globe. And terribly tragic for the planet itself, which we not only dont control, we cant even manage to keep healthy and livable for future generations.
For the benefit of big out-of-state manufacturers and insurers, the 2023 Montana Legislature turned its back on 50 years of established law and transferred the risk of injury or death from dangerous products onto the backs of Montana taxpayers.

It didnt take Americans long to figure out that products such as automobiles, trucks, farm equipment and household appliances, when defectively designed or manufactured, cause injury and death. Early versions of auto windshields shattered into sword-like shards, roofs collapsed and steering wheel posts impaled drivers in collisions. Farmers and ranchers lost feet, hands, arms or legs in equipment with unshielded moving belts, gears, chains and shafts. Loggers and heavy equipment operators were unprotected during rollovers and from falling objects. Poorly designed household appliances caught fire, caused electrocutions, and trapped children inside.

The carnage required action and the law responded more than 60 years ago. In Montana, both the courts and our Legislature imposed strict liability for dangerous products on those manufacturers that caused the problem for these reasons: (1) Manufacturers that place their products on the market in the first place are in the best position to anticipate and guard against the hazards; (2) The average shopper, lulled by fancy marketing, does not have the slightest idea how to determine whether a product is safely designed; (3) Legal accountability discourages the design, manufacture and marketing of defective products; and (4) Manufacturers can insure themselves and distribute the cost among the public efficiently in the pricing of their products.

And heres what happened: Cars came equipped with safety glass, strong roof pillars, collapsible steering columns and dozens of other safety features. Heavy equipment was designed with rollover and falling object protection. Guards and disabling switches were placed on exposed augers, belts and moving parts. And refrigerator and freezer doors, held closed by magnets rather than latches, no longer trapped and suffocated toddlers.

In the face of this record, it is shocking that your 2023 Legislature not only effectively eliminated strict liability for dangerous products, it also barred all claims against manufacturers filed more than 10 years after the product was first placed on the market. This means that a defectively designed front-end loader that is first placed on the market in Philadelphia in 2013, is sold brand new to a Montanan today  and kills him tomorrow  his family has no claim against the manufacturer at all. None. Instead, that cost is shifted to his family, and ultimately to the rest of us in the form of Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security disability, workers compensation benefits, SNAP benefits, or other welfare programs.

This is the practical, long-term impact of Senate Bill 216, the 2023 legislation that turned its back on five decades of settled Montana law to favor powerful out-of-state manufacturers and insurers. Its anyones guess why a Montana representative, senator or political party would give a Get Out of Jail Free card to out-of-state manufacturers and insurers, but the consequence of their action is clear. Once again, the out-of-state rich get richer, while hard-working Montanans are told to pick up the tab.
Rescuers from around the state spent two days last week training in Burke County.

The exercise was part of a monthly training the North Carolina Helo-Aquatic Rescue Team undergoes to make sure rescuers are equipped to handle any emergencies whenever they may occur, said Eric Wiseman with North Carolina Emergency Management.

Burke County is a prime example (of why the training is important), Wiseman said. We probably run as many HART missions in Burke County, take hurricanes out of the picture, as the rest of the state combined.

From getting personnel lined up from all across the state, equipment and helicopters brought into the training location, food for everyone working the event and more, the monthly training takes time to plan, said Greg Atchley with North Carolina Emergency Management.

The primary mission of NC HART is to rescue injured or stranded hikers or climbers in remote areas to include Burke County as well as areas across North Carolina, Atchley said. The secondary mission is to rescue individuals who are trapped by rising flood waters or stranded in rivers where they cant be reached by boat or any other means, so (this) training in Burke County is focused on the water component of NC HART.

Training events like the one last week see personnel from as far west as Transylvania and as far east as New Bern come to one area to train together, utilizing resources from multiple agencies across the state including helicopters from the North Carolina National Guard and the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.

(Were) practicing for those accidents and keeping the proficiency up so we can do a quick rescue and do it safely ... because the risk is high any time we put a helicopter in the air with people under it or coming out of it ... so the more we train the safer the environment it is to work in, Wiseman said.

Emergency responders from Burke County had a chance to help with rescues and roleplay as victims during the training.

Among them were Jennifer Hood and Sherry Mayfield from Burke County EMS. Roleplaying as victims stuck in flood waters, they were lifted out of the water by rescuers who were in Blackhawk and Lakota helicopters.

We got hoisted up into the Blackhawk and actually got to ride in the Blackhawk to a landing zone, Mayfield said. This was a unique experience, I think for both of us, because we got to experience what its like for the rescuer and the rescuee to experience when a helicopters hovering over them to pluck them from the Gorge or from the lake or from the river around here.

She said it was an eye-opening experience to see all of the logistics that go into air rescues.

We dont see the technical side as much from being, like, on a unit thats waiting to receive the patient, Mayfield said. This was a nice experience to be able to see the technical side and participate in the technical side and see what all it entails as far as hooking somebody up to the harnesses and holding onto them and speaking to them and asking them, Are you hurt? Whats hurt? What do you need?

Hood agreed, talking about the work the rescuers put in throughout the day.

The rescuers did great as far as keeping everybody calm, Hood said. It was really good to see that side, how much work goes into putting in something like this.

Curtis Cook works for Burke County Waste Management and had a chance to play the role of a victim Thursday, Oct. 12. He was carried by a tether and gently lowered to the ground by rescuers for one of the scenarios, and in another scenario he was pulled into the helicopter and let out at a landing zone.

Both times was exciting, fun, Cook said. I had a blast.

Raleigh Fire Capt. Daniel Richardson was one of the rescuers working to pull victims out of the water. He said he took part in more than 10 different rescues.

We had a lot of good training with a lot of good people, Richardson said. A lot of good entities coming together to work.

Wes Taylor, battalion chief with the Burke County Rescue Squad, was another one of the Burke County first responders who participated in the training last week. Taylor said people can take some simple steps when theyre going out in the wilderness to make sure they arent on the receiving end of the skills practiced during the training.

What we recommend for everyone to avoid meeting us like this is properly planning your trip, Taylor said. Knowing where youre going, whether thats hiking or being out on the water, knowing where youre going, what the conditions are, the weather, the water temperatures, the water levels, all of thats very important to having a safe trip. If youre going to be out on the water, please, please, please wear a PFD (personal flotation device). Anyone under the age of 12 is required when a boat is underway to wear a PFD, and one is required to be on every vessel including kayaks.

So please make sure you wear your PFDs. The majority of water deaths are due to people not wearing a PFD.

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Editors note: Church notes need to be submitted at least one week in advance of the event for inclusion.

SATURDAY, OCT. 21

Quaker Meadows Presbyterian Church, 2698 N.C. 181, will be having a yard sale/breakfast from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.. The cost of a full breakfast will be $10, but you may also be able to purchase individual items, such as a ham biscuit at a small price. Come hungry and ready to shop, as there should be something for everyone. Remember that one persons trash is another persons treasure. Square One (men of the church) will be sponsoring this. The proceeds will be used for various church missions.

SUNDAY, OCT. 22

Green Street Presbyterian Church, 425, N. Green St., will welcome guest speaker Connie Williams Watson at 11 a.m. as they give glory to God for women of the church. Williams was born in Morganton, grew up in Green Street Presbyterian Church and attended schools in Morganton. She earned a BA in Sociology from N.C. Central University in Durham and a Master in Ministry in Christian Leadership from Southwestern Christian University, Bethany, Oklahoma.

Lay Witness Service

Willow Tree AME Church, 2502 Willow Tree Church Road, will be celebrating its annual Lay Witness Service at the 11 a.m. worship service. Sister Starr Battle of McElrath Chapel AME Church will be the guest speaker. The Lay Organization will be honoring cancer survivors with a small token. The public is invited. For questions, contact the Rev. Anthony Radcliff at 828-437-9070.

SATURDAY, OCT. 28

Fall festival

Chambers Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, 4089 Chambers Chapel Circle, Glen Alpine, will hold its fall festival on Saturday, Oct. 28, starting at 11 a.m.

Fish fry and bake sale

Shiloh AME Church, 1323 N. Powerhouse Road, will hold a fish fry and bake sale from 11 a.m. until sold out. Fish sandwiches, hot dogs and assorted bake sale items will be sold at the Julius Moore Building directly across from the church. The sale is sponsored by the Nina-Bess Womens Missionary Society for various missionary projects.

SUNDAY, OCT. 29

Mens Day

Mens Day Shiloh AME Church, 1323 Powerhouse Road, will celebrate their annual Mens Day worship service on Sunday, Oct. 29, at 11 a.m. The guest preacher, Elder George Isbell, is a member of St. Luke Church of Opportunity, where he also serves on their music ministry. Shilohs pastor is the Rev. Wayne A. Johnson Sr.

Gospel concert

Berea Baptist Church, 1394 US 70, Connelly Springs, will feature Rick Strickland for a gospel concert on Sunday, Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. Love offering. Everyone invited.

TUESDAY, OCT. 31

Berea Baptist Church, 1394 NC 70 Connelly Springs, will host a Trunk or Treat from 6-7:30 p.m.

SATURDAY, NOV. 11

The Shiloh AME Church Gospel Choir will have a breakfast fundraiser from 6-11 a.m. The menu choices will include grits, eggs, bacon, sausage, liver mush, baked apples, biscuits, coffee and juice. The plates are $7 and will be available to eat in or to go. The church is located at 1323 Powerhouse Road

ONGOING EVENTS

Facebook Live

Facebook Live services Evangelist Frances Edwards is teaching and preaching the word of God via Facebook Live. Services can be found at the Rhema Word Ministry-Morganton NC Facebook page. Every Wednesday evening she will host A Quick Word from 7-8 p.m. and every Sabbath-Saturday she will host praise and worship services from 10-11 a.m.

Worship services

Gaston Chapel AME Church, 100 Bouchelle St., holds worship services each Sunday at 11 a.m.

Chambers Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, at 4089 Chambers Chapel Circle, Morganton, hold worship service from 11 a.m. to noon on Sunday. Sunday school is at 9:45 a.m. Visitors will be expected to wear masks and practice social distancing.

Messy Church at Salem United Methodist Church, at 1200 Salem Road in Morganton, offers Messy Church at 5:45 p.m. every first Monday of the month. Messy Church is an alternative to a traditional church service featuring interactive activities, opportunities for questions and conversation and a free family meal. People of all ages and religious backgrounds are encouraged to come see what Messy Church is all about.

Trail of Faith open for season

The Waldensian Trail of Faith, at 401 Church St., NW, in Valdese, is open for the 2023 season. The 11-acre outdoor museum tells the history of the Waldensians back to the time of the Apostles. The property contains 15 buildings and monuments recreated in full scale from the Alps of Italy that portray each phase of their journey. The trail offers a 1.5-hour tour. Guided tours need to be scheduled two to three days in advance. Self-guided audio tours are available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Cost for tours is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and $6 for students. For more information, contact the trail office at 828-874-1893 or trailofffaith1893@gmail.com, or visit waldensiantrailoffaith.org.

Family History Library

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at 901 Bethel Road, Morganton, will open its Family History Library to the public from 6:30-7:45 p.m. every second and fourth Wednesday of the month. For information, email Joshua Carswell at enolajosh@yahoo.com.

Church medical clinic Compassionate Hearts Healthcare Clinic serves patients Mondays from 1-4 p.m. and Tuesdays from 6-9 p.m. To be eligible for the free medical services, one must be at least 18 years old, must not receive Medicaid or Medicare, not have insurance and meet federal guidelines of living below 200% of the poverty level. The clinic is at 7449 Oak Ridge Church Road, Connelly Springs. For information on how to qualify for assistance or for volunteer opportunities, call 828-522-1112.

Grief support group

GriefShare is a faith-based course offering support to those who have lost a loved one. Walker Road Baptist Church is hosting GriefShare on Sundays at 6 p.m. at 100 Walker Road in Morganton. The program will run through Dec. 18. For information, contact John Riley at 828-514-3173 or jriam@charter.net.

Word of God prayer line

The Rev. Benjamin Douglas Cuthbertson, a local pastor, has created the Word of God prayer line. Call 716-427-1082 and enter the code 812359# to hear him preach and offer a Bible lesson at the following times:

Friday: noon

Saturday: noon and 7 p.m.

Sunday: noon

Monday: noon and 7 p.m.

Tuesday: noon

Wednesday: noon and 7 p.m.

Thursday: noon

Cuthbertson also invites the public to listen to his Word of God program from 9:15-9:30 a.m. Saturdays on WCIS-AM 760.

Emotional support

The North Carolina Baptist Aging Ministry provides a Hope Line for older adults who feel isolated or lonely. Seniors can call 866-578-4673 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday to hear a friendly voice.

Sabbath-Day services

Sabbath-Day worship services St. Lukes Church of Opportunity, at 126 Brookside Lane, Morganton, include Sabbath-Day school at 10 a.m. and worship at 11 a.m. every Saturday. For information, call the church at 828-433-9192.

Options fundraiser

Local author Patricia Looper is donating a portion of sales from her novel The Virgin and the Kings to Options Inc., a domestic violence shelter in Morganton. The Bible-based book explores the life of Abishag, who was chosen to be King Davids concubine in his old age. The story includes incidences of abuse in the protagonists life and how she dealt with them. To purchase the book, email the author at patricia.looper40@gmail.com; include book wanted in the subject line.

Church holds monthly food pantry

Abernethy Memorial United Methodist Church, at 960 Malcolm Blvd., Connelly Springs, holds its Wrights Food Pantry from 9 a.m. to noon the fourth Saturday of each month. People must live within the districts of Drexel and Valdese elementary, Heritage Middle or Draughn High schools and either participate in the states Food and Nutrition Services Program or fall under a gross income threshold requirement to receive food. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the church is distributing food in a drive-thru setup. People who come for food should clean out the truck or cargo area of their cars so church members can load the food into the cars. Those who are signed up to receive food should bring their cards. The church also offers ongoing financial management classes. For information, contact the church at 828-879-8894 or amumcrc@abernethymemorialumc.org.

The Giving Heart Thrift Shop

The Morganton Seventh-Day Adventist Churchs The Giving Heart Thrift Store is open at 402 E. Main St., Glen Alpine. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday. The shop sells new and gently-used clothes, furniture and small home goods. Proceeds support the churchs Silver Creek Adventist School, serving students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Bible study

Jamie Torres Ministries holds the Real Faith, Real Talk Bible study at 7 p.m. Friday at the Catawba River Baptist Association building on U.S. 70. For information, visit facebook.com/jaimetorresministries.

Church day care

Day care services are available at the following churches:

Morganton First Church of God is enrolling school age children for its four-star before- and after-school program. Student pick up is available at Drexel, Mull and Valdese elementary and Heritage Middle schools.

First Baptist Preschool After-School has full-time openings available for its after school and summer camp programs. For information, contact 828-433-1018 or fbcfivestar@gmail.com.

The Wee School at North Morganton United Methodist Church has openings available for its 2-, 3- and 4-year-old classes. For information, call Sharon Swinson at 828-437-3418 or 828-448-5718.

STANDING EVENTS

Tuesdays

Christian Business Mens Connection of Burke County meets on Tuesdays and is a network opportunity for men in the area. For information, visit cbmc.com or call 828-413-5819.

The Twice Blessed Clothing Closet is open from 2-4 p.m. at Valdese First Baptist Church. Enter by the doors at the back parking area. For information, call 828-874-2266.

Wednesdays

The Fellowship Seekers Christian Ministry meets at 6 p.m. Wednesdays at A.J.s steakhouse.

Hildebran United Methodist Church, 110 S. Center St., Hildebran, is enrolling students for free GED, adult basic education, and English as second language classes held from 6-8 p.m. Wednesdays. A free meal and child care are provided. For information or to enroll, call the Rev. Tony Bowman at 828-502-9627.

Thursdays

A nonsectarian Buddhist group meets at 6:30 p.m. For information, call 828-443-1161.
Halloween is less than a couple of weeks away. The bazaar season in southwest Montana, though, kicks off even sooner  Saturday to be exact!

There are numerous bazaars on this list, and each promises an abundance of holiday gift ideas. So if you like to plan ahead, this list is perfect for you.

It will be updated throughout the holidays, and event listings are free. To include your bazaar, email the details to editor@mtstandard.com or call 406-496-5552. Be sure to include a phone number in case there are any questions.

To get even more coverage, go to eventsinbutte.com to add a bazaar or holiday fair to the growing list.

Without further ado, the list:

Oct. 21

The Hillcrest Harvest Bazaar runs from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at the Butte Civic Center, 1340 Harrison Ave. Several vendors will feature a variety of handmade crafts, arts, woodworking, repurposed goods, decorative signs, jewelry, edible items and more. Support local artisans and Hillcrest Elementary School.

at the Butte Civic Center, 1340 Harrison Ave. Several vendors will feature a variety of handmade crafts, arts, woodworking, repurposed goods, decorative signs, jewelry, edible items and more. Support local artisans and Hillcrest Elementary School. A fall bazaar will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, at the Butte Vigilante Rodeo and Saddle Club, 6354 Albany Ave. The event will showcase 30+ vendors.

Nov. 4

Serbian Mothers Club will have its Fall Bazaar and Bake Sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4, at Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Parish Center, 2100 Continental Drive. Booth fee is $40 and includes two tables and chairs. To pre-order sarma ($4 each), povitica (half order $45, full order $90) and baklava (half order $50, full order $100), call or text Denise at 406-498-3931.

at Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Parish Center, 2100 Continental Drive. Booth fee is $40 and includes two tables and chairs. To pre-order sarma ($4 each), povitica (half order $45, full order $90) and baklava (half order $50, full order $100), call or text Denise at 406-498-3931. The Metcalf Senior Citizen Center at 115 E. Pennsylvania in Anaconda will host a craft and food fair from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4.

Nov. 11

The Daughters of Norway will host its annual lefse sale and bazaar from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, at the Race Track Fire Hall, corner of Farragut and Grand avenues. Several vendors will be on hand. Again this year, the club will be selling the always- popular viking on a stick, a meatball dipped in batter and deep fried. For more details, call Danette at 406-782-3938.

at the Race Track Fire Hall, corner of Farragut and Grand avenues. Several vendors will be on hand. Again this year, the club will be selling the popular viking on a stick, a meatball dipped in batter and deep fried. For more details, call Danette at 406-782-3938. The Mining City Bazaar is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, at the Butte Depot, 818 S. Arizona St.

Nov. 18-19

Dozens of vendors will be on hand for the annual two-day Winter Bazaar and Tradeshow Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 18-19, at the Butte Civic Center, 1340 Harrison Ave. Local businesses, crafters, bakers, and artists will be on hand for your holiday shopping. Saturdays hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

at the Butte Civic Center, 1340 Harrison Ave. Local businesses, crafters, bakers, and artists will be on hand for your holiday shopping. Saturdays hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Boulder Holiday Christmas Bazaar will be from 10 am. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Jefferson High Schools north gym, 312 S. Main St., Boulder. The event highlights local and regional artists, along with holiday gifts, food, live music and more.

Nov. 24-26

The Ennis Holiday Bazaar, a fundraiser for the Ennis Senior Center, will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. Friday , Nov. 24, and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday , Nov. 25, at the Ennis Elementary School, 323 Charles Ave., Ennis. Several vendors will be on hand.

and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Ennis Elementary School, 323 Charles Ave., Ennis. Several vendors will be on hand. A holiday bazaar will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday , Nov. 25, at the Butte Vigilante Rodeo and Saddle Club, 6354 Albany Ave. The single-day event will showcase unique gifts, crafts and arts.

at the Butte Vigilante Rodeo and Saddle Club, 6354 Albany Ave. The single-day event will showcase unique gifts, crafts and arts. Head on over to Anaconda for its second annual Vintage Christmas Market from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday only , Nov. 25, at the Montana Hotel, 200 Main St. Numerous creative local vendors will be selling their wares.

at the Montana Hotel, 200 Main St. Numerous creative local vendors will be selling their wares. Its a Butte-iful Christmas craft show will be Saturday and Sunday , Nov. 25-26, at the Front Street Station, 800 E. Front St. The two-day event includes vendors with handmade goods, Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus, food and beverages, and much more. Admission is free.

Dec. 2

Montana Techs Society of Petroleum Engineers will host its 35th annual Christmas Bazaar and Trade Show from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2, at the Maroon Activities Center. All are welcome. For details, call Nicholas Draper at 406-360-4294 or Jacob Lehmann at 970-590-5490.

Dec. 10

Powell County High Schools Close Up Holiday Bazaar is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10, at the Powell County High School gym, 709 Missouri Ave., Deer Lodge. Vendors and concessions will be available.
Here's a list of Halloween adventures to enjoy in Butte, Anaconda and throughout southwest Montana.

Beaverhead Maze: At 121 Top Rank Drive north of Dillon, the Beaverhead Maze and Pumpkin Patch is open from noon to 8 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays. Tickets are $7 a person and children 2 and under get in free.

Mining Museum Ghost Walk: Butte High School's Montana History Club will bring many of Buttes historic characters to life Friday-Saturday at the World Museum of Mining, 155 Museum Way. Participants must be 6 or older, and hard hats and lights will be issued. Close-toed shoes are recommended, along with seasonal fall clothing. For ticket information, call 406-723-7211.

Big Rock Fright Nights: Big Rock Fright Nights is from 6 to 9 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays through Oct. 28 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Boulder. Admission is $5.

Deer Lodge haunting: Head down to the Old Montana Prison and check out its haunted house at 1104 Main St., Deer Lodge, from 6 p.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays through Oct. 28. Tickets are $10 for children and adults pay $20.

Screams Come True: Screams Come True, a haunted house and hay maze will be at the Whitehall Community Center Thursday-Saturday, and again Oct. 26-28 and Oct. 31. This event is not recommended for children under 7. For ticket information, call 406-498-3807.

At the Hearst: The Hearst Free Public Library at 401 Main St., in Anaconda will have a Pumpkin Decorating afternoon from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday. Bring a pumpkin if you have one, or one will be provided while supplies last.

Dillon Trunk or Treat: The University of Montana Westerns Trunk or Treat is from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25 in the BARC parking lot on campus. For more details, contact Bonita Bontrager at 406-683-7520 or bonita.bontrager@umwestern.edu.

At the YMCA: The Butte YMCA annual pumpkin swim is from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27. The cost is $5 for each child  limit one pumpkin. Spots are limited. Reserve your spot today online at www.butteymca.org or call 406-782-1266.

Evening of library fun: The Butte Public Library will host an evening of fun from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27. There will be an Alice in Wonderland-themed haunted house, along with treats, snacks and crafts.

Ghostly Bannack event: Tickets are available now for the ghost walks at Bannack State Park near Dillon. Presented by the Bannack Association, the annual ghostly event will be Friday-Saturday, Oct. 27-28. Shows are at 7 and 9 p.m. For ticket information or for more details, call 406-834-3413.

Tunnel of Terror: Pintler Pets and Elks Lodge #239 is hosting a Tunnel of Terror fundraiser from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Oct. 27-28 at the Elks Lodge, corner of Main and Third St. in Anaconda. The cost for participants 6 and over is $5. Children 5 and under are free.

Head for Missouri Headwaters: Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Forks will host a Halloween event from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28 in the picnic area. For more details, call 406-285-3610.

Philipsburg Trunk or Treat: Members of the Healthy Granite County Network will host the second annual Trunk or Treat from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, at Philipsburg City Park.
Mary Wohlman ruled the meeting with an iron fist and a wooden gavel. She demanded civility and, by and large, she got it.

About 70 people packed the Centerville Fire Hall on Tuesday night to learn more about a proposed wastes repository that would be to the east and south of the Centerville community and north of the Kelley Mine.

The repository would be on properties owned by Atlantic Richfield and Butte-Silver Bow County.

As envisioned, the repository would accept historic mining and smelting wastes contaminated with heavy metals. The material would be excavated from federal Superfund sites in the Silver Bow Creek Corridor, including Diggings East, Northside Tailings, Buffalo Gulch and others.

Josh Bryson of Atlantic Richfield presented the companys take on the repository with a verbal overview, charts and photos. He said the repository, if approved, would accept and cap roughly 850,000 cubic yards of wastes from sites within the Silver Bow Creek Corridor.

Next year well be doing a lot of preparatory work in that corridor and really begin excavation in earnest, Bryson said.

A key step beyond design work will be siting a repository.

During a question-and-answer period, Bryson was asked why the wastes from the corridor could not be dumped into the already contaminated Berkeley Pit.

Bryon cited reasons why that likely would not work or would require more time. For one thing, he said, he would not ask contractors working for Atlantic Richfield to operate heavy equipment on the unconsolidated slopes above the Pit.

Jim Keane, a former legislator in Butte, scoffed.

I spent my entire life working on equipment, Keane said. And thats the lamest excuse Ive ever heard  that you cant push stuff off into the Pit. Thats a poor excuse.

No, not an excuse, Bryson said. A concern about worker safety.

J.P. Gallagher, chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow County, told the crowd more than once that no decision has been made about using the site near Centerville for a repository.

Yet it also seemed clear there are no other viable alternatives currently on the table.

Bryson told the crowd Tuesday that several other sites were considered and rejected because of regulatory requirements set by EPA related to the protection of human health and the environment or other constraints.

For example, those requirements ruled out establishing a repository on the property of Montana Resources, he said, which was able to accept wastes from the Parrot Tailings cleanup because it was not a federal Superfund action.

Atlantic Richfield has divided the Kelley Mine Area repository into five polygons. Bryson said the company already has ruled out using one polygon as being too close to homes in Centerville.

As envisioned, the repository would be about 60 acres but Atlantic Richfield said Wednesday that likely 30 to 40 acres would be required to house wastes.

A map he shared Tuesday showed a dotted-line circle drawn around Dublin Gulch.

He said Atlantic Richfield understands the concerns about retaining historical remnants of the Dublin Gulch community.

Bryson introduced Mitzi Rossillon, a consulting archeologist, to talk about her cultural resources survey of Dublin Gulch and vicinity. She said she found ruins of buildings, stacked rock walls, historic plantings and much more.

Rossillon described Dublin Gulch as an increasingly rare remnant of an ethnic neighborhood. She said actions that might affect such historic sites can range from full avoidance to interpretive signage.

On Wednesday, Atlantic Richfield issued a statement addressing potential impacts on Dublin Gulch.

"Repository design and construction would seek to avoid disturbance of historic features," the company said.

Buttes colorful and vital history of copper mining left an environmental legacy, too.

The primary contaminants of concern in the Silver Bow Creek Corridor are arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, mercury and zinc. The wastes dumped at the repository would be capped with about 18 inches of soil and planted with vegetation.

Atlantic Richfield has said that both surface water and groundwater interacting with a Kelley Mine Area repository would drain into the Berkeley Pit.

Bryson acknowledged that heavy equipment operating in the repository would create noise and that Atlantic Richfields contractors would be required to manage dust.

Evan Barrett, a watchdog of the Superfund process. has dogged EPA in recent months about its possible approval of the use of slightly-contaminated fill, or what he calls dirty dirt, in the Silver Bow Creek Corridor sites instead of importing clean fill.

He asked Bryson whether the proposed repository would be able to handle additional volumes of material during remediation if the dirty dirt, or grey material, is removed.

It has the capacity, Bryson replied.

He said Atlantic Richfield is aware of concerns about the repositorys potential proximity to Foremans Park and a walking trail.

Atlantic Richfield said work could begin this fall at Grove Gulch, with those wastes being hauled directly to the Butte Mine Waste Repository.

"A new repository location needs to be determined prior to removing waste from the large project sites, including Buffalo Gulch, Diggings East, Butte Reduction Works, and Northside Tailings," the company said. "Final selection of a repository location will not preclude completion of site preparation work, utility relocation and limited site demolition in 2024."

Meanwhile, Bryson said more information about the repository and details about a potential haul route will be shared during an open house scheduled for Nov. 2. A time and place will be announced, he said.

If the Kelley Mine Area repository site is selected the haul route for trucks could theoretically pass behind the Montana Resources main office building, proceed on the old haul road over the tunnel for the Berkeley Pit viewing area and then travel up to the repository.

One woman who attended Tuesdays meeting shared an observation.

I know there hasnt been a decision, you guys havent made a decision yet, she said. But its really sounding like this is kind of where its going to go.
A 24-year-old Butte man made his initial appearance Thursday in Judge Ben Pezdarks Justice Court, charged with one count of felony sexual intercourse without consent.

Additional charges against Johnathan Gerald Lawson include two counts of unlawful transactions with children by providing alcohol, specifically Mikes Hard Lemonade, to two girls, ages 15 and 13. Those are misdemeanors.

The incidents reportedly occurred in Butte sometime between Sept. 22 and Sept. 23, 2022.

According to court documents, Lawson, who was 23 at the time, knowingly had sexual intercourse with the 15-year-old without her consent. Under Montana law, nobody under age 16 can legally consent to sex.

If found guilty, the defendant could be sentenced up to life in prison and fined up to $50,000. On the two misdemeanor charges, he could be sentenced to the county jail for up to six months and fined up to $500.

Lawsons bond has been set at $75,000.

Prosecutors will provide more details on what they believe happened when the case is transferred to District Court. That can take several weeks.
Butte is in line for a Planet Fitness and a synergy plaza with 11 big national tenants of stores and restaurants, a developer told The Montana Standard on Thursday.

Dave Leon said he could not disclose the planned businesses besides Planet Fitness until leases are finalized but called plans for the site along South Harrison Avenue the biggest influx of retail in Butte in the last 30 or 40 years or so.

I think youll be pleasantly surprised to see national stores coming to Butte that you have to shop in Helena for right now, said Leon, CEO of New York-based PF Management Group and owner and operator of all Planet Fitness centers in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Latin America.

Dirt work and clearing is underway at the vacant, 17-acre site located between two auto dealerships on the east side of Harrison Avenue, just northwest of the runway at Bert Mooney Airport.

The Airport Authority Board sold the land to Leon more than a year ago, county officials confirmed Thursday.

J.P. Gallagher, Butte-Silver Bows chief executive, said the county has been working with Leon for a couple of years but deferred any comments about detailed plans to Leon.

But, Gallagher said, Were excited about the opportunity that this presents for our community. Its what the community has been asking for.

Leon opened a Planet Fitness in Helena in 2016 and told The Standard in April 2017 that he planned new locations in Butte and four other Montana cities. The store in Butte didnt materialize in 2018 as hoped for but will be part of the new outdoor plaza, Leon said.

There will be a bunch of high-end fast-food stores in the front and in the back there will be 11 national tenants, he said.

Leon said he was opening a Planet Fitness in Bozeman and had plans for other Montana cities.

So were doing a Planet Fitness in Butte along with a synergy plaza that has a lot of the stuff you see in Bozeman  some big national tenants you dont have yet in Butte, Leon said.

He said he had a major home improvement retailer lined up as part of his plans for Butte but the company bailed at the one-yard line.

It was actually a godsend for us because we were able to get a much better tenant mix, he said.

Planet Fitness is a franchiser and operator of fitness centers based in Hampton, New Hampshire, and now has around 2,400 locations in the United States, Latin America and Australia.

Im really happy to be part of this Planet Fitness brand, Leon said. It has given me the opportunity to basically be a developer and buy real estate and bring in things (stores) that support our brand. But our brand supports them, too.

So its like a synergy and ecosystem that works wherever it goes, where we get these big national tenants that just help each other, and the community is all the better for it, he said.

Leon says hes not just a large Planet Fitness franchisee but a developer who owns most of his properties.

Although bulldozers and other heavy equipment are now clearing the site, a lot of work remains to be done, he said.

Weve got to bring $2 million worth of dirt in there just to fill up the hole that was there in that property and bring it up to ground level, he said. Thats going to take us to next May.

Construction is really going to start in the spring for all those national tenants but we would do a big groundbreaking announcement and I think Id probably even use my great-grandfathers golden shovel that he used on his first project, Leon said.

We are going to put a traffic light in front of the location and weve had to subdivide it into five parcels, he said. We broke ground on the sidewalks and the sidewalks are probably going to take us 120 days and then well hit winter conditions and then when were ready, were going to start going 100 miles an hour next spring.

Folks in Butte have long clamored for more retail stores and shopping opportunities and it only intensified over the past decade when JC Penney and Herbergers closed along with several other stores at the Butte Plaza Mall.

When economic development comes up at public meetings, residents often complain of having to travel to Bozeman, Helena and Missoula for expansive retail shopping and question when such options are going to be available in Butte.

Thats been asked about probably more than anything else in the community, Gallagher said.
The entire student population at Kennedy Elementary School was grinning from ear to ear Wednesday morning as each received a brand-new coat, thanks to Operation Warm, a national nonprofit, and the local FedEx branch in Butte.

Thats a lot of grins and a lot of coats, considering the school educates about 250 students from kindergarten through the sixth grade.

Established in 1998, Operation Warms main objective is to provide high-quality coats to children across the U.S. and Canada. Giving away new shoes is also part of its campaign.

By 2008, FedEx, a global shipping company based out of Memphis, Tennessee, had joined forces with the non-profit.

The fleece-lined coats were manufactured by the non-profit in a variety of sizes and colors with money donated by FedEx. All are machine washable and include a detachable hood and deep pockets.

Each year, 40 schools are randomly chosen and this year, for the first time, Butte got the nod, thanks to Greg Peters, a local FedEx service center manager.

According to Peters, FedEx partnered with the organization to promote positive change, including in the communities where its employees live and work.

Peters decided to throw Buttes name into the hat for this years giveaway and it worked.

We are committed to our local community, said Peters, who has worked for FedEx for 34 years. Its neat we can give something back.

Numerous volunteers, including many local FedEx employees, were in attendance to hand out the winter apparel, happy to do their part.

Peters noted that the FedEx volunteers included night-shift employees who had just gotten off work.

Our employees were all humbled and touched by the experience, said Peters.

The local FedEx manager will not soon forget the smiles on the childrens faces, nor their kind remarks.

It was amazing just to hear their words of gratitude, said Peters. It made it all worthwhile.

Brian Anderson, Kennedy principal, was a bit skeptical five weeks ago when he got an email from Operation Warm informing him that his school had been chosen.

At first, I didnt know it was for real, said Anderson.

Anderson and his administrative assistant, Kailee Fabatz, began to do some quick research, learning that the non-profit was headquartered in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, and was most certainly legit.

Thats when we really got excited about this, said Anderson. Its a really big thing!

With Butte Schools Superintendent Judy Jonarts blessing, it was full speed ahead. With Operation Warm's assistance, by Tuesday the school gym housed tables filled with coats in anticipation of the following day.

Kennedys principal appreciated that every kid was included in the giveaway.

Its a great thing, no one was excluded, said Anderson. Everybody got a coat; everybody was a part of it!

What the principal appreciated even more was the reaction of his students as they received their new winter attire.

It almost had me in tears, said Anderson. It was really good.
With the snip of an extra-large pair of scissors on a ceremonial ribbon, the Muscatine Community College (MCC) DeWitt Career Advancement Center, well over a year in the making, was officially open to the public.

While the center has been open to students since the beginning of the fall semester, a ceremony was held Tuesday to dedicate and highlight the new $10 million facility. The center will focus on career academies and offer opportunities for both adult students and high school graduates to build workforce skills.

We are excited to now show the community and our supporters and partners what programs we have and what technology we have and how learning has changed, MCC president Naomi DeWinter said. Even if they were MCC students or graduates I think they will see this is a completely different experience.

The center now houses MCCs automotive technology, HVAC, criminal justice, nursing and allied health programs. The spacious labs provide students the opportunity to get hands-on training. The building also has many inside windows so visitors will be able to observe work in the classrooms.

Voters approved a $40 million bond in the spring of 2020 for Eastern Iowa Community Colleges` to build career and technical education facilities among the colleges. DeWinter said it was an opportunity for the college to add some programs, such as auto tech, that had been needed but were previously restrained by lack of facilities.

How fun is this? Muscatine Police Chief Tony Kies said as he looked through the new facility. You have a career advancement center that takes care of not only law enforcement but of nursing, HVAC, automotive, and to keep the young men and women here to educate them and hopefully get them to go out into our workforce.

Eastern Iowa Community College interim chancellor Liang Chee Wee said the grand opening is a significant milestone in the growth of the college.

I am overwhelmed by the amount of support in the community, he said. It is shown in the passage of the $40 million bond. We are deeply grateful for the trust you have placed in us.

He also commented, You aint seen nothing yet.

Mayor Brad Bark stressed hands-on education was important for the future of Muscatine. He said the college can now be a one-stop shop for industry training in Muscatine.

DeWinter said access to high-quality education and training is a priority at MCC. She said the new building is access to the latest educational technology. She also stressed the future of Muscatine relies on partnerships in the community.

One of our core missions is to provide workforce training and fill the need for local business and industry workforce training, DeWinter said. We feel as though these programs respond to that need. Some of our local business and industry partners have given input on the programs so we have adjusted based on the businesses. I think they will see reflected in these spaces what they have communicated to us.

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Conservation officials are seeking public input from residents of Muscatine and Scott counties.

Since 1989, the Resource Enhancement and Protection (REAP) program has focused on funding and supporting various city, county and state park projects, including preserving and protecting local habitats, improving local water quality, and providing conservation education.

Both Scott and Muscatine County have been included in these efforts, receiving approximately $5 million in REAP funding in the years since the groups formation. For those who wish to help with more recent environmental efforts, interested residents are invited to participate in the areas upcoming REAP assembly.

We are excited about this years REAP assembly. It is always fun to get together with other outdoor enthusiasts to share thoughts and ideas, while making plans for the future, said Katie Hammond from Muscatine County Conservation.

This assembly is typically held across the state in different counties and communities. This year, it will be held for Muscatine and Scott County residents on Thursday, Oct. 26 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Blue Grass Public Safety Building, 606 West Mayne St. in Blue Grass.

The assembly will be focused on sharing and discussing various ideas on how the Muscatine County community can use REAP funding to improve and support efforts such as outdoor recreation, conservation, and environmental education. The group also hopes to eventually identify opportunities for regional projects, as well as review and recommend changes in policies, programs and funding.

According to Hammond, this year the state legislature allocated $12 million to REAP, with the funding coming from Iowa casinos through the Environment First Fund as well as the sale of the Natural Resource License Plates.

One of the things we are hoping that people learn during the REAP Assembly is that REAP money is divided into 8 different categories, Hammond said. There has been some misinformation about REAP and how the funds are used. I have heard rumblings from people suggesting that all REAP funds are used to purchase land. While I will agree that some REAP funds are used for land acquisition, creating new parks, wildlife areas, and open spaces is just one small thing that REAP does.

Previously, some of the projects completed using REAP funding have included the addition of exhibits at the Environmental Learning Center, repairs to the Pine Creek Grist Mill, several Historic Preservation projects and exhibits, the purchasing equipment for roadside vegetation management, and various forestry and water quality improvement projects.

Residents who are interested in local natural resource work are invited to share their ideas and opinions at the assembly. Delegates will also be selected from each region to attend the statewide REAP Congress in January, 2024, which will be held at the state capital in Des Moines. Regional priorities will be voted on by the entire REAP Congress and sent to the governor and legislature.

Attending the REAP Assembly is a great way to visit with other conservation minded people, Hammond said. Discussions will be held on all the great things happening as well as ideas for improvements. Guests can expect great conversation about our natural, historic, and cultural resources, and cookies!

To learn more or to find out about other regional REAP assemblies, residents can visit www.iowadnr.gov/reap. Those with questions about the upcoming local assembly can also contact either Muscatine County Conservation at 563-264-5922 or Scott County Conservation at 563-328-3280.

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MIAMI  Unlike almost any other archaeologist on earth, Jessi Halligan does her digging underwater.

Halligan, an associate professor of anthropology at Florida State University, studies the first people who came to Florida about 15,000 years ago, when sea levels were 300 feet lower than they are today. These days, many of Floridas oldest settlements, hunting grounds and ceremonial mounds are at the bottom of rivers or the Gulf of Mexico.

Florida is one of the global epicenters for a little-known field called submerged landscape archaeology. There are only about a dozen full-time scientists working in the field in the U.S. They tend to focus on Florida because the state has lost half its landmass to sea level rise since humans started living here.

Scientists have found evidence of ancient shell mounds as far as 20 miles into the Gulf, one of thousands of preserved archaeological sites hidden under the states gentle rivers and along the wide, shallow continental shelf that stretches 200 miles off the states west coast.

The stories that archaeologists like Halligan unearth from the depths offer lessons for modern Floridians who are now facing sea level rise once again.

Across space and time in human history, water always wins. So we have to learn to accept that and be creative with it, said Halligan. Flexibility is the watchword. You have to build structures that can move and can bend  or be willing to say goodbye to them.

For cities like Miami and St. Pete and Jacksonville, thats going to come to a pretty major reckoning, said Morgan Smith, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga who studies underwater sites in the Apalachee Bay in North Florida. Native peoples had to adapt, and they were able to do it because they had that flexibility in their lifestyle.  Were going to have to do it also, and its going to be a lot more complicated.

Studying artifacts found underwater in Florida has already rewritten the history of human migration in North America. In 2016, Halligan led a team of researchers that found a stone knife buried under 13 feet of sediment at the bottom of the Aucilla River, which drains into Apalachee Bay. It provided evidence that people were living in Florida 14,500 years ago  a millennium earlier than scientists previously assumed the first people arrived in the Americas.

So far, Halligan, Smith, and other scientists have identified about 50 underwater archaeological sites in Florida. Soon, some of these sites may become the first submerged landscapes to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. But the researchers have only surveyed about 1 percent of the Gulf, and they suspect there are thousands of Florida sites left to find.

Imagine having a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle and you have like 10 pieces and none of them are corners, said Matthew Newton, an anthropology PhD student at the University of Florida who studies underwater archaeology. Thats archaeology, and thats especially how offshore archaeology is. Its a huge ocean.

Theres something eerie about diving underwater to dig up the remains of ancient homes and hearths.

Last summer, Smith and his team dove in the Gulf of Mexico 15 miles off the coast of Tallahassee, at a site that once served as a campsite. There, on the sandy seafloor, he found a stone spearpoint lying more or less where someone had left it 8,000 years earlier.

When you take something like that out of the ground, youre all of a sudden slapped in the face with the reality that everything there was dry land, and youre under 20 feet of water right now, he said. That was a landscape, you know? There were springs and ponds and forests and people hunting and gathering and hanging out and kids running around and dogs barking.

Things get even stranger in the deep muck of the Aucilla River, where Halligan spends most of her time. Its like diving in really dark iced tea most of the year, Halligan said. Without a dive light it is completely black.  You could be teleported into space and you wouldnt know.

Some divers find that unnerving. The water is home to catfish, turtles and alligators, and its so dark youd never know if any of them were lurking over your shoulder. But Halligan says the gators have never given her any trouble. Well see them swimming on the surface but they tend to stay away from us, she said.

They dig for hours, sinking farther and farther into an underwater hole as much as nine feet deep. As they dig, the archaeologists might find stone fragments of ancient tools, the remains of drowned firepits, or the bones and droppings of extinct mammoths, mastodons, bison and paleo-llamas. Youre just down there in the dark, underwater, and youre like, This was a landscape that peoples feet were on, Halligan said. It is a really unique thing.

Just like modern Floridians, ancient people tended to build their homes along the coasts, according to Jessica Cook Hale, a seismic mapping research assistant at the University of Bradfords Submerged Landscapes Research Center.

But as sea levels rose, ancient Floridians were forced to adapt. For modern Floridians, adapting to a changing coastline will be even harder. People could pick up and move 10,000 years ago, said Cook Hale. They didnt have a Miami or an I-95 or an I-75 to worry about. So we have a lot more of a challenge to overcome in terms of the rigidity of our coastal infrastructure.

Halligan suggested we could learn from the attitudes of the Floridians who came before us. They werent putting billions of dollars into sea walls and concrete and asphalt roads, she said. Instead they were responding flexibly and saying, Okay, well, the world is dynamic. It changes all the time. The coastlines change. We also need to adapt to that.

19 incredible archaeological finds and what we learned from them Introduction Lost city in Kansas Jamestown, Virginia Rosetta Stone King Tut Uluburun shipwreck Newgrange Cliff Palace Easter Island Machu Picchu Terracotta Army Dead Sea Scrolls Pompeii Herculaneum Scrolls Troy The Cave of Altamira Lucy Olduvai Gorge La Brea Tar Pits Solnhofen, Germany Golden age of archaeology
Research from a Drake University professor has documented what he and others have known to be true, but some denied  Iowas network of community pharmacies has been shrinking for more than a decade.

Michael Andreski, associate professor of pharmacy at Drake University, conducted a study tracking open pharmacies in the state between 2008 and 2022. He found that the total number of pharmacies decreased by more than 10%, with the largest losses coming from independent businesses, rather than a chain or franchise.

Closures have been more common in rural than urban areas, but Andreski said every Iowan could feel this impact if actions arent taken to help pharmacies handle high costs of operation.

Patients are not going to be able to have access to the potentially life-altering medication therapy that normally you would expect to have available, he said. And people, frankly, in Des Moines or Cedar Rapids just assume that that ability is going to be there, and weve even seen that thats even being affected.

Andreskis study used data from the Health Professions Tracking Center at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, which has recorded the number of pharmacists working in the state since the 1990s. He was able to learn how many pharmacies were open at the time, as he said that number isnt recorded by the Iowa Board of Pharmacy or anyone else.

Biggest losses among independent pharmacies

There were 697 open pharmacies in 2008, with 377 located in rural areas and 320 in urban areas. In 2022, there were 601 pharmacies in Iowa; 305 in rural areas and 296 in urban areas. Chain pharmacies saw the smallest difference: a loss of 11 stores accounting for a 3% decrease, and independent pharmacies saw the largest hit  87 stores closed, a 38% decrease.

Hospital-sponsored pharmacies were the only subset to see more stores open than close. From 2008 to 2022, the number of hospital-sponsored pharmacies grew by 54% from 35 to 54.

Almost one in 20 pharmacies in Iowa closed between 2018 and 2020.

When a community pharmacy closes, Andreski said Iowans are left without critical medical care. Certain medications can be sent in the mail to households, but often patients are losing out on the chance to speak with a pharmacist about any concerns or other information they should know.

Thats what community pharmacies do  you go into the pharmacy and you can talk to that pharmacist, and pharmacists in the 2020s are trained on techniques to help patients be successful as much as possible in their medication therapy, Andreski said. So that personal touch is gone.

Also, some people cannot afford to wait days for their prescriptions to be mailed.

A 40-minute drive to the pharmacy might be easy in the summer, but impossible in the winter. This lack of access could cause more problems for those already dealing with health problems.

Researcher plans to map pharmacy deserts

Now that the study is finished, Andreski said he and other Drake University researchers involved in the work will take the findings and use them to create maps of where community pharmacies operated in 2008 and 2022. Like food desert maps created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these maps will show where in Iowa people dont have access to a pharmacy, depending on how far away they are from one.

One of the goals behind this study is to be able to show legislators that there is a crisis in Iowa of its residents slowly but surely losing access to critical health care. Before now, no one was able to point to proof of pharmacies consistently closing, which Andreski said allowed lobbyists for pharmacy benefit managers to claim there werent any problems at all.

Pharmacy benefit managers work as a sort of middle-man for insurance companies and pharmacies, managing drug plans on behalf of providers. Gov. Kim Reynolds in 2022 signed into law legislation that requires pharmacy benefit managers to update their reimbursement rate lists on a weekly basis, gives the Iowa Insurance Division oversight authority and prohibits the companies from reimbursing Iowa pharmacies at a lower rate than their own affiliate pharmacies.

Andreski said pharmacy benefit managers make costs higher for community pharmacies, causing more to close and leave people without a pharmacy close by. He said when the Iowa Pharmacy Association contacted 97 independent pharmacies, almost half of them were either breaking even or losing money, and around 40% predicted that they might have to close in the next 12 months.

Theyre in the Fortune 15, and these community pharmacies that provide a needed service are basically on a financial death watch at this point, Andreski said. And so we were hoping that the Legislature could at least make some common-sense rules in place to help Iowans have access to these services.

Now, pharmacy advocates will be able to point at this study when lawmakers ask if theres an actual problem that needs to be addressed.

From what hes heard in speaking with pharmacists, Andreski said many are finding it hard to keep their businesses open. He said students he works with in Drake Universitys College of Pharmacy & Health Services are unsure of their professional future in Iowa, and dont know if theyll be able to fulfill their desire to return to their hometowns and practice.

People are looking to find a way so that the profession that theyve invested in, economically and educationally and emotionally, can continue, Andreski said. Theres a lot of, almost to the point of despair in many pharmacists that were not going to be able to keep things going.
A central-Iowa hotel that hasnt been inspected by the state for more than two years is facing its second lawsuit this year over an alleged bed bug infestation.

Rick and Lori Graff of Rush Springs, Oklahoma, are suing Siva Hotels, the owner of the Super 8 hotel on Forest Avenue in Clive. The Graffs, who are in their 60s, allege they traveled to central Iowa in June of this year to attend several family events, including a memorial service for four family members who died during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After checking into the hotel, Rick Graff allegedly was itching badly, developed a rash, and had enough bites covering his groin and legs that he and his wife had to leave the memorial service early to seek medical care. At an urgent care clinic, Rick was allegedly diagnosed with bed bug bites.

The Graffs say they were forced to discard newly purchased clothing and a suitcase due to what they believe was a bed bug infestation in their room at the Super 8. They allege that hotel management offered them trash and laundry services but refused to refund the cost of the room or reimburse the couple for their expenses.

In court filings, the couples attorney, Jeffrey Lipman of West Des Moines, stated that rather than enjoying a long weekend with family they had not seen for 35 years, the Graffs were forced to return home after one of the few out-of-town trips they had taken in decades.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for consumer fraud and premises liability. The company has denied any wrongdoing, and a manager at the hotel declined to comment on the matter Tuesday.

Hotel settled prior bed bug lawsuit

Earlier this year, a Waukee man, Trenton Reese, sued Siva Hotels for injuries that he and his daughter allegedly sustained at the same hotel over four days in February 2022.

Reese alleged that two days after he and his daughter checked into the Super 8 and were assigned to Room 111, he noticed bites on his daughters arms and saw a bed bug crawling across a pillow on one of the beds. According to the lawsuit, he then photographed bed bugs in the room, and took photos of the bites on his daughters arms. He and his daughter then relocated to a different room at the hotel.

Court records indicate Reeses lawsuit was settled for $10,000.

The Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing reports that the Clive hotel was last visited by state inspectors in July 2021 when a pre-opening inspection, triggered by a change in ownership, resulted in the business being cited for two minor infractions involving a failure to post room rates and guests rights.

Prior to 2014, DIA was inspecting all hotels within its jurisdiction at least once every two years, but those routine inspections were halted during the administration of Gov. Terry Branstad. Since then, the state agency has inspected Iowas 700 hotels and motels only when a complaint is filed or theres a change in ownership.

Some of the 13 cities and counties that the state contracts with to perform various types of inspections have opted to continue with routine hotel inspections, but DIA, which has oversight of most of Iowas hotels, has not.

About bed bugs

Bed bugs have a lifespan of three months to one year, but can multiply rapidly since one female bug can lay 300 to 500 eggs in her lifetime. The bugs ingest blood as needed, consuming up to 8 milligrams during a single bite that can last up to 12 minutes.

When biting, the bugs deploy skin-piercing stylets in their mouth. The first stylet carries the bugs saliva into the bite wound to prevent the blood from coagulating. The second stylet carries the blood from the human host into the bug.

The bugs dont carry disease, and in most cases, the effect of bed bug bites are limited to skin irritation, itching that can last several days, and small, fluid-filled skin formations.

In many instances, the primary damage they inflict is financial. Because the bugs can be carried from hotels and other locations back to a persons home, the victim may suffer losses related to extermination services, medical treatment and the loss of clothing, bedding or furniture that becomes infested.

Inspecting hotel rooms for bed bugs

The Environmental Protection Agency and Consumer Reports has these tips for hotel guests hoping to avoid issues with bed bugs:

Luggage: When you enter a hotel room for the first time, place your luggage on a raised luggage rack or in the bathroom, which is an unlikely place for bed bugs to hide, while you inspect the room. You may want to pack large plastic trash bags in which to stow your luggage during your stay.

Bedding: Pull back the bed sheets and blankets and check the mattress and box-spring seams for bugs, especially at the head of the bed. Adults, nymphs, and eggs are tiny, but are visible to the naked eye. Look for exoskeletons or skins and any dark, rust-colored spots on the bedding. Bed bugs, while tiny, can be seen by the naked eye. The bugs can also be smelled, with an odor sometimes described as a sickening-sweet raspberry smell.

Furniture: Check upholstered furniture within 20 feet of the bed, especially along the fabric seams.

Walls: Because the bugs are typically no larger than the width of a credit card, they may congregate along cracks and seams in headboard, baseboards and wall outlets that are within 20 feet of a bed.

Relocate: If you find signs of bed bugs, ask that you be moved to a new room  preferably in another area of the building. When you get home, tumble-dry your travel clothes in a hot dryer for up to 30 minutes.

Complaints: If you want to file a hotel-related complaint with the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing, go to: DIAL Contact Form. From there, you can write a complaint describing the problem and upload any photos you took to support your complaint.

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DES MOINES  The ceremony was planned a month ago. But Wednesdays rededication of the Iowa Holocaust Memorial on the Iowa State Capitol grounds carried a new weight after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists.

Local leaders of Jewish organizations and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds spoke at the ceremony, and all referred to Hamas attack on Israel.

The purpose of this monument has never been more important, Reynolds said during the ceremony. The barbaric terrorist attack carried out by Hamas has shocked and grieved the entire world. But theyve also strengthened the resolve of Iowans to stand unapologetically with Israel against its enemy.

Reynolds said the Iowa State Capitol was to be lit in all blue Wednesday night in a show of support for Israel. It is believed to be the first time the state Capitol building has been illuminated in a display of support.

Reynolds also said she signed a proclamation to establish a week  Sunday through Oct. 29  of wearing blue ribbons to show support for Israel.

The Iowa Holocaust Memorial, a gift from the Jacqueline and Myron Blank Fund, was first dedicated in 2013. Its architectural design, which features flowing walls of aluminum, is intended to represent a Holocaust survivors journey.

The memorial recently underwent a restoration, funded by a $100,000 allocation approved by state lawmakers in 2022. Reynolds said the memorial was the first of its kind to be displayed on any U.S. states capitol grounds.

Jarad Bernstein, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, said the attacks on Israel show that education about the Holocaust remains relevant.

Our work in fighting hate and fighting antisemitism is clearly not done, Bernstein said. Iowans and all Americans must learn that the flame of the Jewish people was not fully extinguished by the Holocaust. We are here. We are Iowans. And we are proud.

David Adelman, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines Foundation, said that Jewish people are hesitant to make any comparisons to Nazis, the Holocaust or Hitler, but added that what he has seen over the last several days reminds him of 1940s Europe. In his remarks, he implored people to support Israel.

The question we need to ask ourselves, is whether Never Again is rhetoric, Adelman said, referring to the phrase that has become associated with lessons learned from the Holocaust. Or will we stand up and say, Not on my watch.

When you are silent, you are complicit, Adelman continued. When you try to justify the perpetrators actions, you are complicit. When you try to create a moral equivalency of Israels right to defend itself, you are complicit.

Michael Wolnerman, of Des Moines, said the declining number of living Holocaust survivors  like his parents, both of whom have passed  is another reason Holocaust memorials and education are important.

His father, David, died in September at age 96. He was Des Moines last known Holocaust survivor, according to the Des Moines Register.

Because we are rapidly losing all firsthand witnesses to the atrocities of concentration camps, memorials like this very one play an increasingly important role in educating about what happens when evil is left unchecked, Wolnerman said during Wednesdays ceremony. Holocaust memorials like this one force people to confront this history.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP)  Israel said Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came one day after a blast at a hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza's struggling medical system.

The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies happened as fury over the blast at Gaza City's al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

There were conflicting claims of who was behind the explosion on Tuesday night, but protests flared quickly as many Arab leaders said Israel was responsible. Hamas officials in Gaza blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence.

Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7. As supplies run out, many families in Gaza have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water.

The bloody devastation at al-Ahli threw the sieges impact into sharp relief. Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza City's main hospital where doctors, already facing critical supply shortages, were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, often without anesthesia.

A steady stream of ambulances, taxis, cars and at least one motorcycle also arrived at a hospital in Khan Younis. Men jumped from the vehicles and scrambled to open doors, with hospital staff and bystanders helping carry the injured.

One man rushed in carrying a limp child in his arms. A girl with her head wrapped with a makeshift bandage was helped from a car. Many injured had to be carried by multiple men or hoisted onto gurneys.

As soon as one vehicle was unloaded, another arrived to take its place.

Biden said Egypts president agreed to open the crossing and to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, it will end, he said. The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.

Egypt must still repair the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the Rafah crossing, Gazas only connection to Egypt, said the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed.

Supplies will go in under supervision of the U.N., Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and dont go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

Relatives of some of the roughly 200 people who were taken hostage and forced back to Gaza during the attack reacted in fury to the aid announcement.

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals," said a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed Wednesday after a 12-hour lull. Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, including on cities in the south that Israel had described as safe zones for civilians.

In his brief visit, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing U.S. support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies. Upon his arrival, Biden embraced Netanyahu, said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israels fault and expressed concern for the suffering of Gazas civilians. He also announced $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Israeli military held a briefing Wednesday laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital.

Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military was not firing in the area when the blast occurred. He said Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage was fired by Islamic Jihad militants from a nearby cemetery at the time of the blast. Independent video showed one rocket in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said.

The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital, he said. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a large crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rockets warhead and its unspent propellant, he said.

Hamas called Tuesdays hospital blast a horrific massacre caused by an Israeli strike.

Islamic Jihad said Israeli orders issued days before for al-Ahli to be evacuated, and a previous strike at the hospital, proved the hospital was an target. The group added that the scale of the explosion, the angle of the explosives fall and the extent of destruction all pointed to Israel.

The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, said the hospital, run by the Episcopal Church, received at least three Israeli military orders to evacuate in the days before the blast. Israeli shelling hit it Sunday, wounding four staff, he said. Israel ordered all 22 hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate last week. The Israeli military accuses the militants of hiding among civilians.

Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping to be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south.

On Wednesday morning, the blast scene was littered with charred cars. One man who had been sheltering there with his family, Mohammed al-Hayek, said he was sitting with other men in a hospital stairwell Tuesday night when he stepped away for coffee.

When I returned, they were torn to pieces, he said.

The death toll was in dispute. The Health Ministry initially said at least 500 had died, but revised that number to 471 on Wednesday. Al-Ahli officials said the toll was in the hundreds.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas deadly incursion. Militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since toward cities across Israel.

Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes, roughly half of Gazas population. Those fleeing the north and Gaza City to move south have crowded into U.N. schools or the homes of relatives.

With Israeli airstrikes relentlessly pounding the Gaza Strip, displaced Palestinians increasingly feel that no place is safe.

The Musa family fled to the typically sleepy central town of Deir al-Balah and took shelter in a cousins three-story home near the local hospital. But at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, a series of explosions, believed to be airstrikes, rocked the building, turning the family home into a mountain of rubble that they said buried some 20 women and children.

The dead body of Hiam Musa, the sister-in-law of Associated Press photojournalist Adel Hana, was recovered from the wreckage Wednesday evening, the family said. They don't know who else is under the rubble.

It doesnt make sense, Hana said. We went to Deir al-Balah because its quiet, we thought we would be safe.

The Israeli military said it was investigating.
A Mombasa court has sentenced a 24-year-old man to 20 years in jail for defiling a 13-year-old street boy.

Chief Magistrate Martha Mutuku ordered that Michael Mwakio start to serve the sentence from the time he has been in custody.

The court ruled that the prosecution, led by Principal Prosecution Counsel Alex Gituma, had conclusively proven the case against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt.

In her ruling, Magistrate Mutuku noted that the substantial jail term would act as a deterrent to anyone contemplating exploiting vulnerable children.

The court heard that the accused lured a group of street children to his residence in the Tudor area at night, promising them accommodation as an alternative to sleeping on the streets.

Later in the dead of the night, the accused undressed and sexually assaulted one of the boys, issuing threats to throw the victim into the sea if he raised an alarm.

Another street boy awoke from his sleep and caught the accused in the act. He alerted neighbours forcing the accused to escape.

Michael Mwakio was caught in the morning hours after emerging from his hideout and forcibly taken to Makupa police station.

The sex pest committed the offense on February 28, 2022, in the Tudor estate area in Mvita Sub County within Mombasa County.
Nominated Senator Karen Nyamu has threatened to lead women in Nairobi County in a nude protest to advocate for the rights and recognition of residents in the citys slums.

Senator Nyamu, who voiced her support on Wednesday for a Senate Bill aimed at securing increased funds for slums, emphasized that these areas should be officially recognized and labeled as marginalized.

In a bold effort to secure increased resource allocation for Nairobi, Nyamu pledged to mobilize women in the county, even to the extent of encouraging them to undress in public streets if necessary, to draw attention to their plight.

We have been crying as Nairobi for these slum dwellers and we have been ignored over the years and we are going to result even to unorthodox means, she warned.

As Nairobi women in Laini Saba, Kiboro, Mji wa Hurumawere going to undress in this town if that is what it takes to be heard so that we get the attention of these policymakers and this House and the legislators. Nairobi is not a rich county; just because we are the seat of government and we have rich estates does not mean we are rich.

According to Nyamu, the Nairobi county government has consistently been excluded from comparable budgetary allocations, with lawmakers often characterizing the capital city as a wealthy county, contrary to the demonstrated statistics.

She emphasized that a significant population resides in slum areas, enduring deplorable living conditions. Hence, a more substantial allocation would facilitate development and relieve the strain on the already burdened county budget.

Nairobi has been assumed to be a rich county. Just because we have rich estates like Karen and Muthaiga, we ignore the slum dwellers of Nairobi. Nairobi is the home of big slums like Kibera, Mathare, Korogocho, Kayabas and Silanga, she explained.

I want this House to recognize these regions as marginalised because they are marginalisedjust because they neighbour Karen or Muthaiga or other rich estates does not mean they should be ignored. They are not children of a lesser God.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has moved a group of six hippos that had been causing distress to workers at the Naivasha Water and Sewerage Company (NAIVAWASCO) sewage treatment plant in Naivasha, resulting in the death of one employee.

Addressing the relocation operation in Naivasha, Dr. Dominic Mijele, Assistant Director of Veterinary Services at the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS), explained that the move was prompted by complaints from NAIVAWASCO employees. The hippos had posed a threat, leading to the unfortunate death of an employee last month while carrying out duties at the treatment plant.

RELATED  Hippo Attack Kills Sewer Worker in Naivasha Sparking Protests from Colleagues

The hippo family, having ventured from the nearby Lake Naivasha, took residence at a sewage pond within the treatment plant, creating challenges for NAIVAWASCO employees. After ten days of setting traps and subsequently sedating the hippos, KWS relocated the animals to Laikipia Conservancy in containers on trucks.

Dr. Mijele mentioned that they have constructed moats (depressions) around the treatment plant as a temporary measure to prevent hippos escaping from the lake from reinvading the facility.

However, he emphasized that this is a short-term solution. Dr. Mijele recommended that the county put up a proper fence around the plant, as the moats could be filled up during rainfall, creating an opportunity for the hippos to breach the facility once again.

Alex Mbugua, the Member of the County Assembly (MCA) for Lakeview Ward, who was present during the hippo relocation, welcomed the move and urged KWS to adopt a proactive rather than reactive approach to incidents of animal attacks.

The hippos have been at this treatment plant since 2020 and reproduced and increased in number, making them become aggressive in order to protect the young ones, but KWS did nothing, he said.

The Wildlife Research and Training Institute reports that Lake Naivasha is home to an estimated 500 hippos, a number considered optimal for the water body.

In the past year, more than 20 individuals, primarily foot-fishermen, have suffered fatal injuries or maiming incidents due to encounters with the hippos during fishing activities.

The escalation of human-wildlife conflicts across the country is attributed to factors such as population growth, agricultural expansion, infrastructure development, climate change, and habitat loss.

In addressing this challenge, Dr. Mijele recommends that residents in areas prone to wildlife conflicts unite and contribute their land to establish conservancies. This collaborative effort aims to maximize the benefits derived from coexisting with the wildlife in the regions.
Governor Johnson Sakaja condemned the mistreatment of street vendors by City Council Askaris(Kanjo) on Wednesday, terming the incident as most unfortunate.

On Wednesday morning, Kanjo askaris targeted street vendors selling eggs and smokies, confiscating their trolleys and goods, and causing spillage in the process.

The happenings in the CBD earlier today were most unfortunate. This is not the way to treat Nairobians as we have continually implored our officers to treat Nairobians with Dignity, Sakaja said.

The governor mentioned that his administration has maintained a positive relationship with informal traders for a year.

We have had cordial relations with informal traders for a year but lately there have been unfortunate incidences that seek to sabotage that. We will take disciplinary action, he assured.

Governor Sakaja said he dug into his own pocket to compensate the smoke vendors with Sh10,000 each, assuring them of action against the Kanjo askaris.

I have ordered the immediate release of all confiscated items, apologized to the traders, and personally compensated each of them to the tune of 10,000 shillings each. Even if the traders were operating without the required documentation, including a Medical Certificate from Public Health that every food handler must have for the safety of Nairobians, they did not deserve such treatment and we are dealing with this internally. Poleni sana, he said in a statement on X.

Johnson Sakaja, you want to say those Kanjo Askaris woke up and decided to treat Nairobians like animals without your approval Mr. governor? You cant run Nairobi through attacking and defending tactics. These Kanjo Askaris harras innocent people daily. Dont act shocked today. https://t.co/fuwiYDJAl1 pic.twitter.com/bdZbTYRLiu  Alinur Mohamed (@AlinurMohamed_) October 18, 2023
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan received Shantanu Narayen, the president and CEO of one of the world's largest and most diversified software companies, Adobe, who was awarded the Armenian State Award for global contribution to the IT sector, informs the PMs office.

The Prime Minister noted that the decision to award the prize for global contribution to the field of IT is a high appreciation of Mr. Narayens achievements, and noted that his experience in the field of high technology is exemplary for our society, especially for the youth.

Shantanu Narayen thanked Prime Minister Pashinyan for appreciating his work and emphasized that he sees a great future for the high-tech sector in Armenia. He expressed his willingness to closely cooperate with Armenian colleagues, presenting his experience and capabilities to them.

Then, the 13th ceremony of awarding the State Award of the Republic of Armenia for the global contribution in the field of information technologies was held.

In his speech, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted.

"Honorable President of the Republic of Armenia,

Dear attendees,

I welcome the regular state award ceremony for global investment in the high-tech sector, and I want to emphasize that this award ceremony is important not only for the recipients of the award, but also for the government of Armenia and the high-tech sector of Armenia.

Why are we holding this awards ceremony and what message are we trying to convey? First, of course, we express our appreciation to those people who in some way had a turning, revolutionary impact on our times. When we say people contribute to the high-tech industry, it means that people have an influence on the times, because technology now determines the times, the way of living, the style of living, the speed of living and the quality of living.

Secondly, we hereby emphasize the policy of the government of the Republic of Armenia and reaffirm our political commitment to do everything to make Armenia a high-tech country and our determination to endow Armenia's economy and life with high-tech efficiency.

Thirdly, of course, we show individual success stories, big success stories to the youth, businesses, and startups of the Republic of Armenia, trying to encourage people who are either working or thinking in that field, or maybe they are in the process of choosing a profession, to follow the example of our award winners. And seeing such prominent people in Armenia might become a factor for their professional choice.

Of course, we also have a task to show the developments taking place in Armenia to our partners, award winners, and I am also happy to record that we can say that we also have a certain dynamic of development in the IT sector to show. And we have been ensuring almost two-digit growth in the sector in Armenia for many years. As of 2022, more than 30,000 people work in the industry and the turnover of the industry has exceeded 1 billion USD.

In general, this award ceremony and communication with the awardees is also very important for the Government, because during the contacts with the awardees I try to find answers to several questions, or rather two specific questions. I want to find out what these successful people thank governments for, firstly for their individual success and secondly for the success of their companies.

And from my contacts over the last five years, I have drawn two main conclusions, that the primary role of governments is to make education as accessible as possible and to ensure its quality, and secondly, to ensure as fair and honest as possible a level playing field for competition, particularly in the field of public procurement, so that companies have the opportunity to participate and develop their ideas, implement their ideas and sell them to governments.

I am happy to record that today also, we had a very meaningful conversation with Mr. Narayen on this topic, and I want to thank him for the opportunity to hear his assessment of the most effective tools for the development of the IT sector. And I'm very grateful that he was happy to share his approaches and views."

Afterwards, Prime Minister Pashinyan handed over the 2022 State Award of the Republic of Armenia for global investment in the field of High Technologies to Shantanu Narayen, President and Chief Executive Officer of Adobe.

In his turn, Shantanu Narayen said:

"Mr. Prime Minister,

Mr. President,

Honorable guests,

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for this great honor that is being bestowed upon me and Adobe Systems today. Thank you very much. Adobe's vision has truly been to change the world through digital tools.

The company was founded so that anyone who has an idea can express it. Adobe has been influential in enabling billions of people around the world to be able to take an idea in their mind and express it. I am honored to be part of the company for more than 25 years.

I highly appreciate the conversation I had with the Prime Minister today. Today, tonight, he asked me a lot of questions about what it will take to further foster IT development. It was a very good conversation for both of us, we were both interested in education, the topic of talent and creating a macroeconomic environment in which there will be opportunities for more companies to start, because I really believe that the startup community in the country is an important indicator for the success of the industry.

Adobe is proud that we have a research presence here. Yesterday was a very important day for us, because we opened our new building, which I think proves that we are loyal to the people of Armenia and are ready to continue expanding our presence here.

But let me repeat that today is a great honor for me, I want to thank everyone, including the members of the commissions, who gave me this honor. I accept this on behalf of 30,000 Adobe employees."
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At the meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) held on Wednesday, the situation in the South Caucasus was discussed and a statement was adopted regarding Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The statement reads as follows:

"The European Union continues to follow with concern the extremely difficult situation arising from the mass exodus of Karabakh Armenians following Azerbaijans military operation on 19 and 20 September and the nine months-long blockade on the Lachin corridor. Nearly the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh, over 100,600 persons, have found refuge in Armenia.

It is imperative to ensure continuous unimpeded humanitarian support to those who are still in need in Karabakh, as well as to those who have left. The European Commission last week announced an additional package of humanitarian aid of EUR 10.45 million on top of the EUR 20.8 million already provided since 2020.

Azerbaijan has to ensure the human rights, fundamental freedoms and security of the Karabakh Armenians, including their right to live in their homes in dignity, without intimidation or discrimination, as well as to create the conditions for the voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return of refugees and displaced persons to Nagorno-Karabakh with due respect for their history, culture and human rights. In addition, the cultural heritage and property rights of the local population need to be effectively protected and guaranteed.

In this regard, we remind that Azerbaijan must comply with the interim measures indicated by the European Court of Human Rights on 22 September, i.e. to refrain from taking any measures which might entail breaches of their obligations under the Convention, notably Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment).

We took note of [Azerbaijan] President Aliyev's public remarks about willingness to live in peace with Karabakh Armenians and preserve their rights. Azerbaijan has a clear primary responsibility for the fate of the population. Tangible, concrete and transparent guarantees must be provided. As an important confidence-building measure, we expect a comprehensive amnesty for all Karabakh Armenians, including their representatives, and restraint by all sides from harsh rhetoric.

International access to Karabakh is crucial when it comes to providing much needed assistance and ensuring an independent monitoring of the situation on the ground. The European Union has taken note of the two recent UN visits. We praise the work of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Migration and Refugees, who provides support and assistance to the Armenian authorities in handling this massive exodus on its territory, and look forward to the Council of Europe fact-finding mission led by Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic and its subsequent recommendations.

The EU reiterates its support to the sovereignty, inviolability of borders and territorial integrity of both Azerbaijan and Armenia. We call on Azerbaijan to reaffirm its unequivocal commitment to the territorial integrity of Armenia, in line with the 1991 Almaty Declaration.

The EU remains committed to facilitating dialogue between both sides in order to ensure a comprehensive and sustainable peace for the benefit of all populations in the region."
Armenia FM on Palestinian-Israeli conflict: We call not to target civilians

During question on sanctions against Azerbaijan, Germany FM starts talking about Yerevan-Baku peace

Dollar down, euro up in Armenia

3 persons forcibly displaced from Karabakh to Armenia still in critical, 11 others in severe condition

Germany FM visits Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan

Economy minister: Largest source of foreign direct investment in Armenia is UAE for first time

FMs discussing Armenia-Germany agenda, regional issues (PHOTOS)

HSBC Armenias Head Office and STATUS services are moving to new address (PHOTOS)

Russia deputy PM: Azerbaijan already started highway construction via Iran, bypassing Armenia

Economy ministry: Armenian cognac to be sold in European market under Armenian brandy brand name

Germany FM arrives in Armenia

What political message Russia sends by opening consulate in Syunik Province? Armenia deputy FM comments

Armenia deputy FM responds to Russia MFA spox: Such assessment does not correspond to reality

Mirzoyan on Armenia's Crossroads of Peace project: We realize what we have proposed

Armenia FM: 3+3 platform is conversation between equal countries

Armenia's Mirzoyan to opposition MP: Will you say what you know about Iran that we haven't done?

FM to parliament opposition: Let experts analyze during whose rule there was loss of Armenia sovereignty

FM to parliament opposition: Armenia procures far more weapons than your political party could dream of

Mirzoyan: I know of about 200 square kilometers of Armenia territory that is under Azerbaijan control now

Mirzoyan: Armenia will open diplomatic missions in S. Korea, Luxembourg

Armenia FM: We will continue to deepen relations with EU

Armenia MFA: There are some problems in relations with Russia

Armenia's Mirzoyan: Current year was not, is not going at all the way we were trying to

Ararat Mirzoyan: We may have good news soon on opening of Armenia-Turkey land border

Armenia's Mirzoyan: Border delimitation with Azerbaijan should be with latest Soviet-period maps

US House of Representatives approves Republican bill for Israel military aid

Armenia FM: No other government in world that accepts more than 100,000 refugees in few days but no upheaval in country

Germany FM to visit EU monitoring mission in Armenia, center for reception of refugees from Karabakh

Ambassador Makunts, US Senator Fetterman discuss security challenges that Armenia, its region currently face

Newspaper: Armenia trying to smooth over strained relations with Russia

Russia approves agreement to open consulate general in Kapan, capital of Armenias Syunik Province

MFA spox: We salute to journalists who stand on side of justice, cover truth related to Armenia, South Caucasus

PACE co-rapporteurs to make monitoring visit to Armenia

MFA: Armenia not yet responded to proposals received from Azerbaijan in September

Yerevan hosting international conference on 100th anniversary of Armenian Cinema

Armenia legislature vice-speaker: Azerbaijan president not a peacemaker at all

Embassy in Baku: Germany supports Azerbaijan-Armenia talks, with European Council Presidents mediation

Hakob Arshakyan: There is one original military map but Armenia, Azerbaijan have access to it

Noubar Afeyan: Arresting, charging Ruben Vardanyan is psychological pressure on worlds 10 million Armenians

Greece sends humanitarian aid for Armenians displaced from Karabakh

Armenia National Security Service exposes terrorism preparation

Zakharova: Armenia leadership is purposefully destroying allied relations with Russia

Azerbaijan announces capture of elderly Armenian man

Russia MFA spox accuses some Armenia media of Russophobia and nationalism

Maria Zakharova: Moscow stands ready to host Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs meeting in near future

Bidens new possible nominee for US Deputy Secretary of State was educated in Soviet Armenia

Turkey presidential lawyer joins Hrant Dink murder trial

PM: Unit within National Security Service is set up that will ensure security of communications via Armenia

EU monitoring mission in Armenia announces full activity by opening headquarters in Yeghegnadzor city

Pope Francis says he loves the sea but hasn't been there in almost 50 years

Pashinyan: Quite a large flow of forcibly displaced people from Karabakh are applying for Armenia citizenship

Leapmotor to become Stellantis' 15th brand

Armenia delegate: Russian natural gas being sold to Europe via Azerbaijan pipeline should not prevail over democracy

Newspaper: Karabakh MPs holding closed discussions in Armenia

US State Department: Any violation of Armenia sovereignty, territorial integrity will bring serious consequences

James Webb telescope manages to measure exoplanet temperature

Belgium allows owners to be buried alongside their pets

Azerbaijan, Pakistan are developing military cooperation

Armenia official: Our goal is to get license to operate the nuclear plant until 2036

Economy minister proposes China companies to be engaged in Armenia industrial parks, dry port projects

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
As of today, more than 3,000 people forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh have left Armenia. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced this at the Cabinet meeting of the Armenian government Thursday.

"I don't want to draw conclusions in connection with this topic. Maybe many of them are going [abroad] to see their relatives, to spend some time, and I hope that we give that message very clearly. And I also call on our sisters and brothers who were forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh to have staying in Armenia as a priority plan.

We [the Armenian government] are doing everything to assist them in the case when de facto there will be no desire or opportunity to return to Nagorno-Karabakh, our policy is to do everything so that they stay in Armenia. And I call on our brothers and sisters forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh not to consider emigration from Armenia as a plan for future actions," said Pashinyan.

He recalled that the Armenian government has already allocated more than $100 million, and developed various programs to meet the needs of the Armenians forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The political and clear message of all of us shall be that we do not want and urge not to consider the option of emigrating from Armenia, leaving Armenia," said Pashinyan, summing up his remarks.

According to official data, 100,632 forcibly displaced Armenians have arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh.
With the assistance by the Wallonia Export-Investment Agency (AWEX), a group of representatives of Belgian companies visited Armenia in order to expand economic ties. Belgian ambassador to Armenia Eric De Muynck told reporters about this on Thursday.

During the meeting with the representatives of the Armenian government, the Armenian colleagues proposed to deepen the cooperation in pharmaceuticals, modern technologies, and some other branches, the Belgian diplomat added.

"The Flanders and Brussels businessmen are interested in cooperation with Armenia, and the [Belgian] embassy [to be opened in Armenia] should serve as a connecting link between the businesses of the two countries," said the Belgian ambassador.

AWEX counselor Eric Bletard, in turn, said that the representatives of the Belgian construction sector, pharmaceutical, electronics, as well as waste processing companies will come to Armenia.

"Armenian colleagues have expressed their desire to establish cooperation in the fields of health care and energy," he said.

Bletard noted that the trade between the two countries is growing, during 2021-2022 this indicator increased by 10 percent, and this year a 50-percent increase is predicted.

According to him, Belgian businesses are interested in cooperation in the field of precious metals, as well as the potential of Armenia in terms of re-exporting goods to other countries.

"Foreigners are also interested in Armenia in its cultural and historical heritage. Tourism, hotel business is an interesting sphere of cooperation. There are already Belgian companies that will supply equipment and provide services [to Armenia]," the AWEX counselor added.

Valery Safarian, Chairman of the Belgian Armenian Chamber of Commerce, for his part, stated that the field of nanotechnology is developed in both Belgium and Armenia, and there is a prospect of opening a joint venture and cooperation in that sector.

As for tourism, two to three travel companies from Belgium have already included Georgia and Armenia in their travel destinations.
Violations committed by Russian state broadcasters are in the center of our attention. Robert Khachatryan, the Minister of High-Tech Industry of Armenia, told this to reporters Thursday.

"It is in the center of our attention, we are aware that it was signed by the ministry. We are very familiar with all the points of the agreement and will take appropriate steps," said Khachatryan.

When asked what it means to take appropriate steps, the minister said that he will be informed about it.

To the question as to whether the matter of closing those Russian TV stations in Armenia was being discussed? Khachatryan said: "All topics are being discussed, there is an agreement that provides for corresponding steps. If there are violations, we will make use of those steps."

The minister, however, did not comment on the question whether he agrees with the views that the Russian television companies threaten Armenia's security.
The dead bodies of dozens of residents of Nagorno-Karabakh found and brought to Armenia after the Azerbaijani military aggression on September 19-20 have traces of torture and physical injuries. Anahit Manasyan, the Human Rights Defender (ombudsperson) of Armenia, told this to reporters Thursday.

She added that this applies also to the corpses of women and children. But Manasyan did not give specific numbers, as the monitoring is still in progress.

"Unlike the previous cases, when we had access to information, now there are very few publications, the number of such cases may be much more than currently known. Everything should be done to reveal all the cases," said the ombudsperson.

She especially emphasized Azerbaijans violation of the rights of ethnic Armenians, as evidenced by the traces of torture on the bodies of the dead.

The obtained data is reflected in the preliminary report which was presented at the Hague court, and also was transmitted verbally during conversations with ambassadors and representatives of international organizations. The report has a closed part, it contains personal data, Armenias ombudsperson added.
The Russian State Duma Committee on Energy has approved the ratification of the protocol of the intergovernmental agreement which ensures duty-free deliveries of bitumen, instead of tar, from Russia to Armenia, RIA Novosti reported.

The agreement on cooperation between Russia and Armenia in the supplies of natural gas, petroleum products, and unprocessed natural diamonds was signed on December 2, 2013. It contains the list of Russian oil products that are exported to Armenia with an indicative balance, for domestic consumption, and without export customs duty.

The aforesaid protocol, which was signed on June 1, 2023, replaces bitumen with tar on this list, which enables its supplies to be carried out without paying the export tax.

"At the request of the Armenian side (...), the previously specified tar is replaced with petroleum bitumen. It is related to the expansion of road construction in Armenia," Russian Deputy Minister of Energy Anastasia Bondarenko said at the meeting of the State Duma Committee on Energy.

Bitumen is expected to be supplied to Armenia in the same amount as in the case of tar.

"Tar was 30,000 tons, and bitumen also is supposed to be delivered in the same amount," said Bondarenko.
170 schoolchildren to visit SIU for tree walk and Forestry Club demonstration

by Christi Mathis

CARBONDALE, Ill.  About 170 area children will visit the Southern Illinois University Carbondale campus on Oct. 24 for a tree walk and hands-on learning activities with SIU students, faculty and staff.

Three SIU organizations  the Tree Campus Higher Education Advisory Committee (chaired by Superintendent of Grounds David Tippy), the Forestry Club student organization and the Society of American Foresters  are orchestrating the event for the group of children from Carruthers Elementary School in Murphysboro.

The fourth-graders will enjoy a guided walk led by members of the Society of American Foresters through parts of Thompson Woods and around Campus Lake, as they learn to identify various trees. The Forestry Club will then present competitive outdoor flora-related demonstrations and engage the children in assorted tree-related activities on the lawn outside the Agriculture Building.

Media advisory

Reporters, photographers and news crews are welcome to cover the event from 10 a.m. to noon. Throughout the morning, the children will be immersed in hands-on learning activities, assuring numerous opportunities for engaging video, photographs and stories. For more information, contact David Tippy at dtippy@siu.edu or 618-453-8179 or Elizabeth Cheek at echeek@siu.edu or 618-453-3337.
SRV Media New Delhi [India], October 19: Symbiosis School of Banking and Finance (SSBF), a distinguished institute known for its financial education excellence, has announced the commencement of applications for its coveted MBA (Banking and Finance) programme. The application is open through the Symbiosis National Aptitude Test (SNAP) 2023 for two specializations in this programme: Fintech and Financial Services. Prospective candidates can embark on this journey by applying and completing their SNAP registration via the official SSBF registration link. The application window for SNAP 2023 and SSBF batch 2024-26 will close on 23rd November 2023 and 16th January 2024 respectively. In 2023, the SNAP Computer-Based Test (CBT) will be conducted on three separate dates, providing candidates with the flexibility to select the date that best suits their schedule: December 10, 2023 (Sunday), December 17, 2023 (Sunday), and December 22, 2023 (Friday). The much-anticipated SNAP 2023 examination results will be revealed on January 10, 2024 (Wednesday). To access the admit cards for the SNAP Test, candidates can log in to the official SNAP website, www.snaptest.org, on December 04, 2023 (Monday) for SNAP Test 1 and December 09, 2023 (Saturday) for SNAP Test 02 and SNAP Test 03. It's worth noting that the payment deadline aligns with the registration closing date of the examination. Dr Neha Parashar, Director, Symbiosis School of Banking & Finance (SSBF), extends a warm welcome to prospective candidates, stating, "We extend our best wishes to all aspirants embarking on this exciting phase of their careers. SSBF has consistently sought ambitious individuals ready to outshine the competition and navigate the waves of success in the financial world. Over the years, we've witnessed remarkable transformations from ordinary students to visionary financial leaders who have redefined the financial landscape. What sets our candidates' journey apart at SSBF is our unwavering focus on the fundamentals of banking and finance, including analytical skills, strategic thinking, and a deep understanding of fintech and financial services - all vital elements for thriving in the financial sector. We eagerly await the arrival of our new batch." Symbiosis School of Banking and Finance (SSBF) is a premier institution within the Symbiosis International (Deemed University) umbrella. Established with the vision of nurturing future leaders in the finance sector, SSBF has consistently delivered outstanding education in banking and finance for more than 10 years. The institute's commitment to academic excellence, innovative curriculum, and holistic development has earned it a well-deserved reputation among industry leaders and academics alike. Furthermore, According to a recent EY study, India leads the global FinTech adoption rate at 87 per cent, surpassing the worldwide average of 64 per cent. Projections indicate that the Indian FinTech sector is poised to generate USD 200 billion in revenue by 2030, signaling significant growth potential. Given this promising outlook, specialization in FinTech offered by SSBF is expected to be immensely advantageous for students aspiring to pursue careers in this field, as it aligns with the expanding job market. The Fintech specialization equips students with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate the rapidly evolving world of financial technology. It covers areas such as blockchain, digital currencies, AI in finance, and more, preparing graduates to drive innovation in the fintech industry. Meanwhile, Financial Services specialization focuses on traditional and emerging financial services, providing students with a comprehensive understanding of banking, investment, insurance, and other critical components of the financial sector. Graduates are prepared to excel in diverse roles within financial services organizations. With a global network of industry partnerships and a commitment to excellence in financial education, SSBF is the ideal institution for those seeking to embark on a successful career in banking and finance. For more information about the MBA (Banking and Finance) programme and to begin a journey towards a dynamic career in fintech or financial services, please visit the official SSBF website at https://www.ssbf.edu.in/index.php. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by SRV Media. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
BusinessWire India Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 19: LTIMindtree [NSE: LTIM, BSE: 540005], a global technology consulting and digital solutions company, announced its consolidated results today for the second quarter ended September 30, 2023, as approved by its Board of directors. "Our results in the second quarter were highlighted by strong revenue growth of 5.2% YoY, in USD terms, along with a healthy operating margin of 16% despite wage hikes across the organization. This all-round performance, in a challenging business environment, demonstrates the strength of our capabilities and disciplined execution. Our robust order inflow at USD 1.3 billion, representing a 20% increase YoY, and growth across our client bands speaks to the strength of our client relationships, robust delivery and our ability to address the priorities of our clients across their efficiency and transformation mandates." -Debashis Chatterjee, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Key financial highlights: Quarter ended September 30, 2023 In USD: * Revenue at USD 1,075.5 million (growth of 1.6% Q-o-Q / 5.2% Y-o-Y)* Net profit at USD 140.4 million (growth of 0.2% Q-o-Q / decline of 5.0% Y-o-Y) In INR: * Revenue at Rs 89,054 million (growth of 2.3% Q-o-Q / 8.2% Y-o-Y)* Net profit at Rs 11,623 million (growth of 0.9% Q-o-Q / decline of 2.2% Y-o-Y) Other highlights: Clients: * 737 active clients as of September 30, 2023* USD 10 million+ clients increased by 13 on a Y-o-Y basis, total 90* USD 20 million+ clients increased by 3 on a Y-o-Y basis, total 41* USD 50 million+ clients increased by 3 on a Y-o-Y basis, total 14 People: * 83,532 professionals as of September 30, 2023* Trailing 12 months attrition was 15.2% Deal Wins * One of the largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world has chosen LTIMindtree as their key digital transformation partner to modernize its SAP application landscape, enrich user experience, streamline business processes, and deliver contemporary digital operations across both SAP S/4HANA and SAP Cloud Solutions. * A leading US-based apparel retailer with over 900 stores has selected LTIMindtree for multi-year managed services deal for Application and Infrastructure services. * A US-based insurance and retirement major has awarded LTIMindtree with a multi-year application development and maintenance program. This program comprises 500+ applications across different services: Development, Testing, and Maintenance. * A US-based global fast-casual restaurant chain chose LTIMindtree as their strategic Digital Transformation partner, to provide Application Development & Support, Data & Analytics, Quality Engineering & Assurance Services. Partnerships * LTIMindtree achieves Top tier GSI partnership with Informatica, a global leader in MDM and Data Management space. Together, we empower organizations to achieve data excellence @speed and @scale by building modern data platforms on cloud. Recognitions * Recognized as a 'Leader' in Everest Group's Payments IT Services PEAK Matrix Assessment 2023. * Recognized as a 'Major Contender' and 'Star Performer' in Everest Group's Digital Twin Services PEAK Matrix Assessment 2023. * Recognized as a 'Major Contender' and 'Star Performer' in Everest Group's Data and Analytics (D&A) Services PEAK Matrix Assessment 2023. * Recognized as a 'Major Contender' in Everest Group's Digital Workplace Services PEAK Matrix Assessment 2023 - North America * Recognized as a 'Major Contender' in Everest Group's Life Sciences Smart Manufacturing Services PEAK Matrix Assessment 2023. * Recognized as a 'Major Contender' in Everest Group's Digital Workplace Services PEAK Matrix Assessment 2023 - Europe * Featured in Forrester's Commerce Services Landscape, Q3 2023. * Recognized as a 'Major Contender' in Everest Group's Cloud Services PEAK Matrix Assessment 2023 - North America * Recognized as a 'Visionary' in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud IT Transformation Services. *GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our 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 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. Announcements The Board of Directors have approved an interim dividend of Rs 20 per equity share of par value Rs 1 each. About LTIMindtree LTIMindtree is a global technology consulting and digital solutions company that enables enterprises across industries to reimagine business models, accelerate innovation, and maximize growth by harnessing digital technologies. As a digital transformation partner to more than 700 clients, LTIMindtree brings extensive domain and technology expertise to help drive superior competitive differentiation, customer experiences, and business outcomes in a converging world. Powered by 83,000+ talented and entrepreneurial professionals across more than 30 countries, LTIMindtree -- a Larsen & Toubro Group company -- combines the industry-acclaimed strengths of erstwhile Larsen and Toubro Infotech and Mindtree in solving the most complex business challenges and delivering transformation at scale. For more information, please visit https://www.ltimindtree.com/. Earnings Conference Call Wednesday, Oct 18, 2023 (18:00 IST) To join the Earnings conference call Register here After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. The Fact Sheet and Press Release will be available on LTIM's website. www.ltimindtree.com/investors Transcript and recording will be available on: www.ltimindtree.com/investors (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)
SRV Media New Delhi [India], October 19: In the dynamic world of men's grooming, JANAAB, an Indian-born brand, is making significant strides. The brand's commitment to quality and innovation has set them apart in the burgeoning market of cosmetic and healthcare brands. Expanding its impressive product range, JANAAB recently introduced a fruit-based Vitamin C Orange face wash. Harnessing the natural goodness of fresh oranges with blends of other fruits, this face wash not only cleanses but also invigorates the skin, leaving a radiant, refreshed complexion. Packed with Vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant, it has quickly become a staple in skincare routines, receiving praise for its revitalizing effects. The driving force behind JANAAB's success is its unwavering dedication to delivering products of exceptional quality. The brand's emphasis on research and development ensures that every product bearing the JANAAB name is of the highest standard. This meticulous approach has earned them the trust and loyalty of consumers nationwide. Another standout in JANAAB's lineup is its anti-darkening hair removal cream, tailored specifically for men. This cream has captured the market's attention for its ground-breaking approach to hair removal. Infused with carefully selected natural extracts, it not only efficiently removes unwanted hair but also hinders regrowth. What truly distinguishes it is its unique anti-darkening formula, ensuring that the skin remains smooth, supple, and free from post-application blemishes. Adding to its repertoire, JANAAB has introduced a personal intimacy product tailored for men - Janaab Man's Lubricant. This meticulously crafted lubricant is designed to enhance comfort and pleasure, ensuring a smooth and satisfying experience. With a focus on both effectiveness and sensitivity, it has swiftly garnered popularity among consumers looking for reliability and quality The enthusiasm surrounding these products is a testament to JANAAB's commitment to excellence and ingenuity. Through rigorous testing and development, its team of experts continually pushes the boundaries of what is possible in the cosmetic and healthcare industry. MD Umesh Kalra, the visionary leader behind JANAAB, shared, "We're thrilled to introduce our Vitamin C Orange face wash, a product that embodies our dedication to creating effective and natural skincare solutions." He further added, "In the world of grooming, men have unique needs that are often overlooked. Our goal at JANAAB is to bridge this gap by providing products specifically designed for men. We believe that every product should reflect quality, innovation, and care. This is just the beginning; we have exciting plans to expand our range to include men's accessories and other products tailored specifically for men's lifestyles." Customers are singing praises, reporting visible improvements in their skin's texture and appearance after including JANAAB's Vitamin C Orange face wash into their skin-care routines. Likewise, the anti-darkening hair removal cream has garnered a dedicated following, lauding its ability to address a common concern while preserving the skin's natural radiance. In addition to its exceptional products, JANAAB places a strong emphasis on ethical and sustainable practices. From sourcing ingredients responsibly to utilizing eco-friendly packaging, the brand is steadfast in minimizing its environmental impact. This resonates deeply with consumers who value products that align with their values of efficacy and Eco-consciousness. As JANAAB continues its ascent in the cosmetic and healthcare market, it stands as a beacon of innovation and quality in the realm of men's personal care. Rooted in the power of nature, its product range is poised to redefine industry standards and inspire a new era of grooming routines. In a landscape where conventional offerings dominate, JANAAB's fruit-based Vitamin C Orange face wash and anti-darkening hair removal cream are prime examples of the transformative potential of natural ingredients. With a foundation in research-driven excellence and a vision for a more confident and vibrant India, JANAAB is undoubtedly a brand to watch in the years ahead. For more information, please visit - www.janaab.in (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by SRV Media. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
GLOBAL PR CONNECT (GPRC) Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 19: Aumverse FZCO, a Dubai based Joint Venture Company between Ashoka Global DMCC (a prominent International Bullion House and leading gold trading entity) and Createrse FZCO (a Dubai-based pioneer in Metaverse sectoral play), is proud to announce its collaboration with PartyNite to join the exciting world of the metaverse which will be called GoldVerse. This strategic partnership marks a significant step towards bringing together the gold jewellery dealers of the MENA region under one roof creating a unique and immersive experience for traders and consumers alike. Leading brands of Indian origin will also mark their presence on GoldVerse. This collaboration also marks the commencement of PartyNite's worldwide expansion, unveiling the metaverse in all its splendour, enhanced by the immersive technologies of both AR and VR. The GoldVerse is set to revolutionize the way gold enthusiasts interact with the precious metal. It promises to offer an innovative blend of virtual reality and live commerce, enabling real-time transactions within the metaverse. Users will have the opportunity not only to view but also create a diverse range of gold jewellery designs but also to try them on and make purchases seamlessly. These purchases will have strong logistical backing as each jewellery brand within the GoldVerse will establish its own delivery mechanism, while the backend processes will be expertly managed by Partynite. The phygital arrangement of association enables buyers from around the world to enter this parallel gold souk that the Middle East has been proudly showcasing to the world and make actual purchases that will be seamlessly delivered. Rajat Ojha, CEO of Partynite shared, "This collaboration opens up exciting opportunities for traders and consumers, offering them a one-stop destination to explore thousands of brands and designs. It is a great phygital experience as the seamless try-on feature and buying options, coupled with real-time market information, will revolutionize the way people interact with gold in the metaverse. Karthick Chirra, CEO of Aumverse FZCO and Createrse FZCO said, "This is the only arrangement that can breach geographical barriers in a wholesome way". He also mentioned that multiple payment options and wallets specific to each geographical region are already integrated into the platform to enable a holistic user experience. Monal Thakkar, the Managing Director of Ashoka Global DMCC said, "The GoldVerse is slated to go live in the first quarter of 2024, with the onboarding of jewellers already underway. Ashoka Global DMCC envisages GoldVerse as a significant window to the world of phygital jewellery e-commerce experience with Digi Gold and Fashion Jewellery". The platform will provide information and market trends, allowing users to make informed decisions. Aumverse FZCO and Partynite's partnership in the world of metaverse represents a significant leap forward in the digital evolution of the jewellery industry. Ojha added, "The experience will seamlessly integrate with Apple's Vision Pro and Meta devices, showcasing PartyNite's ongoing commitment to future-proofing our offerings. In its final phase, GoldVerse will incorporate generative AI as an extension of Gamitronics' Brahamand IP. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by GLOBAL PR CONNECT (GPRC). ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
NewsVoir Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 19: In the world of celebrity endorsements, the latest MAK Lubricants TVCs featuring brand ambassador Rahul Dravid stand out as a delightful surprise. Unlike most commercials, these sharp-edited, fun films feel more like mini-movies, showcasing everyday situations we all can relate to. The first TVC, aimed at car owners, skilfully captures the essence of commonplace household discussions escalating into serious debates over trivial matters. Dravid, with his ever-reliable persona, swoops in to inject levity, underscoring the importance of making wise choices, whether it's about engine oil or selecting the right school for your child. Similarly, the second TVC, catering to bike and scooter owners, derives humour from the complex decisions surrounding love and life. Dravid's intervention serves as a reminder that decisions, whether related to engine oil or relationships, should be approached with careful consideration. Lastly, targeting truck owners, the advertisement humorously illustrates the ripple effect of a breakdown, humorously linking it to the closure of a beloved dhaba. Dravid's sagacious advice underscores the significance of dependability, both in the choice of engine oil and in discovering the best chicken joint in town. These TVCs are truly exceptional, not just for their clever wit and humour, but also for Rahul Dravid's remarkable comedic talent. What sets them apart even more is the remarkable range of characters portrayed, from the earnest husband and the puzzled scooter owner to the affable Sardarji. This diverse portrayal adds a layer of authenticity and relatability to the storytelling, making it all the more engaging and enjoyable. P. Sudhahar, Executive Director (Lubes), articulates this sentiment with precision, "These TVCs exemplify our unwavering dedication to dependability. They embody our core values of reliability and quality, reinforcing our commitment to delivering exceptional products that our customers can rely on." S. Abbas Akhtar, Chief General Manager (Public Relations & Brand), who played a pivotal role in conceiving, scripting, and positioning these films, shares his insights, "By interweaving relatable, real-life situations with the significance of choosing the right engine oil, we've crafted narratives that resonate deeply with our audience. Through this creative approach, we aim not only to entertain but also to educate our customers about the importance of making informed decisions regarding their choice of engine oils." Overall, these MAK Lubricants TVCs, featuring Rahul Dravid, do more than just market a product; they offer an engaging narrative that not only brings a smile to your face but also cultivates a deeper understanding of the significance of dependability when selecting engine oils for your vehicle. Links to TVC's TVC 1 - Bharat Petroleum - Aapki Gaadi Ka Mr. Dependable!Link - youtu.be/6h0c3seflxA?si=9uSbluRaQsdRZT2d TVC 2 - Bond between MAK Lubricants and Rahul Dravid - our Mr. Dependable | ScooterLink - youtu.be/OBhE-ZHhPQI?si=5rCCqM0sWbwbxHUh TVC 3 - Bond between MAK Lubricants and Rahul Dravid - our Mr. Dependable | TruckLink - youtu.be/VzvaDlABhek?si=PMcxNShULRo1kv7H Fortune Global 500 Company, Bharat Petroleum is the second largest Indian Oil Marketing Company and one of the premier integrated energy companies in India, engaged in refining of crude oil and marketing of petroleum products, with a significant presence in the upstream and downstream sectors of the oil and gas industry. The company attained the coveted Maharatna status, joining the elite club of companies having greater operational & financial autonomy. Bharat Petroleum's Refineries at Mumbai, Kochi and Bina Refinery have a combined refining capacity of around 35.3 MMTPA. Its marketing infrastructure includes a network of installations, depots, energy stations, aviation service stations and LPG distributors. Its distribution network comprises over 21,000 Energy Stations, over 6,200 LPG distributorships, 525 Lubes distributorships, 123 POL storage locations, 53 LPG Bottling Plants, 70 Aviation Service Stations, 4 Lube blending plants and 4 cross-country pipelines. Bharat Petroleum is integrating its strategy, investments, environmental and social ambitions to move towards a sustainable planet. The company has chalked out the plan to offer electric vehicle charging stations at around 7000 energy stations over next 5 years. With a focus on sustainable solutions, the company is developing a vibrant ecosystem and a road-map to become a Net Zero Energy Company by 2040, in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Bharat Petroleum has been partnering communities by supporting innumerable initiatives connected primarily in the areas of education, water conservation, skill development, health, community development, capacity building and employee volunteering. With 'Energising Lives' as its core purpose, Bharat Petroleum's vision is to be the most admired global energy company leveraging talent, innovation & technology. (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)
U.S. House fails to elect new speaker in second vote amid Republican infighting

Xinhua) 08:57, October 19, 2023

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan (C), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday failed to elect a new speaker in the second round of voting, as Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, lost more votes from his own party compared with the first round amid continued Republican infighting.

Jordan won 199 votes out of the 221 House Republicans, losing 22 Republican votes in the second round of full-chamber voting, compared with 20 Republican defections in the first round on Tuesday, indicating mounting resistance within the party and casting doubt about the way forward.

Four Republicans who voted for him on Tuesday defected in the second round, while he picked up support from two others and secured another vote from the member who was absent for the first ballot.

Among the 22 Republican holdouts, five voted for former speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was removed from the position two weeks ago, and seven voted for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who previously won the Republican speakership nomination but failed to unite the party and dropped out of the race.

Three voted for former Representative Lee Zeldin, who is not a member of Congress at this time. One cast his vote for former House Speaker John Boehner, who was forced to retire early in 2015 by threats of ouster from right-flank insurgents like those who toppled McCarthy.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic nominee, received all 212 votes from his party. Both Jordan and Jeffries fell shy of the 217 majority needed to become the next House speaker.

With a slim 221-212 Republican majority in the chamber, Jordan can only afford to lose four votes from Republicans if all members are present in order to reach the majority threshold and win the gavel.

"Threats and intimidation tactics will not change my principles and values," Republican Congresswoman Jen Kiggans wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, alluding to the pressure campaign that has been unleashed on Republican holdouts by Jordan's allies. Kiggans voted for McCarthy in both rounds of voting.

Jordan, co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is considered a far-right figure within the Republican party, and has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump. The Ohio Republican advocates for deep spending cuts, enhanced border security, and has been a prominent player in the impeachment investigation opened against President Joe Biden.

"If Jordan becomes speaker, it will signal Republicans putting a hardliner in charge of the House and someone who is used to confrontational politics. A number of Republican House members seem to have doubts about having a far-right member in charge," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.

The House can't move forward on its legislative process until a speaker is chosen, and lawmakers need to pass a spending bill before government funding runs out in mid-November. The House is also under pressure to take action amid the escalating Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The failed two rounds of ballots could bolster the push to empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, allowing him to oversea the passage of urgently needed legislation, until House Republicans can coalesce and elect a new leader.

The latest chaos came after the unprecedented ouster of McCarthy, who was booted out of his position in a move initiated by a conservative member of his own party. It marked the first time in U.S. history that a sitting House speaker has been voted out of office.

In January's speaker election, McCarthy clawed his way to victory by cutting a deal with conservatives after a grueling four days and 15 rounds of voting.

The empty dais in the House chamber is seen after another failed speaker vote in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

Representatives cast their votes for House Speaker in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan (C), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

The empty dais in the House chamber is seen after another failed speaker vote in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

The empty dais in the House chamber is seen after another failed speaker vote in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan (C-R), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan (1st L), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan (C-R), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan (R), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, leaves after speaking with Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan (R), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen with Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan (L, Front), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

U.S. Right-wing Republican Jim Jordan (C), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen in the House chamber in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
BusinessWire India New Delhi [India], October 19: As part of its three-year association with Sunburn, the world's #10 music festival and Asia's premiere EDM festival, Absolut Glassware is once again ready to curate exhilarating experiences for the youth of the country. As the Co-Presenting Partner, Absolut Glassware will add to the spirit of the world-famous music festival, happening in Goa from December 28 to 31 this year along with 24 shows in 10+ cities featuring 6 global artists and the world's best DJs. The brand aims to own the future of nightlife in India and a big part of this are the Sunburn Arenas that kicked off in Bangalore earlier this month. With an aim to foster a more inclusive and unbiased environment, this edition of Sunburn, in association with Absolut, will feature a diverse lineup of DJs including women and people of colour. At its core, this initiative aims to bring people from diverse backgrounds closer together and create a sense of unity through the universal language of music. This year, Absolut is committed to showcasing top-notch visual designs and making use of new-age technology to create engaging experiences for music enthusiasts. Besides live performances by musical powerhouses like Alesso, Timmy Trumpet, Charlotte De Witte, Armin van Buuren, Dmitri Vegas and Like Mike among others, the audience can look forward to vibrant, immersive Absolut experiences For patrons at home, four famous influencers will be sharing glimpses from India's biggest music festival and its shows. Commenting on the association, Pulkith Modi, Head of Marketing, International Brands at Pernod Ricard India, said, "Sunburn is one of the biggest, most-awaited music festivals of the year and we are thrilled to be back with it. Committed to its vision of creating a more progressive and inclusive, colourless world for the youth, Absolut Glassware has curated some extraordinary experiences with Sunburn this year. We are proud to be at the forefront of cultural conversations, building the future of nightlife and a world of free expression." For more updates and to know about the schedule of the Sunburn Festival and Sunburn Arenas, visit: https://sunburn.in/. (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)
Delhi''s Saket Court on Wednesday convicted five accused in Journalist Soumya Vishwanathan murder case under provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). During the proceedings, the court ruled that it is proved that the accused were dependent on the proceeds of crime for their livelihood. The court based its judgement on circumstantial evidence, scientific evidence and statements of eyewitnesses who identified the accused persons. The court said, "It is duly proved by the prosecution that accused persons were dependent for their livelihood on the proceeds of the organized crime as committed by their organized crime syndicate and they did not led any evidence that they were having any other pecuniary source for their livelihood, so the presumption is drawn as per Section 17 (2) of the MCOC Act against the accused persons that the pecuniary resources for the livelihood of the accused persons were acquired or derived from the illegal activities of the organized crime syndicate and defence of the accused persons in that regard is also rejected." The court said that the prosecution has also duly proved beyond all reasonable doubt the charge of offence punishable under sections 3(1)(i) of MCOC Act against the accused Ravi Kapoor and co-accused persons namely Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik and accordingly, they are held guilty and convicted for charge of commission of offence punishable under sections 3(1)(i) of MCOC Act, 1999. The court also convicted four accused Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik for the offence of murder. "The court is of the considered view that prosecution has duly proved beyond all reasonable doubt that accused Ravi Kapoor and his other associates co-accused Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik had committed the murder of the victim Soumya Vishwanathan with the intention to rob her on September 30, 2008 in between 03.25 am to 03.55 am at Nelson Mandela Marg," the judge said. They are accordingly held guilty and convicted for charge of offence punishable under sections 302/34 IPC, judgement read. "Prosecution has duly proved by producing the circumstantial evidence, scientific evidence and eye witnesses who identified the accused persons Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar, Baljeet Singh Malik to corroborate the confessional statement of the accused Ravi Kapoor as recorded under section 18 of the MCOC Act to establish the fact that accused Ravi Kapoor in furtherance of common intention with the accused persons Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Singh Malik had murdered the deceased/victim Soumya Vishwanathan with the bullet fired by country made pistol," ASJ Pandey said. "It is proved from the above discussion that accused Ajay Sethi used to provide the necessary facilities to the co-accused Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ajay Kumar in the commission of offence of the organized crime syndicate led by accused Ravi Kapoor," the court said in the judgement passed on Wednesday. The court also said that the prosecution has also duly proved beyond all reasonable doubt that accused Ajay Sethi retained knowingly and intentionally the offending car originally stolen from Vasant Kunj and he is accordingly held guilty and convicted for charge of offence punishable Under section 411 IPC. He has been also convicted under sections of MCOCA. While convicting him the court said that the prosecution has also duly proved beyond all reasonable doubt that accused Ajay Sethi abetted or knowingly facilitated the commission of organized crime by the organized crime syndicate led by accused Ravi Kapoor having its other members Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, Ajay Kumar. "He also used to hold the property derived or obtained from the proceeds of organized crime of the organized crime syndicate and the charge regarding the same for commission of offence punishable under MCOCA. Accordingly, he is held guilty and convicted for charge of offence punishable under sections 3(2) of MCOC Act and charge of offence punishable under sections 3(5) of MCOC Act, 1999," ASJ Pandey said. As per prosecution, on September 30, 2008, in between 03.25 am to 03.55 am, near Pole No.78, at Nelson Mandela Marg, New Delhi, the accused persons namely Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Singh Malik had committed the murder of deceased/victim Soumya Vishwanathan, daughter of MK Vishwanathan by firing the bullet through country made pistol in order to rob her. The said bullet was fired by the accused Ravi Kapoor while targeting the victim when the accused persons were chasing the victim''s car through the accused person''s car beingdriven by the accused Ravi Kapoor in order to rob the victim. It was further alleged that the victim was chased by the accused persons when she was returning from her office to her home and accused persons chased the victim''s car in order to rob her as she was travelling alone in her car. It was allegation against the co-accused Ajay Sethi that on 06.04.2009, at the parking of Sector -14, Faridabad, Haryana Market, he was found in possession of stolen car belonging to Gaurav Singh. The said car was used in the commission of offence against the deceased/victim Soumya Vishwanathan by the other co accused persons namely Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ajay Kumar. It was further alleged that after the arrest of the accused persons namely Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla and Baljeet Malik in the Jigisha Ghosh murder case their criminal activities were studied during the investigation. It was found that accused Ravi Kapoor and his other associates/co-accused persons were involved in the continuous unlawful activities by involving themselves in the cases in which violence or threat of violence was used for their joint pecuniary benefits for their livelihood and they were found to be members of organized crime syndicate led by accused Ravi Kapoor. (ANI)
According to officials, the seizure was made on October 17 (Tuesday).

The gold bar was extracted from gold paste kept in capsules concealed in the rectum by the passenger. The seized gold, weighing 717 grams, was priced at Rs 42.91 lakhs, a Customs Department official said.

Further details are awaited.

Earlier this month, the AIU at the Trichy airport seized gold worth Rs 1,08,10,800 extracted from paste-like materials concealed in shoes and underwear worn by the children of a male passenger.

The passenger had arrived from Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur. (ANI)
Under the leadership of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren state-supported Abua Awas Yojana (AAY) was given approval at a meeting of the council of ministers held here on Wednesday. Under AAY, the state government is planning to construct 8 lakh houses across Jharkhand and provide them to the poor and needy free of cost. This comes after the Central government did not give its approval for the construction of more than 8 lakh houses in the state. "Under the said scheme, a target has been set to construct eight lakh pucca houses for the homeless. Under this, in the first phase, 2 lakh houses will be constructed in the financial year 2023-24, 03 lakh 50 thousand in 2024-25 and 02 lakh 50 thousand pucca houses will be constructed in 2025-26. The housing will be constructed in three phases at a cost of Rs 16 thousand 320 crore," Chief Minister's Secretariat said in a press release. Under the umbrella of the Abua Awas Yojana, a three-room permanent house and kitchen will be built, having an area of 31 square meters. "Under the scheme, provision has been made for a kitchen along with three rooms. There is a provision to increase the assistance amount for house construction under the scheme to Rs 2 lakh for eligible beneficiaries. Also, the beneficiary will receive a maximum equivalent of 95 unskilled man days at the current wage rate (revised from time to time) for the construction of his house under MGNREGA for the said scheme," the press release further said. The benefit of the scheme will be extended to families living in kutcha houses, homeless and destitute families, families belonging to Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), victims of natural calamities, and released bonded labourers. "Those who have not been given the benefit of housing schemes run by the state and central Government like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Rural, Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Awas Yojana, Birsa Awas Yojana, Indira Awas Yojana etc shall be able to receive the benefits of the aforementioned scheme. According to the above-mentioned eligibility criteria, a permanent waiting list of the beneficiaries will be prepared in the Gram Sabha," the press release further said. (ANI)
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Thursday morning reached the Delhi airport after concluding his visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Uttarakhand CM's three-day visit to the UAE was a part of the 'Invest in Uttarakhand' campaign. Under the 'Invest in Uttarakhand' campaign, the Chief Minister met industrialists and NRIs in UAE and participated in meetings organized on investment possibilities in Uttarakhand. Meanwhile, the Uttarakhand Government delegation on Wednesday held a meeting with various industry groups in Abu Dhabi as the Uttarakhand Global Investor Summit 2023 entered the second day in the UAE. In the presence of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Dhami, investment MoUs worth Rs 3550 crore were signed by the state government with various groups on the second day of the UAE tour. Of the investment MoU worth Rs 3550 crore signed by the Uttarakhand government in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, 1,000 crore for the real estate sector with Lulu Group, 500 crore for investment in the hospitality sector with Hyper Market and 250 crore for food park, ACT Facilities Middle respectively, as per an official statement by the Uttarakhand CMO. This includes MoUs worth Rs 1500 crore with East for investment in the hospitality sector and Rs 300 crore with Regent Global for investment in the pharma sector. Earlier, on the first day of the UAE tour, investment MoUs worth Rs 11,925 crore were signed in the presence of Dubai CM Dhami. Overall, investment MoUs worth Rs 15,475 crore were signed in UAE. CM Dhami earlier organised a roadshow in Dubai under the 'Invest in Uttarakhand' campaign. Dhami during his address spoke about the immense possibilities of investment in Uttarakhand. According to the official release, the Uttarakhand CM also informed the investors present in this program about the development work done in the field of religious, spiritual and adventure tourism through the construction of road, rail and ropeway in Uttarakhand under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The official release further mentioned that Dhami, during the event, said that due to the efforts of the state government, a favourable environment for investors has been created in Uttarakhand by making the investment process simple and transparent. On this occasion, CM Dhami invited all the investors present in the program to the Uttarakhand Global Investors Summit 2023' to be held in Dehradun in the month of December, according to the official statement. CM Dhami also invited all the industrial houses to the summit to be organized in Dehradun on the 8th and 9th of December. (ANI)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday held a high-level meeting at his official residence and reviewed the implementation of the Ayushman Bharat Scheme, the status of medical colleges under construction, and efforts being made for the prevention of dengue. "There has been a rise in dengue cases recently, particularly in Moradabad, Kanpur Nagar, Lucknow, and Gautam Buddha Nagar. Efforts should be made to prevent the emergence of hotspot situations in any area. Additional beds should be arranged in hospitals as per requirements. Whether in villages or cities, not a single infected patient should suffer due to a lack of treatment. There must be regular reporting of new patients in all government and private hospitals and medical colleges," CM Yogi said. He further emphasized on fogging and spraying methods to control mosquito populations. "Concrete efforts are necessary to control the situation of outbreaks in the districts. The Urban Development, Rural Development, and Panchayati Raj Departments should carry out fogging and larvicidal spraying to effectively control mosquito populations. Consistent sanitization in the mornings and fogging in the evenings should be done," he added. CM Yogi also said that the Ayushman card must be made for every family eligible for the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana and Mukhyamantri Jan Arogya Yojana. "The state government has adopted the policy of PPP mode for setting up medical colleges in unserved districts. Under this, work has started in Shamli, Mau, Maharajganj, and Sambhal whereas for Baghpat, Mainpuri, Kasganj, Mahoba, Hamirpur, and Hathras, approval has been received from the Government of India under Viability Gap Funding. Work should be started everywhere soon," Yogi Adityanath said. "Ensure proper deployment by providing appointment letters to 293 selected teachers and more than 1950 staff nurses in various medical colleges. Qualified doctors should be appointed to the vacant posts of Professor, Associate Professor, and Assistant Professor in government medical colleges as soon as possible," he added. (ANI)
Reacting to the charges of Congress leaders on unemployment in the state, Telangana minister KT Rama Rao, claimed that government had issued 2,20,000 lakh job notifications and filled 1,30,000 jobs during their last nine years of rule, Ministers office said in a statement. He added that Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) would be revamped if needed and job calendars would be released every year to fill up the vacancies. Speaking at a public meeting in Karimnagar on Wednesday, KTR said that Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were coming to Telangana "with the intention of provoking youth here". The former Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been campaigning in the state and is today holding the second stage of the 'Vijayabheri Yatra' in Bhupalpall. Earlier on Wednesday at a rally in Mulugu the Congress leader alleged that the BRS and BJP were working together. "In Telangana, there is a fight between BRS and Congress in the elections. We have sidelined and defeated the BJP. But remember that the BJP wants BRS to win in Telangana. They are working together. And the AIMIM is also involved in this coalition," Rahul Gandhi said while addressing a public meeting in Mulugu. Meanwhile, continuing his attack on the Congress, BRS Working President KT Rama Rao said that the opposition parties tried to politicize the death of Pravalika who died by suicide after being harassed by a person in Hyderabad. "Pravalika's family met KTR today and sought justice. KTR assured them to stand by Pravalika's family and also assured them of a job for her brother," the statement said. Speaking about BJP leader Bandi Sanjay, KTR asked what Sanjay did for the development of Karimnagar. "He did not get a single educational institution nor did he construct one temple in this region," KTR said. Taking a dig at Bandi Sanjay, KTR said that the former was a leader who cried to people after losing assembly elections in 2018 against Gangula Kamalakar and then in MP elections. "Don't fall for the crocodile tears of such leaders. Think wisely and vote for the BRS," said KTR. "He also stated that KCR is a leader who worked for the welfare of all the communities and never did politics in the name of religion," the statement added. Highlighting the BRS schemes, KTR said that CM KCR introduced the Dalit Bandhu scheme for the upliftment of the Dalit community, increased the reservations of the tribal community from 6 per cent to 10 per cent, set up 1001 Gurukula schools across the state, provided scholarships for students who aspire to study abroad, and resolved water and current problems, the statement added. The Election Commission of India (ECI) on October 9 announced that the Telangana Assembly polls are scheduled to be held on November 30. The counting of votes will be done on December 3. Telangana is set to witness a triangular contest between the BJP, the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and the Congress in the upcoming assembly election. In the previous Assembly election held in 2018, BRS managed to win 88 seats out of 119 and had a dominant vote share of 47.4 per cent. Congress came in a distant second with 19 seats. Its vote share was 28.7 per cent. (ANI)
The Supreme Court stayed a non-bailable warrant issued against Anwar Dhebar in a money laundering matter related to the Chhattisgarh liquor irregularities case. A bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul also issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate on the plea filed by Anwar Dhebar challenging the Raipur court's order. A special court of Raipur in Chhattisgarh on October 13 2023 directed the issuance of non-bailable warrants against Anwar Dhebar. Challenging the NBW issued against him in SC, Anwar Dhebar also sought to issue direction not to take any coercive steps against him. Anwar Dhebar was represented by Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Advocate-on-record Malak Manish Bhat. In the plea, Anwar Dhebar apprised the court with the facts related to the matter. The application copy also reiterated the top court's order to stay in the hands of the Respondent Agency. However the High Court on October 7 dismissed the Anwar Dhebar bail plea. Anwar Dhebar has challenged the said HC order in the Supreme Court. "That in absolute violation of the Order dated 18.07.2023 passed by this Court, the Respondent agency preferred an application dated 09.10.2023 before the Ld special judge, Raipur seeking issuance of non-bailable warrants against the Applicant herein. Such Application itself is in violation of the Order dated 18.07.2023 passed by this Court as the hands of the Respondent Agency were "stayed in all manner" by this Court and thus the Respondent Agency ought not have filed the aforesaid Application," the application copy read. Earlier the court asked the Enforcement Directorate to hold their hand for the time being in the money laundering matter related to the Chhattisgarh liquor irregularities case. The top court had directed ED not to take coercive steps against the petitioners including Anil and Yash Tuteja in a money laundering matter related to the Chhattisgarh liquor irregularities case and also remarked that the probe agency must keep their hands in all manner. ED investigation has revealed that Arun Pati Tripathi through his direct actions at the insistence of Anwar Dhebar, corrupted the entire liquor system of Chhattisgarh to maximize corruption in the department. He made policy changes in conspiracy with his other colleagues and gave tenders to associates of Anwar Dhebar so that maximum benefits could be taken. Despite being a senior ITS Officer and MD of CSMCL, he went against the ethos of the functioning of any State Excise Department and used the State-run shops to sell unaccounted kacha liquor, ED has alleged. ED alleged that his complicit actions resulted in massive losses to the State Exchequer and filled the pockets of the beneficiaries of the Liquor Syndicate with more than Rs 2000 Crore in illegal proceeds of crime. He also received a substantial share in this loot. Thus, the very objective of CSMCL to increase the State's revenue and to provide quality controlled liquor to citizens was violated by him for his personal illegal gains, read the official statement. ED has conducted consequential search operations at locations in Raipur, Bhilai and Mumbai and the searches have resulted in the discovery of 53 acres of land in Naya Raipur having a book value of Rs 21.60 crore acquired by Anwar Dhebar by using proceeds of crime in the name of a JV. This property was purchased through a maze of transactions in the name of an associate by routing proceeds of crime acquired from the FL-10A licensee. During recent search proceedings, ED has seized cash worth Rs 20 lacs and multiple incriminating documents, mentioned the official statement. In searches in Mumbai, unaccounted investments worth around Rs 1 Crore, with a Share trading firm in the name of Arvind Singh and Pinki Singh w/o Arvind Singh were found and the same have been frozen under PMLA. Earlier, ED had frozen Fixed Deposits worth Rs 27.5 Crore from Trilok Singh Dhillon. Earlier, ED had seized jewellery worth Rs 28 Crore from the house of a Country Liquor Distiller. (ANI)
Amid rising tensions within the INDIA alliance , Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday alleged that some "Congress leaders are siding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)", adding that he would not have trusted the grand old party if he had known that "Congress would betray them". He further said he was unaware of the fact that the INDIA bloc has been formed at the national level to defeat the BJP and the alliance partners are not fighting together at the state level. Akhilesh yadav's responded fiercely when reporters asked him about his reaction on Congress Uttar Pradesh chief Ajay Rai's statement that if Congress had fought Ghosi, they (SP) might have lost the seat. "The state chief has no authority. He was not there in the meeting held at Patna, Mumbai. What does he know about the INDIA alliance?... These people from Congress are siding or involved with the BJP," the SP leader said while talking to reporters in Sitapur. SP chief further said that he would not have trusted them if he had known that people from Congress would betray us. "If I had known that the alliance is not on the state level then I would not have sent SP leaders to Digvijaya Singh...I would not have trusted them if I had known that people from Congress would betray us," he added. The Congress's UP unit chief Ajay Rai has asked the SP to withdraw from MP in favour of the grand old party as the Akhilesh Yadav-led party, he said, did not have any base there. On Tuesday, while speaking to reporters about the allocation of seats in the INDIA alliance in Madhya Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav said that the Congress party should clarify who will get how many seats in the alliance and whether the alliance will be at a national level or on a state level. Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has released its second list of candidates for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, according to an official statement issued by the party on Wednesday. The party has declared the names of a total of 22 candidates in the second list. Madhya Pradesh is one of the five states set to hold elections this year. The state is scheduled to vote on November 17, with the vote count taking place on December 3. Voters will choose legislators from 230 Assembly constituencies. The Kamal Nath government collapsed in March 2021 when 22 sitting Congress MLAs resigned under the leadership of Jyotiraditya Scindia and joined the BJP. Subsequently, the BJP formed the government in the state, with Shivraj Singh Chouhan taking office as Chief Minister. (ANI)
After the Karnataka High Court rejected the plea to quash the CBI case in the disproportionate assets case, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Thursday termed it a "political vendetta" adding that he is a victim of the BJP's political grudge. DK Shivakumar further said that he continues to have faith in the judiciary and will fight the verdict of the Karnataka High Court withdrawing the stay on the investigation by CBI legally. "I will cooperate with whatever the process is, I respect the law of this country. I know that I have not done anything wrong. My papers are clean, I am clean. It is a political vendetta that the BJP tried using and the government gave permission," Shivakumar said. He further alleged that he is a victim of the BJP's political grudge. The current CBI investigation against him is a continuation of the ED hunt by the BJP. In a setback for Karnataka Deputy CM, the Karnataka High Court has dismissed his petition seeking the cancellation of the CBI's disproportionate assets case against him. Justice K Natarajan pronounced the order and lifted the interim stay on a CBI probe and ordered the central agency to conclude the investigation and submit the final report within three months. CBI has filed an appeal against the Karnataka High Court order dated June 12 and sought to stay on the investigation in the disproportionate assets case. Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, appearing for CBI, urged the bench to vacate the stay. CBI is probing a case against Shivakumar for allegedly possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. Earlier Income Tax has conducted a search against him. (ANI)
Punjab Police busted a terror funding module backed by Pak-based Harwinder Singh Rinda, which was being operated by Parminder Pindi, with the arrest of its five operatives. "The module was focused on disturbing economic stability in Punjab by targeting liquor vends by means of arson and firing," Punjab Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav said in a post on X. Parminder Pindi, who is a local handler, was directly in touch with Gangster Harpreet Singh alias Happy Passia, a close aide of designated terrorist Harwinder Rinda. "Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav has identified the arrested persons as Amanpreet Walia of Baba Bakala in Amritsar, Ramanbir Singh alias Fouji of village Mucchal in Amritsar, Arshpreet Singh of village Bullenangal in Amritsar, Harmanpreet Singh of Bal Sarai in Amritsar and Kirandeep Kaur of Amritsar," as per the Punjab Information And Public Relations Department. The DGP said, "Following a few incidents of liquor vends being targeted by means of arson or firing to extort money from liquor contractors, Police teams from district Batala launched a thorough probe into the matter and identified Ramanbir Singh alias Fouji among 11 accused persons as culprits behind these incidents." In at least 10 day long operation, Police teams have successfully arrested five accused persons from different locations, he added. Sharing more details, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Batala Ashwini Gotyal said, "An incident of attempted arson at one liquor vend in Shastri Nagar, Batala was reported on September 27, and two days later, a similar incident of attempted arson at a liquor vend in Batala was reported. While, on October 2, five shots were fired at one of the liquor vend of Amritsar Rural." Preliminary investigations revealed that all the accused persons were working on the directions of local handler Parminder Pindi, who was threatening and demanding extortion for terror funding from liquor contractors, she said. One of the accused persons opened fire outside the liquor vend in lieu of money, she added. Meanwhile, two cases in this regard under sections 436, 427 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under sections 307, 436, 427 and 34 of the IPC and sections 17, 18 and 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act have been registered at Police Stations City Batala and Sadar Batala respectively. (ANI)
As part of India's national initiative to promote the development of the drone ecosystem, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is currently undertaking a feasibility assessment in the Lahaul and Spiti districts of Himachal Pradesh. This initiative aims to explore the use of drones for transporting critical medical supplies such as medications, diagnostic blood samples, and sputum, according to an official release. Drones are increasingly crucial in healthcare, particularly for swift deliveries of vaccines, medications, and supplies to remote areas in emergencies. ICMR's endeavour aims to streamline the distribution of essential medical provisions from regional hospitals in Keylong to more than eight primary health centres (PHCs) in the region, encompassing locations such as Sissu, Gondhal, Thiort, Tholang, Jahalma, Gemur, Darcha, and Shansha, among others. A dedicated team from ICMR headquarters in New Delhi and ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre-Gorakhpur (Field Station Keylong) is responsible for protocol development and execution. In its maiden flight, a drone successfully transported 100+ essential medications including antibiotics, antipyretics, and multivitamins, from the police grounds in Keylong to the Tholang PHC, covering 20 km in 26 minutes. The flight took off from 11500 ft ASL (altitude above mean sea level) and went up to 14500 ft ASL, recording a temperature of -15 degrees Celsius at height. On its return journey, the drone carried TB sputum samples, blood samples, and various diagnostic specimens back to the Keylong Centre for thorough analysis. The round trip, which takes 2 hours by road and is often delayed due to snowfall, took around 26 minutes in total with the drone, the release said. ICMR, which has consistently led the way in delivering vital medical supplies via drones to challenging-to-access regions such as Manipur and Nagaland, will conduct more test flights to different PHCs in the upcoming days. To highlight the significance of the event, Dr Rajiv Bahl, Secretary DHR and Director-General, ICMR, quoted, "This 'i-DRONE' was first used during the COVID-19 pandemic by ICMR for distributing vaccines to unreachable areas. Earlier this year, we were able to successfully complete the trials for the delivery of blood and blood-related products, which are supposed to be kept at a low temperature. In the present study, we are aiming to deliver the medications and diagnostic samples at subzero-temperature areas and difficult regions with altitudes over 12,000 ft. This is an initiative towards making an impact in the lives of people residing in remote areas." Anu Nagar, Joint Secretary, DHR, also highlighted the importance of drone-based delivery in the healthcare sector. She emphasised that these feasibility trials and projects will be game changers, lay the foundation for future activities, and strengthen the Indian healthcare sector. Dr Ajay Thakur, Medical Officer, Lahaul and Spiti, stated, "This is one of the most important studies for the regions of Lahul and Spiti. Delivery of healthcare essentials via drone during emergency situations will be helpful in saving many human lives and can be used in various difficult geographical areas for both Indian civilian and military personnel". Throughout the comprehensive testing period, scientists have identified numerous technical and operational hurdles that local communities encounter when trying to deliver essential medical items, particularly in remote and challenging geographical landscapes. The study's findings will provide valuable scientific insights and lay the foundation for further exploration of the utility of drones in these areas. Additionally, the research will determine whether drones can serve as a support for conventional medical supplies in the difficult geographical conditions prevalent in these regions. The current research project was conducted with the help of state health authorities and Keylong administrative support. District administrative and health authorities, Mayank Chaudhary, Dr. Ajay Thakur, and Dr Kunal Rawat, supported the execution of this first successful trial. This activity was technically supported by the TSAW drone company for trials in the Lahaul area. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, is the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination, and promotion of biomedical research. It is one of the oldest medical research bodies in the world. ICMR's research priorities align with national health priorities. These efforts are undertaken with a view to reducing the total burden of disease and promoting the health and well-being of the population. ICMR promotes biomedical research in the country through intramural as well as extramural research. (ANI)
Several pro-Palestinian groups held an 'emergency protest' in Chicago on Wednesday amid the ongoing conflict with Israel, Reuters reported. Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine (CJP) and other groups reportedly blamed Israel for the bombing of a Palestinian hospital in Gaza. The protests have been taking place all across the US with crowds divided on the recent situation around the Israel-Hamas war that has killed thousands of people on both sides, including women, children, men and the elderly. Public access to the Capitol complex has been restricted after a sizable number of demonstrators calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas disrupted one of the House office buildings, ANI has learned from a source inside the Capitol Hill building. "We have been advised by the police to use the tunnels and not the main entrance and exit doors," a hill staffer told ANI, as the demonstrations unfolded, with members from Jewish groups holding placards that read, "Ceasefire", "Jews say, Ceasefire now." The House sergeant-at-arms sent out a memo to congressional offices that all visitors would be restricted to a single door in an attempt to control public entry into the campus. Several barriers of bike-rack fencing were erected around the Capitol building on Tuesday night as a precautionary measure in anticipation of the protest. Scores of demonstrators inside the building also chanted "ceasefire now" and were arrested by the Capitol Police throughout the afternoon. The Capitol Police also announced they were closing down roads around the Capitol to ensure the safety of protestors outside. "A group of protesters are demonstrating inside the Cannon Rotunda. Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings," the U.S. Capitol Police said in a post on X. "Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings," the Capitol Police said after the arrests."We warned the protestors to stop demonstrating and when they did not comply we began arresting them," the Capitol Police added. (ANI)
Palestine's Ambassador to the United Nations, Riyan Mansour, has slammed Israel, stating that killing more Palestinians will never make Israel more secure as he held the country responsible for the occupation of their land. During an emergency session at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday, Mansour emphasized, "For 75 years now, Israel has explained, brazenly justified how it had to dispossess us, how it had to occupy our land, how it had to kill our people, all in full impunity." He continued, "Killing more Palestinians will never, never make Israel more secure. 75 years of experience should have been proof enough for those who want to learn there is no logic in this world, no moral in this world, and no law in this world that can justify the killing of people innocent children, women and men, as a pretext to make another secure." "The whole world is watching. They're watching us. The events of the last ten days may shape the next ten years in our region and beyond. What happens next is decisive. If anyone thinks this is a situation under control for which you can plan and implement, they are making false and irresponsible assumptions. This is the kind of war where you know how it starts and have no clue how it ends until now," he added. Blaming Israel for 'massacres in Gaza', the envoy said, "There is no right to commit massacres in international law. Israel is perpetrating massacres in Gaza every single day. For over ten days now, you have witnessed it killing entire families, bomb shelters, schools, hospitals, residential buildings and convoys...You will all say civilian lives should be protected and yet some of you, until now, continue being unable to call for a stop to the assault, to call for an immediate ceasefire...: "Had this Council called for a ceasefire two days ago and acted accordingly, it would have saved hundreds of lives. Maybe for some, saving hundreds of Palestinian lives is not such an important objective to pursue. But are you sure that Palestinian lives are the only ones you would be saving if you act? We told these Council months ago, act to save lives, all lives. You did not hear us then. Don't make the same mistake now...This is the kind of war where you know how it starts and have no clue how it ends until now. It can be stopped and it should be stopped immediately. Any further delay is a risk no one should take," he said. He did not stop here but further went on denouncing Israel for the Gaza hospital blast. "...the hospital massacre had such an impact on global public opinion that it had to change tactics and change its original story into a new one. So Israel will deny responsibility for the massacre in the Baptist Hospital Al Ahli, just as it made every effort to deny its responsibility in the killing of Sharina Abu Akli and Muhammad, and in the many massacres it had perpetrated over the decades...," the envoy added. The draft resolution on the Israel-Hamas war was not adopted on Wednesday after the United States vetoed the council's call that would have asked for "humanitarian pauses" to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza. Brazil, which headed the 'call for action' noted that the focus remains on the critical humanitarian situation on the ground. Brazil's ambassador to the Security Council, Sergio Franca Danese, stated that his nation responded to a plea from Council members to develop a unified approach to the situation. Brazil is the Security Council's President for October. "We heeded the call with a sense of urgency and responsibility, in our view the Security Council had to take action and do so very quickly," he said, according to the UN News. "Council paralysis in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe is not in the interest of the international community," he added. Notably, 12 members of the UN Security Council voted in favour of the Brazil-led resolution, one (the United States) voted against it, and two (Russia, and the United Kingdom) abstained. Explaining why the US went for veto, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that "this resolution did not mention Israel's right of self-defence." "Israel has the inherent right of self-defence as reflected in Article 51 of the UN Charter," she said, adding that the right was reaffirmed by the Council in previous resolutions on terrorist attacks, "this resolution should have done the same." Israel has been striking Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip since an October 7 assault by Hamas on Israeli communities near the Gaza border that caught Israelis off-guard. Fighting raged for days as the IDF initially struggled to clear out the terrorists. More than 1,400 Israelis were killed and over 4,100 more injured. At least 199 hostages were taken to Gaza. On Tuesday evening, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, held a joint press conference with ambassadors from the Arab Group, a bloc of 20 Arab countries. Mansour called for an immediate ceasefire and accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of lying about who is at fault for the hospital strike. The UAE, which was initially supportive of Israel following Hamas's Oct 7 attacks, has since fallen back into its role as the voice of the Arab world in the Security Council. The Emiratis issued a statement on Tuesday evening that "strongly condemns the Israeli attack that resulted in the death and injury of hundreds of people." (ANI)
The Prime Minister of the United KIngdom, Rishi Sunak is set to embark on a visit to Israel later on Thursday, where he will meet with the top leaders to discuss the country's ongoing war with Hamas, and express solidarity, Reuters reported citing the UK PM's office. According to his office, Sunak will meet Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog and will share his condolences for the loss of life in Israel and Gaza as a result of the October 7 attack on Israel. "Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas' horrific act of terror," Sunak said in a statement ahead of his visit, according to Reuters. Moreover, as per Reuters report, Sunak will call for the opening up of a route to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible and to make it possible for British nationals trapped in Gaza to depart. Earlier, in a post on social media platform X, Sunak condemned the attack on Gaza hospital that killed hundreds. "We are all shocked by the scenes at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Our intelligence services are rapidly analysing the evidence to independently establish the facts," he posted. Thousands of people have been killed on both sides as the war continues to turn brutal with every passing day. The war, as it unfolds, comes up with international pressure mounting for an immediate ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table to resolve the long-standing Israel-Palestine conflict. On Tuesday, Tal Heinrich, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, told CNN that the IDF "does not target hospitals." "We only target Hamas strongholds, arms depots, and terror targets," he added. Heinrich made the remarks after Palestinian sources claimed that initial estimates suggest that the attack on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City resulted in 200 to 300 fatalities. An explosion at the hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday claimed the lives of hundreds of people, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, Reuters reported. A Gaza civil defence chief claimed on Al-Jazeera television that over 300 people were killed in the explosion at the Gaza hospital. Expressing his solidarity with the nation, United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday said that the attacks in Israel last weekend shocked the world, as the elderly, men, women, children, and babies in arms were murdered, mutilated and burned alive. While updating the House of Commons on the latest situation in Israel and Gaza, Sunak ensured complete support to Israel from the UK. "The attacks in Israel last weekend shocked the world. Over 1,400 people were murdered, over 3,500 wounded, almost 200 taken hostage. The elderly, men, women, children, and babies in arms were murdered, mutilated and burned alive. It was a pogrom...We stand with Israel. The murdered and the missing come from over 30 countries, including the United Kingdom. At least six British citizens were killed and ten are missing...We are working with Israel to establish the effects as quickly as possible...we are also helping British citizens who want to leave Israel," Sunak said in the Parliament. "I want to address the British Jewish community directly...we stand with you now and always. This atrocity was an existential strike at the very idea of Israel as a safe homeland for the Jewish people. We are doing everything that we can to protect you...," he added. Speaking further, the UK Prime Minister stated that Hamas is "using innocent Palestinian people as human shields," and that Britain mourns the loss of every innocent life that has been taken amid the ongoing Hamas terror. "Hamas is using innocent Palestinian people as human shields. With the tragic loss of more than 2,600 Palestinian lives, including many children, we mourn the loss of every innocent life. Civilians of every faith, every nationality, who have been killed...I believe we must support Israel's right to defend itself, to go after Hamas, take back the hostages, deter further incursions, and strengthen its security for the long term...," he said. Sunak also emphasised that Palestinian people are, too the victims of Hamas, as he urged for humanitarian support for the Gaza people. He said, "We must support the Palestinian people because they are victims of Hamas too. We believe that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations to live with equal measures of security, freedom, justice, opportunity, and dignity." "Hamas simply does not stand for the future that the Palestinians want, and they seek to put the Palestinian people in harm's way. So we must ensure humanitarian support urgently reaches civilians in Gaza. This requires Egypt and Israel to allow the aid that is so badly needed," he added. (ANI)
Moreover, Major General Eric Peltier, General Officer, International Military Relations of the Joint Staff attended the meeting from the French side.

According to the statement, in the meeting which was held on October 16 to 17, both sides discussed ties focussed on new initiatives under the ambit of existing bilateral defence cooperation mechanisms and strengthening ongoing defence engagements.

India-France MSC is a forum established to progress defence cooperation between both nations through regular talks at strategic and operational levels between HQ, Integrated Defence Staff and the Joint Staff HQ of the French Armed Forces, according to MOD press release.

Earlier on October 12, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held a meeting with the French Armed Forces minister Sebastien Lecornu in Paris and emphasized that the India-France partnership has deepened over the years.

Sharing on his social media 'X', formerly known as Twitter, he said, "Had an excellent meeting with the French Minister for the Armed Forces, Mr Sebastien Lecornu in Paris. India-France strategic partnership has deepened over years and is more relevant today than ever." (ANI)
US lawmaker Rashida Tlaib has accused the Joe Biden administration of funding a "genocide" against Palestinians and put the onus on Israeli military for bombing a hospital in Gaza, Fox News reported. Rep Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American in the US Congress while addressing a pro-Parlestine rally on Capitol Hill on Wednesday broke down into tears and called for a ceasefire in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. "That's what's been really painful -- just continue to watch people think it's okay to bomb a hospital where children. You know, what's so hard sometimes is watching those videos and the people telling the kids, 'Don't cry.' But like, let them cry! And they're shaking, and somebody -- you know this -- they keep telling them not to cry in Arabic. They can cry, I can cry, we all can cry. If we're not crying, something is wrong," Tlaib said. "I'm telling you right now President Biden, not all America is with you on this one. And you need to wake up and understand that," she added. "We are literally watching people commit genocide and killing a vast majority... and we still stand by and say nothing. We will remember this." Still intermittently crying, she went on to tell protesters they were "on the right side of history."Tlaib first repeated Hamas' claim that Israel bombed the hospital in a Tuesday post on X after news of the explosion broke. Hamas continues to push the narrative despite video evidence and an assessment from the US National Security Council that a terrorist group's own rockets caused the reported damage and deaths, Fox News reported. "Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that," Tlaib tweeted on X platform. Rep Ilhan Omar also called for a ceasefire in a tweet on Tuesday and stated that "the IDF reportedly blowing up" the hospital is "horrific." She subsequently called for a "fully independent investigation to determine conclusively who is responsible for this war crime." The remarks by Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have shown the "continuing fault lines within the Democratic Party on Israel, with the two representatives standing out in criticizing Israel's government as other Democrats have said they do not believe Israel was responsible for the explosion," ABC News said. Republican lawmakers have also called on the two lawmakers to apologize and retract their tweets. Rep. Mike Lawler on Wednesday that Tlaib and others should apologize for their remarks about the hospital explosion. "It is appalling and unacceptable that Democrats in Congress partook in Hamas' misinformation campaign. ... Rep. Tlaib and her radical colleagues helped spread this insidious lie far and wide, without remorse, and as of this morning have yet to take down their posts, issue an apology, or place blame on the actual perpetrators with the same conviction," Lawler wrote as cited by ABC News. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, on Wednesday morning called for strong GOP House leadership to push back on what he said was Tlaib's "bias." Democratic lawmakers have also "criticized those who fault Israel for the blast without more information." Rep. Ritchie Torres without naming anybody slammed "critics" of Israel for jumping to conclusions on the hospital blast. "Erroneous reports and some Members of Congress took the word of Hamas terrorists as truth following the horrific Al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing. They should remove their posts, update their headlines, and remember not to trust terrorists who brutally murdered innocent civilians," tweeted Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer. United States President Joe Biden who arrived on Wednesday on an official visit to Tel Aviv backed Israel's claim that the explosion on the Gaza hospital seemed to have been carried out by the "other team" in reference to Palestine terror group Hamas. He also asserted that the US will make sure that Israel would get what it requires to defend itself from Hamas attacks. Addressing a joint media briefing with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said, "We have to also bear in mind that Hamas does not represent all the Palestinian people and it has brought them only suffering." On Tuesday's attack on the Al-Ahli hospital, Biden said he was "deeply saddened" and "outraged" and emphasised that the preliminary data says that the explosion was done by Hamas. The Biden administration's "current assessment," US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson in a tweet said "is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday." (ANI)
Israel Defence Force (IDF) on Thursday refuted claims made by the Palestinian side that Israel was behind the bomb explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza. The IDF also poked holes in the claims made by Hamas that several people had been killed in the explosion. In a video briefing, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus while reiterating the Israeli PM's statement that the Islamic Jihad was behind the explosion at the Hospital said that the preliminary analysis suggests that the "rocket" exploded in the car parking and seems like no one was killed in the incident. While describing a video analysis, the IDF spokesperson said, "We can see that this area is quite black, this appears that there was a large fire. This is really the centre of where the rocket impacted, the impact point of the rocket. What I see here is about 15 cars that were affected by the rocket that fell, I see remains of fire, what I don't see are bodies." IDF also questioned claims by the Hamas controlled health ministry in Gaza that several people had been killed in the explosion. "If five hundred people were indeed killed here or 471 which is the latest update from the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, this is just a few minutes after the fire erupted, where are all the bodies..., If so many people were killed, where are the bodies" said Lt. Col Conricus. In his analysis the IDF spokesperson stated that pictures clicked from the explosion site showed a huge fire, but when an Israeli bomb hits a target it makes a big crater and not a fire. "If you have been watching the news, this is exactly what a rocket impact cited Israel looks like, that's what we see when a rocket impacts Israel. We don't see Giant creators, because it's not hundreds of pounds of bombs. We see fires, we see burnt cars and burnt stuff because when rocket lands usually they ignite a fire" the IDF stated. Earlier, United States President Joe Biden, who arrived on Wednesday on an official visit to Tel Aviv, backed Israel's claim that the explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza seemed to have been carried out by the "other team" in reference to Gaza bases terror groups. He also asserted that the US will make sure that Israel would get what it requires to defend itself from Hamas' attacks."Americans are worried because we know there's this is not an easy field to navigate what you have to do, but the fact is that Israel as they respond to these attacks, it seems to me that have to continue to ensure that you have what you need to defend yourselves. And we're going to make sure that occurs as you know," Biden said. Addressing a joint media briefing with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said, "We have to also bear in mind that Hamas does not represent all the Palestinian people and it has brought them only suffering."On Tuesday's explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital, Biden said he was "deeply saddened" and "outraged" and emphasised that the preliminary data says that the explosion was a result of a rocket misfired by the Islamic Jihad. President Biden added, "I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday and based on what I've seen, It appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, but there's a lot of people out there, not sure so we got a lot of got to overcome a lot of things and also means encouraging lifesaving capacity to help the Palestinians were innocent caught in the middle of this." Meanwhile, as the Israel-Hamas conflict entered the 13th day Israeli Air Force struck targets belonging to Hezbollah, along the Lebanon border. This the IDF said was in response to Wednesday's shooting attacks. The targets struck include an observation point facing the sea, from which anti-tank missiles were fired at Rosh HaNikra. (ANI)
Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharam visited the historic Shiva temple in Muscat on Thursday and offered prayers for lasting friendship between India and Oman. Taking to X, the Minister said, "Visited Muscat's historic Shiva Temple, known as Motishwar Mahadev, with a history spanning over a century, standing as a testament to the enduring cultural ties between India and Oman. Prayed for the lasting friendship between the people of India and Oman." On October 18, the Union Minister of State embarked on a two-day visit to Oman, according to an official statement. "Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs and Parliamentary Affairs Shri V Muraleedharan will pay his third official visit to the Sultanate of Oman on 18-19 October 2023," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. During his visit, the External Affairs Minister of State will hold meetings with Omani leadership, the Ministry of External Affairs announced in a press release. Muraleedharan will also inaugurate a lecture series titled "From Mandvi to Muscat: Indian Community and the Shared History of India and Oman." The lecture series, shedding light on the history of the Indian community in Oman and its contribution to relations between India and Oman, will be organised by the Indian Embassy. During the visit, MoS will hold high-level discussions with the Omani leadership and dignitaries. He will also inaugurate the painting exhibition, "India on Canvas: Masterpieces of Modern Indian Painting" which is a collection of specially curated 20 works of art from the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art, exhibited in the National Museum of Oman. During his visit, Muraleedharan will interact with various Indian community organizations and a wide cross-section of the Indian community residing in Oman, including professionals, blue-collar workers, health care workers, social workers, and school students. India and Oman share warm and friendly relations underpinned by historical and cultural linkages and strong people-to-people ties. The forthcoming visit offers an opportunity to comprehensively review the bilateral relations between India and Oman and chart pathways to further deepen our multifaceted ties. Earlier in September, Oman Deputy Prime Minister Asaad bin Tariq bin Taimur Al Said attended the G20 Summit held under India's G20 Presidency in New Delhi. (ANI)
US Capitol police arrested scores of demonstrators inside the building who had gathered on the National Mall urging the Biden administration to call for a "ceasefire now" amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Public access to the Capitol complex has been restricted after a sizable number of demonstrators calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas disrupted one of the House office buildings, ANI has learned from a source inside the Capitol Hill building. "We have been advised by the police to use the tunnels and not the main entrance and exit doors," a hill staffer told ANI, as the demonstrations unfolded, with members from Jewish groups holding placards that read, "Ceasefire", "Jews say, Ceasefire now". The House Sergeant-at-arms sent out a memo to congressional offices that all visitors would be restricted to a single door in an attempt to control public entry into the campus. Several barriers of bike-rack fencing were erected around the Capitol building on Tuesday night as a precautionary measure in anticipation of the protest. The Capitol Police also announced they were closing down roads around the Capitol to ensure the safety of protestors outside. "A group of protesters are demonstrating inside the Cannon Rotunda. Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings," the U.S. Capitol Police said in a post on X. "Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings," the Capitol Police said after the arrests. "We warned the protestors to stop demonstrating and when they did not comply we began arresting them," the Capitol Police added. Earlier, speaking at a news conference Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Hamas terror group was perpetrating a double war crime daily. "Every day they perpetrate a double war crime, targeting our civilians while hiding behind their civilians, embedding themselves in the civilian population and using them as human shields. We have seen the cost of this terrible double war crime against humanity that Hamas has been perpetrating in the last 11 days" the Israeli Prime Minister said. Israeli PM stressed that civilians are unfortunately getting harmed, whereas Israel is legitimately targeting terrorists. "Hamas is responsible and should be held accountable for all civilian casualties," he added. The ministry says 3,478 people have been killed since Israel began bombing the Strip on October 7, in reaction to a Hamas onslaught in which some 1,400 Israelis were massacred. Meanwhile as the Israel-Hamas conflict enters the 13th day, the Israel Air Force attacked military targets of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in the border area with Lebanon. Among the targets, an observation post towards the sea was attacked from where anti-tank fire was launched at Rosh Hankara on Wednesday. The IDF said the attacks were carried out in response to the incidents of shooting at Israel. (ANI)
Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov on Thursday attended a solemn ceremony in North Korea's Pyongyang where he laid flowers at the monuments of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, as well as at the Liberation Monument, said Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Taking to X, the Russian Foreign Ministry said, "Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov laid flowers at the monuments to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, as well as at the Liberation Monument in a solemn ceremony during his official visit to the DPRK." The Russian leader also paid tribute to the Red Army soldiers who died in the battle to get independence from Axis Japan's occupation and laid flowers at the Soviet Memorial cemetery. Russian MEA posted on X, "Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov laid flowers at Soviet Memorial Cemetery, paying tribute to the Red Army soldiers who perished in the battles to liberate Korea from the Axis Japan's occupation." Russian Foreign Minister is on his official visit to North Korea where he met with various top leaders and ministers of North Korea. Lavrov also met with the North Korean counterpart, Choe Son-hui and also participated in the signing ceremony of the Inter-Ministry of Foreign Affairs Exchange plan. On September 13, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un held a meeting at a Russian spaceport. According to observers, Putin's visit to Pyongyang will be discussed during Lavrov's visit to North Korea, according to Yonhap News Agency report. Notably, Putin earlier this month accepted Kim Jong Un's invitation to visit Russia. During his visit to Russia, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Russia will emerge victorious in the fight to "punish the evil forces", adding that he would "always be standing with Russia", CNN reported. He praised Russia for having "stood up against the hegemonic forces" to defend its sovereignty and security - a veiled reference to the US and the West - and said he has expressed "the full and unconditional support to all that Russia does in response", CNN reported. During his visit, the North Korean leader also met Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu at the Knevichi airfield in Russia's Vladivostok, TASS reported. The Russian Defence Minister showed the Kinzhal missile system on the MiG-31I missile carrier to Kim Jong Un at the Knevichi airfield located in the Primorye region. The commander of long-range aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Lieutenant General Sergey Kobylash, reported on the flight and technical capabilities of the hypersonic aircraft missile system. Kim Jong Un was also made familiar with modern operational-tactical aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces at the Knevichi airfield in Primorye, TASS reported. Kim Jong Un also inspected the engineering centre and production shops of the Yuri Gagarin Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aviation Plant in Russia's Far East. During his visit to the aviation plant, he was accompanied by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov. The Russian government in a statement said, "The Chairman of State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un, was shown the engineering centre and production shops of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aviation Plant named after YuA Gagarin (KnAAZ named after YuA Gagarin), a branch of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), and also the site of the production centre of the parent company of the civilian division of UAC Yakovlev." During the visit, Kim Jong-un and Denis Manturov inspected the assembly production of fighter aircraft and the final assembly shop for the Su-35 aircraft and the fifth-generation Su-57 aviation complex, according to the Russian government statement. (ANI)
The International Buddhist Confederation (IBC) will celebrate International Abhidhamma Divas on the auspicious occasion of Sharada Purnima, the full moon day, on October 28, 2023, a press release said. This day commemorates the descent of Lord Buddha from the celestial realm of the 33 divine beings (Tavatimsa-devaloka) to Sankassiya, known today as Sankisa Basantapur in the Farrukhabad district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The significance of this location is underscored by the presence of the Asokan Elephant Pillar, an enduring marker of this historic event. According to Buddhist texts, after imparting the teachings of Abhidhamma to the Devas with his mother as a witness, Lord Buddha descended to this sacred place, IBC said in a release. This year's celebration is made even more special by two additional significant events: the Centenary year of Vipassana Acharya Satya Narayan Goenka and the International Conference on "The Tenets of the Buddha Dhamma and Global Well-Being: Nature, Significance, and Applicability," taking place from October 28th to 30th, 2023, on the campus of Gautam Buddha University (GBU). Distinguished guests, including Ram Nath Kovind, former President of India, Senior Professor Kotapitiye Rahula Anunayaka Thera, General Secretary and Anunayaka (Deputy Prelate) Supreme Sangha Council of the Kotte Chapter Kanka will be Special Guest, and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Chancellor of the Gautam Buddha University Yogi Adiyanath, are expected to grace this occasion with their presence. Additionally, Ambassadors and High Commissioners from more than 10 countries will be attending the event, the release added. The International Abhidhamma Divas and the accompanying conference are anticipated to draw around 500 delegates, including renowned academicians from countries such as the USA, UK, Russia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Nepal, Bhutan, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Mongolia. These distinguished scholars will be presenting insightful papers on various aspects of Buddhist philosophy and its relevance to global well-being. The IBC invites everyone to join in this celebration of wisdom and spirituality, fostering understanding and harmony among diverse cultures and nations, the release added. (ANI)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday held a private meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at his office in Jerusalem. "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently holding a private meeting with British Prime Minister @RishiSunak at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem. The leaders will also hold an expanded meeting, at the conclusion of which they will issue statements to the media," as per the Israeli Prime Minister's official handle on 'X'. Sunak on Thursday also met Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Herzog said that during such difficult days, we see clearly who are Israel's true friends. "Thank you Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak for coming to Israel and for your support and firm stand by the Israeli people. It is time to express a clear moral voice - this is a battle for the values of all humanity. The world needs to understand that if we do not prevent Hamas and other terrorist organizations from carrying out murderous and criminal attacks - they will not stop with Israel," he wrote on 'X'. Meanwhile, Sunak said: "I've just met President @Isaac_Herzog and conveyed my gratitude for the support provided to British nationals caught up in the terror attacks. Together we agreed on the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support to ordinary Palestinians in Gaza who are also suffering." The British Prime Minister arrived in Israel on Thursday amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Upon his arrival, he said: "I am in Israel, a nation in grief. I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism. Today, and always." The British PM met families that had their loved ones taken away from them as a result of the war. "To have a child taken from you is a parent's worst nightmare. This morning I heard from families going through this unbearable agony. Working with our partners, we're determined to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists," he wrote on 'X'. Ahead of his departure to Israel, the British PM said: "Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas's horrific act of terror." "The attack on Al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict," added the statement. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Wednesday that a failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket launch caused the explosion outside the hospital in Gaza. "According to our intelligence, Hamas checked the reports, understood it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that had misfired--and decided to launch a global media campaign to hide what really happened," explained IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari on Wednesday. "They went as far as inflating the number of casualties. They understood, with absolute certainty, that it was a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad that damaged the hospital," he added. Sunak's visit to Israel comes a day after US President Joe Biden paid a solidarity visit to the Jewish state. On Tuesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Israel, and French President Emmanuel Macron will also reportedly travel to the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Israel's Ministry of Health has reported that 309 people wounded in terrorist attacks since the start of the war with Hamas are hospitalized as of October 19, at 8:00 am. Of the people hospitalized, 80 are in serious condition, 159 are in moderate condition and 70 are lightly wounded. The ministry reported that since the Hamas attack of October 7, 4,629 wounded have been evacuated to hospitals, of whom 12 were mortally wounded, 279 were in serious condition, 764 in moderate condition and 3,188 were lightly wounded. As many as 239 people suffered from anxiety and 145 were admitted to hospitals for medical evaluation. Meanwhile, as a "ground offensive" of the besieged Gaza Strip loomed, hundreds of Israeli tanks were deployed near the border in south Israel on Thursday, waiting for the all-clear from the country's political establishment and the military top brass. Israeli tanks and troops mounted on armoured vehicles were deployed in the region, seeming to suggest that a ground assault on Hamas in their backyard, Gaza, could begin any time soon. Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said four rockets of nine launched from Lebanese territory were intercepted, adding that several anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon towards Israeli forces. The IDF added that in response to the attacks, Israeli forces targeted the site in Lebanon from where rockets were fired into Israel and also struck at Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure using tank fire. The Israeli forces also claimed to have thwarted and dismantled a terrorist cell using a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) of the IDF. (ANI)
Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha has been admitted to hospital after he suffered a heart attack during his visit to China on Thursday. The Deputy Prime Minister currently is admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Peking Union Medical College Hospital where his vitals have remained constant, the hospital announced. Issuing a statement, the hospital said, "On the early morning of October 19th, Narayan Kaji Shrestha presented to the Emergency Room of the International Medical Services at Peking Union Medical College Hospital with complaints of chest discomfort lasting for 2 hours." "He was diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction and was immediately taken to the Cath lab. Emergency coronary angiography showed an occlusion in the obtuse marginal branch (OM) and significant stenosis in the left anterior descending artery (LAD)," said the release confirming Shrestha suffered from a heart attack. The Deputy Prime Minister was participating in the third Belt and Road Forum when he complained of pain in his chest. As per the hospital, a stent (small mesh tube typically used to hold open passages in the body, such as weak or narrowed arteries) has been placed and his vitals are stable. "A stent was promptly placed in the obtuse marginal branch, alleviating his chest pain. Shrestha is currently in the medical ICU for ongoing monitoring and treatment. He is fully conscious with stable vital signs," the hospital said. The Deputy PM was scheduled to hold rounds of meeting with Chinese officials later on Thursday which now has been cancelled. Shrestha flew off to China on Monday this week. (ANI)
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi on Thursday said India has strongly condemned the "horrific" terrorist attack on Israel and believes the international community must combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. "We have strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel. The international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations..." Bagchi said during the MEA weekly briefing on Thursday. Bagchi further said: "There was also the issue of Palestine and on that, we have reiterated our position in favour of direct negotiations for establishing a two-state solution. We have also expressed our concern at the civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation. We would urge the strict observance of international humanitarian law..." He said "You would have seen the comments, the tweets as well as statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi" on the situation in Israel. PM Modi on Wednesday condoled the loss of lives in an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, saying he was "deeply shocked" by the incident. Also expressing concern over the mounting civilian casualties in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the PM said that those behind such deaths should be "held responsible". Taking to his official handle on X, PM Modi posted, "Deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured. Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible." An explosion at the hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Earlier, Bagchi said India sees the Hamas attack on Israel as "a terrorist attack" and that it has always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine that lives side by side at peace with Israel. Bagchi also said that there is a universal obligation to observe international humanitarian law and the need to fight terrorism. "Designation of terrorist organisation under Indian law is a legal matter. I would refer you to the relevant authorities. I think we have been very clear that we see this as a terrorist attack. On designation part (concerned) authorities are best placed to respond to it," Bagchi said answering queries about Hamas' attack on Israel. The spokesperson said India's position concerning the Palestine issue has been "longstanding and consistent". "India has always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognised borders side by side at peace with Israel. That position remains the same," he said. India recently launched 'Operation Ajay' to bring back its citizens stuck in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. "Launching #OperationAjay to facilitate the return from Israel of our citizens who wish to return. Special charter flights and other arrangements are being put in place. Fully committed to the safety and well-being of our nationals abroad," External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar posted on X. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to the President of Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday and expressed his condolences at the loss of lives at Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. PM Modi also reaffirmed India's commitment to provide the Palestinian people with humanitarian assistance while reiterating India's long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue. "Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people," posted PM Modi on X. PM Modi in his conversation with Abbas also expressed his concern at terrorism and violence amid the ongoing war and also reiterated India's position on the issue. "Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated India's long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue," PM Modi's post added. Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi has said that India's position concerning the Palestine issue has been "longstanding and consistent". "India has always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognised borders side by side at peace with Israel. That position remains the same," he said. PM Modi on Wednesday condoled the loss of lives in an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, saying he was "deeply shocked" by the incident. Expressing concern over the mounting civilian casualties in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, the PM said that those behind such deaths should be "held responsible". Taking to his official handle on X, PM Modi posted, "Deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured. Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible." An explosion at the hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Earlier today, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Official Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India has strongly condemned the "horrific" terrorist attack on Israel and believes the international community must combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. "We have strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel. The international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations..." Bagchi said during the MEA weekly briefing on Thursday. Bagchi further said, "There was also the issue of Palestine and on that, we have reiterated our position in favour of direct negotiations for establishing a two-state solution. We have also expressed our concern at the civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation. We would urge the strict observance of international humanitarian law..." He added, "You would have seen the comments, the tweets as well as a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi" on the situation in Israel. As the Israel-Hamas war enters its 13th day, global protests over deadly strike at Gaza hospital continue with arrests of Jewish anti-war demonstrators reported inside US Congress, according to CNN. The Palestinian Mission to the UN in Geneva has denounced Israeli disinformation and propaganda after the deadly Gaza hospital explosion. At least 3,785 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Hamas's October 7 attack inside Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people, CNN reported. (ANI)
The World Health Organization (WHO) has pledged USD 10 million in support for civilians affected by the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed his deep concern for the situation and called for urgent action to protect the health and well-being of civilians on both sides during a virtual media briefing on Thursday. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus began his address by acknowledging the shock and sadness felt by the entire WHO team in response to the Israel-Gaza conflict. "Like the rest of the world, all of us at WHO have been shocked, appalled and saddened by the conflict in Israel and Gaza. The attacks by Hamas and other armed groups on the 7th of October that targeted Israeli civilians were horrific and unjustifiable," he said. At the same time, WHO expressed grave concern for the health and well-being of civilians in Gaza, who are enduring the devastating impacts of bombardment and a long-standing siege. The WHO chief deplored the attacks on healthcare facilities in both Gaza and Israel, which have resulted in casualties among health workers and patients. "At the same time, WHO is gravely concerned about the health and well-being of civilians in Gaza, who are suffering from bombardment and siege. I also deplore the attacks on health care in both Gaza and Israel, which have led to deaths and injuries of health workers and patients on both sides. Under international humanitarian law, all armed actors are obliged to actively protect health care. The bomb that struck the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday night, and the loss of life it caused, regardless of who was responsible, cannot be tolerated," he added. He emphasised that under international humanitarian law, all armed actors are obligated to actively protect healthcare infrastructure. "Despite the airstrikes and the risks to their own security, the WHO team in Gaza has delivered lifesaving medical supplies, sufficient to care for 2000 patients. But much more is needed," he said. The recent bombing of the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, which resulted in loss of life, was highlighted as an event that cannot be tolerated, regardless of responsibility. Ghebreyesus also mentioned his recent meeting with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, during which they discussed facilitating the delivery of medical supplies to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. "In Cairo last week, I met with Egypt's President, who agreed to facilitate the delivery of medical supplies to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing," said the WHO chief. On Saturday, "WHO delivered a planeload of supplies to Egypt" from its logistics hub in Dubai, and a further four flights, with 40 metric tons of supplies, will arrive over the course of the next week, he said. These supplies include trauma medicines to treat wounded patients, medicines for various conditions like diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases, as well as other essential health resources that will meet the needs of approximately 3,00,000 people, including pregnant women. In a positive development, Israel announced that it will not block the entry of water, food, and medicines into Gaza from Egypt. "We welcome Israel's announcement yesterday that it will not block the entry of water, food and medicines into Gaza from Egypt. Fuel is also needed for hospital generators, ambulances and desalination plants - we urge Israel to add fuel to the life-saving supplies allowed to enter Gaza," he added. However, Ghebreyesus stressed the urgent need for fuel to power hospital generators, ambulances, and desalination plants. WHO urged Israel to include fuel among the life-saving supplies permitted to enter Gaza. Ghebreyesus clarified that WHO, as a UN agency, maintains political impartiality and is dedicated to supporting the health and well-being of all Israelis and Palestinians. "WHO supports the @UN Secretary-General's call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. We call for the immediate and safe release of hostages seized and taken into Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups, among them children, older people and those who need urgent medical care," he said. He highlighted the establishment of an official presence in Israel in 2019 in addition to the existing office in the occupied Palestinian territory. WHO fully supports the UN Secretary-General's call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and appeals for the immediate and safe release of hostages taken into Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups, including children, older individuals, and those in need of urgent medical care. The organisation continues to urge both Israel and Hamas to uphold their obligations under international law to protect civilians and healthcare facilities. Additionally, WHO calls on Israel to restore the supply of electricity and water in the region, he said. As the Israel-Hamas war enters its 13th day, global protests over deadly strike at Gaza hospital continue with arrests of Jewish anti-war demonstrators reported inside US Congress, according to CNN. The Palestinian Mission to the UN in Geneva has denounced Israeli disinformation and propaganda after deadly Gaza hospital explosion. At least 3,785 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Hamas's October 7 attack inside Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people, CNN reported. (ANI)
The Jeff Davis County Sheriffs Office announced 10 people were arrested during a series of drug enforcement activities, including a discovery of contraband at a county jail.

Deputies said investigators had concentrated patrols and investigations into several individuals allegedly involved in the drug trade.

While investigating these people, deputies said quantities of a variety of narcotics, weapons, and other drug paraphernalia were seized.

As a result, sheriffs deputies arrested 10 people over two days, beginning Oct. 4.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Deputies said arrests continued from Oct. 4 to this past Saturday, Oct. 14.

During this process, deputies also discovered contraband items inside the Jeff Davis County Jail, including drugs, leading to charges for two female inmates.

From both investigations, deputies seized quantities of methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, illicit prescription medications, guns, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia.

In the county jail, officers and investigators found meth, suboxone, phentermine and MDMA in a prison cell.

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The following individuals were arrested, facing the charges below.

Kenneth Lee McGovern, 38 of Douglas, Ga: possession of scheduled III controlled substance (subutex), possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.

Damon Strickland, 45 of Hazlehurst, Ga: possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, possession of drug related objects.-Willie Tobler, 35, Hazlehurst, Ga: possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, possession of drug related objects.

Sharleen McClendon, 39 of Hazlehurst, Ga: possession of cocaine, possession of firearm during commission of a crime, possession of firearm by a convicted felon.

Miranda Maggard, 39 of Baxley, Ga: possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession of MDMA, possession of scheduled III controlled substance (suboxone), possession of scheduled IV controlled substance (phentermine). This investigation continues and other charges are pending.

Melinda Futral, 45 of Midville, Ga: possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession of MDMA, possession of scheduled III controlled substance (suboxone), possession of scheduled IV controlled substance (phentermine).

Keith Smith, 48 of Denton, Ga: possession of methamphetamine, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, possession of drug related objects.

William Hall, 62 of Denton, Ga: possession of methamphetamine, possession of scheduled II controlled substance (oxycodone), possession of drug related objects and probation violation.

Jade Powell, 38 of Denton, Ga: possession of methamphetamine, possession of fentanyl, possession of drug related objects and probation violation.

Michael Wooten, 55 of Denton, Ga: possession of scheduled II controlled substance (oxycodone), possession of scheduled IV controlled substance, pills not in original container.

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Halloween is less than two weeks away, meaning the time left to explore your more spooky side is quickly dwindling.

Whether you favor family-friendly fun or prefer to be scared out of your socks, the Palmetto State plays host to Halloween events for everyone.

Here are the 10 best Halloween attractions to visit for Halloween in South Carolina this year, according to Discover South Carolina.

Fall Festival and Corn Maze at Denver Downs Farm

The Fall Festival and Corn Maze at Denver Downs Farm in Anderson lets guests engage in their favorite fall-themed activities at Denver Downs Farm. During the Fall Festival, your family will have the opportunity to interact with the animals, pick and paint a pumpkin, visit the sunflower field, explore this years Reba-inspired corn maze, join a campfire and roast marshmallows for smores, ride the mega slide, mine for gems, enjoy live entertainment on the weekends and so much more.

The festival is ongoing through Halloween and will continue until its final day on Nov. 12. Denver Downs is located at 1515 Denver Road, Anderson, SC 29625 and can be contacted at 864-556-3394. The farm is open on select dates, which can be found online at their season calendar, and tickets may be purchased online at https://denverdownsfarm.ticketspice.com/fall-festival-2023.

SCarowinds

SCarowinds in Fort Mill, which can be found on the northern South Carolina border, takes place at the popular amusement park, Carowinds, which transforms for several nights of terror each October lasting until Oct. 29. The premier Halloween event is featuring a new attraction this year called the Procession of Nightmares parade. The fear-factor event also highlights haunted mazes, scare zones, zombies, vampires, roller coasters and live shows.

Due to the nature of the event, it is recommended that attending guests be aged 13 years old or older.

Tickets can be purchased online at https://www.carowinds.com/events/scarowinds.

Carowinds has been transformed into SCarowinds, with monsters and spooky attractions.

Boone Hall Fright Nights

The Boone Hall Fright Nights in Mount Pleasant is the states largest haunted multi-attraction Halloween event, according to Discover South Carolina. The annual event features three spooky events: Carnage, Freaks Unleashed and The Last Ride. The events feature themes such as an un-ordinary hospital, uncaged circus nightmares, toxic wastelands, mine shafts and spirits.

Tickets are sold online in two separate packages. Tickets will be limited for each night. Once they are sold out, there will be no other tickets available for that night either online or at the event. The event occurs on Thursdays through Sundays.

The attractions are not recommended for guests under 12 years old or for those who do not like to be scared. However, if they choose to attend, children under 12 years old must be accompanied by a ticketed adult through the attractions. Children under 6 years old will not be admitted to the event for safety reasons, according to Boone Halls Fright Nights webpage.

Haunted Jail Tour

The Haunted Jail Tour in Charleston, by Bulldog Tours, takes attendees on a 45-minute, night-time tour of The Old City Jail in historic Charleston. This locale is where some of the Lowcountrys most noteworthy criminals were housed from 1802 to 1939, such as 19th-Century pirates and Civil War prisoners.

The haunting site was featured on Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures and The Travel Channel.

The tour begins and ends at the Old City Jain, located at 21 Magazine Street, Charleston, SC 29401, and is for those aged 12 or older and is not recommended for young children. Tickets may be purchased online at https://www.bulldogtours.com/tours/charleston-haunted-jail-tour/3.

Annies Bed and Breakfast

Are visiting statewide haunts next on your agenda? Annies Bed and Breakfast in Montmorenci, an unincorporated community in Aiken, is next on the list of spooky attractions to visit. The three-story cotton plantation house was built in the 1830s and has an extensive history dating through to the Civil War. At this time a cannonball fell through the top floor, making the structure a now two-story home, and was later even used as a hospital. To explore and check availability, rooms can be booked online.

Legend has it that the ghost of a little girl can still be heard roaming the hallways and calling out for her mama in this present-day bed and breakfast, detailed Discover South Carolina.

The Big Boo and Nighttime Wagon Rides at Stewart Farms

The Big Boo and Nighttime Wagon Rides at Stewart Farms can be found in Enoree for Fall on the Farm at 6600 Highway 92 Enoree, SC 29335. The fall celebration offers family-friendly activities including a pumpkin patch, corn maze, wagon rides, a nighttime haunted maze, farm animals, mums and more. The farm is open for this attraction Friday through Sunday until Oct. 29. Pricing for each activity can be found online at https://stewartfarms.net/fall-1.

Hall of Horrors

The Hall of Horrors in Cayce is a haunted house attraction found at 1153 Walter Price Road, Cayce, SC 29033. The attraction is open to thrill-seekers through Oct. 31 on select nights an tickets can be purchased online at https://www.hallofhorrors.org/prices.

Terror chasers come back year after year for its thrills and chills, making it the longest-running scare show in the Midlands. And the experience reaches beyond the house itself, with activities like a photo booth, games and snacks to keep you occupied while you await your turn, described Discover South Carolina of the Halloween attraction.

Boo in the Zoo

Boo in the Zoo at the Greenville Zoo is back for its 37th year. This fun, Halloween activity gives guests the chance to trick-or-treat among the animals. For those looking for a family-friendly activity sans ghosts, scares or anything scary, this is the activity for you. This attraction isnt a scary one, so bring the whole family, dress up in your best costume and bring your own trick-or-treating bags for a night out at the zoo.

The event will feature specialty areas including Dragon Alley, Alices Fun House, Ghost Town, and an extinct species graveyard to explore.

Boo in the Zoo will run from Oct. 18-22 and 25-30 from 3-8 p.m. For more information, pricing and to purchase tickets, go online and visit https://www.greenvillezoo.com/260/Boo-in-the-Zoo.

Ghost Hound of Goshen Hill

The Ghost Hound of Goshen Hill in Newberry is a canine apparition that has been known to haunt a 5-mile stretch of Old Buncombe Road from the Ebenezer Methodist Church cemetery to Goshen Hill Plantation and chases those who dare venture into its turf, according to Discover South Carolina.

Boo at the Zoo

Boo at the Zoo in Columbia at the Riverbanks Zoo is a great opportunity for families to enjoy a haunted carousel ride, a trick-or-treat through the zoo, see a magic show, roast marshmallows, ride on a spooky railroad and more. Attendees should plan ahead and bring their own trick-or-treat bags and children 12 years old and under are encouraged to wear costumes.

The event will take place on Oct. 2030 from 69 p.m. Tickets are limited and can be purchased for the rain or shine zoo event in advance here. Parking is only available at the main Zoo entrance, which can be found at 500 Wildlife Parkway, Columbia, SC 29210.
Photos show how breaches of decorum have become more common in an increasingly polarized Congress.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert heckled Joe Biden during the State of the Union.

In January, Kevin McCarthy lost 14 votes for House speaker before eventually winning, causing chaos.

Outbursts, scuffles, and statement outfits have become more common among members of Congress in an increasingly polarized political climate that's fueled an excess of election denialism, the House of Representatives struggling to elect a speaker twice in the same year, and legislative gridlock as the country looks to keep the lights on and fund two wars.

Here are 13 photos that show how divided Congress has become in recent years.

Many Democratic women wore white to President Donald Trump 's 2019 State of the Union address, creating a stark contrast in the House Chamber seating.

President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address in the chamber of the US House of Representatives at the Capitol Building on February 5, 2019. Alex Wong/Getty Images

The white outfits were a nod to the women's suffrage movement and a message of "solidarity" with each other and women across the US, Florida Rep. Lois Frankel, the chairwoman of the Democratic Women's Working Group, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

At least one Republican woman, Rep. Elise Stefanik, also wore white for the event. However, party lines were clearly visible in the State of the Union seating arrangements.

Rep. Dean Philips, a male congressman from Minnesota, also wore white to honor the cause.

Nancy Pelosi appeared to clap sarcastically during Trump's speech, sparking memes.

President Donald Trump turns to then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi as he delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on February 5, 2019. Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool

Pelosi extended her arms and clapped at Trump with a smirk on her face. It earned her the nickname of "Queen of Condescending Applause" by some, The Washington Post reported.

Pelosi later told a group of reporters that the clap itself was not meant to be sarcastic and that she was applauding a comment Trump made about rejecting "the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution, and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good."

When Pelosi made a guest appearance on "RuPaul's Drag Race" in 2022, drag queen Raja Gemini praised what they called a "sarcastic, shady clap," describing it as a "masterclass."

"It was completely unintentional," Pelosi said with a shrug and a laugh.

Female Democratic lawmakers wore white again to the 2020 State of the Union.

Members from the House of Representatives, with most Democratic women wearing white, listen to President Donald Trump deliver the State of the Union address at the US Capitol on February 4, 2020. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

In 2020, the white outfits marked the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

At the end of Trump's 2020 address, Pelosi ripped up her copy of the speech.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rips up President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech on February 4, 2020. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Before his speech, Trump appeared to reject a handshake from Pelosi, who spearheaded his impeachment on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. (He was acquitted of the charges.)

She told reporters that she ripped up the speech because "it was the courteous thing to do considering the alternatives" and that the move was not planned.

Pelosi's actions ultimately led Republican firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz to file an ethics complaint for violating House decorum, The Hill reported. Trump also later shared a doctored video to millions of his followers of the incident that was edited to make it seem like she was ripping the speech up as the former president introduced one of the few remaining Tuskegee Airmen from World War II.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wore a "Trump won" face mask to take her oath of office after President Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

Marjorie Taylor Greene wears a "Trump won" face mask as she arrives on the floor of the House to take her oath of office on opening day of the 117th Congress on January 3, 2021. Erin Scott/Pool via AP

Greene has repeatedly posted to X about her belief that Trump won the 2020 election, one of several conspiracy theories that she has promoted.

In a video posted to X after the 2020 election, Greene told her followers that there could not be a peaceful transfer of power because Biden "did not win this election."

Two days before the January 6 insurrection, Greene promised at a Trump rally that she would refuse to "certify fraudulent electoral college votes" for the incoming president.

However, under oath in April 2022, Greene denied wanting Congress to vote against certifying Biden as the 2020 election winner.

During Biden's 2022 State of the Union address, Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert interrupted the speech with frequent outbursts.

Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene scream "Build the wall" as President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union on March 1, 2022. Evelyn Hockstein-Pool/Getty Images

Greene and Boebert turned their backs and refused to applaud as Biden entered the House chamber.

During Biden's speech, both tried to start a "build the wall" chant while the president spoke about immigration. Boebert also accused Biden of being responsible for the deaths of US soldiers during the withdrawal from Afghanistan as he spoke about his late son Beau's battle with cancer following his deployment to Iraq, yelling, "You put them there, 13 of them!"

While their interruptions were widely condemned by Democrats and a few Republicans, the House of Representatives ultimately did not pass a resolution of disapproval the way it did when Republican Rep. Joe Wilson yelled "You lie!" at President Barack Obama during his first State of the Union address in 2009.

"I think they should just shut up," former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi later said in response to Boebert and Greene.

During a 2022 hearing, the House January 6 committee displayed a photo of Sen. Josh Hawley raising his fist towards rioters before they breached the Capitol.

A photograph of Josh Hawley pumping his fist toward the rioters on January 6, 2021, is shown during a prime-time hearing of the House January 6 committee on July 21, 2022. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The committee juxtaposed the image with security footage of Hawley fleeing from rioters as they forced their way into the Capitol.

The Washington Post reported that Republican Sen. Mitt Romney yelled, "You have caused this!" at Hawley as senators sheltered in place during the insurrection.

Hawley previously told The Huffington Post that the photo did not show him "encouraging rioters."

"At the time that we were out there, folks were gathered peacefully to protest, and they have a right to do that," Hawley said. "They do not have a right to assault cops."

It took 15 rounds of voting in January to elect Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy as the new speaker of the House, highlighting tensions within the Republican party.

Kevin McCarthy places his face in his hands as the House of Representatives votes for new speaker on January 4, 2023. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

Due to the GOP's slim majority in the House of Representatives, McCarthy needed the support of nearly all Republicans to reach the necessary 218 votes to become speaker.

A group of 20 Republicans, members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, repeatedly withheld their support at the start of the 118th Congress, bringing the proceedings to a standstill.

The House cannot swear-in lawmakers, introduce any bills, or pass legislation until a speaker is elected.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was photographed smiling in the background as Republican lawmakers argued during the second day of the proceedings.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez looks on as Republican House members speak to one another during the second day of elections for Speaker of the House on January 4, 2023. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

After GOP Rep. Kat Cammack said that Democrats had been drinking during the speaker vote, Ocasio-Cortez responded in a post on X: "If only! If Dems took a shot every time McCarthy lost a Republican, we'd all be unconscious by now."

Photos from inside the House Chamber showed the growing frustration  and boredom  with the chaotic votes.

Katie Porter reads a book in the House Chamber during the fourth day of elections for Speaker of the House on January 6, 2023. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Members of Congress were spotted yawning, reading comics, and bringing their pets to the House floor as the votes dragged on. Rep. Katie Porter read "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson during the 14th speaker vote.

Porter told MSNBC that the book was actually the fourth book she had read that week, adding that she "read a book basically every day during those interminable, alphabetical votes, in which the Republicans struggled to find leadership."

Porter's now running in the election to fill Sen. Dianne Feinstein's seat in the Senate after Feinstein died in late September, ultimately leading Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint Sen. Laphonza Butler to temporarily fill the position.

Rep. Mike Rogers appeared to lunge at Rep. Matt Gaetz, who opposed McCarthy's bid for speaker, during the 14th vote.

Richard Hudson pulls Mike Rogers back as they talk with Matt Gaetz during the 14th round of voting for Speaker as the House on January 6, 2023. Andrew Harnik)/AP Photo

Rep. Richard Hudson held Rogers back.

Rogers later told The New York Post that at the time, he was "exasperated" that Gaetz was "treating McCarthy so badly," which ultimately led him to walk over to where Gaetz was sitting to talk.

As for the image, Rogers said he was actually about to walk away from Gaetz when Hudson yanked him away.

As Biden delivered the 2023 State of the Union address, Greene rose from her seat and gave a thumbs-down gesture.

Marjorie Taylor Greene gives a thumb down as President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address on February 7, 2023. Jim Watson/Getty Images

Before the State of the Union in February, McCarthy told CNN that there would be no "childish games" at the speech.

"We're members of Congress. We have a code of ethics of how we should portray ourselves," McCarthy said. "And that's exactly what we'll do."

McCarthy then struggled to maintain control of his caucus as Republicans repeatedly interrupted and heckled the president during his speech. McCarthy was seen shushing Republicans such as Greene, who shouted "China spied on us" and "Liar."

The House voted to remove McCarthy as speaker in October, once again launching the chaotic process of electing a new speaker.

George Santos and Lauren Boebert on the House floor before the Republican nominee for Speaker of the House, Jim Jordan, failed to receive enough votes to win the position on October 17, 2023. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

During the first vote on Tuesday, 20 House Republicans voted against Rep. Jim Jordan's bid for speaker. In the second vote on Wednesday, that number rose to 22.

During the first vote, Boebert was seated next to Rep. George Santos, who was photographed pointing and laughing. Santos was accused of stealing campaign donors' credit card information and paying his own campaign in a superseding indictment filed on October 10. He has denied wrongdoing.

Read the original article on Business Insider
An ongoing drought in the Amazon  combined with the effects of climate change and El Nino  caused temperatures in Brazil's Lake Tefe to soar and led to the deaths of more than 150 dolphins at the end of September, officials said. Within a week, experts say, roughly 10% of the local dolphin population was found dead, as were hundreds of fish, as water temperatures reached hot tub temperatures.

Officials from World Wildlife Fund Brazil said that 153 dolphins were found dead the week of Sept. 23, including 130 pink dolphins and 23 tucuxi dolphins. Both are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List and the latter of which are considered "the guardians of rivers and a symbol of good luck," according to RiverDolphins.org.

Researchers from WWF-Brazil, as well as the Mamirau Institute for Sustainable Development, said the unusual mortality event was caused by an ongoing drought. According to WWF-Brazil, "the Amazon is experiencing an extreme drought that has reduced the flow of its main rivers," two years after the area saw significant rainfall that flooded "entire cities for months." On Monday, the Rio Negro for example, reached its lowest water depth since 1902.

A general view of Tefe lake, which flows into the Solimoes river, that has been affected by the high temperatures and drought in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, October 1, 2023. / Credit: BRUNO KELLY / REUTERS

Lower levels of precipitation have been linked to higher temperatures in bodies of water.

Earlier this week, new research published in the journal Hydrological Processes found that droughts "have significant implications for river water temperature extremes" as radiation during these periods is more intense while water levels are lower and river velocities slow. As global average temperatures continue to rise, namely from the burning of fossil fuels, such issues are only expected to get worse.

"Rising river water temperatures can have significant and often detrimental implications for aquatic life, impacting both individual species and entire ecosystems," study co-author and University of Birmingham professor David Hannah said. "Drought conditions often coincide with high atmospheric temperatures and such trends will become more intense and frequent with climate change."

The higher water temperatures in Lake Tefe were at least in part caused by the ongoing drought. At one point during the week of the mass dolphin casualties, temperatures hit as high as 39.1 degrees Celsius, or nearly 102.4 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, the water was as warm as a hot tub, which according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is typically set between 100 and 102 degrees Fahrenheit.

The average maximum temperature over time for the lake is significantly lower at 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit, oceanographer Miriam Marmontel, who is helping research the issue, said through the World Wildlife Fund. Marmontel believes the more than 12-degree difference triggered thermal stress in the animals.

A dead dolphin is seen at Tefe lake, which flows into the Solimoes river, that has been affected by the high temperatures and drought in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, October 1, 2023. / Credit: BRUNO KELLY / REUTERS

Both the drought and water temperatures "are directly related to what happened," the institute said, according to a translation, although other contributing factors to the animals' deaths have "not yet been ruled out, such as water contamination or animal disease."

However, of the 104 deceased dolphins that have been necropsied, results from 17 show that "there is no evidence of an infectious agent linked to the primary cause of mortality," the institute said. The algae egulena sanguinea, which can cause fish to die, was found in the water since Oct. 3, researchers said "there is no evidence that its toxin is related to dolphin mortality nor has it caused the death of fish in Lake Tefe."

"Of all the environmental and biological variables that we have analyzed, the only one that has shown an anomalous is the water temperature," they added. "The fish mortality found is normal for extreme drought events in region."

Researchers from the Mamiraua Institute for Sustainable Development recover a dead dolphin from Tefe lake, which flows into the Solimoes River, affected by high temperatures and drought, in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, October 3, 2023. / Credit: BRUNO KELLY / REUTERS

Mariana Paschoalini Frias, a conservation analyst at WWF-Brazil, described the mass deaths as "appalling"  and could be a sign of what's to come for others in the area, including people.

"The impact of the loss of these animals is enormous and affects the entire local ecosystem," she said. "Porpoises are considered 'sentinels.' In other words: they are indicative of the health of the environment where they live. What happens to them is reflected in the other species that live around them, including humans."

WWF-Brazil said that a barrier of wooden stakes has now been put up to try and prevent more dolphin deaths and move the animals to "deeper, less hot areas."

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A 17-year-old man is facing a charge of murder in connection with a shooting in Fall River last week that left a young man dead, officials announced Thursday.

Antwyne Robinson, 17, of Fall River, is slated to be arraigned in Fall River District Court on a charge of murder in the death of 18-year-old Jovanni Perez, of Fall River and East Weymouth, according to the Bristol District Attorneys Office.

Robinson was nabbed late Thursday morning by detectives investigating Perezs death.

Officers responding to a report of a shooting in the area of 253 Locust Street on the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 14, found Perez suffering from a gunshot wound, Fall River police said.

Perez was taken to Charlton Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

State Police detectives assigned to the DAs office are continuing to assist Fall River police with the investigation.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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A freshman at the University of Georgia died after falling about 90 feet from a rock face when her rope became unhooked, news outlets report.

Yutong Faye Zhang, 18, was rock climbing in Alabama on Oct. 14 when she fell, the Cherokee County Coroners Office told AL.com.

Zhang, originally from Minnesota, was climbing a popular route known as Misty in Sand Rock with other climbers when she somehow became unhooked from the rock face, falling 90 feet, the outlet reported.

Zhang was relatively new to the sport of rock climbing, and her father told Climbing Magazine it was only her second outside climb.

Active Climbing, a rock gym in Athens, Georgia, said Zhang was a member of its climbing community in an Instagram post.

Our thoughts are with Fayes family, friends, and the University of Georgia community at this difficult time. We join them in mourning this profound loss and honoring the vibrancy, passion and kindness that she brought into our lives, the gym wrote.

In an online rock climbing forum, a person who said they were Zhangs belay, the person who holds the end of a rock climbing rope on the ground, said Zhang was the last climber of their group to go up and so she was pulling out an attachment to bring down with her.

We communicated and demonstrated what she was to do when she got to the top while she was on the ground and she was aware and confident of just needing to remove a locker and leave the mussys clipped, they wrote in the forum. No one was up there so no one really saw what happened.

Zhang was a freshman at the University of Georgia, and was part of the schools highest academic scholarship program, the Foundation Fellowship, UGA spokesperson Greg Trevor told AL.com.

Gentle  I think  would be a good word, Zhangs friend Owen Donnelly told WSB.

Donnelly said Zhang attended the gym a few times a week after starting at the university this fall, and her death has had a significant impact on the Athens climbing community.

It is tight-knit. So, when something like this happens, its very much a ripple effect. It is felt across the community, Donnelly told the outlet.

The accident occurred at Sand Rock, about 110 miles northwest of Atlanta.

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Two teens have been arrested in connection to a shooting outside Pittsburghs Westinghouse Academy that injured four students in February.

James Pritchard, 17, who is being charged as an adult, and a 14-year-old were taken into custody, Chief Police Chief Larry Scirotto announced Thursday.

James Pritchard

The students were shot outside the school on Feb. 14 as classes were letting out for the day. All four of the students were in stable condition when they were taken to local hospitals.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Westinghouse Academy students to return to school in phases after 4 students shot on school grounds

Scirotto said both suspects are facing several charges. Tips from the community over the last several months led to the arrests, the chief said.

PHOTOS: Huge police presence outside Westinghouse Academy after 4 students shot

Mayor Ed Gainey thanked the police department for their work on the case and said that youth violent homicide is down 22% in the city.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Its a tragedy: shooting near Westinghouse Academy still on mind of PPS superintendent

If you see something, say something, because its working, he said.

Gainey said officials will continue to work to make city schools safe.

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As Israel and Hamas trade blame for a deadly strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip, social media users are claiming a video of a misfired rocket is evidence that Palestinian militants were behind the blast. But while the footage was filmed in the besieged territory, it is more than a year old.

"Nothing is more clear than that!!! A Hamas missile hits the hospital in Gaza..." says an October 17, 2023 post sharing the clip on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Screenshot from X, formerly known as Twitter, taken October 19, 2023

Similar posts spread on X, TikTok and other platforms more than a week after Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group carried out an unprecedented October 7 assault on the country. The Palestinian fighters killed more than 1,400 people and took some 199 hostages, marking the worst attack in Israeli history.

In response, Israel cut off food, water and fuel supplies to Gaza, the densely populated, impoverished territory governed by Hamas, which has been under a blockade for years. Israeli air strikes have also reduced neighborhoods to rubble and killed at least 3,785 people as of October 19, according to the health ministry.

The October 17 rocket strike on a hospital elevated international concern and sparked protests worldwide. The blast left scores of bodies and charred cars at the Ahli Arab hospital compound in northern Gaza, AFP images show.

But both sides have traded blame for the bloody carnage, though neither the provenance of the strike nor the death toll could be immediately or independently verified.

Hamas charged that Israel hit the hospital during its massive bombing campaign, and Gaza's health ministry put the death toll at 471.

Israel blamed a misfired rocket from Islamic Jihad -- the second-largest armed group in Gaza -- by pointing to the absence of a large impact crater typical of its air strikes and insisting that fuel from an errant rocket had exploded.

President Joe Biden and US intelligence have backed Israel's account. An Israeli army spokesman also disputed Hamas's casualty count, and a senior European intelligence source told AFP he believed a maximum of 50 people were killed.

Hamas has dismissed Israel's position, saying its "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone."

Despite posts claiming otherwise, the video circulating online does not provide answers -- while captured in Gaza, it is more than a year old.

Video from August 2022

Reverse image searches reveal the same footage circulated on X, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms as early as August 6, 2022 (archived here, here, here, here and here).

Israeli journalists and the nation's public broadcaster KAN were among those who shared it (archived here, here and here).

The posts say the footage shows a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket near the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

  :     '    ' |   @AmichaiStein1@ItayBlumentalpic.twitter.com/FpeLkL6FYl    (@kann_news) August 6, 2022

AFP could not independently verify the source of the clip or the specific missile it shows, but Google Maps Street View imagery from Gaza appears to match some of the buildings (archived here).

Screenshot from X taken October 19, 2023, with elements outlined by AFP

Screenshot from Google Maps Street View taken October 19, 2023, with elements outlined by AFP

Israel and Islamic Jihad exchanged blame for an explosion near Jabalia that killed civilians, including children, on August 6, 2022 -- the day the video appeared online.

Israel had been targeting Islamic Jihad positions but denied responsibility for the strike, insisting that a rocket fired by the militant group had fallen short. The country's forces said they were not firing on the area at the time and posted footage and a radar tracking map they said showed the failed rocket (archived here, here and here).

Residents who witnessed the 2022 blast and spoke to AFP at the time said they believed it was the result of an errant militant rocket. Amnesty International, a global non-governmental organization focused on human rights, also interviewed locals and concluded a Palestinian misfire was to blame (archived here).

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war here.
Thousands of athletes and spectators are expected to flock to the Boston area this weekend for the 2023 Head of the Charles Regatta, which officially kicks off Friday in Cambridge along the banks of the Charles River.

Since 1965, rowers have come from near and far to take part in the worlds largest regatta, but the fun isnt limited to competitors. There are many ways for spectators to get involved in the weekends festivities.

Numerous CFD firefighters, EMTs, Medics, & HazMat Techs will be on the streets (along w our partner public safety agencies) ensuring a high level of safety for the 2023 Head of the Charles Regatta.

More than 11K rowers & 400K spectators are expected over the 3-day race. @HOCR pic.twitter.com/CsdbTaDTWF  Cambridge Fire Dept. (@CambridgeMAFire) October 21, 2023

According to the Cambridge Fire Department, more than 11,000 rowers and 400,000 spectators are expected over the 3-day race.

Spectators traveling to and from the Regatta are encouraged to use public transportation. Parking availability is limited for spectators and parts of Memorial Drive will be closed over race weekend.

CAMBRIDGE, MA - OCTOBER 23: The Women's Youth Eights team from Saugatuck competes on Day 2 of The 52nd Head of the Charles Regatta on October 23, 2016 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 21: Competitors make their way to the starting line during the Head of the Charles Regatta on October 21, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - OCTOBER 20: Members of the Harvard University Men's Heavyweight Rowing team train on the Charles River on October 20, 2022 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 21: A view of the city skyline during the Head of the Charles Regatta on October 21, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

CAMBRIDGE, MA - OCTOBER 23: Competitors pass in front of the Cambridge Boat Club during Day 2 of The 52nd Head of the Charles Regatta on October 23, 2016 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - OCTOBER 12: Members of the Harvard-Radcliffe Women's Heavyweight Crew team train against the Boston city skyline on the Charles River in preparation for the Head of the Charles Regatta on October 12, 2022 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS - OCTOBER 21: Members of the Radcliffe Women's Heavyweight Crew team train on the Charles River in preparation for the Head of the Charles Regatta on October 21, 2021 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

CAMBRIDGE, MA - OCTOBER 23: The Men's Eight team from University of Cincinnati competes during Day 2 of The 52nd Head of the Charles Regatta on October 23, 2016 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 21: The George Washington University Men's Championship Fours team races under the John W Weeks bridge during the 54th Head of the Charles Regatta on October 21, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts.(Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 21: The University of Notre Dame Women's Alumni Eights team makes their way to the starting line during the Head of the Charles Regatta on October 21, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 21: An athlete rows past geese in the Charles River during the Head of the Charles Regatta on October 21, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

RACE SCHEDULE

Friday, Oct. 20

Saturday, Oct. 21

Sunday, Oct. 21

WHERE TO WATCH

Start Line at Boston University DeWolfe Boathouse

The DeWolfe boathouse is where the race begins. Spectators can watch crews queueing for the race start from the Dr. Paul Dudley White Bike Path in front of the Hyatt Regency Hotel. For a view of the basin and the start line head to the Boston University Bridge.

Boston University Bridge & Grand Junction Railroad Bridge

Originally called the Cottage Farm Bridge, the BU Bridge was renamed for Boston University at its southern end when students lobbied state lawmakers in 1949. The BU Bridge is unique on the Course because it has a companion: the older Grand Junction Railroad Bridge cuts diagonally beneath, its steel sections tattooed with colorful graffiti. The red-and-white tag above the upstream travel arch receives an annual motivational update for Head Of The Charles racers from unknown members of the Boston collegiate rowing community. The BU Bridge is not the only bridgeas some claim incorrectlybut one of three known in the world where simultaneously a plane can fly over a car driving over a train chugging over a rower quietly, motorlessly, working the water.

SADL (Singles and Doubles Launch) at Magazine Beach

The Singles and Doubles Launch area is next to Riverside Boat Club and Magazine beach. Head here to watch the races for a quieter Regatta experience.

River Street Bridge

The River Street Bridge is the 2nd bridge along the race course and offers a clear view of the Powerhouse Stretch. The Stretch is a straight section of the river that starts at the top of Magazine Beach and ends just before the Weeks Footbridge.

Western Avenue Bridge

The Western Avenue Bridge is the 3rd bridge along the race course and offers a view of the end of the Powerhouse Stretch and boats heading into the infamous Weeks Footbridge turn.

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 21: The George Washington University Men's Championship Fours team races under the John W Weeks bridge during the 54th Head of the Charles Regatta on October 21, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts.(Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

Weeks Footbridge

The iconic 5th bridge along the race course is known to all rowers for its sharp 90-degree turn making it extremely difficult for crews to navigate especially if multiple crews are attempting passage. Viewing from the top of the bridge is one of the most popular spots at the Regatta.

Weld Exhibition at Riverbend Park

The Weld Exhibition venue is the most popular destination for food and beverage sampling and vending at the Regatta. Head here to picnic and watch the racing between the Weeks Footbridge and Anderson Bridge. The Weld Exhibition is a short 7-minute walk from the Harvard Square MBTA station.

Reunion Village

Whether youre a spectator, a competitor, or simply in need of refreshment, be sure to check out the Reunion Village. The Village offers a fun and relaxed atmosphere located at the halfway point in the race on the Cambridge side of the Charles River. Everyone is welcome at the Village. Clubs, schools, alumni groups, parents, boosters and travel groups are all urged to visit! Admission is $10/day. 21+ can purchase alcohol.

Anderson Bridge

The Anderson bridge is the 6th bridge on the race course next to Harvards Weld Boathouse.

Eliot Bridge

The 7th and final bridge of the race course in front of Regatta headquarters at the Cambridge Boat Club.

Finish Line at Herter Park

The Finish Line at Herter Park concludes the 4702m race course and offers dramatic views of crews finishing the race. Be sure to check out the Finish Line bollards installed in 2016.

CAMBRIDGE, MA - OCTOBER 23: Competitors pass in front of the Cambridge Boat Club during Day 2 of The 52nd Head of the Charles Regatta on October 23, 2016 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

PARKING

Harvard Stadium

Accessible off of Soldiers Field Road heading East. Parking will be available for about 500 cars. The location is across from the FALS/Rowing and Fitness Expo area.

Available: Friday and Saturday (6 a.m. to 7 p.m.) and Sunday (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.)

Cost: $30/day

Birmingham Parkway

Free, on-street parking. The Parkway runs next to I-90 and is accessible from Market Street off of Soldiers Field Road or from Soldiers Field Road and Route 20 intersection near Community Rowing.

Available: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday  no parking after 6 p.m.

Alewife T Station

Accessible from Route 2 off of I-95. Garage with parking for 2,733 cars and Red Line T service to Harvard Square, a short walk to the river and the Weld Exhibition/Reunion Village area.

Cost: $9/day

GETTING AROUND

Ride Shares

The Head of the Charles Regatta encourages spectators and athletes to use ridesharing apps as a mode of transportation to and from the event.

Public Transportation

All those who are not arriving with boats on their cars are STRONGLY advised to use public transportation. The course is within easy walking distance of 3 MBTA stations (Central & Harvard on the RED line, and BU Central on the B Branch of the Green Line) and multiple bus routes travel near to the course (1, 47, 64, 66, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 86). See www.mbta.com for detailed route and schedule information.

Driving Directions

FALS  Mass Pike to exit 18 East. Exit 20 West, follow signs to Cambridge. Stay straight through several traffic lights and across the River Street Bridge. Once across the bridge, take a left onto Memorial Drive (there will be a Shell station and a Mobile station at the corners.) Stay on Memorial Drive for 1.6 miles at which point it will fork (near the Cambridge Boat Club.) Staying to the left, follow signs for Watertown/Newton. Proceed through the traffic light, and as you approach Eliot Bridge, follow signs for Boston/Newton. As you are crossing Eliot bridge stay to the right and an HOCR volunteer will meet your trailer and direct you to a parking space. It would be helpful to consult a parking map or course map to assist with directions.

SADL (Magazine Beach)  Same as above, expect go RIGHT onto Memorial Drive once you cross the River Street Bridge. Magazine Beach is located about 1/4 mile downstream of Riverside Boat Club, across from the large Shell sign.

Anticipated Road Closures

8 a.m. to 7 p.m. -- Memorial Drive from Cambridge Boat Club to Western Avenue (Saturday & Sunday)

For those who cant make it to the event in person, there will be livestreams available here.

Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Twenty-seven tribal nations and four tribal organizations on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in support of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians (Bad River Band) fight to eject Enbridge Energys Line 5 pipeline from its reservation in northern Wisconsin, along the shores of Lake Superior.

The basis of the Bad River Bands lawsuit is Enbridges right-of-way with the sovereign nation to operate the Line 5 that expired in 2013 and was not renewed by the tribe. Despite the Bad River Band refusing to renew the right-of-way, the Canadian oil and gas giant continues to operate the pipeline and refuses to leave the Reservation.

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At this point, the Bad River Band contends Enbridge Energy, Inc. is trespassing on its tribal land.

In June 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin ruled that Enbridge is consciously and willfully trespassing on the Bad River Bands reservation.

No right-of-way means no right to operate on tribal land, just like on any other type of land holding in the United States, Bay Mills Indian Community President Whitney Gravelle.said As sovereign governments and landowners, it is the absolute right of every Tribal Nation to expel any entity operating on their lands without consent.

The court ordered Enbridge to decommission the portions of the Line 5 oil and gas network the corporation operates without a right-of-way on tribal lands. Enbridge appealed that decision to the 7th Circuit, and the tribal amicus brief supports the Bad River Bands right to evict the trespasser.

A foreign corporation that makes billions of dollars a year is asking the U.S. courts to also ignore its on-going trespass and allow it to trample over the rights of sovereign Tribal Nations in the name of profit, said Native American Rights Fund (NARF) Staff Attorney Wesley James Furlong.

The amicus brief advocates for the sovereign rights of tribal nations to expel trespassers from their lands and demonstrates how Enbridges trespass perpetuates the tragic history of stealing Native lands. The legal filing explains how U.S. courts could end corporate land grabs by upholding the inherent sovereign authority of Tribal Nations to expel trespassers from their lands. NARF drafted the brief on behalf of the 27 Tribal Nations and 4 organizations.

Tribal Nations certainly can evict and eject trespassers like Enbridge who operate illegally on tribal lands without permission. The appeal courts decision in this case will affect the rights that all Tribal Nations have to protect themselves from corporate land grabs, said Furlong.

The 27 Tribal Nations and 4 organizations who submitted the amicus brief include:

Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Barona Band of Mission Indians Bay Mills Indian Community Chippewa Cree Tribe Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians Jamul Indian Village of California Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians Lower Sioux Indian Community of the State of Minnesota Muscogee (Creek) Nation Navajo Nation Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi Oneida Nation Pueblo of Isleta Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin Stockbridge-Munsee Community Suquamish Indian Tribe of the Port Madison Reservation Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians White Earth Band of Ojibwe California Tribal Chairpersons Association Coalition of Large Tribes National Congress of American Indian United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund, Inc.

Read the Amicus Brief: https://www.narf.org/nill/documents/20231018bad-river-enbridge-tribal-amicus.pdf

About the Author: "Native News Online is one of the most-read publications covering Indian Country and the news that matters to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous people. Reach out to us at editor@nativenewsonline.net. "

Contact: news@nativenewsonline.net
Russians kidnap Ukrainian children

About 30,000 Ukrainian civilians have gone missing since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Director-General of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) Kathryne Bomberger told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne on Oct. 19.

At the moment it is about 30,000 people; and they are all civilians, said Bomberger.

Read also: Ukraine needed to use advanced DNA technology to identify all 59 civilians killed in Russian missile attack on village cafe

And now I am not sure who exactly this number includes. We are trying to understand what these numbers are and what they mean.

She clarified that the figure could include:

 People who are alive and separated from their families;

Read also: Zelenskyy launches BRING KIDS BACK UA to unite efforts to return thousands of children kidnapped by Russia

 People who are being held incommunicado;

 People who died during the hostilities but whose bodies have not been identified;

Read also: Over 23,000 people thought to be missing since Russias full-scale invasion

 Children illegally deported to Russia.

These numbers continue to grow, Bomberger added.

Some 11,000 civilians and 15,000 soldiers are considered missing under special circumstances in Ukraine, Deputy Interior Minister Leonid Timchenko told Ukrainian TV broadcasters on Oct. 5.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Editors note: What Myrtle Beach people, places or things make you nostalgic? Tell us more about this story or other notable stories that our journalists should know about our community. Email us at online@thesunnews.com.

In the last week, 75 Sun News readers nominated their favorite closed restaurants from Little River to Garden City and everywhere in between.

In our form, readers shared their memories of kind staff, unforgettable flavors and irreplaceable atmospheres at 55 Grand Strand eateries.

Four restaurants rose to the top, with multiple reader nominations each. Now its your turn to vote for the most missed restaurant in the Myrtle Beach area. Reader submissions were lightly edited for clarity.

Honorable mentions

While they didnt make it into the top four, each of these eateries received two nominations from Sun News readers.

Cagneys

Collectors Cafe

Outrigger

Prossers

Rossis

Slugs

T Bonz Gill & Grill

Finalists

Black Thai

Pad Thai at Black Thai. File photo.

Address: 710 Main St., Myrtle Beach

Readers enjoyed nights with friends over panang curry and drunken noodles at Black Thai. A recently departed favorite, Black Thai in downtown Myrtle Beach closed this August after 16 years in business.

Reader Alex wrote that, in addition to weekly Tuesday dinners, every birthday for myself and my group of friends was spent here. Tiffany of Forestbrook worked at Black Thai and fondly remembers the crispy chili chicken and her fellow employees.

Santa Fe Station

Address: 1101 Highway 17 N., North Myrtle Beach

The train car in the center of the building and a model train chugging on an overhead track made Santa Fe Stations atmosphere unforgettable. So were the hush puppies and honey butter, said our readers.

The North Myrtle Beach restaurant was located where the Mellow Mushroom is now. In 2008, local restaurateur Ed Cribb bought the business, turning it into a steakhouse and renovating the one-of-a-kind building, according to Sun News reporting.

K&W Cafeteria

Cheesecake, lemon meringue pie, pumpkin pie and cherry cobbler are some of the desserts offered at K&W on Thanksgiving. File photo.

Addresses: four locations in the Myrtle Beach area

Sun News readers feasted on chicken pan pie and egg custard at K&W Cafeteria, which at its height had four locations in Myrtle Beach, Murrells Inlet and North Myrtle Beach. Starting in 2017, the area cafeterias gradually closed, according to The Sun News.

The low prices and kind employees stood out to our readers. Penny from Surfside Beach remembered, At breakfast time, the wonderful lady that worked there had the best way of calling out WAFFles!! Reader Susan loved the little lady that called out I need a shor stack.

You can still taste that beloved roast beef  11 K&W Cafeterias are still open in North Carolina and Virginia, with one in Wilmington.

J. Edwards

Address: 2300 S. Kings Highway, Myrtle Beach

For almost 40 years, owner J. Edward Fleming owned the Myrtle Beach steakhouse, which Sun News readers remember for their prime ribs. Located on South Kings Highway by the Myrtle Beach Airport, the restaurant closed in 2011 following Flemings passing, according to Sun News reporting at the time.

Nan went to the restaurant yearly for two decades while on vacation and remembered meeting the owner who so graciously came to every table. The Ohio resident described the atmosphere as old-school and very classy, while reader Les of Socastee recalled the private gazebos for that special function with a loved one.

Time to vote

You have until Oct. 25 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time to vote for your favorite. Please note this poll is just for fun and isnt scientific.
(KTLA)  Four women who attended Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, were killed after being struck by a driver while walking along the Pacific Coast Highway this week.

The crash happened around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night, east of the Malibu Pier near La Costa Beach, authorities said.

Pepperdine is located roughly four miles north of where the crash occurred.

To the students who loved, lived with, and were in community with the departed members of our Pepperdine family, my heart is broken with yours, University President Jim Gash said in a message to the Pepperdine community. I join you in your grief as we process this profound loss.

Could have been a lot worse: Police hail NJ school bus driver as hero after brakes fail

During a Wednesday press conference, officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department identified the driver as 22-year-old Fraser Michael Bohm. He is now facing manslaughter charges.

Investigators said Bohm was speeding in his dark-colored BMW westbound on the Pacific Coast Highway when he lost control, sideswiped several parked vehicles, and crashed into the young women who were walking in the area. The four victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

Two other victims, who were not immediately identified, were taken to a nearby hospital in unknown conditions.

Witnesses say they saw the driver get out of his wrecked car unharmed before being pinned to the ground by several people.

Bohm was arrested on charges of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. A DUI investigation is still pending, LASD said. Bohm has since been released from custody pending further investigation, Deputy Roger Schalkx said.

Malibu Fatal Crash

The first victim to be identified by family members was 20-year-old Los Angeles native Niamh Rolston. Rolston was a business major at Pepperdine and was set to graduate with the class of 2024. Her 21st birthday would have been next month, her family said.

The three other victims were later identified as Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir and Deslyn Williams. All four of the victims were seniors at Pepperdines Seaver College of Liberal Arts.

Each departed student brought a unique gift and spirit to the University, and we deeply grieve the unfulfilled hopes and aspirations of our precious community members, Pepperdine University Vice President for Student Affairs Connie Horton said.

A car was intentionally crashed into second floor of Pennsylvania home, authorities say

A woman who has lived in the area for many years told Nexstars KTLA that the area of the Pacific Coast Highway where the women were killed is known as Dead Mans Curve due to the high number of accidents, nearly all of which involve speeding drivers.

Plans for a memorial service with the families of the students are underway. The university said it will hold a prayer service Thursday at 10 a.m. for members of the Pepperdine community. There will also be a candlelight vigil held at 8 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
MALIBU, Calif. (KTLA)  Four women who attended Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, were killed after being struck by a driver while walking along the Pacific Coast Highway earlier this week.

The crash happened around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 17, east of the Malibu Pier near La Costa Beach, authorities said.

Pepperdine is located roughly four miles north of where the crash occurred.

To the students who loved, lived with, and were in community with the departed members of our Pepperdine family, my heart is broken with yours, University President Jim Gash said in a message to the Pepperdine community. I join you in your grief as we process this profound loss.

Could have been a lot worse: Police hail NJ school bus driver as hero after brakes fail

During a Wednesday, Oct. 18 press conference, officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department (LASD) identified the driver as 22-year-old Fraser Michael Bohm. He is now facing manslaughter charges.

Investigators said Bohm was speeding in his dark-colored BMW westbound on the Pacific Coast Highway when he lost control, sideswiped several parked vehicles, and crashed into the young women who were walking in the area. The four victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

Two other victims, who were not immediately identified, were taken to a nearby hospital in unknown conditions.

Witnesses said they saw the driver get out of his wrecked car unharmed before being pinned to the ground by several people.

Former NASCAR team owner indicted on federal charges, could spend years in prison

Bohm was arrested on charges of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. A DUI investigation is still pending, the LASD said. Bohm has since been released from custody pending further investigation, according to Deputy Roger Schalkx.

Malibu Fatal Crash

The first victim to be identified by family members was 20-year-old Los Angeles native Niamh Rolston. Rolston was a business major at Pepperdine and was set to graduate with the Class of 2024. Her 21st birthday would have been next month, her family said.

The three other victims were later identified as Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir, and Deslyn Williams. All four of the victims were seniors at Pepperdines Seaver College of Liberal Arts.

Each departed student brought a unique gift and spirit to the University, and we deeply grieve the unfulfilled hopes and aspirations of our precious community members, Pepperdine University Vice President for Student Affairs Connie Horton said.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

A woman who has lived in the area for many years told News 2s sister station, KTLA, that the area of the Pacific Coast Highway where the women were killed is known as Dead Mans Curve due to the high number of crashes, nearly all of which involve speeding drivers.

Plans for a memorial service with the families of the students are underway. The university said it would hold a prayer service on Thursday, Oct. 19 at 10 a.m. for members of the Pepperdine community, followed by a candlelight vigil at 8 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
A man visiting Hawaii from Colorado was swept out to sea by a large wave as he walked a rocky beach in Kona, Hawaii police said.

The man, 53-year-old Jeffrey Jewers of Aurora, had been walking along a rocky area of the shore just before 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 17, when a large wave hit him, witnesses told the Hawaii Police Department in a news release.

The force of the wave knocked him onto rocks and pulled him into the ocean, police said.

Witnesses told police they saw him trying to climb back out of the ocean, but he was hit by another large wave that pulled him away from the shoreline.

They last saw him in the water about half a mile offshore, police said. Hawaii Fire Department rescuers located his lifeless body in the water and rushed him to a local hospital.

He was pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m., officials said. Police suspect he drowned, but the exact cause of death will be determined by an autopsy.

I know this man and my heart is absolutely broken for his family, someone said on Facebook.

Police are asking anyone who may have seen the incident to contact Officer Mara Gaertner of Kona Patrol at 808-326-4646, ext. 253, or via email at Mara.Gaertner@Hawaiicounty.gov.

Visitor from California plunges 120 feet to death at waterfall, Hawaii officials say

Two divers found dead after rescuers see light 150 feet from shore, Hawaii officials say

Last-minute call on dying phone leads rescuers to woman trapped by rising tide in CA
A death investigation is underway after a 6-year-old was found stabbed inside an Atlanta-area apartment, Georgia authorities say.

Police and fire crews responded around 8 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 19, after someone called about a fire at a Peachtree Corners apartment complex, Gwinnett County police said in a news release.

Crews said a fire alarm was going off in one of the first-floor units, where they discovered the child after going inside. He was unresponsive and had been stabbed multiple times, police said.

Gwinnett County, Georgia police are investigating the death of a 6-year-old found stabbed as crews responded to an apartment fire in Peachtree Corners.

The boy was taken to a hospital where he died, according to the release. Authorities havent released his name pending notification of family.

The boy was the only person in the apartment at the time, though police said they detained a woman they believe lives in the unit where he was found. Authorities said they found her behind the building wearing wet clothes and only one sock.

Police didnt mention a motive but said theyre investigating how the woman could be involved.

Peachtree Corners is about 20 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.

Man sets fire to apartment building after neighbor wont give him cigarette, feds say

8-year-old shot after loaded gun put in burn barrel and set on fire, Florida cops say

Grandson shoots and kills his grandparents and their pet cat, Georgia police say
A driver fleeing police slammed into parked vehicles, crushing and killing a 76-year-old onlooker, California authorities reported.

The fatal crash took place at about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 17, Vallejo police said in a news release.

An officer tried to pull over a Ford Fusion for reckless driving, but the driver sped away, passing through two stop signs before crashing into parked vehicles, police said.

The collision crushed a man standing between two of the vehicles, police said. He later died of his injuries at a hospital.

The Sonoma County Coroners Office identified him as Russell Hawk of Vallejo, SF Gate reported.

The driver of the Ford Fusion ran away from the crash, police said. Officers said they found a firearm in the vehicle.

Police ask anyone with information to call 707-648-4329.

Vallejo is about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Lumber hanging off passing truck hits and kills two bicyclists, California cops say

Giant teddy bear explodes in parking lot, California video shows. One arrested

Womans body found in water days after she vanished on walk, California police say
Richard Allen's attorneys took this photo April 4, 2023, of the man accused of the Delphi killings of teenagers Libby German and Abby Williams. He appears to have lost a significant amount of weight in his five months in prison segregation. He appears to have spittle on his shirt under his chin. Allen exhibits what his attorneys describe as "schizophrenic and delusional."

FORT WAYNE, Ind.  Libby German and Abby Williams' accused killer, Richard Allen, is in need of new attorneys.

"We had an unexpected turn of events," Special Judge Frances Gull said at the start of the brief hearing Thursday in Allen County. "Earlier this afternoon, the defense attorneys have withdrawn the representation of Mr. Allen."

With no attorneys to represent him, Allen was taken back to the prison where he is in pretrial detention, Gull said.

Gull did not give any explanations for Andrew Baldwin or Brad Rozzi's withdraw.

Baldwin resigned by oral motion Thursday, Gull said, and Rozzi will be filing a written resignation in the coming days. As for Friday morning, Rozzi's resignation had not been filed, according to the online court docket.

Baldwin's attorney, David R. Hennessy of Indianapolis, filed a memorandum Thursday regarding possible disqualifications and sanctions against Baldwin.

The memorandum and news reports indicates someone in Baldwin's office leaked crime scene photos without Baldwin's knowledge.

"There is no case allowing disqualification when an individual not part of the attorney's office or staff surreptitiously purloins information from the attorney and disseminates it without permission or the attorney's knowledge," the memorandum states.

"Here the attorney's trust and office were violated without his knowledge," the memorandum states. "Attorney Baldwin did nothing wrong. He was snookered and abused.

"Mr. Baldwin trusted a friend to respect his office space. He was betrayed," the memorandum states.

"It should be considered that nothing has been disclosed that won't be disclosed at trial or hearings," the memorandum states.

Shortly before Thursday's hearing started, Rozzi entered the courtroom, spoke with Allen's wife and they both hastily left.

Allen was arrested Oct. 26, 2022, on suspicion of murder for the Feb. 13, 2017, killings of Libby and Abby. Prosecutors formally charged him on Oct. 28, 2022, and he has been incarcerated since then in isolation at an Indiana maximum-security prison in Westville.

Gull expects Allen's new public defenders to be appointed soon, and she retained the Oct. 31 hearing for pretrial motions.

The Jan. 8 trial dates, however, will be rescheduled, Gull said.

Gull said she asked Baldwin and Rozzi to return the discovery evidence to Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland, who will then release it to Allen's new attorneys when they are appointed.

Gull requested that Baldwin and Rozzi cooperate with their successors, but she noted that is only a request.

Gull apologized for the delay to those who had been waiting for hours for the hearing to begin.

Late last month, Allen's attorneys filed a motion for a hearing to determine if law enforcement misled the Carroll County Circuit Court in order to get a search warrant for Allen's home.

In a 136-page memorandum to support the request for hearing, Allen's defense presented the theory that Libby and Abby were killed in a ritual sacrifice by Odinist  an ancient Norse pagan religion.

The memorandum casts doubt on the prosecution's case that Allen is the sole killer of the teenage girls who were walking the trials near the Monon High Bridge on that unseasonably warm February afternoon. In fact, the memorandum says that Allen is not associated with Odinism and is not involved in the killings.

A short time after that memorandum became public, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland filed a motion to seal filings from the public until the court reviews them to determine if the documents should be published.

Allen is accused of being the man seen in Libby's video walking on the Monon High Bridge. He is accused of forcing the girls off the trails, taking them to a bank on the north side of the Deer Creek, where prosecutors allege he killed them.

An unfired bullet found between the girls' bodies had tool markings indicating it was ejected from a pistol owned by Allen, according to prosecutors. That pistol was taken into evidence after the search of his house.

The now dismissed defense team suggested that because the search warrant was obtained by misleading the court, the evidence, including the pistol and its markings, should be thrown out.

Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: UPDATE: Accused Delphi killer's attorneys withdraw from his case
Black students are more likely than white classmates to be charged with disorderly conduct  data that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says shows policing in North Carolina schools is arbitrary and discriminatory.

The new Consequences of Cops in North Carolina Schools report released Thursday by the ACLU of North Carolina highlights racial disparities in school-based complaints and disorderly conduct in school charges.

The ACLU wants schools to replace school resource officers with more counselors, nurses, social workers and psychologists to help meet the mental health needs of students.

Reliance on policing in schools in North Carolina does not work, Amanda Meyer, staff attorney in the ACLU Racial Justice Program, said in an interview. This has made students less safe and not more. This has created a climate of distrust and fear, especially for Black students and students with disabilities.

The report comes at a time of rising concerns about school safety. Security lockdowns and the installation of weapons detectors have become far more common..

North Carolina has seen a 170% increase in state funding for school resource officers in the past five years. Once typically found only in high schools and middle schools, more officers are being placed in elementary schools after last years mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

If you have a threat that comes to a school, do you really want to wait for the officer to come? Leon Godlock, a longtime school resource officer and ex-officio member of the North Carolina Association of School Resource Officers, said in an interview. Officers really deter more crimes than are being reported.

School resource officer Victor Montalvo, right, greets a student with a high-five as students arrive for the first day of school at Waxhaw Elementary School on Monday, August 28, 2023.

Disparities in disorderly conduct charges

The report particularly focuses on the states disorderly conduct in schools law, which makes it a crime to disrupt, disturb, or interfere with teaching. The ACLU says this can put students into the states criminal legal system and produce negative lifelong consequences..

Vague laws like the disorderly conduct in schools law give police officers unbridled discretion to define when, and under what circumstances, typical childhood conduct crosses the line into criminal behavior, according to the report.

Between 2017 and 2023, law enforcement and school staff filed school-based complaints of disorderly conduct against Black students at four times the rate of white students. Black students accounted for 56% of the disorderly conduct referrals while making up 23% of the youth population.

The disparities are widening, according to Meyer, who is one of the reports authors. Between 2021 and 2023, Black students were being referred for disorderly conduct at five times the rate of white students.

The ACLU found other county-level data that raised concerns.

 The report singles out how Black students in Gaston, Forsyth, Moore, Wake and Pitt counties were referred 23 to 42 times more than white students for disorderly conduct. In Wake County, Black students were 26 times more likely than white students to be referred.

 From 2017 to 2023, schools in 25 counties referred only Black students for disorderly conduct. In 21 of those counties, Black students account for less than 50% of the student population.

 Six counties that had at least 50 disorderly conduct referrals didnt refer a single white student. Black students made up less than 50% of the student population in all six counties.

Demonstrators led by the Wake County Black Student Coalition march along Dillard Drive in Raleigh while demanding the Wake County Public School System remove the school resource officer program Tuesday, July 14, 2020. A march and sit-in coincided with a Wake County School Board meeting.

CMS tries to address student behavior

Between 2017 and 2022, the report found that law enforcement and school staff filed school-based complaints against Black students at three times the rate of their white counterparts.

The report says the racial disparities are the highest in Madison, Vance, Washington, Mecklenburg, New Hanover, Forsyth, Nash, Durham, Chatham and Tyrell counties.

It really shines the light on the harm police in schools are having, Meyer said. Police officers in schools have not been shown to improve safety. Police officers are doing more harm than good for Black students and students with disabilities.

The ACLU report mirrors what CMS school board members discussed in February when they said making the reduction of out-of-school suspensions a priority.

Black students are being suspended disproportionately compared to others, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education Progress Monitoring Report.

CMS is addressing the problem with two initiatives: Intervention Centers and more behavioral specialists.

Behavior of Black students

The statewide racial disparities exist even though Meyer says Black students dont misbehave more than white students. Instead, she said, the current climate of policing in schools makes adults more susceptible to act on implicit biases against Black students.

It is well-established that Black students are not generally more likely to misbehave than other students, even after accounting for different socioeconomic backgrounds, yet adults are far more likely to punish Black students (and to punish them severely) than their white peers for similar conduct, the report says.

The ACLU report has several recommendations, including repealing the disorderly conduct in schools law and ending the regular presence of law enforcement in schools. The ACLU says more mental health staff should be hired to help schools reach nationally recommended staffing levels.

SROs are doing an awesome job

The impact of police on campus is far more positive, according to Godlock, who has been a school resource officer for more than 20 years. Godlock came out of retirement with the Rutherford County Sheriffs Office to serve as a part-time school resource officer.

I will work wherever Im needed, Godlock said. You have to have a love and concern for young people. The majority of officers who work in schools want to be there.

Godlock said most school resource officers are doing an awesome job. He said school resource officers can build positive relationships with students that lead to tips that prevent crimes from happening.

On Wednesday, Godlock said the relationships hes built with students led to him being told that a middle schooler had brought a small knife to school.

What if that knife had been a gun? Godlock said. The presence of a positive school resource officer that interacts with the children really helps make the children safer. Its not just the SROs eyes. By establishing positive relationships with the kids, youve got everyone looking.

After finding the knife, Godlock contacted the state Department of Public Safetys Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Godlock says he was told he didnt need to file an incident report and could leave the matter in the hands of the school.

Since the states Raise The Age law went into effect on Dec. 1, 2019, Godlock says more cases involving students have been diverted away from the legal system. Under that law, teens ages 16 and 17 are no longer automatically charged as adults for all crimes.

Regardless of color or race, officers are helping young people get rehabilitation instead of incarceration, said Godlock, who is Black.
WASHINGTON  The historic ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy this month has left Americans divided over the unprecedented move  and the Republican Party may pay the price in the 2024 election.

House Republicans have struggled to coalesce around one leader since McCarthy's historic 15 rounds of voting to become speaker in January. He made history again two weeks ago as the first speaker ousted from the House. Since then, the House Republican conference hasn't been able to unite around a single candidate and elect a new speaker, with deep divisions roiling between hard-line conservatives and centrists in the party.

With House lawmakers up for reelection in 2024, McCarthy's removal might factor into their odds of winning again, experts said.

At the basic level, either one side needs to win this in-party fighting, a compromise must be reached, or the voters will attempt to fix it next year, Kevin Wagner, a political science professor at Florida Atlantic University, told USA TODAY.

Former House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., at a press conference addressing the violence in the Middle East at the United States Capitol on Monday, October 9, 2023.

Problems in the House can influence voters at home. Several polls already show that voters are about evenly split over McCarthy's removal as speaker.

A Yahoo News/YouGov poll released Monday found 31% of registered voters approve of McCarthy being ousted, while 27% disapprove of the House's decision.

Likewise, a CNN/SSRS poll Oct. 4 to Oct. 9 found 50% approve the decision and 49% disapprove. Thirty-four percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say his removal was bad for the GOP, while 30% think it was good.

And a poll released from The Associated Press-NORC on Oct. 11 found that 25% of voters strongly or somewhat approve of McCarthy's removal, while 25% strongly or somewhat disapprove.

The polls were conducted before two failed votes for a new House speaker, including a second in which Republican nominee Rep. Jim Jordan, of Ohio, earned less support than in the first election.

Ted Davis, 58, a retiree in Portland, Oregon, is one of the voters who disapproves of the House booting its speaker and failing to elect a replacement. He compared the situation to a giant freaking circus.

They can't even figure out what they want to do as near as I can tell, said Davis, an independent. "I'm like you're not leading, you're just running around like kids on a playground. So I've lost a lot of respect for the Republican Party these last couple of years.

Republican presidential candidates have also spoken out against the move. In a USA TODAY town hall last week in New Hampshire, former Vice President Mike Pence said, I have some tough words for what I call the 'chaos caucus' in my party on Capitol Hill.

It never would have occurred to me to partner with every Democrat on Capitol Hill to oust a Republican speaker of the House, he said, adding that if lawmakers fail to elect a speaker, voters will hold them "accountable, individually and collectively."

What happened to Kevin McCarthy?

Former Speaker of the House Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., laughs as as House lawmakers hold a vote to elect a new speaker in Washington on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio is seen left row center. House Republicans nominated the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to the speakership last week. Jordan's chances of earning 217 votes, the number needed to become speaker, are unclear.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had a rocky start to his reign as speaker. He went through 15 rounds of voting to get elected and had to make concessions with hard-line conservatives who opposed him.

But once elected, his detractors' frustrations only grew, particularly during debt ceiling negotiations between McCarthy and President Joe Biden

The boiling point of his speakership hit late last month when McCarthy worked with Democrats to pass a stopgap measure, also known as a continuing resolution, to avoid a government shutdown.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who criticized McCarthy for the measure, introduced a motion to vacate and remove McCarthy as speaker.

Eight Republicans and 208 Democrats voted to oust him. The eight were Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, Gaetz of Florida, Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana.

'Get their act together': Voters express frustration, anxiety over House speaker chaos

At this point, Davis said, he just wants lawmakers to elect somebody in the speaker position and get the job of representing their constituents done.

They need to get their act together. I mean, at this point, they've got the raw voting power. Why not just pick anybody at this point? They don't have to be popular. Just need to put somebody up there who can say, 'Hey, this is what we're voting on next.' And just get through it all. I don't care if they choose Jeffries from the Democrats or anybody else for that matter.

For Kate Richards, 59, a semi-retired entrepreneur in Manchester, New Hampshire, Congress entering its third week without a speaker makes her feel angry.

Its dangerous for the country, said Richards, an independent. That is a very important job. He's third in line. Nothing's getting done. And again, this is foolishness, and it's making the country at risk whether they understand that or not. Its a very vulnerable time for us.

Leo Braham, 18, who attends Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, said it's disheartening to see the chaos unfolding in the House. He doesnt care who the speaker is and said he just wants to see the GOP unified.

I think what we're seeing in the House is a much deeper and more worrisome reflection of the fractures in the party. And I think as a Republican voter, I want to see much less of that because I care about particular issues actually being acted upon, he said. I think it's a lot harder to show unity.  I think it's not positive that there's that kind of open rebellion within the caucus.

Alana Sweeny, 74, a retiree in Mahopac, New York, said she felt McCarthys removal was a reaction by a very small group that wanted to control the House and put a more conservative mark on House matters.

I think it's extremely unfortunate. We have a lot of important things that need to be taken care of by Congress and right now, we're paralyzed.  It makes me frustrated, said Sweeny, a Republican. We have people there who are to do the business of the populace. And at the moment, they're not able to do it until they get a speaker.  It's a shame that it's such a small group that's doing that and it's a shame that none of the Democrats will just vote present and get it over with.

Sweeny said she liked how the former speaker was able to work on both sides, understand issues and work with a broad spectrum of people.

Rafael Struve, 31, a communications director for the Texas Young Republican Federation based in Houston, called the decision to remove McCarthy premature.

Especially as we head into the 2024 cycle  if we want to show that we're a party that is going to deliver a better or better policy platform than the Democratic Party, we need to show that we can actually get Step 1 taken care of, which is uniting behind whoever is elected ... to drive forward what we believe is the agenda that best serve the interests of our country and for us as voters," he said.

'He did not keep his word': Other voters say lawmakers made the right move

Robert Charlebois, 56, a truck driver in Danbury, New Hampshire, said McCarthys removal was justified.

He was given the speakership with the understanding that there were certain goals he was going to pursue, and he didn't do that, and part of the reason he was given the speakership was because he wasn't going to bend to the Democrats to achieve other goals, and yet he did. So what it boils down to the way I'm looking at it, I tried to look at it from all possible angles, is he did not keep his word, said Charlebois, a Republican.

And so therefore, if you've got someone who promises you the moon and delivers you a marble, then are you going to keep them employed?

Jared Johnson, 43, a mining industry worker and Republican voter in Tooele, Utah, also said McCarthy didnt keep his word as speaker.

I think we've got to get more Republicans on board to  be more conservative, he said, applauding Jordan for leading the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

Kevin Fry, 63, a retired air traffic controller in Fort Wayne, Indiana, criticized McCarthy for not getting the appropriation bills finished or scheduling votes on term limits for lawmakers.

Some things are out of his (McCarthy's) control. But ... one person should not have as much power as they physically do and then not use it," said Fry, a Republican.

House representatives on a tipping point with the 2024 election

Republicans already struggle to hold on to the majority after winning back control of the House from the Democrats in the 2020 midterms with a narrow margin.

The infighting between Republican lawmakers over the shutdown fight and now the speaker battle have only added pressure to the GOP. In the Yahoo News/YouGov poll, 42% of voters blame conservative and moderate Republicans for the gridlock in Congress, while 32% of voters blame progressive and moderate Democrats.

McCarthys removal is a reflection of the political problems the Republican Party faces as it navigates between trying to be a center-right party who can appeal to moderate voters and a party dominated by the hard-right side of the party, said Charles Stewart III, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The speaker of the House can become a campaign issue, he added. For instance, former Democratic House Speaker Tip ONeill was a major punching bag of Republicans back in the 1980 election, for instance, and that tactic was considered successful.

I can see Democrats having a field day going after House Republicans and perhaps a new speaker, especially if he or she is seen as being extreme, Stewart said. This is not good for Republicans, although they still have time to stanch the wounds.

But Wagner said each district Republicans are competing in is different, so the speaker race might not have a huge effect.

In some districts, there will be a well-funded incumbent, others may be open, making them very different even if they are both purple, Wagner said.  If the GOP lags in fundraising, messaging or candidate recruitment, it could help Democratic candidates, but it really depends largely on the district.

On a national level, Wagner said, an effective presidential campaign at the top of the ticket may well hide some of the problems among House Republicans in Congress.

However, if the perception of disarray from the House were to paint the entire party, even the presidential candidate may suffer some vote loss from voters who are frustrated with the entire party.

'Get it together': 2024 candidates discuss McCarthy's removal

Oct 12, 2023; Exeter, NH, USA; Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley greets voters during the Seacoast Media Group and USA TODAY Network 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Town Hall Forum held in the historic Exeter Town Hall in Exeter, New Hampshire. The former Governor of South Carolina and former United States Ambassador to the United Nations spoke to prospective New Hampshire voters about issues during the hour-long forum.

Some 2024 Republican candidates on the campaign trail have called out the divisions between GOP lawmakers in Congress.

Pence said in an interview with USA TODAY that he was concerned about how the chaos on Capitol Hill was affecting America and called on Republican leadership to elect a new speaker.

We have war now raging in Eastern Europe, war in Israel, Pence said. Now more than ever, we need Republicans to come together and elect leadership that can begin to not only provide our allies with the support they need, but secure our border, get our economy moving again."

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in an interview with USA TODAY that if lawmakers elect a speaker soon and show unity in that selection process, then it's a bump in the road that will not have any influence on next year's election.

If we struggle with getting the ballots to select a speaker, then it demonstrates that we're not ready to govern, Hutchinson said. So that would be worrisome."

As she filed for candidacy to participate in the New Hampshire Republican primary, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley suggested lawmakers shouldn't get paid until they elect a speaker.

What I will remind my fellow Republicans is, you don't fix Democrat chaos with Republican chaos. Get it together."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Get their act together': Voters frustrated by House without a speaker
With the possibility that House Republicans could empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry to run the House temporarily amid its speakership crisis, another question loomed: Would the move put an acting speaker into the line of presidential succession?

When all leadership positions are present and accounted for, the speaker of the House is usually second in line to take up the mantle after the vice president.

But legal experts say that even empowering McHenry to move legislation isnt the same as being the real thing.

By calling this person speaker pro tem, that by definition, means there isnt an actual speaker, Michigan State law professor Brian Kalt said. So whatever powers they give him, parliamentary powers to run things in the House, as long as hes not the speaker, hes not in line of succession.

Kalt said that the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 states that the speaker must be the speaker, leaving no wiggle room for a speaker pro tem to be in line.

Eric Schickler, co-director of UC Berkeleys Institute of Governmental Studies, concurred.

Speaker pro tem, even if authorized to act as if he were the speaker or with some of those powers, its still not the same, Schickler said.



House Republicans have been in a whirlwind leadership crisis since voting for Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California to be removed from his speaker post earlier this month. The second failure by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to win the votes to secure the gavel for himself on Wednesday has sparked bipartisan talks about empowering McHenry to bring legislation to the floor  particularly spending bills, given a Nov. 17 funding deadline.

And since a President McHenry wouldnt become a contingency plan, the line would skip to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is the president pro tempore of the Senate and typically third in succession to the presidency.

This means that House Republicans would be skipped over if President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were unfit to serve, which could cause a dispute between Republicans and Democrats.

Schickler said that in the unlikely event that the president and vice president cant serve, a court battle could ensue over who would become the leader of the country.

One of the issues with succession law is that by putting the speaker next in line, the speaker could be from a different party, Kalt said. It could cause a lot of problems.

POLITICO reported earlier Thursday that Jordan would back the proposal to empower McHenry as he paused voting on his own speaker bid. But a few hours later, it seemed unlikely that McHenry would be elevated to the speakership after the House GOP abandoned the proposal .

Olivia Alafriz contributed to this report.
An advocate for people experiencing homelessness was arrested Wednesday as she protested Phoenixs ongoing clearing of its largest homelessness encampment.

It was the second time Sophia Dancel, 33, was arrested while the city cleared a block of the encampment.

Dancel held a sign in protest while walking within the closed-off block. She spoke against the citys clearing of the The Zone" as officials ramp up their efforts ahead of a court-ordered deadline.

How many people are getting kicked out and then have nowhere to go? said Dancel.

Just before 8 a.m., three officers started to surround Dancel slowly. She later sat on the pavement and was held to the ground and handcuffed as she screamed. She has been booked on the charges of obstructing streets, resisting arrest, criminal trespassing and failure to comply with a court order, according to Phoenix Police spokesperson Sergeant Brian Bower.

Activist Sophia Dancel is arrested during the Zone clean up, October 18, 2023, on Madison Street between 11th and 12th Avenues, Phoenix, Arizona.

Dancel is a part of the local community group Unsheltered Phoenix and was arrested during a Zone clearing in August when she refused to leave the block being cleared. Multiple advocacy groups called for charges stemming from that arrest to be dropped.

Officials cleared a block of Madison Street between 11th and 12th Avenues on Wednesday. Of the 49 people officials interacted with, 39 accepted shelter, according to Kristin Couturier, a spokesperson for Phoenix's Office of Homeless Solutions. The block was clear by 2 p.m.

Opioid crisis: Arizona counties are getting settlements, but still haven't decided how it will be spent

Donte Walker, who is living in The Zone on a block scheduled to be cleared Friday, said hes noticed people in The Zone living in more crowded conditions as individuals displaced by block clearings squeeze into the few blocks remaining to be cleared. Walker said it has made an already tense situation harder.

Its been very stressful, he said.

On Wednesday, Daryl White was moved for the second time in a week. He was moved in the Oct. 11 clearing, he said. He helped some of his neighbors and friends pack their items and said he is hopeful for an upcoming structured campground that Phoenix plans to open near The Zone.

"I would definitely want to check it out," he said.

Helen Rummel covers housing insecurity and homelessness for The Arizona Republic. Reach her at hrummel@gannett.com.

Coverage of housing insecurity on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Arizona Community Foundation.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix activist arrested for 2nd time in clearing of homeless camp
Attorney General Merrick Garland came to Jacksonville on Thursday to announce a $9 million settlement with Ameris Bank, saying the banks local branches engaged in a pattern or practice of redlining predominately Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Redlining is defined as an illegal practice in which lenders avoid providing credit services to individuals living in or seeking to live in, communities of color because of the race, color, or national origin of the residents in those communities.

According to a news release from the Department of Justice, the bank avoided providing mortgage services to majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Jacksonville and discouraged people seeking credit in those communities from obtaining home loans.

The release said that, Ameris home mortgage lending was focused disproportionately on white areas of Jacksonville while other lenders generated applications in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods at three times the rate of Ameris. Although Ameris operates 18 branches in Jacksonville, Ameris has never operated a branch in a majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhood in the city.

The settlement with Ameris is one of 10 that Garlands office has secured since 2021, when Garland announced the Combating Redlining Initiative.

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The other settlements with banks and mortgage companies to provide credit opportunities to communities of color have taken place in Houston, Memphis, Philadelphia, Camden, Wilmington, Newark, Los Angeles, Columbus, Tulsa, Rhode Island, the DOJ said in its release.

To date, the settlements, including the one with Ameris in Jacksonville, have totaled more than $107 million.

Under the proposed consent order, which is subject to court approval, Ameris Bank will invest $9 million to increase credit opportunities for communities of color in Jacksonville. The Justice Department said specifically, Ameris will:

Invest $7.5 million in a loan subsidy fund that will be made available to residents of majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods and those seeking credit in those communities.

Invest $900,000 for advertising and outreach targeted toward the residents of these neighborhoods.

Invest $600,000 to develop community partnerships to provide services that increase access to residential mortgage credit.

Open a new branch in a majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhood in Jacksonville.

Ensure that at least three mortgage loan officers are dedicated to serving majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Retain a consultant to assess the banks compliance management system as it pertains to redlining risk.

Employ a full-time Director of Community Lending who will oversee the continued development of lending in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Jacksonville.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPLAINT | CLICK HERE TO READ THE CONSENT ORDER

As todays case makes clear, redlining is not just a relic of the past, Garland said. That is why, two years ago this month, the Justice Department launched our Combating Redlining Initiative, and once todays settlement is approved, that Initiative will have secured more than $100 million for communities across the country that have been harmed by discriminatory lending practices. This work is just the beginning  the Justice Department currently has over two dozen active investigations into redlining, spanning neighborhoods across the country.

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Ameris released the following statement from CEO Palmer Proctor:

We strongly disagree with any suggestion that we have engaged in discriminatory conduct and are confident in our efforts to provide equal access to affordable mortgage products in the Jacksonville community and all the markets we serve. We cooperated fully with the Departments inquiry and have entered into this settlement to avoid the distraction of litigation and because we share the Departments goal of expanding access to homeownership in underserved areas. The terms of this settlement are consistent with the Banks existing programs and initiatives. We condemn discrimination in any form and remain committed to helping people in underserved communities gain equal opportunity to achieve homeownership, as well as access to banking services.

With a 52-year history of service, Ameris is rooted in its purpose of bringing financial peace of mind to people and communities. Over the years, this purpose has led us to introduce various mortgage loan and downpayment assistance programs, develop affordable loan opportunities, and deliver financial education to schools and community groups. We look forward to continuing these proactive efforts and helping more consumers achieve their financial goals.

Additional information about the Departments fair lending enforcement can be found at www.justice.gov/crt/fair-lending-program-0. Individuals may report lending discrimination by calling the Justice Departments housing discrimination tip line at 1-833-591-0291, or submitting a report online.

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AgBiome, an agricultural technology company in Research Triangle Park, notified state officials this week that it could lay off all 123 of its employees.

On Oct. 16, AgBiome submitted a WARN Notice to the North Carolina Department of Commerce announcing that the company has developed plans to lay off potentially all of its employees at its RTP headquarters.

The list of potential affected positions includes the companys two CEOs, Scott Uknes and Eric Ward. Additional top executives could also be laid of, Agbiome said, including its chief financial officer, chief business officer, and chief commercial officer. Terminations will become effective on Dec. 15, the company said.

The federal government requires companies to issue WARN reports when they shutter a plant that impacts at least 50 workers in a 30-day period.

Founded in 2012, AgBiome creates products that fight off pests and weeds. In 2021, the company raised $116 million from investors. Previous investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

This is a developing story and will be updated.
Low-Earth orbit is teeming with space junk. This increasingly cluttered area of space could benefit from a network of lasers that nudge objects at risk of colliding with satellites or spacecraft into safer orbits, according to new research.

While space debris has been a concern for decades, efforts to address this junk have only recently started receiving serious investment. The latest early-stage idea is to mount artificial intelligence-powered lasers on satellites or other dedicated platforms and have them monitor space debris objects. When an object is suspected to be on a collision course with a valuable space asset like the International Space Station (ISS) or a satellite, the lasers could, in theory, nudge that object into a safer orbit.

"Our goal is to develop a network of reconfigurable space-based lasers, along with a suite of algorithms," Hang Woon Lee, the director of Space Systems Operations Research Laboratory at West Virginia University who is leading the new project, said in a statement . "Those algorithms will be the enabling technology that make such a network possible and maximize its benefits."

Related: Orbiting debris trackers could be a game changer in space junk monitoring

NASA is funding Lee's idea with $200,000 across three years. Although the plan is still in its infancy, its ultimate goal is to develop a system capable of making real-time decisions about which space objects to target and to ensure the new orbits are actually safe from further collisions. Using multiple lasers is crucial to efficiently alter the object's trajectory "in a way that would be impossible with a single laser," Lee said in the same statement.

Measuring the amount of risk from space debris is quite difficult, as not every object in orbit is capable of being tracked. Humans have flown over 15,000 satellites since the 1950s, of which only about 4,000 are operational satellites, according to 2022 estimates . According to the European Space Agency (ESA), around 34,600 space debris fragments are currently tracked by radar systems on Earth, but another 130 million pieces could be in orbit that are too small to be accurately detected or tracked.

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So unlike other space debris removal ideas, a coordinated network of lasers in space could be particularly useful in tackling a space object of any size, researchers say. In March, a NASA report found space-based lasers are advantageous compared to ground-based ones because they don't need to pass through Earth's atmosphere, which could deform the beams. Being in space , the beam can more easily pulse the target object into favored orbits, according to the report.

Such AI-powered systems are also beneficial in terms of cost and could eventually be used to track space objects ahead of launches, for example. Last week, Amazon delayed the launch of its first two prototype internet satellites by six minutes to avoid colliding with a space object. Back in July, India had delayed launching its historic Chandrayaan-3 moon mission by three seconds for the same reason.
What can be done about the profound risks to society and humanity that Elon Musk and others claim AI poses? Thats one of the questions the Government hopes to answer at the AI Safety Summit, which takes place this week.

The summit is an opportunity for governments and industry to come together to discuss some of the most serious threats created by AI and how to deal with them. It will, the Government hopes, make the UK a leading player in AI regulation.

Here we explore the purpose of the AI Safety Summit, whos coming, what it hopes to achieve, and whether any government can really control the rapid advancement of AI.

When is the AI Safety Summit 2023?

The AI Safety Summit is being held over two days, starting Wednesday, November 1.

However, there are a series of related events being held before and after the summit. In the run-up, workshops have been held by The Alan Turing Institute, the British Academy, techUK, and the Royal Society, each discussing different aspects of AI.

During and after the summit, there will also be public engagement events, such as a LinkedIn Q&A with Michelle Donelan, the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, on November 16.

Elon Musk and other tech leaders wrote an open letter... through fear that AI was developing so fast it could 'pose profound risks to society and humanity'

Where is the AI Safety Summit being held?

The summit itself is being held at Bletchley Park, a location loaded with computing history. It was the home of the allied codebreaking effort during World War II. It was where Alan Turing and others devised the Bombe, an electromechanical machine that could break the German Enigma codes more effectively than anything that had come before it.

Who is attending the AI Safety Summit?

The aim of the summit is to bring together governments and representatives of the AI industry to discuss how to manage the risks posed by advancements in AI. The summit has a very limited capacity of around 100 people, which the Government says is necessary to focus discussions, but its also a reflection of the limited capacity at Bletchley Park.

The full list of attendees has not been revealed, but the Government did confirm that representatives of the Chinese government have been invited to join. That has reportedly provoked opposition from Japan, which say its too early to involve Beijing when democratic nations havent agreed the ground rules for AI.

Foreign secretary James Cleverly responded to such criticism by saying: We cannot keep the UK public safe from the risks of AI if we exclude one of the leading nations in AI tech.

Industry attendees will reportedly include Google, OpenAI (the owners of ChatGPT), and smaller British AI start-ups, such as Graphcore and Stability AI.

What are the priorities of the AI Safety Summit?

The AI Safety Summit is very much focused on the threats, rather than the opportunities, of AI.

Its concentrating largely on what the Government refers to as Frontier AI; large-language models such as GPT-4 that power services such as ChatGPT.

The agenda will particularly focus on two specific categories of risk: misuse and loss of control.

Britain has a history of pioneering rules for governing emerging technologies

Olivia OSullivan, director of the UK in the World programme for Chatham House policy institute

Why is AI dangerous?

In terms of misuse, the summit will explore how AI could be used to co-ordinate biological or cyber attacks, or whether it could be deployed to interfere with critical systems. When it comes to loss of control, this seems to be focused on the notion of artificial general intelligence (AGI), where AI becomes so smart that we are no longer able to contain it. Elon Musk and other tech leaders wrote an open letter earlier this year arguing we should pause giant AI experiments through fear that AI was developing so fast it could pose profound risks to society and humanity.

Some AI experts argue that this threat is over-hyped and that the Government is wrong to put so much emphasis on AIs dangers at this summit. Dr Keegan McBride, a department research lecturer in AI at the University of Oxfords Internet Institute, claims that the AI systems based on technology that we have now and in the foreseeable future aren't able to rise to the level of sophistication and intelligence that governments  the UK, basically  and companies like OpenAI are discussing.

In fact, he argues the industry is exaggerating the dangers of AI to force governments to act, thus shutting out would-be rivals. If you're able to convince governments that you are building something that can destroy the world, and then they're going to regulate it so only three or four companies can work on it, that leads to centralisation of AI development, according to Dr McBride.

Other experts are more positive about opening discussions on how to tame AI. Pia Husch, a research analyst at London-based defence think-tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), wrote last week that the summit provides an opportunity for the UK to clarify its position on AI regulation and to seek alliances. It could even lead to the formation of an international institution focused on AI safety, she argued.

Can AI be regulated?

Is it even possible to rein in AI with regulation? Its fair to say opinion is divided on that, too.

One of the big problems for the Government, which is aiming to play a leadership role in the global effort to address the challenges and opportunities of AI, is that the vast majority of the leading AI companies are not British. Google (which bought the British AI firm DeepMind), Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and many of the other leading lights in AI are based in the US, not over here, raising issues around jurisdiction.

Although the US is currently taking something of a hands-off approach to AI regulation, it did introduce some initial guidelines and regulations surrounding AI during the Trump administration, before anyone had even heard of ChatGPT and its like. The EU is currently proposing an AI Act to sit alongside other digital regulations, such as GDPR and the Digital Services Act. China has also developed its own AI regulations. So, far from taking a global lead, the UK is arguably playing catch-up with the superpowers.

That doesnt necessarily mean the summit is a waste of time, according to Olivia OSullivan, director of the UK in the World programme for the Chatham House policy institute. Although the EU will ultimately be more influential in setting standards for AI and other digital technologies, she wrote recently, Britain has a history of pioneering rules for governing emerging technologies, for example in stem-cell research, where its strict but permissive regime is world-renowned.

However, the summits narrow focus on AIs existential threats does limit its scope, according to Oxford Universitys Dr McBride, because laws already exist to counter those. A lot of the stuff that are risks that can come from generative AI, we already have regulatory frameworks in place for, he said.

You can't kill people, you can't commit fraud, you can't discriminate. So, it just feels a bit weird. I don't know how else to describe it.
A number of reports have said that AI will have a large impact on the legal profession

If there was a court case on whether society should embrace artificial intelligence (AI) or reject it, there would likely be a hung jury.

No-one, it seems, can decide whether the benefits - such as automating written tasks, and sifting through vast amounts of information in seconds - outweigh the problems of biased data, and a lack of accuracy and accountability.

For the legal profession itself, AI represents both a threat and an opportunity. It could lead to a "savage reduction" in jobs for humans, according to a 2021 report from the UK's Law Society.

And a study this year from the universities of Pennsylvania, New York and Princeton estimated that the legal sector was the industry most likely to be impacted by AI.

At the same time, AI can play a hugely valuable role in researching and putting cases together. Although there is precedent for things going horribly wrong.

New York lawyer Steven Schwartz found himself facing his own court hearing this year, when he used popular AI system ChatGPT to research precedents for a case involving a man suing an airline over personal injury. Six of the seven cases he used had been completely made up by the AI.

While that may have left many law firms reluctant to embrace such systems, Ben Allgrove, the chief innovation officer at international law firm Baker McKenzie, has a different interpretation.

"I don't think that it is a technology story, it's a lawyer story," he says. "You've got to get through the lack of professionalism [by Mr Schwartz], and the lack of ethics, before you get to the fact that the tool was something he shouldn't have been using."

AI is already being used by some law firms

Baker McKenzie has been tracking developments in AI since 2017, and has since set up a team of lawyers, data scientists and data engineers to test the new systems that are coming to market.

Mr Allgrove thinks that the vast majority of AI usage in his firm will come from using the new AI-powered versions of existing legal software providers, like LexisNexis and Microsoft's 365 Solution for Legal.

LexisNexis launched its AI platform back in May, which can answer legal questions, generate documents and summarise legal issues. Meanwhile, Microsoft's AI-tool, Copilot, will launch for commercial customers next month, as an extra-cost add-on for 365.

"We already use LexisNexis and Microsoft, and they will increasingly get capabilities driven by generative AI. And we will buy those things if they make sense and are at the right price."

Generative AI is the type of AI that everyone is talking about. It is the AI that can create text, images and music based on the data it was trained with.

The caveat is that currently, premium, paid-for versions of such tools are expensive. Paying for Microsoft's Copilot alone would "double our technology spend", Mr Allgrove says.

The alternative is for law firms to pay a lesser amount to access AI systems not specifically aimed at the legal market, such as Google's Bard, Meta's Llama, and OpenAI's ChatGPT. The firms would plug into such platforms, and adapt them for their own legal use.

Baker McKenzie is already testing several. "We are going out to the market and saying we want to test the performance of these models," says Mr Allgrove.

Such testing is crucial, he explained, to "validate performance", because all the systems will all make errors.

Legal software system RobinAI uses what it calls an AI co-pilot to help speed up the process of drafting and querying contracts, both for in-house legal teams in large organisations, and for individuals.

It is primarily using an AI system developed by a company called Anthropic. This was set up by a former vice president of research at OpenAI, and is backed with investment from Google.

But RobinAI has also created its own AI models that are being trained on the minutiae of contract law. Any contract used by the system gets uploaded and labelled, and is then used as learning tool.

This means the firm has built up a huge database of contracts, something Karolina Lukoszova, co-head of legal and product at UK-based RobinAI, thinks will be key to the use of AI in the legal profession.

Karolina Lukoszova's firm, RobinAI, uses both bought in, and its own, AI

"Companies will need to train their own smaller models on their own data within the company," she says. "That will give them better results and ones that are ringfenced."

To make sure information is accurate, RobinAI has a team of human lawyers working alongside the AI.

Alex Monaco is an employment lawyer who runs both his own solicitor practice and a tech firm called Grapple.

Grapple was developed to provide members of the public with what Mr Monaco calls "an ontology of employment law", and offers advice on a range of workplace issues from bullying and harassment to redundancy. It can generate legal letters and provide summaries of cases.

He is excited about the potential for AI to democratise the legal profession.

"Probably 95% of the inquiries that we get are from people who just cannot afford lawyers," says Mr Monaco.

But thanks to widely available free AI tools, people can now build their own legal cases. Anyone with an internet connection can use Bard or ChatGPT to help formulate a legal letter. And while it might not be as good as a letter written by a lawyer, it is free.

"AI is not replacing humans, it's not replacing lawyers. What it is doing is supercharging people's understanding and implementation of their legal rights," he says.

And in a world where everyone is using AI, he adds that this could be very important.

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"Companies and corporations are using AI for hiring and firing. They are profiling CVs, using AI for restructuring, mass redundancies and so on. They're using this against the average employee."

While the use of AI in law is very much still at an early stage, some systems are already facing their own legal challenges.

DoNotPay, which dubs itself as the world's first robot lawyer, offering to fight parking fines and other citizen cases using AI, has been hit with a range of lawsuits, the latest of which accuses the firm of practising law without a license.

Meanwhile, as a result of Steven Schwartz's case, several senior judges in the US now require lawyers to disclose whether AI was used for court filings.

Mr Monaco thinks this will be both difficult to define and police.

"Google uses AI within its search algorithm, and now it's using Bard. So even by googling anything, you are already using AI to do your legal research."
FILE PHOTO: Trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egyptian NGOs for Palestinians, wait for the reopening of the Rafah crossing at the Egyptian side

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) -Twenty truckloads of aid due to be transported over the Egyptian border are unlikely to raise spirits in the beleaguered Gaza Strip, where Palestinians are squarely focused on surviving Israeli air strikes and acute food and medicine shortages.

After intensive diplomacy, Egypt agreed to reopen its border crossing with Gaza to allow aid to reach Palestinians, the U.S. said, as the humanitarian crisis worsened for the 2.3 million people trapped there and anti-Israel protests flared across the Middle East.

"About the aid, this is something frivolous, we want nothing from Arab and foreign countries except to stop the violent bombardment on our houses," said El-Awad El-Dali, 65, speaking near the rubble of ruined homes.

Like many Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere he feels Arab states have not done enough to support the Palestinian cause, especially those who have normalised ties with Israel.

"We want them to stop the bombardment on people who are getting killed inside their houses," he said.

The United States and Egypt have been pushing for a deal with Israel to get aid delivered to Gaza, and the White House said on Wednesday it had been agreed for up to 20 trucks to pass through the Rafah crossing from Egypt in the coming days, with hopes for more trucks later.

Israel reiterated it would not allow aid through its crossing with Gaza until Hamas released about 200 hostages seized during its cross-border attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Hamas militants killed about 1,400 people in the assault.

Most of Gaza's residents depended on aid even before the current conflict started, about 100 trucks daily were providing humanitarian relief to the enclave, according to the United Nations.

The Gaza health ministry said 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and 12,065 wounded in Israeli air strikes on the besieged enclave since Oct. 7.

HOSPITAL BLAST

The region remained volatile in the aftermath of an explosion at Gaza's Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital late on Tuesday, which Palestinian officials said killed 471 people. They blamed the blast on what they said was an Israeli air strike, while Israel says it was caused by a failed rocket launch by Palestinian fighters.

Gaza residents are isolated from the outside world and have little knowledge of the international diplomacy aimed at easing a conflict that erupted when Hamas, which runs Gaza, penetrated Israel and went on a deadly rampage.

Israel and Egypt have upheld a blockade of Gaza since Hamas took control of the territory in 2007, tightly controlling the movement goods and people.

Gazans have grown resilient over the years, surviving wars between Hamas and Israel, blockades, and unemployment in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

But the Hamas attack, the biggest against Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, followed by the fiercest ever Israeli strikes on Gaza, has created a monumental crisis.

Extended families gather in one place to feel a sense of safety. But it is hard to come by.

"My home fell over me. My daughter, who was the flower of the house, died. Look at these children, they have been injured like me, they took us out of the rubble. What is our fault?" said Hoda Arafat, who was displaced and now lives in a tent.

"There was a woman screaming from under the rubble: 'save us, save my daughter-in-law, she is bleeding'."

There are few places to turn for help.

"We want safety, we are civilians, not soldiers, children are out on the street, this is one, two, three, four young children they all ended up on the street, with no food or water, not even international protection nor human rights," said Salwa Abu Taya, holding a child in her hands.

"It is a shame for them to be left out on the street, how are we at fault? They targeted and displaced us from one place to another."

'A PLACE OF SORROW'

The Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip said it has run out of medicine.

The Gaza Health Ministry, the Interior Ministry, and the Hamas media office reported intensive Israeli bombing of houses, and roads overnight across the area.

On Thursday morning, planes bombed and destroyed three high-rise residential towers that housed hundreds of families, forcing them to flee, Hamas media said.

In Jabalia refugee camp, people woke up to the sounds of explosions and the destruction of houses. Rescue workers were trying to recover people from under the rubble, health officials and witnesses said.

In one incident, two children, a boy and a girl, were covered by rubble but still alive. One of the boys looked shocked as some people tried to light the area using phone flashlights and the lights of photographers' cameras.

Gaza residents say places of joy have been converted into areas filled with misery and anxiety.

"This is a wedding hall, where we used to hold our happy events for our sons and daughters, now we are sleeping in it, we are displaced inside it," said Amena Al-Kitnani.

"Instead of having happy events in the wedding hall, it has become a place of sorrow."

(Writing by Michael Georgy: Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alex Richardson)
A convoy of trucks carrying aid supplies for Gaza from Egypt waits on the main Ismailia desert road, about 300 kilometres east of the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip (Khaled DESOUKI)

Thousands of tonnes of aid bound for Gaza remained on the Egyptian side of the border Thursday, after US President Joe Biden struck a deal with Egypt and Israel to allow relief in.

Biden said Wednesday that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had agreed to "let up to 20 trucks through to begin with" to the heavily-bombarded Gaza Strip, starting Friday, giving authorities time to repair roads.

Sisi -- whose spokesperson said the pair had agreed on "the sustainable delivery of aid" -- has maintained that Egypt "did not close" the border, but that four rounds of Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing have forced it shut.

An eyewitness told AFP that "150 trucks have been waiting at Rafah" -- the only passage in and out of Gaza not controlled by Israel -- in addition to those in the nearby Egyptian city of El Arish, where planes full of relief supplies have been arriving.

Humanitarian workers at the border again warned that the aid must be allowed in as soon as possible, as perishable supplies had already begun to spoil.

Israel cut off supplies of water, electricity, fuel and food to the long-blockaded Palestinian enclave following the October 7 Hamas assault on Israeli border communities near Gaza.

More than 1,400 people have been killed since the Hamas assault in Israel, which has responded with a withering aerial campaign that has so far killed nearly 3,500 people in Gaza.

United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths has estimated that about 100 trucks per day were needed to meet the needs in Gaza.

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly discussed the entry of aid with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on a visit to Cairo Thursday, as well as the evacuation of UK citizens.

Cairo is also expecting the arrival of UN chief Antonio Guterres later on Thursday, who has said the siege on Gaza must be lifted, calling for supplies of water, food, fuel and medicines to be allowed in.

Humanitarian groups have warned that basic supplies have run dangerously low in the impoverished territory of 2.4 million.

Israeli officials said the deliveries would be limited to "food, water and medicine" to the south of Gaza, but not fuel needed to power generators, including for hospitals.

str-bam/bha/sbh/jsa
[Source]

Several social media users criticized AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes for uploading a picture to LinkedIn of himself shirtless and receiving a massage while on a work call.

Key details: Fernandes, 59, uploaded the picture to his LinkedIn account on Monday, which has since been taken down as of this writing.

The context: The now-deleted post contained a picture of a shirtless Fernandes as he was getting a massage from a female masseuse during what he called a "management meeting." In the post caption, Fernandes wrote that it had been a stressful week.

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Got to love Indonesia and AirAsia culture that I can have a massage and do a management meeting, he added.

How people reacted: Several social media users criticized Fernandes for the picture, with one X user calling his actions unprofessional. Another user noted how AirAsia has stooped to this low, referencing the LinkedIn post.

Meanwhile, some users chose to poke fun at the situation, with one X user writing in their post, You've heard of bosses massaging the figures, this is an example of a figure massaging the boss.

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Explaining his side: Speaking to Malaysiakini, Fernandes apologized if anyone took offense to what he did. He explained that the work call was a mini-management meeting, and nobody raised any objections about him getting a massage during the call.

Fernandes said people need to understand the work culture of our airline, noting that he wanted to show people through his post that they can multitask but that his effort was taken out of context."

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A City Council member had to be escorted by police out of an unruly crowd Thursday morning that was protesting against the tentative plan by Mayor Brandon Johnson to erect winterized tents to house migrants in an empty parking lot in Brighton Park.

Hundreds of residents had gathered on Chicagos Southwest Side near 38th Street and California Avenue, the site of the proposed encampment where construction crews have been seeing cutting down trees, flattening the land and laying down infrastructure.

Ald. Julia Ramirez , 12th, arrived at the scene quietly with an aide, but after residents recognized her, she was abruptly approached by some of the protesters who began to yell and aggressively demand answers from her. Dozens of people surrounded her, shouting angrily and pushing toward her.

As she attempted to leave, some grabbed toward her, angrily holding their signs. Police intervened and escorted Ramirez into a squad car and left.

Ramirez released a statement afterward saying that she attended the protest because she wanted to engage directly with the community to address misinformation being spread about her involvement in the plan and to talk about how to move forward as a community.

After a few conversations, it became clear that most of the protesters did not want to engage in a peaceful dialogue with me, Ramirez wrote. As I was leaving the protest, a group of protestors surrounded me and my staffer and began assaulting us.

Ramirez said she was OK. Her aide was taken to the hospital and is in good condition.

Both Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Johnson released statements condemning the attack. Johnson said Chicago police are investigating.

The protesters, mostly Latino and Asian, had been holding signs in English and in their native languages with messages for the mayor and Ramirez, demanding that the construction in the area cease immediately.

Protect our community, one read. Many said they are worried that moving an untold number of migrants into the neighborhood could increase crime and lower property values. They said they also worry about their safety.

It is inhumane to house people in tents and it is unsafe for us, the residents here and for them too, said William Desparrois, a property owner of a house in front of the lot. Put them in real buildings in the North Side.

With winter looming, the city is scrambling to find more permanent housing solutions for the nearly 19,000 asylum-seekers who have been bused to Chicago from the southern border since August 2022. More than 11,000 are in city-run shelters and almost 4,000 are staying in police stations, OHare and Midway airports awaiting shelter.

The city is contracting with the private security firm GardaWorld Federal Services to build and run the base camps.

GardaWorld and its subsidiary Aegis Defense Services signed a one-year agreement for $29.4 million with the city on Sept. 12. The contract calls for GardaWorld to provide emergency logistics management and operation services that will set up shelter  and other necessary services (also called a base camp or solution) for the new arrivals.

The city is at an increasingly critical point in the new arrival mission. With colder weather upon us, we continue to look at all options to provide temporary shelter, and this includes a privately owned lot at 38th and California as a potential location, city spokeswoman Mary May said in a statement.

Residents at the protest said they began to organize last week after they noticed construction activity happening in the lot, which has been unused since 2020.

Despite the ongoing construction, neither Ramirez nor the Johnson administration have confirmed that the tents will be erected there.

You cant tell me theyre still deciding if theyve already begun construction, said Nity Garcia, who has lived in her home on 38th Street  right in front of the lot  for 25 years.

At the protest, a group of people, many who live in the houses surrounding the lot, blocked the entrances to the lot, preventing trucks and other city workers from entering.

In her statement, Ramirez called on the mayors office for more transparency, accountability, and more local involvement in the decision making process, to explore more options for establishing permanent shelters, and reevaluate if tents are an appropriate soliton at this site.

The mayors office did not respond to Ramirezs letter and questions from the Tribune about whether todays events will affect the citys plans for the site. And the office made no comment on other potential locations for base camps.

Right now, our thoughts are with Ald. Ramirez and her assistant, spokesman Ronnie Reese said in an email. Any other details around the potential site at 38th and California will be discussed at next weeks community meeting.

The city and Ramirez are scheduled to host a meeting on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Kelly High School about the proposal.

In his statement, Johnson said, Any violent act against an elected official in our city is unacceptable and must be condemned in the strongest terms.

My administration supports the right to peaceful protest and free speech, but this type of action against a public servant is unconscionable, he wrote. Any violent act against an elected official in our city is unacceptable and must be condemned in the strongest terms.

The Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, which has provided social services for residents, released a statement saying that misinformation has spread across the ward, fueling anti-immigrant and racist remarks.

While the group acknowledged that the encampment development is not ideal, it said that violence is never a solution.

Brighton Park is a predominantly Latino immigrant neighborhood with a growing Asian population, according to the groups latest reports.

Everyone has the right to seek asylum in the United States, and Brighton Park has historically been a welcoming neighborhood for immigrant families, the statement said.

The group said that it is our responsibility to welcome these new families into our city, support them as they recover from their journey, connect them to resources and services, and help them resettle.

Ramirez said that she understands that residents are fearful and have concerns about the citys plan.

I have the same concerns. Im born and raised resident of Brighton Park. I ran for Alderwoman so that I could be in a position to address the years of disinvestment in my community, she wrote in her statement. I hear my residents and want them to know I will always advocate for their safety and ensure our communities have resources they deserve.

Garcia said that it angers her that the Johnson administration is ignoring the communitys concerns regarding migrants and where they chose to erect shelters.

They are putting people against each other, Garcia said in Spanish.

She said that as an immigrant herself, she worries about the conditions in which people will live there, but also how it can affect the neighborhood by putting so many people in a single space.

Its not fair for them, for us. For anyone, she said.

Chicago Tribunes A.D. Quig contributed.

Larodriguez@chicagotribune.com
A Ukrainian woman was killed in the Gaza Strip as the hostilities between Israel and Hamas continue, Ukraine's Ambassador in Israel Yevhen Korniichuk said on live television on Oct. 19.

"Overnight, our activists confirmed the death of one Ukrainian citizen in the Gaza Strip. Her identity is being established," the ambassador said.

Although Israeli ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky said earlier that 23 Ukrainian citizens have been killed in Israel, Korniichuk refuted this number, saying that only 18 citizens have been confirmed killed.

Brodsky noted that this still leaves Ukraine with the second highest number of civilian casualties as a result of the fighting in Israel, right behind the U.S.

Korniichuk said that the situation in the Palestinian enclave besieged by the Israeli military is deteriorating.

"We already have more than 300 people on the evacuation list. It's 308 now, but it's increasing all the time," the ambassador said, adding that the number can grow to 400 in the coming days.

About 450 Ukrainians have been evacuated from Israel as of Oct. 18, with more evacuation flights planned in the coming days.

The fighting in Israel and Gaza broke out following Hamas' attack on Israeli settlements on Oct. 7. Tel Aviv responded by retaliatory airstrikes against Gaza and a "total" blockade of the enclave. Thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed on both sides so far.

Read also: Ukrainians trapped in besieged Gaza: We are constantly bombed

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
This report was produced in partnership with Important Context, the news outlet of the OptOut Media Foundation.

In April 2020, as the first wave of the deadly coronavirus pandemic was breaking across the U.S., the largest charitable fund in the country, Fidelity Charitable, announced a plan to help mitigate the crisis.

As the nations largest grantmaker, Fidelity Charitable is committed to supporting the nonprofit sector and the communities affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as to enabling our nearly quarter-million donors to respond effectively to the many needs emerging daily, the fund, which distributed $11.2 billion in grants last year and is affiliated with Fidelity Investments, declared.

To that end, Fidelity Charitable said it would establish a trustee-led, minimum $1 million initiative to support Covid-response efforts and provide donors with guidance and resources to enable them to best direct their money amid the worst pandemic in a century.

We are focused on helping our donors and the public at large identify the most impactful ways they can donate, use their talents, and harness their voices to help others affected by this crisis, read the press release.

Despite the lofty promises, however, tax records reveal that Fidelity Charitable has funneled millions of dollars through its donor-advised fund program to groups pushing vaccine misinformation and skepticism. A large portion of the donations we identified came between July 2021 and June 2022  after the first Covid vaccine became available to the public and while the pandemic was ongoing.

For example, in its 2021-22 fiscal year, it gave roughly $1 million to Childrens Health Defense, a nonprofit founded by Robert Kennedy Jr. that sows doubt about vaccine safety, and two of its state chapters. Kennedy, who long promoted the debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism, has called the Covid shots an ethnic bioweapon and a crime against humanity. In a recent post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Childrens Health Defense claimed the mRNA jabs contaminate breast milk. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends pregnant and breastfeeding people stay current on their Covid vaccines, including the most recent booster.)

That same fiscal year, Fidelity Charitable also gave $235,000 to anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtrees Informed Consent Action Network  nearly twice the amount from the previous fiscal year. The group includes a section, Vaccine Safety Debate, on its website implying that the Department of Health and Human Services has not demonstrated the safety of Covid vaccines.

Fidelity Charitable is not alone in its anti-public-health spending. Throughout the Covid pandemic, big money flowed to groups supposedly promoting public health but in reality were peddling anti-vaccine misinformation, from some of the largest charities in the country, an analysis by Rolling Stone and Important Context has found. We tracked more than $15 million that donor-advised fund sponsors gave in 2020-22 to such groups  the lions share of the funds were distributed after the vaccines became available.

Donor-advised funds (DAFs) have become a popular vehicle for wealthy individuals and foundations to distribute cash  and remain under the radar. Functionally, these entities operate as passthrough organizations: Donors deposit money into an account managed by a DAF sponsor like Fidelity Charitable, which disburses it with the donors input. While donor clients advise the sponsor, the sponsor has full legal control of the money and where it ends up. Typically, the sponsors board of trustees has the final say.

Some speculate that DAFs are facilitating contributions to controversial organizations that might not otherwise occur, says Roger Colinvaux, a professor of law at the Catholic University of America. DAFs provide a layer of anonymity between donor and recipient. This is the very nature of a DAF as an intermediary organization.

With Republican-appointed justices dominating the bench since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has been extremely protective of the ability of wealthy Americans to influence politics and the public sphere with their money. Today, individuals with disposable income can drop cash and help spread half truths, misinformation, or outright lies all while remaining anonymous, thus facing no consequences for disseminating the equivalent of malware throughout societys mainframe.

While DAFs come with significant benefits for donors, like the ability to transfer appreciable assets such as stocks without the burden of capital gains tax, the big draw for some is anonymity. Donors can give tax-deductible contributions to groups of their choosing without having their fingerprints on the money. The public wont see the original donors name on any public filings, and recipient organizations dont even have to report the original donors name privately to the IRS. Recipient organizations might not even know the identities of the donors. For this reason, DAFs are a common vehicle for funding entities like hate groups  or Covid-misinformation operations.

Among developed nations, the United States has been hit particularly hard by the airborne SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid. To date, more than 1.1 million Americans have lost their lives and millions more suffer long-term health complications, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Contributing to the suffering is the widespread proliferation of misinformation online  particularly related to the Covid vaccines, which have been shown to greatly reduce incidence of severe illness and death and somewhat reduce the chances of infection. Some studies suggest the vaccines also reduce the risk of long Covid. According to a May 2022 analysis by Brown University and Microsoft AI Health, roughly a third of the nations total deaths at the time  half since the jabs became available  could have been prevented with vaccination alone. Yet, vaccine hesitancy remains high, potentially threatening the rollout of the latest updated boosters. Only 17 percent of Americans got the bivalent dose. A recent Morning Consult poll does suggest that a majority of registered voters are likely to get the latest booster. Widespread skepticism has also affected uptake of other vaccines. For example, childhood inoculation against flu is now lagging behind pre-pandemic levels.

Covid-related misinformation has also fueled anger toward public-health officials and medical professionals. In February 2022, the American Medical Association noted that while threats of violence against such individuals had been on the rise for a decade, the uptick had become even more of an alarming phenomenon since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The amount of money stealthy flowing to groups pushing vaccine and Covid misinformation from major charities provides insight into how public health became fraught at the time when it was needed most.

In Their Sole Discretion

Fidelity Charitables Program Guidelines specifically state that the Trustees of Fidelity Charitable have exclusive ownership and control over all contributed property and all earnings thereon, and may determine in their sole discretion whether an organization shall be an Eligible Grant Recipient, and whether to approve any grant recommendation.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a rally in Albany, New York. Instagram and Facebook have suspended his nonprofit, Childrens Health Defense from its platforms for repeated violations of its policies on Covid-19 misinformation. RFK Jr. is regularly criticized by public health advocates for his misleading claims about vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The most recent three years of available federal tax records  from mid-2019 to mid-2022  suggest, however, that the trustees may not have been completely careful with all of their grant recipients. The fund has passed roughly a whopping $2.7 million to Covid-misinformation and anti-vaccine groups throughout the pandemic. In addition to the donations to Childrens Health Defense groups and Informed Consent Action Network, Fidelity gave close to $180,000 to Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) in the 2022 fiscal year, a physician group known for its promotion of quack Covid cures like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and for hyping up alleged safety issues with the vaccines. The group even advises that long Covid patients, who have been shown to benefit from vaccination, avoid all Covid vaccinations. That number was up from $18,000 in the previous period. FLCCCs co-president, Dr. Pierre Kory, has expressed anti-vaccine views. Another recipient was the Brownstone Institute, a shadowy Covid misinformation and conspiracy hub founded in May 2021 to oppose public-health measures. The nonprofit, which received $64,000, published an article by its founder in December 2021 titled Who Will Be Held Responsible for this Devastation? that originally ran with a guillotine image and suggested consequences for the architects of lockdowns would be welcome. Brownstone also made former Trump administration HHS science adviser Dr. Paul Alexander a fellow, but scrubbed him from its website following reporting by Important Context that highlighted a post on his Substack calling for public trials and hangings of public-health officials. Fidelity Charitable also gave nearly $91,000 to the Epoch Times Association, which publishes the Falun Gong-backed conspiracy-promoting newspaper Epoch Times. The paper has published a number of articles containing vaccine misinformation, including one false report claiming it killed 17 million people.

Fidelity Charitable did not respond to a request for comment.

Their Unique Ability

Another major charity fueling anti-public-health sentiment in the U.S. is the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, which is affiliated with investment management titan the Vanguard Group. In December 2020, the organization announced that its donor base had given nearly $1.3 billion to nonprofits that are directly involved in Covid-19-related relief efforts as well as a host of other 501(c)(3) organizations, many of whom faced financial setbacks since the outbreak of the pandemic.

But as with Fidelity Charitable, Vanguard Charitable distributed a significant amount of money to groups working against vaccination efforts. Between its 2020 and 2022 fiscal years, running from July 2019 through June 2022, it gave $2.8 million to organizations pushing vaccine misinformation and skepticism. Most of that money came during its 2022 fiscal year.

Vanguard Charitable gave a staggering $1,474,000 to Childrens Health Defense and its California chapter. Another $600,000 went to Informed Consent Action Network. It also gave $50,000 to Citizens Council for Health Freedom, which circulated a memo in 2019 urging people to think twice before getting the flu vaccine and, in 2021, put up billboards in Texas encouraging people not to be bullied into Covid vaccinations. Vanguard Charitable donated $150,000 and $26,000 to Covid-misinformation groups FLCCC and the Brownstone Institute, respectively. It gave $12,500 to the Epoch Times Association.

In response to our request for comment, Vanguard Charitable provided a statement over email.

At Vanguard Charitable, we give our donors the right to recommend their donations to the IRS-qualified public charities of their choosing, it reads. We support grantmaking to all philanthropic-cause areas, however the grants recommended by donors reflect their values and beliefs; not those of Vanguard Charitable.

Experts, however, told us that the real issue is the business model of DAFs like Vanguard.

DAF sponsors have full legal control over the assets and DAFs and legally can do  or not do  whatever they want, says Ray Madoff, professor and director of the Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good at Boston College Law School. That is because tax benefits are only available if the donors give up control over their donated funds. The issue is their business model.

One of the problems is the fact that our standards for 501(c)(3) status includes lots of organizations that promote hate and misinformation, Madoff adds.

Catholic Universitys Colinvaux notes that refusing donor advice would risk alienating donors, saying that even if some DAF sponsors decide not to fund certain causes, there will always be other DAF sponsors that fund them.

Deemed Eligible by the IRS

Some donors to Schwab Charitable, which was founded with support from financial services giant Charles Schwab & Co., used the fund to direct hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups promoting vaccine skepticism. During its 2020-22 fiscal years, giving included $570,000 to FLCCC, more than $400,000 to Informed Consent Action Network, and $18,000 to Health Freedom Defense Fund, which successfully sued the CDC and various government officials over the Biden administrations travel mask mandate. The organizations website encourages workers to organize against vaccine mandates at work. Earlier this month, it posted an article titled Do You Know Whats in a Vaccine? with a graphic reading Toxic. Schwab also gave the Epoch Times Association roughly $119,000.

In response to our inquiry, Schwab Charitable offered up a comment similar to what Vanguard Charitable provided.

Schwab Charitable facilitates grants recommended by its donors to 501(c)(3) charitable organizations deemed eligible by the IRS and state regulators, the organization told us in an email. Grants recommended by donors do not reflect the values or beliefs of Schwab Charitable or its management.

Unique Power to Use Your Resources for Good

In the summer of 2020, Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trusts president, Melanie Schnoll Begun, put out a call to action, in a global impact review for its donors.

Amid an uncertain future, you  as individual donors  have the unique power to use your resources for good, read the document. Regardless of funding from major foundations, government and corporations, donors like you are nimble and fill the gaps other forms of support may not reach as quickly. To help you in this mission, our recent landscape surveys, Swing for the Fences and In Solidarity, provide a compelling array of national and local funding opportunities.

Of course, like the other major DAF sponsors addressed in this article, the Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust also bestowed significant funds upon groups helping to fuel vaccine hesitancy between 2020 and 2021, with most of the spending occurring in the second year. (The trusts 2022 tax records are not yet publicly available.) The fund gave $680,000 to Childrens Health Defense and its New York chapter; $135,000 to the Informed Consent Action Network; $100,000 to the Brownstone Institute; $75,000 to Physicians for Informed Consent in 2021, a physicians group that casts doubt on the safety and efficacy of Covid vaccines and promotes bogus treatments for the virus like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine; and $50,000 to the National Vaccine Information Center, a long-established, well-known anti-vaccine group that sought to coordinate messaging with like-minded organizations early in the pandemic. It also gave $50,000 to the Epoch Times Association. (None of these groups immediately responded to requests for comment.)

In response to our request for comment, a Morgan Stanley spokesperson said the organizations, remains cause neutral and focused on advancing the strategic philanthropic efforts of our donor population. For each grant to a domestic charity chosen by the donor, MS GIFT completes a robust review process, which includes confirming that the recipient organization is in good standing with the IRS, qualifies for exemption from federal income tax under Section 501(c)(3), and is not associated with any illegal activities, they explained.

Predictably, ideological DAF sponsors on the political right have been enthusiastic supporters of anti-vaccine groups. DonorsTrust, for example, gave $15,000 to Informed Consent Action Network and $31,000 to the Epoch Times Association in its 2021 fiscal year. Meanwhile, the National Christian Foundation, a religious DAF sponsor that took in $3.1 billion in donations in 2021, gave nearly $1.1 million to FLCCC and more than $630,000 to Childrens Health Defense between its 2020 and 2021 fiscal years.

Neither DonorsTrust nor National Christian Foundation responded to requests for comment.

Anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree speaks with journalists in Brooklyn in 2019.

In Good Standing With the IRS

Community foundations, which operate similarly to DAF sponsors in that donors give to the foundation and recommend grants, have also helped fund groups promoting Covid misinformation and vaccine skepticism. For example, Fairfield Countys Community Foundation, which is based in Connecticut, gave $200,000 to Childrens Health Defense between its 2020 and 2021 fiscal years. The Chicago Community Trust donated $100,000 to Childrens Health Defense in fiscal year 2021. CommunityGiving, a foundation based in St. Cloud, Minnesota, contributed more than $160,000 to Citizens Council for Health Freedom in fiscal year 2022.

In response to our request for comment, Krista Carnes, the communications director of Fairfield Countys Community Foundation, explains that her organization had made two donor-advised grants to Childrens Health Defense in 2020 and 2021, which were recommended by the same donor.

FCCF did not make the grants as a discretionary contribution, Carnes says. Our policy is to verify that the recipient organization is a 501(c)(3) in good standing with the IRS.

Meanwhile, Chicago Community Trust director of public relations Nina Alcacio pointed out that her organization had adopted an anti-hate policy in 2022 and also helped fund vaccine outreach in Black and Latinx neighborhoods in Chicago.

[W]e offer multiple ways for donors to exercise their philanthropy through Donor Advised Funds and other giving vehicles so long as the organization is a 501(c)(3) public charity that does not engage in hateful activities, Alcacio says. The grants you reference were made through our Donor Advised Fund program.

No Simple Solutions

With significant funding behind their operations, groups encouraging vaccine skepticism have helped politicize the lifesaving jabs and the pandemic as a whole. With politicization has come radicalization.

Scientists like Peter Hotez, M.D., Ph.D., a renowned virologist from the Baylor College of Medicine who co-developed a patent-free Covid vaccine for use in poor countries, have expressed deep concern over growing animosity toward public health and scientists.

As I report in my new book The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science, the anti-vaccine movement has transformed into a dangerous and politically charged enterprise, Hotez says. During the pandemic, it led to the unnecessary deaths of 200,000 Americans, including 40,000 in my state of Texas alone. Thats why we need to care about this. If we want to save lives, we must find a way to de-link or uncouple the anti-vaccine activism and antiscience from politics in America.

Hotez has felt the impact of this politicization firsthand. He has been a frequent target of anti-vaxxers and the political right. In June, the scientist faced days of harassment after calling out misinformation on Joe Rogans podcast from Robert Kennedy Jr. Rogan responded with an invitation to the scientist to debate the anti-vax presidential hopeful on his program, and Elon Musk weighed in supporting the idea. In addition to the online dogpile, two individuals showed up at Hotezs Houston home.

Most days Im OK, but when the attacks accelerate after, say, Fox News targets me on an evening broadcast or this latest with Elon-Rogan-Kennedy, the pile on becomes very dark and scary, Hotez says.

Cutting off the funding spigot could help defuse some of the tension, but doing so is no easy task. Although DAF sponsors have full legal control over the funds they distribute, getting them to stop funding anti-vaccine and anti-public-health organizations may prove difficult.

Its a problem, Colinvaux says, where, there are no simple solutions.

Important Context is an investigative reporting newsletter that tracks dark money and disinformation. It is part of the OptOut Media Foundation, a New York-based journalism nonprofit dedicated to independent and investigative media.

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Radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who holds dual American and Russian citizenship, was arrested and charged in the city of Kazan on Wednesday under Russia's catch-all foreign agent law. Photo courtesy Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Russian authorities detained and charged an American journalist working for Radio Free Europe-Liberty Radio in the Czech Republic.

Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor who covers Russia's Volga-Ural region from the network's Prague headquarters was arrested Wednesday on charges of failing to register as a "foreign agent," an offense that carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, RFE-RL said in a news release calling for the immediate release of the dual U.S.-Russian citizen.

"Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children," said RFE/RL acting President Jeffrey Gedmin.

"She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately."

Kurmasheva was initially detained at Kazan Airport on June 2 as she was returning to Prague from visiting family in the region. Security officials took away her U.S. and Russian passports and fined her for failing to register them with the authorities, according to RFE.

She was expecting her travel documents to be given back when she was re-arrested and charged.

RFE, which is funded by the U.S. Congress, said Kurmasheva covered ethnic minority communities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan reporting on efforts to protect and preserve the Tatar language and culture amid increased pressure on Tatars from Russian authorities in recent years.

Russian human rights group OVD-Info said it was alarmed that Kurmasheva had been charged using an article of the foreign agent law agent covering the gathering of information on Russian military activities that "could be used against the security of the Russian Federation."

The group said it was the first time that it was aware of that the article had been used to prosecute someone.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it was "deeply concerned" and called for Kurmasheva's release and the dropping of all charges against her.

"Journalism is not a crime and Kurmasheva's detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting," said CPJ Europe and Central Asia program coordinator Said Gulnoza.

Kurmasheva's arrest comes days after a Moscow judge agreed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich' should remain in pre-trial detention until Nov. 30, as he awaits trial on espionage charges.

The secret court hearing rejected Gershkovich's appeal against the decision handed down in August. The journalist who was arrested in March faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, if found guilty.

Authorities in France are also investigating the suspected poisoning of former Russian state TV anchor Marina Ovsyannikova who spoke out against Russia's war on Ukraine during a live broadcast.

Ovsyannikova was briefly hospitalized Thursday after calling police to her Paris apartment saying she had been taken ill after coming into contact with a toxic powdery substance.

A week earlier, she had been sentenced in absentia to more than eight years in prison for "disseminating false information."
A U.S. journalist has been detained in Russia, her employer said, the second such case since the war in Ukraine started.

Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual Russian American reporter with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was detained in the southwest Russian city of Kazan on Wednesday while awaiting the return of her passports, her employer said Thursday in a statement.

RFE/RL said Kurmasheva, who is based in Prague, has been charged with failure to register as a foreign agent, a designation Russia requires of any organizations or individuals that it perceives as receiving foreign funding. It has been used to target journalists and people who speak out against the Kremlin.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, said RFE/RL, which is a U.S. government-funded media company. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges in March and faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

Alsu Kurmasheva (Claire Bigg / Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty via AP)

Kurmasheva has been working with the companys Tatar-Bashkir Service, RFE/RL said. She traveled to Russia for a family emergency in May, according to RFE/RL, and was temporarily detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at Kazan airport, where she had her U.S. and Russian passports confiscated and has not been able to leave Russia since.

Kurmasheva was waiting for her passports to be returned when the new charge was announced Wednesday, RFE/RL said. It has called for her immediate release.

The Russian news outlet Tatar-Inform said Russian authorities accused Kurmasheva of "conducting a targeted collection of military information about Russian activities via the Internet in order to transmit information to foreign sources." NBC News could not verify this claim.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House to Kurmasheva's detention.

NBC News has reached out to Russias foreign ministry and the U.S. embassy in Moscow for comment.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a separate statement that it was deeply concerned about Kurmashevas detention, calling charges against her spurious, and also called on Russian authorities to release her immediately.

Gershkovich is still awaiting trial after having multiple appeals declined. Gershkovich and The Wall Street Journal deny all charges against him, and the U.S. government considers him wrongfully detained.

Since the start of Russias war in Ukraine, new draconian legislation has made reporting in the country dangerous for both Russian and foreign journalists, causing many news organizations to disband and journalists to leave the country.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Natalie Sanandaji, an American woman who escaped Hamas' assault on an Israeli music festival on Oct. 7, recounted her harrowing experience to Fox News Digital and went on to say that although she's back in the U.S. now, she does not feel safe seeing how easily "brainwashing" on social media is fueling antisemitism and anti-Israel demonstrations.

Sanandaji, a 28-year-old Jewish New Yorker born to Israeli and Iranian parents, said that growing up, she never understood how people could allow the Holocaust to happen, until she narrowly escaped Hamas' deadly assault firsthand and personally realized that some of her fellow festival attendees hadn't made it out alive, and then saw the antisemitic messaging that followed.

"A lot of people ask me if I feel safe now that I'm back in New York. I don't," Sanandaji said. "A lot of the things I've been hearing and seeing since getting back. A lot of the videos of the protests. These pro-Palestinian protests. Something I would like to say about that is, whatever side you're on in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, all the power to you. But this is not about Israel-Palestine. This is about Hamas, a terrorist organization who is just as complicit in the deaths of these innocent Palestinians as they are in the deaths of innocent Israelis."

"People need to understand that this is not about Israel vs. Palestine," she reiterated. "This is about a terrorist organization attacking the Jews and killing innocent people, killing innocent people at a music festival, killing innocent grandmas who survived the Holocaust, just to be killed by Hamas, burning babies alive."

IDF PLATOON STAFF SERGEANT RECOUNTS TERROR AT MUSIC FESTIVAL IN ISRAEL: 'WE WERE BUTCHERED'

Natalie Sanandaji shared her experience escaping Hamas terrorists at an Israeli music festival with Fox News Digital while back home in New York.

"That's not going to save Palestine," she added. "That's not going to free Palestine."

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Following the Hamas attack in Israel, there have been a number of demonstrations and incidents around the world.

"The amount of antisemitism I've seen in videos since coming back to New York, antisemitism all over Europe and the United States, that scares me more than anything," said Sanandaji. "For so long, as a Jew growing up in America, you're always taught about the Holocaust, and you're taught about the way our people were treated and the way so many people just stood by and watched as the Holocaust happened. And you're taught to never forget. And my whole life, I tried to understand how could  how could the world stand by? How could the world stand by and let that happen? And it's sad to say that I'm now starting to realize how. And I don't feel safe."

Having visited Israel many times since she was an infant, Sanandaji said this time she had traveled for a friend's wedding and decided to extend her trip to spend time with family over the Jewish holiday.

To attend the festival in Reim, she said there was an extensive vetting process, something her three friends who accompanied her were already accustomed to as a security procedure. Yet, none of them anticipated what would follow after they returned to camp around 3 a.m. to get some shut-eye before the morning music set, only to wake up to the sound of a barrage of rockets.

"One of the girls from our campsite came and woke us up to let us know that there had been some rockets that were sent in our direction that had been intercepted by the Iron Dome [missile defense system], that everything was fine, that it's normal for the area that we're in and that hopefully it will just be a few, and then the party will continue," Sanandaji told Fox News Digital. "I want people to try to imagine anywhere else in the world where a festival is taking place, taking place with such young kids attending, and they see rockets being intercepted over their heads and their automatic reaction is, 'Oh, this is normal because of the area that we're in. This happens. It's fine.'"

But the sounds of explosions grew more intense, she recalled, and they realized that something was seriously wrong when festival security shut off the music and ordered everyone to their cars.

This aerial picture shows abandoned and torched vehicles at the site of the Oct. 7 attack on the Supernova desert music festival by Hamas near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

"And at this point, we still didn't know that there were terrorists on foot just a few feet away from us with guns," Sanandaji said. "I asked my friends, 'Do you guys think it's OK if I go to the bathroom before we leave? We're going to have a long drive.' And they're like, 'Yeah, it's fine. No rush. Go to the bathroom.' I go to the bathroom, and a couple of days ago I saw a video that surfaced of the Hamas terrorists coming and shooting at those exact bathrooms and just shooting at every single stall, just trying to kill anybody who was inside. And that's one of the times since the festival happened, where it really hit me how close I was to death. That I could have been in those stalls. If I was in those stalls just a few moments later, I might not be here today."

Sanandaji praised security staff for doing their best to get festival attendees out, saying that most of them lost their lives in the process. At one point, security instructed everyone to get out of their cars, as the massive traffic jam was too much of a target. Sanandaji said she and her friends took off running on foot through the desert.

"One of the scariest things was running in a certain direction, thinking that you're running to safety and then suddenly seeing dozens of kids from this festival running in your direction and realizing that they're running from a terrorist, that they're running from gunshots, and that the direction that you've been going in is not taking you to safety," she said. "You don't know what decision is going to either save your life or get you killed."

Israeli army soldiers search the remains of a torched vehicle for forensic evidence at the site of the Oct. 7 attack on the Supernova desert music festival in southern Israel.

Sanandaji said a group of people encouraged her friends to join them in hiding in a ditch, but they declined, fearing that if terrorists were to arrive, they'd have no way out. She later learned that those who stayed there had all been killed.

ISRAELI MUSIC FESTIVAL SURVIVOR DESCRIBES HORROR OF HAMAS-LED ATTACK THAT LEFT 260 DEAD

For about four hours, she and her friends continued running and walking off and on between the sounds of approaching gunfire, until finally coming to a tree for some rest. Spotting an approaching white pickup truck, they feared the worst and prepared to accept their fate.

"At first, we thought it was a terrorist coming to kill us. And we all kind of thought to get up for a second, and then we all kind of just looked at each other and realized, Where are we going to run to?" she said. "So we just sat back down, and eventually when the car got to us, we saw that there was a girl in the car who had the festival bracelet on, and we realized that this was someone from the town of Patish who left the security of his town and drove toward the terrorists and risked his own life to try to save our lives."

Destroyed cars and personal effects are still left scattered around the music festival site where hundreds were killed and dozens taken hostage by Hamas terrorists near the border with Gaza in Kibbutz Re'im, Israel, on Oct. 13, 2023.

They piled into his truck, and the man dropped them off in Patish before immediately turning around.

"I didn't even have a chance to thank him, and he just went straight back and risked his life all over again," Sanandaji said.

Once in Patish, the residents there took Sanandaji and her friends in with open arms.

"The people of this town really came together to help us and to protect us. They put all of us in the local bomb shelter. They brought us food. They brought us water. There were people walking around reading off a list of names from their phone sent to them, from parents and family and friends who couldn't get in touch with kids that were at the festival," she said.

More than 200 hostages are estimated to have been taken into Gaza by Hamas terrorists.

"Trying to, like, realize that so many people that you were dancing right next to that you were having such a good time with you see all their faces in your head, and then you see photos of them days later online, and you realize that they did not come out as lucky as you did," Sanandaji said. "That they had either been killed or, worse, kidnapped. And the reason why I say worse, kidnapped is because so many parents have said that once they found out that their kid was killed, they said, Thank God, because being kidnapped by monsters like these and being tortured the way that they're torturing these children is, honestly, a worse fate than being killed by them."

Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza by land, sea and air on Oct. 7, killing over 1,300 people and wounding around 2,800. Israeli soldiers and civilians have also been taken hostage.

Sanandaji said she had stayed at the Patish shelter for several hours while a friend's uncle was struggling to drive their way, as Israeli forces already were rushing to secure the border. Someone in Patish agreed to drive them to where her friend's uncle was, and they made it back to where she had been staying. Sanandaji said that a friend who had managed to fly out to Israel that Sunday had given her an extra Monday ticket to Greece, and she had spent hours at the airport  in between emergency trips to a bomb shelter  before convincing the airline to allow her to change the name on the ticket so that she could leave the country.

Sanandaji said that being on the plane heading to Greece was a "very emotional" experience.

"I think that was the most I had cried since everything that had happened," she said. "Being in that situation, you're in a state of shock there. Everyone reacts to things differently. There were a lot of kids crying while we were being shot at. I was moreso in a state of shock. And a lot of the emotions really hit me as I was on that flight leaving. I was leaving a lot of family and friends behind. Especially one of the most emotional parts was leaving friends behind who were in the festival who managed to survive that festival and then were re-enlisting in the army and risking their lives all over again to protect our country and to protect our people."

"It made me feel all the more helpless. But since leaving and since having all these news stations reach out to me and ask me to share my story, I feel like that's the most I can do to try to help bring awareness to what happened, and for people to hear it from someone who was actually there, who witnessed the horror," she added. "To speak for all those who were kidnapped and killed and can't speak for themselves."





Original article source: American survivor of Hamas attack on music fest returns to see anti-Israel protests in US: 'I don't feel safe'
The U.S. State Department raised a travel advisory warning for American citizens in Lebanon to the highest level on Thursday, saying they should plan to leave the country as soon as possible. The advisory, issued by the U.S. embassy in Beirut, warned Americans to make plans to depart while commercial options are still available. The embassy said it was closely monitoring the security situation on the ground, and added, We recommend that U.S. citizen who choose not to depart prepare contingency plans for emergency situations. The advisory is an escalation from earlier this week, when the State Department warned Americans to avoid traveling to Lebanon given the unpredictable security situation there. It also comes as protests have erupted in Lebanon over the Israel-Hamas conflict. Hezbollah, which has traded fire with Israeli forces along the border in recent days, called for a day of unprecedented anger ahead of the demonstrations.

Read it at The Hill

Read more at The Daily Beast.
The State Department on Thursday urged Americans to make plans to leave Lebanon as soon as possible, elevating an earlier security warning that advised Americans not to travel to the country.

The U.S. Embassy is closely monitoring the security situation in Lebanon, the Thursday advisory read. The Department of State urges U.S. citizens in Lebanon to make plans to depart as soon as possible while commercial options are still available.

We recommend that U.S. citizens who choose not to depart prepare contingency plans for emergency situations, the advisory continued.

Demonstrations and violent confrontations have erupted in Lebanon amid the war between Hamas and Israel. Fighting has also broken out along the border between Lebanon and Israel, where Israeli forces and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah have clashed for years.

On Tuesday, the State Department warned Americans not to travel to Lebanon, citing the unpredictable security situation related to rocket, missile, and artillery exchanges between Israel and [Hezbollah] or other armed militant factions.

The department reiterated its warning from Tuesday against joining protests.

The Department of State reminds citizens to avoid demonstrations and exercise caution if in the vicinity of any large gatherings or protests as some of these have turned violent, the advisory read.

The advisory outlined several actions Americans in Lebanon should take, including having plans to depart that do not rely on the U.S. government, securing travel documents, reviewing personal security plans, and keeping cellphones charged.

The advisory encouraged people to exercise caution, monitor the news closely for breaking developments that could affect internal security, and factor updated information into your travel plans and activities.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
(The Hill)  The State Department on Thursday urged Americans to make plans to leave Lebanon as soon as possible, elevating an earlier security warning that advised Americans not to travel to the country.

The U.S. Embassy is closely monitoring the security situation in Lebanon, the Thursday advisory read. The Department of State urges U.S. citizens in Lebanon to make plans to depart as soon as possible while commercial options are still available.

We recommend that U.S. citizens who choose not to depart prepare contingency plans for emergency situations, the advisory added.

The warning comes as demonstrations and violent confrontations have erupted in Lebanon amid the war between Hamas and Israel. Fighting has also broken out along the border between Lebanon and Israel, where Israeli forces and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah have clashed for years.

On Tuesday, the State Department warned Americans not to travel to Lebanon, citing the unpredictable security situation related to rocket, missile, and artillery exchanges between Israel and [Hezbollah] or other armed militant factions.

The department reiterated its warning from Tuesday against joining protests.

The Department of State reminds citizens to avoid demonstrations and exercise caution if in the vicinity of any large gatherings or protests as some of these have turned violent, the advisory read.

The advisory outlined several actions that Americans in Lebanon should take, including, having plans to depart that do not rely on the U.S. government, securing travel documents, reviewing personal security plans and keeping cell phones charged.

The advisory encouraged people to exercise caution, monitor the news closely for breaking developments that could affect internal security, and factor updated information into your travel plans and activities.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
A Palestinian girl wounded during an Israeli airstrike receives medical treatment at the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip. (Adel Hana / Associated Press)

It had been more than a week of unceasing work for Suheila Tarazi and the other doctors at Gaza City's Ahli Arab hospital.

The 70 beds were full and still people kept coming  and not just the wounded. Families crowded around the medical center, hoping it would offer some protection against Israel's bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip.

"When I came Tuesday morning, there were 2,000 people in the courtyard outside," said Tarazi, the hospital director. After she left for the night, the staff told her, 700 more or so arrived to spend the night. "We had a massive number of people."

Bodies of Palestinians killed in the Ahli Arab Hospital blast lie at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. (Mohammad Abu Elsebah / Picture Alliance via Getty Images)

Hours later, a huge explosion rocked the hospital, a blast that Gaza health authorities said killed hundreds.

When Tarazi returned the next day, the courtyard was transformed  littered with burned vehicles, shattered glass, mattresses, books, bread and blood.

People gather by destroyed vehicles outside the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. (Mahmud Hams / AFP/Getty Images)

"All those people, they came to the church and the hospital because it's a safe place," she said Thursday. "Unfortunately that's gone, and we've lost lives of kids, and they have no fault other than to want a safe place to sleep."

Who is to blame for the carnage has quickly become one of the most contentious issues in the war that began Oct. 7 when Hamas fighters crossed into Israel and killed 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

Palestinian groups in Gaza say an Israeli airstrike caused the blast at the hospital. Israel says it was an errant rocket from Islamic Jihad, Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group allied with Hamas. The United States has backed Israel's contention, with President Biden saying in Tel Aviv this week that "the other team" was responsible. Now even the death toll of the blast is in dispute.

Rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel on Oct. 19, 2023. (Mohammed Dahman / Associated Press)

As both sides litigate who did what, for the people in Gaza, it was further proof that nowhere in the Palestinian territory is safe. And for doctors trying to save lives with dwindling supplies amid the constant threat of annihilation, the Ahli blast has only pushed them and the Gaza medical system closer to collapse.

In the narrow seaside enclave  roughly the area of the city of Las Vegas  the war has killed more than 3,478 people and left more than 12,000 wounded, authorities in Gaza say.

Israel has for days been warning about 1 million residents in northern Gaza Strip to move south before its ground offensive begins against Hamas militants. Hamas has urged Gazans to not evacuate but to stay in their homes.

At Ahli Arab Hospital, a 140-year-old charity medical center that is owned by the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem and serves about 45,000 patients every year, Tarazi was forced to send her patients and the victims of the courtyard strike to Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, which medical personnel say had been specifically warned to evacuate.

"The bed capacity of the whole Gaza Strip was 2,500 before all this. But now the Israelis are creating a humanitarian catastrophe, forcing the hospitals to shut down by targeting them," said Ghassan abu Sittah, a plastic surgeon working in Shifa.

People sit on the floor as they wait for medical attention at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Doctors in the Gaza Strip say the medical system is near collapse. (Mohamed Zaanoun / AFP/Getty Images)

"Each day of this war we're consuming over a month's supply of equipment," he said. "And add to that the fact that staff are exhausted. Some have lost families. Some have lost their homes. Some are staying in someone else's house."

He too was exhausted by the sheer number of casualties coming in.

"But then you get the next patient on the table and the adrenaline kicks in," he said.

Hammam Alloh, a 36-year-old kidney specialist working at Shifa and the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said doctors are trying to push through despite the danger and deprivation.

"The houses are insecure. The hospitals are insecure. What are we supposed to do?" he said. "Anyway, these people need help. We can't let this affect us."

With supplies dwindling and the infrastructure destroyed, he said, the hospitals could barely provide lifesaving care.

"I'm telling you we've been set back 100 years. It was already bad before this war. Now, simple laboratory tests, what modern medicine considers basic, those are luxuries."

The situation had forced him into a series of terrible decisions over who would live or die. A few days ago, he said, he had to choose between two patients who needed dialysis, one of them a 90-year-old woman.

"I gave her a little time with it, but I had to give priority to the younger person," he said. "I'm devastated that I have to do this, but I have to use the resources we have in the best way."

A doctor at the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, in the Gaza Strip, examines a child injured in Israeli attacks. (Ashraf Amra / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Equally dire is the situation outside the hospitals for medical crews, authorities in Gaza say. Since Israel's retaliatory campaign began, 44 medical personnel have been killed and 70 others injured, along with 23 ambulances completely out of commission, authorities say.

"The strange thing is that the ambulances get hit multiple times in the same attack," said Iyad Zaqout, who heads the emergency services' council in Gaza. "It feels deliberate."

Tarazi, the director at Ahli, was hoping the hospital could be made operational again, but she was facing a facility that had been all but gutted by the blast.

"Phones. Water. Glass on the windows, all that's gone," she said. "Thank God the buildings are still standing, but there is also a lot of damage we need to fix." She insisted the hospital's 17 doctors would be serving patients soon at the Anglican charity facility.

"The message of the church is to serve all the people in need," she said. "This is the principle we're following."

Times staff writer Nabih Bulos reported from Jerusalem. A special correspondent reported from Gaza; The Times is not using the reporters name for security reasons.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
There are plans to move the famous red light district out of town (Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD)

Amsterdam's sex workers Thursday protested against the transfer of their famed red light district to an out-of-town "erotic centre", in what is seen as part of a battle for the city's soul.

Many wearing masks to shield their identity, dozens of sex workers marched through the streets towards City Hall, one carrying a banner saying: "If sex workers are not to blame, then why are we being punished?"

Mayor Femke Halsema wants to uproot the red light district and move it out of town to a purpose-built "erotic centre", aiming to rid Amsterdam's image as "sin city" while reducing the number of tourists and petty crime in the area.

But she has found herself up against local residents who do not want the new centre on their doorstep, as well as sex workers who feel they are scapegoats for the criminals and crowds surrounding their neon-lit booths.

Halsema has long opposed the centuries-old red light district, known as De Wallen, with its neon-lined windows in canalside houses where sex workers stand waiting for customers.

The city council has earmarked three possible sites for the erotic centre, which would have 100 rooms for sex workers.

One sex worker who identified herself only as Lucie dismissed the idea as "one big gentrification project".

"It's mainly about combatting the crowds in De Wallen, but that is not the sex workers' fault so I don't see why we should be punished for it," said Lucie, who declined to give her last name.

- 'We just don't want it' -

Even the European Medicines Agency has been caught up in the controversy after it emerged one possible site for the erotic centre was near its headquarters.

The EMA voiced outrage, saying it could affect the safety of people working late at the office.

More than 20,000 have signed a petition against the transfer of the booths, calling instead for better crowd control in the area and greater police surveillance, especially at night.

Mariska Majoor, a former sex worker who now advocates for their rights, said the protests against moving the district had already been going for 16 years and that City Hall kept changing the goalposts.

"The authorities had a plan to reduce part of the brothels already in 2007. Then it was because of the fight against people trafficking and abuse and now it's about the fight against mass tourism," she told AFP.

Moving the red light district is Amsterdam's latest effort to transform its image as a party capital.

It has also launched a "stay away" campaign to discourage stag nights and boozy tourists, which caused a stir in Britain after the council said it would start by targeting British men aged 18-35.

The demonstration also attracted out-of-town locals who might suddenly find themselves living next to the new "erotic centre."

Cynthia Cournuejouls, a 42-year mother living to the south of the city, told AFP: "We don't want the biggest brothel in Europe in our neighbourhood."

"We just don't want it. We want to keep it here."

jcp-ric/bp
Thomas Hand tearfully told a CNN reporter that death was a blessing upon learning that his 8-year-old daughter Emily had been killed by Hamas. He had spent a tortuous two days waiting to hear news about his daughter after Hamas terrorists stormed their kibbutz, massacring at least 100 people.

That was the best, possibly, that I was hoping for. She was either dead or in Gaza. And if you know anything about what they do to people in Gaza, that is worse than death, he said. So, death was a blessing, an absolute blessing.

For families who do not know if their loved ones are dead or taken hostage or lying in a hospital somewhere, the anguish of not knowing keeps them stuck in a cycle of pain and numbness, hope and despair.

American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, age 23, was last seen being loaded into a pickup with other hostages abducted by the Hamas militants from the Tribe of Nova music festival. Witnesses said he lost part of an arm in a grenade attack, reports The Associated Press.

Rachel Goldberg, his mother, received two WhatsApp messages from Hersh at 8:11 a.m. on Oct. 7. One said I love you and the other Im sorry.

I dont know what will be, she said. So in the meantime, I just keep walking through hell, because if I stop, then Im just in hell.

Relatives of U.S. citizens that are missing since Saturdays surprise attack by Hamas militants near the Gaza border, in Tel Aviv, Israel attend a news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023, in Tel Aviv, Israel. Seated from left: Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35, from Nahal Oz; Ruby Chen, father of Itay Chen, 19, a soldier in the armored corps; Ayala Neta, daughter, and Nahal Neta, son of Adrienne Neta, 66, a nurse living in Kibbitz Beeri; Rachel Goldberg, mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, who was attending the music festival, and Jonathan Polin, Hershs father. | Maya Alleruzzo, Associated Press

Ambiguous loss

Pauline Boss coined the term ambiguous loss in the 1970s to explain losses where there is no certainty or closure about the loss. Boss says ambiguous loss can be among the most stressful  theres often no burial and no neighbors dropping off food after the funeral. The ambiguity freezes the grief process, blocking coping and decision-making abilities, Boss wrote in a 1999 paper.

Less than three weeks after the attacks of 9/11, The New York Times published an article on ambiguous loss and grieving when the lost are never found.

For many of the thousands of people who lost loved ones in the massacre of Sept. 11, the continuing search-and-rescue effort leaves a fragment of hope  either that the missing will somehow be found alive or that their bodies will be recovered so the process of mourning can begin. For some, even a declaration that no more victims will be found alive is difficult or impossible to accept.

This year, in early September, two more victims of 9/11 were identified  more than 20 years after the attack. More than 1,000 remains have yet to be identified.

In the Mediterranean, at least 28,000 migrants are missing, presumably drowned, since 2014. Only 13% of the bodies are ever recovered, reports The Washington Post. The vast majority are never identified, and European governments dont make a concerted effort to identify the dead unless the numbers are so large that the media pays attention.

After Februarys 7.8 earthquake in Turkey, more than 50,000 people died. After rescue efforts ceased, and then recovery efforts shifted to cleaning up debris, many victims remained unidentified. Relatives of Zeyna Aslan were sure they knew where she was when the earthquake struck, reported The Wall Street Journal. They were unable to find her. I prefer to have her body and a grave, said one friend. Now, I dont have anything.

Meron Estefanos, an Eritrean activist based in Uganda, works to identify the dead. A mother whose son went missing in 2005 has been calling Estefanos for 18 years. I wish I could give you an answer, but I cant, the activist tells her. The woman always counters the same way: So why cant you tell me hes dead?

Supporting those with ambiguous loss

For anyone who knows someone slogging through an open-ended loss, there are ways to help. Some of them are playing out in Israel right now, with friends and neighbors who are bringing food and sitting with survivors in their uncertainty.

When the crisis is immediate, there are several steps supportive family and friends can take, according to the National Center for PTSD:

Attend to basic needs like shelter, food and safety.

Listen, listen, listen.

Be free of judgments.

Show respect for their reactions to the crisis and their way of coping. There are many different normal responses.

Help them with the potentially overwhelming amount of information, or conversely, with a frustrating lack of information.

If the loss is current, as it is in Israel, its too early to find meaning. That can come down the road. For now, it can be enough to sit with them in their shock and grief.

Holly Richardson is the editor of Utah Policy.
A senior researcher with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) quit on Thursday over the Jewish nonprofits messaging around the Israel-Hamas war.

In a thread posted on the social media platform Bluesky, Stephen C. Rea, who focused on online hate and harassment as a member of the ADLs Center for Technology and Society, said he resigned because he couldnt square my morals and politics with the direction I saw the org going in.

I think that ADL does a lot of great work, and trust me, there are some AMAZING people there (many of whom agree with me), Rea wrote. But there are times when you have to stand up and say enough.

He emphasized that he would never begrudge anyone for staying or going to work for ADL, pointing out that quitting was a luxury he had thanks to health coverage through his partner.

Intel Reveals Greatest Threat to Americans From Israel-Gaza War

The ADLs latest moves were a personal red line for me, and some things are more important than a job, Rea wrote.

ADL director Jonathan Greenblatt has spurred indignation on the left for labeling Palestinian human rights campaigners as extremists, and reports of dissent among ADL staffers emerged earlier this year due to Greenblatts framing of anti-Zionism as antisemitism. Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas less than two weeks ago, Greenblatt has excoriated liberal Jewish groups calling for a ceasefire and criticizing Israel for what they see as a Palestinian genocide. On Wednesday, Greenblatt posted a tweet on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, expressing disbelief that far-left radical protesters had occupied a congressional office building to protest against overwhelming Israeli strikes in Gaza.

Who in their right mind can watch Hamas terrorists commit atrocities, brutally murder civilians, kidnap children & elderly, & then protest Israels right to defend itself???



Lets get a few things straight:



1. Israel does not occupy Gaza  Hamas does.



2. Stop with the absurd https://t.co/qLcmfUlkeD  Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) October 18, 2023

Who in their right mind can watch Hamas terrorists commit atrocities, brutally murder civilians, kidnap children & elderly, & then protest Israels right to defend itself??? Greenblatt wrote. ... Stop with the absurd accusation that Israel commits acts of genocide. Its factually incorrect & dangerous slander. These radical far-left groups don't represent the Jewish community. Far from it. They represent the ugly core of anti-Zionism > antisemitism.

This, Rea posted on Bluesky, is throwing red meat to the people who want to do the *most* harm, and couldnt be part of it any longer.

Its so disappointing, and imho unnecessary, he wrote.

Rea on Thursday told The Daily Beast that he did not want his resignation to be a distraction to his former colleagues, who continue to do incredible work under difficult circumstances.

Personally, I think that the ADL does more good than harm in the world on balance, despite whatever disagreements I have about the particular messaging around current events, Rea said.

In an email, an ADL spokesperson told The Daily Beast, As a matter of policy, ADL does not comment on personnel matters. However, we will say that ADL and our staff are steadfast in our support of Israel, that our body of work speaks for itself, and that we are grateful for the tireless efforts of the entire ADL team in the wake of the largest mass murder of the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Greenblatt did not respond personally to a request for comment.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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The Palestinian militant group Hamas likely used North Korean weapons during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Oct. 19.

Hamas fighters attacked the Israeli settlements armed with North Korean F-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, the news agency said, citing South Korean officials, two experts on North Korean arms, and its own analysis of weapons captured by Israeli forces.

North Korean weaponry can also be seen in footage published by Hamas itself, the AP reported, citing arms expert Matt Schroeder.

Shoulder-fired F-7 is a popular weapon with guerrilla forces when fighting armored vehicles, and its use has been documented in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza.

It resembles the more widely used Soviet-made RPG-7 launcher but is distinguishable by a red stripe on its warhead. This feature can be seen both on Hamas' arms captured by Israelis and in the militant group's own footage, the AP noted.

"North Korea has long supported Palestinian militant groups, and North Korean arms have previously been documented amongst interdicted supplies," N.R. Jenzen-Jones, the director of the Armament Research Services consultancy, told the AP.

Pyongyang has recently also supplied arms to bolster Moscow's war against Ukraine. U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Oct. 13 that North Korea had delivered more than a thousand containers of weapons and ammunition to Russia.

Ukraine's military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov noted that Hamas' advanced drone tactics, similar to those used by Russian forces in Ukraine, indicate that Moscow may have been involved in the training of Palestinian fighters.

Read also: Is Russia involved in Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel?

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Apple Automotive is being sold to to Ciocca Dealerships.

The Stewart Companies, a family-owned company based in York County that encompasses businesses across the building products, construction and real estate industries, has reached an agreement to sell its automotive division, Apple Automotive, to Ciocca Dealerships, according to a news release. The final transaction is expected to be completed in February 2024.

As part of the agreement, Ciocca Dealerships, a family-owned company operating 42 dealerships and 12 collision centers that represent 25 automotive brands across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, will maintain continuity across all Apple Automotive operations, according to the release.

Apple Automotive encompasses 10 auto dealerships across York County, representing 10 automotive brand franchises, as well as two used auto dealerships, six collision centers, two car washes and a wholesale parts business, per the release.

The Stewart Companies decision to transition ownership of the automotive division is part of a long-range strategic effort focused on further expanding the companys building products, construction and real estate businesses, while ensuring a thriving future for Apple Automotive, according to the news release.

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This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Apple Automotive group being sold to Ciocca Dealerships
Javier Milei , the ultraconservative frontrunner in Argentinas presidential race, is causing a stir as he vows to completely cut or defund the countrys legacy government institutes.

The self-described libertarian has said that bodies like the national science agency, the ministry of health, and the central bank are fueling the countrys financial crisis and he has pushed for the privatization of these institutions.

Mileis proposals have stunned national leaders who are warning that they would only worsen the economy, not save it.

Destroying the national science agency of CONICET and privatizing it is an attempt to hand over control to large business and financial groups that want to decide which sciences are useful for their profits, one CONICET researcher told left-leaning newspaper Pagina 12. This will lead to a deterioration of the kind of critical research needed for Argentinas development, he said. UK government research from 2019 found that investing in research has a 20% annual return, compared to a 5% return for investing in the stock market.

Despite Mileis anti-China rhetoric, Beijing might prove a critical partner in achieving his libertarian proposals. Mileis dollarization plan  abandoning the Argentine peso for the American dollar  would cost about $40 billion, but given Argentinas history of struggling to repay debt, skeptics say there are virtually no foreign investors willing to secure Argentine bonds. That would leave the Sino-Argentine bilateral swap line  a currency exchange agreement between Beijing and Buenos Aires  as one of the few options to fund dollarization, but only if Milei does not gut the central bank, which is needed to facilitate the exchange.

Argentinas federal system means that Mileis proposed reforms to cut agencies might not adversely impact public sector employment. Of the 3.5 million public servants employed across all governmental agencies  both national and provincial  less than 20% work directly for the federal government, making provincial public employment by far the most significant in the country, one academic told CNN en Espanol. Voters in recent provincial elections have been in favor of expanding some of the agencies Milei wants to gut, and provincial bureaucrats are banding together to rebel against some of his proposals, including one to cut tourism funding.
[Source]

A subsidiary of Chinese government-owned company Syngenta Seeds LLC has been ordered by Arkansas officials to divest itself of 160 acres of agricultural land in Craighead County.

Enforcing Act 636: On Tuesday, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Attorney General Tim Griffin jointly announced the enactment of Act 636 of 2023, which prohibits certain foreign parties from acquiring an interest in Arkansas agricultural land.

The new legislation marks the first instance of a state enforcing stringent laws restricting foreign ownership of farmland, with profound implications for the future of foreign land investments in the U.S.

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Divestiture and fines: Speaking to reporters at the state Capitol, Griffin identified the land as being owned by Northrup King Seed Co., a subsidiary of Syngenta Seeds LLC, which is ultimately owned by China National Chemical Co. (ChemChina), a state-owned enterprise.

Griffin's office has given Syngenta two years to divest itself of the Craighead County property. The state has also imposed a civil penalty of $280,000 on Syngenta for failing to report foreign ownership in a timely manner, as required by another state law, Act 1046 of 2021.

Threat to the state: Sanders accused Syngenta of using the Northeast Arkansas acreage primarily for seed research and deemed ChemChina a clear threat to our state, as it is included on a U.S. Department of Defense list of Chinese military companies.

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Seeds are technology," she said. Chinas state-owned corporations filter that technology back to their homeland, stealing American research and telling our enemies how to target American farms. That is a clear threat to our national security and to our great farmers.

Syngenta Responds: Syngenta, which has held the land since 1988, said it uses it for research and development, expressing disappointment in the state's decision. In a statement released on Tuesday, it emphasized that no one from China has directed its executives to engage in land acquisition in the U.S. The company further noted that it has a longstanding presence in the country, focusing on developing and testing products sold domestically, adhering to all laws, regulations, and reviews.

National trend: The landmark action by Arkansas is part of a growing national trend aimed at curbing Chinese land ownership in the U.S. States such as Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama have considered or enacted legislation preventing foreign adversaries from buying farmland.

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[Source]

Police in Washington, D.C. are looking for five suspects in connection with an armed robbery that targeted diners coming out of an upscale Asian restaurant earlier this week.

What happened: The robbery took place outside Philippe Chow in the 600 block of Wharf Street SW before 11 p.m. on Monday. A now-viral security video shows four hooded and masked individuals emerging from a black SUV, pointing guns at the diners and stealing their valuables before fleeing the scene.

What the restaurant is saying: Philippe Chow, led by the world-renowned executive chef of the same name, opened its 350-seat space in June. In a statement, the Beijing-style restaurant said it is working with authorities in their investigation.

On Monday night, October 16 after leaving our restaurant a group of guests were the victims of an armed robbery. The safety of our staff and guests is our greatest priority, and we are working with the Metropolitan Police Department to aid in any way we can in this ongoing investigation, it said.

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What police are saying: The incident occurred despite the areas popularity and presence of security. Over the past months, at least eight armed robberies have been reported within its 1,000-feet radius, according to FOX 5 DC.

Its certainly shocking that a brazen robbery like this would happen in such a well-popular area, where police frequent, where security staff are, where there are cameras, so its certainly concerning, D.C. Police Captain Jeffrey Kopp told reporters.

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Still, Kopp warned the public to stay vigilant regardless of their location in the city.

I think we should all be concerned for our safety when we go out. I dont think its in any specific neighborhood more than another, but just in general, people observing their surroundings and having a concern for their own safety goes a long way when it comes to preventing some of these things from happening, he said.

What people are saying: Workers and residents near the area have expressed concerns for both their safety and the incidents impact on visitors. The surveillance footage has gone viral on X.

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Pretty alarming to see for sure, Maddy Knaak, who recently moved to D.C. and works in the area, told DC News Now. Obviously, you hear stories about this being a pretty dangerous area, but to see something so upfront and one of these nice neighborhoods, its kind of scary for sure.

My heart hurts because it could put an ugly face on the area which is what we dont want, a Southwest resident told WUSA9. With the security that is invested in the area, you can see police presence all the time.

About the suspects: Police are looking for five suspects whom they believe to be between 17 and 25 years old. The perpetrators managed to get away with the victims wallets, watches and other personal items.

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Anyone with information about the robbery and/or the suspects is urged to contact D.C. police at (202) 727-9099. A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered.

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Residents will vote for the mayor and two Town Council members in Apex this year.

Mayor Jacques Gilbert, elected in 2019, is running unopposed, while incumbents Terry Mahaffey and Arno Zegerman face opponents Tayon Williams Dancy, Dylan Hale and Gregory Lyon.

Early voting for the Nov. 7 election began on Oct. 19 and runs until Nov. 4.

For information about voting, Election Day, and precincts, residents can visit the state Board of Elections, ncsbe.gov, or the Wake County Board of Elections, wake.gov.

Name: Arno Zegerman

Age: 49

Residence: Apex

Occupation/Employer: Chief of Staff - Silicon Valley Bank, a Division of First Citizens Bank

Education: MSc Management Sciences (Strategic Management) - Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University (Netherlands)

Political or civic experience: Apex Town Council (appointed January 2023), President and board member of Dutch cultural organization De Wieken (2013-23), Board member of The Peak Church Bicycle Ministry (2018-23)

Campaign website: arnoforapex.com

Tell us why youre running to serve Apex. Why should voters trust you in this position?

Apex has been on a good track for the past five to six years. Although residents rightfully express concern over the rate of growth, traffic conditions and loss of natural resources, it is important to recognize that policies set by the Council often take years to become visible. For example, many development projects were approved before more stringent zoning conditions became effective and, therefore, do not need to meet these new standards. Policy changes consistent with resident feedback and concerns that have been implemented in recent years will become more apparent over time. I have chosen to serve the town to protect and continue this progress. More importantly, the town is facing significant challenges in the areas of affordable housing, transit, and engagement from minority populations. I believe I bring qualifications to the Town Council that will help address these challenges and ensure that Apex remains an attractive place to live, work, and play.

What is the town of Apex doing right to manage growth? What could be improved?

The growth of Apex is both a benefit and a concern. The benefit is that the town has a larger tax base and, therefore can afford more projects to serve residents, e.g., new parks, road improvements, new public safety stations, and staff. The downside of growth is stress on existing infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, electric) and loss of natural resources.

What Apex is doing well is throttling residential growth, applying more stringent zoning conditions to preserve natural resources, and promoting commercial development. Slowing growth will allow the town, along with state entities, to invest and catch up on infrastructure projects. Additionally, new zoning regulation drives growth in areas of town where that is more desirable and creates a better mix of home inventory. Additionally, the town is investing in public transit.

Housing affordability, traffic conditions, and maintaining the natural beauty of Apex are to be improved.

If elected, how would you approach an existing or new issue differently from your fellow council members?

Where I plan to make a difference is in the area of transit. To reduce car traffic we need to apply a multi-pronged approach. Having grown up in Europe, I have experience with road designs and public transit concepts that are scarcely applied in the USA. Recently I have worked with a Dutch engineering firm and NC Department of Transportation (DOT) to explore the Turbo Roundabout concept. We can increase the capacity of existing roads by replacing intersections with these roundabouts. DOT is now gathering data from implementations in Europe to assess feasibility and application in North Carolina, including Apex.

Additionally, I have views on road designs that create a more pedestrian- and bike-friendly environment, in particular separated (protected) bike lanes.

Lastly, to be effective in managing traffic, we need to get serious about public transit. A connected network of transit services will increase its usability and popularity.

How do you plan to make local government in Apex more inclusive and equitable for all residents in the town who feel their voices are underrepresented?

The growth of Apex has resulted in a more diverse population. The Council and town staff are implementing several key programs to ensure we can engage all residents.

I look forward to helping our DE&I Director implement engagement programs like resource groups for employees who identify with an underrepresented community or our language access plan that will help engage residents for whom English is not their first language.

Additionally, we recently onboarded a director for Community Development. This is an external-facing function that aims to engage with communities and neighborhoods more pro-actively.

Despite these efforts, not all residents feel their voice is heard. As a council member, I spend a lot of my time in the community interacting with residents. One community I am working to personally engage is the AAPI community. This community represents 15% of Apexs population but has virtually no representation on boards, committees or Town Council.

Please list any endorsements youve received.

Wiley Nickel - US House Representative

Deborah Ross - US House Representative

Gale Adcock - NC Senator

Julie von Haefen - NC House Representative

Maria Cervania - NC House Representative

Ya Liu - NC House Representative

Vickie Adamson - Wake County Commissioner

Audra Killingsworth - Mayor Pro-Tempore, Town of Apex

TJ Cawley - Mayor, Town of Morrisville

Steve Rao - Councilmember, Town of Morrisville

Bill Jensen - former Councilmember, Town of Apex

Various individual endorsements, some of which are listed on my website.

If there is anything you would like to add, please do so here.

Apex is a growing town with growing needs. Serving on Town Council is an honor and a privilege. During my time on the Council I have engaged with many residents and business owners, including those outside of Apexs town limits, to ensure their voices are heard and are considered in my decision-making. I bring to Council 25 years of business and nonprofit leadership experience, my own experiences as an immigrant, my international experience, and my regional view on solving big issues. These valuable qualifications set me apart from my colleagues and other candidates.

Since joining Apex Town Council I have been able to demonstrate what I stand for and voted consistent with those beliefs. I believe my ideas and concerns echo those of many Apex residents, and I humbly ask for your vote to continue the work that I started.
Law enforcement officers are pictured Wednesday in the Metro Parking Garage, 321 Robert S. Kerr, after a shooting took place in the garage across the street from the Oklahoma County building in downtown Oklahoma City.

An 18-year-old man accused of being involved in a shooting that injured two people in a parking garage near Oklahoma County's office and courts complex was being held Wednesday on a $10 million bond, court records show.

The suspect, whom The Oklahoman is not naming because he has not yet been charged, was taken into custody by Oklahoma County sheriff's deputies on Wednesday.

Officials have said the shooting happened in an Oklahoma County-owned parking garage earlier that same day after members of two rival gangs had fought in the lobby of the eighth floor of the Oklahoma County Courthouse.

The shooting injured two adults, who later showed up at OU Health University of Oklahoma Medical Center to seek treatment for their wounds.

More: Argument between members of rival gangs leads to shooting in downtown OKC parking garage

Authorities said Thursday they did not have updated information on the severity of the shooting victims' injuries. However, they earlier had said they believed their wounds were not life-threatening.

Authorities also reiterated Thursday that neither the shooting victims nor anyone else who might have been involved in the earlier fight or shooting are cooperating with investigators.

The arrested 18-year-old was captured on security video the county uses inside the garage, and was identified by Oklahoma City police who were familiar with the suspect, Oklahoma County Sheriff Tommie Johnson III said Thursday.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma County Courthouse garage shooting suspect held on $10M bond
[Source]

Rani, a 27-year-old Asian elephant at the St. Louis Zoo in Missouri, tragically passed away after a loose dog entered the zoo and scared her to death.

What happened: At 3:39 p.m. on Oct. 13, a small dog was seen running around in a non-public area near the Elephant Barn. Although Rani did not directly encounter the dog, the canines presence caused her distress due to the vocalizations of the herd. The dog was immediately captured by the Elephant Care team and handed over to a shelter.

Rani's death: Rani eventually collapsed and died around 20 minutes after the dogs intrusion. Preliminary necropsy results showed pre-existing heart changes in Rani. Further testing is ongoing to understand the significance of these changes.

We are absolutely devastated. We ask for the communitys thoughts and support during this difficult time, St. Louis Zoo Director Michael Macek said in a statement. Our team of professional animal care experts did everything possible, but we couldnt save Rani.

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About Rani: Rani was a cherished member of the zoos elephant family, known for her unique squeaking noise when socializing with her relatives. Rani and her mother, Ellie, arrived at the zoo in July 2001, at age 5 and 29 respectively, as part of conservation efforts for the endangered Asian elephant species. Rani leaves behind three calves: Jade, Kenzi and Avi.

Rani was a special member of this elephant family group, said Katie Pilgram-Kloppe, zoological manager of Rivers Edge. She loved playing with her sisters Maliha and Priya. While growing up here in St. Louis, she got to learn from her own mom, Ellie, on how to be an amazing mother herself. She had a great relationship with her animal care team and all of the other elephants.

St. Louis Zoo: According to the St. Louis Zoo, the rest of the elephant herd has since calmed down and are doing well.

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There are reportedly less than 50,000 Asian elephants left in the wild, and they are threatened by habitat loss and poaching, leading to the risk of extinction. To address the pressing issue, the St. Louis Zoo is dedicated to the conservation of the endangered species. The zoo is currently home to a three-generation family of Asian elephants.

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Why take cake frosting to a space station, in a microgravity environment where bread cannot rise?

Space mysteries like this abound in a new International Space Station (ISS) study, and the answers may help inform future space habitat design and crew training.

A 60-day archaeology investigation in 2022 aimed to see how astronauts use the orbiting lab. The ISS is roughly the size of a six-bedroom house, NASA says . It typically hosts between three and seven astronauts at the least, from countries all around the world.

Like any multinational expedition in a remote environment, the astronauts need to call upon creativity, patience and training to stay safe and get their research work done. That's where the cake frosting came in.

Related: Firefly Aerospace uses rocket engine to light birthday candles in epic cake video

Curious archaeologists here on Earth noticed tubes of cake frosting in astronaut photos of the galley in the station's Unity module. The archaeologists wondered what the frosting could possibly be used for in orbit, so they set out to solve the mystery. Turns out the astronauts repurposed the tubes: to celebrate Russian cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov's birthday, Barron and NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn created an adapted "cake" using premade muffins, along with honey and the frosting.

"This activity highlights how food preparation is a key vector for reinforcing social relations, even in space," stated Justin Walsh, co-investigator of the Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQUARE), in a release Monday (Oct. 16) from the University of Southern California or USC.

The research is named after literal squares placed on the ISS to track crew activity. NASA astronaut Kayla Barron taped the first of six quadrangle areas on the ISS in January 2022 , during the Expedition 66 mission. Periodic pictures of each yellow-squared area in the two months following allowed archaeologists on Earth to keep track of how the astronauts are using each square.

Related: 'Space archaeology' research on the ISS will help design better space habitats

The SQUARE archaeology project outlined five 1-meter-square (0.6-foot-square) sample areas, and asked the crew to select a sixth one, in different modules of the International Space Station

The SQUARE method is inspired by a basic but well-tested archaeological technique: the test pit. When digging in locations on Earth where it is not yet feasible or appropriate to do a large-scale survey, archaeologists may choose to burrow in a small square and carefully keep track of each item that comes out, by soil layer and by location.

"You can think of it as an off-planetary equivalent of excavating a pit," added Walsh, a fellow at USC's space engineering research center. The other co-investigator for SQUARE was Alice Gorman, a professor at Flinders University in South Australia who specializes in space archaeology.

The six locations taped off in the ISS included:

The galley table in Node 1, Unity;

The starboard workstation in Node 2, Harmony module;

The wall across from the toilet (waste and hygiene compartment) in Node 3, Tranquility module;

The science rack on the forward wall of the Japanese Kibo module;

The science rack on the forward wall of the European Columbus module;

A rack on the port side of the U.S. Destiny module (the crew's choice).

"The investigators have chosen sample sites on the space station that seem likely to be locations where lots of activities are happening, with objects moving in and out of the sample sites on a regular basis. Crew are asked to identify one more area for sampling based on their own understanding of current activities," the official experiment description reads.

"At the core of this research is a focus on different kinds of material culture  that is, objects and built spaces, together with their symbolic and social meanings," the description added. In addition to what this research reveals about culture, it aims to help "future spacecraft designers understand exactly how different objects and space are used over time," which would improve habitats.

Related: Boom! Watch an inflatable space habitat explode during testing (video)

a woman holds a camera to her face

ISS crew members were required to take pictures daily at the exact same time for 30 days, and then continue for another 30 days with daily photos at scattered intervals. And that process, even though it took place over a small amount of time, revealed a lot of surprises.

Aside from the cake mystery, the archaeology team found the Harmony workstation didn't end up being used for repairs  rather, it was mostly used for storage. (Anyone who has repurposed an exercise bike as a clothing rack on Earth might be sympathetic.)

Just 12% of the area was devoted to its primary use for maintenance tools, the picture record showed. By contrast, more than a third of the space (35%) was taken up by clips, adhesive tape, cable ties and other " gravity surrogates" to hold items in space. And the majority of the workspace was otherwise taken up with storing unrelated items.

Since the off-planet "pegboard" ended up being used for unanticipated things, the hope is that space habitats of the future "will be better equipped to optimize the design of maintenance spaces based on documented behaviors. leading to greater efficiency and possible payload reduction," USC officials said in the same statement.

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The investigation also shed some light on international crew relations in a remote environment. For example, the personal-hygiene cases of both German and U.S. astronauts had Russian-branded dry wipes inside.

This is classed as a "culture of exchange" and also shows that the crews are continuing to work together in ways large and small since Russia's unsanctioned and ongoing invasion of Ukraine beginning in 2022, which severed most Russian space partnerships aside from its ISS cooperation. (NASA is continuing under senior U.S. policy advice and has emphasized that operations on the station continue as usual.)

While the experiment is finished, archaeology analysis is ongoing. Related studies with team members have included peer-reviewed research on cargo "artifacts" being shipped to Earth from the ISS, tracking the movements of astronauts in the large facility and the display of "space heroes" and Orthodox icons in the Russian Zvezda module.
An Atlantic Beach town council candidate spent six years in federal prison following a 2007 conviction on multiple drug charges in Virginia, according to court records.

Shaun Deion Swinson Sr., a hairstylist who runs Maestros Symphony for Hair along US Highway 17 S., was sentenced to 72 months in prison on Dec. 14, 2006 after being convicted conspiracy to distribute marijauna, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering, according to a transcript of his federal proceedings.

Swinson  who spelled his first name as Shawn at the time of his arrest  did not immediately respond to a phone call and text message from The Sun News seeking comment.

Swinson is among four candidates running for three open Atlantic Beach town council seats.

The Nov. 7 race will reshape the towns political landscape as major questions about Atlantic Beachs future are yet to be answered, including the fate of a controversial $100 million condotel project that would block oceanfront views for dozens of residents.

WBTW News 13 first reported Swinsons Virginia conviction on Oct. 18. The station said Swinson twice agreed to an interview but canceled, though confirmed he was incarcerated.

In 1996, voters widely approved adding language to the state constitution barring anybody convicted of a felony from holding public office for at least 15 years until the end of their sentence, including probation and parole time.

The Sun News reported Oct. 13 that Swinson is being sued in Horry County by former Atlantic Beach town manager William Booker, who alleges hes owed more than $11,000 in back rent for Swinsons hair studio and a 29th Ave S. home.
CSX train employees found metal materials jammed into the tracks and rail switches of an Ohio train line for months after a near-catastrophic derailment in August, according to court documents.

During a test run for a CSX employee appreciation day, a train hit an obstruction on the track and temporarily derailed before the wheels dropped back into place.

The seemingly mysterious accident quickly became a concerning issue when employees continued to find more "purposefully placed" materials along the tracks, which matched methods taught by international terrorist groups to make homemade derail devices, court documents say.

The investigation led to Cleveland man Joseph Findley, 43, who was arrested and charged with terrorist attacks against railroad carriers.

BODYCAM CAPTURES DRAMATIC SHOOT-OUT WITH MAN ACCUSED OF SLAUGHTERING FAMILY BEFORE VANISHING

Findley lives with his parents, who could not be reached by Fox News Digital. His mother told Fox 8, though, that her son is not a terrorist.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"He's never been a bad kid, never, he was always good. Hes no terrorist, somebodys making that up," his mom told the local news outlet, which asked what would explain his alleged actions.

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"Being depressed, because he lost his job, he lost his girlfriend, but he never did anything like that," she said. "Theyre nuts, hes not a terrorist. I think they all exaggerated it because he never did anything bad."

The Amtrak train along that line typically carries between 180 and 200 passengers twice per day, according to court documents.

The man that the FBI identified as Joseph Findley allegedly putting four rail spikes down at the switch, circled, on Oct. 1, according to court documents.

Evidence laid out by the FBI and federal prosecutors in court papers reviewed by Fox News Digital tell a different story.

After the derailment on August 12, CSX employees found obstructions, including tie plates, spikes and other pieces of metal, wedged between the guardrail and the rail, according to the criminal complaint.

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Findley allegedly jammed these metal objects in the line five times from August to October.

"The objects and their specific placement indicate knowledge of how the tracks and the switch operate, as well as how to disrupt these normal operations," the criminal complaint says.

The man that the FBI identified as Joseph Findley allegedly is seen standing at the switch on Oct. 1, according to court documents.

The man that the FBI identified as Joseph Findley is seen allegedly holding a railroad spike in the red circle and the switch in the yellow circle, which was clear of obstruction on Oct. 1, according to court documents.

A local business near the tracks caught a glimpse of a man in the area of the obstruction that caused the August 12 derailment and repositioned its cameras to get a clearer view of the tracks, court documents say.

"Over the next few days, CSX work crews reported several pieces of debris were placed on the tracks further east of the switch," the criminal complaint says.

WILD BODYCAM FOOTAGE OF FUGITIVE DARING COPS TO SHOOT HIM BEFORE HIGH-SPEED CHASE

"This debris consisted of two fiberglass panels and various pieces of track material, including tie plates and spikes."

The spikes are sharp and pointed upwards "to cause harm to someone walking around the railroad tracks," the complaint says.

Cameras caught the first glimpse of the suspect  a man wearing a black shirt, jean shorts and carrying an aluminum beverage can  on August 18, but investigators could not make out the man's face.

There was a lull in activity near the tracks until September 18, when crew members found material between the guardrail and the rail for the mainline.

"Based on the condition of the material, it appeared to have been struck by at least one train," according to the criminal complaint, but luckily there were no derailments.

Track material found on the track on September 30 after the man identified as Joseph Findley left the area, according to court documents.

A day earlier  September 17  trail cameras caught the same man from August 18 in the same clothing, but this time his face was clearer.

Investigators followed his movements, and saw him check the switches where the obstructions were, according to court documents.

The same man was spotted in the same spot on September 30 and October 1, when he was "seen taking several pieces of track material and placing them on other parts of the rail."

CLICK HERE FOR MORE TRUE CRIME FROM FOX NEWS

The man that the FBI identified as Joseph Findley on September 17, according to court documents.

Investigators showed the images from the secret trail cam to a number of nearby store employees, and one of them identified Findley.

The clerk told investigators Findley grew up in the neighborhood, lives with his parents on a dead-end rotary and "is known to drink heavily," court documents say.

The FBI executed a search warrant on Findley's home, found the clothes seen in the surveillance videos and arrested him.

Findley allegedly admitted to being the man in the surveillance videos and placing railroad spikes on the tracks, the criminal complaint says.

However, he denied jamming the other objects in the tracks and said he did not intend to derail a train.

He was represented by assistant public defender Ashlynn Mejia, who did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.





Original article source: Attempted Ohio train derailments part of alleged terrorist plot: court docs
One of the attorneys for former President Donald Trump took a plea deal in the Georgia election interference case on Thursday.

Sidney Powell is one of 19 defendants indicted in the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

Powell had been scheduled to go to trial with co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro starting on Monday. However, on Thursday, Powell agreed to a plea deal, becoming the second co-defendant to reach one along with bondsman Scott Hall.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Powell pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

As part of the agreement, Powell will serve six years probation, pay a $6,000 fine and pay $2,700 in restitution to the Georgia Secretary of States Office. She will also have to testify truthfully against the co-defendants.

Steve Sadow, who is representing Trump in the Georgia election interference case, issued the following statement about Powells deal.

Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy.

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Powell allegedly coordinated with SullivanStrickler, an Atlanta data company, to obtain breached elections data from Coffee County, Ga., in Jan. 2021. Local election officials reportedly gave the group access to equipment that was meant to be protected.

SullivanStrickler billed Powell more than $26,000 for its work which also included attempts to access similar election data in Antrim County, Michigan, and Clark County, Nevada. State investigators called it criminal behavior.

Powell also allegedly tasked people with identifying Georgia residents who could serve as plaintiffs in suits contesting Georgias election results.

Powell originally requested a speedy trial alongside Chesebro. Sources told ABC News that Powells co-defendant Chesebro had also been offered a plea deal but rejected the offer.

The deal would have forced him to testify against his co-defendants, including former Pres. Trump, in exchange for three years probation and a $10,000 fine. The terms of the deal also included a written letter of apology, sources told ABC.

Jury selection for Chesebros trial is expected to begin on Friday. A trial date has not yet been set for the remaining 16 defendants.
In February, 23-year-old Juliana Peres Magalhaes called 911 twice to report a harrowing scene: a double homicide inside the Virginia home where she was an au pair. On Thursday, after a seven month investigation and an alleged false confession, Fairfax County police have pinned at least one of the deaths on the at-home nanny.

Peres Magalhaes, of Reston, Virginia, was charged with second-degree murder in connection with the Feb. 24 murder of 39-year-old Joseph Ryan. The Fairfax County Police Department said that Christine Ann Banfield, a 37-year-old mother who employed Magalhaes, was also found fatally stabbed in the upstairs bedroom.

Ryan did not live at the Bandfields Herndon home where the murders occurred, but police state that there are no signs of forced entry. Authorities at the time said that Peres Magalhaes, who lived at the home, and Banfields husband both called 911 the morning of the murders. Initially, authorities say, Banfields husband told a dispatcher that he had shot Ryan, who he also accused of stabbing his wife.

Banfield's then 4-year-old daughter was at the home at the time of the murders but was not physically harmed.

The truest victim of all of this is that poor girl, Fairfax Police Chief Kevin Davis said in February.

Victims Lawyer: Gilgo Beach Suspect Rex Heuermann Tied to 2 More Dead Women

Peres Magalhaes, who was also facing a felony use of a firearm count, has not been charged in connection with Banfields death and is being held at the Adult Detention Center on no bond. Her previous criminal history in Virginia consists of two misdemeanor driving charges. Banfields husband and her defense lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The arrest marks the latest development in the seven-month investigation into the horrific early morning murder in a quiet residential Virginia neighborhood. Authorities say that just after 8 a.m., officers arrived at the home after Peres Magalhaes called 911 and hung up. About 13 minutes later, police say both Peres Magalhaes and Banfields husband were on the line.

Peres Magalhaes at the time told authorities that her friend was hurt before Banfields husband got on the line and stated he shot an unknown man who entered his home and stabbed a woman, police said in February.

When officers arrived at the appalling scene, they found Ryan dead from multiple gunshot wounds to his upper body. Banfield was found upstairs with stab wounds and taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

There was no forced entry whatsoever. This was not a home invasion, Davis said in February about Ryan. I do not know exactly what the nature of his presence in the home is all about just yet, but were working hard to determine that.

We dont think he is necessarily a stranger, he added.

Authorities have yet to provide details as to why they believe Peres Magalhaes shot Ryan, only stating that the conclusion came after multiple interviews and reviewing forensic evidence. The investigation into who fatally stabbed Banfield, a nurse, is still ongoing.

We have recovered all weapons, and weve identified all persons involved in this case, First Lt. Erin Weeks said on Thursday, according to WTOP. We are keeping options open.Our big thing is continuing to interview people, continuing to review all digital and forensic evidence and learn how Christine Banfield was fatally stabbed.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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(Bloomberg) -- Australian politicians are struggling to identify a clear next step for First Nations people following last weeks defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum, leaving policy toward the nations most marginalized population in limbo.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Caucus meetings of the ruling center-left Labor party and the opposition center-right Coalition this week featured only limited discussion on the way forward. Behind closed doors, both sides commended their own members performances during the referendum debate. Labors Indigenous lawmakers received a round of applause from their colleagues in recognition of their campaign efforts.

Australians overwhelmingly rejected a proposal pushed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to write Indigenous citizens into the constitution in a national vote on Oct. 14. The result effectively ended a push for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory body to the Parliament.

Australias First Nations people suffer from shorter life expectancy, lower wages and higher incarceration rates than the rest of the population. Indigenous leaders who pushed for the Voice announced a week of silence last Saturday to mourn the result.

We will not rest long, a statement issued by Indigenous leaders said. Fly our flags low. Talk not of recognition and reconciliation. Only of justice and the rights of our people in our own country.

Among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who voted against the referendum, there were growing calls for a treaty, presumably between the government and the countrys original inhabitants. Indigenous Australians have been on the land for at least 65,000 years.

A treaty isnt a new idea. Former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke pledged one in 1988  the bicentenary of British colonization  to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. It failed to gain much traction as the then-conservative opposition rejected the idea.

There remain many unanswered questions around what a treaty between the Australian government and Indigenous people would look like, including who would sign it and what it would include. For example, some First Nations people have called for reparations or land rights to be part of a treaty, proposals no government would be likely to agree to.

But many members of the Blak Sovereign Movement, which has argued for greater rights for Indigenous Australians, do endorse a treaty. The group opposed the Voice because they didnt want their people enshrined in the constitution, arguing that it eroded their sovereignty as a people who had never accepted colonization.

Taylah Gray, an Indigenous lawyer and Wiradjuri woman, said she voted against the Voice because her people deserved more, adding the verdict of the referendum showed that Australia would never accept people like us.

We deserve so much better than this and we have the right to say make a better offer. Treaty now, she said.

Albanese has said he will wait to decide on the next steps until the week of silence has concluded.

However, when pressed on his previous support for a treaty with Indigenous Australians, Albanese struggled to make clear whether his government would push forward with its election pledge, as well as a commission to investigate the history of colonization.

The opposition parties, which also opposed Saturdays Voice referendum, have proposed a review of spending on Indigenous Australian government programs, as well as a high-level investigation into child sexual abuse in First Nations communities.

But, almost immediately after the referendum, Liberal leader Peter Dutton began to back away from his earlier promise of another referendum to write Indigenous Australians into the constitution.

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A Worcester man allegedly posed as an Uber driver in Boston and raped a woman after picking her up outside a nightclub.

Investigators used surveillance footage to track down the suspect, identified by authorities as Qabel Najeeb, 29.

The Worcester resident is being held on $10,000 bail after being arraigned in Boston Municipal Court Monday.

According to the office of Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden , the woman called for an Uber early Saturday, sometime after midnight. The woman, 32, entered a car she thought was from the ride service. The driver, later identified as Najeeb, drove to an area off Storrow Drive and sexually assaulted the woman, according to the district attorney's office.

After she was dropped off on Border Street, the woman contacted police.

Investigators reviewed surveillance video and identified the car, a Toyota Corolla, and the driver, Hayden said.

This is a terrifying incident involving a woman who entered a vehicle with the full understanding that she was going to be delivered home in safety and a driver who took advantage of the victim and the situation," Hayden said in a statement.

Najeeb faces one count of rape.

Safety tips

On Thursday, Worcester police urged ride-service customers to use caution, posting tips on social media:

Make sure that the driver's face and license plate match with what is seen on the app. Ask the driver to confirm his or her name and make the driver tell you who he or she is picking up. When possible, travel together. If this is not possible, tell a friend or loved one where you are going. Sit in the back seat, not the front. Trust your instincts. If something feels off, it probably is. Have your cellphone handy in case you have to call 911.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: DA: Fake Uber driver from Worcester raped woman who called for ride
Authorities are searching for an inmate who walked away from the Acton Conservation Camp in Los Angeles County on Wednesday.

Authorities determined that Julian OchoaRuiz, 38, was missing at 11 p.m. Authorities with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation immediately searched the campgrounds and buildings but could not find him, officials said in a news release.

OchoaRuiz is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 145 pounds. He has brown eyes and black hair and was last seen on campgrounds wearing gray sweatpants, a gray t-shirt, and a gray ball cap.

CDCRs Office of Correctional Safety, the Los Angeles County Fire Department and local law enforcement agencies have been notified of OchoRuizs disappearance and are assisting with the search, authorities announced.

OchoaRuiz was admitted to Acton Conservation Camp from Merced County on Valentines Day to serve a three-year, eight-month sentence for maliciously and willfully discharging a firearm at an inhabited dwelling house and evading or attempting to evade a peace officer.

Anyone who sees OchoaRuiz or knows where he is can contact the Acton Conservation Camp Commander at (661) 268-0113, any law enforcement agency, or 9-1-1.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.






Ford Motor Company's global headquarters is the Henry Ford II World Center  or Ford World Headquarters, or Glass House  located in Dearborn, Michigan and completed in 1956. GM's global headquarters is 12 miles away in Detroit, Michigan, a set of seven connected towers completed between 1977 and 1981 and known as the Renaissance Center, or RenCen. Stellantis' global HQ is in a small town in The Netherlands called Hoofddorp. But home base for its U.S. outpost is about 30 miles north of the RenCen at the Chrysler World Headquarters and Technology Center, or CTC, in Auburn Hills, MI. The Detroit News reports that Stellantis might use the CTC like a giant Airbnb, selling the building and leasing back only the space it needs.

This isn't a new consideration, Stellantis has been looking at options for the 500-acre campus and 15-story, 5.4-million-square-foot main building since at least early 2022, when the Detroit Free Press wrote about it. At that time, one of Covid's effects was to deepen the discussion about remote work as companies pushed to reopen offices and a fair number of employees made it clear they didn't want to resume their commutes. A company spokesperson told Freep, "As part of our companys evolution to a more flexible work environment, called the New Era of Agility, we are currently evaluating how we work to enable our teams to be their most innovative, creative and efficient. That analysis includes potential adjustments to our real estate portfolio." As characterized by Freep based on information from an anonymous source, "The company is considering what the right 'footprint' will be going forward and whether it needs to maintain so much space."

Before the Freep piece ran, the automaker had already ceded one leased building near HQ and moved those workers into the main complex. And agility might still be necessary since it's tough to tell where remote work trends are going to go. Fortune just reported that "Fewer than 26% of US households still have someone working remotely at least one day a week, a sharp decline from the early-2021 peak of 37%, according to the two latest Census Bureau Household Pulse Surveys. Only seven states plus Washington, DC, have a remote-work rate above 33%, the data shows, down from 31 states and DC mid-pandemic." On the other hand, in February of this year, the same outlet ran a piece titled, "Office vacancy will increase by 55% by the end of the decade as hybrid and remote work push real estate to an inflection point."

Stellantis' Euro-centric base probably also contributes to the discussion; of the conglomerate's 12 vehicle brands, only four are based in the U.S. And beyond the 'right-sizing' benefits of selling the complex and leasing space in it, the economic boon of a sale is estimated to be worth between $250 and $500 million.

Mark Stewart, COO of Stellantis North America, said, "[Like] everyone in the hybrid working environment, and looking at our overall footprint across the region, and specifically in the U.S., we have a lot of the building here in Auburn Hills that we're not utilizing today." None of this means it will happen. There still doesn't appear to be a timetable, and because a fair number of the thousands of workers at CTC are UAW members, Stellantis would need to work out terms with the UAW before a sale. Such potential terms were part of Stellantis' fourth counteroffer to the UAW during contract negotiations as part of wider moves with respect to facilities. The Detroit News reported earlier this month, "Stellantis has sought the ability to close or sell 18 facilities, from its Auburn Hills headquarters, which it could lease back, to Mopar parts distribution centers across the country it wants to consolidate and make more efficient."
The Pentagon is set to deliver 155mm artillery shells to Israel that it had originally designated to be sent to Ukraine, unnamed Israeli officials told Axios on Oct. 19.

At the beginning of 2023, 155mm shells in one of the U.S.'s emergency stockpiles located in Israel, began to be transferred to Ukraine, Axios reported previously.

Although the stockpile is located in Israel, it still belongs to the U.S., and can be used by Israel only with express permission from the U.S., specifically in times of war. Previously, the stockpile was accessed by Israel during its 2014 war in Gaza.

At the time the shells from the stockpile began to be transferred to Ukraine, Israeli officials did not think they would need access to the emergency supplies.

However, the situation has fundamentally changed after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and subsequent plans for a likely ground invasion of Gaza. In addition, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have been skirmishing with Hezbollah forces by the Lebanese border- both operations that will require access to more artillery shells.

The 155mm shells are NATO standard and used in a variety of Western weapons systems that have been delivered to Ukraine.

U.S. officials have emphasized in recent days that the new focus on helping long-time ally Israel does not mean a decrease in support for Ukraine.

On Oct. 11, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said, "We firmly reject the notion that the United States of America cannot at once support the freedom-loving people of Ukraine and support the State of Israel."

Several days later, on Oct. 15, Sullivan said that the U.S. was preparing a funding package of at least $2 billion for Israel, which would include military aid for Ukraine.

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Three Israeli officials told Axios on conditions of anonymity that the US government wants to give Israel "tens of thousands" of 155-mm artillery shells that were previously designated for Ukraine.

Source: European Pravda, referring to Axios

Details: According to Axios, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and the Israeli Ministry of Defence told their US counterparts they urgently needed artillery shells to prepare for a ground invasion in Gaza and a possible escalation of the war along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Axios also reported that "US officials have suggested that diverting the shells from Ukraine to Israel would have no immediate impact on Ukraine's ability to fight against Russian troops".

The US stockpiles the 155-mm shells in question in Israel as part of an agreement between the countries, Axios said. These shells have been gradually taken from Israel and transferred to Ukraine since the beginning of 2023.

"Only US military personnel have access to the weapons storage sites. But according to the agreement between the countries, Israel can use the ammunition in a war scenario in short order, with US approval," Axios also reported.

Israel was previously granted access to the ammunition during its war with Lebanon in 2006 and during the 2014 Gaza conflict.

Background:

According to media reports, Israel has asked the United States for US$10 billion in emergency military aid.

Earlier, US President Joe Biden stated that the United States is able to provide support to both Ukraine and Israel at the same time while maintaining an international level of defence capability.

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The Flat Fire in southwest Oregon east of Gold Beach burned more than 34,000 acres near Agness and Gold Beach.

By the numbers, the 2023 wildfire season in Oregon was a quiet one  with the smallest number of acres burned since 2019 and well below average for the past decade.

A total of 190,500 acres were blackened in Oregon this season, according to data from the Northwest Coordination Center, compared to 1.1 million acres burned in 2020, 800,000 in 2021 and 400,000 in 2022.

Yet for firefighters on the ground and residents in Oregon communities, this year certainly didn't feel quiet.

Evacuations were common, even in urban areas like south Salem and in and near Lane County. Forty-nine homes and 78 structures burned around the state. Highways and public lands were shut down for weeks. Air quality was poor in Central Oregon, and fire crews spent $484 million fighting fires in one of the most expensive seasons in modern history.

It could have been worse.

Western Oregon wasn't hit by major east winds similar to 2020 or 2022  the type that turns wildfires into raging infernos. Instead, in late August and early September, two systems of rain brought relief when Oregon needed it most.

"We got pretty lucky as far as when the rains came," Oregon Department of Forestry wildfire spokeswoman Jessica Prakke said. "It really helped calm fire behavior and helped us get containment."

Prakke also credited firefighters for snuffing out wildfires quickly, saying the agency, which has invested millions in new fire-detecting cameras, kept 94% of fires smaller than 10 acres.

But neither luck nor firefighters could stop what continues to be a concerning trend about this and other recent fire seasons  human-caused fires burning closer and most dangerously to urban areas.

In Salem, 600 households were told to evacuate for the Liberty Fire. Around Eugene, McKenzie Bridge, Sweet Home and Veneta, multiple evacuation orders were issued. In Bonanza, 48 homes and 69 structures were lost to the Golden Fire.

The homes of two properties on Jory Hill Road S were saved during the 50-acre Liberty Fire on Aug. 23 near Salem, as shown in aerial photos captured by a Salem Police Department drone pilot the morning after the fire.

"We've got drier conditions and higher fire danger in places that historically didn't have to worry about fire, and a lot of people aren't used to that," Prakke said. "We had cases where people were doing a pile burn, and even when they had done a pretty good job at taking precautions, the fires still got away.

"We're trying to really hammer that education because conditions just aren't what they used to be."

Acres burned lowest since 2019, but with caveats

This year's total of 190,500 acres burned could have been larger if Oregon's borders were just a touch different.

The Northwest's largest wildfire was the 90,000-acre Smith Complex, which burned mostly on the California side of the state line but still had a major impact on southern Oregon, leading to poor air quality and an extended shutdown of U.S. Highway 199.

On the Oregon side, the four largest fires were:

Flat Fire: 34,242 acres, near Agness and Gold Beach

Bedrock Fire: 31,590 acres, near Springfield-Eugene

Lookout Fire: 25,754 acres, near McKenzie Bridge

Anvil Fire: 22,170 acres, near Port Orford

Those fires were considerably smaller than the megafires that ignited the past three years. The 2021 Bootleg Fire burned 400,000 acres, the 2022 Cedar Creek Fire torched 112,000 acres and 2020 Labor Day fires included multiple 100,000 acres blazes.

Cost of fighting Oregon's 2023 wildfires skyrockets

A helicopter drops water on the western side of the Lookout Fire near Rainbow.

It might have been a smaller season for acres burned, but it wasn't a small year for the cost of fighting wildfires.

So far, state and federal agencies have spent $484 million on the 2023 wildfires, and that number is likely to increase as fire teams submit their final bills.

It's the third-most expensive season since 2015 and by far the most expensive per acre season in the same period.

The reason for the high cost, fire officials said, was multiple large fires that started early and lasted all summer while burning near high-value assets like homes and communities. Small armies of firefighters arrived on the Flat and Bedrock fires beginning in July and stayed there most of the summer.

"Every one of those big fires this year had a community off to the west, so taking a hands-off approach was not an option for us," said Alex Robertson, regional fire director for the U.S. Forest Service. "It costs a lot of money to keep an organization in place to manage that fire."

Oregon's four most expensive fires this year were:

Lookout Fire: $88 million

Flat Fire: $75 million

Bedrock Fire: $67 million

Anvil Fire: $55 million

Human-caused fires eclipse lightning caused fires

Humans were blamed for igniting 1,268 fires that burned 139,131 acres this year, far more than the 550 lightning-ignited fires that burned 43,588 acres, according to Northwest Coordination Center data.

Ten of the 15 largest fires this season  including Flat and Bedrock, which ignited near campgrounds  were listed as "undetermined/human caused." Final investigation reports haven't been released for most of those but with lightning ruled out, it leaves humans as the cause or most likely cause.

The sun sets as the Bedrock Fire sends up a plume of smoke above Fall Creek east of Eugene Monday, July 24, 2023.

People who ignite fires can be billed for starting them, or even charged with crimes, but it's a process that often takes years.

Overall, human-caused fires may have burned more acres this year, but the number of them was about average. Since 2015, the average number of human-caused wildfires in Oregon has been 1,244.

Homes lost to the Golden Fire

A total of 127 buildings, including 49 homes and 78 other structures, were burned in wildfires this year, Northwest Coordination Center reported. It was the third-highest number since 2015.

All the homes, and most of the buildings, were burned in the 2,100-acre Golden Fire outside Bonanza.

The Bedrock Fire burned one home and three structures, while the Flat Fire burned two structures.

Air quality mostly better except in Central Oregon

Smoke from the Bedrock Fire hangs in the air along Highway 58 east of Eugene.

The smaller number of acres that burned across Oregon did improve the air quality across the state, at least compared to bigger wildfire seasons.

One place that wasn't true was Central Oregon.

The Bedrock and Lookout fires, which burned in the Central Cascade Mountains, funneled a steady stream of smoke into Bend, which recorded 21 days of air quality at levels "unhealthy for sensitive groups." Those three weeks were the most Bend has recorded since the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality started keeping records in 1989.

Medford recorded 14 days of unhealthy air for sensitive groups, while Oakridge recorded 11.

'Tremendous amount of serious injuries, broken bones, close calls'

One reason for less smoke in the air, Prakke said, was a high success rate of putting out fires while they were small. On lands closest to communities  largely managed by ODF  there was an average number of wildfire starts, but only 16% of normal acres burned, she said.

"This was mainly attributed to an aggressive initial attack, where they're getting on these fires as fast as possible, putting them out as small as possible," Prakke said. "Long-term, that's what keeps communities safest."

This year, ODF continued installing remote cameras. There are now 77 watching the forests for new smoke, with around 18 more to be installed in the next two years.

Yet the work on the ground remains as dangerous as ever.

Firefighter Benjamin Charles Sapper, 21, was killed in a car crash while working the Flat Fire near Powers. Sapper was the fifth firefighter that has died in Oregon since 2020.

"We had a tremendous amount of serious injuries, broken bones, close calls, hospitals stays, this year," Robertson said. "It's an extremely dangerous job."

A helicopter squeezes between the banks of Fall Creek to get a load of water to battle the Bedrock Fire east of Eugene Monday, July 24, 2023.

The stage was set, but the winds didn't hit

While this season didn't end up with multiple megafires, that doesn't mean Oregonians should get complacent, Robertson said.

Having multiple large fires on the west side of the Cascade Range, for such a long period, could easily have been calamitous and is happening more often, he said.

"We should all be concerned," Robertson said. "Seeing earlier fires on the west side behave and grow the way they have is really concerning.

"It didn't happen this year, but it left many communities susceptible if we would have gotten east winds."

Firefighter Cole Campbell from Prineville prepares for another day on the fireline as the Lookout Fire burns above his campsite at Tokatee Golf Course in McKenzie Bridge east of Springfield in August.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. To support his work, subscribe to the Statesman Journal. He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: How bad was the 2023 Oregon wildfire season? Acres burned, air quality
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON)  Bad Bunny has announced a new tour for 2024 that will see the global recording artist on a 47-show tour and play in 31 cities across North America.

In addition, Bad Bunny will play in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta, Orlando, and other cities before wrapping up with three nights in Miami, according to a news release from Chase Center. Registration for the tour, which is being promoted by Live Nation, opens Thursday and will remain open until Sunday, Oct. 22.

The Most Wanted Tour, will be a rollercoaster of explicit lyrics that hones in on the stars trap roots, so parental discretion is advised, according to the news release. Bad Bunny, a three-time Grammy Award winner, took a break from touring in 2023.

The upcoming tour promises to bring fans an unparalleled spectacle, providing attendees a more intimate experience than his previous tour.

Bad Bunnys Most Wanted Tour will make two stops at Chase Center, on Friday, March 1, and Saturday, March 2. There will also be one night at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on Tuesday, March 5. Additionally, three shows in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, March 13, Thursday, March 14, and Friday, March 15.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
The Great British Bake Off contestants faced sweltering conditions inside the tent during Wednesday (18 October) nights episode.

As always seems to be the case, the bakers took on Chocolate Week during heatwave temperatures  the series is filmed in Berkshire during the height of summer.

Rowan excelled in the Signature challenge, which tasked bakers with putting their own spin on a chocolate torte.

However, during the Technical, which saw contestants attempt to create eight cheesecakes complete with a blackcurrant compote and white chocolate topping, Tasha fell ill.

The 27-year-old, who is the series first-ever deaf contestant, is heard saying Its so hot, I think I need some air before dropping to the floor.

A medic then comes over and tells Tasha to breathe slowly before escorting her out of the tent.

She was then comforted outside by host Alison Hammond as it was confirmed that she would have to withdraw from that episode.

Health first. Always.

We can confirm that Tasha has had to withdraw from Chocolate Week on Bake Off for medical reasons and will return in next weeks show. We cant wait to see her back in the Tent and feeling much better.  #GBBO pic.twitter.com/lkvW9o3jeb  British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) October 18, 2023

The official Bake Off Twitter/X account shared: Health first. Always. We can confirm that Tasha has had to withdraw from Chocolate Week on Bake Off for medical reasons and will return in next weeks show. We cant wait to see her back in the Tent and feeling much better.

A participation officer from Bristol, Tasha is joined on the show by Daryl, her sign language interpreter.

As a result of Tasha leaving, judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith announced their decision to suspend eliminations until next week; however, two bakers will be sent home in that episode.

On X, fans complained about the decision to hold Chocolate Week during high temperatures.

Youve got to give it to the #GBBO producers for always managing to schedule chocolate week during the hottest week of the year. 10/10 they never miss, one fan wrote.

After years of heat in the tent maybe the daft producers could invest in aircon? another posited.

Isnt it just uncanny how filming chocolate week in #GBBO always coincides with the hottest day of the year? In a tent, a third wrote. Disaster by design. I love this show, but I wish they wouldnt do this. Better to see what the bakers can do in normal conditions.

Meanwhile, Hammond, who replaced Matt Lucas as presenter this year, was praised for supporting Tasha.

Alison is a good egg, one person wrote. As a migraine sufferer, I feel very sorry for Tasha!

Aww, poor Tasha. Love how caring Alison is, said another.

Bake Off arrived on Channel 4 a day late this week due to Tuesday nights 2024 Euro qualifier match between England and Italy, which England won 3-1.

The baking show returns to its Tuesday, 8pm slot next week.
An air-raid warning has been issued in five oblasts of Ukraine due to the threat of the Russians using ballistic missiles.

Source: Ukraine's Air Force Command's press service on Telegram

Quote: "Poltava, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, [and] Zaporizhzhia oblasts  [there's] a threat of use of ballistic weapons!"

Details: Residents of the specified oblasts are strongly advised to take shelter.

Previously: On the night of 19 October, Russian forces attacked Ukraine with ballistic missiles and Shahed kamikaze drones. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that it had managed to destroy 4 air targets: one Kh-59 guided missile and three Shahed-136/131 attack UAVs.

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Omar Abou Nabout is a man on a mission.

Part diplomat-in-training, part legal campaigner, the 27-year-old Syrian spoke to CNN in Paris between meetings, flipping between his flawless French and native Arabic.

He smiled as he talked on the banks of the River Seine. But his journey here was far from happy.

He, his mother and siblings fled to France in August 2016, six years into the civil uprising against the brutal regime of President Bashar al-Assad. But his father, French-Syrian citizen Salah Abou Nabout, stayed in their home city of Daraa. He was killed in a barrel-bomb strike later that year.

Since then, Omar Abou Nabout has sought accountability over his fathers killing while forging a new life in France. Today that fight for justice took a step forward, as French investigative judges issued arrest warrants for four high-ranking Syrian generals in Abou Nabouts case.

It was exhausting, especially psychologically, we know the regime, but despite my fears I couldnt be silent, and I will not be silent. This is a right for my father, and for Syrians, he told CNN of his efforts.

Legal cases have been filed against the Syrian regime before. Last year a German court sentenced a former Syrian army colonel to life in prison, in the first trial of a high-ranking regime official for torture carried out under the Assad regime.

This case, however, is the first brought against senior members of the Syrian government for alleged complicity in war crimes in a military operation. Its the first that directly indicts four Syrian military officials, including two former defense ministers.

And its the first time that arrest warrants have been issued over the use of barrel bombs, crude devices made by filling oil drums, fuel tanks or gas cylinders with explosives and shrapnel. The Syrian regime used them extensively, and indiscriminately, in densely populated areas at the height of the civil war, which was considered a form of prohibited indiscriminate attack under international humanitarian law.

Smoke rises from buildings following a reported air strike on a rebel-held area in the southern Syrian city of Daraa, on June 7, 2017. - Mohamad Abazeed/AFP via Getty Images

The indictments are the result of a years-long investigation by French prosecutors, aided by Abou Nabout and a human rights-focused non-governmental group.

Abou Nabouts case dates to June 2017. His father, Salah, was politically active in his youth and, although his son says that by the time the revolution rolled around he had given up on politics, he was still jailed for more than two years in the early days of the Syrian uprising. When his wife and children fled Syria in August 2016, Salah was unable to leave.

He allowed an education NGO to use his three-story home in Daraa city as a makeshift school. It was an old, rundown building, but artwork and motivational slogans peppered the walls. One, seen in a photo, read: We need a little bit of thought to achieve great things. Think well.

The southern Syrian province of Daraa was the scene of ferocious battles. It was recaptured by the Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government from rebel forces in 2018, but it was left looking apocalyptic. One year earlier, on June 7, as government bombs fell on the area of Tareek al-Sad, Salahs building was hit. Children werent in class at the time. But Salah was there and lost his life in the blast.

Rubble is seen after reported strikes by the Assad regime in Daraa, Syria on June 7, 2017. - Muhammed Yusuf/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The bombs in question were barrel bombs dropped from regime helicopters with devastating consequences. By their very nature, they are uncontrollable. An estimated 82,000 barrel bombs had been dropped in Syria as of April 2021, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, killing more than 11,000 people in the process.

The Syrian government has repeatedly insisted its strikes target terrorists.

When Omar Abou Nabout and his family sought refuge in France  where his father held a passport  they found the language and culture difficult to understand at first. But Abou Nabout went on to graduate from the countrys prestigious Sorbonne University, and now works with the French Foreign Ministry, with ambitions of becoming a diplomat.

Back then, his one link to his new country was his father. Following his death, as Abou Nabout put his energy into the pursuit of justice, Salahs French citizenship gave France jurisdiction in the case.

The past six years were tough, because its a new country, Abou Nabout said. We had to adapt first. I adapted and tried to mainly focus on the case and worked on my own at the start.

Syrian lawyer and human rights defender Mazen Darwish poses for a photo in his Paris office. - Mark Esplin/CNN

Abou Nabout initially took his case to French prosecutors. It was later picked up by Mazen Darwish, a Syrian lawyer who leads the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)  an NGO that started work in Syria and is now based in Paris.

The group has made a name for itself pursuing justice against both the Assad regime and Islamist extremist groups in Europe, earning Darwish a place on Times list of the most influential people for 2022. Last year, Darwish was instrumental in bringing the legal case that saw former Syrian army colonel Anwar Raslan sentenced to life in prison in Germany for crimes against humanity.

Darwish himself has experienced the brutal extremes of Syrias incarceration system first-hand. In February 2012, Darwish was arrested with his wife and other staff at the NGO. He was accused of promoting terrorist acts, he says, and was tortured. After three and a half years in prison, he was released; the charges against him were later dropped.

Darwish moved to France, transferring the headquarters of SCM there in 2016. In 2020 he  along with the SCM  became involved in Omars case, assisting French investigators.

But building a case in a foreign country about a crime in another country, which itself is entrenched in a civil war, isnt easy. By the time the investigation started, Daraa had come under government control, making access for French investigators difficult. The SCM offered support as a civil party, using its network to collect evidence when French investigators couldnt; taking photos, collecting samples, and interviewing defectors to put together a chain of command in a painstaking 14-month process.

A picture released by the official Syrian news agency SANA shows then-newly-appointed Syrian Defense Minister Fahed al-Fraij in Damascus on July 2, 2012. - SANA/AFP via Getty Images

The decision by French investigative judges to now indict four high-ranking generals, including two of the countrys defense ministers, is a big step forward. This is the first time the Syrian official army are being prosecuted, Darwish said. This is the first time were talking about the air force, the Syrian official army attacking schools and protected places.

On the list of indictments are Fahed Jassem al-Fraij  at the time, he was the second-highest ranking military official after Bashar al-Assad and one-time defense minister.

Then theres Ali Abdullah Ayoub  former chief of staff of the armed forces, and later defense minister. He was the third-highest ranking officer at the time of the attack.

Brigadier Ahmad Balloul, who commanded the Air Force at the time of the attack, and Brigadier Ali al-Safatli also both appear on the list.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shakes hands with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad ahead of the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 19, 2023. - Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Court via Reuters

Notably absent, however, is Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president. This is not because hes not responsible, Darwish said. But because we are talking about local courts and presidents have immunity. Assad would need to be tried through the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands, he added. Syria is not a member of the court, so a case would have to be referred by the UN Security Council, where Russia, which supports Assad, has veto power.

The Syrian government has long been accused of war crimes, targeting schools and hospitals. It may deny targeting civilians, but Abou Nabout says the new indictments are a victory for him and others fighting impunity.

This is now more important than ever, he said, as Arab states appear eager to turn the page and welcome Assad back into the fold.

It was my instinct to pursue justice for my father. I grew up during the revolution. I was part of it  I watched people die including friends, Abou Nabout said. I couldnt stay silent when I could do something. I didnt want the day to come when Im older and would regret missing the opportunity.

Additional reporting from Eyad Kourdi

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Pentagon bungles its shameless performance of bashing PLA interceptions

09:01, October 19, 2023 By Global Times ( Global Times

Bloated hype beyond all reason. Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

While crises in other regions have yet to subside, the US military has been busy spreading new rounds of fear and creating new crises in China's neighborhood under the guise of the "China threat."

According to an Associated Press report on Wednesday, the Pentagon released footage containing part of the more than 180 interceptions of US warplanes by Chinese planes over the past two years. The article claimed that this number is larger than the total amount in the past 10 years, resulting in concerns from US military officials.

Last month, it was revealed by Reuters that the Pentagon is expected to release its annual report on China's military modernization and defense strategy in mid-October. It is evident that the US military knows how to get the ball rolling - a new wave of hype on China's "military threat."

The thaw in China-US relations has been accelerating recently. US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer recently led a delegation of lawmakers to visit China, which is seen as an important event in the resumption of communication between the two countries. Meanwhile, according to a Reuters report last week, the US Department of Defense accepted China's invitation to send officials to attend the Xiangshan Forum to be held in Beijing later this month. This is the "latest sign of potentially warming ties between the two countries' militaries," analyzed the article.

Yet, against this backdrop, the US military is still trying to "save its face" - after all, in its eyes, releasing utter goodwill equals to showing the white feather to China. Therefore, it turned once again to the hypes of the story that "China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) increased intercepting US military aircraft" in an attempt to justify its constant hostility toward China.

Such confusing signals from the Pentagon demonstrate that the US doesn't have the right mentality to engage in military exchanges with China. Washington is the one creating problems, yet it wants to pressure the Chinese side to solve the military issues the US created - with such a mindset, how could any China-US military exchange become smooth?

Since the Pentagon is so fond of numbers, let's take a look at this: A Chinese technology and intelligence company told the Global Times in February that in 2022, the US military carried out close-in reconnaissance operations in the South China Sea over 600 times using spy planes. This doesn't include the number in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea, which are also victims of unceasing harassment from US military aircraft and vessels. It is clear at a glance who is actually displaying coercive intentions and conducting dangerous behavior in China's neighborhood.

In fact, the Pentagon's release of the PLA interception photos and videos just shows how recklessly the US has encroached on China's national security and sovereignty. The steep increase in the number of PLA interceptions of US warplanes underscores the fact that the US has ratcheted up its threats against China under the Indo-Pacific Strategy. Clearly, the US is a troublemaker for China's national security, and we are utterly justified in safeguarding our own interests.

In the face of growing harassment from US military aircraft and vessels, the PLA's interception is reasonable and necessary. It is also professional and accurate, as the Chinese military adopts a strategy of close surveillance and tough repulsion, just to confront them at a very close distance without firing. This intends to elevate the risk of US military operations in China's neighborhood, increase the cost for the US to pursue its strategy of containing China, and drain its confidence.

As an instigator, the US is good at playing the trick of a thief crying "Stop thief!" Behind this crooked behavior is the US hegemony's long-term arrogant and overbearing attitude. It shamelessly blames other countries for protecting their sovereignty just because it threatens its outrageous and ferocious actions.

In addition to the Pentagon, Ottawa recently also made a big deal of the PLA's interception. Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair complained that the interception of a Canadian military plane by Chinese fighter jets over "international waters" on Monday was "dangerous and reckless." Countries like the US and Canada should understand that since they have the courage to provoke troubles in China's airspace and territorial waters, they need to always be ready for China's strong counteractions and the worst-case scenario they could face one day.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
Palestinian Americans are seeing two fronts in the Israel-Hamas war: One is the bloodshed in the Middle East. The other is emotional backlash from bigotry and hate in the U.S.

A U.S. Department of Justice hate crime investigation into the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American Muslim boy in Illinois is one of several incidents of alleged hate being directed at Palestinian Americans, allies and people who look like them since the war began.

Among them:

In Dearborn, Michigan, police arrested a man last week for saying in a Facebook post that he wanted to gather people to "hunt Palestinians," according to a screenshot of the post Dearborn police shared with The Detroit News.

On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles called on the University of California, Los Angeles to open an investigation after a group of people intruded on a webinar, threatened to tear the heads off Palestinian supporters, calling them terrorists.

On Sunday morning, a person approached a Sikh teen wearing a turban on a New York City bus and said, We dont wear that in this country and take that mask off. The suspect then punched the 19-year-old in the back of his head, face and back multiple times, police said. He also tried to forcibly remove the man's turban, before fleeing on foot.

In Oregon, the Islamic Society of Greater Portland said community members have faced threats in recent days, which have been reported to law enforcement.

American Muslims for Palestine executive director Osama Abu Irshaid told USA TODAY his team is facing a myriad of fears and forms of grief, as they mourn familial losses, the collective mourning of human loss, and mounting fears of violence fueled by anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S. One staffer has lost 18 family members to recent attacks in Gaza, Irshaid said.

There are attempts to criminalize our voices, Irshaid said, noting that Palestinian supporters, including Christian, Black, Jewish and other voices are being stifled.

The community feels under siege, Irshaid said, but at the same time, wants to show support and express grief in the war crisis.

Theyre not out there to threaten anyone. Theyre not there to delegitimize another narrative. Theyre out there to assert a narrative that is being diminished, Irshaid said.

Civil rights organizations report rise in hate

Joseph Milburn, a staff attorney at CAIR-Chicago, said the nonprofit civil rights organization has received an influx of calls since the start of the war from victims of hate crimes, including visibly Muslim women who have been taunted and targeted with slurs in public places. He also noted a lack of action from elected officials to protect Palestinian Americans and adjacent communities.

In the best-case scenario, perhaps some politicians arent aware of the needs of marginalized communities. Or, in the worst-case scenario, they simply dont care, Milburn said.

In a recent alleged hate crime, 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume was fatally stabbed 26 times in his Illinois home. His mother, Haanan Shahin, 32, was stabbed more than a dozen times and survived with severe injuries. The familys landlord, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and two counts of hate crime.

CAIR-Chicago said the Muslim family had lived at the home owned by Czuba for two years with no reported problems. According to text messages between Shahin and the boy's father that were shared with the CAIR-Chicago, Czuba yelled "You Muslims must die" during the attack.

Czuba's wife, Mary, said her husband listened to a "conservative talk radio on a regular basis" and had been "heavily" interested in recent events in Israel, according to new court documents.

Advocates say one-sided narratives contribute to bigotry

Presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a campaign event the United States should not take in any refugees from the Gaza Strip.

If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic, he said.

In a social media post on X, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul condemned a Palestinian rally in Times Square, calling it abhorrent and morally repugnant.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Fox News: Were in a religious war here. I am with Israel. Do whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself. Level the place.

In statements released since the beginning of the war, President Joe Biden continued to offer unequivocal support for Israel and condemned violence against Israelis.

"The United States and the State of Israel are inseparable partners, and I affirmed to Prime Minister Netanyahu again when we spoke yesterday that the United States will continue to make sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself and its people," Biden said on Oct. 9.

Following the stabbings on Saturday, Biden released a statement on the "horrific act of hate."

"As Americans, we must come together and reject Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred. I have said repeatedly that I will not be silent in the face of hate. We must be unequivocal. There is no place in America for hate against anyone," Biden said.

To US Palestinian Community Network national chair Hatem Abudayyeh, Bidens comments were too little, too late.

In a private call with State Department officials Monday, Arab American and Muslim leaders expressed outrage over the Biden administrations rhetoric in recent days, POLITICO first reported. Leaders said the demonization of Palestinians, and of Arabs in general, had given way for rise in hatred against them in the US. They also noted calls for a cease-fire or restraint were absent from Biden's remarks.

CAIR said in an analysis of statements that hundreds of U.S. corporations, including CEOs of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Pfizer, and JPMorgan Chase, condemned the attack against Israelis but failed to do the same for attacks against Palestinian civilians.

Experts said statements that only acknowledge violence against one side imply the other side is either not facing violence or does not matter.

No group should be demonized, Milburn said. Jewish people should be protected and respected, and so should Muslims and Arabs and South Asians and everyone else.

Law center reports increased FBI surveillance of Palestinian supporters, Muslim spaces

Suzanne Adely, president of the National Lawyers Guild, said there have been increasing reports over the last week of the Federal Bureau of Investigation visiting local mosques across the country and contacting individual Palestinian activists who had never had such an encounter before.

Its part of this larger onslaught of attack against Palestinians, Muslims and those that are supporting Palestine, Adely said.

This is not the first instance Muslims have reported increased surveillance from the FBI. In June, CAIR released a report on FBIs use of its terrorism watchlist, finding that 98% of the names on the watchlist were Muslim names, despite the fact that Muslims only make up about 1.1% of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Research Center.

"An individuals watchlist status is used by government agencies to harass and humiliate people when they travel, to outright forbid people from flying, to deny individuals licenses and permits, to refuse to hire people or fire people already employed, to delay or deny visas and applications for U.S. citizenship or a US passport and subject the innocent people on the list to dangerous and invasive law enforcement actions, CAIR said.

All of what is happening sort of builds some kind of false narrative of who Palestinian supporters are in order to justify the US continued and shameful support for the genocide of the Palestinian people, Adely said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Palestinians in US say assaults against community, allies on the rise
By the time staff at Mens Central Jail noticed something was wrong, Masoud Rahmati had been dying for nearly four hours. It started with a pre-dawn attack in a shower area, records say, and other inmates eventually dragged the 50-year-old to his bunk. Beaten and bloodied, he lay there for two more hours before help showed up.

By then, it was too late. Just after 9 a.m., paramedics declared Rahmati dead, according to records from the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.

His death in mid-June was one of at least three homicides in the countys jails this year. After four years without any recorded inmate-on-inmate killings, county data show that since 2020, the jails have averaged three per year, a figure thats risen even as the incarcerated population has decreased.

The persistence of violent deaths behind bars  despite decades of court-ordered monitoring and years of outside oversight  underscores how hard it has been for Los Angeles to fix its troubled jail system.

Sheriff's Department officials and county prosecutors have declined to provide more details about the circumstances surrounding this years killings, though they have confirmed that inmates are criminally charged in all three cases.

For months before Rahmatis death, oversight inspectors had flagged the dorm he was housed in as dangerous for mentally ill people due to crowded conditions and a lack of supervision. Inconsistent safety checks have been a long-standing problem in the local jails, where at least 37 inmates have died this year due to natural causes, suicides, fentanyl overdoses and more.

Asst. Sheriff Sergio Aloma said it was "difficult to speculate" why there had been so many deaths, but pointed to the steady flow of detainees through the county's seven jails, which see nearly 60,000 bookings each year.

We operate the largest jail system in the country, he said when asked about the apparent supervision problems. Our staff has literally millions of interactions with our incarcerated population on a yearly basis.

Jail officials are still investigating Rahmati's death, Aloma added, without offering further details. He stressed that the Sheriff's Department has a constitutional obligation for the care and safety of our incarcerated population."

Read more: California debates solitary confinement in local jails  and whether it's really possible to end it

Before Rahmati's latest incarceration, he had struggled with homelessness and mental health problems for years, according to his familys attorney, Jeremy Lessem.

He had been more or less sleeping on the streets, Lessem told The Times. His brother had been trying to get him food and clothing, and his brother tried to get him to live in his home  but he preferred to live on the streets.

Records show Rahmati had been in and out of jail and repeatedly deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial.

After he was arrested in December 2022 on allegations of battery, records show, his public defender urged a judge to deem him incompetent once again. Instead, he was sent to a mental health court and ultimately found competent to face the charges. With his case pending, he was housed in a fifth-floor dorm for inmates with mental illnesses.

Earlier this year, the Sybil Brand Commission, a county body tasked with oversight and inspection of the local jails, issued a sweeping report on the conditions behind bars in Los Angeles County. Most of the section on Mens Central Jail focused on problems in the fifth-floor dorms.

The report said that staff at the jail are required to conduct inspections "multiple times each hour" on the fifth floor, and "thus, when this Commission finds poor and degrading conditions in areas under high or medium observation, the presumption is the existence of those conditions is known to custody personnel and therefore attributable to a lack of oversight or supervision.

The report described warehouse-like spaces where men live on bunks stacked three-high, shrouded in sheets or towels for a modicum of privacy.

Though state law requires that the dorms hold no more than 64 people, the fifth-floor units routinely house nearly 90, according to the commission. Fights are frequent, the report said. It described air circulation and access to hot water as intermittent.

It was around 5:30 a.m. on June 13 when three inmates on the fifth floor attacked Rahmati, for reasons that are still unclear. According to an autopsy report that Lessem shared with The Times but that has not been publicly released, three men grabbed Rahmati while he was brushing his teeth in the bathroom, then forced him toward the shower area and began beating him.

Read more: Jedidiah Murphy and the evolving debate on mental illness and capital punishment

That was captured on video, and no one was paying enough attention at the time to notice, Lessem said.

As the attackers hit and kicked him, Rahmati collapsed  and his assailants continued their attack. Eventually, the three attackers returned to the dorm area, leaving him bruised and battered on the bathroom floor. Around 7 a.m., other inmates brought him out of the shower and put him on his bunk. Its not clear from the records whether he was unconscious.

For the next two hours, records show, Rahmati remained in his bunk. At around 9:10 a.m., some inmates flagged down deputies who were making rounds and told them about a "man down" in one of the bunks.

The three men suspected of attacking Rahmati were charged with murder less than two weeks after his death, though the Sheriffs Department did not publicly list the death as a homicide for several more weeks.

Lawyers for the accused did not respond or declined to comment for this story. All three men  Jaime Garcia Alfaro, Carlos Morataya and George Adrian Hernandez  face murder charges.

When The Times asked why staff on the fifth floor didnt notice Rahmatis condition sooner, department officials said safety checks in those housing areas are supposed to occur every 30 minutes. They didnt specify whether those checks occurred on the morning of the homicide, or explain how the staff failed to spot the attack.

The lack of supervision has been an ongoing problem in the county jails, particularly in Mens Central, the largest lockup. Earlier this year, The Times reported on a series of leaked surveillance videos that showed staff failing to notice or intervene as inmates fought or attacked each other. In one case, a dozen men stabbed another inmate for roughly 14 minutes before jailers arrived.

Read more: In Mens Central Jail, fires are common, smoke alarms are not: Smells 'like a campfire'

Less than a week after that story was published in June, a similar incident occurred one dorm over. According to Inspector Gen. Max Huntsman, on June 29, several men in a rec room attacked another man for more than 10 minutes. The victim survived, and officials said attempted murder charges had since been filed.

The lack of supervision has also led to other safety hazards. Last month, The Times reported that for several decades, inmates at Mens Central have been lighting fires in their cells to cook food and heat water. As there are no smoke detectors in the housing areas, it is up to jail staff to spot the blazes and manually pull an alarm. That doesnt always happen, and an oversight inspector who visited the jail in June reported seeing three large fires burning inside cells. The inspector, Mary Veral, said she was shocked and likened Mens Central Jail to a Third World country.

Its unclear to what extent lapses in supervision may have played a role in either of the other recorded homicides at the jail this year. One of the men, 37-year-old Andrew Balderrama, died in county custody in May, though officials have not said how he was killed. The other victim, 51-year-old Joseph Hutchinson, was stabbed to death in August in Mens Central Jail, an incident that The Times previously reported could represent fallout from the prison yard killing of a powerful Mexican Mafia member.

Lawyers for the men charged in the killings of Balderrama and Hutchinson did not respond to requests for comment.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The Dec. 12 date for the election of the city of Beauforts next mayor is set between two former City Council veterans who both say they hope to restore civility to local politics. They both cite that the city has become beset by legal and political squabbles over downtown development.

The filing period for the race to complete the term of Stephen Murray, who resigned Sept. 15, closed Monday.

Phil Cromer and Mike Sutton, both of whom have considerable experience in local government, were the two candidates to file for the job. The winner of the Dec. 12 special election will serve about 11 months until Nov. 24, 2024.

The position of mayor runs City Council meetings and in general serves as the public face and leader of the city. Council members set policy and govern through the city manager, who is responsible for day-to-day operations and carries out policy decisions made by the City Council.

Phil Cromer

Cromer is a two-term councilman who left the job in December after deciding not to run again. Cromer, who retired in 2014 after 23 years as a risk management consultant for the Municipal Association of South Carolina. He also was the town manager for Port Royal and Ridgelands administrator.

Sutton is the owner of Sutton Construction, a historic restoration company in Beaufort. He served on the City Council from 2006-2014. He ran for mayor in 2020, losing to Murray.

Mike Sutton

Murray resigned with more than a year remaining in his term, saying he was tired of uncivil attacks and the toll the job was taking on his health, family, friends, businesses and reputation.

His departure came as fissures over downtown development and the appointment process for the Historic District Review Board escalated.

Tim Newman, who is backing Sutton, says Sutton supports managed, sensible growth and civil politics. Sutton will respect everyones stance, he said, even if they dont agree with him.

When the divisive tactics of politics we are experiencing nationally and locally are turning leaders into targets and giving bullies a pulpit we must elect a strong, motivated, respectful and diplomatic leader, Newman said.

When he announced his campaign for mayor Oct. 5, Cromer said he would work to lower the temperature of politics in the city through positive engagement.

Cromer says he wants timely vetting and completion of Beaufort Code changes, improved risk management of liability exposures, reduction of number of executive sessions, posting qualifications and experience of all applicants for boards and commissions and stand-alone public hearings on important issues of community concern.

With eleven months remaining in his term, it is imperative that order and stability be maintained on Council and the apparent discord between the city, its citizens and organizations be resolved, Cromer says.
An embattled Franklin Lakes real estate investor and social media influencer, already facing a mountain of lawsuits, was arrested Wednesday and accused by the U.S. attorney for New Jersey of operating a multimillion-dollar Ponzi-like investment fraud scheme.

Cesar Humberto Pina, 45, has been charged with one count of wire fraud, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced. He was released on a $1 million secured bond with electronic monitoring by Magistrate Judge Edward Kiel in federal court in Newark. Pina faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

As alleged in the complaint, Pina exploited celebrity status and social media to develop a devoted following of potential victims, Sellinger said in a release. Promising returns that were too good to be true, Pina allegedly defrauded dozens of people of millions of dollars. Our office is committed to protecting the public from these schemes and prosecuting those who lie to investors for their own personal gain.

Pina, who gained fame doing real estate seminars around the country, would entice victims by promising up to 20% to 45% returns within five months, the U.S. attorney said. However, Pina did not invest the victims' money, as promised, but used the money from new victims to pay others, operating a Ponzi-like scheme, officials say.

We allege Pina offered a ridiculously high rate of return to investors, then took the millions he got and invested it in himself, FBI Newark Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy said. History has proven time and again, Ponzi-schemes don't work. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow eventually runs out. Investors take note  its your money, dont let them steal it.

Legal troubles mounting

This is not the first legal trouble for Pina, who is already facing over 10 lawsuits from people who claim to have been victims.

A lawsuit filed by Anthony Barone and Anthony Martini on July 6 against Cesar and Jennifer Pina alleges the pair defrauded the victims out of money. Barone and Martini accused the Pinas of taking $1.5 million from them for a real estate venture in Paterson called the Taylor Apartments.

In an Aug. 4 suit, Englewood resident Enisa Berisha accuses the Pinas of defrauding her of $750,000 after she was introduced to Cesar Pina by a mutual friend who had invested with him previously.

Pina appeared to be a real estate influencer on the rise, with a commitment to philanthropy in North Jersey. His Instagram page has over 300,000 followers. Pina's website said he became involved in real estate in 2006 and partnered with radio personality RaaShaun Casey, known as DJ Envy, to host touring real estate seminars across the tri-state area.

Staff Writer Kaitlyn Kanzler and Joe Malinconico of Paterson Press contributed to this article.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Franklin Lakes real estate influencer Cesar Pina charged
A 43-year-old man was sentenced Thursday morning to 15 years in prison after admitting to the beating death of a man eight years ago at an abandoned apartment complex in north Lubbock.

Bernardo Mendez, who spent most of his time awaiting trial in state mental health hospitals, appeared in the 137th District Court with his attorney, Dan Hurley, and pleaded guilty to a count of murder in the March 18, 2015 slaying of 51-year-old Herbert Fetherolf.

He faced between five years to life in prison.

Bernardo Mendez, center, is escorted Thursday out of the 137th District Court where he was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder in the 2015 beating death of 51-year-old Herbert Fetherolf.

In exchange for his plea the Lubbock County District Attorney's Office recommended a punishment of 15 years in prison, which District Judge John McClendon imposed.

Mendez, who has more than eight years of jail credit, will have to serve half of his sentence before he is eligible for release on parole.

The case against Mendez began the morning of March 26, 2015, when police responded to the Villa Del Norte Apartments in the 1900 block of Baylor Street after a contractor who maintains the property reported finding a body identified later that day as Herbert Fetherolf, Lubbock police officials said.

The apartment had been abandoned since 2013 after a windstorm severely damaged the property and the Lubbock Municipal Court ordered the property be secured, but it was not, according to a statement from then-city council member Victor Hernandez.

By February of 2014, the court ordered the apartments be demolished, and by June 11, the property was bought by Foreclosed Property Holdings Inc., which is First Bank & Trust, according to the statement by Hernandez.

The abandoned property has been a popular site for criminal activity involving drugs and fights. It's also a haven for homeless people.

When police arrived at the room with Fetherolf's body, they noticed the apartment was trashed with displaced doors and wires, and the body had been deceased for several days, according to an arrest warrant.

Further investigation determined Fetherolf was likely killed on March 18.

Lubbock County Medical Examiner's Office officials said Fetherolf died from blunt-force trauma.

Dr. Sridhar Natarjan, the Lubbock County Medical Examiner at the time, noted during an autopsy that there were multiple impacts on Fetherolf's head, several fractured ribs, and defensive wounds on his hands.

Mendez, who was arrested five days after the case began, was identified as a suspect in Fetherolf slaying after investigators spoke with a witness who came forward after learning about a body being found at the abandoned apartment complex.

Theodore Martinez, whose stepson is friends with Mendez, related accounts of events Mendez allegedly told him that were consistent with the death investigation, according to an arrest warrant.

Mendez told Martinez he and a man were at a vacant apartment called "Little Mexico" and the man was "talking ****" to him, so he beat him up using a sink, and blood went everywhere, the narrative stated.

"Benny Mendez laughed and joked about assaulting the old man," according to a probable cause affidavit filed with Mednez's arrest warrant.

Martinez heard about the dead body being found at Villa Del Norte Apartments and suspected it was the person Mendez told him about, and Martinez went to authorities, the narrative reads.

Mendez was booked-in to the Lubbock County Detention Center on March 31, 2015 and a Lubbock County grand jury indicted him about a month later.

Court records show competency issues stemming from Mendez's mental illnesses delayed the case. Competency refers to defendants' ability to understand the charges against them, the legal process and their ability to assist in their defense.

In March 2016, a year after the case began, Mendez's attorney Dan Hurley filed a motion suggesting his client was incompetent to stand trial because of diagnoses of depression and bi-polar disorders.

Mendez also suffered from auditory hallucinations.

"These conditions significantly limit his comprehension to interact appropriately," Hurley wrote in an affidavit.

Two months later, following a competency evaluation, Mendez was committed to North Texas State Hospital's Vernon Campus to restore his competency.

Mendez

In March 2017, court documents indicate Mendez's commitment was extend after a hearing during which the court found he had a mental illness that made him a danger to others and prevented him from functioning independently.

In 2018 Mendez's civil commitment was extended again as he remained a danger to himself and other. However, he was transferred to Big Spring State Hospital after he was found "not manifestly dangerous."

Psychologists at Big Spring found in June 2019 that Mendez's competency restoration was complete and he was returned to Lubbock where he was evaluated for competency again.

A competency report was completed in October 2019 and a hearing was set for April 7, 2020 that resulted in Mendez being committed again.

However, in May 2021, a psychologist evaluated Mendez and found him competent to stand trial.

Records state neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys contested the findings and District Judge John McClendon ruled in November that Mendez was competent to stand trial.

Court records show he was brought in March to Lubbock from Big Spring to await the conclusion of his case.

During the hearing, Hurley told the court he believed his client was competent to enter his guilty plea that morning and asked Mendez multiple questions to demonstrate his competence.

Mendez said he understood he was pleading guilty to a count of murder for killing Fetherholf at the abandoned apartment.

He said he knew that by entering his plea, he was giving up a potential insanity defense.

Hurley told the court that, while his client was competent to enter his plea, symptoms of his mental illness continue to surface, saying Mendez sent him a letter about six months ago concerned that he was "hearing voices again."

However, he said his client was given medication that appeared to subdue those symptoms.

Judge McClendon said Mendez's behavior in court dispelled any concerns he had regarding his competency.

Mourning a lost brother

Fetherolf's siblings watched the hearing via online video conference and shared their grief during victim-impact statements, referring to their brother by his nickname, Pete.

"Pete was a good person and I would like to be able to give forgiveness for Benny, but it's very difficult," said Libby Christmon-Cowan.

She told Mendez she's haunted by the heartbreaking image of her brother dead in the abandoned apartment for days. She said her brother was days away from celebrating his 52nd birthday.

"He was a kind person," she said. "He wasn't a threat to Benny in any way. He used a walker, he had a hard life and of course he deserved to live"

Fetherolf had seven siblings and a son who is expecting a child in January, Christmon-Cowan said.

"Pete will never meet him because Benny took his life at the age of only 52," she said. "He deserved to have a longer life and it was taken from him for no reason."

Faith Fetherolf told Mendez that she struggled to offer him her forgiveness for killing her brother.

"This was a human being and he didn't deserve to die like that," she said. "He had a lot of life left to live and he deserved to live it."

Steve Fetherolf told Mendez that his brother was a good man and his actions caused his family egregious harm and pain.

He said he hoped Mendez spent his time in custody reflecting on his actions.

"I hope that there is remorse," he said. "I believe you are going to be exactly need to be at."

Lubbock County District Attorney Sunshine Stanek declined to comment citing the mental health factors involved in the case.

Hurley described the case as a difficult and sad one.

"It is true that Benny and the (Fetherolf) got in an argument and an altercation and it resulted in the death of the family's relative. And it's terrible. it's very, very difficult."

He said his client's mental health issues, which include a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, may have influenced his actions the day he killed Fetherolf.

"I certainly don't want to say anything to cause the (Fetherolf) family any harm but there were facts and circumstances that led to this altercation and unfortunately, Benny reacted the wrong way," he said.

However, he said Mendez was remorseful and agreed to enter a guilty plea to accept responsibility for his actions. He said the plea deal also removed the risk of facing a lengthier sentence had the case been brought to a jury.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Man sentenced for 2015 beating death at abandoned Lubbock apartments
Beth Holloway believes that Joran van der Sloot's confession to murdering her daughter Natalee in Aruba is corroborated.

Van der Sloot confessed to the murder of Natalee Holloway as part of a plea agreement to extortion charges revealed Wednesday. Natalee Holloway was 18 years old when she went on a senior trip to Aruba with Mountain Brook High School. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, but was never found.

A transcript of van der Sloot's confession paints a disturbing account of Natalee Holloway's death. Van der Sloot admitted to crushing the teen's head with a cinder block on the beach after she refused sexual advances. He said he then dragged her unconscious or lifeless body into the ocean before leaving the scene.

During an Oct. 3 interview with prosecutors, van der Sloot stated that he grabbed the block after becoming angry that Natalee Holloway wasn't going along with his sexual advances. "I smash her head in with it completely," he told prosecutors.

JORAN VAN DER SLOOT HAS CONFESSED TO KILLING NATALEE HOLLOWAY

"Her face basically, you know, collapses in," he added. "Even though it's dark, I can see her face is collapsed in."

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Van der Sloot says he took her body into the water until he was almost knees deep before pushing her into the ocean.

After killing Holloway, van der Sloot said he walked home. Beth Holloway told NBC News that he went home and looked at porn after the murder.

"How could he have murdered her and then he goes home and checks the soccer scores, gets on a porn site, gets up takes a shower and goes to school," Holloway said.

Holloway told Fox News that she believes van der Sloot's confession despite his history of lying, saying that the claim has been corroborated.

TIMELINE OF ALABAMA TEEN NATALEE HOLLOWAY'S DEATH

Joran van der Sloot's mugshot

"We had our Miami FBI team, we had our Birmingham FBI team, we have the prosecutors. We have a comprehensive, it was a comprehensive approach to getting the answers," Holloway said. "And then not only that, everything was corroborated and done by comprehensivethat we had a polygrapher come in from the Miami division, and I was even able to meet with him. So I've met with all these people and we feel really good."

Joran van der Sloot is the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway. He is serving a prison sentence in Peru for murdering a 21-year-old woman named Stephany Flores in 2010.

Holloway also said she feels van der Sloot gave the confession as a result of being in U.S. custody, something that may not have happened otherwise.

FOLLOW NATALEE HOLLOWAY CASE ON FOX NEWS

A court sketch depicts Beth Holloway addressing the court during Joran van der Sloots appearance in federal court in Birmingham, Alabama on Wednesday, October 18, 2023. Van der Sloot admitted to the 2005 murder of her daughter, Natalie Holloway.

Van der Sloot will serve his sentence while in Peruvian custody and is ordered to pay $25,100 in restitution.

The Dutch national pleaded guilty to charges of extortion and wire fraud after extorting the Holloway family for $250,000 and collected $25,000 upfront for purported information about the whereabouts of her remains. The rest was to be paid once Holloway's body was positively identified.

Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot arrives for a hearing at the Lurigancho prison in Lima on January 11, 2011. The trial for Van der Sloot, accused of killing a young Peruvian woman in 2010 and who also is a suspect in the disappearance years earlier of an American woman in the Caribbean, continues in Lima.

But van der Sloot lied to Beth Holloway about where her daughter's remains were located, according to U.S. prosecutors. The alleged extortion scheme took place between March 29, 2010, and May 17, 2010. He pleaded not guilty to the charges after a June hearing when he was temporarily transferred from Peru to the United States.

Fox News' Michael Ruiz and Samantha Daigle contributed to this report.





Original article source: Beth Holloway believes Joran van der Sloot's confession to murdering daughter Natalee was 'corroborated'
U.S. President Joe Biden will make a rare prime-time speech to the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday to shore up support for wartime funding of both Israel and Ukraine.

As Israels war with Hamas nears its second week, and almost 20 months since Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western nations are grappling with how to aid both conflicts.

In the coming days Biden is expected to request around $100 billion from Congress to provide funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and to fortify the U.S.-Mexico border.

Washington will be able to support both Israel and Ukraine if funding is approved, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said. America can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israels military needs and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia, Yellen told British outlet Sky News on Monday, adding that the U.S. economy is robust and can handle the pressure.

While the immediate impact of the Israel-Hamas war on Ukraine is unclear, prolonged fighting could mean trouble for Kyiv down the line, experts have said. Escalation into a large regional conflict might morph into resource constraints, Simon Schlegel, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Turkeys Anadolu Agency. If it remains localized on the Gaza Strip, its effects will be only limited, he added. In the short term, Washington has the resources to support both countries, Schlegel said.

Top G7 diplomats have said that Western support for Israel has eroded attempts to increase support for Ukraine among Global South countries, the Financial Times reported. Washingtons firm backing of Israel might be alienating some developing nations, with several countries in the Middle East feeling that the U.S. has rarely held Israel responsible for its actions. A diplomat told the outlet that future efforts to shore up support for Ukraine could falter: All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost . . . Forget about rules, forget about world order. They wont ever listen to us again.
US President Joe Biden will address the nation on Thursday to voice his response to Hamas' attack on Israel and Russia's war against Ukraine.

Source: the White House statement

Quote: "Tomorrow (Thursday, 19 October  ed.), President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine."

Details: Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary of the White House, said in a statement regarding Biden's speech that it will be delivered on Thursday at 20:00 p.m. ET (at 3:00 on 20 October, Kyiv time  ed.).

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Original article source: Biden to address US response to terrorists, Benghazi hero helps Israeli evacuation and more top headlines
The News

The White House is facing calls from members of Congress to release more information publicly that led to its conclusion that Israel was not behind the explosion at a hospital in Gaza earlier this week.

Senators, who received a classified briefing from administration officials on Wednesday about Israel, backed up the administrations conclusion that an errant strike from a terrorist group caused the explosion, which is believed to have killed hundreds of people on Tuesday. But some argued that officials should release as much as they can publicly to combat what they described as misinformation about the blast.

I think it is very important that the intelligence community and others lean forward as much as possible to bring that evidence to light, since there are clearly protests not only in the West Bank but around the world, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va. told reporters Wednesday afternoon.

This is being debated in the press around the world and clearly there are some press outlets that are not friendly to the United States, not friendly at all to Israel, that may be simply not showing or telling the full story, he said. We could rebut that.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. said he encouraged the Biden administration to lay out the conclusions using pictures, graphs, and charts so that the democratic world could see the information that led the president to take the position he did. I think that thats forthcoming, he added.

Hamas blamed an Israeli strike for the blast. Some progressives  including Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.  in the U.S. also blamed Israel and reiterated calls for a ceasefire.

A National Security Council spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.

Morgans view

Its not inconceivable that the Biden administration would declassify and release intelligence about the explosion in Gaza. The administration has employed a similar strategy in the war in Ukraine in order to disrupt Russian military plans, and to expose other countries that may be supporting the Russians.
Photo: CTV News Mukhtiar Singh Panghali

A British Columbia man who killed his pregnant wife and burned her body in 2006 has been granted full parole.

Mukhtiar Singh Panghali, who's now 51 years old, was given a life sentence in 2011 for second-degree murder in the death of Manjit Panghali.

Days after strangling her and leaving his four-year-old daughter at home alone so he could dispose of the body, Panghali made a tearful plea in the media for the public to help find his missing wife.

He originally denied the murder and even appealed his conviction, but a decision from the Parole Board of Canada says Panghali has since admitted to wanting to kill his wife and even planned the murder beforehand.

The decision says he has been on day parole since July of 2022, has a full-time job with an unnamed company and has recently been promoted.

Panghali has been ordered to abide by numerous conditions, including following his treatment program in the area of domestic violence, not consuming alcohol and having no contact with the victim's family members, including his daughter.

"Your offence caused significant trauma to family members of the victim. Your daughter has requested that you cease contact at this time," the decision says, noting that the condition will remain in effect for the duration of his life sentence.

The board says Panghali successfully took part in several programs and made good progress in areas, including understanding the conflict he created in his life.
The Biden administration is expected to send Congress a funding request for domestic priorities next week, according to three people familiar with the request, in addition to its anticipated national security emergency spending request.

The roughly $100 billion national security request is expected to cover aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as funding to address the nations southern border. The domestic policy request is slated to include funding for child care, broadband and disaster relief, and is likely to gain far less traction with Republicans on the Hill than its counterpart.

The people who confirmed the timing of the funding requests  which are expected to cover one year  stressed that they are subject to change. President Joe Biden is expected to make a formal appeal for swiftly approving aid to Ukraine and Israel in a prime-time speech Thursday night, arguing that supporting the two allied nations is critical to U.S. national security interests.

The national security package will include about $60 billion for Ukraine and around $10 billion for Israel, the sources said, a Ukraine number that aligns roughly with a yearlong timetable. An earlier White House funding request for Ukraine, which Congress has not yet acted upon during its current gridlock, had only covered three months.

Progressives have called for a funding pitch from the White House that included both foreign and domestic spending  arguing that while constituents care about aiding Ukraine and Israel, they also need support at home. However, Republicans are likely to balk at the requests expansive child care spending and other domestic priorities.

We have a national security obligation and we also have a domestic security obligation, and both of them are imperative, said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). The top House Appropriations Committee Democrat added that she would advocate for child care policys inclusion.

A group of progressive senators, including Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), have pushed the Biden administration to add the child care funding, which would fill the void left when pandemic-era federal aid for child care expired on Sept. 30. Theyve based their request on the approximately $16 billion that was provided annually during the pandemic.

Child care funding is incredibly important for kids, families and providers, and Im glad to hear reports that the White House will be including it in its supplemental request, Smith said. This is an issue that cant be left on the cutting room floor.

Some Democrats want the president to ask for extra cash to bolster other at-home priorities, like funding for science programs like AI and quantum computing efforts authorized under the CHIPS bill Biden signed into law last year.

Those investments are critical to jobs at home and our security around the world, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said. So I think that would be a good fit.
EXCLUSIVE: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which oversees federal funding for services related to noncitizen migrant arrivals in the U.S., said the border isn't part of its "mission space," according to emails obtained by Fox News Digital.

FEMA, which is a Department of Homeland Security subagency tasked with overseeing federal disaster assistance programs, made the statement in an email exchange with Democrat Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego's staff, which invited agency officials to tour the border. Gallego has criticized the agency for diverting hundreds of millions of dollars in migrant service assistance away from Arizona to northern cities and states like New York and Chicago.

"Arizonas border communities have been on the front line of this border crisis. Weve worked, again and again, to get the administration to listen to their concerns," Gallego told Fox News Digital. "Theyve refused to communicate, answer even the most basic of questions, and perhaps worst of all, chosen to divert funds away from the border."

"Now, when weve presented Administrator [Deanne] Criswell with the opportunity to meet directly with Arizonans to hear their concerns, FEMA has chosen to throw their hands up and claim the border isnt their problem," he continued. "Thats insulting to Arizonans, and the agency should be held accountable. When Arizonans complain about the government doing nothing to support them  this is exactly the type of behavior theyre talking about."

BIDEN ADMIN MAY HAVE LOST TRACK OF MILLIONS OF MIGRANTS CROSSING SOUTHERN BORDER: CONGRESSIONAL REPORT

Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., left, blasted FEMA after it turned down his request for its administrator, Deanne Criswell, right, to tour the border. The agency has also said the border is not in its "mission space."

On Sept. 19, Gallego penned a private letter, obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, to FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell to invite her to the border so that she could see first-hand the "immigration-related needs of Arizona's border communities."

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

In response, a FEMA official told his office a month later in an Oct. 13 email that "the border is not part of FEMA's mission space and it would be more appropriate, and much more beneficial for constituents in border communities, for [Customs and Border Protection (CBP)] to take the lead on this border tour." The official also noted that FEMA believes the Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is "a CBP program."

An email obtained by Fox News Digital shows a FEMA official rejecting Rep. Gallego's request for Criswell to visit the border with him. The official also states that the border is "not part of FEMA's mission space."

Congress established the SSP under the 2023 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act to "support sheltering and related activities provided by non-Federal entities, including facility improvements and construction, in support of relieving overcrowding in short-term holding facilities." The fiscal year 2023 DHS funding bill specifically earmarked $363.8 million to FEMA, not CBP, to manage the program.

TED CRUZ SAYS HISTORIC SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS WILL ONLY GET WORSE UNTIL THERE IS NEW PRESIDENT

As part of the SSP program, FEMA has sent $12.1 million to the government of Pima County, Arizona, and another $19.7 million to assist the nonprofit World Hunger Ecumenical Arizona Task Force's work in Yuma County, Maricopa County and Cochise County, according to federal data reviewed by Fox News Digital.

By comparison, the New York City has received more than $106 million in federal SSP funding; the state of Illinois and Chicago's city government have received $29.9 million from the program; and the state of Colorado and Denver, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis and Philadelphia have collectively received tens of millions of dollars more, the data showed.

Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams, shown, met with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell in April to ask for federal assistance, two months before FEMA gave his government $106 million in SSP funding.

Those cities and states have repeatedly appealed to the federal government for federal aid to assist with handling migrants who have overwhelmed local services. New York City Mayor Eric Adams met with Criswell to personally request such funding in April, two months before FEMA gave his government $106 million in SSP money.

MAYORKAS CITES IMMEDIATE NEED' TO WAIVE REGULATIONS, BUILD BORDER WALL IN TEXAS AS IMMIGRATION SURGES

In his letter inviting Criswell to the border last month, Gallego wrote, "I have written to you previously about the devastating impacts of decreased SSP funding to border states, including in Arizona  without continued funding, towns and counties will be forced to use funds from their annual budget to respond, pulling resources from regular community services. By visiting the border, you will see the daily challenges local leaders and [nonprofits] face firsthand."

"I believe having the opportunity to speak with local leaders in our community would further support FEMAs mission while improving transparency and communication, which local officials state is a continued challenge," he continued.

The number of illegal migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border exceeded 2.2 million in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2023. The federal government has reported "no confirmed departure" for more than 2.4 million migrants encountered since January 2021 when President Biden took office.

Gallego has also criticized FEMA's handling of SSP funding in previous letters to Criswell, President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The letters cited his conversations with local officials who he said told him that the administration "has not done enough to meet their needs" and that they are in need of additional resources.

Meanwhile, the Southwest border continues to be inundated with record-breaking waves of migrants. Overall, the government reported 260,000 border encounters in September, an all-time record, and thousands of migrants have crossed into Arizona every day.

FEMA didn't respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.





Original article source: Biden agency diverting millions in border funds to blue cities says border is not its 'mission space': emails
US President Joe Biden expects that US$60 billion for Ukraine and aid for Israel will be allocated in his US$100 billion funding request.

Source: NBC News with references to sources

Details: NBC News reported that top lawmakers in Congress are starting to get details of a new funding package that the Biden administration is expected to submit to Congress this week.

One of the lawmakers and two sources familiar with the funding request said the additional funding package is likely to include US$60 billion for Ukraine, although it has yet to be finalised.

Another part of the request will include about US$40 billion for aid to Israel, Taiwan, and the US-Mexico border.

The total request for additional funding, which is expected to be submitted for the fiscal year ending next September, will be approximately $100 billion.

The sources said the Biden administration is expected to formally submit an additional $100 billion request on Friday, 20 October.

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President Bidens reelection campaign is fine-tuning its attack language on immigration, making use of former President Trumps remarks on the matter.

The campaign Thursday took aim at a Trump speech delivered Monday in which the former president praised U.S. deportation policies of the mid-1950s, days after referring to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as very smart.

Donald Trump was widely condemned for his shameful praise of Hezbollah last week, so hes trying to change the conversation the only way he knows how: by invoking the mass deportations that embodied [former President] Eisenhowers Operation Wetback,' said Maca Casado, the Biden campaigns Hispanic media director.

At his Monday speech, Trump suggested he would also deport Biden administration officials and took a hawkish stance on deporting pro-Palestinian activists after receiving widespread criticism from within the GOP for his comments last week.

Trump praised Eisenhowers deportation practices and used them as a segue to call for deportations on anyone who empathizes with Hamas, the group that sparked a war with Israel with a series of terrorist attacks earlier this month.

But [Eisenhower] became president and he was a very big person on deportation. He deported more than anybody else. He said, They cannot be here. You have to come into our country legally,' said Trump.

The Eisenhower administrations deportation policies have become infamous among many Hispanics, not just for the operations racist name, but for its tactics.

The operation began in Southern California, using military tactics to round up and deport people to Mexico by land, sea and air, often without running identity checks. The indiscriminate dragnet caught about 1.3 million people, including an unknown number of Hispanic U.S. citizens.

The Biden campaign, eager to draw a clear distinction between its vision on immigration and Trumps, seized on the comments.

Its a sad, predictable tactic from a weak leader whose only mission is dividing the American people  this time by vilifying Latinos yet again, said Casado.

Invoking the horrors of the mass deportation of Mexican Americans following a deadly terrorist attack in Israel doesnt make Americans safer, but it does fan the flames of xenophobia toward immigrants and makes people in this country less safe.

The campaign is bullish on this line of attack, based on consistent polling that shows large majorities of Americans oppose mass deportations.

Thats the logic behind picking apart Trumps speech: translating a passing mention of Eisenhowers policies to a direct reference to Operation Wetback.

Kristian Ramos, a Democratic strategist, said that tactic should apply to Trump and others in the GOP.

I think you have to establish what our position is. And were a party for an orderly legal process for the southern border, and we want to reform a broken immigration system, said Ramos.

Ramos mentioned GOP Speaker nominee Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), a proponent of ending birthright citizenship; House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), who allegedly once promoted himself as David Duke without the baggage; and Trump, who made a feature of the Republican Party to be as extremist as possible.

So yes, you have to establish that baseline fact, that this is a party that wants to limit or outright stop  depending on the member  legal immigration into this country, said Ramos.

For the Biden campaign, the approach could help blunt the permanent GOP barrage against the administrations border and immigration policies, at least by segueing back into Trumps gaffes.

For Donald Trump, a terrorist attack is a political opportunity; for Joe Biden, its about being the commander in chief. Thats a difference that matters to the American people in such a challenging moment, said Casado.

Updated at 4:21 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
President Biden will request funding from Congress for Israel and Ukraine in order to "fund Americas national security needs"  an investment he said will "pay dividends for American security," while warning that both Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin seek to "completely annihilate a neighboring democracy."

The president addressed the nation from the Oval Office Thursday night, a day after he visited with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli officials in Tel Aviv. Biden and Israeli officials discussed the ongoing war, and the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip.

The president said he will send Congress an "urgent budget request" on Friday "to fund America's national security needs to support our critical partners, including Israel and Ukraine is a smart investment that's going to pay dividends for American security for generations."

The president said the package, if approved, will help to "keep American troops out of harm's way, help us build a world that is safer, more peaceful and more prosperous for our children and grandchildren in Israel."

US President Joe Biden delivers a prime-time address to the nation in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. Biden directly appealed to the American people to support funding for Israel and Ukraine's war efforts, warning that Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose parallel threats to US democracy.

"We must make sure that they have what they need to protect their people today," Biden said. "And always the security package I'm sending to Congress and asking Congress to do is an unprecedented commitment to Israel's security that will sharpen Israel's qualitative military edge, which we've committed to the qualitative military edge."



Biden said the funding would help to ensure that the Iron Dome "continues to guard the skies over Israel."

LIVE UPDATES: BIDEN TRIP ENDS WITH PROMISE OF HUMANITARIAN AID TO GAZA, BACKS ISRAEL OVER HOSPITAL BLAST

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"That means protecting civilians in combat as best as they can. And the people of Gaza urgently need food, water and medicine."

The president also spoke to President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority Wednesday and said he "reiterated that the United States remains committed to the Palestinian people right to dignity and to self-determination."

"The actions of Hamas terrorists don't take that right away," Biden said.

But while Biden said he is "heartbroken by the tragic loss of Palestinian life," he stressed that the blast that killed hundreds in a hospital in Gaza "was not done by the Israelis."

Israel declared war against Hamas after the terrorist group infiltrated the country on Oct. 7, firing thousands of rockets at residential areas and brutally murdering more than one thousand civilians, while taking hundreds of others hostage.

"The terrorist group Hamas unleashed pure, unadulterated evil in the world," Biden said. "But sadly, the Jewish people know perhaps better than anyone that there is no limit to the depravity of people when they want to inflict pain on others."

Biden added: "Hamas has a stated purpose for existing: it is a destruction of the state of Israel and the murder of Jewish people."

GAZA HOSPITAL BLAST: WHAT WE KNOW

But the president stressed that Hamas "does not represent the Palestinian people."

"Hamas uses Palestinians civilians as human shields, and innocent Palestinian families are suffering greatly because of that," Biden said.

At least 4,200 people have been killed in the war on both sides, including at least 1,400 Israeli civilians and soldiers and 31 Americans. Palestinian health authorities say at least 2,808 Palestinians have been killed and more than 10,950 wounded.

More than 30 American citizens have died in Israel and 12 are left unaccounted for.

US President Joe Biden, center, delivers a prime-time address to the nation in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. Biden directly appealed to the American people to support funding for Israel and Ukraine's war efforts, warning that Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose parallel threats to US democracy.

President Biden visited Israel this week amid its war against Hamas following deadly terror attacks.

Meanwhile, the president shifted to Russia's war in Ukraine.

"History has taught us that when terrorists don't pay a price for their terror, when dictators don't pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction--They keep going," Biden said. "And the cost and the threats to America and the world keep rising."

He added: "If we don't stop Putin's appetite for power and control of Ukraine, he won't limit himself just to the Ukraine."

Biden said Putin has "already threatened to remind, quote, remind Poland that their western land was a gift from Russia. One of his top advisors, a former president of Russia, has called Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Russia's Baltic provinces."

"These are all NATO's allies. For 75 years, NATO's kept peace in Europe and has been the cornerstone of American security," Biden said. "And if Putin attacks NATO ally, we will defend every inch of NATO's, which the treaty requires and calls for, will have something that we do not seek."

HAMAS TERRORISTS LIKELY USED NORTH KOREAN WEAPONS DURING BRUTAL ATTACK ON ISRAEL, EVIDENCE SHOWS

Biden said that if the United States walks "away" from Ukraine, and allows Putin to "erase Ukraine's independence," the "would-be aggressors around the world would be emboldened to try the same risk of conflict and chaos could spread in other parts of the world, in the Indo-Pacific, in the Middle East, especially in the Middle East."

Biden warned that Iran is supporting Russia in Ukraine and is also supporting Hamas and other terrorist groups in the region.

"We will continue to hold them accountable," Biden said.

The president also said that Ukraine has regained more than 50% of the territory Russian troops once occupied, due to the U.S. coalition of more than 50 countries around the globe.

"What would happen if we walked away? We are the essential nation," Biden said.

US President Joe Biden delivers a prime-time address to the nation in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. Biden directly appealed to the American people to support funding for Israel and Ukraine's war efforts, warning that Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose parallel threats to US democracy.

The president went on to warn that Putin "has turned to Iran and North Korea to buy attack drones and ammunition to terrorize Ukrainian cities and people from the outset."

Biden, though, stressed that he "will not send American troops to fight in Ukraine."

"All Ukraine is asking for is help for the weapons, munitions, the capacity, the capability to push invading Russian forces off their land and the air defense system to shoot down Russian missiles before they destroy Ukrainian cities," Biden said.

BIDEN FACES ULTIMATE TEST AS IRAN, WHICH BACKS HAMAS, WARNS OF DEADLY CONSEQUENCES

The president explained that the U.S. funding sends Ukraine equipment "sitting in our stockpiles."

"When we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores, our own stockpiles with new equipment, equipment that defends America and is made in America," Biden said.

Meanwhile, amid the brutal war between Israel and Hamas, the president pleaded the American people to denounce antisemitism and islamophobia.

"I know we have our divisions at home. We have to get past them. We can't let petty, partisan, angry politics get in the way of our responsibilities as a great nation," Biden said. "We cannot and will not let terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin win."

He added: "I refuse to let that happen."

The president said that in "moments like these, we have to remember who we are."

"We are the United States of America. The United States of America. And there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together," he said.

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The funding request, which is expected to be formally rolled out on Friday, is likely to be around $100 billion over the next year. The total figure is expected to include some funding for Taiwans defense and for managing the flow of migrants at the southern border with Mexico.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.





Original article source: Biden declares it is 'vital' to US security for Israel, Ukraine to succeed in wars, will request funding
The Biden administration said Wednesday it will ease sanctions against companies that trade in oil produced in Venezuelan or invest in the South American countrys oil industry in response to its new agreement to allow free elections next year.

The move reverses years of U.S. policy aimed at unseating President Nicolas Maduro  and even before the administration announced it late Wednesday, Republicans were accusing Biden of once again coddling unfriendly oil-producing countries. While the move could help increase the flow of Venezuelan oil into the global crude market, it is not expected to do much to bring down prices that have remained stubbornly high amid turmoil in Europe and the Middle East.

The Treasury Department said the sanctions on exports of crude oil and refined petroleum exports, as well as gold, will be lifted for six months, an expiration date designed to allow the penalties to snap back in place if Maduro reneges on his promise to let independent candidates run in next years Venezuelan presidential election and to allow election experts and the international media to monitor it.

The United States will provide limited sanctions relief primarily in the oil and gas sector in response to this important development, a senior administration official told a press briefing. Our ultimate goal with sanctions is to bring positive change in behavior. The United States government retains the authority to amend or revoke all authorizations should Maduro and his representatives fail to follow through on their commitments.



Even before seeing how well Maduro adheres to his promise of free elections, reaching any agreement at all with the country's opposition was a solid feat, Latin American scholar Diego Abente-Brun said in an interview.

This is a very important step forward, said Abente-Brun, director of the Latin American and Hemispheric Studies Program at George Washington Universitys Elliott School of International Relations. I am very optimistic. One has to be prudent and cautious  we still have a way to go  but this is a very auspicious beginning.

But news of sanctions relief left Republicans fuming. Lifting the financial penalties is beyond absurd, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has criticized the administration for restoring a ban on oil production in some of Alaskas wilderness, said in a statement this week.

Theyre easing up on the worst regimes in the world, giving them the revenues to stay in power and spread terror and corruption, while kneecapping environmentally responsible development in Alaska, she said in a statement.

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, followed suit: With Israel under attack, Biden is desperate for anything to mask the consequences of his reckless policies, he said in a statement.

His latest gimmick is to ease sanctions on Nicolas Maduros brutal regime in Venezuela. America should never beg for oil from socialist dictators or terrorists, said Barrasso, who is also the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said this week he was submitting a bill that would prohibit the importation of crude oil and other fossil fuels Venezuela  and from Iran, though Biden has never proposed to lift the long-standing U.S. ban on fuel purchases from that country. The U.S. refining industry used to be a large importer of Venezuelan crude, at one point spending billions of dollars to update its machinery to be able to better process the heavy oil.

The idea of importing oil from our adversaries is a complete slap in the face of working Americans, Cramer said in announcing his bill. We should be using and supporting American energy, and any reliance on our adversaries for something as critical as energy is an obvious threat to our national security.

The U.S. began imposing sanctions on Venezuela in 2008, a year after the government of then-President Hugo Chavez began expropriating oil assets of companies including Exxon Mobil. The Trump administration placed economic sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, and then tightened them on PDVSA, its state-owned oil company, in 2019 in a bid to push Maduro out of office.

Although Venezuela sits on one of the worlds largest crude reserves, decades of underinvestment and mismanagement at PDVSA have resulted in a rusted drilling infrastructure that is pumping less than a third of the 3 million barrels a day it had been at producing its peak in the early 2000s.

The Venezuelan oil industry is such a wreck that well heads have been sold for scrap metal, said Carlos Pascual, former ambassador to Mexico and Ukraine during the Obama and Clinton administrations, and restoring output will require investments that only foreign companies can provide.

But companies will want to wait to see more stability from a country where theyve been burned before, said Pascual, now a senior vice president of global energy at S&P Global Commodity Insights. ConocoPhillips and other companies are still waiting for payments on oilfield equipment that the Venezuelan government seized.

No company is going to risk that until they have greater assurance that this is something thats going to last and not be a matter of a few months or even a few years, Pascual said in an interview.

And loosening the oil sanctions would do little in the short term to help the Biden administration with its more immediate political problem: stubbornly high oil prices. Venezuela exported about 544,000 barrels per day of oil in August, mainly to China, Reuters reported, citing vessel tracking data. Energy analysts doubt it could export much more anytime soon.

A freed-up Venezuelan oil industry could pave the way for a medium-term increase in production of 200,000 barrels per day, a relative drop in the ocean on the global stage, market analyst firm Rystad Energy said in a note. Even so, the firm cited the deal as the likely reason that the global price of oil dropped about $1 a barrel right after news of the deal broke Monday. (The price was just under $91 a barrel late Tuesday.)

A surge in oil prices last month that threatened to breach the symbolic threshold of $100 a barrel has kept political pressure on Biden and other Democrats, who have faced attacks from Republicans over persistently high gasoline prices.

The GOP blames the presidents energy policies, accusing him of throttling U.S. fossil fuel production. In fact, though, U.S. crude oil production is on track to set records this year  and to exceed it next year.

The average price of regular gasoline was $3.58 a gallon on Tuesday, according to AAA, down considerably from the all-time high of $5.02 it hit in June 2022 amid the price shock that followed Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Troubles around the world are weighing on the oil markets. That includes the question of whether Biden will respond to calls to step up enforcement of sanctions on Iranian oil exports to choke off its funding to Hamas.

Iranian exports have risen sharply during the past year, at a time when the U.S. has been trying to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table on an agreement to curb its nuclear ambitions. Biden administration officials are weighing whether to tighten enforcement of the sanctions, two industry lobbyists familiar with the administration said  which could cause oil prices to spike. The lobbyists were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations with administration officials.

If that happens, adding Venezuelan supplies to the market is not likely to have any major impact on global oil prices.

In our view it would be marginal, Eli Rubin, senior energy analyst at the market analysis firm EBW, said of the Venezuela deal in an interview. To the extent the administration can put any pieces together and create an understanding, its a possible nice headline. But from a fundamental market perspective, Israel and Iran are the bigger dominoes to fall here.
U.S. President Joe spoke to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi from Air Force One concerning securing humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza. Photo courtesy of President Joe Biden/X

Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Egypt has agreed to open its border with Gaza to allow limited humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave that has been devastated by nearly two weeks of war, U.S. President Joe Biden said late Wednesday.

The American president announced the development at Ramstein Air Base in Germany en route back to the United States following a day trip to Tel Aviv where one of his missions had been to secure humanitarian aid for Gaza.

He told told reporters he had just gotten off the phone with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi who has agreed to open the Rafah border crossing -- the only port of entry into Gaza not under the Israelis' control -- to allow 20 trucks of humanitarian assistance into the blockaded Palestinian region.

The trucks could begin driving into Gaza as soon as Friday after roads bombed in Israeli attacks are patched, which is expected to take about eight hours to complete on Thursday, he said.

Biden referred to the nearly two dozen trucks as a "first tranche," suggesting further convoys could gain access to Gaza. He said there are 150 more trucks and whether they will be allowed in will depend on how the first trip goes.

"Look, if you have an opportunity to alleviate the pain, you should do it. Period," Biden said. "And if you don't, you're going to lose credibility worldwide. And I think everyone understands that."

Biden had landed in Israel early Wednesday as the situation in the blockaded Palestinian region was deteriorating under incessant Israeli bombardment. The enclave has been without water and electricity for days while food and medicine were near depleted.

The United Nations estimates that up to 1 million Gazans have been displaced, while Israel has ordered some 1.1 million to evacuate the northern half of the enclave ahead of a widely expected ground invasion.

Meanwhile, tons of aid for hundreds of thousands of people remained out of reach on the other side of the Rafah border crossing in Egypt.

The United Nations has been calling for aid to be allowed unfettered entrance into Gaza, with the it aid chief, Martin Griffiths, telling the Security Council on Wednesday that they urgently need a mechanism agreed to by all parties to allow for regular shipments of emergency goods for Gaza of upward of 100 trucks a day.

The American president had spoken Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his security cabinet, and secured an agreement concerning aid for Gaza.

A statement from the Office of the Israeli Prime Minister states that though they will not permit aid to enter Gaza from its borders as long as Hamas maintains hostages, "Israel will not prevent humanitarian assistance from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population located in the southern Gaza Strip."

The presidency of Egypt confirmed in a statement that Biden and Sisi had reached an agreement on the delivery of humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing "in a sustainable manner," further suggesting that a mechanism was being put in place to facilitate further shipments.

Biden explained that Sisi was opening the border for "this purpose" and it wasn't being done to "allow a lot of people out," as more than 2.2 million people are penned in the strip, including foreign nationals, U.S. citizens among them.

Biden told reporters that he is "hopeful" they will get Americans out soon and that they are continuing to work toward that end.

Biden also explained that he has committed for the aid to cease if it ends up in Hamas' hands or if the militant group prevents the United Nations workers from distributing it.

"If Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through ... then it's going to end because we're not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas."

"That's the commitment that I've made."
President Joe Biden delivers a prime-time address to the nation Thursday even from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/UPI

Oct. 19 (UPI) -- In a rare Oval Office address, President Joe Biden pleaded with Americans on Thursday night to continue their support for Ukraine and Israel, arguing that what's at stake is not only the sovereignties of the ally nations but American values and U.S. security.

From the White House, Biden said that Friday he would send to Congress an urgent budget request that called on lawmakers to act on, not only to help Israel and Ukraine defend themselves but to defend the United States and its interesting.

"We're facing an inflection point in history, one of those moments where the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come," he said.

"American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us, America, safe. American values are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with. To put all that at risk if we walk away from Ukraine, if we turn our backs on Israel, it's just not worth it."

Biden gave the address a day after returning from Israel, which has been waging a nearly two-week-old war against Hamas in Gaza, and as support for continuing to arm Ukraine in its 20-month fight against Russia has waned not only in the United States but in Europe.

President Joe Biden speaks to the nation during a prime-time address on the war in the Middle East Thursday evening from White House in Washington, D.C. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/UPI

In laying out his case for U.S. support for the two nations at war, Biden said Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza and Russia's Vladimir Putin in Ukraine are "different threats" but share a commonality of both wanting to "completely annihilate" their neighbors.

"History has taught us that when terrorists don't pay a price for their terror, dictators don't pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction," Biden said. "They keep going. And the cost and the threats to America and the world keep rising."

President Joe Biden delivered a prime-time address from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. Thursday evening to discuss the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war. File Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI

He added that the threat not only lies in the immediate actors but in adversaries watching from the wings of the war theaters. To walk away from Ukraine, he said, would embolden other would-be aggressions.

"The risk of conflict and chaos could spread across the world," Biden explained.

Focusing on the escalating conflict in the Middle East and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, President Joe Biden delivered a prime-time address to the nation Thursday evening from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/UPI

Biden is expected to ask Congress for billion of dollars to support Israel and Ukraine, but the request comes at a precarious time. The House is without a leader and where more funds from Kyiv have been a sticking point for some lawmakers of both parties.

In the comparatively more moderate Senate, on the other hand, support seems more likely backed. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged lawmakers from the floor earlier Thursday to continue its support of the U.S. allies, echoing sentiments that Biden hit in his speech, including that support for those fighting tyranny is support for American interests.

President Joe Biden delivered a prime-time address to the nation Thursday evening from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., focusing on escalating tensions in the Middle East and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/UPI

"The prosperity America has known for the better part of a century is the product of our leadership. Preserving it means standing with our friends and investing in our own strength," he said.

Biden on Wednesday returned from a trip to Tel Aviv, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he pressed to allow aid to reach Palestinian civilians affected by Israeli strikes in Gaza. He said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi agreed to open the Rafah border crossing to allow 20 trucks of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.

President Joe Biden delivers a prime-time address to the nation Thursday night from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI

The conflict began Oct. 7 when Hamas breached security barriers and carried out a surprise attack on Israel. Israel launched airstrikes in response. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel and 3,400 people have been killed in Gaza.

Underscoring the importance of Ukraine in Biden's speech, the White House said late Thursday that the president spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of the televised address.

President Joe Biden delivers a prime-time address to the nation Thursday night from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI

In the call, Biden stressed continued U.S. support for Ukraine as it battles against invading Russian forces, according to a statement released from the White House late Thursday.
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US President Joe Biden has said world history is at "an inflection point" as he made the case for billions of dollars in wartime aid for Ukraine and Israel.

In a speech at the White House, he said Hamas and Russia both wanted to "annihilate a neighbouring democracy".

Mr Biden said he would send an urgent funding request - expected to be $105bn (87bn) - to Congress on Friday.

But the House of Representatives has no leader and can't approve any spending.

Mr Biden's rare primetime address to the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday evening was just the second of his presidency.

It came a day after his whirlwind trip to Israel following the attacks by Hamas on 7 October.

Mr Biden said the emergency aid request would "pay dividends for American security for generations".

In his 15-minute address, he also condemned any acts of hatred against Jews or Muslims in the US, and condemned the fatal stabbing of six-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea al-Fayoume in Chicago this week.

"We must without equivocation denounce anti-Semitism," he said. "We must also without equivocation denounce Islamophobia."

The White House has not yet officially released details about the expected aid package.

But a source familiar with the request told the BBC's US partner CBS News it would include:

$60bn for Ukraine and replenishing US stockpiles

$14bn for Israel

$10bn for humanitarian efforts

$7bn for the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan

$14bn for US border security

Mr Biden also took great care to stress his sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza, as well as talking about meeting the families of Israeli and US victims of the Hamas attacks.

Democrats hope that by tying the different aid packages together they can win support for the Ukraine funding, which some Republicans oppose.

But the request will arrive at an effectively frozen Congress, as House Republicans have been unable to elect a Speaker after Kevin McCarthy was ousted in a right-wing revolt more than two weeks ago.

Mr Biden, who is a Democrat, did not explicitly address the political dysfunction, though he acknowledged "divisions at home".

"We have to get past them," he said. "We can't let petty, partisan, angry politics get in the way of our responsibility as a great nation.

"We cannot and will not let terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin win. I refuse to let that happen."

But it is unclear if the spending package would pass Congress, even with a House Speaker.

The Republican leader of the Senate has indicated willingness to take up the measure, but there is opposition within the party.

Eight Republicans, led by Kansas Senator Roger Marshall, wrote in a letter: "These are two separate and unrelated conflicts and it would be wrong to leverage support of aid to Israel in an attempt to get additional aid for Ukraine across the finish line."

Ohio Republican Senator JD Vance called Mr Biden's linking of the two conflicts "disgusting".

"He's using dead children in Israel to sell his disastrous Ukraine policy," he posted on X, formerly Twitter, after the speech.

More on Israel-Gaza war

There was even a sign of dissent within the Biden administration on Thursday as a state department official resigned in protest at the US decision to keep sending weapons to Israel as it lays siege to Gaza.

Josh Paul, who headed the bureau that oversees arms transfers, told the BBC after quitting that he believed Israel's actions violated US legal provisions meant to restrict weapons sales to human rights abusers.

"I think our mechanisms for determining violations are broken," he said.

Additional reporting by Phil McCausland and Max Matza
WASHINGTON  Top congressional lawmakers are beginning to receive details of a new funding package the Biden administration is expected to submit to Congress this week.

While its not yet finalized, the supplemental funding package is likely to seek $60 billion for Ukraine, a lawmaker and two sources with knowledge of the request said. The rest of the request will include roughly $40 billion to provide aid to Israel, Taiwan and the U.S.-Mexico border.

The total supplemental funding request, which is expected to be for the fiscal year that ends next September, will total around $100 billion, said four sources directly involved in the process.

NBC News reported Tuesday that the administration plans to submit the roughly $100 billion supplemental funding request to Congress in the coming days. Top lawmakers could be made aware of the contours of the request as soon as Wednesday, a lawmaker and a congressional aide with knowledge of the matter said.

Follow live coverage from NBC News here.

Congressional Republicans, particularly those wary about sending more aid to Ukraine, argue the U.S. needs to replenish munitions that have been sent to Europe and that the supplemental funding for Ukraine might help quell some of those concerns because some of the funds could be used for replenishment, three of the sources said. While the money for munitions is expected to be attached to the Ukraine funding request, these sources said the weapons could be used for various purposes, with the Middle East as a point of discussion.

Republicans have become increasingly divided over whether to continue U.S. aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia. The U.S. has so far provided more than $75 billion in military, humanitarian and financial aid to Kyiv, and the Biden administration has asked Congress for billions more.

The Biden administration is expected to formally submit the $100 billion supplemental request Friday, according to the sources.

The timing remains fluid, but a possible reason some details could come Wednesday is that the administration would want to catch senators while theyre still in town, said a lawmaker and an aide. A bipartisan Senate delegation to the Middle East, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is expected to leave at the end of the week, and the Senate isnt expected to be in session Friday.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday, a day after a deadly Gaza hospital blast that has fueled protests across the Middle East, that he was preparing to ask Congress for an unprecedented support package for Israels defense during his trip to Tel Aviv. As anger spread across the region, Bidens planned meeting with Arab leaders in Jordan was canceled.

The Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry said 471 people were killed in what it called a targeted Israeli bombing of al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in central Gaza.

Israel officials have blamed the blast on a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired, and U.S. national security officials said they support those findings. Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees were briefed about the incident Wednesday, with leaders of both committees echoing the U.S. intelligence communitys conclusion.

Biden on Wednesday also announced $100 million in new U.S. funding for humanitarian aid to both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

More than 3,400 people have been killed and more than 12,500 have been injured in Gaza since Hamas' terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7. In Israel, 1,400 people have been killed and 3,500 have been wounded as a result of the ongoing war.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Photo: Associated Press - Adel Hana

A Quebec Liberal MP issued an emotional plea for peace in Israel and a viable Palestinian state on Wednesday, as deaths in the Gaza Strip "mount by the minute."

Sameer Zuberi battled tears, speaking about the "butchery" of innocent children as he made his way into the weekly Liberal caucus meeting.

His comments came as more of the government's members of Parliament called for a ceasefire.

"We have to recognize clearly that bombs are falling on innocent children, adults, seniors being launched from the Israeli military. We need to recognize that," Zuberi told reporters.

He said Hamas's surprise attacks on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 was an "abhorrent" act that caused the latest crisis and escalated tensions that have existed in the region for decades.

The conflict has left more than 4,000 people dead on both sides.

But Zuberi said people in the Gaza Strip died before the latest conflict escalation, too, and the only way to save innocent lives is for bombs to stop falling.

"I know that civilians are dying," the MP said.

"And if I was behind an artillery cannon and I knew this would fall on hospitals and schools I would not push that trigger," Zuberi said, as his voice filled with emotion.

A blast that hit a hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday has become a new focal point in the escalating war. Hundreds of people were killed, including some who were sheltering at the site for safety.

The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza quickly blamed the hospital blast on the Israeli military. But Israel said it was not involved, and its government later released video and other information that officials said showed a Palestinian military group had misfired.

Countries including Canada remain concerned the war could expand into a wider regional conflict, with Hezbollah fighters exchanging fire with the Israeli military over the Israel-Lebanon border.

The blast at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital came amid a worsening humanitarian crisis throughout the territory, which Israel has blocked from accessing essential supplies such as food, water and power.

Canada has been pushing for a humanitarian corridor to be established not only to allow aid organizations and their staff to bring in supplies through the territory's border with Egypt, but also to provide a way for nearly 400 Canadian citizens and their relatives to escape.

Following a request from United States President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Wednesday that it approved a plan that would allow Egypt to deliver some supplies into Gaza.

Biden, who met with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv Wednesday, told the Israeli leader that based on what he had seen, it appeared the hospital blast was perpetrated "by the other team, not you."

Biden said data from the U.S. Defense Department showed it was not likely a strike by Israel's military. The White House also said that a U.S. intelligence assessment found Israel was not responsible for the strike.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's last comment on the incident came late Tuesday when he posted on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, that "we must determine what happened" and "there must be accountability."

Earlier on Tuesday, as news of the blast reached Canada but before Israel denied responsibility, Trudeau called the bombing "absolutely unacceptable" and called the act "not legal" under the international rules of war.

Iddo Moed, Israels Ambassador to Canada, said in an interview Wednesday that he hopes Canada offers a "similar response" to the United States about the incident, saying Israel has provided an "abundance of evidence."

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs president and CEO Shimon Koffler Fogel suggested in a statement that allowing "incidents like this to stand uncorrected foments a culture of hatred targeting Canada's Jewish community that we know from experience results in violence."

Several Liberal MPs heading into their national caucus meeting on Wednesday said they did not have enough information to say who was responsible, though several called for a ceasefire.

Liberal MP Shafqat Ali said the hospital bombing was "heartbreaking" and called for a ceasefire and new talks to bring an end to the conflict.

Liberal MP Iqra Khalid had also called for a ceasefire in a statement she released on social media last week, as did Salma Zahid.

Trudeau has not said whether Canada will officially join that call.

Winnipeg Liberal MP Ben Carr said while a ceasefire and long-term peace is what everyone wants, getting there is complicated.

"The issue is that Hamas is still harbouring hostages that it took from Israel during the attack. That's one issue," he told reporters Wednesday morning.

"The second is Israel has a right to defend itself, and in part of that defence, it means helping deal with the structure of the current Hamas regime. If that regime is not dealt with, then as time goes by, they will simply rebuild, they will rebuild stronger and Israel will be at threat again."

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says Canada should call for a ceasefire and for Hamas to release the hostages.

"It's about compassion and recognizing the horrible human toll of ongoing violence," Singh said on Wednesday.

Michael Chong, the Conservatives' foreign affairs critic in Parliament, told the House of Commons earlier in the week that Canada should "resist" the temptation to ask for a ceasefire, saying that Israel has the right to defend its borders against Hamas.

There remain two Canadians still reported missing since the Oct. 7 attacks. Trudeau has said they could be among the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas, which Canada has designated as a terrorist group for more than 20 years.

Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet suggested Wednesday that "nobody clearly knows" who was behind Tuesday's hospital blast, adding that "the disinformation machines are fully engaged, so we must be very careful of what we receive as being true or clear."
(Bloomberg) -- Last Saturday, with Israel still in shock from the deadly attack by Hamas a week earlier, the military said it was preparing coordinated strikes from the air, sea and land to eradicate the group in Gaza.

Most Read from Bloomberg

But by midweek, military spokesmen were suggesting that a ground offensive might be something different from what you think. It could start later and last longer, unfolding in unexpected ways, they said.

In between was a series of unprecedented visits by top US officials, including the secretaries of state and defense and President Joe Biden . Wrapped in their embrace of Israels pain after the deadliest attack in decades and promises to send warships and weapons was a message of caution about how to respond.

The US shares Israels goal of destroying Hamass military infrastructure in Gaza. Thats only possible with a ground invasion, since the group, designated by the US and EU as a terrorist organization, has spent decades building networks of tunnels and other emplacements.

Brutality of Surprise Attack Unites Israel Around One Goal: Crush Hamas

But the US influence is already shaping the way that assault will be conducted - particularly how to limit casualties among the 2 million civilians who live in Gaza - and the governments planning for what happens when its over, according to Israeli officials and people close to the government.

Three senior Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the role and influence of the US in this war against Hamas are deeper and more intense than any exerted by Washington in the past.

The US has grown increasingly concerned that Israels invasion could draw in Iran-backed Hezbollah. That could open a second front in the war and sparking a broader conflict that would draw the US in further and demolish the Biden administrations efforts to stabilize the region by making peace between Israel and key Arab countries.

President Biden is focused on reducing the chance of this war spreading to another front, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said in an interview. This is his main goal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after Bidens visit that an agreement had been reached on cooperation that will change the equation in all theaters. On Air Force One on the way back to Washington, Biden said hed spoken with the Israelis about various alternatives regarding the ground war because of concern over civilian casualties and an expansion of the conflict.

In an Oval Office address Thursday night, Biden appealed to Americans to support Israel and Ukraine, arguing that Hamas and Russia both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.

Israelis teared up watching Bidens statements and warm hugs of survivors. But his sympathy was paired with a warning.

Justice must be done, Biden said. But I caution that, while you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

In a first, Biden and Blinken sat in on Israels war cabinet meetings, helping Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and opposition leader Benny Gantz assess and plan.

The night before Bidens visit, there was a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital. Arab governments quickly embraced Hamass claim that Israel was behind the attack and protesters took to the streets across the Mideast. But Biden endorsed the Israeli account which blamed a failed rocket launch by a militant group.

Even as the US has sent two aircraft-carrier groups to the eastern Mediterranean and put troops on alert, Biden and other officials have underlined the importance of limiting civilian casualties. In Tel Aviv, the US president pushed Netanyahus government to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where civilians are trapped with dwindling supplies of food and water and subject to regular Israeli airstrikes. The first shipments from Egypt could come as early as Friday, according to US officials.

Biden is determined that there is a need to defeat Hamas, but he also wants to keep the strategic alliances and peace treaties between Israel and Arab countries and widen them, to deepen the American leadership in the Middle East, said Major General (Reserve) Amos Gilead, a former top Defense Ministry official. Thats why the humanitarian dimension is so important.

US officials have said they hope to continue efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, though the war with Hamas threatens to derail them. That deal would include US security guarantees for both countries. What has emerged this week with the US is a de facto version of such a pact, a top Israeli official indicated.

Michael Oren, a former ambassador to Washington for Netanyahu, said Biden is pushing Israel to use more caution both when it goes into Gaza on the ground and as it responds to increasing attacks from Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This puts Bibi in a difficult position, Oren said. The bill for this one will come due the day after the war, he said. The US will likely press Netanyahu to bring Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas into Gaza and restore efforts for a two-state solution, he said.

On Wednesday, Cohen suggested that Israel is likely to seek to create a buffer zone around Gaza, rather than occupying the territory completely.

The plan for the war is closely held and still in formation but the initial goal is reflected in the fact that Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians to evacuate the northern part of the strip, which includes Gaza City.

Its an impossible situation. Israel wants to provide security to its citizens and restore deterrence and in order to do so, it seems for Israel unavoidable that it will continue to kill a lot of civilians, said Mairav Zonszein, senior analyst on Israel at the International Crisis Group.

Still, Netanyahus government is receptive to the US message, according to Manuel Trajtenberg, executive director of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, a think tank. Israeli troops will stage a ground operation into the north where Hamas is headquartered and where they will likely hold the ground, with a more surgical approach in the southern part, he said.

Israel needs legitimacy for a long time because this is not going to be a short operation, he said.

Israel is likely to send in specialized forces trained in urban warfare, backed by regular troops and with close air support, to go from door to door to door and try to eliminate or capture Hamas leaders, according to Bilal Saab, a former Pentagon official responsible for military cooperation in the region.

Israels generals are under no illusion that they can wipe out Hamas, said Bilal, now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

--With assistance from Tony Capaccio.

(Updates with Bidens Oval Office speech in 10th paragraph)

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President Biden on Wednesday touted the tangible outcome of his trip to Israel as he flew back to the United States, acknowledging the risks that came with making the visit.

Look, I came to get something done. I got it done, Biden told reporters aboard Air Force One during a refueling stop in Germany.

If I didnt  wasnt able to make it into Israel  Id get it done, he added. Not many people thought we could get this done, and not many people want to be associated with failure.

Biden said there was a lengthy discussion among his advisers about whether to make the trip to Israel.

Because had we gone and this failed, then, you know, the United States failed, Bidens presidency fails, et cetera, which would be a legitimate criticism, he said.

Biden traveled Wednesday to Israel for what amounted to a roughly seven-hour trip to Tel Aviv in the aftermath of Hamas terrorist attacks that killed more than 1,400 Israelis. Scores of Palestinians have been killed in ensuing strikes on Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas.

Biden met with Israeli leaders and community members in a major show of support for the country. A planned trip to Jordan to meet with Jordanian, Egyptian and Palestinian leaders was scrapped in the wake of a hospital explosion in Gaza.

Still, Biden announced an agreement to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza through the border with Egypt, and he said the United States would provide $100 million in aid to help affected and displaced civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The president spoke on the phone with Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi while on Air Force One to reach a deal to allow up to 20 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza, Biden said.

Biden is scheduled to deliver a prime-time address Thursday focused on the war between Israel and Hamas, as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine. The White House is expected this week to ask Congress for billions of dollars in funding to support both Israel and Ukraine.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The presidential motorcade was just minutes from Air Force One when the call came.

Jordan was canceling a summit between President Joe Biden and the leaders of the kingdom, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority after an explosion at a Gaza hospital reportedly killed hundreds. Hamas blamed Israel as Israel said another Palestinian group was to blame. Suddenly, Biden was left with an Israel-only itinerary for his trip, creating the potential for images that could further inflame the smoldering Middle East.

The option of abandoning the trip entirely at that point wasnt considered, according to two aides not authorized to publicly discuss private deliberations. There were fears that doing so, so close to departure  Air Force One was ready to go  would upset the Israelis, the aides said.

But there had been worries among some Biden advisers about going on the trip in the first place. They believed that Biden, in a series of speeches last week, had already proven his commitment to Israel and was only providing a gift to Netanyahu by going.



Biden was adamant that he should go, even if the Jordan stop was off. In the words of National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on the plane ride to Israel: There is still a pretty robust agenda of things to get done in Tel Aviv.

Biden and his team did their best to make the most of what was left of the one-day trip.

His presence  and days of diplomacy leading up to it  led Israeli officials to say theyd allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza. Biden would later confirm that Egypt allowed 20 trucks with aid into the enclave. He earned kudos among Israels defenders for standing firmly with the country, underscored by a warm hug with Netanyahu that is bound to be the enduring image of the one-day visit.



But Biden didnt get a similar photo op with other regional leaders. And no statements about Israels right to self defense or protecting innocent civilians in Gaza could turn the tides of violence sweeping the region.

While Biden was still on the ground in Tel Aviv, protests across the region, prompted by the hospital explosion, dramatically escalated, including demonstrations at the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanons capital.

So the president left Israel looking more like a victim of world events than a shaper of them.

Biden had decided to rush to Israel for two main reasons: to back the staunch ally in its moment of need and to stop the conflict from escalating.

The president more than met the first objective.

Americans are grieving with you. They really are. And Americans are worried. Americans are worried because we know this is not an easy field to navigate what you have to do, Biden said alongside the Israeli prime minister in Tel Aviv.

Biden hugged survivors of the terror attacks and grieved with those mourning. The Treasury Department announced sanctions on two senior Hamas officials and their associates to block their crypto exchanges and other financing. And citing current U.S. assessments, Biden said Israel wasnt responsible for the hospital explosion, asserting instead that the other team was to blame.

But that comment, and the visit as a whole, made it hard to meet the trips second goal of de-escalation.

Arab-American leaders have publicly chastised the Biden administration rhetoric as insensitive to Palestinians  and made similar arguments privately to State Department officials. Within days of Hamas brutal attack, Israel instituted a siege of Gaza that left its 2.3 million residents short on food, water and electricity.

White House aides have recoiled at the criticism that they have been callous to the plight of the Palestinians. Among other things, they touted the $100 million in humanitarian aid he pledged for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

NSC spokesperson Kirby told reporters on the flight to Israel that Biden would have tough questions for his Israeli counterparts. But the president kept the tough love private, never wavering in public remarks to boost Israels cause. He did urge, though, for the Israelis to be cautious in their forthcoming operation in Gaza.

Justice must be done. But I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it, Biden said. After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

U.S. officials have grown fearful that the hospital tragedy and diplomatic fallout would heighten regional tensions. They expect emotions to run higher after Israel sends troops into Gaza to take out Hamas leadership, an operation that could begin in the coming days. A further escalation could come if Israeli forces occupy the enclave for the first time since 2005; Biden recently said that would prove a big mistake, a stance echoed by fellow Democrats.



"If they just go into Gaza and leave it a smoldering mess they're going to end up recruiting more terrorists than they killed and they will be right back to square one. None of us want to see that," Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a former Marine, said on CNN.

The Biden administration has already discussed what military actions it would take if Hezbollah, a heavily armed Iranian proxy in Lebanon, decides to enter the fray. For deterrence purposes, the U.S. has two carrier strike groups in the Eastern Mediterranean alongside other warships and fighter jets. The United Kingdom, too, has maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft in the region.

Hezbollah denounced the hospital explosion, calling for a day of unprecedented anger. At the demonstrations in Beirut, protestors waving Palestinian flags were pushed back with tear gas. Analysts suggest that Hezbollah and other Iran-aligned groups are preparing to take advantage of the chaos and strike Israel while its focused on Hamas.

The picture is not much better at home. Thousands of American Jews protested outside and inside the Capitol on Wednesday, demanding that the administration and lawmakers push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.



Despite the turmoil, Biden showed few signs of changing course. He was steadfast in backing Israel, no matter what.

Israel, youre not alone. The United States stands with you, Biden said during a news conference. Were going to stand with you. Well walk beside you in those dark days.

On Thursday evening, Biden will address the nation from the Oval Office about why the U.S. should support Israel, and Ukraine, in their fights. Its possible he will unveil a $100 billion funding request for the allies, which would require a roiling Congress to approve.

Matt Berg contributed to this report.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Biden visits Israel amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is considering $60 billion in assistance for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel in a supplemental spending request he will send to Congress as soon as Friday, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

Biden has been widely expected to ask Congress to pass a supplemental spending bill quickly, as Washington responds to the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants while looking to continue to support Ukraine as it grapples with a Russian invasion.

Multiple sources familiar with the request told Reuters on Tuesday that Biden was considering a supplemental request of about $100 billion that would include defense aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as funding for efforts to beef up security on the U.S. border with Mexico.

Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was not aware of the $100 billion figure, except from news reports.

He told a news conference he had heard that the administration was considering $10 billion for Israel.

Administration officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Several sources said on Wednesday that Biden has not settled on a final figure, and the breakdown has not been communicated to Congress.

Under U.S. law, Congress, not the executive branch, controls spending.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
President Joe Biden intends to nominate two Oklahomans as federal district judges, including the former attorney general of the Cherokee Nation and a former Justice Department attorney, the White House announced Wednesday.

Sara E. Hill and John D. Russell will be nominated to serve in the Northern District of Oklahoma, based in Tulsa, the White House said. The Northern District and the Eastern District, based in Muskogee, have experienced dramatically higher caseloads since 2020, when the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma gave the federal government jurisdiction over criminal cases involving Native Americans in most of eastern Oklahoma.

As attorney general for the Cherokee Nation, Hill led the tribes effort to build up its criminal justice system in the wake of the McGirt ruling, and she advocated for the tribe against the state of Oklahoma as it sought to narrow the scope of McGirt.

Hill, 46, served as attorney general for the tribe from 2019 until earlier this year, when she left for private practice. She also served as Secretary of Natural Resources for the tribe and as deputy attorney general and assistant attorney general. Hill, who received her bachelors degree from Northeastern State University in 2000 and her law degree from the University of Tulsa in 2003, also worked in the U.S. attorneys office in the Northern District of Oklahoma.

Former Cherokee Nation Attorney General Sara Hill

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. called Hill a brilliant attorney and dedicated public servant who possesses the knowledge, demeanor and compassion to serve the country well on the bench. As a female and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she not only adds diversity to the ranks of federal judges, she also brings knowledge of Indian Country issues that we need more of among federal judges.

According to the National Congress of American Indians, Hill, if confirmed, would be the first Native American woman to serve on the federal bench in Oklahoma and only the seventh Native American judge actively serving on the federal bench nationwide.

John Echohawk, executive director of the Native American Rights Fund, said, Sara Hill has a strong history of public service and possesses excellent qualifications to be a federal judge. We applaud the Biden Administrations selection of this historic nominee and urge her confirmation. She will be a strong addition to the federal judiciary in Oklahoma.

Russell, 60, received his bachelors degree from Oklahoma State University in 1985 and his law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1988.

Tulsa Attorney John D. Russell

He was in private practice in Washington, D.C. until joining the tax division of the Justice Department in Washington in 1991. From 1995 to 2002, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Oklahoma. He has been in private practice since 2002 and is currently a shareholder at the GableGotwals law firm, which has offices in Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Houston.

According to the firm, Russell has substantial experience in commercial and criminal litigation involving healthcare, securities, fraud, false claims, class actions, insurance, and antitrust matters. His practice has included representing companies sued by the government and representing companies and individuals under investigation by grand juries or governmental agencies.

Once the White House sends the nominations to the U.S. Senate, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings and votes. The full Senate must confirm the nominations.

Lankford, Mullin praise selections

Oklahomas senators praised the selections of Hill and Russell.

I have personally met with both of them and heard their commitment to the Constitution and strict rule of law, said U.S. Sen. James Lankford, a Republican. I look forward to the Senate Judiciary Committee advancing the nominations and the full Senate confirming them soon so they are able to fill two vacancies in the very overburdened Northern District Court.

U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican, said, As a fellow member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, I am grateful for Sara Hills service to the Tribe, which totals approximately 19 years in the aggregate.

Ms. Hill is very familiar with the Northern District of Oklahoma, having previously served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney. John D. Russell has a strong history in public service as well. Like Ms. Hill, he is familiar with the Northern District, having previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, as well as a trial attorney at the Department of Justices Tax Division. I anticipate a smooth and swift consideration of both candidates by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and their ultimate confirmation by the full Senate.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Biden taps two for judgeships in Oklahoma, including historic first
President Joe Biden tied the wars in Ukraine and Israel together during a primetime Oval Office address Thursday, making an impassioned appeal to the American people to support two fellow democracies that he says are facing existential threats.

The president has often cast this moment in history as an inflection point  a battle between the worlds democracies and autocracies. On Thursday, he argued that this is one of those moments, making a direct appeal to the American people as he sought to build support for US funding for wars abroad that could face a challenging path in Congress, where the House of Representatives remains unable to pass legislation in its second week without a speaker.

Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy, completely annihilate it, Biden said.

We cant let petty partisan, angry politics get in the way of our responsibilities as a great nation. We cannot and will not let terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin win. I refuse to let that happen, he added.

He laid out the stakes for the American people, calling the wars a national security imperative and a critical moment for the future of American leadership and democracies worldwide.

American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us in America safe. American values are what make us a partner nation you want to work with, he said. To put all that at risk  we walk away from Ukraine, we turn our backs on Israel  its just not worth it.

The president said support for both wars is vital for Americas national security.

History has taught us that when terrorists dont pay a price for their terror, when dictators dont pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going. And the cost and the threat to America in the world keep rising, Biden said, warning, If we dont stop Putins appetite for power and control in Ukraine, he wont limit himself just to Ukraine.

And he warned more broadly that the United States adversaries and competitors are watching.

If we walk away and let Putin erase Ukraines independence, would-be aggressors around the world would be emboldened to try the same. The risk of conflict and chaos could spread in other parts of the world  in the Indo Pacific, in the Middle East, especially in the Middle East, Biden said.

A request for more funding

The primetime address took place on the eve of the White House requesting north of $100 billion from Congress to deliver aid and resources to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the US border with Mexico, even though the legislative branch is paralyzed by the dysfunction in the House of Representatives.

The administration has informed lawmakers it plans to seek $14 billion for border security in its new funding package, a marked increase from the previous ask, according to a source familiar. The administration previously asked for $4 billion in supplemental funding to address needs on the US-Mexico border. The new ask encompasses fiscal year 2024, which is why its higher than the supplemental request submitted by the White House over the summer, according to another source familiar.

Biden said he would be submitting an urgent budget request for supplemental funding for Israel and Ukraine, among other national security priorities.

Thats why tomorrow Im going to send to Congress an urgent budget request to fund Americas national security needs  needs to support our critical partners, including Israel and Ukraine. Its a smart investment thats gonna pay dividends for American security for generations, Biden said.

While the White House believes there remains broad bipartisan support in Congress for the package, as three administration officials told CNN, real questions remain about the path for such a package with a leadership vacuum in the House of Representatives and consternation about federal spending levels that have cast into question the governments ability to fund itself beyond mid-November.

The Biden administration in August delivered its last so-called supplemental funding request, which encapsulates unique requests beyond traditional government programs. The proposal requested $24.1 billion to aid Ukraine through the end of the year, but Congress failed to approve it during a process to greenlight short-term federal funding.

Biden reiterated that he will not put American boots on the ground in Ukraine.

I will not send American troops to fight in Ukraine. All Ukraine is asking for is help. For the weapons, munitions, the capacity, the capability of pushing invading Russian forces off their land and the air defense system to shoot down Russian missiles before they destroy Ukrainian cities, he said.

As public opinion toward military aid provision for Ukraine has waned in the last year, Biden also sought to explain the process, tying it to American jobs.

We send Ukrainian equipment sitting in our stockpiles. And when we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores, our own stockpiles, with new equipment. Equipment that defends America and is made in America, he said, pointing to Patriot missiles for air defense batteries that are made in Arizona and artillery shells that are manufactured in 12 states across the country, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas.

Just as in World War II, today, patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom, he said.

Public opinion regarding US assistance has been mixed.

In a recent CNN poll, nearly all respondents were sympathetic with the Israeli people in the wake of surprise attacks launched by Hamas, but there was no clear consensus on the right level of US involvement. One-third (35%) said the US is providing the right amount of assistance  and another 36% were unsure whether the level of US assistance is appropriate. The US has long provided security assistance to Israel, which receives roughly $4 billion annually under a 10-year memorandum of understanding. The new request would provide billions more.

By contrast, support to sustain aid to Ukraine has waned significantly since Russias unprovoked invasion in February 2022. An August CNN poll found 55% of respondents said Congress should not pass more funding to aid Ukraine. The partisan divide has been deepening, too: Nearly three-quarters of Republicans opposed more funding for Ukraine, while 62% of Democrats supported it.

Since Russias invasion, the White House and Congress have provided more than $75 billion in funding to Kyiv, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Speech comes after high-profile visit

The speech comes on the heels of his wartime visit to the Middle East, which went on even after a blast tore through a hospital in Gaza. While his planned stop in Amman, Jordan, to meet Arab leaders was canceled just as the president was preparing to depart the White House, Biden did spend hours on the ground in Tel Aviv.

For Biden, a trip in the formative days of a potentially drawn-out conflict amounted to the ultimate test of his confidence  built over decades  that getting in the same room can influence people and events.

During the speech, the president reflected on the visit, which included a meeting that stretched well past what officials had expected, in which Biden sought to use his decades-long relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  one that has endured significant strain over the past year  to offer advice and seek commitments on the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The terrorist group Hamas unleashed pure, unadulterated evil in the world. But sadly, the Jewish people know, perhaps better than anyone, that there is no limit to the depravity of people when they want to inflict pain on others. In Israel, I saw people who are strong, determined, resilient and also angry, in shock and in deep, deep pain, he said.

He reiterated his support for Americans being held hostage by Hamas.

As I told the families of Americans being held captive by Hamas, were pursuing every avenue to bring their loved ones home. As president, there is no higher priority for me than the safety of Americans held hostage, he said.

He also pointed to an agreement securing sustained delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians, from the United Nations to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, warning Hamas against diverting or stealing the shipments.

The US, Egypt and Israel have all signaled readiness for aid to begin moving into Gaza, following Bidens high-profile visit. However, the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza is not expected to open Friday for a convoy of humanitarian aid to get into Gaza, multiple sources told CNN, despite expectations voiced by Biden and others that it would be open.

I would not put money on those trucks going through tomorrow, one source familiar with the discussions told CNN.

During his address, Biden sought to draw a clear distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian people and argued for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, and innocent Palestinian families are suffering greatly because of them, he said.

The US, he later added, remains committed to the Palestinian peoples right to dignity and to self-determination. The actions of Hamas terrorists dont take that right away.

Biden empathizes with both Muslims and Jews

During Bidens speech, he spoke out forcefully against both Islamophobia and antisemitism, both of which have intensified in recent days, offering comfort and condemnation.

Biden acknowledged the fear from Jewish families worried about being targeted in school, wearing symbols of their faith walking down the street, or going out about their daily life.

And he empathized with Muslim Americans who are outraged saying to yourself, Here we go again, with Islamophobia and distrust we saw after 9/11.

We cant stand by and stand silent where this happens. We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism. We must, also without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia, he said.

Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden spoke Thursday evening with the father and uncle of Wadea Al-Fayoume, the Palestinian American boy stabbed to death in Illinois on Saturday.

The Bidens expressed their deepest condolences to the ( Al-Fayoume) family as they mourn; their prayers that Wadeas mother, Hannan Shahin, makes a full recovery; and their commitment to keep speaking out against anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim hate and violence, the White House said.

Biden invoked the Al-Fayoume family in his Oval Office address.

Just last week, a mother was brutally stabbed. A little boy  here in the United States  a little boy who just turned six years old was murdered in their home outside of Chicago. His name was Wadea, Wadea. A proud American, a proud Palestinian-American family, Biden said.

He offered a message of recognition to those impacted: To all of you hurting, those of you hurting, I want you to know I see you. You belong. I want to say this to you: Youre all American.

In moments like these, and when fears and suspicion, anger and rage run hard, we have to work harder than ever to hold onto the values that make us who we are, he said.

While he said that Americans should not forget who we are, he also warned that the government of Israel should not be blinded by rage.

The message  tinged with hard-learned lessons from life in the United States after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks  echoed thoughts Biden shared with Israelis while in Tel Aviv the day before.

I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it, Biden told his audience, a collection of Israelis and Americans.

I know the choices are never clear or easy for the leadership, Biden went on, recalling mistakes the United States made after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Theres always cost, but it requires being deliberate, requires asking very hard questions. That requires clarity about the objectives and an honest assessment about whether the path youre on will achieve those objectives.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated

CNNs Jake Tapper, Jennifer Hansler, Alex Marquardt, MJ Lee and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.

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It is true that this new war is another chapter in a many decades-long crisis in the Middle East, however, the events of Oct. 7  and Israels response to them  are very different. On that horrible day, Hamas killed more than 1,400 people, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians. This is the largest number of Jewish people killed in one twenty-four-hour period since the Holocaust. In response to Hamas terror attacks and hostage-taking on Oct. 7, the Israeli military has launched airstrikes and engaged in other kinetic actions in Gaza. Israel said it dropped 6,000 bombs on the Gaza Strip during the first six days of war with Hamas, that is more bombs than the US-led coalition dropped in any month during the fight against ISIS. Israel has also mobilized 300,000 reserve soldiers in preparation for a ground invasion.

In response to this crisis, President Joe Biden will be visiting Israel on Wednesday with the goal of signaling Americas support, showing concern about protecting the human rights of the people who live in Gaza, and also trying to ensure that the war does not spread into a larger regional conflict that could potentially involve the United States, Iran, and perhaps even Russia.

And never to be overlooked: a prolonged war between Israel and Hamas (especially if it includes the (re)occupation of Gaza) will come at great human cost to both sides. Israels blockade of Gaza has already resulted in shortages of fresh water, food, fuel, medical supplies, and other essentials. Hospitals have also been destroyed by Israels air attacks. The Palestinian Health Ministry is reporting that at least 3,000 people in Gaza have already been killed by Israels air attacks.

In an attempt to better understand what may come next in the Israel  Hamas war, President Bidens (and Americas) unique relationship with Israel, and why comparing the terrorist attacks of Oct. 7 to those of Sept. 11 may not be that useful, I recently spoke with Aaron David Miller. He is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign policy. Between 1978 and 2003, Miller served at the State Department as an historian, analyst, negotiator, and advisor to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, where he helped formulate U.S. policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process, most recently as the senior advisor for Arab-Israeli negotiations. He is a recipient of the State Departments Distinguished, Superior, and Meritorious Honor Awards.

Miller is also a global affairs analyst for CNN and is a frequent commentator on NPR, BBC, and Sirius XM radio.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

As a human being and an expert on international relations and the Middle East, how are you managing your emotions of the terror attacks by Hamas on Israel and what is now a war?

I have spent more than 20 years as a Middle East analyst, negotiator, and advisor in a half dozen administrations. In response to a crisis like this, I would have been incredibly active. I've been through my fair share of crises on the Arab Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian side. But over the last 20-some years since leaving government, I vowed to create an analytical lane in our public conversation, a "look in the mirror lane," where I confront what we did right and what we did wrong. In doing that I tried to detach myself, to the degree I could, from selling American policy. I am also a member of the American Jewish community; I spent a lot of time in Israel. I felt myself falling almost immediately into the role of analyst, not advocate. I thought to myself how odd, I mean, look at the suffering. More Jews were killed within that 24-hour period in any day since the end of the Holocaust.

With the Israeli blockade, and the punishing airstrikes in Gaza, what is going to become the future for 3.2 million Palestinians? Half of whom are under the age of 15, literally, with nowhere else to go. I must examine this crisis in terms of the Israeli dimension, the Palestinian dimension, and look for some sort of place where I can continue to separate my role as a human being with all of the emotions tugging me in various directions, from my role as an analyst. If I wasn't able to do all these interviews, I believe that I would be in a much worse place given my commitment to doing everything possible to achieve an equitable and durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The other thing that comes to mind is how I was in Jerusalem on Oct. 6, 1973. There are reminiscences of the sirens wailing, it was a complete blackout. In one of my CNN interviews, I told the host that there was no CNN, there was no social media, there was no internet, there was a complete blackout. It was traumatic: 2,800 Israelis died. But within six years 1979  the Israelis would sign a treaty of peace with Egypt. So, 20 years later, I'm sitting on the White House lawn, watching Arafat, Rabin, and Clinton sign the Oslo Accords, convinced in what became a galactic misjudgment, that the Israeli-Palestinian issue would now become irreversible. 1973 went from trauma to hope; 1993 from hope to trauma. I'm very cautious and risk-averse in pronouncing and making final judgments because the arc of history bends in very strange and unpredictable ways that we cannot foresee.

What type of work is being done by the narrative frame that these attacks are the equivalent of 9/11 for Israel? When I hear that language, I am deeply concerned because of the strategic miscalculations that the United States made after those attacks and the massive human tragedy those decisions caused.

First of all, it depends on who's saying it.

9/11 was an idiosyncratic American response. What happened here bears some resemblance. Intelligence failure. The savagery and the brutality were taken from the ISIS playbook  which I suspect was inspired by ISIS and Al Qaeda videos. But I think that's where the analogy really ends. 9/11 and what followed was America's effort to guarantee its security based on the premise that the U.S. would now be vulnerable to terror attacks. That was the new story. We do not have a proximity problem with al Qaeda or ISIS.

The Israeli context here is very different. Neither Palestinians nor Israelis, the adversaries, Hamas and the government of Israel, the Israeli public, however you want to sort describe this conflict, neither side has anywhere else to go. That poses a different set of challenges for the Israeli government. This is not Algeria under the French where the French could sail away. This is not the North Americans or French in Vietnam or the Russians in Afghanistan. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a place to go and they're not going anywhere. The proximity problem necessitates an entirely different set of responses. If you follow the logic chain of 9/11 in Israel, it will mean a perpetual conflict, literally kilometers away from their border  and that's not sustainable. That hasn't been the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the last 40 years. Yes, there has been violence, two Intifadas. But it's been highlighted by periods of accommodation and tension and actual agreements in the Arab-Israeli arena. This has been marked by many kinds of twists and turns. I really don't like that 9/11 comparison.

And then of course, the fear and desire for retribution took the United States into the two longest wars in American history where the standard for winning was not could we win, but when and how can we extricate ourselves from Afghanistan in Iraq? It cost the United States, the Afghan people, and the Iraqi people enormous sacrifice. For what? I hope that's not the logic chain that people are creating for this particular and horrific round of events in Israel and Gaza and the region .... because there will be other rounds.

What were the types of conversations that were taking place in Israel at the highest levels as these attacks took place and in the immediate aftermath?

There is a national unity government in Israel, which is frankly the only piece of good news over the last week or so. Of note, the national unity government has brought in former Defense Minister Benny Gantz. These are hardened veterans. They're rational thinkers. They're not going to be pushed into anything by the extremists in Netanyahu's government. They're also not going to be pushed into anything with respect to the Prime Minister's peculiar political problem that he has. This will be as logical and rational a set of decisions made because the Israeli Defense Forces has for decades avoided what is about to happen in Gaza. They avoided it for several reasons. This operation will be Fallujah on steroids and there is the day after problem.

There is also a type of symbiosis here, which I wrote about in Foreign Affairs in 2014. For the Netanyahu government, three states were the ideal solution. Hamas is staying in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority controls 40% of the West Bank. The state of Israel. That is a good status quo for Netanyahu. Because if you had a unified Palestinian national movement, one gun, one authority, and one negotiating position. they might have had some leverage in serious negotiations with Israel. That's not what Netanyahu wants; He doesn't want to become the midwife of the Palestinian state; he wants to become the midwife of an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement.

What makes this attack by Hamas so different is the intelligence and operational failure and how this is the largest terror attack in the history of the state of Israel. Hamas engaged in vicious, barbaric, savage, ISIS-style indiscriminate killings, and took hostages. The Israelis are not going to repeat the US and the invasion of Iraq with insufficient forces and a willful misunderstanding of the terrain. If the Israelis fail, they will withdraw. They're not going to permanently reoccupy Gaza. It is not clear what the day after entails.

If you believe their rhetoric, it's not just a question of destroying Hamas's military capacity, it is a question of destroying their sovereignty and ability to govern Gaza. Hamas is not a membership organization with cards and meetings and social occasions. It's a movement. It was formed in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it has deep roots in that community. It represents an idea. I'm struggling against Israel! I asked a Palestinian decades ago, "why do you support Arafat?" He said Arafat is a stone that I throw at the Israelis every day. An American version of this is that Donald Trump is a stone various constituencies throw at the elites or their own anger or whatever. Hamas is a stone that Gazans throw at the Israelis  even though Hamas brings misery down on their heads. What happens now is that they are going to experience the most misery of them all after these attacks on Oct. 7.

What were the types of conversations in the Biden administration like? What are the calculations there?

Washington's calculations are different. The presidential model here for Biden is Bill Clinton. Biden is in love with the concept of Israel, the idea of Israel, which was probably fashioned during the late 60s, early 70s. He's an American president who has more experience with Israeli prime ministers and more experience with Israel than any other president in the history of the country. He feels himself part of the Israeli story. He has no love for Benjamin Netanyahu. But he has a tremendous sensibility toward the protection of Israeli security interests. During Biden's speech about the Hamas attacks on Israel, he talked about "the black hole of loss." That's a specific reference to his own losses in life. So, his persona impels him to the default position which is that the United States is going to support Israel. The politics are heavily in that direction too, because the Republican Party has emerged as the go-to party on Israel, "The Israel, right or wrong party." Biden cannot afford nor does he want to be painted as an adversary of Israel, and he does not want to show weakness.

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My read on this is that President Biden has clearly communicated that he's prepared to give the Israelis the time, the space, and the support, $2 billion, and probably a supplemental, to do what they think they need to do. But in being so supportive of Israel now, Biden has preserved the leverage that he's going to have to use to have some very tough conversations with Netanyahu about how the war is going. When is the time to stop? What about proportionality? What are you doing about all the civilian casualties and deaths? Will the U.S. be involved intimately in trying to pick up the pieces? It depends on how it ends. But the humanitarian impact as a result of Israeli airstrikes and blockades is turning out to be a catastrophe  more than 2,600 Palestinians killed and 9,000 wounded according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Biden is ramping up the pressure on Israel to ameliorate this dimension of the crisis.

How do we balance Israel's security concerns and inherent right to self-defense with protecting the human rights of the people in Gaza and the Occupied territories? It is regular people on both sides who are going to be made to suffer because of the decisions of their leaders.

You're asking for a balance that the United States has never struck. It's never struck a balance because of our country's special relationship with Israel. It's not that we're heartless or cruel. It's that we have this special relationship with the Israelis. My concern is the margin of dehumanization. But I don't think that's the problem for the administration. If Biden said to the Israelis, listen, I feel your pain, but you're not going to do this. What do you mean we're not going to do it? Biden tells the Israelis that we're going to sanction you. Unless you adopt our view of what you should do in response to these Hamas attacks this is going to have a very negative impact on the US-Israeli relationship. That conversation might take place in a galaxy far, far away. But it's not going to take place on planet Earth, that's for sure. There's no justice in this conflict on this side of heaven. There just isn't. Think about 9/11 again. Where you stand is where you sit. Israel has been through three 9/11s proportionally. What did the US do in the wake of 9/11? We're gonna get them! We're gonna kill them! There was bipartisan and public support for that. Let's be honest. There's no point dancing around this. The United States is preternaturally supportive of Israel. We will have influence with the Israelis at some point as this conflict evolves  and probably just to de-escalate it. But not now.

What is your assessment of the concern that the war between Israel and Hamas could expand into a larger regional conflict?

It's possible. But I don't see Iranian or Hezbollah calculations now trending in the direction of wanting to escalate. But it's a war, and it takes twists and turns and people make mistakes.
President Biden is set to deploy the bully pulpit in his push to maintain Americas support for Ukraine and lay out a vision for the U.S.s role in the unfolding war between Israel and Hamas.

Recent polls have shown that voters are steadily souring on U.S. support for Ukraines war against Russia, while about half of Americans trust Biden to handle the Middle East conflict.

Biden had initially planned on a major speech aimed at convincing the public on his pledge to stand by Ukraine. But the Israel-Hamas conflict has turned it into a two-pronged address, as he seeks to rally support in Congress for a robust security package.

Experts said Biden will need to choose his words carefully on Thursday evening.

One of the challenges of this speech is that he needs to link the conflicts in some meaningful way, said Matthew Waxman, a former senior official at the State Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council.

He wants to avoid the appearance that these are kind of unrelated things and they both just happen to be coming up at the same time. He needs to, in a compelling way, link the two.

Russias brutal war against Ukraine has been raging since February 2021, when Moscows forces flooded over the border in an attempted incursion that U.S. officials had predicted for months.

But the conflict between Israel and Hamas took the world by surprise when on Oct. 7 Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, launched terrorist attacks that left more than 1,000 Israelis dead.

Thousands more Palestinians have since been killed in ensuing retaliatory airstrikes from Israel into Gaza, and Israel is threatening a ground invasion.

Biden previously condemned Hamass attack on Israel in an Oct. 10 address, but polls since have shown little change to his overall approval rating. Four different national polls conducted since the speech showed his approval rating between 31 percent and 44 percent.

And despite his foreign policy credentials as a vice president and senator, hes only faring slightly better in that realm.

A majority of respondents to an Economist poll taken ahead of his trip to Israel were uneasy about Bidens ability to handle an international crisis. And 54 percent of people in a CNN poll said they have not much or no trust in his ability to make the right decisions on Israel  similar to his numbers on Ukraine.

Biden visited Israel Wednesday to show support and broker a deal to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. He posted on X, formerly Twitter, Thursday about the gravity of his address.

Hamass terrorist attacks against Israel. The need for humanitarian assistance in Gaza. Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine, he wrote.

We are at a global inflection point that is bigger than party or politics. Tonight, Ill address the nation at 8:00 PM ET from the Oval Office.

The timing of the presidents speech shows the consequential nature of both conflicts to U.S. interests, said Waxman, who is now with Columbia Law School.

This comes at a time when there are political factions in the public, in Congress, on both the right and the left, who are really advocating for a significant pulling back of United States leadership in the world and security commitments abroad, he said.

I would expect that he would talk about both of these conflicts as demonstrating the continuing need for strong American leadership, including a strong role as a security guarantor around the world.

Other former officials say the speech presents an opportunity for Biden to make the case for Americas vital interest in the security of the two countries.

Simply announcing U.S. financial support does not do the job, Jim Gilmore, the former governor of Virginia and ambassador for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said in a statement.

Americans deserve to know why money is being spent to oppose aggression by those who seek to undermine our safety and the safety of our allies. America first does not mean America alone.

And former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told The Hill that the clear national security interests the U.S. has in Russias defeat has not been explained to the American people, nor has the reason why we are committing the resources we are committing.

If Biden lays out our interests, how Americans security, American prosperity are safeguarded by this policy, [that] we had to contain an aggressive Russia  which will take a long time  American support for this policy will go up substantially. So far, he and his administration have not done that, added Herbst, who is now a senior director of the Atlantic Councils Eurasia Center.

Also shown in recent surveys was the slow crumble of the once high level of public support for arming Ukraine. A poll conducted earlier this month found that just 41 percent of respondents agreed that the United States should provide weapons to Ukraine, down from 65 percent of respondents who said the same in June.

Even lower than that was support for sending financial aid to Ukraine, with only 37 percent of respondents agreeing that Washington should give financial assistance, the survey showed.

Another poll, released the same week, showed a growing partisan split over the issue with Republicans less likely to support either kind of assistance to Ukraine. The divide is expected given that the issue has become central in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, with a more isolationist view of foreign policy dominating the hard-right side of the party.

Ukraine funding was also a major reason for the House standoff that almost caused a government shutdown at the end of September, with far-right GOP lawmakers refusing to budge on the issue.

While some Republicans have come out in opposition to Bidens effort to link Ukraine and Israel aid  along with funds for Taiwan and U.S. border security  the proposal has the backing of key GOP figures including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas).

Waxman said a major challenge for Biden will be explaining persuasively that the United States is not overstretched and has the will, the capacity and the resources to support both conflicts.

Some Republicans have already demanded a more concrete strategy from the administration on Ukraine before they can loosen their purse strings.

In a letter sent to Biden Oct. 6, McCaul and Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member James Risch (R-Idaho) called for the White House to engage transparently with Congress on its strategy for helping Kyiv win the war.

A pledge to support Ukraine for as long as it takes is not a strategy, they wrote.

Fred Kagan, the head of the American Enterprise Institutes Critical Threats Project, said mounting questions about Americas role in Ukraine were justified 19 months into the war, with no clear end in sight.

All of the leaders in the United States who understand why this is Americas vital interest [should] get up now and loudly answer the question because its easily answerable, he said.

Questions are also being raised over Israels strategy as it seeks to eliminate Hamas and is threatening to launch a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip. Biden himself warned Israels government not to make the mistakes of the U.S. in responding to the 9/11 attacks.

At the fore of global concerns over the Israel-Hamas war is an expansion of the conflict that brings American troops in direct conflict with Iran and its proxies.

However, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, during an interview with ABC Thursday morning, said avoiding war with Iran would not be part of Bidens prime-time message.

What the president is going to be doing is laying out for the American people a description of the moment we are in  a crisis in Ukraine that has been going on now more than a year and a half, an emergent crisis with our close friend an ally in Israel  and connect that national moment to American lives back here, he said.

And why this is a moment in which the administration needs to respond and we believe congress as well needs to act to make sure that we have the resources to be able to continue our leadership.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
US President Joe Biden addresses the nation on the conflict between Israel and Gaza and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (JONATHAN ERNST)

President Joe Biden made an impassioned call for the United States to show global leadership by backing Israel and Ukraine, saying in a speech from the Oval Office Thursday that defeating Hamas and Russia was a vital US interest.

Biden, 80, said he would make an "urgent" request to Congress on Friday for funding to help Ukraine and Israel, arguing that this was an investment for the United States' future on the world stage for decades to come.

"American leadership is what holds the world together," Biden said in just the second primetime speech to the nation of his presidency from behind the historic Resolute Desk.

Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin "represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy," he added.

"We cannot and will not let terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin win. I refuse to let that happen."

Fresh from a whirlwind trip to Israel this week, the Democratic president wants to win over war-weary voters and hardline Republicans as he ramps up his 2024 reelection bid.

His 15-minute speech was a call to Americans to overcome deep political divisions and unite behind support for two conflicts that he said posed a critical threat to the US despite being an ocean away.

- 'Beacon to the world' -

"We can't let petty partisan angry politics get in the way of our responsibility as a great nation," said Biden said, with the Stars and Stripes and a flag of the US presidential seal behind him.

"America is a beacon to the world. Still. Still," he said.

Biden also called for an end to a surge in both anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim prejudice in the United States, especially after the killing of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy in an alleged hate crime linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

"To all of you hurting, I want you to know, I see you," he said. "You're all American."

The White House is said to be teeing up a huge request to Congress for a package of more than $100 billion. The package includes $60 billion for weapons for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, the New York Times reported.

It also includes $7 billion in security assistance for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region to counter threats from China, $14 billion for security on the southern US border with Mexico and $10 billion in humanitarian aid for conflict zones, it said.

Biden said the money was a "smart investment that's going to pay dividends for American security for generations."

Presidents traditionally reserve speeches from the solemn setting of the Oval Office for moments of key national significance.

Biden's only previous address from there was in June when he hailed a deal with Congress to avert what would have been a catastrophic US debt default.

- 'Appetite for power' -

But Congress has now been paralyzed for more than two weeks as divided Republicans, who hold the majority in the House, fail repeatedly to agree on electing a House speaker.

Hard-right Republicans, and a growing number of voters, are also strongly opposed to adding to the $43.9 billion in security assistance that the United States has committed to Ukraine since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Just before the speech, Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he visited on a top secret trip to Kyiv in February.

Zelensky welcomed the recent delivery of ATACMS long-range missiles from the United States, adding: "Ukraine is grateful for the vital and enduring US support."

In his speech, Biden took aim again and again at Russia's Putin, warning that "if we don't stop Putin's appetite for power and control in Ukraine, he won't limit himself just to Ukraine."

Biden will be hoping his strong tone on the Israel-Hamas war plays well with an eye on US voters where there is strong support for Israel -- even if leftwing Democrats oppose his stance.

In Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Biden backed Israel as it gears up for a ground invasion of Gaza after the October 7 attacks by Hamas which killed more than 1,400 people.

But he also brokered a deal to get some aid through Egypt into the Gaza Strip, where Israeli bombing since has killed at least 3,785 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas health ministry.

The threat of a wider Middle Eastern conflict meanwhile looms in the background.

The United States has already moved two aircraft carriers into the eastern Mediterranean to deter Iran or Lebanon's Hezbollah, both allies of Hamas, from getting involved.

dk/tjj
The Biden administration will ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil in exchange for election reforms.

A senior administration official told reporters Thursday evening that the U.S. would provide limited sanctions relief to Venezuela, primarily its oil and gas sector.

The move comes as a result of an agreement signed by Venezuelas government and opposition that included allowing international observers to monitor elections.

The Biden official described this agreement as the most viable pathway for competitive elections, the restoration of democracy and an end to a humanitarian crisis in the South American nation.

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The official described the sanctions relief the U.S. will provide as temporary, limited authorizations, primarily in the oil and gas sector. Other sanctions and restrictions the U.S. has put on the country will remain in place, the person said.

They argued that the goal of sanctions is ultimately to result in positive changes.

In 2019, the Trump administration imposed new sanctions on Venezuelas state-owned oil company as part of an attempt to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to give up power.

Maduro was last reelected in 2018 in a contest that the U.S. described as a sham.

Reports that had surfaced earlier this week indicated that sanctions relief would come. Republicans pushed back on the idea.

The current administration is turning to genocidal regimes, like Maduro in Venezuela and Iran, in an attempt to bring in more oil, when Biden should put America first and build up our own energy independence, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said in a written statement this week, discussing a GOP bill to bar oil imports from the country.

However, U.S. oil production recently hit an all-time high.

The easing of oil sanctions, meanwhile, comes as violence rocks the Middle East  adding a degree of uncertainty in the oil market. Oil analysts have said that if Iran is found to be directly involved in a recent attack on Israel, it could raise oil prices.

Miranda Nazzaro contributed.

Updated 8:34 p.m.

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Photo: Times Colonist A male Roosevelt elk is caught on a trail camera grazing on a North Vancouver mountain.

A Vancouver Island man has been fined $5,100 and banned from hunting for two years after illegally killing a Roosevelt elk near Chemainus.

Kyle Watson-Harley pleaded guilty in provincial court to killing wildlife out of season, according to the B.C. Conservation Officer Service.

There is no general open hunting season for Roosevelt elk on Vancouver Island as the large animals are considered a threatened species. There is, however, an annual limited elk hunt draw where a few tags are issued each year.

The incident involving Watson-Harley took place in 2019 in the Copper Canyon area, near Chemainus. Conservation officers received a tip, which resulted in the investigation and conviction.

The elk meat was confiscated and donated to the Stzuminus First Nation near Ladysmith. The majority of the fine will go toward the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation.

The Conservation Officer Service said its hoped the conviction will help to deter others from illegal hunting.

Incidents of poaching can be reported to the Report All Poachers and Polluters (RAPP) hotline at 1-877-952-7277.

The University of Victoria estimates there are about 3,000 Roosevelt elk on Vancouver Island.

Among all other species, Roosevelt elk are larger in size with larger and more rugged antlers. A mature bull can weigh over 500 kilograms and a cow about two-thirds that size.
Joe Biden is preparing to nominate Kurt Campbell as the next deputy secretary of State, three people familiar with the decision said, elevating the architect of the president's China and Indo-Pacific strategy to the nations second-highest diplomatic post.

Campbells frontrunner status has been known for weeks, after Biden asked the State Departments top choice for the role, principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, to remain in his current position. Wendy Sherman, the administrations first deputy secretary, retired in the summer.

Two of the people familiar with the decision said Campbell is nearing the end of his vetting process, and hell be formally nominated by the president once the review is completed successfully, as expected. But given a severe bottleneck in the Senate for confirmations, its unclear when hell get a hearing or even a vote.

Spokespeople for the National Security Council and State Department didnt respond to requests for comment. Campbell didnt immediately offer comment about his forthcoming nomination.

Campbell, the National Security Council coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, has had a hand in virtually everything the Biden administration has done on Asia policy. The nuclear submarine deal with the U.K. and Australia known as AUKUS was his brainchild, and he quietly worked to make it a reality, keeping the development away from many colleagues who were surprised by the deals formal announcement.

France, whose own submarine deal with Australia was sidelined by AUKUS, was also caught off guard, and Paris anger led to a diplomatic kerfuffle that Campbells Europe-focused colleagues had to quash.

That work, and other initiatives, stem from Campbells efforts during the Obama administration to pivot to Asia. This included sending more U.S. troops to the region, strengthening ties with regional allies, growing partnerships with less friendly countries wary of China and taking a harder line on Beijing. Multiple U.S. officials say that the administrations current approach toward China and the region writ large was devised by Campbell.

U.S. policy toward China should seek to achieve not a definitive end state akin to the Cold Wars ultimate conclusion but a steady state of clear-eyed coexistence on terms favorable to U.S. interests and values, he wrote in a 2019 Foreign Affairs article with Jake Sullivan, now the national security adviser, titled  Competition Without Catastrophe .

Coexistence means accepting competition as a condition to be managed rather than a problem to be solved.

One of the people familiar with Campbells potential move said he may use the job to further centralize U.S. competition with China in the State Departments work.

The Biden administration took office with the goal of taking Beijing on in multiple arenas while avoiding war, but it has faced other pressing challenges demanding senior-level attention, namely Russias invasion of Ukraine and now the Israel-Hamas war.

An outstanding question of Campbell's move is what happens to Victoria Nuland, the acting deputy secretary who was also in line for the post. Nuland did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Biden on Thursday spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hours before delivering a prime-time address, during which he is expected to make the case for ongoing U.S. support for Israel and Ukraine as both allies are engaged in conflicts.

The White House said Biden and Zelensky spoke about Americas continued commitment to supporting Ukraine amidst Russias brutal war, while Zelensky elaborated on the conversation in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

During our call, President Biden sent a strong message of US support for Ukrainefor as long as it takes to prevail, Zelensky wrote. I am grateful to Mr. President, both parties of the US Congress, and the entire American people for their powerful assistance and leadership.

American leadership helps rally the world behind the common cause of protecting life and rules-based international order, Zelensky added.

Biden will address the nation at 8 p.m. Thursday to discuss the U.S. response to Hamass terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing war against Ukraine.

The address is a day after Biden visited Israel in a show of solidarity with the country following the Hamas attacks and amid concerns about a wider conflict in the Middle East.

It also comes as the White House prepares to send a supplemental funding request to Congress seeking aid for Israel and Ukraine. The total ask could reportedly amount to roughly $100 billion, also including funding for Taiwan and U.S. border security.

The Biden administration has moved military assets closer to the conflict in support of Israel and has sent munitions and interceptors for the Iron Dome defense system. Biden on Wednesday previewed that he would ask Congress for an unprecedented support package for Israels defense.

At the same time, Congress has provided billions of dollars in military and financial assistance to Ukraine in the roughly 20 months since Russia launched an unprovoked invasion in February 2022.

While there is bipartisan support for Israel and Ukraine in Congress, some House Republicans have voiced opposition to continued aid for Ukraine, questioning how it benefits the U.S. and suggesting they would oppose tying funding for both nations together.

Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser to Biden, said Thursday morning on MSNBC that Biden would use the speech to illustrate why continued U.S. support for Israel and Ukraine matters.

This will be very much a message to the American people, Finer said. How those conflicts connect to our lives back here. How support from the American people and the Congress, frankly, is essential.

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President Joe Biden gave a sarcastic response when he was asked about the current predicament facing the GOPs beleaguered House Speaker nominee Jim Jordan.

A third round of voting for speakership is due to take place on Thursday, after the Ohio Republican fell short of the required number of votes needed to take the gavel for a second time.

On Wednesday, 22 Republicans voted against Mr Jordan  an even poorer performance from his first vote when 20 members of his party defected.

On his return from a trip to Israel on Wednesday, Mr Biden was asked if he had any thoughts on Mr Jordans inability to secure the speakership.

Putting his hand across his heart, a smiling Mr Biden replied: I ache for him.

He laughed and added: No, zero. None.

In Wednesdays vote, Mr Jordan  who is seeking to become the next House speaker after Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the role by his own party and congressman Steve Scalise withdrew from the race last week  lost further support from his party.

While some Republicans switched to support Mr Jordan, the Ohio Republican lost the support of Reps Vern Buchanan of Florida, Drew Ferguson of Georgia, Marianette Miller Meeks of Iowa and Pete Stauber of Minnesota.

Rep Tom Cole, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, delivered a nominating speech to rally supporters for Mr Jordan, citing Mr Jordans personal integrity and calling on the House to get back to work.

Conversely, Rep Pete Aguilar, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, nominated House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Joe Biden laughs at Jim Jordans speaker bid chaos (AFP via Getty Images)

The country cannot afford more delays and more chaos, he said. Fifteen days should be enough.

The vote comes as some Republicans, led by Rep David Joyce of Ohio, have discussed potentially giving Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry more power so the House could resume deliberation to pass spending bills to avert a government shutdown.

After the vote, Mr McHenry huddled with Rep French Hill of Arkansas; Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, who opposed Mr Jordan; David Joyce of Ohio and Brian Fitzpatrick on the floor of the House. Mr Kelly told The Independent that he did not know if such a resolution could pass.

I dont know I really dont know because we havent brought it up yet, he said. Mr Kelly voted for former House speaker Boehner on the second round.

Rep Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), who opposed Mr Jordan, told The Independent would not say whether it meant that Mr Jordan should step aside.

You need to ask Mr Jordan that. Thats his personal decision, he said. I think that this is an indication thats not getting any better. And it may actually get worse in the next round.

Jim Jordan and Patrick McHenry in the House (Getty Images)

Mr Gimenez said he would be open to a resolution to empower the speaker pro tempore.

What Im saying generally, that I would support something that would open the House and get us back into business as we iron our differences out, he said.

But Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) did not commit one way when asked about empowering Mr McHenry.

Id have to see what the options are on the table, she told The Independent.

Despite Wednesdays disappointment, Mr Jordan remained upbeat, telling reporters: We got 200 votes. We picked up some today, a couple of them dropped off but they voted for me before, I think theyll come back again.

So well keep talking to members, keep working on it.
The strike on Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City with a feared death toll of hundreds  many of them women, children and the elderly  was carnage on a scale shocking even by the lethal tallies of the Gaza wars.

It came at a critical time, with Joe Biden flying into the region to try and stop this conflict from getting out of control, and the explosion raises significant obstacles to that taking place swiftly.

The news of the strike on the hospital, with initial reports of at least 500 dead led to anger and widespread condemnation in the region and beyond.

The Israeli military announced, after five hours, that the deaths were due to a rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad which had fallen short onto the hospital car park. This was followed later with supporting imagery which also purported to show that craters and structural damage from an Israeli missile were not present. An intercepted conversation allegedly between two Islamic Jihad fighters was produced to enforce the narrative of misfire.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health report that 471 people have died after the blast (Anadolu via Getty)

Both the main militant groups in Gaza  Hamas and Islamic Jihad  refuted the Israeli claims. The Gaza Health Ministry has now said 471 people had died and 314 were wounded in the blast. It is a number disputed as inflated by Israel, without offering their own total.

The blame game continued, but the key part of Mr Bidens visit to the region, a meeting in Jordan with King Abdullah, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, and the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was cancelled. The Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said the summit would be held only when the decision to stop the war and put an end to the massacres was taken.

The US president met Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and told the Israeli prime minister in front of the media: It appears as though it has been done by the other team, not you. But theres a lot of people out there not sure, so weve got to overcome a lot of things.

The cancellation of the Amman meeting means that an American plan involving aid for Gaza, allowing some from the territory into Egypt, the possible freeing of Israeli hostages by Hamas, and a tentative long-term plan for Gaza could not be properly pursued.

Biden announced that an agreement had been reached with Israel to move aid into the territory from Egypt. Much of that, however, has been stuck at the border with Gaza in recent days. The basis for a longer-term aid plan, linked to an eventual ceasefire, could have come from from the summit, say diplomats.

That meeting could still take place, but overcoming a lot of things as Biden put it, would mean overcoming the stance taken by the Arab states which backed the claim that the killings were from an Israeli air strike and not self-inflicted by the Palestinians.

Condemnation of Israel for the attack came from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, two countries which have established ties with the Abraham Accords of 2020, from Morocco, which recognised Israel in the same year, and Egypt which, in 1979, was the first Arab country to normalise relations with Tel Aviv.

Saudi Arabia, with which Israel is eager to establish strong relations, called the hospital blast a heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) described what happened as a war crime, a crime against humanity, and organised state terrorism.

The Biden administration had started off being unequivocal in its support for Israel following the Hamas assault 10 days ago which led to 1,400 deaths and 200 captives being taken back to Gaza. It appeared to indicate that the high number of casualties and large-scale destruction which would result from Israeli attacks would be acceptable because of what had happened.

But there have been subtle changes to the rhetoric since then. President Biden had warned of the difficulties Israel would face if it returned to a full occupation of Gaza. American officials have started saying that collective punishment for Palestinians for the sins of Hamas is wrong. The focus on helping the population of Gaza was highlighted by the appointment of David Satterfield, a veteran diplomat with knowledge of Arab states, as a special envoy on humanitarian issues.

One reason for this change, according to diplomatic sources, has been the reaction on the Arab Street to the US backing for Israeli air strikes and siege of Gaza. The chant death to America has been heard after a long while in protest marches, including in Bahrain, a close ally where the US has one of its main naval bases in the region.

Lebanese riot police spray water canons at those protesting in solidarity with the Palestinian people (AP)

There are now indications that the Israeli government would welcome attempts at diplomatic  and strategic  gains which may lessen the need for a war which would last for a long time. And would be followed by having to administer a destroyed Gaza.

The Israeli government declared war in the aftermath of the Hamas atrocities, with the military saying it is preparing to attack by land, sea and air to destroy Hamas. In the last few days, however, officers from the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have been telling the media that a full-scale ground war may not take place after all: there are other ways of beating Hamas.

There may well be more than one reason for this. Broadcasting operational plans to the enemy is not normally considered good military practice. And there is some evidence that Israeli forces are not ready right now to undertake such a huge mission.

But, also, the attempts to row back on full war began as news came of the Biden visit and his meeting with Arab leaders. The US president would be able to wring decisions from them it was thought, with suitable monetary encouragement, which would be favourable to Israel.

There is the shadow of another regional state, Iran, over this crisis. Iran backs Hamas and also Hezbollah in Lebanon. There have been claims that the Iranians were complicit in the Hamas raid. But no demonstrative evidence of this has been provided and Israeli military and intelligence services say they are not aware of any direct links.

The Iranians, as to be expected, have been loudly denouncing Israel in this conflict, threatening that an axis of resistance will open on multiple fronts for Israel.

However, the most obvious front, the one with Lebanon, has remained relatively quiet. There have been incursions by gunmen into Israel, resulting in them being shot dead. But they could well have been from Palestinian groups allowed by Hezbollah to go forward. Hezbollah themselves have not mobilised their reserves, or cleared border villages and south Beirut, as they would be expected to do in preparing for war.

That may change if Palestinian deaths continue to rise in such an appalling rate and a bloody ground war gets underway. Israel may then find itself fighting a war on two fronts, one with a formidable enemy in Hezbollah, which will need substantial American military aid. An outbreak of fighting in that area close to Syria risks the spread of more combustible instability.

It is becoming increasingly clear, say concerned diplomats, that the current state of ferocious violence is unlikely to end without the help of neighbouring states. And for that, President Bidens Arab diplomatic campaign needs to get back on track.
WASHINGTON  Fresh off a visit to Israel following the Hamas terror attack that killed more than 1,300 Israelis, President Joe Biden pitched a $100 billion plan Thursday night to help both that country and Ukraine defend themselves as well as to provide humanitarian relief for the 2 million residents of Gaza.

I know these conflicts can seem far away. Its natural to ask, Why does this matter to America? Let me share with you why making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed is vital for Americas national security, Biden said from the Oval Office in the White House, only his second such address of his presidency.

History has taught us that when terrorists dont pay a price for their terror, when dictators dont pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going, and the cost and the threats to America and the world keep rising, he said.

While Biden has, many times over the past year and a half, explained his rationale for supporting Ukraine in its efforts to fight Russias invasion, this was his first time to do so in a prime-time speech.

In it, he drew parallels between Hamas and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to make his case for military help for Israel and Ukraine. Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy, Biden said.

He said he would send Congress an urgent budget request on Friday to fund Americas national security needs.

Its a smart investment thats going to pay dividends for American security for generations, he said.

Biden detailed both his trip to Israel on Wednesday as well as his journey to Ukraine eight months earlier. He again emphasized his insistence in conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel must abide by the laws of war as it carries out its military actions against Hamas, which meant safeguarding Palestinian civilians who are also victims of the terror group. Israel has been pummeling Gaza with airstrikes for the past week and a half and is expected to launch a ground offensive there in the coming days.

We mourn every innocent life lost. We cant ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace, he said.

He also reminded his audience of the tactics Russian soldiers have used against Ukrainians since the invasion began. Weve not forgotten the mass graves. The bodies found bearing signs of torture. Rape used as a weapon by the Russians, and thousands and thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly taken into Russia, stolen from their parents, he said. Its sick.

And Biden cautioned Americans against both antisemitism as well as Islamophobia at home amid so much anger, recounting the story of Wadea Al Fayoume, a 6-year-old boy who was stabbed to death in a Chicago suburb last week.

A little boy here in the United States, a little boy who just turned 6 years old, was murdered in their home outside of Chicago, Biden said. His name was Wadea. Wadea, a proud American, a proud Palestinian American family. We cant stand by and stand silent when this happens.

President Joe Biden walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral in Kyiv on Feb. 20, 2023.

President Joe Biden walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral in Kyiv on Feb. 20, 2023.

The presidents first Oval Office speech, which came this June, followed an agreement with House Republicans that averted an unprecedented default on the nations debt, which likely would have triggered a global economic catastrophe.

On Thursday night, Biden laid out his case for why it is important for the United States to continue its leadership role in organizing the multinational alliance on behalf of Ukraine, which he himself assembled in the wake of the February 2022 Russian invasion. Kyiv still stands because of the bravery of the Ukrainian people. Ukraine has regained more than 50% of the territory Russian troops once occupied, he said.

He reiterated his support of Israel after Hamas militants assaulted towns bordering the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, murdering, raping and kidnapping Israeli residents. He said his budget proposal would guarantee Israel the qualitative edge the United States has sought to make sure it maintains over other militaries in the region.

Bidens aid package will likely find strong bipartisan support in the Senate, where leading Republicans have, like Biden, said that helping Ukraine repel Putins invasion was a cost-effective way of weakening Russia and keeping Europe safe.

However, prospects in the House are less certain. Even before the recent leadership turmoil in that chamber, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was having trouble getting enough Republicans to support more assistance for Ukraine. Many in his caucus, followers of coup-attempting former President Donald Trump, argued that the United States had no interest in that conflict.

Trump himself, long an admirer of Putin, called him a genius for having invaded Ukraine in the days immediately following the initial assault.

Biden nevertheless urged Congress to move quickly. Time is of the essence, he said.

I know we have our divisions at home. We have to get past them. We cant let petty, partisan, angry politics get in the way of our responsibilities as a great nation, he said.

Biden returned from his 30-hour journey to Tel Aviv just after midnight on Thursday. While in Israel, he met with Netanyahu, other government officials, and survivors of the Hamas attack. He promised Israel, again, that the United States would support it as it fought to defeat Hamas, even as he cautioned against letting the current rage lead Israelis into making mistakes the way Americans rage after Sept. 11, 2001, led to mistakes in the U.S. response. He also said that everyone in Israel and the occupied territories, whether Jewish or Palestinian, deserved security and dignity.

Eight months earlier, Biden had traveled to Ukraine to meet with Zelenskyy. That trip involved flying to Poland and then finishing the journey to Kyiv with a 10-hour train ride.

The two visits to active war zones are unprecedented in American history. Previous presidents had traveled to conflict zones, but only to places secured by the U.S. military.
Biden's campaign team has more followers on Truth Social than the Trump team.

Biden currently has 27,900 followers. Trump has 23,600 followers.

The Biden campaign said it joined Truth Social "because we thought it would be very funny."

President Joe Biden's campaign team account on Truth Social has more followers than Donald Trump's team does.

The Biden campaign said on Monday that it had joined Truth Social "mostly because we thought it would be very funny." A campaign official had previously told Axios, in a story published in May, that they wouldn't be joining Trump's platform.

The account, which uses the handle @BidenHQ, is gaining traction. As of press time, Biden's campaign account had about 27,900 followers. Trump's campaign account, @TeamTrump, had about 23,600 followers. Trump's personal account, @realDonaldTrump, currently has over 6.45 million followers.

Trump launched the conservative social media site in February 2022. The former president said in October 2021 that he was creating his own social media platform after getting banned from platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube following the January 6 Capitol siege. The site is estimated to have approximately 2 million active users, much lower than the billions of users that giants such as Facebook have.

On Monday, Biden's campaign officials told Fox News Digital that joining Trump's platform was akin to entering "the lion's den to point out Republicans' hypocrisy" while having "a little fun at their own expense."

"Crooked Joe Biden and his team are finally acknowledging that Truth Social is hot as a pistol and the only place where real news happens," a campaign spokesperson for Trump told Insider.

Representatives for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.

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Stetson Parker and his wife, Shannon, recently took a trip through Colorado to celebrate their 10th anniversary. They boarded the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, a vintage train that provides historic and entertaining rides, according to its website.

But what the Parkers saw from the last car of that train wasnt advertised online. The couple believe they spotted the most elusive of creatures: Bigfoot.

Yes, you read that correctly: Bigfoot. Also known as a sasquatch or a yeti. The mythical apelike, giant creature, who (maybe) wanders North America. Who, according to some, definitely exists. And who, according to most everyone else, definitely does not.

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The most recent spotting, captured in a widely shared video from that train in Colorado, adds to the growing catalog of sightings that have kept the myth alive amid a lack of what some might call verifiable proof.

Im definitely a believer now, Stetson Parker, 33, said.

The video, which was taken by a fellow passenger and posted online by Parker, shows a tall, brownish creature walking and squatting, before it blends into its surroundings. The footage is zoomed in, making for a grainy video.

To him, Parker said, the creature didnt look like a human.

It didnt move like a person, he said. It looked more like an ape but didnt walk like an ape so much. He added that the creatures arms seemed too long to be human, with hands reaching down to its knees.

It didnt look like anything Ive ever seen before, Parker said. I dont think it was a hoax. And if it was, it was a really good one.

Other possible explanations emerged as the video drew the attention of media around the world. Maybe it was a bear. Or, the most common one, maybe it was a man wearing a ghillie suit, the camouflage clothing that helps outdoorsmen disappear into their backgrounds. But why, Parker asked, would anyone be in a ghillie suit in the middle of elk hunting season? Thats a surefire way for any hunter to get shot. And it wasnt holding a weapon.

Over the decades, researchers, academics and even the FBI have investigated Bigfoots existence. The FBI helped research mysterious hairs in 1977, which ended up being of deer origin. Bigfoot experts and enthusiasts often refer to the so-called Patterson-Gimlin film from 1967, which claimed to show one of the creatures strolling through a California streambed.

A major 2014 Oxford University study dealt a blow to Bigfoot believers. Researchers there investigated 30 hair samples and successfully matched all of them to other animals.

But the Bigfoot faithful are not easily deterred. I fully believe that theyre there, said Ryan Willis, 23, who founded the Trent University Sasquatch Society and is the host of Sasquatch University, a reality show on the Wild network that covers Bigfoot sightings in Ontario. But I do leave a bit of room for skepticism.

Willis said people had sent him video footage, hair samples and more. In some cases, he said, people have told him they have fecal evidence. But, he said, Nobody has sent us Bigfoot poop in the mail or anything.

Even Bigfoot believers disagree over what the video shared by Parker shows.

Cliff Barackman presented reality show Finding Bigfoot for nine years on Animal Planet, and he opened the North American Bigfoot Center in Boring, Oregon, in 2019. He doesnt think its Bigfoot.

I thought it was a suit, Barackman said. I have seen a sasquatch, and I know they are real animals. But the creature in this video, he added, didnt look like it was an animal; it looked baggy.

But what kind of suit is unclear. Most online viewers suggested it was a ghillie suit, which usually includes a jacket, pants and a head covering and is supposed to camouflage any human form. Kevin Erickson, chief executive of Arcturus, a company that makes the suits, said that the creature in the video was not wearing one: The suit wasnt baggy enough.

In this video the extremities  the legs and arms  are fairly silhouetted and tight, he said. No one makes a ghillie suit like this.

But, Erickson added, it could be a Bigfoot-specific suit. Upon close inspection of the video, he said, he seemed to see a shadow in the middle of the creature, suggesting a jacket.

Skepticism is often warranted, Barackman acknowledged, because the internet is full of hoaxes and misinformation. And until Bigfoots existence is conclusively proven, he says hell continue to run his museum and search for the creature. But, he wonders: After the species is proven to be real, are people still going to dress up as Bigfoot?

c.2023 The New York Times Company
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is set to announce that he will not pursue a third vote for the chamber's speakership, but will support a plan to permit acting Speaker Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., to run the House temporarily.

The Ohio Republican's decision, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to Politico, followed his two defeats in the race earlier this week. It also marks a victory for centrists who created the proposal to empower McHenry, who had not sought out the position.

Jordan's decision came as House Republicans convened for a closed-door meeting with his allies attempting to salvage a rag-tag effort that lost votes on Wednesday. He indicated on Wednesday his reception to a vote on the proposal to empower McHenry until Jan. 3 but has not signaled where his latest move leaves his bid for the speakership.

Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, author of the proposal, told Politico that "if anything, it buys [Jordan] more time to do what he needs to do in private to convert his skeptics. Other Republican representatives, however, are "pissed" about Jordan's embrace of the proposal, Semafor reporter Joseph Zeballos-Roig reported.

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., called McHenry's potential election the biggest F.U. to Republican voters," while Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, told Punchbowl News that he is a "Hell no" on the resolution, both arguing that a majority of Republicans will oppose it.

"We don't deserve the majority," Banks told reporters, predicting that "more than half of Republicans" would oppose the measure. Fallon predicted it could be as many as two-thirds of the caucus.

"No Republican should under any circumstances support an unconstitutional elevation of power to an unelected Speaker, nor a highly dangerous coalition government arrangement with Democrats radically opposed to the America first agenda," Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., tweeted.

We shouldnt be setting the precedent that this is the way we should elect a speaker," House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., told Punchbowl News, adding that Jordan doesnt need to drop out and that he will continue to support him for speaker.

Tensions flared at a House GOP meeting after Jordan's decision. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., "screamed" at Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who led the push to oust him, to sit down when the Florida congressman went to the microphone to speak, according to Axios reporter Juliegrace Brufke. Rep. Michael Bost, R-Ill., was "almost lunging" at Gaetz, sources told Brufke.

McCarthy later denied that he screamed at Gaetz, telling reporters that Gaetz interrupted him and he told him to sit down.

I think the whole country is screaming at Matt Gaetz," he added, according to Brufke.

Reps. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, Lance Gooden, R-Texas, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, called on Jordan to step aside at the party's speaker designee at the meeting, according to Axios.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., complained that she was "disappointed" in Jordan's decision.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., ripped the plan to elevate McHenry.

"I will not sit back and watch a complete betrayal of the GOP base with this 'plan' thats being discussed," she vowed. "I ran because I was sick and tired of politicians coming up here and cutting deals and releasing 'holier than thou' statements about why we just had to accept it."

The right-wing gripes over the plan underscore the need for Democratic votes to empower McHenry.

"For many Democrats, backing the McHenry resolution is a hard, almost impossible vote if Jordan is still going to be running for speaker and not dropping his bid," CBS News' Robert Costa reported. "It essentially becomes a vote to give Jim Jordan more time to whip votes rather than simply empower McHenry."
Days after being sued for fraud by hedge fund titan John Paulson , the billionaires business manager hit back with a suit of his own, claiming his famous boss cheated him out of nearly $300 millionand isnt actually worth billions.

Paulson, famous for shorting the real estate market in 2007, sued former partner Fahad Ghaffar this week for allegedly defrauding him out of $200 million while overseeing his international hotels and real estate holdings.

In his own complaint, Ghaffar claims that Paulsonwhose net worth is estimated at $3.5 billion by Forbesrecently suffered losses that brought his net worth to less than $500 million. When Paulson learned that his companies owed Ghaffar hundreds of millions for his work on the hotels, the suit claims, he devised a false reason to end their contract and deny Ghaffar his earnings.

Martin Russo, an attorney for Ghaffar, said he attempted to settle the matter through arbitration but Paulson refused.

Mr. Paulson chose to turn the resolution of the disputes between [his company] and Mr. Ghaffar into a circus by filing a dubious lawsuit and not submitting to the contractually mandated arbitration, leaving us with no choice but to bring this matter to Federal Court in Puerto Rico, Russo said in a statement. We have the highest confidence that Mr. Ghaffar will prevail here.

Lawyers for Paulson, meanwhile, called Ghaffars suit a sham designed solely to divert attention from his numerous criminal schemes detailed in Paulsons complaint.

Paulson has many premier properties in Puerto Rico with great management which will prosper without Fahad, Terrence and Darren Oved told The Daily Beast in a statement. Ghaffars shameless exaggeration of his importance to Paulson is comical. He was terminated for cause and no longer entitled to any compensation.

The suit marks yet another escalation in a dramatic court battle between the two former business partners, which has even bled into Paulsons high-profile divorce proceedings.

Ghaffar met Paulson when he was hired as a junior analyst at Paulsons hedge fund in 2013. When the boss decided to expand into Puerto Rico, Ghaffar moved to help run operations and quickly ascended to become the manager of all of Paulsons Puerto Rican investments, including La Concha, the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel, and the St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort.

All seemed well until September, when Ghaffar sued Paulson for what he claimed was a promised stake in a luxury car business. Paulson responded on Monday with a suit claiming Ghaffar had used his position as the manager of Paulsons elite hotels to live in luxury and enrich his family.

Paulson alleged that Ghaffar used company money to pay for personal expenses like a $4,000 meal at Carbone in Miami and an $8,000 night at Marquee nightclub in New York. He also claimed Ghaffar loaned his family luxury cars, allowed friends to stay at Paulsons properties for free, and helped his relatives set up shell companies to defraud Paulsons businesses.

Paulson claims he learned about Ghaffars deceit on a trip to Puerto Rico in June and promptly dismissed him. But in his lawsuit filed Wednesday, Ghaffar claims Paulson invented his allegations in order to break their contract and avoid paying him his full fee.

Ghaffar claims he increased Paulsons hotel profits by 150 percent and his construction profits by 1,000 percentachievements that should have earned him $290 million in compensation, according to the suit. Instead, he says, when Paulson learned how much he owed his business manager in a meeting in June, he became highly agitated and uncomfortably aggressive and directed his companies to terminate their agreements with Ghaffar shortly thereafter.

Resorting to dishonesty and misrepresentation, Paulson ginned up grossly inadequate allegations of acts of intentional misconduct or fraud against Paulson, and used them [as] pretext to purport to improperly terminate [their business agreement] for cause, the suit states.

Relations between the two men are reportedly so toxic that Paulson banned Ghaffar from all of his Puerto Rican properties, citing a 2019 video of Ghaffar breaking a chair at one of his restaurants.

The dispute has also complicated Paulsons messy divorce from his estranged wife, Jenica, who claims he is hiding millions of dollars from her in secret trusts available only to himself, his children, and his current spouse. (Paulson instigated the divorce in 2021, shacking up with Instagram influencer Alina De Almeida shortly thereafter.)

Ghaffars first suit inspired Jenicas lawyers to look into Paulsons Puerto Rico holdings, where they claim to have discovered a $15 million apartment Paulson purchased from the trust for just $5.6 millioncheating his family trust out of nearly $10 million. The estranged wife added these losses to her suit against Paulson in September, asking for at least $1 billion in damages.

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FILE - A house sparrow is seen with an insect in its beak, May 25, 2020, in Lutherville-Timonium, Md. As climate change intensifies extreme heat, farms are becoming less hospitable to many nesting birds, including the house sparrow, a new study found on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

As climate change intensifies extreme heat, farms are becoming less hospitable to nesting birds, a new study found. That could be another barrier to maintaining rapidly eroding biodiversity that also provides benefits to humans, including farmers who get free pest control when birds eat agricultural pests.

Researchers who examined data on over 150,000 nesting attempts found that birds in agricultural lands were 46% less likely to successfully raise at least one chick when it got really hot than birds in other areas.

I dont think we expected it to be as extreme as it was, said Katherine Lauck, a PhD candidate at University of California, Davis and lead author of the study published Thursday in the journal Science.

Bird scientists have been tracking the decline of avian wildlife for years. In 2019, a comprehensive study showed that there were three billion fewer wild birds than in 1970. The new study represents a closer look at what might be behind the dramatic decline.

Intense commercial farming is known to harm birds  fields completely clear of trees and other natural barriers lack shelter for wildlife, and pesticides and other agricultural chemicals can hurt birds.

The study concluded that species of higher conservation concern in the U.S.  those closer to being listed as federally threatened or endangered  were more vulnerable to extreme heat events in agricultural settings. But across the board, birds in forests were 14% more likely to achieve reproductive success in times of extreme heat.

The study's findings were not surprising to Ken Rosenberg, a biologist with the Road to Recovery initiative who formerly worked as a conservation biologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and was lead author on what he calls the three billion birds study. The idea that forest birds could benefit slightly from warmer temperatures makes sense, he said, since shade from trees provides a buffer from extreme heat that agricultural areas don't have.

Rosenberg, who was not affiliated with this study, said he was pleased to see a paper in a prestigious journal using large datasets built from citizen science data. In this case, the observations came from NestWatch, a nationwide nest-monitoring program that anyone can participate in.

However, Rosenberg cautioned that more data might be needed to confirm that species of higher conservation concern were more vulnerable, since the overwhelming majority of the data involved species of low conservation concern.

The researchers predicted how different bird species might fare in each landscape during extreme heat events. They concluded that in agricultural areas, species of greater conservation concern, like the oak titmouse, would see worse outcomes than species of lower concern, like the house sparrow.

Rosenberg and David Bird, a professor emeritus of wildlife biology at McGill University, said the study contributes to the understanding of the negative effects of intensive single crop farming. Bird said the study sings the praises of the need for preserving our forests, which not only protect birds from hot weather but also help protect ecosystems from global warming by absorbing carbon.

The study suggests that if farmers purposefully left just a little more natural space around farms with a few trees or native plants  not necessarily changing everything about their operations  birds could better coexist with humans, Rosenberg said.

Some of these open country birds dont really need a lot of habitat or a lot of space," he said. "They just need some.

Lead author Lauck is now working to better understand exactly why birds experience such large differences in nesting success between farmed and forested areas, hoping that would point toward useful interventions.

New solutions that are neutral for farmers but helpful for biodiversity in the long term will create a more resilient biosphere for all of us, they said.

___

Read more of APs climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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Follow Melina Walling on X, formerly known as Twitter: @MelinaWalling.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about APs climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
In his first birthday message as the Marine Corps top leader, the new commandant urged Marines to keep their high standards sacred and their honor clean.

The Marine Corps birthday, which marks the anniversary of the Nov. 10, 1775, effort to recruit the first Continental Marines in Philadelphias Tun Tavern, is a day of revelry for active duty Marines, Marine reservists and Marine veterans alike.

With the birthday season ramping up, Gen. Eric Smith, the top Marine leader, released the commandants birthday message Wednesday.

(W)e ruthlessly adhere to our standards of excellence  Marine standards  as we know this will best prepare us for the wars of the future, Smith said in the written message, which marks the Marine Corps upcoming 248th birthday.

Top Marine leader sworn in 1 day after Senate confirmation

Why the ruthless adherence to standards?

The idea is that an attention to detail and the close following of rules in garrison translate into a similarly precise approach on the battlefield, Smith previously has said.

Our high standards are a prerequisite of professional warfighting, and how we keep our honor clean in the cauldron of combat, Smith wrote in the message Wednesday, making a reference to the sixth line of The Marines Hymn. They prepare us for the most difficult mission there is: fighting from and returning to the sea.

Most importantly they shape our unique Marine culture which is respected at home and across the globe, he continued.

The birthday video, another Marine Corps birthday tradition, wont be released until Nov. 1 or later, according to a Marine administrative message from September.

Smith, who became the acting Marine commandant in July and the official commandant in September, has made high standards a recurring theme of his messaging to Marines.

Gen. Eric Smith is sworn in as the 39th Marine commandant by Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, Sept. 22, 2023, in the Pentagon. (Marine Corps)

In the brief guidance to the force the general issued in August, he used the word discipline and standards five times each.

In my 36 years as a Marine, the best units I have seen in combat were the ones that took pride in their high standards, rigorous training, and ironclad discipline, Smith wrote in that guidance.

In recent years, some Marine leaders have stressed what they view as the need for Marines to focus on discipline.

Crackdown at Lejeune: Inside the 2nd Marine Division commanders controversial call for discipline

Maj. Gen. David Furness in 2019 ordered the Marines of 2nd Marine Division to adhere to a detailed daily routine, including set times for hygiene and fitness. Furness previously told Marine Corps Times he made the strict rules because of out-of-regs haircuts, a snubbing by junior Marines, a report that a Marine wore pajamas to the chow hall in front of the commandant and a hundred different examples of lacking discipline.

Smith has discussed the responsibility to maintain the Corps reputation and standards since long before he became the No. 1 Marine in July.

Way back in 2005, as he prepared to make a second deployment to Iraq after being shot in the leg on his previous deployment, he told NBC News the Marine Corps reputation weighed on him more heavily than the possibility of getting shot again.

We have a saying that the Marine Corps is like a little glass Christmas ornament, if you will, then-Lt. Col. Eric Smith said. You can drop it, but only once. Once its gone, its gone.

And the people who built the legacy that we live on, this eagle, globe and anchor, from Iwo Jima, theyre gone, he continued. You cant apologize to them for soiling the reputation of the Marine Corps.

Smiths birthday message wasnt all about standards, however.

The commandant made an oblique reference to the Corps sweeping modernization initiative Force Design 2030, stating, in the interwar periods we train, we prepare, and we innovate.

Started in 2020 under now-retired Commandant Gen. David Berger, Force Design has come under criticism from a group of retired Marine leaders. But the initiative largely has found approval within the Pentagon and Congress, and Smith has voiced his commitment to continuing and even accelerating it.

Smith also reflected in the message on the history that defines the Marine Corps: legendary figures like veterans Hershel Woody Williams, Pfc. Hector Cafferata Jr. and Sgt. Maj. Dan Daly, and conflicts ranging from World War I to the controversial war in Afghanistan.

Smith emphasized that the first to fight branch is different from the others, a sentiment often heard on the Marine Corps birthday, as well as on the other 364 days of the year.

Most will never understand why we choose to attack when others do not, why we revel in being covered in mud, why we snap to attention when The Marines Hymn is played, or why we say, Ooh Rah, Smith wrote. We understand it, and this message is for us, for the Marines.

Protect your fellow Marines and our shared legacy, the commandant concluded. Happy Birthday Marines!
Lamar Berko, a 30-year-old Black millionaire who owns a jewelry business in England, is speaking out against a London bar, saying he was racially profiled and denied entrance.

In an interview with The Independent, Berko alleged that the bars door attendant blocked him and his friends, saying there were too many men. Berko also said multiple white people were waved to come inside after his group was denied.

In my field, Im used to dealing with racism. In this country, its always indirect and never direct. For example, Ive been stopped by the police so many times for no reason other than the car I drive, Berko said. But I could not believe my eyes when the staff member took my friends and [I] out of the queue  making everyone look at us as if we were troublemakers  then let in all white people and not us. I havent slept; I felt so violated.

After they were told there were too many men, Berko said his group was later told that the bar was packed. The venue, according to Berko, was not even close to capacity. Berko also said he told the employee that he feels like hes being racially profiled.

I dont judge by the race, just by the person, the employee allegedly responded.

The British jeweler said he Googled his own name and showed it to the employee to prove what he does for a living, but his group was still denied, according to Berko.

I didnt even ask the price of the tables  but this was turned down. What reason would they really have to say no? Berko said. I wasnt causing trouble or shouting, I didnt flare up or swear.

The frustrated businessman shared his story through social media, which led several other people to speak out against the bar. Following the backlash, Berko said the restaurant posted photos of Black women on their social media pages.

When people started getting on to them, they went on their 24-hour Instagram story and posted photographs of Black women, back to back. I find that to be such a mockery, he said.

Gregory Nicholls, who was among Berkos friends, echoed the entrepreneurs frustrations.

This is something that happened to me throughout my 20s. Its disappointing that, in my 30s, Im finding myself in the same situation, Nicholls told The Independent. It feels like the fact that were Black means that were not considered good enough to enter certain places in this country, despite having the financial means. Its sad.
Black Professors Build Curriculum Surrounding The Montgomery Riverfront Brawl | Photo: Julie Bennett/Getty Images

Two Black professors, Linda J.M. Holloway and her colleague, April T. Berry, have come together to build a curriculum guide, The Riverboat Curriculum Study Guide, around the Montgomery Riverfront Brawl.

According to Essence, Holloway, whos a professor at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama, and Berry, whos an adjunct professor at the University of South Alabama, said that they hope the guide provides a space for students, mental health professionals and others to have healthy, impactful and engaging conversations about the Aug. 5 incident.

After witnessing the incident, Holloway knew that, with fall semester classes starting soon, shed need to find a way to facilitate conversations about what happened with her students. Berry had similar concerns. Overseeing clinical operations and services at Vets Recover, which provides support for veterans and the broader Mobile, Alabama, community, Berry thought that her clients may have strong reactions to what happened and would need tools to be able to process and express those feelings in therapy, Black News reported.

Berry wrote about the curriculum on LinkedIn, writing, So glad to have been given the opportunity to develop a curriculum to create healthy discussions around such sensitive topics!

The courses study guide notes includes 50 questions, a conversation prompt and recommended readings by Black authors like bell hooks, Claude McKay and Trevor Noah, Essence reported. The class is flexible, empowering users to choose questions based on the context, such as whether they have an academic or mental health focus. It also prompts users to have bigger conversations and think critically about why events like these happen in the U.S.

Holloway and Berry both believe that if incidents like the Montgomery Brawl are not discussed in the right way, the U.S. will never grow as a country.

We will just continue to put bandages on gushing wounds our country experiences such as racism instead of truly tending to such wounds with the appropriate care, they told Black News. As a society, we must use our platforms to be a voice to those who may not speak up for themselves and continue to fight for racial and social justice.

In addition to her work in the classroom, Holloways a poet, story activist, and multi-award-winning childrens book author of five childrens books.

Berry is also the clinical director at Vets Recover, a nonprofit organization that addresses many issues veterans face following their service. The organization is also a certified community behavioral health clinic.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) criticized President Biden over his expected $100 billion budget request to aid the war efforts in Israel and Ukraine and address other administration priorities.

The package, which has not been officially announced, is also expected to include billions in funding for border security and support for Taiwanese defense against China.

Biden is sending a $100 billion emergency funding request to Congress, but only $10 billion of that is allocated for Israel, Blackburn said in a statement Thursday. There is an immediate responsibility on Congress to make sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself, and to hold that aid hostage by linking it with a myriad of other issues  including bailout for sanctuary cities and more money for Ukraine  is irresponsible.

These separate funding requests should be considered as such, she said.

Biden is expected to formally unveil the budget request Friday and discuss the need for Israel support during a rare Oval Office address Thursday evening.

The president was in Israel on Wednesday and announced a $100 million humanitarian aid package for Palestinians in Gaza amid Israels war with Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the territory.

The budget request binds multiple administration priorities to support for Israel, which is popular in Congress. The Biden administration has strongly supported Israel since the beginning of the Hamas conflict earlier this month and pledged that the U.S. will provide additional aid to the country.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he supports the idea of packaging the aid together.

This is all interconnected, McConnell told reporters Tuesday. Youve got the North Koreans, the Iranians, the Russians and the Chinese, sort of, on the same side against the democratic world, so there is a connection between all of this. I am not surprised, frankly, that the administration seems to be inclined to send up a broad package.

However, other Senate Republicans have warned that the expected border security ask isnt enough to get their support.

Im sure its going to be milquetoast and inadequate, said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a leading Republican voice on immigration reform.

Cornyn said the Biden administration needs to include significant policy reforms in the national security funding package, and that leaving out those reforms would be a problem for passing the overall bill.

Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate have backed the effort to pass Israel and Ukraine aid together.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged his colleagues to move quickly on passing aid, but the GOP-controlled House languishes without a Speaker and will be potentially unable to consider any significant legislation.

A previous $40 billion budget request in August from the Biden administration sought $24 billion for Ukraine aid and $4 billion for border security, among other priorities. It was not passed amid conflicts in Congress over the federal budget.

The Ukraine aid was stripped from a continuing resolution that kept the government funded through November, passed just hours before the shutdown deadline for the end of the day on Sept. 30.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
An explosion was reported at the Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza City on Thursday night, according to both Gazas interior ministry and the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The church, one of the oldest in the world, was reportedly sheltering several hundred displaced Palestinians at the time of the blast.

The ministry, which is controlled by the Hamas militant group, was quoted by AFP as saying the explosion left a large number of martyrs and injured.

Witnesses at the site told The Wall Street Journal that rescuers were digging through rubble, pulling out people, some of whom had sustained injuries. Majdy Jildah, a refugee at the Greek Orthodox church, said he believed a child had been killed.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA also reported that a young girl was dead and many others injured at the compound. The churchs facade reportedly sustained damage as well, and at least one adjacent building is believed to have collapsed.

In a statement expressing its strongest condemnation, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem attributed the explosion to an Israeli airstrike.

[T]argeting churches and their institutions, along with the shelters they provide to protect innocent citizens, especially children and women who have lost their homes due to Israeli airstrikes on residential areas over the past thirteen days, constitutes a war crime that cannot be ignored, the Patriarchate said.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the matter, according to the Journal.

Built in the 12th century, St. Porphyrius is Gazas oldest active church, and is located in a historic district, according to AFP. It previously served as a place of refuge for Palestinians during Israeli bombardment in 2014.

Earlier this week, one refugee in the church told Al Jazeera that coming here saved our lives.

During the night, we huddle together, George Shabeen said, adding: Muslims and Christians, old and young, and pray for safety and peace.

The compound lies a short distance from the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, a facility that sustained a direct hit on Tuesday night, the resulting blast killing more than 400 people.

Palestinian authorities have blamed the strike on Israel, while Tel Aviv has said a rocket misfired by another militant group in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was responsible. On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden backed Israels claim, saying, It appears the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group.

The destruction at St. Porphyrius comes a little under two weeks after Hamas launched a series of terror attacks on Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking hostage more than 150. Israel declared war in response, initiating a total blockage on Gaza and readying its troops for what it has promised will be a full-scale ground assault.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Bloomington teachers say the local school administrations plan to change and align high school schedules would undermine education, diminish equity and needlessly disrupt the lives of thousands of teachers, parents, staff and students.

In a letter sent to Monroe County Community School Corp. Superintendent Jeff Hauswald and emails sent to The Herald-Times, teachers and other stakeholders said the administration has not provided a good rationale for the schedule change and has failed to seek input from teachers, staff, parents and students before reaching that decision.

Dr. Hauswalds rationale  revolves around potential credit loss for students transferring between MCCSC high schools. However, data from the past year reveals minimal instances of such transfers, with no evidence of credit loss, teachers from Bloomington High School North wrote in a statement.

Disrupting the educational experiences of thousands of students and teachers should be grounded in solid research, not speculation, the teachers wrote.

In their six-page letter to Hauswald, teachers from Bloomington High School South wrote, A change in schedule is a change in what makes our school so successful. Our successes cannot be separated from the infrastructure that enables it.

How can we celebrate the successes of our corporation, and then change the system that helped enable those successes? the teachers asked.

A teacher, who asked not to be identified for fear of backlash from the administration, said he expected teachers to deliver the superintendent a letter this week with more than 100 signatures of North teachers. He said the letter from South teachers had already been delivered to Hauswald and was signed by more than 100 teachers and staff. The H-T was not able to independently verify the numbers. The two schools combined have about 230 teachers, according to the Indiana Department of Education.

Teachers are planning to hold a rally from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday on the Monroe County Courthouse Lawn to oppose the decision to change the schedules. The teachers invited community members to attend.

MCCSC recently sent parents a letter to inform them that the administration would create a new high school common schedule for the 2024-2025 school year. The new schedule, which has not been determined, would apply to all four high schools: Bloomington North, Bloomington South, Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship and the Graduation School. All of the schools currently have different schedules.

Opposition: MCCSC letter about changing North, South schedules raises concerns

At a recent school board meeting, students, parents, teachers and others voiced their concerns about the planned scheduling change, and based on information the H-T received from multiple sources, the level of concern has not abated.

We havent seen any data demonstrating that our schedule lacks equity, the teachers from South wrote, and we have yet to see a proposed schedule demonstrating what a more equitable schedule would do differently.

A change in schedule isnt a change when the bells ring, its a change in the DNA of what makes us who we are. The sign on the outside of the building will still say Bloomington High School South. The colors will still be purple and white. Well still be the Panthers. But will we be able to maintain the excellence that this school offers to the entire community? the teachers asked.

The teachers wrote they worried a new schedule would reduce course offerings and lab time and would create less equity for kids that need more support.

North teachers questioned the need for the administrations hasty decision. A significant change like this should be underpinned by thorough research and analysis. The rapid formation of focus groups and hiring of IU consultants has not provided clarity on the reasons behind this transition.

The teachers said a sudden change in schedule would affect the entire student population and might compromise students plans to graduate early and disrupt students and families who have strategically planned their academic paths.

Teachers from both schools also raised concerns about the administration proposing to offer more courses by having students from some schools learn remotely by participating in classes offered in other schools.

Virtual instruction cannot replicate in-person learning, and puts off-site students at a distinct disadvantage compared to their live classroom peers, the teachers from North wrote. Asking teachers to instruct both in-person and remotely is unreasonable and diminishes the quality of education.

MCCSC teachers skittish about speaking publicly

Several teachers contacted by the H-T said they could not speak on the record, with some saying their union had advised them not to speak publicly.

Paul Farmer, president of the local teachers union, said he had not read the letters and had nothing to do with them. He said the union and administration are discussing the proposed schedule changes, and the union was relaying the teachers concerns.

One of the big questions the teachers have, Farmer said, is why the administration is pushing for the changes now. The union also has asked the administration to clarify the current schedules alleged equity shortcomings.

Farmer said he did not have his notes with him and did not want to make all of the conversations public. Clarifications should come from the administration, he said.

Alexis Harmon, the corporations director of educational technology and communication replied to an email seeking the administrations comment on the letters, but the reply did not address the letters.

Harmon wrote only that Bloomington South Principal Mark Fletcher shared with us that he fully supports the districts commitment to equity efforts at the school and the district level and supports a common high school schedule. The H-T had not inquired about Fletchers opinion.

Fletcher had called the H-T unsolicited earlier Wednesday and wanted to talk off the record, a request which the newspaper denied.

Fletcher, who denied the teachers letter was critical of the administrations plan, asked that the H-T delay the story because publishing it now would, he said, undermine both sides good-faith efforts in achieving consensus and because it would prevent the school board and superintendent from responding to the teachers letter. The H-T denied Fletchers request.

Student leader: Scheduling change 'came out of left field'

Kelton OConnell, a sophomore at Bloomington North, said he worries that if the administration changes the schedule at the school, he will have to forego taking some elective classes that are important to him. Some kids wonder whether theyll be able to keep all their music, theater and art electives, he said.

O'Connell said he also worries that he would take fewer classes overall, which would diminish his education.

In addition, he said, the schools longer classes allow him to take violin lessons at IU during the day, which he may not be able to do under a new schedule.

OConnell also said he and students from several high schools who are helping organize opposition to the new schedules are not happy with the way the administration has communicated the change and how students have had little opportunity to provide input.

It just kind of came out of left field for everybody, he said.

Changing the schedules would affect thousands of students and hundreds of teachers and staff, OConnell said, and none of the reasons the administration has given make any sense to anyone."

It doesnt seem like theres a real reason, he said.

OConnell and other students have created a website to provide more clarity to local stakeholders: mccscstudents.org. The students are urging interested community members to make their voices heard by attending the next school board meeting, Tuesday at 6 p.m., at the MCCSC CoLab, 553 E. Miller Drive. The students said people should arrive before 6 p.m. so that they can sign up to speak.

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

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington teachers say planned schedule change would disrupt lives
ASHEVILLE  A Western North Carolina man has been arrested and formally charged by a grand jury with attempting to kidnap two victims in September on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, announced in an Oct. 18 news statement.

Evan William Blankenship, 22, of Whittier, faces one charge of kidnapping, two counts of assault with intent to commit a felony, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm, and possession and discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.

Blankenship was arrested Oct. 11 and remains in federal custody, according to the news release. The U.S. Attorneys Office in Asheville is prosecuting the case.

What happened, according to court documents?

On Sept. 28 around 3:15 a.m., victims L.P. and L.M. were parked alone, at the Waterrock Knob Overlook off the Blue Ridge Parkway, together in a car belonging to L.P.s mother, according to a criminal complaint affidavit. The overlook is at Milepost 455 on the parkway, about 65 miles southwest of Asheville in Haywood and Jackson counties.

Suddenly, a white Chevrolet Camaro sped into the parking area, Special Agent Robert Toler of the National Park Service wrote in the document. The driver accelerated around the parking lot once before heading toward L.M.s car and abruptly stopping.

More: FBI looking for witnesses in Blue Ridge Parkway hit-and-run death

The court document then details how Blankenship opened the passenger door of L.M.s car and pointed a semi-automatic pistol at the two individuals. He then pulled L.P. out of the car by her hair and right arm, telling her to get in his car and threatening to hurt them if she didnt comply.

When L.P. asked if Blankenship was planning to rape her, he nodded his head yes, according to the criminal complaint document. Blankenship then allegedly hit L.P. in the face, causing bruising and temporary hearing loss, and fired his gun into the air before pointing it again at the victims.

L.M. eventually convinced Blankenship to let them go, according to allegations in the affidavit. When the victims reported the incident to law enforcement, L.P. told investigators that she knew Blankenship through Snapchat and believed Blankenship had used Snapchats location sharing feature to find her on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the news release says.

When law enforcement interviewed Blankenship on Sept. 29, he originally claimed that he drank excessively on Sept. 27, then woke up on Sept. 28 and noticed his car was out of gas but had no recollection of what happened, the document details.

More: National Park Service: Woman 'slipped and fell' to her death on the Blue Ridge Parkway

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Defendant allegedly said he used Snapchat to track down victims

When law enforcement questioned him further, Blankenship said he and L.P. were friends with benefits and had been exchanging nude photos, the criminal complaint affidavit alleges. He had texted L.P. to hangout that night, who responded that she was tired and planned to be at home.

He later noticed L.P. was on the parkway based on her Snapchat location. Blankenship became upset and decided to go scare her, the document says.

Blankenship then admitted to driving his Camaro to the area, opening their passenger door with his 9 mm Glock in hand, and ordering her to get into his car, the document says. Blankenship told law enforcement that he slapped L.P. when she reached for her phone. Once L.M. convinced him that what he was doing was wrong, he let them leave.

He followed them down the Parkway, then texted L.P. not to mention the incident to anyone, the affidavit says. He then changed the settings in Snapchat to immediately delete their messages.

In the news release, King thanked the National Park Service for their investigation and the Jackson County Sheriffs Office for their assistance in the case. Debra A. Flowers, parkway acting chief ranger, joined King in making the announcement.

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Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at rober@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Man faces federal charges in Blue Ridge Parkway attempted kidnapping
BARNSTABLE  In the summer of 2022, Katiuska, 31, slowly made her way through the Darien Jungle  a dense, mountainous rainforest that rests between Colombia and Panama. Trained as a nurse, the Venezuelan native stopped occasionally to help the dead and the dying. "There were bodies everywhere," said Katiuska, one of 48 migrants who was flown to Martha's Vineyard in September 2022 as part of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' promise to drop off undocumented migrants in liberal-leaning states.

"In many cases, I couldn't do anything," she said. "I had to make a choice between saving their life and saving my own."

Katiuska spent six days traveling through the Darien Jungle with a group of Venezuelan migrants, including her husband Pedro, 37, she told the Times during an interview. Several of the women in her group were raped and others were robbed and kidnapped along the way, she said.

Janet Abbott, second from right, is hosting four Venezuelan migrants who were flown to Martha's Vineyard last year at the order of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Abbott is photographed with Katiuska, Pedro and an unnamed migrant, left to right, on Oct. 1, 2023 in her home.

"In the moment you try to do whatever you can, but you have to continue," said Katiuska, who spoke through a Spanish interpreter working with the Times.

Katiuska, Pedro, and two migrants who asked not to be named, currently live with Janet Abbott, who opened her Barnstable home to the group after they were sent from Texas to Martha's Vineyard on Sept. 13, 2022.

Through the Unitarian Church of Barnstable, Abbott was connected to Housing Assistance Corporation in Hyannis, which paired her with the migrants who were staying at Joint Base Cape Cod at the time.

'I acted impulsively  guided by my heart not my head,' says Janet Abbott of Barnstable.

I acted impulsively  guided by my heart  not my head. And it has worked out very well, she said.

Living with Abbott, Katiuska finally feels safe. For the last year, she said she's been healing from a traumatic journey, and events surrounding her transport to Martha's Vineyard. "When we got off the plane, there was a lot of fear," she said. "We were in the eye of a storm."

Why are Venezuelans seeking asylum?

The journey from Venezuela to the United States took two and a half months for Katiuska and Pedro, who was a Venezuelan police officer.

"Earnings were not even enough to eat. We couldnt buy gas," said Katiuska. "It was hard to survive."

Pedro said their combined salaries had been enough to live comfortably under President Hugo Chavez. But after he died from cancer in 2013, Venezuela's economy plummeted igniting a socioeconomic and political crisis.

Katiuska, 31, tears up as she talks on Oct. 1, 2023, about coming to this country and leaving her seven children behind. Katiuska is one of four Venezuelan migrants who were transported to Martha's Vineyard last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are now living with Janet Abbott in Barnstable.

As the atmosphere became increasingly violent, the couple decided to leave. Pedro declined to provide dates of when they left, but he said the military had begun ordering Venezuelan police to invade the streets and area pueblos.

"We were ordered to shoot the citizens of the town," he said. "We didnt want to do that. It wasnt necessary to do something as low as that."The couple packed water, canned food and bread, said Pedro and began trekking the roughly 2,733 miles to Texas through Central America and Mexico.

"There were some points when I didnt feel fear  but vulnerability  yes," he said. "But I had to stay strong for my wife."

One of the migrants living in Abbott's house, who asked that his name not be used, was a student and human rights organizer in Venezuela. During a protest, the former student was severely injured by the Venezuelan military.

"I was left on the ground, almost dying," said the student. "I tried to (lodge) complaints of the treatment, but they (military) said they would kill my whole family."

After fleeing Venezuela, the student tried to settle in Cucuta, Colombia, and then Medellin. However, he faced homelessness throughout his stay. "I started selling water to try to earn money to eat and get a roof over my head," he said. "I went a lot of days with hunger."

Eventually, the student decided to travel to the U.S.

"Little by little I get closer to the U.S. and finally I challenged myself to cross the Darien Jungle," he said.

This 25-year-old Venezuelan migrant talks on Oct. 1, 2023, about what he had to go through to get to the United States. He is one four Venezuelan migrants who were flown to Martha's Vineyard last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis now living with Janet Abbott in Barnstable.

While they didn't know it, Katiuska and Pedro were just ahead of the student, who traveled through the jungle alone.

"I spent many days in the jungle and became lost along the way," said the student. "There were people that were suffering or dead  killed in front of me."

La Bestia (the beast): el Tren de la muerte (the train of death)

For Katiuska, the seven-day train ride through Mexico aboard La Bestia was one of the most dangerous parts of her expedition. La Bestia, which translates to "the beast," is a cargo freight train that runs from Chiapas in Mexico to the Lecherias station on the outskirts of Mexico City, according to Migration Policy Institute or MPI. On most days, men, women and children cling to the top of the train as it snakes its way through Mexico, said Katiuska. La Bestia, she said, stops for no one.

"We had to run for our lives and jump on," she said. "Pedro had to push me onto the train because that was the only way. If you don't make it on, you can (fall on the tracks and) die."The train eventually connected with a network of Mexican freight trains, heading to different points along the U.S. border. As the couple tried to figure out how to jump from one train to the next, they encountered a man who was so dismayed by his journey, that he decided to take his own life. Pedro talked him out of throwing himself on the tracks, said Katiuska. "The same way he appeared in front of us, is the same way he disappeared," she said. "We never saw him again. We dont know what happened to him."

Before he disappeared, he gave the couple advice on what part of the train was safest.

"There's always someone good," said Katiuska.

Millions fled Venezuela

Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications for MPI, said economic instability and violence increased in Venezuela in 2019, due to a dispute over the presidential election between socialist candidate Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido. While the Venezuelan Supreme Court upheld Maduro as the winner, Venezuela's National Assembly disagreed. Guaido took the oath of office and was running the government in exile. He eventually relinquished his claim to the presidency in 2023. "There was significant political repression at times, including the use of detention, and actions by law enforcement agencies against people who were viewed as critics of the Maduro government," she said. "There have also been efforts to silence dissenters."

Throughout the conflict, the Maduro government significantly mismanaged Venezuela's economy, said Mittelstadt. Venezuela was a major exporter of crude oil but because of the government's economic fumbles surrounding the country's extractive and refining capacity, Venezuela lost oil as an underpinning of their economy. Ongoing sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S., said Mittelstadt has also contributed to the failure of the countrys economy. "People will tell you that the sanctions have nothing to do with implosion. Others say it's responsible for everything," she said. "I would say its a piece of the puzzle that has led to an unraveling of the Venezuelan economy." With economic and political instability, access to health care, medicines, food and other basic supplies, came under significant threat, she said.

Since 2015, said Mittelstadt, about 7.7 million people have fled Venezuela. About 6.5 million of those Venezuelan refugees and migrants remain in Latin American and Caribbean nations.

"The (surrounding) countries have been remarkably generous without a lot of fuss, but this is the absorption of very large populations in not a lot of time," said Mittelstadt.

As America accepts Venezuelan asylum seekers, Mittelstadt said the U.S. government, in some ways, has been generous by granting Temporary Protective Status designations. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security also created the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan (CHNV) program. The initiative allows these four groups to receive immediate parole to enter the U.S. as long as they arrive on a plane and have a family member in the U.S. who can sponsor them.

As Venezuelans become the second largest flow of migrants arriving at the Mexican and Texan border, the U.S. government has announced deportation flights to Venezuela, Mittelstadt said.

On a state level, Sen. Julian Cyr said Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency in August due to a sharp increase of migrants coming to the state. Healey expanded the Emergency Shelter Program to coincide with the state's Right to Shelter law for families with children, pregnant women and migrants.

State Sen. Julian Cyr

"It's important that people remember that ESP (Emergency Shelter Program) is only available to families with children under (the age of) 21 and families who are here legally," he said.

Yarmouth and Bourne are among 78 communities across the state providing shelter to migrant families, said Cyr. A total of 28 migrant families have been placed in Cape Cod hotels and motels since late August.

"Is it sustainable? No," said Cyr. "But we are doing the best we can in a very difficult situation."

Massachusetts, said Cyr, is grappling with a "decade in the making" housing crisis and the consequences of failed federal immigration policies and inaction surrounding antiquated immigration policies.

La Frontera: the U.S. border

After exiting La Bestia, it took four days for Katiuska and Pedro to walk to Piedras Negras, a Mexican town on the Rio Grande just across from Eagle Pass, Texas.

They then made their way to San Pedro 7000, a makeshift shelter for migrants in San Antonio, Texas, where they were processed as asylum seekers by border control and released.

The student was also processed, but not before he crossed the Rio Grande. "I tried four times to cross that river. It had very strong currents," said the student. Once he made it to the mainland, he was detained by border patrol for many days, he said. Border patrol agents took his DNA and fingerprints, and verified and created a profile identity for him before he was released.

At San Pedro 7000, a woman who called herself "Perla," recruited the four migrants, along with 44 other Venezuelan asylum seekers, and brought them to a hotel. They weren't allowed to use their phones or leave the premises, said Katiuska. At that time, they were also given papers to sign. The documents were written in English, and they were told the papers were for meal tickets.

"We found out later that they were papers that allowed them to transport us from Texas to Martha's Vineyard," said Katiuska.

Perla also promised jobs in America, legal services to help with the immigration process and airplane rides to the city of their choice. Katiuska and Pedro said they were headed to New York, while the student hoped to fly to Miami.

After two days at the hotel, the group was placed on a plane, said Pedro. A woman named Emily and a man whose name he couldn't remember accompanied the 48 on the aircraft, which made three fuel stops between Texas and Martha's Vineyard."When we got off the plane on Martha's Vineyard, they put us into small buses. They told us to wait for them. Nobody ever came back," said Pedro. "They took the plane back to wherever they came from."

The good thing, he said, is that islanders came to support the group in less than an hour.

"Firemen, police, teachers  people were helping us," he said.

Venezuelan migrants make a home but what are the challenges?

Venezuela is still enduring political and economic turmoil. But there's also political oppression and economic challenges in Cuba, Nicaragua and the collapsing state of Haiti, said Mittelstadt.

The majority of them are not coming to the U.S. but the perception by Americans is that all of this migration is coming this way. Thats really not the case, she said.Something particular to Venezuelans, is the absence of pre-existing ties in America, said Mittelstadt. Other immigrant groups such as Chinese migrants join family members or friends who have already come to the U.S. and established themselves.

"That means a lot of bootstrapping and learning from scratch, she said.

Pedro gives Janet Abbott a kiss and hug on Oct. 1, 2023, and says she is like his American mother. Pedro is one of 48 Venezuelan migrants flown the Martha's Vineyard unexpectedly last year, who is living with Abbott in her Barnstable home.

The idea surrounding immigration is skewed in America, Mittelstadt said.

'People don't migrate for the fun of it'

"People don't migrate for the fun of it," she said. "Migration is completely upending your life. There are deep factors that are often pushing them to this country."

Will the migrants remain on Cape Cod?

Since moving in with Abbott, both Katiuska and Pedro have secured work permits, while the student is still waiting for his. Katiuska didn't reveal where she works, but Pedro said he's a mechanic. He also installs car stereos as a hobby. All four also take English classes three days per week.

Katiuska said they are grateful for the Cape's hospitality, but said she rarely reveals that she is one of the 48 migrants who landed in Martha's Vineyard.

"Its going to take a long time to rebuild trust after what theyve been through," said Abbott.

'We believe this is a country filled with love.'

Katiuska has only one regret: leaving her seven children behind with a family member. Tears formed in her eyes when she thought about how difficult the journey would've been for them. "If it (the trip) was so difficult for me, I cant imagine what it would have been like for my kids," she said. "I feel it would have been irresponsible for me to bring them."

Since arriving on the Cape, the student has grappled with the lies he was told by Perla, Emily, and the unknown man. It affected him psychologically, he said. Regardless, he considers Cape Cod a place filled with opportunity.

"For so long it was either live or die," he said. "But now we are here to fight for our future. And be part of society. We believe Cape Cod is a place where people are very nice. We believe this is a country filled with love."

Rachael Devaney writes about community and culture. Reach her at rdevaney@capecodonline.com. Follow her on Twitter: @RachaelDevaney.

The Cape Cod Times mobile app gets you to the heart of the matter  fast. Whether breaking news, sports, entertainment or weather get succinct, personalized coverage along with award-winning videos, captivating photography, and interactive user features. Download the app.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Four migrants flown from Texas to Martha's Vineyard tell their stories
HOUSTON - During an investigation of a body found in Chambers County, authorities arrested the victim's father as a possible suspect.

Around 9 a.m. on Friday, detectives responded to the now-identified body of 29-year-old Romeo Jimerson, at the 807-mile marker westbound on Interstate 10.

Chambers County law enforcement immediately launched an investigation and evidence at the scene strongly indicated the involvement of foul play in Jimerson's death.

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On Tuesday, presented facts to Chambers County District Attorney Cheryl Lieck-Henry and charges were approved against Cobin Rocio, the father of Jimerson, and Melvin Carraway, who is an acquaintance and a father himself, for Tampering with Evidence  Human Corpse, a second-degree felony.

Rocio was arrested without incident in Harris County with the help of Pasadena police and Caraway was also taken into custody. Both have bonds set to $750,000 and are currently booked in Chambers County Jail.

FOX 26 Houston is now on the FOX LOCAL app available through Apple TV, Amazon FireTV, Roku and Google Android TV!

Officials say charges are expected to be upgraded as the investigation is ongoing.

Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said, "We want to extend our heartfelt prayers and condolences to the family of Romeo Jimerson and ensure that they know we will continue to pursue justice in this case. I would also like to thank everyone who has taken part in this investigation and helped to bring such a swift resolution to this case."
A Missouri bookkeeper embezzled $849,000 from her client as part of a yearslong scheme, according to federal authorities.

But when the client discovered that he was missing large amounts of money in June 2022, the bookkeeper blamed one of her employees, prosecutors said.

Now, Cora G. Willard, 47, has been sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison, according to an Oct. 18 news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Her defense attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News on Oct. 19.

Willard, of Shrewsbury, ran a bookkeeping and money-management assistance company named Red Hen Business Services, according to the release.

Through her business, a man who ran a wealth management business hired Willard in May 2019 to do his bookkeeping and bill paying, according to the womans guilty plea agreement. Prosecutors said she had access to the mans bank accounts and financial records.

Willard began stealing from the client later that year, authorities said. From about Nov. 29, 2019, through June 10, 2022, she made nearly 100 unauthorized wire transfers to herself from the victims bank account, even after hed asked her to close the account, according to the release.

Many of the tax and bill payments Willard was hired to make were actually wired to her own accounts, authorities said.

To cover up her scheme, authorities said the bookkeeper sent her client fake balance sheets.

Willard pleaded guilty in April to a felony count of wire fraud, records show.

In addition to time in prison, she was ordered to pay $849,000 in restitution. She repaid $100,000 on Oct. 18, according to the release.

Red Hen Business Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News on Oct. 19.

Shrewsbury is part of the St. Louis metropolitan area.

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Photo: CTV News

Israel's envoy to Canada says it is important for democracies to assess when a line has been crossed between freedom of speech and what he calls "freedom of hate."

Iddo Moed, Israel's ambassador to Canada, spoke generally about what he sees as a "thin line" between the two in an interview with The Canadian Press.

He said he couldn't comment on the nature of any demonstrations seen in Canada since Hamas launched surprise attacks on Oct. 7, when rocket attacks and raids by militants killed hundreds of civilians in southern Israel during a major Jewish holiday.

Israel retaliated with airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas, and cut off access to essential supplies. More than 4,000 people have died in the latest Israel-Hamas war.

Almost immediately, the conflict sparked protests worldwide.

Political leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other Liberal ministers, swiftly condemned demonstrators who attended pro-Palestinian rallies in cities such as Toronto and Montreal in the aftermath of the Hamas attack.

They viewed the gatherings as celebrations of the attack by Hamas, which Canada has listed as a terrorist organization since 2002. One sign spotted at the Oct. 9 protest outside Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square read: "Occupation is a crime, resistance is a response."

The Gaza Strip, home to some 2.3 million people, has been under blockade by both Israel and Egypt since Hamas took control in 2007. Israel has defended the restrictions as a security measure, as Hamas has always embraced violence as a way to liberate Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. Palestinians have argued the blockade is collective punishment by Israel.

On Tuesday night, pro-Palestinian protesters marching through downtown Ottawa made their way to the front of a convention centre, where Trudeau and other federal leaders were speaking at a conference on antisemitism organized by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

The scene outside prompted organizers to direct attendees to leave through a back entrance and to exercise caution when going outside.

Speaking broadly, Moed said on Wednesday that there is a "distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of hate."

"I don't think that democracies allow people to hate and to incite, and I think that that is something that is looked at very carefully in many places, including Canada," he said.

He added that it is "perfectly fine" if people feel strongly about support for Palestinians.

"The only issue is, I think that we, as democracies, should look at  when is a line crossed that is between supporting a cause and between changing our values in a way that incites hatred and violence and even glorification of horrendous terrorist attacks.

"That's very, very important."

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters last week he finds it "abhorrent" that anyone in Canada voices support for Hamas, but he said Conservatives believe in freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and "people are free to state their own opinions, even opinions that I find abhorrent."

Police agencies across Canada have said they are monitoring for threats against synagogues and members of Jewish communities across the country. There were police officers outside the antisemitism conference in Ottawa this week.

CIJA said in a statement that "rabid pro-Hamas demonstrations" are being staged in cities across Canada.

Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, who attended the recent antisemitism event in Ottawa, said that protests about what is happening in the Middle East do not belong "at a Jewish community event."

"This was a Jewish community event to stop antisemitism. It seems like a strange place to have a protest about what's happening in the Middle East."

Housefather, who is Jewish, said the conflict has led to both Jewish and Muslim people in Canada feeling vulnerable.

"We need to make sure that we don't add to that vulnerability."

Quebec Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi, who is Muslim, told reporters on Wednesday that people in the Muslim Canadian community have been facing threats.

He said that his sister-in-law, whom he called "visibly Muslim," was bringing his nine-year-old niece to school and was "accosted."

"Two people gave her the middle finger  different people not in the same group. They followed her," he said.

The pair didn't make it to his niece's school that morning, Zuberi said.

"That is unacceptable expression of speech. Why did that happen to her?"

Federal Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya'ara Saks, an Israeli Canadian, told the House of Commons earlier this week that her daughter removed her Star of David on a university campus.

Moed told The Canadian Press that Israel feels a lot of support from Canada, noting that there have also been "strong manifestations in support of Israel throughout Canada in many communities."

"We feel at home, we feel among friends," he said.

"We know that there are others who don't support Israel and that is fine. That's the way democracies work."
President Biden will send an emergency funding request for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan to Congress this week, but Senate Republicans say the administration and Democratic lawmakers will have to agree to significant immigration policy reforms if it is to have any chance of passing.

The presidents request will cost around $100 billion and include $10 billion for Israel.

Senate Republicans involved in negotiations on border security say what the White House is preparing falls well short of what they want to stem the massive flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Im sure its going to be milquetoast and inadequate, said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a leading Republican voice on immigration reform, who has participated in Senate discussions on border security language.

Cornyn, a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, said the Biden administration needs to include significant policy reforms in a national security funding package.

He said failure to include those reforms would be a problem for passing the overall bill.

Republican senators told senior administration officials at a classified briefing Wednesday afternoon that any emergency defense spending package would need to include significant border security reforms.

We talked about how a supplemental thats going have the support for Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel needs to have that in it, said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). We made it very clear they have to do that.

A Democratic senator familiar with the White Houses pending national security funding request confirmed that it will not include the changes to asylum policy that Republicans are demanding, signaling a tough road ahead for the bill.

Senate Republicans are warning that Bidens request will be dead on arrival on Capitol Hill without changes to asylum law.

Theyve got to be meaningful policy changes, and cant just throw money at sanctuary cities, which is what Democrats want to do, and thats what the White House has proposed, said Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.).

Thune will help convene a meeting of Senate Republicans on Thursday to refine the Republican request for what border security provisions need to be added.

The key issue in all this probably is the asylum policy, Thune said. That is what everybody agrees, if youre going to slow the flow [of migrants], you got to deal with the asylum issue.

He predicted the White House would likely only propose new funding to help New York and Chicago absorb the huge influx of migrants across the Southern border.

My guess is what theyre going to do is the baseline of what they did last time, which is just the $4 billion for New York and Chicago. I raised it on a call with them recently, Thune said, recounting a recent discussion with White House officials.

Separate aid bills may be necessary

Some Republican aides say that Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) may have to separate the aid for Israel and pass it on its own to keep it from getting held up by a fight over immigration law.

Linking them together is a mistake, said one Senate GOP aide. It would be better to leave the conversations about Ukraine and significant border security reform for later.

The aide said theres a sense among Republican and Democratic lawmakers that Israel needs assistance immediately to replenish its Iron Dome missile defense system.

Democratic allies of Israel, such as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin (Md.), arent ruling out the prospect of moving money for Israel on its own.

Thats a strategic decision, he said. All the money is urgent. Ukraine is desperate, they need the help. Israel can defend itself, but we have to send a clear message to Israel. So, both of those are pretty urgent to get done.

Ill yield to the strategic decision on the best way to handle that, he added, indicating its up to Schumer to set the strategy.

Schumer announced Monday that the Senate would act first to move an assistance package for Israel, given the urgency of the situation.

We want to move this package quickly. The Senate must go first, Schumer said. It will include military, intelligence, diplomatic and humanitarian assistance.

Schumer on Tuesday said the money for Israel will be paired with money for Ukraine, describing them both as high national security priorities.

Wed like to get the supplemental package moved as quickly as possible because the needs are great in both Israel and Ukraine, he said. Im working with [Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)] to get it done ASAP.

He said passing it with strong bipartisan support may force the House to act.

House action on Bidens requested foreign aid package is unpredictable, as GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber are still squabbling over whom to elect as Speaker.

The infighting has dragged on for more than two weeks, and theres no end in sight after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) lost on two ballots in his bid to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Efforts to attach $6 billion in military aid for Ukraine to a government funding stopgap measure failed last month after Republican lawmakers insisted on adding border security reforms to the Ukraine money.

Changes sought on asylum policy

Republican senators say they want the Biden administration and Democrats to raise the standard for migrants seeking asylum.

Congress narrowly avoided a shutdown by stripping the Ukraine funding out of the bill only hours before the deadline.

Under current law, migrants must claim a credible fear of persecution in their home countries as the basis for requesting asylum.

GOP lawmakers want to raise the bar to a reasonable fear of persecution. This would require migrants seeking asylum to show a reasonable possibility they will be tortured or persecuted if denied safe harbor in the United States.

I think the general consensus in the group is they need to see [border security] policy that cant be violated added to funding for Ukraine, said Tillis, who has participated in discussions on adding border security reforms to Ukraine funding.

Right now, the credible fear standard is too low, he said.

Tillis said Republicans also want to deny asylum claims from migrants who pass through a safe third country before coming to the United States for refuge and to adopt last in, first out removal policies.

That will have an immediate impact on future flows of migrants, he said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a leading Republican advocate for sending military aid to Ukraine, said, I cant imagine the United States Senate not dealing with the broken border given the state of play.

Of course there will have to be policy changes, or it wont matter, he said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The Texas Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of New Mexico joined forces to denounce the concertina wire installed along the Texas-New Mexico border as part of Gov. Greg Abbott 's ongoing Operation Lone Star.

Coils of razor wire were recently installed along the Rio Grande near Sunland Park, New Mexico, which neighbors El Paso.

In a joint statement released Oct. 17, Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa and Democratic Party of New Mexico Chair Jessica Velasquez blasted Abbott's latest move as a "stunt funded by the working Texas family's tax dollar that will result in environmental damage, community division and injuries of vulnerable migrants."

More: What to know about Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's floating buoy barrier along Rio Grande

"It's clear that Gov. Abbott has no plans on actually addressing our broken immigration system head on," Hinojosa and Velasquez wrote in the statement, "but instead adding more fuel to Operation Lone Star's dumpster fire."

The concertina wire strung along the Texas-New Mexico border is the latest in a string of efforts made by Abbott to stem border crossings by record numbers of asylum-seekers entering the U.S.

What began as razor-wire along the Rio Grande and morphed into a floating barricade in the middle of the river has now transformed into an interstate conflict.

Texas National Guard troops placed concertina wire along the Rio Grande by Mt. Cristo Rey in New Mexico and Texas.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In their statement, the state party chairs praised New Mexico as having "some of the most humane, people-oriented immigration laws in the country."

"New Mexico Democratic leaders believe that everyone who comes to our country in pursuit of a better life, as an asylum-seeker or otherwise, deserves just and humane treatment, and the laws of New Mexico reflect those values," the statement read. "Greg Abbott knows that our neighbors in New Mexico are not the enemy but is working overtime to gain Fox News airtime to cover up his proposed legislation to implement unpopular school voucher scams, imprison vulnerable migrants and their families, and his own party's public infighting."

More: As special session begins, El Paso state delegation remains opposed to school vouchers

Abbott told a conservative audience during a trip to New York City late last month that migrants were bypassing the miles of razor wire and fencing along the Texas side of the Rio Grande near El Paso by moving to the west.

"Not only are we building a border of barriers between the border of Texas and Mexico," Abbott said during a Sept. 27 appearance sponsored by the Manhattan Institute. "We're also having now to build border barriers between Texas and New Mexico."

The Texas Military Department said the newly installed razor wired north of Downtown El Paso across from New Mexico's Sunland Park builds in the 18 miles of concertina wire the National Guard has laid on El Paso's border with Mexico.

"We are now fortifying the border between Texas and New Mexico to block migrants who are entering New Mexico illegally and then crossing into Texas," the Texas Military Department said in an unsigned statement. "The effort in El Paso was bolstered by the recent deployment of the Texas Tactical Border Force to El Paso."

Texas National Guard place concertina wire near the banks of the Rio Grande that is directly in front of Sunland Park, New Mexico, El Paso, Texas, Monday, October 9, 2023.

Texas and New Mexico Democratic party leaders asserted in their joint letter that both Republicans and Democrats acknowledge that "harmful border stunts" serve only to make the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border even more dire and called on Abbott to remove the barrier.

"Shame on Greg Abbott for using public tax dollars to uplift his dangerous approach to border security and infringing upon Texans' and New Mexicans' right to move freely across state lines," the statement read. "Texas and New Mexico Democrats condemn Abbott's razor wire fencing along our state borders and call for its removal effective immediately."

Adam Powell covers government and politics for the El Paso Times. He may be reached via email at apowell@elpasotimes.com.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Texas, New Mexico Dems slam Gov. Greg Abbott's latest 'border stunt'
As you sweep in from Kelso towards the Borders villages of Birgham, Eccles and Leitholm it looks picture perfect in the late autumn sunshine.

It does not - at first glance - appear like a battle ground for meeting national energy provision needs.

Two Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) have already been approved - with more on the Berwickshire horizon.

Some residents fear a "gold rush" of proposals, further and further away from the local electrical substation.

Bob Hope, who chairs the local community council, said they took a "pragmatic approach" to the first three proposals in the area.

However, they fear they could become the target of many more developments due to their location.

"The UK, like the rest of the world, is going through transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy," he said.

"The grid is trying to catch up with the process because the grid initially was set up to take power from big power stations and all of a sudden it's having to take power from lots of small generators, if you like.

"And one of the the key substations in the process is situated at Eccles."

BESS are devices that enable energy from the likes of solar and wind farms to be stored and used when the power is needed most.

Lithium-ion batteries, used in mobile phones and electric cars, are currently the "dominant storage technology" for large-scale plants.

Mr Hope said he understood the "strategic" role the Eccles substation had to play as it provides electricity to the north east of England.

"The real challenge we've got is that we now have battery storage developments coming out the woodwork or planning applications for them all over the place," he said.

"We have some of the best arable fields in Scotland and all of a sudden they're being planned to turn them into concrete wildernesses.

"As far as we are concerned we are being industrialised by stealth."

He has written to the Scottish government to ask for developments to be put on hold while a national strategy is developed.

James Finnie has lived near Leitholm for 17 years, next to one site being considered for a BESS project.

He had been hoping to sell his home this year to downsize but said that once the proposals emerged he was told the house sale was "dead" or the asking price would need to be slashed.

He compared the flood of applications in the area to a modern-day "gold rush".

"It just completely changes everyone's way of life," he said. "You look at the view - you're talking five miles of view into open countryside - that will be completely removed.

"It is not just something that is happening in a corner somewhere - it is a mass replacement of agricultural land with industrial plant."

He said he believed there was a place for BESS but it should either be next to a substation or wind farm or on "non-prime land".

He said to give permission at other locations, like the one near his home, would be "crossing the Rubicon" and also called for strategic planning guidance.

One of the firms behind a development in the area, Zenobe, plans to install hundreds of storage units on farmland.

Head of project development James Smith said Eccles had been identified as a "one of the key constraints on the entire UK network" and a "real bottleneck" in the system.

He added that he did not believe all the potential developments in the area would ultimately go ahead and some would inevitably "fall away".

However, he said he believed the Zenobe project fulfilled an important need.

He said: "This is about allowing a greater uptake of renewable energy and being able to transmit that energy from the areas of generation in Scotland to the areas of demand across the rest of the UK.

"I am very proud of this particular scheme in this particular location but I can understand the anxiety from the local community about the number of applications that are coming through."

The Scottish government said "bold action" was needed to tackle the climate emergency.

"As our renewable generation capacity increases, there will be a growing need for suitable storage and flexibility to manage the differences between generation and demand, with battery storage being one of the solutions," it said in a statement.

"We have some of the most stringent environmental impact regulations anywhere in the world and our planning and consenting systems ensure that local communities can have their say."

It added that it was aware of the proposals in Eccles but said that given one of them was a live application it would not be appropriate to comment further.

Follow the BBC for the South of Scotland on X. Listen to news from the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway on BBC Sounds. If you have a story for us email selkirk.news@bbc.co.uk or dumfries@bbc.co.uk.
A survey that even David Brent might baulk at shows that nearly one-third of British employees have left their jobs because of a negative relationship with their boss. Based on conversations with more than 4,500 UK workers and managers, research by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and YouGov points to an avalanche of bad leadership  and the knock-on effect this has on productivity, employee morale and job retention.

We are a nation of bosses  one in four working adults in Britain is in a management position  and yet only 27 per cent of employees describe them as highly effective. So what is going wrong?

Mostly, companies are not prioritising training or promoting the right candidates. The CMI found that over 80 per cent of bosses in the UK are what it calls accidental managers  people who have been given the role with no formal training in management or leadership. Equally, our culture means that members of staff are far more likely to be given a promotion based on technical competence rather than possessing a specific skill set or personality type suited to leadership.

Anthony Painter, a director of policy at the CMI, believes this is a particularly British problem. I think there is a local angle to this  a culture of muddling on through  and we as a country have a bad habit of thinking management is not a set of professional skills, he says. Other countries invest time and effort in training managers  we can see that a large reason for the productivity gap between the UK and places like the US or Germany is because of management.

The survey backs this up: employees who marked their manager as ineffective were far more likely to agree that their company was struggling to hit targets, recruit and keep new talent, promote the best people, and create a positive working environment. Equally, nearly one in five people wanted to report these workplace problems but feared retaliation from the very managers they believed were causing them. The result was that difficult conversations about what needed to change were rarely had.

Does David Brent feel a bit too close to home? - BBC

Add to this, damage to employees, to companies and to the wider economy. Worried you have a bad boss? Here are the signs.

1. You barely know them

You have to know your team to be able to manage them and you cant be a good boss if you only do a management role part-time, says Phil Boden, market director at recruitment firm Robert Half. A good boss is someone who is aware of your career aspirations and has a decent understanding of your personality. They know what your personal life looks like and what your strengths and weaknesses are. None of this is doable from a distance.

2. They dont trust you

Distrustful managers tend to micromanage their employees, check everything that people are doing, and hesitate to believe any perspective other than their own. This lack of trust can cause major problems  particularly if the person micromanaging insists on overseeing every task and being copied in on every email. Theres a lack of productivity because they seldom delegate, says Painter. And the whole team will suffer: were social animals and we have our natural cues, and you are going to respond better to someone who believes you can do a good job.

3. They cant navigate a new working-from-home reality

Managers need to rethink their roles quite carefully in the context of hybrid working, says Painter. The evidence seems to show that there are benefits to independent working but you have to be really aware that you need to have regular contact and sometimes in-person meetings to develop trusted relationships. That doesnt mean you have to be in the office five days a week, but you have to be aware of social bonds.

4. They play favourites and never stick up for the team

A bad boss is someone who never speaks up for their employees because they are so busy trying to please the people above them. Its not good management to fail to provide feedback from above, and certainly not to blame problems on employees below you, says Painter. You have to stick up for your team and do it authentically, and I think you have to see yourself as brokering those relationships. He adds that playing favourites from within the team  however tempting it can be  is just as damaging.

5. They cant reprimand employees

While trust is important, its essential to have a barrier between employees and bosses and for people to respect their line manager. This includes accountability: bosses cant be afraid to have tough conversations, including with people they consider friends. You have to be open and honest but you cant be a people-pleaser; part of being a manager means having difficult meetings, says Painter. If someone is doing a bad job in some way, a good boss wont bully or belittle but will explore what the issue is, explain it and work out how to resolve it. Having a good relationship with an employee does not mean under-managing their performance.

6. They have a very high opinion of themselves

When leaders think they are, for example, great at communication or better at their job than most other people in the company, they tend to make bad managers.

Anyone who is very focused on themselves wont be a great leader, says Painter. There is a group of bosses who think they know it all, and our survey  surprise surprise  showed theyre more likely to be men. Theyre the ones who think they dont need to learn anything new, who are overconfident and often have little interest in the team they manage. Its hard to see how people like that will be able to nurture talent.

7. They arent evolving

The workplace has changed hugely in the past decade  and a good boss will know how to navigate that and will be aware that behaviours and tactics from a decade ago may not work now. Its all about self-management and self-challenge and not everyone is good at it, says Painter. The world is changing rapidly  not just working from home, but environmental issues, inclusivity, mental health; these are agendas that are very live in any organisation. Im not going to give bosses advice on how they deal with them or what their opinion is, but they have to be alert to the fact that they require attention.

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What should you do if you have a toxic or incompetent boss?

If youre scared of there being repercussions then youre in a difficult situation, says Painter. There is always the chance that the company wont safeguard your wellbeing, but its worth trying to see whether things can improve rather than just leaving. Write down the factual situation of what you have experienced, and get the support of colleagues or friends.

As for whether there is a difference between toxic and incompetent bosses, Painter says the former is often more difficult to deal with. With an ineffective boss the company may already be looking for an opportunity to take action, but a toxic boss may be well regarded as they tend to kick down  and thats more difficult, he says. Try to get the advice and support you need  and good luck.

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A 13-year-old boy was surrounded by armed police after an officer mistook his water pistol for a real gun.

The youngster was rammed off his bike by a police van and handcuffed as he was confronted by marksmen in Hackney, east London, in July.

The Alliance for Police Accountability (APA) condemned the treatment of the boy, saying the water pistol was unmistakably a toy.

He was having a water fight with his younger sibling on July 19 when a police officer on patrol reported a potential firearms incident.

One of the water guns was blue and white, and one was pink and white, said the APA.

Appalling treatment

Armed units from the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police were sent to the scene, according to the APA.

It said in a statement: The subsequent treatment of Child X and the horrific scene that unfolded was appalling.

A police van rammed Child X off his bicycle, knocking him to the ground.

He was surrounded by armed police officers who pointed their firearms at him and arrested him on suspicion of being in possession of a firearm.

He was de-arrested at the scene soon afterwards, once his mother had arrived and challenged what was happening, but she too was treated with contempt by the officers when she sought an explanation for their conduct from them.

The APA will hold a press conference on Thursday during which a statement from the mother of Child X will be read.

Det Ch Supt James Conway, in charge of policing for Hackney and Tower Hamlets, said he had apologised to the family.

He said: This incident was understandably extremely distressing for the boy involved, as well as the rest of his family.

We know it may cause public concern and we want to help the public understand why we responded in the way we did.

This does not in any way detract from our recognition of the trauma caused to the boy, for which I apologised soon afterwards to his family.

Speaking to The Guardian, the boys mother said: The attitude of the police to him  and to me  is shown in the words of the senior officer at the scene when I protested to him about the conduct of his officers. He told me I was lucky that they had not arrested my son.

For what? For playing with a brightly coloured plastic water gun with his younger sibling on the streets behind our home? For being a black boy on the streets of Hackney?

She said she did not believe the Metropolitan Police would not have treated her son in the same way if he was white.

The force declined to comment further.

No misconduct committed

An internal investigation by the Metropolitan Police found no misconduct had been committed by the officers involved.

A further complaint accusing them of racial bias is still being investigated by the forces standards department.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct watchdog directed that the Metropolitan Police could carry out both investigations itself.

Mr Conway said: Our officers are dealing with fast-moving situations, based on the limited information provided to them at the time.

Such is the nature of the threat from firearms that the College of Policing is clear that officers should treat all firearms as real and loaded until proven otherwise.

The police have a positive legal obligation under human rights legislation to protect life, which shapes our approach to responding to suspected firearms.

Child Xs family have seen body-worn video of what happened and have met Mr Conway.

He added: I am sorry for the trauma caused to the child and I am happy to meet with the family again if they feel that would help.

A City of London Police spokesman said: As common practice, a firearms unit from the City of London Police attended in support of Metropolitan Police firearms units at an incident on July 19 2023.

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Of the City Council races shaping up to be nail-biters this election season, one in the Bronx could prove especially upsetting to Democrats.

That race features incumbent Councilwoman Marjorie Velazquez going up against Republican challenger Kristy Marmorato in a district that saw positive signs for the GOP in the last mayoral election and the most recent gubernatorial race.

Marmorato has proven to be a formidable candidate in a borough thats been reliably Democratic for decades and is making the argument that  despite a clear disadvantage in the fundraising department  she has a clear shot at victory.

Im going to be consistent, and I will be the hardest-working Council member that this district has ever seen, said the Republican. Im not afraid of hard work.

Velazquez said in a written statement shes taking her challenger seriously because thats what this district deserves.

Talking to voters, whether they vote for me or not, enables me to hear their concerns and fight for them, she said. Im confident my record improving public safety, increasing affordability and strengthening small businesses will contrast well with my opponents extremism and inexperience.

As both candidates seek to get support from voters, theyre also painting each other as unsuited for the role.

Velazquez has sought to tie Marmorato to Republican stances on abortion and her connections to the far right, including the Proud Boys and its involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., but shes also fending off attacks about her stances on a controversial rezoning in the district and a proposal to house former inmates with medical needs in a facility within Jacobi Hospital. Marmorato said it was the Jacobi proposal that compelled her to mount a run.

The whole reason I got into this race is because they want to put a Rikers release program within steps of my house and schools, Marmorato said, adding that Velazquez has voiced only tepid resistance to the plan.

Marmorato also contends Velazquez is far more left on the political spectrum than shes now positioning herself.

But Marmorato has her own liabilities to contend with. Earlier this month, she came under fire from the Velazquez camp for accepting donations from dozens of employees at the city Board of Elections, where her husband works as a GOP commissioner.

J.T. Ennis, a Velazquez campaign rep, said at the time that it reeks of the corruption and political patronage.

Marmoratos political operation wasnt very visible in the weeks immediately after the June primary, but is now aggressively campaigning in Council District 13, which covers Morris Park, Pelham Bay, Throggs Neck and City Island.

She has the advantage of running in an area that favored Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa over Mayor Adams in the 2021 election and had strong pockets of Republican support during the 2022 Congressional and gubernatorial races. The lack of a citywide race at the top of the ticket is also expected to result in lower-than-normal voter turnout, which could also work in Marmaratos favor.

But Marmorato is facing an uphill battle. While city Campaign Finance Board records show shes raised $50,000 so far, that total is dwarfed by Velazquezs haul of more than $130,000, with a sizeable amount of that cash support coming from unions as well.

During the June primary, Velazquez also had more voters in her corner. A total of 2,795 people ranked her as their first choice during the primary  more than triple the number of people who made Marmorato their top pick in ranked-choice voting.

Velazquez has run an aggressive field campaign as well and has the support of several key unions, including the NYC District Council of Carpenters, the hotel workers union and the Police Benevolent Association, which are all assisting her get-out-the-vote operation.

Democratic allies  like labor unions  have also rallied to Velazquezs side in a way that well-known Republicans like former Rep. Lee Zeldin, last years gubernatorial candidate, have not for Marmorato.

You dont see the equivalent support on the Republican side, said Trip Yang, a Democratic political consultant. If Marmorato was surging, these Republican leaders would be cropping up in her district.
Scientists have long thought that the burning up of space junk in Earth's atmosphere creates air pollution that can affect the planet's climate. Now, for the first time, they've managed to detect the presence of these pollutants in the air high above our planet.

A team of researchers flew high-altitude NASA aircraft over Alaska and the U.S. mainland to sample the chemical composition of the thin air in the stratosphere, the second-lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere , which extends from about 6 miles to 30 miles (10 to 50 kilometers) above the planet's surface.

The planes, NASA's WB-57 and ER-2 aircraft, allowed the researchers to reach altitudes of up to 11.8 miles (19 km), which is about five miles (9 km) above the cruising altitude of commercial airliners.

Related: The rise of space tourism could affect Earth's climate in unforeseen ways, scientists worry

Sensitive sensors in the nosecones of the planes analyzed the chemical compounds diluted in the thin, pristine stratospheric air, which is out of reach of Earth-based air pollution sources. The researchers found traces of lithium, aluminum, copper and lead in the sampled air. The detected concentrations of these compounds were much higher than what could be caused by natural sources, such as the evaporation of cosmic dust and meteorites upon their encounter with the atmosphere. In fact, the concentrations of these pollutants reflected the ratio of chemical compounds present in alloys used in satellite manufacturing, the researchers said in a statement .

"We are finding this human-made material in what we consider a pristine area of the atmosphere," Dan Cziczo, a professor of Earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at Purdue University in Indiana and one of the authors of the study, said in the statement. "And if something is changing in the stratosphere  this stable region of the atmosphere  that deserves a closer look."

In recent years, scientists have been sounding alarm bells about the possible effects of the rising number of rocket launches and satellite re-entries on the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere.

For example, aluminum oxide, a product of the burn-up of aluminum-based alloys, is known for its ability to destroy ozone. Coincidentally, Earth's ozone layer , which protects life on the planet from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation, resides in the stratosphere, where the pollutants were found. The ozone layer has only just begun recovering from the destruction caused by the earlier use of ozone-depleting substances in refrigerators and aerosol sprays, and the pollution from space junk may set back its healing process.

On top of that, aluminum oxide particles can alter Earth's albedo, the planet's ability to reflect light, Aaron Boley, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of British Columbia in Canada, told Space.com in an earlier interview . Too-high concentrations of aluminum oxides in the stratosphere could therefore lead to temperature changes in the stratosphere which could, in turn, have unforeseen consequences for Earth's climate.

The problem is that particles dispersed at high altitudes are most likely never going to fall to Earth, Boley warned, which means that their concentrations are only going to rise with time.

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The advent of megaconstellations, large systems of satellites such as SpaceX's Starlink , has led to a steep increase in the number of satellites launched into orbit in recent years. Most of these satellites are designed to fall back to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere at the end of their missions. Tens or even hundreds of satellites may be launched in the coming decade, and that means a sharp increase in satellite re-entries and thus in the concentrations of chemicals created by their burn-up in the upper layers of the atmosphere.

"Changes to the atmosphere can be difficult to study and complex to understand," Cziczo said. "But what this research shows us is that the impact of human occupation and human spaceflight on the planet may be significant  perhaps more significant than we have yet imagined. Understanding our planet is one of the most urgent research priorities there is."

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday (Oct. 16).
Editors note: This story is available as a result of a content partnership between WFTV and the Orlando Business Journal.

Racheal Allen has started a number of businesses but, until she needed office space, she didnt realize how important insurance is for a small business.

In 2019, Allen launched Operations School in the Detroit area, helping thousands of underserved business owners learn how to better operate their companies through workshops, technical assistance and a 10,000-square-foot location with incubation and office space.

Most of the small businesses I have talked to only get insurance because they are required for some reason. Most small businesses have never thought about it, Allen said.

Read: Port Orange police search for more victims after man accused of impersonating contractor

Click here to read the full story on the Orlando Business Journals website.

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California Gov. Gavin Newsoms office on Thursday said the governor will travel to Israel this week to meet with survivors of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks there.

Im on my way to Israel, Newsom said in a short post on social media Thursday. Ill be meeting with those impacted by the horrific terrorist attacks and offering Californias support.

Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 people and took more than 200 hostages during a surprise attack on Israel earlier this month, according to the Israeli government. In retaliation, Israel launched airstrikes and further cut off supplies to the Gaza Strip, which Hamas rules by force. Nearly 3,800 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Californias support will include medical supplies and provisions intended for the Gaza Strip, the Associated Press reported.

Newsoms office didnt immediately respond to a request for comment seeking more detail.

The visit coincides with a previously scheduled weeklong trip to China, set to begin Monday, focused on climate action and partnership between two of the worlds largest economies, according to Newsoms office.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) also visited Israel this week, describing her trip as a show of solidarity: As the state with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, New York and Israel share a bond that will never be broken.

Related...
FILE - California Gov. Gavin Newsom fields questions before a Republican presidential primary debate on Sept. 27, 2023, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Newsom is planning to make a stop in Israel on Friday, Oct. 20, 2023, ahead of his planned trip to China next week to discuss policies to curb global warming. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  California Gov. Gavin Newsom is planning a one-day visit to Israel this week to meet people affected by that country's war with Hamas, stopping over en route to China where he will discuss policies to curb global warming.

The Democratic governor is set to arrive Friday in Israel with plans to depart later that same day for Hong Kong. His office didn't immediately answer questions about his schedule and activities in Israel.

Im on my way to Israel, Newsom confirmed in a message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Ill be meeting with those impacted by the horrific terrorist attacks and offering Californias support.

California is also sending medical supplies to the region, including provisions intended for the Gaza Strip, his office said.

On Wednesday, Newsom announced more security funding for places of worship in California, including $10 million to immediately increase the police presence at such places as mosques and synagogues.

"Amid the horror unfolding in the Middle East following the unconscionable terrorist attacks in Israel, California is authorizing the immediate deployment of funds to increase security at worship sites, Newsom said in a statement. No matter how and where one prays, every Californian deserves to be safe.

California is home to the largest population of Arab Americans in the United States, according to the Arab American Institute. It also has the second largest populations of Jews in the U.S., according to the American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University.

The war that began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants stormed into Israel, and Israel vowed to destroy the militant group, has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides.

Newsom's visit comes after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul arrived Wednesday in Israel to offer solidarity and support. President Joe Biden also wrapped up a 7 1/2-hour visit to Israel that same day in which he negotiated a deal for limited humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt.

Newsom is scheduled to participate in a weeklong tour focused on climate change policies in China, starting in Hong Kong on Monday. He will also visit Beijing, Shanghai and the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu.
Photo: The Canadian Press Nathaniel Veltman is escorted outside Ontario Superior Court in Windsor, Ont. on Tuesday, Sept.5, 2023. The trial of an Ontario man accused of killing four members of a Muslim family in an alleged act of terrorism is set to resume today after the Crown wrapped up its case last week. The trial, held in Windsor, Ont., is expected to hear from Veltman's defence lawyers. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dax Melmer

The man accused of killing four members of a Muslim family in London, Ont., told a jury Thursday he knew his actions were considered a terrorist attack.

On the stand in the Windsor, Ont., courtroom where his trial is taking place, Nathaniel Veltman said he was influenced by the writings of a gunman who committed the 2019 New Zealand mass killing of 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques.

Veltman said his understanding of terrorism is that it's any politically-motivated violence and he was a "political person" when he crashed into the Muslim family.

Crown attorney Jennifer Moser, who was cross-examining Veltman, told him he knew he committed a terrorist attack when he struck five members of a Muslim family in June 2021.

"I know that every major event like this is considered a terrorist attack," Veltman said, responding to Moser. "My understanding of a terrorist attack was, generally, politically-motivated violence."

Veltman said he was "obsessed with politics" for two years before the attack and he was aware of "major events" that were called acts of terrorism.

"(Terrorism) is violence that had to do with politics or political motivation," he said. "That was my understanding."

The 22-year-old Veltman is accused of deliberately hitting the Afzaal family with his truck on June 6, 2021, while they were out for a walk in London. Prosecutors have alleged his actions amount to an act of terrorism.

He has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

Salman Afzaal, 46; his 44-year-old wife, Madiha Salman; their 15-year-old daughter, Yumna; and her 74-year-old grandmother, Talat Afzaal, were killed in the attack, while the couple's nine-year-old son was seriously hurt but survived.

Veltman told the jury on Wednesday that he had been considering using his pickup truck, which he bought a month earlier, to carry out an attack and looked up information online about what happens when pedestrians get struck by cars.

He said he wrote down data he found that indicated the likelihood of pedestrians' injury and death increased if the vehicle hitting them was travelling at higher speeds.

Veltman also testified that he ordered a bulletproof vest and a military-style helmet online in the month leading up to the attack and wore them on the day he ran down the Afzaal family.

Veltman also told the jury earlier this week that he felt an "urge" to hit the family with his truck after seeing them walking on a sidewalk, adding that he knew they were Muslims from the clothes they were wearing and he noticed that the man in the group had a beard.

Jurors have previously seen video of Veltman telling a detective that his attack had been motivated by white nationalist beliefs.

Court has heard he wrote a manifesto in the weeks before the attack, describing himself as a white nationalist and peddling unfounded conspiracy theories about Muslims.

The case is the first where Canada's terrorism laws are being put before a jury in a first-degree murder trial.
FILE PHOTO: Gavin Newsom, governor of the State of California, speaks at the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The governor of California - the largest U.S. state economy and one of the top economies in the world - will travel to China next week for meetings with national and provincial leaders to discuss climate action and other key partnerships.

Gavin Newsom 's trip comes after a series of China visits by top Biden administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Secretary of State Antony Blinken , special envoy on climate John Kerry and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

The week long visit will include stops in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, as well as Guandong and Jiangsu provinces, where he is expected to sign memoranda of understanding to cooperate on climate initiatives.

"As two of the worlds largest economies, our partnership is essential to delivering climate action for our communities and beyond," Newsom said in a statement on Wednesday.

Newsom has been building up a national profile as a voice for stringent climate action, most recently gaining applause at the United Nation's Climate Ambition Summit last month for a speech railing against oil companies' climate policy obstruction.

California has gained international attention for two recent policies that could have implications for global trading partners: a ban on the sale of new gas engine vehicles by 2035 and strict climate disclosure rules for companies operating in California.

Newsom will discuss clean energy transition and methane reduction in Beijing. These were central topics discussed between Kerry and his counterparts during his July visit.

China, the world's largest methane emitter, has yet to release details of its planned methane reduction strategy despite encouragement from Kerry's team to do so.

The governor also plans to tour Teslas Shanghai Gigafactory, which produces the largest number of electric vehicles in the world.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici, editing by Deborah Kyvrikosaios)
FILE PHOTO: Gavin Newsom, governor of the State of California, speaks at the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills

(Reuters) - California governor Gavin Newsom will visit China next week to discuss climate cooperation, promote bilateral economic development and tourism and encourage cultural exchanges, his office said in a statement on Thursday.

The week-long trip will include visits to Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Guangdong, the statement said.

"California and China hold the keys to solving the climate crisis," Newsom said. "As two of the world's largest economies, our partnership is essential to delivering climate action for our communities and beyond."

Newsom is expected to sign a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Guangdong province on climate issues, and he will also meet with regional leaders to discuss the shift towards electric vehicles and public transport. He will also sign additional MOUs in Beijing aimed at advancing climate cooperation between the two sides.

California has played a major role in maintaining climate ties between China and the United States, the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters.

During the presidency of Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement and all but shut down climate talks, leaders in California continued to meet with Chinese counterparts, including climate envoy Xie Zhenhua.

In 2019, California also set up the California-China Climate Institute, led by former governor Jerry Brown and partnered with Beijing's Tsinghua University, to conduct joint research on climate policies and solutions.

Newsom also signed an MOU with China's environment ministry last year to strengthen cooperation.

China and the United States relaunched top-level bilateral climate talks earlier this year after a hiatus triggered by the visit of former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the democratically governed island that China claims.

China climate envoy Xie and his U.S. counterpart John Kerry met in Beijing in July and have held several rounds of talks since in a bid to map out areas of agreement ahead of the COP28 climate talks in Dubai starting at the end of November.

(Reporting by David Stanway in Singapore; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
Halloween candy could be in for a California makeover.

Asserting that the Food and Drug Administration has not moved quickly enough on dangerous food additives, state lawmakers last month passed the California Food Safety Act, which bans four ingredients found in popular snacks and packaged foods  including candy corn and other Halloween treats.

Consumer health advocates hope the ban, signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Oct. 7 and set to take effect in 2027, will lead confectioners and food producers to modify their recipes for products sold both in California and elsewhere around the country.

The law prohibits the manufacture and distribution of brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, and red dye No. 3, which are used in processed foods including variations of instant potatoes and store-brand sodas, as well as candies. The additives have been linked to increased risks of cancer and nervous system problems, according to the Environmental Working Group, which sponsored the legislation, and are already banned in many other countries.

Melanie Benesh, vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, celebrated the new law as a very big deal and the first of its type in the country.

Food manufacturers and their lobbyists opposed the legislation, rejecting the idea that the four additives are unhealthy and arguing that such assessments should be made by the FDA.

We should rely on the scientific rigor of the FDA in terms of evaluating the safety of food ingredients and additives, said Christopher Gindlesperger, a spokesperson for the National Confectioners Association.

But food safety advocates say the FDA has moved far too slowly in regulating food chemicals.

Its unacceptable that the U.S. is so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to food safety, said state Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D-Woodland Hills, who introduced the bill along with Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, in a statement.

A letter sent to lawmakers from the sponsors of AB 418 this year noted that many new additives put in food products are not reviewed by the FDA before reaching the market. A provision in federal law called generally recognized as safe allows the industry to designate the chemicals as safe enough to include in food, even without notifying the agency.

FDA spokesperson Enrico Dinges, referencing the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, noted in an email that food and color additives must be approved for their intended conditions of use, and safety information must be available to establish a reasonable certainty of no harm before they are used in products on the market.

He added that the agency regularly reviews new data on food chemicals, and it is working on a proposed rule to ban the use of brominated vegetable oil  one of the ingredients included in the new California law  as a food ingredient. Dinges said it was not uncommon for a substance to be approved in one jurisdiction but not in another. He noted some color additives are authorized for use in Europe and elsewhere but not allowed in the U.S.

Californias initiative made headlines this year as a Skittles ban that would wipe popular candies off California shelves. But Gabriel and other proponents of the bill said the intention is simply to require modifications in the ingredients, as has already happened in Europe.

One additive included in an original version of the bill  titanium dioxide, which is in Skittles and other candy  was removed from those products before the bill reached its final version. It has been labeled a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

I admire the California legislature for doing this, said Joan Ifland, a researcher who studies food addiction and a fellow at the American College of Nutrition. She hopes state lawmakers go further in addressing food safety issues and the chemicals in processed food. It should give courage to other legislators.

Perhaps the most prominent ingredient on Californias banned list is red dye No. 3. It is allowed only in candied and cocktail cherries in the European Union but is widely used in the U.S.

A search of Food Scores, an online database maintained by the Environmental Working Group, generated more than 3,000 products that contain the chemical. The list includes items like frosted pretzels and scores of brand-name candies such as Peeps and Pez. It also includes items like fruit cocktail cups, protein drinks, and yogurts.

Peeps is already phasing out the ingredient  products will no longer contain red dye No. 3 after the 2024 Easter season, according to Keith Domalewski, director of marketing for its parent company, Just Born Quality Confections.

Just Born has always evolved with new developments and consumer preferences, Domalewski said in an emailed statement. We have worked hard to develop new formulations to bring fans the colorful PEEPS they know and love.

Pez representatives did not respond to a request for comment. The two major manufacturers of candy corn also did not comment.

The FDA banned some uses of the color additive in 1990, confirming it had been linked to increased risks of cancer, and prohibited its use in cosmetics and as a pigment in various foods. It said at the time it was taking steps to restrict the chemical  but never did.

Another of the newly banned ingredients, potassium bromate, has also been linked to cancer and is on Californias Proposition 65 list of ingredients that may pose increased cancer risks. It also has not been banned.

Food manufacturers and distribution groups did not indicate whether they would challenge Californias new law.

KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News, is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Newly appointed California Sen. Laphonza Butler will not seek a full Senate term next year, avoiding a contest that features three high-profile Democrats jostling for the once-in-a-lifetime job.

"Ive spent the past 16 days pursuing my clarity  what kind of life I want to have, what kind of service I want to offer and what kind of voice I want to bring forward," Butler said in a statement Thursday. "After considering those questions Ive decided not to run for Senate in the upcoming election. Knowing you can win a campaign doesnt always mean you should run a campaign."

The news, first reported by the New York Times, means Gov. Gavin Newsom avoids another political quandary of his own making  deciding whether to endorse the candidate he had elevated to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.



The governor had previously signaled his appointee, whom he pledged would be a Black woman, would be an interim pick. Most observers interpreted that as a desire for that person not to run in the 2024 Senate race that was already well underway. But he later insisted he would not pressure Butler to stay out of the contest.

Butlers decision also means Californias marquee race in 2024 remains centered on the three Democrats who for months have been mounting a campaign in a state as sprawling as California. Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee have spent much of the year criss-crossing the state courting political activists and raising money.

Each has carved their own niche in the crowded field. Schiff has flexed institutional heft, outraising his competitors by tens of millions and drawing on the formidable political network of his fierce ally, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Porter has parlayed her viral crusades against corporate greed into an uncommonly high profile for a three-term Congress member. And Lee, though lagging substantially in polls and fundraising, has the support of the influential Congressional Black Caucus who want to see a Black woman occupy that Senate seat.

Butlers candidacy threatened to cut into each candidates lane.

Butlers announcement caps a whirlwind stretch for the senator since Newsom picked her as the short-term replacement for Feinstein, a move that thrust the often behind-the-scenes power player into the public eye.

Before her stint running EMILYs List relocated her to the Washington, D.C. suburbs, Butler was best known in California as a longtime labor organizer based in Los Angeles who led the statewide operation of the powerful Service Employees International Union. She then worked as a political strategist for candidates, including then-Sen. Kamala Harris presidential campaign, and corporations such as Uber and Airbnb.

That work put her in the orbit of the states most powerful politicians, namely Harris and Newsom. Her familiarity with the latters circle made her an appealing, if unanticipated, choice for Newsom after Feinsteins passing.

In her statement, Butler did not address if shed seek public office sometime in the future  although chatter was already underway in Sacramento that a governors run in 2026 could be in the future.

California voters want leaders who think about them and the issues they care most about, she said. I now have 383 days to serve the people of California with every ounce of energy and effort that I have. Muhammad Ali once said, "dont count the days, make the days count. I intend to do just that.
Sen. Laphonza Butler will not seek a full six-year term next year, the California Democrat said Thursday.

Ive decided not to run for a full term in the US Senate. Knowing you can win a campaign doesnt always mean you should run a campaign, she said on X, formerly Twitter. I know this will be a surprise to many because traditionally we dont see those who have power let it go.

Butler added: California voters want leaders who think about them and the issues they care most about. I now have 383 days to serve the people of California with every ounce of energy and effort that I have.

The former labor leader and Democratic operative, sworn in to office earlier this month to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was seen as a potential challenger because of her deep connections to party insiders.

But she faced a huge task. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, has $32 million on hand. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, has $11 million to spend. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, has a strong grassroots following among progressives.

To run a competitive campaign would be very difficult, analysts said.

The Democrats in California Ive talked to are skeptical of such a quick turnaround, said Jessica Taylor, Senate editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

While she could probably raise decent amounts of money quickly, she starts with no name ID, Taylor said.

Schiff, Porter and Lee are all veteran members of Congress well known in their districts.

What got Butler quickly into the Senate conversation was her resume.

When Newsom appointed her  a surprise choice  she was president of EMILYs List, which has for a long time promoted Democratic women candidates.

She had also worked at SCRB Strategies in California, which had consulted for some of the states most successful Democratic candidates, and worked on then-Sen. Kamala Harris 2020 presidential campaign.




Bobby Singh looked at his ringing cellphone and noticed the caller was the FBI. He wasnt surprised.

He answered the phone and the agent on the other end informed Singh that he might be in imminent danger. That, too, did not surprise him.

Just two days earlier, Singh, who is a Sacramento Sikh rights activist, had heard devastating news. A man he considered a mentor, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was slain by masked gunmen outside a gurdwara  a Sikh place of worship  near Vancouver, Canada. Nijjar was a leader of a movement to create an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau , speaking in Parliament, would later say that Canadian intelligence had found credible evidence that agents of the government of India had carried out the assassination. The increasingly Hindu nationalist government of India, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi , had labeled Nijjar a terrorist and sought his extradition for years.

The June 18 assassination and growing tension between Sikhs and the Modi government are of particular concern in the Central Valley and Bay Area, home to a large Sikh population. California elected officials of Sikh descent, including Elk Groves mayor and a member of the California Assembly, told The Sacramento Bee that the assassination of Nijjar is part of a worrying trend of transnational repression that they believe can be traced to the government of India.

For Singh, the assassination was especially personal.

Singh, whose parents immigrated from India in the 1980s, befriended Nijjar at a Sikh activist conference in Toronto in 2019. Nijjar and the young activist communicated frequently via texts and phone calls.

It was just so shocking. Its something I am still coming to terms with, Singh said. We all have to carry on his work.

Singh said that two days before Nijjar was cornered by a vehicle and shot with dozens of bullets, he told Singh in a phone call he was being followed. Singh said that Nijjar told him he strongly suspected India.

Three days after the shooting  and just a day after he received the call from the FBI concerned for his safety  Singh received this text, which he shared with The Bee: Just a head up for you. Youre next in the USA. We have all the tools ready to fix the problems.

The text message was sent from a masked cellphone number. The chilling message, which Singh shared with the FBI, concluded with a nationalist Indian slogan, Jai Hind, which translates to Victory to Hindustan.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers a question during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in September. India expelled a senior Canadian diplomat and is accusing Canada of interfering in its internal affairs a day after Trudeau said Canada was investigating allegations India was connected to the assassination of Sikh independence advocate Hardeep Singh Niijar in Canada in June, and expelled an Indian diplomat.

The threat to Singh is just one of a number of troubling instances that have been shared with The Bee following Nijjars assassination.

On June 24, two days after Dr. Pritpal Singh, founder of the American Sikh Caucus Committee, was warned by the FBI about concerns for his safety, security footage showed an SUV taking cellphone images in front of Singhs Fremont home.

In August, after Sikh American Assemblywoman Jasmeet Kaur Bains championed a resolution declaring a massacre of at least 3,000 Sikhs in Punjab province in 1984 a genocide, Bains said that four Indian men visited her Bakersfield office and threatened her. Bains told The Bee she filed a complaint with Bakersfield Police and the California Highway Patrol.

On Sept. 7, according to a gurdwara in Stockton, known for being an important center of Khalistan activism, a man claiming to be a representative of the Indian government visited the gurdwara and told a priest that there would be immigration and other consequences if the gurdwara did not back off its pro-Khalistan activism. According to the gurdwara, the man asked for and received phone numbers for board members of the gurdwara.

On Oct. 15, a man was arrested at a gurdwara in Fremont after he allegedly tore down posters memorializing Nijjar. As police took the man away in handcuffs, he could be heard in a cellphone video recorded by a bystander yelling, Khalistan is a terrorist organization.

The Indian consulate in San Francisco and the Indian embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to inquiries from The Bee.

Bobbie Singh-Allen, Elk Groves mayor and the first elected Sikh woman mayor in the United States, told The Bee that it is hard to know, given the current tense climate, what is state-sponsored harassment and what is simply a byproduct of polarization created by the Modi government.

You want to support your community, Singh-Allen said, but these days you have to look over your shoulder and wonder what the consequences will be.

A Washington Post investigation last month into a digital campaign by Hindu nationalists to inflame India concluded that, They have perfected the spread of inflammatory, often false and bigoted material on an industrial scale.

Singh-Allen said that she has felt the flames of hatred directed toward her numerous times, including when she spoke out against a three-day shutdown of the internet in her native Punjab in March. The shutoff was justified by the Indian government as a necessary part of a manhunt for a Sikh separatist.

Can you imagine our government blocking forms of communication to the outside world while looking for one person? Singh-Allen wrote on Facebook.

The mayor told The Bee that men she suspected of having connections to the Indian government confronted her at a conference in Los Angeles.

A few aggressive men cornered me, and asked, why am I against India? she recalled. Im not against India, Im against the worlds largest democracy not behaving like one. Anytime a Sikh speaks up, they are labeled suspicious.

The Sacramento State activist Bobby Singh was not the only person to receive a call or be paid a visit by the FBI following the assassination of Nijjar.

Sikh activist Bobby Singh, left, a Sacramento State student, stands in 2019 at a Sikh activism conference in Toronto with Hardeep Nijjar, who was allegedly assassinated by Indian intelligence on June 18 in Canada.

The Bee learned of at least a half-dozen such outreach efforts in California including one to Dr. Pritpal Singhs home in Fremont. According to Singh, he was visited by agents who told the founder of the American Sikh Congressional Caucus they had a duty to warn.

Tipped off by FBI concern, Singh reviewed security footage and discovered a person on June 24 (six days after the assassination of Nijjar) in a black SUV in front of his gate taking cellphone photographs for several minutes. He provided the footage to the FBI.

Singh said he suspects that the SUV was sent by the Indian government.

We will not be intimidated by Indias transnational repression threatening individuals on U.S soil, he said. He added that he believes its important that Congress receives a full briefing from the intelligence community on the threats posed to Americans by the rogue Indian state.

Little Punjab

While Sikhs make up 2% of the overall population in India, about 40% of Californians of Indian descent are Sikhs, or an estimated 250,000, with the majority living in the Central Valley and Bay Area.

People fill Bradshaw Road as they walk past the Sacramento Sikh Society temple in Vineyard during the societys first Nagar Kirtan parade in March. The Central Vallley has a large Sikh population.

So many Sikhs have settled in Yuba City, an hour north of Sacramento, the city is informally referred to as Little Punjab. An annual Sikh festival in November, Nagar Kirtan, draws hundreds of thousands.

While Sikh leaders say they are concerned about several incidents in California, none raised more alarms than the Sept. 7 visit to the Stockton Gurdwara by a mysterious visitor.

The gurdwara, the oldest Sikh house of worship in the United States, provided The Sacramento Bee with security footage showing a man entering the gurdwara on foot and ultimately, gurdwara leaders said, delivering a message to a priest: Either back off pro-Khalistan activism or face consequences. Afterward, the man could be seen on the security video making a call on his cellphone. Minutes later he was picked up by a 2023 Cadillac Escalade.

The gurdwara said it has alerted the FBI. Its not known if the man was officially representing the Indian government. The FBI declined to comment on any investigation into Indian intelligence operations in the United States.

According to the president of the gurdwara, Ravinder Singh Dhaliwal, the visit followed mysterious phone calls he received with similar warnings to curtail Sikh activism.

Whats ironic, Dhaliwal said, is that our gurdwara in the early 20th century played a pivotal and historic role in Indias Independence movement from the British. Now it seems the government of India is attacking our fundamental rights of free expression.

Dhaliwal said that during the visit with one of its priests, this visitor claimed that the visit was part of an Indian governments operation to keep a watch on all gurdwaras in the U.S. This man told the employee that the Indian Government can influence the employees legal status.

According to Dhaliwal, the priest provided the visitor with a list of board members of the gurdwara, including their phone numbers.

Jasjit Singh, a Sacramento City Unified School District School board member and practicing Sikh, said that the Stockton incident was particularly chilling because Nijjar was slain outside a gurdwara.

Gurdwaras are open to anybody regardless of religion, race, creed, sexual orientation, he said. That openness and acceptance is part of being a Sikh.

But when you put on the hat of the Indian state, especially after the killing of Hardeep, what is being described is not the visit of an average person, its state business, used to intimidate and strike fear into community members.

Intelligence experts said that Sikhs in California have reason to be concerned.

After Mr. Nijjar was killed in British Columbia, Sikhs in Canada were saying, Oh, its India, its India. And then all of a sudden you find out it almost certainly was India, Dan Stanton, Former Executive Manager of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told The Bee.

Stanton added, If they can do this in Canada, they can do this anywhere, Im certain U.S. officials are taking concerns of the Sikh diaspora very seriously.

For the moment U.S. officials, who seek Indias cooperation on the international stage in the Middle East, China, and Ukraine have only made relatively reserved statements on the Nijjar killing, though, behind the scenes, assisted Canada with intelligence.

Were very concerned about the allegations that have been raised by Canada, by Prime Minister Trudeau, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said at a news conference last month. Blinken added, we have been in close contact with Canada about that and at the same time we have engaged with the Indian government and urged them to work with Canada on an investigation.

India under Modi, who was first elected in 2014, has long been concerned about Sikh activism in California. In 2016, officials from the Indian consulate in San Francisco made the unusual move of visiting every member of the Fresno City Council, stalling a resolution recognizing the 1984 coordinated killing of thousands of Sikhs as a genocide. After a nine-month delay, the resolution ultimately passed.

Protesters chant outside of the Consulate General of India office during a protest after the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver, Canada, on June 24.

Seven years later, Bains, a family physician who became the first South Asian woman elected to the California Assembly in 2022, described a toxic backlash when she introduced a resolution in the assembly in March recognizing the 1984 mass killing of Sikhs as a genocide.

After the resolution passed, Bains said she received numerous anonymous threats to her safety. Then in August, four Indian men paid a visit to her office.

Bains thought the meeting was just a typical get-together with constituents, but things derailed when one of the men uttered a racist trope.

Sikhs were created to protect Hindus, Dr. Bains recalled one of the men telling her. I told him that is offensive, my identity is much larger than that as a Sikh American.

The same man, according to Bains, began yelling and pointing his finger at her, telling her, I will do whatever it takes to go after the person behind this. This is an open challenge to you Dr. Bains.

Bains says she filed complaints with both the Bakersfield Police and the California Highway Patrol, which protects California legislators. She said because the incident happened in a state office, she believes several laws were broken.

Bains said she would like to see more forceful statements of concern from U.S. officials about the Nijjar killing and the general atmosphere that Sikhs are facing.

When the Canadian Prime Minister spoke out, I think that there was a collective feeling amongst California Sikhs that we were absolutely right to think this way, she said. The concern is now that we have proof, why isnt more being done to protect Sikh activists within America?
The state of California is hiring for remote and hybrid positions in the departments of conservation, technology, energy and more.

State jobs are known for offering competitive benefits and enrollment in the nations largest state public pension plan. Many of the following jobs have specific requirements, which are linked below.

These are some of Californias latest state jobs offering remote work available, on the CalCareers website, as of Oct. 18:

How much do California state workers get paid? Search public salaries in our database

Enforcement Analyst | Limited term, full-time

Locations: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara counties

Department: San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission

Salary: $6,387 to $7,999 per month

The enforcement analyst is responsible for analyzing technical, analytical and enforcement work related to the departments policies, proposals or projects.

The department offers hybrid and telework for all employees, according to CalCareers.

The application is open until the position is filled.

Information Technology Specialist | Permanent, full-time

Location: Sacramento County

Department: Technology

Salary: $5,960 to $9,643

The information technology specialist is responsible for performing a wide variety of tasks, including problem-solving, planning, developing and implementing tech solutions.

For this position, the department offers a hybrid work model that is remote-centered with about four to five days of work onsite per month.

The application closes on Nov. 3.

Senior Business Services Analyst | Limited term, full-time

Location: Sacramento County

Department: Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety

Salary: $5,518 to $6,907

The senior business services analyst is responsible for developing new resources, training, policies, and procedures and developing plans for business services programs.

This is a remote-centered position that will require 80% telework, according to CalCareers.

The application closes on Oct. 30.

Information Technology Associate | Permanent, full-time

Location: California

Department: Privacy Protection Agency

Salary: $4,516 to $7,998

The information technology associate is responsible for performing tasks in connection with the installation, configuration and support of IT systems.

This position is eligible for telework. However, changes to the telework program are at the agencys discretion and employees can be required to report in person, according to CalCareers.

The application closes on Nov. 1.

Attorney | Limited term, full-time

Location: Sacramento County

Department: Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety

Salary: $11,644 to $14,954

The attorney is responsible for serving as an expert in performing legal assignments and cases for the agency.

This is a remote-centered position that will require 90% telework, according to CalCareers.

The application closes on Oct. 26.





Public Information Officer | Permanent, full-time

Location: Sacramento County

Department: Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety

Salary: $5,518 to $7,116 per month

The public information officer is responsible for professional and technical tasks associated with the departments communications and public affairs program.

This is a remote-centered position that will require 85% telework, according to CalCareers.

The application is open until the position is filled.

Public Utilities Regulatory Analyst | Permanent, full-time

Location: California

Department: Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety

Salary: $8,814 to $11,031 per month

The public utilities regulatory analyst is responsible for performing complex analyses related to the protection against and prevention of wildfires throughout California.

This is a remote-centered position that will require 75% telework, according to CalCareers. However, employees can be called to report to headquarters in either Sacramento, San Francisco or Lakewood.

The application is open until the position is filled.

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.
Caribbean leaders and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrapped up a summit in Ottawa Thursday, saying they had found common ground in a number of areas, from security assistance for island-governments to support from Canada on global issues around climate change and financing, and attracting trade and investment.

This was an outstanding opportunity to gather among friends and partners, to talk about the challenges that the world is facing, like climate change, like geopolitical instability, like the need for better flow of financing; to talk about the challenges the region is facing, Trudeau said at a concluding press conference.

At their first-ever summit in Canada and with Trudeau, leaders of the 15-member Caribbean Community, known as CARICOM, spent two days discussing behind closed doors how to strengthen relations in order to create good jobs, make life more affordable, grow the middle class, fight climate change and keep people safe.

We are holding the summit this week at a time of great turbulence, Trudeau said. The conflict in the Middle East is reverberating around the world; Russias war in Ukraine continues to rage on, conditions in Haiti remain heartbreaking, our citizens are living the devastating realities of climate crisis, whether thats wild fires in Canada or hurricanes and rising sea levels across the Caribbean.

As a result of these and other issues, Trudeau said, its important to strengthen the relationship with friends and like-minded partners, which Canada has done in launching its new strategic partnership with the Caribbean region.

This is going to make our relationship stronger, and its going to help us work on our shared priorities, Trudeau said.

During the summit Trudeau announced a new commitment with the Caribbean Development Bank of up to 58 million Canadian dollars to support renewable energy projects in the region and 6 million Canadian dollars through a Caribbean fund for renewable energy systems. He also announced that Canada would enhance coordination between the Canadian Armed Forces and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, known as CDEMA, to quickly react to natural disasters.

Canada also will expand a tariff program to give Caribbean countries duty-free access to the Canadian market.

In many of our meetings we also talked about the issue of security in our region, especially in Haiti, he said. Since 2022, Canada has been committed to giving over 300 million [Canadian] dollars in international aid to address the Haitian crisis. Weve also sanctioned 28 people and provided technical assistance to the Haitian police and will continue to be there to support the people of Haiti.

Guyana President Irfaan Ali said leaders are pleased with the outcome of the summit, which focused on creating a framework to support investment and partnerships with the private sector and discussing policies that would support the aspirations of both Canada and CARICOM countries.

Also discussed, Ali said, said were food security, development financing, regional transport and logistics, energy security, and movement of people between Canada and CARICOM nations.

This summit definitely built our trust, deepened out friendship and expanded out relationship, he said.

While Canada and CARICOM countries have always enjoyed good relations, they started to develop even closer ties amid the ongoing crisis in Haiti as Trudeau pushed for more involvement by the region in helping the Caribbean nation address its political and security crisis. Trudeau was present on several calls with leaders before meeting with them face-to-face in February in The Bahamas where, despite U.S. pressure for Canada to lead an international intervention into Haiti, he announced instead more support for the Haitian police.

On Thursday, he continued to show his hesitancy over the idea of a mission to Haiti, despite a resolution earlier this month by the United Nations authorizing a deployment of a Multinational Security Support mission led by Kenya.

Right now there is not even a consensus among the Haitian political class on whether or not someone should step in to stop people from being killed, murdered or raped in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Trudeau said. We have said the international community, including Canada and CARICOM, are there to help. But there has to be a willingness clearly expressed and articulated by the Haitian political class that this is the right thing.

How they work out that consensus, how they establish it, will be very much something we are actively helping in and building that political consensus, he added, referring to the CARICOM initiative involving three former prime ministers who have been trying to mediate a power-sharing agreement between Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry and members of the countrys political and civil society groups.

Trudeau said Canada is working closely with CARICOM to ensure a process that would build the kind of political consensus necessary to go hand in hand with either intervention or support for the police or more humanitarian aid.

So far, those efforts have not yielded any political agreement, with both sides blaming the other for the logjam.

Keith Rowley, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, said there is a danger that as we attempt to provide help for the Haitian people, that that help is not viewed as supporting a minority government arrangement.

There isnt a single elected official in Haiti and as we look at the crisis and we advocate for an intervention of assistance, that that assistance be seen as coming from honest brokers and not in fact propping up what exists, in perpetuity, Rowley said referring to Henry and his supporters. That in itself poses a danger.

Henry, who was tapped by President Jovenel Moise before his July 2021 assassination to serve as his seventh prime minister in four years, has said that he has no intentions of running in the next elections. Still, that has offered little comfort to his detractors who insist on a power-sharing agreement.

Weve got the U.N. resolution and we anticipate there will be some transitional arrangement to afford the intervention of the assistance that the people of Haiti so desperately need, Rowley said.

This weeks summit was the first time since October that Canada did not announce new sanctions against Haitians, something Ottawa has done around every big event where Haiti was a focus. But during the press conference, Trudeau reiterated Canadas 28 sanctions against Haitian individuals, several of whom are currently challenging the designation and have publicly questioned what evidence the country has of their alleged involvement with gangs.

Asked about how Canada has made its determination on who to blacklist, Trudeau defended the policy. Canada, he said, has been involved in Haiti for the last 30 years.

Unfortunately, during these 30 years it has been impossible to solve the problem and the reality is, its not up to the international community to find a solution for Haiti, Trudeau said. Unfortunately, members of the elite in business, in government, in various wealthy families, oligarchs, for years, if not for decades, these people have been undermining the very stability of any progress, or any stability for the Haitian people.

We wont repeat the same mistakes, he said. Those who are responsible for this situation, for this present crisis, we have to put them in front of the international community to be accountable.

This is why Canada has stepped up by blacklisting of those who it believes are contributing to the current instability and horrific security situation that the Haitian people are suffering through right now, he said.

We have been putting pressure on the U.N., on the United States, on our European colleagues to meet us where we are with sanctions because we know that there are elites and oligarchs who are contributing to the instability and financing gangs and supporting this ongoing security and humanitarian crisis, Trudeau said.

On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council, which so far has only sanctioned a powerful gang leader, unanimously approved a resolution renewing global sanctions on Haiti and continuing the work of a panel of experts charged with identifying targets for sanctions.
FILE - A photograph of late temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar is seen on a banner outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib in Surrey, British Columbia, on Sept. 18, 2023, where temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar was gunned down in his vehicle while leaving the temple parking lot in June. Indian and Canadian officials have been in contact at various levels following a confrontation over Canadian accusations that India may have been involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in suburban Vancouver, an official in New Delhi said Thursday Oct. 12, 2023. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

TORONTO (AP)  Canada has recalled 41 of its diplomats from India after the Indian government said it would revoke their diplomatic immunity, the foreign minister said Thursday, in an escalation of their dispute over the slaying of a Sikh separatist in Canada.

The moves come after Canada's allegations that India may have been involved in the June killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in suburban Vancouver. India has accused Canada of harboring separatists and terrorists, but dismissed the allegation of its involvement in the killing as absurd" and has taken diplomatic steps to express its anger over the accusation.

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said Thursday that 41 of Canada's 62 diplomats in India have been removed, along with their dependents. Joly said exceptions have been made for 21 Canadian diplomats who will remain in India.

Forty-one Canadian diplomats and their 42 dependents were in danger of having their immunity stripped on an arbitrary date and this would put their personal safety at risk," Joly said. Our diplomats and their families have now left."

Joly said removing diplomatic immunity is not only unprecedented but contrary to international law, and said for that reason Canada wouldn't threaten to do the same thing with Indian diplomats.

"A unilateral revocation of the diplomatic privilege and immunity is contrary to international law and a clear violation of the Geneva Convention on diplomatic relations. Threatening to do so is unreasonable and escalatory," Joly said.

Joly said Indias decision will impact the level of services to citizens of both countries. She said Canada is pausing in-person services in Chandigarh, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Indias Ministry of External Affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had previously called for a reduction in Canadian diplomats in India, saying they outnumbered Indias staffing in Canada.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last month that there were credible allegations of Indian involvement in the slaying of Nijjar, a 45-year-old Sikh leader who was killed by masked gunmen in June in Surrey, outside Vancouver.

For years, India had said that Nijjar, a Canadian citizen born in India, had links to terrorism, an allegation Nijjar denied.

India also has canceled visas for Canadians, and Canada has not retaliated for that. India previously expelled a senior Canadian diplomat after Canada expelled a senior Indian diplomat.

Trudeau has previously appeared to try to calm the diplomatic clash, telling reporters that Canada is not looking to provoke or escalate.

The allegation of Indias involvement in the killing is based in part on surveillance of Indian diplomats in Canada, including intelligence provided by a major ally, a separate Canadian official previously told The Associated Press.

The official said that the communications involved Indian officials and diplomats in Canada and that some of the intelligence was provided by a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, which includes the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to Canada. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The latest expulsions by India have escalated tensions between the countries. Trudeau had frosty encounters with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the recent Group of 20 meeting in New Delhi, and a few days later, Canada canceled a trade mission to India planned for the fall.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with Indias foreign minister amid the simmering row. A U.S. official said the topic was raised. U.S. officials have acknowledged that the fallout from the allegations could have an impact on relations with India, but have been careful not to cast blame in the killing of Nijjar.

Nijjar, a plumber, was also a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan. A bloody decade-long Sikh insurgency shook north India in the 1970s and 1980s, until it was crushed in a government crackdown in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.

The Khalistan movement has lost much of its political power but still has supporters in the Indian state of Punjab, as well as in the sizable overseas Sikh diaspora. While the active insurgency ended years ago, the Indian government has warned repeatedly that Sikh separatists were trying to make a comeback.

Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller noted that in 2022 India was the top country for permanent residents, temporary foreign workers and international students in Canada. Miller said as a result of India's decision to remove immunity Canada's immigration department will be significantly reducing the number of Canadian employees in India. Miller said the lower staff levels will hamper the issuing of visas and permits.

Senior Canadian officials said India was firm on the number and rank of Canadian diplomats for whom it would lift diplomatic immunity. India also indicated it would cancel various permits, such as those permitting spouses to work in India and allowing the use of diplomatic plates on cars, officials said.

Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, said there would be no point in Canada retaliating over India's latest move.

The expulsions of the Canadian diplomats reveal the thin skin of the Indians; it suggests that they know they are complicit in the murder of a Canadian in Canada, Wiseman said. "They are trying to deflect attention from their lack of cooperation with Canada in the investigation of the murder.
Forty-one Canadian diplomats have recently left India amid a rift over the murder of a Sikh separatist leader on Canadian soil.

India asked Canada two weeks ago to withdraw dozens of its diplomatic staff and threatened to remove their immunity if they remained.

Canadian officials called the threat a "violation of international law".

Relations have been tense after Canada accused India of being behind the 18 June killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

India has denied the allegations, calling them "absurd".

On Thursday, Canada's foreign minister, Melanie Joly, confirmed that many Canadian diplomats and their dependents in India have now left the country.

She said India had said that immunity for "all but 21 diplomats" will be "unilaterally removed" by 20 October.

India's Ministry of External Affairs said it rejected suggestions that this was a violation of international norms.

"The state of our bilateral relations, the much higher number of Canadian diplomats in India, and their continued interference in our internal affairs warrant a parity in mutual diplomatic presence in New Delhi and Ottawa," it said.

Ms Joly said that the remaining 21 diplomats are still in India, but the withdrawal means Canada will have to limit its services in the country due to a shortage of staff.

Specifically, the move will put a pause on in-person operations in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Chandigarh, Ms Joly said. Officials said there is no timeline on when those services will resume.

Services will still be available out of the High Commission of Canada in Delhi, and applications centres - which are third-party run - will also remain open, officials said.

However, the reduction of staff is anticipated to significantly slow down processing times for immigration applications, at least in the short term, said Canadian immigration minister Marc Miller.

It will be primarily Indian citizens who will be affected, officials said, including international students looking to study in Canada.

Indian nationals made up the largest percentage of applicants for temporary and permanent residency in Canada in 2022.

India says Canada had many more diplomats in Delhi than India has in Ottawa, and has demanded parity ever since the row between the two countries erupted.

But the Global Affairs website which lists the Indian diplomats in Ottawa suggests they had about the same number.

India saying it would remove diplomatic immunity for Canadian envoys is a "violation of international law", Ms Joly said during a news conference in Ottawa.

She added that Canada will not reciprocate.

"If we allow the norm of diplomatic immunity to be broken, no diplomats anywhere on the planet would be safe," Ms Joly said.

Officials said they still welcome Indian nationals who want to visit or move to Canada.

Canada-India relations have deteriorated to a historic low after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in September there was credible evidence of a potential link between India and Nijjar's murder.

Mr Trudeau said this was based on Canadian intelligence, which suggested that "agents of the government of India" were behind the killing. This, Canada has said, is a violation of its sovereignty.

Nijjar was shot and killed by two masked gunmen outside the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia. Canadian police called it a "targeted attack", and an investigation into the murder is ongoing.

He was an outspoken advocate for the creation of a separate state of Sikhs in India called Khalistan - a movement staunchly opposed by India - and India had designated him as a terrorist in 2020.

Despite the public accusation, Mr Trudeau has repeatedly said that Canada is not looking to escalate the rift with India.

He has called on Indian officials to cooperate with the investigation into Nijjar's death.
Photo: The Canadian Press FBI Special Agent In Charge Jay Greenberg, right, speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's St. Louis field office in downtown St. Louis. Thousands of information technology workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program, FBI and Department of Justice officials said. (Christine Tannous/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)

Thousands of information technology workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program, FBI and Department of Justice officials said.

The Justice Department said Wednesday that IT workers dispatched and contracted by North Korea to work remotely with companies in St. Louis and elsewhere in the U.S. have been using false identities to get the jobs. The money they earned was funneled to the North Korean weapons program, FBI leaders said at a news conference in St. Louis.

Federal authorities announced the seizure of $1.5 million and 17 domain names as part of the investigation, which is ongoing.

Jay Greenberg, special agent in charge of the St. Louis FBI office, said any company that hired freelance IT workers more than likely hired someone participating in the scheme. An FBI spokeswoman said Thursday that the North Koreans contracted with companies across the U.S. and in some other countries.

We can tell you that there are thousands of North Korea IT workers that are part of this, spokeswoman Rebecca Wu said.

FBI officials said the scheme is so prevalent that companies must be extra vigilant in verifying whom they are hiring, including requiring interviewees to at least be seen via video.

At a minimum, the FBI recommends that employers take additional proactive steps with remote IT workers to make it harder for bad actors to hide their identities," Greenberg said in a news release.

John Hultquist, the head of threat intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, said North Koreas use of IT freelancers to help fund the weapons program has been in play for more than a decade, but the effort got a boost from the COVID-19 pandemic.

I think the post-COVID world has created a lot more opportunity for them because freelancing and remote hiring are a far more natural part of the business than they were in the past, Hultquist said.

North Korea also uses workers in other fields to funnel money back for the weapons program, Hultquist said, but higher pay for tech workers provides a more lucrative resource.

Officials didn't name the companies that unknowingly hired North Korean workers, say when the practice began, or elaborate on how investigators became aware of it. But federal authorities have been aware of the scheme for some time.

In May 2022, the State Department, Department of the Treasury, and the FBI issued an advisory warning of attempts by North Koreans to obtain employment while posing as non-North Korean nationals. The advisory noted that in recent years, the regime of Kim Jong Un has placed increased focus on education and training" in IT-related subjects.

Court documents allege that the government of North Korea dispatched thousands of skilled IT workers to live primarily in China and Russia with the goal of deceiving businesses from the U.S. and elsewhere into hiring them as freelance remote employees.

The IT workers generated millions of dollars a year in their wages to benefit North Korea's weapons programs. In some instances, the North Korean workers also infiltrated computer networks and stole information from the companies that hired them, the Justice Department said. They also maintained access for future hacking and extortion schemes, the agency said.

Greenberg said the workers used various techniques to make it look like they were working in the U.S., including paying Americans to use their home Wi-Fi connections.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are high as North Korea has test-fired more than 100 missiles since the start of 2022 and the U.S. has expanded its military exercises with its Asian allies, in tit-for-tat responses.

The Justice Department in recent years has sought to expose and disrupt a broad variety of criminal schemes aimed at bolstering the North Korean regime, including its nuclear weapons program.

In 2016, for instance, four Chinese nationals and a trading company were charged in the U.S. with using front companies to evade sanctions targeting North Koreas nuclear weapons and ballistics initiatives.

Two years ago, the Justice Department charged three North Korean computer programmers and members of the governments military intelligence agency in a broad range of global hacks that officials say were carried out at the behest of the regime. Law enforcement officials said at the time that the prosecution highlighted the profit-driven motive behind North Koreas criminal hacking, a contrast from other adversarial nations like Russia, China and Iran that are generally more interested in espionage, intellectual property theft or even disrupting democracy.

In September, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an exponential increase in production of nuclear weapons and for his country to play a larger role in a coalition of nations confronting the United States in a new Cold War, state media said.

In February, United Nations experts said that North Korean hackers working for the government stole record-breaking virtual assets last year estimated to be worth between $630 million and more than $1 billion. The panel of experts said in a report that the hackers used increasingly sophisticated techniques to gain access to digital networks involved in cyberfinance, and to steal information that could be useful in North Koreas nuclear and ballistic missile programs from governments, individuals and companies.
CANTON  A 30-year-old Massillon man was shot Wednesday night in the 800 block of Alan Page Drive.

The victim was in stable condition after being taken to Aultman Hospital by the Canton Fire Department, Canton Police Chief John Gabbard said in a press release. The victim suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and was struck in the chest.

The investigation is continuing. Police had no one in custody and no suspects as of Thursday afternoon. The motive for the shooting was unknown.

Police were dispatched to the scene at 11:29 p.m.

Anyone with any information about the crime is asked to contact the Canton Police Detective Bureau at 330-489-3144. Anonymous tips can also be sent through Tip411 or the Stark County Crime Stoppers. Sign up for Tip411 at www.cantonohio.gov/police.

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: Shooting on Alan Page Drive in Canton sends Massillon man to hospital
A pickup flipped in a ditch in Tallahassee in the early morning hours. Booze inside. The driver reeked of alcohol, with bloodshot eyes, slurred his words and fumbled about. He stumbled as a police officer explained the 12-step sobriety walking test. Then he wobbled off the line five times and demanded a cigarette.

All the makings of a drunken driving arrest? Maybe not.

A little-noticed, years-long court battle over the single-vehicle accident that could have broad implications in a state where more than 1,000 people were killed by impaired drivers last year has entered a crucial phase. A state prosecutor and defense lawyer are set to clash in a case that hinged over something that seemed a no-brainer:

What is a car crash?

We take DUIs, especially with crashes, seriously, even if theyre misdemeanors, because while theyre victimless to some extent, they can become very sad, bad victim crimes, said Anne Callaway Scott, a former prosecutor in the case.

Heres what happened, and why this case could be so important:

Damien McCartha, who was 25 at the time, was arrested on misdemeanor DUI charges in September 2019 in Tallahassee after driving his Toyota pickup into a ditch. When police responded after 1 a.m, they found the vehicle rolled over with its drivers side in the ditch and its passenger side up in the air, according to court filings.

The officer who initially responded contacted another officer, a drug recognition expert, after observing McCartha slurring his words and fumbling with his wallet to retrieve his drivers license. McCartha was questioned by the expert after waiving his rights and agreed to field sobriety tests, in which he performed very poorly, according to the arrest records.

At one point, McCartha refused to do any additional sobriety tests until he was allowed to have a cigarette. The officer said no.

A cup with cinnamon-flavored alcohol and a miniature liquor bottle of cinnamon whiskey were found in the vehicle after it was towed away. He was later arrested, and his blood alcohol level was measured 0.191, more than twice Floridas legal limit.

McCartha told police he had been at a pool hall, had two beers and got sideswiped on the way home, causing the accident.

A coworker took a message for McCartha at his auto repair business and said McCartha would return the call Monday. He did not.

McCarthas attorneys asked the judge in 2021 to throw out any evidence gathered during and after his arrest on the basis that neither officer had seen McCartha in or driving the vehicle, arguing that the warrantless misdemeanor arrest was invalid.

Florida law requires that a crime must occur within the presence of police for warrantless misdemeanor arrests. A traffic crash  with provable elements that include breaking to pieces or a coming together of solid or direct impact  is a legal exception to the law. As a result, whether the incident fit the legal definition of a crash became the primary issue.

Leon County Judge Monique Richardson approved the motion to suppress the evidence, ruling that the accident did not constitute a crash. The judge hinted that officers  and even a documentary camera crew that was at the scene  didnt record enough video of damage to the pickup from the scene to convince her that a crash happened.

Leon County Judge Monique Richardson

Frankly, I think if Live PD had kept their clip going a little longer, and we could see if some damage had occurred on the other side, or if officers had taken photos of the side that hit the ground there, there may have been some damage to get us to a crash, she said. But I cannot find under that definition that a crash occurred.

Prosecutors appealed.

Now a higher court has kicked the case back to the trial judge. A three-judge panel for Floridas First District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously last month the incident was indeed a crash and overturned the defenses motion. The panel said, citing rulings in other cases, that the accident constituted a crash because McCarthas vehicle had collided with other objects, damaging the road and the ditch in which it came to rest, and because the pickup had sustained damage to a headlight.

The undisputed testimony was that the trucks headlight was damaged, the court wrote. As a result, appellees truck was involved in a crash under the plain meaning of the term. It added: Driving through or into a ditch with no damage or impact on the operation of the vehicle may not be a crash. But a vehicle coming to rest upside down in a ditch must have had solid or direct impact with the ditch, meeting the definition of collide.

The case now heads back for a retrial in Leon County before Richardson, with the evidence gathered during and after the arrest admissible in court. The first hearing was set for Wednesday in Tallahassee.

One of McCarthas attorneys who was involved in the appeals process, public defender Tyler Payne, did not return a phone message.

The prosecutor previously on the case, Scott, said that while misdemeanors dont get appealed often due to time and resources, this case was important enough due to its potential implications.

Based on his level of intoxication, how bad the crash was and then just kind of my complete disagreement with what the ruling was, we thought it was important, she said.

She said that if the motion to suppress the evidence hadnt been overturned, it could have led to that defense argument being used in more DUI cases.

For a defense attorney, if you said, Hey, its not a crash to flip your car, Id go through and find all my flipped car cases and say, You got to dismiss it, said Scott, who will not be a member of the prosecution team during the retrial. It will now be prosecuted by Jasmine Adams, who declined to comment.

Larry Coggins, the Florida regional executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, a prominent advocacy group, said, Simply put, a crash is a crash.

Whether the vehicle collides with another vehicle or other fixed object, becomes submerged in water, strikes a pedestrian or bicyclist, or results from a lane departure and rolls over, said Coggins, a former member of the Florida Highway Patrol with first-hand experience in DUI cases. If there is damage, injury, death, or results from a criminal offense (leaving the scene of a crash, DUI, etc.) then a crash has occurred, and Florida statutes require an investigation and report to be completed.

Coggins said over 1,100 people were killed by impaired drivers in Florida last year.

Id like to say that the real story here are these folks that we represent, he said. If everyone would simply designate a sober driver or call a taxi or rideshare, this issue would disappear, and Florida would be a much safer place.

-

This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at silas.morgan@ufl.edu. You can donate to support our students here.
A Cordele man with prior serious drug convictions was sentenced as a career offender to 15 years in prison after being convicted of selling methamphetamine.

Alexis Sylvester Holton, 43, pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of methamphetamine on April 11.

According to court documents, Holton sold a total of 279.51 grams of methamphetamine to a confidential informant working with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Crisp County Sheriffs Office investigators nine times, beginning in October 2021, until his arrest on February 9, 2022.

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Holton had several prior convictions, including two serious felony drug convictions in the Superior Court of Crisp County.

Holton was sentenced to 15 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

He is not eligible for parole.

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It is always reassuring that when we identify major drug offenders in our community, we can rely on our state and federal partners to assist us in working and presenting the cases for prosecution, said Crisp County Sheriff Billy Hancock. It is a good day to know that our community is a little safer because justice was served.

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A fun-filled day turned quickly on its head as a terrifying twist of events unfolded at the Groves Pecan Festival in Groves, Texas, near Beaumont, on Oct. 15.

A carnival worker's heroics were displayed after a mishap sent him and a ride, with the door still open and a 12-year-old girl inside, flying into the air. He dangled 30 feet above the ground for two to three minutes, according to Eric McCauley, a witness who captured heart-pounding footage of the incident. As the worker hung there, he managed to close the ride door, securing it with his foot before other operators could start the ride's motors and bring it back down to the ground.

Moments earlier, he was helping the girl onto the ride, called "The Bullet," when a gust of wind suddenly lifted the car skyward, according to the Groves City Marshal Norman Reynolds via Storyful.

The ride compartment twisted 180 degrees 30 feet in the air with the car door still open.

"A cold front had moved through the day before, and there were gusty north to northwest winds behind the front," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tom Kines said. "There were wind gusts of 20-25 mph near the surface during the afternoon of Oct. 15, and it wouldn't be surprising if the wind gusted to near 30 mph up at 30 feet."

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There were two to four children in ground-level compartments of the ride, according to KFDM. No one was reported injured in the harrowing event. Operators closed the ride for the rest of the festival.

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A Red Deer Catholic School trustee revealed that she was guided by the Holy Spirit to post a controversial meme in which she compared Pride to Nazis on her social media.

In August, Monique LaGrange shared a meme on her personal Facebook page featuring two juxtaposed images. One showed a historical photograph depicting young Nazi supporters, while the other showed young individuals holding a rainbow Pride flag. Beneath these images, she wrote the words brainwashing is brainwashing.

Ms LaGrange defended the post by asserting that it wasnt aimed at the LGBTQ+ community but was instead a critique of indoctrination. She emphasised that her intention was not to draw a direct comparison between these two groups but rather to highlight concerns about a questionable ideology and the need to protect children.

It is about the agenda of the United Nations and Planned Parenthood, which is an attempt to sabotage our youths identities and destinies and hijack the LGBTQs original mandate, she wrote.

The trustee was sanctioned over the controversial post and was asked to apologise.

Now, the local Catholic school board released a 15-page document as was requested by Ms LaGranges attorney. The document provided insights into the closed-door discussions that occurred on 25 September and 26 September this year, during which the school board deliberated with her and her lawyer regarding how to address the public backlash against her actions.

The trustee told the board the Holy Spirit had told her to post the meme, according to the documents. Ms LaGrange added the Holy Spirit told her, Go for it.

Although she and her lawyer, James Kitchen, contended that her actions were consistent with Catholic beliefs and protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights, the Board rejected these assertions.

The sexuality and beliefs of students is a topic that should be between God, parent and a child," trustee Monique LaGrange told the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools board. https://t.co/mZGTeHJmfi  Alberta Prime Times (@ab_primetimes) October 18, 2023

Mr Kitchen said: We asked the Board to release the reasons, to which they agreed, as we felt it was in the public interest and would foster transparency and accountability and would permit public scrutiny, which is desirable.

The Catholic school board also didnt accept that the meme was unrelated to Nazism, stating a reasonable person viewing the two photographs could reasonably conclude that a negative comparison was made.

The board describes its mission as being committed to supporting inclusive communities that foster care and compassion of students, families and staff. The complaint to the board argued that Ms LaGranges meme undermined the boards commitment to inclusion.
"Ordain women priests!" Not far from the Vatican, where hundreds of Catholics have gathered to debate the future of the Church, purple-clad activists make their voices heard against the "patriarchy".

The place of women in the Catholic Church -- led for 2,000 years by a man, which outlaws abortion and female priests and does not recognise divorce -- is one of the hot topics at the general assembly of the Synod of Bishops taking place over four weeks.

Women campaigning for change have come to Rome to make their case, from Europe and the United States but also South Africa, Australia, Colombia and India.

They have different backgrounds and diverse goals -- not all want female priests, with some aiming first for women to become deacons, who can celebrate baptisms, marriages and funerals, although not masses.

But they are united in their frustration at seeing women excluded from key roles in what many view as a "patriarchal and macho" Church.

"The majority of people who support parish life and transmit the faith in families are women, mothers," said Carmen Chaumet from French campaign group "Comite de la Jupe", or the Committee of the Skirt.

"It is paradoxical and unfair not to give them their legitimate place."

"If you go to the Vatican, to a mass, you see hundreds of men priests dressed the same way, and no women," added Teresa Casillas, a member of Spanish association "Revuelta de Mujeres en la Iglesia", "The Women's Revolt in the Church".

"I feel that men are the owners of God."

- 'Voting rights' -

The Synod assembly, which runs until October 29, nevertheless marks a historic turning point in the Church, with nuns and laywomen allowed to take part for the first time.

Some 54 women -- around 15 percent of the total of 365 assembly members -- will be able to vote on proposals that will be sent to Pope Francis .

Vatican observers have called it a revolution. "A first step," say campaigners.

Adeline Fermanian, co-president of the Committee of Skirt, said the pope had given "openings" on the question of ordaining women.

"He recognised that the questions has not been examined sufficiently on a theological level," she said.

Since his election in 2013, Francis has sought to forge a more open Church, more welcoming to LGBTQ faithful and divorcees, and encouraging inter-faith dialogue.

He has increased the number of women appointed to the Curia, the central government of the Holy See, with some in senior positions.

But some campaigners see the changes as "cosmetic" reforms which hide a biased perception of women.

Cathy Corbitt, an Australian member of the executive board of umbrella group Catholic Women's Council (CWC), said the inclusion of female voting members in the Synod was a sign of progress.

But she said the wider view of women in the Church was "very frustrating", much of it taking inspiration from the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.

"The pope still seems to have this blind spot towards women... He seems to regard women in terms of a role, and it's usually in terms of a mother," she said.

- Resistance -

The Synod process is slow -- the current meeting in Rome followed a two-year global consultation, and a second general assembly is planned for next year.

Regina Franken-Wendelsorf, a German member of CWC executive board, said women were hoping for concrete action.

"All arguments and requests are on the table. It's now the Vatican and the Church who have to act!" she said.

While the Church debates, "there are collateral victims, frustration, Catholics who leave because they no longer feel welcomed", added French campaigner Chaumet.

But just as Pope Francis faces resistance in his reform agenda, there is significant resistance to the women's push for change.

"Some American bishops are afraid to follow the path of the Anglican Church," which authorised the ordination of women in 1992, notes one Synod participant, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another senior Church member, who also asked not to be named, noted that pressure for reform was not equal from all regions of the Church.

"We must not forget that the Church is global," he recalled. "There are expectations (among women) in Europe, but in Asia and Africa, much less."

cmk/ar/cw
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is looking for an inmate who walked away from the minimum-security Acton Conservation Camp in Los Angeles County on Wednesday.

Authorities said 38-year-old Julian OchoaRuiz was transferred to the Acton Conservation Camp from a Merced County corrections facility on Feb. 14. He is serving a sentence of three years and eight months for discharging a firearm in an inhabited dwelling and evading or attempting to evade a peace officer.

According to CDCR officials, at about 11 p.m. staff discovered OchaoRuiz missing from the minimum-security camp and immediately began searching the facility buildings and grounds. Authorities described OchoaRuiz as 5-feet-8 inches tall and about 145 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.

He was last seen on the camps grounds wearing a gray shirt, gray sweatpants and a gray ballcap, according to authorities. Los Angeles County Fire, local law enforcement agencies and the CDCR Office of Correctional Safety were notified and are assisting in the search for OchoaRuiz.

According to the CDCR, anyone who sees OchoaRuiz or knows of his whereabouts is asked to contact the Acton Conservation Camp Commander at 661-268-0113 or a local law enforcement agency.
Editors Note: The following is adapted from Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System, a new book by NBC News justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly. The book, published by Public Affairs, tells the inside story of the online sleuths driving the FBIs sprawling investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Book cover. (PublicAffairs / Hachette Book Group)

JOHN RICHTER! JOHN RICHTER! the man on the floor of the U.S. Senate said, calling out for his friend. THIS IS US! THIS IS OUR RIGHT HERE! THIS IS OUR HOUSE! THIS IS WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU TAKE IT! DONT GIVE IT BACK TO THEM NOW!

As rioters looted the desks on the Senate floor on Jan. 6, a man named Joseph Irwin roamed around, shooting a selfie video. The former deputy sheriff in Hardin County, Kentucky  birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, neighbor of Fort Knox  began forming a plan with his old army buddy after Donald Trump lost the election, but it crystallized after Trump sent his will be wild! tweet on Dec. 19.

Muster for liberty, Richter had texted. Lets show these liberal soy boys what the sleeping giant looks like when its up, angry, and ready to fight.

Are we going open militia or innocent/ready bystander? Irwin asked in a text message.

I think we are gonna be in a huge crowd mostly, Richter replied. So we will have to be opportunists most likely. Gnome sayin? I like the ready bystander wildcard approach myself.

Irwin and Richter attended Trumps speech and then headed to the Capitol. They saw someone bust in the window of an emergency fire exit, reach the magnetic lock bar on the inside, and open the door. Violent rioters flooded in. The duo scurried right over; stormed the building, chanting USA; and made it onto the Senate floor, where they occupied Senate desks. They were some of the last rioters to leave when police finally had enough manpower.

Joseph Irwin and John Richter inside the Capitol at Senate desks on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia)

About two months later, two men knocked on John Richters door with some questions. He didnt answer at first: he was on a work call and thought it was probably just an Amazon delivery. They were persistent.

He glanced at his doorbell cam. It was just two dudes in jeans and polos, but they werent leaving. What are these, Realtors trying to get me to sell my house or something? he thought. He had no idea theyd want to question him about storming the Capitol.

Why would he? The FBI had the wrong John Richter.

This John Richter worked for Joe Bidens campaign. Hillary Clintons too. Hed also worked at the Capitol for the better part of a decade and had friends whod hidden in their offices during the attack.

This John Richter had been in Pennsylvania during the 2020 campaign, helping Biden win the state. He favored button downs, not camouflage pants. Hed returned to D.C. after the campaign, when he was based out of Scranton. When he popped open the door to his home on Capitol Hill and the special agents introduced themselves, this John Richter figured somebody must be getting a security clearance.

Its D.C.; everyones trying to get background checks, so like, Oh, theyre here trying to, like, confirm one of my neighbors lives here. I dont really talk to my neighbors that much, so I was like, Oh, I really dont have any time; Im on a work call, he later told me.

They said it was important. They wanted to ask him about Jan. 5, where hed been between the hours of 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. When the FBIs at your door on a workday, and they ask you where you were on Jan. 5, you dont remember where you were on Jan. 5, he said.

I have no idea, Richter said. The special agents, Richter said, questioned why he remembered what he was doing on Jan. 6 but not the previous day.

It was a violent insurrection, like, five blocks from my house. I worked there for 8.5 years, I have friends that were trapped in their office, of course I remember Jan. 6, he said. I dont remember Jan. 5.

His puppy was going crazy in his crate. He started going through his phone. Johns Instagram was full of pictures of the Washington Monument, flowers on the National Mall, etc. If he had gone for a walk on Jan. 5, maybe hed snapped a photo that night. As he scrolled back, one of the FBI special agents pulled out a manila envelope. Theyd blown up his passport photo and had a photo of a masked figure in a gray sweatshirt.

An unidentified person with a pipe in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Washington, D.C. (FBI)

Do you know what this is a picture of? they asked.

Yes, Richter replied, increasingly nervous.

How do you know what this is a picture of?

Its the person who dropped the bombs, its on bus stops, its all over Twitter, its everywhere, he said. What do you mean how do I know?

Did he know who the bomber was? No!

Suddenly it all clicked. Hed adopted his eight-week-old puppy on Jan. 2. I wasnt even leaving the living room without him whining, John said. Jan. 5 had been the first night that hed given the pup a bath in the sink, along with his roommate and his roommates girlfriend.

Im showing the FBI agents me playing with my dog, giving my dog a bath, and at the same time hes going crazy in his crate, so clearly they know I have a dog, Richter said.

If he did know who the bomber was, would he tell them?

Yes! I worked for Joe Biden, I worked for Hillary Clinton, like, I wasnt trying to stop the steal, Richter said. The only time hed even left his place on Jan. 6 was to take the bumper magnet off the back of his car. He didnt want rioters to burn his vehicle upon seeing Bidens name.

After Jan. 5, he even pored over photos of rioters on the FBIs website himself, hoping hed recognize someone he could turn in himself. I was like I want to find somebody I know that I could turn in. Im from Scranton, there has to be somebody I know that is in these photos, Richter said. I told the FBI that! Every time you put out a new photo, Im searching through like Wheres Waldo to see if I can find someone!

Richter had no idea why the FBI would question someone who worked in Democratic politics for fifteen years about leaving bombs near the Capitol to stop the electoral college certification. Did his Pennsylvania phone number pop up on some cell phone list? There certainly were plenty of Pennsylvanians whod stormed the Capitol.

Asking Jan. 6 suspects if they knew anything about the pipe bombs was good practice and also routine. The FBI did so when questioning suspects that ranged from serious violent offenders to low-level defendants charged with petty misdemeanors. FBI special agents showed up to the doorsteps of self-identified journalists who were at the Capitol looking for footage too.

The two pipe bombs found in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington. (FBI)

Still, showing up to the home of a random person  a Biden campaign official, in fact  to see if they were the bomber seemed like something the FBI couldve ruled out with a bit of research.

Richters run-in with the feds became an ongoing joke among his friends. Even last weekend, my friend introduced me to her new boyfriend, and I had to tell him the FBI story, he told me in 2023. There were jokes about him being on the no-fly list. Whenever the FBI raised the reward for information on the bombs placed outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee on the night of Jan. 5  they bumped it up to $500,000 in January 2023, signaling they were still desperate for leads  D.C. John Richter would receive texts from friends joking about how the money was too good and they were going to turn him in and collect.

Sorry Richter but the reward is up to $500K. I think we have to turn you in, one wrote in a group text.

Maybe we should wait till the reward climbs to $1M, suggested another.

Months after visiting the wrong John Richter in 2021, the FBI arrested former police officer Irwin and obtained a warrant for his cell phone. Then, two years after the FBI visited D.C. John Richter, the FBI arrested the right John Richter in March 2023.

D.C. John Richter saw the news, and suddenly things made sense. I was always curious why they were asking me questions, Richter said. This might make sense now. Its literally one of the craziest stories I have.

The group text blew up when John Richters friends found out about the other John Richter.

OMGGGGG, wrote one friend. Omg Im crying, wrote another.

Adapted from "Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System" by Ryan J. Reilly. Copyright  2023. Available from PublicAffairs, an imprint of Hachette Book Group Inc.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
EV charging infrastructure company ChargePoint announced Thursday that its rolling out support for Teslas North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector. In a move announced earlier this year, the network will support AC and DC charging for the formerly proprietary, soon-to-be-ubiquitous Tesla plug. Rival Electrify America announced a similar change in June, but it set a more modest deadline of 2025 to make the transition.

Support begins rolling out today with much of the lineup expected to deliver during the next month. Cable upgrade kits for the companys existing DC fast chargers will be delivered to customers in November, offering Tesla drivers a public fast charging alternative for the first time, the company wrote in a press release Thursday.

The ChargePoint app now includes an NACS selection filter to help find a compatible station on your route. With many car manufacturers recently adopting the NACS standard for upcoming models, ChargePoint now offers every necessary cable solution to charge an EV in North America and Europe, the company wrote. ChargePoint has over 48,000 EV charging stations globally.

ChargePoint marketing image of an electric charging station. A red car is plugged into a (primarily) orange charging station sitting atop a curb in front of a building. (ChargePoint)

ChargePoint will provide a native DC connector and AC solutions compatible with Tesla vehicles. It will also continue supporting the Combined Charging System (CCS-1) standard. The lineup offers AC solutions as well, negating the need for a cumbersome adapter to charge, the company wrote. In addition, ChargePoint begins shipping cables for its Level 2 Home Flex charging system this month. Its the first publicly available option offering NACS DC fast-charging speeds for non-Tesla EVs.

With more than 35 million historical ChargePoint sessions initiated by Tesla vehicles, we saw the need to offer native connector solutions for this large portion of the EV market, Pasquale Romano, CEO of ChargePoint, wrote in a press release. Our support for both installed and new products opens up ChargePoint DC chargers to millions of drivers who have not yet had a fast charging alternative to the Tesla ecosystem, and makes their AC charging experience more convenient.

The auto industry has lined up behind NACS in recent months. Ford, GM / Rivian, Volvo, Polestar, Mercedes, Honda, Jaguar, BMW and Hyundai have announced plans to adopt the standard in upcoming vehicles. Toyota and Volkswagen stand as two of the few remaining holdouts.
The felony charges against a Tallahassee, Florida, resident accused of voter fraud have been cleared, officials announced this week.

Marsha Ervin, a 69-year-old Black woman, was taken into custody on the morning of Sept. 29 after authorities said she was ineligible to vote in the 2020 general and 2022 primary elections while still on probation. Released in 2018, Ervin is on probation until next month after serving time for a prior conviction, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

Civil Rights Attorney Ben Crump (left) joins 69-year-old Marsha Ervin (right) for a press conference calling for Ervins voter fraud charges to be dropped after she was issued a voter registration card by the state of Florida. (Photo: Facebook/WCTV)

The Florida Office of Election Crimes and Security (OECS) gave the Department of Law Enforcement information about voter fraud allegations against her.

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Ervin got a voter registration card in 2020, which prompted her to cast her ballot both times  once in person and the other via mail, according to reports.

Ervin argued that she didnt know that she couldnt. According to the Democrat, citing records, Ervin said she thought she was allowed to vote based on information from television programs and due to being told she could when she was released from prison.

Ervins controversial arrest comes after Gov. Ron DeSantis created the OECS unit last year to crack down on and probe voting-related crimes. He charged 20 people previously convicted of murder or felony sexual offense after being accused of illegally voting in 2020. Advocates said that formerly incarcerated individuals are often unaware they cannot vote, especially if the government sends them materials.

For instance, Ronald Lee Miller of Miami was one of the people arrested because of DeSantis task force. Miller, once incarcerated for murder, told local news last year that he registered to vote after a campaigner told him he was eligible. After they sent the materials to his mailbox, he thought his rights were restored.

National civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents Ervin, called it an abomination and voter intimidation. He and other advocates held a news conference earlier this month demanding that her charges be dismissed.

Marsha Ervin is a 69-yo Black woman who was arrested at her Tallahassee (FL) home in the middle of the night for alleged voter fraud! Marsha just wanted her voice to be heard, and now shes being punished for it! We CANNOT let anyone intimidate OUR right to democracy! pic.twitter.com/OaWAV6EEs4  Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) October 12, 2023

She was reliving a nightmare that she had lived five years ago because she voted, attorney and local NAACP chapter president Mutaqee Akbar said at the time. On Tuesday, officials followed up.

State Attorney Jack Campbell stated, There is no witness who can testify to the defendant being told that she was ineligible to vote and some evidence to corroborate her assertions that she believed she could lawfully vote. This office cannot proceed with a fraud prosecution with such a lack of evidence to establish intent, per a court document obtained by WCTV.

Two witnesses, Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley and Ervins probation officer, helped her case. Earley deemed the situation an innocent mistake, and Erins PO provided the state forms that outline her conditions.

One was signed on October 26, 2022, and explicitly explains that the offender could not legally vote while on probation, Campbell continued. The other was signed on November 28, 2018, and does not show this language. The voting incidents were between these two dates, and there is no indication that she has voted since being provided this information.

Read the original story here.

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State Attorney Jack Campbell said prosecutors couldnt show Marsha Ervin intended to be deceptive when she cast her ballot in two elections; they found that she believed she could vote.

Prosecutors will not pursue charges against a Black Florida woman apprehended by police on accusations of voter fraud.

According to CNN, after receiving information from a Florida Office of Election Crimes and Security investigation, Tallahassee police showed up at the home of Marsha Ervin, 69, at around 3 a.m. on the morning of Sept. 29 to execute a warrant for her alleged crimes  an arrest that drew widespread criticism.

This office has no interest at all in prosecuting people who are innocent, State Attorney Jack Campbell said Tuesday, WCTV News reported.

Marsha Ervin will not be tried on voter fraud charges, Florida prosecutors decided. Above, Ervin, who was arrested Sept. 29, holds up her voter registration card during an Oct. 10 press conference at the Leon County Courthouse. (Photo: Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat/USA Today Network)

Ervin told investigators she believed she was allowed to vote when she cast a ballot in the 2020 general and 2022 primary elections. However, she was on probation after serving time in prison, and the state hadnt yet restored her voting rights.

In a statement, Campbell said investigators discovered subsequent information after Ervins arrest that compromised the states ability to proceed further.

Prosecutors ultimately could not show Ervins intent to deceive the state, instead finding evidence to corroborate Ervins claims that she believed she was legally permitted to cast ballots.

There is no witness who can testify to the defendant being told that she was ineligible to vote, Campbell added, WCTV reported, and some evidence to corroborate her assertions that she believed she could lawfully vote.

Campbell said Ervins situation changed after he spoke with her probation officer and the Leon County supervisor of elections.

Ervins probation officer gave the state documents supporting her claims she believed she could legally vote when she did so. Paperwork she signed in 2018 outlining her probation terms failed to mention she could not vote.

Campbell said it was when Ervin signed probation terms last October that the documents clarified she couldnt. He stated the timeline is important, as there is no evidence Ervin voted after receiving that information.

There was a change of circumstances, Campbell said, according to WCTV. I dont want people to be scared to vote. People need to be able to vote.

The Tallahassee NAACP and civil rights attorney Ben Crump expressed outrage last week and demanded the state of Florida drop all charges against Ervin. They alleged voter intimidation and discrimination, noting that Ervin had a voter registration card and had cause to think she was entitled to vote.

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley also told Campbell he felt it was all an innocent mistake. Last week, he expressed compassion for Ervin and said he didnt believe there was intent to defraud.

Despite their opposing views in some areas, Campbell, Earley, Crump and Ervin all agree on one thing: Registering to vote can be difficult for felons in Florida. The Tallahassee NAACP, Crump and Ervin attorney Mutaqee Akbar called for changes to the registration procedure for offenders to avoid misunderstandings and charges like those Ervin faced.

They suggested the Division of Elections of the Florida Department of State create a new checkbox for felons seeking voter registration to verify eligibility further. Advocates also claim the move would shift the obligation of certifying voter registration to the state.

I was excited for and happy for Ms. Ervin, Akbar told CNN after Ervins charges were dropped. I dont think she deserved to go through this whole process. I am happy that this part of it is all over for her.

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The post Charges dropped against Florida woman, 69, accused of voter fraud appeared first on TheGrio.
Dr. Andre K. Isaacs is bringing his love of chemistry to TikTok by taking part in viral challenges and choreographing dances with his students. His goal is to connect with students and those potentially interested in the STEM field.

The whole point of the dancing is to meet students where theyre at, in whatever ways they need, he said in a segment that aired on The Today Show.

Dr. Isaacs is an associate professor of chemistry at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. Posting on social media was an idea suggested by his undergraduate students, who he says came up with most of the choreography.

The professor notes the importance of inclusivity in the field. It is why he wears a rainbow lab coat to perform his work as a professor.

Its very important for us to realize that science can be conducted by anyone, he said. It doesnt matter what you look like. It doesnt matter how you identify. I want students to realize that whatever they bring is an asset and that science is better when people bring their unique qualities and skills to the table.

Dr. Isaacs love for chemistry stems from his childhood in Kingston, Jamaica. He was inspired by his uncle, a science teacher, who introduced him to chemistry and math.

If it wasnt for his guidance, I would not be a chemist today. I would have probably gone down another path, but he gave me a start and helped me to figure out my strengths, he told Advanced Science News.

He advises anyone studying chemistry to realize that mistakes and failure is part of the process.

That is something I struggled with. I wanted every reaction to work, but Ive learned more from my failures than I learned from my successes. I think theyve made me a better scientist. Embrace failure as a part of the process, Dr. Isaacs said.

Ultimately, he believes his teaching style resonates with his students and helps build rapport.

My teaching style is something that resonates with a lot of my students. I think the TikTok videos are just an added bonus, Dr. Isaacs said. What it shows them is that Im accessible, Im approachable. For a lot of students, this professor is trying to meet us where were at and sees value in the way we communicate and, the social media platforms we use, the jokes we make, the language we use, and its taught me too. I think its helped me be a better professor because I now know what a lot of the phrases they use mean.
One of former President Donald Trumps co-defendants in a Georgia election interference case has rejected a plea deal, sources tell ABC News.

Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, one of the 18 people charged alongside the former president, rejected an offer from prosecutors that would have allowed him to avoid prison time by pleading guilty to one count of racketeering, the sources said.

The deal would have forced him to testify against his co-defendants, including former Pres. Trump, in exchange for three years probation and a $10,000 fine.

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The terms of the deal also included a written letter of apology, sources told ABC.

Under Georgias first-offender act, the conviction would have been wiped from his record after completing probation.

Chesebro rejected the deal in late September, the sources said.

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The attorney is accused of racketeering and being involved in the attempt to overturn Georgias 2020 election. The January 6 Commission called Chesebro one of the architects of the false electors scheme.

Attorneys for Chesebro say he cant be tried for giving the former president legal advice, even if it turned out to be wrong.

Jury selection for Chesebros trial alongside co-defendant Sidney Powell is expected to begin on Friday. Both defendants filed motions requesting a speedy trial.

A trial date has not yet been set for the remaining 17 defendants.

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McALLEN, Texas (Border Report)  A delegation from the City of Chicago including several aldermen are touring the Texas border this week to learn more about how and where immigrants are crossing from Mexico into the United States before boarding buses to the Windy City.

The delegation is scheduled to be in McAllen, in South Texas, on Thursday. They are to visit the Humanitarian Respite Center migrant shelter, which is operated by Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, Executive Director Sister Norma Pimentel told Border Report on Wednesday.

Texas places razor wire along border with New Mexico

On Friday morning, they are scheduled to visit the Welcome Center in downtown Brownsville and meet with volunteers from the nonprofit Team Brownsville and others who help migrants at the facility, volunteer Andrea Rudnik told Border Report. The facility offers food and toiletries and helps migrants with travel plans.

On Tuesday, the delegation visited El Paso in West Texas and met with El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser.

Mayor Leeser and members of the city team were pleased to host a delegation from Illinois visiting El Paso, Estrella Escobar, Leesers senior chief of staff, said in a statement.

Chicago to move migrants from police stations to tent camps before winter under mayors plan

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson originally had planned to go on the border tour, but canceled and sent a team instead. He told local media he was needed to monitor the situation in Chicago, where thousands of migrants who have crossed into Texas have been sent on buses supplied by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts Operation Lone Star border initiative.

Run by a private firm hired by the city, migrants stay in a makeshift shelter at OHare International Airport, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023, in Chicago. Unlike migrants in the public eye at police stations, the migrants at OHare and a handful at Midway International Airport have limited access to resources, including showers and medical care. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Escobar said Johnson and Leeser have spoken about the situation, which media report is getting dire as cold weather soon is expected in Chicago and the city is running out of space to house the migrants.

Texas Gov. Abbott to former Chicago Mayor Lightfoot: Tell Biden to secure the border

We will continue conversations with Mayor Johnson and his team to ensure a coordinated and collaborative response among our cities to the humanitarian crisis we are facing, Escobar said.

Chicago Alderman Rev. William Hall, who represents Ward 6, is among those traveling the Texas border this week.

He posted on Instagram about Tuesdays meeting at City Hall in El Paso and said the trip was to find out the facts at the border.

$10M worth of meth hidden inside jalapeno shipment, CBP says

This is a federal disaster, Hall said on Instagram.

He also mentioned federal funds sent to El Paso to help with the migrant influx and said but what about Chicago?

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

Traveling with Hall are Alderman Raymond Lopez, of Ward 15; Alderperson Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, of Ward 33; and Alderman Lamont Robinson, of Ward 4.

Chicago has 50 wards and each is represented by an alderperson.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
CHICAGO - A Chicago man is accused of shooting another man to death in South Shore last month.

Xavier Perkins, 27, faces one felony count of first-degree murder, one felony count of armed robbery with a firearm and one felony count of murder (other forcible felony).

According to police, Perkins fatally shot a 21-year-old man in the 7800 block of South Shore Drive on Sept. 21.

He was arrested Tuesday and charged accordingly.

No additional information was made available.
After technical glitches forced the cancellation of Chicago Public Schools High School Admissions Test last week, the districts 26,000 eighth graders will finally be able to put the competitive assessment of their reading and math skills behind them starting next week.

In a letter sent to families Wednesday, CPS announced that eighth graders, regardless of whether they were able to complete the initial test last week, will have the option to retake the exam during the school day on Tuesday or Wednesday in English. Students taking the test in Spanish, Arabic, Polish, Urdu or simplified Chinese will retake the exam during the school day Nov. 1.

Students take the HSAT to apply to the citys 14 selective enrollment high schools and to enroll at schools outside their neighborhood boundaries with special choice programs  such as STEM programs, fine and performing arts, and dual-language offerings  that their neighborhood schools may not have. In the competitive process to win a coveted selective enrollment seat, students can rank up to six selective enrollment schools and 20 choice schools.

Families have long criticized the high-stakes assessment of students reading and math skills, for subjecting adolescents to stress akin to the college admissions process.

We recognize that students spend time preparing for this test and it was stressful when the test had to be paused amid the technical issues and we sincerely apologize for the disruption in this test administration, the district wrote in an emailed statement Wednesday. Over the past week, weve worked closely with the testing vendor, Riverside Assessments, LLC, to review the problems and resolve them. Our vendor has assured us that testing can continue.

Riverside has since added server capacity, which the CPS Information and Technology Team said was successful in resolving the issues in the testing platform, according to CPS High School Admissions Test site.

Next weeks exam will feature all new questions and CPS said it strongly recommends students take advantage of the opportunity to retest. But, any student whod like for their initial score to be submitted with their high school application has the option to opt out of retesting. Students who were able to complete the HSAT on the initial testing date will not be able to submit their best scores among two attempts, but must choose whether to replace their initial scores.

The district said it has also reached out to the families of non-CPS students to register for new weekend testing dates by Monday. After the technical issues emerged last week, CPS had postponed the assessments of non-district students. Those tests which will now be held at Lane Tech College Prep High School and Lindblom Math and Science Academy at 8:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Oct. 28 and 29, and at 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. Nov. 5.

We appreciate your continued patience, and regret any stress or frustration that these testing challenges have caused for your family, the district wrote in the letter to families.

A spokesperson said Wednesday that despite the delays, CPS doesnt expect families will need more time to submit their applications to selective enrollment and specialized high school programs. The Nov. 9 application deadline hasnt been extended. But CPS is providing students with more time to rank their preferences, giving them until Dec. 1. In the meantime, the district said it will provide testing results in a timely manner.

smacaraeg@chicagotribune.com
Chick-fil-A has reportedly agreed to pay $4.4 million to customers who accused the company of promising low delivery prices while also allegedly inflating menu prices during the pandemic.

The news, first reported by Top Class Action, comes less than a month after six plaintiffs filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status in a Georgia federal court, Insider reported.

The publication stated that Chick-fil-A didnt admit to any guilt in the settlement.

Disneyland agrees to pay $9.5M in Magic Key lawsuit

The Georgia plaintiffs said they filed a proposed class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and others nationwide who ordered food delivery through the Chick-fil-A mobile app or website and were assessed higher delivery charges than represented, according to multiple media outlets.

Eligible class members will be able to receive a $29.25 cash payment or $29.25 gift card as a part of the agreement. The parties also agreed to a direct email notice system to inform those potentially impacted.

Chick-fil-A also agreed to disclose on its website and app that menu prices may be higher for delivery orders.

This isnt the first time a company has been accused of charging users more for select services.

DoorDash faced similar allegations in May after a proposed class-action lawsuit claimed that the company charges iPhone users more than Android owners for its DashPass service.

Women sue LASD alleging traumatizing traffic stop was unnecessary, illegal

The class-action lawsuit alleged that iPhone users who use DashPass, the companys $9.99-a-month service, are charged an extra fee on each order, which negates the savings they get from the subscription, Insider reported.

DoorDash, in a statement to Insider, denied the claims.

KTLA reached out to Chick-fil-A about the reported settlement but has not received a comment.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
A chilling new audio recording reveals how Joran van der Sloot killed Natalee Holloway with a cinder block and then threw her body in the ocean after she refused his sexual advances on a beach in Aruba nearly 20 years ago.

Federal prosecutors in Alabama released the graphic audio that was recorded on 3 October as part of a plea deal. On Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to federal charges of extortion and wire fraud after being accused of trying to extort Holloways mother Beth out of thousands of dollars in exchange for information about her death.

It was revealed in court that van der Sloot, who has been the longtime suspect in Holloways disappearance, had admitted in court records to killing the Alabama teenager after she refused his sexual advances while in Aruba.

She tells me she doesnt want me to  to feel her up, van der Sloot is heard on the audio calmly telling investigators on 3 October. Uh, I insist. I keep feeling her up either way. And she, uh, knees me, she ends up kneeing me in the crotch.

The now 36-year-old then explained how he kicked her and bludgeoned her to death.

I get up on the beach and I kick her  extremely hard  in the face, he said. Yeah, shes laying down unconscious, possibly even, even dead. And I see right next to her theres a, theres a huge cinder block laying on the beach.

I smash her head in with it completely. Yeah, her face basically, you know, collapses in. Even though its dark I can see her face is collapsed.

Van der Sloot told investigators he didnt know what to do so he carried her body into the ocean and pushed her into the water. He then walked back home where he watched pornography, according to Holloways family, who heard his full confession.

You didnt get what you wanted from Natalee - sexual satisfaction - so you brutally killed her. You didnt get what you wanted, so you killed her, she told him in court on Wednesday.

Beth Holloway speaks to media with her son Matt Holloway after Joran van der Sloot confessed to Natalees murder (Copyright 2023 Butch Dill)

Natalee Holloway, 18, went missing during a high school graduation trip to Aruba with classmates. She was last seen 30 May 30 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen and student at an international school on the Caribbean island where he grew up.

Her disappearance quickly became an international sensation, filling evening newscasts with live reports from the island and photos of her smiling face. Her disappearance also spawned countless books, podcasts and movies.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Holloways parents listened and watched several weeks ago as van der Sloot, under questioning from his own attorney, described what happened on the beach. Prosecutors filed excerpts of the conversation with the court.

He said Holloway was physically fighting his sexual advances and that he kicked her extremely hard in the face while she was still lying down. Van der Sloot said the teen was already unconscious, or even dead, when he picked up a nearby cinderblock and brought it down on her face.

Holloway was declared dead in 2012, but her body has never been found. US District Judge Anna Manasco said its clear her remains will never be recovered.

Van der Sloot received a 20-year sentence on each of the two convictions on the extortion charges. Those sentences will run concurrently with each other and also concurrently with his 28-year sentence in Peru for the murder of Stephany Flores in 2010.

He wore an orange jumpsuit as he stood to address the court on Wednesday.

I would like to take this chance to apologise to the Holloway family, to apologise to my own family, he said, adding that he is now a Christian. I am no longer that person I was back then.

Joran van der Sloot in June 2023 (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Dave Holloway, Natalees father, called van der Sloot evil personified in a statement issued after the sentencing hearing.

He said that after witnessing the confession, he believes van der Sloot worked alone in killing his daughter but that he suspects others may have helped dispose of the body or covered up the crime. Natalees body was never found during land and sea searches.

Beth Holloway said she recognized her feisty daughter in van der Sloots description of her kneeing him between legs when he refused to stop his sexual advances.

Yes, I said, Thats her, Beth Holloway recalled with a brief smile. She fought like hell. I think she fought like hell with her killer. She stood her ground.

After 18 years, Natalees case is solved, Beth Holloway said with a smile shortly after the hearing ended. Its over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer a suspect in my daughters murder. He is the killer.
Chinese missile destroyer Harbin fires a shell during an exercise. The People's LIberation Army (Navy) will need to build its Anti Submarine Warfare capability before it can be a credible opponent for the US Navy - Wu Dengfeng/Xinhua

Submarines could decide Taiwans fate. If recent war games are at all accurate, the US Navys fleet of 54 stealthy, heavily-armed nuclear-powered attack submarines could sink scores of troop transports and blunt any Chinese invasion across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.

And working in conjunction with US Air Force bombers firing long-range cruise missiles, the subs could even end the invasion  and decisively resolve three-quarters of a century of escalating tension between Taiwan and China.

The prospect of an undersea defeat of Beijings central strategic aim  the destruction of Taiwanese democracy  should only grow more likely in coming years as Taiwan adds its own new submarines, eight diesel-electric models, to the defensive fleet.

The open question is whether the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army Navy can develop weapons and tactics for hunting down the subs before the subs hunt down the PLANs invasion fleet. It might be the most important question in the most important strategic rivalry in the world today.

The best answer to that question is an unsatisfying one. Maybe. But is Beijing willing to risk everything on a maybe?

Anti-submarine warfare is hard. It might even be one of the hardest missions in all of modern warfare. The oceans are vast, singing with natural noise and dense with layers of alternating cold and warm, salty and less-salty water. All of these qualities make it easy for a 380-foot-long Virginia-class submarine to hide with its 135 sailors and three dozen torpedoes and missiles.

Unless the PLAN can deploy patrol planes, helicopters, warships, submarines, satellites and undersea sensors to find and sink the US fleets Virginia-, Los Angeles-, Seawolf-class subs, the vessels should be able to strike at will. The Royal Navy plans to base one of its Astute-class attack boats in the Far East, too, and under the Aukus pact the US and UK nuclear-powered subs will be joined in time by Australian ones.

The US Defense Department is confident it can win the undersea fight.

The PLAN is  improving its anti-submarine-warfare capabilities through the development of its surface combatants and special mission aircraft, but it continues to lack a robust deep-water ASW capability, the Pentagon concluded in its 2022 report on Chinas military capabilities.

As of 2008, Chinese sources generally concurred with the Pentagons assessment. While encouraged by the PLANs development of anti-submarine mines and surface ships dragging sonar arrays, one Chinese analyst bemoaned a key weakness in the Chinese navys ASW force. Patrol planes.

Our country at the present stage does not have an ASW maritime patrol aircraft . but the number of submarines in our peripheral seas is increasing, and their technological sophistication is also increasing, Tai Feng wrote. This contradiction is becoming more obvious every day, creating a grim situation.

In the 15 years since Tai wrote this analysis, the PLAN has added a few ASW planes to its force-structure. This small fleet of probably fewer than 20 Y-8Q aircraft cant patrol everywhere. For comparison, the US Navy devotes more than 120 P-8s to the same mission.

But the PLAN is honing patrol methods to mitigate its shortage of ASW planes. Its been flying more and more Y-8Q sorties southeast of Taiwan, including over the Luzon Strait between Taiwan and The Philippines. The strait is a natural chokepoint for submarines sailing between the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea.

If the small Chinese anti-sub force can intercept American subs while theyre en route to the Taiwan Strait, it doesnt have to fight them in the Taiwan Strait. Its a gamble. But the Chinese navy might not have much choice but to pick a risky ASW strategy  and hope it gets lucky.

Beijings safest bet might be to wait. The American submarine force could get a lot smaller in the coming years as older Los Angeles-class subs, built at a rapid clip in the 1980s and 90s, wear out and decommission  and new Virginias commission too slowly to keep pace

The most recent edition of the US Navys shipbuilding plan projects that the US attack sub force will decline from 54 vessels today to just 46 in 2030 before beginning to grow again. The Pentagon is weighing options for making up this shortfall: keeping older boats longer or buying new boats faster. And new Taiwanese subs could help fill the gap.

Still, its an opportunity for the PLAN. If defeating submarines is the Chinese navys priority  and it should be, if taking Taiwan is its ultimate goal  it would want to battle the fewest possible number of subs. But waiting until 2030 is another gamble. A lot can change in seven years to alter the balance of power between Taiwan and China, and between the United States and China.

Those changes could favor China. Or they could favor Taiwan and the USA.

As long as American submarines are the dominant military force around Taiwan, Beijings military options for a conquest of Taiwan are mostly bad. Its unenviable task  is choosing between them. The only alternative is to not invade.

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The News

Israeli and American officials are alarmed that China hasnt condemned Hamas for its terrorist attack this month, seeing in it an attempt by Beijing to use the Middle Easts violence to isolate the U.S. from its Arab and regional allies.

Chinese officials havent even used the word Hamas in their public statements since the militant Palestinian organization stormed into southern Israel on October 7 and slaughtered more than 1,400 Israelis. Instead, China has joined with Russia in calling for an immediate end to Israels military operations in the Gaza Strip and signaled its willingness to lead a new round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. This negotiating process, historically anchored by the U.S., has essentially been dormant for a decade.

China calls for an international peace conference with greater authority and impact as soon as possible to galvanize a more broad-based international consensus with the two-state solution serving as its basis and formulate a timetable and roadmap to that end, Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said last Friday. The diplomat said Beijing is working with Brazil, a leading member of the BRICS bloc of developing countries, which also includes Russia, India, China and South Africa, to pursue this diplomacy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government, which has forged strong economic ties with China, voiced alarm about Beijings silence on the attack. There was no clear and unequivocal condemnation of the terrible massacre committed by the terrorist organization Hamas against innocent civilians and the abduction of dozens of them to Gaza, Israeli Ambassador Rafi Harpaz told Beijings special envoy for the Middle East, Zhai Jun, last week, according to an Israeli Foreign Ministry statement.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Saturday and urged Beijing to discourage other parties from entering the conflict. China maintains close relations with Iran, which has threatened to widen the war on Israel if it launches an invasion of the Gaza Strip. Tehran is also Hamass main funder and arms supplier.

Chinas Foreign Ministry on Sunday said that Wang told Irans Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian during a call that countering violence with violence would only cause more damage and bring about more serious crises.

Jays view

Hamass attack and Israels response are exposing geopolitical rifts and fault lines in ways similar to Russias invasion last year of Ukraine. And China, aligned with the Kremlin, appears intent on exploiting them for major strategic gains.

The competition between the U.S. and China has been particularly furious in the Middle East in recent years, as Beijing has sought to chip away at Americas regional dominance. The Biden administration was startled last March when China brokered a normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the U.S.s historic regional security and energy partner. China and Russia also backed an Arab League initiative last year to reintegrate Syria amongst its ranks, following a decade in which the U.S. and Europe tried to isolate, if not topple, President Bashar al-Assad for atrocities committed against his population.

The Biden administration, before the Hamas attack, had been fighting back feverishly against Chinas gains by working to broker a new U.S. security agreement with Saudi Arabia that would include Riyadh normalizing relations with Israel. Such a deal would fundamentally alter the power balance in the Middle East by effectively ending Israels isolation in the Arab world. A security pact between the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia could also form a powerful bloc to push back against Iran, and its network of allied governments and militias, known as the Axis of Resistance, that includes Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah.

Hamass assault on Israel has been widely praised by Tehran, U.S. and Israeli officials believe, because it seriously undermines the Biden administrations hopes of finalizing this security compact with Saudi Arabia. Indeed, most Arab states have condemned Israels strikes on the Gaza Strip and refocused their calls on the resumption of talks to create an independent Palestinian state, in line with Chinas recent statements. And a number of current and former Israeli officials see Beijing as essentially providing diplomatic cover for Iran and its proxies to continue their operations against the Jewish state.

I think that its a sign that we need to act not just [on] the military level. We need to try to build a very strong front against the Iranians, Hezbollah, and, maybeChina [whos] behind here in this war, said retired Major General Amikam Norkin, former commander of the Israeli Air Force, on Monday.

But President Bidens strong backing of Israel not only risks isolating Washington in the Middle East. It could also drain Washingtons focus on Ukraine, and U.S. military supplies, something thats also in Beijings and Moscows interests.

Room for Disagreement

Some might argue that Chinas stance on Gaza is as much about reflecting global opinion about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as it is a strategic posture against the U.S. Beijings position places it in line with Mideast leaders and analysts who have criticized Washingtons lack of focus on the Palestinian issue, even before the October 7 attack. Both former President Trump, and now Biden, prioritized normalizing relations between Israel and Arab states, as part of the Abraham Accords, rather than trying to create an independent Palestinian one.

Special Envoy Zhai Jun stressed during the phone calls that to end the cycle of conflict between Palestine and Israel, the key is to return to the two-state solution as the basis, restore peace talks, establish an independent State of Palestine, and realize the peaceful coexistence of Palestine and Israel, Wang Wenbin said last Friday. The international community needs to step up to that responsibility and create conditions for the resumption of the peace process.
A two-state solution to establish an independent Palestine is the fundamental way out of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Xi Jinping said Thursday in the Chinese leaders first public comments on the war since it broke out nearly two weeks ago.

The top priority now is a ceasefire as soon as possible, to avoid the conflict from expanding or even spiraling out of control and causing a serious humanitarian crisis, Xi was quoted as saying by Chinas state-broadcaster CCTV.

Xi, who made the comments in a meeting with Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly in Beijing, said China is willing to work with Egypt and Arab nations to promote an comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue, according to CCTV.

The Egyptian leader was in Beijing to attend the Belt and Road Forum, a high-profile event marking a decade of Xis ambitious and controversial global infrastructure initiative.

Xi also praised Egypt for playing an important role in cooling tensions, adding that China supports its efforts to let in humanitarian aid to Gaza, CCTV reported.

On Wednesday, Egypt agreed to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing, in a deal brokered by US President Joe Biden and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in a phone call.

Biden struck the deal during his 7-hour visit to Israel Wednesday  a high-stakes diplomatic mission to show staunch support for the American ally while urging restraint in its response in Gaza.

But it is not yet clear when the aid convoy will be allowed to enter Gaza and the initial deal for 20 trucks is a fraction of the 100 trucks a day the World Health Organization says is needed.

The conflict, which began after Hamas launched a brutal and coordinated terror attack on Israel on October 7 that killed some 1,400 people, has served as a stark showing of the deepening divisions between world powers.

Israels subsequent bombardment and siege of Gaza has killed some 3,500 Palestinians, including hundreds of children, according to local health authorities.

Hours before Biden landed in Israel, Russias Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum. The diplomatically isolated leader was received as a guest of honor, seated next to Xi and speaking directly after him at the opening ceremony ahead of three hours of bilateral talks.

During their meeting, the two leaders discussed the conflict in the Middle East, which Putin said was a common threat that brought Russia and China closer together.

China and Russia have both called for a ceasefire in the spiraling conflict and have declined to explicitly condemn Hamas  cutting a stark contrast to the outpouring of support for Israel from the US and leaders across Europe.

Beijings refusal to condemn Hamas has prompted anger and a deep sense of disappointment from Israel  as well as criticism from US officials. China has also stayed clear of condemning Putins invasion of Ukraine, causing anger in many European capitals.

As Israels war escalates, Beijing has come out more strongly in support for the Palestinians. Last weekend, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused Israels actions of going beyond the scope of self-defence.

Nevertheless, China has sought to present itself as a neutral mediator in the conflict.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said it is sending Middle East Envoy Zhai Jun to the region this week to promote peace talks and push for a ceasefire.

China has deep economic interests in both Russia and the Middle East, which it wants to safeguard at all cost, in particular the importation of oil and gas.

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FILE PHOTO: A Saudi man's reflection is seen in mirror glass at the Future Investment Initiative conference, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

By Pesha Magid

RIYADH (Reuters) - Around 300 Chinese "decision makers" are attending Saudi Arabia's flagship investment conference this year, organisers said on Thursday, double last year's attendance as Riyadh deepens its relationship with China despite U.S. concerns.

Only around 15 people have cancelled their attendance of the annual Future Investment Initiative (FII), Richard Attias , CEO of the FII Institute said, as the war in Gaza spurred fears of a wider conflict that could affect the Gulf region.

"All the biggest and most important speakers are insisting on coming," Attias told reporters.

Wall Street financiers and Western investors have been the stars of the FII gathering since its launch by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017 to promote the kingdom's economic diversification plans.

But Riyadh's relationship with Washington frayed under President Joe Biden over several issues, including closer Saudi ties with China. In defiance of its key Western ally, Prince Mohammed invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit the kingdom and launched a Chinese-Arab summit.

The new wave of Chinese attendees comes in the wake of that summit, "an echo of the Chinese-Arab summit... There is a momentum, Attias said.

In August, the BRICs group of nations, which includes China, invited Saudi Arabia to become a new member of the bloc.

Big Wall Street executives will still dominate the stages: JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Citi's Jane Fraser as well as senior global banking figures with a strong Asia presence like HSBC and Standard Chartered are all on the attendee list.

Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Kenyan President William Ruto and Rwandan President Paul Kagame will also attend the conference which is starting on Tuesday, Attias said.

Saudi Arabia is halfway through an ambitious economic transformation plan - Vision 2030 - to wean the economy off oil by creating new industries, generating jobs for citizens, and luring in foreign capital and talent.

But the kingdom has struggled to attract foreign investments to help it finance its mega-plans, leaving the government and its sovereign wealth fund, the PIF, shouldering the bulk of the spending.

As the conflict in Gaza adds uncertainty, Attias said the war and its impact on business will be a major topic in sessions during the conference.

(Reporting by Pesha Magid, editing by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Christina Fincher)
An investigative reporter who penned a sprawling look at the farming business run by Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen said he showed clear bias when he dismissed her work simply because she was born in China. The story by Yanqi Xu, a Flatwater Free Press reporter, found that operations at Pillen Family Farms may harm the drinking water in a Nebraska villagethough Pillen himself dismissed the findings entirely. Number 1, I didnt read it. And I wont, Pillen said in a recent radio interview. Number 2, all you got to do is look at the author. The author is from Communist China. What more do you need to know? Xu declined to criticize the governor personally, but said that she was happy that her employer and the community at large have stepped up to support her. I dont think that your country of origin defines you, she said.

Read it at NBC News

Read more at The Daily Beast.
The investigation continues into a missing Chinese national and her friend, a former Navy SEAL from Morongo Valley.

The most recent update in the case came in September, roughly two months after Fan Jin and John Root Fitzpatrick went missing.

San Bernardino County Sheriffs officials reported that the body of veteran Fitzpatrick, 52, was found last month in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Sheriffs spokesperson Mara Rodriguez told the Daily Press on Wednesday that there is no update on Jin's whereabouts, and the missing person's case remains open.

The 47-year-old woman was last heard from in July.

Fang Jin, 47, from China continues to be reported missing while her online friend, former Navy SEAL John Root Fitzpatrick, 52, from Morongo Valley, was found dead in San Diego County.

Fang Jin

After meeting a man, later identified as Fitzpatrick, online and corresponding with him for six months, Jin decided to meet him, her family said.

Jin did her best to check into the mans background, ordering a background report and verifying the mans identity, military service, and employment record, according to a GoFundMe account set up by family friend Kyle Zhou.

Jin flew from China to Los Angeles on July 14.

After arriving, she boarded a train from Los Angeles to the Palm Springs area. The following day, she was picked up by a man whom she hired for a tour of the Morongo Basin area, sheriff's officials stated.

The entrance to the Roadrunner Mobile Home Park in Morongo Valley, where former Navy SEAL John Root Fitzpatrick lived and hosted visitor Fang Jin from China.

Jin had planned to camp in an unknown area in the Morongo Basin, which is situated southeast of Lucerne and Johnson valleys in the High Desert, police stated.

On July 16, the couple was seen on surveillance video purchasing toiletries inside the Marine Corps Exchange at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, according to a search warrant issued by San Bernardino County Superior Court.

The man took her to Joshua Tree National Park and then supposedly went camping with her at a small town in the desert, her family said.

The pair reportedly took at least one hiking trip to the desert. Jin also stayed with Fitzpatrick at the Roadrunner Mobile Home Park in Morongo Valley.

Jin continued to send photos to her family in China, including one of Fitzpatricks driver's license and another of him with his blue Toyota pickup, the search warrant revealed.

On July 22, photos and messages were no longer being received by Jins family, she wasn't answering her phone, and her social media posts stopped. Her phone showed that it was no longer in service on July 25, according to her family.

Jins friend filed a missing persons report on July 26 with the sheriffs department when she couldnt contact her. Jin had booked a return flight in October, and her family said she did not intend to stay in the U.S.

Fang Jin, 47, from China continues to be reported missing while her online friend, former Navy SEAL John Root Fitzpatrick, 52, from Morongo Valley, was found dead in San Diego County.

John Fitzpatrick

Fitzpatrick was reported missing on July 30, according to the mans longtime friend and military colleague, Darryl Hoss, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Hoss reported his friend missing when Fitzpatrick didnt return from an extended camping trip to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the Union-Tribune stated.

According to military records reviewed by the Union-Tribune, Fitzpatrick was honorably discharged from active service in 2010 as a chief petty officer, master parachutist, and instructor who had completed multiple tours overseas.

In 2020, Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and was later placed in the veteran's treatment court, hinting at underlying issues, according to the Hi-Desert Star. He eventually completed the program, and the charge was dismissed this year.

Investigators stated that on July 22, Fitzpatricks vehicle, a blue Toyota Tacoma truck, was captured on camera in Thermal, just south of Indio and about 60 miles north of where his body would later be found.

Welfare check in Morongo Valley

On Aug. 1, deputies conducted a welfare check at Fitzpatricks mobile home located on 29 Palms Highway in Morongo Valley, according to the search warrant.

Detectives visited Fitzpatricks mobile home and found the front door open. Investigators entered to see if the couple were inside and found no one.

Detectives did find items belonging to Jin inside the home and the "odor of decomposition, the court document stated.

Sheriff's officials also discovered and took a red suitcase that contained Jins property. Additionally, her straw hat, sandals, green shoes, an SD card from a Ring camera, a green helmet, and a white purse with her belongings.

Deputies also found receipts from the Marine Corps Exchange.

On July 3, Fitzpatrick was seen on a store security camera purchasing duct tape, according to the search warrant. At that time, he was seen with a white/Hispanic man, who left the store with the purchased items, the court document stated.

A month later, sheriffs investigators served a second search warrant at the mobile home, where they took three iPhones.

Fitzpatricks body discovered

Law enforcement officials contacted Fitzpatricks family to inform them that his body was discovered in Harper Canyon, south of state Route 78, the Union-Tribune reported.

The San Diego County Medical Examiners Office has not disclosed information on the investigation.

Jin is described as Asian, standing 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing nearly 110 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information regarding this case is urged to call Detective Tyler Bengard at 760-366-4175 or sheriffs dispatch at 909-387-8413.

Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at 760-951-6227 or RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_ReneDeLaCruz.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Chinese woman still missing, boyfriend found dead in San Diego County
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) warned former President Trump on social media Thursday that he will have to face him one way or another.

Dont worry, @realDonaldTrump, said Christie, one of Trumps opponents in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Debate stage or coming out of a building, youll have to face me one way or another. Get ready.

The move follows the Trump campaigns earlier calls this month for the Republican National Committee (RNC) to cancel the third GOP debate. The next debate is scheduled for Nov. 8 in Miami.

The Republican National Committee should immediately cancel the upcoming debate in Miami and end all future debates in order to refocus its manpower and money on preventing Democrats efforts to steal the 2024 election, Trump campaign senior advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement, without offering any basis that Democrats were acting improperly in the 2024 election.

Anything less, along with other reasons not to cancel, are an admission to the grassroots that their concerns about voter integrity are not taken seriously and national Republicans are more concerned about helping Joe Biden than ensuring a safe and secure election, they added.

Christie didnt limit remarks to Trump, though  he slammed his other rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination, saying they were auditioning to be part of the former presidents cabinet if he were to be reelected, in a later post on X.

Every other candidate is auditioning to be in @realDonaldTrumps cabinet, Christie said in his post. [Im] not. Im running to beat him and be President of the United States.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The City of Orlando announced plans to buy Pulse, the nightclub where 49 people were killed in a mass shooting, pending final approval from city council on Monday.

At least 53 others were injured on June 12, 2016, when a 29-year-old shooter opened fire at the popular gay nightclub in central Florida on Latin night. The shooter was shot and killed by police at the scene.

The site of the deadly shooting was referred to as a permanent part of Orlandos history in an agenda item to be discussed at Mondays city council meeting.

The City is interested in acquiring this property as part of the process of developing a permanent memorial that honors the victims, the agenda item states.

The city is buying the 4,500-square-foot commercial building where Pulse was located for $2 million.

The OnePulse Foundations executive director, Deborah Bowie, said in a statement to CNN, We are thankful to the City of Orlando for ensuring that the National Pulse Memorial will be located at the Pulse nightclub site, which was always the hope of families of the 49 victims and the Pulse-impacted community. We look forward to being a part of the discussion with the City of Orlando as this moves forward.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said he hopes the sale and memorial will bring comfort to survivors and their families.

When the site becomes a permanent memorial, it will be a place for reflection and love, Demings said. It will be through moving forward that we continue to honor the legacy of those we lost.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a statement to CNN creating a memorial for Pulse victims has been a challenging endeavor, with the current plan for the memorial to be built somewhere besides the actual Pulse site.

City leaders recently spoke with victims family members, who Dyer said expressed a strong desire for a memorial to be located at the clubs former site, according to the statement.

In the interest of solving challenges in a way that brings our community together in love, acceptance and partnership, which is the enduring legacy of Pulse, we have decided to purchase the land from its current owners, Dyer said.

We believe that this is the best and most appropriate way to expedite the creation of a proper memorial for the Pulse tragedy, he said.

The closing date is set for October 27 pending city councils approval, according to the City of Orlando.

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ZUMBROTA, Minn. (FOX 9) - The City of Zumbrota appears to be reversing course after the council weighed disbanding its police.

The Zumbrota City Council says it will not hold a public hearing on Thursday on disbanding its police force after a "productive" meeting with the police union.

A revised council agenda published on Wednesday removes a planned presentation on contracting with the Goodhue County Sheriff for police coverage in the city. Instead, the council will hold a closed meeting to discuss a new proposal that arose from several meetings with the police union.

In a statement, the city says the mayor and council have faced "numerous personal attacks and threats" over the potential change. The revised agenda says the city will have further updates on the future of the police department during a Nov. 2 meeting.

In its own statement, the Zumbrota Police Officers and Sergeants Local 425 says several meetings in recent days have "resulted in mutually beneficial negotiations." They say the city will discuss a new offer to maintain the police force during its closed meeting.

In a statement earlier this week, the Zumbrota police union says officers were notified on Friday that the city had met with the Goodhue County Sheriff's Office about contracting for police coverage. In a statement, the union said: "...the last thing that our membership expected to hear was that their positions may be eliminated. We take great pride in providing a high level of public service as community caretakers for Zumbrotas residents, businesses, and to those who come to visit our beautiful city every day. We encourage anyone who wishes to express their support for maintaining the Zumbrota Police Department to contact the City of Zumbrota and the City Council."

In his own statement, the city's mayor, Todd Hammel, said staffing issues forced city leaders to consider other options. He writes: "I am going to just put facts out there right now and more will come. We have lost two police officers to another agency and this is the reason why we have started this process. We are looking at all options before a decision is made."

According to the union, discussions between the city and the sheriff began in August. That same month, the City of Goodhue reached an agreement for the Goodhue County Sheriff's Office to cover policing in its city, after the sudden resignation of its entire police force.
The San Francisco skyline is framed behind the Golden Gate Bridge in this view from the Marin Headlands near Sausalito, Calif., Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. A $4 million marketing campaign touting San Francisco's resilience, innovation and moxie launches Thursday, Oct. 19, as the embattled city prepares to host a high-profile Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' summit next month that could boost its image or pile on to its woes. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  A $4 million marketing campaign touting San Francisco's resilience, innovation and moxie launches Thursday as the embattled city prepares to host a high-profile global economic summit next month that could boost its image or pile on to its woes.

Business leaders behind the privately funded It All Starts Here campaign say they plan to blanket the city with billboards and ads featuring what makes San Francisco great  think the iPhone and Pixar Animation Studios  as tens of thousands converge on the city for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit.

President Joe Biden and other heads of state, hundreds of foreign journalists and more than 1,000 business executives from around the globe are expected to attend the summit Nov. 11 to 17.

Birthplace of the waterbed. And the summer of love, reads one ad. The martini. The mai tai. And the Uber ride back home, reads another. The campaign logo echoes the famous crisscross Haight and Ashbury street signs.

There's also a spirited two-minute video set to the song California Dreamin'. The video opens with fog and mountains, Pacific Ocean waves crashing into majestic cliffs and the Golden Gate Bridge before mixing in historic images of streetcars, beatniks, retailer Gap, Apple and Google. San Francisco is sandwiched between Silicon Valley and Northern California wine country.

The summit comes at a critical time for San Francisco's bruised image. While there are signs of recovery  an IKEA opened downtown  the city has been hit hard by news of major retailers leaving as street conditions deteriorated over public drug use, homelessness and theft.

Unfortunately, when you hear about San Francisco, you hear about a lot of negative things," said Priya David Clemens, spokesperson for the host committee. And APEC is an opportunity for people to come from all around the Pacific Rim, see this city, and go back and tell their friends and family, Hey, San Franciscos a great place to do business and to come back and visit for pleasure.

Civic and business leaders, government officials and the tourism and conference industry are anxious to counter the narrative that San Francisco is dying or dead as it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy in today's era of snap judgments spread through a viral social media ecosystem built in the city's backyard.

Conditions are not as dire as headlines make out, said Larry Baer, board co-chair of Advance SF, the business group overseeing the campaign. Baer, who is also president and CEO of the San Francisco Giants, said the ads are also aimed at reminding residents of the city's accomplishments.

It's urging a change in the narrative, said Baer, a San Francisco native. The city is like other big cities, with modern day challenges, but also with really a unique sparkle to it.

We're not going to have as quick a change perhaps as we want, but I believe ... theres improvement, he said.

In September, San Francisco successfully hosted 40,000 attendees of an annual Salesforce conference. City native Marc Benioff, the software company's CEO and chair, raved about how clean and safe streets were around the convention center.

The new ads take some liberties. Apple has its headquarters in Cupertino and Pixar's is in Emeryville, neither of which are San Francisco. The martini may have been invented San Francisco, or in neighboring Martinez. The mai tai was created in 1944 at a Trader Vics restaurant in Oakland across the bay.

The modern waterbed, however, was created in San Francisco, by a design student at San Francisco State University.
NEW CITY  Clarkstown officials announced court actions on Thursday against what they described as a dangerously overcrowded house and a separate network of rental homes managed by one company.

Town inspectors armed with a court warrant searched a single-family house on West Clarkstown Road on Tuesday and found 25 migrants living there, some sleeping on mattresses in an attic that could only be reached through a crawl space, Supervisor George Hoehmann said at an afternoon press conference.

Attic living space at 168 West Clarkstown Road, New City.

"How does a first responder get in there to rescue those people, and how do they get out?" he asked. "And how does a landlord allow that to happen? Those people would have died."

The scene resembled what inspectors reported a month earlier at a New Hempstead Road house where more than 30 migrants were allegedly found, also living in potentially unsafe conditions. Town officials accused the owner of operating an illegal boarding house with numerous code violations and recently won a court decision that it can be used only as a single-family home.

Clarkstown Supervisor George Hoehmann offers comments on steps being taken to crack down on illegal flophouses in Clarkstown during a press conference at Clarkstown Town Hall in New City on Thursday, October 19, 2023.

They are now taking similar actions to empty the West Clarkstown Road house while separately going after a Monsey-based company that they said managed the first migrant "flophouse" that they found, though not the second.

Hoehmann said officials have learned that the company, identified as First Choice SV Property Management LLC, manages 339 rental homes in all in Rockland County. Of the 37 in Clarkstown, about 20 appear to be in compliance with town codes but 17 have resisted scrutiny. The town is seeking a court order that would allow inspectors to view them all, Hoehmann said.

Flophouse discovery: Clarkstown says 31 migrants in 1 home; without proof, Day and Lawler point to NYC mayor

Hoehmann and County Executive Ed Day, who joined him at town hall for the press conference, both suggested that the two migrant boarding houses found in Clarkstown and presence of migrants in homes managed by First Choice were signs that recent migrant arrivals in the New York area were leading to illegal and dangerous housing conditions.

Attic living space at 168 West Clarkstown Road, New City.

Day asserted that a "criminal enterprise" was at work and asked for help from New York Attorney General Letitia James' office to root it out. "Based on my 25 years of law enforcement experience, I don't see how this could not be a criminal enterprise," he said. "There's too much money involved. Follow the money."

Hoehmann said town police and building inspectors recently have encountered migrants who had arrived in the U.S. so recently that they were in Clarkstown "within weeks of crossing the border." That suggested to him an organized effort to bring them hundreds of miles across the country to Rockland County.

Temporary guests: Woman at house Clarkstown officials say is overcrowded disputes that allegation

"We can't allow people to profiteer, and to profiteer from the weakness of people that are coming here looking to pursue a dream, whether it's legally or not," he said.

He said after the press conference that the migrants living in the West Clarkstown Road house appeared to be from Ecuador and Guatemala.

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: Clarkstown raids home allegedly lived by migrants in unsafe conditions
Committing to teacher development and using more technology are ways to boost student performance in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, according to candidates running for school board.

Fourteen people will be on the November ballot for the three at-large school board seats. At least two new faces will join the board because chair Elyse Dashew and at-large member Jennifer De La Jara didnt file for reelection.

Candidates who filled out a Charlotte Observer questionnaire weighed in on student performance in the district, which showed improvement in the second post-pandemic year in reading and math scores. Performance data released in September for the 2022-23 school year also showed 58% of the districts schools earned a school performance grade of an A, B or C.

The district needs to be purposeful in hiring skilled teachers, and once hired they need to support the whole teacher approach, said candidate Clara Kennedy Witherspoon, a retired educator who ran for a school board seat in 2022, specifically teacher pay, professional development, and social and emotional wellness.

Annette Albright, Claire Covington, Peggy Capehart, Tigress Sydney Acute McDaniel and Omar Harris did not respond to the questionnaire.

Learning gaps between students

Achievement gaps  particularly in the fourth grade  between white and Black and Hispanic students grew by double digits since 2003, according to the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Known as the Nations Report Card, its not a test of all students, and CMS is part of a nationwide program of 26 urban districts.

First-time candidate Liz Monterrey says it is clear from community meetings that student achievement is the greatest priority.

Leveraging my experience at a company at the forefront of AI and machine learning, I will advocate for the adoption of innovative technologies within CMS, said Monterrey, the daughter of Cuban immigrants. These technologies will enable personalized learning experiences for each student, identify at-risk students for targeted interventions, and provide data-driven insights to support our teachers.

Monty Witherspoon, a minister who is making his third run for public office, says students who have less at home need more resources at school. He says local agencies must work to meet students needs both at home and at school.

Witherspoon said the district needs a robust teacher development and recruitment program to ensure classrooms are staffed with high-quality teachers. The same system should be in place for principals.

I realize that we have a long way to go at the state level, but I believe that an innovative and responsive school board working in cooperation with educators can take some preliminary steps with the current resources, Monty Witherspoon said. Additionally, I will work with the School Board to restore a culture of high expectations for students, which costs $0.

Reading and math scores

Incumbent Lenora Shipp, who is seeking her second stint on the school board, has been a part of the boards discussion on goals for early literacy, elementary and middle school reading and math scores.

That discussion resulted in Student Outcomes Focused Government work thats led to a focus on academic achievement and the monitoring of the boards goals centered on student performance.

Shipp, who was elected in 2019, says the board needs to continue hiring and retaining the brightest teachers and staff and keep the focus on whats best for all children.

There is a need for consistency, fidelity of operations, systems and sustainability to continue moving the school system forward, Shipp said. This work along with the strong leadership of our superintendent is necessary.

CMS board wants to increase the percentage of K-2 students meeting benchmarks for early literacy from 67% in June 2023 to 91% by June 2029. Board members also want to increasing the percentage of math students earning college and career ready scores from 27.4% in 2023 to 57% by 2029, and increase the percentage of rising seniors who are on track to graduate from high school enrolled, enlisted or employed.

Offer more summer, arts programs

Brian Kasher, a management planner and first-time candidate said student performance will improve when the district finds a way to engage students who dont necessarily want to go to college. Kasher said improving overall literacy is key  as well as bolstered summer programs.

Too often children advance and develop during the school year and then much of that progress is lost over the summer, Kasher said. We need to be working on engaging summer programs (for children) who need extra support.

Shamaiye Haynes, a nonprofit leader who is a first-time candidate, said schools cant forget about subjects beyond reading and math. Haynes wants students in all schools to have access to arts and enrichment opportunities. To do that, she says, a work group needs to be assigned to make recommendations to improve access to quality programs and teachers and school personnel should be surveyed to identify creative ways to increase access.
Chili peppers bring wealth to Bohu in NW China Xinjiang

People's Daily Online) 09:08, October 19, 2023

Chili peppers recently entered harvest season in Bohu county, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Farmers sun dry red chili peppers in Bohu county, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo/Gong Ling)

Farmers have been busy sun drying chili peppers in a village of Bohu county. "Planting chili peppers guarantees a stable income and better lives," said Dong Zhiqiang, a resident in the village.

Dong planted a chili pepper variety that is rich in Capsicum red pigment on 30 mu (2 hectares) of land this year and harvested all his chili peppers.

"The yield per mu is expected to reach 500 kg to 600 kg," he said. "The variety I planted this year was well received in the market last year. And Bohu chili peppers are so famous that I don't have to worry about sales."

A farmer sun dries chili peppers in Bohu county, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo/Gong Ling)

Known for high-quality chili peppers, Bohu county planted a chili pepper variety rich in Capsicum red pigment, with high yield and strong disease resistance on over 64,000 mu of land this year.

The Bohu chili pepper was recognized as a geographical indication product by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture in 2013. It was also recognized as one of the top 10 famous chili peppers by the China Vegetable Marketing Association in 2020.

The chili pepper planting industry has emerged as a pillar industry with high yield, huge market potential and great prospects for Bohu county.

Aerial photo shows sun-drying fields in Bohu county, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo/Duguerjiafu)

Photo shows a sun-drying field in Bohu county, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo/Duguerjiafu)

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
People walk outside the mostly empty Thompson Center on July 19, 2023, in Chicagos Loop. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

The Chicago Department of Buildings approved a permit for demolition at the James R. Thompson Center affecting the iconic buildings interior and facade.

The Helmut Jahn-designed Thompson Center previously served as a state office building before it was sold in July 2022 to JRTC Holdings, a company led by real estate developer Michael Reschke.

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Google has a build-to-suit agreement with JRTC Holdings to buy the Thompson Center once renovations are complete. The internet giant is expected to begin occupying the building in 2026, the company said in July 2022.

The newly approved demolition work is expected to cost $6 million, permit approval records show. The permit listed the work as just the second phase of a multiphase project. Reschke previously estimated overhauling the 17-story glass-and-steel structure would take about two years and cost roughly $280 million.

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The permit calls for the interior demolition & demolition of exterior building facade.

Jahn, the namesake firm of the buildings designer, is the architect for the redevelopment. The firms initial renderings for the redevelopment showed significant changes to the buildings facade, including larger glass panels, altered colors and an emphasis on greenery. The renderings also showed similar changes to the buildings towering atrium.

The glass on the facade installed decades ago is not adequately insulated, Jahn President Evan Jahn said Tuesday.

I dont think it should come as a shock to anyone that the original facade will be taken off, he said.

He described the demolition as just a step in modernizing the building, and declined to share details on how the building will be remodeled.

A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the remodeling. Reschke did not immediately respond to calls and texts about the ongoing redevelopment.

[ Google plans to open in the Thompson Center by 2026. Will the tech giant help revitalize the Loop? ]

Continued demolition and remodeling might significantly alter the historic building, said Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago, a nonprofit group focused on protecting historically significant architectural structures.

From what were seeing, theres a chance that this building could really lose its integrity and look like a mylar balloon if were not careful, Miller said.

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The Thompson Center is one of Chicagos most important architectural marvels, Miller argued. It was one of the first major projects by the star architect Jahn and has become an important city landmark, he said.

Miller praised JRTC and Googles decision not to demolish the building but criticized them for not sharing more recent renderings. He called on local officials including Mayor Brandon Johnson to encourage the companies to maintain the buildings character.

A sensitive repurposing doesnt have to adversely affect the building, he said. He shared hopes the redevelopment would maintain the buildings plaza, colors and atrium.

We could save everything thats important. It could still be renovated and look like its brand new, he said.

Chicago Tribune reporter Brian J. Rogal contributed.
Downtown Matthews is about 12 miles from Charlottes center city. A charming town with its own aesthetic, theres always something to do in the suburban outpost with a family-friendly vibe.

With plenty of locally owned shops, restaurants and activities (we cant forget about Saturday mornings at the Matthews Farmers Market), downtown Matthews is the place you visit and want to stay for a while.

When you want to visit a small town that has a rich history, spend some time exploring with these six things to do in Matthews for less than $50 a day:

Slow down with a cup of coffee in downtown Matthews

Location: Brakemans Coffee & Supply, 225 N Trade St, Matthews, NC 28105

Spend the morning on Brakemans Coffee & Supplys patio, which is surrounded by a white picket fence. Its the place where everyone visits for slow culture coffee and to experience a moment of calm during the day. The menu options include classic and signature coffees and shakes, smoothies, ice cream and more. While youre there, order a 10 oz. The Great Pumpkin Latte, a cinnamon spiced pumpkin drink.

Cost: $4.50+ tax and tip

Start your day with a cup of coffee at Brakemans.

Spend time outdoors

Location: Stumptown Park, 120 S Trade St, Matthews, NC 28105

Enjoy the scene as you walk through downtown Matthews toward Stumptown Park. Festivals, concerts, events and more happen at this 0.9 acre park. Theres plenty of open grass, a stage, an outdoor grill and picnic area and more.

Cost: Free

Spend some time outdoors at Stumptown Park in downtown Matthews.

Where to eat lunch in Matthews

Location: Royal Cafe and Creperie, 131 Matthews Station St, Matthews, NC 28105

For lunch, take a trip to France without having to board a plane. Royal Cafe and Creperie is where you should go to taste sweet and savory classic crepes with a twist. The menu includes breakfast, entree and dessert crepes. Theres also an option for you to create your own crepe masterpiece (with a little guidance from the chef, if needed). Order the Smoky Chipotle Chicken Crepe ($10), which comes with grilled chicken breast, cheddar cheese, tomato, lettuce, onion and chipotle aioli. Coffee and tea are also on the menu, so you can add a Sweet Chai Latte for $3.65.

Cost: $13.65+ tax and tip

Have lunch at the Royal Cafe and Creperie in Matthews.

[READ NEXT: Stop in at these 6 neighborhood restaurants to try in Matthews and Stallings.]

Grab dessert

Location: Great Harvest Bread Co., 110 Matthews Station St #1d, Matthews, NC 28105

Pop over to Great Harvest Bread Co. and pick out a sweet treat for dessert to top off your lunch. The bakery carries specialty breads and baked goods with a seasonal menu. Wed go for a cookie, with choices including salted caramel, peanut butter, ginger or oatmeal raisin.

Cost: $2.85 plus tax

Great Harvest Bread Co. has five locations in the Charlotte area, including the store in downtown Matthews.

Go back in time

Location: Matthews Heritage Museum, 232 N Trade St, Matthews, NC 28105

Spend the afternoon exploring one of the oldest buildings in the area. Matthews Heritage Museum is located inside the 1879 Massey-Clark House. You can learn about the history of the railroad, see the original bank interior of the Bank of Matthews, listen to telephone switchboard stories and more.

Cost: Free

Stop by the Matthews Heritage Museum to learn more about the towns history.

Where to eat dinner in Matthews

Location: The Loyalist Market, 435 N Trade St #102, Matthews, NC 28105

End the evening with dinner at a place thats known for its local and regional cut-to-order cheese selection. The Loyalist Market is more than artisanal cheeses and charcuterie. Visitors can try made-to-order sandwiches, beer, wine and more. Order the Veggin Out, which comes with fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil, roasted red pepper, olive oil and pesto. Its served on ciabatta bread and with kettle chips or organic mixed greens ($9.50). Pair your dinner with a glass of Chardonnay from Napa Valley, California ($11).

Cost: 20.50+ tax and tip

Total cost for your day in downtown Matthews: $41.50+ taxes and tips.

While in downtown Matthews, have dinner at The Loyalist Market.

Editors note: This article was originally published in July 2022 and has been updated. Information was contributed by Heidi Finley.
For generations, students headed to college with hopes of finding an education and degree that would lead to a fulfilling career. Today, though, research finds Americans have less confidence in the value of higher ed as they struggle to find good-paying jobs they believed were guaranteed by taking this path.

A survey conducted by Intelligent.com found 27% of Americans believe college isnt worth it. Among 18- to 25-year-olds, 26% say college isnt worth it, compared to 29% of 26- to 35-year-olds and 30% of 36- to 45-year-olds, 27% of 46- to 55 year-olds, and 29% of those over 55.

Reasons cited include the price of higher education and the feelings that it doesnt improve job prospects and that what is taught isnt valuable.

The survey report cites a recent New York Times article on Americans declining faith in the value of college and recent polls showing that Americans opinions of higher education have dropped over the past decade.

The Morris Memorial Building on the Modesto Junior College East Campus is pictured Oct. 18, 2023.

Modesto Junior College students have mixed reactions to this survey.

Imane Kadri, an international student, said there are other ways to make money outside of going to college. She said its expensive and the time you spend will not guarantee a job right after graduation.

We are going to college so that we can earn money, we are building our futures, but now, there are a lot of things we can do, so its not really worth it anymore, Kadri said.

A survey by the Century Foundation last month found California borrowers owed around $37,000  the third highest in the country  with parents, graduate students and Black borrowers facing the highest student debts.

Despite the high price of college for most people, a degree does pay off  and an advanced degree can double your lifetime earnings, Ithaca College professor and higher education adviser Diane Gayeski said in the survey report. It is not just what is learned in class that prepares you for a specific job. The college experience includes exposure to new kinds of people and places.

MJC student Denise Zaragoza said she has two friends who took different paths and both ended up successful. She said one friend decided college wasnt for her two years into her studies and dropped out, but ended up working at Amazon and can now afford her own apartment. Her other friend stayed in college and found a high-paying job once she graduated and now has her own business.

College isnt for everyone, and for some people, college is for them. It always depends on the person, Zaragoza said.
The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro , is threatening to cut diplomatic relations with Israel, and calling the government, Nazis.

Does he have any understanding at all of what a Nazi is?

They were a right-wing organization of the government who was instrumental in destroying and gassing to death 12 million innocent men women and children, because of their religion.

Does Petro even understand what happened in Israel?

Is he seriously a president using no historical facts?

Someone must have lost a crap shoot to get him elected. He should be embarrassed by his statement and no less apologize.

Janet Weller,

Coral Springs
A Colorado investigator testified Wednesday that the teenagers accused of killing a 20-year-old woman after throwing a landscaping rock through her car windshield had been throwing rocks at moving vehicles for about two months before their actions allegedly resulted in a fatality.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office (JCSO) in April arrested three then-18-year-old suspects  Joseph Koenig, Nicholas "Mitch" Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak, of Arvada  in connection with the homicide of Alexa Bartell, who died after a large rock flew through her windshield and hit her in the head on April 19. A judge ruled after a preliminary hearing Wednesday that the three teens will face trial.

The lead investigator assigned to the case testified during the preliminary hearing that Karol-Chik told him he and his friends had thrown rocks at cars approximately 10 times between February and April.

Prior to Bartell's death, Koenig and Karol-Chik allegedly threw a landscaping "statue head" at a vehicle carrying a couple and their children earlier in April, the investigator testified.

COLORADO TEENS ARRESTED IN ROCK-THROWING ATTACKS TOOK PHOTOS OF MURDERED WOMAN'S CAR AS MOMENTO: POLICE

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office (JCSO) identified the three 18-year-old suspects as Joseph Koenig, Nicholas "Mitch" Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak of Avada, Colorado.

The suspected admitted to "throwing rocks not just at targets but at people driving," the investigator said.

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COLORADO TEENS ARRESTED FOR ROCK ATTACKS ON CARS THAT KILLED 20-YEAR-OLD

Between 10 p.m. and 12 a.m. on April 19 and April 20, the suspects allegedly threw rocks at six different cars, injuring multiple drivers and killing Bartell. Earlier on April 19, they made plans to meet up and drove to Walmart together, where they picked up landscaping rocks from the edge of the store's parking lot and loaded the rocks into Koenig's pickup, according to an arrest affidavit previously obtained by Fox News Digital.

Alexa Bartell, 20, is the latest victim in a series of apparently random attacks on cars across Jefferson County, Colorado, according to the sheriff's office.

A fourth friend saw the three suspects loading the rocks into their vehicle and asked them to drive him home before they went on the alleged rampage, police said. Koenig was driving the truck when the suspects left the parking lot, the affidavit states.

COLORADO WOMAN, 20, KILLED BY ROCK THROWN AT CAR IN SERIES OF SEEMINGLY RANDOM ATTACKS

That witness later told police that Koenig "frequently participates in destructive behavior" because he enjoys causing "chaos," the affidavit states.

Investigators photographed a gaping hole directly in Bartell's windshield, directly in front of the driver's seat.

Throughout the rest of the night, the three suspects allegedly threw rocks at six different vehicles, including Bartell's, killing the 20-year-old woman just before 11 p.m. as she was driving while talking on the phone with her friend. The investigator testified on Wednesday that the suspects were driving about 80 mph at the time.

COLORADO JURY TO HEAR CLOSING ARGUMENTS IN TRIAL OVER THE 2019 DEATH OF ELIJAH MCCLAIN

Bartell's friend told police that she was speaking with Bartell on the phone when she "abruptly stopped talking."

After noticing that they had struck Bartell's windshield, the three suspects turned back around and drove past the victim's vehicle, which had swerved into a field, at about 50 mph to observe the damage. Kwak is accused of taking a photo of her vehicle as a "memento."

Koenig allegedly declared the group "blood brothers" after realizing Bartell was dead, according to Karol-Chik's interview with authorities.

COLORADO SUPERMARKET MASS SHOOTER RULED MENTALLY COMPETENT TO STAND TRIAL

Karol-Chik told investigators that Kwak became "excited" when he hit a vehicle with a rock. Kwak, meanwhile, told investigators that Karol-Chik would use "Marine" terminology, such as "contact left," before hitting a vehicle to the left with a rock.

Between 10 p.m. and 12 a.m. on April 19 and April 20, the suspects allegedly threw rocks at six different cars, injuring multiple drivers and killing Bartell.

Bartell's friend used a phone-finder app to track Bartell's location and eventually found her stationary vehicle in a field off Indiana Street in Jefferson County and called police.

Investigators used cellphone data to identify the suspects, tying a common phone number that pinged at different crime scenes.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's deputy also testified that based on his interviews with the suspects, Kwak and Koenig were the only two suspects accused of throwing the rock that killed Bartell.

After investigators interviewed Kwak, he allegedly insisted that he did not throw the rock that killed Bartell. When the detective who testified Wednesday told Kwak, "I hear you," he responded: "I don't need you to hear me. I need you to believe me. I did not throw that rock."

After investigators interviewed Kwak, he allegedly insisted that he did not throw the rock that killed Bartell. When the detective who testified Wednesday told Kwak, "I hear you," he responded: "I don't need you to hear me. I need you to believe me. I did not throw that rock."

All three suspects are charged with one count of first-degree murder , one count of extreme indifference, six counts of attempted first-degree murder, three counts of second-degree assault and three counts of attempted second-degree assault.





Original article source: Colorado 'blood brothers' threw rocks at moving cars for 2 months before killing woman: investigator
A sign covers the broken back window of the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado, where authorities found 189 decomposing bodies. David Zalubowski/Associated Press

Colorado authorities have found 189 decomposing bodies inside a funeral home, and say that number could rise.

When questioned by a state official, the funeral home's owner acknowledged there was a "problem."

The owner also said he "practices taxidermy" at the property.

Since early October, Colorado authorities have found 189 decomposing bodies inside a funeral home after receiving a report of "an abhorrent smell emanating" from the facility.

When one state official phoned the funeral home to inquire further, the owner said he "practices taxidermy" at the property, according to documents obtained from Colorado's Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration.

A multi-agency investigation has been ongoing for over two weeks at the Return to Nature Funeral Home, which conducts "green burials" without the use of embalming chemicals or non-biodegradable coffins. Amid the unfolding mystery, state officials have suspended Return to Nature's registration as a funeral establishment, and filed a cease and desist order for all operations at the facility.

The funeral home's owner, Jon Hallford, acknowledged to one state official that he had a "problem" at the funeral home, but failed to allow a state investigator to access the property, according to the state's suspension letter. The letter also says authorities executed a search warrant on October 4 and determined "human remains were improperly stored," without offering further details.

"Jon Hallford attempted to conceal the improper storage of human remains at the Penrose property," the letter said, accusing him of "deliberate and willful violations of the Mortuary Science Code."

The Return to Nature Funeral Home's website says bodies that are not embalmed must be "placed in a regulated temperature controlled environment, meaning under refrigeration, dry ice, etc" within 24 hours of death.

On Tuesday, the Fremont County Sheriff's Office said the total number of dead bodies found at the property "could change," as authorities work to identify the remains and notify the decedents' families. The sheriff's office said there's no way to tell how long that process will take.

"We are conducting extensive coordination efforts as we focus on the identification of the decedents and provide notifications to ensure the families are given accurate information to prevent further victimization as they continue to grieve their loved ones," Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller said in a press release.

In addition to the Fremont County Sheriff's Office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the FBI are both investigating the funeral home.

The Return to Nature Funeral Home did not immediately respond to a reporter's calls or texts on Thursday, and Hallford could not immediately be reached for comment.

Read the original article on Insider
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will not take part in negotiations after Ukraine's victory in the war, Valery Chaly is sure

Why waiting for Putin's physical death is not an option.

I'll start with a story from my school days, which was in the early 1980s. I can't speak for all the schools in our city and country at the time. But in our high school, we had to take turns publishing a handwritten satirical newspaper called Koluchka. The content consisted of caricatures illustrating school troubles and short captions under them. They explained who was depicted and why the offender was being lampooned. Once, the hero of a cartoon was a sixth-grader known for foul language. He swore out loud during recess and in class, not only with students, but also with teachers. This had an unexpected effect on the brutal sixth-grader. He brought his parents to the school to brag: "Look, I've been featured in the newspaper. His behavior did not change after he was officially recognized as a bully.

Now, a few more politicized examples, also from that era. In the mid-1970s, the Central African Republic was ruled by Jean-Bedel Bokassa, first as a self-proclaimed president, then as a self-proclaimed emperor. For his fake coronation, he wore shoes later listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive. With his equally legendary ostrich leather shoes, Viktor Yanukovych competed with him in garishness at a meeting in PACE. After Bokassa's accession, he no longer hid the fact that his regime was dictatorial. Rumors about his personal involvement in torture went beyond the CAR. There was also talk of the emperor practicing cannibalism.

At the time, the French government openly supported Bokassa. The reason was the favorable conditions that the cannibalistic dictator provided for the development of uranium, which France needed to create nuclear weapons. In addition, the dictator corrupted the head of the French government, Valerie Giscard d'Estaing. The French press wrote about this openly, which led to his defeat in the elections. But other leaders of the democratic world of that time also had business relations with dictator Bokassa.

Another leap in time. Europe's Last Dictator is the title of a documentary made in 2003 by Belarusian director Yury Kalina. It was about the results of the then nine years of Alexander Lukashenko 's unchallenged presidency in Belarus. Nine years later, in 2012, a film with the same title was released by British journalists. Security forces violently disrupt the screening in Minsk. But four more years passed, and in 2016, the director Glenn Ellis used the same phrases to describe Lukashenko in his film. You won't believe it: in 2010, even the Russian media called Lukashenko the last dictator of Europe! He didn't mind too much; he was even proud of it: look, see what I am like. The dictatorial status did not prevent Western leaders from taking advantage of the dictator's invitations and choosing Minsk as a platform for negotiations on the Russian-Ukrainian war from the fall of 2014 onward. However, Lukashenko suddenly demanded an apology this summer and declared he was not the last dictator.

      

Apparently, Batka had known something for years. A few months later, PACE officially declared Russia a dictatorship. This automatically means the official recognition of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has remained unchanged as a dictator for a quarter of a century. He has, of course, not faced any reactions about this dictator status.

Traditions have mostly stayed the same since my student days. Otherwise, Putin would not have been compared time and again to a school bully. Neither teachers, nor parents, nor the environment can deal with him. On the contrary, the more attention he receives, the more comments and attempts to re-educate him, make him understand, and set him on the right path, the more he realizes his own importance in this dictatorial status. Ultimately, a work of fiction, whether a book, movie, or play, is incomplete unless its plot pits good people against bad people.

Democratic leaders and the democratic world have dealt with Putin, as with Bokassa and Lukashenko, against all odds. They met with him and shook his hand. When Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine began, world leaders began to call Putin to persuade him, urge him to come to his senses, negotiate, and stop the violence. This had only one effect: Putin liked being talked to. Just as that sixth-grade bully enjoyed his own caricature. People remember, they take into account, and they pay attention.

What the next steps will be is unknown. After all, dictatorial Russia, headed by an autocratic president, is still a member of several international organizations, including the United Nations. Still, they were expelled from several UN structures and could not be reinstated. However, the country with a dictatorial regime continues to be a business partner even for EU member states.

Read also: Putin sent Russia into a tailspin

This is also nothing new. During colonization, the conquering Europeans easily conducted business conversations with tribal leaders even when there were vast differences in power. But there is a nuance. The colonizers achieved their goals through such means as buying treasures for glass beads or introducing intoxicants to weaken the population gradually, without war. Dictator Putin does the opposite: he bribes the powers that be with real petrodollars, not with trinkets. He adds, as a psychotropic substance, the long-standing aggressive and, to be sure, talented and therefore influential Russian propaganda machine.

No one has tried to buy Putin directly with money, thus calming him down. It would not have worked: it would have meant admitting one's own weakness and paying tribute to the dragon.

So, as long as a certified dictator can still buy or otherwise butter someone outside the dictatorship he controls, he is not a dictator, but a potential partner. However, if the democratic world even dares to cut all ties with the dictator and isolate him, nothing will fundamentally change. The territory is too large. There are too many potential friends who do not care how they are defined in the civilized world. The most unfortunate thing about this situation is that democratic countries know precisely where the dictator is. There is a natural fear of an uncontrollable monster.

Waiting for Putins physical death is not an option. After all, no matter how many days, months, or years he lives, people will continue to lose their lives in Ukraine, Israel, and other hot spots where the dictator throws firewood. The only hope is that one day, hopefully not too far off, everyone will reach a point where they realize a dictator must be removed by force.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Some new unions are facing an unforeseen hurdle as they try to bargain first contracts with big-name employers: getting sued for the names theyve chosen.

Starbucks is the latest company to file an intellectual property lawsuit against its employees union. The coffee chain claims that the group, Workers United, is diluting the Starbucks brand and violating trademarks with the name and logo of its campaign, Starbucks Workers United.

Both Medieval Times and Trader Joes have made similar trademark claims against their respective workers unions, Medieval Times Performers United and Trader Joes United. In all three cases, workers say no reasonable person would confuse the unions with the companies, especially when the unions are publicly accusing the companies of illegal union-busting.

In the case of Starbucks, the company sent a letter to Workers United last week after the union campaigns account on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted a message expressing solidarity with Palestine following the Hamas terror attack on Israel. Starbucks warned the union to stop using the Starbucks name in its campaign name and imagery. The union refused.

On Wednesday, the two parties filed dueling lawsuits in federal court. The union, which has organized more than 350 stores since 2021, requested a court order assuring that it can continue using the name Starbucks Workers United. Starbucks asked a judge to force the union to drop the Starbucks name and other identifying symbols.

The union said it has an obvious reason for using the name Starbucks Workers United: 'to identify the employees who make up the union.'

The company claimed its been inundated with angry calls and emails from customers who conflated the union campaigns Palestinian solidarity tweet with the company itself. It also flagged a post on X from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) calling for a boycott of Starbucks and linking to an article in The Washington Free Beacon, which was first to report on the dust-up.

The union said in its court filing that it has an obvious reason for using the name Starbucks Workers United: to identify the employees who make up the union. Furthermore, the union said it doesnt want the public to confuse it with the company.

Particularly given Starbucks egregious anti-union campaign, the union asserted, Workers United does not want workers to fear that the Union is somehow controlled or sponsored by the company.

The union also alleges that Starbucks defamed it through false public statements indicating that Workers United supports terrorism and violence.

The union said the solidarity with Palestine tweet was not authorized by union leaders and was deleted after about half an hour.

Starbucks workers, seen here picketing in solidarity with striking writers and actors, have unionized more than 350 stores since 2021.

Starbucks workers, seen here picketing in solidarity with striking writers and actors, have unionized more than 350 stores since 2021.

Last year, Medieval Times filed a lawsuit accusing its workers union, the American Guild of Variety Artists, of creating consumer confusion through the name of its campaign, Medieval Times Performers United, and its logo, which features medieval imagery like swords and castles.

The AGVA, which has unionized two of Medieval Times nine U.S. castles since last year, called the companys lawsuit a grotesque attempt to retaliate against workers for exercising their legally protected right to form a union.

The dinner-theater chain did not fare well in its legal effort. A judge tossed its trademark infringement claim in September, saying there was no plausible likelihood of confusion.

In sum, neither a side-by-side comparison nor the overall impression is confusingly similar between the two logos, wrote the judge, William Martini of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

In his decision, Martini alluded to case law protecting unions that use an employers name within their own for identification purposes.

The union has filed an unfair labor practice charge against Medieval Times, saying the intellectual property lawsuit was meant to silence and intimidate workers.

In July, Trader Joes lodged its own trademark claim against Trader Joes United, a new labor group that has won union elections at four stores since last year.

The company claimed the unions sale of merchandise in its online store could cause significant reputational harm to the grocer. The items for sale include a reusable shopping bag that says Trader Joes United and shows the union logo, a raised fist clenching a box cutter.

The union called the companys claims frivolous and accused it of trying to weaponize trademark law against its own workers. The lawsuit has not yet been resolved.

In a letter to the company, the unions lawyers called the Trader Joes lawsuit just another in your continuing attack against labor.

Related...
EVANSVILLE  The CEO of Clearview AI, whose company provides the Evansville Police Department with facial recognition technology, said the software's results are "only leads for law enforcement" and should be treated like an "anonymous tip" from the public.

Evansville police, however, have claimed in sworn arrest affidavits that they used Clearview AI to conclusively identify crime suspects, according to a Courier & Press review of probable cause affidavits that refer to facial recognition technology.

The EPD's use of facial recognition technology did not garner public attention until this year when the Courier & Press reported that the department had quietly utilized Clearview AIs tools for years with little scrutiny or oversight.

As of June, Vanderburgh County's top prosecutor and public defender were unsure if Evansville police had ever directly referred to Clearview AI or facial recognition technology in affidavits of probable cause, which often constitute the starting point of a criminal case and can support police efforts to obtain search and arrest warrants from judges.

More: Experts voice concern over police use of facial recognition tech in Evansville

When the Courier & Press filed a public records request seeking any written EPD policies governing the use of facial recognition technology by officers, the department responded by stating it had no such policy  other than Clearview AI's Terms of Service and User Code of Conduct.

The Clearview app is neither designed nor intended to be used as a single-source system for establishing the identity of an individual, and users may not use it as such, the companys User Code of Conduct states. "Furthermore, search results produced by the Clearview app are not intended nor permitted to be used as admissible evidence in a court of law or any court filing."

But the results of Clearview AI facial recognition searches do show up in arrest affidavits filed in Vanderburgh County courts, often without any additional context describing the software's limitations  a practice that experts said could mislead judges about the accuracy of facial recognition technology.

Facial recognition is being used by more and more police agencies to help with identifying potential criminals.

Everybody with any seriousness whatsoever agrees that facial recognition technology cannot provide positive identification, Nate Wessler, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told the Courier & Press. Clearview AI does not purport to positively identify, and it doesnt positively identify.'

Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers and the EPD maintain that local law enforcement use Clearview AI and other advanced investigative tools responsibly and abide by all relevant state and federal laws.

In total, the EPD cited Clearview AI or facial recognition technology at least 10 times in arrest affidavits linked to shoplifting or theft cases between 2021 and 2023, public records show, though the true number may be higher: Detectives are under no obligation to disclose their use of facial recognition technology in arrest affidavits.

Furthermore, detectives do not require a warrant to perform facial recognition searches with Clearview AI, and officers also use the software when out on patrol to identify people in real time, according to EPD Chief Billy Bolin.

The Courier & Press submitted a detailed list of questions to the EPD along with relevant court documents and Clearview AI records. An EPD spokesperson twice confirmed they received the material, but did not provide a written response.

Clearview AI did not return multiple requests for comment or answer questions for this article, though CEO Hoan Ton-That has previously communicated with the newspaper about Clearview AI's products.

"The results coming back from Clearview AI are only leads for law enforcement, which have to be vetted and verified separately," Ton-That said. "Think of these results as the same as an 'anonymous tip' from the public.

The terminology is important

The affidavits that refer to Clearview AI or facial recognition technology by name offer a glimpse into the rapid uptake of artificial intelligence-based tools by local police, and in turn, the court system.

On Dec. 20, 2021, EPD officers were sent to the Walmart Supercenter on Evansville's East Side for a routine run: A woman, who the Courier & Press will refer to as Jane Doe, reportedly walked out of the store without scanning all of the items in her cart.

Officers didn't immediately locate the woman, who dispatchers described as a white female in her 40s, but Walmart provided detectives with a DVD copy of its surveillance footage.

With access to Clearview AI's facial recognition technology, investigators could run a still image from the surveillance footage through Clearview's internal database of more than 30 billion "face print" images  many of which include selfies and other photos the company scraped from websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Venmo  and mugshot websites.

They got a hit.

"(The detective) viewed the footage and utilized the Clearview AI software to positively identify the female suspect as (Jane Doe), a detective wrote in a sworn affidavit seeking the womans arrest.

Aside from Clearview's apparent positive identification, the affidavit described little else specifically linking the woman to the reported theft. She later pleaded guilty to a felony theft charge, according to court records.

"The technology is not designed to supply positive identifications but rather to generate possible leads, which even the makers of the technology acknowledge may be wrong," Wessler said upon reviewing the affidavit. "(Facial recognition technology) must be treated with great skepticism and must be followed by independent, reliable investigative work to develop probable cause. An affidavit using this language in seeking a warrant is perpetrating a fraud on the court."

In another probable cause affidavit, an EPD detective ascribed similar identification abilities to an unnamed face-matching algorithm: The defendant, later identified by facial recognition software to be John Doe (the Courier & Press is not using his real name), crossed all points of sales without payment for $22.47 in merchandise.

Writing in a probable cause affidavit related to a 2022 theft, a detective claimed he was "able to identify (suspect one) and (suspect two) by taking still images of both suspects and running the images through Clearview AI.

Additional evidence would corroborate the softwares findings, the detective wrote.

In all three cases, the detectives never disclosed in the probable cause affidavits that Clearview AI instructs law enforcement customers not to attribute the positive identification of a suspect to its software in sworn court filings.

In a 2022 report by Georgetown Laws Center on Privacy & Technology, author Clare Garvie wrote that law enforcement had little judicial precedent to go on when deciding how to leverage information gleaned from tools like Clearview AI.

In the absence of case law, legislation or more robust agency guidance, the limited evidence available suggests that police are not making rigorous distinctions when deciding whether to treat a face recognition match as an investigative lead or as probable cause to make an arrest, Garvie wrote. In some cases, officers have collected compelling information that supports the face recognition search findings. In others, however, officers have relied heavily, if not exclusively on, the leads generated by face recognition searches.

Of the arrest affidavits the Courier & Press reviewed, the vast majority cited additional evidence that would corroborate a suspect's identity. In some instances, detectives mentioned Clearview AI or facial recognition technology only in passing, noting its use as an investigative tool that helped generate an early lead.

But advocates and other Indiana law enforcement agencies argue that police must always proceed with caution when they portray information obtained from services such as Clearview AI to judges, particularly when the police do so in an effort to secure a persons arrest.

"Everybody who's studied this at all agrees that the terminology is important," Wessler said. "You should never say 'identified' or 'positively identified' (when referring to facial recognition technology).

The Indiana State Police  which became Clearview AIs first paying customer in 2020  agrees. The agency has strict policies governing the use of facial recognition technology, particularly when the ISP conducts searches for other law enforcement agencies through the state's Intelligence Fusion Center.

"The result of a face recognition search is provided by the Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center only as an investigative lead and IS NOT TO BE CONSIDERED A POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION OF ANY SUBJECT, its policy stated as early as 2019, according to public documents.

Facial recognition technology has a long history of law-enforcement use, dating back to at least the early days of the War on Terror.

The South Bend Police Department takes it a step further: According to SBPD Policy 343, any information gleaned from services like Clearview AI "shall not be used as a basis for probable cause and shall not be used as evidence when obtaining a search or arrest warrant.

The policy goes on to state that those who perform facial recognition searches must include the following disclaimer when they forward their findings to an investigator: The results of a facial recognition search is provided as an investigative lead and is not to be considered positive identification of any subject.

The EPD has no written policies dictating how its officers and detectives can leverage Clearview AI, or other facial recognition technology, to seek arrest and search warrants.

County prosecutor compares Clearview AI to polygraph tests

Moers told the Courier & Press that she did not see a discrepancy between Clearview AI's assertion that its findings were not to be cited as evidence in court filings and the EPD's practice of noting Clearview AI results in arrest affidavits.

For something to be actual evidence, it has to be able to be weighed by the trier of fact, whether thats a judge or a jury, Moers said. The Clearview AI tool is just a lead tool. They look at the Clearview AI, and they put that in the probable cause affidavit because theyre explaining what they did in their investigation, which is correct.

Moers compared tools like Clearview AI to polygraph tests, which purport to detect if a person is telling the truth or telling a lie. In Indiana, the results of such tests are only admissible in court under certain situations due to a lack of scientific evidence supporting their accuracy.

Its just like a polygraph: AI (artificial intelligence) its not reliable in and of itself, Moers explained.

But if AI tools aren't reliable by themselves, what about detectives claims in sworn affidavits that Clearview AI could positively identify, or had identified, suspects?

I think it's just saying that that's what the tool did, right? Moers said. I mean, you look at Clearview AI, and it's either a positive or a negative; so it positively identifies someone and then they go talk to the person and do the next thing.

Facial Recognition System concept.

Wessler said Moers statement that Clearview AI nets investigators positive or negative results betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how facial recognition technology works.

It does not give a positive or negative, Wessler said. What it does is provide a list of possible candidate matches. It doesnt purport to give a positive or negative. It doesnt purport to say, Heres a match, or Heres where theres no match. It gives possible matches  and those possible matches are very likely to be of multiple people.

Jonathan Barry-Blocker, a visiting legal scholar at the University of Floridas Levin College of Law, said arguments about whether facial recognition searches by police amount to evidence can end up devolving into a debate over semantics.

At the end of the day, its evidence; its evidence that is used to build a case to put forward and prosecute, Barry-Blocker said. The Indiana bar, as well as the national prosecutors professional associations, need to create ethics rules around the use of algorithmic evidence, of facial recognition technology, because it is clear that folks do not understand the technology.

Evidence or not, an affidavit of probable cause  and the claims made therein  provide a basis for judges to issue arrest warrants and prosecutors to file formal charges. And in many cases, defendants never challenge the information detectives outline in their arrest affidavits: Fewer than 5% of criminal cases in Indiana ever go to trial. Instead, defendants are encouraged to enter into plea agreements.

It remains unclear how often Evansville police leverage Clearview AI results to help establish probable cause that a specific person committed a crime. Police chief Bolin told the Courier & Press earlier this year that detectives may only refer to facial recognition searches via generic terms when authoring probable cause affidavits, or not at all.

How the Courier & Press reported this story

Under Indiana's Access to Public Records Act, the Courier & Press obtained a sample of EPD probable cause affidavits that refer to Clearview AI and confirmed for the first time that Vanderburgh County judges issued arrest warrants based, in part, upon information obtained via facial recognition technology.

"The Evansville Courier & Press seeks documents pertaining to the citation of results from Clearview Al Inc. products in public arrest/probable cause affidavits filed by the Evansville Police Department," the request stated, in part. The Courier & Press specifically requested to obtain copies of probable cause affidavits connected to "shoplifting" cases that included keywords such as "Clearview AI" or "facial recognition."

The department later tailored the public records request to include "theft" cases in addition to shoplifting cases and, after reviewing hundreds of affidavits, provided the Courier & Press with documents responsive to the request.

Houston Harwood can be contacted at houston.harwood@courierpress.com

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Evansville police using Clearview AI facial recognition to make arrests
Natalee Holloway vanished while on a trip with classmates in Aruba in 2005. The prime suspect recently confessed to her murder. | Family photo via Associated Press

The prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway has confessed to her murder, per The Associated Press.

Joran van der Sloot, now 36, was in court for an extortion case related to Holloways death and admitted he killed her while she was on a class trip in Aruba. Its been more than 18 years since Holloways disappearance, so heres an overview of the key players and a timeline of the important events in the case.

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Who was Natalee Holloway?

Natalee Holloway was an 18-year-old woman from Alabama who graduated high school days before she disappeared in Aruba. She was an honors student and had received a scholarship to study pre-med at the University of Alabama, per ABC. She loved to travel and was a member of several volunteer organizations, Court TV News reported.

Who is Joran van der Sloot?

Joran van der Sloot is a Dutch citizen who grew up in Aruba and was attending an international school on the island at the time of Holloways disappearance, per The Associated Press. He was convicted of the murder of Peruvian woman Stephany Flores Ramirez in 2012, per CNN, and is currently serving 28 years in a Peruvian prison for the crime.

Timeline of the Natalee Holloway case

May 26, 2005: Holloway and a large group from her high school arrive in Aruba for a graduation trip.

May 30, 2005: Holloways classmates last see her alive around 1:30 a.m. leaving a restaurant and bar, per CNN. She is seen getting into a car with 17-year-old Joran van der Sloot and two of his friends, 21-year-old Deepak Kalpoe and 18-year old Satish Kalpoe. When she does not appear for her scheduled flight home later that day, her friends alert local police.

June 9, 2005: Van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers are arrested and questioned in connection with Holloways disappearance. They claim they drove away from the restaurant together but dropped her off at her hotel around 2 a.m., per NBC.

July 2005: The Kalpoe brothers are released, although van der Sloot remains in custody, per The Associated Press.

August 2005: The Kalpoe brothers are arrested again, per CNN.

September 2005: Van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers are released from custody, although the Aruban prosecutors office states the three will remain under investigation, CNN reports.

November 2007: Van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers are arrested once more, per CNN. This is the last time any of the three are arrested in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.

Dec. 1, 2007: CNN reports that the brothers are again released due to insufficient evidence.

Dec. 7, 2007: Van der Sloot is also released, per CNN.

Dec. 18, 2007: Aruba prosecutors dismiss the case against van der Sloot and the Kalpoes, per CNN.

March 29May 17, 2010: Van der Sloot contacts Beth Holloway , Natalee Holloways mother, and offers to tell her the location of her daughters body in exchange for $250,000, according to a later indictment from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Van der Sloot tells Holloways lawyer that Natalee died after hitting her head on a rock, but he is unable to locate her body, per ABC. Van der Sloot leaves Aruba before he can be prosecuted for extortion and moves to Peru.

May 30, 2010: Van der Sloot murders 21-year-old Stephany Flores Ramirez in Lima, Peru, per CBS. He flees to Chile but is later arrested.

June 30, 2010: Van der Sloot is indicted for extortion and wire fraud in Alabama.

Jan. 11, 2012: Van der Sloot pleads guilty to Flores murder, per CNN. He is later sentenced to 28 years in prison for the crime.

Jan 12, 2012: CNN reports that Natalee Holloway is legally declared dead after her father files a petition to do so.

June 8, 2023: Van der Sloot is transferred from prison in Lima to a jail in Birmingham, Alabama. He appears in court the next day and pleads not guilty to extortion, per CNN.

Oct. 18, 2023: Van der Sloot appears in court and pleads guilty to counts of extortion and wire fraud. As part of a plea deal, he also confesses to killing Natalee Holloway on May 30, 2005, after she rejected his sexual advances, per CNN.

He is sentenced to 20 years in prison, but the time will be served concurrently with his Peruvian sentence, which means that he will be released from prison in Peru in 2045 and will not have to face additional jail time.

CNN reports van der Sloot will likely not be prosecuted for Holloways murder because the statute of limitations has expired.

Beth Holloway delivered a victim impact statement in court and spoke of her grief.

Its over, she said. Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughters murder. He is the killer.
A Broome County man serving a 30-year to life sentence in the shooting of a state trooper in 2021 could have another day in court after a successful appeal of his attempted murder conviction.

The trial judge should have allowed the defense to present a psychiatric report testifying to the level of 47-year-old Scott Mawhiney's intoxication and impaired thinking at the time of the shooting, according to a decision Thursday by a state appeals court.

Mawhiney was found guilty by a Broome County Court jury on felony charges of first-degree attempted murder and aggravated assault of a police officer, along with a misdemeanor count of fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

New York State Trooper Ryan Thorp was shot in the arm June 23, 2021 after responding to a domestic dispute at Sunrise Terrace in the Village of Deposit.

Deposit trooper shooting: How the case unfolded

The charges stemmed from a June 2021 encounter in the Village of Deposit, when state Trooper Ryan Thorp responded to a reported domestic incident and was greeted with gunfire.

Mawhiney fired several blasts from a shotgun, wounding Thorp in the arm and striking his patrol vehicle several times, prosecutors said. He later surrendered without incident after law enforcement personnel surrounded the residence.

Read the decision: Appeals court reverses decision in NY trooper shooting case

At Mawhiney's trial, defense lawyer Ronald Benjamin didn't dispute the events of that evening, but argued how intoxicated Mawhiney was at the time of the shooting.

Mawhiney consumed prescription medication and at least four white Russian cocktails that night, his lawyer said, making him even more impaired.

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What the appeals court said

Benjamin attempted to introduce testimony from a psychiatrist who would argue Mawhiney was too intoxicated to form the intent to kill or seriously injure a police officer, but that move was denied by Judge Kevin Dooley, who presided over the trial. At the time, the judge decided the issue of Mawhiney's intoxication and the impact it had on his thinking and behavior was a factor within an average juror's understanding, and wouldn't require an expert's testimony.

But the appeals court agreed with the defense, saying that expert testimony should have been allowed.

The appeals court said, by not allowing the expert testimony, Mawhiney was prevented from presenting proof on his intoxication and ability to form the necessary criminal intent that was "the key issue in his defense."

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Next steps in Deposit trooper shooting case

Mawhiney is currently incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. As a result of Thursday's appeals court decision, the case will be sent back to Broome County Court for a new trial.

District Attorney Michael Korchak said he "respectfully disagrees" with the appeals court ruling, and his office is exploring options.

"If another trial is the result, I am confident that the evidence will again show that Scott Mawhiney is guilty of attempted murder of a police officer," Korchak said.

Follow Jeff Murray on Twitter @SGJeffMurray. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Deposit man's conviction reversed in NY trooper shooting. Here's why
Its Thursday, Chicago.

Theres a wide array of frightful and delightful activities to enjoy as we count down the days until Halloween in Chicago. You can consult our list of where to find ghoulish-themed dining specials, the citys most haunted objects and a review for whats probably the most eerie ballet on stage this year.

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But whats more horrifying than bad and expensive tacos? Tribune critic Nick Kindelsperger explores this topic in his latest review. We also have a roundup of exciting new restaurants, and some heartbreaking closures, in dining.

Finally, as the Chicago International Film Fest continues, Michael Phillip interviews We Grown Now director Minhal Baig and Rick Kogan interviews first-time director Claude-Aline Nazaire-Miller.

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Enjoy the weekend, and well see you next week.

 Lauryn Azu, deputy senior editor

Kevin Daniels as Tiny, from left, Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane, Jimmy Dunn as Moose and Jack Cutmore-Scott as Freddy Crane in "Frasier." (Chris Haston/Paramount+/HANDOUT)

If only the Frasier revival for Paramount+ conjured anything close to the effervescent wit of the Seattle-set original, Tribune critic Nina Metz writes in her review. Read her thoughts on the reboot here.

Muah Cotton Candy owner Sonya Song works on cotton candy creations at her shop in Chicagos Water Tower Place on Oct. 7, 2023. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

Tucked away on the seventh floor of Water Tower Place is a tiny shop serving colossal confectionaries. Read about that store and six other restaurant openings in Chicago here.

Director and writer Minhal Baig outside her home in Chicagos Hyde Park on Oct. 16, 2023. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

The We Grown Now director grew up in Rogers Park and is a star on the rise, according to Tribune critic Michael Phillips. The movie struck me not just as a vital and beautiful addition to the list of key Chicago-made movies about Chicago, but as a film staking out its own style of poetic realism, he writes. Read more about Baig here.

Master taquero Juan Monarrez stacks slabs of al pastor onto a spit for roasting at Tacombi, 126 N. Peoria St., on Sept. 14, 2023, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy >

Though tacos dont have to be cheap to be delicious, a bevy of West Loop taquerias are serving up overpriced tacos that underdeliver, Tribune critic Nick Kindelsperger writes. Read his trio of mini-reviews here.

Claude Miller at home in Chicago on Oct. 11, 2023. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

One of the shortest movies at this years Chicago International Film Festival is about the artist Nick Cave and will be screening again Oct. 22 at the Chicago History Museum. Read more about the movie here.

Halloween specials at the Voodoo Lounge at Ina Mae Tavern. (Ina Mae Tavern)

From pumpkin carving with cocktails to dog-friendly costume contests, embrace spooky season and check out our guide to celebrating Halloween at Chicago-area restaurants here.

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Aila Ayilam Peck and Kroydell Galima in "Night Watch" at Raven Theatre. (Michael Brosilow/HANDOUT)

If youre a fan of Only Murders in the Building, on Hulu, theres a chance youll also enjoy Night Watch, a mystery-thriller now at Raven Theatre. Read Tribune critic Chris Jones review here.

Chicago Tribune's 2023 Holiday Cookie Contest.

The ovens have cooled, and aprons have been hung. Now its time to vote for Chicagos favorite cookie to see who will compete for one of our cash prizes! Cast your vote here.

Jonathan Dole and Jose Pablo Castro Cuevas in Joffrey Ballet's "Frankenstein" at Lyric Opera House. (Cheryl Mann/HANDOUT)

The Joffrey Ballets Frankenstein has everything you want for the spooky season: a gothic setting, sci-fi wizardry, a dash of hedonism, death and destruction and gasp-worthy shock value. Read about the production here.

Fort Santiago, Intramuros, Manila in 2022. (Bien Bautista/AP)

Younger Filipino Americans are looking for more authentic ways to experience the Philippines, and the Philippine Department of Tourism is looking to meet them where they are. Read about the initiatives underway here.
A Copa Airlines flight bound for Tampa, Florida, had to turn around after a suspected bomb threat on Friday morning, the Associated Press reported.

Flight CM393 returned to Panama Citys Tocumen International Airport to be searched for an explosive device, Panamas Civil Aeronautics Authority reported on X regarding the incident, which turned out to be a false alarm.

READ MORE: Passenger involved in viral meltdown speaks out

The Boeing 737-800 landed at around 11 a.m. local time and moved to an isolated area of the tarmac, where 144 passengers were evacuated.

Luego de una alerta por el @aacivilpty, de un objeto extrano en una aerolinea las unidades de Fuerzas Especiales activaron el protocolo de emergencia y al ser verificado resulto ser un panal desechable de adulto. #Prevencion pic.twitter.com/n3pBqQZki9  Policia Nacional (@ProtegeryServir) October 13, 2023

Canine units and special forces searched the aircraft for a suspicious foreign object, found to be an adult diaper (panal desechable de adulto in Spanish) in the bathroom, Jose Castro, the head of the airports security team, told the AP.

The national police posted two pictures of the large diaper on X, with the hashtag #Prevention.

After the risk was ruled out, the travelers reboarded the same plane and landed in Tampa at 6:54 p.m., according to Beau Zimmer, communications manager for Tampa International Airport.

READ MORE: Mom freaks out after missing flight
2024 independent presidential candidate Cornel West defended himself Thursday against criticism that he took a donation from Harlan Crow  the billionaire whose close relationship with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has recently come under scrutiny amid reports of undisclosed gifts to the associate justice.

The most recent campaign filings showed Crow gave West, who originally announced he would run as a Green Party candidate, a $3,300 donation, the maximum amount allowed to a campaign. The donation was dated weeks before West announced he would run as an independent.

As an independent candidate and a free Black man, I accept donations within the limits of no PACs or corporate interest groups that have strings attached, West said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. I am unbought and unbossed.

West continued to defend the contribution, noting he and Crow have political differences but that hes known Crow for years. He also accused his critics of hypocrisy, stressing he does not accept PAC money.

I find it hypocritical for those who highlight his $3300 donation to my campaign but cant say a mumbling word about the PAC-driven billion dollars to support the genocidal attack in Gaza sponsored by their candidate! West said. Im fighting for Truth, Justice, and Love! Onward!

Crow has donated to other candidates in the 2024 race, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and the super PAC supporting his bid.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
FILE - A Costco warehouse is shown in this photograph taken Friday, July 8, 2022, in Thornton, Colo. Costco announced that CEO W. Craig Jelinek will step down in January 2024. Hell be succeeded by the companys current president, Ron Vachris, who has been with Costco for more than 40 years.(AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

ISSAQUAH, Wash. (AP)  Costco announced Wednesday that CEO W. Craig Jelinek will step down in January. Hell be succeeded by the companys president, Ron Vachris, who has been with Costco for more than 40 years.

Jelinek has been CEO of the members-only warehouse chain since 2012, when he took over from Costco co-founder James Sinegal.

Vachris started with Costco as a forklift driver and worked his way into management. The company based in Issaquah, Washington, said he has served in every major role related to Costco business operations and merchandising.

Jelinek will remain with the company through April in an advisory role and will continue as a member of Costcos board.
EDISON, N.J. (WPIX)  A school bus driver in New Jersey is being called a hero after her quick thinking prevented a bad situation from becoming much worse.

Police said two students suffered minor injuries after the school bus crashed into a home in Edison on Wednesday morning. A preliminary investigation of the crash indicated that the brakes failed, authorities said.

I think that the school bus driver should be referred to as a hero here, said Edison Police Chief Thomas Bryan.

Woman shoved into moving NYC subway train: NYPD

For the 28 students on board, it was a normal Wednesday bus ride to John Adams Middle School in Edison. They were about a mile or so out from school when the bus driver tried to stop at an intersection, but the brakes failed, police said.

Home surveillance video shows the bus crashing into a fence, then clipping the garage of a home before coming to a rest in the grass.

It was incredible what she did, said Edison police officer Evan McNamara. She avoided many houses. It could have been a lot worse, she did a very good job.

Police said three cleaning workers inside the home at the time were unharmed, officials said.

My heart went out for those kids, said neighbor Rachel Endress. I wanted there to be no kids on the bus but there happened to be.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the bus driver and everyone involved, added neighbor Matthew Junio.

School officials said the children were left shaken, but Edison Police therapy dog Tybee, a 10-month-old golden retriever, helped to ease them.

The kids were so incredible, said Sgt. Melissa Michalik, Tybees owner. To see them smiling, engaging, hugging, petting the dog, it was so heartwarming.

Driver shows Get Out of Jail Free card to deputy at traffic stop

The house that was struck by the bus has been condemned, police say, and the family living there has been displaced.

School officials said the school bus company is one of a few companies they contract to run some of their routes. They say they will meet internally about the next steps.

The bus itself will be examined by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, police said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
EDISON, N.J. (WPIX)  A school bus driver in New Jersey is being called a hero after her quick thinking prevented a bad situation from becoming much worse.

Police said two students suffered minor injuries after the school bus crashed into a home in Edison on Wednesday morning. A preliminary investigation of the crash indicated that the brakes failed, authorities said.

I think that the school bus driver should be referred to as a hero here, said Edison Police Chief Thomas Bryan.

United Airlines is about to completely change the way you board a plane

For the 28 students on board, it was a normal Wednesday bus ride to John Adams Middle School in Edison. They were about a mile or so out from school when the bus driver tried to stop at an intersection, but the brakes failed, police said.

Home surveillance video shows the bus crashing into a fence, then clipping the garage of a home before coming to a rest in the grass.

It was incredible what she did, said Edison Police Officer Evan McNamara. She avoided many houses. It could have been a lot worse, she did a very good job.

Police said three cleaning workers inside the home at the time were unharmed, officials said.

VIDEO: Bear breaks into Connecticut home, raids freezer for lasagna

My heart went out for those kids, said neighbor Rachel Endress. I wanted there to be no kids on the bus but there happened to be.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the bus driver and everyone involved, added neighbor Matthew Junio.

School officials said the children were left shaken, but Edison Police therapy dog Tybee, a 10-month-old golden retriever, helped to ease them.

The kids were so incredible, said Sgt. Melissa Michalik, Tybees owner. To see them smiling, engaging, hugging, petting the dog, it was so heartwarming.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

The house that was struck by the bus has been condemned, police say, and the family living there has been displaced.

School officials said the school bus company is one of a few companies they contract to run some of their routes. They say they will meet internally about the next steps.

The bus itself will be examined by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, police said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
A council house based on gathering places used by people of the Cherokee Nation now is a gathering place for Boone County students at the Boone County Nature School.

Officials with Columbia Public Schools, the Missouri Department of Conservation and Columbia Audubon Society on Wednesday dedicated the council house.

The Boone County Nature School is south of Columbia, between Columbia and Ashland.

The seven-sided structure is open-air with seating, a location in the center for a campfire and a hole in the roof.

"We look forward to seeing dirty, sweaty, breathless learners occupying this," said Bill Mees, with Columbia Audubon.

Seeing students on every visit to the nature school property causes her to grin, said Missouri Department of Conservation Director Sara Parker Pauley .

"It's serving it's intended purpose," she said. "It's beyond heartwarming."

The nature school has been in discussion for more than a decade, initially with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Pauley said.

"We're modeling it for the nation right here in Missouri," Pauley said.

The CPS graduate added more quietly that it was happening in her favorite county and her favorite school district.

The council house and the nature school will impact thousands of lives, said CPS Superintendent Brian Yearwood.

"I can imagine 100 scholars sitting in your seats, excited to learn about nature," Yearwood said.

He acknowledged the legacy of his predecessor as his predecessor as superintendent, Peter Stiepleman, in making the nature school a reality

Columbia Audubon donated $30,000 toward the council house.

Officials also thanked the family of the late Hank Waters, former Tribune publisher, for donating the land for the nature school. The land's value was appraised at more than $3 million.

Outside, Rock Bridge High School students Shuba Gautam, Chase Hofmann, Colette Miller and Truman Varns explained their bird-banding project.

From 2020-23, the students have captured and released 297 birds of 39 species, with 27 recaptured from previous years.

Already, 5,300 Boone County students had been to the location, Pauley said.

Within 24 hours, fifth-graders would be on the site, said Joe Brown, lead teacher of the nature school.

Within a year, the location would welcome 8,000 to 10,000 students, Brown said.

"The positive impact of spending time outside on mental health is well-documented," Brown said.

He thanked everyone who made it possible.

"Good things are coming," Brown said.

Next is the school building, scheduled to open in June, Brown said after the dedication. It will serve students starting in the 2024-25 school year. It will serve as a staging area and allow for student programming all year, regardless of weather.

An 8,230-square-foot building is planned.

Roger McKinney is the Tribune's education reporter. You can reach him at rmckinney@columbiatribune.com or 573-815-1719. He's on X at @rmckinney9.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: The council house at nature school is ready to welcome students
A 27-year-old was found alive in a ditch two days after he was reported missing in Tennessee, according to friends and loved ones.

Knox County deputies said family members reported Taylor Boyle missing on Tuesday, Oct. 17, after he was last heard from on Sunday, Oct. 15. Boyle was on his motorcycle when he disappeared.

Friends and strangers, a private search and rescue team and Knox County law enforcement searched the area in the days following his disappearance, according to an Oct. 18 Facebook post from Nichole Rousseau. Boyle was located by his friends around 11 p.m. on Tuesday.

He was down a 15 ft embankment not even a mile from home hidden under trees and bushes. Within the same radius we had been searching around all day Tuesday, Rousseau said.

Another post said Boyle was found near Heiskell, which is about 12 miles northwest of Knoxville.

Taylor just missed the guardrail. He was laying there in the cold for days dehydrated with only a concussion and a dislocated elbow. Face untouched, according to Rousseau. He was alive and talking, moving both arms and legs.

Brandon Lawson, a friend involved in the search, told WBIR that he was the one who found Boyle.

When I looked down in there, I didnt see him at first and as I was panning out, I saw something sparkle  basically just saw the light reflect. And when I did, I looked back and I just saw the Harley wheel, Lawson told the news outlet.

Its pretty crazy, honestly, as far as he was down here. And, as much as you can see from up here, its a miracle that we found him. I just praise God every day, Ryan French, another friend involved in the search, told WBIR.

After Boyle was found, he said he thought he had only been outside for about an hour on a camping trip with his dad, Rousseau said in her post. He is now recovering in the hospital with a minor brain bleed. He has a long road to recovery.

Friends shared details of the rescue on social media. Videos show rescuers in the woods before Boyle is lifted from a ditch on a stretcher. Another video shows Boyles motorcycle being dragged from the woods where it crashed.

3 young kids orphaned when parents die in head-on wreck, AZ family says. Horrifying

17-year-old motorcyclist with big fun-loving heart dies in head-on wreck, NC cops say

Beloved pre-K teacher dies in early-morning crash, North Carolina officials say
Editors note: Reality Check is a Star series holding those in power to account and shining a light on their decisions. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email tips@kcstar.com.

Kansas City should not spend millions of dollars subsidizing a private parking lot that will compete with the citys own airport parking operations, critics both inside and outside City Hall say.

Yet the city is well on its way to doing just that this week. A city commission that greenlights tax abatements will consider a Northland developers request on Friday for more than $16 million in public assistance that would help build a privately owned, 4,000-space, covered parking lot near Kansas City International Airport.

Not only would the lot compete with the citys own airport parking operations, but $5.5 million of that property tax handout would go to build two roundabouts on the airports main access road. Roundabouts that city officials concede are not needed for anything but to make it easier for customers to access the private lot and other retail businesses that the developer hopes to attract, including fast food restaurants, hotels and a convenience store.

I think when we look at what types of projects we should incentivize, it should be benefiting the residents of Kansas City, not benefiting tourists, especially not benefiting things like incentivizing fast food restaurants, parking lots, or any type of other things like gas stations, 6th District Councilman Johnathan Duncan said in August before a council majority moved to push Richard Chaves Jr.s development project forward.

He and others have also questioned the public process thats pushed the project ahead to this point, as the council parted with its usual practices of requiring that projects getting tax increment financing have a TIF plan in place before receiving TIF money.

Yet that is essentially what happened with this project, as the council voted to advance the Chaves development $700,000 before he had even filed an application for TIF funding. Officials said it was essentially a loan.

The day after the vote, Northland activist Jaz Hays, went on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to say the project was not worthy of a taxpayer subsidy and implied that Chaves and his supporters had bought council support with $108,000 in campaign contributions.

Hey, if the city is in the business of issuing loans, can regular people at least get them? If me and my neighbors want to build or buy cooperative housing, will the city spot us $700k, Hays wrote.

Neither Chaves nor the attorney representing him on this project responded to requests for comment.

Lacked access

Chaves has been working on the parking lot plan and adjacent commercial development since August 2019, when the investment group he heads bought 58 acres immediately north of Northwest Cookingham Road and east of Interstate 29.

The weed-covered lot has been vacant for years. Adjoining it is the site of a decades-old office building that the Chaves group also owns, which was built where Bonnie and Clyde shot it out with police back in 1933.

Thirteen lawmen surrounded them but the gang shot their way out and escaped, a historical marker states.

Chaves, however, was not lucky enough to escape the hassle that developing the site would entail because the site was hard to get to, and the process of getting help from the city to add a point of access proved tricky.

Currently, the only way to drive to those 54 acres is via a stub of a road that opens onto Ambassador Drive, which provides access to the office building.

Chaves told city officials that north-south Ambassador was suitable, if all he wanted to do was build his companys Peachy Airport Parking lot for air travelers to leave their cars while they were away.

But he needed road access from east-west Cookingham so vehicle traffic can get to the fast food joints, hotels and other businesses that may be built there.

And without being able to assure those potential tenants or buyers of that access in the future, he cant secure their commitments, which are necessary to get the project to work.

The conversations say, OK, well, wheres the access? Chaves told a council committee in August. And once I say it hasnt been done yet, the conversation ends.

His original designs in 2020 showed a planned access road off Cookingham, but state and local officials said the road would pose a safety hazard because it would be too close to the ramps on and off I-29.

Someone would have to build one or two roundabouts, but the state, which owns the road, was not about to do it for a single developer, as traffic numbers didnt justify it.

So when the city finally signed off on his now-$106 million development plan in 2022, it required that there be two traffic roundabouts, one on either side of the interstate. But the agreement didnt make clear who would pay for them.

Positive move

It wasnt revealed until a year later, as Chaves prepared to break ground for the parking lot, that he had no intention of paying for the roundabouts on his own.

Taxpayers would have to foot the bill.

City Aviation Director Pat Klein objected, asking City Council members in an email why taxpayers should pay for roundabouts for a parking lot that would hurt the airports bottom line.

Parking generates roughly $55 million a year for KCI, the now-retired Klein wrote, and having the City participate in funding improvements which will compete with our parking assets doesnt seem the best use of City funds.

But the council went ahead anyway, citing the overall economic benefits of the parking lot development. Teresa Loar, who was nearing the end of her term representing a Northland district, said the Chaves investors deserved the citys help.

They have just been piled on and piled on with stuff, and theyre trying to make Kansas City a better place, she said at a May committee meeting.

At the groundbreaking ceremony two days before the council instructed the city manager to find a way to pay for the roundabouts, former Mayor Sly James called the Chaves development a positive move for the Northland and all of Kansas City because it acts as a direct gateway to the new airport terminal.

He said it will provide jobs, tax revenue and needed services for both travelers and local residents in a growing part of town.

TIF money

To minimize one of Kleins concerns, the city managers office proposed a funding plan this summer that does not divert the citys limited funds for fixing existing roads to a project benefiting a single developer.

Instead, the roundabouts would be paid for out of the increased property taxes that the fully developed property would generate compared to what owner Kansas City Airport Parking LLC now pays into the treasuries of the city and other local taxing districts.

Whether that incremental amount of money can be used to pay for the roundabouts and other infrastructure costs at the development is the question that the citys Tax Increment Financing Commission will be taking up on Friday morning.

What makes this project unusual and has raised criticism even on the City Council is that the council committed $700,000 to the roundabout construction on the assumption that the TIF plan will be approved.

Thats not how its normally done. Developers dont normally get TIF money until their TIF plans are approved.

But Chaves asked for an exception. The appropriation will pay for costs associated with the curb cuts to access the site, which the Missouri Department of Transportation wanted in place before approving construction of the roundabouts.

And the roundabouts are key to the TIF plan.

Its a chicken and egg thing, Chaves attorney, Patricia Jensen, said at a council committee on Aug. 23..

Mayor Quinton Lucas and some others were not comfortable that day with the process, if for some reason the TIF plan does not go through.

It feels like were putting the cart before the horse, Councilman Johnathan Duncan said.

Finance Director Tammy Queen agreed.

If the development does not proceed, there will be a hole in the citys budget that will have to be filled somewhere, she said.

But based on the assurance that the city would be paid back no matter what due to the terms of the citys agreement with the Chaves group, 10 council members voted for the appropriation the following day.

Without commenting on his reasons, Councilman Eric Bunch joined Duncan in voting no.

The TIF Commission, which is made up of elected officials and community members appointed by the mayor, is scheduled to evaluate the Chaves TIF plan at its 10 a.m. meeting on Friday. One condition of TIF tax breaks is a determination that the project would not happen without them. Commission staff have recommended approval.

A public hearing on the plan is scheduled for next month. But the council will make the final decision.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Wednesday that it is critical every American reinforces Americas 100 percent support for Israel in its fight against Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Its critical right now that we stand together, that every American says, America stands with Israel 100 percent, period, full stop for as long as it takes to utterly and completely defeat Hamas, Cruz said in an interview with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity.

Cruz argued that the Biden administration needs to cut off funding to Gaza  which has been run by Hamas since 2007  and Iran and instead fund Israels defensive weaponry, including the Iron Dome, which intercepts rockets being fired at Israel.

Israel is going to be demonized by Democrats in the current corrupt corporate media, we need to make clear that Hamas is using human shields and Israel has a right to defend itself, Cruz continued.

Fighting has raged in Israel and Gaza since Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist group by the U.S. and a number of other governments, launched an onslaught of attacks on Israel last week that killed more than 1,300 people, including hundreds of civilians in their homes, at a bus stop, and at a music festival. The Israeli military claim Hamas has also taken 199 people hostage.

Israeli forces quickly responded with a bombardment of Gaza that has killed more than 3,400 people and injured more than 12,000. Israel also cut off the territorys access to food, water and medicine and ordered the evacuation of more than 1.1 million Palestinians to travel to the southern half of the territory last week in an announcement widely seen as forerunning a ground assault.

Many people in Gaza lack the ability to travel south, and Hamas has told residents not to leave and to stay in their homes.

President Biden was quick to offer the U.S.s unwavering support to Israel following Hamass surprise attack and traveled to Tel Aviv this week to meet with Israeli leaders and families impacted by the conflict. Multiple sources familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill that White House is preparing a supplemental funding request that would include billions in aid for Israel, Ukraine and border security.

Biden also announced an agreement Wednesday to allow humanitarian aid to move from Egypt to Gaza and confirmed $100 million in U.S. funding for assistance to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
DALLAS - To some, it may not come as a surprise, but high mortgage rates, along with high home prices, mean that buying a home in the U.S. is becoming harder for many Americans.

Now, a new report is showing just how much money someone needs to make in order to afford a median-priced home.

Here's what to know about the numbers.

What does the report say?

FILE-A "for sale by owner" sign stands outside a home in LaSalle, Illinois. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The report, which was published by Redfin, shows that overall, the income an average homebuyer needs in order to afford a median-priced U.S. home has gone up 15%, or $15,285, from a year ago, and up by over 50% since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In that same time frame, figures show that wages only went up by 5% for the average worker.

For the report, affordable is defined as situations where a monthly home mortgage payments do not exceed 30% of a homebuyer's income.

Besides national numbers, the report also listed the income needed to afford a median-priced home in a number of U.S. cities, including seven cities in Texas.

What do the numbers say about Texas?

For Dallas, the report states that a homebuyer will need to make at least $115,913 a year in order to afford a median-priced home, an increase of 15% from a year ago.

For homebuyers in Fort Worth, the report states they need to make $98,185 a year in order to afford a median-priced home in that city, an increase of 13.2% from a year ago.

The median home sale price in Dallas and Fort Worth are $425,000 and $360,000, respectively.

Austin, El Paso, Houston, McAllen and San Antonio were also included in the report.

The report says Austin homebuyers should make $126,208 a year to afford a median-priced home.

The median home-sale price in the Texas capital is $462,748.

In Houston, homebuyers need to make $92,185 to afford a median-priced home, according to the report.

The median home sale price in Houston is $338,000.

Did the report mention anything else about home affordability?

According to the report, high mortgage rate means that in every major metropolitan area, people need to earn more now to buy a home when compared to years before, even in places where home prices have declined.

The same report also states that a typical American household earns about $40,000 less than the income needed to buy a median-priced home.

What's causing all this?

According to the Redfin report, home inventory remains near record lows as homeowners hang onto their low mortgage rates, and that is helping to prop up home prices.

In a separate article published by the Associated Press earlier in October, the CEO for brokerage franchisor Century 21, Mike Miedler, said that in the decade after the Great Recession, the housing market has experienced underbuilding, with a shortage of 3.5 million to over 5 million homes.

"Were kind of going into a macro supply and demand issue, which is youve got the largest generations in U.S. history  millennials and Gen-Z  entering their main homebuying years, and we just dont have enough property to sell and for people to move into," said Miedler.

In addition, Miedler said homebuilders are developing more and more so-called high-end properties, and not enough properties for first-time homebuyers.

What can first-time homebuyers do to afford a home?

On their website, NerdWallet listed a number of advice for first-time homebuyers. They include:

Saving early for down payments, closing costs, and move-in expenses

Figure out how much you can safely spend on a house before starting to shop

Check your credit

In addition, the website noted that people should look at various mortgage options, including FHA, USDA, and VA loans (whichever is applicable), as well as first-time homebuyer assistance programs.

The Associated Press and FOX 10 Phoenix contributed to this report
There is no shortage of used books in this city. You can find them in informal little libraries in neighborhood parks, and in community libraries requiring library cards, and in overstuffed storefronts filled with yellowing pages lacking dust covers, smelling of attics, wrapped in the plastic jackets of far-away suburban libraries.

But since 1985, the Newberry Librarys annual book fair had been the Chicago used-book-apalooza.

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For 38 summers, if you were a reader, a writer or an antique obsessive, it was a must-visit: tens of thousands of donated books arranged into 70 categories, spread before thousands of book lovers, who leave a sizable chunk of change for the Newberry, a free 136-year old nonprofit literary research institution. The Newberry itself estimates that more than 10,000 books were taken for its gigantic collection after being donated to the book fair. The event, said Bill Charles, its lead volunteer in recent years, was a warm handshake with a big city  and neighborhood  not always schooled on the Newberry.

I had always thought of it as the best, smartest public relations, he said, especially for a pretty academic place. Every year, without fail, someone who lived nearby would wander in during the fair and say that they had no idea what went on in this building.

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Still, the Newberry Library Book Fair is being pulped.

At a pair of recent meetings, administrators informed volunteers that the largely volunteer-run event would be discontinued, off the calendar, permanently shelved.

I was gobsmacked, Charles said.

Several volunteers at those meetings said no alternative to the popular book fair was offered or discussed. The entire leadership team ultimately discussed the decision, a library spokesman confirmed. But the final decision came from Gail Kern Paster, the Newberrys interim president and librarian; shes been interim president since April and leaves on Nov. 30, to make way for a new president, Astrida Orle Tantillo, formerly the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Paster said that after deliberate conversations with senior staff  particularly those staff in the development and public engagement offices who worked closely with the fair  she made the call, and I feel very clear it was a good decision  though not a popular one.

People shop at the Newberry Book Fair in 2018. (Newberry Library)

A number of reasons were given. She said the event was a drain on resources, space and staff energy and did not generate enough money to make it worthwhile. She said she didnt know how much the recent fair in July earned, but core volunteers who spend much of the year preparing it said the library took in at least $75,000 from the weekend.

She said when the library conducts surveys during the book fair, most respondents say the event is the only time they ever come to the Newberry. But primarily, she said, the Newberry has a strategic plan with some new avenues for public engagement that hosting a book fair does not reflect. She noted the Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award  started in 2021 to honor books that expand an understanding of the city  as closer to the librarys spirit. Also, the book fairs annual Bughouse Square Debates in Washington Square Park across from the library  a longtime afternoon of informal speeches, honoring the soapbox tirades in the park (nicknamed Bughouse Square) from the 1880s to 1930s  will continue, as part of a regular Chicago Storytelling series.

But Paster said that when they look over the librarys core mission  which includes preserving the collection, growing the collection, making the collection available to readers and serving a community of academic researchers who rely on the collection  having an annual sale of used paperbacks and hardcovers had become an outlier.

Several volunteers who spoke to the Tribune about the end of the fair said they had assumed the book fair was about engaging with the public and growing the collection.

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They said that they thought an institution as sensitive to tradition as the Newberry always understood the goodwill such a casual event can create within the community.

My god, putting books in the hands of people who want to read, said Claudia Hueser, who was a volunteer at the fair for 12 years. Encouraging a general public not too thrilled about reading Chaucer in Middle English to stop by and justify your existence!

This is the first time Im hearing that any of that was a big headache.

Its not the first time Dan Crawfords heard it, though. Crawford was the book fairs only full-time employee, and managed it from 1995 to 2020, when he was laid off. It had been founded by library donors then nursed through its early years by his aunt, Evelyn Lampe. It became such a tradition many local authors, from Sara Paretsky to Roger Ebert, donated bags of books annually. Peggy Guggenheim donated shelves from her collection, including first editions by Samuel Beckett, a former lover. Aldermen donated family heirlooms. Richard M. Daley wanted to donate law books from his office  but we had to turn him down because, having done this for years, law books dont sell. For years, the library saw the fair as so important it picked up donations from private homes.

Understandably.

Over the years, donated books (often left anonymously) have included first editions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, signed copies of art books by Picasso and classics by Hemingway. Last July, someone left a signed first edition of a Yeats poetry collection.

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Nevertheless, despite the successes, the event has never sat well with some of the staff, Crawford said. It was initially seen as a way of getting Chicago into the building, but then you had those people who felt a book sale was low class for such a place. I had a supervisor even tell me that it was too bad such an institution must stoop so low.

He said hes disappointed in the Newberrys decision and found its statements about the fair not fitting into the librarys mission especially vague. They dont quite spell out what they mean, and you cant argue with it because they dont give you much to argue with.

For the time, however, the Newberry continues to accept donations of books  though there is nothing on the librarys website that indicates donations are not going to a book fair. Paster said there is a plan to sell a handful of donated books in the library gift shop, with the rest being shipped to ThriftBooks, which bills itself as the worlds largest online independent used bookseller. A percentage of sales through Thrift returns to the library.

In the past, books not sold at the fair would be donated to the Chicago nonprofit Open Books or a number of charities and institutions, from prison libraries to womens shelters. When the pandemic canceled plans for the 2020 book fair, donations that had been made that year went to ThriftBooks, and the library continued to use the Seattle area-based company, which sells books through a number of websites, including eBay and Amazon.

Susan Levy, who was part of the book fair for 20 years, said volunteers  who spent much of the year sorting and pricing donations in the librarys basement, in anticipation of the event  were told they were invited to sort newly donated books, to select which went to the gift shop and which went to ThriftBooks. She doesnt plan to return. I dont think too many of us who did this are interested in volunteering time to a for-profit business.

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
The Iron Claw, the movie based on the famous Texas-based wrestling Von Erich family, will host its world premiere in Dallas next month.

Movie studio A24 announced Wednesday that a majority of the cast are expected to attend the Dallas premiere on Nov. 8. The venue and time of the premiere will be announced at a later date, the studio said.

The movie follows the real-life story of Von Erich family who took the wrestling world by storm in the early 1980s before tragedy struck. Sean Durkin writes and directs the biographical drama, which hits theaters on Dec. 22.

Zac Efron plays Kevin Von Erich in the movie, with Jeremy Allen White and Harris Dickinson portraying Kerry Von Erich and David Von Erich respectively. Holt McCallany will portray the family patriarch Fritz Von Erich .

Efron, White, Dickinson, McCallany, Durkin, Stanley Simons and Maura Tierney, will all be at the world premiere in Dallas next month. Kevin Von Erich and family will also be there.

The most recent trailer for The Iron Claw was released last week, offering a glimpse at the ups and downs of the 1980s wrestling family. Eagle-eyed viewers can even catch a glimpse at the now defunct Dallas wrestling arena  the Sportatorium  in the trailer.

The now defunct Dallas Sportatorium makes an appearance in the trailer for The Iron Claw.

The Von Erich family were wrestling royalty until tragedy struck.

They even did shows at Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth and at the Dallas Sportatorium in the 1980s  a time when professional wrestling was popular in North Texas and drew television audiences worldwide.

By the time Fritz Von Erich died in 1997, five of his six sons preceded him in death, according to Bleacher Report.

Kerry Von Erich committed suicide in 1993, David Von Erich died from enteritis in 1984, Mike Von Erich died by overdose in 1987, Chris Von Erich shot himself in 1991 and first-born Jack Barton Adkisson Jr. drowned at just 6 years old in 1959.

The last surviving son Kevin Von Erich recently announced that he was moving back to Texas after purchasing a ranch near the south-central Texas town of Boerne, according to The Dallas Morning News.

The Iron Claw hits the big screen on Dec. 22.
Days before a retrial was to begin in a lawsuit over the 2018 shooting death of Darell Richards by Sacramento police, the city agreed to settle the case, according to court records.

The only problem?

No one will reveal the details of the settlement agreement.

A notice of the settlement was filed Sept. 27 in federal court in Sacramento, where a retrial of the lawsuit filed by Richards parents was set to begin Oct. 4.

Please take notice that the parties have entered into a settlement and resolution..., a notice of settlement signed by the Richards family attorneys and Sean Richmond, an attorney for the city of Sacramento reads. The parties jointly request the court to vacate the trial.

Darell Richards was shot by Sacramento Police on Sept. 6 in the backyard of an occupied home in Curtis Park. Richards had aweapon, later found to be a pellet gun, and was pointing it at people on Broadway. Sacramento

The court vacated the scheduled jury trial date that same day and ordered the parties to file documents on the disposition of the case by Nov. 22.

But lawyers for the Richards family have not responded to repeated requests for comment since that filing, and the city contends there is no final settlement.

A settlement agreement has yet to be finalized, city spokesman Tim Swanson wrote in a Sept. 27 email. The city will be sharing more information as soon as it becomes available.

A subsequent request by The Sacramento Bee on Oct. 6 under the California Public Records Act elicited a response from the city Tuesday declaring that the city does not have any records responsive to this request.

The apparent settlement comes after years of legal wrangling, vigils, a lawsuit against the city by The Bee and a trial last year in federal court.

Khoua Christine Vang sobs after drying her eyes from tears as she visits her son Darell Richards grave on Monday in Elk Grove. Im disappointed in the entire system. I feel like everyone failed my son, Vang said. Renee C. Byer/rbyer@sacbee.com

A jury deadlocked a year ago in that trial, with jurors informing U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez that they could not reach unanimous verdicts on whether police used excessive force, were negligent or on other claims.

Richards, 19, was shot to death in a Curtis Park backyard at 3 a.m. on Sept. 6, 2018, while suffering from mental issues and carrying a pellet gun that was a replica of a handgun.

Officers Todd Edgerton and Patrick Cox shot Richards 10 times after they believed he was pointing a handgun at another officer, according to testimony at trial.

Lawyers for Richards parents, Khoua Vang and Ted Richards Jr., argued that the shooting was a botched SWAT operation and that Richards was raising his hands to surrender when he was gunned down.

Police video of the shooting was played during the trial, and Richards family attorneys argued that officers violated department policy by not bringing in a crisis negotiation team to get Richards to surrender.

They also noted that Richards was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the incident.

Richmond, senior deputy city attorney for Sacramento, contended that the shooting was tragic but reasonable and that police had been searching for Richards for hours after receiving reports of an armed man pointing a weapon at people near the Tower Cafe.

Richmond told jurors that when confronted and ordered to show his hands Richards pointed the handgun at Officer Barry Tiner, requiring Cox and Edgerton to fire to protect Tiner.

The Richards shooting occurred six months after Sacramento police shot and killed another young black man, Stephon Clark, who they said they believed had pointed a handgun at them in the dark backyard of his grandparents home.

Clark was unarmed and carrying only a cellphone when he was killed, and that shooting sparked nationwide protests.
A South Carolina zoo received a bunch of packages with fragile cargo inside  darling pink birds.

The Greenville Zoo staff unboxed several flamingos, as shown in the zoos Instagram video. The special delivery was unloaded from a van, the video shows, with the zoos newest residents being held in large U-Haul cardboard boxes.

There were fifteen boxes of flamingos, the zoo said in an Oct. 13 Facebook post. It was sent the beautiful shipment from the North Carolina Zoo, according to the post.

The zoo assured viewers that transporting flamingos in cardboard boxes is a best practice. Since flamingos weigh around 4 pounds and have delicate wings, its necessary to ship them in containers that wont cause them harm. Cardboard is a breathable shipping vessel for the birds, the zoo said, and its very forgiving compared to plastic or metal crates.

As staff hoisted the rosy birds out of their boxes, health check-ups began on the birds bodies, eyes and feet, as shown in the video.

Carried off by workers, the flamingos were taken to their enclosure. The birds huddled together  some squawking  as they assessed their new living situation, the video shows.

By the end of the video, the flamingos were running around their habitat as a flamboyance  the term for a group of flamingos.

A few Facebook users familiar with the flamingos in North Carolina were saddened by their departure but were delighted to see them embark on their new adventure.

Ill miss our NC flamingos but happy they have such a nice habit in Greenville. Thanks for taking care of them, one user wrote.

27-year-old zoo elephant dies after loose dog agitates herd, Missouri officials say

Lion bites zookeeper during routine feeding at New York zoo, officials say

Rare horned creature welcomes new baby at Florida zoo. See the endangered calf
The identity of a man found dead in the North Oconee River on Oct. 15 has been determined, but little else is known about him.

Athens-Clarke County Coroner Sonny Wilson said Thursday that he has been unable to contact any next of kin for 62-year-old James Randall Seay, who is listed as homeless.

Based on Seay's Social Security number, Wilson said he believes Seay was born in Georgia.

Seays body was found in the river off North Avenue near the Willow Street bridge, according to an Athens-Clarke police report. A 20-year-old man walking in the area spotted the body floating face down in the river and notified police.

A blanket, shoes and bookbag that contained Seays identification was found under the bridge, police said.

More: Body of homeless man found floating in North Oconee River

Wilson, who sent the body for an autopsy to determine the cause of death, said the body appeared to have been in the water for no longer than a couple of days.

Police said there were external signs of foul play.

Seay had a record showing he has been in and out of jails and prisons for many years. About 20 years ago, he left the name of a person described as his uncle, but that person is now dead, according to Wilson.

Anyone with information on Wilsons background may contact Wilson at (706) 613-3999. If no one claims the body, it will be cremated, according to Wilson.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Dead Athens homeless man's background remains mystery
Netanel Halevi was dancing with friends in the southern Israel desert at the Tribe of Nova music festival when Hamas terrorists began shooting bullets and rocket-propelled grenades toward the unsuspecting crowd. Two days later, he was with his reserve unit at Israel's northern front.

"A few minutes after the first missiles, they turn off the music and then they started yelling just run. Take everything you have on you and just run," Halevi told Fox News. "We looked up, we saw the parachutes come, and then we understood we are [in a] different kind of scenario."

KIRBY: 'NO QUESTION' THAT HAMAS HOSTAGE SEEN IN VIDEO WAS SPEAKING 'UNDER DURESS'

"They have guns, they have RPGs, they brought grenades with them," Halevi said. "They did horrible things. They threw grenades at people at the party, they bombed them."

Hamas terrorists murdered at least 260 people at the Tribe of Nova music festival during their Oct. 7 invasion of Israel from Gaza. Paragliders dropped grenades on attendees while ground forces shot bullets and rockets at the terrified ravers attempting to flee.

WATCH MORE FOX NEWS DIGITAL ORIGINALS HERE

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

About 3,500 young people had come to enjoy electronic music and celebrate the Jewish holidays of Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Hamas fighters hit the "jackpot" when they attacked the festival, Halevi said.

The terrorists arrived in trucks and on motorcycles, some vehicles carrying as many as seven fighters each, he told Fox News while sitting at a military installation near Lebanon. "We started running towards our cars  and then we started hearing gunshots," he said.

Netanel Halevi survived Hamas' terrorists attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival. The IDF reservist called his commanders afterward and was deployed to Israel's northern front.

"I fell down, and then I got up and a friend saw me just emerge from the cars. He took me and he told me, come on, we have to go. He was very paranoid," Halevi continued. "So lucky for me, because of him, [we were] able to get to a car really fast."

As Halevi and his friends made their getaway, they saw terrorists, victims and bullet-ridden cars from the first wave of concert-goers that attempted to escape. The second wave of escaping ravers had better odds since the terrorists were already preoccupied with killing or capturing civilians, he recounted.

DOZENS ARRESTED OUTSIDE WHITE HOUSE DURING PROTEST OVER ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

Hamas is holding 199 Israelis hostage, according to Israel, while 13 Americans remain unaccounted for. At least 1,400 Israelis and 30 Americans have died since the start of the conflict, while around 2,800 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 11,000 wounded, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Halevi said he's still "hearing stories about those people [killed] and those kidnapped."

"But as for now, we have to fight back," he added.

Friends and family members attend the funeral of Shiraz Tamam, who was killed by Hamas during their attack on revelers at the Nova music festival.

STUDENTS HIDE IDENTITIES WITH MASKS WHILE PRAISING HAMAS' MASSACRE OF ISRAELIS

"Over there, we were barehanded. We came to a party. We came to have fun, to dance, to feel the love and the vibes," Halevi said. "But now we are strong. We took our stuff, we took our weapons, and we're going to fight back. Now there's no running."

After he made it out of the festival, Halevi, a tattoo artist in his civilian life, called his reserve commanders and told them he was ready to mobilize against the terrorists. Within two days, he was deployed.

Israeli tanks and soldiers are seen at a gathering point as fighting between Israel and Hamas continues.

"I think I'll have an ongoing trauma," Halevi said. "But now, this is the healing process for me."

"At first, we were running," he added. "But now there's no running."

Click here to watch Halevi's full recounting of the attack on the music festival.





Original article source: From the deadly desert rave to the front lines, Israeli reserve soldier recounts concert massacre
ASHDOD, Israel  One student is facing suspension for posting a picture on social media celebrating her sisters engagement. Others have been targeted for expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. All are suffering from what some schools and a legal advocacy group is calling an Israeli crackdown on free speech.

Along with police, schools and employers are targeting people for seemingly innocuous social media posts including quotes from the Quran, Adi Mansour, a lawyer with Adalah  The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, told NBC News on Wednesday.

In the days since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Mansour said Adalah has received at least 80 reports from students at colleges and universities across Israel of being suspended, expelled or even arrested for their online musings.

Some social media users threatened to kill them, to rape them, threats to go to their house, Mansour said. He added that others had been doxxed, meaning their personal information was posted online.

In a strongly worded letter to Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch on Wednesday, nine schools complained that they were coming under pressure to investigate their students and report their handling of the cases to The Council for Higher Education in Israel, which they said risked creating an atmosphere of McCarthyism and mutual informing on every campus.

Honestly, its terrifying whats happening, Mansour said.

Doxxing and disciplinary action

Mansour added that the disciplinary action by schools has come even though many had delayed the start of their school year because of the war with Hamas.

All of the students identified themselves as being Palestinian, or some, more broadly, as being Arab, he said. Arab citizens make up around 20 percent of Israels population. Many are descended from Palestinians who were left living within the borders of Israel after the country was established in 1948.

One student at Tel Aviv University, who asked not to be named because of security fears, said the addresses and pictures of homes of Arab students had been published on social media. NBC News has not seen the posts they referred to.

Comparing the situation to military rule, they said in a text message that the situation of Palestinian students in Israeli universities is very complicated.

The war between Israel and the militant group Hamas has also reignited debate on American college campuses, and some students have had job offers rescinded because they had signed letters that were critical of Israel.

A person wrapped in an Israeli flag looks at photographs of some of those taken hostage by Hamas in Tel Aviv on Oct. 18, 2023. (Leon Neal / Getty Images)

Mansour said Adalah was also representing people arrested at protests in Israel, including peaceful ones. He added that his organization had received 40 reports of workers being suspended or fired over social media posts or activity.

Israel Police did not respond to NBC News' request for comment on the arrests cited by Adalah.

While a small handful of the posts could be interpreted as expressing support for Hamas, Mansour said the vast majority fell under freedom of expression.

A vast amount of censorship

Many of the posts, he said, expressed support for the Palestinian cause or for people living in Gaza, where over 3,400 people have been killed since Israel began its counteroffensive, according to the Palestinian Health Authority. At least 1,400 Israelis have been killed since Hamas launched its attacks, officials say.

In one case, a student at a school that NBC News is not naming because of concerns for her safety, posted a picture of a celebration after her sister got engaged, Mansour said.

NBC News has seen the image which features gold champagne bottles and balloons as well as the date of the engagement, Oct. 7.

Because it was posted on the same day that the Hamas attack happened, a number of her fellow students reported her to the school and she is now facing suspension, he added.

Her school confirmed Thursday that students had been suspended but did not say whether that student was one of them.

A normally busy part of Ashdod, Israel, near the popular Mei Ami beach on Tuesday. (Chantal Da Silva)

Other students were reported to their schools after posting quotes from the Quran that had nothing to do with what is going on, Mansour said. He said complaints were also submitted about others who said they did not want civilians to be killed and "expressing their solidarity with the people who are being killed."

Calling some of the cases absurd, he said that he had never seen this vast amount of censorship and control on Palestinians.

There are limits

At least three schools have confirmed suspensions or disciplinary proceedings related to social media posts and student interactions related to the conflict.

Ron Robin, the president of the University of Haifa, on Mount Carmel in the northern city of Haifa, confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday that at least six students had been suspended over social media posts.

We decided we needed to take immediate action in order to send a clear message to everyone else, he said, adding that he did not know how the posts had been brought to the schools attention.

He said the posts had expressed support for the Hamas attacks, but said he could not share the posts or provide details on what exactly they said. NBC News has not seen the posts and could not independently verify their content.

Robin said the school had not pursued cases students reported about other posts, including one that said the writer didn't condone violence although there was an ongoing issue with the fate of Palestinians.

Other schools, including Tel Aviv University and the Azrieli College of Engineering in Jerusalem, confirmed to NBC News that they were investigating posts by students.

Pressure from above

Robin said schools were facing pressure from The Council for Higher Education in Israel, a supervisory body for universities and colleges, after it passed a resolution Wednesday saying that schools must investigate all complaints regarding expressions of identification with the terrorist acts of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The letter, which was shared with NBC News, added that schools had already seen many false complaints against students.

It said that at least nine of the universities and colleges that had signed it had no intention of abiding by the instructions from the council, which is chaired by Kisch, the education minister.

We generously guard our autonomy and we were very upset the minister sort of took ownership, Robin said. What we do on our campuses is up to us.

For Kisch to use this opportunity for accumulating political capital, really, was annoying to say the least, he added.

Kisch said in a statement that all 17 members voted in favor of the decision and agreed unequivocally, without a shadow of doubt, that there should be zero tolerance in dealing with this issue.

Robin said his school would be reviewing the status of the students who have been suspended, but for now, he said the suspensions were largely symbolic because the start of the school year has been delayed indefinitely because of the war.

A number of students had been called up on reserve to the Israeli military, he said. I think it would be almost disrespectful to start the school year before they come back, he added.

Once they return to campus he said had concerns about trying to keep the peace at the school, which is attended by Jewish, Muslim and Christian students alike. It really upsets me a lot, he added.

While he can understand support for the Palestinian cause  "of course I can"  Robin added that there are limits, and these limits seem to have dissipated."

With classes not even in session, Mansour said it felt as if universities and colleges were acting as an authority on what people do in their personal time. He added that it was problematic that educational institutions were basically taking charge on what is said within and outside what is being said in the academic sphere.

He added they were attacking students' freedom of expression and expressing themselves within the university.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
College campuses across the United States have been at a fever pitch in the past week over statements from students, professors and administrators related to Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Students have protested and issued calls to action. Wealthy donors have pledged to pull funding from universities, citing mealy mouthed statements from administrators. And a handful of faculty members have been disciplined while vocal students have faced backlash for taking sides.

Political debate and protest have long roiled college campuses on any number of topics. But the current debate on the Israel-Gaza war is so emotionally fraught because its part of a much broader history, experts on college campus speech told CNN, and the intensity of the backlash to their protected free speech shows what happens on campus does not always stay on campus.

Were seeing that this is incredibly controversial because of the history of the conflict and the passions that history sparks on both sides of the issue, said Michelle Deutchman, the executive director of the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.

I think were seeing how when you have such deeply entrenched feelings and opinions, it becomes difficult to engage without creating pressure for anyone who disagrees with a particular side.

Columbia University students participate in a rally in support of Palestinians at the university on October 12 in New York City. - Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Columbia students participate in a rally and vigil in support of Israel in response to a neighboring student rally in support of Palestinians at the university on October 12. - Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict garners intense feelings, and the debate can and has spilled over into incivility and unreasonableness. Even so, debate on such fraught topics is exactly what college campuses are all about, according to Jon Fansmith of the American Council on Education, a membership organization consisting of more than 1,700 colleges and universities.

Its not unusual, not even uncommon, for there to be hard-fought arguments on campuses and corresponding debates on what are the appropriate limits on freedom of speech, Fansmith, the senior vice president of government relations and national engagement, told CNN. Most people understand and really do expect of higher education  that college campuses are places where you go that youll be challenged by new ideas and where youll have the opportunity to challenge those viewpoints.

The goal for university administrators is that, no matter what happens in the outside world, the campus still has a culture of cooperation, said Eboo Patel, the founder of Interfaith America, a nonprofit that seeks to bridge religious divides and works with over 600 university campuses.

Colleges are places where people are encouraged to have strong identities and theyre encouraged to voice their views, but they have to be even more fundamentally institutions of civility and cooperation and institutions of learning, Patel said.

Is the nature of those institutions at risk in this political crisis? Heres a look at some of the ongoing debates and backlash on universities among students, faculty, administrators and alumni.

Opinion: Why student protests against Israel are so painful, polarizing and complicated

Harvard and UPenn donors revolt

Perhaps nowhere has the issue been more public than at the elite Ivy League institutions Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.

For Harvard, the fierce debate began with a statement from a coalition of student groups shortly after Hamas militants attacked Israelis on October 7.

We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence, the statement from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups said. The statement said millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison and called on Harvard to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.

The statement spurred backlash from a number of powerful alumni and business leaders, including billionaire hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman, who called for those who signed the letter to be identified and blacklisted from employment.

Meanwhile, former Harvard president Larry Summers said he felt alienated from his alma mater for its initial lack of response to Hamas attacks or to the student groups statement.

In nearly 50 years of Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today, Summers said in a series of posts on X.

Three days after the attack, Harvard President Claudine Gay released the universitys first response to the attacks, saying, I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.

Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group  not even 30 student groups  speaks for Harvard University or its leadership, she said.

Gay then released a second statement two days afterward, acknowledging the volatile situation on our campus. She said the university rejects terrorism, rejects hate and rejects the harassment or intimidation of individuals based on their beliefs.

The statement did little to calm the backlash. Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife, Batia, quit a Harvard executive board in protest of how university leaders have responded. In addition, a nonprofit founded by former Victorias Secret billionaire Les Wexner and his wife, Abigail, broke off ties with Harvard, alleging the school has been tiptoeing over Hamas terror attacks.

We are stunned and sickened by the dismal failure of Harvards leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians, the Wexner Foundations leaders wrote in a Monday letter to the Harvard board of overseers.

Further, a conservative nonprofit organized a doxxing truck  a billboard truck that drove near Harvards campus and displayed the names and photos of students whose organizations signed the statement blaming Israel.

According to the Harvard Crimson student newspaper, at least 10 of the original 34 groups that signed the statement have withdrawn their endorsements as of Tuesday.

At UPenn, too, the Israel-Gaza conflict has inflamed existing tensions that began with the Palestine Writes Literature Festival last month. The university acknowledged the event included speakers with a history of making antisemitic remarks, and UPenn leaders issued a statement ahead of the festival condemning antisemitism broadly, though not the festival specifically.

UPenn President Liz Magill later conceded the statement on the festival was not sufficient.

While we did communicate, we should have moved faster to share our position strongly and more broadly with the Penn community, Magill said in a statement.

A series of high-powered alumni and trustees have reacted sharply.

Billionaire CEO Marc Rowan, who runs the private equity giant Apollo Global Management, called on the schools leaders to resign and for donors to close their checkbooks over what he said was a failure to condemn antisemitism and hate. Billionaire Ronald Lauder, a powerful financial backer of UPenn, threatened to cut off donations if the school doesnt do more to fight antisemitism, CNN has learned.

Further, venture capitalist David Magerman cut off support to the university, saying he was deeply ashamed of my association with UPenn. Trustee Vahan Gureghian called for Magill to resign and warned the backlash will likely get worse, and former US Ambassador Jon Huntsman blasted the university.

The Universitys silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel (when the only response should be outright condemnation) is a new low, Huntsman wrote to Magill in a letter obtained by CNN.

Scott Bok, who chairs the UPenns board of trustees, said in a statement on Monday that dozens of current and former UPenn trustees gathered for a pair of virtual conversations in recent days to discuss the situation and hear from Magill.

The unanimous sense of those gathered was that President Magill and her existing University leadership team are the right group to take the University forward, Bok said.

Faculty disciplined for statements

A number of students and faculty at other universities have faced personal backlash for their positions.

At New York University, there has been blowback against a statement released by the president of the NYU Student Bar Association saying Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.

That statement had immediate consequences, with law firm Winston & Strawn promptly pulling a job offer from the NYU student, who previously served as a summer associate at the firm.

These comments are profoundly in conflict with Winston & Strawns values as a firm. Accordingly, the Firm has rescinded the law students offer of employment, the law firm said in a post on X. Winston stands in solidarity with Israels right to exist in peace and condemns Hamas and the violence and destruction it has ignited in the strongest terms possible.

The student, Ryna Workman, issued a statement Monday acknowledging the backlash, saying the intent was to express support for the Palestinian people.

My message came across as insensitive to the suffering of Israelis during a time of crisis and that is not what I intended, Workman wrote.

At Stanford University, an instructor has been removed from teaching duties as the school investigates reports that during a discussion on the conflict, the instructor downplayed the Holocaust and singled out students based on their backgrounds and identities.

And in a video circulating on social media, a Cornell professor said while he abhorred violence and the targeting of civilians, he was initially exhilarated by Hamas attacks on Israel, which he called a shifting of the balance of power.

Professor Russell Rickfords remarks were reprehensible and demonstrate no regard whatsoever for humanity, Cornell University leaders said Tuesday afternoon in a statement to CNN.

The university is taking this incident seriously and is currently reviewing it consistent with our procedures.

Rickford did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment. In a statement to The Cornell Daily Sun, published Tuesday, he is quoted as saying his comments referred to those first few hours, when (Hamas) broke through the apartheid wall, that it seemed to be a symbol of resistance, and indeed a new phase of resistance in the Palestinian struggle.

Finally, an Emory University assistant professor was placed on leave by the college after the school said she posted antisemitic comments on social media, the professor confirmed to CNN. When reached by phone on Wednesday morning, Dr. Abeer AbouYabis declined to make any further comment.

According to a source with knowledge of the investigation into AbouYabis, one of the social media posts included a photo of Adolf Hitler as well as a quote from the dictator. CNN was unable to independently verify the contents of her social media posts, as her social media accounts are private.

According to a now-removed Emory University profile, AbouYabis is a physician at the Emory Winship Cancer Institute.

We are aware of the recent antisemitic comments made on a private social media account by one of our assistant professors, the university said in a statement on Tuesday. We condemn such comments in the strongest possible terms and have immediately placed this individual on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.

CNNs Matt Egan, Nicki Brown, Nick Valencia and Jessica Xing contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
A West Richland mother is heading back to Florida to face the charge that she helped arrange the murder of her ex-husband.

Attorneys for Shanna Gardner, 36, said during a Thursday morning hearing that they wont fight having Florida officials pick her up and take her to Duval County in connection with the death of Microsoft executive Jared Bridegan.

Gardner appeared by video from the Benton County jail.

Its not clear when she will return to Florida, but David Chapman with the Fourth Judicial Circuit State Attorneys Office in Florida, said she will be extradited in the next few weeks. The details are usually not released for security reasons.

Gov. Jay Inslee signed a warrant earlier this month agreeing that he received the proper documentation to show that Gardner should be turned over to Florida officials.

Gardner has been in jail in Kennewick for about two months in the case that has made national headlines and drawn coverage from out-of-town news outlets at her Tri-City hearings since her arrest at her home in West Richland.

Death penalty possible

Florida prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for Gardner and her husband Mario Fendandez-Saldana. Both are charged in the elaborate scheme to kill Bridegan in February 2022.

Theyre both indicted on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, solicitation to commit first-degree murder and child abuse.

Gardner and Bridegan met while she was visiting a friend in Florida in 2009 and married the next year in Salt Lake City, according to The Florida Times-Union. But after a troubled relationship they filed for divorce in 2015.

The divorce paperwork was loaded with hundreds of accusations, but the couple ended up sharing custody of their children.

Prosecutors claim Gardner and Fernandez-Saldana started planning the murder sometime after they met at a CrossFit gym in 2018.

Fernandez-Saldana allegedly recruited Henry Tennon, who rented property from him, to shoot Bridegan.

On Feb. 16, 2022, Bridegan dropped off the couples twins at Gardners house and was driving home with a 2-year-old daughter from another relationship.

Bridegan was shot when he stopped to move a tire out of the middle of the street, according to a state attorneys news release.

Tennon previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for his role in the shooting.
Passengers wait in the Delta Sky Club during the first phase opening of the new Salt Lake City International Airport in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian cut right to the chase in a Wednesday email to the providers frequent flyer customers, noting the pushback the company has received since announcing a slew of changes last month that raised the bar on customers perks and access to private lounges in the airlines network.

I have read hundreds of your emails, and whats been most clear to me is how much you love Delta and the disappointment many of you felt by the significance of the changes, Bastian wrote. I appreciate your opinions and understand your disappointment.

The source of Delta customer ire tracks back to a September announcement that outlined coming changes aiming to suspend or limit lounge access for premium credit card holders and raised minimum mileage benchmarks to earn higher status in the airline companys SkyMiles program.

The impetus behind the changes was due, at least in part, to overcrowding and long lines at Deltas airport-based Sky Club lounges.

Bastians email noted revised changes going into effect Feb. 1, 2025, for holders of Delta SkyMiles Reserve and Delta SkyMiles Reserve Business American Express Card include 15 Sky Club visits per year (up from 10 under previous changes). Card members can also access the Sky Club for $50 per day after theyve exceeded their limit. Those spending $75,000 on an eligible card will earn unlimited Sky Club access and Medallion-level frequent flyers can purchase a Sky Club membership for $695.

American Express Platinum card holders will now get 10 visits per year, up from the previously announced limit of six visits annually.

Delta also announced slightly lower mileage benchmarks for the various tiers of its frequent flyer program.

Amid the backlash from the earlier program cuts and modifications, Deltas competition reportedly made moves to spirit away disgruntled flyers.

JetBlue and Alaska Airlines tried to poach Deltas best customers by offering to match elite status for anyone leaving the Delta loyalty program, per The Associated Press. Southwest Airlines announced that next year it will make it easier to qualify for the top levels of its frequent-flyer program.

Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, said some SkyMiles members will still be unhappy about the Delta changes and will view even the reduced requirements as too rich.

I dont think these concessions are going to go far enough to placate the disgruntled Medallions, Harteveldt told AP. Given the mercenary mindset that many travelers have, they will fly other airlines and not look back.

In his email, Bastian himself recognized that walking back some of the more stringent new rules announced earlier may still not sit well with some Delta customers.

I know the modifications we have made wont solve for every disappointment, Bastian wrote. Our goal is to do our best to ensure we deliver the service and benefits your loyalty deserves.
Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) started Thursdays House Education subcommittee hearing on book bans with a warning.

Before getting started, I would like to make a disclaimer that we are going to be handling some very sensitive, mature issues today. We will be discussing wildly inappropriate books that are accessible in school libraries, he said.

The hearing of the subcommittee on elementary and secondary education, chaired by Bean, reflected similar debates playing out in school board hearings across the country, where proponents of book bans often point to sexual content to make their point.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), the committees ranking member, reminded the witnesses, all but one whom supported book bans, of the setting for Thursdays discussion.

Ill note that this is the U.S. Congress and not a school board meeting, she said.

She said censorship laws are being enacted by extreme MAGA politicians under the pretext of parental rights.

Lindsey Smith, a chapter chair for the Moms for Liberty organization, took issue with the idea that she was endorsing book banning.

I would like to address the lie that parental groups and Moms for Liberty are book banning, Smith said. If removing a sexual explicit book from school libraries is what you see as book banning, then you need to reevaluate your language.

She went on to reference graphic parts of books such as Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, asking Congress if this is the content they want American children reading while at school.

She asked committee members to envision students reading an illustrated scene in which a strapped-on penis is visible on the partner with oral sex being performed graphically.

Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed with Smiths stance and questioned why there was so much pushback against library censorship.

Why is it, exactly, that leftwing nonprofits, the media, and the Biden administration are so keen to enforce stocking school libraries with pornographic material, he asked.

He went on to list the top 10 most-removed books from libraries, describing material such as a how to guide to meeting strangers on sex apps, underage incest, 10-year-olds performing sodomy on each other, disposing of a condom soiled from anal sex and a meth-fueled rape.

Its perfectly natural, normal, and responsible for parents to prefer that school districts not stock their libraries with pornographic material, he said. And its good for school board members to meet the moral preferences of parents.

However, Democrats on the committee were unmoved. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said the erosion of [the] public institution is happening in part because of those trying to control what people read and dont read and called book banning a huge threat to public education.

The lone witness opposed to book bans at libraries was Jonathan Friedman, the director of free expression and education programs for PEN America, a nonprofit organization that focuses on free speech issues as they relate to literature.

We can  and we must  distinguish between a parent raising a particular concern to a school official, and a well-organized campaign to mobilize people to disrupt public education writ large, Friedman said.

PEN America monitors book banning across the country, and last year the organization said it once again saw an escalation of book bans and censorship in classrooms and school libraries across the United States, despite the majority of parents being opposed to such decisions.

Megan Degenfelder, the superintendent of Public Instruction for Wyomings Department of Education, said that while she agrees that there is inappropriate content in American school libraries, she does not think it is up to the federal government to solve this issue.

So how do we solve this issue, Degenfelder asked of inappropriate books in schools. It certainly should not be up to the federal government. I respect local control in government. Education is no exception, so I respect the duly elected school board authority over books and curriculum.

Before the hearing adjourned, Bonamici urged her colleagues to refocus their attention on other pressing education issues.

We need to continue this conversation, but we also need to get back to doing whats best for children, she said. Lets talk about the schools where they dont even have a library.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The word comes out of Lily Gladstones mouth quietly, and straightforwardly enough, with a hint of disdain: incompetent.

This is how Gladstones character, Mollie Burkhart of the Osage Nation of northern Oklahoma, identifies herself by law, when asked by her banker to state her name and her status as full-blooded Osage. At that time in the early 1920s, in the place brought to life by director and co-writer Martin Scorseses Killers of the Flower Moon, the word incompetent meant that as an Osage, she could not manage her affairs on her own. She needed a white guardian to manage her familys newfound oil wealth.

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It wasnt supposed to happen this way. The white residents of the area seethed with envy when all that crude oil came flying up out of the Osage ground. Theres a line from David Granns book of the same title  I wish it were in the screenplay  quoting Osage chief Wah-Ti-An-Kah, after his people have been run out of Kansas in the 1870s and have relocated to what is now Osage County, Oklahoma. The areas rocky hills should be to the Osage Nations benefit, he said at the time: White man cannot put iron thing in ground here. The imagery is blunt, invasive, practically sexual. And, as history had it, untrue. They could, and did, and so did the Osage.

Killers of the Flower Moon, both Granns enraging 2017 nonfiction book and Scorseses substantially re-centered dramatization, charts an awful, incrementally brutal course. We know whos doing what to whom straight off in the movie; in the book, author Grann strategically withheld more information while reserving much of his narrative for the early years of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The book focused on one agent in particular, Tom White, who led the case that solved the mystery of so many dozens of murdered or disappeared Osage.

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The film, imperfect, a little saggy in its middle hour but remarkable in so many ways, doesnt invest fully enough in Mollie, or in Gladstone, without whom this $200 million project would be unthinkable.

Scorsese has rendered a tragic, forlorn piece of American history, indebted equally to classical Hollywood craftsmanship and the directors own obsessions with honor, guilt, family, criminal codes and Americas centuries of greedy bloodshed. Its Scorseses first Western, shot on location after a crucial rewrite by Scorsese and screenwriter Eric Roth essentially saved the movie from itself. Killers of the Flower Moon isnt dealing with revisionist history. Its history, period, fictionalized (of course; its not a documentary) but hewing pretty close to the historical record.

Back from kitchen duty during the Great War, Ernest Burkhart  played with sly gradations of moral rot by Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best performances  is taken under the wing of his uncle William King Hale, portrayed by Robert De Niro. Hale has done well for himself. Friendly, paternalistic, full of secrets, hes like an Oklahoma Babbitt of small-town boosterism, a friend to the Osage (hes learned their language, at least). Kindly people, he tells Ernest. But sickly.

Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon." (Melinda Sue Gordon/Apple TV+/TNS)

Soon enough Hale takes the role of matchmaker, urging Ernest, working as a chauffeur, into courting Mollie. She controls her familys oil headrights; that oil money, in due course, will flow to Ernest and his kin. Early in Scorseses dazzlingly fluid first hour, Gladstones Mollie is heard in voiceover as several Osage deaths enter the books. She speaks in the tones of someone who knows theres a conspiracy afoot, and the audience knows it, too.

Over the course of the 3-hour film  the length feels right, and necessary  the facets of that conspiracy, and Hales puppet-mastering, work like tributaries feeding a big, bloody river. FBI agent White (Jesse Plemons) enters the film around the two-thirds point; Plemons is unerringly well cast, and its a rightly contained performance.

DiCaprio, lest we forget, is both a first-class actor and a big star, and as the lazy bum who, the film suggests, really did love Mollie, he never plays for our sympathy. Hes a weak man in thrall of his uncle, and while its a low bar humanity-wise, Ernest eventually faces a test of his will as the film morphs into a courtroom drama.

If theres a weak link, its De Niro, and Im still trying to figure out why. Flower Moon marks the 10th feature he and Scorsese have done together, a half-century since Mean Streets. (For Scorsese and DiCaprio, this is film No. 6.) As this true crime storys godfather figure, De Niros a few decades older than the real, 1920s-era Hale, which matters not much. Effectively, and often amusingly, he goes for the mans surface charm and shifty concern for his Osage neighbors. The Okie dialect, well, it comes and goes. I wonder if Hale needed more of a natural bundle of rough-hewed contradictions to fully activate and complicate the role.

As for Gladstone, this hardly represents her breakout success. She broke out in my book years ago, at least as far back as Kelly Reichardts Certain Women (2016). Gladstones deep, mellow, expressive voice, for example, is not like anything else in movies today. Her sense of detachment, and amused, wised-up perspective: also singular. Mollie, by the dictates of Roth and Scorseses adaptation, comes and goes as a central figure. But when she gets the screen time she plainly deserve, its grave, often bleak but emotionally powerful magic.

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In one scene, Mollie and Ernest dine together in her home, and a rainstorm comes through. We need to be quiet for a while, she tells her talkative, uneasily scheming husband-to-be. Scorsese handles the scene just so, letting his brilliant production designer Jack Fisks setting establish the mood. Scorsese, too, especially since Silence (2016) and The Irishman (2019), has quieted his technique. He doesnt move the camera as often now, or the way he used to.

In Flower Moon hes consciously drawing from a different set of influences, namely John Ford and Howard Hawks, and idiosyncratic low-budget Westerns such as Robert Wises film noir-flecked Blood on the Moon. (See that if you havent.) Flower Moon initially developed a script with DiCaprio playing the FBI agent, and the Osage characters left to their own devices in the background. Then DiCaprio suggested he play Ernest instead. More to play there, more ambiguities and weaknesses. The shift and the resulting revisions seem to have done the job.

Should Scorsese have gone further to re-center the story around Mollie? Yes. But we are, at least, a long way from the patronizing Dances With Wolves, which won the best picture Oscar even as it treated the First Nation characters surrounding Kevin Costner as pretty pictures, not quite people. What Scorsese has done here walks a fine line between the conspirators and the victims of this historical tragedy. The latter dont quite get their due, but the whole of Flower Moon makes for a very full experience nonetheless.

The Osage murders made the newspapers, the newsreels  Scorsese and the legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker do exquisite work re-creating Movietone footage of the Osage oil boom  and in 1926 became a hoked-up silent feature (Tragedies of the Osage Hills, presumed lost). On the radio years later, the tragedy was remade into the kind of triumph-of-the-FBI yarn Flower Moon nearly fell for itself.

I love a lot of this movie, partly because it acknowledges its place in the mythology chain. Scorsese himself takes a cameo role in the radio broadcast finale, and its oddly affecting; hes joining the timeline of pop-cultural treatments of painful American history. His movie is a lavish, big-budget period picture, old-school in its set-building and packed, teeming frames of extras in period-perfect clothes.

Its more, though: Its a story of terrible injustice and who got away with what, for years and years. Flower Moon isnt rigged for slow reveals or conventional thrills, violent as much of it may be. (You cant believe everything you see in a movies trailer.) At heart, its a compelling elegy for the Osage who ended up just barely living out a sundown, as one character puts it  thanks to so many respectable killers afoot in the land of the free.

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Oklahoma cattleman and "friend of the Osage" William Hale (Robert De Niro) meets with FBI agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons) in "Killers of the Flower Moon." (Melinda Sue Gordon/AP)

Killers of the Flower Moon  3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for violence, some grisly images and language)

Running time: 3:26

How to watch: Premieres in theaters Oct. 19

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @phillipstribune
Sen. Bob Menendez's wife and three other alleged co-conspirators accused in a complex bribery scheme with the New Jersey Democrat pleaded not guilty in federal court Wednesday.

Nadine Menendez, along with Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, pleaded not guilty in a federal courtroom in New York, NorthJersey.com reported.

It was the second time the co-defendants appeared in court after prosecutors filed a superseding indictment last week that charged Sen. Menendez, D-N.J.; his wife; and Hana, a New Jersey businessman from Egypt, with conspiracy for a public official to act as an agent of a foreign principal.

DEMOCRAT SEN BOB MENENDEZ ACCUSED OF ACTING AS A FOREIGN AGENT IN SUPERSEDING INDICTMENT

Daibes, a New Jersey developer, and businessman Uribe were not charged in the superseding indictment but appeared in court Wednesday, NorthJersey.com reported. Menendez, his wife Nadine and the three businessmen were first charged in the federal bribery scheme on Sept. 23.

The indictment alleges that from at least 2018 through 2022, Menendez and his wife "engaged in a corrupt relationship" with Daibes, Hana and Uribe. The codefendants are accused of taking part in a bribery scheme that allegedly benefited Menendez and the Egyptian government.

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DEMOCRAT SEN. MENENDEZ'S WIFE HIT, KILLED PEDESTRIAN WHILE DRIVING IN 2018: REPORTS

The couple are accused of accepting "hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using Menendez's power and influence as a senator to seek to protect and enrich Hana, Uribe and Daibes and to benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt."

The senator is expected to next appear in court on Monday, after his arraignment on the new charge was rescheduled.

DEMOCRAT SEN BOB MENENDEZ FACING INDICTMENT ON BRIBERY CHARGES

Menendez has denied the allegations and told Fox News Digital last week, following the superseding indictment, that he is "loyal to only one country."

"The governments latest charge flies in the face of my long record of standing up for human rights and democracy in Egypt and in challenging leaders of that country, including President El-Sisi, on these issues. I have been, throughout my life, loyal to only one country  the United States of America, the land my family chose to live in democracy and freedom," he said.

"Piling new charge upon new charge does not make the allegations true. The facts havent changed, only a new charge. It is an attempt to wear someone down, and I will not succumb to this tactic. I again ask people who know me and my record to give me the chance to present my defense and show my innocence," Menendez said.

Fox News' Jamie Joseph contributed to this report.





Original article source: Democratic Sen Bob Menendez's wife enters plea in bribery case as questions swirl
A group of Democratic senators introduced a bill Thursday that would radically change the makeup of the Supreme Court, amid ongoing concerns over court ethics and its increasingly conservative makeup.

The legislation would appoint a new Supreme Court justice every two years, with that justice hearing every case for 18 years before stepping back from the bench and only hearing a small number of constitutionally required cases.

The Supreme Court is facing a crisis of legitimacy that is exacerbated by radical decisions at odds with established legal precedent, ethical lapses of sitting justices, and politicization of the confirmation process, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said in a statement.

This crisis has eroded faith and confidence in our nations highest court. Fundamental reform is necessary to address this crisis and restore trust in the institution.

Only the nine most recently appointed justices would hear appellate cases, which make up a bulk of the courts work. All living justices would participate in a smaller subset of cases under the courts original jurisdiction, such as disputes between states or with foreign officials.

The bill was introduced by Sens. Booker, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and it was co-sponsored by Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

Calls for Supreme Court reform grew louder this year after ProPublica revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of perks from conservative political donors. Further investigations have uncovered multiple significant and undisclosed gifts from politically connected friends over his time as a federal judge.

Justice Samuel Alito also took a luxury vacation paid for by an influential conservative donor while in the judiciary, another investigation found earlier this year.

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a bill earlier this year along party lines that would require the Supreme Court to create and abide by a code of ethics. Unlike lower courts, Supreme Court judges are not beholden to an official ethics code.

An organized scheme by right-wing special interests to capture and control the Supreme Court, aided by gobs of billionaire dark money flowing through the confirmation process and judicial lobbying, has resulted in an unaccountable Court out of step with the American people, Whitehouse said in a statement.

Term limits and biennial appointments would make the Court more representative of the public and lower the stakes of each justices appointment, while preserving constitutional protections for judicial independence.

As Congress considers multiple options to restore the integrity of this scandal-plagued Court, our term limits bill should be front and center as a potential solution, he added.

Attempts to reform the Supreme Court have been denounced by both Republicans in Congress and by some members of the court, namely Thomas and Alito.

Alito argued earlier this year that Congress does not have the authority to force any reform on the court without a constitutional amendment.

I know this is a controversial view, but Im willing to say it, Alito told The Wall Street Journal. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court  period.

But Whitehouses office argued in Wednesdays statement that the Constitution allows Congress to regulate how the court handles appellate cases from lower courts. Thats why all justices would still weigh in on original jurisdiction cases, avoiding the constitutional hang-up.

Trust in the Supreme Court remains near all-time lows, according to national opinion polling. A Gallup poll last month found that just 41 percent of Americans approve of how the Supreme Court is doing its job, with 58 percent disapproving.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
We are rolling back the hands of time in so many ways, said Rep. Jasmine Crockett , D-Texas.

Democrats and advocates gathered on Wednesday on Capitol Hill to continue the national condemnation of Republican leaders behind a wave of banned books across the country.

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., partnered with Interfaith Alliance to discuss the attack on books launched by the GOP and the danger it poses to communities.

A copy of the often banned book All Boys Arent Blue, a memoir by George M. Johnson. (Adobe Stock Images)

The Democratic lawmaker told theGrio, There is a rising tide of authoritarianism and book banning taking place across the country.

I have a resolution I introduced in the House to observe Banned Books Week and I was excited that there was this interfaith coalition, which is standing up for peoples right to write books and peoples right to read books, said Congressman Raskin.

On Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, the Maryland lawmaker joined Cameron Samuels, co-founder of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, Anisha Singh, executive director of The Sikh Coalition, and Tracie D. Hall, former executive director for the American Library Association, to discuss the importance of protecting public schools and libraries.

Singh told theGrio, The Sikh Coalition is no stranger to what can happen when ignorance thrives. We have seen an uptick since 9/11 of hate violence, employment discrimination, and bullying towards our community.

Its incredibly important that were talking about book bans and the dangerswhen theyre not allowing our children and society to access books and different perspectivesespecially [viewpoints] from minority communities, she said.

Samuels told theGrio that censorship is undemocratic.

Censorship is not about the books. Books are just a medium [that] has made headway to silence the most vulnerable students, they said. Students deserve to have the freedom to read. To pick up a book and find ourselves in our school librariesand when we cant, thats not conducive to our well-being.

Samuels told theGrio that book banning is similar to [the book] 1984 by George Orwell, where if you can dictate the past, you are controlling the future.

Wednesdays event came on the heels of conservative leaders like Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis war on books.

Republican presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis delivers remarks at the 2023 Christians United for Israel summit on July 17, 2023 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

According to the Miami Herald, since July 2022, Florida has added more than 1,300 books to its book ban list, making it the state with the highest number of banned books. Texas came in second with 625, followed by Missouri with more than 330 and Utah with nearly 300.

Raskin told theGrio, Governor DeSantis push is clearly to change peoples understanding of history.

They are attacking what they are calling critical race theory, which is really just essential race facts about the history of slavery and white supremacy and Jim Crow in the country, he said.

The congressman continued, Governor DeSantis wants people to think that slavery was some kind of skills-based apprenticeship program, and so the banning of books has just got to be seen in that context of trying to rewrite the history of the country.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, told theGrio, We are rolling back the hands of time in so many ways.

They want Black folk to hate themselves. They want Latinos to question themselves. They dont want people to have the pride that you get when you read a beautiful poem by Amanda [Gorman], she said. They dont want that because when she writes, she writes with power. She writes with pride.

Crockett added, The fact that DeSantis decided that he was going to ban her poem that she read to the entire world at the presidents inauguration tells you how threatened they are  especially by an educated person of color.

Singh told theGrio, Its a dangerous slippery slope when were banning books, adding, The best way to combat hate is through education [and] knowledge.

When you are banning books, youre taking away perspectives, youre taking away first-hand experiences and accounts from individuals who have lived life in different ways, she said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., speaks as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 12, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Whether were talking about critical race theory or were talking about banning books because of censorship issues, it all comes down to the ability of taking away someones right to choose what they learn.

Samuels said that they are hopeful the practice of banning books will one day end.

Texas is turning the tide on censorship, they said. Weve seen less banned books in the last year than we have seen in the previous year.

Samuels added, Maybe we are going to see censorship slow downbut, we do need more students and others on the front lines where these decisions are being made.

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, and Android TV. Please download theGrio mobile apps today!

The post Dems say this is why Republicans continue to ban books appeared first on TheGrio.
A Florida dentist is out of a job after he was fired after he was caught on camera ripping posters down of Israeli children who were kidnapped during the Hamas terrorist attack Oct. 7.

Blake Warman caught two men ripping down and crumpling up photos of hostages in the Brickell neighborhood in Miami on Tuesday.

"I watched them take it down and I recognized one of the men, and thats when I freaked out and realized I needed to do something," Warman told WTVJ.

Ahmed ElKoussa and Xave Ramoul were caught on camera ripping posters of Israeli hostages on the streets of Miami, Florida.

After posting the video, the video was reposted on the Stop Antisemitism social media platforms and the two men where identified s 31-year-old Ahmed ElKoussa and Xave Ramoul.

ElKoussa, a dentist, was promptly fired by his former employer, CG Smile.

NYU STUDENT ADMITS TEARING DOWN ISRAELI HOSTAGE POSTERS, BLAMES MISPLACED ANGER

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In a statement on social media, CG Smile condemned ElKoussa's actions and said that he was immediately fired after the owners saw the video.

"We are very sad to see this situation upon waking up. Our office CG Smiles is not in favor of any of the actions taken by Dr. ElKoussa," CJ Smiles wrote. "We do not support terrorist groups, actions, or supporters."

"He has been removed from our staff, all our pages and social media groups." the dentist office added.

Ahmed ElKoussa and Xave Ramoul were seen crumpling up posters of Israeli children that were kidnapped by Hamas.

The dental practice's owner, Juan Carlos Izquierdo, said his practice has received severe backlash following the release of the video.

Izquierdo, who has Jewish family members, told WTVJ, that the disgraced dentist called him and wanted to explain the video.

"Later on, I got a call saying he wanted to explain and that after he explained, everything would be cleared, and I told him I dont want to hear it," Izquierdo said.

CG Smile did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.





Original article source: Dentist in Florida fired after caught on camera ripping down posters of kidnapped Israeli children
MADERA COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  Madera County Sheriffs deputies announced Wednesday they are actively investigating a shots fired call in Tesoro Viejo.

Deputies say on Tuesday, they responded to the 4400 block of Hillside Road after receiving several calls from concerned citizens reporting hearing gunshots.

Upon arrival, authorities say they found evidence of a shooting, however, they were unable to find anyone involved.

During the course of the investigation, detectives say they were able to identify the parties believed to be involved.

Deputies believe the incident is isolated and reassured there is no danger to the public.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Madera County Sheriffs Office at (559) 675-7770.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
Ohio Democrats and LGBTQ advocates are pushing for legislation to enshrine the right to same-sex and interracial marriage amid concerns about future U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

But the bill is only step one in a complicated process that could unfold if federal marriage protections are ever thrown out.

Both the Ohio Constitution and Ohio Revised Code recognize marriage only as a union between one man and one woman. Because of the landmark gay marriage ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges  named for the lead plaintiff and Ohioan Jim Obergefell  Ohio's same-sex marriage bans aren't in effect.

House Democrats fear that could change any time after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. With that in mind, they unveiled plans Tuesday for legislation that would codify protections in Obergefell and Loving v. Virginia, which established the right to interracial marriage.

"Knowing that you exist as a lawfully recognized couple, you can't put words to how important that is," Obergefell said Tuesday. "And if you want to form a family, being a married couple is one of those things that helps make that happen for so many people. We all deserve the right, the ability to choose that person we love the most, to commit them, to make our promises to love them and protect them and to have those promises recognized and respected."

Ohioan Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage, marches in the Columbus Pride parade in 2015.

Why Dobbs set off alarm for LGBTQ advocates

Concerns about the Obergefell and Loving cases emerged almost immediately after the abortion decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Roe was grounded in the 14th Amendment's guarantee of due process, which also served as the foundation for rulings in both marriage cases.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said the decision didn't affect other rights beyond access to abortion. But he suggested the court reconsider Obergefell's precedent in the future, along with cases that overturned sodomy laws and established the right for married people to obtain contraception.

Blaique Brown performs outside of the Ohio Statehouse before the Columbus Pride March in June.

"We cannot take federal protections for granted as we never know when precedent will be overturned," Rep. Jessica Miranda, D-Forest Park, said.

Jim Obergefell joined Ohio Democrats to support legislation that would change the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

Miranda said House Democrats are talking with Republicans to make the bill bipartisan, so it has yet to be formally introduced. Spokespeople for Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens and Gov. Mike DeWine declined to comment.

But even if the legislation passes, proponents would have another hurdle to climb: The state's constitution.

Ohio Constitution includes gay marriage ban

Nearly 62% of Ohio voters approved an amendment to the state constitution in 2004 declaring: "Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions."

If Obergefell is overturned, the Ohio Constitution would supersede anything in state statute. That means opponents of the ban would need to propose another amendment and put it before voters. The federal Respect for Marriage Act would require Ohio to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, but not here.

Equality Ohio public policy director Maria Bruno said advocates are currently focused on opposing bills that restrict transgender medical care and bathroom access. But Bruno believes changing the marriage statute is a symbolic step lawmakers can take to begin the conversation, even if the constitution presents another barrier down the road.

"From a legal enforcement standpoint, we currently are functioning under the Obergefell precedent, and therefore we don't have to worry about that conflict," Bruno said. "If it were to become the case that that is overturned, I've got to tell you that constitutional amendment might not stay there. But in the interim, the Legislature correcting the statutory codes still assists in avoiding confusion and clarifying both our values and the actual current state of the law."

Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Protecting interracial, same-sex marriage: Inside an Ohio effort
The safe destruction of 523 tons of chemical weapons completed at Madison Countys Blue Grass Army Depot has been hailed as work that made our country proud.

The destruction helped the United States become compliant with the Chemical Weapons Convention ahead of deadline and has been celebrated by state and federal politicians on both sides of the aisle. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Gov. Andy Beshear (D) gathered last week to thank those that worked in the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant.

But the conclusion of that work means that in the coming years, an operation that boosted Central Kentuckys economy by employing 1,786 people earlier this year, according to the U.S. Army, will shut down. Its also a project that received a portion of the total $7 billion in federal funding for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program, according to the office of McConnell. Whats next for the site where highly-trained staffers handled deadly weapons?

First, there is work to finish closing. Program Executive Officer Michael Abaie, who works in the Program Executive Office for Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives, previously said the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant will close in accordance with safety regulations and requirements, a process Abaie expects to take two to three years.

During that time, facilities used during the project will be decontaminated and decommissioned, structures no longer of use will be demolished and paperwork must be finalized.

We will approach closure with the same steadfast commitment to safety that we had in operations  safety for our workers, safety for the community and safety to the environment, Abaie said.

Once thats done, federal officials see possibilities to use the property again.

Workers at the plant were specially trained to handle highly dangerous materials, and those who had a hand in the project say these skillsets can be applied to additional work for the military in the future.

Craig Williams, co-chair of the Kentucky Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission and the Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board, said the projects workforce makes it possible for many ideas to be successful.

Weve got a unique opportunity here, Williams said. Weve got highly skilled, highly trained, highly security cleared, highly drug-tested  you have to be on top of your life in order to work with these weapons. Weve got that opportunity in front of us and were going to try to capitalize on it in the good of the commonwealth.

Chemical work, munition production: What could be next?

In August, the U.S. Army released a report outlining 14 potential uses for the site that currently houses the chemical weapons destruction plant. The report graded each idea based on its readiness impact and feasibility, which separated three ideas from the pack into the reports most favorable category.

One of the most favorable ideas was turning the site into a critical chemicals production plant. The report defined a critical chemical as a chemical necessary for the defense industry thats hard to produce domestically.

The report said the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant workforce already has extensive experience in handling hazardous materials and the plant would use facilities that already exist.

This is a strategic opportunity that would have far-reaching implications for securing the future capabilities of the defense industrial base, if successfully implemented, the report said.

The Defense Production Act Title III has already awarded most of its money for such work to private facilities, but there are opportunities for a government owned, contractor operated facility, the report said.

The BGCAPP site may represent a unique opportunity for a contractor that has the expertise to produce a critical chemical yet lacks the appropriate facilities, the report said.

The second most favorable idea was turning the site into a metal shipping container production plant. The report said the idea is a strategic opportunity to address the countrys reliance on foreign manufacturers for shipping containers.

Currently, 96% of dry cargo containers and 100% of refrigerated containers used by the U.S. Joint Munitions Command are produced in China, according to the report. The Joint Munitions Command manages American ammunition plants.

Without a sufficient supply of containers, sustaining a large-scale deployment of U.S. forces would be extremely difficult given modern cargo ship and port configurations, the report said.

The depot already has a small site used for repairing shipping containers, but the site is not able to produce containers, according to the report.

This opportunity is considered one of the top two most promising opportunities evaluated during this study given the strategic consequences of U.S. reliance on foreign manufacturers as a supplier for shipping containers, BGADs accessibility and central location in the U.S., and the suitability of BGAD to perform this mission, the report said.

The third most favorable idea was a production plant for metal components of 155mm artillery munitions. The report said existing production plants are being stretched to their limits, and producing more 155mm metal parts would add significant capacity and resiliency to the U.S. munitions industrial base.

A new building would need to be built at the depot to make the idea work. The report said there are multiple places in the depots administrative area where a new building could be built.

The plant could also build parts for munitions ranging from 60-to-155mm and lengths from 150-to-700mm, according to the report.

This is considered one of the top two most promising opportunities evaluated during this study given its strategic importance and alignment with existing BGAD missions and capabilities, the report said.

Both McConnell and Beshear said they look forward to being a part of the discussions in shaping the future of the depot.

As we shape the future of this facility, Im going to continue to champion the depot and the talented men and women who support it, McConnell said.
The War Zone has obtained satellite imagery showing the aftermath of Ukraine's first strikes using U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System short-range ballistic missiles, or ATACMS, on the airport in the Russian-occupied city of Berdyansk yesterday. What can be seen looks to be broadly in line with the destruction Ukrainian officials said they had wrought on the facility using their newly delivered cluster munition-filled missiles. You can read more about what is already known about this strike in our initial reporting here .

Satellite imagery from Planet Labs taken earlier today shows at least nine distinct scorch marks, most with wreckage also visible, along the main runway and adjacent taxiways at the eastern end of Berdyansk airport. The locations of the scorch marks/wreckage are also consistent with where Russian helicopters are seen parked in earlier imagery in Planet Labs' database.

PHOTO  2023 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION

At least three additional helicopters are seen parked along the long taxiway that runs parallel to the main runway, but it's impossible to tell from the imagery whether or not they are also damaged in any way. There appears to be a significant amount of other activity along the eastern end of the main runway, which could reflect ongoing work to clear away damaged and destroyed helicopters and other debris.

Pictures have also already emerged of unexploded submunitions on the ground at Berdyansk. These will take at least some time to safely clear, and could in turn hamper efforts to get flight operations at the forward operating base up and running again at full capacity.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714258740684157116

This facility has been in use as a Russian air base for months now. It is a known hub for helicopter operations in particular. What looks to be a mixture of Ka-52, Mi-24, and Mi-28 attack helicopters, as well as Mi-8/Mi-17 Hip transports (which can also be armed), have been observed there in past satellite imagery .

Ukrainian authorities claimed yesterday to have destroyed nine unspecified helicopters along with special equipment that was located at airfields, [an] air defense launcher, [and] ammunition warehouse.

An immediate analysis of the Planet Labs image from today does not readily show damage to any air defense systems or other "special equipment," or large structures. However, cluster munitions like the ones inside the ATACMS missiles Ukraine has received, can easily cause significant damage or destroy their targets in ways that might not be easily visible via satellite imagery we have now. A radar dish shredded by shrapnel, for instance, would not necessarily be apparent at the available resolution.

A full view of Berdyansk airport as of October 18, 2023. PHOTO  2023 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION

So far, the ATACMS missiles that Ukraine has gotten are examples of the initial variant, known variously as the MGM-140A, the M39, and the Block I. These missiles have payloads consisting of 950 relatively small M74 submunitions. Though the area across which the submunitions are dispersed depends on release height and intended density dispersion, a stated typical profile for a single MGM-140A would see it rain its payload across a circular area some 677 feet in diameter, covering 360,000 square feet in total.

https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1714286709654143332

In terms of the M74 submunition, a 2002 paper from the Center for Army Lessons Learned describes its design and function thusly:

"The M74 grenade is filled with composition B explosive filler and is covered by a steel shell... Upon impact and detonation each grenade breaks up into a large number of high-velocity steel fragments that are effective against targets such as truck tires, missile rounds, thin-skinned vehicles, and radar antennas. This submunition is not effective against armored vehicles. The M74 grenade also contains incendiary material and has an antipersonnel radius of 15 m [just over 49 feet]."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipr_hPAcR_Q\u0026t=3s

As The War Zone previously explained in detail , airfields like the one Berdyansk, packed with 'soft targets' like helicopters, jets, and air defense systems out in the open, are exactly the kind of things that cluster munition-filled versions of ATACMS are ideally suited to strike. The satellite imagery from earlier today offers clear evidence of just how effective the strike on Berdyansk was thanks to the capabilities these missiles offer.

On top of that, MGM-140As, even though they have shorter ranges than later versions of ATACMS, just give the Ukrainian military additional capacity to strike at targets deeper inside Russian-occupied areas of the country. Based on the understood positions of the front lines now, Block I ATACMS are more than capable of hitting Russian forces in most parts of the country, including the northern part of the Crimean Peninsula.

Ukraine, of course, has various other options for hitting at Russian forces at extended distances inside occupied areas, as well as within Russia proper. At the same time, ATACMS, as ballistic missiles, come down on their targets at very high speeds and from very high altitudes. Cluster munition variants also break open well before they reach the ground, turning one big incoming threat into hundreds of smaller ones. This all makes them harder to defend against than other long-range strike options Ukraine has, including air and ground-launched subsonic cruise missiles and drones , all of which unitary warheads.

All told, the biggest implication for Russia is that the vast majority of air bases it operates from within Ukraine are now under direct threat from a highly effective and difficult-to-defend-against wide-area effect weapon. Russia has been making heavy use of forward-based airpower, and attack helicopters in particular , to limit Ukrainian gains in the course of its ongoing counter-offensive.

Forward-deployed Russian air defense assets, which also present significant threats to Ukraine's own airpower, are now under significantly greater threat deep behind the front lines, too. Given what we've already seen at Berdyansk, it could force Russia to pull back various key assets to safer areas. This would drastically limit their potential contribution to the conflict. This is especially true for helicopters, which have limited range, and air defense systems that require varying proximity to potential targets to be effective.

Any soft skinned vehicle, large supply areas, or gatherings of personnel out in the open are equally threatened by the arrival of cluster munition-laden ATACMS. Achieving the same effects with standoff weapons equipped with unitary warheads would be resource draining, and those weapons are a precious one at that. And as we discussed earlier, those weapons are more vulnerable to intercept than ATACMs.

Exactly how many ATACMS missiles Ukraine has now, how many more examples it might be set to receive already, and whether other variants might be included in future deliveries, are unknown.

Regardless, as The War Zone predicted, the satellite imagery of Berdyansk airport makes clear that the appearance of the missiles in Ukrainian hands at all is a major problem for the Russian military that will force them to reassess how and where they operate within the country.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com
New details have emerged in the two vicious and random attacks at the Beacon Hill light rail station.

The King County prosecutor just charged 39-year-old Richard Aaron Gordon with assault in the first degree with a deadly weapon and assault in the second and fourth degrees.

A man and a woman in their 60s were hit in the head with a hammer on September 28.

According to charging documents, Gordon told the woman he was going to kill her.

And this is not the first time hes threatened to do so. Documents also say Gordon threatened his ex-boyfriend with a hammer multiple times.

On September 4, documents say Gordon called and reported that the staff at Bailey-Boushay House, an inpatient long-term care facility, were trying to kill him and that he had a little crowbar thing. Later that month, he called again threatening to assault the staff.

He remains in jail on $1 million bail.




HOLLAND TWP.  The Ottawa County Sheriffs Office is investigating reports of sexual assault and prostitution at a massage parlor in Holland Township.

Detectives began investigating Rong Massage  671 Douglas Ave.  in July after a report of inappropriate sexual contact during a massage. While no arrests have been made, OCSO said criminal charges are likely once the investigation is complete and turned over to the prosecutors office.

Rong Massage stands Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, in Holland Township.

Since beginning their investigation, detectives have received numerous tips of possible sex acts taking place at the businesses. OCSO said some of these acts were reportedly in exchange for money, while others occurred to unsuspecting customers during the course of a massage.

On Wednesday, Oct. 18, local detectives and members of the FBI WEBCHEX (West Michigan Based Child Exploitation) Task Force searched the businesses in an effort to seize additional evidence. Detectives have also worked with the Internal Revenue Service.

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The business remains under investigation. Anyone with information should contact the Ottawa County Sheriffs Office at 616-738-4000 or Silent Observer at 877-887-4536 or mosotips.com.

 Contact reporter Mitchell Boatman at mboatman@hollandsentinel.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Detectives investigating reports of prostitution at Holland Township massage parlor
While booting up Zoom to talk to actor John Malkovich and classical-music humorist Aleksey Igudesman about The Music Critic, a musical-theatrical sendup of scowling, grumbling ink slingers everywhere, I was, in fact, scowling and grumbling.

Through the smoke of a world already on fire, I and other music writers had just been shaken by the news that Bandcamp  whose Daily is among the shrinking, well-paying refuges for quality, authoritative music journalism  had laid off half its staff, joining countless other publications which either laid off staff or folded this year. Our own city, where critics once lined the aisles at openings, now has one full-time staff music critic. Given the current status of the profession, even well-deserved jabs at music critics cant help but seem angled downward, if not whiffing through clear air.

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So, I entered our conversation feeling much like Malkovichs withering character, an amalgam of every sneer and snipe lobbed at the likes of Beethoven, Brahms and Dvorak. Many of those were compiled, gleefully, in Nicolas Slonimskys 1953 Lexicon of Musical Invective. (Igudesman admits he leaned on the volume when creating The Music Critic.) According to the critical class, Tchaikovskys Violin Concerto stinks to the ear, Bizets Carmen renders melody  obsolete, and Debussy is just ugly  the man and the music.

One need look no further than the Tribunes own ranks for other examples. Former Chicago Symphony music director Georg Solti famously told, and retold, a hideous one-liner by the late Tribune critic Claudia Cassidy: During the Act 2 ensemble he smiled, when he should have cut his throat instead. (His misquote has since overruled what Cassidy actually wrote: In the opera pit Mr. Solti is usually a good man, tho in no sense a great one  He smiled happily thru ensembles so ragged it would have surprised me less to see him cut his throat.)

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The touring show, starring Malkovich and Igudesman, is coming to the Chicago Theatre, backed by a live musical ensemble that includes Igudesmans comedy partner, pianist Hyung-ki Joo.

When I came out of the gates hot claiming the show skewers critics, Malkovich and Igudesman were quick to set me straight. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Aleksey Igudesman (in red cap), John Malkovich (center) and cast in a touring production of "The Music Critic." (Julia Wesely/HANDOUT)

Igudesman: You say skewers, but its very loving. This is a very fundamental part of what we do; this is how we grow. Hopefully, we also have constant criticism from our peers  what works, what doesnt work. The critic is an outside voice, which can be harsh at times. But thats the critics job. Its not to write how beautiful and wonderful everything is, unless it is.

Q: John, youve done a lot of music theater projects in the classical realm recently. How did you come on board with Alekseys concept?

Malkovich: I have a friend who is a costumer in Vienna, and in 2007 she asked me to come and meet a conductor friend of hers (Martin Haselbock) out at the Austrian consulate, which is, strangely enough, in Brentwood, California. He asked me if I would consider doing a piece with his Viennese Baroque orchestra (Orchester Wiener Akademie). He also had an orchestra, Musica Angelica, in Long Beach. Eventually, we settled on a piece about the Austrian journalist, writer, poet, serial killer and a poster boy for rehabilitation Jack Unterweger called The Infernal Comedy. So, with our colleague Michael Sturminger, we devised a fake reading of the book that Unterweger never wrote, with a full baroque orchestra and two sopranos representing the women in Unterwegers life. From that, Ive done three pieces with them, and two pieces with (violinist) Julian Rachlin, a great friend of Alekseys and of mine, when he had his festival in Dubrovnik. And I did (Coplands) Lincoln Portrait with Muti and the Chicago Symphony (in 2018).

There are a couple of others in the pipeline that I may do one of these days. I love the challenge of working with this music that is so beautiful, so powerful and very difficult to coexist with.

Q: So, Julian Rachlin introduced you two?

Igudesman: Correct. Julian and John met on set (in the 2002 TV series Napoleon), where Julian had a little role as Paganini. Julian asked John whether he would consider coming to his festival. When you said yes, Julian called me up and said, Oh my god, John Malkovich may come, but I need your help with ideas. We met with John in Paris 15 years ago and got on really well. Later, I had the idea to do The Music Critic, which John loved.

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Besides all of these reviews of the great masters, I felt it was important that the people onstage would also be criticized  that its not just outsourcing the criticism. Of course, I found some atrocious things about myself. Then, I found a really horrific review about The Infernal Comedy after John did it in Istanbul, and wrote a little sinfonietta around it. (To note: Without giving away too much, the reviewer, among other slights, strongly urges the Turkish government to bar Malkovich from the country.)

Q: In The Music Critic, we also hear from composers criticizing their peers. Is there a difference when the criticism comes from someone who, too, is musically accomplished  say, a Tchaikovsky writing about Brahms? (To note: Brahms was, in Tchaikovskys estimation, a giftless bastard.) Does that make one a better or more correct critic?

Igudesman: I dont think so. If youre able to write well, and you have a certain passion for music, that makes you a better critic. You can be the most brilliant composer or performer, but if you do not know how to phrase things, you can be an awful critic.

Malkovich: And I think you can be really good at something without having the slightest ability to communicate what makes something good.

Igudesman: It can even be a hindrance, to be honest. If youre successful, thats what people love you for; if somebody comes along and does things a different way, its not always easy to accept that. Even though Tchaikovsky and Brahms are close in time, they go about things a very different way, compositionally. As an outsider, we can understand that way and this way. We can see the pros and cons of both.

Q: John, Im sure you remember Claudia Cassidy  I keep thinking of her when I think about this show. She was a career-maker and -breaker in theater and classical music alike, which feels quaint to me now. I dont know if its even possible for a critic to be a Claudia Cassidy anymore, setting aside whether we would want to be. Do you think critics are still powerful?

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Malkovich: I dont think so. I have quite mixed feelings about that, but not about the democratization of opinion. Why not? Because people had opinions anyway.

I remember I once did a play called A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, a Peter Handke adaptation which closed (Steppenwolfs) rival theater, the St. Nicholas Theater, permanently; it was directed by another rival of the theater, my friend Bob Falls. (To note: The Tribune wrote that Malkovichs performance in that production, in its remarkable vocalism, is comparable to a complex, demanding, dense work of chamber music. The St. Nicholas closed due to financial reasons in 1982.) A businessman, who probably had been dragged there by his wife, just got up in the middle of the play and went  (mimes stretching and groaning) Oh, look, theres a trap set back there. Because there was, for some reason, a drum kit just offstage. People have real responses, not just critics, and youve got to deal with those.

You see, I remember generations of Chicago critics: from Richard Christiansen (the Tribune critic who reviewed A Sorrow Beyond Dreams), Glenna Syse (Sun-Times), Linda Winer (Tribune), Michael VerMeulen, Lenny Kleinfeld, who wrote under the name Bury St. Edmund (both Chicago Reader)  really excellent writers. When I was part of Steppenwolf, we certainly would not have survived without critics. We only survived with critics.

So, Im not someone with hostility to critics. The review we mentioned in Istanbul became kind of a big scandal, because it was the norm for celebrities to sue critics for whatever they said. But we featured this guys review, and people said, Look at that, thats fantastic. They dont sue you  they do this.

The point really wasnt revenge. I thought it was a spectacularly hilarious review. I later found out the writer was someone who actually ushered several times to see a play I did on Broadway many years ago, who just didnt take to this particular piece.

Igudesman: Yes, he was essentially a fan of yours. The passionate review was because of his disappointment. By the way, the last time we performed in Turkey, in 2020, we brought him up on stage at the end. He was so happy  like a kid in a candy store.

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Hannah Edgar is, for better or worse, a freelance critic.

The Music Critic runs 7:30 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St.; tickets $40-$125 at www.msg.com
A day after a deadly blast tore through Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, sparking protests across the region, the United States has released its own assessment of what caused the devastation.

Israel has laid out evidence that it said shows a misfire by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast, and US President Joe Biden on Wednesday backed that explanation, citing US intelligence. A spokesperson for the National Security Council later said that analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information suggested that Israel is not responsible.

Palestinian officials and several Arab leaders nevertheless accuse Israel of hitting the hospital amid its ongoing airstrikes in Gaza. Islamic Jihad  a rival group to Hamas  has denied responsibility.

Hundreds are believed to have died in the attack, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, and images of the bloody aftermath have spurred protests across the region.

Heres a look at what we know  and dont know  so far.

A view shows the aftermath of the deadly blast on Wednesday. - Ali Jadallah/Anadolu/Getty Images

What happened at the hospital?

Video of the moment of the blast at the Al-Alhi Baptist Hospital, geolocated by CNN, shows the sky light up as a large explosion erupts on the hospital grounds, sending a cloud of flame and smoke into the air.

In the building, there was panic. Dr. Fadel Naeem, head of the orthopedic department, said he was performing surgery when a deafening blast sounded through the hospital. He said panic ensued as staff members ran into the operating room screaming for help and reporting multiple casualties.

He told CNN in a recorded video: I just finished one surgery and suddenly we heard a big explosion, we thought its outside the hospital because we never thought that they would bomb the hospital.

Some of those wounded in the blast were taken to Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital. - Mohammed Al-Masri/Reuters

Women and children wait for treatment at Al-Shifa Hospital on Tuesday night. - Abed Khaled/AP

After he left the theater, Dr. Naeem said he found an overwhelming scene. Many people were beheaded. Everywhere there was a big fire, he said. The medical team scrambled to tend to the wounded and dying, but the magnitude of the devastation was overwhelming. The number was big and huge that we cant do anything.

While it is difficult to independently confirm how many people died in the blast, the bloodshed could be seen in images from the aftermath shared on social media. In photos and videos, young children covered in dust are rushed to be treated for their wounds. Other bodies lay lifeless on the ground.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza has said the death toll is over 400.

What the Israelis and Palestinians have said

Palestinian officials blamed Israel for the attack on Tuesday evening.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told CNN on Wednesday that the first packet of information was evidence that clearly supports the fact that it could not have been an Israeli bomb.

Israel says that its intelligence shows a failed rocket launch by the Islamist militant group Islamic Jihad group was responsible. The Islamic Jihad movement denied those assertions as false and baseless.

The IDF also released audio that it claimed captured a conversation between two Hamas operatives in which they spoke of a rocket launch from a cemetery near the hospital. According to an IDF translation of the conversation, one of the alleged operatives says: They are saying that the shrapnel of the missile is local shrapnel and not like the Israeli shrapnel.

CNN cannot verify the authenticity of the recordings.

On Tuesday, the IDF presented imagery that it says proves the destruction at the hospital could not have been the result of an airstrike, saying there were no visible signs of craters or significant damage to buildings that would result from such a strike.

A video posted by the official State of Israels account on social media platform X on Tuesday night was also presented as evidence that the hospital was struck in outgoing rocket fire from militants. But the timestamp on the video appeared not to match up with the time that the explosion took place, and the tweet was later edited to remove the video.

Israel Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat told CNN: We received the video, we thought it was from an official source but when we contacted him he said he got it from somewhere else, so we took it off.

On Wednesday, officials in Gaza also claimed that the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was damaged by two Israeli shells four days ago, after which the IDF warned the hospitals management to evacuate the premises. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on the claim.

What US intelligence suggests

The US government currently assesses that Israel was not responsible for the blast, according to the US National Security Council (NSC).

Biden, who was making a high-stakes visit to Israel on Wednesday, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the damage at the hospital appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.

But theres a lot of people out there not sure, so weve got a lot  weve got to overcome a lot of things, Biden added.

The NSC on Wednesday afternoon leaned further into its assessment: Intelligence indicates that some Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip believed that the explosion was likely caused by an errant rocket or missile launch carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The militants were still investigating what had happened, spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

Officials told CNN separately that the initial evidence gathered by the US intelligence community suggests that the hospital strike came from a rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

Among the evidence is a blast analysis that suggests it was a ground explosion rather than an airstrike that hit the hospital, one of the sources said. There was no singular crater suggesting there was a bomb, but there was extensive fire damage and scattered debris that is consistent with an explosion starting from the ground level, according to the source.

That analysis is one data point thats led intelligence officials to lean toward assessing that the attack on the hospital was a rocket launch gone wrong.

Still, the blast analysis is just one of the things being examined by the intelligence community, which has surged intelligence collection assets to the region.

How has the world reacted?

A number of countries have expressed horror at the loss of life at the hospital, and urged caution in attributing blame until the circumstances become clear.

The United Nations has called for a careful investigation. Until independent investigators are able to assess the incident in detail, it is unlikely that the world will know with certainty what led to the blast.

Israel has provided the US with intelligence it has gathered related to the deadly Gaza hospital explosion, according to an Israeli official and another source familiar with the matter.

Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq issued statements condemning Israel and accusing its military of bombing the hospital.

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters shouting anti-Israel slogans gathered in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, and Tunisia. Protests also rocked the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

Reporting by CNNs Kareem Khadder, Eyad Kourdi, Donald Judd, Richard Allen Greene, Tim Lister and Chloe Liu, CNN

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In 1999, a book came out titled "Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad," written by Jaqueline Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard. The authors claimed their work offered the first proof regarding how fugitive Black slaves shared coded messages through different quilted patterns as a means to escape on the underground railroad.

The book was a success  with reviews and interviews appearing in the The New York Times and NPR  catching the worlds attention as a moving tale of resourcefulness, creativity, and craftsmanship. Even before the publication of Tobin and Dobards book, there were childrens books such as Deborah Hopkinsons "Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt," which told the story of an enslaved child who created a quilted map unintelligible to her enslaver.

According to historian Leigh Fellner, the first recorded nod to the rumor originated from a 1987 feminist video that briefly mentioned it (quilts were hung outside underground railroad safe houses) but did not provide any source or evidence of the claim.

In Fellners 137 pages of comprehensive research on the subject, she found that this story has built up perceived credibility over time, but that there is no actual historical record of it ever happening.

Since April 2004 this article has received over 50,000 unique visits (and nearly three quarters of a million "hits"), Fellner writes. No one has ever contacted me with evidence of a "Code". I have also contacted many "Code" proponents myself to ask where their "firsthand evidence" can be located. The only source ever cited is 'Hidden in Plain View.'

The most significant doubts stem from the fact that most patterns that allegedly had meaning did not emerge until significantly after the Civil War (mostly beginning in the 20th century), and have also been interpreted in vastly different ways by different people.

Such an extremely myopic view of African-American quilts made many scholars of Black history and quilt history researchers uneasy, said Cuesta Benberry, a historian who specialized in research on quiltmaking in America, in her book, "Always There: The African-American Presence in American Quilts."

Quilt historians realized findings gathered in these early studies of black-made quilts had been extrapolated far beyond what the evidence would legitimately support.

Fellner points out that those who most staunchly defend the legend of the quilt codes are those who are benefitting monetarily because of it through museum exhibitions, book deals, or selling quilts themselves.

In a 2007 New York Times opinion piece titled Historys Tangled Threads by historian Fergus Bordewich, he began by painting a picture of the common modern romanticization of escape from enslavement as a thrilling tapestry of midnight flights, hairbreadth escapes, mysterious codes and strange hiding places. So its not surprising that the intriguing (if only recently invented) tale of escape maps encoded in antebellum quilts  should also seize the popular imagination.

While some view the issue as being a whitewashed romanticization of history that makes the horrors of slavery more palatable, especially for childrens books, school curricula, and museum exhibits catering to children, others, such as Patricia Turner, author of Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African-American Quilters and professor of African American studies at University of California Los Angeles, pointed out to Snopes in 2022 that stories centering on African Americans using their own resources for emancipation are often overlooked in favor of stories centering on white saviors.

Until works such as "Hidden in Plain View" were published, proponents of the quilt code claim the stories existed largely in oral history, and this is where it becomes difficult to verify truth, as undeniable physical evidence of this claim does not exist. Given that meaning could be derived from any number of random quilt patterns  triangles in quilt design signified prayer messages or prayer badge, a way of offering prayer ... the color black indicated that someone might die   it is difficult to either definitively confirm or deny the existence of this ever happening.

"What I tell kids is, who writes history? Men do. Mostly white men. Then I ask, who made quilts? Women did, and a lot of Black women made quilts and passed on their oral history, said Anna Lopez, former education coordinator at the Plymouth Historical Museum in a 2007 Time Magazine article. No one wrote down their history, so who knows?"

Sources:

Bordewich, Fergus M. Opinion | Historys Tangled Threads. The New York Times, 2 Feb. 2007. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/opinion/02bordewich.html.

Fellner, Leigh. Betsy Ross Redux: The Underground Railroad Quilt Code". 2006, https://web.archive.org/web/20130120160626/http://ugrrquilt.hartcottagequilts.com/betsy%20ross%20redux.pdf.

Ibrahim, Nur. Did Braiding Maps in Cornrows Help Black Slaves Escape Slavery? Snopes, 12 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/03/12/maps-cornrows-black-slaves-escape/.

Leigh Fellner. Collectionsconversations, https://collectionsconversations.wordpress.com/tag/leigh-fellner/. Accessed 18 Oct. 2023.

May 3, and 2019 | Marie Claire Bryant | Comments. Underground Railroad Quilt Codes: What We Know, What We Believe, and What Inspires Us. Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/underground-railroad-quilt-codes. Accessed 18 Oct. 2023.

Stukin, Stacie. Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews. Time, 3 Apr. 2007. content.time.com, https://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1606271,00.html.

The Myth of the Quilt Code. https://boston1775.blogspot.com/2007/01/myth-of-quilt-code.html. Accessed 18 Oct. 2023.
On Oct. 17, 2023, hundreds of people were killed from an explosion at Al Ahli Arab hospital in north Gaza. No one has taken responsibility for the explosion, with Hamas arguing it was an Israeli airstrike and Israel saying it was an errant rocket from another armed group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which in turn denied the accusation.

Many observers online sought to highlight Israels alleged culpability in the destruction of the hospital as claims grew that the Israeli army had ordered an evacuation of that hospital in advance, as well as of the surrounding area. Israel had been ordering evacuations of numerous parts of Gaza, including the northern region that houses around 1 million people, whilst also hammering the territory with airstrikes.

One Twitter user wrote, Israel indicated it was going to bomb the hospital and ordered an evacuation. Another asked, Why would Israel warn them to evacuate the hospital then???

All evidence points to Israel responsibility for the Gaza Hospital bombing and massacre



1. Israel indicated it was going to bomb the hospital and ordered an evacuation.

2. Soon after the bomb it claimed it.

3. The hospital director confirms an Israeli implicit admission

4.  Prof Thuli Madonsela #KindnessBuilds (@ThuliMadonsela3) October 18, 2023

but why would israel warn them to evacuate the hospital then??? you cant even stick to one lie, there were literally 4 diff ones in the past few hours https://t.co/ePyo1QQldr  3rachacha slide (@skzpink) October 17, 2023

The World Health Organization (WHO) offered some independent evidence that Israel ordered the evacuation of many hospitals and the surrounding region in north Gaza, though there were conflicting accounts on the specificity of the order. As such, we cannot confirm who is responsible for the attack on Oct. 17 until more information comes to light.

The conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza, followed by Israel declaring war and attacking and blockading Gaza, actions that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas' attacks came after months of surges in violence against Palestinians by the Israeli military.

After the hospital explosion, WHO indicated in a statement that the Al Ahli Arab was one of 20 hospitals that Israel had ordered to evacuate: The hospital was one of 20 in the north of the Gaza Strip facing evacuation orders from the Israeli military. We reached out to WHO for more details about the evacuation order and will update this post as more information comes to light.

On Oct. 18, 2023, Palestinian Anglican Archbishop Hosam Naoum, who oversees and runs the hospital, said that the Israeli military had called and texted hospital managers at least three times since Oct. 14, asking its patients and staff to leave the hospital compound, according to The New York Times.

Naoum said the warnings were particular to the hospital, and not part of Israels wider push telling civilians to leave northern Gaza for the south. There were specific warnings to get out of the building, he said.

Amnon Shefler, an Israeli military spokesman, appeared to refute this according to the Times, saying the calls to the hospital were part of a wider campaign to urge civilians to leave the north ahead of an expected Israeli invasion. Shefler added the hospital was not a target for the military. We have also reached out to the Israeli military to ask for a copy of the evacuation orders.

This was not the first airstrike on the hospital in question. The New York Times confirmed that the same hospital had been hit by rocket fire on Oct. 14, 2023, before the more recent attack, in which four people had been injured. The Anglican Church  which oversees the Ahli hospital  said in a statement the Oct. 14 airstrike was Israels responsibility: The Ahli Hospital was hit by Israeli rocket fire last night, with four staff injured in the blast. Other hospitals have also been hit.

In the same statement, the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the church, appealed to Israel to reverse its evacuation order on hospitals in northern Gaza.

An unnamed senior health official in Gaza told Al Jazeera that Israel had fired two artillery shells as a warning at Al Ahli Arab Hospital, just days before the explosion. We could not determine if these were part of the Oct. 14, 2023, rocket fire.

Even before the airstrike that killed hundreds of people, the WHO and other human rights organizations were condemning Israels evacuation orders, calling them impossible. In an Oct. 14, 2023, statement, they emphasized the impact of such orders on hospitals, one of which was Al Ahli Arab (emphasis, ours):

[The WHO] strongly condemns Israel's repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2000 inpatients in northern Gaza. The forced evacuation of patients and health workers will further worsen the current humanitarian and public health catastrophe. The lives of many critically ill and fragile patients hang in the balance. [...] Health facilities in northern Gaza continue to receive an influx of injured patients and are struggling to operate beyond maximum capacity. Some patients are being treated in corridors and outdoors in surrounding streets due to a lack of hospital beds. Forcing more than 2000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number of patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence.

The WHO also highlighted the impossibility of such evacuation orders in its Oct. 17 statement after the bombing.

In a news conference on Oct. 19, 2023, WHO Executive Director of the Health Emergencies Program Michael Ryan said:

Health is not a target, it can never be a target. It is not an excuse to say it was an accident. The parties to hostilities are not only directed to avoid attacking health services, they are directed to insure that they avoid attacking health services. [...] Damage to healthcare facilities, blasts on healthcare facilities, whether by accident or by intent, are a result of war and are prohibited under international law. Sometimes I hear these arguments around, well, it wasnt intended, or it's that awful word collateral damage. Healthcare workers, healthcare facilities and patients are not collateral damage. They are protected under international law.

While no group has taken responsibility for the Oct. 17 attack, and while parties dispute the specificity of the evacuation orders, WHO has offered evidence indicating Israel issued evacuation orders to hospitals in the area, warning them of strikes. We will update this story if we gather more information.

Sources:

"Evacuation Orders by Israel to Hospitals in Northern Gaza Are a Death Sentence for the Sick and Injured." WHO, Oct. 14, 2023. https://www.who.int/news/item/14-10-2023-evacuation-orders-by-israel-to-hospitals-in-northern-gaza-are-a-death-sentence-for-the-sick-and-injured. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

Gaza Hospitals Are Facing Catastrophe, Says Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Oct. 15, 2023. https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/news-and-statements/gaza-hospitals-are-facing-catastrophe-says-archbishop-canterbury. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

"How Has the Narrative Shifted since the Gaza Hospital Explosion?" Al Jazeera English, Oct. 18, 2023. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/18/what-is-israels-narrative-on-the-gaza-hospital-explosion. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

Netanyahu, Gantz Agree to Form Emergency Unity Govt and War Cabinet. France 24, 11 Oct. 2023, https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231011-%F0%9F%94%B4-live-israeli-airstrikes-on-gaza-continue-death-toll-mounts-on-both-sides. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

"Newsroom." WHO. https://www.who.int/news-room. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

Palestinians Flee Northern Gaza after Israel Orders 1 Million to Evacuate as Ground Attack Looms. AP News, Oct. 13, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-war-c8b4fc20e4fd2ef381d5edb7e9e8308c. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

What We Know About the Explosion at the Hospital in Gaza. The New York Times, 18 Oct. 2023. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-explained.html. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

Two Palestinians Killed during Israeli Military Raid in West Bank Refugee Camp. PBS NewsHour, 24 Sept. 2023, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/two-palestinians-killed-during-israeli-military-raid-in-west-bank-refugee-camp. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

WHO Statement on Attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital and Reported Large-Scale Casualties. https://www.who.int/news/item/17-10-2023-who-statement-on-attack-on-al-ahli-arab-hospital-and-reported-large-scale-casualties. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

"Why Israels Gaza Evacuation Order Is So Alarming." Human Rights Watch. 16 Oct. 2023, https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/16/why-israels-gaza-evacuation-order-so-alarming. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

Wrona, Aleksandra. Is This a Real Photo of Part of the Gaza Strip Left in Ruins by Israeli Reprisal Attacks? Snopes, 10 Oct. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gaza-strip-photo/. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

Wrona, Aleksandra. Video Shows a Pro-Hamas Demonstration in Barcelona in October 2023? Snopes, 9 Oct. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pro-hamas-demonstration-spain/. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

Updates:

This story was updated to say "hundreds" died in hospital strike, given contested numbers in different news reports.

Oct. 19, 2023: The story was amended to state that "hundreds" of people were killed from the explosion at hospital.
"I do use this in a pejorative term, and it's adulting."

Maj. Gen. James Isenhower III, the commander of the 1st Armored Division, was suggesting to a room packed with spectators earlier this month that a key cause of the mold and other poor living conditions in the Army is soldiers and families not maintaining their living spaces.

The mold in particular, pictures of which have made the rounds on social media and become something of a shorthand for the dire state of many Army barracks, has been the subject of multiple Military.com investigations revealing rooms made fuzzy with growing fungi.

Read Next: Criminal Charges Dropped Against Fort Cavazos Colonel Accused of Touching, Kissing Wife of Subordinate Officer

"A lot of times, we just need to teach young soldiers and young family members what is appropriate and what is part of their obligation and basic responsibility as an adult," Isenhower continued speaking at the Association of the United States Army conference. "I will tell senior leaders, 'I don't have a mold problem, I have a discipline problem.'"

He was flanked by a nodding Lt. Gen. Omar Jones IV, who runs the service's Installation Management Command, which is responsible for barracks quality. A clip posted to Reddit of the exchange has since become something of a sensation, being viewed at least 1 million times.

The comments on social media have been brutal. Soldiers' concerns over dilapidated barracks that have faced years of neglect from Army officials, maintenance crews and Congress were being dismissed. It was pointed out that the generals, two West Point graduates with Roman numerals in their names, were seemingly shifting the blame to the junior enlisted.

A division spokesperson declined Military.com's request for comment on whether Isenhower wanted to retract or clarify what he said at the conference.

The service's senior leaders know that the condition of barracks is an issue. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth set in motion the relocation of some 1,100 troops from the Smoke Bomb Hill Barracks at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, in August after complaints reached her desk over living conditions. Those barracks were almost immediately scheduled for demolition.

But with so many of the 6,700 barracks across the force broadly falling into such disrepair, that kind of relocation in many cases isn't viable. Army planners have estimated it would cost at least $7.5 billion simply to catch up on the maintenance and repair backlog made particularly costly by mold infestations that have plagued living quarters in humid climates such as North Carolina, Georgia and Hawaii.

A damning audit from the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, released in September found systemic issues in barracks across the military posing significant health and safety risks to troops, including dirty water, sewage backups and pests.

Earlier this month, Military.com reported on an internal plan being discussed by Army leaders to ask for $4 billion from Congress to try to play catch up on its barracks woes, about half of what is needed. But even that is unlikely as it's unclear how much buy-in the Army has from Congress.

"I would describe that as aspirational," Wormuth told Military.com in an interview.

Lawmakers in Washington outlined uncertainty as to whether funding would materialize, though there continues to be at least a public bipartisan majority vocal about supporting troops.

"There's a lot of pressure from Congress right now to address a lot of demands on the budget," Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D- Pa., the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee's military quality-of-life panel, told Military.com. "There's certainly deficit hawks and many people who don't necessarily support more funding for the DoD in general. But those folks are not the majority. One of the hopes I have is that we support barracks, which is essential to quality of life and readiness."

Seemingly accepting that more money might not materialize, after years of setting aside and spending only 85% of the total money approved for Congress to keep barracks in reasonable shape, the Army is instead looking to fully fund maintenance.

The Army has in the past shifted the extra 15% to other projects, but those sustainment funds are intended to simply maintain the status quo of barracks conditions, not improve or fix lingering problems. Using all the money earmarked for barracks maintenance would add about $342 million through the rest of the decade -- pocket change in the sprawling Defense Department's budget.

"The 100% sustainment is something Gen. [Randy] George and I are working very hard to find a path to," Wormuth said, noting that the Army will eventually need Congress to significantly boost funds for living quarters if it's going to improve on existing conditions. "To put a very serious dent into our backlog, we need to have what we've been calling a 'generational investment' in housing. And that's not something that right now we can fit under our relatively flat [budget]."

Part of that challenge is that barracks have never been a significant priority in the Pentagon's portfolio -- always taking a back seat to wars and weapons projects. Junior enlisted troops, who are often between 18- and 24-years-old and make up the bulk of barracks residents, have little say in how Army money is spent or approved.

The service is also eyeing privatized barracks, including looking into starting a pilot program at Fort Irwin, California. Some of the companies the Army currently does business with to maintain family housing have had a terrible track record with poor conditions. For years, lawmakers have been grilling some of these companies for widespread mistreatment of military families. In 2021, Balfour Beatty Communities, one of the largest providers of privatized military housing, pleaded guilty to fraud, paying $65 million in fines and penalties after a Department of Justice criminal inquiry and a civil lawsuit alleged a pattern of delayed repairs, mold and pest infestations.

"I'm not going to name names, but some of those companies do a very good job," Wormuth said. "Other companies we've had problems with. If we did pursue privatized barracks on a broader scale, I don't think we'd necessarily be working with bad partners."

A 2022 Military.com report of the conditions at Fort Stewart, Georgia, found soldiers' gear was destroyed by mold; air conditioners were broken; and walls had turned black, with no significant action from leadership other than a stand-down over how troops can clean mold themselves.

Cleaning up environmental hazards like mold is largely considered its own trade, with some states requiring licenses for remediation in the private sector. That stand-down was also conducted only after leadership at the installation was made aware of Military.com's impending story, despite years of complaints from the rank and file. In April, the publication also interviewed 11 soldiers, most of whom were serving at Fort Stewart or Fort Liberty, who say they have been sickened by mold and in some cases were admitted to emergency rooms for respiratory issues, coughing up blood, and other symptoms associated with long-term exposure to black mold.

Some soldiers have since been moved to different rooms, and there have been increased efforts on mold detection and mitigation, though a service-wide inspection in the last year of all active-duty facilities found 23% of the barracks are in poor or failing condition.

Meanwhile, the Army is moving forward with a handful of projects with a relatively limited budget of roughly $1 billion per year to maintain and build new barracks. New living quarters were recently built at Fort Johnson, Louisiana, totaling 160 rooms, and roughly $500 million has been spent on the base in the past decade refurbishing other barracks in the muggy climate.

In 2025, new barracks for 253 soldiers at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, are expected to open. Soldiers will have their own bedroom and share a common area. A similar style of barracks is under construction for the 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at Fort Cavazos, Texas. The 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, at Fort Carson, Colorado, will begin seeing new barracks around 2027.

-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on X @StevenBeynon.

Related: Mold Is Consuming Fort Stewart's Barracks as a Pattern Emerges Across the Army
Ben Collins is a reporter for NBC News who specializes in coverage of disinformation and extremism, particularly on social media. His work has earned him many plaudits, including a 2023 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.

Collins is treated as an expert in the burgeoning field of countering the spread of misinformation. Yet his error rate is noteworthy.

Take the Gaza hospital explosion, for example. On Tuesday, reports surfaced that the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza had come under attack, resulting in as many as 500 deaths. The New York Times ran with "Israeli Strikes Kill Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say." Underneath this headline was an image of an obliterated buildingreaders who squinted would have noticed that this was not the hospital, but a completely different target.

The Times' only source for information about the explosion was the Gaza Health Ministry; mainstream reporting noted that Palestinian authorities laid the blame squarely on an Israeli airstrike. Subsequent intelligence reports from both Israel and the U.S. provide credible evidence that the hospital was most probably struck by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group.

Did Collins soberly wait for these facts to come in? Nope. The award-winning disinformation expert helped circulate the inaccurate claims of the Palestinian authorities. When other voices on social media recommended caution, Collins chimed in to assert that any delay in reporting the horrific casualty numbers represented a profound moral failing. (Casualty estimates have yet to be confirmed.)

In theory, the confusion surrounding the hospital explosion is a great topic for a self-described disinformation reporter. Many left-leaning writers and political figures recklessly endorsed the Palestinian view that Israel had bombed the hospital. Reps. Rashida Tlaib (DMich.) and Ilhan Omar (DMinn.) both made statements blaming Israel and did not swiftly delete them after what really happened became clearer. Omar eventually acknowledged the new information, but Tlaib again blamed Israel for the explosion during a speech at a pro-Palestine rally outside the U.S. Capitol. Is this not something worthy of coverage by Collins and company?

Keep in mind that Collins represents the journalistic side of a multi-faceted effort to monitor and eliminate purportedly wrong ideas. Disinformation tracking has become an industry unto itself, and aspects of the industry enjoy government funding: A disinformation watchdog that called on advertisers to divest from various non-liberal news sourcesincluding Reasonreceived funding from the U.S. State Department.

Disinformation reporters often seem interested in sparring only with contrarian people and in defense of mainstream narratives: Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Elon Musk, and others. Collins, for instance, downplayed the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story and denied that there was any effort to censor the lab leak theory of COVID-19's origins, even in the wake of ceaseless revelations that various government agencies pressured social media companies to de-platform contrarian speech about precisely these topics.

Collins' reporting often contains basic errors that suggest he doesn't particularly understand the right-wing forces he's denouncing. His most recent article alleges that Musk's plans for Twitter were shaped by a far-right former Trump administration staffer, even though it's fairly clear the staffer wasn't actually telling Musk what to do, but rather warning about what would happen to Musk if he offended "the regime." If that sounds conspiratorial, try to follow this clip of Collins and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow elucidating the Musk plan. It's impossible to describe, so please watch:

In his latest article, @oneunderscore__ offers for consideration that the series of changes that have taken place at Twitter "may have been a plan all along."https://t.co/c5k2Jd6eWH pic.twitter.com/kt5jvUmftR  Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) October 3, 2023

What?

If you're going to paint broad swaths of opinion that depart from mainstream orthodoxy as paranoid and conspiratorial, you should take great pains to avoid echoing paranoia and conspiracy. You should also beware of elementary errorslike immediately taking a terrorist group's assertions at face valueand call out others who make them.

Perhaps the Walter Cronkite Awards ought to have slightly higher standards?

Collins is not the only journalist who gets things wrong, of course. But there's something extra galling about journalistic errors when they are perpetrated by someone who holds himself out as especially talented at identifying lies. That's the real problem with the army of self-appointed fact-checkers and misinformation watchdogs who police social media with particular focus on alternative content creatorsthey're frequently no less wrong than anyone else.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported that U.S. lawmakers were "seeking answers" from Meta, X, Google, and TikTok about the spread of false information on those platforms.

"Deceptive content has ricocheted across social media sites since the conflict began, sometimes receiving millions of views," wrote Sen. Michael Bennet (DColo.) in a letter to the companies.

This framing totally ignores the fact that some of the most pernicious misstatements about the situation in Gaza were peddled by mainstream journalistic institutions like The New York Times. On social media, people were able to challenge prevailing narratives that the expert class had blindly accepted. For instance, Community Notesthe crowd-sourced, Wikipedia-style fact-checking system on Xis often able to provide useful context about claims that appear on that platform.

Disinformation reporters, on the other hand, are extremely partisan and prone to error. Let's stop pretending that they have some special, magical power to separate the truth from lies.

The post Disinformation Reporter Ben Collins Failed To Correct the Gaza Hospital Story appeared first on Reason.com.
Chaiya Maley-Jackson, 23, of Charlotte, pleaded guilty Wednesday to unlawful production of a false identification document, announced Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

READ: Owner of Diva Documents faces fraud charges

Maley-Jackson was the owner and operator of Diva Documents/CPN Services (Diva Documents).

The company advertised the sale of false and fraudulent documents on Facebook as well as two websites, divadocuments.com and divadocuments.onuniverse.com.

Maley-Jackson used her personal Facebook page under the name Yaya Flowers to advertise different types of fake documents and their prices, according to court documents.

She advertised that she could produce and transfer paystubs, lease agreements, COVID-19 hardship letters, bank statements, W2 forms, Social Security cards and drivers licenses, both digital and hard copies, and more.

The prices for the bogus documents ranged from $15 to edit a paystub to $150 for a hard copy of a drivers license. Maley-Jackson had customers pay half upfront and the total balance after the fake documents were completed.

Maley-Jackson was aware of what she was doing and that her customers would use the phony documents for PPP loan applications, car loan applications, and apartment rentals, among others.

She admitted that between January 2020 and August 2022, she created at least 400 Social Security cards, eight drivers licenses, and six COVID-19 vaccine cards.

She earned more than $320,000, according to the court.

Maley-Jackson was released on bond.

She faces up to 15 years in prison for the unlawful production of fake ID documents.

Maley-Jackson has not been sentenced.

VIDEO: Owner of Diva Documents faces fraud charges
The Department of Energy has awarded a contract to provide occupational medical services valued at up to $208 million to a small business in Virginia.

A Tri-Cities company had been awarded the previous contract in 2012 and before that had been a subcontractor for health services at the nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington.

DOE announced Thursday that it had picked Inomedic Health Applications of Hampton, Va., for the contract, which was required to be awarded to a small business.

The current contract covers about 8,000 Hanford site workers, but the new contract will be expanded to include workers operating the vitrification plant as it starts glassifying low activity radioactive waste for disposal. The start of waste vitrification is expected in late 2024 or 2025.

The award of this contract demonstrates another visible step toward the start of tank waste treatment at Hanford, said Hanford Site Manager Brian Vance. Having consistent round-the-clock occupational medical services available will support sustained operations.

The 580-square-mile Hanford site was used in World War II and the Cold War to produce nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nations nuclear weapons program.

Waste left from producing plutonium includes 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in underground tanks, many of them prone to leaking. Much of the waste is planned to be treated at the vitrification plant.

The new contract has a base period of three years, including a 60-day contract transition period, and two option periods of two years for a total of seven years.

The contract now held by HPM Corp. of Kennewick, which was purchased earlier this year by WorkCare Inc. of California, expires at the end of December. It has a two-year option remaining on the contract starting in 2024, but it does not cover around-the-clock coverage of operations at the vitrification plant.

The HPMC contract was valued as of 2018 at $152 million for up to seven years.

HPMC under its previous owners was barred from bidding on federal contracts after its owners reached a $3 million agreement with the U.S. Attorneys Office to settle accusations of COVID-19 loan fraud.

WorkCare said it planned to bid on the contract when it purchased HPMC.

DOE said Thursday that there were three bidders on the contract, but did not name them.

It said in a statement that it was a healthy and rigorous competition that led to the choice of Inomedic Health Applications as providing the best value to the government.

The Hanford occupational medicine contractor provides services range from basic first aid to exams to evaluate workers injuries and illnesses that may have been caused by work at the Hanford site.

Inomedic Health Applications is physician owned and has more than 25 years of experience, according to its website.

Its customers have included NASA centers, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, SpaceX, Boeing and the U.S. Special Operations Command, Space Force and Navy.
PROVIDENCE  Melvin Spivey is seeking what he considers justice for his grandson.

He wants the state to keep its promise that his grandson Donovann Hall would get the best sentencing deal among the defendants in a 2012 triple homicide in exchange for his testimony. And he wants the prosecutor, whose actions played a role in Hall's conviction being overturned, removed from the case as the parties seek a resolution.

Theyre going to have to do my grandson right, Spivey told The Journal recently.

Spiveys issue is that Assistant Attorney General James Baum, a deputy chief of the criminal division, had assured his grandson that he would be sentenced more leniently than his three co-defendants in exchange for his cooperation, but then Baum reneged on the deal.

Hall admitted to his role in the crimes just four days after his arraignment in February 2013 and agreed to give eyewitness testimony about the events that led up to the shooting deaths of Michael Martin, Damien Colon and Shameeka Barros on July 30, 2012.

Melvin Spivey holds photos of his grandson Donovann Hall, taken during a visit with him in prison. Hall's conviction in a 2012 triple murder was overturned last winter, but he is still being held as a resolution is sought in his case.

That same afternoon, Hall testified before the grand jury, leading to the indictments of the shooter, Russell Burrell; Quandell Husband; and Timothy Beeper DeBritto, who provided the gun used in the three murders.

[The] State needed [Halls] testimony to prosecute the cases against the shooter and the other two defendants, and, without that testimony, the State might not have been able to convict those other defendants, now retired Superior Court Judge Susan E. McGuirl observed in vacating Halls conviction last December.

Baum made a deal with Hall that he would get the best deal of all those charged, the judge said. Hall fulfilled his end of the bargain, resulting in four convictions  including his own  only to have Baum later renege.

It is the opinion of this Court that the State, through its Prosecutor, should not make promises to a defendant in order to obtain cooperation and then not comply with that commitment, McGuirl said.

The state stands by Baum.

Donovann Hall testifies in Superior Court during the 2014 triple murder trial of Quandell Husband.

The Attorney General has full confidence in the attorney assigned to the case, James Baum, who has served with distinction as a prosecutor in this Office for more than 24 years, Brian Hodge, spokesman for Attorney General Peter F. Neronhas office, said in an email.

Given that the case remains pending in court, we have no further comment at this time, he said.

What sentences did the other defendants receive?

While Hall, who never touched the gun, was sentenced to life in prison, Husband, who admitted to hiding the firearm, received a 20-year term after his conviction was also overturned. The state Supreme Court vacated Husbands conviction, finding that Superior Court Judge Robert D. Krause abused his discretion by allowing the jury to consider enormously prejudicial evidence that should not have been admitted at trial.

DeBritto pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and other charges. He was sentenced to a 40-year term, with 20 to serve, to be served concurrently with 40 years he was already serving in an unrelated shooting.

Burrell  the shooter  is serving three consecutive life terms plus 10 years.

They told my grandson theyd be right there for him, Spivey said. I just want them to do what they should have done. His sentence has to be better than Husband's."

In this 2014 file photo, Providence police detectives stand guard as the jury in the trial of 18-year-old Quandell Husband visits various locations near the site of a triple murder at 151 General St., seen in the background.

'I would not have agreed to plead guilty'

After McGuirl ruled that Halls lawyer was ineffective because he'd failed to tell the sentencing judge about the deal gone awry, Hall was rearraigned on the charges in January and pleaded not guilty.

Over the 10 months since, the state has still not lived up to its deal that Hall would receive the lesser sentence, and Baum has remained on the case, Spivey said.

For his part, Hall told the court that but for the assurances that he would get the best deal, I would not have agreed to plead guilty ...

Had he not, Hall would have gone to trial and presumably would not have testified against the other defendants and against himself, McGuirl said. A jury might then have found him not guilty of first-degree murder.

According to Spivey, Baum recently agreed to a sentence of 18 years to serve, but only if there were two decades of probation and a suspended sentence hanging over him. That would mean that Hall would remain under court oversight and could return to prison to serve the suspended term if he commits any infractions.

He has to get the best deal, Spivey said.

A snapshot shows Melvin Spivey, left, on a visit with his grandson Donovann Hall at the Adult Correctional Institutions. Spivey is holding Hall's son, J-ayden, now age 10 .

Hall, 29, who has been held without bail since his arrest in 2013, is being represented by Robert McNelis and Terry McEnaney.

"Attorney McEnaney and I understand the family's frustration in this matter. However, we also have complete faith in the judicial system, and this is still an ongoing case in Providence Superior Court, McNelis said in an email. We remain confident that any ruling or disposition will be done in the best interests of justice and to all involved parties."

The case is now before Krause, who presided over Husband's trial.

More: Man convicted of RI murder said he was innocent. These college students may help free him.

Spivey is also upset with Baum's objections to his grandson's efforts to be released on bail, which Spivey said unfairly portray Hall as a danger. Hall's lawyers had argued that he had no criminal history prior to the 2013 case and didn't pose a flight risk due to his strong family ties.

But Baum successfully countered that Hall should remain behind bars, due to the "nature and extent of his crimes and danger to the community," as the parties try to reach a resolution.

If the parties fail to do so, the case would be retried.

They told my grandson theyd be right there for him, said Melvin Spivey, referring to the state's assurance that Donovann Hall's cooperation would earn him the lightest sentence of the defendants in a 2012 triple slaying. I just want them to do what they should have done.

A botched robbery leads to senseless deaths

According to testimony at Husbands 2014 trial, it was Hall who hatched the plan to rob Martin, from whom he purchased $700 in marijuana each week, of drugs and money.

Hall and Burrell met at DeBritto's apartment in Providences North End and picked July 30, 2012, as the night. Husband joined them at the last minute, with DeBritto providing the distinctive 9 mm Glock pistol with a red laser sight. Burrell was delegated to carry the gun.

Hall, Husband and Burrell cut through lawns to get to the Arbor Glen apartment at 151 General St. DeBritto stayed behind. Hall testified that he tapped on the window to get Martin's attention. Martin let them in, leading them to the kitchen, where his friend, Colon, was seated at a table. Martin's girlfriend, Barros, 22, slept on the couch in the living room.

Alice Terry, left, cousin of Shameeka Barros, and other family members react when the guilty verdict is read at the 2014 trial of Quandell Husband for the murder of Barros, Michael Martin and Damien Colon in 2012.

Barros' girls, ages 3 and 5, and her 6-year-old brother were sleeping in another room. Colon, 22, had stopped by after work.

Burrell pulled out the gun, aiming it at Martin's chest. Martin told Burrell to chill. Instead, Burrell fired the gun, Hall said.

Hall heard more shots being fired as he fled to DeBritto's place. Burrell fired 17 rounds. The only survivors in the apartment were Barros' daughters, her brother, and her small Chihuahua-mix dog.

Burrell, then 18, provided chilling testimony, coolly describing shooting Martin, whom he called the "white guy," along with Colon and Barros. He then hid the gun in the basement of the building he lived in with the Husband family. Husband later took the gun from Burrell.

Providence police found the gun wrapped in cloth under a pile of wood behind 105 Atlantic Ave. The gun was determined to be the same one DeBritto had used months earlier to shoot a romantic rival.

Assistant Attorney General James Baum holds a photo of murder victim Shameeka Barros during opening statements in the 2014 trial of Quandell Husband.

Prosecutor's role in a case investigated by Department of Corrections

Baum played a central role in a state Department of Corrections investigation that determined that one of the men who participated in killing Kerry Mello in 2015 had sex with his girlfriend in the attorney generals office at the Licht Judicial Complex while in state custody as Baum and a state trooper stood by.

Mellos family was left wondering if the desire to keep that alleged encounter under wraps influenced the plea deals the state reached with the defendants, at least one of whom  the man who met with his girlfriend  walked out of the courthouse at sentencing. Mellos family always thought the sentences for killing the 36-year-old father of three and dismembering him and throwing his body parts into the ocean were far too lenient.

Hodge previously acknowledged that in 2017, before Neronhas administration took office, a defendant in the Mello case  Graig Bustillo  was brought into the courthouse to meet with the prosecution to discuss the case.

More: A murder defendant allegedly had sex in custody. Did it influence his sentence?

At that time, the prosecution team inadvisably afforded the defendant a brief period to meet alone with family members. The current administration has made it explicitly clear to all members of the criminal division that this practice  to the extent it has happened in the past  is strictly not permitted, Hodge said in an email.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant Attorneys General Baum and Timothy G. Healy, with Rhode Island State Police Detective Adam Kennett leading the investigation, according to court records.

Neronha recently announced that he had named Baum to lead a newly created cold case unit. Baum is joined by Special Assistant Attorney General Jessica A. Villella and investigators Timothy C. McGann, with the Providence Police Department from 1994 to 2023, and Theodore "Teddy" J. Michael, a former Providence detective who specializes in electronic evidence. The unit will also be staffed by Attorney General Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigations investigator Scott Sullivan, with the Pawtucket Police Department from 1996 to 2023, and investigator Eric Yankee, who served as a Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from 2001 to 2021.

Neronha waged a high-profile fight with Gov. Dan McKee in the last budget season over his request for 20 new hires to help establish the unit. State lawmakers ultimately granted Neronha 15 of the 20 positions he sought.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Family of defendant in RI murder case seeks promised leniency
A group of dogs attacked a 9-year-old boy, then their owner evaded deputies for months, a Florida sheriffs office says.

A 39-year-old Orlando woman was arrested on Oct. 17 on a charge of attack by a dangerous dog, according to court records, months after deputies say her three dogs bit the child.

The 9-year-old was walking with his dad and his brother back to their truck after visiting a car dealership on April 8 when the boy started walking a little behind, according to court documents.

As they passed a house, the door opened and four dogs ran outside, the boys father and brother told deputies.

Three of the dogs, which deputies described as pit bulls, attacked the 9-year-old, biting him on his leg, side and on his buttocks, according to court records.

Three women then ran out from the house and one of them picked the boy up while the other two tried to stop the dogs, the boys father told deputies.

They were able to get away, and he and his sons jumped into the truck and drove to a hospital, court records show, while the women brought the dogs back into the house.

Emergency room staff indicated that the bites were bad, deputies said in the report.

When asked whether he would like to complete a statement, the boys father told deputies he wanted the dog owner to be held responsible for what happened because the dogs could have killed his son.

This wasnt the first time the same dogs had attacked someone, records said.

In November 2022, the Orange County Animal Services classified the dogs as dangerous following another bite incident resulting in severe injury, according to court documents.

Deputies showed photos of the dogs from the prior incident to the boy and his father, and they said it was the same dogs that attacked the 9-year-old.

In the week that followed, deputies continually tried to make contact with the dogs owner, the 39-year-old woman, but failed to reach her.

They placed quarantine notices on the door of the home, but later returned to find them unsigned, according to court documents.

Under Florida law, a dog that had previously been declared dangerous must be confiscated by animal control and, if necessary, quarantined if it bites a person again, WOFL reported.

The owner of the dogs can also be charged with a third-degree felony, according to the outlet.

A warrant for the womans arrest was issued in August, but she once again evaded deputies who tried to reach her, according to court documents.

On Oct. 17, a deputy arrived at the home and was able to take the woman into custody, according to court documents.

The woman was released on a $1,000 bond and is scheduled for an arraignment on Nov. 30.

The status of her dogs is unknown at this time.

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U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has directed U.S. attorneys across the country to keep in close contact with state and local officials as threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities rise amid the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas.

As the FBI has noted, we are seeing an increase in reported threats against faith communities, particularly Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions, Garland said Thursday during a speech in Jacksonville, Fla., to discuss redlining. Last week, I directed all 94 of our U.S. Attorneys Offices and the FBI to be in close touch with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners in their districts.

He added that he instructed U.S. attorneys to reach out to religious and community leaders to ask what support they need.

Reports of domestic threats have spiked since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Saturday, a week after Hamas fighters killed more than 1,400 people, and took hundreds more hostage. Israel has since hit back by commencing a siege of Gaza and firing its own barrage of retaliatory missiles, killing thousands.



On Sunday, a 71-year-old man allegedly stabbed a 6-year-old Muslim boy and his mother in Illinois, killing the child and seriously wounding the mother. The Department of Justice is investigating the indecent as a federal hate crime.

The entire Justice Department remains vigilant in our efforts to identify and respond to hate crimes, threats of violence, or related incidents, with particular attention to threats to faith communities," Garland said Thursday. "And, as always, the Justice Department remains focused on doing everything we can to keep Americans safe from the threat of terrorism."
People against a plan for temporary shelter for migrants at 38th Street and California Avenue in Chicagos Brighton Park neighborhood cheer a comment at a public meeting at Kelly High School, Oct. 24, 2023. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

A City Council member had to be escorted by police out of an unruly crowd Thursday morning that was protesting against the tentative plan by Mayor Brandon Johnson to erect winterized tents to house migrants in an empty parking lot in Brighton Park.

Hundreds of residents had gathered on Chicagos Southwest Side near 38th Street and California Avenue, the site of the proposed encampment where construction crews have been seeing cutting down trees, flattening the land and laying down infrastructure.

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Ald. Julia Ramirez, 12th, arrived at the scene quietly with an aide, but after residents recognized her, she was abruptly approached by some of the protesters who began to yell and aggressively demand answers from her. Dozens of people surrounded her, shouting angrily and pushing toward her.

As she attempted to leave, some grabbed toward her, angrily holding their signs. Police intervened and escorted Ramirez into a squad car and left.

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Ramirez released a statement afterward saying that she attended the protest because she wanted to engage directly with the community to address misinformation being spread about her involvement in the plan and to talk about how to move forward as a community.

After a few conversations, it became clear that most of the protesters did not want to engage in a peaceful dialogue with me, Ramirez wrote. As I was leaving the protest, a group of protestors surrounded me and my staffer and began assaulting us.

Ramirez said she was OK. Her aide was taken to the hospital and is in good condition.

Both Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Johnson released statements condemning the attack. Johnson said Chicago police are investigating.

The protesters, mostly Latino and Asian, had been holding signs in English and in their native languages with messages for the mayor and Ramirez, demanding that the construction in the area cease immediately.

[ City considers Brighton Park vacant lot as a possible site for migrant tent encampment ]

Protect our community, one read. Many said they are worried that moving an untold number of migrants into the neighborhood could increase crime and lower property values. They said they also worry about their safety.

It is inhumane to house people in tents and it is unsafe for us, the residents here and for them too, said William Desparrois, a property owner of a house in front of the lot. Put them in real buildings in the North Side.

With winter looming, the city is scrambling to find more permanent housing solutions for the nearly 19,000 asylum-seekers who have been bused to Chicago from the southern border since August 2022. More than 11,000 are in city-run shelters and almost 4,000 are staying in police stations, OHare and Midway airports awaiting shelter.

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The city is contracting with the private security firm GardaWorld Federal Services to build and run the base camps.

GardaWorld and its subsidiary Aegis Defense Services signed a one-year agreement for $29.4 million with the city on Sept. 12. The contract calls for GardaWorld to provide emergency logistics management and operation services that will set up shelter  and other necessary services (also called a base camp or solution) for the new arrivals.

The city is at an increasingly critical point in the new arrival mission. With colder weather upon us, we continue to look at all options to provide temporary shelter, and this includes a privately owned lot at 38th and California as a potential location, city spokeswoman Mary May said in a statement.

Residents at the protest said they began to organize last week after they noticed construction activity happening in the lot, which has been unused since 2020.

Despite the ongoing construction, neither Ramirez nor the Johnson administration have confirmed that the tents will be erected there.

You cant tell me theyre still deciding if theyve already begun construction, said Nity Garcia, who has lived in her home on 38th Street  right in front of the lot  for 25 years.

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At the protest, a group of people, many who live in the houses surrounding the lot, blocked the entrances to the lot, preventing trucks and other city workers from entering.

In her statement, Ramirez called on the mayors office for more transparency, accountability, and more local involvement in the decision making process, to explore more options for establishing permanent shelters, and reevaluate if tents are an appropriate soliton at this site.

The mayors office did not respond to Ramirezs letter and questions from the Tribune about whether todays events will affect the citys plans for the site. And the office made no comment on other potential locations for base camps.

Right now, our thoughts are with Ald. Ramirez and her assistant, spokesman Ronnie Reese said in an email. Any other details around the potential site at 38th and California will be discussed at next weeks community meeting.

The city and Ramirez are scheduled to host a meeting on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Kelly High School about the proposal.

In his statement, Johnson said, Any violent act against an elected official in our city is unacceptable and must be condemned in the strongest terms.

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My administration supports the right to peaceful protest and free speech, but this type of action against a public servant is unconscionable, he wrote. Any violent act against an elected official in our city is unacceptable and must be condemned in the strongest terms.

A police officer watches as a protester puts up a sign as dozens demand a halt to the proposed tent city for migrants in the Brighton Park neighborhood on Oct. 19, 2023. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

The Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, which has provided social services for residents, released a statement saying that misinformation has spread across the ward, fueling anti-immigrant and racist remarks.

While the group acknowledged that the encampment development is not ideal, it said that violence is never a solution.

Brighton Park is a predominantly Latino immigrant neighborhood with a growing Asian population, according to the groups latest reports.

Everyone has the right to seek asylum in the United States, and Brighton Park has historically been a welcoming neighborhood for immigrant families, the statement said.

The group said that it is our responsibility to welcome these new families into our city, support them as they recover from their journey, connect them to resources and services, and help them resettle.

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Ramirez said that she understands that residents are fearful and have concerns about the citys plan.

I have the same concerns. Im born and raised resident of Brighton Park. I ran for Alderwoman so that I could be in a position to address the years of disinvestment in my community, she wrote in her statement. I hear my residents and want them to know I will always advocate for their safety and ensure our communities have resources they deserve.

Garcia said that it angers her that the Johnson administration is ignoring the communitys concerns regarding migrants and where they chose to erect shelters.

They are putting people against each other, Garcia said in Spanish.

She said that as an immigrant herself, she worries about the conditions in which people will live there, but also how it can affect the neighborhood by putting so many people in a single space.

Its not fair for them, for us. For anyone, she said.

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Chicago Tribunes A.D. Quig contributed.

Larodriguez@chicagotribune.com
Intimate partner homicides spiked by 22% in the five years from 2018 to 2022, according to a report released Thursday by Brady: United Against Gun Violence, a gun reform advocacy group.

An American now fatally shoots their spouse or dating partner every 12 hours, the groups analysis found. That rising violence, overwhelmingly directed at women, most commonly occurs in states where access to firearms is easiest.

The report, based on data collected by the Gun Violence Archive, comes as the Supreme Court prepares to hear a closely watched case that will decide whether people subject to protective orders for domestic violence can retain their gun rights.

Under the new gun rights standard laid out by Justice Clarence Thomas, judges no longer balance the need for public safety against the individual right to bear arms.

Under the new gun rights standard laid out by Justice Clarence Thomas , judges no longer balance the need for public safety against the individual right to bear arms.

USA v. Rahimi, which is scheduled for oral arguments on Nov. 7, will mark the first time the conservative-dominated Supreme Court weighs in on gun rights since vastly expanding Second Amendment protections last year.

Under the new gun rights standard laid out by Justice Clarence Thomas in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, judges no longer balance the need for public safety against the individual right to bear arms. Instead, firearm restrictions are only constitutional if similar laws existed at some point roughly between 1791, when the Bill of Rights became law, and the end of the Civil War.

That landmark ruling set off a torrent of conflicting lower-court decisions, with judges overturning gun safety laws that had survived constitutional challenges for decades. Federal judges have blocked enforcement of Delawares ban on ghost guns, overturned a Texas law raising the age to buy handguns to 21, and cast doubt on the constitutionality of several states long-standing assault weapons bans.

In one of the most controversial decisions, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a conviction against Zackey Rahimi for possessing at least two firearms while under a protective order for committing family violence against his former partner and their young child. The ruling restored the gun rights of a man accused of repeatedly firing guns in public, often at other people, though he always missed.

Rahimi is unlikely to possess a firearm legally again. He has been locked up since January 2021 in a Tarrant County prison, where he faces indictment for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against three separate people, as well as recklessly discharging a firearm and possession of fentanyl. In addition to prison time, conviction for any of those state felonies would disqualify him from firearm ownership. He also still faces the possibility that the Supreme Court will rule against him in his unresolved federal felony case.

But the prospect of allowing domestic abusers to retain access to their guns has alarmed gun reformers, who say current laws dont do enough to protect victims and survivors of domestic abuse from their tormentors.

There will be horrific ramifications for women and children if the Supreme Court allows the Fifth Circuit decision to stand, Kris Brown, president of Brady, wrote in an email to HuffPost. We know that firearms are the most common weapons used in domestic violence homicides, with female intimate partners more likely to be murdered with a gun than by all other means combined. Prohibiting domestic violence abusers from accessing firearms is common-sense, life-saving, and constitutional.

The total number of people killed by their spouse or dating partner jumped four years in a row from 642 in 2018 to a peak of 856 in 2021. The figure dropped to 782 last year  an improvement over the year before, but still 22% higher than five years ago, and a rate of about two intimate partner homicides daily nationwide.

Those numbers reflect broader firearm trends over the last few years. Firearm purchases skyrocketed following the pandemic, along with homicides. Firearm homicides in general peaked in 2021 at levels not seen since the 1990s, then dropped by 1.5% last year.

Men accounted for 83% of the perpetrators of intimate partner homicides, according to the Brady report.

The five states with the highest number of intimate partner homicides  Texas, Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee  were among those where its easiest to buy a gun. All five states allow firearm transactions that allow the buyer to avoid the background check theyd have to undergo when buying at a gun store with a Federal Firearm License.

Of the five states, only Tennessee requires domestic abusers to surrender their firearms once a judge issues a protective order against them, a measure that researchers have found correlates with a reduction in intimate partner homicides.

Texas led the nation with 90 intimate partner homicides over the five-year period. California, despite having a population one-third larger, registered 26 intimate partner homicides over the same period.

The two states differing gun regulations help explain the contrasting results, according to Bradys research director, Grace Killian. Unlike Texas, California has expanded background checks and requires domestic abusers to surrender their firearms. California law bars people subject to a temporary restraining order for domestic violence from possessing a gun and applies that restriction to dating partners  a more stringent version of the law the Supreme Court is analyzing in the Rahimi case.

Domestic violence and gun violence are just so intertwined, said Killian. States with stronger laws regulating how domestic abusers gain access to guns really go a long way in saving lives.

Related...
The American Cancer Society (ACS) is warning women not to skip their mammograms. During the pandemic, about a million fewer women were screened. However, the American Cancer Society said for each scheduled mammogram a woman misses out of five, it increases her chances of dying of breast cancer.

We saw probably about a million fewer women who were screened for breast cancer, looking at sort of early pandemic, said Dr. Dahut. We kind of think we miss one, it doesnt really matter, but it actually matters significantly.

Heres what you need to know:

Women of average risk should start getting screened at age 40.

But if breast cancer runs in your family, you should start getting screened 10 years before the age of when that family member got sick.

There are still big disparities when it comes to race  doctors say black women are significantly more likely to die from cancer  meaning those self-exams before mammogram age are even more important.

Be aware of changes in your body and alert your physician if you notice anything.

We see the disparity is greatest in young women, its about a four times greater mortality risk for Black versus for white women in their 20s, said Chief Scientific Officer for the American Cancer Society, Dr. William Dahut. So particularly for younger Black women, if you notice anything abnormal dont hesitate.

Dr. Dahut added that access to care doesnt seem consistent throughout communities, as numbers show women of color dont follow up as quickly as white women. Also, the time to treatment isnt as fast which leads to death.

We do continue to see disparities between incidents and breast cancer deaths. Between Black women and other populations. White women are much more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer but Black women are more likely to die from the disease, said Dr. Dahut.

The ACS said that in Washington state, about 7,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, with about 960 of those cases being fatal.

Dr. Dahut added that its important for women to advocate for themselves, and to not always depend on the system.

Its really important women advocate for themselves and have somebody with them to help advocate. So if you have a mammogram and you havent had results back, or if someone thinks you have something abnormal, dont depend on the system to always take care of you. Particularly if you havent had results back  you need to follow up. This is for everybody, said Dr. Dahut.

Things like dense breasts and radiation to the chest can put you at higher risk for breast cancer.

Dr. Dahut said, that since 1989 breast cancer mortality has fallen by 43% but still there are around 43,000 women dying from the disease.

Our goal overall is for the exams to become much more personalized as far as your timing for screening, and sort of become more adaptable over time, said Dr. Dahut.

To help raise awareness and funds for cancer research KIRO 7 is a proud sponsor of the American Cancer Societys Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Seattle 5K walk.

Join us on October 21 at Gas Works Park at 8:30 a.m. For more information and to sign up, go here.

Along with the walk, Cierra Sisters is giving free mammograms for King County residents at the Rainier Beach Community Center on Oct. 21 from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

You can call 800-756-5437 to schedule an appointment.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is holding out hope voters in early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire could propel his longshot bid for president.

New Hampshire picks presidents, not pollsters and pundits, Burgum told a sparse crowd of Granite State voters at a town hall hosted by the USA TODAY Network last week, referencing the impact of the states traditional first-in-the-nation primary.

Five out of seven Republican nominees since 1976 won the New Hampshire primary, including former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump.

Youre the tip of the spear of America actually making a decision of whos the person for this moment, Burgum said.

So far, however, the governor has failed to make a mark on voters in the state. A recent Suffolk University/Boston Globe/USA TODAY New Hampshire poll found Burgum tied with former Vice President Mike Pence and ex-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson at 1%.

The story is much the same around the country. A Morning Consult survey conducted between Oct. 13-15 found Burgum in last place in the race, behind Hutchinson and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

With just three months to go until voters begin casting their ballots in primaries, heres a look at the appeals Burgum made to New Hampshire voters that could impact Americans across the country.

Prioritizing addiction and mental health

The addiction and mental health epidemic is deeply personal for Burgum and is among the top priorities he would tackle as president, he told voters at the town hall.

For America to reach its full potential, weve got to have a healthy population," Burgum said.

First and foremost, he believes addiction is the root cause of problems plaguing American communities, from homelessness to crime, and must be treated as a health care issue.

Thats why he supports rethinking reimbursement systems for mental health care and is calling on the private sector to get involved in funding solutions for substance use disorders.

Republican candidate Doug Burgum speaks at a town hall in Exeter, New Hampshire, hosted by USA TODAY.

Burgum's drive to address addiction across the country has also bled into his approach to the criminal justice system. In North Dakota, his administration has started treating prisons more like health care facilities that provide some incarcerated individuals the substance use disorder treatment they need to rejoin their communities.

This is not a Republican problem. It's not a Democrat problem. Addiction doesn't discriminate, Burgum told town hall attendees. If theres one bipartisan issue, its that we have to address this.

That perspective is largely shaped by his experience supporting his wife, Katherine Burgum, who fought alcohol abuse for close to three decades and has been in recovery for the last two. The North Dakota first lady started the nonprofit Recovery Reinvented, which aims to end stigma around addiction in the state.

Increasing U.S. energy independence

As governor of the third-largest crude oil-producing state, energy is another one of Burgums favorite topics, a focus on display in New Hampshire, where he continued to link the issue to national security.

Repeating statements hes made previously on the campaign trail, the Arthur, North Dakota, native derided what he described as a full-on assault of liquid fuels in this country by the Biden administration and criticized the movement toward electric vehicles for increasing U.S. reliance on Chinese-made car batteries.

To ensure U.S. energy independence, he contended that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management should allow energy-related activities, such as rare earth metal mining and oil and natural gas drilling, on the over 240 million acres of land it administers.

Oct 13, 2023; Exeter, NH, USA; Republican presidential candidate Doug Burgum speaks during the Seacoast Media Group and USA TODAY Network 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Town Hall Forum held in the historic Exeter Town Hall in Exeter, New Hampshire. The current Governor of North Dakota spoke to prospective New Hampshire voters about issues during the hour-long forum. Mandatory Credit: Jack Gruber-USA TODAY ORG XMIT: USAT-731985 ORIG FILE ID: 20231013_ajw_usa_090.JPG

That land belongs to all of you. It does not belong to a few unelected bureaucrats that are coming up with rules saying that it cant be touched," Burgum said in New Hampshire.

The governor previously opposed an effort by Biden to prevent oil and gas leasing on public lands that was suspended earlier this year by a U.S. District court.

Creating a path toward carbon neutrality

However, Burgum cautioned that his energy stances shouldnt be mistaken as anti-environmentalist.

If you care about the environment, then we should be supporting energy policies where we produce every drop of energy we can in the United States, he insisted.

In particular, the governor touted North Dakotas pledge to become carbon-neutral by 2030 and argued that the state would reach the goal not with mandates or regulations, but by leaning on renewable energy sources and innovations to decarbonize fossil fuels.

If elected president, Burgum suggested he would roll back regulations in the oil and gas industries but still support clean energy projects. For instance, he vowed to eliminate government permitting requirements he said were preventing a natural gas pipeline from being constructed between Pennsylvania and New England.

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Addiction solutions, climate goals: Doug Burgum makes his pitch in NH
For more than a year, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff has led the Biden administration's efforts to fight antisemitism. That project took a difficult turn this month. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Doug Emhoff had a job to do, but first he had to gather himself.

Four days earlier, on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, Hamas militants had launched a brutal surprise assault on Israel, killing more than 1,400 people. Vice President Kamala Harris and her boss, President Biden, had been fully briefed on the attacks the next morning, and she had called Israeli President Isaac Herzog to offer her condolences. Later that week, she told reporters she had been "completely outraged" by the "extreme acts of terrorism."

But Emhoff, Harris' husband and the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president, had a special role to play, he said in an interview this week with The Times.

For more than a year, Emhoff had led the Biden administration's efforts to fight antisemitism. The work was not always easy  last year, he represented the United States on a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau  but never before had he been called upon to reassure Jewish Americans in the wake of hundreds of killings of their co-religionists.

After Hamas' onslaught, the White House had hastily refashioned a previously scheduled roundtable Emhoff had planned to attend with Jewish leaders to be a more high-profile event. Biden would speak; national security advisor Jake Sullivan would be there. Emhoff  who, like most Jewish and Palestinian Americans, was dealing with what he called "very raw" feelings of his own  would have to attempt to comfort others.

As Biden and Emhoff waited to enter the room where they would address the Jewish leaders assembled for the roundtable, the president pulled the second gentleman aside, held his hands, and looked him in the eyes.

"How are you doing? How are you?" Biden asked Emhoff.

"It just got  it got me," Emhoff recalled, his eyes misty. "And then I had to go out and speak. And so you saw my raw emotion."

Read more: 'No war crimes in our name,' Jewish protesters say outside Kamala Harris' L.A. home

In his first public remarks since the Oct. 7 attacks, an emotional Emhoff spoke of his "deep, visceral connection to Israel and its people."

"We witnessed a mass murder of innocent civilians. It was a terrorist assault," he told the audience as he smashed his fist on the lectern he stood behind. Biden, with his hands in his pockets, stood next to Emhoff and listened.

"And there is never any justification for terrorism. There are no two sides to this issue," Emhoff added.

During his speech, Biden remarked that he could "see the pain in some of your faces" as he walked into the room. He fixed his gaze on Sheila Katz, chief executive of the National Council of Jewish Women, who was crying. "You OK, kiddo?" he asked.

"Well, your fear for family, friends back in Israel. You worry about kids being targeted in school about  about going about their daily lives. Youre hurt by the downplaying of Hamas atrocities and blaming Israel. This is unconscionable," Biden said.

Demonstrations over the Israel-Hamas conflict have roiled cities and college campuses. Different groups of protesters have gathered to express solidarity with Israel or Israelis, to support Palestinian civilians and to protest Israel's military campaign.

But going so far as to express support for a group like Hamas is wrong, Emhoff told The Times.

"In my personal opinion, speaking out in favor of terrorism is wrong," he said. "Hamas is a terrorist organization who committed terrorist atrocities to innocent people. And so that cannot be supported."

Read more: How L.A.'s Doug Emhoff became the White House's voice against antisemitism

In the days since the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel has laid siege to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, launching a series of airstrikes and cutting off the territory's access to water, power and basic supplies, a campaign that aid groups have warned is creating a humanitarian crisis. Israeli troops began preparing for a potential ground invasion of Gaza, where airstrikes have already killed around 3,500 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

In the U.S., details of Hamas atrocities and graphic images of the bloodied scenes they left behind in southern Israel have flooded social media, television screens and newspapers. Overwhelmed hospitals and Palestinian bodies strewn across the rubble in Gaza after Israeli airstrikes have also played on loop.

The onslaught of horrible events and imagery have left some Jewish and Palestinian Americans despairing of any hope for peace in the region.

Grief has weighed on Emhoff over the last 10 days, too. "It's just very raw for me as a Jew and as someone who has really put myself out there," he said.

But hopelessness has not overwhelmed him. Biden and Harris have continued to push him to speak out against bigotry and violence "because it's important," he said. "Despite how painful this is ... the outrage and just the sheer pain and shock of what's happening, I'm still going to keep doing what I'm doing  focus on fighting against hate and antisemitism and Islamophobia."

Federal authorities have heightened security in cities across the country over fears that the war could lead to antisemitic or Islamophobic violence. On Saturday, a week after the Simchat Torah attacks, a Chicago man was arrested in the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian Muslim boy in what authorities have called a hate crime. Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed 26 times and his mother was wounded.

"It's sick. I am sick about it," Emhoff said of the killing.

To survive this moment, and ensure hate doesn't further divide the country, Americans have to come together, Emhoff said.

"The most important thing is bringing groups together so we can fight against hate together," he said. "No one can fight alone, which is something that [Harris] taught me. ... There's nothing worse than feeling alone."

Get the best of the Los Angeles Times politics coverage with the Essential Politics newsletter.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Dozens of senators unveiled a resolution in solidarity with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which is approaching its fifth week striking against three major automakers.

Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) along with 31 other colleagues introduced a resolution Thursday calling for the Detroit automakers to negotiate in good faith and offer workers a fair contact.

The resolution is backed by one GOP senator: Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

For too long, CEOs and corporations have benefited at the expense of the hardworking Americans who build and power our Nation, Casey wrote in a statement Thursday. The Big 3 must come to the table with an offer that reflects that workers in Pennsylvania and across the Nation deserve.

UAW workers made sacrifices to save the American auto industry. Now the Big 3 are making record profits  all workers are asking for is their fair share, Brown added.

The three Democratic senators said they have joined the picket lines with the UAW, which began its historic strike against the three major Detroit automakers  Ford, General Motors (GM) and Stellantis  last month.

The union is demanding wage increases, cost-of-living pay raises, a 32-hour work week with 40 hours of pay, union representation of workers at new battery plants and the restoration of traditionally defined pensions for new hires.

The UAW has justified these wage demands by pointing to CEO pay raises in recent years, which have all reportedly surpassed at least $13 million.

Whereas the Big Three automakers are providing their Chief Executive Officers with exorbitant compensation packages while autoworkers continue to fall further and further behind, according to the resolution.

The union has also expressed concerns over the Biden administrations push for electric vehicles (EVs), which they say puts autoworkers jobs at risk.

UAW members initially began picketing at one assembly plant from each company, but they have since expanded to 38 parts warehouses at GM and Stellantis in hopes of adding pressure on manufacturers. The UAW later added another assembly plant at both GM and Ford.

Last week, around 8,700 workers walked out at the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville  Fords largest and most profitable plant  where F-250 and F-550 trucks are built along with some SUVs. The union said this came after Ford refused to negotiate further bargaining demands.

President Biden also joined the UAWs picket lines late last month, marking the first time a sitting president has done so. Standing with workers at UAW Local 174 in Michigan, Biden told the workers they deserve a hell of lot more than what theyre being paid.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
EL PASO, Texas (Border Report)  Truck traffic from Mexico flowed smoothly into El Paso on Wednesday, after almost a month of lengthy delays due to enhanced safety inspections by Texas Department of Public Safety personnel at the Ysleta and Tornillo ports of entry.

The inspections ended or were at least drastically curtailed since Tuesday, truckers and border industry leaders told Border Report.

On Tuesday, more than 3,400 trucks loaded with assembled components headed to U.S. distribution centers crossed from Juarez, Mexico, to El Paso, the president of the Juarez Maquiladora Association (INDEX), Sergio Colin Chavez, told Mexican news media. Only about 2,600 trucks were crossing the border daily last week, and that was after lengthy wait times, he said.

Border Industrial Association President and CEO Jerry Pacheco also said the enhanced Texas inspections had ended, but theres no official word on whether theyre going to bring them back.

Politics fueling Texas border truck inspections, county judge says

Border Report reached out to DPS for comment and is awaiting a response.

Pacheco said many Juarez factories opted to detour their truck shipments through New Mexico due to the delays in Texas. He agreed the inspections hindered cross-border commerce, regardless.

The stepped-up state inspections began last month, coinciding with a migrant surge that saw upwards of 4,000 foreign nationals cross between ports of entry in a two-day period in Eagle Pass, Texas, and large groups of people arriving by train to Juarez and almost immediately bolting for the border fence in El Paso. The mayor of El Paso said at the time the city was reaching a humanitarian breaking point due to the surge.

Bridge I into Eagle Pass to reopen to traffic on Monday, CBP says

Border industry leaders say factories in Mexico and their American customers and parent companies lost at least $2 billion in overtime wages for truckers, late deliveries and paying idle factory workers during the enhanced inspections, which are conducted by DPS after truckers are cleared to enter the country by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Trucker Alfredo Rodriguez said the inspections disrupted not only the flow of commerce but also the lives of those who bring the merchandise across the border.

Mexico: Texas truck inspections cost border plants over $1 billion

It affected our families. You go home, say hello, then have to leave again at 3 or 4 in the morning to wait in line (at the border), sometimes for up to 16 hours, Rodriguez said.

He called the inspections a punishment against Mexicans because of a migration situation they did not provoke.

In reality, they (DPS) didnt do anything. They had us waiting three to four hours, then they did an inspection, but it wasnt 100 percent. Thats why we say it was a punishment; they werent really inspecting us, he said.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

Ismael Ponce, another trucker bringing goods from Juarez maquiladoras to nationwide distribution centers in El Paso, said he is just glad commerce is back to normal on this stretch of U.S.-Mexico border.

He said he spent up to 18 hours in line at ports of entry during Texas enhanced inspections, as sometimes the port closed for the day, and he had no choice but to stay in line and sleep in the truck. On Wednesday, he was able to get across in about an hour.

Now were more relaxed. Were back to sleeping at home. We are back to normal, added Jose Castro, another trucker who had just cleared the Ysleta port on Wednesday.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
A driver has been arrested after a car crash that killed four university students in Malibu, California.

The group - who were all members of a sorority - were seniors at Pepperdine University about 25 miles (40km) west of downtown Los Angeles.

Officials say they were standing next to the Pacific Coast Highway when the driver lost control and slammed into parked vehicles that then struck them.

On Thursday, the university said the pupils may receive posthumous degrees.

The four women killed - Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir and Deslyn Williams - were in their final year at Pepperdine's Seaver College of Liberal Arts.

They were killed on Tuesday evening when a BMW driven by 22-year-old Fraser Bohm swerved off the road, police said.

All four were pronounced dead at the scene. Two others were taken to hospital and their condition is unknown.

Mr Bohm was arrested for vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence on Wednesday, but the sheriff's department later released him pending further investigation.

Investigators say they are still trying to determine whether he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the crash.

All four women were in their 20s and members of the Alpha Phi sorority on campus.

At a prayer service on Thursday morning, university provost Jay Brewster said all four women qualified to receive degrees at the end of the academic year due to their records of achievement.

Pepperdine is a private Christian university in the wealthy LA suburb of Malibu.

Weir, from Philadelphia, was studying English, according to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.

Rolston, from LA, was studying business and hoped to continue her studies after graduating in the spring. Her father says she was "always full of life".

Stewart came from New York and was studying business. Williams grew up in a suburb of Atlanta and hoped to become a veterinarian.

The Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) where the crash occurred has seen a number of fatalities in recent years.
Iraqis hold a mass rally supporting the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

BEIRUT (AP)  Coalition forces were slightly injured in Iraq in a spate of drone attacks over the last 24 hours at U.S. bases in Iraq as regional tensions flare following the deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza.

Two drones targeted the al Asad airbase in western Iraq used by U.S. forces and one drone targeted a base in northern Iraq, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. U.S. forces intercepted all three, destroying two but only damaging the third, which led to minor injuries among coalition forces at the western base, according to a statement Wednesday by U.S. Central Command.

The U.S. official were not authorized to speak publicly on the attacks and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In this moment of heightened alert, we are vigilantly monitoring the situation in Iraq and the region. U.S. forces will defend U.S. and coalition forces against any threat, Central Command said in the release.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have threatened to attack U.S. facilities there because of American support for Israel.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias, issued a statement afterward claiming responsibility for the two attacks and saying it heralds more operations against the American occupation.

The salvos came at a time of increasing tension and fears of a broader regional conflict in the wake of the latest Hamas-Israel war.

Since the beginning of the war on Oct. 7, much attention has been focused on Hezbollah, the powerful Hamas ally across Israels northern border in Lebanon, and its formidable arsenal. The group has traded so-far limited strikes with Israel on the border in recent days.

But Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have also threatened to attack U.S. facilities over American support for Israel.

Our missiles, drones, and special forces are ready to direct qualitative strikes at the American enemy in its bases and disrupt its interests if it intervenes in this battle, Ahmad Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, head of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement last Wednesday. He also threatened to launch missiles at Israeli targets.

Following Tuesday nights blast that killed hundreds at a hospital in Gaza, the group issued another statement in which it blamed the U.S. and its support for Israel for the catastrophe and called for an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq. Hamas has said the explosion in Gaza was from an Israeli airstrike, while Israel has blamed a misfired rocket by Palestinian militants.

These evil people must leave the country. Otherwise, they will taste the fire of hell in this world before the afterlife, the statement said.

A U.S. defense official, who wasn't authorized to comment to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the attack on the al-Asad military base in western Iraq.

Tashkil al-Waritheen, one of the Iranian-backed militias making up the larger group, claimed responsibility in a statement for a second drone attack, which it said had targeted the al-Harir airbase in northern Iraq. U.S. officials did not immediately comment on the claim of a second attack.

The government of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq said an intercepted drone crashed in an open area near the village of Batas.

Also on Wednesday, Iran-allied groups in Iraq announced that they had formed a joint operations room to help Hamas in its war effort.

Two officials with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, confirmed the attacks on the two bases Wednesday. They said the armed groups were on alert and prepared to join the wider battle against Israel, but that Iran had not yet given approval for them to open a new front. Leaders from some of the factions are now in Lebanon and Syria in case they get orders to proceed, one of the officials said.

Officials with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment.

Lahib Higel, a senior analyst for Iraq at the International Crisis Group, said in the short term, the Iraqi groups allied with Iran and Hamas are not likely to open a new front in the war, but that could change if the Hamas-Israel war escalates or becomes protracted.

Geographically, obviously, they are several steps removed, so theyre not going to be the first to react and are likely to serve in a supporting role, she said.

Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House, said the Iran-backed groups in Iraq are split between those that are also political parties and have a stake in the Iraqi political system and the vanguard groups that are purely militant and tend to be more tightly controlled by Iran.

The latter, he said, have been used in the past as foot sodiers in regional conflicts, including in Yemen and Syria.

This is what theyre designed to do, Mansour said. The question is more, will Iran and some of the leaders of these groups decide its in their interest to escalate?

___

Copp reported from Washington and Abdul-Zahra from Boston. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Salar Salim in Erbil contributed to this report.
Russian forces attacked the city of Sumy on Oct. 18 with Shahed drones, striking an infrastructure facility, the Sumy Oblast military administration reported.

The administration said that emergency services were working at the site of the attack.

No casualties were reported. The announcement did not specify which type of infrastructure facility suffered damage in the attack.

Earlier in the day, Russian forces shelled five communities along the Sumy Oblast border. The settlements of Bilopillia, Khotin, Velyka Pysarivka, Krasnopillia, and Shalyhyne came under fire from artillery, tank shelling, mortar attacks, and mines.

The administration reported no casualties or infrastructure damage in those attacks.

Sumy Oblast, which borders Russia, has been targeted by Russian forces on a near-daily basis since April 2022.

Ukraine has also been anticipating increased Russian attacks against energy infrastructure ahead of the winter season. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced $522 million in U.S. aid for energy assistance on Oct. 16.

"We are on the brink of a challenging winter," he said.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Putin holds talks with Xi; Lavrov says North Korea will help Moscow win

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
A drone strike targeted a U.S. base in Syria on Wednesday, the same day as the attempted drone attacks in Iraq, Fox News has learned.

A U.S. defense official told Fox News that an undisclosed number of drones targeted the U.S. Al-Tanf base, located near Syrias shared border with Iraq and Jordan.

Lebanon's Iran-aligned Al Mayadeen TV reported on Thursday that two U.S. military bases in Syria came under attack, Reuters reported. In addition to the drone attack on the Al-Tanf base, Al Mayadeen TV reported a missile targeted the Conoco base in the countryside of the northern Deir al-Zor region.

Also on Wednesday, there was an attempted drone attack on a U.S. base in Iraq.

BIDEN PUTS CONDITION ON HUMANITARIAN AID TO GAZA AS ISRAEL ALLOWS EGYPT TO DELIVER SUPPLIES

In Iraq, the U.S. intercepted three one-way attack drones, targeting two different military bases, U.S. Central Command confirmed.

As of Thursday morning, there was no official confirmation of either attack.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

It is unclear what injuries or damage to the base, if any, was caused. It is also not immediately clear how many drones were used or who was responsible.

IRAN SHARES CHILLING MESSAGE FOR ISRAEL AFTER GAZA HOSPITAL EXPLOSION: 'TIME IS OVER'

In Iraq, the U.S. intercepted three one-way attack drones, targeting two different military bases, two defense officials confirmed to Fox News. U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) later confirmed the attack.

Two drones targeted the Ain al-Asad air base in Western Iraq, where American troops are located. Minor injuries among the coalition forces were reported.

Two drones targeted the Ain al-Asad air base in Western Iraq, where American troops are located. Minor injuries among the coalition forces were reported.

Another drone targeted a base in northern Iraq, according to USCENTCOM. No injuries were reported.

"In the last 24 hours, the U.S. military defended against three drones near U.S. and Coalition forces in Iraq. In western Iraq, U.S. forces engaged two drones, destroying one and damaging the second, resulting in minor injuries to Coalition forces. Separately in northern Iraq, U.S. forces engaged and destroyed a drone, resulting in no injuries or damage. We are continuing to assess the impacts to operations," USCENTCOM said.

It added, "In this moment of heightened alert, we are vigilantly monitoring the situation in Iraq and the region. We want to emphasize U.S. forces will defend U.S. and Coalition forces against any threat."

The U.S. currently has about 900 U.S. forces in Syria and 2,500 troops in Iraq, U.S. officials confirmed to Fox News. The officials declined to say who was responsible for operating the drones.

A view of the surroundings of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital after it was hit in Gaza City, Gaza on Oct. 18, 2023. Over 500 people were killed on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, said Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra. According to the Palestinian authorities, Israeli army is responsible for the deadly bombing.

The drone attacks in Syria and Iraq came after a blast at Gaza City's Al-Ahli Hospital reportedly killed hundreds of civilians, stirring tensions in the region. Hamas immediately blamed the explosion on an Israeli airstrike, leading some immediately to condemn what was believed to be a strike on a civilian target.

The Israeli Defense Forces has since offered evidence, including surveillance photos, videos of the explosion and internal audio between Hamas operatives that all suggest a misfired rocket from Palestinian terrorists caused the explosion.

President Biden also said, citing U.S. intelligence, that Israel was not at fault.

Terror groups in the region have also said they would intentionally strike U.S. targets if the U.S. gets involved in the conflict. Biden visited Tel Aviv on Wednesday and reiterated support for Israel.

Fox News' Liz Friden, Chris Pandolfo, Danielle Wallace and The Associated Press contributed to this update.





Original article source: Drone strikes target US military bases in Syria, Iraq as regional tensions from Israel-Hamas War escalate
Damaged halloween decorations in the 3600 block of North Hoyne Avenue, in Chicago, on Oct. 17, 2023. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

A person of interest being questioned in the recent acts of igniting fall and Halloween decorations on the North Side was released, and the search for the culprit continues, Chicago police said.

Detectives are still searching for the person responsible for burning fall and Halloween displays on lawns and porches. The last arson happened in the North Center neighborhood on a porch that damaged a home, police said.

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Wednesday police were questioning a person of interest who has been released.
Duncan Baker MP is accused of "inconsistent" and "puzzling" support for nature by environmental group

Campaigners opposed to the construction of a link road have criticised an MP for his "inconsistent" support of the environment.

Stop Wensum Link (SWL) said it was "puzzled" by Duncan Baker's support of woodland bats in his North Norfolk constituency, but not of a rare colony just outside Norwich.

It follows the Conservative MP's decision to back the 3.9-mile (6.2km) Norwich Western Link to connect the Northern Distributor Road (NDR) to the A47.

Mr Baker said the link was a "major piece of critical Norfolk infrastructure".

SWL and environmentalists described the destruction of woodland at Ringland, to make way for the link, as being catastrophic for the UK's largest population of rare barbastelle bats.

On social media the group said Mr Baker appeared "genuinely concerned about the environment by promoting the preservation of dark skies and tackling light pollution, which greatly impact nocturnal wildlife".

But, they added, he held "conflicting stances", after advocating North Norfolk District Council reduces 350 homes planned for his constituency to "stop woodland being bulldozed".

The woods support bats, badgers and other wildlife.

The new link road will cut through woodland housing a rare barbastelle bat colony at Ringland, near Norwich

SWL said given his position, they were "puzzled" over his support for the construction of the Norwich Western Link road, "which poses a threat to woodlands and a super colony of barbastelle bats residing there".

"This raises doubts about whether his concern for Norfolk's environment extends beyond what directly affects him and his immediate surroundings," the group said.

Digitally-generated images of the link road which will be partly-funded by the government

In response, the MP, who is a member of the Environmental Audit Select Committee, said: "It's very important to me to try and improve nature protections where we can.

"I have a 350-home housing scheme in North Walsham and with some very minor design changes we can protect the wooded area and nature that lives on that small copse to take account of the biodiversity it contains."

He said his support for the Norwich Western Link was because it "had the potential to shave up to 20 minutes off ambulance response times into the west of north Norfolk."

"I represent Wells which has some of the slowest ambulance response times in the country," he said.

"If I can save people's lives from say strokes or heart attacks, that is incredibly positive and is why I want to see the road built. To potentially save my residents' lives."

Mr Baker also said the bypass needed completing due to the economic benefits for business, as well as people living in villages blighted by traffic.

Follow East of England news on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 0800 169 1830
Name: Edwin Quarles

Age: 56

Campaign website or social media page: electedwinquarles.com

Occupation: Retired

Education: After more than 30 years of being in a college classroom, I am again a full-time college student.

Have you run for elected office before? (Please list previous offices sought):

No.

Please list your highlights of civic involvement.

I am a 21-year volunteer at CMS I birthed the Hopewell High School Men of Honor Program; I am an active member of Hopewell High School Dads on Duty; Active participant in Blessing Bags Ministry feeding the homeless; Member of United Missionary Baptist Church Association; NAACP; Black Political Caucus Member; African American Caucus Member; and Active Member of Unity in Community.

What one professional or political accomplishment are you most proud of?

One of my most professional accomplishments was me serving in the United States Air Force where I was awarded Non Commissioned Officer of the Year, as well as me serving in Desert Storm.

Traffic is an issue in Huntersville while a few critical road projects, such as the widening of N.C. 73, have been delayed by NCDOT. How would you tackle the towns traffic problem?

I would first meet with the small business owners as well as the residents and advocate for them. I will be their voice to whomever is in charge at NCDOT and demand an answer(s) to the why projects such as the widening of NC 73 have been delayed. My platform is accountability. After or even if the person in charge at NCDOT refuses to meet/communicate with me speaking with, I would hold a community hall meeting and share all findings. Holding those accountable and bringing exposure will render changes to those who are responsible. I would definitely tackle the towns traffic problem by reminding the residents that they are the voice and they need to be heard. They need to know why!

What are your ideas about how the town should recruit and retain more police officers specifically? And all town employees more broadly?

My ideas about how the town should recruit and retain more police officers and all town employees more broadly will be to sit with the Chief of Police as well as with the Town Manager and implement a strategic plan as well as an execution plan. In the plan we will make sure salaries are comparable to the next largest city of Huntersville. We should have salaries that are suitable so our police officers and town employees can afford to live in the town that he/she works. This recruiting and retention tool can incentivize town employees by realizing they can have more dollars from their salary by not having to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars from their paycheck annually to commute to and from another town or city for work. Also, having a shorter commute will allow the employee more quality time with family and others. Those are just two recruiting tools that are many times overlooked in recruitment money and time.

Huntersville has experienced rapid population growth over the last few decades with the approval of hundreds of new homes. Do you think the town should control growth in some way or keep expanding? Why?

I think Huntersville should slow down in regards to growth of new homes and develop more mixed use retail with flex space, and larger multi use parks. The rapid home developments are prohibiting future business growth in Huntersville, which is much needed. We need more tax dollars to come in. The home development is taking away tax dollars that can be used to make Huntersville the best place to live in North Carolina. Home tax assessments are not going to pay the towns bills.

Why should voters choose you over others who are in the race?

Voters should choose me over others, first because I am a servant of the Lord; secondly, because I am a veteran who served our country honorably in the United States Air Force; thirdly, I have been a community servant in Huntersville for more than 20 years as a volunteer; fourthly, I want to now serve my great town as a leader. I married into a family that has more than 100 years of family history living in Huntersville. I am a land owner and Huntersville is my forever home. I have also willed our land to our children and grandchildren. Voters should vote for me, because I am fully vested in Huntersville. They should also vote for me because I have more than 35 years of leadership experience. Voters should vote for me because I have proven skills to lead, build relationships, plan, negotiate, solve problems, execute, collaborate, and advocate for others. Voters should vote for me because I am not running for town commissioner because I have aspirations for a future higher office. They should vote for me because if a voter is looking for someone who will serve with dignity and honor; is a leader; collaborator; advocate; good listener and problem solver, then I am the candidate the voter should vote for.
FILE PHOTO: Trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egyptian NGOs for Palestinians, wait for the reopening of the Rafah crossing at the Egyptian side

By Yusri Mohamed, Aidan Lewis and Simon Lewis

CAIRO/WASHINGTON, Egypt (Reuters) -The United States was still hammering out details of a deal with Israel and Egypt on Thursday to get aid into the Palestinian Gaza Strip as Egypt sent machinery to repair roads in expectation the Rafah crossing would soon open.

Rafah is the only crossing out of Gaza not controlled by Israel but has been out of operation for nearly two weeks since Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. Israel has bombarded the enclave in retaliation, worsening conditions for the 2.3 million people living there under a blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.

The White House said on Wednesday it had been agreed for up to 20 trucks to pass through, with hopes for more trucks later.

However, the newly appointed U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues David Satterfield was on Thursday still meeting Israeli and Egyptian officials to "negotiate the exact modalities" of that agreement, said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

"We want to see sustained humanitarian assistance going into Gaza for the benefit of innocent civilians," Miller said.

Miller said Israel had concerns that Hamas could divert the aid, which Washington believed were legitimate.

Diplomatic activity around the opening of the Rafah crossing has intensified, with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi receiving the top U.S. general overseeing troops in the Middle East as well as King Abdullah of Jordan, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling in Cairo for aid to be delivered at scale and on a sustained basis.

Egypt is also hosting a summit on Saturday on the Gaza crisis and the future of the Palestinian issue, which Guterres is expected to attend.

"Egypt seeks to bring in the humanitarian aid piled up in front of the Egyptian side, and for this entry to be continuous, permanent and without interruption," Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, speaking alongside Guterres.

Most of Gaza's residents depended on aid before the current conflict started and about 100 trucks daily were providing humanitarian relief to the enclave, according to the United Nations.

DAMAGED ROADS

More than 100 trucks were waiting close to the crossing on the Egyptian side on Thursday, though it was not expected that aid would enter before Friday, Egyptian security sources said. More aid is being held in the Egyptian city of Al Arish, about 45 km (28 miles) from Rafah.

Footage broadcast by Al Jazeera showed large craters, broken paving and damaged buildings inside the crossing area.

Western governments have been negotiating for the evacuation of foreign passport holders from Gaza, something Egyptian officials have conditioned on aid getting in. Details of potential evacuations are unclear.

Egypt has been clear it opposes any mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, reflecting Arab fears that Palestinians could once more permanently flee or be forced from their homes as they were in the war around Israel's creation.

Cairo is also wary of security in northeastern Sinai, where an Islamist insurgency intensified a decade ago, and of any spillover from Hamas-controlled Gaza.

On Wednesday, after talks with U.S. President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel would not block aid for civilians entering Gaza from Egypt, as long as those supplies do not reach Hamas.

The agreement was reached after U.S. top diplomat Antony Blinken spent 9 hours on Monday trying to convince Netanyahu and Israel's war cabinet to agree to let aid pass through, but even after much back and forth, Israel was yet to provide assurances to refrain from striking the Rafah crossing.

Israel said it would continue a blockade of humanitarian aid from Israel into Gaza until hostages held by Hamas were returned.

Israel's bombardment and siege of Gaza is in retaliation for a Hamas incursion into Israel on Oct. 7 during which 1,400 people were killed and at least 200 hostages were taken.

The toll from Israeli strikes on Gaza has risen to more than 3,500 dead and more than 12,000 wounded, according to Palestinian health officials.

(Reporting by Yusri Mohamed, Aidan Lewis and Mohamed Ahmed Hassan and by Simon Lewis in Washington; additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Janet Lawrence, Deepa Babington and Grant McCool)
An attorney for Donald Trump must join the bar of a Washington, D.C., federal appellate court before he can participate in the former president's appeal of a partial gag order, the court said in a Wednesday letter. Trump lawyers John Lauro and Todd Blanche on Tuesday filed a notice of appeal in response to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan imposing an order barring parties in Trump's D.C. criminal case from making inflammatory public remarks about staff, potential witnesses and the prosecution.

In the letter to Lauro, the clerk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit informed him he must obtain membership in the court's bar before the court will accept any of his filings. "Our records reveal that you are not a member of the bar of this court," the letter states per The Messenger, adding, "Our rules do not allow us to accept filings from attorneys who are not members." Lauro's application to join the bar is due by Nov. 2, the clerk added. Ive been a member of the DC bar and the federal trial court bar for nearly 40 years," Lauro told The Messenger. "This is a routine request from the federal appellate court to join its bar, which I will do in order to represent President Trump in this important matter.

"Woke up to find out that Trumps lawyers are not licensed to practice in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Thats such a Trumpy thing," Georgia State law professor Eric Segall wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Embarrassing," added former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller's team. But national security attorney Bradley Moss downplayed the issue. "Oh cmon, folks. Its an administrative issue that will quickly be remedied," he tweeted. Court records show that Trump's appeal has been docketed and assigned a case number.
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff met Thursday with an American survivor of the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, a White House official said.

Emhoff met with Natalie Sanandaji, who was at a music festival in Israel earlier this month when it was targeted by Hamas, leaving hundreds dead. Sanandaji safely returned to the United States following the attacks.

A White House official said Emhoff relayed President Biden and Vice President Harriss steadfast support of Israel, the need to provide humanitarian aid to innocent civilians, and the Biden-Harris Administrations commitment to combat antisemitism and hate of all kinds.

More than 1,400 Israelis died in terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed or injured in subsequent strikes on Gaza. More than two dozen Americans were among those killed, and several U.S. citizens are still unaccounted for.

Emhoff, who is Jewish, has frequently been the face of the administrations fight against antisemitism.

Emhoff joined Biden last week in a meeting with Jewish community leaders, delivering emotional remarks about the terrorist attacks and speaking about his deep, visceral connection to Israel and its people.

Biden traveled to Israel on Wednesday in a show of solidarity. While in Tel Aviv, Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and survivors of the Hamas attacks.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Time exacts a heavy toll after 14 years and 84,000 miles on harsh New Jersey roads.

The end of the road is rapidly approaching for Zufall Health Center's mobile medical van, which delivers health services to underserved, low-income and immigrant patients throughout North and Central Jersey.

The good news is a fund drive to replace the 38-foot biodiesel-powered bus is off to a fast start. But with a price tag of $500,000, the Dover-based nonprofit organization, which serves an estimated 44,000 patients annually, is reaching out for sponsors and public support.

The Zufall Health Centers Highlands Health Van.

"Rust has seriously damaged Zufall Health's medical van, corroding the frame and weakening the undercarriage's ability to support the generator and water tanks," Zufall CEO Frances Palm told the Daily Record this week. "As a result, we've had to invest in costly emergency repairs, causing disruptions to our clinical operations."

Palm hosted a Be Well benefit event last week at Brooklake Country Club in Florham Park, where $200,000 was raised to kick off the medical-van fund drive.

"This is something that perhaps I will be able to help them with through potentially an allocation in next year's state budget," said state Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco, who attended the benefit. The Republican's district includes Dover and Morristown, both of which have a Zufall clinic.

Dr. Robert Zufall and his wife, Kathryn, opened a small community clinic in Dover in 1990 to provide medical care to poor, mostly immigrant families. The system has grown to include 12 service sites in 10 towns as well as the Highlands Health Van and Delta Dental mobile units. Zufall also operates in Sussex, Warren, Hunterdon, Somerset, Middlesex and Essex counties.

"I've been a longtime supporter of the Zufall clinic, which started out in a small storefront in Dover and now has grown to just a really fabulous organization, providing health care for those in need," Bucco said.

The van, essentially a hospital on wheels, allows Zufall to reach patients who cannot get to one of its clinics. Van breakdowns result in missed appointments.

More: Overcrowding, understaffed fire department are focus of Dover mayor's debate

Zufall staff produced a video highlighting the van's mission, including testimonials from those who have benefitted from the service.

"Securing a new, dependable van will allow Zufall Health to reach vulnerable patients cost-effectively and without interruptions," Palm said.

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) is another big supporter of the service, which operates in much of her district.

Time and again, I am so impressed by Zufalls ability to expand access to affordable, high-quality care," Sherrill said. "They do so with compassion and kindness that I know makes a positive impact on all corners of our community. A new mobile health van would ensure they can continue to provide access and care for residents throughout NJ-11. I am proud to support the work they do.

But in terms of additional federal funding for the van, Sherrill could make no promises.

"In terms of federal funding, a healthcare provider looking to replace a mobile care van wouldve made a great community project," Sherrill said. But House Republicans, who hold the majority in the chamber, have restricted funding for community health projects, she said.

Turbiner honored

The Be Well Benefit also honored former president and CEO Eva Turbiner, who oversaw Zufall's growth over the past 16 years.

Turbiner last year beat the medical van into retirement. Palm was hired as her replacement earlier this year following a nationwide search.

Zufall president and CEO Frances L. Palm, left, presents her predecessor Eva Turbiner with the Founders Award for her 16 years of leadership at Zufall.

"[Thanks to Turbiner], Zufall Health is one of the largest health centers in New Jersey and ranks within the top 10% nationwide in clinical outcomes," Palm said at the benefit. "That was not an accident. That took vision, drive, creativity, tenacity, and leadership."

Palm presented Turbiner with the organization's Founders Award.

"[When I came to Zufall], it was my intention to build a comprehensive system of care that would identify and respond to community needs wherever we found them," Turbiner said. "It was always our philosophy that we had to bring services to needy communities and not expect that our patients would come to one big building in Dover."

Zufall spokesperson Lauren McGrath said the organization will continue fundraising efforts for the van with a Giving Tuesday campaign scheduled for Nov. 28, and an end-of-year appeal.

William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com Twitter: @wwesthoven

This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Dover NJ nonprofit needs $500K to replace medical van for needy
WARSAW, Poland  The Estonian Centre for Defence Investments has awarded contracts to Turkish manufacturers Otokar and Nurol Makina to purchase roughly 230 armored vehicles for a total of about 200 million (U.S. $211 million), the agency announced.

Deliveries are scheduled to begin next year as Estonia accelerates its military modernization efforts in the aftermath of Russias invasion of Ukraine. Estonian officials said getting new rides as soon as possible was a key factor in deciding in favor of the Turkish offerings.

The new armored vehicles will be acquired for the 2nd Infantry Brigade of the Defence Forces, which has not previously had wheeled armored vehicles, the Estonian center said in a statement. Furthermore, additional armored vehicles will be purchased for the 1st Infantry Brigade and the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Centre of the Estonian Rescue Board.

Nurol Makina will supply its four-wheel drive NMS vehicles to Estonia, and Otokar will deliver its six-wheel drive Arma vehicles.

In a statement, Otokar said its contract is worth about 130 million, including maintenance, equipment and training, with deliveries of the vehicles planned to be initiated in the second half of 2024 and completed by 2025.

Under the plan, the 1st and 2nd infantry brigades will operate the four-wheel drive vehicles, while the 2nd Infantry Brigade will receive the six-wheel drive vehicles, according to the statement.

The vehicles are to be fitted with 12.7mm heavy machine guns and smoke grenade launchers, among other systems, the Estonian agency said.

Karmo Saar, the category manager for air, sea and combat vehicles at the Estonian center, said that nine companies from six countries submitted bids in the contest.

In an earlier statement, the Estonian institution did not disclose the names of all of the involved companies, but did say that, in addition to Turkey, the bidders are based in Finland, France, Italy, Israel and Spain.

The signed contracts have a duration of 10 years and provide Estonia with an option to acquire additional vehicles and spare parts, according to the center.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission on Thursday said it had fined five pharmaceutical companies for a total of 13.4 million euros ($14.1 million) in a settlement of an antitrust investigation.

The commission fined Alkaloids of Australia, Alkaloids Corporation, Boehringer, Linnea and Transo-Pharm for participating in a cartel aimed at fixing the minimum price of an ingredient to produce the abdominal antispasmodic drug Buscopan and its generic versions.

($1 = 0.9489 euros)

(Reporting by Bart Meijer, Editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout)
FILE PHOTO: MSF ship Geo Barents heads towards Italy after rescuing of migrants off the Libyan coast in the central Mediterranean

By Gabriela Baczynska, Marine Strauss and Julia Payne

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Ministers from across the European Union said on Thursday that member states must screen migrants and asylum seekers better and expel those deemed a security risk more quickly, after Islamist attacks highlighted persistent difficulties.

Interior and justice ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss what steps to take following deadly attacks in Brussels and France, at a time of heightened security concerns linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

"It is an absolutely a necessity that we make sure that European Union is safe from terrorist threats," said EU migration commissioner Ylva Johansson . "People who pose a security risk to the European Union need to be much, much more quickly returned to the country of origin."

"We also need to make sure that we don't have any violent anti-Semitism or violent Islamophobia... that all our citizens could feel safe in the European Union."

The 45-year-old Tunisian gunman who killed two Swedish football fans in the Belgian capital on Monday was staying there illegally after his asylum request had been denied.

He reached the EU via the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2011 and also lived in Sweden. He was shot dead by Belgian police.

The attack in Brussels - which Johansson said was "a wake-up call" - underlined persistent failings of the EU's troubled migration and asylum systems, including security gaps and ineffective returns. Only about a fifth of people whose asylum cases fail in Europe are actually sent away.

In France, the 20-year-old, Russian-born Islamist Ingush accused of stabbing to death a teacher last Friday was known before the attack to be a possible security risk but could not have been expelled under current legislation, authorities said.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said there should be no "naivety" on repatriations and joined many of his peers in calling for the swift implementation of the EU's much-discussed new migration rules.

Proponents of this looming overhaul of the EU's migration and asylum policies - expected to be finalised this year - say it would improve the situation, including by facilitating quicker repatriations of foreigners with criminal records.

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

Thursday's meeting was the ministers' first chance to discuss the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas, to which Israel has responded by bombarding Gaza. Gaza health officials say bombing has so far killed more than 3,700 people.

The ministers took no specific decisions but considered what developments could cause Palestinians to flee in large numbers, or trigger violent acts inside the bloc.

"The EU is following very closely the situation in Palestine and whether anyone is leaving. So far it does not look like anyone would be," said Finland's Interior Minister Mari Rantanen.

"We are trying to get aid close to the crisis centres and in that way prevent large masses from heading here."

The EU, a bloc of 450 million people, has recorded some 250,000 irregular arrivals this year, in large part aided by smugglers, something Italy, Spain and Germany have recently voiced concern about.

There is also a new push for deals with African countries - including Egypt and Morocco - akin to the one the EU has sealed with Tunisia, offering aid in exchange for Tunis bringing down departures for Europe.

Critics of the EU's new migration and asylum policies doubt they would be effective and point to growing risks to human rights while focus is on deterring unauthorised immigration.

.($1 = 0.9488 euros)

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, Marine Strauss, Julia Payne, Bart Meijer in Brussels, Essi Letho in Helsinki; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska and Ingrid Melander; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Alison Williams and Sharon Singleton)
Brick by brick, Donald Trump s house of lies keeps crumbling. Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell , one of the primary instigators of election fraud claims, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges from the Georgia election interference case against Trump.

Originally charged with at least seven felony charges, Powell took a deal in Fulton County Superior Court, pleading guilty to six misdemeanors: five counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties and one count of conspiracy to commit theft by taking.

Powell is sentenced to six years of probation, a $6,000 fine, $2,700 in restitution and an order to write an apology letter. Most significantly, she must testify against about a dozen other co-defendants.

After the November 2020 election, Trump refused to accept the results in several key states. Powell was a primary player in originating and spreading the idea that the election results were fraudulent and that a bevy of conspiracies were at play. Trump praised Powells involvement in his election claims, tweeting that she was part of a team of wonderful lawyers and representatives.

Such claims were red meat for Trumps MAGA fanbase in North Texas. Heider Garcia, former Tarrant County elections administrator, mentioned Powells absurd claims last year in written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani made baseless accusations of voter fraud and manipulation of election results, Garcia wrote.

The idea of election fraud and conspiracy never held any weight in court, even with Republican-appointed judges  truly the most compelling piece of evidence that the election results were solid and final and that Trump needed to move on. Such claims definitely never held any weight in Texas, especially Tarrant County, but that didnt stop three Republican leaders  Sheriff Bill Waybourn, County Judge Tim OHare and District Attorney Phil Sorrells  from forming a new election fraud unit earlier this year. These actions only sow seeds of doubt about election integrity.

Neither Powell nor Trump ever accepted the results of the election. When Trumps legal team began losing cases, after court bids in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Georgia, to prevent those states from certifying their vote totals, Powell doubled-down on the claims.

In a November 2020 news conference Powell, alongside Giuliani and Ellis, said that there was a server with evidence of voting irregularities in Germany, created at the behest of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, and the software in key states switched votes for Trump to Joe Biden. You cannot make this up.

Georgias probably going to be the first state Im going to blow up, and Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state need to go with it, she said, claiming her bizarre lawsuits were biblical.

"We will not be intimidated...We are going to clean this mess up now. President Trump won by a landslide. We are going to prove it. And we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom."Sidney Powell pic.twitter.com/8KCEOGuL7w  GOP (@GOP) November 19, 2020

Soon after that, even the Trump team began to distance from Powell, but it didnt really stick. Her face and her baseless, insane theories will forever be aligned with the Trump campaign and their efforts to disenfranchise millions of voters.

Powells flip may help Trump defenders and his MAGA fanbase, who will claim that she only went back on her conspiracies because she needed the plea deal. But that doesnt change the fact that Powell turned on Trump nonetheless and that her claims never held up in court from the start.

Powells claims led Republican Texans sympathetic to Trump on a wild goose chase of conspiracy theories and election fraud. MAGA voters almost seemed like they wanted to find evidence of fraud to prove Trump right  but there never has been. Election integrity is vital to a thriving democracy, but continually pressing claims of fraud or conspiracy only breeds distrust.

Powell and Trump didnt care if Texas voters  or any other Republicans  doubted their states voting systems so long as it sowed doubt, fear and anxiety. And if it propelled voters to stick with Trump.

This should be the final straw for Republicans still holding on to a shred of hope that Trump actually won in 2020 election and deserves to be commander in chief again. He does not. This proves it.

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A police officer looks on as dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters rally outside State of Illinois offices at 555 W. Monroe on Oct. 27, 2023. The protesters chanted for a free Palestine as they locked arms outside several of the entrances to the building. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

Thousands of people demonstrated Wednesday in Chicagos Federal Plaza and in front of the Israeli Consulate in support of Palestinians who are dying in the intensifying clash in the Middle East.

Wednesdays gathering was the third protest in a week organized by Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine in support of the Palestinian cause. The demonstrations have drawn thousands to the Loop to condemn mounting fatalities in the war between Israel and Hamas, a terrorist group, and call for Palestinian sovereignty.

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On Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said more than 500 died at a Gaza City hospital in a strike that Israel blamed on Hamas misfiring a rocket while Hamas attributed the blast to the Israelis.

Before the blast, about 2,800 Palestinians had been reported killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. An additional 1,200 people are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said. An Oct. 7 attack by Hamas left about 1,400 Israelis dead and almost 200 taken hostage.

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One million people have been displaced in about 10 days, according to the United Nations.

Tammy Abughnaim, 32, stood near Alexander Calders Flamingo sculpture in her work scrubs. Abughnaim, a doctor, attended the rally to condemn Tuesdays deaths at the hospital. Her sign read hospitals are not targets.

Life is sacred, and as a physician I spend all of my time trying to save lives, she said. There has to be a limit to what youre able to condone.

Abughnaim said she had been planning to travel to Gaza to assist with medical training through the nonprofit MedGlobal before violence broke out. We had to scrap that trip, she said. So this is intensely personal to me right now.

Another woman who asked to only be identified by her first name, Raya, attended the rally with her mother and a collection of signs. One of them read stop murdering children.

You have dead children, orphaned children and parents without children anymore (in Gaza), she said, her voice catching. Im here for the children.

Raya, 30 and her mother Rena, 60, said they have family in Gaza. Every time we call them they say so far, we are still alive, Rena said.

Lynn Pollack, 71, and Lynne Kavin, 56, stood together with a sign that said Jews say stop genocide of Palestinians. Both organize with the activist organization Jewish Voice for Peace, which identifies itself as anti-Zionist and has called for a cease-fire in the Middle East.

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Pollack and Kavin said they felt it was important to attend the rally because of the huge role American Jews have in the conflict.

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Its American Jews who are enabling this to go on, Pollack said. We have to show the world that Israel doesnt represent every Jew; the Israeli government doesnt speak for us.

The pair had attended the two previous protests by Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, and they plan to continue attending until it stops, Pollack said.

Rally organizers and guest speakers took turns at the microphone to call for an end to U.S. military aid to the Israeli government and mourn the dead before the crowd set off toward the Israeli consulate.

The crowd spanned three blocks and marched north on Dearborn before turning onto Madison, eventually reaching the Israeli Consulate at 500 W. Madison St.

As the crowd screamed in front of the Accenture Tower, three men and four women paused at Madison and Canal streets to pray. Droves of Palestinian flags fluttered behind the prayer groups as diners in a nearby restaurant looked on.

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As night fell and the protest continued in front of the consulate, other groups took turns praying on the sidewalk. Their chants mingled with the beating drums, clapping and demonstrators shouts of from the river, to the sea, Palestine will be free.

ckubzansky@chicagotribune.com
PLANT CITY, Fla. - Police arrested Miguel Rodriguez Jr, a former law enforcement officer, for a hit-and-run crash that happened on Labor Day weekend.

A man in Plant City riding his bike never made it home after he was killed during the violent crash.

Now new evidence in the case revealed how police were able to track down Rodriguez and put him behind the wheel that night.

Miguel Rodriguez Jr. was arrested after hitting and killing and man on a bicycle.

Court documents showed that on the night of Sept. 3, 2023, Rodriguez was driving eastbound on Airport Road in Plant City.

RELATED: Arrest made in Plant City hit-and-run crash, suspect facing multiple charges

The bicyclist was westbound. They said Rodriguez crossed over lanes crashing into the victim head on.

The impact was so severe, it split the bicycle in three parts. But, instead of stopping to help, Rodriguez kept going.

Investigators said there was plenty of evidence at the crime scene, including a car part with a serial number on it that lead them directly to Rodriguez.

The bicycle broke in three pieces and there was human matter on Rodriguez's car.

Once at his home, police spotted a Jeep on his driveway with significant front end damage. Bjorn Brunvand, a criminal defense attorney in Tampa, who is not connected to this case explained what the evidence shows.

"There appears to be evidence that the accident took place. He apparently acknowledged that the accident took place. Theres human matter on his car and driveway. And it makes it very complicated," explained Brunvand.

PREVIOUS: Plant City man killed in hit-and-run crash, driver facing decades in prison if convicted

Police say Rodriguez admitted to driving the vehicle that night and hitting something, but he didnt think it was a person. However, documents showed that police went through his cell phone, and they say theres evidence proving he did know.

Text messages may reveal more evidence.

Brunvand said the facts dont look good for Rodriguez.

"Knowing he was involved in an accident and failure to further investigate whether you do it at the scene or you do it when you get home, is troubling," said Brunvand.

FOX 13 interviewed long-time neighbor, Jose Ocanas. He confirmed that Rodriguez grew up in Plant City and even served in the military.

The crash happened on Airport Road in Plant City.

He left Florida to work in law-enforcement in the Carolinas and recently came back home after becoming a new father. He vouched for Rodriguez and said if he knew he hit a person he wouldve stopped to help. However, the evidence may show something different.

The Hillsborough State Attorneys Office continues to investigate this case. So far, Rodriguez faces one charge of leaving the scene of a crash involving death and driving with a suspended license.
Marc Weiss, 48, of Charlotte, pleaded guilty to wire fraud Wednesday for embezzling approximately $1.6 million from two Mooresville companies, announced Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

READ: Feds to seize of 2 homes owned by NC woman accused of healthcare fraud

Weiss was a bookkeeper for the companies between 2016 and 2022, according to court documents.

He had access to the companies financial accounts and made more than 120 fraudulent transfers totaling $1.6 million from the companies accounts into bank accounts under Weisss control.

Weiss created fake entries in the victim companies books and records and categorized the fraudulent transfers as payments to existing vendors for software development, and advertising and marketing expenses.

He said in court he used that money on a luxury apartment in Charlotte, high-end vehicles, and to pay for travel and vacations.

Weiss was released on bond after Wednesdays plea hearing.

The wire fraud charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. A sentencing date has not been set.

VIDEO: Charlotte business owner indicted in $1.2M COVID loan fraud scheme
FILE PHOTO: Former Indonesian education minister Anies Baswedan talks to reporters after voting in the Jakarta governor election in Jakarta

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Anies Baswedan, a former governor of the capital Jakarta, on Thursday handed over documents to the election commission to register as a candidate for next year's presidential election.

Anies, 54, signed up for the contest on the opening day of registration, along with running mate Muhaimin Iskandar, leader of Indonesia's biggest Islamic party, PKB.

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by Martin Petty)
A former executive at an Ohio zoo pleaded guilty in a multi-million fraud case Thursday.

Greg Bell, the former Columbus Zoo and Aquarium Chief Financial Officer, pleaded guilty to 14 felony charges, including aggravated theft, conspiracy, and tampering with records, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

>> Coroner seeking help identifying body found in Dayton

The charges were connected to his role in a scheme to defraud the zoo and the public of more than $2.29 million.

Bell was indicted last month with two other former zoo executives, Chief Executive Officer Tom Stalf and Marketing Director Pete Fingerhut.

His sentencing wont be scheduled until the ongoing case against the other executives is concluded.
The News

Former Donald Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty on Thursday in the case out of Georgia that accused her of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

Powell took the plea deal just before jury selection was set to begin in her trial in Fulton County.

She pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit election interference. She is set to serve six years of probation, pay a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution, and write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia. She also must testify truthfully at any future trial related to the case.

Powell was originally facing seven charges, including racketeering and a range of conspiracy charges. She was accused of coordinating with a technology firm to breach voting systems in rural Coffee County and to obtain data, including ballot images and software.

Know More

Powell is one of 19 defendants, including Trump, who were charged in a sweeping indictment in August that accused them of participating in a conspiracy to overturn Trumps 2020 election loss.

Powell was initially set to go to trial starting this month alongside another Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro; both had requested a speedy trial.

She is the second person to take a plea deal in the case. Scott Hall, a bail bondsman who was also connected to the Coffee County breach, pleaded guilty last month to five counts of conspiracy to commit election interference.
A coalition of Democratic lawmakers on Thursday called on the U.S. Education Department to investigate school districts that use digital surveillance and other artificial intelligence tools in ways that trample students civil rights.

In a letter shared exclusively with The 74, the coalition expressed concerns that AI-enabled student monitoring tools could foster discrimination against marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ youth and students with disabilities. The Education Departments Office for Civil Rights should issue guidance on the appropriate uses of emerging classroom technologies, the lawmakers wrote, and crack down on practices that run afoul of existing federal anti-discrimination laws.

While the expansion of educational technology helped facilitate remote learning that was critical to students, parents and teachers during the pandemic, the lawmakers wrote, these technologies have also amplified student harms.

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Lawmakers asked the Education Departments civil rights office whether it has received complaints alleging discrimination facilitated by education technology software and whether it has taken any enforcement action related to potential civil rights violations.

The letter comes in response to a recent national survey of educators, parents and students, the findings of which suggest that schools use of digital tools to monitor children online have a disparate impact on students based on their race, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity. The survey, conducted by the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, found that while activity monitoring has become ubiquitous in schools and is intended to keep students safe, its used regularly as a discipline tool and routinely brings youth into contact with the police.

Related

ChatGPT Is Landing Kids in the Principals Office, Survey Finds

Findings from the CDT survey, lawmakers wrote, raise serious concerns about the application of civil rights laws to schools use of these technologies. Letter signatories include Democratic Reps. Lori Trahan of Massachusetts, Sara Jacobs of California, Hank Johnson of Georgia, Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey and Adam Schiff of California. Trahan, who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committees Innovation, Data and Commerce Subcommittee, has previously called for tighter student data privacy protections in the ed tech sector.

The monitoring tools, such as those offered by for-profit companies GoGuardian and Gaggle, rely on artificial intelligence to sift through students online activities and flag school administrators  and sometimes the police  when they discover materials related to sex, drugs, violence or self-harm.

Two-thirds of teachers reported that a student at their school was disciplined as a result of activity monitoring and a third said they know a student who was contacted by the police because of an alert generated by the software.

Children with disabilities were more likely than their peers to report being watched, and special education teachers reported heightened rates of discipline as a result of activity monitoring. The findings, researchers argue, could run afoul of federal rules that entitle children with disabilities equal access to an education. Even beyond the technologies, students with disabilities are subjected to disproportionate levels of school discipline, including restraint and seclusion, when compared to their general education peers.

Half of all students said their schools responded fairly to alerts generated by monitoring software, a sentiment shared by just 36% of LGBTQ+ youth. In fact, LGBTQ+ youth were more likely than their straight and cisgender peers to report that they or someone they know was disciplined as a result of monitoring. And nearly a third of LGBTQ+ youth reported that they or someone they know was outed because of the technology.

More than a third of teachers said their school monitors students online behaviors outside of school hours  and sometimes on their personal devices.

Related

New Report: School Shootings Spawned Digital Dystopia of Student Surveillance

In a similar student survey, released this month by the American Civil Liberties Union, a majority of respondents expressed worries that the monitoring tools  despite being designed to keep them safe  could actually cause harm and a third said they always feel like theyre being watched.

The 74 has reported extensively on schools use of digital surveillance tools to monitor students online behaviors, and the tools implications for youth civil rights. The company Gaggle previously flagged to administrators student communications that referenced LGBTQ+ keywords like gay and lesbian. The company says it halted the practice last year in the wake of pushback from civil rights activists.

Given the survey findings, the lawmakers urged the Education Department to clarify how educators can fulfill their civil rights obligations as they develop policies related to artificial intelligence, whose rapidly evolving role in education more broadly  including students use of tools like ChatGPT  has become a topic of debate.

Related

Review Finds States Slow to Give Guidance on How Teachers, Schools Should Use AI

This research is particularly concerning due to linkages between school disciplinary policies and incarceration rates of our nations youth, the coalition wrote, adding concerns that the tools can create hostile learning environments.
FILE PHOTO: An Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is pictured in Branchburg, New Jersey

By Maggie Fick

LONDON (Reuters) - Eli Lilly has hired Switzerland-based contract drugmaker CordenPharma to produce the active ingredient in its diabetes drug Mounjaro, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

The move to hire CordenPharma comes as the U.S. drugmaker prepares to launch the type 2 diabetes medicine for weight loss in the United States amid exploding demand for obesity drugs.

Lilly has said it expects U.S. approval for Mounjaro for weight loss by the end of the year. U.S. doctors are already prescribing it off-label for people wanting to shed pounds.

The source told Reuters that CordenPharma's factory in Colorado is under contract to make tirzepatide, the active ingredient in the weekly injection. The source declined to be identified because the contract is confidential.

A spokesperson for CordenPharma, which is owned by private equity and headquartered in Basel with 12 manufacturing sites in Europe and the United States, declined to comment. Lilly did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CordenPharma in January announced it had signed a multi-year agreement for contract manufacturing of a "large volume peptide" at its site in Boulder, Colorado, which could potentially be worth about $1 billion. It has not identified the client.

The deal is the latest example of how the booming market for weight-loss drugs is giving contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs) like Corden a big boost, offsetting the loss of COVID-19 contracts.

Lilly rival Novo Nordisk is spending billions to increase production of its widely used obesity drug Wegovy, which belongs to the same drug class as Mounjaro, as demand outstrips supply.

Eli Lilly recently told Reuters it too was increasing internal capacity of Mounjaro, but for now is using an "extensive portfolio" of CDMOs, without naming them.

Both medicines are GLP-1 receptor agonists, which were originally developed for diabetes. They slow digestion and reduce hunger, causing people taking them to eat less.

Analysts estimate the obesity market could be worth as much as $100 billion in the next decade.

Lilly, now the world's most valuable healthcare company by market capitalization, has seen it shares rise 62.5% this year as demand surged for Mounjaro.

In September, Corden said it had finished the upgrade and expansion of its Boulder plant following the January agreement.

It has more than 500 staff there and expects to add another 60, it said in the statement last month, without giving a timeline.

During the pandemic, CordenPharma supplied Moderna with large volumes of lipids used to produce its COVID vaccine.

(Reporting by Maggie Fick; Editing by Josephine Mason and Bill Berkrot)
Peter Thiel has worn many hats over the years: Silicon Valley founder, Trump megadonor, cryptocurrency booster, democracy skeptic.

But there is yet another facet to Thiel, one that has remained secret until now: FBI informant.

In the summer of 2021, Insider has learned, Thiel began providing information as a "confidential human source," or CHS, to Johnathan Buma, a Los Angeles-based FBI agent who specializes in investigating political corruption and foreign-influence campaigns.

Charles Johnson, a longtime associate of Thiel's and a notorious figure in the far-right movement that Thiel has subsidized for a decade, told Insider in a statement that he helped recruit the billionaire as an informant by introducing him to Buma.

A source with knowledge of Thiel's relationship to the FBI, whose identity is known to Insider but who insisted on anonymity, corroborated Johnson's account, telling Insider that Johnson brokered a relationship between Thiel and Buma. Insider was able to confirm through an additional source that the FBI added Thiel to its formal roster of registered informants.

Another source close to Thiel told Insider that while they could not confirm that Thiel was a CHS, Thiel did speak to Buma occasionally. The source said that any assistance Thiel might have provided to the FBI should be understood as part of Thiel's gradual distancing of himself from Trump and the broader MAGA movement, which has vigorously criticized the FBI and other federal law-enforcement agencies.

Valuable information on a recurring basis

The FBI maintains a vast network of informants to keep tabs on organized crime, terrorist threats, extremist groups, and other criminal and intelligence targets. These sources, according to the bureau's Confidential Human Source Policy Guide, are more than casual tipsters.

Confidential human sources enter "into a relationship with the FBI, and that relationship will forever affect the life of that individual," the guide says. "[They] will be either an 'FBI source' or a 'former FBI source' and, in turn, his or her conduct or misconduct will reflect upon the FBI." As such, the process for recruiting and maintaining such sources is highly regulated, requiring multiple layers of approval. Only people who are able to provide "valuable information  on a recurring basis" are granted CHS status, according to the policy.

Then President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Peter Thiel during a meeting at Trump Tower in December 2016. Years later, Thiel would become a confidential human source for the FBI. He was directed not to report on his interactions with Trump or other US political figures, an associate said. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

As a CHS, Thiel was assigned a code name and an internal serial number to track his reporting. The information he passed on about foreign contacts and Silicon Valley intrigue was reviewed and "validated," or cross-checked against other sources, by his case agents and their colleagues.

Thiel did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A Thiel spokesperson stopped responding to inquiries after being told that Insider was reporting on Thiel's relationship with the FBI.

The FBI's national press office and Scott Horton, an attorney who represents Johnathan Buma, both declined to comment.

No reporting on political ties

Thiel is a citizen of Germany, the United States, and New Zealand; as of last year, he was reportedly in the process of acquiring yet another passport, from Malta. In 2016, he donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign and endorsed him from the stage at the Republican National Convention. After Trump won, Thiel served on his transition team.

Johnson, who said that he was also an informant for Buma, told Insider that he believes that Thiel's reporting to the FBI was largely limited to foreign contacts and attempts by foreign governments to penetrate Silicon Valley. Thiel has publicly called on the FBI to investigate Google's ties to the Chinese government.

Thiel, Johnson said, was directed by the FBI not to report on his interactions with Donald Trump or other US political figures.

Many of the politicians that Thiel has bankrolled  including Trump, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, and Blake Masters, a former Arizona senatorial candidate  have repeatedly attacked the bureau and its leadership in public. In 2022, Vance, whose campaign and affiliated PACs received a total of $15 million from Thiel, falsely claimed that the FBI had illegally wiretapped Trump's phone. Vance accused the bureau of "harassing faithful Christians" and pledged to block all of President Joe Biden's Department of Justice nominees in retaliation for the Trump prosecutions. (Most but not all of Thiel's donations occurred in early 2021, before the launch of Vance's campaign and the many false claims he made over the course of the race.)

While serving as an FBI informant, Thiel bankrolled the campaign of now-Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio. Vance has made a number of false and disparaging claims about the FBI. Anna Moneymaker/Getty

Masters, whose campaign received $20 million of support from Thiel, has endorsed the false conspiracy theory that undercover FBI agents fomented the January 6, 2021, insurrection and accused the FBI agents who executed a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago of "going after President Trump because they hate him." (As with Vance, most but not all of Thiel's donations to Masters occurred before Masters made his most inflammatory and baseless statements during the later stages of his campaign.)

Thiel is reportedly planning to sit on the sidelines of the 2024 election.

Neither Trump, Masters, nor Vance responded to requests for comment.

Doing business with the FBI

Some of Thiel's business interests rely on the FBI and other government agencies as potential revenue sources. He retains a 10% stake in Palantir, a data company that has sold more than a billion dollars of software and related services to the federal government, including the Pentagon, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the FBI. A $250 million contract with the US Army in September adds to the evidence that Palantir is essentially "a government service provider," a financial analyst said.

Thiel also backed Boldend, a spyware company marketing itself as an American competitor to the Israeli NSO Group, Forbes reported last year. NSO's products have been bought and tested by the FBI.

(Mithril Capital, another entity Thiel cofounded, was reportedly a subject of FBI interest in 2019, although nothing appears to have come of the inquiry. Mithril's co-founder did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI did not respond to a question regarding the Mithril matter.)

Johnson, who revealed Thiel's FBI ties, is a tech investor and far-right agitator with long-standing ties to both Thiel and to the network of MAGA political operators surrounding Trump. He claims to have had a hand in founding Clearview, a facial-recognition startup, and Traitwell, a genomics company. According to Forbes, he worked with Thiel to help vet and select senior staffers for the Trump transition in 2017.

Johnson claimed to be an FBI informant in a lawsuit he filed against Clearview's founders. He told Insider he recruited Thiel to serve as a CHS and introduced him to Buma, the FBI special agent who was Johnson's handler.

Charles Johnson (left) with Rep. Matt Gaetz (right) and Gaetz's now-wife Ginger Gaetz (center), in 2021. Johnson told Insider that he brokered an introduction between Thiel and the FBI special agent who would become his handler. Charles Johnson

It's unclear whether Thiel remains a CHS for the FBI. Johnson told Insider that he believes that the relationship has been severed but declined to offer details; Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was ordered to cease contact with all his sources in late 2022.

Johnson's ties to Trump and Thiel are well-documented. But he is also a self-identified "troll" with a history of spreading false information and smearing his rivals. In this instance, his claims are corroborated by two additional sources, as well as supported in part by a third who says Thiel and Buma spoke occasionally.

'Join up or get crushed'

Buma came forward in August as a whistleblower, alleging that the FBI under Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr shut down his efforts to determine whether Rudy Giuliani had been compromised by a Russian asset. Insider was the first news organization to report on his claims.

In a statement prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Buma said that FBI headquarters had closed his most valuable human sources, including one code-named "Genius," who had reported on far-right figures involved with planning the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Johnson told Insider that "Genius" was his CHS code name. Insider was able to confirm Johnson's identity as "Genius" with two additional sources. The statement does not mention Thiel.

Thiel speaking at the Republican National Convention in 2016. He donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign in 2016. He backed MAGA-aligned congressional candidates in 2020 and 2022. He has said he will be staying on the sidelines of the 2024 presidential race. Alex Wong/Getty

In a written statement to Insider, Johnson said he was stepping forward as a CHS to support Buma's effort as a whistleblower to bring about what Buma believes to be necessary reforms in how the FBI handles informants. Johnson said that he was exposing Thiel's work as a CHS as retribution for what Johnson perceives to be bad decision-making by the Founders Fund, Thiel's venture-capital firm.

Johnson also told Insider he felt betrayed that Thiel did not invest in Johnson's own startups, which he had expected Thiel to do in exchange for introducing him to Buma. Johnson said that he told Thiel that by offering the FBI a window into his contacts with foreign governments, he could demonstrate his loyalty to the United States.

He described Thiel's motivation for working with Buma as a kind of hedge in an environment where extravagant wealth no longer affords the safety it used to. He pointed to ProPublica's reporting on Thiel's income-tax avoidance and the death of Jeffrey Epstein, who had reportedly scheduled several meetings with Thiel.

"I told him to join up or get crushed," Johnson said.

The FBI's recruitment of Thiel as a CHS puts him among the bureau's most prominent assets, but he is not alone among right-wing figures who have collaborated with the bureau. Trump himself offered to help the FBI fight organized crime in Atlantic City in the early 1980s. Truth Social, the Trump-owned social-media company, has quietly tipped the FBI off to users who threaten violence, even as it seeks to cash in on their anger. At least two of the rioters who showed up to storm the Capitol on January 6 were also FBI informants, as was Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other felonies stemming from the Capitol breach. Tarrio reportedly served as a source for federal and local law enforcement, assisting with the prosecution of more than a dozen people.

Mattathias Schwartz is chief national security correspondent at Insider. He can be reached at schwartz79@protonmail.com.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Nina Rees wasnt the first person to lead the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. But her tenure witnessed the sectors largest growth as well as some of the harshest attacks from critics who see charters as a threat to traditional public schools.

Her announcement last month to leave the position shes held since 2012 comes as charter schools enter a new era  one marked by dwindling public school enrollment and an explosion of new school choice options.

Those who have studied charters see a challenging landscape ahead for the sector, which was born in Minnesota 31 years ago.

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The coming decade will see an incursion on charters from both the traditional and the new-choice side, said Macke Raymond, founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University. Nina didnt have to cope with a double-sided battleground. The next leader will have to.

Rees, whose family fled Ayatollah Khomeinis regime in Iran when she was 14, was encouraged by Howard Fuller, the Alliances founding board chair, to apply for the president and CEO job when the organization launched in 2005. But at the time she was part of the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush, working to get another school choice initiative off the ground.

She was a key figure in pushing the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship through Congress. The federally funded voucher program, which pays tuition at private schools, served about 1,700 low-income students last year, roughly half those who applied. Republicans want to increase funding for the program, while Democrats have long wanted to phase it out.

Nina Rees spoke at an event on Capitol Hill during this years National Charter Schools Week in May. (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools)

Rees, however, has left her greatest mark in the charter world.

Rhonda Dillingham, executive director of the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools, called Rees the movements north star.

Rees hasnt wavered in her belief that charter schools are public and have a duty to uphold students civil rights  an issue that came before the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last year. A North Carolina charter school argued that it should be able to enforce a strict dress code including skirts for girls just because it was run by a nonprofit.

And Michael Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said Rees and the Alliance have been hawks on the issue of low-performing virtual charter schools, calling on authorizers in 2015 to dramatically improve oversight of their schools, which, in some cases, will mean closing them.

As Raymond noted, whoever replaces Rees at the Alliance will face new obstacles. Education savings accounts, which pay for private school tuition and homeschool expenses, have rapidly expanded in multiple states, giving families more options outside of the public education system. And as the North Carolina case, Peltier v. Charter Day School, raised, theres an ongoing debate over whether charters are public or private under the law. Those who say charters are private argue there should be no limits on religious organizations running schools. The fate of a virtual Catholic charter in Oklahoma, set to open in the fall of 2024, is now tied up in court.

Related

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The notion of charters being considered private  is something that we will fight, Rees said in a recent conversation with The 74.

Shes also persistently fought for increased funding for the federal Charter Schools Program and pushed hard last year against the Biden administrations efforts to make it more difficult to apply for that money. She argued that the administration didnt seek input from sector leaders when writing the rules.

The new regulations call for charters to be more racially balanced and for operators to gain support from traditional schools, which can be difficult when there is competition for students. Organizers also need to avoid opening in neighborhoods where district schools are losing enrollment.

The new rules were also intended to create more transparency when charter funds flow to for-profit companies. They drew support from critics who argue that the involvement of for-profit businesses in operating charters  especially virtual schools  creates the potential for fraud.

Reess leadership of the sectors principal advocacy organization has coincided with increased quality. CREDOs most recent report showed students in charters, particularly those in large networks, slightly outperform their peers in traditional schools.

In the interview, Rees spoke about those findings, the shifting political environment on school choice and her future interest in helping others realize, as she did, opportunity in America.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The 74: Why leave now?

Nina Rees: With anyone whos been working in an organization, after 10 years you start to evaluate if you want to stay for another five or 10 or if its time to move on. I have accomplished a lot of the things I set out to do. When I came to this organization the Charter Schools Program was only getting $254 million and different charter groups were fighting with one another to capture a portion of that pie. Increasing the pie united the sector and made sure that everyone receives something from the federal grant. The funding is at $440 million. I was hoping it would hit $500 million, but $440 million is a good place to be.

The other goal was to get charters in 50 states  we are now at 46  and just to stabilize the organization as a hub of information for the sector. Ive gone through three different administrations, from President Obama to President Trump and now to President Biden. Thats a lot of turmoil, with the pandemic in between. I think its time for some fresh thinking. Post-pandemic, we have some huge opportunities to seize because so many families continue to want options. Charter schools have a role to play in meeting that demand.

Related

Once a Charter Fan, Democratic Leader Jeffries Expected to Downplay Support

Youve seen political support for charters shift dramatically during your tenure with the Alliance. Without the bipartisan base as strong as it once was, did your job become more difficult?

It was getting difficult to navigate when I came, but Id like to answer this question differently. In the latest Democrats for Education Reform poll, and every poll that weve seen over time, Democrats support choice and charter schools in particular. At the top level, theres not as much discussion around charter schools in a bipartisan way. The education reform debates are no longer as central as they used to be, with the pandemic shifting attention to other priorities. The Democratic and Republican parties are fraying and the opposite ends are getting more airtime, but the reality is that the center still holds. Its in the center where policy is made. So regardless of the Matt Gaetzes and the [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortezes, most of whats happened over the past decades since Ive been at the federal level has been bipartisan, with the support of Democrats like Cory Booker and Michael Bennet and Republicans like Virginia Foxx.

National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

It seems Republicans are more focused on expanding education savings accounts than they are charters. How do you see that playing out at the state level?

Were monitoring to see how those ESA laws are being implemented. But there was also a lot of momentum around charter schools. Post pandemic, we saw a slew of legislative activity, from revolving loans to access to facilities to huge improvements in states like Arkansas. Even New York found a way to allow for charter school expansion.

ESAs are new and more controversial. They get more media attention, and these other measures, which are amendments to existing laws, are not getting as much airtime. Once the history books are written, people are going to look at these years as pivotal for charters.

Nina Rees reads to a student while visiting Friendship Public Charter Schools Blow Pierce campus in Washington last year. (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools)

And how do you see the growth of ESAs affecting the charter sector?

In most of these states, it looks like theyre just subsidizing the tuition of private schools students already attend. But in those places where the allocation for the ESA is on par or potentially a little bit higher than what students in charter schools get, thats where we might want to study and see if there are any shifts.

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North Carolina to Launch Education Savings Accounts, With Up to $7,500 Per Child

One of the biggest charter school stories of the year  and in education in general  has been the Catholic virtual charter school application in Oklahoma. What are your predictions for the debate over religious charter schools?

Lets go back to where we were about six months ago when the Peltier case was pending before the Supreme Court. We were questioning whether that case [which asked whether charters were public or private] would pave the way for religious charter schools. The court chose not to take the case and were very pleased with that. For charters to be able to teach religion, you need a proactive statement that deems them private, and that is a point of contention. Everyone who has drafted a charter law and everyone involved in conceptualizing charter schools created these schools in order to create better public schools.

Related

Supreme Court Skirts Question of Whether Charter Schools are Public

In school choice circles, we sometimes hear the message that parent satisfaction is the most important measure of success. Do you feel that theres been a shift away from holding charters accountable for results? Did the pandemic play a part there?

Thats a great question. I do think we need to take stock of the accomplishments before we pivot to the flaws in the equation. The first time Macke Raymond of CREDO did the study, we werent doing that well. The second time, it was a little bit better. The third tranche of her study definitively demonstrates that the longer our school leaders are in this work, the better they do by the students theyre serving.

Theres always been debate around whether standards-based accountability and standardized tests get in the way of innovation and potentially harm those types of schools that serve special populations. Over time, state accountability systems have adjusted so theyre not inadvertently discouraging the creation of a credit recovery school or a school that serves a student population that is way behind academically.

Paying attention to what parents want is very important, and I know that the choice movement is talking a lot more about that. But at the end of the day, the compact with the authorizer is very important. Thats where the rubber hits the road. If charters are not performing well or meeting the terms of their contract, they should be closed.

I dont know any parents who want to send their child to a school that is not going to graduate them and send them to college.

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Along with ESAs, we also see more microschools emerging that are responding to very specific needs and preferences for families. Do you see those models impacting charters?

This is an opportunity for charter schools. When you notice that people have an affinity or an interest in smaller settings that are offering a more customized education, this means charter management organizations can create some of these and see how it works without letting go of all the other things that we need to do as public schools. In the private sector, if theres an interest to buy certain things, companies start to compete. The charter sector can also create models that are just as attractive but keep the core of what is public about public education.

Charter enrollment saw a big jump during the pandemic and leveled off a bit last year. How do you think the general decline in public school enrollment weve seen nationally is affecting charters?

Our enrollment report is coming out in November, so stay tuned. Were pretty excited about it. Thats the only thing I can say.

There are two things going on. One is that populations are shifting. This is why were so excited about Montana having passed a charter law and the fact that in Arkansas, you can now open a charter school anywhere around the state. States have made changes that allow charters to open in jurisdictions where populations are shifting.

People are just dispersing more and that presents a challenge. If you have a model in one community, its quicker to scale it and add more students. But if youre going into these more suburban and rural communities, its a little bit more challenging to take this work to scale. For me, its going back to the basics; charter schools were always supposed to be about giving local community leaders the tools they need to start something new and different. This opens the door to innovation in ways that are good for the sector.

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Exclusive: As Post-Pandemic Enrollment Lags, Schools Compete for Fewer Students

Youre not sure what youre doing next, but what would you like to do?

I love this topic of choice and charters, but I also am fascinated with polling around the American dream. Id like something that combines what Ive done here with adding to the hope and the opportunity of the American dream, with education being one of the key pillars. I like this sector because it invites innovation and big-picture thinkers who are willing to overcome the impossible. Whatever I do next hopefully will continue to be with individuals in service to something thats transformational.
Ald. Ed Burke, 14th, right, listens to City Council discussion of Mayor Lori Lightfoots $16.4 billion 2023 budget on Nov. 7, 2022. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Jurors in the upcoming racketeering trial of former 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke are going to hear a lot of names, including fellow aldermen, city commissioners, developers, architects and restaurant franchisees.

But one name they will not hear: Donald Trump.

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Thats because prosecutors have agreed to redact Trumps name from an undercover recording where Burke talked about how his private law firm had won property tax breaks for Trumps downtown Chicago skyscraper.

After prosecutors announced the decision at a pretrial hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall asked how exactly they planned to remove Trumps name, given his notoriety.

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How do you anonymize a reference to Trump? I mean, what are you going to say? Kendall asked.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker said her team will just edit the clip so instead of Trumps name, there will be silence.

The decision came after Burkes legal team argued in a court filing that introducing Trumps name would prejudice the jury because the former president is despised by a significant percentage of the population.

Mr. Burkes legal work for (Trump) could cause many jurors to have an unfavorable impression of Mr. Burke and could create significant bias against him, the defense motion stated. Telling jurors about the Burke-Trump association is fraught with the likelihood of unfair prejudice, the motion argued.

Burke, 79, was originally charged in a criminal complaint in January 2019, weeks after the FBI raided his City Hall office suite. He was indicted four months later on 14 counts including racketeering, federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity.

The 59-page indictment outlined a series of schemes in which Burke allegedly tried to muscle developers into hiring his law firm, Klafter & Burke, to appeal their property taxes. Among the projects Burke tried to capitalize on was the massive $800 million renovation of the Old Post Office in the West Loop, according to the charges.

Also charged was Burkes longtime aide, Peter Andrews, who was accused of assisting the alderman in attempting to shake down two business owners seeking to renovate a Burger King restaurant in the 14th Ward.

The indictment also accused developer Charles Cui of hiring Burkes law firm in exchange for the aldermans help with a sign permit and financing deal for a project in the Portage Park neighborhood.

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All three have pleaded not guilty. The trial is expected to last up to six weeks.

The Trump International Hotel and Tower adorns Donald Trump's last name below the 16th floor of the skyscraper in 2017. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

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In addition to the Trump issue, Kendall ruled Wednesday on a number of other evidentiary disputes. Over the objections of the defense, Kendall said prosecutors can play a wiretapped call where Burke talked about putting in a good word for the son of his longtime friend, ex-Ald. Terry Gabinski, who was applying to be a Chicago police officer.

Though there was nothing illegal about the call, the indictment charges Burke with threatening officials at the Field Museum after Gabinskis daughter was passed over for an internship there.

Lawyers for Andrews, meanwhile, argued strenuously to keep out part of an audio recording made by two FBI agents who confronted Andrews at his door in late 2018.

After the agents asked about the aldermans involvement with Burger King franchisees, Andrews, who had worked as Burkes 14th Ward aide for decades, allegedly asked, What alderman?

You seem emotional, sir, one of the agents allegedly said. According to prosecutors, Andrews then started to stutter, saying, I, I, I, I..... After a little more back and forth, Andrews cut off the interview.

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Kendall ruled that the recording can be admitted as evidence and the agents can testify about Andrews emotional state, though prosecutors are not allowed to ask them whether they believed Andrews was lying.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
FILE PHOTO: Rachel Goldberg, U.S.-Israeli mother of Hersh Goldberg Polin, which was taken hostage by Hamas militants into the Gaza Strip holds photos of her son, in Jerusalem

FILE PHOTO: Rachel Goldberg, U.S.-Israeli mother of Hersh Goldberg Polin, which was taken hostage by Hamas militants into the Gaza Strip holds photos of her son, in Jerusalem

(Reuters) - Gunmen from the Palestinian group Hamas took at least 200 hostages and killed about 1,400 people during an Oct. 7 dawn raid carried out from the Gaza Strip on communities and military bases in southern Israel.

Israel has responded by pounding Gaza with air strikes, killing thousands, and has said it will act to free the hostages while wiping out Hamas.

Israel has amassed tanks and troops near the perimeter of the enclave and called on Palestinians to evacuate the north of Gaza before an expected ground invasion. Hamas has suggested the hostages could be swapped for approximately 6,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

In 2011, Israel was criticized by some of its citizens for swapping 1,027 Palestinian prisoners to win the release of one Israeli soldier.

Israel has said that there will be no end to its blockade of the enclave without freedom for Israeli hostages.

The Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza is expected to open soon for the delivery of limited amounts of aid.

HOW MANY HOSTAGES ARE THERE?

An estimated 200 people, including 30 teenagers and young children and 20 people over the age of 60, are being held hostage in Gaza, Israel's public broadcaster Kan said on Thursday, citing military sources.

Hamas says it has 200 hostages and that 50 more are held by other armed groups in the enclave. It said more than 20 hostages have been killed by Israeli air strikes, but has not given any further details.

WHERE ARE THE HOSTAGES?

Israel says the hostages were taken to Gaza but their exact whereabouts within the enclave are unknown, making their rescue more complicated. Officials have said many could be held in the warren of tunnels under Gaza that Israeli troops call the "Gaza Metro".

Hamas on Monday released a video of Mia Schem, a 21-year-old French-Israeli woman captured at a dance party. In the video, she was shown being treated for an injury to her arm by an unidentified medical worker.

WHAT NATIONALITIES ARE THE HOSTAGES?

The hostages include people from dozens of countries, while many also have Israeli citizenship.

Twenty or more Americans are missing, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday, adding that he could not say how many of those were being held hostage. Republican Senator Jim Risch told reporters on Tuesday that 10 of the hostages were Americans.

Thailand revised to 17 the number of its citizens being held. Eight Germans are among the hostages, about half of whom were seized at a kibbutz, according to local media.

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said in a video call with families that 16 of his countrymen were being held.

At least nine British nationals have been killed and seven are missing, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesperson said. During a trip to Israel on Thursday, Sunak met with the families of two of the missing who are believed to have been taken hostage and held in Gaza.

France has not said exactly how many of its citizens are held in Gaza, although there are seven unaccounted for after the attacks, of which some are being held hostage.

Ofir Engel, an 18-year-old Dutch national, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be'eri and taken to Gaza, according to the Dutch government.

Portugal said it assumes that four Portuguese-Israelis who are missing have been taken hostage. Israeli-Chilean Dafna Garcovich was taken hostage with her Spanish husband Ivan Illaramendi, her father said. Italy says two dual Italian-Israeli nationals are missing, presumed kidnapped.

Hamas' armed wing said on Oct. 16 that kidnapped non-Israelis were "guests" who would be released "when circumstances on the ground allow."

WHAT HAVE GOVERNMENTS SAID THEY ARE DOING ABOUT THEM?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a retired general, Gal Hirsch, as Israel's coordinator on hostages and missing persons.

Qatari mediators have said they have tried to negotiate freedom for Israeli women and children seized by Hamas in return for the release of 36 Palestinian women and children from Israel's prisons, a source briefed on the talks told Reuters. So far, there has been no indication a deal might be at hand.

Turkey is also talking with Hamas to secure the release of foreigners, civilians and children, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Tuesday. He told state-run Andalou news agency that countries including the U.S. and Germany have asked for help from Turkey on winning the release of their citizens.

U.S. President Joe Biden said his administration is "workin' like hell" to find American hostages held by Hamas. The U.S. has sent a small team of special operations forces to Israel to help with intelligence and planning for any eventual operations to rescue the hostages.

Britain's Sunak has said his government is talking to partners in the region to try and help secure the return of hostages.

Argentina's Fernandez said his government was talking with Israeli intelligence forces to locate Argentine hostages.

Germany has opened an investigation into members of Hamas for suspected murder, manslaughter and hostage-taking. Under German law, prosecutors are compelled to investigate suspected crimes abroad if they involve German citizens.

WHAT HAVE FAMILIES OF HOSTAGES SAID?

U.S. citizens in Tel Aviv urged Biden to use all resources to locate and rescue their kidnapped relatives.

Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in New York's Times Square on Thursday to demand the release of hostages, holding billboards showing the faces of people believed to be held, including babies and elderly people.

Families of missing Franco-Israeli citizens urged French President Emmanuel Macron to help locate their missing relatives.

The families of German hostages said they will hold a rally in Berlin on Sunday to call for their relatives' release after meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Tel Aviv.

(Reporting by Charlie Devereux and Crispian Balmer; additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan, Patricia Rua, John Irish, James Mackenzie and Patricia Zengerle; editing by Grant McCool and Miral Fahmy)
On Wednesday morning the United States found itself managing two different crises involving Jordan.

The domestic Jordan fiasco is more comic than tragic and has nothing to do with the Middle East. Or almost nothing.

The foreign Jordan fiasco is grave. It began when news outlets reported that an Israeli airstrike had destroyed al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, killing more than 500 Palestinians. Global media was outraged by the bloodletting; by evening, a crowd attempted to storm Israels embassy in the Kingdom of Jordan to take retribution. The king promptly canceled a summit hed planned to host between Joe Biden and the leaders of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, and he denounced the airstrike as a shame on humanity.

In an instant, a horrendous error had shifted the balance of diplomacy not just abroad but here at home:

Biden is visiting the Middle East this week to try to drum up support, by which I mean grudging acquiescence, among Sunni powers for Israels coming ground campaign against Hamas. The horror at the hospital left him suddenly stranded in that effort without the (even more grudging) backing of his progressive wing in Congress. These unspeakable crimes must stop now, Bernie Sanders declared in a statement after the airstrike. The bombs and missiles from both sides must end, massive humanitarian aid must be rushed to Gaza, and the hostages must be returned to their families. It was a debacle for Israel.

As I write this on Wednesday, it seems almost beside the point that every particular of the original report appears to have been wrong. The hospital wasnt struck, its parking lot was. There are casualties, but photos circulating in the aftermath suggest its nowhere near 500.

And it wasnt an Israeli missile that did the damage. It was, according to U.S. intelligence, a rocket fired by Palestinian jihadists.

For supporters of Israel who work in the media, writing about a hot war in which the country is involved is like trying to get traction on a sheet of ice. I remember it well from the conflict with Hezbollah in 2006: No matter how strenuously you and your allies struggle to counterprogram propaganda with truth, youll end up overwhelmed and feeling exasperated by how little your efforts have accomplished.

People who want to believe a lie wont be talked out of it. Weve had lots of experience with that phenomenon here in the U.S. in the past few years, but in matters involving Israel the task is an order of magnitude more difficult. There are too many decades of bad blood, too many falsehoods entrenched in global media, and frankly too much antisemitism to ever make much headway. It may be that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has its boots on, as the saying goes, but lies never move with more velocity than when Israel is at war.

The apparent lie about the hospital bombing moved quickly enough to scuttle a major regional summit. All the Israeli military could do in the aftermath was try to embarrass those who had swallowed it by publishing the facts.

Hours after the explosion, with the New York Times already having carried forward Palestinian allegations of Israeli responsibility, the Israeli Defense Forces alleged that the blast had been caused by a rocket fired by Islamic Jihad that fell far short of its target in Israel. Surveillance footage confirmed a large detonation on the ground seconds after a barrage of rockets lifted off from Gaza. Later, Israeli intelligence released what it claimed was audio of two Hamas operatives admitting that the strike had come from their own side.

Islamic Jihad struck a Hospital in Gazathe IDF did not.



Listen to the terrorists as they realize this themselves: pic.twitter.com/u7WyU8Rxwz  Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 18, 2023

Daylight brought photos and video recorded by Palestinian observers that undercut the narrative further.

And we now have footage of the (partially) burnt-out parking lot at the Ahli Hospital in Gaza.



Overall damage to the structures in the complex appears to be limited, a clay-tiled awning adjacent to the parking lot is still mostly intact. pic.twitter.com/Tf0EAUJLR5  OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 18, 2023

Damage was plainly done but not on the scale youd expect from an airdropped Israeli bomb. Theres no rubble; the apparent impact crater isnt much bigger than a person; the blast wave was weak enough that the hospitals chapel looks to have suffered nothing worse than broken windows. One analyst went through images of the scene meticulously, comparing them to photos of the aftermath of Israeli air force airstrikes and Palestinian rocket detonations. The scene at the hospital resembles the latter, further corroborating the Israeli account of what happened.

As of Wednesday morning, U.S. intelligence had arrived at the same conclusion. The evidence is strong enough that Biden felt obliged to tell the Israeli press during his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu that the carnage at the hospital appears to have been caused by the other team.

The Palestinian government in Gaza is run by Hamas, the same outfit that perpetrated the worst pogrom since the Holocaust as recently as 11 days ago. How is it that so many in the West uncritically accepted its word about what happened at the hospital on Tuesday?

My colleague Kevin Williamson will address that question tomorrow with respect to our curiously credulous media. Americas press spends half its time lecturing the unwashed for letting political prejudices numb them to misinformation, it sometimes seems, and the other half failing to take its own advice. It sounds absurd, but I earnestly believe this: Major American media organizations would be more diligent about challenging a sensational claim made by the RNC than one made by Hamas.

Neither of those organizations has any credibility at this point, granted. But if were going to apply different levels of skepticism to the two, Id say more is warranted toward the one thats actually murdering people, not the one that merely turns a blind eye whenever its supreme leader hints that murder might be a good idea.

For some journalists, taking Hamas claims at face value may be a simple matter of succumbing to peer pressure within the educated social class to which they belong and to which they cater. For others, the moral vehemence with which both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict prosecute their case might be cowing them into safe, sludgy both-sides coverage that all but requires gullibility toward Palestinian claims. If the goal is evenhandedness and one of the two hands in question happens to belong to Hamas, some reporters will conclude they have no choice but to give Hamas claims the same weight as the Israeli governments.

But we shouldnt underestimate how the logic of anti-colonialism might motivate the Wests Hamas apologists inside the media just as it does those outside of it. If decolonization can justify mass murder, it can certainly justify repackaging mass death in a parking lot caused by friendly fire as an Israeli atrocity. If it can justify days of devout dug-in skepticism over whether Israeli infants were actually beheaded during Hamas rampage or just murdered, it can justify gulping down whatever swill the Hamas ministry of information barfs up about a hospital in Gaza being attacked.

As David Frum tersely put it, The instinct to believe Hamas spokespeople is not an innocent mistake.

Read Kevin tomorrow. For now, the question is why Tlaib, Omar, and other beacons of progress in Congress have yet to retreat from their initial credulity about what happened.

The speed with which Israels critics lunged at news of the bombing on Tuesday had the air of someone gasping after having turned blue from holding his breath. For 11 days, the Tlaibs and Omars of the left have been forced onto the defensive by the horrors committed by Hamas. Its an intensely uncomfortable position for them, as the romance of being pro-Palestinian lies in the alleged moral authority derived from their eternal victimhood.

On October 7, the outfit that rules Gaza behaved so savagely against Israeli civilians that that authority was momentarily lost. Palestinian sympathizers in Congress and elsewhere could have resolved at that moment to draw a hard moral line between Hamas and the Palestinian people, but that presented a problem for them. The more they joined in the vilification of Hamas, the more justified an Israeli incursion intoand eventual reoccupation ofGaza would logically be.

So they bit their lips, by and large. Occasionally one of them would pop up on television, word-salad-ing her way through non-answers to questions about how to keep Hamas from sporadically slaughtering Israelis absent military intervention 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spends almost three minutes trying to explain her calls for a "ceasefire" after Hamas terrorists brutally massacred innocent Israelis and it does not go well pic.twitter.com/qkQ30jSIuG  RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 17, 2023

 but mostly they kept their heads down and waited. They knew Israel would act and that, once it did, there would eventually be some terrible scene of mass death. The Hamas way of war guarantees it. When you co-opt civilian structures like schools and hospitals for military purposes, when you warn civilians not to follow Israeli orders to evacuate for safetys sake, youre looking to maximize the body count. Dead Palestinians are Hamas best defense against Israeli military power: Hamas cant overcome the IDF in a fight, but it can make that fight sufficiently morally painful for the other side that the IDF will be pressured into backing off before it achieves its goal.

The Wests Palestinian sympathizers could foil that strategy by placing the onus for Palestinian casualties on Hamas rather than on Israel. But its unthinkable that they would ally themselves with the colonizers, even situationally toward the mutually beneficial end of freeing Gaza from Hamas grip. Especially when that colonizers government is led by a figure in Benjamin Netanyahu who supports Israeli settlements in the West Bank and whose view of political power has taken a distinctly Trumpian turn of late.

So instead they held their breath, waiting for Israel to miscalculate on the battlefield and restore the sense of victimhood that the Palestinian side had briefly lost. The hospital bombing appeared to deliver that. The order of the moral universe between the two sides had been set right. The Israelis were monsters toothe bigger monsters, even. Palestinian activists could exhale at last.

It must have seemed like a cruel joke to them when evidence began to mount that, actually, the monsters in this case were again jihadists, not the Israeli air force. Its hard for people to admit error under the best circumstances, but those who had just recovered their moral authority after having lost it on October 7 werent about to hand it over again. Which is why, as of Tuesday night, the best Tlaib and Omar could do to answer that evidence was to tweet or retweet that people shouldnt believe everything the Israeli government tells them.

And why, on Wednesday, when reporters confronted them with questions about responsibility for the bombing, neither had anything to say.

And why, as of Wednesday afternoon, Tlaib was still doubling down on blaming Israel for the attack.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) appears to continue to blame Israel for the Gaza hospital explosion Tuesday, as the U.S. currently assesses that Israel is not responsible:



That's what's been really painful  continue to watch people think it's okay to bomb a hospital. pic.twitter.com/wxqA7VU8LE  The Recount (@therecount) October 18, 2023

Its true that one shouldnt believe everything the Israeli government says. All governments lie. During war, when theyre under threat, they lie a lot. Skepticism of government is healthy. But what Tlaib and Omar are offering is the decidedly less healthy proposition of skepticism toward the Israelis paired with unblinking credulity toward the terrorists on the other side. If taking Hamas claims about the hospital bombing at face value, while dispensing with all evidence to the contrary, isnt pro-Hamas, what is it, precisely?

Theyre also asking us to care less when Palestinians slaughter Palestinians, implicitly. Their colleague in Congress, Ritchie Torres, noticed that those who eagerly condemned Israel initially for the deaths at the hospital have yet to condemn the Islamic Jihad cell that apparently fired the fateful rocket. Saying that theres a moral difference between an accident and a deliberate attack is not an answer: The rocket was designed to kill Israeli civilians, after all, before it ended up killing Palestinian ones. Either way, the victims are casualties of a terror campaign aimed at innocents.

Maybe Tlaib and Omar feel it would be hypocritical for them to condemn a Palestinian strike on a Palestinian hospital if they wouldnt condemn a Palestinian strike on an Israeli hospital. (Points for consistency, I guess.) To some activists, the concept of violence is inextricable from victimhood; thats why Hamas stampeding through a kibbutz, killing everyone in sight, isnt violence worth condemning while a Hamas apologist failing to land a job at a white-shoe law firm is.

Rashida Tlaib [has] more forcefully condemned Joe Biden over fake news than she has condemned the perpetrators of the inhuman terrorist attack that started this conflict, Tim Miller wrote on Tuesday after Tlaib tweeted about the hospital bombing. Right, but thats consistent with the ethos of violence and victimhood here. Violence is whats done to the powerless, never what the powerless do to others.

As of Wednesday afternoon, nothing meaningful has changed in light of the revelations about the true culprit in the hospital bombing. Tlaib and Omar continue to defend the Larger Truth of Palestinian victimhood, even if the actual truth in this incident cuts the other way. The summit in Jordan remains canceled, and I suspect it is unlikely to be rescheduled. Jordans king might potentially be persuaded that Israel was innocent in the hospital bombing, but many of his subjects wont beand leaders fear antagonizing a radicalized constituency when its inflamed. We have some recent experience with that phenomenon too here in the U.S.

What also hasnt changed are progressive demands for an immediate ceasefire.

They strike me as completely unserious, if not functionally pro-Hamas under the circumstances. To leave the perpetrators of the October 7 pogrom in place and unpunished is to invite them to do it again. Its a nonstarter. Worse, to treat mass Palestinian casualties of the sort that happened at the hospital as cause for a ceasefireknowing that a Palestinian outfit was likely responsibleis to incentivize more mass-casualty events. If lunatics like Hamas and Islamic Jihad can goose their Western apologists to pressure Israel to stand down simply by murdering a bunch of their own people, they have a very good reason to murder a bunch of their own people.

The next rocket attack at a hospital might not be accidental given the hideously credulous response to this one. People are quite likely to die because of this propaganda effort and its enablers, I fear. And, per the agitation outside the Israeli embassy on Tuesday in Jordan, not all will be Palestinian.

For now, Im looking forward to returning to the more comic Jordan thats been in the news lately, the one that has nothing to do with Hamas, Rashida Tlaib, or Ilhan Omar. Well, almost nothing.

Read more at The Dispatch

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis , his presidential campaign and a super PAC backing him are inaccurately depicting a comment Republican rival Nikki Haley made on CNN on Sunday about the people of Gaza.

The DeSantis camp has been claiming this week that Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina, said in a CNN interview that the US should take in refugees from Gaza  the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas, the Islamist group that perpetrated the terrorist attacks that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel this month.

On Monday, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, posted a video clip of Haleys remarks and claimed the video showed Haley arguing in favor of bringing Gaza refugees to America. The same day, the DeSantis campaign posted a video of DeSantis responding to what the campaign claimed was Nikki Haley wanting to import Gazan refugees to the U.S. On Tuesday, DeSantis claimed in a Fox interview that Haley had been speaking on CNN about bringing people from Gaza to the US.

All of these claims are wrong.

Facts First: Haley is opposed to the US accepting refugees from Gaza, and she did not say on CNN that the US should take in these refugees. DeSantis and his allies have been falsely portraying Haleys response to a question that was not even about US refugee policy toward Gaza.

Rather, Haley was asked by CNN anchor Jake Tapper for her thoughts about DeSantis having said that while the people of Gaza are not all Hamas, they are all antisemitic and none of them believes Israel has the right to exist. Haley responded that many Gazans dont want to be ruled by Hamas, just as many Iranians oppose the regime that governs them, and the US should continue to distinguish between terrorists and civilians.

She did not say the US should take in any of these Gaza civilians as refugees. And in subsequent remarks, Haley has expressed firm opposition to the US accepting refugees from Gaza. She argued on Fox on Tuesday that Hamas-sympathizing Middle Eastern countries should take in these refugees instead.

What Haley actually said on CNN

You can read the full transcript of Haleys Sunday exchange with Tapper here. The exchange was not about whether the US should accept refugees from Gaza.

Heres what actually happened.

Tapper noted that a high proportion of Gaza residents are children and asked Haley if she thinks the US, Israel, Egypt needs to be doing more to help these innocent Palestinian civilians get out of harms way. Haley said, You know what, we should care about the Palestinian citizens, especially the innocent ones, because they didnt ask for this.

But then she continued: But where are the Arab countries? Where are they? Where is Qatar? Where is Lebanon? Where is Jordan? Where is Egypt? Do you know we give Egypt over a billion dollars a year? Why arent they opening the gates? Why arent they taking the Palestinians? You know why? Because they know they cant vet them, and they dont want Hamas in their neighborhood. So why would Israel want them in their neighborhood?

After Haley completed her answer, Tapper asked her to listen to a clip of DeSantis assertions in Iowa on Saturday that not all Gazans are Hamas but that all are antisemitic and none thinks Israel has the right to exist. DeSantis made these claims in the course of arguing that the US should not accept refugees from Gaza, but CNN did not play the portion of his comments about refugees to Haley during the interview; Tapper was specifically asking Haley for her thoughts on how DeSantis characterized Gazans beliefs.

Before he got to his question, Tapper read out some results from a July poll of Gaza, which found, among other things, that 50% of Gazans want Hamas to stop calling for Israels destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. Tapper then said: So Im not really certain that Governor DeSantis has a real read on the difference between Hamas and the people of Gaza. What was your response when you heard what Governor DeSantis said?

Haley responded by invoking her two-year tenure as US ambassador to the UN in 2017 and 2018, when she said many Gazans indeed opposed Hamas.

I dealt with this every day for two years. And what I can tell you is, you have to realize that, whether were talking about Gazans and Palestinians, all of them dont  youve got half of them at the time that I was there didnt want to be under Hamas rule. They didnt want to have terrorists overseeing them. They knew that they were living a terrible life because of Hamas. You had the other half that supported Hamas and wanted to be a part of that. We see that with Iran too. The Iranian people dont want to be under that Iranian regime. They dont  we saw what happened to Mahsa Amini. We saw how they treat them, Haley said.

Haley continued: There are so many of these people who want to be free from this terrorist rule. They want to be free from all of that. And Americas always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists. And thats what we have to do. But right now, we can never take our eyes off of the terrorists. I mean, what Hamas did was beyond thuggish, brutal, and sick.

Again, nowhere did Haley say that the US should take in Gazans as refugees.

DeSantis flawed argument

The DeSantis camp has emphasized Haleys comment that Americas always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists.

DeSantis said in a Fox interview on Tuesday: Over the weekend, she was taking issue with what I said, saying that you can separate someone whos Hamas in Gaza with somebody whos more of a freedom-lover. So why would she be talking about that we can vet these people if she wasnt saying that they should come to this country? We would have no role in vetting them unless youre bringing them to this country.

But Haley did not use the word vet on CNN in the context of the US; when she did use the word, she was talking about how Middle Eastern countries cannot vet refugees from Gaza. And its a baseless leap to claim that Haley was talking about refugees when she spoke of how the US should distinguish terrorists from Hamas-opposing civilians.

There are numerous possible reasons other than refugee policy that someone could find it important for the US government to understand the beliefs of Gazas population. For example, Gazans views about Hamas could be pertinent to the durability of Hamas control over Gaza. Gazans views could also affect the willingness of a member of Congress or a president to authorize humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, or affect their positions on Israels military actions.

In a new television ad attacking Haley over her comments on CNN, the pro-DeSantis super PAC used a question mark that appeared to slightly hedge its claim about what Haley was saying  putting text over the video of Haleys remarks that reads, NIKKI HALEY ON GAZA REFUGEES?

But the ad  which juxtaposes some of Haleys words with a clip of DeSantis expressing opposition to the US taking refugees from Gaza  is misleading nonetheless. A single question mark is not nearly sufficient to explain that these Haley comments never even mentioned the US taking in refugees.

In a Wednesday email, a spokesperson for the super PAC repeated DeSantis argument that Haleys comment about how America needs to separate civilians from terrorists was about refugees. The spokesperson also said, DeSantis said Gazans are antisemitic and do not believe in Israels right to exist BECAUSE he was arguing against bringing Gaza refugees to the U.S. So it is fair to view Haleys rejection of DeSantis statements in that context. And the spokesperson criticized Haleys past positions on US refugee policy.

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Claim:

As of October 2023, the Ukrainian government was preparing to legalize the production of pornography to help fund the country's military.

Rating:

Rating: False

Context:

The false claim stemmed from a mischaracterization of a real proposal to decriminalize porn production in Ukraine. That draft law could plausibly benefit the military through increased tax revenue, but the law itself was not explicitly designed to raise money for armed forces, and the effort to reform pornography laws in Ukraine predates Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

On Oct. 17, 2023, an account on X (formerly Twitter) posted a screenshot of what it alleged was an Aug. 19, 2023, headline about the Ukrainian government legalizing the production of pornography to help fund its military during the country's war with Russia:

Snopes was unable identify any website with this alleged headline, but it closely matched the framing of a story that published that same day (Aug. 19) on the Russian state-backed media outlet RT:

That story by RT referenced a real legislative proposal by a member of Ukraine's parliamentary body, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, to decriminalize pornography in the country. However, that measure is an attempt by supporters to limit the state's control over consensual sexual activity  not an effort to raise money for the country's military. Nowhere in the legislation is military funding mentioned, and it does not spell out how the proposed changes to the porn industry would drive more money for Ukrainian's armed forces.

Like many former Soviet Bloc countries, pornography is entirely illegal in Ukraine. In August 2023, however, Zhelezniak introduced the proposal titled (via Google translate), "Draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine on Ensuring Freedom from Interference in a Person's Private Life," to remove some restrictions on the production of porn, specifically. As described by the Kyiv Independent, an English-language news outlet in Ukraine:

Producing and distributing pornography is currently illegal in Ukraine. Broad interpretations of the law mean that even sharing a n*de photograph with a partner can land a person in jail. In 2023 already, 699 cases have been opened over the distribution, sale, and production of pornography, not including cases of child pornography. In one case in July, a court in Poltava Oblast fined a woman almost $1,000 for sending two videos to her boyfriend. Meanwhile, in Sumy Oblast, a man was [sentenced] to three years in prison with one year of probation for sending intimate photos and videos via a dating website Lawmakers and advocates say this has to change. In their view, the decades-old prohibition of pornography harms ordinary citizens by going after them for consensual sexual content, wasting state resources in the process.

Zhelezniak argued current Ukrainian law prohibits the production and distribution of material that many Ukrainians already produce or engage with. He said he believes the law should do more to prevent people from sharing n*de photos without consent by including additional legal penalties, and protect individual adult content creators against abuse by law enforcement authorities by removing other legal penalties. Supporters say the current legal climate allows authorities to coerce people who produce adult content or perform on webcams. As Zhelezniak explained to the Kyiv Post in August 2023:

One of the problems of the current legislation is that law enforcement officers, namely cyber police officers, correspond with users of pornographic platforms  for example, those that strip for clients on webcams. They pretend to be customers and then offer them cover for a price, [Zhelezniak] said.

The proposal would add explicit protections against victims of revenge porn, reaffirm the illegality of child pornography and "extreme" pornography, and remove criminal penalties for the production and distribution of legal porn. The proposed legislation was in committee, as of this writing.

Nowhere in the draft law was military funding mentioned. An explanatory note attached to the bill, however, pointed out  in an apparent attempt to highlight the current system's alleged flaws  the Ukrainian government spends money to prosecute models on the adult content creation platform OnlyFans using tax revenue it receives from the same site. In 2021, Ukraine implemented a so-called Google tax that levels a 20% tax on foreign corporations that provide services in Ukraine. That tax applies to London-based OnlyFans, despite the fact that, in some cases, it's hosting content that is technically illegal in the country. The explanatory note mentions that surpluses in the government's annual budget generally go toward the Ukrainian military. It is plausible such a law could provide funding to the armed forces, but that was not its intent.

Additionally, the explanatory note argues the government spends significant resources investigating and prosecuting cases against models generating revenue for OnlyFans and, by extension, Ukraine, as described in the Kyiv Independent:

OnlyFans, one of the worlds largest platforms for erotic content, has already generated more than Hr 34 million ($920,000) in tax revenue to Ukraines state budget from value-added tax in the first six months of the year, Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak, who has been spearheading the latest effort to legalize porn, told the Kyiv Independent. It's stupid to collect taxes for that and say it's criminal at the same time, Zhelezniak said. If we decriminalize porn, it means less corruption and more taxes for the budget.

The explanatory note also referenced an organization that allows Ukrainians to donate erotic photos to people who provide evidence of a donation to the armed forces of Ukraine  TerOnlyfans. That group is independent of the Ukrainian government. It was referenced only in the draft law's explanatory note, nowhere in the actual legislation. That section (via Google translate) read:

Adult pornography is widely available in Ukraine and most of its aspects [do] not cause public disturbance. On the contrary, such an approach usually causes positive public reaction and media coverage. For almost one and a half years of existence of the TerOnlyfans platform, volunteers [...] collected about UAH 31.5 million in donations for the Armed Forces of Ukraine for erotic photo cards.

Quotes from TerOnlyfans Executive Director Anastasia Kuchmenko were included in most news stories about the draft law, and that media focus seemingly contributed to the spread of false claims that the proposal to decriminalize the production of porn was connected to military funding. In reality, however, while the bill indeed proposed lighter restrictions on porn production, it did not call for the government to use revenue from that proposed change on its armed forces. For that reason, we rated this claim "False."

Sources:

My Body, My Business: Ukrainian Lawmakers Move to Legalize Pornography. The Kyiv Independent, 7 Sept. 2023, https://kyivindependent.com/my-body-my-business-ukrainian-lawmakers-move-to-legalize-porn/.

Teronlyfans - nudity for donations to Ukraine | 1 donation - 1 nude photo. , https://teronlyfans.com/english/. Accessed 18 Oct. 2023.

Ukrainian Parliament Poised to Legalize Porn Production. RT International, https://www.rt.com/russia/581488-ukraine-bill-legalize-porn/. Accessed 18 Oct. 2023.

Zakharchenko, Kateryna. Porn Is Illegal in Ukraine But That Might Be About to Change. Get the Latest Ukraine News Today - KyivPost, https://www.kyivpost.com/post/20650. Accessed 18 Oct. 2023.

  - . https://itd.rada.gov.ua/billInfo/Bills/Card/42525. Accessed 18 Oct. 2023.

                     . 9623, 18 Aug. 2023, https://itd.rada.gov.ua/billInfo/Bills/pubFile/1930314.

2        Google | Think Brave. https://biz.ligazakon.net//news/204612_2-lipnya-nabuv-chinnost-zakon-pro-podatok-na-google. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.


(Reuters) -U.S. companies across sectors such as food and beverage makers and manufacturers of glucose monitors are facing investor questions over the risk to future sales from the growing popularity of promising weight-loss treatments.

Drugs in a class known as GLP-1, such as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Ozempic and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro, have been shown to help control blood sugar and dramatically lower weight in clinical trials.

Here's what companies have said about the potential impact:

RETAILERS, FOOD AND BEVERAGE COMPANIES

Conagra might consider changing portion sizes of its snacks if the rising use of weight-loss drugs leads to a change in food consumption patterns.

Walmart expects revenues from its health and wellness products to increase in the second half of the year, mainly due to the popularity of weight-loss drugs.

PepsiCo Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston has said the company is "not seeing any impact" yet from the popularity of weight-loss drugs.

Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said the company was monitoring what impact, if any weight-loss drugs will have.

Hershey's CEO Michele Buck said the use of the drugs was not materially impacting the chocolate maker's business.

Keurig Dr Pepper CEO Robert Gamgort said it was not seeing any impact from the use of the drugs on coffee consumption.

DIALYSIS SERVICES PROVIDERS

Germany's Fresenius Medical Care said that use of Ozempic and other drugs of the same class would have an overall neutral effect on how many patients would require its kidney dialysis services in the future.

Davita is closely monitoring developments related to the drug and expects limited impact from use of the drugs, since they may only benefit some kidney disease patients.

MEDICAL DEVICE MAKERS

Johnson & Johnson's third-quarter sales for devices used in abdomen surgeries was hit by a slowdown in demand for weight-loss and other procedures, as many obese patients turned to Wegovy and Ozempic.

J&J Chief Financial Officer Joseph Wolk said use of the drugs could eventually make patients eligible for procedures like hip and knee replacements or other orthopedic surgeries.

Abbott Laboratories, which makes glucose monitoring products, has said that the market was overestimating the impact to its sales from growing popularity of the drugs.

Abbott CEO Robert Ford has said that diabetes patients could end up using glucose monitors with the weight-loss drugs in the long term.

Insulet Corp expects that the use of Ozempic and Mounjaro could delay the time for patients to become dependent on insulin, but does not expect its long-term market for insulin pumps to be impacted.

Surgical robots maker Intuitive Surgical said the U.S. growth rate for weight-loss surgery was slowing as patients consider using the new drugs instead.

However, Intuitive does not expect patients to stay on these drugs for longer than a year or two.

Boston Scientific expects the impact from weight loss drugs on its heart devices to be "very limited" in the short term and "minor" in the long term.

DRUG DISTRIBUTORS

Cencora, formerly called AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson have flagged potential boost to revenues this year owing to the growing demand for weight-loss drugs.

(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
FILE PHOTO: Maria Corina Machado, candidate of the Vente Venezuela party poses for pictures after a press conference, in Caracas

FILE PHOTO: Maria Corina Machado, candidate of the Vente Venezuela party poses for pictures after a press conference, in Caracas

By Deisy Buitrago

CARACAS (Reuters) - Voters in Venezuela will on Sunday choose a unity candidate from among 10 hopefuls to represent the country's opposition in 2024 presidential elections, when President Nicolas Maduro is expected to seek re-election.

The primary is the first held by Venezuela's opposition in over a decade.

Favorite Maria Corina Machado is barred from holding public office, in a move criticized by the opposition and the U.S alike, and it is not clear what will happen if she wins the primary.

Two other candidates - former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles and ex-lawmaker Freddy Superlano - have already withdrawn their candidacies because of similar disqualifications.

The U.S. government has conveyed to Maduro bans must be lifted for all opposition presidential candidates by the end of November in exchange for sanction relief, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

Here is a look at the top three candidates:

MARIA CORINA MACHADO

Industrial engineer Machado, 56, a candidate for the Vente Venezuela party, has led polls by dozens of points, despite being disqualified.

Machado, a mother of three, has said she plans to privatize state-owned oil company PDVSA if she goes on to win the presidential election next year.

She has also set her sights on privatizing the Sidor steel company, restructuring public debt and seeking financing from multilateral agencies like the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund, among other ideas.

"We must immediately ensure that economic growth translates into productive, well-paid employment, a growth of the middle class and a sense of well-being and hope," Machado recently told journalists.

CARLOS PROSPERI

Prosperi, 45, a lawyer, is a member of the social democratic party Accion Democratica, from whose ranks have sprung several presidents.

Born in Caracas but with family ties to the eastern state of Guarico, Prosperi has said that not being known at a national level could help him win over a skeptical population.

The former lawmaker wants to rebuild PDVSA and Venezuela's iron and steel industries, as well as fix the ailing electrical grid, to boost growth.

He has pledged to seek funding agreements with multilateral lenders and to support social spending, though he has not given details, and has also called for efforts to tackle corruption.

DELSA SOLORZANO

Human rights activist and lawyer Solorzano has taken on the defense of some detainees considered by the opposition to be political prisoners.

Solorzano, who defines herself as "center-right" and is also a former lawmaker, has represented hundreds of victims from Venezuela before the International Criminal Court and several United Nations commissions.

She says that her government plan includes emergency actions on security, the economy and the legal system.

Solorzano has proposed expanding the role of private investment in the energy sector and reorganizing PDVSA to remove functions unrelated to oil, which include food distribution and building houses.

(Reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Additional reporting by Vivian Sequera and Mayela Armas; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
The then shadow assistant Minister For Treasury Matt Thistlethwaite addresses media during a press conference in Sydney, Feb. 6, 2019. A failed referendum on Indigenous rights had set back the government's plans to cut Australia's constitutional ties to Britain's King Charles III, the now Assistant Minister for the Republic Thistlethwaite, said Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (Dan Himbrechts/AAP Image via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

CANBERRA, Australia (AP)  Australias failed referendum on the Indigenous Voice has set back the governments plans to cut the nations constitutional ties to Britains King Charles III, a minister said Thursday.

Australians last week overwhelmingly rejected the referendum that would have enshrined in the constitution an Indigenous advisory body to Parliament.

The loss reduced the chances of another referendum soon to make the country a republic with an Australian president as head of state instead of the British monarch, Assistant Minister for the Republic Matt Thistlethwaite said.

In my view, its not off, but it does certainly make it a lot harder, Thistlethwaite told Sky News Australia.

Australians are reluctant to look at further referendums in the short term, he added.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made the Voice referendum a top priority for his center-left Labor Party governments first three-year term when it was elected last year.

Albanese placed Thistlethwaite in charge of paving the way toward a republic and left open the prospect of a referendum being held in a second term if Labor wins the 2025 election.

Queen Elizabeth IIs death last year at the age of 96 was widely seen as increasing Australians mood for constitutional change to a republic.

The Voice referendum was Australias first in a generation. Australians rejected an Australian republic at their last referendum in 1999. No referendum has succeeded since 1977.

The weekend referendum result had also triggered a backlash against Indigenous rights in two states where the no vote was strongest.

In Queensland where opposition to the Voice was strongest, the state opposition party on Wednesday reneged on a commitment to support negotiating a treaty between the state and Indigenous residents.

Opposition leader David Crisafulli explained he had hoped that a treaty would lead to better outcomes for the Indigenous population.

But the referendum convinced him that a treaty would create further division.

Sadly, over the past six months Australia and Queensland have been subject to one of the most divisive debates in my life, Crisafulli said in a statement, referring to the referendum campaign.

South Australia had the second strongest no vote and next year will become Australias first state to introduce a state-based Indigenous Voice.

Lawmaker Sarah Game, who represents the minor One Nation party, introduced a bill to the state legislature this week that would repeal the legislation that created the state Voice.

I think its the right thing to do: an acknowledgement of the way in which Australians and in particular South Australians have voted, Game told reporters.

We want a commitment to those who are disadvantaged, but we dont want it in a way that causes a divide on race and ancestry, Game added.

___

Follow AP's Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific
Falsified pre-filled Ozempic pens have been identified in the European Union and the United Kingdom, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has warned.

The pens are labelled in German and originated from wholesalers in Austria and Germany, the regulator added.

"There is no evidence that any falsified pens have been dispensed to patients from legal pharmacies and there are no reports of harm to patients in relation to the falsified medicine," EMA said in a statement on Wednesday.

Authorities in impacted countries alerted wholesalers and pharmacies about the counterfeit pens.

Ozempic, sold by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, has become a blockbuster drug after being associated with weight loss.

It is currently authorised in the EU for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes, but there have been reports of it being prescribed "off label" for weight loss.

Its main ingredient is semiglutide, which is also used in the drug Wegovy, which can be used to treat obesity.

The high demand for the popular medicines has made Novo Nordisk Europe's largest company by market capitalisation. The company has also said its operating profit increased by 32 per cent at constant exchange rates in the first half of 2023.

The UK's medicines regulator warned that the falsified Ozempic pens had been identified at two UK wholesalers.

"All affected pens have been recalled and accounted for, and none of the pens have been supplied to UK patients," said the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

The pens were brought in from legitimate suppliers in Austria and Germany, the MHRA added.

Images of the original Ozempic pen (top) and counterfeit one (bottom). - Germany's Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM)

The German drugs regulator (BfArM) said last week that while there was no evidence that the counterfeit pens had reached patients, it could not be ruled out that there are "in the distribution chain in Germany".

Ozempic pens have 2D barcodes and unique serial numbers on each package. While the counterfeit packs also had serial numbers, when they were scanned, those codes were inactive.

High demand for the Ozempic has led to a shortage, as demand outpaces the company's production.

A counterfeit Ozempic pen was found in the United States earlier this year, with Novo Nordisk warning that it appeared to contain a different diabetes medication.
FALL RIVER  Fall River police released bodycam footage on Thursday of eight juveniles being arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest at the President Avenue McDonalds on Wednesday afternoon.

The chaotic scene at the shopping plaza, shortly after school let out at nearby B.M.C. Durfee High School, drew response from what appeared to be a dozen or more police cruisers and State Police, and led to citizen-recorded videos being posted on social media.

Sgt. Moses Pereira of the FRPD Office of Professional Standards stated Thursday that just before 3:30 p.m., a crowd of students had been engaged in fighting and other disorderly behavior in the parking lot. They entered the McDonalds restaurant lobby, and the manager asked police to remove anyone who had not purchased food.

Teenager in court: 17-year-old man faces murder charge in connection to Fall River shooting of 18-year-old

A crowd of young people stands along the wall at the President Avenue shopping plaza in Fall River shortly after 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 19.

As officers repeatedly warned the group that they needed to leave the restaurant or face arrest for trespass, they were met with confrontation. Their warnings were ignored and a juvenile who had already been spoken with exited the restaurant only to immediately return through a separate entrance. That individual was then placed under arrest for trespassing," the FRPD statement reads.

During the arrests, police said several youths interfered with officers, and were also arrested. In all, eight juveniles were handcuffed and taken into custody:

Juvenile 1, trespass, resisting arrest; Juvenile 2, trespass, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest; Juvenile 3, trespass, two counts of resisting arrest; Juvenile 4, trespass; Juvenile 5, trespass, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace; Juvenile 6, trespass, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace; Juvenile 7, trespass, resisting arrest; Juvenile 8, trespass, two counts of resisting arrest, and two counts of assault and battery on a police officer.

A school bus drives past the McDonald's on President Avenue in Fall River on Thursday, Oct. 19. The McDonald's was the scene of a melee with Fall River police that saw eight juveniles arrested.

What does the Fall River police bodycam footage of the incident show? And what do cell phone cameras show?

FRPD released a seven-minute, 29-second version of police bodycam footage, edited from the full incident. Faces are obscured.

While it is not our normal practice to release body worn camera footage of an incident, this footage is being released in the interest of transparency, accountability, and whereas the public interest has been taken into consideration, the FRPD stated.

The footage shows an officer repeatedly warning young people inside a crowded McDonald's lobby to leave. At one point, he asks some youths who had ordered and were waiting for food to stand to one side.

FRPD said the initial responding officer warned those inside the lobby 23 times to leave before making arrests.

Fall River police officers in cruisers monitor the President Avenue plaza after the let-out of Durfee High School on Thursday, Oct. 19.

One young person is warned to leave and repeatedly shouts a racial slur and other expletives at officers. When he appears to re-enter the building, police place him under arrest by seizing him and pressing him against a wall. The youth is taken outside and held stomach-down on the grass outside the restaurant by an officer.

Footage also shows a young woman being removed from the McDonald's and pushed roughly against the glass windows to be handcuffed.

At one point an officer tells the arrested juvenile he was under arrest because he was ordered to leave the premises and re-entered. "You were told to leave numerous times. ... I told you not to come back in, and you came back in," the officer says.

The arrested juvenile says he was hungry and did not eat all day. "I'm going to get food if I need to get food." When the officer asks why he did not eat lunch at school, the juvenile says, "I don't eat that lunch. It's not good."

Pessoa on trial: Ex-city cop serving sentence for police brutality facing second of three cases

Multiple videos posted to Facebook, apparently recorded by young witnesses, depict the same arrests in the same manner from different angles.

They know this [expletive] is wrong, and I [expletive] know it, shouts a speaker after the young woman is arrested. All of them know this [expletive] is wrong.

Further citizen video of the incident shows several police officers urging people to leave the plaza parking lot to clear the scene. One speaker says, Theyre kicking us off the property, weve got to go. Get on school property. They cant do [expletive].

Police Chief Paul Gauvin and Mayor Paul Coogan did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

A sign on the door of the President Avenue McDonald's in Fall River indicates that the lobby is closed until 4 p.m., an hour after the let-out of school at nearby Durfee High.

A day after arrests, store owner complains of crowds and shoplifters

The shopping plaza is a popular hangout for students after school lets out at nearby Durfee at 2:55 p.m., and a place for parents to pick up students. A day after the incident, just after 3 p.m., the plaza became packed with students again, many congregating along the wall by BankFive, CVS and Marriott while others were picked up by cars. Otherwise, the plaza was peaceful.

Durfee Principal Matthew Desmarais was seen walking through the plaza parking lot and keeping an eye on students. He declined to comment on the incident, calling it a police matter.

The McDonalds lobby was locked, and a sign on the door noted the lobby is closed until 4 p.m. A source close to the story said that McDonalds lobby is usually locked every early afternoon but wasn't on Wednesday.

A reporter was allowed into the lobby to speak to a manager, who declined to comment.

Managers at CVS and Jays Wine and Spirits also refused to speak about the incident.

'Annoying and costly': Thieves are targeting vehicle license plates. Here's what to do if yours is stolen.

A crowd of young people stands along the wall at the President Avenue shopping plaza in Fall River shortly after 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 19.

Heriberto Fernandez, manager at Americas Food Basket, said he heard about the arrests. He said he has had problems when school lets out where groups of young people enter the store and shoplift.

At times, it can be up to 15 of them, he said. On multiple occasions, theyll steal from me. Soda, chips  not more than $20.

He said groups of kids will also hang out at the rear of the building and smoke marijuana.

Sometimes the smell is so bad it even comes into the store, he said.

He said if too many young people enter the store around that time of day, he has a special code that we call over the radio, and Ive got my guys watching for them.

Dan Medeiros can be reached at dmedeiros@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Fall River cops release bodycam footage of teen arrests at McDonald's
In an interview with Action News Jax, the family attorney of Leonard Cure, a 53-year-old man wrongfully convicted and later exonerated, shot by a Camden County Deputy during a traffic stop, speaks out.

The video has sparked a contentious debate, leaving the family considering their future legal steps.

It all started after Deputy Buck Aldridge claimed that Cure was driving at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour and recklessly on I-95. When emergency lights were activated, Cure pulled over approximately one minute later.

Video provided to Action News Jax shows Cure being ordered to get out of his vehicle and put his hands behind his back.

Deputy Aldridge reportedly demanded that Cure put his hands behind his back, citing an arrest for speeding and reckless driving. Cure put one arm in the air and then was tasered.

While tasered, Cure turns towards the deputy and begins swinging his arms and the two begin to fight near the side of the road.

During the struggle, it appeared that Cure took Deputy Aldridges glasses off while swinging his arms. Near the truck, Deputy Aldridge struck Cure with a baton while Cure had his hand on the deputys throat or mouth, and another on his back.

READ: Leonard Cure: Camden deputies release body, dash cam of fatal deputy-involved shooting

Following several baton strikes, Deputy Aldridge fired a shot into the side of Leonard Cure.

After watching the video, the familys attorney, Ben Crump, spoke to Action News Jax, stating that there was never an attempt to de-escalate the situation.

When you have escalation met with escalation, nothing good comes out of it. As his family believes, when the officer said, Im arresting you and taking you to jail, he was triggered psychologically back to the point he was wrongfully convicted for almost 17 years, Crump told Action News Jax.

READ: Family and lawyer speak out on fatal Camden County shooting

Law and safety expert, Dale Carson, who has years of experience in law enforcement and the FBI, believes the use of a Taser, baton, and lethal force was appropriate.

Dale Carson stated, He couldve been compliant, but he opted not to be. He decided to resist with violence and, in my view, tried to break the individuals neck, which is an immediate potential for death or great bodily harm for the officer.

Leonard Cures brother, Michael, expressed his belief that Deputy Aldridge was excessively aggressive from the beginning of the encounter.

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After watching the video, I believe things couldve been handled differently, but I also believe the officer got out being extremely aggressive, unfortunately, Cure stated.

Action News Jax has obtained Deputy Aldridges personnel file, revealing his termination from the Kingsland Police Department for the use of force in 2017. We are continuing to investigate these details.

The Cure family is now exploring their legal options as they seek justice for Leonard Cure. Action News Jax will continue to follow this developing story and provide updates as more information becomes available.

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.
The deputy mayor for economic development under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot has landed a new role in academia as managing director of the University of Chicagos Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Samir Mayekar, who spearheaded everything from the Invest South/West initiative to the Chicago casino during his tenure in city government, will take the reins at the universitys 25-year-old technology and business development program on Nov. 6. A tech entrepreneur before he became deputy mayor, Mayekar will look to commercialize academic innovation at the University of Chicago, taking on challenges such as climate change and the responsible application of artificial intelligence. Tap on our bio link to read more. ----------------------------------------- Photo: Samir Mayekar, speaks during a community engagement meeting about a proposed casino by Bally's Corporation at the site of the Chicago Tribune printing plant, in the 700 block of West Chicago Avenue, Wednesday, April 6, 2022, in Chicago. :memo: Robert Channick / Chicago Tribune :camera: Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune / @briancassella (Avishag Shaar-Yashuv/The New York Times)

Amid the current wave of bloodshed in Israel and Gaza, its easy to forget that last week saw the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. The Hamas-led slaughter of more than 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7 will likely be added to the long list of tragic dates weve marked over the centuries, commemorating one slaughter after another.

Politics briefly aside, Oct. 7 was first and foremost a mass slaughter of Jews. More than 1,400 Jews  including Israelis, Americans, Europeans, Asians and anyone standing in their proximity  have been raped, killed, burnt and disappeared. There was no art or statecraft in this. Only pure brutality.

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If youre not Jewish, it can be difficult to understand how deep this cuts. Almost every single Jew  me included  is born bearing the trauma of past excommunications, pogroms and genocides, which has produced shame, self-loathing and mistrust. My first moral memory was my mom telling me: It doesnt matter what you believe; they want to kill you anyway.

And then, just last week, we saw hundreds of Jews slaughtered, their deaths live, unfiltered and even celebrated. These horrors trudged up the darkest and most remote memories every Jewish person has locked away in our psychic DNA.

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Meanwhile, every single Jewish person is being forced to process our grief for this new historic trauma through the morass of modern political discourse, marked by enmity, opposition and immobility. But because this happened in Israel, many of my well-intentioned and politically progressive friends and peers are narrating these same events through their university-honed talking points on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite having absolutely no ethnic, cultural, historic or other ties to the region  as usual.

Lets say I just saw my sister get killed by a drunken driver. As I hold her dying hand, watching her bleed out, Im already wan with anger, sadness and grief. And then an anonymous and well-intentioned passerby, noticing the blood and our ashen faces, pats me on the head and says: Dont pass judgment; the drunken driver has had a hard life too.

This might be true as an abstraction, but its also an asinine thing to say  and the absolute worst time to say it.

This is what I hear when, in the face of my grief, you say, Free Palestine, and accuse Israel of being an apartheid state. Maybe these things are valid, but not as I watch the bodies of my sisters get carted off, raped and murdered, their corpses bandied and desecrated in the streets of Gaza. Youre a kindergartner playing cops and robbers. You have no idea what youre talking about while you pantomime pistols.

Im grieving for my slaughtered sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers. Whether this would have happened in Israel or Indiana, my grief would be the same. But because this happened in Israel, at the same time Im also grieving for the innocent people in Gaza as they shield themselves from Israels epic retaliations. Im disgusted at the fascism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Im nauseated by violent state actions in Israel, like the beatings in Jerusalem last year for the funeral of Al-Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh. And Im especially angry at how Hamas has been propped up, trained and unleashed.

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But more than this, Im scared for what this slaughter portends for Jewish people around the world  especially as Jews are being cast simultaneously as scapegoats, boogeymen and villains on two active warfronts (Israel and Ukraine) that also sit as keystones in the gateways between democratic values and unbridled fascism.

At the same time, there are only around 15 million Jews alive today, or 0.2% of the global population. Were a single eyelash on the body of the world. But for millenniums, Jews have been in exactly the spot were in now  between a rock and a hard place.

Its not unusual to see swastikas at Donald Trump and Proud Boy rallies on the right  and its increasingly common to see similar symbolism at so-called Pro-Palestine rallies on the left. Their rationales are drastically different, but their concluding message to Jews is the same: better that you were dead.

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Its possible at the same time to think Oct. 7 was the worst day for Jews since Adolf Hitler and Innocent Gazans do not deserve to be the victims of war crimes. I can hold both these thoughts in my head.

But how many rhetorical hoops do Jewish people need to jump through before the well-intentioned among you are satisfied with the language of our grief?

Benjamin van Loon is from Chicago and is an adjunct professor in the College of Art & Science at Northeastern Illinois University.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
The number of people killed in Israel since Hamas militants attacked on Oct. 7 is more than 1,400 while the number of hostages has risen to an estimated 203. For one family, hope of captured loved ones returning home turned to heartbreak.

Abbey Onn, who lives in Tel Aviv, told CBS News that Israeli authorities confirmed on Wednesday that they found the bodies of her cousin, 80-year-old Carmela Dan  an Israeli, American and French citizen  and Dan's 12-year-old granddaughter, Noya Dan.

"It's probably everyone's greatest nightmare," Onn said.

"She is a Harry Potter fan. She dresses as Harry Potter," Onn told CBS News of Noya. "She was a 12-year-old with autism. She was very, very close with her grandmother."

Onn said Carmela Dan was "the matriarch of the family."

"She and her husband deeply believed in peace, as everyone that lived [at their kibbutz] did. They helped Palestinians," Onn said.

Onn believed Hamas fighters had taken Carmela and Noya hostage after attacking Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel where one in every four people were killed or went missing.

But the Dan's family held out hope they were still alive, even holding a birthday party for Carmela Dan on Tuesday.



"We gathered all of us to hug each other and to be together and to try to strengthen one another and to bless her thinking that she would come home," Onn told CBS News. But, she said, the family now believes Carmela Dan was already dead by then.

"From what we understand now, their bodies were recovered by Israeli operations that went in to get bodies in Gaza," she said, adding that they were identified through DNA sampling.

Onn, who is Israeli-American, still has three other relatives missing  including an 11-year-old Erez Kalderon, who Onn said can be seen in a video released by Hamas. The boy's 16-year-old sister, Sahar Kalderon, and their 53-year-old father, Ofer Kalderon, are also still missing.

Onn said she believes all three are still alive.

"And I want them home," she said.

Watch: Biden meets with Israeli first responders, families of terror attack victims

What does Sidney Powell's guilty plea mean for Trump?

Joran van der Sloot admitted to killing Natalee Holloway, judge says
My family of four recently went on a Disney World vacation and took a Disney cruise.

On the Disney cruise, we got to see different places and explore new countries.

The vacations cost about the same amount of money, but the cruise was a better value.

As a travel planner at Marvelous Mouse Travels, clients often ask me if I prefer Disney cruises or Disney World vacations.

My family recently did a split trip where we spent four days at Disney World and four days on the Disney Wish, which gave me a great insight into the differences between the two options.

Here's why I think the cruise was a much better value.

We started our trip at Disney World with fun in the theme parks.

We visited all four theme parks on our trip to Disney World. Kari Becker

While in Orlando, we stayed at our favorite resort, Yacht Club, which has easy access to both Hollywood Studios and Epcot.

Throughout the trip, we explored all four parks by purchasing park-hopper tickets, and my family had a blast riding our favorite rides, eating with characters, and shopping for souvenirs.

It was a jam-packed four days, and they were long. We woke up early to get to the parks and returned to our hotel late after the nighttime shows.

After factoring in our hotel stay, park-hopper tickets, and all our meals, our total came to $6,000.

We loved the theme-park vacation as much as always, but we were excited to get to the next part of our trip.

After visiting the parks, we boarded the Disney Wish for a four-night Bahamian cruise.

This was our first time on the Disney Wish. Kari Becker

Stepping aboard the Wish for the first time was breathtaking.

As Disney's newest ship, it's filled with exquisite designs and unmatched attention to detail. It also looked impeccably maintained and offered classic Disney service.

As we settled in and explored the ship, characters greeted us around every corner, which added to the magic.

Our four-night cruise in a deluxe family ocean-view stateroom with a veranda cost $5,900, including meals.

Throughout our cruise, we experienced so much of what the ship had to offer.

My boys enjoyed playing in the kids' clubs on the ship. Kari Becker

Disney Cruise Line has an app named Disney Cruise Navigator that shares all the daily activities. Most are complimentary, and there's always something to do.

My kids hung out in the kids' clubs, saw movies, and played at the pool and gym. As a family, we saw Broadway-caliber shows, participated in family trivia, and ate at fun restaurants (including a Marvel dining experience and "Frozen" dinner show).

While our kids were supervised, my husband and I enjoyed the adults-only lounges and activities.

We got to enjoy a drink at the "Star Wars"-themed bar. Kari Becker

The kids were supervised when they hung out in the club, so my husband was able to do a fun beer tasting, and we both loved doing a wine tasting.

My favorite adventure was enjoying a massage at the Senses Spa, followed by a great glass of wine at the Rose Lounge.

There's also the adults-only Quiet Cove Infinity Pool, where you can have a drink or read a book, and adults-only brunch and dinner available at Palo or Enchante.

At Disney World, it's almost impossible for us to appreciate adults-only activities when we're with our kids.

You can hire a babysitter or seek out the kids' club at Camp Dolphin inside the Dolphin Hotel. But these services aren't included in your stay, and I find them much more difficult to arrange.

Another great perk of the cruise was getting to explore different places.

We made a stop at Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. Kari Becker

Disney Cruise Line has itineraries all over the world including Alaska, Europe, Hawaii, and the Caribbean. On this trip, we visited Nassau in the Bahamas and Disney's private island, Castaway Cay.

We also took a day trip to the Atlantis resort, and my kids had a blast at the water park.

Castaway Cay offers a relaxing and fun beach day. We snorkeled, built sand castles, ate a delicious barbecue lunch, and basked in the sun.

The cruise ended up being more affordable, and I think it was a better value overall.

My family really enjoyed our time on the Disney Wish. Kari Becker

A Disney Cruise might look pricier on the surface, but after we factored in the cost of meals and drinks at Disney World, the value of the cruise was more apparent.

Plus, the number of activities offered  for both kids and adults  made for a relaxing and fun experience.

If you haven't experienced a Disney Cruise, I highly recommend it.

Read the original article on Insider
Fans say its not looking too good for DJ Envy after his alleged business partner was arrested Wednesday, Oct. 18, on federal charges of running a real estate fraud scheme.

Dubbed the Real Estate RICO, by his nemesis Rick Ross, Envy has been accused by dozens of victims of being an accomplice in a Ponzi scheme authorities claim was orchestrated by the arrested Cesar Pina and his wife Jennifer.

The Pinas are being accused of running a fraudulent real estate company and stealing money from investors after promising the funds would be used to fix up multiple real estate ventures across New Jersey. The money that the Pinas received allegedly never went into those investments.

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DJ Envy (above) had no public comment this week after his apparent business partner Cesar Pina was arrested and the iHeartRadio offices were searched. (Photo: @djenvy/Instagram)

Envy, real name RaaShaun Casey, is involved in the case because many of the accusers claim that he was the one who connected them to the Pinas through publicity. The radio disc jockey had Pina as a guest on The Breakfast Club more than once, he spoke several seminars hosted by the Pinas, and he made dozens of social media posts supporting their business, Flipping NJ, which has him listed as a co-owner.

The 46-year-old nonetheless is denying any involvement with the Pinas, claiming that he was ignorant of any malpractice. He claims that he was wrongly included in the lawsuit because of his celebrity status and that his attorneys do not want him to speak on the matter, but on Oct. 11 he did just that.

On The Breakfast Club, Envy said he did the seminars with Pina because he wanted to uplift his community by teaching others about generational wealth and how to buy homes online.

I did these seminars and brought industry professionals to all these seminars, he admitted. Now Cesar, if he took money, I wasnt privy to it, nor did I even know. But I do understand how people feel if they did give him money.

He then claimed that he knows how Pinas victims feel because he allegedly gave him a lot of money that he didnt get a return on. I never stole nothing from nobody, and Ill leave it that, Envy concluded.

Just days after this episode aired, Pina was arrested by federal agents on one count of wire fraud charges. He pleaded not guilty, and he was later released on a $1 million bond. Pina has been placed on electronic monitoring, and cannot leave the state of New Jersey, as he could potentially face additional charges for money laundering.

In the complaint to announce the charges, local U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said Pina exploited celebrity status and social media to develop a devoted following of potential victims.

It continued, Promising returns that were too good to be true, Pina allegedly defrauded dozens of people of millions of dollars. Our office is committed to protecting the public from these schemes and prosecuting those who lie to investors for their own personal gain.

Copy of court docs announcing federal charges against DJ Envys business partner, Cesar Pina, in real estate fraud case. (Photo: @justice.gov/)

The statement claims Pina presented himself a highly successful real estate investor, owned thousands of properties in multiple states, and had business relationships with numerous celebrities.

An inside source also told NBC New York that the iHeartRadio offices were visited by the FEDS who took out electronic equipment as part of this investigation.

Fans believe that it may be over for Envy, including one who said, That statement from DJ Envy of him having to step away from the Breakfast Club for personal reasons is right around the corner. Another one added, The Feds raid 105.1 about the DJ Envy RICO investigation & has arrested his associate??? It aint look good for bruh!

The Feds raid 105.1 about the DJ Envy RICO investigation & has arrested his associate ??? It aint look good for bruh! pic.twitter.com/zylIbtl6j5  Van (@vanman_1000) October 19, 2023

Envy has not responded to Pinas arrest, therefore he may be listening to his lawyers this time around by no commenting. While fans continue to wait for his statement or acknowledgment, others want to know if the Biggest Boss has heard the news yet.

Ross and Funk Flex helped popularized calling the case the Real Estate RICO, during an eight-minute-long roast session where they clowned Envy for selling the Statue of Liberty, and stealing old ladies houses.

DJ envy wife cleaning her instagram in a desperate attempt to hide all the designer shit she used to post like the Feds are some local city operation and dont already have that shit is HILARIOUS.  Nobody (@supernobodyy) October 19, 2023

Fans claim that Envys wife, Gia Casey, has since removed some of her posts that feature the dozens of luxury designer items Envy buys her throughout the year. Hes notorious for buying her gifts for each of the 12 days leading up to Christmas.

If convicted, Pina faces up to 20 years in prison.

Read the Original Story Here.
A man is accused of murder after his sons body was found on the side of a highway, Texas deputies say.

Cobin Rocio faces charges of murder and tampering with evidence  human corpse in the death of 29-year-old Romeo Jimerson of Channelview, Texas, the Chambers County Sheriffs Office said in an Oct. 18 Facebook post. Melvin Carraway, a family friend, is also accused of tampering with evidence - human corpse.

We want to extend our heartfelt prayers and condolences to the family of Romeo Jimerson and ensure that they know we will continue to pursue justice in this case. I would also like to thank everyone who has taken part in this investigation and helped to bring such a swift resolution to this case, Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said.

McClatchy News was unable to locate a listed attorney for Rocio or Carraway.

Chambers County detectives were called to Interstate 10 on Oct. 13 after a report of a body found.

Based on observations at the scene, it was apparent that foul play was involved in the victims death, officials said.

McClatchy News reached out to the Chambers County Sheriffs Office for more information on the case but did not immediately hear back.

The arrests of Rocio and Carraway came after detectives worked through possible leads and spoke with people who last interacted with Jimerson, officials said.

Both men are being held on $750,000 bond each.

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(The Hill)  Anti-LGBTQ hate crimes rose sharply in 2022, jumping more than 19 percent over 2021, according to the FBIs annual crime report released Monday.

More than 11,600 hate crime incidents were reported to the FBI in 2022, the highest number recorded since the agency began tracking them in 1991. A majority of hate crimes recorded last year targeted Black people, according to the report.

Hate crimes targeting LGBTQ people were up significantly compared to 2021, with 622 reported single-bias anti-LGBTQ hate crimes. Hate crimes motivated by an anti-transgender bias rose more than 35 percent year-over-year, reaching 338 incidents.

Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ civil rights group, described the increase in hate crimes as both shocking and heartbreaking, yet sadly, not unexpected.

Is crime going up in America? Some types are, new FBI data shows

The constant stream of hostile rhetoric from fringe anti-equality figures, alongside the relentless passage of discriminatory bills, particularly those targeting transgender individuals, in state legislatures, created an environment where it was sadly foreseeable that individuals with violent tendencies might respond to this rhetoric, Robinson said Monday in a statement.

Robinson, who testified before Congress last year during a first-of-its-kind hearing on surging anti-LGBTQ violence and hate speech, added that Mondays FBI data serves as another alarming indicator of the state of emergency our community finds itself in.

The Human Rights Campaign in June declared a national state of emergency for LGBTQ people in the U.S. for the first time in its 40-year history, citing the passage of laws that target the community. More than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and at least 84 became law. Most measures threaten to roll back the rights of transgender young people.

President Biden denounced laws that target LGBTQ people as hateful and dangerous during a speech on Saturday at the Human Rights Campaign national dinner in Washington.

Families across the country now face excruciating decisions to move to a different state to protect their child from dangerous anti-LGBTQ laws, he said.

Biden recognized several LGBTQ people and allies who lost their lives to anti-LGBTQ violence this year, including OShae Sibley, who was fatally stabbed while dancing at Brooklyn gas station; Colin Smith, who was killed while defending a friend from anti-LGBTQ harassment; and Laura Ann Carleton, who was shot and killed by a man who made disparaging remarks about a rainbow Pride flag displayed outside her clothing store in Lake Arrowhead, Calif.

Biden similarly warned of increasing anti-LGBTQ violence last week in a statement marking the 25th anniversary of the killing of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming who was brutally attacked and later died of his injuries in one of the most notorious anti-gay hate crimes in U.S. history.

Today, as threats and violence targeting the LGBTQI+ community continue to rise, our work is far from finished, Biden said in the Oct. 12 statement. No American should face hate or violence for who they are or who they love.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of an increase in domestic threat reports amid Israels war with militant group Hamas.

Were particularly vigilant to the possibility that lone actors in the United States could in some way, out of inspiration, misguided inspiration that they draw from the conflict in the Middle East, Wray said in an interview with Fox News.

Asked if anything is being done differently to ensure peoples safety, Wray said, Were constantly making sure that we have got the latest intelligence, that were looking at all the intelligence thats available in the right way, testing our own assumptions, our own prior assessments, to make sure that we have anticipated any threats that can arise.

Wrays comments echoed his warning over the weekend, where he said there is no question that threats are on the rise.

History has been witness to antisemitic and other forms of violent extremism for far too long. Whether that be from foreign terrorist organizations, or those inspired by them, or domestic violent extremists motivated by their own racial animus, the targeting of a community because of their faith is totally unacceptable, Wray said Saturday in an address at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in San Diego.

Other officials have sounded similar warnings. New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) warned city residents last week to beware of lone wolves in the immediate wake of the deadly attacks carried out by Hamas militants on Israel.

Fighting has raged in Israel and Gaza since Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist group by the U.S., carried out a massacre that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, including hundreds of civilians in their homes, at a bus stop, and at a music festival. At least 31 Americans are among those dead in Israel, the White House confirmed.

An Israeli spokesperson claimed 206 people are believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas, according to The Associated Press. U.S. officials have not confirmed the number of Americans believed to be taken hostage.

Israeli forces quickly responded last week with a bombardment of Gaza that has so far killed more than 3,400 Palestinians and injured more than 12,000, the Gaza Health Ministry reported Thursday.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepened last week following Israels siege on food, water, electricity and medicine, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes and into shelters.

Israel ordered the evacuation of more than 1.1 million Palestinians last week to travel to the southern half of the Gaza Strip last week ahead of an anticipated ground assault. However, many people in Gaza lack the ability to travel south, and Hamas has told residents not to leave and to stay in their homes.

Trucks with aid waited for days at the Rafah crossing  Gazas only connection to Egypt which shut down last week in the wake of Israeli airstrikes.

President Biden visited Tel Aviv this week to meet with Israeli leaders and families impacted by the ongoing violence and reiterate the U.S.s support for Jerusalem.

While there, Biden announced an agreement to allow humanitarian aid to move from Egypt to Gaza and confirmed the U.S. will fund $100 million to assist those living in Gaza and the West Bank.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 along party lines to begin a process to reinstate Obama-era net neutrality laws.

In reestablishing the rules, the FCC would have more ability to regulate the internet by preventing broadband providers from engaging in harmful practices to consumers, such as blocking, throttling and paid prioritization.

During a Thursday meeting, the commission voted in favor of beginning the process to restore the rules in the first meeting with a Democratic majority under President Biden, after a two-year holdup over a prior FCC nominee.

The Senate confirmed Democratic Chairwoman Anna Gomez in September, setting in place FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcels ability to carry out Democrats agenda.

The proposal adopted Thursday aims to reestablish the FCCs authority over broadband internet access by classifying it as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act.

It would reestablish the framework the FCC adopted in 2015, which was repealed in 2018 under the Trump administration.

Rosenworcel said the need for protections was underscored by the pandemic, which pushed more aspects of work and personal life online.

In the wake of the pandemic, we know that broadband is a necessity, not a luxury. Thats why we made a historic commitment to connecting all of us to broadband. Now we have work to do to make sure that its fast, open and fair, Rosenworcel said.

Rosenworcel said the proposal would help ensure public safety, national security, cybersecurity and privacy.

Rosenworcel, Gomez and Democratic Commissioner Geoffrey Starks voted in favor of the proposal.

The two Republican commissioners, Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, voted in opposition.

Simington called the rules unnecessary, dangerously overbroad and unlikely to serve the public interest.

Carr called it a failed experiment under the Obama administration. In a statement released Wednesday, Carr said the average fixed download speeds and average mobile download speeds in the U.S. have increased since 2017, citing Ookla data.

Rosenworcel said cries that nothing has happened since the FCC retreated from net neutrality are not accurate.

She said restoring the rules will establish a uniform legal framework for the whole country, instead of the state-by-state rules that came in the wake of the 2018 repeal.

So in effect, we have open internet policies that providers are abiding by right now, they are just coming from Sacramento and places like it. But when you are dealing with the most essential infrastructure in the digital age, come on, its time for a national policy, she said.

During the same meeting, the FCCs Democratic majority also voted to advance a proposal that aims to expand subsidized Wi-Fi access on school buses.

The vote was also split along party lines, with the two Republicans breaking from the Democratic majority.

The proposal clarifies a rule to state that buses are eligible for E-Rate funding, a program that gives schools discounted Wi-Fi. Rosenworcel said it would help close the homework gap.

For some students their school day starts well before the first bell. They catch the bus early, before the sun rises, and board the school bus to start their long commute to school. Its been a longstanding way of life, in particular, for many rural and tribal students, Democratic Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said.

Thanks to advances in connectivity, students now could be using this time productively, to study, learn and do their homework. This time could be especially valuable when you consider that many of those same students may lack quality broadband at home, he added.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved millions in state funding to boost the presence of police at synagogues, mosques and other places of worship as fears ratchet up over the possibility of local violence stemming from the Israel-Hamas war.

The expansion will allow for the disbursement of $10 million to fund police officers at religious institutions by reimbursing overtime costs incurred.

The funding will also provide an additional $20 million to the California State Nonprofit Security Grant Program, doubling its budget this year. The program allows for nonprofits in the state to apply for grant funds for increased security measures, such as reinforced doors, cameras and alarms.

"Amid the horror unfolding in the Middle East following the unconscionable terrorist attacks in Israel, California is authorizing the immediate deployment of funds to increase security and police presence at places of worship across the state," Newsom said in a statement. "No matter how and where one prays, every Californian deserves to be safe.

Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), who wrote the legislation that led to the creation of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2018, said the program was key for moments like this.

"The sad reality is that we know, when there's violence and conflict in the Middle East, it can lead to spikes of antisemitism in the United States," Gabriel said.

Gabriel emphasized the grant program was for all minority groups that encounter hate and oppression. He said the grant could be a lifeline for smaller nonprofits and religious organizations that might not have the resources to budget for expensive security measures.

"The state can come in and can help ease that burden," he said. "It goes a really long way in protecting life, which is ultimately the goal here."

Religious institutions and other nonprofits that seek to utilize the grant program have until Oct. 27 to apply for funds.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The federal commission responsible for energy permitting Thursday morning approved an expansion of a natural gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest, over the objections of Washington state and Oregon officials.

In its Thursday meeting, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted to proceed with the expansion of TC Energys Gas Transmission Northwest pipeline, which carries natural gas through Idaho, Washington and Oregon. A FERC spokesperson confirmed to The Hill that two members of the five-member commission, Trump appointees James Danly and Allison Clements, concurred in part and dissented in part with separate statements.

Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) had urged FERC against approving the expansion Wednesday. Merkley renewed his objections Thursday afternoon following the approval.

According to FERCs own analysis the expanded pipeline will cause $8.8 billion in damages, and contribute 1.9 million metric tons of carbon per year in pollution to the Pacific Northwest. That is the equivalent to adding 644,000 gasoline powered cars to the road each year, Merkley said in a statement. And of course those numbers are misleadingly low because FERC systematically minimizes the climate chaos effects of fossil gas projects.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) have urged against the approval as well.

The approval has also been long opposed by environmentalist organizations in the region, who have pointed to earlier failures by TC Energy-owned pipelines, including a July incident in which a segment of one such pipeline exploded in rural Virginia near Interstate 81.

The organization Columbia Riverkeeper vowed Thursday to challenge the decision.

The Commissions decision violates the public interest and common sense, and we will file a petition for rehearing challenging this project. Since the analysis for this project was published, two major TC Energy pipelines have failed, causing safety hazards and spilling fossil fuel, Audrey Leonard, staff attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper, said in a statement. If this were to happen in dry, rural, fire-prone lands or in the residential areas where TC Energys GTN pipeline is located, it would be catastrophic.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Three variations of the AR-15 assault rifle are displayed at the California Department of Justice in Sacramento. (Associated Press)

A federal judge Thursday overturned California's three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, finding it has no equivalent in early American history and is therefore unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez , of San Diego, found that modern semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15 are common household items used for self-defense by millions of law-abiding citizens in the U.S. and that those citizens may not have their 2nd Amendment rights abridged by the state simply because others may misuse the same weapons in mass shootings and other deadly violence.

"Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law-abiding responsible citizens are necessary," Benitez wrote. "To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear firearms commonly owned and kept for lawful purposes."

Read more: The judge upending Californias gun laws: 'Blessed' jurist or 'stone-cold ideologue'?

The decision was expected from Benitez, who had previously struck down the law in a 2021 decision in which he famously compared the AR-15 to common knives  an analogy he took up again Thursday.

"Like the Bowie Knife which was commonly carried by citizens and soldiers in the 1800s," Benitez's latest decision begins, "'assault weapons' are dangerous, but useful."

Benitez's decision would overturn several state statutes related to such weapons, but it does not take effect immediately. As part of his decision, Benitez gave the state 10 days to seek a stay on the ruling as part of an appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta's office, which has been defending the law in court, immediately filed a notice of appeal and stressed the state's ban remains in effect for now.

"Weapons of war have no place on Californias streets," Bonta said in a statement. "This has been state law in California for decades, and we will continue to fight for our authority to keep our citizens safe from firearms that cause mass casualties."

John Dillon, an attorney for the plaintiffs who sued to overturn the law, said they were "very happy" with the decision and ready to keep fighting to preserve it.

"It seems like the court has applied the standards properly and correctly. There's no doubt about it," he said. "We're glad that our plaintiffs' rights are going to be respected."

Read more: Federal judge again overturns California ban on high-capacity gun magazines

The ruling is the second recent decision against California gun restrictions from Benitez. Last month, he overturned the state's ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines on similar grounds.

Benitez's ruling is also the latest blow to gun restrictions nationally since the U.S. Supreme Court's monumental pro-gun rights decision last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. Inc. vs. Bruen.

In that case, the nation's highest court rejected a long-standing pillar of 2nd Amendment law  that governments may enforce certain firearms restrictions if they have a compelling government interest in doing so. Instead, the high court said most restrictions on firearms can be legitimate only if they are deeply rooted in American history or analogous to some historical rule.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had sent the case decided Thursday back down to Benitez, specifically to decide in light of the Bruen decision.

Benitez rejected all of the state's arguments for why the ban should remain intact, writing that the state was "grasping at straws" and making "longshot" legal arguments for why there was historical precedent for such restrictions.

He dismissed as off the mark, insufficiently analogous, or less restrictive and therefore incomparable a host of historic laws put forward by the state. Those included laws prohibiting weapons such as dirks and daggers; banning particularly deadly weapons such as machine guns; barring specific uses of weapons such as guns being set as traps; banning the carrying but not the possession of certain weapons; or restricting certain classes of people, but not the population at large, from possessing certain weapons.

"Notwithstanding having significant time to do so, the State has identified no national tradition of firearm regulation so broad in its coverage or so far reaching in its effect as its extreme 'assault weapon' statutes," Benitez wrote.

Benitez also wrote that Americans hear a lot about mass shootings using such weapons  such as in Uvalde, Texas; Sandy Hook, Conn.; Parkland, Fla.; Orlando, Fla., and elsewhere. But, he wrote, they don't always hear about cases in which people used such firearms to defend themselves and their families from armed intruders who meant them harm. He went on to describe three such cases, two from Florida and one from Oklahoma, in detail.

Bonta called Benitez's decision "dangerous and misguided" and said the Supreme Court in Bruen left room for states to maintain sensible gun laws.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has pitched a constitutional amendment to enshrine gun restrictions into federal law, criticized Benitez's decision as another "love letter to the gun lobby" from a judge "hellbent on making it more dangerous for our kids to go to school, for families to go to the mall, or to attend a place of worship."

Cody J. Wisniewski, an attorney for the plaintiff group Firearms Policy Coalition, said in a statement that Benitez appropriately recognized California's law "flies directly in the face" of law-abiding citizens' rights, and that his group will continue making the same point "in courtrooms in California and across the country."

The California statutes in question currently bar people from possessing a host of guns  and from manufacturing, lending, selling or transporting them in the state  based in part on whether they have certain accouterments.

They ban centerfire rifles that are particularly short and concealable, centerfire rifles with fixed magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, and centerfire rifles that do not have fixed magazines but do have certain other features  such as pistol grips, folding or telescoping stocks or flash suppressors.

The statutes also ban semiautomatic pistols with added features such as threaded barrels and semiautomatic shotguns with features such as telescoping stocks and pistol grips.

The lead plaintiff in the case, James Miller, is a board member of the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, which is also a listed plaintiff.

In the initial complaint in 2019, Miller alleged the state's assault weapons ban unjustly precluded him from using a large-capacity magazine with his legally owned semiautomatic centerfire rifle, because doing so would reclassify the firearm as a prohibited "assault weapon" under state law.

Miller "would like to exercise his rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, by possessing a semiautomatic, centerfire rifle, in common use for lawful purposes, but which the State considers an 'assault weapon' solely by virtue of its magazine capacity," the complaint read.

Benitez on Thursday said the state's restrictions go way too far in infringing on Miller's and others' 2nd Amendment rights, particularly because rifles such as the AR-15 are as "ubiquitous as Ford F-series pickup trucks."

"The American tradition is rich and deep in protecting a citizen's enduring right to keep and bear common arms like rifles, shotguns, and pistols. However, among the American tradition of firearm ownership, there is nothing like California's prohibition on rifles, shotguns, and handguns based on their looks or attributes," Benitez wrote. "Here, the 'assault weapon' prohibition has no historical pedigree and it is extreme."

Whether the ban will fare any better before higher courts  including the 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court  remains to be seen.

State officials, gun rights advocates and experts on 2nd Amendment law are all waiting to see how the Supreme Court will handle the wave of gun cases being relitigated under Bruen  and how it will apply it and its history and tradition test in cases involving more dangerous weapons, and dangerous groups of people.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
New York court employee arrested for disrupting proceedings at Trump's civil fraud trial

Xinhua) 09:08, October 19, 2023

Former U.S. President Donald Trump (2nd L, Front) sits in the courtroom during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York, the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Doug Mills/Pool via Xinhua)

NEW YORK, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- A New York court employee was arrested Wednesday after trying to approach former U.S. President Donald Trump at a Manhattan courtroom, where Trump made another appearance in his civil fraud trial.

The woman was stopped by court officers before she got near Trump and no one involved in the trial was in any danger, according to a statement from the Office of Court Administration, local media reported.

The unnamed woman was charged with contempt of court in the second degree for disrupting a court proceeding. She has been placed on administrative leave and prohibited from entering any state court facilities.

Trump was at the courtroom Tuesday and Wednesday for the third week of the trial, after he attended the first three days of the trial when it got underway earlier this month.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has accused Trump and his company of inflating the value of their assets to obtain more favorable business deals and boost Trump's net worth.

Trump and his attorneys have strongly denied the allegations.

Before the trial began in early October, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled Trump and his company liable for fraud, saying they provided false financial statements for nearly a decade.

The trial is expected to continue until mid-December.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is seen in the courtroom during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York, the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Jeenah Moon/Pool via Xinhua)

Former U.S. President Donald Trump (Front) speaks to the media outside the courtroom during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York, the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

Former U.S. President Donald Trump (Front) speaks to the media outside the courtroom during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York, the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

Former U.S. President Donald Trump (R, Front) sits in the courtroom during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York, the United States, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Jeenah Moon/Pool via Xinhua)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Venezuelan migrants sheltering outside the 11th District Chicago police station in Chicago set up tents that were donated to them on Oct. 11, 2023. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

Last week, Gov. J.B. Pritzker was asked how the state plans to keep funding available for new arrivals. Pritzker said while the state budget is balanced, the state does not have any extra funds and the government has been forced to divert taxpayer funds from other programs.

Instead of using taxpayer money to fund immigration, Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle should put the question of Illinois sanctuary status on the ballot in the 2024 election.

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Pritzker has said that the state has diverted money from our rental assistance program, which wasnt originally intended to be for asylum-seekers. The governors spokesperson says budget items like rental assistance, support for community-based organizations doing case work and HOME IL lines are increasingly funding services for the asylum seeker response.

The HOME IL program is designed to reduce homelessness. The state has spent more than $328 million to support asylum-seekers. Johnsons 2024 budget sets aside $150 million to care for migrants housing and food while citizens, his constituents, struggle to clean out their basements from flooding; pay for the high price of food, utilities and housing; and live in unsafe communities.

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The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless 2023 report on homelessness estimates 68,440 people are experiencing homelessness in Chicago. The report estimates 82% of those experiencing homelessness are people of color. Additionally, the Chicago Housing Authoritys fiscal year 2023 report notes that more than 200,000 families are on the waitlist for affordable housing. A recent report by WBEZ-FM 91.5 found that Cook County evictions are rapidly increasing. Last year, landlords submitted about 29,000 eviction filings mainly due to a housing affordability crisis. And yet our elected leaders continue to divert resources from citizens.

[ Willie Wilson: Why arent officials prioritizing unhoused Chicagoans in the same way they are asylum-seekers? ]

Democracy requires that citizens voices be heard on this important issue. With hundreds of millions of dollars being diverted, we have a right to be heard. With parks and other resources being used to house migrants, community members should be heard. I am not anti-immigration; instead, I am pro-legal immigration. There is a process to enter into any country. To date, more than 18,000 migrants have come to Chicago since August 2022, with no end in sight.

Our elected leaders would do well to hear the voices of West Side residents in opposition to Amundsen Park being turned over to house 200 migrants. Residents in the community protested, and city officials put the plan on hold. On the South Side, when state Sen. Willie Preston held a town hall meeting and asked if the citizens wanted a ballot referendum on whether Chicago should remain a sanctuary city, a majority of the hands went up.

The question to voters at the state level should read like this: As citizens of Illinois, shall we continue to be a sanctuary state for immigrants lacking permanent legal status? Yes or No.

In Chicago, two aldermen, Anthony Beale and Anthony Napolitano, are fighting to get the question regarding sanctuary status in Chicago on the ballot for next years election. The taxpayers of Illinois, Chicago and Cook County should determine whether we remain a sanctuary for immigrants, not a few politicians.

WMAQ-Ch. 5 recently reported that Kansas-based company Favorite Healthcare Staffing billed the city of Chicago more than $7.2 million to staff migrant shelters during a four-week period this spring. Despite, the city reducing hourly rates being charged by Favorite Healthcare, one nurse billed $16,536 for seven days of work in April. The company billed the city of Chicago $64,000 for one nurse over a four-week period.

The state and city have failed to be transparent about contracts and funding for this crisis. As taxpayers, we deserve to know what funds are being diverted to take care of migrants. Also, we deserve to know that competent people are negotiating contracts on our behalf.

Our leaders stance on sanctuary status invites further illegal immigration. This position without resources to care for migrants is inhumane. As the weather turns colder it is not humane to put people in tents. It is inhumane to allow thousands of migrants to sleep on floors at police stations and OHare International Airport.

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I recommend the following commonsense solutions:

Chicago Tribune Opinion Weekdays Read the latest editorials and commentary curated by the Tribune Opinion team. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy >

1. Pritzker, Preckwinkle and Johnson should add the question of sanctuary status to the 2024 ballot.

2. All members of the Chicago City Council and state legislature should demand the leaders add the question regarding sanctuary status to the 2024 ballot.

3. Pritzker, Preckwinkle and Johnson should provide greater transparency regarding public funds being used to care for migrants.

It is common sense to prioritize and listen to the citizens who voted you in office. Illinois can be a welcoming state and not be a harbor for illegal immigration. It is a false choice to suggest states that enforce our federal immigration laws are not welcoming or compassionate. It is our money, and we deserve to have a voice in how it is spent. I have been taught that charity begins at home.

I write this commentary to make those who are comfortable with citizens not having a voice in the states sanctuary status uncomfortable.

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Willie Wilson is a Chicago business owner and a former 2023 mayoral candidate.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
A federal judge has ruled that convicted murderer and confessed fraudster Alex Murdaugh does not have the legal right to request the federal government snatch his seized assets from the State of South Carolina.

Murdaugh, convicted of murder in March and facing more than 100 S.C. State Grand Jury charges, pleaded guilty to similar federal charges on Sept. 22.

But almost immediately after a federal court judge accepted his plea in U.S. District Court in Charleston, Murdaugh's attorneys filed a Sept. 25 motion asking the federal government to seize his assets from the state's civil court, which currently controls them.

Alex Murdaugh swears to tell the truth before he takes the stand during his trial for murder at the Colleton County Courthouse on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023, in Walterboro, South Carolina

On Oct. 17, federal Judge Richard Gergel issued a ruling denying that motion for "three separate and independent" reasons:

Murdaugh "has no standing to assert any claim over funds he stole from his clients and which have subsequently been subject to seizure orders in state and federal court."

The federal court's forfeiture order and rules of criminal procedure "authorizes the Attorney General to seize certain property but does not require it. This is left to the sound discretion of the Attorney General. A criminal defendant has no authority to demand that the Attorney General or any other officer of the United States Government do his bidding regarding the seizure of his stolen funds."

The federal government lacks the authority to take control of funds previously seized under the authority of a state court. The judge's order cited, "Where a state and federal court have a common interest in particular property and an action to seize that property is an in rem action, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that the court first assuming jurisdiction over the property may maintain and exercise that jurisdiction to the exclusion of the other.

Prior to the ruling, on Oct. 4, federal prosecutors also responded in opposition, indicating that have no intention to go to battle with South Carolina over Murdaugh's contested assets.

In one of the most complex and remarkable white-collar crime sprees in S.C. history, Murdaugh stands accused of stealing anywhere from $8.5 million to $10 million from family, friends and law clients.

In the wake of a hundred-plus financial and drug charges involving multiple victims, as well a dozen state and federal lawsuits that include a recently settled 2019 wrongful death suit in the boating death of Mallory Beach, Murdaugh's assets were frozen and seized by order of an S.C. civil court judge, then liquidated and placed into a fund for the victims and plaintiffs.

Murdaugh's recent motion beseeched the federal courts to seize those assets so that the state would not "waste" them, but federal prosecutors had a blunt answer to that request this week, asking a federal judge to deny Murdaugh's motion.

"While the Government does intend to seek a forfeiture money judgment totaling more than $10,000,000 at or before Murdaughs sentencing, the Government does not intend to seize the assets currently held in the state court Receivership at this time," wrote the U.S. Attorney General's Office. "And even if it were inclined to do so, neither the United States nor this Court can exercise jurisdiction over assets currently under the jurisdiction of the state court..."

The response adds that the federal government is not required to take any action regarding the funds in state court, and that "Murdaugh cannot force the Government to seize any assets, particularly assets over which he has either relinquished or been divested of control."

The state court recently denied a motion for Murdaugh to use a portion of those assets for his ongoing criminal defense legal fees, so his latest motion could be interpreted as a legal maneuver that could allow his attorneys, Richard Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, another shot at requesting funds  but this time from the federal court.

Hampton County Guardian Editor Michael DeWitt, the Greenville News and USA TODAY Network will continue to follow the ongoing criminal and civil cases surrounding the Murdaugh crime saga. Follow DeWitt on Twitter at @mmdewittjr and support his local and national journalism with a digital subscription.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Federal judge denies Alex Murdaugh's ploy to have feds seize SC assets
A federal judge ruled Thursday that Californias ban on assault weapons violates the Second Amendment.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez cited the Supreme Courts ruling against a New York gun control law last year in his decision to overturn the California measure, which was first implemented in 1989.

In his ruling, Benitez said there were no founding era dead ringers or historical twins for Californias restrictions and that state legislators had no precedent for banning semi-automatic firearms.

He also dismissed the states argument that regulation of firearms should change as the technology developed over time.

Benitez ruled against the California law in 2021, but an appeals court vacated that ruling and later ordered him to review the law again with the new context from the Supreme Courts 2022 New York case.

[The law] creates the extreme policy that a handful of criminals can dictate the conduct and infringe on the freedom of law-abiding citizens, Benitez wrote.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta pledged in a statement that he would appeal, calling the judges decision dangerous and misguided.

Weapons of war have no place on Californias streets, he said. Once again, this district court issued a dangerous and misguided decision and I will work vigorously to reverse it on appeal.

We will not stop in our efforts to protect the safety of communities to live without fear of becoming victims of gun violence, while at the same time respecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners, he continued.

The states ban will remain in effect during the appeal period.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A federal civil lawsuit has been filed against a 74-year-old Waterloo woman who allegedly took nearly $400,000 from scammers following repeated warnings to stop, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced Thursday.

Janice M. Augustine faces the wire fraud lawsuit, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Illinois.

Augustine could not be reached for comment Thursday.

According to court documents, the defendant is accused of moving nearly $400,000 in fraud proceeds even after receiving multiple warnings by federal law enforcement officers, stated the news release.

Augustine is accused of being a money mule and was recruited to participate in the scheme by an individual claiming to be an American working abroad who was in search of a romantic relationship, the news release states.

The term money mule refers to individuals who receive funds and send the money on to the criminals who conduct the schemes.

The news release states the civil complaint alleges Augustine knowingly accepted money obtained via fraud schemes. The money was sent via wire transfers and electronic deposits into her personal bank accounts. Augustine then transferred the funds to the perpetrators who had committed the fraud.

The federal complaint alleges that a perpetrator convinced Augustine he was involved in a romantic relationship with her in summer 2022, according to the news release.

This person then persuaded Augustine to transmit fraud proceeds, the news release states. In January 2023, an FBI agent interviewed Augustine about her suspicious bank activity, and the FBI warned her and encouraged her to end the relationship.

Undeterred, Augustine registered a limited liability company with the Illinois Secretary of State and opened a new bank account in April 2023 in the LLCs name, the news release states.

In May 2023, special agents with IRS Criminal Investigation visited Augustine at her Waterloo residence to discuss her unusual financial activity and again explained how her actions were illegal, according to the release.

Criminals scour online dating and social media websites looking for lonely or vulnerable people to exploit, U.S. Attorney Rachelle Aud Crowe said in the news release. Oftentimes, criminals exploit elderly or vulnerable victims by tricking them into believing they are interested in a romantic relationship. But other times, the criminals persuade elderly or vulnerable people into helping them launder the money they receive by defrauding others.
On Wednesday, it was announced by the United States Attorneys Office that Cesar Pina had been arrested for the role he allegedly played in a multimillion dollar real-estate fraud scheme. He was charged by complaint with one count of wire fraud.

Pina, 45, pleaded not guilty and was released on a $1 million bond as well as electronic monitoring. Investors claimed Pina said he would rehab and flip a property. They were to receive a return of 30% of the profits within months.

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His business associate, radio personality DJ Envy , helped promote the real-estate venture and is also being investigated. Per NBC 4, federal officers went to the iHeartRadio office where Envy is employed and removed electronic equipment as part of the investigation.

So far, Envy has not be charged in connection to the fraud. In addition, he claims to be innocent.

During a recent episode of The Breakfast Club, Envy explained why he worked with Pina to conduct real estate seminars. Now the reasons why I did this seminars is because I wanted to uplift my community, he said.

I wanted to teach my community about real estate, things that I didnt know when I was first buying my first home. I wanted to teach our community about investing and in generational wealth.

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Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) called some of his colleagues quickness to blame Israel for the hospital blast in Gaza disturbing in a statement Wednesday.

Its truly disturbing that Members of Congress rushed to blame Israel for the hospital tragedy in Gaza, Fetterman said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Who would take the word of a group that just massacred innocent Israeli civilians over our key ally? he added.

In a follow-up post, Fetterman pledged to always stand with Israel and said he look[s] forward to supporting any military, intelligence, or humanitarian aid to get the job done.

The Democratic senators pointed comments come after U.S. intelligence on Wednesday independently determined that a deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza was the result of a failed rocket launch by Palestinian militants, not by an Israeli airstrike.

Biden said on Wednesday that he has received independent assessments from the Defense Department showing Israel did not appear to be at fault. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said on Wednesday that his committee also reviewed intelligence and that they reached the same conclusion.

The Senate Intelligence Committee reviewed intelligence related to the attack on al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. Based on this information, we feel confident that the explosion was the result of a failed rocket launch by militant terrorists and not the result of an Israeli airstrike, Warner wrote in a post on X.

Initial reports, however, largely blamed Israel for the explosion, citing Palestinian officials, despite Israels denial of any involvement. The reports prompted a wave of protests worldwide and outrage from the public and some public officials.

Some members of Congress reposted reports that blamed Israel for the attack, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who also sharply criticized President Biden for not encouraging a ceasefire.

Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that, Tlaib said on X, formerly known as Twitter. [Biden,] this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.

500 doctors, patients, and civilians killed after a hospital in Gaza was bombed, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said in a post on X, reposting a report from Human Rights Watch that also suggested Israel was at fault. We must not look away from this violence. We must prevent further loss of life. I am urging my colleagues to join me in the call for a #CeasefireNow.

Fetterman in a separate statement slammed those calling for a ceasefire, saying that talks of one need to wait until Hamas is less of a threat.

Now is not the time to talk about a ceasefire, he said. We must support Israel in their efforts to eliminate the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered innocent men, women, and children. Hamas does not want peace, they want to destroy Israel. We can talk about a ceasefire after Hamas is neutralized.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
FILE - The entrance of the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics Games is pictured Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023 in Saint-Denis, outside Paris. Organizers of next year's Paris Olympics say their headquarters have again been visited by French financial prosecutors who are investigating suspicions of favoritism, conflicts of interest and misuse of funds in the awarding of Olympic contracts. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

PARIS (AP)  Organizers of next year's Paris Olympics said their headquarters have again been visited by French financial prosecutors who are investigating suspicions of favoritism, conflicts of interest and misuse of funds in the awarding of contracts.

The Paris organizing committee said Thursday in a short statement that the national financial prosecution service visited its north Paris offices on Wednesday and obtained all the information it requested.

Paris 2024 is cooperating fully with the investigation, as it has always done, the statement said.

The headquarters were first searched in June.

Financial investigators have been zeroing in on 20 or so of the many hundreds of business contracts that Olympic organizers have signed as they race to prepare the French capital for 10,500 athletes and millions of spectators.

In an Associated Press interview, Paris organizing committee president Tony Estanguet previously vigorously defended colleagues whose homes also have been searched.

Estanguet insisted that the two financial probes of Paris Games contract awards bear no comparison with corruption and ethics scandals that have for decades dogged the Olympic movement and its biggest event, including the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the bribery-plagued 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

Last month, the chief financial prosecutor said their probes have not revealed any serious corruption or influence peddling and that any potential infractions are mainly formal.

Its about favoritism, of illegal interest-taking, the prosecutor, Jean-Francois Bohnert, told RTL radio. Its about the way certain contracts have been distributed, the arrangements ... But I dont see any elements, at least not at this stage, that would lead the investigation towards the most serious cases of corruption or influence peddling.

___

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
The parking ticket was posted on Ulez van in Kingston - James Giles

A mobile Ulez van used to catch out non-compliant drivers has been issued with a 110 fine after it was found parked illegally on a pavement.

The van, part of a fleet of 20 mobile cameras monitoring Sadiq Khans ultra-low emissions zone, was issued a parking ticket by Kingston Councils traffic enforcement officers after it was parked illegally on a pavement in Norbiton.

Transport for London (TfL) said the fine would be paid by its contractor and that it would be reminding drivers of their responsibilities when it comes to parking.

The incident was caught on camera by James Giles, an independent councillor in Kingston, south-west London, who alerted enforcement authorities after spotting the vehicle on his way to a meeting with residents.

In the video, he filmed the van on the pavement after it had been issued with the fine, claiming it was blocking a busy main road.

I hope TfL gets the message and stops parking illegally in our borough to enforce Ulez, he said.

TfL are not above the law

Speaking to The Telegraph after the incident, Mr Giles added: TfL are not above the law, and should know better than most not to park illegally.

Its high time the Mayor reconsidered this proposal, which is most impacting those who are poorer and unable to afford a newer vehicle.

Some boroughs have already complained that the mobile cameras were being parked illegally, with Bromley warning last month that its enforcement officers would issue fines if TfL continued to park on verges in the borough.

This is the second reported case of a TfL Ulez van receiving a parking ticket after being spotted parked illegally on a pavement in Sidcup, south-east London.

Mr Khan introduced the mobile vans in August after anti-Ulez vandals attacked enforcement cameras across the capital, leaving large areas unmonitored.

The Telegraph reported in September that TfL would deploy 20 mobile cameras to fill gaps where they were lacking or not in operation.

According to crowdsourced data, just under a quarter of the 76 cameras in Kingston were missing or damaged at the start of September.

On Aug 29, Mr Khan expanded the Ulez to cover all 32 London boroughs.

Drivers who own vehicles that fail to comply with certain emissions standards have to pay a daily charge of 12.50, with a fine of up to 180 for non-payment.

A TfL spokesman said: TfL fully supports the use of highway authority powers to enforce against parking in unauthorised locations.

We will remind drivers of their responsibilities and our contractor, who will be paying the penalty charge notice.

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Finland's Defense Ministry blocked three planned property acquisitions by Russian nationals due to concerns that they would "hinder" national defense, the ministry said in a press release on Oct. 19.

The sales that were rejected were in the Finnish localities of Ruokolahti and Kitee, both located about 25 kilometers from the Russian border.

On Oct. 14, it was reported that Finland was considering banning Russian citizens and other non-European Economic Area (EEA) citizens from purchasing certain types of property in Finnish territory, citing security concerns.

Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen said that a complete ban was also under consideration.

The tightened restrictions on the purchase of real estate by foreigners would also include foreign companies.

In mid-September, Finland banned entry to Russian-registered cars only days after the Baltic countries instituted the same measure.

A militarily neutral country for decades, Finland joined NATO in April 2023, a little more than a year after the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Putin holds talks with Xi; Lavrov says North Korea will help Moscow win

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FILE PHOTO: Finnish Border Guard's offshore patrol vessel Turva guarding near the place where damaged Balticconnector gas pipeline is pinpointed at the Gulf of Finland

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Finnish police said on Thursday they had completed their crime scene investigation into the damage to a subsea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia.

The Balticconnector pipeline linking Finland and Estonia ruptured earlier this month in what authorities said may have been a deliberate act of sabotage, cutting off the flow of gas between the two countries until April at least.

Police said in a statement samples collected at the site in cooperation with Finland's armed forces and coast guard would now be analysed.

"Although the scene investigation into the damage in the gas pipeline has been completed, investigations and the presence of authorities still continue in the area," the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation said.

"Subsequently the area surrounding the damage will be widely examined," they added.

(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom, editing by Terje Solsvik)
A fire has broken out on board a cruise ship carrying more than 200 people, with one crew member rushed to hospital with burn injuries.

Ocean Navigator, operated by American Queen Voyages, was docked in Portland, in the US state of Maine, when the fire occurred. A statement from the US Coast Guard said that the blaze began in the engine room on a generator and the cause is being investigated.

The crew member suffering from burns was treated at the scene before being transported to a nearby medical centre. His injuries are serious but not considered life-threatening, reports CBS News.

While there were 128 passengers sailing on the ship as part of the itinerary, most of them were ashore sightseeing when the incident occurred. Ocean Navigator was also sailing with 82 crew members.

Portland Fire Department crews arrived on the scene shortly before 7.30am after it received reports of an explosion in the Ocean Navigator vessels engine room, reports USA Today.

Crews worked quickly to treat and transport one crew member with serious injuries to a local hospital. Additional crews were simultaneously able to stabilise the engine room issue and remained on scene to assist with extensive ventilation efforts and complete overhaul to prevent any further issues, a spokesperson for the citys fire service said.

Ocean Navigators current voyage began in Montreal, Canada, on 10 October, according to CruiseMapper ship tracker, and Portland was the penultimate stop before it ended its journey in Boston. The ship was built in 2001 and refurbished in 2019.

The Independent has contacted American Queen Voyages for comment.

A spokesperson for the cruise line told Fox News: Ocean Navigator suffered a generator fire this morning while in Portland, ME. No passengers were injured and thanks to the quick action of our crew, everyone has been safely evacuated off of the vessel.

One crew member has been injured and is receiving care at a local hospital for his non-life threatening injuries. The fire has been contained and we are working alongside the local fire department to assess the damage. Guests are being housed at a local hotel.
Mourners attend the funeral of the Kotz family during their funeral in Gan Yavne, Israel, on Oct. 17, 2023. The Israeli family of five was killed by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 at their house in Kibbutz Kfar Azza near the border with the Gaza Strip. (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)

The suggestion of recent letter writers that Israel is somehow responsible for the Hamas attack on its people is sickening. I am old enough to remember a time when news from Israel consisted primarily of reports of suicide bombers boarding crowded buses, entering popular coffee shops or loitering outside houses of worship as Jews gathered for Friday night prayers.

Slaughtering babies; targeting schools with the goal of torturing and burning to death young students, attacking a music festival in such a way panicked young people are driven to a chokepoint so that they can be easily picked off with gunfire and their cars set ablaze; mutilating corpses; attacking the elderly and infirm; and killing entire families in front of each other  these are not the acts of an organization that is seeking to negotiate for better relations with their neighbors.

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Hamas demonstrated it was proud of what it did by instructing its men to calmly record these heinous acts so they could be shared with the world. Hamas sent a clear message that it desires the complete and total eradication of the Jewish people.

The fact that injustice exists in the world does not mean we should condone atrocities. The report of all the members of one kibbutz being brought to a community center where they were massacred with automatic rifles is a tactic the Nazis used when they were implementing their Final Solution. Savagery must be called out and condemned wherever it exists.

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Once accepted, the premise that brutality is not only permitted but also sometimes required removes any limits on the cruelty and inhumanity people will inflict on others. Such actions can be justified by claiming it is done in the name of the greater good or a higher power.

It is the most egregious form of blasphemy to claim that killing people in the most depraved way possible is the will of God.

 Janice Cody, Chicago

Seeking signs of hope

The killing of 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume and attempted killing of his mother by their landlord, according to police, was not only a shocking local story but also one that was covered on national TV news programs.

The incident left me stunned and depressed.

A Tribune article (Hate crime charged in death, Oct. 16) states that the violence they escaped (from Palestines West Bank) found them again. Hate seems to have a long reach. But, of course, it has no geographical home.

The incursion into Israel by Hamas militants, who slaughtered innocent men, women and children, shook the world. And it came as a surprise, given the vaunted perception of Israels border security. It felt like weve already had enough demonstrations of hate in Ukraine by Russian forces  indiscriminate bombings of civilian targets, torture of captured Ukrainian men and women, and other atrocities. That, along with other heinous happenings around the globe, made it appear that the bucket of hate is overflowing.

Where are the glimmers of hope regarding all this? For me, I look for the individuals and organizations working for peace, for the people turning down the temperature on heated rhetoric, for the people persevering in their compassionate work for the common good and general welfare.

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Also, it may all come down to the most basic of levels  the individual. Confucius said, When you see a worthy person, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy person, then examine your inner self.

 Jim Bauman, Crystal Lake

Blame Egypt for crossing

I am a brand-new subscriber of the Tribune and have been pleased. Until Tuesday morning. I read Supplies stuck at Gaza border. The Associated Press article just got the facts wrong. The Rafah crossing is situated at the border of southern Gaza and northern Sinai in Egypt. Egypt has sealed off the Rafah crossing.

Diplomats from the United State and Israel have pleaded with Egyptian officials to open the border to allow humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza, but Egypt wont budge. Why wont it open the border? Egypt, along with Qatar, Iran and Turkey, do not want hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to resettle in their country.

Lets not blame Israel for Egypts wrong decision.

 Patti Perry, Wilmette

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Lets not waver in Ukraine

I applaud President Joe Bidens support of Israel since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. It is right, proper and necessary.

At the same time, we must continue our support of Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression and terrorism. It is unfortunate that Biden did not send more weapons, and more advanced ones, to Ukraine sooner, so Ukraine could have been closer to victory before Hamas attacked Israel. But we are where we are, and now we must keep our focus on two wars at once.

Except not only do we need to keep our focus on Israel and Ukraine, but we also need to keep our focus on Taiwan. Not because there is a war there but to make it less likely that there will be a war there.

All of which means we must significantly increase our ability to produce weapons and ammunition. We should have done this as soon as we realized Russia was going to attack Ukraine, but we didnt. We may have increased production some, but it wasnt enough. Now we need an emergency program to increase our capacity to produce weapons and ammunition.

Chicago Tribune Opinion Weekdays Read the latest editorials and commentary curated by the Tribune Opinion team. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy >

If companies are going to expand their factories, or build new ones, and hire more workers, they need multiyear contracts from the Defense Department, and they need congressional authorization, not only now but also year after year after year. Congress hasnt been doing that. Defense, along with almost everything else, has been funded by continuing resolutions, passed at the last minute. Instead of giving companies funding certainty, we have been giving them political gamesmanship.

The president needs to lead, which he hasnt been doing enough of. Congress needs to do its job, which it hasnt been doing any of. If both of them dont start, Israel will pay, Ukraine will pay and Taiwan will pay. And eventually, America will pay, when we have to clean up the mess that our inattention and lack of commitment will have helped create.

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 Patrick J. Allen, River Forest

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Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
A Boston gang member pleaded guilty in Boston federal court Wednesday to illegally possessing a firearm and ammunition while under house arrest in Weymouth on state firearm charges, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Dumari Shakur Scarlett-Dixon, 22, pleaded guilty to being an unlawful drug user in possession of a firearm and ammunition, federal prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Scarlett-Dixon is a member of Heath Street, a violent Boston-area street gang.

They said he posted videos and other images of himself with firearms on the social media platform Snapchat.

At the time, Scarlett-Dixon was on pretrial release for four separate state court cases of unlawful possession of a firearm. As a condition of his release, he was on court-ordered home confinement with GPS monitoring at a home in Weymouth.

During a September 2021 search of the home, a Bersa 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, 59 rounds of ammunition and blunts of marijuana  a Schedule I controlled substance  were found in Scarlett-Dixons bedroom, prosecutors said.

Scarlett-Dixon faces up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. U.S. District Court Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV scheduled sentencing for Jan. 11.

Quincy police assisted in the investigation, prosecutors said.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Man under house arrest in Weymouth pleads guilty to weapon charge
A US Navy warship operating in the Middle East intercepted multiple projectiles near the coast of Yemen on Thursday, two US officials told CNN.

One of the officials said the missiles were fired by Iranian-backed Houthi militants, who are engaged in an ongoing conflict in Yemen. Approximately 2-3 missiles were intercepted, according to the second official.

Later Thursday Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder confirmed that the USS Carney shot down three land attack missiles as well as several drones that were launched by Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen.

This action was a demonstration of the integrated air and missile defense architecture that we built in the Middle East and that we are prepared to utilize whenever necessary to protect our partners and our interest in this important region, he said at a news briefing. There were no casualties to US forces and none that we know of to any civilians on the ground.

Ryder said the Pentagon cannot say for certain at this point what the missiles and drones were targeting, but said they were launched from Yemen and were heading north along the Red Sea, potentially toward targets in Israel.

The USS Carney transited through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea on Wednesday. US Fleet Forces command said in a social media post that it would help ensure maritime security and stability in the Middle East.

The incident was one of a series in recent days with US bases being targeted by drones in Syria and Iraq amid increasing tensions in the region as the war between Israel and Hamas continues.

The drone attacks targeting the base in Syria resulted in minor injuries, Ryder said.

On Wednesday, two drones targeted the al-Tanf garrison in Syria, where US and anti-ISIS coalition forces are based, Ryder said. One drone was engaged and destroyed, and another drone impacted the base resulting in minor injuries to coalition forces, Ryder said.

That same morning, in Iraq, early warning systems indicated a possible threat approaching the al-Asad airbase where US personnel are stationed. No attack occurred, but personnel sheltered in place and an American civilian contractor suffered a cardiac episode and died shortly thereafter, Ryder said.

On Tuesday, US forces defended against three drones near US and coalition forces in Iraq, Ryder said. Two of the drones targeted the al-Asad airbase, which resulted in minor injuries to coalition forces. And in northern Iraq near Bashur airbase, US forces engaged and destroyed a drone, resulting in no injuries or damage, Ryder said.

While Im not going to forecast any potential response to these attacks, I will say that we will take all necessary actions to defend US and coalition forces against any threat, he said. Any response, should one occur, will come at a time and a manner of our choosing.

Asked whether all of these attacks are tied to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, and anger in the region over the US support for Israel, Ryder said the US is still assessing the attacks.

Our focus is going to be continuing to ensure we are deterring a potential broader regional conflict, he said.

To that end, Ryder said, Austin has held a series of calls with Arab and Israeli leaders, including Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed from the United Arab Emirates, Emir Sheikh Tamim from Qatar and Prince Khalid bin Salman from Saudi Arabia. The goal was to reiterate US support for Israel and to underscore the importance of safeguarding civilians.

He emphasized again that any country or any group thinking of trying to take advantage of the situation in Israel to try to widen the conflict should think twice and not doubt the resolve of the United States, said Ryder.

Austin also spoke Thursday with his Israeli counterpart, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, with whom he has spoken frequently since the war began.

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A Wednesday morning sun gleamed into the new Okesutora, a reservation-only sushi concept, as owner Mymy Nguyen and Executive Chef Hieu Phan greeted friends, family and supporters at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The restaurant officially opened its doors on L Street in Sacramento, introducing the city to a unique, high-end omakase experience.

Omakase, which translates to I leave it up to you, is a form of Japanese dining where guests allow the chef to decide what to prepare, according to the Michelin Guide.

Okesutora, an omakase-only restaurant, officially opened on Wednesday, October. 18, 2023, at 1801 L St., Suite 70 in midtown.

The restaurant, nestled at 1801 L St., Suite 70, joins a crew of eateries along L Street, including the recently opened Pazza Notte, The Rind and Saigon Alley, which Nguyen also owns and recently expanded with a location in Natomas.

The proximity of her restaurants is intentional, Nguyen told The Bee at the grand opening event. The goal is to have different concepts in and around the area, not compete with one another.

Every time that were doing something, were hoping to elevate and change the scene, Nguyen said.

Across from Okesutora, Nguyen said that shell be opening an upscale lounge early next year.

Were definitely going to change the course of things around here a little bit and Im excited because I think Sac needs that, she said.

Inside the 1,524-square-foot space is an intimate arrangement, detailed with matte black walls, warm yellow lights and wood furnishing  an ode to traditional minimalist Japanese aesthetics, Nguyen said. Taking reservations for 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday, the restaurant seats 30 people, with spots by the window and bar where guests are treated to a view of chefs preparing their dishes.

Okesutora seats 30 people, with spots by the window and bar where guests are treated to a view of chefs preparing their dishes, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Plates are set and waiting at every seat throughout Okesutora on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Okesutora will feature an immersive dining experience, a 14-course chef-tasting menu with traditional Edomae and new-style sushi, cold and hot dishes, and dessert, led by Phan, a Sacramento native and the former chef at Nobu in Palo Alto and Las Vegas. Phan is of Vietnamese descent and has studied Japanese cuisine.

It was fun to explore and do what I love, but the city of Sacramento kind of drove me home, Phan said.

Irasshaimase!

When you enter the restaurant, youll be greeted by a chef with Irasshaimase! which translates to Welcome!

This means a chef acknowledges you and will likely be the one to take care of you, Phan said.

The omakase experience will include a deep understanding of your food and where it comes from.

We want people to get out of their comfort zone and learn about new fishes or seasonal ingredients, Phan said. So we educate them on the proper sushi etiquette, where the fish is sourced and the proper way to eat and the reason why we incorporate the flavors that we do.

Executive Chef Hieu Phan, left, and Front of House Manager Michael Evans, right, greet guests during the grand opening of Okesutora on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Phan and his team will curate seasonal menus every three months, featuring local and global ingredients, including fresh, wild-caught and hand-caught fish flown in from Japan every Tuesday and Thursday, Nguyen said.

Thats why the spot is closed on Sundays and Mondays, she said, to preserve the freshness of the fish.

Reserve your spot online

You can start making reservations to Okesutora online.

The restaurant is business casual, Nguyen said, encouraging people to wear what they would for a fancy date, anniversary or birthday.

We just want everybody to have a good time and its nice to dress up, Nguyen said.

Address: 1801 L St., Suite 70, Sacramento

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The oysters have been reintroduced to the waters off Cowes

A batch of 1,000 oysters have been put in the sea off the Isle of Wight as part of efforts to reverse the loss of the molluscs on the seabed.

The oysters have been placed in baskets hanging beneath a pontoon at Cowes Harbour.

It is part of a scheme to bring back oyster reefs in the Solent, once the largest oyster fishery in Europe.

It is hoped they will release millions of larvae and form beds that will improve water quality and create habitats for marine animals and plants.

Eric Harris-Scott, from the Blue Marine Foundation, said a mixture of diseases, pollution and over-fishing had led to the oysters decline in the Solent

This latest development in the project was launched by the UK Sailing Academy (UKSA) , a maritime youth charity and training centre, in partnership with the Blue Marine Foundation.

An improvement in the water quality is expected to be seen over the next five to 10 years.

Eric Harris-Scott, from the Blue Marine Foundation, said the Solent "used to see about 50 million oysters pulled out every year".

He said: "A mixture of diseases, pollution and over-fishing led to their decline over the last 100 to 150 years and a loss of them as a habitat in the Solent."

The floating baskets have been placed on a pontoon at the UKSA, which is based in the harbour.

Primary school pupil Bella was among those painting the oysters so they can be identified as they are monitored in the coming months

Before their release pupils from a local primary school marked the oysters in batches of 10 with a blob of different coloured nail varnish so they can be identified.

The pupils, who will be involved in monitoring their survival and growth monthly with the conservation charity, said they were "very proud" to be involved in the project.

Mr Harris-Scott said: "Hopefully the oysters will be really happy in the water here... they will grow and start reproducing in the next year or so and will start pumping out millions of larvae which will hopefully settle on the reefs we have built in the area."

The 1,000 oysters have been placed in baskets hanging from a pontoon in Cowes Harbour

The first Oyster reef was set up by the charity in Langstone Harbour in 2021 and a second in Hamble in March as part of efforts to restock the molluscs in the Solent area.

The charity said it was looking at building a third reef in either Chichester Harbour or the island's Newtown Harbour.

The scheme is part of the Solent Seascape Project - a multi-million pound scheme set up to restore the Solent's marine habitats.

It will see 10 organisations work together on four types of habitat - seagrass meadows, oyster reefs, saltmarsh and seabird nesting sites.

Follow BBC South on Facebook, X, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.
The first trailer for The Boys in the Boat, which is directed by George Clooney, has arrived.

Adapted from Daniel James Brown's book of the same name, the film tells the "incredible" true story of the University of Washington rowing team and their quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The group of underdog rowers managed to beat the likes of Germany and Italy at the event, which was attended by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Laurie Sparham/MGM

Related: James Gunn shuts down George Clooney DC return rumour

The trailer opens with an elderly Joe Rantz (Game of Thrones' Ian McElhinney ), who helped row the team to victory, saying: "There are some moments in life you'll never forget."

"The depression hit everyone hard. No jobs, no food. We were broke," he continues, before the footage cuts to a young Joe (Fantastic Beasts' Callum Turner) joining his university rowing team in order to make some cash.

We then watch as the team of underdogs overcome the odds and grab the attention of their nation by rowing all the way to the Olympics.

Laurie Sparham/MGM

Related: Brad Pitt and George Clooney's new movie casts Euphoria star

Other cast members include, Star Wars' Joel Edgerton, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines' Jack Mulhern, Little Women's Hadley Robinson, and I Still See You's Thomas Elms.

Previously explaining what audiences can expect from the film, Clooney said: "Rowing, particularly in the 1920s, was the number one attended sport in the United States.

"The Boys in the Boat is about strong, tough kids, but they were poor and hungry. They're rowing because it was the only way they could stay in college. The stakes were much higher for them, and it gave them an edge."

The Boys in the Boat is released in US cinemas on December 25, 2023, and in the UK on January 12, 2024.

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The Vietnam veteran who killed two Florence police officers and wounded five others in a 2018 ambush-style shooting was sentenced Thursday to two life sentences in prison, while friends and family of the victims spoke about the trauma his actions caused.

Fred Hopkins, 79, pleaded guilty to the murder and attempted murder charges last week in exchange for avoiding what was expected to be a lengthy death penalty trial.

State Judge Eugene Bubba Griffith gave Hopkins two consecutive life sentences for the murders and five consecutive 30-year sentences for attempted murder in the woundings of five other officers.

On Oct. 3 2018, the disbarred lawyer fired from a downstairs window at the officers who were coming to serve a search warrant in a sexual abuse case that ultimately ended in his son pleading guilty.

Florence Police Sgt. Terrence Carraway died the day of the shooting and Florence County Sheriffs investigator Farrah Turner was wounded and died weeks later. Their names are etched together on a statue below the word COURAGE right outside the Florence County Judicial Center, where the sentence was issued.

Fellow Florence County investigators Ben Price and Sarah Miller recounted joining Turner to serve that warrant and time slowing down when the gunfire began and the tremendous pain they suffered seeing their colleague and friend motionless at the bottom of the stairs.

Hes a cruel and evil being, said Miller, who was one of the five wounded and thought she would die that day.

Both chided Hopkins for using his military experience as an excuse  the defense presented evidence Thursday that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder  while urging those in the courtroom to spend more of their focus on the heroic actions of their fellow officers and first responders that jumped into action.

I witnessed heroism most of the country only sees in movies or television shows, Price said.

Family members of Carraway, who was fatally shot in the chest shortly after arriving on the scene, described their loved one as a larger-than-life protector whose death has left a gaping hole in their lives.

Your heinous crime only catapulted his legacy, Allison Carraway, the sergeants widow, said in the direction of Hopkins.

The longtime officer and Air Force veteran was nearing retirement, according to his son, Terrence Rashad Carraway, who lamented that his father couldnt attend his wedding or meet his grandchild.

Turner, who was known to family as Maxine and described as one of the most beautiful human beings ever born, fought for 19 days in the hospital, including multiple surgeries and both of her legs amputated, before dying from her injuries.

Prosecutors told Judge Griffith that Turner was Hopkins initial target due to her investigation of his son, and they emphasized that he shot her a second time after she was already down and defenseless.

Her mother, Katie Godwin, initially wanted the spineless coward Hopkins to receive the death penalty but later decided shed rather he suffer longer in the general prison population, she wrote in a statement read by her niece.

While her death deprived her the chance to start her own family and explore the world, Godwin stressed that Hopkins could not stop her daughters continued impact. The Farrah Turner Foundation was created to protect and serve children who are victims of sexual abuse and assault.

You cant kill what wont die, Godwins statement read. She lives on in me, her siblings, her family and everyone that loved her.

Hopkins, who appeared in a wheelchair, chose not to speak during the hearing.

The shooting resulted in a two-hour standoff, and police used a bulletproof military vehicle to collect wounded officers before Hopkins surrendered to a negotiator.

The case was investigated by the Richland County Sheriffs Department at the request of Florence County law enforcement.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, who was at Thursdays sentencing hearing, said later, This was probably the bloodiest day for law enforcement in state history  two officers killed and five wounded. It was a massive crime scene, spread over 300 yards, with hundreds of bullets having been fired by Fred Hopkins as well as law enforcement.

Lott said, It was a just sentence, bringing some closure to the families. Theyve waited five years for this. They were able to tell Fred Hopkins to his face how they feel about him. It will bring some peace to their minds.

State reporter John Monk contributed to this story.
A Florida dentist was fired on Wednesday after he was identified as one of the people filmed tearing down posters in Miami of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas. Dr. Ahmed ElKoussa was seen in a video posted online by Stop Antisemitism on Tuesday showing him and another person scrunching up the torn down posters in their hands. We are very sad to see this situation upon waking up, CG Smile wrote in an Instagram post. Our office CG Smile is not in favor of any of the actions taken by Dr. ElKoussa. We do not support terrorist groups, actions, or supporters. It added that he had been removed from our staff. A representative for ElKoussa told the New York Post that he had been motivated to remove the posters after the fatal stabbing of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American boy, fearing that the fliers could potentially trigger conflict.

Read it at New York Post

Read more at The Daily Beast.
A Jacksonville man faces charges of criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, after Hardeeville police found him a car with his alleged victim.

Hardeeville police pulled over, Marlon Orlando Martinez-Norales, 38, on Highway 17 near Caterpillar Place, for a missing headlight on Oct. 7 at 12:15 a.m. Once stopped, the officer noticed that Martinez-Norales and an underage female passenger were partially dressed.

The young lady looked like she was in distress, trying to signal to officers to help, said Hardeeville Police Chief Sam Woodward. Thank god my officer saw what he saw.

It was determined that Marinez-Norales had taken her from her home and engaged in sexual battery with her multiple times throughout the county, threatened her with a gun and refused to let her leave his car, the Jasper County Sheriffs Office said.

Woodward told the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette that he was unsure if Marinez-Norales had been living in the area before his arrest.

Because the sexual battery is alleged to have taken place throughout the county, the criminal sexual conduct charge is from the Jasper County Sheriffs Office, while the kidnapping and contributing to the delinquency of a minor charges are from Hardeeville PD.
PORT ORANGE, Fla. - A Florida man is behind bars after he allegedly exposed himself to a woman in a Walmart store aisle in Port Orange, according to police.

Nathaniel Poole, 23, was arrested Wednesday on charges of indecent exposure and violation of probation, the Port Orange Police Department said.

Police posted store surveillance photos of him on social media in hopes someone would recognize him. Detectives were able to identify him after receiving numerous tips and Poole ultimately turned himself in.

Nathaniel Poole (Photos via Port Orange Police Department)

Officers said Poole exposed himself when he was alone in the aisle with the woman. Afterwards, the woman yelled for help and he ran off.

Poole is being held in jail without bond due to the violation of probation charge, jail records show.
A Florida man, described as an adult film actor and a Proud Boy, is heading to federal prison.

Steven Miles, 40, pleaded guilty Thursday to assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Miles and more than 2,000 other rioters stormed the Capitol to disrupt the Electoral Colleges vote count and overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Miles lives in Zephyrhills, a city half-an-hour northwest of Tampa. He traveled to Washington, D.C. for the Jan. 6 rally but left before any speeches began, instead opting to rendezvous with other Proud Boys and play a leading role in the riot, according to court records.

Wearing a camouflage jacket and pants combo and a red Make America Great Again cap, Miles and his co-defendant Matthew LeBrun, a 33-year-old New Orleans resident, entered the restricted perimeter of the Capitol building, undeterred by barricades and police in riot gear, court records say.

Miles then shoved a Capitol police officer and attempted to punch another, according to court records. LeBrun cheered him on.

A short time later, Miles used a wooden plank to smash a window and gain access inside of the Capitol. LeBrun and a cascade of rioters, overwhelming police, also took advantage of the smashed window to enter the building.

In addition to attempting to assault the officer, Miles made additional physical contact with law enforcement officers, seeking to obstruct, impede, and interfere with their efforts to hold back the rioters, said a statement from the U.S. State Attorneys Office, District of Columbia.

Miles, who was arrested in April 2022, will be sentenced in a Washington D.C. courtroom in February 2024.

More than 1,100 people across the country have been charged for crimes related to the Capitol riot, according to the U.S. State Attorneys Office. Anyone with information about Jan. 6 should call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker talks about the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court at Howard Brown Health Clark on June 24, 2022, in Chicago. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker moved Wednesday to enhance his national profile  and provoked further speculation about his future political plans  by creating an organization to promote abortion and LGBTQ+ rights issues and fight right wing extremists on a state-by-state basis.

With the launch of his Think Big America, a tax-exempt organization that can devote unlimited funding to lobbying on behalf of its political goals, Pritzker is expanding upon his long-standing support for his party and abortion rights, and increasing his progressive political footprint for a possible future bid for the presidency.

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Our nation is at a crossroads. Over the last few years, the far right agenda has only become more extreme. The end of reproductive rights, widespread book bans, a rollback of voting rights and civil rights, the erosion of trust in our institutions. That will be our permanent reality if we dont act now, Pritzker said in a launch video.

Think Big America is committed to protecting our rights, defending our democracy and fighting for working families, the governor said. The struggle to overcome the extremists and preserve democracy is happening right now. Together, lets think big for Americas brighter future.

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The think big title of the organization is a play off the campaign theme successfully employed twice by the second-term Illinois governor, an entrepreneur and an heir of the Hyatt hotels fortune who is worth an estimated $3.5 billion, making him the nations wealthiest elected politician.

Pritzker has long been a donor to Democratic candidates and causes nationally as well as in Illinois. He has given nearly $1.8 million in political and personal funds to Personal PAC, the states preeminent abortion rights political action committee, since 2005.

Last year, Pritzker also allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party of Illinois on behalf of local school and library board candidates who faced conservative opponents.

Pritzkers initial funding for the new organization was not disclosed. The groups focus out of the gate will be on planned ballot initiatives in Ohio, Nevada and Arizona to codify abortion rights under state constitutions.

Those initiatives follow electoral successes for abortion rights advocates in Ohio, Wisconsin and Kansas last year that Pritzker also backed personally.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Wednesday that a poll by Baldwin Wallace University showed the Ohio proposition to add abortion rights to that states constitution was backed by 58% of voters, while 34% were opposed.

Pritzker has hailed Illinois as an oasis for womens reproductive rights under his leadership. The state codified a right to abortion in state law in 2019 and Pritzker signed legislation last year aimed at protecting abortion providers from legal action, expanding insurance coverage and increasing reproductive health access.

Democrats have seen abortion rights serve nationally as a powerful driver for support since the June 2022 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned a federal right to abortion and returned the issue to the individual states. Republicans are counting on immigration issues, highlighted by an influx of migrants being sent to Chicago and other Democratic cities, as a potential counter to reduce Democratic turnout and the effect of the abortion ruling.

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Pritzker has expressed unwavering support for President Joe Bidens reelection and eschewed talk of being a potential Plan B if Biden had chosen not to run or took himself out of the running.

In June, Pritzker gave more than $131,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee of the presidents reelection campaign, the Democratic National Committee and several state Democratic Party organizations.

Pritzker also is an advisory member to Bidens reelection campaign and will be host governor in August for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Biden is set to be renominated.

Christopher Mooney, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that forming Think Big America represents a strategic move on (Pritzkers) part for his own interests as well as creating a situation where he can say, Im a progressive. I see the other sides got well funded advocates and so we need some on our side. And oh, if Ive helped myself a little bit nationally, thats just a side benefit.

Pritzker, Mooney said, can look long term and is poised in perfect position to consider a 2028 bid for the presidency and has all the money he needs to just go out to every (state Democratic Party) dinner and every state in the country.

rap30@aol.com
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  A former church employee has been sentenced to pay restitution and serve two years in federal prison for defrauding a church out of more than $450,000 dollars, according to the United States Department of Justice.

U. S. Attorney Robert J. Troester announced on Tuesday that Darla Bralley, 59, of Oklahoma City, was sentenced to serve 24 months in federal prison for embezzling more than $450,000 from St. Paul The Apostle Catholic Church.

One arrested in connection to downtown OKC shooting

On Aug. 17, 2022, Bralley was charged by Information with wire fraud, and making and filing a false tax return.

According to the Information, beginning in early 2014 and continuing through at least January 2020, Bralley devised a scheme to defraud and obtain money from St. Paul. Bralley was employed as payroll administrator for St. Paul during this period and had the authority to issue checks for authorized expenses on behalf of the church.

The Information alleges Bralley issued approximately 198 unauthorized checks, drawn from St. Pauls checking account, to pay for various personal items including personal credit card payments, utilities, and living expenses.

Bralley also made approximately 1,068 fraudulent, unauthorized transfers from the St. Paul checking account to pay her personal expenses. In all, Bralley defrauded St. Paul out of approximately $451,177.54.

The Information also alleges that on her 2018 U. S. Individual Income Tax Return, Bralley reported a total income that was substantially lower than what she received during the year as a result of the fraud.

 Find more Top Stories from KFOR.com

On Sept. 29, 2022, Bralley pleaded guilty to the two-count Information. As part of her plea, Bralley admitted to embezzling $451,177.54 from the church and she further admitted that she did not declare those funds on her annual tax returns.

At the sentencing hearing Tuesday officials confirm, U. S. District Judge Scott L. Palk sentenced Bralley to serve 24 months in federal prison and ordered Bralley to pay restitution in the amount of $544,173.54. In announcing the sentence, Judge Palk noted that $451,177.54 would be paid to St. Paul, and $92,996.00 would be paid to the IRS.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
Kim Jong Un and Sergey Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is setting a new travel trend by promoting unforgettable North Korean vacations, which could prove to be an excellent alternative to Russian oligarchs' favorite Mediterranean Riviera and Alpine ski resorts amid the difficulty of Russian travel since the beginning of their full-scale war on Ukraine.

Asked if he would recommend North Korea to Russians as a holiday destination, Lavrov replied: "I would," Russias TASS news agency reported.

Read also: Lavrov to visit North Korea in advance of potential Putin visit

Lavrov arrived in Pyongyang on Oct. 18, where he thanked North Korea for supporting the war against Ukraine. The media assumed that he was probably came to prepare Russian dictators visit to the DPRK.

How the DPRK supports Russia's war against Ukraine

Read also: Kremlin rejects evidence seen on satellite images showing North Korea shipping arms to Russia

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia by armored train on Sept. 13. In Vladivostok, he met with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and wished him "victory" in the war. Kim Jong Uns visit to Russia took place against the backdrop of Western media reports about North Korea's readiness to provide Russia with weapons and ammunition for its war against Ukraine.

North Korea has transferred over 1,000 containers of military equipment and ammunition to Russia, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said on Oct. 13.

Over the past two months, Russian ships have repeatedly picked up cargo from North Korea and delivered it to a Russian military port, new satellite images published on Oct. 16 by U.S. newspaper the Washington Post show.

Pyongyang was reportedly supplying artillery rounds and Katyusha-type rockets to Moscow.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
A former deputy who supervised the Cherokee County Jail until June 2019 has now pleaded guilty to his own criminal charges.

Two female inmates made allegations that Richard Gilleland, now-55, sexually assaulted them inside the jail. Sheriff Frank Reynolds told Channel 2 Action News that there was only enough evidence to charge Gilleland based on one of the womens accusations.

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There are portions of the jail that are not monitored by video surveillance it is our belief that he took the female to that portion of the jail that is not videotaped, Reynolds said after Gillelands arrest.

The sheriff said the alleged assault took place in an office on at least two separate occasions with the same inmate.

He was charged with sexual assault by a correctional officer and violation of oath of office.

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Court documents show that Gilleland entered a negotiated guilty plea on Wednesday. He was sentenced to spend three years in prison to be followed by 12 years of probation.

He will also be required to register as a Georgia sex offender.

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IN OTHER NEWS:
A former child trauma counselor who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting four boys under his care as a foster parent or adoptive father was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday.

Cornelius R. Smith, 51, of Milwaukee was accused in March of abusing the four boys continuously for years. They came under his care between 2013 and 2021 and three of them were eventually adopted by Smith.

Three of the boys were under age 13 at the time of the abuse and the fourth was under age 16, according to court records.

Smith was charged with nine felonies, including multiple counts of sexual assault and incest. On Wednesday, Smith pleaded guilty three counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child and another count of second-degree sexual assault of a child. All other counts were dismissed.

Milwaukee County Judge David Swanson sentenced Smith to 25 years in prison, followed by 10 years of extended supervision in the same hearing, according to online court records.

Smith would beat the children with a footlong wooden stick, would regularly give them melatonin and THC edibles and outfitted the interior of his home with cameras, according to the criminal complaint. One of the boys, who's now an adult, told investigators the abuse he suffered made him suicidal.

Smith first received his license as a foster parent in 2005 and eventually obtained a license as a treatment foster parent, which means he was certified in caring for children with moderate to significant specialized needs as a result of trauma with abuse, neglect or witnessing domestic violence; emotional and behavioral disorders; complex medical needs; or developmental and cognitive delays.

Smith was licensed as a foster parent through the Wellpoint Care Network from 2019 until his arrest this year, according to records from the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families.

"The foster care licensing process we have in place, from initial license application to the renewal of a license, requires extensive background checks and thorough documentation regarding any potential applicants history of child abuse or neglect," the Wellpoint Care Network said in a statement. "Our application and renewal process continues to emphasize the importance of reducing any risk of abuse to happen to a child."

He also spent the last 12 years working in the trauma and counseling field for children and families. For a year, starting in mid-2021, he worked as a trauma specialist for Kids Matter Inc., which provides services for abused and neglected children in Milwaukee County.

In June, Susan Conwell, the executive director of the Kids Matter, Inc., said she found no allegations of wrongdoing by Smith while employed at the organization after notifying families who worked with Smith and the organizations volunteers.

Contact Elliot Hughes at elliot.hughes@jrn.com or 414-704-8958. Follow him on Twitter @elliothughes12.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Former Milwaukee child trauma counselor pleads guilty to abusing foster kids
SARASOTA, Fla. - Two are dead after a shooting that is believed to be a murder-suicide inside a Sarasota veterinary hospital Wednesday evening, deputies said.

The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office said deputies responded to KindVet of Sarasota Urgent Care at around 5:10 p.m. after a call came in about a possible shooter inside the building.

READ: Deadly Polk County road rage shooting suspect arrested: Sheriff

Investigators said two people, including the suspect, were found inside the business with gunshot wounds. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene, and deputies said the victim was taken to Sarasota Memorial Hospital where they later died.

The suspect who shot the victim is believed to be a former employee at KindVet of Sarasota Urgent Care, according to the sheriff's office.

Authorities are aware of a social media post that was made prior to the shooting, and they said it could be connected to the incident.

Gale Hanscom, a mother of one of the employees who was inside the business when the shooting happened, told FOX 13 that she got a text from her daughter, who was hiding in a closet.

"I just told the [deputies] Im not leaving until I get my hands on my baby, once I saw her, okay it was a lot of relief," Hanscom said.

Hanscom said her daughter heard the former employee arguing with a doctor before six shots fired. That's when, Hanscom said her daughter called 911.

"Im proud of her, very proud of her, in that situation to keep her head, to have the forethought that we have to hide and to call 911," she said.

The investigation into the incident remains ongoing.
A former FBI agent and a Washington, D.C., real estate developer were sentenced to years in prison after being convicted on bribery and conspiracy charges.

Former FBI agent David Paitsel, 42, and D.C. real estate developer Brian Bailey, 53, were sentenced Wednesday for their role in schemes involving confidential information held by the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, according to an announcement from the D.C. U.S. attorneys office.

The office said there were two parts to the scheme Paitsel and Bailey led. Bailey was found guilty of bribing a program specialist at the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development to in exchange for confidential, unredacted Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) offer of sale notices. These notices are not given out to the public and contain information such as the names of tenants residing at a property.

According to the office, the TOPA provides tenants living in the District of Columbia with the right to purchase their residence should the owner decide to sell the property. Tenants are also able to reassign their purchasing rights to a third party under this law.

The program specialist, Dawne Dorsey, pled guilty to bribery in June 2019 for her role in the scheme, the office noted. Dorsey will be sentenced next month.

The second part of the scheme resulted in both Paitsel and Bailey being found guilty on one count of bribery and one count of conspiracy. Bailey paid Paitsel in bribes to get the contact information for the tenants that held TOPA rights, the office said. Paitsel was able to pass along the information using a database he had access to at the FBI.

Paitsel was sentenced to two years in prison followed by two years of supervised release, as well as a $100 special assessment and a $10,600 forfeiture money judgment. Bailey was sentenced to four years in prison followed by two years of supervised release, as well as a $100 special assessment and a $250,000 fine.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A former medical director of Seattle Childrens Hospital is suing the hospital after claiming he was racially discriminated against.

Dr. Danielson was the medical director of the Odessa Brown Childrens Clinic which primarily serves families of color and low-income families.

The suit comes three years after Dr. Benjamin Danielsons resignation which happened back in 2020.

He resigned from his position in November, citing institutional racism which he claimed jeopardized the safety of patients and staff at the hospital.

According to the lawsuit, the hospital allegedly created a hostile work environment by allowing racial slurs, failing to remedy known incidents of systemic racism, and subjected black and brown employees to a double standard of conduct.

The lawsuit is now ongoing.

We are disappointed that Dr. Ben Danielson is pursuing legal action after voluntarily leaving three years ago, and vigorously dispute the allegations being made, said the hospital in a statement to the Seattle Times on Tuesday.








A former Clarksville police officer has been convicted of nearly a dozen crimes for requesting and showing explicit photographs to minors.

Michael Tobin, 35, was arrested in September 2022 and charged with 11 felony and misdemeanor counts of sexual exploitation. According to court filings, he was accused of soliciting sexually explicit images from two children and showing one of the children images of at least eight other children that he had obtained through criminal investigations.

Tobin went to trial in Butler County starting Oct. 10, and on Tuesday, he was found guilty of all charges. His sentencing will be set at a later date.

His attorney declined to comment.

Tobin was allowed to resign from the Clarksville police department effective March 5.

More: Former Iowa teacher convicted of 16 charges of sexual misconduct toward students

Tobin and the northeast Iowa city of about 1,250 also face two civil lawsuits alleging he pursued sexual relationships, including physical encounters, with two minors, and that city officials ignored obvious signs he was behaving inappropriately. According to one complaint, Tobin's misconduct was eventually uncovered when officials at one child's school found an online document Tobin had used to exchange explicit images saved on district servers.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa police officer convicted of sexually exploiting multiple minors
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WJZY)  Federal charges have been filed against a former NASCAR team owner, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced Wednesday.

A Charlotte, North Carolina, grand jury returned a bill of indictment, charging Ronald Devine, 67, of Burke, Virginia, with four counts of failure to pay payroll taxes.

According to allegations listed in the indictment, Devine was the owner and president of BK Racing, LLC, which operated a NASCAR racing team and owned two NASCAR charters.

As BK Racings owner, authorities said Devine exercised control over its financial affairs, including having sole signature authority and control over bank accounts and authorizing the filing and payment of BK Racings trust fund taxes, which are commonly referred to as payroll taxes.

4 seniors at California college struck, killed by speeding driver on Pacific Coast Highway, officials say

Payroll taxes are withheld from employees gross pay and are used by the government to fund Social Security and Medicare, and also include the income taxes withheld from the employees paychecks. Employers are also required to make contributions to trust fund taxes matching the amounts withheld from their employees pay, and to file quarterly an Employers Quarterly Federal Tax Return, Form 941, indicating payment of the relevant taxes. United States Attorneys Office

The indictment states that starting in 2012, Devine caused BK Racing to fail to account for and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in payroll taxes.

The indictment further alleges that between 2012 and 2017, instead of using the funds held in trust to pay for payroll taxes, Devine reportedly transferred more than $2 million to other businesses and entities that he owned and controlled and used some of the funds to pay for BK Racings expenses such as rent, utilities, and vendor bills.

Former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown arrested over missed child support payments: reports

Devine will have his initial appearance in federal court in Charlotte.

The charge of failure to truthfully account for and pay over trust fund taxes carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the four counts in the indictment.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A former Philadelphia news reporter was arrested Wednesday for allegedly possessing child sex abuse materials, according to authorities.

Authorities charged Cleve W. Bryan Jr., from Sewell, New Jersey with endangering the welfare of children by possessing child sex abuse materials.

The charge follows an investigation led by Washington Township Detectives and the High Tech Crimes Unit of the Gloucester County Prosecutors Office.

Cleve W. Bryan Jr. (Washington Township Police Department (Gloucester County) New Jersey)

Police say Bryan was taken to the Salem County Correctional Facility where he is currently awaiting a preliminary hearing.

Anyone who has additional information or concerns in the interest of public safety should contact Sgt. Mike Ferris or Sgt. Josh Bradford in their Detective Bureau at 856-589-0330.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker answers questions after the dedication of the new Center for Jewish Life and Living at Illini Chabad at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Oct. 19, 2023. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

CHAMPAIGN  Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Thursday that if lawmakers send him a bill, hell agree to extend a program that provides tax incentives for scholarships to children from low-to-moderate income families who want to attend private school.

But Pritzker stressed that its up to legislators, who head back to Springfield next week to begin their final session for the year, to come to an agreement on any extension of the Invest in Kids scholarship program.

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I will support it if it comes to my desk to extend the program in whatever form, Pritzker said during a ribbon-cutting event for the Chabad Center for Jewish Life and Living at the University of Illinois campus. I mean, I cant imagine it would show up in some form that I would be unwilling to. But again, the reality is that the legislature needs to go through this process.

The governor had previously been noncommittal over whether the controversial scholarship program should continue beyond its Dec. 31 expiration date. There has long been a debate of whether state tax credits should be used to fund primarily religious schools.

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The program allows people and corporations to donate funds for private school scholarships and in return get a 75% income tax credit, capped at $1 million. A handful of nonprofits process the applications and distribute the money. The maximum allowed in total annual contributions is $75 million.

The program has become a contentious issue for lawmakers, especially among Democrats who control both chambers of the legislature. Some Democrats have questioned whether tax incentives should be used to support private schools. There have also been concerns that some private schools may discriminate against LGBTQ students, those who are disabled or other groups.

Republicans have broadly backed the program, both as a way to support school choice and to express disdain for teachers unions.

Religious organizations, including the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, also back the program, as do some religiously moderate to conservative Democrats and members of the legislative Black Caucus who are close to their local churches.

That support partially explains the shift in Pritzkers attitude over the tax credit in recent years. As a candidate for governor in 2018, he vowed to repeal the program, which was the result of legislation passed the previous year under his predecessor, Republican Bruce Rauner.

But after taking office in 2019, Pritzker approved a legislative initiative that extended the program for a year beyond its original sunset date and expanded it to private trade schools.

While deferring to lawmakers on the programs future  partly as a negotiating chip to win GOP votes for his budget  Pritzker also has said Invest in Kids should be modified to allow federal and state income tax deductions for donations, which are currently prohibited. Such a solution would allow federal and state taxpayers to share the cost of the program.

Republicans criticized Democrats during the spring legislative session for not taking up an extension beyond the Dec. 31 sunset of the program. The session bogged down as Democrats were mired in internal squabbles over how to address the ballooning costs of a Medicaid-style health care program for immigrants who are in the country without legal permission.

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jgorner@chicagotribune.com
Maksym Holdarb, the leader of the banned in Ukraine political party Union of Left Forces and former host of Viktor Medvedchuk's TV channels, has been served with a notion of suspicion of collaborating and justifying Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine [Medvedchuk is a former Ukrainian businessman and pro-Russian politician; Putin is the godfather to his daughter  ed.].

Source: Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office

Details: The SSU has collected evidence of illegal activities on Holdarb who fled Kyiv at the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion and publicly supported the war against Ukraine.

The malefactor posted pro-Kremlin messages on his Telegram and YouTube channels with a total audience of over 140,000 users.

In these materials, Holdarb spread fake information about the activities of Ukraine's top military and political leadership and disinformation about the internal situation in the country.

In addition, he distributed fictional "insiders" about the alleged "plans" of several European countries to "annex" territory in western Ukraine.

He also repeatedly participated in teleconferences with Russian propagandists who prepared staged stories for TV channels of temporarily occupied Crimea and talk shows in Russia.

According to the prosecutor's office, the suspected, using connections with a Russian journalist, posted his interviews on an information resource controlled by the Russian Federation, in which he spread Russian narratives that Ukraine's European allies are using Ukrainians to settle scores with the Russian Federation and intend to seize and divide the lands of western Ukraine among themselves.

On his own YouTube channel, the defendant also posts manipulative, distorted information about events and historical facts concerning Ukraine, promotes theses of Russian propaganda about the common history and heroes, actively criticises the authorities and condemns Ukraine's current development path.

The suspect shifts the blame for the war in Ukraine entirely to the United States and the Ukrainian authorities, denying and justifying the armed aggression of the Russian Federation.

According to the conclusions of forensic linguistic analysis, the content and context of the suspect's statements distributed in the videos indicate that he is carrying out disinformation activities in cooperation with Russia aimed at supporting Russia and shifting its responsibility for armed aggression against Ukraine, as well as justifying the armed aggression of the Russian Federation.

Based on the collected evidence, Maksym Holdarb was served with a notice of suspicion under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:

Art. 111-1.6 (collaboration);

Art. 436-2.2, 436-2.3 (justification, recognition as legitimate, denial of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and glorification of its participants).

Since the person involved is a fugitive from justice, measures are being taken to establish his whereabouts and bring him to justice for crimes against Ukraine.

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Former Republican state lawmaker Joe Harding of Ocala, the architect of Florida's controversial law limiting discussions of gender and sexuality in public schools, was sentenced to four months in prison on charges of defrauding the government of $150,000 in pandemic aid.

Judge Allen Winsor sentenced Harding in U.S. District Court in Gainesville on Thursday. Hardings family and friends wept throughout the proceedings. One spectator wept audibly after his sentence was read.

Hardings brother, Pastor Daniel Harding , told the judge that his brother was a committed family man and pious Christian who taught kids softball instead of advancing his business interests.

I ask for mercy, he said.

Joe Harding

Tallahassee political consultant Brett Doster said that Harding received advice to frame his prosecution as political persecution, but that he decided to be honest and take responsibility instead. Harding, who resigned from the Legislature, repaid the $150,000.

Winsor said that it was a difficult and sad case, and that Harding received a tremendous amount of family and community support. Prosecutor Justin Keen said he has no reasons to doubt any of the positive aspects of Hardings character described in court.

Harding declined to answer questions as he left the courthouse.

More: Florida state Rep. Joe Harding indicted on federal wire fraud, money laundering charges

When he is released from prison, Harding will be required to serve two years of supervised release and pay a $300 fine. He was ordered to turn himself into custody by noon on Jan. 29.

Harding resigned from office in December shortly after being indicted on two counts each of wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements. Had he been convicted on all counts, Harding could have faced up to 70 years in prison.

Harding initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, but as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, he ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of each charge, cutting the maximum prison sentence to 35 years.

Despite serving just over a single two-year term in the Florida House from 2020-2022, Harding gained notoriety for being the sponsor of the Parental Rights in Education Act, a bill derided by critics as the Dont Say Gay Bill, which banned discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools from kindergarten through third grade. The law was later expanded to cover fourth through 12th grades.

An estimated 200 people marched from Westcott Fountain to the Florida Capitol to protest HB 1069, which is an expansion on the Dont Say Gay bill from last session. The group of activists made their way to the fourth floor rotunda where they proceeded to chant and share their stories Friday, March 31, 2023.

More: School Board set to amend policies to adhere to 'Don't Say Gay' and 'Stop WOKE' bills

According to court records, Harding defrauded the federal government through loan applications with the federal governments Economic Injury Disaster Loan program for two companies he owned that were inactive. He applied for a loan for both companies, but only one was approved.

Prosecutors said Harding used part of the money to pay his credit card balance. Some funds were shifted to the bank account of an oil company owned by his brother-in-law, Patrick Walsh. In January, Walsh was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison for defrauding the federal government of $7.8 million in COVID-19 loans, some of which was used to purchase an island in the Gulf of Mexico.

During the sentencing, Keen noted it was Walsh who initially advised Harding to file the fraudulent applications as he had himself done. Winsor said he didnt know if this case wouldve happened if Harding had a different brother-in-law.

Both men admitted to falsifying the number of employees, gross revenue and status of the businesses in their loan applications. Walshs younger brother, Tampa businessman Caleb Walsh, faced scrutiny from federal investigators during the summer over his own COVID-19 loans totaling $4.3 million.

This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at silas.morgan@ufl.edu.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Former Ocala lawmaker Joe Harding sentenced to 4 months in prison
Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges in a Fulton County courthouse in Georgia on Thursday.

The six charges of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties carried a recommended sentence of 6 years' probation in total, as well as a $6,000 fine and an additional $2,700 restitution payment to the state. As part of her sentence, she also agreed to provide a written letter of apology to the people of Georgia and give "truthful testimony" at any future hearings and trials relating to other defendants.

Powell is one of 19 defendants charged in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' indictment in August.

Powell's case has been handled separately from the others alongside lawyer Kenneth Chesebro. The two had petitioned the court to have their cases separated from the larger group and to be tried as individuals. Judge Scott McAfee partially granted their request but said they must be tried as a pair for the sake of a speedy trial.

JUDGE IMPOSES PARTIAL GAG ORDER IN TRUMP ORG. TRIAL BLOCKING PARTIES FROM VERBAL ATTACKS AGAINST COURT STAFF

Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor, was one of the most vocal attorneys in Trumps circle pushing election fraud claims.

Chesebro's trial is scheduled to begin Friday.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

The rest of the defendants include former President Donald Trump, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis and many others.

The case is one of four criminal indictments currently leveled against Trump, with charges also arising out of New York City, Florida and Washington, D.C.

Trump himself has been busy in court in Manhattan for a civil trial brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James , who is accusing Trump of fraud.

The Georgia case is one of four criminal indictments currently leveled against Trump, with charges also arising out of New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Florida.

Trump has appeared in court in Manhattan for parts of the trial while also crisscrossing the country, holding speeches and rallies for his 2024 presidential campaign.

TRUMP JUDGE FACES ONLINE BACKLASH AFTER SMILING, POSING FOR CAMERAS IN COURTROOM: 'PARTISAN DEMOCRAT CLOWN'

Judge Arthur Engoron last month ruled that Trump and the Trump Organization committed fraud while building his real estate empire by deceiving banks, insurers and others by overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, and former President Donald Trump.

Engorons ruling came after James sued Trump, his children and the Trump Organization, alleging that the former president "inflated his net worth by billions of dollars," and said his children helped him to do so.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.





Original article source: Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell pleads guilty in Georgia election interference case
Broward commissioners may say they want a bridge for commuter rail over the New River, but Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis isnt giving up on his fight to get a tunnel built instead.

On Thursday, the mayor was in Washington, D.C. meeting with federal officials to make the pitch for a tunnel. He did the same when he met one-on-one Tuesday with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in Fort Lauderdale.

Trantalis argued a tunnel can be done cheaper than the current estimate of $3 billion and would not ruin downtown Fort Lauderdale like a $400 million bridge would.

On Thursday, Trantalis tweeted a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying Fort Lauderdale has been awarded $974,000 by the U.S. Department of Transportation for the Regional Infrastructure program.

This funding will supercharge our study of the New River Commuter Rail Crossing via a tunnel, his post said. What does this mean? Its all about improving safety, keeping our communities connected, easing traffic flow and improving navigability not just in our downtown core, but for the entire region.

In a letter sent Monday to the county, Trantalis and Fort Lauderdale City Manager Greg Chavarria argued that a bridge would impact real estate prices downtown and require the purchase of privately owned land and the costly relocation of residents and businesses.

The bridge would also sit uncomfortably close to existing buildings and buildings currently under construction along the New River, the letter said.

Were trying to formulate a more reasonable cost, Trantalis told the South Florida Sun Sentinel before he left for D.C. We need to apply for the federal grant by February. We are in the process of doing studies from an engineering and social impact point.

Broward Mayor Lamar Fisher says county officials are eager to get going on a project.

Its more cost efficient to build a bridge, he said. The tunnel would take 10 to 12 years and the bridge would take five years.

Critics have questioned whether a tunnel might flood.

Flooding is a major concern for the county, especially with climate change and king tides, Fisher said.

County Commissioner Steve Geller says he also prefers a tunnel, but only if it makes good fiscal sense.

I tend to agree that the bridges can be ugly, Geller said. If you can do a tunnel, great. I just want to get something done. The mayor of Fort Lauderdale keeps giving us one set of numbers and our staff keeps giving us another set of numbers. The problem is were running out of time. Geller noted that Fort Lauderdale is not contributing to the projects cost.

Under current plans, the federal government would pay 50% of the tab and the county and state would each pay 25%.

If they want to pay for a tunnel, God bless them, he said of Fort Lauderdale officials. But they will never in a million years do that.

Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan
Republican Jim Jordan keeps up floundering fight to be US House Speaker

By David Morgan, Moira Warburton, Katharine Jackson and Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Hardline conservative Jim Jordan pressed ahead with his floundering bid for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, after his fellow Republicans abandoned a backup plan to allow the leaderless chamber to resume business.

The House will hold a third speaker vote when it opens for business at 10:00 ET (1400 GMT) on Friday, his spokesperson Russell Dye said. Jordan has come up short in two votes already.

"I'm still running for speaker and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race," Jordan told reporters earlier in the day.

Jordan met with some of the 22 fellow Republicans who have voted against him, but he did not appear to change any minds.

"We all told him that we're solid no's. That was the discussion," Republican Representative Vern Buchanan told reporters. "Now he's got a decision to make."

The chamber has been at a standstill since Oct. 3, when a small group of Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker's chair, leaving lawmakers unable to respond to eruption of war in the Middle East and a possible partial government shutdown less than a month away.

Earlier in the day, Jordan had suggested that Republicans vote to extend the authority of Representative Patrick McHenry, who is serving as acting speaker.

House Democrats and the White House have said they are open to that idea, but many Republicans rejected it. "At this point, we're not going to have any kind of other resolution on this," said Republican Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer.

But a senior Republican aide told Reuters this sentiment does not represent the majority of House Republicans.

"Just because they (the hardliners) don't like it doesn't mean it's dead," the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is a strong consensus that McHenry needs to be able to act."

Some members have suggested a formal vote is not needed to give McHenry expanded powers and believe that the acting speaker position inherently gives him the authority to act. McHenry pushed back on that idea on Thursday night.

"If there is some goal to subvert the House rules to give me power without a formal vote, I will not accept it," he told reporters.

URGENT LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS

The House's leadership vacuum has prevented Congress from acting on urgent legislative business.

Democratic President Joe Biden on Thursday in a primetime speech said that U.S. backing is critical for Israel and Ukraine, two U.S. allies at war.

Biden said he will request emergency spending that U.S. officials have said will total roughly $100 billion over the next year for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan and security along the porous U.S. border with Mexico. It may include $60 billion for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel, sources said beforehand.

Jordan in two votes this week failed to secure the 217 votes needed to claim the speaker's gavel as he has faced opposition from Democrats and some Republicans.

'BULLY AS THE SPEAKER'

Republicans who have voted against Jordan the first two times have predicted he will also fail on a third vote. They cited differences on taxes and spending and accused him of undercutting the leadership bid of No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise last week. Others have objected to harassing phone calls and even death threats from his supporters.

One of those, Representative Drew Ferguson, said in a statement on Thursday: "The House Republican Conference does not need a bully as the speaker."

The prolonged leadership battle has laid bare divisions among Republicans who control the chamber by a narrow 221-212 margin. Investors say the turmoil on Capitol Hill is also contributing to market volatility.

McCarthy was ousted after reaching a deal with Democrats on Sept. 30 to keep the government open. Hardline Republicans objected to his move to pass a bill that needed Democratic votes to get over the line.

While McCarthy was the first speaker in U.S. history to be voted out by his caucus, the last two Republicans to hold the job also left office early under pressure from the right.

Jordan has made his name in Washington as a leader of a hard-right faction that has exercised enormous influence this year, bringing Washington to the edge of default and the brink of a government shutdown in a budget-cutting drive that has had limited success so far.

His backers say he would be an effective fighter for conservative policies in a town where Democrats control the Senate and the White House.

Unlike other leaders in Congress, Jordan built his profile as an uncompromising advocate for the party's right wing, clashing with Republicans and Democrats alike.

He encouraged government shutdowns in 2013 and 2018 and was a "significant player" in Trump's attempts to overturn Biden's 2020 election win, according to a congressional investigation.

He is helping to lead an impeachment investigation of Biden that has so far failed to find evidence of wrongdoing by the president.

(Reporting by David Morgan, Makini Brice, Moira Warburton and Katharine Jackson; additional reporting by Nandita Bose, Davide Barbusca and Julio-Cesar Chavez; writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Nick Zieminski, Deepa Babington and Grant McCool)
Protest during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Frankfurt

Protest during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Frankfurt

By Riham Alkousaa, Thomas Escritt and Layli Foroudi

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) -As tens of thousands of people took to the streets around the world on Oct. 13 in support of the Palestinians, all such protests in Germany and France were banned.

The two countries - home to the European Union's largest Jewish and Muslim communities - have cracked down on pro-Palestinian groups since Hamas militants burst over the border from Gaza and killed more than 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7.

The governments say the curbs are to stop public disorder and prevent antisemitism.

But supporters of the Palestinians say they feel blocked from publicly expressing support or concern for people in the Hamas-controlled enclave of Gaza without risking arrest, their jobs or immigration status.

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a campaign of retaliatory bombing, while a blockade that prevents food, fuel and medicine for getting in has created a humanitarian crisis.

"We are scared, we are worried about being accused of justifying terrorism, when we just want to support a humanitarian cause," said Messika Medjoub a 20-year-old French-Algerian history student.

She was speaking at a banned protest in Paris last Thursday which police broke up with teargas and water cannon.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin clamped a nationwide ban on pro-Palestinian protests last week, citing the risk of public disorder. Nine have been banned in Paris since Oct.7.

Over the weekend, Paris police issued a ban on the "presence and circulation of people that present themselves as pro-Palestinian". Since Oct. 12 they have issued 827 fines and arrested 43 people.

In Germany, Berlin police have approved two requests for pro-Palestine protests since the initial Hamas attacks, a police spokesperson said. Both were proposed as silent vigils.

But at least seven, including one called Jewish Berliners Against Middle Eastern Violence and another entitled Youth Against Racism, were refused permission. At least 190 people have been detained at protests.

The French and German governments say they need to protect Jewish communities given a rise in antisemitic violence since the attacks by Hamas, which is deemed a terrorist group by the EU and several countries.

In Germany, the issue is particularly acute because of the killing of six million European Jews in the Holocaust by the Nazis.

"Our history, our responsibility for the Holocaust makes it our duty in every moment to stand for the existence and security of Israel," Chancellor Olaf Scholz told legislators last week.

Darmanin said on Tuesday that 327 antisemitic acts had taken place in France since Oct. 7, with 183 arrests for antisemitism or apologising for terrorism.

Human rights groups say Jewish communities must be protected but they are are concerned legitimate protest is being repressed.

"Human rights law doesn't allow the government to just broadly say there is a concern about violence and use that as a justification to ban protests," said Benjamin Ward, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch.

"The question is whether it's proportionate - and that's where I think there is a concern."

Hungary and Austria have also blocked pro-Palestine protests since Oct.7, while in the rest of Europe large rallies supporting Palestinians have been held with few restrictions.

HISTORIC RESPONSIBILITY

With an estimated 30,000 Palestinians, Berlin has one of the largest diaspora communities outside the Middle East, and anxiety over what is happening in Gaza is running high.

At an unauthorised protest in Berlin last week, Palestinians who spoke to Reuters said they felt nervous about speaking out, fearful of being labelled pro-Hamas in a country where supporting Israel is sacrosanct.

"I feel that in Germany we're not allowed to speak our mind," said Saleh Said, standing on the fringes of an unauthorised gathering.

A 32-year-old German born to Palestinian parents, he said he condemned Hamas's violence.

Berlin's education authorities last week told schools they could ban students from wearing the Palestinian Kufiya scarf and "free Palestine" stickers.

Post-World War Two German goverments have pursued close ties with Israel because of the Holocaust.

Felix Klein, Germany's ombudsman in charge of fighting antisemitism, said the country's history meant it had to be especially vigilant.

Even before the Hamas attack on Israel, Germany was restricting pro-Palestinian demonstrations, with Berlin authorities banning several on public safety grounds.

Amnesty International said in September that German police's justifications for bans on pro-Palestinian groups appeared to be based on "stigmatizing and discriminatory stereotypes", citing references in police orders to people "from the Arab diaspora, in particular with Palestinian background".

FRANCE CRACKS DOWN

In France pro-Palestinian groups were also facing curbs prior to the attacks.

An attempt last year to ban two organisations - Collectif Palestine Vaincra and Comite Action Palestine - was overruled by a higher court who said their "bold, even virulent" positions did not constitute hate speech or terrorism

Interior Minister Darmanin announced that he had initiated judicial proceedings for "antisemitism, apologia for terrorism and support for Hamas" against 11 organisations, including Collectif Palestine Vaincra and Comite Action Palestine. Both deny the allegations.

On Wednesday, in response to an appeal against Darmanin's instructions, a court said local authorities should ban protests on a case by case basis. A protest in Paris On Thursday evening was authorised last minute after a court overturned the decision to ban it.

In a memo about one set of protests last week French intelligence services said it would attract "radical elements from the ultra-left, close to Islamist movements and young people from sensitive neighbourhoods".

People who spoke to Reuters at a banned protest in Paris last Thursday said the government's move to prevent gatherings for Palestinians was unfair but unsurprising.

"The government is indulgent when it comes to Israel's crimes. They are being biased and they are showing it," said Hortense La Chance, a 32-year-old cook.

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa and Thomas Escritt in Berlin and Layli Foroudi in Paris, additional reporting by Kate Holton in London, writing by Thomas Escritt, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
A crowd watched the funeral on a large screen set up in the town square (Francois LO PRESTI)

A French teacher stabbed to death last week by an Islamist former pupil was to be laid to rest on Thursday, after a funeral in the northern city of Arras attended by President Emmanuel Macron .

The service in Arras cathedral for 57-year-old Dominique Bernard was broadcast on a large screen in the city's Heroes' Square, where almost 600 people watched in the rain.

"Sensitive and discreet, (Bernard) didn't like the sound and fury of the world," his wife Isabelle, also a teacher, told the roughly 1,000 people in the church.

"He deeply loved his daughters, his mother and his sister. We loved one another. He didn't like crowds and honours, ceremonies, he detested them."

Bernard had earlier been posthumously awarded the Legion of Honour, France's highest civilian decoration, by Macron, who spoke to the family before the ceremony.

But the attention on Thursday was on the words of people who knew Bernard.

"I see your silhouette in the staff room, I see the shirt you always wear, the cup you hold, your mischievous smile because you have something funny to say," a colleague, Aurelie, told the service.

"You were there for (the pupils) and they knew it."

Maxime, a former pupil, said Bernard was "kind" and "passionate" about his job as a French teacher.

"He loved to help us discover literature. He always had little extra things to say about the authors he was presenting," he told AFP, waiting on the square for the funeral to start.

Well-wishers had laid bouquets on the cathedral steps, where around 30 teachers and staff from Bernard's school waited as the coffin arrived.

- Bomb threats -

Central Arras was shut down for the service, and classes were cancelled at the Gambetta-Carnot school where Bernard taught, allowing staff and pupils to go to the ceremony.

He was killed almost three years to the day after teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded outside his school in a Paris suburb by a radicalised young man.

Bernard's murder was a fresh shock for the profession and the wider French public.

Both Bernard's attacker, 20-year-old Mohammed Moguchkov, and Paty's killer were originally from Russia's mainly Muslim North Caucasus region.

Institutions around France have been subject to bomb threats since Friday's killing, including a string of airports, the Louvre Museum and the historic Palace of Versailles outside Paris.

Bernard's own school was targeted by a threat on Monday, when staff and pupils were set to hold a minute of silence in his memory.

Nerves were already on edge in France, which has large Muslim and Jewish populations, following the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel and the Israeli retaliation in Gaza.

The school killing has stoked a fierce political debate in France around immigration and security.

The government is speeding up the parliamentary calendar for a new immigration law.

bj-lg/tgb/jxb/ach
Name: Frank Gammon

Age: 72

Campaign website or social media page: electfrankgammon.com

Occupation: Retired

Education:

Middle Tennessee State University, BS in Geography

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (Resident Course)

University of North Carolina - Charlotte, M.Ed. Instructional Technology - Computers

Have you run for elected office before? (Please list previous offices sought):

No.

Please list your highlights of civic involvement.

I have been actively involved, both locally and regionally, in the community for almost eight years. After retiring as a public high school teacher in 2014 I was appointed to the Towns Greenway, Trails, and Bikeway Commission where I served from 2016 to 2018. In 2018 I was appointed to, and currently serve as the Vice-Chairman, of the Towns Planning Board. I also currently sit on the Towns Ordinance Advisory Board as the Planning Board representative. Regionally, I have volunteered with the Carolina Thread Trail  Catawba Lands Conservancy since 2016, and was their 2018 Volunteer of the Year. I have volunteered with Trees Charlotte since 2020 to learn more about tree and tree canopy issues. In addition, I was a Mecklenburg County Board of Elections Poll Worker from 2017 to 2022 where I worked both early voting and election day. I was an equipment operator for each of those years, and was also appointed to a three year term in 2020 as an election day Party Judge.

What one professional or political accomplishment are you most proud of?

I am proud of my more than forty-nine years of public service to my county and community. I wore the uniform of my country for forty-two of those years: four years as an Airman in the USAF; twenty-two years as a soldier in the U.S. Army; and sixteen years as a NC High School Senior Army Instructor teaching Army JROTC. As previously stated, I have been actively involved in my community, both locally and regionally, for almost eight years. Serving on several Town Advisory Boards, Volunteering with local and regional organizations, and as a poll worker at early voting and on election day.

Traffic is an issue in Huntersville while a few critical road projects, such as the widening of N.C. 73, have been delayed by NCDOT. How would you tackle the towns traffic problem?

Roads and traffic are my priority issue of concern, and neither can be addressed separately. The towns growth, and its increased traffic, has overwhelmed our state and town roads. As a Huntersville Town Commissioner I would be involved in the approval of funds and the prioritization of town road projects. I will consider road development and methods to mitigate traffic in every decision I make.

There are numerous town road projects listed in the Towns Capital Improvement Program waiting on funding. I support the Huntersville Bond Package for roads, and parks and recreation, if roads are your number one priority you will also. I will be a good steward of your tax dollars. I will ensure that your tax dollars that are spent on essential services, and roads are an essential service, are spent effectively and efficiently.

State road development; however, operates on a different development, and decision cycle than that of a municipality. It is a process that can take decades from inception to completion. While the Huntersville Town Board, and Town Manager have input into that process through the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO) and our local state elected officials, it does not control that process. However, the Town Board must stay active, vigilant, and lobby to ensure that the state roads planned for Huntersville are funded and built with the town and its citizens in mind. The state road project that should be of primary concern for the Town of Huntersville involves the widening and design of Highway 73. The town must ensure that the NCDOT Super Street design for Highway 73 does not add a new and different level of traffic frustration, and does not impede ease of movement within the town. In addition, the design must not degrade access to the towns retail center located between I-77 Exit 25 and Catawba Avenue. The last thing the Town of Huntersville needs is for the new Highway 73 design to do to our retail corridor what was done to the Independence Road retail corridor in Charlotte.

What are your ideas about how the town should recruit and retain more police officers specifically? And all town employees more broadly?

This is not just a Huntersville issue - It is a regional, state, and national issue. An issue that is not just limited to the hiring and retention of police officers. Every citizen of Huntersville should be proud of the HPD; it is a respected, and professional police department. I believe community respect goes a long way in retaining all first responders, and other town employees as well - not just police officers. However, respect only goes so far when you are trying to house, feed, and raise a family. The town currently pays a competitive salary and benefits to our police officers which include additional pay based upon experience, and education. I will always ensure that our officers, and their families, continue to be fairly compensated, and rewarded, for what they do for the citizens of Huntersville. I will also continue to support a pay incentive for those officers, and their families, who are living, or wish to live in the Town of Huntersville.

The Town of Huntersville is also in the discussion phase of transitioning the Huntersville Fire Department from a volunteer department to a department with full time firefighters. That is not going to be easy first because of the cost, and secondly because of the lack of available firefighters regionally. This is not something the town is going to be able to do overnight and it may take years to make the transition. One possible approach to address the cost is to reach out to the State Legislature for assistance to reduce the initial tax burden on our citizens. The next Huntersville Town Board will be the first Board to face this issue head on.

I respect all of our town employees in all of our departments and will ensure that they are all receiving a competitive salary based upon their position and experience. I support efforts for affordable housing, and am open to discussions regarding workforce housing.

Huntersville has experienced rapid population growth over the last few decades with the approval of hundreds of new homes. Do you think the town should control growth in some way or keep expanding? Why?

The town does control growth through its Zoning and Subdivision Ordinances, 2040 Community Plan, and its approval processes for new development - Dont fix whats not broken. The Charlotte Metropolitan Area is the fifteenth largest, and the third fastest growing, Metropolitan Area in the United States - That includes Huntersville. There are not enough houses available now for the influx of people moving into the area. Dont expect Huntersville growth to stop anytime soon.

We do not need to stop development, we just need to be smart about how we develop it.

Why should voters choose you over others who are in the race?

I AM NO ASSEMBLY REQUIRED! I have decades of leadership and decision making experience. I have been directly involved in town zoning decisions for nearly five and one-half years. I have nearly eight years of town involvement. I am a Huntersville 101 graduate. I have served on the Greenway, Trails, and Bikeway Commission. I currently sit on the Town Planning Board and Ordinance Advisory Board. Over that same time span I have consistently attended town meetings: to include town board meetings, board retreats, and board budget planning sessions. I dont know everything - but I know who to ask when I dont. I believe in sensible leadership - what does that mean? I am fair, reasonable, and will apply common sense to my decision making and leadership.
Adjani's lawyers said she had 'a pathology' preventing her from flying (XAVIER LEOTY)

The tax evasion trial of French film star Isabelle Adjani began in Paris on Thursday, though she did not attend after claiming she was unable to fly from the United States.

Adjani, 68, is accused of having concealed a two-million-euro ($2.1 million) gift by presenting it as a loan, and of having pretended to live in Portugal for two years, rather than in France.

She denies the charges against her.

The two million euros were not a gift, but a loan from a friend, influential Senegalese businessman and International Olympic Committee member Mamadou Diagna NDiaye, she says.

Her defence lawyers sought a delay, saying Adjani was in the United States and had "an acute condition incompatible with flying", insisting that she wanted to appear in court.

The judges rejected the request, pointing out that she had had since June to prepare her appearance but had only booked a flight that arrived two hours before the hearing.

The prosecution asked the court to apply an 18-month suspended sentence and to fine her 250,000 euros.

"Isabelle Adjani's name is ultimately of little importance," said the financial prosecutor.

"Her celebrity was neither an additional reason nor an obstacle to prosecution."

Adjani is one of France's best-loved stars, appearing in films including "The Story of Adele H", "Camille Claudel", "Quartet" and "One Deadly Summer".

She has won five Cesar awards for best actress -- the French equivalent of the Oscars -- top awards at Berlin and Cannes, and has been twice nominated for an Oscar.

alv/jj/imm
Heres an interesting move. Founders Future, a well-known VC firm in the French tech ecosystem, acquired an equity crowdfunding marketplace called Sowefund. While terms of the deal remain undisclosed, Sowefund has been profitable since 2022 with around 20 employees.

Following this move, Founders Future now has two separate yet complementary businesses. With its VC funds, which Ive recently covered, Founders Future raises money from limited partners, which include professional investors and family offices, and then invests in promising startups. In other words, its VC as usual.

With its crowdfunding platform, it matches retail investors with startups that want to raise money from their community of users or from personal finance experts who want to diversify their savings with risky but potentially rewarding investments. Going forward, Founders Future and Sowefund will still operate completely separately  there wont be any synergy between these two activities.

So why would a VC firm go downstream and acquire a crowdfunding platform?

We noticed two major trends. The first trend, which you have certainly noticed, is that you have a new generation of investors who want to get more hands on  with both public and private companies. They want transparency and they want to invest in the real economy, Founders Future founder and CEO Marc Menase told me.

The second observation we've made is that, our job with the fund is very professional and very disciplined in its day-to-day approach. And we can bring these methods to a company involved in crowdfunding financing. And it's true that this hasn't been done much, Menase added.

And Founders Future has already seen how crowdfunding companies work with some of the firms portfolio companies  for instance, Taster and 900.care raised some money on Crowdcube, the British investment platform that expanded to France in 2022.

Raising the bar for equity crowdfunding

Sowefunds two co-founders Benjamin Wattinne and Georges Viglietti will remain at the helm of the crowdfunding platform going forward. But Founders Future has a multimillion-dollar investment plan to grow Sowefunds team in the coming year or two.

What we want to do is bring our know-how to ensure that Sowefund becomes more professional and truly the go-to platform for co-investment with professionals. That's really what we want to achieve, Menase said.

Since 2014, Sowefund has handled 103 crowdfunding campaigns. Overall, companies have raised 81 million from more than 110,000 retail investors (thats $86 million at todays exchange rate)  no word on the performance of these investments. Recent campaigns include Ekwateur, Agriloops, Lunii, Axioma, Extracadabra and Futura Gaia.

More recently, Sowefund received an agreement to be certified as a European crowdfunding service provider. It means it can operate in other European countries in the future.

But the Sowefund team (and Founders Future) want to go one step further depending on regulatory changes. Eventually, Sowefund would like to offer the opportunity to invest in funds, such as VC funds, impact funds, etc. But thats not yet possible.

Founders Futures move is also interesting because of the timing. VC investments have slowed down over the past couple of years around the world. As many VC firms are still passing on deals that would have made sense a few years ago, its time for startup CEOs to find creative ways to extend their runways.

The potential investment pool among individuals is enormous. So you have people who want to invest in companies they know and use  or they have a positive sentiment for these companies. And there are a huge number of them, Menase said. So I think what's great about equity crowdfunding is that it's an alternative or a complement in a context where financing is difficult for companies.
Lori Wainwright, 63, walks through the flooded basement of a friend's home two days after almost 9 inches of rain fell within three hours Sept. 17 in Calumet City. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

Calumet City officials were informed the towns stormwater facilities were in poor condition one year before historic rains in September caused significant flood damage to homes.

A report obtained by the Daily Southtown dated Sept. 23, 2022, includes a list of findings and recommendations made by three individuals who visited five stormwater facilities and pump stations Aug. 30, 2022. Repairs or upgrades were recommended at all five facilities.

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The 2022 report from Farnsworth Group, a private architecture and engineering firm working as the citys engineering consultant since 2021, was sent to Deanne Jaffrey, the Calumet City chief of staff and city administrator. The document states the mayors office and Jay Embry from Public Works were copied on the report. Also involved in the analysis of the pumps was Metropolitan Pump manager Keith Girup.

Superior Stormwater Basin and Pump Station, and Stateline (Shirley) Stormwater Basin and Pump Station were both in poor condition, according to the findings.

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Pump 1 has failed and is no longer operational, read one line of the analysis of the Superior pump station and detention basin at the intersection of Superior and Harding avenues. It is recommended that this facility be completely reconstructed.

The report made similar comments about the Shirley facility near Shirley Drive and 169th Street, stating the existing pumps are no longer operational and it is recommended that this facility be completely reconstructed.

On Sept. 17, 2023, several south suburbs including Calumet City, Dolton and Harvey experienced more than 6 inches of rainfall in less than 12 hours, according to an October news release from Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkles office. Preckwinkle issued a disaster proclamation for the flooding. The National Weather Service said 7 to 9 inches of rain fell in Calumet City.

The September flooding came on the heels of several days of heavy rains throughout Cook County at the end of June and early July, which triggered President Joe Biden to issue a federal disaster proclamation for Cook County. These back-to-back rainstorms left many residents with flooded basements and massive damages.

There is no indication the city carried out the improvement recommendations in the year since receiving the report. Jaffrey and Girup did not respond to requests for comment. Embry could not be reached. Patrick Walsh, an attorney for Calumet City, told the Daily Southtown Tuesday only spokesperson Sean Howard would reply to questions.

First Ward Ald. Michael Navarrete said with the heavy rain water levels it is hard to say how much of the flooding can be blamed on the pumps, a message echoed by Sybil Derrible, a professor of civil, materials and environmental engineering at University of Illinois-Chicago.

It is possible that the pumps worked as they were supposed to or that some were defective, Derrible said. But it is very hard to say without doing modeling.

Calumet City Mayor Thaddeus Jones did not respond to requests for comment and declined to speak with the Daily Southtown after the Oct. 12 City Council meeting.

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I can assure you that our pumps were working correctly, Jones said at a Sept. 28 City Council meeting. Our system was working.

Howard sent the Daily Southtown a report on the Yates Pumping Station dated Sept. 17, 2023 which supports the mayors comment.

Amp readings are normal. Station is pumping properly  all 3 pumps running at this time, reads the report, attributed to two people referred to as Jay and Jerry. System was overloaded from rain. Once the rain subsides and pumps have time to catch up, the station will be fine.

Calumet City 2nd ward resident Ana Covarrubias said on October 13 the September flooding has left her with a $20,000 bill for cleanup and repairs. (Ana Covarrubias)

In the 2022 report, the Yates Pumping Station received the highest marks of all of the analyzed stations and was declared to be generally in good condition.

Yet, the analysis still noted problems that jeopardize Yates storm event response.

The inlet structure in the basin has an overflow weir and grate that is inaccessible during storm events, the 2022 report stated. During storm events the overflow weir needs to be accessible to clear debris restricting flow. While on-site we observed the pumps turning on and off 6 times in less than 12 hour indicating blockage at the inlet structure.

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Matt Buerger, an executive at Farnsworth who was on the stormwater and pump inspection site visit in 2022, did not respond directly to questions, but Howard provided written responses from him. Buerger wrote that all pump stations were operational during the September rains.

The City experienced a 500-year event on Sept. 17, Buerger wrote. No stormwater system, particularly an urban system, that I am aware of in the State of Illinois would be able to accommodate that volume of rain in the short duration experienced.

James Majerowicz, director of codes and standards for Plumbers Local 130 United Association and a plumber for more than 40 years, reviewed the 2022 email.

Its not good, Majerowicz said of the pump analysis. Poor condition means it needs to be replaced or repaired.

Majerowicz said water systems in poor condition should be repaired or replaced as soon as possible.

Keeping things maintained is extremely important, he said. The reports saying maintenance needs to get done on all this stuff.

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Buerger responded via Howards email that according to the Farnsworth analysis, the pumping stations were not at fault for the flooding experienced by residents and instead the culprit was the citys sewer system that sends water to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

The sewers were overburdened due to the record rainwater volumes, he wrote. Sewers, particularly those downstream, could not convey the water to the MWRD interceptor which resulted in the flooding upstream.

Lincoln Avenue Pump Station and Green Bay Avenue Pump Station received ratings of poor to fair condition and fair condition, respectively, in the 2022 report.

All three aldermen who spoke on the record with the Daily Southtown said they were not aware of the pump report until it was sent to them after the September 2023 flooding.

Sixth Ward Ald. James Patton said the 2022 email was brought to their attention after he asked a question at an emergency City Council meeting shortly after the flooding Sept. 17.

I happened to have some information from somebody that would have known that some of our pumping stations were not operating at full capacity. So I asked if there was any truth to that, Patton said. I was categorically denied and told that thats not true.

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Jones then asked the engineers to share information on the pump status to the aldermen, Patton said. A few days later, the 2022 report made it to the inboxes of the aldermen.

As I opened it up, I was kind of shocked at the level of which our pumps were in disrepair, Patton said. It makes it look more damning to the administration, in my view, that they had this report that was commissioned a whole year prior to this massive flood and they never did anything about it.

Navarrete placed some blame on the engineers.

We lean on our engineers to say Hey, focus on these issues, Navarrete said. (It is) certainly frustrating that if in fact we could have avoided this or at least mitigated the problem that happened ... then thats something we should have looked at.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy >

Buerger said via Howards email that the city has worked on using other money to improve the storm infrastructure.

The Jones Administration instructed Farnsworth Group to include stormwater improvements in the $35 million general obligation bond program, he wrote.

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Ana Covarrubias, of Calumet Citys 2nd Ward, recalls watching her basement fill with water.

As Im staring at it, theres a wave of water coming out of my laundry room, she said. My whole basement is floating. But at the moment, as a parent, its just calm my kid down.

Covarrubias said it will cost $20,000 for the cleanup crew and to replace her families personal items and appliances.

Covarrubias still gets choked up thinking about her son crying as he stood at the top step of their basement, watching their couches float up to the ceiling, gliding on a lake of brown water.

hsanders@chicagotribune.com
FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  Fresno City College received $20,000 in scholarships by Comcast to support students who want to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM).

On Wednesday, Comcast announced they will donate $100,000 to five community colleges in the Central Valley to support the next generation of students eager to pursue careers in STEM. Each college will receive $20,000, one of them including Fresno City College.

Other colleges include Clovis Community College, Madera College, Reedley College, and College of the Sequoias.

Comcast officials say the institutions selected span four counties in the Central Valley and are home to primarily income-constrained student populations with many first-generation students.

This scholarship donation from Comcast will help so many students from communities throughout the Central Valley who will go on to accomplish amazing things, said David Tashjian, Regional Senior Vice President of Comcast California. Our hope at Comcast is that these community college scholarships will do just that  meet these students where they are and support their future learning, growth, and advancement in whatever way serves them best.

The scholarship reception was held at Fresno City College and included Chancellor Dr. Carole Goldsmith, presidents from the five area community colleges, along with business and community leaders from the region.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  Video appears to show a car speeding and quickly changing lanes before crashing into a Las Vegas cyclist, killing him, but weeks later, the driver was not facing any charges.

Nathan Nate Miller, 32, died hours after a car crashed into him while he was riding a bike northbound on Nellis Boulevard near Tropicana Avenue in the southeast valley on Sept. 23, Las Vegas Metro police said.

Miller, a BMX champion, died from blunt force trauma at Sunrise Hospital hours after the crash, the Clark County coroners office confirmed. His manner of death was listed as accidental.

Videos the 8 News Now Investigators obtained Wednesday appeared to show the car jerking back and forth before colliding with Miller. The car then crashed into a fence and a parked vehicle, police said.

Millers friends contacted the 8 News Now Investigators asking why there were no apparent consequences as of Wednesday.

Nathan Miller was killed when a driver hit him on Nellis Boulevard on Sept. 23, 2023. Miller died hours later in the hospital. (Nicole Miller)

I mean, the video speaks for itself, Millers friend, Stella McKinney, said. He had so many friends. He had so many people that loved him and cared about him.

Millers friends built a memorial to him near the crash site at the corner of Blanton Drive. Part of a fence and the parked vehicle also hit in the crash remained damaged nearly a month later.

A second video appeared to show Miller riding his bike with a car streaking behind him. The camera then captured the sound of a collision.

Videos the 8 News Now Investigators obtained Wednesday appeared to show the car jerking back and forth before colliding with Miller. The car then crashed into a fence and a parked vehicle, police said. (KLAS)

The driver of the Dodge changed lanes to the left, attempting to pass another vehicle, police wrote in a September news release. The Dodge lost control, causing the vehicle to veer to the right. The Dodge struck the pedal cyclist, knocking him to the ground. The Dodge continued to the north, veering left before veering right again. The Dodge struck the curb and drove over the sidewalk on the southeast corner of Nellis and Newton Drive. The Dodge drove off the road north on Newton, east of the intersection with Newton, and collided with a fence and vehicle parked in [a] driveway.

My friends dead, hes dead and nobody is being held responsible. I dont understand, McKinney said.

The crash report the 8 News Now Investigators obtained reveals an officer deemed the driver, who did not have insurance, at fault.

[Vehicle 1s] driver deemed at fault, no enforcement action taken, the document said, adding the investigation was preliminary and subject to change.

The officer noted on the report that neither alcohol nor drugs were involved, however, there was no check box on the form for how the officer made that determination. (KLAS)

The officer noted on the report that neither alcohol nor drugs were involved, however, there was no check box on the form for how the officer made that determination.

The driver of the Dodge remained at the collision scene and did not display any signs of impairment, police wrote in the September news release.

Im shocked that this guy wasnt arrested, McKinney said from what she saw in the videos. Completely shocked.

It remained unclear Wednesday what the officers body camera video could reveal. Two sources told the 8 News Now Investigators that the crash remained under review. One person estimated the car was traveling 55-65 mph in the 35-mph zone.

Nathan Millers friends set up this memorial for him near the crash site on Nellis Boulevard. (KLAS)

The crash report also listed the driver alone in the car, but a news release said the driver was with two passengers.

Do you think someone should be held accountable for Nates death? 8 News Now Investigator David Charns asked McKinney,

Of course! she said.

Police had not filed any charges in the case as of Wednesday. 8 News Now was not naming the driver as he or she was not charged with a crime, nor were they arrested.

A spokesperson for Metro police confirmed the crash remained under investigation.

Friends started a GoFundMe page for Millers family for funeral expenses. Hundreds attended a service for Miller last weekend, McKinney said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
A friend who toasted a couple at their wedding three days before they were murdered has said news of their deaths was "like a massive kick".

Celia and David Barlow, from Berkshire, were driving through Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda when they were killed along with their guide.

Police said the honeymooners were attacked on Tuesday by "terrorists" who set fire to their safari vehicle.

Their friend Stephen Davis said it was a "senseless, barbaric act".

Mr Davis, from Hampstead Norreys near Newbury, said he toasted the "special" couple's future in a speech at their wedding in South Africa on Saturday.

He said: "They were... highly successful people. David was a director of a family wood-yard that's been here for 11 generations and Celia was senior vice-president of a hotel chain.

"David had a large family... It's raw for them. Celia's family in South Africa was extensive. Family and friends were really key... That's what made them so special."

The couple were on a honeymoon trip to see the park's gorillas and other primates, Mr Davis added.

He said: "They'd travelled extensively in southern Africa and this was one of the things that they'd yet to achieve."

Stephen Davis said he toasted the "special" couple at their wedding on Saturday

Police in Uganda posted pictures of a vehicle on fire following the murders.

They said they were pursuing suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group, an IS-linked Islamist group operating mainly in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

On Wednesday, IS claimed responsibility for the attack via its Telegram channels, without providing evidence.

The UK Foreign Office has updated its travel advice for Uganda, warning the "attackers remain at large" and advising against "all but essential travel" to Queen Elizabeth National Park.

The UK Foreign Office is advising against "all but essential travel" to Queen Elizabeth National Park

Dan Ruff, chief executive of the Belmond travel group, paid tribute to Mrs Barlow on LinkedIn.

He wrote: "Celia was a force of nature - full of unique skills, ideas, creativity, passion, and action.

"A remarkable woman, a legend in her own right, gone way too soon."

Previously Hampstead Norreys Parish Council described Mr Barlow as an "exceptional chairman" who served the council for more than a decade.

Follow BBC South on Facebook, X, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.
Two fundraisers have been set up for Wichita residents from India after one died and the other was critically injured in a traffic accident.

Varun Aithagoni, who was driving a 2012 Nissan Sentra when the accident happened Sunday night near Cheney Reservoir, remains hospitalized in critical condition, one of the GoFundMe pages says. He broke his ribs and collar bone and has brain bleeding.

A fundraiser says the 22-year-old battles for his life.

Pratiksha Kunwar, who was in the passenger seat, was killed in the accdent. The 22-year-old was a dedicated masters degree student who took on the incredible responsibility of caring for her two younger siblings. She was attending Wichita State University.

Now, as the family grieves the loss of their beloved Pratiksha, they face an unimaginable challenge, a fundraiser says. Pratikshas father is not only dealing with the emotional pain of losing his daughter but also the financial burden of supporting the family and paying for Pratikshas education loans.

Any donations to her fund will help cover her education loans and traveling charges to India.

The GoFundMe was set up by the Wichita State University Indian Student Association. ISA president Purva Todmal said the family has requested privacy.

The person who set up Aithagonis GoFundMe did not respond to a request to comment.

Two others in the back seat of the car Aithagoni drove were treated and released at the scene. The Sedgwick County Sheriffs Office said all they are all foreign exchange students with Wichita addresses. A WSU spokesperson said Kunwar was attending grad school there and that Aithagoni was not a student there.

The accident happened around 7:04 p.m. Sunday at 21st North and 391st West when Aithagoni, who was headed east on 21st, ran a stop sign and was hit by an SUV heading north on 391st, the Sedgwick County Sheriffs Office said.

The 36-year-old man and two boys, ages 2 and 3, in the 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

Aithagoni and Kunwar were also taken to a hospital where Kunwar was pronounced dead at 8:10 p.m.

Varuns familys resources are limited, and the financial burden of his medical treatment is overwhelming, his fundraiser says. As he battles for his life, we want to ensure that his family can focus on his recovery without the added stress of mounting medical bills.

Aithagonis GoFundMe has just over $34,000 of the $300,000 goal as of Thursday morning. At the same time, Kunwars was over $25,500 with a goal of $30,000.

Kunwars fundraiser can be found at rb.gy/hlmbm. Aithagonis can be found at tinyurl.com/2bh8exah.
A funeral for the Springfield teen shot at the Sangamon County Juvenile Detention Center will be held Friday.

Camren Marcelis Darden, 17, died at HSHS St. John's Hospital on Sept. 30 after being shot by a Springfield Police officer in response to an active shooting alert at the center, located at 2201 S. Dirksen Pkwy., earlier that evening.

A spokeswoman for the Illinois State Police said an investigation into the incident is "open and ongoing and no further information is available at this time." Authorities have not released the teen's name, but it was shared across social media including on a GoFundMe page seeking donations for his funeral.

'An absolute textbook response:' SPD chief details shooting at juvenile center

Services for Darden are at Ruby Funeral Services & Crematories, 1520 E. Washington St., at 10 a.m., preceded by a visitation at 9 a.m.

According to an online obituary, Darden was born in Centralia and formerly attended Springfield High School.

Springfield Police Chief Ken Scarlette said according to internal video from the detention center, the teen had a handgun and shot off at least four rounds at three people before attempting to flee from the facility with a 16-year-old female hostage. Scarlette said no one was struck.

Authorities have not said how Darden was able to obtain the handgun.

Darden had been at the detention center for less than three weeks. The charges against him were unknown.

The two SPD officers who were the initial respondents are still on "restricted duty," according to Scarlette.

After the shooting, eight juveniles held at the center were all transferred to an undisclosed facility for security reasons and the pending ISP investigation.

Kent Holsopple, the director of probation and court services under which the facility falls, said there was no timetable for their return.

Contact Steven Spearie: (217) 622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Funeral for teen shot at juvenile center in Springfield is Friday
Gov. Gavin Newsom will make a last-minute stop in Israel on Friday as part of a previously announced trip to China.

Newsom was initially scheduled to swing through New York for personal and political events but canceled those plans to meet with those impacted by the violence in Israel, the governors office said Thursday.

The governor adjusted his planned international trip and will briefly visit Israel ahead of going to China, Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon said in a statement.

The governors office has not said where in Israel he will be visiting, who specifically he will meet. Newsom is set to land in Israel Friday morning and depart the same day, before completing his journey to China.

The Democratic governors visit will come just two days after President Joe Bidens diplomatic mission to Tel Aviv concluded. Bidens trip marked the first time a U.S. president visited Israel during a time of war. Looming over the presidents visit was a catastrophic blast at a hospital in the Gaza Strip that the Gazan health ministry reported killed hundreds.

The Israel-Hamas war, which began earlier this month when Hamas terrorists breached the border of southern Israel, has left thousands dead. Since the initial attack, Israel has retaliated with repeated airstrikes in Gaza.

Last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Republican presidential candidate and frequent target of Newsoms, signed an order to charter flights of Americans from Israel to Tampa. DeSantis condemned the Biden administration for failing to launch any form of rescue or evacuation operations for Americans.

DeSantis and Newsom are set to debate one another next month on Fox News.

California to offer aid to Israel and Gaza

California is home to the largest number of Arab Americans of any state and the second-largest population of Jews in the U.S.

With concern over increased harassment and attacks against Muslims and Jews in America, Newsom on Thursday announced that the state was doubling the funding available through a grant program to bolster safety and security at religious institutions and places of worship. Eligible sites have until Oct. 27 to apply for funding.

Newsoms office said California will also be sending medical supplies to the region, including Gaza, though they did not elaborate on those plans.

Californias Legislative Jewish Caucus thanked the governor in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, for his unwavering support to Israel and the Jewish community amid this horrific violence we are facing.

California Republican Brian Dahle, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran against Newsom for governor last year, used the opportunity to renew criticism of the governor for working to elevate his national profile rather than focus on issues in the Golden State.

Meanwhile avoiding the crises hes created in CA, Dahle wrote on X, alongside an image of the announcement regarding the governors visit to Israel.

Gavin Newsom to talk climate action in China

Newsom will begin his previously planned weeklong trip to China on Monday to discuss climate policies and promote economic development and tourism. The governor is scheduled to make stops in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the province of Jiangsu.

California and China hold the keys to solving the climate crisis, Newsom said in a statement. As two of the worlds largest economies, our partnership is essential to delivering climate action for our communities and beyond.

This is only Newsoms second international excursion in his official capacity as governor. His first trip was in April 2019 to El Salvador. He abruptly canceled a planned trip in October 2021 to Glasgow, Scotland, for the United Nations climate conference, citing family obligations.

Newsoms predecessor Jerry Brown, on the other hand, made many international trips, including to Russia, Germany, Mexico and France.
A group of Republican senators led by Sen. Bill Hagerty , R-Tenn., are introducing legislation Thursday to redirect funds bound for Gaza to instead help replenish Israeli's defensive "Iron Dome" system.

The bill, which has 10 Republican co-sponsors as of Thursday morning, would require President Biden to transfer "all unexpected balances of appropriations made available to Gaza to the Department of Defense, to be available for grants to Israel for the Iron Dome short-rage rocket defend system."

"In the wake of Iran-backed Hamass savage attack on Israel in which over 1,300 people in Israel were murdered, including 30 Americans, and as Iran-backed Hamas terrorists continue to launch missiles and rockets into Israel, the American people have seen the images of Israels Iron Dome missile defense systems repeatedly intercepting rockets and saving the lives of countless civilians," Hagerty told Fox News Digital. "My legislation requires the Biden Administration to halt U.S. foreign assistance from going to Hamas terrorist-dominated areas and instead to redirect these resources to help Israel resupply its life-saving Iron Dome interceptors. The United States should unequivocally support the right of Israel to defend itself from terrorists."

Some U.S. officials are worried that Israeli's defensive Iron Dome system could be stretched thin if the war with Hamas continues to escalate, a fear that would become even more dire if Hezbollah were to enter the conflict.

BIDEN PUTS CONDITION ON HUMANITARIAN AID TO GAZA AS ISRAEL ALLOWS EGYPT TO DELIVER SUPPLIES

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty.

"Israel is taking action right now to defend itself and its people. America cannot let Israel stand alone," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a co-sponsor of the bill, told Fox News Digital. "The United States must ensure Israel has the weapons and the military assistance needed to fight any and all terrorist threats. The Iron Dome is the first line of defense for Israel. It is critical to replenish this vital missile defense system so it can remain effective and operational."

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Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., another co-sponsor of the legislation, argued the U.S.-backed Iron Dome system is "critical" to Israel's ability to defend its civilian population.

"The Iron Dome is of critical importance for Israel as it defends innocent civilians against the barbaric brutality of Hamas terrorist attacks and lives with the reality of additional threats every day," Britt told Fox News Digital. "The United States stands strongly with Israelour great ally, friend, and partner."

The bill comes the same day as President Biden's planned Oval Office address, set for 8 p.m. ET, with the president expected to make the case to Americans that it is critical to U.S. national security to continue military support for both Ukraine and Israel in the coming months.

HAMAS TERRORISTS LIKELY USED NORTH KOREAN WEAPONS DURING BRUTAL ATTACK ON ISRAEL, EVIDENCE SHOWS

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., another co-sponsor of the bill, argued that the president has insisted on sending aid to Gaza that should be redirected to Israel.

"The Biden Administration insists on sending foreign assistance to Gaza, while Hamas steals it to fund weapons to kill Israelis and Americans," Hawley told Fox News Digital. "Congress must act to redirect these funds to Israel to help restock their critical missile defense systems."

An Israeli missile launched from the Iron Dome defense missile system attempts to intercept a rocket, fired from the Gaza Strip, over the city of Netivot in southern Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., another bill co-sponsor, echoed concerns about funding to Gaza.

"Now more than ever, the U.S. must stand in support with our greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel," Rubio told Fox News Digital. "Instead of providing assistance to Gaza, the Biden Administration must ensure any taxpayer funds are used to support Israels Iron Dome to defend its citizens from the savagery of Iran-backed Hamas."

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Meanwhile, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., argued that the U.S. has a "moral obligation" to make sure Israel has the ability to defend itself.

"In the face of such unspeakable attacks, we have a moral obligation to ensure Israel, one of our strongest allies, has the ability to properly defend its people," Lummis, a co-sponsor of the bill, told Fox News Digital. "Now more than ever, its critical we help fortify the cornerstone of Israels defense system to make sure Israel can defend itself from terrorists."

The bill redirecting funds is also co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; Rick Scott, R-Fla.; and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., with Tuberville arguing that all foreign assistance to Gaza should be halted.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"The Hamas and Iran-orchestrated terror attacks we have seen in Israel are pure evil," Tuberville told Fox News Digital. "Israel must wipe Hamas from the face of the earth and ensure that this never happens again. As Israel continues to fight and kill terrorists, the United States has a strategic interest in supporting Israel and supplying Israel. We should immediately stop all foreign assistance to Hamas-controlled Gaza and redirect those funds to the Iron Dome, which has saved countless Israeli civilian lives."

Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, a National Security Council spokesperson said that "U.S. assistance for Palestinians does not go to or through Hamas" and that the State Department "has rigorous oversight over UNRWA policies, programs, and finances  including through the completion of an annual report to Congress on key UNRWA issues, such as quarterly assessments of UNRWA facilities, potential misconduct by UNRWA staff or beneficiaries, and compliance with section 301(c) of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961."

"The United States provides funding for essential and life-saving humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees through vetted international and non-governmental organizations," the spokesperson said. "These organizations fill a critical role in providing assistance that would otherwise be filled by terrorist organizations like Hamas. Our trusted partners and beneficiaries are subject to extensive vetting and oversight procedures to help prevent assistance from flowing to individuals or organizations that are affiliated with terrorists."

The spokesperson pointed to remarks Biden has made throughout the month, including directing his team to ensure that Israel had everything they needed for the Iron Dome.

"Were surging additional military assistance, including ammunition and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome," Biden said last week. "Were going to make sure that Israel does not run out of these critical assets to defend its cities and its citizens."

The spokesperson also noted that Biden has given assurances that aid would not continue if it fell into the hands of Hamas.

"If Hamas confiscates it or doesnt let it get through or just confiscates it, then its going to end, because were not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas if theyre going to be confiscating it," Biden said Wednesday. "Thats the commitment that Ive made."

Meanwhile, Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates pointed out that the "vast majority of the Palestinian people are not Hamas."

"There is strong, bipartisan support for President Bidens efforts to deliver humanitarian necessities to the people of Gaza  like food, water, and medicine  without benefiting Hamas," Bates said.





Original article source: Gaza aid should go to Israel Iron Dome instead, GOP senators say: 'Wipe Hamas' from Earth
Ibrahim Wadi, 62, and his son Ahmad, 24, were on their way to a funeral for four Palestinians shot dead by Israeli settlers in their occupied West Bank community, when their car came under attack.

The father and son were driving through the small village of Qusra, just south of Nablus, which has become a focal point of violence over recent days, when they themselves were fired upon by armed settlers on Thursday. Family members told CNN that the men were transferred to a nearby hospital and died of their wounds soon after.

They are among at least 61 people, including children, to be killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, when Hamas launched its unprecedented, surprise assault on Israel, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health there. More than 1,250 have been injured.

Hamas attack has left more than 1,400 people dead in Israel, mostly civilian, with at least 199 believed to be held hostage inside Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel announced a complete siege of the enclave in response, carrying out widespread airstrikes across the Gaza Strip that left at least 3,478 people dead and threatening a ground invasion, according to the health ministry in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas. Meanwhile, tensions are mounting in the West Bank, where Palestinians have been killed in confrontations with both Israeli forces and settlers.

Hani Odeh, Qusra's mayor, was also going to the funeral and witnessed settlers in a street where Ahmad and Ibrahim were killed. - CNN

Hani Odeh, Qusras mayor, told CNN that settlers roam freely in the village under the protection of Israeli police. He said he had informed a member of COGAT, Israels Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, that he was going to attend the funeral, along with Ahmad and Ibrahim.

A few hours beforehand, the Israeli official told him to take a different route than the one they would usually take, to avoid settlers in the area. But to Odehs surprise, the road to which they were diverted was filled with settlers, who eventually shot and killed Ahmad and Ibrahim in their car.

Odeh told CNN he watched the attack happen from his own vehicle while Israeli soldiers patrolled the street. He went up to one officer, urging him to disperse the settlers, but no one did anything. He said it felt like a trap.

CNN reached out to COGAT and the IDF for comment on Odehs claims but have yet to receive a response.

Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli militarys spokesperson, said last week that the military was on high alert in the occupied territory, adding it was preparing to thwart any potential attacks. Anyone who challenges us in Judea and Samaria will be met with huge force, Hagari said, using the Jewish biblical names for the West Bank.

A surge of attacks

CNN spoke with residents in the West Bank who say they are fearful of a wave of violence from the Israeli military and security forces, as well as revenge attacks by the estimated 700,000 Israeli settlers living in the area. The latest killings come against the backdrop of a year in which the West Bank has seen a surge in settler attacks, including one that an Israeli military commander called a pogrom.

Even before the war with Hamas, the West Bank had been boiling. Following a wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis last year, Israel launched regular incursions and raids into the West Bank targeting what they said were militant strongholds. The resulting violence left a record number of both Palestinians and Israelis dead, numbers not seen in at least a decade.

Days after the deadly violence in Qusra, home to around 7,000 people, residents are still reeling. Photographs commemorating the six people who were killed plaster the walls of homes and buildings. A bleak emptiness fills the air.

Armed settlers attacked an apartment building on October 11, killing four people. - CNN

Torched cars, broken water pumps and ransacked electricity lines surround an apartment building on the edge of the village where the first four killings took place. Inside the floor is littered with glass, and bullet marks scar the walls.

Armed settlers attacked the building on October 11, triggering calls for help from residents. When several neighbors arrived at the scene, the settlers opened fire and four people were shot dead: Musaab Abu Raidi, 19, Obaida Abu Srour, 18, Hassan Muhannad, 22, and Moath Odesa, 29.

Inside the apartment building, Rabeea, 19, and her brother, Abdulrahman, 12, watched with horror as the attack unfolded. The siblings, who asked that CNN not use their last name for fear of reprisals from Israeli settlers, recounted how settlers lobbed rocks and fired at the building as they hid inside with their mother.

Abdulrahman, 12, lost his father seven years ago when he was shot dead by Israeli settlers near Nablus. - CNN

Their older brother and his 6-year-old daughter were injured and receiving treatment at a hospital nearby. Odeh, the mayor, told CNN that they were among 12 people to be hospitalized after the attack.

Rabeea said her brother cant sleep at night; hes too scared to be alone. CNN met the family as they were packing up their things and getting ready to move to another village.

I feel so bad. I want to cry but, what can we do? she said. I want to stay here but we cant do anything.

Theyve been here before. Seven years ago, Rabeea and Abdulrahman said their father was shot dead by Israeli settlers near Nablus. The fear of being attacked forced their family to pick up and move to Qusra. Now, too scared to stay, they are being driven from their home again.

Since Israel took control and occupied the West Bank in 1967 from Jordan following the six-day war, the territory, which residents hope will form part of a future Palestinian state, has been settled by Israeli civilians, often under military protection.

Most of the world considers these settlements illegal under international law, but despite this successive Israeli governments have pledged support for them. Israel views the West Bank as disputed territory, and contends its settlement policy is legal.

This year, following the election of the most right-wing, extremist government in Israeli history under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, violence between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank flared.

As of mid-September this year, the United Nations had reported 798 settler-related incidents in the occupied territory, leading to 216 Palestinians injured. In the same period, Israeli forces killed 179 Palestinians in the West Bank.

The IDF says most are terror suspects or people engaging violently with its troops during raids, but does not offer evidence in every case for this assertion.

Settlers have long been accused of carrying out acts of violence against Palestinians. As well as killings, these attacks have included incidents of physical assault, property damage and harassment.

Odeh insisted their aim is to drive Palestinians from their home and ultimately from the occupied West Bank.

Record housing approvals

This year, in the wake of international criticism, Netanyahu instructed Jewish settlers not to grab land in the West Bank without the Israeli governments permission. But under his leadership, Israel has approved a record number of housing units in West Bank settlements.

Members of his far-right government, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who are themselves settlers, have been accused of inciting violence against Palestinians since taking power.

In the wake of Hamas attack on October 7, Palestinians are being subjected to tight restrictions on movement within the West Bank and between the West Bank and Israel, with Israeli military forces imposing a full closure of checkpoints and roadblocks, according to several residents who spoke to CNN.

Palestinians living in the West Bank told CNN the closure has significantly impacted their daily lives, restricting their ability to travel for work, school, medical treatment and other essential activities.

In a call with US President Joe Biden on Saturday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas demanded an end to settler attacks against people in Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank, while stressing the need to stop the killing of civilians on both sides.

The wives, daughters, and sisters of Ahmad and Ibrahim Wadi told CNN's Becky Anderson they would continue to defend their land. - CNN

At the home of Ibrahim and Ahmad, who lived a short drive away from the apartment building that was attacked in Qusra, and in full view of an encroaching Israeli settlement, their family  wives, daughters, and sisters  were in mourning on Sunday.

Thank God, we are strong. And God willing, we will continue to have strength and patience, Khitam Wadi, Ibrahims wife and Ahmads mother, told CNN.

My husband loved his land. He defended his land. And we will continue to do the same so long as we are alive, she added.

Evidently shaken, Khitam found it hard to describe her grief. But the younger women in the family, while in pain, were adamant on standing their ground.

Aseel Wadi's father and brother were killed by Israeli settlers as they drove to a funeral for Palestinians killed in their West Bank community. - CNN

Im sad, of course. This all affects me, but not to the extent that it weakens me. Weve been experiencing the same thing our entire lives, nothing has changed, Aseel, Ahmads sister and Ibrahims daughter, said.

This is our home. My dad taught me to love my land. I will teach my kids the same. And I will stay for as long as I live.

CNNs Abeer Salman and Celine Alkhaldi contributed to this report.

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The al-Ahali Hospital in Gaza City was struck Tuesday night, and hundreds were reportedly killed in the blast. Hamas initially claimed the hospital was attacked in an Israeli strike; Israel countered after an investigation that it was hit by an errant missile launched by terrorists in Gaza itself.

Online video making the rounds on social media suggests the al-Ahali Hospital in Gaza City was not directly hit by a rocket on Tuesday, but instead the missile appears to have struck a nearby parking lot, leading to many conflicting claims of who was responsible, where the missile struck and how many people died.

Hamas was targeting Tel Aviv with rocket fire on Tuesday, and has been targeting central Israel multiple times each day.

ISRAELI TV FOOTAGE APPEARS TO SHOW GAZA HOSPITAL BLAST CAME FROM PALESTINIAN ROCKET

Shortly after the blast, senior Hamas officials told Fox, "After the barbaric attack, it's too early to talk about this."

After an investigation, Israel said on Tuesday the rocket was fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a State Department designated foreign terrorist organization backed by Iran.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"An analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the al-Ahli [Baptist] hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit," IDF officials said. "Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza."

HUNDREDS KILLED IN BLAST AT GAZA STRIP HOSPITAL; ISRAEL SAYS ISLAMIC JIHAD'S 'FAILED ROCKET LAUNCH' TO BLAME

GAZA CITY, GAZA - OCTOBER 18: A boy tries to collect usable belongings amid wreckage of vehicles after Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was hit in Gaza City, Gaza on October 18, 2023. Over 500 people were killed on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told. According to the Palestinian authorities, Israeli army is responsible for the deadly bombing.

While Israel rebutted the claims immediately, President Biden, who was in Israel on Wednesday, stated intelligence from the Pentagon supports Israels assertion that the blast originated from rocket fire in Gaza.

Biden reiterated his belief that Israel was not to blame later on Wednesday. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson also reaffirmed the U.S. position.

"While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday," she wrote.

BIDEN FACES ULTIMATE TEST AS IRAN, WHICH BACKS HAMAS, WARNS OF DEADLY CONSEQUENCES

The failed rocket launch was initially reported to have been a direct hit on the hospital.

ISRAEL'S HUNT FOR HAMAS TERROR GROUP LEADER YAHYA SINWAR: 'DEAD MAN WALKING'

GAZA CITY, GAZA - OCTOBER 18: A view of damage after Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was hit in Gaza City, Gaza on October 18, 2023. Over 500 people were killed on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told. According to the Palestinian authorities, Israeli army is responsible for the deadly bombing.

Israeli media showed footage from their own cameras that appears to show at least one rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza falling short and landing on a hospital in their own territory.

Shared by Keshet 12 News, the footage clearly shows multiple rockets launching toward Israel on Tuesday. Moments later, a blast is seen in Gaza midway along the rockets' trajectory.

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR: BIDEN TO VISIT ISRAEL ON WEDNESDAY IN SHOW OF SUPPORT

Images and video making the rounds on social media tell a different story from the one Hamas initially told.

The images depict a parking lot with several damaged cars, and in the middle, a divot from where an object exploded.

HAMAS CAPTURED AMERICAN MOM, DAUGHTER ON ISRAEL TRIP, RABBI SAYS

GAZA CITY, GAZA - OCTOBER 18: A girl tries to collect usable belongings amid wreckage of vehicles after Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was hit in Gaza City, Gaza on October 18, 2023. Over 500 people were killed on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told. According to the Palestinian authorities, Israeli army is responsible for the deadly bombing.

When compared to images of typical Israeli missile strikes that show craters after the explosion, the parking lot had a small indentation, showing a different type of missile may have been responsible for the blast.

While the rocket appears to have struck a parking lot, the Hamas-run hospital treating wounded Palestinians and sheltering many others was certainly damaged, but not destroyed.

Another conflict point centers around the number of deaths from the blast.

GAZA CITY, GAZA - OCTOBER 18: A view of the surroundings of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital after it was hit in Gaza City, Gaza on October 18, 2023. Over 500 people were killed on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told. According to the Palestinian authorities, Israeli army is responsible for the deadly bombing.

The blast in the parking lot was enough to damage the hospital, but according to sources at the scene, it was not enough to destroy the facility, calling the reported number of deaths into question.

The Gaza Health Ministry initially reported that at least 500 people were killed at al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, and Hamas said it was the result of an Israel airstrike.

At this time, the number of people killed in the blast is unconfirmed, though Reuters quoted the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry saying there were 471 people dead as of 3 p.m. on Wednesday.

Biden met with Israeli officials throughout Wednesday, pledging further support for the country and warning Iran and Hezbollah not to intervene.

Anders Hagstrom of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.





Original article source: Gaza hospital blast: Here's what we know
Editor's Note: For the latest news on the Israeli-Hamas conflict, please see Friday's live updates here.An explosion at a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City late Thursday resulted in casualties and injuries along with displacing Palestinians who were taking refuge there.

Mohammed Abu Selmia, director general of Shifa Hospital, told The Associated Press that dozens were wounded at the Church of Saint Porphyrios but could not give a precise death toll because bodies were still under the rubble. The Holy Orthodox Order of the Holy Great Martyr George confirmed the bombing, adding that more than 500 people were being housed at the church and monastery.

"The bombs hit the two church halls where the refugees, including children and babies, were sleeping. Presently, survivors are searching the rubble for other casualties," the order said in a statement Thursday.

The blast comes after an explosion Tuesday that rocked the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, in whose compound many Palestinians had been seeking refuge from the persistent Israeli bombardment. According to a preliminary U.S. intelligence analysis, the death toll was on the "low end" of 100 to 300.

The incident triggered outrage across the Middle East, as Hamas and Israel blamed each other for the attack. Since the war began on Oct. 7, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,500 others have been wounded. And in Israel, more than 1,400 people have been killed.

Israels defense minister has told troops to be ready for a ground offensive in Gaza but he has not said when the assault will begin. In a televised address on Thursday, President Joe Biden urged people to support Ukraine and Israel, saying "American leadership is what holds the world together."

Palestinians inspect the damage of a destroyed building following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.

Israel-Hamas War newsletter: Sign up to get the latest news and analysis from USA TODAY into your inbox.

Developments:

 The Rafah crossing at the Egypt-Hamas border, which had been expected to open Friday to allow humanitarian aid to come in, probably won't be ready until later in the weekend because of road repairs and other concerns, CNN reported. The aid deal struck Wednesday had included a stipulation that roads essential to the flow of aid would first be fixed.

 Israeli Minister of Economy Nir Barkat told reporters the military, not political leaders, will decide when to invade Gaza. "The Israeli government made a decision, they green-lighted the army, 'Wipe them out,' and now it's in the hands of the army,'' he said.

 More than 100 retired U.S. generals have signed an open letter from the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs calling on President Joe Biden and Congress to give Israel all the support it needs militarily, diplomatically and logistically against the "Iran-backed terrorist threats that surround it on all sides."

 The U.S. is waiving travel visa requirements for Israelis earlier than expected.

 Hamas fighters likely fired North Korean weapons during their Oct. 7 assault on Israel, a video and weapons seized by Israel show, despite Pyongyangs denials that it arms the militant group. South Korean officials, two experts on North Korean arms and an Associated Press analysis of weapons captured on the battlefield by Israel point toward Hamas using Pyongyangs F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon that fighters typically use against armored vehicles.

Gaza's dwindling water, electricity supply could turn hospitals into 'morgues'

Israel bombing Gaza 'safe zones' in south

No place was safe for more than 2 million Palestinians as Israeli bombs slammed the Gaza Strip, including parts of the Palestinian territory that Israel had declared safe zones.

At least 12 people were killed and dozens wounded when a residential building in the southern city of Khan Younis was struck, medical personnel at Nasser Hospital said. The intensified shelling came one day after Israel agreed to allow limited shipments of humanitarian aid into southern Gaza from Egypt.

Israeli Air Forces continued to strike southern areas despite the directive for people in #Gaza to move south, the UN Relief and Works Agency said. The agency said at least 14 of its own staff had been killed and nine more wounded  adding that the actual number is likely to be much higher  in less than two weeks since a stunning, bloody incursion of Hamas militants killed more than 1,000 Israeli citizens and fueled military reprisals from Israel.

The commander of the Hamas-led National Security Forces, Maj. Gen. Jihad Muheisen, was killed in an Israeli strike on his Gaza City home along with some relatives, Hamas said. Israel Defense Forces says it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they hide in Gaza and has accused the militants of taking shelter among the civilian population.

The death toll of Israelis and Palestinians surpassed 5,000, making the conflict the deadliest of five wars involving the narrow, densely populated strip of land bordering Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

US issues 'worldwide' travel caution

The U.S. State Department on Thursday issued a "worldwide caution" for U.S. travelers. The travel advisory cites "increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests."

The agency urges Americans overseas to exercise increased caution and stay alert in known tourist spots that might be attractive targets. It also suggests travelers sign up for the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive information and alerts  and to make it easier to locate someone in an emergency overseas.

US warship shoots down missiles, drones in Red Sea

A U.S. warship in the northern Red Sea shot down three missiles and several drones fired from Yemen, the Pentagon said Thursday, in the latest danger sign of how the Israel-Hamas war could expand into a regional conflict.

A Pentagon spokesman said the projectiles were launched by Iranian-backed Houthi militants, who have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Last week, their leader cautioned that they may fire missiles and drones if the U.S. intervened in the war.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press the missiles were likely not aimed at the USS Carney, the Navy destroyer that intercepted them over the water. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations that have not been made public.

We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters.

Ryder said the Defense Department is still trying to ascertain the missiles' target, adding they were destroyed because their flight pattern indicated a possible threat. He said the U.S. is prepared to do whatever is required to protect our partners and our interests in this important region.

Houthi officials declined to comment.

 Tom Vanden Brook, Associated Press

UN to supervise aid going into Gaza despite lack of cease-fire

The United Nations will inspect the trucks bringing in humanitarian aid from Egypt into Gaza and will help oversee the process, but the organization's head would prefer the desperately needed supplies could be carried in under a cease-fire.

The warring parties have not agreed to suspend hostilities, although a U.N. flag will fly over the Rafah crossing to dissuade Israeli airstrikes. The crossing has been expected to open Friday, but CNN reported that road repairs and other concerns will likely delay that till later in the weekend.

Civilians in Gaza need core services and supplies, and for that we need rapid and immediate humanitarian access, we need water, food and medicine now,'' U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said. "We need it at scale, and we need it to be sustained.

Israel agreed Wednesday to allow aid into Gaza after a request from Biden, but demanded the assistance not go through its territory, only via Egypt, and that it be kept away from Hamas. Israeli officials have said their siege of the Palestinian territory won't be lifted until Hamas releases the approximately 200 hostages it captured during its Oct. 7 rampage.

One unresolved issue is whether Israeli will allow fuel into Gaza, a particularly important matter at a time when several hospitals in the territory have closed for lack of diesel. Negotiations are ongoing.

As war in Israel, Gaza rages on As war in Israel, Gaza rages on, President Biden is having a moment

US armored vehicles delivered to Israel

A U.S. cargo plane arrived in Israel carrying the initial shipment of armored vehicles designated to replace vehicles damaged during the war, the Israel Ministry of Defense said Thursday. Armored ambulances, trucks and mechanical engineering equipment are expected to arrive in coming days, the ministry said.

The first delivery came the day after Biden's trip to Tel Aviv, where he pledged the U.S. would stand by Israel and provide whatever is needed to defend itself in its war with Hamas. Biden said he would seek congressional approval of an "unprecedented support package" to bolster Israel's defense.

He also pledged $100 million in U.S. funding for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Palestinians, Israelis flee homes

More than a million people have fled their homes in the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected Israel invasion that seeks to eliminate Hamas leadership after its deadly assault. Aid groups warn an Israeli ground offensive could hasten a humanitarian crisis. About 300,000 Israelis have been internally displaced since the start of the war, the Times of Israel reports, citing Israel Democracy Institute research. Most are from southern Israel in the Gaza border towns where Hamas carried out its murderous rampage.

Biden emerges as leading global backer of Israel

The president has made a sudden transformation from a political figure whose commitment to Israel was often questioned by conservative critics inside and outside the Jewish state to arguably the world's leading champion of Israel outside the Middle East. Biden's actions and words since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, capped by a dramatic visit to Israel on Wednesday, have been lauded even by many of Biden's biggest skeptics in Israel as he stands in solidarity with the country and pledges "unprecedented" military assistance.

"Israelis were hungry for a father figure that will hug them and show empathy. And the president has done that in such a way that really touched every Israeli," said Nimrod Novik, a former foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and now a fellow with the Israel Policy Forum.

Read more here.

 Joey Garrison

Gaza hospital explosion: How a deadly blast near al-Ahli center unfolded

Palestinian-Americans face backlash in US

Palestinian Americans are seeing two fronts in the Israel-Hamas war: One is the bloodshed in the Middle East, the other is emotional backlash from bigotry and hate in the U.S.

A U.S. Department of Justice hate crime investigation into the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American Muslim boy in Illinois is one of several incidents of alleged hate being directed at Palestinian Americans, allies and people who look like them since the war began.

The community feels under siege, American Muslims for Palestine executive director Osama Abu Irshaid told USA TODAY, but at the same time wants to show support and express grief in the crisis.

Theyre not out there to threaten anyone," Irshaid said. "Theyre not there to delegitimize another narrative. Theyre out there to assert a narrative that is being diminished."

Read more here.

 Minnah Arshad

Battle against hate: Violence, bigotry toward Palestinian Americans spiking across U.S.

What is the IDF?

The Israel Defense Forces, also known as the IDF, is the national military of Israel. It has three branches: the army, navy and air force. It is a conscripted military service, meaning Israel mandates IDF service for Jewish, Druze and Circassian citizens over the age of 18, with some exceptions. It was established in 1948, two weeks after Israel became an independent country.

Before the war began, the IDF had 169,500 active troops and was the 28th largest military in the world by active personnel, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Military Balance 2023. There were also 465,000 reserve personnel to supplement active military forces if deemed necessary. Read more here.

 Olivia Munson

More: Biden: Gaza to get aid by Friday; US says Israel not to blame for hospital blast. Live updates

What is Hamas?

Hamas  an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, or the Islamic resistance movement  was founded in 1987 by activists connected to the Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The State Department designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997, and several other nations also consider Hamas a terrorist organization.

In 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections, and in 2007 the group violently seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority, which was controlled by the rival Fatah movement that still governs the West Bank. There have been no elections since. The group calls for the establishment of an Islamic Palestinian state that would replace the current state of Israel and believes in the use of violence to carry out the destruction of Israel.

Hamas receives financial, material, and logistical support from Iran. So far, however, the U.S. and other nations have said there is no evidence that Iran was directly involved in Hamas attack.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel war updates: Gaza hospital death toll lower than Hamas claim
Following a summer of embracing girlhood and hyper-femininity, it seems these Gen Z creators have found yet another functional and fashionable way to integrate ribbons into their daily wardrobe.

In the last month, TikTok creators have been hopping on the ribbon hack to tighten their oversized jeans for a better fit. The fix is quite simple: You take some ribbon, weave it through the two belt loops on one side of your pants, and then pull and tie a little bow. You then repeat this on the other side.

Given the fact that ribbons were super trendy at New York Fashion Week, Gen Zs obsession with the decorative material isnt all that surprising. (Its popularity is due largely to designer Sandy Liang, whose design aesthetic has become practically synonymous with the viral balletcore trend.) As Vogue Singapore put it, the ribbonaissance is alive and well, especially among this generation.

The end result, as demonstrated by these creators, is a pair of pants that not only cinch at the waist but boast dainty ribbon details.

This isnt the first time Gen Z creators have demonstrated their creativity when it comes to channeling trends on a budget. Last month, TikTok user Bri (@canyoubrilieveit) documented the process of adorning her Dr. Martens boots with charms and chains. She was inspired by the recent collaboration between the British footwear brand and American designer Marc Jacobs.

And when Liang debuted her collection of bags with BAGGU, several thrifty Gen Z fashion girlies opted to DIY the look for less. Their solution? Attaching ribbon bows to their own bags in Liangs signature style.

I love how this hack is useful AND cute! @its_avgoula wrote in response to Olivias TikTok.

Okay this is so cute im obsessed, @s0rrymissjackson commented on Fortunes video.

In The Know by Yahoo is now available on Apple News  follow us here!

The post These Gen Z-ers are using ribbon hack to tighten their jeans: Okay this is so cute im obsessed appeared first on In The Know.

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The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has indirectly confirmed reports of Ukrainian forces advancing to the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro River, including the village of Pishchanivka, located on the left bank, which, according to Russian military bloggers, has been reached by Ukrainian marines.

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, information as of 06:00 on 19 October

Quote from the previous report: "On the Kherson front, the occupiers carried out airstrikes near Novoberyslav, Kozatske, Olhivka, Prydniprovske and Pishchanivka in Kherson Oblast."

deepstatemap.live

Details: Pishchanivka is located on the left bank of the Dnipro River. The fact that the occupiers were bombarding this village is also mentioned in the report as of the morning of 19 October.

Earlier, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) suggested that Ukrainian marines had advanced on the occupied bank of the Dnipro River, in particular, north of Pishchanivka (14 kilometres east of Kherson and 3 kilometres from the Dnipro River) and into Poima (11 kilometres east of Kherson and 4 kilometres from the Dnipro River).

The ISW noted that the Russians were concerned about the possibility of a "larger-scale Ukrainian operation" in occupied Kherson Oblast.

In total, about 80 combat clashes took place over the last day.

In the area of responsibility of the Khortytsia Operational Strategic Group on the Kupiansk front, Ukrainian defenders repelled over 15 Russian attacks near Synkivka, Ivanivka and Kyslivka in Kharkiv Oblast, and over 10 attacks near Nadiia in Luhansk Oblast.

Ukrainian defenders repelled five Russian attacks in the vicinity of Makiivka in Luhansk Oblast, on the Lyman front.

On the Bakhmut front, Russian forces attempted to regain their lost ground near Klishchiivka in Donetsk Oblast but failed. Ukraines Defence Forces continue their assault operations south of Bakhmut, inflicting significant losses in manpower and equipment on the Russian forces and consolidating their positions.

In the area of responsibility of the Tavriia Operational Strategic Group on the Avdiivka front, the Russian forces keep trying to encircle Avdiivka with the support of their aircraft. Ukraines defenders repelled three Russian attacks in this area. In addition, the Russians carried out unsuccessful offensive operations near Novokalynove and Pervomaiske in Donetsk Oblast.

On the Marinka front, Ukrainian soldiers repelled 17 Russian attacks near Marinka and another 4 attacks near Novomykhailivka in Donetsk Oblast.

On the Shakhtarsk front, Ukrainian defenders deflected several Russian attacks near Novomaiorske in Donetsk Oblast.

On the Zaporizhzhia front, defenders are holding back the occupiers in the areas of Novodarivka and east of Mala Tokmachka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

In the area of responsibility of the Odesa Operational Strategic Group on the Kherson front, Ukrainian defenders are conducting counter-battery operations, successfully hitting the Russians rear.

Ukraines Defence Forces are continuing to lead an offensive operation on the Melitopol front, enjoying partial success in the area southwest of Verbove in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, inflicting losses in manpower and equipment and exhausting Russian forces along the line of contact.

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, Russian forces are maintaining their military presence in the border areas and undertaking sabotage activities to prevent Ukrainian troops from being deployed to vulnerable areas, and increasing the density of mine and explosive barriers along the state border in Belgorod Oblast, Russia.

Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian Air Force conducted 15 strikes on areas where Russian military personnel, weapons and equipment were concentrated, and three strikes on Russian anti-aircraft missile systems. In addition, the defenders destroyed a Russian Su-25 ground attack jet and five reconnaissance UAVs.

Ukraine's Rocket Forces and Artillery struck two command posts, a Tor anti-aircraft missile system, a Zoopark-1M radar station and 11 artillery pieces belonging to the Russians.

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George Clooney led a group of some 15 A-list actors in bringing forth a $150m (123.7m) proposal to SAG-AFTRA leadership. The deal, however, is expected to be dead on arrival.

On Tuesday (17 October), the group of stars, which includes Scarlett Johansson and Tyler Perry , met with the actors unions (SAG-AFTRA) negotiating committee on Zoom to offer a deal in an effort to end the stalemate with Hollywood studios.

They are reported to have proposed a no-cap fee on membership dues for higher earners, which they said would bring in earnings of $50m (41m) annually  $150m over three years for the union.

In order to gain SAG-AFTRA membership, one must currently pay a $3,000 (2,400) initiation fee. Members are then expected to pay an annual base fee of $231.96 (190) plus 1.575 per cent of their protected earnings up to $1m. While higher earners pay more work dues, the cap limits their contribution.

The meeting, however, is said not to have gone well, a source with knowledge of the situation told Variety, as the committee didnt see the validity in the groups proposal.

In addition to the no-cap fees, the group suggested a bottom-up residual approach, which would allow lower earners to collect residuals before top earners.

A lot of the top earners want to be part of the solution, Clooney told Deadline.

Hollywood Strikes (2023 Invision)

We think its fair for us to pay more into the union, the Oceans Eleven star added. These negotiations will be ongoing, but we wanted to show that were all in this together and find ways to help close the gap on actors getting paid.

According to Variety, members of the negotiating committee argue that the no-cap part of the groups proposal is not directly relevant to the hindered negotiations with the studios.

Ill reach out to George to talk to him, said David Jolliffe, a member of the negotiating committee, via Variety. We appreciate everybodys help. Everybody has ideas. But weve been doing this for almost a year now.

The actors strike has been ongoing since 19 July, when the union made the historic decision to join its fellow Writers Guild of America (WGA) members in the fight for a fairer deal. However, the WGA reached a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) last month, ending the writers strike after 146 days.

Among SAG-AFTRAs chief demands include increased wages, higher streaming residuals and improved working conditions.
A Georgia doctor has pleaded guilty to using the dark web to hire a hitman in a cold-hearted murderous plot to murder his girlfriend.

James Wan MD paid over $16,000 in Bitcoin for the job, which he requested be made to look like an accident, and checked the status of his cowardly plan every day on dark web forums.

Wan, 54, was arrested and confessed to the plot. On Tuesday he pleaded guilty to one count of using a facility of interstate commerce in the commission of murder-for-hire.

Investigators from the FBI said Wan had shared the victims name, address, Facebook account, license plate, and car description on a dark web marketplace. Can take wallet phone and car. Shoot and go. Or take car, he wrote.

After his initial transfer of an $8,000 down payment was lost, he paid another $8,000 to the marketplace, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The marketplace administrator then stated that they were proceeding with Wans order for a hit and asked whether he wanted it done as an accident or normal shooting. Wan responded, accident is better, the DOJ said.

About a week later Wan enquired about the status of the hit. On a dark web forum, he wrote: How soon should work be done? I have submitted an Order and curious how quickly it should be carried out? Is there a way I can find out any progress? If there is anyone in my location?

He thereafter topped up his account with a further $1,200, after the value of Bitcoin dropped, to ensure his order could be carried out.

After learning about the threat to the victims life, FBI agents notified the victim, provided her protection, and questioned Wan.

He admitted that he had placed the order, made the payments and checked the status of the order daily on the dark web marketplace.

Records from Wans mobile phone, from which he had placed the order, and his Bitcoin wallet corroborated Wans confession. After speaking with FBI agents, Wan canceled the order on the dark web marketplace.

Wan used the dark web to conceal his deadly plan, said US Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan. Fortunately, his plot was discovered before anyone was killed or injured.

Keri Farley, special agent in charge of FBI Atlanta, said: Despite his cowardly concealment on the dark web, Wans cold-hearted murderous plot was averted due to the exceptional work of our team. He will now face the full consequences of the criminal justice system.

This case shows that the FBI will not tolerate heinous acts of violence and will go to great lengths to protect our citizens.

Wan is due to be sentenced on January 18 2024, before US District Court Judge Leigh Martin May. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bret R Hobson is prosecuting the case.
Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) said Thursday he and his family received death threats after reversing his support for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as Speaker, making him the third lawmaker to make such claims.

Shortly after casting that [second] vote, my family and I started receiving death-threats. That is simply unacceptable, unforgivable, and will never be tolerated, Ferguson wrote in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.

Ferguson was one of four Republicans to switch their vote against Jordan on Wednesday during the second ballot, after voting for him on the first. He instead cast a vote for Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.)  who withdrew from the race when it became clear he wouldnt be able to get enough votes to be elected.

Following the first vote, I had genuine concerns about the threatening tactics and pressure campaigns Jordan and his allies were using to leverage members of their votes, Ferguson said. I discussed this directly with Jim and planned to support him on the second ballot.

When the pressure campaigns and attacks on fellow members ramped up, it became clear to me that the House Republican conference does not need a bully as the Speaker, he added.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) similarly said Wednesday she received death threats and a barrage of threatening calls, after she reversed her support from Jordan and voted for Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) on the second ballot.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) also confirmed his wife received anonymous texts and calls in the days leading up to the Speaker vote that urged her to tell Bacon to vote for Jordan, whom he continues to oppose.

Jordan weighed in on the reported threats on Wednesday night, writing on X, No American should accost another for their beliefs.

We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together, he added. Stop. Its abhorrent.

The Ohio Republican fell short of the 217 votes needed to take the Speakers gavel in the second ballot Wednesday, after 22 Republicans sided against him.

The Ohio Republican received 199 votes  one less than on the first ballot  while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) received 212 votes. The remaining votes were sprinkled among other candidates  including McCarthy, Scalise and former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Jordan announced Thursday he will back a resolution to empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) while he tries to shore up the votes to back his Speaker bid.

Several Republicans have already voiced their opposition to such a plan, prompting doubts that a resolution would even pass if brought to the House floor.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Berlin is not planning to greenlight the transfer of Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine at the moment, Germany's Ambassador to Ukraine Martin Jaeger said in an interview with European Pravda on Oct. 19.

"At the moment, there will be no deliveries of Taurus missiles to Ukraine," the ambassador said.

"In my opinion, the Federal Government and Chancellor ( Olaf Scholz ) have made this very clear. We have informed the Ukrainian government about this decision in detail," he said, adding that this is all he can say about it in public.

The Taurus missiles have been the subject of extensive discussion and debate, with much of the German hesitation stemming from the prospect of the missiles being used within Russia's territory.

Taurus missiles have a range of up to 500 kilometers, meaning Ukraine could use them to strike deep into Russian-occupied territories, including Crimea.

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Leader of the German opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, Friedrich Merz , criticized the government's reluctance to approve the transfer and demanded explanations from the chancellor.

Other German lawmakers have previously said that "Scholz alone" is blocking the provision of the missiles, as other members of the ruling coalition have already voiced support.

Justifying the hesitation, Scholz's office said earlier that Berlin is waiting for Washington's decision to provide Ukraine with its ATACMS missiles before greenlighting the transfer of Taurus.

The White House confirmed earlier this week that Ukraine had received its first batch of ATACMS. The announcement came shortly after Ukrainian forces used the long-range missiles to strike at Russian airfields in occupied Luhansk and Berdiansk.

Jaeger emphasized in the interview that regardless of the decision on Taurus, Berlin continues to firmly support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.

He pointed out an upcoming German assistance package worth 1 billion euros (1.1 $billion) aimed at strengthening Ukrainian air defenses ahead of the coming winter months.

Scholz discussed the new aid tranche on Oct. 19 in the Bundestag, the German parliament, saying that the package contains "everything that is necessary for air (Ukraine's) defense."

Read also: White House, Ukrainian military confirm provision of ATACMS to Ukraine

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Friedrich Merz , the leader of the German Christian Democratic Union party, has criticised Chancellor Olaf Scholz for refusing to provide Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles.

Source: AFP with reference to a speech by Merz in the Bundestag, reported by European Pravda

Details: Merz demanded that Scholz explain why he still opposes the supply of Taurus "clearly against the will" of the coalition factions.

"You could have explained it here this morning," he said.

Mertz reiterated that the US government has already decided to provide long-range weapons, referring to ATACMS missiles.

In addition, he stressed the need to send a "very clear message" to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the next EU summit that he will not see the West getting tired of supporting Ukraine.

Background:

On 5 October, Scholz explained that Germany had not yet made a decision on supplying Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles because it was trying to prevent an "escalation" of the war.

Bild previously reported that Scholz was concerned that in order for Ukraine to use Taurus missiles, Berlin would have to provide geodata on Russian targets. Thus, Germany will be forced to take a more active part in the war.

Scholz is also concerned that Ukraine could use the missiles to hit the Kerch Bridge, which connects occupied Crimea to Russia.

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Germany has promised to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine and is already preparing a winter military aid package, a key element of which will be air defence equipment.

Source: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a speech in the Bundestag, as reported by European Pravda with reference to German media outlet Tagesschau

Scholz promised to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine and remarked that the package will include "everything needed for air defence".

Background:

The Ministry of Defence of Germany previously announced its intention to supply Ukraine with an additional Patriot anti-aircraft system, a new Iris-T system, new Gepard anti-aircraft systems, and ammunition.

At the latest Ramstein format meeting, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin called Germany one of the largest donors to Ukraine  its contribution is larger than that of the US if the size of its economy is taken into account.

At the end of last week, Berlin announced the supply of another batch of aid to Ukraine which included all-terrain vehicles, satellite connection and first aid kits.

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Martin Jager, the Ambassador of Germany to Ukraine, has said that the government in Berlin will not supply Kyiv with long-range Taurus missiles for the time being.

Source: Martin Jager, the Ambassador of Germany to Ukraine, in an interview with European Pravda

Jager said that the Ukrainian side was informed about this decision.

Quote: "Currently, there will be no deliveries of Taurus missiles to Ukraine. In my opinion, the federal government and the chancellor of Germany have made this very clear. We have also informed the Ukrainian government about this decision, and in detail. And for now, this is all I can say publicly about this occasion," Jager emphasised.

At the same time, he added that as well as the recent decision on Taurus, there was also information about Germany's preparation of an aid package for Ukraine in the amount of one billion euros.

"It will also include really important components that will help strengthen your anti-aircraft defence. By the way, today Germany  perhaps, if you do not consider the USA  is the leading country that invests in your air defence," the ambassador said.

He recalled that Germany recently announced that it would provide Ukraine with another Patriot system. It is a complete system that includes a command post, a radar, several launchers and missiles.

"So we continue to support you, and the weapons we supply are of real importance," Jager added.

Background:

On 5 October, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained that Germany has not yet decided on the supply of long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, as it is trying to prevent an "escalation" of the war.

Bild previously reported that the chancellor is concerned that for Ukraine to use Taurus missiles, Berlin would have to provide geodata about Russian targets. Thus, according to the chancellor, Germany will be forced to take a more active part in the war.

Scholz is also concerned that Ukraine could use missiles to destroy the Kerch (Crimean) Bridge connecting occupied Crimea with Russia.

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FILE - The logo of Arriva, the Deutsche Bahn's European public transport subsidiary, is seen on a bus as the driver, wearing a protective mask and gloves due to the Coronavirus outbreak, gives the thumbs up, in London, Sunday, March 29, 2020. Germany's state-owned railway operator, Deutsche Bahn, said Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, that it has agreed to sell its European public transport subsidiary Arriva, to U.S.-based infrastructure investor I Squared Capital. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

BERLIN (AP)  Germany's state-owned railway operator, Deutsche Bahn, said Thursday that it has agreed to sell its European public transport subsidiary, Arriva, to U.S.-based infrastructure investor I Squared Capital.

Deutsche Bahn didn't disclose the value of the planned sale. It said the transaction should be completed next year. The company is selling Arriva to enable additional growth in rail transport in Germany and allow it to focus its resources on its core business.

Arriva has about 35,500 employees and operates in 10 European countries. It has bus and train units in the U.K. and also has operations in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

Deutsche Bahn acquired the British-based company in 2010. Arriva businesses in non-core markets," including Sweden and Portugal, already have been sold.

Deutsche Bahn Chief Financial Officer Levin Holle said in a statement that Arriva has good prospects for sustainable growth as market liberalization in Europe progresses.

I Squared Capital, headquartered in Miami, was described in Thursday's statement as an independent global infrastructure manager with over $37 billion in assets under management. Arriva Group CEO Mike Cooper said that it has an established track record of supporting companies which provide essential services, and of investing in the energy transition.
The New Mexico Republican Party was dealt a surprise blow in their lawsuit over the state Legislatures redrawing of the 2nd Congressional District. Republican Judge Fred Van Soelen, presiding in a courtroom in Lovington, ruled on Oct. 6 that while it was clear that Democratic lawmakers intended to dilute Republican votes in the redrawn district, the new map did not violate the state Constitution.

In other words, the new district is totally gerrymandered. It just doesnt rise to the level of an egregious gerrymander, as Van Soelen ruled, citing the specific criteria set in a previous ruling by the state Supreme Court.

Democratic leadership had been open about their intent to target Congresswoman Yvette Herrell in the 2021 redistricting process. Then-Speaker Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe) made no bones about his intent to distort CD2 to make it unwinnable for any Republican after Herrell beat incumbent Xochitl Torres-Small for the seat in November 2020.

At the same time the Redistricting Task Force, a cross-partisan group of citizens from around that state led by two retired judges (on which I served) was finalizing its recommendations to the Legislature. First and foremost, the Task Force recommended a truly independent redistricting commission to draw the states political maps based on population, compactness of geography, communities of interest, and not on voting history or protecting incumbents.

Merritt Hamilton Allen

While the concept of independent redistricting received a lot of support from the media, Democratic leadership was resistant, and many Republican lawmakers were oddly passive. In the end, a watered-down measure did pass, establishing a Citizens Redistricting Committee, but giving the Legislature the option to disregard the Committees recommendations and do whatever it wanted.

Which mostly, it did. What the CRC did accomplish was expose the people of New Mexico to the principles of independent redistricting. Later polling showed that the majority of New Mexicans want fully independent redistricting.

But in 2021, that was not to be. The intent of the leaders of the Democratic caucus was clear: flip CD2. According to The Cook Political Report, the reconfigured CD2 went from Trump +12 in 2020 to Biden +6 in 2022. Thats a big swing. And during the special redistricting legislative session, leadership was sweating out the numbers ward by ward. Text messages from Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque) provided as evidence in the lawsuit show the effort to increase the DPI (Democratic Performance Index).

Thats not enough for a mid term election so we adjusted some edges, scooped up more of abq and are now at 53%, reads one of her texts (sent to one of the advocates behind the Peoples Map, one of the public maps submitted to the CRC. The text exchanges show clear collusion between the so-called advocates and the Democratic leadership to manipulate the CRC process). Because the voters of Albuquerque can just be scooped up and dumped into a voting bloc with Roswell and Hobbs.

But the primary reason this chicanery is not considered egregious gerrymandering rests squarely on the shoulders of Herrell herself: she did too well in the 2022 election, beating the odds and outperforming the top of the ticket by five percentage points. She lost the election by 0.7%, which Van Soelen ruled showed the district is indeed competitive.

If you know Yvette Herrell, this would not surprise you. This woman works. She is one of the toughest campaigners and hardest working elected officials Ive ever seen. The specter of running against her in 2024 has forced the winner of that election, Congressman Gabe Vasquez, to the center. He even joined his GOP House colleagues in condemning Governor Lujan Grishams unenforceable public health order/gun ban, breaking with the New Mexico delegation.

If only Herrell hadnt started pounding the pavement in the South Valley of Albuquerque in early 2022, and allowed Vasquez four or five percentage points, she might have gotten herself a more conservative district in 2024.

The Cook Report lists CD2 as a toss-up for 2024. If Grisham keeps extending her public health order ad infinitum, CD2 could sour on the Democratic Party, giving Herrell just enough room to take back the seat. Its also possible that Trump on the ballot in 2024 will hurt her more than it did in 2020 given the pileup of charges he faces and Herrells own vote to not certify the 2020 election results her first week in office. A lot can happen in 13 months.

NMGOP has filed an appeal of Van Soelens ruling and it is expected to be promptly referred to the state Supreme Court. I dont see much hope for the appeal.

In the meantime, good government advocates are again pushing for independent redistricting, now for legislation that would put a question on the ballot for a constitutional amendment establishing an independent redistricting commission. If we voters dont want to be manipulated by the legislature into districts that merely serve partisan interests, we must convince our legislators to accept independent, equitable redistricting.

Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Gerrymandering may be constitutional, but its bad for voters
PROVIDENCE  Gina Raimondo returned to the Rhode Island Capitol on Wednesday to face questions from "60 Minutes'" Leslie Stahl outside the ornate State Room where she once held court.

Reporters were cordoned off behind a barrier while the interview took place, with Rhode Island State Police and Raimondo's own security team keeping them out of earshot and camera shot.

Producer Richard Bonin told The Journal that CBS' "60 Minutes" was here to do a profile of the U.S. commerce secretary who rose from state treasurer to pandemic-era governor in Rhode Island to her current post as a high-profile member of President Biden's Cabinet.

Former Gov. Gina Raimondo with Leslie Stahl of CBS' "60 Minutes."

The focus? Her portfolio as commerce secretary

The air date? Uncertain.

In a brief conversation with reporters, Stahl voiced surprise that the commerce secretary  who built her Rhode Island political brand as "Gina from Greenville"  is still commonly referred to as "Gina" and not by her title, as is the custom in Washington.

Political Scene: Raimondo for president? The bookies aren't betting on it

Raimondo did not stop to chat.

But she was expected to reappear later Wednesday as the "exciting special guest" at a fundraiser that Rhode Island's current top-tier Democrats are hosting for Gabe Amo, the Democratic nominee for the open congressional seat that former U.S. Rep. David Cicilline resigned mid-term for a job in the private sector.

Gina Raimondo was at the Rhode Island State House to film an interview with Leslie Stahl of CBS's "60 Minutes."

The host committee includes U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, 2nd District U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio and the state's five general officers  including Gov. Dan McKee.

According to the governor's staff, McKee  who was lieutenant governor during Raimondo's tenure as governor  was not in the building while she was in the State House.

With reports from Patrick Anderson.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Commerce Secretary Raimondo returns to RI State House for TV interview
GM, Cruise and Honda are teaming up to introduce a driverless ride-hailing service in Japan, which could launch in early 2026 if things go according to plan. The companies have entered a memorandum of understanding to form a joint venture for the project, and they're hoping to establish the company in the first half of 2024, provided they're able to secure the necessary regulatory approvals by then. Their ride-hailing service will deploy the Cruise Origin electric shuttle van that the companies had developed together. It's a self-driving vehicle with no steering wheel or even a driver's seat, which means it also has no pedals and no rearview mirror.

A vehicle cabin with four passengers sitting on opposite benches, facing each other. (Cruise)

Instead, it has a big cabin space where up to six passengers can sit facing each other, and its doors slide open like a subway's. "The opportunity for the ridehail service in Japan, which is expected to be the first of its kind, is huge," GM said in its announcement. It has the potential to solve the country's ongoing driver shortage and could provide an alternative for those who can't use Tokyo's extensive train and subway system for any reason.

While it's still early days for the project, the companies already have a vision for how they want to execute their plans. They're looking to start by deploying "dozens" of Cruise Origins in central Tokyo by 2026 before expanding the fleet to 500 Origins. After that, they're hoping to make the service available outside of the capital's center. Like any other similar service, passengers will be able to hail an Origin through a dedicated app, as well as pay for their ride.
Kenneth Chesebro rejected plea offer ahead of Georgia election interference trial: Sources

One of former President Donald Trump 's co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case rejected a plea deal from prosecutors ahead of his trial this month, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, one of the 18 defendants charged alongside Trump in Fulton County case racketeering case, rejected an offer from prosecutors, the sources said.

The deal would have allowed Chesebro to avoid prison time by pleading guilty to one felony count of racketeering, the top charge in the indictment, according to the sources.

MORE: Jury selection to begin Friday in first Georgia election interference trial

He would have had to agree to testify against his codefendants -- including Trump -- in exchange for three years' probation and a $10,000 fine.

The terms of the deal also included a written letter of apology, the sources said. The deal would have been made under Georgia's first-offender act, under which the conviction would have been wiped from Chesebro's record after probation was completed.

Chesebro rejected the deal in late September, the sources said. He is facing seven counts after allegedly drafting a strategy to use so-called "alternate electors" to prevent Joe Biden from receiving 270 electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election, according to the indictment.

An attorney for Chesebro declined to comment to ABC News. A spokesperson for the Fulton County district attorney's office also declined to comment.

PHOTO: Kenneth Chesebro is seen in a mugshot provided by the Fulton County Sheriff's Office in Georgia, Aug. 23, 2023. (Fulton County Sheriff's Office)

Chesebro's trial, alongside co-defendant Sidney Powell , is set to begin this week after the pair opted for a speedy trial. Jury selection gets underway on Friday.

Earlier in September, a Fulton County prosecutor indicated in court that they intended to extend deals to Chesebro and Powell ahead of trial.

"We'll sit down and kind of put some things together and we'll reach out to defense counsel individually to extend an offer," said prosecutor Nathan Wade when pressed by the judge.

Later that day, one of the 19 charged in the indictment became the first to accept a deal in the case. Scott Hall pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties in exchange for immunity and a fine, and agreed to testify against Trump and others.

In early October, ABC News reported that a number of the defendants in the Fulton County case had received plea deal offers or had been approached about potentially making a deal by the district attorney's office, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty in August to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.

The former president has blasted the district attorney's investigation as being politically motivated.

Kenneth Chesebro rejected plea offer ahead of Georgia election interference trial: Sources originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Rep. Rashida Tlaib draws fire for not apologizing for saying Israel caused Gaza hospital blast

Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib , of Michigan, refused to apologize Wednesday for saying a day earlier that Israel is to blame for the hospital explosion that day in Gaza, despite evidence from the U.S. defense department that the blast was likely caused by an errant projectile from Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

A number officials in the US and around the world blasted Israel for what they believed was an attack on a civilian facility that left hundreds dead. But claims and evidence began to suggest that the Gaza hospital blast was likely caused by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that fell short of its target, two U.S. officials told ABC News. Still, what has happened has not conclusively been determined.

Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar , a Minnesota Democrat, have been among Israel's strongest critics, with Tlaib accusing Israel of "oppressive & racist policies" in 2019. In February 2019, a tweet from Omar in response to a tweet from journalist Glenn Greenwald appeared to be using a common way of referring to $100 bills -- which feature Benjamin Franklin -- to suggest that many members of Congress support Israel because they get campaign donations from pro-Israel groups and individuals, evoking historical stereotypes linking Jews to money and influence. She later apologized for the tweet.

Their comments have at times been alleged by colleagues and others in congressional leadership to be antisemitic. But they have defended their views as legitimate, free speech in defense of the Palestinian cause.

Some of the criticism leveled against Tlaib and Omar over past comments has also been criticized as including Islamophobic or racist rhetoric.

Tlaib on Wednesday joined thousands of protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza during a solidarity rally hosted by the left-leaning group Jewish Voice for Peace at the National Mall. She was visibly emotional, at time, pausing her speech to openly weep and criticizing lawmakers who have not backed a proposed ceasefire resolution in Congress.

"As an American, not just as a member of the United States Congress, I am ashamed. I am ashamed that they're saying, 'not yet. Maybe next week.' ... How many more have to die?" Tlaib said.

She also addressed the backlash, applauding attendees for the "courage it's taken to speak up."

"The American Jewish community in my district, and all of you here. I just know how much courage it's taken to speak up. Many of you have been targeted. You're being gas lit. Some people are losing their jobs. Folks are getting events canceled. Literally, their First Amendment right wiped away for standing up and saying that children deserve to live. It is literally inhumane for my colleagues to allow that to continue and say nothing," Tlaib said.

PHOTO: Rep. Rashida Tlaib addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, Oct. 18, 2023. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

Tlaib also slammed President Joe Biden for his support for Israel since the Hamas terrorist attack.

"To my president, to our president ... I want him to know, as a Palestinian American and somebody in Muslim faith, I'm not going to forget this. And I think a lot of people are not going to forget this," Tlaib said.

"President Biden, not all Americans are with you on this one and you need to understand that. We are literally watching people commit genocide and killing the vast majority just like this, and we still stand by and say nothing. We will remember this," she warned.

Omar is also facing criticism from Republicans over similar comments Tuesday that Israel is to blame for the hospital explosion that day in Gaza as Israel denies fault. As information about the hospital blast was initially being reported, Tlaib tweeted on Tuesday afternoon, "Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that. @POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate. Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me. We will remember where you stood."

Omar tweeted on Tuesday afternoon, "Bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes. The IDF reportedly blowing up one of the few places the injured and wounded can seek medical treatment and shelter during a war is horrific. @POTUS needs to push for an immediate ceasefire to end this slaughter."

On Wednesday evening, Omar replied to her original post, writing that it was based on initial reports and adding that the Israel Defense Forces and U.S. say the hospital was not struck by Israel.

"Our office cited an AP report yesterday that the IDF had hit a Baptist hospital in Gaza. Since then, the IDF denied responsibility and the US intelligence assessment is that this was not done by Israel," she wrote. "It is a reminder that information is often unreliable and disputed in the fog of war (especially on Twitter where misinformation is rampant). We all have a responsibility to ensure information we are sharing is from credible sources and to acknowledge as new reports come in."

Omar called for a "fully independent investigation to determine conclusively who is responsible for this war crime."

The backlash also showed continuing fault lines within the Democratic Party on Israel, with the two representatives standing out in criticizing Israel's government as other Democrats have said they do not believe Israel was responsible for the explosion.

PHOTO: Rep. Ilhan Omar at the Capitol on Oct. 17, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

But Biden said in remarks on Wednesday that the blast "appears [like] it was done by the other team."

MORE: Biden, in high-stakes visit, shows support for Israel but urges restraint

MORE: Israel-Gaza live updates: Biden says humanitarian aid will flow from Egypt to Gaza

The Biden administration's "current assessment," National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson tweeted Wednesday morning, "is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday."

PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 18, 2023. (Miriam Alster/Pool Photo via AP)

Republican lawmakers called on the lawmakers to apologize and retract their tweets.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., wrote in a statement on Wednesday that Tlaib and others should apologize for their remarks about the hospital explosion.

"It is appalling and unacceptable that Democrats in Congress partook in Hamas' misinformation campaign. ... Rep. Tlaib and her radical colleagues helped spread this insidious lie far and wide, without remorse, and as of this morning have yet to take down their posts, issue an apology, or place blame on the actual perpetrators with the same conviction," Lawler wrote.

Lawler also said he hopes Tlaib and colleagues "can bring themselves to see this ugly truth, the hateful environment they have stoked, and understand the fear their Jewish constituents are feeling."

MORE: Biden drafts $100 billion foreign aid package, including money for Israel and Ukraine

MORE: With Israel war zone visit, Biden's personal diplomacy put to the test: ANALYSIS

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., on Wednesday morning called for strong GOP House leadership to push back on what he said was Tlaib's "bias."

PHOTO: Senator Markwayne Mullin speaks in Washington, D.C., March 22, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE)

"It's sickening. And this right here is why Kevin McCarthy should still be speaker of the House because we should be pushing back on Tlaib right now. ... This is absurd for her to go out there and defend ... a known terrorist organization that has been recognized by the United States as a terrorist organization and then go against one of our strongest allies, Israel," he said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends."

Democratic lawmakers have not mentioned Tlaib or Omar by name but did criticize those who fault Israel for the blast without more information.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., did not mention any politicians by name but slammed "critics" of Israel Wednesday morning for jumping to conclusions on the hospital blast.

"Critics falsely accused Israel of deliberately bombing a hospital before the facts were known. Did any of these critics condemn Islamic Jihad for causing the hospital explosion? Did any retract the false accusation?" Torres wrote.

MORE: Tim Scott, other Republicans propose barring Iranian funds after Hamas' Israel attack

"Erroneous reports and some Members of Congress took the word of Hamas terrorists as truth following the horrific Al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing. They should remove their posts, update their headlines, and remember not to trust terrorists who brutally murdered innocent civilians," tweeted Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., on Wednesday.

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Omar condemned the attack and Tlaib said she "grieve[d] the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost." Both called for a ceasefire.

Israel has suffered at least 1,400 deaths since Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, according to the Israeli Health Ministry. There have been at least 3,478 deaths in Gaza during the same period, per the Palestinian Health Ministry.

ABC News' Isabella Murray, Briana Stewart, John Parkinson, Rick Klein, and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib draws fire for not apologizing for saying Israel caused Gaza hospital blast originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Calm Down

Yann LeCun , Meta's chief AI scientist and a so-called "godfather" of the tech, wants you to know that all the doomsday prophesying over AI's potential to destroy humanity is downright "preposterous."

We've been watching too many movies, he thinks. AI models won't turn on us a la "The Terminator"  and there's no reason to believe they'd inherently want to seize control from their creators in the first place.

"Intelligence has nothing to do with a desire to dominate," LeCun told the Financial Times. "It's not even true for humans."

"If it were true that the smartest humans wanted to dominate others, then Albert Einstein and other scientists would have been both rich and powerful, and they were neither," he added.

Stands Alone

LeCun's stance makes him not only an outlier among other leaders of the industry, but also among the two other AI "godfathers": Geoffrey Hinton, formerly of Google, and Yoshua Bengio, founder and current director of the Mila - Quebec AI Institute.

Both have expressed regret over the AI tech they pioneered, and have warned that it may well destroy us. Needless to say, their Oppenheimer overtones have been far from reassuring.

But that kind of talk is a load of bull, according to LeCun, who says that researchers are vastly overestimating the capabilities of current AI models.

"[AI models] just do not understand how the world works," LeCun told the FT. "They're not capable of planning. They're not capable of real reasoning," he said.

"We do not have completely autonomous, self-driving cars that can train themselves to drive in about 20 hours of practice, something a 17-year-old can do," he added.

Rules For Thee

Of course, as a guy developing AI for Meta, LeCun has very particular point of view: he doesn't want overbearing, "counterproductive" regulation of the AI industry that could slow down progress or profitability.

Pleas for regulation are "incredibly arrogant," argues LeCun, because the big tech firms in favor of it are saying they're the only ones that can be trusted to develop the technology.

"They want regulatory capture under the guise of AI safety," he said. And certainly, the big tech leaders have the ear of Congress.

Current squabbles aside, LeCun thinks we should be looking forward to a future driven by powerful AIs  which according to him, will be more intelligent than humans.

"There's no question that we'll have machines assisting us that are smarter than us. And the question is: is that scary or is that exciting?" he said. "I think it's exciting because those machines will be doing our bidding. They will be under our control."

More on AI: Facebook's Kendall Jenner AI Recommends Other Tequilas Over Hers
The family of the Black man fatally shot by the Kansas City police officer to be convicted of killing him while on duty is lauding a decision handed down by a Missouri appeals court not to overturn the conviction of the officer.

A three-judge panel ruled that Eric DeValkenaere will have to serve time for the death of 26-year-old Cameron Lamb.

Eric DeValkenaere, 43, is charged with involuntary manslaughter after 26-year-old Cameron Lamb as he sat in a pickup truck in his own backyard on Dec. 3, 2019. Photo: 41 Action News/ YouTube screenshot.

Lamb was fatally shot in the driveway of his home in 2019 after police said hed been involved in a high-speed pursuit of his girlfriend. DeValkenaere, the former officer who shot him, was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter and armed criminal action in 2021.

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Although DeValkenaere was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison, a judge granted him an appeal bond after his attorneys filed an appeal request, allowing him to remain free from prison while the appeals process was ongoing.

That process, which took nearly two years, was finalized this week, and it was determined that his conviction still stands.

According to the ruling, DeValkenaere couldnt sufficiently challenge the trial courts verdict in his case. The judges called one of his points on appeal a jumbled argument after he attempted to dispute the trial courts conclusion that the shooting was not justified.

Devalkenaere argues that he cannot be convicted of armed criminal action if his conviction for involuntary manslaughter was in error. Because DeValkenaere has failed to establish error with respect to his conviction for involuntary manslaughter, his arguments regarding his armed criminal action conviction also fail, the ruling reads.

DeValkenaere also apparently argued that he acted with criminal negligence in order to downgrade his manslaughter charge. The appeals judges stated that his behavior on the day of the shooting conflicted with his training and many KCPD policies and that evidence, including DeValkenaeres own testimony, showed that he intended to fire his gun and shoot Lamb.

Lambs family, who had been waiting years to learn DeValkenaeres fate, celebrated the courts decision.

I could not believe it, however, I felt like we finally got the answer that we were gonna get, Laurie Bey, Lambs mother, told KSHB 41 News.

We dont want to see nobody whos so instrumental in the protection and the livelihood of their family taken away, especially a father, but we also dont want to see nobody that so blatantly breaks the law and think that theyre not gonna be held accountable, Aquil Bey, Lambs father, said.

During the appeals process, DeValkenaere was backed by state officials like the Kansas attorney general. Several reports also surfaced indicating that Gov. Mike Parson was considering granting DeValkenaere clemency, but they were rumors he denied.

When one of the most conservative appellate court panels upholds the conviction of a police officer despite the unethical, even unlawful interference of the Missouri Attorney General, a clear message has been sent: Eric DeValkenaere is guilty of the homicide of Cameron Lamb, said Steve Young, a founder of the Kansas City Law Enforcement Accountability Project of KC LEAP. We eagerly await for the moment DeValkenaere is taken into custody and treated like any other convicted felon in Jackson County. One violent KCPD officer down; many to go.

Read the original story here.
Arjun Lalwani is a former associate product manager at Google.

He said the APM program is so competitive that landing an interview is like hitting a gold mine.

Arjun said that he took big risks in his interviews to make himself stand out.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Arjun Lalwani, a 26-year-old product manager at YouTube. Insider has verified his income with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I was a software engineer intern at Microsoft during college. While I was building a product, I got curious about the "why" behind it. So I talked with my product manager who walked me through the whole road map and explained why we were doing something and how this would all lead to the big picture.

That is how I got into product management. What fascinated me was that there are business, marketing, and design thinking skills that go into it, which is a lot more creative than coding.

After graduating, I chose Google over other companies because it offered a lot more support and resources: The Google APM program was proposed by former Google executive Marissa Mayer who started the program in 2002 to recruit fresh talents. It takes new and recent grads across the US and teaches them to be better product managers  the program throws you onto a team and treats you like a full-time product manager.

As an associate product manager in the program, I had a tight-knit community of roughly 45 people, and I got coaching every other week from a management coach. I also had a dedicated alumni advisor to help me with any issues or questions.

Getting into the program is hard  it is estimated that 8,000 people apply to the APM program each year, and only 40-45 get accepted. Landing an interview is like hitting a gold mine.

The APM interview process took around three months

After a phone interview with a product manager, I was told to write a spec, short for "specification"  a detailed document or description that outlines the requirements, features, functionality, and design of a product. After that, I went on-site for about five interviews. Then, I had one more interview with an executive. It was a lengthy three-month interview process.

The interview questions were general product design questions  nothing was unexpected. I never felt like, "Oh my god, that's really hard." The questions tested how I think holistically about a problem, my ability to work with other stakeholders in the company, and also my analytical skills, and my technical skills.

I took a lot of risks in the interviews

I think the biggest factor that differentiated me from other candidates was that I was willing to take a lot of risks in my interviews. While I was interviewing at Google, I already had a Microsoft PM offer, and I was at ease because I had a Plan B.

For example, I challenged whether the problem the interviewer asked me to solve was actually the right one to be thinking about. If the question centered around improving the user experience for a particular customer pain point, I stepped back and asked whether this was actually the right pain point to solve.

It often led to an interesting conversation about our different perspectives, which led to a more productive dialog on the underlying assumptions.

Another way I did this was by proactively bringing up why my proposed solution wouldn't work. Even though I picked a solution to the problem, I also listed a couple of key challenges on why it would fail and offered ways to mitigate it. My interviewers appreciated the foresight and tended to ask a few follow-up questions.

I also had a lot of experience with mock interviews, so I knew how other candidates might answer these questions. To stand out, I gave out-of-the-box answers. In most cases, the interviewers said, "That's interesting. I've never heard that angle before. Tell me more."

Here is how much I made as an APM at Google and the projects I did

Google APM I

Base: $120,000

Equity grant: $100,000 (over 4 years)

Relocation bonus: $10,500

Signing bonus: $10,000

Annual bonus: 15% of base salary ($18,000)

Total Compensation: $258,000

I officially started in the program in July 2020. I got the opportunity to go on international trips and visit Google offices across the globe. I went to Paris, Singapore, Madrid, and Lisbon to learn about how products are built for different audiences.

My first big project was called "Eco-Friendly Hotels." We helped users find eco-friendly hotels to stay in. When you Google search a hotel, you'll now see a badge that says it's certified as sustainable. You can find out if the hotel saves energy, recycles linens, and more.

When a user Google searches hotels, they can easily see which ones are eco-friendly. Arjun Lalwani

I remember Google's then VP of travel products talking about this project at a global conference  it was unbelievable to me that one year into this job, my project could have this much impact.

After I completed my first year in the program, I was handed a Google sheet with over 100 roles to pick from 100 teams hiring internally. This is the best part about the APM program  the ability to switch teams. I could talk to these teams, interview them, and decide which one I wanted to work with. It was the only time in my career where I had hundreds of teams given to me on a plate, waiting for me to pick them.

I went to work in the office of the CEO, Sundar Pichai, and did product strategy-related work directly for him. I also ensured goal-setting across the company was streamlined. I became APM II and my base salary was bumped up to $125,000. I also received an additional $66,000 of equity refresh grant (over 4 years). A few months later, I was promoted to PM 1 and my base salary went up to $146,000.

When my APM program ended 11 months after I started working in Sundar Pichai's office, I went to a new team at YouTube as a PM managing the shopping feature.

YouTube Product Manager

Base: $160,000

Equity refresh grant: $99,167 (over 4 years)

Annual bonus: 20.1% of base salary ($28,680)

Spot bonus: $10,000

Total Compensation: $297,847

Our team was trying to get commerce going on YouTube, and as the product lead for the creator tooling, I led the launch of a new affiliate program. With this new feature, viewers can buy products through a creator's channel, and creators will get rewarded with a commission for that sale.

During this time, I received a $10,000 spot bonus from my vice president. It's a one-time bonus paid "on the spot" to thank me for the good work I was doing.

I found success by crushing the projects assigned to me

The best way to build trust with your team and grow your circle of influence is to crush the projects assigned to you.

For example, my team was initially given a year to figure out what it takes for a hotel to be sustainable and launch a feature to help consumers. Google had set a goal to help one billion people make more sustainable choices by 2022 and, along with other products, our team was tasked to help deliver on this goal.

Although I had multiple projects on my plate, I pushed forward with this one to accelerate the timeline. I read multiple research papers on sustainability, learned about the different eco-certifications in the market, and spoke to customers and hotel chains like Hilton and Marriott to understand the hospitality space.

Once I was more aware of the key players in this ecosystem and their incentives, I made product decisions to move faster and cut development time. The project launched within nine months, ahead of schedule, and with little-to-no hiccups during the launch journey. It received a lot of positive press, and my leadership team was impressed with how quickly I went from inception to launch.

I'm extremely happy as a product manager

Being a PM at Google is a dream job for me. I've done a few software engineering internships, and while I enjoyed being technical, I missed wearing different hats and working on a product end to end.

Product management has given me so much exposure to what it takes to launch successful products to market, something that I might not have gained as a software engineer.

If you would like to share your salary journey, email Aria Yang at ayang@insider.com.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Jim Jordan lost a floor vote to become House Speaker on Tuesday. He lost by an even wider margin on Wednesday. He decided against a third vote on Thursday  which many predicted would have gone even worse for the Ohio Republican  instead opting to back a resolution to appoint Rep. Patrick McHenry as a temporary Speaker until the caucus could rally around a permanent leader.

It didnt go so well.

Tempers reportedly flared behind closed doors, with Republicans directing their ire at a familiar target: Matt Gaetz, whose successful push to oust Kevin McCarthy as Speaker has stalled Congress for nearly three weeks. Juliegrace Brufke of Axios reported that McCarthy screamed at Gaetz to sit down when Gaetz moved to the microphone while the party was deliberating, and that Rep. Mike Bost almost lunged at the Florida congressman. Melanie Zanona of CNN also reported that Bost got all emotional, was cussing at him, and telling Gaetz its all his fault, citing a member in the room. Zonona added that members were also yelling at Jordan for supporting the push to appoint McHenry as a temporary Speaker, and that the situation also got heated over the harassment members who opposed Jordan have been subjected to.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks said on Wednesday that she received a credible death threat and a barrage of threatening calls after voting against Jordan earlier in the day. The wife of Rep. Don Bacon has also said she got a series of text messages threatening her husbands career unless he fell in line and backed Jordan.

Gaetz seemed amused by the commotion while speaking to reporters later on Thursday. Im not for everyone, as it turns out, Gaetz said when asked about the tension, adding that electing a Speaker light is a bad idea, just like Bud Light, referring to his opposition to empowering McHenry.

Gaetz: I was there to make the substantiative argument that speaker light is a bad idea, just like bud light pic.twitter.com/i6aKOuinRA  Acyn (@Acyn) October 19, 2023

McCarthy was asked about the fracas, as well. I was at the mic, I was speaking, and Matt Gaetz tried to interrupt, he explained. I told him to sit down and he sat down. I think the entire conference screamed at him. The whole country I think would scream at Matt Gaetz right now.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Matt Gaetz interrupting him:



I told him to sit down and he sat downI think the entire conference screamed at himThe whole country I think would scream at Matt Gaetz right now. pic.twitter.com/RwGuPkGYge  Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) October 19, 2023

The GOP was, in the end, unable to get behind a resolution to appoint McHenry. Republican voters worked too hard to give us the majority to enter some sort of temporary Speakership, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters, adding that this conference is absolutely broken.

House Republicans must now return to the drawing board. The only thing on it at the moment is Jordan, who doesnt appear to be anywhere close to landing the 217 votes he needs to win the gavel. Nevertheless, he says hes going to give it another go. We made a pitch to members on the resolution as a way to lower the temperature and get back to work, he told reporters, letting out a laugh at the idea of lowering the temperature. We decided that wasnt where were going to go. Im still running for Speaker and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.

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GOP hard-liner: Republicans might as well be the Whigs if they strike deal to empower Speaker pro tem

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on Wednesday suggested that if Republicans strike a deal to give acting Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) more powers, they might as well be the Whigs  the conservative political party from the 19th century.

After two floor ballots, Republican nominee Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has yet to secure the 217 votes necessary to be elected Speaker. With the House heading into its third day of voting, there are concerns that Jordan will continue to lose Republican support, delaying an appointment of an official speaker even longer.

Several lawmakers have considered a vote to expand McHenrys limited powers as Speaker pro tempore amid the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas and ahead of the Nov. 17 government funding deadline.

In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Roy said if House Republicans dared to make a deal with Democrats over McHenrys abilities, it would be in violation of tradition and norms.

If the @HouseGOP dares cut a deal with Dems to empower a Speaker-Pro-Tem in violation of tradition & norms, & possibly the Constitution to likely pass another CE at Pelosi levels & more supplemental (not paid for) spending  including Ukraine  the GOP might as well be the Whigs, he wrote.

In a separate post, the Texas Republican said GOP lawmakers joining with Democrats to potentially expand McHenrys powers not only raises constitutional concerns, but represents an unforgiveable step to coalition government & likely decimation in 2024.

Jordans fellow Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson (R) posted online that its possible Republicans and Democrats will come up with a bipartisan solution, an idea floated by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to fast-track someone to the Speakers chair.

Its possible that today a small group of Republicans attempt to work with Democrats to build a coalition government, Davidson said on X. I will gladly fight alongside the @HouseGOP to do what we said we would do, but I will surrender our agenda to no one.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ind.) said he agreed with Davidson.

A majority is a terrible thing to waste, Massie posted on X. I will not vote to join a coalition with Hakeem Jeffries. I will vote for Jim Jordan.

The House is expected to reconvene at noon Thursday for the third round of votes.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
WASHINGTON  A Republican congresswoman who initially supported Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker before she backed another GOP lawmaker said she received death threats and threatening phone calls after she cast her vote Wednesday.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, revealed the death threats in a statement just hours after Jordan failed to secure enough votes in the second round of balloting for House speaker.

"Since my vote ... I have received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls. The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully," Miller-Meeks said in a statement that was also posted on X.

"One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully," she added. "Someone who threatens another with bodily harm or tries to suppress differing opinions undermines opportunity for unity and regard for freedom of speech."

Jordan has come under criticism for the aggressive tactics of his supporters in their efforts to get him elected speaker.

Shortly after Miller-Meeks' statement was posted, Jordan tweeted: No American should accost another for their beliefs. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. Its abhorrent.

A representative with U.S. Capitol Police could not be reached for comment Wednesday night. Miller-Meeks did not specify which law enforcement agencies, if any, were notified about the threats.

A spokesperson for Miller-Meeks also could not immediately be reached for additional comment Wednesday night.

Miller-Meeks voted for Rep. Kay Granger of Texas on Wednesday, a day after she voted for Jordan. She said Granger "has demonstrated great leadership this year by bringing forth, and passing, fiscally responsible, single-subject appropriations bills and is a staunch conservative."

Jordan is the only candidate in the race, but he has failed to win over enough support from rank-and-file Republicans to get elected in a formal floor vote. Jordan, a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, announced his intentions to seek the speaker's gavel after the House ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from the top post this month.

An earlier candidate, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., failed to garner enough backing, leaving Jordan as the lone contender.

He will most likely need the support of 217 of the 221 House Republicans to be elected. Jordan received 200 votes Tuesday and 199 on Wednesday. Another House vote is possible Thursday.

Ali Vitali and Rebecca Kaplan reported from Washington and Antonio Planas from New York.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) revealed she has received death threats after reversing her support for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on the second Speaker ballot Wednesday.

Miller-Meeks said she received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls, according to a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.

She said her office is cooperating fully and the proper authorities have been notified.

Miller-Meeks was one of four Republicans to switch their support Wednesday after voting for Jordan on the first ballot.

One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully, she said. I did not stand for bullies before I voted for Chairwoman Granger and when I voted for Speaker designee Jordan, and I will not bend to bullies now.

Miller-Meeks instead voted for Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), claiming the Texas Republican has demonstrated great leadership as chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee.

The Iowa Republican said it was abundantly clear early into Wednesdays roll call vote that Jordan did not secure the 217 votes needed to take the gavel.

Given the concerns I had before any vote and the ability of the Speaker designaee to unify the conference, I voted in support of Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger to serve as Speaker of the House, Miller-Meeks said.

I understand that voting against Rep. Jordan is not popular at this time, she added. I respected Jim enough to vote for him [on Tuesday], knowing he did not have the votes to be elected. We have had numerous calls to all our offices, and many have urged that I support Jim Jordan and many others urged me to look for a conservative consensus candidate.

Miller-Meeks said she thinks the GOP party needs a consensus candidate to allow the House to work on appropriations, support to Israel and to stop the insane policies of the Biden administration.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) also confirmed his wife received anonymous texts and calls in the days leading up to the Speaker vote that urged her to tell Bacon to vote for Jordan, whom he continues to oppose.

Jordan commented on the reported threats later Wednesday, writing on X, No American should accost another for their beliefs. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. Its abhorrent.

A total of six Republicans reversed their votes on Jordan during the second vote, with four, including Miller-Meeks, who chose not to vote for the Speaker-designate on the second ballot after voting for him on the first.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (Calif.), who voted for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on the first ballot, and Rep. Victoria Spartz (Ind), who voted for Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), both flipped to support Jordan during the second round.

Jordan received 199 votes for Speaker with 22 Republicans siding against him, falling short of the 217 votes needed to win the Speakership.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) received 212 votes and other candidates received the remaining 22 votes.

The House has remained at a standstill for the past 15 days since McCarthy was ousted, with many lawmakers pushing to expand the power of Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry to allow some functions of the House to resume.

The next vote for Speaker will be held Thursday as Jordan works to flip holdouts.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) said Wednesday that she received credible death threats after flipping to vote against Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for Speaker of the House. The Iowa congresswoman voted for Jordan in the first ballot on Tuesday; on Wednesday, she was one of 22 House Republicans who opposed him. In a statement released hours later, the Iowa congresswoman said shed cast her second-round vote for Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) because she has demonstrated great leadership this year. After voting for Granger, however, Miller-Meeks said she received the death threats and a barrage of threatening calls. The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully. She added: One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully. It was not immediately clear whod made the threats, nor what specifically they consisted of. Jordan took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to comment on the reported threats: No American should accost another for their beliefs Stop. Its abhorrent.

The Office of Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks has released the following statement:https://t.co/7l2EkLagx4 pic.twitter.com/R8mUPQ6RRW  Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, M.D. (@RepMMM) October 18, 2023

Read it at Des Moines Register

Read more at The Daily Beast.
FIRST ON FOX: A coalition of 25 Senate Republicans joined by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., are introducing legislation to block the Biden administration from moving forward with regulations targeting gas-powered car tailpipe emissions.

The lawmakers, led by Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo , R-Idaho, and Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., are expected to introduce the Choice in Automobile Retail Sales (CARS) Act later Thursday. The legislation, if passed, would strike down the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposal unveiled earlier this year that would significantly tighten vehicle tailpipe emissions restrictions.

"Once again, the Biden administrations rule-making process is being used to push a radical green agenda and pick winners and losers," Crapo said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Americans deserve to have access to affordable, reliable vehicles fueled by American-made energy products.

"However, the Biden EPAs rule change would hurt everyday Americans while simultaneously helping China. Consequences of rules and regulations such as these restrict consumer choice and raise costs for the average American family."

BIDEN ADMIN FACES PRESSURE TO DROP ELECTRIC VEHICLE MANDATE REGULATIONS: 'THIS IS ALARMING'

Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, (left) and Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., (right) will introduce the Choice in Automobile Retail Sales Act Thursday.

In April, the EPA proposed regulations that were the most aggressive for federal tailpipe emissions ever crafted. If finalized and implemented, a staggering 67% of new sedan, crossover, SUV and light truck; up to 50% of bus and garbage truck; 35% of short-haul freight tractor; and 25% of long-haul freight tractor purchases could be electric by 2032, the White House projected.

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Critics of the rules accused the EPA of attempting to use the proposal as a backdoor electric vehicle (EV) mandate, essentially forcing future purchases of zero-carbon vehicles.

STUDY CASTS DOUBT ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES' CLIMATE, COST BENEFITS: 'WON'T ACHIEVE THE GOALS INTENDED'

In addition to blocking the proposed tailpipe emissions regulations, the CARS Act would prohibit regulations mandating the use of any specific technology or regulations that limit the availability of new vehicles based on engine type. The legislation would additionally require the EPA to update any regulations that limit new vehicles based on engine type within two years.

"We cannot allow the EPA to continue to impose oppressive and careless regulations that increase our dependence on foreign adversaries like China and make everyday necessities more expensive for Americans and their families," added Manchin, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "I waited in line for gas in the '70s because America was too reliant on foreign oil, and I refuse to risk one day waiting in line for a Chinese battery.

President Biden talks to EPA Administrator Michael Regan during a White House event on environmental justice earlier this year.

"This bipartisan legislation would rescind this federal overreach and protect access to traditional, affordable vehicles," the West Virginia Democrat added. "As chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I will continue to lead the fight against EPAs radical climate agenda to protect our energy, national and economic security."

In addition to Crapo, Ricketts and Manchin, 23 Senate Republicans joined the effort Thursday as co-sponsors. Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Banking Committee Ranking Member Tim Scott, R-S.C.; and Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch, R-Idaho, were among those co-sponsors.

The CARS Act has also received widespread endorsements from industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and conservative groups like Heritage Action and the National Taxpayers Union.

President Biden previously set a goal of ensuring 50% of car purchases are electric by 2030.

"We welcome Sen. Crapos and Sen. Ricketts efforts to safeguard Americans freedoms and prevent the EPA from imposing a de facto ban on the sale of new vehicles that use gasoline and other liquid fuels," said Amanda Eversole, the American Petroleum Institute's executive vice president and chief advocacy officer.

"The Senate should work expeditiously to pass The Choice in Automobile Retail Sales Act to ensure the EPAs intrusive government policy doesnt limit American families access to affordable and reliable vehicle options."

REPUBLICANS AIM TO STRIP SALARY FROM BIDEN CLIMATE OFFICIAL WHO KEPT JOB AFTER FAILED SENATE CONFIRMATION

Chet Thompson, the president and CEO of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturer, added the CARS Act will "preserve consumer choice and allow individuals and families to continue selecting the cars and trucks that work best for them."

Since the Biden administration proposed the tailpipe emissions rules in April, which would impact car model years 2027 through 2032, lawmakers, including those who introduced the CARS Act, and energy experts have blasted the proposal. They argued EVs are costly, less efficient and more dependent on Chinese supply chains than traditional gas-powered cars.

President Biden previously set a goal of ensuring 50% of car purchases are electric by 2030. The White House said in April the EPA's proposed tailpipe rules would provide a "clear pathway for a continued rise in EV sales."

The average cost of an EV was $65,291, and the average cost of a car with an internal combustion engine was $48,094 last year, according to Kelley Blue Book. And the Department of Energy reported that the average range of model year 2021 gasoline vehicles was 403 miles compared to the median 234-mile range of model year 2021 EVs.

The EPA's tailpipe regulations are coupled with a series of other actions pursued by the Biden administration targeting gas-powered cars. The Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed aggressive fuel economy regulations earlier this year that automakers have warned would lead to billions of dollars in penalties, costs that would be passed on to consumers.

Reps. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., introduced the House version of the CARS Act in July, but the bill has yet to receive a floor vote.





Original article source: GOP senators, Manchin take action to block Biden's crackdown on gas-powered cars
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is traveling to Israel on Thursday to meet with victims of the Israel-Hamas war on Friday, his administration said.

Newsom will stop in Israel ahead of a planned trip to China next week that is set to start in Hong Kong.

"The Governor adjusted his planned international trip and will briefly visit Israel ahead of going to China," spokesperson Erin Mellon said in a statement. "While in Israel, the Governor will meet with those impacted by the violence."

Newsom's office said that California will also be sending medical aid and supplies to the region, including Gaza, where Israel has launched a complete siege and cut off supplies of food, power and water in response to deadly attacks by the militant group Hamas on Oct 7.

The Hamas attacks killed over 1,400, and the Gaza Health Ministry says over 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began. U.N. negotiations for getting aid into Gaza through Egypt are ongoing.

California is home to the largest population of Arab Americans and the second largest population of Jews in the U.S.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is in Israel today meeting with victims of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had been in China but left quickly amid the unfolding attacks on Israel. Schumer then led a delegation to Tel Aviv, which was rushed to a shelter in a tight bunker during heavy rocket fire.

Christopher Cadelago contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM  Gov. Kathy Hochul is due to return to New York on Friday after an emotional trip to Israel, where she met with Israeli leaders, toured a kibbutz at the Gaza Border and suffered the loss of her father, who died while she was en route.

Hochul had to wear a bulletproof vest to see the aftermath of the attack on Kfar Aza, a kibbutz just one mile from the Gaza border where 70 people died.

She said the images were indelible and should stand as a stark reminder to those protesting that Israel has the right to exist and defend itself.

"The slaughter of innocents, the smells, the sights were difficult to process. There was blood all over the walls, the floors, the mattresses, safe rooms that became a house of horrors. I saw where a hostage had been held until he was shot in the head," said Hochul.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2023. Hochul's father died overnight while she was touring wartime Israel, with the teary-eyed governor slipping a note grieving the loss into Jerusalem's Western Wall holy site. (Shlomi Amsalem/Office of Gov. Kathy Hochul via AP) / Credit: Shlomi Amsalem / AP

Hochul said the trip reaffirmed her commitment to supporting Israel's right to exist.

"There have been conflicts in the past. But always before it's been military against military, government against government. And this is more akin to the Holocaust, the slaughter of innocent people. These are not people who got in harms way during a military conflict between armies. These are people that were targeted. There was an intentionality which is so cruel and depraved," Hochul told CBS New York's Marcia Kramer over Zoom.

Hochul met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. They talked about the need to rescue hostages and for humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.

While she represents the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, Hochul was well aware she also represents those who have staged protests against Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

"They have a right to peacefully protest. But there can be no denial of what happened or any kind of equivalency with this particular attack because it was so heinous," said Hochul.

On the flight to Israel, Hochul learned her father had died. When she went to the Western Wall, she penned a note praying for peace in the region and her dad.

Hochul, who is Catholic, also made an unscheduled stop at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Against the advice of her security detail, she ducked into a dark shrine and knelt and prayed.

Losing a parent is one of the hardest losses you can experience. I think of my mom every single day.@GovKathyHochul, your father raised an outstanding daughter and leader.



And all New Yorkers join you in mourning his passing.  Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) October 19, 2023

Hochul said the last time she talked to her dad was, ironically, when she was at the airport leaving for the holy land.

"Talked to him in his rough Irish way when he said, 'I'm proud of you, Dollie, but keep your goddam head down," Hochul said.

Dollie was her dad's nickname for her.

Hochul credited her father with setting her on the path to politics by telling her not to choose one college because "That's where you go to become the wife of a congressman" and to go to Syracuse because "That's where you go to become a congressman."

After returning from Israel, Hochul will travel to Florida to visit with her family.

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Gov. Ron DeSantis joined supporters and government leaders Wednesday evening for the unveiling of a Manatee County park bearing his name.

After a politically charged survey last summer, voters chose to name a 17-acre park near Kinnan Elementary School after the Florida governor. The park features pickleball courts, a dog park and walking trails at 7510 Prospect Road.

What an honor. What a great park, DeSantis said.

The governor called the Sarasota-Bradenton area a hot spot.

Its a great place to live, DeSantis said with a large U.S. flag billowing in the background. Its a great place to raise a family.

About 150 people, including local politicians, county staff and DeSantis supporters attended the ceremony. The park is now open to the public.

My wife and I will at some point turn our kids loose at this park in our travels. I can tell you they like playgrounds, they like a lot of stuff here, DeSantis said. Just as a dad Im glad this honor is here for something so many families are going to be able to enjoy now and in the future.

DeSantis Park opens in Manatee County

The decision to name the park after DeSantis, an incumbent politician, sparked controversy on the Manatee County Commission last year. Some commissioners said they would have preferred to name the park after the neighborhood or a local notable.

Its unusual that you have a sitting governor that has something named after him. Typically, its many years from now, right? said Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge, who praised the governors actions on several issues including U.S.-Mexico border security and parental rights in school.

Children play before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made an appearance in Manatee County for the opening of a park named in his honor on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Other park name suggestions included Snooty Park, Freedom Park and Prospect Park, but nearly 100 people suggested naming the park after DeSantis.

DeSantis won after Commissioner Mike Rahn, who was a candidate at the time, led a coordinated effort inviting people to submit DeSantis name. Van Ostenbridge called it a grassroots movement at Wednesdays ceremony.

Rahn also presented a plaque commending first lady Casey DeSantis for overcoming her battle with breast cancer. A park at Ron DeSantis Park also commemorates the governors wife.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

A controversial naming competition

About 350 people submitted name recommendations, but the survey results released by the county removed any identifying information, making it impossible to tell how many votes came from local residents or whether anyone submitted multiple votes.

The county had an estimated population of 429,125 people in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Former Commissioner Misty Servia created the campaign hoping to engage residents in the area and bring families together.

Jennings DePriest, 4, at the neighborhood park where Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made an appearance to open the park named in his honor in Manatee County on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Servia and the two other commissioners who ultimately voted against the name change, Republican Carol Whitmore and lone Democrat Reggie Bellamy, were voted out of office later that year as the board shifted further to the political right.

A handful of protesters also disagreed with the countys decision to name the park after DeSantis. Members of the Womens Voices of Southwest Florida group held signs and shouted from across the street, calling the event a political stunt.

This is the swamp, one sign read. DeSantis is a coward.  Closed-door event at a public park, said another.

In the 2022 general election, about 111,000 Manatee County voters  65% of ballots cast  supported DeSantis, according to voting records. Over 59,000 residents cast votes in support of his opponent Charlie Crist.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made an appearance in Manatee County for the opening of a park named in his honor on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

The unveiling ceremony also comes as DeSantis trails former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination to challenge President Joe Biden in 2024. According to FiveThirtyEight, Trump continues to lead the pack by polling at 57%. By comparison, DeSantis is polling at about 14%.

On Thursday night, Casey DeSantis is scheduled to receive the Stateswoman of the Year Award from the Republican Party of Sarasota and speak at a private award ceremony.

DeSantis criticizes Gaza relief

DeSantis also used the public park dedication as an opportunity to take political shots at the Biden administration.

The governor condemned the federal governments announcement on Wednesday to provide $100 million in humanitarian aid to Palestinians in war-torn Gaza.

Israel has pounded the region with bombs since it declared war on Hamas on Oct. 8, resulting in the deaths of over 2,700 people, most of them civilians, the Associated Press reports.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis addresses a gathering with Manatee County Commissioners Kevin Van Ostenbridge and Mike Rahn in Manatee County for the opening of a park named in his honor on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Israels war declaration followed Hamas surprise Oct. 7 attack that killed more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, CBS reports.

Israel has also cut off food, water, medicine and fuel to the Gaza region, leading to a humanitarian crisis, AP reports.

They have every right to defend themselves, DeSantis said. And that means they have every right to eliminate Hamas as an entity.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made an appearance in Manatee County for the opening of a park named in his honor on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made an appearance in Manatee County for the opening of a park named in his honor on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made an appearance in Manatee County for the opening of a park named in his honor on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  An executive order signed at the state Capitol on Thursday will remove what Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called woke language from state documents.

The governor said the language order was being signed in defense of women.

Enough trying to erase women and girls, the governor said. Enough trying to erase our biological differences from men.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Attorney General Griffin act to force Chinese seed company to divest Arkansas land holdings, issues fine

Sanders was surrounded by women as she made the announcement, including state lawmakers.

Sanders then added, Today, were taking a stand against woke nonsense.

The governor gave examples of what she considered woke terms such as pregnant people, birth giver and laboring person, calling them nonsense terms.

Arkansas Surgeon General Dr. Kay Chandler spoke after Sanders, calling the executive order just common sense.

Our governor wont let political correctness get in the way of science, Chandler said.

During questions, Sanders said there was one specific instance of the language being used at the states health department, but that other instances of the language had been reported to her office.

Tension after Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders asked about podium at news conference

Non-gender-specific terms for childbearing have been used in describing transgender people participating in the child-bearing process.

The executive order is titled Executive Order to Eliminate Woke, Anti-Women Words from State Government And Respect Women.

Initial precepts in the order are: Whereas: Women are women, followed by Whereas: An XX chromosome is an XX chromosome. The science is clear and real.

The order calls out specific words, such as chestfeeding, mandating that breastfeeding be used. Another example is where birthing person not be used and birth mom be the mandated term.

The calls out other gender-neutral terms and ends by addressing the words womxn and womyn, and instead mandates the use of woman.

The xn and yn spellings were first adopted by feminists in the 1970s to remove the perceived sexism of man from the original spelling. It has since been adopted as a more transgender-inclusive spelling.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
VIRGINIA BEACH  Major Republican donors and supporters of Gov. Glenn Youngkin from around the country attended his political action committees second annual Red Vest Retreat this week.

The two-day fundraiser could boost the campaign war chests of Republicans running in local races.

Produced by Spirt of Virginia and named after the zip-up fleece vest Youngkin donned during his 2021 gubernatorial campaign, the retreat was held Tuesday and Wednesday at the historic Cavalier Hotel. The private event included several sessions with Virginia, national and international themes. It was closed to the press.

Former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Youngkin were scheduled to lead the Spirit of Leadership at Home and Abroad, a seated luncheon and discussion Wednesday afternoon on the Cavaliers Grand Lawn, according to a copy of the program obtained by The Virginian-Pilot.

A large tent was set up in front of the 1927 hotel, which faces the ocean, and dozens of guests could be seen dining at tables inside it while musicians entertained.

The retreat was aimed at giving a last-minute boost to the commonwealths GOP candidates this year. Every seat in the General Assembly is up for election.

Youngkin hopes to flip the Senate and maintain Republican control of the House, which would give him a broader ability to enact conservative priorities. This year, partisan gridlock meant little movement in either direction on larger policy issues.

GOP control in the statehouse could also enhance his chances to be courted into a 2024 presidential run, say those in his base.

I would support that and be very excited, said state Sen. Bill DeSteph , who did not attend the retreat but was briefed by a friend who was there. If we turn the Senate back red, theres a chance hed run for president.

Youngkin has played coy on the topic of a White House bid, often saying he is focused on the statehouse. But time to make a determination is quickly running out.

The retreat included international topics that could signal the governors eye on his future. For example, Youngkin and Kevin Warsh, former member of the Federal Reserve of Board of Governors, were to lead a discussion on the global economy, according to the event program.

First Lady Suzanne Youngkin was scheduled to head a panel with Virginias Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera and John Littel, secretary of Health and Human Resources.

Other discussions on Wednesdays agenda included a political update from the governor and the committees leadership.

Basically, they just went through the races, said DeSteph, who was told about 50 to 70 people attended. Here are the ones we know were going to win; here are the ones we know we dont have a chance; here are the ones that are in play.

DeSteph said other Republican fundraising events have followed a similar format in which the governors team talks about the state of each race.

A spokesperson for Spirit of Virginia declined to provide any details about the event.

It wont be clear until the next round of campaign finance reports are filed the degree to which the retreat boosted the coffers of Youngkins PAC. But the Spirit of Virginias most recent expense reports show it has made last-minute cash infusions for Republicans in several close statehouse races.

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New campaign finance reports from Sept. 1 to Oct. 7 show Spirit of Virginia made three donations to the Republican Party of Virginia totaling $970,000. It also made major donations totaling $727,000 to Friends of Siobhan Dunnavant.

Dunnavant is a state senator in a tight race against Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg to represent District 16 in the Senate.

In Hampton Roads, the PAC gave significant contributions to support Republican candidates in three of the tightest races in the region: $150,000 to Karen Greenhalgh for Delegate, $140,000 to Emily Brewer for Senate and $125,000 to Danny Diggs for Senate.

Diggs faces Sen. Monty Mason to represent Senate District 24. Greenhalgh, a state delegate, is running against Michael Feggans for the House District 97 seat. Brewer, a state delegate, is competing with fellow delegate Clint Jenkins in the race for Senate District 17.

Other local Republicans who received donations in the past month include Mike Dillender, A.C. Cordoza and Baxter Ennis. The finance reports further revealed the group donated $50,000 to another political action committee, Blacks Electing Conservatives.

Bruce Thompson, CEO of Gold Key|PHR and owner of the Cavalier Hotel, served as chair of Youngkins inauguration committee. Thompson said the Youngkins approached him at the Red Vest Retreat in Charlottesville last year with the idea to host it.

Gov. Youngkins Virginia Beach roots show up in his relationship with Bruce Thompson

When asked how the retreat was going this week, Thompson texted: awesome. The Cavaliers kitchen catered the food.

Thats what we do, Thompson said, noting the venue hosts more than 100 weddings a year.

Prior to the most recent reporting, the Spirit of Virginia had spent a total of $16,389 between 2021 and 23 at the Cavalier Hotel for a mixture of lodging, food and beverages services and event and meeting expenses. The report from Sept. 1 to Oct. 7 added $41,511 for an event deposit.

Katie King contributed to this report.

Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com
A 27-year-old was arrested after his grandparents and their pet cat were shot dead inside their south Georgia home, state investigators say.

Gary Milton Bailey III, of Bronwood, faces multiple charges including felony murder, aggravated assault and exploitation and intimidation of an elder person, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

GBI agents got a call around 2 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 18, to investigate a shooting after Gary Milton Bailey Sr., 68, and Donna Sue Bailey, 66, were found dead at their home in Terrell County.

Authorities said they had been shot multiple times. The couples cat was also found shot.

The victims bodies were taken to the GBI Crime Lab in Macon for autopsies.

Authorities did not mention a possible motive and said the shooting is under investigation.

Bailey was booked into the Terrell County Jail, the GBI said.

Bronwood is about 150 miles south of Atlanta.

Gun violence in the U.S.

Thousands of people die from firearm injuries in the U.S. each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gun-related injuries were among the leading causes of death for people ages 1 to 44 in 2020, the public health agency reported, adding that more than 4 in 10 were firearm homicides.

Experts say the impact of gun violence reaches far beyond victims and their families.

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, the CDC said.

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He has the greatest name in politics, according to former President Donald Trump. But Rep. Patrick McHenry  the GOPs bow-tied, gavel-slamming temporary speaker  is just now emerging as Americas latest political obsession, memes and all. And he's on deck to step into the speaker's chair more formally if Republicans rally around the idea to resolve their leadership crisis.

How did he get here?

Youre going to read that the 18-year House veteran is the adult in the room compared to other GOP hard-liners  a pragmatist whos ready to govern and even has Democrats clamoring for him to run the House. But it wasnt always that way.

Part of the reason the North Carolina Republican has any lingering cred with the far right  though its fading in the Matt Gaetz era  is that he used to be one of them, even before the rise of the GOP tea party movement.

McHenry entered Congress in 2005 at 29 and soon made his name as a self-described bomb-thrower. He rose through the House GOP ranks by attacking the governments economic rescue plans in the wake of the global financial crisis, helping sink the Bush administrations initial attempt to bail out Wall Street  a failed vote that triggered a market crash.

A Roll Call columnist in this early stage of McHenrys career described him as the GOPs attack dog-in-training as he fought Democrats in an ethics battle against Majority Leader Tom Delay, who faced criminal conspiracy charges.



But then McHenry got serious. He buckled down at the House Financial Services Committee, which writes rules for banking and stock trading, and became a Wall Street policy wonk. He also entered House leadership, emerging as one of the GOPs top vote counters as chief deputy whip.

McHenry, now a father of three, had a shot at helping run the House after Republicans won back their majority last year. He turned it down  making clear he didnt want to wrangle conservatives on government funding and the debt ceiling  and became chair of the Financial Services Committee to focus on making law.

How does he operate?

McHenry hasnt quite abandoned his conservative ideals in his transition to GOP statesman. But hes made clear that he can be flexible to get a deal done.

Just take McHenrys approach at House Financial Services. McHenry has spent years courting Rep. Maxine Waters  the panels top Democrat and McHenrys polar opposite  in a bid to craft legislation that would have a hint of a shot at getting through the Senate and signed by the president. Before taking the gavel, he described the committee as an active nook of bipartisanship.

Weve been able to find compromise around helping families and small businesses getting lending and access to capital, he said.



Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy turned to McHenry earlier this year to help resolve the debt-limit impasse. It warmed hearts on Wall Street because bankers had confidence that McHenry would be a voice of reason and help steer the country away from financial calamity. After all, he had warned publicly last year that taking the debt ceiling hostage was a bad idea, knowing McCarthy was going down that road.

McHenry is close to the middle of his party, according to one ideology score. He believes climate change is real and we have to do something about it. Hes supported aid for Ukraine. He has sidestepped some of the culture war issues that are dominating GOP politics and even drew flak from the right when he kept diversity and inclusion concerns  a priority of Waters  on the Financial Services oversight agenda.

After a sudden rash of regional bank failures in March, McHenry, unlike some other conservatives, held back from using the crisis atmosphere to attack the Biden administration for their handling of the situation  confirming the full transition from his bomb-throwing days of yore.

Im confident in their ability to do the right thing, McHenry said at the time.

Whats next?

Though its not surprising McCarthy would leave a top deputy in charge of the House, its not a job McHenry sought. Before McHenry gave the gavel slam seen around the world earlier this month, many in Washington believed he was approaching the end of his time in Congress.

The speculation wasnt based on hints from McHenry but was more connecting the dots. He didnt want to be in House leadership. A term limit on his Financial Services chairmanship kicks in after the 2024 election. He has a young family and has been in government since his 20s.

Conventional wisdom at the start of this Congress was McHenry would serve his final two years as chairman and then either retire or become speaker, said one former Republican leadership staffer. Nobody actually believed that speaker would be possible.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated which state McHenry represents. It is North Carolina.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is requesting U.S. Capitol Police preserve all surveillance footage and photos, police reports and arrest records from all House office buildings Wednesday following a large protest on Capitol Hill that demanded a cease-fire in Israel and Gaza.

A large group of protestors began a demonstration inside the Cannon House Office Building on Wednesday, urging Congress to act on a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.

The protest, organized by Jewish groups Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow, involved numerous demonstrators chanting cease-fire now, and holding banners with the same message.

Posting a copy of a letter she sent to Capitol Police Chief John Thomas Manger, Greene wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that she was formally requesting Capitol Police preserve all video surveillance footage, photographic evidence, police reports, and arrest records from all House Office Buildings on October 18, 2023.

By launching an insurrection in the Capitol complex, these actors caused elevators to be shut down, staircases and hallways to be blocked, exits to be made inaccessible, and official legislative business to be obstructed, putting Members of Congress, their staffs and Capitol visits at risk, Greene wrote in the letter.

The Georgia Republican called on the House Administration Committee to investigate the incident and review all footage and evidence from Capitol Police, writing that the insurrectionists involved must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Greene railed against the protests in a series of posts on X, calling the protest an insurrection of Capitol Hill.

Greene also claimed Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who spoke to a crowd of demonstrators Wednesday, was leading the protest, calling her a Hamas Caucus Leader.

Tlaib, along with Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) who also spoke to demonstrators, have called on the Biden administration to work toward an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Capitol Police did not confirm the total number of protestors arrested, but said arrests were ongoing and that three people had been charged with assault of a police officer.

While there remains no confirmation of how many protestors were involved in the demonstration, JVP claimed 10,000 people gathered outside the Capitol, while 500 were inside to demand an end to the Israeli and U.S. governments genocide in Gaza.

The protests come amid the ongoing violence between Israel and Hamas, which launched attacks on Israeli villages, farms and military outposts more than a week ago in an assault that left more than 1,300 dead. The Israel military claims Hamas has also taken 199 people hostage.

Israel has since sent hundreds of retaliatory airstrikes into Gaza and cut off the territorys access to food, water and medicine. Israeli forces last ordered people to move south in advance of an expected ground assault on the territory, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

At least 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza due to the conflict, with another 12,000 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministrys Thursday update.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Greta Thunberg has joined a protest outside JP Morgan to demand the bank stops funding fossil fuel projects.

The Swedish climate activist is taking part in the Fossil Free London action at the bank's office in Canary Wharf.

The activists have blocked the entrance to the bank by sitting on the pavement, chanting "oily money out" and waving yellow flags and banners.

It follows a protest on Tuesday in Park Lane where oil executives had gathered for the Energy Intelligence Forum.

Ms Thunberg, 20, was arrested at that demonstration and charged with a public order offence. A further 26 people were charged.

Fossil Free London says JP Morgan has been a major source of funding for fossil fuel projects since the Paris Agreement, when governments agreed to try to limit global average temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

One campaigner said: "They are making billions of profit every year at a time of worsening inequality when so much of the world is being devastated by the climate crisis.

"We think there should be no new fossil fuel investment or financing from JP Morgan and we think that some of their billions of profits should go towards loss and damage to the communities affected by climate change and provide the financing for adaptation and mitigation measures."

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk
Destroyed house in Avdiivka

After the failure of the assault on October 10-14, Russian troops consolidated several captured positions

The Russians advanced to one position north of Avdiivka and part of the village of Vodiane to the south. They paid a heavy price for this.

Under the blows of Ukrainian troops, the Russian command was forced to call off the assault because they could not withstand the high rate of losses; the infantry in the assault battalions and the armored support vehicles were too battered to continue. They are preparing for Ukrainian counterattacks and concentrating their reserves to create an advantage in two areas:

1. North of Avdiivka at Stepove-Berdychi, to cut off the main road to the city.

2. South of Avdiivka to Vodyane, the air defense unit known as Zenit will create a threat to cover Avdiivka from the south and try to turn the front towards Nevelske.

The enemy has advanced in both directions, and further advancement will pose a severe threat of destabilizing the front near Donetsk. However, the Ukrainian command is aware of the danger.

Ukraine has shown that it has the strength to defend the city

We have serious trump cards to turn the tide in Avdiivka in our favor. The enemy's advanced positions are very vulnerable. We have at least two brigades in the area that have an undeniable advantage over the enemy in terms of combat control. Thus, the 110th Brigade, provided it is replenished in time, as the repulsed assault showed, is ready to repel direct attacks by the enemy, who outnumbers it 3-4 times.

It is essential to thank the 2nd Battalion of the Presidential Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, separate battalions of the 129th and 116th TRO Brigades, the 31st Mechanized Brigade, and special forces of the Security Service of Ukraine and the National Guard of Ukraine for repelling the assault on the city.

The 53rd Mechanized and 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade soldiers fought bravely to the city's south.

In general, there are opportunities to break the enemy near the city, to impose the initiative and a rate of losses that will make it impossible to hold these two directions from which Avdiivka is under threat.

The battle will be difficult. For Russia in Donbas, creating a controlled zone around Donetsk is crucial to use it as a communications and basing hub.

However, Ukraine has shown that it has the strength to defend the city and successfully crush Russian strike forces confidently.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
FILE - Steve Bell, a veteran cartoonist with Britian's Guardian newspaper, talks to the Associated Press at the launch of an exhibition of cartoons depicting President Bush in London, England, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006. The Guardian newspaper has fired longtime editorial cartoonist Steve Bell after refusing to run a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics said drew on antisemitic imagery. The Guardian said the decision has been made not to renew Steve Bells contract. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

LONDON (AP)  The Guardian newspaper has fired longtime editorial cartoonist Steve Bell after refusing to run a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics said drew on antisemitic imagery.

The decision has been made not to renew Steve Bells contract, the Guardian said.

Steve Bells cartoons have been an important part of the Guardian over the past 40 years  we thank him and wish him all the best, publisher Guardian News and Media said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Thursday.

Bell has contributed to The Guardian since 1983. Several of his hundreds of cartoons over the years have been accused of including anti-Jewish stereotypes. The latest cartoon, posted by Bell on social media, shows Netanyahu holding a scalpel and preparing to cut a Gaza-shaped incision in his abdomen, with the caption Residents of Gaza, get out now.

It is labeled after David Levine and recalls a Vietnam War-era cartoon depicting U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson pointing at a Vietnam-shaped scar. American illustrator Levine drew inspiration from a photo of Johnson showing reporters his scar from gall-bladder surgery.

Bell said he had been accused of evoking the pound of flesh demanded by the Jewish character Shylock in Shakespeares play The Merchant of Venice.

He told industry newspaper the Press Gazette that The Merchant of Venice had nothing to do with the cartoon.

I dont promote harmful antisemitic stereotypes.  Never have I done such a thing, I would not dream of doing such a thing, the publication quoted him as saying.

Britain has a long tradition of cartoons showing politicians in exaggerated and grotesque form. Bell has created some of the most indelible caricatures of recent British leaders, portraying former Prime Minister John Major wearing underpants over his trousers, Tony Blair with a demonic oversized eye and David Cameron with a condom over his head.
FILE PHOTO: Guatemala's Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras attend a meeting with the Nominating Committee for the election of the Attorney General, in Guatemala City

FILE PHOTO: Guatemala's Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras attend a meeting with the Nominating Committee for the election of the Attorney General, in Guatemala City

By Sofia Menchu

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala's attorney general, a steadfast opponent of President-elect Bernardo Arevalo, has crafted a complex strategy to weaken his mandate or prevent him from taking office, according to five sources with knowledge of the prosecutor's thinking.

Guatemala is in the throes of a political crisis that has seen historic demonstrations paralyze Central America's most populous country, forcing the cancellation of flights.

At the center is Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras, who protesters blame for attempting to prevent Arevalo from taking office on Jan. 14. She faces international condemnation, including from the United States.

Anti-graft campaigner Arevalo won a shock landslide victory in August but has received a backlash from the political establishment.

Porras faces loud calls to resign, including from Arevalo who accuses her of an attempted coup, but the prosecutor is instead pushing forward with a multi-pronged strategy to block him, according to the sources who have participated in strategy meetings.

"She continues to have the support of the outgoing president Alejandro Giammattei and the conservative elite and they are going to do everything to ensure Arevalo does not take office," one of the sources said.

To be sure, Porras' investigations into Arevalo and his Semilla party have not so far succeeded and courts have blocked earlier attempts to suspend Semilla.

But Porras's continued push has clouded the government transition and could lead her to pursue an arrest warrant against Arevalo when a court order blocking a previous Semilla suspension request expires Oct. 31, sources said.

Porras, in a statement through her spokesperson, said she has always acted in strict compliance with the law.

Porras aims to inject confusion by discrediting the vote and suspending Semilla, the sources said.

One of three legal cases she aims to pursue seeks to prove the electoral tribunal (TSE) purchased vote-counting software known as TREP at an elevated price, possible grounds to accuse election officials of fraud, sources said.

Porras also plans to discredit the voting data capture system that displays preliminary results by comparing the information to manually-recorded data, the sources said.

Any discrepancies could call election results into question.

Another Porras tack, the sources said, is using alleged examples of false voter signatures registered to Semilla to suspend the party.

Prosecutors raided Semilla's headquarters as well as the TSE in September, seizing documents from both.

Arevalo has previously said his election win cannot be overturned.

International condemnation of Porras has been strong. Luis Almagro, head of the Organization of American States (OAS), has said the actions of the attorney general's office had set "a shameful example."

The U.S. State Department has since 2021 included Porras on a list of corrupt and undemocratic actors.

Outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei has said he cannot by law ask Porras to resign, despite growing public pressure.

"The attorney general is not going to resign from her position," Porras' spokesperson added.

Arevalo's allies insist arresting him is impossible because his election victory grants him immunity.

"Those scenarios have no legal basis," said Jose Carlos Sanabria, a recently-elected Semilla congressman.

Blocking Arevalo from taking office would throw Guatemala into deeper turmoil, said Tamara Taraciuk, Rule of Law program director at the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank.

Protesters have occupied the headquarters of the public prosecutors office and shut down some main thoroughfares.

Blockades began peacefully - with participants staging dances and yoga classes - but turned violent in recent days. One person was killed in the clashes with armed groups Monday. Many blockades have since been lifted.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu, writing by Cassandra Garrison; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Rod Nickel)
GUTHRIE, Okla. (KFOR)  The recipe for what it takes to scare us is pretty simple, according to Guthrie Haunts owner, John Pagonis.

For the past 13 years, hes been doing just that.

My secret? Pagonis smiles. My secret is, it has to scare me. If it scares me, itll scare you.

A new Route 66 attraction with a Dust Bowl feel

Take simple items, junk to most people.

Distress it, melt it, splatter it with red paint, and turn off the lights.

That usually does the trick for the usual haunted houses.

But Pagonis says, We want to be the scariest haunt in Oklahoma.

If you want to stay in this crazy business, you have to keep going.

The ante goes up every October.

John says, We want to give people a really memorable experience.

Thats why Pagonis continues his macabre search among places like marker companies.

They occasionally make deadly mistakes.

Pointing to several marble tombstones decorating the exit to his haunt, he cautions, Theyre basically misprints.

Sir Indiana Bones is a lucky black cat at Skulls Unlimited in OKC

Increasing the scary ratio is also why he keeps adding the time it takes to get through his haunt.

Five years ago, it took the average visitor about 45 minutes to come out the other side,

It takes much longer now.

Johns standards harken back to the haunts at Bricktown and the Fairgrounds when he was young.

Those were some scary places, he recalls.

With sound effects and with innocent things like drips of warm water raining down from the roof of a hearse which he insists feels just like blood.

We have people crawl through here, he chuckles.

With scary clowns and severed limbs, he takes a shotgun approach to fear and loves it best when his customers make it out barely alive.

I watch for reactions like, man. that was the best ever!' he says. Thats what makes me feel best, is those kinds of reactions as people leave.

Find more information on the Guthrie Haunts website.

Great State is sponsored by Oklahoma Proton Center

Follow Galens Great State adventures on social media!

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
After 14-year-old Rashell Ward was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and shot dead while walking to her Seventh Day Adventist school in 1983, a notorious serial killer named Henry Lee Lucas took responsibility.

Lucas, however, was as mendacious as he was violent, and detectives quickly found inconsistencies in his statement and determined that his confession was one of hundreds of false claims he would make through the years.

At another point in the investigation, rumors that the sheriff was the culprit ran rampant through Red Bluff, California, a small city in the Sacramento River Valley that was rocked by Rashells abduction and slaying.

No evidence supported any of these rumors through the years of investigation, said the current Tehama County sheriff, Dave Kain. (A grand jury investigated allegations former Sheriff Ron Koenig was part of a child-porn ring, but he was cleared.)

None of the other leads in the case panned out, either, and none of the suspects investigated by police over the decades were identified as Rashells killer.

But in a now-familiar turn of events, 40 years after the teens body was discovered near the Pine Creek Bridge, police say they know who put her therethanks to a new investigative technique known as genetic genealogy that has closed a slew of other cold cases.

Investigators were able to use DNA collected from the crime scenea single strand of hair, which was largely useless to them at the timeto create a genetic profile of the murderer. They then compared that profile to the millions of other profiles captured by family-tree sites like Ancestry to search for possible relatives.

That process led them to a name: Johnny Coy. And Coys background led them to believe they were on the right track.

A resident of Red Bluff, Coy had a violent history. In 1989, he kidnapped a mother and her 21-year-old daughter at gunpoint and sexually assaulted the daughter. After being convicted in that crime, he was sentenced to life in prisonand that is where he died in 2019.

Authorities were able to obtain a DNA sample from his incarceration and it matched the hair strand found with Rashell.

The Tehama County Sheriffs Office is pleased to offer the family of Rashell Ward closure in this case after all these years, Kain said at a press conference on Wednesday.

We are also pleased to be able to clear the name of former Sheriff Koenig of any criminal involvement in this case. The Tehama County Sheriffs Office now considers this case solved and closed.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Yahia al-Sinwar, the Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has been described as a 'dead man walking' by Israel (Mohammed ABED)

Two accused masterminds of Hamas's October 7 attacks sit at the top of Israel's hit list as it threatens that every member of the militant group faces death when it invades Gaza.

Military strategist Mohammed Deif and political leader Yahya Sinwar have already spent time in Israeli or Palestinian jails and been the targets of multiple assassination attempts.

The hunt for the two most senior Hamas leaders in the beleaguered Gaza Strip will be fierce this time.

In the war of words leading up to the impending ground offensive, Israel has said that Sinwar is "a dead man walking".

Over 1,400 people, the majority civilians, have died since the October 7 attack in Israel, which has responded with an aerial bombing campaign on Gaza that has killed over 3,700 people, also mostly civilians.

"Hamas terrorists have two options: Be killed or surrender unconditionally. There is no third option," Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said.

Hamas spokesmen have responded that the Palestinian Islamist group is "not scared".

Security sources outside Gaza say Deif and Sinwar have been embedded in the enclave's network of tunnels -- built to resist Israel's air assault -- since hundreds of Hamas fighters crossed the border to hit kibbutz communities, towns and military bases.

But even before the latest Hamas assault, the pair spent years operating in the shadows.

Israel has particularly singled out the 61-year-old Sinwar who was elected Hamas leader in Gaza in 2017 after Ismail Haniyeh went into exile.

Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht called Sinwar the "face of evil" and declared him a "dead man walking".

Sinwar was one of the founding members of Hamas during the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 1987 and rose through the ranks as a fierce advocate of armed struggle.

A graduate of the Islamic University in Gaza, Sinwar learned Hebrew while spending 23 years in Israeli jails.

He was serving four life terms for the killing of two Israeli soldiers when in 2011 he became the most senior of 1,000 Palestinians released in exchange for the French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

- In the shadows -

Sinwar and Deif were both born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza and both were added in 2015 to the United States' list of most wanted "international terrorists".

Hamas is also branded a terrorist organisation by the United States and European Union.

Much less is known however about Deif, Israel's number one public enemy for the past two decades during which he has been accused of organising suicide attacks, kidnappings and other raids.

There is only one known full-face photo of the chief of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, which is at least 20 years old. The others show him either in a mask or standing in the shadows to avoid identification.

An audio message from Deif was transmitted by Hamas media on the morning of the attacks which were dubbed "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood".

"The rage of our people and our nation is exploding," he said.

Deif was born Mohammed Diab al-Masri in 1965.

His assumed name means "Guest" in Arabic and he reportedly never spends more than one night in the same place. Enemies have dubbed him the "cat with nine lives" as he has faced at least six failed assassination attempts.

Deif's wife and at least one child were killed in an Israeli air strike during the 2014 Gaza war. Deif has reportedly lost one eye and been disabled by the various attempts but it has not weakened his influence.

He has been involved with Hamas since the 1980s and was arrested at the start of the second intifada but escaped, or was released, from a Palestinian Authority prison in 2000. He became head of the Hamas military wing in 2002 and has been Israel's bete noire ever since.

Israel has sent a firestorm of warnings to the Hamas leaders on top of the thousands of airstrikes since October 7.

"Every member of Hamas is a dead man," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But experts say that eliminating Sinwar and Deif would severely weaken but not crush Hamas, which is Israel's declared aim.

"Sinwar and Deif are clearly first priority leadership, the loss of which would damage Hamas, but one presumes that the group has contingencies about their loss," said H.A. Hellyer, an international security specialist at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

tw/jd/jsa
Yahia al-Sinwar, the Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has been described as a 'dead man walking' by Israel (Mohammed ABED)

Israel has threatened that every Hamas member faces death when it invades Gaza but two accused masterminds of the October 7 attacks are at the top of its hit list.

Military strategist Mohammed Deif and political leader Yahya Sinwar have already spent time in Israeli or Palestinian jails and been the targets of multiple attempts to kill them.

The hunt for the two most senior Hamas leaders in the besieged Gaza Strip will be fierce this time.

In the war of words leading up to the impending ground offensive, Israel has said that Sinwar is "a dead man walking" after Hamas fighters killed about 1,400 people and abducted more than 200 in the worst attacks suffered by Israel since its creation 75 years ago.

Israel has responded with a withering bombardment of Gaza that has killed more than 3,700 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and with a volley of deadly warnings.

"Hamas terrorists have two options: Be killed or surrender unconditionally. There is no third option," Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said.

Hamas spokesmen have responded that the Palestinian Islamist group is "not scared".

Security sources outside Gaza say Deif and Sinwar are now embedded in a network of tunnels built to resist the bombing campaign launched after the brutal attacks on communities and military bases near the border shook Israel to its core.

But the pair have spent years operating in the shadows.

Israel has singled out the 61-year-old Sinwar, who was elected Hamas leader in Gaza in 2017 after Ismail Haniyeh became the movement's supreme leader. Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht called Sinwar the "face of evil" and declared him a "dead man walking".

Sinwar was a founding member of Hamas in 1987 during the first Palestinian intifada or uprising and rose through the ranks as a fierce advocate of armed struggle.

A graduate of the Islamic University in Gaza, he learned Hebrew during 23 years in Israeli jails.

Sinwar was serving four life terms for the killing of two Israeli soldiers when in 2011 he became the most senior of 1,100 Palestinians released in exchange for French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

- In the shadows -

Sinwar and Deif were both born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza and added to the United States' list of most wanted "international terrorists" in 2015.

Hamas is blacklisted as a "terrorist organisation" by the European Union as well as the United States.

Much less is known about Deif, Israel's number one public enemy for the past two decades during which he has been accused of organising suicide attacks, kidnappings and other raids.

There is only one known full-face photo of the commander of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing. It is at least 20 years old. The others show him either in a mask or standing in the shadows to avoid identification.

An audio message from Deif was transmitted by Hamas media on the morning of the attacks dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

"The rage of our people and our nation is exploding," he said.

Deif was born Mohammed Diab al-Masri in 1965.

His assumed name means "Guest" in Arabic and he reportedly never spends more than one night in the same place. Enemies have dubbed him the "cat with nine lives" as he has survived at least six attempts to kill him.

Deif's wife and at least one child were killed in an Israeli air strike during the 2014 Gaza war. Deif has reportedly lost one eye and been left disabled by the attempts on his life but it has not weakened his influence.

He has been involved with Hamas since the 1980s and was arrested at the start of the second intifada but escaped, or was released, from a Palestinian Authority prison in 2000. He became head of the Hamas military wing in 2002 and has been Israel's bete noire ever since.

Israel has sent repeated warnings to the Hamas leadership since October 7.

"Every member of Hamas is a dead man," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But experts say that eliminating Sinwar and Deif would severely weaken but not crush Hamas, which is Israel's declared aim.

"Sinwar and Deif are clearly first priority leadership, the loss of which would damage Hamas, but one presumes that the group has contingencies about their loss," said H.A. Hellyer, an international security specialist at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

tw/kir
The Biden administration on Thursday proposed labeling a cryptocurrency practice that provides customers with anonymity as a money laundering concern, amid a larger effort to crack down on illicit uses of crypto in the wake of Hamas surprise attacks on Israel.

The Treasury Departments Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said the rule would identify international crypto mixing  a practice that anonymizes crypto funds by mixing them with others  as a primary money laundering concern and would require financial institutions to report transactions involving crypto mixing.

Todays action underscores Treasurys commitment to combating the exploitation of Convertible Virtual Currency mixing by a broad range of illicit actors, including state-affiliated cyber actors, cyber criminals, and terrorist groups, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement.

The Treasury Department also announced a new slate of sanctions against Hamas on Wednesday, targeting several of the militant groups members, a top commander, a Qatar-based financial facilitator and a cryptocurrency exchange based in Gaza.

More broadly, the Treasury Department is aggressively combating illicit use of all aspects of the CVC ecosystem by terrorist groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Adeyemo added.

After Hamas launched a complex array of attacks from the Gaza Strip earlier this month that took Israeli forces by surprise, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Palestinian militant group had received about $41 million in crypto in the last two years.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group based in Gaza, received as much as $93 million in crypto, according to the Journal.

American regulators have acted swiftly in cracking down on perceived funding sources.

The U.S. Treasury has a long history of effectively disrupting terror finance and we will not hesitate to use our tools against Hamas, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

More than 100 lawmakers sent a letter to the Biden administration on Tuesday requesting information about the role crypto played in financing the recent Hamas attacks, as well as the administrations plans to address the issue.

Congress and this Administration must take strong action to thoroughly address crypto illicit finance risks before it can be used to finance another tragedy, the lawmakers wrote in Tuesdays letter.

The new crypto rule will remain open for public comment in the Federal Register for 90 days before being finalized.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh has long been based in the Qatari capital Doha, where he has met foreign diplomats and addressed pro-Palestinian demonstrations (KARIM JAAFAR)

The spiralling conflict in Gaza has put Qatar's hosting of a Hamas office under close scrutiny and could force a re-evaluation of ties between the Gulf state and the Palestinian militants, analysts say.

Middle East analyst Andreas Krieg, who was based in Qatar between 2013 and 2016, said Doha, would have to "push back" in its relationship with Hamas.

"I think there is a realisation that something's got to give in terms of that relationship, depending on what the USA administration are requesting," Krieg said.

Hamas militants stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, killing at least 1,400 people and taking hostage some 200 more, according to Israeli officials.

In Gaza, more than 3,700 Palestinians have been killed in relentless Israeli bombardments in retaliation for the attacks, according to the latest toll from the Hamas-run health ministry.

Qatar has been engaged in intense diplomacy behind the scenes and has been linked to negotiations for a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas because of its open channels with the militant group.

But as Israel has pounded Gaza with the stated aim of obliterating Hamas, Qatar's close ally the United States has looked to squeeze the Islamist group.

On Wednesday, Washington sanctioned 10 Hamas operatives it said had been involved in financing and facilitating Hamas in Gaza, Turkey and Algeria, including Ahmad 'Abd Al-Dayim Nasrallah, a senior official based in Qatar.

- 'Communication channel' -

A Qatari official told AFP that Hamas's political office was "opened in Qatar in 2012 in coordination with the United States government, following a US request to open a communication channel".

"Hamas's political office has frequently been used in key mediation efforts coordinated across multiple US administrations to stabilise the situation in Gaza and Israel," the official added.

Following the same pattern, Qatar invited the Taliban to open a political office in Doha in 2013, with the blessing of then US president Barack Obama.

But during a visit to Qatar last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the Gulf state about its close ties with Hamas, whose Doha office doubles as the main residence of its self-exiled leader Ismail Haniyeh.

"There can be no more business as usual with Hamas," the top US diplomat said.

Qatar has provided financial aid to the Gaza Strip for years, which officials in Doha have said is "fully coordinated with Israel, the UN and the US".

Qatar's Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani defended the Hamas office, saying it was a way "of communicating and bringing peace and calm to the region".

But for Krieg, "in terms of optics, there has to be some sort of dissociation between Haniyeh and Qatar".

He said Doha could potentially continue to host Hamas but it needed to establish "some sort of distance between the leadership of Hamas and Qatari policymakers".

- 'Prioritisation' -

Qatar is home to the largest US military base in the Middle East and Washington backed the small but strategic Gulf state during a four-year blockade by its neighbours led by Saudi Arabia.

"I think this is a clear prioritisation of relationships for Qatar," Middle East analyst Sanam Vakil said.

"Their relationship and investment in bilateral ties with Washington will supersede any other ties it has in the region.

"For Washington, it's also worthwhile thinking that one of its partners has the ability to back-channel," she added.

Vakil, the director of Chatham House's Middle East programme, said she expected Qatar to "take some moves" to re-evaluate its association with Hamas and "over time distance itself from that relationship".

"But it will require, and I think this is a key point, the international community and the US to have a plan to address Palestinian self-determination," Vakil added.

The Hamas political bureau was set up in Qatar in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 amid US fears the Palestinian group might otherwise set up base in Iran or Lebanon, Krieg said.

Expelling Hamas leaders from Doha would create a similar situation now in which Western governments would "lose complete oversight and control over them".

"Qatar has quite a lot of leverage," Krieg said pointing to its role as a mediator with Iran in a prisoner exchange between Washington and Tehran last month.

He said the United States was "making sure the Qataris can speak to the Iranians and lay out what different operative options are and making sure this doesn't blow up completely".

csp/th/kir
US President Joe Biden (L) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) meet in Tel Aviv, Israel on October 18, 2023. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (R) also attended the meeting.



US President Joe Biden (L) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) meet in Tel Aviv, Israel on October 18, 2023. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (R) also attended the meeting.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden made a highly anticipated trip to Israel. The result was Biden vocalizing support for Israel, getting finite humanitarian aid to Gaza from Egypt and requesting for Israelis to not be overcome by their deadly agenda against Hamas.

I understand. Many Americans understand, Biden said before leaving Tel Aviv, You cant look at what has happened here ... and not scream out for justice. He also compared the Oct. 7 Hamas attack to what happened to America on Sept. 11, 2001.

Read more

Biden also said that this determination was supported by US intelligence on the incident. As they probably told you, I was very blunt with the Israelis, Biden stated on Air Force One to reporters as he returned to the U.S. Israel has been badly victimized, but the truth is if they have an opportunity to relieve the suffering of people who have nowhere to go, thats what they should do.

If they dont, he continued, theyll be held accountable in ways that may be unfair. The Biden administration will request Congress for more than $2 billion in combined aid for Israel and Ukraine.

Biden also said $100 million in aid will be provided to Gaza and the West Bank. The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas, Biden said. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.

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Harvard students and others took part in a die-in protest outside the universitys business school on Wednesday afternoon demanding an end to the violence in Gaza.

According to The Harvard Crimson, the demonstrators marched to Klarman Hall at Harvard Business School, where former President Barack Obama had been invited to speak at a summit.

Barry, Barry you cant hide, we charge you with genocide, and Free, free Palestine, protesters chanted during the demonstration. Obama did not appear for the planned event, however, after waking up with COVID-like symptoms on Wednesday morning, according to a statement.

The die-in was reportedly organized by Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and Graduate Students 4 Palestine in response to Tuesdays hospital bombing in Gaza, which Palestinian health officials said killed hundreds of people.

The undergraduate group reportedly authored the joint statement signed by Harvard student organizations that said it considered the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks that led to the deaths of 1,400 Israeli civilians and soldiers.

The letter, along with other statements from different American college student groups expressing solidarity with Palestinians after the attacks, triggered an angry backlash from employers, donors, and fellow students across the U.S., with some alleged signatories having job offers rescinded and even their personal information published in doxxing campaigns.

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Solidarity Committee wrote that the organization considers Obama deeply implicated in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, the Crimson reports, on the grounds that he approved billions of dollars of military support to Israel.

We invoked the names of American presidents in our speeches because these politicians have been instrumental in upholding the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, through arms and military aid, impunity under international law, and the enabling of the apartheid system, the spokesperson added.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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The mother of a metro Atlanta man killed during a traffic stop in South Georgia said her son didnt deserve to die on the side of the road.

Mary Cure is calling for justice for her son. She spoke during a news conference Wednesday about the death of her son, 53-year-old Leonard Cure.

I hate Georgia, she said with emotion.

Mary Cure, from Florida, said the state has been harsh to her family.

Sorry, but this is my baby. And I want justice for him, Mary Cure said.

Her son Leonard was shot and killed by a Camden County deputy Monday morning.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

The sheriffs office released bodycam and dashcam video where the deputy pulled over Leonard Cure for speeding and reckless driving on I-95.

He initially complied with the deputys commands but then refused to put his hands behind his back to be arrested. Thats when the deputy threatened to Tase him.

Why am I getting Tased? Leonard Cure asked in the video.

Because you are under arrest for speeding and reckless driving, the deputy said.

Im not driving. Nobody was hurt, how was I speeding? Leonard Cure asked.

You passed me doing 100 miles per hour, the deputy said.

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The deputy Tased Leonard Cure. The video shows him pulling out the prongs and attacking the deputy, using profanity in the process. The deputy then shot and killed Leonard Cure.

His mother hadnt seen the video when she made this statement: I dont know what happened out there but I can tell you this there was nothing so bad that he deserved to die.

Leonard Cure had spent 16 years in Florida prisons for a crime he didnt commit. He was exonerated and released in 2020. He moved to metro Atlanta to start his new life.

Attorney Ben Crump believes Leonard Cures years behind bars for something he didnt do affected him psychologically.

When that officer said, Im going to arrest you and take you to jail, he was triggered, Crump said.

Mary Cure said her son had just left Florida after visiting her for the weekend. She said he video-chatted with her as he made his way home.

Then he said, I love you and Ill see you soon. Thats the last I heard from him, she said.

The state of Florida awarded Leonard Cure more than $800,000 for his wrongful conviction.

His family said the deputy should have been able to de-escalate the situation, but a law enforcement expert said Leonard Cure was in the process of seriously injuring the deputy and he had no choice but to use force to defend himself.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is now looking into the case.

RELATED NEWS:




On a sunny day last month, Sen. Josh Hawley showed up on the sidewalk of a busy road in Wentzville, trailed by journalists and staff, and stood with striking United Auto Workers.

Hawley was one of a handful of Republicans who visited a picket line shortly after workers at three of the countrys top automobile manufacturers  Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which makes Chryslers  voted to strike as they pushed for higher wages and better benefits.

He talked to workers who said they had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and said they wanted to be able to spend more time with their families.

And, like much about Hawley, his visit immediately sparked backlash.

Several Missouri union groups called it a symbolic gesture. Labor advocates and Democrats circulated a 2015 post from X, previously called Twitter, in which Hawley celebrated the legislative passage of an anti-union bill that forbids mandatory union membership.

It was a slap in the face of the workers, said Brandon Flinn, business manager of the Missouri  Kansas Laborers District Council. Hes playing upon the favorability of unions currently and ignoring his past.

Hawley is part of a wave of lawmakers trying to chart a new path for the Republican Party after former President Donald Trumps 2016 election upended the status quo of conservative politics. For Hawley, thats meant eschewing the traditional, business friendly stances espoused by Republicans in favor of the working class.

Ill say this until Im blue in the face, I think working people are absolutely vital, Hawley told The Star. Theyre vital to the country, the backbone of the country, and theyre going to be the backbone of our party or we will never be a majority party.

A series of strikes across industries  from actors, to baristas, to health workers  has drawn attention to labor unions in a way that hasnt been seen since the 1980s, Hawleys worker-first message has become central to his reelection bid in 2024.

But the space between Hawleys rhetoric and actions has become a leverage point for the Democratic Partys longshot attempt to defeat him in 2024. Democratic candidates are quick to call out what they say is Hawleys false populism, as they attempt to win back working class voters who have increasingly turned to the Republican Party.

Hawley has given speeches railing against the loss of American manufacturing jobs but voted against a bill aimed at boosting manufacturing in the semiconductor industry. Hes walked the picket line with auto workers, but blames the Biden administrations efforts to incentivize a transition to electric cars as the reason the companies arent paying workers.

He has failing grades from the AFL-CIO and the Communications Workers of America on his legislative scorecard and isnt endorsed by a single union in the state.

Weve been to at least a dozen picket lines, said Lucas Kunce , an Independence Democrat running for Senate. Josh Hawley showed up to the one thats in the most national news right now. Thats what the guy does. Hes just there for the cameras. And if you want to support workers, youve got to actually walk the walk, which hes never done.

Union membership has stayed relatively steady in Missouri over the past decade  10.6% of employees in Missouri were represented by unions in 2022, compared to 10.1% in 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it has fallen significantly since its peak in 1989, where unions represented about 15.5% of workers in the state.

As the percentage of people who belong to unions has declined, many former union workers are not getting communication from labor groups about the specific positions their elected officials are taking, said Bob Jacobi, executive director of the Labor-Management Council of Greater Kansas City, a nonprofit that works to build relationships between labor and management.

They may be more open to looking at more symbolic signs of support as opposed to, you know, he voted this way on this issue or that way on that issue, he said. Clearly, theres a perceived need by Republicans in Missouri and elsewhere to position themselves as pro-worker and to try to at least symbolically appear that way.

Hawley said he has evolved on workers issues since he posted a tweet calling for an end to union-backed Republican politicians in 2015, but the evolution has resulted in an unconventional approach to labor issues.

His failing legislative scorecard from major unions generally comes from the fact that Hawley votes against most bills and nominations in the Senate. His method of getting legislation through Congress rarely involves working behind closed doors to rally support. Instead he favors forcing votes on either legislation or amendments on the floor of the Senate.

But Hawley has made some legislative efforts to back workers. He was one of the few senators who voted with rail industry workers by opposing a deal crafted by the Biden administration to avert a railway strike.

On Thursday, he was the only Republican to co-sponsor a resolution by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, that calls for the Senate to stand in solidarity with striking UAW workers. But while he was eager to weigh in on behalf of the autoworkers and rail workers, hes taken a more passive approach to striking workers in other industries, like the high-profile screenwriters strike that stretched through the summer.

He also makes a distinction between supporting public sector unions representing teachers, air traffic controllers and other government workers about 33% of public sector workers are in unions, compared to just 6% in the private sector.

I just think that public sector unions for a long time have held government hostage, held vital government services for people hostage, and thats different, Hawley said. But when youre talking about private sector unions that are trying to get folks bargaining power, these multinational corporations, particularly in the last 30 years, theyre really less and less tied to this country and less and less tied to American workers.

Hawleys role in the Senate is generally agitator instead of legislator. When he does get legislation passed, he tends to force it through with a vote on the floor of the Senate, rather than working behind the scenes to secure support. Hell vote against large pieces of legislation, even if it contains provisions he pushed for, because its not what he would have written. He has voted against the majority of nominations Biden has sent to the Senate.

His hard-line approach has contributed to his low legislative scorecard among major unions  Hawley has a lifetime score of 12% with the AFL-CIO and an 18% with the CWA, in large part because of his votes against either nominees or large pieces of legislation the groups support.

Kunce, one of the Democrats running for Senate in 2024, has used Hawleys hard-line approach to Congress as a way to try and pry away some of the white working class voters who support Hawley. He points out that Hawley is a banker who went to Rockhurst High School and calls him a fraud who is pretending to be a populist.

Kunce, in an interview with The Star, said unions were critical to his campaign, calling them the states greatest election winning machine. He said his campaigns message  which includes the idea that unions are fighting to save Americas middle class  has resonated with organized labor.

So far, this approach has won Kunce the support of several unions in the state. In the most recent fundraising quarter, Kunce was supported by iron workers, machinists and the insulators union. Kunce has also specifically pointed to support from the Missouri State Council of Fire Fighters, a group that previously endorsed then-Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt in his successful bid for U.S. Senate last year.

Hawley has no known endorsements from union groups.

Were in a class war right now whether you like it or not, Kunce said. And the people who have initiated this war are trying to take everything away from us. They are truly buying off politicians and stripping our communities for parts and transferring our wealth to the shareholding class.

Kunce has effectively been running for Senate since 2021. He lost the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in 2022, relying on a similar populist message. And while hes proven to be a prolific fundraiser  Kunce brought in $1.5 million in the most recent fundraising quarter while Hawley raised about $1.7 million between his campaign account and his joint fundraising committee  his long campaign and financial advantage havent shown up in early polls.

Kunce has outraised other Democrats in the race by a 10 to 1 ratio.

In a recent poll conducted by Emerson College, Kunce fared slightly worse against Hawley than Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor who is also running in the primary. Kunce had the support of 32% of voters in a matchup against Hawley compared to Bells 34%.

Missouri workers are good at figuring out who will actually fight for them and who wont, Bell said in a written statement. Publicity stunts, and sometimes even endorsements, dont always tell the whole story. The ballot box is usually a better guide of who they think is on their side.

State Sen. Karla May, who is also running in the Democratic primary, said in a statement to The Star that she has been committed to standing with labor and touted her own union membership, including the Communications Workers of America and her leadership role with the St. Louis Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.

Throughout my career, I have been committed to standing with labor and advocating for the rights and interests of workers, she said.

While Democrats compete for support of organized labor groups  many of which rarely support Republican candidates  Hawleys rhetoric may be appealing to some workers directly, particularly as he rails about conservative social issues that often overwhelm the national political conversation.

Lenny Jones, the president of the Missouri and Kansas branch of the SEIU, which represents service workers, said Hawleys talk about workers has been able to peel off workers who may have once supported Democrats by using populist rhetoric. That messaging has tied together support for workers while emphasizing conservative stances on cultural issues.

We need to be able to talk to our members, not to get fooled by the populist rhetoric of Trump and Hawley, but to remember that, you know, there are pocketbook policy issues at stake, Jones said. There are legislative demands at stake that we need a member of the U.S. Senate to move on once they get elected.
A head-on collision Thursday in Sutter County caused by a suspected DUI motorist killed a 63-year-old man while also causing injuries to the suspect and his passenger, according to the California Highway Patrol.

A 27-year-old Yuba City man going at an unknown speed drove his 2008 Honda Accord into another motorists car on Highway 99, south of Sacramento Avenue, a news release said. It added the suspect showed signs of being under the influence and was arrested on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter and a DUI when officers went to the scene around 12:19 a.m.

The 63-year-old Yuba City victim is expected to be identified by the Sutter County coroner.

The suspect was taken to UC Davis Medical Center with major facial trauma and his passenger suffered moderate injuries, CHP said.

Officers said they were still investigating the crash and asked anyone with more information to call the CHPs office at 530-645-6200.
Gov. Maura Healey, with Quentin Palfrey, director of the state's Office of Federal Funds and Infrastructure, center, and Matthew Gorzkowicz the secretary of administration and finance, announce the state's intention of aggressively pursuing $17.6 billion in federal money to pay for statewide infrastructure projects, maintenance of existing assets and research and development projects.

BOSTON  With billions of dollars in federal funding at stake, Gov. Maura Healey on Thursday freed up $800 million from interest accrued on the states $8 billion rainy day fund to use as the state aggressively pursues federal money.

Healey said $12 million would be allocated to help municipalities identify federal funding opportunities and prepare the best applications possible to compete for that money. Another $50 million will serve to ensure the state and municipalities have cash on hand when federal funding is contingent on local or state matches.

The funds will be added to $2 billion already in reserve from other funding sources, including the Capital Investment Plan, in budgets through fiscal 2028. Healey attributed the successes already enjoyed by the state in part to having matching funds to commit to specific projects.

This is an important, exciting new step to win federal funding, Healey said at a morning press conference where she gathered her administrative team. Healey also memorialized the creation of the federal funds and infrastructure office, and its director, Southborough native Quentin Palfrey. She created the office soon after her inauguration.

Its important we hustle, compete to get every last federal dollar available, Healey said. She praised the Biden administration for its investment in infrastructure, noting that the president funneled trillions of dollars toward the rebuilding of the nation.

Office already boasts successes

The administration says that, since Palfrey's office was created:

Massachusetts has been awarded $108 million by the U.S. Department of Transportation for the West-East railroad project.

The state was designated as a microelectronics hub for research and development of chip technology. That designation by the Department of Defense brings $20 million to Massachusetts the first year, with the potential of $100 million overall.

The state received a clean energy grant for $250 million.

The state also received funding for the Allston multimodal transportation project.

And Healey cited the state's aggressive application for funding to address the aging Cape Cod bridges.

This is capital in hand, not borrowed money, Healey said.

One of Healeys top priorities is to ensure Massachusetts is in a position to aggressively chase federal funding opportunities, said Matthew Gorzkowicz, secretary of administration and finance.

With Massachusetts putting money on the table, the state is sending a clear message to Washington, D.C., that it is ready to start on projects, Gorzkowicz said. He pointed out that the funds are cash assets, not a plan to borrow matching funds that may be needed to attract the federal money.

State projects needing federal funds include addressing issues caused by deferred maintenance on the states existing assets. Many have already been approved by the Legislature but have been deferred.

Flanked by members of her administration, Gov. Maura Healey signs the paperwork that memorializes the Office of Federal Funds & Infrastructure and its director, Quentin Palfrey.

Were committed to fixing the infrastructure that has long needed attention, some TLC, Healey said.

Gorzkowicz pointed out that the principal in the states Stabilization Fund will not be touched and if financial conditions in Massachusetts deteriorate, the state will stop dipping into the accrued interest until the state returns to stable financial footing.

This is an opportunity for Massachusetts to make a transitional change, Palfrey said. Team Massachusetts is not just competing for federal funding but is applying to win.

Encouraging families to stay in Mass.

With federal and state investments, the Healey administration hopes the economy will grow.

This is a jobs engine, Healey said. She expects the influx of capital to fuel the construction industry, research and development, expansion of transportation and housing growth.

I dont want people leaving Massachusetts, its a great state. What isnt great is the high cost of housing, Healey said. Aggressively pursuing federal funding opportunities, coupled with a housing bond bill Healey is touting, will go a long way to keeping Massachusetts residents in the Bay State, Healey said.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Mass. Gov. Healey taps rainy day fund interest to court federal money
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. - A preliminary hearing was held Thursday afternoon for six of the seven people charged in connection to the body found inside the trunk of a car parked in a Gwinnett County shopping center on Sept. 12.

Junyeoug Lee, Hyunji Lee, Juoonhyum Lee, Gawom Lee, Joonho Lee and Mihee Lee were all present in Gwinnett County court.

RELATED: Several people arrested after body found in trunk of car in Gwinnett County

The defendants, who are alleged members of a religious group named Soldiers of Christ, are accused of beating, starving and torturing a 33-year-old woman named Sehee Choi in the basement of a home on Stable Gate in unincorporated Lawrenceville until she died.

After her death, Eric Hyun left a car with her body inside the trunk in a parking lot near Pleasant Hill Road and Interstate 85. He was then admitted to a hospital with injuries, which he later claimed he received from the other defendants. The body was discovered when Hyun asked his adoptive father to retrieve an item from the car and the family member called police.

Police say that the victim traveled to Georgia from South Korea to join the religious group. It is believed that she was imprisoned in the basement in the first week of August. The body found in the trunk only weighed 70 pounds.

RELATED: 'Soldiers of Christ': Prosecutors reveal new details about death of woman found in trunk of car

After Cho's death, Joonho and Hyunji Lee both reportedly discussed adding another Korean woman who was a student at Georgia Tech to their group after he talked with the unnamed woman about transferring colleges.

Each person is facing charges of felony murder, false imprisonment, tampering with evidence, concealing the death of another and gang activity.

Hyun was granted a $100,000 bond and must wear an ankle monitor. He is to have no contact with the Lee family or the Soldiers of Christ and must live with his parents in Atlanta.
DETROIT (FOX 2) - In a world far removed from the chaos of the Gaza Strip, two local healthcare professionals, nurse Diana Korsog and surgeon Dr. Todd Frush, are grappling with a heavy heart. The reason? The devastating attacks on hospitals in the Middle East. It's a poignant reminder of their recent volunteer mission, an experience that continues to resonate in their minds.

Korsog and Frush's journey began when they joined forces with Fajr Scientific, a group committed to aiding orthopedic patients in regions often plagued by conflict. They embarked on this life-altering trip to the Middle East just two months ago, never anticipating the profound impact it would have on their lives.

Korsog, a compassionate and dedicated nurse, shares her feelings about the ongoing conflict. "It's very difficult. I'll lead with that. It's very difficult because we were there two months ago. We were there on a medical mission, and it was always a dream of mine to go into an underserved part of the world." Her voice trembles with emotion as she recalls the warmth and gratitude she received from the people she met in the Gaza Strip.

As the two healthcare heroes reflect on the recent events, Dr. Todd Frush expressed his overwhelming sadness.

"Incredible sadness. Incredible sadness because there's a loss of life. A lot of innocent lives are being lost. A lot of good people over there that really need our help." The weight of the situation is clear in his voice as he contemplates the plight of the people he met on their mission.

During their volunteer work, Korsog and Frush provided critical care in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Korsog's first experience in the Gaza Strip exceeded her expectations.

"The Gaza Strip was my first experience, and it wasn't what I expected. It was better. The people are heartwarming. They're endearing. They were very thankful," she said.

Frush, who ventured into the West Bank, describes his experience as "rewarding" and perhaps "the most incredible trip" he's ever taken. Their journey was marked by life-changing encounters with people in need and the deep bonds they formed with the local healthcare professionals.

Amidst the ongoing crisis, the two healthcare professionals have maintained contact with the people they worked with during their mission. However, the news is far from reassuring.

"Not very good. Not very good. It's very difficult. They're working nonstop. Like I said, they're very dedicated, so in the hospital 24 hours a day. A lot of their families, many I know, their houses are gone now, so they're in the UN School residing in there," Korsug said.

In response to the dire situation in the Middle East, Fajr Scientific is actively collecting donations to support medical professionals who are already stretched thin with limited resources.

"There's a group that's looking to see what assistance they can provide at least on an urgent basis now, perhaps even providing some supplies," Dr. Frush said.

As they reflect on their mission and the ongoing turmoil, their hearts are heavy, as is their commitment to making a difference. The healthcare heroes from their local community have seen the pain and suffering, and they are determined to continue their efforts to provide assistance and support to those in need across the globe.
China to make greater contributions to healthy development of international human rights

09:10, October 19, 2023 By He Yin ( People's Daily

China was recently re-elected as a member of the Human Rights Council at the 78th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly for the term 2024 to 2026.

This is the sixth time that China has been elected to the Human Rights Council since its establishment in 2006, which fully demonstrates the international community's full recognition of China's achievements in the field of human rights and its active participation in international human rights cooperation.

As a founding member of the UN and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has always participated in UN human rights affairs with a responsible attitude, actively integrating into the global human rights governance system, and striving to promote the healthy development of international human rights undertakings.

China upholds the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and abides by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, earnestly fulfills its obligations to international human rights conventions and has ratified or joined 29 international human rights instruments, including six core UN human rights treaties. China has successfully participated in three rounds of Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council, becoming a role model of compliance.

Besides, the country also actively expands cooperation with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the High Commissioner's office, as well as the special procedures of the Human Rights Council, demonstrating the image of a responsible major country.

China holds a people-centered human rights philosophy and believes that a happy life for the people is the most important human right. It has found a path towards better human rights that follows the trend of the times and fits its national realities. It has made historic progress in its human rights cause.

China aims at increasing people's benefits, ensuring the people are their own masters and supporting development in an all-round way, and ensures that people enjoy a full range of human rights that are genuine, specific, effective, and functional.

China has built a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and established the world's largest education, social security, and medical and health care systems. It has made continuous efforts to develop whole-process people's democracy, and enhanced protection for the rights and interests of specific groups such as ethnic groups, women, children, older people, and those with disabilities. It has made the sky bluer, the mountains greener and the waters more lucid, increasing people's sense of fulfillment, happiness and security.

A European journalist said that each country can follow a human rights path that suits its national conditions, realizing the people's aspirations for a better life and instilling confidence in future development. "China has set a very good example in this regard," the journalist noted.

China has always attached importance to participating in the reform of the global human rights governance system, advocating for bigger voice and rights of developing countries, and steering global human rights governance toward greater fairness, equity and inclusiveness.

China is a vigorous proponent of reform of the UN special mechanisms for protecting human rights; it played a significant role in the negotiations and final vote on establishing the UN Human Rights Council. Its proposals were recognized by most countries.

China supports the establishment of specialized mechanisms within the UN Human Rights Council, such as those addressing the right to development, the right to food, and unilateral coercive measures.

China advocates for special conferences on food security and global financial crisis, actively promotes international mechanisms for protecting human rights.

China has facilitated the adoption of Human Rights Council resolutions on "the contribution of development to the enjoyment of all human rights," "promoting mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of human rights" and "promoting and protecting economic, social and cultural rights within the context of addressing inequalities."

China practices true multilateralism, holds dear humanity's common values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom, and works to build a global community of shared future, providing new ideas for global governance, including human rights governance.

China's proposal to build a global community of shared future has been incorporated into more than 10 resolutions of the UN Human Rights Council, becoming an important part of the international discourse on human rights. Foreign scholars said this vision has brought hope to global human rights governance in challenging times.

China has put forward the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative, promoting human rights with development, safeguarding human rights with security, advancing human rights with cooperation, and contributing wisdom and solutions to building a world featuring "human rights for all."

Human rights are a symbol of human progress. Mankind shares a common goal to enjoy human rights. China views the re-election as a good opportunity to continue its active participation in global human rights governance, and extensive exchanges and cooperation with other countries to contribute even more to the sound advancement of the international human rights cause and the building of a global community of shared future.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Liang Jun)
You are here: Arts

A visitor views an exhibit at an exhibition held during the 2023 China Jingdezhen International Ceramic Expo in Jingdezhen City, east China's Jiangxi Province, Oct. 18, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhou Mi)

The 2023 China Jingdezhen International Ceramic Expo opened Wednesday in the city of Jingdezhen, a world-famous "porcelain capital" in east China's Jiangxi Province.



Themed "ceramics facilitate world communication; ceramic trade connects the world," this year's expo has a record exhibition area of 130,000 square meters.

Nearly 1,000 enterprises, including more than 360 from overseas, are attending the expo.

A cultural forum, an investment promotion meeting and an international ceramics purchasing fair are also scheduled during the expo.

The event is co-hosted by the Ministry of Commerce, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, the China National Light Industry Council and the provincial government of Jiangxi.

First held in 2004, the expo, formerly known as the China Jingdezhen International Ceramic Fair, has become a major platform to showcase the world's finest porcelain.

Over the past 20 years, the event has drawn a total of 2,500 overseas enterprises from 49 countries and regions, according to the organizers.
WARNING: Details in this case of abuse may be considered disturbing.

SUMNER COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN)  A man and woman are accused of abusing a child under eight years old in Sumner County for nearly a year and a half.

According to court documents, Norbert DSouza and Anette Rodrigues, 49, abused their now 7-year-old daughter between May 23, 2021 and October 2022.

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Norbert Dsouza (Courtesy: Sumner County Sheriffs Office)

Anette Rodrigues (Courtesy: Sumner County Sheriffs Office)

They were indicted on Oct. 5 on nine charges described as especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, or involved in the infliction of torture.

DSouza struck the child with a belt and twice forced her to consume human excrement, which caused her to become ill, according to court documents.

Rodrigues is accused of biting the girls fingers and toes, grabbing and scratching her all over her body, including twice on her vagina.

Both parents were charged with unlawfully and unknowingly failing to protect their child.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

Rodrigues was arrested on Oct. 19, 2022 after a Department of Childrens Services investigator notified a White House police detective about the potential abuse of an elementary school child.

According to an affidavit, the then 6-year-old girl had lacerations and tear marks from fingernails on her neck. The girl reportedly told the DCS investigator Rodrigues grabbed her by the neck because she didnt say her prayers and eat her breakfast fast enough.

Rodrigues told the detective the girl hurt herself playing with a knife but when isolated from her mother, the child told investigators her mother choked her until she could not breathe, according to arrest documents.

The DCS investigator and detective then removed the girl from her parents custody, which is when DSouza begged them not to take the child away while Rodrigues said nothing. She was then placed in the custody of Rodrigues employer. Rodrigues was then charged with aggravated domestic assault.

DSouza and Rodrigues were booked in the Sumner County jail Wednesday. They are being held on a $150,000 bond each.

No additional 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.
We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence. Thus spake 34 signatories of the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine on the night of Hamass October 7 massacre of 1,400 unarmed civilians. Now the undersigned have gone underground. You can still find the letter on the website of The Harvard Crimson, but not any sign of which groups endorsed it. The Crimson explains: This statement was co-authored by a coalition of Palestine solidarity groups at Harvard. For student safety, the names of all original signing organizations have been concealed at this time. The Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee, meanwhile, is blocking public access to its own website.

Its a depressing sign of the times that when your public statement causes offense, you can retract authorship in lieu of retracting the statement itself (though at least five signers, the Crimson reported, retracted the old-fashioned way by renouncing their endorsement). Another sign of the times is that trying to hide the names of groups that previously went public with a controversial statement isnt very effective. Its a big internet, and one can still, with a little effort, locate that list. I was curious to know which student organizations signed on because I wanted to see whether they included any I belonged to during the late 1970s, when I was a Harvard undergraduate. They did not. What would I have done if they did? Registered private annoyance, probably, and left it at that. Possibly Id have sought an opportunity to argue, publicly or privately, with the student organization in question, though Im already on record stating my own, very different, view of Hamass Jew-killing spree.

What I absolutely would not have done is try to leverage any influence I might have (virtually none, in this instance, but set that aside) to punish the student groups, or the individuals within them. Thats what conservatives call cancel culture, a phenomenon that many on the left pretend doesnt exist. But it does exist, and its being deployed right now with a vengeance against that portion of the left thats trying to explain away the events of October 7 as a blow for resistance and freedom.

A dozen business leaders have demanded, Joe McCarthystyle, that Harvard release the names of students who belong to the organizations that signed the Hamas letter, so as to insure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members, according to Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management. Moreover, Ackman wrote, the names of the signatories [i.e., the individual students, not the student groups] should be made public so their views are publicly known. He said all this on the social platform formerly known as Twitter.

Ackmans position is outrageous, for a couple of reasons. First, blackballing a bunch of college students based on their political views is abhorrent. The reasons should be obvious, but Ill state them anyway:

a) Theyre college students, for Christs sake.

b) Even if they werent, theyd have a right to express their opinions.

Are there limits to what potential employers should tolerate? Should Company X refuse to hire Person Y because hes made overtly antisemitic or racist or similarly toxic statements outside the workplace? Company X has that legal right, but it should be exercised with extreme reluctance. Thats not whats been happening lately. The high-profile cases tend to be left-wing witch hunts, but the more common cases are right-wing witch hunts. A childhood friend of mine, for instance, got fired by Goodwill Industries for being a Communist. Even the worst political associations should be considered in context. Recall that Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd served their country honorably despite their youthful (and much-regretted) participation in the Ku Klux Klan.

Another reason Ackmans demand is outrageous is that its hypocritical. I have been asked by a number of CEOs if Harvard would release a list of the members, Ackman tweeted. Who are these CEOs? Why should these big shots enjoy anonymity when, if Ackman had his way, Harvard students would not? We know these corporate vigilantes number one dozen only because thats what the New York Post reported, based on responses to Ackmans tweet that it found on X and elsewhere. Here are their names:

Jonathan Newman, CEO of Sweetgreen

David Duel, CEO of EasyHealth

Ale Resnik, CEO of Belong

Jake Wurzak, CEO of DoveHill Capital Management

Michael Broukhim, CEO of FabFitFun

Stephen Ready, CEO of Inspired

Hu Montague, founder of Diligent

Martin Varsavsky, tech entrepreneur

Michael McQuaid, head of decentralize finance at Bloq

Art Levy, head of strategy at Brex

Thats actually 11, including Ackman, but never mind. Duel went the extra mile, posting individual student names online, prompting LinkedIn to suspend his account. Duel told Fox News he was unrepentant: We need to make sure these students pay a price and that their neighbors, friends, and employers know that they harbor these beliefs. The right-wing group Accuracy in Media hired a doxxing truck to drive around Harvard Square billboarding the names of student members of the organizations that signed the Hamas letter under the words Harvards Leading Antisemites. Whatever happened to picking on somebody your own size?

That wasnt the end of it. The shipping magnate Idan Offer and his wife, Batia, who have donated, according to their spokesperson, substantial funds to the university, quit the executive board of Harvards Kennedy School because they didnt like Harvards response to the massacre. The universitys statement was a little slow in coming, as former Harvard president Larry Summers pointed out two days after the massacre. But cut Harvard President Claudine Gay a little slack. She was installed only three months ago, and after the prod from Summers she released one statement that distanced Harvard from the student statement and condemned terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas and then a second statement condemning Hamass barbaric atrocities. The Wexner Foundation, a Jewish philanthropy that had funded a multimillion-dollar Kennedy School program for Israeli government officials, followed the Offers lead.

Not to be outdone, seven congressional Republicans who were Harvard alumni sent Gay a letter Friday condemning her for producing too little too late. As Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a Harvard alum, told the Crimson, these same Republicans who are in such a hurry to denounce Harvards too-weak response to the Hamas raid couldnt bring themselves to condemn the violent insurrection that overran the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

These Republican members of Congress werent trying to cancel Gay, exactly, because they know they lack that power. They were just grandstanding to reassure their hard-right constituents that they arent those type of Harvard graduates. But if to cancel means to bully to the point of causing real harm, then the 11 business leadersespecially Ackman and Duelare cancelers, and so are the Offers and the Wexner Foundation.

So are various University of Pennsylvania donors, including Marc Rowan, chief executive of Apollo Global Management, and Dick Wolf, producer of TVs Law and Order, who are calling for the resignation of President Liz Magill because she didnt speak out about Hamas quickly enough to suit them. They were also enraged by a September festival on Palestinian culture that the university hosted (but didnt sponsor). Before the festival, Magill acknowledged (in response to a letter from the Anti-Defamation League) that several of the speakers held views about Israel or about Jews that were deeply offensive. But she also pledged, appropriately, Penns commitment to open expression and academic freedom. That may cost her her job.

Ronald Lauder hopped on the bandwagon this week, saying, Let me be as clear as I can: I do not want any of the students at The Lauder Institute, the best and brightest at your university, to be taught by any of the instructors who were involved or supported this event. Let me be clear as I can: Whoever teaches students at the Lauder Institute, a management and international studies program at Penns Wharton School, is none of Lauders goddamned business. Hes a donor, not a dean. So far as I know, Lauder has not called for Magills resignation, but his temper tantrum put Magills job in peril. So did a related decision this week from the wealthy former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr., to cut off donations to Penn. Magill is reduced to issuing a series of escalating apologies that dont seem to do her any good.

The impulse to cancel also surfaced at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where, The New York Times reported last week, an award ceremony to honor the Palestinian novelist Adania Shibli was (quite literally) canceled due to the war in Israel. Shiblis novel Minor Detail apparently is based on the true story of a 1949 rape and murder of a Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers, and the ceremony was going to celebrate the books winning a prestigious German book prize. Now the ceremony will be delayed until the Frankfurt Book Fair is over. As the Times Pamela Paul observed Wednesday, taking a side in a war does not require taking positions on a work of fiction, and the decision not to host the ceremony amounts to demonizing a fiction writer and stifling her viewpoint.

Cancel culture isnt real, Sarah Hagi wrote four years ago in Time. Its time to cancel this talk of cancel culture, A.J. Willingham wrote for CNN two years later. Cancel culture is a myth, Kathryn Lofton wrote this past March in The Yale Review. I dont understand this fashionable denialism. The truth is that speech is being suppressed on all sides by organizations that are either insanely ideological (read: red state school boards) or terrified of controversy (read: every university in America). Yes, its worse when state government does it. And yes, the term cancel culture gets abused by the hard right, which uses it to shield hateful utterances that somehow became more socially acceptable after Donald Trump became president.

But people are getting ostracized or bullied into silence, and its got to stop. If you dont like this article, go ahead and argue with it. But please dont question my character, or endanger my safety, or try to get me fired, just because you disagree. Its especially urgent not to apply such tactics in a university setting, because thats where ideas come from. Lets have more discussion, please, and less shouting. We might learn something.
PHILADELPHIA, PA - OCTOBER 17: A fan of the Philadelphia Phillies holds up a sign during Game 2 of the NLCS between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Tuesday, October 17, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Brian Garfinkel/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

PHILADELPHIA - Last-minute trip to Arizona, anyone?

With just hours to go until the Phillies and Diamondbacks face off in Arizona, tickets to Game 3 are still selling for less than $20!

SeatGeek has the cheapest tickets listed at $16 for upper-level infield seats.

Want to get closer to the action? No problem! There are plenty of seats available for a range of prices: $70 for mid-level, $47 for outfield, and $123 for baseline.

You can even sit behind home plate for $319, which is less than a standing room only for a potential Game 6 back at the Bank next week!

Tickets for that game already range from $333 to $6,446 - and it may not even happen!

Phillies fever knows no limit, and who knows, maybe Arizona will see a Philly takeover this week.
A Hezbollah official is warning that the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group is "thousands of times stronger" than before, and that U.S., Israel and other "malicious Europeans" should be careful, reports say.

The comments were made Wednesday by senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine during a rally in a suburb of Beirut, where protesters also waved Hezbollah and Palestinian flags and chanted "Death to America and Israel," according to The Guardian.

"The response to the mistake you might make with our resistance will be resounding," Safieddine also was quoted by Reuters as saying. "Because what we have is faith, and God is stronger than you, all your battleships, and all your weapons."

The fiery remarks came on the same day President Biden visited Israel and cautioned other countries from becoming involved in the Israel-Hamas war.

LIVE UPDATES: ISRAEL AT WAR WITH HAMAS

Lebanese protesters carry Hezbollah and Palestinian flags during a demonstration in Beirut on Oct. 13.

"The world will know that Israel is stronger than ever. And my message to any state or any other hostile actor thinking about attacking Israel remains the same as it was a week ago. Don't, don't, don't," Biden said.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"And later this week, I'm going to ask the United States Congress for an unprecedented support package for Israel's defense. We're going to keep Iron Dome fully supplied to continue standing sentinel over Israeli skies, saving Israeli lives," he added. "We moved U.S. military assets to the region, including positioning the USS Ford carrier strike group in the eastern Mediterranean with the USS Eisenhower on the way to deter further aggression against Israel and to prevent this conflict from spreading."

HAMAS TERRORISTS LIKELY USED NORTH KOREAN WEAPONS DURING BRUTAL ATTACK ON ISRAEL, EVIDENCE SHOWS

Hezbollah also said two of its fighters were killed in southern Lebanon Wednesday while a third is in serious condition, according to Reuters.

The militant group has been engaging in skirmishes with Israeli forces along the countrys border in recent days as concerns are emerging of them becoming further involved in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The Israel Defense Forces said late last night that nine rockets and several anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Wednesday, including four that were intercepted.

Protesters clash with Lebanese security forces on Wednesday outside the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon during a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

It said it responded by "returning fire to the origin of the strikes" and "striking Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure using tank fire," according to a post on X.





Original article source: Hezbollah says it's 'thousands of times stronger' than before, warns US, Israel: report
Hidden rooms found in Egyptian pyramid may contain pharaohs riches, archaeologists say

Archaeologists have uncovered a number of previously undocumented storage rooms within Egyptian pharaoh Sahuras pyramid that may hold treasures from ancient royals.

As part of a conservation and restoration project, Egyptologists, led by Mohamed Ismail Khaled from Julius-Maximilians-Universitat (JMU) in Germany, have been cleaning the interior rooms and stabilising the pyramid from inside, preventing it from further collapse.

In the process, they have uncovered the pyramids burial chambers, which had previously been inaccessible.

The new yet-to-be peer-reviewed findings shed fresh light on the architecture of the pyramid of Sahura, who was the second king of the Fifth Dynasty (2400 BC) and the first to be buried at the ancient Egyptian archaeological pyramid complex Abusir.

Abusir is the name of an elaborate burial area in Egypt, dotted with 19 pyramids and other temples, stretching on the western side of the Nile from the south of the Giza Plateau to the northern rim of Saqqara, researchers explained in the 2022 study.

During their restoration work, archaeologists found the original dimensions, and could uncover the floor plan of the antechamber, which had deteriorated over time.

Over two centuries, temperature changes, windy conditions, high humidity, and earthquakes have led to some parts of the pyramid collapsing.

The pyramid itself is considered one of Egypts little-known but heavily damaged treasures.

As part of efforts since 2019, Egyptologists have replaced destroyed walls with new ones, and continued to excavate traces of a low passageway  suspected to exist first in 1836  but found to be full of debris and rubbish.

Researchers uncovered the passage and have found that it links up to eight storerooms so far which may contain ancient Egyptian funerary furniture.

Although the northern and southern parts of these magazines, especially the ceiling and the original floor, are badly damaged, remnants of the original walls and parts of the floor can still be seen, archaeologists noted in a statement.

They further understood the interior of these store rooms with careful documentation of their floor plans and dimensions.

Archaeologists were careful to balance between preservation and presentation during excavation to ensure that the structural integrity of the rooms were intact, making them accessible for future study and potentially the public.

Researchers also used 3D laser scanning to conduct detailed surveys inside the pyramid, allowing a comprehensive mapping of both the external areas and the narrow corridors as well as the chambers insides.

Using the frequent scans, they could create a permanent record of the exploration efforts.

The discovery and restoration of the storerooms is expected to revolutionize the view of historical development of pyramid structures and challenge existing paradigms in the field, scientists noted.
UPDATE: Missing hiker died in fall on Mt. Whitney trail in California

A hiker has been missing for days after setting out to hike the tallest mountain in California, rescuers said.

Now, authorities are searching for clues about his whereabouts.

On Oct. 17, Tom Gerbier planned a day-trip trek up Mount Whitney, the Inyo County Search and Rescue team said in a Facebook post.

But Gerbier hasnt been seen since, rescuers said.

He is described as French-speaking with blonde hair and blue eyes. He is 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs about 180 pounds. Rescuers did not include his age.

Rescuers are asking anyone who reached the summit of Mount Whitney to take a photo of the register and see if Gerbier wrote his name.

If you hiked any trail/route on Mt. Whitney on Tuesday, please go through your photos and see if you can spot Tom somewhere in the background, rescuers said.

Anyone with information about Gerbier can contact the Inyo County Sheriffs Department at 760-878-0383.

Inyo County Search and Rescue did not release any further information to McClatchy News on Oct. 19 about the missing hiker.

Mount Whitney is the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states with an elevation of 14,494 feet, according to the National Park Service.

Its part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which spans 430 miles across eastern California, the United States Geological Survey said.

Climbers can take a 10.7-mile route up Mount Whitney. This trek is the shortest and most popular hike to the summit, park officials said.

Park officials advise climbers to use ice axes and crampons in the spring and early summer, but not in early October.

How to be prepared while hiking

If youre planning to hike, the National Park Service says there are 10 essentials you should take:

Navigation: Pack a map, compass and a GPS system. Make sure you study your route beforehand and understand how to use the tools.

Sun protection: Sunglasses, sunscreen and a hat can help protect your skin and eyes from UV rays.

Insulation: A jacket, hat, gloves, raincoat and thermal underwear can help you be prepared for rapidly changing weather conditions.

Illumination: A flashlight, lantern and headlamp can create light if you get stuck in the dark  and dont forget to pack extra batteries.

First-aid supplies: Its a good idea to have a first-aid kit on hand while hiking. Check the expiration date on items before you pack them.

Fire: Matches and a lighter can help start fire to act as an emergency signal in times of need.

Repair kit and tools: Duct tape, a knife, screwdriver and scissors can be helpful if items break during your hike or you need assistance.

Nutrition: You should pack an extra days worth of food in case something goes wrong. Park officials recommend having salty and easy to digest snacks.

Hydration: You should drink water often and before you feel thirsty if youre hiking in hot weather. Keeping your body hydrated is of utmost importance, park officials said.

Emergency shelter: Packing a tent, space blanket, tarp and bivy can help you be prepared if severe weather breaks out or your plan takes a turn.

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A pair of khaki pants on the ground, off-trail in Central Idahos Sawtooth Range, was the first sign to Sandy Epeldi that something was not right.

The 59-year-old Boise man was exploring near remote Benedict Lake north of Atlanta during a six-day backpacking trip in late July when he found the clothing. The pants had obviously been outside for some time, Epeldi told the Idaho Statesman in an interview. They were inside out, with undergarments still attached.

I knew something bad had probably happened, Epeldi said. Thats not something you usually find in such a remote place.

Within a few moments of searching, Epeldi and his hiking companion, Frank Burke, located a boot. Then they found the contents of a wallet that contained the ID of a man theyd already heard of: Jack Forest Thomas. The 66-year-old Nampa man went missing while hiking in 2016.

He just happened to vanish into the part of the wilderness thats my favorite part to go into, Epeldi said. The year after Jack went missing, I did a route really similar to his and it was always in my mind: Are we going to stumble upon something out here? 

When Thomas went missing in 2016, law enforcement looked for about two weeks before calling off the search. After that, it was up to Thomas loved ones to find him. Boise County officials recovered Thomas remains a few weeks after Epeldi and Burke found his belongings  more than seven years after he disappeared.

Idaho is one of many states where missing person searches fall largely to volunteers who are led by a mishmash of local sheriffs offices and nonprofits that are often short on resources. Search-and-rescue officials from around the state told the Idaho Statesman the system works quite well, with the exception of funding shortfalls.

But families of the missing said finding answers becomes much more complicated once sheriffs decide its time to call off a search. Search-and-rescue experts say a more formalized system could make it more likely that missing people are found alive or their remains are recovered in much less time  all while saving families the pain of taking on their own investigation.

Sandy Epeldi took this photo near Benedict Lake in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area on July 19. A few minutes later, Epeldi and his friend found items belonging to Jack Thomas, who had been missing in the area for seven years.

When searches end, families left with questions

Officials from Elmore and Boise counties scoured the forest around Atlanta when Thomas went missing, mobilizing volunteers like Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue and even calling in the Civil Air Patrol for an aerial view.

A little over a week later, leads went cold. When law enforcement stopped searching, Thomas family carried on. They worked with private organizations, including the Minnesota-based Jon Francis Foundation. The organization was started by David Francis and his family after his son went missing in the Sawtooths in 2006 while climbing Grand Mogul, just 10 miles from where Thomas was found. In a phone interview, Francis told the Statesman the initial search for Jon added frustration to his familys grief.

Francis said it was several hours into the search when he spoke with the searchs incident commander and learned teams hadnt yet been sent to the summit of the mountain. He said officials tried to wrap up the search quickly.

The incident commander came to us after one day and said we need to think about giving our son up to the mountain, Francis said.

He told the Statesman law enforcement conducted one more day of exploration before ending the search. The Francis family then hired its own search manager, set up operations at Redfish Lake Lodge and began organizing volunteers. Their search lasted 40 days before snow and ice forced them to stop. They resumed searching the following spring and recovered Jons remains from a crevasse on the north face of Grand Mogul in July 2007.

David and his wife, Linda Francis, whod earned search-and-rescue certifications in preparation for their searches for Jon, started the foundation soon after. The organization has aided in searches for 33 missing people, including Thomas.

We have knowledge and experience we never wanted to gain, but its valuable to other people, David Francis said. We learned its fairly common that law enforcement does a short, hasty search and then discontinues it, leaving families in deep grief.

The unresolved nature of having a missing loved one makes grief even more complex, Francis said. Finding a missing person  even their remains  can be crucial in providing resolution.

We dont use the word closure,  Francis said. Closure is for bank accounts.

In the 18 years since Jons death, Francis said, hes seen Idaho search-and-rescue resources improve. While resources and funding can still be a struggle, he said he thinks officials are more committed than ever to finding the missing.

Search and rescue teams look for funding

Butte County Sheriff Dave Hansen, who heads the Idaho Sheriffs Associations search-and-rescue program, said most search-and-rescue cases are resolved within the first 48 hours. The ones that arent can stretch on for weeks, or even years. More than a dozen open missing persons cases involve people whove gone missing while hunting, camping or hiking in Idaho. The oldest dates back to 1961.

Idaho law mandates sheriffs to lead searches for overdue, missing or lost people. Hansen said theres no centralized data collected on how many searches are performed in Idaho every year.

The states search-and-rescue fund totals around $560,000, most of which is designated for reimbursement for sheriffs offices directing searches, according to Idaho State Police.

Hansen said sheriffs offices can also request reimbursement for new equipment purchases or training costs. Still, search and rescue is a strain on resources, requiring a lot of time and personnel from agencies that are often strapped for both.

Most sheriffs offices have limited resources, especially small offices in the state, he said. I have three full-time deputies. At some point that decision has to be made that (a search) is going to be something we have to call off, and those are just gut-wrenching decisions.

Hansen told the Statesman nearly all of the states 44 county sheriffs offices have some type of search-and-rescue team, but those forces are often made up of volunteers. Some counties, like Ada, look to outside organizations like Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue to handle local incidents.

Though Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue is an independent organization, it deploys only at the request of sheriffs departments around the state, and sometimes in Oregon and Nevada, said Ron Christensen, the groups coordinator. Christensen aided in the initial law enforcement search for Jack Thomas and later joined Boise County officials who traveled to Benedict Lake to recover Thomas remains.

Christensen said the volunteer nature of search and rescue means theres high turnover, and nonprofits feel funding shortages perhaps more acutely than law enforcement does. Christensen said Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue doesnt keep track of the average cost of a rescue, but the organization raises nearly a third of its $90,000 annual budget by selling hot buttered corn at the Western Idaho Fair. The remainder comes from donations, grants or other fundraisers, and a small portion comes from member dues.

Theres always things you have on your list that youd like to have as additional resources, Christensen said.

U.S. search and rescue system a national embarrassment

Funding and resources are just part of the problem, said Chris Boyer, the director of the National Association for Search and Rescue (NASAR).

Boyer told the Statesman the countrys search-and-rescue infrastructure has five shortcomings: little consistency on who is responsible for finding missing people; no legal standard for the medical care search-and-rescue crews must provide; no protections for volunteers who may be injured; no established system for mutual aid or agencies sharing resources; and few states with a dedicated search-and-rescue coordinator.

In the U.S., the most complete search-and-rescue resource is through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which deploys teams to recover the missing and deceased after declared disasters. A 2019 report for the U.S. Department of Justice noted theres not even an agreed-on definition for what constitutes a missing person.

Francis called it a national embarrassment and crisis.

We constantly remark that the system is broken, he said. Francis suggested a federal mandate could be useful in crafting training requirements and offering aid to state agencies in the form of federal dollars.

But Boyer said he doesnt think a solution is likely on a federal level, since varying state constitutions and existing search-and-rescue infrastructures could make blanket regulations too complex.

Its going to come down to the states, Boyer told the Statesman. Volunteers that are out there are extraordinarily well-intentioned, and they can only be as strong as their community. So if the state isnt going to support them, it makes them less efficient, less capable at no fault of their own.

Mike Vorachek, an Idaho Falls-based Civil Air Patrol Commander who previously served as president of NASAR, said the national group offers training and resources to state agencies, but some are unable  or unwilling  to pay for the courses. Nonprofit members said theyve also had law enforcement balk at including civilians in their efforts.

Jessica Knoelk, of Idaho Falls, heads up missing person searches in the Northwest for the Fowler-OSullivan Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping families of missing hikers. Knoelk is working on locating Fern Baird, a 62-year-old Utah woman who went missing in 2020 while hiking the Prairie Creek trail near Ketchum.

Knoelk, who is certified in canine search and volunteers with the Idaho State Trackers Association, said she often feels law enforcement is hesitant to share information with her organizations. She said she hopes to work with the state search-and-rescue association to create a vetting process for civilian resources that would allow them to work more readily with government officials.

A missing person poster describing 62-year-old Fern Baird, of Park City, Utah, hangs at the trailhead register at Prairie Creek Loop where Baird went missing in October 2020.

Search requests growing with Idaho population

Hansen, the Butte County sheriff, said its clear the need for search-and-rescue resources is increasing in Idaho as more calls come in. He attributed the increase in part to Idahos fast-growing population, as well as a boom in outdoor recreation sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

The number of (search reimbursement) claims coming through my office have significantly risen in the last five years, Hansen said. In the past, my county would go a year or two without search-and-rescue activation. We never do that anymore.

As the number of new search-and-rescue cases grows, the longtime ones havent been forgotten. Knoelk said wildfires, snow and poor trail conditions have hampered the search for Fern Baird in the past two years, but she believes shes narrowing in on an area where Ferns remains could be. The Fowler-OSullivan Foundation sent three cadaver detection canines out in the area, and the organization also has experts poring over drone photographs for any evidence of anomalies.

Breck Baird said he hopes his mothers case reminds outdoor recreationists to be prepared and to keep their eyes open when recreating in areas where someone is still missing. He said he thinks his mothers remains may be found in a situation similar to Jack Thomas, by another outdoors enthusiast in the right place at the right time.

Sandy Epeldi said finding Thomas belongings has stayed on his mind since the summer. When he found the items, he had two days left of his backpacking trip. He and his friend decided to wait until they reached the trailhead to notify the authorities rather than sending incomplete information from their satellite device.

That night, Epeldi said, the reality of the discovery weighed heavily on him. Weeks later, he thought of Thomas when running into solo backpackers on other trips.

Epeldi said he believes Thomas knew the risks of spending time alone in the wilderness, where theres little room for error. Epeldi knows the risks, too, and like Thomas, hes not deterred by them.

He said he expects Thomas will stay on his mind when hes in the Sawtooths. Epeldi thought of the missing man often in the years following his disappearance, and he said he hopes others will keep the missing in mind, too.

People are surprised that I even knew about Jack, Epeldi said. I see why  these stories come and go and then theyre forgotten about. It seems like there isnt anyone out there trying to get the answers.
Its a hobby that got out of control.

Thats how Kirk Ticknor describes the creation that took over a spare room in his Columbus home.

Ticknor, 61, the director of public works at Fort Moore, has built a 13-by-10-foot scale model of downtown Chicago  comprising approximately 500,000 LEGO bricks. And it will make its public debut this weekend at the inaugural LEGO Brick Convention in the Columbus Convention & Trade Center.

When he opens the double doors to what was designed to be the dining room in his Green Island Hills house, Ticknor savors the reaction from visitors when they see the model covering the floor.

Kirk Ticknor, 61, the director of public works at Fort Moore, has built a 13-by-10-foot scale model of downtown Chicago  comprising approximately 500,000 LEGO bricks. It will make its public debut this weekend at the inaugural LEGO Brick Convention in the Columbus Convention & Trade Center. 10/18/2023

Giving them joy has given me joy, he told the Ledger-Enquirer.

Why he built his LEGO display

Ticknors love affair with LEGOs started in childhood and continued into adulthood. He used them to play with his five sons. He also used them as a relaxing outlet for himself.

Im a little bit of an introvert, he said. So when youve got something youre building, youve got some alone time. Youre thinking. Youre designing. Youre recharging. It still appeals.

Ticknor is among what the LEGO Company estimated in 2010 to be 40,000 AFOLs (adult fans of LEGO) around the world. Current estimates range to more than 1 million.

Thirteen years ago, Ticknor built a LEGO model of the Willis Tower, the third-tallest building in the Western Hemisphere on the dining room table in his previous house. His wife, Cindy, built a model of the building next door, so Ticknor figured hed continue adding buildings.

Kirk Ticknor, 61, the director of public works at Fort Moore, has built a 13-by-10-foot scale model of downtown Chicago  comprising approximately 500,000 LEGO bricks. It will make its public debut this weekend at the inaugural LEGO Brick Convention in the Columbus Convention & Trade Center. 10/18/2023

It grew and grew, he said.

After they moved to Green Island Hills in 2014, the Ticknors had a spare room, and he figured it would be a great space for his collections of comic books and Time Magazines  and to expand his LEGO construction to a scale model of the entire Chicago downtown.

Thats when the wheels fell off, he said with a laugh. I started getting into it big-time.

It became a hobby he did during the winter. Six years later, he finished his masterpiece. Now, he will share it with the public.

Im excited about the convention, he said  Kids and adults can enjoy it.

Cindy, a professor of math education, dean of the Honors College at Columbus State University and educational comic book author, wrote math problems about the model that will be on display at the convention as well.

How he built his LEGO display

Ticknor chose Chicago because its downtown is on a consistent grid, conducive to the right angles of LEGO bricks.

The architecture is awesome in Chicago, he said, adding that he has fond memories of visiting the city with his family while growing up in Iowa.

He has a bachelors degree in chemical engineering from Iowa State University and a masters degree in environmental engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. After this project, he probably deserves a degree in architecture or urban engineering.

A lot of design work went into this thing, he said.

Ticknor used mostly graph paper and a pencil to engineer his design, although he relied on SkyscraperPage.com and Google Earth to help him be as precise as possible.

Kirk Ticknor, 61, the director of public works at Fort Moore, has built a 13-by-10-foot scale model of downtown Chicago  comprising approximately 500,000 LEGO bricks. It will make its public debut this weekend at the inaugural LEGO Brick Convention in the Columbus Convention & Trade Center. 10/18/2023

Its not entirely accurate, he said. Its plus or minus 5%.

But its 100% original work, meaning he didnt use any kits. He built each structure brick by brick, costing a few thousand dollars, and spent approximately 2,000 hours over seven years to complete.

And he didnt use any glue.

Its pretty pure, he said.

Ticknor added with a laugh, Theres a couple modified pieces, but theyre hidden.

Overcoming LEGO construction challenges

The most frustrating part of the construction came the day when he came into the room and a bunch of the buildings were smushed together.

I couldnt figure out how it happened, he said. Did we have a mini earthquake or something?

Ticknor found the culprit: a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner.

Yeah, he said with a smile, it chewed up a couple LEGOs.

Ticknor never considered giving up, he said, but the offsets on building facades were tough to mimic.

When he connected the models final brick along Wacker Drive, he was relieved.

Thank God its done, he said.

Whats next for this LEGO builder

Ticknor doesnt have another massive LEGO project in mind, but his next LEGO engineering challenge is to transport this creation from his home to the convention. Since he constructed it in modular blocks, 18-by-18 inches, he labeled each of them with a coordinate identification to neatly disassemble and pack the model and correctly reassemble it  with help from some CSU students.

Kirk Ticknor, 61, the director of public works at Fort Moore, has built a 13-by-10-foot scale model of downtown Chicago  comprising approximately 500,000 LEGO bricks. It will make its public debut this weekend at the inaugural LEGO Brick Convention in the Columbus Convention & Trade Center. 10/18/2023

The ultimate destination for his model, Ticknor hopes, is to display it at Chicago OHare International Airport.

Maybe Ill try to make that happen in retirement, he said.

IF YOU GO

What: LEGO Brick Convention

When: Oct. 21-22. Both days have two sessions, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., then 2-5 p.m. Each session offers the same exhibits and activities.

Where: Columbus Convention & Trade Center, 801 Front Ave.

Tickets: $18 at the door, $15 online at brickconvention.com/columbus. Each general admission ticket is valid for only your chosen day and session. Children age 2 and younger will be admitted for free.

What to expect: Meet LEGO Masters. Buy LEGO merchandise. See massive LEGO displays. Play with LEGOs in build areas. Watch pro LEGO artists.

Fundraiser: A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Creations for Charity, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization that buys new LEGO sets for underprivileged children around the world.
Crossing over and voting for Hakeem would kind of be the kiss of death, said Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas.

While House Democrats would like to see House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., become the next speaker of the House of Representatives, some say its simply not a reality.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives held its second round of votes for House speaker nominee Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

WASHINGTON, DC  OCTOBER 17: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks to reporters on the East Steps of the U.S. Capitol on October 17, 2023 in Washington, DC. The House has been without an elected leader since Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted from the speakership on October 4 in a move led by a small group of conservative members of his own party. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The Republican lawmaker, an ally of former President Donald Trump, received 199 votes on Wednesday, one less vote than he had in the first round. Meanwhile, Rep. Jeffries had the backing of every House Democrat in both rounds and amassed 212 votes.

In order to become the next speaker of the House, Jeffries needs the backing of just five House Republicans. Jeffries would become the first Black House speaker in U.S. history if installed to the speakership.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas., told theGrio, Its not going to happen.

Its a great thought, but the idea that there are enough Republicans that have that kind of courage  I think it took a lot of courage for them to vote against Jim Jordan in the first place  but definitely crossing over and voting for Hakeem would kind of be the kiss of death, said the outspoken freshman congresswoman.

However, the Texas lawmaker said she believes behind closed doors, there would actually be a number of Republicans [who] would be relieved if Hakeem Jeffries was actually the speaker.

I think that they wouldnt have to worry about the wars that exist with the far-right flankbecause Hakeem operates from a more centrist space, she added.

Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., told theGrio, Stranger things have likely never happened.

It would have to take an earth-shattering, hell-freezes-over moment for Republicans to have the humility needed to elect somebody who is capable of doing the job, she said.

Lee added, We would all like to see thatbut I dont think that they will ever exhibit the type of self-awareness and humility needed to do whats needed right now in this moment.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., agreed with his fellow House Democrats about the uphill battle of electing Jeffries as speaker.

They didnt do that beginning in January, and I doubt theyre inclined to do it now. However, if there is a need to get a temporary speaker in place, then I think Hakeem is the one that can make that happen, he said.

Republicans have been at odds within their own caucus since taking control of the House earlier this January when it took 15 rounds of hours-long votes to elect a speaker.

Rep. Jim Jordan, (R-OH) (Photo by Stefani Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)

Ultimately, the GOP coalesced around Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. However, McCarthy was ousted from the role after fellow Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida proposed a resolution to remove him.

McCarthys far-right Republican critics voted against him because he struck a bipartisan deal with Democrats to keep the government funded hours before a shutdown. Now, some of those same far-right critics are working to elect one of their own  Congressman Jordan.

Although Jordan does not have the support of some members of his party, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., believes that he is the right candidate for the job.

Donalds, one of four Black Republicans in the House, told theGrio, I dont agree with Hakeem. I dont agree with his policy set, so I cant vote for him.

The only thing that really matters now is electing a speaker and moving forward. I believe that should be Jim Jordan, he said.

Donalds continued, People have known Jim for a long time and around the country, but the Jim they dont know is a man who is actually quite thoughtful, a man who really wants to engage and have discussions with all of our members.

After losing two straight rounds, Jordan is reportedly expected to support a plan to keep Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., as the interim House speaker until January.

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The post House Dems say Jeffries becoming House speaker is a longshot appeared first on TheGrio.
The House of Representatives is heading into yet another day without a speaker, and likely another day of votes amid Republican infighting and a failure to rally enough support  twice over  for Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise , R-La., announced the next votes in the House would take place no earlier than 12:00 p.m. Thursday.

Thats when Jordan, R-Ohio, intends to hold a third round vote on the floor for speaker.

EFFORT TO EMPOWER INTERIM SPEAKER MCHENRY GAINS STEAM AS JORDAN MOMENTUM STALLS

"We're going to keep going," Jordan's spokesman told Fox News Digital Wednesday.

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan fell over a dozen votes shy of the majority needed to win the speakership Wednesday.

A Jordan spokesman doubled down Wednesday night, saying they have all intentions of going for a third round vote.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Republicans nominated Jordan to be the next House speaker, but he needs support from 217 members.

All House Democrats and 22 Republicans voted against Jordan's bid for speaker on Wednesday. That's two more GOP lawmakers voting against him than on Tuesday. All Democrats voted for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

But Jordan allies insist that is not a sign of a failed speaker campaign.

"Dont lose faith if [Jordan] loses a few votes on the second ballot. Im committed to voting as many times as we must to get Jim elected as Speaker, as long as he is putting his name forward," Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., wrote on X. "If that means we vote all night, then buckle up cause we will vote all night!"

And earlier, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., also expressed optimism.

"Just so theres no surprises: Jordan will likely have FEWER votes today than yesterday  as I expected," Perry said on social media.

"This is the fight  which Jim Jordan represents  to end the status quo, and it aint easyStay strong and keep praying."

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) (R) talks to Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) as the House of Representatives prepares to hold a vote on a new Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol on October 18, 2023 in Washington, DC.

But even as at least 199 Republican lawmakers rally around Jordan, some are looking for alternate paths, including how to empower Rep. Patrick McHenry, who is currently serving as interim speaker, also known as speaker pro tempore.

Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Pa., chairman of the Republican Governance Group, is calling to flesh out McHenrys role in leadership, particularly in light of the urgency for Congress to approve aid for Israel as it fights a war with terror group Hamas.

The idea is also gaining steam among lawmakers who voted against Jordan. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., who has said he will keep voting for McCarthy on the House floor, told Fox News Digital that he was supportive of the effort.

JORDAN LOSES HIS SECOND SPEAKER VOTE AS NEARLY TWO DOZEN REPUBLICANS OPPOSE HIM

"If we don't get to a speaker in a day or two, I think we need to move forward in getting the House back in business, and so any resolution that would give McHenry more power to do that I would be in favor of," he said.

The House of Representatives is very much charting uncertain territory now  Rep. Kevin McCarthys removal was the first in the chambers history  and its not clear that McHenrys current powers extend beyond just overseeing the election of the next speaker.

Representative Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, speaks with Representative Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, left, during a meeting of the 118th Congress in the House Chamber at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Friday, Jan. 6, 2023.

While McHenry has said that he has no interest in the role, he is rapidly emerging as a likely consensus candidate that at least some Democrats could agree to.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said McHenry was "respected on our side of the aisle" when asked on Tuesday evening if he could be a viable candidate. Jeffries also said there were "informal conversations" about making a deal on a GOP speaker that he hoped would "accelerate" after Jordans rocky performance.

JORDAN PLEDGES TO 'BRING ALL REPUBLICANS TOGETHER' IN LETTER TO HOUSE GOP ON EVE OF SPEAKER ELECTION

On Tuesday night, former Republican Speakers Newt Gingrich and John Boehner both endorsed the idea of empowering McHenry.

Still, sources told Fox News Digital that Jordan has a path to the speakership, with some suggesting he just simply may need more time to garner support. That source said a temporary solution could help Jordan do just that.

The uncertainty in the House comes after Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., earlier this month, introduced a motion to vacate against then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. When all Democrats and eight Republicans voted together, McCarthy was ousted from his post  a first in United States history.





Original article source: House of Representatives stays in limbo after Jordan fails on second vote for speaker
The night sky above Chengdu shimmered as 1,000 drones painted a celestial canvas, seamlessly shifting to depict scenes from the explosion of a singularity, expansive star nebulae and the birth of stars, to the ever-evolving universe. Before long, the drones formed the panda Kormo, the mascot of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). The majestic performance beckoned sci-fi enthusiasts worldwide with the event's slogan: "Meet the Future."

People take photos of drones which formed the panda mascot Kormo at the opening of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo courtesy of Chengdu Worldcon]

This drone spectacle graced the opening ceremony of the world's foremost sci-fi convention, making its inaugural appearance in China. The convention, which kicked off in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Wednesday, saw its opening day bustling with activities, culminating in the spectacular evening ceremony at the Chengdu Science Museum.

"This is my fourth visit to the wonderful city of Chengdu," Canadian sci-fi titan Robert J. Sawyer recalled on stage, his voice tinged with nostalgia and excitement. "The first time I was here, 16 years ago, a few fans were whispering about the dream of one day bringing the World Science Fiction Convention to China. Look at us now!"

Back in 1973, 13-year-old Sawyer yearned to attend Worldcon in his hometown of Toronto, but couldn't afford to. Now, half a century later, he's in Chengdu as a guest of honor. "I am sure there are young people here today attending their first Worldcon who will have their life changed forever by the seeds that will be planted in their hearts over the next five days," he said.

Organizers and guests announce the opening of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo courtesy of Chengdu Worldcon]

Two months after the success of the 31st summer edition of the FISU World University Games, Chengdu is hosting yet another world-class event. With over 80 years of history, the world's largest and most influential science fiction event will see its Chengdu edition, themed "Symbiosis Era," feature more than 200 activities, including salons, exhibitions, fan parties and of course, the prestigious 2023 Hugo Awards ceremony, in a city where history and culture elegantly blends with modern civilization.

"We have added the family of Chinese science fiction fans to the family of the rest of the Worldcon. This provides a better, more interesting, and diverse future for all of science fiction fandom, both inside and outside China. The family has grown, and the family will continue to grow," said Ben Yalow, co-chair of the Chengdu Worldcon.

Liu Cixin, China's own sci-fi luminary, whose "The Three-Body Problem" clinched the Hugo Award in 2015 at the 73rd Worldcon, expounded on the universality of the genre: "Science fiction depicts our shared dreams and, of course, showcases the crises we must confront together. Thus, science fiction is a literary genre that resonates deeply with readers from different cultures and countries, acting as a bridge to connect the world."

Liu added, with a hopeful vision: "The Chengdu Worldcon, I believe, is a tangible manifestation of the unique qualities intrinsic to sci-fi. "

Dave McCarty, the administrator of the Hugo Awards, showcases the trophy for this year's Hugo Awards at the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo courtesy of Chengdu Worldcon]

Later, organizers and guests, including co-chairs of the Chengdu Worldcon Chen Shi, He Xi, Ben Yalow as well Liu Cixin, Robert J. Sawyer, Weta Workshop co-founder Richard Taylor, editor-in-chief of Clarkesworld magazine Neil Clarke, director Frant Gwo and action movie star Wu Jing, as well as Helen Montgomery, chair of the 2022 Worldcon in Chicago, stepped on stage to declare the opening of this year's convention. Dave McCarty, the administrator of the Hugo Awards, also showcased the trophy design for this year's Hugo Awards, adorned with a giant panda and Chinese elements.

On the opening night, attendees at the museum's Nebula Pavilion were immersed in a visual extravaganza of lighting, projection, illusion and live performances, going on a journey from Sichuan's Sanxingdui and Jinsha archaeological sites, to the iconic Pyramids and other unresolved global mysteries, before traveling through the solar system and culminating at the distant "Pillars of Creation" 6,500 light-years away. While a sci-fi show artfully blended traditional arts like water sleeves dancing, flying immortals and Sichuan opera face-changing, other performances showcased time travel, and included a dance from a China's sci-fi musical "AI & You." The evening was complemented by a video tribute to iconic sci-fi films and a performance of the "Meet the Future" theme song.

A performance combining elements from the ancient Shu civilization and science fiction is staged at the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo courtesy of Chengdu Worldcon]



The 2023 Chengdu Worldcon is being held from Oct. 18 to 22. Hosting the event in Chengdu is a testament to China's burgeoning scientific and technological strength and the dedication of generations of Chinese sci-fi enthusiasts.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) predicted Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) will lose more votes on the next House speaker ballot, and said its time for Jordan to throw in the towel.

I believe hes done. He needs to withdraw from this, Bacon told CNNs Jake Tapper on Wednesday. Hes going to lose more votes tomorrow, I know it.

Bacon said Jordan doesnt have any pathway forward to 217 votes, the figure he needs to secure the gavel.

Jordan has lost two ballots so far. On Tuesday, 20 Republicans voted against him. That number grew to 22 in Wednesdays vote.

In a separate interview on Fox News, Bacon said he was confident Jordan would lose five or six more votes on the next ballot.

I believe hes done. He needs to withdraw from this. Hes going to lose more votes tomorrow, I know it. Already have. I know who is gonna cross over and change.



 Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a key opponent of Rep. Jim Jordans (R-OH) Speakership campaign, says Jordans bid is dead. pic.twitter.com/N0zDNUURP1  The Recount (@therecount) October 18, 2023

Bacon voted for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who was ousted as speaker earlier this month, in both of this weeks votes.

On Wednesday, Bacon said his wife had received multiple anonymous text messages warning him hed better vote for Jordan.

Other Republicans also reported that they were targets of threats and intimidation tactics by Jordan allies and supporters, which have appeared to backfire on the Ohio congressman.

Another vote is expected Thursday.

With the chamber still frozen, support is growing to expand the powers of Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) to act as a temporary speaker.

Bacon said he would back that.

I support giving Patrick McHenry, the speaker pro tem, more responsibilities and authorities, he said. We could give him authorities for budget, the border, Ukraine, Israel. We can do that, but its gonna take legislation to do so.

Related...
Houston - Houston police officer Shane Privette will not face charges in the fatal shooting of Jalen Randle in April 2022, as decided by a Harris County grand jury on Wednesday.

Jalen Randle

FOX 26 Houston is now on the FOX LOCAL app available through Apple TV, Amazon FireTV, Roku and Google Android TV!

The Harris County District Attorney's Office respects the grand jury's decision in this case, which involves the fatal shooting of Jalen Randle on April 27, 2022, in Pleasantville's 8700 block of Josie Street.

SHOOTING: Houston police release video from deadly shooting of Jalen Randle by officer

No action was taken by a grand jury in April, leaving the case unresolved for presentation to another grand jury.

All officer-involved shootings in Harris County are presented to a grand jury for assessment of probable cause for criminal charges. Grand juries are composed of 12 randomly selected county residents who review all available evidence, including witness testimony.

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When nine or more grand jurors agree on probable cause, they issue a "true bill" or indictment.




Howard University offers the only space law course at an HBCU law school, and one of its professors advocates for better representation. Professor AJ Link hopes light can be shed on the importance of the program in schools across the country and even more so for Black students to enter the field.

Black people need to be part of the growing space sector, not just in STEM-related areas, he wrote in an essay published by Howard Universitys news platform The Dig. There is a growing recognition that Black people must be included in the space community.

With a pressing need for greater representation in this niche yet vital field, space law professor AJ Link is committed to preparing the next generation of Black space law professionals ensuring diversity extends beyond our planet. #WorldSpaceWeek https://t.co/MdyhDfThFh  Howard University (@HowardU) October 10, 2023

Link notes the importance of creating more opportunities for students to learn about space law as he considers it to be a widely under-discussed field of study.

I am honored to be an adjunct professor at HUSL and to be teaching the first space law class offered at an HBCU law school, he said. It is important that we give students the opportunity not only to learn about space law, but to develop a passion for it. With this opportunity, they can realize the careers in being space law experts.

The adjunct professor adds that space law has been around for over 60 years and that only two law schools offer it as a degree  the University of Mississippi School of Law and the University of Nebraska College of Law.

Upon graduating from the University of Mississippi, Law said he is one of the very few Black people in the world to have the degree. As a professional in the field, he has encountered other Black space law professionals, but none with a specialized degree or academic background.

Very few of us specifically studied and trained space law professionals, AJ Link said. That is unacceptable.
Students can get Hulu for a mere $2 per month. The streaming service is offering US college students the discounted price on its ad-supported tier, usually $8 monthly. You can keep paying the lower amount as long as your enrollment status remains verified.

The offer applies to new customers, but existing subscribers can also use it if their current plan is billed directly through Hulu. The company will verify with SheerID to ensure youre enrolled at a US Title IV accredited college or university.

Disney owns a majority stake in Hulu, which offers current-season episodes of broadcast popular television series, films and older TV. It also includes original programming, like Only Murders in the Building, The Handmaids Tale and The Bear. The discounted price only applies to the version with advertisements, and you also cant download content for offline viewing with this tier. The company offers a Hulu (No Ads) plan for $18 monthly.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's recent meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in China demonstrates the importance of "talking about peace," Orban's chief of staff Gergely Gulyas told local journalists on Oct. 18.

Gulyas said the talks signified "the importance of talking about peace and the need to put an end to Russian aggression."

"This is exactly what the Prime Minister did, and I would advise others to do the same," he said.

Gulyas was responding to criticism of the meeting, which took place at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Oct. 17. Orban was the only European Union leader to attend the forum.

The U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, condemned the talks in a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter.)

"Hungarys leader chooses to stand with a man whose forces are responsible for crimes against humanity in Ukraine," Pressman said.

Gulyas dismissed this criticism.

"If you think back to previous years, you will see meetings there  many meetings between Joe Biden and President Putin," he said.

Hungary has a history of blocking EU sanctions against Russia and aid packages to Ukraine. Orban himself has criticized Ukraine for accepting economic support, calling it a financially "non-existent country."

Read also: Opinion: The geopolitics of EU enlargement

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has withdrawn charges against a former militia leader from the Central African Republic (CAR) as there were no prospects of conviction, the prosecutor's office said on Thursday.

Prosecutors had earlier said that Maxime Mokom, a former national coordinator of so-called anti-balaka militias, played a key role in a plan to violently target the Muslim civilian population in 2013 and 2014.

"Having considered the totality of the evidence in the Mokom case and in light of changed circumstances regarding the availability of witnesses, there are no longer any reasonable prospects of conviction at trial even if the charges were confirmed," the prosecutor's office said.

At a hearing in August, Mokom said he had played no part in any of the violent attacks on Muslim civilians in 2013 and 2014 that prosecutors wanted to charge him with.

He told the court he was a refugee stuck in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo for most of the period referenced in the charges, while the prosecutors said he coordinated the deployment of militias and oversaw attacks.

CAR has been mired in violence since a coalition of mostly northern and predominantly Muslim rebels known as Seleka, or "Alliance" in the Sango language, seized power in March 2013.

Their dominance gave rise to the opposing anti-balaka Christian militias.The ICC has been investigating the violence in CAR since May 2014. There are two ongoing trials before the court involving two other anti-balaka leaders and one Seleka leader.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Deborah Kyvrikosaios)
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began sending Venezuelans who entered into the U.S. illegally and without a legal basis to remain in the country, back to Venezuela, sending the first batch of 127 nationals on the first flight out Wednesday.

Earlier this month, DHS announced it would resume the deportations, reaffirming its commitment to enforce immigration laws and strengthen consequences for those who cross the border unlawfully.

The announcement came after Venezuelan officials agreed to accept the return of Venezuelan nationals, but also after discussions between the U.S., Mexico, Colombia and Panama in Mexico City.

US DEPORTATIONS TO VENEZUELA ARE RESUMING, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES

A flight operated by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement took Venezuelan nationals back to Venezuela on Oct. 18, 2023, making it the first flight to resume repatriations of Venezuelan nationals who enter the U.S. illegally.

During the discussions, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, and Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall talked of ongoing efforts between other countries in the Western Hemisphere, dealing with migration issues.

On Wednesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted its first deportation flight of Venezuelans back to Venezuela.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

ICE tells Fox News there were 127 Venezuelans on the first flight, adding there are more removal flights on the way.

DHS TO OFFER WORK PERMITS, DEPORTATION PROTECTION TO OVER 470,000 VENEZUELANS AMID NEW BORDER SURGE

A flight operated by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement took Venezuelan nationals back to Venezuela on Wednesday, making it the first flight to resume repatriations of Venezuelan nationals who enter the U.S. illegally.

In a press release, ICE said it facilitated the first chartered flight to Venezuela as part of other routine ICE removals that will be conducted in the western hemisphere and around the world.

Between May 2023 and Oct. 11, 2023, DHA reportedly removed over 300,000 immigrants from the U.S.

"In keeping with standard practice, the United States ensures that all noncitizens, including Venezuelan nationals without a legal basis to remain in the United States are properly screened for valid protection claims and withholding of removal in accordance with our laws and U.S. international obligations," ICE said in the release. "This applies to all noncitizens regardless of nationality to ensure the orderly and humane processing, transfer, and removal of single adults and family units."

THOUSANDS OF VENEZUELAN MIGRANTS GATHER UNDER TEXAS BRIDGE AS BORDER NUMBERS SKYROCKET

A flight operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Venezuelan nationals back to Venezuela on Wednesday.

Before being removed, noncitizens are put into removal proceedings where they can present claims for relief or protection from being removed, in front of judges in immigration courts, ICE added.

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The air operations conducted by ICE are chartered with commercial airlines, and last year, the agency conducted 72,177 removals to over 150 countries around the world.





Original article source: ICE resumes deportation of Venezuelan nationals via flights out of US
Around 30,000 civilians have gone missing in Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Kathryne Bomberger, the head of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), told Suspilne news outlet.

This number may include people who are still alive but were separated from their families or detained, as well as those who died during the hostilities but whose bodies have not been identified, Bomberger said. Among them can also be Ukrainian children illegally deported by Russia.

"Before the (full-scale) invasion, many people were considered missing since 2014 But those numbers, although high, were not as high as today. Now they are much higher and continue to grow," the ICMP chief added.

"It is essential that all these facts are verified as part of the judicial process and that these investigations are conducted by judicial institutions."

Deputy Interior Minister Leonid Tymchenko met with Bomberger in Kyiv on Oct. 18, discussing Kyiv's efforts to find the missing persons and cooperation with ICMP.

According to Tymchenko, Ukraine's Unified Register of Persons Missing Under Special Circumstances currently includes about 28,000 people.

Read also: As more soldiers go missing, desperate families left in limbo

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Want to park up close and personal to your favorite Indian Creek Plaza restaurant? You will have to pay soon.

The Caldwell City Council approved an agreement with the Car Park, the same company that manages downtown Boises parking meters, to manage several blocks with metered parking in downtown Caldwell.

The parking options will be a combination of street parking meters and metered parking lots. Meters would be installed along several blocks between Cleveland Boulevard and Albany Street. There would also be an established area with free parking.

Downtown Caldwell is getting parking meters. The area shown on this map with the bold lines marked where the meters will exist.

The reason? Residents said they need a downtown parking solution.

In a survey of 41 residents at an open house meeting Sept 15, 85% said downtown Caldwell has a parking problem.

The parking meters wont add more parking spots to the area, but they will ensure that cars are not parked in the same spot all day.

In our previous plan, without paid parking, you have way too many folks that are parking in stalls in this (downtown) core for way too long, said Caldwell Economic Development Director Steven Jenkins during a City Council parking workshop Oct. 10.

Lane Blackmer, owner of Chreekside Hair Salon in downtown Caldwell, supports the meters.

If we just had a turnover or a mandated turnover, where you move your vehicle after three hours and then pay for another three hours in a different spot, I think that allows more traffic and more movement in downtown, Blackmer said at the workshop.

The council will discuss and implement parking details such as the cost of parking, the amount of free time allotted and the number of days of free parking.

Mayor Jarom Wagoner said during the City Council meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 17, that all parking spaces for people with handicaps will be free.

According to City Attorney Mark Hilty, the meters will cost the city $3,500 to operate each month. The expected parking revenue to the city is nearly $613,800 per year.

Jenkins said the number of meters and the cost to install them have yet to be determined.

A downtown Caldwell parking garage is possible, Jenkins said. He said he has heard public support for a downtown parking structure.

Jenkins said in an email that he believes that in Idaho only Boise, Coeur DAlene and Idaho Falls have paid-parking programs.

Can I legally park in front of somebody elses house in Idaho? Heres what the law says

Ex-Caldwell sergeant who allegedly traded police favors for sex indicted on 7 felonies
A second inmate has been charged in connection with the death of Junior Garcia, a 26-year-old fellow prisoner who was attacked in June at Idahos maximum security prison in Kuna.

Joshua R. Pedroza, 30, is charged with one count of felony aggravated battery, allegedly contributing to Garcias death. Pedroza was identified for the first time Thursday, at an initial appearance in Ada County Court, as one of two inmates indicted by a grand jury last month in connection to the death. Last week, Juan Santos-Quintero Jr., 27, was charged and indicted on one count of felony first-degree murder from the same incident.

The Idaho Department of Correction alleged that two inmates were involved in an attack on Garcia on June 14. Garcia was left in critical condition and died four days later at a Boise hospital.

Pedroza appeared in court by video from the Idaho State Correctional Institution in Kuna on Thursday before Ada County Magistrate Judge John Hawley. Pedroza is incarcerated on a felony domestic violence with traumatic injury conviction from March 2017. He is scheduled to be released in August 2025.

A grand jury indicted Pedroza on the new felony charge in September, Hawley said. He was granted a public defender and scheduled for an arraignment before 4th Judicial District Judge Steven Hippler at 9 a.m. Oct. 30.

Idaho State Police investigated the fatal assault and turned over its findings to the Ada County Prosecutors Office, the Prosecutors Office said in a news release concerning Santos-Quintero. Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Tanner Stellmon is prosecuting the two cases for the state.

Garcia, of Idaho Falls, was seriously injured during the attack at about 3:45 p.m. June 14, IDOC said in a news release. A follow-up news release days later announced Garcia died at the hospital from his injuries just after 8 p.m. June 18.

Garcia was serving a prison sentence of no less than three years and a maximum of 10 years after reaching a plea agreement in November 2019 on a felony count of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon or instrument in a Bonneville County case from October 2018.

Santos-Quintero is serving 11 felony sentences out of Bonneville and Bingham counties. His life sentence stems from a conviction for aggravated assault or battery upon certain personnel. He is eligible for parole in December 2044.

If convicted by a jury, Santos-Quintero could face the death penalty. Under Idaho law he would receive no less than a 10-year prison sentence if found guilty.

Santos-Quintero is scheduled for an arraignment 9 a.m. Monday in Ada County Court, where he will be asked to enter a plea.
Greater efforts are needed to improve digital infrastructure connectivity and bolster the digital transformation and upgrading of industries among countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, so as to unleash the huge potential of the digital economy, government officials and business executives said.

Speaking at the high-level forum on digital economy at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on Wednesday in Beijing, they highlighted that the digital economy is playing an increasingly vital role in promoting global economic recovery and achieving inclusive and sustainable growth.

The digital economy has become an important engine driving global economic development and transformation, said Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

He said China will adhere to the path of peaceful development and promote the construction of the Digital Silk Road in a deep and solid way, so that the achievements of the digital economy will benefit people from all over the world.

Zhuang Rongwen, head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, stressed the need to bolster the in-depth integration of the digital economy with the real economy, and accelerate the industrialization of digital technologies and the digital transformation of industries, so as to inject strong impetus into social and economic development.

A greater push is needed to speed up digital infrastructure construction in developing countries and underdeveloped regions to bridge the digital gap, reinforce the communication and coordination in data security and personal information protection, and improve the governance capability of the digital economy.

The digital economy is booming across the globe. New industries and forms of business buoyed by innovative digital technologies like big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence are finding a wide range of applications across various industries and integrating with the real economy.

"The Belt and Road Initiative has built strong digital interconnections among nations, creating ties that offer prosperity for our region and beyond, contributing to the global landscape of growth and cooperation," said Wisit Wisitsora-at, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society of Thailand.

He noted this digital interconnection would bring significant advantages to the region, drawing it closer together through high-quality infrastructure construction and investment.

"The initiative will play an important role in enhancing Thailand's digital infrastructure as the central hub of the region by connecting neighboring countries through the submarine cable, which is a crucial step toward the success of high-speed internet access and connectivity in regional, subregional and remote areas," he added.

Amr Ahmed Samih Talaat, minister of Communications and Information Technology of Egypt, said in an exclusive interview with China Daily that he is delighted to see the information and communications technology sector as one of the most active sectors in the cooperation between China and Egypt, which helps drive the digital transformation of Egypt.

The two countries have carried out cooperation in a wide range of fields, such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and natural language processing, he said, adding "in the imminent future, we plan to continue the cooperation and widen its scope".

"Generative AI is a very important topic and has emerged lately on the ICT arena, and all countries are busy trying to exploit generative AI to the best of the technology capabilities so far," he added. "It is a very important work stream for cooperation between China and Egypt in the ICT sector."

Boviengkham Vongdara, minister of Technology and Communications of Laos, said his country is working with the Chinese government to speed up the construction of data centers and promote the development of the digital economy in Laos.

He said China and Laos are expected to further promote the training of talent in the digital economy, and the construction of ICT centers and data centers in Laos.

Chinese companies are ramping up efforts to accelerate the construction of digital infrastructure in the BRI economies. China Tower Corp, a mobile communication infrastructure company that runs almost all of the country's telecom towers, has set up the Southeast Asia Tower Company, to bolster the communication infrastructure building in Laos.

Song Hailiang, chairman of China Energy Engineering Group Co, said the company has stepped up investment in solar, wind and hydropower in the BRI economies, and accelerated its digital transformation and upgrading by leveraging cutting-edge digital technologies, such as big data and digital twins.
An Illinois man was accused of a hate crime for allegedly verbally abusing and threatening to shoot two Muslim men Thursday.

Larry York, 46, of Lombard, Ill., has been denied pretrial release after being charged with two counts of hate crime, a Class 4 Felony, according to a DuPage County news release.

During the incident, York reportedly approached a vehicle in which one of the victims was waiting for his friend at an apartment complex before he asked the victim what he was doing there and then began swearing at the man and telling him he did not belong in this country and to leave.

It is alleged York punched the mans car window and then walked back to the lobby of the building, the release read. York reportedly also swore at another victim in the lobby and threatened to beat him, and he lifted the end of a bench one of the victims was sitting on, causing the man seated on the bench to fall to the ground.

York then reportedly threatened to shoot the two men, the release notes.

It is further alleged that during the incident, York threatened the men saying f**k you f***ing Muslim motherf*****s. This is America. Get the f*** out of here. Ill shoot you, motherf****s, get out of here.

Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago), applauded the police in a statement following the incident.

We thank law enforcement for swiftly apprehending and charging the suspect in this disturbing incident, Rehab said in the statement. This is a standard to follow if we are to stand a chance of deterrence. CAIR-Chicago has been inundated with hate incidents not seen since 9/11. There is widespread palpable apprehension in the community.

The alleged event comes in the wake of another recent incident over which an Illinois man was charged with murder and hate crimes after he allegedly killed a 6-year-old boy and injured his mother in a stabbing. The apparent hate crime arose from the recent Israel-Hamas conflict and the mother and son being Muslim, authorities said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
I'm a city girl who dreamed of living on a remote Scottish island. 2 things changed my mind after I finally visited one.

I spent a weekend exploring Barra, a remote island in western Scotland.

I fantasized about island life and expected a slower pace of living.

There are two reasons I'd never be able to live there.

I was born and raised in Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland.

There's so much to love about city life, from the endless eateries to shopping and museums. But every now and then, I find myself craving a slower pace of life.

So, when I started planning a work trip to Barra  a remote western island in Scotland's Outer Hebrides  I found myself fantasizing about what it would be like to live there.

Barra is known for its wildlife and white sandy beaches, which often lead visitors to draw comparisons to the Caribbean. It also has the only airport in the world that uses the beach as a runway.

Thistles, the national flower of Scotland, on a beach in Barra. Mikhaila Friel/Insider

I was intrigued to experience the small community feel that the Outer Hebridean islands are known for. Barra and its neighboring island, Vatersay, were recorded as having 1,264 residents in the most recent census carried out in 2011. In comparison, Glasgow has an estimated population of 596,000, according to World Population Review.

When I finally stepped foot on Barra in September, I loved it. It was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited. But even so, I couldn't imagine living there for two major reasons.

I wouldn't enjoy living on Barra during the offseason

My partner and I traveled to Barra in mid-September, right before the island's offseason.

We stayed for two nights at the Isle of Barra Beach Hotel, a family-run establishment that overlooks Tangasdale Beach on the west of the island. There were three other couples staying on the first night, but they all checked out the next day  leaving us completely alone.

A staff member informed us that we were the final guests before the hotel closed for the winter. We loved having the hotel to ourselves, and it also provided an opportunity to get to know the lovely staff.

The empty restaurant at the Isle of Barra Beach Hotel. Mikhaila Friel/Insider

But the hotel wasn't the only local business due to close for the winter. As shown on TripAdvisor, there are only a small handful of restaurants on the island, and a couple of locals told me during my visit that many of them temporarily close when tourists leave during the offseason.

When I asked one local if this bothered her, she responded that it didn't because the islanders don't go out to eat much anyway.

I'm a massive foodie and often write restaurant reviews with my dad for fun  so this isn't something I could get on board with.

The author tried scallop pakora while dining at Cafe Kisimul on Barra. Mikhaila Friel/Insider

Restaurant culture is a major part of life in the city, and trying new places to eat is something I look forward to most weekends. I would find it difficult to give up, especially in the winter, when it's too cold for many outdoor activities.

Island life isn't as slow-paced as you might think

One thing I looked forward to experiencing was slow island living.

I imagined waking up a bit later in the day and having a leisurely breakfast before taking a long walk to see the local beaches and farms. We did all those things  but it wouldn't be realistic to continue if we lived there.

Barra is five miles wide by eight miles long, according to Scottish Highland Trails. It took just under 50 minutes to walk from our hotel to Castlebay, the main village on the island where most of the restaurants and attractions are. We mostly passed farms and houses during the walk.

The island of Barra in Scotland. Mikhaila Friel/Insider

I was surprised to see many cars pass us during the walk, but there was nobody else walking on the single-track road leading to the village.

There were a total of 683 cars and vans owned by the 587 households in Barra and Vatersay during the 2011 census. While it's important to note that this number has probably changed since then, it was clear to me that most people did not get around by foot. I found this disappointing since I love walking and will always choose it over public transportation when I can.

Barra was a complete contrast to Easdale, a car-free Scottish island I recently visited where residents use wheelbarrows to transport their groceries.

I was also excited to experience the small community atmosphere in Barra. This was evident in some instances; for example, our taxi driver seemed to know nearly everyone. But just like in major cities, there were some islanders who were on the more reserved side and kept to themselves.

Overall, Barra was an unforgettable vacation destination. But next time, I won't make assumptions or over-romanticize a place before experiencing it myself.

Read the original article on Insider
The U.S. immigration enforcement system wasnt designed for todays regional and global flows of people.

American immigration policy is enforced by a sprawling bureaucracy rebuilt in the aftermath of 9/11 from the bones of a 20th-century system designed to modulate the flow of temporary workers from Mexico.

The resulting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hosts three major immigration agencies with a workforce weary of radical policy changes from administration to administration.

Since their creation in 2003, the DHS agencies of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have faced partisan culture shock: the terrorism prevention focus of the Bush administration and the overtly restrictionist policies of Trump, alternating with the more liberal strategies of the Obama and Biden administrations.

In some ways, the bigger fact here that is really difficult for these agencies is whiplash. And it is the fact that with each administration, there have been really sharp changes in policy, and that is very difficult for large organizations of any kind, said Doris Meissner , who ran the Immigration and Naturalization Service under former President Clinton and now heads the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute.

But certainly, these organizations that are dealing with such controversial issues, those really sharp changes from administration to administration are probably the more difficult thing to live with.

Those changes have been so abrupt as to affect the agencies entire mission statements.

In 2018, under President Trump, then-USCIS Director Francis Cissna announced a new such statement, dropping the phrase nation of immigrants and removing the term customers for the foreign nationals who petition the agency for work permits, changes in immigration status and naturalizations.

Last year, the Biden administration quietly introduced a new, brief mission statement, dropping Cissnas national security-focused motto without returning to the original, wordy language: USCIS upholds Americas promise as a nation of welcome and possibility with fairness, integrity, and respect for all we serve.

The whiplash is more than skin-deep, and it affects leadership at all levels.

ICE hasnt had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration, and CBP has been led by an acting commissioner for four of the last six years.

Its affected the bigger vision piece, said an official who asked for anonymity to speak candidly.

But the underlying function has been moving toward professionalization.

Trump, for one, weaponized the difficulty of Senate confirmations, spending nearly half his presidency with an acting DHS secretary.

I like acting. It gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that? I like acting. So we have a few that are acting. We have a great, great Cabinet, Trump said in 2019, shortly before Kirstjen Nielsen, Trumps last Senate-confirmed DHS head, quit the job.

And Trump used that flexibility to staff top roles in immigration agencies with prominent names from the restrictionist movement, drawing vocal support from staff who supported hawkish policies.

There definitely were aspects of the law enforcement culture and voices, especially the unions from within CBP and ICE, that were strongly strongly encouraging of all of those policies, Meissner said.

But there also were people in those agencies that were marginalized during that period of time, and were deeply offended by the rhetoric and by the very, very extreme characterization of migration and migrants.

While President Biden did not entirely give the keys to the activist wing of immigration advocacy, he has employed key activists in top White House advisory positions.

Biden picked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas because of his strong law enforcement resume and endorsements from former Bush-era secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, but those credentials were bunk to most Republicans of the Trump era.

Mayorkass role as one of the architects of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and relentless GOP attacks on the administrations border policies, have turned the secretary into a lightning rod, often facing impeachment threats from House Republicans.

But looking inward, Mayorkas has his hands full at the helm of an agency with about 260,000 employees.

The immigration components of the DHS have a history of low morale, in part because officers and agents are tired of changing directions.

That exhaustion is most evident in the Border Patrol, a component of CBP, where the job doesnt always match the training.

In part, thats because of generational shifts: Officers hired before 9/11 were trained to cover large swathes of wilderness looking for surreptitious border crossings, the next generation was attuned to terrorism prevention, and over the last decade, officers have grown into the work amid a global mass migration phenomenon.

Thats made the job more often about processing asylum seekers than protecting the line, though Border Patrol recruitment ads would indicate otherwise.

Its very clear that the Border Patrol culturally believes that its being kept from carrying out the law enforcement mission for which they were trained and for which they are in border enforcement, said Meissner, adding that the Border Patrol is being very innovative in adapting to the role required by conditions on the ground.

What they dont see is how great theyre actually doing, said the official who asked for anonymity.

Administration officials say they are bullish about the state of ICE and CBP, including the Border Patrol.

Both agencies are better funded, equipped and more robust than ever, though the Border Patrol has a chronic staff retention issue.

And both are expanding their footprint. ICE, for instance, conducted a repatriation flight to Venezuela on Wednesday  the first since Biden administration officials reached a deal with the Maduro regime earlier this month.

The expansion of deportation flights wont endear the Biden administration to its allies in immigration advocacy, but internally, its seen as a victory for the proper functioning of the DHS.

Officials are not quite as upbeat over the future of the USCIS, an agency primarily funded by immigrant application fees. Aside from its financing woes, it is stuck implementing a legal immigration system that the administration and its allies agree is outdated.

Immigration laws are mismatched to the economic needs of both migrants and the U.S. labor market, the official said.

That mismatch creates more unpaid work for the USCIS  humanitarian applications such as asylum dont incur fees  and overloads CBP at the border with asylum claimants who, under a different legal framework, could have applied for a fee-incurring work visa and flown directly to their final destination.

Advocates understand that Congress has not budged on immigration law for decades, but they say the administration could amp up immigration processing, both at the DHS and in the Department of Justices Executive Office for Immigration Review  immigration court.

The two biggest hurdles to a functioning system are pathways that meet the needs of the country  and thats a matter of, you know, I think thats a matter thats more of a role of Congress than the agencies that are executing and implementing our laws. So I dont think that the agencies are to blame there, said Krish OMara Vignarajah, president of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

The other piece is just staffing. We live in, obviously, we live in an economy that reflects the job market. We dont have nearly the staff that we need, whether were talking about asylum officers or immigration judges, and that is where I think the agencies could play a more proactive role.

Thats a point of contention between the Biden administration and advocates.

Administration officials say asylum is being unfairly abused by economic migrants, and they emphasize the need for deterrence paired with expanded legal pathways.

I think that the lesson we ought to have learned by now is that deterrence doesnt work when desperate people are fleeing for their lives, Vignarajah said.

With reforms to U.S. immigration laws and short-term solutions to poverty and instability in the Americas seemingly out of reach, advocates say success in addressing the present humanitarian challenge will ultimately be judged on higher standards.

Do we have a system that reflects our role as a global humanitarian leader? Do we have a system that meets our economic and national security needs? And do we have a system that is true to our history in part as a nation of immigrants? Vignarajah said.

Updated at 9:42 a.m. ET

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Moon Moves

After successfully landing a spacecraft and rover on the Moon, India plans to make history again by sending up its own lunar astronauts.

In a press release, the Indian government announced that its prime minister Narendra Modi wants the country's space agency to send its first citizen to the Moon by 2040  an ambitious timeline, given the country's shoestring space budget.

Back in August, India became the fourth country ever to land on the Moon following the United States, the Soviet Union, and China.

Incredibly, it only spent about $74 million doing so, which was less than the budgets of space films like "Gravity" and "Interstellar." It was the country's second attempt at a lunar landing after its Chandrayaan-2 probe lost contact with Indian mission control and was declared dead a few months later.

Busy Schedule

The Moon isn't the only nearby heavenly body India's set its sights on, though its other recently-launched mission received significantly less fanfare than Chandrayaan-3.

At the beginning of September, the Indian Space Research Organization launched its Aditya-L1 solar observatory mission, which is on course to reach its vantage point over the Sun's gravitationally stable Lagrange Point 1, about a million miles from Earth, in the next few months.

Also upcoming on India's busy space schedule is a joint lunar mission with Japan in 2025 to search for water on the Moon, a space station Modi wants built by 2035, and proposed missions to both Venus and Mars. The latter will build on India's successful launch of its Mangalyaan satellite in 2014, the country's groundbreaking Mars mission that was the first in world history to reach the Red Planet's orbit on its first try.

It's clear that India has entered the realm of spacefaring nations with its recent and planned missions  and compared to Russia, whose own Moon lander crashed just days before Chandrayaan-3 landed on the lunar surface, it's looking better than ever.

More on India: China Salty About India's Successful Moon Landing
Candidates for next year's election register at the election commission in Jakarta

Candidates for next year's election register at the election commission in Jakarta

By Stanley Widianto

JAKARTA (Reuters) -Two popular ex-governors kicked off the race on Thursday to succeed Indonesian President Joko Widodo, registering as candidates for the February election and promising more jobs and better public services in the world's third-largest democracy.

Nearly 205 million of Indonesia's more than 270 million people will vote on Feb. 14 to decide who will lead the resource-rich country with an economy of more than $1 trillion, and take on an ambitious drive to boost foreign investment, develop downstream industries and move away from fossil fuels.

The presidential race is expected to be dominated by three men - Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, 72, and popular former governors Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan, both 54.

Thousands of supporters gathered in central Jakarta, cheering and waving party flags as Anies and his running mate were the first to arrive in an open-roofed jeep at the election commission to register.

"We are bringing the idea of change, changes that will be felt by families in Indonesia," Anies, a former Jakarta governor, said after signing registration documents and presenting his policy platform to the poll body.

He promised to lower the cost of staple foods, improve welfare for farmers and fishermen, and offer better education and healthcare access.

Anies, who is trailing in opinion polls, is running with Muhaimin Iskandar, known as Cak Imin, head of the country's biggest Islamic party, PKB.

The party has ties with Nahdlatul Ulama, a moderate Islamic organisation of roughly 40 million members.

Later on Thursday, ruling party candidate Ganjar and his running mate, respected security minister Mahfud MD, submitted their credentials to the agency while hundreds of supporters cheered outside, many of them clad in red, the colour of Ganjar's PDI-P party.

Candidates have a seven-day window to join the five-yearly contest.

TIGHT RACE

Ganjar's election manifesto, reviewed by Reuters, showed promises to speed up construction of the new capital city, create 17 million new jobs and accelerate reforestation. He also aims to expand a social welfare programme to 15 million families from 10 million, and strengthen the country's anti-graft agency, among other promises.

He told media he would continue the programmes of the current administration if elected.

Opinion polls show Ganjar neck-and-neck with Prabowo, who is making a third run at the presidency having lost to Jokowi, as the president is popularly known, in 2014 and 2019.

Candidates are also this week confirming their running mates for the election, ending months of speculation and political manoeuvring aimed at shoring up alliances and making inroads into new voter territory.

Former special forces commander Prabowo has yet to announce his running mate, an issue that has dominated headlines in recent days amid speculation he will be joined by the president's 36-year-old son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka.

Gibran's potential run would be controversial after outrage this week over a ruling by the Constitutional Court that a minimum age of 40 need not apply to candidates if they have won a regional election.

Jokowi said this week he had no involvement in presidential candidates, but political insiders have said the outgoing leader is seeking to retain influence and has been covertly marshalling support for Prabowo, having earlier appeared to have backed Ganjar, the candidate of his PDI-P party.

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Additional reporting by Ananda Teresia; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Martin Petty and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
The Marine whose death in a North Carolina barracks room on Wednesday prompted the arrest of another Marine was shot in an isolated incident, not a mass shooting, a Marine spokeswoman said Thursday.

The Marine Corps said late Wednesday night that a Marine who was suspected of involvement in the death of another Marine had been apprehended by base law enforcement at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

There was no mass shooting incident aboard Camp Lejeune, there was an isolated incident involving two Marines, 2nd Marine Division spokeswoman 1st Lt. Olivia Giarrizzo clarified in an emailed statement to Marine Corps Times Thursday afternoon.

Her statement came after apparently inaccurate reports of an active shooter at the North Carolina base circulated on social media.

Marine arrested for suspected involvement in death of another Marine

Giarrizzo also said the dead Marine had been part of the infantry unit 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, which is part of the Camp Lejeune-based 2nd Marine Division.

As a matter of policy, the Defense Department typically waits to release the name of a deceased service member until 24 hours after notifying the family.

Our deepest condolences go out to the Marines family and friends at this time, Giarrizzo said in the statement.

The Marine suspected of involvement in the death was arrested at approximately 10:15 p.m. Wednesday in connection with an incident that occurred in an on-base barracks room earlier that evening, according to a Marine Corps news release late that night. The Corps hasnt released that Marines identity, either.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating what happened, and 2nd Marine Division will assist investigators as much as possible, Giarrizzo said.

In 2021, a Marine at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina from 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, was hospitalized after getting shot in the barracks but recovered. NCIS said days later the Marine likely had been shot by accident.

The base is scheduled to hold an annual emergency response exercise starting Friday that provides realistic training opportunities meant to increase the installations emergency response efforts, command and control, and security capabilities, according to a news release about the event.
CHICAGO - It's not uncommon for patients with diabetes, or people who smoke, to have a foot or part of their leg amputated while battling this disease.

The culprit: peripheral artery disease.

In tonight's special report, Natalie Bomke has the story of how one Chicago doctor was able to save a patient's foot using a rarely performed procedure.

Cooking is one of the many things 39-year-old Antoine Lee likes to do in his spare time. However, it wasn't so enjoyable about a year ago.

"I wasnt really able to really walk because it was just that painful," said Lee.

Lee had pain in his left foot, and he wasn't really sure where it was coming from.

"My wife just pushed me to go to a hospital and see what's going on," said Lee. "And thats when we found out there was some blockages there."

That was when Lee found out he had Peripheral Artery Disease, or PAD.

He was immediately admitted and had an angioplasty done on his foot to restore blood flow.

"When the surgery was performed, there was only so many arteries he could angioplasty, which did get blood flow to the foot," said Lee.

There was one artery that was so constricted the doctor couldn't use angioplasty to open it up. If blood flow couldn't be restored to that artery, Lee could lose his foot.

"You are very concerned because it's like, wow, how did my foot get to this point?" said Lee. "I recently had a kidney transplant and everything was going well and this happens."

That's when his doctor referred him to Dr. Kumar Madassery, a vascular interventional radiologist at Rush University Medical Center.

He is one of only a handful of doctors in the world who can perform a procedure that could keep Lee's foot and lower leg from being amputated.

"Whether PAD is caused by smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, genetics, or a few other conditions like kidney failure, what happens is you get plaque buildup in your arteries, similar to the heart," said Dr. Madassery. "Over the years now, several of us have taken on the procedure where we connect an artery to a vein, try to get the vein to start acting like an artery."

It is called deep vein arterialization, or DVA for short.

It's a non-invasive procedure that lasts about 90 minutes.

Dr. Madassery has performed only 30 of them in the last two years. While this procedure cant save every limb, he believes it can save more of them.

"In those patients who are facing 100 percent amputation, we are now able to have about a 60-70 percent limb salvage, meaning they can walk on their own," said Dr. Madassery.

After undergoing a DVA last fall, Lee is well on his way to walking on his own. He no longer needs a walker or a wheelchair. He now uses only a cane and is still making progress.

"It was a high risk that came with a high reward," said Lee.

A reward that Dr. Madassery says many patients miss out on.

"Majority of other patients are told there are no other options because some dont know. Some dont know to ask, but similar to cancer treatments, patients and physicians should be aware to say it's okay to get another opinion from a dedicated specialist who deals with PAD and limb preservation," said Dr. Madassery. "There are several around the country and theres more training."

That's why Lee urges other patients with peripheral artery disease not to give up.

"With all the pain that I went through, you got to let your pain be a promise that things are going to get better if you dont give up, if you are willing to do the work," said Lee.

Dr. Madassery says there are 10 million people in the U.S. who have PAD.

It costs our healthcare system about $4 billion a year.

For patients who have an amputation, 60 percent of them die within the following five years, so it is imperative that it is prevented.


Protesters from across the country descended on Capitol Hill Wednesday to call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, with hundreds ending up in handcuffs.

"We were raised saying 'Never again.' Never again is right now. It's this very moment," Liv, a member of the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace, told Fox News as demonstrators sang and clapped in the background.

U.S. Capitol Police said they arrested 300 demonstrators who stormed a rotunda Wednesday afternoon.

FROM THE DEADLY DESERT RAVE TO THE FRONT LINES, ISRAELI RESERVE SOLDIER RECOUNTS CONCERT MASSACRE

More than 5,000 people have been killed since war broke out between Hamas and Israel.

Thousands of demonstrators swarmed the area in and around the Cannon House Office Building on Wednesday, many wearing black T-shirts reading, "Jews say ceasefire now!"

About 300 protesters were arrested, including at least three who face charges of assault on a police officer, U.S. Capitol Police told Fox News. Police also confirmed to Fox News that demonstrators inside the Cannon Rotunda will be charged with illegally protesting inside a House office building.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"Civil disobedience is part of how we get messages across, and we need the Congress to hear, we need the president to hear," Louisa said while her hands were bound with zip tie handcuffs. "I feel that Biden needs to stand up and help facilitate a cease-fire so no more people die."

One member of Jewish Voice for Peace said the demonstration was planned about three days ahead of time. He flew in to D.C. from Kansas City to participate.

"We are here to send a message to President Biden and to Congress, not in our name, cease-fire now," Michael said.

WATCH MORE FOX NEWS DIGITAL ORIGINALS HERE

He added that the U.S. government has "a lot of power" and should de-escalate the conflict.

"We need to stop sending money, stop stationing troops," he said.

Protesters said the crowd included dozens of rabbis and children of Holocaust survivors. Some demonstrators compared Israel's actions  past and present  to a "genocide."

"It is a moral catastrophe and rather than joining us, they're arresting us," Liv said.

JVP previously condemned Hamas' attacks on civilians as "horrific war crimes." But the group's former executive director told Fox News that although she feels "despair and sadness and grief" for Israeli civilians, the conflict between Palestinians and Israel is not an "equal situation."

"The important thing to remember is that this didn't start on Saturday, Oct. 7," Rebecca Vilkomerson, former executive director of JVP, said. "There's been decades and decades of apartheid and dispossession and siege that Israel has been imposing on Palestinian people."

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters flooded the area in and around the Cannon House Office Building, many wearing black T-shirts reading, "Jews say ceasefire now!"

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT APPEALS SENTENCES FOR PROUD BOYS ALREADY TO SERVE DECADE PLUS OVER JAN. 6 CAPITOL RIOT

The Anti-Defamation League's D.C. chapter condemned the protests Wednesday evening.

"Although they claim to do so, these far-left radical organizations do not represent the overwhelming majority Jewish community," ADL DC Regional Director Meredith R. Weisel wrote. "Rather, these groups are anti-Zionists that challenge Israel's very right to exist. Let's be very clear  anti-Zionism is antisemitism."

But protesters told Fox News that Jews are not a monolith and that many empathize with the struggle of Palestinians.

"We are rising up in the way that we wish others would have spoken up for our own community to do everything that we can, to risk everything that we have to stop a genocide from unfolding in real time against the Palestinian people in Gaza," Jay said as other protesters were arrested nearby.

The demonstrators also included members of the activist group IfNotNow. IfNotNow boasted on X that, as the Capitol protests unfolded, Jews in Boston were also "committing civil disobedience" at the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., demanding she call for a cease-fire.

To hear more from protesters, click here.





Original article source: Inside the chaos on Capitol Hill as hundreds of pro-Palestinian Jews arrested: 'A moral catastrophe'
The mysterious disappearance of D.B. Cooper has baffled law enforcement and amateur investigators alike for over half a century. Now, one Cooper enthusiast believes he might have a new lead.

On Nov. 24, 1971, a middle-aged man wearing a business suit with a black tie and a white shirt took control of a Northwest Orient Airlines flight from Portland to Seattle carrying 36 passengers.

According to the FBI, the man handed a note to a flight attendant that said he had a bomb in his briefcase and wanted her to sit with him. He then opened the briefcase and showed her a glimpse of wires and red sticks inside. The man then gave the flight attendant a note demanding $200,000 and four parachutes.

After the plane landed at Sea-Tac Airport, the ransom and parachutes were brought on board as passengers were offboarded. The plane refueled and took off again with Cooper and a small group of crew members. Hours later while over the southern Washington border, Cooper put on a parachute and jumped from the plane with the bag of cash in his arms.

To this day, its the only unsolved hijacking in U.S. history. But according to a release from investigator and D.B. Cooper enthusiast Eric Ulis, new information from the Seattle air traffic controller from that day has led to a new promising search area.

Specifically, a treacherous tree and blackberry lined trench, which occasionally contains small amounts of water, Ulis described.

I am absolutely certain that the heavy parachute D.B. Cooper jumped with is still near where the man landed 52 years ago, he added. We are searching in the correct area and will find the parachute.

He plans to lead the new search on Oct. 26.

Ulis runs a yearly event in Seattle known as CooperCon. He was also featured in a 2022 Netflix series titled D.B. Cooper, Where Are You.
[Source]

Amazon Prime Video has released the official trailer for "Invincible" Season 2.

Official trailer: The official trailer was revealed at New York Comic Con on Saturday. The second season promises to be even more extraordinary as the shows co-creator, Robert Kirkman, lauded Amazons support for the creative freedom they granted.

Voice cast: Kirkman also praised the impressive voice talents of the series, which includes Steven Yeun as the titular hero, Sandra Oh, J. K. Simmons, Gillian Jacobs, Zazie Beetz, Grey DeLisle, Chris Diamantopoulos, Walton Goggins, Jason Mantzoukas, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, Kevin Michael Richardson and Seth Rogen.

Season 2 will also feature new cast members, including Chloe Bennet, Eric Bauza, Sterling K. Brown, Tatiana Maslany, Tim Robinson, Phil Lamarr and Ben Schwartz.

Trending on NextShark: Growing makeup trend transforms Asian faces to appear 'mixed race'

About the show: Invincible, which is based on the comics of the same name written by Kirkman, follows the story of 17-year-old Mark Grayson adjusting to his superpowers under the guidance of his superhero father, Omni-Man. In the first season, Grayson struggles between balancing his newfound responsibilities with his personal life before discovering a dark truth about his father.

New season: In the new season, Grayson grapples with the betrayal of his father. He must rebuild his life while facing new threats and the fear of becoming like his father.

The first half of the eight-episode season premieres on Prime Video on Nov. 3, while the second half is scheduled for early 2024.

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Check out the official trailer for Invincible Season 2 below:

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Filipina Bianca Bustamante makes history as 1st female driver signed by McLaren

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A China-Europe freight train heading for Yiwu of China departs from Madrid, Spain, March 9, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]



The enhanced business ties forged among economies involved in the Belt and Road Initiative will be instrumental in addressing issues like unbalanced growth and shortcomings in economic governance, said senior government officials on Wednesday.

Speaking at a sub-forum on trade connectivity at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, Vice-Premier He Lifeng said China is willing to establish a smooth trade facilitation mechanism with more Belt and Road economies and expand mutual market access.

He, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said China will further boost the efficiency of the China-Europe freight train service, accelerate the development of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, and improve its policies related to businesses including logistics and cross-border settlement for goods trade.

Calling for active participation in BRI cooperation in various fields, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said that the economies of the East and the West are interdependent, and those who fail to recognize this are driven by ideology rather than facts.

Decoupling and severing ties is highly detrimental and may lead to significant economic risks. Such an approach puts millions of jobs at risk and threatens global economic growth, said Szijjarto.

Highlighting that three of the top 10 global electric vehicle manufacturers have factories in Hungary, he said that Hungary's strategy is aimed at fostering interconnectedness to ensure its success under the tangible growth of the BRI.

Erick Thohir, Indonesia's minister of State-Owned Enterprises, said the BRI has further encouraged infrastructure investment and the creation of more jobs in participating countries.

"The BRI has also deepened cooperation between China and Indonesia, involving multiple areas of collaboration, such as high-speed railroad and manufacturing," he added.

Similar views were expressed by Gerd Mueller, director-general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

"China has invested heavily in infrastructure and economic development in other developing countries, actively contributing to the sustainable growth of the BRI," he said.
Two U.S. military bases in Syria were attacked early Thursday, according to reports, after Iran said it considered Washington, D.C. complicit in Israels ongoing strikes against Gaza.

The Iran-aligned Lebanese TV channel Al Mayadeen reported that a drone attack had been launched on Americas Al-Tanf base and a missile attack had been conducted at the Conoco base, according to Reuters. No further details were given as to whether there were any casualties.

Iran Threatens to Drag the U.S. Into Regional Holy War

Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who serves as the executive of the Deir Ezzor 24 outlet, said that three drones carrying explosive struck the Conoco gas field in Deir el-Zour, an eastern province which borders Iraq, on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition war monitor, separately reported that explosions were heard within the gas field base of the International Coalition. Earlier, the Observatory said three drones of the Iranian militias had attacked the U.S. military base of Al-Tanf in eastern Syria near to where the borders of Iraq, Jordan, and Syria meet.

The opposition organization said according to its sources, Iranian-backed militias will continue launching attacks on American forces bases under the slogan of Revenge for Gaza.

Thursdays reported attacks come after the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that U.S. forces had been attacked by drones in Iraq. It said American troops engaged two drones in western Iraq, successfully destroying one and damaging a second. It said Coalition forces sustained minor injuries in the incident. A third drone was destroyed in northern Iraq, resulting in no injuries, CENTCOM added.

The assaults come after Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday that the U.S. is formulating the Zionist regimes current policy, referring to Israels strikes in Gaza which massively escalated after Hamas militants slaughtered 1,400 Israeli civilians and soldiers earlier this month. Khamenei said the U.S. must be held responsible for what is happening in Gaza, where local health officials say nearly 3,500 people have been killed in Israeli strikes.

Iran has been warned by the U.S. not to get involved in the war and has sent two aircraft carriers to Israel in an effort to stop the conflagration spreading. But reports of Tehran-backed militias carrying out attacks are appearing after another Iranian-supported group, Hezbollah, has already been involved in multiple lethal exchanges with the Israeli military across Israels northern border with Lebanon.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine used a speech to respond to American warnings about the conflict widening, saying President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and malicious Europeans should tread carefully. The response to the mistake you might make with our resistance will be resounding, Safieddine said to thousands of supporters, according to Reuters. Because what we have is faith, and God is stronger than you, all your battleships, and all your weapons.

The following morning, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had carried out attacks on targets belonging to Hezbollah inside Lebanon in response to shooting attacks on Wednesday. Violence has also been reported in the West Bank, where at least 72 Palestinians have been killed since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, according to Al Jazeera. The Times of Israel reported Thursday that the IDF had conducted a drone strike on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank, with local health officials saying that three people were killed and a fourth was shot dead overnight.

While Biden has attempted to contain the crisis in Israel, Netanyahu on Thursday called for greater international involvement in his countrys fight. Hamas are the new Nazis, theyre the new ISIS, he said Thursday alongside British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who traveled to Israel the day after Bidens departure. Netanyahu said that just as civilized world united to fight the Nazis, it must now stand with Israel as we fight and defeat Hamas.

Its the battle of Israel, its the battle of modern Arab countries, its the battle of Western civilization, the battle of the free world, the battle for the future, Netanyahu added.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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An Israeli soldier on a tank near the Israel-Gaza border in Sderot, Israel, last week. (Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images) (dpa/picture alliance via Getty I)

The 360 shows you diverse perspectives on the days top stories and debates.

Whats happening

After Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip invaded Israel earlier this month and killed 1,400 Israelis, while taking more than 150 hostages, Israel launched a powerful military response and a strict blockade.

There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Oct. 9. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.

Israeli officials have directed Palestinian civilians to evacuate from northern Gaza ahead of a ground invasion but have also launched airstrikes in the territory. As of Thursday, more than 3,300 Palestinian casualties have been reported.

Protests against Israels military response have erupted across the Middle East, especially after hundreds of Palestinians were reported killed in an explosion at a hospital in Gaza City. Hamas says Israel bombed the hospital, whereas Israel says the incident was the result of an exploding rocket fired by a Hamas-aligned militant group. (The U.S. National Security Councils intelligence analysis suggests that the hospital was hit by a rocket launched by the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.)

Experts warn that the worsening conflict could expand into a larger regional war between Israel and its rivals, such as Syria and Iran.

President Biden traveled to Israel this week to express steadfast support for the U.S. ally while also urging restraint. He returned home with an agreement from Israel to allow aid to flow to Gaza through its border with Egypt, but a planned meeting with leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority was called off by those parties amid growing anger over the explosion at the hospital in Gaza.

Why theres debate

According to the Geneva Conventions, attacks on civilians, like Hamass initial attack and Israels bombings of targets such as apartment buildings, are war crimes. Cutting off nonmilitary necessities such as food and water to a civilian population is also a violation of the laws of war.

Amnesty International has labeled both Hamass attack on civilians and Israels reprisal as war crimes.

As Israeli forces retaliatory attacks pummel Gaza, Amnesty International insists that neither security nor justice will be achieved by a civilian bloodbath in Gaza and collective punishment, said Agnes Callamard, the groups secretary-general.

But others note that Hamas fighters are enmeshed in the civilian population in Gaza, complicating the options for an Israeli military response.

It is an entire nation out there that is responsible, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said at a press conference last Friday. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza.

Whats next

Israel is expected to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza, which experts believe will entail massive casualties. Israel hopes to dismantle Hamas and disable its ability to conduct future attacks, while many observers fear that the reaction among Palestinians and their allies to such an operation will only increase support for anti-Israel extremists and worsen the conflict in the long term.

Perspectives

Israel has no clear path to peace and security

"Israelis and Palestinians all living in peace with guaranteed rights and security sounds wonderful, but no one knows how to get there. No matter how desirable a long-term vision, it doesnt offer recommendations for short-term actionbesides, perhaps, stop all military action and leave Hamas in charge of Gaza, free to try again."  Nicholas Grossman, Daily Beast

Israel is walking into Hamass trap

Hamass assault on southern Israel was designed to provoke an emotional and equally or even more outrageous response by the targeted society Hamas and its Iranian patrons want to block the diplomatic-normalization agreement that the United States has been brokering between Israel and Saudi Arabia.  Hussein Ibish, Atlantic

Israel is punishing everyone in Gaza for the actions of a small minority

"Though Hamas exact strength isnt known, Israel has estimated the group has around 30,000 fighters  a tiny fraction of the 2.3 million Palestinians crammed into Gaza. This siege will mark a collective punishment of civilians."  Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC

Israels goal is not to punish Hamas but to defeat it

"If removing Hamas from power is the goal, then that almost certainly means soldiers and tanks fighting in Gazan cities, block by block, house to house."  David French, New York Times

The siege is a violation of international law

The targeting of civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it. Israels blanket denial of food, water, and other necessities to Gaza is a serious violation of international law and will do nothing but harm innocent civilians.  Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, in a statement

Israel's siege of Gaza is legal under international law

In Israels case, civilians were never the primary target of its current siege (if they were, why order an evacuation)? Moreover, the ends of Israels siege have been clearly communicated to Hamas and are just on their own terms.  All Hamas must do to end its peoples suffering is return the Israeli hostages it kidnapped.  Thomas Wheatley, USA Today

Israel's anger is understandable, but it risks harmful overreaction

"Things could spiral out of control. ... A ceasefire is needed. ... The hurt that Israelis must feel cannot be underestimated or minimized. But military overreaction will only deepen the hatred between two peoples."  Guardian editorial

The siege is two war crimes in one

Not only is [cutting off water and food] a war crime, but it is under two different aspects: First aspect is that its collective punishment.  Then the second way to see it, is that it is a siege that consists of starving an entire population as a means of warfare. That is also a war crime. So its two war crimes in one.  Ahmed Benchemsi of Human Rights Watch, to Yahoo News

The siege in Gaza is not a war crime because its necessary to root out Hamas

Hamas has violated international law by hiding among civilians. But international law doesnt reward the use of human shields. Instead, it makes clear that the presence of civilians within or near military objectives does not render such objectives immune from attack.  Wall Street Journal editorial
Dozens of Hamas operatives have been arrested in the West Bank overnight, the Israeli military announced Thursday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that its troops and the Shin Bet security agency "operated in many centers throughout the Judea and Samaria Division for Countering Terrorism" and as a result "arrested over 80 wanted persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activities and numerous weapons.

"Sixty-three of them are active in the terrorist organization Hamas," the IDF said, adding that it has now taken more than 330 people with ties to Hamas into custody since the terrorist group launched its war on Israel on Oct. 7.

Additionally, Israeli security forces said they demolished the home of a terrorist, Ahmed Yasin Jidan, who carried out a shooting attack in July that killed IDF Staff Sergeant Shilo Yosef Amir, local Israeli news station i24 News reported.

LIVE UPDATES: ISRAEL AT WAR WITH HAMAS

IDF said that suspects threw stones at security forces during the demolition and the army responded "with measures to disperse demonstrations."

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

The IDF later posted on X Thursday that for the 13th day in a row, sirens are sounding across Tel Aviv and central Israel warning residents of incoming rockets.

At least 4,800 people have been killed in the war on both sides, including at least 1,400 Israeli civilians and soldiers and 31 Americans.

Palestinian health authorities say at least 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and more than 10,950 wounded, while 12 American citizens remain unaccounted for.

HEZBOLLAH SAYS ITS THOUSANDS OF TIMES STRONGER THAN BEFORE, WARNS US, ISRAEL: REPORT

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while speaking alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at a news conference on Tuesday, described Hamas as "the new Nazis" and called on the world to unite and eradicate the terrorist organization the same way it defeated the Nazis in World War II.

Netanyahu spoke of the terrorism conducted by Hamas, which included rape and murder of women, beheading of people, shooting of children with bound hands, abduction of families, murderers entering attics to kill babies and the "tearing of grandmothers and Holocaust survivors into captivity."

An Israeli army self-propelled howitzer fires rounds near the border with Gaza in southern Israel on Oct. 11, 2023.

"This is the savagery of that we only remember from Nazi crimes in the Holocaust," he said. "Hamas are the new Nazis. Hamas is ISIS, in some instances worse than ISIS. And just as the world united to defeat the Nazis, just as the world united to defeat ISIS, the world has to stand united behind Israel to defeat Hamas. This is part of an axis of evil of Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas."

Fox News Chris Pandolfo and Greg Wehner contributed to this report.





Original article source: Israel arrests 63 Hamas operatives in West Bank
As the Israel-Hamas conflict enters its 13th day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed that he doesnt expect the war to be over any time soon. This is a long war, and well need your continuous support, Netanyahu said today, after talks with his U.K. counterpart, Rishi Sunak.

Sunak was visiting Jerusalem a day after U.S. President Joe Biden did, the British leader saying that his country absolutely supports Israels right to defend itself in line with international law. At least nine British nationals are now confirmed to have died and a further seven are missing after the Hamas on Israel on October 7, according to the U.K. government.

https://www.twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1714895569334735124?s=20 https://twitter.com/wionews/status/1714978753062093021?s=12

While Israel has so far not launched a full-scale ground offensive into Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continue to conduct extensive operations there, including prosecuting targets identified by Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, this morning, the IDF declared:

The IDF continues to attack all the time throughout the Gaza Strip. During the last day, the IDF, directed by the Shin Bet, destroyed hundreds of Hamas terrorist infrastructures, dozens of which were attacked in the Sageya neighborhood. The hundreds of terrorist infrastructures that were attacked include anti-tank missile launch sites, tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructures, operational headquarters, and other headquarters.

https://twitter.com/idfonline/status/1714865719215632492

There are also more signs that the Israeli ground campaign could be imminent, with the Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant telling troops on the Gaza border You now see Gaza from afar, soon you will see it from the inside. The order will come.

https://twitter.com/manniefabian/status/1715023322801484117

A further indication of Israel being ready to launch an offensive into Gaza was provided today by Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barakat, who told ABC News that the IDF has a green light to move into Gaza whenever it is ready.

https://twitter.com/Archer83Able/status/1715067416105947285

According to a statement from the Palestinian militant group, one Israeli airstrike in the north of Gaza City is said to have killed the head of the Hamas security forces, Jehad Mheisen, although this has not been independently confirmed.

https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1714945948273582308?s=12 https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1714871197895123169?s=12

Hamas also continues its campaign of rocket and drone strikes against Israel, although the IDF claims that the reliability of the rockets, at least, has been patchy. The following graphic claims to show the various locations of failed rocket launches from Gaza, perpetrated by Islamic Jihad, as well as Hamas.

https://twitter.com/samramani2/status/1714936089620738398?s=12

In Gaza, fears continue to grow around the humanitarian situation on the ground, with international charity Action Against Hunger stating that a lack of water there has led to a health crisis on the brink of explosion. The United Nations has estimated that there are fewer than three liters of water per person each day for the 2.3 million people living in Gaza, half of whom are children. The problem is set to worsen, as supplies and fuel required for the desalination plants to operate continue to be reduced. Already, many Gazan families are said to be making use of non-drinking water sources, increasing the risk of an epidemic.

https://www.twitter.com/ACF_MiddleEast/status/1714954601546318297?s=20

Following President Bidens visit to Israel yesterday , the White House confirmed that trucks carrying humanitarian aid will enter Gaza from Egypts Sinai peninsula in the coming days. After talks with President Netanyahu, Biden announced that Israel had agreed to allow the opening of the Egypt-Gaza Rafah crossing to expedite deliveries of food, water, and medical supplies to Gaza  provided they are not diverted to Hamas.

https://www.twitter.com/AlArabiya_Eng/status/1714935014536749342?s=20

The World Health Organization (WHO) said its trucks are loaded and ready to go as soon as the Rafah crossing is opened, which could happen as soon as tomorrow. The WHO director, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the organization was gravely concerned about the health and wellbeing of civilians in Gaza, who are suffering from bombardment and siege.

https://www.twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1714537298727997775?s=20

The Biden visit also presaged the arrival of additional U.S.-supplied war materiel to support Israel. According to a tweet today from the IDF, the first shipment of armored jeeps has arrived, aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III airlifter, and these vehicles will be put to use immediately to replace those damaged or destroyed in the fighting so far.

https://twitter.com/MichaelShuval/status/1715016629216571437

The delivery is just part of the recent wider U.S. military response to the situation, which has also seen the decision to send the USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group  centered around the Wasp class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan  and a Marine Expeditionary Unit to the region, as well as put 2,000 military personnel on an increased state of readiness. The USS Florida, an Ohio class nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine (SSGN), has also been deployed to the European Command area of responsibility, reportedly in response to developments in the Middle East. The Ford Carrier Strike Group is already on station and the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is heading there now.

https://twitter.com/ianellisjones/status/1714680186820538596?s=12 https://twitter.com/ianellisjones/status/1714747811017757163?s=12

As well as armored vehicles, armor of another kind is also being distributed among the IDF. A tweet today from the service confirms that tens of thousands of ceramic plates have arrived for the troops in the field, adding that, since the start of the war, efforts have been made to expand and accelerate the procurement of personal protection equipment.

https://twitter.com/idfonline/status/1714959886910439703?s=20

While the United States transfers heavy weapons to Israel, the prospect of Israel exporting arms to at least some of its traditional markets has diminished since the start of the Gaza war. Case in point, Colombia, which has been struck off the list of countries that Israel is willing to export weapons to, after a heated exchange on X between Colombian President Gustavo Petro and the Israeli Ambassador in Bogota Gali Dagan. This began when Petro refused to condemn the Hamas raid and quickly escalated. Colombia has long been an enthusiastic customer of a wide range of Israeli-made defense and security technologies.

Since the start of the conflict, there have been fears of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group becoming more deeply involved . At this point, the IDF says its continuing to strike Hezbollah targets near the Lebanon-Israel border. These include an observation post near the coast, which the IDF says that it hit yesterday. They claim it was being used to launch anti-tank missiles toward Rosh Hanikra, on the Israeli side of the border.

https://www.twitter.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/1714832919313686752?s=20

Photos and videos from Lebanon purport to show the results of IDF strikes elsewhere in the country. The Lebanese television station Al-Manar published a video that it says was the result of an IDF drone strike on a target near Naqoura, in southern Lebanon.

https://www.twitter.com/TVManar1/status/1714793265852039619?s=20

According to the Jerusalem Post, Lebanese media reported that the IDF conducted strikes between Kfarkela and Aadaysit, also in the south of the country.

https://www.twitter.com/alihashem_tv/status/1714758453380387025?s=20

Another Lebanese television station, Al-Mayadeen, reported that one Israeli airstrike targeted a monument to former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani near Kfarkela last night.

So far, according to AFP, the cross-border skirmishes have killed at least 21 people in Lebanon, most of them combatants. At least three people have also been killed on the Israeli side.

Israeli M113-series medical armored personnel carriers move along the highway in Amiad, Israel, near the border with Lebanon, on October 15, 2023. Footage by Amir Levy/Getty Images

The U.S. and British embassies in Beirut have both now advised their citizens to leave Lebanon while flights remain available.

We recommend that U.S. citizens in Lebanon make appropriate arrangements to leave the country; commercial options currently remain available, a U.S. Embassy statement said. As well as this specific warning, the U.S. State Department has also issued a rare worldwide caution bulletin, warning U.S. citizens to exercise increased caution due to the potential for violence and increased tensions around the world.

https://www.twitter.com/MarquardtA/status/1714985184641069215?s=20 https://twitter.com/vmsalama/status/1715033259350937665?s=20

As well as the incidents in Lebanon, the conflict has spilled over into the occupied West Bank, with violence between Israeli forces and Palestinians living there.

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1714815929530397133?s=12

Today, three Palestinians, including two teenagers, were killed by Israeli forces in separate incidents in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian official news agency WAFA, subsequently picked up by Reuters.

https://www.twitter.com/AJENews/status/1714981873217089793?s=20

The frenzied campaigns of repression and arrest in the West Bank will not discourage our people from supporting the resistance and defending our land and our sanctities, Hamas said in a press statement.

The group continued: We call on our people in the West Bank to continue to mobilize and intensify resistance work against the occupation forces and settler militias, and to form popular committees in all cities and villages to repel any aggression, and to surprise the occupation forces with all possible means of resistance.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says that at least 61 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and another 1,250 injured since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

As the death toll mounts, Turkish President Recep Erdogan has called for three days of national mourning to respect the Palestinian lives lost so far. Taking to X, Erdogan provided the following statement:

As Turkiye, we feel in our hearts the great pain experienced by our Palestinian brothers. As a result of our respect for thousands of martyrs, most of whom were children and innocent civilians, 3 days of national mourning have been declared in our country.

https://twitter.com/RTErdogan/status/1714733104273801538

In the meantime, President Biden is due to address the nation later today and to provide more details of the U.S. response to the Gaza conflict, which is expected to include a multi-billion-dollar aid package.

https://twitter.com/collinrugg/status/1714806271730450764?s=12

This is a developing story and we will provide additional information as it becomes available.

UPDATE: 1:36 PM EST

An image of the vehicles sent to Israel, MDT David IMVs :

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1714996052518953218?s=20

UPDATE: 4:30 PM EST

As the IDF continues its strikes against targets in Gaza, the Israeli Air Force continues to release imagery associated with the campaign. In this case, the aircraft shown is an F-16I Sufa, a key element of the Israeli Air Force strike fleet. This example, from 107 Squadron at Hatzerim airbase in the Negev, carried 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions, as well as live Python 5 air-to-air missiles. Interestingly, the wingtip AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles are captive-carry rounds , used only for training, reflecting the permissive air environment in which these jets are operating.

https://twitter.com/GuyPlopsky/status/1715021021919760681?s=20

In this next, recent tweet, the IDF reiterates that it is continuing efforts to locate and rescue the hostages taken by Hamas in Israel last weekend.

All my soul and mind in this work, together with hundreds of people. We will not stop for a moment until we find any way to return our loved ones, the officer explains. From the beginning of the war, an intelligence system was established to locate abductees and missing persons who are held captive by the terrorist organization Hamas.

https://www.twitter.com/idfonline/status/1715045499193971160?s=20

Earlier this week, the Israeli military said Hamas was holding 199 hostages in Gaza, all of whom had now been identified. Meanwhile, Hamas has said that 250 people are being held hostage in Gaza and they will be released when conditions are right.

UPDATE: 6:15 PM EST

It now appears that the Egypt-Gaza Rafah crossing is in the process of being opened, which will allow trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Egypts Sinai peninsula. A photo purportedly taken at the crossing in the last few hours shows concrete blocks now being removed, which should allow deliveries of much-needed food, water, and medical supplies into Gaza.

https://twitter.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1715110958891180046

Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com
President Biden announced Friday the release of two American hostages  identified as Judith Raanan and her daughter, Natalie, of Evanston, Ill.  who kidnapped by Hamas while visiting family in Israel during the Oct. 7 attacks.

I am overjoyed that they will soon be reunited with their family, who has been wracked with fear, Biden said in a statement. These individuals and their family will have the full support of the United States government as they recover and heal.

Earlier Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres flew to Egypts Sinai Peninsula on Friday to push for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, which is bracing for a possible ground invasion. U.S. officials said that details of getting the supplies through the Rafah crossing were still being worked out.

Our live coverage has ended for the day. See Yahoo News for the latest on the war and U.S. response to the conflict.

Map of Israel and Palestinian territories (Yahoo News)
Israels defense minister Thursday told troops to prepare for an invasion of the Gaza Strip, which would mark a major escalation in its fight against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

Meeting with infantry on the Gaza border Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reportedly told the forces to get organized and be ready for an order to move in.

Whoever sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the inside, he said, per the AP. I promise you.

Gallant told troops the order will come, state news agency The Times of Israel reported.

Such an operation would pose a huge threat to civilians who remain in northern Gaza, as well as major risks for Israeli leaders. President Biden this week warned Israels government not to allow its anger toward Hamas to force costly mistakes, like those committed by the U.S. after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

You cant look at what has happened here  and not scream out for justice, Biden said while in Israel. Justice must be done. But I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it. After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

Biden also specifically warned against the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip during an interview earlier in the week.

The threat of a ground attack has loomed for almost a week since Israel ordered the evacuation of more than 1.1 million Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip to the south.

However, the United Nations warned that such a large-scale evacuation was impossible without dramatic human costs, and Hamas has told residents not to leave and to stay in their homes.

Tens of thousands of Israeli troops have remained positioned along the Gaza border this week, with Hamas reportedly fortifying its defenses on the other side.

The evacuation came as part of Israels larger counteroffensive in Gaza after Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist group by the U.S., carried out a massacre that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, including hundreds of civilians.

Israeli forces quickly responded by bombarding Gaza with hundreds of airstrikes that have so far killed more than 3,400 Palestinians and injured more than 12,000 others, the Gaza Health Ministry reported Thursday.

The United States has largely supported Israels push to eliminate Hamas in response to the unprecedented attack, despite Bidens warnings.

The attacks, coupled with Israels siege on food, water, electricity, medicine and fuel, have intensified Gazas humanitarian crisis, with residents already running low on basic necessities.

Multiple humanitarian organizations condemned Israels Gaza evacuation, arguing it is a death sentence for the sick and injured in hospitals in the territory.

Biden visited Israel this week amid growing pressure to address the crisis. He promised to stand with Israel, while also announcing an agreement to allow humanitarian aid to move from Egypt to Gaza, as well as committing $100 million in U.S. funding to assist those living in Gaza and the West Bank.

Trucks with aid had waited for days at the Rafah crossing  Gazas only connection to Egypt  after Israeli airstrikes closed off access last week.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Hamas' infamous network of tunnels await Israeli forces should they invade the Gaza Strip.

Israel has referred to the underground labyrinth as the Gaza "metro" due to its size and depth.

A former US Army infantry soldier said Hamas can use tunnels for defensive and offensive maneuvers, challenging an invading force.

Israeli officials have vowed to crush Hamas in response to its brutal terror attacks earlier this month, signaling that the way to ultimately do this is through a major ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. That's easier said than done though.

In Gaza, invading Israeli forces will face a complex and dangerous urban environment, in which Hamas' well-armed and well-prepared forces can hide, set up traps, and launch surprise assaults. And some of the most difficult fighting could be underground, in the city-like labyrinth of tunnels that are vital to the militant group's defensive and offensive operations.

Although it is unclear how the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will go about dealing with challenges posed by the tunnels, they are a known threat and one for which the IDF is not unprepared. But while the military has the means to infiltrate this network, a former US Army infantry soldier said that in any capacity, "it will increase the time to conduct an operation in Gaza."

"You can't leave a hole to your back," John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at West Point's Modern War Institute, told Insider. "And you can't not clear a tunnel if there's a potential for a hostage to be in there."

Hamas claimed in 2021 to have more than 300 miles of tunnels underneath Gaza, a densely populated coastal enclave that's roughly 140 square miles and home to around 2 million people. Israel has previously referred to the subterranean network as the "metro," or "a vast underground city," due to its sheer size and depth.

The IDF says these tunnels are used to hide and store collections of weapons and ammunition, function as command centers and bunkers, and allow for the hidden movement and smuggling of militants and weapons both underneath Gaza and also into Israel. Access points, the military adds, are hidden inside places like schools, hospitals, and other civilian buildings. Israel has also accused Hamas of spending millions of dollars to construct its subterranean network and of diverting construction materials to the tunnels that could otherwise be used to build civilian infrastructure.

A fighter from Izz al-Din al-Qassam stands in front of a tunnel during an exhibition of weapons, missiles and heavy equipment for the military wing of Hamas. Photo by Yousef Masoud/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Much of the tunnel network is narrow, and some portions have been discovered to be over 200 feet deep. Over the years, Israel has tried to get rid of the tunnels  reinforced by concrete and equipped with electricity  but it's a daunting task. Egypt, which alongside Israel maintains a blockade of Gaza, has even attempted to flood the tunnels to curb their utility.

An 'underground nightmare'

Hamas, of course, isn't the first to use tunnels. During World War II, US Marines faced extensive Japanese tunnels in several battles across the Pacific, including on the island of Iwo Jima, and the American forces were forced to clear them with flamethrowers and hand grenades. Tunnels once again emerged as headaches for the US military a few years later during the Korean War, and then later on in the Vietnam War.

In Vietnam, the Vietcong forces built a huge network of tunnels  used as supply routes, to store ammunition, and to house infrastructure like hospitals  the largest among them being underneath a US base at Cu Chi. Contending with organized guerrilla attacks on the base, the American forces heavily bombed the subterranean labyrinth, but that wasn't enough. The military eventually sent soldiers known as "Tunnel Rats" down there. Lightly armed with a pistol and some other supplies, they faced threats like booby traps, animals, and enemy fighters.

More recently, Western forces dealt with Islamic State and al-Qaeda tunnels in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2017, the US famously dropped one of the largest non-nuclear bombs it has  the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), or Mother of all Bombs  on a collection of ISIS-K tunnels and bunkers.

Peshmerga fighters examine the entrance to a 150-meter-long tunnel dug by ISIS Photo by Scott Peterson/Getty Images

From a defensive perspective, Spencer said, Hamas can use its tunnels to protect all its assets that it doesn't want to lose, such as personnel, leadership, weapons, communication equipment, ammunition, and supplies. The group could also use them to move the 200 hostages it abducted from Israel during the October 7 attacks.

"It takes away Israel's all-seeing eye and strike capability, because it can't hit that far in the ground," Spencer said. Israel has been heavily bombing Gaza, dropping thousands of bombs on targets in the strip, but the tunnels are harder targets that are not as easily destroyed as surface structures.

Offensively, the tunnels give Hamas the ability to conduct surprise attacks on IDF forces, Spencer said. This includes those close in and farther away because the tunnels are connected to rocket launch points, such as pre-set setups that are buried and are only revealed at the last moment when a rocket is autonomously fired. In other cases, rockets are brought to a site and fired off before the militants head back underground.

Hamas can also use the tunnels to just pop up near IDF forces in a style of guerilla warfare that comes as a complete surprise and retreat quickly before the Israelis can effectively return fire.

"Pop up, attack, pop back down in the ground, live to fight another day, move to a different location, and hit them on the other side," Spencer said of how Hamas could use the tunnels for attacks, likening them to gopher or mouse holes.

Many IDF soldiers are trained in advance for basic tunnel warfare, but the military still has several added capabilities to address the challenges in Gaza. One is the Combat Engineering Corps' Yahalom Unit, an elite band of commandos that consists of several different specialized companies handling engineering reconnaissance, non-conventional weapons, explosive ordinance disposal, and tunnel warfare.

Members of Al-Quds Brigades, an armed wing of Islamic Jihad Movement, keep guard at tunnels on Gaza-Israeli border against a possible attack by Israeli forces in Gaza City, Gaza on March 30, 2023. Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The IDF also has other tools at its disposal as well for fighting in the tunnels, such as night-vision systems, drones and robots, ground and aerial sensors, radio technologies, drilling equipment, and more, Spencer wrote in an analysis this week. But the biggest problem facing the IDF is the sheer scale of the tunnel network, and there is no silver bullet to mitigate this issue.

"In this situation, it's not just finding the tunnels that's the issue," Spencer said, adding that Israeli forces can't simply locate the problem, "blow it up," and keeping moving. "You don't know what's down there, because Hamas uses human shields, because Hamas has a hundred-plus hostages  that's going to exponentially challenge this normal underground nightmare."

The tunnel issue, of course, is not the only challenge that Israeli soldiers will face in an invasion of Gaza. The urban environment  which tends to favor whoever is on defense  in the enclave will make for a difficult and nasty fight, characterized by sneak attacks, traps, and other guerrilla tactics. It's something no military seeks to find itself doing, a former senior US intelligence officer told Insider, as the risk to civilians and soldiers alike are grave.

In preparation for what Israeli officials have indicated will be a ground invasion, the country's air force continues to pound Gaza with bombs as it has done every day since the initial Hamas attacks on October 7, which killed at least 1,300 people  mostly civilians  and injured over 4,200 more. The relentless aerial campaign, which has leveled entire neighborhoods, has killed over 3,000 Palestinians and injured another 12,500, according to the latest United Nations figures.

Read the original article on Business Insider
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's government was preparing an economic aid package for those impacted by attacks by Hamas militants that will be "bigger and broader" than during the COVID-19 pandemic, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters, Smotrich said Israel's economy and fiscal position - such as a low debt-to-GDP ratio - was strong enough to support the military and civilian war efforts as needed.

"We have money and we will use it now for everything that is needed with a generous hand," Smotrich said. "We have stopped everything that is not important in the budget and we are diverting everything to the needs of the war and supporting the economy."

He added that in the coming days Israel would increase the budget framework in parliament to create "maximum flexibility for ourselves".

(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Russian sources expressed "pronounced concern" about ongoing Ukrainian activity on the east bank of Kherson Oblast and framed these activities as part of a potential larger Ukrainian operation, the Institute for the Study of War said in their latest update on Oct. 18.

The experts note, however, that the majority of Russian claims about developments on the east bank are largely single-sourced to one prominent Russian military blogger who has recently heavily focused his reporting on this section of the front.

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Russian sources characterized the reported assaults as a Ukrainian effort to expand a bridgehead on the east bank and the initial stages of a larger offensive operation across the Dnipro River.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin similarly described Ukrainian activity in Kherson Oblast as the next counteroffensive and continued his typical rhetorical line by painting all Ukrainian offensive operations as a failure, according to the ISW.

The think-tank admits it is difficult to assess the scope and prospects of the Ukrainian activity on the east bank on Kherson Oblast. "However, it is noteworthy that prominent and generally reliable Russian sources are discussing Ukrainian activities on the east bank as occurring at a larger scale than previously documented tactical cross-river raids by Ukrainian forces."







Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Panic is in the air after reports of a bedbug infestation in Paris.

I've lived in New York City for 34 years, and have had the abysmal misfortune of getting bedbugs four times.

My advice from the trenches includes acting quickly, alerting neighbors, and investing in protective gear.

In the summer of 2018, I woke up in the middle of the night to find a tiny bug sitting on my pillow, staring at me. I yelped, squashed it with a tissue, and took a closer look.

Yep, it was a bedbug.

This was not my first go-around with the bloodsucking crawlers. In the 34 years I've lived in New York City, I've been unlucky enough to make this stomach-dropping discovery four separate times in three different apartments.

The first time, I refused to believe it was true until the bedbug-sniffing dog had a field day in my bedroom. The second time, I found a bug behind my bed on Valentine's Day. The third time, a new roommate moved in with them. The summer of 2018 was the fourth time  and I'm not so naive to think it will be the last.

The bugs themselves are mostly harmless  they don't spread disease, and their bites generally don't cause serious health problems. But there is a unique and acute paranoia that accompanies a bedbug experience. Each time, for days and weeks after they were gone, every bodily sensation and speck of dirt sent me into a spiral, convinced they had returned.

More recently, I started having dreams about them again after reading about Paris's apparent infestation.

A bedbug-sniffing dog named Thunder sits down in front of a movie theater seat, indicating the presence of a bug.

A bedbug-sniffing dog named Thunder sits down in front of a Paris movie theater seat in October. Unfortunately for anyone who sat there recently, this means Thunder has detected a bug.Remon Haazen/Getty

Amid Fashion Week in the French capital, reports emerged of sightings in movie theaters, trains, and even Charles-de-Gaulle Airport. Videos appeared to show the tiny brown bugs on public transportation, and man-on-the-street interviews reflected creeping hysteria. "I paid close attention while stepping on the train today, to see if there were crawlers on my seat," one commuter said.

French officials haven't done much to tamp down the fear, and sightings have been reported in other French cities. "No one is immune," Emmanuel Gregoire, the deputy mayor of Paris, tweeted ominously in late September.

Now, residents of the UK and US are wondering if they're next. It's understandable: Bedbugs suck  in more ways than one  and the thought of them making their way across the Atlantic in thousands of Away carry-ons can make your skin itch. But let me be the first to assure you: The bedbugs are already here. They've been here for a long time. And they're going to stay a while.

Here's what I've learned from my time in the bedbug trenches  and remember, don't panic.

Prevention is key, but bedbugs are mostly just bad luck

The best way to deal with bedbugs is to avoid getting them altogether.

They love to hitch rides in used furniture and clothing. High heat is the single best way to kill live bugs and eggs, so if you buy clothes from a thrift store, throw them in a dryer for 30 minutes to an hour when you get home. If you find upholstered or even wooden furniture  yes, they can make a home in those crevices, too  on the street, I suggest leaving it there, no matter how nice it might look in your living room. (Metal furniture is a safer bet, although it's not immune.) Don't even think about getting a used mattress.

A sign reading "bed bugs" looms above a mattress abandoned in Marseille. Nicolas Tucat/AFP/Getty

Bedbugs are enthusiastic travelers, and they can crawl into your suitcase in a hotel room or Airbnb. But if you're worried about bringing bedbugs back from, say, Paris, there are some things you can do to protect yourself.

Lou Sorkin, a bedbug expert and entomologist who worked at the American Museum of Natural History for more than 40 years, told Insider you might want to keep your suitcase in the bathtub.

"Suitcases are best not to be placed on furniture or on the bed," he said. "If bedbugs are in the room, they may crawl over onto anything placed on the bed. That could happen on the smaller sofas and upholstered chairs, too."

When you get home, Sorkin said, isolate your suitcase and throw all your clothes in the dryer for an hour.

Still, even if you do everything right, sometimes bedbugs make their way into your home anyway. They are just as likely to infest fancy new homes as older residences, and they like immaculate spaces as much as messy ones.

Sometimes, you just get screwed  your neighbor gets them, you bring one home on the train, God decides to smite you  and it's no one's fault.

Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to wait them out

If one of the scenarios I described above happens, do not engage in a battle of wills with the bugs. You will lose.

Bedbugs are scary, embarrassing, and incredibly annoying. If you suspect you have them  or, worse, find a bug  you might be compelled to wait and see if the problem simply goes away on its own.

But as Sorkin advised, "If bedbugs are found early, they're much easier to get rid of."

If you find feces (it looks like this!) on your mattress, sheets, or bed frame, find a live or dead bug, or regularly get bites, call an exterminator for an inspection, like, immediately. Exterminators will do a thorough inspection to assess the extent of the infestation. You can even get a bedbug-sniffing dog to come in to suss out exactly where live bugs are located, which makes the experience somewhat cuter.

Jamiro the bedbug-sniffing dog inspects a glass tube containing a bed bug. At least the dogs are cute! Sina Schuldt/picture alliance/Getty

A note on bites: Some people erupt in welts the second they sit near a bedbug. Some might have them for months and never see any evidence on their skin. The first time I lived in a place with bedbugs, my roommate was the one who called the exterminator, because she was covered with bites. I had nary a mark and smugly assumed they were only in her bed. I was wrong, and I suffered for my arrogance.

If you live in multi-dwelling housing, alert your neighbors

No one wants to do this, but I promise it's necessary. Bedbugs love to move from apartment to apartment. If you have bedbugs, it's possible your neighbors do too. You might have even gotten bedbugs from them, the bastards. (I'm sure your neighbors are very nice.) And if your neighbors do end up with your bedbugs, their buggies might eventually make their way back into your apartment, rendering all your mattress-flipping and clothing-heating useless.

In some places, including New York City, landlords are obligated to have adjoining apartments inspected when they have a confirmed case. I've never heard of a landlord doing this; certainly, none of my landlords did it for my neighbors. In all likelihood, you will probably have to be the one to alert your neighbors.

It's the right thing to do, obviously, but not doing it can bite you in the ass (literally).

Consider your treatment options carefully

Bedbugs are stressful for a lot of reasons, including the obvious one: "dozens of teeny bugs snacking on me while I sleep."

But the treatment process itself is a huge pain. Some exterminators require extensive preparation before they will treat your space, which can include bagging and heating all of your clothing, washing and heating all your bedding, moving all your furniture away from the walls, vacuuming, lifting your mattress off your bed, taking your bed frame apart, and more. It's time-consuming, exhausting, and  if you live far from a laundromat  nearly impossible.

A pest control technician sprays insecticide under a mattress. Christophe Ena/AP

It's also, according to Sorkin, somewhat unnecessary and perhaps even detrimental. He told Insider that companies might not be able to treat the infestation properly if there's too much pre-treatment activity.

When you bag everything and move your belongings around, "You may be moving populations of bedbugs all over the place," he said. Indeed, when I had bedbugs the third time, my roommates and I mixed up all our stuff before the exterminators even arrived. The infestation eventually moved into my room anyway and all my work was for nothing.

Sorkin recommended low or no-prep treatments, which might ask you to leave everything in your house as-is, or ask you to heat and bag just your bedding before exterminators show up. Once they do, they'll be able to assess what's going on and treat more precisely. (If the bugs have managed to get into every drawer and closet, you may still have to heat and bag everything  all the more reason to be vigilant and catch an infestation early!) If I had to do extensive prep and cleaning, either because a landlord made me use a certain exterminator or because my infestation was too extreme, I'd opt to send my stuff out via a bedbug laundry company.

Different pest control companies employ different extermination methods, and these can change depending on the nature of your infestation. Some people say heat treatment  which seals up your home and heats the entire property at once  is the most effective, but it's expensive and only works if you live in a single-family home.

Weeeeeeeee noxious chemicals! Manuel Ausloos/Reuters

Others use a combination of pesticides, vacuuming, and cryonite, which freezes surface infestations. Sorkin recommended using Aprehend, a biopesticide that contains a bedbug-killing fungus.

However, some landlords will opt for the cheapest treatment options. In my experience, that was a few guys showing up and barely spraying anything. This did not work, and they had to come back many times.

If you can afford it, finding your own exterminators and putting $1,500 on a credit card can be worth the time and emotional despair. (You'll likely still have to hire them through your landlord, though, even if you're the one footing the bill.)

Invest in Climb-Ups, a mattress protector, and a Packtite

Climb-Up interceptors are little cups you stick under the feet of your bed; they catch bugs that fall from your mattress, so if you've got an infestation, you'll know pretty fast.

A mattress and box spring protector will keep bugs from infesting those items. And a Packtite, or a similar bedbug-heating contraption, will heat up books, papers, shoes, suitcases, and other items you can't put through a dryer.

Stay calm, no matter how impossible it seems

Having bedbugs is stressful and expensive. It can feel lonely and isolating. It can make you fight with the people you live with, whether they're roommates or a partner or your entire family. But a bedbug infestation is just one battle among many.

Take deep breaths, don't panic, and don't scream at anyone because they put their bug-infested pillow near the plastic bag full of clothes you just brought back from the laundromat.

And remember: You can always set fire to all your possessions and move.

Read the original article on Insider
Beijing, a global hub for innovation and technology, is celebrating a decade of remarkable achievements in sci-tech cooperation with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the past 10 years, the Chinese capital has leveraged its technology prowess and innovation assets and capabilities to engage in collaborative efforts with BRI partner countries.

Beijing has made substantial accomplishments in various areas of cooperation, including the establishment of joint laboratories, enhanced collaboration between technology parks, facilitating international technology transfers, and supporting tech companies in contributing to the prosperity and development of partner nations, according to the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park.

The Sino-Russian Mathematics Center, led by Peking University and Moscow State University, is one of the joint laboratories established to promote the BRI. Over the past three years, the center has held more than 150 academic exchange events, and invited eminent Russian mathematicians to teach 20 online courses.

In recent years, members of the Beijing Innovation Alliance have engaged in more than 60 international exchanges and collaborations with 16 countries, demonstrating Beijing's commitment to sharing its technological resources for the development of BRI partner nations.

Beijing has also become a focal point for international scientific exchange events over the years. Events such as the Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum) and the China International Fair for Trade in Services have become major platforms for global scientific collaboration. During the 2023 ZGC Forum, diplomats from BRI partner nations and regions including Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Somalia attended, while online sessions were held in Johannesburg, Dubai, and Singapore.

In addition, Beijing's tech companies are exporting their innovative technologies and products to BRI partners. Examples include national-level medical imaging and telemedicine centers built between Beijing-based healthcare IT company Hinacom and BRI partner countries like Malaysia and Sri Lanka, as well as a genetic testing research and development project between Microread Genetics and Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan.

Officials from the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park pledged to boost innovation cooperation and private-sector partnerships, in order to build Beijing into a model city for the BRI.
Holly Jo Felix  the mother of 5-year-old Zoey Felix, who was killed Oct. 2  smelled heavily of alcohol and slurred her words after crashing the vehicle she was driving last November with her young daughter as a passenger, court records say.

Holly Felix gave police an incorrect name and birthdate for her daughter, who was riding in her front passenger's seat, says a charging affidavit written by Branden Childers, a Topeka police officer, in a case in which she pleaded guilty last March.

Police noticed a fresh injury just above one of Holly Felix's daughter's eyes, the affidavit said.

"Without provocation, Holly told me 'I've had too much to drink,'" it said.

The affidavit gave no indication as to what Holly Felix's blood-alcohol level may have been.

Recent Topeka homicide victim Zoey Felix, 5, was injured last year in the DUI crash of a vehicle driven by her mother, Holly Felix, court records say.

Why is Zoey Felix in the news?

Shawnee County District Court Magistrate Judge Christopher J. Turner ordered the affidavit made public Tuesday after it was requested by The Capital-Journal and other media outlets, provided it contained certain, specific redactions.

The defense and prosecution had requested specific redactions, the order said. The ones Turner ordered made consisted largely of blacking out information that would have identified victims or witnesses.

Zoey often roamed her neighborhood alone and unsupervised as she formerly lived with her parents and others at a house in the block of 2200 S.E. Market, neighbors told The Capital-Journal earlier this month.

Holly Felix last month expelled a group that included Zoey; Ezequiel Felix-Guerrero, who was Zoey's father; a teenage girl who was Zoey's sister; and Mickel Cherry out of that house, neighbors said. The group went to live in a campsite in southeast Topeka.

On Oct. 3, Topeka police said Zoey had been raped and killed a day earlier. Cherry, 25, faces criminal charges that include rape and first-degree murder in the commission of a felony.

Why is Holly Felix on probation?

Holly Felix is on probation for aggravated battery, a felony, committed last November, Shawnee County District Court records show.

They suggest the victim in that case was Zoey, identifying the victim only as "Z.F." and giving her birthdate as XX/XX/2018.

Zoey was born March 7, 2018.

Childers said in the charging affidavit that he was called on Nov. 18, 2022, to Tequila's, 520 N.W. Elm Row, where he found Holly Felix and her daughter outside a Nissan X-Terra, which had crashed into a ditch.

Holly Felix was having difficulty standing upright and tried to walk away with the child, the affidavit said, adding that she initially told police incorrectly that her daughter was born in 1987. Holly Felix was born in 1987.

The affidavit said Childers saw two open bottles of alcohol inside the vehicle, one larger than the other, and was told by Holly Felix's child passenger that Holly Felix had been drinking from both.

The affidavit didn't give the passenger's name but said she was born in 2018.

A witness told police he saw Holly Felix revving the vehicle's engine while trying to get it unstuck, the affidavit said.

What happened in the case against Holly Felix?

Court records show Holly Felix, now 36, pleaded guilty March 20 to felony reckless aggravated battery causing bodily harm with a deadly weapon or in a manner whereby great bodily harm can be inflicted, with the victim being "Z.F."

Holly Felix also pleaded guilty in that same case to misdemeanor driving under the influence with a child in the vehicle, second offense, those records show.

In exchange for Holly Felix's guilty pleas, four other charges were dropped in that particular case, they say.

The agreement also called for the dismissal of two other misdemeanor domestic battery charges and one charge of misdemeanor criminal restraint filed last year against Holly Felix in separate Shawnee County District Court cases, court records show.

They say Holly Felix's first offense upon which the DUI charge was based was committed Dec. 12, 2007, in Nevada.

What was Holly Felix's sentence?

Shawnee County District Court Judge Jason E. Geier on June 15 imposed sentences upon Holly Felix that included 10 months in the custody of the Kansas Department of Corrections.

But Kansas law carried a presumptive probation term for the circumstances involved, said Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay.

Holly Felixs sentence was consequently suspended and she was placed on 18 months probation, Kagay said.

Holly Felix was also ordered to take steps that included doing 20 hours of community service and not having contact with Zoey's father, Ezequiel Felix-Guerrero, and one other victim identified as "Katelenn," whose last name wasn't given.

Holly Felix also has prior convictions in Nevada for possessing stolen property and domestic battery, court records show.

Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Records: Mother was driver in Topeka DUI crash that injured Zoey Felix
EVANSVILLE  Two separate investigations by the Indiana Gaming Commission netted two arrests in Evansville this week, both of which involved alleged schemes to cheat at Bally's Casino & Hotel.

The first arrest occurred Monday when officers booked 42-year-old Luis Manuel Garcia Segoviano at the Vanderburgh County jail on one count of cheating at gaming, a Level 6 felony.

On Thursday morning, officers booked 81-year-old Albert Walls, of Cecilia, Kentucky, into the jail on two counts: cheating at gaming and misdemeanor theft. He's since been released.

According to court records, Segoviano stands accused of orchestrating a "jackpot switch," in which a person who wins at a slot machine pays another casino patron to collect the jackpot in exchange for a cut of the funds.

In Segoviano's case, investigators determined he staged the switch in order to avoid paying state and federal taxes.

Walls, who has had a warrant out for his arrest since Oct. 4, allegedly purchased a set of stolen Bally's casino chips that he later attempted to use at a roulette table.

An attempt at a 'jackpot switch'

On Sept. 8, a player at Bally's attempted to cash out a $1,322 slot jackpot, but there was one problem: The player owed back child support, and under state law, he could not collect the winnings.

At this point, the would-be jackpot winner is alleged to have made a confession to Bally's staff. The $1,322 did not truly belong to him, he explained, according to a probable cause affidavit. It belonged to Segoviano, who paid him $100 to cash out the jackpot.

The alleged scheme, according to state statute, constituted an illegal jackpot switch.

A manager at Bally's promptly notified the Indiana Gaming Commission, which in turn began its own investigation and conducted interviews with Segoviano and the man he is alleged to have paid to collect his winnings.

Segoviano denied knowing what a "jackpot switch" was, a gaming commission agent wrote in his arrest affidavit, or that it was illegal.

According to Segoviano's testimony, his excitement at hitting the jackpot enticed a nearby player to inquire about his big win. During a conversation with the other player, Segoviano said he offered the man $100 to cash out his winnings.

"I asked Segoviano why he offered (the man) $100 to claim the jackpot because it would be easier to claim it himself," the state investigator wrote. "He said that if he claimed it, he would have to pay state and federal taxes ... He was just trying to save money."

What the other man involved in Segoviano's alleged jackpot switch didn't know was that had he been able to collect the $1,322 on Segoviano's behalf, he would have been stiffed with a $242 bill in federal taxes: more than double what Segoviano had agreed to pay him.

When gaming commission agents pointed this out to Segoviano, he reportedly replied by stating, "They like cash."

The other man, however, apparently did not take well to the idea he would have paid Segoviano's taxes for him.

"I told him that he would have to pay approximately $300 in taxes for claiming the jackpot for which he was only going to be paid $100 to claim," the state investigator wrote. "He was visibly upset. He did not know he would have had to pay federal taxes and that the taxes would have been higher than what he received."

According to court records, Segoviano posted a $445 cash bond and was released from the Vanderburgh County jail with an order to appear in court.

Stolen chips lead to Kentucky man's arrest

Walls' arrest came almost two months after an agent of the Indiana Gaming Commission accused him of "cheating at gambling" as a Level 6 felony.

It started just after midnight on Aug. 26, when a Bally's surveillance officer claimed the 81-year-old had been "in possession of black non-value roulette chips that had been found to be stolen," and that he attempted to use them at a roulette table.

According to the probable cause affidavit in the case, Walls left Bally's but later returned to the casino floor just before 2 a.m. The agent took him to a gaming commission office and asked about the chips.

Walls reportedly said he'd purchased 19 chips from a "friend" for about $10 on the casino floor. He didn't know they'd been stolen, he claimed.

He identified the friend  who hasn't been charged in the case  and agents tracked the man to a vehicle sitting in the parking garage.

The friend, 43, reportedly said he'd "swiped" the chips from a roulette table and quickly sold them to Walls in the bathroom. He also said Walls knew the chips had been pilfered and bought them anyway  contradicting the story Walls gave to the agent.

The affidavit doesn't say why Walls wasn't arrested that night. According to jail records, he was released Thursday on $500 bond.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Alleged cheats at Bally's casino in Evansville arrested
Jackson County prosecutors on Wednesday charged a 33-year-old man with murder in an August killing outside an Independence motel.

Martin A. Zamarron, of Kansas City, Kansas, is the third accused in the shooting death of 45-year-old Carlos Palacio. He has been held in the Wyandotte County jail for separate alleged felony offenses, including aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, since late September, according to an online jail log.

The killing unfolded at the Stadium Inn Motel, 9803 East U.S. Highway 40, in the early morning hours of Aug. 3. Independence police officers responded to a reported shooting and found Palacio dead of apparent gunshot wounds. An autopsy later showed he was shot in the back.

Detectives reviewed surveillance video from the motel and nearby businesses. Footage showed a black SUV and a silver sedan in the area of the motel and a bar down the street in the hours before the killing.

The video also showed Palacio standing out front of the motel and using his phone. At one point, he walked past the black SUV as a person emerged from its passenger side with a rifle and shot him, according to court documents.

Authorities allege Zamarron was identified as a participant in the killing through witness statements, Facebook messages and cellphone records. He is accused of first-degree murder and armed criminal action.

An arrest warrant issued in Jackson County on Wednesday calls for Zamarron to be held without bond.

Prosecutors have said Palacio was fatally shot after 40-year-old Courtney Wilcox, of central Missouri, gave him $1,000 to buy drugs for her and later came to believe that Palacio had ripped her off. Wilcox, who has been charged with second-degree murder, told police she had asked another person for help to get her money back.

Also charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action is Charles J. White, 33, of Kansas City, Kansas, who is accused of luring Palacio outside of his motel room before the shooting.
Jaylen Burns, a 21-year-old Chicago native and student at Jackson State University, was shot and killed on campus.

Burns, an Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. member, was a senior industrial technology major at the HBCU in Jackson, Mississippi.

According to ABC 7, his father said Burns accompanied his frat brother as he attempted to break up with his girlfriend and retrieve his belongings from her residence.

She invited others, and Burns father believes someone in the group had a gun, and a fight ensued. He said his son tried breaking up the fight when he was shot and killed.

He wasnt a violent kid, he didnt know anything about guns or fighting or gangs, you know, anything about that, Jason Burns said, ABC 7 reported. He just-I dont know, I never felt like this before in my life.

In honor of the late student, Alpha Phi Alpha shared heartfelt sentiments on their official website.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. offers our deepest prayers and condolences to the Burns family, the entire Fraternity, the Delta Phi Chapter, and friends and fellow students at Jackson State University, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. General President Dr. Willis L. Lonzer, III said. Brother Burns was an active campus leader who has been praised by the Fraternity, fellow students, and even Jackson State University Acting Preisdent Dr. Elayne Hayes-Anthony. While every life has value, it is especially heartbreaking when we mourn the death of someone who is trying to make a difference and be of service on campus and in the lives of others.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Watch The Yard (@watchtheyard)

Jackson State University suspended classes on Monday and held a vigil honoring Burns on Tuesday, 16 WAPT News reported.

Police said Burns tried driving himself to the hospital after the shooting and encountered officers. After being transported to the hospital, Burns, who would have turned 22 in November, died.

Burns father, Jason, told the Clarion Ledger, When you come in contact with him, you wanted to be a better person. He was special. If we could have bottled it up and kept it, I think we would have.

The family said he had dreams such as studying astrophysics and becoming an auto mechanic.

He was special, and he had a way of letting people know that he was meant for great things, said his mother, LaTrice Wright. His footsteps were walking toward greatness. They were walking toward destiny.

Aside from being a member of Alpha Phi Alphas Delta Phi Chapter, Burns made deans list every year and was president of the C100 Chapter at Jackson State University, which is a part of the 100 Black Men of America org.
Jada Pinkett Smith has reacted to the recent arrest of Tupac Shakurs alleged murderer, Duane Davis, saying that for justice to feel complete, she needs to know who called the hit.

Nearly three decades after the rappers fatal killing in a drive-by shooting in 1996, Las Vegas Metro police arrested and indicted Davis on 29 September. Prosecutors claim that while he wasnt the gunman, he was the ringleader who ordered Shakurs death.

Nevada law states that you can be charged with a crime  including murder  if you aid in committing the crime.

Follow The Independents live blog of Daviss arraignment here.

In a recent Q&A with InStyle magazine to promote her new memoir, Worthy, Pinkett Smith, 52, said she wouldnt feel complete justice had been served unless she knew who called the hit on her childhood friend.

My biggest question is: Who called the hit? And so I know that someones been arrested, but I need that answered for me to really feel like justice in its completeness is being served. Who called the hit?

When the interviewer noted that the arrest was hopefully a step in the right direction, Pinkett Smith agreed: Thats what I was happy about.

Hopefully well get the answers that can bring us some closure and thats what Im really hoping for. Well see.

Davis, who investigators have long identified as one of the four suspects in Shakurs death, was arrested and charged with murder with use of a deadly weapon in the killing of the renowned rapper on the Las Vegas strip.

Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur (Getty Images)

Prosecutors then appeared in court where they described Davis as the on-ground, on-site commander who ordered the death of Shakur.

In an interview with RollingOut last week, Pinkett Smith called Shakur her soulmate, revealing that he had proposed to her from prison.

The Changes rapper served eight months in prison in 1995 on sexual abuse charges, but was released pending an appeal of his conviction. He was bailed out by Suge Knight, the co-founder of Death Row Records.

Pinkett Smith said she used to visit him throughout his prison sentence and that during one of her visits, he asked her to marry him.

When he asked me to get married, I knew at that time that he needed somebody to do time with him  which I was going to do anyway. You aint have to marry me to do time, Im here, Pinkett Smith said.

She said she viewed the proposal as Shakur looking for a support system, and not because he loved her or wanted to get married. I think that for him, he just felt like: OK, if I can tether myself, itll keep me on a trajectory, she said, noting that the marriage proposal wouldnt have amounted to anything at the end of the day.

Because of our friendship and because of everything we have been through together, he just wanted to feel that solidified foundation, you know? Pinkett Smith explained. Because I promise you, he would have married and divorced me as soon as his a** left jail.

Worthy is out now.
A state appellate court has ruled that six phone calls made from jail to a suspect in a Franklin murder case that started over an Instagram post can be used as evidence in the trial.

William Brandon, 30, of the Somerset section of Franklin, is awaiting trial in the killing of Raphael Edwards, 27, at an apartment complex off Village Drive in Franklin on July 2020. Brandon has been charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, unlawful possession of a firearm without a permit and certain persons not to possess firearms.

A second defendant, Chris Gardner, 31, of New Brunswick, is also facing a murder charge in the case, but the court ruling involves only phone calls between Brandon and his friend, Abubakarr King, who was incarcerated in the Middlesex County Adult Correctional Center in North Brunswick, at the time.

In a recorded phone call from the jail a few weeks before the killing, Brandon told King he had been offended by an exchange he had with Edwards on Instagram, according to court papers.

Brandon said that if he saw Edwards, "I'm knocking him out," continuing, "I'm gonna do him dirty," court papers say.

Edwards was shot to death minutes before midnight on July 7, 2020, as he was leaving his apartment.

A witness told police he saw two men run past Edwards' body then get into a dark-colored car and speed away, according to court papers. Police also obtained a surveillance video showing the two men moving Edwards' car to a nearby apartment complex then returning to the scene and fleeing in a dark-colored car, court papers say.

Also see: These Central Jersey towns arrest the most people for DWI

Two days after the killing, King called Brandon twice from the jail. In those conversations, court papers say, Brandon expressed annoyance that people in the community were claiming he was involved in the crime.

King said that whoever killed Edwards was a "known shark" and asked Brandon if he was a "shark," according to court papers.

"I'm a great white," Brandon replied, court papers say.

Two more phone calls followed as police were still looking to identify a suspect. In one of those calls, Brandon said a person had "seen God that day," according to court papers.

A fifth phone call was made on Aug. 14, 2020, the day after the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office had issued a press release asking for the public's help in tracking down a suspect.

In that call, Brandon said investigators did not have a suspect. "They just guessing," he said. "Einny, meeney, minney mo," court papers say.

But two days later police got a tip that identified Brandon as the person walking with a distinctive gait in the surveillance video. The tipster also identified the getaway car as Brandon's vehicle, a BMW, court papers say.

Police began surveillance of Brandon's home and saw him driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee with a temporary registration. Police then discovered he had traded the BMW for the Jeep on the same day the tip was given, court papers say.

Because Brandon had put his cellphone number on the bill of sale, the prosecutor's office determined that Brandon's cellphone had been at the scene of the killing, according to court papers.

In a sixth and final phone call before he was arrested, Brandon told King that he had "crossed all T's and dotted all I's," according to court papers.

At a pre-trial hearing Brandon objected when the prosecutor's office tried to enter the phone calls into evidence.

A Superior Court judge ruled in March that the "rapid, slightly profane and filled with slang terminology" phone calls could not be used in the trial because they are "unnecessarily prejudicial."

The prosecutor's office appealed and a state appellate court on Tuesday ruled the phone calls could be used to show that Brandon was upset over the Instagram post and would harm Edwards if he saw him.

The prosecutor's office argued that the phone calls "individually and collectively evince a consciousness of guilt, reveal (Brandon's) awareness of the circumstances of the crime, and show the efforts (Brandon) took to conceal his complicity," the appellate court wrote.

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: NJ court: Jail phone calls admissible in Instagram murder trial
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Thursday it had invited Australia to join two regular command post military exercises conducted with the United States for the first time.

Japan's Minister of Defence Minoru Kihara said he discussed Australia's participation in the drills during talks in Tokyo with his counterpart from Canberra, Richard Marles .

The first exercise in November, Yama Sakura, will be with Japan's Self Defense Forces (SDF) and the U.S. Army. The second exercise, Keen Edge, is scheduled for February and will involve the SDF and the U.S. Marines

"We are expanding defence cooperation with Australia in all areas. Our goal is that in times of emergency we are able to work closely together," Kihara told reporters after the meeting.

The two countries also agreed to cooperate in defence equipment joint development.

Marles welcomed Australia's closer security ties with Japan, according to a transcript of his remarks released by the Canberra government.

"There is no country in the world with whom we have a greater strategic alignment than Japan. We're both allies of the United States, we both have a complex relationship with our largest trading partner China, and we have a deep relationship with each other," Marles said.

Japan and Australia are both concerned about China's growing military power in the region and about a possible attack by Beijing to gain control of Taiwan.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Gareth Jones)
[Source]

Japanese tea brand Ito En is using an AI-generated spokesmodel to promote its new line of drinks in a move that some see as safeguarding the company from potential scandal caused by a human spokesperson.

New ad: Ito En released an ad in early September for its new drink line, Oi Ocha Catechin Green Tea. The video features an unnamed spokesmodel. About a month after uploading the ad to YouTube, the company confirmed in a press release that the spokesmodel shown in the video was created using aritifical intelligence technology.

The label, too: Besides the spokesmodel, the label Ito En used for their Oi Ocha Catechin Green Tea drink also has AI elements. The company had its designers create over a dozen designs before subjecting the draft to an AI evaluation process, according to SoraNews24.

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After the process, human designers looked at the labels one more time before deciding which one to use as the company's finalized design.

How people reacted: Some Japanese users were reportedly amazed by the technology Ito En used for the ad, with some comments pointing out the lifelike features of the spokesmodel.

Others were more critical of Ito Ens use of AI, with one social media user writing, Yeah, the technology is impressive and all, but realizing This person doesnt really exist makes me feel sort of empty inside.

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There is potential here: Other social media users reportedly saw potential in using an AI model as the companys spokesmodel, such as freeing them from a possible scandal down the line.

Ito En has yet to clarify if its use of an AI model for its ad was a way to negate the risk of a potential human-caused scandal in the future, the report noted.

Feature image screen shot via 

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The woman facing charges in the 2022 Jacksonville Beach murder-for-hire plot of her ex-husband will now officially be extradited to Florida from Washington state.

Shanna Gardner has been fighting the extradition since her arrest in August in connection to the killing of her ex-husband Jared Bridegan.

Gardner appeared in court on Thursday in Benton County, Washington, and the judge said the court had both the extradition warrant from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a copy of the warrant signed by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

When Gardner appeared in court earlier this month, the court did not have a copy of Inslees signed order.

Read: DeSantis signs extradition warrant to bring woman accused in ex-husbands murder back to Florida

Gardners attorney said Thursday she would not file a habeas corpus, meaning she would not fight the extradition orders.

Action News Jax told you last month when DeSantis signed the extradition warrant ordering Gardner back to Florida.

Read: Wish it werent like this: Ex-wife of Jared Bridegan, father killed in Jacksonville Beach, speaks

Gardners ex-husband was shot and killed on Feb. 16, 2022 in Jacksonville Beach while his 2-year-old daughter he shared with his wife Kirsten Bridegan was in the car. He had just dropped off the twins he shared with Gardner at her home in Jacksonville Beach.

Police say he had stopped to remove a tire in the road that was intentionally placed there. The State Attorneys Office called it a murder-for-hire plot.

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In an exclusive interview with Action News Jax last year, Gardner denied involvement in Bridegans murder.

Gardner is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony, and child abuse.

Action News Jax is reaching out to the State Attorneys Office to find out the timing of when Gardner will be back in Florida.

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The State Attorneys Office said it is working with law enforcement to expedite her return to Florida and the process will happen in the next few weeks. Action News Jax Law & Safety Expert Dale Carson, a criminal defense lawyer, said typically a local agency like the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office or Jacksonville Beach Police would fly to get the suspect.

Once Gardner arrives, she will have her first appearance in a Duval County courtroom

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The iconic Fairfield-based Jelly Belly Candy Co. announced Wednesday it has agreed to be bought by a Chicago confectioner for an undisclosed amount.

The Ferrara Candy Co.  which manufactures brands such as NERDS, SweeTARTS and Trolli  is poised to acquire nearly 800 Jelly Belly employees and its facilities in California, Illinois and Thailand, according to a Wednesday news release.

Jelly Belly said in the news release that the deal is subject to certain closing conditions which still must be hashed out by the end of this year.

Its unclear whether the Fairfield facility will close after the transaction is complete.

The popular site, visible from Interstate 80, serves as a candy factory and the company headquarters. Visitors, including students throughout Northern California traveling to the popular field trip destination, for decades have taken daily tours of the candy-making process, perused through the Jelly Belly museum and gone on factory train rides.

For six generations, Jelly Belly remained under family ownership.

Jelly Belly candies rest during the manufacturing process at the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield in 2008. Michael Allen Jones/Sacramento Bee file

Lisa Brasher, the president and CEO of Jelly Belly, said in a statement that Ferreras interest reflects the substantial value of the Jelly Belly brand and provides the opportunity for continued growth.

We look forward to being a part of this impressive company, Brasher added.

Former President Ronald Reagan called the sweet treat his favorite, a taste that he developed as governor of California. After he was elected president, Reagan could even be spotted munching on Jelly Belly jelly beans while hosting important meetings.

Ferrara, a privately owned company, said it has more than 7,500 employees delivering sweets to more than 66 million U.S. households annually. It also recently gained ownership of Brazilian candy and snacks maker Dori Alimentos; that transaction, announced in July, is also contingent upon certain closing conditions and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
WASHINGTON  An effort backed by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to empower interim Speaker Patrick McHenry of North Carolina collapsed Thursday after it became clear it wouldn't get enough support from House Republicans.

Jordan, the GOPs latest nominee for speaker, who lost two rounds of votes this week, had floated the idea of temporarily empowering McHenry while he worked to shore up enough support for his own candidacy, according to three sources. The plan would have empowered McHenry until January, the sources said, allowing legislative business to continue in the face of two wars and a looming government shutdown.

But leaving a heated, 3-hour closed-door meeting with GOP members Thursday, Jordan said empowering McHenry was not a viable option. He said that it was a way to lower the temperature and get back to work but that we decided that wasnt where were going to go.

Jordan reiterated that he was not planning to drop out of the race.

"Im still running for speaker, and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race," he said.

Around 7 p.m., GOP leaders announced there would be no votes Thursday. A Jordan spokesman said the next vote was scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday.

Before the announcement, Jordan attended a separate meeting with the 22 Republican holdouts Thursday evening. But there was no breakthrough. As they left the meeting, Jordan's detractors said the goal of the meeting was to persuade him to drop out.

"Our mind is set," said Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla. "He needed to know there is no way forward for the speakership."

Though the effort to empower McHenry appeared to get some support from moderate members and even Democrats, several Republicans immediately threw cold water on the plan as they left the earlier private GOP meeting in the Capitol.

This is the wrong thing to do, said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a key ally of both Jordan and former President Donald Trump.

A second conservative Jordan ally, Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said: Its the biggest F-U to Republican voters Ive ever seen. We need to elect a speaker. We were sent here to elect a speaker. Its a cop-out. ... Its a big mistake, and over half the Republicans in that room are against it.

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, which Jordan co-founded, also opposes the resolution: We shouldnt be setting this precedent or this will be the way we elect speakers from now on.

Jordan doesnt need to drop out. Im going to stay with Mr. Jordan to the end, Perry added.

McHenry, the Financial Services Committee chairman and a former member of GOP leadership who helped negotiate the Biden-McCarthy deal, tamped down talk of the resolution, as well.

If there is some goal to subvert the House rules to give me powers without a formal vote, I will not accept it, he told reporters Thursday night as he went to adjourn the House for the day.

Earlier Thursday, McHenry said he was still working to elect Jordan as speaker, and that he was not having any discussions about the matter with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

I am focused on electing Jim Jordan, who is our speaker nominee, as speaker of the House, he told reporters. Thats my goal. Thats my focus.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, talks with Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

Several GOP members expressed doubt Thursday that the plan would even make it to a floor vote.

Reading the room, this thing is dead, Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida told reporters about the resolution.

Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida said, Its pretty clear at our conference meeting that the resolution is not going to be supported.

He added, I think thats pretty much over.

Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, said that around two-thirds of the conference is against empowering McHenry and that they have discussed four or five names besides Jordans. Fallon floated Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., an Iraq war veteran and the chairman of the select committee investigating the Chinese Communist Party, as a potential candidate.

Tempers flared at Thursday's broader GOP Conference meeting.

At one point, McCarthy, R-Calif., stepped in and tried to calm the room. But when Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., his nemesis who forced the vote to oust him, stood up to speak, McCarthy shouted him down, two lawmakers said.

Sit down! McCarthy barked at Gaetz. Yeah, sit down! other Republicans chimed in.

When Gaetz tried to speak at the microphone, Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., approached him in an aggressive manner but still remained about 15 feet away, lawmakers said. Gaetz made a motion with his finger at Bost, as if to say, Bring it on, according to the lawmakers.

Bost later apologized to Gaetz in front of the entire room, and Gaetz said he accepted the apology, the lawmakers said.

A senior Democratic source said Democrats had been chatting with Republicans about the McHenry empowerment plan.

Three Democratic lawmakers said that at a closed-door meeting Thursday, Jeffries told rank-and-file members that Democrats would support only a temporary speaker who meets the following conditions: someone who voted to certify the 2020 election; who has a track record of standing up to extremism and defending democracy, as well as a track record of governing; and who has agreed to support the original debt limit deal struck between the White House and McCarthy.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The fight for control of the U.S. House of Representatives took a sharp turn Thursday as Republicans proved unable to agree on any plan to consider or pass legislation, leaving the leaderless chamber helpless to address the crises facing the country.

Without a functional lower chamber, Congress cannot do anything to respond to Russia's ongoing war on Ukraine, Israel's planned invasion of the Gaza Strip and a looming government shutdown that could leave millions of military service members and other federal workers without pay.

But in the more than two weeks since eight GOP rebels, joined by Democrats, voted to oust Bakersfield Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker, Republicans, who control the lower chamber, have been unable to overcome their differences and choose a new leader who can win a simple majority vote in the House.

Last week, the party tried electing House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana as speaker, but he withdrew after failing to win enough support. Next up was Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, former President Trump's pick, who lost two votes on the floor.

On Thursday, the party considered a new plan: empowering North Carolina Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, a longtime McCarthy ally who is serving as the House's temporary speaker, to pass legislation. But despite Jordan announcing his support for the idea Thursday morning, the scheme failed to win the backing of the majority of the GOP.

Jordan indicated he will try a third time to win a majority Friday morning. Whether he will ever be able to do so is an open question.

"The Republicans have proven they are incapable of reaching consensus," Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist, told The Times.

For now, the U.S. government remains powerless to pass new laws, fund its operations or even name post offices.

House Republicans face another deadline: Nov. 17, when government funding is set to run out. If Congress does not secure funding, millions of service members and other federal workers could go without pay during the holiday season.

In a speech from the Oval Office on Thursday evening, President Biden said he planned to send Congress "an urgent budget request to fund America's national security needs to support our critical partners including Israel and Ukraine."

The chaos in Washington and the divisions in the Republican Party are the "ongoing effects" of Donald Trump's presidency, Longwell said. "The toxic forces he unleashed on the party are still playing out," she said, adding that today's GOP is "made in Trump's image."

If Republicans are unable to choose someone to lead the House, "at some point you have to reach out to Democrats," she added.

Throughout the GOP's squabbling, Democrats have remained united behind their nominee for speaker, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Jeffries has indicated his party could be open to the idea of empowering McHenry to pass legislation. As of now, Democratic votes would probably be needed to make that a reality.

But Republicans using Democrats to empower McHenry "would set off the fuse that would certainly end in a civil war within the GOP," Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) warned reporters Thursday.

Jordan is a far-right favorite who Democrats routinely note has never passed a law throughout his 16 years in Congress. He is, however, a favorite of the party's MAGA faction. The former president endorsed the Ohioan for speaker shortly after McCarthys ouster, and the Trump loyalists who made it impossible for McCarthy to govern without help from Democrats remain strong supporters of Jordan.

Read more: The sexual abuse scandal that haunts Trump's pick for House speaker

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who led the eight GOP rebels' charge against McCarthy, has faced fury from members in his party who blame him for this predicament.

During the party's closed-door meeting Thursday, Gaetz tried to interrupt McCarthy while he addressed lawmakers. The Californian told Gaetz to sit down. After the meeting, McCarthy told reporters that he did not yell at Gaetz, though "the whole country, I think, would scream at Matt Gaetz right now."

"Remember, it was crazy eights led by Matt Gaetz and every single Democrat that put us into this situation," McCarthy added.

McCarthy said a resolution to empower McHenry would not come to the floor until it has the backing of a majority of Republicanseven if a majority of the chamber is likely to back it.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said he supported empowering McHenry so the House can process bills.

"Arguing with each other over who's the most popular  it's not real work," Crenshaw told reporters. "The real work is done on our committees, it's passing legislation. And we need to get back to that."

Other Republicans were skeptical of the plan. Indiana Rep. Jim Banks told reporters the move "is the biggest F-you to Republican voters Ive ever seen."

"The move for McHenry provided a good off ramp," Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, told The Times in a statement. The argument against empowering McHenry is that "we should not do the unprecedented thing because we have to fix the other, ongoing unprecedented thing."

Leading the fractured Republican caucus would require McHenry  or whoever gets the gavel  to master the same difficult task that led to McCarthy's downfall: keeping both hard-right Republicans and more moderate conservatives happy.

While both McCarthy and Jordan cast doubt on Joe Biden's presidential election victory in 2020, McHenry voted in favor of certifying the electoral college results, putting him at odds with the Trump-aligned right wing of the GOP but potentially making him more acceptable to Democrats.

McHenry was also a key negotiator of the budget agreement with the White House in May, which many Republicans opposed and which McCarthy backed away from over the summer as he tried to appease the right wing.

Empowering McHenry "was a way to lower the temperature and get back to work," but the party "decided that wasn't where we're gonna go," Jordan told reporters Thursday. "I'm still running for speaker and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.

Get the best of the Los Angeles Times politics coverage with the Essential Politics newsletter.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) will back a resolution to empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) as he continues to work to shore up support for his Speaker bid, according to a source familiar.

The move comes after Jordan failed on two ballots to get the 217 votes he needed to win the gavel and opponents were promising greater resistance.

But its unclear whether a vote to empower McHenry would pass muster on the House floor.

While the push to expand McHenrys power has been growing this week, a number of Republicans pushed back on the idea Thursday.

Oh, hell no. Hades no, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) told reporters. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said Republicans shouldnt be setting this precedent, and Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said he was absolutely going to vote against it.

How many defections there ultimately are  and whether any Democrats help make up the difference  remains the key question.

The resolution would broadly grant McHenry the same powers as an elected Speaker, but it would only leave him in the role until January, and he would not be in the line of presidential succession.

Jordan is not dropping out of the race and will remain the GOPs Speaker-designee.

Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Penn.) and other GOP lawmakers pushed for the move after Jordans second failed vote to secure the Speakership, in which he lost further support from the GOP conference.

After two weeks without a Speaker of the House and no clear candidate with 217 votes in the Republican conference, it is time to look at other viable options. By empowering Patrick McHenry as Speaker Pro Tempore we can take care of our ally Israel until a new Speaker is elected, Joyce said in a statement ahead of Wednesdays vote.

But much like on the speakers race itself, the conference remains divided on whether to further establish McHenry in the role.

Never in the history of this institutionhave we ever appointed a Speaker pro tempore with the full powers of the Speakership without having a duly elected Speaker, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told reporters.

To do that wed be playing gamesWe should do our job and select the Speaker  the Constitution says that.

Other GOP members have expressed concern that installing McHenry would take needed pressure off the conference as it works to sort out who should lead them.

Some Jordan supporters have also backed the idea.

Im very aware of the math, and its very clear to me that the most logical solution at this point is to empower the Speaker pro temp so that we get back to work, Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) said Wednesday.

McHenry, for his part, has resisted becoming Speaker. Earlier this year he declined to run for leadership, preferring to lead the House Financial Services Committee. He voted for Jordan on both ballots.

Democrats have expressed openness to the idea, but have stepped back to let Republicans approach them on any agreement that would require their support  a likely need given the status of the GOP.

Were looking for ways to reopen the government and get bipartisan bills to the floor. So the balls in their court. This is their civil war. Theyre the majority. They have to elect the speaker. We hope that they will come to us now that there have been two votes, and Jim Jordan has been unable to put it together and find that bipartisanship, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) told reporters after leaving a conference meeting.

Our unity is our strength, she added

Updated at 12:53 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The leaderless House was plunged deeper into chaos on Thursday after Republicans refused to coalesce around a speaker and a plan to empower an interim speaker collapsed.

The partys embattled candidate for speaker, congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, vowed to press ahead, scheduling a long-delayed third vote on his nomination for Friday morning.

But angry and exhausted, the House Republican conference ended the day of fiery closed-door sessions no closer to breaking the impasse that has immobilized the chamber for a 17th day.

Related: Matt Gaetz sorry for email that blamed other Republicans amid speaker fight

Jordan, a Donald Trump loyalist who led the congressional effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and now chairs the House judiciary committee, has lost two consecutive votes to secure the speakership and did not appear to have the 217 votes he needs to win the gavel in a floor vote by Thursday evening.

Earlier in the day, Jordan had briefly reversed course and backed a novel, bipartisan proposal to expand the authority of the temporary speaker, a position currently held by Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, for the next several months as Jordan worked to shore up support for his bid. But a group of hard-right conservatives revolted, calling the plan asinine and arguing that it would effectively cede control of the floor to Democrats.

As support for the idea crumbled, Jordan told reporters that he would continue to press ahead with his candidacy despite entrenched opposition from a widening group of members, some of whom accused the Ohio Republican of deploying intimidation tactics.

We made the pitch to members on the resolution as a way to lower the temperature and get back to work, Jordan told reporters on Thursday. We decided that wasnt where were gonna go. Im still running for speaker and I plan to go the floor and get the votes and win this race.

Behind closed doors, tensions flared.

Temperatures are pretty high, congressman Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican, told reporters as he left a conference-wide meeting on Thursday. He said he was headed to the chapel to pray for some divine guidance.

During one session, Kevin McCarthy , the ousted former speaker, clashed with Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who led the push to remove him earlier this month. Gaetz rose to speak and McCarthy told him to sit down.

Asked about the exchange, McCarthy said: The whole country I think would scream at Matt Gaetz right now.

The dramatic saga to elect a new speaker began earlier this month with the unprecedented ousting of McCarthy, a move backed by eight far-right Republicans after he relied on Democrats to pass legislation that would fund the government and avert a shutdown.

Steve Scalise abruptly withdrew from the House speakers race when Jim Jordans far-right allies refused to coalesce around him. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

In a secret ballot, the Republican conference initially nominated congressman Steve Scalise to replace McCarthy, choosing the No 2 House Republican over Jordan, a founding member of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus. But Scalise abruptly withdrew when Jordans far-right allies refused to coalesce around him.

Jordan, the runner-up, then emerged as the partys second choice to be speaker. But his candidacy ran headlong into opposition from more mainstream members wary of elevating a political flamethrower and Trump loyalist to a position that is second in line to the presidency. Wars raging in Ukraine and Israel and a government funding deadline looming had Republicans desperate to move forward.

With the majority party deadlocked, a bipartisan group of lawmakers began to explore the possibility of expanding the powers of the acting speaker, McHenry, thereby allowing the chamber to take up urgent legislation.

McHenry assumed the position of speaker pro tempore under a House rule put in place after the September 11 terrorist attacks. It requires a speaker to draw up a confidential list of lawmakers who would temporarily assume the job in the event the speakers chair should become vacant. When McCarthy was ousted, the House learned that McHenry, a close ally of the former speaker, was at the top of that list.

McHenry has waived off calls to expand his power, indicating that he views the role as limited to presiding over the election of the next speaker. But McCarthy told reporters on Thursday that he believes McHenry already has the authority to conduct legislative business.

Its about the continuity of government, McCarthy said. I always believed the names I was putting on the list could carry out and keep government running until you elect a new speaker.

But several conservatives decried the effort to install a temporary speaker, preferring Jordan plow ahead with more votes. After all, they argue, it took McCarthy 15 ballots to be elected speaker in January.

This is the biggest FU to Republican voters Ive ever seen, said congressman Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana.

Related: Jim Jordan loses US House speaker vote for second time as support ebbs

The cast of rebels who oppose Jordan now are a mix of political moderates and institutional pragmatists with deep reservations about the Ohio Republicans approach to governance. Some hail from districts that Joe Biden won in 2020, where Jordans brand of far-right conservatism is unpopular. Several were wary of handing the gavel to a lawmaker the former Republican speaker John Boehner once called a legislative terrorist.

One conservative lawmaker, Colorado congressman Ken Buck, who was among the hard-right faction that voted to oust McCarthy, said he would not support Jordan because Jordan still refused to accept Bidens victory in the 2020 presidential election.

Jordans allies on Capitol Hill and in conservative media have waged an aggressive pressure campaign for votes that some lawmakers said included harassing messages and threats of a primary challenge. The calculation was that Jordans more mainstream critics would eventually relent and fall in line behind him. But his hardball tactics backfired, those lawmakers said.

One thing I cannot stomach or support is a bully, said congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, an Iowa Republican, who initially voted for Jordan and then opposed on a second ballot after she said in a statement that she had received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls.

On Thursday afternoon Jordan attempted a reset, huddling once again with a group of holdouts, some of whom have vowed to block him from ever claiming the gavel.

But progress eluded him. After the meeting, congressman Mike Lawler, a New York Republican opposed to Jordan, called for the conference to reinstate McCarthy or empower McHenry.

We must prove to the American people that we can govern effectively and responsibly or, in 15 months, well be debating who the minority leader is and preparing for Joe Bidens second inaugural, he said.
More than two weeks into an unprecedented leadership crisis, House Republicans might have finally hit rock bottom.

On Thursday, lawmakers lurched between different options to get themselves out of the mess created by the right-wing removal of Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as Speaker.

Instead, Republicans sunk further into the mess during a closed-door, three-hour conference meeting on Thursday.

The meeting itself has already become the stuff of legend in the Capitol. It featured McCarthy reportedly yelling at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), the ringleader of the coup which ousted him, and Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL) reportedly lunging at Gaetz. It featured lawmakers heatedly studying copies of the U.S. Constitution, even waving them in the air, as they debated their unprecedented situation. And plenty of yelling.

For some lawmakers, it was apparently too much. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), for instance, left the meeting early. He told reporters he needed to pray.

But after all of the drama, the House GOP ended up in exactly the same place.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) remains the GOP nominee, and he is still trying to win over 22 lawmakers who voted against him on Wednesday ahead of a potential third vote on Thursday evening.

As of Thursday morning, however, Jordan seemed to believe he could not overcome that opposition quickly. His camp told reporters he would retreat from a planned third vote, which he was expected to lose.

Instead, the Ohio Republican was getting behind a plan to temporarily stop the House GOPs bleeding: empower the Speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), to conduct essential House business on a short-term basis.

A source familiar with Jordans plans said he was not dropping out and would continue to run as the Speaker nominee, with the aim of shoring up the necessary 217 votes by January.

In the interim, McHenry would be able to advance legislation like aid to Israel and government funding ahead of a Nov. 17 shutdown deadline.

Even under a best case scenario, such a plan would only become reality with the support of House Democrats. Members of the minority indicated they would back an interim McHenry speakership if the majority agreed on certain concessions.

But hours after this seemed like the path forward, House conservatives revolted against that plan in their closed-door party meeting, slamming the idea as a capitulation to the Washington establishment.

Summing up the sentiment, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) tweeted that empowering a speaker pro tem would be a win for President Joe Biden and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

"Change is uncomfortable, but the alternative is the status quo, which I wasn't elected to participate in," said Donalds.

Exiting the meeting, Jordan told reporters he would keep goingwhich clearly was not his preferred plan.

I'm still running for speaker, and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race, Jordan said. But I want to go talk to a few of my colleagues.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Jim Jordan backed away from a temporary replacement and said he is "still running for Speaker"

Jim Jordan says he is pressing ahead with his bid to become Speaker of the US House of Representatives despite stiff opposition from Republicans.

Another vote for Speaker has been scheduled for 10:00 EST (14:00 GMT).

"The fastest way to get to work for the American people is to elect a speaker," the Ohio congressman said on Friday.

Mr Jordan had indicated he would back a plan allowing acting Speaker Patrick McHenry to run the House, but Republicans rejected the move.

The lower chamber of Congress has had no leader for the past 16 days.

Without a Speaker in place, the House is unable to pass bills or approve an impending White House request for aid to Israel and Ukraine.

During a news conference on Friday, Mr Jordan argued that aid to Israel was one of the main reasons why the House needed to elect a speaker quickly.

"I've got 200 votes. I know we can do this," he said, adding that he could "pick up" a few of the votes he lost.

He noted the House has held multiple rounds of voting before - for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy - and said the plan was to have a new Speaker as soon as possible.

But, in consecutive roll calls over the past two days, Mr Jordan has failed to get more than 200 votes. He needs 217 - a majority in the chamber - to win the gavel.

The House Judiciary Committee chairman has faced criticism over intimidation tactics and even death threats against lawmakers from some of his backers.

Ken Buck of Colorado, who firmly rejects Mr Jordan's nomination, predicted to the BBC's US partner CBS News that Republican defections could grow from the current 22 to 30 or 40.

On Thursday, Mr Jordan had told colleagues he would not hold any more votes for now and would instead back a proposal for Mr McHenry to conduct the House's business for a month or more.

Mr McHenry, a bow-tied lawmaker from North Carolina, was appointed interim Speaker following the unprecedented vote to oust Kevin McCarthy earlier this month.

He has taken the view that he has only limited authority to preside over floor votes and the selection of a permanent Speaker, in line with succession procedures put in place after the 9/11 terror attacks.

But legal experts argue that, as long as a majority of the chamber is in favour of expanding his authority, the House can function largely as normal.

Members of both parties, including two former Republican Speakers, have floated the option of extending Mr McHenry's powers until January to allow him to preside over urgent legislative matters.

That could potentially enable Mr McHenry to be the person that shepherds through legislation to avert a government shutdown next month, and aid packages for Israel and Ukraine.

Republicans who support the idea have said the House must move on with its business rather than prolong its internal divisions.

"We have to get the conservative agenda back on track," said Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, who has so far declined to back Mr Jordan.

Nebraska's Don Bacon, another anti-Jordan defector, said: "McHenry has 100% of my support. I love McHenry."

But several more Republicans erupted over the proposal, with tempers flaring at a lengthy closed-door conference.

Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman who led the coup to remove Mr McCarthy, slammed the idea to empower Mr McHenry as a "constitutional desecration".

"We need to stay here until we elect a Speaker and, if someone can't get the votes, we need to go on to the next person."

Mr Gaetz also said that Mr McCarthy had screamed at him and another colleague had lunged at him in a meeting earlier on Thursday that felt "like a Thanksgiving dinner".

"I think the entire conference screamed at him," Mr McCarthy, a California Republican, told reporters when asked about the confrontation.

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz said a colleague lunged at him during a tense party conference on Thursday

Jim Banks, a conservative Indiana lawmaker, predicted half the party would vote against the measure and said it was a betrayal of Republican voters.

Others, including New York Republican Elise Stefanik, said electing Mr McHenry amid internal opposition would "create a Democrat backed coalition government".

"We must work to unify Republicans" behind Mr Jordan, the congresswoman wrote on X.

On Thursday, Democrats did not say whether they would back Mr McHenry as Speaker.

But some indicated they were open to the idea, with California's Lou Correa telling the BBC: "We've been without a Speaker for a number of days."

"I'm hearing the rumour is to give him [McHenry] power until January - I'll take it," he added.

But multiple Republicans emerged from their party conference declaring the option "dead".

With Mr Jordan now pursuing a third Speaker vote, Democrats will probably once again vote unanimously for their own leader, Hakeem Jeffries, as they have done in previous votes.

With no alternatives to Mr Jordan or Mr Jeffries emerging this week, there is no end in sight to the House's leadership crisis.
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Rep. Jim Jordan seemed to be in a somewhat surprised self-pitying mood Wednesday as he came off a second failed attempt at seizing the House Speakers gavel. His campaign for the open position, heavy on threats, bullying, and badgering, was clearly not paying the dividends he had hoped. Over 24 hours, Jordan had lost more supporters than he gained. And it left Jordan, a loud-and-proud troublemaker from Ohio, with a chip on his shoulder and, perhaps more dangerous, losing ground.

"Speaker McCarthy, he had a two-month runway from when he got the conference nomination and when we got to that first week in January, so we're right where he was in his numbers," Jordan told reporters moments after it was clear his second round of balloting would leave him for now stuck in Rayburn, and not relocating to the Speakers Office.

What Jordan missed, however, was that Kevin McCarthy had been working for years to secure the backing of his conference and then the Speakership, coming up through the ranks of leadership and putting in the work of earning chits and trading favors. Jordan, by contrast, was trying to snag the top job in the wake of a snap vote of no confidence that sprang into motion earlier this month without a second thought about what came next. McCarthy dangled baubles; Jordan menaced with threats delivered through allies. And no oneespecially not members of Congress who control their fiefdoms of roughly 700,000 constituentslikes a bully.

Jordan on Tuesday reached 200 votes in favor of his promotion, while a full 20 rejected him. On Wednesday, his backers totaled 199 and his objectors rose to 22. (With everyone voting, Jordan can spare just four votes.) His hardcore resisters seemed to double down, and a pathway to a Speaker Jordan appeared narrowing by the hour. Plans for a third ballot slipped to Thursday as Jordans allies started to concede that their pressure campaign over the weekend may have backfired bigly.

Nevertheless, Jordan refused to sound defeated: "We got 200 votes. You know, we picked up some today, a couple dropped off but they voted for me before, I think they can come back again.

But talk alone isnt going to be enough with some members. The holdouts are skittish about putting Jordan as the face of the Republican Party heading into a dicey campaign season. His appeal is strong, but limited to a very narrow slice of the GOP. And his personality is one that can grate even friends, sparing few words for pleasantries and looking beyond himself infrequently. And Jordan is far from a masterful legislator, having passed exactly zero bills during his nine terms in Washington. The threats of primary challengers and mean tweets proved his critics correct when they argued he is a petty man who is not to be trusted. Threats and intimidation tactics will not change my principles and values, Rep. Jen A. Kiggans wrote, noting she had already voted twice against Jordan and his approach to governing by browbeating. Added Rep. Kay Granger: Intimidation and threats will not change my position.

Then there is Jordans outsized role in undermining our democracy ahead of and on Jan. 6, 2021. As early as November of 2020, Jordan was consulting with White House aides and allies for ways to set aside the electoral results. He urged Trump supporters to flood Washington, and led a Jan. 2 conference call about ways to derail what should have been a routine vote in Congress to accept the results. On Jan. 5, he texted the top White House aide with advice on how Vice President Mike Pence should maneuver the following day. And on Jan. 6, he spoke with Trump before the President riled up a crowd that would later march on the Capitol. When it came time to certify the results that evening, Jordan joined 146 other Republicans in rejecting the results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. In effect, Jordan was trying to bully his colleagues into forgetting Election Day had even happened. Jordan would later defy a subpoena to testify to the House committee investigating Jan. 6. And, in the current House GOP, that is not as disqualifying as youd think, although many of Jordans colleagues are now arguing otherwise.

Ultimately, Republicans need to find someone who can cobble together 217 supporters. Through the 17 ballots this yeara mind-blowing number and soul-crushing reminder that nothing with the House GOP can be easyDemocrats have stuck behind Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. They are not coming to the rescue of any Republican, although some are growing less firm in that position.

So, after two weeks of a leaderless House, it will remain so for another day while Republicans try to work it out amongst themselves. The growing sense is that Jordan had his two votes and will get a third come Thursday. But as the revolt against him is shifting from backroom grumbles to open posts on social media, it doesnt stretch the imagination to see another dozen or more Republicans joining those who have already voted against him. Yet no one else from within their ranksor beyondappears able to cobble together a big enough coalition. Republicans want a leader, but not at the cost of empowering a bully or an insurrectionist.

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Write to Philip Elliott at philip.elliott@time.com.
Time series 2 has been given an official release date.

The second run of the prison anthology drama stars Game of Thrones and The Last of Us actor Bella Ramsey and Doctor Who's Jodie Whittaker alongside Tamara Lawrance, instead of Sean Bean and Stephen Graham. It will premiere on Sunday, October 29 at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

The official synopsis for series 2 reads: "Time is a moving and high-stakes portrayal of life inside a women's prison. Arriving at Carlingford Prison on the same day, Kelsey (Bella Ramsey), Orla (Jodie Whittaker) and Abi (Tamara Lawrance) are thrown together to face an unfamiliar world.

Sally Mais - BBC

Related: The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey shares "uncomfortable" decision to enter Emmy race

"But even with the ever-present threat of violence within its walls, they discover that an unexpected sense of community, and a shared understanding, still might be possible."

Beyond our main trio, Time has gathered quite the ensemble for series 2, including Happy Valley's Siobhan Finneran, Alma's Not Normal's Sophie Willan, Waterloo Road's Alicia Forde, and SAS Rogue Heroes' Nicholas Nunn, among others.

The series will be three episodes long, at an hour each.

Sally Mais - BBC

Related: The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey lands next lead movie role

Time isn't Jodie Whittaker's first TV drama project since her time as The Doctor came to a close, though. She jetted off to Australia to film a female-led thriller called One Night, in which three women recount the dark experience they went through together.

The show was released in its entirety on Australia's version of Paramount+, but hasn't been given a UK release date at the time of writing.

Time series 2 will premiere on Sunday, October 29 on BBC One and iPlayer. Series 1 is available to stream on iPlayer now.

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Its a story President Joe Biden has told repeatedly in recent days, and its meant to demonstrate his long history supporting Israel.

Biden frequently recounts his meeting with Golda Meir , the trailblazing first and only woman to serve as Israels prime minister.

When they met in 1973, she was in her 70s, and Biden, then 30, was in his first year of a decades-long Senate career.

When he told the story Wednesday during an appearance in Tel Aviv with Israels current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu , he told it correctly, noting that it was just before the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The important part of the story is the ending, which occurs as theyre standing shoulder to shoulder while a photograph is being taken. (Note: CNNs photo editors were unable to find a photo of Biden and Meir standing together.)

BIDEN: Without her looking at me, she said to me, knowing Id hear her, Why do you look so worried, Senator Biden? And I said, Worried? Like, Of course, Im worried. And she looked at me and  she didnt look, she said, We dont worry, senator. We Israelis have a secret weapon. We have nowhere else to go.

Well, today, I say to all of Israel: The United States isnt going anywhere either. Were going to stand with you.

He told the same story earlier in the day, although he was off on a key detail. Speaking before he met with Israelis impacted by the terror attacks there, he said the meeting took place just before the Six-Day War, which occurred in 1967, before Meir was prime minister and before Biden was a senator.

But the ending of the story is always essentially the same. Heres how he told it during the community event.

BIDEN: And were standing there having a photograph taken like you and I are standing, looking at the press. And she  without looking at me, she turned and she  like this, and she said, You look worried, Senator. I said, I am. She said, Dont worry, we Jews have a secret weapon in our fight: We have no place else to go.

Well, the truth of the matter is, if there werent an Israel, wed have to invent one. The truth of the matter is that I believe that yo-  as I went home and said  I got in trouble at the time, but it was true: You dont have to be a Jew to be a Zionist. You dont have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.

He has conflated these two events  the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and the Six-Day War of 1967  before, as CNNs fact-check team reported in 2021.

Coincidentally, theres a new movie version of Meirs story, Golda, starring Helen Mirren and focused on the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

It is worth learning some of the history of these two conflicts because they still have importance today.

It was during the June 1967 Six-Day War that Israel launched a preemptive strike against Egypt, Syria and Jordan and seized control of the Gaza Strip, which had been under the control of Egypt, along with Egypts Sinai Peninsula, Syrias Golan Heights and Jordans West Bank, including the entire city of Jerusalem.

During the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar with the aim of reclaiming land. The war led to an oil embargo by Arab nations against the US when the US supported Israel.

RELATED: Gaza explained

While the war ended in less than three weeks, it would take nearly nine more years for Israel to cede back control of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, a process that was completed in 1982 after the 1978 Camp David Accords led to a peace treaty between the countries.

Israel continued to occupy the Gaza Strip until 2005, when it withdrew soldiers and settlers. Jordan, which had once controlled the other Palestinian area, the West Bank, recognized Israel in 1994, and Israelis have continued to build settlements there.

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Longtime White House correspondent Brian Karem writes a weekly column for Salon.

It is said that the first casualty of war is the truth.

Truth? Who knows. Facts? Definitely.

The House of Representatives has been at war with itself since the Republicans took it over nine months ago. More importantly, the Republican Party cannot seem to pick a speaker, even though it holds a majority of seats in the House. For two weeks Congress has remained idle, threatening continued aid to our allies as well as another impending government shutdown, now less than a month away..

Thats a fact. Its also a fact that many of the Trump loyalists in the GOP dont care if they bring it all down and rule over the rubble. They blame Democrats for their own failures. After a first vote in the House on Tuesday fell short of electing Jim Jordan as speaker (a failure repeated in a second vote Wednesday), GOP members once again blamed Democrats, among others, for this failure to launch.

Speaking to their political impotence, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a sage observation: Theyre taking lessons in mathematics and learning how to count, she told me as she left the House floor.

Thats a fact. Its also a fact that there are still people who truly believe, or at least are paid to believe, that whatever Trump and his minions say is gospel. In this American political war, the facts are malleable and entirely dependent on what Trump and his cronies want to be true.

After the failed vote on Tuesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, spoke to reporters about the Republicans in-house war: We need to give our assistance to our democratic allies in Israel and Ukraine and its just ridiculous that the GOP has plunged us into this chaos, he said. I walked with Raskin toward the Rayburn Office Building to continue the conversation. Along the way, he was accosted by a man who called himself a MAGA Man or a MAGA American.

Quoting from the teachings of his dark lord, Donald Trump, the man accused Raskin of being on the wrong side of history, and then told Raskin that the congressmans recent cancer diagnosis was a punishment from God and that Raskin should repent.

That the man said it is a fact. The reality, of course, is quite different. Its also a fact that when I posted both the Pelosi comment and the Raskin confrontation on social media I was told  even though there was video of both events  that neither of those things had happened. The ability to deny facts or repudiate them, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, is a key component of war propaganda, used to make sure the facts remain unclear. The fog of war is often just a smokescreen.

The facts are always casualties of war when MAGA Republicans are involved. Their peculiar mindset allows them to claim they are Christians while attacking a man battling cancer. Their peculiar family-friendly environment includes accused pedophiles, criminals, members of Congress acting out soft-porn scenes in theaters, crazed lunatics wielding guns and random morons whose brain functions barely exceed those of a rabid dog. All of it is acceptable, including lies and random threats, as long as they all continue to worship at Donald Trumps feet.

That brings us to the Middle East and Joe Biden.

The world is a tinderbox. Whatever maniacal shrieks are projected into the stratosphere by House Republicans waging their internal war, those shouldnt overshadow the rising death toll in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Biden canceled a trip to Colorado last week, prompting several White House reporters, talking over coffee in the Brady Briefing Rooms tiny break room, to wonder out loud, When will the other shoe drop?

There was considerable speculation about what the canceled trip actually meant. In a possible case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc, we learned a day later that Biden, for the second time during his presidency, was heading into a war zone. Hed already made a trip to Poland and Ukraine, and now he was going to Israel and Jordan. It was almost funny watching reporters conveniently forget their recent history as they pondered Bidens unprecedented trip to a war zone.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump was facing a gag order, trying to raise money and decrying the weaponization of the Justice Department (a daily mantra for him) while ignoring the fact that hed threatened and tried to intimidate numerous witnesses, prosecutors and judges  and in fact had himself appointed some of the judges and DOJ officials he now believes are persecuting him. No matter. Those facts have long been ignored in Trumps war of revenge against a country that voted him out of office and a world that openly mocks him and laughs at him. Dealing with those inconvenient facts made it a lot less likely that the Donald would talk about anything but himself.

Trumps plate is apparently full and he hasnt said much about the Middle East lately, at least not since he disparaged Israel and seemed to praise terrorists. Hes hoping everyone has forgotten about that. He made a few stray comments about Israel from a New York courtroom  Biden made his from Israel.

Biden spoke about reality. Trump spoke out of his nether regions, as is generally the case

There are few things more dramatic than a war in Israel. Even before Biden left on a trip that was quickly planned and executed (to the amazement of some and the envy of others), the head of the Palestinian Authority canceled their meeting in Jordan after the explosion in a Gaza hospital that claimed hundreds of lives.

Hamas immediately blamed Israel and Israel blamed Hamas (or, more accurately, Islamic Jihad, an allied militant group). Biden said in Israel that after looking at the facts, it appeared the explosion had been caused by the other team. On that same stage Wednesday morning, Biden mourned the loss of Palestinian lives while continuing to back a two-state solution in the region. He said, Freedom will win and justice must be done, clearly signaling support for Israel, while urging that nation not to be consumed by rage.

That was one heck of a geopolitical dance by the president, both nuanced and informative. Almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that Israel was going to allow monitored humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, but threatened to cut it off if Hamas hijacks that aid.

That still wasnt enough for people like Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who told me on Wednesday afternoon that innocent civilians in Gaza shouldnt receive aid. Youre not helping them. Youre helping Hamas, he said.

Biden said in the same speech that the leaders of Hamas dont represent the Palestinian people  which is a fact  the implication being that long-term substantial aid isnt realistic in Gaza because Hamas probably will hijack it. At the moment, there is little incentive for Hamas to behave honorably. Biden also said that Hamas has set up critical command and communications operations in Gaza neighborhoods, effectively holding Palestinian civilians hostage.

According to Rick Scott, those innocent civilians are on their own.

The situation is so convoluted that many Republicans are content to ignore nearly all the nuance and just blast away at Biden for being ineffective and weak. That was certainly the Trump response.

But its hard to call this president weak when hes traveled to two war zones during his administration. That takes a great deal of strategic planning and a certain amount of political and personal courage  qualities Donald Trump conspicuously lacks.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Lost in this fog of war is the other shoe that may drop. The U.S. has confirmed sending long-range weapons to Ukraine that can be used to attack targets inside Russia, contradicting Bidens previous claims that the U.S. would only supply Ukraine with defensive weapons and had no desire to see the conflict expand beyond its borders. Washingtons decision to send long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine was a grave mistake that will have serious consequences, Russias ambassador to the U.S. said Wednesday, according to Reuters

Ukraine has apparently used these weapons already.

Normally, all this would be grist for the Republican mill in Congress. Biden said the attack on the hospital didnt come from Israel. We sent missiles to Ukraine, potentially widening the conflict. On a more ordinary day, those stories would dominate the national as well as international news.

But facts are not needed in the Republican-controlled Congress. Arguments against the Democrats and the rest of the world are moot as Republicans continue to dissolve into a puddle of sweat, indecision, menace and chaos.

There is no doubt that Joe Biden offers an example of American leadership that the rest of the world can admire and applaud. But if he really wants to show his courage, he should show up and address a joint session of Congress.

That would take a lot of bravery. Speaking the truth in Congress is so long overdue that it might not be recognized, and would likely be treated as more empty rhetoric. But if Biden can go to Ukraine and Israel during a time of actual war, then he can handle the saber-rattling and phlegm-thickened wails from Republicans in Congress as they shred the facts to fit their faltering narrative  and try to tear America down so they can rule over the rubble.

For Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, thats exactly the problem. They act like entertainers, he said, speaking about the Republicans on his way into a classified meeting on Israel late on Wednesday. Its time they do their job. Lets just get it done. Thats a fact.

Facts have never been more important.

Heres a fact that Republicans in Congress need to recognize: Jim Jordan is one of the worst choices for speaker ever to be nominated. His own friends call him a legislative terrorist and a bully. His own party said he was instrumental in the Jan. 6 insurrection. And as one of his friends said Wednesday, the only thing better than seeing Jordan fail to get the House speaker gig once is seeing him fail twice.

Jordan may decide to risk a third ballot this week, or the House could stand in recess as Republicans and Democrats try to work out a way to give Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick Henry at least enough temporary power to get the House back on the job.

Jordan and his supporters decry the possibility of such a coalition government, once again literally arguing against democracy.

As Bill Murray put so memorably in Stripes, Thats a fact, Jack.
(Bloomberg) -- Senator Joe Manchin condemned the Biden administrations decision to lift sanctions against Venezuelas oil and gas sector, arguing the US should instead turn to domestic crude production to fill any shortfall.

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The administration is looking to one of the worlds dirtiest energy producers and an oppressor of its own people to help make up the production that they refuse to allow in America, Manchin said at the start of an unrelated Senate hearing Thursday. The sanctions relief follows the issuance of the governments smallest plan in decades for offshore oil and gas leasing during the next five years, Manchin stressed.

Read More: Venezuela Oil, Bond Sanctions Eased in US Bet on Free Elections

The six-month sanction suspension announced late Wednesday was cast as a goodwill gesture tied to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduros talks with political opponents. But Manchin, a key moderate Democrat and swing vote in the Senate, expressed skepticism.

While the administration believes this will encourage Venezuela to make democratic reforms, that has been tried, and weve failed before, he said. It makes no sense at all to reward bad actors before they actually take the action you want. We tried that with Iran, and now here we are with Venezuela.

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Natalee Holloways parents believe they finally got justice after the man long suspected of killing the 18-year-old confessed to the crime in grisly detail and revealed what he did with her body, providing answers in a case that has captivated the publics attention for almost two decades.

Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch man who was one of the people last seen with Holloway before she disappeared during her high school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005, admitted he murdered her in a confession that was recorded on video and shared after a plea and sentencing hearing in Birmingham, Alabama, on Wednesday.

Providing details about what he did to Holloway and what happened to her body was part of van der Sloots plea agreement with federal prosecutors as he faced extortion and wire fraud charges. At the hearing, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Thanks to a lot of very smart and dedicated people, I got the answer Ive been searching for since 2005, Beth Holloway , Natalees mother, said in a statement Wednesday. Joran van der Sloots confession means we have finally reached the end of this never-ending nightmare, and for me, thats even better than closure.

We now know that he killed her  intentionally, because she dared to stand up for her own body and defended herself against his unwanted sexual advances, Natalees father, Dave Holloway, wrote to Judge Anna M. Manasco ahead of Wednesdays hearing after watching van der Sloots confession.

Beth Holloway, mother of long-missing teen Natalee Holloway, speaks to the media with her son Matt Holloway on Oct. 18, 2023, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Beth Holloway, mother of long-missing teen Natalee Holloway, speaks to the media with her son Matt Holloway on Oct. 18, 2023, in Birmingham, Alabama.

In his confession, recorded on Oct. 3 and shared as evidence on Wednesday, van der Sloot, now 36, detailed what happened after he said Natalee Holloway asked to go back to her hotel. Instead, van der Sloot admitted, he had his two friends drop them off farther away so he might still get a chance to be with her while walking on the beach.

I lay her down on the sand, he says, recounting the crime in the present tense, and we start kissing each other.

I start feeling her up  and she tells me no. She tells me she doesnt want me to feel her up. I insist. I keep feeling her up either way.

Holloway tried to stop his sexual assault, van der Sloot says, by kneeing him in the crotch.

In response, he recalls, I get up on the beach and I kick her extremely hard in the face.

Shes laying down, unconscious, possibly even dead, but definitely unconscious. I see right next to her theres a huge cinderblock laying on the beach. I take this and I smash her head in with it completely. Her face basically collapses in. Even though its dark, I can see her face is collapsed in.

The federal extortion and wire fraud charges came after van der Sloot promised Beth Holloway in 2010 that he would reveal the location of her daughters body if she paid him $250,000. U.S. officials do not have jurisdiction over the murder case, and Aruban officials have not chosen to prosecute van der Sloot. He was extradited to the U.S. for the extortion case from Peru, where he is currently serving 28 years in prison for killing another woman, 21-year-old Stephany Flores, in 2010. His 20-year sentence in the U.S. will run concurrently with his sentence in Peru.

Over the years, van der Sloot has provided several inconsistent, provably false accounts of how he concealed Holloways body, but the Holloways said Wednesday they believe what he said in his confession  including how he disposed of her body  which Beth Holloway said had been verified by a comprehensive and conclusive polygraph test.

Afterwards I dont exactly know what, you know  Im scared. I dont know what to do, van der Sloot says in his confession. I decide to take her and put her into the ocean. So I grab her and I half pull, half walk with her into the ocean. I push her off. I walk up to about my knees into the ocean and I push her off into the sea.

After that, I get out, van der Sloot says matter-of-factly. I walk home.

Beth and Dave Holloway both said Wednesday that they believe van der Sloot acted alone.

Despite everything he has done to us, he is not sorry for what he did, Dave Holloway wrote. He expresses no remorse, regret, or even compassion for committing the horrific crime that violently ended Natalees life and irreparably changed the trajectory of all of ours. He is evil personified.

Natalee Holloway was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and the brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, who were long suspected of being involved in her disappearance.

But van der Sloot said the brothers got in their car and left after dropping him and Holloway off.

I assume they go back to their home, he says in the interview.

Outside the courthouse on Wednesday, Beth Holloway told reporters that she now considers the case solved, adding, Its over.

Holloway added that the details van der Sloot revealed were brutal and disturbing, but as a parent, she had to know them.

I was blessed to have had Natalee in my life for 18 years, she said. She would be 36 years old now and I still miss her every single day. It has been a very long and painful journey, but we finally got the answers weve been searching for all these years. We finally got justice for Natalee.

Related...
Beth Holloway speaks to media with her son Matt Holloway after the appearance of Joran van der Sloot outside the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Birmingham, Ala. Van der Sloot, the chief suspect in Natalee Holloways 2005 disappearance in Aruba admitted he killed her and disposed of her remains, and has agreed to plead guilty to charges he tried to extort money from the teen's mother years later, a U.S. judge said Wednesday. (AP Photo/ Butch Dill )

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP)  Beth Holloway was after one thing for 18 years: answers about what happened to her missing daughter.

She said she got them Wednesday when Joran van der Sloot, long considered the chief suspect in her daughters 2005 disappearance in Aruba, admitted in submitted court filings to bludgeoning Natalee Holloway to death on a beach and dragging her body out to sea.

Van der Sloot, 36, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to federal charges of attempting to extort money from Beth Holloway in 2010 in exchange for information about the location of her daughter's body. The plea agreement included an unusual provision for van der Sloot to provide all information and evidence about what happened to Natalee Holloway and to let her family hear him in real time give his account to federal investigators.

Beth Holloway said in an interview with The Associated Press that the family made the decision to allow the plea agreement to finally get the answers we've been searching for for all these years."

Natalee Holloway, 18, went missing during a high school graduation trip to Aruba with classmates. She was last seen May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen and student at an international school on the Caribbean island where he grew up.

Natalee Holloway's disappearance quickly became an international sensation, filling evening newscasts with live reports from the island and photos of her smiling face. Her disappearance also spawned countless books, podcasts and movies.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Natalee Holloways parents listened and watched several weeks ago as van der Sloot, under questioning from his own attorney, described what happened on the beach. Prosecutors filed excerpts of the conversation with the court.

He said Natalee Holloway was physically fighting his sexual advances and that he kicked her extremely hard in the face while she was still lying down. Van der Sloot said the teen was already unconscious, or even dead, when he picked up a nearby cinderblock and brought it down on her face.

I smash her head in with it completely," van der Sloot said, according to an Oct. 3 transcript of the meeting.

He then said he dragged her body until he was knee-deep in the waves and pushed her out to sea.

Its just blistering to your soul, and it hurts so deeply," Beth Holloway said of hearing the details. But you know that youre there in a functionality role because this is the moment where Ive been searching for for 18 years. Even as hard as it is to hear, it still not as torturous as the not knowing. It was time for me to know.

Dave Holloway, Natalees father, called van der Sloot evil personified in a statement issued after the sentencing hearing

He said that after witnessing the confession he believes van der Sloot killed his daughter but questioned his story of acting alone to dispose of her body and conceal the crime.

While I am satisfied that the defendant murdered Natalee alone, I have no doubt others provided him with aid and assistance in preventing us from being able to return Natalee home, Dave Holloway said.

Natalee Holloways body was never found during land and sea searches along the beach.

Beth Holloway said she recognized her feisty daughter in van der Sloots description of her kneeing him between legs when he refused to stop his sexual advances.

Yes, I said, Thats her, Beth Holloway recalled with a brief smile. She fought like hell. I think she fought like hell with her killer. She stood her ground.

Beth Holloway flew to Aruba in 2005, quickly piecing together that van der Sloot left the bar with her daughter, tracking him down and questioning him about what happened. What followed was 18 years of lies and taunts, but she believes they finally have obtained the truth, she said.

At the hearing Wednesday, Beth Holloway again stood in front of van der Sloot.

You are a killer, she told him. I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams.

Shackled and wearing an orange jail uniform, van der Sloot told the crowded courtroom he hopes his statement provides some closure.

I would like the chance to apologize to the Holloway family, to my own family, he said, later adding, I am no longer the person I was back then.

Mark White, an attorney for Dave Holloway, said he understands from law enforcement authorities that van der Sloot cannot be prosecuted in Aruba  even with his confession  because the statute of limitations has expired. The Aruba public prosecutors office said it was not immediately clear whether van der Sloot could face murder charges on the island. The investigation into Natalee Holloways disappearance is still open, and authorities will follow up on any serious leads, said Ann Angela, a prosecutors office spokesperson.

Peru agreed to temporarily extradite van der Sloot to the U.S. to face proceedings on the extortion charge. He is expected to be returned to Peru in the coming days after the settlement of the U.S. criminal case.

His 20-year sentence for extortion will run concurrently with prison time hes serving for another killing in Peru.

Van der Sloots guilty plea in a crowded courtroom, a few miles from where Natalee Holloway attended high school, came three days before what would have been her 37th birthday. She had planned to go to medical school, her mother said.

"I fully believe now, today, she would be a doctor, married, children," Beth Holloway said.

She said she is undecided how she will spend her daughter's birthday but that she feels like now the never-ending nightmare is over.

We've been searching so desperately for those answers," Beth Holloway said. It's hard to hear what he did, but it's very victorious to finally be at the end of this nightmare.
Joran van der Sloot's confession that he killed Natalee Holloway ended the nearly two-decade-old mystery about what happened to the Alabama teenager who disappeared on her high school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005. The 36-year-old Dutchman made the admission as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors over van der Sloot's 2010 attempt to extort a quarter-million dollars from Holloway's mother in exchange for the purported location of her daughter's remains and other details.

"The never-ending nightmare is over, and to me, that's better than closure," Beth Holloway told CBS News correspondent Janet Shamlian after Wednesday's proceedings at the federal courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama.

How did Natalee Holloway die?

As part of the plea deal, van der Sloot had to provide information about Holloway's disappearance in exchange for a 20-year sentence in the extortion scheme, which he will serve concurrently with his prison sentence in Peru in another killing. Van der Sloot was interviewed by his attorney on Oct. 3, and in the interview, he revealed graphic details about how he killed the 18-year-old from the Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook, Alabama.

Natalee Holloway / Credit: Personal photo

Beth Holloway watched the recorded interview in another room, Shamlian reported.

According to a transcript of the interview in court documents, van der Sloot said he and Natalee Holloway were walking on a beach at night on the way back to her hotel. They laid down on the beach and started kissing.

When van der Sloot started touching her, Holloway said no and told him she didn't want him to touch her, according to the transcript. He continued anyway.

"She ends up kneeing me in the crotch," van der Sloot said, according to the transcript.

Beth Holloway told the Associated Press she reacted to learning about that by saying, "That's her."

"She fought like hell. I think she fought like hell with her killer. She stood her ground," Holloway told the AP.

Beth Holloway walks out to speak to reporters after Joran van der Sloot's appearance in the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse, Oct. 18, 2023, in Birmingham, Ala. / Credit: AP Photo/Butch Dill

In van der Sloot's interview, he told his attorney he got up and kicked Natalee Holloway "extremely hard" in the face.

"She's laying down, uh, unconscious, possibly even, uh, even dead, but definitely unconscious," van der Sloot said, according to the transcript.

Van der Sloot then spotted a cinderblock nearby on the beach, and he hit Holloway in the face with it.

Seeing what he had done to Holloway, van der Sloot then said he decided to dispose of her body in the ocean.

"I walk up, uh, up to about my knees into the ocean, and I push her off into  into the sea," van der Sloot said in the interview. " After that I-I get out. I-I walk home."

Joran van der Sloot is seen being transferred in a police car from a jail in Lima, Peru, June 8, 2023. / Credit: Ernesto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images

Beth Holloway said it was "shocking" what van der Sloot admitted to in the interview.

"It's almost as if it just blisters your soul when you hear it," she told Shamlian.

Where did Natalee Holloway disappear?

Natalee Holloway was in Aruba on a chaperoned trip with seniors from her high school celebrating graduation. The legal minimum drinking age in the Caribbean island nation is 18.

According to the FBI, she and a group of students went to Carlos 'N Charlie's Nightclub in Oranjestad, Aruba. When the club was closing, some in the group went back to their hotel and others went to bars in the area.

Holloway was last seen with van der Sloot and two other young males leaving the area in a car.

When was Natalee Holloway murdered?

The group left the area at around 1:30 a.m. on May 30, 2005, according to the FBI.

In van der Sloot's interview earlier this month, he told his attorney Holloway at some point said she wanted to go back to her hotel.

"I was just trying to get dropped off a little bit further away from her hotel so we could, uh, walk back to her hotel and I might still get a chance to-to be with her," van der Sloot said, according to the transcript.

Was Natalee Holloway's body ever found?

Natalee Holloway's remains haven't been found. She was legally declared dead in 2012. According to a grand jury indictment in the 2010 extortion scheme, van der Sloot said in an email that the information he provided about Holloway's remains was "worthless."

Watch: Biden meets with Israeli first responders, families of terror attack victims

Joran van der Sloot admitted to killing Natalee Holloway, judge says

Jim Jordan loses support on 2nd House speaker ballot; 1 member votes for John Boehner
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has condemned the threats toward House Republicans who voted against him for Speaker, calling them just wrong.

It should never happen, Jordan told CNN as he left his office Wednesday.

Its just wrong, and we dont want it to happen to anyone. Any American, anybody, any member of Congress. Its just wrong, he said.

The Ohio Republican reiterated the similar message later Wednesday in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

No American should accost another for their beliefs, he wrote in the post. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together.

Stop. Its abhorrent, the lawmaker added.

His condemnation comes after a second vote to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) failed  leaving Jordan even further from securing the gavel than the first ballot.

Opponents to his Speakership bid have reported receiving a barrage of angry texts and calls threatening them and their families unless they flip their vote.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) said Wednesday that she received credible death threats after she voted against Jordan.

She was one of four Republicans who withdrew support after voting for Jordan on the first ballot. Two others, who originally had not supported him, flipped their votes on the second ballot.

One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully, Miller-Meeks said in a statement. I did not stand for bullies before I voted for Chairwoman Granger and when I voted for Speaker designee Jordan, and I will not bend to bullies now.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who voted against Jordan both times, said in an interview on CNN that his wife had been getting threats via text message and angry phone calls.

Screenshots of the reported text messages to Bacons wife read, Why is your husband causing chaos by not supporting Jim Jordan? I thought he was a team player and Your husband will not hold any political office ever again. What a disappointment and failure he is.

If they think a pressure campaign or bullying campaign is going to work for me, its not, Bacon said in the interview.

The House has been without a Speaker for more than two weeks, after eight Republicans joined all present Democrats in an historic vote to oust former McCarthy from the post.

Since then, House Republicans have struggled to find a candidate that could garner a majority of support.

A third vote is expected as early as Thursday afternoon.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Several House Republicans who are not voting in favor of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan's speaker bid said they have received death threats over their votes.

GOP Reps. Marianette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Nick LaLota of New York said they have received death threats after not voting for Jordan's speakership bid.

Jordan's office has denounced the death threats, with spokesperson Russell Dye calling the actions "abhorrent" and having "no place in a civil discourse."

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES STAYS IN LIMBO AFTER JORDAN FAILS ON SECOND VOTE FOR SPEAKER

"No one should receive threats and it needs to stop," Dye said. "We have condemned these actions repeatedly."

"It is important that Republicans stop attacking each other and come together," he added.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Miller-Meeks released a statement on Wednesday night about the "credible death threats" she has received after voting for House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, for speaker over Jordan in the second round of voting.

The Iowa Republican said Jordan "was not able to secure enough votes" to take the gavel after supporting him in the first round and her "initial concerns about threatening tactics of Jim Jordan's supporters, including from members of Congress, increased despite assurances."

She also said she voted for Granger "because she has demonstrated great leadership this year by bringing forth, and passing, fiscally responsible, single-subject appropriations bills and is a staunch conservative."

GOP Reps. Marianette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Nick LaLota of New York said they have received death threats after not voting for Jordan's speakership bid.

"However, since my vote in support of Chairwoman Granger, I have received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls," Miller-Meeks said. "The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully."

"One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully," she continued. "Someone who threatens another with bodily harm or tries to suppress differing opinions undermines opportunity for unity and regard for freedom of speech."

"That's why I spoke out forcefully against censorship and suppression during the COVID-19 pandemic," Miller-Meeks said. "I did not stand for bullies before I voted for Chairwoman Granger and when I voted for Speaker designee Jordan, and I will not bend to bullies now."

Meanwhile, LaLota tweeted a picture of an email he said he received, telling him to go "f--- yourself and die."

"If I see your face, I will whip all the hair out of your f---ing head you f---ing scumbag," the person wrote.

LaLota wrote that his "vote card belongs to me and the people of [New York's] First Congressional District."

"I will not succumb to threats," LaLota tweeted. "Rather, Ill support a Speaker candidate who will fund the WTC Health Fund, Natl Flood Insurance and SALT, while keeping the [government] open [and] secure border [and] cut spending."

Additionally, Florida Republican Rep. John Rutherford, who voted against Jordan on Wednesday, pinned the blame for threats against his staff on the GOP speaker nominee.

"He is absolutely responsible for it," Rutherford said, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. "And look, it doesnt work  especially against people like [Scalise] and others."

"Nobody likes to have their arm twisted. Talking about individuals wives and those sorts of things?" Rutherford was quoted as saying. "Thats just not acceptable."

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, also spoke out against the threats on X, formerly Twitter, writing that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise earned his "vote for Speaker in the last two rounds."

"He has repeatedly proven his leadership as our conference's Majority Leader, and I am honored to support him," Simpson said.

"Intimidation and threatening tactics do not  and will not  work," he added.

Additionally, some people have reportedly sent Nebraska GOP Rep. Don Bacon's wife anonymous messages threatening to remove him from his job unless he votes for Jordan.

Some House Republicans have spoken out about the threats against members, with New York Rep. George Santos, who is voting for Jordan, saying he will join his colleagues against the House Judiciary Committee chairman's speakership bid "in protest" if the threats continue.

"Im for Jim Jordan for speaker but, if the nasty hatred and attacks against some of my colleagues continue I will be joining them in protest," Santos tweeted on Thursday. "America first always!"

"However attacking good patriots is not the way to get them on your side," he wrote. "We need to have dialogue to bring them onboard team Jordan!"

Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida, who has consistently voted for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to return to the gavel, condemned the threats.

"It is despicable that my dear friend and colleague [Miller-Meeks], a doctor [and] Army Lt. Colonel, has received credible death threats for voting for her candidate of preference," Gimenez wrote.

"This has never been seen before in a Speakers Race," Gimenez continued. "It must be universally condemned."

The threats come as a third vote for Jordan's speaker bid remain uncertain.

The House is heading into yet another day without a speaker, and potentially another day of votes amid Republican infighting and a failure to rally enough support  twice over  for Jordan.

Wednesday's vote saw Jordan lose some supporters in his failed second bid for the speaker's gavel, culminating in the House dispersing that night.

Scalise said the next votes in the House would take place no earlier than 12:00 p.m. ET Thursday.

Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman contributed reporting.





Original article source: Jordan holdouts get death threats over gavel fight, GOP speaker nominee condemns
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, may back out of a planned third vote on his speaker bid as opposition from holdout Republicans grows deeper amid a controversial intimidation campaign by his allies.

Nearly everyone involved in the discussions with Team Jordan says the Ohio Republican doesn't want to go to the floor for a third vote following a humiliating defeat that saw him lose votes on the second ballot on Wednesday, Punchbowl News Jake Sherman reported on Thursday, noting that Jordans representatives have denied the claim.

Republican sources told CNNs Manu Raju that Jordan is bleeding votes and is poised to lose even more Republicans if he goes through with a third ballot today.

One GOP member who opposes Jordan says there are about 30 R no votes, he tweeted. Its unclear if Jordan goes through with the noon vote.

Opposition to Jordans bid stiffened in recent days after Republican holdouts complained of heavy-handed tactics by his supporters to pressure them into backing his bid.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, said Wednesday that she received credible death threats by phone after switching her vote from Jordan to Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas.

Since my vote in support of Chairwoman Granger, I have received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls. The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully, the congresswoman said in a statement.

One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully, she added. Someone who threatens another with bodily harm or tries to suppress differing opinions undermines opportunity for unity and regard for freedom of speech.

Jordan condemned the threats after the statement.

No American should accost another for their beliefs, he tweeted. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. Its abhorrent.

Other holdout Republicans have also spoken up over the threats.

Granger herself tweeted that intimidation and threats will not change my position.

I was a helicopter pilot in the United States Navy  threats and intimidation tactics will not change my principles and values, echoed Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va.

Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., told The Washington Post that his staff had been cussed out, theyve been threatened. Its been nonstop. Most of them are out-of-state calls.

Its a matter of how you treat people. And frankly, based on what Ive been through and what my staff has been through, its obvious what the strategy is: attack, attack, attack, he said, adding that Jordans tactics had badly backfired.

Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., told the Post that Jordan is absolutely responsible for it.

And look, it doesnt work.  Nobody likes to have their arm twisted, he added.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., previously said that his wife received multiple anonymous texts and emails demanding he vote for Jordan.

I believe hes done. He needs to withdraw from this, Bacon told CNNs Jake Tapper on Wednesday. Hes going to lose more votes tomorrow, I know it.

I believe hes done. He needs to withdraw from this. Hes going to lose more votes tomorrow, I know it. Already have. I know who is gonna cross over and change.



 Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a key opponent of Rep. Jim Jordans (R-OH) Speakership campaign, says Jordans bid is dead. pic.twitter.com/N0zDNUURP1  The Recount (@therecount) October 18, 2023

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Bacon is among a growing number of Republicans pushing to delay the speaker election and temporarily empower acting House Speaker Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., to work on a budget deal and aid for Ukraine and Israel.

House GOP leaders feel they can no longer hold back members who want to empower McHenry for about 80 days as they grow desperate to get back to work, PunchBowl News reported on Thursday. The resolution would likely pass overwhelmingly with a majority of Republican votes and possibly Democratic ones as well, according to the report.

Passing the resolution could serve as an off-ramp for Jordan too, the outlet reported, since it would allow him to effectively end his campaign for speaker without formally dropping out. He could then run again after McHenrys term is up in January.

Still, such a move would almost certainly trigger a conservative freakout, the report added.

One of those conservatives, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, fumed over the plan on Wednesday, arguing that it represents an unforgivable step to coalition government & likely decimation in 2024.
Jacksonville Sheriffs Office is investigating a deadly overnight shooting on Sophia Street.

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According to detectives, at around 9:45 p.m. Wednesday, officers responded to the area and located a man with at least one gunshot wound. Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department transported the victim to a local hospital where he died.

Detectives with the Homicide and Crime Scene units are conducting their investigations at the scene and are canvassing the area for witnesses and surveillance video.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call JSO at 904-630-0500, email jsocrimetips@jaxsheriff.org or call Crime Stoppers at 866-845-TIPS.

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The suspects arrested and accused in the rock-throwing death of Alexa Bartell appeared in Jefferson County Court on Wednesday for a preliminary hearing. The judge in the case has ruled that there is enough probable cause for the suspects to go to trial.

The 20-year-old died in April after she was struck by a rock that was thrown into her windshield and others were injured in similar incidents.

Alexa Bartell / Credit: Jefferson County

Joseph Koenig, Nicholas "Mitch" Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak are each facing 13 charges in connection with rock-throwing attacks that killed Alexa Bartell and injured others. All of the suspects were 18 years old and seniors in high school at the time of their arrests. One attended Ralston Valley High School, one Standley Lake High School in Westminster, and the other attended online school.

On Wednesday, prosecutors outlined the case against the suspects in court. They called witnesses to testify about the evidence, including Jefferson County investigators, who reviewed pictures of several incidents of windshields damaged in the alleged rock-throwing attacks.

Joseph Koenig / Credit: Jefferson County

In addition to the first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder charges, they are also facing multiple counts of assault and attempted assault.

RELATED: Timeline: A look at the Colorado rock-throwing attacks

Nicholas

Bartell, of Arvada, was killed late at night on April 19 when a rock crashed through her windshield as she was driving on the 10600 block of Indiana Street close to the Jefferson County and Boulder County lines. Her vehicle left the roadway and ended up in a field. She was on the phone talking to a friend when she was struck and the phone went silent.

RELATED: Survivor of Colorado rock-throwing attacks speaks out: "It's horrible. Nobody should lose a child"

Zachary Kwak / Credit: Jefferson County

Two other people were also hurt in earlier rock attacks that night. Seven vehicles in total were hit by what authorities now describe as "large landscaping rocks." It's believed the suspects were in a moving vehicle when the rocks were thrown.

/ Credit: CBS

A memorial for Bartell with flowers and pinwheels now sits along a fence next to Indiana Street where she died.

The three suspects remain in custody without bond. The defense has requested that each suspect be tried separately. That will be decided during a hearing scheduled for December.

Watch: Biden meets with Israeli first responders, families of terror attack victims

Joran van der Sloot admitted to killing Natalee Holloway, judge says

Jim Jordan loses support on 2nd House speaker ballot; 1 member votes for John Boehner
The TikTok app logo appears in Tokyo, on Sept. 28, 2020. The company could be found in contempt of court if it doesnt comply with subpoenas issued by Utah, a judge said Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. | Kiichiro Sato, Associated Press

TikTok could be found in contempt of court if it doesnt comply with subpoenas issued by Utah, a judge said Wednesday, the latest in the states ongoing legal battle over accusations that the social media giant is harming its teen users.

Both subpoenas were issued earlier this year  one asks TikTok to clarify a number of business practices, including its data sharing policies in China, how the company prohibits nudity and sexual solicitation, and what information the company collects from users when they create an account.

Related

But according to Utah Solicitor General Melissa Holyoak, a number of those questions remain unanswered. During a hearing Wednesday, 3rd District Court Judge Mark Kouris warned attorneys for TikTok that it risks being found in contempt if it doesnt respond by a newly set deadline.

I do find that TikTok is in breach right now, and this is the way that theyll obviously purge that contempt charge, Kouris said, referring to newly set deadlines for the company to respond to Utahs inquiry. If that doesnt happen, obviously, theyll be fined a contempt citation.

The states investigation started with a subpoena sent on Feb. 6, according to a legal filing, seeking the production of documents and written responses to several investigative specifications.

The subpoena asked for 80 clarifications pertaining to TikToks business practices, and 55 separate requests for documents related to things like age verification, data collection, the companys algorithm and content curation, beauty filters, hashtags, and challenges that deal with issues like suicide, eating disorders and criminal behavior, as well as community guidelines and TikToks relationship with the Chinese government.

On May 30, the state issued another administrative subpoena containing specifications and document requests informed by the Divisions investigation to date.

TikTok could not respond to the states initial deadline of June 19, and instead proposed a September deadline, according to Holyoak, who said the state has still not received answers to 12 questions.

To date, the division has not received any specifications, she told the judge on Wednesday. We are just looking for a deadline. TikTok has not complied with our deadlines. They have not complied with the deadlines they have proposed. And so we hope that the courts deadline would actually be respected.

In response, TikToks attorney Phillip Bowman said the company has been working on answering these questions, along with questions from many, many other states attorneys general, noting that theres a lot of overlapping questions.

Kouris didnt appear to buy Bowmans explanation, and cut him off.

Ive got a feeling that TikTok might have the resources to handle a bunch of these things, just a guess, the judge said sarcastically. Bowman started to respond, before Kouris interrupted him again.

Is that not true then? So what are they running, a mom and pop show, and the lawyers in the basement dont have time to get to all of this stuff? he asked.

Those are in process. We never said we would complete those by any particular date, Bowman said.

The judge gave TikTok two new deadlines  Nov. 3 for the first subpoena, and Dec. 1 for the second. He closed out the hearing warning TikTok that it will be fined if it does not comply.

TikTok has been in Utahs crosshairs for much of the last year. During the 2023 legislative session, Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, sponsored SB152 which enacts the Utah Social Media Regulation Act, requiring a social media company to verify the age of a Utah resident before opening an account. For prospective users under 18 years old, the bill directs the social media company to obtain the consent of a parent or guardian before the account is live.

And HB311, sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, during the 2023 session, prohibits social media companies from using a design or feature that causes a minor to have an addiction to the companys social media platform.

Both bills passed with broad support in the House and Senate.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox had hinted that the state would sue TikTok. Although the subpoenas were issued in February and May, the state filed a lawsuit on Oct. 10, arguing that the companys business practices are damaging to teens.

According to Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, the complaint alleges TikToks algorithm intentionally creates an addiction that targets our kids, which mimics a cruel slot machine that hooks kids attention and does not let them go.

He also accused TikTok of misleading the public about its connection to ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, claiming the company is siphoning large amounts of personal data from our kids every time they use the platform.
The case of State of Indiana v. John Myers continues making news as appeals move through the federal court system 17 years after Myers' conviction for killing Indiana University student Jill Behrman.

John Myers being escorted back to the Morgan County Jail the day he was sentenced in 2006. Chris Howell | Herald-Times

The latest ruling, issued this week by U.S. District Court Judge James Sweeney, denies Myers' request to be released from state prison and granted a new trial because of perceived errors made during his 2006 Morgan County trial.

Sweeney's recent decision comes four years after an initial review of the case, where he ruled in favor of Myers. The judge said lawyer Patrick Baker, later sanctioned for mistakes made in the case, had been ineffective and didn't provide a proper defense during Myers' two-week murder trial in 2006.

A federal appeals court struck down that ruling in 2020. Then in June 2022, Sweeney heard further arguments, this time focused on two other defense allegations: that the prosecution presented false testimony and withheld 8,000 pages of police reports that contained information about three other suspects and could have helped Myers' case.

This week, Sweeney ruled that neither argument held merit and dismissed the petition. Myers could appeal that ruling and seek to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Morgan County Prosecutor Steve Sonnega, who led the state's case during Myer's trial 20 years ago this month, said it's unlikely the nation's high court will consider the case. Myers' appellate lawyer could not be reached for comment.

More on the case: Twenty years ago today, Jill Behrman went on a bike ride and never returned

"The way the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals worded their opinion and the way Judge Sweeney interpreted their opinions are very narrow, which means I hope we are near the end of the appellate process," Sonnega said Wednesday afternoon.

"We are finally reaching the end of a case that went up and down the Indiana courts, then up and down in the court of appeals and now up and down in the federal system of habeus corpus."

He said each time there's been a court ruling over the years, he calls Behrman's mother, then her father and then the lead investigator in the case, "and we all ride the roller coaster together."

Marilyn Behrman said waiting 16 months for this week's ruling wasn't easy, but she's grown accustomed to the drawn-out legal process. She was at the hearing, as was Myers' mother, who could not be reached for this story

"I hoped that Myers would not be granted a new trial based I what I heard that day. I have long waited for this ruling from the judge and finally that day has come," Behrman said, calling it "bittersweet."

"I would much rather have my daughter in my life. Jill is still 19. Her friends are 42 or 43. I still miss my daughter every single day of my life."

Jill Behrman

Eric Behrman pointed out that while Myers got the maximum 65-year sentence for murder, he is set to be released in 2037 after serving half of his time under guidelines in place in 2006.

In 2014, the law changed to require that state prison inmates serve 75% of their time.

Behrman, a 19-year-old IU student who lived with her parents in Bloomington, disappeared on a Wednesday morning bike ride on May 31, 2000. The search for her continued until her body was found by a turkey hunter in a Morgan County nearly three years later. She had been shot to death.

"Seventeen years ago, a Morgan County jury found Myers guilty. He received a sentence of 65 years, which he will only serve half of," Eric Behrman said. "When does Jill get to return to her family and those who love and miss her?"

Eric and Marilyn Behrman, in 2003, after their daughter Jill's body was discovered and police were investigating who was responsible for her death. H-T Staff photo

Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: New trial sought by man convicted of killing Jill Behrman denied
FILE PHOTO: A supporter holds a poster depicting Julian Assange during a protest against the extradition of WikiLeaks' founder from Britain to the U.S., in Athens

ROME (Reuters) - Jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will become an honorary citizen of Rome by early next year following a vote this week by its local assembly, the city's former mayor Virginia Raggi said on Thursday.

Assange, 52, has been in London's high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019 and is wanted in the United States over the release of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables in 2010.

His supporters see his prosecution as a politically motivated assault on journalism and free speech.

Washington says the release of secret documents put lives in danger.

The motion to make him a citizen of the Eternal City was spearheaded by Raggi, from the left-leaning Five Star Movement, and won cross-party support.

"Assange is a symbol of free speech which is essential for any genuine democracy," Raggi, who ran Rome's city hall between 2016 and 2021, told Reuters.

"He has been deprived of his own liberty for years, in awful conditions, for doing his job as a journalist," she said.

The motion was approved on Tuesday, kick-starting a process that Raggi said she hoped could be completed by Christmas but may take slightly longer.

Other Italian cities have taken similar steps. The northern city of Reggio Emilia granted Assange citizenship last month, while Naples is set to follow shortly.

If extradited to the United States, Assange risks a sentence of up to 175 years in a maximum-security prison.

(Reporting by Alessia Pe and Gavin Jones, editing by Alvise Armellini and Jonathan Oatis)
Actor Jussie Smollett has checked himself into an outpatient rehabilitation facility amid an ongoing legal battle regarding a 2019 Chicago hate crime hoax.

Jussie has had an extremely difficult past few years, theEmpire stars publicist said in a statement to TMZ on Wednesday. He has quietly been working very hard for some time now and we are proud of him for taking these necessary steps.

Smollett, 40, was sentenced to 150 days in jail and given 30 months of felony probation after being found guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct in May 2022. He was also ordered to pay more than $120,000 in restitution to the City of Chicago and was fined $25,000.

TheB-Boy Blues director, who is Black and identifies as gay, was charged for allegedly paying two brothers, Abel and Ola Osundairo, $3,500 to help stage a homophobic and racist attack against him in January 2019.

Theres a side of you that has this arrogance, and selfishness and narcissism thats just disgraceful, Cook County Judge James Linn said while sentencing the actor. Youre not a victim of a racial hate crime, youre not a victim of a homophobic hate crime. Youre just a charlatan pretending to be a victim of a hate crime, and thats shameful.

Smollett was released on bond from county jail six days later.

He joined his legal team last month at the Chicago-based First District Appellate Court to argue that anger over the case led to properly dismissed charges being improperly restored.

A ruling has yet to be made in Smolletts appeal.

_____
After an extremely difficult past few years, actor Jussie Smollett , previously convicted of a hate crime hoax, is entering rehab.

Following a 2021 conviction for his involvement in a hate crime hoax and what has been described as a tumultuous few years, actor Jussie Smollett is reportedly beginning treatment at a rehab facility.

Jussie Smollett attends 2022 Atlanta Black Pride Weekend Film Festival B-Boy Blues screening at IPIC Theaters at Colony Square on Sept. 3, 2022, in Atlanta. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images)

Jussie has had an extremely difficult past few years, said Smolletts representative in a statement, per People magazine. He has quietly been working very hard for some time now, and we are proud of him for taking these necessary steps.

Over the last year, Smollett has maintained a low profile following the trial surrounding a hate crime incident he alleged had taken place on Jan. 29, 2019. In 2019, the actor, who held a prominent role on the Fox network hit Empire at the time, claimed he was physically and verbally assaulted by two masked men while en route to his Chicago apartment. Smollett, an out gay man, initially garnered sympathy as he alleged the men attacked him with racist and homophobic slurs, threw bleach on him, and tied a rope around his neck.

Jussie was the victim of a violent and unprovoked attack. We want to be clear, this was a racial and homophobic hate crime, said the Smollett family in a statement, per The New York Times. Jussie has told the police everything from the very beginning. His story has never changed, and we are hopeful they will find these men and bring them to justice.

However, as more details came to light via the resulting police investigation, skepticism grew amongst the public. When police determined that Smollett was familiar with the two suspected attackers, Abimbola Bola and Olabinjo Ola Osundairo, they turned their attention to the actor, suspecting him of filing a false report. After being arrested by the Chicago Police Department, Smolletts trial began in 2021, where he faced charges of lying to the police. Though the actor maintained his innocence throughout the trial, he was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to 150 days of jail time with an order to pay the city of Chicago nearly $150,000.

Though the new statement did not explain in details why Smollett entered rehab, the Osundairo brothers reportedly told police that they sold the actor illegal substances on multiple occasions.

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The post Jussie Smollett is seeking treatment in rehab appeared first on TheGrio.
Joaquin Hurtado, 61, does his physical therapy for a shoulder injury at home with his family this month. Hurtado moved to Los Angeles at 17 and got his first job working for $2.60 an hour. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

A few days after arriving in Los Angeles, Joaquin Hurtado walked into a cafe in Studio City, asked for a manager, then recited one of the few phrases he'd memorized in English: "I'm looking for a job."

If he would work for $2.60 an hour  then 30 cents below the minimum wage  the manager said, they could use a busboy.

That was 1979, and the then-17-year-old, who grew up on a ranch in central Mexico, had landed his first job in the U.S. It was followed, in years to come, by stints at other restaurants, a supermarket and a fiberglass factory, and as a day laborer.

Often working alongside other immigrants, Hurtado quickly noticed a through-line: It wasn't uncommon, he said, for bosses to yell at them, short them on pay, schedule them for undesirable shifts or stiff them on raises.

You just take it and take it, Hurtado said. Its the way it is. They know they can do what they want.

Hurtados employment situation improved drastically after President Reagans 1986 amnesty granted him legal status in the country and thus a pathway to a stable, union career as a garbage truck driver for the last three decades.

But his early work experiences are emblematic of the scope and frequency of on-the-job discrimination that immigrants to the U.S. continue to face.

The widespread nature of employment discrimination was a key finding of an unprecedented, nationwide poll of more than 3,000 immigrants conducted earlier this year by The Times in partnership with KFF, the nonprofit formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Of the working immigrants surveyed, nearly half  47%  reported being paid less than U.S.-born workers to do the same job, not being paid for all their hours worked, being given fewer opportunities for promotions or raises, getting worse shifts or having less control over their hours, or being harassed or threatened in the workplace because they were immigrants.

Many said they had experienced multiple forms of discrimination. Among those whom the survey identified as likely to be undocumented  immigrants who reported that they were not citizens and did not have a valid green card or visa  two-thirds reported workplace mistreatment. So did 55% of those who said they didn't speak English well, according to the poll, which surveyed immigrants with a wide range of careers and statuses under U.S. law.

Theres a lot of racism, said an immigrant in Texas who has worked in produce warehouses and who participated in one of several focus groups conducted alongside the survey. Because we were undocumented, we worked more and earned less.

Joaquin Hurtado at home with daughter Monica Espinoza Pasillas. When he began working in the U.S., he quickly noticed that bosses tended to short him and other immigrants on pay, schedule them for undesirable shifts or stiff them on raises. "It's the way it is." (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

In interviews, several immigrants who participated in the poll, including Hurtado, described contentment with aspects of the lives they'd built, but also nostalgia and sometimes exhaustion. Others spoke of a sense of gratitude tempered by the feeling that, at least in the workplace, they often werent seen or rewarded for their full potential.

Read more: In an increasingly pessimistic era, immigrants espouse a hallmark American trait  optimism

For several years, that's how HeeKap Lee felt.

After emigrating from South Korea in his early 30s, he earned a doctorate in education at Indiana University Bloomington and eventually moved to rural Kentucky for an associate professorship at a small Christian university.

HeeKap Lee, a professor at Azusa Pacific University, emigrated from South Korea in his early 30s. During his time teaching in rural Kentucky, he says, "I always felt like an outsider." (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

I was the first nonwhite faculty since the school started, Lee said, sighing as he recounted the way people stared at him on campus and around town. I always felt like an outsider.

He once found several dead birds tossed into his front yard; another time, Lee said, he walked outside to find his mailbox smashed. He tried to convince himself it was an accident, but, if so, wouldnt someone have left a note?

He prayed, asking God to send him somewhere else, and eventually moved to a small university in Ohio. Although it was better, Lee said, he twice was passed over for a promotion from associate professor to full professor. He had plenty of research experience, he said, and remembers thinking it didn't feel fair.

I didnt lack anything," he said.

Read more: Ten languages, thousands of phone calls: Accurately polling immigrants posed unprecedented challenges

His situation improved drastically in 2009, when he moved to Southern California for a job at Azusa Pacific University, where he still works as a professor.

"In L.A.," he said, "I'm part of all the diversity."

Lee, 58, who co-wrote a book titled Multiculturalism," said he feels proud of the work hes doing now, knowing that, as an immigrant, his perspective helps shape his students who go on to become teachers themselves, working with students from all different cultures.

HeeKap Lee, now 58, co-authored a book titled "Multiculturalism" and says his perspective as an immigrant helps his students, some of whom go on to become teachers themselves. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

The power of this country," he said, "is to embrace diversity as our driving force.

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Although Lee and Hurtado have spent decades in the U.S., a third immigrant, who participated in a focus group in L.A. as part of the Los Angeles Times/KFF research, arrived seven years ago, fleeing death threats in her native Honduras.

Now 20, Sharon, who requested her surname be withheld for privacy, grew up in a coffee-growing region on the western edge of the country. As a girl, she plucked mangoes from trees when food ran scarce, sliced them and sold them to students at her school.

When she was 13, her father received word that members of a rival gang planned to kill him but intended to target his daughters first to make him suffer. Almost immediately, Sharon and her younger sister, then 8, boarded a bus headed north.

Sharon, 20, emigrated at 13 from Honduras when her family received death threats. She is the mother of two young children. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

They eventually arrived in Texas, she said, and spent several weeks in migrant detention facilities with other unaccompanied minors, receiving English lessons where the adults insisted on being addressed as Teacher.

The habit stuck and, once reunited with her mother in L.A., she forced herself to participate in her seventh-grade classes despite knowing very little English. While other students addressed teachers as either Mr. or Miss, she started her questions the way she had learned in Texas.

Other students taunted her, nicknaming her Teacher Girl. Already discouraged, she soon got a call saying her father was missing, and then a text from a relative in Honduras with a picture of a lifeless body in a red sack tossed in a dry creek bed. Only his legs were showing, but Sharon immediately recognized his jeans.

She screamed so much that she fainted and, for months felt despondent, skipping school to sleep or wander the city. Deeply apathetic, she began pulling out of her blinding depression only after learning that she was pregnant.

"My daughter saved me," she said. "She became my motivation."

Sharon began looking for work but knew it would be hard without legal work documents or English skills. The owner of a 99 cents store where she sometimes shopped in South L.A. needed a cashier for 11-hour shifts Monday through Friday.

The pay was $400 a week.

That was far below minimum wage, Sharon knew, but it felt like her only option. The owner hadnt asked for work documents and told her she could bring her baby with her during her shifts. She worked there for several months but quit after the store was robbed at gunpoint while she was eight months pregnant with her second daughter.

Sharon, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy, saw her situation improve two years ago when she received paperwork allowing her to work legally in the U.S. But she still struggles as a young mother. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

In the years since, she has pieced together work, packaging orders at a corner store, delivering for UberEats, disinfecting an office building during the pandemic and cleaning the drink-crusted floors of a nightclub near Koreatown.

She also worked Friday and Saturday nights cleaning the bar and serving drinks at the club, although she was limited to delivering beverages without alcohol because she wasnt yet 21. Almost every shift, she said, a customer propositioned her.

"You're an immigrant, right? she recalled one man saying. Dont you want to make more money?

When youre done here, another man said, Ill give you $500 to meet me.

No, sorry, she told them. I dont do that.

She felt exhausted and guilty that, in her rare downtime, she had little energy to play with her daughters. At a temporary office cleaning gig, she had a backpack vacuum strapped to her small frame for eight hours, and it got so hot it often left a red mark on her back.

She was often given more work than she could finish during her allotted hours, she said, and although she stayed to finish she was never paid for the extra hours. When she explained the situation to a boss and mentioned she might contact a workers' rights group, she stopped getting scheduled for shifts.

Theyve never taken me seriously at my jobs, she said. They think Im just a little doll. They dont know what Im capable of.

Her situation improved somewhat in 2021, when she got paperwork allowing her to work legally in the U.S. But she still has two big hurdles. She needs something with enough flexibility that, if her daughters daycare calls, she can pick them up within an hour, and she needs to improve her English.

Combination of pull quotes from the story in a blocky illustration

After inquiring about work at a McDonald's in the Pico-Union neighborhood, she was told she needed to know a bit more English  a reality, she said, that makes her feel defeated, questioning whether she couldve tried harder to learn the language when she arrived.

Maybe its my own fault? she says, pausing before growing more definitive. It is my fault.

Then she pauses again, reflecting on how young and deeply depressed she was at the time, and her voice cracks.

But I was just a girl.

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Growing up in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, Hurtado lived miles from the nearest secondary school.

There was no bus and it was too far to walk, so as a teenager, he moved to his grandfathers ranch and spent his days helping him herd cattle and gather firewood. At 17, he did what many teenagers in his family and town had done: He headed to the U.S.

After arriving in Los Angeles on July 4, 1979, he quickly landed the busboy job in Studio City, but it lasted only a week. When a customer asked for a glass of water in English, he didn't understand and, making a guess and hoping for the best, took them a cup of coffee. The manager told him he could come back if he learned more English.

Next came a dishwashing gig at a spot called Pizzeria Numero 1, where he worked his way up to food prep and then chef. By the early 1980s, not long after getting married and learning his wife was pregnant, he had a job waxing the floors at a Hughes supermarket in the San Fernando Valley.

During one of his shifts, he asked a co-worker to cover for him while he took his lunch break, Hurtado recalled, and during that time a customer shattered a jar of mayonnaise on the floor and someone slipped on it. The person made a complaint, Hurtado said, and his boss insisted that, since it had happened during his shift, it was his fault and that he was being fired.

He explained to his boss that he'd asked for coverage, Hurtado said, but he could tell his boss had made up his mind. It was an injustice, Hurtado said, but one he couldnt dwell on long because he needed to focus on finding a job before his baby was born. He eventually found work at a fiberglass factory in Sylmar, earning around $3 an hour.

I cant live like this, he recalled thinking. I need a higher salary.

He started taking English classes at night and, after the 1986 amnesty, became one of the roughly 3 million undocumented immigrants, many in California, granted legal status. He finally had some bargaining power.

How much will you pay me? hed ask potential employers. Thats not enough, Im not interested.

Joaquin Hurtado lives with his family in a rented two-bedroom home in North Hills and hopes to retire in a few years. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Around that time, a friend who worked as a garbage truck driver offered to help train him for the same role. After six months of studying, he got his license and found a job making $16 an hour. For years, he hadnt saved much of anything and now, in a single year, he amassed $38,000, enough for a down payment on a four-bedroom home in Sylmar.

A beautiful house, he said proudly. My own house.

Read more: We need immigrants more than ever. They keep hope in this country alive

A devotee to the world of Mexican rodeo known as charreria, Hurtado, who said nothing melts away his stress like riding a horse in the open air, soon saved enough to buy a sprawling property in Acton, as well as a horse and trailer.

Eventually, he separated from his wife, and she kept the home in Sylmar. For a while, he lived with his elderly parents in their mobile home nearby and went on to marry Yadira Pasillas Alamillo, an elementary school teacher he knew from back in Zacatecas.

Earlier this summer, she and her two youngest daughters, Monica Espinoza Pasillas, 12, and Deicy Espinoza Pasillas, 18, who Hurtado considers his own, left Mexico and moved in with him in a two-bedroom home hes renting in North Hills.

The family planted pink flowers and a small olive tree outside, and inside, Hurtados wife has tacked up blue Post-it notes to remind her and the girls of the English words and pronunciations  "wall (gual)," one reads. Monica recently enrolled in seventh grade, and Deicy and their mother are taking an immersive English course three hours a day, five days a week.

On a recent afternoon, all three lounged on the couch, updating one another on what they'd learned recently.

Deicy, who hopes to become a plastic surgeon, said that, with the help of a TikTok video, she could finally hear the difference between "tree" and "three."

Deicy Espinoza Pasillas, 18, assists her mother, Yadira Pasillas Alamillo, with English homework. Deicy hopes to become a plastic surgeon. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Her mother, who plans to return to teaching or pursue a nursing degree once she's learned more English, said she'd learned the phrase the big cheese, which frustratingly, she noted, didnt translate to anything related to cheese but rather to el pez gordo (the fat fish).

Monica, who teared up as she spoke about her friends back in Mexico, said that some students from her new school from Guatemala and Colombia had helped her when she couldn't understand their teacher.

Her mother wrapped her in a tight hug, and Hurtado handed her a blue handkerchief, saying he knew that feeling of nostalgia, but was proud of her for the progress she'd made in just a few weeks.

Youre getting into a rhythm, he told her. And it was something he was eager to do himself.

Off work to recover from a shoulder surgery in August, the 61-year-old now fills his days with physical therapy appointments and twice-a-day, at-home mobility exercises.

Joaquin Hurtado does his physical therapy following shoulder surgery in August. He says he still enjoys his job driving a garbage truck, especially the interactions with customers. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Hurtado, who now makes $32 an hour and hopes to retire in about three years, said he still enjoys his shifts at the wheel of his truck, especially the interactions with customers. When hes working, he wakes around 4 a.m., picks up his truck and then a treat from a corner store  a juice or ice cream  and traces a route that often winds through Alhambra, Pasadena and La Canada Flintridge.

I like what Im doing," he said. "I love my job."

Read more: How the Times/KFF poll of immigrants was conducted

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A spectator at former President Donald Trump's civil fraud trial in New York was arrested Wednesday after rising from her seat in the middle of testimony and approaching the front of the courtroom where he was, The Associated Press reports. The woman declared a desire to "assist" Trump, and the court system said that neither he nor anyone else at the trial was ever in danger. The former president did not display a reaction in court and told reporters later he did not know about the incident that had transpired behind him. Who got arrested? Trump asked. We didnt know anything about it.

The woman, who was later identified as a court system employee, returned to her seat after a court officer instructed her to do so. Shortly afterward, officers removed her from the room and arrested her on a contempt charge for disrupting the proceeding, court spokesperson Lucian Chalfen said. Chalfen explained that the woman had been calling out to Trump that she wanted to help him, though reporters present in the courtroom did not hear her raise her voice. She was later heard screaming in the lobby as officers escorted her out of the building.

Youre scaring me, and I have a right to be here," an NBC camera caught the woman telling court officers outside the courtroom. "Im an American citizen, and Im also a court employee. Im also just here to support Donald Trump. She added that she had been peacefully watching this proceeding and complied when a court officer advised her against causing "any more problems." Chalfen said the woman, whose name was not released to the public, has since been put on administrative leave and prohibited from entering state courts while authorities investigate.
Are the quake alerts over? Some Californians appeared to have received a second alarm in less than 24 hours overnight, jolting them awake seven hours before a planned test of the system.

A warning informing Northern Californians about a 4.2-magnitude earthquake jolting the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region startled many Wednesday. Residents reported being shaken as tremors rocked from the epicenter near Isleton, not far from Sacramento. At least 400,000 devices, including many cellphones in the Bay Area, were also notified about the emergency.

Then, just after 3 a.m. Thursday, some MyShake app users received another one.

The error appears to have occurred at least in part because the warning was scheduled for 10:19 a.m. UTC  Coordinated Universal Time, also known as Greenwich Mean Time  rather than Pacific Daylight Time.

It was unclear how many people received the errant MyShake test warning.

Thursday is International ShakeOut Day in which people registered for quake alerts in California are expected to receive another notification on their phone about a quake. The goal this time, as part of the Great California ShakeOut, is to be prepared if a temblor were to strike again.

Dubbed as the largest-ever earthquake drill, participants will get notified at 10:19 a.m.

Earthquake scientists have noted previously that the early-warning system, when activated, will sometimes issue warnings for quakes that are not felt by the people who receive them.

There have been a number of times recently when the earthquake early-warning system has worked with impressive results. About a year ago, many in the San Francisco Bay Area received several seconds warning before they felt shaking from a magnitude-5.1 earthquake that struck under the mountains east of San Jose.

Earthquakes are actually the most damaging disaster we could face as a state, said Brian Ferguson, deputy director of crisis communication at the Governors Office of Emergency Services, which is organizing the event.

There are 634,064 people who are signed up to get alerts across in what ShakeOut organizers call the Delta Sierra region  it includes Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, El Dorado and neighboring counties.

There are active faults found in the crest of the Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe, the foothills and the western Sacramento Valley, according to the ShakeOut officials.

The Los Angeles Times and The Bees Jacqueline Pinedo and Angela Rodriguez contributed to this story.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  A family is still searching for justice, three months after a stolen car crashed into a 20-year-old University of Memphis student, killing her.

Justice for Ava Christopher is the goal next week, as her family prepares for a rally in Midtown.

The two-mile walk and candlelight vigil will mark the three-month anniversary of Avas death. Her family hopes the event will help find the driver who killed her on July 25.

They did not even look back: Driver in stolen car runs from deadly crash

She was happy. She was bubbly. She was outgoing. She was so so talented, said MJ Learned, Avas best friend.

Learned says Ava was majoring in biology at the University of Memphis and planned to become a veterinarian before she was killed in a hit-and-run crash.

I mean the last three months, its really just been like you just cant believe it, said Learned.

The two suspects responsible for the crash, a man and a woman, were in a speeding red Dodge Challenger on Cooper Street when they ran a red light. Surveillance video shows the Challenger plowing into Avas car.

According to police, the Challenger was reported stolen from Southaven.

Even though there is footage of the suspects and traffic cam footage of the wreck it still hasnt been solved, said Learned.

Witnesses say the couple walked away and didnt look back.

Photos released of pair wanted in deadly Midtown hit-and-run

The more people think and talk about it, the more likely it will be solved. Thats all we want is to bring justice for her, said Learned. She was one of my closest friends, and I know if it was me, shed absolutely do the same. And I owe it to her to do this.

The Justice for Ava march will be held on Oct. 25 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Aldos Pizza Pies on Cooper Street in Midtown.

CrimeStoppers has increased the previous $10,000 reward to $20,000 for information leading to an arrest.

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.
Name: Justin Moore

Age: 40

Campaign website or social media page: None listed

Occupation: Attorney

Education:

J.D., William and Mary Law School

B.S., Criminal Justice, Appalachian State University

Have you run for elected office before? (Please list previous offices sought):

Yes. I served in the NC House in 2016. I ran for Superior Court Judge in 2014 and Huntersville Town Commissioner before in 2005.

Please list your highlights of civic involvement.

Member, N.C. House

Member, Huntersville Parks and Recreation Commission

Member, Huntersville Planning Board

What one professional or political accomplishment are you most proud of?

Being a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Traffic is an issue in Huntersville while a few critical road projects, such as the widening of N.C. 73, have been delayed by NCDOT. How would you tackle the towns traffic problem?

I would focus on making sure that our growth is supported by the roads we have and that we dont overbuild our community in comparison to our road capacity.

What are your ideas about how the town should recruit and retain more police officers specifically? And all town employees more broadly?

I think we have to have salaries that are comparable to other cities in our region for incoming police officers. I will work with the town manager to make sure that all our town staff feel our community is the right one for them to serve.

Huntersville has experienced rapid population growth over the last few decades with the approval of hundreds of new homes. Do you think the town should control growth in some way or keep expanding? Why?

I think the town should limit growth to what our infrastructure can handle. Growth cannot come at the cost of the quality of life of current residents. It is hard enough to get around town as it is, and thats why I decided to run.

Why should voters choose you over others who are in the race?

I think my background in local and state government makes me the best person for the job.
A Clay County jury on Wednesday convicted a Kansas City man of murder and assault in a hit-and-run crash, which killed a man and seriously injured a woman, that prosecutors said was motivated by a romantic rejection.

Michael W. Myers, 48, was found guilty of the murder charge along with first-degree assault and two counts of armed criminal action in Clay County Circuit Court. He faces life in prison for the killing of James Pettijohn, 36, who was fatally struck by Myers pickup truck in suburban Gladstone on April 9, 2019.

The crash happened in a thrift store parking lot in the 7400 block of North Oak Trafficway as Pettijohn and a woman, the other person injured in the crash, were both outside.

Prosecutors alleged Myers saw the woman, stopped his truck, turned around and intentionally ran them over.

Evidence presented at trial included the womans DNA found on the truck, which was located after Gladstone police sought assistance from the general public, and surveillance footage of the incident. The surviving woman testified in court that she had declined Meyers romantic advances.

In a statement Wednesday, Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson applauded the work of Gladstone police and Clay County prosecutors who handled the case, saying we are glad to have achieved justice for these victims.

The surviving victim and the families will have to live with the consequences of the defendants actions, and now so will he, Thompson said.

Meyers is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 22.
A 27-year-old man has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for a series of Kansas City robberies, including one where a store clerk was beaten and fatally shot in 2018.

Louis Candler, of Kansas City, pleaded guilty in May to four felonies, including conspiracy to commit robbery and aiding the possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. He was assigned the prison sentence during a hearing Wednesday, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Missouri.

Candler admitted to participating in a robbery conspiracy involving five others between June and July 2018. He was present at two armed holdups at Kansas City hotels before the deadly robbery of a convenience store in the Swope Parkway-Elmwood neighborhood, according to prosecutors.

On July 16, 2018, Candler and Joe Lee Nichols, 30, robbed the Inner City Oil gas station and convenience store at 5901 Swope Parkway. Ira Brown, a 33-year-old clerk, was shot and killed during a struggle inside the store.

Surveillance video captured footage of the robbery where Nichols is seen pointing a gun, struggling with the store clerk and shooting him before stomping on him. Candler got a hold of the store clerks gun and shot him as well, prosecutors said.

Both left the convenience store after they were unable to get into the cash register, according to prosecutors. Brown was left dying on the stores floor.

Nichols pleaded guilty in February to seven felonies stemming from the robbery conspiracy. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Kazakhstan has stopped exporting 106 types of goods with potential military applications to Russia "in connection with the global situation," the zakon.zk news outlet reported on Oct. 19, citing the country's Deputy Trade Minister Kairat Torebayev.

These products include "drones, internal components, specialized electronics, chips," and similar goods, that is, equipment that could be used for military purposes, Torebayev said.

Astana has received criticism for allowing Moscow to circumvent international sanctions imposed on Russia over its aggression against Ukraine. This included importing and then re-exporting goods that the Russian defense industry uses for arms production.

During his visit to Berlin in late September, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that Astana will "definitely comply" with the sanctions regime against Russia.

Both the U.S. and the EU said they will seek to curb the Kremlin's ability to dodge sanctions. The European Commission warned earlier that if diplomatic channels are insufficient to prevent third-party countries from re-exporting sanctioned products, the European bloc can ban exports to those states as well.

Read also: Investigative Stories from Ukraine: Massive leak reveals how Putins oligarchs evaded Western sanctions imposed due to Ukraine invasion

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
PADDOCK LAKE, Wis. - Kenosha County sheriff's deputies arrested a Chicago woman Tuesday, Oct. 17 after a search of her car uncovered tens of thousands of dollars worth of THC vape cartridges and more.

A deputy initially stopped the woman, identified as Ashley Bermudez, for speeding on State Highway 50 just west of Paddock Lake. The sheriff's department said she was driving 71 mph in a 55 mph zone. The deputy "immediately" smelled marijuana.

Bermudez was questioned and told the deputy she had "a little" marijuana in her car. A search uncovered 2,700 THC vape cartridges  worth approximately $81,000  35 grams of marijuana and miscellaneous drug paraphernalia

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Marijuana, THC vape cartridges found after traffic stop (Courtesy: KCSD)

Bermudez was taken into custody and charged with possession with intent to deliver THC and possession of drug paraphernalia. She was also cited for speeding.
UK intelligence believes that the Kerch Bridge, although restored after damage, will be limited in providing Russian transport to occupied Crimea and will also require significant Russian resources to protect against new attacks.

Source: UK Defence Intelligence review on Twitter (X) dated 19 October, as reported by European Pravda

UK Defence Intelligence notes that on 14 October, Marat Khusnullin, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, said Russia had completed the repair of the Kerch Bridge ahead of schedule after the damage it suffered because of a Ukrainian attack in July 2023.

"Although fully operational, use of the bridge remains restricted due to procedures enacted following the first Ukrainian attack in October 2022. Trucks and fuel supplies continue to be moved by ferry," the intelligence department notes.

At the same time, the bridge remains extremely important for Russia to remain in occupied Crimea and deliver supplies for its forces in the south of Ukraine.

At the same time, the Kerch bridge has "almost certainly" become a significant problem for Russia since it requires constant comprehensive protection, including cover by air defence systems and the involvement of specialists who could be deployed by Russia for some other task.

"Russian security forces' confidence in their ability to protect this large and vulnerable structure will continue to be threatened by the ingenuity of Ukraine's military and security services.," the review concludes.

Earlier, UK intelligence said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were capable of hitting the new railway line to Mariupol, which is being built by the Russian Federation.

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Keurig Dr. Pepper plans to invest another $100 million and create 250 new jobs at its Spartanburg County facility by 2027, officials announced Thursday.

The expansion is on top of its original $380 million investment and 155 jobs. More than two years ago the New England-based company opened its coffee roasting and manufacturing facility. It is at 6135 Anderson Mill Road in the Tyger River Industrial Park in Moore.

The 708,067-square-foot facility originally planned to open by 2020, but a company official said construction was delayed because of COVID-19.

"Our facility in South Carolina remains an important asset in the ongoing evolution of our next-generation coffee production capabilities," Keurig Dr. Pepper Chief Supply Chain Officer Roger Johnson said in a statement.

Keurig Dr. Pepper plans to investing another $100 million and create 250 new jobs at its Spartanburg County facility by 2027, officials announced Thursday.

Spartanburg County Councilman David Britt, chairman of the county's economic development committee, said, "Since coming to Spartanburg County, Keurig Dr. Pepper has been a fantastic partner, and has only enhanced our county's status as a place where leading companies can come, succeed and grow."

Keurig's Moore location is exclusively focused on coffee roasting and packaging of K-cup pods for use in Keurig brewers, according to a news statement.

"Keurig Dr. Pepper's expansion of its Spartanburg County facility exemplifies how South Carolina's strong economic climate supports continued development," Gov. Henry McMaster said in a statement.

Keurig Dr. Pepper plans to investing another $100 million and create 250 new jobs at its Spartanburg County facility by 2027, officials announced Thursday.

New jobs will be related to KDPs manufacturing and distribution operations. Individuals interested in employment opportunities should visit KDPs career center.

Among 125 brands associated with Keurig are Dr. Pepper, 7-UP, Canada Dry, Snapple, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Kahlua and its own Keurig brewing system.

The company has about 28,000 employees at 30 manufacturing locations and 150 warehouses and distribution centers in North America. Last year, the company posted $14.1 billion in net sales,

Keurig, others seeking Spartanburg County tax breaks

Keurig is seeking a revised tax break agreement with Spartanburg County, which would provide a 4% property tax rate for 40 years. The standard tax rate for companies is 10.5%.

The S.C. Coordinating Council for Economic Development approved job development credits for the project. The council also awarded a $1 million set-aside grant to Spartanburg County to assist with the costs of Keurig's building improvements.

Besides Keurig, Spartanburg County Council is also considering tax breaks for three other projects that were announced Monday, with each seeking a 6% property tax rate for 30 years:

 Project Factor, a planned $19.22 million investment with 162 new jobs. The company's name and location were not disclosed.

 Project Verde 2, a planned $51.85 million investment with 65 new jobs. The company's name and location were not disclosed.

 Project Sprint, a planned $14 million investment, no jobs. The company's name and location were not disclosed.

Britt said most of the projects this year involve existing companies planning expansions.

Bob Montgomery covers Spartanburg County politics and growth & development. Reach him via email at bob.montgomery@shj.com.

This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: Keurig Dr. Pepper plans $100M investment, 250 jobs, at Moore facility
King Charles has issued a passionate plea for understanding in an address at Mansion House, as he warned against the dangers of heated online debate.

In the address, which was delivered to the lord mayor of London and the City of London Corporation on Wednesday (18 October), the monarch urged the country to resist the temptation of turning ourselves into a shouty society.

The King, who wore a suit adorned with various honours and medals, told dignitaries from the city that he believes the country stands at a watershed moment in which people either come together or risk giving way to bitter online debate on social media.

There is in our land a kind of muscle memory that it does not have to be like this, the King told dignitaries. That the temptation to turn ourselves into a shouty, recriminating society must be resisted, or at least heavily mitigated whenever possible. Especially in the digital sphere where civilised debate too often gives way to rancour and acrimony.

Hinting at the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the King asked Britain to draw from its deep wells of shared values as he called for understanding both at home and overseas. He said it has never [been] more vital than at times of international turmoil and heartbreaking loss of life.

He added: Our willingness to put others first and treat them as we would wish them to treat us. To listen to their views and, if we do not agree, to remind ourselves to engage in a way which is passionate, but not pugnacious. This includes the practice of our religious faiths, in freedom and mutual understanding.

The King added that above all, genuine togetherness that will see us through good times and bad.

Charles also emphasised the importance of maintaining a sense of humour during bad times, poking fun at himself as he referenced a video that went viral in the first days of his reign last year.

King Charles addresses lord mayor of London and the City of London Corporation at Mansion House (Getty Images)

In the video, the new King said, I cant bear this bloody thing, and grew visibly frustrated with a leaky fountain pen he was using to sign documents.

He said: Our ability to laugh at ourselves is one of our great national characteristics. Just as well, you may say, given some of the vicissitudes I have faced with frustratingly failing fountain pens this past year!

A large portion of the speech was spent warning the audience about the threat of climate change, a cause that Charles campaigned on during his time as the Prince of Wales.

The King said: After decades of debate, our television screens  or, increasingly, mobile phone screens  confront us each day with the stark realities of climate change.

But are devastating scenes of communities scarred by fire and flood  not to mention the migration of people fleeing those terrifying phenomena  enough to persuade us to take the action that is needed  to make the sacrifices needed to secure our planet for generations yet unborn?

I believe so. Because at such a juncture in our national life, there are special strengths which we can summon to help us  deep wells on which we can draw, filled not just with our shared histories and experiences, but with literally countless individual stories too; a mix of memories past and ambitions future, to help give ourselves a sense of perspective.
KITTERY, Maine  The town is remediating hundreds of erroneous tax bills sent out to residents after miscalculations tied to the states sunsetting Property Tax Stabilization Program for senior citizens.

A total of 558 Kittery property owners were previously approved for the program and all but one received a tax bill with an error. Town Manager Kendra Amaral said the vast majority of those property owners were given too much of a credit by the town, while some didnt receive enough of a credit.

The billing errors ranged from some Kittery residents being undercharged $380 to some being overcharged as much as $225 in their tax bills. The total was an undercharge of approximately $137,000.

More than 500 senior citizens in Kittery were either overcharged or undercharged on their tax bills.

Those who were undercharged were residents who became first-time exemption applicants for other programs, Amaral wrote in a report to the Town Council.

How is Kittery correcting the billing errors for affected residents?

In November, residents who were given too much of a credit will receive a letter with another bill that will make up the difference. Kittery citizens who didnt get a full credit will later get an additional credit on their second tax bill.

We looked at a lot of different options and what weve decided is the fairest and makes the most sense for the clarity of the taxpayer is that were going to issue a supplemental after Oct. 31, Amaral said. Everybody who got their bill who has the tax stabilization program, pay your bill as you got it this first (time).

Then were not going to have a late fee that goes with that, she added. So that additional amount that might be owed for those who were over credited will just be due when the second tax bill is due. Theres a lot of time there.

Property and personal taxes will be collected on Oct. 31, Feb. 15, 2024 and May 31, 2024, as set by the Town Council.

What was Maine's expired Property Tax Stabilization Program?

The program was enacted by Maines legislature in the summer of 2022 but repealed this July, meaning it will end after only being in effect this current tax year.

Property Tax Stabilization for Senior Citizens, also known as the Property Tax Stabilization Program, is a State program that allows certain senior-citizen residents to stabilize, or freeze, the property taxes on their homestead, a state description explains. As a result of recent changes in the law, the Tax Stabilization Program will only apply to the property tax year beginning April 1, 2023.

Amaral explained it further.

The intent of the law was to freeze the qualifying taxpayers bill (regardless of change in assessed value) at the same dollar amount (or less) until they no longer live in Maine, she wrote. Cities and towns, Maine Municipal Association and many others raised significant issues and concerns with implementation of the law; and the legislature repealed it the following session.

How did the errors in Kittery happen?

The errors occurred after the town applied individual credits to each account while up against deadlines to release tax bills.

Vision Government Solutions, the towns contracted software company for billing, did not apply the credits to residents accounts because the program is only applicable in Maine and only in use for one year, according to Amaral.

That left it up to the town to address the credits, she said.

In the process of pulling together all the reports we needed from the state, we discovered that for the majority of those 557 senior tax stabilization accounts, we had actually not pulled the assessment to include their homestead exemption and their veterans exemption, she explained. We actually gave them too much credit, for the most part. We have a handful that we didnt give enough of a credit because theyre first-time homestead exemption applicants or first-time veteran exemption applicants, or dual.

More Kittery news: Town Council candidates debate issues and record of candidate who resigned in 2021

Town assessor Paul McKenney said, We always make sure the numbers match before we send out tax bills, and they did, but we did it in a different way where we had to hard code last years tax rate into the tax billing system."

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kittery ME correcting erroneous tax bills sent to senior citizens
TEL AVIV  The United States has assessed that the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital Tuesday was most likely caused by a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, according to two U.S. officials and a congressional staffer. The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.

NBC News consulted four military and munitions experts. One agreed with the U.S. assessment, which was hinted at by President Joe Biden during his trip to Israel on Wednesday. Three agreed the blast wasnt from Israel. The experts were shown parts of more than a dozen videos and pictures from the incident at al-Ahli Baptist Hospital and its aftermath that have been geolocated and analyzed by NBC News, with some saying the marks left by the projectile arent consistent with the weaponry Israel has recently used.

The analysis of the experts and U.S. officials will likely do little to staunch the anger felt across the Arab world, which gives credence to the version of events put forward by Palestinian officials and Hamas: that Israel hit the hospital and killed hundreds of civilians in a deliberate act.

Palestinians carry usable items from the heavily damaged Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City. (Belal Khaled / Anadolu via Getty Images)

It will also do little for Gaza residents like Abu Fulla Mohammed, who rushed to the scene because he knew his family members were nearby. For Mohammed, it was just the latest burst of rubble and human carnage from which there is no escape.

It was as if I was in a scene from the Day of Resurrection, with fires everywhere, he said, discovering that shrapnel had hit his sister in her back. I was walking and jumping over the bodies of martyrs. I swear to God, there were corpses of children, women, elderly people.

The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, has been pummeling Gaza from the air since the surprise Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 killed some 1,400 people in kibbutzim, at a music festival and on city streets. It says it only targets Hamas positions, but hundreds have been killed during its bombing campaign, which has struck other hospitals and, the United Nations said Tuesday, a school, as hundreds of thousands flee south ahead of an expected Israeli ground assault.

In the same time frame, rockets have repeatedly been fired from Gaza toward Israel, with most intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system

Verification of who is responsible for the hospital explosion is particularly difficult because its not currently possible for outside experts to enter Gaza, which is under blockade and surrounded by Israeli forces.

A woman cries in the garden of Al-Ahli hospital, after it was hit, in Gaza City on Oct. 18, 2023. (Mustafa Hassona / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The explosion was broadcast live by Al Jazeera, a news organization owned by the Qatari government, whose cameras were trained on Gaza.

At 6:59 p.m. local time  just before noon ET  the pictures showed a projectile arcing through the sky and appearing to explode midair. Another live shot on the network showed two explosions on the ground, the larger of the two geolocated to the Ahli Baptist Hospital parking lot by NBC News, which compared the skyline in the video illuminated by the blast to satellite imagery of Gaza.

Another geolocated video on social media is filmed from within Gaza itself. The camera points through an ornate fence before a whooshing sound tears through the night and a large fireball plumes in the middle distance.

After the explosion, Israeli officials began to release what they said was their own intelligence indicating that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad was responsible.

At a briefing at IDF headquarters Wednesday, its spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, blamed a barrage launched from a cemetery southwest of the hospital a minute before 7 p.m.  the same time captured by al Jazeera.

The IDF released aerial footage that it said showed that the hospital buildings themselves had not in fact been damaged, and that the blast had hit a parking lot.An analysis by Bellingcat, an independent investigative nongovernment organization, also found that the hospital itself was not hit, but rather the adjacent parking lot.

The only location damaged is outside the hospital in the parking lot where we can see signs of burning, no cratering and no structural damage to nearby buildings,said Bellingcat director of research and training Giancarlo Fiorella on Wednesday, adding that the distance between the crater area and where people were was about 20 to 30 feet.

The parking lot analysis also appears to tally with verified photos posted on social media, including by a local journalist, Mohamed Masri, and the Reuters news agency, which released a picture showing a small crater with the spray of debris arcing in a southwesterly direction.

In the hours that followed the explosion, gruesome videos emerged from the hospital on social media showing dozens of mangled bodies and detached limbs lying in the grass by the hospital parking lot. Childrens backpacks could be seen beside bloodsoaked blankets and bedding, suggesting the victims were sleeping outside at the time of the blast.

Al-Ahli hospital after it was hit in Gaza City. (Ali Jadallah / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Archbishop Hosam Naoum, who is part of the Diocese of Jerusalem that runs the hospital, said Palestinians across Gaza were using the hospital as a sanctuary from the constant barrage of strikes. He said that the hospital had been hit three days earlier by airstrikes and had received multiple evacuation notices afterward. The World Health Organisation said the hospital was operational with patients, health and care givers, and internally displaced people sheltering there.

Hamas  the militant group that controls Gaza and has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., E.U. and other countries  immediately blamed Israel for the bombing, calling it a crime of genocide, without offering evidence. Shortly afterward, Palestinian United Nations Ambassador Riyad Mansour said he was outraged by the massacre committed by the Israeli forces. And Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told NBC News on Wednesday about the U.S. assessment: Nobody is buying that narrative in this part of the world.

The Palestinian health ministry spokesman, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said that hundreds were killed. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a surgeon who was at the hospital at the time of the explosion, told NBC News that part of the operating room ceiling fell and that he estimated 300 people were killed.

National Security Council spokesman Adrienne Watson said that while we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the hospital explosion.

The bodies of the victims of an explosion at al-Ahli hospital lie at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. (Mohammad Abu Elsebah / dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a military-focused think tank in London, agreed. Based on what Ive seen so far, I really doubt that this was an airstrike, he said, adding that the blast damage seen so far doesnt fit with the missiles that Israel has been using to strike Gaza over the past week and a half.

Retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former supreme allied commander of NATO and an NBC News contributor, held a similar opinion. To my eye, the damage on the ground does not look at all like what you would see from an airstrike, or a precision-guided weapon, he said. It looks like a projectile with a lot of fuel in it hit a parking lot and created a fireball.

Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army major and weapons and munitions expert, said that the Israeli case was pretty thorough and conclusive, although he cautioned that he would want to see remnants of the munition recovered from the rubble.

He added that as more evidence emerges it appears it may well be an errant Palestinian rocket, he said. We should not be blinkered that this may indeed be an error on the part of the Palestinian forces.

Retired Lt. Gen. Stephen Twitty, a former deputy commander of the United States European Command and an NBC News military analyst, said the trajectory from the Al Jazeera footage showed it had been fired from the ground, rather than the air, but he stopped short of any further conclusions.

Relatives of the people who died in the explosion at Al-Ahli hospital mourn during a funeral ceremony in Gaza City. (Belal Khaled / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The scenes of carnage provoked anger across the Arab world, with governments from Turkey to Saudi Arabia blaming Israel. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah called for a day of rage, and Jordan canceled a meeting of Arab leaders that Biden was set to attend Wednesday  a major setback for American diplomatic efforts.

The blast overall brought more misery on the hemmed-in people of Gaza, currently in the throes of a humanitarian crisis.

Since Hamas terror attack, Israel has imposed a siege of Gaza. Clean water, food, fuel, medical supplies and electricity are dwindling or gone. Promised humanitarian aid coming across the border with Egypt has not yet materialized.

We were sitting in groups with our families and friends, Muhammad Al-Turk told NBC News of the scene Tuesday at the hospitals grounds, where many had gathered as they fled Israeli airstrikes and a mounting humanitarian crisis. Suddenly, there were lights in the sky, and when we looked up, a missile fell, he added.

The stones of the buildings fell on us. We saw martyrs everywhere, in hundreds, he said. I covered my face while friends who were close to me were martyred, my relatives were also injured.

Abu Fulla Mohammed, whose sister was injured, said the scene will haunt him forever: What I saw will remain in my mind until I die.

Relatives of the people who died in the explosion at Al-Ahli hospital mourn during a funeral ceremony in Gaza City. (Belal Khaled / Anadolu via Getty Images)

u Fulla Mohammed, whose sister was injured, said the scene will haunt him forever: What I saw will remain in my mind until I die.u Fulla Mohammed, whose sister was injured, said the scene will haunt him forever: What I saw will remain in my mind until I die.e were sitting in groups with our families and friends, Muhammad Al-Turk told NBC News of the scene Tuesday at the hospitals grounds, where many had gathered as they fled Israeli airstrikes and a mounting humanitarian crisis. Suddenly, there were lights in the sky, and when we looked up, a missile fell, he added.he stones of the buildings fell on us. We saw martyrs everywhere, in hundreds, he said. I covered my face while friends who were close to me were martyred, my relatives were also injured.u Fulla Mohammed, whose sister was injured, said the scene will haunt him forever: What I saw will remain in my mind until I die.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The DSA is a mammoth law that will force digital giants to aggressively police content online (JUSTIN TALLIS)

The EU's milestone legislation, known as the Digital Services Act, demands digital giants crack down on illegal and problematic content.

Brussels is baring its teeth, launching investigations into X, formerly Twitter, as well as Facebook parent Meta and TikTok following Hamas' assault on Israel on October 7 and its aftermath.

The DSA is a mammoth law that will force digital giants to aggressively police content online in the European Union and could see them hit with major fines.

Here are the regulation's key elements:

- Rules for all platforms -

The law kicks in for all platforms from February 17, 2024, but since August it already applies for very large platforms with more than 45 million active monthly users.

Among their obligations, all platforms must quickly remove illegal content or make access to it impossible as soon as they are aware of the issue.

The companies must also rapidly inform the authorities when they suspect a criminal offence that threatens people's lives or the safety of others.

Every year the platform must publish a report that provides details about actions taken on content moderation and how long they took to respond after notification of illegal content. They will also report on the decisions taken in disputes with users.

The law also tells platforms to suspend users who frequently share illegal content such as hate speech or fake ads, while online shopping sites must verify the identities of users and block repeat fraudsters.

There are also tougher rules on targeted advertising, with a ban on such ads for children aged 17 and under.

The EU also wants users to see how their data is used. The law bans targeted advertising based on sensitive data, such as ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

The law does not apply to very small companies.

- Extra rules for large platforms -

The EU has named 19 "very large" platforms including Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Microsoft, Snapchat, TikTok and clothing retailer Zalando.

Amazon and Zalando have launched legal challenges to their designations.

These large platforms must assess the risks linked to their services with regards to the spread of illegal content and privacy infringements.

And they must also set up structures internally to mitigate such risks, such as improved content moderation.

The platforms must also give regulators' access to their data so officials can see whether they are complying with the rules.

This access will also be shared with approved researchers.

They will be audited once a year by independent organisations -- at their own expense -- to ensure compliance, and also establish an independent internal supervisor that will keep an eye on whether the platforms are in line with the rules.

- EU, national coordination -

Under the law, the EU's 27 member states must assign a competent authority that has the powers to investigate and sanction any violation.

These authorities must work with each other and with the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to enforce the regulation from February.

If a digital platform provider is located in one member state, that country must enforce the rules except for very large platforms which will come under the commission's supervision.

- Complaints, penalties -

The DSA wants to make it easier for users' complaints to be heard.

Users will be able to lodge a complaint claiming a platform is in violation of the DSA with their competent national authority.

Online shopping sites may be held responsible for any damage from products bought by users that are non-compliant or dangerous.

Violations can be met with fines that could go up to six percent of a company's global turnover, and for repeated non-compliance, the EU can even decide to ban offending platforms from Europe.

aro-raz/
TEL AVIV  The U.S. has assessed that the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital Tuesday was most likely caused by a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, according to two U.S. officials and a congressional staffer. The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.

NBC News consulted four military and munitions experts. One agreed with the U.S. assessment, which President Joe Biden hinted at during his trip to Israel on Wednesday. Three agreed the blast wasnt from Israel. The experts were shown parts of more than a dozen videos and pictures from the incident at al-Ahli Baptist Hospital and its aftermath that have been geolocated and analyzed by NBC News; some said the marks left by the projectile arent consistent with the weaponry Israel has used recently.

The analysis of the experts and U.S. officials is likely to do little to stanch the anger felt across the Arab world, which gives credence to the version of events put forward by Palestinian officials and Hamas: that Israel hit the hospital and killed hundreds of civilians in a deliberate act.

Follow live coverage from NBC News here

Palestinians carry usable items from the heavily damaged Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City. (Belal Khaled / Anadolu via Getty Images)

It will also do little for Gaza residents like Abu Fulla Mohammed, who rushed to the scene because he knew his family members were nearby. For Mohammed, it was just the latest burst of rubble and human carnage from which there is no escape.

It was as if I was in a scene from the Day of Resurrection, with fires everywhere, he said, discovering that shrapnel had hit his sister in her back. I was walking and jumping over the bodies of martyrs. I swear to God, there were corpses of children, women, elderly people.

The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, have been pummeling Gaza from the air since the surprise Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 killed 1,400 people in kibbutzim, at a music festival and on city streets. It says it targets only Hamas positions, but thousands of people have been reported killed during its bombing campaign, which has struck other hospitals and, the United Nations said Tuesday, a school, as hundreds of thousands flee south ahead of an expected Israeli ground assault.

In the same time frame, rockets have repeatedly been fired from Gaza toward Israel, most of them intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system.

Verification of who is responsible for the hospital explosion is particularly difficult because its not possible for outside experts to enter Gaza, which is under blockade and surrounded by Israeli forces.

A woman cries in the garden of Al-Ahli hospital, after it was hit, in Gaza City on Oct. 18, 2023. (Mustafa Hassona / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The explosion was broadcast live by Al Jazeera, a news organization owned by the Qatari government, whose cameras were trained on Gaza.

At 6:59 p.m. local time  just before noon ET  the pictures showed a projectile arcing through the sky and appearing to explode midair. Another live shot on the network showed two explosions on the ground, the larger of the two geolocated to the Ahli Baptist Hospital parking lot by NBC News, which compared the skyline in the video illuminated by the blast to satellite imagery of Gaza.

Another geolocated video on social media is taken from the ground in Gaza. The camera points through an ornate fence before a whooshing sound tears through the night and a large fireball plumes in the middle distance.

After the explosion, Israeli officials began to release what they said was their own intelligence indicating that Palestinian Islamic Jihad was responsible.

At a briefing at IDF headquarters Wednesday, its spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, blamed a barrage launched from a cemetery southwest of the hospital a minute before 7 p.m.  the same time of the video captured by Al Jazeera.

The IDF released aerial video that it said showed that the hospital buildings themselves hadnt, in fact, been damaged and that the blast had hit a parking lot.

An analysis by Bellingcat, an independent investigative nongovernmental organization, also found that the hospital itself wasnt hit, but rather the adjacent parking lot.

The only location damaged is outside the hospital in the parking lot where we can see signs of burning, no cratering and no structural damage to nearby buildings, Bellingcat director of research and training Giancarlo Fiorella said Wednesday, adding that the distance between the crater area and where people were was about 20 to 30 feet.

The parking lot analysis also appears to tally with verified photos posted on social media, including by a local journalist, Mohamed Masri, and the Reuters news agency, which released a picture showing a small crater with the spray of debris arcing in a southwesterly direction.

In the hours after the explosion, gruesome videos emerged from the hospital on social media showing dozens of mangled bodies and detached limbs lying in the grass by the hospital parking lot. Childrens backpacks could be seen beside blood-soaked blankets and bedding, suggesting the victims were sleeping outside at the time of the blast.

Al-Ahli hospital after it was hit in Gaza City. (Ali Jadallah / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Archbishop Hosam Naoum, who is part of the Diocese of Jerusalem, which runs the hospital, said Palestinians across Gaza were using the hospital as a sanctuary from the constant barrage of strikes. He said the hospital had been hit three days earlier by airstrikes and had received multiple evacuation notices afterward. The World Health Organization said the hospital was operational with patients, health and caregivers, and internally displaced people sheltering there.

Two witnesses told NBC News they heard in recent days the hospital would be targeted and that it needed to be evacuated. But after there were threats in the area, defenseless people came here to take shelter in the hospital building. But we were surprised while we were there that Israeli aircraft targeted the place. There were many martyrs and wounded. It was an indescribable sight, said witness Asad Ayed.

It was unclear how he knew it was an airstrike.

Hamas  the militant group that controls Gaza and has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., the E.U. and other countries  immediately blamed Israel for the bombing, calling it a crime of genocide, without offering evidence. Shortly afterward, Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour said he was outraged by the massacre committed by the Israeli forces. And Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told NBC News on Wednesday about the U.S. assessment, Nobody is buying that narrative in this part of the world.

The Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said hundreds were killed. Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a surgeon who was at the hospital at the time of the explosion, told NBC News that part of the operating room ceiling fell and that he estimated 300 people were killed.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said that while we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion.

The bodies of the victims of an explosion at al-Ahli hospital lie at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. (Mohammad Abu Elsebah / dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a military-focused think tank in London, agreed. Based on what Ive seen so far, I really doubt that this was an airstrike, he said, adding that the blast damage seen so far doesnt fit with the missiles Israel has been using to strike Gaza over the past week and a half.

Retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former supreme allied commander of NATO and an NBC News contributor, held a similar opinion. To my eye, the damage on the ground does not look at all like what you would see from an airstrike or a precision-guided weapon, he said. It looks like a projectile with a lot of fuel in it hit a parking lot and created a fireball.

Former British army Maj. Chris Cobb-Smith, a weapons and munitions expert, said the Israeli case was pretty thorough and conclusive, although he cautioned that he would want to see remnants of the munition recovered from the rubble.

As more evidence emerges, it appears it may well be an errant Palestinian rocket, he said. We should not be blinkered that this may, indeed, be an error on the part of the Palestinian forces.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Twitty, a former deputy commander of U.S. European Command and an NBC News military analyst, said the trajectory from the Al Jazeera video showed it had been fired from the ground, rather than the air, but he stopped short of any further conclusions.

Relatives of the people who died in the explosion at Al-Ahli hospital mourn during a funeral ceremony in Gaza City. (Belal Khaled / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The scenes of carnage provoked anger across the Arab world, with governments from Turkey to Saudi Arabia blaming Israel. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah called for a day of rage, and Jordan canceled a meeting of Arab leaders that Biden had been set to attend Wednesday  a major setback for U.S. diplomatic efforts.

The blast overall brought more misery to the hemmed-in people of Gaza, currently in the throes of a humanitarian crisis.

Since Hamas terrorist attack, Israel has imposed a siege of Gaza. Clean water, food, fuel, medical supplies and electricity are dwindling or gone. Promised humanitarian aid coming across the border with Egypt hasnt yet materialized.

We were sitting in groups with our families and friends, Muhammad Al-Turk told NBC News of the scene Tuesday at the hospitals grounds, where many had gathered as they fled Israeli airstrikes and a mounting humanitarian crisis. Suddenly, there were lights in the sky, and when we looked up, a missile fell.

The stones of the buildings fell on us. We saw martyrs everywhere, in hundreds, he said. I covered my face while friends who were close to me were martyred, my relatives were also injured.

Abu Fulla Mohammed, whose sister was injured, said the scene will haunt him forever: What I saw will remain in my mind until I die.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. The group, which has its main base on the Israel-Lebanon border, could become a wildcard player in the Hamas-Israel war, and spark a wider regional conflict.

The conflict that started with Hamas deadly attacks on Israel  which Israeli officials say killed 1,400 people  has already had broad ramifications in the Middle East, and triggered diplomatic rifts and protests around the world.

Following the attacks on October 7, Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed more than 5,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The fallout is palpable on the Lebanon-Israel border, where Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in low-rumbling tit-for-tat skirmishes since the war began, putting the entire region on a knifes edge.

Heres what else to know about Hezbollah.

The origins of the group

Hezbollah emerged from the rubble of Israels 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when Israeli forces took almost half of Lebanons territory. This included Beirut, where Israeli forces, along with right-wing Israel-allied Christian Lebanese militias, laid siege to the western part of the capital to drive out Palestinian militants.

Israels operation resulted in more than 17,000 deaths, according to contemporary reports, and an Israeli inquiry into a massacre at the Beirut refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila, one of the bloodiest events in the regions recent history. The investigation, known as the Kahan Commission of Inquiry, held Israel indirectly responsible for the massacre that was carried out by right-wing Christian Lebanese fighters.

Estimates for the number of deaths at Sabra and Shatila vary between 700 and 3,000.

Hezbollah supporters raise their fists to salute party leader Hassan Nasrallah in May 2023. - Marwan Naamani/picture alliance/Getty Images

As droves of Palestinian fighters left Lebanon, a band of Shia Islamist fighters trained by the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran burst onto Lebanons fractious political landscape. The rag-tag group had an outsized and violent impact. In 1983, two suicide bombers linked to the faction attacked a US marine barracks in Beirut, killing almost 300 US and French personnel, and some civilians.

A year later, Iran-linked fighters bombed the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 23 people. In 1985, those militants coalesced more formally around a newly founded organization: Hezbollah.

The group made no secret about its ideological allegiance to Tehran and received a steady flow of funds from the Islamic Republic. This helped propel Hezbollah to prominence. It became a participant in Lebanons civil war, which ended in 1990, and led a fight against Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon, ultimately driving them out in 2000.

A terror designation

In Lebanon, Hezbollah is officially considered a resistance group tasked with confronting Israel, which Beirut classifies as an enemy state. Yet much of the Western world has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization, largely since Argentina blamed the group for the 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people, and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center, killing 85, also in the capital.

Both Iran and Hezbollah denied responsibility for those attacks.

In 2011, the pro-democracy Arab Spring protests spiraled into proxy wars that spread through much of the Middle East. Hezbollah was an active participant, fighting alongside Iran-aligned forces in Syria and Iraq. Soon after, it was also designated a terror organization by several Arab countries.

But that barely dented the groups power. During the years-long proxy battles, it experienced a meteoric rise, evolving from guerrilla insurgents into a regional fighting force.

Women carry the images of late Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine during a ceremony in Beirut on May 12. - Marwan Naamani/picture alliance/Getty Images

How Hezbollah relates to Hamas

Hezbollah and Hamas havent always seen eye to eye. The two Islamist groups fought on opposing sides of Syrias uprising-turned-civil war with Hezbollah fighting on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad while Hamas militants supported the predominantly Sunni opposition.

Hezbollah is a group from the Shia branch of Islam, while Hamas is Sunni.

When the Syrian war wound down in most parts of the country toward the end of the last decade, Hamas and Hezbollah set their differences aside. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly praised the growing alliance between the two groups.

Hamas leaders have met with Nasrallah several times over the last year, and the Gaza-based groups deepening connections with Tehran are widely known.

A growing regional power isolated at home

While Hezbollah fought battles further afield, troubles began brewing on their home turf in Lebanon. Repeated cycles of economic and political crises over the last two decades have dealt a blow to the groups popularity outside of its Shia support base.

The group became beleaguered by wider economic problems that it proved powerless to address. It served as a bulwark against Lebanese protests demanding change from a political elite widely accused of corruption, and even dispatched supporters to beat peaceful demonstrators.

Hezbollah has also been largely successful in quashing a judicial investigation into the Beirut port blast that laid waste to large parts of the city in August 2020.

But that may prove immaterial to the groups goals. Hezbollah is arguably Irans most effective non-state partner. And while its regional influence expands, it may only become a more formidable nemesis to its long-time foe, Israel.

People with Hezbollah flags at a rally in Baalbek in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in May 2022. - Francesca Volpi/Getty Images

Why Hezbollah could become embroiled in the Hamas-Israel war

It is still unclear whether Hezbollah will intervene in the Hamas-Israel war on behalf of the Palestinians. On the one hand, it shares Hamas ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state. On the other, Hezbollah has everything to lose.

Israel remains the most sophisticated army in the Middle East by far, boasting some of the most advanced weapons in the world, with US support. Moreover, its war with Gaza offers a cautionary tale. In response to Hamas wide-scale and lethal surprise terror attack, Israel has killed more Gazans than it has in any other war with the blockaded coastal strip. This has sent a chilling message to Lebanon, still reeling from the devastating economic crisis of 2019, which has left much of the nation in disrepair.

Israel may also be hesitant to try its luck with the Iran-backed group. A war with Hezbollah in Israels north could ignite a third front in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which separates Israel from Iran-aligned forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite wing of the Iranian military.

While Hezbollahs arsenal may be no match for Israels, it does boast precision guided missiles, which are far more sophisticated than the shoddy Soviet-era rockets they used in their most recent conflict with Israel in 2006. Nasrallah claims his forces consist of more than 100,000 units, comprising active fighters and reservists.

Should Hezbollah get involved in the war, it would open up a multifront conflict, propelling the Middle East into uncharted territory with unpredictable consequences.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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Sidney Powell, a former lawyer for Donald Trump and a co-defendant in his election interference case in Georgia, pleaded guilty Thursday to six misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to interfere with the 2020 election.

As part of the agreement read out in court, Powell will serve six years of probation12 months for each countpay $8,700 in fines and restitution, and testify against her co-defendants. That means shell now be a state witness against the former president, making her the most high-profile Trump associate to flip on her former boss.

She also turned over an apology letter to the people of Georgia for trying to illegally overturn the states election results in 2020.

Powell met with Fulton County prosecutors late Wednesday, when she came clean about her involvement in what District Attorney Fani Willis has called a widespread, mob-like conspiracy to violate the most fundamental American democratic principles. She reached the plea deal just a day before her trial was set to start on Friday along with co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who drafted several legal memos outlining how Trump would utilize Republican fake electors to run parallel Electoral College votes in case some states managed to forcefully flip the election results.

Trump Co-Defendant Really, Really Doesnt Want to Be Tried With Sidney Powell

Powell infamously spewed election conspiracies that involved Venezuela, Cuba and China, and was set go to trial for her role in assembling a team of conspiracy theorists who entered rural Coffee Countys election offices and accessed government voting computers.

In court on Thursday, Powell raised her right hand and swore to tell the truth before going over the terms of the plea deal. She remained light-hearted, cracking a joke when prosecutors asked her age.

Sixty-eight, despite my astonishingly youthful countenance, she said.

She quickly abided by all the terms in the agreement, except for one. When prosecutors demanded that she not own or carry any firearms, she paused and conferred with her attorney. Judge Scott McAfee pushed back on the idea, noting that this is a misdemeanor plea that "may" affect her ability to possess guns.

Powells professional reputation has been utterly destroyed in the wake of her effort to lead a nationwide attack on the American legal system, all in the service of trying to delegitimize the 2020 presidential election. She launched what she called a multi-tentacled Kraken of lawsuits in state and federal courtall of which failed.

When that didnt work, she hooked up with a computer forensics firm in Atlanta to plot a secret trip south to the small city of Douglas, where local Republican leadership allowed the team to enter government officesthen tried to cover it up. Key details about the mission were exposed by The Daily Beast.

Weeks ago, another close associate in that political subterfuge operation also pleaded guilty: Scott Hall, an Atlanta bail bondsman.

Powells last-minute decision to flip shows how the legal situation keeps worsening for Trump, who faces the most serious criminal charges as the alleged ringleader of this racketeering enterprise.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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The U.S. will keep delivering Army Tactical Missiles Systems (ATACMS) to Ukraine on a consistent basis, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on the 1+1 TV channel on Oct. 19.

He also expressed hope that future deliveries would include the newer ATACMS variations that have a range of up to 300 kilometers.

On Oct. 18, a report by the New York Times confirmed that the U.S. had secretly sent Ukraine 20 ATACMS, which Kuleba said was just the first of such shipments.

Their first use on the battlefield was on Oct. 17 in strikes on Russian military airfields in occupied parts of Ukraine that destroyed nine helicopters and other equipment, as well as killing dozens of Russian soldiers.

The ATACMS sent by the U.S. so far have a range of up to 165 kilometers.

In regards to the progress towards the arrival of F-16 fighter jets, Kuleba said that it would be an "optimistic scenario" if the jets were delivered sometime in the beginning of 2024.

There were still some obstacles to their delivery, he acknowledged, namely pilot training.

Ukrainian pilots have been sent to a number of allied countries, including the U.S., for training that includes English language education.

Other members of the "fighter-jet coalition," established by 11 countries in July 2023 to help train Ukrainian pilots, have also echoed the early 2024 arrival date.

On Oct. 11, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said that he expected Denmark to deliver the first shipment of F-16s in spring 2024.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reiterated that delivery timeline in comments on the same day.

Read also: US will reportedly give ATACMS to Ukraine. Will it change the war?

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Maria Flores, owner of Pupuseria Cuzcatlan in Pacoima, arms outstretched, reacts to receiving reusable foodware from the Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment Reusable Foodware Microgrant Program. Standing with her from left are Paul Cobain, assistant division manager with Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment; her son Manuel Salinas; daughter-in-law Karla Cortez; Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez; and Board of Public Works Commissioner Susana Reyes. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

After 14 years in business, Maria Flores recently celebrated a big change in her Pacoima restaurant, Pupuseria Cuzcatlan, that she hopes will save her money and help improve the environment.

The pupusas will remain the same, but they will now be served to dine-in guests on reusable foodware, thanks to a pilot effort launched by the Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment Reusable Foodware Microgrant program. She had previously served many guests on styrofoam plates.

The program provides financial support to small businesses in Boyle Heights, Pacoima, South Los Angeles and Wilmington that have dine-in operations to assist with the purchase of washable, durable and reusable foodware. Aside from saving eateries like Flores' on the cost of buying single-use utensils and plates, the program is designed to cut down on the food containers that end up on the streets or in landfills.

The program has been in existence for about a year, but after outreach and an application process, the program is now in the phase of awarding applicants reusable foodware.

Maria Flores, left, owner of Pupuseria Cuzcatlan, holds up a coffee mug while checking out donated reusable foodware. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

On Wednesday, Flores unboxed $6,500 worth of reusable plates, cups, cutlery and other products with the support of the program. She hopes to look for alternatives to styrofoam containers the restaurant still uses for to-go orders.

She opened her restaurant in 2009 with the help of her son Manuel Salinas, 33, she said in Spanish. The community overwhelmingly welcomed the brick-and-mortar business after Flores had been selling pupusas from her home, the mother-and-son team said.

Like many businesses that struggled during the pandemic, they're still looking to cut costs and continue serving the Pacoima community.

"I'm going to save a lot of money now because I won't have to buy forks, knives and styrofoam containers for the pupusas on a weekly basis," she said. "It was a lot of money."

Salinas said they're also proud to help reduce single-use foodware that eventually becomes "contaminants of littered containers or trash in the street."

Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez was on hand Wednesday to congratulate Flores on being one of the first participants of the program.

Rodriguez said the program is an example of how government can support small businesses in becoming more environmentally friendly.

"The city is never going to be in a position to achieve our environmental goals alone, we need our residents, we need our business owners to help be part of the solution," she said.

The Reusable Foodware Microgrant pilot program has received 104 applications, but the sanitation bureau is still accepting applications, said Paul Cobain, the bureau's assistant division manager.

Brian Rivera, with Initiating Change in Our Neighborhood (ICON), uses a reusable plate while helping himself to some pupusas at Pupuseria Cuzcatlan. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Interested food operators can visit the bureau's website to learn more about the program and apply online.

For now, the pilot program is accepting applications from small businesses in Boyle Heights, Pacoima, South Los Angeles and Wilmington. The only eligibility requirement is that the business must have a dine-in operation.

Once an application is submitted, the bureau will review it and, if the application is approved, contact the operator to conduct a needs assessment, said Christine Batikain, an environmental supervisor and the project manager for this program.

The program is needs-based, so what a business receives is based on the size of the operation, what reusable foodware the business already has and whether the business wants to fully transition to reusable foodware. City officials say the funding is on a pilot basis and they hope it can be extended in the future.

The goal is to support businesses in a complete transition to reusable foodware, Cobain said.

"We're looking at different ways to partner with small businesses to better understand what their day-to-day operations look like, what their waste stream is, and what we can offer to essentially supplement and support them," he said.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
HOUSTON - La Porte fire crews are working to put out a large grass fire on Tuesday.

Around 2: 46 p.m., La Porte and Port of Houston fire departments responded to Spillman's Island for a diesel truck fire east of the Fred Hartman Bridge.

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The flames reportedly spread to the marsh and have become a priority to put out.

La Porte says they have requested mutual aid from Pasadena, Deer Park, Highlands, and Webster fire departments.

The community does not have to take any action, officials say.


(Bloomberg) -- Labour leader Keir Starmer faces twin tests of the UK opposition partys popularity, as voters go to the polls to fill two parliamentary seats that were last won comfortably by the ruling Conservatives.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Starmer is attempting to overturn big Tory majorities in different parts of England  Mid Bedfordshire, a collection of small towns and villages north of London, and Tamworth, a rural area in northwest England. Success in either would reinforce speculation that Labour is on track to return to power for the first time in 14 years in a general election expected sometime in 2024.

Both outcomes look far from clear, however, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks Conservatives are hoping to demonstrate they can halt Labours momentum. Starmers party has enjoyed a double-digit lead over the Tories in national opinion polls, and earlier this month won a key seat outside Glasgow from the Scottish National Party.

Winning both by-elections Thursday would send the message that Labour can win anywhere, said Joe Twyman, co-founder and director of public opinion consultancy Deltapoll. To win two  even if they just scrape through  having turned around such enormous majorities, is the kind of thing that Tony Blair would have done up in the run-up to 1997.

Starmer has long dismissed any comparisons to Blair, who won Labour a landslide victory after 18 years in opposition. Indeed, he needs around double the extra seats that Blair required to secure an outright majority.

The two sides are playing down expectations ahead of the elections. Starmer described winning Tamworth as a tough ask during a visit to the constituency last week while Sunaks press secretary noted Wednesday that such midterm elections are often tough for the ruling party.

Both by-elections stem from controversial circumstances. In Tamworth, Chris Pincher stood down as a member of Parliament following allegations last year that he had groped two men. Boris Johnsons efforts last year to defend Pincher, who was then a senior minister, prompted an exodus from the Cabinet and precipitated the premiers resignation.

Pincher won Tamworth for the Tories with a majority of almost 20,000 in 2019, increasing the partys vote share at every election since 2010. The seat has traditionally been a two-way fight between the Conservatives and Labour, and was held by Labour between 1997 and 2010.

The Conservatives effort to retain the seat were dealt a blow this week, after the partys candidate, Andrew Cooper, was forced to defend a 2020 Facebook post in which he appeared to criticize the financial choices of out-of-work parents. Labours Sarah Edwards is challenging him for the seat.

The Mid Bedfordshire vote was sparked by the resignation of Johnson ally and ex-cabinet minister Nadine Dorries, who quit last month with a fierce rebuke of Sunaks leadership. On paper, it should also be a safe Tory seat and has elected Conservative MPs continuously since 1931.

But local anger at both the Conservative government and former MPs have put both constituencies in play. In Mid Bedfordshire, the chance of a win by Conservative Festus Akinbusoye has been further clouded by Liberal Democrats candidate Emma Holland-Lindsay fighting a tough battle with Labour contender Alistair Strathern for anti-Conservative votes.

If Labour win both by-elections comfortably on good votes that dont just rely on low turnout, it is a very good indicator for them in the general election  not a final indicator  but a good indicator, said Robert Hayward, an elections analyst and Conservative peer. If they fail to win either, it would be a bad indicator for Labour, for Keir Starmer and for pollsters.

--With assistance from Kitty Donaldson.

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A Lakewood man charged in the murder of his live-in girlfriend has been indicted by a grand jury in Toms River, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer announced Wednesday.

John Filistovich, 59, has been held at the Ocean County Jail in Toms River since he was extradited from Maryland in June after being charged in the death of Betty Perry, 60.

Perrys battered, nude body was found dead on the bedroom floor of the Thornbury Court home they shared in the age-restricted community of Leisure Village on May 30. A neighbor had asked authorities to conduct a welfare check of the victim who had not been seen in several days.

Perry was also marked from head to toe with blue paint or ink, according to court documents.

On the same day her body was discovered in Lakewood, Maryland State Police troopers came upon Filistovich parked on the side of a road outside Salisbury, Maryland, in Perrys 2015 Hyundai Elantra. He appeared to be having a mental health episode and his left hand was bruised, swollen and stained blue, according to law enforcement records.

Related: Accused Lakewood killer John Filistovich extradited to New Jersey from Maryland

Filistovich had shared a tumultuous relationship with Perry and there was a history of domestic violence, according to the documents.

At their home, police had found Perrys body in a rear bedroom and the responding officers observed apparent blood on the bedsheets and spray paint on the walls of the bedroom and the body of the victim, said an affidavit prepared by Lakewood Detective Matthew Richardson.

More: Lakewood murder victim's nude body was defaced with spray paint or ink

A post-mortem examination by the Ocean County Medical Examiner conducted one day later, determined the cause of death to be blunt force injuries to the head, neck and chest with asphyxiation  the death was ruled a homicide.

In Maryland, Filistovich had been taken to a medical facility in Salisbury and charged in the theft of Perrys vehicle. On June 1, he was subsequently charged with her murder.

He was transferred to the Wicomico County Jail, also in Salisbury, before his extradition back to New Jersey, all according to the Prosecutors Office.

Ocean County Assistant Prosecutor Kaitlyn Burke presented the case to the grand jury.

Contact Asbury Park Press reporter Erik Larsen at elarsen@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Lakewood NJ man indicted in girlfriends murder in Leisure Village
A new restaurant by the former chef behind two of the Triangles most popular spots will open next month as part of Carys much-anticipated new downtown park.

Former Bida Manda and Brewery Bhavana chef Lon Bounsanga will open his first restaurant, a Laotian street food concept named SAAP. The restaurant will open on the ground floor of the new apartment complex The Walker, looking out on the towns $68 million park.

Bounsanga is decades into a restaurant career thats included Italian, French and Laotian restaurants. He said SAAP represents a different kind of challenge overseeing all aspects of the dining experience.

Its definitely different; this is my baby, my first restaurant on my own, Bounsanga said. (At Bida Manda and Brewery Bhavana) others took care of the front of the house while I was in charge of the menu. Here I have to do it all.

Yummy in Laotian

SAAP, which means delicious or yummy in Laotian, Bounsanga said, plans a dining room with 70 seats, 10 stools at the bar and a 20 person patio. Bounsanga said he crafted the menu to embrace the kind of foot traffic expected at the park.

With this luscious park behind us, I wanted to gear the menu towards street food, Bounsanga said. Thats what were known for in Laos. Weve always been looking for a place that fits the street food concept.

That means grilled skewers of Tiger shrimp, barbecue pork and chicken satay, bowls of green curry and plans for an aromatic pho, deepened with oxtail and a version of pork belly soup, made locally famous at Bida Manda.

Bounsanga came to the United States as a young boy, moving from Laos in 1978. He said food was a constant source of joy in his family growing up. Once in America, he turned that love into a career.

I was the oldest son, I had to help out the family, Bousanga said. I helped the family with finances and bills, since I was able to cook right out of high school. ... Food was everything to us. Growing up you didnt know when your next meal was coming, we made sure to enjoy it.

Food is everything

In his restaurant career, which has included stops in Philadelphia and 16 years in North Carolina, Bounsanga said his menus aimed to reflect a larger role of food in peoples lives.

Food is everything, I dont think you can overstate it, Bounsanga said. Its more than filling your belly. Ive always thought it was the start of a conversation.

As executive chef, Bounsanga helped open Bida Manda as one of the countrys very few Laotian restaurants. Then he helped open Brewery Bhavana, which saw immediate acclaim and earned a spot on Bon Appetits 10 best new restaurants list in 2017.

Persevering after shocking news

For years, the pair of restaurants remained two of Raleighs most beloved spots, but suffered a hit to their reputation in 2020 amid allegations of sexual misconduct involving top level managers. Those managers are no longer part of the restaurants. Bounsanga said he stayed with the restaurants to support his back of the house staff.

I was as shocked as anybody, I was actually at home when the news hit, Bounsanga said. Unfortunately we were also dealing with COVID. We had a lot of ups and downs that year. The main thing that brought me back was the staff that still wanted to be a part of the restaurants in the back of the house. ... What happened wasnt who we are.

After months of closed dining rooms and operating as curbside restaurants, Bounsanga said he felt customers eventually start to return.

We pulled ourselves together, and we came out crawling, Bounsanga said. The community started supporting us again.

Bounsanga said he has been out of the Brewery Bhavana kitchen for four months, but continues to advise the Bida Manda kitchen until SAAP opens.

A third restaurant from Vansana and Vanvisa Nolintha had been in the works for The Dillon building  a large Laotian street food concept called Luang Prabang.

Once it was canceled, Bounsanga said some of the dishes, particuarly the grilled skewers, will be revived at SAAP.

The grand opening for SAAP is planned for Nov. 15, three days before Cary is set to unveil its sprawling downtown park.
Recently appointed Democratic Senator for California Laphonza Butler will not run for a full term in 2024, according to a report in the New York Times.

Butler, the former president of political action committee EMILYs List, was appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to fill the late Dianne Feinstein s seat.

Butler was sworn in earlier this month and there has been speculation that she could enter the race from the formidable position of effectively being a sitting U.S. Senator.

Former KTLA reporter Christina Pascucci running for U.S. Senate seat

In an interview with the New York Times Thursday, Sen. Butler shot down any idea she might pursue the seat permanently.

Speaking to the Times, Butler said she intended to be the loudest, proudest champion of California, in her remaining days in office, but she realized that serving in the Senate was not the greatest use of my voice.

Butler later confirmed the Times reporting, issuing a statement saying in part, Ive spent the past 16 days pursuing my clarity  what kind of life I want to have, what kind of service I want to officer and what kind of voice I want to bring forward. After considering those questions Ive decided not to run for Senate in the upcoming election.

Butler stepping aside clears the field for the three Democratic frontrunners in the race, California Representatives Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee.

On the Republican side, former Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Steve Garvey announced his entry into the race last week.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
The expiration of the public health emergency in May also ended national test-sharing mandates that helped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) track the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. As tests became more expensive and harder to come by, the CDC turned to wastewater testing  or collecting samples of pathogens in our poo  to monitor the national and regional spread of COVID-19.

As Anne Zink, president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and Alaskas chief medical officer, told the New Yorker: Alaska is relying on wastewater testing because it doesnt have the money or political backing to set up daily nasal-swab testing sites.

However, there is currently a lapse in data in one of the only COVID-19 monitoring systems remaining essentially due to a business deal. Last month, the CDC ended its contract with Biobot, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based bioanalytics company that generated data for the wastewater monitoring system. The contract was transferred to Verily, which is owned by Googles parent company, Alphabet. Some scientists  who have taken on the responsibility of monitoring and organizing Biobots data to keep the public aware of increasing cases  are concerned the transfer will throw a wrench in the modeling theyve been sharing.

Comparing the validity of their existing data, it's not as strong as Biobot's, but they haven't brought on all of the CDC-funded Biobot wastewater sites yet, said Michael Hoerger, Ph.D., a psychologist at Tulane University who has been using Biobots data to post about the spread of COVID-19 on X (formerly Twitter) since January. It's possible once they bring that over that they'll actually have much stronger [data] in some ways.

Perhaps more concerning is that Biobots dashboard continues to track some wastewater facilities but is operating at only a fraction of its prior capacity  and Verilys dashboard hasnt yet picked up the slack, with about 350 sites involved in the transfer going back online in the next few weeks on a rolling basis. That's reflected in a lapse in the CDCs wastewater data used to track COVID-19.

The biggest issue to me doing wastewater modeling is just its disruption, Hoerger told Salon in a phone interview. People rely on this data.

In 2020, the CDC launched the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) to track the spread of infectious diseases by testing for pathogens in sewage. However, the initial launch was criticized for being a patchwork rollout, and some counties, especially rural ones with less funding, faced barriers in implementing wastewater tracking systems. To beef up surveillance, the CDC partnered with private companies to expand access. In the spring of 2022, the agency partnered with Biobot, which added hundreds of new wastewater treatment facility sites to the dashboard.

Biobot CEO and cofounder Mariana Matus said the company will continue to monitor some of its sites but had to cut 35% of its employees due to losing the contract. The company is experiencing delays in getting back to its regular updates but will be back to business as usual as soon as possible, she shared in a statement. Neither Biobot nor Verily's press teams responded to Salon's request for comment before the publication of this story.

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CDC NWSS is viewed by many citizens, public health officials, and politicians as a rare pandemic success story  a smart combination of public policy and private sector innovation in response to a national crisis, Matus said. Despite this setback, we remain committed to our companys vision of transforming wastewater infrastructure into real-time data observatories  a vision that existed years before we started working with CDC.

The CDCs contract with Biobot expired on Sept. 15, 2023, and its new contract with Verily, which will test for not just SARS-CoV-2 but also mpox virus, will provide testing for up to 400 treatment plants across the U.S, including territories and tribal nations, said Tom Skinner, a CDC Public Affairs Officer.

Skinner told Salon in an email that wastewater results will be provided to public health agencies to support the COVID-19 response as well as the public, and that it was "testing with all previously participating sites is expected to restart soon." When the CDC similarly transferred contracts in the spring of 2022 from LuminUltra to Biobot, data was unavailable for 150 wastewater sites in 29 states for several weeks.

One 2022 survey from the Rockefeller Foundation found two-thirds of state agencies planned to continue wastewater surveillance post-pandemic as part of a strategy to enhance preparedness for future ones, as it could potentially be used to test for any number of pathogens. There are certain aspects of Verilys system that seem more promising than Biobots, like the ability to separate data by specific wastewater sites, Hoerger said.

Skinner said health equity is an ongoing priority for the NWSS moving forward.

"We work directly with health departments to respect their priorities and needs in wastewater surveillance," he wrote. "These may vary by community."

Time will tell how the CDC and local health departments use the data provided from the new contract with Verily to make recommendations about the spread of COVID-19. Data suggests cases are on the decline but some project they will once again rise in November. Although 7 million Americans have gotten the new batch of vaccines rolled out last month, uptake is also slower than this time last year.

Andrew Wang, Ph.D., a health equity researcher at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said he is concerned the switch in contracts may change the sample processing and analyses in a way that prevents Verilys data from being directly compared with Biobots hundreds of sites. The bumpy transfer is reducing an already insufficient surveillance system, Wang said.

The danger that exists during a lapse in national and local reporting prevents public health agencies and the general public from being able to have timely awareness of changes in COVID transmission in the community, especially when changes are significant during increases or surges in COVID transmission, Wang told Salon in an email.

Skinner said methodologies may change with the new contract but that the agency's COVID tracker is designed to integrate these different methodologies "to provide a national picture of wastewater surveillance trends."

Still, Hoerger said hed like to see the CDCs wastewater system ramp up the number of testing sites it includes and make its data more readily available.

It would have been great if they used their funding to do the sorts of analyses that I'm doing and that others are doing to estimate cases, to make forecasts and to take their raw wastewater data and put it into metrics that people actually care about, Hoerger said.
Chinese premier holds talks with Thai PM

Xinhua) 09:14, October 19, 2023

Chinese Premier Li Qiang holds talks with Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Srettha Thavisin is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and paying an official visit to the country. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday held talks with Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and paying an official visit to the country.

Li said China stands ready to work with Thailand to adhere to good-neighborliness and friendship and firmly support each other on issues concerning each other's core interests.

Focusing on high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, Li said China will advance cooperation with Thailand across the board and bring China-Thailand cooperation to new heights.

China will further facilitate two-way trade and investment and strengthen cooperation in areas such as the digital economy, new energy vehicles, clean energy, and 5G with Thailand, the premier said.

Li said China is willing to cooperate with Thailand in fighting online gambling, telecom fraud, repatriating corrupt fugitives, and recovering criminals' illegal proceeds.

Srettha said Thailand is ready to actively participate in the Belt and Road cooperation and deepen cooperation with China in trade, investment, railway, tourism, and other areas to advance bilateral ties to a higher level.

After the talks, Li and Srettha witnessed the signing of a number of bilateral cooperation documents in fields such as Belt and Road cooperation, foreign affairs, the digital economy, customs, film, and culture.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A man accused of killing his roommate and living with her body for months allegedly kept thousands of child pornography files on several devices in his possession, police said in documents the 8 News Now Investigators obtained Wednesday.

George Bone, 31, was accused of killing his roommate, Beverly Ma, 29, in May and living with her body until his arrest in late July. Las Vegas Metro police took Bone into custody after discovering Mas body during a welfare check at a home near Lindell Road and Eldorado Lane in the southwest valley.

Bone was charged earlier this month with three counts of possessing visual pornography of a person under the age of 16, records showed. A grand jury indicted Bone earlier this month on three theft-related charges, records showed.

As part of the July homicide investigation, a Metro homicide detective obtained a search warrant for two computers in Bones possession, according to documents the 8 News Now Investigators obtained Wednesday.

Officers took George Bone, 31, into custody Wednesday after discovering the womans body during a welfare check in the 5300 block of Railroad River Avenue near Lindell Road and Eldorado Lane, they said. (KLAS)

During the examination of the devices, a detective came across what appeared to be child pornography, documents said.

In all, detectives said they found 3,000 child pornography files on one device, 4,500 files on another, and approximately 11,000 [files] on a third hard drive, documents said.

In 2013, Bone took an Alford plea on a charge of attempted lewdness with a child under the age of 14, records showed. An Alford plea is similar to a no-contest plea, where a defendant accepts prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him or her but does not admit guilt.

In 2012, Henderson police initially arrested Bone on charges of sexual assault and lewdness with a child stemming from allegations a teenager made about an assault two years prior when she was 11, documents said.

In addition to the open murder charge, Bone initially faced a charge of failing to register as a sex offender. Prosecutors later dropped the charge. At the time of his July arrest, Bone was listed as non-compliant in the Nevada Sex Offender Registry with a different address as the homicide location, records showed.

Bone told police Ma had died sometime in May, police said. On May 4, dispatchers received a 911 call from Ma and heard a man and woman screaming at each other, they said. Police responded that day and knocked on the door but no one answered, they said. Investigators suspect Ma died that day.

Bone went about living at the house with Beverly deceased in the upstairs closet for the next two months and began ordering several items on Beverlys Amazon account using her funds for his own gain, police said. When asked why he didnt call for help, Bones response was I was afraid of going back to jail for being found with a dead body. Bone admitted that his behavior since the death of Beverly Ma was not normal. When asked why he placed a cooler in the master bedroom near the closest, Bone stated that he put it there so that he would be alerted if Beverly rose from the dead like the movie The Grudge.

During a grand jury return hearing last Friday, Chief Deputy District Attorney John Giordani said Bone allegedly raked up $10,000 in Amazon purchases. Police suspect Bone ordered 171 items from Amazon for himself using her finances while she lay deceased, documents said.

Grand jury transcripts reveal the Clark County coroners office found a hole in Mas skull, which they believe came from a hammer, documents said. Officers found the suspected murder weapon on a table with blood on it.

The hammer tested positive for blood, they said, and the hole in Mas skull lined up with the weapons size, prosecutors said, adding other DNA tests on the object were pending as of last Friday.

In September, a judge ruled Bone was competent to stand trial. He was scheduled to be arraigned in district court on Thursday. He remained in jail Wednesday without bail.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
LOS ANGELES - The San Bernardino Police Department booked a 60-year-old teacher with the Los Angeles Unified School District on suspicion of receiving and distributing child pornography.

Rene Gregorio Estrella was taken into custody early Wednesday morning on suspicion of distribution of child pornography, authorities said. An additional search warrant was served later in the morning in the city of Los Angeles.

SUGGESTED:

While the investigation remains ongoing, San Bernardino police confirmed that "numerous" electronic devices were taken during these search warrants.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is encouraged to contact the Internet Crimes Against Children task force at (909)-384-5644.
The fate of a central Missouri firearms dealer who prosecutors said went to the Capitol prepared for battle on Jan. 6, 2021, now rests with a federal judge.

Matthew Loganbill, of Versailles, argued his case this week at a bench trial before Judge Amy Berman Jackson in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After two days of testimony, Jackson took the case under consideration Thursday and will issue a decision in the coming weeks.

Loganbill was indicted in August on one felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding and four misdemeanors: entering and remaining in a restricted building; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.

At his trial, prosecutors said the evidence showed that Loganbill believed President Joe Biden won the 2020 election through fraud and that he wanted to stop Congress certification of the Electoral College vote. Photos showed Loganbill inside the Capitol rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021, wearing a helmet and gas mask while carrying an American flag.

He came dressed for war, said Brian Brady, a prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice. He saw a war between the police and rioters that day. And he moved in.

Loganbills attorneys admitted that Loganbill had trespassed  the Capitol was closed to visitors that day because of the COVID-19 pandemic  but said there was no proof that he intended to disrupt the certification of the election and was simply following the crowd and the wishes of former President Donald Trump .

Hes a grandpa, spouting off on Facebook, frankly mimicking the bellicose language that was being used by the most powerful man in the world, said Elizabeth Mullin, a federal public defender.

The governments argument largely hinged on video footage from Jan. 6 that showed Loganbills movements through the day and social media posts Loganbill made about the 2020 presidential election.

Loganbill knew he was not permitted in the Capitol but joined the mob anyway, prosecutors said, fortifying the crowd that delayed the certification of the election, forcing lawmakers into a secure location on Capitol grounds for hours.

And they referred to his Facebook posts in which he talked about the taste of tear gas, tearing down scaffolding and breaking through the police lines.

We were trying every means possible to stop these idiots from stealing the presidency and destroying this nation, he posted on Jan. 7, 2021.

Videos showed that Loganbill put on and took off his gas mask several times as police fired tear gas into the crowd to try and get it to disperse. At one point, prosecutors showed video of Loganbill entering a hallway that led to the U.S. Senate chamber, coming out to put on his gas mask after police sprayed tear gas, and reentering the space.

Prosecutors said Loganbill was told to leave the building three times, but at one point stood face-to-face with an officer while wearing a helmet and gas mask and refused to go, even after being told someone had been shot in the building.

Mullin, and her co-counsel Alexis Gardner, argued that Loganbill brought the gas mask and helmet for defensive purposes, not offensive, because he was concerned antifa  a term that has been used to describe a broad range of left-wing demonstrators  would be in Washington.

Gardner and Mullin portrayed Loganbill as a peaceful family man, one of nine children who grew up on a rural Missouri farm. He married his high school sweetheart and has four children and 11 grandchildren.

Hes a grandpa, not a felon, Gardner said.

In her closing argument Thursday, Mullin said Loganbill sincerely believed the allegations of election fraud and didnt intend to disrupt Congress. She presented a timeline where Loganbill couldnt hear Trumps speech at the Ellipse, so he walked down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol, where he believed Trump would speak a second time.

She said the presence of porta-potties on the Capitol grounds, which were there for construction workers who were assembling the stage for the upcoming Presidential inauguration, indicated to Loganbill that he was allowed to be on the Capitol grounds.

He didnt enter the building until 40 minutes after it was first breached and 20 minutes after Congress had been taken to a secure location. Mullin said Loganbill exited the building when he was asked by officers to leave.

Mr. Loganbill was not preparing for war, Mullin said, mentioning his age and health condition.

But prosecutors said Loganbills Facebook posts and text messages showed someone who closely followed the legal process of certifying the election and knew what he did on Jan. 6 was wrong.

In his closing argument, Brady said Loganbill had paid attention to lawsuits Trump and his allies had filed to overturn the election results, that he had been studying Pennsylvanias election laws and knew the process of the Electoral College.

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, was the first senator to announce he would object to the certification of the 2020 presidential election. He said he believed Pennsylvanias courts improperly allowed mail-in ballots, but a court case making the same argument was dismissed.

Call Senator Josh Hawleys office today and let him know you support his intent to be the first Republican senator to challenge the electoral vote on January 6, Loganbill posted on Facebook.

Loganbill even supported violent efforts to stop the stolen election, prosecutors said, pointing to a Nov. 13, 2020, Facebook post in which he invoked the Holocaust. Unfortunately with the attitude and posturing of the left, I dont see any other outcome. God can always change people, but I, and my family will not be modern day jews, he wrote.

Mullin said Loganbill was just upset about the election and repeating things he had heard.

Mr. Loganbill is not an expert in election law, Mullin said. Hes following the words of the President of the United States and attorneys like Rudy Giuliani.

Loganbill is the third Missouri Capitol riot defendant to have a bench trial, in which a judge hears and decides a case without a jury. Lloyd Cruz, of Polo, was found guilty of two misdemeanors and sentenced in May to 45 days incarceration followed by one year of supervised release. He also was ordered to pay $500 restitution for damage to the Capitol building.

Isaac Yoder, of Nevada, was found guilty on four misdemeanor counts and sentenced in August to 12 months in prison followed by one year of supervised release. In addition, he was fined $1,000 and ordered to pay $500 restitution.

As of October 6, more than 1,185 people have been charged for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021. The majority of defendants have entered guilty pleas, but 122 people have been found guilty at contested trials.

Loganbills case, originally filed in March 2021, has dragged on for more than two-and-a-half years. In August, Jackson granted Loganbills motion to dismiss the case, finding that the government violated his right to a speedy trial by taking too long to prosecute him.

The government quickly refiled the case, and after the judge rejected his motions to dismiss most charges, he opted for a bench trial.
Sidney Powell, one of 18 co-defendants in former President Donald Trump 's 2020 election interference case in Georgia, took a guilty plea with reduced charges Thursday, just a day before jury selection in her case was set to begin, making her the second defendant in the case to broker a deal with prosecutors.

Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties, according to the updated accusation. As part of the plea deal, she will receive 12 months of probation for each count, totaling six years, as well as a $6,000 fine.

Powell must also "testify truthfully about any codefendants" involved in the case and "provide all documents to the district attorney's office" relevant to its case against the other defendants, Judge Scott McAfee said in court Thursday, according to ABC News.

The agreement also bars her from having "any communication" with any of the co-defendants in the case or members of the media and mandates that she write an apology letter to the people of the state of Georgia, which McAfee noted during Thursday's court proceeding Powell has "already satisfied."

With jury selection scheduled for Friday, her speedy trial in Fulton County Superior Court  which would have been held along with her co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro  was slated to start Monday. Chesebro, who is facing seven charges after prosecutors said he orchestrated a plan to use so-called "alternate electors" to prevent President Joe Biden from receiving 270 electoral votes in the 2020 election, rejected last month a similar plea deal proffered by the state, sources told ABC News. The change in circumstances means that Chesebro will go on trial alone.

"Obviously this ups the pressure on co-defendant Ken Chesebro, whose speedy trial is set to begin tomorrow (initially alongside Powell) to cut a deal with prosecutors," Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Tamar Hallerman wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "We will see."

Powell's acceptance of a plea deal is especially notable considering her strenuous push of baseless conspiracy theories about the election being stolen from Trump despite extensive evidence showing otherwise, according to The Associated Press. If prosecutors call on her to testify, she could provide insightful information about a news conference she participated in on behalf of Trump and his campaign shortly after the 2020 election as well as a White House meeting she attended that December where attendees discussed strategies and theories on influencing the outcome of the election.

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor, predicted that prosecutors would use Powell's testimony as a "guide" during co-defendants' trials.

"She will be the narrator. She will be able to say, I was in this room with Donald Trump, with Rudy Giuliani. Heres what we discussed. Heres who said what. Heres what we knew," he said, according to Mediaite. "So now theyve sort of got an ultimate insider, somebody who has remained steadfastly loyal to Donald Trump, to the stolen election narrative. Now she has flipped," he added. "Now she has come clean. Now shes going to be a prosecution witness."

Barry Coburn, a Washington-based lawyer for Powell, declined the AP's request for comment.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Powell, Chesebro, Trump and 16 others in August in a far-reaching racketeering indictment regarding efforts to overturn the former president's 2020 election loss in Georgia. Powell was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts, including conspiracy to commit election fraud, and, alongside her co-defendants, pleaded not guilty to all charges that month.

Powell is now the second defendant in the case to strike a plea deal, following bail bondsman Scott Hall's agreement with Fulton County prosecutors late last month. As part of his guilty plea to five misdemeanor charges, Hall was sentenced to five years probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.

Prosecutors accused Powell of conspiring with Hall and others to tamper with voting machines and hiring computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to Coffee County, Georgia to copy software and data from election equipment. The indictment notes that a person, who was not named, sent an email to a top firm executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in the south Georgia county to an unidentified lawyer associated with Powell and the Trump campaign.

"This is exactly what the Fulton County, DA hoped would happen: Scott Hall's plea would lead them to Powell, whose own plea deal could lead them to . . . bigger fish without trial dates," MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin tweeted.

This is exactly what the Fulton County, DA hoped would happen: Scott Hall's plea would lead them to Powell, whose own plea deal could lead them to . . . bigger fish without trial dates. https://t.co/IkK13F9gY0  Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) October 19, 2023

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In response to the development, legal experts opined that Powell's acceptance of the plea deal could mean disaster for the former president's case. Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said on X that Powell's cooperation "could prove devastating for Trump."

It turns out she didn't. News now that Powell will plead guilty in Georgia. If she is cooperating, that could prove devastating for Trump. https://t.co/G6m23wyitU  Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) October 19, 2023

"Sidney Powell, leader of the Krakens, pleading guilty to crimes in Georgia is very bad news for criminal defendant Donald Trump," former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal added. "Those of us in the reality-based community knew this for years, but for Powell to join and to commit to testifying truthfully, is devastating for Trump."

Sidney Powell, leader of the Krakens, pleading guilty to crimes in Georgia is very bad news for criminal defendant Donald Trump. Those of us in the reality-based community knew this for years, but for Powell to join and to commit to testifying truthfully, is devastating for Trump https://t.co/erxx8jC0OH  Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) October 19, 2023

But Randall Eliason, a law professor for George Washington University and former federal prosecutor, cautioned that Powell's contributions may be limited.

"Normally a plea from someone like Powell would be huge, based on her potential testimony against bigger fish," he tweeted. "In this case that has to be tempered by the fact that shes so batsh*t crazy her value as a witness may be limited."

Normally a plea from someone like Powell would be huge, based on her potential testimony against bigger fish.



In this case that has to be tempered by the fact that shes so batsh*t crazy her value as a witness may be limited.  Randall Eliason (@RDEliason) October 19, 2023

Experts also wondered what effect Powell's guilty plea would have on Chesebro's case.

"A plea to misdemeanor charges signals that prosecutors see high value in her testimony," Vance wrote. "Trump should be nervous. & it's likely she'll be a witness in the fed'l case too. Chesebro next?"

A plea to misdemeanor charges signals that prosecutors see high value in her testimony. Trump should be nervous. & it's likely she'll be a witness in the fed'l case too. Chesebro next? https://t.co/G6m23wyitU  Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) October 19, 2023

"I think if you're Kenneth Chesebro, you take a handful of misdemeanor pleas under the First Offender Act, withhold adjudication, and hope for the best in the event the Special Counsel's Office comes to you next," Georgia State law professor Anthony Michael Kreis said, referring to a Georgia law that allows someone with no prior felony conviction to avoid normal prosecution and having a permanent criminal record.

I think if you're Kenneth Chesebro, you take a handful of misdemeanor pleas under the First Offender Act, withhold adjudication, and hope for the best in the event the Special Counsel's Office comes to you next.  Anthony Michael Kreis (@AnthonyMKreis) October 19, 2023
To the editor: Jonah Goldbergs assertion that the current Mideast conflict and the invasion of Ukraine amount to the same war on two fronts relies on several mistaken assumptions. Indeed, there are significant military and political differences in these two distinct conflicts.

First, Russias invasion of Ukraine poses a threat to the existence of the Ukrainian state, whereas the recent attack on Israeli citizens, as atrocious as it was, does not threaten the existence of Israel as a sovereign state despite the inflammatory rhetoric contained in the Hamas charter.

Second, unlike Ukraine, Israel is the dominant military power in the region. Its occupation of Palestinian territories, its expropriation of Palestinian land, its support of the illegal settler movement and, one could argue, its ethnic cleansing practices over the last half-century clearly distinguish Israels status from that of Ukraines.

With respect to Israel, there is a colonialist and apartheid context that requires our attention.

Andrew Spathis, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: When the Vietnam War began, most Americans were supportive of it as a fight between "good" (us) and "evil" (them).

After years of mass death and destruction, the veil of lies and propaganda by the warmongers could no longer cover up the evil ugliness of the war. Americans finally began to see it for what it was. The rest is history.

How many thousands of casualties, how many years of devastation and how much human suffering will it require this time for our nation to see through the macabre propaganda of the warmongers who insist that war is the only solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians?

Saif M. Hussain, Woodland Hills

..

To the editor: After attacking Israel, Hamas knew full well that Israel would respond. Did it stockpile water, food and fuel in anticipation of this?

Over the years Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip, did it spend the billions sent in foreign aid to protect the people of Gaza, or did it spend much of it on weapons and tunnels?

Hamas alone is responsible for the humanitarian crisis facing the people of Gaza.

Isaac Hirschbein, La Mesa

..

To the editor: I am a proud Jew who has spent the past week arguing with other Jews about whether we should stand up for Palestinian life. I am sadly outnumbered when I say that "never again" applies to all humans.

I see a genocide happening in my name, and it makes me sick.

But this week has recommitted me to my core Jewish principle: Our safety is only secure in a world where everyone's right to thrive is honored.

I hope other Jews will join me in calling our members of Congress to demand a cease-fire.

Rachel Deutsch, Los Angeles

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Editors note: The CDT welcomes letters endorsing candidates in the Nov. 7 election and will accept letters that are received by Oct. 30. Letters are subject to editing, must be based on facts and should avoid attacks on other candidates.

Save us from yourselves?

A group running for the Bellefonte school board is using the slogan Save Our School (SOS). Their spokesperson claims that the district is heading in the wrong direction, that our kids are being indoctrinated, that school is not transparent enough, and that our schools are not leaving parenting to the parents.

The irony of this scare tactic is this group already holds a voting majority on the board. Logic would have it that if indeed this district needs saving, the current majority bears the responsibility for the problem. How can more members of the same group solve these imagined problems? It is nonsensical.

I encourage the public to not fall for this scare tactic but to research the candidates and decide for themselves. When they do so, they will find strong candidates, including myself, who can solve real challenges with integrity and diligence.

I am confident that the voters of the BASD will make the right decision when reviewing the candidates. They will see through the smoke screen and choose candidates that are focused on making the schools the best they can be for students, teachers, staff and the community at large rather than a small group with a clear political agenda.

Joe Yech, Howard. The author is a candidate for Bellefonte Area School Districts board of directors.

AAUW State College seeks book donations

Have some books that you are through with? We have a great home for them. Now is a good time to clean out some closets ahead of the holidays.

After a very busy summer, with hundreds of book donations made at the AAUW State College Used Book Workshop, the stream of donations has slowed down considerably and our workshop volunteers now stand ready to receive incoming donations for processing.

Proceeds from our Used Book Sale next May  where books donations will be headed  will fund local grants and scholarships to advance equity for women and girls.

The workshop is located off 2197 High Tech Road near University Park Airport, State College. Follow the driveway to the large blue building at the rear. Books may be placed into the outdoor blue bins at the workshop entrance any time. If assistance is needed with a large donation, the workshop is open on Monday nights from 6-8 p.m. and Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

To learn what kind of books we can accept, visit aauwstatecollege.org/used_book_sale_donations/.

Thank you, book donors, for your ongoing support!

Dina Liberatore, Sherry Crassweller and Suzanne Kerlin. The authors are AAUW State College Used Book Workshop leads.

Clear choice for State College Borough Council

On Nov. 7, State College residents have the opportunity to elect Evan Myers to another term on Borough Council. Myers, a resident of State College for more than 50 years, has demonstrated his integrity, vision, intelligence and work ethic through years of public service in the Centre Region and a successful career as senior vice president at Accuweather, one of this regions premier institutions.

How fortunate are we to have a man of this quality offer himself to serve on Borough Council? Myers wants to work for every person who lives in the Centre Region. He understands the urgent need for cooperation and respect between property owners and renters, between PSU students and people of all ages who live, study and work in this area.

Evan Myers understands the need for long range planning. He sees value in diversity, working to bring people together and find value in every demographic. He wants to continue to work for inclusive and affordable neighborhoods, where pedestrian, vehicular and bicycle traffic can coexist safely and where the residents can thrive.

Myers understands that the region must have strong and healthy finances, and that citizen input into the operation of our regional government is vital to the health of that government and of the entire region.

Evan Myers is the clear choice for State College Borough Council. Vote for him on Nov. 7.

Mary Bruce Serene, State College

Correcting Voters Guide error

The League of Women Voters of Centre County (LWVCC) thanks the CDT for publishing our Voters Guide as a separate feature. This made researching candidates much easier for readers. The LWVCC did not notice prior to publication that school board directors were still listed as cross-filed. Cross-filing can only occur in primary elections. Candidates were then listed by party in the CDT as a correction. The LWVCC apologies for this error and for any confusion it may have caused for candidates and voters.

Sue Sargo, State College. The author is the presiding officer of the League of Women Voters of Centre County.

Change of politicians

As a longtime registered Republican, the current GOP dogfight in the House of Representatives reminds me of a folk saying I first learned in the Third World: Diapers and politicians need to be changed often, and for the same reasons.

Stephen Beckerman, Bellefonte
LeVar Burton Replaces Drew Barrymore As The National Book Awards Ceremony Host | Photo: David Livingston via Getty Images

LeVar Burton will replace Drew Barrymore as host of the National Book Awards ceremony in November. The National Book Foundation dropped Barrymore after she recently resumed production of her self-titled talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show, during the WGA strike.

In a statement to The Los Angeles Times released on Sept. 12, the foundation rescinded Ms. Barrymores invitation.

The National Book Awards is an evening dedicated to celebrating the power of literature, and the incomparable contributions of writers to our culture, the statement read. Our commitment is to ensure that the focus of the Awards remains on celebrating writers and books, and we are grateful to Ms. Barrymore and her team for their understanding in this situation.

Though Barrymore eventually postponed her talk shows fourth season, the foundation proceeded with Burton as the actress replacement.

We are honored to have LeVar Burton  a longtime friend and ally of the National Book Foundation  join us to celebrate the power of stories, said National Book Foundation director Ruth Dickey in a statement to The LA Times.

LeVar Burton has introduced multiple generations of young people to the joys of reading, and is a fearless advocate for book access, especially amidst the alarming rise in book banning across the country, added David Steinberger, who serves as the foundations Chair of the Board of Directors, in a statement.

Burton is coming back for a second time after he hosted the event in 2019. The former Reading Rainbow host expressed his excitement for the opportunity.

Im a big believer in the power of the written word, and am proud to stand alongside the National Book Foundation to celebrate exceptional storytelling and the foundations mission to make books accessible to everyone, everywhere, Burton said in a statement. Its an honor to return as host of the biggest night for books, especially in a moment when the freedom to read is at risk and literature both needs and deserves our recognition and support.

Burton continues to be celebrated at various events for his contributions to literature. In May, the LA Times Book Club partnered with Arizona State University to host an event on books and censorship; Burton was invited as the guest of honor.

Happening on Nov. 15 in New York City, the 74th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner awards writers in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young peoples literature. Oprah Winfrey will attend the invitation-only ceremony as a special guest, and book lovers can live stream it through YouTube, Facebook or the foundations site at nationalbook.org/awards.
Global attention on the war in Israel will not weaken Western support for Ukraine, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said in an interview with Deutsche Welle on Oct. 19.

Russia's war in Ukraine, as well as Israel's war against Hamas, are longstanding problems, Simonyte said, and they require long-term solutions.

Ukraine's Western allies must continue to provide support, including weapons and financial assistance, because it is vital that Russia is defeated, she added.

Simonyte also reiterated her support for Ukraine's integration into both the EU and NATO, although she acknowledged that it requires consensus among the organizations' respective members, which will take time.

Nonetheless, Ukraine proves every day that it is fighting for the right to join the European Union and NATO.

Ukraine was granted candidate status to the EU in June 2022 and officially applied to join NATO in September 2022.

Lithuania has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion and has already provided close to one billion euros in military, financial, humanitarian, and reconstruction support as of June 2023.

It is the first-largest contributor worldwide in terms of the percentage of its GDP.

Read also: Opinion: The geopolitics of EU enlargement

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
This year, five people are making a run for three open seats on the Morrisville Town Council.

Patty Wei-Pei Cheng is challenging incumbent Satish Garimella for one of the at-large seats on the council.

Incumbent Anne Robotti is defending her District 1 seat against challenger Subba Madireddy. and Incumbent Liz Johnson is running unopposed for the District 3 seat.

Early voting for the Nov. 7 election began Oct. 19 and runs through Nov. 4.

To find polling sites and voting information, residents can visit the state Board of Elections, ncsbe.gov, or the Wake County Board of Elections, wake.gov.

Name: Liz Johnson

Age: 63

Residence: 104 Delafield Court

Occupation/Employer: Retired

Education: BA in Mathematics and Elementary Education, College of Mount Saint Vincent

Political or civic experience: Morrisville Town Council 1999-2023, Mayor Pro Tem 2007-2009, 2011-2013, 2013-2015, 2019-2023; North Carolina League of Municipalities Board of Trustees 2020-2023, Vice Chair 2021-2023; Jordan Lake One Water (JLOW), Chair 2023; President North Carolina Women in Municipal Government 2017-2019, Immediate Past President 2019-2021; North Carolina League of Municipalities Board of Directors & Executive Committee 2014-2019; Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) Executive Board Alternate 2005-2019; Wake County Transit Advisory Committee; Morrisville/Cary Joint Issues Committee; Morrisville Planning & Zoning Board 1998-1999; Chair of the Raleigh-Durham Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) Affiliate 2018-2023, Volunteer since 2004; Founding Board Member of the Morrisville Community Fund 2011, President of Board of Directors 2014-2023; St. Michael Catholic Church Parishioner & Volunteer 1997-2023; Morrisville Veterans Memorial Foundation Volunteer 2017-2023

Campaign website: www.LizJohnson.org

Tell us why youre running to serve Morrisville. Why should voters trust you in this position?

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the citizens of Morrisville for six terms. I am proud of the work we have accomplished together, establishing Morrisville as the most welcoming, diverse, and inclusive small town in North Carolina. Our success as a great community has brought us numerous accolades and awards.

These accolades do not happen overnight, but rather take vision and fortitude to earn. I am running for re-election to the Morrisville Town Council because I have the knowledge, leadership skills, and experience to help lead our Council as we continue to address the challenges and opportunities facing Morrisville. While we have much to be grateful for, I am keenly aware that there is more work to be done. Working together, we will continue to make Morrisville a great place to live, work, play, and raise a family.

What is the town of Morrisville doing right to manage growth? What could be improved?

The Land Use Plan, unanimously adopted in 2021, along with the other adopted Plans we have in place, are the blueprint to how growth is to occur in Morrisville.

These Plans need to be reviewed more frequently due to the growth in and around Morrisville. During our Comprehensive Transportation Plan update process, I advocated for a required review of our Plans 4-5 years after adoption over the typical ten-year review. This shorter review period is now documented in our plans and will be important as growth around us continues and conditions change. One of the concerning aspects of our growth is that housing is becoming unaffordable. The housing prices in Morrisville are escalating. The shortage of affordable for sale and rental units is significant, both socially and economically. Families are forced to pay more for housing, and owning a home becomes out of reach for many.

If elected, how would you approach an existing or new issue differently from your fellow council members?

Adequate housing choice for all income levels is essential for a strong community. Solving the affordable housing issue is complex and requires strong partnerships with the non-profit and private sectors.

The council is currently focused on funding a down payment assistance program. Affordable homeownership is one aspect of a successful solution. I believe we also need to focus on bringing additional long-term affordable housing units to Morrisville. Implementing a solution for all, including those not ready for homeownership, needs to be included in a comprehensive, affordable housing strategy. I am proud to be among the majority on the Council that worked with private developers to bring the first long-term affordable housing units to Morrisville. Offering rental units at below market rate is an important part of the equation in addressing housing choice. I will continue to advocate for a more inclusive housing choice strategy.

How do you plan to make local government in Morrisville more inclusive and equitable for all residents in the town who feel their voices are underrepresented?

Ensuring Morrisville is a welcoming and inclusive community has been a focus of mine since first elected. Creating an inclusive community means everyone is valued and accepted for who they are. This environment is the first step toward residents believing their government is here for them.

I also recognize that we need to continue the focus in this area. Offering our print materials in different languages, continually expanding our Town cultural events that now include Diwali, Juneteenth, Pride, and the International Festival. I am a firm believer in meeting people where they are. I attend events across Morrisville to listen and learn from our multicultural community. I supported Morrisville adopting Wake Countys non-discrimination ordinance. Discrimination of any kind cannot be tolerated. I also championed our Morrisville Smart Shuttle (offering free on-demand transit), enhanced accessible parking options at Town events, and playgrounds that are accessible for all abilities.

Please list any endorsements youve received.

North Carolina Asian Americans Together

Wake County Democratic Party

Home Builders Association of Raleigh-Wake County

Raleigh Regional Association of Realtors

Triangle Apartment Association

If there is anything you would like to address to voters, please do so here.

I have experienced two distinct careers. First as an educator, teaching 2nd grade, and then as an IBM Software Developer and Systems Engineer. Both of these experiences helped me perfect important skills I use each day. My ability to share knowledge and empower others, as well as my ability to problem solve and connect people to the resources they need, enable me to be successful in the work I do as Mayor Pro Tem. I believe in collaborative consensus building.

I have consistently demonstrated that I am a dedicated representative of all Morrisville constituents. I use my skills as a collaborator to bring together diverse opinions to create solutions that advance the quality of life for all of our residents. I have a proven record of championing positive changes, resulting in a more inclusive, connected, and innovative Morrisville. I am known as a fair, open-minded, and balanced leader.
When Trang Lu moved to Jackson from her small hometown in Long-My, Vietnam six years ago she never thought she would one day be representing the United States in the largest permanent makeup competition in the world.

Lu will be one of five U.S. contestants competing against nearly 50 other countries at the World Universal League of Permanent Make Up (WULOP) in Antalya, Turkey from Nov. 9-13.

Trang Lu teaches her class how to measure eyebrows during a Sexybrows class inside MT Salon in Jackson, Tenn., on Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023.

As she prepares for the opportunity of a lifetime, she reflects on the journey it's been to get to where she's headed and how she plans to make Jacksonians proud.

The journey to Turkey

The 31-year-old took a permanent makeup course in Vietnam, dubbed the "sexy brow technique" in her country, just before moving to the United States and has been perfecting her craft since introducing it to Tennessee.

Her husband Mike Tong is her biggest supporter. Tong is a nearly 30-year resident of Jackson with a long history in the beauty industry offering hair and nails services, opening Jackson's second-ever nail salon. His guidance was instrumental in showing Lu the ropes on business ownership and cosmetology.

Tong shared that just a few years before Lu made her move to the U.S., she was selling bread in Vietnam and making about one dollar per day.

Trang Lu works on Valaida Venise Hamada's eyebrows during a Sexybrows class inside MT Salon in Jackson, Tenn., on Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023.

"She's a very hard worker," Tong said, commending his wife's journey in the permanent makeup (PMU) industry. "She was studying English, raising two young kids, and we have our own business."

On Oct. 5, Lu, along with 24 others, received her U.S. citizenship at the United States District Court of the Western District of Tennessee.

Lu noted that Jackson reminds her of her comparatively smaller hometown of Long-My, a sentiment reflective of her conscious decision to maintain a small-town feel in moving to the U.S.

"I didn't want New York or California, I like it here because it looks like my country," she said.

Today, the couple owns MT Salon in North Jackson, a high-end salon they've operated for the past six years. Here, Lu offers her PMU services for customers and passes her technique along to students by hosting training classes.

The Sexybrows class looks on as Trang Lu examines her work inside MT Salon in Jackson, Tenn., on Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023.

About the competition

Permanent makeup ranges from specific services like lip blushing (permanent lipstick), permanent eye shadow and permanent eyebrows.

Advancing her to the international competition, Lu received third place in the "Hair Stroke with Device" category for eyebrows at Miami's WULOP semi-final in October.

The competition is divided into two parts (semi-finals in Miami and finals in Antanya), where contestants can compete in one of the five categories:

Hair stroke technique with device

Microblading hair stroke technique

Lipstick with device technique

Shadowed eyeliner with device

Powdered eyebrow with device

Patenting her own technique

Lu's technique is not only safer, but she started the first classes in the state that teach the Vietnamese technique she uses. Tong translated the Vietnam versions of her manuals into English for use in the training courses she now holds at the salon.

The technique she offers, and the designated category she competes in at PMU competitions, is the use of creating hair strokes with a device  in this case, a tattoo pen.

Other permanent eyebrow techniques, such as micro-blading, use a thin blade to make hair-like strokes, and according to Tong, have a greater potential to cause long-term trauma and damage to the skin.

"Instead of a blade, we use the tattoo pen," he said. "The cuts are a lot less deep and it doesn't cause scarring. Microblading, when you first get it done, it will look like hair strokes, but when it heals, the strokes expand will touch, so that it ends up looking like shading."

Confident in her unique method and with years of experience, Lu says being nervous about the big competition in Turkey has seldom crossed her mind.

"I'm looking forward to the opportunity to just be there and compete with all the other [permanent makeup] masters," Lu said. "I can learn so much from the other master artists."

This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: A Jackson salon owner is heading to an international competition.
A DuPage County judge on Thursday ordered a Lombard man held in custody pending trial after authorities accused him of threatening to shoot two Muslim men outside his suburban apartment building.

Larry York, 46, faces two counts of hate crime, a Class 4 felony, for the Tuesday night incident outside the West Point apartments, according to a news release from the DuPage County states attorneys office.

One of the victims arrived at the apartment complex on South Finley Road around 8:30 p.m. and was waiting inside a vehicle for the second victim to arrive when York appeared, asking what the man was doing there, according to the prosecutors. York then began cursing, telling the man he did not belong in this country and to leave.

York then allegedly entered the building complexs lobby and began yelling at and threatening the second victim after he exited an elevator. A short time later, while one of the victims was sitting on a bench outside the complex, York then allegedly lifted one end of a bench, causing the man to fall to the ground.

York told the men that he called four friends over to shoot them, saying (expletive) you (expletive) Muslim (expletive), according to prosecutors. " Get the (expletive) out of here. Ill shoot you.

Lombard police arrested York the next day at an area bar without incident, officials said.

Since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel that left about 1,400 Israelis dead and almost 200 taken hostage, religious and community leaders have sought calm, fearing a rise of attacks targeting Muslims and Jewish people. The recent stabbing death of Wadea al-Fayoume, 6, in unincorporated Will County heightened those fears.

Also on Thursday, the principal of the Aqsa All-Girl Muslim School in Bridgeview sent a letter to parents announcing that pupils would work from home on Friday after the school received a threatening hate letter. Principal Tammie Ismail did not provide any details about the letter, adding that the school had been on soft lockdown throughout the week. Bridgeview police confirmed that they were involved, but offered no other details.

Hate crimes have no place in a civilized society, DuPage County States Attorney Robert Berlin said in a joint statement with Lombard police Chief Tom Wirsing. The allegations against Mr. York are extremely disturbing and in DuPage County we have no tolerance whatsoever for such vitriolic actions, as alleged in this case.

Following announcement of the charges, the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations thanked police and decried rising reports of bias crimes. We thank law enforcement for swiftly apprehending and charging the suspect in this disturbing incident. This is a standard to follow if we are to stand a chance of deterrence, CAIR executive director Ahmed Rehab said in a statement.

CAIR-Chicago has been inundated with hate incidents not seen since 9/11. There is widespread palpable apprehension in the community, said Rehab, pledging to hold a news conference next week discussing an uptick in reports of hate.

York is scheduled to be arraigned early next month.
It comes as charging point figures are still below rates needed to meet targets

A London college says it is the first in the UK to pilot a course on installing electric vehicle (EV) charging points.

London South Bank Technical College, in Nine Elms, is offering a six-week course on installing the chargers.

Funded by Shell in partnership with City and Guilds, the course is part of a four-year electrical apprenticeship.

It follows concerns there will not be enough qualified installers to meet the government's charging point targets.

Currently, about 300,000 public chargers are expected to be available in the UK by 2030.

Tim Weston, director of career pathways at the college, said normally such courses would be only for competent electricians but the institution "no longer had the luxury" to wait around for people to reach that level.

He said there were worries these courses would be too challenging for apprentices, but believes their learners have disproved these by passing the course.

"We have a short time to do this and we need the skilled staff now," Tim Weston said of the course

"This really is the beginning of something - there are huge skills shortages, not just to do with EV points but all renewables," he explained.

"All of them are going to come in as we try and decarbonise across London and we have a short time to do this and we need the skilled staff now."

Electrical apprentice Chris Fearon, who used to be a care worker, is now in his final year of his apprenticeship and has completed the course.

He said: "It will be very useful to me to add to my toolkit, open up doors for me, as well as having the standard electrical installation qualification."

According to figures from Zap-Map, which is used by the Department for Transport (DfT), in the last three months of 2022, 2,401 EV charging points were installed - roughly 25% of the monthly installation rate needed to reach the government's target.

Recent quarterly figures show installations have now gone up to 5,474, but this is still below the rate needed to reach the target.

Melanie Shufflebotham, founder of Zap-Map, said she "wasn't concerned" about the lack of charging points, adding funding was in place and it was now about "implementation at pace".

"The charge point operators are ready. Charge UK, which is the trade body for the operators, have got 6bn already committed for charge points to go into the ground before 2030," she added.

Meanwhile Ginny Buckley, from electric car website electrifying.com, said hitting the targets was still an issue but the focus on numbers was not helpful while there were still "charging wastelands" around the UK.

"The government should be looking at getting the right speed chargers in the right locations instead," she said.

"We still have more chargers in Westminster than in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester combined."

A DfT spokesperson said: "We have put more than 2bn into supporting the switch to electric vehicles, and there are now more than 48,000 public charging devices across the UK.

"We're also ensuring that people across the country have the right skills."

It's hoped from next year all electrical apprenticeships across the UK will also offer the course.

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In a school in eastern France, teacher Sandra Cronimus greets her pupils every morning with a lusty "Guede morje!"

She is speaking Alsatian, the German dialect spoken widely in Alsace, a wealthy border region that France and Germany have fought over three times since 1870.

Long forbidden, the language that legendary Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger grew up speaking, is now being taught for the first time in French state schools.

"Clap your hands if you like going to school," Cronimus urged her class of three and four year olds, who responded to the roll with "Ich bin do" -- "I'm here" in Alsatian.

The 15 children at the Rainbow nursery school in Brumath, north of Strasbourg, are taught three-quarters of the time in either Alsatian or German, with the rest in French.

Three other schools near the city on the Rhine have also started teaching in Alsatian, a rarity in a country where regional languages have been pushed to the verge of extinction by a centralising state, ever-vigilant of threats to French national identity.

- 'They forbade us from speaking' -

Brumath's mayor Etienne Wolf is delighted by the change.

"When I was a child they forbade us from speaking Alsatian," said the 68-year-old.

"I want to defend Alsatian, which is falling away" particularly among young people, he added. "Often people understand it but don't speak it anymore."

Classroom assistant Corinne Husser is equally overjoyed to be able to speak her first language with the children. "It's great, it's the first time I have been able to work in Alsatian," she said.

While Alsatian is spoken by around half a million people, the dialect in Brumath is not exactly the same as the one spoken by Cronimus, who comes from a village in the northern Vosges.

And it is different again to what is spoken 150 kilometres (93 miles) to the south at the other end of the region. "In Altkirch it's completely different," said the teacher, who switches easily between German, Alsatian and French with the children.

Cronimus got extra training from language experts to take on "this new challenge".

Alsatian is already taught with German in a dozen community schools across Alsace run by the private ABCM network. Several take an immersive approach, with no French at all spoken in class.

- Rapid decline -

Pierre Klein, the president of the Alsace Bilingual Federation, said it was a pity that the state schools did not follow their lead as "they could have fully benefitted from the advantages of immersion".

Even so he welcomed the belated official "recognition of the value of being bilingual given the rapid decline in the use of the dialect... particularly among the under 50s."

However, Wolf said that the big problem with the completely immersive approach "is finding the people capable of teaching it".

Local education officials are already struggling to recruit teachers for bilingual French-German classes, in which one in five children in the Strasbourg area are taught.

Parents too were clearly worried about signing up for an experimental project.

"At the beginning only three pupils were signed up but before others were won over," said Cronimus.

Those that have signed up don't seem to be disappointed.

Celine Babin, 40, admitted that she "hesitated a little" before putting her son Paul into the class. Now, however, she is convinced it will help him with other languages. "And also, Alsatian is part of our culture," she added.

pau/bdx/or/cr/fg
A pedestrian crosses train tracks under a new pedestrian bridge at 300 North and 490 West, that crosses two Utah Transit Authority and three Union Pacific rail lines, in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. The crossing is on a route heavily used by West High School students walking to and from school. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

When Salt Lake City Councilman Chris Wharton first started knocking on doors within the western border of his council district in 2017, he was stunned by the comments parents made about the route their children had to take to school.

Many said 300 North was the easiest path for their kids to get to class and it was frequently blocked by stopped freight trains, forcing them to dodge between railcars or crawl underneath them.

This wasn't a new issue by any means either.

West High Principal Jared Wright said he remembers parents bringing up safety concerns over 300 North when he was a student in the 1990s. And Carlton Christensen, chairman of the Utah Transit Authority Board of Trustees, also recalls fellow classmates having to figure out ways to meander around trains when he attended the school in the 80s  before the rails were consolidated down to about half of what exists today.

"The problem has really been here since the railroad came through here," he said, standing a few yards from the railway.

However, after years of thought, planning and construction, federal, state and local leaders came together Wednesday morning to celebrate the opening of a new $6.6 million pedestrian bridge that may finally solve the long-standing problem.

The new bridge crosses five busy railroad lines  three owned by Union Pacific and a pair owned by UTA  by 500 West and 300 North in the city's Guadalupe neighborhood, about a block from West High School. It's tucked in between a pair of bridges at North Temple and 600 North, detours that aren't as practical for pedestrians in between.

Those associated with the project add that it can also serve students east of the rails heading to schools located on the other side of the tracks, and the many residents who now live in the fast-growing part of the city, as well.

"There's some connectivity on both sides of things that's long overdue," Wright said. "This beautiful facility is going to create better connectivity and, of course, increased safety."

A FrontRunner train passes under a new pedestrian bridge at 300 North and 490 West, that crosses two Utah Transit Authority and three Union Pacific rail lines, in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. The crossing is on a route heavily used by West High School students walking to and from school. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

The railway problem

About 60% of West High's student population lives on the city's west side, which means most have to cross the railroad tracks one way or another. While many knew about the issue at 300 North, the story of how this bridge came together started about a decade ago.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator Robin Hutcheson explained earlier this year that her team collected video of students crawling underneath stopped freight trains to get to and from school during her tenure as a former Salt Lake City transportation official from 2012 to 2016. Transportation officials were concerned because a train could move at any moment and people ducking under trains may enter another line where a train is moving unbeknownst to them.

Andrew Gruber, executive director of the Wasatch Front Regional Council, remembers the video fondly.

"When we saw that, it made us sad, but, more importantly, it made us angry," he said, recalling it on Wednesday. "It made us committed to doing something to fix this problem."

UTA and the Utah Department of Transportation officials agreed that 300 North was a top safety concern. The need for a bridge has only grown with time, especially as the neighborhood exploded with new development. Several new apartments and townhomes opened over the past decade, and there are a handful more either under construction or in planning within a block of the bridge.

Issues associated with stopped freight trains havent changed much either. Salt Lake City launched a website last month collecting stories about the problem, which can lead to blockages that range from a few minutes to a few hours at 300 North.

Davey Davis pushes Elliot Davis across a new pedestrian bridge at 300 North and 490 West, that crosses two Utah Transit Authority and three Union Pacific rail lines, in Salt Lake City on Wednesday. The crossing is on a route heavily used by West High School students walking to and from school. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

Finding a solution

UTA eventually took the lead on the project, especially as it received Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery Program funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation  a major turning point in the project coming together. Building a bridge over the railroad was easier said than done, however.

Christensen explained that it required help from several different agencies and companies to design and construct a bridge that could cross the rails without support in the center. It also required unique work hours because crews had to step aside at times as commuter and freight trains moved by.

The various entities agreed that it should include an elevator to assist people of all abilities. This elevator, Christensen adds, was also designed to be large enough to carry bicycles for those who bike through the area.

The Wasatch Front Regional Council, Salt Lake City, UDOT and Union Pacific also helped to foot the bill for the project.

Construction eventually began in 2021, which is when other challenges came into play. Officials said there were delays as a part of lingering supply chain shortages. Construction even closed 300 North for a long period of time, but it reopened a few months ago while crews worked to complete the final touches on the bridge.

Now that its open, those behind it hope that it finally solves a decades-old problem.

The result today is a beautiful new facility not only for the students, but the city as a whole, Christensen said. Having safe access across this main track is an important piece in keeping individuals safe.

Salt Lake City Councilman Chris Wharton holds giant scissors after cutting the ceremonial ribbon at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new pedestrian bridge at 300 North and 490 West, that crosses two Utah Transit Authority and three Union Pacific rail lines, in Salt Lake City on Wednesday. The crossing is on a route heavily used by West High School students walking to and from school. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
Davis answer to Sacramentos Tower Bridge Dinner is celebrating its 20th anniversary next weekend.

The Village Feast, a landmark dining experience in the college town west of Sacramento, will return to downtown Davis Central Park from noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday for the first time since the pandemic began.

A meal of lamb and summer white beans was the main entree at Davis Village Feast n 2022.

Organized by Les Dames dEscoffiers Sacramento chapter and Davis Farm to School, the Village Feast is hosted in the style of a Provencal Grand Aioli, a relaxed, celebratory feast that centers around the regions bounty. Guests bring their own table settings (plates, napkins, utensils, etc.) in keeping with that spirit.

The Sacramento region and Provence share a rich agricultural bounty owing to our Mediterranean climates, organizer Rachael Levine wrote in an email. All that is needed for a feast  olives and olive oil, vegetables, nuts, wines, lamb and more is cultivated from the soil of our region.

There are still a handful of $165-per-person tickets available at https://bit.ly/DavisVillageFeast.

I was born in Land Park, but moved to Davis at 3 years old and spent the rest of my youth there. With some family and friends still living in the dirty 5-30, as we regrettably called it in high school, Im back there relatively often to eat at old haunts and try new ones.

Here are five of my recommendations for dining in Davis:

Hikari Sushi & Omakase (110 F St., Suite A): Why not start at the top? This pint-sized omakase sushi bar is only open for 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. seatings on Friday and Saturday. Its $175 per person before drinks and gratuity, and reservations must be made in advance. But Hikari is as technically excellent as any sushi spot around the region, and owners Sithu Tu and Zin Khine provide an education in Japanese cuisine over nearly 20 courses of nigiri, sashimi and small plates.

Paste Thai (417 Mace Blvd., Suite I): Opened a year-and-a-half ago in a south Davis shopping center, Paste Thais fresh produce and flavorful bases made dishes such as the ginger stir-fry and panang nuer curry stand out on my July visit.

Dos Coyotes Border Cafe (1411 W. Covell Blvd. and 2191 Cowell Blvd.): Dos Coyotes has 10 locations across the region but is most beloved in Davis, where Bobby Coyote founded his Southwestern concept nearly 33 years ago. Try the blue corn chicken nachos, seasonal specials or my personal go-to, the paella burrito filled with mahi-mahi, shrimp and New Mexican chicken sausage.

My Burma (500 1st St., Suite 11): One of only two Burmese restaurants in the Sacramento region (Green Elephant in Loomis being the other), My Burma delivers a beautiful tea leaf salad, a gem full of contrasting flavors and textures.

Guads Tacos & Beer (231 3rd St.): A student-friendly outpost near UC Davis campus (brothers Rigo and Chris Hernandez also own both of Davis Taqueria Guadalajera concepts), Guads strong local selection of local brews pairs well with vampiro barbacoa tacos or 3-pound pollo adobado burritos.

What Im Eating

Canons menu rotates frequently, but dishes such as chicken drumsticks ($12) in urfa biber chile sauce remain.

Im frequently surprised how many contemporary eaters I speak to that leave Canon off their tip-top upper echelon of Sacramento restaurants  like, Top 5 in the city. Each time I go to the East Sacramento restaurant, I entrust chefs Brad Cecchi and Sean Rumery to fluidly warp unusual ingredients together, and each time, its an absolute hit.

Its a special occasion type of place, to be sure. But unlike the prix-fixe menus of, say, the Kitchen or Localis, Canon can be enjoyed in a way that doesnt break the bank. Most dishes are small-ish shareable plates, a business model thats helped owners Cecchi and Clay Nutting retain its Michelin Bib Gourmand (an award for excellent budget eats) every year since the California-wide guide began in 2019.

The menu changes frequently, but a couple of house standouts never come off. That includes Sacramentos finest tater tots ($10), rigid-crispy on the outside but fluffy on the inside and covered in a 60-ingredient mole negro, and a pair of fall-off-the-bone chicken drumsticks ($12) in a smoky, slightly bitter urfa biber chile sauce.

A housemade sourdough loaf ($5 for a half loaf/$10 for a full) came with cheddar butter. If like me, youve never heard of that, its when cheddar fat is separated and whipped into room-temperature butter, then topped with chives and crunchy potato bits. Dont miss it, or the caramelized Jerusalem artichoke ($19), flavorful tubers served with rainbow chard, pancetta bits and clumps of poppy seeds.

A handful of meat or fish platters are intended for sharing as well. Cross-hatched charred Pacific swordfish ($56) steaks came with halved figs, crumbled merguez sausage and a beurre rouge sauce on my visit, making for a delicious savory/sweet/spicy combination. Alas, it was gone from the menu two days later, though it could well be back in the future.

Canon

Address: 1719 34th St., Sacramento.

Hours: 5-9 p.m. seven days a week.

Phone number: (916) 469-2433.

Website: https://canoneastsac.com/

Drinks: A long wine list and excellent cocktail menu, as curated by beverage director Jack Winks. Craft sodas for those avoiding alcohol.

Vegetarian options: Marked on the menu. Present options include a radicchio wedge salad with goat Gouda and caramelized onions, heirloom tomatoes on sourdough and Middle Eastern-inspired roasted summer squash with muhammara, pickled raisins and candied walnuts.

Noise level: Medium.

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Pre-order your cookbook here to get recipes from 60 of the Sacramento regions top restaurants and bars, plus photos and descriptions of what makes each business so exceptional.







Openings & Closings

Omakase-only sushi spot Okesutora held its ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday morning at 1801 L St., Suite 70 in midtown Sacramentos Handle District. Its owned by Mymy Ngyuen-Voong and Jimmy Voong, the couple behind neighboring Vietnamese restaurant Saigon Alley Kitchen & Bar, and chef Hieu Phan previously ran Nobu locations in Palo Alto and Las Vegas.

Halal Italian restaurant Pasta Crush just opened at 1300 E Bidwell St., Suite 145 in Folsoms Trail Creek Crossing shopping center. Housemade pastas and sauces eschew pork for other meats, as seen in spaghetti with beef meatballs or Cajun creamy chicken over penne.

New-school doughnut shop Milk Money shut down its storefront last Friday at 1715 R St., connected to sister concept Beast + Bounty in midtowns Ice Blocks development. Itll still be available through sporadic pop-ups, according to a closing social media post.

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VENICE, La.  Louisiana residents in Plaquemines Parish are OK to drink their tap water again, according to parish government officials, after fresh water barges successfully dropped chloride amounts to safe drinking levels following an intrusion of salt water from the Gulf of Mexico.

The parish has been under a drinking water advisory since September, when salt water from the Gulf of Mexico overtopped the underwater sill in the lower Mississippi River.

A combination of drought , leading to low water levels along the Mississippi River, and high tides has helped allow salty seawater from the Gulf of Mexico to flow northward and impact drinking water supplies for communities in southeastern Louisiana . Efforts by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to hold back the salt water have been successful in slowing down the saltwater intrusion and potentially stopping it from reaching New Orleans water treatment facilities.

On Wednesday, parish officials said residents from Empire Bridge to Venice on the west bank of the Mississippi River and from Phoenix to Bohemia on the river's east bank are safe to resume using their tap water for drinking, cooking and bathing.

"It is indeed a moment of relief, and we want to assure everyone that is it currently safe to consume water in all areas of Plaquemines Parish," a news release read.

According to the Department of Health, safe drinking levels of chloride are measured below 250 mg/l. The water at the treatment facilities serving Plaquemines Parish is "consistently" below that threshold as of Oct. 3, according to a news release.

SALT WATER CONTINUES ADVANCING ON MISSISSIPPI RIVER AS ORLEANS PARISH EXPLORES DRINKING WATER OPTIONS

Earlier this month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began barging fresh water from an upstream location to water treatment facilities in Plaquemines Parish to dilute the salinity content to levels safe for water treatment.

"As barges arrive at water treatment facilities, the fresh water will be transferred to storage or reservoir tanks and then mixed with salt water from the river to bring the chloride levels down below the threshold for treatment," the USACE said.

HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHER

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built an additional 25 feet of an underwater barrier known as a "sill" in the Mississippi River to hold off the salt water.

As of the latest USACE New Orleans District update, the saltwater wedge is still expected to impact additional water treatment facilities. The wedge is expected to reach Belle Chasse on Nov. 13 and Dalcour by Nov. 18. Chloride levels are not expected to exceed 250 mg/l for water treatment centers north of Bell Chasse, according to the USACE timeline.

The USACE is working on the capability to deliver up to 36 million gallons of water per day if additional facilities are impacted by the saltwater intrusion on the Mississippi River.

For the second year in a row, drought along the Mississippi River Watershed reduced the flow of the lower Mississippi River, allowing the Gulf of Mexico to creep further north into the river.

Rain is needed in the Midwest and Southeast to create enough flow to hold off the salt water.

More than 80% of Louisiana is under extreme drought conditions, and 60% of the state is under exceptional drought, the most severe of the U.S. Drought Monitor scale.

Hurricane Norma, tracking toward Mexico, could bring promising rain to the Plains and the South, but one rain event won't be enough to end drought conditions on the Mississippi River.





Original article source: Louisiana drinking water advisories lifted after salt water intrusion diluted to safe levels
French President Emmanuel Macron has held talks with Chad's transitional President Mahamat Idriss Deby over the withdrawal of French forces from Niger and regional crises in the Sahel.

Presidents Macron and Deby reportedly discussed "all regional issues, including Sudan, Libya and Niger, as well as the return of our military resources to France," during a meeting at the Elysee Palace on Wednesday.

The French president's office added that the meeting "also enabled the two presidents to discuss the continuation of the political transition in Chad."

This comes as the French army is due to evacuate 1,400 troops and their equipment  for the most part via Chad  after being forced to leave Niger after last July's coup d'etat.

French soldiers will fly to France from N'djamena, while convoys of heavy equipment will reach the port of Douala in Cameroon, passing through areas harbouring jihadist groups.

At the end of September, President Macron said that French troops would leave Niger "by the end of the year," however experts believe a period of around six months will be required due to logistical challenges involved, with the equivalent of 2,000 containers to be repatriated.

The first French soldiers left Niger on Tuesday in an overland convoy under local escort, heading for Chad.

Also on the agenda of Wednesday's meeting was the conflict in Sudan and ongoing political crisis in Libya.

On 15 April, hostilities broke out between the Sudanese army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the Rapid Support Forces led by General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo.



Read more on RFI English



Read also:

Chad braces for thousands of refugees fleeing 'incredible violence' in Sudan

Sudanese face 'no respite from bloodshed and terror' as conflict drags on: UN

Libya's road to democracy remains blocked as political stalemate endures
MADISON  A Madison man who is accused of twice bringing firearms to the Wisconsin State Capitol and demanding to see Gov. Tony Evers earlier this month was free to return to the statehouse Wednesday after the Dane County District Attorney declined to pursue a new weapons charge recommended by Capitol Police.

Joshua Pleasnick, 43, faces jail time for an Oct. 4 incident during which Pleasnick is accused of going to the state Capitol shirtless and wearing a holstered handgun and demanding to see Evers. He allegedly came back to the Capitol that night with an assault-style rifle still demanding to talk to the governor.

Pleasnick was arrested again Tuesday on an additional charge related to the Oct. 4 incident. He was released from Dane County Jail on Wednesday and returned to the state Capitol to retrieve his belongings. Firearms were not released to him, according to Capitol Police.

Pleasnick was released from jail Wednesday when Ozanne declined to prosecute the new charge, according to Ozanne, who did not say why.

Capitol Police in an alert Wednesday evening said that Pleasnick is currently not barred from the statehouse after Ozanne's decision. In the alert, Wisconsin Capitol Police Deputy Chief Christopher Litzkow said "no firearms were released" to Pleasnick when he returned to the Capitol on Wednesday.

Litzkow said Capitol police requested a number of bail conditions, including barring Pleasnick from returning to the Capitol building. A judge will decide those conditions during a Thursday court appearance.

In an Oct. 5 alert from Capitol police on the initial incident, police said "while being interviewed Pleasnick said he would continue coming to the Capitol until he spoke to the Governor about domestic abuse towards men" ... "Pleasnick stated he did not own a vehicle and it is likely he has access to a large amount of weapons and is comfortable using them."

"Use extreme caution when in contact with Pleasnick. He should be considered armed," Capitol police officials said in the alert.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Madison man charged in Evers guns incident returns to Capitol
Joshua Pleasnick, right, stands with his attorney, Michael Covey, at the Dane County Courthouse on Thursday, Oct. 19. Pleasnick was released on a signature bond on accusations he twice brought firearms to the state Capitol and demanded to speak with Gov. Tony Evers.

MADISON  The Madison man accused of twice bringing firearms to the Wisconsin state Capitol and demanding to see Gov. Tony Evers earlier this month is banned from possessing dangerous weapons, visiting the Capitol or governor's mansion, and being within 1,000 feet of the governor or his family under bond conditions set Thursday.

Joshua Pleasnick, 43, entered a not-guilty plea in Dane County Circuit Court after being charged with carrying a firearm in a public building. He is accused of going to the state Capitol shirtless, wearing a holstered handgun and demanding to see Gov. Tony Evers, on Oct. 4.

Court Commissioner Scott McAndrew set a $500 signature bond for Pleasnick, with additional conditions including banning him from the Capitol Square, Cambridge Road in Maple Bluff and being within 1,000 feet of Evers or his family. Pleasnick is also prohibited from possessing any type of dangerous weapon.

Pleasnick left the courthouse with attorney Michael Covey, who refused comment to reporters but said Pleasnick had "absolutely no intent" of using the guns or collapsible baton he brought to the Capitol.

On Oct. 4, Pleasnick arrived at the state Capitol shirtless, with a leashed dog and wearing a holstered handgun, according to information from the Wisconsin Capitol Police Department that was provided to lawmakers the following day and obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"While being interviewed Pleasnick said he would continue coming to the Capitol until he spoke to the Governor about domestic abuse towards men," the report says. "Pleasnick stated he did not own a vehicle and it is likely he has access to a large amount of weapons and is comfortable using them."

"Use extreme caution when in contact with Pleasnick. He should be considered armed," Capitol police officials told lawmakers in the alert.

Pleasnick, who police said goes by the nickname "Taco," was arrested after approaching the security desk outside of Evers' office inside the state Capitol, Department of Administration spokeswoman Tatyana Warrick told the Journal Sentinel. He said he would not leave until he saw Evers. Police arrested the man for openly carrying a firearm inside the Capitol building, which is a violation of state law.

Pleasnick returned to the state Capitol about 9 p.m. with an assault-style rifle after posting bail at the Dane County Jail. He demanded to see the governor again and was again taken into custody.

Lawmakers were not notified of either incident until the morning of Oct. 5.

Dane County Deputy District Attorney William Brown said Thursday that it appeared Pleasnick "had a somewhat bizarre constituent complaint" and was likely experiencing a mental health crisis at the time of the incidents. He said Pleasnick was assessed at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute and has been receiving treatment.

Pleasnick was arrested again Tuesday on an additional charge related to the Oct. 4 incident. He was released from jail Wednesday when Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne declined to prosecute the new charge, according to Ozanne, who did not say why.

He was released from Dane County Jail on Wednesday and returned to the state Capitol to retrieve his belongings. Firearms were not released to him, according to Capitol Police.

Covey described Pleasnick to the court as "one of the most pleasant clients Ive actually ever had."

"It seems to be a misunderstanding or public perception that Joshua went to the Capitol with the intent to cause harm to the governor or somebody else, and I can understand why people would be scared of that. But that's actually not the case we have before us today," Covey told the commissioner.

The incident comes after Evers appeared last year on a target list of a man accused of fatally shooting a retired county judge. The so-called "hit list" was found in the suspect's vehicle with names that included Evers, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Evers was also targeted last year by a DeForest man with a history of threatening public officials.

A pre-trial conference for Pleasnick is scheduled for Nov. 20.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Madison man pleads not guilty in Capitol gun incident
While conventional wisdom has long held that Republicans, and particularly evangelicals, are the staunchest allies of Israel in the U.S., the latest bloody exchanges between the state and Hamas militants have revealed fault lines in that critical base of support. Rather than close ranks to back Israeli attacks on Gaza, some right-wing influencers have turned on each other.

For instance, Islamophobic conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and pro-Russia MAGA influencer Jackson Hinkle, who mere weeks ago appeared to have a friendly relationship on X (formerly Twitter), are now sniping at each other over the conflict. Loomer, who is Jewish, has endorsed Israels actions, while Hinkle took a stance against their response to Hamas initial surprise attack, disputing reports from their military. He is now encouraging users to subscribe to his premium content for $3 a month to support his work exposing Zionist propaganda. Loomer, in turn, is accusing him of sympathizing with Hamas and buying bot followers (his audience has grown by hundreds of thousands this month alone). On Wednesday, she tweeted that Hinkle has gone off the deep end.

 Subscribe to my X Premium for $3 if you would like to support my work exposing Zionist propaganda.



Prove to @LauraLoomer you are real humans, not Iranian bots. pic.twitter.com/s6fgEIpWJf  Jackson Hinkle  (@jacksonhinklle) October 18, 2023

I just want @jacksonhinklle to stop supporting HAMAS.



He has gone off the deep end. #HamasHinkle https://t.co/mx4r9Dt1f1  Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) October 18, 2023

Conservative podcaster and Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro has, like Loomer, been unwavering and adamant in his belief that Israels response to Hamas has been justified. But that doesnt sit well with others on the right, like Elijah Schaffer, a podcaster and writer for Gateway Pundit, who on Wednesday described one of Shapiros tweets as a call for genocide against the Palestinian people, comparing it to the Nazi rhetoric of Adolf Hitler. In July, he had posted a selfie with Shapiro from 2018, thanking him for advice at the time about launching a right-wing program.

HOT TAKE: Listening to Republicans openly call for genocide & dehumanize an entire race of people due to the evil actions of a few



Reminds me more of Hitler than anything else Ive seen in recent mainstream history



But both sides still suck & Shapiros rhetoric is dangerous https://t.co/lfF6kvoP7y  E (@ElijahSchaffer) October 18, 2023

Charles C. Johnson, an alt-right political activist and Holocaust denier, tweeted that Shapiro was in essence an Israeli asset and demanded that he register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Its not the first time Johnson has leveled such claims at Shapiro, but in the heat of the Israel debate, theyre getting far more traction. This particular post resurfaced on Gab, a free speech social media platform rife with antisemitic extremism, where failed Senate candidate Sam Parker used it as a pretext to declare that Shapiro is an agent of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Spread it on Twitter and Gab, Parker wrote. Hes pushing war propaganda like crazy!

I want to be fully on record that I saw Ben Shapiro receive tasking from Israeli intelligence connects to Netanyahu when I worked next to him at https://t.co/aOi91BVBIg. When I asked him about it he said he always kept close ties. Its time for Ben to register under FARA. https://t.co/9NawaGjrSG  Charles Johnson's Thoughts & Adventures (@JohnsonThought1) October 12, 2023

Shaprio has also sparred here and there with red-pill mansophere influencer and alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate, who has accused Israel of committing war crimes and the American right of screaming for genocide against the Palestinian people. (Shapiro said in an interview earlier this year that he agreed with many of Tates diagnoses about how men have lost their way, if not his proposed solutions to this issue.) Hinkle has taken to bashing Shapiro as well, though he took no apparent interest in his pro-Israel views before the latest outbreak of violence in the region.

Is peace worth a conversation yet?



Or are you calling for more death.



You were wrong Ben.  Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) October 18, 2023

You are a liar. This was and is a lie. https://t.co/gwtyzg8B4D  Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 13, 2023

Charlie Kirk, founder and director of Turning Point USA, joined the Republican faction siding with Israel. But this position has been met with resistance from others in the conservative movement. A tweet of Kirks claiming that Hamas uses women and children as human shields drew a wave of abusive replies from fellow right-wingers, including former MMA fighter Jake Shields, an anti-vaxxer who recently proposed that Donald Trump serve as Speaker of the House. Shields, who recently agreed with Kirks assertion that Whiteness is great and was photographed with him at TPUSAs AmericaFest in 2022, is now urging Kirk to reconsider his support for Israel and mocking him for thinking he can solve the long-running conflict. On Wednesday, Shields complained that his anti-Israel posts led people to label him an antisemite, which earned him a rebuke from Chris Loesch, husband of conservative radio host and former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch. In the past, Shields had tweeted amiably with both of them; on Tuesday, he called Chris a Nazi for calling him an antisemite.

It's been going on for 80 years and you believe you can solve it?  Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) October 12, 2023

Palestinians are Semitic people you dirty holocaust denying Nazi  Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) October 18, 2023

Curiously, Kirk has meanwhile faced the critique that he is anti-Israel, due to his speculation during a podcast interview that its government might have had advance knowledge of the Hamas offensive and issued a stand down order to let it proceed. Ben Domenech , Fox News contributor and husband of Meghan McCain, pounced on this comment, predicting that Kirks continued leadership of Turning Point USA signaled the right would have an antisemitism problem that will follow them into the coming elections. Chaya Raichik, an Orthodox Jew who runs the anti-LGBTQ hate account Libs of TikTok, came to Kirks defense, deeming Domenechs accusation laughable. (Last year, Domenech praised Libs of TikTok for publicizing views from an ideological bubble.) Raichik did concede, however, that shes seen some alarming and anti-semitic posts from TPUSA affiliates.

This is laughable. @charliekirk11 has been vocal about his support for Israel for years. If you call everyone anti-semitic than the word loses all meaning. Why dont you save the term for the actual anti-semites, of which there are unfortunately plenty. https://t.co/UCSOtfVFQc  Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) October 15, 2023

Looming in the background of all this infighting  and perhaps the only far-right operator who relishes the idea of a Republican schism over Israel  is Nick Fuentes, the Hitler-loving white supremacist whose groyper troll army pushes an ultranationalist America First agenda. During one of his latest livestreams, a beaming Fuentes listed a number of far-right figures he feels are drifting toward the groyper worldview, including Trump, Kirk, Schaffer, Alex Jones, and Tucker Carlson, expressing his surprise and delight at finally getting to a confrontation on the Jewish question, or a point where that line is being crossed. The so-called Jewish question  or JQ, as it is sometimes styled on social media  is a phrase that has carried down through generations of antisemitic propaganda.

https://twitter.com/classicsgroyp/status/1714135696317747276The battle of these online personalities mirrors that of GOP politicians when it comes to U.S. involvement in the present Middle East crisis. Except, of course, the influencers can test the waters of more extreme opinion and misinformation. And its altogether possible the more toxic elements of their debate will float up into mainstream discourse, just as Fuentes is hoping. That bodes ill for the Wests understanding of an already chaotic upheaval  but worse still for the people suffering through it.

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Your slice of the headlines in Ukraine. Daily. Thursday, October 19, 2023.

 Nearly 10 years after murdering protesters during the Revolution of Dignity, some Berkut riot police found guilty

After nearly a decade, five officers of the disgraced Berkut riot police have been found guilty of the mass murder of protesters during the Revolution of Dignity on Feb. 20, 2014, Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske reported.

 Russia continues largest assault on Avdiivka to date

Russian troops have mounted their largest offensive on Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast, since the start of the war in 2014, Avdiivka municipal head Vitaliy Barabash told Ukrainian TV broadcasters on Oct. 18.

 Russia practices terrorism just like Hamas  expert interview

Israeli journalist and author of the Voina s Ordoy (War with the Horde) Telegram channel, Sergei Auslander, explained in an interview with NV Radio on Oct. 10 how the intelligence failure occurred during the attack on Israel, when the most advanced surveillance systems were disabled, and about the attitudes of Russia, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to the war unleashed by Hamas.

 Russia begins mobilization in occupied Kherson Oblast, Kyiv says

Russian authorities have begun serving mobilization notices to locals in occupied parts of Ukraines Kherson Oblast, Ukrainian National Resistance Center (NRC) reported via its website on Oct. 18.

 Investigators suspect !Fest cofounders of tax evasion

Investigators suspect the cofounders of the popular !Fest group of restaurants of tax evasion and confiscated documents during a raid.

 How Ukrainians can stay online even during extended power outages  Digital Transformation Ministry

In case of power outages, Ukrainians can stay connected to the Internet if their provider has switched to energy-saving networks (xPON technology), Ukraines Digital Transformation Ministry announced on Facebook.

 Etsy marketplace launches operations in Ukraine

Ukraines artisans will have a large new market to tap after popular international online marketplace Etsy announced it is opening its platform to Ukrainians, according to Ukraines Digital Transformation Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.

 Ukraine receives all promised Abrams tanks from US

Ukraine has received 31 M1A1 Abrams battle tanks pledged by the United States earlier this year, Martin ODonnell, a spokesman for U.S. Army Europe and Africa, told Voice of America on Oct. 16.

 Despite biggest offensive since Jan. 2023, Russian breakthrough in East is unlikely  British Intelligence

There has been a considerable increase in Russian offensive activity on the Kupyansk- Lyman front in the last two weeks, which has been met with a corresponding Ukrainian defensive presence, British Defense Intelligence reported on Oct. 18.

 Two buildings and a church destroyed following Russian attack on Zaporizhzhya

Two building entrances and a church have been destroyed, as seen in photos of the aftermath of Russia's devastating missile strike on Zaporizhzhya published by the Prosecutor General of Ukraines office.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
A former GOP donor, who once made headlines after calling former president Barack Obama the N-word, fatally shot himself after attempting to kill his wife, according to reports.

Police report that the tragic altercation happened on Monday, Oct. 9, outside a BurgerFi restaurant around 8 p.m. While standing in the parking lot, Steve Alembik shot his wife, psychologist Dawn Polen, who ran into the eatery before turning the gun on himself.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, left, Steve Alembik, center, Eric Trump. (Photo: Facebook/Steve Alembik)

She survived the shooting, though in critical condition; however, the 72-year-old did not.

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A Palm Beach County Office spokesperson said, She was treated at the scene and transported to Delray Medical Center, where she underwent emergency surgery, according to the Messenger.

Authorities are currently unclear about Alembiks motives behind the attempted murder-suicide. However, sources say he had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Alembik, a Boca Raton resident, was a donor to former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and then-Gov. Rick Scott. Over the past two decades, he has donated more than $200,000 in political donations, mostly to Republican candidates.

The donor became a conservative media darling, dressing up often in Old Glory-inspired outfits and tweeting racist comments about Obama in 2018, calling him a Muslim N-word.

He told reporters he made the tweet because he was upset that the then-president said the GOP had become a party filled with division. He said he was not racist but was an emotional human being.

So, somebody like Chris Rock can get up onstage and use the word, and theres no problem, he said, But some white guy says it, and hes a racist? Really? I grew up in New York in the 50s. We were the k**es. They were the n******. They were the g**im. And those were the s***s.

Despite his insistence that the comments didnt make him racist, the backlash was swift, forcing DeSantis Florida governor campaign to declare they would no longer accept money from him or his company in donations. Scott, who was running for a U.S. Senate seat, donated Alembiks $1,100 contribution to charity after the remarks. DeSantis office said they would not return money already spent during the primary season.

Weve said it before, well say it again: we adamantly denounce this sort of disgusting rhetoric, said the campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson, according to the Associated Press.

Alembik was declared dead at the scene by paramedics. On Thursday afternoon, Jennifer Remaland Alembik, his ex-wife and the mother of his three daughters, sent a funeral notice to Republican Party members, a homegoing service scheduled for Friday, Oct. 20.

Many GOP heavyweights took to social media to give tributes, including Trump and DeSantis.

Former U.S. House candidate and far-right commentator Laura Loomer posted her thoughts about her friend on X, saying: The tragedy surrounding Steves suicide has shocked everyone, and as details come out, people will probably be judgmental. I hope he is remembered for all of the good he did throughout his life as opposed to the darkness and tragedy that surrounds his last moments on this planet.

Read the original story here.
SUMNER COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN)  A wanted man was taken into custody after leading authorities on a pursuit through multiple Middle Tennessee localities overnight.

Shortly after 12:15 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 19, officials said the Sumner County Emergency Communication Center learned the Metro Nashville Police Department was engaged in a vehicle pursuit involving a silver Honda sedan.

Man wanted for assaulting, carjacking ex-girlfriend in Clarksville

According to the Sumner County Sheriffs Office, the driver  identified as Johntrez London had 14 active warrants, including one for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Metro police reported the vehicle was heading northbound on Interstate 65 toward Sumner County. The car exited I-65 onto Highway 31W and continued north through Millersville and White House, authorities said.

Armed 14-year-old arrested after driving stolen SUV around Nashville, police say

Upon learning this information, deputies said they set up and deployed spike strips on Highway 31W, disabling the suspect vehicle. However, London allegedly abandoned the car and ran off into a wood line.

Johntrez London (Source: Sumner County Sheriffs Office)

The sheriffs office said it contacted the Sumner County Emergency Management Agency (EMA), which arrived on scene with a drone. Less than 15 minutes later, EMA employees reportedly led deputies towards London, who was taken into custody without incident.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

This is a prime example of multiple jurisdictions and agencies coming together to complete a mission. We are thankful for the great working relationship we have with all of the agencies surrounding Sumner County, Chief Deputy Eric Craddock said. Our patrol deputies along with an incredible inter-agency relationship with MNPD and Sumner County EMA, allowed this to situation come to a successful resolution. Our deputies have a passion for public safety and this is a great example of their tenacity to deter criminal activity in Sumner County.

There is no word on what charges London is facing in connection with this overnight incident.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
CHICAGO - A man was shot in the groin Wednesday night in the South Chicago neighborhood.

The 25-year-old was sitting in the backyard of a residence around 9:49 p.m. in the 8300 block of South Essex Avenue when gunfire broke out and struck him once in the groin, according to police.

The victim was transported by paramedics to the University of Chicago Medical Center where he was listed in good condition, police said.

No one is in custody as Area Two detectives investigate.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A man facing DUI and homicide charges in a Lake Mead boat crash is back in custody, this time on dozens of child pornography charges.

Paul Robinson, 57, was booked into the Clark County Detention Center Thursday, Oct. 19 on 64 counts which include possessing pornography of a person under 16, child abuse/neglect, promoting the sexual performance of a minor under 14, and capturing/distributing/displaying images of a private area, according to jail records.

Suspect in Lake Mead boat crash that killed 2 people arrested on DUI, homicide charges

Robinson was out on a $20,000 bail following his arrest after an Aug. 12 deadly boat crash on Lake Mead that killed Terry Farris and Stacia Gardner. According to the Nevada State Police arrest report, Robinsons cell phone was confiscated when he was arrested on a DUI charge after the crash.

During a forensics examination, that involved reviewing media files on the phone, the report said still images that appeared to be from a hidden camera in a childs bedroom were found on the phone. Further investigation revealed there were 21 videos of the same young girl in various stages of undress, including being naked in her bedroom and unknowingly exposing herself.

Based on camera positioning, the angle of the captured frames, and the partially obstructed view, it appeared to be a hidden camera, police documents stated.

The young girl was identified as being the child of Robinsons friend and a warrant was executed to seize all of Robinsons electronics and take him into custody on the new charges.

He is currently being held at the Clark County Detention Center. His next court appearance is scheduled for Oct. 24.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  The arraignment for a man charged in the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur was delayed another two weeks during a Thursday morning court appearance.

Attorney Ross Goodman , who was representing Duane Keffe D Davis asked Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones for a two-week continuance and it was granted. The judge asked Goodman if he was Davis lawyer and Goodman said Im not going to confirm that today.

We got to get this case moving, understand, Judge Jones said to Goodman.

Davis first appeared in court a few weeks ago but didnt have a lawyer present in the courtroom so his arraignment was postponed. After the appearance, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson told reporters Davis was consulting with California attorney Edi Faal. 8 News Now Investigators learned Faal was helping Davis with retaining counsel.

Persistence paid off, Metro says after jury indicts Duane Keffe D Davis for Tupac Shakurs murder

Goodman told the Associated Press he would be appearing in Davis defense Thursday against the accusations that Davis orchestrated the drive-by killing of Shakur. Goodman is the son of Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn and her husband former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who is also a lawyer and well-known for his cases representing mobsters.

Never-before-seen photos, videos released in Tupac Shakur murder case

Nearly three decades after the murder of Shakur, Davis, 60, a self-described gang member was arrested at his home in Henderson in September after a grand jury indicted him for murder with the use of a deadly weapon. His arraignment is now scheduled for Nov. 2, 2023

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
A man is behind bars after officials say he vandalized several churches.

Gordon County sheriff officials said on Aug. 23, deputies were called to investigate the circumstances surrounding a Molotov cocktail lobbed at a church in the Pine Chapel community.

According to the investigation, the device was composed of flammable liquid in a plastic bottle and caused minimal damage to the church.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

On Aug. 26, deputies were called to Covington Bridge Road, where they located a plastic bottle of flammable liquid used to damage a farm tractor.

Authorities said the device created a grass fire, which a passerby extinguished. The tractor was not damaged.

Detectives determined that the same suspect committed the two crimes and began collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses.

On Oct. 1, officials said another Molotov cocktail was hurled at a church in the Oakman community.

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Authorities said the device did not cause any damage to the building however, it did create a fire in the parking lot that quickly burned itself out.

On Friday, deputies found another incendiary device used to start a fire in a wooded area on Wesley Chapel Road near another church.

A witness told deputies that he saw the suspect when the incident occurred.

On Monday, authorities arrested 34-year-old Cody Dexter Blankenship of Calhoun while leaving work.

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Authorities said Blakenship had been arrested in 2021 after being accused of scattering nails in several church parking lots.

Blakenship was charged with arson, attempted arson, vandalizing places of worship, possessing incendiary devices and burning woodlands. He is currently in the Gordon County Jail.

IN OTHER NEWS:
A 24-year-old was arrested on Monday after fleeing from police multiple times following the fatal shooting of another man, court documents state.

At about 5:17 p.m. on Sunday, officers with the Phoenix Police Department responded to South 36th and West Tamarisk avenues as Phoenix fire crews were treating a man. The man, identified as Henry Smalley, 51, was not breathing and had apparent head trauma, according to court documents.

Smalley was taken to a hospital and was pronounced dead at 5:47 p.m. Doctors said he had a gunshot wound behind his right ear.

Several calls poured in from neighbors in the area after hearing the initial gunshot, with the original 911 caller attempting to contact Smalley at his home only to find him lying in the roadway upon leaving the residence, documents said.

Investigators at the scene recovered Smalley's identification card, eyeglasses and cell phone, which a witness said were found on the ground near his body.

Surveillance video from a nearby business showed a Honda Pilot entering the business' parking lot. Officers used this to identify Jiovani Gortarez as the suspect in the shooting, according to court records.

Documents state that Gortarez, who the business owner recognized as the son of a regular customer, had tried to enter the business, which was locked. Gortarez then got back into his vehicle and began to drive west on Tamarisk Road before stopping in the roadway, where Smalley could be seen walking in the video.

Surveillance video shows Smalley approached Gortarez's car and Gortarez exited the vehicle, according to court documents. Moments later, Smalley was seen stumbling away from Gortarez and collapsing in the street.

After identifying Gortarez with the business owners' help, detectives found that he lived less than half a mile from where Smalley was found shot, according to court records.

Police found that the phone originally believed to belong to Smalley was actually Gortarez, documents state.

According to court documents, investigators obtained a tracking warrant and began watching Gortarez's vehicle.

Investigators attempted to contact Gortarez at a residence near South 41st Avenue, where they believed he was. However, additional investigators tracking his vehicle saw it head to multiple other locations. Undercover officials tracked the vehicle and saw Gortarez head toward Tempe Marketplace, where he was walking with a woman. He then got into a different vehicle and left the area.

Court documents state that undercover officers continued to tail the car until it stopped near Interstate 17 and Cactus Road, where Gortarez was taken into custody.

In a post-Miranda interview, Gortarez told officers that he and Smalley had gotten into a verbal altercation that turned physical. However, Gortarez said he did not shoot Smalley, adding that the gun had fired on its own after he pulled it out, according to court records.

Gortarez was booked into jail on $1 million bond and was facing one count of second-degree murder.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Man arrested in connection with fatal Phoenix shooting
Trevor Packer had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year  the toughest year of my 20 year career, he told me. Most years, as College Boards point person for Advanced Placement courses, he focuses on overseeing curriculum development, rolling out end-of-year tests and dealing with the occasional complaint from disgruntled students or administrators.

This year, however, the loudest complaint happened to come from one of Americas most prominent politicians: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis .

The story goes something like this: Last year, College Board rolled out its new AP African American Studies course, assembled in the wake of George Floyds death and the subsequent protests. Dozens of schools were selected to pilot an early draft of the course, including five in Florida. Shortly thereafter, DeSantis Florida legislature passed a string of education bills, including one that affected how teachers could discuss topics like race and national identity.

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A schism emerged between the Florida Department of Education and College Board. Nearly everyone was left disappointed, in one way or another: students, who couldnt take the course; parents, who either felt their childrens education was being censured or being radicalized; DeSantis & Co.; College Board & Co.; and on and on.

And then there was Packer, the soft-spoken man from Provo, Utah, stuck in the middle.

As College Boards senior vice president over Advanced Placement courses, Packer has spent two decades oiling and rearranging the gears that make AP run, expanding the program to reach most school districts in the U.S. The Washington Post deemed him responsible for making AP the most powerful educational tool in the country. A scholar from a leading think tank credited him for the rarest kind of success in public education  expanding scale without sacrificing rigor. High schoolers nationwide know him simply as AP Trevor, a nod to his Twitter handle thats amassed nearly a hundred thousand followers.

And yet, all the experience running Americas largest secondary-school curriculum machine couldnt have prepared him for this year. Nor could his masters and bachelors at BYU, or his time as an AP student himself at Waterford School in Provo, or his upbringing as the son of a stay-at-home mother and a Latter-day Saint institute teacher father.

Trying to make peace can be exhausting, he acknowledges, and he doesnt pretend to know all the solutions. In no way do I feel myself as having mastered this, he told me during a recent interview, sitting in his natural habitat  the spartan offices of the College Board, located in the shadow of the new World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.

Packer is in his 50s, and he maintains a youthful exuberance  a requisite for such a job. But his well-coiffed dirty-blond hair, near his temples, now shows hints of white.

The only way to approach a culture war, he told me, is to try to find whats true and stick to it. Ideas themselves are not dangerous, he said. One-sided treatment of ideas is dangerous. And at AP, we dont do one-sided.

As novel as this years battle has been  the media coverage, the opposition from a presidential candidate, the lobbying and pressure from different political sides  Packer, to some extent, has trod this trail before.

In 2014, Packer led a revamp of the AP U.S. History curriculum. It provided a more expansive view of our countrys past than the one previously presented, including an emphasis on subjects like Japanese Americans during World War II and chattel slaves in colonial America. But the new curriculum unleashed a political uproar. The National Republican Committee passed a resolution calling it a radically revisionist view of American history. Republican lawmakers in red states  from Oklahoma to North Carolina to Georgia  pushed to keep it out of their schools.

Critics maintained a long list of complaints. The framework expanded its focus on African American history, from slavery to the Chicago race riots to the Black Panthers. It said European explorers were driven by white superiority and Ronald Reagan used bellicose, anti-Communist rhetoric.

It was a view of America through the lens of race, gender and class identity, one Georgia state lawmaker said.

But the framework, Packer insists, was just that  a draft, with possible subjects and material that were to be edited and refined. And instead of doubling down, Packer and his team listened to the critiques.

They hired a number of their loudest complainants as consultants, including Jeremy Stern, an independent historian whod railed against the first draft. Its very unusual for any educational organization to respond to serious criticism by actually listening to it, Stern later said. The usual response is to raise the drawbridge.

All the while, Packer kept the possibility of a standalone course on African American history in the back of his mind. Two years earlier, hed sent a letter to colleges and universities across the country, gauging interest in an African American Studies class. There were zero takers.

The great irony of all this is that Packer  the champion of Advanced Placement courses  is only an accidental product of AP.

As a high schooler, Packer attended Waterford School, a small, private academy in Provo, where his graduating class comprised two dozen students. In 10th grade, his school decided to offer AP European History. There werent enough students to justify two history courses, so all 24 were automatically enrolled.

Whatever the standard of a picture-perfect AP student was, that was not Packer. He preferred Nintendo to homework. A middle school teacher, in a last-ditch attempt to spark a love of reading, once loaned him a copy of Tolstoys Anna Karenina. This book is amazing, the teacher told him. Packer read it, all 864 pages, and was left confused as to what made his teacher love it.

It was at home, not in the classroom, where Packers intellectual side seemed to flourish. His mother, a college dropout, and his father, a Latter-day Saint institute teacher, were committed to getting him to college, no matter the cost. They enrolled him at Waterford on a financial hardship scholarship. They dragged him to local theater productions. They saturated their home with storytelling  Packers earliest memories are of his father inventing elaborate bedtime stories for Packer and his eight siblings, or of his mother, reading illustrated versions of The Hundred Dresses and The Book of Mormon out loud. By the time Packer enrolled in kindergarten, his mother had already taught him to read. When she turned the final pages of Where the Red Fern Grows, Packer remembers curling up on the ground and crying.

Trevor Packer, 53, senior vice president and head of the Advanced Placement Program at the College Board and a BYU graduate, poses for a photo on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, at the College Board offices in lower Manhattan, New York. | Gabriela Bhaskar, for The Deseret News

But something about classrooms left Packer uninspired and unmoved. He was a C-student in middle school, arriving in high school  to a private school chock-full of overachievers  as the so-called problem student. He trudged through AP European History, doing just enough to stay above water, but by the time the end-of-year test came around, he didnt bother registering. Part of it was his confidence he wouldnt perform well. But the other part was the $47 price tag  something he knew his family couldnt afford.

The night before test day, Packers principal phoned his mother. Theyd ordered a test for every student, and all they needed was Packer to pay the exam fee. We think Trevor can get some college credit, the principal said.

Packers mom froze. What do you mean? she asked.

The principal explained that passing an AP test transferred to college credit, and would mean Packer would not have to take the same course at university. Packers mother  whose exit from college was expedited by horrific, freshman-level courses with hundreds of students  had heard enough.

She signed a check and sent it with Packer the next day.

Three months later, when Packer received his test results in the mail, hed gotten a 3  the lowest possible passing grade, but a passing grade nonetheless  good enough for college credit. Out of nowhere, local universities began mailing him recruiting material. He then loaded his junior- and senior-year schedules with AP courses, passing them all. He graduated and gave the student speech at the ceremony.

I just suddenly had a sense of myself as someone who was desired in academia, hed later say.

Emmitt Glynn teaches AP African American studies to a group of Baton Rouge Magnet High School students on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023 in Baton Rouge, La. Baton Rouge Magnet High School in Louisiana is one of 60 schools around the country testing the new course, which has gained national attention since it was banned in Florida. | Stephen Smith, Associated Press

If Advanced Placement courses in high school opened new doors, Packers time at BYU blew them off the hinges. He fell in love with literature  reading George Eliot and Willa Cather and, yes, even Tolstoy  en route to bachelors and masters degrees in English.

But in the process, he was introduced to a new world. He read prominent Black authors Toni Morrison and bell hooks and Henry Louis Gates. He took a course on Black Latter-day Saint history. He recognized a gap in his education, to that point  in high school, hed never read Black authors or extensively studied Black history, except for a short story by Alice Walker in one AP English course.

A Ph.D. in English took him to the City University of New York, and a need for a summer job took him to a temp agency in Manhattan  which pointed him to an administrative job at the College Boards office near the World Trade Center. His was mostly clerical work, but he loved it. At the end of the summer, College Board asked him to stay. He knew he shouldnt  he had a Ph.D. to finish. But he couldnt get himself to say no.

Eventually, I loved this work more than I loved working on a dissertation, he said. Hes been at College Board ever since.

Packers first two decades at College Board were punctuated by evolution. One of his first tasks, around the dot-com boom, was to build a digital system for educators to order tests. He pioneered the organizations teacher training programs in Europe. A decade ago, after hearing complaint after complaint about the ambiguous nature of some questions on AP tests, he decided to conduct a review of the exams himself.

One-sided treatment of ideas is dangerous. And at AP, we dont do one-sided.

What he found made him embarrassed: question after question asking for obscure, memorized facts  a mile wide and an inch deep, he said. He led a complete overhaul of the exams, focusing on allowing students to demonstrate a grasp of the information instead of prioritizing memorization. Im not opposed to memorization, he said. But for that to be the only skill we were really valuing on these exams  this can do great harm.

They began rolling out the new tests in 2012. Packer was their biggest advocate. In 2011, the New York Times asked him if he were a high schooler, would he take the old AP biology course or wait for the new one. Packer didnt hesitate. I would absolutely wait, he said.

All the while, Packer looked for new opportunities to foster some degree of harmony among the oft-dueling academics who helped craft the courses. He organized the AP Faculty Colloquia, a weekend retreat for university professors and department chairs in the subject areas AP teaches. They pore over course frameworks and debate what skills students should develop in the classes.

Its much easier to point the finger and cast blame when youre not looking someone in the eye, seeing their passion and commitment to education, and hearing their values, Packer reasons. That is more valuable than whatever the price tag of summoning hundreds of college professors to a central location for a weekend.

By the summer of 2020, when the death of George Floyd led to a nationwide reckoning regarding racial issues, Packer began once again reconsidering the feasibility of an AP African American Studies course.

In a Zoom meeting with his 300 Advanced Placement staff that August, Packer broached the possibility. He asked for volunteers. Three dozen employees signed on to help. They gauged interests from high schools and universities, this time finding overwhelming support. They collected as many existing syllabi for college-level African American Studies courses as possible. By spring of 2021, it looked like an AP African American Studies course was no longer just a dream.

Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis walks into a press conference at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 21, 2023. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

DeSantis announced his Stop the W.O.K.E. Act in December 2021, vowing to fight against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory. The news hardly registered at the College Board headquarters, where they were dealing with their own issue: building a cohesive curriculum.

Their review of African American Studies courses at universities and high schools around the country found little cohesion. Unlike courses in biology or statistics, that maintained a near-universal set of learning outcomes, a younger discipline like African American Studies was much less consistent. High school curriculum centered on movies like 42 and Selma. Colleges focused on more advanced readings, but there was little overlap: the most commonly assigned reading, W.E.B. DuBois The Souls of Black Folk, was found in only 22% of curriculum.

From the disparate materials, Packers team began assembling a framework. They compiled a set list of readings and began acquiring copyright permissions for them. They amassed a long list of potential topics to be included in the course. In early 2022, they brought together a group of university faculty to solicit their feedback.

From there, they prepared a pilot program. Sixty high schools across the nation would lead out in the fall of 2022, including five in Florida. The team provided a draft of the course framework with a number of states, including Florida, to coincide with credit policies and creating a course code.

In July, College Board received a response from Floridas Office of Articulation, asking whether the course was in violation of Florida law and requesting a review to ensure it was not. Thats the first indication we heard anywhere that anyone might have a concern about this, Packer recalled.

College Board conducted its own internal analysis, concluding the course did not violate any of Floridas anti-indoctrination laws. The course covered sensitive materials and presented a range of perspectives, but it didnt ask students to sign on to any ideology. When you study fascism in World War II in AP World History, students are not asked, Do you believe in fascism? Packer said. We ask students to analyze, rather than subscribe to a belief system. College Board notified Florida that there was no conflict.

That fall, pilot schools nationwide began teaching the course. But in late September, the Florida Department of Education sent a letter, notifying that the course could not be approved as submitted, citing state law. There was no detail as to which parts of the course were in violation; only that it was, and that Florida was willing to work with College Board to fix it.

Packer and his team were shellshocked. They scheduled a Zoom meeting with Florida officials to hear out their concerns. Jason Manahoran, vice president for AP program development, represented College Board; four or five individuals represented the Florida Department of Education.

It didnt take long to recognize a disconnect. What became clear very quickly is that these were not content experts, Manahoran told The New York Times. The Florida officials quizzed Manahoran if the course promotes Black Panther thinking, then asked what intersectionality  a concept in social studies to gauge overlapping individual identities  meant. Manahoran tried to explain. The officials were stone faced, he recalled. (The Florida Department of Education did not respond to the Deseret News request for comment.)

In late January, DeSantis made his first public statement about the course. Thats a political agenda, he said at a press conference. Days earlier, his Department of Education had sent a letter to College Board, informing them that AP African American Studies officially violated state code. As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value, the letter said.

College Board waited to respond to the letter, as it prepared to release a full curriculum in early February. DeSantis accusations, Packer contends, were false. The course certainly exposed students to alternative perspectives, he maintains, but it was not indoctrinating them.

College Board released a curt statement, emphasizing that a concrete course syllabus had not yet been released. We will publicly release the updated course framework when it is completed and well before this class is widely available in American high schools, the statement read.

DeSantis pointed to several topics he claimed were in the course  like queer theory and abolishing prisons  as evidence it would leave students with an agenda imposed on them instead of an education.

When you try to use Black history to shoehorn in queer theory, you are clearly trying to use that for political purposes, he said.

Conservatives in the education policy space have come to DeSantis defense. Almost a quarter of the course was essentially college-level critical race theory, Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told me. He pointed to an early copy of the course framework that had been leaked by the National Review. The last course unit, called Movements and Debates discussed topics like the Black Lives Matter movement and Black feminist literary thought.

But those topics were not a required part of the curriculum, Packer said. This is a course that teaches that prisons should be abolished  no, it doesnt, Packer said. Thats never been under consideration.

Packer believed they should keep their powder dry and allow the new curriculum, when released, to speak for itself.

Perhaps the early curriculum was bound to frustrate conservatives. At the college level, the African American Studies discipline draws more ideologically progressive scholars than not, Eden said.

College Board can pretty reasonably say, We were trying to give a course that reflects the purview of college African American Studies, Eden said. And that can also reasonably be considered to be indoctrination, because college African American Studies is a politically charged field.

Trevor Packer, 53, senior vice president and head of the Advanced Placement Program at the College Board, sits for an interview with the Deseret News on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, at the College Board offices in lower Manhattan, New York. | Gabriela Bhaskar, for The Deseret News

The new curriculum had passed through a gauntlet of edits, revisions and subtractions in the preceding months, thanks to input from university professors and high school teachers. Teachers were overwhelmed with the amount of required readings, so College Board decided to cut all the secondary sources, allowing teachers to assign them if they wished.

The fear of clashes with state governments  not of public backlash, but the possibility that presenting course material could cost a teacher their job, like was outlined in the Stop the WOKE Act  was also a concern. Some two dozen states had implemented measures against critical race theory. The Florida Department of Education had yet to tell College Board exactly which parts of the course violated state law, and had still effectively barred it from classrooms statewide; who was to say the same couldnt happen in other states, and teachers could get fired over it?

Holly Stepp, executive director of communications for the College Board, described it as a tension  between fealty to the scholarship and creating a class that can be taught in all 50 states.

Those are parallel goals, she reasoned, but not everyone saw it that way: We didnt fully appreciate how fraught we are in this country right now when it comes to issues like this.

When the course went public on Feb. 1, the media awarded DeSantis an immediate victory. Ron DeSantis Schools the College Board, The Wall Street Journal headline read. Others said College Board caved to DeSantis (Rolling Stone), or DeSantis bullied them to submission (LA Times, Vanity Fair), or any variation of DeSantis got his way, and College Board has egg on its face.

To some, thats the story the curriculum told. Topics like Black Lives Matter, incarceration and reparations for the descendants of African slaves were deemphasized. The new required reading list wiped Black thought leaders like bell hooks and Ta-Nehisi Coates. The material could be refined by local states and districts, allowing increasing flexibility for educators to cover  or avoid  the topics they deemed important.

The backlash from the political left was swift. Several of the university faculty who participated in shaping the course denounced it, calling the new curriculum an attack on academic freedom. Some groups called on the longtime College Board CEO, David Coleman, to resign. Several of the leading African American Studies scholars publicly denounced the course. We all suspected that the changes to the curriculum were prompted by political pressure, Robin D.G. Kelley, a historian at the University of California, Los Angeles, told The New York Times.

Thats absolutely what it looked like, Packer acknowledged. But such a narrative, he posits, erases a year of careful curriculum evolution: removing secondary readings, adding flexibility for educators and slashing topics that could cost a teacher their job  independent of the backlash from Florida.

But again, when it came to public messaging, College Board decided to hold back, to let the course speak for itself.

Trevor Packer, 53, senior vice president and head of the Advanced Placement Program at the College Board and a BYU graduate, sits for an interview with the Deseret News on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, at the College Board offices in lower Manhattan, New York. | Gabriela Bhaskar, for The Deseret News

But the calculus changed when the Florida Department of Education took credit for the curriculum, claiming the changes were made by no coincidence of its requested revisions. In a memo, Florida listed 20 specific changes that had been made between the original list of potential topics and the new curriculum. The letter detailed the communication it had with College Board in the process, attributing its complaints as the motive for the changes.

That forced our hand, Packer said.

Such a statement was completely false, he said  while it was true theyd maintained communication, such conversations were only to affirm or deny whether the curriculum was in compliance with Florida law. The states Department of Education had never made concrete recommendations for changes to be made to the curriculum, much less specific topics to cut.

College Board released a lengthy statement, confessing mistakes in its response, but noted the assertion that Florida had thumbed the scale on the final curriculums content was a false and politically motivated charge.

Our exchanges with them are actually transactional emails about the filing of paperwork, the statement read, and our response to their request that the College Board explain why we believe the course is not in violation of Florida laws.

Such conversations shouldve been brought to light months earlier, the statement acknowledged.

I visited Packer in mid-September, a full seven months since the AP African American Studies course had been released. Much has happened since. An updated version of the curriculum is due any week now, incorporating even more feedback and suggestions. A federal judge blocked portions of the Florida law that caused headaches in the first place, calling many of its restrictions on free speech positively dystopian.

Packer spoke about it all as if the whole saga was a distant memory, and yet with a sense of urgency. And for this reason: the whole process had bubbled up again, this time with AP Psychology at the center. DeSantis had passed his controversial Parental Rights in Education bill, outlining parameters for classroom discussion relating to sexual orientation and gender, leading to Florida informing College Board that the AP Psychology course could not be taught in schools.

Florida demanded College Board sign an agreement, affirming the course was not in violation of state law. College Board refused, sending a letter to educators in Florida that the status of the course was in the air.

It vowed it would never modify or censor essential material: We are resolute in this position, in part, because of what we learned from our mistakes in the recent rollout of AP African American Studies, the letter read.

The standoff continued until two weeks before schools opened in the fall. Some school districts in Florida wiped AP Psychology from their course offerings, not wanting to assign teachers and enroll students only for it to be canceled. Finally, days before schools would open, Florida allowed the course to be taught.

I do value parental choice through all this, Packer is quick to add. We dont support state-level censorship.

In many school districts, like several in Utah where Packers nieces and nephews attend, parents are required to sign a permission slip for courses like AP Psychology where sensitive issues will be discussed. We value a model where teachers and schools let their communities know what the topics are in an AP course, so that parents can choose, he explained. What we dont allow is for one parent, or three students, to decide that a topic has to be removed from an AP course.

But the topic is bubbling up again, this time in Arkansas, where state officials are attempting to ban AP African American Studies. This time, College Board seems to be taking a different approach  as an organization that relies on states to administer tests, it also owes students what theyre promised: a rigorous, college-level education, free of censorship.

Several hours after our visit, Packer sent me a lengthy email. Hed been thinking about one of the final things I asked  about what hes learned from striving to make peace in one of the culture wars biggest ongoing battles.

I still dont have a perfect answer, he disclaimed, but I continue to seek the right balance between the role of peacemaker and the role of warrior.

You have to engage with those who disagree with you, he said, but not by fighting a battle on social media, or through insults, or through ad-hominem attacks, but by talking directly, respectfully and honestly.

Packer doesnt claim to be the arbiter of truth, but he feels the need to defend what he sees as true. Nor does he enjoy these battles, he told me. But hes committed to the process: of analyzing issues from many different sides. And AP, he insists, doesnt do one-sided.
A 10-year-old Texas boy was playing with friends outside a Houston-area apartment complex on Friday, Oct. 13 when a man approached, saying he wanted to play too, according to Harris County court documents.

After talking to the children, Colton Tyler Ryan, 27, singled out the 10-year-old, took him away from his friends and forced him into the apartments gym bathroom, documents said.

There, Ryan began taking pictures, according to documents. He wanted to get pictures with their arms wrapped around each others waists, and Ryan raised his voice at the boy and forced him to take the photo with him, documents said.

Ryan then sucked and bit on his neck like a vampire, the boy told investigators, causing him pain, according to court documents.

Ryan is also accused of downloading Facebook onto the boys phone so that he could reach out to him whenever he wanted.

He started messaging the boy at all hours of the day and night, asking to meet and play again, documents said. The boy and his mother noticed Ryan lurking around their apartment and circling the building, according to the documents.

The childs mom found the messages on his phone and called police, documents said.

Ryan was arrested and is facing a charge of injury to a child, records show.

Man grabbed girl off park bench and molested her, IN cops say. Hes going to prison

Woman found dead after texts with daughter revealed poisoning plot, Indiana cops say

4-year-old grabs loaded gun out of school employees backpack, Texas officials say

Trail of blood leads cops to severed head in bathtub of Texas home, police say
 Flash

Chinese-invested Siem Reap Angkor International Airport (SAI) in northwest Cambodia's tourist hub commenced operations on Monday, raising hope for tourism revitalization.

The first commercial flight operated by Bangkok Airways landed at the airport on Monday morning, receiving a warm welcome from Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister Vongsey Visoth.

Speaking at the event, Visoth said the SAI, with a 3,600-meters runway, is a 4E-level international airport that can accommodate long-distance flights from across the globe.

"The new airport will give a boost to the development of tourism in Siem Reap province in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era," he said. "It is a testament to the fruitful cooperation between Cambodia and China under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)."

Visoth said the SAI will contribute to the development of Cambodia's tourism, trade and economy in the long term, and local people in Siem Reap province will reap maximum benefits from this airport.

"This new airport will become a key catalyst to revitalize our tourism," he said. "It will not only support our economic growth, job creation, and poverty reduction, but also further integrate Cambodia into the region and the world."

The SAI has been invested by the Angkor International Airport Investment (Cambodia) Co., Ltd., an affiliate of China's Yunnan Investment Holdings Ltd.

Mao Havannall, minister in charge of the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA), said the airport will be able to handle 7 million air passengers per annum from 2024 and up to 12 million passengers annually from 2040.

"It is a historic milestone in the development of the aviation industry in Cambodia," he said. "This is also the fruit of the ironclad friendship and the Diamond Hexagon cooperation framework between Cambodia and China."

Covering a parcel of 700 hectares, the SAI is located in Sotr Nikum district, about 40 km from the UNESCO-listed Angkor Archeological Park and 50 km from Siem Reap provincial town.

With the commencement of SAI operations, the old Siem Reap International Airport was entirely closed, as all commercial flights of air passengers and cargo were transferred to the SAI, according to the SSCA.

Duch Sareth, vice president of the Siem Reap Chapter of Cambodia Association of Tourism, said the SAI would not only inject fresh impetus into the development of the tourism sector, but also contribute to improving the livelihoods of locals through job creation.

"It is a great boon for Siem Reap province, as the new airport can accommodate the landing of all kinds of large-scale planes," he told Xinhua. "I believe that this new airport will drive an increase in visitor numbers to Siem Reap province."

Sareth suggests that the new airport operator attract new international airlines to fly to Siem Reap province, so they can help bring more tourists, businesspeople and investors to Cambodia.

"In the medium-to-long term, I think that this new airport will help transform Siem Reap province into a bigger hub of tourism, trade and investment, and local people will directly benefit from it," he said.

Cambodia Tourism Federation president Din Somethearith said the SAI is a new "international gateway" to the cultural province of Siem Reap.

"It makes international passengers easier to travel to Siem Reap province," he told Xinhua. "This large and modern airport will add fresh momentum to the development of tourism, trade and investment in the province, and will importantly contribute to boosting Cambodia's sustainable economic growth in the long term."
A man was charged with attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of a security guard at a Red Line station Saturday afternoon in Chatham, according to Chicago police.

That same day, police arrested Andre Holland, 20, at about 4:35 p.m. in the 300 block of East 79th Street. He was also charged with aggravated battery/discharge of a firearm and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, police said in a Monday news release.

Police said they identified Holland as the gunman who shot and critically wounded a 22-year-old man Saturday at about 4:25 p.m. in the 0-100 block of West 79th Street. Police said Holland fled the scene after the shooting and they recovered a gun from him.

The victim was transported to University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition.

rjohnson@chicagotribune.com
Clark County Dist. Atty. Steve Wolfson stands beside a photo of Duane "Keffe D" Davis during a news conference last month in Las Vegas on an indictment in the 1996 slaying of rapper-actor Tupac Shakur. (John Locher / Associated Press)

Las Vegas Metro police had 27 years to make a case in the slaying of Tupac Shakur, but a new lawyer for the man accused of orchestrating the killing says authorities have no gun, no car and no witnesses.

The arraignment for Duane Keffe D Davis in Shakur's 1996 killing was delayed Thursday for a second time, postponed for two weeks while a new lawyer, Ross Goodman , seeks to take over legal representation.

Authorities have said some of the most compelling evidence in the shooting comes from the suspect himself.

But Goodman, the son of former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman , questioned how authorities could verify the stories Davis, a former Compton gang leader, has recounted of his involvement in the deadly confrontation on Sept. 7, 1996.

"As everyone here knows, you have to corroborate those statements. You don't have a car, you don't have a gun and you don't have witnesses to corroborate with what Mr. Davis said under those circumstances," Goodman said. "I believe there is an obvious defense to that  why he made those statements and a motive for making those statements."

Duane "Keffe D" Davis is led into the courtroom at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas on Oct. 4. Davis is charged in the 1996 fatal drive-by shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye / Las Vegas Review-Journal / Associated Press)

Prosecutors say Davis, who was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of murder with a firearm, didn't pull the trigger. He and Marion "Suge" Knight, the head of Death Row Records who was in the car with Shakur, are the only living witnesses.

Instead, Davis is accused of providing the gun and encouraging the killing as revenge for a beating that his nephew Orlando Anderson received at the hands of Shakur, Knight and other Mob Piru Blood gang members at the MGM Grand Hotel hours earlier.

Anderson, who was killed in a gang shootout in Compton a year and a half after Shakurs death, was long considered the gunman; The Times identified him as such in 1998. At the time of Shakur's shooting, he was in the back of the Cadillac with DeAndre "Big Dre" Smith, who died in 2004.

Davis identified Anderson as the shooter in 2008 when he finally talked to authorities with the protection of a proffer from the Los Angeles Police Department and FBI, meaning his statements could not be used against him.

In that interview, then-LAPD Det. Greg Kading asked whether Anderson, a.k.a. Baby Lane, was the shooter.

He leaned over, and Orlando rolled down the window and popped him," Davis replied. "If they would have drove on my side, I would have popped them. But they was on the other side."

Read more: Tupac Shakur's killing brought 10 days of hell to Compton. The bloodshed helped crack the case

Davis would go on to repeat that story in a series of internet and blog interviews.

But in his 2019 book, Compton Street Legend," Davis began to change the story.

Tupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath his seat, Davis wrote. It was the first and only time in my life that I could relate to the police command, Keep your hands where I can see them. Instead, Pac pulled out a strap, and thats when the fireworks started. One of my guys from the back seat grabbed the Glock and started bustin back.

Kading said that following the indictment, everything Davis said after the proffer and formal agreement with the U.S. attorney's office is fair game for investigators, and every interview just made it easier to eventually charge him in Shakur's death.

"He was the best witness against himself," Kading said. "Ego and greed caught up with him."

A visitor observes a display of late hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur during the exhibition "Tupac Shakur. Wake Me When I'm Free" in 2022 at L.A. Live in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press)

Standing outside the Clark County Courthouse on Thursday, Goodman said the statements to various media outlets and in Davis' book were made shortly after Davis was diagnosed with colon cancer.

"I don't know if that is a confession. That is a legal conclusion," the lawyer said, casting doubt on whether it was true.

"It is a big case. It has been 27 years in the making. ... I understand there is about 600 pages of grand jury transcripts. Can you imagine the amount of evidence  potentially of impeachment evidence  that comes along with all these witnesses?" Goodman said.

When Kading and LAPD's Daryl Dupree interviewed Davis in December 2008, they were seeking to solve the 1997 slaying of rapper Christopher Wallace, or "The Notorious B.I.G.," also known as Biggie Smalls.

LAPD Chief William J. Bratton set up a task force of senior homicide detectives to find the killer in the wake of a wrongful death lawsuit against the city by the rappers mother, Voletta Wallace.

Task force members never determined who gunned down Wallace after a music industry party at the Petersen Automotive Museum. But as they explored whether the Southside Crips or Knight and the Mob Pirus were behind the shooting, they discovered evidence in Shakur's slaying.

Kading said that Davis, under the proffer, could not incriminate himself in the interview. But the longtime gang member wanted to make money off Shakur's death, prosecutors say, and kept talking outside the police interview. "He has talked himself into a corner."

Read more: Who is Duane Davis, the man police just arrested in connection to Tupac's murder?

But Davis believed he still had immunity, and in 2022, told Cam Capone News that it was the only reason he was not in custody for Shakur's killing.

Kading said Davis orchestrated the slaying and Anderson fired the deadly shots, noting that Davis has added to his story over the years to make it sound like self-defense.

"When he was with us and he had to tell the truth, he gave us his [nephew's] name," Kading said. "Since then, he's been vague deliberately."

Kading said he has no doubt what Davis told LAPD detectives in that 2008 meeting is the truth because they had evidence of his role in a narcotics operation and bluntly told him to cooperate or face 25 years to life on federal drug charges.

Keffe, today what we're going to do, we're just going to go over with a fine-tooth comb the Las Vegas incident," Kading said at the time, according to transcripts. "But we do have to emphasize to you that everything in this report has to be right on, because if down the road it's determined that some of these details are incorrect, then everything's off the table."

Davis then describes how a .40-caliber Glock popped out of a concealed compartment in the Cadillac. Yeah. And I ain't ever told nobody that story, man, he said.

After being unable to find Shakur and Knight at a club where the rapper was due to perform, Davis said his crew made a U-turn after seeing Shakur's BMW and Anderson started shooting.

Read more: Why it took 27 years for an arrest in Tupac Shakur's Las Vegas killing

Kading asked whether Knight saw him. Davis replied, Yeah, he looked at me.  We've known each other since we was 7 or 8 years old."

Davis continued: "I see the bullet go in Suge's head. I thought he was dead. I thought he was dead. It must have scraped him or something, in the head or something.  I thought he was dead.

After the shooting, Compton police saw 10 days of hell, according to Robert Ladd, a former Compton detective who investigated Shakurs death and the retaliatory killings that spiraled from it. By its end, three people were dead and 10 were wounded.

An image of late rapper and actor Tupac Shakur appears among fans during a ceremony honoring Shakur with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 7 in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press)

Solving Shakurs killing was not the responsibility of the Compton police. But within a few weeks, they pieced together the deadly chain of events. An informant drew a line from Shakurs fatal shooting to a fight that broke out two months earlier at the Lakewood mall. An informant said a member of Mob Piru named Travon Lane was shopping at a Foot Locker when some Southside Crips confronted him and took his "Death Row necklace.

After watching Mike Tyson knock out Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand on the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur and his entourage spotted a lone Southside Crip in the casinos lobby, the source told detectives. Lane recognized him as one of the men who stole his necklace and pointed him out to Shakur, who had recently inked MOB on his arm, the informant said.

Thanks to Kading's 2011 book, "Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations by the Detective Who Solved Both Cases," Davis' statement was made public, and excerpts of his version of events made their way around the web.

By 2015, a documentary based on Kading's work included recordings of the interview with Davis, who was acting as if the 2008 proffer still granted him immunity. Davis, who had been diagnosed with colon cancer the year before, jumped into a cottage industry of books, documentaries and magazine articles exploring conspiracy theories involving the slayings of Shakur and Wallace.

Four clips of those interviews would be played for the grand jury that indicted Davis on a murder charge in Shakur's killing.

In the interviews, Davis claimed he sat in the passenger seat, with Terrence Bubble Up Brown driving and Anderson and Smith in the back. Davis said they went to Club 662, which was owned by Knight, to wait for Shakur to perform, but they left when the rapper didn't show. Then, while driving away, they saw Shakur stick his head out of a car after some girls yelled his name.

If he wouldnt even have been out the window, we would have never seen him, Davis said.

In subsequent interviews, Davis would repeat his account from the proffer interview and describe how his crew came upon Shakur's entourage: They hit a U-turn and then "boom boom."

Read more: Jada Pinkett Smith hopes for 'answers' and 'closure' after arrest in the murder of close friend Tupac Shakur

On the 25th anniversary of the fatal shooting, Davis did a 15-minute YouTube interview.

"Suge just ducked his head and the first bullet went in his head and the next ones hit him [Shakur] and he was trying to do a breakdance, trying to jump in the back seat or something. Looked like he was trying to jump up but bullets was hitting his ass. Once that windshield was shot out, pfff, it was over with after that."

Davis later bragged how the four men behind the killing "started drinking" after they drove away.

Two people associated with the Southside Crips gang testified to the grand jury in August that they believed Smith was the shooter. One said Anderson could not get off the shot from his position in the back seat of the Cadillac.

Prosecutors wouldn't identify the shooter, saying only that Davis handed the gun to one of the two men in the back seat.

"A lot of people bragged they shot Tupac; we know the reality," Kading said.

Davis was so overt with his statements, the former detective said, that he "forced Las Vegas Metro's hand with the public pronouncements." That, along with "dogged detective" Clifford Mogg wanting to make an arrest in the case before retiring, led to the indictment, Kading said.

Under Nevada law, prosecutors need only show that Davis aided and abetted the killing of Shakur. During a July search of his Henderson, Nev., home, investigators seized dozens of photos and other memorabilia related to the hip-hop artist's slaying.

Since his arrest last month, Davis remains in custody in Nevada. Goodman said if his representation of Davis is approved, he would seek release for his client. He said he wont become the attorney of record until he reaches an agreement with Davis on representation. A judge warned Davis that if he doesnt have any attorney within two weeks, a deputy public defender will be appointed.

"His spirits are fine right now," Goodman said. "He wants to fight the case."

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A federal judge sentenced a white man convicted of attempting to run down six Black men at the site of the Rosewood massacre last year to a single year in prison Thursday.

David Allen Emanuel, 62, appeared solemn and reserved as Judge Allen Winsor delivered Emanuels sentence on six counts of hate crimes for attempting to run over Historian Marvin Dunn, his son and four other Black men who were surveying Dunns Rosewood property to build a memorial for the massacre.

Winsor sentenced Emanuel to 12 months plus one day in federal prison for each of the six charges and allowed the sentences to run concurrently. The Justice Department had sought a substantial prison term of between five and six years.

Emanuel, a retired clam farmer in Levy County in north-central Florida, must surrender to report to prison no later than noon on Jan. 2, the judge said. He was also ordered to serve two years of supervised release after he finished his prison term.

David Emanuel Sr. talks to his supporters outside of the U.S. Federal Court House in Gainesville, Fla., after Judge Allen Winsor sentenced Emanuel to a total of six years and six days with two years of supervised release on Oct. 19, 2023.

Prior to the attack in September 2022, Emanuel shouted racial slurs at the group from his white Ford F-250  calling Dunn a "f----ing n----r"  and demanded the men leave the area.

After Dunn responded they were parked on a public road, Emanuel sped off only to return minutes later  his truck charging toward the group. Dunns son, Frederick Douglas Dunn, leaped into the grass, saving himself by mere inches. A jury convicted Emanuel over the summer.

Im relieved this is all over with, and I think that its fair, Dunn said.

More: Remembering Rosewood

At the hearing Thursday, family and supporters of Emanuel filled the defense side of the lopsided courtroom. Muffled sobs emanated from some as the judge read the sentence.

I do see hes provided a lot of value to the community, Winsor said. I dont think hes going to do something like this again ... but theres a need for general deterrence, and its clear he did it because of race.

Dunn, 83, and his son sat somberly on the opposite side, flanked by a handful of others.

Historian Marvin Dunn, left, and his son Frederick Dunn, right, stand outside of the U.S. Federal Court House in Gainesville, Fla., after David Emmanuel's sentencing on Oct. 19, 2023.

In an interview, the elder Dunn said the attack was the worst racial upheaval he's experienced since the Civil Rights era, but he and his son drove from their homes in Miami with a message of forgiveness.

Dunn submitted a letter last week on behalf of the other victims to the judge requesting mercy be shown to Emanual, not solely for him and his family, but to move on as a country.

For me, my faith requires forgiveness, and so I must, the letter read. [Race] is the thorn in our collective side, the unmovable rock in our common path. For America to become whole, the thorns and rocks must be removed. The victims in this case are hopeful that in our plea for mercy for Mr. Emanuel and his family, we are taking an important step toward the goal of removing these obstacles to healing.

Dr. Kenneth Nunn (Left) and Benjamin L. Crump (Right) mourn for the victims of the Rosewood massacre that occurred a hundred years ago during a wreath-laying ceremony, at Rosewood, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023.

More: Longest-living Rosewood survivor: 'I'm not angry'

When Dunn testified at trial, he was on the precipice of tears recounting how close Emanuel came to striking his son with his three-ton truck. But Dunn, a grandfather like Emanuel, stressed the impact a prison sentence would have on Emanuels family.

I know how valuable those grandpa years are, Dunn said after reading his letter to the judge. I assure the court we can live in peace as neighbors. Someone must take the first step toward peace.

While Winsor said he gave the letter much consideration, he felt probation would be an insufficient sentence as it doesnt serve to deter others from committing similar crimes.

In addition to Dunns letter, more than 30 letters of support were submitted by Emanuels friends and family requesting a light sentence. There were also four advocates of Emanuel who addressed the court prior to sentencing.

Cedar Key Police Chief Edward Jenkins, a Black man, told the court that hed never had any negative experiences with Emanuel during their many encounters.

A descendent of a family victimized during the 1923 Rosewood Massacre holds framed photos during a ceremony on Saturday at the Wright House to honor those who fought and died protecting families and property. A group of white men burned the Levy County community of Rosewood  home to more than 300 Black residents  to the ground during a weeklong siege. Descendants of the families terrorized during the massacre toured the Wright house, where owner John Wright hid residents from the violent mob, was the only structure left standing.

More: Rosewood reunion: Descendants of 1923 massacre victims visit Wright House

The courtroom was stifled with tension as the sentencing took over an hour to complete.

The defense argued that Emanuel has numerous health issues and that instead of prison he should be ordered to complete some form of racial sensitivity training, as punishment. He justified a light sentence by arguing that race had little to do with the incident and that Emanuels attack was an isolated event.

Race only became a factor after it began, said Emanuels defense attorney, Darren James Johnson.

Winsor, appointed by former president Donald Trump in 2019, was insistent throughout the hearing that race was the proven motive for the attack.

[Emanuel] didnt think those people were about to commit a home invasion, he said. They had every right to be out there that day. He did it because of race.

David Emanuel Sr. backs out of his spot at the U.S. Federal Court House in Gainesville, Fla., after being sentenced to a total of six years and six days with two years of supervised release on Oct. 19, 2023.

Outside court, Emanuel and roughly two dozen of his supporters congregated around his truck  a white Ford F-250 donning a Confederate flag, the exact likeness of the vehicle used in the attack.

In an interview Monday, Emanuel said he plans to sell his house and move to another part of town to remain close to his sons grave.

I'm not living across from a Rosewood memorial that thousands of Black people are going to come to," he said.

When the prosecution read that quote to the court, Dunn later said he was disheartened to hear it.

Id rather work with him as neighbors, Dunn said.

This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at lemnusj@freshtakeflorida.com.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Man gets prison time for racially motivated attack at Rosewood site
A 39-year-old man is facing murder charges in connection with a Aug. 1, 2022, fatal shooting outside the Old Landmark Tavern on Columbus' South Side.

A grand jury indicted a 39-year-old man injured in a August 2022 shooting involving a motorcycle club with murder.

Brody Sieber, of the South Side, was formally charged Thursday with two counts of murder and felonious assault, as well as a charge of having weapons under disability.

Columbus police said Sieber is responsible for the Aug. 1, 2022, shooting deaths of 50-year-old Glen Clark III and 34-year-old Nicholas Dowler.

The shooting occurred around 9:40 p.m. that night outside the Old Landmark Tavern, located on Rumsey Road on the city's South Side. Multiple 911 calls from the scene indicated the Avengers Motorcycle Club was involved and that multiple people suffered gunshots.

Clark was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

Previous coverage: 911 calls from Old Landmark Tavern shooting show chaotic scene on Far South Side

Four other people, including Dowler and Sieber, were taken to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center. Dowler later died from his injuries.

The following day, Columbus police searched the Franklinton-area headquarters of the motorcycle club for evidence.

According to court records, prosecutors are requesting a warrant for Sieber's arrest. He was not listed as being in custody in the Franklin County jail as of Thursday afternoon.

Anyone with information about the case or Sieber's whereabouts is asked to call detectives at 614-645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS.

bbruner@dispatch.com

@bethany_bruner

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Man hurt in motorcycle club shooting now charged with murder
The remains of a man who was killed 30 years ago were found on the property of a suspect serial killer in Indiana, according to police.

Coroner Jeff Jellison of Hamilton County, Indiana, announced on Tuesday that the bone fragment remains found on the property were those of Allen Livingston, a 27-year-old queer man who disappeared in 1993.

His remains were among 10,000 human remains investigators have collected over the years at an 18-acre farm called Fox Hollow in Westfield, Indiana, according to Law & Crime.

The property belonged to Herbert Baumeister, a suspected serial killer who died by suicide in 1996 shortly after police obtained a warrant for his arrest. He was being questioned at the time about a string of gay men who had gone missing from the area between the 1980s and 1990s.

Baumeister was implicated by a man named Tony Harris, who claimed to have met him at a gay bar in 1994 and was later allegedly nearly strangled while at his home.

Herbert Baumeister, a suspected serial killer, in a television interview with WISH-TV in the 1990s (screengrab/ WISH-TV)

Mr Harris told investigators at the time that he met Baumeister  who called himself "Brian Smart"  at a gay bar, and the men spent an evening getting to know each other before they went home together.

After returning to the Fox Hollow property, the men began to have sex, and Baumeister allegedly tried to strangle Mr Harris with a pool hose during intercourse. Mr Harris said he pretended to pass out, which dropped Baumeister's guard long enough for him to escape the Fox Hollow property.

Roger Goodlet, a friend of Mr Harris's, had gone missing around the same time. Mr Harris believes he was one of Baumeister's alleged victims.

Mr Harris reported what he thought was an attempt at his murder to police, but they could not locate the farm. A year later, Mr Harris ran into Baumeister again, and copied down his license plate number, which he then passed to police, according to WTHR.

Baumeister was married at the time to a woman and had a 15-year-old son. The teen discovered a human skull on the property in 1994, just as reports were emerging that gay men in the area were going missing.

When Baumeister's wife confronted him about the skull, he said it was likely left over from his father's work as a physician. She accepted that explanation for two years, but the couple eventually divorced.

As police began searching the site, they found bone fragments, a skull, and teeth on the property.

By the time police had solid evidence of human remains to justify an arrest warrant, Baumeister had already fled to Canada, where he died by suicide.

Police believe the more than 10,000 pieces of human remains recovered at the property represent approximately 25 individuals.

Mr Livingston's mother, Sharon, told WTHR last year that she believed his remains would be found on Baumeister's property.

I know that man got him, I just know, she told WTHR at the time. Im pretty sure they are going to find him. I just know they are.

She was proven right on Tuesday when it was announced his bone fragments were located on the property.

It was a member of Mr Livingston's family who pushed for an expedited identification process of the remains found on the site. Mr Livingston's cousin approached Mr Jellison and asked the coroner to speed up the identification process if at all possible.

What are the odds, out of 10,000 remains? Out of 10,000, we selected 44 and the first identification is a person from the family that initiated this whole thing, Mr Jellison said. Where does that come from?
Frederick Hopkins listens during his sentencing hearing in Florence, S.C., on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. Hopkins was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing two police officers and wounding five others in an October 2018 ambush at his Florence home (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins).

FLORENCE, S.C. (AP)  A 79-year-old man was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for fatally ambushing police at his South Carolina home.

Frederick Hopkins killed two officers, including the lead investigator in a sexual abuse case involving his son, and wounded five others in 2018. The Vietnam veteran, who was awarded medals for marksmanship, fired from a sniper's nest he set up behind an oak desk in the sunken den of his home in an upscale Florence neighborhood, said prosecutor Ed Clements.

The families of the officers killed and the wounded all asked for the life sentence after Hopkins agreed to plead guilty and prosecutors promised not to seek the death penalty.

Many of them hoped for the life sentence was short and uncomfortable for Hopkins, who entered court in a wheelchair.

"I'm sure he will have a swell time in prison for the few remaining months and years he has left. And after that I hope he enjoys the fires of hell," said Florence County deputy Sarah Miller, who spent 16 days in the hospital recovering from her wounds.

Hopkins was waiting for officers that day. They let his family know investigators were coming with a search warrant because someone in the home reported being sexually abused by Hopkins' adult son.

Miller said the officers arrived in polo shirts and knocked twice with no answer on Oct. 3, 2018. Hopkins suddenly opened the door and started firing.

Florence County Sheriffs deputy Farrah Turner was the main investigator in the sex abuse case. Miller said after seeing Turner was wounded, Hopkins shot her before retreating inside. She would undergo nine surgeries, including the amputation of her legs, because of blood loss, before dying from her injuries 19 days later.

Officers rushed to try to help but Hopkins, using a high-powered rifle pointed down his street that was straight for blocks, kept picking them off.

Florence Police Sgt. Terrence Carraway was killed with a bullet to the chest fired from at least 300 yards (275 meters) away, investigators said.

One officer kept waving the dozens of would-be rescuers pouring into the neighborhood away from the line of fire. An armored military vehicle had to be brought in from dozens of miles away to rescue the wounded, who were put on the beds of pickup trucks to be taken to ambulances. It took at least 30 minutes.

Miller and others hurt said they watched time pass on their cellphones, listening to dozens of shots being fired and not daring to make a noise because there might be other people waiting to finish them off. Most of the shots from police were fired into a second story window because the officers couldn't pinpoint where the gunfire was coming from, Clements said.

Hopkins pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder last week in an unannounced hearing more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from where the shootings took place.

He was sentenced to life for both murder charges and the maximum of 30 years in prison for each attempted murder charge.

Hopkins said he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder that night from a firefight in 1970 where 27 men in his 101st Airborne Division were killed. His defense introduced a report from David Ferrier, a private investigator who works with Vietnam veterans, who reviewed his military and health records.

After reading the report, Hopkins stopped insisting he was acting in self defense and agreed to plead guilty, defense attorney Boyd Young said.

Ferrier's report cited a long history of PTSD claims from Hopkins since his 1977 medical discharge from the Army and cited a doctor saying he appeared to have the onset of dementia shortly before the shooting.

While they can in no way ameliorate the tragedy of his actions I firmly believe they provide a genesis for the explosion which resulted in the death of these two officers, Ferrier wrote.

That defense irritated many of the victims and their families.

"I served in two wars. Never have I mistaken anybody for being my enemy. You shot me from over 300 yards  lined up the sight, looked down the barrel and pulled the trigger," Florence police officer Travis Scott said. Last time I checked, I didn't look like somebody who you were fighting in a war in Vietnam.

The sexual abuse case against Hopkins' son moved foreword and 33-year-old Seth Hopkins is serving 20 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2019 to second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor.

Hopkins, an attorney who agreed to give up his law license in 1984 after he was accused of taking $18,000 of fees improperly, had interrupted previous hearings with rants about how the legal system was railroading him or to insult the prosecutor.

On Thursday, he said nothing at all in court.

Defense lawyers, prosecutors and the judge kept much of the case away from reporters. In June, they all agreed to close the courtroom to the media and the public during pre-trial hearings and kept all motions and records off South Carolinas public court records site.

Clements said the families of the dead and the wounded officers agreed to the life sentence, knowing at 79 Hopkins was never going to see the execution chamber.

If anybody deserves the death penalty it might be Mr. Hopkins, Clements said. We had what we needed to go for the death penalty. We just didnt have enough time.

When Hopkins was told of Turner's death weeks after the shooting, he replied he was just taking out the trash, according to his monitored phone calls from jail.

Turner's mother had no pity for him either.

I hope the general population treats you in the manner you truly deserve for the rest of your worthless natural life, Katie Godwin said in a statement read in court by her niece.
A Volusia County jury Wednesday convicted two men of different charges in the killing of a third man.

Toriano Brooks, 31, of Palatka, was convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm. Brooks was sentenced to life in prison after the verdict.

Toriano Brooks

His co-defendant, Isaiah Devonta Moore, 24, of Crestview, was convicted of manslaughter with a firearm. Moore will face up to 30 years in prison at his sentencing, which has not yet been scheduled.

"These defendants have no respect for the sanctity of human life. As soon as they killed the victim, they were flashing stacks of cash on social media," 7th Circuit State Attorney R.J. Larizza stated in a press release. "Brooks will now spend the rest of his life behind bars for the murder. We will also be seeking the maximum penalty for Moore."

Moore and Brooks shot Kavon Banks, 35, of Deltona, while riding in a car on June 20, 2021, according to investigators. Montrez Hamilton, 30, of DeLand, was driving the car.

Isaiah Devonte Moore

After shooting Banks, Moore and Brooks dumped his body on the side of State Road 415 near the intersection of Lake Ashby Road, investigators said. Banks suffered four gunshot wounds.

A motorist saw the car leaving, discovered the body and called the sheriff's office.

Hamilton pleaded no contest Feb. 10, 2022, to accessory after the fact to a life felony, a second-degree felony. Hamilton is set to be sentenced Oct. 26.

A day before Banks was shot, Brooks had been at a DeLand apartment with Hamilton planning on "making money" according to a charging affidavit.

After a three-day trial this afternoon, a Volusia County jury found defendant Toriano Brooks guilty as charged of Second-Degree Murder (Firearm). His co-defendant Isaiah Moore was found guilty of Manslaughter with a Firearm.



More: https://t.co/pUfyOuEISF pic.twitter.com/wiwGTb9DaU  State Attorney, Florida's Seventh Judicial Circuit (@SAO7FL) October 18, 2023

Brooks was seen with a large amount of cash while in Palatka, according to his arrest report.

Banks' mother and girlfriend told investigators they last saw Banks on June 20, 2021, riding off in a car driven by Hamilton, accompanied by another man the women didn't recognize, investigators said.

The Volusia Sheriff's Office investigated the case. Assistant State Attorneys Mark Interlicchio and Julie Ozburn prosecuted the pair. Circuit Judge Karen Foxman presided.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: 2 men convicted of killing Deltona resident, 1 sentenced to life
Investigators with the Atlanta Police Department are asking for your help to find a man wanted for multiple crimes involving fraud, larceny and robbery.

APD released photos of the suspect who they say robbed a woman at a bank two months ago.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Police said on Aug. 9, officers responded to 2595 Martin Luther Kling Jr Dr Southwest about a fraud/swindle.

When officers got to the location, they spoke with the victim, Emma Bostic.

She said she had withdrawn cash from the Wells Fargo Bank on 612 Lee Street and placed it inside her purse. As she left the bank, she was approached by the suspect and he asked her for a ride to the train station.

After she dropped him off at the West End Marta Station, she discovered the $150 she had just withdrawn from the bank was missing from her purse. The investigation continues.

Police said the same suspect appears to be involved in other related crimes involving, armed robbery, larceny, and fraud/swindle.

TRENDING STORIES:

Anyone with information can submit a tip anonymously to the Crime Stoppers Atlanta tip line at 404-577-8477, or online at www.StopCrimeAtl.org.

People who give information are eligible for a reward of up to $2,000 for the arrest and indictment of the suspect.

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Ugandas President Yoweri Museveni says security forces are on the trail of an ISIS-linked rebel group blamed for the killing of two foreign newlyweds celebrating their honeymoon at a popular tourist destination in the country.

The couple was killed Tuesday alongside their local safari guide at the Queen Elizabeth National Park in southwestern Uganda, police said, adding that the victims vehicle was also set ablaze by their killers.

Ugandas Wildlife Authority said the newlyweds were British and South African nationals but did not provide their names. It added that the national park was safe and secure for visitors despite the tragedy.

President Museveni, who described the killing as a cowardly act, said the ADF rebels were fleeing a Ugandan military operation when they spotted and killed the tourists Tuesday evening.

These terrorists will pay with their own wretched lives, Museveni said in a statement Wednesday.

However, killing these wretched individuals will not bring back the lives of these wonderful friends of Uganda who had chosen our country for their honeymoon out of the 193 countries of the world, he added.

Our High Commission in the UK will reach out to their families and provide whatever support is necessary in this tragic situation, the president further said.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni - Abubaker Lubowa/Reuters

Following the killing, Britains foreign office warned UK nationals to avoid nonessential travel to Queen Elizabeth National Park.

In an updated travel advice on Wednesday, the UKs foreign office further advised against trips to Semuliki National Park, also located in western Uganda and the area immediately southwest of Kasese.

Kasese was the scene of a brutal ADF attack in June when its fighters invaded a school, killing dozens of students, some as young as 12.

The Ugandan military has struggled to restrain the ADF from carrying out deadly attacks in the densely populated East African nation.

On Sunday, Museveni said police foiled an attempt by the ADF to bomb churches in central Ugandas Butambala district.

The ADF was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 2021 and was sanctioned by the United Nations in 2014.

According to Museveni, Ugandas security forces are on the verge of wiping out the ADF despite attempts by the group to commit some random terrorist acts.

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A Marine was killed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, on Wednesday night and authorities apprehended another Marine "suspected of involvement in the death," according to the service.

Marine Corps officials described the incident as a homicide in a press release late Wednesday night, though no details on the suspect or victim were released.

The homicide occurred in an on-base barracks room, according to the release, and the suspect was arrested at approximately 10:15 p.m.

Read Next: Navy Presence Off Israel Grows as USS Mount Whitney Deploys to Region with Senior Admiral Aboard

The Marines did not include the unit of those involved, or how the homicide was carried out.

"Further details will be provided as they become available," the statement said.

On Friday, the base is set to conduct Exercise Urgent Response, a sprawling training event that will last a week and focuses on security and response measures within the installation.

Camp Lejeune is one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the country and is home to the II Marine Expeditionary Force. There are several other major commands on the base, including a Navy command. According to the base's website, approximately 170,000 residents live on the base and in the surrounding community, including many retirees, civilian employees and their families.

The Associated Press reported that a Marine was shot and wounded in a barracks at Camp Lejeune in 2021. The investigation of that shooting concluded that it was accidental, the news service said.

This latest fatal incident is not the only one to have hit the Lejeune community in the last several months.

Three lance corporals were found dead inside a car at a gas station southwest of Camp Lejeune in July. Authorities said that the Marines died from carbon monoxide poisoning, but local police did not fully determine how the three were exposed to the deadly gas.

The Marine Corps as a whole had a tragic summer, including two known aircraft incidents resulting in death and a negligent discharge that killed a Marine at Camp Pendleton, California.

-- Drew F. Lawrence can be reached at drew.lawrence@military.com. Follow him on X @df_lawrence.

Related: Local Police Can't Explain How 3 Marines Found Dead in Car Were Exposed to Carbon Monoxide
 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF).

Xi said Putin has attended the BRF three times in a row, demonstrating Russia's support for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Lauding Russia as an important partner as China pursues international Belt and Road cooperation, Xi said the operation of major infrastructure projects such as the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline has brought tangible benefits to the people of both countries.

China is willing to work with Russia and other member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to promote the alignment of the BRI with the EAEU, so as to foster higher-level and deeper regional cooperation, Xi said.

China hopes that the China-Mongolia-Russia natural gas pipeline project will make substantive progress as soon as possible, he added.

It is not an expediency, but a long-term policy to develop the China-Russia relations featuring permanent good-neighborly friendship, comprehensive strategic coordination and mutually beneficial cooperation, Xi said.

China supports the Russian people in pursuing the path of national rejuvenation independently and safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests, he said, calling on the two sides to promote high-quality development of China-Russia practical cooperation and actively explore cooperation in strategic emerging industries.

The historic BRICS membership expansion shows the confidence of developing countries in promoting multipolarity in the world and greater democracy in international relations, Xi said.

Xi expressed support for Russia in hosting a successful BRICS summit in Kazan next year.

China is willing to continue to strengthen communication and coordination with Russia within the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the G20 and other multilateral frameworks, so as to play a greater role in maintaining food security, energy security and the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, and to safeguard the common interests of China and Russia as well as regional and developing countries, Xi said.

Putin said the BRI has achieved great success and has become an important international public good widely recognized by the world, expressing his confidence in greater achievements of this great cause.

The evolution of the international situation fully confirms President Xi's strategic judgment of profound changes unseen in a century, said Putin.

He said Russia is willing to strengthen communication and collaboration with China within multilateral mechanisms such as BRICS, uphold the international system based on international law, and promote the establishment of a more just and reasonable global governance system.

Russia is willing to take the opportunity of celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries next year to further promote the development of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, he added.

Xi and Putin also had in-depth exchanges of views on the Palestine-Israel situation and others.

Senior Chinese officials including Cai Qi and Wang Yi attended the event.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene , who has long downplayed the January 6 riot that claimed five lives, has denounced a peaceful protest on Capitol Hill as an insurrection and demanded that the police preserve surveillance footage of the protesters.



Hundreds of Jewish American activistsmany of them members of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist groupheld a sit-in at a House of Representatives building on Wednesday to demand a cease-fire in Gaza. It was too much for Greenes delicate sensibilities, apparently.

The Georgia congresswoman says she will ask the House to censure Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, who Greene says organized the protest. She also filed a request with the Capitol Police to preserve all video surveillance footage, photographic evidence, police reports, and arrest records from the House office buildings.

This is coming from the same person who has referred to the January 6 rioters as political prisoners, suggested they were following what our Declaration of Independence says ... to overthrow tyrants, and said that if she and former President Donald Trump had led the attack on the Capitol, they would have won.

At yesterdays sit-in at the Cannon House Office Building, activists carried signs demanding a cease-fire and chanted, Not in our name. More than 500 people, including Rabbis, were arrested by Capitol Police, organizers estimated.

Tlaib spoke to a section of the protest outside the Capitol Building, calling on President Joe Biden to rethink his unequivocal support for Israel in the war.



President Biden, not all Americans are with you on this one and you need to understand that. We are literally watching people commit genocide and killing the vast majority just like this, and we still stand by and say nothing. We will remember this, she told the crowd.
The first ill winds of COVID seem like a decade ago. The battles over vaccines and masks seem like a bitter memory. But a trickle of news over some upticks in cases proves that the issue has not completely disappeared, and the Texas Legislature may end at least one battle that has simmered since its flashpoint in 2020.

Senate Bill 7, the work of Galveston Republican Mayes Middleton, passed the Senate last week on a party line vote of 19-12. It prohibits employers from firing or punishing employees or contractors for refusing the COVID vaccine. As it makes its way to the House, it is worth revisiting the path of this debate over the duration of our long nightmare journey through a dangerous virus, shifting science and controversial government reactions.

Policy decisions that look terrible in hindsight deserved somewhat more latitude when COVID first shook our world. Fear was rampant. Case numbers skyrocketed. Death totals filled every headline. The promise of a vaccine brought hope that was eagerly embraced not just as an individual rescue but a societal obligation. Vaccine skeptics were pilloried as rubes and eventually as outright villains. Vaccine advocates were blasted for presumptuousness and gullibility.

Inside that cauldron, a question arose: Should businesses be able to require employees to get the shot? As a vaccinated conservative nonetheless open to the opinions of others, my first default setting was to lean toward the rights of individual businesses to craft their own rules. This was an echo back to my long-vanquished position that establishments wishing to permit smoking should be able to do so, with clients and workers free to enter the buildings of their choice.

But this was more than a matter of of avoiding second-hand smoke; this was the prospect of workers forced to accept a freshly released vaccine into their bodies as a condition for feeding their families. The efficiency of Operation Warp Speed did not scare me, and I noted the waves of overreaction. Every mysterious death was pinned to the vax; online posts spread widely of contrived effects such as magnetized spoons stuck to foreheads.

But well within the realm of responsible adulthood was a position that said, I am responsible for my own health, and I have assessed my opinion of this brand new vaccine, and my decision is to decline it. Should that view cost people their jobs?

The passage of time has shown the broad errors of some of the initial vaccine pushes, most notably the wholly discredited assertion that it would effectively stem the virus spread. The vaccine soon took on the appeal of a tool individuals could seek if they wished to mitigate the severity of a COVID infection, a benefit that actually did pan out.

But the social stigma of unvaxxed status waned for all but the most ardent vaccine acolytes, and with it the logic for employers to require it. Even if one argued that employers would wish for a healthier workplace with fewer sick days, businesses dont exactly police diet, exercise and personal vices that will always be greater factors in employee attendance.

So with the argument for employer vaccine mandates diminished, the next square in the flow chart asks: Is this something employers should be barred from doing? There are all kinds of rules and requirements we might run across in the job market. Some might strike us as odd, even onerous. But is a vaccine mandate an option that should be outlawed?

Answers may vary from state to state, and person to person. Enthusiasm for vax mandates has been the general province of liberalism, while conservatism has usually argued against them. That means in our red state of Texas, the expected prevailing view says that we are not going to have people fired for saying no to the COVID shot. There are blue states that remain free to maintain the practice. As our nations founders envisioned, the states are a diverse collection of laboratories featuring the practiced wishes of a majority of residents.

Blanket vaccine refusal is not an absolute right. Schools, the military and countless employers may require inoculations of various types. Objectors are free to find environments free of such obligations. Similarly, a business does not have an absolute right to require them. This is a textbook case of competing interests, inviting the ideal solution in a free society  an answer determined by the citizenry.

A new vaccine that was offered promptly upon the arrival of a new virus is now viewed by a majority of Texans as a health decision people should be able to make for themselves, without fear of private workplace sanctions. As such, the passage of Senate Bill 7 was proper, and the House should follow suit.

Mark Davis hosts a morning radio show in Dallas-Fort Worth on 660-AM and at 660amtheanswer.com. Follow him on Twitter: @markdavis.

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I use my slow cooker all year, but its about to get a real workout over the next few months. Nothing signals the change to the fall season like holding a bowl of soup or stew. It starts by warming your hands long before it warms up your insides. Oftentimes, its better than a blanket.

Gumbo is perfect meal to warm up with this fall.

One of my favorites is a dish made famous by our fun-loving state to the southwest, Louisiana. Gumbo is on my list of comfort foods, especially when theres a chill in the air.

Even the name of this dish is fun and is a derivative of the African word for okra. Thats understandable since okra is a key ingredient in this combination of vegetables, meats and seafood. The okra serves as a thickener for the mixture and if its not used, file powder is the substitute. Its dried sassafras leaves that have been ground.

More: Market basket: Get a pile of napkins ready for this one

There are oodles of recipes for gumbo, but all begin with a roux, which is the other thickener. A roux is a low and slow cooked equal mixture of flour and fat. The color of the finished roux is determined by the length of time it is cooked, so it can range from blond to brown. This step is essential to the success of the finished gumbo.

Paul Prudhomme made his Gumbo Ya Ya famous in the 1970s by touting it as containing everything that runs, swims or crawls. And most recipes do have a long list of ingredients. Tomatoes, onions and typically at least a couple of proteins are in every recipe.

Green gumbo is a tradition during the Easter season. Its made on Maundy Thursday and enjoyed on Good Friday. It is so named due to the seven different herbs and greens in the stew, including spinach, mustard and collard greens.

You asked for it

Sandra Henderson of Atlanta writes, I have a recipe calling for Groviera cheese that Im having a very hard time locating. Would you provide me with a substitute?

Sandra,

Groviera (also spelled Gruviera) is an Italian version of Gruyere cheese, which is Swiss. Use it as a substitute since both are rich with a sweet nutty flavor.

Tammy Algood is the author of five cookbooks and can be seen on Volunteer Gardener on PBS stations in Tennessee. Follow her at www.hauteflavor.com

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Market basket: Rev up the slow cooker, it's gumbo time
A Maryland police officer was taken into custody Thursday after prosecutors charged him with attacking police during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Justin Lee, who was hired by the Montgomery County Police Department in January 2022, faces seven criminal charges over his alleged role in the riot, including counts for impeding police and assaulting an officer. The 25-year-old made headlines in March when police said he shot and killed a teenager suspected in the stabbings of four people who ran at Lee with a knife, an incident that remains under investigation. A police spokeswoman told The Washington Post that the department intends to fire Lee, who was suspended without pay after the indictment against him.

Read it at The Washington Post

Read more at The Daily Beast.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said a Maryland police officer was arrested and is facing charges for his alleged participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol.

In a news release, authorities said Justin Lee of Rockville, Md., was arrested Thursday in Washington, D.C., and was indicted on seven charges, including felony offenses of civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers.

Lee, 25, was also charged with several misdemeanor offenses, including entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds.

According to court documents, Lee forcibly assaulted a law enforcement officer and obstructed, impeded, or interfered with a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder on the day of the insurrection.

Lee is also accused of entering and remaining in the U.S. Capitol grounds while [former Vice President Mike Pence] was and would be temporarily visiting without lawful authority to do so and engaging in disruptive conduct, physical violence, and disorderly conduct while on restricted grounds of the Capitol, court documents said.

According to The Washington Post, Lee applied to join the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) six months after the insurrection occurred, becoming a police officer in January 2022.

MCPD spokesperson Shiera D. Goff told the Post that Lee  who was involved in a fatal shooting of a 19-year-old man suspected of stabbing multiple people in and around a local shopping center  has been suspended without pay, and the department is moving forward with firing him from his position.

The Hill has reached out to the MCPD for comment and more information.

This comes as federal authorities have arrested and charged more than 1,100 individuals in connection to the deadly riot that disrupted a joint session of Congress that was in the process of counting the electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election.

More than 400 individuals have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, which is a felony.

Lee will make his initial court appearance Thursday, the DOJ noted.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
FILE - Insurrections loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. A Maryland police officer who fatally shot a stabbing suspect earlier this year was arrested Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, on charges that he assaulted police during a mob's Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Montgomery County Police Department said in a news release that it has suspended Officer Justin Lee without pay and is "taking steps to terminate his employment" after his indictment on felony charges. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP)  A Maryland police officer who fatally shot a stabbing suspect earlier this year was arrested Thursday on charges that he assaulted police during a mob's Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Montgomery County Police Department said in a news release that it has suspended Officer Justin Lee without pay and is "taking steps to terminate his employment" after his indictment on felony charges.

The police department said it hired Lee roughly one year after the Jan. 6 riot and didn't know about his alleged involvement in the attack until July 2023, when it learned he was under FBI investigation.

The actions of one individual do not define the entire department, the department said.

Lee, 25, of Rockville, Maryland, had been on administrative leave since he shot and killed a man suspected of stabbing four people on July 22, 2023, according to the police department.

Officers had responded to calls for a stabbing at a thrift store in Silver Spring, Maryland, before they confronted the suspect, who was holding a foot-long butchers knife. The suspect ignored officers commands to drop the knife and lunged at Lee before the officer shot him, police said in a news release.

One of the four stabbing victims was critically injured, police said. After the shooting, Assistant Police Chief Darren Francke told reporters that all of the victims were expected to survive the attacks, which he described as unprovoked.

Lee was arrested in Washington, D.C., on the Jan. 6 charges and was expected to make his initial court appearance on Thursday, according to the U.S. Attorneys office for the District of Columbia.

Lee hasn't been performing a police officers duties since the July shooting, the department said. His unpaid suspension stems from his arrest on Jan. 6 charges.

A federal grand jury indicted Lee on seven counts, including felony charges of civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding police. The indictment charges Lee with assaulting a Metropolitan Police Officer but doesn't provide a detailed account of the attack.

An attorney for Lee, Terrell Roberts III, didnt immediately respond to an email and telephone call seeking comment.

The police department said Lee applied to be a Montgomery County police officer in July 2021, six months after the riot. The police department said it thoroughly investigates the background of job applicants but is reviewing that process to determine whether adjustments need to be made.

Lees involvement in the January 6 insurrection was not discovered during this process, as he was not identified by the Justice Department in connection with the event," the department said.

More than 100 police officers were injured during clashes with rioters supporting then-President Donald Trump. Over 1,100 people, including several current or former law enforcement officers, have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes.

__

This story was first published on October 19, 2023. It was updated on October 20, 2023, to correct Darren Franckes title. He is an assistant police chief, not the police chief.
A Massachusetts town has been ranked among the top 25 best places to live in America, according to a new analysis.

Niche compiled its 2023 Best Places to Live in America ranking based on factors including quality of public schools, cost of living, and crime and safety.

Four of the top places to live on the list are suburbs of Philadelphia, while a suburb of Boston just missed cracking the top 10.

The Norfolk County town of Brookline ranked 12th on Niches list, earning the following grades:

Public Schools: A+

Housing: C+

Good for Families: A+

Crime and Safety: B-

Nightlife: A+

Diversity: A-

Jobs: B

Cost of Living: C

Outdoor Activities: A+

Weather: B-

Health and Fitness: A+

Commute: A+

In its report on Brookline, Niche wrote, Brookline is a suburb of Boston with a population of 62,620. Brookline is in Norfolk County and is one of the best places to live in Massachusetts. Living in Brookline offers residents an urban feel and most residents rent their homes. In Brookline, there are a lot of bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and parks. Many young professionals live in Brookline and residents tend to be liberal. The public schools in Brookline are highly rated.

Wayland, Cambridge, Newton, Williamston, Lexington, Cochituate, Wellesley, and Arlington also earned noteworthy rankings:

Wayland: 53rd

Cambridge: 62nd

Williamstown: 132nd

Newton: 148th

Cochituate: 171st

Lexington 191st

Wellesley: 266th

Arlington: 301st

View Niches full ranking here.

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A U.S. Navy warship based at Naval Station Mayport took out three missiles that had been fired from Yemen and were heading north, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The officials said the USS Carney, a Navy destroyer, was in the Red Sea and intercepted the three missiles. It wasnt immediately certain if they were aimed at Israel. One of the officials said the U.S. does not believe the missiles were aimed at the ship.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations not yet announced.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Last week, in Yemens Sanaa, which is held by the Houthi rebels still at war with a Saudi-led coalition, demonstrators crowded the streets waving Yemeni and Palestinian flags. The rebels slogan long has been, God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse of the Jews; victory to Islam.

Last week, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the rebel groups leader, warned the United States against intervening in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, threatening that his forces would retaliate by firing drones and missiles.

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Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) scolded Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) during a closed-door GOP conference meeting Thursday, telling the Florida Republican to sit down when he tried to interrupt McCarthys remarks.

The interaction came as House Republicans met for almost four hours to consider possible paths forward as the conference struggles to coalesce around a candidate for Speaker after Gaetz led a group of eight Republicans who joined with Democrats to oust McCarthy. The conference nominated Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for the post, but he has failed on two floor votes to secure the gavel.

Lawmakers described the meeting as intense.

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At one point, while speaking at the mics during the gathering, McCarthy mentioned Gaetz by name, according to a source in the room. Gaetz stood up to kind of interrupt him and say something, per a second source in the room.

McCarthy then shot back, according to the second source.

Sit your ass down, McCarthy said, according to the source, prompting Gaetz to say something back.

The second source said Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) was ready to lunge across the room.

McCarthy said he did not yell at Gaetz.

I was at the mic, I was speaking and Matt Gaetz tried to interrupt, McCarthy said. I told him to sit down.

I think the entire conference screamed at him, McCarthy added. Listen, the whole country, I think, would scream at Matt Gaetz right now. Remember, it was the crazy eight led by Matt Gaetz and every single Democrat that put us into this situation.

Gaetz, for his part, said he thought McCarthy was yielding to me since he had mentioned me.

He gets his Irish up sometimes, Gaetz added. Im not a very emotional person. Im a lawyer by trade, not a baker, and so Im used to the presentation of arguments and the listening of arguments without getting hot under the collar.

Axios first reported the interaction.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
That hospital bombing narrative so many people seemed so sure about yesterday? It totally fell apart.

"Hundreds of people were feared dead after an explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 17," reads the New York Times' updated reporting, which tellingly leans on passive voice. "Hamas, which controls Gaza, blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike," says the Times. "Israel said it was caused by an errant rocket fired by another armed group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which denied the assertion."

The New York Times' own reporting from yesterday was disturbingly credulous, taking Hamas' self-serving wordsthat the strike had been carried out by Israel's military, cruelly targeting innocent civiliansfar too seriously. Under a headline referencing the alleged hundreds killed in the "Israeli strike" on the hospital, the Times used an image of the bombed-out southern city of Khan Younis.

New: "As anger rises across the Middle East" Wow, @NYTimes, I wonder why? Then: "Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say" pic.twitter.com/glwH2lv72A  Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) October 18, 2023

The Times wasn't the only one. CBS did a segment where they "spoke to a doctor who says Israel's army had previously warned the facility to evacuate." BBC, CNN, and the Times all sent out push notifications that blamed the attack on Israel. A BBC headline read "Hundreds killed in Israeli strike on Gaza hospital" and cited "Palestinian officials" (most likely Hamas, which would have every reason to blame it on Israel). The "disinformation" journalist brigade was similarly asleep at the wheel (or worse), writes Reason's Robby Soave.

As I wrote yesterday, we simply did not know very much at the time. We cannot make sweeping pronouncements about who did it when we are waiting for more information to emerge. Doing so has ripple effectslike setting off waves of protests in a dozen major cities of the world and inspiring protesters to throw Molotov cocktails at U.S. and Israeli embassies.

What we know now: Israeli and U.S. intelligence indicates that a rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group allied with Hamas, did not properly launch and instead exploded on hospital grounds at Gaza's Al-Ahli Arab hospital. We do not know how many people died.

"From the video released publicly, the explosion is consistent with a rocket that still had a lot of rocket fuel at the time of impact," says Mick Mulroy, an ABC News national security analyst who was formerly deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, a CIA officer, and a U.S. Marine, per ABC reporting. "The main post-explosion signature is that of fire, all of the cars are burned," says Eric Oehlerich for ABC News. "This is consistent with a rocket full of fuel that has been knocked out of a straight-line trajectory." U.S. Defense Department officials say they are "fairly confident" the strike did not come from Israel.

Abroad: President Joe Biden says he brokered an aid deal between Israel and Egypt that will get food, water, and medical supplies into Gaza. A massive percentage of Gaza's population has been displaced, fleeing their homes, and hospitals in the area are expected to run out of fuel for generators any hour now. "Gaza's only oncology hospital has already stopped services such as radiology," reports Al Jazeera. It remains unclear whether aid will actually pass through the Egypt-Gaza border, where it has been waiting for several days, and when it will actually begin to help alleviate people's suffering.

At home: Rep. Jim Jordan (ROhio), once a favorite for House speaker, has lost two ballots. "As the Ohio Republican weighs whether to convene the GOP conference in private to discuss a path forward, at least one colleagueRep. Jack Bergman (RMich.)is already beginning to place calls to build support if the Judiciary chair drops out, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter," reports Politico.

"Even former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (RCalif.), who spent years building goodwill with the GOP conferenceand weeks negotiating with his hardline criticsdid not face this level of entrenched opposition," reports Axios. You know things are very bad when even Kevin McCarthy is more beloved by colleagues than you are.

"I want it to be somebody who is not terribly polarized, who will understand that in divided government you're not going to get everything you want," Rep. Steve Womack (RArk.) told Politico, claiming there's pretty much nobody interested in the position who would be sufficient.

Scenes from New York: Will Staten Island secede? And will anyone miss them?

Outrage over migrants housed on Staten Island has revived talk of the borough seceding from New York City. Resident Iran Colon says it is an "issue that New York City is throwing on Staten Island like it did with the dump."https://t.co/7czitXBJ32  Gothamist (@Gothamist) October 13, 2023

QUICK HITS

NYU Law students do not understand what the word violence means.

"Yes, this is one of those letters." Another donor pulls his funding from the University of Pennsylvania over it hosting what he calls an "antisemitic Burning Man festival," among other things.

The rot in academia keeps showing itself. This time, a University of California, Davis professor advocating forhunting down journalists and their kids?

Tune into Reason 's YouTube channel to watch Zach Weissmueller and me interview foreign policy expert Trita Parsi at 1 p.m. Eastern today.

This:

I'm used to this kind of whining inside media organizations, but I'm a little baffled that these staffers thought their job would be to set US foreign policy through emotive workplace conversations https://t.co/rIU6l3Ixk6  Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 18, 2023

Everyone in this workplace pronouns situation seems annoying. Just do your jobs!

California Gov. Gavin Newsom goes to China.

Finland stops allowing real estate transactions with Russian buyers.

"The tyranny of ESG has run its course," writes Merryn Somerset Webb for Bloomberg .

A palate cleanser from all-around cool guy Arthur Brooks: "Aristotle's 10 Rules for a Good Life."

The post Media Got the Hospital Story Wrong appeared first on Reason.com.
 Flash

The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has effectively promoted the progress of our planet, said foreign leaders and experts, vowing to deepen Belt and Road cooperation to achieve higher-quality and higher-level common development in the next "golden decade."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the BRI has achieved great success and has become an important international public good widely recognized by the world, expressing his confidence in greater achievements of this great cause.

He added that Russia is willing to strengthen communication and collaboration with China within multilateral mechanisms such as BRICS, uphold the international system based on international law, and promote the establishment of a more just and reasonable global governance system.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said here Wednesday that Kazakhstan plans to build 1,300 km of new railways in the next three years in synergy with the Belt and Road Initiative.

"Following the fundamental interests of the people of Kazakhstan and China, the spirit of friendship and eternal strategic partnership, our country is firmly committed to further promoting the high goals of the Belt and Road Initiative," Tokayev said at the opening of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

"Within three years, we plan to build 1,300 km of new railway tracks. We are going to open a third railway border crossing on the Kazakh-Chinese border, as well as build new dry ports," Tokayev said.

"All of these are real examples of the coupling of major economic projects in Kazakhstan" with the BRI, the president added.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo also called on all partner countries to collectively make the BRI stronger and more impactful.

"I would like to thank the Chinese government and President Xi Jinping for their contributions to developing countries through the BRI. I hope the synergy of BRI in infrastructure development can always be strengthened," said Widodo on Wednesday at the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing.

During his speech, Widodo mentioned Indonesia's newly-launched and operated Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway, a flagship project under the scheme of the BRI.

"Let's move forward persistently together to promote economic development and realize people's welfare," Widodo said.

Hailing China as a "true friend" of Argentina, President Alberto Fernandez said the Belt and Road cooperation has created important opportunities for developing countries and played an irreplaceable role in promoting world peace, fairness and sustainable development.

Argentina will work with China to support multilateralism and strengthen communication and coordination within the frameworks of the G20 and BRICS cooperation mechanism, Fernandez said.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Wednesday that as one of the largest transnational infrastructure programs, the BRI is facilitating integration and sustainable growth.

Large-scale investments in infrastructure and strengthened commercial ties have boosted the continent's economic development, Ahmed said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that projects under the BRI are changing landscapes and helping improve livelihoods worldwide.

Guterres added the concept of Green Silk Road under the BRI provides an important opportunity to fast-track sustainable and climate-resilient development to protect lives and livelihoods.

The Green Silk Road can be a critical part of this process to fast-track a fair, equitable and just energy transition, said the UN chief.
Children play among tents pitched on UN premises in Khan Yunis where their parents hope there may be some refuge from Israel's retaliatory bombardment of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip (MAHMUD HAMS)

Eight sleeping children killed in one strike, doctors fighting but failing to save an unborn child -- such were the stories recounted by Gaza medics on Thursday as Israel stepped up its air strikes.

Gaza's Hamas-run government said that children made up 1,524 of the 3,785 people killed since Israel launched a relentless barrage on Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Grief-stricken parents carrying the bodies of children in white shrouds through Gaza streets have become a familiar sight since the war started.

Doctors say they are fighting a losing battle against a lack of medicines, water and fuel to keep hospitals running.

Eight children aged between two and five were among 10 people from the same family killed in an air strike on a house in the city of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, early on Wednesday, relatives said.

"The children were asleep when they destroyed the house," their 67-year-old grandfather, Abu Mohammad Wafi al-Bakri, said.

- Father escaped -

Diyala, Ayman, Hamada, Zaher, Uday, Jamal, Nabil and Acil all came from one extended family and all slept on the ground floor. It took an hour after the raid to find their bodies, rescuers said.

"None of my children were linked to Palestinian organisations and no men were in the house at the time," said Jihad al-Bakri, father of three of the children.

He had left his home an hour before the missile hit to try to find water.

At Najjar hospital in Rafah, doctors mourned the unborn child of a woman killed by a missile strike early on Thursday.

Arij Marwan al-Banna, seven months pregnant, and her daughters, Sarah and Samya, both aged under 10, were killed on the spot, medical sources told AFP.

Banna had fled to her parents' house from northern Gaza after Israel warned its 1.1 million people to head south.

Doctors operated but could not save her child.

She was posthumously named Fatima and her tiny body bag placed atop that of her mother, doctors said.

The Israeli military said on Thursday it had carried out hundreds of air raids in 24 hours, targeting Hamas military infrastructure.

Terrified Gaza residents have flocked to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the only possible escape route from the besieged territory, but it has remained closed.

Scores of people waited forlornly about 100 metres (yards) from the crossing hoping that it would reopen to let aid in and refugees out.

US President Joe Biden announced after visiting Israel on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to let some food, water and medicines into Gaza. He said some deliveries could be made on Friday.

Wary inhabitants kept away from the gates fearing that they would again be a target for Israel's relentless strikes after the crossing was hit four times last week.

"I have been waiting for three days with my family in a house 10 minutes away. We are ready with our bags but we just don't know if or when the crossing will open," said Mohammed, a 40-year-old working for an Italian group.

Majed, 43, who works for a German organisation, told AFP: "I came on my own this morning. If the crossing opens, I will get my wife and family -- they're ready."

He estimated there were about 400 foreigners, dual nationals and employees of international organisations waiting near Rafah.

The Hamas government media office said it had no details on aid deliveries. It said the crossing's head of operations, Fuad Abu Btihan, had been killed in the Israeli strikes.

Israel intensified its air strikes after Biden flew home and clouds of black smoke again rose over Gaza City.

"It's been tough for three nights, but tonight was the hardest," 60-year-old Umm Mohamed Abu Ziada told AFP.

az-ezz-tw/jd/dcp/kir
A 21-year-old man who admitted to killing a Claymont man last year  and whose GPS ankle monitor placed him at the site where the victim's charred body was found  was the third and final person to take a plea for their role in the murder.

Justin Locke, who helped kill 57-year-old Kevin Goodson, pleaded guilty last week to second-degree murder, kidnapping, a weapons charge and conspiracy.

He was arrested last summer after a driver who was passing Claymont Auto Repair just before midnight on July 23, 2022, saw several men "placing what appeared to be a human body into the rear cargo area" of a red SUV. The driver called police, who quickly retrieved video surveillance that showed the brutal assault of Goodson.

While police didn't find Goodson's body for several days, Locke and 23-year-old Jeffrey Labarge were arrested on July 28 and charged with the attack. Their charges were upgraded to murder once Goodson's body was found.

The empty grounds of Evraz Claymont Steel Inc. in Claymont.

A third man, 23-year-old Tyler Simpson, remained on the loose for a little more than a week but was arrested in Pennsylvania in early August. He was also charged with murder.

All three recently pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, conspiracy and kidnapping, while Locke additionally pleaded to possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

He faces a sentence of 20 years to life, while the other two face 17 years to life.

What happened?

According to court testimony and documents, the incident unfolded around 11 p.m. on July 23 when Locke had issues with Goodson, who was buying coffee at a nearby gas station. Locke told police an altercation took place in line, Delaware State Police Detective Brian McDerby testified last August.

In a recorded police interview conducted after his arrest, Locke admitted that soon after Goodson left the gas station, he, Labarge and Simpson found the man walking near Claymont Auto Repair and attacked the 57-year-old, first punching him and knocking him to the ground, then repeatedly kicking and punching him.

He also confessed that the trio left the neighborhood but returned about 30 minutes later in Locke's car, where Labarge and Simpson dragged the victim's body toward the rear trunk area of the vehicle and placed the victim into the trunk, McDerby said.

BACKGROUND: Inside court room, a grieving family listens as more details emerge about Claymont killing

Locke then told police he drove Labarge and Simpson to an area behind Balfour Avenue in Claymonts Knollwood community but claimed he had no further involvement in anything after that, McDerby said.

Yet data pulled from Locke's ankle bracelet, which he was required to wear as a condition of probation for a Maryland gun charge, showed he lied to detectives. It placed him close to where Goodson's burned body was ultimately found.

The GPS data is also how police located Goodson at the former EVRAZ Claymont Steel plant, also known as CitiSteel USA. Detectives who responded to the area after receiving the location data smelled gasoline and found a large patch of scorched ground. They also found a piece of burned clothing and two spent bullet casings, McDerby said.

Nearby, along the edge of the Delaware River, police spotted a piece of tarp sticking out from a pile of rocks. Under it, they found Goodsons body, which McDerby said had been doused in gasoline and set ablaze.

The man's body was so badly burned that a medical examiner could only identify him based on prior surgeries.

Why kill Goodson?

Though the crime shook the Claymont community, it remains unclear exactly what led to such a brutal assault, killing and the desecration of Goodson's body.

Court documents detailing confessions from Labarge and Locke indicate the trio may not have meant to beat Goodson as brutally as did, especially given they later enlisted the help of a known drug user to check on the 57-year-old.

Small pieces a rubble leftover on the grounds of the former steel plant that provided jobs for the surrounding area and Community of Knollwood in Claymont.

After the attack, the men left the auto shop and went to Knollwood, where they told the user they'd been in a fight with Goodson and they would give the man drugs if he went and checked on him, according to court documents.

It wasn't until the man reported back that Goodson was "alive but not well," and that he was making a "'snoring' sound," that the trio went back to Claymont Auto Repair and retrieved him. It's not known who made the decision to head to the old steel plant, though Locke told police he was the one driving.

COURT DOCS: A mother, a GPS anklet and a confession: How police ID'd suspects in Claymont killing

Labarge claimed it was Locke who shot Goodson, and Simpson who set his body on fire. Given that Locke pleaded to the gun charge while the other two did not, Labarge may have been telling the truth.

A longtime janitor for Joy Cleaners, Goodson was the youngest of six. Several of his siblings and other family attended Locke's court hearing last August. While family members declined to speak with the media, they said Goodson didn't deserve what happened to him.

It's unclear when the trio will be sentenced.

Got a story tip or idea? Send to Isabel Hughes at ihughes@delawareonline.com. For all things breaking news, follow her on Twitter at @izzihughes_

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Claymont killing of janitor leads to all 3 charged pleading guilty
Prosecutors have charged two businessmen in an alleged kickback scheme to fraudulently award subcontracts for nuclear weapons manufacturing projects at the national security campus in south Kansas City.

Kansan Michael Clinesmith, an engineer at a firm working at the U.S. Department of Energys Kansas City National Security Campus, allegedly steered subcontracts from his employer for mechanical devices to a machining and tooling shop in St. Louis.

Clinesmith, 67, who records show lives in Johnson County, got kickbacks and bribes from Richard Mueller, 63, who worked at the Missouri shop, from at least 2011 to early 2021, according to federal prosecutors. During the scheme, Clinesmith was paid more than $1 million, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas.

The company Clinesmith worked for, and allegedly defrauded, is responsible for manufacturing non-nuclear components that went into the nations nuclear weapon stockpile, prosecutors wrote.

Described as a longtime employee of that engineering firm, Clinesmith is accused of telling Mueller how much to bid on subcontracts for the devices, which are designed to measure the components of nuclear weapon products to ensure the end products met design standards, according to the indictment. Mueller then secretly funneled money to Clinesmith, prosecutors allege.

At times, Mueller allegedly added an upcharge of hundreds to thousands of dollars to bids, even though the shop performed little to no design work under the subcontract, prosecutors wrote.

Both men were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services wire fraud, as well as four counts of wire fraud and honest services wire fraud. If convicted, they each face up to 20 years in federal prison.

Mueller was also hit with one count of making false statements to agents for allegedly lying to investigators about the number of affected subcontracts. He faces five years in prison if convicted of that charge.

The men did not have attorneys listed in court records who could be reached for comment Thursday morning. They are set for an initial appearance in court Monday.

Prosecutors asked anyone who think they may be a victim in the case to contact the victim witness unit of the Justice Departments fraud section by calling 888-549-3945 or emailing victimassistance.fraud@usdoj.gov.
When a 4-year-old boy came out of surgery at Nicklaus Childrens Hospital, the doctor cautioned his father that his arm was going to look like he got bitten by a shark.

The boy underwent surgery in January 2022 to remove a festering bacterial infection in his arm and thigh. Hes among 13 children, from newborns to teenagers, who were treated at Nicklaus within a span of months for mycobacterium abscessus, according to a lawsuit filed by the childrens parents.

The bacteria  which is found in soil, dust, and water and can cause skin infections through contaminated needle injections  is resistant to antibiotics and requires surgery to remove abscesses.

All had visited their Kendall pediatrician, Dr. Esther Marin-Casariego, for routine childhood immunizations during the spring and summer of 2021 shortly before the infections developed, states the lawsuit filed last year in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. All were vaccinated with defective syringes made in China that were supplied by McKesson Medical-Surgical, a division of the pharmaceutical giant, McKesson, according to the suit.

We believe the common denominators are the needles, said Miami attorneys Brett and Judd Rosen, adding that the vaccines were ruled out as the cause because the children received different vaccines, brands and formulations.

McKesson is blaming the doctor, they said.

And the doctor is blaming McKesson, because it supplied the needles she used to vaccinate her patients. Her lawyer said its the only common factor to explain the contamination cluster in her office.

The Goldberg and Rosen law firm is representing at least 13 families, including lead plaintiff Sophia Linale, 20, in a court battle against the pediatrician and McKesson, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S., whose revenues were $276.7 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, up 5% over the previous year, according to the company. (McKesson in 2022 agreed to pay $7.4 billion in damages for its role in the fentanyl-opioid scandal.)

The families lawyers estimate that as many as 100 children treated by Marin-Casariego may have been infected by the McKesson-supplied syringes.

Linale, who has an underlying heart condition, was vaccinated in the summer of 2021 at 18. Shortly after vaccination, the teen developed severe mycobacterium abscessus in the injection site and had to undergo a dangerous surgery under general anesthesia to remove the abscess and infection from her body in December 2021, according to the lawsuit.

Scared to death

We were scared to death because our daughter had a heart problem, said Ricardo Linale, who lives with his wife, Lianne, in Islamorada and formerly in Cutler Bay.

We had no idea what was going on until she had the surgery, he said, adding that the removal of the abscess left a huge scar on her arm.

The suit brought against McKesson Medical-Surgical accuses the company of negligence and product liability for supplying defective Chinese-made syringes contaminated with bacteria that infected the patients of Marin-Casariego, who used them to administer vaccines during the spring and summer of 2021. The suit also accuses the pediatrician of medical malpractice..

Dr. Marin-Casariego has admitted to affected parents and their families that the [bacterial] infection is the result of improperly sterilized and/or contaminated needles and/or syringes distributed by defendant, McKesson, the suit states. The pediatrician breached the standard of care when [she] injected [her patients] with needles and/or syringes that were infected with a dangerous bacterium without first ensuring that the equipment and her office were free of any contaminants.

Marin-Casariego has filed a cross claim against McKesson, saying the company is to blame because it distributed the contaminated needles to her. The doctors online profile with the Florida Department of Health does not list any disciplinary actions and her license is listed as clear and active.

Marin-Casariegos lawyer said she referred her affected patients to a Nicklaus Childrens Hospital surgeon to have the bacterial infections and resulting abscesses removed as soon as she discovered they did not respond to antibiotics.

McKesson says it is not responsible for the childrens bacterial infections and subsequent surgeries, blaming the Kendall doctor while asserting the families negligence claims against her are based on her own conduct, according to the companys motion to dismiss Marin-Casariegos cross claim against McKesson.

However, U.S. government records show the company did not alert federal regulators about the needle contamination issue until after it was sued in January 2022  despite being warned by Marin-Casariego about McKessons potentially tainted syringes three months earlier.

This photo shows a scar one of the children represented in the lawsuit was left with after having to undergo surgery to remove the infection.

In two Feb. 14, 2022, reports filed with the Food and Drug Administrations MAUDE digital system, McKesson noted that Marin-Casariego spoke with a company representative before Oct. 12, 2021, indicating that several of her patients had developed infections after receiving vaccinations in her office within the last six months.

Then, via email on Oct. 12, 2021, the pediatric physician said she believed that the McKesson labeled needles/syringes were the common factor and may be the reason for the development of these infections that resulted in abscesses.

The pediatrician, according to the two reports, did not provide any product lot information regarding the McKesson labeled needles/syringes nor any patient specific information regarding the adverse events.

McKesson acknowledged in the reports to the FDA that Marin-Casariego received four different types of syringes from the pharmaceutical company, including two under the McKesson label and two from another supplier, Becton Dickinson. As a result of the complaint from the doctor, McKesson said it was alerting the FDA about the companys labeled syringes.

Lawyers for the pediatricians patients said McKesson only reported the doctors complaint about its needles after it was sued, adding that the Becton Dickinson syringes were not considered part of the infection cluster.

When asked about the reports sent to the FDA by McKesson, FDA spokeswoman Audra Harrison, in an email to the Herald, said the agency works to quickly assess and address potential risks to health associated with medical devices  but that it does not discuss compliance matters, except with the company involved. The agency did not explain what steps it took to address the possible syringe contamination problem McKesson reported to the FDA.

Speaking generally, Harrison said the agency monitors the safety of medical devices and that manufacturers are required to submit medical device reports when information reasonably suggests that their device may have caused or contributed to a death or serious injury, or it has malfunctioned and that device or a similar device they manufacture would be likely to cause or contribute to a death or serious injury if the malfunction were to recur.

The FDA says health care professionals, consumers and patients can voluntarily submit reports of adverse events and device malfunctions through its MedWatch Online Voluntary Reporting Form.

Florida health department, CDC investigate

Theres clearly a case of underreporting by the drug company, Judd Rosen said. They are seeking to cover up or sweep something under the rug.

Both Brett and Judd Rosen, who are working on the case with Miami lawyer Mustafa Dandashly, said its possible that other doctors in Florida or around the country could have received this same batch of needles as Marin-Casariego did.

McKessons Miami lawyer, Spencer Silverglate, said his client is blameless. In a statement, Silverglate said the Florida Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a thorough investigation of the matter and determined that the infections likely arose from a transitory contamination of the water supply to the doctors office.

Silverglate further stated that the two agencies found no issues with the McKesson-branded hypodermic needles themselves, millions of which were distributed across the United States. No other purchaser of McKesson-branded hypodermic needles reported an outbreak of infections.

Silverglate provided the agencies summary, based on assessments and samples taken from the doctors office in January 2022. The summary noted that three strains of the infectious bacteria were found among the doctors patients, but no such strains were detected in her medical office from environmental sampling.

Contamination of medical supplies from sink splashing likely contributed to transmission of [Mycobacterium] abscessus strains which [was] resolved after supplies were exchanged, the summary reads.. It noted sink hygiene gaps, with the splashing affecting certain medical products, including refillable soap dispensers and skin preparation supplies.

The agencies inspectors noted there were nine confirmed infectious cases and 39 probable cases among the doctors pediatric patients. Of the confirmed cases, three distinct strains of abscessus were found  but no [Mycobacterium] abscessus was isolated from environmental sampling in the doctors office.

The families lawyers countered that McKessons assertions distorted the reality of the agencies investigation of Marin-Casariegos medical office. The Rosens cast doubt about transitory water contamination infecting the McKesson syringes in the doctors office, saying the state and federal agencies took various samples and tests and were unable to locate any mycobacterium abscessus in the office or on any of the equipment.

Moreover, they pointed out that the state and federal inspectors were unable to test the McKesson needles because they had been disposed of after use on patients. The Rosens also said McKesson kept no records of where the syringes went after being imported from China  including whether part of the shipment sent to Marin-Casariegos office was also distributed to other physicians in the United States.

The physicians Miami lawyer, Kimberly Cook, echoed that interpretation.

Dr. Casariego reported her concerns about the needles to both McKesson and the FDOH, Cook said in a statement. McKesson did nothing to investigate these unfortunate incidents and the state investigated without coming to any official conclusion  at least not one that they shared with Dr. Casariego.

The [McKessons] comment about transitory water contamination is total speculation without any scientific basis, she added.

South Florida families affected

After Marin-Casariego vaccinated her patients and they developed their bacterial infections, she referred them to a surgical specialist at Nicklaus Childrens Hospital.

Nicklaus pediatric surgeon Felipe Pedroso indicated to the childrens parents that he operated on somewhere between 50-100 patients of Dr. Marin-Casariego who developed the exact same infection following vaccination, the families lawsuit states.

Arnold and Ailyn Cuervo pose for a family photo with their children. Their daughter developed three red-purple quarter size lumps on her thighs following her childhood vaccinations, the lawsuit says.

Arnold and Ailyn Cuervo knew something was wrong when they noticed their 1-year-old daughter, identified as A. C. in the suit, developed three warm, round red-purple quarter size lumps on her thighs following her vaccinations. At first, Marin-Casariego told them it was likely a reaction to the vaccines and that it would eventually go away. Months passed. And then finally, the lumps erupted, spewing a steady stream of pus.

Marin-Casariego helped secure an appointment with a Nicklaus specialist for the family. The baby had to be put under general anesthesia for three surgeries to clean out the infection and now has three large scars on her thighs, her parents say.

She was injected with bacteria, its literally the opposite of what a vaccine is supposed to do, said Ailyn Cuervo.

Ana Isabel Feliciano remembers crying as she watched doctors wheel her son, identified as A. A. in the suit, off to surgery at Nicklaus to remove the abscesses in his arm and thigh. She and her husband, Armando Alvarez, were terrified.

Youre putting your 4-year-old through general anesthesia, Armando Alvarez said, [when] he should have been enjoying that Christmas break. And instead, were  preparing for surgery.

It was in the waiting room at Nicklaus where Feliciano met another mother whose son was also a patient of Marin-Casariego. They were there for the same reason. Thats when Feliciano and her husband realized it was likely the needle, not the vaccine, that had caused their sons infection.

Ana Isabel Feliciano and her husband Armando Alvarez pose for a holiday photo with their son, who had to have surgery to remove the abscessed infection that had set in.

Both the Cuervo and Alvarez families are still making sure that their children get the mandatory childhood vaccinations needed for school, but theyre wary.

The new pediatrician for the Cuervos daughter, for example, knows not to inject her with McKesson needles. Her mom takes photos of the needles used on her daughter. All three families whom the Herald spoke with believe vaccinations help keep people safe, but they feel like the medical system failed them.

A photo showing an abscess that one of the children represented in the lawsuit developed shortly after getting routine childhood vaccination.

South Florida doctor

Marin-Casariego, the pediatrician embroiled in the lawsuit, has practiced medicine for more than 30 years. Shes listed as having worked as an assistant clinical professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, with staff privileges at Nicklaus Childrens, Baptist and South Miami hospitals, according to state health department records.

Her attorney, Cook, in an emailed statement to the Miami Herald, reiterated the doctors dedication to her patients, casting blame on the pharmaceutical giant.

As soon as Marin-Casariego first noticed a reaction, she began to investigate and determined that the only common factor with all of the patients who developed reactions was the needles she used, Cooks statement reads. Dr. Casariego denies all responsibility with respect to these infections and reported them to both McKesson and the Florida Department of Health.

Judge allows suit to continue

In court papers, McKessons attorney, Silverglate, tried to have the families suit dismissed for failing to state a cause of action against the Richmond, Va.-based company. A judge rejected that claim, setting the stage for a jury trial next year in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. In early October, another judge denied McKessons motion to dismiss the physicians cross claim for damages including attorneys fees.

In court papers, McKesson asserts the families of the infected children may not be able to recover damages from the pharmaceutical firm because the needles complied with what was generally recognized state of the art at the time.

McKesson also claims that other entities may be responsible for the damages alleged in this case, including initially blaming the Chinese needle manufacturers, the childrens physician, and the producers of the vaccines, alcohol swabs and rubber gloves used in administering them.

McKesson also asserts that the childrens damages, if any, were the direct result of pre-existing medical conditions ... or as a result of certain circumstances over which [the company] had and continues to have no control.

The childrens parents say the traumatic experience sticks with them and their kids to this day  the bacterial infections may be gone but the scars are permanent.

All that fear led to anger when theres no accountability, said Sophia Linales father, Ricardo. Big Pharma has some explaining to do.
One of the pro-Donald Trump fake electors charged in Michigan has agreed to cooperate with state prosecutors in exchange for getting his case dismissed.

James Renner, 76, is the first defendant to strike a deal with prosecutors. Attorney General Dana Nessel , a Democrat, charged the group of 16 fake electors earlier this year.

This is the most significant development in the case since Nessel filed the charges in July. She was the first prosecutor in the nation to charge anyone in connection with the Trump-backed fake elector scheme.

As part of the deal, Renner agreed to provide complete and truthful testimony whenever called upon by prosecutors, at any hearings or trials related to the 2020 fake electors, according to court filings. This includes describing what happened in the room where he and others signed the sham certificate in December 2020.

Like all of the other defendants, Renner originally faced eight felony charges, including forgery and conspiracy to publish a false statement. If he provides misleading or false testimony at any future cases, prosecutors could refile the felony charges.

The fake GOP electors tried to subvert the Electoral College process in 2020 by signing illegitimate certificates falsely proclaiming that Trump won the presidential election in Michigan. This was part of the Trump campaigns multi-state effort to overturn the election that he lost.

The remaining 15 defendants include current and former state GOP officials, a Republican National Committee member, a mayor from central Michigan and a Grand Blanc school board member. They have all pleaded not guilty.

Court filings indicate that Renner signed his deal with prosecutors on October 10. It only became public Thursday when Renner appeared at a brief hearing in Ingham County District Court.

We are excited for this result, Renners attorney Clint Westbrook said at the hearing.

Westbrook later told CNN in a statement that, after conversations with the Attorney Generals office, all charges against our innocent client, Jim Renner, were dismissed. A spokesperson for Nessel told CNN in a statement that, we dismissed the case against James Renner under a cooperation agreement.

Interview with investigators

According to documents obtained by CNN, Renner met with state investigators in September for a proffer interview, which is often a precursor to a plea deal or non-prosecution agreement.

Renner explained how he got involved in the post-election effort and identified eight of the other fake electors by name as attending the signing ceremony in December 2020, which could help prosecutors.

But some of his other comments could support the argument from defense attorneys in the case that their clients met as a legal contingency so Trump could continue contesting the election results.

He said the group of fake electors was led to believe that they needed to sign the faux Electoral College certificates because Michigans GOP-run legislature could still reject Joe Bidens electors and recognize the pro-Trump slate instead. Some of the GOP officials running the meeting  which was conducted in private  also mentioned ongoing lawsuits related to the 2020 election, according to the document obtained by CNN.

Even though Trump lost Michigan in 2020 by more than 154,000 votes, Renner said it was his belief Donald Trump may have the ability to win the election when he signed the certificate, according to the document, which described Renners interview with state investigators.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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A beloved Michigan nursing student was kidnapped and executed at a truck stop by her ex-boyfriend, the Macomb County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday. Security cameras captured Gina Bryant, 25, being shot in the head at midnight on Oct. 13 in La Salle, Illinois, the hometown of Justin Wendlinga 26-year-old Michigan doctor that dated Bryant as recently as September. Wendling fled the scene and called his parents to confess to the killing, authorities said. He then drove to Bettendorf, Iowa, about 90 miles west of the shooting scene, where cops descended upon him. As officers approached, however, cops say he shot himself dead. Bryants sister, Angelica Gintner, told the Detroit News the former couple lived together for 11 months, but Gintner and her mom moved Bryant out of an apartment with Wendling last month because he was abusive. Gintner called her sister a very beautiful, down-to-earth, giving woman, who could brighten up a day with just her smile.

Read it at The Detroit News

Read more at The Daily Beast.
FILE - A protester waves a Trump flag during rally at the Michigan Capitol, Oct. 12, 2021, in Lansing, Mich. James Renner, a Michigan Republican accused of participating in a fake elector plot, had all criminal charges dropped Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, after the state Attorney General's office said a cooperation deal was reached. Michigan was one of seven states where supporters of then-President Donald Trump signed certificates that falsely stated he won their states. (Jake May/The Flint Journal via AP, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

LANSING, Mich. (AP)  A Michigan Republican accused of participating in a fake elector plot had all criminal charges dropped Thursday after he and the state Attorney General's office reached a cooperation deal.

James Renner was one of 16 Republicans who acted as false electors for then-President Donald Trump in 2020, according to charges announced in July by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. President Joe Biden won Michigan by nearly 155,000 votes, a result confirmed by a GOP-led state Senate investigation in 2021.

All 16 defendants pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges, including multiple counts of forgery, after investigators say the group met following the 2020 presidential election and signed a document falsely stating they were the states duly elected and qualified electors.

But on Thursday, the attorney general's office announced during a court hearing in Ingham County that it would drop its case against Renner, 77, based on an agreement between the parties.

Renner's lawyer, Clint Westbrook, said in court that he and his client welcomed the result. Westbrook did not immediately return a phone call seeking further comment on the agreement.

In a statement, the state Attorney General's office said they dismissed the Renner case under a cooperation agreement. While the office did not elaborate further, cooperation agreements typically include talking to investigators and, if necessary, testifying against others.

The dropped charges come after Nessel, a Democrat, told a liberal group during a virtual event that the false electors had been brainwashed and believed Trump won in Michigan. A motion to dismiss charges against two defendants was thrown out by an Ingham County District Court judge earlier this month.

Michigan is one of seven battleground states where supporters of Trump signed certificates that falsely stated he won their states  not Biden. The fake certificates were ignored, but the attempt has been subject to investigations, including by the U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Trumps loss in the 2020 election in Georgia. Powell was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the states anti-racketeering law.
The Michigan Legislature held its first vote Thursday on legislation to modify the state's 2019 no-fault auto insurance overhaul that aimed to lower costs for drivers but led some medical providers to close their doors to car crash victims.

Lawmakers in the state Senate passed legislation to increase reimbursement rates for medical providers treating car crash victims in Michigan.

It takes courage for lawmakers to revisit laws that need improving, said Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids. State Sen. Mary Cavanagh, D-Redford Township, who sponsored the primary bill in the package has characterized her effort as a way to fix what she calls the unintended consequences of Michigan's 2019 no-fault auto insurance changes. That overhaul imposed a 45% payment cut to providers of services frequently used by catastrophic accident survivors. Providers have characterized the change as devastating for their businesses and the patients they serve. However, earlier this summer, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the cuts don't apply to those injured in car crashes before June 2019, when the no-fault overhaul was signed into law.

The legislation passed 23-14 Thursday. Four GOP lawmakers joined most Democrats to support the bills: state Sens. Jon Bumstead, of North Muskegon, John Damoose, of Harbor Springs, Ruth Johnson, of Holly, and Rick Outman, of Six Lakes. State Sen. Sylvia Santana, D-Detroit, was the lone Democrat to vote against the package. State Sen. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake, abstained from voting.

One lawmaker described changes as overdue and conceded that they might arrive too late for some. "Even if we fix this today, some of the damage is permanent and cannot be undone," said state Sen. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs, in a speech in which he recounted the providers shuttered in the wake of the 2019 auto insurance overhaul.

Cavanagh said Michigan lawmakers can address the state's "crisis of care" without impacting the cost-saving features of the current law. But other Republican lawmakers worried about the bills' impact on insurance costs for drivers. State Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Waucedah Township, blasted the bill package, calling it a "pile of junk." In heated remarks, he said his constituents sent him to Lansing with one demand on car insurance: lower costs. "It's ridiculously expensive in this state. Insanely expensive in this state," he yelled.

Together, Senate Bills 530, 531 and 575 would raise the reimbursement rates for providers who treat those in more recent auto accidents. Lawmakers amended the legislation, which originally proposed a 250% reimbursement rate of whatever Medicare pays to medical providers. It now no longer includes an across-the-board rate increase for providers. Instead, it preserves a tiered system with smaller rate reimbursement increases for different types of providers.

The head of the Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) came out against the bill package, predicting it would raise insurance costs.

"Simply put, the broad-brush reimbursement rate increases proposed in these bills would substantially impact auto insurance affordability across the state," department director Anita Fox wrote in a letter to lawmakers Wednesday. While Fox submitted that written testimony before lawmakers made changes to the legislation, the revisions did not sway the department to support the bills, according to a spokesperson.

School sports: Michigan House passes bill to allow NIL deals for high school athletes

"Now I don't say this often but I agree with the Whitmer administration," said Minority Senate Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township.

State Sen. Lana Theis, R-Brighton, pointed to DIFS's concerns in a floor speech ahead of the vote Thursday and expressed concerns that the legislation would increase the share of Michigan drivers without insurance traveling on the state's roads. Lawmakers rejected an amendment from Theis that would have ensured that none of the changes in the legislation would take effect if DIFS found that insurance costs would go up.

State Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, said that the 2019 auto insurance overhaul did not deliver the promised rate relief for drivers and countered that Theis' amendment wouldn't either. "The heart of the bill is to restore access to health care," he said.

Groups advocating for catastrophic crash survivors who heralded the summer state Supreme Court decision now want lawmakers to send the legislation changing reimbursement rates to Whitmer's desk.

State Sen. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, said she does not want lawmakers to go another year hearing the same demands from families of survivors of catastrophic car crashes who have lined the halls of Lansing demanding changes.

The legislation passed by the state Senate on Thursday will next head to the state House for consideration.

Contact Clara Hendrickson: chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter, @clarajanehen.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan lawmakers vote on auto insurance bills
This image provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows death row inmate Casey McWhorter, who was sentenced for the 1993 shooting death of Edward Lee Williams during a robbery. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set a Nov. 16, 2023, execution date for McWhorter. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP)  Alabama's governor has scheduled a November execution date for an inmate convicted of shooting and killing a man during a 1993 robbery.

Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday set Nov. 16 as the date for Casey A. McWhorter to die by injection. The 48-year-old inmate was convicted of capital murder for his role in the robbery and shooting death of Edward Lee Williams in Marshall County.

Prosecutors said McWhorter, who was 18 at the time, plotted with two younger teens including Williams 15-year-old son to steal money and other items from Williams' home and also kill him. Prosecutors said McWhorter and a 16-year-old co-defendant went to Williams' home with rifles and fashioned homemade silencers from a pillow and milk jug stuffed with napkins. An appellate court wrote that evidence in the case showed Williams grabbed the rifle held by the 16-year-old and they began to struggle over it before the man was shot a total of 11 times by both teens,

The jury that convicted McWhorter recommended the death sentence by a vote of 10-2, according to court records.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined in 2021 to review the case. McWhorter's attorneys argued that a juror in the case failed to disclose in jury selection that she believed her father had been murdered. They also argued that McWhorter's trial attorney failed to prevent mitigating evidence about McWhorter's background.

The Department of Corrections will have until 6 a.m. on Nov. 17 to complete the execution. The state did away with a midnight deadline for carrying out executions after several lethal injections were canceled because of last-minute legal battles or problems inserting intravenous lines.

The attorney generals office has asked that another inmate, Kenneth Eugene Smith, be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia, a method the state has authorized but never used. No execution date has been set in that case.
Russia launched air strikes against the village of Pishchanivka on the east bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast, the General Staff of Ukraines Armed Forces wrote, implying the presence of Ukrainian forces in the settlement.

The strikes were reported in the General Staffs Oct. 19 and Oct. 18 daily updates, matching reports from Russian Telegram channels that Ukraine had taken territory in the area.

Earlier, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said, citing Russian military blog Rybar and other sources, that Ukrainian forces had carried out an assault across the Dnipro River onto the Russian-held east bank, advancing north of Pishchanivka and into Poima, around four kilometers from the river.

The sources cited by ISW expressed "pronounced concern" about ongoing Ukrainian activity on the east bank of Kherson Oblast, framing these activities as part of a potential larger Ukrainian operation.

Read also: White House, Ukrainian military confirm provision of ATACMS to Ukraine

The think tank admitted it was difficult to assess the scope and prospects of the Ukrainian activity on the east bank.

"However, it is noteworthy that prominent and generally reliable Russian sources are discussing Ukrainian activities on the east bank as occurring at a larger scale than previously documented tactical cross-river raids by Ukrainian forces."

In August, the Kyiv Independent reported that Ukrainian troops were conducting small overnight raids into the Russian-occupied part of Kherson Oblast for months.

On Aug. 8, Ukrainian forces reportedly gained a foothold near the village of Kozachi Laheri, some 27 kilometers northeast of Kherson.

Ukraine's Armed Forces liberated Kherson and other regional settlements on the Dnipro Rivers west bank in November 2022. Russian forces were pushed to the east bank, from where they have since been firing at the liberated territories.

Read also: Ukrainian troops regularly cross Dnipro River, probing Russian defenses in Kherson Oblast

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
 Flash

Palestinians fetch water in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday met with U.S. President Joe Biden in Israel, where they agreed on "unprecedented" U.S. military assistance to Israel in its ongoing conflict with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In a broadcast statement, Netanyahu said that he and Biden, who arrived in the morning for a brief visit to Israel, agreed on "actions and cooperation that guarantees the continuation of our just war."

Biden, who travelled back to Washington in the afternoon after a pre-scheduled four-way Arab summit in Jordan was canceled, said during his brief stay that Pentagon intelligence indicates that the blast on the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital on Tuesday was caused by "the other team" and not an Israeli airstrike. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said Israeli airstrikes caused the explosion in the hospital that killed at least 471.

Israel released intercepted communications between two Hamas operatives discussing how the hospital was struck by a failed rocket fire.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesman Daniel Hagari presented the audio recording during a press briefing, denying Israeli responsibility for the blast and accusing the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) of a failed rocket launch.

In the audio, two individuals can be heard conversing in Arabic over a phone call. During the conversation, one person informs the other that the explosion resulted from a rocket misfire by the PIJ, an armed group in Gaza.

According to Hagari, the failed rocket, carrying an ignited propellant load, was fired from near the hospital.

He also presented aerial photos and infrared images of the explosion's location, collected by the Israeli military. "Analysis of our aerial footage confirms that there was no direct hit on the hospital itself," he said.

According to Hagari, since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, militants in Gaza carried out 450 failed rocket launches.

Israel's wartime cabinet announced on Wednesday it will allow a limited humanitarian aid to enter Gaza through Egypt's border. Netanyahu's office announced in a statement that "Israel will not obstruct humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as they consist of only food, water, and medicine for the civilians located in the southern Gaza Strip," warning "any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted."

In addition, the cabinet stated that Israel demands to allow visits by the Red Cross to the hostages held by Hamas.

Hamas on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off.

Over the past few days, tons of aid supplies from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, and the World Health Organization have arrived at the Rafah border crossing, waiting for access to the Palestinian coastal enclave from the Egyptian side.

Earlier on Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi expressed Egypt's firm support for the Palestinian people and a strong rejection of any attempts to relocate them to Egypt's adjacent Sinai Peninsula.

Meanwhile, violence along the Israeli-Lebanese border has continued to escalate on Wednesday. The Israeli military said that militants in Lebanon launched rockets and anti-tank missiles at Israeli communities near the border. The Israeli military responded with fire toward the origins of the shootings, the military said in a statement, adding that an Israeli military drone thwarted "a terrorist cell which fired mortar shells toward the area of Turmus."

Following the hospital blast, thousands of Egyptians on Wednesday held demonstrations in the capital Cairo and other provinces to show their solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Protests also took place in Iran, Lebanon, Jordan and Tunisia to condemn Israel's attacks on Gaza. Lebanese and Palestinian demonstrators clashed with security forces near the U.S. embassy in Awkar, north of Beirut, resulting in several injuries.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, now in its twelfth day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides.
Ukrainian forces have achieved partial success southwest of the village of Verbove in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi , the commander of the Tavria Group fighting on the southern front lines, reported on Oct. 19.

There have been 34 skirmishes with Russian forces over the past day, the commander of the southern forces said.

Russia lost 322 soldiers and 43 pieces of equipment in the course of fighting, including three tanks, 12 artillery pieces, 13 drones, and other military hardware, he noted.

Ukraine has been recently focusing its efforts around Verbove, a village around 10 kilometers east of liberated Robotyne.

The spokesperson of the Tavria Group, Oleksandr Shtupun, reported an advance of up to one kilometer west of Verbove on Oct. 17.

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On Oct. 10, 2023, U.S. Rep. Cory Mills (R-Florida) read a report about a California-based church group who had been on a Holy Land tour when a Hamas terror group attacked Israel Oct. 7. He knew there were other Americans trapped in Israel as well after hearing more reports, due to major airlines' grounded flights to and from Israel. One of the Americans was on a Holy Land Tour.

It didnt sit well with the former Afghanistan hero, and he made plans to charter aircraft to get 77 of them out of harms way and back to U.S. soil. I just immediately left D.C. and I just decided I couldnt sit there and do nothing anymore, Mills said in a report with New York Post. I campaigned on the fact that I wanted to be a statesman who acts and not a politician who talks.

U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, R-New Smyrna Beach, shared this selfie of him helping bring 32 American citizens from warring Israel to Jordan.

And he had rescued Americans stranded on foreign soil before.

During his first rescue in 2021, one of those people happened to be an Amarillo native with her three sons, Mariam Rahim. In news reports gathered from September 2021, Mariam told of her harrowing ordeal. She was among the first Americans to escape Afghanistan after the hasty retreat in Aug. 31, 2021. She was visiting her father who was in poor health, and when she tried to get tickets to leave, there were none available. Mariam said they went to Kabul to get a flight and were turned away. The State Department called her and told her to go to the airport gate and show her passport and she could go in.

They stayed 16 hours and then every night for eight hours with no help.

Mariams husband, in Amarillo, got in touch with U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Amarillo). Jackson gave them all the information, copies of passports and everything they could find with no results. Jackson then called Mills, a friend and former contractor. He and his team gathered to make the rescue in Kabul.

They literally had an aircraft circling the airfield and were told by the State Department and U.S. Military that they could not land, Jackson said in the report. Mariam said she continued to try to show the Taliban her passport and they threatened her with guns pulled to her head. Finally, the plane landed in the middle of the night, leaving Kabul and abandoning everyone.

Jackson said that the Taliban was looking for Mariam and her family, knowing she was American. Mills and his team took her and her kids to a safe house 13 hours away. There were six planes on the ground, fueled, with crews ready. But the Taliban would not let the flights leave, deciding instead to keep the family as ransom, to demand the U.S. to recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.

Mills's team then took them to the border of another country and for safety. The U.S. Embassy finally helped them get tourist visas to enter the country. At last, they let Mariam and her family across, and they were able to get on a flight and get back to America.

Mariam said, Thank you. I thank you again for everybody to help me and especially Cory, who is my hero. When she returned, she said the State Department called her three times after her return to the U.S. They didnt know she was back in the country.

To date, Mills has gotten 96 Americans out from Israel and has a charter aircraft ready to hold 218 passengers at no cost to Americans.

He used his expertise to fly to Jordan on that Tuesday, cross into Israel by land and get his fellow countrymen out. Mills is a combat veteran and Bronze Star recipient. He was a part of the first successful overland mission in Afghanistan and knew he had to act quickly to mobilize and be on the ground to bring the stranded Americans home, he reported on a post on Facebook.

God put me exactly where I was supposed to be, which is to help these people as much as I can. I literally tried to do this from start to stop to make sure that they knew, one, that theyre going to be taken care of and that theyre not left behind and forgotten by their own government, he said. I couldnt care less what district theyre from or whether they can vote for me, whether theyre Democrat or Republican, these are Americans who wanted to get home.

After National Security Council spokesman John Kirbys announcement that Thursday that the U.S. would begin chartering flights out of Israel for Americans there, Mills was feeling more confident that his mission would continue once he leaves.

Seeing the failure of the State Department  I knew I had to act quickly, he said. Im honored to have been able to evacuate 96 Americans out of Israel thus far and with a charter of over 200 returning soon, and free of charge.

Mills served in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division and told America Reports he couldnt share the specifics of his mission or location due to operational concerns and constraints, but added that his work is not over in rescuing fellow countrymen from harms way.

Some Americans found themselves stuck in areas that now lack a permissible environment for full escape, he said, adding that he also helped evacuate U.S. citizens and eligible individuals from Afghanistan during Bidens chaotic August 2021 withdrawal.

I went in and was very thankful to be able to get in  for the second time, by helping the administration who has failed to do their job, he reported. Mills alleged there was no plan for evacuating Americans from Israel, including purported church and synagogue groups visiting the Holy Land.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Now helping with Israel, Rep. Mills rescued Amarillo woman in 2021
How much does the universe weigh? Astronomers hope fast radio bursts, arriving from distant galaxies, could provide an answer (Handout)

Eight billion years ago, something happened in a distant galaxy that sent an incredibly powerful blast of radio waves hurtling through the universe.

It finally arrived at Earth on June 10 last year and -- though it lasted less than a thousandth of a second -- a radio telescope in Australia managed to pick up the signal.

This flash from the cosmos was a fast radio burst (FRB), a little-understood phenomenon first discovered in 2007.

Astronomers revealed on Thursday that this particular FRB was more powerful and came from much farther away than any previously recorded, having travelled eight billion light years from when the universe was less than half its current age.

Exactly what causes FRBs has become one of astronomy's great mysteries. There was early speculation that they could be radio communication beamed from some kind of extraterrestrial, particularly because some of the signals repeat.

However scientists believe the prime suspects are distant dead stars called magnetars, which are the most magnetic objects in the universe.

Ryan Shannon, an astrophysicist at Australia's Swinburne University, told AFP it was "mind-blowing" that the ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia had spotted the radio burst last year.

- 'Lucky' -

"We were lucky to be looking at that little spot in the sky for that one millisecond after the eight billion years the pulse had travelled to catch it," said Shannon, co-author of a study describing the find in the journal Science.

The FRB easily beat the previous record holder, which was from around five billion light years away, he added.

The pulse was so powerful that -- in under a millisecond -- it released as much energy as the Sun emits over 30 years.

Shannon said that there could be hundreds of thousands of FRBs flashing in the sky every day.

But around a thousand have been detected so far, and scientists have only been able to work out where just 50 came from -- which is crucial to understanding them.

To find out where the latest radio burst -- dubbed FRB 20220610A -- came from, the researchers turned to the Very Large Telescope in Chile.

It found that the signal originated from a particularly clumpy galaxy that may have been merging with one or two other galaxies, which could in turn have created the bizarre magnetar.

Shannon emphasised that this was just the team's "best hunch".

FRBs have been detected coming from unexpected places, including from within our own Milky Way galaxy, so "the jury's still out" on what causes them, he said.

Aside from trying to uncover the secrets of FRBs, scientists hope to use them as a tool to shed light on another of the universe's mysteries.

- Where's the matter? -

Just five percent of the universe is made up of normal matter -- what everything you can see is made out of -- while the rest is thought to be composed of the little understood dark matter and dark energy.

But when astronomers count up all the stars and galaxies in the universe, more than half of that five percent of normal matter is "missing", Shannon said.

Scientists believe this missing matter is spread out in thin filaments connecting galaxies called the cosmic web, however it is so diffuse current telescopes cannot see it.

That's where fast radio bursts come in.

They are "imprinted with the signature of all the gas they travel through", Shannon said.

Some FRB wavelengths are slightly slowed down when travelling through this matter, giving scientists a way to measure it.

This could allow them work out how much matter is in the cosmic web -- and therefore, the total weight of the universe.

For the record-breaking FRB, Shannon said the team had noticed signals of "extra materials" the burst had passed through on its journey through the universe.

But to use this information to get a proper measurement of the universe's weight, hundreds more FRBs will likely need to be observed, he added.

With much more advanced radio telescopes expected to go online soon, astronomers hope that will happen relatively quickly.

Liam Connor, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology not involved in the research, told AFP that future radio telescopes will find tens of thousands of FRBs, allowing scientists to weigh all the matter "across cosmic epochs".

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HARTFORD, Wis. - The Hartford Fire Department said dive teams are conducting a recovery mission Thursday, Oct. 19 after an 80-year-old boater went missing on Pike Lake.

The Washington County Sheriffs Office received a request to check the welfare of the boater around 9 p.m. Wednesday night. The caller reported that her 80-year-old husband never returned home after going out on the lake.

"Weve had some rescue operations out on that lake," said Washington County Sheriff Martin Schulteis. "I cant remember a search and rescue operation turning into a recovery in recent memory."

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An officer from the Hartford Police Department located a pickup truck and empty boat trailer registered to the man at the boat launch parking lot at the Pike Lake State Park. At that time, officials began a search of the lake. Conservation wardens with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources also responded with a patrol boat.

"We found his small boat floating near shore on the northeast side of Pike Lake. It did not have any damage to it," Schulteis said.

Search at Pike Lake

The Washington County Sheriffs Office Dive Team responded to the scene. A search of the lake and immediate vicinity was conducted via use of multiple patrol boats with sonar capabilities and an aerial drone. After several hours of searching, the man was not located, and search operations were suspended for the night.

"The sun isnt up as long as it is, and it gets dark pretty quickly and people and to be aware of that. I dont know if he had safety gear or safety gear on at all, but obviously if youre on any body of water you want to take those precautions," the sheriff said.

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The search resumed during daylight hours Thursday, but was declared a recovery operation around 2 p.m.

"Statutorily, once the fire department determines its no longer a rescue and search operation, command is typically handed over to the sheriffs office to do the recovery operation," said Schulteis.

Crews from at least seven different agencies have been involved in the search, which is expected to resume at 9 a.m. Friday.
This story is part of a Modesto Bee series on climate change impacts for the Stanislaus region.

The weather patterns of climate change are expected to make hydroelectric power less reliable for the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts.

As anticipated heat waves toast the Northern San Joaquin Valley, air conditioning for homes and office buildings will tax the electrical grid. And there will be less water for pushing the turbines at Don Pedro Dam, a major supplier of electricity for MID and TID.

The districts, serving 231,000 electric service customers, can purchase more energy from plants that burn coal and natural gas. But those energy sources, emitting greenhouse gases, are supposed to be eliminated or mitigated under Californias climate goals.

Martin Caballero, assistant general manager of electric resources for MID, said the district is looking into options for expanding its assortment of energy sources to meet future needs, while reducing the type of emissions that are warming the planet.

Studies show the Sierra Mountains are getting less rain and snow in the fall and spring. It forces water districts to rely on a few extremely wet storms in a shortened winter season  those atmospheric rivers  to meet the needs of agricultural and urban customers.

As this pattern continues in the next few decades, experts say the Sierra runoff in rivers will occur earlier in the spring, fouling up the timing of hydropower generation, which is needed for high demand periods in the summer months.

Longer and drier droughts also serve to stymie hydropower generation. That crucial source of energy in California dropped 48% below a 10-year average during the critically dry year of 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Caballero said the irrigation districts have not yet seen significant impacts to Don Pedro generation but we have seen big increases in demand in the last few years.

In the Northern San Joaquin Valley, studies are predicting the average maximum daily temperatures will increase 4 to 5 degrees by midcentury, with more frequent heat waves of 105 degrees or more.

Caballero said MIDs highest peak electric demand was 700 megawatts in the deadly heat wave of 2006, which was marked by high humidity, 12 consecutive days above 100 degrees and 23 heat-related deaths in Stanislaus County.

The record stood for 16 years and was surpassed in the weeklong scorcher of September 2022, when demand hit 760 megawatts, Caballero said.

MID forecasts its peak demand every five years to assist with California Energy Commission resource planning, and the district expects to be close to 800 megawatts in next years updated forecast.

The Modesto district didnt have projections for electric service rates as climate change impacts the Valley. The California Public Utilities Commission has projected a 40% increase in Pacific Gas & Electric Co. residential rates by 2030 in California as customers try to stay cool.

Caballero said a large increase in energy demand has occurred in the region from California to the Pacific Northwest, probably due to a warming climate and economic growth. The rising demand poses a challenge because it takes time to build new energy resources, he said.

In California, projects to generate tens of thousands of megawatts are proposed or in various stages of development, much of it solar energy and battery storage, the MID official said.

Meeting the states climate goals

Water and power utilities have slightly more than 20 years to meet the states 2045 goal for carbon neutrality, striking a balance between the carbon emitted and removed from the atmosphere, while also meeting the higher demand for energy to cool homes and businesses and recharge electrical vehicles.

To meet the goals, the state will need around 25 million more electric vehicles, deep cuts to use of fossil fuels and large-scale expansion of wind and solar generation facilities.

Right now, MID generates slightly more than 60% of its retail energy from power plants owned by the district or in partnership with other utilities, while more than 38% is purchased on the open market.

About 18% of MIDs energy supply comes from hydroelectric plants, 16% from wind farms, 14% from solar and 13.6% from natural gas. The energy purchased on the open market isnt traced to specific sources.

In an ownership agreement with TID, the district receives one-third of the electricity from Don Pedros 200 megawatt plant and two-thirds goes to Turlock. MID will get an additional 20 megawatts from Don Pedro after the generating units are refurbished, district officials said.

Hydropower supplies about 20% of the electric service needs for TID, which also draws on wind and solar farms and natural gas plants.

Don Pedro Reservoir in Tuolumne County Calif., on Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022.

Storing carbon emissions underground

Josh Weimer, a spokesman for TID, said the district will need to layer in other sources of energy under the states climate strategy. Natural gas provides a huge service to the state of California to make sure the power stays on, Weimer said. Natural gas and Don Pedro are critical assets to the district. Solar and wind do not produce when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.

Because of the intermittent nature of wind and solar generation, battery storage systems are deemed essential to the clean energy transition in California.

MID and fellow members of the Balancing Authority of Northern California are considering a carbon sequestration project north of Sacramento that could allow the district to keep using natural gas. People in the environmental community are critical that the states climate strategy relies too heavily on capture and storage of carbon emissions from oil production and natural gas instead of eliminating those emissions.

The Modesto district also could invest in more solar; it already has a contract with a 25-megawatt solar energy project and agreements with several other solar facilities throughout the state.
After countless hours spent trying to get reimbursement for the damage or loss of more than 70 percent of his familys belongings during an October 2020 move from Maryland to Fort Knox, Kentucky, Army Lt. Col. Troy Frey has finally reached a resolution.

This was the worst permanent change of station move of my 21-year career, he said. This consumed our lives over 2 years.

While its not known how common these moving disasters are  with problems from start to finish  military families issues with household goods shipments have been persistent enough to convince U.S. Transportation Command to overhaul the way it handles military moves. This familys horrible experience shows why change is needed, Frey said.

When he received his PCS orders in 2020, Frey was just finishing a year-long unaccompanied tour in South Korea. He returned to the United States in the midst of the pandemic, so some of the move dates were affected by various quarantines. A housing crunch also hampered their ability to find a suitable place to live, so their household goods were put into storage for about a month while they occupied a friends trailer.

The family finally moved into their new home in Kentucky and the movers arrived Nov. 17, 2020. Thats when the Freys discovered that their belongings had been damaged or destroyed  by water, mold and other means, with much of their wooden furniture broken into pieces. Not long afterward, due to the water and mold damage, everything was removed for inspection and remediation. Their house, too, required remediation because of the mold that had been brought in on their belongings, so the family moved to a hotel where they spent the next 126 days. To make matters even worse, the movers also damaged floors, walls and doors of their house, Frey alleged.

When the movers brought back the supposedly remediated household goods on Jan. 15, 2021, their belongings were in even worse condition. Again, they were sent back for inspection and remediation.

The Freys soon filed a claim for loss of belongings valued at $152,167. Little did they know that their misery was only beginning.

To illustrate the epic, 2-year battle for restitution that ensued, Frey shared a 69-page, single-spaced timeline of the events and details of phone calls, emails and correspondence with dozens of people.

Once he turned over the claim to the Army claims office, his claim was settled within a few months, and the Army paid him $100,000 due to the extraordinary circumstances of the move, the only time it has done so since it began tracking such extraordinary cases in July 2022. Information was not available from the other service branches about whether theyve paid any household goods claims reaching the maximum when the claim is turned over to the military claims office for resolution.

There are so many moving parts to the claims process, Frey said. In my opinion, its very complex and convoluted. I dont want this to happen to other military families.

He added that he is especially concerned about younger troops who might not feel empowered to push back and question decisions from moving companies.

Devastating

The Freys didnt receive their final shipment until May 15, 2021, after the second mold remediation. But even then, many of their belongings were damaged, Frey said.

They had already begun the painstaking task of filing a claim. More than 100 boxes were unaccounted for, and the packers at the front end hadnt properly marked boxes or inventory sheets, he said.

When movers arrived with the Freys' household goods on Jan.15, 2021, after the shipment had supposedly been remediated for water and mold, their belongings were in even worse shape. (Courtesy of Troy Frey)

Meanwhile, when the items were being inspected and/or remediated and repacked, the movers mixed everything up, Freys wife, Debbie, said. That was the hardest part.  The only thing that was sort of kept together was the clothes.  We had kitchen items that were in with bathroom stuff, with books and DVDs all mixed together. Our stuff was just jumbled up in boxes.

Freys shipment from his yearlong tour in South Korea, which had arrived in good condition, was also removed from the house for inspection and remediation if needed.

That shipment also disappeared.

We had to provide estimates of things like how many T-shirts we owned, how many pairs of pants, how many glasses you had in your cupboard, Debbie Frey said. Thats not something you sit there and think about every day.  It makes it very hard to estimate what you have and dont have.

She described the whole situation as devastating.  It was definitely the sense of loss that you have. Its really hard to overcome that, to get past that.

Of all the losses, she said, the one that hurt the most was a christening gown.

It was handed down from my great-great-grandmother, who actually handmade the lace on it, handmade the christening gown. We had hand-carried it, but then it was removed from the house [when mold remediation was required], and then lost. Every person in our family had worn it. My son had worn it. Every kid in our family had worn it, and it got lost.

An inspectors words say it all

On Jan. 15, 2021, when the moving company brought remediated household goods back to the Freys house, an Army quality assurance inspector described the sight when the doors to the van were opened:

It was apparent that the shipment had been handled haphazardly and there were several boxes open with contents spilling out, footprints on top of [household goods], a television loaded upside down in the box, all mattresses were uncovered completely, a sofa was tossed upside down on top of other items in the truck, dining room chairs were hanging off other boxes, shelves were uncovered and broken, Bar-B-Q grill had all wheels broken off it and rolling in the truck.

Totes were loaded on their sides with contents spilling into the trailer and contents were in complete disarray. Once I asked the driver to open the back door, it was obvious there was water and mold damage to the entire shipment. Boxes were soaked through and some blankets in the back were saturated with water that was dripping down furniture and into boxes.

As Frey later found out, their belongings were left in a truck that had a gap through which rainwater poured. The shipment was taken to a climate-controlled warehouse for more inspection and remediation.

Debbie Frey wrings water from blankets covering the family's belongings after they were returned to them in January 2021 following

All told, after intense effort and endless aggravation, he received $150,359.

For various reasons, the moving company eventually reimbursed him $31,959, or 21% of his claim, although a companys maximum liability for a service members household goods loss is $75,000.

After unsuccessfully battling to get more, Frey transferred his claim to the Army in October 2022. And in March of this year, almost two years after final delivery, he received $100,000 from Army Claims Service.

Because the Army classified his losses as arising from extraordinary circumstances, it was able to reimburse him the maximum allowable by law, rather than the $40,000 maximum for a typical move. Freys final step was submitting a claim to his insurance company, and on May 10 he received another $18,400 from USAA.

Following the rules?

TRANSCOM booked Ackley Enterprises to handle the Freys move, one of about 800 command-approved transportation service providers. As the primary moving company, Ackley was accountable for the Freys move.

Ackley has an agreement with Total Military Management, a move management company, to handle services such as the claims process. Ackley hires local moving companies to do the actual work.

On April 5, 2022, an Army official told Total Military Management: This claim has taken far too long. Unless [your transportation service provider] makes a good faith settlement offer very soon, I will have to report this to TRANSCOM.

Frey said he was pleased, throughout the ordeal, with the response from Army civilians, who helped him deal with claims questions and communicate with the companies involved. Leadership was supportive by giving him a compassionate reassignment, sending him to a unit with a lesser operational tempo so he could devote the time needed to deal with the fallout of the move.

Meanwhile, TRANSCOM officials had issued a letter of warning to Ackley Enterprises Inc. in January 2021 as a result of the Freys experience, according to TRANSCOM spokesman Andre Kok.

In response to Military Times questions, Tom Ackley, owner of Ackley Moving Services, also known as Ackley Enterprises, said, We have reviewed this move with TMM and the Army [military claims office], and while we wish there had been no damage issues on this move, we are confident the claims settlement process was properly handled in accordance with [Defense Personal Property Program] business rules.

Asked about the Freys experience with the claims process, Matt Connell, CEO and cofounder of Total Military Management, said, TMM settles all claims in accordance to the [Defense Personal Property Program] business rules.  In this specific case TMM processed the claim under the direct oversight of the Army military claims office, and we have not been provided any information pertaining to the settlement that the Army MCO has made.

Hope for the future?

The new TRANSCOM contract consolidates management of the moving process  including warehouse services  under one company, HomeSafe Alliance. The command will continue to provide oversight, but the contractor will be fully responsible, bringing accountability to the program, officials have said.

Most service members wont move under this new set-up until the peak season of 2024, but HomeSafe is preparing to gradually phase in some domestic moves starting later this year. International moves under the contract are scheduled to begin later.

Lt. Col. Troy Frey's household goods sustained water damage  and mold  because a gash in the moving van allowed water to pour in. (Courtesy of Troy Frey)

In addition to providing better moves for service members, the new contract aims to improve the claims process, according to TRANSCOM spokesman Kok.

HomeSafe Alliance CEO Al Thompson said troops will find that submitting a claim and getting a settlement will be streamlined and faster. A new HomeSafe Connect app will give service members an opportunity to start with a much more accurate and clear inventory description, including the condition of the property, before it leaves a residence. Photos can be uploaded in the app, too. Service members and spouses can quickly review the movers information to confirm the condition of the property, he said.

If damage occurs, they can file a claim on the app.

Part of our contractual responsibility is to rapidly process the claim, Thompson said.

If they are unsatisfied, service members will still have the ability to submit their claim to their military claims office.

I hope it protects the service member, Frey said. We serve the government. We have to make a PCS move every couple of years. Its not a choice. Were told to move.

TRANSCOM also changed some rules for moving companies regarding mold claims, Kok said. They took effect May 15. Kok said Frey contacted TRANSCOM at the end of 2022 to share his experience and provide suggestions for improving the mold claims process.

Coincidentally, the Defense Personal Property Management Office had already begun making several proposed adjustments to our business rules for moving companies regarding mold claims, he noted.

Mold meets military moves: You can't take it with you

Among those changes:

When containers show signs of contamination, such as water saturation or mold growth, the company must contact the responsible military transportation office within two government days of discovery.

The company will continue shipping goods to a location determined by the company and the transportation office, but wont deliver to a residence before the shipment has been inspected.

When mold is discovered, the company will notify the service member, the military claims office and the inspecting transportation office and update the transportation office with findings within 48 hours.

Before undertaking remediation work, the company must contact and schedule the services of a qualified mold remediation firm within three government business days from the government officials direction, to get an itemized written estimate.

Troy, Connor and Debbie Frey lost more than 70% of their belongings during a permanent change of station move to Kentucky. (Courtesy of Troy Frey)

Things Frey wishes he had known

Frey admits he was perhaps his own worst enemy during part of the process.

I was told you get full replacement value from the moving company, and once you transfer it to the Army, youre only going to get depreciated value, he said. I wanted to get full replacement value and maximum liability.

He didnt realize the Army could pay up to $100,000 if the claim was related to extraordinary circumstances. So, he didnt officially turn the claim over to the Army as soon as he could have, while going back and forth for months with Total Military Management.

Once I got it to the Army, everything was fine, he said.

There were also questions about the timeliness of the claims and whether the clock was tied to the November 2020 attempted delivery or when their last few items were delivered in May 2021. While Frey was told in an email that the claims clock starts with the final delivery, the law says the claims clock starts with the date of initial delivery.

This is unfair, he argues, because for six months he couldnt see his belongings to know what was damaged or missing.

For all types of loss and damage claims, if a customer has been working with their [moving company] for at least 30 days and is not satisfied with the offer and/or interaction, then they are welcome and encouraged to transfer to the [military claims office] for help with resolving the claim, Kok said.

The determination about extraordinary circumstances is always made by the military claims office community, he said.

Frey submitted his claim to the Army claims office in October 2022, and by late February 2023 Army officials had determined he would receive the $100,000 maximum. In most, but not all, cases, the claims office will go back to the moving company for reimbursement, Kok said.

In Freys case, the Army was unable to seek reimbursement, said spokeswoman Lt. Col. Lindsey Elder.

The Army claims office didnt start tracking catastrophic losses until July 2022, Elder said. Since then, the Army has considered 20 claims for losses deemed catastrophic, but Freys was unique in that it involved mold, she said.

This is the only time that the Armys Center for Personnel Claims Support has paid the $100,000 maximum for a claim, she said.

The Freys also found out too late that  because their son, Connor, was then 16  they could have gotten two hotel rooms paid for by the moving company when they were displaced because of the mold. It was difficult for everyone to be in one room, with no kitchen, for 126 days, Frey said.

Frey has put in his retirement papers, in anticipation of retiring in May 2024. If this all hadnt happened, I might have stayed in. I dont know, Frey said.

But Im definitely ready for retirement.
The primary causes of workplace injuries in food manufacturing were machinery incidents, slips, trips, falls, and exposure to extreme temperatures, according to MOM. (PHOTO: MOM) (MOM)

SINGAPORE - The Ministry of Manpower has said it will step up checks in the manufacturing industry, after the sector recorded the highest number of fatal and major workplace injuries in the first half of 2023.

According to the Workplace Safety and Health Report for the first half of this year, the manufacturing sector accounted for 88 such incidents, out of 325.

Food manufacturing remained the second-highest sub-sector contributor in H1 of 2023 with 18 cases reported. It was the top contributor in the second half of 2022 with 26 incidents.

According to a Facebook post on Thursday (19 October) by the MOM, the primary causes of workplace injuries in food manufacturing were machinery incidents, slips, trips, falls, and exposure to extreme temperatures, the ministry said.

In response to these safety concerns, the MOM issued a total of one Stop Work Order, and 21 composition fines amounting to $31,300, among other actions.

These were taken following the discovery of 1,045 contraventions, uncovered over 450 inspections in food manufacturing companies conducted by the MOM between January and June of this year.

Addressing safety gaps in food manufacturing

According to the MOM, these inspections revealed shortcomings in basic safety measures  such as the guarded machine openings, safe routes for access and egress in work areas, and guardrails to prevent falls.

"The lack of such measures posed the risk of serious injuries to workers," said Sebastian Tan, MOM's director of the Occupational Safety and Health Inspectorate.

The MOM expanded the Demerit Point System (DPS) to the manufacturing sector in October.

Under this DPS system, companies can receive demerit points for violating the Workplace Safety and Health Act, with the severity of the breach determining the number of points issued.

The MOM's resolve in this matter was further made clear by Tan, who said that it would be stepping up checks in the sector.

"The Ministry will not hesitate to take action against errant companies and individuals who continue to flout safety regulations," Tan added.

To strengthen this initiative, the ministry urged members of the public to actively report unsafe practices.

This can be done by informing their supervisors or directly reaching out to the MOM through the SnapSAFE platform.

Do you have a story tip? Email: sgnews.tips@yahooinc.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Also check out our Southeast Asia, Food, and Gaming channels on YouTube.

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WASHINGTON (AP)  More than 300 people were arrested for illegally demonstrating and three people were charged with assaulting police after protesters descended on Capitol Hill to call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Hundreds of demonstrators from Jewish advocacy groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, poured into a congressional office building on Wednesday. They wore shirts that read Jews say cease fire now and they chanted let Gaza live and not in my name" before they were detained by Capitol Police.

Demonstrations are not allowed inside Capitol buildings, and police said they warned the crowd gathered in the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building to stop before they began making the arrests.

The 305 people arrested for illegally demonstrating were subsequently released and those charged with assault were held in custody pending an appearance before a judge.

A few liberal members of Congress have been pushing for a resolution in the latest Hamas-Israel war, saying that Israeli bombardment of civilians in Gaza is leading to a humanitarian crisis.

The protesters were never in the U.S. Capitol, as some falsely stated on social media.
Stargazers will be treated to one of the most beautiful meteor showers of the year this weekend. As Earth travels through space head-on through the debris of the famous Halleys Comet. The debris streaking across our skies, creates the annual Orionids meteor shower.

Orionid meteors have been occasionally visible in the night sky since Sept. 26, according to the American Meteor Society, and will continue to be visible until Nov. 22.

But the peak will occur this weekend, in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday morning, according to space news website EarthSky. Stargazers can expect to see between 10-20 meteors per hour. The best time to spot meteors will start at around 1 a.m. until sunrise.

Heres what to know about the Orionid meteor shower in the Boise area this year.

How to view the Orionid meteor shower in Boise

Dark skies will help make the Orionids more visible this year, with the moon only being 37% illuminated at the showers peak. But youll have to stay up late if you want to see them; the shower is most visible after midnight each night, according to NASA.

The best way to see the show in North America is to lie flat on your back with your feet facing southeast, according to NASA. Itll take about 30 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the night sky, and then you should start seeing over a dozen meteors per hour.

The Orionids got their name from the constellation Orion because the meteors seem to radiate from the constellation  but they can be seen across the whole night sky. Orion, named after the mythical Greek huntsman, can be easily located by finding Orions belt, which is three bright stars  Alnilam, Mintaka and Alnitak  in a straight line.

Because Earth is flying through space head-on into the debris left behind from Halleys Comet, the Orionids are some of the fastest meteors that Earth encounters. They pass through the sky at about 41 miles per second, so youll have to keep a close eye out for them.

Will the weather cooperate?

The best chance for Idahoans to view the Orionids will be early Saturday morning. The National Weather Service in Boise forecasts partly cloudy skies on Friday night thatll give way to a clear sky on Saturday.

Clouds will return on Saturday evening and slowly overtake the sky into Sunday, where the Weather Service forecasts a 20% chance of rain.

Where can you watch the meteors near Boise?

The best way to watch meteor showers is to avoid any sources of significant light pollution. Even when looking at the night sky, Space.com recommends focusing on parts of the sky away from constellations because the light from stars can diminish how a meteor looks.

The website Light Pollution Map shows where exactly you can escape light pollution, but here are some good locations to watch the night sky close to Boise:

Camels Back Park - The top of the hill at Camels Back Park allows you to put the light pollution behind you and look out toward the Boise Mountains.

Dedication Point - Pull-off area near Celebration Park south of Boise with zero light pollution.

Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve - An area of land in Sun Valley where no lights are allowed.

The next chance to watch a significant meteor shower will be the Leonids from Nov. 3 to Dec. 2, with the peak coming Nov. 17.
 Flash

The UN Security Council holds a vote for a Brazilian-drafted resolution that calls for humanitarian pauses in Gaza, at the UN headquarters in New York, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

The United States on Wednesday vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have called for humanitarian pauses in Gaza.

The Brazilian-drafted resolution won the support of 12 of the 15 members of the Security Council. The United States, which has veto power, was the only council member that voted against it.

Britain and Russia abstained.

Before voting on the Brazilian draft, the Security Council voted separately on two amendments to the Brazilian draft submitted by Russia.

The Russian amendments - on a call for an end to indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian subjects, and a call for a durable humanitarian cease-fire, instead of humanitarian pauses contained in the Brazilian text - were unable to pass as there was not enough support by council members.

The United States was the only council member that voted against the Russian amendments.

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in an explanation of vote, said her country "is disappointed this (draft) resolution made no mention of Israel's right of self-defense."

French UN ambassador Nicolas de Riviere told reporters after the vote that his country does not see any contradiction between supporting Israel after Hamas' attack and protecting civilians, granting humanitarian access, calling for full respect for international humanitarian law and Geneva Conventions, which were basically the Brazilian draft all about.

Russian UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia blasted the United States for its "hypocrisy and double standards."

Brazilian UN ambassador Sergio Franca Danese regretted the fact that his country's draft resolution was vetoed.

"Sadly, very sadly, silence and inaction prevailed - to no one's long-term interests," he said. "While we deeply regret collective action is made impossible in the Security Council, we do hope that efforts by other actors will yield positive results. Hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza cannot wait any longer. Actually, they have waited for far too long."

Chinese UN ambassador Zhang Jun said his country was shocked and disappointed at the result of Wednesday's voting.

Certain countries voted on Monday against a Russian-drafted resolution, which would have called for a humanitarian cease-fire. Those countries said they wanted more time to seek consensus on the basis of the Brazilian-drafted resolution. Brazil and many other council members showed a constructive attitude and agreed to postpone the voting for 24 hours, and again till Wednesday. In the past 40 hours, those countries have neither commented on nor expressed opposition to the Brazilian draft, making people believe that the council would be able to adopt a resolution on Wednesday. The final result is unbelievable, he said.

"Certain countries talked about the importance for the council to take the right actions. However, the way they voted only makes us question their willingness to let the council take any actions and their sincerity to find a solution to the problem," said Zhang.

The Security Council on Monday failed to adopt the Russian-drafted resolution. The draft resolution failed to win enough votes in favor for adoption. The United States, together with Britain, France and Japan, voted against it.
Most Americans believe Mexicos government shares responsibility with the U.S. to curb drug trafficking and illegal border crossings, while few view the southern neighbor as a close ally, according to a new study.

A poll from the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found 64 percent of participants said both the U.S. and Mexican governments are responsible for preventing immigrants from Mexico entering the U.S. illegally, while 73 percent said both governments are responsible for preventing illegal drug trafficking.

About 62 percent said they believe only the Mexican government is responsible for combating organized crime in Mexico.

Despite these high numbers, only 16 percent of adults view Mexico as a close ally, and more adults were likely to have an unfavorable view  38 percent  of Mexicos leadership than a favorable one  12 percent. About 7 in 10 described the U.S.s relationship with Mexico as at least friendly while 3 in 10 said it was more adversarial.

The polls numbers come amid mounting pressure on both the U.S. and Mexico governments to prevent illegal border crossings in the wake of rising migrant encounters at the southwest border in recent months. Officials expect border crossings to remain high, regardless of U.S. border policy.

The Biden administration has tried to fend off criticism from both sides of the aisle over the presidents immigration policies, as Republicans push for greater border security and Democrats demand more action on asylum-seekers.

About 8 in 10 said they think illegal immigration prevention across the U.S.-Mexico border is an important foreign policy goal, while more than 7 in 10 said the same for creating more opportunities for legal immigration and increasing trade with Mexico.

Democrats were more likely than Republicans to prioritize more opportunities for legal immigration  57 percent to 25 percent  while Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to prioritize illegal immigration prevention  80 percent to 35 percent.

The public believes immigration is a key U.S. foreign policy issue with Mexico that both countries are responsible for improving, said David Sterrett, a senior research scientist with The AP-NORC Center. Most adults view Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. legally favorably, but few have positive views of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

Meanwhile, a majority of Americans, or 65 percent, still have a favorable view of Mexican culture, with 60 percent saying they engage with Mexican culture within the U.S. and 83 percent reporting interactions with those of Mexican heritage.

This study shows that many adults in the U.S. engage with Mexican culture, and this engagement is related to their attitudes toward Mexican immigrants, said Sheila Kohanteb, forum executive director at the Pearson Institute for Study and Resolution of Global Conflict, in a statement. People who have engaged with Mexican culture in the U.S. are more likely than those who have not to hold favorable opinions of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. both legally and illegally.

The study was confused between Sept. 21-25 among 1,191 adults 18 and older from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The overall margin of sampling error is 3.8 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Most of us have a bit of Neanderthal DNA, with some more than others. Scientists think they've figured out why.

A child stands nose to nose with a model of a Neanderthal at the Neanderthal Museum in Germany. Neanderthal Museum (Mettman, Germany)

About 2% of our genes are shared with Neanderthals.

But some populations have slightly more Neanderthal in them, and it has been puzzling scientists.

By looking at how human genomes' evolved, scientists hope to understand the history of Neanderthals' sexual conquests.

Most of us have a little bit of Neanderthal DNA.

Far from being the lumbering brutes that we once thought they were, a slew of recent studies suggest Neanderthals not only interacted with Homo sapiens, but also had children with them.

These sexual encounters mean Neanderthal genes have been passed down through the generations, and today most people can thank Neanderthals for about 2% of their genomes.

An employee of the Natural History Museum in London looks at model of a Neanderthal male/ Will Oliver/PA Images/Getty

But that proportion varies, and some people have slightly more Neanderthal DNA than others. People in East Asia, notably, tend to have more Neanderthal DNA in their genomes, but why they have more has long baffled scientists.

That's because Neanderthals are thought to have mostly been European. Some Neanderthal remains were found as far East as the Altai Mountains of Siberia, but their bones are usually found in European countries.

The logical conclusion would be that the first children of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals would have been born in Europe. The next logical step is that Neanderthal DNA would get more diluted as Homo sapiens mingled with other humans and hominins when they spread away from the area where Neanderthals lived.

"So what's puzzling is that an area where we've never found any Neanderthal remains, there's more Neanderthal DNA," study author Mathias Currat, a geneticist at the University of Geneva, told CNN.

A new study, published in the journal Science Advances Wednesday, may provide some answers.

Currat and his co-authors drew from a database of 4,000 human genomes extracted from human remains dating back up to 40,000 years ago, and held by the Harvard Medical School.

Their study found that up to about 20,000 years ago, European genomes were indeed richer in Neanderthal DNA than the Asian genomes they have on record.

But that proportion shifted about 5,000 to 10,000 years ago. What the scientists think happened then is that a group of farming Homo sapiens from Anatolia, now Western Turkey, started mixing with hunter-gatherers in Western Europe.

These farmers had a little less Neanderthal in them, so Western Europeans lost some of that ancestry as they mixed, Currat said, per CNN.

What's not quite clear, however, is what happened in Asia. That's in part because the database the scientists were looking at had a lot less information about Asian genomes.

"It turns out that archaeological excavations have been much more numerous in Europe, which greatly facilitates the study of the genomes of European populations,'' said study author Claudio Quilodran, a geneticist at the UNIGE Faculty of Science, in a press release accompanying the findings.

Read the original article on Business Insider
FILE - Border Patrol Deputy Chief for the Tucson Sector Justin De La Torre walks along the border fence of the U.S.-Mexico border, on Aug. 29, 2023, in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Lukeville, Ariz. Most people in the U.S. see Mexico as an essential partner to stop drug trafficking and illegal border crossings, even as they express mixed views of Mexico's government, according to a new poll.(AP Photo/Matt York, File)

MIAMI (AP)  Most people in the U.S. see Mexico as an essential partner to stop drug trafficking and illegal border crossings, even as they express mixed views of Mexicos government, according to a new poll.

The poll from the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about two-thirds of Americans see their southern neighbor as having at least a friendly relationship with the U.S. Relatively few within that group, or 16%, consider Mexico a close ally. Meanwhile, U.S. adults are more likely to have an unfavorable (38%) view of Mexicos leadership than a favorable (12%) one. The remaining responded they did not have an unfavorable or favorable view or were not sure.

The poll captures the different perceptions Americans have of Mexico, its leadership and the estimated 10 million immigrants living in the U.S. Mexico is the largest trade partner of the U.S. and both countries have deep diplomatic and cultural ties. But both Washington and Mexico City are under immense pressure to reduce unauthorized migration at their shared border and to stop the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids that killed around 75,000 people in the U.S. last year.

For two countries that are such close neighbors, so intertwined in each others lives, and have been for so long, theres still room to grow, said Benjamin Lessing, an associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago and faculty affiliate of the Pearson Institute.

Americans see a shared responsibility for the two countries to address their international problems, including illegal immigration and drug trafficking. About two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. government and Mexican government should both be responsible for preventing immigrants  from Mexico or from other countries  from getting into the U.S. illegally through Mexico. An even larger share, or about three-quarters of Americans, say the governments should both be responsible for preventing illegal drug trafficking from Mexico to the U.S.

We need as best relations as possible, said Kris Bennefield, 41, of San Augustine, Texas. We should be working hand in hand with Mexico to take the cartels down.

The results come as several of the Republican presidential candidates say they would use military force against Mexico in response to the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. As the Israel-Hamas war rages on, some in the GOP field are suggesting without evidence that militants may be taking advantage of the mass arrivals of migrants to come through the U.S.-Mexico border.

Americans place a high level of importance on preventing illegal immigration across the border between the U.S. and Mexico: 53% of U.S. adults call this an important foreign policy goal. Republicans (80%) are more likely than Independents (50%) and Democrats (35%) to call this important.

Slightly fewer (43%) Americans say its important to create more opportunities for legal immigration from Mexico to the U.S., with Democrats (57%) being more likely than Republicans (25%) to prioritize this.

Theres a big part of the population that recognizes the importance and the big effort that the two nations are making to work together, said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University who specializes in U.S.-Mexico relations.

Bennefield, a Democrat, said he feels the U.S. needs to create a better system for people to arrive in the U.S. legally. The last extensive package on immigration came under President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and a more limited effort was signed by President George H.W. Bush four years later.

We need to boost our economy with people, said Bennefield, adding he also feels it is equally important to prevent illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border.

That emphasis on stopping illegal immigration is also reflected in how Americans view Mexican immigrants differently depending on whether they live in the U.S. legally or not. About two-thirds of Americans say they have a positive view of Mexican immigrants who are living in the United States legally, compared to just 20% who say that about those who reside in the U.S. illegally.

Dan Allstun, a retired utility company worker who lives in Los Angeles, said he thinks it is a problem when people reside in the U.S. and do not pay taxes. Experts have said that immigrants who are in the country illegally pay sales taxes and that very significant numbers of them also have federal and state tax withholding in their paychecks.

Allstun, who is a Republican, said he thinks the vast majority of immigrants are fleeing poor economic conditions in their countries.

Its not that these people are bad. Theyre coming here for economic reasons. However, it becomes quite difficult for our country to control, he said. So there could be people who are coming here to take advantage.

Hispanic Americans were more likely than Americans overall to say its important to create more opportunities for legal immigration from Mexico to the U.S. They were also more likely to have a favorable view of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

The poll also reflected that about two-thirds of Americans (65%) say they have a positive view of Mexican culture. Three in five say they have personally engaged with Mexican culture within the United States such as through festivals or cultural events.

"Mexico is part of the American culture, said Correa-Cabrera. The politicization of the issues of immigration and border security and how they are used to divide and conquer in elections differentiates from the realistic perspective of who Americans are in their day-to-day lives.

___

Sanders reported from Washington.

___

The poll of 1,191 adults was conducted Sept. 21-25, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORCs probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, designed to represent the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
Taylor Swift accepts the Best Artist award onstage during the MTV Europe Music Awards 2022 in Duesseldorf, Germany. Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

MTV has canceled its Europe Music Awards ceremony, which was set to take place November 5 in Paris.

In a statement, MTV said the decision was made "out of an abundance of caution."

The network said artists will still receive awards.

MTV says now is not the time to party and that "out of an abundance of caution," it will cancel a Paris awards show that was set to take place in about two weeks.

Citing the "volatility of world events," MTV, in a statement Thursday, announced it would not be hosting this year's Europe Music Awards, which were scheduled for November 5 at a Paris convention center.

"As we watch the devastating events in Israel and Gaza continue to unfold, this does not feel like a moment for a global celebration," the network said. "With thousands of lives already lost, it is a moment of mourning."

Although MTV did not specify any security threat, it said it acted out of concern for "the thousands of employees, crew members, artists, fans, and partners who travel from all corners of the world to bring the show to life." Winning artists will still receive their awards, it added.

Earlier this month, the French government placed the country on high alert after an alleged Islamic State operative attacked and killed a school teacher in northern France. This November also marks eight years since Islamic State militants killed 130 people in an attack on the Bataclan Theater in the French capital.

Read the original article on Insider
Taylor Swift was nominated for seven awards this year

The MTV Europe Music Awards have been cancelled over "devastating events in Israel and Gaza".

Organisers Paramount told BBC Newsbeat this was "out of an abundance of caution".

"Given the volatility of world events, we have decided not to move forward," a statement said.

The show was scheduled to take place in Paris on 5 November, with performances from BTS's Jung Kook and former Little Mix star Leigh-Anne.

Doja Cat, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, SZA, Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj were nominated for best artist.

Paramount describes the MTV EMAs as "an annual celebration of global music", but said as "events in Israel and Gaza continue to unfold, this does not feel like a moment for a global celebration".

"With thousands of lives already lost, it is a moment of mourning.

"Given the volatility of world events, we have decided not to move forward with the 2023 MTV EMAs out of an abundance of caution for the thousands of employees, crew members, artists, fans, and partners who travel from all corners of the world to bring the show to life."

The most serious escalation in the conflict in decades erupted on 7 October, when Hamas - a group designated a terrorist group by governments including the United States and the UK - launched an unprecedented attack on Israel killing 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostages.

At least 3,700 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched retaliatory air strikes, Palestinian health officials say.

Paramount said its show will now be rescheduled for November 2024.

The EMAs have been running since 1994, when it was first hosted in Berlin, Germany.

More on Israel-Gaza war

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An overhead view of the Colony Ridge development in New Caney on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. Credit: Mark Felix for The Texas Tribune

Gov. Greg Abbott named Colony Ridge a top state priority when he placed it on the third special legislative session agenda  heeding calls by right-wing media to crack down on the fast-growing Liberty County subdivision that had become a haven for organized crime and illegal immigrants from Latin America.

Abbott vowed to take action on any issue that needs to be enforced, in terms of a new law in the state of Texas, to make sure were not going to have colonies like this in our state, he said in a Sept. 25 interview.

But nearly two weeks into the special session, no major bills to address Colony Ridge have been filed or debated. And on Thursday, the House State Affairs Committee held a hearing to discuss the subdivision without considering any specific legislation.

Why are we even here doing this? Rep. Jay Dean, R-Longview, wondered aloud.

Lawmakers heard testimony by local officials and the CEO of the housing development that told a different story than the one peddled by some conservatives in recent weeks  one of a small county exploding in population in its unincorporated areas that would likely benefit from more funding for law enforcement and infrastructure, as well as stronger regulatory authority for county officials.

Local officials refuted claims made by right-wing media and Republican elected officials including Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton that Colony Ridge had become too dangerous for law enforcement to effectively police and had overwhelmed local government resources.

Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said Abbotts public concerns that the subdivision was a no-go zone for law enforcement were unfounded.

Theres no such thing as a no-go zone in Texas, McCraw said. We obviously talked to the sheriff and he assured us that was not the case. Certainly, our sergeant didnt think so. Our troopers can go anywhere.

That sheriff, Bobby Rader, testified that while Colony Ridge has more incidents of crime than other parts of Liberty County, that was to be expected given its high population density. He said he was thankful that Colony Ridge property owners association pays for 10 contract deputies to patrol the area, though he would benefit from additional funding for his department.

I believe if we had money in a pot somewhere, we could pay for extra Liberty County deputies and constables over in that subdivision, Rader said.

Colony Ridge, a massive residential development north of Houston that the Rader estimates houses about 50,000 people, has grown steadily for more than a decade. John Harris, CEO of the development company behind the subdivision, said that Colony Ridge offers affordable housing to residents, including immigrants, who otherwise would not be able to purchase a home. Often, residents purchase a vacant lot and then build on it as they are able to, a Texas Tribune tour of the subdivision found.

Why dont we build a place, build county roads, put in water and sewer, put in high-speed internet and amenities, and make it as easy as possible for them to move in? Harris testified Thursday, describing the companys vision after purchasing 500 acres of timber land in the rural county. That was our plan, and we did it.

Colony Ridge has recently become another issue that has divided Republicans as they increasingly fall into hard-right and establishment camps. The establishment wing, led by House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, has clashed with the hard-right faction led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Abbott has tried to straddle both. But what he wants with regard to Colony Ridge is unclear. The special session item on Colony Ridge asks the Legislature to consider and act upon legislation concerning public safety, security, environmental quality, and property ownership in areas of Texas like the subdivision. The governor did not respond to a request for comment Thursday about what legislation he wants to reach his desk.

Paxton sent a letter Thursday to Abbott, Patrick, Phelan and Republican Texans in Congress that revealed the results of an Attorney Generals Office investigation into Colony Ridge. Paxton said that the subdivision appears to be attracting and enabling illegal alien settlement and has drawn far too many people and enabled far too much chaos for the current arrangement to be tolerated by the state.

The scale of the Colony Ridge development has proved unmanageable for effective law enforcement and other key standards of acceptable governance, Paxton wrote. Violent crime, drug trafficking, environmental deterioration, public disturbances, infrastructure overuse, and other problems have plagued the area and nearby towns.

He singled out two Republican lawmakers, Sen. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville and Rep. Ernest Bailes of Shepherd, for sponsoring a bill in 2017 that enabled Colony Ridge to establish a municipal management district. Notably, Nichols and Bailes also supported this years unsuccessful effort to impeach Paxton and remove him from office.

Those who testified Thursday pushed back against the claims made by Paxton and others.

Liberty County Judge Jay Knight said it is inaccurate to describe Colony Ridge as a colonia, like the substandard settlements on private land populated largely by immigrants and found in Texas counties near Mexico.

This has water, sewer, ditches and roads, yes, Knight said. The water is regulated by TCEQ and its a private company that owns it the roads become property of the county. Its ours to take care of.

He said the inability of commissioners courts to regulate development in unincorporated areas can be problematic when huge developments, like Colony Ridge, spring up there. He said he first raised concerns about this with the Legislature eight years ago.

He said in unincorporated areas, the county can regulate water, sewer, ditches and roads, thats it. He added, If you have 100 acres there, I cant tell you you cant have 100,000 goats, or sheep, or whatever. I cant tell you what kind of house you can build.

Rep. Richard Pena Raymond, D-Laredo, suggested that the House could make lemonade  the implication being that the governor had given them lemons with the Colony Ridge mandate by amending laws passed in 2021 that punish local governments for reducing law enforcement budgets.

Those laws, House Bill 1900 and Senate Bill 23, apply to cities and counties with populations ranging from at least 250,000 to at least 1 million. Raymond suggested lowering that threshold to include rural counties so places like Colony Ridge are guaranteed a minimum level of law enforcement spending.

If the governor is listening, maybe we can put this on the call, Raymond said. Remember when we passed two sessions ago, do not defund the police?  That got cut off at 250,000 population. That leaves out a lot of counties, including this one.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified John Harris as his brother, Trey, whom he works with to develop Colony Ridge.
Rates of domestic and intimate partner violence spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. As many of our organizations supporting survivors of domestic violence scrambled to find resources, too many of our friends and neighbors were victimized within their own homes.

And for so many survivors, the epidemic of violence has continued far longer than the pandemic did.

We must be the First State in the nation in supporting our most vulnerable.

This October  National Domestic Violence Awareness Month  we are proposing the largest ever investment by our state's largest government to support survivors.

Domestic violence continues to be a profound and pervasive social and public health crisis crossing lines of class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. Domestic violence is often hidden in plain sight, and most of us know someone impacted by violence or abuse.

Domestic violence homicides in Delaware have nearly doubled in the past year, according to Mariann Kenville-Moore, director of advocacy and policy for the Delaware Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in three women (33%) and one in four men (25%) are victims of intimate partner physical violence, sexual violence, or stalking in their lifetime. The statistics are even worse here in Delaware where 38% of women and 33% of men experience domestic violence.

Domestic abuse comes in many forms, including verbal, emotional, and physical. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, a shadow pandemic of intimate partner violence saw record-breaking outreach to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. While domestic violence was on the rise, many of our local organizations who support survivors of domestic violence in Delaware were severely impacted financially. Thanks to the leadership of President Joe Biden and our federal delegation through The American Rescue Plan, New Castle County Council was able to designate significant federal resources to help Delaware organizations continue to help some of our most vulnerable in our communities.

Proposed investments for New Castle County

I am proposing to New Castle County Council the following investments to help those who serve domestic violence survivors:

$375,000 for Child Incs efforts to expand the work of Domestic Violence Community Health Workers as well as to support survivors, their families and those at risk of domestic violence.

$344,075 for YWCA to support their Sexual Assault Response Center. This funding will help them maintain their capacity for the increased need they saw during the pandemic, particularly in low-income and historically marginalized communities. The YWCA's Sexual Assault Response Center is Delaware's highest-volume provider of comprehensive, free and confidential crisis services for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence.

$100,000 for Amanecer, formerly known as St. Pauls Counseling, to expand their bilingual, culturally-sensitive behavioral health counseling and therapy, as well as emergency resources to assist female victims of domestic violence in crisis situations.

$50,000 for Delaware Center for Justice to expand their Adult Victims Services program, many of whom are victims of domestic violence. The program utilizes specialized, intensive, long-term case management and therapy services to address individual trauma and improve coping skills for their clients as they navigate the complex criminal justice and social service systems.

October, again, is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Let us raise both awareness and funds to support survivors of domestic violence. The investments I am proposing will help local nonprofits continue providing critical services for those experiencing domestic violence.

Thanks to the collaborative efforts of Biden, our federal delegation and New Castle County Council, we are investing federal resources so that we come out of COVID stronger than ever by supporting and protecting the most vulnerable. It is imperative that we continue our collaborative efforts to provide long-term funding to continue these critical services.

How to seek help

If you or anyone you know is experiencing the trauma of domestic violence, help is available. Please call one of Delawares 24-hour domestic violence hotlines. Together, we can help stop domestic violence in Delaware.

New Castle County: 302-762-6110

Kent and Sussex counties at 302-422-8058

Abbriendo puertas: 302-745-9874

Matt Meyer is the County Executive of New Castle County.

New County County Executive Matt Meyer

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Delaware domestic violence: How we can make a difference.
A great white shark whose mauled carcass washed up on a beach in Australia may have fallen prey to a killer whale attack, experts have suggested.

Astonishing footage showed the apex predators metres-long body had effectively been torn in half before it was found by residents in the state of Victoria.

Fisherman and bait shop manager, Ben Johnstone, who took the footage near Cape Bridgewater, said he had never seen a shark carcass wash up in 15 years of fishing in the area, telling ABC News: Its probably a once in a lifetime experience to see something like that.

Ben Johnstone went to inspect the sharks remains after they were found by residents (Ben Johnstone)

Mr Johnstone believes the sharks devastating wounds are likely the result of a killer whale attack, with a pod of orcas having been spotted circling in the bay two days prior to the discovery of the carcass.

Great white sharks and killer whales are both apex predators sitting at the top of their respective food chains  but can come into conflict when they cross paths and compete for similar prey, according to the Natural History Museum.

In these instances, the marine predators will attack each other, and there have been multiple observations of unusual behaviours used by killer whales to attack great whites, the museums website states.

In the 1990s, an orca was observed ramming a great white near the California coast, turning it upside down in a suspected attempt to disorentiate it into a trace-like state, before swimming around with it at the surface for 15 minutes to suffocate it.

The killer whale was then observed eating the sharks liver, which is rich in fats and oils that help the great white to maintain its buoyancy, according to the museum.

Killer whales are highly intelligent apex predators (PA)

There have now been nine interactions between orcas and great whites reported in Australia and New Zealand, in addition to incidents in the United States and South Africa, according to trophic ecologist Lauren Meyer, who is part of an international team creating a database on such interactions.

Dr Meyer, of Flinders University, told ABC that, although it was not 100 per cent clear what happened to the shark, it was likely a killer whale had attacked it to slurp out its liver.

Were not actually sure why killer whales are such picky eaters, Dr Meyer said. We see this with things like humpback whales, where [killer whales] come in and actually eat the tongue and leave the rest of the whale.

We certainly see that they prefer the liver of white sharks, mako sharks, bronze whalers and sevengills, and even tiger sharks. We also see they like to eat the intestines of sunfish, which is really strange, and dugong intestines.

Samples from the sharks carcass has been sent to government agencies and academics, and Dr Meyer said researchers would look at rake marks and leftover genetics, such as saliva, while they continue to investigate the incident.

But she said she was not surprised to see such an incident happen in Portland, which is an important corridor for great whites and also a hunting ground for orcas.

Female great white sharks grow to an average length of more than 4 metres (PA)

According to the Natural History Museum, following attacks in California and South Africa, it appeared that the entire ecosystem in those areas began to change, in a way that concerned scientists.

By scaring away the great whites for weeks or even months, the orcas were observed to have altered the habits of other sharks, abalone and penguins.

There is only so much pressure an ecosystem can take, and the impacts of these orca removing sharks are likely far reaching, marine biologist Alison Towner observed last year.
Standing at a podium in the Lemont Area Historical Society and Museum, which used to be a church, author Pat Camalliere recently discussed mystery and history as it relates to her writing style and her hometown of Lemont.

Camalliere, who has written four books, talked Tuesday to womens and mens book clubs members from Smith Crossing, a senior living community, about her second book, The Mystery at Black Partridge Woods, and Lemont history.

Writing about the area I live in makes it easy to visit the places the story took place. Amazingly, some are not much different today than they were 200 years ago, Camalliere said.

In her second book, Wawetseka, a Potawatomi woman, must solve the murder of a white man that her son is accused of committing, Camalliere said. The book tells a parallel story of Wawetsekas descendant and his friends who are working on a book about Wawetsekas experiences, Camalliere said.

Wawetsekas portion of the book is set in 1817, so Camalliere said she did extensive research to find that Native Americans and white people resided along the Des Plaines River near present day Lemont. Black Partridge Woods, which is located in Lemont, is now a reforested area where many Native American artifacts have been found over the years, she said.

Initially, Camalliere said she wanted her book to include comparisons between past and present day challenges Potawatomi people experienced. Camalliere said she visited a Potawatomi Tribe, which welcomed her, but once she told them she was writing a book they did not want to cooperate based on previous experiences with nonnative authors.

They wanted to speak for themselves, not have outsiders speak for them, Camalliere said.

So Camalliere said she researched the tribe for two years to be sure she was historically accurate, and limited comparisons to things that were common, like personal challenges and values that all people would share.

I believed that there would be natural bonds between mothers and their children, that husbands and wives would always come across challenges that they viewed differently and would need to work out those difficulties, that most people were good but to varying degrees, Camalliere said.

After the Potawatomi signed the Treaty of Chicago and most relocated west of the Mississippi River, Irish immigrants moved into the area and established farmland and the Illinois and Michigan Canal, Camalliere said. The canal benefited Lemont in three ways: It brought more people to Lemont; opened the land to farmers; and led to the discovery of the limestone quarry, she said.

The quarry industry in Lemont boomed by the 1850s as Irish, Polish, German, Swedish and Italian immigrants all worked in various quarries, Camalliere said. Limestone from Lemont quarries were transported along the I & M Canal and used in many buildings in Joliet and Chicago after the Chicago Fire, she said.

Lemont has multiple churches as each immigrant community established its own church, she said, and became known as The Village of Faith. For example, the Lemont Area Historical Society and Museum is located in the building known as the Old Stone Church, which was the Lemont Episcopal Church from 1861 to 1970, Camalliere said.

In 1970, the Lemont Area Historical Society and Museum took over the building and established the museum in the basement of the chapel, she said.

Lemont Mayor John Egofske said many of the immigrant communities that first came to Lemont still live in the village and go to the same churches.

Over the centuries, this town was built on hard work and faith, Egofske said. I say youre a newbie unless youre about six generations here. Its really cool to see a lot of the families still here.

But with a hard work ethic came a play hard mindset, Egofske said. When the sanitary and ship canal was built in the 1890s, he said, there were close to 60 taverns along the road near the Old Stone Church. The road was referred to as Smokey Row, Camalliere said.

Smokey Row also had establishments for gambling, drugs and loose women, Camalliere said, so in total there were more than 100 such businesses along the road by 1895.

What do you think that the pastor of this church thought on Sunday morning as he was greeting or saying goodbye to his parishioners and looking over at that street? Camalliere said. Lemont has a quirky past is what I like to say. There was a lot of fun that went on here too, and hard work.

The group then took a bus tour around Lemont, where Camalliere showed a few locations mentioned in her book. Most notably, Camalliere showed them a parking lot along the Keepataw Preserve, when she had her present day characters look out to the I & M Canal.

When she wrote the first draft, she wrote the scene to describe what they saw, Camalliere said, but while editing the book she said the scene didnt feel right. She drove out to the parking lot and realized what she was missing: Seeing the I-355 bridge from the area.

I had to go back and rewrite the scene, she said.

Bobbie Hett, who leads Smith Crossing womens book club, said she enjoyed learning more about Camallieres book and Lemonts history.

Hett said The Mystery at Black Partridge Woods was well-written, engaging and detailed. While the book club didnt officially read the book, Hett said after the trip its likely the book club members will check it out.

After being on the trip, that would be more of an incentive, Hett said.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov welcomed in a ceremony following his arrival in Pyongyang on Wednesday, 18 October

Moscow has pledged its "complete support" for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un , says Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Mr Lavrov, who is on an official trip to North Korea, also thanked the country for its support in Ukraine.

His ongoing trip sets the stage for a possible visit to the country by President Vladimir Putin .

Last week, the US said North Korea had begun sending large shipments of arms to Russia for use in Ukraine.

Mr Lavrov's two-day visit follows on the heels of Mr Kim's days-long visit to Russia in September - his first trip abroad since the pandemic - where he met Mr Putin to discuss "possibilities" for military cooperation.

Earlier in July, Russia's defence minister also visited North Korea and was shown the country's latest weapons, including the Hwasong intercontinental ballistic missile.

At an official reception on Wednesday, Mr Lavrov pledged Moscow's "complete support" for Mr Kim and accused the US and its allies of unleashing a "war against the Russian federation".

He also said he was there to discuss implementing the arrangements made when Mr Putin and Mr Kim met last month, but did not elaborate further.

It is unclear if Mr Lavrov would meet with Mr Kim during his current trip, like he did on his last visit to Pyongyang in 2018.

However Washington had warned that Moscow is buying weapons from Pyongyang for its war against Ukraine, and said any help from the North would violate United Nations resolutions.

On Friday, the US released intelligence and evidence, which it said showed the transfer of ammunition and artillery had already started.

Satellite images showed 300 containers had been shipped from the North Korean port of Nanjin to Dunay on Russia's east coast in early September, and then transported to a military warehouse near Tikhoretsk, close to the Ukrainian border.

Moscow would be keen on North Korean arms due to their compatibility with Russian weapon systems, experts earlier told the BBC.

North Korea has a large stockpile of arms, due to its unresolved conflict with the South. The two countries are technically still at war.

International sanctions and pandemic restrictions - which have only begun loosening recently - have left North Korea's economy in a dire state, with the country short of essentials like food and medicine.

Some analysts believe Mr Kim would have asked for humanitarian aid during the alleged arms deal with Russia in September. Still, some think that Pyongyang may be reluctant to hand over too much ammunition given their relative lack of resources.

Over the past six months, both North Korea and Russia have pledged to deepen ties with each other as both countries have become increasingly isolated on the world stage.
 Flash

Chinese Premier Li Qiang holds talks with Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday held talks with Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and paying an official visit to the country.

Li said China stands ready to work with Thailand to adhere to good-neighborliness and friendship and firmly support each other on issues concerning each other's core interests.

Focusing on high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, Li said China will advance cooperation with Thailand across the board and bring China-Thailand cooperation to new heights.

China will further facilitate two-way trade and investment and strengthen cooperation in areas such as the digital economy, new energy vehicles, clean energy, and 5G with Thailand, the premier said.

Li said China is willing to cooperate with Thailand in fighting online gambling, telecom fraud, repatriating corrupt fugitives, and recovering criminals' illegal proceeds.

Srettha said Thailand is ready to actively participate in the Belt and Road cooperation and deepen cooperation with China in trade, investment, railway, tourism, and other areas to advance bilateral ties to a higher level.

After the talks, Li and Srettha witnessed the signing of a number of bilateral cooperation documents in fields such as Belt and Road cooperation, foreign affairs, the digital economy, customs, film, and culture.
Oct. 28 is officially Immigrants Day in Naperville.

A proclamation designating the date, formalized by the Naperville City Council this week, was the result of a community-driven initiative spearheaded by five Naperville-based organizations.

Representatives for all five groups  Alliance of Latinos Motivating Action in the Suburbs, Chinese American Women in Action, First Congregational Church of Naperville, Naperville Neighbors United and Xilin Association  attended the Tuesday night council meeting to witness the edicts passage.

Councilman Ian Holzhauer read the edict out loud at the meeting.

The mission of the city of Naperville drives our commitment and responsibility as a local government to provide an inclusive community that values diversity, the proclamation said.

On behalf of the Latino alliance, known as ALMAS, founding member Diana Torres Hawken thanked the city for the recognition for all those of us who are here to make a better living for our families, she said.

It is an absolute pleasure to be recognized in the city where my children will be third-generation at Naperville Central High School  and also any other immigrant who is here to make Naperville home, Torres Hawken said.

After receiving the proclamation, Torres Hawken, joined by representatives for the other contributing organizations, stood for a photo. Before getting in line for the shot, she invited other immigrants in the council chambers to join them.

Torres Hawkens invitation was reflective of what she said she hopes the proclamation promotes  a date on which the community at large can champion inclusivity and diversity and not a measure thats meaningful just to the groups that helped put it together.

Yes, (the proclamation) is ceremonial, but what it does do is it allows  all the organizations that represent groups that arent normally represented to fortify the missions that we have, she said in an interview Thursday.

(It affirms) that we should have a Diwali celebration. We should have an Open Mosque Day. We should have a Day of the Dead event. All these things that we do anyways, we can do with a breath of relief because the city understands why we do these things and why we need to do them.

More than 21% of Napervilles residents were born outside of the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, making up a population of 32,337 foreign-born individuals.

Torres Hawken, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Colombia in 1987, began looking into a Naperville Immigrants Day proclamation last month. The proclamation is inspired by National Immigrants Day, celebrated on Oct. 28 every year as first proclaimed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

While Torres Hawkens push for a locally-recognized Immigrants Day started weeks ago, she acknowledged the proclamation was a particularly timely addition to the councils agenda Tuesday night as tensions from the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East continue to echo around the world.

Last Saturday, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was killed and his mother seriously injured at their home in unincorporated Plainfield, not far from Naperville, after both were stabbed multiple times by their landlord. Wadea Al-Fayoume was laid to rest Monday.

The attack was an alleged hate crime. According to prosecutors, Joseph Czuba, of Plainfield, attacked his tenants after listening to conservative talk radio and becoming heavily interested in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Wadeas mother, Hanaan Shahin, moved to the United States 12 years ago and his father followed three years later, both escaping conflict in the Middle East, according to relatives. The parents are originally from the city of Beitunia in Palestines West Bank.

Torres Hawken said the days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel have been a time when were seeing what humanity is really capable of, making moments like Tuesdays proclamation all the more important.

To have that shimmer of hope of seeing our Naperville community being more accepting of differences is a beautiful thing, she said.

Other organizers offered similar sentiments Tuesday night.

We know that many in our community are hurting right now, said Saily Joshi, executive director of Naperville Neighbors United. Whether you came here last week or you came here generations ago, we want you to know that you are welcome, youre seen, youre heard, youre valued, and this is a beacon of hope for all of us that we will live together as one human race.

Minutes before Joshi spoke, Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli opened Tuesdays meeting by condemning the brutal attack on Al-Fayoume and his mother.

As we mourn Wadea and this senseless act of violence, we must continue to remember that communities are stronger together, he said. We are a community enriched by the vibrant mixture of perspectives, backgrounds, cultures, experiences, customs and life experiences of our nearly 150,000 residents. These are not differences to be exploited during times of tension but attributes that facilitate fellowship and kindness and hope for a fuller, richer tomorrow.

As we conduct our affairs as representatives of our city, and as we all live as neighbors, we can and should focus on one another. If somethings wrong, let us try to right it. If someone is in pain, let us work to bring healing. May we find the strength and courage to care for one another, to love and to persevere.

He paused for a moment of silence in Wadeas memory.

People around the council chambers bowed their heads. The room went quiet.

Chicago Tribune reporter Adriana Perez contributed.

tkenny@chicagotribune.com
The new Metro Council made a wise financial move voting in favor in accepting a $3.4 million grant from the state of Tennessee to reimburse Metro Police for the salaries of 62 existing SRO (School Resource Officers).

SROs are very much needed in schools especially after the despicable Covenant School shooting. It should send a clear message to students and parents alike that the city of Nashville and the state of Tennessee are willing to invest in school safety.

This also shows that the state and Nashville can work together on common ground.

Another view: Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell can save lives by building on Partners in Care

Let the school board do its job and the police do their job

Opponents of having an SRO in each school attempted to tie in their on social agenda to this vote. One Council member does not support SRO because the state failed in her expectations of gun control.

Freddirico Pye, a school resource officer who has been working at Pearl-Cohn High School for the last 7 years walks the halls in the school in Nashville , Tenn., Friday, May 12, 2023.

Another states some students would not feel safe with a police officer at the school. Some go as far as to describe having an SRO presence in schools is continuing the pipeline from school to prison. Others have suggested having the school board determine what the police can and cant do. I suggest letting the school board work on academics and the police work on school safety!

Ironically, several of the council members opposed or abstaining from voting for SRO in schools also were against the LPR (license plate readers) in the last Council term.

Opponents did not agree with license plate readers either

Re-elected incumbents Zulfat Suara, Kyonzte Toombs, Sean Parker, Emily Benedict, Ginny Welsch, and Sandra Sepulveda, and Delishia Porterfield who went from district Council member to At-Large, opposed the measure while Brandon Taylor abstained.

New Council members opposed were Olivia Hill, Joy Smith Kimbrough, Deonte Harrell, Terry Vo and Jeff Preptit. Brenda Gadd abstained.

This group sends a clear message on where they stand for law enforcement and the safety of our city.

Steve Jones, Nashville 37221

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville council's SRO opponents send bad message about public safety
The mother of Natalee Holloway, the 18-year-old who was killed while on vacation in Aruba in 2005, said she does not accept the apology from her daughter's killer, Joran van der Sloot.

Beth Holloway said in an interview with NBC News she does not believe van der Sloot is a changed man, as he maintained in his apology in the courtroom on Wednesday, where he pleaded guilty to guilty to extortion and wire fraud in connection with the Alabama teens case.

As part of the plea, van der Sloot admitted he bludgeoned Holloway to death on an Aruba beach in 2005. He'd been suspected in her disappearance for decades.

"He doesnt have that in his existence. Just to say the words? Its fine. It didnt mean anything," Beth Holloway told NBC News' Sam Brock.

Natalee Holloway (TODAY)

Van der Sloot, 36, had previously pleaded not guilty to all charges, before he changed his plea to guilty and explained to investigators how he took Natalee Holloway's life  solving what happened to the teenager nearly two decades ago.

As part of his plea agreement, van der Sloot told investigators Natalee Holloway wanted to go back to her hotel, but he wanted to get dropped off farther away so they could walk back together and he "might still get a chance to be with her."

While the two were on the beach, van der Sloot said Holloway rejected his sexual advances and kneed him groin to try to get free. He said he responded by kicking her "extremely hard" in the face.

Van der Sloot told investigators Holloway was unconscious, "possibly even dead," when he found a cinderblock nearby and struck her in the head with it. He then took her body to the water, he said.

"I walk up to about my knees into the ocean  and I push her off into the sea," he said.

Van der Sloot apologized to the Holloway family in the courtroom on Wednesday, saying he is a different person than he was nearly 20 years ago.

"I would like to apologize to the Holloway family," van der Sloot said. "I am no longer that person back then than I am today. I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, he helped me through all of this."

Peruvian police and Interpol agents handing over Joran Van der Sloot to FBI agents for a temporary extradition to the United States in Callao, Peru (Interpol Peru / AFP - Getty Images)

Beth Holloway responded to the apology in the courtroom.

"You are a killer and I want you to remember that every time that jail cell door slams," she said in court.

Beth Holloway told Brock that confronting her daughter's killer was not nearly as daunting as living with unanswered questions for nearly two decades.

"The reason why is because the not knowing is more torturous than the knowing," she said. "You brace yourself. You take the hit, but the not knowing is the never ending nightmare, and thats worse."

She added that knowing how her daughter died brings her some peace and closure to move forward.

"Well, I think now it becomes easier for me to appreciate her life through my sons life, and through his childrens lives," she said.

"Ive been a little distracted," she added, wiping tears from her eyes. "So I feel like now I can kind of like ... now I can focus on that."

U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco called van der Sloot's crimes "heinous to the extreme," and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. The sentence will serve concurrently to the time he's serving in Peru for the murder of 21-year-old college student Stephany Flores.

If his 28-year prison sentence ends early in Peru, he would be returned to the U.S. to complete his sentence for his convictions on extortion and wire fraud, Manasco said.

"Even with this confession, though, he cant be tried here for Natalees murder," Beth Holloway said. "But I am satisfied knowing that he did it, he did it alone and he disposed of her alone."

She added: "I have what I need. Her case is solved."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com
At a meeting in Hungary, the ambassadors of the North Atlantic Alliance and Sweden expressed concern over Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin .

Source: European Pravda, referring to the publication of the Radio Liberty Hungarian service

Details: David Pressman, US Ambassador to Hungary, confirmed to Radio Liberty that the meeting took place on Thursday morning amid concerns among NATO allies about Hungary's rapprochement with Russia.

Quote from Pressman: "We are all concerned that the Hungarian prime minister met with President Putin when Russia is at war with Ukraine... The fact that Hungary has decided to keep in touch with Putin in this way is worrying. As are the words the prime minister used to describe Putin's war in Ukraine."

Pressman declined to comment on the possible consequences of the meeting of the Alliance ambassadors to Hungary, as well as media reports of sanctions supposedly being prepared against Hungarian officials.

Quote from Pressman: "We see Hungary as an ally, but we also see that Hungary is deepening its relations with Russia despite the brutal war in Ukraine. We think it is important to maintain a dialogue with the Hungarian government and people on these decisions."

Background:

Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in the Chinese capital, Beijing, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

It was the first time in more than a year that Putin had met with the leader of a European Union country. In April 2022, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer visited Moscow and met with the Kremlin leader.

Orban is regularly noted for his anti-Ukrainian statements in the spirit of Russian propaganda. In particular, he has said that the historic opportunity for Ukraine to join NATO has been lost and that Kyiv should forget about joining the Alliance.

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NATO announced on Oct. 19 that it will ramp up patrols of the Baltic Sea after an underwater pipeline connecting Finland to Estonia was found to be damaged on Oct. 8 in a likely deliberate act.

The heightened surveillance will include "reconnaissance flights, including with maritime patrol aircraft, NATO AWACS planes, and drones (as well as) a fleet of four NATO minehunters," the announcement said.

NATO will continue to adapt its maritime posture in the Baltic Sea and will take all necessary steps to keep Allies safe, said acting NATO spokesperson Dylan White.

The 77-kilometer Finland-Estonia pipeline, known as the Balticconnector, was found to be leaking gas in Finnish waters of the Baltic Sea and shut off on Oct. 8. A nearby telecommunications cable was also damaged.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told reporters at a news conference the same day that the damage could not have occurred as a result of normal use of the pipe or pressure fluctuations."

In addition, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said that "the cause of the damage is not yet clear," but is likely "the result of external activity.

The Baltic Sea has been under higher scrutiny for security threats after explosions damaged the Nord Stream pipeline in September 2022. Although the cause of the explosions has not been definitively proven, investigators found that the explosions were caused by deliberate sabotage. On Sept. 28, 2022, the Times newspaper reported, citing a British defense source, that Russia had likely carried out the attack with an underwater drone.

Danish naval vessels confirmed seeing a Russian SS-750 specialized vessel, which carries a submarine on board, close to the site of the pipeline just days before it was damaged.

Russia has denied any role in the Nord Stream sabotage.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Putin holds talks with Xi; Lavrov says North Korea will help Moscow win

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
A ship transporting Ukrainian grain, Black Sea (illustrative photo)

A joint minesweeping task force from the Bulgarian and Romanian navies has begun operating in the Black Sea along Ukraines recently established commercial shipping lane, Andriy Klymenko, head of the Institute for Strategic Black Sea Studies and Editor-in-Chief of BlackSeaNews, said in a Facebook post on Oct. 19.

Our Black Sea neighbors weer surprisingly quick in moving from making the decision to commencing actual minesweeping operations, said Klymenko.

Read also: Russia looking to target civilian ships in the Black Sea, says British intelligence

The decision to begin this operation was made on Oct. 12 during a Ramstein format meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, with the ships setting sail on Oct. 16.

The operations scope extends beyond Bulgarian territorial waters, operating in the adjacent area where the new Ukrainian shipping lane through, Klymenko added.

Read also: UNDP trials innovative technologies that could rid Ukraine of landmines in 10 years

BlackSeaNews and the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies have identified five out of the seven ships in the task force:

 Minehunter Tsibar  Bulgarian Navy

 Frigate Drazki  Bulgarian Navy

 Patrol vessel Hrabri  Bulgarian Navy

 Frigate Verni  Bulgarian Navy

 Minehunter Alexandru Axente  Romanian Navy

Previously, Bloomberg reported that Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria were in discussions regarding the creation of joint forces to clear the Black Sea of naval mines that had drifted into their waters due to Russias war against Ukraine. The decision for this three-party initiative was reached during a meeting of NATO defense ministers at the Alliances headquarters on Oct. 12.

Read also: Third cargo ship hits mine in Black Sea in one month  Sky News

Over the past month, several incidents were reported in which civilian ships encountered naval mines in the Black Sea.

As of Sept. 16, 32 cargo ships have entered Ukrainian seaports through the new shipping lane, according to Bloomberg.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygen met with Vice President Kamala Harris in Flagstaff, Arizona when she visited Northern Arizona University.



President Nygren said their conversation dealt with basic issues important to Navajos like running water and electricity, growth of business, and the COVID-19 response and recovery.

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It was an honor to welcome the Vice President to Dine Bikeyah, President Nygren said. We are grateful for the listening ear. I hope this meeting leads to even better partnerships that uplift our communities.

Seven Navajo, Hopi, Zuni and Apache NAU students were also given the opportunity to meet with the vice president as well.



Meeting with the Vice President of the United States was a chance for these Indigenous youth to directly share their experiences and priorities with a national leader, President Nygren said. It shows their voices and perspectives matter at the highest levels of government.



Samuel Chischilly, a fire management major, spoke briefly with Vice President Harris when she told him of her own environmental work.

About the Author: "Native News Online is one of the most-read publications covering Indian Country and the news that matters to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous people. Reach out to us at editor@nativenewsonline.net. "

Contact: news@nativenewsonline.net
A U.S. Navy destroyer intercepted several missiles launched from Yemen while operating in the region on Thursday, according to a Defense Department official.

It is not yet clear if the ship was the intended target, but no damage to the ship was reported, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss an incident that had not yet been announced.

The intercepts happened as U.S. bases in Syria have endured multiple drone attacks over the past two days. American forces stopped two separate drone strikes in Syria on Thursday, hours after they shot down three unmanned aerial systems targeting troops in Iraq early Wednesday, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the incidents.

The Pentagon has 2,500 troops in Iraq supporting and training Iraqi forces, with another 900 more based in Syria who are working with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The missile intercepts also come as the U.S. continues to bolster its military presence in the Middle East in response to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, as well as Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this summer sent ships carrying rapid response Marine units to the Persian Gulf, and those ships are now moving toward the eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Israel.

The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group is already in the area, where it will soon by joined by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group.

The missiles also come as armed drones have attacked U.S. troops stationed in bases in Iraq and Syria.

CNN first reported the news of the destroyer incident.
A U.S. Navy destroyer on Thursday intercepted a barrage of missiles fired by Iran-backed fighters in Yemen.

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the USS Carney was operating in the northern Red Sea on Thursday when it shot down three land-fired cruise missiles and several drones fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Houthis, who are supported by Iran, are currently in a cease-fire amid a civil war with the Yemeni government.

Our defensive response was one we would have taken for any similar threat in the region, Ryder said.

There were no casualties on either side, he noted, adding that it was unclear why the missiles were launched, but they may have been targeting Israel.

The USS Carney is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer under deployment in the Middle East to help with maritime security.

The ship was transiting the Suez Canal as of Wednesday, according to the U.S. 5th Fleet.

Ryder said the U.S. would remain vigilant as forces deploy in the region.

This action was a demonstration of the integrated air and missile defense architecture that we have built in the Middle East and that we are prepared to utilize whenever necessary, Ryder said at a briefing with reporters.

U.S. forces have also responded to drone attacks on American bases in Iraq and Syria this week, which have caused minor damage.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The Navy's fleet commander in Europe and the command-and-control ship USS Mount Whitney are deploying to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea amid a U.S. military buildup in the region to support Israel as it wages a bloody war against Hamas, the service announced Wednesday.

In a released statement, the Navy said the Mount Whitney -- the 6th Fleet's flagship -- departed its port at Gaeta, Italy, "in support of U.S. operations." A Navy spokesman confirmed to Military.com that the commander of 6th fleet, Vice Adm. Thomas Ishee, and his staff were aboard.

The sailing of the Mount Whitney and Ishee's putting to sea comes just days after defense officials confirmed that the Navy would send a second aircraft carrier strike group into the region and move a pair of ships carrying a Marine Corps expeditionary unit there as well.

Read Next: Troops Must Start Planning for Transition Out of Service Sooner to Be Successful, Advocates Testify

Aside from an additional show of force and support, the command ship and three-star admiral could make any potential operation run more smoothly by offering a senior leader close by for two large formations that are commanded by relative peers.

At the moment, the Navy has the USS Gerald R. Ford strike group in the area off the Israeli coast. Those six ships are commanded by a one-star admiral -- Rear Adm. Erik Eslich. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower strike group -- which is set to arrive in the region soon -- is also commanded by a one-star -- Rear Adm. Marc Miguez.

The Mount Whitney has a crew of just over 300, including 150 civilian mariners from Military Sealift Command. The Navy's website on the ship boasts that it can "receive, process and transmit large amounts of secure data from any point on Earth."

In addition to the deployed assets, the Defense Department announced Tuesday that it had placed around 2,000 troops on heightened alert to potentially deploy.

At the time of the announcement, defense officials said they didn't know which specific units had received the order.

To date, defense and White House officials have been clear that the U.S. military assets off the coast of Israel or in the nearby area are not conducting offensive operations against Hamas or the Gaza Strip.

Israel declared war and has waged devastating counterstrikes against Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, after the group launched a surprise terror attack into Israeli territory earlier this month with rockets and gunmen aimed at slaughtering as many civilians as possible. The coordinated attack on a music festival and Israeli communities left more than a thousand dead.

Top officials including President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to Israel to pledge support as an increasingly large deployment of U.S. military assets moves into the region.

Meanwhile, the situation north of Israel, in Lebanon, has also deteriorated in the last several days, and the State Department began allowing some employee family departures, as well as issuing a "Do Not Travel" order on Tuesday.

The State Department said that U.S. citizens should not come to Lebanon due to "the unpredictable security situation related to rocket, missile, and artillery exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah or other armed militant factions," and because of the embassy's "limited capacity to provide support."

The Associated Press has reported that the recent bombing of a Gaza hospital, which has further inflamed tensions in the area, has led to protests and clashes with security forces near the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon.

Editors note: This article has been updated to correct the name of the commander of the Gerald R. Ford strike group.

-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on X at @ktoropin.

Related: 2,000 US Troops Ordered to Prepare for Deployment in Growing Response to Israel War with Hamas
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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday met with Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Xi noted that over the past decade, the Belt and Road cooperation between China and Africa has demonstrated robust vitality and seen a number of landmark projects completed.

Xi highlighted a group of cooperation projects in Nigeria such as railway, port, power station and telecommunication network projects, as well as the free trade zone construction.

China is willing to continue working with Nigeria to push for more tangible achievements in the Belt and Road cooperation, to help Nigeria and Africa at large achieve industrialization and agricultural modernization, Xi said.

As the world is undergoing transformation and turbulence, China and Nigeria need solidarity and cooperation more than ever, Xi noted.

China is willing to strengthen personnel exchanges at all levels with Nigeria and promote practical cooperation of high quality, said Xi, adding that China supports Nigeria in playing a greater role in international and regional affairs.

Shettima said that China has consistently shown respect and equality toward Nigeria and other African countries, and has made every effort to support the people of Africa in seeking independence and development. Nigeria is willing to continue deepening the Belt and Road cooperation with China and elevate bilateral ties to a new level.

Senior Chinese officials including Cai Qi and Wang Yi were present at the meeting.
As soon as state Rep. Tricia Cotham switched from the Democratic to Republican party in April, giving Republicans a supermajority in the North Carolina General Assembly, speculation began about her future political career.

Democratic voters were the ones in Mecklenburg County who elected her in 2022.

If she runs for office in 2024, under the new redistricting maps released by the General Assembly on Wednesday, she would have options. There are proposed districts at both the state and federal level that include her area and have no incumbent.

Republicans drew the maps in secret, and with their supermajority in both chambers can easily pass legislation. Redistricting bills are not subject to a signature or veto from the governor under state law. The maps have a committee hearing this week, with votes expected next week.

N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore, left, laughs with N.C. State Rep. Tricia Cotham as they talk with N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger during a press conference Wednesday, April 5, 2023. The press conference was to announce Rep. Cotham is switching parties to become a member of the House Republican caucus.

Different state House district, or two congressional districts

Cotham was elected as a Democrat in House District 112, but under the new state House maps, she would be in District 105, which was drawn to give an edge to Republicans.

The new District 105 leans Republican by a margin of 52.53% to 45.03% for Democrats, according to the website Daves Redistricting, which analyzes data from previous elections.

A redistricting plan for the North Carolina House of Representatives, proposed Oct. 18, 2023.

But what if Cotham wants to seek higher office?

While state law requires candidates to live in their districts in General Assembly races, that is not required for Congress.

Senate Republicans proposed two different ways of drawing a map for U.S. House, in the form of Senate Bill 756 and Senate Bill 757.

Each one has a congressional district that runs along the southern border of North Carolina and includes part of Mecklenburg County, where Cotham lives.

A congressional map proposed in Senate Bill 757.

A congressional map proposed in Senate Bill 756.

Both of those districts along the southern border include areas that are currently represented by U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, who has already declared a run for state attorney general instead of seeking reelection to his congressional seat in 2024. Bishop attended the press conference this past spring when Cotham announced her party switch.

Flanked by N.C. Republican House and Senate leaders, N.C. State Rep. Tricia Cotham speaks during a press conference at the N.C. GOP headquarters in Raleigh, N.C. Wednesday, April 5, 2023. The press conference was to announce Rep. Cotham is switching parties to become a member of the House Republican caucus.

The chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Anderson Clayton, at the time called Cothams party switch a deceit of the highest order.

In August, Mecklenburg County Democrats launched a campaign to take back Cothams District 112 seat.

Cotham said in April that she switched parties because Democrats targeted her for not always toeing the party line, saying there were attempts to control her as well as attacks against her on social media.

A congressional map proposed in Senate Bill 756.

Since giving the Republicans the one more vote they needed for total control of the legislature, Cotham has voted along party lines on major legislation like Senate Bill 20, which restricted abortion after the first trimester.

She has made a major push for school choice, which allocates taxpayer money for private school scholarships.

The News & Observer reached out to Cotham for comment about her political future on Wednesday, but she has not responded.
Horace Johnson takes a break from the frenetic late-lunch pace of the Apex Lions Club kitchen to talk about what he figures will be its last year at the North Carolina State Fair.

But his voice breaks and his eyes fill with tears, and not because of the spices in the Cajun Daily Special.

You see we have a line of people coming in here, Johnson says. Theyre coming to say goodbye.

Johnson himself was hoping to ease out of the volunteer job he accepted more than two decades ago running the restaurant, which sometimes feels like months worth of work compressed into the fairs 11-day run. He just didnt expect it to end this way.

We got a letter, Johnson said, as did all the other tenants of what generations of fair patrons have referred to as restaurant row or church row  a group of food vendors in a permanent building on the fairgrounds. The state has also referred to it at the lunch stand or the concession building.

We are pleased to announce that the N.C. State Fair is constructing a new building that we are currently calling the Midway Events Center, the letter began.

Happy news, to be sure, said Johnson and others who have worked in the existing block, wood and corrugated-metal building for decades.

Longtime manager Horace Johnson, left, talks with patron Jonathan Paris of Moore County outside the Apex Lions Club restaurant during the State Fair in Raleigh Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. The Apex Lions Club has been serving food at the fairs restaurant row since 1943. The restaurant row building will be replaced with an events center next year.

The structure, which may actually be more than one structure joined together, is thought to have been built in the 1960s or before to house the kitchens and dining areas of what were the earliest food vendors at the fair: churches, civic groups and small family-owned operations. The building, which replaced earlier structures that served the same purpose beginning in the 1930s, is basically a long, enclosed shed partitioned into seven spaces.

Everyone knows restaurant row

Anyone who has been to the fair has walked past restaurant row, eaten at one of its kitchens or perched for just a minute to rest their feet at the picnic tables outside. Its near Dorton Arena and, when the fair is in town, between the two midways.

Fair-goers walk past the Apex Lions Club restaurant during the State Fair in Raleigh Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. The Apex Lions Club has been serving food at the fairs restaurant row since 1943. The restaurant row building will be replaced with an events center next year.

The rest of the year, its used by vendors at The Raleigh Market, the weekend flea market on the fairgrounds.

Replacing the building has long been on the fairgrounds to-do list. The state Department of Administrations capital improvement plan for the years 2007 to 2013 noted that:

 The restaurant row buildings are old and unattractive.

 The roofs leak.

 There are no fire alarm or sprinkler systems.

 There is no insulation, and the only heat available is from liquid propane units.

 The buildings have become impossible to maintain.

Every year, Johnson said, he and other operators thought this would be the year fairgrounds management announced the state would tear down restaurant row and build its replacement.

According to the capital improvement plan, The new two-story building (36,000 square feet) will meet current needs and add space for future needs. The first floor should offer a much improved rental space for the flea market and would serve as a food service area during the annual state fair. The second floor would provide some small to medium conference space and some office space.

Patrons take advantage of their last chance to order food at the Apex Lions Club restaurant during the State Fair in Raleigh Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. The Apex Lions Club has been serving food at the fairs restaurant row since 1943. The restaurant row building will be replaced with an events center next year.

Construction was to be done in 2008, according to the capital improvement plan, in time for that years fair.

Bandwidth land sale brought cash

But the money wasnt available until now, said State Fair Manager Kent Yelverton. Funding to demolish the old building and plan its replacement is coming from the 2020 sale of 40 acres of land the state owned at Edwards Mill and Reedy Creek roads to Bandwidth Inc., which has built a new global headquarters there.

Bandwidth paid about $30 million for the land.

In this years state budget passed in September, the legislature approved $25.5 million for State Fair Lunch Facility Renovation.

Longtime operators say they always understood that when the new structure was completed, it would be their new home for a week and a half every October.

But in the letter sent to vendors, Yelverton wrote, Kitchen facilities for fair time use only are not planned in the new building.

The decision to end this era did not come without a lot of contemplation, he said. Lunch stand vendors have provided fairgoers a place to get inside, sit down and enjoy good food. I count myself among the many long-term customers.

The letter directed vendors to remove all their equipment from the space at the end of this years fair, and invited them to apply for the 2024 fair along with all other vendors, including a proposal on how they would continue their operations there without the building.

Who comes to fair for office space?

In an interview Tuesday, Yelverton said the lunch stand vendors have enjoyed a long run and have provided a great service to fairgoers. Their annual rent, he said, was charged at the same rate as other food vendors though others have had to provide their own trucks or tent setups.

Rent increased by about 20% for vendors at the fair this year, the first increase since at least 2016, Yelverton said.

A detail of the hand-painted windows at the Apex Lions Club restaurant during the State Fair in Raleigh Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. The Apex Lions Club has been serving food at the fairs restaurant row since 1943. The restaurant row building will be replaced with an events center next year.

Yelverton said the plan for the new building still is a two-story structure with some office space upstairs, but he wouldnt say how the ground floor would be used except to say it would help the fair meet its mission, which includes educating people about North Carolina agriculture and providing facilities that can be used year-round.

Office space? asked David Hughes of Raleigh, who was chilling with his mom, Jean, at a folding table in the Lions Club restaurant late Tuesday. Who comes to the State Fair to look at office space? We come for the nostalgia.

Yelverton didnt immediately respond Wednesday to an email request for information on how the plan changed to eliminate the food vendors use of the new building.

Meantime, Johnson said the Apex Lions Club may have its best State Fair ever, financially. Long-time patrons are making sure to stop in for a meal and to sign the Fairwell page. Theyre beckoned by a recording of Johnsons voice almost singing his famous refrain about Chawk-let pah, lee-mone pah and other pie flavors for sale.

Slices of pecan and chocolate pies at the Apex Lions Club restaurant during the State Fair in Raleigh Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. The Apex Lions Club has been serving food at the fairs restaurant row since 1943. The restaurant row building will be replaced with an events center next year.

Its all for a good cause, he reminds them. Cause youre hongry.

After paying expenses to run the restaurant, which begins with breakfast when the fair opens and ends with supper and hot coffee and cocoa as the closing fireworks fly, the club uses the money it raises to help pay for vision tests and glasses for those who cant afford them; run a food pantry; support the Governor Morehead School for the Blind; and other community activities.

A familiar spot on the State Fair map

Hunnicutts restaurant, one of the Lions Clubs neighbors, has been in business at the fair since the late 1930s, family members say. They too are grieving over the decision to give them the boot, just as their fifth generation has gotten old enough to participate.

Ronnie Buchanan of Apex runs the restaurant now with his two sisters. Their grandparents started it, and their mother, Betty, hand-made tens of thousands of biscuits for its appreciative customers.

Like Johnson, Ronnie Buchanan wonders if the restaurant could survive a move to a new location  if it can even get a spot next year  with the cost of a tent or a trailer and the loss of its familiar place on the State Fair map.

A detail of a farewell sign at the Apex Lions Club restaurant during the State Fair in Raleigh Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. The Apex Lions Club has been serving food at the fairs restaurant row since 1943. The restaurant row building will be replaced with an events center next year.

Betty will be 90 next year and isnt in the kitchen anymore, but Buchanan said people who come to the restaurant still feel a little like theyre going to his mamas house to eat.

Its something special, he said, and worth preserving.

When we open those doors on Thursday, for 10 days we know were going to see so many old friends and neighbors, even people that work out there that sell candied apples and things, Buchanan said. They come, and they will not eat anywhere else.

It is really just like a big community, but you only see it for 10 days a year.
A Nebraska news outlet called Gov. Jim Pillen dead wrong this week in his anti-Chinese attack on a reporter who investigated the governors family farm.

Flatwater Free Press reporter Yanqi Xu reported a story published last month headlined Pillens Water: High nitrate detected on hog farms owned by Nebraskas governor.

The investigation found nitrate levels were far above the legal drinking water limit, with experts saying levels at one operation were so high it should be a 911.

Pillen was asked about the story during a interview with Omaha radio station KFAB a few days later.

Number one, I didnt read it. And I wont, Pillen said. Number two, all you got to do is look at the author. The author is from communist China. What more do you need to know?

In a column penned Tuesday, Nebraska Journalism Trust Executive Director Matt Wynn defended Xus reporting and called the governor dead wrong.

Yanqi has been in the United States since 2017, Wynn wrote. This, she said, is the first time anyone has written her off based on her origin. And it was broadcast, over the air, by the governor of Nebraska. As an employer, that infuriates me. As a believer in democracy and a free press, it saddens me. As a Nebraskan, it embarrasses me.

The Nebraska Journalism Trust launched and funds the Flatwater Free Press, a nonprofit news outlet.

Xu, who is an immigrant from China, spoke out about the situation in a thread on X, formerly Twitter, and linked to Wynns column.

Being a reporter, I never wanted to make myself the story. But this time, I thought theres more at stake than myself. I think about the community I represent, and who might find the governors comment hurtful, she wrote.

Xu told NBC News that she ultimately decided she had no choice, as she could definitely see the bias in Pillens remarks.

I think its important to speak up and it can be really, really hard at first because in some ways, it made you the center of the story, Xu said. Especially as a woman of color, if the other person who made such a comment about you is the most powerful person in the state, how do you respond? But I think for me, I found myself coming back to this point of: If I dont do it, who would?

The Asian American Journalists Association released a statement Wednesday, supporting the reporter.

Having an independent and diverse press corps is essential to democracy, and Xu, an investigative reporter who grew up in China, deserves to do her job without being judged because of her nationality, the statement read.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, described Pillens comments as a baseless xenophobic attack and called on the governor to apologize to Xu and her outlet.

Failing to do so only contributes to more hostility and suspicion of people from China and Asian Americans broadly, Chu said.

Xu in her Twitter thread said she was beyond grateful for the outpouring of support.

All this just reminds me of why I came into this field. And the 17-year-old me learning to strike up a convo with a stranger would agree  I would never feel alone. And thanks to everyone whos reached out!

Pillens office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Nestle has cut ties with Marfrig, a Brazilian beef supplier accused of buying cattle from stolen Indigenous lands.

As recently as July 2023, Marfrig was listed as a supplier of beef used in Nestles baby food, pet food, and seasonings. A more recently updated list of suppliers does not name Marfrig.

A Nestle spokesperson told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that the company decided to phase out Marfrig products in 2021 and asked our direct suppliers to ensure that we do not receive any meat ingredients from the company.

Last year, TBIJ, the Guardian, and O Joio e O Trigo conducted an investigation that found cattle at Marfrig slaughterhouses were purchased from farms within the Menku territory, home to the Myky people. The investigation revealed that over 55 square miles of deforestation on the Menku territory could be traced to a number of Marfrigs cattle suppliers.

Though the Myky have lived within the Menku territory  which borders the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado savanna  for centuries, the Brazilian government did not recognize the territory until the mid-1970s. Last year, the administration of former president Jair Bolsonaro reversed this decision. Since then, at least seven new farms have been registered on Myky land.

Marfrig told TBIJ that it does not buy livestock from ranches that illegally encroach on Indigenous land, but it also noted that it only recognizes Indigenous lands that have been officially recognized by the president.

This is far from the first time Nestles environmental impact has come under scrutiny. A Nestle-owned brand peddling collagen sources its products from the same cattle ranches on Menku territory where Marfrig purchased livestock. Additionally, despite promising to reduce its plastic pollution, the brand has increased its plastic pollution in recent years.

The Indigenous Missionary Council is appealing the decision to revoke the territorys official recognition, hoping Brazils new president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will restore presidential recognition to the Menku territory. Since taking office in January, Lula has recognized eight Indigenous lands across Brazil.

If the Menku territory is officially recognized again, it will be a win for both the Myky people and the environment. Official recognition allows the Indigenous inhabitants of protected territories to use the land according to their traditions and prohibits deforestation.

This is a big fight against big companies and the agribusiness, Typju Myky, an Indigenous filmmaker and activist, told TBIJ.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a long war between his country and Hamas as violence continues to engulf the region.

Netanyahu spoke alongside British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday, where he thanked the United Kingdom, the U.S. and other allies of Israel for supporting the nation in its war against the militant group Hamas. He reiterated that Israel will continue to need the U.K.s support as it battles Hamas, which the U.S. and other countries have categorized as a terrorist organization.

Eighty years ago, Prime Minister, the civilized world stood with you in your darkest hour. This is our darkest hour. Its the worlds darkest hour, Netanyahu said to Sunak.

I value your support and the fact that youre here, we must win together. That means that this is a long war, then well need your continuous support, continuous support. Therell be ups and downs. Therell be difficulties. The people here are united; theyre prepared to take the necessary action, he said.

Netanyahu repeated previous statements labeling Hamas as the new Nazis adding the organization is worse than ISIS. He also praised Sunak for sending military forces into the region to aid in Israels efforts against Hamas.

This is not merely our battle, its the battle of the entire civilized world. Its the battle of Israel. Its a battle of the modern Arab countries. Its the battle of Western civilization, the battle of the free world, the battle for the future, Netanyahu said.

Sunak said he was proud to stand with you in Israels darkest hour as your friend in his remarks following Netanyahus.

More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed in the fighting so far, with most of the deaths coming as a result of the initial attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. This prompted Israel to declare war on Hamas.

Since then, the Gaza Health Ministry has said that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded.

Sunaks visit to Israel comes on the heels of President Bidens, who had traveled to the region to meet Wednesday with Netanyahu to demonstrate U.S. support for the Middle Eastern nation.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
It will now be more expensive to watch hit shows like Everything Now in HDR (Netflix)

Netflix has raised the price of its top subscription plan in the UK, US, and France.

Netflixs Premium tier, which you need for 4K and HDR streams, has jumped from 14.99 a month to 17.99 a month.

The Basic plan, which actually isnt available to new subscribers any more, has also increased from 6.99 a month to 7.99.

This was the cheapest tier before Netflixs ad-supported model was introduced, and gets you relatively crude 720p resolution streams.

Its bad news all-round for Netflix fans, particularly as the Netflix Premium subscription got a lot weaker when the streamer implemented anti-password-sharing measures in the UK around July 2023.

How much is Netflix a month?

Your current options are the ad-supported subscription for 4.99 a month, which plays adverts before and during shows (some recent movies wont have mid-roll ads). But a few movies and shows are missing from this ad-supported tier thanks to rights issues.

The Netflix Standard tier costs 10.99 a month and lets you watch at Full HD resolution, on up to two devices at the same time. It hasnt seen a price hike. Phew.

Then theres the 17.99 Netflix Premium model, which unlocks 4K streaming, HDR and spatial audio, and lets four devices stream at the same time.

This makes Netflix fairly pricey compared to Amazon Prime Video which, for 8.99 a month or 95 a year, nets you 4K and HDR streams plus other benefits, like free delivery from Amazon and monthly freebies from Amazon Prime Gaming.

Netflixs current screw-tightening tactics appear to be working, though, as 8.8 million subscribers have been added to the ranks between July and September.

This exceeds the six-million estimates put forwards by analysts, and puts current subscriber numbers at around 247 million worldwide. The service also added 5.9 million in the previous quarter.

As a trailblazer in fun-robbing, Netflix has unsurprisingly inspired other streamers to take action. Disney Plus will begin implementing anti-password-sharing measures in November, just in time for Christmas.

Canadian Disney Plus users were sent an email informing them of these changes back in September, but we havent heard of when they may come to the UK. The groundwork is already right there on the Disney Plus website.

You may not share your account and subscription outside of your household. 'Household' means the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein, one support page reads.
(Bloomberg) -- South Africas cabinet said the Netherlands and Denmark have joined the Just Energy Transition Partnership, a landmark climate finance deal meant to help the country transition away from coal and serve as a prototype for similar pacts with Indonesia, Vietnam and Senegal.

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The initial members of the pact  the European Union, Germany, France, the US and UK  have pledged $8.5 billion in finance. Together, the two new signatories have pledged an additional amount of about $333 million, Neil Cole, a finance manager within the South African Presidency, said.

Expanding the JETP could give momentum to the implementation of an agreement thats been bogged down by delays and opposition from South African coal-mine workers since it was announced almost two years ago at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. South Africas government is yet to produce an implementation plan that would allow the bulk of the funds to flow to the country.

Their admission of more countries may ease earlier tensions between rich nations aiming to bolster their climate credentials, as the JETP funding partners group had initially been confined to Group of Seven members, people familiar with the situation said previously.

The Netherlands has committed to provide 155 million ($163 million) in grants while Denmark has agreed to contribute 169 million Danish krone ($24 million) in grants, 487 million krone in concessional loans and 545 million krone in commercial loans, Cole said.

Both countries have courted the African nation in recent months.

Mark Rutte, the prime minister of the Netherlands, and Mette Frederiksen, his Danish counterpart, visited South Africa in June, accompanied by business delegations. During that visit, state-backed Dutch firms pledged backing for the creation of a $1 billion green hydrogen fund in South Africa and a 300 million public infrastructure fund to invest in water and energy.

Denmark has also been advising Pretoria on wind energy and the creation of an electricity market, while the Netherlands has funded a project to replace jobs at a coal-fired power plant with an agriculture initiative.

Spain, Canada and Switzerland have also made pledges to help South Africa fund its energy transition, the cabinet said. They are not part of the pact.

Spains pledge was made last year when it said it would provide 2.1 billion through a mix of financial instruments with the countrys government working with its development finance institution, COFIDES, and South Africas Industrial Development Corp.

Switzerland will provide grants of 32 million swiss francs ($36 million) while Canada will provide a grant of 1.6 million Canadian dollars ($1.1 million), Cole said. Canada also contributed to energy transition programs that were announced earlier, he said.

(Updates with amounts pledged in second and fifth paragraphs)

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WALL - A Newark man has been charged in connection to a local crime spree in the township three weeks ago, in which there were multiple reports of burglaries and a motor vehicle theft, according to local police.

Ahmad Singletary, 24, was charged on Tuesday with 15 counts of third-degree burglary to a motor vehicle, three counts of third-degree burglary to a residence, seven counts of third-degree conspiracy to commit motor vehicle burglary, one count of third-degree conspiracy to commit a residential burglary and one count of third-degree conspiracy to commit motor vehicle theft. In addition to those crimes, Singletary was also charged with disorderly persons offenses that include: two counts of receiving stolen property, two counts of theft and one count of criminal mischief, said Wall Police Capt. Chad Clark, a department spokesman.

A third-degree crime carries a maximum prison sentence of five years in New Jersey, which means Singletary could spend the rest of his life behind bars if convicted on all counts.

Clark noted that Singletary is already incarcerated on unrelated charges.

More Local Headlines: Wall man sentenced in drug-fueled 2021 crash that killed 82-year-old Brick man

The crimes occurred in Wall on Allaire Road, Williamsburg Drive, Celeste Drive, Campbell Road, Roundhill Court, Riverside Terrace, Equestrian Lane, Deer Run and 18th Avenue, Clark said.

The investigation also resulted in charges against a second suspect: Kevin Yuille, 24, of Elizabeth, with two counts of third-degree burglary to a motor vehicle, two counts of third-degree conspiracy to commit burglary to a residence, and four counts of third-degree conspiracy to commit motor vehicle burglaries. A warrant has been issued for Yuilles arrest, Clark said.

Wall Police Detective Zach Honecker is the investigating officer.

Contact Asbury Park Press reporter Erik Larsen at elarsen@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Newark man charged in Wall NJ crime spree, cops say
Guinea-Bissau is one of the world's poorest countries

A Turkish firm has cut power supplies to Guinea-Bissau's capital over an unpaid bill of at least $15m (12m), plunging the city into darkness.

It has severely disrupted daily life, with hospitals affected and radio stations off-air.

Economy Minister Suleimane Seidi acknowledged the arrears, saying most of the bill would be paid in 15 days.

Karpowership is one of the world's biggest floating power plant operators, supplying several African states.

But it has taken a tough line over non-payment. Last month, it cut power to Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, over an unpaid bill of $40m.

The Turkish company has also signed a deal to supply power to South Africa, saying it will cover more than 5% of the country's total electricity needs.

South Africa has been hit by a wave of power cuts with people going without electricity for up to 10 hours a day.

Power was cut in Bissau, a city with a population of more than 400,000, in the early hours of Tuesday and has not been restored, a resident told the BBC.

Some public hospitals are now using generators to carry out surgery, local journalist Assana Sambu told the BBC.

But they don't have running water because there is not enough electricity, and hospital directors have appealed for power in order to cook food for their patients.

Another journalist, Alberto Dabo, said he was drinking water from a well because water supplies had been cut amid the sweltering heat which reaches 40C.

"Our houses are very hot. Most families stay outside till 4am before entering their houses to spend the rest of the night. You can't stay indoors because of the heat."

State-run Radio Nacional is among media outlets that have stopped broadcasting, while the private radio station where Sambu works is only partially operating, he added.

Karpowership says it has been supplying 100% of Guinea-Bissau's electricity since signing a five-year agreement with the state-owned electricity and water utility company in 2019.

The country is one of the poorest in the world and has been beset by instability since independence.

"Unfortunately, following a protracted period of non-payment, our [floating power plant] is now unable to continue operating," a Karpowership spokesperson was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.

"We are working around the clock with officials to resolve this issue and we aim to have generation back online as soon as possible," the spokesperson added.

Energy Minister Isuf Balde said $6m of the $15m bill had been paid.

"In a small and poor country like Guinea-Bissau, carrying out a transfer operation of this level, $10m, takes time," he said.

He added that the contract with Karpowership needed to be renegotiated because costs had almost doubled since it began, to a level Guinea-Bissau could no longer afford.

The company also supplies electricity to six other African countries - Ghana, The Gambia, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

The company prides itself as "the owner, operator and builder of the world's only Powership (floating power plant)".

Its involvement in the electricity sector is the latest example of Tukey's growing influence in Africa.

Although access to electricity has increased in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years, it still remains low, with more than 50% of the region's population having no grid connection, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).
Police are investigating after a North Carolina man's body was mistaken for a training dummy in the front yard of an empty house and left sitting for days, even getting mowed around by a landscaping crew.

Previous details released about the discovery stated that landscapers thought the body was a Halloween prop but that has since been clarified by China Grove Police Department in a recent press release.

On Oct. 10, police received a report of a dead body at an abandoned log cabin in China Grove, North Carolina.

Upon arrival, officers discovered the body of 34-year-old Robert Owens.

During the investigation, police learned that a groundskeeper saw the body the day before while he was mowing the grass, but he "believed the body to be a fake dummy used for training by numerous law agencies on the property over the last few years" and did not report it, according to a news release from the China Grove Police Department.

Another worker at the property reported the body to authorities.

"Don't know how you can do that," Owens' sister, Haley Shue, told Queen City News. "Mow right beside someone and assume that they're a Halloween decoration at a house no one lives at."

My grandmother has lived off of Shue Road for 40-plus years, Shue told Queen City News, and hes never been to this house. Hes never known of this house this far off the road. Hes never been back here. Hes never been known to come here.

Cold case: Her sister and nephew disappeared 21 years ago. Her tenacity got the case a new look.

According to Queen City News, police did tell Owen's sister and mother he had not been shot.

An autopsy was conducted in Raleigh on Oct. 13 and preliminary findings ruled out any signs of assault or trauma to the body, according to the China Grove Police Department.

Police are still awaiting the toxicology report to determine the cause of death.

His nieces and nephews love him, and he had just gotten my son a jacket, and he didnt even have the chance to give it to him, Shue told Queen City News. We want answers.

Fatal shooting: Georgia deputy shoots 'kind' man who served 16 years for wrongful conviction

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: North Carolina man's body mistaken for training dummy by landscapers
To break new ground of public communication, culture work in new era

09:44, October 19, 2023 By Ren Ping ( People's Daily

First graders at an elementary school in Liuzhou, south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, recite Chinese classics under the guidance of their teachers. (People's Daily Online/Li Hanchi)

A national meeting on the work of public communication and culture was recently held in Beijing. The most important outcome of the meeting was that Xi Jinping Thought on Culture was formally put forward, which is of milestone significance in the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in developing public communication and culture.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, has maintained an accurate perspective on the trends of collisions taking place worldwide between different ideas and cultures, as well as of the profound changes in Chinese people's ways of thinking, putting forward a series of new thoughts, new viewpoints, and new assessments on cultural advancement.

On multiple important international occasions, he has expounded on China's positions and plans on the culture of the world, the development of civilizations and exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations.

Students of an elementary school in Cangzhou, north China's Hebei province, practice dragon dancing under the guidance of a teacher. (People's Daily Online/Yuan Liwei)

Xi Jinping Thought on Culture is summaries of the practical experience of the cultural advancement under the Party's leadership in the new era. It has enriched and developed Marxist cultural theories. It demonstrates that the CPC has reached a higher level in its understanding of the right way for the development of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics.

The 20th National Congress of the CPC drew an ambitious blueprint for building a modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization. According to it, China will build itself into a strong country in culture by 2035 with its cultural soft power growing much stronger.

Culture is a country and nation's soul. Without full confidence in its culture, without a rich and prosperous culture, the Chinese nation will not be able to rejuvenate itself.

Chinese modernization is the modernization of material and cultural-ethical advancement. Cultural development is the fundamental way to satisfy people's cultural and intellectual needs and to safeguard people's cultural rights and interests.

A face-changing performance of Sichuan Opera, an intangible cultural heritage item, is staged in an ancient town in Luzhou, southwest China's Sichuan province. (People's Daily Online/Li Guiping)

Promoting Chinese modernization is a pioneering undertaking unprecedented in history. It requires inspiring the confidence and fortitude of all Chinese people, and encouraging them to work together.

A country will thrive only if its culture thrives, and a nation will be strong only if its culture is strong. The CPC's innovative theories for the new era have taken deep roots in the hearts of the people. Socialist core values have spread far and wide. The creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture continues to advance. Cultural undertaking and industries are booming. The online environment keeps improving. Cultural confidence among all Party members, ethnic groups and people across the country has increased markedly. The national spirit is more determined and upbeat. Full of confidence, the Chinese people are writing an impressive new chapter in China's development in the new era.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Liang Jun)
 Flash

Chinese Premier Li Qiang meets with Pakistan's Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Kakar is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday met with Pakistan's Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Noting that China and Pakistan are ironclad brothers, Li said China is willing to work with Pakistan to further implement the important consensus reached by the two countries' leaders, enhance high-level exchanges and strategic communication, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and step up building a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era.

Li added that China is ready to work with Pakistan to build an upgraded China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, tap into the potential for cooperation in sectors such as agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries, and promote cooperation in digital economy, telecommunications, technological innovation and other fields.

Li expressed hope that the Pakistani side would take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel and institutions in Pakistan.

Kakar said that over the past 10 years, Belt and Road cooperation has yielded substantial outcomes. Pakistan will take resolute actions against terrorism and spare no effort to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel and institutions in Pakistan, he said.

Li and Kakar also witnessed the signing of several bilateral cooperation documents.
Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping discussed the conflict in the Middle East during a meeting on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing Wednesday, according to the Russian leader  who said common threats brought the two countries closer.

The international gathering, which saw leaders and representatives from countries mostly in the Global South congregate in the Chinese capital, took place under the shadow of war between Israel and militant group Hamas that threatens to escalate into broader regional conflict.

We discussed in detail the situation in the Middle East, Putin said in a press conference. I informed Chairman (Xi) about the situation that is developing on the Ukrainian track, also quite in detail.

All these external factors are common threats, and they strengthen Russian-Chinese interaction, Putin added.

A readout published by Chinese state media said Xi had conducted an in-depth exchange of views on the situation of Israel and the Palestinians with his Russian counterpart, but did not provide any further details of what was discussed. Beijing has yet to name or condemn Hamas in its statements.

Neither Putin nor Xi mentioned the conflict in addresses earlier Wednesday at the start of the gathering, where the Chinese leader welcomed two dozen world leaders and more than a hundred delegations to an event marking the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative  an ambitious yet controversial undertaking to boost connectivity and trade across the world with Chinese infrastructure projects.

But the conflict, which began after Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel earlier this month, has served as a stark showing of the deepening divisions between world powers.

China and Russia have both called for ceasefire in the spiraling conflict and have declined to explicitly condemn Hamas  cutting a stark contrast to the outpouring of support for Israel from the US and leaders across Europe.

Later on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden landed in Tel Aviv in a show of staunch support for Israel, which has vowed to eliminate Hamas following the Islamic militant groups brutal attack on the country earlier this month.

Speaking at the Belt and Road Forum, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was the sole leader to mention the conflict during an opening ceremony, where he called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

Im fully aware of the deep grievances of the Palestinian people after 56 years of occupation, yet as serious as these grievances are they cannot justify the acts of terror against civilians committed by Hamas on October 7 (which) I immediately condemned, he said.

But those events cannot justify the collective punishment of The Palestinian people.

A fairer, multi-polar world

The days events also underscored the deepening political trust between Xi and Putin, who was the gatherings clear guest of honor, seated next to the Chinese leader and speaking directly after him at the opening ceremony ahead of three hours of bilateral talks between the two..

In his speech at the opening ceremony, Putin hailed Xis flagship foreign policy Belt and Road Initiative as aiming to form a fairer, multi-polar world, while touting his countrys deep alignment with China.

Russia and China share an aspiration for equal and mutually beneficial cooperation, which includes respecting civilization diversity and the right of every state for their own development model  he added, in an apparent push back against calls for authoritarian leaders to promote human rights and political freedoms at home.

The visit to Beijing is an exceptionally rare overseas trip for Putin, who is shunned by the West and wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, where his army continues to wage destructive attacks.

Putins comments at the forum followed an address from Xi, who lauded his Belt and Road Initiative during the ceremony in an ornate room in Beijings Great Hall of the People, presenting it as an alternative development model for the world and saying it established a new framework for international cooperation.

Xi also used the gathering to project Chinas expanding ambitions to reshape  and lead  the global world order.

China is endeavoring to build itself into a stronger country and rejuvenate the Chinese nation on all fronts by pursuing Chinese modernization. The modernization were pursuing is not for China alone, but for all developing countries through joint efforts, he said.

In a thinly veiled swipe at the United States, the Chinese leader said China opposed unilateral sanctions, economic coercion, decoupling and supply chain disruption.

Ideological confrontation, geopolitical rivalry and bloc politics are not a choice for us, he said.

Viewing others development as a threat or taking economic interdependence as a risk will not make ones own life better or speed up ones development.

Other world leaders in attendance, including Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Indonesias Joko Widodo, also gave addresses, with many echoing Xis call for increased global development and a more multilateral, cooperative world.

An alternative world order

Xi, the most powerful and assertive Chinese leader in decades, has been ramping up efforts to project China as an alternative leader to the US  with a vision for how global security and development should be ensured.

Hosting leaders in Beijing  Chinas first major international event since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic  is a key part of his push to pitch that vision to nations it has forged close ties with over the past decade as Xi aimed to vastly expand his nations global influence.

But it also comes as China faces stark challenges at home, with a slowing economy, high unemployment and a series of recent unexplained shake-ups in the upper echelons of the ruling Communist Party.

Beijing aims to gloss over these challenges at the gathering to project its power and laud its contributions to global development as a prime example of its superior leadership.

That signature foreign policy has marshaled hundreds of billions in Chinese finance to build ports, power stations, bridges, rails and roads around the world  significantly expanding Chinas international interests and influence along the way.

In Beijing on Wednesday countries expressed their aspirations for more collaboration under the program  including those with few major powers to look to other than China.

Yar Mohammad Ramazan, a transport and aviation ministry representative from the Taliban delegation led by its commerce minister, told CNN that Afghanistan aims to play a big and important role in these Belt and Road projects connecting Central Asia, South Asia and the Persian Gulf.

More than 150 countries have cooperated on the program, which Beijing says has mobilized up to a trillion dollars in investments, spurring growth in developing nations.

But it faces increasing headwinds as Chinas economic growth engine slows amid a shifting financial climate worldwide and questions about its high costs for countries  from debt to environmental impact.

Chinas infrastructure building spree has now made it the worlds largest debt collector, analysts say.

In his address Wednesday, Xi brushed aside criticisms and reiterated his commitment to the initiative.

What has been achieved in the past 10 years demonstrates that Belt and Road cooperation is on the right side of history. It represents the advancing of our times and its the right path forward, he said.

Xi also proposed an eight-part action plan on the Belt and Road initiative, including the full removal of restrictions on foreign investment in Chinese manufacturing and an initiative on global artificial intelligence governance.

CNNs Wayne Chang, Anna Chernova and Hafsa Khalil contributed to this report.

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A teenage political enthusiast says he was accused of being a Democratic operative when he was booted from an event hosted by the New Hampshire Republican Party last week.

Quinn Mitchell, a 15-year-old podcaster and high school student, made waves this summer after an exchange with Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But he was shocked to find himself on the Republican Partys radar during the First in the Nation Leadership Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Oct. 13.

I dont know the full story, he told HuffPost in his first extensive interview on the subject. I dont think I ever will.

After getting credentials early in the afternoon, Mitchell was able to watch remarks from presidential candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at the event, which was hosted by the New Hampshire Republican Party.

He planned to listen to long-shot candidate Perry Johnson next. But Mitchell said he was then approached by a woman calling him a known disruption and a Democratic tracker, a term for political operatives who record rivals on the campaign trail.

Mitchell said the woman scuttled him into another room. He was questioned by the woman and a man, both of whom he believes worked for the national GOP and not for the New Hampshire Republican Party, he said.

The teen found the accusations unbelievable.

People who know me, they know Im not a Democrat tracker, Mitchell told HuffPost. They know I love the civic process in New Hampshire. I really love going to all the events. Anybody who knows me knows Im never disruptive.

Quinn Mitchell is seen asking former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a question during a July 24, 2023 campaign event. In a new interview, he told HuffPost about getting ejected from a New Hampshire GOP event.

Quinn Mitchell is seen asking former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a question during a July 24, 2023 campaign event. In a new interview, he told HuffPost about getting ejected from a New Hampshire GOP event.

Racking his brain over what the woman could be referring to, Mitchell said he could only point to an incident with DeSantis back in July. According to a report from The Daily Beast, the politicians private security physically restrained and ejected the teen from a Fourth of July parade.

At the New Hampshire event, Mitchell was ultimately escorted from the building by a team of cops, who he said were equally perplexed. The press corps witnessed the end of the ordeal, which was first reported on by the Boston Globe.

A spokesperson from the event blamed the situation on an overzealous volunteer in a statement to The New York Times. She and Mitchell confirmed he was later allowed back inside, where he caught some of DeSantis speech but left before the Q&A. A spokesperson for DeSantis told the Times, We were not involved in that decision to remove Mitchell from the event.

Neither the New Hampshire Republican Party nor the Republican National Committee, which did not host or plan the event, immediately responded to HuffPosts request for comment.

An exchange between Mitchell and DeSantis went viral in June when the candidate waffled over a question about former President Donald Trumps efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.

DeSantis offered a limp answer about letting go of the past. Mitchell said he was surprised at how the politician stumbled on what he called one of my worst questions on the campaign trail.

Mitchell told HuffPost that DeSantis team has created an unnatural environment around the candidate.

I dont think a campaign functions vibrantly when your campaign is basically being run by seven billionaires from Never Back Down, he said, referencing the political action committee supporting DeSantis.

When a campaign tries to shut down questions, people are gonna take notice of that, Michell added.

Having attended over 80 presidential campaign events in the past two election cycles, Mitchell said candidates should take their time getting to know the Granite States voters, who often set the tone for the primary cycle. New Hampshire primary voters will cast their ballots in early 2024 after Iowa voters kick off the primary season with caucuses on Jan. 15.

New Hampshire is a very small state. So when you piss off 10 people, they are gonna tell hundred people. Its a small state and word gets around.Quinn Mitchell

New Hampshire voters ask their questions and we vet candidates really well in my opinion, Mitchell said, noting that hes seen question-driven events like those from Christie and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley resonate the most with voters.

A speech only takes you so far. I mean, you have to greet with voters after events. And if you dont I guarantee you thats gonna hurt you in the Granite State because its an expectation, he said.

We want to see you at your house parties. We want to see you at town halls, he continued. Meeting with voters, talking with them, taking their questions, getting a selfie or two.

Mitchell also warned candidates, New Hampshire is a very small state. So when you piss off 10 people, they are gonna tell hundred people. Its a small state and word gets around.

While Mitchells intense political interests may seem like an anomaly for a teen, he urged adults to include young people in serious conversations.

Young people need encouragement from adults in their life, to encourage them to engage in politics and read about whats happening in the world, he said.

Related...
EXETER, N.H.  Mateusz Kudra and Adrienne Kane, both 22, traveled to New Hampshire to watch former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley answer voters' questions last week at a town hall forum hosted by Seacoastonline and the USA TODAY Network.

Kudra, a graduate student at Northeastern University in Massachusetts and a registered Democrat, said he and Kane want to hear from candidates across the political spectrum heading into the 2024 presidential election. But he said he was sold on Haley following her first Republican primary debate performance in August.

"(She) definitely cemented herself as a top three choice, Kudra said, adding that his other picks are Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a now-independent candidate, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Like many constituents in the purple first-in-the-nation primary state, young voters from New Hampshire and the surrounding area told USA TODAY last week that theyre still weighing their options ahead of 2024.

But Haley appeared to appeal to young, moderate voters searching for an alternative to a rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden next year.

Kane, an economics major at Bridgewater State University and a registered Democrat, said she's still evaluating candidates. But she said Haleys down-to-earth" nature and approach to abortion resonated with her.

I just respected the way that she viewed her pro-life status, where you dont discriminate because of other different views, said Kane, who noted that she supports abortion rights.

Haley has long supported additional abortion restrictions in the United States, but she has repeatedly said Americans "need to stop demonizing" the issue. She has also argued that Republicans should be honest with Americans when proposing a national abortion ban, especially as Democrats continue to control the Senate.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks during the Seacoast Media Group and USA TODAY Network 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Town Hall Forum held in the historic Exeter Town Hall in Exeter, New Hampshire. The former Governor of South Carolina and former United States Ambassador to the United Nations spoke to prospective New Hampshire voters about issues during the hour-long form.

If young voters are eyeing Haley as a presidential pick, it wouldn't mark the first time they've said they're not necessarily lining up behind Trump, the 2024 Republican frontrunner. For example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has found favor with some young hardline conservatives in the South.

But the next generation of voters increasingly searching for a more moderate approach say they like what they see in Haley.

In a period of deep political polarization, with two kind of radical sides of each party, I really appreciate somebody that has the ability to be a mediator, somebody that can work with both bipartisan parties, Kudra said.

And other young voters flocked to Haley's town hall in Exeter to press her on the issues that matter to them, asking her about how she would address the nation's debt and her vision for young Americans.

"Look at it from a younger person's point of view," Haley told the crowd. "I know that because my kids are 22 and 25. They don't watch the news on TV because they think both sides are crazy, and I don't know that they're wrong."

Over half of millennial voters identified as independents ahead of last years midterm elections, according to a Gallup poll from August 2022. A Harvard Youth Poll from April found that 43% of voters 18 to 24 years old and 47% of those in their late twenties lean towards a moderate ideology.

Vera Aimunmondion, a 17-year-old high school student, will be able to vote in a presidential election for the first time in November 2024. Still unaffiliated with any party, she said she, like many of her peers, is researching all of the 2024 White House hopefuls.

Im just trying to discover, Aimunmondion told USA TODAY after attending a town hall with former Vice President Mike Pence. I have my beliefs about the type of life I want to live, and Im also a Christian. But I still dont know politics-wise.

Aimunmondion, who is from New Jersey but attending school in New Hampshire, said she and some of her fellow teenage classmates are taking opportunities to hear directly from candidates who frequently visit the Granite State on the campaign trail.

Im trying to be a more politically active citizen and just aware of the mindsets and the beliefs and core values of the people that are going to be leading this country, she said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump? Joe Biden? Nikki Haley connects with these young voters
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will travel next week to China, where he plans to explore potential climate partnerships and visit five different regions  with stops ranging from Hong Kong to Teslas factory in Shanghai.

During his weeklong trip, Newsom will meet with key officials and business executives to promote climate action, strengthen economic development and encourage cultural exchange between the U.S. and China  with the goal of combating xenophobia, according to the governors office.

California and China hold the keys to solving the climate crisis, Newsom said in a statement. As two of the worlds largest economies, our partnership is essential to delivering climate action for our communities and beyond.

Newsom declared his intentions last month to travel to China, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a relationship on climate.

The economies of China and California  the second and fifth largest in the world  have been connected since the Golden States establishment, the governors office stressed in a press release confirming the travels.

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About 32 percent of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. live in California, and a significant percentage of Californians can trace their roots to China, the announcement noted.

The Golden State, according to the governors office, strives for healthy economic competition with China, especially as we work together to transition to low-carbon economies.

Newsom and his accompanying delegation will begin their trip in Hong Kong, where the governor will engage in a fireside chat with Hong Kong University leadership. The conversation will revolve around shared efforts to combat climate change while working toward robust economic growth, per the trip details.

The group will then move on to the Guangdong province  meeting with regional leaders and businesses who have transformed industrial cities into hubs for electric vehicles (EVs) and electric public transit.

The Guangdong city of, home to 13 million residents, was the first in the world to transition to an all-electric bus fleet in 2018, the governors office noted. With that in mind, the delegation is planning to explore how the region accelerated and incentivized this transition.

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While in Guangdong, Newsom is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding to build upon an existing climate partnership between the province and California.

At his next stop in Beijing, the governor will meet with several high-level national and local officials to sign other climate memoranda, as well as discuss subjects such as methane, clean energy adoption, economic growth and the fight against xenophobia.

In Jiangsu, Newsom will visit an offshore wind facility to learn about the techniques China has employed to become the worlds biggest generator of wind, according to the trip details.

For its part, California has set goals of building 25 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030 and 25 gigawatts by 2045.

The governor intends to sign another climate-focused memorandum with Jiangsu before departing for Shanghai via high-speed rail, his office stated.

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Upon arrival in the financial and business hub of Shanghai, the governor plans to sign his fifth memorandum of the trip with local and subnational leadership, as well as tour Teslas Shanghai gigafactory. In September, the factory announced it had produced 2 million electric vehicles, making it the most prolific EV factory in the world, the governors office added.

Ahead of next weeks trip, Newsom touted existing California-China collaborations that focus on cleaning the air, accelerating the transition to electric vehicles, protecting people from extreme weather and conserving lands and oceans.

Both places, an accompanying fact sheet stressed, sit on the front lines of the climate crisis  enduring wildfires, floods, drought and extreme weather.

Our decades-long work together proves what we can accomplish together, the governor said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) announced Thursday the expansion of security funding for worship places in the state, amid the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel.

In a news release, Newsom said he was authorizing $10 million in state funding to immediately increase police presence at places of worship.

He is also authorizing an additional $20 million investment in the California State Nonprofit Security Grant Program to provide physical security enhancements to nonprofit organizations that are at high risk for violent attacks and hate crimes.

The program would fund upgrades including reinforced doors and gates, high-intensity lighting and alarms and access control at places of worship. It also promotes emergency preparedness coordination efforts.

Religious institutions have until Oct. 27 to apply for the program, the news release said.

The $10 million in funding will also reimburse local law enforcement agencies for overtime costs in support of faith communities through in-person security presence at religious institutions and places of worship, the release said.

The state will also reimburse local governments for the increased costs to help residents feel safe within their communities, noting that funding is available and being administered through the Governors Office of Emergency Services.

Amid the horror unfolding in the Middle East following the unconscionable terrorist attacks in Israel, California is authorizing the immediate deployment of funds to increase security and police presence at places of worship across the state, Newsom said in a statement. No matter how and where one prays, every Californian deserves to be safe.

The announcement comes as FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a warning that communities should be wary of the possibility for domestic actions related to the Middle East fighting.

Were particularly vigilant to the possibility that lone actors in the United States could in some way, out of inspiration, misguided inspiration that they draw from the conflict in the Middle East, Wray said in a Thursday interview with Fox News.

Were constantly making sure that we have got the latest intelligence, that were looking at all the intelligence thats available in the right way, testing our own assumptions, our own prior assessments, to make sure that we have anticipated any threats that can arise, Wray added.

Hamas, recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S., launched an attack on Israel nearly two weeks ago that left 1,400 people dead. Most of those killed were civilians. In response, Israel launched retaliatory attacks on Gaza, an area controlled by Hamas, that have killed more than 3,000 people.

The U.S. has offered its backing for Israel to defend itself and go after Hamas in response to the initial attack, while calling for steps to protect civilians.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
SAN FRANCISCO  California Gov. Gavin Newsom will make a high-stakes trip to China next week to strengthen relations with the communist regime on climate change while skirting foreign policy matters handled by his close allies in the Biden administration.

Newsom has scant diplomatic experience, but the governor and his team have coordinated the travel with the White House. A top surrogate for Bidens reelection campaign, Newsom has said hes solely focused on climate policy and wouldnt do anything to undermine the administrations delicate relations with China.

But the trip carries much deeper significance for Newsom, a potential future U.S. presidential contender. It presents him with the prospect of high rewards  and a threat of major pitfalls.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown , Newsoms predecessor who deeply expanded ties with China during his time in office, said Newsom has the potential to make a serious impact on climate, in part because hes engaging during such a challenging moment for U.S.-China relations.

It takes some courage to go against the grain. And the grain in Congress and in the media, reflecting that political perspective, is highly antagonistic to China, Brown, now chair of UC Berkeley's California-China Climate Institute, said in an interview. Newsom is eloquent enough that he can champion climate  and do it in a way that will be more effective than his critics.

Newsom has the opportunity to broker agreements that could cement Californias reputation as a global leader of the green-energy economy. On a political level, he could bolster his foreign policy resume, an area where he has less experience than other potential White House hopefuls.

The governor, however, will walk a diplomatic tightrope as he meets with Chinese officials, including the leaders of several of its most influential provinces. His trip comes during a fraught time, as Chinas once booming economy is faltering and its regime has grown increasingly militant and aggressive on a global stage.

Its only Newsoms second international trip in his official capacity as governor, despite holding office for the past five years. The Democratic governor's itinerary will focus on areas where California and China can partner to reduce planet-warming emissions, including electric cars, high-speed rail and offshore wind.

Although Newsom is not acting as a foreign policy emissary for the administration, his team is steeped in that world. His top climate aide, Lauren Sanchez, was a senior adviser to presidential climate envoy John Kerry as well as a State Department negotiator during the U.N. climate talks in Paris.

The governor's administration said the trip will be predominantly focused on climate, signaling that Newsom wont touch on a host of hot-button issues. Leaders of both parties in Washington have increasingly criticized China over its stance on trade subsidies, intellectual property rights, human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang province and its aggression over disputed claims to Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Republicans are also attacking Bidens hundreds of billions of dollars in climate spending by seizing on any possible links to Beijing. Newsoms trip could inflame those attacks.

The Chinese probably will be more willing to work with the state than the federal government, said Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York City. But he also has to be very careful that he doesn't appear in Washington to be kind of violating federal government policy towards China.

Brown and former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger both pursued close relationships with China on climate policy and trade, going back 15 years. Newsom, in contrast, has been less hands-on with international affairs, a duty he effectively handed off to Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a former U.S. ambassador to Hungary under President Barack Obama.

Newsom has sought to pick up the mantle recently, inking a climate pact with the Chinese province of Hainan and renewing another Brown-era partnership with Chinas Ministry of Ecology and Environment last April.

Now, Newsom is dramatically upping the ante as he prepares to take on relations with the East Asian nation. But todays China is a far more antagonistic actor than the emergent world power encountered by prior governors.

Relations between China and the United States took a particularly tense turn this year, after Bidens administration shot down a Chinese spy balloon that came into U.S. airspace. Biden called Xi a dictator at a fundraiser in the Bay Area this past summer, and said the Chinese president had been very embarrassed by the incident. Earlier in the year, Xi accused the United States and European countries of engaging in all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China to hamper its economic growth.

The rift has somewhat thawed in recent weeks, with a potential Biden-Xi meeting coming up at APEC and visits by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a congressional delegation led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Newsom allies and experts on China-California relations said the governors decision to wade in signals a key intention: his desire to help shape a more nuanced national narrative on China. That aim also cant be decoupled from speculation about his presidential potential, though Newsom has downplayed his aspirations and said hes focused on boosting Bidens reelection bid.

Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council, a business advocacy group that helped establish Californias trade office in China, said Newsom would inevitably face criticism from some opponents for engaging with a sometimes adversarial country.

On the other hand, maybe it shows his temperament, that hes a leader who believes more in discourse and diplomacy over finger pointing, Wunderman said.

Several political observers said that in order to preserve the chance for progress on climate and to avoid diplomatic missteps that could overshadow the trip, Newsom should avoid speaking out about controversial aspects of China's policies. They said he should avoid directly prodding Beijing in the way that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did when she traveled to Taiwan during her final year as speaker in 2022, despite objections from Xi and Bidens administration.

Chinas recent suppression of freedoms in Hong Kong, a former British colony, has drawn widespread condemnation. The governor does plan to travel to Hong Kong, though spokesperson Erin Mellon said he would focus on climate and look to our federal partners on federal issues.

There are clear signs Newsom is aiming to distance himself from saber-rattling around China on the national level.

Newsom recently expressed frustration with political and media narratives over tensions with China, including speculation that the country was behind a mystery buyer gobbling up land around Travis Air Force Base in Californias far East Bay Area. The buyer, as it turns out, was Silicon Valley investors.

Divorce is not an option, Newsom told POLITICO when he announced his climate-focused China trip last month. The importance, the imperative of maintaining a relationship on climate with China is about the fate and future of this planet.

Newsom has only taken one international trip in his official capacity as governor, to El Salvador a few months after his inauguration in 2019. He has also traveled to Mexico and Central and South America for vacations.

His experience on a global stage, however, goes back much further to his time as San Francisco mayor. In 2005, he traveled to Shanghai with the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), seeking to expand trade opportunities, and he made several additional trips as mayor.

Darlene Chiu-Bryant, a former adviser to Newsom who accompanied him on the 2005 trip, said it was clear back then that he was focused on a positive business relationship with China, not points of controversy.

Chiu-Bryant now leads GlobalSF, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding foreign investment. She said Newsoms approach reflects his sensibility as a lifelong San Franciscan. About a fifth of San Francisco residents are Chinese American  the highest concentration in any major U.S. city. Its also home to the oldest Chinatown in the country, founded by immigrant laborers and merchants during the Gold Rush.

Newsom, as a child growing up in the city, walked through that Chinatown every morning on his way to Catholic school, she said. Chiu-Bryant said such experiences led Newsom to view China as more partner than rival.

For him, its always been, We live in the global world, she said. Hes always been open, hes always been collaborative.

Debra Kahn and Christopher Cadelago contributed.
California Governor Gavin Newsom will visit Israel just ahead of a trip to China that had already been planned for some time.

Im on my way to Israel. Ill be meeting with those impacted by the horrific terrorist attacks and offering Californias support, the governor posted on social media Thursday morning.

IRS postpones tax filing deadline one month for California storm victims

Newsom is making the trip as Israel nears two weeks of war against Gaza-based Hamas, which overran the Israeli border on Oct. 7 in a surprise attack, killing hundreds and taking dozens of hostages.

The governors press secretary said, The Governor adjusted his planned international trip and will briefly visit Israel ahead of going to China. While in Israel, the Governor will meet with those impacted by the violence.

Newsoms office also said that California will send medical supplies and other aid to the region, including to Gaza.

Partnership is everything: Jennifer Siebel Newsom says the words First Partner are more than a title

Newsoms visit comes just days after President Joe Biden visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While there, Biden confirmed $100 million in assistance to civilians in Gaza, which has seen its borders with Israel and Egypt closed or limited during the fighting.

The governors office announced more details about Newsoms trip to China, advising that he will meet with officials to discuss climate action, economics and tourism.

The seven-day trip will start on Monday and include visits to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will make a surprise visit to Israel on Friday before embarking on his climate-focused trip to China, his office announced Thursday.

The governor adjusted his planned international trip and will briefly visit Israel ahead of going to China, said Erin Mellon, director of communications for his office, in a statement.

While in Israel, the governor will meet with those impacted by the violence, Mellon added.

Newsom is set to land in Israel on Friday and depart later the same day. Meanwhile, the state of California will also be shipping some medical supplies to the region.

The governor still will travel next week to China, where he intends to explore potential climate partnerships, strengthen economic initiatives and encourage cultural exchanges.

Further details about his specific plans and whereabouts in Israel were not yet available at this time.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Humans arent the only beings that ghost in relationships.

When invertebrates and vertebrates fake their own deaths, it's usually been observed as a tactic to avoid predators. Female frogs, however, are using the behavior to avoid a different kind of predator: aggressively clingy males looking to mate.

A common frog - rena temporaria - among frog spawn at night in Glasgow, Scotland.

A behavior observed in the European common female frog dubbed "tonic immobility was detailed in a recent study published in Royal Society Open Science.

Tonic immobility as a tactic to avoid mating or male harassment has only been observed in a handful of species and only in one other amphibian, the study says.

Tonic immobility just one avoidance behavior

During mating season, several male frogs can dangerously cling onto one female at a time, which can cause distress and death to the female frog. Researchers saw three different "avoidance behaviors which have evolved in female frogs to survive aggressive mating seasons:

Female frogs rotate their own body when in a mating position with other frogs.

Release vocal emissions, or calls.

Use tonic immobility when grabbed by a male, sometimes for several hours.

All three behaviors were observed when the frogs were in water, but researchers also observed one instance of tonic immobility in the terrestrial habitat.

According to the study, these behaviors were significantly associated with smaller females, who were also found to be more successful in escaping frogs attempting to mate.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Female frogs play dead to avoid aggressive males, unwanted attention
FILE - A poster featuring Bishop Rolando Alvarez and Pope Francis hangs inside the Cathedral in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, Aug. 19, 2022. Nicaragua has released and sent 12 Roman Catholic priests jailed on a variety of charges to Rome following an agreement reached with the Vatican, the Nicaraguan government said in a statement late Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. Bishop Alvarez was not among the names of the priests released. (AP Photo/Inti Ocon, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

MEXICO CITY (AP)  Nicaragua has released 12 Roman Catholic priests jailed on a variety of charges and sent them to Rome following an agreement reached with the Vatican, the Nicaraguan government said in a statement late Wednesday.

The government of President Daniel Ortega said that the priests were flown to Rome Wednesday afternoon following productive talks with the Vatican. Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, the church's top figure in Nicaragua, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Vatican confirmed Thursday that the Holy See had been asked to receive the 12 priests who had been recently released. It said they would be taken in and housed in various structures belonging to the diocese of Rome.

The Nicaraguan government said the deal showed the permanent will and commitment to find solutions.

Bishop Rolando Alvarez was not among the names of the priests listed. Alvarez was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced in February to 26 years in prison shortly after Ortega's government sent 222 prisoners to the United States in a deal brokered by the U.S. government.

Alvarez had refused to get on that flight. Nicaraguas government later stripped those prisoners of their citizenship.

Ortegas government has aggressively pursued the Catholic church in recent years. Ortega has maintained that the church aided popular protests against his administration in April 2018 that he considered an attempted coup.
 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Argentine President Alberto Fernandez at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday met with Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Both as major developing countries, China and Argentina shoulder the historical mission of safeguarding international fairness and justice, Xi said, expressing China's willingness to work with Argentina to seek greater strategic synergy, make their bilateral relations steady and sustained, and set an example for the unity and cooperation among the Global South.

China supports Argentina's efforts in maintaining economic and financial stability, and stands ready to deepen pragmatic cooperation with Argentina in agriculture, infrastructure and other fields.

Xi congratulated Argentina on being invited to join the BRICS cooperation mechanism. He called on the two countries to strengthen strategic coordination within the frameworks of the UN, the G20 and the BRICS cooperation mechanism, and promote the implementation of the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative for the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

China has always supported the regional integration process of Latin America and the Caribbean, he noted.

Fernandez hailed China as a "true friend" of Argentina.

He said the Belt and Road cooperation has created important opportunities for developing countries and played an irreplaceable role in promoting world peace, fairness and sustainable development.

Argentina will work with China to support multilateralism and strengthen communication and coordination within the frameworks of the G20 and BRICS cooperation mechanism, Fernandez said.

Senior Chinese officials including Cai Qi and Wang Yi were present at the meeting.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is being accused of "misleading" the audience attending one of her town halls earlier this month over the sale of land in South Carolina to China while she was governor of the state.

The liberal Washington Post's resident fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, awarded Haley "four Pinocchios" for "sidestepping" when one audience member said, "I saw something on the internet that said you gave China thousands of acres of land in South Carolina. Why would you do that?"

"Don't believe what you read on the internet  We didn't sell any land to the Chinese. But, yes, I recruited a fiberglass company," Haley responded.

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Republican presidential candidate former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks during the 2023 First in the Nation Leadership Summit on October 13, 2023, in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Kessler wrote that Haley, as South Carolina's governor from 2011 to 2017, "recruited Chinese companies to her state," and that "Chinese capital investment in South Carolina more than doubled from $308 million in 2011 to nearly $670 million in 2015."

"There's nothing wrong with politicians changing their positions in light of new facts. Haley has become a hawk on China, making her stance a key part of her campaign platform, and many politicians in both parties, including President Biden, have become alarmed by China's behavior. But her response at the town hall was false and misleading," he added.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Kessler went on to call her comments a "political sleight of hand," and said she denied something she wasn't asked.

"The fiberglass deal did not involve the sale of land  but that's because the company received almost 200 acres of county-owned land free of charge if promised investments were made," he wrote.

KARI LAKE PICKS UP FIRST MAJOR ENDORSEMENT IN RACE TO FLIP ARIZONA SENATE SEAT RED

The entrance to The Washington Post corporate building in Washington D.C.

According to Kessler, Chinese companies received approximately 1,500 acres of land during Haley's administration, "much of it through land sales."

The fiberglass company in question  China Jushi  has deep connections to the Chinese Communist Party, Kessler wrote, and established a manufacturing plant in South Carolina in 2016 that Haley called "a huge win for our state."

"Get excited! China Jushi is creating 400 new jobs and investing $300. million right here in Columbia!" Haley wrote on Facebook at the time.

Haley defended her deal with the company during the town hall, saying, "There is not a governor in this country or a state in this country that hasn't worked to get Chinese business in their state somewhere. There's not a household in this country that doesn't have Chinese products in it. But there is a difference between focusing on something that's going to hurt our national security and focusing on whether I brought a fiberglass company to South Carolina."

REPUBLICANS FLIP DEMOCRAT-HELD LOUISIANA GOVERNOR SEAT IN FIRST MAJOR CONTEST AHEAD OF 2024 ELECTIONS

Republican presidential candidate and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley holds a town hall meeting on March 09, 2023, in Nevada, Iowa.

Kessler went on to write that Haley's phrasing showed she wanted to "get credit for wooing the company without taking accountability for the details," and listed a number of other Chinese companies that purchased land in South Carolina from both local governments and individuals during her tenure as governor.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Haley campaign for comment. Kessler wrote that a Haley campaign spokesperson declined to discuss the town hall comments on the record, but did send a statement with a similar defense as the one given during the event.

"With China-owned companies in all fifty states and Chinese products in nearly every American home, China's influence is pervasive. China buying farmland near our military bases and stealing American technology is a clear and present security threat," the statement read.

"Chinese investment in glass manufacturing in America is not the same, although dangers in the consumer goods sector are greater today than they were five or ten years ago. Nikki Haley has the clearest vision of the comprehensive nature of the Chinese threat to America and will do what it takes to keep Americans safe," it added.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub .





Original article source: Nikki Haley 'misleads' town hall audience when questioned on Chinese land purchases in South Carolina: WaPo
Protesters led by progressive Jewish activists rally outside the Brentwood home of Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff on Thursday morning. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Since this month's attacks on Israel by Hamas militants, thousands of protesters have taken to Los Angeles' streets, waving Israeli and Palestinian flags and at times sparking tense confrontations. On Thursday, as Israel continued its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, a smaller group tried to bridge the bitter divide by taking their pleas for peace to Vice President Kamala Harris' Brentwood home.

Led by progressive Jewish activists for Palestinian rights, about 50 people pulled up in cars outside Harris' home in the quiet Westside enclave around 7:20 a.m. and walked to the front gate holding signs that read Jews say ceasefire now and No war crimes in our name.

They prayed, sang and read poetry. Speaking Hebrew, they recited the Mourners Kaddish, a Jewish prayer praising God to mark the death of a loved one.

The peaceful demonstration at the home of Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, was organized by IfNotNow, a left-leaning group of American Jews calling for the end of U.S. support for Israels apartheid system, according to the groups website. Harris was in Washington, according to a White House news guidance about her Thursday schedule; representatives for Harris and Emhoff did not respond to requests for comment.

Read more: 'And then I had to go out and speak': Doug Emhoff on being Jewish right now

We are outside the house of Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff asking them to join us in demanding a cease-fire, said IfNotNow L.A. organizer David Shapiro, who led chants and prayers of peace. We are American Jews with ancestors around the world. We honor our tradition rooted in the belief that human life is sacred. To achieve genuine safety for ourselves as Jews, for Israelis and for Palestinians, we need to work together toward equality and justice for all and an end to apartheid.

Speakers called on Harris and Emhoff to advocate for a cease-fire, at one point chanting, Join us, Doug. Some organizers wearing neon green vests helped to make sure traffic was not blocked on the two-way street.

Members of the advocacy group IfNotNow cover their eyes while offering a prayer on Thursday morning outside the Los Angeles home of Vice President Kamala Harris, calling "on those in power to oppose any policies that privilege one group of people over another, in Israel/Palestine and in the U.S." Harris was not in Los Angeles at the time of the protest. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Some drivers slowed to hear the message, chanting in favor of Israel, and others honked car horns, shouted and pumped their fists. Two men in separate vehicles called the protesters terrorists before driving away.

A Times reporter on the scene heard a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant tell protesters not to stretch police resources by having officers arrest people. No order for the crowd to disperse was given, and the demonstration ended around 11 a.m. with no arrests and no violence.

Organizer Noa Kattler Kupetz, who said she "grew up right around the corner from Harris' home, told the crowd that the event was a huge win for us.

My feeling after this is that our work here is not done, she said. We have to make it clear to all of our elected officials, our local leaders in Los Angeles and the leaders of our country like Kamala Harris that there needs to be an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

Read more: As Biden visits, rage spreads amid dueling narratives from Israel, Hamas

The Brentwood demonstration was a continuation of recent protests by Jewish activists who oppose Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and the airstrikes on Gaza as the death toll soars.

On Capitol Hill, hundreds of demonstrators organized by IfNotNow and another progressive group, Jewish Voice for Peace, were arrested Wednesday after rallying inside a congressional building to demand a cease-fire. Three were accused of assault on a police officer, according to the U.S. Capitol Police.

"While 500 Jews, rabbis, and descendants of Holocaust survivors chant 'Let Gaza live' and get arrested inside, a crowd of 10k sings outside," Jewish Voice for Peace posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. "We wont stop until our demands of a cease-fire are met!"

Israel has declared war and continued to bomb and seal off the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controls, ever since Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 Israelis and taking at least 200 hostages into Gaza. At least 3,785 Palestinians, including 1,524 children and 120 older people, have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza as of Thursday, and at least 12,493 have been wounded, according to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.

About half of Gaza's population, amounting to about 1 million Palestinians, have fled their homes in the north after being told to evacuate by Israeli officials. Israeli airstrikes continued across Gaza on Thursday, including in southern areas that were deemed "safe zones" by Israel.

Israel has also cut off all water, power and medical supplies into Gaza, exacerbating an existing blockade of the region. Limited humanitarian aid will be allowed from Egypt into Gaza at the request of President Biden.

Read more: Gaza awaits aid from Egypt as Israel readies troops for ground assault

Biden is expected to request $10 billion in military aid to Israel from Congress in the coming days, according to media reports. Biden has already pledged $100 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank.

Harris told reporters last week in the wake of the Hamas attack that she was "completely outraged" by the "extreme acts of terrorism."

A few days after the Hamas attack, Emhoff spoke at a roundtable at the White House with other Jewish community leaders.

We witnessed a mass murder of innocent civilians. It was a terrorist assault, he told the audience. And there is never any justification for terrorism. There are no two sides to this issue."

On Wednesday, the U.S. vetoed a United Nations resolution sponsored by Brazil to condemn all violence against civilians in the war, citing the need to find out more facts on the ground first. The resolution had broad support, with 12 out of the 15 members of the Security Council voting in favor, Russia and Britain abstaining, and the U.S. voting against it.

Read more: 'I need to ask God why.' In Israel and Gaza, the scale of death overwhelms the living

IfNotNow volunteer Asher Kaplan said that as the violence mounts, despair has been building within the Jewish community for the last few weeks. One of Kaplan's childhood friends was nearly killed in Hamas attack.

Yet, he said, those feelings of grief and anguish should not be used as a justification for mass killing.

We know that the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians being conducted by Israel as we speak and supported by the United States government will not make Jews safe, Kaplan said.

The advocacy group IfNotNow held a demonstration Thursday morning outside the Los Angeles home of Vice President Kamala Harris. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Brentwood resident Michael Cohen bristled when he saw a Jewish activist wearing the traditional Palestinian kaffiyeh while holding a banner reading, Jews say ceasefire now.

OK, cease-fire and then what? said Cohen, who is in his mid-40s, as he watched the protest after dropping off his three kids at a nearby elementary school.

The bombing in Gaza was to eradicate Hamas and not Palestinians, Cohen said.

The point is what will be done with Hamas, and something needs to be done with Hamas before we can talk about peace, he said.

Read more: What do Hamas and Israel see as the endgame? What would 'victory' look like?

Another Brentwood resident, Lydia Sorrentino, 53, went to Thursdays protest out of curiosity. She had just dropped off her first-grade son at nearby Kenter Canyon Elementary Charter School and pulled her car over near the gates of Harris home. The commotion came as a surprise to her.

This is usually a very quiet neighborhood; I think this is the first time weve had something like this, she said. I had to see what was happening.

Although Sorrentino was aware of the Israel-Hamas war, she said she didn't really understand the issue.

Thats why Im here, to hear whats being said and what the protest is about, she said. Sorrentino pulled out her phone to record a couple of speeches and then headed back to her car and home.

I have a lot to learn, she added.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Finnish telecoms giant Nokia is to axe between 9,000 and 14,000 jobs by the end of 2026 to cut costs.

The announcement was made as the company reported a 20% drop in sales between July and September.

The company blamed slowing demand for 5G equipment in markets such as North America.

It currently has 86,000 employees around the world, and has axed thousands of jobs since 2015.

Nokia wants to cut costs by between 800m and 1.2bn (695m-1bn) by 2026, it said.

Its customers have been cutting spending amid high inflation and interest rates, it said.

Advances in cloud computing and AI will need "significant investments in networks that have vastly improved capabilities", said chief executive Pekka Lundmark.

"However, given the uncertain timing of the market recovery, we are now taking decisive action," he said.

It said it wanted to "act quickly" by cutting costs by 400m in 2024, and 300m in 2025.

Mr Lundmark added that despite "ongoing uncertainty", Nokia expected to "an improvement in our network businesses" in the current quarter.

The company declined to say where the job cuts would fall, or whether UK employees would be affected.

It said the cuts had been a "difficult business decision" but were "a necessary step to adjust to market uncertainty and protect our long-term profitability and competitiveness".

"We have immensely talented people at Nokia and we will support everyone that is affected by the process," a spokesperson said. "We are now beginning the process of consultation on initial reductions."

The timing and detail of final jobs cuts "will be decided only after careful consideration, and will depend on the evolution of end market demand," the spokesperson added.

Stalling 5G

Nokia was once the biggest handset manufacturer in the world, but it failed to anticipate the popularity of internet-enabled touchscreen phones such as Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy and was knocked from its perch by rivals.

After selling its handset business to Microsoft, which the software giant later wrote off, Nokia concentrated on telecoms equipment.

It specialises in software and hardware used in telecoms, including the physical and cloud infrastructure people use when making a phone call or when using the internet, such as antennas and base stations.

In 2020, Nokia became a major beneficiary of Huawei being blocked from the UK's 5G networks after striking a deal to become the largest equipment provider to BT.

But 5G equipment makers have been struggling as operators in the US and the EU cut spending.

Nokia and Swedish rival, Ericsson, have been trying to offset some of the weakness with higher sales to India, but 5G rollout has also been slowing down there.

Earlier this week Ericsson reported a fall in sales.

The firm has also laid off thousands of employees this year, and said on Tuesday the uncertainty affecting its business would persist into 2024.

Analyst Kester Mann of CCS Insight said that the telecoms industry should be "flying high, buoyed by unrelenting demand for its services".

"Instead, countless questions continue to be posed around operators' relevance and long-term future," he said.

Technology companies, including telecoms firms, have been struggling as both domestic and business customers have been cutting back on spending because of factors including inflation and higher interest rates.

It has led to thousands of workers around the world losing their jobs over the past two years.

Companies including Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Amazon and X, formerly Twitter, have all made redundancies.

However, tech workers are still in demand.

According to job posting firm Zip Recruiter, 80% of big tech employees who lost their jobs managed to find work within three months.
North Carolinas House GOP members unveiled two new voting map proposals Wednesday that could deal a blow to state Democrats in the 2024 election.

Senate redistricting committee leaders Wednesday revealed the pair of Congressional map proposals that would alter the boundary lines for the states 14 U.S. House seats and threaten seven Democrat seats.

Statewide election data with Wednesdays proposals said one of the Senates proposals would establish 10 districts that likely favor a Republican candidate, three that favor a Democrat and one that could be considered a close race. The other proposal shows Republicans likely winning 11 out of the 14 seats, according to The Associated Press (AP).

The redrawn maps come after the North Carolina Supreme Court  which had a Democrat majority at the time  struck down the GOP-controlled General Assemblys congressional and legislative maps drawn out in the fall of 2021, arguing the maps went against the state constitutions barring of extensive partisan gerrymandering.

The General Assembly was ordered to draw up new boundaries, and trial judges created an interim congressional plan that was used in the 2022 elections. The 2022 elections gave North Carolinas U.S. congressional delegation an even split among parties, including seven Democrats and seven Republicans.

Last year, however, the state Supreme Court flipped to a Republican majority and overruled its previous decision that struck down the states GOP-drawn voting maps. The 5-2 party-line vote in April argued the claims of partisan gerrymandering are political questions that the states courts cannot decide.

The Supreme Court ruled in April the General Assembly could still propose new district boundaries for use through the 2030 elections as the last ruling was decided by the previous Democratic majority court, per the AP.

It was not immediately clear which of the proposed maps will advance in the Senate, according to the AP.

North Carolina is one of multiple states, others including New York, Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama, that could experience changes to congressional maps ahead of the 2024 election. The decisions over these maps weigh heavy for Republicans, who are trying to hold on to their narrow majority in the House.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A North Carolina man was arrested and charged for allegedly making death threats to a local Jewish organisation in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Jeffrey Scott Hobgood, of Troy, sent an email on 11 October to the unidentified Charlotte-based organisation that read in part I am going to take out every one of you, according to the US Attorneys Office for the Middle District of North Carolina.

You cant stop what is coming, the email continued, which was signed with the name J. Scott Hobgood.

After the organisation sent the email to the Charlotte FBI office, agents got in touch with police officers in Troy, who located Mr Hobgood and questioned him about the emails.

Mr Hobgood allegedly admitted that he did send the email but it was none of their business and told them to leave his property, adding it would be dangerous for them if they stayed.

Two days later, Mr Hobgood allegedly sent a second email to the same address of the organisation in which he called the group traitors that deserve public execution.

The email began with Dear Lucifer/satan sbirds.

Guess what happens to traitors? . . . Public execution. . . . We are at war . . . . If you think you semite pieces of s[***] are going to win, then you are delusional, read part of the email, according to publicly filed court documents.

Included in the email was a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and headshots of individuals purportedly associated with multiple news media organizations, with stars of David affixed to the upper left-hand corner of each headshot, according to the US Attorneys Offices release.

Mr Hobgood was arrested and charged on Monday and was charged with transmitting in interstate commerce a communication containing a threat to injure the person of another, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and/or a fine of up to $250,000.

No one in America should be threatened based on their race, nationality, religion, gender, or other protected characteristics, United States Attorney Sandra J. Hairston said in the release. Individuals who target other community members will be held accountable for their actions.

It was later alleged by law enforcement that Mr Hobgood had sent multiple threatening emails to a family member last year, WGHP reported.

In June 2022, a woman reported to the Carter County Sheriffs Office in Tennessee that Mr Hobgood had sent an email threatening her and her husband, instructing her to tell [victims husband] he will hang, according to court documents.

No one should be threatened with violence or acts of hate because of who they are or how they worship. The FBI partners with communities of faith across North Carolina. Crimes driven by hate have no place in our state, North Carolina FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert M. DeWitt added.

Earlier this week, the FBI released crime data for 2022, which showed an increase in reported hate crimes from 2021 to 2022.

The hate crimes included a sharp increase in antisemitism, with anti-Jewish hate crimes rising by more than 37 percent from 2021, with a reported 1,122 incidents.
By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed his resolve to fulfil agreements made at his summit last month with Russian President Vladimir Putin as he met visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, state media KCNA reported on Friday.

Kim took a rare trip to Russia last month during which he invited Putin to Pyongyang and discussed military cooperation, including over North Korea's satellite programme, and the war in Ukraine.

Kim and Lavrov discussed ways to ramp up cooperation to actively respond to regional and global issues based on "solid political and strategic trust relations," and Lavrov conveyed Putin's greetings to Kim, KCNA said.

Kim pledged to "work out a stable, forward-looking, far-reaching plan for the DPRK-Russia relations in the new era by faithfully implementing the agreements ... and push forward with the cause of building a powerful state," KCNA said.

He was referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui and Lavrov signed a plan for exchanges in 2024-25 as they held separate talks to follow up on the summit and explore greater cooperation on the economy, culture and advanced science and technology, KCNA said.

The two diplomats also discussed how to place bilateral ties "on a higher stage," it said.

"Both sides had an in-depth exchange of views on intensifying joint action on several regional and international issues including the situation on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asian region and reached a consensus of views on them," KCNA said in another dispatch.

Lavrov has departed Pyongyang after the meetings, it said.

Lavrov, at a reception after arriving in Pyongyang on Wednesday, thanked Pyongyang's "unwavering and principled support" for Russia in the Ukraine war, and vowed "complete support and solidarity" for the North, according to Moscow's foreign ministry.

'FIRST TARGET OF DESTRUCTION'

Russia and North Korea have been seeking to forge closer ties in the face of what they see as a hostile and aggressive U.S.-led Western camp.

Seoul and Washington have expressed concerns about growing exchanges between Moscow and Pyongyang, and the U.S. has stepped up military drills with Japan in response to North Korea's evolving military threats, involving an aircraft carrier and other strategic assets.

In a separate commentary, KCNA criticised the U.S. deployment of the strategic assets, including a B-52 bomber and F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, and the joint exercises.

Those assets would be "the first targets of destruction" if signs of any attack on North Korea were detected, it said, adding the country has already enacted "the policy of nuclear force which allowed the necessary procedures of action."

"This is the intentional nuclear war provocative moves of the U.S.," the commentary said.

"Now that the U.S. and gangsters of the 'Republic of Korea' have committed a provocation of nuclear war against the DPRK, the DPRK will take corresponding option," it said, referring to South Korea.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; editing by Diane Craft and Sandra Maler)
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is seeking the publics help to find a Northern California teenager who has been missing for more than a week and may have traveled to Sacramento.

Hansley Ventimiglia, 16, was last at his parents home in Redding. Hansleys parents went to wake him up for school on Oct. 11 in the morning and noticed he was gone, according to a news release from the national center. Hes never been reported missing before, and his parents said its unusual for him to be gone, the news release added.

We just want to tell him we love him, Dominic Ventimiglia, the teens father, said in a statement. And we are so grateful for everyone who has been and continues to share his poster.

Hansley is believed to be in Redding or to have traveled to Sacramento, the news release said.

Anyone with information about Hansleys location is asked to call the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 or the Redding Police Department at 530-225-4200.
A view of waves, in Stonehaven, Scotland, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, as the UK braces for heavy wind and rain from Storm Babet. Hundreds of people are being evacuated from their homes and schools have closed in parts of Scotland, as much of northern Europe braces for stormy weather, heavy rain and gale-force winds from the east. (Andrew Milligan/PA via AP)

LONDON (AP)  Hundreds of people were being evacuated from their homes and schools closed in parts of Scotland on Thursday, as much of northern Europe braced for stormy weather, heavy rain and gale-force winds from the east.

The U.K.'s weather forecaster, the Met Office, issued a rare red alert  the highest level of weather warning  for parts of Scotland, predicting exceptional rainfall Thursday and Friday that is expected to cause extensive flooding and danger to life from fast-flowing or deep floodwater. The last red alert in the U.K. was issued in 2020.

Forecasters say the storm, named Babet by U.K. officials, could bring more than a months worth of rain in the worst-affected regions in Scotland.

Babet already brought floods and swollen rivers that swamped several towns and villages in Ireland, with some areas remaining under water and without power Thursday. Soldiers helped with evacuation measures in the town of Midleton in County Cork, where more than 100 properties were flooded. Cork County Council said mor

In the town of Brechin, near Scotland's eastern coast, officials told residents of about 400 houses to evacuate to local rest centers. Schools, recreation centers and vaccination hubs in the area were closed and will remain shut on Friday.

In Denmark, residents scrambled to place sandbags along exposed areas. In Assens on the central island of Funen, emergency services deployed huge rubber tubes in the harbor to counter rising water levels, broadcaster TV2 reported. Southern Denmark police urged people along the east coast to leave exposed areas if the weather predictions remain, saying cottages, harbors and other places could be flooded.

TV2 reported that the region would likely see the worst flooding in 110 years, and the Danish Meteorological Institute said waves could reach 4 meters (13 feet) along east-facing coasts.

The southeastern Danish town of Koege wrote on its Facebook page that emergency workers were busy filling sandbags and urged citizens to avoid unnecessary baths, dishes, laundry and other water-intensive activities, saying the municipalitys treatment plant was at risk of being overloaded.

Police in the area warned that roads may be blocked, urged people to secure valuables and advised against sleeping on their boats in the harbors, saying that "if something happens, emergency services cannot get to them, police spokesperson Brian Bang-Rasmussen said.

Copenhagen's airport and the Danish national rail company warned of cancellations and delays Friday because of bad weather.

Several ferry lines between Danish islands were suspended, as were ferries to Rostock in northern Germany and to Oslo.

Swedish meteorologists also issued a warning for the south coast from Friday evening and Saturday. They said that the water level in southern parts of Sweden may reach its highest level since the 1990s.

In Germany, authorities warned of high water in bays in Schleswig-Holstein, south of the Denmark border, until Saturday.

Authorities also warned of high water in the next two days on the Baltic Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germanys northernmost state, with water levels of up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) above average possible in the inlet where the city of Flensburg is located. Some ferries to the North Sea islands of Foehr and Amrum were delayed or canceled, German news agency dpa reported.

Norwegian meteorologists said a strong low-pressure area over Great Britain combined with high pressure over northern Scandinavia was creating strong winds, with very strong gusts" expected to hit southern Norway from the east.

Parts of southern Europe were also affected by heavy rains.

Stormy weather battered much of Spain, leading to ferry cancelations from the southwestern ports of Algeciras and Tarifa to Tangier in Morocco and the closure of public parks in several cities, including Madrid.

The stormy weather, expected to worsen Friday in several regions, comes after the hottest and driest first two weeks of October on record. Spain had been experiencing a severe drought for nearly two years.

Liam Quaide, a local politician in Cork, Ireland, said authorities need to focus more resources on preparing for climate change.

The scenes of devastation in Midleton (are) an ominous sign of what is ahead of us as a nation if we dont double down on climate mitigation and adaptation," he said.

___

Olsen reported from Copenhagen, Denmark.

___

This story corrects that the town of Koege is in southeastern, not southwestern, Denmark.

___

Follow APs climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
Happy Thursday! Yesterday, Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania cast his vote for former House Speaker John Boehner to retake the gavel. If you listened closely on the House floor, were pretty sure you could hear Boehner cackling from an undisclosed location in Ohio.

Quick Hits: Todays Top Stories

You Are Not Alone

President Joe Biden joins Israel's Prime Minister for the start of the Israeli war cabinet meeting, in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

On Wednesday evening in Tel Aviv, after a day of meeting with Israeli leadership, President Joe Biden offered a singular message to the people of Israel: You are not alone, he said in remarks that were broadcast around the world. As long as the United States standsand we will stand foreverwe will not let you ever be alone.

Almost immediately after Air Force One departed, Hamas fired rockets into central Israel, including Tel Aviv. Such has been life in Israel for the past 12 days.

Bidens trip to Israel yesterday was the first such visit to the country by an American president during a time of war, and it represented his administrations commitment backing the Israeli government as it responds to Hamas terror attacks. That commitment was reiterated on Wednesday, when Biden pushed back against claimsinitially made by Hamas and quickly picked up by a number of prominent media outletsthat Israeli forces had struck a hospital in Gaza and killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians. Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, he said, citing intelligence he had seen from the U.S. Department of Defense. Despite such evidencewhich appears to have been corroborated by U.S. defense officials, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and independent military analyststhe explosion and the initial reporting of its cause has led to protests across the Middle East, and appears to have altered the geopolitical calculus of a number of players in the region.

Biden landed in Tel Aviv with two main objectives: to show U.S. solidarity with Israel, and to dissuade leaders in the region from broadening the war between Israel and Hamas into a broader conflict. I think what the U.S. is trying to do is both to support Israel while at the same time contain the crisis and lower the risks of escalation, Greg Brew, an analyst at Eurasia Group, told TMD. In a more private, maybe more behind the scenes way, try to get a sense of what the Israelis are thinking about. Get a sense of the scale of the offensive that theyre planning, put pressure on Israel to ensure that humanitarian aid can get into Gaza. Try to pressure the Israelis to come up with some solution to the refugee problem in Gaza, but also try to restrain the Israelis from launching a full scale offensive that could potentially turn into a prolonged occupation of Gaza.

The second leg of the tripwhich was set to include diplomatic meetings with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egyptwas canceled entirely just hours before Biden arrived in Israel. The White House stressed that the decision to scratch the events after Tuesdays hospital explosion in Gaza was a mutual one, but the cancellation represented a significant blow to the Biden administrations attempts to quell the growing unrest. The initial reaction to what happened at the hospital put a real dent in Bidens trip, said Brew.

The explosion occurred outside the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday night, and Hamas-controlled Palestinian authorities immediately claimed an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital and placed the casualty count near 500 civilians. Several major media outletsincluding the Associated Press and New York Timesran with these claims from Hamas, prompting scathing condemnations from neighboring leaders and protests against Israel to erupt across the Middle East. Within hours, however, Israeli officialseventually backed by U.S. intelligence assessmentsreleased evidence appearing to attribute the damage to an errant rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. By Wednesday morning, evidence also began to emerge showing the rocket had hit a parking lot outside the hospital, not the building itselfand some open-source intelligence analysts believe the destruction is much more indicative of a death count closer to 50, not 500. (After such reporting emerged, we updated yesterdays TMD, which echoed skepticism about the cause of the explosion being an Israeli airstrike but included early assessments that hundreds of civilians may have been killed.)

It was malpractice for the media to run with [the Israeli airstrike] story, Enia Krivine, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Israel Program, told TMD from Tel Aviv, adding that anyone who knows this issue is aware that a percentage of rockets misfire in the Gaza Strip. Everyone just listens to the narrative theyre interested in, and you cant take something like that back.

Even as more evidence came through, turmoil surrounding the events continued into Wednesday, which leaders of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist organization designated as a day of unprecedented anger. While officials continued to examine the origins of the explosion, the damage had already been done. Even if the evidence comes in, and consensus forms around a new narrative that Israel was not responsible for the explosion, Brew said, its going to be difficult for the Arab leaders to walk back statements that were that strongly wordednot just because it makes them look a little weak by having to walk back their statements, but [also because it] invites domestic political problems, criticism from their own populations, who in many cases may not believe the new narrative.

As TMD has previously reported, shiftingor solidifyingMiddle Eastern opinion against Israel was likely a motivating factor in Hamas initial attack on October 7 and subsequent moves to instigate a larger war. This is what Hamas is about, Krivine said. Its about frustrating peace. Its about keeping the conflict alive.

While Israel might be losing tepid support from its Arab neighbors, Bidens visit underscored the depth of support Israel has thus far received from the West. His visit here is an incredible show of solidarity, Krivine added. And sure enough, after he made his announcement, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would also come in this week. Rishi Sunak, prime minister of the United Kingdom, is in Israel today.

Although the relationship got off to a rocky start early in his term, Bidens support for Israel has been unwavering since Hamas attacks this month, and his rhetoric has been backed up by the U.S. military. So far, the U.S. has deployed two aircraft carriers and strike groups to the eastern Mediterranean, as well as an amphibious assault ship. The U.S. is also sending munitions to replenish Israels Iron Dome missile defense system, and 2,000 U.S. troops are awaiting a potential deployment. Israeli citizens have noticed the flood of support.

President Biden very clearly got something of a popularity boost inside Israel, because of his very impassioned, very emotional address that he gave in the aftermath of the attack where he expressed very, very strong sympathy for the Israeli people, Brew said, referencing the speech Biden delivered on October 10. Bidens continued popularity, however, will rest on how the president continues to support Israel. Already, Brew said, some of Bidens attempts to temper the conflict have correspondingly tempered Israeli affection. One such effort from Biden came via history lesson: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it, the president told Israelis on Wednesday. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

On his flight back to the United States, Biden spoke to Egyptian President el-Sisi, who said he would re-open the shared border with Gaza to allow the inflow of aid and supplies. It was a positive development at the end of a trip reshaped by growing anti-Israeli sentiment in the region following the erroneous reports blaming Israel for the hospital damage in Gaza. But it speaks to the central balancing act faced by the Biden administration: supporting Israel and preventing a wider regional conflict.

The United States is trying to support Israel, to offer Israel cover from international or local pressure, while at the same time doing what it can to contain the crisis and push Israel towards an exit strategy for all this because thats ultimately what the U.S. wants, said Brew. The U.S. wants this crisis to end, and right now theres really no end in sight.

Worth Your Time

The Framers wouldnt be proud of the winner-takes-all, holy crusade tenor of our politics, Jay Cost argues in National Review, because it defies how the U.S. system was designed to work. Republicans and Democrats today conceive of each other as totally, irredeemably corrupted, he writes in an adapted excerpt from his book, Democracy or Republic: The People and the Constitution. The two sides fight over everything, large and small, from major problems to utter trivialities. To borrow a phrase from Madisons Federalist No. 10, where no substantial occasion presents itself, they fight tooth-and-nail over the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions. The mutual hatred between the Left and the Right leaves little political space for compromise. Fundamentally, they do not wish to compromise; they want to destroy each other. So it is little wonder that our government has been so frequently halted by gridlock. The left and right wish to be hegemonic, but the Constitution is designed to prevent factional hegemons from emerging in our country. If the two sides enter the government not with a spirit of compromise but with a spirit of destruction, they should expect to be blocked at virtually every turnwhich is precisely what has happened. This is no way to run a countryany country. But it certainly dooms us to failure under a consensus-based regime like the United States Constitution. If we want to rail against the evils of our opponents for nothing more than the sheer pleasure of the cathartic release, so be it. Nothing will get done while we spew our splenetic bile at one another. But if we actually want to solve problems in this country, we need to recognize that, under our system of government, working together is the only way to do that.

An Update from the Hill

We joked yesterday that GOP Rep. Mike Garcia appeared to be surprised in the House chamber when his friend, Rep. Jake Ellzey of Texas, named him as his vote for speaker on Tuesday, but Ellzey wrote in yesterday to ensure we knew hed asked Garcias permission before he did it. He may have looked it, but per Ellzey, Mike Garcia was NOT surprised.

The Texan voted for his former U.S. Navy buddy again on Wednesdayjoining 21 of his GOP colleagues in not supporting Jim Jordanand the House remains without a speaker.

Presented Without Comment

Jerusalem Post: Historic Front Page Publishes In Honor Of Bidens Israel Visit

Also Presented Without Comment

The Hill: [GOP Rep. Matt] Gaetz Apologizes to Colleague, Anyone Else Who Felt Targeted by Fundraising Email

Toeing the Company Line

Alex explains what we knowand dont knowabout the atrocities Hamas committed in Israel on October 7.

In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics team covers Jim Jordans faltering effort to claim the speakers gavel, Scott debunks (  ) the race-to-the-bottom myth of globalization, Jonah argues (  ) speaking truth to power is nonsensical, and Nick unpacks (  ) why so many took Hamas claims about the explosion at the hospital in Gaza at face value.

On the podcasts: Jonah talks to Yascha Mounk about his new book, The Identity Trap, while Sarah and David record Advisory Opinions in front of a live audience of University of Virginia law students, tackling Supreme Court manners and ethics, various -isms, and why the Fifth Circuit is the new Ninth Circuit.

On the site: Charlotte covers Bidens Israel visit, Mike outlines the latest in the Jim Jordan saga, Kevin examines the medias credulous handling of the Gaza hospital explosion, Drucker checks in on the DeSantis campaigns latest endorsements, and Thomas Koenig and Thomas Harvey argue GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher should be Speaker of the House.

Let Us Know

Do you think the current conflict will be contained to Israel and Hamas, or expand to become a broader regional war?

Read more at The Dispatch

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Britains largest pension scheme has pushed back on the Chancellors call to back higher-risk UK growth businesses.

The state-backed Nest pension fund, which has more savers than any other in the country, said it was reluctant to invest more in younger British companies simply for the sake of levelling up.

Elizabeth Fernando, who leads Nests investment strategy, told an industry conference it was important that all of its investment decisions were made because of financial reasons and not for other reasons.

In reference to pension reforms unveiled by Jeremy Hunt in July aimed at boosting private British companies, Ms Fernando said: Were not against the levelling up agenda but that isnt our job, our job is to build those returns for members.

She added that almost a fifth of Nests 33bn portfolio was already invested in private markets.

At an event hosted by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, she said: There is no inherent right that private equity markets in any genre will earn higher returns than listed equivalents.

You still need to choose the right assets, you need to buy them at the right price and you need to run them in the right way.

It comes after a group of Britains largest retirement funds, including Nest, signed a voluntary compact this summer to invest 5pc of their assets in British start-ups and private equity, in a move that could unlock up to 50bn in investment for fast-growing businesses by the end of the decade.

However, some in the industry have expressed doubt about the extent to which the reforms benefit savers, as well as concerns as to the state of the British economy.

In July, the Chancellor vowed his package of pension reforms would boost future pensioners incomes by as much as 1,000 per year. However, internal modelling showed that very high fees charged by private equity firms could erase returns for pension savers.

Government analysis estimated that in the average scenario, before fees, a worker earning 30,000 and saving into a pension for 30 years would have a pot worth 283,800 if 5pc of the money were invested in private equity. If it were only invested in stocks and bonds, it would be worth 273,300.

After fees are taken into account however, a saver who did not invest in private equity would be 1,300 better off. This is because private equity funds typically charge much higher management fees, as well as a performance fee.

Morten Nilsson, head of Brightwell, which manages investments at BTs 47bn final salary pension scheme, said the Government could do more to encourage pension funds to invest in Britain.

He said: I think the Government has a real opportunity to help facilitate people like us who have slightly less risk appetite. We have quite a lot of money we want to deploy in the UK.

Nigel Peaple, a director at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, said pension fund managers had also grown concerned about the stability of British economic policy and the effect this will have on businesses, particularly after changes to net zero plans and the scrapping of the northern leg of HS2.

However, Treasury minister Andrew Griffith, who also spoke at the pensions industry conference, insisted Britain had fantastic economic and institutional stability and that there was a long-term commitment to stable public finances, saying Britain was a top-tier nation.

We are in all of the really important global forums, whether financiallybut also more geopolitically, he added.

Ms Fernando added that while Nest had a 5pc target allocation for private equity, overall the fund aimed for 30pc of its portfolio to be in illiquid assets. She suggested this could rise even further for pension savers who were still a long way from retirement.

There is no reason why they couldnt hold a majority of their exposure in unlisted assets at that stage, she said. Obviously as you hit retirement you dont want to be doing that, but even some private marketsthey fit really well post retirement.

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 Flash

The Thematic Forum on Think Tank Exchange of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation takes place in Beijing, Oct. 18, 2023. [Photo by Xu Xiaoxuan/China.org.cn]

The Thematic Forum on Think Tank Exchange of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held on Oct. 18 in Beijing to reflect on the significant achievements and invaluable experiences of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) over the past decade.

Irina Bokova, former director-general of UNESCO, lauded the BRI as a crucial partner in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, emphasizing that this role has received widespread recognition from the United Nations.

Ismail Serageldin, a former vice president of the World Bank, pointed out that China has demonstrated its ability to lead with vision and imagination through the BRI. He said that China's enormous economic strength, unparalleled standing in global trade, and good relations with much of the world position it favorably to assume a decisive role in reshaping the global economic and political landscape.

Gyorgy Matolcsy, governor of the National Bank of Hungary, underscored that the BRI paves the way for the dawn of the "Eurasian Age" by removing trade and investment barriers, fostering sustainable restructuring, facilitating knowledge sharing, and supporting the rise of top universities.

Sudheendra Kulkarni, founder of the Forum for a New South Asia, noted that the BRI marks a paradigm shift in regional and global cooperation, which brings mutual benefits. He added that despite some Western economies distancing themselves from globalization, the BRI propels a fresh wave of re-globalization that isn't solely dictated by or reliant on the West.

The subforum also marked the release of the "Initiative of Promoting International Think Tank Cooperation for the Belt and Road Initiative" and the think tank report titled "The Belt and Road Development Studies."

Centered around the theme "Common Opportunities and Shared Future," the thematic forum drew the participation of roughly 200 representatives. This assembly encompassed former state leaders, officials at the ministerial level, and attendees from think tanks, universities, media outlets and international organizations.




On New York Gov. Kathy Hochuls second day in Israel, she was told that her father, John Courtney, 87, had died in Florida after what is believed to be a brain hemorrhage. Hochul told her team on Thursday about what had happened while at the Western Wall holy site in Jerusalem. According to a clip posted online by a New York Times reporter, she appeared to be in tears as she followed the tradition of placing a note in a hole in the limestone that paid tribute to both the Israeli casualties from Hamas Oct. 7 attack and her father. The New York Post reported that she wrote, I pray for my father, who cherished his visit to this Holy Land, and who passed during the night. Hochul then visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the location where its thought Jesus was buried and resurrected, and made an appearance at a hospital housing injured Israeli victims. She then gave a speech to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations where she noted Israels strong spirit and right to defend themselves, full stop.

Good morning from Jerusalem.



Gov. Kathy Hochul at the Western Wall: pic.twitter.com/YBNwtEHkIQ  Luis Ferre-Sadurni (@luisferre) October 19, 2023

Read it at New York Post

Read more at The Daily Beast.
Kyra Taylor, who was diagnosed with diabetes at age 10 and has had pancreas and kidney transplants, once was drowning in medical debt. She had to "rub two pennies together" to pay for insulin amid her other bills.

"It was getting to the point where they was leaving letters on my door. And you come home, get off work and you see a letter on your door," she said through tears. "I was in ICU one time and they was calling my mom; trying to get me to get a bill paid. Calling my mom. I'm about to die, and I'm worried about getting a bill paid."

About three years ago, the national nonprofit RIP Medical Debt paid off Taylor's medical debt, giving her her life back. Now, the nonprofit is partnering with Oakland County in a new program to wipe out medical debt for possibly up to 80,000 Oakland County residents who qualify.

County officials said they are allocating $2 million of the county's American Rescue Plan Act funds for the nonprofit to purchase the residents' medical debt for pennies on the dollar, then eliminate that medical debt.

Kyra Taylor, 34, whose medical debt was eliminated three years ago by a nonprofit that will be working with Oakland County, speaks during a news conference Oct. 19, 2023, at Gilda's Club Metro Detroit in Royal Oak about a new Oakland County program that is to eliminate up to $200 million in medical debt for Oakland County residents.

County officials hope that up to a total of $200 million in medical debt of its residents will be eliminated, freeing the residents for better lives and improved financial footing.

"I want our ARPA dollars to be transformational," Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter said during the announcement Thursday at Gilda's Club Metro Detroit in Royal Oak.

The New York-based nonprofit will work with local health systems on behalf of the county to identify Oakland County residents with unpaid medical bills. Those who qualify will be notified by mail when their medical debts are eliminated.

Here's who qualifies to have medical debt erased

Residents could start seeing letters as early as next year, said Deputy County Executive Madiha Tariq, who oversees the Health and Human Services Department.

Officials said about 114,000 county residents have medical debt, which is the No. 1 reason for bankruptcy in the U.S. and is prevalent in communities of color, in rural areas and for the medically underserved. They said the average medical debt is $2,500 per household.

RIP Medical Debt acquires and abolishes medical debt for people experiencing financial hardship. People who earn less than four times the federal poverty level or for whom debt is 5% or more of the person's annual income qualify, the county said in a release.

Once a contract is in place, RIP Medical Debt staff will implement the county's medical debt elimination program by working with area hospitals to identify residents who fit the criteria. Then, the nonprofit will buy their medical debt for pennies and abolish it.

Tariq said this is the beginning of a "full circle moment" and a "health equity success for us" in public health. She said people with medical debt are working families, many carrying insurance  neighbors, friends, your child's teacher. Families delay care when they have medical debt letters, increasing the burden of disease, because they are "simply crippled by medical debt."

Residents cannot apply for the program. RIP Medical Debt will notify people via a branded letter that some or all their debt has been canceled and cleared from their credit reports.

How debt elimination changed her life

Taylor, 34, who lives in Wayne County, said she had her medical debt eliminated about three years ago, shortly before she nearly declared bankruptcy.

Years ago, Taylor worked a minimum wage job that didn't offer insurance. She said collectors left letters on her door and called her job. One bill was for $6,000 to $7,000. Sometimes, she said, she got up to seven letters a month on her door and in her mailbox. She tried to make payments, she said, but could only afford $20 or $30 at a time.

Taylor said when she got the letter in the mail that stated her medical debt had been paid, she "thought it was fraud, so I put the letter in the trash."

"The Holy Spirit told me to check again. So I called my attorney, he says: 'Your medical debt is gone. I don't know who paid it, but it's gone,' " she recalled.

Taylor said that gave "me my life back." She could pay other bills and be free of threats to pay her medical debt. Now, she has a full-time job at a mortgage company, attends school and can pay for her classes and care for her 8-year-old son.

The Oakland County Board of Commissioners approved the program in a bipartisan effort, said Commissioner Charlie Cavell, of Ferndale, who in his 20s got sick on a mission trip and had more than $6,000 in medical debt, which kept him from such things as building credit and getting a car loan.

More: Whitmer signs bills to codify Affordable Care Act into state law

More: Closure of hospital in small Michigan village is window into rural health care challenges

RIP Medical Debt, founded in 2014 by two former debt collections executives, has acquired and abolished more than $10 billion in medical debt for nearly 7 million people and families, according to its website. The group has received support from state and local governments and donors as well as philanthropic and faith-based organizations.

Tariq said the nonprofit has worked in 25 locales, including Arizona, New Jersey and Cook County, Illinois. Cavell said the group is looking at working in Kalamazoo County, with the state and possibly in Wayne and Ingham counties.

"At a time when families face so many complexities and fears weighing on them, how to pay for hope should not be among those. How wonderful it is that we're here today to kind of address that and to give them a little bit of hope," said Laura Varon Brown, executive director and CEO of Gilda's Club Metro Detroit.

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to the Free Press.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oakland County residents could have medical debt erased: What to know
A Times analysis of federal data found that Los Angeles General Medical Center physically restrained inpatients in its psychiatric unit at some of the highest rates in the country from 2018 through 2021.

Records filled out by hospital staff show that in some cases, psychiatric patients there spent so many hours in restraints that it amounted to a week or more within a month.

Read more: Strapped down: Psychiatric patients are restrained at sky-high rates at this L.A. hospital

If you want to learn more about how regularly a local hospital uses restraint on psychiatric inpatients and how those restraint rates compare with state and national averages, here's where to look.

How do I find out how often psychiatric inpatients are physically restrained at local hospitals?

The federal government provides a lot of information about your local hospitals on this website. You can find an overall rating for a hospital, as well as details about how it scores on specific measures.

To look at restraint rates for psychiatric inpatients, click on the name of the hospital, then scroll down to "Quality" and click on "Psychiatric unit services" and scroll down again to "Patient safety."

The website provides restraint rates for psychiatric units at hospitals, as well as the national and state averages for comparison. The federal figures do not include restraint use on patients in other units at a hospital besides a psychiatric inpatient unit, which means they do not reflect all possible instances of physical restraint at a facility.

Not all hospitals have psychiatric inpatient units, so not all hospitals will have data to report.

Los Angeles General Medical Center's main campus at dusk. A Times analysis of federal data found that the hospital physically restrained inpatients in its psychiatric unit, the Augustus F. Hawkins Mental Health Center in Willowbrook, at some of the highest rates in the country from 2018 through 2021. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

What if I want to know how many hours each patient was restrained?

The federal government doesn't provide information about how long each patient was physically restrained  just an overall rate. But in Los Angeles County, hospitals provide monthly reports to the L.A. County Department of Mental Health that include the total number of hours each patient was restrained in a particular month. The hospital reports do not identify patients by name.

Unfortunately, this information isn't readily available online. To obtain the reports, you may need to file a request under the California Public Records Act. You can find contact information for the Department of Mental Health here.

Read more: How we investigated the use of restraints on psychiatric patients

How do I lodge a complaint about restraint use at a hospital?

You can file a complaint with the California Department of Public Health, which regulates hospitals across the state, using this website.

The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health also has a Patients' Rights Office that takes complaints. Its website includes copies of the grievance form in multiple languages, and an address where the form can be mailed.

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.
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  OG&E announced on Wednesday that the company was selected to receive a $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to strengthen the Oklahoma electric grid.

The grant funding is part of the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program, which is funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the DOEs Grid Deployment Office.

The GRIP programs primary goal is to enhance power grid flexibility and resilience against growing threats of extreme weather and climate change.

OG&E proposes generator replacements at Horseshoe Lake Power Plant; bill increase expected in 2026

Sean Trauschke, CEO of OG&Es parent company OGE Energy Corp, says making the grid more reliable is among the companys top priority, citing the impact of severe storms and extreme weather in Oklahoma that increase the risk of outages.

Improving reliability and strengthening the grid for our customers is one of our top priorities, Trauschke said. Our customers know the impact of living in a part of the United States most impacted by severe storms and extreme weather, and grid automation technology reduces the number of power outages and their duration. This grant by the Department of Energy allows us to double our impact and reduce the cost to our customers.

The federal grant will be used in conjunction with investments made by OG&E to fund an adaptable grid project that will provide grid automation to 92 circuits and 26 substations. The project would also include the purchase of two mobile battery systems for use during major restoration events.

The improvements would boost reliability for an estimated 90,000 customers, according to OG&E.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
Wyoming City Schools plans to upgrade its elementary schools, and one possible plan could lead to the closure of one of the district's three elementary schools.

Consolidating schools is never easy and rarely initially popular among residents  just ask the parents in Wyoming City Schools.

When district administrators shared a potential plan that would close one elementary building and band grade levels together among the other two, parents showed up to meetings, created a Facebook group and sent fliers around town.

Facilities update: Is Wyoming City Schools closing an elementary school? Community asks for transparency

A similar story unfolded in the Talawanda School District community last school year. Talawanda's school board ended up turning down the cost-saving idea to switch to grade banding and still has three neighborhood elementary schools that each serve students in K-5.

But other school districts in the area  including nearly all of the public schools in Warren County  use the banding system. Hamilton County's Loveland City Schools has an early childhood center serving preschoolers and kindergartners; Loveland Primary School for students in grades 1-2; Loveland Elementary School for grades 3-4; and Loveland Intermediate School for grades 5-6. That district consistently ranks high among Ohio's public school systems, and was one of 11 districts in the region to earn a five-star overall report card rating from the state this year.

Districts strapped for cash: School funding issues are 'tearing communities apart,' Ohio superintendent says. What now?

Wyoming's leaders haven't yet decided what to do next. Administrators aren't set on the plan to close Elm Elementary and are still collecting community feedback.

What are the main differences, advantages and disadvantages of banding grade levels vs. keeping neighborhood schools? The Enquirer talked to Lena Lee, Miami University's primary education program coordinator in the department of teaching, curriculum, and educational inquiry to find out.

Banding schools: What is it? And what are its advantages?

Banding refers to containing students who are at the same grade level to one school or sometimes even one classroom. This can be done in several different ways, and moving to a banded model doesn't necessarily mean reducing the number of school buildings.

Districts might band grade levels together in several separate school buildings, like in Loveland. Or, they might place everyone together in one large school building that serves students in K-6 or more grade levels. Winton Woods City Schools follows this model.

Students in banded schools have the advantage of knowing everyone in their grade from early on, Lee said. It helps to build community.

Lena Lee is a professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She is a Virginia Todd Memorial Scholar of Early Childhood Education and the Primary Education Program Coordinator for Miami's Department of Teaching, Curriculum, and Educational Inquiry.

Teachers in banded schools can try new curriculum more easily and work together to solve classroom problems. They can also regulate classroom sizes, whereas in neighborhood schools you might see an incoming class of 17 kindergartners at one school and 25 at another. Overall, banded schools offer more flexibility, Lee said.

But Lee said for her, the biggest advantage to banded schools is that the model is more equitable and promotes diversity. It helps rid students of the "labeling" that often comes with neighborhood schools, if one of the buildings is associated with immigrant families, for example.

What's the case for neighborhood schools?

Parents and teachers can more easily chart growth and development of students who stay at one school for longer, Lee said.

Neighborhood elementary schools typically house students for at least five years in a row. In that model, parents and students can keep relationships with teachers for longer and get advice even as a student moves on to the next several grade levels.

There's also a stronger sense of community among the different grade levels in neighborhood schools, especially when older students can interact with and help the younger kids. Students who move through several different banded schools before getting to high school might never feel a real sense of belonging like they could in a neighborhood school, Lee said.

"Younger children moving a lot, one (school) to another, they're sometimes losing themselves. 'I don't know where I am. And I'm going to leave anyway, within two years,'" she said.

Are there any trends lately with schools moving toward one model or the other?

Lee said she's noticed several districts moving toward the banded model  specifically banding all students into a single campus for K-8  for cost-saving reasons.

Lee isn't convinced districts are going that way because it's best for kids. Rather, it's best for balancing a budget. But, she does see the advantage for parents who could benefit from a single morning drop-off spot, or maximum two stops. When districts band grade levels at different buildings for grades K-1, 2-3, 4-5 and have separate middle and high schools, a family with five kids could need to make five stops every morning.

How does the banded model save districts money?

When schools switch to a banded model, some administrators say all of the programs for students will stay the same. That's rarely true, Lee said.

"That is really not possible," she said. "Many times they want to cut those resources and staff members. So that means students who are gifted, talented or they really need some more extra help, those students are really having a disadvantage."

If a school district does drop a school building in the switch, it saves money on taxes, too.

Which communities thrive most with banded grade levels? With neighborhood schools?

Lee said school communities serving a significant amount of families in poverty would likely benefit from the banded model, to "try to get rid of that labeling."

Some larger communities, though, might not be able to house all students of one age group in one building. Cincinnati Public Schools, for example, serves nearly 36,000 students. It would be impossible to fit all of the district's kindergartners into one building, and the city is so large that there wouldn't be a location ideal for all of those families.

Is walkability a good argument for keeping neighborhood schools?

Probably not, Lee said.

So few families actually walk to school nowadays, Lee said. And in many communities, even if a school is in walking distance, there isn't a pedestrian pathway that's safe for kids.

Walking to school is more of a nostalgia factor for some parents than an actual current possibility, Lee said. If walking is a priority to a community, she thinks it's best to then focus on making the environment more pedestrian-friendly so all of a system's schools are accessible by walkers.

She did say Wyoming City Schools is a special case since the village is known for its walkability and the schools are very far apart.

What other structures are there for elementary buildings?

A single-campus district is another approach, Lee said. Perhaps there are different buildings next to each other or different wings in the same building that house different grade levels.

This structure makes it easier to personalize each student's education. Students who are ahead in a certain subject could walk to an advanced class at the high school, for example. Also, all special services would be accessible on one campus.

Kids of different ages can still interact in this setting, she said, and teachers can communicate and collaborate with one another as much as they please.

"That is pretty ideal," Lee said.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Is banding grade levels or neighborhood schools better?
On Tuesday, an Ohio woman testified before the state House about her experience with spousal rape and law enforcements refusal to help her. Per Cleveland.com, the woman said that while she struggled with postpartum depression, her husband repeatedly raped her. But when she filed several police reports, police insisted that what shed experienced wasnt rape. I told him to stop over and over again. I lost count how many times this happened to me, she said. Why should him being my husband have any difference?



The woman testified in support of a new bill, HB161, meant to close a decades-old loophole that legally permits some forms of spousal rape. The bill passed out of committee on Tuesday and would amend an archaic piece of the state code that presently makes it illegal to drug then sexually assault someoneunless youre their spouse. Per Cleveland.com, the same spousal exemption in place also applies for lesser sexual crimes including sexual battery, sexual imposition, and gross sexual imposition.

Read more

In addition to the Ohio woman who testified about surviving marital rape and being turned away by police, numerous survivor advocates offered impassion testimony in support of the bill. The reality is married persons did not and do not forfeit their right to bodily autonomy because they got married, Kasey Holderbaum of the Ohio Domestic Violence Network said, per Cleveland.com. A persons legal relationship to the person who harms them should never limit their options.

HB161 will now go to the House floor and, should it pass, to the state Senate.

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An Oklahoma City gathering originally planned as a festive affair was transformed into a somber event instead due to the recent attack on Israel by Hamas militants and the ensuing war between Israel and Hamas.

About 375 people attended "A Night to Stand With Israel" hosted by the Oklahoma Israel Exchange and several Jewish organizations on Tuesday at the First Americans Museum, 659 American Indian Blvd. The gathering included three former Oklahoma governors and their wives who attended the event in person, while Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, U.S. Sen. James Lankford and Bill Anoatubby, governor of the Chickasaw Nation, were among the leaders who shared remarks via video.

All attendees, including rabbis at the helm of three Oklahoma City Jewish congregations/organizations, gathered to express their support for the nation of Israel through brief speeches, music and the lighting of memorial candles. The presentations were interspersed with video news clips related to the attack by Hamas militants, the resulting war and the calls for solidarity with Israel.

More: Called to prayer: Multiple faiths gather for emotional Prayer Vigil for Israel

People light memorial candles on Oct. 17 during "A Night to Stand With Israel" at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.

'We're going to walk alongside Israel'

Community leader and philanthropist Glenna Tanenbaum told the crowd that the war in Israel "demanded we change in focus." The event had initially been planned as a fashion gathering focusing on the "common threads" of Oklahoma and Israel, with focus on Sulphur-based Mahota Textiles, a tribally owned textile company, and the Israeli fashion house Maskit.

Jonna Kirschner,Oklahoma Israel Exchange (OKIE) president, thanked people for attending the event.

Members of the crowd listen to speakers at "A Night to Stand With Israel" on Oct. 17 at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.

"It's easy to show up for a dazzling fashion event, but this is where it counts," she said.

Edie Roodman, Oklahoma Israel Exchange executive director, said many of the evening's guests had been scheduled to attend or participate in the event before it was changed. They included former Gov. David Walters and his wife, Rhonda; former Gov. Frank Keating and his wife, Cathy; and former Gov. Brad Henry and his wife, Kim.

David Walters, like the other event speakers, spoke of the importance of supporting Israel.

"Solidarity with Israel should embody, of course, not just a political alliance, but a shared commitment to the principles of justice, freedom and humanity," he said. "I pray that our united front serves as a testament to our dedication to a world where the unspeakable becomes the inconceivable and where love and respect triumph over the darkness of hatred."

Holt told the crowd that he led a delegation of mayors to Israel last year and he noted that a kibbutz community where his group had seen a playground full of children had been one of the areas attacked by Hamas.

An attendee watches videotaped remarks on Oct. 17 at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.

"It's so vitally important that people around the world stand against terrorism," he said.

Lankford also spoke about combatting terrorism.

"Our nation, the United States, has suffered horribly through terrorism. We have responded as a nation to the effects of terrorism, protecting American citizens," Lankford said. "Israel has that right to be able to also protect its citizens, to be able to stand against terrorism. ... We're going to walk alongside Israel to be able to encourage those folks that they are not walking that road alone."

A chance for music, sharing thoughts

Meanwhile, award-winning Oklahoma City violinist Kyle Dillingham performed several musical selections on a violin that had been gifted to him by a Jewish friend whose family considered it a treasured heirloom. Elliott Wulff, Temple B'nai Israel's music director and student cantor, sang several songs and many guests sang along as both men performed.

The Oklahoma Israel Exchange, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2022, works to promote goodwill, understanding and collaborative partnerships between Oklahoma and Israel. Roodman, the organization's executive director, thanked Oklahoma City Police Chief Wade Gourley for attending Tuesday's event and for providing security for the evening.

The gathering, she said, was meaningful and the speakers' remarks were powerful.

Rabbi Juan Mejia, husband of Emanuel Synagogue's spiritual leader Rabbi Abby Jacobson, observes a moment of silence on Oct. 17 during "A Night to Stand With Israel" at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.

More: 'Worse than any nightmare': Oklahoma natives in Israel woke up to attacks, struggled to return to US

"It's sort of like this extraordinary embrace of love and support by this community and it has really lifted hearts," she said.

"For centuries, Jews have heeded the charge to add light to our world. As OKIE executive director, I am reminded that Oklahoma and Israel are one family faithfully tied."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Leaders, former governors at OKC event focus on solidarity with Israel
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK), Oklahoma City metro mosques and Muslim student organizations are inviting the local community to join in a vigil Friday evening to unite in prayers for peace and justice as Gazas humanitarian crisis grows.

CAIR-OK says community members will share stories from Gaza highlighting the connection many Oklahomans have to the ongoing crisis. Reflections and prayers will also be offered by members of the Indigenous, African American and Muslim communities.

Now, more than ever, it is important for the community to come together to pray for the people of Gaza and work together to find a path toward peace and justice for the Palestinian people, said CAIR-OK Executive Director Adam Soltani. It is our hope that this even will provide the emotional support our community needs during this challenging time while providing guidance on ways they can help.

The vigil will be held at 7 p.m. Oct. 20 at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma Citys Mercy Mission building, 3840 N. St Clair Ave.

Drop in the ocean: UN-backed aid could soon enter Gaza from Egypt, but only at a trickle for now

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continue and Israels defense minister has told troops to be ready for a ground assault on the Palestinian territory, although he has not said when that will begin.

More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told them to evacuate. The airstrikes early Thursday continued across the entire territory, including in areas in the south that Israel had declared as safe zones.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza from Egypt following a request from U.S. President Joe Biden.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly in the initial attack.

The war, which began on Oct. 7, has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
HINTON, Okla. (KFOR)  KFOR is following up on a story we brought you about Oklahoma prisoners who were locked in tiny shower stalls for hours, and for some, even days. Inmates spoke with KFOR and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections explained more about their investigation.

It was a terrible experience. Im 22 years in. Thats the first time Ive ever had to go through anything like that, said James Shelton, inmate at Great Plains Correctional Center.

Several Oklahoma inmates locked in 22 foot showers for hours  and for some, even days

Inmate at the Great Plains Correctional Center, James Shelton, told KFOR he was locked in a shower for about 24 hours. He said staff were wanting to transfer him to a pod full of gang members which is something he felt would put him in danger. So, he feels that since he refused housing in this certain unit, he was punished and locked in a shower.

I feel that we were being punished Im not a gang member, so I refused to be housed on a unit thats all gang members, said Shelton.

Shelton said he had no restroom breaks, blankets, or even a pillow to lie down on.

They expect you to use the restroom in the shower. And if you have a bowel movement, they want to bring a trash bag If you just have to urinate, they want you to urinate in the drain, said Shelton.

However, the Chief of Operations for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, Jason Sparks said during the investigation they found that inmates who requested a pillow or blanket were given one. He also said inmates were allowed bathroom breaks.

I guess it really depends on the inmate itself. And thats why I said as they requested them, if the inmate is on a special watch or whatever, theyre not allowed a pillow, mattress or blanket So, during the investigation, it concluded that there were a few inmates that were held an extended period of time. But during that time, they were offered food and water and also allowed to go to the restroom, said Jason Sparks, the Chief of Operations at the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

Oklahoma Supreme Court wont hear challenge to tribal compacts

According to the report, the inspector general started looking into things when they got a report that inmates were placed in the shower cells for disciplinary reasons.

Sparks said their findings show it was not for disciplinary reasons, but rather a holding place for inmates while they looked for other places for them to stay.

I think its important to note that they were given the opportunity on several occasions to be housed in the housing assignments that we had for them, but they continuously refused. So, in the investigation, I believe that there was a couple of inmates that were housed over a 24-hour period there. But again, they were allowed ample opportunity to go to the housing unit that we had for them and give them bathroom breaks throughout the whole entire time, said Sparks.

Sparks said holding inmates in a shower for a very short period of time is something the prison would do temporarily, but this time things got out of hand.

It was some place that had a lockable door so they could house them for a temporary period of time When the inmates refuse to house and we dont have a lot of space to put them in, temporarily, we at some point have them in showers in a special management unit for a temporary period of time. That time can go from 30 minutes. They can go to, you know, a few hours while we try to find different housing availability for them, said Sparks.

Former Oklahoma County judge resigns Bar membership following sex scandal

The DOC says they are not using showers as holding places anymore.

Were no longer using shower cells as temporary housing for inmates, said Sparks.

Shelton is hoping no other inmate will endure what he did.

This is not right. You know, we need to get people, you know, fighting about this, said Sparks.

The showers inmates were locked in at the Great Plains Correctional Center are 3 feet by 2-and-a-half feet.

The DOC says they are no longer using shower cells as temporary housing for inmates and staff have been disciplined. The DOC would not go into specifics about their punishment.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
Omar Ayuso stole our hearts in his role as Omar Shanaa in Netflixs Spanish drama, Elite.

In a recent interview with GQ Espana, Ayuso discussed everything from Grindr to dating while being famous in an exclusive look into his life.

On the topic of Grindr, Ayusos movie, On the Go, sees his character Jonathan seeking solace within the app and becomes addicted to it. The theme of turning our anxieties and validation needs into sex is also a theme shared with Elite and one that affects the gay collective as a whole.

There is a collective trauma, right? he said. Im not a sociologist, but I think there is a collective trauma, a bad relationship with sex, with the concept of sexual freedom, with the concept of pleasure, with true desire.

He said he thinks sometimes we use sex as a form of self-punishment and gay men in particular have a validation relationship through the flirting, the physical, and that is so.

Noting that gay men in particular can be very cruel and social media is just as much of the culprit, Ayuso said hes also working on making his own relationship with sex healthier. My personal process is aimed at relating to sex through desire and not lack, he said.



When it comes to his status as a celebrity and finding love, he said its something that very much scares him. I always have this fear of power difference, he said. I am very obsessed with consent. I would not like anyone to do things that they did not want. All of that haunts me a lot.

The pressures of fame have Ayuso trying to verbalize a lot with my sporadic sex, or with my already deeper relationships.

I thought that it did not affect me so much when I found love and lately I am realizing that yes, that I am very closed because of that. For other things, too, but that makes me very closed.

Elite season seven premieres October 20 on Netflix.
An annular solar eclipse is pictured in Torrey, Wayne County, Utah, on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. A phenomenon known as the ring of fire is visible because of the way the suns edges perfectly surround the moon. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News

On Saturday morning, residents of Utah and much of the West enjoyed the splendor of the heavens above during an annular solar eclipse.

My family and I stood outside on our back porch at 10:28 a.m., each of us wearing multiple pairs of sunglasses, trying not to burn our retinas as we watched the moons shadow partially eclipse the sun.

It was cool and eerie, but only a partial eclipse and nowhere near the sight those in some of our best national parks saw  a true annular eclipse with only a ring of light shining around the perfectly round shadow of the moon.

And as the images of those views emerged across social media, I started to feel that all-too-familiar mom guilt.

Perhaps we should have made the eclipse more of a priority and traveled hours to Canyonlands or Capitol Reef, I thought. Perhaps I had robbed my children of a once-in-a-lifetime memory. Perhaps every other mom in the state had somehow managed to obtain those special eclipse glasses and not piled three pairs of sunglasses on their childrens faces so their kids could actually enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Related

But then I remembered I have experienced MANY of these once-in-a-lifetime celestial events in my not-short but also not-that-long lifetime. I have seen at least three thus far, the first being when I was in elementary school  the extent to which we discussed the eclipse before it happened was our teacher telling us, Try not to look at the sun. Obviously, none of us listened, because we were 8, and we all looked directly at the sun and couldnt see for the rest of the day, which made reading and math that afternoon difficult.

The second eclipse I remember was in 2017, and it was remarkable because our president at the time, Donald Trump, looked directly at the eclipse just like second grade me.

If its not an eclipse, its a meteor shower or a blood moon or Jupiter in orbit. Big Space has done a phenomenal job convincing the American public, most of whom know nothing about astronomy, that everything that happens up there only happens once every 500 years.

Their marketing is second only to NBCs Must See TV in the 90s, but NBCs claim that its Thursday night lineup was not to be missed was actually more true than these so-called once-in-a-lifetime celestial events. Streaming did not exist at that time and the only way to watch a show after it aired was if you had enough foresight to record it. And no one actually knew how to program their VCRs to do that and even if they did, the chances that this VCR genius would actually remember to hit record were slim. So really, the only opportunity to see Frasier was indeed on Thursday night. If you missed the one where Niles confesses his love to Daphne, you were just out of luck.

If you miss an eclipse, however, there will be another spectacular sky show next week. And it will be lovely and awe-inspiring and you will be glad you saw it, but if you miss it, it will be completely fine because there will be a meteor shower the week after. Theres a total eclipse expected just next year.

So the next time its the day before a celestial event and youre hearing about it hours before it happens, and you 1) Dont know where to get the special glasses that save you from the fate my entire second grade class and Donald Trump suffered, and 2) Panic because everyone you know is driving to a remote location to view the event in its fullest splendor and youre starting to wonder if you should, too  remember that this is not the final celestial event of your lifetime unless youre like 102. In that case, it may be.

But for the rest of us, in all likelihood, there will be plenty more eclipses and meteor showers and times when Jupiter is in orbit or the International Space Station passes overhead. And we can plan entire weekends around driving to the best vantage spot, or we can watch from the back porch, or we can completely forget to watch at all, or decide to watch Frasier instead, and it will be totally fine. Dont be gaslit into believing it wont.
Day after day, we wander together in this newsletter through a desert of discouragement. I get paid to do it, but why you people choose to suffer with me, Ill never know.

Just kidding. I do know. Its because you dream that someday the skies will open and shower us with good news. You want to be here when the clouds burst and watch me dance in the downpour.

You want to see what it looks like when Eeyore finally smiles.

Todays the day. Its raining.

Its raining schadenfreude, specifically.

Its raining in Georgia, where Sidney Powell has copped a plea that requires her to formally apologize for her role in Trumps failed coup plotand to testify against her co-conspirators. The prospect of the Krakens caretaker turning stoolie against MAGA is delightful morally and useful civically. The next time some band of reprobates gets itchy about overturning an election, Powells example will caution them that theres no honor among thieves.

Most of the rain is concentrated in Washington, though, where the public torment of another insurrectionist has supplied our weary country with the feel-good moment it needs and deserves.

As I write this on Thursday afternoon, the only certainty about Jim Jordans candidacy for speaker is how humiliating the process has been for him. A third House vote was supposed to be held this morning but was canceled when he still couldnt find the votes he needed. Republicans proceeded to hold a long, angry conference meeting instead, which may or may not have involved someone lunging at Matt Gaetz. Jordan remains far short of 217 votes and is poised to shed further support on the third ballot, which might happen tonight. Possibly.

At one point this afternoon he reportedly wanted to invest acting speaker Patrick McHenry with power to run the House until January, leaving Jordan as the GOPs official speaker-designate and free to lobby for votes behind the scenes before a permanent speaker is chosen next year. That felt like a satire of how populists approach politics. The unassuming McHenry, with the support of a majority of the House, would do the actual work of legislating on hard matters like Ukraine and government funding, while Jordanlacking anything close to a majoritywould preen about his purity in appearances on Fox News and exult in the leadership stature that the title of speaker-designate had granted him.

It would have felt a bit like a father setting up an office playset alongside his own desk in his home office for his 3-year-old. While dad conducts business, Junior gets to pantomime him, banging around with his plastic phone.

Alas, the idea appears to have been scuttled, which is too bad: In a party thats grown comfortable with minority rule, it would be fitting for its highest-ranking member in the House to be someone whos been rejected repeatedly by the House majority. But dont let that spoil the mood. Apart from Trump, no Republican more richly deserves the public weeklong embarrassment to which Jim Jordan has subjected himselfand hes not done yet.

Candidly, Im shocked by the whole thing.

Moderates always cave, I declared on Monday, when Jordans election as speaker seemed likely. Dont mock me too much for that; traditionally, Republican moderates have always caved. Need I remind you that when Donald Trump tried to overthrow the incoming government of the United States in plain sight, he received a grand total of 10 Republican votes in the House for his impeachment?

Moderates almost always cave, it turns out. But not this time. Why not?

The answer lies in one of the five lessons to be taken from The Humiliation of James Daniel Jordan.

1. Most moderates did cave and are still highly wimpy.

Yes, fine, some normie Republicans uncharacteristically showed a little spine this week. But not all. Most, in fact, did not.

When the GOP conference was polled via secret ballot on whether they would support Jordan in a vote of the full House, 55 said they wouldnt. Jordan didnt believe theyd have the nerve to vote against a MAGA heartthrob once they were on the record, though, so he promptly scheduled that vote. Moderates always cave, he assumed, quite reasonably.

When push came to shove, most did cave. In two rounds of House voting on Jordans candidacy, no more than 22 Republicans were willing to go public with their opposition. Well more than half of the original anti-Jordan 55 wimped out and supported him despite their misgivings.

Perhaps the 33 in the vote yes, hope no bloc concluded that a House led by Speaker Jordan was preferable to the misery of paralysis. Or maybe they were prepared to voice their opposition publicly only if/when their votes were needed to block Jordan from reaching 217.

But it seems more likely to me that Jordan opponents would have begun to fold if he had approached a majority instead of coming out of the woodwork to stop him. After eight years, normie Republicans have lost all benefit of the doubt that theyll do the right thing at a fateful moment when doing the right thing gets hard. Twenty-two of them deserve praise for having drawn a line this time; the other 33 hung them out to dry, whatever their reasons for doing so.

And as far as Im aware, just one member of the anti-Jordan groupKen Buck of Coloradodared to complain publicly about electing a speaker who supported Trumps corrosive rigged election nonsense. Pretty wimpy, all things considered.

2. The GOP truly is two parties now.

Regular readers are already familiar with this lesson given that I write about it every 72 hours or so. The Republican Party is an unhappy coalition of the MAGA Party and the Conservative Party, and the one that calls the shots is the one thats not afraid to blow up the coalition and let Democrats get elected if it doesnt get its way.

You and I know that, but the fact that House Republicans are coming up on three weeks of being unable to fill a vacancy in the speakers chair has demonstrated the partys split personality in a vivid way. Jonathan Martin writes in Politico:

There is no longer a cohesive Republican Party. Theres a pre-Trump GOP and a post-Trump GOP, living together uneasily. They may be roommates but theyre not married.  Its basically a bifurcated coalition government, former House Speaker Paul Ryan said of the Republican conference he once led.  This is a political-leaning conference right now, not a policy-leaning conference, Ryan told me. Which makes sense, he added, because our party is a populist-leaning party right now, not a policy-leaning party.

What Jordans humiliation revealed was that the Conservative Party still remains enough of a force in Congress, even in its lowly state, to work its will on the MAGA Party. Which has left me with surprisingly mixed feelings.

On the one hand, yay for normies! Theyve kept an unfit populist out of power and may have averted a constitutional crisis in January 2025 by so doing. They showed Americas conservative voters this week that theres still a place for them in the Republican Party.

But thats how Trump gets reelected. Populists drive the political train on the right these days. As Martin puts it, its less the case in 2023 that MAGA is a virus infecting a traditionally conservative host than vice versa. Electing Jordan as speaker would have laid that bare. Thwarting him means maintaining the illusion that the GOP isnt the dangerous post-liberal movement its become, false reassurance to traditional Republicans that responsible actors in the party can and will act as a brake on Trump if he returns to the White House.

If you want to force traditional conservatives to confront how morally hollowed out the party has become at all levels, the spectacle of Speaker Jordan would have provided unusual clarity.

3. Jordan was (is?) willing to sell out for the sake of power.

It will be forgotten sooner than you think that Jim Jordan, Mr. Purity, the most uncompromising populist in the House, was reportedly prepared to make all sorts of deals to win the votes of his GOP colleagues that would have angered the MAGA basein principle.

I say in principle because Paul Ryan is right. The Republican conference doesnt care much about policy because the Republican base doesnt care much about it. As Trump proves every day on topics as far afield as abortion, Israel, and federal spending, the grassroots right will indulge its heroes with all manner of heresy on policy. Every instance of them selling out to the RINOs or to the left can be spun as a matter of compromising near-term for the sake of electability so that the rights culture war can triumph in the long term.

Allegedly, Jim Jordan was willing to stick $6 billion in funding for Ukraine in a supplemental bill providing aid to Israel in order to entice the Republican holdouts into voting for him. Allegedly, he met with naysaying Republicans from New York and vowed to raise the cap on deducting state and local taxes, a tax break for wealthy blue-state libs that would have eviscerated a key revenue-raising provision in the Trump tax cuts.

Allegedly, his plan to empower McHenry as acting speaker for a few months while he figured out a path to winning the next speakership vote in January left his populist colleagues up in arms during Thursday afternoons conference meeting. MAGA Republicans see that as a recipe for bipartisan governance in the House, marginalizing the right as Democrats supply decisive support on everything from Ukraine to averting a government shutdown.

I doubt Jordan will pay a price for any of it from adoring fans who base their politics mainly on how much they enjoy a members Newsmax appearances. But its gratifying to see how quickly his purity collapsed once real power was within arms reach. Even the fire-breathers will turn down the heat when ambition requires it, it seems.

4. Jordan is terrible at backroom politics.

Two weeks ago I wrote about the contrast in skill sets between Jordan and his top rival for the speaker nomination, Steve Scalise. Scalise is an inside operator, someone who makes friends within the conference by raising money and building relationships. Jordan is an outside operator, skilled at leveraging grassroots opinion to help him achieve his objectives. To the extent he has any actual objectives.

When the time came for Jordan to demonstrate some insider skills of his own to get to 217, he botched the process so horribly that it may have cost him the job.

Remember how this all went down. On the first vote among House Republicans to nominate a candidate, Scalise defeated Jordan. But it became clear that Jordans bloc wouldnt support Scalise in a vote of the full House; in fact, Jordan reportedly offered to make the nominating speech for Scalise on the House floor but only if Scalise, once he failed to win a majority, promised to then drop out and nominate Jordan.

To Scalises allies, it seemed like their man was being set up to fail. The Jordanaires planned to tank him in the House vote, then turn right around and demand that he be a team player for Jordan.

But it got worse. After Jordan replaced Scalise as nominee and fell short of a majority in the first House vote on Tuesday, the two men met. Jordan reportedly asked Scalise for help in uniting the conference behind him but Scalise declined to commit, unsurprisingly. Jordans allies promptly leaked those details to reporters, attempting to make Scalise a scapegoat for their mans failure to win the speakership. That enraged Scalises supporters again. Bad enough that their candidate would be sunk by the disloyal underhanded Jordan bloc, but smearing Scalise himself as disloyal and underhanded was adding insult to injury.

For Jordan allies to pick a fight with Scalise with Jordans vote count where it is defies all logic, Punchbowls Jake Sherman tweeted afterward. But thats wrong. The logic was straightforward: Jordan, the outside operator, is a bully and a demagogue so naturally he resorted to demagogic bullying with Scalise. Upon finding himself in a political jam, he reverted to his one neat trick as a politician to try to wriggle his way out. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

In a universe where Scalise had chosen not to run for speaker, where Jordan hadnt had occasion to foolishly remind the conference who he is and how he operates, maybe those 22 Republican holdouts would have come aboard. As it is, his colleagues are making snarky jokes about how fickle, hypocritical, and cutthroat his demands for unity are.

The icing on the cake is that, by forcing Republicans to go on the record in a floor vote, Jordan placed both factions of the conference in a no-win situation. Those who opposed him are now ripe for primary challenges from the right, while those in swing districts who supported him are already being targeted by the left. (Rep. Steel Supports Extremism.) The first rule of leading a conference is not to put your own members in a situation where the party can only lose, especially if nothing productivelike electing a speakeris apt to come from it. Jordan broke that rule in his very first vote as the man in charge.

5. Only Trump is Trump.

This is the grand lesson of the week and why, to answer my question from earlier, the moderates didnt cave this time.

Jordans strategy to take the gavel could be summarized simply as Be Trump. Step one: Usurp the existing GOP leadership. That was accomplished when Matt Gaetz and seven other Republicans joined hands with Democrats to oust Kevin McCarthy.

Step two: Dare your Republican detractors to go on the record with their opposition to you. That was accomplished when Jordan called a vote of the full House on his candidacy, trusting that moderates would do what they always do and wimp out. Gaetz contributed to the effort by sending an email to his donors accusing disloyal RINOs of, uh  joining hands with Democrats to block Jordan.

Step three: If your detractors wont budge, strong-arm them. Rely on the feral grassroots right to pressure or outright threaten them into capitulating to your wishes.

That too was accomplishedpartly. Since Wednesday, various House Republicans who refused to support Jordan have reported receiving threats. Some appear to be political in nature; others are old-fashioned fascist vote for my hero or Ill kill you death threats, a phenomenon with which congressional Republicans have become familiar.

This is all standard operating procedure in Donald Trumps GOP. So why hasnt it worked for Jordan? Why has he been reduced to the un-Trumpy spectacle of begging his grassroots fans to back off as his opponents angrily refuse to capitulate?

No American should accost another for their beliefs.



We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together.



Stop. Its abhorrent.  Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) October 18, 2023

He isnt sorry about his colleagues being threatened. If he wanted to spare them, he would have stuck to his original plan of not holding any House floor votes for speaker until the Republican conference mustered 217 votes for a nominee. The whole point of taking the fight to the House floor before he had a victory locked up was to dare the holdouts to antagonize his populist fans.

And Jordan knows what happens when populists are antagonized. He was there on January 6. Heck, he made it happen.

My guess is that his tactics failed partly because he lacks the cultish juice with right-wing voters that Trump enjoys and his enemies know it, and partly because the Republicans opposing him have reached their absolute limit with being governed through intimidation.

Their statements about the threats theyve received had the feel of a pressure valve finally releasing. For years theyve lived the hard new reality of right-wing politics: Opposing Trump on anything important, no matter how stupid and wrong he might be, means risking your job and potentially your familys welfare. They suffer with that every day in silence. When Jordan pulled it on them, they couldnt resist shaming him.

Maybe thats because Trump cant be shamed whereas Jordan can. (Possibly? Sort of?) Maybe they felt obliged to draw a line in the sand for institutional reasons, not wanting Trump-style intimidation politics to infect how the House does business. But their calculation rests on the belief that, no matter how much MAGA voters might enjoy Jordans showboating in right-wing media, theyre just not going to smash up the Capitol to spare his tender infantile ego from the pain of an electoral defeat.

It was safe-ish in this case to treat Jim Jordan (and Matt Gaetz) the way they wish they could treat Donald Trump, so they did.

Jordan isnt Trump. Only Trump is Trump. His failure to recognize that will probably end up costing him the gavel.

Read more at The Dispatch

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Hi OnPolitics readers! Even if things feel uncertain in Washington right now, there are still some traditions that remain on the campaign trail: holding babies, attending state fairs and going to New Hampshire.

A civic pilgrimage: The crowded field of 2024 Republican White House hopefuls are chatting with people at diners, coffee shops and bookstores. Some are trekking to the state capital in Concord to sign their name at a historic desk to be on the ballot, while others are sharing their messages through several town halls and other stops.

Weed themselves out: But voters arent necessarily welcoming this group of candidates, according to seven USA TODAY reporters who traveled to New Hampshire. Instead, these crucial voters are sending a clear message to Republican candidates: Some of you need to drop out.

"Its still early. There's still a lot on that stage," said Laura Williams, a registered Republican from Rochester, N.H., who plans to vote in the primary, told USA TODAY. "Let some weed themselves out, and those that rise to the top, you know, well wait it out and see."

While former President Donald Trump is still the clear frontrunner in the state, non-Trump voters told USA TODAY they are hoping one of the other Republicans can break through, but they're not sure it's possible.

"You know, like, Chris Christie, I think his main goal is to get Trump out. I want to hear what else you're gonna do," Larry Provencher, a semi-retired artist in Exeter, N.H. said.

Read more here: N.H. voters weighing 2024 GOP presidential candidates want some to drop out

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Voters tell Republican candidates to drop out as 2024 nears
The Iron Gate Dam, one of four dams that will be removed from the Klamath River near the Oregon-California border by the end of 2024. (Gillian Flaccus / Associated Press)

This summer, the first of four dams on the Wests Klamath River was destroyed, unleashing a torrent of cold water that had been held back for a century. By the end of 2024 , three more dams near the California-Oregon border will come down, restoring the massive runs of salmon and steelhead along some 400 miles that once defined the river basin.

For more than a hundred years, dams in the American West have created vast reservoirs, sources of hydroelectric power and irrigation for farms and ranches. But after declining in their power output and providing unpredictable sources of water  not to mention their massive environmental damage to fish, Native American cultures and the land itself  they are coming down from Connecticut to California.

Read more: The largest dam removal in history stirs hopes of restoring California tribes way of life

More than 1,600 American dams have been removed since 1912. In recent years a slew of ambitious removals have been proposed, including a plan to decommission Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River  an idea surprisingly supported not just by environmentalists but farmers too. Once the height of engineering marvels, the great dams of the early 20th century have outlasted their questionable usefulness. Only 50 years ago this reversal was the fringe hope of people like Edward Abbey , the radical environmentalist, writer and imaginer of a reborn West, who wrote: "All dams are ugly, but the Glen Canyon Dam is sinfully ugly.

Something Abbey didn't live to see  he died in Oracle, Ariz., in 1989  was that practicality, not aesthetics, would spell the demise of these giant concrete structures holding back free-flowing rivers. As dams increasingly clogged with silt and went decades without maintenance, their abilities to generate power and release water fell  and the risk of catastrophe rose. In the East, too, their primary achievement has been constraining the populations of Atlantic salmon . Today, their downfall is all part of the rewilding of America, long overdue. Thankfully, the end of the damned dam is finally here.

The Klamath is a perfect example. It has long been not just a river but also a highway for salmon and steelhead. The fish hatched in the upper reaches of Northern California and southern Oregon and made their way into the cold, tumultuous waters of the Pacific Ocean, where the survivors would grow to adulthood and then at mating age use their DNA and strong sense of smell to return back up the river to their birthing grounds. Around the river grew rich Native American cultures, including the Klamath, Modoc, Yahooskin-Paiute, Yurok and Karuk tribes.

Read more: Op-Ed: An epic victory in the battle for free-flowing rivers

But as America changed the West, it destroyed the rivers. Among the earliest dams was Elephant Butte on the Rio Grande in New Mexico, which foreshadowed other vast engineering projects including the Hoover Dam in the early 20th century. A variety of rationales for this construction emerged, such as controlling floods that devastated new settlements and towns. But there were other reasons: In the arid West, water was a commodity to be bought, sold and bartered, especially to farmers who cultivated thirsty crops and orchards where none had existed.

Of course, the Colorado River was especially attractive for dam construction given its length, volume and importance in the Southwest. But as John Fleck and Eric Kuhn explored in their book about the Colorado, Science Be Damned, dams and other development overestimated the amount of water the river could offer.

Back in Northern California, the four dams on the Klamath were built strictly for power generation, not water storage. But much as the Colorado was expected to provide unending reserves of water, the Klamath dams were slated to generate massive amounts of power in perpetuity. Not factored in was that rivers discharge silt, which built up over the decades behind the four dams. As of last year they accounted for less than 2% of the power supplied by their controlling utility . Further, with renewable energy sources, there are simply cheaper ways to generate power than relying on massive structures that require expensive maintenance.

Read more: One of America's reddest states wants 100% green energy  if dams count as green

On the Klamath, as elsewhere, Native American people have proved crucial to undermining the harms from the mega-engineering projects of a century ago. They have worn away at entrenched economic interests and made alliances with environmentalists, ranchers and farmers to free the Klamath and assert their ancestral rights to the river and the bottomland that will be restored as the reservoirs drain away.

Abbey not only predicted the eventual removal of Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado; he also noted that time itself inexorably wore down the constructions of humans:  Let the engineers build fifty more dams between here and the Rockies, they can only retard, they cannot stop, the irresistible processes of erosion and renewal. The mountains and plateaus will continue to be uplifted, the rains and snows will fall, the waters will plunge downward back to their source, again and again and again. Thats proving true today.

Richard Parker is the author of Lone Star Nation and a forthcoming narrative history of the Southwest, The Crossing.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Jim Jordan's improbable rise to the cusp of Capitol Hills top job has delighted many conservatives, who see an accomplished infighter bent on impeaching President Joe Biden .

He's a model presence on Fox News during an era in which success for many Republicans is measured in cable news hits, instead of old-fashioned legislating. His installation as speaker would mark the first time the GOPs top lawmaker hailed from the partys growing hard-right contingent. Hes in good standing when it comes to one of the GOPs most important yardsticks  his relationship with former President Donald Trump.

Yet for all those reasons and quite a few others, he would be badly miscast as speaker of the House, and Republicans should be relieved he has, for now, fallen short of the votes. Jordan on Thursday abandoned a third speakers ballot for the moment, instead endorsing a measure to let acting Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) run the House temporarily.

Set aside the fact that Jordan has virtually no legislation to his credit despite 17 years in Congress. The speaker's job requires a very particular set of skills  an ability to build bipartisan coalitions, to work with one's adversaries, and to learn to accept half-victories. That makes it a particularly crummy job for Jordan because the very essence of the position requires compromises that are anathema to the right wing and to the conservative media ecosystem that powered his ascent.

In this moment, there are violent thunderstorms on the horizon  the job comes with a daunting roster of unfinished must-do business, including keeping the government open and providing tens of billions of dollars in aid to Israel and Ukraine. Passage of a bipartisan stopgap funding law last month cost then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy his job; Jordan opposed it.

Jordan's critics worry that he would allow Trump to meddle in House business, an especially worrisome prospect since Trump, as president, drove the government into a lengthy shutdown in 2018-19 only to emerge empty-handed.

Then theres the question of which Jordan would Washington get? Theres the prototype who, in a prior time, helped orchestrate government shutdowns and was once described by former Speaker John Boehner , a fellow Ohioan, as a legislative terrorist and an "asshole."

Then theres the pragmatic insider version who embarked on a leadership track a few years back, forging a close relationship with McCarthy. He sided with McCarthy earlier this year by voting for a debt limit deal that the California Republican made with Biden. Hes managed to win support from GOP pragmatists like Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) after promising that he would shepherd passage of must-do legislation including defense policy, agency budgets, and next years reauthorization of food programs and farm subsidies.

Previous GOP Speakers like Boehner and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) came from the partys governing wing. Boehner worked with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to pass the No Child Left Behind education law in 2002; Ryan negotiated a 2013 budget accord with veteran Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and went on to chair the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

Jordan has nothing remotely similar on his resume. Now hes hoping to get thrown in the deep end, taking on a Democratic president and a twin Senate threat of top Democrat Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who are allied against Jordan on aid to Ukraine and government spending levels. Jordan has vilified Schumer in the past and has virtually no history with McConnell.

Conflict in the Middle East has further upended the equation. Biden is sending Congress a huge aid package request for both Israel and Ukraine; Jordan is a skeptic of Ukraine aid and his party is badly split on the question.

A pessimistic take on Jordan is that hed simply be unwilling to cut compromises with the Senate and the Biden White House, especially as the House slides toward a possible Biden impeachment. A partial government shutdown is in the offing if gridlock hits.

For those seeking it, there's ample evidence in Jordan's past battles with leadership figures such as Boehner to suggest he won't play well with others now. Jordan helped drive Boehner from the speaker's chair in 2015. He and other Freedom Caucus figures gave Ryan fits during the first two years of the Trump administration, including a drawn-out battle over repealing Obamacare that almost led Ryan and Trump to abandon the idea. Instead, the repeal died in the Senate.

When Boehner quit the speaker's chair he left himself time to "clean out the barn"  passing politically difficult bills like a debt limit increase before handing the gavel to Ryan.

Now, the barn is a mess. Jordan wouldnt get the grace period afforded Ryan. Critical deadlines loom. Hard feelings permeate the competing leadership camps of Jordan and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. (Scalise bowed out of the speaker's race despite besting Jordan in a nominating ballot, complaining about bad faith from Jordan partisans.

More than 20 Republicans, however, including several from the compromise-seeking Appropriations Committee, have united to block Jordan's path in two separate votes this week.

Some of the pressure tactics employed by Jordan supporters irritated holdouts such as Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas), a leadership loyalist whose opposition raised eyebrows. This was a vote of conscience and I stayed true to my principles, Granger wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Intimidation and threats will not change my position.

McHenry may now end up cleaning out the barn, but its clear Republicans would still be mistaken if they handed power to Jordan afterward.


The state is taking public comment on the Marvin Nichols Reservoir project after a legislative win for opponents of the proposed 66,000-acre impoundment in northeast Texas that would provide water to the Metroplex.

The project along the Sulphur River would flood thousands of acres of bottomland hardwood forest in Cuthand. It was given a feasibility study in Texas latest budget. As part of the study, the Texas Water Development Board is taking public comment through Dec. 1.

The study came after pushback from advocates with Preserve Northeast Texas and gives those with concerns about the project time to make their opinion known. The review is looking at the projects timeline, costs, land acquisition and economic impact, and the board is seeking comments on those subjects.

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People in my District deserve the right to be heard by state leaders, said Rep. Gary Vandeaver, a New Boston Republican, in a statement Too often rural Texans are left behind while the spotlight shines on the needs of our large urban neighbors. I fought for the Legislature to include this important review, and I hope everyone will speak out about how the timeline, cost and economic impact of Marvin Nichols would impact them and our overall community.

The statement was sent in a Thursday news release from Preserve Northeast Texas.

Supporters say the project is needed to help address North Texas water needs as its population booms.

Comments can be emailed to feasibility@twdb.texas.gov.

The report will be submitted to Gov. Greg Abbott and the Legislative Budget Board by Jan. 5, 2025.
Proposals for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are pointless and dangerous. The Kremlin will not offer peace in exchange for Ukrainian territories, because its goal is not territorial but the elimination of Ukraine on the way to completing Russias historical mission of destroying the decadent West.

BERKELEY/KYIV  The democratic world, one hears constantly from its leaders, will support Ukraine for as long as it takes. But, given these leaders reluctance to give Ukraine what it needs to win, what does this strong-sounding commitment really mean?

In the worst case, its an excuse for inaction in the futile hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin will die soon, that Russians will overthrow him, or that some other solution will miraculously emerge, deus ex machina. In the best case, it means providing Ukraine with enough weapons to attain a better negotiating position in future peace talks.

Both approaches are misguided. Even if Putin dies soon, Russia will remain a mortal danger to Ukraine, and to the West. Russians overwhelmingly support the war, and Russias tiny liberal opposition, representing no one but themselves, has no chance of gaining power. Like Germany and Japan, which became democratic only after they were defeated, occupied, and effectively governed by the Allies, Russia cannot reform itself from within.

Read also: Opinion: The geopolitics of EU enlargement

Talk of negotiations or a frozen conflict is pointless and dangerous. Russia will not offer peace in exchange for Ukrainian territories, because its goal is not strictly territorial. It wants to eliminate the Ukrainian nation. But that is just a step in the Kremlins plan to restore the empire and fulfill what it conceives to be Russias centuries-long historical mission of destroying the decadent West.

Russias assault on democracies is undeniable: it supports far-right parties and populists in the West, meddles in elections, deepens cleavages within and between countries, spreads disinformation, monopolizes critical markets such as energy, and corrupts Western elites, including in France, Germany, and Austria. Meanwhile, Russia has already found ways to circumvent sanctions and secure the necessary parts and equipment for weapons, while such support from China and Iran will likely increase.

Only a strategic defeat of Russia can stop this cancer from spreading. Why, then, are many Western leaders allergic to this prescription?

A strategic defeat, some argue, would lead to Russias partition and uncontrolled nuclear proliferation. But proliferation is just as likely if Russia is not defeated.

Russia can already supply Iran with the technology and materials needed to produce a nuclear bomb, just as the Soviet Union did for China and North Korea. Moreover, if today Russia is not punished for launching a genocidal war on Ukraine, many more countries will want nuclear weapons because they will see that a country that voluntarily gave up its nuclear arsenal was abandoned when a nuclear state attacked it.

There is also fear in Western capitals that Russias defeat will strengthen China. But this assumes that China and Russia are rivals. In fact, both (as well as North Korea and Iran) are united by a common enemy: democratic systems that offer an attractive alternative to authoritarian regimes.

Aside from nuclear proliferation, some warn that Russias partition would lead to civil war, flooding Europe with refugees. Perhaps this is an extrapolation of what happened to the Russian Empire in 1917 and the Soviet Union in 1991.

In both cases, it should be remembered, disintegration was a good thing. After all, would it really have been better if Finland and Poland had remained within the Russian Empire after 1917? And would it be better today if Ukraine, the Baltic states, Moldova, and the nations of Central Asia had not gained independence after 1991?

What Russia portrays as civil wars were in fact Russian attacks on newly emerged independent states. After 1917, Soviet Russia attacked Poland in 1919-21, Ukraine in 1918-22, Belarus in 1918-20, and Georgia in 1921. After 1991, Russia attacked Moldova in 1992, Georgia in 1993 and 2008, and Chechnya in 1994 and 1999. It tried to attack Ukraine in 1994 and 2003, and invaded in 2014 and 2022.

If Russia is deprived of the resources to wage wars, it will likely disintegrate peacefully. Why would Yakuts be at war with Buryats instead of building their own states? Any territorial disputes that arose could be resolved with proper intermediation, giving the United Nations a chance to prove its effectiveness.

Read also: Opinion: Can national reconciliation defeat populism?

The international community would also have much more leverage over the new states than it has over todays Russia: international recognition and technical and financial assistance could be tied to peaceful settlement of their borders and renunciation of nuclear weapons. Moscovia would be much less dangerous than Russia.

The immediate steps to achieve Russias strategic defeat are clear. First, Ukraine should be provided with all the weapons it needs, including warplanes and long-range missiles, without any conditions. After all, destroying Russian weapons plants is much more efficient than destroying Russian weapons on the battlefield.

Second, sanctions must be tightened and enforced more strictly. Russia should be completely isolated. This includes cutting it off from receiving equipment and software, ordering businesses that still remain in Russia to exit, and recognizing Russia as a terrorist state that belongs on the Financial Action Task Force Blacklist.

Third, Russian government-controlled media should be banned, and NGOs and political organizations that receive Russian money and promote Russian narratives should be closely monitored. Deliberate propagation of lies has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

Since Russia has many more people whom it can send to kill and die in Ukraine, we dont have as long as it takes. Ukraine needs much more support now. During World War II, the democracies supported Stalin to defeat Hitler, although Stalins regime rivaled Hitlers in brutality. In Ukraine, the distinction between good and evil is clear. Anything short of Russias strategic defeat will make more war inevitable.

Editors Note: Copyright, Project Syndicate. The following article was published by Project Syndicate on Oct. 17, 2023, and has been republished by the Kyiv Independent with permission. The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

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Far-right Republican Jim Jordan decided to withdraw his candidacy for the post of Speaker of the US House of Representatives and instead support the temporary expansion of the powers of Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry .

Source: European Pravda, citing The Washington Post

Details: The media outlet writes that after two unsuccessful rounds of voting for Jordan on Tuesday and Wednesday, Republicans made it clear that he did not have enough support to be elected speaker.

At the same time, the TV channel CNN claims that the far-right Republican has not abandoned the idea of competing for the post of chairman of the Lower House of Congress but will not initiate a vote on Thursday to try to collect additional votes.

However, CNN, as well as the Washington Post, report that Jordan is inclined to support the resolution on granting powers to interim speaker Patrick McHenry. This will allow the House of Representatives to vote on the federal budget, including assistance to Ukraine.

Jim Jordan is one of the most active supporters of former US President Donald Trump and an opponent of increasing aid to Ukraine.

Background:

On 3 October, Kevin McCarthy lost his position as Speaker of the House of Representatives. This happened under pressure from the far-right wing of his Republican Party, where McCarthy was accused of collaborating with Democrats and making a "secret deal" to help Ukraine.

At the same time, the US House of Representatives cannot pass new laws, including those on assistance to Ukraine, until a new speaker is elected.

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The city of Orlando plans to purchase the Pulse nightclub, the location of what was then the countrys deadliest mass shooting in 2016, potentially ending years of uncertainty over the fate of the site.

Mayor Buddy Dyer announced Wednesday that Orlando will purchase the site to create a permanent memorial for the 49 people killed and 53 injured in the massacre, which targeted members of the LGBTQ community.

We recently met with some families of the victims, and survivors of the Pulse tragedy, who shared their desire for a permanent memorial at the Pulse site, Dyer said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. To expedite the creation of a lasting memorial to honor the 49 angels, the City of Orlando is pursuing purchasing the site.

The city council will vote on whether to approve the $2 million purchase next week.

Orlando previously attempted to purchase the club in late 2016, but the owners of the site declined to sell. A temporary memorial featuring murals of victims has been on the site since.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who was the governor of Florida at the time of the shooting, introduced a bill in Congress in 2021 alongside Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) to designate the site as the National Pulse Memorial. It was passed by both chambers and signed by President Biden just over five years after the shooting.

But that bill didnt result in any change to the site, as the land was not owned by the government.

Negotiations between the clubs owners and the onePULSE Foundation to create a permanent memorial have languished for years, reportedly over disagreements about payment for the site.

One of the clubs owners, Barbara Poma, was the foundations executive director until she left the organization earlier this year for unknown reasons. After her departure, the group said it was giving up on creating a memorial at the club site and pursuing other locations instead.

Foundation director Deborah Bowie told USA Today that she is glad the city stepped in.

We are thankful to the City of Orlando for ensuring that the National Pulse Memorial will be located at the Pulse nightclub site, which was always the hope of families of the 49 victims and the Pulse-impacted community, Bowie said in a statement. We look forward to being a part of the discussion with the City of Orlando as this moves forward.

Dyer said the city has not yet decided what a memorial would consist of.

We are committed to taking a thoughtful, collaborative approach to understand the history of the effort to create a memorial up until this point, and then working with the victims families and survivors to ensure there is a memorial at the Pulse site that honors the victims, those impacted by the tragedy and pays tribute to the resiliency of Orlando, he said in a statement.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Othal Wallace, who was convicted of killing Daytona Beach police officer Jason Raynor, should receive lower than the 10.6 year minimum prison sentence set by state sentencing guidelines, according to a motion filed by his defense attorneys. Wallace faces a maximum of 30 years.

In a footnote, the motion cites the case of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd in 2020 leading to widespread protests and a reexamining of police relations with the communities they serve. The motion states that Chauvin received less than 30 years in prison and that there were many examples of police officers receiving far less than the maximum sentence after being convicted of on-duty killings.

Wallace was found guilty by a Clay County jury on Sept. 16 of the lesser charge of manslaughter in Raynor's death. The jury, which included two Black jurors, deliberated for about 15 hours over two days before reaching a verdict.

Had Wallace been convicted of first-degree murder, prosecutors would have sought the death penalty.

The jury also bypassed a second-degree murder charge, which is punishable by up to life in prison. Manslaughter was the lowest charge Wallace faced.

Wallace, 31, shot Raynor on June 23, 2021. The 26-year-old remained hospitalized until his death on Aug. 17, 2021.

Wallace had been sitting in his car behind his girlfriends apartment in Daytona Beach when Raynor approached and asked him if he lived there. Wallace stood up and Raynor told him to sit down and placed a hand on Wallaces shoulder. The incident quickly escalated and Wallace shot Raynor in the head.

Circuit Judge Raul Zambrano will sentence Wallace on Oct. 27 at the S. James Foxman Justice Center in Daytona Beach.

Othal Wallace takes the stand to testify during his trial at the Clay County Courthouse in Clay County, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023.

In a motion known as a downward departure, Wallaces defense attorneys, Tim Pribisco and Terry Shoemaker, set out reasons why he should receive a sentence lower than the minimum.

Pribisco argued that the verdict indicates jurors rejected the prosecutors argument that Raynor lawfully detained Wallace.

Wallace subjected to 'abrupt interrogation' and 'undeserved physical contact'

Accordingly, the evidence and the verdict support the argument that the manner and approach of Ofc. Raynor in initiating, and eventually escalating, this encounter should be a consideration during the imposition of the sentence, the motion states.

The motion argues that Wallace was doing nothing wrong when Raynor questioned him.

It states, Mr. Wallace, due to no fault of his own, was subjected to abrupt interrogation and undeserved physical contact which coalesced into a physical altercation.

The motion continues: Since Mr. Wallace did nothing to deserve inquiries into his residency, hands on his person, grasps to his clothing and a restriction of free movement in a place he had every right to be, Mr. Wallace is deserving of a sentence below the sentencing guidelines.

The motion also argues that Wallaces testimony that Raynor was reaching for his gun belt was supported by the escalation of physicality by Raynor and his immediate placing of hands on Wallace.

Wallace was prosecuted by 7th Circuit State Attorney R.J. Larizza and Assistant State Attorneys Jason Lewis and Andrew Urbanak. They presented evidence showing that Raynor did not take any of the steps necessary to draw his pistol, which was still secured in its holster when officers arrived to find him shot.

During the trial, prosecutors presented social media posts by Wallace in which he said he would one day be proud to get "pigs blood on his hands and boots." When cross-examined by Lewis, Wallace denied he was referring to police officers and claimed he meant anyone who did not treat him as a human being.

The motion argues that the jurys verdict rejected a malicious state of mind and the social media evidence had not been enough for a murder conviction.

Past cases involving police officers charged in killings

The motion also contains an exhibit listing some high-profile national cases of police officers who have been convicted of killings.

Chauvin, for example, was sentenced to 22 years for killing Floyd in 2020. Chauvin placed his knee on Floyds neck for nine minutes and Floyds killing sparked protests across the nation and beyond.

Former North Charleston officer Michael Slager pleaded guilty to killing Walter Scott, a Black man who ran from a traffic stop in South Carolina in 2015. Slager was sentenced to 20 years.

Former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean was found guilty of manslaughter for shooting and killing Atatiana Jefferson, a Black woman, through a window in 2019 in Texas. Dean was sentenced to 11 years.

Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who shot and killed Botham Jean, a Black man, in 2018, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Guyger lived one floor below Botham but said she entered Bothams apartment believing it was her apartment.

Former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter was convicted of manslaughter in the killing of Daunte Wright, a Black man, in Minnesota in 2021 and sentenced to two years. Potter said she mistakenly drew her gun when she meant to pull her Taser.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona Beach convicted cop killer's defense argues for less prison time
More than 1,000 mourners packed into a community centre in Plainfield, Illinois, for a vigil remembering Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy who police said was stabbed to death by his landlord in an apparent hate crime spurred by the war in Israel and Gaza.

The Prairie Activity and Recreation Centre was filled to its 1,400-person capacity by community members on Tuesday night, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Wadea's family sat next to a photograph of the child smiling and met members of the community seeking to express their sympathy.

The vigil was organised by the American Muslims Assisting Neighbors nonprofit organisation.

Tonight is to celebrate the life of this child and make sure that this does not happen again, Mohammed Faheem, the group's president, told the crowd. This is to express our solidarity as one community. Plainfield is a very welcoming community, and we want to make sure that people understand that.

The venue was swept by security guards before the vigil, an unfortunate but necessary precaution to prevent further violence against Muslim Americans. Security officials scanned the venue's rooftops and patrolled the perimeter with trained dogs.

Wadea was killed on Saturday morning when his family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, 71, allegedly stabbed him and his mother multiple times with a knife at their home.

Prosecutors believe the alleged crime was driven by hate stoked by the conflict in Israel and Gaza. They said in court filing that he had been listening to conservative talk radio shows discussing the conflict prior to the attack.

The stabbing echoes the uptick in violence and harassment aimed at Muslim Americans following the 9/11 terror attacks.

Wadea was stabbed 26 times and died at the hospital, according to authorities. His 32-year-old mother, Hanan Shaheen, could not attend her son's funeral because she was still recovering in the hospital.

Attendees at the vigil carried flowers and signs, including one that insisted that "this is what happens when you spread hate and dehumanise Palestinians."

At the same time that mourners grieved the loss of Wadea, some US lawmakers were calling for the total destruction of Gaza, and waiving off civilian casualties by Israel as the fault of Hamas.

Florida Governor and GOP presidential primary candidate Ron DeSantis said he would not allow any Palestinian refugees into the US, claiming while theyre not all supporters of Hamas, they were "all antisemitic."

Republican US Senator Tom Cotton called for Israel to "bounce rubble" in Gaza, essentially calling for the enclave's complete and utter destruction.

More than 50 per cent of the population in Gaza is under the age of 18, meaning that more than half of those experiencing Israel's retaliation to Hamas's 7 October attack  which killed approximately 2,000 Israelis  were too young to vote or not even born when the militant group was elected to lead Gaza in 2006.

More than 3,700 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October, according to Gaza's health ministry.

Dilwar Syed, the deputy administrator of the US Small Business Administration, offered condolences from the White House, but his words were given a mixed reception. Some attendees left as he began to speak. One called out that Joe Biden "has blood on his hands," likely a reference to the US's historic and continued support of Israel, even as it continues to pummel Gaza and displace more than a million people living in what has been referred to as the "world's largest open air prison."
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  Earlier this year, police were able to apprehend a suspect in two separate shootings that left one person dead and another injured, ending a manhunt that had stretched on since October 2021.

According to the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD), a citizen tip was instrumental in the arrest of 28-year-old Jamion Wynn, who was wanted on two outstanding warrants for first-degree murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Nashvilles Top 10 Most Wanted fugitives: Week of Oct. 18

Before his arrest on June 1 in Rutherford County, Wynn had appeared at the top of the police departments Most Wanted list for multiple months. Authorities said Wynns landlord was watching a news segment when he recognized a photo of him and called in a tip.

Launched exactly a year ago on Oct. 19, 2022, officers in the MNPDs Criminal Warrants Division were looking for a way to get additional assistance from the community in locating some of the citys most violent offenders when they created the Top 10 Most Wanted list.

While the concept of a Most Wanted list is nothing new, it was the first time the police department in Nashville had created a list that spanned city-wide. According to officials, it can be exceptionally difficult to track down people wanted for the types of violent crimes featured on the list because they go into deep hiding.

Metro Nashville Police Department Capt. Billy Morris talks about the Criminal Warrants Divisions Most Wanted list during a June 29 interview. (WKRN photo)

I know from my experience working in investigations, you can literally have a year or more investigation into just finding some of these wanted persons, Capt. Billy Morris, who oversees the Criminal Warrants Division, told News 2 in a previous interview.

Tips lead to 71% of Nashvilles Most Wanted fugitives being arrested

Those listed are accused of offenses such as murder, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, sex crimes and crimes against children. The severity of the crime is often what determines who gets put on the list, with most cases involving alleged violent acts.

However, there have also been instances where, while the crime was not necessarily violent, the suspect is a habitual offender. For instance, in August, police arrested a teen who appeared on the list for 42 outstanding charges related to alleged vehicle burglaries and gun thefts.

Since its inception, there have been right around 100 people featured on the Most Wanted list. About nine months into the year, 57 of the 80 people on the list had been arrested. By Tuesday, Oct. 17, officials said the number of arrests was up to 73, indicating an around 73% arrest rate.

Eight of the 73 people surrendered themselves after being featured on the list, and 62 of those arrests have been made within Davidson County. Other suspects on the list have been found in different parts of the country, with the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force assisting in some cases.

One of Nashvilles Most Wanted fugitives arrested in connection with 2022 murder

Two Most Wanted suspects were arrested back in January in Bowling Green, Kentucky for their alleged involvement in an August 2020 crash that killed two Centerville residents. Before that, police had been searching for them for over two years.

The list has helped bring life to many cases where investigators said they had hit a dead end. Its success can largely be attributed to the publics input and sharing of information, with a large percentage of tips leading to an arrest, according to the police department.

Just a month after Wynn was apprehended, police received another tip in a double murder case involving three suspects who were all featured on the list. The tip led officers to the area of Buchanan Street and 18th Avenue North, where Deshawn Wells was arrested after a brief chase.

One of his brothers, Chadwick Wells, who is also a suspect in the case, was arrested the following month, and Keondre Wells continues to be featured at the top of the Most Wanted list as investigators look to make a final arrest in the January shooting of two teens.

CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime news from Middle Tennessee

The list is updated every Wednesday on the Criminal Warrants Divisions Facebook page and can also be found on News 2s website. Police ask anyone who recognizes someone on the list to contact the MNPD at 615-862-8600 or Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463.

Tips regarding wanted fugitives can also be submitted through hubNashville. All tipsters can remain anonymous.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
FILE PHOTO: Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif gestures as he boards a Lahore-bound flight due for departure, at Abu Dhabi International Airport

By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -A Pakistan court on Thursday barred authorities from arresting a former three-time prime minister, Nawaz Sharif , upon his expected return home on Saturday from four years in self-imposed exile, his lawyer said.

Lawyer Azam Nazeer Tarar told reporters that Sharif had been granted protective bail, under which authorities could not arrest him until he himself appears before a court on Oct. 24, adding that Sharif would address a rally in the city of Lahore upon his return.

Sharif's younger brother, Shehbaz Sharif , was prime minister from 2022 until this year, when his government was replaced by a caretaker administration upon the dissolution of parliament in advance of a general election due early next year.

The younger Sharif welcomed the court's decision.

"He was implicated in absurd cases and subjected to mistreatment," Shehbaz Sharif said on the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.

"Any fair hearing would have established his innocence."

Nawaz Sharif was in 2018 convicted on corruption charges, which he denied, in two cases and sentenced to a total of 14 years in prison.

A court allowed him to travel to London for medical treatment in 2019 under a rare surety bond, under which he undertook to return after treatment. Later, he was declared an absconder after failing to return.

The veteran politician has said he was ousted as prime minister in 2017 by leaders of the powerful military and the judiciary after he fell out with the generals.

The military, which has ruled Pakistan for extended periods since independence in 1947 and retains significant influence, even over civilian government, denies that.

Tarar said Sharif would follow up appeals against his convictions, which have been pending since he left, in the hope of overturning them and campaigning for the general election.

Upon his return on Saturday, he would address a rally in his old stronghold of Lahore, Tarar said.

"It is everyone's constitutional rights to freely do political activities," Tarar said.

Sharif's party has said he would like to contest a seat in the general election but that would depend on the court over-turning his convictions.

Groomed by the military when he entered politics in the late 1970s, Sharif fell out with then army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, during a second stint as prime minister and was ousted in a 1999 coup.

Musharraf ruled for nearly a decade when Pakistan, which supported the U.S.-led "war on terror", was rocked by Islamist militant violence. Sharif returned to Pakistan and to politics in 2007.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Robert Birsel)
A spurt of hiring has left the Palm Springs Police Department with a full staff of sworn officers for the first time in years, Mayor Grace Garner said this week.

Over the past two years, the department has gone from having 12 open sworn positions to none, Garner said during the annual State of the City address. She attributed the increased staffing in part to pay raises that the city and the officers' union have negotiated in recent years.

She said there's more good news: The number of officers unable to work because of injuries has gone from 22 to five, with several of the remaining five set to retire soon so that the city can hire replacements.

Garner's address was held Tuesday at the Annenberg Theater at the Palm Springs Art Museum.

How much have salaries gone up?

The newest raises are part of the three-year agreement reached in 2022 between the city and its main police union, which covers rank-and-file officers and sergeants, but not lieutenants or captains. Officers and sergeants received a 4% salary increase in both 2022 and 2023 and will get a 3% increase in 2024.

The current starting pay for an officer according to the departments salary scale is about $78,000 a year. The highest is about $121,000. Sergeants start at about $101,000 a year and cap out at about $156,000.

And in 2022, the department introduced a new step on the salary scale that increased the amount veteran employees could earn. Officers who have worked for the department for at least 10 years can earn longevity pay under the agreement, starting at a 2.5% bonus at 10 years and gradually increases before capping out at a 10% bonus for those who have been with the department for at least 20 years.

Recent postings for jobs with the department also advertise a $30,000 hiring incentive for officers currently employed with other departments to join Palm Springs police. That bonus is paid in three increments: $10,000 after an officer has completed 30 days with the department, $10,000 more after one year of active employment and $10,000 more after two years.

In 2022, the department paid a one-time $5,000 hero pay bonus tied to serving during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The department also offers pay bonuses to officers who pass foreign language reading and writing tests, have earned bachelors or masters degrees or who are involved in training other officers or in the departments canine program.

What is considered full staffing?

Garner did not say how many officers the department currently has during her presentation. However, the city is currently budgeted for 81 officers, including nine who are assigned to the airport. The department is also budgeted for one chief, two captains, five lieutenants and sixteen sergeants (one of whom works at the airport).The department is also budgeted for 10 community services officers, who can write citations and help with clerical responsibilities but are not sworn officers able to make arrests.

What were staffing levels like last year?

Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills told The Desert Sun in June 2022 that the department had seven vacant positions plus around 20 injured officers.

Hiring and a decrease in injured officers have enabled the force to create new specialized teams.

He said at the time that the injured officers were the biggest challenge to staffing levels and that the department was developing a process to deal with workers comp and all those issues to get people healthy, or if they are not going to be healthy because these are significant injuries, then get them into retirement.

Mills, who started as chief in November 2021, also said last year that the department had been hiring a lot of people, but that hanging on to them tended to be tough as new officers discovered the realities and challenges of the job  and that it was not as fun as it looks on TV.

Palm Springs police do community outreach with children at the James O. Jessie Desert Highland Unity Center in 2021.

What have the new hires meant for the city?

Garner said the increased staffing has allowed the department to create several new teams:

A team of bicycle officers who patrol and respond to crimes in downtown and the immediate surrounding area and focus on fostering relationships with people who live or work downtown

A Special Enforcement Unit consisting of one detective sergeant and three detectives who primarily work in the field in the evening and conduct enforcement and investigations related to patterns of crimes and other ongoing issues

An IMPACT team focused on community policing (a practice of assigning officers to smaller areas so they develop relationships with residents), both to address both street-level crimes such as theft and to supporting outreach services aimed at Palm Springs homeless and mentally ill communities

Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the city of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and email him at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Why Palm Springs has more police on the streets than it has in years
The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, passed in its first reading on Oct. 19 a bill that could ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), lawmakers reported.

The bill would prohibit the activities of any religious organizations affiliated with war propaganda or justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

According to lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak from the opposition party Voice, 267 members of parliament voted in favor of the bill, 15 against, and two abstained.

MP Iryna Herashchenko (from former president Petro Poroshenko 's European Solidarity party) called the vote "historic."

"The Verkhovna Rada took the first step to expel Moscow priests from Ukrainian land It (the draft law) is not about religion or church, but about protecting the national security of Ukraine," she said in a video message.

"It's about the fact that the church, which has a metropolis in Moscow, is not really a church, but a branch of the FSB (Russian security services). And it can be banned in court."

Read also: ISW: Russia weaponizes religion to discredit Ukraine, achieve military goals

Ukraine has two main Orthodox churches  the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine (Kyiv Patriarchate).

The Moscow-controlled church (UOC-MP) has been accused of aligning with the Russian government during the war, which the church's leadership has denied.

Since November last year, Ukraine's law enforcement has raided multiple premises of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, alleging that the church is at the heart of "subversive activities by Russian special services."

The Ukrainian government evicted the UOC-MP from the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and has brought charges against church leaders for spreading pro-war propaganda.

54% of Ukrainians believe the UOC-MP should be banned, according to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
A historic Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bond request is drawing some unusual opposition, and it may be based in part on a flawed solution, according to the countys chief financial officer.

Mecklenburg County voters typically overwhelmingly support school bonds  multi-million dollar CMS bonds were approved in 2017, 2013 and 2007. But this years $2.5 billion request is by far the biggest in the history of North Carolina, and cracks have emerged in the usual unanimous support.

Members of the African American Faith Alliance and African American Clergy Coalition in Charlotte say recent Mecklenburg property revaluations resulted in tax hikes that disproportionately impacted Black and brown communities in the crescent of lower-income communities in the north, east and west of the city.

They say the bond that will be decided on Nov. 7 will add additional taxes each year and potentially displace older property owners who wont be able to afford their homes.

Ricky Woods, pastor of First Baptist Church-West, wrote in an op-ed published Monday in The Charlotte Observer the tax hike from the bond would cause the largest Black resident displacement since the Brooklyn neighborhood was demolished for an urban renewal project in the 1960s.

Woods, Dennis Williams, the pastor of Faith Memorial Missionary Baptist Church, and Jordan Boyd, the pastor of Rockwell A.M.E. Zion Church, were co-authors of the op-ed, writing: Beginning in March, members of the African American Clergy Coalition, including me, began lobbying CMS and Mecklenburg County officials not to place a bond before voters in this election cycle  to no avail.

Woods and multiple Black clergy did not return a request for comment for this story.

During a presentation to the Hood Hargett Breakfast Club in September, Superintendent Crystal Hill said the bond package for 30 projects across the district will require property tax increases in 2025, 2028 and 2029. Those increases of 1 cent per $100 in valuation each will help pay for debt associated with the $2.5 billion package.

It will make Charlotte less affordable for the very people the bond package is intended to serve, Woods, Williams and Boyd wrote in the op-ed.

Pastors bond alternative

The pastors proposed solution is for the district to make an investment that will improve academic outcomes and not buildings. In the past three years CMS has seen its low-performing schools increase from 42 schools in 2020-21 to 59 in 2022-23, they wrote.

They also say CMS should use Mecklenburg Countys rolling capital improvement program to address facility needs. The pastors say the program allows CMS to make requests for high priority capital improvements for the next five years without any tax increases. They say using the rolling capital improvement program would require CMS to prioritize its building projects, too.

But David Boyd, Mecklenburg Countys chief financial officer, told the Observer the pastors interpretation of the capital improvement program is not accurate. He said the transition to a rolling plan does not negate the need for tax increases, it is only a transition away from Mecklenburg Countys historic practice of setting Capital Improvement Plans every five years versus on an annual basis.

The amount of capital spending coupled with any debt required to fund that spending is what drives the need for the tax increases that are currently projected, Boyd said. CMS spending as well as other county spending will be a part of the annual rolling CIP process each year.

What CMS bond supporters say

Supporters of the bond say people living in the crescent will benefit the most.

Colette Forrest, a Charlotte activist and CMS parent, has lived in Wesley Heights for 23 years. The neighborhood, where she owns a home, is in the crescent.

I have seen property taxes go up but its not because of a bond, Forrest told the Observer. Its because of gentrification. Its reckless and irresponsible to try to pin tax increases on the bonds and say Black people will be displaced. It is not fair to make people fearful because the bond will not displace anyone.

Forrest has a son who is a junior in high school and has attended West Charlotte High School since he was a freshman. Her son attended classes in the old West Charlotte High buildings and now goes to school in its new building that opened a year ago.

These kids deserve good schools, Forrest said. The energy is different in the new building. There is a culture shift occurring in West Charlotte. They have gone from an F school to a D school. These kids have pride in this new building and that is a direct result of the 2017 bond money. Our Black and brown kids deserve the very best. It makes a difference in their educational environment.

Forrest says shes confused about the pastors position on the bond.

As a Black CMS parent and Black homeowner in the Crescent, I wonder if the ministers would be opposing the bond if they got their choice for superintendent, Forrest said.

The Observer, prior to the 2022 election and Superintendent Hills eventual selection, reported Dennis Williams advised a nonprofit on which CMS board candidates to support and lobbied those candidates in the race to make him the systems next superintendent. At the time, Williams was a leader of the African American Faith Alliance.

County commissioner opposition

Arthur Griffin, who has three grandchildren attending CMS schools, served on the CMS board for 17 years and was the board chairman from 1997 to 2002. He was elected to serve on the Board of County Commissioners in 2022.

Griffin, along with fellow commissioners Pat Cotham and Vilma Leake, said he has deep concerns about the bond  both in its impact on taxpayers and the projects themselves.

It really hurts me to have to be forced to take this position, Griffin said. Its all or nothing, but theres a better way.

Griffin wanted to approve $1 billion for schools and then come back five years later to ask for more to help reduce the pain.

The school board is not telling the public what the tax increase is going to be, Griffin said. Theyre saying its a hamburger a month or something like that. Its going to be more than a hamburger a month.

Griffin also doesnt buy into the urgency aspect of the bond district officials have expressed: if CMS cant build schools now, the costs will only increase in the future. He said that means costs for all 30 projects will be higher than current projections because of the years it will take to build them if voters approve the bond.

They would be halfway right if they built them all today, Griffin said. Youre darn right the cost of construction is going to go up. Theyre not building all of these schools in one year. 

Finally, Griffin says CMS is not being transparent about Second Ward, a school that opened in 1923 in the former Brooklyn neighborhood. It was the first Black public high school in Charlotte and became an anchor for Black Charlotteans, Griffin, a 1966 Second Ward graduate, says.

It closed in 1969.

CMS is making good on its promise to build another Second Ward if voters approve the bond. The New Second Ward Medical and Technology High School will be a full magnet built on the old metro site. Griffin says hes been told it will hold up to 2,000 students.

I dont know how theyre going to get 2,000 students into a school on that site, Griffin said. (CMS) is not being transparent when it comes to Second Ward, and I cant support this.

Who is supporting CMS bond campaign?

Still, theres plenty of support for the bond.

The Charlotte Regional Business Alliance hired heavy-weight political consultants 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, to help pass the bond.

Its 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.

MeckEd, a Charlotte nonprofit that supports public schools, calls the school bond package a whopper that is needed for school renovations across the county. Voting against it to show dissatisfaction with CMS is shortsighted and harmful to student and teachers, says Jennifer Roberts, who was elected mayor of Charlotte in 2015 after serving four terms on the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners.

Voting against a bond only delays the inevitable, making it more expensive in the long run, Roberts said. A failed bond package will indicate an erosion of community support in general for our schools, leading to more teachers and bus drivers to leave.

Roberts in an email message said she served on the Board of Commissioners in 2005 when a school bond failed. She says the number of mobile classrooms grew and buckets were used to catch rainwater because there was no money to repair roofs.

Whether you are a conservative concerned about the wise use of tax dollars, a progressive worried about housing affordability and equity in education or a citizen with no children, you should want safe and healthy schools, Roberts said. Imperfect as it may be in the eyes of some, it is what we have before us. If we let the perfect be the enemy of the good, it is not just students who pay the price, but all of us.

The Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce, a group that opposed the CMS bond in 2017 because the package had no significant improvements for any schools in north Mecklenburg County, supports the $2.5 billion request.

Bill Russell, the chambers president and CEO, says the bond package on this years ballot takes into account north Mecklenburgs old schools and overwhelming growth in the area. The package includes replacement buildings for schools in Cornelius and Huntersville, a new North Mecklenburg High School and the addition of a middle school.

The Cornelius Town Board unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the bond, and the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg voted to support the bond.

Some of our schools in north Mecklenburg were built when (Franklin D. Roosevelt) was president, Russell said. HVAC and mold problems are prevalent at our old schools.

Russell also says the bond package will address safety concerns in buildings.

This bond package puts us on a pathway to creating safe and spectacular learning environments, he said. (We) encourage our member businesses and citizens to vote yes for the bonds.
A Paterson man has been charged in a fatal hit-and-run in the city last month, the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office announced Wednesday evening.

Barrington Hewitt, 52, was charged on Oct. 12 with death by auto, aggravated assault by auto, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, leaving the scene of an accident, and two counts of endangering an injured victim, the prosecutor announced.

On Sept. 13 at around 3 a.m., police responded to a report that three teenagers were struck by a vehicle in the area of 17th Avenue and East 33rd Street in Paterson, officials said. An unidentified 17-year-old female was fatally struck, a 16-year-old male suffered a broken foot, and another 16-year-old male did not have any injuries.

Passaic County: Clifton councilwoman's husband, son to appear in court after fight at meeting

North Jersey: Police searching for driver in hit-and-run that left Woodland Park woman, 31, dead

Hewitt is in the Bergen County Jail pending his first court appearance. He is facing five to 10 years in prison for each of the charges of death by auto and leaving the scene of a fatal accident, in addition to three to five years for each of the other charges.

Anyone with information about this hit-and-run is asked to contact the prosecutor's tips line at 877-370-PCPO or tips@passaiccountynj.org or the Paterson Police Detective Bureau at 973-321-1120.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson man arrested in September fatal hit-and-run in city
Patients are being operated on without anaesthetic in Gaza because supplies are so low, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, as it announced that its own warehouse of medicine in the strip is now completely empty.

Doctors are having to make impossible choices as medical supplies rapidly run out amid a total siege imposed by Israel, while despite attempts to open a humanitarian corridor with Egypt, such a measure has yet to be put in place.

The blockade, combined with the continued Israeli bombings of the 42km-long enclave, has triggered critical shortages of items including morphine, saline solution and surgical supplies, which the WHO says will run out in days.

Local and general anaesthetics across the strip are on the brink of running out completely, while blood banks only have two weeks of supply left, according to WHO officials.

Medicines for blood pressure and diabetes, seizure medications, and drugs needed for dialysis and to treat heart disease are also running critically low.

My mother-in-law keeps fainting. We cant find her cancer treatment, Sameh, a 36-year-old photographer in Gaza, told The Independent. Yesterday she fainted at the bakery while waiting for bread. I dont know what to do.

The blockade, combined with the continual Israeli bombings, has triggered critical shortages of medicine (Mohamed Al-Masri)

The warnings of failing supplies come amid concerns for those wounded in a deadly strike on a hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday night, which is thought to have killed hundreds of people including displaced children.

Gazas top medics told The Independent they were forced to perform surgery on the injured on the ground. The Independent was sent videos showing paramedics tending to the wounded in pools of blood on the floor.

Dr Medhat Abbas, director of al-Shifa, Gazas largest hospital told The Independent some of the injured are left to die to succumb to their wounds as medical teams are so overwhelmed by the casualties, particularly after the bombing of al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday night.

Surgeries are being performed in the corridors without anaesthetics. Hundreds are in the corridors of the hospitals in front of the operations rooms and in the emergency rooms on the ground . The majority are children, he said.

Mohamed Ghanem, an emergency doctor at al-Shifa, said that there is so space left in the operation rooms because of the mass casualties. He also said that doctors are trying to perform surgery in the corridors without any anaesthesia.

Dr Richard Peeperkorn, a WHO representative, said: We have no supplies or equipment left in [our] Gaza warehouse. Hospitals are relying on their last reserves of supplies, [while] health workers are having to make impossible choices to ration what little they have left in supplies, including operating without anaesthetics.

Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment are treated in a hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza (AP)

The health system is on its knees, and collapse is imminent unless aid is allowed in. I plead for water, food, fuel and medical supplies to be allowed into Gaza. The time to ring the alarm bells has run out. Gaza is crumbling right before our eyes.

The WHO team in Gaza handed over anaesthesia medication procured from the local market, but only enough to support 50 operations requiring general anaesthesia. This does not even scratch the surface of what is needed, Dr Peeperkorn added.

He said that WHO trucks packed with supplies had been waiting at the Egyptian border with Gaza for five days but had not been able to cross, as no aid corridor between Egypt and Israel had been agreed. There have been repeated reports of Israeli bombing the border area. Supplies are just sitting there. Unable to enter. And people dying inside, that can be saved, he added.Wednesday evening, after visit by US President Joe Biden, Israel has said it will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and dont go to Hamas militants. President Biden said Egypts president agreed to open the crossing and to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, it will end, he added. The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.

On Tuesday night in Gaza a strike hit al-Ahli hospital, which was sheltering hundreds of displaced people (AP)

The other concern is a ground invasion. The Israeli military ordered an evacuation of all civilians  including from hospitals  from the north of Gaza to the south.

The WHO said it would be impossible for the wounded to be moved, and that the order may constitute the war crime of forcible transfer. It has documented 57 attacks on healthcare facilities, which have resulted in the deaths of 16 healthcare workers.

The UN has warned that clean water has run out across the strip, which is home to more than 2 million people, half of them children.

Fuel for generators powering hospitals will run out in days, and food stocks are diminishing, prompting fears that civilians will die from thirst, water-borne diseases and hunger as well as in bombings.

On Tuesday night in Gaza, a strike hit al-Ahli hospital, which was sheltering hundreds of displaced people. Gazas health ministry blamed Israel for the attack, saying that more than 470 people had been killed.

The Israeli military has vehemently rejected the allegations, and has instead blamed a failed rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israeli officials said the death toll had been inflated.
WASHINGTON - After Rep. Kevin McCarthy , R-Calif., was ousted as speaker earlier this month, acting speaker Rep. Patrick McHenry , R-N.C., was chosen from a succession list to be the interim, or temporary, speaker.

McHenry started serving in Congress when he was just 29 years old. Hes since taken on several leadership roles and is seen as a moderate Republican compared to some of his colleagues in the House.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, D-Mo., who arrived in Congress at the same time as McHenry, recalled McHenrys progression as a lawmaker in an interview with Roll Call.

When he first arrived, he was seen as a bomb thrower and someone who was looking for a fight, Cleaver told the outlet. He was the Freedom Caucus before there was a Freedom Caucus. Today, I read him as a person who really would like to work with others, who would like to work with Democrats.

Heres a closer look at McHenrys experience and voting record.

Who is Patrick McHenry?

McHenry is serving his 10th term in Congress and represents the 10th congressional district in North Carolina. He is a McCarthy ally and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, a role that helped him negotiate the debt limit deal earlier this year.

He was appointed in 2015 by then House Majority Whip Steve Scalise , R-La., to serve as the Chief Deputy Whip, helping Scalise build agreement around a conservative policy agenda for the House Republican Conference.

Mark Harkins, a senior fellow at the Government Affair Institute at Georgetown University, told USA TODAY, that McHenry has been an important asset to former Speaker McCarthy, having helped broker the deal with rebels in January to allow McCarthy to become Speaker.

In addition, he was one of two Republican members McCarthy tapped to negotiate the debt limit deal with administration officials earlier this year, he said.

Where McHenry stands on issues like abortion and Ukraine aid

One of the top issues surrounding the government shutdown fight last month was whether the U.S. government should give more aid to Ukraine. McHenry has previously supported measures to fund Ukraine's military defense.

For instance, he voted in favor of the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 and the Ukraine Security Assistance and Oversight Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2023. He said last year that First and foremost, the U.S. must maintain a firm, long-term commitment to cutting off Russia from global trade and financial markets.

On abortion, McHenry applauded the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year and said in a statement that it was an important step forward to protect the right to life.

Todays decision also marks a return to our constitutional norm of rights and powers being reserved to the states, and a federal government of limited and enumerated powers, he said.

Hes also voted in favor of an amendment to reduce foreign assistance to certain countries based on the number of unaccompanied noncitizens who entered the US from those areas, a veterans benefit improvement act and a Native American child protection act, according to his website.

What is McHenry's relationship with Trump?

In 2018, former President Donald Trump said that McHenry had the greatest name in politics. Hes also endorsed McHenry previously for Congress.

McHenry said in a statement on the day of the Jan. 6, Capitol attack, that he supported Trump in both the 2016 election and the 2020 election.

President Trump achieved historic tax cuts, repealed the core of Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, fought unfair trade practices of China, and defended our most sacred ally Israel. I supported and worked to pass his agenda every step of the wayvoting with President Trump more than any other member of North Carolinas Congressional delegation. It was his leadership that brought us the best economy of the last 50 years.

However, he also said he could not violate his oath of office and was one of the lawmakers who voted to certify President Joe Bidens 2020 election win.

When asked about Trumps 2020 election indictment, McHenry told The Charlotte Observer that, What we dont want in America is a two-tier system of justice, where a former president, or the son of a president, or a president is treated differently.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who is Patrick McHenry? What to know about the interim House speaker
JERUSALEM  There are growing fears among Israelis and some Palestinians that, according to a controversial law aimed at rewarding Palestinians who murder Israelis in "nationalistic attacks," the Palestinian Authority may be compelled to shell out nearly $3 million a month in compensation to the families of hundreds of Hamas terrorists who carried out the deadly massacre against Israel on October 7th.

According to Israeli military estimates, nearly 3,000 Hamas terrorists infiltrated into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip during the attack, murdering, raping and even beheading more than 1,300 civilians and Israeli soldiers.

As the IDF fought to regain control over the dozens of towns and communities that sit close to the border with the Palestinian enclave, it reportedly killed more than 1,500 of the terrorists and captured an additional 100 or more.

Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli organization that draws attention to Palestinian extremism, including among its leaders, surmised in an article published on its website Tuesday that the Palestinian Authority, the body that governs Palestinians in the West Bank, may now be obliged to pay salaries to the families of the dead terrorists and fund those who are now being held by Israel.

WITNESS TO TERRORISM: HOW HAMAS RADICALIZED PALESTINIANS FOR THEIR GENOCIDAL ATTACK ON ISRAEL

Hamas killed at least 1,400 men, women, children and older civilians Oct. 7 in a surprise attack.

"The Palestinian Authority pays salaries to every single terrorist and to anyone who is arrested fighting Israel," Itamar Marcus , director of Palestinian Media Watch, told Fox News Digital.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Marcus claimed the controversial payments, which are often referred to by critics as "pay for slay," have been steadfastly defended by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and members of his government. And he said they are applicable to any Palestinian who "dies as a martyr from any faction, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad."

"The Palestinian Authority has been adamant about paying these salaries," said Marcus, adding that the payments continue to be made even though the Palestinian Authority has been forced to slash salaries across the board for all government workers due to an economic crisis in the Palestinian territories, sparking protests.

JUDGE LETS LAWSUIT CLAIMING BIDEN ADMIN KNEW US FUNDS WERE AIDING PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS MOVE FORWARD

President Abbas had been scheduled to meet with President Biden in Jordan Wednesday but canceled after a deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza Tuesday night reportedly killed and injured hundreds. He has yet to outright condemn Hamas atrocities Oct. 7.

Palestinian news agency WAFA reported last week that Abbas had stressed that the Palestine Liberation Organization was the sole representative of the Palestinian people. However, he stopped short of condemning Hamas brutal actions. Hamas is not represented in the PLO due to an ongoing rivalry with Fatah, Abbas political faction.

HAMAS CLAIMS IT WILL 'PROTECT' HOSTAGES, RELEASE THEM 'WHEN CIRCUMSTANCES ON THE GROUND ALLOW'

Lt. Col. (res) Shaul Bartal, a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said it was unlikely the Palestinian Authority would find the funds to extend this policy to the families of such a large number of terrorists.

On the left is a member of Hamas in Gaza City; on the right is a pro-Palestinian activist in New York City.

"Right now, the PA does not have the money to pay them even if they wanted to, and Abbas has already said that what Hamas did does not represent the Palestinian people," he said. He added that due to the dire financial situation in the West Bank, the PA has already ceased paying salaries to employees in the Gaza Strip.

However, Marcus pointed out that, following the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in which a large number of Palestinian terrorists were killed, residents in Gaza demanded the Palestinian Authority extend the compensation to them.

Abbas and the Palestinian Authority have received sharp criticism for these payments, which include a bonus in the first month and then a monthly stipend that increases with time.

In 2018, in a sign of protest, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act aimed at cutting economic aid to the Palestinian Authority until it ends the payment policy. In addition, Israel, which collects some taxes on commerce and income on behalf of the Palestinian governing body, has also passed a similar law.

Taylor Force was a West Point graduate who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was pursuing his MBA at Vanderbilt, and the 28-year-old was savagely knifed to death March 8, 2016, during a tour of Israel by a Palestinian terrorist. President Trump signed the Taylor Force Act into law in October 2018.

NPR AFFILIATE PULLS SHOW AFTER GUEST DOUBTED THAT HAMAS KILLED WOMEN, CHILDREN DURING TERROR ATTACKS

Protesters show their support for Palestinians during a rally in front of the Opera House in Sydney Oct. 9, 2023.

Even with the new law, Palestinian Media Watch said the Palestinian Authority law continues to award the family of every terrorist who is killed attacking Israel an immediate grant of $1,511 and a $353-per-month allowance for life.



Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human rights activist and political analyst, said this "pay-to-slay policy has put a huge financial burden on the Palestinian Authority, and yet they continue to demand more financial aid from the Europeans and the Americans.

"In my opinion, the Palestinian Authority is using this policy to encourage more terror against Jews and Israelis," Eid told Fox News Digital. "The international community knows this money is going to terror via the Palestinian Authority, but they continue to accept it."

However, Eid said he did not believe Abbas would "pay any money to Hamas terrorists" after this month's attack. More likely, he said, Hamas would reward its own fighters directly.

Attempts by Fox News Digital for clarification on the issue from the Palestinian Authority were not answered.





Original article source: 'Pay for slay': Palestinian Authority may have to compensate families of Hamas terrorists, report says
Tennessee State University homecoming took place Oct. 8 to 14 and the historically Black institution with the Grammy-Award winning Aristocrats of Bands celebrated a proud legacy while students and supporters also clamored for what TSU is owed by the state.

Its a lot of money, but before we turn this into a Black-vs.-White or Republican-vs.-Democrat issue, lets remember that this is a story about educational opportunity, workforce development and fairness that should concern all Tennesseans.

According to the federal governments recent assessment, the amount owed to TSU because of underfunding is $2.1 billion over the last 30 years.

This is an investment that could have gone to scholarships, infrastructure and academic programs.

The TSU Aristocrat of Bands performs during the first quarter of the TSU homecoming game between Tennessee State and Norfolk State at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023.

On Oct. 11, I was invited to TSUs campus to moderate a Homecoming Week discussion on fair representation and public service.

It was a privilege as a non-Black person to be asked to take this assignment.

From Black Tennessee Voices newsletter: Return of HBCU homecomings creates excitement and concern

HBCU leaders identify an emerging assault on Black education

The TSU event took me back to August when I was one of the few non-African Americans at a luncheon featuring a panel of Historically Black Colleges and Universities leaders at the National Association of Black Journalists annual conference in Birmingham, Alabama.

The theme was the emerging assault on Black education.

This panel was as much about calling out gaps in financial support as it was about decrying efforts in recent years, including in states such as Tennessee, to limit, censor or erase stories about Black history in education curriculum  from Black children who desegregated schools such as Ruby Bridges to messages countering racial inequity.

This legislation passed in the name of eliminating divisive concepts, but also to rout out critical race theory from the classroom, a political bogeyman invented in the years after the racial reckoning of 2020.

It is important that this history should be known by communities beyond HBCU alums and Black citizens.

ABC President Forrest Harris: Is the celebration of Juneteenth truly understood in America? | Opinion

Elected officials in Tennessee know they must make amends with TSU

Tennessee leaders are aware that they have shortchanged TSU over the decades and that matters.

Grand marshals and honorees make their way down Jefferson Street during the Tennessee State University homecoming parade Saturday, October 14, 2023.

Theres a moral imperative to ensure the state meets its obligations.

Consider this:

Tennessee's Office of Legislative Budget Analysis found in 2021 that the state owed TSU between $141 million and $544 million over the last 60 years  far less than the multibillion-dollar amount identified in the recent letter to Gov. Bill Lee from the U.S. secretaries of education and agriculture.

The federal government says 16 states are in arrears with their HBCUs and TSU has the highest unpaid bill.

There must be a public reckoning of what the actual amount is and to take steps to address the deficiency.

State Rep. Harold Love Jr., D-Nashville, an unrelenting advocate for funding parity, has been sounding the alarm for years.

Meanwhile, Lee, a Republican, directed $250 million to TSU in recent years for one-time capital projects.

That is a significant move  and a step up from his predecessors  but it still falls short.

Tennessee boasts seven HBCUs in the state

Its important to understand why institutions like TSU exist today.

Tennessee State University is a historically Black land-grant school located in Nashville.

In fact there are seven HBCUs in Tennessee:

TSU

American Baptist College

Meharry Medical College

Fisk University

Lane College

LeMoyne Owen College

Knoxville College

The first four are in Nashville, Lane and LeMoyne Owen are in West Tennessee, and the final one is in East Tennessee.

HBCUs were created by the Morrill Act of 1890 to provide equal access to higher education to both Black and white students. States could expand their existing option or create separate options for Black residents.

Tennessee and other states, primarily in the South, chose the latter path, and they opted not to treat all students equally.

TSU was created in 1912 as the Agricultural and Industrial State Normal School, according to the universitys page on its history.

Present-day TSU formed because of the schools merger with the University of Tennessee at Nashville in 1979.

LeBron Hill: What Glenda Glover's CoreCivic decision tells us about responsibility, power and tokenism

HBCU funding is not a partisan issue. See what happened under Trump.

HBCUs played a significant role in American higher education precisely because several universities would not accept Black students simply because of their race for a long time.

This is not a one-party issue.

Remember, it was under the Republican Trump administration that HBCUs were guaranteed permanent funding from the federal government of $255 million annually.

President Donald Trump holds up an executive order to bolster historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) after signing it in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 28, 2017.

That was a significant step led by former Tennessee U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Maryville.

However, in Tennessee, the GOP-dominated General Assembly has frequently targeted the school for its financial management.

Lawmakers threatened to change how TSU is governed and criticized university President Glenda Glover because recent record enrollment growth exceeded housing availability, even though other institutions, including University of Tennessee, have faced the same problem in the past.

Glover, a TSU alum, has led the university for a decade and is retiring at the end of the academic year.

Her leadership has been celebrated in recent years by Democratic or Democratic-leaning figures such as Oprah Winfrey, a TSU graduate, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who attended Howard University, an HBCU in Washington, D.C.

Keynote speaker Oprah Winfrey, left, arrives with Tennessee State University President Glenda Glover, right, for the 2023 Spring commencement ceremony at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, May 6, 2023.

Regardless of their politics, they are examples of successful people who HBCU graduates can aspire to emulate.

And then when legislators return to Nashville for their regular session in early 2024, they should think about the current and future students who will benefit by the state paying its debt to TSU.

In addition, they should go take the opportunity to visit these campuses and see how much has accomplished with limited resources.

Imagine how much they would flourish if they were fully funded.

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast and curates the Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters.. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee State has been underfunded. Stop denying payment it deserves
A 54-year-old Pensacola man will spend 25 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to producing child pornography, Jason R. Coody, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida announced Thursday.

Joseph T. Holbert was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he was caught in February using a hidden camera to film two minor females undressing in an outdoor shower. The victims were 8 and 9 years old.

"Crimes against our children are among the most sinister types of offenses and deserving of the most significant sentences," Coody said in a press release. "Those who produce child pornography facilitate the abuse of children, robbing them of their innocence."

Federal sentence: Pensacola sex offender sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for distributing child porn

The release says law enforcement officers were "alerted" to the behavior and seized the hidden cameras and Holbert's cell phone. After a forensic review, they discovered he was producing the child porn "for his own pleasure."

"We will continue to work tirelessly with our law enforcement partners to investigate and prosecute those who engage in such heinous conduct," Coody said.

Once Holbert is released from prison, he will serve a lifetime of federal supervised release and will be registered as as sex offender.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Florida man Joseph T. Holbert sentenced to federal prison
The number of UFO sightings analyzed by the Defense Department numbered more than 800 over the past three years of reporting, according to data released Wednesday by researchers in the Pentagons All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

In the most recent report, which documented cases reported between August 2022 and April 2023, a total of 291 UAP sightings were analyzed using a rigorous scientific framework and data-driven approach, the Pentagon stated Wednesday. In total, the three annual reports from 2021 to 2023 comprise reviews of 801 sightings that date back to 1996.

In April, AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick told lawmakers that there were no UAP sightings that had been determined to be of extraterrestrial origin. Additionally, Kirkpatrick noted that there was never a perceived threat by any individual sighting.

While the mere presence of UAP in the airspace represents a potential hazard to flight safety, none of these reports suggest the UAP maneuvered to an unsafe proximity to civil or military aircraft, AAROs yearly report reads. Although none of these UAP reports have been positively attributed to foreign activities, these cases continue to be investigated.

A very small percentage of the sightings demonstrated characteristics of interest, such as traveling at high speeds or having unknown morphologies, according to the report. The vast majority of sightings have ordinary characteristics of readily explainable sources, but a large number of the sightings have too little data to support a conclusion.

The report by the AARO, an office tasked with researching and analyzing all such credible sightings, also corroborates independent research that links increased sightings of unidentified phenomena to the proximity of military bases, training locations and other areas of military operations. Using a publicly available database, RAND Corporation researchers found the rate of UAP sightings to be 1.2 times greater within 18 miles of military installations.

The Pentagon released its most recent report on the heels the AAROs launch of a website designed to serve as the public facing portion of the governments research and analysis of UFOs. The site will eventually allow users to report UFO sightings dating back to 1945, according to the AARO. A number of amendments in this years defense policy bill aimed at setting stronger transparency standards for the governments UFO response are also in the works.

Authored by Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., the House amendment for the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act seeks to provide greater transparency of UAP sightings. Defense Department officials would have 180 days after the passage of the legislation to provide such documents, if the legislation is adopted by both chambers.

Our government needs to be transparent with its people, Burchett told Military Times via email in July. I understand taking measures to avoid compromising national security, but the American people deserve to know whats going on and what the Pentagon really knows. They can handle it.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a sister amendment to the Senates defense bill that would give a review board the authority to review and declassify government documents related to unidentified phenomena. Final passage of any legislation is on hold as the House works to elect a new speaker, or approves limited legislative work to be done via an interim speaker.
The seemingly minor-key, indie rom-com The Persian Version (Oct. 20) is a deceivingly epic movie. Just when youve settled in to watch a young woman navigate life after a breakup, director and writer Maryam Kesharvarz delivers a multi-generational, mother-daughter story spanning over five decades and two continents, while involving a revolving door of eccentric charactersincluding a straight drag queen and five rowdy brothers.

Keshravarzs third narrative film, which made a splash at this years Sundance Film Festival, is a tragicomic tale with as much exposition and backstory as a Martin Scorsese movie. (In fact, it would probably benefit from the runtime of one.) This overly ambitious storytelling can occasionally veer into superfluous territory and feel a bit cramped; there were a few times during the first hour where I asked myself, Where are we going with all of this? However, The Persian Version manages to stick the landing with a profound and tear-jerking ending. Its a solid showing for Keshavarz as a noteworthy filmmaker and a welcome entry into the Movies That Make You Want to Call Your Mom canon.

Yiget Eken/Sony Pictures Classics

The Persian Version is initially set in the early 2000s, when a lesbian, Iranian-American woman named Leila (Layla Mohammadi) gets pregnant by a British drag performer (Tom Bryne) fresh off the heels of her divorce. Oddly enough, this plot point seems to become a footnote, as the movie shifts its focus toward Leilas stern, industrious mother, Shireen (Niousha Noor). Her childhood in 1970s Iran and the subsequent hardships she experienced as an immigrant in the U.S. take precedence. This ultimately for the betterment of the film, as Leila is not the most riveting protagonist. Plus, Noors multi-layered performance is the main highlight and grounding force of the movie.

Unlike other stories focused on tensions between mothers and daughters, we dont spend much of the film watching Leila and Shireen getting into screaming matches or even the specifics of their vaguely fraught dynamic. (On the other hand, there are plenty of direct explainers on Iranian culture and history that feel somewhat obligatory.) Early on in the film, we see a flashback of Leila bringing her current ex-wife to her familys home for a holiday dinner, before her mother orders them to leave. And when Shireen discovers that Leila is pregnant and plans on keeping her baby, shes predictably disappointed with her daughters recklessness.

Everyone Else Burns Gives Hilarious New Meaning To the Term Cult Comedy

Yet watching Shireen struggle to show affection to her only daughter, while she easily mingles with her five sons, paints a clear-enough portrait of their disconnect. Theres a popular assumption that women are tougher on their daughters than their sons because they can immediately see themselves (including their flaws) in them, and the film plays into that. Viewers can also interpret a level of resentment Shireen has towards Leila because of the privilege her sacrifices have afforded her. Still, it takes Leila finally learning about dark secrets from her grandmother, Mamanjoon (Bella Warda), to really break down this barrier and build an understanding of one another. Kesharvarz makes Shireens backstory both jarring and comedic enough to warrant such a narrative detour.

At the same time, in the films present-day timeline, Leila is figuring out whether she wants to pursue a relationship with the father of the child. (I understand that sexuality is fluid, but it feels like the movie completely forgets that shes introduced to us as a lesbian.) Her father and Shireens husband, Ali Reza (Bijan Daneshmand), is also waiting on a heart transplant. The subplot of Ali Rezas hospitalization is curiously forgettable in this crowded family comedy. However, the reality of his heart condition becomes crucial in flashbacks, as we watch Shireen become the main provider for their family and witness the hurdles non-U.S. citizens experience in the health-care system.

Despite how plot-heavy The Persian Version is, Keshavarz demonstrates a refreshing amount of restraint regarding its sentimentalism. When it ended, I couldn't help but be reminded of a similar movie I found to be too mawkish: 2022s Everything Everywhere All at Once. Both films tackle immigration and mothers failing to connect with their queer daughters. Oddly enough, theyre equally madcap, even though one decidedly doesnt feature a hot dog fingers universe.

Yiget Eken/Sony Pictures Classics

However, I found the Daniels Oscar-winning movie to be overly saccharine in its second and third acts, undercutting Evelyn and Jobus long-awaited reconciliation at the end. With a less-skillful director, The Persian Version could have easily fallen into the same trap. However, the script holds off on showing viewers why all of these ultimately fateful moments and personal histories matter until exactly the right moment, providing an overwhelming moment of catharsis.

The Persian Version might be the sort of movie you recommend with a disclaimer, forewarning others of all of the directions it goes in and some clunky editing choices. (An early scene with Leila and her ex has one of the least-conspicuous uses of ADR Ive ever witnessed in a film.) But by the end, you feel silly for questioning any of the films bold choices in the first place. Youll probably also want to apologize to your mom.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Pfizer  the American pharmaceutical company that helped manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine  announced on Wednesday that it is hiking the price of its antiviral drug Paxlovid to $1,390 per course, starting in 2024. In a story first reported by The Wall Street Journal, a company spokesman confirmed that Pfizer plans on more than doubling the $529 that the federal government paid for Paxlovid. The current price is what customers can expect to pay before rebates and discounts to both pharmacy benefit managers and insurers. It is a stark contrast to American policy on Paxlovid during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; starting in December 2021, the government had purchased and distributed Paxlovid to the public for free. Pfizer insists that its new policy will not create accessibility issues.

As always, Pfizers goal is to ensure broad and equitable access to our medicines. We are working diligently with payers to achieve the best possible formulary placement for Paxlovid, resulting in low OOP [out-of-pocket] costs for patients, a company spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.

Although commonly described as one drug, Paxlovid is actually two different drugs that are packaged together  nirmatrelvir and ritonavir.

"It's a pill that's taken for five days and that works by interfering with the way the virus processes its proteins," Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center and infectious disease doctor, told Salon last year. He added that it has been "highly effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death and high-risk individuals."
Pfizer will sell its COVID-19 antiviral treatment at more than twice the price at which it was sold to the federal government as it transitions toward the commercial market.

Since Paxlovid was made available at the end of 2021, the federal government has subsidized the cost. Pfizer sold the treatment to the government at a discounted rate of $530, and, when a move to commercialization was announced, a price increase was expected.

The company confirmed Thursday the list price for a five-day course of Paxlovid will be $1,390.

A similar move was seen when the COVID-19 vaccine became commercialized. The federal government paid $19.50 per dose of Pfizers coronavirus vaccine, and the commercial list price was six times that at $120.

Pricing for PAXLOVID is based on the value it provides to patients, providers, and health care systems due to its important role in helping reduce COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths, Pfizer said in a statement.

The list price does not necessarily reflect the price a patient will pay. As always, Pfizers goal is to ensure broad and equitable access to our medicines, the company noted. We are working diligently with payers to achieve the best possible formulary placement for PAXLOVID, resulting in low out-of-pocket (OOP) costs for patients. Also, Pfizer will offer a copay program for eligible privately insured patients, who could pay as little as $0.

When reached for comment, the health insurance trade association AHIP said in a statement, Everyone should be able to get the medications they need at a cost they can afford, but drug manufacturers continue to gouge the American public, in this case by more than doubling the price of Paxlovid. Health insurance providers will continue to cover medically appropriate drugs and will provide access to Paxlovid when appropriate.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the increased list price of Paxlovid.

Paxlovid is a five-day treatment for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 cases in adults at risk for severe illness. It consists of the antiviral drugs nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, and patients are meant to take two doses of each during the course of treatment.

Treatment with Paxlovid has been found to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death from the virus and may also reduce the chances of someone developing long COVID.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it reached an agreement to begin a transition to commercialization for Paxlovid last week. This transition is scheduled to start in November.

During the transition, the HHS said it would be prioritizing and reserving the doses it has for the uninsured as well as people on Medicaid and Medicare. Individuals in these groups will still be able to acquire free rounds of Paxlovid through the end of 2024.

Pfizer noted last week that it does not expect commercialized doses to be widely used in 2023, as doses marked under the Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration will still be available for free until the end of the year.

Updated at 4:46 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A former pharmacy distribution employee in Pennsylvania has been indicted in federal court after authorities said he swapped prescription drugs with over-the-counter medication.

While working for McKesson Corporations New Castle Distribution Center, the man removed oxycodone hydrochloride tablets from Mallinckrodt-brand bottles and replaced the drugs with aspirin, Tylenol or a cough and cold medication, according to an Oct. 18 news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The tampered bottles were then put back into McKessons inventory and taken to pharmacies, including one in Ohio, authorities said.

The 41-year-old man does not have a defense attorney listed in public court records as of Oct. 19. McClatchy News reached out to McKesson and was awaiting a response.

Authorities do not know when the man began tampering with medication, but it ended Jan. 26, 2022, according to the release.

Oxycodone hydrochloride is a potent painkiller, authorities said.

The man is charged with tampering with consumer products, court records show. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine.

New Castle is about 50 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

What to know about the US opioid crisis

Overdoses are a leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2021, there were nearly 51,000 overdose deaths in the country, according to CDC data. In the past 21 years, drug overdoses have killed more than 932,000 people, the CDC reported.

The majority of overdose deaths involve opioids. Deaths involving synthetic opioids (largely illicitly made fentanyl) and stimulants (such as cocaine and methamphetamine) have increased in recent years, the CDC said. For every drug overdose that results in death, there are many more nonfatal overdoses, each one with its own emotional and economic toll.

Millions of people in the U.S. have an opioid addiction, according to the CDC. Addiction is a chronic and relapsing disease that can affect anyone.

Police officer stole drugs from busts and resold them in California, feds say

Patients endure excruciating surgeries after nurse swaps meds with saline, suit says

Nurse swaps fentanyl with saline, then emergency patient gets tampered drug, feds say
(Bloomberg) -- The Philippines is pushing to bolster defense ties with the US and Japan amid the Southeast Asian nations lingering territorial dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Stronger facilities will be built in Philippine military sites where the US was given access, Armed Forces chief Romeo Brawner Jr. said in a briefing on Thursday. Manila is also working to finalize a visiting forces deal with Tokyo, he said.

We are looking to engage the Japan Self-Defense Forces more intensely next year, Brawner told reporters. Apart from radar systems, the Philippine military is also interested in Japans aircraft, ships, and weapons, he said.

Washington early this year won access to four more sites under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which initially covered five Philippine military bases. The new sites are located near Taiwan and the South China Sea, where Beijing and Manila are embroiled in an increasingly tense territorial dispute.

US Indo-Pacific Command head Admiral John Aquilino, in a meeting with Brawner last month, signaled Washington wanted additional sites. On Thursday, Brawner said plans to add more EDCA sites are still being discussed.

Meanwhile, the Philippine military has halted sending personnel to China for trainings after a Chinese ship in August fired a water canon on a Philippine vessel in the South China Sea, Brawner said.

China has opposed the expanded military deal between the US and the Philippines, with Beijings envoy to Manila Huang Xilian in April accusing the US of seeking to take advantage of the new sites to interfere in the situation across the Taiwan Strait. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has said the sites will not be used for any offensive action.

Brawner said the Philippine military does not have any engagements with Taiwan and does not see any future engagements with the self-ruling island, which China regards as a renegade province.

Marcoss administration is bolstering US defense ties as it pushes back against Beijings expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea. The Philippines has in recent weeks carried out resupply missions to a military outpost despite Chinese vessels dangerous maneuvers.

Last week, Chinas coast guard said it drove away a Philippine Navy vessel near the disputed shoal, a day after its foreign ministry urged the Philippines to stop making provocations.

The Philippine military is working to expand its cybersecurity unit by recruiting more IT professionals, Brawner said, amid recent hacking incidents in government agencies. Next year, its military drills with the U.S. will involve a cybersecurity exercise he said.

(Updates to add military chiefs comments on Japan cooperation, Taiwan, suspension of training in China and cybersecurity.)

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The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority received $37 million in PENNVEST grants and low-interest loans for water infrastructure upgrades.

According to officials, $34,159,707 in loans will be used to replace around 22,000 feet of 8- and 12-inch water mains.

Officials also said $686,353 in loans and $2,474,472 in grants will be used to replace lead service lines that will affect the 300 residential customers where water mains are being replaced.

With this investment, residents and businesses of Allegheny County will benefit from improvement to water reliability and safety, said Pennsylvania state senator Wayne Fontana. As I have said before, replacing our areas aging water infrastructure continues to be a priority of mine. Once again, the commonwealth, through PENNVEST, is stepping up to the plate with a substantial financial investment in our communities to ensure access to clean and reliable drinking water.

PENNVEST serves communities and citizens of Pennsylvania by funding sewer, storm water, and drinking water projects. More information is available on the PENNVEST website: https://www.pennvest.pa.gov.

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PEMBROKE  A week after a bear killed a goat in Hanson, two goats are safe after a bear chased them in a Pembroke backyard Wednesday.

The bear is seen chasing the goats in a video taken from a backyard camera on Heather Macdonald Moe's property.

Moe said her dwarf goats, Ingrid and Piper, were chased by the bear after it climbed over the backyard fence and began to pull apart a separate fence for the goats.

The incident happened while Moe was at work. She was told about the bear after it reportedly killed a neighbor's chicken and ate pumpkins.

I'm not sure if the bear was just chasing them in play because they were running, but he quickly gave up the chase and ran off. No harm done, but the goats are pretty traumatized, even this morning, Moe said.

Bears in your yard: Here's what you should do if you see a black bear in your yard in Massachusetts

Piper, left, and Ingrid, dwarf goats, escaped a bear in Pembroke on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

The only damage was to the goat enclosure, she said. She said she is looking into installing an electric fence.

It is at least the second time in the last 10 days that a bear has gone after residents' backyard animals on the South Shore. In the Hanson incident, a bear dragged a small goat into the woods and killed it.

A Kingston resident shot a bear that was attacking his goat in August.

How many bears are there in Massachusetts?

American black bears are endemic to North America. The National Park Service estimates 750,000 of them are in the U.S.

According to MassWildlife, the state's bear population is easily over 4,500, with an expected annual increase of 8%. The species has long been common in the central and western parts of the state and is slowly expanding east.

New restaurant on South Shore: Dave's Hot Chicken brings the heat to Braintree with opening this week

Despite the occasional appearance of black bears, which are the only bear species in the state, the South Shore is not considered part of their normal range.

A graphic illustrating where black bears can usually be found in Massachusetts.

Given the bears' overall population increase, they are listed as being of "least concern" for extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

While an exact figure for the Southeastern Massachusetts bear population may be hard to pin down, their presence is not new to the area.

A bear dubbed Boo Boo drew attention in 2021 as it made its way north from Wareham to the South Shore before returning to the South Coast, where it died after it was hit by a car on Interstate 95 in Marion on June 24.

Bear sightings continued into 2022 and have been reported all along the South Shore this year.

How do I keep bears away?

Remove all food sources from your yard and neighborhood.

Never intentionally feed bears.

Avoid feeding birds; birdfeeders, suet and spilled seed attract bears.

Clean barbecue grills and grease traps.

Avoid using open compost.

Never leave trash bags outside.

Your guide: Black bear sightings on the South Shore raise questions. Here are some answers.

What do I do if I encounter a bear?

Talk to the bear in a calm voice.

Slowly back away from the bear; do not run.

If the bear makes contact with you, fight back.

Patriot Ledger reporter David R. Smith contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Bear scares pair of goats in Pembroke backyard chase
(Bloomberg) -- Polands opposition leader Donald Tusk will meet European Union leaders and officials in Brussels next week after winning a coalition majority on Sunday as expectations grow that the next government will seek to move fast to access billions of euros in suspended aid.

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These will be top-level talks, Borys Budka, a senior official in Tusks Civic Platform, told reporters after the partys meeting in Warsaw on Thursday. From the day one, were doing everything we can so that Poland returns to its rightful position on the international arena.

Polands top priority is the release of more than 35 billion ($37 billion) in EU aid, which Brussels has withheld because of concerns over rule of law under the nationalist Law & Justice government. Tusks party and two others won enough seats to form a cabinet and unseat Law & Justice after two terms in power. The election results boosted the zloty and Polish stocks.

Tusk, former European Council president, this week called on the nations president to quickly start the process of handing over power. However, this seems unlikely following media reports that the new parliament will only be convened after Nov. 11, and that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is likely to get the first chance to form a new government.

Tusk may struggle to meet the conditions for the release of funds. President Andrzej Duda, a former Law & Justice lawmaker, may veto a plan to dismantle political influence over courts. It may also face a challenge at the countrys top tribunal, which is stacked with ruling party loyalists.

(Updates with more comments from the second paragraph.)

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The suspect wanted in connection to a deadly shooting in 2022 was taken into custody Thursday morning.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Cincinnati Field Office announced in August that a cash reward was being offered for information leading to the arrest of Anthony E. Smith.

>> Previous Coverage: FBI offering cash reward for information leading to arrest of Trotwood homicide suspect

The Trotwood Police Anti-Crime Unit and FBI Safe Streets Task Force executed a search warrant in the first block of Elmore Street in Trotwood on Thursday. There, they arrested Smith.

An unidentified female was also taken into custody and is facing charges related to aiding a fugitive.

Smith was wanted for murder in the death of Bobby Daniels, whose body was found in the front yard of a residence in Trotwood on May 30, 2022.

Investigators previously said Smith shot Daniels multiple times after they got into a fight, News Center 7 previously reported.

>> Previous Coverage: Trotwood Police still searching for suspect in homicide nearly a year later

Smith was charged with murder and related offenses and a state warrant was issued for his arrest.

According to online jail records, Smith was booked in the Montgomery County Jail Thursday morning on suspicion of murder.

The family of Daniels also confirmed with News Center 7 they had been notified of Smiths arrest.

News Center 7 will continue updating this story as we learn more.
An investigation is underway after a woman, pushing groceries on the sidewalk, was struck and killed after a multi-car crash in Malden on Thursday afternoon, officials said.

Emergency crews responded to the crash in the area of Main Street and Mountain Avenue where they found two wrecked vehicles on the sidewalk and a woman who had been struck.

Investigators say BMW SUV slammed into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement SUV that was stopped at this light before careening off the road, hitting several poles and striking the woman on the sidewalk.

It was like three loud booms, said a witness. It was a really scary situation my heart dropped when I seen that.

The two ICE officers sitting in their federal agency vehicle were taken to the hospital and are expected to be okay.

Madina Adolph fought back tears after finishing her first day volunteering in the food pantry of a nearby YMCA. She tells Boston 25 she had just served the woman.

I cannot believe I just help her get food it just a sad thing you know life is too short, said Adolph.

The scene remained active for nearly nine hours as detectives were investigating the moments leading up to the impact.

The driver of the SUV remained on scene and is cooperating with police. No word yet on any charges filed.

Investigators have not yet released the identity of the victim who was killed theyve only described her as an elderly woman.

An investigation is ongoing.

Source tells #Boston25 one of two SUVs involved in fatal accident that left elderly pedestrian dead in Malden belongs to ICE. Police say BMW SUV slammed into federal law enforcement agency vehicle before hitting woman on sidewalk pic.twitter.com/vylIJ7CIXn  Drew Karedes (@DrewKaredes) October 19, 2023

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  Authorities are trying to track down a man wanted in connection with an armed robbery at a bank in Belle Meade Thursday morning.

The Metro Nashville Police Department said the man robbed U.S. Banks Belle Meade branch on Harding Pike at knifepoint shortly after 11:45 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 19.

 Have breaking come to you: Subscribe to News 2 email alerts 

According to officials, the man was last seen walking east on Woodlawn Drive.

(Source: Metro Nashville Police Department)

If you see the man photographed above, you are asked to call 911.

No additional details have been released about the bank robbery.

 Download the News 2 app to stay updated on the go.

 Sign up for WKRN email alerts to have breaking news sent to your inbox.

 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.
WARSAW (Reuters) - Donald Tusk , the leader of Poland's largest liberal opposition grouping Civic Coalition (KO) and a potential candidate to become prime minister, will likely travel to Brussels next week, a senior lawmaker from his party said on Thursday, as he tries to unblock funds frozen over rule-of-law concerns.

Pro-European Union (EU) opposition parties won a majority in Sunday's election, a huge shift for Poland after eight years of feuding with Brussels over issues ranging from judicial independence to LGBT rights. It also represents a setback for right-wing populism in the EU.

The new government has not yet formed but Tusk is a strong potential candidate to lead it, with the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party unlikely to find a coalition partner.

"Donald Tusk will be in Brussels next week, meeting with the leaders of European countries," KO lawmaker Borys Budka told reporters. "It is normal that from day one we are doing everything to return Poland's position in the international arena to its rightful place."

Budka said the visit would likely take place on Wednesday and Thursday, coinciding with an EU summit.

The EU believes the changes made since 2015 by PiS undermine the independence of courts and go against democratic standards, such as changes to how judges are appointed.

These concerns are blocking Poland's access to 76.5 billion euros of EU cohesion funds, meant to raise the standard of living in the EU's poorer regions, and to 35.4 billion euros of COVID-19 recovery funds.

PRESIDENT TO MEET PARTY LEADERS

The office of Poland's president Andrzej Duda said he will meet parliamentary party leaders next week as the nation waits to see who he will task with forming government.

Duda said before the vote that he would give the first shot at forming a cabinet to the group or party that won most ballots.

PiS came first in the election but is unlikely to secure a third term in government for want of a coalition ally.

The leaders of the three parties that are seeking to form a coalition have called on Duda not to delay making a decision.

"The president knows his responsibilities and will not give in to pressure," aide Malgorzata Paprocka told Rzeczpospolita daily.

"A government will be formed within the time frame laid out in the constitution."

This means the process of forming a new government in Poland, the largest country in the EU's eastern wing, could take weeks or even months.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel FlorkiewiczEditing by Gareth Jones and Rod Nickel)
Russian assassination attempts have contributed to a significant increase in the number of cases of political poisonings around the world over the last decade, according to a report.

A study examining how poisonings are used as a means of political repression globally found that the last ten years saw three times as many cases occurring on average per year compared with 70 years ago, with much of the rise attributable to Russia.

Journo Behind Anti-War Stunt on Russian TV Suffers Suspected Poisoning in France

The analysis from the Global Poison Reporting Project, a database tracking instances of political poisonings, looked at 77 reported cases over the last 90 years. It concluded that Russia used poisoning as a method of assassination more frequently than any other state, and that many of the victims were targeted inside Europe.

Even earlier this month, French prosecutors opened an investigation into a suspected poisoning of Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian journalist exiled to France after publicly criticizing President Vladimir Putins full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Sophia Browder, the reports author, was due to present the findings to policymakers in the U.K. at an event hosted by the Henry Jackson Society think tank on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, it seems like the British government has been asleep at the wheel in terms of dealing with these political poisonings, Browder said in a statement. She added that the U.K. government has a duty to protect dissidents, journalists, and the public, and that such poisoning incidents should be considered a high priority issue.

Britain is certainly no stranger to cases of Russian political poisonings. In 2018, then-Prime Minister Theresa May accused Russia of attempting to kill Sergei Skripala former Russian intelligence officer living in Englandand his daughter using the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. They survived, though one woman died after inadvertently coming into contact with the poison months later.

It was also in the U.K. that Putin critic and former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko died from radiation poisoning in 2006, with officials attributing his sickness to the ingestion of a radioactive isotope, polonium-210. Inquiries in both the U.K. and European Court of Human Rights concluded that Russia was responsible for his assassination.

Litvinenkos wife, Marina, was interviewed in March as part of the report on political poisonings. She said that Russian dissidents still remain at extreme risk of being targeted. The only advice would be to help in any way to stop this regime being active, Marina was quoted as saying, referring to Putins government. You cant stop the poisonings without stopping the regime. She added: Only after this all changes, and we will not have this Russian Security service, which is more like a murder-and-killing unit than security and protection, it is difficult to say how to protect yourself.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Juraj Blanar, the former mayor of Zilina who was known for his odious statements about Russia's war against Ukraine and who is not a diplomat, may become Slovakia's foreign minister in Robert Ficos government.

Source: Aktuality, a Slovak news outlet, reported by European Pravda

Details: The article states that Blanars candidacy as the new Slovak foreign minister has been discussed for a long time.

Aktuality said that he was considered for this position back when the government negotiations were still at the initial stage. The candidacy of diplomat Miroslav Lajcak was also considered, but he did not accept the offer of the Smer-SD party, which is headed by Fico.

Marek Estok, who previously served as Slovakia's ambassador to France, was also considered.

It was reported earlier that Fico himself was supposed to temporarily head the Foreign Ministry, but in the end, he managed to convince Blanar, who was initially reluctant to accept the offer.

Juraj Blanar is a former engineer with no diplomatic experience. After the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he regularly made outrageous and sometimes false statements about the war.

In particular, he called the war in Ukraine a "conflict between Russia and the United States".

Like Robert Fico, Blanar opposes the supply of weapons to Ukraine, claiming that it "weakens Slovakia's defence".

He argued that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine had already radically deepened "during the so-called Maidan in 2013, and its devastating consequences continue to this day".

Blanar said that Ukraine's leaders are "silent about extreme Ukrainian nationalism" and added that the result of the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 "was the fragmentation of Ukraine and civil war".

In 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, Blanar stated that "Ukraine is fighting against its own people". He also said that Ukraine should focus "on ensuring the rights of Russian-speaking residents".

Background:

On 11 October, Fico signed a memorandum of coalition with the Voice party and the pro-Russian Slovak National Party.

As part of the coalition agreement, Smer-SD will have the right to appoint the prime minister and six other ministers, paving the way for the anti-Ukrainian Fico to lead the Slovak government for the fourth time.

The Voice party will get the post of parliamentary chairman, which is likely to be party leader Peter Pellegrini, and seven ministerial positions in the government, while the Slovak National Party will get three ministerial positions.

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Audible gasps rang out in the House chamber Tuesday when Rep. Kay Granger of Texas cast her vote for speaker. The formidable, 80-year-old Republican with more than a quarter century of experience on Capitol Hill voted not for Rep. Jim Jordan like the vast majority of her GOP colleagues, but for the man Jordans allies had helped shunt aside: Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

Grangers decision wasnt a surprise because it was the decisive vote for the House GOPs slim majority; she was only one of 20 Republicans on Tuesdayand 22 on Wednesdayto vote against Jordan and deny him the speakership. Her opposition to Jordan shocked her colleagues because of what it represented. As chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Granger might have been expected to align herself with a future speaker, who has considerable influence over both the committee process and the business brought to the House floor for votes. That she didnt was a strong statement of no confidence in the partys designee from a House veteran.

Shortly after Tuesdays vote, The Dispatch asked Granger what Jordan would have to do to earn her support. Im not doing that, the congresswoman replied, dismissively waving her hand before walking away.

The question might have been better posed to Jordan: What was he doing in order to get this critical leader in the conference on his side? A statement from Granger on Wednesday following Republicans second failed attempt to elect a new speaker hints at how Jordan and his allies have been approaching institutionalist holdouts like her.

This was a vote of conscience and I stayed true to my principles, Granger said. Intimidation and threats will not change my position. Her comments echoed statements from other Jordan detractors who suggested Jordans supporters had triedand failedto bully them into supporting the pugnacious co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus. The intimidation campaign has also made it to the airwaves, with several conservative media allies of Jordannotably Fox News host Sean Hannityusing their platforms to go after the sensitive little snowflakes in the House not willing to get on board. Its a tactic that has worked for certain GOP leaders in the past.

Jordan sought to turn the temperature down on Wednesday eveningafter GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa claimed she had received credible death threats for withdrawing her support of the Ohio Republicanby tweeting a condemnation of any and all threats against his colleagues, which he described as abhorrent. Russell Dye, a spokesman for Jordan, echoed that sentiment in a statement provided to The Dispatch. Mr. Jordan hasnt made any deals, made any threats, or encouraged any attacks on any members voting against him, Dye said. Neither has our team. He has been clear that we must stop the attacks and come together as a Conference.

But other Republicans who have opposed Jordan have a different recollection of the past few weeks. And according to Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida, the pro-Jordan push may have backfired. I dont appreciate the pressure tactic, Gimenez told The Dispatch. Because you know what? You follow leaders. You dont get pressured.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska has suggested Jordan allies in and out of Congress have been doing the dirty work for him. Jims been nice, one-on-one, but his broader team has been playing hardball, Bacon told Politico, which also reported that Bacons wife had received multiple anonymous phone calls and text messages urging her husband to support Jordan.

To the extent that Republicans have been able to unify since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, that consensus has largely maintained through fear: fear of going against the most popular leader within the party, fear of inviting a torrent of negative right-wing media attention, fear of crossing the GOP base, and, ultimately, fear of a primary challenge. But Jordans failure to secure the speakership thus far demonstrates the limits of fear-based Trumpian tacticsand the remaining value of the sort of old-fashioned personal politics that still drive much of the actual legislative work of Congress.

Its a lesson that Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the recently ousted speaker, knows all too well. A back-slapping people pleaser, McCarthy built his support within the Republican conference by establishing personal relationships with members that often began with him recruiting them to run and supporting them with his fundraising machine. He continued to cultivate friendships by remembering small, personal details of his members lives like kids birthdays or pets namesattracting flies with honey, not vinegar.

The problem with McCarthys strategy was that he ended up drowning in all the honey. His ascension to the speakership in January came after more than a dozen failed votes on the House floor, with right-wing holdouts seizing their opportunity to extract more concessions from their once and future leader. In the end, this willingness to meet all these members various demands was McCarthys undoing. His ouster earlier this month was only possible because he had agreed to a rule change that made it easier for disgruntled lawmakers to trigger a vote on whether to give him the boot.

Ten months later, Jordan appears to be deploying both honey and vinegar in his own quest for the speakership. Stories abound from Republican members about Jordans personal friendliness and affability, and he was and still is loyal to McCarthy.

Yet much of his tenure in the House has been defined by his strident opposition to Republican leadership efforts to bring order to divided government and being a media-savvy brawler for conservative populists. He fiercely defended Trump on the House Intelligence Committee during the presidents first impeachment inquiry, and from his perch as the House Judiciary Committee chairman he has been the leader of Republicans efforts to investigate and impeach President Joe Biden. He was among the House conservatives who supported the defund Obamacare effort in 2013 that shut down the governmentand resisted efforts to reopen it. He continued to lead opposition against additional budget resolutions as the Republicans in Congress and Barack Obama found themselves at impasse after impasse on spending.

And as a co-founder of the intractable House Freedom Caucus (HFC), Jordan was, in some ways, the inspiration for the small but dedicated anti-McCarthy crew that put Republicans in their current predicament. The HFC, after all, agitated enough to convince then-Speaker John Boehner to resign from Congress rather than try to pass another funding resolution that Jordan and his ilk would viciously oppose.

His effort to cajole the holdouts this week seems not to have overcome the sense among these membersmostly institutionalists who prefer regular order to any particular ideologythat supporting Jordan means rewarding those who got the conference here in the first place. His allies tactics, including several pro-Jordan members refusing as a bloc to commit to supporting Steve Scalise after the majority leader won the conferences support for speaker last week, have only reinforced this sense.

Heading into Tuesdays vote, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida indicated he would not support Jordan but repeatedly told reporters that he is always open to negotiation. After the roll-call vote resulted in no speaker, Diaz-Balart sat in a corner of the House chamber with Jordan himself, the two smiling and chatting amicably. If Jordan was going to convince one of his hardest nos to get on board, this seemed to be the time and place to do so.

As he emerged from the chamber, Diaz-Balart refused to divulge what he and Jordan spoke about. But were he and the would-be speaker at least negotiating? No, Diaz-Balart said firmly. The millisecond when anybody tries to intimidate me is the moment that I no longer have the flexibility, because I will not be pressured or intimidated.

The next day, Diaz-Balart and 21 of his Republican colleagues voted against Jordan, and the House, at least for another day, remained without a speaker.

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Iowa state Rep. Brad Sherman took the stage at a Cedar Rapids auditorium as supporters of Donald Trump continued to file in, buzzing as they awaited the arrival of the former president.

Sherman began Saturday afternoon's program with a prayer.

"This is not a time for politics as usual, not a time for religion as usual, not a time for prayers as usual," said the Williamsburg Republican, who is also a pastor at Solid Rock Church in Coralville.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump stand for a prayer during a commit to caucus rally, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023, in Maquoketa, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

He prayed for Israel, which had been attacked by Hamas a day earlier, and said "we're at war in this nation as well"  a "spiritual war," in which the Republican frontrunner for president is on the front lines.

"They've shot their lying arrows at him, Lord, without cause," Sherman said of Trump. "His family and all those who seek good have become targets.  Lord, injustice is hanging over this nation like a dark storm."

Prayers and invocations like Sherman's are not unusual on the presidential campaign trail in Iowa, where Republican politicking intertwines itself with the Christian evangelical leanings shared by many potential caucusgoers.

Some devotions are directed at candidates  calling on God to "release your strategic planning upon President Trump," as a prayer in Ottumwa declared, or asking for attendees to "hear Vivek (Ramaswamy)'s heart," as Kimberly Chapman did at an event for the candidate in West Des Moines.

A few take aim at political opponents: A prayer to kick off a Tim Scott event in August asked the attendees to realize that those on the left "hate you, hate your word, in many cases hate our country."

The prayers, often accompanied by a pledge of allegiance and the national anthem, provide a glimpse into how religious leaders and attendees channel their frustrations with President Joe Biden, their fervor for a candidate or their policy priorities through their faith  at a time when division and unease increasingly define American politics.

"I think there's a high anxiety within people of faith, and it seems to be increased," said Bob Vander Plaats , CEO of conservative Christian advocacy group The Family Leader. "But I would say that it's kind of a broader reflection on the culture as a whole."

Iowa caucuses: Track candidates' visits to Iowa

Among Iowa evangelicals, 'spiritual war' manifests itself in the race for president

Sherman, who has endorsed Trump, believes both religion and politics "have drifted far away from what we were originally." Moving toward an electoral process fully imbued in faith, he says, is necessary to fight the "spiritual war" he spoke of on stage in Cedar Rapids.

"Few people seem to think about the fact that if demons and demonic spirits exist, then that means angels exist as well," he told the Register in an interview. "They're doing battle in the spirit."

The outcomes of those battles, he says, "often have a big effect on what's happening in the natural" world  including the results of the Iowa caucuses.

War in Ukraine, and now between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East, has lent a new urgency to those invocations. At an event for Ron DeSantis on Oct. 8, the Rev. Jeremy Higgins of Calvary Community Church, who said he had visited Israel 17 times, led a prayer in support of the country's military and civilians.

"Your word tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, so Lord, we do that, but also the nation of Israel as a whole," Higgins said. "And we also want to lift up the men and women in Gaza who aren't a part of these terrorist organizations, and there are so many who live there  who love you, Lord God, and have nothing to do with this."

That uncertainty abroad, combined with a critical primary cycle for the future of the Republican Party and a large chunk of religious voters in Iowa, has prompted some to demand even more direct involvement in the caucus process from parishes and faith leaders.

"I would be really, really glad, and I think some of the candidates, to really encourage more involvement by the faith community," Linn County Republican chair Bernie Hayes told the Register. "I feel that at least in circles that I run in, it's lackadaisical. They run from the word 'political.'"

Presidential hopefuls, courting voters of faith, viewed as 'instruments' of God

In the eyes of many faith leaders, the crowd of presidential hopefuls is more than just politicians vying for support in the first-in-the-nation caucus state  they're "instruments" of faith, given "assignments" and "callings" to lead, and "serve the interests of God."

Chapman, the Iowa lobbyist who serves as an adviser to Ramaswamy's campaign, said she had prayed and attended church alongside the entrepreneur and author. Though Ramaswamy is Hindu, she said, he "welcomes Christian prayer."

"Vivek, when you talk about being an instrument, and God using you as an instrument, that reminds me and my Christian faith of God using us as a vessel, is how we would say that," Chapman said as she introduced the candidate in West Des Moines earlier this month.

Other expressions of faith toward the candidates are more direct, even physical: at a Des Moines church in September, Rep. Jon Dunwell, R-Newton, led a prayer in which a group gathered around DeSantis and laid hands on him.

A crowd prays around Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as he holds a campaign event at a church in Des Moines, Iowa on Sept. 16, 2023.

Many are looking for the next torchbearer for what former President Ronald Reagan called a "spiritual revival," Vander Plaats said, centering faith in the world of conservative politics. (For his part, Vander Plaats has expressed a desire for the GOP to move on from Trump.)

Candidates traveling through Iowa aim to position themselves as the best one to usher in that revival  attending church, shaking hands and courting endorsements from faith leaders, and emphasizing their opposition to abortion.

The former president, who generally speaks little of his own faith, is preceded on stage at rallies by prayer, and leans on his record and previous support among evangelical voters.

But such prayers on the campaign trail shouldn't "have a personal agenda," Vander Plaats said, and should be focused on seeing "God's will be done" by an elected leader.

"Ultimately what you're doing in the act of prayer itself is recognizing that God is God, and you are not," Vander Plaats said, chuckling and adding "that seems to be a problem we have today."

Bob Vander Plaats, Governor Kim Reynolds, and Casey DeSantis applaud as Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis talks with moderator Tucker Carlson during the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Friday, July 14, 2023.

Sherman believes that "God does place assignments, callings" on people, and that includes candidates for elected office. He's not concerned by those who don't believe in blending prayer and politics.

"You can take just the flip side of that and say, well, I'm uncomfortable with people that don't believe in it," he said. "Christianity never forces itself on anyone. I mean, you can't legislate a heart change inside of somebody."

"I will stand for people's right to believe whatever they want to believe, that's freedom," Sherman added. "But I'm not going to be muzzled from telling what I believe."

Katie Akin and William Morris contributed reporting.

Galen Bacharier covers politics for the Register. Reach him at gbacharier@registermedia.com or (573) 219-7440, and follow him on Twitter @galenbacharier.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Prayer and politics go hand in hand on the Iowa Caucus campaign trail
A polygamous U.S. Navy veteran with a Top Secret security clearance was investigated by federal authorities for allegedly running guns to West Africa, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) search warrant affidavit obtained by The Daily Beast.

Adewale Ozioma Otaru, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Nigeria who served as a Seabee until May 2016, was arrested the following year in NigerNigerias northern neighborwhile attempting to smuggle one Sterling Springfield SAR-XV AR-15 rifle with an ACOG Optic as well as a Glock 19 Generation 4 9mm pistol in his luggage, the affidavit states.

After leaving the military, Otaru established a logistics and procurement company called El-Sahel Global Services International Ltd., which operated primarily on the African continent, according to the affidavit. It says Otaru put down roots in America and did contract work as a linguist for the Navy, but maintained a secret second life overseas.

According to the Regional Security Officer at the American Embassy in Niger, Otaru is currently married to two women and has two children with one of them, the affidavit states. One resides at his residence in Ashburn, VA and the second wife resides in Nigeria. Otaru told his wife who resides in Ashburn that he [would] never return [to the U.S.], according to an interview that the RSO conducted with the Consular Officer at the American Embassy, Niger.

Reached by phone on Thursday, Otaru told The Daily Beast that it was a trumped-up charge they put against me.

Some people between the U.S. Embassy and the local authorities found it necessary to get me expelled out of [Niger], which they successfully did, he said.

Otaru was never charged with a crime, according to court records.

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia

When he was arrested at the airport in Niamey, Niger on Aug. 2, 2017, Otaru was with late Nigerien diplomat Mahaman Padonou, who had flown over with him, according to the affidavit. Otaru hadnt declared the two firearms he had with him, nor had he obtained export licenses, a requirement on the U.S. side.

Upon arrival, Otaru and Padonou headed to the VIP arrivals building, where passengers generally do not get flagged for inspection, the affidavit explains. The two men claimed they met for the first time on the flight, according to the affidavit, but Otaru had paid for Padonous business class ticket, and the diplomat had listed Oyarus home address on his entry papers. Authorities were interested in Otaru at this point not for smuggling guns, but narcotics, and had flagged his name due to flight patterns and finances matching a targeting profile of a suspected smuggler, the affidavit states. He had also allegedly claimed on customs forms that he was a U.S. military captain and listed his local address as the U.S. Embassy in Niamey.

When cops searched Otarus bag and found the weapons, he was detained and questioned by the Regional Security Officer (RSO) assigned to the U.S. Embassy. Otaru claimed he had flown to the U.S. for a vacation to visit his family, and was bringing the firearms back to Niger for protection, according to the affidavit. He insisted he had filled out all the necessary paperwork. But Otarus U.S. family was in Niger at the time, claiming to be visiting him there, rendering his explanation for the trip to Virginia highly suspect, the affidavit continues.

Otaru was arrested in 2017 at the international airport in Nigers capital city of Niamey. Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images

A search of Otarus home in Niger turned up two fully loaded 30 round 5.56 magazines, which he is suspected of stealing from the U.S. Military, the affidavit goes on. Otaru claimed to the RSO that he used to arrange for range access for Special Forces soldiers, and he simply forgot to return the two magazines that had been left behind one day by soldiers.

This claim conflicts with the fact that he still had regular contact with U.S. Military personnel, the affidavit says.

The receipts Otaru had for the guns also appeared to be bogus which, the affidavit said, was indicative of Otaru trying to resell the firearm overseas for a profit.

On Thursday, Otaru disputed the version of events in the affidavit, telling The Daily Beast that he had properly checked in all of the weapons before flying to Niger from Dulles International. The RSO was out to get him, Otaru claimed, for reasons he wouldnt disclose. Otaru was taken to a jail cell at police headquarters in Niamey, where he was held pending removal from Niger.

On Sept. 8, 2017, U.S. authorities in Niger interviewed one of Otarus two wives, who had traveled to the country three months earlier from Virginia, the affidavit says. The RSO told her that another woman had gone to see Otaru at the jail, and that she also claimed to be married to the man she was calling her husband.

Otaru lived a double life in the U.S. and in Niger, which has been roiled of late by political instability. AFP via Getty Images

[Otarus U.S. wife] replied that she always suspected that [Otaru] was having an extramarital affair but could not believe that he would potentially marry another individual, the affidavit states. She said Otaru is a Christian and that polygamy is not acceptable. [Otarus U.S. wife] stated that she wanted to return with her two children to the United States but that she has no money.

Otarus wife claimed not to know Padonou, but said hes very well connected, according to the affidavit. She said Otarus life is in Niger now, and that he spent most of his time there.

Otaru was subsequently sent back to the U.S. and barred from returning to Niger. Today, he lives in North Carolina, he told The Daily Beast, referring on Thursday to his U.S. wife as his ex-wife.

I have a lot of inconvenience traveling through the airport anytime I travel now, he said. But Im back, doing my stuff here.

Otaru claimed Nigers interior-minister-turned-president, Mohamed Bazoum, is a close connection of his, and claimed he was the one who signed off on the permits to bring the guns into the country. Bazoum assumed the presidency in 2021, but was ousted by the Nigerien military in August.

The guys who took over the government are military people I worked with in the past, Otaru said. Theyre ready to make way for me to come back.

Whether he eventually sets up again in Niger, or stays put in the U.S., is yet to be seen. And while the incident that got him barred from Niger is still affecting Otarus life, he has managed to move on.

Its all in the past, Otaru said. Im in a better place today.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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PORT ST. LUCIE  The owner of troubled pool company Pro Pool Builders was held Thursday on $2.5 million bond after law enforcement officials accused him of defrauding more than 100 victims across the Treasure Coast.

George Galiszewski, 59, of Port St. Lucie, was booked in at the St. Lucie County jail Tuesday on charges including money laundering $100,00 or more; racketeering; misapplication of construction funds more than $100,000; first-degree grand theft-pursuant to a scheme or course of conduct; and aggravated white collar crime.

Hes a con man, Acting Port St. Lucie Police Assistant Chief Leo Niemczyk said Thursday. He was in it for money, and he didn't care about the victims.

Millions collected in deposits

From February 2021 to April 2022, Niemczyk said, Pro Pool Builders collected more than $2.5 million in deposits from victims across the Treasure Coast while completing three pools during this time.

Galiszewski closed the business in April 2022, leaving 104 victims with either partial construction or no construction at all, authorities said.

In addition, Galiszewski failed to pay $221,000 owed to subcontractors, Niemczyk said.

Most of the victims  64  were in Port St. Lucie; 29 were in unincorporated Martin County; six in unincorporated St. Lucie County; four in unincorporated Indian River County; and one in Stuart, police said.

Niemczyk said Galiszewski funded a lavish lifestyle, traveling to Costa Rica and visiting the most expensive restaurants on the Treasure Coast. He also spent some of the money on dating sites and fishing gear, Niemczyk said.

I don't think he was very remorseful, Niemczyk said.

He said Galiszewski is a convicted felon and unable to get a license for contracting.

He used people  he got somebody to go on paper to be his owner in name, and then he got another person with a contractor's license to hang his license on the business name, Niemczyk said. So he drug other people in it with him.

The investigation is ongoing, Niemczyk said.

Consumers need to be diligent

Residents should do their research before hiring contractors or builders, St. Lucie County sheriffs Capt. Troy Norman suggested.

They don't need to just pick the cheapest person, Norman said. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Norman urged the public to contact the Better Business Bureau to check out contractors, and that a simple Google search will go a long ways.

About half the pools were partially completed, Niemczyk said, and several victims were left with great big holes in their yards right beside their home.

Foundations were threatened in some cases, while others were left with no work whatsoever, Niemczyk said.

Indian River County sheriffs Capt. Joe Abollo credited the work of detectives and the agencies working together.

When a crime like this comes in our area, beware, because we're going to come after you, he said.

Arrests in fatal shooting: Three from Miami arrested after deadly August shooting in Port St. Lucie

Circuit Judge sworn in: Peers laud Circuit Judge Anastasia Norman in lively investiture ceremony

Indian River County sheriffs officials in April 2022 on social media reported they were looking for possible victims of fraud regarding the building of their pool by Pro Pool Builders." The Martin County Sheriff's Office also asked for residents to file complaints about Pro Pool.

About the same time, the Martin County Building Department reported Pro Pool Builders of Stuart, with an office on Ellipse Way, had at least a dozen complaints of incomplete pools in the county.

Galiszewski wasnt in business long, Niemczyk said, so he lacked a history with the Better Business Bureau and his quotes were under market value.

I think there were plenty of red flags. Just you have to do your due diligence, and it's a shame, but he took advantage of people, Niemczyk said.

Will Greenlee is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow Will on X @OffTheBeatTweet or reach him by phone at 772-267-7926. E-mail him at will.greenlee@tcpalm.com.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Pool company owner victimized more than 100, police say
By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis may attend the COP28 climate conference starting next month in Dubai, Vatican sources say, to drive home his recent appeal for action to curb global warming.

It would be the first time a pope has attended a U.N. climate change conference since they began in 1995.

Francis wants to go to Dubai, Cardinal Pietro Parolin , the Vatican's Secretary of State, told Reuters on the sidelines of a Catholic-Jewish event in Rome on Wednesday, adding that no final decision had been taken.

Other Vatican sources put the probability that the pope would go to the Nov. 30-Dec. 12 event as high as 90 percent.

Heads of state usually attend only the opening sessions of the conferences and make keynote addresses. U.S. President Joe Biden spoke at the start of the last two meetings at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, last year and Glasgow, Scotland in 2021. Such conferences are also occasions for bilateral meetings.

Francis, 86, has made protection of the environment one of the hallmarks of his papacy and met last week with COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber.

In a major document on Oct. 4, Francis appealed to climate change deniers and foot-dragging politicians to have a change of heart, saying they cannot gloss over human causes or deride science while the planet "may be nearing the breaking point".

The document, known as an Apostolic Exhortation and titled Laudate Deum (Praise God), was a follow-up to Francis' 2015 encyclical on the environment "Laudato Si" (Praise Be).

It was prompted by recent extreme weather events and mentioned the challenges facing COP28 several times.

Failure in Dubai, Francis said in the document, "will be a great disappointment and jeopardize whatever good has been achieved thus far".

Francis uses a cane and wheelchair because of a knee ailment but his mobility issues have not prevented him from keeping a full schedule. In September, he made a trip to Mongolia and the French city of Marseilles.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella, editing by Deborah Kyvrikosaios)
Carrying signs that said Please Care, Dont Ruin Our Port and What Happened to the Dream, Port Royal residents sent a strong message regarding a redevelopment plan for the towns waterfront during a protest Thursday.

The rally for changes in the port property project coincided with a special closed-door meeting that the Town Council had planned to discuss the development with officials with property owner Safe Harbor Marinas and their affiliates.

Thursdays meeting was the third executive session to discuss the port development this month. After 90 minutes, members of the council emerged and Mayor Joe DeVito said no action would be taken regarding the situation.

The protest, which drew 20-25 people, was an unusual show of defiance at Town Hall but indicative of the growing frustration with the project planned along a two-mile stretch of waterfront that the town has been eager to see developed for decades.

Its one of the most exceptional harbors on the East Coast and we want their development to reflect that, said Marcy Roy, one of the organizers.

Gail Brazell was one of about 20 Port Royal residents who showed up at the Town Hall Thursday to protest the waterfront development plans of Safe Harbor Marinas. The Town Council held an a behind-closed-doors executive session with Safe Harbor later to discuss those plans.

Residents dont want to see rental townhomes constructed, an idea that was proposed previously, Roy said. They are also worried that the marina will have too much boat storage and heavy duty boat repair.

As Town Council members and officials affiliated with Safe Harbor arrived, residents raised their signs and briefly spoke to some of them.

Tricia Fidrych addresses Scheaffer Watt, a project manager for Watt Inc., the construction management company working for Safe Harbor Marinas, as he arrives at a Town Council meeting at Port Royal Town Hall Thursday. Residents were protesting because they are not happy with Safe Harbors development plans for the towns water front.

Safe Harbor, pay attention! one person yelled as Scheaffer Watt, a project manager for Watt Inc., a construction management company working for Safe Harbor, arrived. Well be your neighbors.

Go fight for us, one resident yelled as Councilman Jerry Ashmore entered the building. Ashmore shook hands with the residents and thanked them for coming.

Residents then entered the meeting room and paraded around in front of members of the council members before they voted to close it to the public. Council members have raised their owns concerns with the project and thats why they are getting legal advice and discussing the plans with Safe Harbor in executive session.

Under the states Freedom of Information Act, public bodies can hold a meeting closed to the public for certain, specified reasons. One of those reasons is to get legal advice. Another reason relates to economic development or discussion of matters relating to the proposed location, expansion, or the provision of services encouraging location or expansion of industries or other businesses in the area served by the public body. Town council members cited economic development as the reason for Thursdays executive session.

Residents of Port Royal protested before the Town Council Thursday evening before council members went into executive session to discuss the waterfront marina and housing plans by Safe Harbor Marinas. Residents are displeased with the plans. Officials affiliated with Safe Harbor Marina were seated in the first row.

The town needs to get back to the original vision for the port that was developed two decades ago, said Joe Lee, another resident. That vision was a mix of a marina, retail, single family homes and a hotel.

The marina and housing are planned on 50 acres of 317 acres Safe Harbor bought in November 2021 from Grey Ghost Properties. At the time of the purchase, Jason Hogg, chief investment officer for Safe Harbor, promised a world class boating destination.
As Nigerias Supreme Court prepares to make a final decision on a disputed election that handed Bola Tinubu the presidency, his opponents continue to call for his removal. Recent social media posts alleged that a US military leader warned the Supreme Court against ruling in Tinubus favour or face "consequences". But the claim is false: AFP Fact Check confirmed the person in question is an Australian researcher and writer. Social media posts misrepresented his background after he commented on Tinubu in a podcast.

"US warns Nigeria's Supreme Court against confirming Tinubu as president," reads a post published on X, formerly Twitter, on October 14, 2023.

A screenshot of the false post, taken on October 18, 2023

It includes photos of US President Joe Biden and Nigerian leader Bola Tinubu. The purported warning, according to the claim, was issued by "US military general" Gregory Copley during an interview about the outcome of Nigerias elections in February.

Shared more than 1,900 times, the claim was posted by a known supporter of Nigerian opposition Labour Partys Peter Obi .

Jackson Ude, the publisher of the US-based Point Blank News, published a similar post, claiming that Copley is a "major general" in the US military and, in that capacity, warned of the "dire consequences if the supreme court affirms Bola Tinubus presidency (sic)".

Udes post features a nine-minute audio interview between Copley and an anchor who identifies himself as John Batchelor.

A former Tinubu ally and opposition politician, Dele Momodu, shared a photo of the front page of a Nigerian newspaper that he owns, headlined: "General Gregory Copley predicts Armageddon in Nigeria."

The same news outlet also published a report in which Copley was identified as a "prominent American citizen" and a "general".

The claim also circulated on X and Facebook, including here, here and here.

Disputed election

Nigerias Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the February presidential elections.

But opposition parties rejected the results, alleging the poll was marred by widespread violence and rigging.

Tinubus closest challengers, Obi and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), petitioned an election tribunal to set aside the results, with each of them claiming victory.

The tribunal ruled in Tinubus favour on September 6, 2023 (archived here). Obi and Abubakar then appealed to the countrys Supreme Court, which is yet to make a ruling.

The claim that the US has warned the court against upholding Tinubus election victory is false.

Not a US official

A keyword search for "Gregory Copley" led to a LinkedIn profile for Gregory R. Copley (archived here).

Copley lists his work experience as being the president of the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA) as well as the editor-in-chief of the Defense & Foreign Affairs Publications.

ISSA describes itself (archived here) as a Washington DC-based non-government association of professionals involved in "national management, particularly in national and international security and strategic policy".

There is no mention of any military experience or of him ever being employed by the US government.

Seconds into the audio clip in Udes post, the speaker identifies himself as John Batchelor and introduces his colleague "Gregory Copley" as the publisher of the Defense and Foreign Affairs website (archived here).

A keyword search for "John Batchelor Gregory Copley" led to the original version of the audio clip published on a podcast-hosting website called AudioBoom (archived here).

Information on the page shows that the clip was an episode of The John Batchelor Show, and Batchelor is the host.

Batchelor also posted a link to the podcast on X (formerly Twitter) on October 11, 2023, without any reference to Copley being an army General or spokesperson of the United States (archived here).

#Nigeria: Compromising questions raised about the representations by President Bola Tinubu. Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs https://t.co/oKBO6j6SkJ via @Audioboom  John Batchelor (@batchelorshow) October 11, 2023

AFP Fact Check contacted Copley who said he is an Australian and obviously was not a spokesman for the US government.

I was never a major general in the US military, he wrote in an email to AFP Fact Check. I am an Australian citizen.

US support

The United States was one of the first Western countries to congratulate Tinubu when he was sworn in as president in May.

Biden said in a statement on May 29, 2023, that he looked forward to working with "President Tinubu to support economic growth, advance security, and promote respect for human rights" (archived here).

Biden and Tinubu also met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in India in September. The US leader praised his Nigerian counterpart for his "strong leadership as the chair of the Economic Community of West African States to defend and preserve democracy and the rule of law in Niger and the broader region" (archived here).
After two failed floor votes, and his number of Republican supporters in decline, Representative Jim Jordan is backing down from his bid for House speaker.

The Ohio Republican announced Thursday morning that he would not be pursuing an additional floor vote, reported The Washington Post. Instead, Jordan is reversing course and backing a plan to expand the powers of Representative Patrick McHenry s temporary speakership until January.

Its currently unclear how many Republicans will get behind McHenry, though predictions havent been rosy. Ahead of a short recess, Texas Representative Pat Fallon estimated that two-thirds of the caucus will oppose the resolution, reported Punchbowl Newss John Bresnahan.

Other Republicans appeared frustrated and even betrayed by the turn of events, openly fuming to press about the McHenry plan.

Its absurd, Indiana Representative Jim Banks told Fox News, noting that at least half of the Republican members in the House plan to vote against it. It was the biggest F.U. to Republican voters Ive ever seen.

Its going to take Democrats to make it happen. And thats a historic betrayal to our Republican voters if we go along with it. Its a big mistake, Banks added.

Arizona Representative Debbie Lesko allegedly told Jordan that he should step down if he supports the McHenry resolution, snubbing Jordans behavior as self-serving, according to Politicos Olivia Beavers.

Meanwhile, House Democrats have their own set of requirements for the fill-in.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats want assurances that the temporary speaker will support the previously negotiated debt limit deal and consider supplemental aid to Ukraine and Israel. They also are demanding that whoever fills the seat be someone who voted to certify the 2020 presidential election results, reported Punchbowl Newss Heather Caygle.

McHenry refused to respond to any questions regarding the impending decision, reported Fox Newss Chad Pergram.
President Joe Biden will address the nation in televised comments Thursday. Biden last used a prime-time address to talk about the U.S debt ceiling (pictured in June). File Photo by Jim Watson/UPI

Oct. 18 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden will speak to the nation in a televised address Thursday night as his administration prepares to seek billions of dollars from Congress to support both war-torn Israel and Ukraine.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday said the Oval Office address will be delivered at 8 p.m. ET.

Biden's televised appearance comes amid the brutal conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that began Oct. 7 when militants killed hundreds of Israelis in a cross-border raid, and at a time when Ukraine -- at war against an invading Russia -- is in need of more aid to continue its yearslong struggle.

Biden reportedly is preparing to ask Congress for billions of dollars to fund U.S. efforts to support Israel, Ukraine and even Indo-Pacific countries, as well as bolstering security along the southern U.S. border.

Biden is completing a quick trip to Israel on Wednesday, during which he expressed steadfast U.S. support for Israel, as well as the need for delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

During that trip, the president voiced his support for Egypt's decision to allow a limited convoy of supplies to enter the territory despite blockades.

In addition to supporting Israel, the United States has sent tens of billions of dollars in weapons and aid to Ukraine, too.

The White House has said that additional support could be slowed without action from Congress. And that's going to be difficult in the short term because of how a long series of aid packages to Ukraine is a sticking point for many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Washington.

Aid for Ukraine even has served as a factor in the U.S. House of Representatives' chaotic search for its next speaker, as many Republican lawmakers object to sending more assistance to Ukraine without stricter oversight while others in the party are more hawkish.

While an emergency aid package for Israel has attracted broad bipartisan support in recent days, some lawmakers also have said that it is fiscally irresponsible to financially assist both Israel and Ukraine simultaneously.

Biden, though, has scoffed at that notion.

"We're the United States of America, for God's sake," Biden said during a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday. "The most powerful nation in the history -- not in the world, in the history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense."

Biden last used a prime-time address to discuss the U.S debt ceiling.
President Joe Biden will give remarks from the Oval Office Thursday evening during primetime about the wars in Israel and Ukraine.

USA TODAY will be providing live coverage of Biden's address, which begins at 8 p.m. ET. You can watch at the video at the top of this page or on USA TODAY's YouTube channel.

Biden's remarks follow his trip to Israel this week, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pledged support in the Jewish state's war against Hamas and sought to prevent the war from expanding into a larger conflict.

Biden arrived as tensions were mounting after an explosion Tuesday at a Gaza City hospital that had been treating wounded Palestinians and sheltering many more who were seeking a refuge from the fighting.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza blamed an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military said the destruction was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket. The blast prompted worldwide outrage and protests.

At the start of a meeting with Netanyahu, Biden said it did not appear that Israel was to blame.

President Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport.

Updates: Gaza 'safe zones' bombed; US armored vehicles delivered to Israel; Hamas on aid

Biden's Thursday address will also cover the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a $200 million military aid package for Ukraine that includes ammunition for air defense and artillery ammuniton and anti-tank and -drone weapons. This weapons shipment is the latest since Russia invaded in February 2022, bringing total American military support to more than $40 billion.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden speech livestream: President to address Israel, Ukraine wars
Demonstrators, calling for a cease-fire in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, protest inside the Cannon House Office Building at the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. | Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, Associated Press

More than 300 pro-Palestinian protesters were in the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, leading to several arrests by Capitol police officers.

A large group of demonstrators, who say they were with the groups Jewish Voice for Peace, and IfNotNow, gathered in the rotunda in the Cannon House Office Building where they staged a sit-in, according to multiple reports. Hundreds of other protesters gathered outside. They chanted Cease-fire now.

The Anti-Defamation League calls Jewish Voice for Peace a radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates for a complete economic, cultural and academic boycott of the state of Israel.

The House and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms sent a memo to congressional offices advising lawmakers to take underground tunnels and to remain inside during the protests, while bike-rack barriers were put up around the Cannon Building, according to the Washington Examiner.

Capitol police officers arrested several of the protesters Wednesday evening, including three who were arrested for assaulting an officer, according to a U.S. Capitol Police social media post. By 4 p.m. MDT, the Rotunda was cleared, they reported.

U.S. Capitol Police officers detain demonstrators protesting inside the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. | Jose Luis Magana, Associated Press

While some, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene called the demonstrators insurrectionists, most lawmakers seemed generally unruffled by the protests.

Utah Sen. Mike Lees communications director Billy Gribbin told the Deseret News the senator was busy with his usual work Wednesday.

Sen. Lee stands with the victims of terrorism in Israel, Gribbin said. He spent the day crafting new legislation with his colleagues, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act with a speech at the Heritage Foundation, and working for the people of Utah.
More than 300 participants in an anti-war demonstration calling for an end to the war between Israel and the Hamas group have been detained in Washington. Some people entered the Capitol building during the rally.

Source: European Pravda, citing ABC News

On 18 October, hundreds gathered around and inside the Capitol complex, calling for an end to the war between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Additional law enforcement officers from other districts were transferred to the Capitol because of the protest.

A spokesman for the Capitol Police said that about 300 protesters had been detained in the Capitol complex.

KENT NISHIMURA/BLOOMBERG

Some demonstrators, coordinated by the left-wing Jewish group Jewish Voice for Peace, entered the Cannon House office building through various entrances and gathered inside the rotunda.

The police explained that the protesters, like the public, were allowed to enter the Capitol complex, and that they would only be in trouble if they were disorderly.

A similar demonstration occurred near the White House earlier this week, where dozens of protesters were detained.

Background:

The White House announced there would be a special address by US President Joe Biden on the wars in Israel and Ukraine on Friday night, Kyiv time.

There have been media reports saying that US President Joe Biden expects US$60 billion for Ukraine and aid for Israel to be allocated in his US$100 billion funding request.

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PROVIDENCE  City Council members will hear two competing reactions to the violence in Israel and Gaza on Thursday in dueling symbolic resolutions.

One resolution, from Ward 1 Council Member John Goncalves, condemns "Hamas Barbaric Terror Attacks on Israel" as the "worst perpetration of violence against the Jewish people since the Holocaust," while emphasizing Israel's right to defend itself.

"The people of Israel have a right to ensure security and peace from the threat of terrorism," Goncalves' resolution says. "The community at large must stand shoulder-to-shoulder and in solidarity in condemning Hamas terrorism in all its forms and in supporting humanitarian efforts to achieve lasting and just peace in the region. Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved, That the City of Providence condemns in the strongest possible terms the terrorist activities carried out by Hamas and extremist groups targeting innocent civilians."

Second resolution brief but includes both sides in conflict

The other resolution, from council President Rachel Miller and Councilman Miguel Sanchez, is almost cryptic in its brevity, one sentence compared to a full page from Goncalves.

"Now, therefore, be it resolved, That the City of Providence is united against terrorism and ethnic cleansing," the resolution says in full.

Which group is responsible for the terrorism and which for the ethnic cleansing is not spelled out and there is no mention of the words "Hamas," "Israel," "Palestine" or "Gaza."

In Washington, progressives call for ceasefire in Gaza

The dueling Providence resolutions amid rising tensions over the extent of American support for Israeli military action. Progressive protestors in Washington  many of them Jewish  called for a ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday and for President Joe Biden to pressure the Israeli government to refrain from invading the territory.

The Rhode Island chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the progressive groups protesting in Washington for a Gaza ceasefire, on Wednesday called on council members to reject Goncalves' resolution.

"By failing to also address the thousands of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military during its ongoing siege of Gaza, this Resolution contributes to escalating conflict and the dehumanization of Palestinians," a news release from Jewish Voice for Peace  Rhode Island said.

"As American Jews, we have been horrified to see the Israeli and U.S. governments rushing to weaponize the October 7 deaths of Israeli civilians to fuel a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, pledging to open the gates of hell, the statement said. "We condemn the horrific violence and collective punishment that has since been perpetrated against innocent civilians through bombing and cutting off water, electricity and food supplies."

Sanchez felt need to speak 'to both sides of the situation'

In a phone call Wednesday, Sanchez said he introduced his brief resolution in response to Goncalves' resolution.

"When I saw my colleague put something in that was very one sided, I thought I had to put something in that spoke to both parts of the situation," Sanchez said. "Obviously the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians are not OK, and we should be strongly condemning that, but we need to be speaking out on what has been happening for decades to the people of Palestine and what has been ethnic cleansing."

Sanchez was endorsed by Rhode Island's Democratic Socialists of America chapter, which has taken among the most aggressive pro-Palestinian stances to the attacks in the state. It said over the weekend that Israel "set the stage for the recent violence through its 16-year blockade on Gaza as well as a seven-decade long ethnic cleansing of Palestinians." It did not mention Hamas.

Asked about DSA's position, Sanchez said he does condemn Hamas for the violence, but believes there needs to be a "bigger conversation that looks at the whole story."

State Sen. Kallman: 'Countering terror with more terror is never justified'

In the General Assembly, Sen. Meghan Kallman, a Pawtucket Democrat and member of Jewish Voice for Peace, said Hamas "does not represent Palestinians in Gaza" and "murdered over 1,400 Israelis. That's more people than every mass shooting in the US since 1982 combined."

But, she said, even more Palestinians, including children, have died as a result of Israeli bombs.

"Countering terror with terror is never justified. Killing children is never justified. When one side controls food, water, electricity and internet, and receives billions in US military funding, that doesn't any longer count as 'conflict'  which implies to equal sides," she said. "As Jews, and as human beings, we are called to say aloud that if actions of the past few days towards Palestinians in Gaza continue, we will have lived through  and watched  forms of oppression, mass violence and displacement, that are war crimes."

Goncalves' resolution does include support for "self-determination, peace, tolerance, meaningful dialogue and negotiations aimed at achieving a comprehensive and peaceful resolution to any Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

And it calls on world leaders to "ensure that operations follow international humanitarian law to protect innocentcivilians, both Israeli and Palestinian."

Although Goncalves didn't respond directly to the Jewish Voice for Peace hit, late Wednesday he posted that "You can 1) Support Israel and Palestinian rights 2) without supporting Hamas/an extremist terrorist group. ... All innocent civilians must be protected during this humanitarian crisis in Israel and Gaza."

But like the two candidates in this year's congressional special election, Goncalves does not call for a ceasefire or any restrictions on Israeli military operations in Gaza.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence councilmen, state lawmaker, speak out on Israel, Gaza
Pulse Nightclub property to be purchased by Orlando for permanent memorial

The city of Orlando, Florida, plans to buy the Pulse Nightclub site where 49 people were massacred seven years ago, with plans to create a permanent memorial for the victims.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer made the announcement Wednesday that involves city council taking up the proposal to purchase the property for $2 million next week.

"When the site becomes a permanent memorial, it will be a place for reflection and love," Dyer posted, along with a link to his full statement.

If approved by council on Monday, the sale would close by the end of the month, according to local news media outlets.

FLORIDA MAN ARRESTED AFTER PULSE NIGHTCLUB MEMORIAL SET ON FIRE, AUTHORITIES SAY

City Commissioner Patty Sheehan told FOX 35 Orlando that no one on the council has been vocally opposed to the proposal.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"We are thankful to the City of Orlando for ensuring that the National Pulse Memorial will be located at the Pulse nightclub site, which was always the hope of families of the 49 victims and the Pulse-impacted community. We look forward to being a part of the discussion with the City of Orlando as this moves forward," the onePulse Foundation, the nonprofit that had been leading efforts to build a memorial and museum, wrote on Facebook.

The foundation terminated its lease and handed the interim memorial over to the property owners, Barbara and Rosario Poma and businessman Michael Panaggio, WESH 2 News reported in August.

Barbara Poma was the executive director of the onePulse Foundation, but stepped down as executive director last year and left the organization entirely earlier this year, according to The Associated Press.

PELOSI RENEWS GUN CONTROL PUSH ON ANNIVERSARY OF PULSE NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING

The nonprofit also said earlier this year that it was scaling back from its plans for a large memorial with a $100 million price tag following fundraising challenges.

Omar Mateen opened fire in the nightclub on June 12, 2016, leaving 49 people dead and 53 wounded. At the time, it was the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. However, that number was surpassed the following year when 58 people were killed and more than 850 were injured among a crowd of 22,000 at a country music festival in Las Vegas.

Mateen was killed after a three-hour standoff with SWAT team members. He had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.





Original article source: Pulse Nightclub property to be purchased by Orlando for permanent memorial
ORLANDO, Fla.  The city of Orlando plans to purchase the Pulse nightclub, the location of what was once the nation's deadliest mass shooting, in order to advance the many fitful efforts to build a permanent memorial.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, announced the city's intent to purchase the land before beginning work on a memorial for the victims and survivors of the massacre that killed 49 people and injured 53 in 2016.

In the interest of solving challenges in a way that brings our community together in love, acceptance and partnership, which is the enduring legacy of Pulse, we have decided to purchase the land from its current owners, Dyer said. We believe that this is the best and most appropriate way to expedite the creation of a proper memorial for the Pulse tragedy.

The proposed $2 million land purchase will go before the city council on Monday, Dyer said.

A visitor looks over a display with the photos and names of the 49 victims that died at the Pulse nightclub.

What happened at Pulse nightclub?

On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen walked into the gay nightclub and opened fire, killing 49 people and wounded 53 others. It was the nations deadliest mass shooting until a year later when a gunman killed 60 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas. Mateen was shot and killed at the scene by Orlando police.

In the seven years since the massacre, efforts to build a memorial have been mired in debate and controversy. The onePulse Foundation, a nonprofit that's led efforts to build a permanent memorial and museum at the nightclub, has been unable to fulfill its proposals. Barbara Poma  who has owned the property with her husband Rosario and businessman Michael Panaggio  stepped down as executive director of the nonprofit last year. Some months ago, she exited the organization entirely, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

The foundation, meanwhile, scaled back plans for a $100 million memorial, citing fundraising challenges.

Orlando's Pulse nightclub was the site of what's considered the deadliest LGBTQ-targeted mass shooting in modern history. The nightclub site now has a temporary memorial, with plans to build a permanent monument and museum.

Reaction to city purchase of 'sacred ground'

In a statement emailed to USA TODAY, Deborah Bowie, the executive director of onePulse Foundation, thanked the mayor for advocating a purchase plan.

"We are thankful to the City of Orlando for ensuring that the National Pulse Memorial will be located at the Pulse nightclub site, which was always the hope of families of the 49 victims and the Pulse-impacted community," Bowie said. "We look forward to being a part of the discussion with the City of Orlando as this moves forward."

Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting and activist, stands outside of the Pulse memorial in Orlando, Fla., on Sept. 9, 2022. After mass shootings, the loss felt by marginalized groups already facing discrimination is compounded. Some public health experts say the risk for post-traumatic stress disorder is greater for the groups, especially when the shootings take place at schools, churches and other vital hubs. (AP Photo/Cody Jackson)

Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the deadly shooting and an activist, said in an interview with USA TODAY, its past time for the Pulse-affected community to see some progress on a permanent memorial.

In my view, the Pulse is sacred ground. Its the last place I got to spend time with the people I love most in the world  the place I still feel closest to them, he said. And so I think it really matters that were finally moving forward to create a permanent place where folks can breathe, reflect and honor those who were stolen from them.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, praised the deal struck between property owners and the city. "This is the right thing to do  the site of Pulse is sacred for so many of us and should not be sold to the highest bidder," she said on X. "I am grateful for the City of Orlando for listening to Pulse families and taking this important step."

In 2021, President Joe Biden signed a law designating the Pulse nightclub in Orlando as a national memorial.

Yearslong journeys to build other mass shooting memorials

Construction of other permanent memorials commemorating deadly mass shootings in the U.S. has often taken years.

In Newtown, Connecticut, the families of victims and survivors of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting  which killed 20 first graders and six adults  had to wait 10 years for a memorial.

In Aurora, Colorado, an avian-themed memorial opened six years after 13 people were killed in a mass shooting at a movie theater in July 2012.

A memorial to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in Newtown, Conn., Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)

In June, designers unveiled renderings for a permanent memorial honoring those impacted by the Harvest Festival mass shooting, six years after the October 2017 massacre at the Las Vegas Strip.

Also in June, construction workers broke ground on a permanent memorial dedicated to the lives of the nine members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, who were fatally shot by an admitted white supremacist in 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pulse nightclub to be sold to city of Orlando for shooting memorial
The Kremlin has turned to China as a crucial buyer as the West cuts Russian energy imports over the conflict in Ukraine (Sergei SAVOSTYANOV)

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed Thursday the "unprecedented" energy links between Moscow and Beijing despite failing to secure a much-sought agreement on a major new gas pipeline.

Russia has been hit by massive Western sanctions over its Ukraine offensive, and with Europe trying to sever its energy links with Moscow, the Kremlin has looked eastwards to replace crucial lost export revenue.

"Relations in the overall partnership and strategic cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Chinese People's Republic have reached an unprecedented high level and continue to develop dynamically," Putin said in a statement addressing a Russian-Chinese energy forum in Beijing.

"One of the key areas of this relationship is energy cooperation, which is becoming increasingly active," he added.

Putin was wrapping up a two-day visit to China, his first outside the former Soviet Union this year and part of the Kremlin's drive to strengthen its economic partnerships across Asia.

But the trip appeared not to have led to a breakthrough with Beijing over the "Power of Siberia 2" gas pipeline -- a massive new gas link to China through Mongolia that Russia wants to build.

The initiative would export gas from Russia's Siberian fields that used to supply Europe, potentially doubling the volumes Russia can send to China via pipeline.

- China's top oil supplier -

On Tuesday, Putin had assured his Mongolian counterpart that an agreement on Power of Siberia 2, which would pass through the steppes of Mongolia to reach northeast China, was on track.

"Everyone agrees with this project (...) It's a question of implementation. I think we will move forward at a good pace," he said.

Moscow hopes to start building the pipeline in 2024, but there were no public statements from Russian or Chinese officials that a deal had been reached during Putin's time in Beijing.

The head of the Russian gas company Gazprom, Alexei Miller, hailed on Thursday a 46.6 percent increase in exports through the existing "Power of Siberia" pipeline so far this year.

Russia launched that pipeline in 2019, under a landmark 30-year contract worth $400 billion.

The Power of Siberia is ramping up to a maximum capacity of 38 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year -- though this is less than the 55 bcm capacity of each of the two Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany.

Europe cut its pipeline imports from Russia after Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine, while blasts to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines last September could have put them permanently out of operation.

Russia has also significantly boosted its oil exports to China, often selling at a discount amid a price cap on Russia's seaborne crude exports being imposed by the G7, EU and Australia.

The head of Russian oil company Rosneft, Igor Sechin, told the same energy forum where Putin was speaking that "over 75 percent" of Russia's exports to neighbouring China are energy linked.

He said that Russia was China's main oil supplier in 2023, overtaking Saudi Arabia.

bur/rl
Queen's University Belfast has set itself a target of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2040.

That is 10 years ahead of Northern Ireland's legally-binding national target of 2050.

The Net Zero Plan is the successor to the Carbon Management Plan, published by the university in 2010.

That had reduced emissions by 21%, mostly through energy efficiency and waste reduction projects.

The university has admitted most of the "low-hanging fruit" in terms of straightforward emission reductions has already been harvested.

"The real challenge comes with those emissions that are indirect," said Sara Lynch, head of sustainability at the university.

"So how are our staff and students travelling to the university; how are our staff travelling while on business; what are we buying; and what is the carbon associated with those products? It's trying to drive that down.

"That's much more challenging but something we need to address."

Vexatious politics

Net zero is when the amount of greenhouse gases, like carbon and methane, released into the atmosphere is offset by the steps taken to remove those emissions from the air.

The university's plan was launched on Thursday by renowned environmentalist Sir Jonathon Porritt.

He told an audience gathered at the university he was concerned that some young people felt excluded from addressing climate change but that the target set by Queen's was "very exciting".

"For a big institution like Queen's University, 2040 is just around the corner," he said.

"Some of the harder stuff entails active partnerships with other key players in Belfast - and of course that's not as easy as it should be today because the politics of Northern Ireland are pretty vexatious.

"Until that gets sorted, it's hard, even for the real leaders in a university like Queen's, it's really hard to do."

The Net Zero Plan plan has taken the university's 2018-19 emissions - 105,430 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent - as a baseline because of the disruption Covid-19 has caused in recent years.

In a survey last year, the sector body Universities UK - of which Queen's is a member - found there had been an increase in the number of universities across the UK committing to net-zero targets.

In 2017 Queen's announced that it was set to disinvest from fossil fuels after a two-year student campaign.

The university said at the time that it would remove investment from extraction and production companies by 2025.

In 2015 students from the campaign group Fossil Free QUB occupied part of the university's administration building in a protest to highlight their call for Queen's to sell shares it holds in fossil fuel firms.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A family ranch thats been operating in Nevada since 1883 filed a lawsuit Tuesday to force the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to round up wild horses that are damaging rangeland where it has permits to graze cattle.

Tom Colvin Jr., who raises cattle in central Nevada on sprawling rangelands about 30 miles east of Tonopah, has had enough with delays since the BLM itself agreed in 2022 that a roundup was necessary on the Stone Cabin Complex. Now hes going after the BLM in U.S. District Court.

Colvin & Son, LLC, and Stone Cabin Ranch, LLC, are the plaintiffs in the 30-page lawsuit. Defendants are U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning, Nevada BLM Director Jon Raby, Battle Mountain District Manager Doug Furtado and Tonopah Office Field Manager Perry B. Wickham.

Its a simple argument. BLM sees the need to remove 689 wild horses from the range  so do it already. The law that directs the BLM to control herd sizes doesnt allow for excuses the agency gave for not starting the roundup immediately.

BLMs Nevada grazing leases at center of new lawsuit citing agencys failure

The Reno law firm representing Colvin & Son has zeroed in on statements the BLM made in giving reasons for not starting immediately after it started the process in October of 2022. According to the lawsuit, the agency initially said it needed to have a place to put the horses once they were gathered, and the agency needed funding for the operation.

Corrals might be full, and the BLM budget might be tight, but the law is the law, according to the lawsuit.

Those off-site conditions, as described in the lawsuit, dont matter under the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burro Act of 1971. The law says the job will be done immediately, and thats what Colvin & Son want. Now.

The Stone Cabin Ranch operates on lands along U.S. 6, which cuts across the middle of the state.

The BLMs own data from March 1, 2022, indicated the Stone Cabin herd management area had 650 head of wild horses  237% above the high end of the Appropriate Management Level (AML). The adjacent Saulsbury herd management area (part of the Stone Cabin Complex) had 337 wild horses  703% above high AML.

The lawsuit indicates Colvin & Son agreed to reduced grazing  taking up to 56% suspension of animal unit months  on the Stone Cabin, Hunts Canyon and Willow Creek allotments. The entire area covers about 880,000 acres.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the delays related to off-site conditions a violation of the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burro Act, and a court order for the BLM to proceed with the roundup. It also seeks attorney fees, court costs and any further relief as the Court deems just, proper, and equitable.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
For only the second time, a critically endangered fish has been successfully born in captivity, marking an important step in conserving the species.

SeaWorld Orlando welcomed three baby smalltooth sawfish in July and announced the births on International Sawfish Day, Oct. 17.

The newborns include two females and one male, born on July 11, 2023, and each measured approximately two feet in length, SeaWorld said in an Oct. 18 Facebook post. Following their birth, the pups underwent a comprehensive examination, and continue to receive regular check-ups to ensure their sustained health and expected developmental progress.

Their births are a historical milestone, SeaWorld said.

Smalltooth sawfish, Pristis pectinata, are a type of fish that have a flat body and long protrusion called a rostrum, according to the National Wildlife Federation.

Along the rostrum are dozens of teeth, earning them the name sawfish, the NWF said.

They use their rostrum to sweep through the sediment along the seafloor, swiping back and forth to cut their prey.

Smalltooth sawfish spanned the entire Eastern Seaboard into the Gulf of Mexico before they were hunted nearly to extinction, leaving only a small lifeboat population off the southern tip of Florida, evolutionary biologist and director of the Florida Museum of Natural Historys shark research program, Gavin Naylor, told McClatchy News in an interview in July.

The species became protected in the state of Florida in 1992 and added to the endangered species list in 2003, Dean Grubbs, associate director of research at Florida State Universitys Coastal and Marine Laboratory and part of the U.S. Smalltooth Sawfish Recovery Implementation Team, told McClatchy News in the same interview.

In June, Naylor and Grubbs captured a 13-foot sawfish off the coast of Cedar Key while leading a student course, marking the furthest north one of the critically endangered fish has been spotted in decades.

On Oct. 17, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute said it had recaptured a sawfish that was first tagged in 2016, and it had nearly doubled in size.

We only have a few recaptures years after initial tagging, so those long-term recaptures help us learn about growth rates, Greg Poulakis, a research associate with the FWCs Fish and Wildlife Research Institute told McClatchy News on Oct. 17. Every sawfish we tag is important for learning about this endangered species. Theyre all pieces of a puzzle that help us promote recovery.

Another part of that recovery is breeding the animals in captivity to help teach the public about sawfish conservation.

SeaWorld Orlando is the second aquarium in the world to have a successful smalltooth sawfish birth; setting a new standard for expert care and conservation efforts, SeaWorld said on Facebook.

Sawfish tagged on Floridas Gulf Coast was huge when recaptured on states east coast

Endangered 13-foot sawfish caught off Florida coast. Why thats good news for species

Creature with large mouth and pointy teeth found in ocean depths. Its a new species

Rare sea creature and mom  both with eyepatches  spotted in CA. See them swim
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is sticking with her claims that Israel is responsible for Tuesdays explosion at a hospital in Gaza that claimed the lives of hundredsadding at a rally Wednesday that President Joe Biden shares at least part of the blame for the genocide. Just a day earlier, Tlaib wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, blaming Israel for the bombingthough Israel denies any involvement and blamed the explosion on a misfired Palestinian rocket. She also singled out Joe Bidens refusal to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate and criticized his war and destruction only approach. The post now has a community note that states, Biden has confirmed that the explosion was most likely a result of the misfiring of a Hamas missile. Tlaib dodged reporters at the Capitol Wednesday asking about her statements. Fellow progressive Sen. John Fetterman broke with Tlaib Wednesday and expressed his support for Israel, writing: Who would take the word of a group that just massacred innocent Israeli civilians over our key ally?

Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that. @POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.



Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many https://t.co/mZYoifT7bj  Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) October 17, 2023

Read it at Mediaite

Read more at The Daily Beast.
Patrick McHenry made national headlines as the Speaker Pro Tempore after Kevin McCarthy was voted out by the House of Representatives.

But to some in Gastonia, hes a familiar local.

McHenry, 47, represents North Carolinas tenth district, which includes his hometown of Gastonia. Channel 9s Ken Lemon talked to some people who grew up with and around McHenry.

READ PREVIOUS: Who is Patrick McHenry, speaker pro tempore of the House?

Before he led the House amid a heated political climate, Patrick McHenry got his start in public service 19 years ago as Senior Class President at Ashbrook High School.

His former chorus teacher, Trip McGill, said he was a team player who led by example.

He was rather humble in my class and just enjoyed being in the chorus class, McGill recalled. He was always on task.

Jonathan Fletcher was 12 years old when he volunteered to hope McHenrys for campaign in 2005 and stuck with McHenry for years. Now, Fletcher is a Republican Party Chairman.

MORE: Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina is the leader of the House, at least for now

He said hes always looked up to McHenry, claiming he never liked the spotlight.

We are super proud to have a boy from Gastonia be our, hopefully, be our permanent speaker, although he doesnt want that, Fletcher said.

McHenrys family has a farm supply store in Kings Mountain, and he often visits when he is in the district.

Thats where he connected with the State Speaker of House Tim Moore.

Moore and McHenry joined the State House together in 2002.

JUST IN: House speaker: Jim Jordan will seek third vote after effort to empower interim speaker collapses

Moore told Lemon he watched the turmoil in Washington play out weeks ago and said something prophetic to a friend.

I said it wouldnt surprise me if McHenry became the acting speaker. I had no inside way of knowing that then when he was, I was like wow, said Moore.

All in all, Lemon found that folks he spoke with were proud to see someone from Gastonia make it this far. McHenry was first elected to Congress at 29 years old in 2004.

(WATCH: Son says dad is fighting for his life over stupid stuff after Gastonia shooting)
American Airlines wont be bringing regular connecting flights from University Park to Charlotte like Centre County had hoped it would.

In 2021 Centre County and other Centre Region municipalities created an incentive package to attract American Airlines to the University Park Airport for a connecting flight to Charlotte Douglas International Airport for a minimum of 12 flights a week. But American Airlines has declined to commit to the route, according to a letter from the county included in College Townships most recent meeting agenda.

Unfortunately, American is unable to commit to this route and the expected number of flights. During several conversations with the airline and airport officials, American described the challenges of pilot shortages and inconsistent demand outside of peak service periods, the letter states.

The county, along with College and Patton townships and the State College Borough, pledged a total of nearly $300,000 as part of the package from American Rescue Plan Act funds or other municipal funds. The county is refunding contributions from the municipalities, according to the letter.

The expanded air service was sought after not only for tourism and travel opportunities, but also to attract entrepreneurial businesses and startups.

Last year, the University Park airport announced a seasonal nonstop flight to the Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Saturdays during March and April to test the demand for a year-round service. Its currently unclear what the future of that flight will be.

AA is conceding providing the same service during this time period, James Meyer, executive director of the Centre County Airport Authority, said in an email. He said they should know by the end of the year what the service will look like.
We have all heard old wives' tales and folklore passed down through generations to predict the length and severity of winter: caterpillar stripes, acorn size, and seed shape. But how reliable is the size of a pig's spleen for forecasting weather?

To write this story, we looked past all the countless meteorologists at FOX Weather with forecasts and theories about how hard winter will hit. We put aside mathematical models and computer algorithms in favor of nature's opinion.

The Old Farmer's Almanac, first published in 1792, includes many anecdotal weather forecast tips. However, the almanac claims that the founder, a contemporary of George Washington, developed his long-term forecasting based on sunspots.

"While we can neither confirm nor deny the reliability of this folklore, we do know that, centuries ago, folks observed such phenomena and noticed corresponding weather patterns, so at The Old Farmers Almanac, we allow that there just might be some truth to it," wrote avid gardener Robin Sweetser for the Farmer's Almanac.

Our meteorologists differed on weather lore as fact or fiction, as well. We start with the wooly bear caterpillars.

STRONG EL NINO WINTER: WHAT KIND OF WEATHER YOU CAN EXPECT

File: The wooly bear caterpillar is made of 13 colored segments. Lore says that this insect calls for a harsh several weeks to start and finish the winter but mild (brown) in between. The caterpillar will eventually become an Isabella moth.

"For a forecast, you have to look at what science is coming in and not coming from someone who believes in the wooly worm," said meteorologist Amy Freeze about the caterpillar, also called the wooly worm.

She said that there are 13 colored segments on a wooly bear caterpillar. Each represents one of the 13 weeks of winter. More brown segments indicate a mild winter, while more black segments call for a severe winter.

"And if you look at the wooly worm, the brown versus the black, lets you know the trending of the 13 weeks of winter. If it's all black like that, you better run for cover," she continued.

HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHER

An all black caterpillar.

Meteorologist Stephen Morgan wasn't so quick to toss the worm theory.

"I could for sure get behind one of these because with creatures and caterpillars, the wooly worms here, they will adapt to a climate," he argued. "But what signals can these animals have that we can't."

According to the Farmer's Almanac, the lore started in 1948. The insect curator at New York's Museum of Natural History conducted an informal study that made the newspaper.

The Almanac then asked an etymologist at the University of Massachusetts if there was any scientific fact in the lore. He said that "there is evidence" that the number of brown hairs has to do with the age of the caterpillar and how late it started growing in the spring. Therefore, the correlation could only be made about the previous year.

File: A whole and cut persimmon.

Some look to the shape of the interior of a persimmon seed to forecast winter weather.

"If it's shaped like a spoon, you're going to get a lot of snow. If it's shaped like a fork, maybe a lighter snow," said Morgan. "If it looks like a knife, it's going to be cutting or very harsh cold temperatures."

File: A Tennessee State Park ranger showed the results of his persimmon seeds.

The Jefferson County Extension Office in Missouri has been slicing persimmon seeds for 20 years. The seed shapes have been accurate 75% of the time, according to Successful Farming.

A crop of large and plentiful acorns and pinecones means a cold winter, according to lore. The thicker and harder an acorn, hickory nut or walnut's shell, the worse the winter, according to Successful Farming.

SEE MORE THAN 700 POUNDS OF ACORNS THAT WOODPECKERS HORDED IN WALLS OF CALIFORNIA HOME

File: A huge pinecone from a Bunya pine in Sylmar, California.

A naysayer from the Missouri Department of Conservation told FOX 2 St. Louis that abundant acorns come from a good spring and summer.

Squirrels gathering nuts early also means a hard winter, according to FOX 8 Cleveland retired meteorologist Dick Goddard. He also suggested that thicker than normal onion skins and corn husks mean a rough winter.

The Missouri official said the thicker corn husks probably come from a wet spring and summer.

Plentiful crops of berries and fruit trees like apples indicate a cold winter.

HOW ACCURATE IS PUNXSUTAWNEY PHIL?

File: Branches heavy with apples.

Mushrooms even made the Almanac's forecast lore list, "Mushrooms galore, much snow in store. No mushrooms at all, no snow will fall."

A Saskatchewan farmer insisted that a pig spleen could forecast 6-months ahead, according to Successful Farming. There is even a Pig Spleen Weather Prognostication social media page. Looking at the thickness of the six chambers of the spleen can forecast weather, it claims.

Goddard also stated that pigs gathering sticks means a hard winter. And get some good gloves if you see raccoons with thick tails and bright bands.

Squirrels with bushy tails point to a cold winter. And the higher they stash their nuts in a tree, the deeper the snow will be, writes the Almanac.

FARMERS' ALMANAC DECLARES THE BRRR IS BACK WITH PREDICTED SNOWY WEATHER IN WINTER OUTLOOK

File: A squirrel foraging in fall.

A fat beaver with a thick coat calls for a harsh winter. The Almanac states that indigenous people judged the harshness of winter on the size and strength of a beaver lodge.

Several sources suggest that early migration of geese, ducks and butterflies signals a tough winter, according to Goddard, along with woodpeckers sharing a tree.

OVER 300 MILLION BIRDS START ANNUAL FALL MIGRATION TO SOUTH FOR WINTER

File: Woodpeckers sharing a tree. They are actually placing acorns in the tree during a California storm.

"If the rooster molts before the hen, well have winter thick and thin," states the Almanac. "If the hen molts before the cock, well have winter hard as a rock."

If bees build nets inside a building, expect a hard winter. And winter snow will be as high as hornets build their nests, claimed the Almanac.

WHERE DO BEES GO IN THE WINTER

File: A wasps' nest high in a tree.

"If ant hills are high in July, winter will be snowy," the publication continued.

A mole hole deeper than 2.5 feet signals a massive snowstorm, while a shallow hole means a mild winter, according to Successful Farming.

The magazine also claims that mice and spiders will move into your home ahead of a harsh winter. Spiders also build larger webs.

The Almanac has several sayings to predict winter weather.

"If a cold August follows a hot July, It foretells a winter hard and dry."

"For every fog in August, There will be a snowfall in winter."

DOES MARCH REALLY COME IN LIKE A LION AND GO OUT LIKE A LAMB?

HOBOKEN, NJ - AUGUST 10: Fog shrouds the Empire State Building at sunset in New York City as geese take flight from a park on August 10, 2023, in Hoboken, New Jersey. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

"If the first week in August is unusually warm, The coming winter will be snowy and long."

"A warm October, a cold February."

"As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens."

"Thunder in winter, it will snow seven days later."

And, of course, we know what rodent to turn to in winter to get the spring forecast. Leave it to nature.

MOVE OVER PHIL: HERE ARE 9 OTHER GROUNDHOGS THAT WEIGH IN ON THE FORECAST





Original article source: How reliable are old wives' tales for forecasting winter weather?
The Jackson County Utility Authority said it will present an adjustment plan to its board on Monday to help customers whose bills rose this month  sometimes by hundreds of dollars.

The utility authority said on Saturday it had learned of reports of potentially inaccurate billing after some customers took to social media to protest charges that they said showed wrong or impossibly high water use.

The outcry came after the utility authority switched from a flat-rate system to meter-based sewage system in October.

That change has caught a lot of our customers off guard, executive director Eric Page said, especially if they werent paying attention to how much water they were using before or if they had a leak.

At Mondays utility authority board meeting, Page said he will present a plan to adjust bills for those that saw a significant increase in their bill for October. He said those adjustments could be extended through November if the board approves the plan.

The utility authority said complaints have mostly centered around bills that customers said showed inaccurate water use. Some customers said the authority charged them for hundreds of gallons over just a few hours, and the authority itself has said the cost of some bills appeared quite excessive.

In response, Page said the utility authority investigated its water meters and found and replaced a couple that were faulty. Most homes do not have faulty meters, he said, but the utility will still send some meters to a manufacturer in the next month to make sure they work correctly.

If the board approves an adjustment, Page said customers will have a chance to evaluate their homes under the new meter system.

Are they using more water than they think? Do they have any leaks? Page said. For all those reasons, were going to present a plan to do an adjustment just to take care of current billing.

Why did my water bill rise?

Page said the utility authority changed its system to make billing more equitable. Under a flat-rate, he said, all customers pay the same price no matter how much water they use. Changing the rate structure for sewage will mean lower bills for homes that use less water, and higher costs for people that use more, he said.

The utility authority did not raise rates across the board, Page said, and he estimated one third of customers had a lower bill in October than September.

He also said the extreme drought that has plagued Mississippi for months can impact local water use and costs.

The authority has said it will not penalize late payments or disconnect any homes until it solves the problem.

Who is impacted?

The utility authority treats the entire countys wastewater but only charges water bills to people who reside outside of city limits.

The rate changes and adjustment plan, if approved, will only impact people who live outside of cities or Public Service Commission recognized areas, like Gulf Park Estates.

Supervisors across the county mostly said they were unaware of issues with customers bills.

Supervisor Ennit Morris said Thursday he has heard no water bill complaints around Moss Point. Representatives who answered phones at the offices of Ken Taylor, who covers Gautier, and Troy Ross, who covers Ocean Springs, said they had also not heard complaints.

Randy Bosarge, whose district covers the area between Latimer and Gulf Park Estates, did not respond to calls on Thursday. Barry Cumbest, whose district covers Vancleave and north Jackson County, was also unavailable.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) and four other religious authors are suing several tech companies for allegedly using their books to train artificial intelligence (AI) models without their permission.

The lawsuit accuses Meta, Microsoft, Bloomberg and the EleutherAI Institute of using a particular dataset known as Books3, which scraped information from a massive collection of nearly 200,000 pirated books.

While using books as part of datasets is not inherently problematic, using pirated (or stolen) books does not fairly compensate authors and publishers for their work, argued the lawsuit, filed in New York federal court on Tuesday.

EleutherAI, a nonprofit AI research group, included Books3 in a larger open-source dataset it created for training AI systems, known as the Pile, according to the lawsuit.

In particular, the Pile was created to train large language models (LLMs), which are designed to understand and generate human language and require vast amounts of data to train.

Meta used the Pile and Books3 to train its LLM, called LLaMa, and later partnered with Microsoft to develop an updated version of the model, known as LLaMa2. Bloomberg also used Books3 to train its finance-oriented LLM BloombergGPT.

The lawsuit alleged the companies used the Pile or Books3 with the full knowledge and understanding that the datasets they were using to train their LLMs were assembled from copyrighted works.

The legal action is the latest in a series of efforts by authors, actors and artists to protect or receive compensation for their work in the face of the rapidly evolving technology.

Another group of writers  including My Sisters Keeper author Jodi Picoult and A Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin  similarly filed suit against OpenAI last month, accusing the company of using their copyrighted works to train its AI-powered chatbot technology ChatGPT.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Stephen C. Lepore has been missing since August 2012.

The remains found at a home in Wayne County match a Monroe County missing person.

Wayne County Coroner Edward R. Howell said that his office made a positive match for remains found at a home in Dreher Township to missing Tobyhanna man Stephen Lepore.

Lepore went missing in August of 2012.

The coroner's office, with the help of Mercyhurst Universitys Forensic Sciences Team, also determined that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, and the manner of death was ruled as a homicide.

On Monday, detectives from the Monroe County District Attorney's Office, along with Pennsylvania State Police, conducted an initial search of the property's backyard with the permission of the property owner.

Related: Possible human remains in Wayne County may belong to missing Tobyhanna man

According to an affidavit, a relative of the property owner informed police that Lepore's remains could be found on the property. A human remains detection canine alerted to the location that had been described.

The same day, investigators applied for and were granted a search warrant for the property. The coroner's office responded on Tuesday morning and the Mercyhurst team arrived on Wednesday.

This is a developing story.

This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: Missing Poconos man a match to remains found in Wayne County
Although some of Rep. Jim Jordans supporters in his House speaker bid have praised him as a fighter, the Ohio Republican belatedly suggested playing nice on Wednesday as his chances of winning the speakership seemed to wane.

Support for the fiery conservative declined in a second round of voting Wednesday and could reportedly dwindle further on future ballots. Meanwhile, some of Jordans Republican colleagues, like Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, said they or their family members had received anonymous and threatening messages that they should vote for Jordan if they didnt want to be primaried.

The combination of events put Jordan in an awkward position on Wednesday night. Well, awkward for him, anyway, because this partisan-politician-among-partisan-pollticians was forced to call for, ugh, unity.

No American should accost another for their beliefs, Jordan wrote on X. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. Its abhorrent.

No American should accost another for their beliefs.



We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together.



Stop. Its abhorrent.  Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) October 18, 2023

But Jordans calls for unity struck many people on social media as insincere for a variety of reasons.

This is rich from the person who wanted to doxx the IC whistleblower https://t.co/uCvbMTrwfP  Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) October 18, 2023

Bruh you helped the attempted assassination of Mike pence https://t.co/2DaHsNSLPI  memes (@OrganizerMemes) October 18, 2023

The man lacks any sense of irony. Or perspective. Angry little troll. https://t.co/FaXTLSpUmR  Hart Hanson (@HartHanson) October 18, 2023

Lol never once heard Jordan say anything like this until now. Hes going to try and pretend to be decent and fair now? Whys that Jim? You hoping everyone forgets who you are? How you have behaved for 16 years in Congress? GTFOH https://t.co/JrEpXmgfzE  On A Bender (@on_bender) October 18, 2023

NBC News reporter Sahil Kapur noted that Jordan only posted his unity statement after Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks vowed online not to support a bully.

One person suggested that Jordans post needed a teeny-tiny tweak to be more accurate.

No American should accost another for their beliefs.



We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together.



Stop. Its abhorrent.



[***WINK***] https://t.co/cVIWJcJK9h  AK Lingus? But he died on this night in 1880 (@aklingus) October 18, 2023

Another noted the challenges that come with having to ask your supporters to stop making death threats.

Not great when you have to tell your supporters to knock off the death threats https://t.co/rWKFZaEJrJ  Eric Columbus (also on Bluesky and ) (@EricColumbus) October 18, 2023

Bacon, the Nebraska Republican, also had something to say in response to Jordans vaguely worded statement.

Holy crap, it must have been absolutely terrible if someone was accosted and @Jim_Jordan is actually acknowledging it happened, he wrote on X. What happened?

Holy crap, it must have been absolutely terrible if someone was accosted and @Jim_Jordan is actually acknowledging it happened.



What happened? https://t.co/MNaYRqutAu  Rep. Don Bacon  Nebraska 2nd District Parody (@DonBaconNE02) October 18, 2023

Related...
A Republican candidate for Missouri attorney general will help former President Donald Trump appeal a recent gag order imposed on him in his upcoming trial over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Will Scharf, a former assistant U.S. Attorney from St. Louis, has joined Trumps appellate team, a Trump campaign spokesperson confirmed to The Star.

The decision to join Trumps team comes as Scharf, a Republican, is mounting a primary challenge to Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in 2024. Scharf also served as policy director in former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens brief administration.

Scharf, who left the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Eastern District of Missouri last year, is the first person to challenge Bailey, who was appointed to the position this year by Republican Gov. Mike Parson. His campaign has centered around his past work as a prosecutor against violent crimes.

Scharf is seeking to appeal to the right wing of the Missouri Republican Party. His association with the former president is likely to help his campaign in a state that Trump won by more than 15 percentage points in 2020.

He declined to comment to The Star, directing questions to Trumps campaign. The campaign confirmed that Scharf was joining the former presidents team.

Trump is appealing a narrow gag order imposed on him this week by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that bars the former president from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and court staff. Chutkan is overseeing the criminal case in the District of Columbia that accuses Trump of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden .

Scharfs involvement in the D.C. case comes as Trump faces a slew of criminal charges in three other cases in New York, Florida and Georgia.

Trumps legal team filed a notice of appeal on Tuesday. A campaign spokesperson in a statement to The Star painted the gag order as a violation of Trumps First Amendment rights and said his team planned to file an emergency motion to stay the order.

No court has ever imposed any such gag order on a political candidate conducting a political campaign  least of all the leading opposition candidate for President of the United States, the statement said in part.

The case centers around Trumps efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election, which he lost, and includes accusations that he urged Republican officials to undermine the results in states that Biden won. A mob of his supporters to stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in an effort to prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Biden after the former president held a rally in Washington after months of spreading misinformation about the election results.

Two other Missouri attorneys, Dean John Sauer and Michael Talent, have also joined Trumps appellate team.

Sauer, a former solicitor general in Missouri, entered an appearance in the case on Wednesday. He left the attorney generals office earlier this year.

Talent, a former deputy solicitor general in Missouri who served from 2021 to 2022 and the son of former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, has also joined the team, a Trump spokesperson confirmed.
Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) said during a Thursday morning event that labor shortages within the cyber sector present the biggest long-term threat to U.S. cybersecurity.

Workforce  in five years, if we dont fix this workforce problem, that is probably the biggest threat that we have toward ensuring that when it comes to cybersecurity, Garbarino said.

The GOP lawmaker spoke at a panel hosted by Punchbowl News, where he discussed the future of cybersecurity and artificial intelligences (AI) place in it.

Garbarino stressed that the workforce shortage in the cyber sector, which, according to cybersecurity workforce analytics platform Cyber Seek, currently sits at more than 570,000 job openings, creates opportunities for bad actors such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea to attack companies and the U.S. government.

Its not only the shortage of workers that concerns Garbarino, but the pressure building across sectors to hire highly skilled workers equipped to fight against ransomware and other attacks.

Garbarino began sharing these concerns about the ongoing labor crunch in June during a House Homeland Security Committee subpanel hearing.

We need not only enough people, but the right people with the right skills in the right jobs to meet the growing cyber threat, Garbarino said.

Former National Cyber Director Chris Inglis, who urged the government to hire more workers in cyber and tech during that same hearing, mentioned that the administration has been successful in filling two-thirds of the jobs that have the word cyber and [information technology] in it, and thats the good news. However, he said that there is still more that needs to be done.

For Garbarino, part of the solution is not only strengthening partnerships in the private and public sectors, but shrinking the information gap between the sectors about the rapid development of AI.

It is a steep learning curve, even for me, because AI can touch so many different aspects  theres a whole cybersecurity aspect when talking about AI, Garbarino said.

The lawmaker also said that Congress could contribute to solving the workforce deficit by incentivizing schools, through additional funds, to adjust the curriculum that offer cyber-related classes.

We can help give money to schools  Im talking about K-12  to change the curriculum, so people are starting to focus on cyber at a young age, Garbarino said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The chaos in the House of Representatives continued on Thursday, as Republican representatives almost seemed to want to outdo the dysfunction of the beginning of the week. After losing two roll-call votes on the House floor, Representative Jim Jordan briefly endorsed empowering Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry to take the reins, a move that would allow the House to function normally and consider legislation. But Republicans emerged from a fraught three-and-a-half-hour meeting insisting that such a resolution could not pass without garnering Democratic votesa cardinal sin among the party faithful. With more than 20 holdouts remaining, Jordan vowed to hold another vote, which only provided another opportunity for his bid to once again be shot down on the House floor.

Despite earning support from the majority of his party, Jordans candidacy for the speakership was imperiled by familiar foes: his fellow Republicans. This was an echo of Januarys intraparty strife, which saw former Speaker Kevin McCarthy endure 15 rounds of voting before he was elected.

But there was a plot twist in Jordans sequel: McCarthys opponents in January were hard-right lawmakers seeking concessions. Jordans holdouts, on the other hand, fit a much different moldan ideologically diverse group of Republicans with a yen for institutionalism. That this coterie of lawmakers formed a core of resistance to Jordans bid raises questions about which members of the Republican coalition will emerge from the fracas as more empowered, and whetherafter months and even years of concessions to the partys far rightGOP lawmakers who care about governance are finally striking back. The level of opposition is profound, Representative Steve Womack, one of Jordans opponents, told reporters on Wednesday.

There may be an instinct to call the Jordan skeptics moderates, but that doesnt accurately represent the breadth of his opposition. Six of the Jordan holdouts represent districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020, but others are in safe Republican seats; four even opposed certifying the 2020 election.

Although some are members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucustypically an indicator of ideological centrismthere are many others who could be considered true conservatives. Moreover, not all of the dyed-in-the-wool moderates followed suit in opposing Jordan. Some, such as Problem Solvers Caucus co-chair Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, supported Jordan in the first two votes. Fitzpatricks vote for Jordan was a signal that the institution needed to get back to work, he told me: This is solely a matter of the fact that our government is completely offline right now in the legislative branch. Ideological moderation was not an indication of support for Jordanor lack thereofso much as getting the government back on track.

Then there is another noteworthy hive of opposition to Jordan: the appropriators. Several of the holdouts, such as Womack, are longtime members of the House Appropriations Committee who appreciate the need to work with Democrats on government spending bills. Representative Kay Granger, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, was among those who voted against Jordan.

Finally, there are some who just take it personally. Some Republican lawmakers are simply fed up with Jordans approach to governing, and disgusted by efforts of his allies to bully holdouts into conceding support.

One part wants to get things done, another part [is] sick of having other people break things, Brendan Buck, a Republican strategist and former aide to Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner, said about the Jordan holdouts. I think it basically just comes down to people who want to get some stuff done every once in a while, and are sick of being screwed with.

Indeed, the diversity in opposition to Jordanbased on ideology and personalitycould contribute to his difficulties in uniting Republicans behind one candidate. Before we can solve a problem, we have to define it. And I think thats the issue that weve had, that [with] the breadth and the depth of the emotion going on here, its very, very challenging to find that solution, Representative Glenn Thompson told me. At this point, where were at, everybody is losing.

Jordan, a co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, has a well-earned reputation as a bomb-throwing rabble-rouser with few if any relationships with members on the other side of the aisle. Although he became a key ally of McCarthy, many Republicans still remember when he was a thorn in Boehners side and the role he played in pushing Boehner to resign. (Boehner famously referred to his fellow Ohioan as a legislative terrorist.) Some allies of Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who dropped out of the speakers race last week, also blame Jordan for undermining Scalises bid.

Theyve seen the history, theyve been impacted over the last decade. So youve got that crowd, said Representative Don Bacon, one of Jordans opponents. Many of us were angered by the actions of his supporters since January. They took down McCarthy, and they took down Scalise.

Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican who supported Jordan, compared the anti-Jordan faction to the hard-liners who stymied McCarthy in January. The hard-liners, for the most part, arent any more conservative than the so-called moderates. Theyre just angrier, and more willing to use tactics that are based in emotion, Crenshaw said. People usually use the word moderate, he continued, to describe lawmakers who are more willing to govern.

Still, it might not be accurate to characterize Jordan opponents uniformly as pure institutionalists. Indeed, one of the most vocal of the anti-Jordan crew, Representative Ken Buck, said that he should not be considered an institutionalist; he was one of the eight who voted to oust McCarthy in September. I think there is a broad spectrum of support for Jim, and I think theres a broad spectrum of opposition. I dont think you can cubbyhole either side, Buck said, adding that he considers himself a Reagan Republican.

The other holdouts included some senior appropriators but also several Republicans from New York in swing districts, loyalists to McCarthy, and lawmakers who opposed Jordans support for former President Donald Trumps efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Womack noted that the groundswell against Jordan was organic, with support from different members across the ideological spectrum and the country.

There also wasnt much in the way of unity when it came to determining an alternative speaker candidate in the first two votes: Instead, some of Jordans opponents cast votes for mainstream candidates such as McCarthy and Scalise, but others cast further afield for more outre names, like former Speaker John Boehner and former Representatives Lee Zeldin and Candice Miller.

Others became entrenched in their never-Jordan position because of the pressure campaign waged by Jordan allies, including right-wing media figures. Womack told me that he opposed Jordan in part because I just think that there are better options for us to be able to make the country work, make this government work. But he also said that he had been frustrated by his experience of the past few days, as Jordan allies have harassed the remaining holdouts. Some Jordan opponents have even received death threats, although Jordan has condemned these tactics.

Im a retired colonel. I wore that uniform for 30 years, five months, and 19 days. I didnt lead troops because I was a sissy, or that I could be pushed over, or that I would be willing to change my closely held beliefs, Womack told me on Wednesday. If what Im doing is such that it causes me to have to go home because my electorate doesnt like my position, I will go home head high, with my dignity.

Brendan Buck, the GOP strategist, noted that much of the opposition to Jordan could be personal. He has been the ringleader of so much of the dysfunction and so much of the sabotage thats gone on for the last 10 years, Buck said. He is as much as anybody the avatar for conservative meddling, and people see that very clearly.

The tendency to identify ideological conservatives as moderate echoes former President Donald Trumps denunciation of certain Republicans as RINOsRepublicans in Name Only. For Trump, the term RINO would be bandied about in retaliation for perceived disloyalty. The problem with using the terms moderate or conservative in the modern era of the Republican Party, said Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who opposes Trump, is that those terms are no longer applicable, because they are defined solely in relation to the former president.

The new reality is that Donald Trump has ceased to make these words meaningful, said Longwell. When people talk now, they say someones hard right or hard-core conservative as a stand-in for [being] a big supporter of Donald Trump.

Longwell suggested instead using terms like MAGA establishment to refer to politicians like McCarthy, the pure unrestrained id of MAGA for bomb throwers like Jordan or Representative Matt Gaetz, and then the normies who still believe governing should take place. These are apt dividing lines for a Republican Party in the throes of a slow-motion schism.

But Buck argued that the imprecise nature of the term moderate had less to do with Trump than with a growing GOP aversion to compromise. It has become such an intolerable act to consider working with the other party that its a fireable offense, as Kevin McCarthy came to find out, Buck said. McCarthys support for passing a stopgap measure to keep the government funded temporarily was the precipitating factor in his removal.

Echoing that worry, Fitzpatrick, the co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus who supported Jordan for the first two ballots, argued that the eight and 208referring to the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, along with all Democratshad sent the message that they will punish, not reward, bipartisanship. Quite frankly, people that run for leadership tend to be more partisan, much to my chagrin, Fitzpatrick told me on Thursday morning.

Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, another Republican who opposed Jordan, shied away from the idea that certain members might feel more empowered after the events of the past two weeks.

I dont like where we are. So its not like I feel like some people are more powerful, and some are not, Diaz-Balart said. What I do think you have is a group of folks who have been very clear about where they stand, and are standing for what they believe in, and I think thats a positive thing.

Its unclear whether the opposition to Jordan is a blip on the radar or an indication of larger frustration with the bomb throwers in the GOP. Its also uncertain whether any particular faction can emerge empowered from such a divisive moment for the party.

Anybody who is feeling emboldened through this fiasco is self-centered to a degree that is hard to comprehend, Representative Dusty Johnson told me. Nothing about this is good for our country.
A group of Republican senators have introduced legislation that would help resupply resources to Israels Iron Dome amid the countrys war with Hamas.

The Emergency Resupply for Iron Dome Act of 2023 would require the executive branch to redirect U.S. foreign assistance from Gaza, the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas, to resupply Israels Iron Dome.

The Iron Dome is Israels air defense system, which defends it from rocket fire. Hamas has been firing rockets at Israel since its bloody assault on that country earlier this month, even as Israel has pounded Gaza with aerial attacks in response.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.). The bills co-sponsors include Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

In the wake of Iran-backed Hamass savage attack on Israel in which over 1,300 people in Israel were murdered, including 30 Americans, and as Iran-backed Hamas terrorists continue to launch missiles and rockets into Israel, the American people have seen the images of Israels Iron Dome missile defense systems repeatedly intercepting rockets and saving the lives of countless civilians, Hagerty said in a statement.

My legislation requires the Biden Administration to halt U.S. foreign assistance from going to Hamas terrorist-dominated areas and instead to redirect these resources to help Israel resupply its life-saving Iron Dome interceptors. The United States should unequivocally support the right of Israel to defend itself from terrorists.

The siege of Gaza has cut off the more than 2 million people who live there from basic life necessities, raising alarms of a humanitarian disaster.

The Biden administration has backed Israels efforts to defend itself even as it has urged Israel to try to prevent civilian deaths.

President Biden has also drawn a sharp distinction between Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group, and the Palestinian people.

This is not the first time GOP senators have offered a bill to shift aid away from Gaza. Hagerty announced a similar bill in 2021.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pressed President Biden's nominee for ambassador to Israel, Democrat Jack Lew , on his past work on Iran sanctions during a nomination hearing Wednesday.

Several pro-Palestinian demonstrators protesting against Israel disrupted the first few minutes of the hearing. After they were escorted out, the meeting continued uninterrupted.

Lew defended his record on the Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and asserted he would work to advance a "negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

"I want to be clear, Iran is a threat to regional stability and to Israel's existence," Lew said. "If confirmed, I will uphold President Biden's commitment to deny Iran a nuclear weapon."

GOP SENATORS COULD BLOCK JACK LEW FROM ISRAEL AMBASSADORSHIP OVER CONTROVERSIAL PAST WITH IRAN

Jack Lew speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee nomination hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

In 2018, a Senate report by the investigative subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee found that Lew, during his tenure as secretary to the Treasury under the Obama administration, "granted a specific license that authorized a conversion of Iranian assets worth billions of U.S. dollars using the U.S. financial system."

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

The report found that the administration tried to convert $5.7 billion from U.S. banks to Iranian assets. It noted that the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control "encouraged two U.S. correspondent banks to convert the funds."

Jack Lew testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.

In January 2016, then-President Barack Obama announced a $400 million cash transfer to Iran that was part of a larger installment of a $1.7 billion settlement, for which Lew faced scrutiny. The settlement was part of a long-standing disagreement over an arms deal that was signed before the 1979 Iranian revolution, signifying the end of the nation's historical monarchy.

HAWLEY TAPS DOJ TO INVESTIGATE PRO-PALESTINIAN STUDENT GROUPS' POTENTIAL TIES TO HAMAS

Lew  who also served during the Clinton administration as special assistant to the presidents office  faced scrutiny for the transfer. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that the payment was conducted using a combination of Swiss and other foreign currencies, then transported to Iran on unidentified cargo planes.

Senators during the hearing cited these reports in their questioning.

"As I said, to me, this whole thing is about Iran, and holding hands with Iran under the table doesn't work for me," said Ranking Member Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho. "And I'm deeply disappointed that you issued that license, deeply disappointed that you didn't tell us about it, deeply disappointed that you misled us in July."

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a member of the committee, echoed Risch's concerns.

"Your testimony is that you were not providing them access to the U.S. financial system. You then issued a special license, which is not published, maybe no one was supposed to find out about it, to help them gain access to the U.S. financial system, then asked banks to help convert the funds," he said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called out Lew's record of voting in favor of the 2015 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared Israel had "no legal validity," and said Lew was "a critical player in the Obama administration's campaign of appeasement with Iran."

"You played a pivotal role in flooding over $100 billion to the Iranian regime. The Biden administration has continued that policy flooding nearly an additional $100 billion to the Iranian regime," he said.

BLINKEN SAYS HAMAS TO BLAME FOR FOREIGN NATIONALS NOT BEING ABLE TO LEAVE GAZA; EGYPT READY TO HELP

From left: Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew; and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

When asked if he still believed Israel was illegally occupied territory, Lew said, "I do not believe that it is illegally occupied."

"Why did you support a U.N. resolution saying that?" Cruz asked.

"I think that we could have a conversation about that, but it's gonna take me more than 10 seconds to respond," Lew said.

Days before the hearing, a handful of GOP senators began talks that they would oppose Lew's confirmation, which Democrats on the committee say they want to push through quickly to show support for Israel.

A vote will take place in a business meeting next week. If approved, Lew will have to be confirmed by the entire Senate.

Lawmakers have been critical of Iran over long-standing support for Hamas, which recently attacked Israel. The GOP has criticized Biden for approving the $6 billion deal Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages

The deal allowed the transfer of Iran's frozen assets held in a South Korean bank to accounts in Qatar.

The administration said the money can only be used for humanitarian purposes and that the U.S. will have oversight as to how and when the funds are used. However, it quickly drew skepticism about whether those funds could have been used to fund the surprise attack in Israel after a bombshell Wall Street Journal report said Hamas and Hezbollah helped Iran plan the attack.

"Appointing Jack Lew as U.S. Ambassador to Israel would be a win for Iran," Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. "As Treasury Secretary under President Obama, Mr. Lew was responsible for administering sanctions as a part of the dangerous Iran nuclear deal that he boldly championed. Now, as Israel faces an egregious attack from Iran-backed Hamas, we need to send a U.S. representative to Israel who will support our shared interests and strengthen our relationship. That representative is not Jack Lew."

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News Digital on Monday evening that he will vote to oppose Lew during a confirmation vote if he proceeds to a full confirmation and that he will be leading an effort to persuade other GOP colleagues this week to block his confirmation.

"I know my Democratic colleagues contend that we should confirm Jack Lew properly to show our support for Israel, but I would turn that around. We should defeat Jack Lew's nomination to show that our nation has a new policy towards Iran." Cotton said.

A Senate GOP aide also told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that a handful of Republicans are likely to oppose Lew, which would delay his expected confirmation.





Original article source: Republicans grill Biden's Israel ambassador nominee Jack Lew in Senate hearing: 'Win for Iran'
Republican Iowa Rep Mariannette Miller-Meeks revealed in a lengthy statement that she received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls after refusing to back Rep Jim Jordan for speaker.

Mr Jordan backtracked on a pause on his speakership bid on Thursday (19 October), announcing in the afternoon that the members of the House GOP had rejected a temporary solution to empower interim speaker Patrick McHenry until January.

We made the pitch to members on the resolution as a way to lower the temperature and get back to work. We decided that wasnt where were gonna go. Im still running for speaker and I plan to go the floor and get the votes and win this race, he said, according to the Washington Examiner.

According to Punchbowl News, Majority Whip Tom Emmer said: As I have made very clear over the last few days, we should never allow a Democrat-backed coalition government. Ever. The only coalition we should be looking to build is a Republican coalition uniting all of our conference.

Republicans coming out of the three-and-a-half-hour conference meeting, which grew emotional at times, said they expected a vote to take place soon but that they wanted to give Mr Jordan more time to speak to the holdouts, CNN reported.

Twenty-two Republicans voted against Mr Jordan on the second ballot  up from 20 on the first. Four members joined the anti-Jordan coalition, while two who voted against him in the first vote went back into the fold to support him.

Some Republicans, led by Rep David Joyce of Ohio, had previously discussed potentially giving Mr McHenry more power so the House could resume deliberation to pass spending bills to avert a government shutdown.

Mr Jordans backing of the resolution to empower Mr McHenry prompted an angry reaction from some in the GOP conference. The resolution would likely need at least some backing from across the aisle.

Rep Don Bacon of Nebraska, another GOP member who didnt vote for Mr Jordan, told Politico that his wife received texts and emails, urging her to convince her husband to back Mr Jordan.

Ms Miller-Meeks voted for Mr Jordan on the first ballot but chose to back Rep Kay Granger of Texas on the second vote on Wednesday.

After one round of votes, with my support, he was not able to secure enough votes for the Speaker nomination and my initial concerns about threatening tactics of Jim Jordans supporters, including from members of Congress, increased despite assurances, she said.

Since my vote in support of Chairwoman Granger, I have received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls. The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully, she added. One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully.

I understand that voting against Rep Jordan is not popular at this time. I respected Jim enough to vote for him, knowing he did not have the votes to be elected, Ms Miller-Meeks said.

Meanwhile, Mr Bacon told Politico that his wife received a number of anonymous emails and texts from people pushing the message that the Nebraska representative would lose his seat unless he backed Mr Jordan.

He has more courage than you. You wont put your name to your statements, Mr Bacons wife responded, according to the screenshots shared by Politico.

The tactics of Mr Jordans allies are considered to have backfired after he lost further support on the second ballot. The pressure campaign often included not-so-veiled threats of primary challenges from the right.

Jims been nice, one-on-one, but his broader team has been playing hardball, Mr Bacon told Politico on Tuesday.

Mr Jordan doesnt appear to have been directly involved in the strategy employed by his allies and supporters.

Another GOP holdout, Rep Steve Womack of Arkansas, said that his office has been inundated with profane calls, but no real substantive threats, according to CNN.

On Wednesday, Mr Jordan shared his disdain for the death threats.

It should never happen, he said. Its just wrong, and we dont want it to happen to anyone, any American, anybody, any member of Congress. Its just wrong.

Earlier, Mr Jordan wrote on X that no American should accost another for their beliefs  Stop. Its abhorrent.

Mr Womack said, Frankly, just based on what Ive been through  I can only speak to myself and what my staff has been through over the last 24 or 48 hours  it is obvious what the strategy has been: Attack, attack, attack. Attack the members who dont agree with you, attack them, beat them into submission.

Rep Drew Ferguson also revealed on Thursday that he had been the subject of death threats.

As the Republican Conference designee, I supported Congressman Jordan on the first ballot. Following the first vote, I had genuine concerns about the threatening tactics and pressure campaigns Jordan and his allies were using to leverage members for their votes, he said in a statement.

I discussed this directly with Jim, and planned to support him on the second ballot. When the pressure campaigns and attacks on fellow members ramped up, it became clear to me that the House Republican Conference does not need a bully as the Speaker. I cast my vote for Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a principled conservative and unifying leader, he added. Shortly after casting that vote, my family and I started receiving death threats. That is simply unacceptable, unforgivable, and will never be tolerated.

A GOP source later told Axios that Mr Ferguson told the conference that hes had to have a sheriff stationed at his daughters school over death threats from the far right. Also one at his house.
Ghanaian president commissions Chinese automobile assembly plant

Xinhua) 10:22, October 19, 2023

ACCRA, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday commissioned a Chinese automobile assembly plant in Kpone city of the Greater Accra Region.

Zonda Sinotruk, with an investment of 30 million U.S. dollars, is the culmination of a tripartite agreement by Ghana's Ministry of Trade and Industry, China's heavy-duty vehicle trading company Zonda and manufacturing company Sinotruk to build a heavy-duty vehicle assembly plant in Ghana.

Commissioning the plant, Akufo-Addo commended the partners for their commitment to building a major hub in Ghana to assemble heavy-duty trucks for West Africa, saying the collaboration demonstrated how notable players were taking advantage of the Ghanaian government's One District One Factory initiative to transition from imports to manufacturing.

Akufo-Addo also lauded the companies for establishing a state-of-the-art training center to train artisans to apply appropriate technology and skills to build their capacities in assembly processes, repair, and maintenance.

"My government is not oblivious of the challenges confronting manufacturing. I am convinced that our progress in restoring macroeconomic stability and our determination to return to growth will benefit the private sector in manufacturing and commerce," the president said.

The new plant is expected to assemble more than 3,000 heavy-duty and light-duty trucks, including tipper trucks, wheel loaders, backhoes, trailers, semi-trailers and oil tankers, in a year.

The plant pledged to employ at least 200 more crew and create more indirect employment opportunities.

Yang Yang, the managing director of Zonda, said the decision to shift from trade to industrialization was a pivotal step in building a self-sustaining ecosystem for society.

"The Zonda Sinotruk assembly plant is not just about vehicles, it is about shaping the future of Ghana. It creates jobs, imparts valuable skills, and injects revenue into Ghana's economy," Yang said, adding it is also conducive to fueling the country's automotive industry.

According to her, Zonda products have earned the trust of notable customers, including the Ghana Bauxite Company, Ghana Manganese Company, some leading players in the construction industry, and petroleum haulage companies.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has said she does not intend to vote for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) as the nominee for House speaker, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 12, 2023. (Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON  Crime in American cities. The national opioid crisis. Election integrity. And now a terror attack considered the deadliest day for Jews in Israels 75-year history.

Not long after Hamas terrorists killed and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis this month, a wave of Republicans  on the presidential campaign trail, in state and congressional races and in the far-right corners of conservative media  reached for a familiar playbook: tying the issue to the nations southern border.

What happened to Israel could happen to America because our country has been invaded by millions of people from over 160 different countries, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said on Fox News more than 24 hours after the attack.

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We know that theres an open border, and I know that the biggest national security threat is if those terrorists come into America, and we have another 9/11, Nikki Haley , a former United Nations ambassador under President Donald Trump, told reporters last week in Concord, New Hampshire.

You cannot forget that the same people that attacked Israel are right now pouring at levels that nobody can believe into our beautiful USA through our totally open border, Trump said Monday, a baseless claim that was met with applause at a campaign event in Clive, Iowa, a Des Moines suburb.

While Republicans are otherwise reckoning with deep divisions, the remarkable unity on this front underscores the degree to which the 2,000-mile dividing line between the United States and Mexico remains a potent political symbol for the party. Since Trump paved his way to power on a nativist and hard-line approach to immigration, Republicans have invoked fortifying the border to address nearly every issue, in increasingly militant terms and often exaggerating the facts.

There are some indications that message is resonating. A national NBC News poll taken in September suggests that voters overwhelming trust Republicans over Democrats when it comes to handling the economy and crime  as well as immigration  heading into the 2024 election.

Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and a former adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio, said the aggressive turns toward the border could be particularly effective now as the Biden administration grapples with two very real humanitarian crises: record numbers of migrants trying to cross the border and a fight against fentanyl that has become an urgent public health problem.

The border is something that concerns a majority of Americans, especially when you can tie it to problems they see in their own neighborhoods, he said.

Homeland Security officials have said they have found no specific or credible threat to the United States tied to Hamas. Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, responded to Republicans in part by saying there is strict national security vetting to determine whether individuals coming from anywhere in the world have ties to terrorist organizations. Immigration experts said the government cannot screen people who enter undetected but that the large numbers of migrants turning themselves in at the border are subjected to screening processes.

Since the southern border was drawn, American politicians have sought to wring political advantage by tapping into xenophobic fears, at times aimed at Chinese laborers, or young German men believed to be spies, or Jews and Catholics, historians and political analysts said.

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a government professor at George Mason University in Virginia and who tracked the rise of the Mexican criminal organization Los Zetas, said the latest Republican rhetoric took cues from three distinct moments in U.S. history: the migration of Mexican laborers who became the economic engine of the Southwest, the governments war on drugs that began in the 1970s, and the 9/11 terror attack and the so-called war on terror. All resulted in an increased military presence at the border, the building of physical barriers and an expansion of the U.S. deportation system.

Correa-Cabrera said that, much like now, those earliest border enforcement measures were mostly based on political arguments, not data that migrants increased crime or posed a greater threat to public safety. Many studies have shown this is not the case.

It had to do with prejudice, she said.

Attempts by politicians to link Mideast terror groups and Mexican criminal organizations have at times gained traction over the past two decades, but no substantial evidence has surfaced to support the claim, counterterrorism and insurgency experts said. The two kinds of groups have vastly different objectives and operate in cultural and economic borderland regions that do not share remotely similar dynamics.

With apprehensions at the southern border up overall, U.S. officials this year have recorded an increase in apprehensions of people whose identities match those on the FBI terrorist watch list  160 migrants in the 2023 fiscal year as of July, up from 100 the fiscal year before, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Such rolls constitute a small fraction of the millions of people seeking to cross the southern border and do not significantly measure the terror threat against the United States, terrorism and insurgency experts said. The uptick may be owing in part to the broad nature of the lists, they added, ensnaring people wanted for terrorist activities against their home countries but not aimed at the United States, as well as relatives or associates not accused of wrongdoing.

Although experts do not completely rule out the threat of a terror attack launched from the southern border, they described it as unlikely.

If Mideast terror organizations ever did plan an attack, the northern border may even be more vulnerable, said Bruce Hoffman, professor and director of the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University who specializes in terrorism studies. And such a plot would not necessarily be connected to illegal immigration, he added.

The 9/11 hijackers entered the United States on tourist, business and student visas. The last man to physically cross the border with materials for an explosive  Ahmed Ressam  was arrested in 1999 after he came in from Canada.

Still, the southern border remains a powerful symbol, for politicians and voters. When Trump adopted his America First slogan during his 2016 presidential campaign, he used it to harness grievance, xenophobia and fears about threats from abroad, economic competition from China on trade, and the potential economic and social consequences of increases in new immigrants.

On Monday, Trump, under fire for his criticism of Israel and for calling Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist organization, very smart, invoked the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel to stoke fears of terrorism at home. Returning to some of his most inflammatory themes on illegal immigration, he also took aim at legal pathways by pledging to reinstitute the travel ban from Muslim-majority countries and expand the freeze on refugees he enacted during his presidency.

We arent bringing anyone from Gaza, he said at his rally in Clive.

Trump is not alone. Republican candidates such as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida often steer conversations with voters back to immigration. At a town hall in Iowa in August, when he was asked two questions in quick succession on unrelated issues, DeSantis managed to hit on the border. On the issue of eminent domain, he said he would support it for the border wall down south. Asked about the war in Ukraine, he said that as president, his first obligation would be to protect the American people and to protect our border.

In mailers, television ads and remarks, Republicans in state and congressional races regularly fault border enforcement. They cast blame on Mexican criminal organizations and immigrants in the country illegally for the fentanyl crisis  but not the American pharmaceutical companies that fueled the legal market for the drugs or the U.S. citizens who law enforcement officials say typically bring the harder narcotics across the border. They have claimed without basis that immigrants in the country illegally are gaining access to the ballot box, while claims that widespread numbers of such immigrants are voting have been consistently discredited.

Historians and political analysts warned that much of the heated language on immigration plays into far right and sometimes explicitly racist tropes that fuel fear with the potential for violence.

Two white supremacist shooting suspects in the last five years, Robert Bowers in Pittsburgh and Patrick Crusius in El Paso, Texas, cited invaders and a Hispanic invasion in the lead-up to their crimes.

On Saturday, authorities in suburban Chicago said, Joseph Czuba, 71, fatally stabbed a 6-year-old boy and seriously wounded the childs mother because of their Palestinian background. Officials tied the attack to what Czuba was hearing on conservative talk radio about the fighting overseas.

c.2023 The New York Times Company
Several Republicans who opposed Rep. Jim Jordans House speakership bid said they are experiencing angry calls, menacing messages and even death threats since casting their votes, increasing the already tense and chaotic atmosphere in the GOP as they struggle to elect a speaker.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa said in a statement that she has received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls after flipping her speaker vote from Jordan on Tuesday to House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger on Wednesday. New York Rep. Nick LaLota, meanwhile, shared in a social media post a message he received that told him to go f**k yourself and die.

Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas said his office has been flooded with calls and theres been lots of profanity, but no real substantive threats, while Nebraska Rep. Don Bacons wife received menacing text messages.

The anonymous text messages warned her husband  who has been a vocal holdout against Jordan  to back the Ohio Republican. Your husband will not hold any political office ever again. What a disappointment and failure he is, read one messages sent to Bacons wife and obtained by CNN through the congressman. She responded to that text saying, He has more courage than you. You wont put your name to your statements.

Jordan has so far failed to clinch the speakership in two rounds of voting, facing 22 GOP votes against his bid on Wednesday  far more than the handful he could afford to lose given the partys narrow majority in the House. The prolonged speaker fight in the wake of Kevin McCarthys historic ouster earlier this month has led to growing tensions and frustration among the House Republican conference.

Jordan on Wednesday condemned the death threats, saying its just wrong.

It should never happen, Jordan said as he left his office Wednesday night. Its just wrong, and we dont want it to happen to anyone, any American, anybody, any member of Congress. Its just wrong.

The comments followed an earlier post from the congressman on X that said, no American should accost another for their beliefs  Stop. Its abhorrent.

Still, some of the Republicans who have voted against Jordan have railed against what they have described as the pressure campaign against them and said its only hardened their opposition. Conservative leaders and media figures have attacked the holdouts online and posted their office phone numbers, encouraging people to flood those offices with phone calls in support of Jordan.

Womack derided what he called the attack, attack, attack tactics of Jordan allies against his Republican opponents.

Frankly, just based on what Ive been through  I can only speak to myself and what my staff has been through over the last 24 or 48 hours  it is obvious what the strategy has been: Attack, attack, attack. Attack the members who dont agree with you, attack them, beat them into submission, he said.

There have also been pro-Jordan robocalls targeting voters in Rep. Carlos Gimenezs district as well as other members district, according to the Florida Republicans office. Gimenez confronted Jordan about it, but Jordan said he wasnt behind it, per his office.

Opponents to the congressmans bid so far have included centrist Republicans concerned that the face of the House GOP would be a conservative hardliner, as well as lawmakers still furious at the small group of Republicans who forced out McCarthy and then opposed House Majority Leader Steve Scalises bid for the gavel. Scalise initially defeated Jordan inside the GOP conference to become the speaker nominee, but later dropped out of the race amid opposition to his candidacy.

Jordan, pressed by CNN on why hes staying in the race given pathway to 217 isnt getting any better, noted that McCarthy had a lot longer to build support for his speakership bid.

We continue to talk with colleagues, we feel good about those discussions. The key is we need to get to a speaker as soon as possible, he said. Speaker McCarthy had a several month runway before the vote. Then when the vote happened, it was a whole week.

So we want to get there as quickly as we can, he added. And well continue to talk to our colleagues.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s independent bid for president is facing a big hurdle just as it gets off the ground: a grueling, expensive fight to get on the ballot in 50 states and Washington, D.C.

Kennedy said he planned to "spoil" the election for both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump  and if polls that show him pulling as much as 14 percent of the general electorate hold, he certainly could be. But it will depend on whether his campaign can successfully navigate the complex ballot access process.

Kennedy has some important advantages heading in, first and foremost money. He has raised millions since his launch. But its less clear how much preparation the campaign has done to qualify for ballots across the country. Kennedy is essentially in a race against the clock. North Carolina and Texas require independent candidates to file by mid-May, and a crash of deadlines across the country over the summer, with 29 state deadlines in August alone.

We have a robust ballot-access team and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.s name will be on the ballot in all 50 states, press secretary Stefanie Spear said in a statement. The campaign declined an interview request and did not respond to a list of detailed questions.

But veterans of past third party presidential bids say it will require more than cash. Beyond gathering signatures for nominating petitions, it takes significant expertise to navigate specific rules for every state and the requirements needed before signatures can even begin to be collected  and then to beat back the legal challenges that will almost certainly follow.

I wondered if they had thought it all through before making the switch over, said Michael Arno, a ballot access expert whos firm was working with No Labels until April of this year and devised the independent ballot access plans for Howard Schultz in 2020 and Michael Bloomberg before that.

Its not just about collecting sometimes tens of thousands of signatures in a given state  thats actually the easy part, according to ballot access experts. An independent candidate for president has a litany of other challenges to getting on the ballot.



One of the biggest barriers are potential legal challenges from either major party, which are nervous that Kennedy could hurt their candidate. In multiple states, there are processes to challenge signatures after theyve been submitted to election offices.

Theresa Amato , the campaign manager for Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004, said "it was an incredibly, incredibly difficult period of time in 2004 because there was a full-fledged campaign to keep us off the ballot by the Democratic Party and its affiliates. Amato, who has also written a book on ballot access for non-major party candidates, pointed out that every other week, we would end up with a new summons challenging the candidacy in one state or another."

The DNC and RNC did not respond to a request for comment.

Even beyond the party machinations, there are several other requirements that vary from state to state that a campaign must be conscious of to actually make it on to the ballot.

The signature gathering requirements in some states are daunting. As an independent, Kennedy will need about 200,000 signatures in California, another 145,000 in Florida and more than 110,000 in Texas, according to a recent analysis of the rules from Richard Wingers Ballot Access News. In Tennessee, by contrast, only 275 signatures are needed.

I think that most people don't realize how incredibly laborious it is to comply with the aggregate level of signatures that are required and the minutiae  curlicues, I call them  in each state, Amato said.

Two dozen jurisdictions also want candidates to name their slate of presidential electors. Ross Perot, who ran as an independent in 1992, spent a month trying to find electors before he could start collecting signatures in California, ballot access expert Winger said. In California, its a requirement to have those 54 people in place before any of the signature collections can start.

Then every state has a different number of signatures needed, including some that have different requirements about how many signees must come from different parts of the state.

And a big one? More than half of all states require the presidential candidate to also declare their vice presidential pick when working to get on the ballot. It might not be difficult for Kennedy, a so-far well-funded candidate who polls higher than the whole GOP primary field challenging former President Donald Trump, but his campaign will need to start its own vetting process to make that crucial decision. He might be able to take advantage of the laws in some states that allow you to name a VP temporarily and then substitute them for your real pick.

Kennedys decision to run as an independent after competing for four months as a Democrat is a more spontaneous approach to the race than most independent candidates typically take.

No Labels has been working on its ballot access plan for two years and says it is "on track to be on the ballot in 28 [states] by years end" though it aims to be on the ballot in all 50 states. Already in this cycle, No Labels is facing popular backlash from organizations, including from organizations like Third Way and MoveOn.org, which is circulating an online petition against the group.

In 2020, Schultz commissioned his plan with Arno before launching a candidacy  which ultimately didn't happen.

Arno said that Perot, who is probably the candidate Kennedy could resemble electorally if his support is as strong as polls indicate, started the process long before his entry into the race in 1992.



Perot "had called me in November of 91," long before his infamous Larry King interview. "He thought about it five months earlier and he had a team already set up, Arno said.

Signature gathering itself can be expensive. If you're not thinking in the range of somewhere between $7 to $10 a signature, which I know sounds horrendous, you're not going to be able to get significant enough professional signature gathers, Arno said.

The high stakes around the election could mean signature gathering could quickly become contentious. To combat the pushback when she worked on the Nader campaign, Amato said they trained their signature collectors in non-violent deescalation.

Sometimes their signature collectors would be confronted while working or people would pretend to sign a petition and then cross out the whole page, making the whole page invalid. In some instances, she said, party-aligned operatives would try to intimidate voters into rescinding their signatures.

It's another area [in a campaign] that requires a professional approach to becoming a viable presidential candidate. If you're not thinking about it, you're probably not a viable presidential candidate, Arno said.

The first deadline is Jan. 6, 2024, in Utah with a named vice president required.
Its been two weeks. Do we have a House speaker yet?

Just kidding. We all know theres no way congressional Republicans could get their stuff together that fast.

If anything, the aftermath of the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gets worse by the day. Now, two Tarrant County lawmakers are coming in for criticism merely for exercising the same rights that the insurgents who took out McCarthy did.

On Wednesday, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the current choice of most House Republicans to be speaker, came up short of the majority he needs to take the gavel. In fact, he got one fewer vote than in the initial balloting Tuesday  thats how well the backroom arm-twisting is going for him.

Fort Worth Rep. Kay Granger and Rep. Jake Ellzey, whose district includes most of Mansfield and nearby parts of Tarrant County, were among the holdouts. They were joined by Rep. Tony Gonzales, a San Antonio Republican. All three were immediately hit with the tired name-calling that the far-right Crybaby Caucus uses in lieu of argument. All were tagged RINO (Republican In Name Only) moderates who deserve censure from their local parties and vigorous challenges in primaries.

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger speaks during an event to introduce the Texas A&M-Fort Worth campus in January.

All for doing what a group of allegedly conservative lawmakers did in ousting McCarthy: taking advantage of the tiny Republican majority to demand the leader they want, for whatever reason.

Ellzeys spokesman said the congressman was not available to talk about his decision, and Grangers office did not respond to a request for comment. Reasonable speculation has it that Ellzey, a decorated Navy pilot who served five combat tours, is concerned about ongoing support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. Granger, who spent years climbing the ladder in the pivotal Appropriations Committee, is not about to see cuts in defense spending. And in an online post, she alluded to intimidation and threats over the vote.

Or it could be personality or stylistic differences. Jordan is a hard-charger.

Whatever the reason, its rich for people to call out Granger, Ellzey and others while giving absolution to Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and his seven colleagues who dumped a GOP speaker after eight months.

Some have even said that the holdouts on Jordan are obligated to vote with a majority of the GOP caucus. Where was that argument when the Gaetz Gang betrayed 96% of House Republicans who wanted to retain McCarthy? A tiny fraction worked with Democrats to dump the California Republican and suffered no consequences, but Granger and the rest should swallow their objections or be labeled disloyal?

As they say online: SMH.

Granger voted for Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana for speaker. After McCarthys demise, Scalise was the initial choice of more Republicans than any other contender, including Jordan, but Scalise stepped aside when he couldnt secure quite enough votes. In other words, Granger was voting with the GOP majority before it was cool.

Lets dispense as well with the fiction that whoever is on the right side of whatever specific vote at whatever moment is the more conservative politician. None of this is about ideology or specific stands on issues. Its about a group that is so clueless about governing that it would rather pitch a fit and grind the House to a halt than bank whatever wins it can when it barely controls one-half of Congress, let alone the White House.

Matt Gaetz is interested in conserving nothing other than Matt Gaetz.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is seen on the House floor as lawmakers hold a second vote to elect a new speaker in Washington. (Jack Gruber-USA TODAY)

It all seemed harmless enough until the vicious Hamas attacks on Israel. The House cant do much without a speaker, and if aid to one of Americas most crucial allies is delayed one second by this nonsense, every last Republican member of Congress deserves to be fired.

Soon, well also be back on the brink of a government shutdown if spending bills cant get passed. Which party do you think voters will blame?

The Gaetz gang set this off without a plan for what would come next. No individual member of Congress should hold his or her breath to get whatever he or she wants. But some did, and the result could cost Republicans their majority next year. How many conservative bills will pass then?

Granger, Ellzey and others like them are merely playing by the rules set down by others who failed to think more than one step ahead. If were testing purity  and that seems to be the only thing that a fraction of GOP voters cares about anymore  the folks who turned against 96% of their Republican colleagues to create this mess have more RINO DNA than anyone.

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Rishi Sunak has said Israel has both a right and duty to go after Hamas to restore its security at the start of a two-day visit to the region.

The prime minister called the terrorist group pure evil and, at a joint press conference, told Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu we want you to win.

In rhetoric recalling Winston Churchill, Mr Sunak added that he was proud to stand here with you in Israels darkest hour as your friend.

He also met with two families whose loved ones have been held hostage by Hamas following the attacks on 7 October, which saw more than 1,400 killed.

In a bid to prevent the conflict from spreading across the region, Mr Sunak flew to Saudi Arabia where he and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman agreed to coordinate action in a bid to avoid further escalation.

Mr Sunak also encouraged the crown prince to use his countrys leadership in the region, where it is a key player, to support stability, both in the coming days and in the long term.

It came as:

Netanyahu said he was preparing the country for a long war against worst monsters on the planet

UK and US advised their citizens to leave Lebanon now as tensions rise between Hezbollah and Israel

Eight Britons killed and seven missing in Hamas attacks as total number of hostages reaches 203

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant tells troops on Gaza border that they could see the enclave from inside soon

Hundreds of lorries with vital supplies still waiting to enter Gaza after President Biden secured aid agreement

The Archbishop of Canterbury arrived in Jerusalem to show solidarity to those impacted by the conflict

While in the Middle East, the prime minister is expected to work on efforts to try to secure the release of the hostages and prevent the conflict from spreading across the region.

There is increasing concern that it will, starting with Lebanon. The UK, the US and Germany have issued travel warnings urging their citizens to immediately leave the country.

Israel also said it had bolstered its northern defences and was ready to respond to any attack from its northern neighbours. Major Marcus Sheff, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, told The Independent: I think Lebanon needs to ask whether it wants to risk its future for the Hamas terror organisation. He added: "We will deal with Hezbollah as necessary. The [Israeli military] is ready, ready to respond to any attack.

Jordan has called for an immediate ceasefire and warned a continued bombardment of Gaza will only see the conflict ripple past their borders.

On Thursday Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant told infantry troops gathered at the border that they will soon see Gaza from the inside, suggesting a ground invasion could be approaching.

There has been growing regional fury at the worsening humanitarian crisis for the two million people in Gaza, who are running out of food, water, fuel and power under a crippling Israeli siege.

The US brokered a deal where 20 trucks of aid would be allowed in via Egypt. But rights groups say this is only a scratch on the surface of whats needed.

While in Israel, Mr Sunak offered support for military action in response to the Hamas attack, which saw more than 1,400 killed, during talks with Mr Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog .

Appearing alongside Mr Netanyahu, he said Israel has the right to go after Hamas, take back hostages and strengthen your security for the long term.

He also told Mr Herzog that Britain stood in solidarity with your right to defend yourself, adding: You have not just a right to do that, I think you have a duty to do that, to restore that security to your country.

But as he walked a diplomatic tightrope, Mr Sunak again stressed that Israels response should be in line with international law at the same time as offering strong backing for action.

He also pushed Israeli leaders for progress in allowing aid into Gaza, amid warnings of a humanitarian disaster.

Rishi Sunak meets with Israeli president Isaac Herzog (EPA)

Mr Netanyahu said Hamas were the new Nazis and the worst monsters on the planet, telling the British PM: You fought the Nazis 80 years resolutely and the entire world supported your action.

Mr Herzog said he was extremely grateful to Mr Sunak for visiting during Israels darkest hour and said the country was determined to turn it into their finest hour  using the language of Churchills most famous wartime address.

To have a child taken from you is a parents worst nightmare.



This morning I heard from families going through this unbearable agony.



Working with our partners, were determined to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists. pic.twitter.com/F7AV021o9x  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

In Israel Mr Sunak also met with two families whose loved ones have been held hostage by Hamas following the attacks on 7 October.

In a post on X, the PM was pictured hugging one mother: To have a child taken from you is a parents worst nightmare, he said  repeating his determination to see hostages released.

Mr Sunak also called Hamas pure evil and said he had been chilled by videos showing those killed and kidnapped. The PM said: They are horrific. They chill you  they have certainly done that to me  and everyone can see that [Hamas] represent pure evil.

But Mr Sunaks language was condemned by Oxfam, who said it was wrong that he had not called for a ceasefire and added nobody wins when the scale of human suffering, devastation and pain is so vast and relentless.

Sunak tells Netanyahu he supports military action to restore security (EPA)

His visit to Israel comes after US president Joe Biden helped secure a deal which saw the first aid getting over the Egyptian border. Mr Biden also backed Israel by saying that the other team were behind the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital.

Mr Biden said his claim that the explosion was the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group was based on data from the US defense department. Mr Sunak said on Thursday that it was important not to jump to conclusions and that UK intelligence agencies were still reviewing the facts available.

Before his meeting with Mr Sunak, Mr Herzog attacked the BBC for its refusal to call Hamas a terrorist group  accusing them of a distortion of the facts. Asked about the Israeli presidents remarks on the BBC, No 10 said the broadcaster should reflect very carefully and learn lessons from the initial coverage of the hospital blast.

The PMs arrival in Israel came as his security minister Tom Tugendhat said that the destruction of the terrorist organisation Hamas would be a blessing.

Calling Hamas barbarous murderers, the Tory minister offered backing for Israels planned military action in Gaza: The destruction of Hamas would be a blessing not just for the Israeli people but for the Palestinian people ... I would love to see a world without Hamas in it.

Mr Tugendhat said Hamas had stolen aid from civilians and used the Palestinian people as their slaves to build tunnel complexes. He also accused Iran of pouring money into Hamas to kill Jews.

Foreign secretary James Cleverly, who is also in the region on a three-day trip which will see him visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, said he would push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages.

The Archbishop of Canterbury also arrived in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, saying it was a crucial time to show solidarity and care to those impacted by the war, and is set to meet other Christian leaders in the region.

During his visit, Lambeth Palace said Justin Welby will renew an appeal for the release of hostages held by Hamas, as well as offering sympathy and condolences for Israeli victims since the conflict broke out.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to leave now while commercial options remain available.

In a speech at Mansion House on Wednesday night, King Charles III praised the tolerance of people in the UK as he urged the world to be more understanding of difference amid such heart-breaking loss of life in Israel and Gaza.

But Robin Simcox, the commissioner for countering extremism, said the rise of antisemitism was a sign that Britain was very sick indeed and should be a wake-up call.

In an article for The Times, he suggested the normalisation of anti-Israel extremism and antisemitism was because of a failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism.
Rishi Sunak is setting off for a visit to Israel as part of a two-day mission to try to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from spiralling into a larger crisis.

The prime ministers diplomatic efforts in the Middle East follow those of US president Joe Biden, who in a trip to the country on Wednesday warned citizens not to be consumed by hate over the Hamas assault that killed more than 1,400 people 11 days ago.

When he meets the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu , and president Isaac Herzog , Mr Sunak will press for the route into Gaza to be opened as soon as possible to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and the exit of those trapped in the territory, No 10 said.

Israeli soldiers carry a coffin during the funeral of the head of the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council, Ofir Lipstein, who was killed by Hamas militants (AP)

Israel, which is laying siege to the territory, says it will not allow humanitarian aid in from its side so long as its citizens are still being held captive, but that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of aid.

The PMs visit will be part of a trip to the wider region during which he will also travel to other capitals to meet counterparts.

Israel-Hamas latest: Follow our live coverage here

In parallel with Mr Sunaks trip, foreign secretary James Cleverly will visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in the coming days to underscore the UKs message.

The prime minister said: Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamass horrific act of terror.

The attack on al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict. I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort.

Mr Cleverly said: It is in no ones interests  neither Israeli, Palestinian nor the wider Middle East  for others to be drawn into this conflict.

President Joe Biden is greeted by Mr Netanyahu (AP)

I am meeting counterparts from influential states in the region to push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages.

Palestinians are reeling from a huge blast at a Gaza City hospital, with hundreds feared dead.

Hamas officials blamed the blast on an Israeli air strike but Israel denied involvement, saying it was instead down to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed the claim.

During a speech in Tel Aviv, Mr Biden likened the Hamas attacks to the Holocaust, and urged both sides not to make mistakes similar to those that the US and its allies made after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.
The British Broadcasting Corporation

Rishi Sunak has urged Saudi Arabia to help support stability in the Middle East, after backing Israel in its war with Hamas on a visit to the country.

The UK prime minister agreed to work with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to avoid further escalation and deliver aid to Gaza.

Mr Sunak flew to Riyadh as part of a two-day trip to capitals in the region.

Earlier, Mr Sunak promised to stand with Israel in a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu .

The diplomatic flurry comes as Israel prepares for a ground invasion into Gaza after the deadly Hamas attack on 7 October.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Sunak said he was "proud" to support Israel in its "long war" against Hamas, which he branded "pure evil".

"We will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people. And we also want you to win," Mr Sunak told reporters.

In a statement following the meeting with the Saudi crown prince, Downing Street said the pair agreed the "loss of innocent lives in Israel and Gaza over the last two weeks has been horrific" and "underscored the need to avoid any further escalation in the region".

Mr Sunak "encouraged the crown prince to use Saudi's leadership in the region to support stability, both now and in the long-term", No 10 said.

Israeli warplanes and artillery have been bombarding Gaza since more than 1,400 people were killed in the attack by Hamas earlier this month.

Gaza remains under siege, with Israel blocking cross-border supplies of water, electricity, and fuel.

Downing Street said Mr Sunak had met his Israeli counterpart for two hours of talks, mostly without officials present.

Appearing afterwards, Mr Netanyahu said Israel would need "continued support" from allies, warning there would be "ups and downs" and "difficulties" as it fought Hamas.

Speaking alongside him, Mr Sunak told reporters the UK "absolutely" supported Israel's "right to defend itself, in line with international law".

"I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians, in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas," he added.

'Darkest hour'

Borrowing a phrase from Britain's leader during World War Two, Sir Winston Churchill, Mr Netanyahu said the Hamas attack represented "the world's darkest hour".

Mr Sunak echoed the language, adding: "I'm proud to stand here with you in Israel's darkest hour as your friend".

His visit comes directly after US President Biden's, as world leaders step up efforts to prevent the conflict spilling into the wider region.

Mr Biden said Israel had been "badly victimised" - and had a right to strike back against Hamas.

But he cautioned Israelis against being "consumed" by anger, urging them not to repeat the "mistakes" made by an "enraged" United States after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Mr Sunak's meeting with Saudi Arabia's crown prince is significant.

Saudi Arabia is a vital player when it comes to engaging with all international and regional parties to halt escalation and prevent further spread in the region.

Until a couple of weeks ago, Riyadh was involved in three-way negotiations with Tel Aviv and the White House to normalise relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The talks were moving at a swift pace but all that changed on 7 October after Hamas's attack.

Since then, Saudi Arabia has not only come out in strong support of the Palestinians but has also condemned and blamed Israel for the war.

The Palestinian issue has united the otherwise divided Muslim world. Given the volatile dynamics of the region, Prince Salman could play an important role.

Mr Sunak also said he appreciated Israel's announcement on Wednesday it would not stop aid entering southern Gaza from Egypt.

However, Israel only agreed to allow food, water and medical supplies - not other much-needed supplies like fuel.

It also says it will not allow any aid to pass through its own territory until hostages taken by Hamas during its attack earlier this month are released.

After an earlier meeting with Israel's president Isaac Herzog, No 10 said Mr Sunak hoped for "further progress" in delivering aid to Gaza.

More on Israel-Gaza war

Mr Sunak has declined to back calls from the Scottish National Party and some Labour MPs for a ceasefire to protect civilians, insisting Israel has a right to "act against terrorism".

Speaking to broadcasters, however, he said it was important to stop the conflict escalating regionally.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told MPs on Wednesday that calls for ceasefires were "all well and good", but he had seen no evidence that one would be respected by Hamas.

Mr Cleverly is on a diplomatic trip of his own, meeting his Egyptian counterpart earlier. He is also due to visit Turkey and Qatar.
A Riverside County sheriff's deputy and a gunman who were hospitalized after a shootout Wednesday night are both stable, authorities said. Above, the Riverside County sheriff's office. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

A Riverside County sheriff's deputy and a gunman were hospitalized after exchanging fire in a Wednesday night shootout, authorities said.

Deputies arrived at Ramon and Robert roads in the unincorporated Thousand Palms area around 7:10 p.m. Wednesday to find a suspect in a felony hit-and-run case. When they tried to detain the driver of a car at the scene, a passenger in the vehicle began shooting at deputies, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Office.

After the man refused to get out of the car or follow deputy commands, the Sheriff Office's Special Enforcement Bureau and the California Highway Patrol as well as other local agencies were called to assist with the barricade situation.

During the exchange of gunfire, a deputy was struck, according to the sheriff's office. The deputy was taken to a hospital and is stable.

Read more: Hayward police's body-cam video of shooting of a 37-year-old man raises questions about what really happened

The suspect was also shot and was taken into custody, the Sheriff's Office said. He is stable as well. The driver of the car was arrested and booked on an outstanding felony warrant.

The Sheriff's Office declined to release the name of the deputy who was shot.

A law enforcement source who was not authorized to speak publicly told The Times that the deputy was in the office's field training program, meaning the deputy was either a new academy graduate or was being transferred from a correctional facility to patrol duty.

He and another training deputy responded to the suspect, who was suicidal, according to the law enforcement source. The deputy was shot in the abdomen but was alert and speaking when he was taken to the hospital, the source said.

Read more: Three killed, one injured in Toluca Lake shooting; no suspects identified

The deputy was not the first to come under fire in the last year for the Riverside County Sheriff's Office.

In January, Deputy Darnell Calhoun was shot and killed when responding to a domestic violence call.

That came just weeks after another deputy, Isaiah Cordero, was killed in late December.

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.
A Riverside County Sheriffs Deputy was wounded Wednesday in a shooting in Thousand Palms.

Little is known about the incident, but Sheriffs Department officials confirmed that a deputy was shot and was being transported to the hospital and the suspect was in custody.

The extent of the deputys injuries are unknown, but authorities said the deputy was in stable condition after undergoing surgery.

Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy shot in Thousand Palms

The Sheriffs Department did not provide many details, but urged the public to avoid the area of Ramon Road and Robert Road.

More information was expected to be released by the Sheriffs Departments on its social media pages.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
Dont call him junior.

Rep. Rob Menendez, the 38-year-old son of Sen. Bob Menendez, joined the House earlier this year thanks in large part to the family name.

Now, hes in a mess because of it.

His powerful fathers political career appears all but over after prosecutors laid out unseemly allegations in a federal indictment this fall. They allege Sen. Menendez was an agent of the Egyptian government while leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and accepted bribes in the form of gold bars, envelopes of cash and a new car for his wife Nadine, who had ruined hers during a collision that killed a pedestrian. Bob and Nadine Menendez have pleaded not guilty.

While his son has nothing to do with this legal case, the political fallout could threaten the 2024 reelection of Rob Menendez, a first-term member who sailed to victory last year and now sits in a congressional seat representing much of the North Jersey area his father did for seven terms in the House.

Now Rob Menendez is trying to stand with his father while also avoiding being dragged down by him.

Many of New Jerseys major Democrats  including Gov. Phil Murphy and Sen. Cory Booker  have abandoned the father, urging him to step down for the good of the party and the country.

The father has yet to make his own intentions clear, giving cryptic answers as terrible polling numbers are made public, but hes defied calls to step down.



In the days following the indictment, it looked like being untouched by his fathers legal troubles was not enough to spare political headaches for Rob Menendez. The mayor of Hoboken, one of the largest cities in the district, quickly got the word out that he may challenge Rob Menendez in next years primary, and there is talk of others who might also jump in the race.

To head off any doubt about his intentions, Rob Menendez almost immediately made clear hes going to run for reelection.

And, so far, it looks like he may win.

For Rob Menendez, the first major test is the response of key Democrats in the Menendez political homeland of Hudson County, N.J. As long as Rob Menendez makes it through his partys primary next June, hes almost certain to return to Congress in the very blue district.

The Menendez name still carries significant weight in Hudson County, where loyalties run deep and political bosses make or break careers. Even though he faces calls to step down from the Senate, Bob Menendez is still regarded as a rock star to voters and the county Democratic Party has declined to call for his resignation  one indication that the younger Menendez may not pay a price for the alleged crimes of his father.

Ive had the good fortune to know Rob since he was a young boy, and hes always been someone who constantly wants to give service to the community and he definitely wants to be his own man, said Hudson County Commissioner Anthony Romano.

In interviews, several key Hudson County figures seemed to see the two Menendezes as separable. Even if they didnt all say it, they seemed to adopt the biblical view that a son should not be judged by the sins of the father. (At least one person who ventured to say something similar quickly backtracked because, they said, they did not want to be quoted as suggesting the father had sinned  a sign that, however weakened Sen. Menendez may be, he remains formidable.)

Rob Menendez  who does not go by junior  would admit that being his fathers son helped him. Hes not naive. But, hed argue, it hasnt helped him as much as people think.

For nearly 20 years, I have supported campaigns from the local to federal level, while forging relationships with New Jerseys political leaders who supported my own campaign to represent the 8th Congressional District, he said in a statement.

A critics version of his resume would look like this: The young Menendez popped up a few years ago as a potential candidate for Jersey City mayor, where he would have challenged Steven Fulop, a political nemesis of his father, in an act of vengeance. Instead, he got a plum appointment from Murphy as a member of the powerful Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. And, when U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.) retired, Rob faced virtually no opposition to succeed him as an heir apparent to a seat his father used to hold.

But another view is that Rob has been interested in politics since he was a young man. He was around politics, learned politics and worked hard to break through. He got into a good college  UNC Chapel Hill  went to law school, did a fellowship at the Port Authority, went into private practice at the politically well-connected firm of Lowenstein Sandler and when the opportunity presented itself, looked for things to run for. He won and now in Congress remains as visible in Jersey City as anyone its voters have sent to Congress since Rep. Frank Guarini.

There are also glimpses that perhaps his father has not always viewed his son as a political heir, even if he has been drawn, however slightly, into his fathers legal troubles.

In fall 2017, long before he appeared as a major figure in the New Jersey politician scene, Rob Menendez took the witness stand to make the case that a Florida eye doctor accused of bribing his father had offered private jet flights, lavish vacations and hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions out of friendship, not as bribes.

A defense attorney asked Rob Menendez how he referred to the doctor, Salomon Melgen, who he said hed known since he was a child.

Doc, Dr. Melgen. But also occasionally as tio, Rob Menendez said. It means uncle in Spanish.

His testimony seemed to bolster the claim made by his father that hed been prosecuted for friendship, and the case ended in a mistrial. Bob Menendez won another term as New Jerseys senior Democratic senator.

But when he took the stand in the Melgen case, Rob Menendez told jurors that he came back to the state from college in North Carolina to work on his fathers 2006 Senate campaign against my dad's wishes.

Of course, when he decided to run for things, the name was a good one to have.

The reality is nepotism exists throughout the world, its not limited to Hudson County, said Gerry McCann, a former Jersey City mayor.

When the younger Menendez was floated as a candidate for Jersey City mayor, the sympathetic view was that he was raising a family in Jersey City and heard from people who wanted things done differently.



Hudson County Commissioner Bill ODea said Rob Menendez was having serious conversations about how he'd change the city, rooted in his view of the city as someone raising a family there.

At the Port Authority, where he went instead, agency chair Kevin OToole said in a statement that Rob distinguished himself as a commissioner singularly focused on ensuring that the agency never lost sight of its core mission to keep the region moving. His deliberative, insightful approach to matters that came before us was invaluable and every resident of the Port District is better served because of his tenure on the board.

When Sires retired, Rob Menendez emerged as the favored candidate to replace him. He locked up support from the local and state party establishment before even announcing his run, enough that all but assured him the seat.

The father never called me and asked me to support him, there was no need for him to even try to do it, ODea said.

On the campaign trail, the Menendezes certainly share allies. Before the indictment was filed, a bit over a quarter of Rob Menendez's big donors were also donors to his father's campaign since the start of 2021, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign data.

But Menendez has people in his corner. A few weeks ago, he walked in the Hispanic State Parade beside Brian Stack, a Democratic state senator who is also the mayor of Union City and the head of one of the greatest get-out-the-vote machines in New Jersey politics. Stack gave Menendezs 2022 campaign an early  and key  endorsement.

If people like Stack stick with Rob Menendez, its hard to see who could beat him. Stack did not respond to a call seeking comment, but in 2021, as Sires retirement plans became known, Stack was quick to back Menendez and said at the time, It cant hurt that hes got the help from his dad, but hes really his own person.

Now the son is an election away from knowing if he can stand on his own.

Jessica Piper contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report inaccurately described former Rep. Frank Guarini. He is not dead.
US Senator Bob Menendez 's wife, Nadine, has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring with her husband to act as a foreign agent of Egypt.

The indictment alleges the couple, who are already facing bribery charges, provided "sensitive US government information" to help Egypt's government.

Mr Menendez, who has refused to resign from the Senate, is scheduled to appear in court on 23 October.

The senator denies any wrongdoing.

On Wednesday, the defendants entering the pleas included Ms Menendez, and Egyptian American businessman, Wael Hana, who too is accused of the foreign agent conspiracy charge in the case.

In September, prosecutors charged Mr Menendez and his wife with accepting bribes of cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage and a luxury vehicle from three New Jersey businessmen, including Mr Hana, as part of a scheme to use the senator's influence to increase US aid and military sales to Egypt.

The additional indictment filed last week by New York federal prosecutors alleged Mr Menendez used "his influence and power to breach his official duty in ways that benefited the Government of Egypt".

During his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - which he has now stepped down from - Mr Menendez allegedly encouraged fellow senators to lift a hold on $300m (246m) in aid to Egypt and provided sensitive US government information to help it, according to prosecutors.

The indictment alleges the conspiracy occurred between January 2018 and June 2022.

It also includes new photos of Mr Menendez and his wife, Nadine, dining with Egyptian officials at a steakhouse in Washington, DC. Nadine asked: "What else can the love of my life do for you?" prosecutors alleged.

According to the indictment, "public officials, including Members of Congress, are prohibited from agreeing to be or acting as an agent of a foreign principal required to register under FARA", which is the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

In a statement last week, Senator Menendez called the accusation false and defended himself against the charges.

"I again ask people who know me and my record to give me the chance to present my defense and show my innocence," he said. "Piling new charge upon new charge does not make the allegations true."

Over 30 Senate Democrats have called on Mr Menendez to resign, including fellow New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.
FILE PHOTO: Logo of Swiss drugmaker Roche is seen in Basel

By Ludwig Burger and Oliver Hirt

(Reuters) -Quarterly sales at Switzerland's Roche slipped 3% as a slump in COVID-19 product sales and a strong Swiss franc overshadowed the launch of a drug against blindness, with an underwhelming guidance weighing on its shares.

Third-quarter sales came in at 14.3 billion Swiss francs ($15.9 billion), the Swiss drugs and diagnostics maker said in a statement, broadly in line with analyst estimates.

Revenues from new drug Vabysmo, against a common form of blindness in the elderly, which won approval early last year, came in better-than-expected at 656 million francs.

Roche is marketing the drug as a treatment option that can be given at longer intervals than the regimen of established Eylea by Bayer and partner Regeneron.

A high-dose version of Eylea for less frequent injections won U.S. approval in August, creating market doubts about Vabysmo's longer-term growth.

CEO Thomas Schinecker - who is keen to restore Roche's battered drug development record - said he was looking to acquire drug assets in all stages of development but that there was no rush.

He pointed to 10% sales growth during the quarter, when excluding currency headwinds and the slump in COVID sales. "Our young portfolio is doing very well," he told reporters.

Roche said it was still expecting a currency-adjusted drop in group sales and core earnings per share at a "low single-digit" percentage in 2023.

But the stock fell as much as 5% and was down 3.2% at 0916 GMT on disappointment that the guidance was not raised, reflecting scepticism about any near-term development highlights.

"That is simply not enough to attract buyers in a market environment dominated by fear," said Stephan Sola, a fund manager at Swiss wealth manager Plutos.

"Some investors think that they are not missing out on much at Roche in the near future and are selling," he added.

Schinecker, at the helm since March, has said that Roche needs to become better at picking drug candidates in mid-stage development to advance to the final and most expensive phase of clinical testing, after major late-stage trial setbacks in the areas of Alzheimer's and cancer immunotherapy last year.

Roche predicted a decline in 2023 sales of COVID-19 products of about 4.5 billion Swiss francs, down from a previous estimate of 5 billion francs.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt and Oliver Hirt in Zurich, Editing by Friederike Heine, Elaine Hardcastle and Tomasz Janowski)
Something curious is happening with Ron DeSantis supposedly flailing presidential campaign: The Florida governor keeps accruing prominent endorsements and growing his coalition of conservative activists.

Since Labor Day, as DeSantis watched his support in the Republican primary dwindle, public backing for his 2024 bid has piled up, from both prominent officials and organizations.

On Wednesday, the DeSantis campaign unveiled its national coalition of military veterans. That followed Mondays announcement from Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis campaign, that 26 county sheriffs across Iowa had endorsed the governor. That announcement was preceded on October 5 by endorsements from 60 county sheriffs in Florida. And that announcement was preceded on October 4 with Never Back Down unveiling a coalition of Iowa farmers for DeSantis, claiming more than 100 members statewide and listing, by name, 17 coalition leaders.

Additionally:

October 3: The DeSantis campaign publicized a 13-member grassroots leadership team in Washington state.

September 28: The DeSantis campaign announced that membership in the governors faith and family coalition, unveiled 14 days prior, surpasses over 100 pastors, faith leaders, and pro-life advocates from across the country, including over 55 in Iowa.

September 21: Never Back Down announced DeSantis endorsements from nearly 70 grassroots conservatives in Nevada.

September 20: Never Back Down announced endorsements for DeSantis from a coalition of South Carolina faith leaders.

September 14: Terry Lathan, a former chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, joined the DeSantis campaign as leader of its effort to win the states primary.

September 12: The DeSantis campaign announced a team of grassroots leaders in Maine.

September 6: Never Back Down announced a coalition of Iowa parents concerned about public school curriculum. The reveal came 24 hours after a similar coalition was announced in South Carolina.

Fresh additions to DeSantis coalition belie the image of an embattled candidate whose campaign is on the verge of collapse. But his campaigns decline in the polls is undeniable.

When DeSantis launched his campaign in late May, he was running second to frontrunner Donald Trump and had enough support to be considered the putative consensus alternative to the former president among Republican voters. The bevy of prominent endorsements he was receiving then was consistent with a candidate on the rise.

DeSantis poll numbers have since tumbled. On September 5, DeSantis was garnering 14.8 percent in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls gauging whom Republicans want leading their ticket next year against President Joe Biden. That number has slipped to 13.1 percent as of Thursday. Support for the governor has also dropped in Iowa, from 18.3 percent to 17.3 percent, and in New Hampshire, from 11.7 percent to 10.4 percent.

And Trump? His numbers have climbed even higher.

The former president now leads DeSantis by more than 45 percentage points nationally and more than 30 points in Iowa. In New Hampshire, Trump leads DeSantis by just under 30 points. But the governor has additional problems in the Granite State. Since the first Republican presidential debate in late August, Nikki Haley has climbed ahead of DeSantis there, taking firm control of second place, although well behind Trump.

Yet rather than support for DeSantis drying up, the endorsements keep rolling inmore so, for example, than for Haley, a candidate who has lately demonstrated more traction than the governor.

That many of DeSantis string of endorsements are materializing in Iowa, host of the January 15 caucusesthe first contest on the GOP primary calendarisnt insignificant. Republican operatives in the Hawkeye State active on behalf of the governor tell The Dispatch they are not surprised, saying the response to him they see on the ground runs counter to the doom-and-gloom narrative surrounding his campaign. Some unaffiliated Republican strategists say there is a more nuanced explanation.

The Iowa caucus is disproportionately composed of ancestral Republicans, and those are exactly the kinds of voters more likely to be shopping for an alternative to Trump, said Brad Todd, a GOP consultant in Washington. DeSantis isnt gaining those endorsements because of who he is or what his campaign is doing, but because of who he is not.

Some Republican insiders believe all of this is an indication that, despite appearances, Trump does not have Iowa, nor the rest of the primary, quite sewn up. DeSantis supporters are especially heartened.

But skeptics abound. Some Republican operatives credit the personal connections and grassroots activism of the DeSantis campaign and Never Back Downs staffs for the ongoing stream of endorsements. Never Back Down is strong organizationally, and the DeSantis campaign and the super PAC are staffed by GOP operatives who have years of experience in Iowa politics. They have deep relationships with prominent GOP activists and elected officials in the state.

The fact that Gov. DeSantis continues getting endorsements despite no clear path to the nomination demonstrates that there is a fraction of the party seeking an alternative to the former president, said a GOP operative in Iowa who is neutral in the caucuses and requested anonymity to speak candidly. The operatives can show organizational strength. But only the candidate can win it.

Read more at The Dispatch

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Four candidates are running for Boise mayor this November, as Mayor Lauren McLean seeks reelection to a second term and battles former Boise Police Chief Mike Masterson, who is vying to unseat her.

In debates and interviews, candidates have focused on issues like affordable housing, growth, and policing.

McLean has emphasized her efforts to use city resources to build more housing, as well as her plan to get Boise to carbon neutrality. Masterson has criticized McLeans management of city departments, particularly the Police Department.

The two other candidates have not been fundraising and have reported experiencing homelessness recently.

Joseph Evans, who has previously run for Congress, is running on improving infrastructure. Aaron Reiss campaign is almost entirely focused on bodily autonomy and homelessness issues. Reis has said he was deported from Switzerland for writing about police brutality and that he does not really want to be mayor.

Boiseans can vote absentee by mail so long as they request a ballot from the county clerk by Friday, Oct. 27. Absentee ballots can be mailed back to Ada County or left at a dropbox. The ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 7. Residents can also vote early in-person from Monday, Oct. 23 to Friday, Nov. 3., or in person or on Election Day.

If no candidate wins a majority of votes in the first round, the race would go to a runoff between the top two vote-getters.

The Idaho Statesman asked questions of each candidate, who responded below.

Learn more about this race and other local elections at IdahoStatesman.com/Elections.

Swipe below to see all the candidates, or use the slider below them.
Middleton voters will choose from six candidates running for mayor and the City Council in the Nov. 7 general election.

Three of them are running for mayor. The other three are competing for two at-large seats on the council.

Mayor Steven Rule is seeking reelection to a second term. Jackie Hutchison, who previously ran for mayor in 2019, and Tyson Sparrow seek to unseat him. The mayor would serve a four-year term.

Candidates from left are Steven Rule, Jackie Hutchison and Tyson Sparrow.

Before his first bid for mayor, Rule was a four-term Canyon County commissioner. His top priorities, as outlined in the Voter Guide questionnaire below, include transportation, lowering residential property taxes and promoting industrial and commercial growth.

Hutchison hopes to hire more police officers and give them raises. She said transportation is a top priority too.

Sparrrow wants to partner with the Middleton School District to address overcrowding in classrooms. He said expanding local infrastructure to keep up with the citys population growth is important.

In the council race, incumbent Timothy OMeara is running for reelection to a second term against Mark Christiansen and Ray Waltemate. Issues one or more of them cite include growth, economic development and investing in local infrastructure, like updating the citys water treatment plant and expanding U.S. Highway 44.

Candidates from left are Timothy OMeara, Mark Christiansen and Ray Waltemate.

The Idaho Statesman sent surveys to each candidate. Their responses are presented below, unedited. Swipe below as needed to see all the candidates..Scroll below the mayoral candidates to see the council candidates.

Learn more about this race and other local elections at IdahoStatesman.com/Election.

MIDDLETON MAYOR

MIDDLETON CITY COUNCIL
Four candidates are seeking voters support for two open seats on the Nampa School Board as questions swirling about school funding, student well-being and health, test scores and safety.

The board could look wildly different in the coming years. Neither Mandy Simpson nor Marco Valle, incumbents representing Zone 1 and Zone 2, are running to keep their seats, which expire in December. Four candidates are running for the seats, two in each race.

Adam Schasel, David Jennings, Jay Duffy and Stephanie Binns are candidates for two seats on the Nampa School Board.

The seat for Zone 3 was vacated in June, when Tracey Pearson resigned for personal reasons. She was one of three conservative candidates who won seats on the non-partisan school board in 2022 and was one of three board members who voted to ban 23 books from Nampa school libraries, according to prior Idaho Statesman reporting.

The board voted to appoint Jason Su as the Zone 3 trustee at its August meeting, according to Nampa School District spokesperson Kathleen Tuck. He was sworn in on Oct. 16.

Zone 1 covers northern Nampa and downtown. Zone 2 covers western Nampa while Zone 3 includes southern Nampa. Zones 4 and 5, which are not on this years ballot, include southwest and southeast Nampa.

The candidates have an assortment of views on the education system including the role of parents, lack of funding and test scores.

The Statesman asked questions of the four candidates. Their unedited responses are below. Swipe below to see all the candidates, or use the slider below them.

To learn about this race and other local elections, visit the Idaho Statesmans election page.

Nampa School District
Two candidates are running for Star mayor in the Nov. 7 general election, as Mayor Trevor Chadwick seeks reelection to a second term and Michele Miles attempts to unseat him.

In the Idaho Statesmans 2023 Voter Guide, both candidates focused on topics like infrastructure and the rapid growth of the city. The mayor would serve a four-year term.

Chadwick joined the Star City Council in 2016, and in his first bid for mayor in 2019, he made transportation a top priority. Now, he hopes to expand upon that, as well as public safety.

Miles, a physician assistant and political newcomer, said she looks to manage the citys growth. Star has been ranked as one of the fastest-growing cities in Idaho in the last year.

Candidates from left are Star Mayor Trevor Chadwick and Michele Miles.

Residents can vote absentee by mail as long as they request a ballot from the county clerk by Friday, Oct. 27. Absentee ballots can be mailed back to Ada County or left at a dropbox. The ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 7.

Residents can also vote early in-person from Monday, Oct. 23 to Friday, Nov. 3., or in person or on Election Day.

The Idaho Statesman sent surveys to each of the candidates, and their responses are presented below, unedited. Learn more about this race and other local elections at IdahoStatesman.com/Election.
West Ada School District residents will elect three school board trustees in the upcoming election.

Voters will pick three of eight candidates running for the open seats on the five-member board.

Running in Zone 2 are incumbent Lucas K. Baclayon and challenger Susie Schuetz. Zone 2 is south of Interstate 84 between Cole and Meridian roads.

Lucas Baclayon and Susie Schuetz, West Ada School Board candidates in Zone 2.

Both say they hope to improve teacher retention by creating a positive environment. Schuetz hopes to analyze teacher exit surveys to better understand why the district is losing teachers.

Running for Zone 4 are incumbent David Binetti and challengers Mari Gates and Miguel De Luna. Zone 4 includes Eagle and Star and a portion of unincorporated Ada County north of Beacon Light Road.

Miguel De Luna, left, and incumbent David Binetti, candidates in Zone 3.

Binetti said West Ada ranks first in reading and math in Idaho. De Luna said the current trustees are misusing taxpayer money to support school district bonds and levies to pay for needed school improvements. Gates did not respond to the Idaho Statesmans voter questionnaire.

Running for Zone 5 are incumbent Rene Ozuna and challengers Tom Moore and Jeremy Cutler. Zone 5 is south of Chinden Boulevard north of I-84. It is bordered on the west by Ten Mile Road and the east by Eagle Road.

Incumbent Rene Ozuna, Tom Moore and Jeremy Cutler, candidates in Zone 5.

Ozuna and Cutler say the district is on the right track. Moore said too many students fail to graduate.

The trustees would serve four-year terms.

The Idaho Statesman sent surveys to each of the candidates, and their responses are copied below, unedited.

Learn more about this race and other local elections at IdahoStatesman.com/Election.
Russian authorities have arrested Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual-Russian/American citizen and journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Tatar-Bashkir service, the news outlet reported on Oct. 19.

Kurmasheva was arrested in Kazan for failing to register as a foreign agent, which can carry a sentence of up to five years in prison.

According to RFE/RL, Kurmasheva lives in Prague with her family, and traveled to Russia in May for a family emergency. When she tried to leave Russia the following month, authorities confiscated both her Russian and American passports, supposedly on the premise that she had not registered her U.S. passport.

Kurmasheva has been unable to leave Russia since then. RFE/RL confirmed that she had been charged with the foreign agent violation on Oct. 19, while waiting for her passports to be returned.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a statement on Oct. 18, condemning Kurmasheva's arrest and describing the allegation against her as meritless.

"CPJ is deeply concerned by the detention of U.S.-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva on spurious criminal charges and calls on Russian authorities to release her immediately and drop all charges against her, said Gulnoza Said, CPJs Europe and Central Asia program coordinator.

Journalism is not a crime and Kurmashevas detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting.

Kurmasheva is the second journalist with American citizenship to be detained in Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter from the U.S., was arrested in Russia in March 2023 on espionage charges. He has been held in pre-trial detention since then.

Both the U.S. government and the WSJ strongly deny the charges against him.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Putin holds talks with Xi; Lavrov says North Korea will help Moscow win

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at a conference during his visit to China, October 18, 2023

Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin explained in an interview with NV Radio on Oct. 17 how Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is trying to propose a deeper alliance with China and what [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping needs from the Kremlin in return.

NV: Putin obviously needs weapons, more weapons, money, political support, and market access for Russia. What do you think he might get from China after his visit?

Klimkin: The Chinese wont give weapons, theyre not in a mood for weapons. I think they will definitely not cross this red line, the reddest of red lines. They can continue to supply dual-use goods, they will continue to help Putin bypass sanctions, and this is happening not only through China. But at the same time, they will keep him at a distance, because relations between Xi and Putin have fundamentally changed. Theyre not just unequal anymore, theyre not balanced. This is the relationship between the one who dominates and the other who is dominated.

And in fact, its not only about the economy, but mostly about technology, as well as military capability. I noticed one very interesting thing that happened right before the visit. Perhaps one of our listeners remembers that Putin spoke at the so-called Valdai [Discussion] Club and said a few words about revoking the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). He seems to have said it by accident, but Putin, of course, doesnt do anything by accident. And right before the visit, the speaker of the Russian Duma [parliament], Vyacheslav Volodin, said: thats all, lets get out of this ratification. I think this was done completely deliberately before this visit.

Read also: China exacts even larger discount on Russian gas as primary importer of sanctioned resource

Putin wants to increase his influence, he wont succeed, and the value in relation to Xi and say that hes a partner, a partner in an anti-Western coalition. And I dont think that the Chinese are part of the axis of evil directly, like todays Russian regime, but theyre definitely part of the anti-Western coalition. Xi and everyone around him see the world through the prism of struggle and rivalry with the United States. I emphasize, not with the West as such or the collective West that we would like to see, but with the United States. And thats why he needs Putin, hell use him in the future, but keeping him at a distance.

And one last thing Ill say before we go into more detail. Pay attention to the positions of Russia and China towards us, towards Ukraine. There is now a fundamental crisis around Gaza, in Israel, what are the Chinese doing? Theyre very, very careful to say that Israel has crossed the line of self-defense and are calling for a ceasefire. What is the Russian regime doing? At the United Nations, theyre trying to compare what Israel is doing now with how Nazi Germany attacked Leningrad [St. Petersburg]. Here is a fundamental difference in assessments, and not only political, but also moral.

Therefore, I wouldnt equate the Chinese regime with the Russian one, in particular Xi and Putin. The Chinese will continue to use Russia, but Putin is unlikely to bring something very nice and tasty from Beijing. Yes, maybe a promise to continue bypassing sanctions, which probably will happen. Yes, I think that Xi will talk to him about the Power of Siberia 2 [natural] gas pipeline, which is very, very important for Putin, because Russia is losing gas revenues and here the Chinese will take Moscow to the cleaners with a huge discount.

But for Putin, the key story is a strategic partnership. This is, of course, a partnership in nuclear and digital technologies. And a strategic partnership so that he feels that hes fighting the United States together, as if on the same level with Xi. But I think he wont get that. Xi is likely, though not yet confirmed, to meet with [U.S. President Joe] Biden next month during the Trans-Pacific Partnership meeting in the United States. And of course, this meeting with Putin will be absolutely critical for the final formation of Xis stance and general understanding of who Putin is for him and what modern Russia is, and what kind of Russian regime it is.

NV: What I thought about is that you mentioned Moscows reaction, Putins reaction to the attack on Israel. By following the rhetoric of Russian propaganda, we can see that the Russians will call not only Ukrainians, but also Israelis Nazis.

Klimkin: They actually did that, from the UN rostrum at the hearings, which precede the possible introduction of the Russian resolution. They actually compare everyone and everything. And when they compare us to the Nazis, now theyre comparing Israelis to the Nazis. In my opinion, this is the same moral rock bottom, because understanding the Holocaust [the genocide of European Jews during WWII], how it all happened, understanding their shelling on the day when we have a holy day near the Babyn Yar [Memorial Center in Kyiv], everything is completely clear. But their propaganda really knows no bounds. Look at what the Chinese say.

Read also: Putin leaves hiding to meet Kyrgyzstan President in Bishkek in first foreign trip since ICC arrest warrant

When they dont want to say something, they just dont. We have no comments. And the foreign minister speaks quite cautiously, although hes in international affairs, , he knows a lot. And there [in Russia], in general, there are no more limits to what they say, they just say it.

And this, by the way, is a very clear demonstration that its not about politics, its just about the total degradation of morality, the absence of any basic values. We may not share Chinese values, and of course we dont share them, but we can look at them, we respect something, we can criticize something. And tell me, what are the values of todays Russian regime?

NV: mentioned Joe Bidens upcoming meeting with Xi Jinping and Russia announcing its intention to withdraw from the nuclear test treaty.

I want to ask about these tests. Do you think the Russians will try to conduct some kind of demonstrative act, to test something right before the meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden? And how can it affect this dialogue?

Klimkin: I think they will do it later. I think that todays Russian logic, I dont say, resembles the one of Kim Jong Un [North Korean dictator], but they have something like that. When he [Kim Jong Un] needs to show how cool he is, usually conducts either a nuclear test or launches a missile. Well, its cheaper to launch a missile, which is why he has missiles flying more often. And Putin really needs to offer his services to Xi, he wants to say that, first, he wants to go further in his rivalry with the United States and help him wear the United States down. Because what Putin is starting is actually a nuclear arms race, thats what its called.

Second, its absolutely clear that among all the technologies that Russia has, the Chinese need nuclear ones. So far, they have much fewer warheads than Russia and the United States. And Putin shows in this way: look, Im ready to help China. And this also means, this is the third, that the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which is now suspended also by the decision of Putin himself, wont just work bilaterally if China gets more nuclear potential.

Read also: Top security official says China will keep Moscow's trigger finger off atomic arsenal

This means that these bilateral negotiations will in some sense lose their meaning, they need to be tripartite, and then well talk about the participation of the British and the French. We also have other countries, we know very well that India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, and not only they. All this means that were being dragged into a completely different reality, and Putin wants to shake up this reality. He understands very well that the West is very careful about only one trump card that Russia has today  nuclear weapons.

That is, this is a very well-thought-out strategy: first, the termination of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [in February 2023], then the rhetoric during the Valdai Club meeting, now the decision, which, please note, is voiced not by Putin himself, but by someone from his entourage. And then he comes to Xi and says: well, Im a friend here, you can do nothing without me, and you cannot wear the United States down without me. And the United States is your enemy for the entire 21st century, Xi. Thats why you should love me.

You should support me in what I do. Although, in my opinion, Xi actually understands Putins sort very well, as the Chinese bureaucracy understands the Russian regimes nature. So, this step to withdraw from the treaty, from ratification, to be precise, is exactly the preparation for the Chinese visit and Putins attempt to raise the stakes, precisely the global stakes. We know that Putin, in his logic, is at war with the United States.

NV: And with all of NATO.

Klimkin: Of course, with the entire Western world. By the way, I emphasize the Chinese arent at war with the entire Western world, theyre at war with the United States. Theyre not at war with the United States either, they want strategic rivalry, they want to co-determine the global rules, as far as I understand. In what way and how  this is the question since the Chinese declare the right principles, in particular pertaining to us  territorial integrity, for example.

But later they dont vote [at the UN] for the withdrawal of Russian troops. Therefore, it means that the Chinese, declaring the right principles, interpret them at the moment of time as they need, as they need it, and this is a fundamental problem. And the Russian regime has long had no principles. Youve heard that Putin says that he observes international law and the UN charter, particularly regarding us. And what can we say after that?

NV: Were recording alarming trends as to where Putin is driving the world to. And this overlaps, for example, with a growing feeling that the West is getting tired of Ukraine, its support is getting weak and in general, the West wants concessions from Ukraine to Russia.

What do you think the countermeasures should be?

Klimkin: Ill return for a second to your thesis about the [Kyiv International Institute of Sociology] survey, and a Gallup survey was conducted before that, and this is a very important thesis. By the way, I dont rule out that Putin will somehow use these polls in his conversation with Xi. And I dont mean how Ukrainians change or dont change their attitude towards the West. I mean the differences in attitudes that we saw in these polls between central and western Ukraine, the differences are actually zero, none, even purely numerical. And apparently differences between our eastern and southern regions. Theyre larger in the Gallup survey, and smaller in the KIIS survey, but theyre present in both polls.

Read also: Western generals and military analysts praise Ukrainian Armed Forces: 7 Quotes for Day of Defenders

And I already feel a certain anxiety among Western politicians and experts that the thesis that we seem to have regional differences and no absolute approach, absolute unity, if you will, which we as Ukrainians were very proud of. And this thesis is coming back, I notice. For example, today I started the morning with a conversation with my German friends, they say, they dont exclude the fact that now this thesis will start to fully develop.

NV: Are the Russians pushing it in the West?

Klimkin: Thats the problem. And, in my opinion, the problem with these surveys that you mentioned is not a change in the attitude of Ukrainians, its just a very clear story and I dont blame anyone for this. Yes, we would like more help from the West, more weapons, more financial aid, reconstruction aid, the urgent one that we needed as of yesterday or the day before yesterday. And this is a completely clear story, we also think so. It doesnt mean that someone is going to abandon us or that Ukrainians dont believe in our partners and allies, we just think that more help should be provided.

But we also see fatigue in the West, were not blind or naive. But this story about the alleged regional differences, about the fact that this Russian World works in different ways, I think Putin will definitely try to use this trump card with Xi. Taiwan is very important to Xi. Presidential elections will take place there in January. Difficult elections, by the way, not trivial, with not just two candidates.

Read also: US plans to bundle aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan in one bill  report

And if you see the survey in Taiwan, I understand this is a very distant topic for Ukrainians. In recent surveys, over 60% of those who live there say: were not Chinese, were Taiwanese, thats how we understand our identity. And I know that representatives of the Russian regime have already tried to draw parallels here in their contacts with the Chinese. Thats why these surveys you mentioned, the Gallup poll and others, worry me.

They worry me both from the point of view of trends, but also from the point of view of how Russia will use them. Both in the West, as we talked, and in the East. Since today were primarily talking about this Putins visit, its really extraordinary. Putin hasnt traveled anywhere for a long time, hes afraid of traveling. Of course, he made a stop at Kyrgyzstan for the CIS summit, so that no one would be sad. But nevertheless, this is a very, very serious topic to which we must pay attention and point out to the Chinese that our and Taiwanese histories are, as they say in Odesa, two big differences.

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Pangea Graphics via RFE/RL

Authorities in Russia on Wednesday arrested a U.S.-Russian journalist working for the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the broadcaster said.

Alsu Kurmasheva, a Czech Republic-based editor with RFE/RLs Tatar-Bashkir Service, traveled to Russia for a family emergency in May, the outlet said in a statement. It said that Kurmasheva was temporarily detained as she tried to leave the country in June, with authorities confiscating both her U.S. and Russian passports.

Wall Street Journal Reporter Detainedand Putins Chef Jokes About Finding Him in a Graveyard

She was later fined for failing to register her American passport with Russian authorities, RFE/RL said, and she was waiting for her passports to be returned when she was charged with failure to register as a foreign agent on Wednesday. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment.

Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children, said RFE/RL acting President Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin. She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately.

Kurmashevas arrest comes after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in March during a reporting trip to Russia. The U.S. citizen remains in pretrial detention on espionage charges. Both the Journal and the U.S. government have strongly denied the allegations against Gershkovich, with the Biden administration formally declaring him wrongfully detained.

Kurmasheva was detained in Kazan, a city in southwest Russia, which is also the capital of Tatarstan. Kurmashevas reporting work focused on ethnic minorities in the region and Bashkortostan further to the east. The Tatar-Bashkir service which she edited has regularly covered the war in Ukraine and has reported on repressive tactics used by Russian authorities.

State news agency Tatar-Inform said authorities accuse Kurmasheva of collecting military information about Russian activities via the Internet in order to transmit information to foreign sources in September 2022. A source told the outlet that investigators believe she received information about teachers from one of the universities in Tatarstan who were mobilized into the army and prepared alternative analytical materials for relevant international authorities and conducting information campaigns discrediting Russia.

The outlet also published a video purportedly showing Kurmasheva being escorted into a building by four men wearing facial coverings. It said that she is being held in a temporary detention center and may yet face another criminal case for publishing a book that portrays Russias special operation in Ukraine in a negative light.

A representative from human rights outlet OVD-Info told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) nonprofit that the article of Russias criminal code under which Kurmasheva has been charged has not been used before.

The CPJs Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said described the allegations against Kurmasheva as spurious and called for her to be released immediately. Journalism is not a crime and Kurmashevas detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting, Said said in a statement.

RFE/RL has previously been subjected to harrassment from Russian authorities. In August 2022, the homes of several of the broadcasters journalists were raided and law enforcement questioned the contributors about the work of the Tatar-Bashkir Service.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American editor from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been detained in the southwest city of Kazan, Russia, her employer said Wednesday.

She was charged with failing to register as a foreign agent  a requirement for individuals working for organizations that receive international funding. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is funded by the U.S. government.

Kurmasheva, who was traveling to Russia from Prague for a family emergency on May 20, was temporarily detained while waiting for her return flight in early June, RFE/RL said in a statement. She was later fined for failing to formally notify authorities of her American citizenship, and had both her U.S. and Russian passports confiscated.

While waiting for the return of her passports, Kurmasheva was dealt with a new charge on Wednesday. If convicted, she could face up to five years in jail.

Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children, RFE/RLs acting president, Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin, wrote in a statement. She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately.

The White House has not commented on the detention.

Kurmasheva is the second American journalist to be held in Russia this year. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been in Russian detention for more than six months.

The Russian law that requires individuals who receive international funding to register as foreign agents has received backlash from rights groups who claim that it is used as a political tool to weed out Kremlin critics. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill to expand the definition of foreign agent to broadly include anyone who is under foreign influence. A spokesman for Russian rights group OVD-Info told the New York Times that Kurmasheva will likely be placed in pretrial detention, making her the first person to ever be arrested for violating the legislation.

Russian authorities have accused Kurmasheva of carrying out a targeted collection of information in the field of military activities through the internet in order to transmit information to foreign sources, Russian outlet Tatar-Inform reported, which Russian prosecutors said could discredit Russia. The news agency reported that prosecutors are considering other charges against her, including the distribution of literature critical of Russias special military operation  a euphemism for the Ukraine war.

A widespread effort to get Gershkovich back to the U.S. is underway. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that more than two dozen senators signed a resolution pressing Moscow to free the journalist, and in the meantime, urged that the 31-year-old get full, unfettered, and consistent consular access. A recent appeal by Gershkovichs lawyers was rejected by Russian courts and he will be held in pretrial detention until at least Nov. 30. Gershkovich has been wrongly accused of espionage  a conviction that can carry a prison sentence of 10 to 20 years.
Two Russian SU-27 fighter jets intercepted two Typhoon fighter jets and a RC-135 reconnaissance plane from the U.K.'s Royal Air Force (RAF), Russia's Defense Ministry told the state-run Tass media outlet on Oct. 19.

The RAF planes were nearing Russia's border from the Black Sea, the ministry said, before Russian fighter jets approached and forced the RAF planes to turn around.

At the time of publication, the RAF has not commented on the incident or confirmed its veracity.

The Black Sea has become an increasingly important front in Russia's war against Ukraine, as well as a zone of competition between Russia and the West. Both NATO and Russian aircraft operate over the Black Sea.

Russian military planes have engaged in a number of aggressive actions in the Black Sea, such as allegedly attempting to shoot down an RAF plane in September 2022.

In that incident, which was not revealed until nearly a year later, unnamed Western officials claimed that a Russian SU-27 fired missiles at an RAF reconnaissance plane, which either missed or malfunctioned.

At the time, the Russian Defense Ministry tried to explain the whole incident as a result of a "technical malfunction." Then Defense Secretary Ben Wallace called it a "potentially dangerous engagement" but accepted Moscow's explanation.

In March 2023, a Russian Su-27 Flanker jet deliberately flew into the flight path of an unmanned U.S. Reaper drone over international waters in the Black Sea, damaging it and forcing it to crash.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Putin holds talks with Xi; Lavrov says North Korea will help Moscow win

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Russia is demanding the extradition of a Ukrainian citizen from Canada due to his past service to the German SS.

Russias Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered on Wednesday for law enforcement agencies to begin looking into the extradition of Yaroslav Hunka, 98, from Canada on charges related to his service to Nazi Germany.

"Hunka must be held fully accountable for his bloody crimes," said Shoigu. "Such crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations."

CANADA UNDER FIRE FOR APPLAUDING 'LITERAL NAZI' IN PARLIAMENT DURING ZELENSKYY VISIT

Hunka is a former serviceman of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a Nazi military formation comprised of mostly Ukrainian volunteers in combat against the Soviet Union.

Last month, Speaker Anthony Rota invited Hunka to the Canadian House of Commons to attend a speech given by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Hunka was introduced as a war hero to standing ovation by members of the House of Commons, who were unaware of the man's service record.

CANADA'S HOUSE SPEAKER RESIGNS AFTER INVITING A MAN WHO FOUGHT FOR THE NAZIS TO PARLIAMENT: 'PROFOUND REGRET'

Russian President Vladimir Putin talks to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, right, during the annual Navy Day Parade in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Rota resigned from his position following public backlash to Hunka's appearance, saying the Nazi veteran's inclusion was strictly his fault.

"No one in this House is above any of us. Therefore, I must step down as your speaker," Rota told Canada's House of Commons. "I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of President Zelenskyy.

Now, Shoigu has enlisted agencies in both Russia and Belarus to see extradition of Hunka.

"The harboring of this Nazi criminal [] who has the blood of hundreds if not thousands of our citizens on his hands, cannot be justified for any reason," Shoigu said of Hunka.

The demand is unlikely to be recognized, but serves to reassert Russian war narratives  Kremlin officials have used Nazi Germany's historic occupation of Ukraine as justification for its ongoing invasion since 2022.

Fox News Digital's Emma Colton and Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.





Original article source: Russia seeks extradition of Ukrainian SS member celebrated in Canadian parliament
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Russia's withdrawal from the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, according to information on a Russian government website published on Oct. 19.

The bill was introduced by Putin by the end of September. The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, approved it on Oct. 10, and the upper house passed it a day later.

Moscow justified this move in an accompanying note by saying that in September 2022, the Council of Europe "significantly limited the powers of a Russian expert" in the Convention's Advisory Committee.

Russia claims it lost the opportunity to monitor and address cases of alleged rights violations of national minorities abroad, "primarily of the Russian-speaking population."

The Kremlin used false accusations of abuse and discrimination against Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine to start armed aggression against its neighbor in 2014.

The Convention, ratified by about 40 countries, aims to promote the rights of national minorities among the member states, combat discrimination, and promote and protect individual ethnic groups and cultures. Russia ratified the treaty in 1998.

Following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe in March 2022.

Read also: How Russias liberal tech companies became the foundation of Putins war effort

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Russian forces dropped 10 aerial bombs on Beryslav in Kherson Oblats on Oct. 19, injuring two residents, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported.

Both the victims, women aged 68 and 55, are receiving medical care, the governor said.

Russia also reportedly launched two guided KAB bombs on Vesele, a village 60 kilometers east of Kherson and just across the Dnipro River from Russian-occupied Nova Kakhovka.

The consequences of the Vesele air strike are being established, Prokudin said.

Russian forces have recently intensified the attacks against Kherson Oblast with guided aerial bombs.

The city of Kherson suffered a particularly heavy bombing on Oct. 15, resulting in partial blackouts.

Read also: She needs armor. Female Ukrainian soldiers call for equality

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A Russian-American journalist and editor for Radio Free Europe was arrested in Russia and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent.

Alsu Kurmasheva was detained Wednesday while awaiting the return of her passports in Kazan, Russia, according to Radio Free Europe, a media organization funded by the U.S. government.

Radio Free Europe acting President Jeffrey Gedmin said Kurmasheva needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately.

Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children, Gedmin said in a statement.

Kurmasheva lives in Prague but has dual citizenship in Russia and the U.S.

She has covered ethnic minority communities in the republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in the Volga-Ural region of Russia, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

She traveled to Russia in May for an emergency family issue, according to Radio Free Europe, and was arrested June 2. Kurmasheva has been held ever since and was formally charged this week, facing up to five years in prison.

A news outlet in Tatarstan reported that Russia is accusing Kurmasheva of collecting military secrets about Russia via the internet to transmit to foreign sources, and used information about teachers who were drafted into the armed forces.

Gulnoza Said, a program coordinator for Europe and Central Asia at the CPJ, called for Kurmashevas immediate release.

CPJ is deeply concerned by the detention of U.S-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva on spurious criminal charges and calls on Russian authorities to release her immediately and drop all charges against her, Said added in a statement.

The CPJ says Russia last year raided the offices of seven journalists with Radio Free Europe who covered the Tatarstan and Bashkortostan republics.

Russian authorities this year also arrested a Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, charging him with collecting military secrets on behalf of the U.S., allegations that he and the Biden administration have unequivocally denied.

Gershkovich was the first American reporter to be arrested in Russia since the Cold War.

After the war in Ukraine broke out in early 2022, Russia passed a law that strengthened restrictions on foreign agents registration and made it easier to arrest those accused of being under foreign influence.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Russian forces dropped 10 aerial bombs on Beryslav in Kherson Oblast on Oct. 19, injuring two residents, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported.

Both the victims, women aged 68 and 55, are receiving medical care, the governor said.

In the evening of Oct. 19, the local military administration reported that shelling in the village of Stanislav injured a 73-year-old man. He was given medical treatment and did not require hospitalization.

The shelling also damaged a house.

Russia also reportedly launched two guided KAB bombs on Vesele, a village 60 kilometers east of Kherson and just across the Dnipro River from Russian-occupied Nova Kakhovka.

The consequences of the Vesele air strike are being established, Prokudin said.

Russian forces have recently intensified the attacks against Kherson Oblast with guided aerial bombs.

The city of Kherson suffered a particularly heavy bombing on Oct. 15, resulting in partial blackouts.

Read also: The writing is on the wall: Ukrainian archivists collect Russian graffiti as evidence of war crimes

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Russian multi-weapon attacks against Ukraine killed five civilians and wounded another 11 in the past day, regional authorities reported on Oct. 19.

A total of nine Ukrainian oblasts were targeted  Sumy, Luhansk, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Kherson. Casualties were reported in the last four regions.

From 8 p.m. on Oct. 18 to 5 a.m. on Oct. 19, Russian forces attacked Ukraine with ballistic, cruise, guided aerial, and anti-aircraft missiles as well as Shahed-type drones, the Air Force reported.

Russia launched a total of five Iskander missiles, an S-300 missile, a Kh-59 missile, a cruise missile, and nine kamikaze drones at the country, according to the Air Force. The Kh-59 rocket and three drones were reportedly downed by air defenses.

The overnight strikes damaged an infrastructure facility in Sumy and warehouses in Mykolaiv Oblast, according to the regional authorities. No casualties were reported.

Russian troops launched a missile strike against the Dnipro district in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on Oct. 18, killing a 31-year-old woman and injuring four people, according to local officials. One house was destroyed, and 21 more were damaged in the attack, Governor Serhii Lysak wrote.

Read also: Every family affected: Devastated village copes with aftermath of Russian strike on funeral

Russias military also shelled Nikopol on the same day, wounding a 36-year-old resident and damaging seven private residences, according to Lysak. Late on Oct. 18, Russia hit an infrastructure facility in Pavlohrad, he added.

The village of Stepove in Mykolaiv Oblast was hit with a Russian missile strike, killing two people and injuring another on Oct. 18, Governor Vitalii Kim reported. The attack destroyed a catering facility, damaged apartment buildings, and an agricultural facility, according to Kim.

Russian forces launched 105 strikes against Kherson Oblast on Oct. 18, firing 580 projectiles from various weapons, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram. Two people were reportedly killed, and four more were injured. The attacks against the southern region hit residential districts, a factory, and a park, Prokudin added.

A Russian Iskander missile hit the industrial district of Kharkiv on Oct. 18, injuring a 67-year-old woman and causing problems with the electricity supply, local officials reported. Russian attacks on other regional settlements damaged three apartment buildings, two houses, and a car, said Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Putin holds talks with Xi; Lavrov says North Korea will help Moscow win

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An explosion was heard near Sevastopol, followed by puffs of smoke

The Russian Black Sea Fleets weapons depot in Tsukrovaya Golovka near occupied-Sevastopol was hit by a missile on the evening of Oct. 18, ASTRA Telegram channel reported on Oct. 19.

The strike injured a Russian soldier in military unit 63876 and damaged the territory.

More than 350 police officers were evacuated from the Internal Affairs Ministry buildings in Sevastopol during the missile attack, ASTRA wrote.

Explosions were reported in the Bakhchisaray district from the direction of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea on Oct. 18.

Read also: Ukraine steps up strikes on Crimea as part of broader strategy in addition to ground attack

The Ukrainian Armed Forces targeted the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol on Sept. 22, reportedly using British Storm Shadow missiles. SSO fighters aimed these missiles at the headquarters during a meeting of the Russian Black Sea Fleets leadership.

In a devastating blow inflicted by Ukraine, 34 Russian officers were killed in the attack on Russias Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, with another 105 servicemen sustaining injuries, Ukraines Special Operations Forces reported on Telegram on Sept. 25.

At least 62 Russian sailors and maintenance crew were killed in the Sept. 13 Ukrainian missile strike on Ropucha-class landing ship Minsk in occupied Crimea, Ukraines Special Operations Forces(SOF) said.

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The Russian Orthodox Church creates its own private military companies on the territory of the Russian Federation. These groups engage in the recruitment and combat training of mercenaries among believers for the war against Ukraine on the instructions of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).

Source: Security Service of Ukraine (SSU)

Details: The Security Service has documented that one such private military company, St Andrew's Cross, operates out of the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral in St Petersburg.

Reportedly, its representatives are recruiting believers for service in the occupation forces within the walls of the religious institution.

During the selection of potential candidates, the preference is given to men who have already served in the military units of the aggressor country and have combat experience.

They undergo military-tactical and fire training under the guidance of instructors from the Russian special services after enlisting in the ranks of the private military companies.

Their organisers conduct training of recruits exclusively within the cathedral's walls, as well as on special training grounds to disguise combat training.

Quote: "It has been established that the financing of such private military companies is carried out by representatives of the financial and industrial groups of the aggressor country close to the head of the Kremlin. The money goes to the accounts of the Russian Orthodox Church in the form of charitable contributions and donations for the construction of temples," the SSU said.

The Security Service conducts complex measures to establish all the circumstances of the exposed crimes and bring the culprits to justice on the basis of documented facts.

Background: The Russian Orthodox Church supports Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Even last year, Moscow Patriarch Kirill told believers that death in the war against Ukraine "cleanses away all sins".

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has recommended that Russian tourists visit the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea).

Source: TASS, a Kremlin-aligned Russian news outlet, with reference to Lavrovs statement to journalists during a visit to North Korea

Details: Asked whether he would recommend North Korea as a holiday destination for Russian tourists, Lavrov replied: "I would."

Background:

On 18 October, Lavrov said that North Korea and Russia are united by "historically fraternal ties".

Lavrov arrived in the DPRK amid a possible visit by Vladimir Putin to North Korea, which was reported in the media.

In the West, it is speculated that China and North Korea may be providing military assistance to Russia as it wages war against Ukraine under the slogan of fighting NATO. In particular, The New York Times wrote that Putin wants to receive artillery shells and anti-tank missiles from the DPRK, while Kim Jong Un wants Russia to provide North Korea with "advanced technologies" for satellites and nuclear submarines.

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Due to the successful actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly the air defence, the Russian army is now using Ka-52 combat and reconnaissance helicopters from a distance, staying out of the effective range of Ukraine's air defence.

Source: Oleksandr Shtupun, spokesperson for the Joint Press Centre of the Defence Forces of the Tavriia Front on a broadcast of Svoboda.Ranok (Liberty.Morning), a Radio Liberty project

Quote: "At this stage, we are destroying them with missile attacks. The Russians are not currently entering the effective range of our air defence. Our soldiers have learned to shoot them down quite professionally. So the Russians are launching their attacks from afar.

These helicopters are far less effective at a considerable distance than if they flew closer. The Russians are simply afraid now."

Background: The day before, Shtupun stated in the 24/7 newscast that Ka-52 helicopters and aircraft are a threat to Ukrainian armoured equipment: Ka-52s can strike from a distance of approximately 10 km.

Ukraines General Staff says Russian forces have lost 320 aircraft and 324 helicopters (including one aircraft and one helicopter within the last 24 hours) since the start of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

According to Ukrainska Pravdas information, five aircraft have been downed within 10 days in Donetsk Oblast as a result of the Russians attempts to encircle Avdiivka.

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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov thanked North Korea for aiding Moscows war efforts in Ukraine as he landed in Pyongyang for a two-day visit on Wednesday.

Mr Lavrov is in North Korea for meetings viewed as preparatory efforts ahead of Russian president Vladimir Putins visit as Moscow and Pyongyang slide closer in diplomatic cooperation against Ukraine and the West.

Moscow deeply valued Pyongyangs unwavering and principled support for Russia in the war, Mr Lavrov said, speaking at a reception hosted by North Korean officials on Wednesday.

Mr Lavrovs visit to Pyongyang happened in the backdrop of Russias threat to the US for its decision to send long-range missiles to Ukraine for the first time. Russia claimed the move increased the risks of a direct conflict between Nato and Moscow.

Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on Tuesday that the Ukrainian military used the US-supplied ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) for the first time this week and struck two Russian military airfields.

Amid the growing friendship between North Korea and Russia, there was tangible activity of likely military support being sent to Moscow as a US think-tank on Tuesday shared satellite images showing continued activity around a North Korean port near Russia. It captured at least six trips by sea between North Koreas port of Rajin and Russias Dunai port since late August.

These shipments were possibly related to the transfer of North Korean munitions to Russia, the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said.

Likewise, the Russian Federation extends its complete support and solidarity with the aspirations of the DPRK, Mr Lavrov said, referring to North Korea by its official name Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. North Korea, he said, has remained unfazed by any pressure of the US and the West.

This weeks visit will offer a "valuable opportunity" to review and outline practical steps for the implementation of the agreements reached between the two leaders, Mr Lavrov said.

North Koreas foreign minister Choe Son Hui said the bilateral ties between North Korea and Russia are now developing into an unbreakable comradely relationship under the leadership of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

North Korean state media said that the Russian foreign ministers visit comes at a time when the ties between the two nations have reached a strategic high and will mark a significant occasion in further consolidating relations between the countries.

Photos of Mr Lavrovs visit shared by North Korea showed he was welcomed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-uns foreign minister as people holding flowers and flags of both nations dotted the way.

Mr Lavrov started his visit a month after Russia hosted the North Korean leader Mr Kim in a grand ceremony to mark his rare visit after the pandemic.

During the six-day visit, the North Korean leader extended an invitation to Mr Putin to Pyongyang as the two discussed military cooperation in the backdrop of Russias war in Ukraine and tensions in the Korean peninsula.

The Russian foreign minister may also brief North Koreans on the results on Mr Putins anticipated visit to China, Russias TASS news agency reported.

In a separate incident, a North Korean cargo-passenger ferry that had carried foreign tourists from Japan or South Korea was seen at a drydock at the same port. This could be most likely for maintenance, the CSIS said.

It is not immediately clear if the vessel was used to supplement trade activity between Russia and North Korea.

However, North Korea has recently shared a shipment of weapons with Russia last week, the White House said last week, terming it a troubling development.

The allegations were refused by the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
A Russian missile attack on Pavlohrad in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has caused damage to an infrastructure facility, but there were no casualties.

Source: Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration

Quote: "Late in the evening, the enemy attacked Pavlohrad. The missile attack caused damage to an infrastructure facility. There were no casualties."

Details: In addition, the Russians fired twice at the Marhanets hromada of Nikopol district and again at Myrove hromada on the night of 18-19 October. [A hromada is an administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories  ed.]

In total, almost 30 artillery shells landed in the district. The affected area is being inspected. No one was injured or killed.

Lysak said that units from Air Command Skhid (East) shot down a missile over the Kryvyi Rih district.

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In this photo released by Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service via their telegram channel, Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov greet each other during a meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service telegram channel via AP)

Russia's foreign minister proposed regular security talks with North Korea and China to deal with what he described as increasing U.S.-led regional military threats, as he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his top diplomat Thursday in Pyongyang.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in North Korea's capital on Wednesday on a two-day trip expected to focus on how to boost the two countries' defense ties following a September summit between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin .

Last week, the United States said North Korea had transferred munitions to Russia to boost its fighting capabilities in Ukraine in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban any weapons trading involving North Korea.

During their talks, Lavrov and Kim exchanged views on making joint efforts to expand bilateral ties in all areas and discussed other key issues of mutual concern, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported. It said Kim expressed his resolve to carry out the unspecified agreements reached with Putin last month.

Lavrov met his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son Hui, earlier Thursday and lauded deepening bilateral collaboration.

Lavrov and Choe discussed "resuming full-fledged contacts" and intensifying economic cooperation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It added that Lavrov invited Choe to visit Moscow at her convenience. KCNA said the two ministers discussed bolstering joint action on several regional and international issues, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

The Lavrov-Kim meeting means that the recent fleet of containers likely carrying munitions from North Korea to Russia was not the last Kim-Putin transaction the world has to worry about," said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha University in Seoul.

After accepting Pyongyangs help to resupply the illegal invasion of Ukraine, Moscow is set to commit further violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions by providing North Korea with weapons technology that could threaten stability in East Asia, Easley said.

Russia's state-run news agency Tass quoted Lavrov as telling reporters that he supports holding regular talks on security issues on the Korean Peninsula with North Korea and China.

The United States, Japan and South Korea intensifying military activity here and Washington working toward moving strategic infrastructure, including nuclear aspects, here, are of great concern to us and our North Korean friends, Lavrov said, according to Tass.

The recent flurry of diplomacy between Russia and North Korea underscores how their interests are aligning in the face of their separate, intensifying confrontations with the United States  North Korea over its advancing nuclear program and Russia over its war with Ukraine.

The U.S. has been expanding regular military drills with South Korea and temporarily deploying more powerful military assets around the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea's barrage of missile tests since last year. The U.S. and South Korea have also resumed some trilateral military exercises with Japan.

The focus of outside attention during Lavrovs visit was whether the two countries would provide any hints of how they will solidify their security cooperation or announce the timing of Putins promised trip to Pyongyang to reciprocate Kim's visit to Russias Far East.

During his travel to Russia, Kim met Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russias most important domestic space launch center, and inspected other key Russian weapon-making sites. That triggered intense speculation that Kim seeks sophisticated Russian technologies to modernize his nuclear arsenal in return for supplying conventional arms to refill Russias declining weapons inventory. Neither Russia nor North Korea has disclosed what Putin and Kim agreed to during the summit.

During a dinner banquet held for him on Wednesday, Lavrov said Russia deeply values North Koreas unwavering and principled support for its war on Ukraine as well as Pyongyangs decision to recognize the independence of Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, according to Russias Foreign Ministry.

KCNA said Lavrov also praised North Korea for remaining unfazed by any pressure of the U.S. and the West, and said that Russia fully supports Kims push to protect its security and economic interests.

The White House said Friday that North Korea had delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia. The White House released images that it said showed the containers were loaded onto a Russian-flagged ship before being moved via train to southwestern Russia.

Since last year, the U.S. has accused North Korea of providing ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia, likely much of them copies of Soviet-era munitions. North Korea has steadfastly denied it shipped arms to Russia, but South Korean officials said North Korean weapons provided to Russia have already been used in Ukraine.

Lim Soosuk, spokesperson of South Koreas Foreign Ministry, told reporters Thursday that Seoul was closely monitoring Lavrovs visit to North Korea and that any cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang should be conducted in a way that complies with U.N. Security Council resolutions.
House in Avdiivka

Russian forces are still trying to encircle the heavily defended town of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast, hitting it with everything they have, said Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the Avdiivka City Military Administration on Oct. 19.

Round the clock, we hear gunfire from our positions; the occupiers are firing with everything they have, Barabash said on Ukrainian national television.

The number of shelling attacks on the communitys territory increased, and there were more missile strikes not only on our community but also on the neighboring Ocheretynska community... They fired missiles at a school overnight.

There was no information about casualties and fatalities at the time of publishing.

Russias offensive on Avdiivka  What is known

Russian troops intensified their offensive on Avdiivka on Oct. 10, launching massive attacks on the Donbas town.

Read also: What went wrong with Russia's major offensive on Avdiivka

The head of Avdiivkas military administration, Vitaliy Barabash, said that Oct. 10 saw probably the largest attack on the city in the entire full-scale war, but the situation was under control. The Ukrainian Armed Forces said that the Russian military wants to surround Avdiivka, and is throwing a large amount of equipment and personnel into battle.

The representative of the Joint Press Center of the Tavria Defense Forces, Oleksandr Shtupun, said that the Russian occupation forces are continuing active offensive actions in the area of Avdiivka and consider the town as an opportunity to gain at least some kind of a significant triumph and turn the tide of hostilities.

On Oct. 16, Barabash noted that the Russian occupation forces had stopped shelling Avdiivka, but two people had been killed in shelling west of the town.

On the same day, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported in an evening summary that in the Avdiivka sector, Russians conducted unsuccessful assaults with the support of aviation in the vicinity of Avdiivka and Pervomaiske, Donetsk Oblast, but the DefenseForces had managed to repel seven Russian attacks.

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Russian forces launched an artillery strike against the city of Kherson on Oct. 19, injuring two men and a woman, local officials reported.

Russia reportedly carried out the attack at around 9:15 a.m., targeting residential areas in the Dniprovskyi district.

Two men aged 60 and 39 sustained shrapnel wounds, and a 49-year-old woman suffered both shrapnel wounds and a contusion, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

Roman Mrochko, the head of the Kherson City Military Administration, said that all the victims were hospitalized. The two men are in moderate condition, while the woman's condition is more serious, he clarified.

Several houses were damaged in the attack, according to the Kherson Oblast Prosecutor's Office.

The southern city of Kherson has suffered regular Russian strikes since its liberation in Ukraine's counteroffensive last fall. The city, with a pre-war population of 280,000, lies on the right bank of the Dnipro River, not far from the Russian-occupied left-bank part of Kherson Oblast.

Russian attacks killed two people and injured four others over the course of Oct. 18, the governor reported earlier.

Read also: Kherson chronicle: From quick fall to liberation

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Russian forces carried out an artillery strike against Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast on Oct. 19, injuring two men aged 74 and 69, the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration reported.

The city came under Russian attacks at 12 p.m., resulting in damage to residential and commercial buildings and cars, the regional prosecutor's office said.

The strike started an extensive fire in the yard of one of the houses, which has already been extinguished by emergency services, according to local officials.

Russia also targeted the villages of Pidlyman and Pisky-Radkivski in the Izium district of the same oblast with multiple-launch rocket systems Smerch, damaging several houses, the prosecutors reported.

The town of Vovchansk, with a pre-war population of 18,000, lies roughly 50 kilometers northeast of Kharkiv and only around five kilometers south of the Russian border. The settlement suffers regular strikes by Russian forces.

Read also: Our readers questions about the war, answered. Vol. 4

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A proposal that would deprive migrants who had recently received Russian passports of their citizenship if they refused to take part in Russia's war against Ukraine was suggested by Russia's Investigative Committee Head Alexander Bastrykin, according to a press release on Oct. 19.

"If you are not ready, as a citizen of the Russian Federation, to fulfill your military duty, a decision must be made to deprive such a person of citizenship, Bastrykin said in comments cited by Current Time, a project from RFE/RL.

Military service is mandatory in Russia for all men aged 18-27, although Russia has vastly widened the scope of who it seeks to see in the military after huge losses suffered in its war against Ukraine.

There are millions of migrants from Central Asia working in Russia, and many of them try to obtain Russian passports.

In May 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree simplifying the procedure of obtaining citizenship for foreigners who join the military and fight in Ukraine.

Recruits are offered high salaries, especially compared to what they might earn from manual labor, and a fast-track path to citizenship if they agree to go to Ukraine.

Read also: How Russias liberal tech companies became the foundation of Putins war effort

Russia has also sent migrant workers to occupied parts of Ukraine ostensibly for construction work. However, after they arrive, reports allege that their passports are confiscated and they are pressured to go fight.

In addition, Russia has also attempted to recruit foreigners directly from countries in the region, such as Kazakhstan or Armenia.

Intelligence reports from the U.K. Ministry of Defense indicate that it is "highly unlikely" for Russia to begin a new wave of mobilization before the upcoming presidential elections in spring 2024.

Previous rounds of mobilization caused hundreds of thousands of Russians, perhaps more than a million, to flee the country to avoid being drafted. They also sparked protests and other signs of public discontent at home.

Recruiting foreigners or strong-arming migrants who recently received citizenship into military service may be a way to replenish the ranks while avoiding such highly unpopular measures.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Putin holds talks with Xi; Lavrov says North Korea will help Moscow win





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The Russian army struck the village of Stanislav in Kherson Oblast on the evening of 19 October, injuring a man.

Source: Kherson Oblast State Administration



Quote: "In the evening, the Russian army opened fire on the village. A private house was hit. A 73-year-old man was wounded. He was treated on the spot. The mans condition is fair. He did not need hospitalisation".

Background:

On 19 October, the Russian army also carried out an airstrike on Beryslav city in Kherson Oblast. Two women were injured.

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Experts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have suggested that Ukrainian marines have advanced on the occupied bank of the Dnipro River, and that Russians are concerned about the possibility of a "larger-scale Ukrainian operation" in occupied Kherson Oblast.

Source: the ISW

Details: Russian sources claimed that on 17-18 October, units of two Ukrainian marine brigades, possibly company-sized, crossed the Dnipro River and reached the eastern (left) bank of Kherson Oblast.

Geolocation footage released on 18 October indicates that Ukrainian forces have advanced north of Pishchanivka (14 kilometres east of Kherson and 3 kilometres from the Dnipro River) and into Poima (11 kilometres east of Kherson and 4 kilometres from the Dnipro River).

The ISW pointed out that Russian sources had expressed concern about ongoing Ukrainian activity on the eastern bank of Kherson Oblast and considered this activity part of a potential larger Ukrainian operation.

Experts said that Russia's concern about the ability of Russian troops to repel a potential Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro River might be partially related to the state of the Russian grouping of troops on the left bank.

In recent months, Russian commanders have moved relatively more elite units from the Kherson front to support defensive operations in the western part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, as they likely view Kherson as a quiet sector and the current force composition in the area is likely relatively less efficient.

Quote from the ISW: "ISW will not speculate on the scope and prospects of ongoing Ukrainian activity on the east bank of Kherson Oblast but does not assess that Ukrainian forces have created a bridgehead on the east bank of Kherson Oblast suitable for the further maneuver of sizeable mechanised forces at this time.

However, it is noteworthy that prominent and generally reliable Russian sources are discussing Ukrainian activities on the east bank as occurring at a larger scale than previously documented tactical cross-river raids by Ukrainian forces."

To quote the ISWs Key Takeaways on 18 October:

Russian sources claimed that likely company-sized elements of two Ukrainian naval infantry brigades conducted an assault across the Dnipro River onto the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast on 17-18 October.

Russian sources expressed pronounced concern about ongoing Ukrainian activity on the east bank of Kherson Oblast and framed these activities as part of a potential larger Ukrainian operation.

ISW will not speculate on the scope and prospects of ongoing Ukrainian activity on the east bank of Kherson Oblast but does not assess that Ukrainian forces have created a bridgehead on the east bank of Kherson Oblast suitable for the further maneuver of sizeable mechanised forces at this time.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in eastern and southern Ukraine and reportedly advanced near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

Western media reported that the US has thus far provided Ukraine with a limited number of ATACMS missiles, and the Kremlin issued a muted response to the provision of these systems

Satellite imagery from 17 October suggests that the Ukrainian ATACMS strike on the Berdiansk airfield likely substantially damaged Russian aircraft and airfield infrastructure, but ISW cannot yet confirm the extent of the damage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated his desire to deepen Russian-Chinese economic and political ties but did not announce any practical changes at the One Belt One Road International Forum in Beijing, China on October 18.

Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupiansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, in the Avdiivka direction, southwest of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhzhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast and advanced south of Avdiivka.

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A Russian missile hit a warehouse in Mykolaiv on the night of 18-19 October. In addition, the Russians struck a cafe in one of the settlements of Stepove hromada on the evening of 18 October, killing two people and injuring another. [A hromada is an administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories  ed.]

Source: Vitalii Kim, Head of Mykolaiv Oblast Military Administration; Oleksandr Sienkevych, Mayor of Mykolaiv

Quote from Kim: "On the night of 18-19 October, at 00:55, the city of Mykolaiv was hit by a missile strike. This caused a fire in an unused warehouse building on the premises of one company, and the blast wave damaged apartment buildings. There were no casualties."

Details: Mayor Sienkevych said that windows in at least three apartment buildings in Mykolaiv were smashed. The residents were not injured. Employees of the district administration are still inspecting the area.

Kim said that the Russians launched a missile attack on the settlement of Stepove hromada on the evening of 18 October, at 20:30. A cafe was hit. Two people died under the rubble, and one person was injured. The strike also damaged residential buildings, premises belonging to an agricultural company and other civilian infrastructure facilities.

In the same village, pieces of a Shahed-136/131 attack UAV caused a fire on the roof of an unused one-storey warehouse building on the night of 18-19 October, at around 02:40. There were no casualties.

Water areas in Ochakiv hromada and Kutsurub hromada were attacked on the afternoon of 18 October. There were no casualties.

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Russian invaders attacked Ukraine with Shahed kamikaze drones and missiles on the night of 18-19 October. Three out of nine drones were downed, and Ukraine's Air Force also destroyed one Russian missile over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

Source: Ukraine's General Staff; Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration; Ukraine's Air Force

Quote from Ukraines Air Force: "The invaders attacked Ukraine with Iskander-M ballistic missiles, Shahed attack UAVs, guided air-launched missiles and anti-aircraft missiles from 20:00 on 18 October to 05:00 on 19 October 2023. In total, they used 17 projectiles to hit industrial, infrastructure, civilian and military targets."

Details: In total, the Russians launched:

5 Iskander-M ballistic missiles;

1 S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile;

1 Kh-59 guided missile;

1 cruise missile (type to be specified);

9 Shahed-136/131 attack UAVs.

Russian forces attacked targets in Donetsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

The Air Force noted that it managed to destroy four air targets: one Kh-59 guided missile and three Shahed-136/131 attack UAVs.

Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, said a Russian missile was downed by military personnel from Ukraines Air Command Skhid (East) over Kryvyi Rih district.

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The Russians plan to take 10,000 Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts on a "trip" to the Russian cities of Moscow and St Petersburg by the end of the year.

Source: Office of Dmytro Lubinets, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine

The occupiers say this trip is for "cultural education".

Lubinets has found out about the occupiers plans through monitoring of the informational online channels of the Russian and occupying authorities in the temporarily occupied territories.

The Office explains that the Russians have created the so-called "Cultural Map 4+85" specifically for the Ukrainian children.

Within this programme they have created eight "educational" routes which would help children learn about "the rich cultural heritage of the great country", meaning Russia.

They have already taken children from Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts on such propagandistic "excursions". Three hundred children from Zaporizhzhia Oblast will go next.

The Human Rights Commissioners Office states that there is a stable programme for these routes. Children are taken to theatre plays and to parks to get to know the city. In addition to this they are also sent to specially created museum expositions Podvig Naroda (The Deed of the Nation) and urge the kids to participate in military quests.

"Contrary to the clauses of the Convention about Childrens Rights, the machine of Russian propaganda works non-stop. Having applied different ways of eradication of self-identity and sense of belonging to the Ukrainian nation in the period since 2014 on the population of Crimea, at the moment the occupiers focus on the Ukrainian children who were trapped under the rule of the Russian aggressor together with their parents," Dmytro Lubinets remarks.

He states that the Russians start "patriotic education" of Ukrainian children from preschool age, teaching them about "the heroes of the special military operation".

"by forcibly immersing the Ukrainian children into the Russian educational and cultural space, Russia continues its forcible genocide policy against Ukraine. Several generations of Ukrainians get erased," Lubinets stressed.

Background: Earlier it was reported that Ukraine brought back nine children from the temporarily occupied Kherson Oblast.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his visit to Pyongyang, the Russian foreign ministry said on Thursday.

The ministry did not provide any details of the meeting, which, according to state-run TASS news agency, lasted just over an hour.

(Writing by Maxim Rodionov)
A Ryanair flight was forced to make a mid-air U-turn after an emergency warning went off inside the plane.

Soon after taking off from Belfast International Airport bound for Edinburgh, Scotland, the pilot turned the aircraft around and landed back in Northern Ireland.

According to tracking website Flightradar24, the plane took off at 7.48pm on 17 October but was back at the stand in Belfast at 8.25pm.

Ryanair told The Independent that the incident related to a minor technical issue, while a passenger on board claimed it was related to a door, adding that the experience was terrifying.

The unnamed traveller said that the crew tried to announce something whilst mid-air but nobody could hear it but the staff on the flight were great, reports Extra.ie.

When we landed, they said a problem with the door sensors caused it. We had to circle for a little bit even though it was an emergency landing.

Graham Keddie, Belfast International Airports managing director, said the emergency light came on in the cockpit not long after take off.

It was an emergency light warning about pressurisation and so the skipper immediately came down to a lower level and returned on a full emergency, he told BBC Radio Ulster.

An image shared on Twitter/X from inside the plane purports to show a member of cabin crew testing the door once the aircraft had landed.

Testing once we landed again pic.twitter.com/XZCeoo2ae2  Gerrd (@gh2d09) October 17, 2023

The flight path data shows the plane turned around soon after it had reached Scotlands west coast.

A spokesperson for Ryanair said: This flight from Belfast to Edinburgh (17 October) returned to Belfast International Airport shortly after departure due to a minor technical issue with the aircraft.

The aircraft landed normally and to minimise disruption to passengers, an alternative aircraft was quickly arranged, which departed for Edinburgh Airport at 00.40 local [time].

Ryanair sincerely apologises to all affected customers for any inconvenience caused.
The city of Sacramentos plans to use parking revenue to pay off $273 million in construction bonds for Golden 1 Center has developed funding cracks, forcing officials to use money from the citys general fund, a pot of money that also pays for homelessness services, libraries and parks.

The problem: Too many empty spaces in Sacramentos five garages, a continuing hangover from the COVID-19 pandemic. This has forced the city of Sacramento to divert from its $771 million general fund more than $5.7 million over the past two years to pay off the construction bonds.

With the preseason finishing Oct. 19, the Kings hope to return to another playoff-bound campaign Oct. 25, with the first home game against the Golden State Warriors Friday, Oct. 25.

But city officials said even as the Kings have filled Golden 1 and other entertainment events have resumed, remote work has left downtown office buildings only partially filled, lessening the demand for parking spaces.

Obviously weve all been through some tough times since March 2020, said Brian Wong, the citys debt manager.

Golden 1 construction bonds had been issued in 2015 and the citys plan was for about 30% of the payments to come from the revenue of the citys five parking garages, three in downtown and two in Old Sacramento. This would add up to about $147 million over the 35-year lifespan of the bond.

Golden 1 Center rises in downtown Sacramento in 2015, the year the city issued $273 million in bonds to finance its construction.

The actual garage in Golden 1 Center is owned by the Kings, part of a land transfer the city made to the Kings as part of the deal to build the center.

When the bond was issued in 2015, an emergency fund was created to cover any parking revenue shortfalls. At that time, $5.3 million was placed in the fund.

As of July 2018, the emergency fund balance had risen to more than $18.7 million. In the subsequent years, the city used some of that money to make the bond payments  even prior to the pandemic there existed a shortfall between the actual and the projected parking revenue.

In 2020, the Kings fell several games short of a full home season, which meant, according to their contract, that the city would reduce the teams bond payment to $5.7 million that year instead of $6.5 million. The city took the $800,000 from the general fund to pay for the Kings portion of the bond.

The Kings contract with the city stipulates that they must also contribute to the bond payments. Over time, the teams annual lease payment will cover about 70% of the bonds, but the city bears a much greater responsibility for the payments earlier in the life of the bonds.

Wong said the city is obligated to make its payments to bondholders on the arena whether there is enough money in the parking fund or not.

Otherwise there would be ramifications to the citys credit rating and reputation, Wong said.

A missed payment would damage the citys investment grade credit rating and would result in Sacramento residents paying higher interest on future bond offerings.

Will the parking shortfall last?

More diversions from the general fund to pay for the bonds are likely to take place over the next several years. The city projects a parking revenue deficit as it relates to the bonds of $7.12 million between fiscal years 2023-24 and 2027-28.

Even though the Kings games are back and attracting large crowds due to the basketball teams playoff run and concerts have returned, parking revenue has lagged.

Sacramento Kings fans fill the Section 916 outdoor watch party on L Street in downtown, where they could watch the game on large screens mounted on a privately owned parking garage, at the start of the teams first game against the Golden State Warriors in the NBA playoffs in April.

Parking revenue had dropped to as low as 50% of the pre-COVID-19 revenue in the 2021-22 fiscal year. The city expected parking revenues to be 79% of pre-pandemic revenues in the 2022-23 fiscal year that ended June 30, or about $14 million.

The city said there is an end in sight to the parking fund shortfalls, but it will take until the beginning of the 2029 fiscal year to come to fruition. Officials said revenue will rise 5% year over year in 2026-27 and have smaller increases after that.

Were starting to see events come back, said Matt Eierman, the citys parking services manager. Everything is in full force. Well have four or five events going on at the same time. We have the convention center open and residential units that have been built downtown.

Sarah Mendoza and Thomas Mendoza take a selfie between sets at Snoop Doggs High School Reunion Tour in August at Golden 1 Center.

Curtis 50 Cent Jackson, center, performs What Up Gangsta with members of G-Unit on his The Final Lap Tour at Golden 1 Center in September.

The current yearly bond payments amount to $18 million of which the city is responsible for $10 million. The entirety of that payment is supposed to come from parking revenue. The Kings are responsible for the other $8 million.

Over time, the Kings bond payments will increase while the city payments decrease. Bond documents, however, show that it will be another decade before the Kings and the city split the payments evenly. The bonds go through 2052.

Can we blame it all on the pandemic?

The Kings only signed on to build their arena in downtown Sacramento after city officials agreed to pay for about half the construction costs. This deal was part of a major effort to rejuvenate downtown.

Critics back in 2014 had argued that the citys plan was too risky because it relied on growing parking revenue.

City officials acknowledged they would have to tap the general fund if the parking revenues fell short  but insisted it wasnt likely to happen.

I feel comfortable were on track to hit these targets, said then-Assistant City Manager John Dangberg shortly before the arena opened in 2016.

Then-Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson gives Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell a kiss after her vote in support of the arena financing plan in 2013. Council members Kevin McCarty, far left, and Darrell Fong voted against the plan. The council passed a wide-ranging deal to finance a entertainment and sports center and keep the citys NBA team from moving to Seattle.

But that optimism didnt align with reality.

City officials estimated that parking revenue would jump from around $15.5 million to more than $26 million after Golden 1 Center opened in 2016. However, the revenue only rose to $20.3 million and then slightly dropped over the subsequent years, according to an examination of city figures.
Following the outbreak of war in Israel, anxieties in bordering countries have been rising amid fears the fighting will spread to neighbouring territories.

Lebanon shares a border with Israel to the south, and the historic tensions between the two are threatening to flare up again, with Hezbollah  a Lebanese militant group  an important component in the potential escalation of the conflict.

On 18 October, AP reported that militants were killed on the Israeli-Lebanese border, while the US later warned citizens not to travel to Lebanon after the US embassy in Beirut was set on fire by protesters in the wake of President Bidens visit to Israel.

Here is the latest information on whether the country remains safe for foreign travellers.

Where is Lebanon?

Lebanon sits on the Mediterranean Sea, sharing the border with Israel to the south (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Lebanon sits to the north of Israel, bordering Syria to the north and the east. The capital, Beirut, sits along the Mediterranean Sea, and was a target of Israeli bombings during the Lebanon War in 2006.

Skirmishes between Israel and militant groups have so far been limited to areas around the border in the south, with an anti-tank missile shot from Lebanon landing in the northern Israeli town of Metula on the morning of 17 October.

What does the Foreign Office say?

The latest update from the Foreign Office (FCDO), dated 18 October, states that You are advised against all travel to the whole of Lebanon. If you are currently in Lebanon, we encourage you to leave now while commercial options remain available.

British nationals in Lebanon should register their presence with the FCDO through the link in Travel Advice. The website also states that if your passport contains an Israeli stamp, you may be refused entry to Lebanon even if you hold a valid Lebanese visa.

If you are a British national currently in Lebanon, the FCDO urges you to register your presence in the country in order to provide updates.

As recently as 18 October, the official advice had been to avoid all but essential travel to much of the country, but this has changed in the wake of intensifying clashes and unrest. The FCDO states that events in Lebanon are fast moving. The situation has potential to deteriorate quickly and with no warning.

Commercial routes out of Lebanon could be severely disrupted or cancelled at short notice and roads across the country could be closed.

Regarding the conflict in Israel specifically, it says: [The] FCDO advises against all travel to Lebanon due to risks associated with the conflict between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. There are ongoing mortar, artillery exchanges and airstrikes in South Lebanon, on the border with Israel. Tensions are high and events could escalate with little warning, which could affect or limit exit routes out of Lebanon.

There is also a risk of civil unrest. There have been large protests outside embassies, including outside the US and French embassies on 17 October. Further protests are expected. British Nationals should exercise caution and avoid areas where demonstrations may be held.

Additional security risks are present in Lebanon due to the threat of terrorism and kidnapping, with groups mainly operating in Tripoli, areas close to the Syrian border (such as around Hermel and Aarsal), Palestinian refugee camps and the southern suburbs of Beirut. The FCDO states that terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Lebanon, adding that violence may occur between security forces, protesters and supporters of political groups.

What about flights to and from Lebanon?

Flights from the UK to Lebanon are currently operating as normal.

Will my insurance be invalid if I travel to Lebanon?

Anyone who chooses to travel to Lebanon will immediately have their travel insurance invalidated unless they have a specialist policy, as the FCDO advises against all travel to the country.

The conditions for cancelling your trip will be dependent on your provider, though if you have a trip already booked to Lebanon, you should be able to cancel and make an insurance claim as the Foreign Office is now advising against all travel there.

If already in Lebanon, contact your airline and insurance provider to find out the conditions of travelling home early.
Rinse Cycle

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman , whose company makes that one chatbot your boss has probably considered replacing you with, warns that the advancement of AI means that a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. Spoiler: he doesn't sound like he's going to do anything about it.

Viewing the shift through an historical lens, Altman thinks job loss is an inevitable casualty of any "technological revolution." Every 100 to 150 years, Altman said at The Wall Street Journal Tech Live conference on Monday, half of people's jobs end up getting phased out.

"I'm not afraid of that at all," he said, as quoted by the paper. "In fact, I think that's good. I think that's the way of progress, and we'll find new and better jobs."

Long Jobs

Telling people they're going to be out of a job in the name of progress is not an easy sell. Or, as Altman puts it, "that's not, uh, that's not cool."

Which is an interesting thing for him to admit, since framing job loss as some sort of greater good is basically his whole narrative. In the past, he's never sounded that upset about AI replacing the "median human," either.

Still, he did reiterate that "we are really going to have to do something about this transition"  though what that "something" will actually be remains unclear.

"It is not enough just to give people a universal basic income," Altman said. "People need to have agency, the ability to influence. We need to jointly be architects of the future."

It may well be that being joint architects pretty much means "getting billions of people to use ChatGPT."

Back and Forth

If Altman really thinks we should do "something" about the transition to AI, he hasn't been all that keen on attempts so far to regulate it.

Although in May he did call on Congress to be tougher on the industry, later that month he threatened to pull OpenAI out of the European Union when it actually did so.

These kinds of contradictions are fairly characteristic of Altman, who has rarely passed up the chance to both gloom and gloat about the tech's future.

At times he's "afraid" of what he's making and loses sleep over it. But he's also pretty confident that eventually, poor, "median" folks should be able to see an "AI medical advisor" instead of an actual doctor.

But he's consistently right about at least one thing: people are already losing their jobs to AI.

More on Sam Altman: Sam Altman Says He Intends to Replace Normal People With AI
GAZA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The following are the latest developments related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

The first shelter camp for displaced Palestinians was set up by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the battered enclave on Thursday.

Established at the UNRWA industrial training station in the heart of Gaza, the shelter camp has become a temporary home for numerous families who have been forced to seek refuge as a result of the Israeli military campaign that has been going on since Oct. 7.

Some displaced locals told Xinhua that they were informed by the UNRWA that they would receive shelters to live in soon.

- - - -

Indonesia found difficulties in evacuating its 10 citizens still trapped in the conflict-stricken zone in the Gaza Strip, the country's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said on Thursday.

The Indonesian government made evacuation efforts every day, said Marsudi during a virtual press conference. "However, because the situation is still very difficult, further evacuation cannot be carried out yet."

The ministry continues to maintain close communication with its citizens in Gaza as they stand by for any information regarding a possible escape route.

- - - -

A top Iranian military official has urged regional countries to stop the United States from transferring arms and equipment to Israel from its bases in the Middle East, the official news agency IRNA reported on Thursday.

Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Baqeri made the remarks in a phone call with Qatar's Defense Minister Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah, the IRNA reported, without disclosing the exact date of the phone call.

- - - -

Developments over the past few days in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have amply demonstrated that an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire must be the overriding priority, said Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, on Wednesday.

As long as the war continues, more violations of international humanitarian law are inevitable. Without a comprehensive ceasefire, any amount of humanitarian assistance will be a drop in the bucket, said Zhang at an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

- - - -

Portuguese authorities have condemned an attack that destroyed a hospital in the Gaza Strip, and expressed their condolences for the hundreds of innocent victims.

On Wednesday, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa advocated for an "independent investigation so that there is no doubt about who fired the missile," as well as urging Israel to cease its attack on the enclave. 
SAN FRANCISCO - The State Department blames a Palestinian terrorist organization for the misfired rocket, seriously damaging a hospital in Gaza.

The death toll is in the hundreds and a Bay Area man is fearing the worst.

Sharif Zakout of San Francisco told KTVU his cousin was seeking shelter at the hospital at the time of the attack.

"Im hoping for the best for my family," Zakout said. "I have no idea whats happened to them."

Theyve lost contact since the blast.

Zakout said he doesnt know if theyve survived.

"We are witnessing the genocide of my people and my family, dead center in it," Zakout said.

Burned-out cars in the hospital parking lot marked the spot of the blasts impact Wednesday.

Hamas blamed Israel.

Palestinians carrying belongings flee to safer areas following Israeli bombardments on southern part of Gaza City, Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, Gaza on Oct. 16, 2023. (Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Israel blamed a Palestinian terrorist group for a misfired rocket that hit their own territory.

President Joe Biden on board Air Force One Wednesday, said American intelligence supported Israels claims.

"Our Defense Department says it's highly unlikely that its Israelis and it was a different footprint."

Back in San Francisco, Zakout has been glued to online sources around the clock, tracking the war for nearly two weeks straight.

"I broke down a couple of times this morning and literally, Im just tired of the tears at this point," Zakout said. "Its been so exhausting."

All he can do is keep fighting for a cease fire, armed with his keyboard.

Zakout has worked to organize rallies, like Wednesdays student walkout.

He has also designed signs in support of his loved ones whose futures are uncertain.

"Ive unfortunately seen many names with my last name Zakout on the roster of names that have been found dead over the past week and a half," Zakout said.

Long term, he wants all the different religious groups and political parties that live in the war zone to be able to live together in peace.

He believes the answer is forming a legitimate democracy.
FILE - The five-star Red Flag flies over the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. San Francisco police could release new details and video Thursday, Oct. 19, of an attack earlier this month in which a man crashed a car into the Chinese consulate before he was shot and killed. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg,File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  A man who crashed a car at the Chinese Consulate earlier this month had a crossbow and arrows and swung a knife at officers before a police sergeant killed him, San Francisco police said Thursday, offering the first official details of the attack.

San Francisco police showed body camera footage from the officers who responded to the Oct. 9 attack on the consulate, which is in a residential neighborhood in the city. The footage showed the car inside the consulate's lobby and people rushing out of a damaged door.

San Francisco Police Acting Commander Mark Im, speaking at a virtual town hall, said Zhanyuan Yang got out of his car, where police found a crossbow and arrows, and stood against a wall. Yang was covering his face with his left arm after a security guard sprayed him with pepper spray and hiding a knife in his right hand, Im said.

Im said Yang then turned toward San Francisco Sergeant Troy Carrasco, who was the first to arrive on the scene, and a consulate security guard and made multiple, rapid, downward swinging motions with the knife in their direction.

Carrasco can be seen in body camera footage touching Yangs back and asking Does he have a gun? before Yang, who is rubbing his face with his left arm, turns toward Carrasco and the security guard and starts swinging a knife. The footage shows Carrasco then opens fire and shortly after shouts, You should have told me he had a knife!

Yang, 31, was taken to a hospital, where he died.

When asked about why there appeared to be no attempts to de-escalate the situation, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said he was not going to make any judgments nor guess what the officer was thinking, but that officers are trained to prioritize stopping a threat when confronted with an active attacker.

Several people called 911, including one person who said the suspect had a gun, which dispatchers relayed to officers sent to the scene, though Yang did not have a gun, police said.

If we believe that we have an active attacker event, we will do everything possible to stop that threat immediately so we dont have a loss of life, he said.

The crash was condemned by the Chinese government, which called it a violent attack, and by the White House. It took place as San Francisco prepares to host next months Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, a gathering of world leaders from Pacific Rim nations.

Police investigators have served several warrants at the San Francisco apartment where Yang lived, Scott said, but he did not identify a motive.

"Why he showed up there, what he was doing, thats still under investigation and theres nothing that we have at this point that I can release, Scott said.

Sergii Molchanov was in line waiting for his turn to submit his visa documents when he said the blue Honda sedan barreled in through the main doors at full speed, barely missing him.

Molchanov told The Associated Press that the car struck a wall and the driver was bleeding from his head as he got out of the car, yelling about the C.C.P., an abbreviation for the Chinese Communist Party. Police arrived less than a minute later, another witness, Tony Xin, told KTVU-TV.

A consulate is a place of safety and refuge where people should not have to worry about acts of violence, said Capt. Jason Sawyer on Thursday. This was a highly unusual event that could have easily involved many more casualties.

The San Francisco consulate has been targeted a number of times before. Among the most serious was a fire set by a Chinese man on New Years Day 2014 at the main entrance. It charred a section of the outside of the building.

The man, who was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, told authorities he was driven by voices he was hearing. He was sentenced to nearly three years in prison.

___

Associated Press writer Janie Har contributed to this report.
San Luis Obispo is soon getting its very own all-ages queer bar with an Australian twist.

Couple Shari Rubino and Karen Pike, who own Skippers Brew Coffee House in San Luis Obispo, began renovations for their new business, called The Platypus, in September. The bar is set to open at 1901 Broad St., the former home of The Broad Street Giant Grinder Shop, which closed its doors in July.

Rubino and Pike were inspired to open the establishment after noticing the lack of spaces for queer-identifying people to gather and enjoy community, Rubino said.

Recalling the lesbian bars popularized in the 80s and 90s, Rubino said there are not many places like that today.

There isnt really a place where queer people can sit down and meet with friends for lunch or a drink, Rubino said. It is amazing that everything is much more inclusive nowadays, but our community needs a space to go to just be themselves.

Shari Rubino and Karen Pike are opening an Australian-style bar to serve as a safe space for queer people on the Central Coast.

The couple also recognized the need for safe spaces for queer youth to gather. Because of that, instead of operating as a traditional bar, The Platypus will be open to all ages  though alcohol will only be available to those 21 and over.

Food and drinks with an Australian style

Pike, who hails from Australia and relocated to the Central Coast six years ago, hopes to bring authentic Australian flavor profiles to the food and drinks served at The Platypus.

One of the Australian specialties customers can expect is a jaffle, a type of toasted sandwich with sealed edges with savory fillings inside. Pike said the sealed edges of the sandwich allow for non-traditional fillings.

Growing up, I would have leftover spaghetti bolognese inside my jaffles, Pike said. It literally seals everything inside and its really good.

Shari Rubino and Karen Pike are a couple and the owners of Skippers Brew in San Luis Obispo. Pike, whos from Australia, is looking to bring Australian inspired flavor profiles to the new queer bar, The Platypus, she and Rubino are opening.

The Platypus will also serve a variety of baked goods, charcuterie boards, coffee and a full bar menu with beer and wine.

Rubino and Pike shared that they are hoping to source the majority of their ingredients locally.

We are working with local establishments and doing everything within our power to keep everything as local as possible, Rubino said. We will be looking to bake in-house as much as possible as well as using a local bakery for some of the other baked goods.

According to the pair, the community has so far been welcoming about the new bar.

SLO is a very welcoming town, Rubino said. There has been kind of a fun buzz around town about the opening.

Rubino and Pike are in the middle of renovating the space to fit their needs and hope to have a soft-opening by the middle of November.

The most exciting part is seeing the community come together and being able to provide a space for them, Pike said.
FIRST ON FOX: Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders , R-Ark., is setting the record straight on femininity in Arkansas, introducing an executive order to mandate the use of gender-specific terms when describing women and "prohibit the use of woke, anti-women words for official state government business."

"The science is clear and real; There are things only women can do, like perform the miracle of birth," Sanders wrote in the executive order shared first with Fox News Digital. "Government should reject language that ignores, undermines, and erases women; Government should celebrate gender distinctions between men and women  not erase them."

Sanders' order comes as states, workplaces and schools around the country are pushing the use of what they refer to as "culturally conscious" or "inclusive" language  initiatives that commonly attempt to remove femininity from terms used to describe women.

In the spring, the Arkansas Department of Health issued a memo on drinking water that described how small per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) can have negative effects on "pregnant people." Sanders' new order will require the state to use the terms "pregnant women" or "pregnant mom" when describing someone who is expecting a child.

WOMEN'S TECH CONFERENCE OVERRUN BY MEN CLAIMING TO BE NON-BINARY DRAWS AMUSED REACTION: I LOVE THIS

The governor wrote that rather than refer to females as a "menstruating person" or "menstruating people," to use the terms "woman" or "women."

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Rather than "birthing person," use "birth mom," and rather than "chestfeeding," use "breastfeeding."

And rather than "laboring person," use "birth mom," and "woman" instead of "birth-giver."

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS TROLLS BUD LIGHT WITH KOOZIE FOR REAL WOMEN

Sanders has firmly stood on the side of opposition to removing femininity from terms referring to women. As the first woman to serve as Arkansas governor, Sanders has slammed President Biden as "the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that cant tell you what a woman is."

Amid a nationwide trend to replace gender-specific terms, the city of Portland, Oregon, recently urged city staff members to adopt a more "culturally conscious" vocabulary that included not using words such as "women," "Caucasian" or "citizen."

An elementary school in Vermont was criticized for telling parents it would be removing "male" and "female" language from its fifth-grade science lessons covering the human body and reproduction, while a Missouri school district decided to use "they/them" pronouns in math class to help kids' "mathematical identities."

In several other cases, the "inclusive" push stretches beyond gender to removing religious terms from vocabulary and allowing biological men to compete in women's sports.

Michigan State University released an "inclusive" language guide for its students that suggested "in winter and spring, avoid references to majority religious imagery and language, such as the word merry or Christmas trees, wreaths, holly, bells, gifts, reindeer, bunnies, eggs and chicks," the style guide suggested. "Use terms like wishing you a wonderful winter/spring break or best wishes for the new year."

Sanders will introduce the executive order Thursday "banning a number of all sorts of ridiculous words from state government documents."

"We are all here to say enough. Enough trying to erase women and girls. Enough denying our biological differences from men. Enough of the craziness taking over our country," the governor is expected to say at the signing on Thursday afternoon.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

"Theyre using nonsense words to erase women and girls  and more importantly, to erase our voices and experiences. Today, were taking a stand against woke nonsense Its the Left that decided that woman is a dirty word. Its the Left that decided that we needed to toss out basic biology  and basic grammar along with it."

Fox News' Alexander Hall contributed to this report.





Original article source: Sarah Huckabee Sanders to sign executive order eliminating 'woke, anti-women words' from state government use
Saudi Arabia's crown prince said on Thursday that attacks on civilians in Gaza were "heinous" and warned of "dangerous repercussions" should the war between Israel and Hamas expand, state media reported.

Mohammed bin Salman, the Gulf kingdom's de facto ruler, made his comments during a meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who before visiting Riyadh met with Israeli leaders and pressed them to let more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Prince Mohammed "affirmed that the kingdom considers targeting civilians in Gaza a heinous crime and a brutal attack, stressing the necessity of working to provide protection for them," the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

He also "stressed the need to make all possible efforts to reduce the pace of escalation and ensure that the violence does not expand in order to avoid its dangerous repercussions on security and peace in the region and the world."

Hamas militants stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7 and killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death, according to Israeli officials.

Israel says around 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed in clashes before its troops regained control.

More than 3,700 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed across the Gaza Strip in retaliatory Israeli bombardments, according to figures from its Hamas-run health ministry.

Sunak and Prince Mohammed "agreed that the loss of innocent lives in Israel and Gaza over the last two weeks has been horrific," according to a readout from Sunak's office.

They also "agreed on the pressing need for humanitarian access into Gaza to provide vital water, food and medicine," it said.

Sunak "encouraged the crown prince to use Saudi's leadership in the region to support stability, both now and in the long term," it added.

Prince Mohammed also spoke by telephone on Thursday with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, SPA reported.

In that conversation he advocated for "strengthening international and regional efforts to stop military operations" and urged the UN to provide "safe humanitarian corridors" to get food and medical care into Gaza.

Since the war broke out, Saudi Arabia has issued a series of statements denouncing the displacement of Palestinians from their homes and attacks on "defenceless civilians" while affirming its support for the Palestinian cause.

The violence has dealt a blow to efforts by US President Joe Biden's administration to broker a deal that would see Saudi Arabia, guardian of Islam's holiest sites, recognise Israel.

Last week, a source familiar with that process told AFP that Riyadh had decided to "pause discussion on possible normalisation".

rcb/kir
The Kremlin-linked Russian Orthodox Church is building and running private military companies (PMC), which recruit and train fighters for deployment in Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on Oct. 19.

The Church receives funding for these activities from financial and industrial groups close to Russian President Vladimir Putin , the SBU said. These funds are reportedly donated as "charitable contributions" for "construction of churches."

One example of a church-run PMC named by the SBU is the St. Andrew's Cross organization based in the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral in northwestern Russia.

The Russian news outlet Bloknot reported on the St. Andrew's Cross's activities last year, calling it "the first PMC under the Russian Orthodox Church." The group was reportedly set up in 2017 to provide military training for other mercenary companies' recruits.

The cathedral's abbot Alexey denied in a comment for Russian media that the St. Andrew's Cross would be a mercenary company, saying it only teaches skills to youth and adults for future military service.

According to the SBU, the Kronstadt-based PMC is recruiting local parishioners, primarily those with military experience, and providing them with training for combat deployment in Ukraine.

The instructions are carried out on the cathedral's grounds or in specialized training facilities in cooperation with Russian special services, the SBU said.

Despite being illegal in Russia, PMCs are widely used by the Kremlin for war efforts in Ukraine and to promote Russian interests in other regions of the world, such as Africa.

The most notorious group is the Wagner Company, set up by now-deceased Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin. Following their deployment on Ukraine's eastern front, Wagner fighters launched a short-lived uprising against the Russian government in June.

Read also: Prigozhins death latest in a series of unsolved murders in Putins Russia. Whats next?

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
MANITOWOC  John S. Schwarz Jr., owner of Scare USA in Two Rivers, is facing charges of repeated sexual assault of a child after an alleged victim filed a complaint with the Two Rivers Police Department.

The Herald Times Reporter obtained a copy of the criminal complaint in the case against Schwarz. Here are key takeaways from the complaint.

John Schwarz's arrest: Two Rivers haunted house Scare USA closes after owner arrested on suspicion of child sexual assault

The alleged victim said they were 'groomed' by Schwarz.

According to the criminal complaint, the alleged victim told police Schwarz, 37, assaulted them repeatedly as they volunteered at Scare USA as a teen beginning in 2016.

The complaint states: "(Victim) was very fearful of losing the good relationships that (they) had at the haunted house. (Victim) expressed that (they) felt John 'groomed them' from the beginning because he knew about (victim's) troubled home life and took advantage of that trust. (Victim) stated that John was overly nice and protective which is something (they) directly lacked from (their) family."

They said they began volunteering to escape a "troubled, unstable home life," and their relationship with Schwarz was "appropriate" at first.

However, Schwarz began inviting them to work on projects with him and then he would touch their private parts while they were alone in the haunted house.

Schwarz then began inviting them over to his house for sleepovers, according to the complaint. The alleged victim would go to hang out with Schwarz's son, but at night Schwarz would have them sleep in his own bed while Schwarz slept on the floor in the same room.

The alleged victim said they would wake up and Schwarz would be pressing his body against theirs. They said this happened on at least three different occasions.

The complaint includes descriptions of two specific events, which both occurred when the alleged victim was 16 years old.

On the first occasion, the alleged victim said Schwarz took them into a room that was used for the haunted house attraction and pulled down his pants, exposing his genitals. He then attempted to get the alleged victim to take off their pants, but was unsuccessful.

The second event also occurred at Scare USA and ended with Schwarz having non-consensual sex with the alleged victim and ejaculated on their chest.

Schwarz told the alleged victim 'you won't win,' according to the complaint.

According to the criminal complaint, the alleged victim repeatedly told Schwarz to stop but said Schwarz would often respond "no means yes with you" and "if you tell anyone, you won't win."

The alleged victim told police they felt they couldn't report Schwarz because he often talked about having a good relationship with law enforcement.

The alleged victim also said they were worried about losing the support system and family-like culture he had cultivated with the other volunteers at Scare USA.

The complaint also documents a decline in the alleged victim's mental health that the alleged victim said related directly to the sexual assault they experienced by Schwarz.

One felony charge has been filed against Schwarz.

Schwarz was arrested Oct. 12 and is being held at Manitowoc County Jail on a $50,000 cash bond.

Oct. 17, one charge of repeated sexual assault of the same child was filed against Schwarz. The charge is a Class C felony.

If convicted, Schwarz could face up to 40 years in state prison and up to $100,000 in fines.

Schwarz is expected to appear in court Oct. 30 for an initial appearance.

Fulfilling our obligation: This report is part of the Herald Times Reporter's mission to follow criminal cases from arrest to their conclusion.

Alisa M. Schafer is a reporter for the Herald Times Reporter in Manitowoc. She can be reached by email at aschafer@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Two Rivers Scare USA owner charged with repeated sex assault of child
Olaf Scholz , chancellor of Germany, has expressed his indignation and called utter shamelessness the claims of Valdimir Putin, President of Russia, that the war in the Middle East may lead to casualties among civilians.

Source: European Pravda with reference to the speech of Scholz in Bundestag about a wide range of subjects in the context of latest events

Quote: "I am more than indignant when I hear that the Russian President is warning the public at the moment that there may be victims among civilians in armed conflicts. A more shameless (statement) is yet to be found."

Background:

The German chancellor has promised to make efforts to liberate the prisoners kidnapped by the Hamas radical Islamist group during its attack on Israel.

During his visit to Israel, Scholz had to get off the plane and lay down on the ground in the Tel-Aviv airport due to an air-raid warning.

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Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf offered for the country to be the first in the United Kingdom to accept Gazan refugees amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Yousaf drew swift condemnation on social media, as even Arab nations like Qatar, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt  some of which have taken strong stances against Israel  simultaneously have opposed taking Palestinian refugees amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of vetting concerns about who of them might be affiliated with terrorist groups.

Some users on social media went even further, arguing against bringing in Palestinian refugees who they said grow up being taught to hate Jews and oppose Israel's right to exist.

Speaking before the Scottish National Party's annual conference in Aberdeen, Yousaf said "2.2 million innocent people cannot pay the price for the actions of Hamas."

DESANTIS RIPS POLITICALLY CORRECT HALEY, REFUSES TO IMPORT GAZAN REFUGEES TAUGHT TO HATE JEWS

Protesters let off fireworks in Trafalgar Square after a "March For Palestine" demonstration in London on Oct. 14, 2023.

"In the past, people in Scotland and across the UK have opened our hearts and our homes. Weve welcomed those from Syria, from Ukraine, and many other countries. Conference, we must do so again," Yousaf said in a clip of his speech he shared on X. "There are currently 1 million people displaced within Gaza. So therefore Im calling today on the international community to commit to a worldwide refugee program for the people of Gaza. Im calling on the U.K. government to take two urgent steps."

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"Firstly, they should immediately begin work on the creation of a refugee resettlement scheme for those in Gaza who want to and of course are able to leave. And when they do so, Scotland is willing to be the first country in the UK to offer safety and sanctuary to those who are caught up in these terrible attacks," he continued.

"Conference, my brother-in-law is a doctor in Gaza. When we can get through to him on the phone, he tells us of scenes of absolute carnage  hospitals running out of medical supplies. Doctors, nurses having to make the most difficult decision of all  who to treat and who to let die. That cant be allowed. Not in this day and age. So I therefore urge the UK government to support the medical evacuation of injured civilians in Gaza," Scotland's first minister said. "And let me be clear, Scotland is ready to play her part, and our hospitals will treat the injured men, women and children of Gaza where we can."

Yousaf's wife, Nadia El-Nakla, has been trying to get her parents out of Gaza.

"The people of Gaza are a proud people. Many don't want to leave, and shouldn't have to," Yousaf added in another X post. "But for those displaced, who want to leave, there should be a worldwide refugee scheme. Scotland is willing to be a place of sanctuary and be the first country to take those refugees."

But the call to bring in Gazan refugees got swift pushback on social media.

Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf during his speech during the SNP annual conference in Aberdeen on Oct. 17, 2023.

"Why should we, they hate the west, our way of life etc. The children are taught at a very early age to hate Jews and Christians," one user wrote.

'BARGAINING CHIPS:' FAMED UK SPECIAL FORCES UNIT OFFERS HELP TO FIND HAMAS HOSTAGES, REPORT SAYS

"The country voted for HAMAS who they knew were terrorists," the user added.

The user noted how the United Kingdom saw large-scale demonstrations in favor of Palestinians after Hamas' surprise Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians. The post, responding to Yousaf's video, also referenced a British school teacher who showed a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad during classroom instruction years ago. The teacher reportedly still remains in hiding after facing protests from parents in the Muslim community, The Daily Mail reported.

The user also highlighted security at Jewish schools in the U.K.

"March For Palestine" demonstrator in London on Oct. 14, 2023.

In light of Hamas' attack, Jewish schools across England were bolstering security as a precaution as antisemitic incidents quadrupled, The Guardian reported.

"Why do none of the bordering [countries] accept them?" one user wrote, responding to Yousaf's post. "Wonder why."

"No. United Kingdom Island has enough issues of our own," a second user said. "We have too many people living on the island as it is. therefore, Arab nations should open borders for their Muslim brothers and sisters, house them and help them. Their countries are large and have the capacity to do so."

Broadcaster Paula London wrote, "Its not up to you, its up to Rishi Sunak as thankfully Scotland dont have independence."

"Iran, Syria, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon are not accepting the Gazans?" another user said.





Original article source: Scotland offers to become 1st UK country to accept Gazan refugees, faces online backlash amid Israel-Hamas war
SEATTLE - Police are investigating after two men were shot in a drive-by shooting in North Seattle Wednesday afternoon.

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) first announced the shooting at 12:46 p.m. on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Seattle Police Department

According to the SPD, officers responded to a shooting near the corner of Aurora Ave. N and N 103rd St. at around 12:15 p.m.

Upon arrival, officers found two men in their 20s  both suffering from gunshot wounds. Officers provided first aid until Seattle Fire personnel took over. Both victims were taken to Harborview Medical Center in stable condition.

Officers secured the scene and processed the area for evidence. The SPDs Gun Violence Reduction Unit detectives will lead the investigation.

Police are investigating a shooting in the 10300 block of Aurora Avenue North. Please avoid the area. More information to follow.  Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) October 18, 2023

It is unknown at this time what led up to the shooting. No suspects have been identified.

Seattle Police say over the last few weeks officers received several reports of shots fired incidents in this area. Back in mid-August, 31-year-old Cornell Callandret, Jr. was shot and killed on the same block.

Anyone with information that could help detectives is asked to call the SPD Violent Crimes Tip Line at 206-233-5000.

This is a developing story.

Just 2 months ago, there was another deadly shooting that happened just a block north of this location.

On Aug. 16, police began investigating after a local rapper was shot and killed.

READ MORE: Detectives investigate homicide after rapper shot, killed in North Seattle

This is a developing story.
Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, chairman of the People's Council of Turkmenistan, in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on Wednesday met with Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, chairman of the People's Council of Turkmenistan.

Ding, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said under the guidance of the top leaders of the two countries, relations between China and Turkmenistan have maintained steady development and notable achievements have been made in various fields.

Ding said that the eight major steps to support the joint pursuit of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation President Xi Jinping announced on Wednesday provide new opportunities for bilateral cooperation.

Berdimuhamedov said that Turkmenistan is willing to join hands with China in pursuing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and promote bilateral relationship to new heights. 
A second U.S. journalist has been detained by Russian authorities and is being held in custody.

Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva was charged by Russian officials Wednesday with acting as an unregistered foreign agent.

"Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children," said Jeffrey Gedmin, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty acting president.

"She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately," he added.

RUSSIA AND NORTH KOREA OFFICIALS JOIN FOR 2-DAY SUMMIT IN PYONGYANG AMID WESTERN SUSPICIONS ABOUT ARMS DEAL

Kurmasheva was stopped and detained at the Kazan International Airport while reportedly in Russia for a family emergency on May 20.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

RFE claims the Russian authorities took Kurmasheva's passport and later fined her for failing to register it with the government.

RUSSIA SEEKS EXTRADITION OF UKRAINIAN SS MEMBER CELEBRATED IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT

The headquarters of Russian Federal Security Service in Moscow.

She was charged with failing to register as a foreign agent on Wednesday while waiting for her passport to be returned.

Radio Free Europe is a media outlet funded and promoted by the U.S. government.

Kurmasheva is the second American journalist this year to be detained by Russian authorities.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested for alleged espionage in March.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested seven months ago in the city of Yekaterinburg  the first U.S. journalist detained by Russia since the Cold War.

He has made multiple court appearances appealing his confinement but has been unsuccessful thus far.

Russian authorities say Gershkovich, "acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex."





Original article source:Second American journalist detained in Russia this year after Evan Gershkovich
Sidney Powell, who served as an attorney to the Trump election campaign, pleaded guilty to election interference (-)

A second codefendant of Donald Trump pleaded guilty Thursday in the case alleging a criminal conspiracy to overturn the former US president's 2020 election loss in the state of Georgia.

Sidney Powell, a Trump campaign attorney who pushed fringe theories about manipulation of voting machines, was indicted in August along with the former president and 17 others.

In a plea deal reached just days before her trial was scheduled to begin, Powell pleaded guilty to six election-related charges.

She was sentenced to six years of probation by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee after pleading guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

Powell, who was originally charged with racketeering, a felony, and other offenses, agreed as part of the plea agreement to testify at the upcoming trials of her codefendants in the case.

Nicknamed "The Kraken" after the movie monster from "Clash of the Titans," Powell was briefly considered by Trump for the job of special counsel to investigate the election, but was ultimately sanctioned for misconduct and sued multiple times for defamation.

Powell is the second codefendant in the sprawling racketeering case to enter a guilty plea.

Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, pleaded guilty last month to five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to interfere with the performance of election duties.

Powell and Hall were among the codefendants charged with tampering with voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia, following the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has pleaded not guilty to charges of involvement in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, where Biden won by some 12,000 votes.

The twice-impeached former president also faces federal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and is to go on trial in that case in Washington in March 2024.

cl/md
Sidney Powell, who served as an attorney to the Trump election campaign, pleaded guilty to election interference (-)

In a potential blow to Donald Trump, one of his former lawyers pleaded guilty on Thursday in the case alleging the former US president led a criminal conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state of Georgia.

Sidney Powell, 68, a vocal Trump supporter who pushed outlandish conspiracy theories about foreign manipulation of voting machines, was indicted in August along with the former president and 17 others.

In a surprise deal reached just days before her trial was scheduled to begin in Atlanta, Georgia, Powell entered into a plea agreement with Fulton County prosecutors.

She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to interfere with the performance of election duties and was sentenced to six years of probation by Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.

Powell, who was originally charged with racketeering, a felony, conspiracy to commit election fraud and other offenses that threatened prison time, agreed as part of the plea deal to testify at the trials of her codefendants in the case.

"You're to testify truthfully against any and all codefendants in this matter at any upcoming proceedings," McAfee said.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said Powell's guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with prosecutors could have "critical implications for Trump."

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has pleaded not guilty to charges of involvement in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, where Democrat Joe Biden won by some 12,000 votes.

The twice-impeached former president also faces federal charges for his efforts to upend the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol by his supporters. He is to go on trial in that case in Washington in March 2024.

Powell, a former federal prosecutor, was fined $6,000, ordered to pay restitution of $2,700 and to write a letter of apology to the state and citizens of Georgia.

- 'Influence the outcome' -

Following the November 2020 presidential election, Powell peddled preposterous theories about voting machine software allegedly designed in Venezuela under the late Hugo Chavez that "flipped" Trump votes to Biden votes.

Trump allegedly acknowledged the theories sounded "crazy" but promoted them anyway.

According to the Georgia indictment, Trump met with Powell, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others at the White House on December 18, 2020, several weeks before the end of his term, and discussed "strategies and theories intended to influence the outcome" of the election.

Among the moves allegedly considered but eventually abandoned was naming Powell as special counsel with "broad authority to investigate allegations of voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere."

Powell is the second codefendant in the sprawling Georgia racketeering case to enter a guilty plea.

Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, pleaded guilty last month to five counts of conspiracy to interfere with the performance of election duties.

Powell and Hall were both charged in connection with a scheme to tamper with voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia, following the 2020 election.

- The 'Kraken' -

Jury selection had been scheduled to begin on Monday in a joint trial of Powell and another codefendant, Kenneth Chesebro.

Powell, nicknamed "The Kraken" after the movie monster from "Clash of the Titans," and Cheseboro, who is also an attorney, had been the only two codefendants to invoke their right to a speedy trial.

Powell earned the nickname after she threatened during a television interview to release her alleged evidence of election fraud, which she described as "the Kraken."

Powell is also being sued for defamation in separate cases by two voting machine companies, Dominion and Smartmatic.

Chesebro is accused of orchestrating a plan to submit fake electors to Congress in a bid to block certification of Biden's election victory. He has pleaded not guilty.

Others indicted in Georgia include Giuliani, Trump's former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, John Eastman, a constitutional lawyer, and Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level Justice Department official.

cl/md
Ms Kurmasheva is a dual Russian-US citizen who visited Moscow for family reasons in May - REF/RL

An American journalist has been detained in Russia and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, her employer said.

Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor with the US Congress-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE), needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately, Jeffrey Gedmin, the organisations acting president, said in a statement.

Alsu is a highly-respected colleague, devoted wife and dedicated mother to two children, Mr Gedmin said.

She is the second US journalist to be held by Russia in recent months. Evan Gershkovich , a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has been detained since March, accused of spying.

Ms Kurmasheva, who is a dual Russian-US citizen, was being held at a temporary detention centre overnight, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement.

A representative of Russian human-rights news website OVD-Info told the CPJ that Ms Kurmasheva would most likely be transferred to pre-trial detention shortly.

Ms Kurmasheva lives in the Czech Republic, but entered Russia on May 20 for a family emergency, the CPJ said.

She was temporarily detained at the Kazan airport on June 2 before her return flight, where both her US and Russian passports were confiscated and she was fined for failing to register her American passport with Russian authorities, according to RFE.

Ms Kurmasheva also works for Radio Liberty, RFEs sister station, and has covered ethnic minorities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, RFE said, especially on efforts to preserve the Tatar language, even as Russian authorities have exerted increased pressure on Tatars in recent years.

She was awaiting the return of her passports when the new charge was announced, the CPJ said, adding that if found guilty she faces up to five years in jail.

The organisation said it was deeply concerned by the charges.

Journalism is not a crime

Russian authorities must release her immediately and drop all charges against her, Gulnoza Said, the CPJs Europe and Central Asia programme coordinator, said.

Journalism is not a crime and Ms Kurmashevas detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting.

Alsu was detained simply because she is an employee of Radio Liberty. In fact, now any independent journalist in Russia risks the same thing, the CPJ cited a colleague of Ms Kurmasheva as saying.

Ms Kurmashevas arrest comes seven months after the detention of Mr Gershkovich, who became the first Western reporter to be jailed on spy charges in Russia since the Soviet era.

The 31-year-old Wall Street Journal Moscow correspondent, his employer and the US government have rejected the spying allegations.

Russia has not provided public evidence of the allegations it has made against Mr Gershkovich. A Moscow court earlier this month rejected his appeal of his detention and ordered him held until the end of November.

The American continued to report from Russia after the Kremlin launched its Ukraine offensive, despite many Western journalists leaving the country. He has been held at Moscows notorious Lefortovo prison.

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.
One of the biggest names yet in the Georgia election interference case took a plea deal Thursday, but not after doing immeasurable damage to election confidence, the Secretary of States Office said.

Sidney Powell was sentenced to six years probation, has to pay a $6,000 fine, and pay $2,700 in restitution to the Secretary of States Office. She will also have to testify truthfully against the co-defendants.

Despite the conviction, the Secretary of States Chief Operations Office, Gabriel Sterling , said the damage done at Powells hands will last for years to come.

There was and is still massive voter fraud across the country, Powell told a large crowd at a rally in Alpharetta just weeks after the 2020 election.

That is a stark contrast to her appearance Thursday morning inside a Fulton County courtroom where he uttered the word guilty when asked how she pled to the charges of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

RELATED NEWS:

The Georgia Secretary of States Office was often the target of Powells accusations of voter fraud.

The outcomes not really a huge surprise. Shes been lying about the elections. Shes part of that grift in the election denial industry weve seen in Georgia. Its a good first step to hold people accountable for their actions, Sterling said. Its impossible to calculate the damage shes done.

Sterling told Channel 2s Richard Elliot that the damage Powell did to voter confidence in Georgias elections will be hard to overcome.

It undermined peoples faith in elections but undermined peoples faith in each other. There are families ripped apart by this. I dont know how you measure that, Sterling said.

Powell was supposed to go to trial alongside co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro on Monday. As of right now, he will stand trial alone after ABC News reported that he rejected a plea deal from the Fulton County District Attorneys Office.

When asked for reaction to Powells guilty plea on Thursday, senior adviser to Gov. Brian Kemp, Cody Hall, said it couldnt happen to a nicer person.

RELATED NEWS:
DENVER (KDVR)  A Sedalia woman is thanking an international organization for safely getting her home from the volatile Middle East.

Just the grace of God, were here, Corinne Miller said after landing Wednesday night at Denver International Airport.

President Biden wraps up his visit to wartime Israel with a warning against being consumed by rage

On Oct. 7, Miller and a good friend had set out for Tel Aviv, Israel. As soon as they landed, they knew there was trouble.

From the beginning, when the first missiles hit, she said.

Project Dynamo helps with escape from Israel

Miller credits a group called Project Dynamo with organizing a plan to get them and countless others out.

Project Dynamo is a search, rescue, aid and assistance nonprofit organization. The group, said Miller, quickly organized the trek from Cyprus to Athens to Cairo to Tampa to Denver.

Now, shes one step closer to Sedalia.

I didnt know Id be standing here, to be honest with you, she said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com.
The invitation list for the Seminole Republican Partys annual Lincoln Day Dinner in February includes Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene , two of the most controversial figures in Washington.

The lineup, which also has Donald Trump Jr. on it, was a notable choice in a county that had been trending toward the Democrats before the Republican wave in the midterm 2022 elections.

Thats a bad list of people to have in such a suburban, highly educated [county] thats only growing more diverse with each cycle, said Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst who runs the MCIMaps site.

Greene has been a nexus of controversy in her three years in Washington, including saying that if she had organized the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, we would have won [and] it wouldve been armed.

Eleven Republicans joined with Democrats to remove her from committees in 2021 for her past posts seemingly threatening violence against Democrats and calling the 2018 Parkland shooting a false flag.

Gaetz, meanwhile, has become a target of many in his own party for his role in removing GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this month.

A visit to Seminole County would also return him to the scene of the now-closed federal investigation of him for alleged sex trafficking, and spotlight the House ethics investigation that some of his fellow Republicans have mentioned as a way of forcing him from office.

I can easily see that guest list being used against Republicans by Democrats who are running in districts and countywide in the area, Isbell said. Thats a quintessential example of the party existing within a bubble.

The Seminole County GOP did not return multiple requests for comment.

GOP wave, Democratic trends

J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabatos Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said its understandable why county organizations sometimes aim for headline-grabbing names.

These local parties need to raise money, Coleman said. Even though theyre very controversial, I know people like Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are very good at fundraising. So from that perspective, those are probably some heavy hitters that you would bring in.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis won Seminole by 12 percentage points over Democrat Charlie Crist last year, as the GOP swept all the legislative races in the county, seemingly returning Seminole to its traditional role as a rock-ribbed Republican bastion.

But all three of Seminoles state House seats and its state Senate seat are Democratic-leaning on paper.

Back in 2018, progressive Democrat Andrew Gillum beat Ron DeSantis in Seminole in the race for governor that year. Seminole was also one of just a handful of counties in Florida that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and then flipped for Joe Biden in 2020, Coleman said.

Biden also did much better than Hillary Clintons 2016 numbers in Escambia County, the biggest county in Gaetzs own district.

I do wonder like how Matt Gaetz being the face of the Republican Party in that area may have turned off some voters who may have gone for a normal or anti-Trump type Republican, he said.

Seminole is a must-win county for Florida Democrats going forward, Coleman said, and Republicans should be wary about getting overconfident after the 2022 results.

Among the Republicans who won in Seminole County in 2022 in the midst of the statewide red wave was incumbent state Rep. David Smith, who won his redrawn, southern Seminole seat over Democrat Sarah Henry by about 4.6 points.

If you are a Republican that is in office and had a close race, then it would seem to me  you would want the party to be thinking of expanding and becoming more popular, not becoming more ideologically extreme and maybe turning off a lot of independent voters, said Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida.

Smith did not return a request for comment.

The potential schism echoes the battles within the national GOP, including the fights over the speakers gavel in Congress and the 2024 presidential primary.

Which direction should the party go? Jewett said.  Should it be [those] who are viewed as some of the more extreme elements of the party or should it be some of the folks that are conservative but yet willing to work to actually accomplish policy? It sounds like we know which direction they want to head in.

Ground zero for investigations

Gaetz has had a checkered past in Seminole, where he spent time with his friend, former Tax Collector Joel Greenberg and other associates. Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges including sex-trafficking a teenager, stalking a political rival, stealing identities and using public money to pay for sex and cryptocurrency.

While Gaetz was the subject of a federal investigation for allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice in connection with the Greenberg case, the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to bring charges against him earlier this year, in part because of the potential unreliability of Greenberg and other witnesses.

But a House Ethics Committee into allegations of sexual misconduct, drug use, campaign and lobbying violations, originally started under a Democratic-controlled House, was revived this year under Republican leadership.

The ethics investigation received increased attention after Gaetz successfully called for a motion to evict McCarthy from his job as speaker earlier this month, with some of his Republican colleagues reportedly considering using the probe as a reason to expel him.

David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from St. Petersburg and co-founder of the Forward Party, said he would not be surprised to see Gaetz show up in Seminole, despite his history there.

Gaetz has shown us that his strategy, just like Trumps, is a public affairs strategy more than a legal one, Jolly said. He just intends to poke the bear.  Hes going to claim hes a victim, hes going to claim its a witch hunt. And I dont think it bothers him whatsoever to be there. But I think that the GOP should think twice.
FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Steve Daines , R-Mont., introduced a bill Thursday to reallocate the $6 billion in Iranian funds to Israeli defense amid Israel's war against Hamas.

The bill seeks to take the $6 billion, which was released to Iran in September as part of a negotiation for the release of five American prisoners, and put it into an account for Israel to use in its fight against Iran-backed Hamas.

"As the Iranian-backed terror group Hamas continues its barbaric attacks against the Israeli people, the United States must stand firmly by our biggest ally in the Middle East," Daines said in a statement. "The United States must not only restrict Irans access to Bidens $6 billion ransom payment but also repurpose those funds to help Israel recover from these horrific actions."

GOP SENATORS RAMP UP PUSH TO REFREEZE $6B IN IRANIAN FUNDS: HAMAS IS JUST THE PUPPET

Sen. Steve Daines introduces bill to transfer $6 billion in Iranian assets to Israeli defense.

The bill also proposes that frozen Iranian assets beyond the initial $6 billion cannot be unfrozen or utilized until the president confirms to Congress that hostilities between Hamas, other Iranian-backed groups, and Israel have ceased; until full compensation has been provided to Israel for damages caused by attacks; or until Iran is actively participating in an internationally agreed mechanism to compensate Israel for determined amounts owed.

Republican lawmakers in the upper chamber have been ramping up their efforts to introduce bills pertaining to the Iranian assets this week.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

REPUBLICANS, SOME DEM HOUSE LAWMAKERS URGE BIDEN TO REFREEZE $6B IN IRANIAN ASSETS AMID HAMAS ATTACKS

Nearly 20 GOP senators are calling on the Biden administration to freeze the funds that were released to a Qatar account in exchange for five American prisoners last month.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., led a group of GOP senators on Tuesday, urging the administration to "limit Irans ability to provide support to Hamas."

Meanwhile, Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and John Kennedy, R-La., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., linked arms to introduce legislation to also freeze the assets.



BIDEN ISSUES CRYPTIC WARNING TO IRAN AFTER ADMIN DENIES COUNTRY WAS INVOLVED IN HAMAS ATTACK: BE CAREFUL

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, also unveiled legislation Tuesday that would handicap the Treasury and State Department's ability to relax U.S. sanctions on Iranian assets and direct the Treasury secretary to examine Iranian assets around the world currently restricted by U.S. sanctions and provide that information to Congress.

In the House, China Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., led a bipartisan group of nearly 100 House lawmakers last Wednesday to urge President Biden to refreeze the $6 billion as well.

The U.S. has a "quiet agreement" with Qatar to block Iran from accessing the $6 billion amid Hamas' terror attacks on Israel that began Oct. 7, sources familiar with the move told Fox News last week.





Original article source: Sen Daines wants the $6 billion in Iranian assets to be used for Israeli defense
The announcement by Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) means she won't shake up an already volatile race that includes three prominent Democrats. (Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)

Labor leader and prominent Democratic activist Laphonza Butler, who was appointed to fill Sen. Dianne Feinstein 's seat after the veteran California politician died, announced Thursday that she would not run for a full Senate term in 2024.

Despite her successful career steeped in politics, Butler had never held public office and was relatively unknown to California voters. If she had run, she would have faced the monumental challenge of quickly raising the millions of dollars necessary to run a successful campaign in such a vast state.

Read more: Laphonza Butler knows how to amass quiet power. Will she win in the public arena?

"Knowing you can win a campaign doesnt always mean you should run a campaign," Butler said in a statement. "I know this will be a surprise to many because traditionally we dont see those who have power let it go. It may not be the decision people expected but it's the right one for me."

California's 2024 Senate race already has a crowded field that includes Democratic U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee of Oakland, Katie Porter of Irvine and Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, who have all been crisscrossing the state since the winter, courting voters and raising money. Former Dodgers star Steve Garvey, a Republican, recently said he's running as well.

Schiff and Porter are leading in the polls. They have raised the most money in the race, with tens of millions of dollars between them to spend in the coming months. In California's "jungle primary" system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the March primary, regardless of political party, will compete in a November runoff.

Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach, said Butler would have faced an uphill battle to win the seat. He said he had researched appointed senators across the U.S., and found that appointees who later run for their seats almost always lose.

"If you haven't won an election before, it's very hard," Lesenyie said. "That's no knock on her skills personally  it speaks to the difficulty of being a newcomer and beating experienced politicians."

Butler had the added disadvantage of low name recognition among California voters, he said. Candidates who aren't household names need millions of dollars  or political committees with their own war chests  to run advertising campaigns in metro areas across the Golden State in order to introduce themselves to voters.

Butler's late entry into the race also would have put her at a significant fundraising disadvantage, Lesenyie said.

Schiff reported this week that his campaign had raised $6 million in the last three months and had $32 million on hand. Porter's campaign had $12 million on hand.

With the exception of Gov. Gavin Newsom , who appointed Butler to fill Feinstein's seat, many of the state's political leaders, donors and influential unions had already cast their lot with one of the three most prominent Democratic candidates.

Read more: Adam Schiff outpaces Barbara Lee, Katie Porter in fundraising for California Senate race

Schiff has the support of six statewide labor unions including the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. He and Lee  who is running behind in the polls  have the support of most elected officials in Sacramento and the state's congressional delegation.

At a recent candidates forum, the three House Democrats all said they planned to keep running regardless of Butler's decision, adding that a competitive race is healthy and benefits voters.

"I think this race has galvanized and energized California to have important conversations about whether were getting what we need from Washington, Porter said.

Feinstein served more than 30 years in the U.S. Senate before her death on Sept. 29. Even before she decided not to run for reelection earlier this year, Porter jumped into the race. Schiff and Lee soon followed.

Throughout the spring, when Feinstein was missing work due to health issues, the Democratic members of Congress who were running for her seat refrained from criticizing her, simply sending good wishes for her recovery.

Looming over the race was whether Feinstein would complete her entire term  or whether Newsom would appoint a replacement. The governor had already filled the state's other Senate seat after Kamala Harris was elected vice president, as well as vacancies for for California secretary of state and attorney general.

In those cases, the appointments effectively cleared the field when each appointee ran for a full term. Newsom appeared sensitive to this predicament in the Senate contest, saying in an interview last month that he wouldn't pick one of the candidates who is running for the seat.

It would be completely unfair to the Democrats that have worked their tail off, Newsom said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Read more: Who will replace the late Sen. Feinstein in 2024 election? Meet the potential candidates

However, after he appointed Butler, Newsom emphasized that there were no preconditions barring her from running for the seat.

"That's her decision. And I look forward to her making that decision on her own time," he told reporters in Los Angeles last Friday. "And I was crystal clear when we discussed [the appointment] that ... that wasn't a condition and that decision is hers."

He appointed Butler to fill the seat just days after Feinstein's death, and speculation quickly began about whether Butler would seek to keep the seat in the 2024 election.

Some political strategists questioned whether she would be able to raise enough money to be competitive. While Butler is well-known in political circles, she is virtually unknown to most voters in California and would have had to spend millions on campaign advertising to change that  a costly task given that the state has some of the most expensive media markets in the country.

Still, Butler's ties to two prominent fundraising bases in the Democratic Party could have boosted her prospects.

Butler previously ran Emily's List, which spends millions of dollars each election cycle supporting female Democratic candidates who favor abortion rights. Earlier, Butler was president of SEIU California  a politically influential union that can provide campaign dollars, door knockers and votes from its 700,000 members in the state.

A day after her appointment was announced, Butler told The Times she had "no idea" whether she would run in the 2024 election  only that she planned to devote her time and energy to serving the people of California.

On Thursday, Butler announced her decision after more than two weeks of careful contemplation.

"Ive spent the past 16 days pursuing my clarity  what kind of life I want to have, what kind of service I want to offer and what kind of voice I want to bring forward," she said. "After considering those questions Ive decided not to run for Senate in the upcoming election."

Newsom had put himself in a politically perilous situation when he vowed more than two years ago to name a Black woman to Feinstein's post if the senator could not finish her term  a pledge partly driven by the reaction to his decision to appoint then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla, one of his longtime confidants, to replace Harris. At the time she was the only Black woman serving in the Senate.

Backed by the Congressional Black Caucus, Lee sought the temporary appointment after Feinstein died. She lashed out at Newsom after he said he would not select any candidate who was running for the seat, a move that prompted two Democratic strategists to back away from an independent expenditure committee supporting her bid. But after Butler was appointed earlier this month, Lee stood by her side during a ceremonial swearing-in.

California is one of three states that could elect a Black woman to the Senate in 2024. In Delaware, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester is running to replace Sen. Thomas R. Carper. In Maryland, Prince Georges County Executive Angela Alsobrooks is running in a Democratic primary to succeed Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin.

Times staff writer Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.

Get the best of the Los Angeles Times politics coverage with the Essential Politics newsletter.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Jack Lew, President Joe Bidens nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel, testifies during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Lew, a former Treasury secretary under President Barack Obama, was nominated by Biden in September after former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides left the position over the summer. | Drew Angerer, Getty Images

Sen. Mitt Romney raised concerns over President Joe Bidens decision to nominate Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to be the ambassador to Israel  a post that currently sits vacant.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Wednesday, Romney questioned Lew over decisions he made related to a nuclear deal with Iran during the Obama administration.

Romney also spoke at the hearing about his recent visit to Israel.

I, along with a handful of other senators, were in Israel over the weekend and had the chance to meet with leadership there, the former leadership of the country, as well as with military leaders and with families of hostages, the Utah senator said.

He said that while Bidens pick for the ambassadorship can be approved by Democrats alone, he said he wanted to pass along some observations to Lew before asking him questions about his role in releasing funds to Iran.

Related

Sen. Romney talks about meeting hostage families in Israel

Romney recounted his time in Israel, where he met the families of hostages taken by Hamas.

The outrage, the brutality, the inhumanity of Hamas in the way they took children and others and grabbed them and took them across the border is hard to comprehend. And we need to do everything within our power to secure the release of those hostages, he said.

Romney noted that the leading general of the Israeli Defense Forces said their intent isnt to get vengeance on Palestinians, but the hostages are being used as human shields and in many cases, there will be deaths, but they will be unfortunate.

The Utah senator said that Hamas has threatened the lives of Israeli citizens, and it is unacceptable for Hamas to continue to exist, certainly in the proximity that they have enjoyed from the Gaza Strip.

He said theres been an absence of answers on what the next steps will be if Hamas is successfully rooted out, and this will be a great priority for Lew, should he be confirmed.

Controversy surrounding Jack Lew

Romney also expressed that he was very troubled by the findings of the Senate Homeland Security Committees Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 2018, which linked Lew to the Iran nuclear deal.

The 2018 Senate report said that the Treasury Department under former President Barack Obama, where Lew worked at the time, granted a specific license that authorized a conversion of Iranian assets worth billions of U.S. dollars using the U.S. financial system. And officials like Lew maintained in congressional testimony that Iran would not be granted access to the U.S. financial system.

Roughly $5.7 billion was transferred from U.S. banks to Iranian assets.

I wonder how the White House could have brought forward a nomination, given that report and given the clear indication that the Republican members, at least and hopefully some Democrat members as well, would be troubled by and moved by the results of that report from the Subcommittee on Investigations, said Romney.

Related

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also said on X, We need to have an ambassador in Israel, but it has to be the right person. Rubio is also on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Lew said that he has remained close with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who led the investigation in 2018.

I spoke to him as recently as last night. I would just invite anyone who questions whether he thinks that Im somebody who keeps my word. I would just suggest they talk to Sen. Portman, he said.

Will Iran use the unfrozen $6 billion to fund terrorism?

Romney questioned Lew about the $6 billion in Iranian funds that were set to be released by the Biden administration as a part of a prisoner exchange  an idea that has since been put on hold.

U.S. sanctions against Iran still allow the country to use the funds for humanitarian purposes.

Now, I know enough about money to know that funds are fungible and that if we say were going to give you $6 billion, but youve got to use it for food and hospitals for your population, Iran can say, Thank you, thats what we use the $6 billion for now. Weve freed up $6 billion that we otherwise would have used ourselves for food and hospital, and now we can use that to build nuclear weapons or provide money to Hezbollah or Hamas. Am I wrong? Romney asked, adding that the money is still funding a state sponsor of terror.

Lew said that Iran isnt a rational economic player and has an evil, malign government that prioritizes funds for terrorism.

So, when Iran gets access to food and medicine for its people, thats food and medicine they wouldnt otherwise have, he said.

Sadly, supporting terrorist organizations like Hamas and terrorist organizations like Hezbollah, thats not very expensive, Lew added. So its not a purely economic question. Its really a question of who are we dealing with. Were not dealing with people who trade off guns and butter. Guns come first.

Related
BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- World leaders gathered in Beijing for a high-profile forum this week in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), held from Tuesday to Wednesday, marked another milestone in the process of jointly building the Belt and Road.

In a keynote speech at the opening ceremony, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that over the past 10 years, Belt and Road cooperation has progressed from "sketching the outline" to "filling in the details," and blueprints have been turned into real projects.

He announced eight major steps that China will take to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, including the promotion of green development, and the advancement of scientific and technological innovation.

During the third BRF, a total of 458 outcomes were achieved, far more than in the second one. The CEO Conference held during the forum saw the conclusion of agreements worth 97.2 billion U.S. dollars.

Zahari Zahariev, chairman of Bulgaria National Association for the Belt and Road, said he was impressed by China's fresh commitments and pledges. Future BRI development requires efforts not only from China, but also from other participating countries like Bulgaria, he said.

Since its launch, the BRI has become the world's largest platform for international cooperation, and with the broadest coverage.

By June 2023, China had signed more than 200 BRI cooperation agreements with over 150 countries and 30-plus international organizations across five continents. Over 3,000 BRI cooperation projects have been launched in the past decade, involving close to 1 trillion U.S. dollars of investment.

One such project is the China-Laos Railway, which began operations in December 2021, helping transform the landlocked country of Laos into a land-linked hub in Southeast Asia.

Sida Phengphongsawanh, a 24-year-old train inspector for the China-Laos Railway, is one of many Lao people whose lives have been changed by the railway.

"The Belt and Road is a great initiative," she said. "And I think the Laos-China Railway is just the starting point (in the region). It will connect more countries in the future, allowing us to go abroad more easily."

By improving infrastructure connectivity, BRI cooperation can reduce international trade costs and enable underdeveloped countries, especially those located inland, to participate in global trade and seek economic development, said Liu Nanxing, an expert on international cooperation at the National Development and Reform Commission.

China-made new-energy vehicles, engineering machinery and household appliances are being shipped to more and more Belt and Road partner countries, while foreign products such as Thai rice, Kenyan avocados and Uzbek chocolates are increasingly appearing on the tables of Chinese people.

Belt and Road cooperation was proposed by China, but its benefits and opportunities are for the world to share, President Xi Jinping said.

China is endeavoring to bring Belt and Road cooperation to a new stage of higher-quality and higher-level development, thus promoting the modernization of all countries.

The World Bank has estimated that by 2030, BRI-related investments could lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and 32 million out of moderate poverty.

Collaborative efforts in new energy and environmental protection have emerged as fresh opportunities and driving forces for cooperation among the partner countries.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the U.S.-based Kuhn Foundation, said that the BRI is sustainable as the win-win cooperation model has delivered tangible results over the past 10 years.

"Historians 1,000 years from now will look back and will circle the BRI as something of significance for our era today," he noted.

Hu Biliang, executive dean of the Belt and Road School at Beijing Normal University, said that in a world facing uncertainty and instability, countries are urgently in need of dialogue to bridge their differences, solidarity to counter division, and cooperation to foster development.

"The significance of the Belt and Road cooperation is becoming increasingly evident, and its prospects are more promising than ever," he said. 
The Biden administration is expected to send the Senate an emergency supplemental funding request for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan by the end of the week, Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer , D-N.Y., said Thursday.

"When the Senate receives this request, we spring into action and move it as soon as we can," Schumer said on the floor Thursday morning.

Schumer said the upper chamber would pass a bipartisan resolution to affirm that the chamber stands in support of Israel. The resolution was cosponsored by 99 Democrat and Republican lawmakers.

"Our resolution has overwhelming, nearly unanimous support in the Senate on both sides, and we're working with the few who have some problems to solve their problems so we can get this done," Schumer said. "And by the end of the week, the president will send the Senate a supplemental request to provide Israel the military intelligence, diplomatic and humanitarian aid it needs."

WHITE HOUSE NEGOTIATES COMBINED AID TO ISRAEL AND UKRAINE WITH SENATE

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and a bipartisan delegation of Sens. Bill Cassidy, Mitt Romney, Jacky Rosen and Mark Kelly meet with Israeli leaders, including President Isaac Herzog, pictured above.

According to sources familiar with the talks, Republican lawmakers in the upper chamber are negotiating which border security provisions they should ask the White House to include in the package.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

In a call last week, the White House floated adding border security in the emergency package, but some Republican lawmakers are skeptical it will include what they want  much stricter border policies to quell the influx of migrants at the border.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday during the first Senate GOP press conference since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 that the White House will need to draft a "broad" spending bill for aid to Israel that includes "credible" solutions to the border crisis.

GOP SENATORS RAMP UP PUSH TO REFREEZE $6B IN IRANIAN FUNDS: HAMAS IS JUST THE PUPPET

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says the White House needs to draft a broad spending bill for aid to Israel that includes solutions to the border crisis.

"There's a connection between all of this, and I am not surprised, frankly, that the administration seems to be inclined to send up a broad package," McConnell said after telling reporters that the attack on Israel is "interconnected" with other attacks by North Korea, Iran, Russia and China on democratic nations.

"As my colleagues have pointed out, the border part of it needs to be credible," the GOP leader said. "Not just some reference to it, but credible dealing with the problem."

According to a GOP aide, there is more bipartisan support for aid to Israel in both chambers compared to those who are supportive of sending more aid to the Eastern European nation. Ukraine has already received upward of $100 billion from the federal government to aid in its defense against the Russian invasion that began in February 2022.

"People are going to grumble, but they're going to vote for it," a source familiar with the negotiations said.

FROM THE DEADLY DESERT RAVE TO THE FRONT LINES, ISRAELI RESERVE SOLDIER RECOUNTS CONCERT MASSACRE

The administration will be considering upward of $100 billion for the supplemental request, according to lawmakers. In August, President Biden requested that Congress allocate $24 billion for aid to Ukraine. By Sept. 30, Congress passed a temporary spending patch for most government programs  set to expire Nov. 17  without any additional aid to Ukraine.

Fox News reported this week that Customs and Border Protection has encountered thousands of "special interest aliens" since 2021. Special interest aliens are people from countries identified by the U.S. government as having conditions that promote or protect terrorism or potentially pose some sort of national security threat to the U.S.

Biden is expected to address the nation in a foreign policy speech at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday night.

Fox News' Bill Melugin contributed to this report.





Original article source: Senate prepares for Biden to send supplemental funding request with Israel, Ukraine aid
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  Senators from both sides of the aisle are rallying behind the presidents request to send more aid to Israel.

The Senate is preparing to pass a massive aid package to help Israel defeat Hamas.

Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to Israels eradication, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said.

Schumer, the Senate majority leader, says the plan will not only surge military aid to Israel. It will also include humanitarian funds to help those trapped in Gaza without food, water or electricity.

Palestinian civilians who have nothing to do with Hamas, Schumer said.

Across the board, Republicans say theyre ready to help Israel.

But Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, says she fears anything sent to Gaza could end up in the hands of Hamas.

Until we can guarantee we can get that humanitarian aid directly to the people who need it, I think we should slow down, Ernst said.

The Biden administration says its already working with Egypt and Israel to ensure aid can be safely delivered to civilians.

While in Israel Wednesday, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass what he describes as an unprecedented support package.

But groups like Jewish Voice for Peace are pushing back. On Wednesday afternoon, protestors filled the bottom floor of a House office building, demanding a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed.

Schumer says that is not an option.

If you allow Hamas to exist as is, the same thing will happen again, Schumer said. And we have to do everything to prevent that.

Schumer says he intends to pass the aid package as quickly as possible.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
A group of Senate Republicans is urging President Biden to expand construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, just weeks after the administration announced it would move forward with building the wall.

The Republicans, led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), sent a letter to Biden asking his administration to resubmit the supplemental funding request it sent in August to include more resources for border construction.

Your administrations decision to continue construction of the Trump Administrations physical border wall is a step in combating high illegal entry rates. With that, more must be done, the 13 Republicans wrote.

The Biden administration announced earlier this month it was waiving certain environmental laws to allow for construction along a busy sector of the border in Texas. This reversal came as a shock to many of the presidents allies and Democrats who have denounced the construction of a border wall former President Trump promoted.

Biden has argued his hands were tied, saying the funds were appropriated for building a border wall. The wall will be constructed in Starr County, Texas, using the funds appropriated by Congress in 2019, before Biden took office.

Now, Senate Republicans are hoping Biden will ask for even more funding to expand the wall. They said the request Biden sent in August, which included billions for Ukraine assistance and border management, among other things, did not include specific funds for constructing a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, despite the Secretarys subsequent decision to ramp up construction after years of inaction.

In light of Secretary Mayorkas announcement, we write to urge your administration to ensure that more land mass is covered by the border wall and for you to rescind and resubmit your August 2023 supplemental funding request to Congress to specifically include additional resources for construction, the group wrote.

Under the current proposal, approximately 20 miles of border wall will be established. However, more must be done to deter unfettered illegal immigration, which is continuing at a record-breaking pace. If we are to ensure the safety of American communities, more miles of border wall must be constructed, the lawmakers added.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A group of U.S. senators is demanding answers from the Social Security Administration to address why the agency, in violation of its own policy, has been reducing and suspending peoples benefits because of the money they received as covid-19 relief payments.

Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania all signed the letter, addressed to acting SSA Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi on Wednesday saying they were deeply concerned that beneficiaries are receiving overpayment notices in error and wanted answers to a list of questions within 30 days.

In 2020 and 2021, to counter the economic fallout of the covid pandemic, the government distributed relief payments to eligible Americans totaling as much as $3,200. The payments typically arrived automatically in mailboxes or bank accounts.

But, as KFF Health News and Cox Media Group television stations, including Action News Jax reported Tuesday some recipients say the payments had an unintended consequence: They led the Social Security Administration to claw back other federal benefits, including monthly support payments for people who are poor, disabled, or at least 65.

The covid relief, known as stimulus or economic impact payments, left some recipients with more money in the bank than the $2,000 asset limit for individuals receiving benefits through a Social Security program called Supplemental Security Income. As a result, the Social Security Administration has sent some people notices alleging they were overpaid and demanding they repay the government, according to people affected.

Read: Early data shows overdose deaths trending downward in Florida

In some cases, the agency cut off their monthly payments to recoup the alleged overage.

That wasnt supposed to happen. According to the agencys rules, the covid payments, also known as EIPs, do not count toward the asset limit.

[W]e are concerned by recent reporting that SSI beneficiaries have received overpayment notices because of the EIPs, even though SSA determined that EIPs would never be counted toward eligibility for SSI, the senators wrote to Kijakazi.

The letter cited the news report by CMG and KFF Health News.

We sent it because ... its not right that Social Security made a mistake, and the beneficiary shouldnt have to pay for that mistake, Brown, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Social Security, said Thursday in an interview with CMGs WHIO-TV in Dayton.

Were not going to drop this until they back off, Brown said, referring to the agency.

The senators asked Kijakazi about the scope of the problem, including the number of people who had benefits reduced or suspended because of covid payments, the number who had benefits reinstated with or without an appeal, and the outcomes of appeals. They also asked what the agency has been doing about the issue.

As you know, SSI benefits, while modest, have a substantial impact in the lives of the people who rely on them, the senators wrote. Benefit suspensions and overpayment notices  regardless of the cause  can have a profound negative impact in their lives.

Further, they wrote, losing SSI eligibility risks a lengthy and bureaucratic process to restore eligibility and also risks beneficiaries access to Medicaid coverage.

A spokesperson for the Social Security Administration did not respond to a request for comment about the letter and has not provided answers to prior questions on this subject.

The covid-related Social Security clawbacks are part of a larger picture. As KFF Health News and CMG reported last month, many Americans have been struggling with demands that they repay benefits the Social Security Administration says they never should have received. The collection efforts can cover years of payments and reach tens of thousands of dollars or more.

Read: Action News Jax Investigates uncovers billions of dollars in Social Security overpayments

In some cases, the alleged overpayments are the result of beneficiaries failing to comply with requirements. In others, they are the result of errors by the government.

The same day the senators sent their letter to Kijakazi, the agency chief was being questioned on overpayments at a hearing convened by a House panel in the wake of the prior CMG and KFF reporting.

Kijakazi revealed that about 1 million people have received overpayment notices from the agency in each of the last two fiscal years.

Read: Bus company loses contract after Action News Jax Investigation

She told the panel that Social Security employees work assiduously to pay the right person the right amount at the right time, and that the agency was conducting a top-to-bottom review of its handling of overpayments.

If we determine that a beneficiary has been paid more than they should have received, we are required by law to seek recovery of the overpayment amounts, Kijakazi testified during the hearing.

Solving the larger problem may require legislation, Brown said, adding he would try to change the law this year if thats whats necessary to get Social Security to do it right.

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A group of U.S. senators is demanding answers from the Social Security Administration to address why the agency, in violation of its own policy, has been reducing and suspending peoples benefits because of the money they received as COVID-19 relief payments.

Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania all signed the letter, addressed to acting SSA Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi on Wednesday saying they were deeply concerned that beneficiaries are receiving overpayment notices in error and wanted answers to a list of questions within 30 days.

In 2020 and 2021, to counter the economic fallout of the COVID pandemic, the government distributed relief payments to eligible Americans totaling as much as $3,200. The payments typically arrived automatically in mailboxes or bank accounts.

But, as KFF Health News and Cox Media Group television stations, including KIRO 7 reported earlier this week, some recipients say the payments had an unintended consequence: They led the Social Security Administration to claw back other federal benefits, including monthly support payments for people who are poor, disabled, or at least 65.

The COVID relief, known as stimulus or economic impact payments, left some recipients with more money in the bank than the $2,000 asset limit for individuals receiving benefits through a Social Security program called Supplemental Security Income. As a result, the Social Security Administration has sent some people notices alleging they were overpaid and demanding they repay the government, according to people affected.

In some cases, the agency cut off their monthly payments to recoup the alleged overage.

That wasnt supposed to happen. According to the agencys rules, the COVID payments, also known as EIPs, do not count toward the asset limit.

[W]e are concerned by recent reporting that SSI beneficiaries have received overpayment notices because of the EIPs, even though SSA determined that EIPs would never be counted toward eligibility for SSI, the senators wrote to Kijakazi.

The letter cited the news report by CMG and KFF Health News.

We sent it because ... its not right that Social Security made a mistake, and the beneficiary shouldnt have to pay for that mistake, Brown, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Social Security, said Thursday in an interview with CMGs WHIO-TV in Dayton.

Were not going to drop this until they back off, Brown said, referring to the agency.

The senators asked Kijakazi about the scope of the problem, including the number of people who had benefits reduced or suspended because of COVID payments, the number who had benefits reinstated with or without an appeal, and the outcomes of appeals. They also asked what the agency has been doing about the issue.

As you know, SSI benefits, while modest, have a substantial impact in the lives of the people who rely on them, the senators wrote. Benefit suspensions and overpayment notices  regardless of the cause  can have a profound negative impact in their lives.

Further, they wrote, losing SSI eligibility risks a lengthy and bureaucratic process to restore eligibility and also risks beneficiaries access to Medicaid coverage.

A spokesperson for the Social Security Administration did not respond to a request for comment about the letter and has not provided answers to prior questions on this subject.

The COVID-related Social Security clawbacks are part of a larger picture. As KFF Health News and CMG reported last month, many Americans have been struggling with demands that they repay benefits the Social Security Administration says they never should have received. The collection efforts can cover years of payments and reach tens of thousands of dollars or more.

In some cases, the alleged overpayments are the result of beneficiaries failing to comply with requirements. In others, they are the result of errors by the government.

The same day the senators sent their letter to Kijakazi, the agency chief was being questioned on overpayments at a hearing convened by a House panel in the wake of the prior CMG and KFF reporting.

Kijakazi revealed that about 1 million people have received overpayment notices from the agency in each of the last two fiscal years.

She told the panel that Social Security employees work assiduously to pay the right person the right amount at the right time, and that the agency was conducting a top-to-bottom review of its handling of overpayments.

If we determine that a beneficiary has been paid more than they should have received, we are required by law to seek recovery of the overpayment amounts, Kijakazi testified during the hearing.

Solving the larger problem may require legislation, Brown said, adding he would try to change the law this year if thats whats necessary to get Social Security to do it right.
[Source]

A somber air lingers in Seoul as it approaches Halloween, marking one year since the devastating crowd crush disaster in Itaewon that claimed 159 lives.

About the tragedy: On Oct. 29, 2022, at around 10:20 p.m., a crowd crush occurred in Seoul's Itaewon neighborhood during its Halloween festivities, resulting in the loss of 159 lives and injuring 196 others. South Korea hadn't seen such a lethal tragedy since the 2014 MV Sewol sinking or the 1995 Sampoong Department Store collapse.

A special police team's investigation found that the disaster's root cause was the failure of the police and government to adequately prepare for the massive crowds, despite numerous warnings that went unheeded. The revelation prompted widespread criticism and protests against the government and police. President Yoon Suk Yeol faced calls for his resignation, although he remained in office.

Silent nights: This year, the city's once-vibrant Halloween celebrations have taken on a much quieter tone as major retailers, including Lotte and Shinsegae, have chosen to remain low-key, forgoing Halloween-related promotions, reported Korea JoongAng Daily. Department stores, convenience stores, cafes and theme parks that used to see a boost in sales from Halloween-related goods and events have also voluntarily relinquished their annual celebrations.

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Shift in approach: Large amusement parks such as Everland, Lotte World, and Seoul Land, which typically embraced horror-themed spaces and zombie performances, have chosen alternative themes this year. Legoland Korea has also scaled down its autumn festival, eliminating the Halloween theme.

The jurisdiction of Yongsan District, which includes the area where the tragedy occurred, canceled its annual "Global Village Festival" this year. Meanwhile, Korean English kindergartens and academies are replacing Halloween parties with Thanksgiving festivities.

Continuous calls for answers: The Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families and Survivors organization, which represents the Itaewon victims' families, has emphasized that Halloween should not be blamed for the tragic accident and that those who partake in festivities bear no culpability. Still, the families continue to demand greater transparency and accountability from the government.

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It is devastatingly frustrating that there has been no proper investigation, Jin Chang-hee, whose 21-year-old niece died in the tragedy, told VOA News. We need proper support from the ruling party and we just dont have it.

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WASHINGTON (Nexstar)  The U.S. House remains without a speaker and Republicans have been indecisive about how to move forward.

The issue is also becoming even more heated as some Congress members and their families have been receiving threats over the issues. Several Republicans say their lives and family members were threatened for not supporting Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House.

Jim Jordan needs to step up to the plate very strongly and condemn that. I mean not just say this is wrong, step up and condemn it, said Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.).

Congressman Don Bacons wife was reportedly threatened, along with his political future. But Bacon isnt backing down.

I hope he talks about a third vote and that hell concede if he loses more votes, said Bacon (R-Neb.).

During the second round of voting on Wednesday, Jordan lost support.

Weve got to figure out how to get Congress working again. I mean, we just cant be sitting here not moving forward, said Rep. David Trone (D-Md.).

Some lawmakers say the House cant vote on legislation without a permanent speaker in place, so Republican Mike Flood is now proposing a new plan.

We need to pass a resolution on the floor of the House of Representatives that names Patrick McHenry Speaker of the House of Representatives with the full authority to act, none of this pro tem business, he said.

But after much debate over the issue throughout Thursday, Jordan said the plan was out.

We made the pitch to members on the resolution as a way to lower the temperature and get back to work. We decided that wasnt where we were going to go, he said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
Shanna Lee Gardner waived her entitlement to challenge the constitutionality of her detention and will be returned to Jacksonville from the state of Washington to face multiple charges as a co-conspirator in the murder plot of ex-husband Jared Bridegan, according to the State Attorney's Office.

Her defense counsel informed all the relevant parties during her Thursday court hearing in Benton County, Wash., that they will not file a habeas corpus petition, State Attorney's Office spokesman David Chapman said.

He said they are working with law enforcement to expedite her return to Florida but could not provide a specific date other than it would be in the next few weeks.

Both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee previously signed the paperwork for the 36-year-old's extradition. She had moved to West Richland, Wash., with her and Bridegan's twin son and daughter following intense scrutiny while living in Jacksonville Beach. She was arrested on Aug. 17 on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony and child abuse.

Jared Bridegan, left, died in an ambush-style murder on Feb. 16, 2022, after leaving the home of ex-wife Shanna Gardner, upper right, in Jacksonville Beach. She is charged in the murder plot along with Henry Tenon, center right, and Mario Fernandez Saldana, bottom right, who is married to Shanna.

Mario Fernandez Saldana, her 35-year-old husband, faces the same charges after his arrest in Orlando on March 16.

Henry Arthur Tenon, a 62-year-old former tenant of Fernandez Saldana, was first person arrested on Jan. 25. He has already pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, stating he was the triggerman and agreeing to testify against the others, State Attorney Melissa Nelson previously said.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for both Gardner and Fernandez Saldana.

Shanna Gardner's husband: Bodycam shows a polite and relaxed Mario Fernandez Saldana during arrest in Bridegan case

Bridegan, 33, was gunned down on Feb. 16, 2022, after dropping his twin children off at Mario and Shanna's Jacksonville Beach home. He lived in St. Augustine and was on his way there with his 2-year-old daughter when he stopped because of a tire on Sancturay Road, police previously said.

Early in the case, police made it clear they didn't think the tire being there was an accident. It was a dark, residential road that Bridegan routinely took to get to Butler Boulevard. When he turned his hazard lights on and got out to move it, he was immediately shot, police said. The toddler was unharmed in her safety seat and nothing appeared to be stolen.

An arrest warrant states "the investigation into Bridegans background revealed a highly acrimonious divorce from his ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, and a contentious relationship with both Gardner and Fernandez Saldana."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Shanna Gardner will be extradited to Jacksonville in Jared Bridegan case
U.S. researchers discovered a new shark species in rock layers at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, the National Park Service reported.

On October 11, which is National Fossil Day, scientists found a new species of petalodont shark  a type of shark with petal-shaped teeth. This discovery was made in the SteGenevieve Formation rock layer at Mammoth Cave National Park, about 85 miles south of Louisville.

The new shark species, Strigilodus tollesonae, was discovered from spoon-like teeth found in a cave's wall and ceiling.

"We are excited to finally announce the discovery of our first new shark species at Mammoth Cave on (National Fossil Day)," said Mammoth Cave superintendent Barclay Trimble in a press release. "Teams of geologists, paleontologists, park staff, and volunteers have been hard at work deep inside the cave identifying and collecting fossils since the paleontological resources inventory began in 2019. Their important research allows us to better understand the scope, significance, distribution, and management issues associated with the fossil record found within Mammoth Cave."

A new illustration of Strigilodus tollesonae

In November 2019, John-Paul (JP) Hodnett, a shark fossil specialist working with the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission, teamed up with the NPS Paleontology Program to identify the shark fossils in the park. This collaboration, known as the Paleontological Resource Inventories, aims to aid in managing non-renewable fossil resources within the national parks.

The species Strigilodus tollesonae is named after Kelli Tolleson, a guide at Mammoth Cave National Park who provided exceptional field support to the collaboration.

Tolleson discovered essential fossil sites in remote and challenging locations, according to the release. Access is limited due to the rugged terrain. The fossils are found in cave walls or ceilings and are collected using small handheld tools by researchers and volunteers who crawl long distances on hands, knees, and bellies.

Strigilodus tollesonae is an extinct species of shark that is more closely related to modern ratfish than to other modern sharks and rays. The teeth discovered at Mammoth Cave represent all tooth positions found in adult and juvenile specimens of this new species. The teeth were arranged in a fan-like structure, with a large tooth in the center and three smaller teeth surrounding it.

Strigilodus tollesonae had teeth with one rounded cusp for clipping and a long, ridged inner side for crushing prey. It probably fed on snails, bivalves, worms, and small fish, similar to modern skate fish.

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Mammoth Cave National Park plans to celebrate fossils found in the cave system with a series of presentations and exhibits on October 23 to highlight paleontology's scientific and educational value and the importance of preserving fossils.

What is Mammoth Cave National Park?

Mammoth Cave National Park is in Kentucky and has the world's most extensive cave system, over 400 miles long. Prehistoric people used it for shelter and resources.

Mammoth Cave was rediscovered by settlers in the early 1800s. It used to be a saltpeter mine until the end of the War of 1812. Today, it is a popular destination for guided tours.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New shark discovery, Strigilodus tollesonae, in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky
Attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty Thursday morning for the part she played in trying to overturn the election of President Joe Biden.

Powell, 68, appeared in Fulton County, Georgia, on Thursday morning, where she announced her guilty plea to six misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with election duties.

She is sentenced to six years probation, a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution. She also must offer truthful testimony in future proceedings against other defendants in the case and write an apology to the people of Georgia.

Fulton County Executive District Attorney Daysha Young told Judge Scott McAfee that between Dec. 1, 2020 and Jan. 7, 2021, Powell and her co-defendents conspired to use Coffee County Election Supervisor Misty Hamptons position to gain access to election machines to tamper with ballot markers, remove software and data and examine personal voting records, among other things.

Powell, who served as one of former President Donald Trumps lawyers following his 2020 election loss, grew up in Raleigh and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill. She sat in the courtroom Thursday morning, appearing composed and answering each question the judge or district attorney asked with yes or no answers. She once cracked a joke about her age, despite what she described as a youthful appearance.

In this Nov. 19, 2020 file photo, Sidney Powell, right, speaks next to former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, as members of President Donald Trumps legal team, during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington.

Powell was one of 19 people charged in Fulton County for trying to overturn the 2020 election. So was Mark Meadows, who once represented North Carolinas far southwestern mountain counties in Congress. Meadows left Congress to work as Trumps chief of staff toward the end of Trumps presidency.

Trump faces 91 criminal charges across four cases filed over less than five months this year. The Fulton County case was the first time Powell faced charges alongside Trump.

She is believed to be an unnamed co-defendent in a second case out of Washington, where Trump is accused of spreading fraudulent conspiracy theories in an attempt to retain the presidency.

On Thursday, the judge allowed Powell to plead as a first-time offender, which means that eventually her conviction could be expunged from her record.

Without a plea deal, Powell could have spent six years in prison.

The judge also ordered Powell not to speak to the media, her co-defendents or other witnesses in the case until the case is concluded in its entirety.

Attorney Brian Rafferty, who is representing defendant Sidney Powell, listens to Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee during a jury questionnaire hearing at the Fulton County Courthouse on October 16, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia.
PHNOM PENH, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The third global conference on assistance to landmine victims concluded in the capital of Cambodia on Thursday, vowing to carry out actions and policies to improve the lives of survivors and affected communities, a senior Cambodian official said.

The three-day conference brought together delegates from 45 countries and regions, which are state parties to the Mine-Ban Convention, known as the Ottawa Treaty.

Ly Thuch, senior minister and first vice-president of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA), said the participants deliberated a comprehensive exploration of victim assistance, delving into critical topics such as mental health and psychological support, access to healthcare and socio-economic inclusion.

"We explored the challenges and opportunities faced by survivors and affected communities, and discussed ways to enhance cooperation, assistance and socio-economic inclusion," he said in a speech at the closing ceremony of the conference.

"Together, we can build a world where these survivors have access to the care, support and opportunities they deserve," he added.

Thuch said countries should strive to fulfill their moral obligation to protect the rights and destinies of those who have fallen victim to these indiscriminate weapons.

"As a global community, we can make a difference in the lives of those affected by landmines and explosive ordnances," he said.

Cambodia is one of the worst affected countries by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERWs). An estimated 4 million to 6 million landmines and other munitions had been left over from three decades of war and internal conflicts that ended in 1998.

According to the Yale University, between 1965 and 1973, the United States had dropped some 230,516 bombs on 113,716 sites in Cambodia.

According to the CMAA's latest report, from 1979 to August 2023, landmine and ERW explosions had killed 19,822 people and either injured or amputated 45,209 others, making Cambodia one of the countries with the highest number of casualties.

The Southeast Asian country is committed to achieving a mine-free goal by 2025. 
Former Donald Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powells stunning plea deal in the Georgia election subversion case on the eve of her trial will significantly change the landscape of the ongoing state and federal prosecutions against the former president.

As recently as Tuesday, Powell was still posting false claims on social media that said the 2020 election was rigged against Trump. But on Thursday, she walked into an Atlanta courtroom and admitted that she was guilty of trying to interfere with the 2020 election.

Her plea deal with Fulton County prosecutors will require her to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at any upcoming trials, including against Trump himself.

This is a really big breakthrough for prosecutors, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said Thursday on News Central. Theres no such thing as halfway cooperation.

Heres a breakdown of how this could impact the cases going forward.

Why did she plead now?

Theres nothing like an impending trial to spur a defendant into cutting a deal. And it looks like this is exactly what happened, for Powell at least.

Instead of going to trial on seven felonies, Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors. As part of the deal, prosecutors recommended a probation-only sentence.

Only two defendants  Powell and pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro  invoked their rights under Georgia law to a speedy trial. Chesebro has pleaded not guilty and jury selection is set to begin on Friday.

What could Powell testify about?

Most notably, Powell attended a White House meeting on December 18, 2020, where some of Trumps most extreme supporters encouraged him to name her as a special counsel to investigate supposed voter fraud, to consider declaring martial law and to sign executive orders that would direct the military to seize voting machines.

Also in attendance were former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, who were big-time peddlers of debunked election conspiracy theories. (Giuliani was also indicted in the Georgia case and has pleaded not guilty.)

The plea documents make clear that shes expected to testify about her direct involvement in the breach of election systems in Coffee County, Georgia, where a motley group of Trump supporters collaborated with a local election official to access sensitive government data as part of their quixotic search for massive voter fraud.

Powell was also in touch with the Trump White House and other figures in Trumps orbit during the frenzied post-election period where she publicly threatened to release the kraken by filing lawsuits across the country that she dubiously claimed could keep Trump in power. Her cases were deemed frivolous and dismissed.

Cooperators like Powell can provide firsthand testimony about things they saw, things they overheard, CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams said Thursday on News Central. And if prosecutors arent satisfied with the evidence thats provided, they can just yank this plea deal, and put these folks to trial.

Who should be looking over their shoulder?

The most obvious consequence of Powells plea is that this could hurt Trumps defense.

Shes going to have to admit that, yes, we were trying to steal the election, yes, I knew it was illegal, and yes, it was in fact a crime, Honig said. All of that is in play for her testimony against all of the 17 other co-defendants, including Donald Trump.

But zooming out, it puts in danger anyone who worked with Powell to overturn the election, including the attendees of the White House meeting and the Coffee County breachers. It doesnt help them that a key player is now working for the prosecutors.

Powell had numerous contacts with other people in Trumps orbit and could now be required to turn over evidence against them. Her guilty plea also implicates the group of Republicans who breached Coffee Countys voting systems in early 2021. Another member of that alleged scheme, bail bondsman Scott Hall, has already pleaded guilty.

She was also in touch with prominent right-wing media figures, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and current Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. All three of them are facing defamation lawsuits from voting technology companies, and Powells admissions in the criminal cases could strengthen the defamation allegations.

How does this impact the special counsels case against Trump?

Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who filed federal election subversion charges against Trump, might now get a bunch of new evidence, thanks to Powell.

Whatever statements or testimony she provides to Georgia state prosecutors, federal investigators could try to obtain to use against Trump in his federal trial scheduled to begin in March, in Washington, DC.)

Furthermore, Powell was an unindicted co-conspirator in Trumps federal indictment, suggesting that the special counsel believes she broke the law. This puts in her danger of potential federal charges, so she may seek to cooperate with Smith as well.

The federal indictment describes Powell as an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud (Trump) privately acknowledged to others sounded crazy.

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A second co-defendant with Donald Trump in the Georgia election conspiracy case, Sidney Powell , pleaded guilty Thursday to a half-dozen misdemeanors dealing with a conspiracy to interfere in the 2020 election.

Legal experts said Powell's central role in the conspiracy, as an election lawyer who baselessly claimed widespread election fraud in 2020, could have an impact on other defendants charged in the alleged racketeering conspiracy that sought to keep Trump in power. Powell is the second co-defendant to plead guilty in the case, after bail bondsman Scott Hall.

Miss Powell is at the vortex, the center, the hub of the alleged conspiracy, said Gene Rossi, who handled Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations cases in his three decades as a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official. She will be a phenomenal witness for the government because she was at strategic meetings, part of important conversations and she was a leader in implementing the scheme to discredit the lawful election of Joe Biden.

Powell was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to overturn the election so Trump could remain in power. She was charged with tampering with election equipment in Coffee County, Georgia.

She pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft by taking and five counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. Powell agreed to testify in future trials in exchange for serving six years of probation, a $6,000 fine and paying restitution of $2,700.

Powells agreement fell under Georgia's First Offender Act, which will allow her to "honestly say" she was never convicted of the charges if she successfully completes her probation and is discharged, according to prosecutor Daysha Young. If Powell violates the terms of her first-offender sentence or commits another offense while on probation, her first-offender status could be revoked and she could be resentenced to the maximum, Young said.

Sidney Powell is a lawyer who served on the Trump campaign. Powell allegedly pushed conspiracy theories that Dominion Voting Systems changed votes from Trump to Biden.

Powell is one of 19 co-defendants charged in the case, which alleged a broad racketeering conspiracy. Other portions of the conspiracy included the recruitment of fake presidential electors to vote for Trump despite President Joe Biden winning Georgia, lying about election results to state officials and in court records, and soliciting public officials to violate their oaths of office.

Legal experts said Powell's agreement to testify against others in the case is "very significant" because she dealt at length with Trump, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others charged in the conspiracy.

"I think it's very significant because she is one of the people who was closest to Trump in many of these alleged nefarious activities, and as part of the agreement, she must testify truthfully against Trump as well as the other defendants,' said John Banzhaf, a George Washington University law professor who has been following the case closely. "So it is a major victory for Fani Willis and certainly a major concern for Trump."

Powell worked closely with major figures in the case. She participated in a news conference with Giuliani and co-defendant Jenna Ellis at the Republican National Committee portraying baseless allegations of election in November 2020. Powell met with Trump at the White House, including on Dec. 18, 2020, to discuss having the military seize voting machines, which Trump didn't order.

"Given the central role she played in public promotion of false claims of election fraud, it seems likely that she has significant information about the role of her co-defendants," said Alexander Reinert, a Benjamin Cardozo School of Law professor.

Kevin OBrien, a former federal prosecutor now at Ford OBrien Landy, called it a very, very smart move for Powell to pay a fine, avoid jail and keep her law license.

Rudy Giuliani, as if he doesn't have enough to worry about, should be very worried, OBrien said. Remember those press conferences the two gave on all their evidence of election interference?

Rossie said Powell's guilty plea may persuade others to cooperate with prosecutors, turning "the slippery slope into a luge when it comes to cooperators."

In this frame grab from video, Sidney Powell, a former attorney for former President Donald Trump, attends a hearing with her attorney Brian Rafferty before Judge Scott McAfee on Thursday at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta. Powell pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case and was sentenced to six years probation, a fine, and she will be required to testify in future trials.

The other 17 co-defendants have all pleaded not guilty. Powells guilty plea came days before her trial was scheduled to begin Monday. Another co-defendant, lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who is charged with developing the scheme to recruit fake electors, still has a trial scheduled for Monday.

While Powell was involved in a separate part of the conspiracy from Chesebro, Banzhaf said her guilty plea could affect him because he continues to face charges with a five-year minimum sentence and no opportunity for a federal pardon.

"I think it's also likely to convince Chesebro because he's in exactly the same boat," Banzhaf said. "Also, it's going to leave him standing alone in the courtroom. If the two of them were tried together at least they have each other, so to speak, a little bit of mutual support. Now he's going to be on his own and his attorney's going to have to work twice as hard."

Prosecutors initially charged Powell with conspiring with Hall and others to access election equipment without authorization and hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to Coffee County, to copy software and data from voting machines and computers there.

The indictment said an unnamed person sent an email to a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County to an unidentified lawyer associated with Powell and the Trump campaign.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sidney Powell, Trump co-defendant, pleads guilty to election conspiracy
Thursday morning brought another conviction in the Georgia election interference investigation, as former Trump attorney Sidney Powell took a plea deal on the charges against her, which include violating Georgias RICO Act and two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud.

She was supposed to go to trial on Monday with co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro, who the Jan. 6 Committee said was an architect of the fake elector scheme not only here in Georgia, but in at least six other swing states across the country.

Powell was sentenced to six years probation, has to pay a $6,000 fine and pay $2,700 in restitution to the Georgia Secretary of States Office. She will also have to testify truthfully against the co-defendants and cannot have any contact with witnesses or other co-defendants.

According to ABC News, Chesebro has rejected a plea deal from the Fulton County District Attorneys Office. The deal would have forced him to testify against his co-defendants, including former Pres. Trump, in exchange for three years probation and a $10,000 fine. The terms of the deal also included a written letter of apology, sources told ABC.

Chesebro is now one of a total of 17 people, including former President Donald Trump , accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election here in Georgia.

Scott Hall also took a plea deal last month in the case.

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Unless something changes, Chesebro will go to trial next week, with jury selection starting on Friday.

An amicus brief was also filed Thursday morning by several former federal and state criminal justice officials, including judges, senior U.S. Department of Justice officials, a state Attorney General, and United States Attorneys, one of whom also served as a governor, to respond to the same profoundly mistaken legal position Chesebro is claiming saying the legally defective alternate electoral slates for a losing presidential and vice presidential candidacy can be utilized by that same unsuccessful vice president during the January 6th meeting of Congress to assert unilateral power to usurp the legal authority of Congress and to refuse to recognize the certificates of the successful candidate.

So far, all attempts Chesebro has made to have the charges against him thrown out in court have been rejected by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.

Attorneys for Chesebro say he cant be tried for giving the former president legal advice, even if it turned out to be wrong.

During a hearing earlier this week, McAfee suggested in court that the trial against Chesebro could take up to five months.

Giving everyone an expectation of when wed be off and wed be on, and then Id tighten it instead of a range to just say five months. Maybe well do better, McAfee said.

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Trump-aligned attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts in the Georgia 2020 election interference case Thursday after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors, the second defendant in the sweeping case to do so.

Powell appeared before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to enter her plea, just days before her trial was scheduled to begin next week.

How do you plead to the six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties? asked Daysha Young, a Fulton County prosecutor.

Guilty, Powell said.

McAfee accepted Powells plea and said that she cannot withdraw it. She was sentenced to six years of probation, a $6,000 fine and $2,700 restitution. She will also be required to testify truthfully in future proceedings and must turn over any documents requested by the district attorneys office.

Powell was also required to submit a letter of apology to Georgia residents, which her lawyer indicated she had already done.

Powell is the second of 19 co-defendants in the case to plead guilty. The other 17, including Trump, have denied any wrongdoing.

Scott Hall, a bail bondsman who was also charged, pleaded guilty late last month to five counts of the same charge Powell did.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) indicted Powell on seven charges in August, accusing her and the others of violating Georgias Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act statute by entering a months-long conspiracy to try to keep Trump in power following the 2020 election.

Powells other charges in the case relate to her alleged participation in an election machine breach at an elections office in Coffee County. Powells attorneys previously insisted she had no role in the Coffee County breach.

Young said Thursday that if the case had gone to trial, the state would have proven Powell entered a conspiracy to intervene with the performance of election duties of Misty Hampton, a co-defendant and the elections director for Coffee County.

The purpose of the conspiracy was to use Misty Hamptons position to unlawfully access secure elections machines in Coffee County, Ga., Young said.

Powell was set to go to trial beginning next week alongside fellow Trump-aligned attorney Kenneth Chesebro. Both invoked their speedy trial rights, enabling their cases to move along a faster timeline than the other 17, who will be tried at a later date.

Her decision to plead guilty means Chesebro will proceed to trial alone, meeting his previously sought goal of severing his trial from Powell and all other defendants.

The guilty plea came in the wake of McAfee denying Powells various attempts to toss the indictment ahead of trial. The first potential trial jurors are set to be summoned to the courthouse Friday.

Once a lawyer for Trumps campaign, Powell became a powerful surrogate for the former presidents false claims of election fraud. She earned the nickname Kraken after issuing fiery speeches comparing the mythological creature to the alleged fraud.

Updated at 10:22 a.m. ET

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Welcome once again to The Collision, where we know that, despite events global and domestic, theres always something unexpected going on in our little corner of the news. This weeks remarkable moment came earlier this morning, when onetime Trump lawyer Sidney Powell took a nice little plea deal just before her trial in Fulton County, Georgia, was set to begin. Well get into that, as well as the gag order issued by Judge Tanya Chutkan in the D.C. election-interference trial, a little later.

The Docket

Donald Trumps civil trial for fraud in New York continued this week, and the former president made his second courtroom appearance on Wednesday. According to CBS News, Trump appeared frustrated and was shaking his head, throwing his hands in the air, [and] whispering during the testimony from a real estate executive who said an appraisal of a building the Trump Organization claimed had been provided by him was inappropriate and inaccurate. The presiding judge encouraged everyone in the courtroom to be quiet.

Bizarre drama seems to follow Trump everywhere, including into the courtroom in Manhattan. A spectator at the trial Wednesday stood up in the middle of the proceedings and began to walk toward the former president. She returned to her seat and was later escorted out and charged with contempt of court. One more weird wrinklethe woman was apparently an employee of the court system.

What does it mean if a large number of Americans think both parties leading presidential candidates might be crooks? The latest Fox News poll, conducted between October 6 and 9, suggests thats the case, with 52 percent of registered voters saying they believe Trump did something illegal regarding either his efforts to overturn the 2020 election or his retention of classified documents. Another 23 percent said Trump did something wrong but not illegal, while just 24 percent said he did nothing wrong.

Not quite as many respondents to that same Fox News poll were willing to say President Joe Biden did something illegal related to his son Hunters business activities, but 40 percent didan all-time high since Fox began asking the question in December 2022. Hunter Biden , however, fared just as badly as Trump: 52 percent of registered voters said they thought he had done something illegal.

A couple more quick looks at the toplines from the Fox News poll, which has a stellar reputation among pollsters thats independent of the networks overall credibility: Biden has a 41 percent approval rating, near the lowest mark hes received in this poll; Trump still holds a strong lead in the GOP primary, boasting 59 percent support nationally to Ron DeSantis 13 percent and Nikki Haleys 10 percent; and Biden and Trump are neck-and-neck in a hypothetical general election matchup, 49 percent to 48 percent, respectively.

The Kraken Pleads Guilty

Sidney Powell, then an attorney for President Donald Trump, conducts a news conference at the Republican National Committee on lawsuits regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, November 19, 2020. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Sidney Powell burst onto the American political scene in late 2020 as perhaps the most bombastic purveyor of Donald Trumps false claims that the election had been stolen. Her repurposing of the Clash of the Titans battle cryRelease the Kraken!quickly went from a catchphrase for those who believed Trump would be vindicated to a joke after Powells claim that there was overwhelming evidence of voter fraud collapsed.

The Kraken is now thoroughly tied up, with Powell pleading guilty in Fulton County, Georgia, to charges she conspired with other Trump supportersand Trump himselfto disrupt the 2020 election proceedings in the state. Powell received a pretty good deal by agreeing to plead guilty, with the original felony racketeering charges she and her co-conspirators faced being reduced to the aforementioned misdemeanors.

As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000, and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents, the Associated Press reports. She also agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

The move wasnt entirely surprising, since Powell had already gotten her trial severed from Trumps and sped up. But this is a win for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has now gotten plea agreements from two people she indicted in August. (The other is Republican poll worker Scott Hall, who pleaded guilty last month as part of a deal with prosecutors.)

The next question is what happens with Kenneth Chesebro, another Trump attorney who was indicted and was going to be tried alongside Powell starting next week. Chesebro may or may not take a similar plea deal, but those conversations were almost certainly happening in parallel to those Willis was having with Powells legal team.

If they offer him straight probation, it might be hard to turn down, Andrew Fleischman, a Georgia-based defense attorney, told The Dispatch.

All eyes will be on Chesebro, especially after the New York Times reported this week on some correspondence in late 2020 that appears to undercut one of Trumps own defenses for his actions involving Georgias election. While the former presidents lawyers have insisted that he pursued his efforts to overturn Bidens victory based on legal advice he was receiving from Chesebro, Powell, and others, one email Chesebro reportedly sent during some internal deliberation about whether to file a lawsuit in Wisconsin indicated he viewed his contribution as political, as opposed to strictly legal, advice.

Gag Me With a Spoon

Lets turn to the federal election interference case in Washington, where earlier this week, Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a gag order preventing Trump from disparaging witnesses, prosecutors, and court staff in the run up to his trial, which is currently scheduled to start in March. So what does this actually mean and what does it do? And is this normal?

Lets start with that second question. Gag orders arent that unusual in high-profile trials; theres a reason youve probably heard of the term. In 1997, the judge overseeing the trial of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh issued a gag order to all lawyers involved in the case, preventing them from publicly discussing evidence or even what was happening during the trial proceedings. That order was extended to all local law enforcement during the trial of McVeighs co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, after both legal teams complained that local law enforcement officials had been leaking information about the trials security provisions.

The purpose of these gag orders is typically to prevent either the defense or the prosecution from using the media to sway public opinion to their side before a jury is selectedor taint the jury pool. A judge, for example, may issue a gag order to prevent the prosecution from releasing evidence to the press that is inadmissible at triallike a confession or a failed polygraph test. He or she could also prevent the defense attorneys from holding press conferences to cast doubt on the integrity of the prosecutions evidence. The point is to have a fair trial.

Less typical, however, is for a gag order to be directed at the defendantand a defendant running for public office no less. A judge tried it in 1987, attempting to prevent Rep. Harold Ford Sr.who had been charged with fraudfrom sharing his opinion of or discussing facts of the case. But before long, an appellate court lifted the order, holding that it unfairly prevent[ed] him from responding to attacks from his political opponents and block[ed] his constituents from hearing the views of their congressman on this issue of undoubted public importance. Lower courts have upheld some gag orders despite their First Amendment implications, but those orders have been narrow and deemed necessary to the fair administration of justice.

Chutkans order bars Trump from attacking witnesses and specific prosecutors in the trial, but it does allow Trump to criticize President Biden and the Justice Department as a whole to claim his criminal prosecutions are politically motivated. Trump is also allowed to attack Mike Pencehis former vice president and current rival for the GOP nominationas long as the attacks [do] not touch on Mr. Pences role in the criminal prosecution.

Trump called the order unconstitutional and has said he will appeal, but Chutkan held that First Amendment protections yield to the administration of justice and to the protection of witnesses. Trumps presidential candidacy, she continued, does not give him carte blanche to vilify  public servants who are simply doing their job.

Chutkans orderwhich came in response to a request from Special Counsel Jack Smithseems to be driven less by concerns about tainting the jury pool than worries about witness intimidation. But as Trumps legal team has argued, its difficult to say Trump is intimidating witnesses from testifying when several of those potential witnesses have written booksor launched presidential campaigns, in Pences casecriticizing the former president for the actions with which he is being charged. Its illegal to tamper with witnesses, of course, but gag orders are not an end-around when there isnt enough evidence to bring witness tampering charges against a defendant.

So given all that, is this order against Trump likely to survive? Its hard to say. Appellate judges certainly like to defer to trial judges on how they run their courtrooms. But this gag order does seem unusually broadand all the more so because it involves presidential candidates in the heat of a primary campaign.

Verbatim

Heres a bit from the gag order itself, which helps demonstrate why Trump is a defense attorneys worst nightmare:

Since his indictment, and even after the government filed the instant motion, Defendant has continued to make similar statements attacking individuals involved in the judicial process, including potential witnesses, prosecutors, and court staff.  Defendant has made those statements to national audiences using language communicating not merely that he believes the process to be illegitimate, but also that particular individuals involved in it are liars, or thugs, or deserve death.

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Former Donald Trump lawyer Sidney Powell has pleaded guilty to six charges in the Georgia election interference case.

Powell, who was charged alongside the former president, reached a deal with prosecutors and will now testify at future trials.

There are 19 defendants in the case, most of whom have pleaded not guilty.

Powell faced charges of conspiracy to commit intentional interference of election duties.

Her agreement to testify, in exchange for six years of probation, is a huge win for prosecutors in the sweeping case. Powell was intimately involved in Mr Trump's fight to overturn the state's results in the 2020 presidential election.

The deal also required her to record a proffer, essentially a verbal account of her activities, and to pay a fine and write an apology letter to Georgia citizens.

Powell entered her guilty plea in a downtown Atlanta courtroom on Thursday, a day before her trial was set to start.

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told the BBC it was unsurprising that she took a deal.

"If you're a criminal defendant who's never spent a night in jail and you're offered no time, you take it," Mr Rahmani said.

He added she may act as a "domino", with other defendants following her example.

"I think the other defendants have to be taking a long, hard look in the mirror and asking themselves, 'Hey, do I want to go to Georgia State Prison, or do I want to take this offer that's going to guarantee I do no time?'" he said.

Prosecutors have accused Powell of being among a group of Trump officials and supporters who breached the elections system in rural Coffee County, Georgia, in January 2021. They were trying to persuade officials and voters that the election had somehow been rigged against Mr Trump.

Specifically, Powell was accused of hiring a forensics team and sending it to Coffee County to illegally access government computers to look at voter data.

Prosecutors have said she conspired to tamper with voting machines, electronic ballots and voter data, have ballots taken from a polling place, and stop an election worker from doing her job.

Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty in the Georgia case. In total, the former president faces 13 felony counts - including racketeering - for allegedly pressuring state officials to reverse results in the presidential election.

He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and has described the case as politically motivated.

Powell was one of the most visible, and vocal, supporters of his false claims about the 2020 election.

She notably appeared at a press conference with other Trump lawyers in November 2020, where she alleged, without evidence, that US voting machines run by Dominion Voting Systems can be hacked to "take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President (Joe) Biden".

At a White House meeting the following month, Mr Trump mulled appointing Powell as a special counsel to "investigate allegations of voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere", prosecutors said.

The congressional committee investigating the 6 January Capitol riot featured her prominently in its televised hearings last year, showing she worked closely with Mr Trump and his aides on election overturning strategies.

Dominion has sued Powell for defamation, seeking $1.3bn (1.07bn) in restitution.

Powell is the second person among the defendants to plead guilty in the Georgia election interference case.

Bail bondsman Scott Hall struck a plea deal with prosecutors in late September.

The former Republican poll watcher was also accused of trying to gain access to sensitive election equipment in Coffee County, Georgia.

As part of his deal, he was sentenced to five years probation. He is also required to testify against others in future trials.
FILE - Sidney Powell, right, speaks next to former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, as members of President Donald Trump's legal team, during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters on Nov. 19, 2020, in Washington. Powell has pleaded guilty to reduced charges over efforts to overturn Donald Trumps loss in the 2020 election in Georgia. Powell is the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

NEW YORK (AP)  The Kraken has cracked.

Lawyer Sidney Powell, who famously vowed to unleash a mythical sea monster of litigation to prove that Donald Trump didn't lose the 2020 election, has now struck a deal with Georgia prosecutors admitting she conspired to wrongly interfere with the state's election results.

Her guilty plea Thursday culminates a three-year journey in which she pursued baseless and often outlandish theories in the weeks before a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Along the way, Powell was part of several key events in the state and federal indictments against Trump for his conduct in the 2020 election and now becomes a potential witness against him.

Shes the second person to take a plea after bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall pleaded guilty last month.

Sidney Powell was part of Trumps inner circle at various points in the criminal conspiracy, particularly as Trump became more desperate in the final weeks of his presidency, Bradley P. Moss, a Washington-based national security attorney who opposes Trump, said in an email. Her testimony, more than peripheral players like Scott Hall, will provide first-person insight into those critical moments in her part of the larger conspiracy. Powells role is only one prong but as dominoes continue to fall it is likely those other prongs will also be corroborated by Trumps other co-defendants.

Steve Sadow, Trumps lead attorney in the Georgia case, expressed confidence about Powell's plea. Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy, he said.

Powell, 68, served as a federal prosecutor before becoming a high-profile defense attorney in Dallas. She was a well-known critic of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of alleged ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign.

She rose in Trump's orbit thanks to her representation of Michael Flynn , the retired general who has become a star on the far right. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts during the 2016 transition period as he was entering Trump's administration as national security adviser.

Powell fought to withdraw Flynn's guilty plea and, after the Justice Department dropped the prosecution in May 2020, repeatedly argued that the judge in the case could not contest the governments decision and had no choice but to dismiss the matter. Trump ultimately pardoned Flynn in the final weeks of his presidency.

By then, Powell was attacking the integrity of the 2020 election.

Trump's former attorney general said the Justice Department found no evidence of fraud that could change the election result. An Associated Press review published in December 2021 tallied every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states and found fewer than 475, nowhere near the margin required to affect any results.

But in a Fox Business interview that November, Powell declared: Im going to release the Kraken. Her comment quickly became notorious and her reference to the mythical sea monster only heightened the fantastical nature of the effort.

Trumps campaign legal team distanced itself from her after an outlandish news conference days later. She took the stage after an appearance from Trumps attorney Rudy Giuliani as dark streaks of what appeared to be hair dye streamed down his face. She launched into a theory about election software having been created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez  the Venezuelan president who died in 2013.

Powell also claimed in a different interview that she would blow up Georgia with a biblical election lawsuit.

She filed suits in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona, all states that went for Biden in 2020. They recycled debunked claims about fraud and were riddled with typos and factual mistakes, leading to mocking on social media.

Despite losing her role on the campaign legal team, she remained in Trumps orbit. She also participated in a fateful Dec. 18, 2020 session in the Oval Office that became central to investigations of the Capitol insurrection.

Along with Flynn, Powell suggested that Trump order the U.S. military to seize voting machines in the states, according to the report produced by the U.S. House committee that investigated Jan. 6. The meeting, which also involved the former head of the online retail company Overstock, devolved into shouting and screaming as White House lawyers and other officials tried to intervene, according to Jan. 6 committee testimony.

Trump considered naming her as a special counsel to investigate allegations of voter fraud, according to the committee.

Powell was later sued by voting technology firm Dominion Voter Systems for defamation. That lawsuit is ongoing.

In Michigan, another state where Trumps outside lawyers sought to challenge election results, a state watchdog filed a complaint earlier this year saying that Powell and others on Trumps team abused the court system with a frivolous lawsuit.

The State Bar of Texas, a state where Powell is licensed to practice law, filed a petition accusing Powell of misconduct by filing frivolous voter fraud lawsuits in four states and sought to discipline her, but a judge earlier this year dismissed the case, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Powell was initially charged in Georgia with racketeering and other counts as part of a scheme to overturn Trumps loss in Georgia in the election. Prosecutors say she also played a role in the unauthorized breach of election equipment in an elections office in the state.

She is referenced, though not named, as one of six unindicted co-conspirators in special counsel Jack Smiths federal case charging the former president with plotting to overturn the election.

Powell's attorney declined to comment on Thursday. But ultimately, as part of her plea deal with prosecutors, she will serve six years of probation and pay a $6,000 fine.

She will also have to write a letter of apology to the state of Georgia and its residents.

Lawrence Norden, the senior director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center of Justice, said that with another presidential election looming next year, Powells guilty plea sends an important message.

I do think the guilty plea here is an important reminder to election officials but also the public more generally that you cant just engage in illegal interference in elections and not expect that there will be consequences, he said.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
News organizations are scrambling to adjust to the latest rift in the long-fractious relationship between publishers and tech platforms. (Ricardo Tomas/The New York Times)

SAN FRANCISCO  Campbell Brown, Facebooks top news executive, left the company this month. Twitter, now known as X, removed headlines from the platform days later. The head of Instagrams Threads app, an X competitor, reiterated that his social network would not amplify news.

Even Google  the strongest partner to news organizations over the past 10 years  has become less dependable, making publishers more wary of their reliance on the search giant. The company has laid off news employees in two recent team reorganizations, and some publishers say traffic from Google has tapered off.

If it wasnt clear before, its clear now: The major online platforms are breaking up with news.

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Some executives of the largest tech companies, like Adam Mosseri at Instagram, have said in no uncertain terms that hosting news on their sites can often be more trouble than it is worth because it generates polarized debates. Others, like Elon Musk , the owner of X, have expressed disdain for the mainstream press. Publishers seem resigned to the idea that traffic from the big tech companies will not return to what it once was.

Even in the long-fractious relationship between publishers and tech platforms, the latest rift stands out  and the consequences for the news industry are stark.

Many news companies have struggled to survive after the tech companies threw the industrys business model into upheaval more than a decade ago. One lifeline was the traffic  and, by extension, advertising  that came from sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Now that traffic is disappearing. Top news sites got about 11.5% of their web traffic in the United States from social networks in September 2020, according to Similarweb, a data and analytics company. By September this year, it was down to 6.5%.

The disruption to an already difficult business model is real, Adrienne LaFrance , executive editor of The Atlantic, said in an interview. LaFrance noted that while social traffic had always gone through boom and bust times, the slide in the past 12 to 18 months had been more severe than most publishers expected.

This is a post-social web, she added.

A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, declined to comment. Musk and a spokesperson for Linda Yaccarino, Xs CEO, did not respond to a request for comment.

Jaffer Zaidi, Googles vice president of global news partnerships, said in a statement that the company continued to put a priority on sending valuable traffic to publishers and supporting a healthy, open web.

It didnt start out this way. During the rise of the consumer internet roughly 20 years ago, companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter embraced journalism, and articles from traditional media companies appeared on their platforms.

Every internet platform has a responsibility to try to help fund and form partnerships to support news, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, said in an interview with the CEO of News Corp. several years ago when Zuckerberg was still trying to court publishers.

Both Facebook and Twitter toyed with initiatives to support news on their platforms. In 2019, for example, Facebook introduced Facebook News, a tab for readers to find news coverage from partner publications that it paid. Twitter also experimented with partnerships, teaming up with The Associated Press and Reuters in 2021 to address misinformation.

But these efforts were short-lived. Facebook News is no longer, and Brown, the executive who led the news efforts, has announced her departure. Since Musk bought Twitter nearly a year ago, he has introduced changes that de-emphasized traditional media on the site, including not showing headlines on articles in posts and removing the verified blue check mark from journalists and public figures who did not pay for it. Platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram generate negligible traffic numbers to media outlets.

The sharp decline in referral traffic from social media platforms over the past two years has hit all news publishers, including The New York Times.

The Wall Street Journal noticed a decline starting about 18 months ago, according to a recording of a September staff meeting obtained by the Times. We are at the mercy of social algorithms and tech giants for much of our distribution, Emma Tucker, the Journals editor-in-chief, told the newsroom in the meeting.

Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor and a former media columnist for the Times, said web traffic was no longer the god metric in digital media. He said intermediate platforms like SmartNews, Apple News and Flipboard were becoming more important to publishers, as readers looked for a combination of authoritative journalism and the option of multiple sources.

People do like having lots of sources of information, but they dont want to be nosing around a postapocalyptic wasteland to find them, Smith said.

With Meta and X no longer dependable, publishers have grown more reliant on Google. For more than two decades, publishers big and small have packaged their content to rank highly in Googles search results, a practice called search engine optimization. These deeply integrated efforts include creating secondary headlines meant to mimic likely Google user queries, filling articles with links to other sites and maintaining teams of people to drive traffic and stay abreast of search engine changes.

Google says it sends 24 billion clicks per month, or 9,000 per second, to news publishers websites through its search engine and associated news page.

While The Los Angeles Times is getting a slightly larger share of traffic from online searches (50% to 60%, up from 30% to 40%), it is not making up for the losses from social media, said Samantha Melbourneweaver, assistant managing editor for audience.

But even Google is shaky. Some publishers have seen declines in Google referral traffic in recent weeks, two people at different major media sites said. Although Google remains the most important referral traffic source to publishers by far, those people are concerned that the decline is a sign of things to come.

Its volatile, Melbourneweaver said. Google exists for Googles needs, rather than for ours.

Google cut some members of its news partnership team in September, and this week it laid off as many as 45 workers from its Google News team, the Alphabet Workers Union said. (The Information, a tech news website, reported the Google News layoffs earlier.)

Weve made some internal changes to streamline our organization, Jenn Crider, a Google spokesperson, said in a statement.

The news partnership team was established to forge agreements with publishers and partnerships, and over time it introduced programs to train newsrooms, support the development of news products and respond to governments around the world that have pressed Google to share more revenue with news organizations.

Zaidi wrote in an internal memo reviewed by the Times that the team would be adopting more artificial intelligence. We had to make some difficult decisions to better position our team for what lies ahead, he wrote.

Google has been on an AI push all year, releasing an AI chatbot called Bard in March and offering some users in May a version of its search engine that can generate explanations, poetry and prose above traditional web results. News organizations have expressed concern that these AI systems, which can answer users questions without their clicking a link, could one day erode traffic to their sites.

Privately, a number of publishers have discussed what a post-Google traffic future may look like and how to better prepare if Googles AI products become more popular and further bury links to news publications.

LaFrance said The Atlantic was pushing branded newsletters, its homepage and its print magazine. At the end of June, The Atlantic had more than 925,000 paid subscribers across its print and digital products, an increase of 10% from a year earlier, the company said.

Direct connections to your readership are obviously important, LaFrance said. We as humans and readers should not be going only to three all-powerful, attention-consuming megaplatforms to make us curious and informed.

She added: In a way, this decline of the social web  its extraordinarily liberating.

c.2023 The New York Times Company
"Am I Doing It Wrong?" podcast dishes on how we might be grocery shopping wrong and how to do it better.

Imagine youre at the grocery store picking up all the ingredients you need to bake the most epic birthday cake ever baked.

Theres one problem: You cant remember if youve got eggs, baking powder or enough flour to create the masterpiece your family expects. You could buy everything just in case, but if youd taken quick photos of your fridge and your pantry, you could reference them at the store and save yourself some time and money.

This is just one of the brilliant tips that we  Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, co-hosts of HuffPosts Am I Doing It Wrong? podcast  discovered while chatting with Kristen Aiken, HuffPosts head of Life and Commerce, to find out how we might be grocery shopping wrong and how we can do it better.

Listen to the episode below and find out the real reason grocery stores rearrange their layouts (and why it might be causing you to spend more), if you should be buying generic instead of name-brand products, and more:

After youve had a listen above or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe to Am I Doing It Wrong? so you dont miss a single episode, including our investigation of the ins and outs of tipping, how to score the best deals on airline tickets, interviewing for a job like a pro, and getting the best sleep ever. Next week, were tackling apologizing.

Need some help with something youve been doing wrong? Email us at AmIDoingItWrong@HuffPost.com, and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.

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Nick Tompkins of NKT Commercial leads a tour of the proposed Dana Reserve housing development between Willow Road and Sandydale Drive and Highway 101 in Nipomo on July 6, 2022.

With the Dana Reserve housing development in Nipomo nearing its first Planning Commission hearing next week, the project is facing pushback from the local school district.

In a Sept. 27 letter to the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission circulated by the Nipomo Action Committee as a news release, Lucia Mar Unified School District Superintendent Paul Fawcett expressed concerns about the projects impact on the school district.

According to Fawcett, the project and its estimated 1,318 homes could stress the capacity of nearby schools, including Dorothea Lange Elementary School, Mesa Middle School , Dana Elementary School and Nipomo High School.

Our review of the projects environmental iImpact report (EIR) underscores the considerable strain this development will impose on our already burdened facilities, Fawcett said in the letter. Our current school sites clearly cannot accommodate the projected student influx. Furthermore, the EIR hasnt addressed the inevitable increase in vehicular traffic around our schools.

However, developer NKT Commercial pushed back on Fawcetts suggestion that the school system cannot accomodate the projected influx of around 750 students.

The projects construction phase is anticipated to span a duration of 10 years or more, thereby resulting in a gradual, incremental increase in enrollment, NKT Commercial owner Nick Tompkins said in a statement to The Tribune. Concurrently, we are collaborating closely with the school district to ensure they are well-prepared to accommodate the incoming students.

School district: Cost to expand schools would be high

In his letter, Fawcett said the district worked with a demographer, who projected an additional 448 elementary, 145 middle and 145 high school students would join the district once the project is full.

Though Nipomo High School may be able to absorb the influx of new students, Mesa Middle School, Nipomo Elementary School and Dana Elementary School would all need significant expansions, Fawcett wrote.

If the district opted to expand its facilities to accommodate the new students, those improvements could cost roughly $12.4 million, amounting to a $6.6 million shortfall in the districts budget, Fawcett wrote.

That number could climb to $18.1 million if the project removed the age restrictions on 417 senior-restricted units, which would lead to a higher number of families living in the development, bringing the deficit to $9.1 million, Fawcett wrote.

State funding is insufficient, and statutory school fees fall far short of covering the actual costs of new school construction, Fawcett wrote. We continue to engage in constructive dialogues with Mr. Tompkins and have proposed a mitigation agreement outlining collaborative approaches to address the impacts on our schools.

Fawcett also took issue with the projects potential traffic impacts.

Children growing up in the Dana Reserve development would attend Dorothea Lange Elementary School, which would likely require the district to change its boundaries, as the school is currently at capacity with no room for expansion, Fawcett wrote.

As a result, elementary students living in Dana Reserve would likely be assigned to Dana and Nipomo elementary schools, Fawcett wrote.

According to Lucia Mar enrollment data, the district peaked at 10,971 students in 2004 and currently serves 9,591 students, though that decline comes from the whole district, not just the four schools in Nipomo.

County Public Works and Parks will work with the school district to update the Facilities Master Plan to make appropriate improvements for circulation, Tompkins said in an email statement to The Tribune. There is ample time for that process given the construction and occupancy schedule.

Developer already on board for school funding

Tompkins said his company has already agreed to pay above the required school fees established by 1998s SB 50.

Under that law, developers must pay school fees to offset the impacts of new development within a school districts boundaries.

These fees can be set at three levels, depending on the type and scope of development, according to the California Office of Public School Construction.

Level 1 fees are the default, and charge developers $4.79 per square foot of residential construction and $0.78 per square foot of commercial building.

Level 2 boosts the fee per square foot above the Level 1 baseline based on special need backed up by a facility study.

Level 3 fees are rarer and only apply when the district is not receiving state school facility bond funds.

Tompkins agreed that while Nipomo High School likely wont face as many impacts from new students, other schools will likely have to add classrooms, unless the district used busing to get students to other schools in the district.

Tompkins said prior to Fawcetts letter, he already offered to pay Level 2 school fees for the development without asking the district to do a nexus study as a good faith gesture.

As a local, I am OK paying more, as demonstrated by our offer, but not some open-ended irresponsible obligation, Tompkins said in an email to The Tribune. The districts office (and) Paul Fawcett specifically has been very responsive and available as we try to resolve this and get everyone on the same page related to state laws.
PHNOM PENH, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Ten years on, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has provided significant benefits to the Asia-Pacific region and the world, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Aun Pornmoniroth told Xinhua in an interview.

Pornmoniroth, also the minister of economy and finance, said that over the past 10 years, many projects have been executed under the BRI platform in Cambodia, the region and the world.

"At the regional level, the BRI has played a significant role in developing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)," he said. "Aside from Cambodia, other ASEAN member states ... have also reaped significant benefits from the BRI."

Pornmoniroth said the initiative does not create enmity toward any countries nor block their development.

"The BRI also helped with ASEAN connectivity by boosting ASEAN members' infrastructure development in line with the ASEAN Masterplan of Connectivity," he said.

At the global level, the BRI is now regarded as one of the most extensive global infrastructure development strategies. More than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations have signed Belt and Road cooperation documents.

"The BRI connects mainland and maritime routes, which is vital for global cooperation and development and helps foster new engines for economic growth," he said. "Countries and regions along the BRI routes have made noticeable progress in high-quality development, financial integration and people-to-people connectivity."

The BRI, a reference to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, was initiated by China in 2013 to build trade and infrastructure networks connecting Asia with Europe, Africa and beyond via the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

The World Bank estimates that by 2030, the BRI will generate 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars in global revenue annually.

"With its guiding principles of extensive consultation, collaborative participation and shared benefits, the BRI has evolved over the past 10 years into a global platform that advances human welfare and prepares the path for peace and development on a global scale," he said. 
California State Parks closed a San Luis Obispo County pier to the public on Oct. 6 after staff discovered that two of the three long support pylons were missing.

Those pylons had been in place during a previous inspection of the San Simeon Pier, but a follow-up inspection revealed they were gone, according to Dan Falat, superintendent of State Parks San Luis Obispo Coast District.

Located off Highway 1, the dog-legged pier provides breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, William Randolph Hearst Memorial Beach, San Simeon Point and the Santa Lucia mountain range.

Hearst Memorial Beach is in Old San Simeon Village, across Highway 1 from the entrance road to Hearst Castle, about 7 miles north of Cambria. The park has picnic sites, restrooms and the Coastal Discovery Center at San Simeon Bay.

San Simeon Pier is closed due to wave damage Oct. 17, 2023.

San Simeon Pier closes due to missing pylons

According to Falat, the rangers who discovered the missing pylons contacted state engineers, who recommended that the pier be closed as soon as possible.

We did that immediately, as soon as we got their recommendation, Falat said. Its a public safety issue.

A narrow strip on the north side of the iconic pier in San Simeon has been off limits since 2021. That part of the piers deck was sagging due to previous storm damage and age.

Since then, State Parks has been doing a formal study of the problems that have made the circa-1957 structure potentially unsafe.

Winter storms and high waves exacerbated damage to the vulnerable pier, Falat said, and likely led to the loss of the pylons.

It can take longer for some damage to show up, he said.

The severe storms also undermined the upper part of the boat launch ramp at Leffingwell Landing in Cambria, Falat said, making it unsafe for vehicle traffic.

That ramp is also closed as state engineers study how it can be made safe again.

San Simeon Pier is closed due to wave damage Oct. 17, 2023.

Closures affect visitors, local fishers

Members of the Cambria Fishing Club said the dual closures have made it harder for some people to fish  especially those who dont have fishing licenses, which arent required to cast off from the pier.

Those are mostly visitors, club members Tom Pope and Jim Webb said.

People can surf fish all along the coast, and from kayaks and boats, Pope said, but theyll have to have fishing licenses to do that.

The closures will also affect the clubs ability to share information with the public during Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary events in San Simeon.

For years at those events, weve done taught children and others how to fish from the pier. Now thats shut down our outreach to our local people and visitors, which is one way we encourage ethical fishing practices.

Driftwood is stuck in sand as waves crash. San Simeon Pier is closed due to wave damage Oct. 17, 2023.

Whats ahead for the pier and boat launch?

According to Falat, State Parks will add or replace about 50 piles on the San Simeon Pier as well as about 20% of all cross beams.

The agency will also fix the entire curb rail and railing, the entire decking, as well as adding a water line and hydrant, he said.

Falat said he doesnt have estimates as to when the pier or boat launch ramp might reopen or how much repairs will cost.

Doing so will require a separate approval process for each of the structures, and in the case of the pier, a new lease with the State Lands Commission.

The San Luis Obispo Coast District has been working toward that lease as well as environmental compliance and permitting for several years.

San Luis Obispo County built the current pier in San Simeon in 1957, replacing one that then-U.S. Sen. George Hearst commissioned in 1878. The county extended the newer pier by 300 feet in 1969, according to a Cambria Historical Society report.

State Parks has controlled the pier, and subsequently, the surrounding park area since 1971
A Dayton restaurant is a total loss after an early morning fire on Thursday.

>>PHOTOS: Smoke, flames seen as firefighters battle fire at Dayton business

Dayton firefighters were dispatched around 5:30 a.m. to the Legacy Pancake House at the 1500 block of N. Keowee Street.

So when we got here, there were already flames, said David Grubb, Dayton Fire Chief. We have good water in these areas that we had no problem with it.

Fire officials say the business is a total loss.

Keowee Street was closed for hours between Stanley Avenue and Leo Street. People are asked to avoid the area.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

We will continue to provide updates on this developing story.

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Chuck Hamlin/Staff

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Chuck Hamlin/Staff

Chuck Hamlin/Staff

Chuck Hamlin/Staff

Chuck Hamlin/Staff

Chuck Hamlin/Staff

Chuck Hamlin/Staff

Photo from: Adam Ewry/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Adam Ewry/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Adam Ewry/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Adam Ewry/Staff

Photo from: Adam Ewry/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff

Photo from: Taylor Robertson/Staff
The moon passes between Earth and the sun during a "ring of fire" eclipse of the sun on Saturday in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. (Rick Bowmer / Associated Press)

When Mayor Ann Leppanen learned that the moon would cross in front of the sun above her home on Saturday, she foresaw calamity: a tidal wave of tourists engulfing her tiny town as they pursued the annular eclipse, with its spectacular ring of fire.

The town's economy has long relied on a modest, steady flow of visitors drawn to its red-rock canyons, coursing San Juan River, and wind-swept solitude. But in January, this hamlet of 250 people began appearing on lists of the best places to view the rare celestial event  the town has almost no light pollution and it was in the precise center of the eclipse's path. Reservations for hotel rooms and campsites began to climb, and by early September every bed was booked for the weekend.

Leppanen predicted that day-trippers and people camping on public land just outside the city limits would give rise to a crowd far larger than the city had ever seen.

Thousands of people were expected to visit Bluff, Utah, on Saturday to view the solar eclipse. (Ash Ponders / For The Times)

If even 1,000 people show up, it will be a disaster, Leppanen said last month, shaking her head in the small room in the senior center that also serves as the mayors office. I think well have 20,000  and I dont think Im underestimating."

Leppanen worried that Bluff would run out of everything, even gasoline, and that if anyone was injured, bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway through town could block an ambulance from arriving in a timely manner.

Compounding her anxiety was a serious labor shortage. Like many towns in the Four Corners region, Bluff has a workforce that is almost entirely Dine, or Navajo. An eclipse is a solemn, sacred occasion for the Navajos: the death of the sun. The devout would remain inside to avoid the sight.

Growing up, Ive been told that were not supposed to eat or do anything else  that time is just to meditate, said Nizhoni Spencer, a cook at the Twin Rocks diner. If you dont do that, it will affect you no matter what. Because for us Navajos, [the eclipse] is different for us  being Dine, it affects not only physically, but spiritually and emotionally as well."

Read more: Photos: Watching for an annular solar eclipse visible in parts of the U.S.

Given the sanctity of the event, most employers gave their Navajo employees the choice to remain home, or at least take a work break and remain indoors during the four plus hours of the eclipse.

As the first rays of the sun peeked above the mountains east of the desert, apprehensive locals wondered if they would survive the flood.

:::

Across the country, small, scenic towns like Bluff have had to contend with our growing desire to travel far out into what was once the middle of nowhere.

Instagram has inspired Americans to visit rural, hard-to-get-to areas of the country in search of the perfect shot. (Ash Ponders / For The Times)

Instagram, with its viral shots of canyons and wide-open sky, has turned tens of thousands of people into road-trippers, venturing deep into rural corners of the United States, seeking the perfect shot. And during the pandemic, rural vistas offered a drivable vacation, with plenty of space to social-distance.

The surge in tourism in communities such as Bluff is associated with more than anxiety  it has created an existential crisis of sorts. In addition to practical matters such as zoning and water use, the increase in visitors has prompted questions about ownership and privilege, conservation and public resources. Put simply: Is it antisocial to ask that we keep our lonely places lonely?

Across Utah, tiny towns have had to confront city-sized problems as tourists fill the sidewalks. In Springdale, a gateway to Zion National Park, workers suddenly face long commutes, as the rising cost of housing forces them farther out of town and lines to enter the park back up traffic for hours.

Read more: Watch highlights from the total solar eclipse

Perhaps no western city better represents the conflict of solitude and tourism than Moab, an outdoors paradise just outside Arches National Park. That conflict is acknowledged in Bluff with a bumper sticker thats hard to miss around town (including on the mayors thermos): Dont Moab My Bluff.

Leppanen says that when she first visited Moab 30 years ago, it was just a corner of development with a couple of motels. Fast-forward to 2023, and Moab sees more than 3 million visitors each year. The tourism surge has led to a housing crisis, a water shortage and a traffic mess. Last year, 59% of Moabites polled by the Utah Office of Tourism said they felt that quality of life had declined because of tourism, and 67% thought that it'd had negative effects on the natural environment.

For me, Dont Moab My Bluff comes down to planning  how do we promote development and tourism without draining our town of resources, or losing our housing supply for residents, if all the homes turn into short-term rentals? Leppanen said.

A few days before the eclipse, she was interviewed by a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune, with whom she shared her fears that Bluff would run out of food and gas. The story ran with a stark headline: Mayor of small town in Utah to eclipse viewers: Dont try to come here. 

:::

As the moon started inching toward the sun around 8:30 a.m. Saturday, it looked like the town's warning to tourists had been taken to heart. Although a few thousand eclipse viewers did make their way to the red-sand fields around the town, it was quickly apparent that Bluff had over-prepared. Most of the tourists had instead gone south into the Navajo Reservation, to the geological formations in the Valley of the Gods and Mexican Hat. Before dawn Saturday, southbound traffic to both locations was already backed up for miles.

In Bluff, the sun rose on an anticlimax.

Bluff was expecting a tide of tourists. But perhaps because of messaging from the mayor and others, many folks stayed away. (Ash Ponders / For The Times)

Alicia and Bryan Rollo were among the tourists who did arrive; they drove down from Providence, Utah, with their four children. As the temperature dropped and the land got darker, they stood next to an array of cameras on tripods, waiting to get the right shot.

They both said they were nervous about potential crowds. The family had gone to see a total eclipse in Idaho in 2017 and had spent hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic. We heard the mayor saying, Dont come to Bluff, dont come to Bluff. Theyll be too many people, Bryan said.

Read more: Tribal leaders and researchers have mapped the ancient lost suburbs of Los Angeles

And we heard that, weeks ago, the road signs in southern Utah were warning about the traffic, Alicia added.

Bryan said he agreed with the importance of not overcrowding small towns. "It's a balance," he said. The family had planned to avoid Bluff and head farther south, but when they passed through the town and the crowds seemed small, they decided to stop.

A few hundred feet away, Spencer stood quietly in the kitchen of Twin Rocks diner. Monica Hatahlie, another Dine worker whom Spencer considers to be a sister, huddled next to her. They tensed up whenever someone opened the doors to the kitchen, and they both stayed in its far-back corner, anxious to avoid the windows.

Tens of thousands were expected to visit for the eclipse in Bluff, Utah, US, on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. But, perhaps do to messaging from the mayor and others, many folks stayed away and much of the preparations businesses made for the anticipated tourists were wasted. Ash Ponders/Photographer: Ash Ponders/LA Times Tens of thousands were expected to visit for the eclipse in Bluff, Utah, US, on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. But, perhaps do to messaging from the mayor and others, many folks stayed away and much of the preparations businesses made for the anticipated tourists were wasted. Ash Ponders/Photographer: Ash Ponders/LA Times A view of the eclipse through special glasses. Ash Ponders/Photographer: Ash Ponders/LA Times

Right now, the sun is dying, Spencer said. Its hard because were supposed to be at home with our families."

Spencer said that she avoids even seeing photos of the eclipse online. For months before the ring of fire, traditional Navajos had to dodge posters advertising its arrival. Some Navajo workers at hotels, when asked by tourists where to go to see the eclipse, had to patiently explain that they avoid it.

Its really ironic, because there are thousands of people here now, and they're coming to the very exact place where we have a tribe here with this cultural belief, Spencer said. She laughed when asked whether she thought an eclipse in Dinetah, the Navajo homeland, should be a government-designated holiday, such as Easter and Christmas. "Were just so used to being treated that way, for not being acknowledged, that it doesnt faze us.

Mike Guymon of Santa Monica brought a "Solarama" he received in the sixth or seventh grade at the Griffith Observatory to watch the eclipse in Bluff. (Ash Ponders / For The Times)

At the same time, many of the tourists outside the diner  including the Rollo family  said they'd learned about Navajos' relationship with the eclipse during their research and were glad to hear Navajo employees didn't have to work while it was taking place.

:::

About a mile away, at the Bluff Dwellings hotel, owners Spring and Jared Berrett fired up their barbecue. Theyd given the hotels Navajo restaurant workers the morning off during the eclipse, and they were running the lunch service.

As the moon and the sun began to part, Jared Berrett said that although he supported the town making sure that only a sustainable number of visitors showed up for the eclipse, he felt that there had been an overcorrection  now, not enough people had shown up.

There's often a bit of tension in small towns between wanting to be able to pay your bills as a business owner, and residents wanting to not have too much influx of inconvenience  you know, people, traffic. I think that played out here, he said.

Read more: Fearing economic disaster, Maui wants tourists to return. But feelings are complicated

Berrett said its not hard to understand what his fellow residents are trying to preserve. When asked about what made him decide to move to Bluff 15 years ago, he had a one-word answer: Solitude. As their hotel has expanded  the Berretts added a three-story building last year  he says residents worry his business is threatening that solitude. At town meetings, neighbors have voiced their concerns about noise, water use and other effects.

Thats the Catch-22, Berrett said. We still want to find solitude and have our guests find solitude. But, frankly, I think theres a bit of over-caution among the townspeople in general. Were so remote that were never going to see a huge population  were never going to be a Sedona [Arizona], were not going to be a Moab.

Berrett mentioned that the owners of a nearby Canyon Smokehouse had rented an entire refrigerated semi-truck to store brisket and other cuts of meat, in anticipation of huge crowds. Now, without the expected rush, he worried that they might be feeling a little frantic  they had made a huge investment, and could risk losing it if tourists didnt show up.

Interviewed later in the day, the smokehouse's owner, Erin Nelson, said she'd felt plenty nervous when the restaurant opened to tiny crowds. But by lunchtime, a steady crowd filled most of the tables  many of the customers were road-tripping back north and stopped in town to eat.

"That's the hardest question we're answering today," Nelson said, when asked whether she felt the town's messaging might have scared off customers. But she also serves as the town manager, and she sympathized with Leppanen's decision to discourage eclipse tourism.

"I think from her position specifically, she made the right call in her role  her job is to keep residents safe," Nelson said. "Small towns often walk this line between an economic policy and safety for their residents."

:::

On Monday, after most of the tourists had packed up, Leppanen said she had no regrets. I would have rather over-prepared than under-prepared, she said.

And although she felt the Salt Lake Tribune had taken her Do not come message out of context, she said that, as mayor, it was important to balance the good of tourism with the bane of overcrowding.

Thats the question, she said. How do you avoid becoming one of those places that people just love to death?

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Lost in migration: It's not only the weather in Earth's atmosphere that impacts birds; a new study found that the Sun's weather also blinds birds' sense of direction.

"Weather is extremely important for birds for their migration," Eric Gulson-Castillo, ornithologist and author of a recent study said. "Birds do not like to migrate in bad weather."

While humans find auroras amazing, the phenomenon is a sign of trouble for migrating birds. Strong solar storms that cause geomagnetic storms and trigger beautiful auroras mess with some birds' navigational sense.

THE DAY THE NORTHERN LIGHTS COVERED THE PLANET: HISTORY OF EARTH'S GREATEST SOLAR STORMS

WHAT IS THE 11-YEAR SOLAR CYCLE?

A significant percentage of birds halt migrating, while many of the ones that do end up in the wrong direction during a severe solar storm that can last for days.

"We find that the strong magnetic disturbances are associated with a more or less 10% to 17% decrease in the number of birds migrating," Gulson-Castillo said.

"And we also found that birds tend to fight less against the wind under really strong magnetic disturbances when it is cloudy," he continued. "And we think that this means that if it's cloudy, they have no longer have access to other cues in the sky, that they can no longer see the stars, for example. And so they're not able to navigate as well. And so they end up drifting more with the wind."

LEARN: HOW BIRDS NAVIGATE THE CLOUDS

Displaced birds are called vagrants. Another study found vagrants are more likely shortly after a major magnetic disturbance.

"So their study, in combination with our study, is part of this growing body of literature that suggests that birds may get lost more often during a magnetic disturbance," Gulson-Castillo said.

HERE ARE THE MOST POPULAR NATIONAL PARKS FOR BIRDWATCHING

A Baltimore oriole in flight. Orioles are nocturnal migratory birds. Photo credit: Andrew Dreelin.

About 4 billion birds leave Canada to head to the U.S. each fall, according to researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Another 4.7 billion birds leave the U.S. and head to the tropics.

In the hundreds to thousands of miles each feathered creature travels, birds navigate with a combination of cues. Birds use the position of the Sun and stars, even the rotation of stars. They also use coastlines and mountain ranges as a guide.

Birds can also sense or see Earth's magnetic field.

OVER 300 MILLION BIRDS STATED ANNUAL FALL MIGRATION SOUTH FOR THE WINTER ON ONE DAY

"The Earth's magnetic field has patterns of strength. And its angle changes over the course of order over geographic distances and in more or less predictable ways," Gulson-Castillo explained.

"So it is strongest at the magnetic poles and is weakest at the equator. It is also the most vertical at the magnetic poles and is the most horizontal at the magnetic equator," he continued. "And so those changes in the shape and strengthening field are potentially used by birds to aid in navigation."

Gulson-Castillo said the how is not completely clear yet.

THESE MAJOR US AIRPORTS SEE THE MOST WILDLIFE-AIRCRAFT COLLISIONS

Space weather from the sun, such as coronal mass ejections, disturb Earths magnetic field, causing the auroras and potentially decreasing the magnetic fields reliability for migrating birds.

"They might even be able to remember the magnetic landmarks such as the strength of the magnetic field in different places," he said. "So all of these things in combination are thought to be used by birds. And some species might prioritize some over others."

Researchers are also studying the possibility that birds can calculate the difference between the Magnetic North Pole and True North, the northernmost point of Earth's rotational axis.

HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHER

Isogonic Lines Show The Pattern of Magetic Declination

Researchers collected night migration data from radar sites across the U.S. Central Flyway for the past 23 years. Scientists use weather radar to track migrating birds and estimate their numbers.

FOR THE BIRDS: PROJECT TRACKS BIRD MIGRATION USING NWS DOPPLER RADAR

"Generally more birds migrate at night, especially birds like songbirds and shorebirds and some species of duck," said Gulson-Castillo.

The Central Flyway is the biggest bird migration path in the U.S., stretching from Texas to North Dakota. About half of the nearly 9 billion birds heading south for the winter fly from Canada through the Great Plains and Mississippi Valley, across the Gulf of Mexico to Mexico and Central America, said Gulson-Castillo.

THESE MAJOR US AIRPORTS SEE THE MOST WILDLIFE-AIRCRAFT COLLISIONS

This NEXRAD Doppler radar station in Wichita, Kansas picked up birds taking off for their nocturnal migration in the evening. On a night of heavy migration, they will appear as a cloud around the radar station. Animation by Kyle Horton.

Humans can't feel a change in the Earth's magnetic field. But the storms that disturb the field can agitate the upper atmosphere and can make long-range radio difficult, and will frequently lead to radio blackout conditions. GPS satellites can also experience communication issues during stronger solar storms.

NORTHERN LIGHTS ACTIVITY TO INCREASE, INCLUDE AURORAS FARTHER SOUTH DUE TO ESCALATING SUN ACTIVITY

"I think that it is incredible that these these these large scale extraterrestrial things that generally we don't think of or notice when they happen except in how they impact our technology or how they create auroras, which are really beautiful, otherwise we can't feel the magnetic field," said Gulson-Castillo.

Solar storms can blind humans, too, in a way. Some of the strongest solar storms can reach low enough altitudes to cause voltage surges in power grids that can knock them out, as Montreal and Quebec suffered during the great solar storm of March 13, 1989.

BirdCast.info has life bird migration maps that you can find HERE.





Original article source: Solar storms can greatly alter bird migration patterns, study finds
CHICAGO - Chicago police are investigating a shooting that left a man wounded in South Chicago Wednesday night.

A 25-year-old man was in the 8700 block of South Commercial Avenue at about 9:30 p.m. when a known male offender ran up and fired shots.

The victim was transported to Trinity Hospital by a family member with a gunshot wound to the right arm.

He was listed in good condition.

No arrests have been reported. Area detectives are investigating.
By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will make state visits to Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Oct. 21-26 and discuss business cooperation as well as security conditions linked to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, his office said on Thursday.

South Korea has serious concerns over the sharp increase in civilian casualties from the conflict and will provide aid on purely humanitarian grounds, Yoon's deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo told a briefing.

Yoon will also discuss cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Qatar focused on bringing peace to the region and boosting South Korea's national security, Kim said.

After arriving in Riyadh on Saturday on what would be the first state visit by a South Korean leader, Yoon will hold talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday and attend a luncheon, Kim said.

The meeting comes less than a year after the crown prince visited South Korea and discussed cooperation in the areas of energy, defence and infrastructure construction, signing investment pacts worth $30 billion with Korean firms.

South Korea is locked in a competition with Saudi Arabia to host the World Expo in 2030 but its conglomerates are vying to participate in mega projects such as the NEOM smart city in Saudi Arabia as well as to win defence contracts.

Yoon will attend events on bilateral investment and partnership on future technology that will highlight the growing significance of the two countries' economic relationship. On Tuesday, he will address the Future Investment Initiative forum.

A delegation of business leaders will accompany Yoon on his Saudi trip, including Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair E.S. Chung and the heads of Hanwha, GS, and HD Hyundai conglomerates, Yoon's office said.

In Qatar, Yoon will hold a summit meeting with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani on Wednesday and attend a business forum. About 200 business people from the two countries are expected to attend the forum to discuss energy issues, including liquefied natural gas, hydrogen as well as solar power.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park;Editing by Ed Davies and Alison Williams)
WASHINGTON  The Space Force has finalized a plan for harnessing commercial satellite capabilities in times of crisis through a Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve.

That strategy, approved in this month by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, outlines a framework for how the Space Force will scale up its use of commercial capabilities including satellite imagery and communications during a conflict to augment military systems.

Its an example of doing the planning and the expectation management before you actually need the capability, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said at an Oct. 18 event hosted by the Center for a New American Security. So, pre-working the contract vehicles, pre-working . . . how would we get access to this rapidly if we needed to, so that when the crisis occurs, we dont then start the contracting action, start the discussion.

The services acquisition arm, Space Systems Command, announced last year it was making plans to create a Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve, or CASR. The team met with industry in February and created a task force soon after to work through legal, policy, contracting and programmatic concerns.

The resulting strategy, according to the head of the Commercial Space Office Col. Richard Kniseley, factors in those concerns as well as feedback from more than 60 companies. That partnership, he said during an Oct. 18 Space Industry Days conference, is key to ensuring the government and industry both understand the requirements and risks associated with leaning more heavily on commercial systems during conflict.

Commercial Space Offices Kniseley keeps focus on industry engagement

The whole premise of CASR is that we know in a threat that the capacity requirements during crisis or conflict are expected to exceed peacetime, steady-state requirements, he said. We needed the ability to be able to be integrated, operated, wargamed and potentially prioritized depending on how expensive the battle is.

The CASR strategy comes amid growing concern from some Pentagon officials and members of Congress about the role of commercial industry, and particularly Elon Musks SpaceX, in military space operations. Musk, who provided terminals to Ukraine to access his companys Starlink communication satellites, has said he opted not to activate the capability in certain regions to prevent Ukraine from targeting key Russian assets due to escalation concerns.

The Space Force recently awarded SpaceX a $70 million contract to provide Starlink services and is heavily reliant on the company to launch military satellites.

Asked whether hes concerned companies like SpaceX could make decisions that impede U.S. military operations, Saltzman emphasized that any Space Force contracts with commercial firms have detailed terms and requirements that are not subject to the whim of a CEO.

We write contracts with SpaceX, not Elon Musk, he said. We do expectation management, we put those details in the contract and then we expect that theyll follow through. And I have no reason to believe that they wont.

Companies who sign on to CASR will also be subject to contractual terms, and Kniseley explained that the strategy lays out a spectrum of services firms can provide to support scenarios ranging from day-to-day operations to a national war.

Under level one operations, firms would provide a minimum commitment of peacetime capabilities to the Defense Department. Level Two, which includes regional conflicts or a major crisis, would require a higher level of commercial services. In a level three wartime scenario, companies would be obligated to prioritize government needs over their other customers.

Kniseley noted that the Space Force is initially restricting CASR involvement to U.S.-owned companies or those firms owned by another country that have implemented measures to protect against the unauthorized release of classified information  a process known as Foreign Ownership, Control or Influence mitigations. He said the service is considering further options for integrating international firms.

With the strategy approved, the Commercial Space Office is now working to finalize its concept of operations for CASR and craft a funding plan for the next few years. Kniseley said there may be some flexibility within the services fiscal 2024 and 2025 budgets to provide initial funding for the reserve, but the service plans to formalize its CASR spending plan in its FY26 budget request.

Commercial integration

The CASR strategy is just one piece of the Space Forces approach to engaging with commercial industry, both in peacetime and wartime.

The service has also been crafting a broader strategy meant to answer fundamental questions about which capabilities it wants to buy from industry, which it wants to own and how it will integrate commercial services and systems into its architecture and day-to-day operations.

A team led by Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, deputy chief of space operations for strategy and programs, submitted an initial strategy for Saltzmans approval earlier this fall, but the Space Force chief requested more detail.

I didnt think it provided the necessary specificity that would really help industry give us what we needed, he said this week, adding that hes hopeful the plan will be completed by the end of the year.

Saltzman said he wants the strategy to include more detail on things like software procurement mechanisms. He also wants it to address which capabilities and functions the Space Force wants to perform and where it prefers to buy commercial services.

I just felt like it was important that we answered these questions first, so that when we say what we need to industry, we can say it with enough specificity that we can really get what were looking for, he said. Im pushing them hard, because I know theres a hunger for this.
SpaceX intends to boost its unprecedented launch cadence to dizzying new heights.

Elon Musk's company has already launched 74 orbital missions in 2023, more than any private outfit ever has in a single year. (The previous record was 61, set by SpaceX in 2022.) But these next 2.5 months should see even more spaceflight action.

"This year, we're going to attempt to fly 100 flights," Bill Gerstenmaier, the vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX, said on Wednesday (Oct. 18) during a hearing of the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Space and Science.

"As we look to next year, we want to increase that flight rate to about 12 flights per month, or 144 flights," he added during the hearing, which was called "Promoting Safety, Innovation and Competitiveness in U.S. Commercial Human Space Activities."

Related: 8 ways that SpaceX has transformed spaceflight

Hitting the century mark this year would require a significant ramp-up in launch cadence, from one mission every 3.9 days to one every 2.8 days.

But SpaceX is certainly capable of meeting that latter number. The company has launched two missions in a single day multiple times; this past March, for example, it sent two of its Falcon 9 rockets skyward less than 4.5 hours apart.

And SpaceX has no shortage of payloads waiting to go up. The company is building out its Starlink internet-satellite megaconstellation, which currently consists of about 5,000 operational satellites. But SpaceX has permission to deploy 12,000 Starlink satellites, and the company has applied for approval for another 30,000 spacecraft on top of that.

About 60% of SpaceX's launches in 2023 have been dedicated Starlink missions.

a big silver rocket sits on a launch pad surrounded by sand dunes, a beach and the blue waters of the gulf of mexico.

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The vast majority of SpaceX's orbital missions to date have been flown by its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, with its powerful Falcon Heavy taking care of the others. (The Heavy has eight launches under its belt, four of which have occurred this year.)

But SpaceX is working on a successor to those proven rockets  the giant Starship, which is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable (in contrast to the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, whose upper stages are expendable).

Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, will make Mars settlement and other bold exploration feats economically feasible, Musk has said. SpaceX has launched one mission with Starship to date, a test flight on April 20 of this year that ended in a controlled detonation when the vehicle experienced several problems shortly after liftoff.

SpaceX is currently gearing up for Starship's second-ever test flight. During Wednesday's hearing, Gerstenmaier said that the vehicle has been ready to launch for more than a month, but SpaceX is still waiting for a launch license from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) decried the "bureaucratic red tape" that's keeping Starship groundbound at the moment. Gerstenmaier voiced similar sentiments, stressing that frequent test flights, and frequent design iterations based on analyses of those flights, are key tenets of SpaceX's development strategy.

"It's a shame when our hardware is ready to fly and we're not able to go fly because of regulations or re-review," Gerstenmaier said. "We need to be safe, we need to protect the environment; we don't dismiss those. But we need to fly at the fastest pace that we can do hardware development to do this active development process and this test flight experience that we've described."
This is at least the intention of Spain, the country that currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the EU and sets the political agenda.

Accepting new members into the Schengen Area, where border controls have been abolished, requires the unanimous endorsement by the Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA), which gathers interior ministers from the 27 member states.

The last JHA meeting under the auspices of the Spanish presidency is scheduled to take place on 5 and 6 of December.

"We hope that during the last (JHA) Council of the Spanish presidency in December this will become a reality," said Fernando Grande-Marlaska , Spain's acting interior minister on Thursday morning, noting the Schengen accession of Romania and Bulgaria was a "priority" of the Spanish presidency.

"I'm sure it's going to be possible. We're going to do (our) best for December to get an agreement. We're trying to reach that agreement and I cross my fingers, but we're working very hard on it," Grande-Marlaska added, before heading into the JHA meeting.

Romania and Bulgaria have long been denied entry into the Schengen Area, one of the most tangible achievements of European integration. The passport-free zone encompasses 27 countries, including 23 EU members, and over 423 million citizens.

The European Commission, which examines new applications, has said since 2011 that both Romania and Bulgaria have met all criteria to join Schengen, such as sharing of security information, police cooperation and border management.

The Commission's president, Ursula von der Leyen , issued a new appeal for membership during her annual State of the European Union speech in September.

"They have proved it: Bulgaria and Romania are part of our Schengen area. So let us finally bring them in  without any further delay," von der Leyen said.

But Austria is standing in the way.

The country says the persistently high number of irregular border crossings at the EU's external borders, estimated to be about 232,350 in the first eight months of 2023, is an argument strong enough to delay further enlargement of Schengen.

An increasing number of member states, like Austria, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, have introduced temporary border controls to stem the flow of asylum seekers who arrive in frontline states and later move northwards.

"Our position is that the Schengen system as a whole does not work, therefore, we are not open to its expansion," Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said in August.

Austria's position has been frontally contested by Romania and Bulgaria, who argue their territories are not part of either the Western Balkan or the Central Mediterranean route, the ones that register the majority of migrant movements.

The issue is highly sensitive in both countries, as their exclusion creates the impression of a discriminatory two-tier integration project.

Nevertheless, due to the unanimous voting rules, Austria has managed to single-handedly block the process.

During a dramatic vote last December, the country denied Romania's ambitions, triggering a furious reaction from President Klaus Iohannis. Austria, together with the Netherlands, also opposed Bulgaria's bid.

Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that during that same high-stakes vote, Croatia was accepted as the 27th member of the Schengen.

Since then, all eyes have been on Vienna in anticipation of a sign of change. Patience, however, is running thin: Romania has even threatened to bring Austria before the European Court of Justice to contest the recurring veto.

"We're working with Austria, we're working with all the 27 member states and I think at the end we're going to be successful," Grande-Marlaska said on Thursday morning.

Asked if Austria was still putting up resistance, Grande-Marlaska said: "Yes, but we're trying to move forward."
Mainstream House Republicans long frustrated with the antics of their combative anti-establishment colleagues are launching a revolution as a growing group of them lash out  at the expense of GOP Speaker nominee Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

The group of 22 Republicans who opposed Jordan on a second Speaker ballot Wednesday include those from swing districts and safe ones; new members and longtime House veterans.

And they do not look like they are moving.

Small groups of hard-line conservatives have used maximum leverage tactics to push and pull the rest of their GOP colleagues all year. It started with the 15-ballot saga to elect former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in January; continued through tanking procedural votes to block floor action over spending; and commenced with ousting McCarthy and blocking the first nominee selected to replace him, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.).

The slim four-seat GOP majority had always provided the opportunity for ideological moderates, or any group of five Republicans, to take a similar tactic. But they had not banded together to make an organized, public move to do so  until now, against the candidacy of the founding chairman of the confrontational House Freedom Caucus who rose to be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Some of those are vulnerable Republicans long seen as likely Jordan opponents, wary of being tied to his brand of combative politics. Others are appropriators with grudges over how Jordans hard-line conservative supporters have handled spending issues.

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, said that he is looking for a GOP Speaker that is not just capable of moving the bills that we would prefer to move, but will also have the skill sets to work with the opposing party, particularly in the Senate.

Mr. Jordan, while perfectly suited for [the] Judiciary and Oversight positions that hes held, does not possess the skill sets that are going to be needed to be an effective Speaker and to be able to deliver what we need to deliver, Womack said.

Still others are lawmakers who long for the days when the GOP conference could hold a closed-door vote, elect a candidate for Speaker and then have that candidate win his colleagues backing on the floor.

They are outraged that Jordan allies who would not support Scalise after he narrowly won such a vote last week are now demanding that they support Jordan.

Immediately, five people said, Well never vote for Steve Scalise, only Jim Jordan. And youre like, OK, I guess our vote dont count, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said. That was the straw that broke the camels back for me.

You cant be at a game or process where only one sides playing by the rules, Bacon said.

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Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), another Jordan opponent, expressed similar frustration.

This has to do with the integrity of that conference, Kelly said. They dont need to lecture me on the way things work. Im 75 years old. Ive watched it my entire life, how things work. This is what tears teams apart.

Some of those who resisted Scalise and insisted on Jordan, for their part, said an effort by Scalise allies to defeat a rule change that would have required near-unanimity support for a GOP Speaker nominee  aiming to keep GOP division out of public view  was very swamp and turned them off of his candidacy.

The number of holdouts on Jordan remains small compared to the rest of the House GOP. And Jordan has argued he has broad support from all types of members.

Weve got people who are defense hawks who are for us, appropriators who are for us, Main Street Group who are for us, conservative members who are for us, Jordan said Wednesday. Weve got a complete cross section of the conference.

But for the Jordan holdouts, it is also the pressure campaign tactics, coming mostly from outside commentators and activists, that are further inflaming them and hardening their opposition to the Ohio Republican. Multiple members who voted against Jordan have gotten swarms of phone calls to their offices after their numbers have been plastered online, coming mostly from those not in their districts.

Early on, there was a chance that some of them might be able to come around. And then we got into the attack dog tactics that were employed against the people that voted against him the first time, Womack said.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) said Wednesday that she received credible death threats after defecting from Jordan.

Jordan quickly condemned the threats.

We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. Its abhorrent, Jordan wrote on X.

The holdouts against Jordan have increased chatter about some Republicans working with Democrats to empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) as the conference fails to coalesce around a Speaker. But it is unclear whether those voting against Jordan would go that far.

And those supporting Jordan charge that the objections to him are mostly emotional.

Id be curious to see what my colleagues objectives are now besides just literally saying no, said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a Freedom Caucus member who had resisted McCarthy in January and Scalise last week.

We went down to the floor, we did nomination speeches, and we got behind people and explained what we wanted. We offered proposals, we offered thoughts. We put out a list of things that we thought ought to change in the institution, Roy said of the holdouts against McCarthy in January. What are they doing besides sitting around whining?

Womack agreed about the general dynamics of the two parallel Speaker holdouts  but saw it as more of a warning for Jordan.

The January 20 [against McCarthy] were all trying to extract something. it was transactional, Womack said. The October 20  Ive talked to these people. Theres not an ask. There is nothing that the candidate can offer that can move these members from their positions.

Mychael Schnell contributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
How are Thai durians transported to China?

10:54, October 19, 2023 By People's Daily reporters ( People's Daily

Durians are widely popular in China, and Thailand is a major exporter of this fruit.

How exactly does the "king of fruits" make such a long voyage from Thai orchards to Chinese markets?

Tracing the 4,700-kilometer route, People's Daily reporters recently chronicled the week-long journey of a durian shipment, from Thailand to Laos, and finally to China, to find the answer.

On Sept. 17, a batch of durians was picked in the Chaiwat Orchard in Sawi district, Chumphon province, and departed from the country the next day. At 8 a.m. on Sept. 21, they set off from Vientiane, Laos, and entered the Mohan railway port in China's Yunnan province six hours later. They arrived in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province at 8 a.m. on the following day and were shipped to Beijing at noon. At 11 a.m., Sept. 24, these durians reached the Chinese capital.

Sept. 17

Location: Chaiwat Orchard in Sawi district, Chumphon province, Thailand

A worker picks durians in Sawi district, Chumphon province, Thailand. (Peoples Daily/Sun Guangyong)

A worker named Wichai stood atop a durian tree that towered over ten meters in height. With a swing of his knife, a durian weighing several kilograms fell to the ground.

"A tree can bear 50 to 100 durians, and we have over 200 trees in the orchard. We have a nice income," said Chaiwat, owner of the orchard.

Chaiwat's orchard is located in a mountain pass. "I contracted the orchard to Chinese merchants, who give stable purchasing prices and timely payment. I don't need to worry about sales," said Chaiwat, adding that they are happy to see the popularity of Thai durians in China.

Chumphon province is located in southern Thailand, more than 400 kilometers from Bangkok. It is the largest durian planting area in southern Thailand.

Workers pick durians in Chaiwat Orchard in Sawi district, Chumphon province, Thailand. (Peoples Daily/Sun Guangyong)

Sept. 18

Location: A durian sorting and packing plant in Chumphon province, Thailand

Workers sort durians at a sorting and packing plant in Chumphon province, Thailand. (Peoples Daily/Sun Guangyong)

Zhang Bolun, who sources products for an online supermarket of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, opened a freshly harvested durian. He reminded Chaiwat that durians shall be harvested after they reach 85 percent maturity.

Zhang belongs to a group consisting of 20 professional buyers and quality check specialists. The group is stationed in Thailand to select quality fruits for consumers.

Chaiwat and his family drove a pickup truck to the Qiyu durian sorting and packing plant in Chumphon province. The plant can sort and pack nearly 80 tons of durians per night.

Every day, pickers can earn a few thousand Thai baht, packers 700 Thai baht ($19.26), and sorters 1,500 Thai baht.

"Most people think that durian sorting and processing rely mainly on experiences, but our plant emphasizes standardization to ensure the quality of durians," said Khundee, manager of the plant.

Sept. 21

Location: Loading yard of the Vientiane South Station, Laos

A container loaded with durians is being transferred from a meter-gauge railway to a standard gauge railway at a transshipment station of the Vientiane South Station, Laos, before being transported to China via the China-Laos Railway. (People's Daily/Sun Guangyong)

Durians were then sent to the loading yard of the Vientiane South Station, Laos, which is four kilometers away from the Lao-Thai border.

According to Song Zongbo, deputy director of the infrastructure department of Laos-China Railway Co., Ltd., the yard was put into use in July 2022, and its annual handling capacity can reach 800,000 tons.

The Vientiane South Station is the largest commodity distribution center for local railway transportation. Many customers send goods by freight trucks to the station, and the goods will be loaded onto trains bound for China after train marshaling.

An employee at the station told People's Daily that the transportation of fruits demands a high level of timeliness, and durians stay freshest for up to 12 days after they are picked from the trees.

Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone told People's Daily during an exclusive interview that the Laos-China Railway, as a modern transportation mode in Laos, has greatly accelerated the economic and social development of Laos.

Sept. 21

Location: Mohan railway port in Yunnan province, China

A refrigerated freight train passes through the China-Laos Railway Friendship Tunnel on the China-Laos Railway. (Photo/Xie Ming)

At 2 p.m., Sept. 21, People's Daily reporters arrived at the Friendship Tunnel of the China-Laos Railway. Cold-chain freight trains were seen driving out of the tunnel and entering the Mohan railway port.

Inspectors from the border checkpoint boarded the train to check passports and inspect the train. The Mohan railway port is the first national-level land port after the China-Laos Railway entered China's territory.

"Now customs clearance for China-Laos Railway freight trains is generally no more than 20 minutes," said Li Bing, a staff member at the Mohan border checkpoint.

A refrigerated freight train arrives at Mohan railway port on China's border with Laos after passing through the China-Laos Railway Friendship Tunnel on the China-Laos Railway. (People's Daily/Peng Xunwen)

The fruit inspection platform was divided into sections for imported fruit inspection, quarantine, cold storage, technical rooms and other functional areas. The temperature in the inspection area could be adjusted according to fruit types.

After inspection, this batch of durians was approved for release.

"We adopt an 'inspect-and-go' model to ensure zero delays for customs clearance of imported fruits," said Han Bin, head of the Mengla customs in Yunnan province.

Sept. 22

Location: Wangjiaying West Station of Kunming, Yunnan province, China

After a night's travel, the train arrived at the Wangjiaying West Station of Kunming at 8 a.m., Sept. 22, and was then pulled to the Kunming Central Station of China United International Rail Containers Co., Ltd.

About 1 hour later, the containers carrying the durians were transported out of the station.

Staff members inspect durians at the container yard of a logistics company in southwest China's Yunnan Province. (People's Daily/Peng Xunwen)

"We can realize 24-hour monitoring and remote control, so users can check the status of goods in real-time," said Yi Qiang, director of the cold-chain logistics department of China Railway Special Cargo Logistics Co., Ltd.

At 9:15 a.m., the durians were loaded onto a refrigerated truck.

The driver Wang Yong, 47, has been doing cold-chain transport for about a decade. He said that when driving a refrigerated truck, he needs to pay special attention to the temperature of the refrigeration unit.

Three hours later, Wang drove the durian-loaded truck towards Beijing.

Sept. 24

Location: A fresh warehouse in Tongzhou district, Beijing

A staff member checks durians at a warehouse of China's e-commerce giant JD.com in Tongzhou district, Beijing. (Photo/Yang Haoming)

After nearly 48 hours of driving, Wang arrived at the fresh warehouse No.2 of JD.com in Tongzhou district on Sept. 24.

Head of the warehouse Hao Beibei led the reporters to a "durian room" in the warehouse. The temperature in this room is strictly controlled between 5 to 15 degrees Celsius.

Once a customer places an order, the staff of JD.com will put the durians on a conveyor belt by a cart, and ship them out after registration and labeling.

Sept. 25

Location: Home of a consumer in Haidian district, Beijing

At 1 p.m., Sept. 25, the durians were shipped to a sorting warehouse in Daxing district, Beijing.

About two hours later, courier Hou Jiandong of JD.com got a box of durians from a conveyor belt at a courier station in Haidian district. Soon, Zang Heng, the purchaser of the durians, received the fruits from Hou.

Zang joined the construction of the China-Laos Railway between 2018 and 2022, and participated in the opening ceremony of the railway in December 2021 in Vientiane.

"It feels like all the efforts are worth it," said Zang, enjoying the durians.

(By Sun Guangyong, Yang Yi, Xu Lei, Yang Yifeng, Chen Zhenkai, Peng Xunwen, Liu Shaohua, Li Zhen, Ye Zi)

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Liang Jun)
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and an official visit, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen)

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and an official visit.

Srettha made China the first country outside the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for an official visit, which fully reflects the great importance that the new government of Thailand attaches to bilateral relations, Xi said.

China stands ready to work with Thailand to continuously add new dimensions to their family-like relations, and transform advantages of the traditional friendship into a driving force for win-win cooperation, Xi said.

He said that the two sides should speed up construction of the China-Thailand railway, expand cooperation in fields including digital economy, green development and new energy, and step up efforts to crack down on cross-border crimes such as telecom fraud and online gambling to create a safe environment for the development of the two countries.

Xi said China is willing to share opportunities in China's vast market and high-level opening-up to inject positive energy into Asia's development.

Srettha noted that Thailand will work with China to build a more stable, prosperous and sustainable Thailand-China community with a shared future.

He said Thailand will do its utmost to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens in Thailand, and welcomes more Chinese enterprises to invest and more Chinese citizens to visit Thailand.

Senior Chinese leaders including Cai Qi and Wang Yi were present at the meeting. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and an official visit, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)
Right whales are thought to have once numbered up to 20,000, but the rise of commercial whaling decimated their population by the early 20th Century (Joseph Prezioso)

An overwhelming majority of large boats off the US East Coast are speeding through slow-zones designed to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, of which only around 340 remain.

That's according to a new analysis of vessel tracking data published Thursday by the nonprofit Oceana, which called for stronger safeguards and greater enforcement to save the species from extinction.

"Boats are speeding and whales are dying -- it's that simple," said Oceana's campaign director Gib Brogan.

Boat strikes are one of the two leading causes of death for the whale species, alongside fishing rope entanglements. Collisions kill them through blunt force trauma or propeller cuts.

Since 2008, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has imposed mandatory 10-knot limits for vessels 65-feet (19.8 meters) or longer in zones where the whales are expected to be present, and suggested the same speed for areas where they have been sighted.

But data collected from ship transceivers found that from November 2020 through July 2022, 84 percent sped through the mandatory zones and 82 percent sped through the voluntary zones.

"What we've been told by people in the maritime industry is it comes down to balancing the risk of a minimal fine from the government versus the reality of the fines for getting their cargo to port behind schedule," Brogan told AFP.

Notably, for the 9,358 vessel trips over the speed limit made from November 2021 through July 2022, NOAA issued fines in only 46 cases. The average fine was about $15,600.

Right whales, which can grow up to 60 feet (18 meters) in length and have human-like lifespans, are thought to have once numbered up to 20,000 before commercial whaling wiped out their population.

They were considered the "right whale" to hunt by whalers who sought their blubber for whale oil and their baleen plates, which the whales use to filter their food, as a strong, flexible material used in the pre-plastic era.

Commercial hunting of North Atlantic right whales was banned by the mid-20th century, leading to a recovery, with a peak of 483 individuals by 2010.

Since 2017 however, they have been experiencing an "unusual mortality event."

The most recent documented killing from a boat strike was in February, when a 20-year-old male washed ashore with a broken spine in the mid-Atlantic Virginia Beach.

Since the population is already so low, even a few deaths can drive a downward spiral.

The whales' calving rate is also down as a result of chronic stress on mothers, and their traditional foraging grounds are changing as a result of climate change.

Oceana's report called for updating the slow-zones to reflect the whales' current distribution, an end to voluntary speed limits, and expanding the rules to ships 35-feet long.

"We know what we need to do to save the species -- so it's a matter of just doing it and letting the whales come back," said Brogan.

ia/des
Update: Indianapolis police on Oct. 20, 2023 identified the officer involved in this shooting as 17-year veteran Roman Ervin-Williams.

Previous reporting: A drink knocked over at an east side Indianapolis bar prompted a heated argument, police said, that ended with three people being shot  one by an off-duty police officer, the city's 11th such law enforcement shooting this year.

It was 1:55 a.m. Oct. 14, near closing time at Bubbaz Bar & Grill, 10030 E. Washington Street, and staff had already turned off the music and directed the crowd toward the club's exit when an off-duty officer working security learned "two groups were getting ready to start shooting," according to court documents.

The officer attempted to defuse the situation by getting in between both groups as they exited the club, according to a news release by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

Seconds later, body camera footage worn by the officer captured people outside the club ducking and fleeing as gunfire rang out. Video footage showed the officer spinning around to see a man in a red shirt with a gold design holding what appeared to be a firearm, according to court documents.

The man in the red shirt allegedly raised his hand with the weapon, police said, and the officer shot him.

Seeking answers: Indianapolis police shootings highest in years. What is going on?

Wounded, the man disappeared back through the foyer doorway, documents state, and the officer ran to his vehicle to grab more ammunition after accidentally hitting his firearm's magazine release while activating his body-worn camera.

The man in the red shirt exited the club with two other men and attempted to walk away, police said, when the officer ordered him to drop his gun.

"I ain't have no gun," the man said, who was ordered to the ground and placed in handcuffs. Police later identified him as 31-year-old Mar-Kel Sampson.

Sampson told the officer he had been shot and was taken to Eskenazi Hospital in critical condition. He was intubated and unable to give a statement to police, according to a probable cause affidavit for his arrest.

Investigators soon learned there were two more people who had been shot that night at the club.

Officers were dispatched to Methodist Hospital after a woman arrived there with a bullet wound. She told detectives she was outside the club when she heard gunshots and was struck, but didn't see who was shooting, an affidavit said.

Detectives spoke to another man listed in critical condition from a gunshot wound at the same club. The man told investigators he was at the bar with his cousin and brother that night when an argument broke out with two other men there.

The argument, he told police, began when his brother's drink was knocked over. Leaving the bar, the man told police he heard gunshots and felt pain. He flagged down two women, saying he needed help and was taken to a hospital.

Sampson was initially charged with battery with a deadly weapon, a Level 5 felony, and pointing a firearm, a Level 6 felony or Class A misdemeanor, depending on if the weapon was loaded, according to a news release. He was listed in the hospital as of Thursday, according to online court records.

Indy police shootings: Video of man shot by Indianapolis police after allegedly stabbing K-9 won't be released

John Tufts covers evening breaking and trending news for the Indianapolis Star. Send him a news tip at JTufts@Gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis police shooting: spilled drink leads to gunfire at club
Companies including Stripe, Intel and Siemens have pulled out of this year's Web Summit in Lisbon.

Siemens told Insider that it's not attending due to "recent developments surrounding Web Summit."

Several high-profile speakers withdrew from the conference over the founder's remarks on Israel.

More companies including Amazon Web Services and Stripe have pulled out of this year's Web Summit after its CEO and cofounder, Paddy Cosgrave, criticized the West's support for Israel.

The withdrawals follow moves by Intel and Siemens earlier this week to not attend the European tech conference due to take place in Lisbon in November.

AWS confirmed to the Business Post on Friday that it would not be attending, while a representative for Stripe told Insider that it was withdrawing as well.

Cosgrave wrote on X on October 13, seemingly commenting on Israel's response to Hamas' terrorist attacks on October 7 : "I'm shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders & governments, with the exception in particular of Ireland's government, who for once are doing the right thing."

"War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are," he added.

Cosgrave seemed to walk back his comments on Tuesday afternoon, saying that they had "caused profound hurt to many" in a 600-word apology  which came just hours after he posted that he "will not relent."



"Following recent developments surrounding Web Summit, we have reviewed the situation and determined that Siemens will not to attend in 2023," the German company told Insider in a statement Thursday.

The Business Post reported that Meta and Google had also pulled out of the Web Summit, calling into question whether the event would go ahead.

The withdrawal of two Intel and Siemens, of the conference's biggest sponsors, came after several high-profile tech leaders canceled their speaking engagements over Cosgrave's remarks.

Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan and Sequoia Capital investor Ravi Gupta were among the first group of people that canceled their appearances at the event on Monday.



Speakers have continued to back out of the event this week. Moshiel Biton, CEO and cofounder of rechargeable battery firm Addionics, told Insider that Cosgrave's apology was "barely one" and the company stood by its withdrawal.



Gil Dibner, general partner at Angular Ventures, said the apology "changes nothing" about his decision to cancel his appearance. He added that it was "one of the least sincere apologies I've had the misfortune of reading."



The number of Israel-based speakers went from at least five to zero, according to Insider analysis.



"We are looking forward to welcoming 70,000 attendees from around the world with a full programme this November," a Web Summit representative told Insider, without comment on the sponsors' decisions to withdraw.

Read the original article on Business Insider
There is wide awareness that breast cancer in Beaufort County is a menace. For many women, the how, when and where to get tested and what do to with a positive result can be equal parts intimidating and overwhelming.

For those facing this battle, the words of breast cancer survivor and Bluffton resident Judy Ferguson hold the hope for a better future: I can help you with this. I can be there. In addition to the support survivors can provide, there are many little-known resources from nurse navigators to support groups and others offering financial assistance in Beaufort County.

The challenges are in the numbers

Among women (in Beaufort County), breast cancer was the number one most commonly diagnosed cancer and the number two leading cause of cancer death from 2015-19. For this five-year period, there was an annual average of 185 new female breast cancer cases diagnosed and 27 deaths from this disease, according to a June 2022 report by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

While the efforts to reduce breast cancer mortality is moving in the right direction, progress has taken nearly two generations. A S.C. DHEC report details that long-term survival rates for breast cancer in South Carolina have improved:

In the 1960s, only 63 out of 100 women diagnosed with breast cancer were living five years after their diagnosis.

Currently, 90 out of 100 women diagnosed with breast cancer are living five years following their diagnosis.

Additionally, today, 82 out of 100 women diagnosed with breast cancer are living at least 10 years following their diagnosis.

And 77 out of 100 are living at least 15 years post-diagnosis.

Increasing early diagnosis

Beaufort Memorial Hospital recently acquired an imaging center on Hilton Head Island, and it will offer a variety of services, including mammograms.

The Hollings Cancer Center, part of the Medical University of South Carolina, operates a mobile mammogram unit visiting rural and underserved locations year-round, according to center spokesperson Leslie Cantu.

According to Hollings Cancer Center staff, after a patient is diagnosed with cancer, they are assigned a nurse navigator who helps coordinate numerous aspects of care and treatment. We support them throughout their cancer diagnosis and their treatment journey, explained Kerry Reilly, nurse navigator at Beaufort Memorial Hospital and the Hollings Cancer Center.

As a navigator, she continued, I work closely with the doctor and multiple other members of a patients cancer treatment team to ensure they get the best care they can from us...everyones needs are a little bit different and individualized, but I want them to understand their diagnosis and their treatment options.

Additionally, a nurse navigators job includes assisting patients with things indirectly related to treatment.

I assist with arranging transportation, help if they need mastectomy supplies after surgery, explore work-related or financial concerns, connect them with advocacy groups, Reilly added. I also address (mental health) needs, too, and refer them to counselors if needed.

Paying for treatment and transportation

Another hurdle facing South Carolina residents is that many simply cannot afford health care. A recent study by the Harris Poll, published in Forbes, lists South Carolina as number five in the list of Top 5 Worst States with Health Care. The state also ranks seventh from the bottom with the percentage of residents who chose not to see a doctor at some point in the past 12 months due to cost.

A cancer diagnosis wreaks havoc on a family, said Mason Ward a member of the board of directors of Share Our Suzy Lowcountry cancer victim advocacy group. We have encountered patients who werent going through their treatment because they didnt have enough money to get there.

Share Our Suzy Lowcountry is a nonprofit organization that helps breast cancer patients with things such as utility bills, groceries, child care, transportation to treatment, co-pays, wigs and prosthetics. All of the things that are not covered by insurance, Ward added.

The goal is for patients to focus on their treatment and getting well and not on their mounting financial burdens, she said. The organization does not fund patients directly, but it does work with nurse navigators to coordinate getting ride shares, gas cards and other funding for breast cancer patients in need.

Survivors words of advice

A cancer diagnosis can be a daunting challenge, leaving patients scrambling and some ultimately are overwhelmed.

As soon as I heard that word, I thought I was dying, shared survivor Judy Ferguson. Seated in her Sun City home with a pink ribbon pinned near her left shoulder. She detailed how she first beat breast cancer and then seven years later she survived uterine cancer.

Part of it is then trying to decide how do I now navigate the system to find out what to do. One thing I always counsel people who get diagnosed with cancer is take it one step at a time. Because if you start to say, I have to do this, then I have to do this, and I have to do this, you are going to totally overwhelm yourself.

Judy Ferguson of Sun City holds onto a pink ribbon made by needlepoint. She was given this gift while undergoing cancer treatments.

Ferguson also knows that sometimes people have not been in the medical system more than going to an urgent care facility. They dont know what to do, she explains. And they think that all the specialists talk to each other, but unfortunately, its not always the case.

Her advice is to be vocal. You have to be your own advocate, she said. I always advise people to write your questions down, and when you go into a doctors office, go in with your list of questions. If you rely on your memory, you are not going to remember to ask all the questions or get the answers.

Additionally, for those who love tech, Ferguson has this advice: In todays world of technology, I ask permission, and I use my Apple watch. I record the conversation, and that way if I have questions afterwards, I can ask.

Ferguson added, Early detection, early treatment is essential. The earlier you get it, the better chances of beating it. But she continued, We are all very proud. And often say, If we need help, ask for help, which can be a hard thing to do.

She said, For the people who have gone through cancer treatment, then you know what shoes those folks are walking in. I can help you with this. I can be there. And if you are a survivor say, hey look, Im still here. Its not that you get through the battle and then say, Im done with it.

Now its time to say, How can I help somebody else?

Sonia Clark is a staff member of the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette through the McClatchy Veterans in Journalism Fellowship. This article is one in an occasional series detailing the facts and help available for cancer victims.
Attendees wear Starbucks Workers United T-shirts as former company CEO Howard Schultz testifies in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions about Starbucks' alleged union busting activities in Washington, D.C. on March 29, 2023.

Starbucks and the union representing the coffee giant's organized workers have filed dueling lawsuits over a social media post about the Israel-Hamas war, according to court documents obtained by USA TODAY on Thursday.

The Seattle-based chain filed a federal lawsuit against Starbucks Workers United in Iowa on Wednesday over a pro-Palestine post shared by a union account in the early days of the Hamas-Israel war, court records show.

This post damaged the company's reputation and garnered negative attention from customers, with more than 1,000 people sending in complaints, Starbucks claims in the lawsuit. The company also says that workers and stores across the country have since received threatening phone calls, hostile customers and vandalism.

In their own lawsuit filed in federal court in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, the union says Starbucks  long known for its rocky history with organizers  is using the incident to perpetuate an "illegal anti-union campaign by falsely attacking the unions reputation with workers and the public.

Here's what you need to know about the legal battle:

Starbucks sued Workers United in federal court in Iowa on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, over a pro-Palestine post.

Judge: Starbucks violated labor laws with 'egregious' misconduct during unionization efforts

What did the Starbucks Workers United post say?

On Oct. 9, the Starbucks Workers United's account on X shared a post that read: "Solidarity with Palestine!" Starbucks said in a statement that the post included an image of a bulldozer tearing down a fence on the Israel-Gaza border, a description that matches a screengrab shared by the New York Post.

The post was deleted within about 40 minutes, but shares of the post and other posts expressing similar sentiments remained on the accounts of individual union members and local Starbucks Workers United branches.

The union said in its lawsuit that workers put up the message without the permission of union leaders.

Palestinian-Americans face hate: Battle against hate: Violence, bigotry toward Palestinian Americans spiking across US

Lawsuits by Starbucks and workers union begin to fly

Starbucks Workers United members rally at the University of Oregon in Eugene on Aug. 2, 2023.

Citing copyright infringement in its lawsuit, Starbucks wants the union to stop using "Starbucks" in the union name and stop using a logo with a green circle resembling the coffee chain's.

In their lawsuit, union members say that Starbucks has defamed the union and that they are seeking to keep their name and logo. They also deny any allegations of "supporting terrorism, hate and violence."

In a statement sent to USA TODAY, Starbucks Executive Vice President Sara Kelly said the post reflects the union's "support for violence perpetrated by Hamas" and that Starbucks "unequivocally condemns acts of terrorism, hate and violence."

"Unfortunately, as violence against the innocent in the region continues to escalate, some people are mistakenly tying these remarks to us, because Workers United and its affiliates and members continue to use our name, logo and intellectual property," Kelly said. "None of these groups speak for Starbucks Coffee Company and do not represent our companys views, positions, or beliefs. Their words and actions belong to them, and them alone.

Workers United cited similar trademark cases involving unions, including a recent legal battle involving Medieval Times Workers United, who won a legal fight with Medieval Times over use of the company name and logo.

Shift supervisors Michelle Hejduk (left) and Liz Alanna stand outside their store in Mesa, Arizona on Dec. 15, 2021, wearing shirts that read "Starbucks Workers United" after having filed for a union election to be the first Starbucks in Arizona to form a union.

Starbucks, Workers United exchanged tense letters ahead of the lawsuits

Four days after the pro-Palestine post, Starbucks sent a letter to the union making initial demands to remove the company's name and logo from union materials.

In a letter sent back to Starbucks attorneys on Tuesday, union President Lynne Fox pushed back at what she called Starbucks' "frivolous legal claims."

"The letter (sent by Starbucks) asserts that Workers United has made 'statements advocating for violence in the Middle East,' but does not identify any such statement," she wrote. "Starbucks is seeking to exploit the ongoing tragedy in the Middle East to bolster the companys anti-union campaign. Your letter asserts frivolous legal claims, while falsely implying that the union supports terrorism."

She also argued that the social media account under scrutiny is clearly a union account, saying the company has produced no evidence of public confusion about the source and that "no one would mistake these as statements of Starbucks Corporation."

United Workers' parent organization, Service Employees International Union, put out their own statement Tuesday, saying they believe "that all Israelis and Palestinians deserve safety, freedom from violence, and the opportunity to thrive."

"Our union includes many who have family members, Israeli and Palestinian, who have been impacted by the recent violence," the statement said. "We stand against antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism and hate in all its forms around the world.

Collin Pollitt speaks at a Starbucks Workers United rally at the Oklahoma Capitol on Sept. 5 2022.

Hamas-Israel updates: Gaza 'safe zones' bombed; US armored vehicles delivered to Israel; Hamas on aid: Updates

Starbucks' rocky past with labor unions

Starbucks barista Gianna Reeve, part of the organizing committee in Buffalo, New York, speaks in support of workers at Seattle Starbucks locations that announced plans to unionize, during a rally at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle, Washington on Jan. 25, 2022.

Starbucks has gained a reputation for being anti-union, recently facing scrutiny when a National Labor Relations Board judge found the company had committed hundreds of unfair labor practices during unionization efforts at stores in the Buffalo, New York, area.

A Buffalo location was the first Starbucks to organize back in 2021, kicking off a spate of unionizations in at least 366 stores across the U.S.

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz testified at a Senate hearing in March that Starbucks did not break the law and respects employee rights.

The chain has experienced a series of strikes at locations across the country, criticism for closing stores and negative media attention as union efforts have continued at new locations.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Starbucks, Workers United file dueling suits over pro-Palestine post
Starbucks has filed a lawsuit against Starbucks Workers United, the union working to organize branches of the coffee giant, after the union briefly posted a tweet reading Solidarity with Palestine! the Associated Press reported. Starbucks claimed Workers United damaged the companys reputation and upset customers by issuing the message and, in a lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, alleged the union committed trademark infringement by using its name and a similar green logo. The union in turn asked a federal court to allow it to continue using the name. Starbucks is seeking to exploit the ongoing tragedy in the Middle East to bolster the companys anti-union campaign, union President Lynne Fox told Starbucks in a letter obtained by the Associated Press.

Read it at AP

Read more at The Daily Beast.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller stated on Thursday that 32 Americans have been confirmed dead in Israel with an additional 11 missing, according to ABC News. Among those killed were Itay Glisko, a New Jersey-born Israeli soldier who was filling in for a colleague when their military base was attacked. Deborah Martias, another victim, was killed as she protected her son with her own body when militants broke into their home, according to relatives. Her son was shot in the stomach but survived and hid until he was rescued. President Joe Biden has promised to allocate resources into rescuing those missing. I have not given up hope of bringing these folks home, he told Jewish leaders in a White House meeting last week. According to The New York Times, Chicago mom-and-daughter Judith and Natalie Raanan, who were visiting family in Israel, are among the missing, as is Long Island high school grad Omer Neutra, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old academic who was attending the music festival that was attacked on Oct. 7.

Read it at ABC News

Read more at The Daily Beast.
The US State Department has issued a "worldwide" travel advisory, warning Americans to exercise increased caution to avoid becoming victims of possible terror attacks.

"Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution," the agency warned.

The move came in the wake of Joe Biden's visit to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the IDF continues its military response in Gaza. On 7 October, Hamas launched an attack that killed approximately 2,000 Israelis. The IDF launched a response attack shortly after that has displaced more than a million Palestinians and killed more than 3,785 Gazans, according to the Gaza health ministry's data.
Amid the Israel-Hamas war, a U.S. State Department official with a key role in arms deals announced his resignation on Wednesday, citing shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory decisions by the Biden administration that forced him into countless moral compromises. As first reported by HuffPost, Josh Paul explained his decision in a LinkedIn post, writing, I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued  indeed, expanded and expedited  provision of lethal arms to Israel  I have reached the end. He called the administrations response an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia. Paul worked for more than 11 years in the departments Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which oversees weapons trades with other countries. A State Department spokesperson did not respond to HuffPosts request for comment.

Read it at HuffPost

Read more at The Daily Beast.
A State Department official involved with transferring arms to key American allies resigned from his post on Wednesday, saying that shortsighted decisions by the Biden administration contributed to his having to make an unbearable moral compromise.

In my 11 years I have made more moral compromises than I can recall, each heavily, but each with my promise to myself in mind, and intact, the official, Josh Paul, wrote in a post explaining his decision. I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued  indeed, expanded and expedited  provision of lethal arms to Israel  I have reached the end of that bargain.

I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse, he added.

Paul worked for States Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, according to his statement and his LinkedIn profile. The office manages defense relationships with U.S. allies and oversees the transfers of weapons and arms. The Huffington Post reported the news earlier on Wednesday.



His decision comes as the Biden administration has been surging weapons and munitions to Israel, a longtime key ally in the Middle East, following the Palestinian militant group Hamas surprise attack against the country earlier this month. But the war has also been accompanied by emotional and sometimes vitriolic responses from a divided public regarding Americas allyship with Israel through the longstanding conflict in the region  division expressed in events ranging from high-profile public protests to outbursts on college campuses.

President Joe Biden, whose Democratic Party has increasingly expressed sympathy for the Palestinian people, has been threading a needle over the situation. While showing a whole-of-government support to the United States longtime friend, he has also sought to express concern that Israel act humanely toward the Gaza Strip  a territory where it has indicated it will soon begin a ground invasion.

This Administrations response  and much of Congress as well  is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia, Paul wrote in his statement. That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising.

In a statement to POLITICO, Paul outlined several actions that he believes the Biden administration and Congress could take to better address the ongoing crisis, including recognition of a Palestinian state as the start of a diplomatic process, rather than an eventual goal, and better recognition of human rights risks in arms transfers.

The U.S. should not provide "arms into a conflict where there is a blatant risk  supported by a lengthy historical record  of likely and disproportionate civilian harm," he wrote.

During a trip to Israel on Wednesday, Biden announced $100 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The State Department declined to comment.
BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with Prime Minister of Egypt Mostafa Madbouly in Beijing.

Xi said China and Egypt are good friends who cherish the same aspirations and trust each other.

China stands ready to work with Egypt to jointly safeguard international fairness and justice and the common interests of developing countries to inject more certainty and stability into the region and the world, Xi said. 
A State Department official that oversaw arms transfers to foreign powers resigned Wednesday over the Biden administrations handling of the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.

Josh Paul, who worked for the department for more than a decade, said in a letter that he was leaving his position because the harm caused by the provision of lethal arms to Israel outweighed the good he could do in his role.

Paul said the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs  where he served as director of congressional and public affairs  could still do an immense amount of good, and that American assistance is still needed around the world.

But, he said, we cannot be both against occupation, and for it.

We cannot be both for freedom, and against it, Paul added. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse.

The former official condemned the Oct. 7 surprise attack by Hamas on Israel that sparked the war, calling it a monstrosity of monstrosities.

Paul said the response taken by Israel, fueled by American support, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and Palestinian people.

The U.S. has provided critical assets to Israel, including emergency munitions to help the country with its counterattack.

Paul said the response by the Biden administration and many lawmakers is disappointing and unsurprising. He added that he is worried the U.S. is making the same mistakes we have made these past decades and that he no longer wants to be a part of it.

It is my firm belief that in such conflicts, for those of us who are third parties, the side we must pick is not that of one of the combatants, but that of the people caught in the middle, and that of the generations yet to come, Paul wrote in his letter. It is our responsibility to help the warring parties build a better world.

He said he is heartened by President Bidens announcement of a $100 million humanitarian aid package for civilians in Gaza. The aid package, announced by Biden during his trip to Tel Aviv, was approved by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and will rely on working with Egypt to deliver trucks of food, water and medicine to the region.

Airstrikes from Israel have hit Gaza, including in areas declared as safe zones. More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have been forced to flee areas in the north after Israel told them to evacuate.

More than 3,785 people in Palestine have been killed and nearly 12,500 more have been wounded in the conflict, the Gaza Health Ministry announced Thursday. Hamass initial attack killed than 1,400 people in Israel.

Netanyahus main message for Hamas is that the more than 200 Israeli hostages taken into Gaza must be returned.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Storm Babet has brought heavy rain to the island of Ireland, causing severe flooding in County Cork, where hundreds of properties have been damaged.

The Irish army and the Civil Defence helped firefighters to evacuate people from flooded homes and businesses.

Midleton in Cork is the worst affected area, where a nursing home was among the buildings that were flooded.

In Northern Ireland, more than half a month's worth of rain fell in Killowen in County Down in 24 hours.

The weather station in the village recorded 57.6mm of rain between 06:00 on Wednesday and 06:00 on Thursday.

Most of the rain fell in a short period of time on Wednesday evening.

A Met Office yellow rain warning for Northern Ireland, which had been in place since 14:00 BST on Wednesday, expired at 10:00 BST on Thursday.

Another yellow warning for rain comes into effect at 03:00 BST on Friday until 09:00 BST on Saturday, with the Met Office warning of a "small chance"of flooding.

It expects most of Northern Ireland to receive between 10-30mm of rain.

However, parts of the east could see 40-50 mm, with as much as 60-80 mm for the east-facing slopes of the Mournes and Antrim Plateau.

In County Cork, town centre streets in Midleton looked more like rivers on Wednesday after a deluge of rainfall.

Midleton in County Cork was "impassable" as a month's worth of rain fell

Speaking to BBC News NI on Thursday morning, the mayor of County Cork, Frank O'Flynn, said he believed up to 150 properties in the town may now be damaged by flood water.

'People were rescued in boats'

He described seeing "up to four feet" (1.2m) of water in Midleton's Main Street.

"About 94 millilitres of rain fell in 24 hours," he said.

"There were people who had to use boats and canoes. Some people had to be rescued in boats."

Midleton Community Hospital, a residential nursing home which cares for elderly patients, was partially flooded.

Footage on social media shows one ward covered in dirty water.

A number of residents had to be moved to another part of the hospital campus, according to a statement from Cork Kerry Community Healthcare.

It added that six residents were also safely moved from its Owenacurra Centre and are being supported by staff.

On Thursday morning, GardaI (Irish police) said Midleton Garda Station was closed due to adverse weather conditions.

"We would like to reassure members of the public that garda units are still working as normal in Midleton," their statement said.

'By far the worst'

The mayor said that two schools in the town were also affected.

Mr O'Flynn recalled that Midleton had been damaged by floods in 2009 and again in 2015, but he added: "This was by far the worst."

"I'm calling for emergency funding from the government for the homes and businesses which have been damaged, and also for a flood alleviation plan," he said.

His plan would include the erection of flood barriers to protect Midleton.

Just before 19:00 local time on Wednesday evening, Cork County Council said the town was "impassable with over 100 properties flooded".

It said it had established a coordination centre for the emergency services in Midleton fire station and a rest centre for members of the public at the local community centre.

Cork County Council tweeted that it was aware of flooding in other local towns and villages including Carrigaline, Castletownbere, Ringaskiddy, Whitegate, Rathcormac, Glandore, Halfwa and Raffeen.

Irish public service broadcaster RTE said there were also reports of flooding in Killeagh and Youghal in County Cork.

Earlier today, 1 Bde Engr Gp Swift Water Rescue Technicians deployed to Midleton with members of Cork County Fire Service to assist with the evacuation of members of the public affected by Storm Babet. Well done to all emergency services personnel involved in this operation pic.twitter.com/aOy5IodnER  Defence Forces Engineer Corps (@DF_Engineers) October 18, 2023

Cork City Fire Brigade said it had drafted in extra resources and its crews were "working hard in difficult conditions around the city to alleviate flooding".

A member of the Dail (Irish parliament) described the extent of the damage in Midleton as devastating.

James O'Connor from Fianna Fail tweeted that Irish meteorological service Met Eireann "must urgently explain why no red level weather warning was issued".

Babet is the second named storm of this autumn season and it was forecast to bring heavy rain and strong winds to the UK and Ireland.

The Met Office has said the stormy weather could last until Saturday.
Storm Babet is wreaking havoc in the north of the UK, with hundreds of homes flooded or evacuated and another day of torrential rain to come.

Red, amber and yellow weather warnings are in place for large parts of the country with heavy downpours set to move south on Friday and into the weekend.

The Irish army was deployed in parts of Cork, Ireland, while the extreme weather caused flooding in some areas of eastern Scotland and led the evacuation of hundreds of homes.

Members of a rescue team wade through the flood waters in Brechin after hundreds of homes were evacuated (Getty Images)

A man walks through sea foam in Seaburn, Sunderland, as Storm Babet batters the country (PA)

Around 10,000 homes in Scotland have lost power due to the storm and Angus Council is evacuating more than 400 homes in the red weather warning area.

Emergency workers were seen wading through floodwater in Brechin, Scotland, as waves crashed against the shore and sank a boat further up the coast in Stonehaven.

Have you been affected by Storm Babet? Email alexander.butler@independent.co.uk

The council said: We have identified approximately 335 homes in Brechin, and an additional 87 homes in Tannadice and Finavon where residents will be asked to evacuate for their own safety.

Those affected are advised to attend three rest centres that have been set up in the area.

A boat sinks inside the harbour in Stonehaven on the east coast of Scotland (AFP via Getty Images)

A person looks from a window at a submerged car in flood water in Brechin, Scotland, (PA)

Floodwater in Cork, Ireland, where army and civil defence units have been deployed to help support evacuation measures (PA)

This is up.the Road from me near Inch in east cork. pic.twitter.com/J6bsxoQssY  Maurice O' Mahony (@Mossyom1) October 18, 2023

The British Geological Survey has warned Storm Babet could cause landslides in Scotland while the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has said they are expecting extensive river and surface water flooding

In one video taken in Cork, a red car can be seen tipped on its side as it has fallen into part of a collapsed road, with water rushing through underneath into a field.

People walk past damaged shops on Main street in Midleton, Co Cork (PA)

Heavy rains are forecast into the weekend in the second storm of the season (PA)

Trains, planes and ferries have all also been affected by the storm. ScotRail has cancelled six services across Scotland until Saturday.

Ferry links between Aberdeen, Orkney and Shetland have been cancelled, as well as Pentland Firth crossings from Scrabster to Stromness.

Two residents wade through floodwater in Cork as Storm Babet swept northwards across the country (PA)

Sand bags sit piled against a wall in Aberfoyle, Scotland, as residents prepare for the storm (PA)

Caledonian MacBrayne has suspended or diverted a number of Western Isles services because of forecast strong winds and sea swell.

The Ullapool-Stornoway crossing, the main link to Lewis and Harris, is cancelled all day. The crossing from Lochboisdale in South Uist to Mallaig is diverted to Oban.

A man lifts his dog over a flood defence barrier erected in Edzell, Scotland (PA)

Emergency services called out to the scene County Cork (PA)

Flights are already being affected, with Wideroe cancelling its round-trip from Stavanger to Aberdeen.

The chief meteorologist for the Met Office, Jason Kelly, said: 100150mm of rain is expected to fall quite widely within the warning period, with some locations likely to see 200250mm, which is expected to cause considerable impacts with flooding likely.

Storm Babet will track gradually northwards in the coming days, and although the most significant impacts are expected within the red and amber warning areas, there will still be wider impacts for much of the UK from this wind and rain.
On the morning of 7 October, at the dawn of the Sabbath the sacred day for Jewish people an unprecedented attack was carried out by Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) militants on recognised Israeli soil.

By way of land, sea and air, Hamas has reignited a major conflict that had lain dormant for almost half a century. They broke down the barrier dividing Palestinian territory from Israeli, killed civilians and took hostages, many of whom were attendees at an electronic music festival being held near the border with the Gaza Strip.

The response was immediate: Citizens of IsraelWe are at war and will win. With these words the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas. This was much to the detriment of the Palestinian people, as has been seen across the worlds media in recent weeks.

Israels continued occupation of Palestine has lead many prominent figures to call Gaza the worlds largest open-air prison. The situation is more political than religious, as the international community recognises the State of Israel (created and institutionalised in 1948), but not all recognise the Palestinian State. Palestine is a land that is significant to both peoples, and proactive action is needed by Western societies to try to understand what has happened and what continues to happen in the region.

A story told in comic strips

In these times, comics and graphic novels can offer an incisive, insightful medium for thoughtfulness and reflection, as numerous press cartoonists are using their platforms to denounce war and death, such as Coco, Joann Sfar and Mana Neyestani.

The following is a selection of graphic novels that invite us to delve into both the roots and the present-day nature of the conflict. All of these works can be found freely online, in bookstores and in many public libraries around the world.

Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations by Jean-Pierre Filiu, and David Beauchard

Cover of the second volume of Best of Enemies by Jean Pierre Filiu and David B. Google Books

The second volume of this series Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations, Part Two: 1953-1984 looks at the strategic situation and international politics of the Middle East from the 1950s to the 1980s.

The narrative focuses on this turbulent period in world history, with events such as the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the late 1970s, and the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967. It presents events through dreamlike drawings and unrealistic proportions, using a black and white style reminiscent of the newspapers and archival footage of the time.

Cover of Jerusalem: Chronicles of the Holy City by Guy Delisle. Drawn & Quarterly

Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle

Guy Delisle, a Canadian author, documents his travels with his wife, an administrator for Doctors Without Borders, with whom he has also travelled to (and written about) Pyongyang and Shenzhen. Here, he writes about his year long stay in the city of Jerusalem.

Using colour in clear, uniform tones and narrating in the first person, Delisles style joins up the simultaneous experiences of being a tourist and documentary artist.

In his enriching comic strips, the author reflects the prejudices and stereotypes that he had previously held, which gradually shift as he experiences the complex daily life of the city first hand and listens to accounts told by residents of the city.

Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, by Joe Sacco

Cover of Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco. Macmillan Publishers

Most of Maltese-American cartoonist Joe Saccos works can be classified as graphic journalism.

In Palestine, originally published as a serial from 1993-1995, Sacco opens a window onto the checkpoint filled world of occupied Palestine in the early 1990s. He uses his position as a journalist to move between the daily life of Israelis and Palestinians, twenty years before Delisle. The comic is in black and white, and narrated in the first person. In it, Sacco shows his desire to learn, acknowledging his shortcomings, and displaying a sharp, caustic and dark sense of humour.

Through his eyes, the reader can delve into events such as the Nakba in 1948 and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, as well as the role played by the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).

Footnotes in Gaza (2009), originally commissioned by the magazine Harpers, is also based on first hand accounts, focusing on the cities of Rafa and Khan Younis. Here Sacco examines the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, going back to the aftermath of the Sinai War in 1956. Heartbreaking and painful, it provides much food for thought.

Cover of How to understand Israel in 60 days or less by Sarah Glidden. Drawn & Quarterly

How to understand Israel in 60 days or less by Sarah Glidden

The author of Rolling Blackouts offers a first person account, drawn in colour, of a trip to Israel in 2007 under the Birthright programme.

Birthright a delicate and highly controversial subject is the precursor to the Law of Return, which grants any Jew, or person with one or more Jewish grandparent, the right to emigrate to Israel.

While discovering her Jewish roots, Glidden takes the opportunity to form her own opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Tunnels by Rutu Modan

Cover of Tunnels, by Rutu Modan. Drawn & Quarterly

In this full colour fiction Modan, an Israeli author, uses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a backdrop to tell the story of an Israeli archaeologists excavation work.

Exit Wounds is another highly recommended fictional work by Modan which takes place in the same tense setting.

Other references

The historic and current conflict has also been explored in Jose Pablo Garcias Vidas Ocupadas (in Spanish), in Jerusalem by Boaz Yakin and Nick Bertozzi, the graphic novel adaptation of Yasmina Khadras The Attack by Dauvilier and Chapron and Not the Israel my parents promised me by Harvey Pekar together with J.T. Waldman and Joyce Brabner.

Additionally, there are the historic, iconic Handala comic strips by Palestinian artist Naji Al-Ali. Another recommended resource is the 2001 documentary Promises by Justine Shapiro, B.Z. Goldberg and Carlos Bolado, in which the protagonists, children, are foregrounded, resulting in a powerful, enlightening work.

Today Hamas continues to kill civilians and keep hostages. Meanwhile, Palestine remains under siege, and the Palestinian people are being massacred by the Israeli government. These pictures of the past continue to be as current as they ever were.
A strand of hair, a DNA match and decades of detective work has solved a Red Bluff murder that has eluded investigators for the past 40 years, Tehama County officials said Wednesday.

The case involved 14-year-old Rashell Ward, who was abducted while walking to school on March 3, 1983, according to the Tehama County Sheriff's Office.

Over the years, the case took several twists and turns, but work on the case continued, even as new detectives became involved, the sheriff's office said.

"This would not have been possible if not for all the hardworking, dedicated detectives throughout the years that spent countless hours trying to get justice for Rashell Ward," the Tehama sheriff's office said in a news release.

Later in the morning after Ward went missing, sheriff's detectives were called to the area of Pine Creek Road west of Red Bluff, where they found the body of a young female, who had been bound, sexually assaulted and shot. She was later determined to be Ward, officials said.

During the initial phases of the investigation, the sheriff's office sifted through numerous potential suspects, suspect vehicles and took an "overwhelming number" of tips. Detectives also interviewed many others and vetted them for possible involvement, officials said.

At one point, Henry Lee Lucas, who sheriff's officials said was known as the Confession Killer, claimed responsibility for Ward's death. But detectives eliminated him due to inconsistencies in his confession.

There were other rumors around town, including one was that the sheriff at the time, Ron Koenig, was involved, but no evidence supported the rumors, officials said.

Rashell Ward was killed in 1983 and her murder was finally solved this month, 40 years later, through the assistance of DNA matching technology.

Detectives continued to interview witnesses, leads were pursued and DNA samples were taken. As DNA technology advanced, officials re-submitted evidence for DNA analysis, but "to no avail."

"In 2022 detectives discussed a new investigative approach involving the development of leads from family trees constructed using investigative genealogy. Detectives learned a rootless strand of hair recovered from the victim, but did not belong to her, could be tested to obtain a possible lead through this new ancestral DNA analysis," officials said.

The sheriff's office also got assistance from the FBI and the California Department of Justice to develop leads using the new genealogy approach.

The Sheriffs Office then contracted with Astrea Forensics and submitted the hair strand collected earlier. The results gave investigators a possible new suspect, Johnny Lee Coy, a former Red Bluff resident who had been convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman in Tehama County in 1989.

Coy was sentenced to two life terms in prison, where he died in 2019, officials said.

The DNA collected up to that point was not specific to Coy, though, officials said. Detectives needed help from Coy's family to narrow down the DNA match, officials said.

"Detectives located several family members and explained the situation. The family members agreed to assist and voluntarily provided a DNA sample to be compared against the DNA recovered from evidence located in 1983 by the Cal DOJ lab," officials said.

Testing of family members came back with the same conclusion, "that the DNA recovered in 1983 was a close relative to the family," officials said.

A DNA sample taken from Coy when he was in prison originally did not have the same same markers, but officials had the sample re-tested. Earlier this month, the sheriff's office was notified the DNA from the hair strand matched Coy's.

Officials with the Tehama County District Attorney's Office concluded that if Coy was still alive there would be enough evidence to charge him with the assault and murder of Ward, officials said.

"The Tehama County Sheriffs Office is pleased to offer the family of Rashell Ward closure in this case after all these years. We are also pleased to be able to clear the name of former Sheriff Koenig of any criminal involvement in this case," officials said.

Reporter Damon Arthur welcomes story tips at 530-338-8834, by email at damon.arthur@redding.com and on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @damonarthur_RS. Help local journalism thrive by subscribing today!

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: A strand of hair, DNA and persistence solve Tehama County murder
An elementary school student was hospitalized Wednesday after being hit by a vehicle while walking to his school in Columbia, officials said.

The male student is in the third grade at Mill Creek Elementary School, Richland 1 officials said in a news release. Thats on Universal Drive in the area between Garners Ferry Road and Caughman Road.

He was taken to an area hospital, where he remained as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, according to the release. Further information on the childs condition was not available.

The collision is being investigated by the South Carolina Highway Patrol. Information about the circumstances of the crash were not available, and there was no word if the driver involved stopped and/or called emergency responders.

We ask everyone to join us in praying for the students full and speedy recovery, Richland 1 Superintendent Dr. Craig Witherspoon said in the release.
We are heartened that the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on the controversial case, U.S. v Rahimi, because it could make the lives of those who live under the terror of domestic violence so much safer.

In February of this year, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that Zackey Rahimi is hardly a model citizen.

The Texas man is a convicted drug dealer with a history of armed violence. His girlfriend filed a restraining order that required him to relinquish his guns.

However, the judges ruled unanimously that Rahimi should be allowed to get his guns back. With this decision, the Fifth Circuit struck down a lifesaving federal statute prohibiting firearms possession by individuals who a court has determined pose a credible threat to the safety of an intimate partner or child.

That decision stunned those of us who have long worked to protect domestic violence victims.

Another view: Here's how Nashville can move toward a victim-centered justice system

Many domestic violence survivors have been threatened with firearms

Nearly all of the women and children who come to YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessees Weaver Domestic Violence Center have experienced trauma from an abuser with a weapon. The survivors share with us how their abusers tried to keep control by pointing a gun at them, holding the weapon against their bodies, and even turning the gun on themselves, threatening suicide if their victim tries to leave.

Supporters of gun control and firearm safety measures hold a protest rally outside the Supreme Court as the Court hears oral arguments in State Rifle and Pistol v. City of New York, NY, in Washington, DC, December 2, 2019.

Often, children as young as 3 or 4 try to intervene and protect their moms, only to have the gun pointed at them. They come to our shelter carrying emotional scars and nightmares.

In Knoxville, our community is reeling from the recent murder of Knox County Sheriffs Deputy Tucker Blakely who was responding to a domestic disturbance call.

YWCA Knoxville and Tennessee Valley advocates are available to assist victims with filing orders of protection to provide legally binding safety from abusers. Those found guilty of abuse are required to dispossess any firearms they own, but there is no follow-up to know if the firearms have been relinquished.

Our organization is leading a collaborative effort for firearm dispossession through the Office on Violence Against Women on a local platform. On average, 70 women in the U.S. are shot and killed by an intimate partner each month, and the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times as likely a woman will be killed.

The Second Amendment is not a suicide pact

We think that allowing abusers to have access to firearms was clearly wrong because the Fifth Circuit did not follow the instructions of an earlier Supreme Court ruling. In the earlier case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court ruled that the government must find historical analogues to serve as examples in creating gun regulations.

The Fifth Circuit struck down the federal law that prohibits abusers from possessing firearms, writing that it could not find an exact historical replica for such a law. We believe that the Fifth Circuits misinterpretation of Bruen poses a real threat to real victims, many of whom are women and children. Bruen doesnt require an exact historical replica, only historical analogues of which plenty of well-grounded examples of gun regulations exist.

The Second Amendment is not unlimited. As the state of California has argued in a Rahimi amicus brief, nor is the Second Amendment a suicide pact.

While it protects the right of law-abiding citizens to use arms for self-defense, it does not prevent the government from enacting various gun regulations that have a longstanding historical tradition.

This includes restrictions on gun possession by individuals deemed a credible threat to the safety of an intimate partner or child.

Keeping guns away from abusers protects women

These laws work, and we need to keep them on the books:

Sharon K Roberson

Over half of all intimate partner homicides are committed with guns, and women are five times more likely to be murdered when their abuser has access to a firearm. Laws that reduce abusers access to firearms are associated with reductions in intimate partner homicide.

Abusers use guns to threaten and control their victims, and threats often escalate to lethal violence. Firearms are the most commonly used weapon in all homicides, including intimate partner homicide. Prohibiting firearm access for those with a history of domestic violence has proved effective in reducing rates of intimate partner homicide.

Women are disproportionately affected by domestic violence and are more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than men. Keeping guns out of the hands of abusers is associated with lower rates of violence against women and intimate partner homicides.

Stephanie Burrage

The Rahimi case, which will be argued on Nov. 7, offers the Supreme Court the opportunity to clarify and strengthen its earlier guidance in Bruen and to reaffirm the need for laws that help keep guns out of the hands of abusers, laws that have long proven to be effective  and consistent with the Second Amendment. Were confident victims lives will be saved by keeping firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers.

Sharon K. Roberson, Esq, is president and CEO of the YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee. Stephanie Burrage is chief executive officer of the YWCA Knoxville & the Tennessee Valley.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Supreme Court case: Domestic violence abusers should not have guns
The Supreme Court denied two emergency requests to restart the redrawing of Louisianas congressional map, a process that was likely to add a second majority-Black district.

A map passed by Louisianas Republican-controlled Legislature is currently blocked by a federal district judges preliminary ruling, which sided with a group of Black voters racial justice organizations claims that the design violates the Voting Rights Act.

The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court a ruling that blocked a hearing to implement a remedial map, which would have been used as the state tries to defend its design in multiple lower courts. The plaintiffs warned that the justices intervention was necessary to ensure a fair map for the 2024 election.

In a brief order with no public dissents, the court declined the requests to immediately resume the remedial hearing.

But in a solo concurring opinion authored by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson , the liberal justice said she still expected the hearing to move ahead.

I read the Fifth Circuits mandamus ruling to require the District Court to delay its remedial hearing only until the Louisiana Legislature has had sufficient time to consider alternative maps that comply with the Voting Rights Act, Jackson wrote.

The State has now represented, in its filings before this Court, that the legislature will not consider such maps while litigation over the enacted map is pending.  Therefore, the District Court will presumably resume the remedial process while the Fifth Circuit considers the States appeal of the preliminary injunction, Jackson added.

Louisiana is one of several Southern states whose maps have landed in the hands of the justices in connection with racial gerrymandering or vote-dilution allegations.

On their normal docket, the justices recently considered Alabamas map, they are actively weighing South Carolinas map, and a case challenging Arkansass map is waiting in the wings.

In other courts, congressional redistricting fights are also moving ahead in states including New York and Georgia.

In Louisiana, the Legislature overruled the Democratic governors veto and passed a map that includes one majority-Black congressional district out of the states six, despite about one-third of Louisianas population being Black.

A federal district judge in a preliminary ruling blocked the map, and that ruling remains in effect. At issue before the Supreme Court was the judges scheduling of an Oct. 2 hearing to implement a remedial map as the case proceeds.

Days before the hearing, a divided panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the proceeding by issuing a rare form of relief, called a writ of mandamus.

Over the dissent of the panels lone Democratic appointee, the two Republican appointees described the hearing as a game of ambush. They ordered that before the judge could step in to implement a remedial map, they must first give Louisianas Legislature an opportunity to pass revised districts.

The plaintiffs  Black voters, the NAACP Louisiana State Conference and Power Coalition for Equity and Justice  then filed emergency appeals at the Supreme Court, calling the panels ruling extraordinary and urging the justices to stay it. The plaintiffs warned that staying out of the case would raise the possibility that an illegal map would be used for the 2024 elections.

The motions panel usurped the appellate process and asserted unprecedented control of the district courts ordinary docket management decisions, including whether and when to set a case for trial and whether and when to hold a hearing regarding a remedy for what the district court had already preliminarily enjoined as a likely violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, one group of plaintiffs wrote.

Beyond expressing confidence that the remedial hearing will still move ahead, Jackson in her concurring opinion said the Supreme Court wasnt endorsing the lower courts practice.

First, nothing in our decision not to summarily reverse the Fifth Circuit should be taken to endorse the practice of issuing an extraordinary writ of mandamus in these or similar circumstances, Jackson wrote.

The state could eventually have its map restored if it either wins at trial or emerges victorious in the appeal of the preliminary ruling, and it urged the Supreme Court to stay out of the case.

This Courts unbroken pronouncements establish that their preliminary win via a rushed preliminary-injunction hearing is no substitute for a final trial on the merits, Louisiana wrote in court filings. The Plaintiffs attempt to skirt the normal litigation process demonstrates that the equities weigh decidedly in the States favor.

The plaintiffs had raised concerns that, if the lower courts preliminary ruling stands, delaying the remedial hearing could leave election changes to the last minute.

The procedural history makes clear that the State has sought to delay this matter at every turn, one group of plaintiffs wrote. While the State expressed interest in a full trial on the merits, it has never represented a position about the timing necessary to ensure that this matter can be resolved before the 2024 congressional elections.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The 60-year-old man arrested in the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur appeared in Las Vegas court for the second time Thursday, where a judge again delayed his arraignment on a murder charge for another two weeks.

Duane Keith Davis, known as Keffe D, was first expected to be arraigned two weeks ago on a charge of murder with use of a deadly weapon in a gang-related homicide stemming from the fatal September 7, 1996, shooting. In that hearing, Judge Tierra D. Jones agreed to delay his arraignment until Thursday so Davis could arrange for his attorney to be present.

But when Davis appeared in court Thursday  shackled at his hands and feet and wearing a navy prison jumpsuit  his attorney Ross Goodman again asked for a two-week continuance for the arraignment and for confirmation of Davis attorney of record.

Im going to give you two weeks, Jones said, but in two weeks weve got to get this case moving.

Davis, next due in court on November 2, plans to plead not guilty, Goodman told reporters after the hearing.

Davis is accused of orchestrating the shooting that cut short the life of Shakur, a 25-year-old trailblazer whose brief, prolific career cemented his legacy as one of the most influential hip-hop artists of all time. His untimely death added a grim layer to that mystique, and for years it had been the subject of conspiracy theories.

In a news conference after Davis initial court hearing, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson stressed Davis is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

Shakurs slaying was the subject of a decadeslong investigation by police that culminated this month with Davis arrest following his indictment by a grand jury. He is the only suspect in the case still alive, police said.

Physical evidence seized at his house and witnesses who have come forward in the last several years are expected to be used in the trial against Davis, Wolfson told CNNs Anderson Cooper.

We wanted to gather as much supporting evidence as we could. We didnt want to proceed just with his admissions. Certain witnesses came forward in the last couple of years, Wolfson said. So we felt at this point, when we put it all together, that we had a strong enough case to charge Mr. Davis with murder with use of a deadly weapon with a gang enhancement.

Davis is being held without bail, Wolfson said, and his office intends to continue to ask the judge not to set bail at arraignment.

We believe under Nevada law and evidence in this case, that the proof is evident, Wolfson told reporters, and the presumption is great that he will be convicted of first-degree murder and that allows us to ask for a no bail setting.

Edi Faal, Davis Los Angeles-based personal attorney, declined to comment on the case but indicated he is working to assist his client in obtaining local representation in Nevada.

Investigation was reinvigorated in 2018

For years, Davis has placed himself at the scene of the crime, stating publicly he was in the front seat of a white Cadillac when it pulled up alongside Shakurs car and shots rang out from the back seat. Shakur was shot four times and died six days later.

Authorities have cast Davis as the alleged ringmaster of the plot to kill Shakur, which they contend was retaliation for an attack on Davis nephew, Orlando Anderson, that stemmed from a broader conflict between two gangs in Compton, California.

An image on a TV monitor shows a photo of Tupac Shakur, left, and Marion "Suge" Knight in a car in Las Vegas the night Shakur was killed, as Las Vegas officials hold a news conference September 29 about the arrest of a suspect. - Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Shakur and Marion Suge Knight, then-CEO of Death Row Records, were affiliated with the Mob Piru gang, said Jason Johansson, the homicide lieutenant of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Davis and Anderson were affiliated with the Southside Compton Crips, Johansson said.

At the time of the fatal shooting, Shakur was in Las Vegas to see Mike Tyson box at the MGM Grand Hotel, an event that also was attended by Davis and his nephew. While leaving the fight, members of Death Row Records kicked and punched Anderson near an elevator bank inside the MGM, Johansson said, playing surveillance footage that showed Shakur and Knight among the participants.

Afterward, Davis began to devise a plan to obtain a firearm and retaliate against Suge Knight and Mr. Shakur, Johansson said. Davis got a gun, then got into the white Cadillac with Anderson, Terrence Brown and Deandre Smith, the lieutenant said.

Anderson and Smith were in the back seat, according to a copy of the indictment. And at some point, Davis provided the gun to the back-seat passengers, Johansson said.

Then, someone pulled the trigger  though the indictment doesnt say who. Either way, Davis was the shot-caller for this group of individuals that committed this crime, Johansson said. He orchestrated the plan that was carried out to commit this crime.

Anderson denied involvement to CNN before his death in a 1998 gang-related shooting.

Davis confessed to his role in the crime in 2009, but authorities couldnt bring charges due to a proffer agreement  in which a suspect agrees to provide potentially useful information in an investigation that generally cannot be used as evidence against the suspect  a former detective on the case, Greg Kading, told CNN.

The investigation was reinvigorated in 2018, Johansson said, in part thanks to Davis own admissions to his involvement. Authorities felt it was their last opportunity to solve the case and bring charges, he said.

Police in July searched the Henderson, Nevada, home of Davis wife, looking for writings or documents related to Shakurs murder, according to an affidavit requesting a search warrant. They seized a copy of Davis memoir, in which he wrote about street gang life and the shooting of Shakur, describing himself and Knight  in prison on a manslaughter charge in an unrelated case  as the only two living witnesses to the shooting.

CNNs Josh Campbell, Kyung Lah, Zoe Sottile and Sonya Hamasaki contributed to this report.

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EL PASO, Texas (Border Report)  The U.S. has returned to Mexico a man wanted in connection with the 2019 killings of nine Americans in the border state of Sonora.

Federal agents arrested 24-year-old Gustavo Ivan Hernandez-Cabral on Sept. 4 at a motel in Albuquerque.

Juarez cartel ordered to pay $4.6 billion for killings of 9 Americans

He was handed over to Mexican authorities on Oct. 13 at one of the international bridges in Downtown El Paso.

Gustavo Ivan Hernandez-Cabral, 24. (ICE)

Hernandez-Cabral had crossed the border illegally into Santa Teresa, New Mexico, three times in July, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and each time was processed for voluntary return and repatriated to Mexico.

Hernandez-Cabral again entered the U.S. illegally on Aug. 5 after Homeland Security Investigations learned that he was illegally residing in Central New Mexico, where agents tracked him down.

La Linea cartel boss arrested in killings of nine Americans, state officials say

The U.S. District Court in the District of New Mexico convicted of illegal entry, and on Oct. 4, after spending a month at the El Paso Processing Center, an immigration judge ordered Hernandez-Cabral removed from the United States to Mexico.

On Nov. 4, 2019, gunmen ambushed three women and six children who were members of the LeBaron, Langford, and Johnson families associated with the independent Mormon settlement of LeBaron, Chihuahua.

The dead, all Americans, included adults Rhonita Miller, 30; Dawna Langford, 43; and Christina Marie Langford Johnson, 29. The children were Howard Miller, 12; Trevor Langford, 11; Krystal Miller, 10; Rogan Langford, 2; and 8-month-old twins Titus and Tiana Miller.

The La Linea drug cartel, formerly the Juarez cartel, has been blamed for carrying out the massacre, and nearly three dozen members, including some of its leaders, have been arrested.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

This dangerous fugitive, wanted for the massacre of innocent women and children, is back in Mexico thanks to the resourceful efforts of ERO deportation officers collaborating with HSI special agents, said ERO El Paso Field Office Director Mary De Anda-Ybarra. Anyone who believes they can seek refuge in the United States to shield themselves from authorities in their home country is sadly mistaken.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
HARARE, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has denied allegations of election rigging in the presidential election held at the end of August, saying that his victory was based on the merits of his accomplishments over the preceding five years, local media reported Thursday.

The president told business leaders that the government's position was earned through merit. "I can assure you, we did not rig. We are where we are by merit, total merit, just like yourselves," Mnangagwa was quoted by The Herald, a leading daily newspaper in the southern African country, as saying.

Mnangagwa secured the election with 52.6 percent of the vote, surpassing his challenger, Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens' Coalition for Change, who garnered 44 percent, according to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

Chamisa, however, contested the results, alleging that the electoral body's data were inaccurate and that the elections were marred by irregularities. In response to the assertion, the government said it encouraged the parties seeking to challenge the validity of the vote to go through legal channels.

According to the report, Mnangagwa outlined some of his plans for the next five years, emphasizing the government's commitment to implementing pro-business policies to foster a conducive environment for increased production while reducing the cost of doing business.

He pledged to introduce sector-specific initiatives to sustain the current surge in production, assuring that his administration aimed to meet the aspirations of Zimbabweans for improved living conditions and inclusive development. 
Lodi police have arrested a 41-year-old man on suspicion of shooting and killing two men in a Lodi home earlier this week, authorities said Wednesday.

Oscar Hernandez, of Lodi, was arrested with the help of the U.S. Marshals and the Ste. Genevieve County Sheriffs Office in Missouri, the Lodi Police Department said in a news release.

Hernandez was identified as a suspect early on in the investigation, police said.

Officers responded to the 1100 block of South Central Avenue at 6:30 p.m. Monday to reports of gunshots. When they arrived, they found two men suffering from gunshot wounds. One man was pronounced dead at the scene, and the second victim was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Police said they believe there is a family nexus between Hernandez and the two victims.

Hernandez remains in custody in Missouri but will be extradited to San Joaquin County, where he will be held on suspicion of homicide, the Police Department said.

At this time, the motive is still under investigation and more details will be released as they become available, the Police Department said in a news release. We are aware of rumors circulating online that indicate this dispute may have spurred from a sexual assault, and we are actively investigating those allegations.

The Lodi Police Department was not immediately available for comment Wednesday afternoon.

The victims identities will be released by the San Joaquin County Sheriffs Office.
PHILADELPHIA - Two more men have been arrested in South Jersey in connection with a shooting that killed one Philadelphia police officer and injured another.

Alexander Batista-Polanco of Camden and Hendrick Pena-Fernandez of Pennsauken are charged with the murder of Officer Richard Mendez, according to a Philadelphia police spokesman.

The suspects, both 21, also are charged with the attempted murder of Mendez' partner, Officer Raul Ortiz.

Daniel King declared he was Jesus Videos capture Millville man's actions with trooper before he died in custody

The officers were shot when they came upon a car burglary in progress in a parking garage at Philadelphia International Airport around 11 p.m. on Oct. 12.

Evidence indicates Mendez and Ortiz were shot from behind, said 1st Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore.

The gunman's bullets also struck and killed another burglary suspect, 18-year-old Jesus Herman Duran-Medina of Camden, according to police. Interim 1st Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore

A fourth suspect, 18-year-old Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez of Camden, was arrested Monday morning at a Cherry Hill hotel.

Police seek those who helped airport-shooting suspects

"We have essentially taken everyone that is responsible for the shooting of Officer Ortiz and the murder of Officer Mendez in custody," Acting Police Commissioner John M. Stanford Jr. said at a press conference Wednesday.

He noted investigators continue to seek people who helped the surviving suspects in their efforts to elude police.

"We had people who helped rent hotel rooms that weren't the people staying in them," said Vanore. "We had people who knew where people were and didn't tell us."

"Between us and New Jersey, at least three of them have been charged so far," said Vanore.

"And we're going to go forward and look for more," he said.

"These arrests are an important step toward justice," Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said at a press conference Wednesday.

Batista-Polanco was arrested around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday in Delanco, according to Stanford.

Police went to the home of Pena-Fernandez early Wednesday, but he was not there. The suspect was taken into custody a short time later, and was being held in Camden County Jail.

A reward of more than $275,000 was offered for information leading to the arrest of the suspects. None of that money had been paid out by Wednesday afternoon, Stanford said.

The suspects are charged with murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, robbery, theft and other crimes, according to Philadelphia police.

The charges are only allegations. No one has been convicted in the case.

Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Police believe all suspects in police shooting are in custody
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - All EU parties involved need to do all they can to make sure illegal migrants are returned to their country of origin, Sweden's Justice minister Gunnar Strommer said on Thursday.

"If we do it all together we can make a better effect," Strommer said before a meeting with fellow EU ministers in Brussels.

(Reporting by Marine Strauss and Bart Meijer)
The Massachusetts House approved a sweeping gun bill Wednesday aimed at tightening firearm laws, cracking down on unregistered ghost guns and strengthening the states assault-style weapons ban.

The bill, which passed on a 120-38 vote, would also prohibit individuals from carrying a gun into a persons home without their permission and require key gun components to be serialized and registered with the state.

The 125-page bill  a priority for Democratic Massachusetts House Speaker Ronald Mariano  is in part a response to a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that U.S. citizens have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

The proposal would create new laws that bar firing guns at or near homes and outlaw carrying firearms while intoxicated. It would also prohibit carrying firearms in schools, polling places and government buildings.

The bill expands the states ban on assault weapons by prohibiting new purchases of AR-15-style weapons. It would also ban someone from turning a legal firearm into an illegal automatic weapon.

The proposal includes an enhanced system to track firearms used in crimes to help curb the flow of illegal guns into the state. It would also modernize the existing firearm registration system while increasing the availability of firearm data for academic and policy use, lawmakers said.

Massachusetts, which already has tough gun laws, had the lowest rate of gun deaths in the country, at 3.4 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, compared to Mississippi, which had the highest rate, at 33.9 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the most recent statistics listed on the website for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The state Senate has yet to release its version of a gun bill. It will be up to both Democratic-led chambers to hammer out a single bill to ship to Democratic Gov. Maura Healeys desk for her signature before it can become law.

Gun owners opposed to the bill say the measures outlined in the legislation do more to target gun owners than to reduce crime.

All of it goes against us, the lawful people. Theres nothing in there that goes after the criminals, said Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners Action League.

Wallace also said the bill is an overreaction to last years Supreme Court decision.

This is a tantrum. This is a flat-out tantrum, he said.

Supporters of the bill say it will help address holes in the states gun laws, while also responding to the Supreme Court ruling.

One response is a measure in the bill that would prohibit guns in safe spaces such as schools, polling places and the Statehouse, said Jennifer Robinson of the Massachusetts chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Robinson said the bill also contained what she called commonsense steps.

We believe that if youre going to have a license for a gun, you should have live fire training, much like if youre going to drive a car, we dont just throw the keys at you and walk away, she said. She also pointed to a section of the bill that would transfer to the state police the responsibility of inspecting gun dealers.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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FILE PHOTO: Last day of the legislature before national elections at the Swiss Parliament in Bern

By Noele Illien and Cecile Mantovani

ZURICH/GENEVA (Reuters) - The right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) is set to bolster its position as Switzerland's leading political force in Sunday's parliamentary elections, with the Greens tipped as the biggest losers even as climate change remains a key topic for voters.

In a poll conducted by the Sotomo research institute, 36% of respondents said climate change was an important policy issue, second only to health insurance premiums that symbolize cost of living pressures.

Yet in a shift to the right and a reversal of the "green wave" seen in the 2019 elections, the Greens are projected to slip 3.5 percentage points to 9.7%, according to the poll, while the SVP is forecast to gain 2.5 points to 28.1%.

The result is unlikely to change much the make-up of Switzerland's government, the Federal Council, where seven cabinet positions are divided among the top four parties, limiting the scope for big policy shifts.

Reto Foellmi, economics professor at the University of St. Gallen, said he expected, however, a change in the tone and focus of the political debate.

"On climate change, the government and the parliament will take the foot off the gas ... and with migration the tone will get harder," he said.

The Social Democrats are projected to cement their position as the number two party with 18.3% of the vote, while the Liberals and centrist Mitte party, both polling at around 14%, will battle for the number three spot.

Political analyst Michael Hermann from Sotomo said the public may have grown wary of the Greens' agenda.

"The issue is too big for a small country, thats what some people think," he said.

One of the Green Party's candidate for parliament's upper house, Delphine Klopfenstein Broggini, said geopolitical tensions have played a role in voters turning elsewhere.

"International issues create an atmosphere of fear and some parties seize the opportunity," she said.

Against such backdrop, the SVP's focus on restricting migration and capping Switzerland's population, now at 8.7 million, at 10 million has resonated with voters, Hermann said.

Celine Amaudruz, SVP upper house candidate, said the war in Ukraine and the escalation of violence in the Middle East have validated the party's focus on security.

"We are credible, because we dont change our point of view," Amaudruz told Reuters, adding the Greens were paying the price for their lack of response to controversial actions of radical climate activists.

One topic Hermann said he was surprised to see largely missing from the campaign was Credit Suisse's collapse and its subsequent rescue last March.

"It was a major issue then, it was very emotional and it was talked about a lot, but actually it is only a minor topic in the election process."

(Reporting by Noele Illien and Cecile Mantovani; Additional reporting by Oliver Hirt; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
One of the most iconic structures of the 20th Century, the Sydney Opera House has emerged as a symbol for modern Australia.

Its dramatic white sails broke new ground for architecture and engineering globally.

And the construction itself has been heralded by historians as a "visionary exercise in nation-building by a young, largely immigrant nation looking to define itself".

A World Heritage-listed performance space and a meeting place for world leaders, the Opera House has hosted the likes of Bob Dylan, Ella Fitzgerald and Nelson Mandela .

As it celebrates its 50th birthday, here's a look back at its life.

The Opera House was born out of a 1956 international competition run by the New South Wales government, to design a national performance venue on Bennelong Point that would put Sydney on the map. Out of 233 entries, the unexpected winner was the iconoclastic and largely unknown young Danish architect Jorn Utzon.

Over 10,000 workers started constructing the Opera House in 1959. The building was supposed to be completed in four years, instead it ended up taking 14. The initial budget for the structure was A$7m (3.6m; $4.4m), but the final cost was closer to A$102m.

The Sydney Opera House was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973, fireworks and a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 marked the occasion.

In July 1973 Dalgerie was the first opera to be staged at the venue. Based on the love story from the popular Australian novel Keep Him My Country, it was written by the Australian composer James Penberthy.

In 1977, Swedish pop phenomenon ABBA visited the big white sails, greeted by a sea of Australian fans.

After walking free from 27 years of imprisonment for his struggle against the apartheid regime of South Africa, Nelson Mandela was celebrated by 40,000 Australians on the steps of the Opera House during his tour of the country in 1990.

Olympic sprinter Cathy Freeman holds the Olympic torch at the Sydney Opera House

Cathy Freeman, the first Aboriginal athlete to win an individual Olympic gold medal opened the 2004 Athens Olympic torch relay outside the Opera House. The image of the proud Kuku Yalanji woman - who created one of Australia's most memorable sporting moments - was later projected on its sails in 2020 to celebrate the anniversary of her historic victory.

Images of Cathy Freeman lit up the Sydney Opera House during a 2020 light show

More recently, the Opera House has been the centrepiece of Vivid Sydney - an annual festival of light, music ideas and artistic expression. It includes outdoor immersive light installations and performances by local and international musicians.

Vivid Sydney is an annual festival of light, music and artistic expression

Bennelong Point - where the Opera House was built - was a place where Aboriginal celebrations and gatherings were held for thousands of years. A new art installation called Whispers by Quandamooka artist Megan Cope, recognises the site's ancient history.

The installation will remain in place during the Opera House's 50th birthday celebrations
Tears stream down the face of defendant Sydney Powell as she is comforted by paralegal Marie DiCola while her attorney Don Malarcik goes over the timeline of events leading up to the killing of her mother, Brenda, during opening statements in Judge Kelly McLaughlin's courtroom at the Summit County Courthouse, Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023, in Akron, Ohio.

Sydney Powell's lawyers argued temporary insanity at her trial for killing her mother, Brenda, in March 2020.

Powell, then 19, claims to only have flashes of that day -- hearing voices, crying and feeling the need to get away.

Prosecutors say Sydney stabbed her mother with a steak knife and hit her repeatedly with a cast-iron skillet. And a Summit County jury agreed, finding her guilty of murder and felonious assault.

Here's a look back at this tragic case.

Sydney Powell charged with killing her mother, Brenda Powell -- March 4, 2020

An Akron teen has been charged with murder after authorities say she stabbed her mother Tuesday afternoon during an argument.

Officers responded to a home in the 1900 block of Scudder Drive for a welfare check about 1 p.m. Tuesday.

When police arrived, they found Brenda Powell, 50, with life-threatening wounds. She was transported to Cleveland Clinic Akron General, where she later died.

Read the full story here.

Daughter accused of stabbing her mother is granted bond -- March 5, 2020

A teen accused of fatally stabbing her mother will be released on bond after her arraignment Thursday.

Sydney Powell, 19, has been charged in the murder of her mother, Brenda Powell. According to the arrest affidavit, the two were in a verbal argument that turned physical. During the confrontation, Sydney Powell is accused of fatally cutting and stabbing her mother.

Read the full story here.

Brenda Powell. [Courtesy of News 5 Cleveland]

Patients mourn loss of 'second mom' at Akron Childrens Hospital -- March 7, 2020

When Brenda Powell died Tuesday, Akron Childrens Hospital didnt just lose a child life specialist. For her co-workers and the many patients she worked with, theyre losing family.

She was like a second mom to me and the mom at the hospital, said Jackie Custer, one of her former patients at the hospitals cancer center. She treated us just like her own children.

Brenda Powell, 50, of Akron died Tuesday from cuts and stab wounds that police say she sustained from her 19-year-old daughter, Sydney.

Read the full story here.

Court indicts Sydney Powell, 19, accused in stabbing death of her mother -- April 20, 2020

Sydney Powell, 19, appears before Judge Jon Oldham in a video arraignment Thursday, March 5, 2020, on charges of murdering her mother in Akron, Ohio. [Phil Masturzo/Beacon Journal file]

A teen accused of fatally stabbing her mother was arraigned Friday in Summit County Court, and indicted on more charges.

Sydney Powell, 19, has been charged in the death of her mother, Brenda Powell. According to the arrest affidavit in Akron Municipal Court, the two were in a verbal argument that turned physical. During the confrontation, Sydney Powell allegedly fatally cut and stabbed her mother.

Sydney Powell was indicted in Summit County Common Pleas Court on charges of murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence.

Read the full story here.

Akron woman accused in mother's stabbing death pleads not guilty by reason of insanity -- Feb. 8, 2022

An Akron woman accused of fatally stabbing her mother in 2020 has changed her plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.

Sydney Powell, 21, was scheduled to go on trial for murder in Summit County Common Pleas Court.

However, Don Malarcik, Powells attorney, recently changed his clients plea after an evaluation by a doctor.

Read the full story here.

Psychologist says Akron woman, 19, had psychotic episode prior to mother's fatal stabbing -- Feb. 11, 2022

Sydney Powell.

When Akron police arrived at the home of the Powell family in March 2020, they found Brenda Powell with life-threatening cuts and stab wounds.

They saw Sydney Powell, her 19-year-old daughter, collapsed at the end of the familys driveway. Her eyes were rolled back and she was clawing at the asphalt to the point that her fingers bled.

Shes absolutely in shock  in a catatonic state  not responding to audio stimuli, said Don Malarcik, Powells attorney.

Malaricik shared these details of the aftermath of Brenda Powells stabbing this week as an example of the psychotic break a psychologist recently found Sydney had at the time of her mothers death.

Read the full story here.

'This goes against anything Brenda would want': Dad begs not to try daughter for mom's death -- Sept. 7, 2023

While Sydney Powell sat sobbing a few feet from him in a Summit County courtroom, her father pleaded for a resolution that would spare Sydney from going on trial for her mothers stabbing death.

Sydney Powell, father Steve Powell accompanied by the family attorney Jeff Laybourne testifies on behalf of his daughter during a pretrial hearing in Summit County Common Pleas Judge Kelly McLaughlin's court.

He begged prosecutors not to proceed with murder charges against his daughter for killing his wife, Brenda, during what the family believes was an episode of psychosis.

I dont know why were doing this, Steve Powell said during the recent pretrial. This isnt what anyone wants here. I dont know how she can handle it. I dont know how I can handle it. Im trying to keep my family together.

Read the full story here.

'End the nightmare': Lawyer says Sydney Powell wasn't sane when she fatally stabbed mom, Brenda -- Sept. 7, 2023

When Akron police officers arrived at the Powell familys home in March 2020, they werent sure what had happened.

Brenda Powell was lying on the floor of her bedroom, covered with blood, with life-threatening injuries. Sydney Powell, her teenage daughter, was also bloody and hysterical.

Summit County prosecutors said during their opening statements in Sydneys murder trial that Sydney killed her mother by stabbing her repeatedly with a steak knife and hitting her with a cast-iron frying pan.

Don Malarcik, Sydneys attorney, however, said three psychologists found that Sydney suffered from schizophrenia and had a psychotic break on the day she killed her mother. He said she was having delusions and hearing voices and lost control.

Read the full story here.

Sydney Powell was 'out of touch with reality' when she killed her mother, expert says -- Sept. 13, 2023

Sydney Powell has flashes of the day she killed her mother, a psychologist who evaluated Powell testified Wednesday.

She remembers sitting on the couch next to her mother.

She remembers crying.

She remembers feeling the need to get away and going down the basement steps and back up.

She also remembers voices in her head saying, Loser, Worthless, and Kill yourself.

The next thing Sydney remembers, psychologist James Reardon said, is waking up in the hospital.

Read the full story here.

Sydney Powell was not insane when she killed her mother, prosecution expert says -- Sept. 18, 2023

Sydney Powell was sane when she murdered her mother, a medical expert for the prosecution testified Monday.

Clinical Psychologist Sylvia O'Bradovich of Summit Psychological Services in Akron listens to a question from Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Brian Stano during the Sydney Powell trial in Summit County Common Pleas Judge Kelly McLaughlin's courtroom. Powell is on trial for the stabbing death of her mother.

Powell was not in a fully-blown psychosis with moments of lucidity in the week leading to killing her mother and after, as three defense medical experts testified last week, Sylvia O'Bradovich of Summit Psychological Associates in Akron said.

Read the full story here.

Summit County jurors find Sydney Powell guilty of murder in mother's stabbing death -- Sept. 20, 2023

A Summit County jury has found Sydney Powell guilty of killing her mother, Brenda, in March 2020 in their Akron home.

Jurors convicted Sydney, 23 , on two counts of murder  one that means purposely causing a death and the other that involves causing a death as the result of a felonious assault, as well as felonious assault and tampering with evidence.

The former Mount Union University student sobbed openly as the verdicts were read in the Summit County Common Pleas courtroom.

Read the full story here.

'This wasn't justice,' attorney says after Sydney Powell is sentenced to life in prison - Sept. 28, 2022

Sydney Powell waits for her sentencing in Summit County Common Pleas Judge Kelly McLaughlin's courtroom. Powell was sentence to 15 to life for the stabbing death of her mother.

Sydney Powell left a Summit County courtroom in tears Thursday after being sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of her mother.

Powell, 23, will be eligible for parole after 15 years. She plans to appeal.

This wasnt justice, Don Malarcik, Sydneys attorney, said after her sentencing.

Malarcik asked Judge Kelly McLaughlin to impose the minimum sentence of 15 years to life. Prosecutors, though, urged McLaughlin to impose an additional three years in prison for a tampering charge.

Powell plans to appeal.

Read the full story here.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Sydney Powell convicted of stabbing death of mother Brenda in Akron Ohio
Dallas attorney Sidney Powell , who made false allegations about the 2020 election in Tarrant County, pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Donald Trumps loss in Georgia.

Former Tarrant County elections administrator Heider Garcia detailed Powells baseless claims in 2022 in written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Before he worked in the public sector, Garcia had worked for 13 years Smartmatic, the elections company that sued Fox News for defamation over its election fraud claims.

Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani made baseless accusations of voter fraud and manipulation of election results, Garcia wrote in his testimony. He said they accused Smartmatic, one of my former employers, as one of the two main actors of the steal, and from there the conspiracy theories about Tarrant County just spiraled out of control. But it was not indirect references, it was also direct accusations from Ms. Powell herself:

 On the Lou Dobbs show she stated  we know that one of the Smartmatic people went to Tarrant County, Texas and turned that county blue.

 On Twitter she posted Gee whiz! I wonder how #TarrantCounty Texas went #blue so easily after hiring a #Smartmatic guy?!, with a picture of me included.

 On a separate post on Twitter, she stated And #Tarrant County just went #blue?! What a coincidence! #ImpoundTheMachines #DominionVotingSystems #Smartmatic What could possibly go wrong with company called #Dominion?

Garcia resigned from his Tarrant County job in April, citing disagreements with County Judge Tim OHare over how to run transparent elections. On Wednesday, he accepted the position of elections administrator in Dallas County.

Powells plea didnt surprise Garcia.

There was no other thing that could have happened because we knew she was lying, he said in a Thursday interview with the Star-Telegram. It was just a matter of time and, like everything else, when you put the facts out there, the only lie there ever was is all the election was stolen crap.

He later added, Im glad the justice system called her bluff.

Today's top stories:

 Sydney Powell, who lied about Tarrant elections, pleads guilty

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Powell, Trump and 17 others were charged with violating the states anti-racketeering law. She entered the plea a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.

She will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

This report contains information from The Associated Press.
In light of the Israel-Hamas war, Tallahassee community members of all ages gathered for a protest to call for no more United States aid to Israel and to support Palestinian resistance.

Among the crowd of a couple hundred protesters who stood with their flags and signs held high in the air Wednesday evening at Cascades Park was former Florida State University student Ahmad Daraldik  a proud Palestinian who filed allegations of an anti-Palestinian hostile environment on campus, which has led to a federal investigation.

Im concerned, disappointed and upset, he said. How can what were witnessing before our eyes be called anything but a genocide?

More on Israel-Hamas war: Can Palestinians leave Gaza? Who controls the West Bank? What to know as the Israel-Hamas war rages on

A couple hundred people gathered in a parking lot across from Cascades Park to show support for Palestine and protest aid being sent to Israel on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization of Tallahassee led the protest along with FSUs Students for a Democratic Society and the Tallahassee Community Action Committee, which were both co-sponsors of the rally.

The protest comes during a time in which Israeli forces have launched an aerial bombardment of targets in the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected ground assault after the militant group Hamas launched a coordinated, surprise attack against Israel, massacring hundreds of civilians and holding dozens hostage.

The conflict and recent attacks have led to thousands of deaths on both sides, the destruction of hospitals and homes, civilians being held hostage and an American death toll of 30 individuals as well as more than a dozen who are missing in the foreign country.

The death toll of Israelis and Palestinians surpassed 5,000, making the conflict the deadliest of five wars involving the narrow, densely populated strip of land bordering Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

During the rally, protesters held up signs with the words Free Palestine and Stop the genocide while they chanted From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free and Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israels crime.

A couple hundred people gathered in a parking lot across from Cascades Park to show support for Palestine and protest aid being sent to Israel on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Toddlers sat on their parents shoulders for a better view of the crowd as they waved their own mini Palestinian flags.

We are on the right side of history, FSU student and SDS member Joelle Nunez said. We will see an end to this apartheid, and we will see the unification of Palestine.

There have been Israel-Hamas war protests across Florida, including one on the FSU campus last week hosted by Students for a Democratic Society  that drew outcry after a conservative media outlet posted a video of someone chanting, It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win."

Similar chants sprung up at Wednesday's rally. "Resistance is justified when people are occupied," the crowd called at one point. "Palestine is our demand, no peace on stolen land."

One speaker shouted "We support Hamas" to a few cheers.

Some state lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis are calling for the expulsion of college students expressing support for the surprise attack on Israel, though that may run into First Amendment issues, experts warn.

"We say Florida is the best place in America for Jews," said Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, who is Jewish. "Its time to prove it. Right now. Today. These children must not spend one day more surrounded by these animals."

Also last week, a vigil was held by FSU's Jewish Student Organizations at the Tucker Civic Center in support of Israel, with hundreds of students and university officials including President Richard McCullough in attendance.

Florida State University stands staunchly in support of the Israeli people and all those affected by these terrible atrocities, McCullough wrote in a letter preceding it. I would like our Jewish faculty, staff, and students to know I stand with you and that your Florida State University family is here to support you.

More on FSU vigil for Israel: 'The people of Israel live': FSU Jewish student organizations hold vigil

While the local organizations holding the Wednesday rally had their own safety patrols, the Tallahassee Police Departments officers parked their vehicles across the street from the protest and stood in surveillance. There were no counter-protesters.

While the protesters advocated for ending all U.S. aid to Israel, Israels is requesting $10 billion more. Military aid to Israel has been over $3 billion in the 2023 fiscal year, according to the Congressional Research Service.

At the same time, President Joe Biden  who took a trip to Israel amid the conflicts  recently announced $100 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza and the West Bank that would help the Palestinians in need.

A couple hundred people gathered in a parking lot across from Cascades Park to show support for Palestine and protest aid being sent to Israel on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

Candles were lit by a few of the protesters in the crowd as the rally continued under the night sky, and the individuals took a knee during a moment of silence toward the end of the gathering.

Speakers during the protest also urged the participants to attend the city commission meeting taking place Wednesday Oct. 25 at 3 p.m. to voice their concerns and ask for a resolution to be created that supports the Palestinian cause.

The narrative that were watching unfold is something thats beyond belief, and it's incomprehensible, Daraldik said. This cant be the first or only protest.

Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on twitter @tarahjean_.

Never miss a story: Subscribe to the Tallahassee Democrat using the link at the top of the page.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee community, FSU students protest to support Palestinians
A teacher at Los Angeles Unified School District school was arrested by a special task force as part of an investigation into alleged possession and distribution of child pornography.

The teacher, who was not named, was arrested in Claremont Wednesday morning.

Hes been identified only as a 60-year-old man who is a current teacher at LAUSD.

He was arrested by members of the San Bernardino Police Departments Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

The arrest was made as part of an ongoing investigation into the production, possession and distribution of pornography in the region.

Police officials said a search warrant was served at a home in Redlands in San Bernardino County, which later led them to Claremont, which is in L.A. County.

During the arrest, several electronic devices were discovered and seized as evidence.

He was taken into custody just before dawn on Wednesday, and is expected to face felony charges related to the investigation.

A spokesperson for Los Angeles Unified School District provided the following statement, in which it identifies the school where the teacher was employed:

The safety of our students and school community remains our top priority. This afternoon, we were notified by the San Bernardino Police Department that an employee of Miguel Contreras /Business and Tourism Academy High School has been arrested and prohibited from coming onto any District site. All District protocols are being followed, and we remain in cooperation with local authorities. Due to the ongoing investigation by law enforcement, we are unable to disclose additional details about this matter. Please be assured that the safety of our students continues to be our utmost priority. Students and the greater school community are always encouraged to share any and all concerns with their school or with local authorities. We remain committed to supporting Miguel Contreras High School and the greater school community with counseling and support services. LAUSD Spokesperson

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
HANOI, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Over 95 percent of online fraudulent reports in Vietnam in the first half of this year target the banking and finance sectors, Vietnam News reported Thursday, citing the Ministry of Information and Communications.

The ministry received more than 4,000 reports from internet users about fraudulent activities during the cited period.

According to CDNetworks Vietnam, more than 87 percent of attacks combine two or more attack methods.

The banking system also faces the risk of slow connectivity with global applications, which greatly affects the customer experience.

The ministry's Authority of Information Security has advised organizations and businesses in banking and finance to constantly enhance multi-layer security capabilities and be equipped with modern technologies.

The banks must also regularly issue warnings about new fraud techniques to protect customers' accounts.

The ministry forecasted that forms of online fraud, network attacks and targeted advanced persistent threats will continue to occur in the coming months.

According to the National Cyber Security Centre, Vietnam reported 9,519 cyberattacks in the first seven months of this year, causing incidents to information systems. 
Ashleigh Surma (second right) assists Elva Case (left), Linda Lupe (second left) and Joycelene Johnson (right) in recording Indigenous languages in Bloomington, Indiana, on October 13, 2023 (LEANDRO LOZADA)

Linguistics experts are turning to cutting-edge technologies to revitalize threatened Native American languages -- and rejuvenate generations of Indigenous tradition -- through new approaches such as children's books and smartphone apps.

In one such endeavor, three Native American women rack their brains as they gather around a computer, trying to remember -- and record -- dozens of Apache language words related to everyday activities such as cooking and eating.

They are creating an online English-Apache dictionary, just one of several projects working to preserve endangered Indigenous languages in the United States.

The women are working with Rapid Word Collection (RWC) software, which uses an algorithm to search Apache text and audio databases for so-called forgotten words.

The words are then defined, translated into English, and their pronunciation recorded, so the dictionary's users will know how to say them properly.

Teacher Joycelene Johnson and two of her colleagues validate the definition of the word Apache word "kapas," which means potato in English.

"The applications in the written language are good for (a) non-speaker -- at least they'll have a museum of it where they can go to for reference," said Johnson, a 68-year-old who teaches Apache vocabulary and grammar.

According to her, the bilingual school on her reservation has about a thousand students -- but only one, an eleventh-grader, is fluent in Apache.

Johnson spoke at just one of several workshops at the International Conference on Indigenous Language Documentation, Education and Revitalization (ICILDER) last weekend at the University of Indiana.

Representatives from around 40 Indigenous groups from around the world gathered in the college town of Bloomington just days after the United States -- which counts about 6.8 million Native American residents, or about two percent of the population -- marked Indigenous People's Day.

- 4,500 languages at risk -

Linguists, teachers, students, researchers and Indigenous leaders spent the weekend brainstorming how exactly to rescue these vulnerable languages from the brink.

Of the more than 6,000 Indigenous languages recognized globally, nearly half of them are at risk of disappearing, with about 1,500 facing immediate extinction, according to a 2021 study from UNESCO.

The RWC was developed by The Language Conservancy (TLC), an NGO dedicated to protecting around 50 Indigenous languages around the world, in order to churn out such dictionaries at super-speed.

TLC, which has a $3 million budget, regularly teams up linguists with Native American language teachers to work on these dictionaries.

The software has "increased the efficiency in the workflow," said Wilhelm Meya, the CEO of TLC and one of the ICILDER organizers -- now, an Indigenous community can build a dictionary from scratch within a year, instead of 20.

"That allows us to serve languages quickly and build that infrastructure that they need to be able to survive moving forward," the 51-year old Austrian-American anthropologist explained.

- 'Crisis level' -

That speed is vital, because time is of the essence: in the United States and Canada, the last generation of native speakers are dying.

According to TLC, 143 out of 219 languages are in danger of extinction in the United States, while 75 of 94 are at similar risk in Canada.

Those are still just a small fraction of the 400 to 500 Indigenous languages that were spoken in the two countries before the arrival of Europeans and their decimation of native populations some 500 years ago.

"The situation is really at a crisis level," Meya said.

With the average age of Indigenous language speakers around 75, he added, there are only a few years left to document these languages before they disappear forever.

"Once it's gone, it's gone. You really can't bring it back very easily," said Meya, whose organization distributes their learning materials for free throughout the United States and on Native American reservations.

"When the language goes, so does the culture," he said.

Jacob Chavez, a 26-year-old Cherokee language learner who called himself a "really big supporter" of the language technology, said he appreciates how it allows communities to "record things a lot quicker and hold onto things for a lot longer than we could before."

- 'Identity' -

Paula Hawkins, who teaches the Tahltan language -- which is spoken in parts of British Columbia -- said she is "really excited" to see an online dictionary, just as her parents helped create the first Tahltan print dictionary in the 1980s.

But her colleague, 51-year-old Danielle North King, from the Chemehuevi, or Nuwuvi nation, fears that such projects impose a "Western way of writing" onto "an Indigenous way of speaking" -- the vast majority of human languages are solely oral, with no writing systems.

Indeed, Lakota Indigenous leaders denounced TLC last year, after the organization tried to copywrite teaching material that included recordings from the nation's elders.

"We don't own the copyright or the IP (intellectual property) for any of the languages we work with," Meya clarified, adding that his goal is to protect Indigenous culture.

"If we were at a hospital and I was a white doctor and I had an Indigenous patient, would I not be allowed to work on him or serve him because I'm not Indigenous?" Meya asked.

"Race can really become a hindrance to this type of work," Meya explained, when dealing with such a sensitive subject.

Language is "so fundamental to identity and to nationhood and sovereignty."

nr/arb/caw/st
FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  An investigation is underway Thursday morning after a 15-year-old was shot near Greenberg Elementary School at an apartment in southeast Fresno, according to the Fresno Police Department.

Police say they responded to the area of Lane and Peach avenues in southeast Fresno after a ShotSpotter activation was reported around 7:45 a.m. of 11 shots being fired in the area.

Police say a juvenile was taken into custody for the shooting and was positively identified.

A very alert teacher, saw somebody, heard the shots fired, and then heard or saw the suspect jumping a fence onto the school parking and immediately told the principal what she had seen, and then the principal immediately detained the juvenile before he made it any further onto the school campus, said Sgt. Diana Trueba Vega with the Fresno Police Department.

Investigators say the weapon was found in the suspects backpack.

The suspects mom told YourCentralValley.com that she got a call this morning because her 12-year-old son attends the school; she was told that there was a shooting and that he jumped the gate.

The principal asked to go through his backpack and they found a firearm, says Mom. I havent been able to talk to him. I seen him in the back of a police car, but they wouldnt allow me to talk to him because hes under arrest.

Greenberg Elementary was placed on lockdown while police investigated the incident. Officers say the lockdown was placed out of an abundance of caution while they worked to establish that the campus was safe.











Police say the teen was shot in the leg and side and was transported to a local hospital; he is expected to recover from his injuries. Detectives believe the victim, said to be around 15 years old, was targeted in the incident.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Fresno Police Department at (559) 621-7000.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  Teens from across the country are on Capitol Hill urging lawmakers to make the internet safer.

Many say they have fallen victim to harassment and grooming online. Now, theyre pushing Congress to pass protections.

It really had a negative impact on my mental health, a negative impact on my self-perception, Kayla Bethea said.

Bethea says at age 14, she was bombarded with hateful messages after taking a stand in support of Black Lives Matter. She says hundreds of her peers face the same pressures.

The algorithm isnt trying to keep them more engaged, its trying to hurt children, she said.

One by one, they shared their stories with senators during a roundtable Thursday morning.

I would say my exploitation began when I was 13 years old, Olivia Littleton said.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn , R-Tenn., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal , D-Conn., are leading the effort to pass the Kids Online Safety Act.

We just need your voices to get it across the finish line, Blumenthal said.

The bill is designed to give parents and teens tools to protect their data or even opt out of algorithm-generated recommendations.

Earlier this year, the Surgeon General released an advisory linking social media use to poor mental outcomes, like low self-esteem, among adolescents.

The Kids Online Safety Act has bipartisan support from 50 senators.

Blumenthal and Blackburn are urging the Senate majority leader to bring it to the floor for a vote before the end of the year.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
With consensus proving elusive, members of the House of Representatives have been reconsidering the role of the temporary Speaker, Patrick McHenry .

The bow-tied, bespectacled career politician from North Carolina has been holding the post of Speaker pro tempore since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted.

Some members appeared ready to allow him to stay in the post until January.

But Jim Jordan, the Ohio Congressman who has won support from a majority of Republicans - but not yet enough to get elected Speaker - nixed that plan on Thursday.

Having earlier supported a deal that would see Mr McHenry run the House in the short term, Mr Jordan changed tack after a four-hour internal party meeting. Members had decided "that wasn't where we were going to go", he told reporters.

A third vote on Mr Jordan's nomination as speaker could happen later.

So far the most notable thing Mr McHenry has done with the Speaker's gavel in his hand was to slam it down very hard right after Mr McCarthy's ouster - a moment that went viral.

Since that hammer blow, he's stuck to a perfunctory routine of opening House proceedings, then almost immediately closing them, while in the background the Republican delegation has struggled to unite behind a new House leader.

Mr McHenry, who turns 48 on Sunday, was the youngest member of the House when first elected in 2004.

His Congressional career began after stints in the North Carolina state legislature, working for George W Bush's presidential campaign and running an anti-Hillary Clinton website.

As a member from a heavily Republican district, he developed a reputation for being a staunch conservative, unafraid of challenging party leadership, and rose to become chair of the House Financial Services Committee.

His official bio says his interest in finance started in childhood, when his father attempted to grow a small business but struggled to raise capital.

Crucially, Mr McHenry is also an ally of Mr McCarthy - which may complicate any efforts to keep him in the Speaker's chair.

When Mr McCarthy was selected in January after 15 laborious rounds of voting, he chose Mr McHenry to be his temporary replacement in the event of incapacitation or - as turned out to be the case - removal from post.

New Speakers are required to provide a secret list of chosen successors, as part of post-9/11 rules drawn up to ensure government continuity in the event of a disaster or attack.

But Mr McHenry was more than just a designated survivor. He also helped negotiate the debt limit compromise deal with Democrats that proved to be the last straw for Mr McCarthy's opponents.

Some Republicans have argued for expanding Mr McHenry's powers and essentially allowing him to run House business as a permanent Speaker would.

But Thursday's meeting demonstrated that that plan has significant opposition within the Republican ranks, and even Mr McHenry himself has come out against it.

Writing in the New York Times, Republican consultant Brendan Buck suggested a way out of the turmoil: Mr McHenry should just start acting more like a permanent House Speaker, and see if other members try to stop him.

"House Republicans may not deserve a leader like Mr McHenry, but they're fortunate to have him. He is a serious person, widely respected for his honesty and intellect," Mr Buck wrote.

Mr Buck argued there is nothing preventing the Speaker pro tempore from performing normal legislative duties, like recognising members for motions to propose legislation. If Mr McHenry began to do that, he wrote, it would be up to House members to object or come up with an alternative plan.

Among those who may welcome such a bold move is Representative Mike Lawler of New York, who earlier this year credited Mr McHenry with saving his 15-month-old daughter when she started choking on her food.

"We had a little bit of an incident, but she's OK," Mr Lawler told a podcast. "So I want to thank Patrick. He's a good friend and colleague."

Mr Lawler has backed his friend, sponsoring a resolution that would boost the power of the temporary Speaker.

That measure now appears to be a non-starter, but with the House still facing a little bit of an incident of its own, expect to see much more of Mr McHenry - and his bow ties.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  With juvenile crime expected to become a major focus of next years regular session, residual bills have started to take shape.

This is one of those bills that I believe protects all parties, Rep. Jesse Chism (D-Memphis) said. It keeps frivolous things from being said about law enforcement and also ensures that law enforcement is accountable, as well.

Arrest in Easter homicide raises concerns about juvenile crime

Chism had a bill last session that got kicked to next year.

If it passes, itll make it so a law enforcement officer conducting a formal interview or interrogation of the child at a law enforcement facility concerning any violation of state or federal law by the child shall make a video or audio recording of the interview or interrogation.

In Shelby County, were already doing it, as well as so many other counties in the state, Chism said. We just want to make sure were uniform across the state.

The bill received unanimous support in the Senate.

You know, when it came through the Senate Judiciary Committee, frankly, it was a very short discussion, Sen. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) said. The bill made sense to most of us, where you have audio or visual recording when youre interrogating a juvenile. That made sense to us and we just passed it out.

House Speaker Sexton suggests impeaching DA Mulroy over juvenile crime

A few stragglers in the House had issues with an exception in the bill that says if law enforcement did not record an interrogation and cant prove they tried to, a juvenile can go free.

In the exclusionary rule, if its violated, you dont just lose the confession, Rep. Bud Hulsey (R-Kingsport) said during a committee meeting in regular session. You lose all the evidence that comes after that, as well. Thats also tainted.

But Chism said he thinks it may have just been an issue with the timing since the bill came up for discussion around the same time as when two Democratic lawmakers were expelled and brought back to the House.

Tennessee Three: Jones, Pearson expelled, Johnson avoids expulsion by one vote

Now, he feels a little better about it.

Im cautiously optimistic. I believe that we have a good consensus, Chism said. As it stands right now, its a bipartisan bill.

The bill was set for a summer study next week, but lawmakers told News 2 theyve resolved the issues they had with the bill. So, they canceled the study session.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
Residents will vote for the mayor and two Town Council members in Apex this year.

Mayor Jacques Gilbert, elected in 2019, is running unopposed, while incumbents Terry Mahaffey and Arno Zegerman face opponents Tayon Williams Dancy, Dylan Hale and Gregory Lyon.

Early voting for the Nov. 7 election begins on Oct. 19 and runs until Nov. 4.

For information about voting, Election Day, and precincts, residents can visit the state Board of Elections, ncsbe.gov, or the Wake County Board of Elections, wake.gov.

Name: Terry Mahaffey

Age: 43

Residence: Apex

Occupation/Employer: Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft, C++ Compiler (code generation team)

Education: BS in Computer Science from RIT, MBA from WGU

Political or civic experience: Apex Town Council Member, 2019 to present. I currently serve as the chair of the Finance Committee, on our Planning Committee, and as a liaison to the Apex Chamber of Commerce. HOA Board Member, 2018-20. Co-chair of the Wake County Complete Count Committee, 2019-20. I am a graduate of Apexs Peak Academy (our municipal-run citizens academy) and Apexs Community Police Academy, and I am an active volunteer with CAPA (Citizens Assisting Police in Apex).

Campaign website: visionofthepeak.com

Tell us why youre running to serve Apex. Why should voters trust you in this position?

I believe in our town. As an incumbent, Ive witnessed the progress weve achieved during my previous term, and Im committed to sustaining this positive momentum. My record speaks to my ability to deliver on my initial campaign themes of trust, transparency, and trees.

Apex has recently implemented some of the most robust environmental controls in North Carolina, preserving our tree canopy and safeguarding our watershed. But we wont rest there. Going forward, well take further steps to restore our tree canopy and enforce even stricter rules to ensure clean, safe and abundant water for our community.

Voters can trust me because my track record over the past four years demonstrates my ability to get things done. Whether at a high level, like reforming development rules for transparency, or at a grassroots level tirelessly addressing the concerns of my constituents, Ive consistently shown my dedication to our communitys well-being.

What is the town of Apex doing right to manage growth? What could be improved?

Apex has undertaken extensive proactive planning, outlining detailed strategies for future transportation infrastructure, land use, greenways, and more. As part of these efforts, I spearheaded the elevation of our tree preservation standards, positioning Apex among the states leaders in environmental stewardship.

Incorporating school capacity planning into our rezoning process has been another significant step forward. Our collaboration with WCPSS results in Letters of Impact, offering critical insights into school capacity effects. Construction begins next year on a new elementary school on developer-provided land.

We currently extract the maximum infrastructure from development (such as road improvements) were legally able. Equally important, we place a strong emphasis on Historic Preservation.

However, we face persistent challenges, notably the continual erosion of municipal authority by the state legislature. To further enhance our environmental efforts, I advocate for expanding tree preservation requirements beyond the gross area to ensure a net gain in the tree canopy.

If elected, how would you approach an existing or new issue differently from your fellow council members?

I am data-driven and analytical, and I leverage these skills to systematically examine issues. My belief in using data to guide decisions ensures that we make evidence-based choices that positively impact Apex.

Drawing from my professional experience as a programmer, I approach problem-solving by breaking down complex issues into manageable sub-problems. This method allows for a systematic analysis that simplifies challenges to their core, addressing root causes effectively.

I work to simplify and summarize complex topics, making them easily understandable and approachable. My goal is to work collaboratively with fellow council members, offering complementary skills and viewpoints. Together, we can collectively address challenges in a way that benefits all residents of Apex by combining analytical rigor, a problem-solving mindset, and a commitment to clear communication.

How do you plan to make local government in Apex more inclusive and equitable for all residents in the town who feel their voices are underrepresented?

During my tenure, weve made significant strides toward a more inclusive and equitable local government. We appointed a dedicated Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) director and established a Community Engagement department to address these concerns both internally and externally.

Cultural events bring people together. Im collaborating with Hum Sub, the organizers of Diwali in Cary, to bring a Holifest to Apex in 2024, promoting cultural diversity and fostering community connections. Well continue to fund other cultural events such as Indigenous Peoples Day, Juneteenth, and Hispanic Heritage Month.

Additionally, we recognize the need for better representation on citizens advisory boards, especially for our growing Asian American community, which is currently the largest minority group in Apex. I am committed to rectifying this issue, by adding more advisory board seats if necessary.

Please list any endorsements youve received.

Organizations such as the Wake County Democratic Party, North Carolina Asian Americans Together, Equality NC, NC State AFL-CIO, and the Sierra Club have all endorsed me for re-election.

Additionally Ive been endorsed by Congressman Wiley Nickel and Congresswoman Deborah Ross; by NC House Representatives Maria Cervania, Ya Liu, and Julie von Haefen; NC Senators Gale Adcock and Sydney Batch; Wake County Commissioners Don Mial, Matt Calabria, my former colleague Cheryl Stallings, and Vickie Adamson; my current colleague Audra Killingsworth and 15 other local elected officials from around Wake County and the state.

These endorsements reflect the broad support and trust I have earned from leaders and organizations dedicated to our communitys well-being.

If there is anything you would like to add, please do so here.

Throughout my time serving on the Town Council, Ive earned a reputation as someone who genuinely puts in the work. Im committed to being responsive to your questions and concerns, ensuring that your voices are heard and valued.

Moreover, I bring a data-driven approach to every conversation, underpinned by a deep understanding of the issues. Im known for my level-headedness and calm demeanor, qualities that enable me to make well-informed decisions that benefit our community.

As you consider your choices for Town Council, please remember that you can select two candidates. I hope to earn your trust and be your first choice. However, if you have another candidate in mind as your first choice, I humbly ask to be your second. I am committed to working collaboratively and effectively, no matter the outcome, to serve the best interests of our residents. Your trust and support are greatly appreciated.
This article was originally published in Rhode Island Current.

New standardized test scores for Rhode Island students in grades 3 through 8 made public Wednesday show modest gains in reversing pandemic declines for math and English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency last year.

But improvement at the elementary and middle school levels on the 2023 Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System (RICAS) was tempered by PSAT and SAT results for grades 10 and 11 respectively. Nearly half of students taking the SAT last spring met expectations for high school ELA, but slightly more than 25% demonstrated proficiency in math.

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That said, Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green still saw cause for celebration in shrinking the gap between the lagging test scores of Rhode Island students with their counterparts in Massachusetts  which leads the nation in math and reading. Since 2018, the performance gap has shrunk from 21% in math to 11% and from 17% to 9% in ELA, according to the new data from the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE).

Rhode Island Commissioner of Education Angelica Infante-Green (Janine L. Weisman/Rhode Island Current)

This is the closest we have ever been as a state. Thats pretty amazing, Infante-Green said during a virtual presentation to share results with reporters Tuesday morning after holding sessions earlier and the previous day with groups of school superintendents.

The data was reviewed by Gov. Dan McKee last Friday. In a statement, McKee said the 2023 RICAS results show Rhode Island schools moving in the right direction to meet his goal of meeting or surpassing Massachusetts performance by the year 2030.

Our students can perform at high levels, and we must stay the course and make sure our school communities have the support and resources to thrive, McKee said.

A 2022 analysis by the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment suggested it would take three to five years of accelerated learning for student achievement to return to what it was pre-pandemic. To at least match Massachusetts on test scores, McKee has launched his Learn 365 Initiative, which has distributed nearly $3.8 million to communities that signed compacts committing to creating out-of-school learning opportunities. RIDE was scheduled to hold sessions with city and town officials to review test scores on Wednesday.

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The state saw a second year of significant growth in math proficiency with an approximate 2.7 percentage point increase this year, and an increase in English Language Arts (ELA) of approximately 2%.

Among all grades taking the RICAS, fourth graders saw the highest increase in proficiency in both math (from 30.2% to 36.0%) and ELA ( 29.0% to 33.3%)

Fifth grade math proficiency went from 25.9% to 30.0%. Math scores dropped for third graders by half a percentage point to 34.5%

Seventh graders saw a 0.2% drop in ELA proficiency to 29.0%.

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Science of Reading Push Helped Some States Exceed Pre-Pandemic Performance

Across all racial and ethnic groups, ELA scores increased over last year. In math, all but one racial and ethnic subgroup performed higher. The exception was the Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders subgroup which dropped one percentage point, a small demographic of only 93 students, of 0.16% of the 59,272 third through eighth graders tested, Infante-Green said.

One-third of Rhode Island students in grades 3 through 8 meet or exceed expectations in English Language Arts. Nearly one in three do so in math. (Rhode Island Department of Education)

Participation rises, high school math scores fall

Increasing the number of students taking the PSAT and the SAT every April is considered the first step toward ensuring more students are college and career ready.

A total of 9,430 11th graders across the state took the SAT for mathematics, or 94.1%, up from 91.9% in 2022. The lowest rates of participation were at Providences Mount Pleasant (81.9%) and Central (82.1%) high schools and Woonsocket High School (82.5%)

The percentage of high school students meeting or exceeding expectations in math on the SAT remained flat statewide at 25.3% while those not meeting expectations increased 1% to 38.5%. In 2022, 30.8% of 11th graders did not meet expectations for math.

A total of 9,384 high school juniors, representing 94.4% of the states 11th graders, took the SAT for ELA/Literacy, up from 92.3% in 2022. The new results show 49.1% met or exceeded expectations, up from 47.1%, while 29.1% of students did not meet expectations, down from 30.8% in 2022.

The percentage of high school sophomores taking the PSAT increased over the past year from 90.5% to 92.4% in math and 91.1% to 92.9% in ELA. Statewide math scores dropped from 29.2% proficient in 2022 to 27.2% proficient this year. Statewide ELA results show 55.3% of students met or exceeded expectations, a drop from 59.2% proficient in 2022.

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Helping Teachers Bring the Science of Reading to Life in the Classroom

Those were our kids that were in 8th grade when the pandemic started and were seeing that impact, Infante Green said of high schoolers who had to struggle with the effects of lockdowns and social distancing during a pivotal year in their education and development. Its pretty consistent across the nation.

Results showed a drop in the percentage of students in foster care taking the SAT, from 75.9% in 2022 to 71.8% in 2023, and from 80% to 76.4% who were homeless. The state saw a significant increase in American Indian and Alaskan Islander students taking the SAT, from 83.3% to 88.6%. More students with disabilities also took the SAT from 83.4% to 85.8%.

Multilingual learners

There was a 0.5% increase in multilingual students taking the ACCESS assessment, which tests students in four language domains: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Student results are categorized in six levels: Entering, Emerging, Developing, Expanding, Bridging and Reaching. The percentage of students scoring at the Expanding and Bridging levels rose 0.3%.

Bright spots

Tiverton saw ELA proficiency rise significantly districtwide, a 10% increase to 47.3%. In Coventry, students proficient in ELA rose 5.2% to 39.2%.Significant gains in ELA proficiency were made at Providences Leviton Dual Language School, from 12.3% in 2022 to 29.6% this year; Richmond Elementary School from 49.4% to 66.5%; and Wyman Elementary School in Warwick, 24.7% to 41.7%.Math proficiency increased the most at West Kingston Elementary School in South Kingstown (20.7% to 47.3%); Norwood School in Warwick (18.0% to 38.5%) and Woodridge School in Cranston (31.9% to 48.9%).

RIDE will offer families Personalized Individual Student Reports that include individualized informational videos accessible through a QR code. The videos are available in 10 languages and help provide insight for comparisons to school, district, and state performance. Examples of the student report videos that families will be able to access and additional informational resources for assessments can be found on RIDEs website.

Rhode Island Current is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com. Follow Rhode Island Current on Facebook and Twitter.
Texas is a beacon of freedom among red states. Many Texans embrace choice, responsibility and liberty. Its time now for the Legislature to match these values and their passion and enact education freedom in the form of education savings plans, or a voucher-like program, as its commonly called.

When it comes to other parts of modern life, Texans have plenty of options. They can shop at H-E-B or Trader Joes; they can order from Walmart, Amazon Prime or FedEx. In America, choice, competition, and the consumer, completes the trifecta of capitalism. Competition forces sectors to improve because Americans generally tend to only put their time, money and energy into what best serves them.

Texans would balk if the state government issued an edict that forced them to shop at Central Market when a more inexpensive option is nearby. Theyd probably riot if the government forced young people to go to the University of Texas instead of Texas Christian University.

Why would you support choice in every arena but K-12 education? Corey DeAngelis said at a panel discussion on the issue hosted Tuesday by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in conjunction with Texas A&M University Law School. DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, made a solid case for expanding the current roster of school choice in Texas to include public funding for parents who want to send children to private schools or to home-school.

Gov. Greg Abbott has the Legislature in a special session to address the issue. Its time for lawmakers to come to a deal. Texas parents deserve to be able to use their tax dollars toward a form of education that works best for their kids, just like they use their own funds to shop at whatever grocery store fits their taste and budget.

Last week, the Senate approved a bill that would provide about $8,000 in taxpayer dollars to each eligible student to subsidize private school tuition or other education costs. This seems like a steal given that public schools in Texas spend nearly $16,000 per student and still, many are struggling academically and teachers have gotten a raise in years. Texas is ranked 19th nationally for K-12 education, according to one survey that measures multiple factors, not just achievement. Not bad, but not great, either.

DeAngelis opponent, Scott Milder, founder of Friends of Texas Public Schools, suggested repeatedly that taxpayer dollars should not go toward the private good of some instead of the public good for all. Milder brushed off suggestions that kids were struggling to learn the basics in Texas schools, remarking that standardized tests dont measure learning as well as graduation rates and other factors.

While DeAngelis also agreed STAAR exams werent the best mechanism for testing a childs knowledge, there were still several significant differences between the two viewpoints that school choice actually resolves.

If, in the opponents perspective, Texas schools are doing great and kids are learning at rigorous levels, implementing broader school choice for parents will change very little: Schools doing great will continue to do so as parents opt to send their children there.

If, as many Texas proponents of school choice suggest, some Texas schools dont serve children well enough, either due to lack of academic rigor or some other metric, school choice wont hurt those kids, either: In the most extreme cases, very poor Texas schools would shut down due to no attendance and good schools will thrive. Mediocre schools will strive to do better, too. This is the double-edged sword of capitalism.

Public schools rarely close due to school choice, especially not rural ones. Rural House Republicans, however, are typically the holdouts when it comes to passing school choice. This seems hypocritical at best: There are likely not enough private options in the communities anyway, yet they claim school choice will hurt the public schools already there? Thats not persuasive.

If parents like their public schools, as DeAngelis said Tuesday night, they can keep their public schools. If anything, rural schools will continue to thrive as parents will be unwilling or unable to send their kids to a private school located some distance away.

Milder repeatedly stated that school choice was antithetical to conservative values, calling it irresponsible. But choice coupled with competition is key to the free enterprise system that undergirds modern conservatism. Texas parents should, once and for all, have the liberty to choose where their kids go to school, according to their needs, not their ZIP codes.

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AUSTIN  One of the developers of a sprawling and fast-growing subdivision in rural Southeast Texas pushed back with force Thursday against a narrative gaining traction in conservative media and advanced by Gov. Greg Abbott that the region has become a haven for undocumented immigrants, gangs and human-traffickers.

John Harris, who with his brother Trey began building what is now known as Colony Ridge in unincorporated Liberty County in 2011, told the Texas House State Affairs Committee that their customers are primarily first-time property owners, often with limited credit histories.

But, Harris said, they are also responsible for pumping about $40 million annually into the coffers of the local taxing districts and that their property association dues help pay for 10 sheriff's deputies to patrol the 30,000 acres where about 40,000 people live.

"So the most important thing we did for our customers was provide financing that they couldn't get anywhere else," Harris told the panel. "And that allowed them to become property owners, and that allowed us to grow."

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Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, and Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, listen to Liberty County Judge Jay Knight during the House State affairs committee as they meet to discuss the Colony Ridge development at the Texas Capitol Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.

Harris, along with Liberty County Sheriff Bobby Rader and County Judge Jay Knight, was called to the Capitol because Abbott is asking lawmakers to enact "legislation concerning public safety, security, environmental quality, and property ownership in areas like the Colony Ridge development" during the special session he convened Oct. 6.

The Colony Ridge controversy caught fire in recent weeks after several conservative news outlets published articles describing the development in headlines as "a magnet for illegal immigrants" and as one of "murders, cartels, squalor." Abbott in late September described the area to conservative radio host Dana Loesch as "a no-go zone," meaning law enforcement officers won't patrol there, and said he ordered troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety to patrol Colony Ridge.

However, other news outlets published on-the-ground reports quoting residents and local officials telling a different story. Colony Ridge, they said, was not unlike countless other rural communities that crop up outside of the reach of city zoning ordinances where double-wide pre-fabs neighbor modern construction, and where residents keep livestock and dogs roam without leashes.

After hearing Harris' testimony, where he acknowledged that some homes "are not beautiful" but that water and sewer lines along with high-speed internet connections extend to each property, Republican state Rep. Jay Dean of Longview wondered aloud why the local concerns of Colony Ridge was taking up the Legislature's time.

Rep. Senfronia Thompson. D-Houston, poses a question for the developers as they discuss the Colony Ridge development during the House State affairs committee at the Texas Capitol Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.

More: 'Our taxes shouldnt be paying for discrimination': School choice opponents rally against SB 1

"I mean, we have a lot of major issues to deal with in this state," Dean said. "We preach local control here. And it sounds like local (officials) did everything they were supposed to do it in this development. And now you stepped on the wrong toes or something, it would appear to me, and here we all sit."

Even though addressing the Colony Ridge matter is part of the special session that ends early next month, no related legislation has been filed as of Thursday.

While Harris was testifying, Attorney General Ken Paxton released a letter he sent to several Texas Republican congress members where he described the development in far starker terms. He said residents from nearby communities have alerted his office to complaints about the rapid growth of Colony Ridge, saying it "appears to be attracting and enabling illegal alien settlement."

The scale of the Colony Ridge development has proved unmanageable for effective law enforcement and other key standards of acceptable governance," Paxton wrote. "Violent crime, drug trafficking, environmental deterioration, public disturbances, infrastructure overuse, and other problems have plagued the area and nearby towns."

But Rader disputed many of those assertions. He acknowledged that his deputies have identified members of some gangs among the residents, but they have seen no gang-related crimes and have made no gang-related arrests in Colony Ridge.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw enters the House State affairs committee as they meet to discuss the Colony Ridge development at the Texas Capitol Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.

Representatives of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said that while Colony Ridge has been cited for sundry violations related to such issues as storm-water runoff and air quality, they were not materially different from other unincorporated neighborhoods in the state.

Speaking with reporters after giving his testimony, Harris said there are likely undocumented immigrants among the residents of Colony Ridge. In applications for financing for land purchases, Harris said potential buyers are not required to give Social Security numbers or to provide proof of citizenship. But he said the development company does not advertise outside of the United States and that many of the buyers are from the Houston area.

"Really the only border that they worry about crossing is Liberty County line," Harris said. "They get to our neighborhood and we are able to provide them with an opportunity to build their lives."

Harris said Colony Ridge is caught in a political "crossfire" and that he's somewhat puzzled by Abbott's decision to single out his development because he and his brothers are longtime supporters who have donated more than $1 million over the years to Abbott's campaign.

"We think Governor Abbott is a good governor," Harris said. But I also know that people make decisions in politics that are confusing to me sometimes, and I just assume there's something going on behind the scenes that that I don't know about. I'm not gonna say anything bad about Governor Abbott. I don't think he's a bad governor."

John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly called Twitter, @JohnnieMo.

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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Colony Ridge not a haven for unlawful immigrants, developer says
MANILA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos left for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday morning to participate in the inaugural summit between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders.

In his departure speech, Marcos said the summit on Friday will discuss "the challenges of major political developments and concrete enhancement of our security, our economic progress and socio-cultural collaboration after more than 30 years of ASEAN-GCC relations."

"This (summit) is particularly important because this is the first interaction between ASEAN and the GCC, both of whom are very vibrant regions in terms of economic development for the globe," said Marcos, stressing the need for the Philippines to be part of the discussions.

According to Marcos, the summit will serve as an important platform for the Philippines to highlight the need for cooperation in energy and food security, logistic, supply chains, digital transformation, the free flow of goods, people, and services, as well as the protection of Filipino workers. An estimated 2.2 million Filipinos are "working in critical fields" in GCC countries.

The relationship between the ASEAN and the GCC dates back to 1990. The GCC comprises Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 
Texas is adding to its border wall to deter migrants from entering the state by constructing a barrier between itself and New Mexico.

Texas installs fencing along NEW Mexico border. Our barriers around El Paso forced the migrants crossing illegally to enter into New Mexico. They then entered into El Paso from there. To end that, we are building a barrier on the New Mexico border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Construction of a wall along the Texas-Mexico border has been in the works for months since Abbott committed to the project in 2021. He has continually posted videos and images of the border wall on X, but last weeks announcement revealing the construction of a wall between Texas and the neighboring state of New Mexico marks the latest step in his Operation Lone Star.

KFOX14 reported earlier this month that members of the Texas National Guard reinforced the wall between New Mexico and Texas with concertina wire  a type of barbed wire that already lines the Texas-Mexico border. Abbott said Texas had plans to build a barrier between the two states during an appearance at the Manhattan Institute last month.

New Mexico and Texas Democrats condemned the action in a joint statement.

Earlier this month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced the placement of razor wire fencing along the Texas-New Mexico border north of the Rio Grande near Sunland Park, NM. This is the latest Operation Lone Star stunt funded by the working Texas familys tax-dollar that will result in environmental damage, community division and injuries of vulnerable migrants, the statement read.

Its clear that Governor Abbott has no plans on actually addressing our broken immigration system head on  but instead adding more fuel to Operation Lone Stars dumpster fire, the statement added.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
McALLEN, Texas (Border Report)  Contaminated drinking water in colonias is drawing new attention to what many say is an old problem for the substandard neighborhoods found on the Southwest border with Mexico.

On Thursday, a faith-based nonprofit teamed up with a major university to announce a comprehensive two-year study of water quality in two colonias in Hidalgo County, Texas.

Tijuana running out of water, turns to California for help

This comes as 10 lawmakers in Congress this week sent a letter to a federal agency requesting $100 million in additional funds in Fiscal Year 2024 to expand the EPAs U.S.-Mexico Border Water Infrastructure Program (BWIP), which helps to develop infrastructure projects on both sides of the border to improve water conditions.

Our southern border states are home to 2,000 colonias, many of which lack basic infrastructure

like water and wastewater services among others. In Mexico, urbanization, geography and

inadequate wastewater infrastructure have led to untreated sewage, trash and sediment routinely flowing into the U.S. through shared waterways. This program is designed to aid those

communities, on both sides of the border, read the letter sent Tuesday to the Office of Management and Budget from U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from South Texas.

Also signing the letter were these border lawmakers:

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico

U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona

U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas

U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas

U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Texas

U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Arizona

U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-New Mexico

Clean water doesnt necessarily mean clean water in the colonias, Jaime Wesolowski, president and CEO of Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas Inc., told Border Report on Thursday. A lot of the colonias have water that theyre using as clean water, but they are laced with arsenic, lead, uranium and other contaminants.

Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas and Texas A&M University are conducting an aggressive two-year study of colonia water by testing samples for a half dozen suspected main contaminants. The colonias are located in the rural San Carlos community, east of the town of Edinburg; and near the town of Progreso, officials said.

Jaime Wesolowski is president and CEO of Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas Inc. (Sandra Sanchez/Border Report)

Methodist Healthcare is funding the project, but Texas A&M University School of Public Health will oversee all the data collection and research, Wesolowski said after a panel discussion held about the new project at a Methodist church in McAllen.

Once we have this data I believe it will force legislators who have a conscious to do something about this, Wesolowski said. Bring clean safe water to the colonias along the Rio Grande Valley.

New segment of state-funded border wall raising safety concerns in tiny South Texas town

The study will include local high school students procuring water samples that are to be analyzed, as well as interviews with area residents and leaders. Regular updates and town hall meetings, held in English and Spanish, also will be part of the study, they said.

The final data, however, wont be ready in time for this current 88th Texas Legislature, which began earlier this month. They are targeting the 2025 Legislature, Wesolowski said.

Well have facts to bring to the community to educate our legislators on. And we hope that our local legislators here in the Rio Grande Valley can then partner with us and take those facts to the legislature in the 2025 session and try to get some funding from the state to come here and do what is the right thing to do. We cant have families thinking theyre using clean water that are laced with arsenic, Wesolowski told Border Report.

Arsenic is naturally found in the South Texas soil, and in the soil in northern Mexican border towns, A&M scientists said. But it is widely known that higher levels are found in colonias, which currently have unregulated water supplies, and often rely on private well water.

Arsenic can cause cancer, heart disease, and cognitive and other health disorders, including developmental delays in children, they said.

This has been going on for decades, the panelists said, adding that they hope these findings will support the widely held theories about contaminated drinking water in these communities and will force a change in Texas laws to make tougher regulations and improve water quality conditions.

Arsenic is naturally found in the soil of South Texas, but can cause cognitive and health disorders. (Sandra Sanchez/Border Report File Photo)

We are doing our best to give the information back and let them use it in whatever form they want to help leverage this for improved conditions for healthier Texans, said Garett Sansom, of Texas A&M, who will be leading the research.

Over 125,000 still without water in border town of Laredo, Texas

The lawmakers who signed the letter to OMB this week wrote that clean water on the border must be taken more seriously by lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to help border residents.

Currently, over 600 colonias in Tijuana and Rosarito, Mexico, south of San Diego, are running out of water due to drought and poor infrastructure, and are asking the San Diego County Water Authority for help.

We must prioritize funding for BWIP to meet the needs of colonia residents who lack basic services, and to meet the broader needs of the border, including first-time water hook-ups and sewage infrastructure, Cuellar said.

To date, 137 projects have so far been financed using U.S.-Mexico Border Water Infrastructure Program funds, including 69 in the United States and 68 Mexico, Cuellar said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
A plan to give House speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry, R-NC, the power of the speaker drew opposition from several Texas Republicans in the U.S. House. Credit: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

WASHINGTON  Several Texas Republicans oppose a proposal to install a temporary speaker of the House, insisting Thursday that their party should keep working to elect a permanent leader.

I don't want to empower someone that wasn't elected the speaker to have speaker responsibilities, U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Sherman, said Thursday outside of a Republican conference meeting on selecting the next House leader. Hell no. Hades no!

Weve never empowered a Speaker-pro-tem with full powers w/o having chosen a duly elected Speaker, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, said on social media, adding that having House Republicans join Democrats to do so not only raises constitutional concerns, but represents an unforgivable step to coalition government & likely decimation in 2024.

That just kicks the can down the road, U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Richmond, said outside the conference meeting. I like the idea of staying in there, take your jackets off, pack some lunches, get some bag lunches in here, and we don't eat there till we get a speaker. How about that?

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, proposed giving speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry of North Carolina the full powers of the speaker while the party deliberates on who should take the gavel for the rest of the congressional session. Jordan, the leading Republican candidate for speaker, failed twice to achieve the House majority needed to secure the position.

McHenrys powers are currently limited to overseeing the selection of the next speaker.

Empowering McHenry would allow the House to act on legislation, which is currently paused without a full speaker. Members of both parties expressed deep concern about the legislative standstill, with federal funding expiring in less than a month and Israel requesting military aid in its war with Hamas.

Still, Fallon estimated that about two-thirds of House Republicans oppose the plan, saying it would essentially hand power to the Democrats. The move would require considerable buy-in from Democrats to reach the 217-vote majority needed to pass.

Several Republicans warned that doing so would be indefensible to constituents who voted for a GOP House majority. Several who voted against Jordan for speaker also reported receiving death threats to pressure them to support the Republican front-runner.

How many phone calls need to be made for the Establishment to realize that the people want JORDAN? Rep. Keith Self, R-McKinney, posted on social media. They do not want: A temporary speaker [or] Deals cut with Democrats.

But by Thursday, there was no other immediate path forward. Twenty Republicans declined to support Jordan in the first election for speaker Tuesday. That number grew to 22 in the second round Wednesday. Jordan canceled a third vote Thursday to stem the hemorrhaging, calling a conference-wide meeting where he announced a plan to empower McHenry.

Empowering McHenry would be a temporary measure to give Jordan time to whip more votes to become the full speaker. Republicans who support the measure were divided in how long McHenry should be empowered, with some saying he should have authority until January and others floating a November date  just enough time to pass federal funding legislation.

Federal funding has played a central role in the opposition to Jordan. The three Texas Republicans who voted against Jordans bid  Reps. Kay Granger, Jake Ellzey and Tony Gonzales  are members of the House Appropriations Committee, which allocates federal money for government programs. Granger is chair of the committee and has a strong working relationship with her Democratic and Senate counterparts.

Jordan, on the other hand, has made his mark in Congress advocating for drastically slashing government spending.

Its no secret that Washington likes spending money and so fiscal conservatives sometimes may have a hard time, said U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Victoria, a deeply conservative member of the Appropriations Committee who supported Jordan.

Ellzey, Gonzales and Granger have avoided discussing the speaker race.
This is a photo of an empty classroom with a United States map and world map on the wall.

This article was originally published in The Texas Tribune.

The Texas Senates main school voucher proposal this special session, which was given approval in the Texas Senate on Thursday, closely resembles two of the biggest such programs in the country.

Like in Arizona and Florida, Senate Bill 1 would create a voucher-like program known as education savings accounts. It would give families access to taxpayer money to pay for their childrens private schooling, be open to most students in the state and prioritize disabled and poor students if there are more applicants than funds available.

In some aspects, the bills architects took notes from those programs mistakes. In an effort to prevent fraud and misuse of funds, which has been a problem in Arizona, the Texas proposal doesnt give parents direct access to the cash and requires the comptrollers office to audit participants accounts.

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In other areas, Texas repeated ideas that garnered criticism in other states. Critics across the country point out that private schools receiving state funds through existing voucher programs arent required to show that students are succeeding academically, like public schools are. And like in other states, voucher supporters in Texas say thats by design. Sen. Brandon Creighton, a Republican from Conroe and SB 1s author, has argued that the market will weed out underperforming private schools.

Those voucher programs in other states also sparked vigorous debates, came with the same promises and faced similar concerns, providing a window into the impact they might have in Texas once enacted. The Arizona program, for instance, confirmed critics concerns that it would require increasingly larger amounts of funding as it grew  just like opponents in Texas fear. But it hasnt led to a mass exodus of students from public schools.

Heres how education savings accounts have performed in other states.

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Arizona and Florida

Education savings accounts started propping up around 2012 and currently serve more than 90,000 students across the country, according to EdChoice, a nonprofit organization that advocates for these policies.

There are 13 education savings account programs nationwide and 31 states  plus Washington, D.C.  offer some sort of voucher program that allows children to use either taxpayer money or tax-credit donations for private schooling.

To date, Arizona and Florida have the largest and most expansive education savings account programs in the country, where almost any child is eligible.

Arizona  which has set the standard for education savings accounts, according to EdChoice  began with a limited version of the program in 2011 that only served students with disabilities. It expanded this year and opened its doors to virtually every child in the state.

In 12 years, enrollment in the program grew from about 150 students to over 60,000. The Arizona Department of Education believes it would need $900 million by June to cover 100,000 students in the program. What once was a small program is now expected to balloon to nearly $1 billion.

Meanwhile, the states public school funding per student continues to rank at the bottom when compared to the rest of the country.

Carrie Sampson, an assistant professor of educational leadership and innovation at Arizona State University, argued that the money being poured into this program couldve been used to increase funding to the states public schools.

Earlier this year, Floridas education savings accounts were also expanded to include virtually every child. More than 170,000 new students  most already enrolled in private schools  have been admitted to the program, making it the biggest in the country.

Florida launched its program in 2014 focused on students with disabilities. The state launched another education savings accounts program that prioritized low-income families in 2019.

Analysis and data show that this school year about $1.5 billion will be diverted from Florida public schools to private schools as students leave.

Plenty of families have lauded education savings accounts in both states for giving them access to other educational opportunities. But the programs have also attracted criticism for their loose financial oversight and for not requiring private schools to report student test scores or meet the same academic standards as public schools.

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Arizona parents have spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on fraudulent and questionable purchases, including buying chicken coops, trampolines and tickets to SeaWorld. The problems stemmed from the practice of sending program funds to participants through debit cards issued by the state, said Tom Horne, the Arizona superintendent of public instruction.

Horne, a Republican, said the program has phased out debit cards in an attempt to curb misuse of funds. Now, parents log on to a website where they can browse through pre-approved vendors and choose the services they need, which allows the state to approve the purchases.

We want the program to be administered totally within the law and the money can only be used for educational purposes so we can prove that its a successful program both for Arizona and for the country, since other people are looking to us as an example, he said.

In Florida, flat screen TVs, paddleboards and entry to Disney are approved educational expenses. Critics there say thats not how taxpayer money should be used; defenders of the program say education has evolved and those can be justified expenses.

Who uses the funds is also a concern for those against education savings accounts. In Arizona, as in Texas, the program was promoted as a way for low-income families who might feel confined within the public education system and want to explore other educational options for their children. But after the program expanded, the Arizona education department found that 75% of those in the program were not previously enrolled in public school, meaning they were already home-schooling, enrolled at a private school or had never entered the school system.

The Grand Canyon Institute, a non-partisan think tank, echoed those findings and estimated that 45% of applicants were among the wealthiest quartile of students in the state.

Horne admitted that most of the money went to families already at private schools jumping into the program to get financial help from taxpayers. But he projects that the distribution of funds will eventually balance out as more families not in private schools apply.

And while program supporters promote them as a tool to help students with disabilities get a better education, only 17% of education savings accounts in Arizona have gone to students with disabilities, according to the Arizona education department.

Arizona does not provide data on demographics or income for those enrolled in the program.

Texas

SB 1 would allow almost all Texas families access to $8,000 of taxpayer money to pay for private schools and other educational expenses such as uniforms, textbooks, tutoring or transportation, among other things.

Texas would become the third largest provider of education savings accounts in the country if the bill is approved with its current eligibility requirements and budget. It could serve nearly 60,000 students.

Educating the next generation of Texans is a fundamental responsibility, and it is my belief that empowering parents with school choice will encourage competition, innovation and ensure that every student in Texas has the opportunity to find an educational path for their unique needs, Creighton said in a statement.

SB 1 seeks to address some of the problems the Arizona and Florida programs have had.

The bill would allocate $500 million from the states general revenue fund for the next two years to pay for the program. The state comptrollers office would establish and administer the savings accounts; be in charge of preventing fraud and misuse of funds; and hire a contractor to help process applications and approve vendors and participating private schools.

In addition, the bill would require the comptroller to compile an annual report that would include how many students are in the program, the number of applications received or waitlisted, feedback from users, public and private school capacity, and how many kids are considered ready for college, the military or a career after graduating in the program.

The legislation would also mirror much of what Florida and Arizona are already doing.

While almost any child is eligible for the program, SB 1 has a prioritization system if applications exceed the funding. To prioritize entry to underprivileged groups, the bill proposes that no more than 40% of spots be reserved for students who receive free or reduced lunch; no more than 30% for families who earn between 185% and 500% of the federal poverty line; no more than 20% for students with disabilities; and 10% for all other applicants who attended public, private or home-school in the last school year.

The prioritization system has garnered criticism though. Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, said the no more than language implies there will be a cap on how much funding goes to underprivileged applicants, instead of prioritizing them.

And like programs in other states, the bill does not require private school students to take a state-administered academic achievement exam, something that school voucher critics in the Texas Legislature have said an education savings account proposal should have to even consider it.

Creighton says that the program will not siphon money away from public schools  a recurring criticism of school voucher programs  as the funding comes from general revenue, not the Foundation School Program, which is the main source of funding for the states K-12 public schools.

But according to the bills financial analysis, school districts are set to receive less money as students sign up for education savings accounts and leave public schools. School districts in Texas receive funding based on student attendance.

Research

School vouchers  a term used to describe government programs like education savings accounts that provide taxpayer money to pay for childrens private schooling  have been a goal of conservative, free-market groups for decades.

Plenty of research has been produced on these programs. Creighton himself has cited research from EdChoice that shows vouchers have a mostly positive impact on student scores.

But research on vouchers is often contentious, with studies ranging in methodologies, sample sizes and demographics. Donors advocating for and against these programs have directly funded their own research.

The Texas Tribune looked at independent research and spoke to experts who have studied voucher programs for decades. For the most part, studies suggest that test scores go down for students in such programs, especially in math. This has been the case in states like Indiana and Louisiana.

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Some research from the Journal of Economic Literature suggests that there is a case that, as competition from voucher programs ramped up, test scores in public schools slightly improved. But there isnt enough evidence to suggest vouchers are the main reason for improved outcomes.

Patrick Wolf, a proponent of vouchers and a distinguished professor of education policy at the University of Arkansas, said hes found that test scores among students in voucher programs have been mixed but tend to have a slight positive tilt.

But in 2016, Wolf and his colleagues found that within two years after Louisiana expanded its limited voucher program to all students, there were substantively large negative effects on math scores of students in the program. Louisiana first only offered vouchers to students in low-performing public schools.

Wolf attributed the decline in academic achievement to Louisianas strict regulations on private schools, like requiring them to take a state assessment. In his research, he found that high-quality private schools did not want the state oversight that Louisiana proposed, leading those schools to opt out of the program.

Results depend on policy design and context, Wolf said.

Wolf believes voucher programs work if they start on a small scale and gradually grow and set up systems to avoid misuse of funds as best as possible.

I dont think many states are prepared to implement a universal school choice program instantly from the jump, Wolf said.

Joshua Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University who has studied school choice programs for more than a decade, said test scores for students in voucher programs decrease in part because of low-quality private schools. Some just open to collect tax dollars, he said, and most of the high-quality private schools cost too much money for parents to afford anyway, often leaving them with few viable options.

Theyre not these elite college, prep type environments, Cowen said. These are sub-prime providers.

In Wisconsin, home of the oldest voucher program in the country, a study found that 41% of all private voucher schools operating in Milwaukee between 1991 and 2015 closed.

Cowen said Texas lawmakers should stay away from voucher-like programs because he still doesnt believe that there is enough credible data that shows vouchers are good for student test scores.

Disclosure: EdChoice and SeaWorld have been financial supporters 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 Tribunes journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/13/texas-school-vouchers-other-states/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Thinning skin and less muscle make it harder to feel warm as you age.

Thinning skin and less muscle make it harder to feel warm as you age.

Theres a reason why you more often rely on cozy blankets or sweaters for warmth as you get older  and its safe to say you arent the only person who feels like youre running colder and colder.

Doctors say having a harder time getting warm is to be expected for people as they age. In fact, its a natural part of aging. Below, experts share why this happens and what you can do about it.

Your skin thins as you age.

The skin thins as we age, it loses some cells, but in addition, it loses fat padding, explained Dr. June McKoy, a geriatrician at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

McKoy equated our skins fat padding to home insulation: Its meant to keep us warm. As we lose some of that padding, our body then loses the ability to stay as warm as it used to be.

This fat loss happens particularly in the legs and arms, said Dr. James Powers, the program director for the Geriatric Fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Centers Center for Quality Aging. So you may notice that these areas, in particular, feel colder than the rest of your body.

You also lose muscle.

We tend to lose ... 3% to 8% of muscle each decade starting at age 30. So by age 65, many individuals have lost 10% or more of their muscle mass, and by age 80, [theyve lost] 30%, said Powers.

Not only does this impact your strength, but it impacts your warmth, too. Muscle is your most actively metabolizing organ ... muscle tissue uses more oxygen and metabolizes and creates the heat that keeps us warm, Powers explained.

Exercise is one way to stay warmer.

Exercise is one way to stay warmer.

Overall, this is a sign of normal aging, but its still important to bring it up to your doctor.

Very rarely, feeling colder can be part of a health condition  so, not part of normal aging, said Dr. Ariel Green, an associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and vice chair of the American Geriatrics Societys clinical practice and models of care committee.

But I think ... its unlikely to have only feeling colder as a symptom of that, Green pointed out.

According to Green, people with diabetes, poor circulation or heart failure, for example, may feel cold, and so may people with hypothyroidism or anemia. But you would likely notice other symptoms first if its the result of an underlying condition, Green noted.

Its good to ask your doctor about it, but not something really to worry about too much, Green said.

There are ways you can combat this issue.

It goes without saying, but blankets and sweaters are always a good way to keep warm  especially as we head into late fall and winter. Additionally, Powers said layering and getting into a warm environment can be helpful, too.

Fitness can also be a big help. You can slow down one of the culprits of that colder feeling  muscle mass loss  by exercising, according to Powers. Plus, its a good way to just feel warmer in general, too.

We all tend to feel colder if were sedentary, and so if you already, with aging, have a tendency to feel colder, just keep moving, Green added.

This could mean going for a walk, a bike ride or doing some simple strength exercises as you sit in a chair. For chair strength training, Green suggests using a full water bottle or can of soup and raising it a few times for an effective workout.

Just doing something to get your blood flowing can help you feel warmer, added Green.

I think the main thing is just move as much as [you] can, Green said. Beyond staying warm, exercise can help with your heart health, mental health and can help reduce your injury risk. In other words, exercise is a win all around.

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President Joe Biden is welcomed by Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on Oct. 18. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) (Evelyn Hockstein / reuters)

Jon Ward is a Yahoo News senior correspondent who has covered national politics for over 15 years.

Youre shifting gears to head into the weekend, so here are the top five political stories worth remembering this week.

The week of Oct. 23 was dominated by news out of Israel, including President Bidens midweek trip to the region and a massive explosion at a hospital in Gaza.

Here are the big stories from this past week, from the war in Israel to the Republican Partys ongoing chaos in Congress to the 2024 presidential race.

President Joe Biden pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center right, to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv on Oct. 18. (Miriam Alster/Pool via Reuters) (POOL New / reuters)

Biden tries to prevent a broader war in Middle East

The war between Israel and Hamas concluded its second week, following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas that killed roughly 1,400 people. Hamas is still holding an estimated 203 hostages, officials said this week.

President Biden visited Tel Aviv on Wednesday to express support for Israel but also to caution the Jewish state against being consumed by rage.

You cant look at what has happened here ... and not scream out for justice," he said. But I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it  After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes."

Israel continues to mass nearly 400,000 ground troops on the border of Gaza ahead of an expected ground invasion. Part of Bidens mission was to prevent other Arab states from being drawn into a wider war with Israel.

People inspect the damage at al-Ahli hospital in central Gaza on Oct. 18. (Dawood Nemer/AFP via Getty Images) (AFP via Getty Images)

Why it matters

Bidens visit to Israel helped shore up Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus domestic support, since many Israelis blame him for failing to prevent the attack.

Biden said it also helped the U.S. secure agreement from the Egyptian government to help facilitate the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza. United Nations officials estimate that thousands of people in Gaza have been killed by Israeli airstrikes over the past two weeks.

Biden had hoped to host a summit with Arab leaders in Jordan to work on avoiding a broader regional conflict. But that was scrapped after an explosion at a hospital in Gaza caused the deaths of hundreds of people.

President Biden delivered an address from the White House Thursday night, to explain why he is asking Congress to approve emergency aid to Israel and Ukraine, and why that matters to U.S. national security.

Good reads on this

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan leaves a House Republican conference meeting about choosing a new speaker of the House, on Oct. 19 in Washington. (Leah Millis/Reuters) (Leah Millis / reuters)

Republicans learning a tough lesson about leadership

Its much easier to criticize than it is to lead. Thats what many of the most hard-line Republicans in Congress are learning the hard way right now.

Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, has been in Congress since 2007 and has never had a bill pass into law. He has spent 16 years in Congress opposing many of his fellow Republicans.

So when Jordan attempted to strong-arm his way into the top spot in the House of Representatives this past week, he had built up enough ill will that almost two dozen Republicans blocked him from winning, despite pressure tactics from his supporters and even death threats.

Why it matters

House Republicans on Thursday debated making Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, a temporary speaker. McHenry is already the speaker pro tempore, having been designated as such by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy after his ouster on Oct. 3. But his powers as such are limited.

Without a functioning speaker, the House cannot approve funding for Israel and Ukraine and cannot pass a budget to avoid a shutdown in November.

Jordan supported making McHenry temporary speaker in an attempt to give himself time to round up votes for himself in the coming weeks. But that move angered a number of House Republicans, who said Jordan should step aside.

The idea went nowhere. So Jordan said he wanted to keep holding votes on the House floor to see if he could get elected speaker.

Good reads on this

Attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty on Oct. 19 to charges of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties, as part of a deal with Georgia prosecutors. (Ben Margot/AP) (AP)

Sidney Powell pleads guilty, will cooperate in case against Trump

Former Trump ally Sidney Powell pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties, a day before her trial was scheduled to begin in a Georgia court.

She agreed to serve a sentence of six years probation, pay a $6,000 fine and write a letter of apology to Georgia residents.

As part of the plea agreement, Powell will now cooperate with the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump and other defendants who are charged with trying to overturn the 2020 electionby Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Why it matters

After the 2020 presidential election, Powell became one of the biggest names trying to help former President Trump overturn the results by arguing that the election had been stolen. These lies led to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters who believed them.

Powells wacky theories of Venezuelan interference with voting machines never had any evidence for them and were easily discredited. She was, nonetheless, invited on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets numerous times, and met with Trump and his advisers in person and on phone calls in the weeks before Jan. 6.

Good reads on this

Former President Donald Trump speaks after returning from a break during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on Oct. 18 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

Trump gets a gag order

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a limited gag order Tuesday that prevents former President Trump from making some types of comments about personnel in the federal criminal case against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Trumps lawyers said they would appeal the ruling, but Trump said it would help him politically.

Why it matters

Chutkans written ruling said that the limits on Trumps speech apply narrowly  preventing him only from attacking individuals involved in the case  to protect the safety of those people and the integrity of the judicial process.

Trump, she said, has made  statements to national audiences using language communicating not merely that he believes the process to be illegitimate, but also that particular individuals involved in it are liars, or thugs, or deserve death.

Good reads on this

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a campaign event in Miami on Oct. 12. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

RFK Jr.'s impact on 2024 presidential race could be small, poll finds

A new Yahoo News/YouGov survey found that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s presidential candidacy would have no real impact on a matchup between President Biden and former President Trump in a 2024 rematch.

Why it matters

When Kennedy relaunched his campaign as an independent, moving out of the Democratic primary, that raised fears on the left and right. Some thought he might take more votes from Biden. Others thought he might siphon support from Trump or the Republican nominee.

In the Yahoo News/YouGov poll, Biden led Trump 44% to 43% if Kennedy does not run, and Biden led Trump 40% to 39% if Kennedy is an independent candidate for president on the ballot. Kennedy received 9% support in the survey.

The poll suggests Kennedy might draw support from both sides at roughly the same level.

Good reads on this
Thousands of IT contractors in US sent millions to fund North Korea missile program: FBI

Thousands of information technology (IT) workers working remotely for U.S. companies have for years sent millions of dollars to North Korea under the radar to fund its weapons program, according to federal prosecutors.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) in a statement Wednesday said authorities seized 17 website domains used by North Korean IT workers in a scheme to defraud the U.S. and foreign businesses, evade sanctions and fund the the countrys ballistic missile program.

This comes on top of the $1.5 million in revenue the workers collected from their victims that was apprehended in January. The department also developed programs and partnerships to deny the IT workers access to their preferred online freelance work and payment service providers, according to the release.

Court documents say North Korea dispatched the workers to live abroad in countries such as Russia and China to earn and funnel money into its ballistic missile program. Their scheme involved the use of pseudonymous email, social media, payment platforms, online job accounts and false websites, officials said.

Investigators also claimed the workers infiltrated computer networks of unwitting employers to steal information and maintain access for future hacking and extortion.

Todays seizures exemplify our commitment to working with our federal and international partners to recognize and disrupt the threat from illicit actors working on behalf of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran said in the release.

These takedowns also serve as reminders to ensure that our private sector partners are equipped and prepared with due diligence measures to prevent the inadvertent hiring of these bad actors across American businesses, they continued. The FBI encourages U.S. companies to report suspicious activities, including any suspected [Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea] IT worker activities, to your local FBI field office.

The companies unknowingly involved in the scheme were not named in the report. The investigation is ongoing.

The news comes as United Nation experts signaled earlier this year North Korean-based working hackers stole record-breaking virtual assets in 2022 that were estimated to be worth between $630 million and more than $1 billion, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Tensions have remained high between the U.S. and North Korea  as the latter has test-fired more than 100 missiles since last year, the AP reported.

In response, the U.S. has expanded its military exercises with Asian countries.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Republican lawmakers say they have been targeted by intimidation tactics, including death threats, from allies of Jim Jordan as his bid for the US House of Representatives speakership falters.

Several Republicans told reporters they had been subject to a pressure campaign by supporters of Mr Jordan, who lost a second vote for the gavel on Wednesday.

Mr Jordan, a right-wing Republican from Ohio, has condemned the threats.

A hardline conservative revolt ousted the last Speaker on 3 October.

A third vote to elect a Speaker may happen on Thursday, and Mr Jordan will need to win around more colleagues in his party to secure the 217 votes needed to win the job.

Mariannette Miller-Meeks, an Iowa Republican, wrote in a statement on Wednesday that she had "received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls" after voting for an alternative to Mr Jordan.

"One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully," she wrote.

Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who is a particularly vocal opponent of Mr Jordan, provided texts to Politico that appeared to show his wife being harassed by a supporter of the would-be Speaker.

"Your husband will not hold any political office ever again," one of the anonymous messages read. "What a disappoint [sic] and failure he is."

Mr Jordan denied any involvement in the pressure campaign.

"No American should accost another for their beliefs," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday evening. "We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together."

"Stop. It's abhorrent," he added.

More than a handful of anti-Jordan Republicans, including Virginia's Jen Kiggans, Kay Granger of Texas and Florida's John Rutherford, complained of inappropriate persuasion tactics from local conservative leaders and right-wing influencers backing Mr Jordan.

"Intimidation and threats will not change my position," wrote Ms Kiggans on X.

Though none suggested Mr Jordan himself was directly involved, some placed blame for the tactics at his feet.

Carlos Gimenez, a Florida Republican, told NBC News he had brought up the matter directly with Mr Jordan, saying: "I don't really take well to threats."

"He told me that he wasn't behind it, and he's asked people to stop, but if you've asked people to stop it why aren't they listening to you?" Mr Gimenez said.

He said his office had been receiving robocalls about his opposition to Jordan.

Arkansas Republican Steve Womack criticised what he referred to as the "attack, attack, attack" tactics of Jordan allies against those lawmakers who have opposed his speakership bid.

And even some of Mr Jordan's allies, including Byron Donalds of Florida, acknowledged that the strong-arm approach may have "backfired".

"I think it was to the detriment of Jim," Mr Donalds told reporters.

The infighting comes after Mr Jordan failed for a second time to gain enough support from his party to clinch the speakership.

On Wednesday, 22 of his fellow Republicans voted against him - two more than did so in the first vote on Tuesday.

As the speakership votes drag on, some have suggested giving acting Speaker Patrick McHenry more powers

There is no end in sight to the leadership battle more than two weeks after Kevin McCarthy was removed as leader of the lower chamber of Congress in a backbench mutiny.

Without a Speaker, the Republican-controlled House is unable to pass any bills or approve White House requests for emergency aid. That includes potential help for Israel amid its war with Hamas.

Democrats, the minority party in that chamber, have been voting unanimously each time for their own leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

As frustration mounts, talk has grown in the House of empowering acting Speaker Patrick McHenry for a temporary period of up to 90 days.
U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson said he received threats after changing his vote for Speaker of the House.

The Republican lawmaker, and representative for District 3, covering parts of West Central Georgia, initially voted to support Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan for Speaker but changed his vote in the second round.

Ferguson said in a statement that while he had supported Jordan to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy, concerns about the threatening tactics and pressure campaigns by Jordan supporters to drum up votes influenced his choice when the House voted again.

Now, according to the congressman, hes facing those same threatening tactics, as is his family.

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The first vote to choose a new speaker, where Jordan was the frontrunner among Republicans, failed when 20 Republicans and every Democrat voted no.

The Republican lawmakers were:

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who voted for McCarthy.

Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who voted for Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn.

Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., who voted for McCarthy.

Rep. Anthony DEsposito, R-N.Y., who voted for former Rep. Lee Zeldin.

Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Texas, who voted for Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif.

Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, R-Fla., who voted for Scalise.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., who voted for Zeldin.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., who voted for McCarthy.

Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, who voted for Scalise.

Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, who voted for Scalise.

Rep. John James, R-Mich., who voted for Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.

Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who voted for Scalise.

Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., who voted for McCarthy.

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., who voted for Zeldin.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., who voted for McCarthy.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who voted for McCarthy.

Rep. John Rutherford, R-Pa., who voted for Scalise.

Rep. Michael Simpson, R-Idaho, who voted for Scalise.

Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., voted for Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who voted for Scalise.

Ferguson said in his statement about the votes that hed discussed his concerns over threats and attacks with Jordan. The Georgia congressman said he originally planned on voting for him again, but as pressure campaigns and attacks on colleagues in the house increased, he instead voted for Majority Leader Steve Scalise , a Louisiana Republican.

When the pressure campaigns and attacks on fellow members ramped up, it became clear to me that the House Republican Conference does not need a bully as the Speaker, Ferguson said.

After voting for Scalise on Wednesdays vote, the Georgia Republican said threats came in.

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Shortly after casting that vote, my family and I started receiving death threats. That is simply unacceptable, unforgivable, and will never be tolerated, Ferguson said.

In the interim after the failed second vote, Jordan urged an end to the attacks and threats against his colleagues in the House.

No American should accost another for their beliefs. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. Its abhorrent, Jordan said in a statement.

With the second failed vote to attain the Speakership, Jordan announced a third vote for who would pick up the gavel would not be held yet.

That means the U.S. House remains frozen and limited in what it can do as a legislative chamber, pending the confirmation of a new Speaker of the House.

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IN OTHER NEWS:
Smoke rises in the sky over Ukraine after Russian attack

Three people were killed and four injured in a Russian air raid overnight on Oct. 1819, the Ukrainian Air Force reported on Telegram this morning.

A 31-year-old woman was killed and four other civilians were injured in a Russian missile strike on Obukhivka village, near the Oblasts capital Dnipro, on Oct. 18.

Two people were killed in a Russian attack on Mykolaiv Oblast late on Oct. 18, which destroyed a local cafe.

Mykolaivs regional governor, Vitaliy Kim, reported another missile strike on the administrative center at about 1 a.m. on Oct. 19, setting fire to a warehouse building at an industrial site. Multiple residential buildings were damaged by the shockwave.

Read also: Debris from downed Russian drone damages Odesa yacht club

A Russian missile strike on Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, caused extensive damage to an infrastructure facility.

Seventeen enemy airstrikes were carried out between 20:00 on October 18 and 05:00 on October 19, targeting industrial, infrastructural, civilian, and military facilities with missiles and drones.

One Kh-59 cruise missile, and three Shahed drones were destroyed by the Air Force and other air defense components of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin speaks during an interview in Bangkok, Thailand, Oct. 15, 2023. (Xinhua/Wang Teng)

BANGKOK, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Thailand is looking forward to further cooperation with China under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in infrastructure and green energy, said Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin.

Logistics is one of the significant issues for Thailand regarding BRI cooperation, Srettha said in an interview with Xinhua before his official visit to China, during which he also attended the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

"Since China is our biggest trading partner, without modern transport methods, goods cannot flow, and we need to improve that," he said.

Thailand, he added, would enhance the connection between its domestic railways and the China-Laos Railway, a flagship BRI project in the region.

During an earlier trip to Thailand's northeastern province of Nong Khai bordering Laos to inspect the China-Laos-Thailand railway connection, Srettha said Nong Khai's status as a transition point could bolster local development.

While the construction of the China-Thailand railway is underway, Thailand plans to upgrade existing railway lines and improve the link with Thailand's largest Laem Chabang Port to boost connectivity, he said.

Green energy is another area where Thailand seeks further cooperation under the initiative, said Srettha.

During the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, Srettha delivered a speech at a forum on green economy and sustainable development.

"We want to attract world-class investors into Thailand, so being able to supply them with green energy is key," he said.

Srettha pointed out that Thailand has become the manufacturing hub of electric vehicles (EVs) as more and more Chinese carmakers have invested in the country with China's world-leading expertise.

He is looking forward to enhancing EV supply chain cooperation with China to "create jobs and make sure that your assembled cars can be made rapidly and conveniently," he added.

Srettha said he would explore further cooperation between the two countries in agriculture, military, trade and investment.

"China is the biggest trading partner of Thailand. And lately has been a major country that made foreign investment into Thailand. We have a long-standing relationship," he said.

On his government's decision to grant a temporary visa-free policy to Chinese visitors, Srettha said the aim is to facilitate the travel of Chinese tourists.

He also believes closer people-to-people exchange would lay a solid foundation for further cooperation between the two countries. 
(Reuters) - Three Palestinians, including two teenagers, were killed by Israeli forces in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank early on Thursday, Palestinian official news agency WAFA said.

Israeli forces stormed the village of Budrus, west of Ramallah, shooting dead a young man, Gebriel Awad, and wounding another, WAFA said.

In other incidents, a 14-year-old was killed by a bullet wound in the head in a refugee camp south of Bethlehem and a 16-year-old succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the town of Tulkarm, the news agency added.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the latest flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Israel is preparing a ground assault in the Gaza Strip in response to a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7.

Israeli forces have carried out their fiercest bombardment of Gaza in response, killing more than 3,000 Palestinians and imposing a total siege on the blockaded enclave that Hamas controls, fuelling anger among Palestinians in the West Bank.

The West Bank is home to the Palestinian Authority (PA) which is dominated by Hamas rivals Fatah and 87-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

It borders Jerusalem, which houses sites sacred to Muslims, Christians and Jews and is a flashpoint for internecine violence. Hamas announced its Oct. 7 attack in part as revenge for Israeli attacks on Muslim worshippers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem's old city.

(Reporting by Hatem Maher and Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Three suspects were held for trial Thursday for their alleged roles in connection to a May 30 triple homicide on the 400 block of N. 5th St., Lebanon

Magisterial District Judge Aurelis Figueroa bound over for trial Ivan Claudio-Rosero, Alex Torres-Santos and James Fernandez-Reyes during their scheduled preliminary hearings at Lebanon County Courthouse. The three men were charged with the fatal shooting of two young children and a 19-year-old male.

Both Torres-Santos and Claudio-Rosero both waived their preliminary hearings.

A memorial was set up on the front porch of where the shooting took place, June 1.

During a short preliminary hearing for Fernandez-Reyes, Lebanon City Police Detective Lawrence Minnick testified that police were dispatched to the N. 5th St. scene May 30 for "a shooting incident with multiple people that were struck."

In speaking with Fernandez-Reyes after his arrest, Minnick testified that he was present for the shooting and was driven there in a white SUV with two other suspects carrying multiple firearms.

"He told me he fired first," Minnick testified Thursday.

On May 30, Joshua Lugo-Perez, along with 9-year-old Sebastian Perez-Salome and 8-year-old Jesus Perez-Salome, were shot and killed by three assailants outside of their home in the 400 Block of N. 5th Street.

Louis Cancel, 33, of Lebanon, was hit in the next-door residence by a stray bullet during the same shooting. Minnick testified that Cancel received one gunshot wound to the abdomen, and was taken to the Hershey Medical Center for surgery.

Police located multiple .223 rifle rounds and 9mm shell casings that showed at least 27 gunshots fired at the North 5th Street home on May 30. Officials said these shots came from two different caliber firearms.

Torres-Santos and Fernandez-Reyes were arrested May 31 after the Lebanon County SWAT team executed a search warrant on the 400 block of N. 9th Street. A search of their residence revealed multiple firearms, including an AR-233 and a secondary weapon, which officials said was consistent with the shell casings located at the scene.

Triple homicide: Two more suspects arrested in Lebanon triple homicide case

Claudio-Rosero, 27, a third shooter, was arrested in a public area in North Philadelphia June 6 after a week-long manhunt for him conducted by local law enforcement, Pennsylvania State Police and United States Marshal's Fugitive Task Force.

Before being arrested May 31, Torres-Santos was on house arrest on bail for two separate incidents, which included violent behavior with firearms. Santos was ordered to wear a house-arrest bracelet. Officials said he wore the bracelet to the shooting, according to Lebanon County Probation Services.

Torres-Santos, Claudio-Rosero and Fernandez-Reyes have been charged with three counts of criminal homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide, along with various gun-related offenses. Torres-Santos and Fernandez-Reyes also were charged with one count of aggravated assault for Cancel.

The district attorney's office will be seeking the death penalty against Torres-Santos and Claudio-Rosero for the fatal shooting shooting. Fernandez-Reyes, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, is not eligible for the death penalty because of his age, according to officials.

Death penalty: Lebanon DA seeks death penalty against Torres-Santos in homicide of two boys and teen

Torres-Santos is being represented by Todd Mays, of Mays & Rotenberg located in Wyomissing. Claudio-Rosero is being represented by Christopher Sarno, of Clymer, Musser & Sarno in Lancaster. Fernandez-Reyes is being represented by Michael Light II.

All three defendants are being held without bail.

This story is ongoing. Please check back with the Lebanon Daily News for updates.

Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at mtoth@ldnews.com or on X at @DAMattToth.

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: 3 suspects held for trial in Lebanon PA triple fatal shooting
A Navy veteran in Charlotte spent years experiencing homelessness after her past deployment.

Now, she has a new ride, courtesy of the Veterans Bridge Home and the National Auto Body Council.

Janee Bennett served three deployments in the Navy.

Janee Bennett

The Auto Body Council said she has been homeless since returning to Charlotte in 2019.

The Councils Recycled Rides Progam refurbished a car so that shed have a reliable way to get around.

READ MORE: Vietnam veteran unknowingly loses home to foreclosure over $2,800 debt

The car, a 2017 Toyota Camry, was donated by Allstate. Maaco Rock Hill technicians refurbished the vehicle for Bennett.

With the help of organizations like these, she has a new apartment, found a job at a local bank, and now has a way to get from her home to her job.

(WATCH: A gift to be free: Veteran gets help for PTSD from Charlotte nonprofit)
Tibu is in Colombia's Catatumbo region, known for being the world's largest area of drug cultivation (Edinson ESTUPINAN)

For months, the mayor of Tibu, a Colombian town under the yoke of guerrilla violence, was forced to do his job from more than 115 kilometers (71 miles) away, after receiving death threats.

Nelson Leal says he had no choice but to leave behind a "no-man's land" under the control of dissidents who distanced themselves from the peace agreement the FARC guerrilla group signed with the government in 2016.

In March, when he had been on the job for 18 months, rebels stopped him on a road and intimidated him in the presence of his wife, his 13-year-old son and a niece. Then they took his car.

That was the incident that finally convinced him he had to leave, Leal told AFP in the city of Cucuta, where he now lives, governing Tibu by telephone

Prior to that experience, another of his sons had guns pointed at him from a motorcycle, as a warning.

But on October 8, Leal finally returned -- under heavy guard -- to the town of 60,000, which is now playing host to long-awaited talks between Bogota and dissident guerrillas who call themselves the Central General Staff (EMC).

The talks kicked off on Monday after a weeklong delay amid rising tensions and several deaths in clashes between the two sides.

Tibu is in the Catatumbo region, largely abandoned by state security forces and heavily contested by a plethora of armed groups.

It is also the municipality with the most drug cultivation in the world, according to UN data, with an area of over 22,000 hectares (84 square-miles) planted with coca, the base ingredient for cocaine -- of which Colombia is the world's biggest producer.

Apart from the EMC, Leal said, guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Gulf Clan -- Colombia's biggest drug organization -- and Mexico's Sinaloa cartel are also active around Tibu, near the porous border with Venezuela

"Tibu has become a no-man's land in which the one with the weapons is the one that governs," he said.

- 'Exiled or killed' -

The Attorney General's office said in September that about a dozen areas in Colombia, including Tibu, were under the control of armed groups that impose their own "rules of conduct."

Anyone who diverts from these "is exiled or killed," it said in a report.

Benigno Neira, a 51-year-old farmer, describes life in Tibu as "complex."

"One has to take heed, obey, in order to live," he told AFP.

Colombia's first-ever leftist president, Gustavo Petro , took office in August 2022 with the stated goal of achieving "total peace" in a country ravaged by decades of fighting between the security forces, leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.

His government is also in talks with the ELN and other armed groups, though progress has been halting.

Critics say Petro, himself a former urban guerrilla, is being too indulgent with the rebels, having offered reduced sentences in exchange for laying down arms, as their former FARC comrades did.

On the other side of the coin, some locals -- many of whom plant coca themselves -- pledge support to rebel groups, which are often the only enforcers of law and order, and source of income.

The EMC -- which had about 3,500 members at the end of 2022, according to official figures -- has steadily increased its presence in territories formerly occupied by the FARC and largely abandoned by government forces.

- 'Maximum responsibility' -

According to Kevin Karlen, a local coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Tibu is one of the parts of the country "most affected by the armed conflict."

The town's police station has an air of being under siege.

In May, two officers and a civilian were killed in a car bomb, and since then, officers leave the station only when "absolutely necessary" -- and then in armored vehicles, according to one, who asked not to be named.

In Tibu, there are no traffic cops. There's no court, no prosecutor's office.

The last head prosecutor based here was murdered in 2021, with an open docket of some 400 criminal cases.

His subordinates all moved to Cucuta out of fear, according to Leal. They return only occasionally to the town "where it is very easy to govern with a rifle," he added.

Monday's talks kicked off with EMC negotiator Andrey Avendano, Leal and government delegates posing for the world's media.

The nitty gritty of the negotiations, which also come with a three-month bilateral ceasefire, have not been divulged.

Petro has urged the EMC's 3,500-odd members to behave with "maximum responsibility" during the process.

das/lv/atm/cjc/llu/mlr/nro
Name: Tigress Sydney Acute McDaniel

Age as of Nov. 7, 2023: 46

Campaign website: linktr.ee/seetigressrun

Occupation: Scientist and business consultant

Education: Bachelors of science in agricultural education and environmental science; masters of science in agricultural economics and rural development; Doctorate ABD in energy and environmental systems and economics; 18 doctoral credit hours in strategic implementation planning in PhD Leadership Studies Program; MFA Equivalent in theatre arts; Juris Doctorate (Law)

Have you run for elected office before?

Yes, I have. I ran for mayor, board of commissioners at-large, and Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor. Unfortunately, primary elections are not highly regarded, and thus I have seldom made it to the general election ballot. This time, however, without a primary election for this seat, I will.

Please list your highlights of civic involvement

I run a social relief organization The Aboveground Railroad, and a philanthropic organization The Southern Hospitality Project, through which I intercede on behalf of those without stable housing and at risk students and their families. My projects have served tent cities, both in Charlotte and Greensboro, and secured stable housing for more than 50 participants, assisted 10 in applying and completing degree programs, among other advocacy efforts and relief services like bus passes, laundry, rain gear, temporary hotel stay, albeit during inclement weather or otherwise. I have served as (1) ombudsman and parliamentarian for civil rights advocacy organizations and (2) fundraising chair and community outreach chair for PTA and social relief organizations.

What are your ideas for improving student performance if elected to the CMS board?

The achievement gaps go beyond just that between Black and white students. CMS schools are considerably diverse. I will advocate for Superintendent Crystal Hills diploma endorsement awareness campaign in ensuring families and, most immediately, upperclass students are aware of the benefits of such undertakings. I will advocate for Dr. Hill incentivizing student achievement overall. Further, it is necessary to survey what classroom factors exactly are the cause for these disparities, and implement action to address those specific hurdles. Id also advocate for recruiting more teachers whose core values hinge upon inclusivity, equity, empathy and varied teaching methodology. Regarding disparities for Black students, the issue of inequitable enforcement of out-of-school suspension need to be addressed, as well. The disciplinary policies are generally straightforward and standardized. Its the enforcement thereof where the problem lies. Inseparably important, I want to survey parents and incorporate their perspective, where proper, to incentivize sustainable student performance. So many environmental factors affect a students performance. CMS needs to ditch antiquated models of engagement and incorporate modern age strategies to boost student morale and improve student performance.

Will you support the $2.5 million bond that will be on the November ballot for school projects? Why or why not?

Although I have the same concerns that many have regarding CMS past misappropriation and mismanagement of funds, I support it. The funding is necessary and CMS priorities need be: (1) upfitting schools/facilities for general safety and environmental sustainability; (2) teacher retention and transformative ongoing learning workshops like that of hiring experts to enlarge teachers effectiveness in classrooms, equity and inclusivity; (3) acquire clean air buses; (4) support school safety regarding school violence, shootings, etc,; (5) and implementation of modern age educational media and acquire devices to ensure our children are ready for the technologically changing world so that in the long-term infrastructural needs will be met. As a scientist and economist with expertise in correcting negative externalities, if the money isnt invested now, CMS and Charlotte will pay exponentially more later in lawsuits, infrastructural remediation, etc.

Whats your opinion on school book bans or decisions to limit the audience for particular titles. And how would you approach the problem if a parent brought a book to your attention?

Books should not be banned, but they should be and are scrutinized. Books should be appropriate for a student/class age and maturity level. Also, the subject matter should be relevant to the lesson. The classroom is not a space for political agendas. That said, however, inclusivity and equity is not wholly political, and thus a childs sexuality, gender, religion, ethnicity and disability should be ethically and objectively regarded in full accordance with prevailing constitutional law. Regarding parents, they already have privy to vet school books, and justly so. If a parent brought a book to my attention, Id draft the reasons that the parent cites for the book being inappropriate or recommended, then allow the parent to review my composition and upon their approval, present it to the board for consideration.

How will you prioritize projects if the bond referendum is approved in November? And how would you approach deciding on major construction needs more broadly?

No single board member is in control, so Id advocate for the priorities I previously answered and lend my expertise to influence the board to prioritize the same. Ill lead them to the science, economics and law that relates to these priorities.

What are your ideas for CMS to foster good relationships with towns and different communities across Mecklenburg County?

Objectivity! I have healthy relationships with people from diverse backgrounds and do not share the same views as I do. The reality is that we share borders and live, work and play in neighboring townships. Me, my son and my mom are no different. We frequent township festivals and events, even government related and already maintain good relationships or healthy interactions with neighboring townships. Weve resided on every side of Charlotte, literally, since moving here in 2015: Steele Creek, both Berewick and apartment living; NoDa; a townhome off Albermarle in East Charlotte, Asbury Flats on Freedom Drive in West Charlotte. I understand the different communities across Mecklenburg County and important issues to them because I likely share/d the same concerns as a community resident. To foster good relationships, those engaged must understand each others perspectives and concerns, and directly observe why they share those perspectives and concerns. I am the best candidate to promote that introspective, inclusive and empathetic approach to foster good relationships with neighboring townships and different communities across Mecklenburg County.

What separates you from you opponents and makes you the best choice on Novembers ballot?

My unrivaled objectivity, inclusivity, equity and interdisciplinary expertise make me Charlottes best choice. Also, I am completely detached from the corrupt and complacent status quo. Our schools should not be politicized. Its torn it apart. We need to restore the quality of primary education for all.
An investigator hired by Sacramentos Ethics Commission has found that mayoral candidate Flojaune Cofer technically violated a city code by raising too much money by June, but that no punishment is warranted. That makes sense. The commission should accept the recommendation of its investigator when it meets on Oct. 23 and clear Cofer to continue her campaign for Mayor of Sacramento.

The relevant city codes and their election calendars are a conflicting mess right now. The City Council should update its codes if the intent is to limit big fundraising until 12 months before the actual election.

Opinion

Cofer faced a complaint by local public affairs executive Steven Maviglio, who went overboard by demanding that she withdraw from the mayors race. City codes clearly state that in an off-election year, mayoral candidates are limited to receiving $67,900. The problem is that the city codes were written for when city elections were in June. But with Californias primary election moved up to March 5, 2024, Cofer was raising money a year ahead of when the election would actually be. But the outdated city codes still considered January through June of this year to be off-election time when money shouldnt be raised.

Cofer reported receiving $158,738 in the first six months of this year. Steven D. Miller, the independent evaluator hired by the ethics commission says that is a violation. However, given Respondents good faith efforts to comply with a confusing Municipal Code scheme, we suggest that any enforcement action would be inequitable.

Based on our understanding of the calendar, one would think that the off-election year prior to a March election would have ended this past March. If that had been the case, Cofers fund-raising would have been just fine. A year, after all, is a year.

It turns out that in all previous city elections over the past decade, the off-election year did end 12 months before the actual election. Why not this time? The City Council forgot to amend the deadline in the code.

Deputy City Attorney Ruyak told us he thought it was an oversight that the City had not changed the definition of the off-election year period... Miller wrote in his evaluation.

And then there is the matter of the official city primary election period, to limit individual campaign contributions. For this election, Sacramentos primary election period ran from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024.

Confused? So was the Cofer campaign last spring. Respondents campaign treasurer, Chelsea Johnson, sent multiple, increasingly frustrated emails to the City Clerks office between April 13, 2023, and July 8, 2023, seeking guidance..., Miller wrote in his report. She didnt get that guidance.

The real lesson of this ordeal is for Sacramento to always have clear and understandable rules and timetables for candidates seeking local office. None of this suggests that Cofer should leave the race. Its only getting started.
As Americas foremost ally in the Middle East responds to a brutal terrorist attack, the Republican-controlled House has been mired in a petty and self-indulgent impasse of its own making. Days before Hamas onslaught against Israel, eight Republicansled by the ever-steady hand of Rep. Matt Gaetzdecided to team up with Democrats and depose House Speaker Kevin McCarthy , without any clear successor waiting in the wings.

Weeks later, the various factions of the GOP conference have proven incapable of uniting around a replacement. The candidacy of Majority Leader Steve Scalise lasted less than 24 hours. As of Wednesday evening, Rep. Jim Jordans effort to secure the speakers gavel had failed twice, halted by different combinations of moderates, Scalise allies, and members of the Appropriations Committee.

Increasingly desperate to break the gridlock, GOP lawmakers are discussing two potential options. They could empower the speaker pro tempore, currently Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, and give the House the ability to resume functioning in a limited fashion. They could also partner with their more moderate colleagues across the aisle to elect a speaker with bipartisan support. Despite relying on Democratic votes, the second path serves Republicans partisan interestsand Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin is best positioned to take up this mantle.

The series of own-goals by Republicans in recent weeks would almost be funny if it werent for their real-world consequences. Israel needs money and arms, but the Housewhich holds the power of the purseis hard-pressed to provide the requisite aid without a speaker. The Ukrainian counteroffensive has also consumed incredible amounts of ammunition and needs further support that a speakerless House likely cant provide. The Biden administration has made clear Congress will have to take the lead on any additional border security efforts, and we are, of course, now less than a month away from the next government shutdown deadline. The Houseand in turn Congressis more or less paralyzed without a speaker. Electing one is critical to passing several urgent pieces of legislation.

In nakedly partisan terms, Republicans also need a speaker who can lead their fundraising efforts over the next year. Whatever his faults, McCarthy was a titan of the fundraising circuit. And with Biden running for reelection, Republicans would theoretically like to cast themselves as an alternative to the chaos that they argue is playing out in the economy and on the world stagebut that pitch makes a lot less sense when the GOP is sowing chaos itself.

Its time for Republicans to get their House in order. And while an empowered speaker pro tempore may remove GOP infighting from the headlinesno small giftwhoever fills that role will be viewed as a placeholder, and wont be able to provide the necessary leadership heading into an election year. Only a genuine speaker of the House can provide enough media cover and build the fundraising juggernaut the conference needs.

Those Republicans who deposed McCarthy are clearly not interested in supporting a consensus candidate willing to pass compromise legislation through a divided government and stake out a general-election friendly GOP message. And its grown increasingly clear in recent days that the firebrand political personalities this faction might supportJim Jordanare nonstarters for the GOPs more pragmatic wing. Given Republicans narrow majority, any candidate looking to hit the requisite 217-vote threshold will therefore need some amount of bipartisan backing: a Republican who can position the GOP for 2024 while also being palatable enough to receive some Democratic support.

Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin is that kind of Republicanand we arent the only ones to think so. Between failed speaker votes on Wednesday, Punchbowl News Jake Sherman reported that the 39-year-old Marine Corps veteran was receiving some encouragement to throw his hat in the ring once it becomes clear Jordan doesnt have the votes. Earlier in the day, GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana had re-upped a piece Gallagher wrote for The Atlantic in 2018. The title? How to Salvage Congress.

If handled delicately, we have no doubt Gallaghers speaker bid would enjoy the support of the vast majority of the Republican conference. He maintains good relationships with his GOP colleagues, and hes consistently been a leading voice for House Republicans, drawing contrasts with the Biden administration on a number of different issuesparticularly the growing threat posed by China. For those concerned with process and top-down governance, Gallagher has also publicly critiqued the excessive concentration of authority in House leadership and advocated for reforms that would decentralize power in the chamber.

Gallagher would undoubtedly face some Republican holdouts due to his criticism of former President Donald Trumpboth on January 6, 2021 and afterbut that very criticism, along with his demonstrated willingness to work across the aisle, could help him attract enough Democratic support to fill in the gaps. Earlier this year, he passed up an opportunity to run for the U.S. Senate in order to continue his work on the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party where, as chairman, he has eschewed messaging bills and partisan soundbites. Instead, he has worked to forge consensus on policy changes necessary to combat Chinas human rights abuses in Xinjiang and deter Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait.

Fundamentally, Gallagher is a serious person. There are many fault lines in Congress, but one that cuts across party lines is the divide between members who want to govern and members who want to be famous. Gallagher is a legislator, not an entertainer.

That is crucial. Recent events should remind us that politics is not a show. Its time enough members of Congress grasp that tooeven if motivated by self-interest and political self-preservationand select a speaker ready to meet the moment, ushering in support for Israel, aid for Ukraine, and a deal to stave off a government shutdown. Gallagher could be that speaker.

Read more at The Dispatch

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I have a theory that the people who own the New York Times are going to make a lot more money on their investment than they had expected. The only thing in their way is the people who work at the New York Times.

Allow me to explain.

The recent controversy about coverage of the explosion at the Gaza hospitalin which the Times and others took a culpably credulous position toward Hamas unsubstantiated claims that the blast was the result of an Israeli airstrike and that it killed nearly 500 peopleoffers only the faintest prefiguration of where the disinformation project is headed. There are five distinct relevant factors at play, none of which has reached its full maturity:

The growth in scope and quality of professional, well-funded disinformation programs; everything from troll farms to more sophisticated creators of counterfeit news. The complementary growth of unpaid, freelance activist disinformation operatives motivated by commercial interests, ideology, racism, religious hatred, and/or nihilism. Social medias ability to successfully bend critical institutionsranging from national newspapers to major political partiesin the direction of servicing their most immediately profitable customers by feeding their appetites for cathartic, performative rage. The generational shift in attitudes among younger staffers at media outlets such as the Times, who believe that their own narrowand often hystericalconception of social justice, rather than journalism, is the true fundamental mission of the institution. This is an attitude they are taking with them as they rise through the org charts. The fact that all of these destructive and warping trends are going to be supercharged as radically more sophisticated generative-AI disinformation operations create a tsunami of lies and bespoke fever dreams that will be large enough to simply overwhelm legitimate journalism and other forms of intellectually honest information-gathering and analysis if allowed to go unchecked.

Media outlets such as the New York Timesand The Dispatchwill have the opportunity to play a critical role in the emerging communication environment by offering a service that hasnt really been fashionable to speak about in technological and media circles since the 1990s: curation. As we discussed on a recent episode of Dispatch Live, the Times does great reporting on any number of important subjects, but it also has real problems when it comes to a handful of very big issues: Israel and the Middle East, the so-called social issues in domestic politics (notably sexuality and guns), and religionespecially in traditional, conservative, orthodox forms. The Times knows this. When he was executive editor, Dean Baquet observed that the paper and its New York- and Washington-based peers simply dont get religion. We dont get the role of religion in peoples lives.

But even where their points of view warp their analysis and disfigure their reporting, institutions like the Times perform an irreplaceable service simply by confirming that particular events either did or did not happen. If a suspect dies in the custody of the New York Police Department, the Times may cover that event in a way that is informed by certain biases, but readers would be shocked to learn that the event simply never happened, that the story was made up for propaganda purposes or just because it was a slow news day. That isnt how media bias works, and it isnt how media sensationalism works.

The ability to simply confirm that a certain purported fact is a fact and to do so authoritatively is already enormously valuable, and it is going to get more valuable every day. The Times, having as it does the most famous and most prestigious brand in American newspaper journalism, is the company best positioned to play that curatorial role when it comes to the biggest stories, the ones that only the major news organizations really have the resources to cover. The news organization that ultimately wins the credibility race will end up, I suspect, being one of the most valuable media companies in the world. That isnt some high-minded, idealistic dreamyou can sell prestige, which is why even now so much of the Times class-war commentary is underwritten by advertisements from luxury-goods firms such as Cartier. But doing all that takes some real workand some real honesty.

The Times account of the Gaza hospital explosion was headlined, Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say. The truncated version that initially appeared on Google News and in many social media posts even omitted Palestinians say. But Palestinians say isnt the kind of cover the Times editors seem to think it is. For one thing, it may very well be the case that there was no Israeli strike and no hundreds dead, and you need more than a sources say to hang an airstrike on. Please note it did not read Missile Strike Kills Hundreds at Hospital; Investigation Ongoing, Commentarys John Podhoretz wrote. The formulation of the headline sentence was designed to make Israel the motive actor, even if the final clause acknowledges it as a Palestinian claim.

The formulation also raises the question of which Palestinians? In this case, the source was a health ministry in Gaza controlled by Hamas, a terrorist organization that is not exactly known for being scrupulous with the truth. The Times headline appeared over a photo of a wrecked building that most readers would conclude was the hospital in questionbut it wasnt. The actual site of the explosion seems to have been the parking lot at the hospital, and experts looking at the evidence have cast doubt both on the claim that the damage was the result of an Israeli bomb or missile strike and the claim that nearly 500 people were killed.

The Wall Street Journal offered this headline, later updated: U.S., Experts Cast Doubt on Palestinian Claims of Israeli Strike on Hospital; analysts say deadly explosion was more likely due to misfire by local militant group, but anger in Middle East builds.

Every newspaperand every reportermakes mistakes. If you arent running regular corrections, you probably arent doing enough work. But genuine errors are random. When the errors follow a particular pattern, generally run in the same way, and almost always serve the political interests of one of the involved parties in the controversy being covered, that is bias. And if it seems to you like the Times Israel-Hamas coverage takes a distinctly sympathetic view of Hamas and a distinctly hostile posture toward Israelespecially when Israel is being governed by a right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahuthen theres a reason for that.

As others have noted, one of the Times reporters named in the byline of the story being discussed here is Hiba Yazbek, who is, by any reasonable account, deeply anti-Israel. She is a former intern for progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan who is vocally and vindictively anti-Israel. Yazbek describes herself as being personally a victim of Israeli policy (mental occupation), has referred to the killing of senior Hamas commander Saber Suleiman by the Israeli military as a murder, declared herself livid over the Hamas commanders death, things of that nature. She probably didnt write the headlinereporters dont normally do thatbut she exemplifies the kind of internal culture that informs how the newspaper covers Israel.

People interested in journalism tend to be interested in politics and have views about public issues. That isnt necessarily a problem, though it can be a problem for reporters who cannot set aside their personal biases enough to do their jobs. But this is an asymmetrical phenomenon: You are not going to find a lot of New York Times coverage of the Middle East written by former Ted Cruz staffers who are members of the Zionist Organization of America. Avi Mayer, editor of the Jerusalem Post, noted yesterday that Israeli media was reporting on a supposed IDF recording of a conversation between Islamic Jihad terrorists confirming that they launched the rocket that hit the Gaza hospital. That recording may or may not settle the issue definitivelybut you can be sure that the New York Times will not report on it with the kind of credulousness that it did Hamas (probably untrue) assertions about the hospital explosion. Obviously, whats needed isnt more credulousness all the way aroundnot a fairer distribution of credulousnessbut less credulousness. You wont get less credulousness from people who simply want to believe what Hamas is telling them.

Rush Limbaugh used to say that hed read something interesting in the New York Times and say, Huh, thats interesting. I wonder if that really happened? That is, generally speaking, hyperbole, a very considerable overstatement of the actual bias problem at the Times and similar institutions. But was there, in fact, an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza hospital? Maybe, maybe not. Was there any airstrike? Maybe, maybe not. Were nearly 500 people killed? Maybe, maybe not. We dont really know. What we know is that there was an explosion and that Hamas has made certain claims about that explosion, which are disputed by Israeli authorities (as one might expect) and also by high-ranking American officials, including the president of the United States.

Sometimes, Hamas claims x really is news all on its own; sometimes, it isnt. But surely claims from Hamas deserve to be treated with the same level of skepticism as claims from, say, Donald Trump, Jerry Falwell Jr., or other members of the Liars Hall of Fame. Treating these liars with skepticism comes naturally to Times writers and editorsit feels good, and, more important, it feels right. Doing the same with Hamas doesnt, for some reason. But consider, for a moment, that a university scientist doing peer-reviewed climate research after receiving a grant from an oil company would be treated with a great deal more skepticism by the New York Times than a group of avowedly genocidal terrorists. That is a weird place to be, intellectually. And not because we should have more faith in the good intentions of oil companies.

If the Times gets so easily wrongfooted by this kind of amateur-level disinformationsimilar claims of official atrocities while at war have been a staple of martial propaganda for centurieshow is it going to deal with the avalanche of radically more sophisticated and voluminous disinformation that is headed its way? I am a Times subscriber, and, like many other readers, I do not count on the Times for a neutral or unbiased account of hot-button issues, but I do count on being able to assume that events I read about underneath that big blackletter T are things that actually happened. That is not the same as things Hamas claims have happened. This matters, because the Times does enjoy that prestige I mentioned above, and for that reason, it has real power to shape readers understanding of public eventswell beyond its own pages.

Add a little bit of intellectual laziness and ideologically motivated analysis into the mix, for example, and you get this statement from Sen. Bernie Sanders in which he writes the bombing of a Palestinian hospital is an unspeakable crime. We dont know for a fact that there actually was a bombing of a Palestinian hospital at all, but Sandersand many otherswrite and speak as though this were an established fact, thanks in part to the credulous headline writers and social media editors at the Times and elsewhere. Sanders may think he is being clever by omitting explicit blame for Israel from that sentence, but that is just intellectual cowardice. I wouldnt put anything past Hamas, but nobody is seriously suggesting at this time that there was, intentionally at least, a Palestinian bombing of a Palestinian hospital; to claim, as Sen. Sanders does, that there was a bombing of a hospital makes the anti-Israel case without going to the trouble of naming Israel.

Some of what Sanders is indulging here is just laziness and stupidity, but some of it is malice. And when the Times headline writers do get pushed into acknowledging the news, the verbal contortions that result are damned well positively hilarious: Biden Affirms Evidence Backing Israels Denial of Causing Hospital Blast.

We can already feel the lack of an authoritative and trustworthy news media in the current environment. That environment is about to get a lot more challenging. One hopes that if the Times cannot rise to the challenge that another outlet can. But theres a lot to stack up to: The Times is as widely known as any newspaper in the world, it currently has two dozen overseas bureaus and employs some 1,700 journalistsand it was founded when there was a Whig in the White House. The arbiter of credibility cannot be a state actor, and the big tech companiesAlphabet, Meta, etc.have even worse internal cultural and personnel problems than the Times does. Among newspapers, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post have names that mean (with apologies to my friends at both papers) almost as much as that of the New York Times, and there are a few non-U.S. players that have something like the necessary standing, the Financial Times and the Economist prominent among them. And, of course, ultimately the work will fall to more than one institutionspecialization will be necessary and desirable. But we need somebody to do what the New York Times pretends to do, promises to do, and, more often than critics might admit, actually does. Like Congress, the New York Times suffers from an excess of self-importance and a deficit of self-respect, both of which undermine its ability to do its job. And the job needs doing.

Click here for more coverage of the war in Israel.

Read more at The Dispatch

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Two men promised to help timeshare owners rent or share their properties but stole millions of dollars from them instead in a sweeping fraud scheme, according to federal prosecutors.

Jess Kinmont and John P. Wenz Jr.s scam business  Pro Timeshare Resales, a Florida limited liability company purporting to promote reselling timeshares  defrauded over 8,000 people of more than $18 million, according to information presented before a federal court in Atlanta.

The men, both of Florida, and individuals hired by their business called timeshare owners across the U.S. while reading scripts and told them someone was interested in buying or renting their timeshares, prosecutors said.

The property owners, including several older Americans, were deceived into believing their timeshares would be sold quickly and paid up to $2,500 in up-front fees for the mens services, according to prosecutors.

However, Kinmont and Wenzs promises to sell timeshares were false  they never sold a single timeshare interest during the five years of the schemes operation, prosecutors said.

After the timeshare owners paid the men up-front fees, the men scammed them into paying more money  including closing costs and other fees  and assured them theyd receive the money from the timeshare buyer or renter, according to prosecutors.

When the owners demanded refunds, they were ignored, prosecutors said.

Now, a federal judge has sentenced Kinmont, 57, of Port Orange to seven years in prison and Wenz to three years and ten months in prison, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced in an Oct. 18 news release.

Their sentences come after they both separately pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy, prosecutors said.

Kinmont and Wenz deserve their time in federal prison for deceiving elderly Americans trying to get out of timeshares Samuel Levine, the director of the Federal Trade Commissions Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement.

As part of their sentences, Kinmont must pay $11,699,376.60 in restitution, and Wenz must pay $4,845,425.88 in restitution, according to prosecutors.

Fritz Scheller, one of the defense attorneys representing Wenz, told McClatchy News in a statement on Oct. 18 that the court imposed a just sentence for his client.

Scheller said the court recognized Wenzs great remorse, as well as the significant changes he made in his life these past seven years and added that Wenz appreciates that the federal prosecutors in this matter litigated this case vigorously but fairly.

As a defense attorney, you cannot ask for anything more, Scheller said.

McClatchy News contacted defense attorneys representing Kinmont on Oct. 18 and didnt receive an immediate response.

Men had to give up property, a Ferrari, diamond ring and more

Kinmont and Wenz ran their timeshare scheme  which district Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. described as breathtaking in scope at their sentencing hearings  between January 2012 and December 2016, according to prosecutors.

In one instance, the men persuaded a victim in Georgia who owned a timeshare in Kissimmee, Florida, to pay Kinmont and Wenzs business on four separate occasions in 2016, an indictment says.

This individual paid $3,716 in fees, according to the indictment.

Another Georgia resident who owned a timeshare in Hilton Head, South Carolina, made five payments to the mens business in 2016 and lost $1,777, the indictment says.

The FTC filed a lawsuit against the men in December 2016, according to an agencys news release issued at the time.

By May 2018, Kinmont and Wenz were permanently banned from running their business and were ordered to give up about $3.4 million in assets to settle the FTCs charges, according to another FTC news release.

At the time, Kinmont agreed to surrender $1.84 million, property valued at $600,000, his Range Rover, a Ferrari, a Bayliner boat and a Rolex watch, the FTC said.

Wenz agreed to give up $215,000 he held in his brokerage and bank accounts, two houses, two trucks, silver coins and a diamond ring, according to the FTC.

Kinmont and Wenzs sentences will be followed by three years of supervised release, prosecutors said.

Postmaster defrauds USPS of nearly $900K in embezzlement and bribery scheme, feds say

Pair turned $1 bills into fake $100 bills with help of bleach and a printer, feds say

Man scammed Tesla out of 5 new cars  and set one he couldnt sell ablaze, feds say

Wells Fargo manager stole over $1M from bank accounts of vulnerable customers, feds say
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  A recent study examining the safest states for high school students ranked Tennessee as one of the least safe in the nation.

The report from Scholaroo, a scholarship search platform, measured the safety of high school students in each state based on a number of crime and safety indicators, such as the percentage of students that carried a weapon onto school property.

Guns leading cause of death among Tennessee kids, report finds

Each metric was given a corresponding weight, which was then used to determine each states weighted average and overall score. The number of incidences of gunfire on school grounds within the last 10 years was a major factor in Tennessees low ranking.

According to the study, Tennessee is among the worst states for school shootings, ranking in at number 44. The only states with more school shootings reported in the last 10 years were Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, California, Georgia and Texas.

The report also showed that high school students in the Volunteer State have a higher exposure to illegal drugs than most states based on the percentage of students that were offered, sold or given an illegal substance on school property.

Compared to the rest of the nation, Tennessee was ranked among the 10 worst states for exposure to illegal drugs.

Monroe Carell Jr. Childrens Hospital seeing more and more firearm injuries, deaths

The state ranked higher when it came to other crime and safety metrics, but still not in the top 10. For instance, Tennessee was ranked 34th in the nation for incidences of bullying in high schools and 41st for cyberbullying.

Although it carried less weight in the states overall ranking, Tennessee was about average when it came to the percentage of high school students who said they feel safe at school. Scholaroos study ranked Tennessee 29th in that aspect.

The study put Tennessee among the top 15 states with statutes and regulations related to school resource officers and their required certification and training requirements. And while incidences of gunfire were high, fewer Tennessee students reported being threatened with a weapon or engaging in a physical fight on school property.

While Tennessee was in the bottom 10 for overall high school safety at number 44, Georgia was the worst, followed by Louisiana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. As for the safest states for high school students, Washington came in at number one, followed by Delaware and Kentucky.

Kentucky had high marks for school safety plans and statutes requiring schools to adopt emergency response plans, as well as a low number of reports of physical fights and weapons found at schools. To view the full study, click here.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
Creating the many types of content needed for large-scale B2B campaigns often results in marketers juggling dozens of tools. This makes it difficult to ensure cohesive messaging across their emails, landing pages and other materials, say the founders of Tofu. The startup wants to solve that problem, especially for small marketing teams, with a generative AI-based platform that creates content for large-scale omnichannel B2B campaigns. The company announced today it has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from SignalFire, Stage 2 Capital and Liquid 2 Ventures.

Based in San Mateo, California, Tofu is currently in beta mode with enterprise customers and has more than 300 qualified leads in its pipeline. It was founded earlier this year by Eunjoon (EJ) Cho, Elaine Zelby and Honglei Liu. Before launching Tofu, Zelby built and led marketing teams at Slack, Consensys and Capriza, while Liu held leadership positions in machine learning at companies like Twitter, Affirm and Facebook. Cho has spent his entire career working with AI, starting with his first job out of graduate school at Google, where he trained language models.

AI has been used for a long time to optimize things like ads and personalized recommendations, but generative AI represents a shift because of how well it can generate content. Tofus team began thinking of use cases from a business perspective.

Marketing is the most obvious one where they generate a lot of content to generate demand, to nurture campaigns, Cho says. Theres a lot of content in marketing in general. We believe that regardless of what Tofu does, how teams create content is going to change.

In between jobs at Google and Facebook, Cho began working on a startup, where he got to experience the pain points of marketing. As an entrepreneur, marketing is not easy. You have to find a way to sell and promote your services. But theres so many marketing tools out there. I always had a big fascination with how to have a better ROI. There has to be a better way to optimize and utilize all these channels.

Before launching, Tofu spoke to more than 100 enterprise CMOs. Many are in charge of teams that need to create thousands, or even tens of thousands, of pieces of content, including landing pages, emails, SDR sequences, e-books, case studies and brochures. They complained that even with all their tools (some use as many as 30), they dont have the resources to hyper scale campaigns.

Tofu founders Elaine Zelby, Honglei Liu and Eunjoon (EJ) Cho

Tofu founders Elaine Zelby, Honglei Liu and Eunjoon (EJ) Cho. Image Credits: Tofu

Cho says the fragmentation of tools, and of teams managing them, means messaging is also fragmented. For example, a company might send out an email with a link to a landing page that were created separately and sound different.

Tofu wants to solve that problem by replacing all the different tools teams use for content, and generating personalized content at scale while keeping it on message and serving as a unified platform for marketing teams.

Tofu got its name from top of funnel (ToFu), a marketing term that means the earliest part of conversion, when a lot of potential leads first become aware of a brand or product. The startup is called that because marketing teams use a lot of tools, the ones Tofu wants to replace, during the ToFu stage, to target specific content and channels.

One of the ways Tofu seeks to ensure its AI-generated content sounds natural and on brand is by first building a Playbook, or AI knowledge graph, for its clients. It does this by scraping customers' websites and marketing materials. Then it uses that data to create three sections. The first is company information, including products and branding, like logos, fonts and colors. The second part is targets, or data from segmented customers like personas, industries and accounts that are further broken down by things like stages of pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. This helps Tofus clients customize their content. The last part is assets, or a file group that can be repurposed. This can include past webinars, podcasts or user research studies that are collectively used as a factory to create content.

A screenshot of AI marketing content creator Tofu's user interface

Tofu's user interface. Image Credits: Tofu

Once a Playbook is created and potential customers are identified, Tofu draws from it to create personalized campaigns. If [a potential lead] clicks on a link, they go to precise landing page just for them. It could be really personalized at the account level, Cho says. But it can be different things. It can be at the persona level, so you have very personalized messaging for different personas and your target. It could be across industries. Weve had campaigns run across 20 different industries.

Cho says the goal of the Playbook is to make sure content generated by Tofu needs the least amount of human interaction, since the campaigns it generates are so large. Imagine youre creating literally 1,000 landing pages targeted for these accounts. We want to make sure by default that its good. So we put in a lot of effort to make sure the quality output is good, what we call default good and default ready to ship. But we always give the users the opportunity to check. Tofu integrates with campaign execution tools like HubSpot and Marketo, so teams can run campaigns created by Tofu on the platform of their choice.

A Boston Consulting Group study shows that 67% of CMOs surveyed have already started using generative AI, and the convergence of marketing and AI is a space that more startups are engaging in. Marketing teams can also build features that enable content creation for campaign execution tools like HubSpot. Cho says that Tofus differentiator from competitors are its core features like the Playbook. Theres already a lot of data that marketers have, everything from their positioning, their messaging, their competitive advantage, their segmentation. You dont have to enter all that. You just need to upload existing data and AI parses that really well.

He added that Tofus other strengths include positioning, since it has focused on enterprises from the beginning. Theres a lot of companies that are going to help solopreneurs or small to medium businesses, but we want to build workflow integrations like secure access controls and build it so software marketing teams can really use Tofu as their resource for all their marketing content and use it on a regular basis.
The series, set on a fictional London estate, follows an organised crime group that uses children to peddle heroin and cocaine - William Richards/Netflix

A senior police officer has criticised the television drama Top Boy for glamourising the life of drug-dealing gangsters.

The Bafta-winning Netflix series, which is set on a fictional London estate, follows the activities of an organised crime group that uses children to peddle heroin and cocaine.

The characters are depicted as having access to vast amounts of money and luxury cars.

But Commander Paul Brogden, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) lead for county lines, said that far from being glamorous, the reality was dangerous, violent and exploitative.

The term county lines refers to urban-based dealers who push their drugs in more rural areas, using dedicated phone lines to take orders from customers.

The gangs are notorious for exploiting children to work as drug runners, and taking over the homes of vulnerable people to store narcotics.

Mr Brogden said: Series such as Top Boy glamourise what is effectively a life of crime, this is violence, this is exploitation.

This is not being a gangster, its about being exploited and being drawn into a life of crime, often that ends in misery. Its incredibly violent. Its an unsafe place to be.

Kane Robinson (left) and Ashley Walters star in Top Boy

His comments came as it emerged that more than 1,600 suspected members of county lines drug dealing gangs had been arrested in one week of action across England and Wales.

Police forces also seized more than 2.4 million of cash and drugs in a series of coordinated raids.

A total of 710 people, including 58 children, were referred to safeguarding services as possible victims of exploitation by the gangs.

Mr Brogden added: County lines drug dealing destroys lives, and we are committed to tackling the supply of illegal drugs, and the exploitation and violence that is frequently associated with it.

Our message is clear to anyone running county lines across the country  we will be relentless in our pursuit of you, we will shut down your county lines, we will take drugs off our streets, and we will rescue those who are being exploited by you.

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, said: Vile thugs running county lines drug gangs blight our communities and groom the most vulnerable in society for their personal gain.

Our police officers are working every day to break up these criminal networks pushing illegal drugs on our streets, and since April 2022 they have shut down over 1,700 county lines through the County Lines Programme.

My message is clear. We will not tolerate illegal drugs of any kind, and we must rid our communities of these criminals.

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An event for the second year of the Roybal School of Film and Television Production Magnet at the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center in Los Angeles

An event for the second year of the Roybal School of Film and Television Production Magnet at the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center in Los Angeles

By Lisa Richwine

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar winner George Clooney and other top Hollywood stars have offered $150 million to the SAG-AFTRA actors union as part of a proposal to end the actors' strike as it nears its 100th day.

Their offer, confirmed by Clooney's spokesperson on Thursday, would provide the union an extra $150 million over three years and could help fund improved health benefits.

Clooney also said top stars would only collect residuals once lower-paid actors received theirs.

"A lot of the top earners want to be part of the solution," Clooney told Hollywood publication Deadline, which first reported the news. "We think it's fair for us to pay more into the union."

A SAG-AFTRA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Members of SAG-AFTRA have been on strike since July. Talks between the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) broke down last week, dashing hopes for a quick resolution.

The strike, which will mark its 100th day on Saturday, has disrupted film and television production, leaving thousands of crew members without work as well as the actors.

Hollywood's film and television writers ratified a new, three-year contract earlier this month, ending their 148-day work stoppage.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Sandra Maler)
The first Trader Joes grocery in Manatee County now has an opening time and date.

The new store at 8111 Cooper Creek Blvd. opens Thursday, Oct. 26.

Moments before doors open at 8 a.m., there will be a brief ribbon cutting ceremony with Trader Joes crew members on hand to welcome customers.

This 12,000-square-foot store in the The Shoppes at University Town Center shopping center is west of Interstate 75 and north of University Parkway.

Interior artwork highlights neighboring parks and schools, wildlife and local activities.

Through the companys neighborhood shares program, the new Trader Joes will donate 100% of products that go unsold but remain fit to consume to a range of nonprofit, community-based organizations seven days a week.

Thousands of shoppers from Manatee and Sarasota counties packed the aisles of the Sarasota Trader Joes during its grand opening in 2012.

The first Trader Joes opened in Pasadena, Calif., in 1967.

The Sarasota Trader Joes opened in 2012 at 4101 S. Tamiami Trail. At the time, it was the second Trader Joes in Florida. The first was in Naples.

The Bradenton store is the companys 23rd in Florida.

As a neighborhood grocery store, Trader Joes seeks to hire where its store are located. Hiring efforts are still underway.

The company had a three-day hiring fair Oct. 9-11.

For more information on working at Trader Joes, visit traderjoes.com/careers.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  A traveling Thai street food pop-up is making a stop at a local brewery Thursday night.

Dream Kasestatad, chef and owner of Pranom PopUp based in Austin, Texas, stopped by the KFOR studio on Thursday to cook Khao Soi Curry noodle soup and talk about an event featuring his food.

Dream Kasestatad cooking Khao Soi curry noodle soup on Rise & Shine. Image KFOR.

I am super excited to share this with you. said Kasestatad. The way I describe it is, its like a rainbow and a hug in your mouth. Its delicious, its got so many different flavors and colors and textures.

LOCAL NEWS: Its a girl! OKC Zoo announces birth of endangered giraffe calf

Pranom PopUp is based in Austin, but got its start in Los Angeles, California. After growing up in the restaurant industry, Kasestated began his pop-up in the parking lot of his friends bar as possibly one of the first chefs to sell Thai street food on the streets of LA.

So, once I started getting the opportunity to cook in Los Angeles, I, you know, just like a lot of people, Ive always wanted to go travel and see the country, Kasestatad added. Fast forward 13 year later, Ive been traveling and, and feeding people and cooking my grandmothers Thai food for the past 13 years.

The event is being held at the Anthem Brewery, located at 908 SW 4th St. in OKC from 5-9 p.m. on Thursday, October 19. Kasestatad will be there to serve his iconic food for one night only.

You can learn more about Pranom PopUp on Instagram.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
Logan Clegg walks along the Marsh Loop Trail, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, in Concord, N.H., during a viewing as part of his trial. Clegg is accused in the shooting deaths of Steve and Wendy Reid in April of 2022. (Geoff Forester/The Concord Monitor via AP, Pool)

CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  Prosecutors in the case of a man charged with fatally shooting a retired New Hampshire couple on a hiking trail argued Thursday that his repeated lies, bid to flee and a gun in his backpack offered a trail of evidence to show he was guilty.

Defense attorneys for Logan Clegg, 27, who is charged with second-degree murder counts of knowingly and recklessly causing the deaths of Stephen and Djeswende Wendy Reid, argued that authorities charged the wrong man.

The newly retired couple, who did international development work, were shot multiple times after going for a walk on the trail near their Concord apartment April 18, 2022. Their bodies, found several days later, had been dragged into the woods and covered with leaves, sticks and debris, police said.

Clegg also is charged with several counts of falsifying physical evidence and being a convicted felon in possession of a gun.

The state has proven to you over the past three weeks now that the defendant, and the defendant only, killed Stephen and Wendy," prosecutor Joshua Speicher said, describing the killing as senseless. We have proven this beyond a reasonable doubt. We have proven to you how he did it, when he did it, where he did it."

Defense attorney Mariana Dominguez argued the state's case was built on speculation and was full of holes.

Logan Clegg is not guilty, she said. Police investigated, but instead of looking at the science and at the evidence with clear eyes, they speculated. They assumed. ... They saw only what they wanted to see. They got the wrong guy.

After the Reids were reported missing, prosecutors said Clegg, who questioned by investigators searching for them, burned his tent, erased information from his computer and bought a bus ticket out of Concord. Investigators eventually found him in South Burlington with a one-way plane ticket to Berlin, Germany, a fake passport and a gun in his backpack.

Prosecutors said that shell casings and bullet fragments were later found at the crime scene. Shell casings also were found at a location later discovered to be Cleggs tent site. Prosecutors said bullets fired from Cleggs 9 mm handgun were consistent in caliber and class characteristics as bullet fragments found during the Reids autopsies.

Lawyers for Clegg said he was on probation in 2021 on burglary and larceny offenses in Utah and wasn't hiding from police. They also said an analysis of shell casings and bullets found in the area could not conclude that his gun fired the shots and that the casing could have come from a variety of guns.

They have no idea what gun killed the Reids, Dominguez told the jury during her closing arguments, adding that police only had eyes for Clegg's gun.

Both sides also gave differing accounts of a woman who was walking on the trail with her dogs and allowed the Reids to pass her and walk ahead. She later heard gunshots, then came across a man on the trail before continuing her hike. Defense attorneys argued the man she saw on the trial was not Clegg, noting the clothing he had did not match the prosecutions description.
Ukraine brought home Mykyta Bilanchuk, a 9-year-old boy deported by the Russians from Ukraine, at the beginning of September. He now lives with his grandmother in Poland.

Source: hromadske

Details: The child was freed from the occupation with the participation of hromadske journalists and the Save Ukraine fund.

Mykyta was a student at the Oleshky boarding school for children with disabilities in 2022. There he underwent rehabilitation before going to school.

The boy's father was supposed to take him home in March 2022, but he did not make it in time: the school was under occupation. The Russians took the children to occupied Crimea, then transported them to Russia, and from there to the occupied Skadovsk, the territory of Ukraine.

The Russians took 105 Ukrainian children together with Mykyta.

In April 2023, hromadske journalists found and verified the lists of deported boarding school students. After that, they started calling everyone who might turn out to be the parents or relatives of the children, to find out if people are ready to take their children if the volunteers of the Save Ukraine fund will help organise the process, and the journalists will accompany the fund at every stage.

Thus, in June 2023, hromadske journalists found Polina Kindra, the grandmother of Mykyta Bilanchuk who was deported from Ukraine. The woman lives in Poland.

Polina came to Kyiv at the beginning of June. The volunteers of the Save Ukraine Foundation helped the woman collect all the necessary documents and plan the route.

Afterwards, the woman went to occupied Skadovsk to pick up the child. All this time she was in contact with hromadske journalists.

Polina Kindra spent 76 days trying to get her grandson back. Several times the woman came to the boarding house and was refused.

Polina underwent a DNA test at the request of the Russians. It confirmed that she is the boy's grandmother. The Russians and the so-called head of the boarding school, Vitalii Suk, forced her to obtain a Russian passport.

At the beginning of September 2023, Polina Kindra came to attempt to pick up Mykyta for the third time. The boy was given to her in front of dozens of cameras by Maria Lvova-Belova, the Children's Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation, who is wanted internationally for the systematic kidnapping of Ukrainian children.

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By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - He came to bolster Israel's fight against Hamas and to offer aid to Palestinians suffering under an Israeli siege, but by flying into Tel Aviv when he did, U.S. President Joe Biden inextricably linked himself to any fight to come.

Biden's eight-hour visit took place a day after a hospital bombing in Gaza City that killed hundreds of Palestinians quickly became a lightning rod in the Arab world.

"From a risk perspective, Biden is now tied to whatever the Israelis decide to do in Gaza," said Jon B. Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Biden is wagering that consoling, negotiating with and aiding Israel give him the most influence shaping their actions, he said.

His plans to quickly push billions of dollars more in aid for Israel through Congress is likely to fuel debates on U.S. taxpayer funds. Meanwhile, the U.S. veto of a U.N. resolution calling for a ceasefire has angered allies.

Biden said the U.S. would provide $100 million in new funding for humanitarian aid in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The United States has urged Israel to allow humanitarian aid to help Palestinians.

Already, the White House acknowledges it needs to better explain Biden's Israel policy at home.

Biden will give a prime time White House address on Thursday, to "discuss our response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine," the White House said on Wednesday.

After departing Tel Aviv, Biden gave his first on-the-record press cabin briefing on Air Force One as president to tell reporters he had worked with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to open the Rafah crossing for humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Maintaining credibility may only grow harder for Biden when a ground invasion increases civilian casualties, said Ezra Cohen, a fellow at the Hudson Institute and former U.S. undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

"You have ground troops on the ground, going house to house, battles in the street, with Hamas, with civilians still trapped there because Hamas won't let them leave," Cohen said.

He said Biden "is going to have to be very concerned about explaining to the American people that Israel follows the law of armed conflict."

Several vocal critics assert that Israel is not.

Some 78% of Americans, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, support U.S. diplomatic efforts to allow Gaza residents fleeing the fighting to move to a safe country, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Less than half, 41%, said they agreed with a statement that "the U.S. should support Israel" in its conflict with Hamas; just 2% said the U.S. should support the Palestinians.

The situation threatens to unravel years of diplomatic work courting partners in the Arab and Muslim world from Turkey to Saudi Arabia and Egypt to Qatar amid hopes that deeper ties would make Israel safer, counter U.S. foes from Tehran to Moscow and Beijing, and keep U.S. gas prices in check.

Diplomacy to normalize ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel is now on ice as Biden tries to contain a spiraling crisis from engulfing the Middle East and sparking a direct confrontation with Iran.

"Being a president means making bets, and Biden has made one," Alterman said. "We'll see how this turns out."

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Tel Aviv, Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia and Nidal al Mughrabi in Gaza. Editing by Heather Timmons and Howard Goller)
Tropical Storm Tammy formed in the Atlantic Basin on Wednesday, with sustained winds of 40 mph, and is on track to pass over some of the islands in the eastern Caribbean before turning north.

The storm was located 575 miles east of the Windward Islands, traveling west at 23 mph as of Wednesday night. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 140 miles to the northeast of the center.

Tropical storm watches were issued for Barbados, Dominica, Martinique and Guadeloupe, where tropical storm conditions could begin Friday. Large and potentially dangerous swells from Tammy will start hitting the eastern Caribbean on Thursday.

Rainfall totals could reach 3 to 6 inches, with maximum amounts of 10 inches in the islands of the eastern Caribbean, with rain of 1 to 2 inches with maximum amounts of 4 inches in the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and eastern Puerto Rico. Mudslides and isolated flash and urban flooding are possible.

The storm is expected to curve westward on Thursday and move more slowly, then turn northwest on Friday or Saturday and pass over or near the Leeward Islands in the far eastern Caribbean.

Forecasters expect Tammy to gradually strengthen despite facing some dry air and wind shear because it is traversing very warm ocean waters, between 84 and 86 degrees, according to the forecast late Wednesday afternoon. Tammys wind speeds are expected to reach 70 mph by Sunday.

The current forecast and models have the system eventually curving northwest away from Florida, but the islands of the far eastern Caribbean, such as the Lesser Antilles, could be affected.

After Tammy passes the Leeward Islands, the intensity models suggest that some further intensification will be possible as it accelerates northeastward over the central Atlantic, the latest forecast discussion said.

So far this season in the Atlantic, there have been 19 named storms, six of which were hurricanes. Of those, three were major hurricanes, meaning Category 3 or above.

Those were Hurricane Lee, a rare Category 5; Hurricane Franklin, a Category 4; and Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall on Floridas Big Bend region at Category 3 strength on Aug. 30.

The remaining storm names for 2023 are Vince and Whitney. If all those names end up being used this season, the National Hurricane Center would turn to the supplemental list of names from the World Meteorological Association. In previous years, the Greek alphabet was used for additional storm names  which had only happened twice before  during the record-shattering hurricane seasons in 2005 and 2020.

Hurricane season officially runs through Nov. 30.
A lot of people were shocked by former Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powellsguilty plea to misdemeanor charges linked to election interference in Georgia in 2020  but not as much as the Trump camp.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNNsDana Bash on Thursday that Powells plea deal caught Trump world by surprise, as it did all of us.

Haberman said Powells agreement with prosecutors was one of the best-kept secrets out of the Fulton County District Attorneys office and that Trump insiders dont know what to make of it. As part of the deal, Powell will be asked to testify as a witness in the trials of other defendants in the case, perhaps including the former president.

They are still trying to figure out what it means, she said, adding that there are different opinions about its potential effect on Trumps case. There are some people in his world who are telling me they dont think this is that big of a deal for him  they think her ability to actually really testify is marginal. They are arguing that this shows that the DA [Fani Willis] overcharged in this case.

Haberman said other Trump insiders think Willis intentionally charged this way so she could end up getting guilty pleas.

As a result, she said, theres concern about the degree to which Powell could offer information, not just about former President Trump, but about [former Trump lawyer and New York City mayor] Rudy Giuliani.



Haberman said Trump is still most concerned with the civil fraud trial going on in New York because its about his business.

Thats really where the bulk of his mind share is, she said. Theres nobody in Trump world who is pretending this is a good development. Theyre just split on what exactly it means.

Watch Habermans CNN interview below.

Related...
FILE - Former President Donald Trump speaks during a commit to caucus rally, Oct. 16, 2023, in Adel, Iowa. Trump is crushing his Republican presidential rivals in the contest to raise campaign cash, putting the other White House hopefuls in an unenviable position before the first votes are cast in January. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

WASHINGTON (AP)  Donald Trump is crushing his Republican presidential rivals in the contest to raise campaign cash, putting the other White House hopefuls in an unenviable position before the first votes are cast in January.

Those who have amassed a nest egg will have the resources to last for the foreseeable future, while those without will face hard choices in the coming days, weeks and months.

Here are some takeaways from the recently released campaign finance disclosures that cover the third quarter:

LET'S BE REAL

Trump's political operation has splurged at least $20 million this year on legal expenses arising from a sprawling set of court cases and lawsuits faced by the former president and his allies. It's an enormous outlay of cash, big enough to sink even a generously financed campaign.

Yet as the GOP presidential primary enters a crucial make-or-break phase before voting begins early next year, the latest campaign finance disclosures show Trump still has more money socked away than his top rivals  combined.

The amount of cash a candidate has in reserve offers a window into the health of their campaign. Those with an ample sum will have the money needed to hold events, run TV ads and communicate with voters. Those who lack it are all but certain to struggle.

But the stark disparity between Trump, whose presidential campaign had $37.5 million at the end of September, and the balances held by his rivals like former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott speaks to a broader reality in the race: It's Trump's to lose and his rivals have both limited time and limited means to change that.

The drop-off from Trump is steep. That's led some candidates to send repeated and at times desperate-sounding pleas.

Did you know that every new member who donates to Team DeSantis gets their own bumper sticker as a welcome present? Chip in $5 or more today, read one text message solicitation sent last month.

PALMETTO RIVALRY

Tim Scott was in an enviable position when he entered the Republican presidential contest, boasting of a $21.9 million war chest amassed over the years from his prominent perch in the Senate.

Things were less rosy for Haley, his home state rival. The one-time accountant raised $8.3 million last April, but relied on accounting gimmicks to inaccurately inflate her fundraising success by several million dollars in a press release.

Now the tables have turned.

Haley entered October with somewhat of a fundraising tailwind after doubling the money in her campaign account to $11.5 million over the past three months, thanks in part to strong debate performances that led to a flood of contributions.

Scott, meanwhile, has so far failed to catch on while hemorrhaging cash. That includes $14 million spent on advertising, according to data from advertising tracking firm Ad Impact. And he held $13.3 million at the end or September  down from $21 million at the start of the quarter.

The big spending super PAC that supports him  a group that can raise and spend unlimited sums, so long as they do not coordinate with Scott  also cancelled tens of millions of dollars in TV reservations planned for the fall.

DESANTIS

Like Scott, DeSantis has also blown through a prodigious amount of money. The Florida governor entered the race with sky-high expectations and a $20 million pile of cash.

But his campaign, which was built out to convey the image of a front-runner, soon bowed to reality. DeSantis trimmed staff and expenses after burning through $8 million during an early six-week spending spree that included more than 100 paid staffers, a large security detail and luxury travel.

While he has continued to raise respectable sums, he is still spending almost as much as he takes in. That left him with $12.3 million at the end of the quarter.

One variable is his super PAC, Never Back Down, which DeSantis' political operation seeded with money left over from his 2022 gubernatorial campaign. The group won't have to disclose its finances until later.

WITHER MIKE PENCE

Mike Pence was always going to face an uphill climb in a Republican presidential contest dominated by Trump, the man whom he served as a loyal vice president for four years.

His dismal fundraising has not helped.

Pence entered October running on fumes with $1.1 million cash on hand and debts of $621,000. That's after Pence, who is not independently wealthy, lent $150,000 of his own money to the campaign in July, records show.

The rate at which he has burned through cash is not sustainable absent a large infusion of cash. Though Pence raised about $4.5 million since entering the race, he has spent $3.4 million.

His expenditures offer a glimpse of a campaign flying low to the ground. Postage and printing was his biggest expenditure, costing $1.4 million. Travel cost him $207,000. Advertising and media production  what well-financed campaigns rely on to get their message out  accounted for about $80,000, records show.

It hasn't been all bad for Pence, who had a couple buzzy moments at a GOP debate in August. They came at the expense of Vivek Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old biotech financier and conservative ingenue whose critiques of woke politics have garnered attention.

Now is not the time for on-the-job training. We don't need to bring in a rookie, Pence said during one memorable exchange.

The difficulty for Pence is that it is a steep climb for him to reach the next debate stage. The Republican National Committee uses a candidates' ability to raise money from grassroots donors as a metric for qualifying  and it raised the thresholds for the next one.

BIDEN HIS TIME

While the Republican field of contenders crow about raising $10 million or $20 million, President Joe Biden has repeatedly touted totals that are far greater, like the $71 million his campaign says he has taken in since July.

Welcome to one of the advantages of incumbency.

As the leader of his party, Biden is able to rake in massive amounts through a joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee and all 50 state party committees. Under that arrangement, a single donor can stroke a check for nearly $1 million.

Republicans vying for the GOP nod, meanwhile, are on their own without this strategic advantage. Under federal campaign finance laws, their donations are capped at $3,300 per donor for the primary, though that will change once a nominee is selected and they can raise money in concert with the party.
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday endorsed West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) to become the states Republican nominee for the Senate.

Big Jim Justice, the Governor of the Great State of West Virginia (I LOVE WEST VIRGINIA!), is BIG in every way, but especially in his wonderful HEART! Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. Big Jim will be a Great UNITED STATES SENATOR, and has my Complete & Total Endorsement. HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!!!

The endorsement is a hit to GOP Rep. Alex Mooney, who is also vying for the seat currently occupied by moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin . Republicans see Manchins seat as a potential pick-up in the 2024 election that could help them win back the balance of power in the Senate.

Justice, a one-time billionaire who has served as governor for two terms, announced his bid in April amid West Virginia term limits. He initially won the governors race in 2016 as a Democrat, but switched to the Republican Party in 2017 before winning again in 2020.

Trump won West Virginia in the 2020 presidential race, with 69% of the vote.

Its unclear if Manchin  who has drawn ire from both sides of the aisle  will run for reelection, or even if hell remain a Democrat should he do so. The lawmaker said last month he would think very seriously about becoming an independent.

The brand has become so bad, the D brand and R brand, Manchin said in an interview with MetroNews in August. In West Virginia, the D brand because its nationally bad. Its not the Democrats in West Virginia. Its the Democrats in Washington, or the Washington policies of the Democrats. Youve heard me say a million times that Im not a Washington Democrat.

Related...
The former Donald Trump lawyer Sidney Powell , charged alongside the former president for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia, has pleaded guilty as part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors just days before her trial was scheduled to start.

The conversion of Powell into a cooperating witness marks a major victory for the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, given Powells involvement in some of Trumps most brazen schemes to reverse Trumps election defeat  which she could now testify about.

Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit interference with election duties. She was sentenced to six years probation, a $6,000 fine, $2,700 in restitution to the state, and is required to turn over documents and testify truthfully in her co-defendants trials.

The plea deal formalizes Powell as the second defendant charged in the sprawling 2020 election subversion case brought by Fulton county prosecutors to plead guilty; the first was a local Republican bail bondsman, Scott Hall.

Powell was initially accused of racketeering and computer trespass crimes related to efforts to allow Republican election deniers gain unlawful access to voting machines in Coffee county. Powell faced a problem when Hall flipped, because he had potentially incriminating evidence against her.

The most far-reaching consequence of Powell taking the plea deal could be her agreement to testify in future trials, given her proximity to Trump in the final weeks of his presidency and her close involvement in various schemes to reverse Trumps election defeat.

Among other episodes, Powell was a key player in a contentious December 2020 meeting at the White House, where Trump named Powell a special counsel to investigate supposed election fraud, after she pitched a plan to suspend normal laws and use military force to seize voting machines.

The meeting, details of which were previously reported by the Guardian, involved Trump, his White House counsels and Rudy Giuliani, the former Trump lawyer who has also been charged with seeking to overturn the 2020 election results by Fulton county prosecutors.

In that sense, legal experts said, Powells cooperation marks a significant moment in the case because the threat of Powell testifying against Giuliani could compel him to take a deal in turn to testify against someone such as Trump himself.

Powell was also involved in the Coffee county conspiracy, which involved Trump allies hiring a team of forensics experts gaining access to voting machines and copying virtually every part of the election systems, before uploading it all online.

A day after the Capitol attack in Washington, surveillance footage showed data experts from SullivanStrickler, a firm that specializes in imaging, or making exact copies, of electronic devices, arrive at the Coffee county election office.

What happened inside the elections office is only partially captured on surveillance video, but records show the SullivanStrickler team imaged almost every component of the election systems, including ballot scanners, the server used to count votes, thumb drives and flash memory cards.

Powells involvement is alleged to have come in helping to organize the data breach, though she had previously argued she did nothing wrong because it was her non-profit company that paid the forensics experts and there had been prior authorization from local officials.
Former President Trump holds a narrow lead over President Biden among voters in seven key battleground states that will likely determine the 2024 election, according to a poll released Thursday.

A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll of voters from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin found Trump leading Biden by 4 percentage points, thanks largely to negative views around Bidens handling of the economy.

When broken down by state, Trump is leading Biden in Georgia by 5 points, Arizona by 4 points, North Carolina by 4 points, Wisconsin by 2 points and Pennsylvania by 1 point. Biden leads Trump by 3 points in Nevada, and the two candidates are running even in Michigan, according to the survey.

Across the seven swing states, 49 percent of voters said Bidenomics  the term the White House has used to describe Bidens economic agenda  is bad for the economy, while 26 percent said it is good.

Among undecided voters in those seven states, 46 percent said Bidenomics is bad for the economy, and 41 percent said they dont know enough about it or have no opinion.

Another aspect potentially hurting Biden is that 14 percent of voters surveyed who supported the president in 2020 now say they would either back Trump, are undecided or would not vote.

By comparison, 91 percent of those who voted for Trump in 2020 said they would do so again, leaving 9 percent who said they would vote for Biden, would not vote or are undecided heading into 2024.

The poll surveyed a total of 5,023 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from Oct. 5-10.

The Trump campaign was quick to highlight the latest poll showing the former president leading in swing states, believing it is proof of his strength in a general election despite claims from some of his rivals that he cannot defeat Biden.

The Biden campaign was more dismissive, arguing that polls are not predictive of the future and pointing to the midterm elections and special elections over the past two years, in which Democrats have beat expectations.

Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Dont take our word for it: last year, Bloomberg, who published todays poll, predicted a 100% likelihood of a recession only to say days ago that the U.S. economy is strong and defying the odds, Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said in a statement. Or a year out from the 2022 midterms when they similarly predicted a grim forecast for President Biden.

Biden is running for reelection and is virtually guaranteed to be the Democratic Partys nominee, while Trump is the front-runner for the Republican Partys nomination in 2024, leading the primary field by double digits in the vast majority of state and national polls.

Biden has been hounded for months by voter concerns about his age and his handling of the economy in particular, even as he and White House officials argue the economic picture is much stronger than when he took office, thanks to a boost in jobs and investments in domestic manufacturing.

Trump has been indicted in four separate criminal cases this year, along with a civil trial related to his business practices, and is facing a busy court schedule in the months ahead.

He has been indicted in New York over an alleged hush money scheme to cover up an affair; in Washington, D.C., and Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results; and in Florida over his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Stephen Heck didn't answer questions police posed about his missing girlfriend shortly after officers began investigating the 63-year-old woman's whereabouts on Sept. 25.

Eight days later, the 66-year-old boyfriend was charged with the first-degree murder of Cynthia Amalfitano, whose body was found in Carousel Park on Sept. 26.

Court documents that were unsealed nearly a week ago, but were released only Wednesday by Superior Court to Delaware Online/The News Journal, indicate Amalfitano was killed in the Pike Creek park shortly after the couple arrived back from an overnight trip to Rehoboth Beach.

The manner of death was ruled as numerous injuries and strangulation, according to the court documents, which piece together Amalfitano's final days and efforts by New Castle County police to solve the crime. The documents also bring up the couple's tumultuous relationship, including a conversation a police investigator had with one of Amalfitano's relatives who was identified in court records as "W1."

"W1 noted that they had broken up as recent as a couple of weeks ago," investigators noted in the documents. "She advised that during the most recent incident [Amalfitano] had kicked Stephen out of her residence.

"W1 stated that [Amalfitano] recalled being pushed by Stephen during the incident and further added that she was afraid for her life."

Rehoboth Beach trip: 'OK sweetie see you in a bit'

Amalfitano, who'd been a teacher at Concord Preschool, told several people she and Heck would be going to her beach house in Rehoboth Beach on Sept. 23 and returning the following evening. Amalfitano had been seeing Heck for a couple of years, and the two had even lived together for a period of time.

Shortly before 5 p.m. on Sept. 23, police said, Amalfitano texted Heck: "OK sweetie see you in a bit."

The couple, along with her dogs, spent the night in Rehoboth Beach. They were also in Rehoboth part of Sept. 24, where Amalfitano took pictures in the resort town area about 11:45 a.m. of that day, according to police who searched her phone.

The couple left Rehoboth at about 7:25 that evening.

Heck's Subaru Crosstrek is seen going through the Middletown toll plaza at 8:48 p.m., according to court documents. A surveillance photo shows that Heck is driving. The image also shows a woman in the front passenger seat with one of Amalfitano's dogs on her lap.

1 hour, 45 minutes

Because investigators have since tracked where Heck's and Amalfitano's phones had been over that weekend, court documents say the couple's phones ended up in Carousel Park at about 9:10 p.m. on Sept. 24.

The phones remained in the Pike Creek park for about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

New Castle County Police investigate a "suspicious death" after a woman's body was found in a wood line in Carousel Park on Sept. 26, 2023. The body turned out to be Cynthia Amalfitano.

Surveillance footage then captured Heck arriving at the back of Amalfitano's Pike Creek home at 10:54 p.m.

He is seen entering her home, then leaving it with a trash bag. Heck gets into his car at 11:24 p.m. and leaves, according to the documents, only to return about six minutes later. He exits his car with a dog, then walks to an area of a trash bin, court papers say.

Heck is seen repeatedly entering and leaving the house that night, according to documents. He's also seen disposing of items from his car into the nearby trash bin.

"It should be noted that Cynthia is not seen on the surveillance footage at any time returning to her residence at ... Birch Circle on Sept. 24," according to the court documents.

Security footage, according to police, shows Heck taking what appears to be a purse into the home about 11:45 p.m. He returns to the house shortly before midnight. He is not seen leaving the house until 7:40 the following morning when he enters and leaves the house several times while carrying numerous bags and what appears to be clothing.

He then drives away from Amalfitano's home at about 8 a.m.  after taking one more bag to a trash bin.

Where's Cynthia Amalfitano?

When Amalfitano failed to show up to work the morning of Sept. 25, someone from her job called Amalfitano's daughter to tell her Amalfitano failed to arrive at work and had not contacted them to say she would not be coming. Amalfitano's daughter was also told that they had tried to reach her mother with no success.

Amalfitano's daughter asked a relative who lives nearby to check on her mother.

Police have identified Cynthia Amalfitano as the woman found dead at Carousel Park.

The relative arrived at Amalfitano's house at about 10:15 a.m. and knocked on the rear door, which turned out to be unlocked. Police were called when the relative saw Amalfitano's two dogs inside the house, as well as the woman's cellphone, purse and keys also inside the house.

The relative told investigators she last spoke to Amalfitano on Sept. 23. That's when Amalfitano said she was going to Rehoboth with Heck.

The relative, who confirmed she'd not heard from Amalfitano since then, told the investigator it was unlike Amalfitano to miss work without notifying someone. The relative added that it was "extremely unlikely" for Amalfitano to leave her house without her purse, wallet, keys or to leave the doors unlocked.

Amalfitano also takes her dogs everywhere she goes, the relative told the investigator.

Tumultuous relationship

The relative described to investigators that Amalfitano and Heck had had a tumultuous relationship, adding that Heck had been physically and verbally abusive to Amalfitano. Others interviewed by the investigator confirmed this, according to the court documents.

The relative mentioned an incident that occurred last year in Long Beach, New Jersey, which, according to court documents, the investigator searched for and found an altercation that occurred in that state in August of last year.

Quoting the New Jersey records, the New Castle County police investigator said Heck grabbed Amalfitano's hand and threatened to burn her on the electric stove. The following day, Amalfitano told Heck she was going shopping "so that she could get away from him for some time."

"Stephen stated to [Amalfitano], I cannot even tell you what will happen if you call the police," the investigator quoted the New Jersey report.

Delaware Online/The News Journal searched through Delaware court records and also found that Heck was charged with a misdemeanor last year following an incident between the two.

On Jan. 25, 2022, the couple argued as to who was going to walk the dog that morning, according to Delaware Family Court documents. Following the argument, the document claims Amalfitano was applying makeup in the bathroom when Heck came in and shoved her.

Police charged Heck with offensive touching and he was ordered to have no contact with Amalfitano. But as time went on, the no-contact order was modified to say he was not to have any "unlawful contact" with Amalfitano.

Heck was supposed to have a case review hearing on Feb. 21 of this year, but the case was dismissed on that day.

Heck's silence

The relative also mentioned that while checking on Amalfitano's home on Sept. 25, Heck called her spouse but he hung up before anyone could answer.

The relative, according to court records, called Heck, who answered but stayed silent before hanging up. The relative called him back several times, but he did not answer.

Police went to Heck's apartment in the 2700 block of Jacqueline Drive in Brandywine Hundred on Sept. 25 and made contact with him, but court records said he "did not answer any questions about Cynthia's whereabouts."

Body found

The following day, New Castle County police detectives conducted a terrain search on Skyline Drive near the entrance to Carousel Park. This is when a detective found a woman's body located near the park's wood line.

Family identified the body as that of Amalfitano.

Court records indicated the body had several injuries, including bruising of the neck and cuts to the head. The investigator said this was consistent with a physical assault.

Amalfitano's shirt was rolled up as if she had been dragged into the wood line and she was missing her left earring.

New Castle County Police investigate a "suspicious death" after a woman's body was found in a wood line in Carousel Park on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023.

Investigators found Amalfitano's earring about 75 feet away, where they also saw multiple drops of blood.

"The ground appeared to be disturbed and there were drag marks nearby that led to the area where the victim was found," the court document said, noting that "a struggle may have taken place."

Search warrants issued

Detectives had warrants drafted to search Heck, his vehicle and his apartment. They were carried out the day Amalfitano's body was found.

A police search of Heck's Subaru found blood inside the compact SUV, including on the passenger door, door frame steering wheel and gear shift knob. A preliminary analysis of the blood samples showed a match to Amalfitano, according to the court documents.

Amalfitano's death was ruled a homicide and Heck was charged with murder on Oct. 3. He remained at Howard R. Young Correctional Institution Wednesday after failing to post $1 million cash bail.

Send tips or story ideas to Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Woman found in Carousel Park killed by boyfriend after trip: Police
The judge overseeing the trial of a man accused of killing rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996 has ordered a two-week delay in order for the suspect to find a lawyer.

The decision came as Duane "Keffe D" Davis, 60, appeared in a Las Vegas court on Thursday. It was the second time his case has been delayed.

Officials say Mr Davis, a former gang leader, orchestrated the killing in revenge for an attack on his nephew.

Mr Davis appeared in court in handcuffs and wearing a blue prison uniform.

He has yet to formally enter a plea and was expected to at Thursday's hearing before the new delay was ordered.

A new arraignment hearing was ordered by Judge Tierra Jones for 2 November.

Judge Jones said that if Mr Davis has not hired a lawyer by then, a public defender will be appointed for him.

"We got to get this case moving, understand," she said.

Mr Davis one of the last living witnesses to the fatal September 1996 drive-by shooting.

He has admitted on multiple occasions, including in his 2019 tell-all memoir, Compton Street Legend, that he was in the car from which shots were fired.

Shakur, a hip-hop legend, was shot four times aged 25 in a drive-by attack in Las Vegas.

Orlando Anderson, the suspect's late nephew, and Shakur had been involved in a fight in a casino shortly before the rapper was shot on 7 September 1996, prosecutors say. He died in hospital a few days later.

Shakur, whose stage name was stylised as 2Pac, released his debut album in 1991.

One of the most acclaimed names in hip-hop, his death inspired several documentaries.

He sold more than 75 million records worldwide, enjoying chart success with hits including California Love, All Eyez On Me and Changes.
Turkish company Karpowership has restored power to Guinea-Bissau's capital after cutting off supplies over an unpaid bill of $15m (12m).

The company resumed operations late on Wednesday after receiving a payment of $6m from the government.

Bissau had been plunged into darkness for nearly two days, with hospitals affected and radio stations off-air.

The country is one of the poorest in the world and has been beset by instability since independence.

In 2019, its government signed a deal with Karpowership, one of the world's biggest floating power plant operators, to supply the country with all its power.

A spokesperson for the company told the BBC that Karpowership was "grateful" for Guinea-Bissau's efforts to pay the bill, which made it possible to resume electricity supplies.

"Following a protracted period of non-payment, our fuel suppliers were no longer able to withstand the delay and had no option but to pause work," the spokesperson added.

Energy Minister Isuf Balde confirmed that $6m of the $15m bill had been settled.

"In a small and poor country like Guinea-Bissau, carrying out a transfer operation of this level, $10m, takes time," he said.

He added that the contract with Karpowership needed to be renegotiated because costs had almost doubled since it came into effect, making it unaffordable.

Power was cut in Bissau, a city with a population of more than 400,000, in the early hours of Tuesday.

Some public hospitals used generators to carry out surgery, local journalist Assana Sambu told the BBC.

But they did not have running water because there was not enough electricity, and hospital directors appealed for power in order to cook food for their patients.

Another journalist, Alberto Dabo, said he resorted to drinking water from a well because water supplies had been cut amid the sweltering heat which reaches 40C.

Media outlets were also affected by the power cut, with state-run Radio Nacional among those that stopped broadcasting,

Guinea-Bissau has one of the lowest electricity connection rates in Africa, estimated at 10% nationally and 20% in the city of Bissau, according to the African Development Bank.

Power outages in Bissau are frequent, with some parts of the city going without power for more than four hours a day.

The World Bank said in 2020 that Guinea-Bissau's "electricity sector has been trapped in a downward spiral for decades" due to political instability, poor management, lack of planning and "vested interests".

Karpowership supplies electricity to six other African countries - Ghana, The Gambia, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

The Turkish company has also signed a deal with South Africa, saying it will cover more than 5% of the country's electricity needs.

But it has taken a tough line over non-payment. Last month, it cut power to Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, over an unpaid bill of $40m.

Although access to electricity has increased in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years, it still remains low, with more than 50% of the region's population having no grid connection, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).
Turlock police say the husband and wife found dead in their home Monday night died at the hands of the husband in a murder-suicide.

Police identified the couple as Troy Borges, 60, and Susanne Borges, 61.

Officers responded to their home in the 1000 block of East Springer Avenue about 9:30 p.m. to a report an aggravated assault.

The couples two daughters who lived with their parents arrived home to find them with life-threatening injuries. One of the daughters called authorities.

Police Department spokeswoman Dominique Sanchez said the daughters had been out of the house for about an hour. It was a big, big shock for them, Sanchez said about returning home.

Turlock police officers, along with police officers from California State University, Stanislaus, firefighters and American Medical Response personnel, responded and found the couple had died, according to a news release.

Following the autopsy, the investigation concluded that Troy was responsible for the death of his wife and subsequently took his own life ... , according to the release. The utility knife used was recovered at the scene.

Sanchez said police dont know the motive, adding it was just the Borges in the house, so ultimately only those two know the motive.

The release states the Police Department extends its condolences to the Borges family and its friends.

Anyone with information regarding this case is asked to call Detective Kevin Blanc at 209-668-6540. They also can contact the Police Departments tip line at 209-668-5550, ext. 6780, or email tpdtipline@turlock.ca.us. Callers also can leave an anonymous tip by calling Stanislaus Area Crime Stoppers at 209-521-4636.
(Bloomberg) -- It took Polands national broadcaster almost 24 hours to suggest that the opposition might form a government after last weekends election. When it did, the banner headline on its news channel was still that the ruling party had won.

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The admission came after the most caustic campaign in decades, yet the time it took was of little surprise in a country whose state media has been turned into the mouthpiece of the nationalist Law & Justice party. In the runup to Sundays vote, the primetime news show ran headlines declaring the opposition would take away money from Poles and leader Donald Tusk would destroy democracy.

Removing the ruling partys grip on Telewizja Polska SA is now a first vital stepping-stone in restoring democratic institutions the European Union has excoriated Poland for undermining. It also demonstrates the extent of the challenge for Tusk and his future governing coalition to unpick the power grab that runs deep into the state.

During Law & Justices eight-year rule, party loyalists have been parachuted into state-owned companies, the central bank and courts, prompting the EU to withhold more than 35 billion ($37 billion) in aid for Poland. Tusk, a former premier and European Council president, has said his top priority is to mend ties with the rest of the bloc and release the money.

As with any power struggle, control of the public broadcaster can mean control of the political narrative. During the campaign, Law & Justice helped depict Tusk as a puppet of Germany with ties to Russia.

State television clearly promoted the ruling party and its policies, while demonstrating open hostility toward the opposition and casting the most prominent opposition leader as a threat to national security, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitored the election, said.

Late last month, Tusk told a rally in Bydgoszcz, northern Poland, that his party will need exactly 24 hours to turn what he described as the ruling party television back into a public broadcaster. Thats easier said than done.

The management of the state television is handpicked by the National Media Council, a body stacked with Law & Justice appointees for a fixed term that ends in 2028.

Any attempts to change the legislation to shorten their tenure is likely to face a veto from President Andrzej Duda , a former Law & Justice lawmaker. One option being considered would be to put the company into administration and replace its management.

Until last year, the state TV was run by Jacek Kurski, a political strategist and self-described bull terrier of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Law & Justices leader and the eminence grise of Poland. On his watch, the broadcaster was transformed into an instrument of propaganda for the government, according to Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group for independent media.

Law & Justice and its allies were given 80% of political coverage on state TV, according to second-quarter monitoring figures shared by Polands national broadcasting council with Media Freedom Rapid Response, a group of European press freedom organizations. The remaining 20% went to the opposition and was overwhelmingly negative, MFRR said following its mission to Warsaw in September.

A large part of Polish society gets all its news from the national broadcaster, said Jakub Jaraczewski, an analyst at Democracy Reporting International. Paradoxically, much of its credibility over the years was based on its being out of private control and free of any outside interests, he said.

Restoring some balance at the public broadcaster is going to be vital and is often being overlooked as an important element of the handover of power in Poland, said Jaraczewski. Life is going to be extremely difficult for the next government if it continues to face a broadcaster that continues to be so openly hostile.

The government also sought to expand its control over the rest of the Polish media landscape, much like Prime Minister Viktor Orban has in Hungary.

In 2020, state-controlled refiner Orlen SA bought the countrys biggest publisher of local newspapers. A year later, proposed changes to the media law effectively attempted to force out the US owner of TVN, the countrys biggest private television. Duda vetoed the plan under pressure from Washington.

As a counterweight, the owner of one of Hungarys largest media groups  and an Orban critic  acquired a stake in the Polish publisher of influential newspaper Rzeczpospolita in recent weeks.

Law & Justice won the most votes in Sundays election, though fell short of a majority in parliament. Tusks Civic Platform and its allies have the numbers to form the next government, a result that was clear from the first exit poll and has reverberated across Europe.

On Wednesday, the day after official results confirmed the opposition won parliamentary majority, the state broadcasters news channel had changed its headline: 7,640,854 Poles Chose Law & Justice, it read.

--With assistance from Maciej Martewicz.

(Updates with Rzeczpospolita purchase in final section.)

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Peter Avsenew, who maintained his innocence in court Thursday despite having been convicted twice of the brutal 2010 murders of a Wilton Manors couple, deserves to be sentenced to death, a Broward jury decided.

The jury deliberated less than an hour before reaching its unanimous decision  Browards first death penalty recommendation since a new law was passed this year making it easier to send convicted killers to death row.

Avsenew, 38, represented himself for the penalty phase of his retrial, offering the jury only two reasons to spare his life: His good conduct in jail since his arrest, and the fact that the most notorious killer in recent Broward history had his life spared.

If Nikolas Cruz doesnt deserve death, who the hell does? Avsenew asked, referring to the gunman who murdered 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. A judge sentenced Cruz to life in prison after a jury failed to reach a unanimous death sentence recommendation on Oct. 13, 2022.

Two days before the jury recommended life for Cruz, Avsenews jury had recommended his execution by a 12-0 vote for the murders of Stephen Adams and Kevin Powell, a Wilton Manors couple who took him into their home during the holiday season.

In 2010, two days before Christmas, Avsenew beat the two men beyond recognition and shot them repeatedly, then stole their SUV, went shopping with their credit cards, and fled to his mothers home in Polk County.

The 2022 death recommendation for Avsenew was overturned late last year when Broward Circuit Judge Martin Fein learned that jurors joked about the case and admitted watching a documentary in a private social media group before the death penalty arguments formally took place in court.

The new jury listened to evidence on Wednesday and heard closing arguments on Thursday. Assistant State Attorney Molly McGuire showed pictures of the victims and described their killing as heinous, atrocious and cruel, fitting one of numerous legal requirements that allow for a death sentence.

Avsenew, who fired his lawyers in September, had also represented himself during the penalty phase of his first trial in 2018. In his closing arguments then, Avsenew was defiant, proclaiming that he had no regrets and was proud of the decisions hed made in life. The results of the first trial were overturned by the Florida Supreme Court in January 2022.

He was more subdued in his closing argument Thursday, merely maintaining his innocence and recognizing that his life was at stake before comparing his conviction with the Parkland gunmans.

His argument did not sway a single juror.

The judge scheduled a status conference for Monday. Next up will be a Spencer hearing later in the week, which will give Avsenew a final chance to plead for the courts mercy before a sentencing hearing is held.

Marci Craig, Adams younger sister, said her family and Powells had weathered intense grief since the murders but managed to persevere.

What he did to our family did not destroy us, she said, and it will not define us. Our faith is what has seen us through.

Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-304-5256.
Anybody Home?

The verdict is in.

A year since Elon Musk acquired Twitter  since renamed X  for $44 billion, traffic at the once indispensable social media platform has fallen significantly, according to new analysis from digital marketing firm Similarweb, in the latest sign among many that Musk's tenure as CEO has been a drag.

Comparing September of this year to last year, traffic worldwide dipped 14 percent, while X's ad portal for companies wanting to advertise on the website is also down 16.5 percent, Similarweb reports. The United States, which makes up around a quarter of X traffic, registered a decline of 19 percent over the same period. Other major markets, like Australia and France, have also experienced declines of 17.5 percent and 13.4 percent, respectively.

The mobile version of X also suffered substantial declines in traffic, with a 17.8 percent dip compared to last year.

Curiously, Similarweb pointed out that Musk's X account and his posts experienced the opposite trajectory, with 96 percent traffic growth  a bonkers statistic  which makes sense, since he's the erratic king of this online fiefdom, known to tweak the algorithm of the website so users would see his tweets first.

King Troll

To some, it's clear why X has suffered declines in traffic numbers since Musk's acquisition. Musk's tolerance of right wing trolls and conspiracy theories have driven away users and advertising dollars. It doesn't help that Musk himself is often the biggest troll on the website.

Besides the rogue's gallery of unhinged conspiracy peddlers, there was that chaotic period this summer when Twitter rate limited how many tweets people could read in a day, or the head scratching turn when Musk rebranded Twitter to X.

The list goes on. But the latest woe that has bedeviled the website is that it's no longer the indispensable place for breaking news, with the latest conflagration in Israel and Gaza throwing its shortcomings into high relief. Misinformation abounds there, and it's become harder to parse who to trust now that anybody can buy a blue check.

The whole situation is sad for users, not to mention anybody who values facts over lies.

More on Elon Musk: Twitter CEO Says That Due to Reasons, She Has to Cancel Appearance Defending Elon Musks Deranged Behavior
Chris Hilton and Judd Stone, former lawyers at the Office of the Attorney General.

In yet another sign of turmoil at the embattled Texas Attorney Generals Office, two of Ken Paxtons top lieutenants have left the agency, just months after they sacrificed their own paychecks to help defend him in his impeachment trial.

Solicitor General Judd Stone and Assistant Attorney General Christopher Hilton resigned to continue private practice at the Stone Hilton Law Firm, attorney general spokesperson Paige Willey confirmed in an email on Wednesday. She would not answer questions about when they resigned.

The attorney generals office also did not answer questions about who would succeed Stone as solicitor general, the states top appellate lawyer.

Stone and Hilton were among six attorney general lawyers and one executive assistant who took leave without pay starting in May to help Paxtons defense team as he prepared to face an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate. The Senate acquitted Paxton of the Houses charges of bribery and misuse of office on Sept. 16. Paxton denied any wrongdoing, calling the proceedings a political witch hunt.

Emails obtained through a public records request by The Texas Tribune show the attorneys, along with others who left to work on Paxtons defense, were expected to return to the agency after the impeachment trial ended. They all were back  or had plans to be back  by Oct. 9, according to the emails, but their extended absence raised concerns internally about the offices ability to function properly.

There are important responsibilities these employees maintain at the OAG, and although the OAG has to date been able to continue operations uninterrupted without these employees, the agency cannot fulfill its statutory obligations in the long term with these employees absent, particularly the employees who hold leadership positions, OAG general counsel Austin Kinghorn wrote in a Sept 28 email.

Kinghorn wrote that, at that point, none of the employees had communicated whether they intended to return to the agency.

Moreover, I am concerned about reports of one or more of these employees potentially soliciting business and/or practicing law outside the scope of the limited authorization granted by the OAG, he said.

Kinghorn advised First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster and head of human resources Henry De La Garza to ask them to return by Oct. 2. Webster agreed.

Given the fact that I approved this and the justifications I gave for approving it, I think I am obligated to end the leave, and return things back to pre-impeachment status, Webster responded.

A spokesperson for the Stone Hilton law firm said Stone and Hilton always intended to return briefly to the attorney generals office after the trial, finishing some remaining work and then leave permanently to continue with their new private practice. The spokesperson, Alejandro Garcia, said Stone and Hilton believe they handled the process appropriately.

Stone and Hilton had risen to the top of the attorney generals office amid the departure of some of the agencys highest-level employees in fall 2020, including several who went on to file a whistleblower lawsuit against Paxton that would become one of the catalysts for state House leaders to impeach him. The whistleblowers alleged that Paxton was misusing his office to help his friend and donor Nate Paul, who believed he was the target of a sprawling conspiracy by federal and local law enforcement.

As solicitor general, Stone was the agencys top appellate lawyer, a high-profile position whose previous occupants include Ted Cruz, now a U.S. senator, and Jim Ho, now a federal appeals court judge. He was appointed to the position in January 2021 after the departure of Kyle Hawkins.

Ho provided the Tribune with a statement on Stones departure.

As a proud alum of the SGs office, I predict that Judd will long be known as one of the most influential and talented advocates Texas has ever had, Ho said.

Hilton led the general litigation division, which handles some of the agencys biggest cases. He became a deputy chief in the position by fall 2020 and rose to chief by March 2022, according to agency organizational charts.

Hilton interrupted a House General Investigating Committee meeting in May as members discussed whether to impeach Paxton, demanding to testify on behalf of the attorney generals office. He was rebuffed by the impeachment managers who went into executive session almost immediately after gaveling in.

The people deserve to hear from this office in the context of this investigation, Hilton said at the time. The voters want Ken Paxton. And this committee  by investigating him, by not allowing us to be heard here today, by never reaching out to us at any time during this investigative process  is trying to thwart the will of the voters. We deserve to be heard here today.

Zach Despart contributed to this story.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  One Missouri man and a Kansas man are facing charges in a $1 million scheme involving nuclear weapon components, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

An indictment released Thursday revealed charges against two businessmen for trying to fraudulently steer and award subcontracts for a major engineering firm that works on nuclear weapons being made at the National Nuclear Security Administrations Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC).

75-year-old sentenced in 2019 crash that killed Overland Park teen

According to court documents, Michael Clinesmith, of Kansas, allegedly solicited and received bribes from Richard Mueller, of Missouri, in exchange for directing subcontracts from Clinesmiths employer to Muellers company.

Clinesmith was a long-time employee at a major engineering firm, only referred to as Company 1 in a news release, that does work at the KCNSC. He was responsible for designing and acquiring gages that were specially designed and manufactured to measure the components of nuclear weapon products.

Clinesmith allegedly used his authority at Company 1 to direct gage subcontracts to Muellers company (Subcontractor 1) in exchange for Mueller paying him over $1 million for secretly performing some or all of the work.

Clinesmith allegedly told Mueller how much to bid on gage subcontracts that Company 1 awarded.

Kansas City hit-and-run victims family calls for sidewalks on Troost

Clinesmith told Company 1 that those bids were fair and reasonable without disclosing that, in exchange for the subcontracts, Mueller would secretly funnel to Clinesmith the money awarded to Subcontractor 1. The indictment also says that Mueller lied to federal agents about the number of subcontracts and his involvement in the scheme.

Clinesmith and Mueller are both charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services wire fraud in addition to four counts of wire fraud. Mueller is also charged with making false statements to federal agents.

If they are convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison. Mueller could also face five years for the false statement charge.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
A spate of new attacks on American troops in the Middle East this week is threatening to further entangle the United States in a new regional war, even as the Biden administration tries to prevent the conflict between Israel and Hamas from escalating.

U.S. forces in multiple locations across Iraq and Syria came under attack by aerial drones targeting their positions on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder. One American contractor died of a cardiac episode while seeking shelter from the attacks; other troops sustained minor injuries.

Meanwhile, a U.S. Navy destroyer in the northern Red Sea on Thursday intercepted several missiles and drones launched from Yemen that were deemed a potential threat, Ryder said. No injuries or damage occurred during the episode.

While Ryder declined to attribute the attacks in Syria and Iraq to a specific group, Iran-backed armed groups in the region have threatened to target U.S. positions if Washington intervened to support Israel in its war with Hamas. Meanwhile, the Houthi fighters whom the Pentagon blamed for the missile and drones intercepted over the Red Sea on Thursday have received significant backing from Tehran.

Taken together, the episodes add a dangerous new element to the fighting in Gaza and deepen fears that Iran might foment violence in other parts of the Middle East, expanding the war in Israel and drawing in other countries. Most at risk would likely be the 2,500 American troops in Iraq, who are focused on advising Iraqi Security Forces, and 900 more in Syria, helping the Syrian Democratic Forces fight remnants of the Islamic State.

The U.S. has for months been beefing up its military presence in the region, dispatching thousands of Marines aboard several ships to the Persian Gulf over the summer and sending more F-35 fighter planes and A-10 attack aircraft to U.S. bases. Two of those ships are currently heading for the Eastern Mediterranean to bolster the growing American fleet off the coast of Israel, which will soon include two aircraft carriers and several destroyers.

But Ryder said the Pentagons focus was deterring a potential broader regional conflict and preventing miscalculation.

Clearly there are tensions in the region, which is why you see us working so hard right now to make sure that lines of communication open with regional leaders, Ryder said. And also for actors in the region to understand our message loud and clear about deterrence to prevent potential miscalculation.

While Ryder said the Pentagon did not have any information suggesting a direct connection between the uptick in activity in the region and the Oct. 7 Hamas militant attacks on Israel, the United States will take all necessary actions to defend U.S. and coalition forces.

The attacks began on Tuesday, when U.S. forces at Al Asad air base in western Iraq engaged two uncrewed aerial systems targeting its positions, destroying one and damaging a second, Ryder said. The attacks resulted in minor injuries. That same day, U.S. forces in northern Iraq also engaged and destroyed a drone, with no injuries reported.

The next morning, Wednesday, U.S. troops at Al Tanf garrison in southern Syria also came under attack. The forces engaged one unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, while a second impacted, resulting in minor injuries, Ryder said. In a separate episode, U.S. forces in northeastern Syria also came under drone attack, according to a U.S. official, who was granted anonymity to speak ahead of an announcement.

That same morning, a U.S. civilian contractor suffered a cardiac episode and died while sheltering in place after a false alarm at Al Asad, Ryder said. He declined to confirm reports of a third series of attacks on Thursday at Al Asad.

Ryder also declined to say whether the drones and missiles in the Red Sea were targeting the destroyer Carney, noting only that they were launched from Yemen, heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel. The drones and missiles were intercepted over water, Ryder said.

He said the attack might be ongoing.

Our defensive response was one that we would have taken with a similar threat in the region, when it is in the interest of U.S. personnel and partners, Ryder said

The spate of attacks comes as Biden arrived in Israel on Wednesday to show support after Hamas militants launched its surprise attack on the country, a conflict that has escalated into an all-out war.

In this moment of heightened alert, we are vigilantly monitoring the situation in Iraq and the region, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. U.S. forces will defend U.S. and Coalition forces against any threat.

On Tuesday, a deadly explosion rocked a Gaza hospital. Both sides quickly traded blame, with Israeli officials saying the Islamic Jihad group was responsible.

Biden waded into the fray on Wednesday in Tel Aviv. He said the blast appeared to have been caused not by Israel but by the other team, citing information from his Defense Department.

As the conflict escalates, U.S. officials have been on heightened alert for potential attacks on American and partner forces in the Middle East. Over the years, various Iranian proxies have periodically tried to strike U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria, and U.S. officials are concerned the groups could seize on the instability in the region to launch new attacks.

Reuters first reported the news of the drone attack.
A stockpile of American ammunition designated earlier this year for use by Ukrainian troops will instead be given to Israel, three Israeli officials familiar with the Pentagons planning told Axios. The move will see the Israeli military receive tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells, the outlet reported Thursday, in preparation for an expected full-scale invasion of besieged Gaza. Israeli authorities also told the U.S. the shells could be used as clashes with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist movement, escalate along the border Israel shares with Lebanon. U.S. officials have indicated they do not believe gifting the shells to Israel would immediately impact Ukraines ability to continue fighting Russian forces, according to Axios. The arms will not have far to travel, as they are reportedly set to come from a stockpile the U.S. keeps in Israel. It was first reported by The New York Times in January that 300,000 rounds in the stockpile had been earmarked for use in Ukraine.

Read it at Axios

Read more at The Daily Beast.
In the nearly two week flood of violence and disinformation triggered by the Israel-Hamas war, powerful U.S. figures  including senators and the New York attorney general  have called for online platforms to stem the tide.

But theres little they can do about it.

American politicians have been reduced to issuing sternly worded letters while their European counterparts deliver threats with potentially expensive consequences. In Brussels, officials have already launched an investigation of Elon Musks X, and have the power to fine companies for hosting violent content and disinformation.

In Washington, powerful members of Congress largely sputtered, issuing public demands for social media accountability with no clear way to enforce them.

On Tuesday, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), a vocal critic of tech platforms, sent a letter to leaders of X, Meta, TikTok and Alphabet demanding answers about the numbers of posts removed and numbers of employees dedicated to content moderation. The office of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) told POLITICO the four companies agreed to provide briefings this week to the staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee she chairs, following her demand for information on their content moderation policies. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the ranking member on the committee, called on Meta, X and YouTube to vigorously enforce their terms of service.

In New York, Attorney General Letitia James wrote to Google, X, Meta, TikTok, Reddit and Rumble on Friday demanding answers about how the sites were addressing calls for violence on their platforms.

Yet none of their appeals have the teeth to force any change, thanks to years of stalled efforts in Congress to regulate online content, the First Amendment's free speech protections and a unique liability shield that tech firms have enjoyed since the 1990s.

Washingtons flimsy response the past two weeks stands in sharp contrast to the European Union, where officials quickly deployed their new Digital Services Act to launch an investigation into X last week over its handling of violent content around the Hamas attacks. Brussels has also sent warnings to Meta, TikTok and Googles YouTube. Regulators have the authority to fine a company up to 6 percent of its global revenue for failing to remove violent content and disinformation.



In the absence of federal law, the White House has also reached out directly to social media companies to raise concerns about their platforms, according to Nathaniel Fick, the inaugural U.S. ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy.

We are in regular dialogue with the tech platforms on these issues of responsible behavior at a volatile time, obviously starting at a position of respect for the First Amendment, Fick said on the POLITICO Tech podcast.

The White Houses outreach was striking in light of the political blowback the Biden administration has faced over its dealings with social media firms, including a GOP-led lawsuit claiming the administration violated the First Amendment by allegedly censoring content during the coronavirus pandemic. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan presides over an investigation into whether the executive branch coerced or colluded with tech firms to censor speech.

One reason U.S. officials are hamstrung is Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from liability over most of the content they disseminate. President Joe Biden has called on Congress to fundamentally reform the statute.

In Congress, Bennet has proposed creating a new federal entity to regulate social media, but the bill lacks any Republican co-sponsors and has never been taken up by a committee.

We need a federal regulator empowered to write rules to prevent foreign disinformation on digital platforms, increase transparency around content moderation and levy fines to hold these companies accountable, Bennet told POLITICO.

In New York, James recently introduced legislation with Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers to set guardrails around harmful content on social media, but it wont be considered until the legislature returns next year.

Platforms contacted by POLITICO say they are taking steps to address the toxic content on their sites. YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said the site had removed tens of thousands of harmful videos and terminated hundreds of channels since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel and subsequent Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip. TikTok said it removed over 500,000 videos and closed 8,000 live streams since Oct. 7, and added an unspecified number of additional content moderators who speak Hebrew and Arabic. Meta said it has removed more than 700,000 videos violating its policies against violent content and hate speech or labeled them as disturbing during the first three days of conflict. X did not respond to a request for comment.

In Europe, meanwhile, one European Commission official told POLITICO the White House had praised its approach.

Weve had some high U.S. representatives thanking us for what weve done with our regulation on Big Tech in the context of dealing with disinformation, misinformation and illegal content after the Hamas attack, the official said, speaking anonymously to discuss the matter openly.

The White House declined to comment.

Clothilde Goujard contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: This article has been corrected to reflect that a bill proposed by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) lacks any Republican co-sponsors.
The United States partially lifted sanctions against the Nicolas Maduro government on Wednesday, following a deal the socialist regime reached the day before with the Venezuelan opposition setting a roadmap for holding freer presidential elections next year.

In an announcement made by the State Department and Department of Treasury, the Biden administration said it would grant a six-month general license temporarily authorizing transactions involving the oil and gas sector in Venezuela, and a second general license authorizing operations of state-run Minerven, a previously sanctioned gold mining enterprise that had been trading in the black market.

In addition, the Biden administration lifted a trading ban on certain Venezuelan sovereign bonds and debt and equity belonging to the state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, PDVSA.

The U.S. government also said that it is ready to reinstate the sanctions if at any point the Venezuelan regime fails to fulfill its commitments, and that it expects concrete actions taken by the Maduro government by the end of November, including authorizing all opposition candidates to run in upcoming elections who choose to do so and beginning of the release of all Venezuelan political prisoners and U.S. citizens detained in the country.

Failure to abide by the terms of this arrangement will lead the United States to reverse steps we have taken, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. The United States stands with the Venezuelan people and actors who want a democratic future.

In making the announcement, the Treasury Department said that it assesses that these measures would have the positive effect of displacing nefarious players in this market, and with negligible financial benefit to the Venezuelan regime.

State Department officials also noted that other sanctions and restrictions on Venezuela remain in place, and that the relief announced on Tuesday could be amended or revoked if Maduro and his representatives fail to follow through on their commitments.

In accordance with our longstanding policy, as a result of this agreement, the United States will provide limited sanctions relief, primarily in the oil and gas sector in response to this important development, a U.S. official told reporters Wednesday night. Our ultimate goal of sanctions is to bring about a positive change in behavior.

The announcement came the day after representatives from the Maduro regime and the representatives from the opposition signed two separate accords paving the way for a presidential election that would be supervised by the European Union, the United Nations and other international observers next year.

The agreements, signed in Barbados, contained pledges to implement a number of electoral reforms, long demanded by the opposition, including the audit of the voters registry, long suspected to include hundreds of thousands of deceased and non-existent voters. The revision would also seek to include voters now residing outside the country.

The deal reached in Barbados recognized that the opposition has the right to choose its own candidates but stopped short of lifting an existing ban on certain opposition leaders, including the top official at Vente Venezuela party, Maria Corina Machado, who is expected to easily win the oppositions primary vote this Sunday.

Many observers interpreted the absence of a direct reference to lifting the ban in the accords as a sign that the regime may not be willing to allow Machado to compete against Maduro in the presidential elections that would be held in the second half of next year.

A second senior administration official told reporters Wednesday night that the administration understood any candidate would be free to run, and would receive security protections, when asked about Machados prospects.

The partial agreement signed yesterday clearly states that the promotion of a way forward for all candidates to be able to run, and be authorized, is part of that process, the official said. This is something that we consider vital to the process, and we also very clearly stated that this is essential for Venezuelans to have a choice  a democratic choice.

The agreement that he signed says that there will be a path to authorize all candidates, and the clear understanding in the context of the negotiations has been that the Maduro authorities will act expeditiously to authorize all candidates, the official added. And thats certainly our understanding of the way forward.

Biden administration officials also said that they expect Maduro to release the remaining U.S. prisoners in Venezuelan custody that they believe are being wrongfully detained by the government in Caracas.

We conveyed our expectation clearly that that will be a key part of the implementation of this process, a State Department official said.
The United Nations on Thursday called for "an immediate humanitarian cease-fire" to break the bottleneck at the Rafah Crossing and enable desperately needed aid to reach Palestinians trapped in Gaza.

The call for a break in the fighting, which erupted on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants launched a bloody surprise attack on Israel, came a day after President Joe Biden got the Israelis to agree to allow limited aid into the teeming Palestinian territory.

"For nearly two weeks, the people of Gaza have gone without any shipments of fuel, food, water, medicine and other essentials," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said at a news conference in Egypt. "Disease is spreading. Supplies are dwindling. People are dying."

The Rafah Crossing, along with the El Arish airport in Egypt, "are the lifelines to the people of Gaza," Guterres said.

As Guterres spoke, aid trucks were lined up at the border crossing while Egyptian work crews rushed to repair roads that were badly damaged by Israeli missile attacks launched in retaliation for the brutal Hamas terrorist attack, which has sparked the latest war in the Holy Land.

Our trucks are loaded and ready to go, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , the director general of the World Health Organization, said in a virtual news event. Were working with Egypt and Palestine Red Crescent societies to deliver our supplies into Gaza as soon as the border crossing is opened, hopefully tomorrow.

Image: Humanitarian aid provided by the United Nations is loaded onto a plane (Giuseppe Cacace / AFP - Getty Images)

The announcement from Ghebreyesus came a day after Israel said it would not block the delivery of food, water and medicine into Gaza for its nearly 2.4 million Palestinians.

Dr. Michael Ryan, WHOs executive director of emergency programs, said the pre-packed pallets of aid are "extremely well-documented" to ensure only the agreed-upon items get into Gaza. But there are logistical hurdles that need to be overcome.

The roads are very badly destroyed, Ryan said. Theres a huge issue of deconflicting those routes so that the trucks that carry that material are not attacked in any way or disrupted  and that the goods can be offloaded safely and put into storage for further distribution.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it, too, has a convoy with 60 tons of medical supplies and humanitarian aid ready to go into Gaza.

Its critically important to deploy," the committee's chief surgeon, Tom Potokar, said in a statement. "There are a huge number of wounded people, and a lot of displaced people and ICRC has a role in helping these people in their suffering. The situation this time is much more difficult. There are far bigger numbers in terms of the people injured. The humanitarian crisis that is unfolding is on a much bigger scale.

Image: Egypt Sends Aid Convoy To Gaza Border (Mahmoud Khaled / Getty Images)

Before the U.N. announcement, an Red Cross spokesperson told reporters there needs to be a cease-fire to ensure that aid can be delivered safely and intact to the trapped Gaza residents.

We welcome any agreement allowing aid to enter Gaza," the spokesperson said. "However, words must be put into action for them to make a difference for civilians. What is needed is a regular flow of aid into Gaza. Medical staff and other personnel must also be allowed to enter. This is not only about the border opening."

Meanwhile, on the Palestinian side of the border crossing, there was a growing line of people  including a number of American citizens  waiting to get out of Gaza.

Former Chicagoan Emilee Rauschenberger, who now lives in Amman, Jordan, was visiting her Palestinian in-laws in Gaza with her Palestinian husband and their five children when the fighting broke out.

Their escape route blocked, Rauschenberger described in an interview with NBC News' Lester Holt a hell-scape of bread lines and ruins and growing desperation accompanied by the "humming of drones, constantly in the nights."

"Whenever it gets dark, you stay inside completely and you hear bombings near and far, Rauschenberger said.

A 29-year-old man who lives near Houston and asked not to be named told NBC News that he has been in touch with his family, who live in northern Gaza near the Israeli border. He said many of them are U.S. citizens and they have tried and failed repeatedly to escape across the border.

Image: Palestinians wait to cross into Egypt at the Rafah border crossing in the Gaza Strip (Fatima Shbair / AP)

"Theyve gone to the border multiple times and have been unable to leave," he said. "They went back to the north because you can only camp outside of Rafah for so long. You realize maybe its safer to be in your home."

But the situation remains dangerous. He said their home was struck by a missile on Wednesday. And then, when they fled their home, there was a second missile strike that claimed the life of his 14-year-old cousin Jude, maimed his uncle and nearly killed his cousin Yousef.

"Yousef went downstairs to get out of the house," he said. "And right in front of them another missile hit and Yousefs sister lost her life, his Dad lost his hand. "

None of his relatives belong to Hamas or any other militant group, he said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The U.N. Security Council unanimously agreed Thursday to extend for another year sanctions targeting individuals and groups threatening peace and security in Haiti, but stopped short of designating any new individuals to be subjected to a travel ban, arms embargo or asset freeze.

Instead, the 15-member council asked a U.N. Sanctions Committee, headed by the permanent representative of Gabon, to consider updating the sanctions list as soon as possible in view of the findings of a panel of experts on Haiti, whose mandate was also extended for a year in order to continue their investigation.

This should be done without any delay, as the reputation and authority of the Council are at stake, said Geng Shuang, Chinas deputy permanent representative. One year after the adoption of [the resolution imposing sanctions] the situation of only one person on the designated list must be changed as soon as possible. We urge the Sanctions Committee to speed up its work.

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Last year, after agreeing to impose a sanctions regime on Haiti in response to the escalating violence by armed gangs, the council designated just one person, a former cop turned powerful gang leader named Jimmy Cherizier, who goes by the moniker Barbecue.

Ahead of Thursdays vote, the U.N. late Wednesday released a detailed 156-page report by the investigators into the role of armed groups in Haiti, their financing, dynamic, recruitment strategies and membership ranks as well as links with politicians and members of the economic elite. The study, which includes about 170 pages of confidential reports, found that gangs are interwoven in Haitis society and implicated in all areas, from the police to the judiciary to the customs and ports operations.

Cherizier is among several gang leaders highlighted in the public report. In addition to providing detailed information about the armed groups, including their membership numbers, leaders names, recruitment schemes and locations, the published report highlights the role of at least five high-profile individuals in the gang crisis and corruption, including the diversion of millions of dollars in public funds.

Named in the report are: former President Michel Martelly and his prime minister, Laurent Lamothe; former senator and head of the Senate Youri Latortue; former member of the Lower Chamber of Deputies and political party leader Prophane Victor, and influential businessman Reynold Deeb. Latortue and Victor are influential in the rural Artibonite Valley, just north of Port-au-Prince, where escalating gang violence has forced the closure of schools and health clinics, led to the deaths of several police officers and the slaughter of dozens of people.

All the individuals named  with the exception of Lamothe, who is named in a section about the misappropriation of earthquake recovery funds from Venezuelas PetroCaribe oil program  are said by experts to have ties to gangs. The U.N. panel said Martelly armed and used gangs to expand his influence over neighborhoods during his 2011-16 presidency.

No refuge or privilege should be given to those responsible for the violence and for the political and institutional stalemate in the country, in particular those that manipulate gangs and the political process in order to continue to benefit from this terrible situation that we see at the moment, U.N. Ambassador Sergio Franca Danese of Brazil said after the vote.

His South American nation, he said, is always ready to evaluate the inclusion of new names on the sanctions list provided that these are well founded based on solid arguments and well documented.

U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood noted that the sanctions resolution is the third the U.N. Security Council has passed on Haiti since July. The first renewed the mandate of the U.N. political office in Port-au-Prince, the second came earlier this month and authorized the deployment of a Multinational Security Support mission, led by Kenya, to assist police in putting down gangs.

Though the security mission is currently being challenged in Kenyas high court, Wood said the U.S. continues to view an international response to Haitis call for international security support as serious, credible, and realistic, and one potential approach to taking on the countrys challenges.

The U.S., which penned all three resolutions with Ecuador, said the Security Council has taken an important step to help the Haitian people who have been victims of brutal gang violence, acute food insecurity, a cholera outbreak and years of instability and needless suffering.

In addition to the one year renewal of both the sanctions regime and the panel of experts, who noted in their report their investigations will continue, the adopted resolution demands an immediate cessation of violence, criminal activities, and human rights abuses in Haiti.

Haitis political class, which has yet to break a stalemate since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, are also urged to constructively engage in meaningful negotiations to overcome the current political stalemate in order to allow the holding of inclusive, free and fair legislative and presidential elections, as soon as the local security situation permits.

During the work of the panel of experts, which began in January, they reached out to several countries for cooperation. Many did not respond. The resolution urges all U.N. members as well as international, regional and sub-regional organizations, and the multinational security mission to provide unhindered access, in particular to persons, documents and sites in order for the Panel to execute its mandate.

The sanctions report highlighted the flow of illicit arms and money into Haiti, and how bulk cash transfers finance both the drug trade and the purchase of arms and ammunition. Between 2018 and August 2023, according to the data made available to the experts, $1,141,882 in bulk cash had been intercepted on its way in or out of Haiti. This includes $413,581 in cash in several seizures that U.S. authorities intercepted between January and May of this year.

The money and weapons have led to the rise of criminal gangs, who now control at least 80% of the capital of Port-au-Prince. In the resolution, the Security Council calls for member states to take appropriate steps to prevent the illicit trafficking and diversion of weapons and ammunition to Haiti; encourages them to ensure that adequate marking and record keeping measures are in place to trace arms, and calls on countries, particularly those in the region, to inspect all cargo being shipped into Haiti.

The government of Haiti is also asked to the reinforce the weapons and ammunition management capacity of the Haiti National Police through proper marking, record keeping, storage, and disposal of their stockpiles of weapons and ammunition.

Member nations are also asked to protect Haitian refugees and migrants in their territories in accordance with international human-rights law.

The measures outlined in this resolution will play a critical role in promoting peace and stability in Haiti and in the broader region, Wood, the U.S. representative said. We remain deeply deeply concerned by the security and humanitarian situation in Haiti. So many patients continue to suffer from the ongoing violence.

Describing Thursdays vote as a milestone, Wood said the United States is dedicated to adding designations of people to sanction to the list and encourages other states to support this.

But while recognizing that the sanctions are a key tool from the Security Councils broader peace and security toolkit to help stabilize Haiti, he added: A lasting political solution is critical to promoting a peaceful and prosperous future for the people of Haiti and the region.
A U.S. Navy warship on Thursday shot down multiple drones and three cruise missiles that were fired from Yemen and heading potentially towards Israel, a Defense Department spokesman said.

The USS Carney was in the northern Red Sea when it took out the missiles and more than a dozen drones, said Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary.

There were no casualties, but such incidents may be ongoing, he said.

Tensions in the region are rising after the hospital explosion in Gaza and a spate of recent drone attacks on U.S. bases in the Middle East.

Cmdr. Jeremy Robertson, commanding officer of USS Carney oversees the ship's transit of the Suez Canal, Oct. 18, 2023. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Aaron Lau / U.S. Navy)

At least two drones targeted al-Tanf, a U.S. garrison in southern Syria, on Wednesday. The U.S. shot down one of them, but the other struck the base, resulting in minor injuries among a small number of U.S. troops.

The U.S. is still investigating who sent the drones, but the early belief is that they were launched by Iranian-backed militias.

On Wednesday, three drones attacked U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq.

The U.S. shot down a drone that attacked a base in northern Iraq and another that attacked al-Asad military base in western Iraq.

A second drone that attacked al-Asad broke into pieces when it was hit by coalition forces. The debris struck a hangar where people were sheltering. There were no serious injuries or deaths, but several people suffered minor lacerations, officials said.

Ryder said that a civilian contractor died after suffering a cardiac episode at al-Asad but that it was not connected to the drone attacks.

The contractor was sheltering in place after early warning alarms went off at the base, signaling a possible threat. No attack occurred, Ryder said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The North Korean national flag flies over its embassy in Beijing November 29, 2010. China remains Pyongyang's biggest trade partner and arguably has the most leverage on Kim Jon-Il's regime. North Korea placed surface-t-surface missiles on launch pads in the Yellow Sea, South Korea's state press said, as the United States and South Korea began military drills and China called for emergency talks. UPI/Stephen Shaver

SEOUL, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- The United States has seized 17 website domains used by North Korean information technology workers in order to disguise their identities, evade sanctions and fund the regime's illicit weapons programs, the Justice Department announced.

"The seizures announced today protect U.S. companies from being infiltrated with North Korean computer code and help ensure that American businesses are not used to finance that regime's weapons program," Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the department's National Security Division said in a press release issued Wednesday.

According to court documents filed in the Eastern District of Missouri, North Korea has dispatched thousands of IT workers to live abroad, mainly in Russia and China, in an effort to deceive businesses around the world into hiring them as freelancers.

The seized websites appeared to be the domains of legitimate, U.S.-based IT services companies. The North Korean workers behind the sites actually work for China-based Yanbian Silverstar Network Technology Co. and Russia-based Volasys Silver Star, however, and had been previously sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2018.

The United States and South Korea issued a new round of sanctions on entities related to North Korean IT workers in May.

The fraudulent scheme generated millions of dollars a year for Pyongyang's banned weapons of mass destruction programs, the department said. Some of the North Korean IT workers also allegedly broke into their employers' computer networks to steal information and maintain access for future hacking.

"Employers need to be cautious about who they are hiring and who they are allowing to access their IT systems," U.S. Attorney Sayler Fleming of the Eastern District of Missouri said. "You may be helping to fund North Korea's weapons program or allowing hackers to steal your data or extort you down the line."

The domain seizures follow the previously sealed court-authorized October 2022 and January seizure of approximately $1.5 million in revenue collected by the same group of IT workers, the Justice Department said.

The United States and South Korea also released updated guidance Wednesday meant to help companies avoid inadvertently hiring North Korean IT workers.

The advisory includes red flags such as an unwillingness to appear on camera or conduct video interviews, aggressive demands for prepayment and language preferences set to Korean despite claiming to be from a non-Korean speaking country or region.

"The hiring or supporting of DPRK IT workers continues to pose many risks, ranging from theft of intellectual property, data and funds, to reputational harm and legal consequences," the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement, using the official initialism for North Korea.

North Korea has continued to develop its weapons program despite longstanding U.N. Security Council sanctions banning any ballistic or nuclear activity.

The isolated regime has increasingly turned to cybercrime to raise funds, with North Korean hackers stealing more than $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency since 2017, according to the South Korean government.
Delta Air Lines aircraft are lined up at Salt Lake International Airport in Salt Lake City on Nov. 18, 2021. The State Department on Thursday issued a worldwide caution, advising all U.S. citizens of a potential for terrorist attacks around the world. | Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

In a rare move, the U.S. State Department Thursday issued a worldwide caution, advising all U.S. citizens around the world to exercise increased caution due to the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens.

It recommends that U.S. citizens stay alert in areas frequented by tourists, enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program that will allow them to receive information and alerts, and follow the State Department on Facebook and X.

The alert is in response to the Israel-Hamas war and the increase in protests around the world, many of which are targeting U.S. embassies.

The last time the State Department issued a global alert was in August 2022 after al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed.

Related

Other cautions

In the last week, the State Department has also issued a Level 4 Do Not Travel caution to Gaza and Lebanon. On Oct. 17, the State Department authorized the voluntary, temporary departure of family members of U.S. government personnel and some non-emergency personnel from U.S. Embassy Beirut due to the unpredictable security situation in Lebanon.

In Turkey, the U.S. Consulate will remain closed until further notice. The advisory reads, Large demonstrations related to events in Israel and Gaza are expected throughout Turkey for the next several weeks. Any gathering, even those intended to be peaceful, could escalate and turn violent. U.S. government personnel in Turkey have been instructed to minimize movements and avoid travel to the Consulate Adana consular district. U.S. citizens in Lebanon are urged to make plans to depart as soon as possible.

In Egypt, the State Department cautions that the situation in Israel and Gaza continues to be volatile and raises the potential for unrest in the region. Related demonstrations, potentially including anti-U.S. sentiment, may occur in Cairo or elsewhere in Egypt. U.S. citizens are urged to remain alert to local security developments, avoid demonstrations and be vigilant at all times regarding their personal security.

In Iraq, the State Department is monitoring calls for demonstrations throughout the country, including a large demonstration with potential for anti-U.S. sentiment in Baghdad on Oct. 20. U.S. citizens are warned to be aware of the potential for protests related to the ongoing events in Gaza to spread rapidly throughout Iraq without prior notice, often interrupting traffic, transportation and other services, and sometimes turning violent. Monitor local media. Avoid protests and large gatherings. The State Departments travel advisory for Iraq remains at a Level 4: Do Not Travel.

In Oman, the State Department is monitoring planned protests from Oct. 18 through Oct. 20. U.S. citizens are advised to keep a low profile, remain alert, have a personal security plan and a PACE communication plan: Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency.

In Jordan, the U.S. Embassy is advising U.S. citizens to expect a heavy police presence around the embassy and is telling citizens to avoid large crowds and any protests.

President Joe Biden flew to Israel this week in a display of support for Israel. Speaking in Tel Aviv after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said, I come to Israel with a single message: You are not alone. As long as the United States stands, and we will stand forever, well not ever let you be alone.

The visit was the first of any U.S. president to Israel during a time of war.

Holly Richardson is the editor of Utah Policy.
The U.S. Department of State is warning Americans not to visit Lebanon and directing any Americans already there to promptly leave amid the intensifying Israel-Hamas war.

The Department of State urges U.S. citizens in Lebanon to make plans to depart as soon as possible while commercial options are still available. We recommend that U.S. citizens who choose not to depart prepare contingency plans for emergency situations, the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon said in a security alert Thursday.

U.S. citizens in Lebanon needing emergency assistance can contact the Department of State using a crisis intake form provided on the agencys website. Family members of U.S. citizens in Lebanon can also submit a form on their behalf.

 We have updated our Travel Advisory for Lebanon to Level 4: Do Not Travel.



We urge U.S. citizens not to travel to Lebanon. We recommend that U.S. citizens in Lebanon make appropriate arrangements to leave the country; commercial options currently remain available. We  U.S. Embassy Beirut (@usembassybeirut) October 18, 2023

On Oct. 7, Hamas  a militant group located in Gaza  launched a massive attack on Israel. Israel retaliated and launched airstrikes at the blockaded territory in what is now the deadliest of the five Gaza warson both sides, with hundreds of thousands displaced, thousands killed and injured, and dozens held captive.

The Lebanon-Israeli border has experienced acts of violence amid the ongoing war, including back-and-forth shellings between Israeli soldiers and Lebanons Hezbollah fighters, a group that has threatened to enter the war.

The department raised travel to Lebanon to a Level 4: Do Not Travel due to the unpredictable security situation related to rocket, missile, and artillery exchanges between Israel and [Hezbollah] or other armed militant factions, according to an earlier travel advisory released Tuesday by the State Department.

Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Lebanon. Terrorists may conduct attacks with little or no warning targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets/shopping malls, and local government facilities, the advisory wrote.

The Lebanese government cannot guarantee the protection of U.S. citizens against sudden outbreaks of violence. Family, neighborhood, or sectarian disputes can escalate quickly and can lead to gunfire or other violence with no warning.

Protests have also erupted in Lebanon, as well as in neighboring Mideast countries, following a strike on a Gaza hospital that killed thousands of people, and have resulted in clashes between protestors and security forces.

The travel advisory included a list of steps Americans should consider if they decide to travel to Lebanon, including avoiding demonstrations and crowds, monitoring local media for updates and reviewing Lebanons security report.

Thousands of Americans were stuck in Israel after flights were abruptly halted on Oct. 7 when Hamas first attacked. As of Tuesday, over 6,000 U.S. citizens have successfully left Israel and the West Bank, the State Department told The Washington Post.

The Department authorized voluntary and temporary departure on Tuesday from U.S. Embassy Beirut for family members of the U.S. government personnel, as well as some non-emergency personnel, because of unpredictable security in Lebanon, according to the advisory.

The Lebanon travel advisory follows a week after the Department also raised its advisory to Israel and the West Bank to a Level 3: Reconsider Travel. The Lebanon borders of Israel and Syria, as well as refugee settlements have also been listed in the Departments travel advisory as a Level 4: Do Not Travel.

Related...
The Biden administration is aiming to wind down its charter flights for Americans who want to leave Israel, amid waning demand despite the ongoing conflict.

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told POLITICO on Wednesday that though thousands of U.S. citizens have contacted the State Department indicating a desire to leave since Hamas Oct. 7 attack, many of those individuals have not sought to depart.

We have sent messages to every U.S. citizen who contacted us to inform them of options for departure assistance, Patel said, adding that over 7,000 U.S. citizens have left Israel and the West Bank by various means, including over land, sea and air.

Flights are scheduled to continue on a rolling basis from Ben Gurion International Airport through at least Sunday, October 22. We will continue to monitor demand from U.S. citizens for assistance in departing Israel on a real-time basis, he said.

So far, out of the 5,600 seats made available since the Biden administration began charter services by air and sea on Oct. 13, some 1,500 U.S. citizens and their families have used them, Patel said, reiterating that the departure options we have offered have generally departed at half capacity or less.

U.S. government-coordinated evacuations have restrictions, however, which could be impacting demand. For instance, evacuees are not allowed to bring their pets, and can only travel with immediate family members.

Domestic airlines have reported sagging demand, as well. Though U.S. airlines halted their commercial operations in and out of Israel when the conflict began, many increased flights from other regions to help bring Americans the rest of the way home.

Lisa Hanna, spokesperson for Delta Air Lines, said the airline added three flights from Athens on a plane that could carry 281 people last week. The first flight took 270 people, the second 112, and the last one, on Wednesday, took 73 people.

Though other airlines continue operating out of Tel Aviv, domestic carriers arent planning to resume service until next month at the earliest. The reduced capacity has bothered both Republicans and Democrats, who have said the current options arent enough to get Americans out of harms way.

An evacuation coordinator assisting non-governmental organizations in ongoing rescue efforts, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the evolving situation, said capacity has been adequate to help Americans who want to leave Israel, but not for those trapped in Gaza. The coordinator said an estimated 500 to 600 U.S. citizens residing in the Gaza Strip cant leave due to Israels blockade and Egypts reluctance to let Palestinians in at the Rafah crossing, which remains closed.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Thursday that the administration is aware of the situation and is in touch with the Egyptian government.

We are telling [Egypt] that we have an interest in getting American citizens out, Miller said during a press briefing. We will be trying to get out the American citizens who are in Gaza who want to leave."

Patel on Wednesday said U.S. citizens in each location  Israel, Gaza and the West Bank  in need of assistance should complete the crisis intake form, and the State Department will continue to provide updates on the latest departure measures as they become available.

Meanwhile, some aviation unions have pressed the Biden administration to call up the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, a Defense Department program that uses commercial aircraft to perform airlift services.

But a former senior U.S. Air Force officer involved in planning and executing global airlift operations, granted anonymity to speak about the process by which the government initiates that program, said the threshold for mobilizing usually involves a rapidly deteriorating situation which calls for a major effort to save lives or distribute critical supplies.

It's just not needed at this time, the officer said. He compared it with the last time the commercial fleet was activated to help evacuate people just before U.S. armed forces pulled out of Afghanistan.

We had days to move 125,000 or so individuals out of there before the Taliban locked everything down, the officer said.

For Israel, interagency groups and the State Department, they are monitoring the situation and supporting the people  they know what the requirement is to move people. So I would say [charter flights are] probably the best course of action right now.
WAYNE, Mich. (FOX 2) - This week marks five weeks since the start of the UAW standup strike against Detroit's Big Three. And, as the ripple effects spread through the auto industry, some UAW members are saying they're ready to get back to work.

Over the past 34 days, the UAW has called on more than 34,000 members to go on strike. One of those members is Darvin Fletcher, a 28-year veteran of the Ford Motor Company.

Quite simply, he told us he's tired of being on the picket line at Michigan Assembly in Wayne, which was one of the first union plants to strike.

"Mr. Fain get us back to work! Enoughs enough," Fletcher said. "Morale is down. The first week everybody was gung ho."

But now in week five, times are getting tough.

"I go with the BB King song The Thrill Is Gone. Nobody wants to do this. Were all going financially bankrupt. We werent even getting a full 40 hours a week since, like, May, and now to be handed $500 a week before taxes?! Its killing us."

MORE UAW STORIES:

Fletcher says workers are waiting for Ford and Stellantis to put all Electric Vehicle battery production in a UAW agreement similar to what GM pledged to do two weeks ago. But he said he feels Ford has given them a good enough offer he can live with.

"Like I tell all these young guys  theyre wanting the moon and the stars  take what you can get before you lose what you got," he said.

Experts in the auto industry are saying the strike has prompted a widening shortage of midsize trucks, which were already in short supply when the strike began in mid-September.

Darin Fletcher, a 28-year UAW veteran, is urging president Shawn Fain to put an end to the standup strike.

"If youre looking for a Ranger or a Colorado, it may be many months until you can sort of find the one you are looking for because it will take a while to rebuild those inventory levels," Tyson Jominy with JD Power and Associates said.

"We were just getting ready to launch the 2024 Ranger, and the 2024 Bronco. The 2024 Ranger is sold out for a year and now its sitting there empty."

UAW President Shawn Fain has said that they won't back down from their demands from Detroit's Big Three.
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.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Israel on Thursday, when he held diplomatic talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and condemned Hamas, a terrorist group that governs Gaza, for their ruthless assault on Oct. 7, when they slaughtered more than 1,400 Israelis in a single day.

Sunaks visit came on the 13th day of Israel's war with Hamas, and he minced no words in describing the terror group.

"First and foremost, I want to express my solidarity with you and your country after you have suffered something unspeakable, a barbaric act of terrorism, as you said, we should call it what it is: an act of terrorism perpetrated by an evil terrorist organization, Hamas."

"We will stand with Israel, we will stand with you in solidarity with your people and your right to defend yourself, to bring security back to your country, to your people, to ensure the safe return of the hostages that have been taken," Sunak said. "Because that's the right thing to do. You have not just a right to do that, I think you have a duty to do that, to restore that security to your country. But I'm also grateful to you for the support that the Israeli government has provided to the families and British nationals who have been caught up in this tragedy."

The unequivocal moral distinction comes as some U.S. lawmakers, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., repeated a debunked claim that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were responsible for an explosion that struck a Gaza hospital, reportedly killing hundreds of civilians. On Wednesday, Tlaib also accused the Biden administration of funding a "genocide" against Palestinians.

BIDEN PUTS CONDITION ON HUMANITARIAN AID TO GAZA AS ISRAEL ALLOWS EGYPT TO DELIVER SUPPLIES

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Israeli President Isaac Herzog, left, meets British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, in Tel Aviv, Israel on Oct. 19, 2023.

Sunak said the U.K. supported Israels right to defend itself against the Hamas terrorists and urged the swift return of Israeli hostages.

He added, "I very much appreciate that and I know we will continue to cooperate closely and support your efforts to ensure the safe return of all the hostages."

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, left, held diplomatic talks with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Tel Aviv, Israel on Oct. 19, 2023.

The U.K. prime minister also expressed a need for humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.

HAMAS TERRORISTS LIKELY USED NORTH KOREAN WEAPONS DURING BRUTAL ATTACK ON ISRAEL, EVIDENCE SHOWS

"I'm glad that you and I have had a chance to discuss the need for humanitarian access. Palestinians are victims of what Hamas has done," he continued. "And it's important that we continue to provide humanitarian access. I welcomed the announcement yesterday  the U.K. has announced further aid that we're prepared to bring into the region."

"And we're keen to see that that gets to those who need it. I very much welcome the progress that we've made on that. The relationship between our two countries has always been strong. But I want you to know at this particular moment, you don't just have our friendship, you have all solidarity with you," he concluded.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks visit came on the 13th day of Israel's war with Hamas and he minced no words in describing the terror group.

President Herzog also spoke Thursday, saying he was "extremely grateful" for Sunaks visit.

"You've come to visit Israel in our darkest hour, but we will overcome and prevail and it will be our finest hour. Mr. Prime Minister, you will see here in Israel the way our nation has risen following the horrendous attack, following the shock and the trauma, with enormous pain that we are carrying with us on an hourly basis," he said. "Every hour another story, another story and another story of shocking stories, shocking - people being burned and tied up in barbed wire, you can only think about a family just before they are totally murdered, and heads cut off, all the things that you've been hearing."

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Herzog also said Israel was facing "a test," and went on to say, "We are seeing ISIS on our border, entering into our country. And it's an empire of evil, which we know is led from Tehran. It's a coalition of evil led from Tehran, which has its forks in Lebanon, which has left havoc in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. This is the real international interest, the security interest of all the nations of Europe, and this is how we feel and see this moment."

The visit comes a day after President Biden landed in Tel Aviv, where he met with Herzog, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.





Original article source: UK Prime Minister puts US officials on blast regarding Hamas: 'Call it what it is ... evil terrorists'
Trains, planes and ferries are being affected by Storm Babet  which, warns the Met Office, will bring exceptional rainfall and impactful wind for some.

Forecasters have issued a red warning for rain for parts of eastern Scotland, affecting Angus and Aberdeenshire. The warning is in force from 6pm on Thursday through to 12 noon on Friday. It is issued because of a danger to life from flood water, extensive flooding to homes and businesses and severely disrupted travel conditions.

The chief meteorologist for the Met Office, Jason Kelly, said: 100150mm of rain is expected to fall quite widely within the warning period, with some locations likely to see 200250mm, which is expected to cause considerable impacts with flooding likely.

Storm Babet will track gradually northwards in the coming days, and although the most significant impacts are expected within the red and amber warning areas, there will still be wider impacts for much of the UK from this wind and rain.

A spokesperson for the British Geological Survey said: There is a history of coastal landslides within the warning area. Infrastructure slopes are also likely to be affected with potential for disruption to roads and railway within the warning area.

ScotRail has cancelled all trains on seven Scottish routes on Thursday and Friday:

Edinburgh and Aberdeen via Fife

Perth and Aberdeen via Dundee

Dunblane and Perth

Perth and Aviemore

Tain and Wick / Thurso

All Fife Circle services

The train operator warns: Due to the red weather warning and the likelihood of flooding and poor driving conditions, customers on these routes are advised not to travel as no alternative transport is available.

ScotRail says the line closures are planned to last until early on Saturday  but warns: This is dependent on the weather conditions and any repair work to railway infrastructure thats required.

Other routes across the network will be affected by precautionary speed restrictions, meaning services may be subject to delay or cancellation.

David Simpson, ScotRails service delivery director, said: We know the impact that the withdrawal of some train services will have on customers, but our first priority is always to ensure the safety of our staff and customers.

LNER, which normally runs from London Kings Cross via the East Coast main line to Aberdeen and Inverness, says: Due to severe weather conditions forecast for Thursday 19 October and Friday 20 October across Scotland, LNER will not run any services north of Edinburgh on these dates. Please do not travel on this part of our route.

Further south, repairs to the Plessey Viaduct, between Cramlington and Morpeth in Northumberland, means only a single line is open  leading to cancellations and delays.

Ferry links between Aberdeen, Orkney and Shetland have been cancelled, as well as Pentland Firth crossings from Scrabster to Stromness.

Caledonian MacBrayne has suspended or diverted a number of Western Isles services because of forecast strong winds and sea swell.

The Ullapool-Stornoway crossing, the main link to Lewis and Harris, is cancelled all day. The crossing from Lochboisdale in South Uist to Mallaig is diverted to Oban.

Flights are already being affected, with Wideroe cancelling its round-trip from Stavanger to Aberdeen.

An easyJet flight on Thursday afternoon is delayed by four hours.

Loganair has cancelled its morning flight from Newcastle to Aberdeen. The airline said: Given the Met Office weather warning forecast on Thursday, 19 and Friday, 20 October 2023, across the UK, and the potential for travel disruption, we are offering customers travelling on flights to/from Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, Kirkwall and Sumburgh the opportunity to adjust travel plans without charge.
Two men look at the Antonivskyi Bridge in Kherson, which has not yet been destroyed, July 27, 2022

Select units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces successfully crossed the Dnipro River on Oct. 17-18, gaining a foothold in the occupied part of Kherson Oblast near Oleshkivska, the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote in their Oct. 18 assessment.

Assessing the situation and its implications for Ukraine, military expert Mykhailo Zhyrokhov provided insights during an interview on Radio NV:

As of now, there is a lack of heavy armor and significant weaponry in the area, suggesting this may be considered another landing operation, possibly intended to divert the aggressors reserves in some way.

Read also: Russians actively preparing for large-scale battles in Kherson Oblast, Atesh partisans say

If the marines can secure their position, this landing operation could potentially transform into a new active front, he said.

An offensive could potentially be launched from this location. Significant supplies of amphibious armor, bridging equipment, and engineering resources have been provided from Western sources.

Read also: Russian offensive on Avdiyivka aims to draw Ukrainian forces from key fronts, HUR says

Currently, the situation remains fluid. Yet, everything hinges on the weather, said Zhyrokhov.

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Verkhovna Rada

Ukraines parliament voted to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church  Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) in the first reading on Oct. 19.

Moscow has used the Russian Orthodox Church as a KGB front for decades and the UOC-MP has played a prominent political role since the beginning of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine, said Ukraines SBU Security Service.

Read also: Russian Orthodox Church eliminating Ukrainian church structures in the occupied territories

267 deputies voted in favor of bill No. 8371 banning religious organizations associated with the aggressor country Russia, Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported on Telegram.

The vote count by party:

Servant of the People - 175

European Solidarity - 26

Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) - 17

Platform for Life and Peace - 1

For the future - 8

Holos (Voice) - 18

Trust - 12

Restoration of Ukraine  0

Read also: Following other regions, Volyn Oblast bans activities of Moscow Patriarchate church

Since November of last year, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has been conducting inspections in monasteries, churches and premises of the UOC-MP all over Ukraine. During the counterintelligence activities, a large amount of pro-Russian literature was found, as well as Russians with suspicious documents.

On Jan. 19, the Cabinet of Ministers submitted to the Parliament a bill to ban the activities of Russian-controlled religious organizations.

The State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience said the religious expert examination concluded that the UOC remains a structural unit of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Earlier, a number of Ukrainian regions decided to ban the UOC-MP activities at the regional level.

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Chinese FM hails fruitful results of 3rd BRF

Xinhua) 08:13, October 19, 2023

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attends a press conference of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. (Xinhua/Wang Yuguo)

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) marks another important milestone in the process of jointly building the Belt and Road, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Wednesday, calling the forum a "complete success."

"The most important consensus reached at this forum is to open a new stage of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation," Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said at a press conference.

Wang noted that the new stage of cooperation is bound to create even more new opportunities for the global economy and become a boon for the global situation.

"The greatest vision of this forum is to jointly modernize the world," Wang said. "The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has created a cooperation platform for common development and helped many developing countries speed up their march toward modernization."

During the forum, a total of 458 outcomes were achieved, far more than the second BRF, Wang added.

Over the past 10 years, Wang noted, the Belt and Road cooperation has made historic achievements, opening up a road of cooperation, opportunity and prosperity leading to common development.

The BRI has become the most popular international public good and the largest international cooperation platform in the world today, Wang said.

Wang added that the Belt and Road is an open platform and every country is welcome to take part in it at any time.

He expressed the hope that connectivity initiatives of other countries also remain open and refrain from creating exclusive cliques.

China stands ready to align with all other connectivity initiatives, Wang said.

At the press conference, Wang also dismissed the claim that the U.S.-launched Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment is targeted at the Belt and Road, calling the narrative another case of politicizing economic issues.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attends a press conference of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Bin)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
China's top legislator meets Indonesian president

Xinhua) 10:57, October 19, 2023

Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, meets with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislator Zhao Leji met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Beijing on Wednesday.

Zhao, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said that Indonesia is one of China's most important regional partners in Belt and Road cooperation.

Under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, China and Indonesia have seen fruitful results from mutually beneficial cooperation via the synergy of the Belt and Road Initiative and Indonesia's vision of the Global Maritime Fulcrum, Zhao said, adding that mutually beneficial cooperation has played an important exemplary role in strengthening regional cooperation.

China is ready to work with Indonesia on the high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road and on strengthening friendly exchanges between legislative bodies, injecting strong impetus into the two countries' modernization processes as well as regional development and prosperity, Zhao noted.

Widodo said that over the past decade, the Indonesia-China comprehensive strategic partnership has made great progress, and the Indonesian parliament and China's NPC have maintained good relations.

The two countries should strengthen cooperation in fields such as people-to-people exchanges, economy and trade, and promote the continuous development of bilateral relations, Widodo said.

Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, meets with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
(Bloomberg) -- Ukraines foreign minister said the nation will be receiving US long-range ATACMS missiles on a regular basis after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy this week said his military carried out strikes well behind Russian lines with the weaponry.

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We already have all types of weapons that we wanted at our disposal  now one can only speak about expanding the number, range, modifications, etc, Dmytro Kuleba told broadcaster 1+1 TV. The Ukrainian leader said earlier the missiles, Army Tactical Missile System, had proved themselves after strikes on Russian airfields in occupied Luhansk in the east and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov.

Ukrainian forces meanwhile crossed the Dnipro River into Russian-occupied territory on the left bank, the Institute for the Study of War reported, citing geo-located footage. It cited Russian reports that Kyiv had temporarily regained Russian-held settlements. Russias Defense Ministry said its forces thwarted sabotage and reconnaissance activity in the area.

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KYIV (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday discussed Washington's continued military support for Kyiv's drive to evict Russian forces, with the Ukrainian leader expressing thanks for supplying long-range missiles.

The two men spoke in advance of Biden's scheduled address on the need to spend billions of dollars in assistance for both Ukraine and Israel.

The White House account of the conversation said Biden "underscored the continued strong bipartisan support in the United States for Ukraines defense of its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democratic future".

Zelenskiy thanked Biden and Congress for supplying long-range ATACMS missiles and said on the Telegram messaging app that Ukrainian soldiers "are successfully using them on the battlefield".

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy described the exchange as "a substantive conversation, between allies".

"We discussed military support, among other things, how ATACMS can help us speed up Ukraine's liberation from the occupier," he said.

"Of course, we also talked about maintaining assistance to Ukraine next year, a significant support package for our country."The White House said on Tuesday it had supplied Kyiv with ATACMS missiles and Zelenskiy said his forces had used such missiles in action.

Kyiv had long requested the ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems), suggesting they could alter the course of the war.

Asked on television whether regular shipments and larger numbers of missiles were expected, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said: "It means this."

"And this is a direct result of the agreement between President Zelenskiy and President Biden, reached in Washington during a personal meeting in late September," he said.

It is not clear how many missiles have already been delivered. According to the New York Times, citing two Western officials, the U.S. has sent about 20 of them so far.

(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Timothy Heritage, Ron Popeski and Jonathan Oatis)
Republican Representative Jim Jordan agreed on Oct. 19 to temporarily halt his efforts to become Speaker of the House after losing a second vote.

Jordan endorsed a plan to keep the current interim speaker, Republican Patrick T. McHenry, in his position until January 2024.

Currently, the majority of legislative action in the U.S. Congress, including the approval of new aid packages for Ukraine, has ground to a halt after the ouster of the previous speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy .

Jordan, a right-wing Republican known for his obstructionist behavior, has consistently voted against providing aid to Ukraine.

If elected speaker, Jordan said he would not bring Ukraine aid to the floor for a vote.

However, as his elevation to speaker became a real possibility, signs appeared that he was willing to make deals and soften his stance.

Republican Representative Michael McCaul, the more moderate House Foreign Affairs Chairman, said that Jordan was willing to tie support for Ukraine to aid for Israel in order to gain more support, according to The Hill.

It does not appear that Jordan's plan to woo moderate Republicans was successful. After endorsing McHenry to be interim speaker, Jordan reportedly will focus on solidifying majority support in the meantime.

If the plan to keep McHenry as a temporary speaker succeeds, he will be able to effectively resume the legislative process in the House, at least until January. An interim speaker has the power to bring legislation, such as funding bills for Ukraine, to a vote on the floor.

Although there is still wide support in Congress for continuing aid to Ukraine, it has become an increasingly partisan issue, with much of the resistance coming from the Republican party.

Disagreement about the inclusion of a $300 million funding package for Ukraine became a sticking point in the eventual removal of McCarthy, as some conservative members refused to vote for any spending bills that included aid for Ukraine.





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On Thursday, the Ukrainian delegation began the first round of talks with France on concluding a bilateral agreement on the so-called security guarantees envisaged by the G7 declaration in support of Ukraine.

Source: Presidents Office, as European Pravda reports

Details: The Ukrainian negotiation team was headed by Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Head of the Presidents Office, and also included Roman Mashovets, another deputy head of the Presidents Office, and Oleksandr Pavliuk, First Deputy Defence Minister.

"The parties agreed on a plan for further bilateral negotiations and a procedure for coordination of security guarantees issues for the near future," the statement said.

France has become the fifth Group of Seven country after the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, with which Ukraine has started bilateral talks.

In addition, in October, Kyiv reached an agreement with Sweden and Norway to start negotiations on bilateral security commitments.

Background:

At the NATO Summit in Vilnius, the Group of Seven countries agreed on a framework document on security guarantees for Ukraine. The leaders did not agree on the specific issues of the security guarantees, but on their framework, and specific bilateral agreements will be signed later.

At this time, about 30 countries have joined the G7 declaration on long-term security assurances for Ukraine.

Read also: European Pravda explained why "Security Guarantees" Pledged to Ukraine Would Leave Ukrainians Frustrated

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Russian helicopters at Berdiansk airport as of July 13, 2023

On Oct. 17, the Armed Forces of Ukraine used U.S.-supplied ATACMS ballistic missiles to strike Russian airfields near occupied Berdyansk (Zaporizhzhya Oblast) and Luhansk. At least 9 helicopters and numerous other pieces of military equipment, including enemy air defenses, were destroyed.

This was the largest single loss of helicopters and one of the largest losses of Russian aviation during the entire war. It also represents one of the most successful attacks of Ukrainian forces on the rear positions of the invading force.

NV presents the key information about the operation.

Operation Dragonfly

The nighttime attack on Russian airfields in occupied Ukrainian territory was first confirmed by the Ukrainian militarys StratCom department. Their statement announced that on the night of Oct. 17, the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out successful strikes on helicopters and airfield equipment of the Russian occupation forces near Luhansk and Berdyansk.

Read also: Aftermath of Ukrainian ATACMS strike on Berdyansk airfield  video

Later, Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SOF) clarified that the attack was designated as Operation Dragonfly. SOF said that they had advance information about Russias use of the airfields in Berdyansk and Luhansk, as well as about the presence there of a significant amount of [Russian] aviation, specialized equipment and ammunition.

After this information was checked and confirmed, the coordinates for the target and other necessary data were transferred to units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. According to the SOF, Russian losses amounted to:

 nine helicopters of various types;

 special equipment that was located at airfields;

 a SAM launcher;

 ammunition depot;

 airfield runways were damaged.

The Russians also lost dozens of military personnel killed and wounded. According to SOF, as of midday on Oct. 17, their bodies were still being pulled out from under the rubble.

The ammunition depot in Berdyansk kept detonating until 4:00 a.m., and the detonations in Luhansk continued until 11:00 a.m.

Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat separately emphasized that the destruction of Russian helicopters during an attack is crucial since the invaders use them widely at the front against the Ukrainian military. At the same time, he did not disclose other details of the attack.

Read also: "Ukrainian special forces destroy nine Russian helicopters, ammunition depot, air defenses in "most serious blow" to enemy

I dont have the ability to tell you what was hit, how, and with what, Ihnat told RFE/RL, but in the end, the destruction of equipment like the Ka-52 and Mi-24 helicopters that the enemy uses, of course, is good for us.

Because helicopters, together with tactical aviation, are constantly operating at the front. The enemy is trying to keep helicopters closer to the line of contact, as was the case in Chornobaivka[1] . And here, Luhansk and Berdyansk are directly adjacent to the front line.

Ihnat added that the Russians have more modern helicopters than Ukraine does, equipped with especially dangerous tactical anti-tank guided missiles.

Their helicopters are constantly operating 10+ kilometers from the line of contact. Therefore, the destruction of this equipment is important for us, Ihnat concluded.

The Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, who is one of the sources of information about the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhya Oblast, released a video that likely shows the aftermath of the attack on the airfield near Berdyansk.

Open data analysts from the OSINTtechnical project noted that one of the confirmations of Ukrainian statements about attacks on the airfields comes from FIRMS, NASAs wildfire observation satellite system that detects thermal anomalies on the planets surface.

This system recorded several fires around Berdyansk airport around 03.00 Tuesday, Oct. 17, Kyiv time. The airfield, which is used by Russian helicopters, was on fire, OSINTtechnical researchers concluded.

Read also: Russia building new defenses near Berdyansk  Estonian intelligence

These same researchers recalled an earlier post by OSINT analyst Brady Efrik, who at the end of September 2023 noted the high density of Russian helicopters at the airfield in Berdyansk. He counted more than 20 Russian military helicopters in satellite images. Efrik separately noted that at that time, the occupiers were continuing to build new shelters for vehicles and equipment at this location.

In addition, a Ukrainian OSINT analyst who posts on X (Twitter) under the username Tatarigami_UA noted back in August 2023 that the invaders were using an airfield in Luhansk which has not been operational since 2014. He said that the Russian military began to use this airfield as a base for their attack helicopters relatively recently. In particular, satellite images from Planet Labs dated July 19, 2023, showed the deployment of 15 Russian military helicopters in Luhansk (in particular Ka-52, Mi-28, and Mi-8/Mi-17 helicopters), and that there were usually between 12 and 16 Russian helicopters there, including Mi-24s.

The analyst recounted that Luhansk airport is located about 100 kilometers from the front line, which once again proves Ukraines need for long-range weapons.

Depending on how many helicopters were in Berdyansk and Luhansk [at the time of the Oct. 17 strike], we could see the worst single-moment losses in the history of the Russian Air Force, noted OSINTtechnical even before Ukraine announced that nine Russian helicopters were destroyed.

After these reports, analysts recalled that prior to this, the worst day since the beginning of the invasion was March 5, 2022, when Moscow lost 8 aircraft. The attack on the Saki airfield in Novofedorivka in the summer of 2022 may be comparable to this event, when Russia suffered five Su-24s destroyed, three Su-30SMs damaged, along with one Su-30SM, and three Su-24s also likely damaged.

World At War researchers noted that the strike on the airfields in Berdyansk and Luhansk would have significant consequences for Russias military capabilities, although its full scale could be assessed once the types of helicopters destroyed are determined.

If these are attack helicopters, then it will be more difficult for Russia to knock out Ukrainian tanks. The Ka-52 is the most important helicopter for Russia, the researchers argued, noting that these helicopters pose the greatest threat to Ukrainian armored vehicles.

Earlier, Oleksii Melnyk, co-director of foreign policy and international security programs at the Razumkov Center, explained that multi-purpose Mi-8 helicopters, Mi-24, and Ka-52 attack helicopters were causing many problems for the Ukrainian offensive forces on the southern and eastern fronts.

Read also: Ukrainian special forces destroy three Russian tanks with precision strikes  video

The biggest problem is that these helicopters can launch Vikhr, Sturm-V, and Ataka-M anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) from a range of 8-10 km, said Melnyk.

But even if we consider not the maximum range, but instead 5-6 km, then the enemys aircraft still does not enter the range of Ukrainian man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems (MANPADS). And given that flights and approaches to launch lines are carried out by the Russians at extremely low altitudes, it is almost impossible for Ukrainian ground-based radar stations to detect these helicopters. And even if one is discovered, then there is little reaction time left to destroy the target.

Russian reaction

On Oct. 17, Russian Telegram channels and pro-war public pages were unable to hide their despair over Ukraines attack on airfields in Luhansk and Berdyansk, which are located approximately 100 kilometers from the current front line.

Telegram channel Fighterbomber, which is likely run by Cpt. Ilya Tumanov of the Russian Armed Forces, admitted that the strike constituted one of the most serious blows of all time since Russia began the so-called special military operation in Ukraine, ...if not the most serious. There are losses in both people and equipment, a message on the channel said.

Read also: Massive explosion rocks Berdyansk, smoke seen enveloping the city

Pro-war channel Two Majors confirmed a massive missile attack on the Berdyansk airfield. The number of missiles from the ground is estimated to be at least 40, although this may be a subjective assessment. Our negative experience in developing and protecting airfields was not taken into account, the channel complained.

Russian propagandist Boris Rozhin suggested that the Berdyansk airfield was attacked by ATACMS missiles and confirmed several hits.

The airfield suffered some damage. The target of the bombardment was army aviation helicopters that supported the actions of the Russian grouping in the southern direction, Rozhin wrote.

A similar assumption about ATACMS missiles was made on the pro-war Russian channel WarGonzo, among others.

Finally, Russian military blogger Yan Matveev admitted that the airfield in Berdyansk was very important; recently, fortifications were being built there to cover helicopters.

The same ones which regularly flew to the Zaporizhzhya front. [] Lets wait for the details, but judging by the excitement, its already clear that the attack was effective and significant, added Matveev.

Are ATACMS finally in Ukraine?

Russian public speculation regarding ATACMS was likely fueled by the significant distance of Berdyansk and Luhansk from the current front line.

Within days of the strike, the United States confirmed that an unspecified number of ATACMS missiles was recently provided to Kyiv. The New Yorker magazine reported that U.S. President Joe Biden had allegedly decided to approve a shipment of the missiles to Ukraine in September 2023.

U.S. media also wrote that during a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington on Sept. 21, Biden privately promised that Washington would transfer a small number of ATACMS to Kyiv.

ATACMS is a nearly two-ton solid-propellant missile designed to destroy enemy command posts, launchers, air defense facilities, communications centers, and warehouses located behind enemy lines at up to 300 kilometers away. Depending on the modification, it has a high-explosive fragmentation or cluster warhead weighing from 160 to 560 kilograms. It is equipped with inertial and GPS guidance systems, and flies at Mach 3 (approximately 3,675 km/h).

Today, photographs of submunitions allegedly found at the site of the attack on the Berdyansk airfield began to appear on social media, on Ukrainian OSINT pages. Researchers have suggested that they are M74 bomblets released from ATACMS warheads.

These assumptions have not yet been confirmed, but if they are true, then this may mean the transfer to Ukraine of one of the two cluster variants of ATACMS, according to military analysis outlet Defense Express:

 The first is the basic ATACMS Block I variant (aka M39, MGM-140 or MGM-140A). The firing range is 165 km, with the cluster warhead payload reaching 570 kilograms and the launch mass of the rocket reaching 1,650 kilograms. The payload consists of up to 950 M74 submunitions, each of which can cover an area of up to 15 square meters. The circular error probable from the target is up to 250 meters.

Read also: US to supply Ukraine with ATACMS on a regular basis  FM Kuleba

 The second possibility is ATACMS Block IA or M39A1, where the firing range is increased to 290 kilometers, but the mass of the warhead is reduced to 150 kilograms, the payload consists of 300 M74 submunitions, and the missile uses a combined guidance system.

Additional photos of missile debris from the impact site later strongly indicated the likely use of MGM-140A ATACMS missiles in Berdyansk. This means the missiles have a firing range of up to 165 kilometers and are equipped with 950 M74 cluster submunitions warheads.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Key developments on Oct. 19:

Military reports success southwest, reclaiming village on Dnipros east bank

SBU: Russian Orthodox Church runs private military companies to train fighters for Ukraine deployment

Germany hesitates to deliver long-range missiles to Ukraine

Biden reportedly considering $60 billion in additional aid to Ukraine

ATACMS deliveries to increase, Foreign Minister says

ICMP chief: 30,000 civilians missing in Ukraine

The Ukrainian military reported an advance in southeastern Zaporizhzhia Oblast while also indicating its forces had crossed the Dnirpro River in southern Kherson Oblast on Oct. 19.

The commander of the Tavria Group fighting on the southern front lines, General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, reported Ukrainian forces have achieved partial success southwest of Verbove in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

Ukrainian forces clashed with Russian troops 34 times over the past day, with Russia losing 322 soldiers and 43 pieces of military hardware, including three tanks, 12 artillery pieces, and 13 drones, according to the report.

Ukraine has recently focused its efforts around Verbove, a village around 10 kilometers east of liberated Robotyne.

Spokesperson of the Tavria Group, Oleksandr Shtupun, reported an advance of up to one kilometer west of Verbove on Oct. 17.

Meanwhile, the General Staff of Ukraines Armed Forces in its Oct. 19 morning update indicated the presence of Ukrainian forces in the village of Pishchanivka on the east bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.

The strikes were reported in the General Staffs Oct. 19 and Oct. 18 daily updates, matching reports from Russian Telegram channels that Ukraine had reclaimed territory in the area.

Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson and other regional settlements on the Dnipro Rivers west bank in November 2022, pushing Russian forces to the east bank, from where they have since been firing at the liberated territories.

In August, the Kyiv Independent reported that Ukrainian troops have been conducting small overnight raids into the Russian-occupied part of Kherson Oblast for months.

Read also: Ukrainian troops regularly cross Dnipro River, probing Russian defenses in Kherson Oblast

Russian church recruits, trains fighters for war against Ukraine

The Kremlin-linked Russian Orthodox Church is building and running private military companies (PMC), recruiting and training fighters for deployment in Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on Oct. 19.

The report said the Russian church is funded for these activities by financial and industrial groups close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, donated as "charitable contributions" to "construction of churches."

SBU named the St. Andrew's Cross organization based in the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral in northwestern Russia as an example of a church-run PMC.

The St. Andrew's Cross PMC is reportedly "the first PMC under the Russian Orthodox Church," according to the Russian independent media outlet. The group was reportedly set up in 2017 to provide military training for other mercenary companies' recruits.

The cathedral's abbot Alexey denied in a comment for Russian media that the St. Andrew's Cross was a mercenary company, saying it only teaches skills to youth and adults for future military service.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's parliament passed a bill in its first reading on Oct. 19 that would ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), according to lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak from the opposition party Holos.

If the bill is adopted, it would prohibit the activities of any religious organizations affiliated with war propaganda or justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine has two main Orthodox churches  the UOC-MP and the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The UOC-MP has been accused of aligning with the Russian government during the war, which the church's leadership has denied.

Slightly over half of Ukrainians believe the UOC-MP should be banned, according to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

Germany hesitates to deliver long-range missiles to Ukraine

Germany is not planning to green light the transfer of Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine at the moment, Berlin's Ambassador to Kyiv Martin Jaeger told the European Pravda news outlet in an interview with on Oct. 19.

"At the moment, there will be no deliveries of Taurus missiles to Ukraine," the ambassador said.

"In my opinion, the Federal Government and Chancellor (Olaf Scholz) have made this very clear. We have informed the Ukrainian government about this decision in detail," he said, adding that this was all he could say about it publicly.

The Taurus missiles have been the subject of extensive discussion and debate, with much of Germany's hesitation stemming from the prospect of the missiles being used within Russia's territory.

Taurus missiles have a range of up to 500 kilometers, meaning Ukraine could use them to strike deep into Russian-occupied territories, including Crimea.

Justifying the hesitation, Scholz's office said in early September that Germany is waiting for Washington's decision to provide Ukraine with its ATACMS missiles before green lighting the transfer of Taurus.

The White House confirmed earlier this week that Ukraine had received its first batch of ATACMS. The announcement came shortly after Ukrainian forces used long-range missiles to strike at Russian airfields in occupied Luhansk and Berdiansk, destroying nine Russian helicopters, one air defense system, an ammunition warehouse and the troops.

The U.S. will keep delivering Army Tactical Missiles Systems (ATACMS) to Ukraine consistently, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the 1+1 television on Oct. 19.

He also expressed hope that future deliveries would include the newer ATACMS variations that have a range of up to 300 kilometers.

A report by the New York Times on Oct. 18 confirmed that the U.S. had secretly sent Ukraine 20 ATACMS, which Kuleba said was just the first of such shipments.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is considering a supplemental request that would include $60 billion in defense aid for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel, Reuters reported on Oct. 19.

Biden will send the spending request to U.S. Congress as soon as Oct. 20, an anonymous source familiar with the issue told Reuters.

Missing civilians

Around 30,000 civilians have gone missing in Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Kathryne Bomberger the head of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), told Suspilne news outlet.

This number may include people who are still alive but were separated from their families or detained, as well as those who died during hostilities but whose bodies have not been identified, Bomberger said.

Ukrainian children illegally deported by Russia are likely among the missing.

"Before the (full-scale) invasion, many people were considered missing since 2014 But those numbers, although high, were not as high as today. Now they are much higher and continue to grow," Bomberger said.

"It is essential that all these facts are verified as part of the judicial process and that these investigations are conducted by judicial institutions."

Deputy Interior Minister Leonid Tymchenko met with Bomberger on Oct. 18, discussing Kyiv's efforts to find the missing persons and cooperation with the ICMP.

Ukraine's Unified Register of Persons Missing Under Special Circumstances currently includes about 28,000 people, according to Tymchenko.

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Valerii Zaluzhnyi , Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has met with the command of Ukrainian troops fighting on the Avdiivka front. Among other things, they determined the sequence of their actions.

Source: Zaluzhnyi on Facebook

Quote: "There are no easy fronts in war. There are only those that are more difficult. Now it is Avdiivka. Here, the enemy keeps trying to break through our defence and encircle the city.

The enemy is actively deploying assault units, throwing in a large number of armoured vehicles, and using aircraft and artillery.

Despite this, our soldiers continue to heroically repel the attacks, inflicting losses in enemy manpower and equipment.

Together with the commanders and brigade commanders performing tasks on the Avdiivka front, we determined the sequence of our steps, taking into account the constantly changing operational situation, and discussed the priority needs of the units."

Details: Zaluzhnyi said that they also discussed the Kupiansk front, where the occupiers continued their offensive.

Quote: "Our men and women are holding the line in extremely difficult conditions. I thank each brigade, and all the defenders who are fighting for Ukraine."

Background: The Russians are trying to encircle Avdiivka with the help of aircraft, and Ukraine's Armed Forces shot down five Russian aircraft in 10 days.

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Over the course of the past day, units of Ukraines Rocket Forces and Artillery destroyed two TOS-1A Solntsepyok heavy multiple-launch rocket systems of the Russian army.

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, information as of 18:00 on 19 October

Details: In addition, Ukrainian Rocket Forces also targeted one command post, two clusters of Russian personnel, weapons and military equipment, as well as 13 artillery pieces.

In its turn, the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out one attack on a Russian command point, 13 strikes on clusters of personnel, weapons and military equipment and four strikes on anti-aircraft missile systems. Ukrainian defenders also destroyed four reconnaissance operational-tactical level UAVs.

During the day, over 70 combat clashes were recorded.

In total, the Russian forces inflicted eight missile- and 48 airstrikes and carried out 24 attacks from multiple-launch rocket systems on the positions of Ukrainian troops and settlements. Unfortunately, there are civilian casualties as a result of Russian terrorist attacks. Private residential buildings, apartment buildings and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed and damaged.

On the Volyn and Polissia fronts, the situation remains much the same as before. There is no evidence that Russia is forming new offensive units in this area. Certain units of the armed forces of Belarus perform tasks in the border areas with Ukraine.

On the Sivershchyna and Slobozhanshchyna fronts, the Russians maintain a military presence in the border areas, continue attacks on the settlements from the territory of the Russian Federation and increase the density of mine-explosive barriers along the state border of Ukraine. Over 10 settlements were subjected to artillery and mortar attacks.

On the Kupiansk front, Ukrainian soldiers repelled over 10 Russian attacks in the vicinity of the settlements of Synkivka and Ivanivka, Kharkiv Oblast, and about 10 attacks in the area of Nadiia, Luhansk Oblast. They also inflicted airstrikes in the areas of the settlements of Petropavlivka, Podoly and Pishchane, Kharkiv Oblast. About 15 settlements were subjected to artillery and mortar attacks by the Russian forces.

On the Lyman front, the Armed Forces of Ukraine repelled Russian attacks around Makiivka, Luhansk Oblast. The Russians inflicted airstrikes in the areas of the settlements of Spirne, Vyimka and Vesele, Donetsk Oblast. At the same time, about 20 settlements suffered from artillery and mortar attacks.

On the Bakhmut front, Ukrainian soldiers repelled Russian attacks in the vicinity of Klishchiivka, Donetsk Oblast. The Russians inflicted airstrikes in the areas of the settlements of Klishchiivka and Kurdiumivka, Donetsk Oblast. Over 25 settlements suffered artillery and mortar attacks.

On the Avdiivka front, the Russians conducted unsuccessful assault actions with the support of aviation around Avdiivka, Novokalynove, Stepove and Sieverne in Donetsk Oblast, where the Armed Forces of Ukraine repelled over 10 attacks. The Russians also launched an airstrike near the village of Berdychi, Donetsk Oblast. Over 10 settlements were subjected to artillery and mortar attacks.

On the Marinka front, the Russians conducted unsuccessful assault actions with the support of aviation in the area of Marinka, Donetsk Oblast, where the Armed Forces of Ukraine repelled 11 attacks. The Russian forces also launched airstrikes in the areas of Oleksandropil and Novomykhailivka, Donetsk Oblast. 10 settlements came under artillery and mortar attacks in this area.

On the Shakhtarsk front, Ukrainian soldiers repelled attacks in the vicinity of Zolota Nyva in Donetsk Oblast. The Russian forces inflicted airstrikes in the areas of settlements of Uhledar and Pavlivka, Donetsk Oblast. About 15 settlements were subjected to artillery and mortar attacks.

On the Zaporizhzhia front, the Russians inflicted airstrikes in the areas of the settlements of Robotyne and Novodanylivka, Zaporizhzhia Oblast. About 30 settlements were subjected to artillery and mortar attacks.

On the Kherson front, the Russians inflicted airstrikes in the areas of the settlements of Beryslav and Vesele, Kherson Oblast. The Russians targeted the settlements of Inzhenerne, Antonivka and Komyshany in Kherson Oblast and the city of Kherson with artillery and mortars.

At the same time, Ukrainian forces continue to conduct offensive operations on the Melitopol front and offensive (assault) actions on the Bakhmut front, inflicting losses in manpower and equipment on the occupation forces and exhausting the enemy along the entire contact line.

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Ukrainian defenders have shot down five planes in Donetsk Oblast over the past ten days.

Source: Joint press centre of the Tavriia Operational Strategic Group; an Ukrainska Pravda source

Quote from the Tavriia Operational Strategic Group: "In the area of responsibility of the Tavria OSU, the enemy keeps trying to encircle Avdiivka with support from aviation. Our soldiers repelled three enemy attacks and shot down another enemy Su-25 attack aircraft. This is the fifth plane shot down over Donetsk Oblast over the past ten days."

Details: According to a UP source in military circles, the Su-25 aircraft, now included in the General Staff's report on Russian losses, was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers on the Avdiivka front on the morning of 18 October.

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Russian air defense shot down two S-200 missiles flying over occupied Crimea on Oct. 18, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed.

Earlier in the day, the outlet Krym.Realii reported explosions in Sevastopol, followed by an air raid alert.

The Russian-installed "governor" of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, later reported that the Russian Navy was fighting off an aerial attack near Sukharna Balka. Razvozhayev also confirmed that an explosion occurred in the Sakharnaya Golovka area of Sevastopol.

According to Krym.Realii, there are multiple warehouses storing Russian missiles and other weapons in Sakharnaya Golovka.

Since the summer of 2023, there have been increasingly damaging attacks on Russian military targets across occupied Crimea.

The Ukrainian military said it was responsible for a missile strike on the peninsula on Oct. 7 that struck a military target and resulted in casualties among Russian forces.

Kyiv has not commented on the reports of the Oct. 18 strike.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Thursday confirmed another Filipino fatality in the Israel-Hamas war, bringing the death toll in the escalating conflict to four.

I regret to inform the nation that we have received confirmation from the Israeli government of another Filipino casualty in Israel, DFA Secretary Enrique Manalo said on X (formerly Twitter).

Manalo said details about the deceased would not be provided as requested by the family. He added that the government has assured the bereaved full support and assistance.

Speaking to CNN Philippines The Source, DFA Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said the victim was a woman working as a caregiver in a community in southern Israel which was severely affected by the countrys war with Hamas.

She was one of the three Filipinos missing in the warn-torn country, but authorities could not confirm if she was held hostage and killed by the militants, he added.

De Vega said the cremains of one of the four Filipinos killed in the war will be brought back to the Philippines by his wife in November. As for the two Filipino fatalities earlier confirmed, their remains will be flown back home in the next few weeks, he added.

There is still no update on the two Filipinos who remain missing, but De Vega noted one of them is an Israeli passport holder and a naturalized citizen there. This might be the reason why Israeli authorities have yet to provide information regarding the individual, he explained.

Around 78 to 80 Filipinos at the Rafah Crossing are also still waiting for the border to open and cross to Egypt to be repatriated to the Philippines, De Vega said.

Latest data shows that over 4,000 people in Israel and Gaza have died after the Palestinian militant group launched a surprise attack on Oct. 7.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that the United States will supply long-range ATACMS missiles on an ongoing basis.

Source: Dmytro Kuleba on air of the 1+1 TV channel; European Pravda.

Asked whether the delivery of the first batch of ATACMS meant that the US would continue to provide them regularly and in larger quantities, Kuleba answered in the affirmative.

According to the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, this is a direct result of the agreements between presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Joe Biden, which were reached in Washington during their meeting in late September.

"If you read between the lines of President Zelensky's speech after the meeting with Biden, you could understand that a very important decision was made... So thank you to the United States for implementing the agreements and strengthening our firepower," Kuleba said.

He also hopes that Ukraine will receive ATACMS missiles capable of hitting targets at the distance of 300 kilometres.

According to The New York Times, so far, the United States has transferred about 20 long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian forces used American long-range ATACMS missiles to strike the airfields of the Russian occupiers in captured Berdiansk and Luhansk.

Subsequently, this information was confirmed by the White House. They noted that the United States "recently" provided Ukraine with an ATACMS type capable of striking at a distance of up to 165 kilometres.

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Smoke rises after a strike on the occupiers

Ukrainian intelligence operatives demonstrated how they track Russian occupiers near the ruined frontline city of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast on Oct. 19 in a video posted on Ukraines Main Intelligence Directorates (HUR) Telegram channel.

HUR personnel in the Bakhmut region persistently continue their mission of clearing cities and villages of Russian occupiers, the intelligence officials said.

Read also: Russian offensive on Avdiyivka aims to draw Ukrainian forces from key fronts, HUR says

Kamikaze drone operators in Klishchiivka and Bakhmut exhibit exceptional skills in infiltrating enemy fortifications and concealed hideouts within buildings, while also effectively engaging in the destruction of Russian military equipment, the organization said in an official statement.

Read also: Ukraines spy chief persuades 19 Russians to surrender in radio negotiations  group commander says

"The reconnaissance officers take pride in witnessing (the enemys equipment) go up in flames!" said the department.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Destruction in the Gaza Strip

A Ukrainian woman was killed in an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip as it continues its response to the attack earlier this month by Hamas militants, the head of the Ukrainian embassy's representative in the Palestinian Authority, Maksym Tyokin, told Ukraines Suspilne on Oct. 19.

Earlier, Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk confirmed the death of 18 Ukrainians in Israel and said that the situation in the enclave is becoming even more complicated with more than 300 people on the evacuation list.

Read also: Ukraine backs Israel's right to defend itself, urges political resolution to conflict with Hamas

Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine, Michael Brodsky, announced on Oct. 18 that 23 Ukrainians had been killed in the Hamas attack on Israel.

War in Israel  What is Known

Read also: Hamas attack on Israel killed three Ukrainians, nine injured, six missing, hundreds stranded

Large-scale hostilities in Israel began on Oct. 7. From the early morning, the Palestinian militant group Hamas repeatedly targeted the country with thousands of rockets and missiles. Armed Hamas militants then invaded southern Israel, killing people and taking hostages. In response to the Hamas attack, the Israel Defense Forces launched Operation Iron Swords, striking the Gaza Strip.

During the night of Oct. 8, Israel announced the restoration of control over the majority of the populated areas that had been penetrated by Palestinian militants. Israels Cabinet has declared a state of war for the first time since 1973.

On Oct. 10, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that it had regained full control of the border with the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas attack in Israel may have killed at least 1,400 people. More than 3,400 people were reported dead in Gaza.

Read also: Israeli ambassador to Ukraine on the aftermath of Hamas attack  interview

Hamas accused Israel of striking the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing hundreds of people inside. The IDF said the hospital was destroyed by a Hamas rocket.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Ukrainian writer-turned-serviceman Illarion Pavliuk announced on Oct. 19 that he will now lead the Defense Ministry's Press and Information Department.

The position was previously held by former Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar . For the past year and a half, Pavliuk served in Ukraine's Military Intelligence (HUR).

"Today, I officially concluded my service in the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Defense Ministry. Incredibly proud of having had the privilege to wear the owl emblem on my shoulder," Pavliuk wrote on Facebook.

Maliar, Pavliuk's predecessor, served under former Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who was dismissed on Sept. 3. Reznikov was replaced by Rustem Umerov on Sept. 6.

Prior to the full-scale invasion, Pavliuk was best known for his work in literature and journalism. He is one of many Ukrainian writers who joined the military to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression.

His 2020 novel, "I See that Darkness Interests You," was a bestseller in Ukraine. It follows a criminal psychologist from Kyiv who is sent to a remote village to find a girl who has gone missing and uncovers disturbing truths during the investigation.

Read also: Literature community commemorates Ukrainian writer killed by Russian attack

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Amadoka, the latest novel by Sofiia Andrukhovych, is about to be translated and published in 15 countries, including the UK, the United States, and France. This magnificent novel tells about the distortion of memory during the genocides that took place in Ukraine over the past hundred years: the Executed Renaissance, the Holocaust, and Russias ongoing war against Ukraine. Lake Amadoka, which was marked on old maps of Ukraine and later disappeared, became a metaphor for the oblivion in which we sink to hide from pain and our own mistakes. The eponymous novel could now help put Ukraine back on the mental maps of Europe.

Today, October 4, a collection of essays Andrukhovych wrote for foreign media during the full-scale invasion is coming out in France. These days, Sofiia has many speaking engagements in Europe, although she regularly declines invitations to participate in the same events with Russians. She lives and works in Kyiv.

Our conversation takes place against the flare-up of arguments over the question of whether Ukrainian intellectuals should participate in public discussions with Russians and collaborate with them on creative projects. We also talk about how the war is changing the social role of the writer and drawing Europes attention to Ukrainian literatureand about how literature can overcome Europeans' war fatigue and prevent the war from becoming normalized in their perception.

"Writing is an ongoing effort to capture the essence of humanity."

How did Amadoka generate so much interest in Europe? Where was the translation of the novel first published?

The first translation came out in Croatia. They made a high-quality translation very quickly. And the book was well-received. Many local reporters contacted me, especially in the first days of the all-out war. Theyd already read my novel, and we could talk about it and about Ukraine and the war. I had the impression that the Croats could feel us on a very subtle level, emphasize with us, and understand us.

But the biggest wave of attention came after the novel was published in Germany and Austria. They divided it into three parts because it is a big book. So far, only the first part has been publishedthe one about the war in the Donbas and the soldier who lost his memory. The translators are just finishing the second part, which deals with the Holocaust and the relations between the Jews and the Ukrainians on the eve of World War II.

Sofiia Andrukhovych at the presentation of the novel "Amadoka" at the Book Fair in Istria, Croatia

And when is the translation scheduled to be released in the UK and the United States?

Oh, not so soonnot until 2026, if Im not mistaken! But in these countries, Amadoka will be published in its original form, as a single book.

Why do you think your novel has attracted so much attention from European publishers?

I think that Amadoka can help people today understand many things about Ukraine. Or to awaken interest in important Ukrainian issues, or simply to motivate people to explore and discover things for themselves.

And these discoveries will start with critical points on which they can further build: World War II, the Holocaust, Stalins persecutions.

Do you see yourself as an author of historical novels?

The thing is that I have never seen myself as an author of historical novels. My historical novels are rather a game, a make-believe, an experiment, a test.

I didn't set out to verbalize the fundamentals of a Ukrainian identity or anything along those lines. I used history more as a decoration, as a background. I was primarily concerned with the people, the characters, the images, the cross-sections of their mentality, the paradoxes of relationships, and the fluidity of emotions. About the language and the life in the language.

The most important thing is to believe in your characters, to feel them next to you, to become them. When I write, I transform myself into my characters and start thinking and feeling like them.

For me, writing is an ongoing effort to capture the essence of humanity, of what makes people human. And its not just about good things. The urge of violence, temptation are also what makes people human.

Sofiia Andrukhovych and the cover of the German translation of the first part of the novel "Amadoka", published by Residenz Verlag, 2023

At the same time, it was my attempt to get closer to what seemed impossible before. Was there a real war? Did people really torture, rape, and kill other people? How could one live under these circumstances? What could everyday life, encounters, dialogs, and street scenes look like?

I felt the need to share their suffering, fears, and losses and to take on some of those experiences, at least in my own imagination. That would have been my atonement as someone fortunate enough to live in different circumstances (as I thought at the time). On the other hand, the war in the Donbas made Amadoka even more urgent. Different circumstances quickly became the same. By its sheer scope and multidimensionality, Amadoka helped me get several important closures at once, including working with historical materialat least for a while, because I cant promise that I wont do it again someday.

As an author, I would not be interested in continuing to work on other texts similar to Felix Austria [the novel published in 2014, set in the town of Stanislaviv in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries,ed.] or Amadoka since that would be too easy, too predictable, too boring. I must search for something else inside me.

With these experiments, theres always a risk that you'll disappoint your readers. That's what happened with Amadoka, which followed Felix Austria. It will happen now, too. But you can't try new routes any other way.

Croatian and Ukrainian versions of the novel "Amadoka".

Photo: The Old Lion Publishing House

"The war has made me even more of a writer."

I wonder if the war changed you and your writing and your attitude toward literature.

Of course, it did. Its been difficult to track these changes, but I can already make a certain diagnosis.

War is an extreme manifestation of reality, indeed. We often treat it as something abnormal and no longer see that war is actually a manifestation of being human and of human life. During war, all manifestationsgood and badare still there. They only multiply and become much more pronounced.

As for me personally, I acquired certain skills that I simply could not make myself master before. But the need to act left me no choice.

This is an experience we all go through. My personal changes have a tiny scale compared to many other people, such as Andriy Liubka, who have been truly reborn and have taken on new incarnations. We all know so many names of people who have started to live a completely different life.

The first essay I wrote since the full-scale invasion began has this sentence: "I dont know if I'll still be a writer after the war." But I am still a writer. As soon as I wrote that, I was still a writer, and I've become even more so.

The war didn't change me as much as it reinforced everything I had in me. On the one hand, I'm deeply frustrated by what I'm doing because this activity is not saving lives here and now. But on the other hand, I've come to an even deeper realization that I can't do more than Im capable of. And okay, let it be wordsI'll just focus on them.

So I've expanded my boundaries, my abilities: to communicate with other people, to go outside, to overcome my fear, to express myself verbally and in writing. I now have more courage to speak outand not just for myself, but for my people and my country. It sounds dramatic, but this is our common experience: the selfishness of each individual has proven to be very useful for the common cause.

But therein lies a paradox: for the sake of the common cause, many people had to put their selfishness aside...

Selfishness has actually become a source. Altruism and self-sacrifice often result from narcissism. But it is crucial to put this narcissism and selfishness in the service of something good. In the service of the common cause and not of a particular person. Then everything works well.

We dont have to deny narcissismwe just have to use it for broader purposes. I think a lot of things in the current war build on that and hold on to that.

And has your writing changed?

When it comes to the methods of writing, I have this sense of expansiveness that seems to give great hope as if we've all pushed through into the realms that were once inaccessible. But that's a terrible pushingthrough the losses that can never be recovered. And that leads to total confusion: where do we go from here?

After the full-scale invasion began, I personally discovered the genre of an essay as an attempt to reflect on what I now see, hear, and experience.

The essay offers a multitude of possibilities. It allows you to write about the here and now. It can be more or less literary; it allows for fantasy and literary devices but also for sparseness and a clear rendering of reality. The essay gives a writer the space to reflect as much as they want, ask questions, and present those questions and answers at a variety of sharp and blunt angles.

In the essay, an event becomes a pretext to name the unnamed: complex emotions, borderline experiences, losses, existence after nonexistence and despite nonexistence. That is why this genre is now possible: through uncertainty and probing, it allows you to outline the unrecognizable reality with words and concepts; to reclaim it.

The essay has more plasticity than other genres and can emerge simultaneously with reality, while short stories or novels require more clarity and a greater distance. But even these attempts at definition are very conditional, for experimentation in creativity and art is valuable precisely because of its deviation from rules and transgression of boundaries.

In any case, I know that many Ukrainian writers have had the experience of being temporarily unable to write fiction, while essays have given them a chance to mirror reality.

This saved me right at the beginning and determined my activity and way of life in wartime. The invitations from the West and the interest of Europeans in Ukraine were also in line with this.

Thus, all these days merged for me into a continuous flow of travel, conversations, attempts to explain, meetings with people, and the feeling of exchange of opinions, energy, compassion, and empathy.

The essays are also my response to the outside demand. Since the outbreak of the all-out war, foreign media have shown great interest in the texts describing Ukrainian reality and its various dimensions. My texts have also tried to do that. I wrote them mainly for the Polish Dwutygodnik, but many of them have been translated into other languages and published in many other countries.

Finally, the editor of Bayard, a French publishing house, suggested that I put together a collection of essays that I had written since the beginning of the full-scale invasion and publish them in France, and I agreed. I believe that it is important to remind people about us and to talk about ourselves, to describe ourselves in our own words, to create and fill out our own image. We need to take care of our own presence in the world in every way possible. This reflection testifies to our place, our agency, our existence.

This collection of essays, entitled All That Is Human, will be published in France in a few weeks. And I think it's important that it will become another reason to talk about Ukraine and remind people of what we have to go through and what has become of our lives.

It's a reason for foreign readers to remember Ukraine and not to turn away from it.

The cover of the book of essays by Sofiia Andrukhovych "Everything human", France, Bayard Publishing, 2023

Will this collection be published in Ukraine?

At the moment, I do not plan to publish these texts as a book in Ukraine because I dont feel it is necessary. We are so saturated with the experience of war; we have become so much this war that I think another book about war is just not needed.

I sense, however, that the demand for fiction is growing. We desperately need symbols, metaphors, myths, and fairy tales; we need other realities, other languages and images to become like an embrace, a restful dream that heals wounds.

The greater the pain, the more carefully we should talk about it. But at the same time, we need to talk about it. And fiction and make-believe, games and lullabies can help us do that.

Are you working on a fictional book yourself right now?

My lifestyle has changed drastically in the last two years, and its now much harder to find the time to do my main job. I could have never written Amadoka the way I live now.

This lifestyle also affects the way I write. I do research and write, but Im still reluctant to share more at this point.

Today, each of us has an incredibly complicated task. The task of a Ukrainian writer is to write about the war without talking about it. To talk about the war without mentioning it. To talk about all sorts of things in the world, but not about the war. Meanwhile, it is completely impossible to avoid the war because it has turned everything into itself and connected everything with itself.

War permeates our reality today, and we should acknowledge that and write about it. And we should also write that we are all kinds of things, but not war.

"You need to love your neurosis."

We have briefly talked about how Ukraine tells the world about itself. Lets dive deeper now. How do people in Europe react to what you tell them? Do they feel compassion and understanding or perhaps weariness?

I mostly talk to people who are interested in literature, read a lot, or are involved in culture. The conversations with them somehow always feel more pleasant and meaningful because these people have a much broader understanding. So, my conversations about Ukraine and what is happening here and now have not been traumatic.

Its a new, strange experience when you suddenly become a kind of confessor to Europeans: With a guilty look, they confess about their ownoften critically scrutinized sentiments to the great Russian culture. Just recently, I had such a session with one of France's best-known contemporary writers. He regretted that Russian literature was one of many sources that had influenced his formation. He admitted that he partly blamed himself.

Honestly, I did not know what to say to him. I dont think I have the right to blame other people for their tastes, inclinations, or feelings. The idea that Russian culture is in many ways closely related to Russian imperialism, while absolutely true, often develops into something destructive. It gets oversimplified.

I dont think anyone should apologize for the very fact of reading Dostoevsky. It's important to reshape the attitude toward this culture and its absolute greatness that prevailed until recently. To look at it from a different angle and see all the other cultures that were oppressed by the Russian culture and understand why this happened.

There is an enduring sense of curiosity about usI am 100% sure of that. During the first year of the all-out war, in France, in Germany, in Austria, I had the impression of a general shock when, you know, people would look at me with wide eyes and say, "I cant believe I didn't know about this country and these people youre talking about, about all these writers and this culture. How did that happen? Its like a huge continent that we haven't even noticed until now." That's the impression I get most often.

Even now?

It has mellowed by now. Today, people know much more about Ukraine. The shock is over.

The shock of realizing their great ignorance?

Yes. Now, there is a feeling that people are more knowledgeable and have more specific interests. They can express their opinions. Because the more you learn about something, the more details and shades emerge, and the subject is no longer black and white, hard-and-fast, or dramatic.

Of course, there's also fatigue. Its hard to stay intensely interested when this isn't directly affecting your life, when you're not losing your home and loved ones, when your friends and relatives aren't under constant threat. You may even feel a little bored.

However, I have also come to realize (naive as it may sound) what words and literature can do to overcome this fatigue and boredom. Fiction and art touch many points of consciousness and subconsciousness simultaneously because they entertain and because they are multidimensional and approach everythinghuman feelings, stories, facts, interpretations, reflectionsfrom different angles.

Unlike news, which is too monotonous and really tiring. News has a high level of tension, and that tension wears you down and repels you. So when people can't take the news anymore, there's still the possibility of reminding them of the complicated things through art. That's only a tiny part of the role creativity plays, but its enough to make you feel that what you're doing has meaning.

Do you see much Ukrainian art abroad?

Sometimes, I have the impression that Ukraine is literally everywhere abroad. Wherever you go, you meet Ukrainians, hear the Ukrainian language, and hear Russian spoken by people from Ukraine. People often share their stories related to Ukraine with me and describe the events they've attended that are dedicated to Ukraine, as I'm seen as a representative of the country.

However, it is important to understand that this impression of a complete overhaul, a total presence in the cultural and information spaces is false. Old habits, old beliefs are incredibly strong, and Russian propaganda is still active. But we must make full use of the channel that is now open; we must take our rightful place.

Theres another issue I want to discuss. How often do you have to deal with Russians on your trips abroad? I ask this because people who dont often have the chance to go abroad might get the impression that all they do there is force Ukrainians to debate and collaborate on projects with Russians and equate our experiences and voices. And it looks like people there don't quite understand that this equality is impossible and unethical. They dont understand that Russian voices will inherently be more understandable and louder as the voices of an empire compared to the voices of its (albeit former) colonies.

A few times, I was invited to participate in festivals or events where Russians were also involved. I refused. I tried to explain my refusal rationally, saying that it was a continuation of the same imperial discourse and that experiences cannot be equated, but to each of my arguments, I received a counter-argument, the logic of which, frankly, I did understand. But what about understanding when my feelings didnt match with it.

So when I was invited to a discussion in Berlin, in which Russian authors were also invited to participate, I decided to stop engaging in logical arguments. I replied that for every Ukrainian (no matter how anti-war and anti-Putin the Russian participants were), this form of participation felt deeply traumatic and emotionally impossible as long as the war raged and people were being killed.

My response was naive and simplistic, but unexpectedly, the organizers responded with an apology for their invitation. I had the feeling that they understood and respected a refusal like this. Then I thought that we tried too desperately to rationalize these things, neglecting the importance of feelings.

I dont like that now I have to step out of my comfort zone and study each agenda carefully to avoid ending up in an unpleasant company.

This is a manifestation of our social neurosis, which is, of course, a natural reaction to an extremely painful abnormal situation. But we've become terribly neurotic about itinstead of focusing on what we're communicating personally, what we're producing, we're spending our energy on entirely different things.

Irrational things are very convincing and should elicit respect. And they should suffice. But for people, for Europeans who have no experience of living on the border between life and death, under constant threat, irrational reasons are not enough.

Its just that the Russians have their own story. I wish they would deal with their story themselves so that Ukrainians would not be expected to help Russians deal with their feelings of guiltgood Russians, I mean.

Personally, I know for sure that I cannot have these conversations now and for a while because they are simply pointless. But on the other hand, no one can forbid the Russians to feel and to do what they doto search for their own formulas and answers, to talk, to reflect, and to help in whatever way. They absolutely have this right.

Neither do I think that I can judge my Ukrainian colleagues who do see some point in those conversations. I can have certain feelings about it, but I dont think I should interfere in any way. I mean, I would be more relaxed about the situation. I am saddened by this neurosis that leads to the total condemnation of people engaging in discussions with Russians.

Perhaps they know what to say and how to say it so that it is clearly articulated. Maybe in these discussions, they really show our opinions from different angles. Its not necessarily about reconciliation. Maybe these dialogs should be used as an opportunity to raise awareness. This possibility should exist, at least theoretically, if were talking about freedom.

But then it comes down to the personal skills and competencies of each speaker. I know that I can't articulate myself that well, I can't argue, I can't be sharp in discussions. So I'm not going to engage in that.

However, I believe there are people out there who can spell everything out, detect manipulation, and express themselves in a way that makes Russian opinion sound unconvincing. I mean, they can dismantle it or kind of deconstruct it.

So how should we overcome our neurosis regarding dialogs with good Russians?

Let me try to explain the danger of engaging in conversations with good Russians, which our Western colleagues do not understand. Such conversations give the appearance of some sort of mutual understanding and lead to the following conclusion: you see, people of culture have gotten along with each other. This means that we are all human beings and that we all strive for the good. In turn, it means that even in the political realm and in the realm of war, we can just sit down at the negotiating table and reach an agreement. Making concessions and compromises is what they expect of us. That is why this step is dangerous.

So we just have to be extra careful. Because we cannot engage in conciliatory conversations while the war is raging. That is the simplest thing we have been trying to explain from the very beginning. Don't expect that from us while the war is going on and people are being killed. Lets talk about it later; it's not the most urgent thing right now; just leave us alone and please do something more useful.

So, when it comes to neurosis and how to overcome itI dont think its possible to overcome it. It's too pervasive; it's societys reaction to abnormality. We could talk a lot about psychology, about feelings that need to find an outlet in this way. About how to get a grip on yourself (as far as that's possible with personal trauma): do I really need to express myself at this particular moment or will I hurt other people or the situation?

We could also say that, after all, the war is being fought for exactly thisfor Ukrainians to be able to express all kinds of opinions. Its all about freedom of feelings and expression. Its just that it is every persons business.

Maybe we should just let this neurosis stand. Maybe it is compensating for something much more terrible. Maybe its not the worst thing that's happening to us.

Just to put things into perspective. In Poland, a scandal has erupted these days due to the public reaction to Agnieszka Hollands film "The Green Border." The very fact that the film has triggered such a strong reaction means that it has hit a sore spot. It means that it tells the truth. And this truth is so unbearable for many Poles that it provokes aggression.

If we compare the outbursts of aggression in Ukrainian society, triggered by the condemnation of actions or words of a public figure, with similar aggression in Polish society, well see that in Ukraine it takes a much gentler form and is limited to verbal aggression in social media. As we know, Agnieszka Holland had to ask for 24/7 security protection and can hardly leave her houseso real is the physical threat she faces from Polish citizens affected by her work. Olga Tokarczuk had a similar experience when her novel, The Books of Jacob, was published. Maybe Im wrong, but I have the impression that Ukrainians are much more toleranteven in times of war.

That sounds optimistic.

In fact, we need to love our neurosis.
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Israel on Thursday, Sunak's office said, where the pair stressed the need to avoid further escalation of violence in the region.

"The Prime Minister and President Herzog stressed the imperative need to avoid further escalation of violence in the region. They agreed to continue working together to that end," Sunak's office said in a statement.

Sunak also agreed with Herzog to continue working to secure the release of British nationals who have been taken hostage in the conflict, the statement added.

(Reporting by Sarah Young, writing by Muvija M)
The United Nations headquarters building is pictured though a window with the UN logo in the foreground in the Manhattan borough of New York

By Sarah Morland

(Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council on Thursday renewed for one year its sanctions regime on Haiti, which currently includes just one individual, as Haiti and China called for faster action.

A year ago, the council slapped sanctions on Jimmy Cherizier, alias "Barbecue," a former police officer turned leader of the G9 Alliance and one of Haiti's most powerful gang leaders.

"This situation of only one person on the designated list must be changed as soon as possible," said China's deputy U.N. Ambassador Geng Shuang. "We urge the sanctions committee to speed up its work and meet the resolution's requirements."

Shuang also called on "all countries, especially regional states" to "take concrete actions" to prevent the illegal flow of small arms and light weapons into Haiti in order to cut off gangs' sources of weapons.

Many Caribbean leaders have pointed to the United States as the source of illegal firearms flooding the region.

Haitian gangs have amassed what national police have described as an "arsenal of war" including stocks of machine guns and assault rifles, threatening residents caught up in the fighting and the country's under-resourced police.

Earlier this month, the U.N. authorized deployment of a multinational force to Haiti to aid police, as requested by Haiti's unelected government a year ago. The resolution also expanded an arms embargo to include all gangs in the country.

Haiti's U.N. Ambassador Antonio Rodrigue commended the vote while calling on nations to be more proactive in combating arms trafficking.

"We are very much looking forward to the publication of the list of the main protagonists linked to the worsening security crisis in the country," Rodrigue said, urging the U.N. to take action on the many resolutions it has passed.

"There is now a need to move to the active phase," he said. "Work will be judged in the light of specific results obtained on the ground."

(Reporting by Sarah Morland; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Lebanese armed forces help from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) (Christina ASSI)

Lebanon's army blamed Israel Friday for killing a member of a "journalist team" covering cross-border tensions in the country's south, as war rages further south between Israel and Gaza-based militants.

On Thursday, "a journalist team of seven people covering news... near the Israeli enemys al-Abad site outside the town of Hula, was targeted with machine guns by enemy (Israeli) members, killing one and injuring another," the Lebanese army said in a statement.

Earlier, peacekeepers with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a statement that one person had been killed after civilians were caught in cross-border fire in Lebanon's south.

Lebanese armed forces asked them for help "for seven individuals stranded near" the border during "a significant exchange of fire", UNIFIL, said in its statement. A spokesperson confirmed they were all civilians.

"Tragically, one person lost his life during this incident and the others were successfully rescued," UNIFIL said. They asked the Israeli forces to suspend fire "to facilitate the rescue operation" and they complied, the statement added.

UNIFIL force acts as a buffer between Lebanese and Israeli troops.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions have been trading cross-border fire with Israel daily since Hamas launched its massive October 7 assault in southern Israel, killing at least 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

More than 3,700 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed across the Gaza Strip in retaliatory Israeli bombardments, according to figures from its Hamas-run health ministry.

The latest border incident brings to at least 22 the number of people killed in south Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began.

Most of them have been combatants, but at least four civilians, including a Reuters journalist, have been killed. At least three people have been killed in Israel.

- 'Trapped by gunfire' -

Earlier, local Lebanese media had reported that the group included Iranian journalists, although Iranian state TV said later that the Iranian journalists were "alive and healthy" without providing further details.

A Lebanese security official told AFP that the victim had been killed by Israeli fire and that the group had included journalists. The official requested anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to the press.

Shakib Koteish, who heads the municipality of Hula, the village near which the group was stranded, told AFP a Lebanese civilian had been killed "definitely by Israeli fire".

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) had earlier said that Israeli forces had "cornered" a group of civilians, including journalists, "close to the town of Hula, and opened fire nearby... to keep them from leaving".

The civilians were "trapped by the gunfire", it added, before saying armed forces had managed to rescue them in a separate statement.

On Saturday, Lebanon said that Israel was behind cross-border fire that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six others near the border, including AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera staff, the day before.

Israel's military said at the time it was looking into the circumstances of the fatal strike.

aya/jj
Meat has always been the star of the show at Trawka's Market on Erie's East Side.

Aside from the usual selection of steaks, chops and chicken, Trawka's, owned for 39 years by Tom Walsh, earned a reputation for selling endless loops of Polish, Italian and other sausages.

But Adrian Pop , a native of Transylvania, Romania, and the chef at the former Jr.'s Last Laugh Comedy Club for more than 20 years, saw potential that extended beyond the meat case.

Adrian Pop, the new owner of Trawka's Market, 712 Payne Ave., stands outside the business on Oct. 3.

Walsh had cultivated a following for his takeout lunch business, selling sandwiches and hot meals. Pop, who purchased the market at 712 Payne Ave., on Sept. 29, has continued that tradition since taking over.

Pop has been selling about 100 hot meals a day  including meatball sandwiches, city chicken and pork chops  and said customers call days in advance to find out what specials are planned for later in the week.

Those customers need not worry that their lunchtime ritual will be disrupted.

The takeout lunch business, and the opportunity to expand on it, was one of the things that caught Pop's attention as he looked for a business to buy.

Trawka's Market is shown in this 2021 file photo

During a recent tour of his small kitchen, Pop, who cooked at Jr.'s since 1999, said he will be adding a deep fryer, an industrial mixer and new ovens to help realize his vision.

"I am so excited, Pop said. "I can do dinners to go, I can do lunches. I just want to ramp it up and bring it up a little to 2023."

As he showed off his industrial smoker, Pop was clear about one thing: His idea of change is rooted in addition, not subtraction.

"Everything you see here, it's all going to stay," Pop said. That includes a cooler filled with sausage, homemade ox roast, Smith's hot dogs, and cabbage rolls, painstaking rolled one at a time.

But change already is under way.

Pop has added some European grocery items to the market's shelves and plans to introduce sausages native to his homeland. The Romanian potatoes that he made for years at Jr.'s might also make an appearance.

A culinary family

His wife, Nadia Pop, a baker and breakfast supervisor at Erie's Bayfront Sheraton, is also expected to play a role in the new business.

Adrian Pop, the new owner of Trawka's Market, chats with longtime employee Rachael Garber on Oct. 3.

"She will be coming in here and working part-time, making sweet treats for us," he said.

Nadia Pop, 44, said she and her 43-year-old husband have been together since high school. Like him, she said she's excited to share the tastes of her childhood.

"This is something we have talked about for a lot of years since we have been together," she said.

She's not worried about offering customers something new along with the old favorites.

"If they try it they will fall in love with it," she said. "I hope they will keep responding the way they have been so far."

Pop and his wife aren't the only members of his family with culinary talent. His mother, Silvia Pop, who still lives in Romania, has been a chef since she was 18. His father, Alexandru Pop , who spent 20 months in prison during the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, was the owner for a number of years of Erie's Majestic Bakery, which closed in 2019.

Adrian Pop, who has worked at both Jr.'s Last Laugh and The Sloppy Duck Saloon, has enjoyed some success. He's won local contests and watched in 2005 as participants in a charity fundraiser slurped down 22 gallons of his Romanian meatball soup, one four-ounce cup at a time.

But Pop always wanted what he refers to as a mom-and-pop place of his own, a kitchen where he could cook his own food.

Adrian Pop, owner of Trawka's Market, at 1712 Payne Ave., shows off some of the European products he has stocked on his store shelves.

But he will happily keep what works.

"I don't want to change that," he said. "There is too much history in that building and I don't want to let that go. I want to be the fourth generation that keeps it going."

A new generation takes over

Walsh, the longtime owner of Trawka's, sold the real estate for $125,000, according to a deed recorded at the Erie County Courthouse.

Although Pop paid an additional amount to purchase other aspects of the business, including the recipes, Walsh said he thinks the Pops are in a position to succeed.

Trawka's Market owner Tom Walsh, owner of Trawka's Market for 39 years, is shown in the store in this 2021 file photo.

"It's a great buy for him," he said.

Walsh, who had one of his legs amputated three years ago and had open-heart surgery earlier this year, decided at the age of 70 that it was time to get out of the grocery business.

"I believe the store needed a new face," he said. "I was so laid up the last three years it wasn't fair to my employees or to the customers. I couldn't do everything I was used to doing."

Walsh purchased the business in 1984 from Walter Trawka, who ran the market for more than 20 years, creating many of the sausage recipes still used today.

Walsh said he wishes Pop and his wife some of the same success he had during his own years as caretaker of the Erie landmark.

"The business was very good to me," Walsh said. "The people of Erie treated me great."

Pop feels the same way about some of the people and organizations who helped provide the money and expertise to purchase his business. They include Marquette Savings Bank, the Erie County Redevelopment Authority and the Gannon University Small Business Development Center.

Nadya Makay, a business consultant with the SBDC, said she feels good about the couple's chances for success after reviewing the market's financial records and making some projections about the future.

"You never know, but I think think they are going to do good," Makay said. "Passion is a huge thing behind a business's chance for success."

Adrian Pop, who became an American citizen in 2001, showed plenty of that in a statement provided to the Redevelopment Authority.

"It was time for me to fulfill my lifelong desire to establish and run my very own business," he said. "It is my mission and my passion to thrive in this area."

More: Tops Market closing raises food desert concerns in Erie

More: Erie's Flagship Public Market debuts as EDDC checks another goal off its list

Contact Jim Martin at jmartin@timesnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie couple are new owners of east side fixture Trawka's Market
As Irene Zohar wove through a crowd of more than 500, she stopped along the way to accept hugs from people she didnt know, but considered family.

No matter where we are, well always be united. And thats what I love about my religion and my people. No matter where we are, even if we dont know each other, were all family, the 22-year-old Coastal Carolina student said, clutching a bouquet of flowers.

A dual citizen of Israel and the United States, Zohars cousin Itay Glisko was killed Oct. 8 in an attack launched by Hamas.

Glisko, 20, was eight months away from ending his service with the Israeli Defense Forces and was taking care of wounded soldiers at a military installation at the time of his death.

Zohar said Glisko, originally from New Jersey, agreed to switch shifts with another soldier the day he died.

It was Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday meant to celebrate the end of public weekly Torah readings as part of Sukkot.

Normally a day of dancing and feasts, Zohar said shes still coming to terms with the pain of this years Simchat Torah and the suffering of Israelis worldwide following Hamas violence.

I dont even know what Im feeling. You know, its anger, its sadness, obviously, Zohar said. Im also grieving. Its always to be worried and scared, everywhere I am. I have to turn my head multiple times.

Zohar was among several area residents called upon Oct. 18 to light a ceremonial candle in honor of Glisko at a Stand with Israel rally held at The Hangout, where people lunched on falafel for a fundraiser to support the IDF.

I am proud to be Jewish, but its still scary, Zohar said.

On Saturday, CCUs Foreign Policy Forum will host a panel discussion on the wars in Israel and Ukraine.

The 10 a.m. event in room 101 at Brittain Hall is free and open to the public.

The Grand Strand is home to about 5,000 Jews  nearly a third of the states entire Jewish population.

Ofra Stanton is among them.

I really want peace in the world, peace in the Middle East, which is very hard. Weve been waiting for this for so many years, the Myrtle Beach resident and Israeli native said. When I was young, I was in war. But what they did, this is different. It breaks my heart.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri wants all individuals involved in the hazing death of a senior Criminology student in Manila to "spend the rest of their lives behind bars."

The Senate chief called for a swift prosecution of the 16 fraternity members suspected for the brutal death of Ahldryn Leary Bravante from the Philippine College of Criminology.

"This senseless death of another young student due to barbaric fraternity tradition is not only enraging, but frustrating as well as it happened despite our efforts to put more teeth to the law against fraternity hazing," Zubiri said in a statement Thursday.

Zubiri, a principal author of Anti-Hazing Act of 2018 or Republic Act No. 11053, said the latest incident was "appalling" as it happened within the same year as the death of Adamson University student Matthew Salilig.

READ: Lawmakers condemn death of Adamson student, seek perpetrators'

"Needless to say, the full force of the law must come down on those soulless people who killed the same person they claim to be as their brother," Zubiri added.

Two suspects who surrendered said Bravante underwent initiation rites from members of the Tau Gamma Phi Fraternity, the same frat of those responsible for Salilig's death.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  The year-round horror offering from Universal set to make its Las Vegas debut now has a name, the company announced Tuesday.

In a release from Universal, the company announced the name of its new year-round horror experience in Las Vegas. Universal Horror Unleashed, to be located at AREA15 in Las Vegas, promises a variety of unique, immersive, and horror-centric experiences.

Not just for Halloween, the spin-off of Universals Halloween Horror Nights, popular with visitors in Southern California, Florida, and overseas, is set to become a permanent fixture in the 20-acre expansion of AREA15. The effort is part of the [Universals] ambition to introduce new products to new audiences in new markets.

The experience was announced in January. Upon its announcement, Las Vegas City Councilwoman Olivia Diaz said she believed Universal Horror Unleashed would be a welcome addition to the area.

This is clearly economical development. Bringing someone the size of Universal Studios is no small feat, Diaz said. We know that year after year, their horror events sell out in Orlando and L.A., and we are looking forward to Las Vegas getting that much attention.

An opening date has yet to be cemented for Universal Horror Unleashed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
The claim: University of Pennsylvania students chanted We want Jewish genocide at pro-Palestinian protest

An Oct. 17 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) includes a video of protesting students purportedly shouting an antisemitic chant amid the Israel-Hamas war.

We want Jewish genocide, reads the text superimposed on the video, transcribing what it claims the group was chanting. This is my Alma Mater. This is the University of Pennsylvania. They are cheering for my death & the death of all Jews.

It received more than 16,000 likes in less than a day.

Fact check roundup: Israel-Hamas war sparks many misleading claims online. Here's what's true and false.

Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

Our rating: False

The transcription is wrong. The group was chanting, We charge you with genocide, a phrase thats been repeated at pro-Palestinian rallies around the country. Both the student group that organized the rally and the schools student newspaper said there were no chants advocating the genocide of Jewish people.

Student advocacy group, newspaper say claim is false

The Oct. 16 rally during a walkout of Palestinian students and supporters was organized by the student group Penn Students Against the Occupation. The group posted a statement on Oct. 18 saying the claim of a pro-genocide chant was blatant disinformation.

PAO would like to explicitly state that this claim is false and did not happen whatsoever, reads the post. The chant was, Israel, Israel, you cant hide, we charge you with genocide.

Local outlets including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily Pennsylvanian, the universitys student newspaper, also had no mention of the supposed chant in their coverage of the rally.

Multiple reporters and photographers who attended the walk-out event ... said that no one at the march chanted, We want Jewish genocide," Daily Pennsylvanian Executive Editor Emi Tuyetnhi Tran said in an email. Rather, what they heard was, We charge you with genocide.

The Anti-Defamation League also said the claim is false and that the actual chant is a not-uncommon refrain at such rallies. Articles from outlets including the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune and the Lexington Herald Leader reported that the chant and others like it were heard at the rallies in their respective cities.

Fact check: Photo of deceased children is from Syria in 2013, not Israel-Hamas war

The claim comes amid turmoil at the school over its response to the Israel-Hamas war.

Hundreds participated in the walkout after a statement from university president Liz Magill condemned "Hamas' terrorist assault on Israel and their violent atrocities against civilians." Speakers at the rally criticized the statement for not addressing the toll the war is having on Palestinians, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported.

Major donor and former U.S. ambassador Jon Huntsman announced he was ending his donations to the school because of what he described as its silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel, the Hill reported. At least one other wealthy donor has called for ending donations until the universitys president and chair of the Board of Trustees resign, according to WPVI-TV in Philadelphia.

Palestinian supporters protest at Columbia University on Oct. 12, 2023, in New York.

USA TODAY has debunked an array of false claims surrounding the Israel-Hamas war, including that a video shows children being held hostage in cages during the conflict, that the emir of Qatar threatened to cut off the worlds natural gas supply if the Gaza bombings continue and that a video shows CNN faking coverage of a rocket attack in Israel.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UPenn Palestine protest false claim of antisemitic chant | Fact check
SAN DIEGO (Border Report)  A few weeks ago, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the states Department of Public Safety to inspect all cargo trucks as a way to stop cartels from smuggling migrants and drugs into the U.S.

The move generated long lines at border crossings in Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, and truckers, trucking companies and business leaders on both sides of the border complained that the longer lines were disrupting commerce between Mexico and the United States.

At Californias largest commercial truck crossing, the Otay Mesa Port of Entry south of San Diego, long lines are happening, but not because of mandated government inspections.

DPS cuts down on truck inspections in El Paso

California Highway Patrol officers and inspectors inspect dozens of trucks daily, but they have not been asked to increase the number of inspections. Officer Pablo Torrez said it would not be practical.

California Highway Patrol Inspector Alex Zepeda checks out a rig at CHP inspection facility in Otay Mesa. (Salvador Rivera/Border Report)

As it is, they already have about on average of two to three hour wait times just from crossing from Mexico into the U.S., said Torrez. If were looking to inspect every vehicle, youd be looking at 48- to 72-hour wait times.

Politics fueling Texas border truck inspections, county judge says

Torrez and his colleagues at this CHP facility are more interested in finding mechanical problems than drugs as they conduct inspections that can last up to 45 minutes per truck.

Some vehicles are a lot easier, he said. Iif its a brand-new trailer and they have disc brakes, for example, things like that, it can take 20 minutes. But if its an older vehicle there are more things to look at and it might take a little bit longer.

Torrez said trucks are given thorough 37-step assessments inside and out, and paperwork on the trucks and drivers is also verified.

Texas urged to lift DPS truck inspections at the border

Once the inspection gets done and if there are violations, they have to be fixed here at the facility before they can continue, he said. If its a mechanical problem that can be fixed at their place of business or wherever they have their shop located, they can continue with their day, and after their day is over, they have to go back and correct it prior to the next day they are dispatched.

According to Torrez, anywhere from 3,500 to 4,000 trucks will go through their facility on any given day, but not all can be inspected.

They use different colored stickers with numbers on them, placed on trucks windows and on the trailers, to determine if its time for a vehicle to be inspected.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the United States-Mexico border

Torrez said oftentimes, even if trucks are due for an inspection but dont show obvious mechanical problems, they are allowed to proceed as a way to keep traffic flowing.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. is deeply concerned by reports that the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have intensified shelling in South Darfur and Omdurman, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday.

Fighting between the Sudanese army and the RSF erupted on April 15 over tensions linked to a planned transition to civilian rule. It has devastated the capital Khartoum and sparked ethnically driven attacks in Darfur.

The United States called on the RSF to immediately cease shelling of civilian neighborhoods and to protect civilians, Miller said.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; editing by Dan Whitcomb)
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will not take part in negotiations after Ukraine's victory in the war, Valery Chaly is sure

After Ukraines victory, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will not participate in negotiations, unlike the United States and China, Ukrainian diplomat and former Ambassador to the United States, Valeriy Chaly, told Radio NV on Oct. 18.

Read also: Rebooting the world. What now, after Xis call with Zelenskyy?  opinion

Chaly referenced the irrevocability of President Volodymyr Zelenskyys decree, which confirmed the National Security and Defense Councils decision regarding the impossibility of negotiations with Putin.

At the moment when we achieve victory, what will happen with Putin? I believe that if, God willing, everything goes optimally, then Putin will not be a part of the negotiations at all. He will not be a negotiating party. It will be the United States and China, the diplomat said.

Read also: Beijing should pressure Russia to end the war in Ukraine, US Ambassador to China says

Ukraine cannot engage in direct talks with Putin due to his criminal actions. Ukraine is also reliant on external negotiation partners for the supply of weapons and financial support, just like Russias dependency on China, said Chaly.

Therefore, the influence of the United States will be substantial, and Chinas influence will grow over Russia. Maybe there will come a point where the United States and China will discuss these matters. Perhaps it will even start in November during the planned visit of Xi Jinping to California. Maybe there.

Read also: Zelenskyy says talks with Putin possible only if Russia withdraws all troops from Ukraine

Its not a matter of Ukraine losing its sovereignty. In principle, we cannot resolve this matter on our own. But Putin should not gloat there either. He has long lost the opportunities he once had, Chaly concluded.

Earlier this year, Zelenskyy has said a meeting with Putin would only be possible after the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.

Read also: War in Ukraine and US elections

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
The State Department issued an alert Thursday warning U.S. citizens overseas to exercise caution amid increased tensions around the world.

Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution, the alert said.

The department had several recommendations for U.S. citizens who are abroad. It said to stay alert in busy tourist locations, follow the department on social media and enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), which sends alerts and helps locate people in times of emergency.

The alert is the latest warning from the State Department amid the war between Israel and Hamas.

The State Department urged Americans in Lebanon on Thursday morning to make plans to leave as soon as possible, elevating an earlier warning that advised people not to travel to the country. The alert recommended U.S. citizens to leave the country as soon as they could and while commercial options are still available.

Demonstrations and violence have erupted in Lebanon amid the Israel-Hamas war. The advisory outlined that Americans in Lebanon should have plans to depart the country that do not rely on the U.S. government.

Last week, the U.S. government announced that it would be chartering flights for Americans who were stuck in Israel when the war began. Flights began taking off from Tel Aviv and stopping in Europe before making arrangements to bring U.S. citizens home.

Hamas launched the surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7, causing many commercial airlines to pull out of the area.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas, resulting in a deadly counterattack that has increased international tensions.

Protests have erupted across the U.S., resulting in arrests. Outside Chicago, a 6-year-old Muslim boy was fatally stabbed and his mother was seriously injured, in a hate crime responding to the war.

In recent days, police have been on high alert for violence driven by antisemitic or Islamophobic sentiments. FBI officials have reported an increase in hateful rhetoric since the war broke out.

Airstrikes from Israel have hit Gaza, including areas declared as safe zones. More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have been forced to flee after Israel told them to evacuate.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded. More than 1,400 people in Israel were killed in the initial surprise attack.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has conveyed concerns to Venezuela's president that it must lift bans for all opposition presidential candidates by the end of November in exchange for sanction relief, a U.S. senior official said Wednesday.

Washington is providing what the official described as "limited sanction relief" to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, following an agreement between him and the political opposition on Tuesday.

The sanction relief will primarily touch on Venezuela's oil and gas sector, according to the U.S. official, who did not go into further details. He did note that the sanction relief would not affect the judicial process focused on Citgo Petroleum or other Venezuelan frozen assets in the United States or other jurisdictions.

That deal set conditions for the next year's presidential election along with the promise of some sanctions relief, but some opposition candidates currently remain banned from taking office even if they were to defeat Maduro's ruling socialists and win the election.

U.S. officials have communicated to Venezuela that the best way forward would be for Maduro's government to release political prisoners and allow free and fair elections by removing current bans on some candidates.

The senior U.S. official, who spoke on background during a briefing with reporters, added that Washington could reconsider the incentives it has given to Venezuela if conditions for a fair election are not met.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Diane Craft)
Part of the funding is to support Native American languages. (Photo/Bureau of Indian Education)

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) on Tuesday, October 17, 2023, announced new awards totaling more than $11 million for the new Native American Language Resource Centers (NALRC) program, the first-ever Native American Teacher Retention Initiative (NATRI) program, and the State Tribal Education Partnership (STEP) program.

Combined, the grant awards will strengthen the vitality of Native American languages in schools, support Native American teachers, and ensure Tribal Educational Agencies can coordinate grant resources alongside state and local partners.

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Our efforts to Raise the Bar for academic achievement and support multilingual learners in tribal communities must include strengthening and revitalizing Native languages, and supporting the recruitment, retention, leadership, and empowerment of Native American educators, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

These grant funds will provide Native American students with greater opportunities to learn in inclusive environments that uplift their cultures, revitalize their languages, and ultimately, promote their academic success and wellbeing.

The NALRC program will support the preservation and use of Native American languages in classrooms across the country. Three geographic regionsCentral, Northwest, and Westas well as a national center will benefit from the awards to provide support to all states and regional center grantees. The centers will provide technical assistance for resource development, dissemination of research, leadership development, capacity-building services, and immersive, interactive learning experiences.

Finally, the Department awarded $1.6 million to support the STEP program. STEP grants support projects that strengthen tribal self-determination and promote coordination and collaboration among tribal, state, and local educational agencies to meet the unique needs of Native students. Funded projects include supporting cross-agency data sharing agreements; culturally responsive Native American student identification; and facilitating systemic change focus areas related to college readiness, workforce development, and family engagement.

About the Author: "Native News Online is one of the most-read publications covering Indian Country and the news that matters to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous people. Reach out to us at editor@nativenewsonline.net. "

Contact: news@nativenewsonline.net
The agreement between Washington and Caracas comes just a day after the Venezuelan government and opposition reached a deal in Barbados -- mediated by Norway -- to hold elections in late 2024 (Miguel ZAMBRANO)

The United States will ease some oil and gas sanctions against Venezuela after the South American country's government and opposition agreed to hold elections next year.

In response to those "democratic developments," the US Treasury Department "has issued General Licenses authorizing transactions involving Venezuela's oil and gas sector and gold sector," and is "removing the ban on secondary trading" in debt securities, a statement from undersecretary for terrorism Brian Nelson said Wednesday.

But it also said that those authorizations could be amended or revoked at any time if the electoral deal falls through.

"Let's turn the page, let's rebuild a relationship of respect, of cooperation... this is my message to those in power, and to the government of the United States," Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said, while also calling for a definitive end to the sanctions.

To uphold the agreement, the United States warned Venezuela that it must "define a specific timeline and process for the expedited reinstatement of all candidates" by the end of November, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

"All who want to run for president should be allowed the opportunity," he said in a statement.

The agreement between Washington and Caracas comes just a day after the Venezuelan government and opposition reached a deal in Barbados -- mediated by Norway -- to hold elections in late 2024.

But that accord allows for the exclusion of certain candidates under Venezuelan law, which would include opposition frontrunner Maria Corina Machado.

US officials speaking on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday evening, however, said they believed Caracas was planning to eventually allow such candidates to participate.

Blinken said "failure to abide by the terms of this arrangement will lead the United States to reverse steps we have taken."

Later in the day, five jailed opposition figures were released, according to a social media post by Gerardo Blyde, who represents the opposition in talks with the government.

Among them were journalist Roland Carreno and former lawmaker Juan Requesens, imprisoned in 2018 after an attack on Maduro.

Also on Wednesday, a charter flight from Texas arrived at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas carrying about 130 Venezuelan migrants, the first such deportation flight following an agreement earlier this month between the two countries.

The deal provides for the "orderly, safe and legal repatriation" of undocumented Venezuelan migrants, who until now had been deported in small numbers on commercial flights, mixed in with regular passengers.

- Oil, gas, gold -

In concrete terms, the sanctions easing means the US government is re-authorizing the purchase of Venezuelan oil and gas for a period of six months, which may be renewed "only if Venezuela meets its commitments under the electoral roadmap as well as other commitments with respect to those who are wrongfully detained."

Regarding the gold sector, no time limit has been specified, with the Treasury Department stating it seeks to reduce black market trading.

Washington is also allowing renewed trading in Venezuelan debt securities on the secondary market, although the ban on the primary market -- meaning debt securities newly issued by the Venezuelan government -- remains in force.

The easing of sanctions on Venezuelan oil had been eagerly awaited by the markets, leading to a fall in the price per barrel despite the war between Israel and Hamas and the risk of escalation in the Middle East.

An exact election date will be defined by the country's National Electoral Council, according to the text of the deal.

The two sides had resumed talks seeking to end the country's political and economic crisis, after a nearly yearlong suspension.

The opposition, backed by several countries including the United States, did not recognize Maduro's 2018 re-election in a vote widely dismissed as fraudulent.

The following year, Washington ramped up sanctions against Caracas first imposed in 2015 over the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

But the energy crisis sparked by Russia's war on Ukraine saw renewed global efforts to solve the crisis in Venezuela, which has the world's largest oil reserves.

Last year, US delegates went to Caracas to meet Maduro, even though Washington does not recognize him as a legitimate leader.

After initial talks between the government and the opposition, Washington granted a six-month license to US energy giant Chevron.

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By Simon Lewis and Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States "strongly" encouraged Afghanistan's neighbors, including Pakistan, to allow entry for Afghans seeking protection and urged them to uphold obligations in treatment of refugees, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.

THE TAKE

Pakistan has set a Nov. 1 deadline for all illegal immigrants, including hundreds of thousands of Afghans, to leave the country or face forcible expulsion.

BY THE NUMBERS

Some 1.73 million Afghans in Pakistan have no legal documents, according to Islamabad, which alleged that Afghan nationals carried out over a dozen suicide bombings this year.

Pakistan has hosted the largest number of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of Kabul in 1979. Islamabad says the number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan totaled 4.4 million.

Some 20,000 or more Afghans who fled the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan are in Pakistan awaiting the processing of their applications for U.S. Special Immigration Visas (SIVs) or resettlement in the United States as refugees.

KEY QUOTE

"We strongly encourage Afghanistan's neighbors, including Pakistan, to allow entry for Afghans seeking international protection and to coordinate with international humanitarian organizations ... to provide humanitarian assistance," a U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters on Thursday.

CONTEXT

Pakistan says the deportation process would be orderly and conducted in phases and could begin with people with criminal records.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have said Pakistan's threat to force out Afghan migrants was "unacceptable".

Relations have deteriorated between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past couple of years, largely over accusations that Islamists fighting the Pakistani state operate from Afghan territory. The Taliban deny this claim.

A group of former top U.S. officials and resettlement organizations have urged Pakistan to exempt from deportation to Afghanistan thousands of Afghan applicants for special U.S. visas or refugee relocation to the United States.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis; writing by Kanishka Singh)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. flew to Saudi Arabia on Thursday to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit, where he is expected to advance the countrys interests in the economy, agriculture, and welfare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

In his departure speech, Marcos said he sees the conference as an important platform for the Philippines as this marks the first interaction between the two regions.

That is why the Philippines needs to be part of that discussion, he said.

The chief executive said he would particularly focus on calling for boosted cooperation in energy, food security, trade, digital transformation, protection of about 2.2 million OFWs, as well as security in the regions.

Marcos said he would meet with the Filipino community there.

We will see to it that our constructive engagement with ASEAN and our partners will continue to serve our national interest and the well-being of the Filipino people, he said.

As he clarified that the Maharlika Investment Fund was not put on hold despite the suspension order of its implementing rules, Marcos said that he would introduce the sovereign wealth fund to the Middle East.

READ: Marcos: Maharlika fund operational by yearend

We are encouraged by the reaction of our friends in the Middle East and for that matter around the world to the fund and we're very encouraged that we are going down the right path, he said.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egyptian NGOs for Palestinians, wait for the reopening of the Rafah crossing at the Egyptian side

By Phil Stewart and Aidan Lewis

CAIRO (Reuters) - The top U.S. general overseeing American troops in the Middle East made an unannounced trip to Egypt for talks on Thursday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi that focused on the Israel-Hamas war and how to get aid to the Gaza Strip.

Egypt's Sinai peninsula adjoins the Gaza Strip and its Rafah border crossing is the sole route for aid to enter Gaza directly from outside Israel. It is also the only exit that does not lead to Israeli territory.

More than 100 trucks were waiting close to the crossing on the Egyptian side on Thursday, though it was not expected that aid would enter before Friday, Egyptian security sources said. More aid is being held in the Egyptian city of Al Arish, about 45 km (28 miles) from Rafah.

A statement from Sisi's office said the talks with U.S. Army General Michael "Erik" Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, included in particular "the developments in the Gaza Strip".

"The president outlined Egypt's efforts for de-escalation, stressing the importance of the international community's concerted efforts to contain the crisis and stop its escalation in dangerous directions," the statement said.

The meeting in Cairo, where Kurilla also met Egypt's Defence Minister Mohamed Zaki, came as Washington and Egypt have been pushing for a deal with Israel to get aid deliveries to Gaza.

Sisi's office said delivering aid in a "sustainable manner" was a top priority given deteriorating humanitarian conditions.

Aid has been piling up on the Egyptian side after Israeli bombardments in reaction to the attacks by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7 made the Rafah crossing inoperable, though work was expected on Thursday to repair roads to send aid across.

The Rafah crossing has become a focal point in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas as a humanitarian crisis unfolds and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians head to south Gaza from the enclave's north to escape Israeli bombing.

Egypt has been alarmed at the idea that Israel's unprecedented bombardment and siege of Gaza could force its residents southwards, and has said it will not allow any new mass displacement of Palestinians.

Most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents depended on aid before the current conflict started on Oct. 7, and about 100 trucks daily were providing humanitarian relief to the enclave, according to the United Nations.

In a sign of its concerns, Sisi on Wednesday said Egyptians in their millions would reject the forced displacement of Palestinians into Sinai, adding that any such move would turn the Egyptian peninsula into a base for attacks against Israel.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart, Aidan Lewis; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
Senator Lindsey Graham wants to see Gaza flattened. Congressman Max Miller said the laws of war should be swept aside. A former US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, suggested that Palestinians as a whole were responsible for Hamass crimes.

American politicians have rushed to plant their flags firmly with Israel after Hamas killed more than 1,400 people, and abducted about 200 others, in its unprecedented attack from the Gaza Strip. Some have echoed the demand by the Israel Defence Forces  You either stand with Israel or you stand with terrorism  reminiscent of the heated rhetoric in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the US.

Related: A dangerous game: Republican chaos and indecision as crises shake the world

The Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted: Anyone that is pro-Palestinian is pro-Hamas.

Muslim groups in the US have warned the outpouring of extreme language is threatening the safety of Arab Americans following the killing of a six-year-old boy and the wounding of his mother by their landlord in Illinois in an apparent hate crime prompted by the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The police said Joseph Czuba stabbed the boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, to death after entering their apartment and shouting: You Muslims must die!.

Some politicians have also spoken out against inciting language, including the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen.

We must call out Hamas for the evil that it is. But those seeking to use this moment to demonize & dehumanize all Palestinians & Muslims are complicit in the deaths of innocents like the brutal hate killing of this six-year-old Palestinian-American boy, stabbed to death in Chicago, he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

But such sentiments were less heard than bellicose language.

Graham described the conflict as a religious war and called on the Israelis to level the place.

Gaza is going to look like Tokyo and Berlin at the end of world war two when this is over. And if it doesnt look that way, Israel made a mistake, he told Fox News.

That was a sentiment echoed by another Republican senator, Tom Cotton.

As far as Im concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza. Anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas, he told Fox News Sunday in reference to a warning by Winston Churchill about the dangers of the nuclear arms race leading to a war that will make the rubble bounce.

Senator Marco Rubio called for Israel to respond disproportionately.

The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, told a campaign rally in Iowa that one way or another Palestinians were all complicit in Hamass crimes.

If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic, he said.

Max Miller called on the Biden administration to get out of Israels way and to let Israel do what it needs to do best. He said there should be no rules of engagement.

Another Republican member of Congress, Michael McCaul, chair of the House foreign affairs committee, claimed to have seen film of kidnapped Israeli children being held in metal cages.

I saw a video of toddlers in cages like animals  as Hamas was laughing at them, he said.

But factcheckers at France24 said the footage was circulating online before the attack and the false claim it was of Israeli children was made on TikTok by Ashlea Simon, chair of a far-right group in the UK, Britain First.

The heated rhetoric has also been pushed on rightwing television and radio.

Joel Pollak, a senior editor at large at Breitbart News, told a conservative webcast that he was frankly OK with the ethnic cleansing of Gaza to force out the Palestinian population.

Let me say the unsayable. Im not endorsing this but its a possible solution which is simply to expel them from Gaza. You might call that ethnic cleansing and so forth but the fact is that at the end of the second world war there were a million Germans kicked out of Poland. There were Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia, he said.

Thats an option, I think, after all this  If it comes down to ethnic cleansing, you want to cleanse my people. Ill cleanse yours first.

Pollak also tweeted: There will never be a Palestinian state. Its over.

But outside of elected Republicans, there is more division on parts of the right where there is opposition to military support for Ukraine and opposition to foreign interventions by the US.

The former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on his show on X that the Hamas attack and assault on Gaza would be used to justify the US engaging in new, broader conflicts that, he warned, could escalate to nuclear war.

Related: US Muslim groups warn over rise in violence after boy, six, killed in Illinois

Carlson attacked the Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley as ignorant and bloodthirsty for saying the attack on Israel was also an attack on America. He accused Graham of being a reckless old man who didnt care about the future because he doesnt have children for threatening war with Iran.

Wars beget more war. The bigger the conflict, the uglier and longer-lasting the consequences, said Carlson.

More cautious voices were met with accusations of siding with terrorists.

Friedman, the former ambassador, lashed out at the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she said that the US has a responsibility to ensure accountability to human rights to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?!?!?! You mean the Palestinians who decapitate babies, rape women and dismember children? Or those who hand out candy in celebration? Or those who provide the terrorists aid, comfort, safe passage and a place to hide? Israel doesnt oppose their ethnicity, its their barbarity that is the problem! he said.

But Ocasio-Cortez found support from the leader of the progressive caucus in Congress, Pramila Jayapal, who warned about positions that that stop us from having peace ever.

Another Democratic representative, the former soldier Jason Crow, warned that sabre-rattling rhetoric would do little to end the conflict.

I think one of the lessons we learned during our 20-year war on terror is you have to go to great lengths to minimise civilian harm, he told the Washington Post. If you dont, not only do you lose sight of your goals and humanity, but its counterproductive. You create more enemies and adversaries by over responding.
The United States has imposed sanctions on about 20 entities and individuals associated with Iran's development of ballistic missiles and drones.

Source: Press release of the US Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)

Quote: "Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 11 individuals, eight entities, and one vessel based in Iran, Hong Kong, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), and Venezuela that are enabling Irans destabilising ballistic missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programs.

The persons designated today have materially supported Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), or their subordinates in the production and proliferation of missiles and UAVs."

Quote from Brian Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence: "Irans reckless choice to continue its proliferation of destructive UAVs and other weapons prolongs numerous conflicts in regions around the world."

Details: The document says that the US Department of Treasury, in coordination with the Department of State, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Justice, has issued new guidelines for private industry on the purchase of Iranian-made missiles.

They clarify the responsibility for such actions and the risks associated with new US sanctions and other restrictions.

Background: On 18 October, the requirements of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 regarding Iran's missile program and the "freezing of assets of certain individuals and legal entities" in Iran expired.

Russia said on Tuesday that it would not comply with the UN Security Council's restrictions on providing Iran with missile technology.

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Destroyed vehicles at the site of the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City (Mahmud Hams)

The US intelligence community has estimated there were likely 100 to 300 people killed in the strike at the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, according to excerpts of a document seen Thursday by AFP -- far fewer than the nearly 500 deaths that health authorities in the Hamas-ruled enclave originally described.

An unclassified US intelligence assessment, provided to AFP by a Capitol Hill source, estimates the number of people killed at the hospital Tuesday night at the "low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum."

"We are still assessing the likely casualty figures and our assessment may evolve, but this death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life," the document said.

"The United States takes seriously the deaths of all civilians, and is working intensively to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza," the document said.

The strike occurred at around 1700 GMT Tuesday, when the health ministry in Gaza said an Israeli air strike had hit the Christian-run Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza City.

Gaza officials have said at least 471 people were killed in the blast, with more than 300 wounded.

Hamas has accused an Israeli air strike for the killings, while Israeli army has blamed a misfired rocket from another Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad.

According to the US intelligence document, "Israel probably did not bomb (the) Gaza Strip hospital," and that the United States is continuing "to work to corroborate whether the explosion resulted from a failed PIJ (Palestine Islamic Jihad) rocket."

The document also says there was "only light structural damage at the hospital," with "no observable damage to the main hospital building and no impact craters."

AFP correspondents at the scene saw dozens of bodies, with medics and civilians recovering bodies wrapped in white cloth, blankets or black plastic bags.

Bloodstains and torched cars could be seen in the hospital courtyard.

Images of the hospital after the strike published by the Maxar satellite monitoring group show the hospital buildings mainly appeared to be intact.

Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus has also disputed the Hamas-run ministry's figures, asking "where are all the bodies?"

Hamas has dismissed Israel's position, saying its "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone."

The United States' death toll estimate is higher than the 50 people that a senior European intelligence source previously told AFP he believed had been killed.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has said there is "no excuse for hitting a hospital full of civilians" in Gaza, but has not apportioned blame for the blast.

Gaza has been hit by a relentless barrage of Israeli fire in retaliation for a Hamas militant attack on October 7, which Israel says killed at least 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

Israeli bombing since has killed at least 3,785 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas health ministry.

Tens of thousands of families have sought refuge from the bombardment in and around Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals.

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A US Naval Destroyer operating in the Red Sea has shot down three land-cruise missiles fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Pentagon has said.

The Pentagon said it was uncertain where the missiles were headed but could potentially have been aimed at targets in Israel. The incident, involving the guided-missile destroyer the USS Carney, occurred on Thursday.

Several drones were also shot down, according to Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder.

This action was a demonstration of the integrated air and missile defense architecture that we have built in the Middle East and that we are prepared to utilise whenever necessary to protect our partners and our interests in this important region, Mr Ryder told a press conference.

There were no casualties to US forces and none that we know of to any civilians on the ground.

Mr Ryder said information about the incident was still being processed, but that the response was one that would have been taken for any similar threat in the region.

This attack may be ongoing so if we have more information to share, we will, he said.

A US official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, that it is not believed the missiles were aimed at the ship.

It comes amid ongoing concerns over the entry of Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah into the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas  which has seen the death of thousands of people on both sides thus far.

The Houthi rebels are part of a collective network of allied millitant groups opposed to Israel, coordinated by the Islamic Republic, known as the resistance.

Pentagon Ryder (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Mr Ryder continued: As the Secretary [of Defence] has made clear, we have the capability to defend our broader interests in the region and to deter regional escalation and broader expansion of the conflict that began with Hamas is attack on Israeli civilians on October 7.

The crew of the Carney did just that and across the force, we will remain vigilant to any other potential threats.

The Houthi rebels have previously expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Last week, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the groups leader, warned the US against intervening in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, threatening that his forces would retaliate by firing drones and missiles.

When approached by The Associated Press on Thursday, two Houthi officials declined to comment on the incident. One said he was unaware of the incident, while the second said he did not have the authority to speak about it.
A US Navy ship in the Red Sea on Thursday shot down missiles and drones that had been fired by Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, possibly at Israel, the Pentagon said.

Three "land-attack cruise missiles and several drones" were intercepted by a destroyer, Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters. The attack was "launched by Huthi forces in Yemen" potentially toward targets in Israel, he added.

The ship, USS Carney, was patrolling in the Red Sea as part of a heavily reinforced US military presence ordered by President Joe Biden to maintain stability in the wake of war between Israel and the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip.

Ryder said that missiles were fired from Yemen where the Iranian-backed Huthi rebels are at war with a government backed by a Saudi-led coalition.

He said there were no US casualties and that the intercepted missiles likely fell in open water, not over land.

"We cannot say for certain what these missiles were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen, heading north along the Red Sea."

"Our defensive response was one we would have taken for any similar threat in the region," he said.

"We have the capability to defend our broader interests in the region and to deter regional escalation and broader expansion of the conflict that began with Hamas' attack on Israeli civilians."

Biden has ordered increased air and naval assets -- including dispatching two aircraft carriers -- to the Middle East to guard against the Israel-Hamas war spilling over in the tinderbox region.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon also ordered 2,000 personnel on standby for potential deployment.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the deployment would allow the United States "to respond more quickly" to the crisis, while the White House stressed it did not intend to put US combat forces on the ground.

US media reported the troops being readied for deployment would cover support roles, such as medical assistance and handling explosives.

Biden flew to Israel in a dramatic show of US support this week and was due to speak from the White House later Thursday in a speech urging Congress to fund military backing for Israel and another embattled US ally -- Ukraine.

Asked by journalists late Wednesday about reports that his administration had told Israel that US forces would fight alongside Israeli troops in response to any attack by the powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah against Israel, Biden said this was "not true."

However, he said that "our military is talking with their military about what the alternatives are" in the event of a Hezbollah attack.

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CNN, citing Pentagon officials, is reporting that a US destroyer has shot down three surface-to-air missiles and several drones allegedly launched by Houthi forces from Yemen.

Source: CNN, citing officials

Details: Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said that the Pentagon could not yet say exactly what the missiles and drones were aimed at. However, it is known that they were launched from Yemen and headed north along the Red Sea, "potentially toward targets in Israel".

He said that the United States is ready to use its air and missile defences in the Middle East to protect its partners and interests in the region.

Another source said that the missiles were fired by Iranian-backed Houthi militants involved in the conflict in Yemen.

Background:

On 8 October, the Pentagon announced that it would move US warships, including an aircraft carrier and additional aircraft, closer to the eastern Mediterranean following the Hamas terrorist group's attack on Israel and the subsequent escalation of the conflict.

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The United States imposed sanctions against 11 individuals and eight entities connected with Iran's drone program, including those responsible for producing drones used in Russia's war against Ukraine, the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Oct. 18.

The U.S. sanctioned the Iran-based Sarmad Electronic Sepahan Company for producing components used in Mohajer-6 drones, which Russian forces have used against Ukraine.

Mohajer-6 drones are long-range weapons that can travel up to 200 kilometers. They can conduct intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and combat operations, and are able to carry two missiles under each wing.

The sanctions list also included the Iranian official Seyed Hojatollah Ghoreishi, who the Treasury Department said acted on behalf of Iran's Defense Ministry to negotiate the provision of drones to Russia in 2022.

Irans reckless choice to continue its proliferation of destructive UAVs and other weapons prolongs numerous conflicts in regions around the world, said Brian E. Nelson, the department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

The U.S. declared a round of sanctions against entities connected to the production of Iranian-made Shahed drones in September 2023. The new penalties aimed to curb sanctions evasion by international companies shipping drone components to Iran.

The actors sanctioned in the Oct. 18 round are based in Iran, Hong Kong, and China.

"As a result of todays action, all property and interests in property of the individuals and entities named above...that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked," the Treasury Deparment report said.

Russia relies heavily on Iranian-made drones and drones imported from China, and has recently begun domestic production of attack drones based on Iranian models.

Read also: How Russias liberal tech companies became the foundation of Putins war effort

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. senators from both parties are readying legislation to help the federal government enforce oil sanctions on Iran, the office of Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican, told Reuters on Thursday.

Ernst is spear-heading the bill slated for release on Monday to create a $150 million Iranian sanctions enforcement fund for the Department of Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) office, with a priority on Iranian petroleum sanctions. The bill will be co-led by Senator Richard Blumenthal , a Democrat.

The Homeland investigative office has conducted probes that led to the seizure of two cargoes of Iranian oil since its enforcement program was activated in 2019. Such actions come with high upfront costs, which have not always been fully available.

U.S. lawmakers are debating several pieces of legislation to pressure Iran after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas that killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Hamas has long been backed by Iran, but Tehran has denied any involvement in the attacks.

The latest seizure by the Justice Department in April was a cargo carried by the Suez Rajan tanker. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had been trying to send the nearly 1 million barrels of Iranian oil to China, in violation of U.S. sanctions.

"Right now, we are witnessing the chaos Iran-backed Hamas is inflicting on Israel and the world, funded by the IRGCs illicit oil sales," Ernst said through a spokesperson.

"Instead of allowing Irans illegal actions to continue, Im working to cut the red tape and equip HSI, and its proven record of enforcing sanctions, with the support and resources it needs to go after and stop Tehran," Ernst's statement added.

As Iran's oil exports jumped this year despite U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program, Ernst and Blumenthal have urged the Biden administration to enable the Homeland investigative office to help seize shipments. Iran says the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Iran also has its own leverage over oil shipping. About a fifth of the world's supply of seaborne petroleum passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint between Iran and Oman, according to data from analytics firm Vortexa.

In May, Iran seized two oil tankers in Gulf waters, part of a series of seizures or attacks on commercial vessels since 2019.

Under the current law, 75% of funds from U.S. oil seizures go to the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terror Fund. The additional 25% would go to the enforcement fund, which would be capped at $500 million, and additional funds would help pay down the national debt.

Blumenthal said the proposed measure "will establish dedicated resources to go after illicit Iranian oil," help to undermine Tehran's influence, and provide money to the Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
By Mike Stone

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon plans to send the two Iron Dome missile defense systems it had previously purchased from Israel back to that country to defend itself against inbound missiles, a U.S. official and a congressional aide said.

The Department of Defense told members of Congress at a briefing on Wednesday it planned to lease the Iron Dome systems back to Israel, the U.S. official and the congressional aide told Reuters. In this type of a financial arrangement, the ownership remains with the buyer.

The transfer back to Israel could come within days, the congressional aide said.

The Pentagon had been considering and testing the systems as a way to defend the territory of Guam from Chinese missiles.

The White House on Monday said it expected to fulfill additional security requests from Israel as quickly as possible. Biden promised replenishment of interceptors used by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system as well as ammunition in addition to redoubling the U.S. military presence in the region.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

Iron Dome was developed by state-owned Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with U.S. backing to counter rocket fire from Lebanon that hit Israeli towns during the 2006 war with Hezbollah, and from Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas Islamists took control in 2007. It became operational in 2011.

In August 2022, Israel said Iron Dome interceptor had shot down 97% of Palestinian rockets it had engaged during a weekend surge of Gaza fighting.

(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; editing by Chris Sanders and Jonathan Oatis)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) has filed charges against five suspects in the hazing death of a senior Criminology student in Manila.

In a statement released Thursday, authorities said the five suspects currently in custody were charged with violation of the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018 before the Quezon City Prosecutors Office.

According to authorities, the suspects are also facing robbery charges after the investigation found that the victim was missing some of his belongings.

A total of 16 members of the Tau Gamma Phi (Treskilon) Fraternity are suspected of being involved in the brutal death of Ahldryn Leary Bravante of the Philippine College of Criminology.

Police said the sixth suspect involved in the hazing surrendered Thursday afternoon.

The suspects with the QCPD include two who were arrested after the death of Bravante and the other three who willingly surrendered to authorities.

A manhunt operation is being conducted for the possible identification and arrest of the other suspects, the statement said.

Authorities said the suspects have also given their confessions through their legal counsel. Names and addresses of other suspects from the frat have also been revealed to the police.

Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri called on authorities to swiftly prosecute the suspects, emphasizing that they should spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
Dmytro Kuleba

The United States will supply Ukraine with ATACMS ballistic missiles on a regular basis, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Ukrainian TV channel 1+1 on Oct. 19.

Read also: Transfer of long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine remains an option as war evolves, White House says

The stable supply of the missiles is "a direct result of the agreement" reached between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Joe Biden during their meeting in Washington in late September.

Less than a month has passed and we are already seeing a concrete result, said Kuleba, referring to ATACMS strikes on Russian airfields in occupied southern and eastern Ukraine.

If you read between the lines of the president's speech after his meeting with Biden, you will understand that a very important decision was made, and among the important decisions, this was the only one that could have been made.

Read also: Five dead and five in hospital after Russias monstrous attack on a residential apartment building in Zaporizhzhya

Kyiv is not concerned with how modern the exact modification of ATACMS missiles is, as even the older models are clearly effective against Russian forces, the minister added. According to media reports, Ukraine used missiles manufactured in 1996 to deliver devastating blows to Moscows air force in Zaporizhzhya Oblast.

Read also: Two buildings and a church destroyed following Russian attack on Zaporizhzhya

Our partners are always impressed by how quickly Ukrainians master any type of weapon, so it's not about the year [of manufacture], Kuleba adds.

The main thing is that we have opened this position, and we already have all the types of weapons we wanted.

The range, specifications, and years of production of ATACMS missiles provided to Ukraine "will develop in dynamics, he suggested.

Read also: Satellite image shows Luhansk Airport aftermath after ATACMS strike

Ukrainian forces struck two airfields near Russia-occupied Berdyansk and Luhansk on Oct. 17 with recently secretly supplied ATACMS ballistic missiles. Kyiv has been requesting the missiles from the United States for more than a year.

The New York Times reported that the United States has sent around 20 ATACMS missiles to Ukraine.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
The Israel-Hamas war could spark a wider regional conflict in the Middle East.

Iran and Hezbollah are menacing Israel with attacks.

The US could be drawn in to defend Israel if events spiral, say experts.

President Joe Biden this week touched down in Israel as the Middle East was engulfed in new turmoil.

Biden had intended the trip to be a show of solidarity with Israel in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, in which 1,300 Israelis were killed.

But an attack on a hospital in Gaza hours before Biden's arrival drew fury across the region, and intensified fears that the conflict between Israel and Hamas could escalate into a broader regional war.

On Tuesday, Israel's national security advisor predicted that the US would get "involved" if the Gaza war escalated to the point where Iran and Hezbollah joined.

Michael DiMino, a researcher at Defense Priorities who worked as a counterterrorism analyst at the CIA, told Regional Statecraft that the possibility of direct American involvement is now "higher than most people realize."

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) hugs US President Joe Biden upon his arrival at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on October 18, 2023. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Tensions are escalating

Hamas and several Middle Eastern countries blamed Israel for the attack on the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, which the UN said killed several hundred people. In response, Israel released data that it claimed showed that a misfired Palestinian militant organization's rocket caused the explosion, an assessment backed by Biden in remarks after his arrival.

But Hamas' chief allies  Iran and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia  have been seeking to stir rage in the Muslim world over the hospital explosion.

Hezbollah called for a "day of rage" in the region in the wake of the hospital attack, and Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi said that the flames from the hospital attack would "soon engulf" Israel.

They'd threatened to attack Israel in support of Hamas before the hospital attack, with clashes in recent days between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on Israel's northern border intensifying. In the West Bank, tensions have been rising, with around 60 people killed in clashes and fears of a new uprising.

Israel has deployed most of its forces on the Gaza border amid signs it's preparing a land invasion. However, some analysts are warning that they may be spread too thin to repel attacks on multiple fronts.

There are also concerns, voiced among others by the former head of the UK's MI6 intelligence agency, that Israel is being lured into a trap that could drag the US into a wider regional conflict.

If it invades Gaza its forces could get bogged down in intense urban warfare at a high cost in casualties, then hit with an attack from Hezbollah from the north.

It's a crisis that echoes the 1973 Yom Kipur War, when Israel was simultaneously attacked by Egypt and Syria and almost overwhelmed.

Multiple attacks on Israel could draw the US into the war

Beirut

Protesters clash with Lebanese security forces on October 18, 2023, outside the US Embassy.JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images

The US has already deployed two aircraft carriers just off the coast of Israel as a warning to Hezbollah and Iran, and has pledged logistical and intelligence support to Israel.

Mat Burrows, an analyst with Washington, DC, based think tank the Stimson Center, told Insider that the US would likely be drawn into the conflict if Israeli forces were struggling to repel attacks on multiple fronts.

"I could only see US getting militarily involved if Israel proper was clearly endangered, invaded by Hezbollah from the north and dealing with a severe uprising in the West Bank and an unfinished operation in Gaza. Then, I could see US fighters and bombers taking out Hezbollah sites in Lebanon or crippling arm supplies from Iran," he said.

In Hezbollah, Israel faces an opponent that is better armed and trained than the Gaza-based Hamas militia. The group is armed with around 130,000 rockets, including long-range missiles, that could penetrate Israel's "Iron Dome" air defense system and strike its cities, said the Missile Threat research group.

Taking out the launchers Hezbollah uses to fire the missiles could be among the US' core missions if it chooses to step in and defend Israel, experts told the AFP news wire.

Though it's unlikely Iran, Hezbollah's chief backer, wants to get directly involved in a conflict with the US, it would love to exploit the turmoil caused by the Hamas attacks to further damage Israel.

"They want to pressure Israel via Hezbollah when Israel is already stretched and distracted," said Burrows. "However, their attacks from Lebanon and Israel's counterattacks could escalate up to the level of a full-scale war, provoking US involvement," he remarked.

Iran's main international backers, Russia and China, have much to gain from a renewed conflict in the Middle East, say analysts, with the Kremlin keen to distract Western attention from its invasion of Ukraine, and China long harboring ambitions to seize control of Taiwan.

"As Iran has good relationships of fluctuating dependence on both China and Russia it seems almost duty bound to overreact to any US involvement," Robert Dover, an expert on intelligence and security at the University of Hull, told Insider. "This will likely be in the form of supplying Hezbollah and pressuring them to aggressively assert themselves on the Lebanese front."

"Direct Iranian involvement seems unlikely at the moment, but if it reaches the stage where it plausible deniability of Iranian involvement is breached then the situation in the Middle East has gone out of control, if it hasn't already," he said.

A last resort

For now, though, Stimson Center's Burrows said the likelihood of America putting "boots on the ground" and deploying troops in Israel appeared remote, not least because of domestic opposition in the US to involvement in another costly and damaging military operation in the region.

And if the US were to get involved in the conflict in defense of Israel, this could provoke a new wave of attacks by Iran's allies.

Striking Hezbollah targets in Syria could lead to retaliation from Russia, a Syrian ally, with the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that analyses global conflict, saying that Iran, Russia, and Syria were already seeking to expel US forces from the country. Or pro-Iranian groups in countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Yemen could attempt to attack US sites in the region such as military bases.

"They would find it difficult to strike Israel directly," Clive Jones, an expert on Israel and the Middle East at Durham University, told the AFP news wire. "But they could attack American interests in the region."

DiMino, the former CIA analyst, told The Responsible Statecraft blog, that such an escalation could lead to pressure from Israel for the US to strike Iran itself.

"Obviously, that would be a disaster for all parties involved, not least the United States," DiMino said. "I don't think that this administration wants to do that, but I do think once these events start to roll together and the decision matrices and the timelines that those decisions have to be made on get narrower and narrower, that these kinds of things can happen."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Hours after news outlets first reported Thursday on two separate drone strikes on bases housing U.S. troops in Syria, the Defense Department confirmed that the destroyer Carney shot down multiple missiles fired by Houthi insurgents in the Red Sea the same day.

The ship intercepted three cruise missiles and several drones, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters during a briefing.

We cannot say for certain what these missiles were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen, along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel, he said. This attack may be ongoing, so if we have more information to share, we will.

Despite the increase in attacks following the strong messaging by the U.S. in support of Israel as it goes to war with Hamas, Ryder said the Pentagon is not considering the events related.

Again, its important to separate these attacks from the current situation, he said. Were going to continue to assess attribution on these ... but were also not going to overreact. Were going to continue to do what we need to do and ensure regional stability, but at the same time supporting Israel.

U.S. forces downed several more drones earlier this week, starting with three drones threatening forces in Iraq on Tuesday. One drone was destroyed and another damaged near al-Asad airbase in an attack resulting in minor injuries to coalition forces, Ryder said, and another unmanned device was downed at Bashur air base with no injuries.

We are certainly taking appropriate force protection measures to ensure the safety of our troops, Ryder said. Again, Im not going to get into specifics. Clearly, this is an uptick in terms of the types of drone activity weve seen in Iraq, in Syria.

On Wednesday, troops destroyed one drone at al-Tanf garrison in Syria, while another detonated, causing minor injuries.

And that same morning, in Iraq, personnel at al-Asad sheltered after early warning systems detected another imminent strike.

Though no attack occurred, a U.S. civilian contractor suffered a cardiac episode while sheltering and passed away shortly after, Ryder said, offering condolences.

US launches Syria strikes after contractor killed, 5 troops wounded

Strikes on bases with U.S. troops have been commonplace in recent years. An attack earlier this year that killed a U.S. contractor and injured five soldiers prompted the U.S. to strike back on facilities linked to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

These small scale attacks are clearly concerning and dangerous, right? And were ... weighing everything necessary to ensure that were protecting our forces, Ryder said. And if and when we choose to respond, well do so at a time of our choosing.
The News

The U.S. Department of State issued a rare Worldwide Caution" alert Thursday, urging any American who is overseas to exercise increased caution due to increased tensions in various locations around the world.

The U.S. said there is also an increased potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens.

The U.S. Embassy in Beirut also urged American citizens Thursday to make plans to leave the country as soon as possible while commercial options are still available, as fighting intensifies near Israels northern border with Lebanon.

We recommend that U.S. citizens who choose not to depart prepare contingency plans for emergency situations, the embassy said in an emergency alert.

The U.K. and Germany issued similar warnings to their citizens.

As part of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas around the Gaza Strip, the Iran-backed and Lebanon-based militia group Hezbollah has recently fired rockets at some northern Israeli towns, according to reports. There are concerns that tensions with Hezbollah could escalate, expanding the conflict into a regional war.

Know More

Protesters gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Beirut earlier this week after an explosion at a hospital in Gaza. Palestinian officials said an Israeli airstrike caused the blast, while Israel blamed a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

The U.S. previously urged Americans not to travel to Lebanon due to the unpredictable security situation related to rocket, missile, and artillery exchanges between Israel and Hizballah or other armed militant factions.
The United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Wednesday, 18 October calling for "humanitarian pauses" in the war between Israel and the Gaza Strip to provide life-saving aid to millions of Gazans.

Source: United Nations

Quote from UN: "While 12 of the Councils 15 members voted in favour of the Brazilian-led text, one (United States) voted against, and two (Russia, and the United Kingdom) abstained.

A no vote from any one of the five permanent members of the Council stops action on any measure put before it. The bodys permanent members are China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States."

Details: Before the vote, the Security Council rejected two Russian-proposed amendments calling for an immediate, lasting, and full ceasefire and an end to attacks on civilians.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield explained in the Council chamber why her country vetoed the decision on ceasefire, saying "this resolution did not mention Israels right of self-defence".

"Israel has the inherent sight of self-defence as reflected in Article 51 of the UN Charter," Thomas-Greenfield stressed, adding that the Council had reaffirmed this right in previous resolutions on terrorist attacks, and "this resolution should have done the same".

The US ambassador said while the US could not support the resolution, it would go on to work closely with all Council members on the crisis, "just as we will continue to reiterate the need to protect civilians, including members of the media, humanitarian workers, and UN officials".

In addition, Thomas-Greenfield noted that the US is also involved in ground diplomacy and as an example she cited the visit of President Joseph Biden and other high-ranking officials.

The resolution was developed by Brazil, which chairs the Security Council in October.

Quote from Ambassador Sergio Franca Danese of Brazil: "We heeded the call with a sense of urgency and responsibility, in our view the Security Council had to take action and do so very quickly."

"Council paralysis in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe is not in the interest of the international community," Danese emphasised, reacting to the fact that the resolution was not passed.

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wont face another round of voting for speaker today. He was expected to lose additional votes.

So Jordan is now getting behind an interim plan to empower House Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry , R-N.C., as acting speaker on a temporary basis. Jordan would remain the GOP "nominee" for speaker and try to round up the votes by January. However, it is unclear that Jordan could EVER get the votes to become speaker considering how upset members are at him for purported strong-arm tactics.

Heres the problem: Empowering a speaker pro tempore is historic, and the situation is mostly unprecedented. There are major legal, constitutional and parliamentary questions about this gambit. And it is far from clear thar House Republicans are even remotely close to backing this plan.

The House has never had an "acting speaker." Any legislation approved by Congress during this interregnum could potentially face a court challenge.

JORDAN TO CANCEL THIRD VOTE, WILL BACK MCHENRY AS INTERIM SPEAKER THROUGH JANUARY

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan failed in his bid to become speaker on Tuesday after all Democrats and 20 members of his own party declined to vote for him.

Some Republicans walked out of the GOP meeting, bewildered at the plan. Many do not know if this maneuver to empower McHenry would even work. Its not even clear whether most Republicans would support this plan. In fact, one Republican said to Fox this was the plan "for now" and fully expected it to implode shortly.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

However, other Republicans feel a note of desperation. They know that the House will continue to be paralyzed unless they have a speaker and can advance legislation. Thats why they want to install McHenry. Opponents of this effort are accusing Republicans of "working with Democrats" to make this happen in an effort to dissuade them.

This reflects the intense backstabbing and internecine warfare which is now playing out inside the House Republican Conference. There is deep distrust and division right now. And they are watching House power disintegrate in front of them if they cant vote.

Rep. Jim Jordan talks to Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Patrick McHenry as the House prepares to hold a vote on a new speaker at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 18, 2023.

Regardless, it is unclear if McHenry could just assume power now. The post 9/11 law that created the position of the speaker pro tempore was to maintain continuity of government in case a major terrorism attack killed the speaker and many members of the body. There is one argument that it is IMPLIED that the speaker pro tempore can act no matter what to keep the House functioning and pass legislation. Thats because the post 9/11 law didnt want the House to be paralyzed. However, that legislation was drafted for a different set of circumstances.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES STAYS IN LIMBO AFTER JORDAN FAILS ON SECOND VOTE FOR SPEAKER

Some lawmakers believe the House must adopt a resolution to empower McHenry on a temporary basis. That would involve a debate and vote. However, a senior House source doubted there would be any debate or vote on such a measure any time soon.

Regardless, there may be some constitutional validity to the House being able to empower McHenry as interim speaker. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution says that the House "shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers." Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution says that the House "may determine the Rules of its proceedings."

It is thought that the Supreme Court would point to these clauses as justifying House action to grant McHenry leeway. But this is uncharted parliamentary and legal water. Theyve never just appointed an acting speaker.

The House has been without an elected leader since Rep. Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the speakership on Oct. 4 in a move led by a small group of conservative members of his own party.

That said, there is a question about what constitutes "other Officers." The House clearly selects a "Clerk of the House," a "Parliamentarian" and a "Sergeant at Arms." But tapping a "Speaker Pro Tempore" could be extra-constitutional.

Members are really up in arms about the McHenry plan  despite Jordans backing. So, its hard to see if this in fact becomes the plan the House goes with.

Over the past several months, House Republicans have quickly crafted a plan on the debt ceiling, spending bills, an interim spending package and even two euthanized candidacies for speaker  and abandoned that very scheme hours later.

It is too early to tell if this is the route for the "McHenry Plan." But there is stark opposition from many Republicans.





Original article source: User's manual to House gambit to temporarily sidetrack Jordan and install McHenry as interim speaker
Editors note: This story was updated at 9:35 p.m. EST with additional information.

With tensions spiking in the Middle East, U.S. forces in the region are facing increasing threats as a Navy warship shot down missiles appearing to head toward Israel Thursday and American bases in Iraq and Syria were repeatedly targeted by drone attacks.

Later Thursday, a U.S. official said there had been an attack near Baghdads airport, where U.S. forces are hosted. The official said one projectile was shot down and another struck, but according to early reports no one was injured. It wasnt clear what type of munition was fired. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss reports not yet made public, said information was still being gathered.

Earlier, the USS Carney, a Navy destroyer in the northern Red Sea, intercepted three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces in Yemen. The action by the Carney potentially represented the first shots by the U.S. military in the defense of Israel in this conflict.

Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters the missiles were potentially headed toward Israel but said the U.S. hasnt finished its assessment of what they were targeting.

Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

A U.S. official said they dont believe the missiles  which were shot down over the water  were aimed at the U.S. warship. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations that had not yet been announced.

But an array of other drone attacks over the past three days did target U.S. bases, including one in southern Syria on Thursday that caused minor injuries.

The rash of violence comes in the wake of a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital, triggering protests in a number of Muslim nations. The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for the devastating Hamas rampage in southern Israel almost two weeks ago, but Israel has denied responsibility for the al-Ahli hospital blast and the U.S. has said its intelligence assessment found that Tel Aviv was not to blame.

In recent days, however, a number of militant groups across the region  from Hezbollah to the Houthis  have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Since Tuesday, militants have launched at least four drone attacks on U.S. military installations in Iraq and Syria where U.S. troops train local defense forces and support the mission to counter the Islamic State group.

The attacks fuel escalating worries in the U.S. and the West that the war in Israel could expand into a larger regional conflict.

Thats exactly what we are trying to prevent, Ryder said.

The most recent drone attack was Thursday at al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq posted a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, saying they had fired a salvo of rockets at the base and they hit their targets directly and precisely. A U.S. official confirmed the latest attack but said it was too early to assess any impact.

Also Thursday, the al-Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria was struck by drones. U.S. troops have maintained a presence at the base for a number of years to train Syrian allies and monitor Islamic State militant activity.

The Pentagon said one drone was shot down, but another hit the base and caused minor injuries.

The garrison is located on a vital road that often used by Iranian-backed militants to ferry weapons to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon  and Israels doorstep.

Syrian opposition activists also said there was a separate drone attack on an oil facility in eastern Syria that houses American troops. Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet, said three drones with explosives struck the Conoco gas field in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, also confirmed explosions at the site.

On Tuesday, militants launched three drones against two Iraq bases that the U.S. uses to train forces and conduct operations against the Islamic State. During the spate of launches, one warning turned out to be a false alarm at al-Asad, but it sent personnel rushing into bunkers. During that incident, a contractor suffered a cardiac arrest and died, Ryder said.

He said the Pentagon does not yet have confirmation on who launched the drone attacks but said the U.S. will take all necessary actions to defend U.S. and coalition forces against any threat. He said any military response would come at a time and a manner of our choosing.

On the intercepts by the Carney, Ryder said the strikes were done because the Houthi missiles posed a potential threat based on their flight profile. He added that the U.S. is prepared to do whatever is needed to protect our partners and our interests in this important region. He said the U.S. is still assessing what the target was, but said no U.S. forces or civilians on the ground were injured.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Last week, in Yemens Sanaa, which is held by the Houthi rebels still at war with a Saudi-led coalition, demonstrators crowded the streets waving Yemeni and Palestinian flags. The rebels slogan long has been, God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse of the Jews; victory to Islam.

Last week, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the rebel groups leader, warned the United States against intervening in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, threatening that his forces would retaliate by firing drones and missiles.

When approached Thursday, two Houthi officials declined to comment on the incident. One said he was unaware of the incident, while the second said he did not have the authority to speak about it.

Associated Press writer Jack Jeffery contributed to this report from Cairo.
The U.S. Navy's Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Carney shot down a trio of land-attack cruise missiles and multiple drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen earlier today. The Houthis are among the groups that have threatened retaliation against Israel, as well as the United States, over ongoing operations targeting groups in the Gaza Strip .

Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon's top spokesman, confirmed the interceptions and said the Houthi attacks may still be "ongoing" at a press conference today. CNN had been the first to report the incident citing unnamed U.S. officials.

https://twitter.com/jseldin/status/1715089681849675786?s=20

"The crew of the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney operating in the northern Red Sea earlier today shot down three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces in Yemen," Ryder said. "This action was a demonstration of the integrated air and missile defense architecture that we've built in the Middle East, and that we are prepared to utilize whenever necessary to protect our partners and our interests in this important region."

The Houthis have an extensive array of long-range kamikaze drones , as well as cruise and ballistic missiles , that it has acquired with Iranian assistance and that could potentially reach Israel

"There were no casualties to U.S. forces and none that we know of to any civilians on the ground," he added.

How the USS Carney, which only entered the Red Sea yesterday after transiting through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean, neutralized the missiles and drones is unclear. It can fire a variety of surface-to-air missiles from the cells of its Mk 41 Vertical Launch System arrays. ABC News has reported that variants of the SM-2 surface-to-air missile were employed.

The warship is also in the 'Rota' configuration that is unique to Arleigh Burke class destroyers forward deployed to Europe, which includes extra tailored defenses in the form of SeaRAM and electronic warfare capabilities. The ships also retains its Phalanx close-in weapon system , as well.

A view of the USS Carney from the stern showing, among other things, its SeaRAM defense system on top of the rear end of its main superstructure. USN

The reports so far have been cautious in describing the Houthis' potential intent with the missiles and drones. The Carney seems to have not been the target, though the Houthis have deliberately attempted to strike U.S. warships repeatedly in the region in the past with anti-ship missiles.

Pentagon Press Secretary Ryder said that the missiles and drones appeared to be heading north and may have been bound for Israel. The War Zone has long highlighted the potential dangers Israel faces from missile and other strikes originating from the south and some of the unique measures Israel has taken to deal with those threats .

https://twitter.com/jseldin/status/1715091439070122325?s=20

The USS Carney is currently attached to the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group. This is one of a large number of U.S. military assets that were repositioned or deployed in the wake of unprecedented terrorist attacks in southern Israel perpetrated by the Palestinian extremist group Hamas earlier this month , which led to the current assault on the Gaza Strip.

The U.S. government says the ostensible purpose of these forces is to deter other groups, especially Iranian-backed proxies like the Houthis and especially Lebanon's Hezbollah , as well as Iran itself, from attacking Israel. There continue to be very real and serious concerns about the potential for a regional conflagration to erupt.

These shootdowns also follow a number of drone attacks launched by Iranian-backed groups on bases in Iraq and Syria over the past few days . Just recently, unconfirmed reports of new such attacks on targets in Syria have begun to emerge.

https://twitter.com/ISNJH/status/1715097638734094771 https://twitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1715099955629638136

Ground-based air defenses were able to intercept at least some drones during the attacks earlier this week. Some still made it through, causing minor injuries to U.S. personnel. Press Secretary Ryder also disclosed today that a contractor employed by the U.S. military died of a heart attack during one incident yesterday that turned out to be a false alarm.

https://twitter.com/jseldin/status/1715102048406982812?s=20

When it comes to the Houthi missiles and drones, whatever they might have been aimed at, they completely underscore these fears of a potential regional conflict.

The War Zone will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com
A group of teens is suspected of setting multiple fires at a vacant school in Mississippi.

Six teens, including two 14-year-olds, were arrested and charged with arson and trespassing after two separate fires at the school in Drew, according to the Mississippi Insurance Department.

A seventh teen is still on the run, officials said.

The Drew Volunteer Fire Department extinguished the first fire Oct. 14 with little damage, authorities said. A second blaze was set the next day, causing the school to burn and collapse.

Though the building wasnt in use, officials said there were plans to add it to the Historical Register in Sunflower County.

An investigation by the Mississippi State Fire Marshals Office led to the arrests of the 14-year-olds and four 15-year-olds, according to authorities.

The teens remain on house arrest pending a court appearance, officials said.

Additional information wasnt released.

Drew is about 120 miles northwest of Jackson.

Dad charged with murder after house fire kills three children, Louisiana cops say

Accused arsonist wanted to make a quick buck, cops say. He could go to prison for life

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OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  State legislators and a crowd of Oklahoma families and advocates addressed what they believe are widespread problems with Oklahomas Departments of Human Services Wednesday.

We heard from case after case about kids being left in abusive, sexually abusive homes. Weve heard case after case of people being put into foster care , that sounds like for money. Again, these are things that we have to look into. These are things that we as Oklahomans cannot accept, said Rep. J.J. Humphrey, R-Lane.

LOCAL NEWS: Oklahoma prisoners describe being housed inside tiny showers; DOC shares their findings

Humphrey held the conference with Sen. Dana Prieto, R-Tulsa to shed light on critical matters affecting our states most vulnerable populations: kids.

Amid hours of testimony by Oklahoma families, many said the protocol see something, say something led to unfounded allegations that caused their families harm.

My kids dont know what happened to me. My last visit was in March 2022 and my son said Ill see you on Monday mama, that was 85 Mondays ago, said Brianna Wild, Tulsa County.

Ive been threatened three times by two different case workers, ,Ive been cussed out, mocked, laughed atthey [the department] have ignored and suppressed all evidence from the professionals that would prove my innocence, she added.

Others claimed Oklahomas DHS is prone to knee jerk reactions and a track record of laws not being followed.

When they investigated our stuff, they didnt even talk to caregivers and Im supposed to have assaulted these children? said Bill Woolley, who testified about allegations of sexual abuse involving his grandchildren against him.

Theres a problem, he added.

Weve been praying for 5 1/2 years for an opportunity to finally, finally, finally be heard by DHS, added his wife Lisa, adding that independent experts have determine that the family is not considered a danger to the children.

Dont talk, just listen, and look at evidence, she added.

Representative Justin J.J. Humphrey said he hoped the agency would hear the stories in person.

But the department did not attend. Instead, sending the station the following statement:

Oklahoma Human Services is bound to state and federal confidentiality statutes that prevent us from publicly discussing the details of cases. Our participation in a public meeting of this type would not only risk the sharing of confidential information, but because of that, would also not create productive outcomes for either the families or the agency. The facts and circumstances of each case guide the decision making of Oklahoma Human Services and all others who participate in a case, such as law enforcement, district attorneys and the courts, among others. The agency remains committed to protecting the safety of Oklahomas children. Oklahoma Human Services

[DHS] Director, you missed a great opportunity to walk into a room and say that didnt happen on your watch. The you are not responsible for that, but youre here to fix the problem. I think that would spoke volumes to this group, said Humphrey.

That was also disappointing to hear for Keifer and Bea Retherford to hear, after their graphic testimonies of their young sons sex abuse, allegedly at the hands of his biological father.

At five hes telling me I want to kill myself because I cant I dont want to do this anymore and I dont want to go back to my dadas house, his fathers house , Keifer Retherford said.

LOCAL NEWS: Closings paperwork verbiage hammered out two weeks before property law goes into effect

And, you know, whenever I called DHS to tell them about this and they say, okay, weve taken notes, thank you. And they hang uptheres no recourse, he added.

Bea said the allegations of chronic sex abuse by their now six-year-old are against her ex-husband, who has full custody.

I fully believe that DHS doesnt want to take responsibility for what they know is being done wrong and children are being served a huge injustice, she said.

We want to collaboratively come together to say here are some things were seeing organically from our district [and] we want to help you solve the problem through legislative fixes, said Sen. Shane Jett, (R)  Shawnee.

As of October 1, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services said they have more than 6,000 kids in state custody.

More than 57,000 investigations were conducted within the last year and nearly 14,000 were substantiated.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 20)  Investment commitments President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. secured from Saudi Arabia business leaders have reached more than $4.26 billion, the Palace said Friday.

Marcos said that thousands of Filipinos are expected to benefit from the business deals they got on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Gulf Cooperation Council (ASEAN-GCC) Summit in Saudi Arabia.

Some of the deals signed during the visit covered construction services export and human resource services.

"The agreements that will be signed today are set to benefit more than 15,000 Filipinos in training and employment opportunities across a wide range of professions in the construction industry," Marcos said in a roundtable meeting with the Saudi Ministry of Investment.

"I hope that this meeting has served as an excellent platform for building greater and closer partnerships between the Philippines and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," the president added.

Marcos said Saudi Arabia is "home" to about a million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), as well as the largest community of Filipino professionals in industries like engineering, architecture, and healthcare.

"I also wish to acknowledge the valuable contributions of the companies who are taking part in strengthening this cooperation," he added.

The president also said the Philippine economy continues its "high growth trajectory," noting that the country's gross domestic product recorded last year (7.6%) was the fastest since 1976.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority in May showed the Philippine economy expanded by 6.4% in the first three months of 2023  the slowest since it exited a pandemic-induced recession in 2021.

Marcos flew to Saudi Arabia on Thursday to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Gulf Cooperation Council summit. He is expected to advance the country's interests in economy, agriculture, and welfare of OFWs.
By Tibisay Romero and Mircely Guanipa

VALENCIA/MARACAY, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado, the front-runner in a primary set for Sunday, has traveled the crisis-hit country in her signature jeans, white t-shirt and sneakers with her slogan "until the end", despite a ban on her holding office.

Leading her rivals by some 40 points in polls, Machado has continued campaigning even after the controller general in June barred her from public office because of her support of U.S. sanctions on the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

The opposition says the bans are unlawful and the U.S. government has conveyed to Maduro bans must be lifted for all opposition presidential candidates by the end of November in exchange for sanctions relief, a U.S. senior official said on Wednesday.

Two of Machado's primary rivals have dropped out because of their own disqualifications.

Her goal is to remove Maduro from power via peaceful, fair and competitive elections, she says.

"This is my purpose," Machado, 56, said during a recent interview in the central city of Valencia. "Everything we are doing is for this, because in the end Venezuela must profoundly change."

It is unclear what would happen if Machado were to win the primary and be unable to register for the general election because of her disqualification.

Machado has said she could pressure the electoral council to let her register, while others have argued a succession mechanism would be necessary.

She has been reticent to discuss a back-up plan, political sources said, and whether the often-fractious opposition would accept Machado choosing a replacement remains to be seen.

Some in the opposition had hoped an election deal signed this week between the opposition and the government would include the lifting of the bans, but it did not.

The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday said it is prepared to reverse an easing of oil sanctions if Maduro's government does not take steps like lifting the bans and freeing prisoners the opposition says are wrongfully detained.

Machado, a mother of three and industrial engineer, is the daughter of a well-known businessman who worked for steel giant Sivensa, which was nationalized in 2010 by late president Hugo Chavez.

She has said she plans to privatize state-owned oil company PDVSA and the Sidor steel company if she wins the election next year, as well as restructure public debt and seek financing from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Her harsh criticisms of Maduro have led some in the ruling party to say Machado is right-wing and scorns the working class.

Machado says she is a liberal who opposes discrimination and that she would put in place a broad social assistance plan for the neediest Venezuelans. The country's economic crisis has led some 7.7 million people to migrate.

"Maria Corina's message is clear, until the end. We want a country of progress, of growth, a country where we have money in our pockets," said Celso Garcia, a street food seller attending a Machado rally in Maracay.

He said he wanted his 17-year-old daughter to have a future "so she doesn't have to leave like so many."

(Reporting by Tibisay Romero in Valencia and Mircely Guanipa in Maracay; Writing by Vivian Sequera and Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Sonali Paul)
By Marianna Parraga

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA has begun contacting customers with crude supply contracts amid the temporary lifting of U.S. sanctions, two people familiar to the matter said on Thursday, moving to resume cash sales to global refiners.

The U.S. on Wednesday lifted most restrictions on Venezuela for six months for producing, selling and exporting oil to its chosen markets. The broad relaxation of sanctions imposed since 2019 following an election that Washington considered a sham will allow some Venezuelan crude to flow to customers previously barred from transactions.

The license, issued by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), aims to encourage a fair presidential election in Venezuela next year. But it is not expected to significantly boost Venezuela's deteriorated oil production or immediately lead to stronger exports.

PDVSA's trading division has lost many of its skilled staff with oil traders departing due to low salaries. That loss of experience means new negotiations could take time, or produce few new export deals in the six months of the license, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Oil output in Venezuela, which boasts of the largest crude reserves worldwide, now averages 780,000 barrels per day (bpd) and the license changes could help increase PDVSA's cash flow by at least reducing the pool of middlemen selling its oil at a discount to customers, mostly in Asia.

"The OFAC has issued an unprecedented general license that suspends the broad siege imposed to PDVSA," the company's CEO and Oil Minister Pedro Tellechea said on social media.

Venezuela can now receive direct payments for goods or services under the license issued by OFAC, which oversees American sanctions.

The payment restrictions had reduced sale proceeds to PDVSA and its joint ventures, which were authorized only to deliver cargoes to repay debt, while cash moving to Venezuela was barred. Not all U.S. sanctions on PDVSA were lifted.

PDVSA's earnings have been heavily curtailed by sanctions in the past four years. As its traditional customers were banned from doing business with it, the company had to sell its oil to an ever-changing group of middlemen willing to trade cargoes for large price discounts.

Since November, when Washington authorized Chevron to expand its joint ventures with PDVSA and export Venezuelan crude to the U.S., that agreement and a few others provided PDVSA's only access to Western markets.

Those agreements, however, are limited to debt repayment deals, so little cash is reaching PDVSA's coffers, constraining its ability to expand oil production and exports.

"The biggest short-term benefit, in an election year, is to sell oil at a full price to its most profitable market, the United States," Francisco Monaldi, a Latin American energy market expert at Rice University's Baker Institute, wrote on social media.

"Even in case sanctions are reinstated, the money brought in and the limited additional production will be a 'bird in hand,'" for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's administration, Monaldi added.

FROM CHINA TO EUROPE

A delegation led by Maduro traveled to China in September to renew trade and investments. Among proposals discussed by both government and state companies was the reactivation of Venezuela's debt payments with oil to China, which largely remain under a grace period, and the expansion of joint oil ventures in the country, according to separate sources close to the talks.

China is Venezuela's main oil export market, receiving some 430,000 bpd of crude and fuel this year, according to tanker tracking data. Before the sanctions, India and the U.S. were other top destinations.

PDVSA's largest customers, state-run CNPC and PetroChina through wide oil-for-debt deals, have not imported Venezuelan oil since the U.S. imposed secondary sanctions in 2020, so small refiners in China have been taking the Venezuelan cargoes instead.

Before sanctions, PDVSA also had oil supply contracts with U.S. oil refiners including its Houston-based subsidiary Citgo Petroleum, Valero Energy and PBF Energy; India's Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy; and European firms such as Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol.

It was not immediately clear which of those oil supply contracts remain unexpired and could be quickly renewed.

PDVSA and Venezuela's oil ministry did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

President Joe Biden's administration this week highlighted that both the election terms and a series of side agreements between Maduro, the country's political opposition and Washington must be fulfilled to keep the licenses active.

The U.S. gave Venezuela until the end of November to withdraw bans on opposition candidates who would run for president, and a group of political prisoners must be released. The first release of detainees took place overnight.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Will Dunham and Marguerita Choy)
The deadly unprovoked cross-border attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7 is just one of several attempts by the terror organization that rules Gaza to sabotage the hopes for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The bloody history of Hamas that is backed by Iran is the key to understanding the tragic events that we are now seeing in the news.

In 1993, Israel signed onto the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority. As a result, Israel withdrew from the major cities of the West Bank. It was a time of great euphoria, and the hopes for a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians were real.

In both 2000 and 2008, Israel agreed to two generous offers for peace through the two-state solution. Unfortunately, Palestinian leaders rejected both offers.

It was also during this period that the government of Iran and their Palestinian terror proxies did everything possible to literally blow up the hopes for peace.

Between 1993 and 2008, Palestinian terror organizations, primarily Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, carried out 168 suicide bombings on Israeli buses, in restaurants and shopping malls. These suicide bombings, and other terror attacks, killed more than 1,000 Israeli civilians and wounded many thousands more.

Although Hamas and Islamic Jihad provided the hateful ideology and the suicide bombers, it was Iran that provided the financial means and technical support to commit mass murder and destroy the hopes for peace.

Irans Middle East strategy calls for supporting the Axis of Resistance. The goal is to surround Israel with terror proxy forces like Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran uses these proxies for resistance to the very existence of Israel.

Gaza is an important part of Irans strategy.

When Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, there was an agreement signed between Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and the European Union on open borders between Gaza, Egypt and Israel.

Here was an opportunity for peace and prosperity for the people of Gaza. In fact, there was an opportunity for Gaza to become the Singapore of the Mediterranean.

Everyone was happy with the agreement except Hamas and their backers in Iran.

In 2007, Hamas took over control of Gaza by violently expelling the Palestinian Authority. It then turned Gaza into an enemy territory by firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians and digging terror tunnels under the border.

Since 2007, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have fired more than 30,000 rockets at Israeli civilians.

Thats why in 2007 Israel put in place a naval blockade to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. And to be clear, this was a naval blockade and not a military siege, because every day there were tons of food, clothing, medicine and humanitarian goods that came into Gaza through the Israeli border crossings.

The tragic events we witnessed on Oct. 7 were another obscene expression of the longtime obsession of Hamas and Iran with the destruction of Israel.

The timing of the attack was not coincidental. Many Middle East experts have claimed that the attack was motivated by the government of Iran to use Hamas to sabotage the hopes for a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

By massacring over 1,400 innocent Israeli men, women and children and taking 199 hostages, the Hamas leadership has brought even more suffering to the peoples of Israel and Gaza.

To be clear, the attack on Oct. 7 was not just another "cycle of violence" as some analysts claim in the media. This is part of a war for the destruction of Israel instigated and perpetrated by Hamas with the support of the government of Iran. Israel is defending itself against this war of destruction.

Now is the time to empower those who seek peace and coexistence and not make excuses for groups like Hamas that pursue war and destruction. At the end of the day, Arabs and Jews are both children of Abraham. Both peoples deserve to live in peace, safety and dignity.

To achieve that goal, now is the time for moral clarity. You can be pro-Palestinian and pro-peace. You can be pro-Israel and pro-peace, but you cannot be pro-peace and pro-Hamas.

Bob Feferman is community relations director for the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Time for moral clarity on the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The leaves are starting to change color, the temperature outside has cooled and the clouds appear ominous. It feels like spooky season has arrived.

Decades ago, Halloween in Chicago meant not only treats but also trash  as in trashing an unsuspecting residents possessions. Mayor Anton Cermak warned local children in 1931 against letting their fun reach the stage of property destruction.

The consequence of vandalism shall not be tempted by the occasion, and I call upon the principals and teachers of our schools to warn every boy and girl that law and order must by strictly obeyed this Halloween, Cermak told city council.

The fear 50 years later, however, was focused on candy distributed to children on October 31. The 1982 Tylenol Murders left seven local people dead after they ingested Tylenol capsules laced with potassium cyanide. Widely regarded as an act of domestic terrorism  a term not in the countrys vernacular at the time  the murders led to tamper-evident packaging, copycat killings and myths about tainted Halloween candy. Bensenville and about 40 other cities around the United States banned trick-or-treating that year.

Mayor Jane Byrne refused to curtail the tradition.

When I was a consumer services commissioner, I was depicted in a newspaper cartoon as a grinch for banning unsafe toys from the shelves at Christmas time, she said in a City Hall news conference on Oct. 5, 1982. I am not a grinch.

Its hard to believe too much mischief could be made now on All Hollows Eve. Many suburbs have specific hours  which end not long after sunset  when children can go door-to-door seeking candy. Others allow the activity only during daylight hours the weekend before Halloween.

Trick-or-treating is not the only way to mark the occasion. What follows are a few retro-inspired options to celebrate spooky season  and get a history lesson at the same time.

Chicago history | More newsletters | Puzzles & Games | Todays eNewspaper edition

Dead men  and women  do tell tales, Chicago. And really, the deceased arent that different from the living. In order to learn the tales of the dead, however, takes time, patience and a bit of luck.

Thanks to the tireless and sometimes tedious work by a community of volunteers and dedicated researchers, we can find and visit the graves of Chicagos iconic leaders then share their stories  business people, athletes and performers. A vice president, an architect, a pilot, a critic. Founders of major chains and those who ran machine politics, blazed civil rights trails, designed skyscrapers and sang the blues.

A variety of delicious  or frightening  decades-old recipes can be found in the Tribunes archives. Part of the fun is coming up with creative ways to display the finished product  just as the Tribunes phantom food editor Mary Meade did. (Mary Meade was the pen name used by five food editors of the newspaper from 1930 to 1974.)

Award-winning Tribune photographer E. Jason Wambsgans looked to the ground for inspiration for this Halloween recipe photo session.

Were gonna need a bucket of dirt, he said.

And, how did each item taste? Devilishly good.

Tribunes famed movie critic Gene Siskel loved the original Halloween. He called it one of the scariest films I have ever seen and ranked it 8th on his list of favorite motion pictures for 1978. The Library of Congress inducted Halloween into the National Film Registry in 2006, for its technical innovations including the extensive use of Panaglide from the almost silent, staring, slow-moving killers  originally known as The Shape  perspective.

The independently released slasher flick was supposedly set in Illinois, too  the fictional Haddonfield, which derived its name from co-writer and producer Debra Hills hometown in New Jersey.

With last years release of Halloween Ends, there are now an unlucky 13 films in the Halloween franchise. Not all of them are worth your time.

For as long as it has been a state, Illinois has been abundant in cryptozoological species  that is, mysterious, elusive monsters that have more basis in folklore and imagination than reality. This field guide to the states most intriguing crypto-creatures has reports of fantastical beats from throughout the state.

If the perfect Halloween costume idea is evading you, never fear: Chicago is here to inspire.

Just reach back into the citys recent and retro history and youll find endless options that also pay tribute to Chicago culture, heroes, animals and icons.

Want more vintage Chicago?

Thanks for reading!

Join our Chicagoland history Facebook group and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicagos past.

Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com.
If youve seen Stranger Things on Netflix, you know the show is full of 80s vibes like Radio Shack, funny hair trends, arcade games and skating rinks.

The show truly transports viewers well, into another world  dare I say, like the Upside Down?

If youre a fan of the show, you probably also know that the town of Hawkins isnt too far down the road for residents of Georgia.

In fact, much of the hit show was filmed in the Peach State in towns like Jackson, Douglasville and Eastman.

See for yourself. Here are 8 Stranger Things film locations in Georgia:

Jackson, Georgia

Jackson is only about a half hour from where I live, so naturally I thought it was a good idea to visit the town where Stranger Things was filmed for this story.

I first went to Lucy Lus Coffee Cafe in the square to grab a yummy coffee, which was on the Stranger Things inspired menu at the coffee house.

Part 1 of the Stranger Things inspired menu at Lucy Lus Coffee Cafe in Jackson, Georgia.

Lucy Lus was already decked out in Halloween decorations, making getting in the spooky mood easy enough. I ordered the Upside Down, which is a chocolate and toffee latte.

Halloween decorations at Lucy Lus

Coffee in hand, I walked down the streets of Hawkins, I mean Jackson.

Stranger Things mural in Jackson, Georgia

There was a character mural, poster wall and even Hawkins Headquarters, where visitors can sign up for a film location tour.

Jackson courthouse served as the Hawkins Public Library in Stranger Things

Across the street, in the middle of the square is the courthouse, which served as Hawkins Public Library in the show.

Exterior of Bradleys Olde Tavern, which served as a theater in Stranger Things filming in Jackson, Georgia

On the other side of Jackson Square was Bradleys Olde Tavern, known as Hawk theater in the show.

Stranger Things filming location in Jackson, Georgia

There was even an art mural showing where the show filmed an alley fight scene. This area was complete with graffiti Byers was here writing.

Last, but not least, is the building that was Melvalds General Store, where Joyce Byers worked in the show. It appeared to be currently under construction, but there werent any signs on the exterior of the building.

Get your Stranger Things filming location tour in Jackson, Georgia

If you want to participate in an official Stranger Things film location tour, visitors can go online to book one.

Theres also a Stranger Things escape room experience on the square, so dont miss your chance to try and escape the Upside Down.

Rome, Georgia

Rome, Georgia, is home to The Creel House, which is featured in season four and five of Stranger Things.

Known as the Claremont House, the 1882 house is located at 906 East 2nd Avenue.

Stone Mountain, Georgia

Hawkins Cemetery is where Max visits Billys grave in season four, alas the famous levitating scene when Max gets called by Vecna. Well, the cemetery is actually part of Stone Mountain Cemetery.

Heres the address to see for yourself: 1025 Silver Hill Rd, Stone Mountain, GA 30087

Griffin, Georgia

Griffin is where Forest Hills Trailer Park is, home of Max and Eddie in season four.

Eddies trailer becomes quite the set in season four as it houses part of the Upside Down.

See where he and Max grew up at A & B Trailer Park, 1478 Kilgore Road in Griffin.

Stockbridge, Georgia

In Stockbridge, Georgia, fans of the show can see Hawkins Middle School.

Go see the school here: 109 S Lee St, Stockbridge, GA 30281.

East Point, Georgia

In East Point, Georgia, fans of the show can drive past the Wheeler family house, where Mike and Nancy grew up in the show.

If you do visit, remember to take photos from the road. Do not trespass because it is private property.

Heres the address: 2530 Piney Wood Ln, East Point, GA 30344.

Douglasville, Georgia

See where Hoppers police department in Douglasville, Georgia.

Also in Douglasville is the Palace Arcade from the show. Its mostly abandoned, but the paint job is still there. Go check it out at 8415 Campbellton Street.

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the filming location of endless movies and shows, including Stranger Things.

In Atlanta, fans of the show can see where the lab for the Upside Down  the setting for most of season one and two  is located.

You cant go inside this deserted building, but you can drive past at this address: 1256 Briarcliff Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30306.

More locations

If you are in need of a full list of Stranger Things film spots in Georgia, youre in luck. Local Adventurer has a list of all the Georgia film spots thus far:

Hawkins General Hospital (2813 E Point St East Point, GA 30344)

Sinclair House (2550 Piney Wood Ln East Point, GA 30344)

Henderson House (2886 Piney Wood Dr East Point, GA 30344)

Holland House (2980 Piney Wood Dr East Point, GA 30344)

Harrington House (8253 Carlton Rd Riverdale, GA 30296)

Hargrove/Mayfield House (5280 Moore St Stone Mountain, GA 30083)

Lonnie Byers House (930 Garibaldi St SW Atlanta, GA 30310)

Ives House (424 Lees Lake Rd Fayetteville, GA 30214)

Hideaway (112 N Berry St Stockbridge, GA 30281)  Smokin Cues

Fair Mart (7703 US-78, Winston, GA 30187)

The Quarry (Chappell Road Northwest, Atlanta, GA 30318)

The Railroad Tracks (1000 Robert E Lee Blvd, Stone Mountain, GA 30083)

Cemetery (Bethany Cemetery Fayetteville, GA 30214)

Hawkins Community Pool (South Bend Pool 2000 Lakewood Avenue Southeast, Atlanta, 30315)

Brimborn Steel Works (2903 RN Martin Street East Point, GA)

Hoppers Trailer (2300 Daniel Rd SW, Atlanta, 30331)

Downtown Chicago (Fairlie-Poplar, Atlanta, 30303)

Public Library (Old East Point Library, 2777 McGee Way, East Point)

Chicago Hideout (315 McDonough Boulevard Southeast, Atlanta, 30315)

Enzos (Dominicks Italian 95 S Peachtree Street, Norcross, 30071)

Railroad Tracks (Stone Mountain Park Cherokee Trail, Stone Mountain)

Hawkins Town Hall (2777 East Point Street, East Point, 30344)

Trick-or-Treating House (2545 Piney Wood Lane, East Point, 30344)

Abandoned Mill (2903 RN Martin Street, East Point, 30344)

Van Flip (3782 Sarahs Lane, Tucker, 30084)

Family Video (6503 Church Street, Douglasville, 30134)

7-Eleven (1355 Milstead Avenue, Conyers, 30012)

The Hawkins Post (6980 Main Street, Lithonia, 30058)

Oscars Gas N Go (7705 Covington Highway, Lithonia, 30058)

Hawkins Memorial Hospital (3949 S Cobb Drive, Smyrna, 30080)

The Fair (6905 Virlyn B Smith Road, Fairburn, 30213)

The Byers Family Home  The owners prefer not to have their address publicly posted.

Pumpkin Farm (628 Sleepy Hollow Road, Powder Springs, 30127)

Pennhurst Mental Hospital (Mary Hall, Viking Way, Mt Berry, GA)
The Speakership battle in the House is putting swing-district Republicans in a politically dire position as the chaos engulfing the lower chamber shows no signs of abating.

On one hand, many vulnerable Republicans are wary of backing Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a hard-right Republican and close ally of former President Trump, fearing a vote for him could haunt them in districts that President Biden won in 2020. On the other hand, Republicans risk potential blowback from the conservative base in a primary if they vote against Jordan.

Theres no question that the damage is being done right now, said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman. Republicans in marginal districts are worried about Democrat opponents running ads that say Congress person-X voted to make Jim Jordan Speaker, and he was involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Those are not my words, but the ads write themselves, he added.

On Tuesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) released messaging guidance on GOP Extremism Under a Potential Speaker Jordan.

It appears there are no more moderates left in the Republican conference capable of standing up, the committees guidance reads. Jordan will only win the Speakership if so-called moderates continue to cave and get him there.

The committee went on to list examples of what it called Jordans extremism, including him not accepting the results of the 2020 presidential election, his stances on immigration and his status as a founding member of the Freedom Caucus in the House.

Meanwhile, conservative figures have also raised red flags over the situation in the House, pointing to the refusal of many members not to support Jordan for Speaker.

I am stunned, said Brian Kilmeade, a conservative talk show host on Fox News. Ive never seen  a group of people commit political suicide like this, and after two weeks of therapy, people going home on their own and coming back, theyre still doing the same thing.

Kilmeade had previously called Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) a dumbass for becoming the first Republican to vote against Jordan on Tuesday. Bacon represents Nebraskas 2nd Congressional District, which the Cook Political Report labels as lean Republican.

When Republicans finally choose a Speaker, theyre going to need to really be vocal about why they made that decision to choose that particular individual, said Ron Bonjean, a veteran House Republican strategist. Even though the election is a year away, this is really a primary issue. So this is months away for some members of Congress.

But there will be a lot of time between now and those primaries in order for many of the vulnerable Republicans to cast votes that they can show GOP voters where they stand on issues, he continued. I think its going to be much more about the issues than it is the personality of Jim Jordan.

On Wednesday, Jordan failed on the second ballot to win the Speakership and lost by a larger margin than he did Tuesday. But Democrats were pinning the Speakership fiasco on Republicans before then.

Twenty-two Republicans voted against Jordan on Wednesday, including a number of swing-district Republicans, such as Reps. Mike Lawler (N.Y.), Anthony DEsposito (N.Y.) and Lori Chavez-DeRamer (Ore.).

If youre in a purple district  if they voted yes and Jim Jordan would have been Speaker, it would have been a bigger risk for them, because of the moderate districts that they are in, Bonjean said. Most of the time, voting no does not get you in trouble.

By voting yes, youre usually taking a leap and agreeing to, most of the time, policies that someone in their district is going to have a problem with, he added.

Other Republicans are skeptical of whether this will have an impact on the election come next November, pointing to voters priorities.

At the end of the day, [voters are] going to go, OK, I get that, but how does it directly apply to me and my family right now? Thats how voters are going to look at this, said one national Republican strategist.

The same strategist also pointed to efforts of Republicans in the past to tie Democrats to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Nancy Pelosi was a pretty effective boogeyman, if you will, for Republicans to use in fundraising, et cetera, the same strategist said. But did she actually move the needle in some of these races?

Doug Heye, former communications director at the Republican National Committee, said the tactic to tie a lawmaker or candidate to a Speaker or Speaker nominee will only go so far in a presidential election year.

When I worked on the RNCs Fire Pelosi campaign, it worked because it was a midterm, Heye said. In a presidential year, presumably with Trump on the ticket, that will block out issues like the Speakers race. Perhaps you could argue that it might in districts that wont be competitive on the presidential level, but Trump dominates the political conversation everywhere.

But the stakes in this particular Speakership battle are much higher, given the looming government shutdown and the deteriorating situation in Israel and the wider Middle East. Jordans repeated failure has renewed a push to grant temporary powers to Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.).

Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), who is facing reelection in a competitive district, came out in support of expanding McHenrys powers temporarily.

Time is a luxury we do not have and this will allow us to get back to governing, Molinaro said in a statement.

And while not as many Americans will be familiar with Jordan or whomever the eventual speaker is when they hear Democratic attacks, they will be familiar with former President Trump.

Every Republican who votes for Jordan for Speaker is simply following Trumps marching orders  its clear Republicans are incapable of governing themselves and instead look to the indicted former president for guidance on everything, the memo from the DCCC reads.

But any down-ballot Republican will likely be prepared to be tied to Trump, given that he appears to be on track to win the partys nomination.

Its not a very innovative strategy, because they can try to tie Donald Trump to these candidates no matter what happens, because if he wins the nomination, hes going to be leading the GOP ticket, Bonjean said. These members are going to be affected no matter what happens.

Another Republican strategist noted that Republicans have figured out how to deal with that line of attack from Democrats.

House Republicans have been winning races for 8 years with Trump (or his candidates) on the ballot, the strategist said. The focus will still be on Trump. A Jordan Speakership doesnt dramatically change the environment.

Much of this will depend on the performance of Congress, no matter who Republicans ultimately choose as Speaker.

The notion that we have a dysfunctional Congress is an argument that is really easy for Democrats to make, Weber said. In those marginal districts, if your opponent can credibly argue: This party is not capable of governing the country, and thats an argument that is easy to make, its not ideological, and it will have broad appeal.

Its a danger, he added.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A far-right conspiracy theorist vying to be mayor of Franklin, Tennessee was pictured grinning next to an avowed neo-Nazi in a photo shared on the social media app Telegram on Wednesday.

Gabrielle Hanson, an alderman for the city, has weathered near-constant controversy along the campaign trail, and has most recently drawn criticism for her ties to the Tennessee Active Club, which was labeled a part of a national network of white power hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. (After the SPLC published a report on the group in June, one member reportedly took to Telegram to proclaim: Im not a cuckservative, Im an actual literal Nazi.)

Last week, after about a dozen members of the club accompanied Hanson to a mayoral forum, saying they were there to make sure everything goes well, she defended their attendance.

Im not going to denounce anybody their right to be whatever it is they want to bewhether I agree with what they do in their personal life or not, she said at a city council meeting.

We dont discriminate in this community against anyone.

BREAKING: Controversial Franklin mayoral candidate Gabrielle @HansonforMayor refuses to denounce actual literal Nazis who came to forum to protect her and blames her colleagues for the division in the community. You reap what you sow. 1/ pic.twitter.com/ZaJCbiH3OD  Phil Williams (@NC5PhilWilliams) October 11, 2023

She also warned the council that you reap what you sow, charging them with having planted seeds for years and years against our citizens and theyre coming to harvest.

Is it your mission to divide our city? one of her colleagues on the council later asked her. Because you're doing a bang up job of it right now dividing our community.

Sean Kauffmann, the Tennessee Active Clubs leader, was one of the members present at the forum. The photo shared Wednesday, first reported by Nashvilles NewsChannel 5, shows Hanson and Kauffman sitting side by side. He appears to be wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase Reject Poison, Embrace Struggle, a slogan commonly associated with the white nationalist group Patriot Front.

The image was shared on Telegram by the right-wing network Appalachian Archives. Stay Tuned, the network teased alongside the picture.

Several hours later, a 20-minute interview clip was posted to the channel. Despite the Archives labeling it a conversation between Kauffmann and Hanson, however, the neo-Nazi was interviewed not by the candidate, but by another woman who identified herself as Valerie Baldes, a proactive Hanson supporter.

It was not immediately clear why Hanson did not conduct the interview. She has not responded to NewsChannel 5s repeated requests for comment.

In a caption, the channel described the clip as a chance to let Kauffman speak about his organizations views in an unbiased setting, no doubt Dishonest and Profiteering Reporters and Journalists will use this as Leverage against Tennessee Active Club and Gabrielle Hanson for simply Interacting with one another in a Neutral and Professional setting.

WOW! As if the Gabrielle @HansonforMayor story could not get any more bizarre, it looks like she shot an interview with neo-Nazi Sean Kauffmann! (She is a Williamson County Republican!) pic.twitter.com/01mZ7PWi1y  Phil Williams (@NC5PhilWilliams) October 18, 2023

The circuitous conversation functioned as a platform to allow Kauffmann to riff and rant about the LGBTQ+ community, journalists, and anti-fascists, railing against them anarcho-communists who are basically the foot soldiers of the Judeo-capitalistand the takeover thats happening in America.

They want to bring you diversity, the BLM, the antifa, riots, they want robbery and murder and rape to come to your cities, he insists. Thats what theyre facilitating anarchy across America.

Early in the interview, when Baldes asks him why he thought he and his group had been labeled Nazis, Kauffmann replies, Well, this one is tough, you know, because of the swastikas and stuff, are pretty much the reason.

The election for Franklins mayor will be held on Oct. 24, according to the city.

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The holiday season is nearly here and you may be thinking of ways to make some extra money.

Employers start looking for seasonal help as early as September, according to Snagajob. The holiday season kicks into gear after Halloween and runs until New Years Day.

These companies are hiring for seasonal jobs. Heres how to apply:

Sephora

Position: Cashier

Estimated salary: $20-28 per hour

Location: 1612 South University Drive

Application: Apply here

Kohls

Position: Stockroom operations associate Estimated salary: $13 per hour Location: 5520 SW Loop 820 Application: Apply here

Simply Southern

Position: Retail sales associate Estimated salary: $13 per hour Location: 5841 North Freeway suite 1175 Application: Apply here

UPS

Position: Package delivery driver Estimated salary: $23 per hour Location: 1300 East Northside Drive Application: Apply here

Accelore Solutions

Position: Delivery driver

Estimated salary: $19 per hour

Location: Fort Worth area

Application: Apply here

Lowes

Position: Retail associate

Estimated salary: $20-28 per hour

Location: Fort Worth

Application: Apply here

Burlington

Position: Cashier associate

Estimated salary: $11 per hour

Location: 4200 South Freeway

Application: Apply here

Vera Bradley

Position: Store associate

Estimated salary: $20-28 per hour

Location: 15841 N Freeway suite 1190

Application: Apply here

Best Buy

Position: Retail warehouse associate

Estimated salary: $15-17 per hour

Location: 5944 Quebec St.

Application: Apply here

Target

Position: Overnight inbound

Estimated salary: $15 per hour

Location: 301 Carroll St.

Application: Apply here
Both Israel and Hamas have faced a barrage of war crimes allegations following the outbreak of their conflict, which has left thousands dead and millions under siege.

The Israeli government accused Hamas  a Palestinian Islamist group whose armed combatants invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7 and killed 1,300 people, according to Israeli officials  of committing war crimes.

Hamas has likewise accused the Israeli military  whose siege and bombardment of Gaza has killed 3,785 people as of Oct. 19, Palestinian officials said  of perpetrating war crimes.

Outside observers, including at least a half-dozen members of Congress, European lawmakers, nonprofits, activists and academics, have accused one or both sides of committing war crimes.

But, what exactly are war crimes? Who can commit them? How are they prosecuted?

And what do we know about war crime prosecution in Israel and Palestine so far? Experts explain.

What are war crimes?

War crimes are one of three atrocity crimes that constitute violations of the international law of armed conflict, or international humanitarian law, Ernesto Verdeja, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, told McClatchy News.

War crimes refer to a whole cluster of different types of crimes, Verdeja said. These include: taking civilians hostage; attacking civilians when its not a military necessity; the mistreatment of prisoners of war; and the destruction of places that are not a military necessity, such as religious institutions, schools, hospitals (and) places like that.

According to Stefan Schmitt, a forensic researcher at Florida International University who has worked in nearly a dozen countries, including Libya and Iraq, these (places) all enjoy whats called protected status. Theyre protected because theyre not taking part in any kind of military function, are civilian, and, therefore, theyre illegal to attack.

War crimes also include executing soldiers who have surrendered and targeting  or not preventing the targeting of  excess civilian populations, Rebecca Hamilton, a law professor at American University and former lawyer for the International Criminal Court, told McClatchy News.

Those are usually the first (atrocity) crimes that we see, Hamilton said, and are sort of most straightforward to identify at the start of a conflict.

The other two atrocity crimes are crimes against humanity and genocide.

Crimes against humanity are deliberate acts, such as killing, rape or torture, that cause human suffering, in a either widespread or systematic way, directed against a civilian population, Hamilton said. They can be perpetrated in a situation of armed conflict, but they can also be perpetrated in a peacetime situation.

Genocide is the act of killing or causing serious harm with the specific intent to destroy a group  in part or in whole, she said. A group is defined along a range of protected bases, such as nationality or race.

Crimes of aggression are sometimes considered a fourth atrocity crime, Verdeja said, and involve starting an unprovoked war.

Ethnic cleansing, however, is not really a crime in international law, Verdeja said. It just means the forced removal of people from their land. Thats basically almost always a war crime and/or a crime against humanity.

Also known as the law of war, the international humanitarian law that defines atrocity crimes tries to balance two competing aims: weakening the opponent militarily and minimizing civilian suffering, Verdeja explained.

To balance these, international humanitarian law is bound by four principles: military necessity, the distinction between civilians and combatants, proportionality of violence and mitigation of unnecessary suffering.

Atrocity crimes have different focuses but can overlap or occur simultaneously, Verdeja and Hamilton said.

Who can commit war crimes? And who can be prosecuted for them?

Any combatant involved in an interstate or intrastate conflict can commit an atrocity crime, several experts said. This means a broad scope of people, from low-ranking soldiers to five-star generals to heads of state, are capable of carrying out such crimes.

However, when it comes to prosecution, particularly at the International Criminal Court, or ICC, those higher up the chain of command are typically prioritized, Hamilton said.

Its not just about holding any individual responsible. Its usually a policy of trying to get those who are most responsible, Hamilton said. So even though you might have footage of a foot soldier directly committing a crime, what an international prosecutor is interested in is: where did the order come from?

Prosecutors, with limited resources, also tend to set their sights on individuals who are most representative of the overall conflict situation, Hamilton said, and combatants whose prosecution is most likely to deter future atrocity crimes.

How are war crimes generally prosecuted?

War crimes prosecution has four main stages: establishing jurisdiction, investigating, formally bringing a case and holding a trial.

There are three main venues through which an individual can be prosecuted for atrocity crimes.

The first is through civilian and military courts within the country where the alleged crimes were committed, Hyeran Jo, an associate professor at Texas A&M University who specializes in international relations, told McClatchy News.

If domestic courts elect to take up cases involving alleged atrocity crimes  the most serious crimes a person can commit  they have to demonstrate their processes are fair and rigorous, Hamilton said.

Otherwise, two other venues may become involved.

The second place these crimes can be prosecuted is in the courts of third-party countries, Hamilton said.

For example, we have seen prosecutions in Germany of crimes that were committed in Syria, she said. In these cases, German nationals werent even necessarily involved, Hamilton said, but the alleged crimes were so egregious that the domestic courts in Germany decided to intervene.

The third and last venue in which atrocity crimes can be tried is the ICC, which is based in The Hague, the Netherlands.

The ICC is a court of last resort, Kelebogile Zvobgo, a professor at the College of William & Mary and founder of the International Justice Lab, told McClatchy News. It only intervenes when countries (or) when the relevant parties prove unwilling or unable to conduct genuine proceedings of their own.

In order for the ICC to step in, it has to acquire jurisdiction through one of three routes, Zvobgo said.

The first is a referral by the United Nations Security Council, she said. The other method is a self referral where a country refers itself to the ICC. And then the last method is called proprio motu, which is basically on the prosecutors prerogative.

However, the ICC only has jurisdiction over nationals from countries party to the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty that founded the court. Over 120 countries have signed onto the statute while over a dozen others, including Israel, Russia, China and the United States, have not signed onto it or did but never had their legislatures ratify it.

Once the ICC attains jurisdiction and opens a preliminary investigation, prosecutors begin the long and arduous process of collecting evidence, which can take years, Zvobgo said.

This involves gathering information thats been reported in the media, interviewing witnesses and visiting sites where alleged crimes occurred, among other steps, Verdeja said.

The first thing to look for is non-combatants  civilian victims, Schmitt said.

In addition to bodies  which are searched for patterns of injury  investigators examine protected buildings.

Precise documentation in the form of detailed notes and GPS-stamped photos and videos are gathered in order to build a body of evidence that can hold up in court, Schmitt said.

But its not enough to just find evidence of an atrocity crime; investigators must also find specific evidence that is linked to the suspect in question, Hamilton said.

If this burden is met, the court could then bring charges against the individual and issue an arrest warrant, Verdeja said.

The ICC does not have its own police force, so it relies on countries to apprehend and transfer suspects, Zvobgo said. Governments, however, do not always comply, and its at this stage that many investigations break down as the ICC will only try individuals in its custody.

Absent a government turning its own people over  the individual would have to travel to another country that is an ICC member state, Zvobgo said. And that state would have to meet its obligation to arrest and transfer the ICC fugitive, but this does not always happen.

If the suspect is arrested and brought to The Hague, a series of initial and secondary hearings take place followed by a trial before a panel of judges, Verdeja said.

If found guilty, suspects can be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison, according to the ICC, though life sentences can be handed down when justified by the extreme gravity of the crime and the individual circumstances of the convicted person. Fines and forfeitures of assets can also be ordered. Suspects can appeal a verdict.

The ICC has taken up over 30 cases since its founding, with ten suspects  including three Congolese political leaders and one Al Qaeda affiliate  found guilty.

Citizens of more powerful nations suspected of committing crimes have evaded prosecution by not joining the ICC and by blocking referrals by the (UN) Security Council, according to Human Rights Watch, an international nonprofit.

What do we know about prosecuting war crimes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

In the context of Israel and Palestine, the ICC has begun the early stages of war crimes prosecution  establishing jurisdiction and opening an investigation  but experts agree that what comes next is unknown.

The only certainty is that this process will take years to reach a resolution, if ever.

Although Israel is not a party to the ICC, Palestine is. Therefore, experts agree that the ICC has the jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute any atrocity crimes that occur in Palestinian territory or are committed by Palestinians in other states.

Zvobgo explained that the ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute atrocity crimes even for the nationals of nonmember states, such as Israel. What matters more is territoriality, so did the suspected abuses occur on the territory of an ICC member state?

Although Palestine is not fully recognized as a sovereign nation, the ICC recognized it as a state party in 2015 for legal purposes. The territory defined as Palestine under the ICC includes the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israeli courts can still choose to prosecute atrocity crimes committed on its territory, Hamilton explained.

The ICC is currently investigating the situation in the State of Palestine, per its website. This investigation was opened in March 2021 and includes any alleged crimes that occurred since June 2014.

The office of the ICC prosecutor told Reuters in an Oct. 10 article that this mandate is ongoing and applies to crimes committed in the current context.

Outside of this statement, Hamilton said, theres been nothing released publicly about where theyre at.

Investigating war crimes is always complicated, but its much more so amid an ongoing conflict, Hamilton and Schmitt said. The conflict endangers the safety of ICC investigators, victims and potential witnesses.

You never want to put someone who you are interviewing or gathering evidence from at risk by the fact that they are talking to an international prosecutor, Hamilton explained. When victims or witnesses speak to ICC prosecutors, other parties could perceive them as being a threat.

The ICC can still investigate by focusing on the documentation, preservation and authentication of digital evidence, she said.

If the ICC does begin prosecuting a specific case of war crimes, experts expect they will have a difficult time getting any accused perpetrators into a courtroom.

This challenge might be further compounded if the accused perpetrators have strong links to a major geopolitical power, Zvobgo said. She pointed to the example of the ICC opening an investigation into U.S. actions in Afghanistan, then shifting the focus to Taliban and ISIS-K actions after the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on the prosecutor.

These actions are kind of suggestive of the courts hesitancy, I think, to pursue major powers, and certainly the U.S. and the U.S.s friends, Zvobgo said.

Experts agreed that Hamas and Israel have both taken actions that appear to be war crimes. Experts pointed to Hamas combatants targeting civilians and taking civilians hostage during its Oct. 7 attack, and the Israeli military harming Palestinian civilians by cutting off food, water and electricity to the Gaza Strip.

Prosecuting these types of actions, linking them to a specific suspect and determining if they are legally war crimes, however, is a very long and drawn out process  if it happens at all.

Were in the early stages of an extremely catastrophic and violent war, Verdeja said. Theres no reason to believe that any of the sides would give up alleged perpetrators to the court.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas war is unprecedented, experts say. Here are 5 reasons why

What is white phosphorus  and why is it so controversial? Israel accused of using it in Gaza

Saving Americans held hostage by Hamas is a daunting task, ex-CIA official says. Why?
WASHINGTON  About 15 minutes into President Joe Biden's Zoom call last Friday with families of Americans taken hostage by Hamas, a White House aide started to end the session.

But Biden wouldn't have it, according to one of the family members on the call.

"The president actually looked at him and said: 'Last time I checked I'm the president of the United States. And this meeting will end when I say it ends,'" said Ruby Chen of Israel, the father of Itay Chen, a 19-year-old member of the Israel Defense Forces and a dual US-Israeli citizen who is among those missing. "He actually wanted to hear from every single one of us."

The moment encapsulated Biden's sudden transformation from a political figure whose commitment to Israel was often questioned by conservative critics inside and outside the Jewish state to  right now  arguably the world's leading champion of Israel outside the Middle East.

Biden's actions and words since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, capped by a dramatic visit Wednesday to Israel, have been lauded even by many of Biden's biggest skeptics in Israel as he stands in solidarity with Israel and pledges "unprecedented" military assistance.

"Israelis were hungry for a father figure that will hug them and show empathy. And the president has done that in such a way that really touched every Israeli," said Nimrod Novik, a former foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and now a fellow with the Israel Policy Forum.

Police officer Evyatar Edri looks on as US President Joe Biden hugs his mother, Rachel Edri, who was held hostage by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, while meeting with people affected by this month's Hamas attack on Israel, on Oct. 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv. Thousands of Israeli and Palestinian people have died since Oct. 7, 2023, after Palestinian Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip entered southern Israel in a surprise attack, holding some people hostage, that led Israel to declare war on Hamas in Gaza on Oct. 8.

Israelis last week displayed a billboard off a highway in Tel Aviv stating, "Thank you, Mr. President," next to Biden's image. A billboard welcomed Biden to Israel during his visit Wednesday.

The praise showering Biden in Israel comes as its own leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , has seen his support in his country plummet in the wake of the Hamas attack and Israel's military response.

A poll from the firm, Maariv, Lazar Research, reported by Haaretz, found more than two-thirds of Israeli's prefer "someone else" than Netanyahu to serve as prime minister after the war. Benny Gantz, leader of Israel's National Unity Party, has seen his party's support soar since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.

"Absolutely, President Biden is the much more popular leader in Israel than Bibi Netanyahu," said Richard Stengel, a former under secretary of state in the Obama administration, in an interview on MSNBC.

Biden's message resonating in 'unique way' in Israel

Israeli support for Biden extends to his efforts to return home Americans who, like Itay Chen, make up some of an estimated 200 to 250 people believed to be held hostage by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Although polling on Biden's popularity in Israel since the attack isn't public, a whopping 48% of Israelis watched Biden's White House address last week when he condemned the attack as "pure, unadulterated evil" and committed U.S. military aid to Israel.

"It was quite remarkable how well that was received in Israel, including by people on the right wing who were not predisposed to like Biden," said Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "It really resonated in Israel in a rather unique way, especially given the leadership vacuum in Israel right now."

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - OCTOBER 18: A digital billboard welcomes US President Joe Biden to Israel on October 18, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

During his whirlwind stop in Israel on Wednesday, Biden met with Netanyahu, family members of hostages and compared the atrocities of the Hamas attack, which killed more than 1,300 Israelis, to the brutality of the Holocaust.

"The world watched then and knew, and the world did nothing," Biden said in a speech from Tel Aviv with American and Israeli flags behind him. "We will not stand by and do nothing again. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever."

Biden cautioned Israelis "dont be consumed" by the rage they feel today, warning about "mistakes" the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Yet his backing of Israel was unmistakable.

"I'm here to tell you that terrorists will not win. Freedom will win," Biden concluded. "Israel will be a safe, secure Jewish and democratic state today, tomorrow and forever."

Even Israeli conservatives applaud Biden

Biden, upon landing in Air Force One in Israel, greeted Netanyahu with a big hug.

The Israeli prime minister has faced criticism in Israel for the security failure that allowed the Hamas massacre to unfold. Netanyahu met Sunday for the first time with family members of kidnapped Israelis amid criticism that he's not done enough to save them.

Your visit is the first here by an American president during a time of war," Netanyahu said to Biden. Thank you, Mr. president. Thank you for standing with Israel today, tomorrow and always.

Former President Donald Trump  who took actions such as relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem  was widely popular in Israel during his presidency as well. Trump and other Republicans aligned themselves with the Israeli right, pushing a wedge between Jews and their historic support for Democrats, while some liberals in Congress sought to reduce foreign aid to Israel.

Yet over the last week, Biden has received glowing reviews from conservatives who once criticized Biden's foreign policy with Israel.

"In Judaism there is an obligation of 'Hakarat Hatov''  saying thank you to those who perform good deeds," David Friedman, former U.S. ambassador to Israel under Trump, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. While Friedman remains "deeply critical" of the Biden administration, he said "the moral, tactical, diplomatic and military support that it has provided Israel over the past few days has been exceptional."

Meanwhile, Trump stunned conservative Israelis with his comments last week blaming Netanyahu for the Hamas attack and calling leaders of Hezbollah "very smart." Many have since blasted Trump's remarks.

"Every Israeli should pray that Biden will continue for a second term," Ishay Cohen, a religiously conservative Israeli journalist, wrote on X above a video with Trump's comments.

President Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport.

Biden's actions have not been without harsh criticism among conservatives in the U.S. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican candidate for president, slammed Biden for committing $100 million in U.S. humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

"They say it's 'humanitarian assistance.' We know Hamas is going to commandeer that money and Hamas is going to use it to advance terrorism," DeSantis said. "How are you funding them when they're holding Americans as well as others hostage?"

And Republicans and Israelis alike criticized the Biden administration over a deal to free five American hostages from Iran that included transferring $6 billion to the nation for humanitarian purposes.

The U.S. and Qatar reportedly agreed to freeze Iran's access to the money last week after the agreement came under fire from Republicans who argued the money freed up funds for Tehran to help Hamas' attack. The Biden administration has said there is no evidence linking Iran to the massacre.

Still, Israel's support for Biden, at least for now, overshadows the pushback.

Ruby Chen, the father working to free his hostage son from Hamas, said Biden told family members on last week's Zoom call "nothing is more important" to him than seeing the safe return of American hostages.

As each family member spoke, a photo of their loved one flashed on the computer screen for the president to see. The meeting ended up lasting about an hour and 15 minutes.

"It was a very emotional session where he also shared some of his personal loss and how he copes with it," Ruby Chen said. "And I think simple people like us, having the president of the United States spend time with us, it was a touching gesture."

Contributing: Maureen Groppe, Kim Hjelmgaard.

Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly known as Twitter @Joeygarrison.

Hamas invaded my brother's home: Now, my family is held hostage in Gaza.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden Israel speech is a hit as Netanyahu is criticized amid Hamas war
(CNN)  President Joe Biden plans to make a direct appeal to the American people to continue funding Ukraine and Israel amid their war efforts in an Oval Office address Thursday, according to two administration officials.

The primetime address will take place on the eve of the White House requesting north of $100 billion from Congress to deliver aid and resources to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the US border with Mexico. Biden is expected to make the argument that supporting Ukraine and Israel is a matter of US national security when the world is at an inflection point.

Hes going to make the case that the cost of inaction and the cost of walking away is much higher, according to one official.

The Biden administration in August delivered its last so-called supplemental funding request, which encapsulates unique requests beyond traditional government programs. The proposal requested $24.1 billion to aid Ukraine through the end of the year, but Congress failed to approve it during a process to greenlight short-term federal funding.

Public opinion regarding US assistance has been mixed.

In a recent CNN poll, nearly all respondents were sympathetic with the Israeli people in the wake of surprise attacks launched by Hamas, but there was no clear consensus on the right level of US involvement. One-third (35%) said the US is providing the right amount of assistance  and another 36% were unsure whether the level of US assistance is appropriate. The US has long provided security assistance to Israel, which receives roughly $4 billion annually under a 10-year memorandum of understanding. The new request would provide billions more.

By contrast, support to sustain aid to Ukraine has waned significantly since Russias unprovoked invasion in February 2022. An August CNN poll found 55% of respondents said Congress should not pass more funding to aid Ukraine. The partisan divide has been deepening, too: Nearly three-quarters of Republicans opposed more funding for Ukraine, while 62% of Democrats supported it.

Since Russias invasion, the White House and Congress have provided more than $75 billion in funding to Kyiv, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledged to European leaders on Monday that the US would be able to secure support for additional aid and, in an interview with Sky News, said Washington could afford financing two war efforts at once.

American can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israels military needs, and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia.

Bidens upcoming remarks, first announced Wednesday, come on the heels of his wartime visit to the Middle East, which went on even after a blast tore through a hospital in Gaza. While his planned stop in Amman, Jordan, to meet Arab leaders was canceled just as the president was preparing to depart the White House, Biden did spend hours on the ground in Tel Aviv.

Officials on Wednesday sought to downplay the cancellation, saying it was natural for President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to return to the West Bank to mourn the dead. Later, Biden scoffed at the suggestion he was disappointed the meeting had been canceled.

Disappointed? Look, I came to get something done. I got it done, he said. Not many people thought we could get this done, and not many people want to be associated with failure.

For Biden, a trip in the formative days of a potentially drawn-out conflict amounted to the ultimate test of his confidence  built over decades  that getting in the same room can influence people and events.

The US, Egypt and Israel have all signaled readiness for aid to begin moving into Gaza, following Bidens high-profile visit.

in a meeting that stretched well past what officials had expected, Biden sought to use his decades-long relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  one that has endured significant strain over the past year  to offer advice and seek commitments on the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Beforehand, officials said Biden would approach the Israeli leader with tough questions about the path forward and Israels intentions as it seeks to eliminate Hamas in Gaza. Speaking later, Biden offered a glimpse of how those conversations went, or at least his side of them.

I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it, Biden told his audience, a collection of Israelis and Americans.

I know the choices are never clear or easy for the leadership, Biden went on, recalling mistakes the United States made after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Theres always cost, but it requires being deliberate, requires asking very hard questions. That requires clarity about the objectives and an honest assessment about whether the path youre on will achieve those objectives.

This story was first published on CNN.com. Biden plans to use Oval Office address to make case for wartime aid to Israel and Ukraine
After a blistering summer of record heat, raging wildfires and unpredictable storms, federal scientists on Thursday said a warm, wet winter driven by El Nino is in store for California and much of the rest of the country.

The first winter outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that a strong El Nino will remain in place through at least the spring, with further strengthening possible over the next couple of months.

El Nino is the warm phase of the El Nino-La Nina Southern Oscillation pattern  sometimes referred to as ENSO  and is a major driver of temperature and precipitation patterns across the globe.

"The anticipated strong El Nino is the predominant climate factor driving the U.S. winter outlook this year," said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the operational prediction branch at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.

Temperature forecasts for December, January and February favor warmer-than-average conditions across the northern tier of the U.S. and much of the West, with the highest chance of above-normal temperatures expected in Northern California, the Pacific Northwest and northern New England. Odds are tilted toward warmth in Central and Southern California as well.

Read more: October heat wave could break records in California, but chance of rain awaits next week

The forecast also favors wetter-than-average conditions in many regions of the country, including nearly all of California, the southern Plains, Texas and the Southeast. Widespread drought will persist across much of the central and southern U.S., but not in California, where the Central Valley and San Francisco Bay area have the highest odds in the state of above-normal rainfall.

Warmer-than-average temperatures are favored across the northern tier of the U.S. and West Coast, according to a new winter outlook from NOAA. (NOAA)

The outlook conjures the specter of another soggy season for the Golden State, which was pummeled by 31 atmospheric river storms, deadly floods and record-setting snow last winter.

Gottschalck said the combination of wetness and warmth means more precipitation is likely to fall as rain instead of snow. But he and other experts also said it's too soon to say whether California will see a repeat of the atmospheric rivers it experienced at the start of this year.

Wetter-than-average conditions are likely across much of California, as well as the central Rockies, the southern Plains, Gulf Coast, Southeast and lower-mid-Atlantic and northern Alaska, according to a new winter outlook from NOAA.

"It's important to stress that even though we see these general patterns during El Nino and La Nina years, there is still a lot of variability and not every event is going to follow the general pattern," Julie Kalansky, a climate scientist at the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said in a recent El Nino update.

Kalansky noted that last year's La Nina was a perfect example, as the state received a deluge of moisture despite the pattern's association with drier conditions in Southern California.

"So, the declaration of an El Nino doesnt guarantee that Southern California is going to have a wet, stormy winter, but it does stack the deck in that direction," she said.

Read more: Earth just had its warmest August  and summer  on record, spurring dire warnings

The wet outlook follows the planet's hottest summer ever recorded.

Global average surface temperatures in June, July, August and September were the highest they've ever been, marked by sizzling heat waves in Europe, China and the southwestern U.S.  including a record 31 consecutive days of high temperatures at or above 110 degrees in Phoenix.

September was so hot  2.59 degrees above the 20th century average of 59 degrees  that it also broke the record for the highest monthly global temperature anomaly, or the largest difference from the long-term average, NOAA officials said.

Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the nonprofit Berkeley Earth, called the month's temperature data "absolutely gobsmackingly bananas."

Timothy Koelkebeck hikes an Eaton Canyon trail as temperatures reach 100 degrees and above. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The September data and winter forecast make it 99% certain that 2023 will end up as the planet's hottest year on record, according to Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Currently, 2016 and 2020 are tied for that record.

Schmidt said this year's monthly heat records are particularly remarkable because they are occurring before the peak of the current El Nino event. Other hot periods, including in 2016 and 2020, happened after the peak of El Nino.

That doesn't bode well for what might be in store next spring, he said.

"I would anticipate that 2024 is still going to be warmer than 2023, even given the 'gobsmackingly bananas' anomalies that we've had this summer," Schmidt said. "What we would predict for next year, based just effectively on the long-term trend and the predicted level of ENSO going into next year, is that it will be warmer again  and by quite a lot."

Read more: El Nino has officially arrived, signaling a warmer world and possibly a wetter SoCal

Schmidt said he was surprised by the unusually high temperatures this summer. Persistent climate warming driven by the burning of fossil fuels is to be expected, as are warmer global temperatures linked to El Nino, but scientists are still seeking answers about why 2023 has been so off-the-charts.

Some theories include a recent change to shipping regulations concerning aerosols, which reduced the upper limit of sulfur in fuels. The change was geared toward cleaner air in ports and coastal areas but may have had an unintended planetary warming effect because the aerosols were reflecting sunlight away from Earth.

A dearth of Saharan dust, possibly linked to weakened trade winds from El Nino, could also be a warming factor since the dust normally has a cooling effect on the North Atlantic, Schdmit and other researchers said.

Residents check out the damage after the fast-moving and swollen Tule River crumbled parts of Globe Drive in Springville, Calif., in March. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Additionally, the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in 2022 shot record-breaking amounts of water vapor into the stratosphere, which can act as a heat-trapping greenhouse gas.

"But all of the quantitative estimates of how big those effects are are way too small to explain whats going on," Schmidt said. "This is not a neat story. It could be the long-term trends, plus ENSO, plus a little bit from the volcano, plus a little bit from the marine shipping emission changes, plus quite a large chunk of internal variability."

Read more: Ocean temperatures are off the charts, and El Nino is only partly to blame

Indeed, he said that while the long-term trends point to continued warming, there are likely to be years in the future that are cooler than 2023.

What is indisputable, though, is that people are already experiencing the effects of warmer temperatures  including extreme rainfall, extended droughts, heat waves and sea level rise  through their impacts on infrastructure, coral reefs, fishing, crop yields and other sectors, Schmidt said.

NOAA experts said this year's El Nino probably won't be as severe as the one in 2015-16, which ranked as a "very strong El Nino," but that it would still be wise for the West Coast to ready itself for more El Nino-fueled moisture. This month, state officials said they are taking steps to prepare for such a possibility, including assembling flood control material and sandbags, and providing funds for critical levee repairs.

Read more: California just experienced a 'miracle' water year. But winter could bring new challenges

Though the winter storms significantly eased drought conditions in California, the soggy winter was among dozens of billion-dollar climate disasters in the U.S. this year, with flooding in the state between January and March causing about $4.2 billion in damage, according to NOAA. In August, Tropical Storm Hilary dropped more than a year's worth of rain in a single day in several regions of the state.

Other billion-dollar disasters in the U.S. include major flooding in New York, Hurricane Idalia in Florida and a devastating firestorm in Hawaii.

"So far this year we've had 24 confirmed billion-dollar disasters, which is already a record-breaking amount," said Tom Di Liberto, a climate scientist with NOAA. "And we still have October, November and December to go."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The Lexington County Sheriffs Department considered issuing an arrest warrant against Roxanne Wilson, the wife of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, following a heated dispute at an eldercare facility late last month.

Ultimately, authorities determined no crime was committed and did not issue a warrant.

A 15-page incident report obtained by The State under South Carolinas Freedom of Information law reveals that the sheriffs department investigated Roxanne Wilsons actions during two incidents at the facility on Sept. 29: First, when she allegedly forced her mother to take medication, and second, when she had a subsequent encounter with a staff member at the care home that involved Wilson putting her hands on the staffers shoulders.

But despite the wishes of a nursing home employee who told deputies that she wanted to charge Wilson with assault, the sheriffs office decided not to press charges after consulting with the 11th Circuit Solicitors Office and Lexington County Chief Magistrate Judge Matthew Johnson, according to the incident report The State obtained from the Lexington County Sheriffs Department.

After a thorough investigation, as well as a review of the evidence and statements in this matter, no charges will be filed in this case. We arrived at this result after detectives consulted the Solicitors Office, which advised the case had no prosecutorial merit, Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon said in a statement to The State on Tuesday.

Ultimately, a detective presented the findings and evidence gathered during our investigation to a magistrate judge, who determined there was no probable cause to make an arrest. In light of these developments, the case will be closed, Koon said.

Roxanne Wilsons attorney, Jake Moore, said he was not surprised that a warrant was not sworn out against Roxanne.

She has done nothing wrong, Moore said. The whole thing has been very unfortunate, but this case clearly has nothing to do with criminality on the part of anybody.

How confrontation began

The saga began on the morning of Sept. 29 when staffers at the Columbia Presbyterian Community care home on Davega Drive tried to convince Roxanne Wilsons 98-year-old mother, Martha Dusenbury, to take her medication. She refused. When Wilson, who is 73 and one of her mothers primary family caregivers, arrived at the home around noon, staff members told her that Dusenbury had not taken her medication.

What happened next is in dispute. But at about 2 p.m. on that day, a Friday, sheriffs deputies were summoned to the elder care home by staffers who claimed Wilson forced a fork into her mothers mouth, swore at her and poured water in her mouth to get Dusenbury to take the medication, according to documents.

Care home staff also told deputies that they were mandated to report alleged abuse to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control and that the facility wished to place a trespass notice on Wilson.

DHEC characterized the incident as alleged neglect or exploitation, suspected or confirmed abuse, according to DHEC documents based on a report from the home.

At some point during the contentious events that followed, Wilson called both Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon and her son, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, according to the report.

Sheriff Koon did not go to the scene at any point, said a spokesperson from his office.

In a statement from his office last week, Alan Wilson said that he was not at the facility when the incidents occurred and said his office was not involved.

The sheriffs department report describes how the events of Sept. 29 escalated when Roxanne Wilson, with deputies present and recording events on a body camera, placed her hands on a staffers shoulders and told her, Jennifer, Im not mad at you, but I want you to tell your staff not to f--- with me.

The staffer, Jennifer Raymond, whose back was against a wall throughout the encounter, then told Wilson, Im not going to tell anybody a threat, Roxanne, the incident report said.

Roxanne Wilson then said, That is not a threat, prompting Raymond to reply, Yes, it is what you just did.

The incident report said Raymond then asked a deputy who had witnessed the exchange, Did you just hear that?

The deputy replied, Yes, Maam, the report said.

The State has requested a copy of the body camera video, but the sheriffs department declined to release it.

Raymond on Wednesday declined through an intermediary to comment at this time.

The incident report, drawn from statements by three deputies at the scene as well as an investigator assigned to review the events, offer the most complete account of the incident, which was first revealed in initial reports filed with DHEC and a partial incident report from the Lexington County Sheriffs Department made public in response to FOI requests by The State newspaper.

After Wilson placed her hands on Raymonds shoulders, Sgt. Christopher Riccardi, the sheriffs department supervisor on the scene, advised Raymond that she could press charges of assault and battery, according to the report.

Raymond initially appeared ambivalent about pursuing assault charges, asking deputies if she could give them an answer after she spoke with an attorney and Franklin Fant, the homes president and CEO, the report said.

Within minutes this changed.

While Raymond and Fant went to a separate room to speak with an attorney over the phone, Ricciardi spoke with Roxanne Wilson and Alan Wilson, who joined by speakerphone. When Ricciardi informed the Wilsons that there was a possibility of an assault charge, Roxanne Wilson walked away and entered the room where Raymond and Fant were meeting, according to the documents.

Are you claiming that I assaulted you? I did not assault you, Wilson said, according to the report. Raymond told investigators that Wilson was in her face, prompting her to take a step back. Raymond also said she could hear an unidentified voice on Wilsons speakerphone telling her to get out of the room.

Raymond later told investigators she wanted to get away because she had seen Mrs. Wilsons temper, and it was unpredictable, according to the report.

Mrs. Raymond said she was afraid of not knowing what Mrs. Wilson was going to do, and investigator wrote.

When Ricciardi entered the room, his body camera showed Fant standing in the door frame between Raymond and Wilson, who appeared upset and was raising her voice, according to the report.

After the deputy repeatedly asked Wilson to leave the room, Raymond told Ricciardi that she wanted to press charges against Wilson.

Although Ricciardi said that afternoon Raymond could pursue a criminal charge, another deputy at the scene doubted an assault had taken place.

I do not believe there was probable cause to charge Wilson for assault, wrote one deputy, who described the initial confrontation between Wilson and Raymond in a report dated Sept. 29. I do not believe that Wilson had any intent to harm Raymond.

About a week later, Ricciardi wrote in a report that he had changed his mind. Ricciardi wrote that he spoke with Wilson, asking if her intentions were to hurt Jennifer (Raymond) and she replied no.

At the time of this report, there was no probable to make an arrest, Ricciardi wrote on Oct. 6. I explained to both parties that no charges were being made.

Following the confrontation in the office, Ricciardi reviewed the body worn camera footage of the initial interaction between Raymond and Wilson. Ricciardi wrote that he determined that the incident did not amount to an assault and informed Raymond and Wilson that no charges were being made, according to the report.

The investigation may have been hampered by the reluctance of some of the witnesses.

One home staffer declined to give a written statement to officers, saying, I didnt know it was going to go this far.

And both employees who witnessed Wilson give the pill to her mother expressed concerns to officers about getting involved in a situation with a powerful family, according to an investigators report.

Joe Wilson, elected in 2001, is the states second-senior member of Congress. Alan Wilson is the states chief law enforcement officer who can initiate investigations and has general supervisory responsibility for criminal prosecutions around the state. The Wilsons and Sheriff Koon are Republicans.

Fant, the Presbyterian homes CEO, issued this statement Wednesday: While we respect the decision of law enforcement, we also affirm that our organization has fulfilled our moral and legal obligations to the resident in this matter. We are not a party in our employees case, but the safety and well-being of our staff is of central importance to our ministry. Our front line health care workers provide the compassionate and quality care to our residents for which weve been known for almost 70 years.

What led up to the incident?

The confusing scene outlined in incident reports obtained by The State began almost an hour and a half before law enforcement authorities were called, but court records suggest that friction between Wilson and the care home had been brewing for at least several months.

In legal filings, care home officials have previously said it was not able to provide adequate care for Dusenbury, who they argued needed to be transferred to a facility that could better care for her.

Ms. Dusenbury requires a level of care that Presbyterian Communities of South Carolina cannot legally provide, read a legal document, filed by the facilitys attorney in response to a. request for an injunction filed August 2023 in the Cayce-West Columbia Magistrate Court by Roxanne Wilson and her sister, Suzanne Carver.

In filings, the sisters say they wanted their mother to stay at the facility and sought an injunction that would allow Dusenbury to stay in her room. The lawsuit said the facility wanted to evict the mother, who had a contract to stay at the home.

The lawsuit was eventually dismissed from magistrates court. The issue is now before DHEC, according to Wilsons lawyer, Moore.

On Sept 29, when Wilson arrived at the Columbia Presbyterian Community care center, two medical techs informed Wilson that her mother had refused to take her medication that morning. Dusenbury had repeatedly spat up her pill.

Wilson then tried to make her mother take her pill. However, the two med techs were concerned about Wilsons methods, and they reported the incident to a supervisor, Cindy Robbins, around 12:30 p.m., according to an investigators notes.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the incident was reported to the sheriffs office. The call card for the incident stated The Residents daughter is abusing the resident and Resident was choked.

The two medical techs told deputies that they had witnessed Roxanne Wilson using a fork to force medication down her mothers throat and then pour water down her throat until she was gagging. One of the medical techs told deputies that Roxanne Wilson was screaming and cursing at her mother during the incident.

Youre going to take this damn medicine, Wilson said, according to the report.

This account was disputed by Wilson, who deputies found lying across the bed when they entered her mothers room. Deputies also noted that Dusenbury, who was seated in a wheelchair, said nothing had happened. However, it was noted in the report that Dusenbury had dementia.

The facilitys account was also disputed by Wilsons sister, Suzanne Carver, who arrived at the facility after the deputies and gave a statement.

Carver said that she was on the phone with her sister while she was attempting to give her mother medication. The sisters have power of attorney for their mother.

You (Wilson) said, mama here take these two pills. And you said, youve gotten em wet now youre gonna have to take em with water. And Mama said, no, I want coffee. And she put em in her mouth and you said, okay, were going to lunch. It was noon. I heard it on the phone, Im a witness, Carver said, according to the incident report.

In a supplemental incident report, Carleisha Gilliam, a sheriffs department investigator who was assigned the case on Oct. 2, wrote that Wilsons actions dont appear excessive from a reasonable perspective.

In making her determination, Gilliam indicated that, based on the medical techs statements, she believed that the fork was simply used to transfer the wet medication into her mouth. Wilsons use of the fork did not appear to be unusual, extreme or negligent, wrote Gilliam, a member of the special victims unit.

She also noted that when deputies arrived, Dusenbury did not appear to be in distress.

Gilliam also questioned why, if the facility was concerned about Dusenburys safety, law enforcement authorities were not notified immediately. It seems equally unusual that Mrs. Wilson was left alone with Mrs. Dusenbury, Gilliam wrote.

The facility alleged Mrs. Wilson of abuse for accomplishing what they had just been attempting to accomplish for themselves, with the only notable difference was that Mrs. Wilson was more persistent, and was alleged to have used harsher language while interacting with her mother.

Wilsons attorney Moore said, Roxanne looked like a crazy maniac based on the story you-all (The State Media Co.) wrote, but shes not  shes just a lady trying to take care of her momma.
Warrants have been granted to allow the forcible fitting of prepayment meters for the first time in months following a scandal over the practice.

A district judge has given Scottish Power permission to enter homes to fit meters after bills were unpaid.

But nothing will happen until approval has been given by energy regulator Ofgem. No supplier has yet satisfied all the criteria required.

Fitting was halted after agents broke into the homes of vulnerable people.

An investigation by The Times, exposing the actions of agents for British Gas, led to a public outcry.

The courts service also came under criticism for waving through batches of applications from suppliers.

Since February, no forced fittings of meters have taken place, and the regulator has drawn up a code of conduct that sets out what suppliers are required to do.

Delay before fittings resume

Some 124 applications were made by Scottish Power at Berkshire Magistrates Court, sitting in Reading, on Thursday.

The court heard details of a selection of cases in which customers had not paid energy bills, often having built up to more than 2,000 for gas and the same for electricity.

Representatives, speaking on behalf of Scottish Power, explained how numerous attempts were made to contact these customers by letter, email, text and by visiting the property.

District Judge Samuel Goozee granted all of the applications for a warrant to install meters.

However, in each case, Scottish Power vowed not to fit a meter if there was evidence when they entered the home that there was a high vulnerability risk in the household.

In each case, 30 would be credited to the prepayment meter when it was fitted.

No fittings can take place until approval has been given by the regulator in line with a certain set of conditions.

An Ofgem spokesman told the BBC: "Ofgem put a set of clear conditions in place, which suppliers must meet before they can restart the involuntary installation of prepayment meters. To date, no supplier has met those conditions and until they do no warrants to install a meter should be executed.

"We are aware that courts are running pilot schemes to test the application process for warrants. However, our expectation of suppliers is clear."

Under the conditions:

Suppliers must have an independent assessment to verify that they can keep to the rules

Companies must check for wrongfully installed meters and, if found, offer compensation and return the household to a standard meter

Companies' boards must be satisfied the conditions have been met

Regular monitoring data must be supplied to Ofgem

Separately, suppliers must prove to courts hearing warrant applications that they can keep to a code of conduct, set by Ofgem, which becomes mandatory on 8 November, and states that suppliers must have to make at least 10 attempts to contact a customer and conduct a "site welfare visit".

Meters should not be fitted:

when customers are over 75, unless someone younger also lives in the home

in households with children under the age of two

if anyone lives there with a terminal illness or certain conditions which would get worse in a cold home

The lead fitter would also have to wear body cameras or audio equipment.

Campaigners want a total ban on the force-fitting of prepayment meters. Such a ban would need to be introduced by government ministers.

"It is totally inappropriate for energy firms to be seeking to forced their way into people's homes to force them onto dangerous prepayment meters that leaves them at risk of disconnection and going without energy," said Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition.

Cost of living: Tackling it together

What can I do if I can't afford my energy bill?

Check your direct debit: Your monthly payment is based on your estimated energy use for the year. Your supplier can reduce your bill if your actual use is less than the estimation.

Pay what you can: If you can't meet your direct debit or quarterly payments, ask your supplier for an "able to pay plan" based on what you can afford.

Claim what you are entitled to: Check you are claiming all the benefits you can. The independent MoneyHelper website has a useful guide.

Read more here
Washington state is getting over $3.6 million in grants from the Department of Justice to help fund programs for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

The Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence will get $750,000 of that total, which will go toward services for survivors in rural areas in Skagit, Whatcom, Benton, Franklin, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties.

The Northwest Immigrants Rights Project will also get $500,000. Other funds will go to: Seattles Atlantic Street Center; Sheltons Turning Pointe Survivor Advocacy Center; Rentons Consejo Counseling and Referral Inc., and Normandy Parks Yarrow Project.

Nationally, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Oct. 19 is also acknowledged as Purple Thursday to bring awareness to survivors.

This comes on whats known nationally as Purple Thursday to bring awareness to survivors.

On this day when we wear purple to show support for the survivors of domestic violence, I am pleased to highlight the DOJ funding coming to Washington for the organizations that work to help and heal those who suffer abuse, Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said in a news release. The Office on Violence Against Women targets these federal dollars where they can do the most good, and it is a tribute to the quality of the programs in Washington that so many organizations successfully competed for these grants.
Videos show a wild police pursuit from over the weekend that landed a Cocoa man in jail.

The drivers wild ride started near Cocoa Beach, passed through a campus of Eastern Florida State College, and ended in Cocoa with four flat tires.

A Brevard County Sheriffs Office dash camera captured video of an orange Kia fleeing from deputies and Cocoa police late Sunday night through a campus of Eastern Florida State College.

Watch: Irate about it: Homeowner claims she paid for duct cleaning that never happened

Deputies said they first tried to stop the driver near the intersection of North Atlantic Avenue and the Cocoa Beach Causeway where he admitted to drinking.

The deputy was walking back to his car to run his license and see if it was valid, and those types of things he took off at a very high rate of speed driving very erratically, said Tod Goodyear with the Brevard County Sheriffs Office.

See: Hotdog! All 6 rescued dachshunds in Brevard County find forever homes

The pursuit went onto State Road 520 out of Cocoa Beach, through Merritt Island, and into the city of Cocoa, where local police joined the pursuit.

The pursuit finally came to an end near Clearlake Road and Minnie Drive, where 44-year-old Steven Hann was taken into custody.

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
[Source]

Popular travel vlogger Norm Nakamura unveils what he dubs "Japan's worst tiny apartment in his latest YouTube video.

The skinny apartment: Nakamura, who has reviewed a number of tiny apartments on his YouTube channel Tokyo Lens, takes viewers inside a jaw-droppingly small, triangle-shaped micro-apartment in Tokyo in his viral 10-minute clip.

Situated in the Nima area of Tokyo, the five-story structure resembles a slender triangle. Nakamura describes the property as "the skinniest free-standing apartment" he has ever seen.

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Maximizing limited space: Despite the limitations imposed by its narrowness, units in the apartment building boast some intriguing features. Measuring just 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) wide, a unit includes a compact kitchen, a surprisingly usable shower area and a bath. He also notes that while each floor or unit does have its own toilet space, residents must first go out of their units to access their bathroom.

Space limitations and a few odd room layouts notwithstanding, those looking for an affordable space can find the apartment a worthwhile choice as it only costs 40,000 yen ($267) per month to rent.

Noisiest too: Among the few drawbacks Nakamura cited is the noise level that permeates from the traffic outside.

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It's actually taken me a really long time to shoot this because this is one of the main streets of this area, and it is just filled with bikes and trucks and garbage trucks and stuff going through it all hours. This is probably, so far, the single noisiest apartment that I've had the opportunity to experience in Japan."

Netizens react: Since the video was uploaded on Oct. 8, it has amassed over 5.4 million times. Among the thousands of comments are users who found the apartment not ideal for normal living situations.

"This is one of the few tiny apartments that gets a 'nope' from me. I feel like Id be perpetually bruised from hitting things," one commenter wrote.

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"Thats scary, especially for a seismically active region like Japan," another pointed out.

"I know this is a 'feel-good' channel but this is the first tiny-apartment video that actually made me depressed," another said. "I really feel for people being forced to live like this."

Some, however, said they would be willing to give the space a try.

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"I'd live here, if only for a short period while I was in between other apartments or low on cash," commented a user. "I'd probably even look back with nostalgia at some parts, much later when I was living somewhere else. It's got a lot of charm and I think that raised closet is actually good because in such a small space it's nicer to have some built-in storage versus having to fit some form of dresser in. That toilet area would get real suffocating real quick, though."

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A water leak at Glendale Police Department's headquarters this summer dampened evidence in more than 1,000 cases, prompting police to notify prosecutors and start a detailed log of how that evidence was protected.

The leak took place on July 12, according to department spokesperson Randy Stewart in an email.

The multitude of cases affected ranged from homicides to sex crimes, among others, according to Stewart. He said knew that there were items affected by water damage in at least two homicide investigations.

Stewart said that items of evidence were packaged in boxes, plastic bags, and paper bags. Some items saw no problems, but a few that were packaged in paper bags needed to be dried out and repackaged, he said.

Typically, items that are wet or contain DNA-sensitive material such as blood are packaged in paper bags to give them time to dry and to prevent any mold forming. But Stewart said that in most of their affected cases, DNA evidence had already been extracted and already tested through the crime lab.

"The evidence is still there for all the cases, but some items had water damage affecting the original form of the evidence," Stewart explained.

It remains unclear the extent to which evidence was damaged, destroyed or tainted, if at all, and whether that affects how useful that evidence might be in court.

Glendale Police Assistant Chief Colby Brandt first brought up the issue to an August bond committee meeting.

"One leak that occurred overnight when the staff had gone home, one single leak. Last count, we have determined potentially affected nearly 1,000 cases. To what degree, some of that remains to be seen." Brandt said that multiple pipes in the building ran over the agency's property and evidence room and their forensics lab.

Stewart told The Arizona Republic that the agency believes the number announced at the August meeting has gone up.

Brandt used the incident as an example as to why voters should pass Glendale's ballot Question 2 in November. The bond would invest $78 million into public safety projects, including a new forensics lab and evidence storage facility. The current lab is nearly 40 years old.

Since the incident happened, Stewart said that the Maricopa County Attorney's Office was made aware of the situation and has been in contact with Glendale Police. He said that a detailed log of all personnel that were part of the leak cleanup and evidence preservation was kept, and documentation was made to ensure that each case was accounted for and processed correctly.

In response to whether Glendale Police have concerns about this incident, Stewart said that with any case, the department wants to make sure they do things right by preserving evidence, not contaminating it. That's because if they don't, they might lose credibility from who entrust them to do that task.

"We want the public and our partners in the judicial system to have faith and confidence that we are handling all cases appropriately," said Stewart.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Water leak at Glendale Police Department affects over 1,000 cases
A water main break is affecting traffic in Greene County.

>>Smoke, flames seen as firefighters battle fire at Dayton business

Superior Avenue (north of Dayton-Yellow Springs Road) is closed in both directions from Dayton Yellow Springs Road to Forest Street due to the water main break, the city wrote on social media.

The city is suggesting Miami Avenue as an alternate route to get around.

We will provide an update on when the road is reopened.




As the Biden administration kicks off a years-long negotiation process to divvy up the shrinking water supply of the Colorado River, there are finally some signs of optimism after several bleak years.

A record-breaking winter snowpack last year halted a precipitous downward spiral on the river and raised water levels at the nations two largest reservoirs, Lakes Mead and Powell.

But something else is also at play this year  farmers, cities and Native tribes are simply using less.

Arizona, California and Nevadas usage of Colorado River water has hit new lows, state officials and US Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton told CNN in an interview.

The record conservation is already seeing its impact within the reservoirs, Touton said. Its easy to see our success within the levels of the reservoirs we manage. Lake Powell has risen 52 feet since hitting a low point in February of this year, while Mead has risen nearly 23 feet since November.

Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton speaks during a news conference on Lake Mead at Hoover Dam in April. (AP Photo/John Locher) - John Locher/AP

Part of the reason is last winters blockbuster precipitation, which helped replenish levels in reservoirs across the West.

In California, southern cities like Los Angeles that are normally more dependent on Colorado River water have been able to pull more from its own refilled reservoirs like Lake Oroville.

Were not the only one, everyone is really backing off a lot, said Bill Hasencamp, the manager of Colorado River Resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves Los Angeles. It really surprised me, frankly.

Hasencamp told CNN the three lower-basin states have only used 5.8 million acre-feet this year of the 7.5 million acre-feet they are allotted annually.

Were pretty much at a sustainable level, Hasencamp said. It really gives hope for the future. Despite it being a wet winter, were going to do everything we can to reduce use and work with the feds.

With a crisis on the river avoided for now, states and the federal government are turning their attention to the future.

The Central Arizona Project flows through Phoenix in April 2023. - Will Lanzoni/CNN

On Thursday, the US Bureau of Reclamation released a report detailing the factors it will consider when negotiating with states, tribes and other water users over exactly how much water the river can provide to the ever-growing West in the coming decades.

High on that list is how the climate crisis and warming temperatures are impacting the entire basin, Touton told CNN.

The last 23 years have been the driest on record for the history of the Colorado River system, Touton said. Federal, state and tribal officials need to be able to take into account it is increasingly likely that it might be drier when making plans for how much water will be used in the future.

Basin states and tribes have already begun meeting privately to sketch out that future, but the process will take two years.

At stake are thorny issues, including the law of the river, which protects the priority water rights of California farmers and Native tribes, giving them first dibs on water over growing cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas. And some states have called for a harder look at water-intensive agriculture, including irrigation of alfalfa for livestock feed.

An aerial view of farm land in California's Imperial Valley in April 2023. - Will Lanzoni/CNN

Touton told CNN a solution will require all states and tribes to work together, and added she is confident in the partnership the federal government has with basin states and tribes to ensure reservoir levels at Mead and Powell will not crater again.

Inaction is not an option, Touton said. I am committed, along with the Biden Harris administration, to ensure we have a sustainable river not just for tomorrow, but a sustainable river into the future.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
During one of the busiest periods in the still early 2024 presidential campaign, White House hopefuls are making a civic pilgrimage to New Hampshire.

The Republican contenders are chatting with people at diners, coffee shops and bookstores. Some are trekking to the state capitol in Concord to sign their name at a historic desk to be on the ballot.

Others are sharing their messages through several town halls and other stops, including a GOP dinner that happens once every eight years.

Voters have a message, too: some of you need to drop out.

"Its still early. There's still a lot on that stage," said Laura Williams, a registered Republican from Rochester, N.H., who plans to vote in the primary. "Let some weed themselves out, and those that rise to the top, you know, well wait it out and see."

Whether Granite State natives or political tourists traveling across states lines to get a closer glimpse at the candidates, many are wishing for fewer options after what some called a disastrous second primary debate hosted by the Republican National Committee in California.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the Seacoast Media Group and USA TODAY Network 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Town Hall Forum held in the historic Exeter Town Hall in Exeter, New Hampshire. The entrepreneur spoke to prospective New Hampshire voters about issues during the hour-long forum.

"Frankly, I was put off by all their debate performances in the last one. They were all talking over one another," Vaughn Annis, a retired chemical engineer, told USA TODAY.

"The field was too crowded on that stage to get anything as a meaningful debate."

Annis, a registered Republican who hails from Henniker, N.H., hasn't made up his mind on a presidential candidate, but he is giving Nikki Haley , Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott closer attention.

A candidate he would like to see exit this race is former Donald Trump , the frontrunner with a commanding lead.

"Where I have voted in the past for him, I think Trump needs to step aside and let others move forward, younger people in the party that aren't as controversial," Annis said. "I think that would be helpful for not only the party but also the country."

Trump rules, but N.H. primary remains fluid

A USA TODAY/Boston Globe/Suffolk University survey of likely voters showed Trump at 49% with Haley, a former South Carolina governor, the closest rival at 19%.

The non-Trump voters say they are hoping one of the other Republicans can break through, but they are by no means certain that's possible.

Larry Provencher, a semi-retired artist in Exeter, N.H., fears Trump may be the Republican nominee, adding how he believes the former president "just lost a few upstairs."

Former US President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Windham High School in Windham, New Hampshire, on August 8, 2023.

He said when interacting with voters, the other candidates need to share their vision in detail and forget about the frontrunner.

"You know, like, Chris Christie, I think his main goal is to get Trump out. I want to hear what else you're gonna do," Provencher said.

Those in the anti-Trump camp said they are hoping if some of the other candidates exit, they will unite behind a single challenger. In the most recent example, former Rep. Will Hurd, of Texas, left the race and endorsed Haley.

Haley, a former UN ambassador, has surged in the New Hampshire poll ahead DeSantis, the governor of Florida who was once held as chief alternative to Trump.

Norman Stuart, a veteran and retired machine shop worker, attended a Haley event at the Rochester American Legion last week. He was impressed with her, but he remains undecided.

Oct 12, 2023; Exeter, NH, USA; Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks during the Seacoast Media Group and USA TODAY Network 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Town Hall Forum held in the historic Exeter Town Hall in Exeter, New Hampshire. The former Governor of South Carolina and former United States Ambassador to the United Nations spoke to prospective New Hampshire voters about issues during the hour-long forum.

Although Stuart said he was considering several of the candidates, who he declined to name, he stated emphatically: "I did not go to Wolfeboro to see Trump."

That provides a glimmer of light for the other Republicans, who hold out hope that despite Trump's strong standing in the polls, there are some signs the race is fluid.

Those surveyed in the Suffolk poll, for instance, are split 48%-44% when asked whether Trump's nomination was inevitable or whether some other candidate could win the nomination.

Nearly 4 in 10 said they might change their minds before the January primary.

But the Trump base is fiercely loyal, with 84% saying their minds were made up to back him and just 15% saying they might switch to someone else.

I know a lot of people don't like him. I don't like his personality. I think it stinks," said Ronald Sassi, of Chichester, N.H., who wants Trump to win. "But he doesn't have any lobbyists telling him what he has to be or beholden to them."

Independents giving single-digit candidates a shot

Jo-Ann Jacob, an independent from Exeter, N.H., doesn't want to rush in making a choice before she gets a chance to hear from more candidates.

Several of the Republican contenders are "too much" in the sense they brag about themselves or insult others. She prefers the more somber style of North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum or former Vice President Mike Pence, who she describes as more "down to Earth."

Both men are in the basement of the polling at 1%, according to the Suffolk University survey.

Other independent voters, who can participate in the New Hampshire GOP primary, said they aren't sure what to make of the current field yet.

At this point, I'm really unsure, Lynne Chase, a registered nurse who lives in Grantham, N.H., told USA TODAY.

Chase, who identifies as an independent, said she has "deep concerns" about the country's partisan divide, and how, "this is the pool that we have to select from."

"That's why I choose to remain a middle ground voter, she said.

Other voters said they are drawn toward Haley and Burgum because of their experience and record as their state's chief executive.

When you govern a state, you have a lot of experience in governing within a structure of government, Patricia Squires, a Republican from Wolfeboro, N.H., told USA TODAY.

Distaste of a Biden-Trump rematch

Many voters shared how they aren't crazy about the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024, but don't see a way to change that probability.

Rachel McKaig, a Democrat, said there is a general frustration that President Joe Biden will be the partys likely nominee come next November.

I genuinely wish we had another candidate, said McKaig, a University of New Hampshire graduate. "I just can't see him doing anything amazing over the next four years, because he hasn't done anything amazing in the past four years.

Republican presidential candidate Doug Burgum greets supporters after the Seacoast Media Group and USA TODAY Network 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Town Hall Forum.

Given its status as the "first-in-the-nation primary," New Hampshire draws a fair amount of out-of-state visitors.

Those voters said they were impressed with lesser-known candidates they had a chance to see in-person, but admit there is an underlying pessimism that makes it hard for others to take that contender seriously.

I just know that you look at the people who are ascending because that tends to continue," said John Sweeny, a retired appellate judge who came to New Hampsire from Hudson Valley in New York.

"The ones who were staying flat  it would take a miracle for something to happen that they're going to say, Oh, wow, you're wonderful. I didn't notice you before. Let me pay attention to you now," he added. "It just doesn't happen."

Shawn Rieke, a retired technician from Johnstown, Colo. who is vacationing in New England, waited outside the old State House for a glimpse of DeSantis after he filed.

People may not like Trump's "crudeness" or the personal attacks he makes, but they agree with him on many issues, he said. They also think the criminal charges against him are politically motivated.

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis greeting supporters outside of the New Hampshire Secretary of State offices after he filed paperwork at the New Hampshire State House to get on the New Hampshire 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot.

"At this point it looks like it's pretty much locked up," Rieke said. "It is what it is."

Republican Rachel Hannah Swift, 46, who comes from Hagerstown, Maryland said no one is happy with the prospect of a Biden-Trump re-match, and she has a unique response: Running for president herself.

As her colorful car blared pop music outside of the old State House, Swift said: "These politicians are kinda boring...They don't have a lot going on. I'm going to beat both of them."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Thin out the 2024 field? N.H. voters want more GOP candidates to exit
(CNN)  Ibrahim Wadi, 62, and his son Ahmad, 24, were on their way to a funeral for four Palestinians shot dead by Israeli settlers in their occupied West Bank community, when their car came under attack.

The father and son were driving through the small village of Qusra, just south of Nablus, which has become a focal point of violence over recent days, when they themselves were fired upon by armed settlers on Thursday. Family members told CNN that the men were transferred to a nearby hospital and died of their wounds soon after.

They are among at least 61 people, including children, to be killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, when Hamas launched its unprecedented, surprise assault on Israel, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health there. More than 1,250 have been injured.

Hamas attack has left more than 1,400 people dead in Israel, mostly civilian, with at least 199 believed to be held hostage inside Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel announced a complete siege of the enclave in response, carrying out widespread airstrikes across the Gaza Strip that left at least 3,478 people dead and threatening a ground invasion, according to the health ministry in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas. Meanwhile, tensions are mounting in the West Bank, where Palestinians have been killed in confrontations with both Israeli forces and settlers.

Hani Odeh, Qusras mayor, told CNN that settlers roam freely in the village under the protection of Israeli police. He said he had informed a member of COGAT, Israels Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, that he was going to attend the funeral, along with Ahmad and Ibrahim.

A few hours beforehand, the Israeli official told him to take a different route than the one they would usually take, to avoid settlers in the area. But to Odehs surprise, the road to which they were diverted was filled with settlers, who eventually shot and killed Ahmad and Ibrahim in their car.

Odeh told CNN he watched the attack happen from his own vehicle while Israeli soldiers patrolled the street. He went up to one officer, urging him to disperse the settlers, but no one did anything. He said it felt like a trap.

CNN reached out to COGAT and the IDF for comment on Odehs claims but have yet to receive a response.

Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli militarys spokesperson, said last week that the military was on high alert in the occupied territory, adding it was preparing to thwart any potential attacks. Anyone who challenges us in Judea and Samaria will be met with huge force, Hagari said, using the Jewish biblical names for the West Bank.

A surge of attacks

CNN spoke with residents in the West Bank who say they are fearful of a wave of violence from the Israeli military and security forces, as well as revenge attacks by the estimated 700,000 Israeli settlers living in the area. The latest killings come against the backdrop of a year in which the West Bank has seen a surge in settler attacks, including one that an Israeli military commander called a pogrom.

Even before the war with Hamas, the West Bank had been boiling. Following a wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis last year, Israel launched regular incursions and raids into the West Bank targeting what they said were militant strongholds. The resulting violence left a record number of both Palestinians and Israelis dead, numbers not seen in at least a decade.

Days after the deadly violence in Qusra, home to around 7,000 people, residents are still reeling. Photographs commemorating the six people who were killed plaster the walls of homes and buildings. A bleak emptiness fills the air.

Torched cars, broken water pumps and ransacked electricity lines surround an apartment building on the edge of the village where the first four killings took place. Inside the floor is littered with glass, and bullet marks scar the walls.

Armed settlers attacked the building on October 11, triggering calls for help from residents. When several neighbors arrived at the scene, the settlers opened fire and four people were shot dead: Musaab Abu Raidi, 19, Obaida Abu Srour, 18, Hassan Muhannad, 22, and Moath Odesa, 29.

Inside the apartment building, Rabeea, 19, and her brother, Abdulrahman, 12, watched with horror as the attack unfolded. The siblings, who asked that CNN not use their last name for fear of reprisals from Israeli settlers, recounted how settlers lobbed rocks and fired at the building as they hid inside with their mother.

Their older brother and his 6-year-old daughter were injured and receiving treatment at a hospital nearby. Odeh, the mayor, told CNN that they were among 12 people to be hospitalized after the attack.

Rabeea said her brother cant sleep at night; hes too scared to be alone. CNN met the family as they were packing up their things and getting ready to move to another village.

I feel so bad. I want to cry but, what can we do? she said. I want to stay here but we cant do anything.

Theyve been here before. Seven years ago, Rabeea and Abdulrahman said their father was shot dead by Israeli settlers near Nablus. The fear of being attacked forced their family to pick up and move to Qusra. Now, too scared to stay, they are being driven from their home again.

Since Israel took control and occupied the West Bank in 1967 from Jordan following the six-day war, the territory, which residents hope will form part of a future Palestinian state, has been settled by Israeli civilians, often under military protection.

Most of the world considers these settlements illegal under international law, but despite this successive Israeli governments have pledged support for them. Israel views the West Bank as disputed territory, and contends its settlement policy is legal.

This year, following the election of the most right-wing, extremist government in Israeli history under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, violence between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank flared.

As of mid-September this year, the United Nations had reported 798 settler-related incidents in the occupied territory, leading to 216 Palestinians injured. In the same period, Israeli forces killed 179 Palestinians in the West Bank.

The IDF says most are terror suspects or people engaging violently with its troops during raids, but does not offer evidence in every case for this assertion.

Settlers have long been accused of carrying out acts of violence against Palestinians. As well as killings, these attacks have included incidents of physical assault, property damage and harassment.

Odeh insisted their aim is to drive Palestinians from their home and ultimately from the occupied West Bank.

Record housing approvals

This year, in the wake of international criticism, Netanyahu instructed Jewish settlers not to grab land in the West Bank without the Israeli governments permission. But under his leadership, Israel has approved a record number of housing units in West Bank settlements.

Members of his far-right government, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who are themselves settlers, have been accused of inciting violence against Palestinians since taking power.

In the wake of Hamas attack on October 7, Palestinians are being subjected to tight restrictions on movement within the West Bank and between the West Bank and Israel, with Israeli military forces imposing a full closure of checkpoints and roadblocks, according to several residents who spoke to CNN.

Palestinians living in the West Bank told CNN the closure has significantly impacted their daily lives, restricting their ability to travel for work, school, medical treatment and other essential activities.

In a call with US President Joe Biden on Saturday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas demanded an end to settler attacks against people in Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank, while stressing the need to stop the killing of civilians on both sides.

At the home of Ibrahim and Ahmad, who lived a short drive away from the apartment building that was attacked in Qusra, and in full view of an encroaching Israeli settlement, their family  wives, daughters, and sisters  were in mourning on Sunday.

Thank God, we are strong. And God willing, we will continue to have strength and patience, Khitam Wadi, Ibrahims wife and Ahmads mother, told CNN.

My husband loved his land. He defended his land. And we will continue to do the same so long as we are alive, she added.

Evidently shaken, Khitam found it hard to describe her grief. But the younger women in the family, while in pain, were adamant on standing their ground.

Im sad, of course. This all affects me, but not to the extent that it weakens me. Weve been experiencing the same thing our entire lives, nothing has changed, Aseel, Ahmads sister and Ibrahims daughter, said.

This is our home. My dad taught me to love my land. I will teach my kids the same. And I will stay for as long as I live.

This story was first published on CNN.com. Gaza conflict spills into the West Bank as settler attacks and clashes leave dozens of Palestinians dead
Rep. Jim Jordan's speakership bid has been thwarted  for now.

It's the result of an unexpected revolt by Republicans you probably never hear about.

And it's a stunning turnaround for a party long driven by its loudest and most bombastic voices.

Kevin McCarthy's sudden ouster from the speakership was initiated by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of the most bombastic and media-hungry Republicans in Congress.

But two weeks later, Gaetz's preferred successor  Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio  is having his own speakership ambitions thwarted in a humiliating fashion by Republican holdouts who are suspicious of his tactics.

Call it the revenge of the Republicans you've never heard of  the ones who aren't regularly featured on Fox News, who don't have massive social media followings, and who aren't known for styling themselves as right-wing crusaders.

They're lawmakers facing competitive re-election races. They're members of the old guard. And they were stalwart allies of McCarthy when he was speaker.

They are what Gaetz has derisively deemed "NPCs"  an insult and video game reference that means "non-playable character"  due to their mild tempers and avoidance of bombast.

For now, Jordan's campaign to become House speaker has hit the skids, and the Ohio Republican endorsed the idea of temporarily granting more power to Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry  a mild-mannered Republican from North Carolina  though that plan also appears to be flailing.

If Jordan's speakership bid ultimately fails, it will signify a stunning turnaround for a party that's been in thrall to its loudest voices since the ascent of Donald Trump in 2015.

Rep. Austin Scott, candidate for speaker of the House

Perhaps the first sign of this revolt came last Friday, when Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia challenged Jordan for the GOP nomination for speaker.

Scott, an extremely low-profile House Republican who's been in Congress for more than 12 years, was among those who remained suspicious of Jordan's pugilistic tactics and his allies' derailment of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise's own bid for speaker, even after Scalise had won the nomination.

Rep. Austin Scott (@AustinScottGA08) October 13, 2023

It's worth underscoring just how low-profile Scott is.

One House Democrat told Insider that they had "never" heard of him before he announced a bid, and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado  one of the most celebrity-minded Republicans in the House  even liked a tweet declaring that "they're just making up congressmen" when Scott announced his bid.

The Georgia Republican announced his candidacy the day of the vote, did not do any sort of campaigning, and even told reporters that he wasn't really interested in the job.

81 House Republicans  more than a third of the conference  voted for him anyway.

Not the usual holdouts

This week, Jordan has struggled to win the approval of the holdouts in his conference. 20 House Republicans voted against him on Tuesday, 22 voted against him on Wednesday, and even more were expected to vote against him on a potential third vote.

When McCarthy struggled with a similar number of holdouts in January, they were some of the party's most bombastic, Trump-aligned members  Gaetz, Boebert, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, and so forth.

Jordan and Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the Republicans whos refusing to support him. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

With most of them being aligned with House Freedom Caucus, they had a relatively coherent set of demands in exchange for their votes  perhaps the most consequential of which was allowing just one member to call for McCarthy's ouster. Eventually, he gave it to them, and he managed to become speaker.

But this group of holdouts is different  none of them are particularly well-known outside of their districts.

They include:

Freshman New York Republicans who flipped Democratic seats in 2022, like Rep. Anthony D'Esposito.

Members of the Republican Governance Group, like Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas.

Members of the key committee in charge of government spending, like chairwoman Rep. Kay Granger of Texas.

In other words, they're an eclectic mixture, each of which have different grievances with Jordan. And some of them say they're facing intimidation and death threats for the refusal to back the Ohio Republican, who's been endorsed by Trump.

Backbenchers get ambitious as Jordan's media-driven tactics fail

Part of the issue for Jordan has been the way he went about all of this.

Rather than engage in lengthy deal-making, he has chiefly relied on the tactic of pressuring potential holdouts to vote for him, positioning himself as the choice of the Republican base as his allies direct angry calls and messages towards their offices.

That's even included apparent pressure from Sean Hannity, the Fox News personality who enjoys outsize influence in the Republican Party's media ecosystem.

In some cases, it appears to have backfired, with holdouts leaking the threatening text messages they've received while declaring that they won't bend to "intimidation and threats."

Rep. Kay Granger (@RepKayGranger) October 18, 2023

All in all, it's the strategy of someone who's long been ensconced in right-wing media, but less in the nitty-gritty of legislative deal-making. In fact, Jordan hasn't passed a single bill during his entire 16 years in Congress.

Meanwhile, Jordan's high-profile flailing  and Austin Scott's unexpectedly strong challenge  seems to be encouraging other no-name Republicans to come out of the woodwork.

Rep. Jack Bergman, a Republican congressman who represents Michigans upper peninsula and is flirting with a speakership bid. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

A spokesman for Rep. Jack Bergman  a Republican congressman who represents Michigan's Upper Peninsula  told multiple outlets in a statement that the congressman is being encouraged to run for speaker by some of his colleagues.

"If as a conference we see [Jordan] can't get the necessary votes to become Speaker, General Bergman is prepared to step up," said spokesman James Hogge.

And Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, another backbencher, has told multiple reporters that he may also run if Jordan goes down.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Several Russian Telegram channels reported the death of well-known Russian terrorist Aleksandr "Babai" Mozhayev in Ukraine.

Source: Russian Telegram channels; Ukraines Armed Forces officer Anatolii "Stierlitz" Shtefan on Telegram

Details: Reportedly, the militant was killed on the evening of 18 October on the Zaporizhzhia front.

For reference: Mozayev was 46 years old. He is a native of Belorechensk, Krasnodar Krai of the Russian Federation. Information about Mozhayev began to appear in 2014 when Russia occupied Ukraines Crimea.

He said as well that he came to fight in Ukraine in 2014: first to Crimea, then to Donbas.

The militant claimed that he went to fight in Ukraine for several reasons, particularly because he was accused of "attempted murder with a knife" in Russia and was wanted for allegedly refusing to pay a bribe.

Mozhayev

PHOTO: RUSSIAN TELEGRAM CHANNELS

He added that he was allegedly forced to flee from arrest on 7 March, at the height of Russia's invasion of Crimea. That is why he went to the peninsula.

He helped hold the siege of the Ukrainian military unit in Bakhchysarai and guarded the television tower in Crimea, together with the Cossacks of the Wolves' Hundred [a Russian paramilitary force  ed.].

Babai said that he served in the Russian armed forces. But he retired in the mid-90s.

He captured Slovyansk together with terrorist Igor Girkin's gang in 2014.

Girkin stated that a large group of Cossacks including Babai had deserted from the so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic in 2014.

In the fall of 2014, it was reported that Mozhayev was looking in Simferopol for militant reinforcements in Donbas.

Mozayev said in 2015 that he entered Donbas in September 2014, and before the New Years Eve he was forced to leave there because the Cossacks "were asked to leave, and were told: if you want to live, then go."

At the same time, he said that he planned to return to Donbas to join the militants.

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Funeral of a Palestinian who was killed by Israeli forces, near Ramallah

Funeral of a Palestinian who was killed by Israeli forces, near Ramallah

By Ali Sawafta and John Davison

RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Violence in the occupied West Bank has surged since Israel began bombarding the Gaza Strip and clashing with Hezbollah at the Lebanon border, fuelling concerns that the flashpoint Palestinian territory could become a third front in a wider war.

Israel is waging war against the militant Hamas group in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, but Israeli soldiers and settlers pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Israel still occupies the West Bank, captured along with Gaza in a 1967 Middle East war.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, killed more than 1,400 people in a surprise attack in Israel on Oct. 7, prompting an Israeli bombardment that has killed 3,500 in Gaza. Israel is preparing a full-scale ground assault on Gaza to destroy Hamas.

Western countries supporting Israel fear a wider war that would open up Lebanon, with its Iran-backed group Hezbollah, as a second front and the West Bank as what Israeli media call a potential third front.

Clashes between Israeli soldiers and settlers and Palestinians have already turned deadly. More than 80 Palestinians have been killed in West Bank violence since Oct. 7 and Israel has arrested more than 900 people. It conducted fresh overnight and dawn raids on Friday and detained scores more.

Israeli forces raided and carried out an air strike in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank on Thursday, killing at least 12 people, Palestinian officials said, and Israeli police said an officer was killed during the raid.

The violence poses a challenge to both Israel and to the Palestinian Authority (PA), the only Palestinian governing body recognised internationally which is headquartered there.

The Israeli military said it was on high alert and bracing for attacks including by Hamas militants in the West Bank.

Hamas was trying to "engulf Israel in a two- or three-front war", including the Lebanese border and the West Bank, military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told Reuters. "The threat is elevated," he said.

'GIVE PEOPLE WEAPONS. LET THEM CLASH'

In Ramallah, rare chants this week supporting the military wing of Hamas - a rival of the PA's ruling Fatah party - showed a growing appetite for armed resistance.

"Give people weapons. Let them clash. We'll show what we can do," said Salah, a 20-year-old demonstrator who gave only his first name.

Fatah official Mowafaq Sehweel told Reuters: "We should let go of the reins and use whatever means to fight occupation."

Others are less ready to fight.

Nizar Mughrabi, owner of an architecture firm, said he was disgusted by Israel's assault on Gaza but not ready to pick up a gun.

"Netanyahu wants to fight, Haniyeh wants to fight - put them in the desert with guns and let them shoot each other," he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Palestinian officials and Israeli analysts say a number of factors are both helping to ignite tensions, but conversely also limiting their scope, for now.

One is the hundreds of arrests Israel has made.

Hamas cited attacks on West Bank Palestinians and arrests this year as part of its reason for attacking on Oct. 7.

But the arrests have also limited West Bank violence, said Salah al-Khawaja, a 52-year-old anti-settlement activist.

"In Gaza, there's enough time (for Hamas) to organise militarily," he said. "Here, the occupation (Israel) can clamp down on a daily basis. It leaves no space to build up military or political forces."

WEST BANK A COMPLEX PATCHWORK

While Hamas tightly controls besieged Gaza, the West Bank is a complex patchwork of hillside cities, Israeli settlements and army checkpoints that split Palestinian communities.

Israel occupied the territory in 1967 and has divided it into large areas it controls, small areas where Palestinians have full control and areas where Palestinians and Israeli forces divide civil and security duties.

Between the seat of power in Ramallah and poorer peripheral areas, there are multiple views on the benefits of violence.

Desperate young men in refugee camps are more willing to fight than those in Ramallah where businessmen and senior Palestinian officials stand to lose from a spiral of violence.

"My business is already suffering because of the unrest," Mughrabi said.

Another key factor in stemming violence is Israel's security agreement with 87-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas's PA.

Abbas condemned Israel's assault on Gaza while his security forces cracked down on demonstrations. Fatah has not issued public calls for armed resistance.

"The PA wants to keep peace and is worried that marches of thousands of people could quickly turn into hundreds of thousands," said Palestinian political analyst Hani al-Masri.

He added that PA officials do well financially and rely on arrangements with Israel to get paid.

Should Abbas lose his grip or become ill in his old age, the situation could deteriorate, he said.

'LONE WOLVES'

Lior Akerman, a former officer in Israel's internal security service the Shin Bet, said fears over West Bank unrest predated the Hamas war.

Hamas for years had been trying to "do all it can to activate terrorists in the West Bank," he said.

Akerman acknowledged, however, that security measures had been tightened since the Gaza bombardment began, saying that the most recent round of arrests might not have happened under normal circumstances.

"Last night the army ... took around 100 terrorists in the West Bank. In regular days ... the Shin Bet would arrest only those they knew were preparing terror attacks," he said.

One worry for Israel in the West Bank is "lone wolf" attacks from among Palestinians who have disparate local loyalties but an overall contempt for Israeli occupation, analysts say.

Recent surveys have shown overwhelming public support among Palestinians for armed groups, including local militias that include members from traditionally separate factions.

Even before the current Gaza crisis, the West Bank had seen a surge in violence.

Israel stepped up military raids and a spate of Palestinian attacks targeted Israelis. The 2023 Palestinian death toll until Oct. 7 was over 220 and at least 29 people in Israel had been killed, according to UN records.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, John Davison in Jerusalem; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Howard Goller)
New York Governor Kathy Hochul visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2023. Hochuls father died overnight while she was touring wartime Israel, with the teary-eyed governor slipping a note grieving the loss into Jerusalems Western Wall holy site. (Shlomi Amsalem/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)

JERUSALEM (AP)  The New York governor's father died overnight while she was visiting wartime Israel, with the governor slipping a note grieving her loss into Jerusalems Western Wall holy site on Thursday.

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul learned of her 87-year-old father John Courtney's sudden death from a brain hemorrhage in Florida as she embarked on the second day of a trip to show support for Israel during its war with Hamas.

At the Western Wall, Hochul appeared to wipe away a tear before placing a handwritten note with prayers for Israel and for her father into a crack in the limestone wall.

Hochul told reporters she spoke to her father from the airport just before she departed for Israel earlier this week, a small smile peeking through as she recalled how he still talked in his gruff Irish way.

He said, Im proud of you, Dolly, but keep your goddamn head down, Hochul said.

The governors sojourn comes as the Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for a bloody cross-border massacre by Hamas militants in southern Israel almost two weeks ago.

Gaza's Health Ministry said Thursday that 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded since the outbreak of the war.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed and roughly 200 others were abducted and taken into Gaza by Hamas.

Hochul met with Israeli families displaced by the conflict, and heard painful stories from families of American citizens taken hostage by Hamas and from Israelis who have been wounded during the fighting. She also held meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israels ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, reiterating New York's solidarity with Israel.

As the state with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, New York and Israel share a bond that will never be broken, Hochul posted on X, formally Twitter.

A nonprofit organization is funding travel costs for Hochul and her staff, and the state is covering the costs for her security detail, according to the governors office.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, flew to Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that offered support for the Israeli people and urged the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israeli airstrikes have pounded locations across the besieged Gaza Strip, including parts of the south that Israel had declared as safe zones. The attacks on Thursday have heightened fears among more than 2 million Palestinians trapped in the territory that nowhere was safe. More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory.
The White House took aim Thursday at House Republicans ongoing struggle to elect a Speaker, calling on the party to get their act together.

Andrew Bates, a deputy press secretary, contrasted the House GOPs infighting that has stalled the chamber with President Bidens focus on various issues in the wake of a wartime trip to Israel to show support for the U.S. ally.

The Biden spokesman credited the president with leading and standing up for our national security interests on the world stage while House Republicans continue their downward spiral into chaos and away from governing.

The House GOPs backbiting and competition to out-extreme each other is also surfacing hardline positions that the American people have solidly rejected again and again, Bates said in a memo distributed to reporters. Including dangerous conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, radical abortion bans, and cuts to Medicare and Social Security.

Bates cited a Speaker candidate forum last week in which neither Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) nor Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) would outright say Biden won the 2020 presidential election legitimately.

He also highlighted an introduction of Jordan as a Speaker nominee this week in which Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) cited Jordans willingness to reform programs like Medicare and Social Security to rein in the national debt.

As President Biden acts to make America more secure, grow our economy for the middle class, and protect our freedoms, House Republicans are falling over one another to find out who can be the most erratic and out of step with the priorities of working families, Bates said. They need to get their act together and join this president at the adults table.

The White House has largely stayed out of the chaos that has engulfed the House since Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted as Speaker, arguing it is up to members to determine the path forward.

Jordan is expected to back a resolution to empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) as he continues to work to shore up support for his Speaker bid.

But White House officials have in recent days been more outspoken about the standstill in the chamber because of House Republicans inability to rally behind one Speaker candidate, seeking to draw a contrast with Bidens agenda.

The president was asked Wednesday while flying back to Washington from Tel Aviv whether he had a view of Jordans issues securing the Speakership.

I ache for him, Biden quipped, declining to weigh in further.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
President Joe Bidens commitment to Israel was tested on the eve of his visit to Israel Wednesday. Hours prior to his arrival, a blast shook a hospital in Gaza. Hundreds were initially reported dead.

Hamas officials blamed the explosion on an Israeli airstrikea narrative quickly reported by major news outlets across the world. Rioting swept the Middle East as demonstrators took to U.S. and Israeli embassies and consulates in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and elsewhere to oppose the alleged Israeli war crime. In his own apparent protest, Jordanian King Abdullah II canceled a four-way summit with Biden and the leaders of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority that had been scheduled for Wednesday.

But the Biden administration wasnt as quick to assign blame. After landing in Israel as planned, the president publicly confirmed the assessment of Israeli officials and independent researchers: The blast had likely been caused by a stray rocket launched by Islamic Jihad, a Gaza-based terrorist group.

Its just the latest example of the continuing trend since Hamas terrorists massacred Israelis civilians on October 7: the Biden administrations continuing, steadfast support for the United States longtime regional ally.

I come to Israel with a single message: You are not alone, Biden said from Tel Aviv on Wednesday, when he became the first head of state to visit the embattled country since fighting broke out. It echoed the message of Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his own visit to Israel last week.

Biden also announced plans for an unprecedented aid package to Israel and promised to keep Israels Iron Dome air defense system supplied. His approach hasnt gone unnoticed in Israel, but the Biden administration hopes the fact that its backing up its diplomatic support with military muscle also gets the attention of Israels adversaries. My message to any state or any other hostile actor thinking about attacking Israel remains the same as it was a week ago: Dont, Biden said Wednesday.

In addition to sending a rapid response force of 2,000 Marines, the U.S. has deployed two Navy aircraft carriersthe USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R. Fordand their strike groups to the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The bolstered military presence is a very visible symbol of U.S. support, said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign Service. It is a way of sending a message to Iran and others who might want to make this into a regional conflict and trying to deter them. So thats a less rhetorical form of support and a more pointed one.

Bidens trip comes amid continued uncertainty over whether Israels neighbor to the north, Iran-backed Hezbollah, will join the conflict. The groups leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has threatened to attack Israeland backed that threat up with sporadic missile fire along the northern borderbut has thus far shied away from full involvement. Still, the risk of escalation remains high as both sides test the others redlines. The destruction wrought by Israels campaign against Hamas also threatens to pull in Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups. And as civilian casualties mount in Gaza, it may also become more difficult for the U.S. to sustain its current level of public support for Israel.

U.S. officials have reportedly pressed Israel about its plan for Gaza, urging it not to topple its current leadership without a clear plan for the future. In a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, Biden said it would be a mistake for Israeli forces to reoccupy Gaza. Israel, for its part, has denied its interest in doing so. But its stated goal of defeating Hamas could mean a number of things, from taking out the terrorist groups top fighting echelon to giving the people of Gaza a viable alternative.

If youre talking about just taking out the top leadership, and taking out the infrastructure thats supporting them and allowing them to be the lethal organization they are, that doesnt have to take long, Enia Krivine, director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Israel program, told The Dispatch. I think that Israel can achieve its short-term goals within a couple of weeks. But the long-term goals of dismantling Hamas and all of its leadership and systemsthat will take longer.

A prolonged war could add to the ranks of the few, mostly leftwing American voices opposing support for Israel. Anti-Israel rallies have already erupted in cities and on college campuses across the country as demonstrators protest the wars toll on Palestinians.

And the grassroots movements have allies in Congress. In the aftermath of Hamas attack, progressive members of the House of Representatives were quick to call for a ceasefire and the cessation of U.S. aid to Israel. The day of the massacre, Rep. Cori Bush demanded an end to U.S. government support for Israeli occupation and apartheid. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, likewise, blamed Israel for the attack and called for the dismantling of the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.

So far, the Biden administration has had little patience for the anti-Israel sentiment emanating from its own party. We believe theyre wrong, we believe theyre repugnant, and we believe theyre disgraceful, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week, asked about the statements from progressive House members. Our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds, hundreds of Israelis. There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.

Ironically, the administrations approach may serve the Palestinians better than those of their self-assigned congressional advocates. U.S. officials are likely to get further in pressing Israelis for humanitarian solutions in Gazasuch as allowing the passage of aid shipments and creating safe zones in the stripif Israel is convinced of full U.S. support overall. Biden on Wednesday announced a $100 million humanitarian aid package to displaced Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, claiming the U.S. had the mechanisms in place to make sure its not redirected into the hands of terrorists. And Netanyahu pledged to seek to minimize civilian harm during the presidents visit.

By embracing Israel, Biden may have more leverage, Byman said. Theres more trust in Biden that he is committed to the security of Israel, and as a result, when he asks for things, I think itll be better received.

Progressives in the U.S. arent alone in their skepticism of Israel. Comments by Republican presidential contenders may put in doubt the GOPs longstanding support for Israel. Chief among them is former President Donald Trump, who railed against Netanyahu at a recent campaign event. Ill never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing, he said last week, claiming that Israel backed out of the U.S. killing of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani in 2020 (former U.S. officials have since pushed back on Trumps recollection of the operation). The GOP frontrunner went on to call Hezbollah very smart.

Another presidential hopeful, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, has gone after his fellow candidates for their strong backing of Israel. Speaking to Tucker Carlson on X, Ramaswamy accused Nikki Haley of demonstrating selective moral outrage over the Hamas attack. He and Trump are among the growing number of Republicans who have advocated for a smaller U.S. role in global affairs.

Some elements in the Republican Party are increasingly isolationist. And that troubles Israel, because the longstanding position of Israel is whats best for Israel is whats best for America. The best thing for Israel is a strong U.S. with a strong economy and a strong foreign policyand thats been true for decades, Krivine said. So I think that if we do see a sort of Vivek Ramaswamy or more of an isolationist candidate getting into the White House, I do think that that does not bode well for the future of Israel or the world order as we know it.

But in the immediate term, Americas vocal backing of Israels right to self defense may be a boost on the battlefield. Theres a wall-to-wall feeling right now of American support, Krivine added. For Israelis, especially Israelis wearing the uniform, that is a very, very rare experience.

Click here for more coverage of the war in Israel.

Read more at The Dispatch

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Update: Following a Republican Caucus meeting, the proposed plan to install Rep. Patrick McHenry as a temporary speaker has been abandoned.

If you havent heard of Rep. Patrick McHenry , the North Carolina Republican who is serving as speaker pro tempore of the House, thats partly by design.

Although McHenry has been in office since 2005 and quickly made a name for himself as a reliably partisan TV guest, he then pivoted to a more traditional path to power, making friends among the party establishment.

Speaking to Yahoo News in 2019 about his earliest days in Congress, McHenry called himself the classic young man in a hurry.

My first three years I did everything wrong you can do wrong as a member of Congress that is neither unethical nor illegal. I was going to be a warrior. ... Basically, Im going to fight Democrats, said McHenry, who was 29 when he first took office.

Any [cable TV] request I would take. I would speak on the House floor, it didnt matter what it was about. My first three years in Congress, I spoke more than I did the next eight.

How he got here

Speaker pro tempore of the House Patrick McHenry. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) (CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag)

McHenry landed in this position due to a post-Sept. 11 continuance-of-government plan that required the speaker of the House to have a list of replacements ready in case the position became open.

When Rep. Kevin McCarthy was ousted on Oct. 3, McHenry was at the top of his list. Although McHenry immediately took over as the speaker pro tempore, he has had little actual power since then, beyond overseeing the election of the next speaker.

Explaining his decision to reporters on Thursday, McCarthy said, I wanted somebody who had been committee chairs. I wanted somebody that wasnt seeking the job because their role was to carry it out and put it. I wanted somebody that could work with all sides, and McHenry is ideal for all that.

Republicans have been unable to settle on a choice to succeed McCarthy.

House Republicans first selected Rep. Steve Scalise for the job, but his nomination was quickly scuttled by more right-wing members of the caucus who wanted Rep. Jim Jordan. Then when Scalise withdrew and Jordan won the nomination, his path was blocked by moderates.

A political lifer

Rep. Jim Jordan, right, confers with McHenry on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

A close McCarthy ally and relative moderate among GOP lawmakers, McHenry took over the gavel as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee earlier this year after two terms as its ranking member. However  unlike McCarthy, Scalise and Jordan  he was not one of the 147 Republicans in Congress who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Beyond the fact that voting against certification of legally submitted electors would violate the oath I took to our Constitution, I also have serious concerns about the precedent these actions could set were they to succeed, he said at the time.

McHenry holds many conventional conservative opinions on social issues, but is still considered to be less of a culture warrior than more well-known Republican House members like Jordan or Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

After working in President George W. Bushs administration for Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao  the wife of Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell  McHenry won a competitive primary in a heavily Republican district before his first election to Congress in 2004. A vast majority of his campaign support comes from corporate entities and other wealthy donors, including major Wall Street firms. He has also been friendly with the crypto industry.
Boone Mayor John Slight poses in front of City Hall Monday, Oct. 18, 2021.

Boone will elect a new mayor for the first time in 20 years, as Mayor John Slight is not seeking reelection in the Nov. 7 city-school election.

Three candidates are on the mayoral ballot. Elijah Stines, currently the third ward city council representative, is competing against Tracy Anderson and Denny Hamman.

In the fourth ward, incumbent Terry Moorman is being challenged by newcomer Patrick Shaw.

Incumbent Kyle Angstrom is running unopposed as the at-large candidate for the Boone City Council.

In the second ward, incumbent Cory Henson is running unopposed.

More: How to vote in Iowa's 2023 city and school elections, including early voting and absentee ballots

Who is running for Boone school board?

Three incumbents are running unopposed for three at-large school board seats in the Boone Community School District.

Current members Pamela Nystrom, Matthew Elthon and Patricia Thieben are on the ballot.

More: School board elections: Who's running in Story County school districts?

Ronna Faaborg is a reporter for the Ames Tribune. Reach her at rlawless@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Here's who's running in the Boone city and school elections
Los Angeles General Medical Center restrains inpatients in its psychiatric unit at a rate higher than any other hospital in California  and more than 50 times the national average for inpatient psychiatric facilities, a Times analysis of federal data from 2018 to 2021 found.

So why havent regulators raised alarms over these sky-high restraint rates?

High rates of restraining psychiatric inpatients do not automatically spur any action by federal authorities, California hospital regulators or the Joint Commission, a nonprofit agency that accredits L.A. General and many other hospitals. There is no industry standard on what amounts to a concerning rate of restraint at a psychiatric facility.

Vincent S. Staggs, a senior scientist at the clinical research firm IDDI who has studied restraint rates at hospitals across the country, worries that as a result, hospitals could persist with approaches that result in unacceptably high rates of restraint without realizing that their practices are extreme.

There just arent norms or guidelines ... for facilities to know what is an appropriate, or at least a typical, rate, said Staggs, who is also a former professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas Citys medical school.

Read more: Strapped down: Psychiatric patients are restrained at sky-high rates at this L.A. hospital

The California Department of Public Health, which regulates acute care hospitals and acute psychiatric hospitals, does not track restraint use on psychiatric patients at the hospitals it licenses despite a 2003 law ordering state regulators to do so.

The law required the state agency to track restraint only if its budget could accommodate it, but no additional funds were ever allocated to the agency, according to the state public health department. An agency spokesperson said it does not monitor federal data on restraint to initiate hospital investigations.

The state agency also said it does not receive monthly reports filled out by hospitals on restraint use. That stands in contrast to how another state agency monitors restraint rates at a different set of mental health providers, including psychiatric health facilities.

The Department of Health Care Services said that it does get those monthly reports for the psychiatric facilities that it licenses and would conduct a "focused compliance review" if one of them documented a high frequency of restraints. Federal data show that DHCS-regulated inpatient facilities all reported relatively low levels of restraints in recent years.

Hospitals may be faulted by state Department of Public Health investigators for specific lapses involving restraints: The agency carries out routine relicensing surveys and conducts inspections in response to complaints or when hospitals report serious issues that affect patient care.

For instance, state investigators looking into a complaint recently faulted L.A. General after finding patients in a medical unit on its main campus with all of the side rails on their beds up, a restraint practice for which it did not have a written policy, increasing the risk it could be used inappropriately, according to the state findings.

L.A. General officials said government regulators had consistently found restraint use at its Augustus F. Hawkins Mental Health Center in Willowbrook to be in line with state and federal rules.

Then there are hospital accreditors. County officials said a recent accreditation survey by the Joint Commission had not faulted restraint use at L.A. General and gave us the highest praise for performance.

Read more: How we investigated the use of restraints on psychiatric patients

But the details of that assessment are not available to the public. The county denied a Times request for the survey documents, and a spokeswoman for the accrediting agency said any information about a health organization that is not published on its website is confidential.

Restraint rates at L.A. General have soared despite the fact that decades earlier, driving down the use of physical restraints became an urgent focus for federal lawmakers and agencies.

In the wake of a 1998 series in the Hartford Courant, which tallied scores of deaths related to restraints and seclusion across the country, outraged lawmakers sought reforms. Government investigators called for new standards and safeguards, as well as regular reporting on restraint use.

Nearly a decade ago, federal regulators announced that information about restraint rates in psychiatric units would be readily available to the public online, empowering patients and their families to make informed decisions about their psychiatric care.

But that data itself can be faulty. Errors in the federal restraint data can go uncorrected for years, resulting in flawed information being provided to patients and families looking online at restraint data.

The Times found that federal authorities have publicly reported a dramatically lower restraint rate for L.A. General in 2016 and 2017 than in other years. The reason: The restraint hours were divided by a huge number of days spent by patients at the psychiatric unit, more than 20 times higher than in other years.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which collects the data, and the L.A. County Department of Health Services, which submitted the data, each pointed to the other for the apparent error. The uncorrected data remain on a federal website that includes information about hospital restraint rates.

That leaves local oversight. In L.A. County, there was an effort more than a decade ago to press local hospitals to reduce how often they restrain psychiatric patients.

Read more: How often are psychiatric patients restrained at your local hospital?

At the time, the countys Department of Mental Health compared the frequency and duration of restraints at different hospitals, using monthly reports turned in by the facilities. Back then, L.A. General Medical Center, then known as L.A. County-USC Medical Center, was restraining psychiatric inpatients less often than other county facilities and several local private hospitals, department data show.

But in recent years, as the rate of restraining psychiatric inpatients at L.A. General soared, reducing restraint use hasnt been a focus for the mental health department, said its director, Lisa Wong.

The agency still receives monthly reports on restraint use, but until recently it would dig deeper only if something really stands out or if a complaint were submitted, she said. A department spokesperson said the agency has been reviewing the reports every three years.

Wong said she decided to take a closer look last year, after The Times submitted requests for public records about L.A. Generals use of restraints. In March, she said, the department was setting up a system to review the data each quarter so that we can spot a trend before it becomes a bigger deal. As of late September, her agency had not implemented that new process, according to a department spokesperson.

Wong said that she felt satisfied with the explanations from L.A. General about its unusually high rates after learning that a small subset of patients drove up its restraint hours, among other factors.

Amid growing attention in healthcare to racial and ethnic disparities in treatment, researchers have found that in some settings, Black patients have been more likely than non-Black patients to be physically restrained.

L.A. General said its own internal analysis found that in its psychiatric unit, the racial and ethnic breakdown of patients who were restrained "largely mirrors" the makeup of the unit in recent years.

But the high rates of restraint at a hospital that disproportionately treats patients from marginalized communities  including Black people, unhoused people and people who have been incarcerated  trouble Patrisse Cullors.

Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Global Network, recounted how more than a decade ago her brother Monte was reluctant to go to L.A. General for psychiatric treatment because he was terrified of being restrained.

She said he was restrained multiple times at the hospital, despite her urging staff there to avoid restraining him because of his past trauma.

After that experience, she said, Id never send him back there again.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
FOND DU LAC  Wisconsin Department of Justice released an update Oct. 19 on the Drury Place shooting from Oct. 14.

At almost 6 a.m. that morning, city police officers and county deputies responded to a disturbance involving weapons in the 500 block of Drury Place. Deputy Blaine Evans located Kyle Massie, 34, inside a vehicle, after which Massie and Evans exchanged gunfire.

Massie was treated for injuries but died on scene.

Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Office police dog Iro was seriously injured during the incident and treated at a veterinary hospital.

Related: Fond du Lac comes together after Drury Place shooting; police dog Iro is recovering

Evans, who has five years of law enforcement service, was equipped with body-worn and squad cameras and has been placed on administrative leave, per agency policy.

The police dog is still recovering, according to the Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.

The DOJ's Division of Criminal Investigation is still investigating the incident with assistance from the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory, the Wisconsin State Patrol and a DCI Crime Response Specialist. All involved law enforcement are cooperating with DCI during this investigation, a news release said.

After the investigation, the DCI will turn over all investigative reports to the Fond du Lac County district attorney.

Stolen vehicle arrest: Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Office recovers stolen vehicle in high-risk traffic stop at Festival Foods

Evans has been police dog Iro's handler since April 2022. The police dog has been deployed with him 143 times, resulting in locating 417 grams of marijuana, 105 grams of cocaine, 4.4 grams of heroin, 444 grams of fentanyl, 64 grams of methamphetamine, 326 grams of psilocybin (mushrooms), 215 prescription pills, 12 guns; participating in numerous searches for missing persons and fleeing suspects; and seizing more than $1,500 in cash.

Contact reporter Daphne Lemke at dlemke@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Fond du Lac shooting on Drury Place: Wisconsin DOJ releases names
(CNN)  A day after a deadly blast tore through Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, sparking protests across the region, the United States has released its own assessment of what caused the devastation.

Israel has laid out evidence that it said shows a misfire by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast, and US President Joe Biden on Wednesday backed that explanation, citing US intelligence. A spokesperson for the US National Security Council later said that analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts, and open-source information suggested that Israel is not responsible.

Palestinian officials and several Arab leaders nevertheless accuse Israel of hitting the hospital amid its ongoing airstrikes in Gaza. Islamic Jihad  a rival group to Hamas  has denied responsibility.

Hundreds are believed to have died in the attack, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, and images of the bloody aftermath have spurred protests across the region.

Heres a look at what we know  and dont know  so far.

What happened at the hospital?

Video of the moment of the blast at the Al-Alhi Baptist Hospital, geolocated by CNN, shows the sky light up as a large explosion erupts on the hospital grounds, sending a cloud of flame and smoke into the air.

In the building, there was panic. Dr. Fadel Naeem, head of the orthopedic department, said he was performing surgery when a deafening blast sounded through the hospital. He said panic ensued as staff members ran into the operating room screaming for help and reporting multiple casualties.

He told CNN in a recorded video: I just finished one surgery and suddenly we heard a big explosion, we thought its outside the hospital because we never thought that they would bomb the hospital.

After he left the theater, Dr. Naeem said he found an overwhelming scene. Many people were beheaded. Everywhere there was a big fire, he said. The medical team scrambled to tend to the wounded and dying, but the magnitude of the devastation was overwhelming. The number was big and huge that we cant do anything.

While it is difficult to independently confirm how many people died in the blast, the bloodshed could be seen in images from the aftermath shared on social media. In photos and videos, young children covered in dust are rushed to be treated for their wounds. Other bodies lay lifeless on the ground.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza has said the death toll is over 400.

What the Israelis and Palestinians have said

Palestinian officials blamed Israel for the attack on Tuesday evening.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told CNN on Wednesday that the first packet of information was evidence that clearly supports the fact that it could not have been an Israeli bomb.

Israel says that its intelligence shows a failed rocket launch by the Islamist militant group Islamic Jihad group was responsible. The Islamic Jihad movement denied those assertions as false and baseless.

The IDF also released audio that it claimed captured a conversation between two Hamas operatives in which they spoke of a rocket launch from a cemetery near the hospital. According to an IDF translation of the conversation, one of the alleged operatives says: They are saying that the shrapnel of the missile is local shrapnel and not like the Israeli shrapnel.

CNN cannot verify the authenticity of the recordings.

On Tuesday, the IDF presented imagery that it says proves the destruction at the hospital could not have been the result of an airstrike, saying there were no visible signs of craters or significant damage to buildings that would result from such a strike.

A video posted by the official State of Israels account on social media platform X on Tuesday night was also presented as evidence that the hospital was struck in outgoing rocket fire from militants. But the timestamp on the video appeared not to match up with the time that the explosion took place, and the tweet was later edited to remove the video.

Israel Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat told CNN: We received the video, we thought it was from an official source but when we contacted him he said he got it from somewhere else, so we took it off.

On Wednesday, officials in Gaza also claimed that the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was damaged by two Israeli shells four days ago, after which the IDF warned the hospitals management to evacuate the premises. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on the claim.

What US intelligence suggests

The US government currently assesses that Israel was not responsible for the blast, according to the US National Security Council (NSC).

Biden, who was making a high-stakes visit to Israel on Wednesday, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the damage at the hospital appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.

But theres a lot of people out there not sure, so weve got a lot  weve got to overcome a lot of things, Biden added.

The US NSC on Wednesday afternoon leaned further into its assessment: Intelligence indicates that some Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip believed that the explosion was likely caused by an errant rocket or missile launch carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The militants were still investigating what had happened, spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

Officials told CNN separately that the initial evidence gathered by the US intelligence community suggests that the hospital strike came from a rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

Among the evidence is a blast analysis that suggests it was a ground explosion rather than an airstrike that hit the hospital, one of the sources said. There was no singular crater suggesting there was a bomb, but there was extensive fire damage and scattered debris that is consistent with an explosion starting from the ground level, according to the source.

That analysis is one data point thats led intelligence officials to lean toward assessing that the attack on the hospital was a rocket launch gone wrong.

Still, the blast analysis is just one of the things being examined by the intelligence community, which has surged intelligence collection assets to the region.

How has the world reacted?

A number of countries have expressed horror at the loss of life at the hospital, and urged caution in attributing blame until the circumstances become clear.

The United Nations has called for a careful investigation. Until independent investigators are able to assess the incident in detail, it is unlikely that the world will know with certainty what led to the blast.

Israel has provided the US with intelligence it has gathered related to the deadly Gaza hospital explosion, according to an Israeli official and another source familiar with the matter.

Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq issued statements condemning Israel and accusing its military of bombing the hospital.

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters shouting anti-Israel slogans gathered in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, and Tunisia. Protests also rocked the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "The devastating Gaza hospital blast is shrouded in uncertainty. Heres what we know, and what we dont"
Bowler High School students work on welding projects on Oct. 3 at Bowler Middle/High School in Shawano County. The district opened a $3 million expansion of its career and technical education spaces in the 2023-24 school year.

On a brisk fall morning in Kaukauna, 21-year-old Nadia Trinh prepared for the next five years of her life: learning to become a surgeon of welding.

It was her day to formally accept an apprenticeship with the UA Local 400 union in eastern Wisconsin. Its not just the nearly $50 hourly wage and $1 million pension she'll eventually earn that excites her, but the complex math, science and art required to manipulate metals.

Her experience is one that educators have always made a goal: seeing young people find their path, early in life.

K-12 schools in Wisconsin are increasingly being incentivized to expose students to a full range of career options before leaving high school. Its up to schools whether to invest in programs like career and technical education (CTE) classes, youth apprenticeship and dual college credit. To do so, they need to make calculations about resources like physical classroom space, equipment and staffing.

The state makes funds available for schools that decide to build up those programs. It's part of a broader push to increase the percentage of Wisconsin residents with some sort of post-high school education in the interest of filling jobs due to projected workforce demands.

The Journal Sentinel talked with educators from schools who have moved away from a "four-year focus." For them, the pitch makes sense: Students should try out careers before they invest in a four-year degree. But they also cite expanding options that lead to high-paying jobs, such as two-year degrees, tech college transfer programs and apprenticeships.

Trinh is the type of student who many educators are trying to reach. Although she took welding classes in high school, after graduation she enrolled in a tech college welding program and worked in a shop for about $26 an hour. The classes were useful, but she still wanted a higher-paying, more skilled job.

Its why she jumped at the idea of an apprenticeship  once she eventually heard about it. She wishes she had learned about an apprenticeship in high school, before she enrolled in college classes that she's still paying off. But she's still happy about her choice.

Welding is an art; you have to have so much technique to everything, Trinh said. "You can go till you die and still learn.

More: After questions about use of state funds, budget for Wisconsin Fast Forward workforce development program cut by 16%

Bowler: Northcentral WI district of 300 students adds $3 million expansion to metals, auto, agriculture spaces

Last fall, educators in Bowler, Wisconsin, students which classes they would take if given the option. Then they ran into a common problem for K-12 schools: resources.

In a district of 300 students total, 28 high schoolers signed up for welding. But Bowler had been offering only six spots. There was just one teacher, and the physical classroom shared space with district vehicles needing repair.

Its an example of why the district in rural northcentral Wisconsin opened a $3 million expansion this school year, using $75,000 in state grants to purchase equipment. Now, a new metals area has two Haas CNC machines and several welding booths. Students can get a feel for working on construction sites using virtual reality headsets and experiment with 3D printers.

The expanded auto shop makes room for a second CTE teacher, Phil Mydy. It also adds space for a school tradition: building go-kart-like cars from donated metal, both to compete for speed and optimal gas mileage. Teacher Tim Ploeger said students recently reached a record: 765 miles per gallon.

How? Coasting, he said.

There's also a new agriculture classroom, designed so its indoor windows overlook a connected barn. Soon, students will see piglets and other farm animals while sitting in class. They will also learn to raise fish and grow plants in a connected greenhouse and aquaponics lab.

Superintendent Glenda Butterfield-Boldig has worked in small schools for 26 years. She said the goal of expanding Bowler's CTE programs is to give students a buffet of options, not funnel them into the trades. Especially being in a rural area, she said hands-on skills like welding and fixing cars are useful for anyone. It's one reason why the school will open its new facilities to the community.

But she also said it makes sense for schools to offer skills that could help students find jobs locally. Bowler is not abundant in high-paying jobs that require four-year degrees, she said, but it is home to people who are proud to work in the trades.

"My late husband graduated from Bowler back in the day, and he earned his entire living as a welder, and he was proud to be a welder. And he credited his high school teacher for giving him the skills to be able to earn a great living," she said.

Reedsville: more than half of juniors and seniors worked as youth apprentices

About 30 miles south of Green Bay, Reedsville is among the few districts in Wisconsin where more than half of eligible students worked as youth apprentices last year. Fifty of the 90 juniors and seniors earned credit by working for businesses and taking related classes as part of the growing statewide program.

Reedsville has moved away from a four-year focus, according to the superintendent and principal, who have both been in the small community for decades.

I think what happened was just exposure to different careers, said Principal Melissa Wiese. Technical colleges are also spreading the message that you can have a very high-paying job, go to school for two years, and even get a lot of financial assistance.

The state of Wisconsin established its youth apprenticeship program in 1991, but participation is still scattered statewide in a program that requires connections with businesses and staff time. Reedsville has been expanding its program since 2016, with the majority of students, though not all, working in the trades last year. Like other districts, additional students are using the program for other fields like healthcare and business.

Wiese said she's encountered stereotypes about the program that should be broken: that it takes students away from the classroom, puts them to work or is just for students on "one track."

I think weve broken that and said No, this is an extension of the classroom. This is an extension of our school. Were going to work together, were going to give them the skills, and then theyre going to go and apply (them), Wiese said.

K-12 districts can receive up to $1,000 for every recent graduate who earns certain prespecified industry credentials," including some tied to youth apprenticeship. State Career and Technical Education Incentive Grants are designed to get more people certified in industries facing shortages of qualified entry level workers, according to its website.

A district of about 600 students, Reedsville received $62,654 in those grants during the 2020-23 fiscal years. The state allocated $25.9 million statewide in the same timeframe.

More schools are supplementing youth apprenticeship, CTE classes with free college credit

Bowler and Reedsville are also supplementing CTE classes and youth apprenticeship by giving students the option to earn college credit. That means students can get started on a technical diploma or credits that will transfer to a four-year college, among other options.

The most common dual-credit program in the state allows certified high school teachers to instruct technical college classes. That transcripted credit program is free to students; K-12 schools and technical colleges devote staffing time to run the program, but dont exchange any money for it.

The technical college system has more than doubled the number of dual credits taken by high schoolers in the last decade. Statewide, a quarter of high schoolers took a dual-credit class through a public university or technical college in 2021-22.

Sarah Dillon works with the 11 staff members at Northcentral Technical College whose jobs focus on working with high school students. In her more than 18 years at the college, shes seen students and parents become more aware about their options post-high school, she said.

K-12 schools and employers are looking for ways to show students that jobs that are available in their corner of the state, she said. In northcentral Wisconsin, often thats health care, manufacturing and agriculture.

You cant open a newspaper in the past couple of years without hearing about the financial aid debt in our county and what a burden that is to students, she said.

But communities need two- and four-year programs, she said. It's not either-or.

Its about helping students understand that theres a pathway for you, she said.

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.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: These schools decided to break the "four-year focus." Why?
A woman who says she was in a long-term relationship with a Jamaican lawmaker was arrested for allegedly hiring three men to kidnap and murder his 10-month-old daughter and her mother, Jamaican authorities announced.

Leoda Bradshaw, a 34-year-old U.S. Navy cook stationed in Miami, was arrested last week in connection to the deaths of Toshyna Patterson, 27, and her baby, Sarayah Paulwell.

The mother and child were kidnapped from their home in Jamaicas St. Andrew Parish on Sept. 9, Jamaican authorities said. Their remains were later found burned.

Both were brutally murdered and their bodies disposed of, Kingston Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey said in a press conference on Oct. 13. It is one of the most painful investigations for the team since recent times.

A missing poster for Toshyna Patterson and Sarayah Paulwell before the 27-year-old mother and 10-month-old baby were found murdered.

A missing poster for Toshyna Patterson and Sarayah Paulwell before the 27-year-old mother and 10-month-old baby were found murdered.

Bradshaw wrote in a Sept. 10 Facebook post that she and Sarayahs father, Phillip Paulwell , are in a long-term relationship and have an 8-year-old child of their own. Paulwell is a member of Jamaicas Parliament representing Kingston East and Port Royal.

I wish to state categorically that I have absolutely nothing to do with the disappearance of Ms. Toshyna Patterson and her baby girl, Bradshaw wrote.

She also claimed that she had received a message informing her that Paulwell and Patterson shared a child together. After noticing that Patterson had viewed her profile on LinkedIn, Bradshaw said, she messaged her on Sept. 5 to advise her that if her child was Paulwells, they would be taken care of financially.

Prosecutors said Bradshaw then traveled to Jamaica the next day with the sole purpose of killing Patterson and her 10-month-old, the Jamaica Observer reported.

According to prosecutors, Bradshaw arrived in Jamaica on Sept. 6 to conspire with her cousin Roland Balfour  who then allegedly hired two other men, Roshane Miller and Richard Brown  to kidnap and murder Patterson and her daughter in exchange for money, the Observer said.

Bradshaw allegedly paid the men the equivalent of $100,000 up front and then promised to pay $400,000 upon the schemes completion, according to the outlet.

Kingston Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey speaks at a press conference about the murders of Toshyna Patterson, 27, and her 10-month-old baby, Sarayah Paulwell.

Kingston Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey speaks at a press conference about the murders of Toshyna Patterson, 27, and her 10-month-old baby, Sarayah Paulwell.

Prosecutors said that on Sept. 9, Bradshaw had placed several calls and conversed with Patterson, with a view to lure her away from her premises, according to the Observer. Surveillance footage shows Patterson leaving her home with her daughter and entering an SUV that Bradshaw was driving, they said.

Bradshaw then handed the other woman and her baby over to the men, who fatally shot them and burned their bodies, prosecutors alleged.

In an Instagram post dated Sept. 15, almost a week after Patterson and the baby disappeared, Paulwell pleaded for the publics assistance in locating them.

The last week has been very horrific for me. I have dealt with many things in my life but the disappearance of my daughter and her mother is by far the most difficult thing I have ever had to navigate, he said.

Bradshaw has been charged with two counts of conspiracy to murder, two counts of conspiracy kidnapping, two counts of kidnapping and two counts of murder. The three other suspects face similar charges

After Pattersons and his daughters bodies were discovered, Paulwell wrote in another post that he was heartbroken that the worst has happened. He did not mention Bradshaw or their relationship.

That anyone could murder a mother and an innocent baby is unimaginable and my heart is heavy with sadness, Paulwell said. I am praying for Toshynas family who I know are experiencing the unbearable grief and pain of losing their beloved daughter and granddaughter.

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JERUSALEM (AP)  When Hamas militants toting grenades appeared in her living room, Rachel Edri served them tea and Moroccan cookies until police stormed in and killed the attackers.

Edris tale of quick-witted survival during the Israel-Hamas war has turned the 65-year old woman into an unlikely folk hero in Israel. For many, she has come to symbolize the ingenuity of everyday Israelis left to fend for themselves as militants turned sleeping southern communities into bloodbaths on Oct. 7.

After an early-morning air-raid siren, Edri returned from a bomb shelter in her hometown of Ofakim to find a band of Hamas militants in her living room. As gunfire raged outside, Edris home saw a 20-hour tete-a-tete between hospitality and brutality.

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One of the terrorists said to me: You remind me of my mother.'

I told him, I am really like your mother. I will help you, I will take care of you. What do you need? Edri told Ynet.

Rachel Edri, center, from Ofakim in southern Israel, poses for a portrait with Doron Almog, Jewish Agency Chairman, left, during a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. Edri, a 65 year old from the southern town of Ofakim, has become an unlikely folk hero among Israelis for narrowly escaping death at the hands of Hamas militants by feeding them tea and cookies. Edri and her husband spent nearly 20 hours in her house, entertaining five armed militants, before a rescue squad of local police were able to come to her rescue. (Miriam Alster/Pool Photo via AP)

After one of the grenade-toting gunmen struck Edri across the face with the butt of his gun, Edri soothed him. She served the militants canned pineapple, tea and her signature Moroccan cookies. She sang them Arabic songs, and they replied with Hebrew ones. She offered the men Coke Zero  when they said they preferred Coca Cola, she obliged.

After they drank and ate, they became much calmer, Edri told Ynet. I started having conversations, and at one point I even forgot for a moment that they were terrorists.

After 17 hours, a rescue team was able to rescue Edri and her husband with the help of their son, Eviatar. A local policeman himself, Eviatar gave the team a sketch of the house, helping the rescuers surprise the militants and fatally shoot them. With the house heavily damaged, Edri has been relocated to a hotel in central Israel.

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On Wednesday, she was one of several Israelis invited to meet with President Joe Biden during his whirlwind visit to Israel. She beamed and hugged Biden, as Biden thanked her for defending the country.

For plying the militants with snacks Edri has been touted online and in national media as the consummate Jewish mother, a play on the stereotype of a women who overfeeds guests. Israelis have also compared Edri to the biblical character of Yael, who slays an evil general by offering him food before killing him in his sleep.

President Joe Biden meets with victims relatives and first responders who were directly affected by the Hamas attacks, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The militants from the Gaza Strip blew through Israels highly fortified separation wall and entered Ofakim and more than 20 other border communities, killing at least 48 residents of Ofakim.

A group of civilians bearing pistols fought back Hamas militants armed with assault riots.

They fought like lions here, said Yoni Shalem, a man who lives down the street from Edri, describing the bravery of his neighbors. Not the policemen, not the army  they did nothing. The only reason were alive is because of other citizens who came to protect us.

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Edris brother, Shimon Koram, said he was not surprised when he heard how Edri had managed to avoid near-certain death. Before the war, Edri was known for her hospitality and generosity, Koram said, working at a nearby military base cooking meals for soldiers.

The two were raised in a working class family in Ofakim with 12 siblings, he said, a childhood that taught them how to be scrappy.

We learned to survive and acquired the wisdom of life like street cats, Shimon said. You can see that in how she acted. 

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
A 30-year-old woman was in critical condition Wednesday after being shoved into a moving train at a New York City subway station, local authorities said. The woman was pushed against a departing train by a man who witnesses said was mumbling to himself, according to the New York Police Department. It is believed to have been a random attack. The victims head struck the train and she fell onto the tracks, with good Samaritans pulling her back onto the platform, police said. Law enforcement was still searching for the suspect, identified as Sabir Jones, 39, on Wednesday night. He is known to the department, a police spokesperson said, according to The New York Times, which reported that officials described Jones to be emotionally disturbed. The shove marks the 15th such incident of the year through Oct. 15, according to the Times.

Read it at The New York Times

Read more at The Daily Beast.
SAN DIEGO  A driver was killed after crashing into a tree in Mission Bay Wednesday night, authorities said.

According to the San Diego Police Department, a 32-year-old woman was driving northbound on Ingraham Street in a black 2010 Chevy SUV around 9:08 p.m.

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Police say she was pulling a small camper trailer while making a right turn onto the on-ramp to West Mission Bay Drive. She was reportedly driving too fast for the turn and drove off the roadway.

SDPD says the woman ultimately struck a tree and died at the scene from her injuries. There were no passengers in the vehicle or camper trailer.

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Its unknown if alcohol was a factor at this time. SDPDs Traffic Division officers responded to the scene and are investigating the collision.

Anyone with information related to the crash is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
A North Carolina woman ran a business selling hundreds of fake documents  including Social Security cards, COVID-19 vaccine cards and drivers licenses  over Facebook, federal prosecutors said

Chaiya Maley-Jackson, 23, of Charlotte, advertised the documents shed create herself through her business, Diva Documents, on the social media platform and on two business websites, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of North Carolina.

In less than three years, Maley-Jackson earned more than $320,000 from her fraud scheme, selling 400 Social Security cards, eight drivers licenses and six COVID-19 vaccine cards, prosecutors said.

On her personal Facebook under the name Yaya Flowers, she advertised how she could also create and sell digital and hard copies of fake pay stubs, lease agreements, COVID-19 hardship letters, bank statements, W2 forms, 1099 forms and insurance cards, according to prosecutors and court documents.

Once Maley-Jackson was finished creating documents, she mailed them or sent them over email to customers, who paid her through Cash App, Zelle, PayPal, Apple Pay and Venmo, court documents say.

Shed charge customers fees of varying prices, including $15 for editing a pay stub and up to $150 for a fake drivers license, according to prosecutors, who said she required them to pay half of the price upfront before her work was completed.

On Oct. 18, Maley-Jackson pleaded guilty in U.S. district court in Charlotte to unlawful production of a false identification document, the attorneys office announced in a news release.

McClatchy News contacted two federal public defenders representing Maley-Jackson for comment on Oct. 19 and didnt receive an immediate response.

Prosecutors said Maley-Jackson knew her customers would use the fake documents she sold to them to apply for federal COVID-19 relief loans, car loans, apartment rentals and more, prosecutors said.

After pleading guilty, a judge released her on bond, according to prosecutors.

The charge of unlawful production of a false identification document carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, the release said.

Maley-Jackson is due back in court for a sentencing hearing which hasnt been scheduled yet, prosecutors said.

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While working as a payroll administrator for a Catholic church in Oklahoma, a woman embezzled about $451,177 over six years, according to federal authorities.

Now, Darla Bralley, 59, has been sentenced to two years in federal prison, records show.

Bralley worked as the payroll administrator for St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Del City from 2012 through early 2020, according to records filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. In that role, she had permission to issue checks and complete online bank transactions for authorized expenses, prosecutors said.

But beginning in 2014, she used that authority to pay herself, according to an Oct. 18 news release.

Mrs. Bralley is a person that as I told the Judge sometimes good people do bad things and this is exactly what I think occurred, defense attorney Irven R. Box said in a statement to McClatchy News. She did misuse the trust placed in her by the Catholic Church and took full responsibility for the amount of monies she embezzled. The sentence of 24 months will provide some punishment and deterrence in regard to future crimes that individuals might commit. I believe that the sentence by the Court was fair and just based upon the circumstances surrounding the violations of Federal Law.

Authorities said Bralley issued nearly 200 unauthorized checks, which were used to pay for various personal items and services, including personal credit card payments, utilities, and living expenses.

She also made about 1,070 fraudulent online transfers from about early 2014 until January 2020, authorities said.

Bralley did not include the embezzled money in her total income when filing her 2018 tax return, according to court records.

She pleaded guilty in September to wire fraud and making and filing a false tax return, records show.

In addition to prison time, shes ordered to pay $544,173.54 in restitution, according to the release. Judge Scott L. Palk said $451,177.54 will go to the church, and $92,996 will be paid to the IRS.

St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News on Oct. 19.

Del City is part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

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A selfie of Nichola Harris and her mother, both wearing sunglasses and smiling as they stand by a river

A woman whose mother chose to end her life in Canada is calling for the UK law around assisted death to be changed.

Nichola Harris' mother Norma Bennett, who had terminal lung cancer, had a medically assisted death - which is legal in certain circumstances in Canada.

"She was able to do this how she wanted, when she wanted, surrounded by her friends and loved ones," said Ms Harris, who lives in Winchelsea, East Sussex.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia are illegal in the UK.

In countries where assisted death is legal, critics argue vulnerable people can be pressured into ending their lives prematurely and safeguards can be eroded.

Ms Harris told BBC Radio Sussex that medics interviewed her and her mother separately as well as together to ensure Ms Bennett was not being pressured.

"There are very strict rules around the process," she said.

Alistair Thompson from the campaign group Care Not Killing said instead of legalising assisted death, care for the dying should be improved.

"We need to make sure that palliative care is accessible to every single person in this country who needs it and that's really the debate we should be having, " he said.

Ms Harris said she wanted people in the UK to have the option of an assisted death.

Her mother, who died at the age of 71, was "able to choose when to end her suffering when it became impossible for her to move around or do all the things she loved", she said.

She died surrounded by "around 30 of her friends and loved ones singing and holding her hands".

Follow BBC South East on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk.
Police are investigating after they say a vehicle belonging to a woman who went missing in August has been found.

Claudine Leibl was driving from Montana to North Dakota on Aug. 23 to her siblings home but never arrived, according to a news release from the Wood County Sheriffs Office.

Her phones last activity was Sept. 11, the release said.

On Oct. 17, authorities found Leibls 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser in Fargo, North Dakota, but she was not with it, WSAW reported.

My family needs some help finding our sister, Troy Kuntz said on Facebook. My family and I ask you to please keep your eyes open for her. 

Leibl is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, 120 pounds, with blonde hair and blue eyes, police said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Wood County Sheriffs Office at 715-421-8700.

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FILE PHOTO: World Jewish Congress president Lauder speaks during a ceremony commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in front of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The head of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) met Pope Francis on Thursday and asked him to help secure the release of the hostages taken by the Hamas militant group following its Oct. 7 rampage on Israel.

More than 1,400 Israelis were killed in the attack, and more than 200 people were captured by gunmen and taken to the Gaza Strip. Israeli responded with air strikes that have caused more than 3,500 dead, according to Palestinian officials.

"We ask Your Holiness to use your power, to use your strength, to get these hostages released, Ronald Lauder told the pope, according to a WJC statement. "You may be the only person who has the moral authority to do this."

Lauder travelled to Rome for the opening of a WJC representative office at the Vatican. His meeting with Francis was arranged before the latest flare-up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Vatican said in a separate statement.

Francis pleaded for the hostages to be freed on Sunday and called for humanitarian corridors to help those under siege in Gaza. His deputy said last week the Vatican was ready to act as a mediator.

"They are at the centre of all of our concerns: the pope and the entire international community. The Holy See is ready for any necessary mediation, as always," Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin said in an interview with Vatican media.

On Monday, the pope's representative in the Holy Land, Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said he was ready to exchange himself for Israeli children taken by Hamas.

(Reporting by Alvise Armellini, editing by Howard Goller)
(CNN)  The US intelligence community assesses that there likely were between 100 to 300 people killed in the blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, and there was only light structural damage at the hospital, according to an unclassified intelligence assessment obtained by CNN that adds more detail to the initial assessment released Wednesday finding Israel was not responsible for the strike.

The unclassified assessment sent to Capitol Hill by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence adds more detail to the US intelligence communitys initial assessment released Wednesday that Israel was not responsible for the strike on the hospital.

Israel Probably Did Not Bomb Gaza Strip Hospital: We judge that Israel was not responsible for an explosion that killed hundreds of civilians yesterday [17 October] at the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip, the assessment states. Our assessment is based on available reporting, including intelligence, missile activity, and open-source video and images of the incident.

The US intelligence community also estimates the number of deaths from the hospital at the low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum, according to the assessment, a lower number than figures initially cited by Hamas of more than 500.

The intelligence community observed only light structural damage at the hospital, with no observable damage to the main hospital building and no impact craters, according to the assessment.

We see only light damage to the roofs of two structures near the main hospital building, but both structures remained intact, the assessment states.

The US intelligence community released its initial assessment on Wednesday that Israel was not responsible after President Joe Biden stated publicly while in Israel that the strike appeared to have been the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza. Biden is giving a primetime address from the Oval Office on Thursday evening.

The National Security Council has said that the Biden administration plans to publicize as much intelligence as it can about the strike amid accusations that Israel was responsible for the blast.

We will be sharing that information with our friends and partners in the region we have shared as much of that information as we can publicly, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said on CNN This Morning on Thursday.

The assessment states that intelligence indicates that some Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip assessed that the explosion was likely caused by an errant rocket or missile launch carried out by Palestine Islamic Jihad and that the militants were still investigating.

We continue to work to corroborate whether the explosion resulted from a failed PIJ rocket, the ODNI assessment states.

We are still assessing the likely casualty figures and our assessment may evolve, but this death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life, the assessment states. The United States takes seriously the deaths of all civilians, and is working intensively to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Finer told CNN that the assessment of the hospital strike was a warning to the danger of drawing conclusions amid the fog of war. I think this is a cautionary note for governments in the region, and frankly for press, in responding to each and every twist and turn in a conflict, he said.

The Biden administration has been debating how much raw intelligence to declassify underpinning its assessment that the deadly blast at the Gaza hospital was caused by an errant rocket from a Palestinian militant group  not a missile from Israel, according to a senior administration official.

The White House believes that providing a clearer assessment to the public would be useful in trying to establish a clear and accurate narrative of events, this official said, noting it hasnt reached a conclusion about how effective raw intelligence would be in that effort.

The debate a reflects growing concern that the US and Israel have lost control of the narrative spiraling out of Gaza that Israel was to blame for those killed in the hospital blast on Tuesday evening.

Former intelligence officials and sources familiar with current US intelligence were skeptical that there was anything the US might make public that would be believed in the Arab world.

Unfortunately, the narratives have already spread and solidified at this point, said one US official.

Following a classified Capitol Hill briefing Wednesday afternoon, a bipartisan group of senators urged the Biden administration to make public as much of the intelligence as possible.

A part of the focus also has to be lowering the temperatures in some of the countries that have had reasonably good relationships with Israel  think Jordan, think Egypt, Sen. Thom Tillis, Republican from North Carolina, told reporters on Wednesday. Thats more of the focus now.
It is not considered a war crime if you had fun, reads graffiti left by Russian soldiers in the backroom of a bar in the village of Velyka Komyshuvakha, located in the Izium district of Kharkiv Oblast.

Before being liberated, the area was occupied by Russian forces for six months between April and September 2022, during which Russian troops set up a network of torture chambers and carried out a systemic, organized effort to terrorize the local population.

The message is just one of around 650 inscriptions translated and verified by members of the Wall Evidence project, an open-source digital archive of graffiti, drawings, diary entries, notes, and other markings left behind by Russian forces in previously occupied territories.

The inscriptions documented by the project span historical references, ethnic sentiments, and propaganda phrases, revealing a wide spectrum of attitudes from fear and confusion to enjoyment, cruelty, cynicism, and remorselessness.

The trail of graffiti uncovered in liberated territories leads the way into Russian soldiers minds, speaking volumes about their culture and psyche, the projects managers say. It also provides evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, as markings are at times accompanied by identifying information.

Some of the messages left by Russian soldiers served a practical purpose, such as informing civilians of their imposed curfew times.

Read also: Literature community commemorates Ukrainian writer killed by Russian attack

Others served more as intimidation, as seen in the inscription, "We are Russians!!! Ukraine trembled when Russia entered!!!" on a house in Sviatohirsk in Donetsk Oblast.

Roksolana Makar, one of the projects researchers, says another large number of the inscriptions reference the Soviet narrative of World War II of the USSRs victory over the Nazis, reflecting the idea that Russian soldiers are continuing the deed of their Soviet ancestors.

Religious messages, or ones linked to Russian minorities (the project has identified Chechen, Dagestani, and Buryat origins), and white nationalist rhetoric with swastikas and slogans like "Russia for Russians," have also stained walls in Ukraine.

Other cynical messages left in peoples homes read like a guest log from hell: "Your home is our home, Thank you for the hospitality Z and Sorry for the mess V. The letters Z, V, and O are commonly used by the Russian military to signal their presence.

In a similar vein, some of the graffiti found in homes betrays shades of jealousy: Lucky you, reads one message.

Unearthing and documenting the painful evidence of Russian occupation has taken a toll on the projects members.

"The first challenge was psychological. You see so much pain, death, and destruction just to find one image, Anastasiia Olexii, the project's manager, told the Kyiv Independent.

Sociological analysis

Graffiti is a projection of a persons mind, says Anna Samchuk, the sociologist tasked with analyzing the wall inscriptions.

Through her research, Samchuk has been able to distill the inscriptions into three main categories: projections of culture, expressions of fear, and the dissemination of propaganda.

Many of the inscriptions refer to Russian pop culture  literature, music, and memes, according to the projects managers.

This is very significant for us, says Makar, because it signifies that the inscription is not a particular thought by a singular person, but something more broad that belongs to Russian culture.

Scholars Timothy Snyder and Serhii Plokhy have both written about the legacy of contradiction in Russian culture, particularly in the context of political and social dynamics.

For Makar, one of the most striking characteristics of the Russian armys inscriptions is the prevalence of these contradictions.

In a diary entry discovered in Kyiv Oblast, a Russian soldier reflects on the invasion with mixed emotions, expressing both doubt about the invasion and regret for his actions, all while carrying on with violently interrogating Ukrainians and labeling them "Nazis."

While Russian propaganda narratives paint Ukrainians as Nazis, and Russias special military operation as Ukraines denazification, another diary entry reveals a Russian soldier comparing his own actions to that of the Nazis: We, like the Nazis, plundered all the shops, broke the windows, people are afraid of us.

Lots of Russian soldiers have this total mess in their heads, says Makar.

They are like, Ok, we are sorry that we made a mess and destroyed your houses and killed your people, but never mind, its not us, its your government or NATO. They have this very interesting outlook where everything is possible and you can do anything and you will find a justification.

In a school in Hostomel in Kyiv Oblast, the words We really didn't want this! Sorry, we were forced," were written on a blackboard.

In Ukraines northeastern Sumy Oblast, another inscription reads, "Sorry we left a little mess in here; It's ok... Amerikosy (pejorative term in Russian for Americans) will help you clean up.

Fully deflecting the blame, one graffiti found in Kharkiv Oblast reads: "There are two answers to all questions about Ukraine: 1. It didn't happen 2. They deserved it. Both are correct."

Samchuk points to the irony of the many "apologies" spray painted on hallway walls or lipsticked on mirrors of defiled homes.

They are apologizing for the destroyed house on the wall of the same destroyed house, she says. One such inscription, crudely carved into a wooden door (causing further damage) reads, Sorry for breaking the door.

Despite frequently using the word sorry, Samchuk hypothesizes that these messages do not reflect genuine guilt. Rather, it is linked with the avoidance of responsibility, she says.

The psychological toll

Olexii, Makar, and Samchuk all found the initial stages of this project very difficult psychologically.

It was hard to see these messages and know that these are places where our fellow Ukrainians suffered or died, says Samchuk.

In addition to the psychological toll documenting Russian soldiers' violent words has taken on the group, they say they also face criticism inside of Ukraine for taking on this work.

"Some people say it's wrong to talk so much about Russia and what they do in Ukraine, but we want to tell the story about us through these images.

The words "We will feed your children with bones" written by Russian soldiers on the wall of the cultural center in Novy Bykiv, Chernihiv Oblast. (Alexey Furman/Getty Images)

"To explain is not to justify," Makar emphasizes, underlining their intention to collect and analyze the inscriptions in support of Ukraine's cause.

Despite the challenges, a desire to honor the memory of those affected and unearth the criminal roots to reveal the often-overlooked dark side of Russian culture motivates the team to continue.

Russians who come to our land are evil, personally and as a group. Their culture is about conquering and exterminating those who do not want to be conquered because they can, Samchuk said.

Collecting evidence of war crimes

Residents of the towns and villages where these inscriptions were left are eager to forget.

Most of the graffiti documented in the archive has been removed as residents rebuild their communities. Getting rid of them is also a way of moving on in the wake of occupation.

However, just like in a crime scene, the bloodstains are recorded before they are washed away.

Although many of these blatant and remorseless admissions of crimes remain anonymous, some of the inscriptions are verifiably incriminating.

Olexii and Makar explain that some soldiers have left sensitive information, like the numbers of their regiments, or their Telegram and Instagram handles, at locations where crimes were committed.

Read also: Portrait of the invader: Understanding the Russian soldier

There are also some inscriptions that could be evidence of torture, explains Makar.

The Transfiguration Cathedral in Izium, one of the oldest Ukrainian Baroque masterpieces, was targeted during the occupation of Kharkiv.

A sign reading mines in front of the cathedral indicates the area was mined. According to the International Criminal Court, damaging and endangering cultural heritage sites constitutes a war crime.

The Wall Evidence team is collaborating with military lawyer consultants who serve in the Armed Forces, as well as international partners, to undertake forensic documentation related to the loss of cultural heritage.

This documentation is being carried out within the Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab.



Every word written by Russian soldiers on Ukrainian walls will be used against them in an international court, Makar states in her text contribution to the Wall Evidence project.

Read also: Portrait of the invader: Understanding the Russian soldier

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(Bloomberg) -- President Xi Jinping reiterated that China supports Moscows efforts in safeguarding its national sovereignty, security and development interests, while seeking a breakthrough on a Sino-Russian gas pipeline.

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Deepening ties between China and Russia is not an expedient but a long-term solution, Xi told Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during a meeting Wednesday in Beijing, according to a statement from the Chinese government.

China is keen to work with Moscow to ensure grain and energy security, and wants to see substantial progress on a natural gas pipeline between both countries and Mongolia as soon as possible, Xi added.

Xis comments reinforce the tight ties that have developed between China and Russia, especially since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Beijing has provided diplomatic and economic support to Moscow that has helped blunt the effects of Western sanctions on Russia.

Still, Beijing has also sought to cast itself as a neutral broker on the war after releasing a 12-point blueprint for bringing peace to Ukraine in February this year that included calls to respect sovereignty, facilitate grain exports and halt all hostilities.

The proposals were panned by the US and its allies and have gained little traction, though they won Xi credibility among Global South nations.

Putin last visited China for the Winter Olympics in February 2022, a few weeks before he invaded Ukraine. At that meeting, the two leaders agreed to a no-limits friendship and signed a series of long-term energy supply deals. Putins attendance at Xis Belt and Road Initiative forum is his first trip abroad to nations other than former Soviet states since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him in March for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

In September, Putin said Russias cooperation with China has reached unprecedentedly high levels. With the West severing trade ties, Chinas exports to Russia have jumped 57% so far this year. China is now the largest importer of fossil fuels from Russia, with coal shipments more than doubling since 2020.

Russia has limited options as its economic dependency on China deepen  even though Moscow understands its predicament, said Philipp Ivanov, a senior fellow at the Asia Society in New York. But Chinese investments in Russia remain disproportionately small. Chinese companies are wary of political risks, secondary sanctions, corruption and overall unpredictability of the Russian market.

More: Xis Diplomatic Gamble on Putin Leaves Both With Much to Lose

The gas pipeline, known as Power of Siberia 2, is intended to deliver supply from Gazproms Yamal fields and western Siberia to China via Mongolia. For months, the Russian government has said talks with China are in the final stages but concrete progress has been elusive.

The project, which would take years to build once approved, would help boost Russias total gas shipments to China as Moscow looks to its giant Asian neighbor to replace Europe as its major gas customer.

Xi portrayed his signature BRI as a sweeping alternative to the US-led world order in a speech earlier Wednesday, a vision for global economic cooperation endorsed by Putin.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also said certain nations had drawn on or even copied what China did with the BRI, without naming them. Last month, the US signed an agreement with India, Middle Eastern countries and the European Union aimed at connecting them via a network of railways and sea routes.

The two heads of state also had an in-depth exchange of views on the conflict between Palestine and Israel, according to Chinas statement, which didnt provide more details. China said it supports Russia hosting the BRICS summit in 2024.

More: Russias Cash Flood Turns to Trickle as Energy Revenues Slide

China and Russia should develop pragmatic cooperation of high quality and actively explore partnership in strategic emerging industries, Xi also told Putin, indicating ties between the nations are likely to remain warm.

For China its a winning proposition as it gets access to Russian commodities and agricultural exports/food at discounted prices, and its brands like Huawei are expanding presence in a large market without any significant competition, Ivanov said.

--With assistance from Dan Murtaugh and Philip Glamann.

(Updates with more context.)

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The beloved American Museum of Natural History in New York City announced it will make changes to some of its policies regarding human remains, including the decision to no longer collect them.

Its the latest museum to consider cultural insensitivity and want to progress forward. The museums president, Sean Decatur, said all of the remains will be pulled from 12 display cases, stating that these kinds of collections are showcased due to extreme imbalances of power.

The American Museum of Natural History is set to remove the human remains and no longer collect them for exhibitions. (NBC New York/American Museum of Natural History/Youtube screenshot)

Moreover, many researchers in the 19th and 20th centuries then used such collections to advance deeply flawed scientific agendas rooted in white supremacy  namely the identification of physical differences that could reinforce models of racial hierarchy, Decatur wrote in a letter to his staff.

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Decatur, who started his position in April, acknowledged that the individuals from Native American and African American communities who didnt give consent for their remains to be in an exhibit at a museum. According to local news, this includes the remains of five enslaved people who were exhumed from graves in the early 1900s.

Per the New York Times, the remains were taken from a cemetery in Manhattan during construction. The museum came under fire after historians were researching the cemetery recently and traced people who had been buried there to the museum.

Decatur outlined that the museum will commit to connecting with the local communities to figure out a restorative and respectful approach.

Certainly, as an African American, the question of race is one of particular interest, Decatur told the Times. The legacy of dehumanizing Black bodies through enslavement continues after death in how those bodies were treated and dehumanized in service of a scientific project.

The museum also plans to continue to work toward returning the collections of remains and other artifacts back to its descendants, PIX 11 reported. Speaking to his staff, the president said that taking the remains from their burial sites ensured that the denial of basic human dignity would continue even in death.

Like The American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Germany announced last month that they will return human skulls from a former African colony back to their origin countries.

Read the original story here.

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FILE PHOTO: Pro-Israel demonstrators protest in Times Square on the second day of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Manhattan in New York City

By Jonathan Allen and Gabriella Borter

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in New York City's Times Square on Thursday to demand the release of hostages taken by Hamas, as President Joe Biden faces mounting pressure to leverage every diplomatic tool to secure the freedom of American captives.

Billboards showed the faces of people believed to be held hostage, including babies and elderly people, as the crowd chanted, "Bring them home."

Speakers at the rally included Ronan and Orna Neutra, whose 22-year-old son, Omer, is thought to be held captive. They described him as a natural leader and avid athlete who captained the basketball, volleyball and soccer teams at his school.

The grandson of Holocaust survivors, Omer Neutra postponed his college plans to move to Israel, where he joined the Israel Defense Forces. The night before the attacks, Neutra spoke with his parents by phone, telling them he was looking forward to a quiet weekend after a month spent patrolling the border, his father recounted.

"We are heartbroken. We are worried," his mother said. "But we are focused and resolute in doing everything within our power to bring Omer back."

U.S. officials have said Hamas is holding some 200 people hostage after the Palestinian group's Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel, when militants killed about 1,400 Israelis.

While there is no official list of Americans in captivity, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch , told reporters on Wednesday that 10 of the hostages were American.

"It is the highest priority here. We want those people out," Risch said.

Thursday's protest in Times Square was organized by the nonprofit Israeli American Council, which represents Israeli Americans in the U.S.

Speakers, including U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer , the first Jewish Senate majority leader in history, vowed to stand with Israel and fight back against Hamas.

"We no longer can be the Jews trembling in the shadows," actor and activist Yuval David, a dual Israeli and American citizen, told the crowd. "We know what happened to us then, and we know what is happening to us now."

Americans across the U.S. are taking to the streets on a near-daily basis to protest on behalf of Israel or the Palestinian people, with bitter divisions re-emerging over the decades-long conflict in the Middle East.

A pro-Palestinian rally was planned for Friday outside the main branch of New York City's public library to call for a ceasefire. On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters demanding a ceasefire were arrested while occupying the rotunda of the Cannon House office building at the U.S. Capitol.

"Ceasefire is the only way for the deaths to stop. Ceasefire is the only way to bring hostages home," organizers of Friday's New York rally said on their event page.

Biden visited Israel this week to reiterate his support and urge the country's leaders to avert a humanitarian disaster as it prepares a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip.

His administration must walk a fine line. The task of securing the hostages' release may require negotiating assistance from countries in the region, including Qatar, that have no diplomatic ties with Israel.

Rachel Goldberg, the mother of 23-year-old hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual Israeli and U.S. citizen, said the last messages she had received from her son were sent on the morning of Oct. 7, when he wrote, "I love you guys. I'm sorry." She said police confirmed the last signal from her son's phone showed it in Gaza that morning.

"I don't know that he's alive, I don't know that he made it," Goldberg said in an interview in Jerusalem.

U.S. officials have not released names of the Americans believed to be held hostage. But media reports have identified several missing people with American citizenship, including Goldberg-Polin; a 66-year-old nurse, Adrienne Neta; 35-year-old Sagui Dekel-Chen, a father of two with a baby on the way; and Itay Chen, who serves in the Israel Defense Force.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Gabriella Borter in Washington; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Gabriella Borter and Joseph Ax; Editing by Frank McGurty, Jonathan Oatis and Deepa Babington)
A 19-year-old pianist who has been called "classical music's answer to K-pop" has signed an exclusive deal with the UK's Decca Records.

Yunchan Lim stunned the music world last year when he became the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Van Cliburn Piano Competition in Texas.

His performance of Rachmaninoff 's Piano Concerto No. 3 has since been watched more than 12 million times on YouTube.

Decca snapped up the musician after a prolonged bidding war.

Yunchan was courted by record company executives in Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, London, New York and Seoul before he finally decided to sign with the 94-year-old British label.

"Decca has produced records with excellent sound quality, and has worked with numerous legendary musicians," he said in a statement.

"It's a record label that one can truly appreciate as a musician."

Seemingly arriving from nowhere, the teenager's performances have been described as "visceral", "magnetic" and "poetic". His blazing rendition of Rachmaninoff's concerto in Texas moved conductor Marin Alsop to tears.

"A slight, unsmiling, rather otherworldly lad, Lim seems not just at one with his piano, but positively in love with it," wrote the Independent's Jessica Duchen, reviewing his British debut at the Wigmore Hall last January.

"His playing is so good you think you're dreaming."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPJL488cfRw

"Yunchan plays the notes - all of them - as pathways to a surreal elsewhere," agreed Norman Lebrecht in The Critic. The New York Times praised how his interpretation of Rachmaninoff moved from "quietly, calmly penetrating lucidity" to "pinging intensity".

"By the end of the piece, his upper body was jack-knifing toward the keys at flourishes, with his left foot stomping," wrote Zacharay Wolf.

Yunchan was born in Siheung, South Korea in 2004 and credits his love of the piano to the recordings of Chopin and Liszt his mother played when he was young.

He started piano lessons when he was seven and entered the Music Academy of Seoul Arts Center [sic] a year later.

"I immediately noticed that he was a huge talent," his teacher once told the New York Times. "He's very humble."

Since winning the Van Cilburn competition, he has issued two recordings - one of Liszt's fiendishly difficult Transcendental Etudes, recorded at the contest's semi-finals, and a live performance of Beethoven's Emperor concerto with the Gwangju Symphony Orchestra.

The latter, released by Universal Music Korea, went platinum within hours in his home country.

His first studio recording will be released by Decca in spring 2024.

In a statement, the label's co-president Tom Lewis said: "Yunchan is, quite simply, the most exciting new classical artist on the planet. It took a global mission to secure his signature... and we are so excited that he chose us."
President Volodymyr Zelensky held a phone call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, discussing Ukraine's peace formula and the new Black Sea corridor, the president said on Oct. 19.

Zelensky thanked Guterres for the work of the UN's Ukraine team in the humanitarian response and for the so-called "winterization plan." The UN pledged to deliver humanitarian assistance worth $435 million to support over 1.7 million Ukrainians in the coming winter months.

Ukraine's head of state also emphasized the importance of the UN's participation in the peace plan discussions and its support for Zelensky's peace formula.

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"After the meeting of advisors in Jeddah, it is also important that the next event be no less successful and produce concrete results," the president wrote on social media.

"For this, we need to maintain the support of the countries of the Global South. Ukraine is counting on the UN for this."

Bloomberg reported that the next international peace plan meeting, following the one in Saudi Arabia in August, is expected to take place in Istanbul later in October.

Zelensky said that he and the UN Secretary-General also addressed the new Black Sea corridor, set up weeks after Russia's withdrawal from the grain deal. The UN repeatedly appealed to Moscow to unblock the shipments of Ukrainian foodstuffs to curb rising prices worldwide.

Despite the Russian-imposed blockade, all three of Ukraine's Black Sea ports in and around Odesa have resumed receiving cargo vessels for grain export earlier this month.

Read also: European Parliament votes to support $53 billion financing package for Ukraines recovery

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President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with United States President Joe Biden about Ukrainian defense and long-range strike capabilities on Oct. 19, the president said on the social media platform X.

The discussion was held hours before Biden plans to deliver a national address about the wars in Ukraine and Israel.

"Ukrainians are greatly encouraged by the delivery of ATACMS, and our warriors are putting them to good use on the battlefield," Zelensky said.

"We discussed further strengthening our long-range capabilities."

The U.S. sent its first shipment of Army Tactical Missiles Systems (ATACMS) in October, with a delivery of 20 missiles.

Ukrainian forces deployed the long-range weapons for the first time in strikes against Russian-occupied territories, targeting military assets.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Oct. 18 that the U.S. plans to continue delivering ATACMS to Ukraine.

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Zelensky said his talk with Biden also touched on U.S. Special Representative Penny Pritzkers recent visit to Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian legislative reforms aimed at hastening the country's accession to the European Union.

Zelensky further expressed support for Biden's "visit to Israel aimed at seeking peace and protection of civilian lives."

The Biden administration is reportedly planning to request supplemental military aid for Ukraine and Israel, potentially as early as Oct. 20. The package would include $60 billion in assistance for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel.

Before the spending request reaches Congress, Biden will lay out the case for military aid to the American public.

Biden said he will speak from the White House at 8 p.m. local time on Oct. 19, in a nationwide address that covers the Hamas attacks against Israel, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and "Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine."

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a telephone conversation about Russias full-scale war against Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East with US President Joe Biden on the evening of Thursday, 19 October.

Source: Zelenskyy on Twitter (X), as reported by European Pravda

Details: Zelenskyy thanked Biden "for the effective implementation of our latest defense agreements", including the ATACMS long-range missiles the US supplied to Ukraine.

"Ukrainians are greatly encouraged by the delivery of ATACMS, and our warriors are putting them to good use on the battlefield," Zelenskyy added, without elaborating.

Zelenskyy also mentioned US Special Representative Penny Pritzkers recent visit to Kyiv, which marked the beginning of the countries talks on ways to use frozen Russian assets, and the recent legislation on Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) passed by the Ukrainian parliament.

The two leaders also discussed the escalation in the Middle East and Bidens visit to Israel "aimed at seeking peace and protection of civilian lives".

Background:

On the night of 17 October, Ukrainian troops deployed ATACMS missiles to attack helicopters and equipment belonging to the Russian occupying forces at air bases near the occupied cities of Berdiansk and Luhansk.

The White House later confirmed Ukraine has received long-range ATACMS missiles in a modification that has a range of 165 kilometres.

The New York Times reported that the US sent about 20 ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. One of the conditions for the delivery was that they would not be used for attacks on Russian territory.

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The Russian Federation has deported thousands of Ukrainian children since the beginning of the war against Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy launched BRING KIDS BACK UA to facilitate the return of Ukrainian children deported by Russia, the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MFA)s press service announced on Oct. 19.

The plan combines the efforts of the Ukrainian government, Kyiv's partner countries, and international organizations.

Read also: Ministry helps reunite three more children with families in government-controlled parts of Ukraine

The MFA named the main goals of the platform:

Identify and safely repatriate all illegally deported children in order to reunite them with their families and guardians in a safe environment.

Establish a comprehensive psychological support system.

Developing a strong infrastructure to support family education.

Strengthen international support for Ukraine in the return of forcibly deported children.

Holding Russia accountable by documenting its war crimes.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution on April 27 recognizing the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia as genocide.

Read also: Russian invaders deport almost 200,000 children from Ukraine, Russian MoD says

Ukrainian state platform Children of War reported at least 19,546 children have been deported or forcibly relocated by Russia, as of Sept. 27.

The European Parliament estimates the number of Ukrainian children illegally deported to Russia may reach as many as 300,000. Its MPs believe that the Russians began to relocate Ukrainian children back in 2014, after the occupation of Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.

In July, the head of the Belarusian Red Cross, Dmitry Shevtsov, admitted that he was involved in the deportation of Ukrainian children. The International Red Cross distanced itself from his statements and announced an investigation.

Read also: Over 380 children abducted by Russia have now been returned, says deputy PM

Since Sept. 2022, about 2,150 Ukrainian children over the age of six have been deported to Belarus, the British Telegraph reported in July.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
In a telephone conversation with US President Joe Biden on the evening of Thursday, 19 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the next meeting to discuss Ukraines Peace Formula will be held in Malta.

Source: Zelenskyy on Twitter (X), as reported by European Pravda

Details: Zelenskyy said he and Biden discussed "our next joint steps to advance the [Peace Formula]".

"I welcomed the US decision to send its representative to the next advisors meeting in Malta at the end of this month," he added.

Background:

Sources told European Pravda that the next meeting to discuss Ukraines Peace Formula will be held in Malta in late October.

The Office of the President of Ukraine said it expects diplomatic representatives from more than 50 states to attend the meeting and approve a series of plans for the implementation of the Peace Formula.

European Pravda shared Ukraines 10-point Peace Formula in November 2022.

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We Are China

Xinjiang starts mechanical cotton harvesting

Ecns.cn) 10:58, October 19, 2023

A machinery picker collects cotton in a field in Toksun County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Oct. 17, 2023. (Photo: China News Service/Liu Yanmin)

Xinjiang has entered its large-scale cotton harvest period this year. Domestically-made machinery cotton pickers have played an important role in improving the efficiency of cotton picking.

A machinery picker collects cotton in a field in Toksun County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Oct. 17, 2023. (Photo: China News Service/Liu Yanmin)

A machinery picker collects cotton in a field in Toksun County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Oct. 17, 2023. (Photo: China News Service/Liu Yanmin)

A machinery picker collects cotton in a field in Toksun County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Oct. 17, 2023. (Photo: China News Service/Liu Yanmin)

Freshly picked cotton is rolled into round bales in a field in Toksun County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Oct. 17, 2023. (Photo: China News Service/Liu Yanmin)

A machinery picker collects cotton in a field in Toksun County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Oct. 17, 2023. (Photo: China News Service/Liu Yanmin)

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
(CNN)  A Hamas spokesman is reportedly among more than 60 members of the militant organization detained by Israel in overnight raids across the West Bank, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory that is increasingly feeling the impact of the fighting in Gaza.

Separately, a number of Palestinians were killed in an ongoing Israeli military operation in the Nour Shams refugee camp in the city of Tulkarem in the West Bank on Thursday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Hassan Yousef, a leading Palestinian political figure who served as the official Hamas spokesperson in the West Bank, was detained in his home, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, an NGO representing Palestinian detainees.

Occupation forces arrested Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef from his home in Beitunia, as part of a wide-scale arrest campaign in the occupation (sic) West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoners Club statement reads.

Yousef has been arrested by Israeli forces on several occasions and has spent a total of 24 years in Israeli jails on various charges of incitement, entering Jerusalem without permission and for being a Hamas member.

He has made regular appearances on international media, this week telling Canadian outlet The Globe and Mail he thought Hamas would be prepared to free the estimated 200 hostages it is holding if Israel agrees to a 24-hour ceasefire to allow aid into Gaza.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment on Hassan Yousefs reported detention but has not heard back so far.

The IDF has said there was an operation by Israeli security forces.

Following wide-scale counterterrorism activity overnight in Judea and Samaria [the Jewish biblical names for the West Bank], over 80 wanted suspects were apprehended, including 63 Hamas terror operatives, it said.

A total of 850 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank since Hamass brutal attack inside Israel on October 7, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club. They are said to include lawmakers, prominent figures, journalists, and former detainees who have served extended terms in Israeli jails.

Mustafa Barghouti, the General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, told CNN that there is a massive Israeli operation to arrest Palestinians.

Every night, they are conducting more and more arrests. The number of Palestinian prisoners now in Israeli jails is up to 6,300, Barghouti added. Theyre not charged, theyre not taken to court. Theyre no due legal process and thats what they call administrative detention, including no less than 200 children who are now in Israeli jails.

The Israeli crackdown comes as the Gaza conflict has increasingly spilled over to the West Bank.

A number of Palestinians were shot dead in clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank on Thursday, according to the Palestinian Authoritys Ministry of Health. The ministry told CNN that it had confirmed the deaths of six people and that death toll was likely to rise. Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops have been reported at a number of locations.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its staff were trying to reach the casualties in Nour Shams, adding that, There are difficulties in reaching some of the injured individuals, and ambulances with injured people inside are being detained by [Israeli] occupying forces.

CNN has reached out to the IDF to respond to this allegation.

Since Israel took control and occupied the West Bank in 1967 from Jordan following the Six Day War, the territory, which residents hope will form part of a future Palestinian state, has been partially settled by Israeli civilians, often under Israeli military protection.

Most of the world considers these settlements illegal under international law, but despite this successive Israeli governments have pledged support for them.

Israel views the West Bank as disputed territory, and contends its settlement policy is legal.
The Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce is hosting a candidate forum for state and local government seats on the ballot in the Nov. 7 election.

The forum is set for 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Liberty Middle School; doors open at 5 p.m.

The candidate forum is not a debate and will serve as a civil, informational setting for voters leading up to Election Day. Candidates will have the opportunity to answer questions put forth by Tim Saunders, business engagement and outreach coordinator for Virginia Career Works, who will serve as moderator for the event.

Residents of Bedford County and the Town of Bedford are encouraged to submit potential questions for the candidates by filling out a form on the home page of BedfordAreaChamber.com, or by mailing questions to the Bedford Chamber office at 305 E. Main St., Bedford VA 24523.

The first half of the session will be dedicated to the Town Council candidates. A 10-minute intermission will occur at 6:55 p.m., and candidates for the Bedford County Board of Supervisors and state Senate and House of Delegates races will take the stage afterward.

The following are confirmed speakers for the event:

Bedford Town Council, Special 24: Jai Ippolito, Bruce Johannessen, D.C. Foster, Todd Foreman and Tim Black. (Robert Carson and Ronald J. Chivas-Clayton also are running).

Bedford Town Council, Special 26: Andrew Caitlin, Stacey Hailey, Jane McKeon, Darryl Updike and C.G. Stanley. (Bruce Hartwick also is running)

Bedford County Board of Supervisors: Bob Davis (R, 6th District); Andy Dooley (I, 6th District).

Senate: Donna St. Clair, Democrat, and Mark Peake, Republican, for the 8th District.

House of Delegates: Kimberly Moran (D, 51st District); Eric Zehr (R, 51st District); Sam Soghor (D, 53rd District); Tim Griffin (R, 53rd District).

The forum is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be catered by Bridge Street Cafe. The chamber requests that individuals who know they will attend to register ahead of time at www.BedfordAreaChamber.com to give an estimated headcount for refreshments.

For more information, visit BedfordAreaChamber.com or call the Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce at (540) 586-9401.
OSAKA, Oct 19 ( News On Japan ) - A former doctor was handed a suspended sentence after being found guilty of secretly filming female students naked during a school health checkup.

The 35-year-old former doctor was charged with violating child pornography prohibition laws, among other offenses, for using a pen-shaped miniature camera to secretly capture images of female students while they were naked during health examinations conducted in schools in Osaka Prefecture and Hyogo Prefecture last year.

During the trial, the accused admitted to the charges, with the revelation that there were over 40 victims, based solely on the incidents for which he was charged.

In the verdict delivered on Sep 7, the Osaka District Court pointed out that "the crime exploited the trust placed in doctors conducting health check-ups, and stern criticism is appropriate." However, considering factors such as settlements reached with some of the victims, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison, suspended for 5 years.
If elected, each of the six candidates for the Council Bluffs Community Schools Board of Education attending a forum in Crescent on Monday night had different priorities.

But they also shared a goal: working together to make decisions that would be most beneficial for the districts students. And they said the Council Bluffs schools could benefit from additional funding.

The board is a single hat, and any person that comes on to the board with an agenda will find that out in a big hurry that it is a group. You work all of this out with the group, said Teresa Hardiman, who previously served as one of two interim school board members in 2021 when two members resigned.

What is best for our students? What is best for our teachers? Not what's best for my neighbor, but what's best for the teachers and the students as a whole. And that's hard sometimes to do," Hardiman said.

In addition to Hardiman, the candidates answering questions in Crescent were incumbent Dave Coziahr along with challengers Angela Griner, Scott Hansen, Dani Jones and Tracy Ozzello.

Foster dropping out of school board race Ammie Foster is no longer seeking election to the school board. Foster, who ran as a write-in candidate in 2021, told The Nonpareil in a phone call Wednesday that she is in the process of withdrawing due to a personal medical issue. Early voting is underway. The last day to withdraw from the ballot was Sept. 26.  David Golbitz

There are eight candidates on the ballot for four seats on the school board. Incumbent Troy Arthur and challenger Ammie Foster, who says she's withdrawing from the race, didn't attend the meeting.

Hansen, who previously served on the school board from 2014 to 2017 and did not seek a second term at the time, agrees with the importance of the board speaking with one voice.

"It's not one board member who does anything, it's the full board," he said. "And so even if I vote no and the rest of the board votes yes, in the end it's no different than if I would have voted yes for whatever it is."

Hansen also believes that the school board's job is to "ensure the best interest of the students, as well as the best interest of the taxpayers.

"The purpose of the school board is to set the policies for the school district ... and to ensure that the best actions are being taken by the policies that are set in the school district," Hansen said.

Ozzello would like to see more oversight and engagement between the school board and those who are most affected by the policies it passes.

"I see the board as part of our checks and balance system, working with our students, working with our parents, working with our teachers, oversight with our superintendent, just making sure everything functions appropriately," she said. "Being engaged has been very important to me ... because I think then that's when we start seeing maybe some of the things that are inconsistent, maybe, with what we're being told."

Each of the candidates agreed that working together for the benefit of the district means putting aside personal biases and preconceptions.

I think it's really important to start out with a clean slate, Griner said. When things are brought to the board, you're pretty much neutral. You take your own biases and leave them at the door, and it's really important to listen to the facts as they're presented, listen to people in the district for their expertise.

Coziahr, who was first elected to the board in 2004, was in agreement that listening is perhaps the most important skill needed to contribute to the school board.

I think listening to other board members is a critical function of a board member, Coziahr said. I set my mind in a place where I'm there to listen and to voice my concern but, most importantly, to listen how the voices of the other board members change me. It's not necessarily my goal to change somebody's idea, opinion or get them to vote a certain way. I'm there to listen to how they can change me.

School funding was another topic that generated a lot of discussion, because without adequate funding, its difficult to retain quality educators, hire paraprofessionals, offer adequate busing, and provide a quality education for the communitys children.

School board members are advocates at the Statehouse on behalf of all students, Coziahr said. We're there to make sure that we're getting the proper funding that we need for our students.

Jones agreed that board members have to speak with state legislators, but she would also like to see the public advocate for its children more, too.

We can only do so much, she said. We're a board of only seven people. It takes everybody in the community getting out there and, again, like everybody else up here has said, you have to get in touch with your legislators, get your voice out there."

That effort, she said, is worthwhile.

"I know people don't think that it does anything, but being quiet and not voicing your opinion does nothing either, so might as well take the five to 10 minutes it takes to call your legislators or send them an email or a letter and voice your and keep on them until they pass legislation that is going to work for our budget and is going to work for our schools and our taxpayers and the kids and the programs, Jones said.

Hardiman suggested that we start electing people who will help us" to Des Moines.

We cannot send what's there and who has voted away the schools and keep them there. If you really want change and you really want to go for the public schools, we need to help the legislators that are running and are for our schools, she said.

Ozzello seconded that sentiment, urging voters to make sure that who youre voting for aligns (with your values) and your support of our public schools.

Earlier this year, the school board was told it needed to cut nearly $4 million from its budget to break even between expenses and revenue, which led, in part, to the closing of Crescent Elementary School. It doesnt help that the district is facing the prospect of losing students whose parents are using the states Educational Savings Account vouchers to place them in private schools.

Statewide, the Iowa Department of Education had received more than 17,000 applications for the ESA program. Students leaving the Council Bluffs schools each take away nearly $7,600 in funding.

The biggest challenge that we have is that the legislators approved and the governor signed (a bill) eliminating the requirement for designating where you're going to go to school by March 15th for that next coming year, Coziahr said.

Between Aug. 23 and the last board meeting, Coziahr said 572 students have open enrolled out of Council Bluffs, while about 500 have come into the district. But state lawmakers removed an enrollment deadline, so the district is left to guess at how many students to expect.

"How can we prepare the classroom? Do we know if we're going to have 30 kids in the classroom or are we going to have 10 kids in the classroom? Because there's no requirement to (register) by March 15th, we have no idea, so we have to put together a budget on what we think is going to happen," Coziahre said. "To have 572 students open enroll out from the first day of school, how can you budget for that?

Arthur, who has served on the board since 2011, told the Nonpareil in an email after the event that he would like the district to focus on improving academic rigor" in the district.

Our standards and expectations for students should be higher," Arthur said. "In a system that has been adapted to serve the varying needs of all students, from those with stable home lives and supportive families to those who are experiencing high poverty, high mobility, and little to no family, this is more than just challenging. It requires a system of supports and services to ensure all of our students are able to engage fully in their education. But we should not sacrifice our rigor and expectations."

The city-school general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7. Early voting is currently underway. For more information about the upcoming general election, visit elections.pottcounty-ia.gov.
Almost 40 veterans were able to see memorials dedicated to military personnel lost during a war or period when they served, thanks to the Kanesville Honor Guard and local sponsors.

About 44 people, including caregivers, took off on the Council Bluffs Honor Flight Tuesday, Oct. 3, from Eppley Airfield in Omaha to fly to Washington, D.C..

They visited most of the major monuments and returned Thursday, Oct. 5, said Molly George of The Heritage at Fox Run. Three veterans from Fox Run were among the passengers.

One veteran aboard served during the Korean War, and a few served in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, said Al Ruby, president of the Kanesville Honor Guard. The rest served during the Vietnam War period.

The group took a guided bus tour and saw a series of war memorials, George said.

We went to practically every monument and memorial you can think of, she said. I think it was a healing experience and also good for them to get together with other veterans.

Some veterans became emotional when they found the names of fallen comrades on The Wall, Ruby said.

Kanesville Honor Guard, with the help of sponsors, covered all the everyday expenses, George said.

We didnt have to pay for anything, she said. They paid for our flight, food and lodging.

The veterans were grateful for the experience, George said.

They were ecstatic, she said. They were emotional, and they were excited to come home and share their story with their family and friends. They were humbled, as well.

The Kanesville Honor Guard has sponsored the past three Honor Flights and plans to sponsor another one next year, Ruby said.
There will be no better way to get into the holiday spirit than with the Zone Afterschool Programs Jingle Bell Rock concert and fundraiser presented by Leonard Management.
MAJOR JESUS Trejo with the Norfolk Salvation Army dons a red apron while holding a bucket and a bell that will be used during this years Red Kettle Campaign. The annual campaign  conducted during the holiday season  raises funds for the organizations programs, many of which focus on ending food insecurity. This years campaign, however, is critically low on volunteers to ring the bells.
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The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has decided to finance the construction of Ifria refrigeration facilities in two African countries, namely Morocco and Senegal. The move, announced last week, come after DFC provided technical assistance grants to the cold chain development company Ifria in 2021.

The Corporation announced the signing of commitment letters worth $20 million with Ifria Cold Chain Development Company, a cold chain development company for the North and West African markets.

The funds will be used to finance new cold storage facilities in Morocco and Senegal to help extend the shelf life of perishable foodstuffs and pharmaceutical products for farmers, retailers, and consumers.

Of this amount, $9.3 million is allocated to Ifria Agadir SAS for the establishment of a cold chain warehouse in the Moroccan town of Oulad Teima. The remaining $10.5 million is granted to Ifria Cold Chain Development Company Senegal for the development of a cold chain warehouse required for large-scale storage of food and pharmaceutical products in Senegal.

The financing agreements were concluded on the sidelines of the 2023 annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF, which took place in Morocco October 9 -15.

For Ifria, this funding will support the development of its food and pharmaceutical supply chain logistics infrastructure in Morocco and Senegal.
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Chads Ministers of Defense and Bilingualism Promotion respectively Gen. Daoud Yaya Brahim and Haliki Choua Mahamat have tendered in their resignation to the Transitional Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo, local media Alwihda Info has reported.

Choua, the media notes resigned Tuesday October 17. The General on the other hand stepped down Wednesday October 18.

I wanted to inform you personally of an important decision I have just taken. After careful consideration, I have decided to tender my resignation from the government, and I am pleased to announce that the Prime Minister has accepted it, Choua said on Facebook after his move.

The media argues that the emergence of some private videos on social media ignited their resignations.

The two ministers have been named in a sex tape scandal. Kebzabo has reportedly accepted their resignations. Paris-based media Jeune Afrique reports that the Prime Minister and the Transition leader Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno advised the two government officials to set down to save the face of the Transition.

The scandal comes as black spot on the transition that is inching towards its end. The country is set to go to presidential polls in one year to wrap up the transition.
The renewed flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian conflict has caused an outrage across Africa but it has also prompted heated debates in different countries in the continent about how to reconcile the gap between their economic and trade goals and their political and cultural realities.

Thousands of protesters have marched across the Middle East and Africa on Tuesday and Wednesday (17-18 October) after hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed in an explosion at a hospital in Gaza. The African Union (AU) strongly condemned an alleged Israeli airstrike on the hospital on Wednesday, while Djibouti has called it genocide against Palestinian people. Targeting a hospital, considered a safe haven under International Humanitarian Law, is a war crime. The international community must act now, AU Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat said in a statement. Also South Africa condemned Israels bombing of Gaza, saying that targeting civilians in armed conflicts violates international humanitarian laws, Geneva Conventions.

But while many African countries have long held deep rooted ties with Palestine and its struggles, in recent years Israel has managed to sway opinions in parts of the continent by using its economic and technological clout. With African economies now facing heavy toll of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, some governments may be worried that they can ill afford another global shock to add to Covid-19, climatic stresses and Russias invasion of Ukraine, all of which have seen import costs rise amid food shortages. A case in point is the AU that has struggled to balance the equation on the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Policy-makers in East Asia are closely watching the developments in the Middle East owing to the regions bilateral relations with both the Western and Arab countries. Regional economists have expressed fears over the possible impact of the conflict on the East African nations. According to Samuel Nyandemo from the University of Nairobis School of Economics, besides an imminent increase in production costs, from higher prices, African countries are likely to feel friction from their geopolitical alliances around supporting Israel.
King Mohammed VI has appointed at the Ministers Council he chaired Thursday in Rabat six ambassadors, namely to the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, France, China, and the United States of America.

This diplomatic movement, described by analysts of the news website Le360 as qualitative, concerned six strategic countries, with which Morocco maintains historical ties, multidimensional partnerships, and with which it has converging points of view on the Moroccan Sahara, and a diplomatic coordination on several regional issues.

Relations with these six countries have always been spearheaded and monitored directly by the Sovereign. Three of these countries, namely the United States, France and China, are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council; the other three (the UAE, Jordan, Egypt) are key countries in the Arab world and within the League of Arab States.

These appointments come against a backdrop of turbulence in the Middle East (Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and the United States) and increased tensions between China and the United States.

On the bilateral level, Morocco maintains solid relations with these six countries and is keen on strengthening these relations, adjust their paradigms and enrich their content.

The analysis of the CVs and profiles of the ambassadors appointed this Thursday by the Sovereign makes it possible to underline the consecration of meritocracy and the professionalism of diplomacy. Indeed, five of the six ambassadors appointed are executives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This testifies to royal confidence in the professionalism and competence of Moroccan diplomatic executives, who are thus entrusted with leading positions.

The sixth appointee, Moroccos new Ambassador to France, Samira Sitail, who has an extensive national and international media experience, is the first woman to hold this position since independence. The former star journalist of the 2M channel has a great mastery of the political field and the main economic and social issues of the Kingdom, combined with a very good knowledge of the French political and media landscape.

During the Ministers Council, the King also appointed a number of Walis and governors.
During a visit to Israel, President Biden mixed expressions of sympathy and support with advice not to repeat the American post-9/11 mistake of making bad decisions in the heat of anger.

Fox News, in a casting decision not unlike bringing the captain of the Titanic to explain why you should never warn ship captains to steer away from icebergs, brought on Ari Fleischer to express indignation.

Fleischer, George W. Bushs former press secretary, used to commemorate 9/11 annually by livetweeting the days events. He stopped only after signing a deal to represent Saudi Arabia last year. (Fleischer insisted the timing was coincidental). But it is important to understand that Fleischer continues to see the aftermath of 9/11 as a high point of bold leadership rather than the prelude to catastrophic mismanagement. And as one of the leading minds in this inspiring episode, he felt the need to smack down Biden for invoking the sacred day as something other than a model of geopolitical wisdom and strategery.

Bidens suggestion that Israelis should not make big decisions when angry seemed to make Fleischer visibly enraged.

When he said that Israelis should not be consumed by rage? Who the hell does he think he is? he demanded. Fleischer pointed to the actions of American allies after 9/11 as the proper course.

I sat in on every summit meeting with foreign leaders when they came to the U.S. after 9/11 and met with Bush, he recounted. Not one said to Bush the Americans shouldnt be consumed with rage. Instead they just came to support us.

Now, a viewer who understood the disastrous outcome of that episode might be wondering if the American allies should have done more to warn us away from letting our grief drive us into a world-historical blunder. But to Ari Fleischer, the post-9/11 atmosphere  which coincides with the period in American life when his power and prestige were at an apogee  is perfection itself, and any deviation from it is presumptively wrong and immoral.
Photo: AHMED ZAKOT/REUTERS

As Israel threatens a ground invasion of Gaza, U.S. officials have reportedly begun to urge restraint, at least in private. It comes too late for the more than 3,000 Palestinians in Gaza who have already been killed by Israeli air strikes and the roughly 1 million who have been displaced. On Monday, a human-rights organization estimated that Israeli forces have killed more than a thousand children in Gaza since October 7. Israeli air strikes in Gaza and southern Lebanon have killed aid workers, medical personnel, and journalists like Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah. On Tuesday night, an explosion rocked a hospital in Gaza City, which is said to have killed hundreds of people seeking care and refuge. Hamas blames the Israel Defense Forces, which recently ordered Gazan hospitals to evacuate and have attacked hospitals there in the past. The IDF and the United States say it was caused by an errant militant rocket.

Without some kind of cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, many more Palestinians will die, and the vast majority of them will lose their lives and limbs to bombs and bullets supplied by the U.S. Whatever U.S. officials tell their Israeli counterparts about restraint in private, the public message has hardly changed. In a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, President Biden said the U.S. would, as usual, provide Israel with everything they need.

Israel is going after a group of people who have engaged in barbarism that is as consequential as the Holocaust, he added, and Israel must respond. The Israelis are gonna do everything in their power to avoid the killing of innocent civilians, he asserted. If thats true, Israels mighty military is either powerless or its leaders dont believe civilians in Gaza are innocent. The thousands killed by Israeli air strikes did not bear collective responsibility for Hamas or its slaughter. The dead are not served by lies. Israelis and Palestinians alike deserve more than platitudes, more than U.S. policy as usual. But Bidens statements are in keeping with overwhelming American support for an apartheid state. Today, the U.S. supports Benjamin Netanyahus incompetent far-right government, which seems to have no strategy but to answer indiscriminate brutality with even more indiscriminate brutality.

There is no justification for the October 7 slaughter of Israeli civilians by Hamas and other militants. Officials are still identifying the bodies; some are burned, while others bear signs of torture. Yet the butchery of Hamas cannot justify Israels relentless bombardment of 2.2 million Palestinians trapped behind the fence in Gaza. Israel has cut off food, fuel, electricity, medical supplies, and water, creating a humanitarian crisis. The IDF urged civilians to evacuate northern Gaza, but with all border crossings sealed, Palestinians cant leave the territory. Even if they could, theres no guarantee they will ever be able to return home. For many Palestinians, the evacuation order is a precursor to the same sort of ethnic cleansing that happened in 1948. (Nor does fleeing guarantee safety: Israel has continued conducting air strikes in southern Gaza, where, Hamas-controlled authorities have said, an Israeli air strike killed around 70 Palestinian evacuees.)

Thousands, if not tens of thousands, more innocents will die if Israel carries out its planned ground invasion, a prospect that would indict the U.S. as much as Israel. To speak out about this reality is somehow still a radical act that invites backlash. Even before this war, people lost jobs and were smeared as antisemites for criticizing the Israeli government and expressing support for Palestine. Since October 7, Palestinian Americans and American Muslims have once again become objects of suspicion, and federal law-enforcement agents have visited U.S. mosques and detained Palestinian nationals, according to civil-rights activists who spoke with The Intercept. Suspicion can turn violent. When the mother of 6-year-old Wadea Alfayoumi asked her landlord in Illinois to pray for peace, according to authorities, the landlord stabbed her son 26 times in what prosecutors say was a hate crime prompted by the news in Israel.

Most members of the American political class, including the vast majority of Democratic lawmakers, are now in lockstep with the Biden administration. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has led a bipartisan trip to Israel to show the United States unwavering support for the country, a spokesperson said. Governor Kathy Hochul of New York went there too, explaining that it was more important than ever for New York to show up in support of Israel.

Biden went to Israel on Wednesday, and though he has pledged $100 million in aid to Palestinians, that wont go far. Biden has also announced that Israel will allow some humanitarian aid to go to Gaza from Egypt. Although this is a welcome development, its unclear when this will begin or how long the arrangement will last, as it is dependent on the goodwill of the same state that has been bombing Gaza to bits. At the United Nations on Wednesday, the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have allowed humanitarian pauses to get aid to Gaza.

We must still acknowledge that American complicity in the yearslong occupation, blockade, and siege of Gaza has produced nothing but widespread suffering and wave after wave of death. The U.S. has already backed this collective punishment as Israel has transformed Gaza into an open-air prison camp with direct U.S. assistance. The U.S. holds Palestinian life so cheaply that it has largely stood by as Israel acts with impunity on the world stage. For Palestinians, the consequences are bloody. Last year, an Israeli sniper killed Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a U.S. citizen, in what looked like a targeted attack that Israel tried to blame on militants. There has been no justice for her. In 2018, during a Palestinian protest against the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the IDF killed over 200 people, including a paramedic and a 12-year-old boy. During the 2014 Gaza conflict, Israeli forces killed 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians and over 550 children, according to the UNRWA. By contrast, 74 Israelis were killed, including six civilians. In 2008, during another war against Hamas, Israeli forces killed 1,398 Palestinians, according to BTselem, while Palestinian militants killed three Israeli civilians. Nine members of Israels security forces were killed, four by friendly fire.

To be complicit in all of this killing is to participate in the relentless dehumanization and destruction of Palestinians. Some in the U.S. are cheering for this. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has said that were in a religious war and that Israel should level Gaza. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas posted on X that Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza and that anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas. Florida governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has conflated all Palestinians in Gaza with Hamas and called for a refugee ban.

There are a brave few standing up for decency and common sense: On Monday, Democratic representatives including Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, and Andre Carson introduced a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, which is further than Biden has been willing to go. An Israeli invasion of Gaza would be a big mistake, he told 60 Minutes, but the president seems reluctant to reconsider his otherwise unflinching support for the Israeli state. On Wednesday, as he spoke of his desire to help the Palestinians who are innocent, he said the U.S. would have Israels back as you work to defend your people, the Associated Press reported.

Millions of civilians are trapped inside Gaza, and their bodies are piling up. Americas hands are already bloody. There may be no way to wash them clean, but the U.S. has the power to prevent tragedy from multiplying. To do so, however, officials would have to embrace the radical idea that Palestinians are human beings too. Their families are being wiped out, their children erased. There is no contest in grief. The woe of Palestinians is not worth less than that of Israelis. Yet by supporting Israel almost without question, the U.S. makes Palestinian life dispensable.

The dead cry out for justice in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank, too. But there is no justice in brutality. If peace is to be anything more than a slogan, the U.S. must demand an end to the killing, by Israel as well as Hamas. There are too many bodies and still no end in sight.
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty

Would you team up with Ted Cruz, the most hated man in Congress  working closely with him for many years and even pretending to like him  if it meant keeping Donald Trump out of the White House? Apparently, Mitt Romney strongly considered it.

As we near the October 24 release of the authorized tell-all biography Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins, were learning that Romney repeatedly considered bold moves to save America from the Trump administration  but most of them didnt go anywhere.

To Romneys credit, he has done more to thwart Trump than most Republicans. In March 2016, the GOPs previous presidential nominee delivered a scathing speech dismissing candidate Trump as a fraud and a phony. In his biography, Romney reveals that his efforts to prevent Trump from clinching the nomination did not stop there.

The Guardian, which has obtained an early copy of the biography, reports that five days before the New Hampshire GOP primary on February 9, 2016, Romney received a provocative pitch. Robert OBrien, Romneys friend and adviser, and Jim Talent, a former senator from Missouri, said he should make a late entry to the presidential race and tap Cruz as his running mate to unite anti-Trump Republicans. Per The Guardian:

OBrien and Talent called this the Robert Kennedy strategy  get in late to build momentum, win enough delegates to keep the frontrunner from clinching the nomination, then march into the convention girded for a floor fight.

Robert F Kennedy entered the 1968 Democratic primary late, tapping a surge of support before being assassinated in California.

Romney told Talent and OBrien that his number one priority is to stop Trump. So he considered making this noble sacrifice, though he found the Texas senator scary:

Romney was willing to wage a quixotic and humiliating presidential bid if thats what it took, McKay Coppins writes 

He might even be able to swallow sharing a ticket with Cruz, a man hed described as scary and a demagogue in his journal. But Romney didnt think the gambit would actually succeed in taking down Trump. The problem was that no one else in the party seemed to know what to do about Trump, either.

Romney was probably right that he couldnt have defeated Trump at a brokered GOP convention. But could he and Cruz have stopped him in the general election, if theyd launched a third-party bid? Maybe! It seems, however, that Romneys No. 1 priority was actually stopping Hillary Clinton. One of his reasons for opposing Trump was that hed probably lose to the Democrat in November. Romney said in his anti-Trump speech: A person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton must not become president. But a Trump nomination enables her victory.

Though he apparently wasnt willing to risk boosting Clinton, Romney did keep trying to influence the GOP primary even after he decided not to run himself. He attempted to form an anti-Trump ticket with Cruz as the presidential nominee and Marco Rubio as his VP, but the two senators were just too self-interested, Coppins writes. Romney also sent John Kasich a series of increasingly gruff emails telling him to drop out of the race, to no avail.

After Trump won the election, Romney got another chance to launch a quixotic and humiliating effort to save America from the TV stars worse impulses  this time not by running against him, but by serving as his secretary of State. Coppins writes that Romney considered the role partly because he felt someone around Trump had to quell the chaos, and partly because he just likes to be in the room where it happens. The Guardian reports:

[Romney] wanted the job. I like being involved and being in the middle of things, and having something important to do, he admitted. Its like, you know, I wanted to be president. If you cant be president, being secretary of states not a bad spot to come thereafter.

 According to Coppins, Mike Pence, the vice-president-elect, called Romney with the offer. Romney demurred, then called back and said he would be honored to meet with Trump. Looking back on it later, Coppins writes, Romney would acknowledge that his willingness to entertain Trumps offer was propelled by a mix of noble motivations and self-centered ones.

During their initial meeting, Trump told Romney he was right out of central casting  perfect  just what I need. But Pence made clear that Romney would have to humiliate himself further by telling the media hed been wrong to attack Trump and that what youve learned has given you much more confidence in him being president.

Romney did not oblige, and the job ultimately went to Rex Tillerson. Romney was elected as the junior senator from Utah in 2018, and he voted twice to impeach Trump. Then, according to the Coppins biography, Romney considered running for president with Oprah Winfrey in 2020 as part of yet another effort to stop Trump (though Winfrey denies this happened).

So now that Trump seems poised to be the GOPs 2024 presidential nominee, will Romney do something wild and crazy to block his White House return? Probably not! But rest assured that hell think about it a lot.
Photo: Abed Khaled/AP

An explosive fell on the parking lot of a hospital in Gaza City Tuesday, killing a large number of Palestinians. Hamas attributed the blast to the Israeli military. Many news organizations and critics of Israel attributed the catastrophe to the Israeli military.

This presumption of Israeli responsibility was not unfounded. Israel had struck the hospital just days earlier, according to video footage obtained by the New York Times. The Israeli military had ordered the evacuation of 22 hospitals in northern Gaza last week, according to the World Health Organization. And Israel had dropped more than 6,000 tons of bombs on the Gaza Strip since Hamass attack on October 7. The Israeli Defense Forces denied responsibility for the strike on the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, attributing it to a misfired rocket by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Yet Israel had attempted to frame Islamic Jihad for its own air strikes against civilians in the past.

Nevertheless, presenting Israels responsibility for the al-Ahli hospital as a proven fact was journalistically irresponsible. And this irresponsibility became more apparent on Wednesday, when new information cast doubt on early narratives about the attack. For example, there was a widespread sense Tuesday that the explosion had destroyed the hospital. This suggested that the blast was of a magnitude far larger than an Islamic Jihad rocket was capable of generating. In the light of Wednesday morning, however, a photo published by a Palestinian news source, and verified by the Times, indicated that the hospital was intact, as the explosions direct impact was concentrated on the parking lot. The crater left by the explosive appears quite small. U.S. intelligence claims that multiple strands of evidence indicate Islamic Jihads responsibility, including infrared satellite data. As of this writing, no independent news outlet has verified this conclusion.

The rush to judgment has costs. Initial reports of Israeli responsibility derailed President Bidens planned summit with the leaders of Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority, which might have helped to spur a faster humanitarian response to conditions in Gaza. Still, for those seeking to advance a particular political narrative about Israel, the risks of epistemic immodesty may seem to pale in comparison with the potential benefits. In this view, one little (potential) lie can serve to promote a larger truth.

But I think this is a mistake, particularly in the present context. The case for a ceasefire in Gaza does not rest on Israels culpability for any single air strike. The undisputed facts are more than enough to indicate that Israels campaign against Hamas has featured a callous disregard for civilian suffering. We dont need to rely on Hamas to know that Israel has cut off food, fuel, electricity, and water to much of Gazas population. Israels own government has told us that. Similarly, data from the Gaza Health Ministry is not our only indication that there have been massive civilian casualties in Gaza. The U.N. tells us that Gaza is running out of body bags, while photos published by the IDF portray the large-scale decimation of civilian infrastructure.

Virtually every war entails some number of civilian casualties. But in its previous campaigns against Gaza, Israel has shown a distinctive indifference toward civilian life. The IDF will attribute this reality to Hamass habit of embedding its military installations into civilian infrastructure. But it does not follow that Israel has no responsibility to give weight to Palestinian life.

More fundamentally, Israel wields de facto control over Gazans conditions of daily life. In a meaningful sense, Israel is the state that rules them. And Gazans are denied a voice in that state on the basis of their national and ethnic identities. It is true that, in surveys, Gazans express little interest in living in a single, binational democratic state from the river to the sea. But it is unclear whether this would be the case in a world where such a state were not such a far-fetched hypothetical. In any event, the fact that Gazans live under the subjugation of the Israeli state, rather than under the auspices of their own independent state, makes Israels collective punishment of Gaza all the more obscene.

Meanwhile, it is far from clear that the present campaign will be effective in ensuring Israelis long-term security interests. Already, the campaign has generated such enmity in the Arab world as to jeopardize Israels normalized relations with its neighbors. At the same time, the unprecedented scale of death within Gaza is all but certain to radicalize countless young people, minting the next generation of violent extremists.

Israel cannot tolerate Hamas attacks. But it is not clear that it couldnt more effectively protect Israelis by simultaneously increasing its defensive capacities on the Gaza border, targeting some high-ranking Hamas militants, and addressing the Palestinians political grievances. For example, by abandoning its illegal settlement project in the West Bank, Israel could free up more troops for guarding its border with Hamas. At the same time, an Israeli government that made genuine concessions to Palestinian rights might eat into Hamass appeal in Gaza. Among the other merits of this approach, it seems likelier to bring about the safe return of the Israeli hostages still living in Gaza.

For all these reasons, the case for an immediate ceasefire  and durable end to a mode of warfare that takes mass Palestinian death as its acceptable price  is strong. And the question of whether Israel was responsible for the calamity at al-Ahli Hospital has essentially no bearing on that case. There is simply no reason for advocates of the Palestinian cause to dig in on a factual debate about a single incident, rather than focusing on making their moral case against the present war.

This is not the first time in this conflict that people have missed the forest for contested trees. In the immediate aftermath of Hamass attack, there were reports that militants beheaded babies and raped Israeli women on a massive scale. As of this writing, such reports remain unconfirmed. I was among those who initially gave undue credence to such reports. Yet those, like myself, who wished to emphasize the barbarity of Hamass attack had no reason to quibble over these details. The undisputed facts were more than enough to establish the monstrosity of Hamass actions. It is not meaningfully worse to behead a baby than to burn one alive, as images released by the IDF suggest that Hamas did when it set houses on fire. The killing of 1,400 Israeli Jews was a historic crime, irrespective of whether it featured the decapitation of babies or rape at a mass scale. Insisting on the veracity of those contested details only served to deflect attention away from the horror of what was known.

Thus, it is not just irresponsible but also bad political practice, to wager ones credibility on disputed, inessential details. The case against Israels campaign does not rest on its culpability for any single explosion, and the Palestinians allies do them no favors by acting as though it does.
Scenes from a landfill-free move. Photo: David Pogue

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Nothing sours you on consumerism like moving. Especially when youre moving out of a home youve occupied for 20 years to a new place half the size.

On our way to becoming empty-nesters this fall, my wife and I had accumulated a mountain of material goods. I mean, so. Much. Crap. We faced down closets full of kid stuff (toys, bikes, sports, instruments, costumes, books), superfluous house junk (furniture, rugs, bedclothes, garage crud), and, of course, all our own crap: the amassed clothing, equipment, and stacked attic relics of our time on earth so far.

Im not a hoarder; Im really not. Ive just been a little busy for the past 20 years.

As the sale of our house approached, I could see two quick ways out.

Option 1: Haul everything to Goodwill, Salvation Army, or Habitat for Humanity. Unfortunately, these places reject all kinds of stuff, including mattresses and bedding, toys, cribs, strollers, and anything that needs fixing. And 15 percent of what Goodwill does accept winds up in the landfill anyway.

Option 2: Dump it all into the massive hydraulic maw of the Transfer Station, run by our towns sanitation department. Its a 15-by-20-foot steel trash compactor set into a concrete floor; it looks like a swimming pool of death. You pull up in your car, heave your unwanted stuff into the stinky metal abyss, and go home. Every year, 44 million Americans move; by one estimate, each move involves ditching an average of 1,120 pounds of household crap. Our purgesix people, big house, 20 yearswould have been far worse.

I couldnt deal with that; for both aesthetic and ethical reasons, I didnt want to be part of the problem. I needed an Option 3. I wanted to engineer a landfill-free move.

That notion wound up becoming a six-month obsession  and opening my eyes to just how huge and friendly the secondhand economy has become.

The kitchen

We began prepping the house for sale a couple of years ago. For starters, the real-estate agent told us, the kitchen would have to go. It was outdated, it was cracked, it was beige. It had landfill written all over it.

But heres a cool story: In 2001, a radio executive and recovering addict named Steve Feldman was driving through Greenwich, Connecticut, when he spotted the demolition of a 10,000-square-foot mansion in progress. He watched, aghast, as workers threw load after load of custom kitchen cabinetry, fine-marble countertops, and high-end appliances into dumpsters.

Surely, he thought, there was a market for this stuff.

There was. The company he founded shortly thereafter, Renovation Angel, has now rescued 8,100 upscale kitchens, according to its website.

Photo: David Pogue

It would have been easy to send our old kitchen to the landfill. Instead it got a second life  and we saved a lot of money  with Renovation Angel. Photo: David Pogue. It would have been easy to send our old kitchen to the landfill. Instead it got a second life  and we saved a lot of money  with Renovation Angel. P... more It would have been easy to send our old kitchen to the landfill. Instead it got a second life  and we saved a lot of money  with Renovation Angel. Photo: David Pogue.

Here is its business model. (Caution: May sound insane.) When you want to renovate your kitchen, Renovation Angel sends an insured, background-checked demolition crew to rip it off the walls. Of course, demolition and rip arent quite the right words; what they actually do is carefully unscrew, pry, remove, and protect your cabinets, counters, and appliances, piece by piece. Then they load it all onto a truck and drive it to New Jersey.

At this point, they stage your former kitchen in a 43,000-foot showroom. Its as weird as it sounds: an immense store selling entire kitchens, arrayed like stage sets with price tags.

People who are renovating their kitchens can now buy yours for 10 or 20 percent of its original cost. (How can someone buy a kitchen from a totally different house and expect it to fit their kitchen space? Kitchens are modular, Feldman says. They use a few less cabinets. They rearrange them differently. They get different granite. But at the end of the day, theyre saving tens of thousands of dollars.

And this may be the best part: The whole thing is a nonprofit. Feldman donates the proceeds to addiction-recovery programs like the one he credits with saving his life.

We went for it. It worked. We saved $5,000 on the demolition and hauling. We got a receipt for a whopping tax deduction. Some lucky family out there got their new (beige) kitchen for a song. More money funded more social programs.

And the landfill never saw a splinter of it.

The bathrooms

Like the suburban home-selling cliches we had become, my wife and I also updated two of our bathrooms before putting the place on the market. That meant we had sinks, toilets, cabinets, and a big bathtub potentially headed to the landfill. At the time, Renovation Angel had no interest in that stuff; they just did kitchens. Habitat for Humanity declined us too; they said they accept only appliances under ten years old  and no used faucets or toilets.

Fortunately, my Google sleuthing unearthed Second Chance. This outfit doesnt do the demolition for you, but they do send a crew to collect the pieces. This time, the chunks of your former decor wind up in a store in Baltimore. Once again, you get a donation receipt for tax purposes. And once again, its a nonprofit with a larger social purpose: It trains and employs people with various employment obstacles.

All we had to do was stand out of the way as their crew carried off the dismembered guts of our old bathrooms to their bright new future in Baltimore. Including the toilets. Take that, Habitat!

We were two for two. I started feeling the altruists high.

Our old bathroom innards are headed for a showroom in Baltimore. Photo: David Pogue. Our old bathroom innards are headed for a showroom in Baltimore. Photo: David Pogue.

The free garage sale

But what about everything else? What about all the old sleds, puzzles, umbrellas, baskets, frames, towels, knickknacks, bedding, toys, and gadgets?

My wife, Nicki, was generally supportive of my reduce-reuse-recycle doctrine. But she also had a philosophy of her own: that if I attempted to sell each thing individually  on eBay, for example  Id drown in a time-suck vortex.

What I had here was a one-to-many problem. I didnt have the bandwidth to market and ship individual pieces of household junk one transaction at a time. What I needed was a many-to-one solution. I wanted the public to come en masse, at one appointed time and place, to survey all my attractively arrayed crap.

Thats how I came up with the Everything-Free Garage Sale.

The free garage sale? Total flop. Photo: David Pogue. The free garage sale? Total flop. Photo: David Pogue.

It looked exactly like a regular garage sale  long tables exhibiting one mans trash  but without price tags. The goal wasnt making money; it was finding new owners for as much detritus as possible as fast as possible.

I had no idea how well this would work. On one hand, I was encouraged by studies that illustrate the profound effect the word free has on people. It triggers a powerful emotional response that blows your sense of value to smithereens. (Of course youre not getting anything free in a Buy one, get one free deal. Theyre still making money off you. But try telling that to your reptile shopping brain.)

According to this theory, the FREE descriptor of my garage sale should have driven droves of shoppers to my driveway.

On the other hand, research has also solidly established the price-quality heuristic. Thats when we unconsciously assume that if something is more expensive, it must have better quality. (I mean, if you dont know much about wine, what else do you have to go on, am I right? Pricier must mean better.)

According to this theory, my low, low prices ($0) might suggest to potential shoppers that everything I had to offer was worthless junk.

So which scientific principle would prevail?

In the end, it was mostly a bust. Not many people showed up  and those who did seemed to miss the FREE part entirely. Over and over, someone would pick something up and ask, How much is this?

When I explained that everything was free for the taking, I expected huge smiles of delight. But almost without exception, I got Skeptic Face. They distrusted the whole premise of my brilliant innovation. Their gut reaction seemed to be, Whats wrong with this stuff?

Bottom line: The unappreciative respondents to my Free Garage Sale did not exactly clean us out. Unless I could find a better approach, there would be no landfill-free move.

The Marketplace

As Putting The House On The Market Day approached, my anxiety mounted. Surely, somewhere on lifes great matrix of time, effort, and money, there existed a better way to move these goods along to their next owners.

There was: Facebook Marketplace.

Yeah, I know. Facebook is a dumpster fire, Facebook is for losers, etc. But Marketplace is a parallel-universe Facebook in which the usual posting features are supplemented by special tools for listing, tracking, and selling stuff. And heres the beauty of it: Youre buying and selling stuff locally. No packing, no shipping. People just come by.

(If youve used Marketplace, this explanation likely strikes you as eye-rollingly self-evident. Once youve started using it, its no more remarkable a tool than, say, Google or Wikipedia. But I  yes, a grizzled tech journalist  had never tried it, despite its having bubbled along for years, 24/7, right under my nose.)

Over the course of what eventually totaled 175 Marketplace sales, I got the posting process down to a science. Take a couple of photos with the phone. Click New Listing. Write a description. (I never wrote that a laptop case, throw rug, or wicker chair had scratches or stains; I said that it was battle-scarred but proud.)

Pick a price, indicate what nearby cities you want to see your ad, click Post, and wait for the hordes to respond in the comments.

Nicki kept predicting, that things not gonna sell. But incredibly, that never did happen. We never did list something that nobody wanted.

There are dimwitted scammers, but theyre easy to spot. After that, your biggest problem is deciding who the lucky winner is going to be. Should you award your item to the first person to express interest? To the person who seems to need it the most? To the person whos been on Facebook a while, on the premise that theyll be less likely to be a no-show?

I used a spreadsheet to track each items movement through the process, with columns like Item, Buyer Contacted, Pickup Date, and Complete so I could remember whose court each ball was in.

Once the machinery was in motion, though, I loved my months moving merch on Marketplace. Remember, the buyers come to you. You meet them. And for some reason that science hasnt studied, almost everybody arrives warm and talky. Maybe its because we each think were getting the better deal; maybe its just fun when two people are brought together who otherwise never would have met. Whats for sure is that everybodys just delighted at the whole transaction, and some unforgettable conversations result.

Photo: David Pogue. Photo: David Pogue.

One woman came to pick up a huge box of promotional T-shirts that Id accumulated during my years as a tech writer. And what, I asked, could she possibly want with 90 T-shirts bearing the logos of now-defunct start-ups?

She collects clothing, blankets, and towels all year long. Then, twice a year, she flies it all back to her hometown in Haiti and gives it away. On her phone, she showed me a video of the local kids thronging around her to see what shed brought on her last visit.

A 40-year-old guy came to pick up, I kid you not, a set of Tae Kwon Do belts (white, yellow, green ) from my sons long-abandoned martial-arts phase. (This item had been high on Nickis Nobodys going to want that list, but this man really wanted them. He hoped that theyd inspire his own two boys.)

He began to describe his lifes arc: Grew up in Peru. Came to the U.S. as a teenager. Got into trouble, committed a felony, did time, then got clean and built a family and a gutter business.

But his mother never forgave him for what he did wrong. To this day, she refuses even to speak to her grandchildren. And as he got to this part of the story, he began to cry right there in the kitchen, clutching these old fabric belts. I just stood there trying to process what was happening and did my best to be a good listener. (The next day, he messaged me: Check your mailbox. Hed left us a bottle of wine.)

Another guy came to pick up a dining-room hutch. But when it turned out to be the wrong size for his space, he didnt just head out; the Marketplace Effect is too strong for that. Instead, we hung out for over an hour. When he learned that Im a writer, he lit up  his 16-year-old son is an aspiring fantasy author! Maybe I could read one of his stories and give him some advice?

Well, why not? Turns out the kid is talented. We exchanged a few emails. Last month, he wrote to let me know that his first story has been accepted for publication.

Now, a word about mattresses: In many states, selling mattresses and box springs is restricted or illegal. As a result, thousands upon thousands of them go straight to the landfill, which makes me crazy. (My exhaustive research  two links on the first page of Google results  suggests two explanations for the no mattress resale laws. Theory A: Well-meaning state legislators wanted to minimize the spread of bedbugs and mites. Theory B: Craven state legislators have bent to the will of Big Mattress.)

Fortunately, Facebook Marketplace hosts a flourishing underground economy for bedding. So when it came time to pass on a twin-bed mattress that wasnt in great shape, I listed it (free).

Incredibly, even that old mattress had a taker: A woman whod just left a domestic-abuse shelter. To help with her transition to a life on her own, the city had set her up with her own apartment  unfurnished. A mattress like this was just what she needed.

Beyond Marketplace

As my hobby grew, I came to realize the immensity and vibrance of the secondhand economy. For example, Buy Nothing communities have sprouted up all over the country. Its a little like Facebook Marketplace, except that everything is free. I routinely see beautiful couches, unopened electronics, unworn clothing, and an infinite supply of un-Goodwillable toys, strollers, and bassinets.

If you live in one of the 15 lucky states where Pickup Please operates, you dont even have to carry anything. They come to you, by appointment, to relieve you of used clothing, electronics, books, small furniture and appliances, fitness gear, and toys (yes, toys). On the East Coast, Planet Aid performs a similar service with an emphasis on clothes, shoes, linens, and towels.

In our new town, we have a Take It Or Leave It booth at the Metro-North station. Every Saturday, people drop off stuff and take away stuff, making the TIOLI concept a cross between a flea market and Daves Everything-Free Garage Sale.

After the great declutter

So how did I do? I regret to inform the planet that I did not, in the end, engineer a flawless, landfill-free move. We wound up with 11 trash cans worth of stuff I couldnt find a new home for.

But for the houses worth of possessions that I did redirect into the stream of usefulness, I feel great. For two reasons: First, obviously, I took pride in the gesture. Just this once, I knew I wasnt part of the problem.

Second, theres the donation effect: The well-studied principle that giving something away lights up the pleasure centers in your brain and lowers your blood pressure.

You get a small dose of that effect when you hand your stuff off to an institution like Goodwill or Renovation Angel for further distribution. But that feeling is nothing compared to the joy of placing something directly into someone elses hands  somebody you already know will use it and appreciate it. The objects future isnt imaginary and theoretical: Youre seeing it.

My grand decluttering really has poisoned consumerism for me. Ive developed a mental tic about acquiring new physical objects; the first thought that pops into my brain is, Someday, Ill have to unload this.

Fortunately, theres always a second thought: And damn, will it feel good.
Reuters/Ahmed Saad

While President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken work to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from expanding into a wider war, the U.S. intelligence community is warning behind the scenes that the conflict could spillover further into the United States itself, according to an intelligence memorandum obtained by The Daily Beast.

The potential for violence in the United States is heightened in response to the war, according to a Joint Intelligence Bulletin from the FBI, DHS, and the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center obtained by The Daily Beast.

These recent events have sharpened the focus of potential attacks on targeted individuals and institutions perceived as symbolic of or tied to the conflict, the bulletin says.

The intelligence memorandum states that lone wolf attackersor individuals who act alonewho are inspired by or reacting to the Israel-Hamas war pose the greatest threat to the homeland. Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities are most likely to be targeted, the memorandum warns.

Threats that the U.S. intelligence community is tracking include bomb threats, online calls for mass casualty attacks, and physical assaults.

Violence could take place with little to no warning, the intelligence memorandum says, citing the tensions and the widespread circulation of graphic images online as potential triggers for people to take violent action.

As the conflict endures, graphic visuals will likely continue to circulate online and garner significant media attention, potentially acting as a catalyst for various violent actors who have shared and continue to share this kind of material, the memo notes.

Hamas has not directly called for attacks in the United States, according to U.S. intelligence. But already, the carnage has spilled over into the country, leading to protests that devolve into clashes, and even murder. In a devastating attack last weekend, mere days after Hamas launched its attack on Israel, a landlord in Illinois attacked two of his residents, killing a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy and injuring the boys mother. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

Story continues

Dad of Palestinian Boy Stabbed 26 Times in Chicago Reveals Last Words

Anti-Semitic sentiments have also been running rampant in online circles, with synagogues around the country recieving fake bomb threats.

Hamas hasnt made explicit calls for violence in the United States, according to the intelligence memo. But some Americans may feel motivated or inspired by Hamas recent attacks against Israelis, and be moved to take similar action in the United States, the memo warns.

The perceived success of HAMASs terrorist attacks and U.S. foreign policy responses may prompt homegrown violent extremists to conduct attacks against the Jewish or Israeli community or the US government without specific direction from HAMAS or other foreign terrorist organizations.

Law enforcement agencies have increased their protection activities surrounding synagogues and places of worship in recent days in anticipation of attacks. But the intelligence bulletin warns law enforcement to remain vigilant, as the threat is only likely to increase.

Inside and Out

In addition to Americans taking inspiration from Hamas, U.S. intelligence suggests foreign terrorist organizations are also likely to use the war as a way to call for attacks in the west.

Already, Hamas media organization has urged on brothers in the Islamic resistance to help in efforts to defeat Israel, while al Qaeda in recent days calling for attacks on American bases, airports, battleships, and embassies, the memo notes.

And although the United States has said it doesnt intend to put boots on the ground, some have pinpointed the Biden administration as a party to the war, given that the United States is funneling military aid and ammunition to Israel, which could increase calls for attacks in the United States.

Iran, which has supported both Hezbollah and Hamas, has warned that the United States should be held responsible for this situation.

Our numerous intelligence reports show that the US is formulating the Zionist regimes current policy, and what is being done is governed by US policymaking, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote on Twitter or X.

U.S. Targeted Across the Mideast in Spate of Revenge for Gaza Attacks

If Israel expands its response to Hamas in Gaza further, the U.S. intelligence community warns that these kinds of threats will likely intensify. After pummeling Gaza with airstrikes for days, Israels defense minister warning troops on Thursday to prepare for a ground invasion of Gaza, noting the order will come.

The United States is not alone in dealing with Israel-Hamas tensions bubbling over locally. Tensions have exploded around the globe in reaction to the war. Although Hamas hasnt necessarily called for violence inside the United States, Hamas urged people last week to engage in a day of rage in support of Palestinians, which reportedly led to reports of knife attacks around the world.

Pro-Palestinian protests around the world have taken place, many of which have been peaceful. But in some instances, including at protests in Lebanon, supporters of the terrorist group Hezbollah held a rally in support of Palestinians, calling out for Death to Israel and "Death to America, according to ABC News.

World leaders, including Blinken and Biden, have been convening diplomatic meetings in the Middle East for days in an attempt to simmer tensions and allow cooler heads to prevail. But U.S. officials harbor concerns that the conflict may yet expand with other aggressors taking part in violence, such as Hezbollah or Iran.

A DHS spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the U.S. remains in a heightened threat environment and recent events reinforce that. As the Israel-Hamas conflict continues, we have seen an increase in reports of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions, adding, We urge the public to stay vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activity to local law enforcement.

Americans in general around the world should be on high alert for potential violence, the State Department said Thursday. The State Department issued a Worldwide Caution Security Alert to Americans on Thursday morning, stating that Americans should be aware of the potential for terrorist attacks as well as demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Human remains discovered in Alexander City on Sunday have been positively identified as the missing 45-year-old Opelika man and a suspect has been arrested on a charge of murder, Alexander City Police said on Wednesday.

ACPD say that Ricky Montel Johnson, of Opelika, was found dead in Alexander City on Sunday. Alexander City Police discovered the remains behind 344 Henry Street and were able to identify the body through descriptions and photographs from Opelika police before it was confirmed by the medical examiner on Tuesday. After launching an investigation, ACPD arrested 31-year old Richardeon Felonte Davis, of Camp Hill, on a charge of murder. The arrest was made early Wednesday morning around midnight and Davis is currently in the Tallapoosa County Jail.

Lieutenant William Grant with ACPD said that Johnson and Davis knew each other, but declined to go into more detail as the investigation is ongoing. Grant said that Johnsons body was found with puncture wounds to the chest.

Grant said there is another person of interest that police are looking to speak with, and there is a possibility of more chargers being levied against Davis, but all of that remains under investigation at this time.

There are no other suspected victims, but there is a gentleman that wed like to speak with, Grant said. Could possibly have knowledge about what happened.

Opelika Police announced a missing persons investigation on Monday, Oct. 16, after Johnson was last seen leaving his residence on Oct. 12. Grant said that Opelika Police contacted the ACPD about a missing person from the area.

Grant said that the remains were discovered after an investigator with Sylacauga law enforcement contacted ACPD dispatch and relayed information about there being a possible body behind the address at 344 Henry Street. The address is currently vacant and Grant said its been used for squatting.

Upon discovery, the remains were sent to the Alabama Forensics Office in Montgomery before being positively identified on Tuesday, police said.

Opelika Police Detectives are still assisting Alexander City Police Department with their investigation.

Anyone with information regarding this case is asked to contact Alexander City Police at (256) 234-3421.
What a piece of shit. He tortured poor Natalee's loved ones for almost 20 years. I hope now they can find some peace and that Natalee can rest peacefully as well.

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monster. what the worst sentencing he can get?

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He got 20 years, to be served concurrent with his sentence in Peru, which will run for another 22 years.

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whats happening in your icon needs to also happen to him

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And I think he's allowed conjugal visits there which is undeserved and ridiculous. Let him rot in solitary confinement

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I think he got moved to Challapalca prison in Peru which is well known for being one of the worst prisons in the world.



It's located 4800 meters above sea level in the middle of the Andes Mountains, over two hours from the nearest settlement. Because it's so high up, altitude sickness is common. The prison is usually kept dark and the hygiene levels in the prison are also deplorable.



This dude actually deserves to be there. He got conjugal visits at his old prison, even knocked someone up. Don't think he gets those where he is now.



Edited at 2023-10-19 02:11 am (UTC)

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Why now, zak stront.

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As part of a plea deal regarding extortion charges against Natalee's mother.

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glad he finally confessed.



i wish the media would give 1/32 of the coverage they give missing white women to all of the missing indigenous and black women.

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ITA, California is doing something controversial with a special amber alert for people of color in an effort to combat this, however its being called out because people saying that the police and the public will just ignore it for obvious reasons

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Yesss that is SO frustrating man. It's like?? Just add EVERYONE to the amber alert?? Why do we have to get kicked off to something separate that people will just mute?? It's literally yet another case of being so progressive that they loop right back around to being racist lol

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or transgender women

some white lady goes missing in puerto rico and i hear all sorts of shit about it

do you know what's happening to trans women in PR?

nope

bc they aren't white ladies from the states

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Just a note, he's in Alabama right now but will be sent back to Peru to serve out the rest of his sentence soon. And better in Peru than the US, he deserves the worst possible conditions and that prison in Peru is at almost 16,000 feet elevation and not a nice place to be compared even to US federal prison. Also he has been stabbed at least once in the Peruvian prison and they didn't move him so...



Edited at 2023-10-19 01:08 am (UTC)

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I was wondering what that kind of sentence looks like in Peruvian prison? Like how dangerous it is, etc. I had a friend whose sister was murdered in Mexico and her killer got 40 years but she said it was essentially a death sentence, few people live that long in prison

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https://www.infobae.com/en/2022/04/19/challapalca-prison-the-dreaded-home-of-perus-most-dangerous-prisoners/ this has some more information on the prison.

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ok this is comforting. I heard on Court TV or something that he's allowed conjugal visits there and it pissed me off that it made me think the place was cushy.

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I'm shocked he admitted to it after so long but I hope this gives her family some closure.



There are more details available than are in this post but I don't really think anyone needs to know them. It's very sad.

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It was part of a plea deal on a different case, I believe. He couldve made the whole thing up.

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Not only did he kill multiple women for rejecting his advances he put at least one of their families through hell.

He originally offered to tell Natalee's mom where her body was if she gave him $250,000.



tw:

[ Spoiler (click to open) ] Also, in the article I read it was mentioned that after murdering Natalee he went home and watched porn!



His 'Born Again Christian' ass can go fuck himself.



RIP Stephany and Natalee.



Edited at 2023-10-19 01:12 am (UTC) I'm not normally one to wish death on people, but this POS deserves it.Not only did he kill multiple women for rejecting his advances he put at least one of their families through hell.He originally offered to tell Natalee's mom where her body was if she gave him $250,000.tw:He's beyond evil and disgusting.His 'Born Again Christian' ass can go fuck himself.RIP Stephany and Natalee.

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I hope the moment he dies, he gets to the pearly gates to have every angel laugh in his face as he plummets.

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Nah he will fall down the fast tunnel to hell if God is as good as they say

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Absolutely deranged.

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Yea the details he gave about murdering Natalee were disgusting too. He is a monster. Also I think he lied about just dragging her body in the water. It's possible depending on the tide but i wouldn't be surprised if he had help from his dad using a boat.

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Men like this deserve the death sentence.

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Her murder is one of the first big (aka widespread on the news) events that I remember actually affecting me as a maturing human with thoughts and fears and opinions. Along with 9/11, the War on Terror, and Hurricane Katrina. It felt like a really weird and scary time back in the early to mid 2000s.



Imagine a tally at the end of the world about all the women who were murdered for "rejecting sexual advances."

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I always think of the poor girl who was stabbed (and I believe passed away) for saying no to a prom invite.

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For me its the girl who was at a festival in Brooklyn. The man was grinding on her and she asked him to stop, so he shot her in the face. The gun was found at his girlfriends apartment. He was acquitted of the worst charges and got less than 4 years in prison.



I think about her every time a random man approaches me.

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Definitely all four of these for me, and I'll add Columbine as well. I remember very clearly reading a newspaper with a floor plan of the school and just feeling so frightened and awful for the kids involved. It was my first proper introduction to the "incel" movement, even though I didn't know the term for it then.

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the Bush years were fucking miserable. It felt like he was going to be POTUS for-fucking-ever.



Katrina was the one that imprinted on me the most. Just watching people live on tv desperate for help while the water rose was awful

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I refuse to believe those are the only two women he killed. I hope he dies in prison.

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I agree.

He committed his first murder when he was 17 and the second when he was 22.

That's a big gap. Especially, when his trigger is being rejected by women.

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MTE, those are probably just the times he has been sloppiest. Not to mention lord knows how many other violent crimes he's committed besides murder. If he gets out I am sure he'll hurt again.

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Not just sloppiest, but because both Natalee and Stephany were from affluent families. He moved to Thailand and was running a sex trafficking ring, including underage girls, for a few years.

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Mte. It reminds me that the police released sick drawings that the BTK killer POS made, to try to ID women still missing and where they could be bc he had a thing for silos (*shudder* ugh). His daughter is really brave and helping the police.



I hate that that POS has internet access and communicates with the sick freaks that write him.



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I think so to. These two he got caught for. Not good for karma, but I hope he dies a horrible death.



I do hope he tells police what he did with her body though.

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I'm thankful that her family finally got the truth. I just wonder if the investigation had gone differently Stephany Flores would still be alive. This man is clearly a monster and may he die suffering locked behind bars.

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What he did to her is straight-up Concentrated Evil. Just the absolute worst.

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He looks like he has truly suffered (not the right word for it, but he looks busted beyond belief) through the years and I look forward to even further decline



Edited at 2023-10-19 01:16 am (UTC)

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Even her mother told him he looked like hell. 



Fuck this prick.

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I LOVE that Beth Holloway told him 'you look like hell and I don't know how you're gonna make it.' Good for her!

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I honestly don't really believe what he said about what he did with her body- it seems like she should have been found- but given what we know about the other murder he committed... yeah, what he said about her death sounds like something he'd do.



I hope her family can feel some sort of closure, at least.

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I think he is probably covering up that others (friends or dad) helped him dispose of her body.

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Another case of a fucking man not taking rejection from a woman well. Monster.

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yeah and people complain about women giving fake numbers or lying about having a boyfriend

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such a sick SOB. I'm glad her family's got closure, and I can only hope he'll never hurt another woman again. I won't be surprised if he gets killed in prison at some point, considering he was stabbed before, maybe next time he won't be so lucky.

Natalee deserved better. I remember all the slut-shaming she received simply for leaving with a stranger, as if that somehow warranted her death.

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I read NYTimes readers' comments under the article announcing van der Sloot's admission, and they are a mess. Partically because everyone was overly harsh to each other in general, but mostly because multiple posters thought that this particular article was a good place to express opinions that young women need to be reminded not to leave bars in foreign countries with young men, and should not be getting in cars with them!!!!

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Diane Sawyer was such a cunt in that interview and i remember the media being obsessed with her boobs it was weird

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Diane is getting dragged in her IG comments today lol

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Fucking outrageous.



Edited at 2023-10-19 10:27 pm (UTC)

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she looks like such a little girl here. i don't get how grown adults could interview a child and ask her questions like this.

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I saw this for the first time in Framing Britney and now it pops into my head all the time. I feel soo bad for her here

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The fascination with her breasts and virginity were so so disturbing to me as a kid.

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her and matt lauer ugh

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Another person who needs a reckoning!!

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feel like reading the book next week will have me fuming every other page

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I am fully prepared to have my blood boil at every other sentence of those chapters.

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I watched a doc on her and it played a radio clip, where a guy was going on about what a whore she is. She wouldve been a teenager at the time. I just cant get used to how much shit girls/women have to put up with.

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"They kept her on lithium while she was there"



Is the doctor who did this getting investigated/was investigated? Anecdotally I've been hearing about so much overprescription of lithium and it needs to be cracked down

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Lithium can be a lifesaver - its a very effective medication if used correctly in responsive patients but its definitely not a one-size-fits-all option. It may have been a suitable treatment for her at certain points but her conservatorship was so inappropriate and abusive that the legitimacy of any treatment she had under it is pretty questionable.

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Lithium is the go to treatment for bipolar disorder, so it very necessary, but people are SUPER over diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Especially in rehab.

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I've never been on lithium but my doctor misdiagnosed me eith bipolar type II. She had me on such high amounts of antidepressants that I was experiencing hypomania. I was on Lexapro and trazodone, then was prescribed Depakote as a mood stabilizer and she still wanted me to take Lamictal.

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Your story and mine are similar. I took myself off all but Lexapro

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Im really concerned that my best friend was misdiagnosed with bipolar II :(

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lithium can be very helpful and you have to monitor your blood levels while on it.



imo, i don't think she needed to be on lithium at all but of course they wanted her heavily medicated so they could use that to their advantage.

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I always thought her dad had been pretty absent during the pre 2007 part of her career. Kind of alarming if he was forcing her into interviews as far back as 2003

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While I don't agree with or particularly like the way plastic surgery has become SO normalized in society now, it does feel like a pendulum swing from how people were treated in the 2000sit was such a witch hunt mentality re: who was "fake" or whatever. Very weird since pressure to look good was the whole reason people got surgery in the first place.

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Yeah, I remember being 10 years old and a friend saying, "Well Britney Spears has IMPLANTS," as though it were an insult - like Britney was a lesser person for having them.

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The breakdown and conservatorship paragraphs just gave me chills.



Cannot imagine being given random drugs and being paraded around like a pony while also being told Im the one harmful to myself. Its really no wonder she has so much distrust in everyone, especially medical experts. It also makes me so sad for her because I do think she needs help and shell continue to avoid it while she battles her ptsd on her own. Fuck.



Diane Sawyer and Ed McMahon disgusting.

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she said on IG that she had "a lot of therapy to get this book done" so I hope this means she found someone she trust

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"I'm not mean. How about me?" sjdsjdksjd whaaaat the fuck "I'm not mean. How about me?" sjdsjdksjd whaaaat the fuck

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Truly so fucking tired of men!

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he was always so gross to the little girl singers and junior dancers

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and they kept him as a host.........as if there aren't tons of others who could've done the job. Unbelievable

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just vile.

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reminds me of when i was like 4 or something and at a party i didnt want to be at and i was introduced to some man and being a weird shy kid, i lifted my skirt over my head to hide (lol wtf) and i remember he said some joke to the other adults like i wish all the girls did that and even then i didnt get it, but i was like i dont like that. like, bro, im a child; dont make sex jokes where i can hear????

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I preordered today!

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I just read this entire post and I got chills...I hope she can heal and repair her relationship with her kids and just thrive again. This is sooo much trauma, I can't believe she went through all that behind the scenes, just....oh god :(





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I don't usually read celeb memoirs, but this is one I may have to check out!

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I don't usually read at all, but this is one I may have to check out!



Same.

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You don't have to read! You can listen to white Michelle Williams read instead

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Same! I'm already planning a Target run to pick it up lol.

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Same [3].

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also her voice went from this







to that baby voice



god, what kind of music would've she been doing if she only had a say...

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i love videos of her and baby xtina. it's sad that xtina pretty much sounds the same while brit...not so much.

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oh wow i'd never seen this before. if only her voice (annd her most of all) had been nurtured like it shoudlve.



also ew at that man asking a little girl aboutif she has a boyfriend

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I remember the reasoning for that was to separate her from the other potential pop girls the other record labels had. Because that baby voice made her distinct enough that you immediately you it was a Britney track and not confused her with anyone else.



It's a bit of standard practice in the industry. They did famously with T-Boz from TLC. Her normal register is a bit higher but at the time she would've sounded like the other r&b of the day, so they had her lower her register which proved successful cause it's one of her most acclaimed features.

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I get why they did it but the way she sang, while it did sound pretty cool, also sounded really hard to pull off...like I imagine singing like that when it's not your natural style of singing could fuck up your vocal chords idk it sounded so forced

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Because as a little girl, you need to sound more adult. But when you get older, you need to be infantalized. All so people will get their fantasy.

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she still has some of that in her!





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this girl was on broadway when she was like 9 (or something young like that)! she had a VOICE! it is such a shame what they did to it.

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Poor BritBrit. Thank God for that nurse showing her #freeBritney , it must've felt heartwarming to know you're supported like that by strangers when the people closest to you fail you daily.

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I am willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my adored aunt Sandra, and the constant drumbeat of pressure from paparazzi, Id begin to think in some ways like a child.



fuck this made me tear up :( she was done so dirty by EVERYONE in her life, its no wonder she was struggling!



i preordered the book (on bookshop.org, ofc) and am just so glad she can finally tell her story



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"I am willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my adored aunt Sandra, and the constant drumbeat of pressure from paparazzi, Id begin to think in some ways like a child.



Yeah I think I remember Britney saying she had suffered from PPD speficially perinatal depression:



"Taking to Instagram, the 40-year-old said: "Its hard because when I was pregnant I had perinatal depression I have to say it is absolutely horrible." Britney went on to point out that at the time of her first two pregnancies (in 2005 and 2006), "women didn't talk about" their mental health."



https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a39697844/britney-spears-perinatal-depression/ Yeah I think I remember Britney saying she had suffered from PPD speficially perinatal depression:

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PPD, in any stage, is terrifying. Says the woman in the beginning stages of treatment. Especially if prone to depression aleady. It's a different beast and honestly feels harder to manage. And it's hard to explain to people. I'm really lucky that my deteriorating mental health was taken seriously. I can't imagine being in the spotlight and trying to quietly manage it.

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I'm sorry you're going through it. I hope you have a good team/group of people around you and I'm glad you're getting help with it. It's a f*cking beast.

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OSHA's Top Ten Most Cited Safety Standards During Fiscal Year 2023, and Managing Safety Beyond the Obvious

Each year OSHA publishes a Top Ten list of citations issued to employers during the previous fiscal year (October 1st to September 30th). The list gives employers an idea of the top violations that OSHA has identified during their visits to facilities and jobsites across the United States and some of the things they should look out for on their own worksites. At the time of this presentation, it is anticipated that OSHA will have just released a preliminary summary of its citation data for fiscal year 2023.

The purpose of this presentation is to 1) share an update to the top 10 most cited OSHA standards from the most recent years data is available, and provide context for how that information can be used, 2) raise awareness about other important violation data that could help organizations, 3) pass on other work hazard information that can help keep workplaces safe and minimize risk, and 4) suggest some ways this information can be managed most effectively to make a real difference for job safety. The goal is for employers to take this information and use it to make their workplaces safer for workers.

Register for this free webinar!

DATE: November 9, 2023

TIME: 2:00PM ET - 1:00PM CT - 11:00AM PT

Speaker

Gregory G. Zigulis, CIH, CSP, CHSP, B11 LMSS

Greg Zigulis, CSP, CIH, is a consultant with over 38 years of Safety, Health and Environmental experience within several different industries and areas of focus. He serves on several different groups through the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), to include the ASSPs Standards Development Committee, the ANSI/ASSP Z10 Committee on Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems, the US TAG for ISO TC283 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (input to the TAG for ISO 45001), and the Committee on ANSI/ASSP Z590.3, Prevention through Design: Guidelines Addressing Occupational Hazards and Risks in Design and Redesign Processes. He has also served as a Chapter Advisory Group member for the Greater Detroit Chapter of ASSP, for several years. For more information about Greg, please see his LinkedIn profile (www.linkedin.com/in/gregzigulis) or web page at www.sixthsensesafetysolutions.com.



Here is the AGENDA for this webinar:

2:00PM ET / 1:00PM CT / 11:00AM PT

OSHA's Top Ten Most Cited Safety Standards During Fiscal Year 2023, and Managing Safety Beyond the Obvious

3:00PM ET / 2:00PM CT / 12:00 PT

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Time: 2:00 PM ET

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University of Surrey think efficient and cheap batteries that can also capture harmful CO2 emissions could be right around the corner, thanks to a new system that speeds up the development of catalysts for lithium  CO2 (Li-CO2) batteries.

The tech relies on a new system that speeds up the development of catalysts for lithium-CO2 batteries. The study paper has been published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

The technology has been developed by the University of Surrey, Imperial College London, and Peking University to address the slow and inefficient methods currently used to produce catalysts for Li-CO2 batteries.

In the study, researchers used their tool to test and screen materials like platinum, gold, silver, copper, iron and nickel to easily investigate whether they would be suitable candidates for developing high-performing Li-CO2 batteries.

Dr Kai Yang, corresponding author of this work, project co-leader and Lecturer from the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey, explained, We have created a cutting-edge lab-on-a-chip electrochemical testing platform that can do multiple things at the same time. It helps evaluate electrocatalysts, optimize operation conditions, and study CO2 conversion in high-performance lithium-CO2 batteries. This new method is more cost-effective, efficient, and controllable than traditional ways of making these materials.

Li-CO2 batteries are a promising new type of battery that work by combining lithium and carbon dioxide; they not only store energy effectively but also offer a way to capture CO2, potentially making a dual-contribution to the fight against climate change.

Dr Yunlong Zhao, the lead corresponding author of this study and a Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London, the National Physical Laboratory, and visiting academic from the University of Surrey, explained, It is crucial that we develop new negative emissions technologies. Our lab-on-a-chip platform will play a crucial role in advancing this goal. It will not only enhance our understanding of novel batteries, but it can also be applied to other systems like metal-air batteries, fuel cells, and photoelectrochemical cells. This new tool will enable quick screening of catalysts, studying reaction mechanisms, and practical applications, from nanoscience to cutting-edge carbon removal technologies.

***

One had to give some thought to whether this work was of a value to put up a post. Yes, as an electron storage option Li-CO2 batteries are a valid and promising offer. As a CO2 harvester  not so much.

The CO2 climate change thing is gradually wearing thin. There is a lot of momentum in it yet  but only the most high pitched squeals still keep it alive. The squeaky wheel getting the grease still works  at least in media and politics.

But the Li-CO2 as a battery chemistry should have some more interest. So far most chemistries are single element based. Alloys are not getting the attention that one might hope for. There could very well be a lot more potential there along with the challenges.

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By Brian Westenhaus via New Energy and Fuel

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Bulgaria's government has defended its decision to impose a new tax on Russian gas transiting through the country as Hungary and Serbia -- which rely on supplies from Moscow -- vowed to respond to the move, which they called a hostile step.

Bulgaria imposed a tax on Russian gas transit in the amount of 20 leva ($10.80) per megawatt-hour last week, prompting reactions in Budapest and Belgrade, which receive Russian gas through Bulgaria.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov on October 18 defended the move, saying that there is a good chance that this [tax] would create real competition on the gas market from which the whole of Europe would benefit.

We protect Bulgarian interests. These are revenues that can enter the state budget, Denkov added.

Bulgarian Finance Minister Asen Vasilev said the goal of the tax was not to make gas more expensive for consumers in Hungary and Serbia but to make it less profitable for the Russian state energy company Gazprom to ship gas via Bulgaria.

Because most Gazprom contracts are priced at the point of delivery in a given country, the tax will most likely have no impact on prices downstream.... It will only reduce Gazprom's profits, he told the Financial Times in an interview published on October 17.

Russia stopped supplying gas to Bulgaria soon after the start of Moscows full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 after Sofia refused to pay in rubles -- a condition imposed on unfriendly countries as a way to sidestep Western financial sanctions against Russia's central bank.

But Sofia allowed Russian energy giant Gazprom to continue using its gas pipeline network to supply Serbia and Hungary, two of Europes most pro-Russian governments.

Belgrade and Budapest have said the new transit tax, which is equal to about one-fifth of current market prices, threatens the security of the energy supply in Hungary and Serbia.

Bulgaria's decision to introduce a tax on Russian gas, which is delivered through its territory, is a step directed against Hungary and Serbia, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Sinisa Mali and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a joint statement on October 17.

Hungary and Serbia will harmonize their positions and respond adequately to this controversial decision of Bulgaria.

In separate comments, Szijjarto said that Bulgarias decision was a hostile move because it has the potential to jeopardize the security of energy supplies for other countries.

The Russian state news agency TASS quoted Szijjarto as saying that the new tax was discussed during a meeting between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 17 at a forum in China.

Szijjarto said that Putin, along with Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller, had assured Hungary that Gazprom will fully fulfill its obligations to supply the required amount of natural gas to Hungary in accordance with the long-term contract between the two countries.

Hungary has been receiving 4.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year from Russia under a deal signed in 2021, mainly via Bulgaria and Serbia.

Serbia also has expressed fears that the new tax imposed by Bulgaria would make gas more expensive. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said the tax would drastically increase the price of gas that Serbia pays.

Bulgaria's parliament adopted the introduction of the additional tax in late September.

The amendment was introduced by lawmakers from three parties between the first and second reading of a law on implementation of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

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The amendment was supported by the ruling parties GERB, We Continue The Change  Democratic Bulgaria, as well as the Movement For Rights And Freedoms, which is formally not part of the ruling coalition but supports it in key votes.

But President Rumen Radev, seen by some as pro-Russian, criticized the new tax, saying that by imposing it the government interferes in the sovereign decisions of other countries.

The measure entered into force on October 13, but there are no details yet on the mechanism for collecting the tax. The ministries of economy, energy, and finance did not respond to questions sent by RFE/RLs Bulgarian Service on the issue.

According to preliminary estimates the new tax could bring as much as 2 billion leva ($1 billion) per year into Bulgaria's budget if the levels of Russian gas transited through the country are maintained.

By RFE/RL

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The Tortue floating LNG project off the coast of Senegal and Mauritania is nearing completion.

Global demand for gas is driving substantial investments in liquefied natural gas production in Africa. Those investments will, if successfully completed, turn the continent into a key supplier of the commodity in the future.

These are some of the outtakes from a presentation by Wood Mackenzies upstream research director, Ian Thom, and the presentation comes weeks after a recent forecast by the International Energy Agency that gas demand would peak before 2030.

Peak or growth

In September, the IEAs head, Fatih Birol, said in an op-ed for the Financial Times that oil and gas demand would both peak before 2030, driven down by alternative sources of energy and electric vehicles.

Speaking about gas specifically, Birol wrote that This is the result of renewables increasingly outmatching gas for producing electricity, the rise of heat pumps, and Europes accelerated shift away from gas following Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Yet out in the real world, European companies recently closed two long-term LNG supply deals with Qatar, suggesting renewables may yet take a while to start outmatching gas for producing electricity.

Heat pumps, while strongly promoted by governments in transition-eager countries, are becoming increasingly controversial because of their significant costs and sometimes questionable performance due to a lack of optimal conditions.

Meanwhile, energy companies have invested some $800 billion in gas projects across Africa, according to Wood Mackenzies Thom. The investment cycle featuring the sum began in 2010 and will end in the same year, before which the IEA predicts peak gas demand. And it will result in a substantial increase in Africas LNG production capacity.

Per the IEAs peak gas scenario, much of this capacity would become stranded. Yet, there do not seem to be any fears of that. On the contrary, there are several projects taking longer to complete because of security challenges and that is contributing to a tight gas market that makes prices susceptible to shocks.

Price shocks

There were two recent ones: the first, when offshore gas platform workers at Chevrons LNG projects went on strike in September and European gas prices jumped, and the second, when Israel told Chevron to close one of the largest offshore gas fields in the country following the massive Hamas attack. Gas prices jumped again even though Europe does not import gas from Israel directly. Related: Most Americans Wouldnt Buy An Electric Vehicle

Price volatility may be about to get worse, too, according to the head of one of the largest energy traders in the world, Mutsui & Co. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Kenichi Hori said that even with all the current LNG projects in the pipeline, demand would still surpass supply.

Announced projects in the world still wont make up for the supply needed when considering the energy transition that will take several decades, Hori said, suggesting gas prices might have a bullish future.

This means Africa has a lot of potential as a critical source of new supply, especially for Europe thanks to the proximity between the two continents. There are projects already nearing completion, such as the Tortue floating LNG project off the coast of Senegal and Mauritania, which will next year add 2.4 million tons in annual production capacity to the global total.

Yet there are projects that have been stumbling along the way, such as two facilities in MozambiqueRovuma LNG and Mozambique LNGwhere security issues have delayed work on the LNG facilities.

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According to Wood Macs Thom, Rovuma and Mozambique LNG central to a potential doubling of African LNG supply by 2035, there is a risk that exports could flatline longer term if these projects fail to materialize.

It looks like few outside the International Energy Agency believe in looming peak gas demand. Those who believe gas demand will only grow in the future, meanwhile, are staking billions on it from Qatar to Mozambique, to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Russia is set to raise further its natural gas pipeline supply to China after state giants Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed an agreement on Thursday for the delivery of additional volumes of Russian gas to China through the end of 2023.

The deliveries, via the Power of Siberia pipeline from Russia to China, will be raised under an addendum to the sale and purchase agreement for gas for 2023, Russian news agency Interfax reported on Thursday.

Earlier this year, Alexey Miller, the chief executive officer of Gazprom, said that the Russian gas giant accounted for more than half of the rise in Chinas natural gas imports between January and August this year.

Russias state gas giant has relied on more natural gas exports to China as sales to Europe have plummeted since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

At the same time, we see that the Chinese gas market is growing. China's gas imports have increased over the eight months of this year. And more than half of the increase in these supplies imported to the Chinese market was provided by Gazprom, Miller was quoted as saying at the end of August.

Gazprom supplies natural gas to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline. Deliveries in 2022 stood at 15 billion cubic meters, while total flows for the whole of this year were expected to rise to 22 billion cubic meters.

The Power of Siberia was one of the biggest projects recently completed by Gazprom and the first conduit for Russian gas to China. Now, theres talk about Power of Siberia 2, but talks between Russia and China havent progressed much.

On Thursday, Gazprom said it was working on the infrastructure design for the new natural gas pipeline to China from Russias Far East.

Earlier this week, Gazproms CEO Alexey Miller said that Russia could soon supply China with volumes of gas comparable with the volumes Moscow sent to Western Europe before the invasion of Ukraine.

Before the war in Ukraine, Russia supplied around one-third of all the gas to Europe.

Analysts doubt that Russia could boost volumes to China to such levels for at least another seven years, according to Russian daily Vedomosti.

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By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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In reports unconfirmed by the U.S. military, Syrian opposition figures claim that a possible Iran-backed group in Syria launched a drone attack on an oil facility and a U.S. military base in the countrys eastern region, as the Hamas-Israel conflict escalates.

While no casualties were reported, and details remain sparse, Europe-based Syrian opposition activist Omar Abu Layla has said that three explosive-laden drones hit the Conoco gas field in Deir el-Zour province on the border with Iraq, the Associated Press reports.

The Syrian activist report was confirmed by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in terms of the Conoco gas field strikes.

Syria has the potential to become a major renewed conflict flashpoint as Iran threatens to rally the militias it backs in proxy venues.

The Syria drone strikes come after a 24-hour run of drone attacks starting on Tuesday and targeting U.S. bases in Iraq following the Gaza hospital explosion, for which blame is still being apportioned and denied.

In western Iraq, two drones hit the Asad airbase in Anbar province, which houses U.S. troops, while another drone targeted a base in northern Iraq, the Associated Press reported, citing U.S. Central Command. Damage was limited, with U.S. forces saying they had intercepted and destroyed two and damaged the third. Minor injuries were reported at the Asad airbase.

Militia groups in Iraq backed by Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have vowed to target U.S. troops over Bidens support for Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

These drone attacks took place while U.S. President Joe Biden was visiting Israel.

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While Syrian oil is of no consequence to the markets, there is growing concern that Iraq, the second-largest crude oil producer of OPEC, could become engulfed in the fallout from the Hamas-Israel conflict.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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Londons High Court dismissed on Thursday a legal challenge by environmental groups which have attacked the UKs new licenses for oil and gas production in court, claiming the government hasnt properly reviewed the emissions from burning the fossil fuels.

The two climate campaign groups, Greenpeace and Uplift, have challenged the UK governments decision to award new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, claiming the cabinet failed to properly check the damage it will do to the climate.

The government ignored over 80 percent of the carbon emissions these licences will produce when the oil and gas is actually burnt. While the government is trying to pretend these emissions dont exist, well certainly feel their impact, Greenpeace said earlier this year.

But Justice David Holgate of the High Court dismissed the environmentalists claims for judicial review, writing in the ruling that the governments decision not to take the emissions from burning of the end products into account was lawful and not irrational.

There was no internal inconsistency between the approach taken by the Secretary of State to whether end use emissions should be assessed as a likely significant effect of the Plan and his comparison of reasonable alternatives, Justice Holgate wrote.

Greenpeace and Uplift were disappointed with the courts decision.

This is completely irresponsible behaviour from ministers during a climate crisis. Thats why we will be appealing, and hope this ruling will be overturned, said Philip Evans, Greenpeace UKs climate campaigner.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reiterated in July that hundreds of new oil and gas licenses would be granted, as the UK Government continues to back the North Sea oil and gas industry as part of a drive to make Britain more energy independent.

The government and the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) announced a joint commitment to undertake future licensing rounds, which will continue to be subject to a climate compatibility test.

Last month, the UK government stirred another uproar among environmentalists by giving the green light to the controversial Rosebank oil and gas project in the North Sea.

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By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
European thermal coal imports are expected to dip this month by 60% compared to October 2022, due to low demand and ample stocks, according to preliminary data from Kpler cited by Montel on Thursday.

Total imports by the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and France are estimated to be around 2 million tons in October, down by 2.8 million tons compared to the same month of 2022, per the preliminary data from Kpler.

Ample thermal coal inventories and weak demand ahead of the peak winter heating season have depressed prices in recent months and purchases and imports into Europe have been in small quantities.

Even with low coal prices and rising natural gas prices in Europe, the fuel-switching to coal has not happened yet, a trader with a German company told Montel.

The share of coal in Europes power generation has been declining in recent years, with many countries pledging to phase out unabated coal use.

But last years energy and gas crisis has been keeping utilities and governments on edge and ready to have mothballed coal-fired power plants on stand-by in the coldest winter days to ensure the security of electricity supply.

Earlier this month, Germanys government said it was bringing back online several coal-fired units for this winter in an attempt to save natural gas and avoid power supply shortfalls.

Several coal-fired blocks operated by RWE and LEAG at their Niederauem, Neurath, and Jaenschwalde power plants will be temporarily reactivated until March 2024 as a precautionary measure to safeguard electricity supply in the coming winter, the Economy and Climate Action Ministry said, referring to a government decision to bring the coal-fired units online again.

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Those coal units were already operational during the 2022/2023 winter when Germany was shocked into a severely reduced gas supply with the end of Russian pipeline deliveries. The backup coal capacity was put on stand-by this summer until the government now decided to reactivate them for the coming winter.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Israel is being forced to divert crude oil imports from its main Mediterranean terminal due to the escalating Gaza conflict, with Bloomberg reporting that an oil tanker is currently heading toward the countrys Red Sea port to avoid becoming a target in the conflict.

A 900-foot vessel carrying over 1 million barrels of crude oil from Azerbaijan is being masked as an import intended to dock in Aqaba, Jordan, while its true destination is the Israeli Paz Oil refinery, which will take delivery at Eilat on the Red Sea coast, according to Bloomberg.

The Eilat port on the Red Sea is not typically used for Israeli crude oil imports, and the shift represents concerns that imports could be targeted in the conflict with Hamas.

While Reuters reported earlier on October 9 that Israel's main Mediterranean port, Askhelon, had been closed indefinitely, Bloomberg sources say it remains officially open. However, in reality, Bloomberg cited international insurer UK P&I Club as saying that in reality the port is practically closed and vessels are required to arrange their arrival/entrance to the port with the navy.

Ashkelon is precariously situated only about 6 miles from the Gaza Strip.

Two other ports, Haifa and Ashdod ports, reportedly remain open.

The reported redirection of oil cargo to a rarely used Red Sea port follows Irans call earlier this week for Islamic countries to impose an oil embargo on Israel.

While that call resulted in a brief oil price rally, an OPEC statement to the effect that there are no plans to implement such an embargo cooled markets somewhat.

On Tuesday, the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which represents Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, said the group would continue to foster energy security and avoid using oil as a weapon.

"The GCC works as a clear and honest partner as an oil exporter with the international community and we can't use that as a weapon in any way possible," Reuters cited GCC Secretary-General Jasem al-Budaiwi as saying.

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Kinder Morgan reported a lower-than-expected net result for the third quarter of the year but said the outlook over the short term was positive, largely thanks to expectations of stronger natural gas demand.

This quarter KMI continued to benefit from strong demand for our natural gas transportation and storage services, chief executive Kim Dang said.

And the future is bright as we 1 expect natural gas demand to grow by more than 20% through 2028, led by liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, exports to Mexico and power generation, Dang also said.

Taking a stab at wind and solar, the CEO of Kinder Morgan noted that the companys extensive natural gas pipeline network and 700 billion cubic feet of storage capacity were particularly useful in backstopping intermittent renewable electricity resources.

At the same time, the company acknowledged several challenges that affect its performance, including higher borrowing costs because of higher rates, lower-than-expected commodity prices this year, and higher expenses.

The company had made its budget calculations based on an oil price of $85 per barrel and a gas price of $5.50 per million British thermal units. While oil prices could yet surprise to the upside, gas prices are unlikely to reach the level Kinder Morgan assumed thanks to growing production.

The International Energy Agency this week forecast that natural gas exports from the United States to Mexico are set for a 20% increase in the period between 2022 and 2026. The increase, the IEA said, will be mainly driven by new LNG capacity relying on feed gas from the U.S.

Production of natural gas in the U.S., meanwhile, has broken another record, rising to 103.6 billion cubic feet per day, beating the previous record of 103.1 billion cubic feet, set in July. Flows of gas to liquefaction facilities also rose, nearing record highs.

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Gazprom is working on the infrastructure design for a new natural gas pipeline to China from Russias Far East, the Russian gas giant said on Thursday.

Russia and China agreed to boost Russian gas deliveries years ago, and Gazprom and Chinese state energy giants have been working for years to raise gas supply via pipelines.

Gazprom supplies natural gas to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline. Deliveries in 2022 stood at 15 billion cubic meters, while total flows for the whole of this year are expected to rise to 22 billion cubic meters.

Early this year, reports had it that Russia had increased the export capacity of its pipeline to China to over 60 million cubic meters daily.

China has become a more or less first-priority destination for the Russian state gas major after the breakup with Europe.

The Power of Siberia was one of the biggest projects recently completed by Gazprom and the first conduit for Russian gas to China. Now, theres talk about Power of Siberia 2, which Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said last year would serve as a sort of replacement for the defunct Nord Stream 2 in Gazproms export growth strategy.

Earlier this week, Gazproms CEO Alexey Miller said that Russia could soon supply China with volumes of gas comparable with the volumes Moscow sent to Western Europe before the invasion of Ukraine.

Before the war in Ukraine, Russia supplied around 35% of all the gas to Europe.

Analysts doubt that Russia could boost volumes to China to such levels for at least another seven years, according to Russian daily Vedomosti.

This year, Gazproms exports to Europe have slumped and dragged the gas giants profits down. Gazprom has reported a massive drop in its first-half net profit as deliveries to Europe plunged compared to 2022 when Russia was still supplying pipeline gas to its European customers for most of the first half of last year.

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The United States lifted sanctions on Venezuelas oil industry after the Nicolas Maduro government reached a deal with the opposition that could see elections held next year.

The deal was the condition that Washington set for the lifting of the sanctions.

As a result of the easing of sanctions, analysts predict Venezuelas oil production could increase by 25%.

The United States welcomes the signing of an electoral roadmap agreement between the Unitary Platform and Maduro representatives, Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a news release.

Consistent with U.S. sanctions policy, in response to these democratic developments, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has issued General Licenses authorizing transactions involving Venezuelas oil and gas sector and gold sector, as well as removing the ban on secondary trading, he added.

The statement cautioned that the Treasury reserves the right to revoke any or all of the newly issued licenses in case the Maduro representatives fail to stick to their word regarding a new electoral map for Venezuela.

Reports about the deal emerged earlier this month, following a string of signals from Washington it was ready to ease the sanction regime in return for commitments from the Venezuelan government to hold new elections.

The U.S. made the biggest move in that direction last year, when it granted Chevron a license to return to Venezuela, and that was without asking for commitments from the Maduro regime because imports of Russian heavy crude had to be replaced urgently with Venezuelan heavy.

Now, the new license regime would allow financial transactions involving PDVSA, which could boost Venezuelan oil exports significantly.

Crude oil exports from Venezuela last month topped 800,000 barrels daily, which was the second-highest monthly export rate since the start of the year. Most of the exports went to China, Reuters reported in early October.

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The increase in exports came on the back of a recovery in production, mainly in the Orinoco Belt which is home to most of Venezuelas oil reserves.

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After spending more than a month in the hospital, an Omaha surgeon accused of causing a fatal crash last month while speeding down Dodge Street at more than 100 mph appeared in court for the first time Thursday.

Mark Carlson, 61, faces one count of manslaughter for his alleged involvement in the Sept. 1 crash that killed 22-year-old Anna Bosma. Carlson was released from the hospital Thursday morning and was immediately taken into custody at the Douglas County Jail.

Douglas County Court Judge Jeffrey Marcuzzo ordered Carlson to be held on 10% of $250,000 bail, meaning he will need to pay $25,000 to be released from jail. Carlson waived his right to a preliminary hearing, and the case will be sent to district court for further proceedings.

If convicted of manslaughter, Carlson could face up to 20 years in prison.

Carlsons attorney, Steven Delaney, said Thursday there is information to suggest Carlson suffered an unspecified medical emergency prior to the crash. He also said the crash left Carlson, who was in a wheelchair during the hearing, with a fractured pelvis, eight broken ribs and various internal injuries.

Prosecutors, however, said Carlsons reckless driving was to blame for the senseless loss of life.

According to an arrest affidavit for Carlson, Omaha police responded to a two-car crash at 62nd and Dodge Streets at 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 1. Bosma, who was driving a Chevrolet Cruze, was declared dead at the scene. Carlson, who was driving a Mercedes E63 AMG, and a passenger in Bosmas car were taken to the hospital with traumatic injuries.

Citing witness interviews and security footage, prosecutors allege that Carlson was either racing or engaged in a road rage incident with another car driven by 26-year-old Cameron Robinson prior to the crash. Robinson does not face charges related to the crash, and prosecutors previously said he has been cooperative in the investigation.

After passing University Drive East, Carlsons Mercedes left the roadway and struck a metal light pole on the north side of Dodge Street with the rear passenger side of his car. He then crossed four lanes of traffic before entering the farthest eastbound lane and colliding with the Chevy Cruze.

About two seconds elapsed from the time Carlson hit the light pole to the impact with Bosmas car, according to data obtained from the air-bag control module on the Mercedes.

The data also showed that Carlson never took his foot off the gas pedal, according to the affidavit. At the time of impact with the light pole, he was traveling 106 mph with 100% acceleration. As Carlson crossed the four lanes of traffic, half a second before hitting Bosma, he was traveling 101 mph with 100% acceleration.

According to his University of Nebraska Medical Center faculty page, Carlson was the director of the Center for Advanced Surgical Technology in addition to being a professor in the department of surgery. He was also a staff surgeon at Omahas VA Medical Center.
As a youth in 1940s Omaha, James Dorrance used to mow the rolling hills of Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Now, 72 years after his death from starvation in a Korean War POW camp, the long-lost remains of the Army sergeant first class are at rest beneath Forest Lawns green grass.

This is a day of gratitude and rejoicing, said the Rev. Jeff Hicks of Florence Christian Church, at a memorial service that preceded the burial Wednesday morning. Its been a long journey. But, finally, hes home.

Since shortly after the Korean War, Dorrances unidentified remains lay in a grave marked unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

The were disinterred in 2019 as part of a project by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) to exhume and identify 652 sets of unknown remains from the Korean War at its lab in Hawaii. (The agency also has a lab in Nebraska, at Offutt Air Force Base.)

DNA comparison with living family members as well as dental records and chest radiographs allowed anthropologists to identify a set of remains labeled X-14402 as Dorrances, according to a DPAA press release.

I really never thought it would happen in my lifetime, said Ted Kostkan, 88, of Omaha, who is Dorrances nephew.

Born Jan. 11, 1931, Dorrance was the last of seven children born to James W. and Elizabeth Dorrance. He was seven years younger than his next-youngest sibling. Hicks called him a bonus baby.

Although separated by a generation, Kostkan said he and Dorrance were just three years apart in age and grew up together near 42nd Street and Camden Avenue.

That made us awful close, he said.

The two hunted and fished together, roller-skated and rode motorbikes.

It was the Depression, Kostkan said. We went around the neighborhood and sold corn. You earned a living any way you could.

Both of them worked at Forest Lawn, where Kostkans grandfather was a caretaker.

We were chased out sometimes, doing things we werent supposed to, Kostkan said. I have some fond memories.

They were too young to serve in World War II, but Dorrance enlisted in the Army as soon as he turned 18 in January 1949.

He was a skilled woodworker but accidentally cut off two fingers while working a power saw at Fort Lewis, Washington, Kostkan said.

That could have earned him an exemption from combat duty when war broke out in Korea on June 25, 1950, and his unit the 2nd Infantry Divisions 82nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery-Automatic Weapons Battalion  was sent to help battle the North Korean communist forces under the United Nations banner.

He said, No, I joined to serve my country, Kostkan said, and deployed with the 82nd. He left behind a wife, Mariana, in Omaha, who gave birth to a son, James W. Dorrance, just a week after he deployed.

By November 1950, U.S. and allied units had routed the North Koreans and pushed northward to within 60 miles of the border with China.

Then late that month, 300,000 Chinese surged south in a surprise counterattack. His 82nd battalion was surrounded, and dozens of soldiers were killed or taken prisoner on Dec. 1, 1950, in the Battle of Kunu-ri.

Dorrance was among those captured by the Chinese and marched through snow and cold to POW Camp No. 5.

His family in Omaha was informed that he was missing. Only after the 1953 truce that ended the war, when surviving prisoners from the camp came home, did the Dorrance family learn that Jim had died of malnutrition and pneumonia on March 17, 1951  three months after his capture, and two months after his 20th birthday.

Instead of being able to hold his newborn son, Jim starved to death in a prison camp, Hicks said in his memorial tribute. Jims nephew (Kostkan) was forced to grieve for his best friend while he was still in high school.

After the war, Hicks said, North Korea returned the bodies of hundreds of U.S. service members who died in its territory. Those that couldnt be identified were buried in Hawaii until they were disinterred in 2019.

Dorrances father died in 1960 and his mother in 1971. His last two sisters lived until 2015  long enough to give DNA samples for the identification effort, but not long enough to see him home.

Jims father and mother were buried with a gaping hole in their hearts, Hicks said.

Mariana remarried and left Omaha with her son. Kostkan said the rest of the family lost touch with them.

He said James W. Dorrance, now 73, is still living. The Army contacted him, Kostkan said, but Dorrance didnt want to participate in the homecoming.

Kostkan said it was a bit of a shock when he learned in May that his uncle had been identified. The reality hit home Monday night, when Dorrances coffin arrived at Eppley Airfield on an American Airlines jet.

I got so shaky, I could hardly stand up, he said.

Dorrance was buried near his sisters Wednesday, saluted with a rifle volley and the rendering of taps as U.S. and South Korean flags fluttered nearby. A lieutenant from the Nebraska Army National Guard knelt and presented Kostkan with the folded flag from Dorrances casket.

I felt it kind of like a pit in my stomach, he said.

Still, he had no regrets about what Hicks called an occasion of honor, respect and decorum.

Its a long time coming, Kostkan said. Im glad hes home.

Photos: Korean War soldier buried in Omaha 72 years after his death
WASHINGTON  On the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington this summer, a few Black queer advocates spoke passionately before the main program about the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ+ rights. As some of them got up to speak, the crowd was still noticeably small.

Hope Giselle, a speaker who is Black and trans, said she felt the event's programming echoed the historical marginalization and erasure of Black queer activists in the Civil Rights Movement. However, she was buoyed by the fact that prominent speakers drew attention to recent efforts to turn back the clock on LGBTQ+ rights, like the attacks on gender-affirming care for minors.

And despite valid concerns around the visibility of Black queer advocates in activist movements, progress is being made in elected office. This month, Sen. Laphonza Butler made history as the first Black and openly lesbian senator in Congress, when California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her to fill the seat held by the late Dianne Feinstein.

Rectifying the erasure of Black queer civil rights giants requires a full-throated acknowledgment of their legacies, and an increase of Black LGBTQ+ representation in advocacy and politics, several activists and lawmakers said.

One of the things that I need for people to understand is that the Black queer community is still Black," and face anti-Black racism as well as homophobia and transphobia, said Giselle, communications director for the GSA Network, a nonprofit that helps students form gay-straight alliance clubs in schools.

"On top of being Black and queer, we have to also then distinguish what it means to be queer in a world that thinks that queerness is adjacent to whiteness  and that queerness saves you from racism. It does not," she said.

Butler said she hopes that her appointment points toward progress in the larger cause of representation.

Its too early to tell. But what I know is that history will be recorded in our National Archives, the representation that I bring to the United States Senate, she said last week. I am not shy or bashful about who I am and who my family is. So, my hope is that I have lived out loud enough to overcome the tactics of today."

"But we dont know yet what the tactics of erasure are for tomorrow, Butler said.

Butler is a bellwether of increased visibility of queer communities in politics in recent years. In fact Black LGBTQ+ political representation has grown by 186% since 2019, according to a 2023 report by the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute. That included the election of former Rep. Mondaire Jones and Rep. Ritchie Torres, both of New York, who were the first openly gay Black and Afro-Latino congressmen after the 2020 election, as well as former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

These leaders stand on the shoulders of civil rights heroes such as Bayard Rustin, Pauli Murray, and Audre Lorde. In accounts of their contributions to the Civil Rights and feminist movements, their Blackness is typically amplified while their queer identities are often minimized or even erased, said David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, a LGBTQ+ civil rights group.

Rustin, who was an adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a pivotal architect of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, is a glaring example. The march he helped lead tilled the ground for the passage of federal civil rights and voting rights legislation in the next few years.

But the fact that he was gay is often reduced to a footnote rather than treated as a key part of his involvement, Johns said.

We need to teach our public school students history, herstory, our beautifully diverse ways of being, without censorship, he said.

An upcoming biopic of Rustins life will undoubtedly help thrust the topic of Black LGBTQ+ political representation into the public conversation, said Shay Franco-Clausen, a city planning commissioner in Hayward, California.

I didnt even learn about those same leaders, Black leaders, Black queer leaders until I got to college, she said.

The film, titled Rustin, debuts in select theaters Nov. 3 and Netflix on Nov. 17.

Some believe the erasure of Black LGBTQ+ leaders stems from respectability politics, a strategy in some marginalized communities of ostracizing or punishing members who don't assimilate into the dominant culture.

White supremacist ideology in Christianity, which has been used more broadly to justify racism and systemic oppression, has also promoted the erasure of Black queer history. The Black Christian church was integral to the success of the Civil Rights Movement, but it is also theologically hostile to LGBTQ+ communities, said Don Abram, executive director of Pride in the Pews.

Black LGBTQ+ leaders are using their platforms to create awareness about groundbreaking historical figures, especially Rustin. Maryland Delegate Gabriel Acevero and several LGBTQ+ advocates fought to get the only elementary school in his district named after Rustin in 2018. He has also urged Congress to pass legislation to create a U.S. Postal Service stamp depicting Rustin.

Black queer folks have contributed to so many movements that we do not get acknowledgment for," Acevero said. And this is why we should not only ensure that our elders get their flowers, but we should push to have their names and statues built  so that they are not forgotten.
NEW YORK  Some of the most used platforms for travel and online shopping said theyre going to team up to battle fake reviews.

Amazon, reviews site Glassdoor and Trustpilot, as well as travel companies Expedia Group, Booking.com and Tripadvisor said in an announcement Tuesday theyre launching a coalition that aims to protect access to trustworthy consumer reviews" worldwide.

The companies said the members of the group, which will be called Coalition for Trusted Reviews, will look for best practices for hosting online reviews and share methods on how to detect fake ones. That will include developing standards for what constitutes a fake review and sharing information about how bad actors operate.

Phony reviews have long plagued online marketplaces despite their efforts to eradicate it. Much of the problem is fueled by brokers who solicit fake customer reviews through social media platforms, encrypted messaging apps and other channels in exchange for money, free items or other benefits. Brokers can solicit positive reviews to boost sales for businesses or sellers. They can also also post negative reviews for competitors in order to tank their sales.

Last month, Amazon said two review brokers in China were sentenced to 2 years in prison and three years of probation after using messaging apps to advertise and sell fake reviews to Amazon selling accounts. The company has filed a flurry of other lawsuits in the past year against operators that it says were doing similar things. Last year, it also sued the administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups that it alleged were coordinating bogus reviews in exchange for money or free products.

Facebook groups trading reviews for Google and Trustpilot, which allows users to leave feedback for businesses, were also discovered earlier this year by the British consumer watchdog group Which?

Federal regulators have also been aiming to crack down on bogus reviews aiming to deceive consumers. In June, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule that, among other things, would prohibit businesses from selling or obtaining fake reviews, suppressing honest reviews and selling fake social media engagement.

Businesses would also be prohibited from creating or controlling a website that claims to provide independent opinions about its products and employing other practices like review hijacking, which makes reviews for one product appear like they were written for different ones. If the proposal is adopted, violators can be face penalties.

Becky Foley, Tripadvisors vice president for Trust & Safety, said in a statement included in the news release that combating operators behind fake reviews will be an immediate area of focus for the coalition.

These actors often operate outside of jurisdictions with a legal framework to shut down fraudulent activity, making robust cooperation even more important, Foley said.

The companies said the coalition is a result conversations that came out of a Fake Reviews conference that was organized by Tripadvisor and held last year in San Francisco. They said they will meet in early December at a second conference that will be organized by Amazon and held in Brussels.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip  Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes Thursday, including in the south where Israel told Palestinians to take refuge, and the country's defense minister ordered ground troops to "be ready" to invade, though he didn't say when.

Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals tried to stretch out ebbing medical supplies and fuel for generators as authorities worked out logistics for a delivery of aid from Egypt. Doctors in darkened wards across Gaza stitched wounds by the light of mobile phones and used vinegar to treat infections.

Meanwhile, an unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment delivered to Congress estimated casualties in an explosion at a Gaza City hospital this week on the "low end" of 100 to 300 deaths. The death toll "still reflects a staggering loss of life," U.S. intelligence officials said in the findings, seen by The Associated Press. Intelligence officials were still assessing the evidence and their casualty estimate could evolve.

The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas rampage in southern Israel. Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north of Gaza and flee south, strikes extended across the territory, heightening fears among the territory's 2.3 million people that nowhere was safe.

Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel on Thursday from Gaza and Lebanon, and tensions flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In a fiery speech to Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant urged the forces to "get organized, be ready" for an order to move in. Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border.

Israel's consent for Egypt to let in food, water and medicine provided the first possible opening in its siege of the territory. Many of Gaza's residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.

Egypt and Israel were still negotiating for the entry of fuel for hospitals. The first trucks of aid were expected to go in Friday, Egypt's state-owned Al-Qahera news reported.

With the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah still closed, the already dire conditions at Gaza's second-largest hospital deteriorated further, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel of Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis.

At least 80 wounded civilians and 12 dead flooded into the hospital after witnesses said a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis. Doctors had no choice but to leave two to die because there were no ventilators, Qandeel said.

"We can't save more lives if this keeps happening," he said.

Al-Ahli Hospital was still recovering from Tuesday's explosion, which remains a point of dispute between Hamas and Israel. Hamas quickly said an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital. Israel denied it was involved. The AP has not independently verified the claims or evidence released by the parties.

Near al-Ahli hospital, another explosion struck a Greek Orthodox church housing displaced Palestinians late Thursday. Abu Selmia, the Shifa Hospital director general, said dozens were hurt at the Church of Saint Porphyrios but could not give a precise death toll because bodies were still under the rubble.

Palestinian authorities blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike, a claim that could not be independently verified. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchy of Jerusalem condemned the attack.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas' incursion. About 200 others were abducted.

More than 1 million Palestinians, about half of Gaza's population, fled their homes in the north of the territory since Israel told them to evacuate.

For the first time since 1967 when Israel captured Gaza from Egypt, a major tent camp arose to house displaced people. Dozens of U.N.-provided tents and tarps lined a dirt lot in Khan Younis. Families boiled water on gas stoves and charged phones on small generators. Volunteers passed around cans of tuna and bread.

The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territory's only connection to Egypt, remained fragile. Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians in southern Gaza and that it would "thwart" any diversions by Hamas. Biden said the deliveries "will end" if Hamas takes any aid.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, according to Khalid Zayed, head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai.

Under an arrangement reached between the United Nations, Israel and Egypt, U.N. observers will inspect the trucks carrying aid before entering Gaza. The U.N., working with the Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent, will ensure aid goes only to civilians, an Egyptian official and European diplomat told the AP.

A U.N. flag will be raised on both sides of the crossing as a sign of protection against airstrikes, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately clear how much cargo the crossing could handle. Waleed Abu Omar, spokesperson for the Palestinian side, said work has not started to repair the road damaged by Israeli airstrikes.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV that foreigners and dual nationals would be allowed to leave Gaza once the crossing was opened.

Israel said it agreed to allow aid from Egypt because of a request by Biden  which followed days of intense talks with the U.S. secretary of state to overcome staunch Israeli refusal.

Four U.S. officials familiar with the discussions said American diplomats were alarmed by comments from Israeli counterparts regarding their intention to deny water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel into Gaza, as well as the inevitability of civilian casualties. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip  Israel said Wednesday it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came one day after a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza doctors treating the many wounded as medical supplies ran out.

The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies came as rage over Tuesday night's blast at al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the explosion. Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying almost 500 were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released video, audio and other information that it claimed showed the blast was due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified the claims or evidence.

Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7. The al-Ahli carnage threw the siege's impact into sharp relief.

Hundreds of wounded were rushed to another hospital, nearly out of supplies and fuel for its generators, and doctors performed surgery on the floors, often without anesthesia.

Biden said Egypt's president agreed to open the crossing and, to begin with, let in 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, "it will end," he said. White House officials said the aid would flow as early as Friday.

Egypt must still repair the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the Rafah crossing, Gazas only connection to Egypt, said the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed.

Supplies will go in under supervision of the U.N., Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: "As long as the crossing is operating normally and the facility has been repaired."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel "will not thwart" deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don't go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

Relatives of roughly 200 people who were taken hostage and forced back to Gaza during Hamas' attack reacted in fury to the aid announcement.

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals," the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed Wednesday after a 12-hour lull, and Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, including on cities in the south that Israel described as "safe zones" for civilians.

In his brief visit, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing U.S. support for Israel, while containing alarm among Arab allies. He embraced Netanyahu and expressed concern for the suffering of Gazas civilians.

Biden said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israels fault and cautioned Israelis not to allow outrage over Hamas' attack to consume them.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi warned that the war was "pushing the region to the brink." After the hospital blast, Jordan canceled a meeting between Biden, Jordan's King Abdullah II and the Palestinian and Egyptian presidents.

The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, said the hospital, run by the Episcopal Church, received at least three Israeli military orders to evacuate in the days before the blast. Israeli shelling hit it Sunday, wounding four staffers, he said. Israel ordered all 22 hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate last week.

Naoum declined to cast blame on either party for the blast. "We just want to let people see what is happening on the ground and hope that people will come to the conclusion that we've had enough of this war," he said.

Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south.

The death toll was in dispute. The Health Ministry initially said at least 500 died, but revised that number to 471 on Wednesday. Al-Ahli officials said the toll was in the hundreds.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people were killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas' deadly incursion.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes  roughly half of Gaza's population. Most crowded into the territory's southern half. Many families say they cut down to one meal a day and have only contaminated water to drink amid worsening shortages.

"It's not just that people are going hungry. People are at the risk of starvation," said Alia Zaki, a spokesperson for the World Food Program.

With troops massed along the border, Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

Displaced Palestinians increasingly feel no place is safe.

The Israeli military says it is targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers and accuses the militants of hiding among civilians.
The decision by U.S. prosecutors to offer Joran van der Sloot a plea agreement on charges of extortion and wire fraud led to his confession in the 2005 killing of Natalee Holloway in Aruba  and although he likely cant be prosecuted for the Alabama teens death, legal experts say the deal was vital in helping the teens family finally achieve closure.

The 36-year-olds confession was made public shortly after he pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to extorting and defrauding Holloways family in a plot to sell information about the whereabouts of Holloways remains in exchange for $250,000.

Its over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughters murder. He is the killer, Beth Holloway said Wednesday.

But van der Sloot, a Dutch national, likely wont face prosecution for the killing, as the 12-year statute of limitations for homicide in Aruba has long passed, and the U.S., which has no statute of limitations for homicide, does not have jurisdiction over the criminal investigation in the Caribbean island nation.

CNN has reached out to the Aruba public prosecutors office for comment. The office told the Associated Press it was not immediately clear whether van der Sloot could face murder charges there. The case is still open and authorities will follow up on any serious leads, prosecutors office spokesperson Ann Angela said, according to the AP.

As part of his U.S. plea deal, van der Sloot agreed to reveal everything he knew about the circumstances surrounding Holloways disappearance  a procedure known as a proffer, whereby a defendant offers prosecutors information they know about a crime.

Its likely one of the things (prosecutors) wanted to secure for the victims family and loved ones is a confession from him that he actually did the crime to give them closure, said Ben Grunwald, a professor at the Duke University School of Law.

According to the plea agreement, van der Sloot will serve his 20-year prison sentence for extortion and wire fraud concurrently with the 28-year sentence hes already serving in Peru for the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores, a Peruvian woman. Officials in Peru allowed his temporary release to the U.S. in June to face the extortion and wire fraud charges.

Its typical in the plea-bargaining process for defendants to get something in return for admitting guilt in a crime, which can come in the form of a reduced sentence recommendation or a dismissed charge  which a judge has to approve. In van der Sloots case, its likely he was spared a consecutive sentence, which would require him to be sent back to the U.S. to serve 20 years in federal prison after his time served in Peru, according to Grunwald.

I imagine he didnt give up the confession for free, Grunwald said. I was a little surprised to see he got the concurrent, so I thought that might be what he got in exchange for the confession.

Van der Sloot was also convicted of trafficking cocaine into his prison in 2021 and sentenced to an additional 18 years in Peru, according to a sentencing memorandum. But Peruvian law bars prison sentences from exceeding 35 years unless the defendant is given a life sentence, the document says.

That means van der Sloot is scheduled to be released from Peruvian prison in 2045 and likely wont return to the U.S. to serve time for the federal charges after serving both sentences together. At the time of his release, he would likely be deported to his country of citizenship, legal experts said.

Van der Sloot was long suspected in teens murder

Holloway was visiting Aruba, from Alabama, on a high school graduation trip when she vanished in May 2005. She was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two other men.

Local police arrested and released van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe multiple times in connection with Holloways disappearance. Attorneys for the men maintained their innocence throughout the investigation.

In December 2007, the Aruban Public Prosecutors Office said none of the three would be charged and dropped the cases against them, citing insufficient evidence.

In a transcript of an interview with his attorney included in court documents filed Wednesday, van der Sloot said Holloway kneed him in the crotch after he tried feeling her up, and he responded by kicking her in the face and bludgeoning her with a cinder block. He then decided to push her off into the ocean, the transcript reads.

Holloways body was never found. In 2012, an Alabama judge signed an order declaring her legally dead.

At the sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge Anna Manasco said the murders of Holloway and Flores prompted her decision to give van der Sloot a 20-year sentence. After reading van der Sloots proffer, Manasco also said Holloways body would never be found.

Holloways mother decided on validity of confession

One of the stipulations of van der Sloots plea deal is that Holloways mother would be consulted to make a determination on the completeness, accuracy, and truthfulness of the information and evidence he provided regarding her daughter, it says.

The agreement also bars U.S. federal prosecutors from using information or evidence in van der Sloots proffer against him in the investigation, according to the document.

Prosecutors also agreed to acknowledge his truthfulness at his sentencing, noting it provided closure to the Holloway family, the document says.

Its possible van der Sloots attorney advised him to take the plea deal rather than facing trial on the extortion and fraud charges due to the scope of evidence prosecutors had against him, which could have risked a greater prison sentence, said Hermann Walz, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former assistant district attorney in New York.

Another consideration by prosecutors might have been sparing Holloways family from reliving her death during a trial, decades after her disappearance, Walz said.

In court on Wednesday, Manasco said she considered van der Sloots brutal murder of Natalee Holloway in her decision to accept the plea agreement.

Its really not a terrible decision for him and Im confident they didnt make this deal without talking to the family of Natalee Holloway, Walz told CNN. The family says, Its more important for us to just know. We need to know to some degree, what really happened? And now they have that. And that matters to people sometimes  the family just knowing.

___

10 most commonly stolen car models in every state Vehicle thefts by state Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana lowa Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington DC West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming
The Nebraska Attorney Generals Office announced a settlement this week with a payment processing company over erroneous withdrawals made two years ago from customers of a mortgage services company.

Fifty attorneys general reached a $10 million settlement with ACI Worldwide Corp., and Nebraskas share from that settlement amounts to $26,273.93. In a separate settlement with ACI, financial regulators, including those with the Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance, also received $10 million from ACI. Nebraskas share of that settlement is $211,333.33.

The settlements stem from an April 23, 2021 incident when ACI, through its subsidiary ACI Payments, tested its Speedpay product, which allowed customers to schedule and electronically pay their monthly mortgage payments through the Automated Clearing House system, with mortgage company Mr. Cooper.

During the test, according to the Attorney Generals Office, ACI erroneously attempted to withdraw mortgage payments from about 477,000 Mr. Cooper customers, including from more than 1,500 Nebraskans, on a day that was not authorized or expected.

The Attorney Generals Office said in many cases, consumers were subjected to the attempted withdrawal of multiple mortgage payments from their personal bank accounts. Although the majority of withdrawals did not go through or were reversed, 1.4 million transactions were processed, and they totaled about $2.3 billion.

In some cases, the Attorney Generals Office said, customers were not able to access the money that had been erroneously withdrawn and incurred overdraft or insufficient funds fees. Those customers received restitution from ACI and through other related settlements.

The Attorney Generals Office said an investigation found the ACI incident was possible due to significant defects in ACIs privacy and data security procedures and technical infrastructure related to the Speedpay platform.

The $26,273.93 from the attorneys general settlement will go into Nebraskas settlement cash fund, according to spokeswoman Suzanne Gage. Patricia Herstein, agency general counsel with the state banking and finance department, said officials are discussing where to allocate the $211,333.33.
A crash near Bennet at the intersection of Nebraska High 43 and Saltillo Road on Wednesday evening left four people injured, including two Lincoln police officers.

Around 7:20 p.m., a car failed to stop at a stop sign and hit a truck, which caused one of the vehicles to become disabled in the middle of the road. Two pedestrians, who were off-duty Lincoln police officers, pulled over to help those involved in the crash when another car approached, hit the disabled vehicle and was pushed into the officers.

The driver of the car involved in the initial crash was airlifted to a local hospital with head and rib injuries that were not considered life-threatening. They are expected to be cited for the stop-sign violation, according to Sheriff Terry Wagner. The driver of the truck was not injured.

The driver who hit the disabled vehicle was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

Police Officer Brent Lovett was taken to the hospital with severe head and abdominal injuries. Officer Kate Schwenke also was taken to the hospital but was later released.

Both officers have almost eight years of experience with the Lincoln Police Department. Lovett is on the southeast team and received the Mayors Award of Excellence. Schwenke is a member of the LPD SWAT Team.

This will undoubtedly be a lengthy recovery for Officer Lovett, acting Police Chief Michon Morrow said at a Thursday press conference.

Our philosophy is mission first and people always, she said. Both of them embodied that philosophy here.

Alcohol or drugs are not suspected to be involved in this crash, Wagner said.
BLOOMINGTON  Wayman African Methodist Episcopal Church is celebrating 180 years serving the Bloomington-Normal community this weekend by inviting in guest pastors and hosting a comedy show.

At 7 p.m. Saturday, comedian Christopher Hightower will perform to kick off the celebration at 803 W. Olive St. in Bloomington. Refreshments will be provided, and a $10 donation is requested.

On Sunday, the Rev. Chad Edwards, pastor for St. James AME Church in Minneapolis, will be the guest preacher for the hybrid service that begins at 10:15 a.m.

The Rev. Elexis F. Wilson, pastor at Wayman, called this anniversary a "welcome back."

She said the church has not held an anniversary party in three years because of multiple factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wilson said they chose a comedy show "instead of doing the regular banquet ... simply because the attempt is to try to change the stereotype of what church needs to look like and needs to be.

"God is joy and laughter and community," she said.

Even in a comedy show, Wilson said wants participants to "experience God in that place."

The church will also be honoring members of the community and the church family who have worked to keep Wayman going strong for nearly two centuries, Wilson added.

She said, sometimes, church bodies can break apart or fracture over time because one reason or another, "becoming a place of harm and not a place of love.

"We are still trying to be the place that shows love," Wilson said.

Photos: Second annual Trunk or Treat event at Oakdale Elementary School
NORMAL  The Illinois Symphony Orchestra has found some fantastic finalists in its search for its next music director.

Fire & Fanfare kicks off ISOs first concert of the 2023-24 season Friday at the University of Illinois at Springfields Performing Arts Center, before thundering up Saturday for another show at Illinois State Universitys Center for the Performing Arts, 351 S. School St., Normal. Both shows begin at 7:30 p.m., with ticket prices starting at $21.

This years season is titled Adventure Awaits! and includes an exhilarating journey of classic and contemporary composers. First on deck at the conductors podium is Taichi Fukumura, a Japanese-American assistant conductor with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. Later in this column, youll read Fukumuras explanation of how three composers overcame personal struggles to make high marks in their own music journey.

Other music director finalists will command the conductors wand for a host of concerts for all audiences throughout ISOs season, which runs through May. Following Fire & Fanfare is the Romantic Rendezvous symphony orchestra show Nov. 4 at ISUs CPA. Conducting that show is Yaniv Dinur, resident conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and musical director of a symphony orchestra in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Dinur will return to the Twin Cities with ISO for a Tunes from the Toons! Pops Concert Jan. 27 in Normal.

Finalist Naomi Woo, artistic partner for Montreals Orchestre Metropolitain, will conduct the Sizzling Strings Chamber Orchestra show Nov. 4 at ISUs CPA. Fellow finalist Tania Miller is slated to conduct a Captivating Contrasts Symphony Orchestra show Feb. 16 at the CPA in Normal. Miller is interim principal conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and music director emerita of Canadas Victoria Symphony in British Columbia.

ISO Executive Director Trevor Orthmann said the search for a new director began over a year ago. He said the wonderful pool of candidates leading the orchestra this season will bring artistic excellence to ISO, along with the communities in Bloomington-Normal and Springfield. The leading candidate will succeed previous conductor Ken Lam.

He said ISO will choose the next music director by summer, with an announcement expected by early July.

Finding his voice

Fukumura is no stranger to Illinois. The Fort Worth, Texas-based conductor grew up in Boston and earned his bachelors degree in violin performance at Boston University, before studying graduate music programs for eight years in the Chicago area. He completed both his masters in music and doctor of musical arts degrees at Northwestern University in Evanston.

With over 60 shows planned this season with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Fukumura said his conducting career has happily grown into a profession that keeps him quite busy.

My lifes journey is making music and connecting with people, Fukumura said.

He said he started playing  and even conducting music  long before he considered making both part of his career and life. Fukumura said his family moved to the United Sates when he was 1 year old, and he picked up the violin at age 3. He still plays the instrument, but said he focuses his career on conducting.

Recalling the moment he became a musician, Fukumura said he was 5 years old and was struggling at school with a period a muteness. His generous teachers knew there was an imaginative child silently hiding within, and so they organized his first public violin performance, he said.

Fukumura said that show resonated with his classmates, and from then on, being a musician was part of his identity. Throughout his childhood, he said everyone around him knew he played music, and was supportive and interested in his music journey.

Its something I bring with me This level of impact music can have on your life, that in every performance, I try to share with other people, he said.

More than notes

Fukumura said in high school, he gathered a group of friends and started his own student-run orchestra that stayed active for at least 10 years.

In a Tuesday Zoom interview, he said he now compares conducting music to film directing. He said those directors work with team of experts who play a part in creating that final product.

The director is the one who trusts the actors, the lightning designers and everybody they work with, but provides an artistic vision so that you have a consistent, coherent message throughout that whole film, he said.

In an orchestra, Fukumura said everyone on the stage in an expert on their instrument and musical literature, and its the conductors job to interpret what a composer meant to express in their scores.

You want a situation where an orchestra is not just playing notes, but delivering a message, he said.

However, conversations with his music peers have taught him conducting may mean totally different things to different conductors. Fukumura said the role can also depend on the individual orchestra.

He said conducting mechanics, like movements of the wand or expressions of the hands, can vary. But the end goal of clearly creating the dramatic character that music expresses is all the same.

Fukumura said a score can call for forte, or loudness.

But what color is that forte? the conductor asked. Is it a brilliant, exuberant kind of forte? Or, is it a darker, heavy kind of forte? Is it a more horizontal, breathy, earthy kind of forte? Or is it a sharp, accented forte?

He said much of that can be shown by hand gestures. Fukumura said audiences should keep an eye on that throughout ISOs season, as each music director finalist will offer unique experiences in their performances.

People are going to get to know their own local orchestra even better than they ever have before, he said.

Fired up

Fukumura will conduct shows Friday and Saturday featuring his Northwestern classmate Brannon Cho as their guest performer. He described Cho as a superstar young cellist.

He said its exciting how ISO is in a strong position to grow and become a premiere regional orchestra. Thats thanks in part to its strategic location that draws musicians from major cities like Chicago, St. Louis and Indianapolis, as well as local ones, too. ISO has offices in Springfield and Bloomington-Normal.

The conductor said ISO is well-placed for artistic growth, and has been doing just that for at least two decades. He said while it serves and engages with communities in Springfield and the Twin Cities, it also brings the two towns together.

This weekend, Fukumura said ISO will deliver an epic musical journey to audiences for Fire & Fanfare. He said some parts of it are a fanfare, some are exuberant and exciting, and others are fired up with passion. The conductor added there will be solemn-sounding moments, which represent facing the reality of difficulties in life.

On this playbill are pieces by contemporary composer Arturo Marquez (who scored Danzon No. 2), Soviet-Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (Cello Concerto No. 1) and classical Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (Symphony No. 4).

Fukumura said the passion derives from how all three, in their own respective rights, had to fight their way to discover their own personal and cultural identities and express them through their music.

He said Tchaikovsky, who lived mostly during the 19th century, was dealing with his sexual identity that was not well accepted. Fukumura added Tchaikovsky was a cripplingly self-critical artist who was writing exciting and exuberant music during the low point of his life.

Symphony No. 4' was his way of pouring out his soul, Fukumura said.

Shostakovich faced censorship during Joseph Stalins regime in the Soviet Union. Fukumura said he was a true artist who wished not to sacrifice his artistic identity for the safe of living. However, staying true to himself was a very dangerous tightrope to walk, the conductor said.

He said Shostakovich succeeded in that, because his music is full of flair and passion.

Marquez found his own voice in the international world of classical music, Fukumura said, and created genuine compositions that married the symphony to the sounds of his fellow Mexicans.

He said Marquez was able to bring Latin rhythm into the symphony through Danzon, a dance music genre popular in the Caribbean and South America.

This program gives you three totally different ways that people have had to fight and find their voice, Fukumura said. All three of them are different from each other, but all three are equally relevant to our human experience today."

He said all three composers give reason to go to the concert hall. Fukumura said thats because: This is an in-depth human experience, where youre in that room with people  to really connect with something that directly resonates with your heart.

IF YOU GO WHAT: Illinois Symphony Orchestra presents "Fire & Fanfare" WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday WHERE: Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts, 351 S. School St., Normal. TICKETS: Start at $21. Available at the CPA box office, online at ilsymphony.org/bnfire or by calling 309-438-2535. MORE INFO: ilsymphony.org.

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BLOOMINGTON  A McLean County judge ordered that a Bloomington man who is facing multiple felony drug charges be detained on Thursday.

Bryant L. Hart, 48, is charged with two counts of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, a Class X felony; a Class 1 felony count of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance; and two Class 2 felony counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance.

Assistant State's Attorney Jeff Horve said on Aug. 17, Illinois State Police Task Force Six conducted a controlled buy during which Hart allegedly delivered 1.7 grams of cocaine.

He is also accused of delivering less than a gram of cocaine during a second controlled buy on Monday.

Horve said when police searched Hart's residence, they found more than 30 grams of cocaine in his kitchen with other supplies indicating an intent to deliver and about a quarter of a pound of cocaine in a bedroom.

Horve cited Hart's criminal record, including a 1994 attempted murder conviction in Cook County, as reason to deny his pretrial release under the dangerousness standard.

Judge Scott Kording ruled the state had demonstrated that Hart posed a threat if released and no conditions could adequately mitigate that risk, granting the state's petition to deny pretrial release.

Hart's arraignment will be at 9 a.m. on Nov. 3.

Updated mug shots from The Pantagraph Bryant Lewis Derek Roesch Justin M. Mata Marcus D. Wesley Phillip Tinch Trisha L. Hanke William B. Givens David L. Oliver Kenneth E. Funk Jordan R. King Holly M. Isaacson Kenneth L. Minton Tony L. Jackson Britley L. Hilger Jasmine L. Smith Jackie S. Claypool Noah R. Demuth Brandon L. Parsano Alexander N. Williams Carlos Sanchez-Solozarzano Jaylin S. Bones Jordan R. King Dominique M. Banks Austin T. Daugherty Sandra M. Lewis Samantha E. Morris Nolan C. Love Nikkita L. Sandefur Katlin M.B. Wilson Eli C. Garozzo Tysean T. Townsend Curtis J. Byrd Noral K. Nelson Charles J. Tankson Davis, Micah S Livingston, Joshua D. Kevin L. Ewen Emmanuel K. Mpay Ahmad S. Manns Dylan R Mann Tony L. Jackson William R. Linden Zadek U. Moen Zachary T. Willis Cecily M. Sexton Tonisha A. Jackson James A. McConnaughay Jessica M. Longberry Barry D. Guyton Keon E. Spiller Melina Aguilar Carlos D. Cregan Wayne M. Damron Terrance L. Ford Stanley M. Miller Darryl R. Vinson Jarvis K. Heads Wesley M. Noonan Brad Carter Brian K. Burnett Kenneth D. Downey Kenyon J. Bones Brittany N. Greiner
BLOOMINGTON  A Bloomington woman faces a drug charge after police said she attempted to dispose of drugs during the execution of a search warrant.

Keionna R. Seals, 37, is charged with one count of unlawful possession of a controlled substance, involving between 15 and 100 grams of cocaine, a Class 1 felony.

Prosecutors said Illinois State Police executed a search warrant Monday at a residence in Bloomington. Officers arrested one suspect before finding Seals in a hallway after she left the bathroom.

Police said they found 27.2 grams of cocaine inside the bathroom and it appeared someone was trying to dispose of it.

The State's Attorney's Office did not seek to detain Seals, and Judge Scott Kording ordered that she be released and required to abide by the statutory conditions of release.

An arraignment is scheduled for Nov. 3.

Vote for The Pantagraph Week 8 Football Player of the Week Lucas Anson, Fieldcrest Mason Boles, Eureka Tommy Davis, Normal Community Cooper Johnson, Heyworth Kade Lollar, Olympia Cole Matejka, University High
BLOOMINGTON  A Bloomington woman was given a probation sentence Tuesday after pleading guilty to a charge of aggravated battery of a peace officer.

Andrea N. Luncsford, 25, was initially charged in February with two counts of aggravated battery of a peace officer, Class 2 felonies, and five misdemeanors, including three counts of resisting a peace officer and one count each of battery and criminal damage to property.

She pleaded guilty in August to one count of aggravated battery and the remaining charges were dismissed.

Assistant State's Attorney Spencer Chikahisa said on Feb. 26, Bloomington police were called to Luncsford's residence for a domestic violence situation in which Luncsford reportedly struck a person in the face while she was heavily intoxicated.

She was taken into custody, and during the arrest, she physically struggled with officers and attempted to pull away as she was being placed into an ambulance, Chikahisa said.

Luncsford then kicked at an officer and struck the neck and shoulder of another officer as she was being placed inside a patrol vehicle for transport to the McLean County jail. At the jail, the defendant spit in an officer's face and continued to struggle with correctional officers, the prosecutor said.

Chikahisa said the pre-sentence investigation indicates Luncsford has a "long history of criminal activity" that started with she was a juvenile, with a reckless driving charge, and continued into adulthood.

He also noted a recent incident in June when Luncsford was arrested in a domestic dispute while she was out on bond for the aggravated battery case.

She was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, possession of a drug paraphernalia and resisting a peace officer, but the charges were dismissed as part of the plea.

"We believe that in this case a sentence to the Illinois Department of Corrections is needed," Chikahisa said.

Rachael Moore Perry, who is working with the McLean County Public Defender's Office, said this is a case rooted in a substance abuse problem and that Luncsford has been undergoing treatment since the incidents.

Giving a statement to the court, Luncsford said her parents were drug addicts as well, which affected her at a young age and led to her leaving home at 16 to live in South Carolina.

Having been primarily raised by her grandparents, Luncsford said she returned to Bloomington after they died and she took to drinking alcohol and later smoking crack cocaine.

"Getting a felony charge opened my eyes, obviously, ... and I've been in and out of jail and there's no help in there," Luncsford said. "I get that I did wrong, but there's no treatment in there."

Luncsford said since July 25 she has voluntarily completed 76 narcotics anonymous meetings, started anger management classes and is two months and 18 days sober, as of Tuesday.

Judge Amy McFarland said based on the facts and circumstances of the case, she believed a community-based sentence was appropriate. She sentenced Luncsford to 48 months probation and ordered her to complete substance abuse treatment.

"I will tell you that your efforts to obtain sobriety are gradual and you have to take your sobriety as your most important focus that you have as you move forward," McFarland said.

Updated mug shots from The Pantagraph Bryant Lewis Derek Roesch Justin M. Mata Marcus D. Wesley Phillip Tinch Trisha L. Hanke William B. Givens David L. Oliver Kenneth E. Funk Jordan R. King Holly M. Isaacson Kenneth L. Minton Tony L. Jackson Britley L. Hilger Jasmine L. Smith Jackie S. Claypool Noah R. Demuth Brandon L. Parsano Alexander N. Williams Carlos Sanchez-Solozarzano Jaylin S. Bones Jordan R. King Dominique M. Banks Austin T. Daugherty Sandra M. Lewis Samantha E. Morris Nolan C. Love Nikkita L. Sandefur Katlin M.B. Wilson Eli C. Garozzo Tysean T. Townsend Curtis J. Byrd Noral K. Nelson Charles J. Tankson Davis, Micah S Livingston, Joshua D. Kevin L. Ewen Emmanuel K. Mpay Ahmad S. Manns Dylan R Mann Tony L. Jackson William R. Linden Zadek U. Moen Zachary T. Willis Cecily M. Sexton Tonisha A. Jackson James A. McConnaughay Jessica M. Longberry Barry D. Guyton Keon E. Spiller Melina Aguilar Carlos D. Cregan Wayne M. Damron Terrance L. Ford Stanley M. Miller Darryl R. Vinson Jarvis K. Heads Wesley M. Noonan Brad Carter Brian K. Burnett Kenneth D. Downey Kenyon J. Bones Brittany N. Greiner
During discussion with board members, Rummel clarified the difference between the two types of courses that can result in college credit.

While both types of courses offer college credit, dual credit courses guarantee credit upon passing the course, while students taking AP courses must take an exam and earn a high enough score to earn college credit.

The three new elective courses planned by BHS staff are based on student demand.

Event Planning and Management will give students an introductory look at the career field, as well as real-world experience planning activities at their school, Kelly said.
SPRINGFIELD  People who own certain guns and other items now prohibited under the states assault weapons ban still need to register them with the Illinois State Police. But ISP says it plans to hold additional public hearings about that process and may refine the rules before they become permanent next year.

We are happy to address all questions and comments submitted to ISP and will be doing so in the weeks to come, ISP said in a statement this week.

Illinois lawmakers passed an assault weapons ban during a special lame duck session in January. It came in response to a mass shooting at an Independence Day parade last summer in Highland Park.

The law prohibits the purchase, sale, possession or manufacture of a long list of firearms defined as assault weapons as well as large-capacity magazines and certain kinds of ammunition.

But the law also says that people who already owned those items before it took effect are allowed to keep them, as long as they register them with the state police before Jan. 1, 2024.

Last month, ISP published temporary rules spelling out how people were to register those items and it began taking online registrations starting Oct. 1.

As of Wednesday, according to ISP, 1,050 individuals had completed disclosures through that system. Those included disclosures of 2,060 firearms, 1,125 accessories and 17 ammunition supplies.

But many more people have filed questions and comments, saying the rules are vague and hard to understand and that its not clear which items are covered by the rules, and which are not.

Another source of confusion is the fact that the entire law is under challenge in federal court. Although one judge in the Southern District of Illinois ruled the law is unconstitutional, two other judges in the Northern District ruled that it is not. All of those cases are now pending before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which has not yet issued a ruling.

Those temporary rules came up for review Tuesday at the General Assemblys Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, or JCAR, a bipartisan panel that exercises oversight of the administrative rulemaking process.

As a committee, we've received many, many questions on this topic as members of JCAR, and we could really literally be here all day and night going through each one of these questions, seeking answers from the Illinois State Police, JCAR co-chair Rep. Ryan Spain, R-Peoria, said during the meeting.

Republicans on the panel made a motion to file a formal objection to the temporary rules, a move that would not have prevented them from remaining in effect but would have required ISP to file a formal response. But that motion failed on a tied 5-5 vote.

But members of JCAR did unanimously agree to another motion calling on ISP to provide answers to all the questions that the committee has received from the public and to hold additional public hearings on the proposed rules  suggestions that ISP accepted.

In a statement, ISP said it has already scheduled one additional hearing, set for 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 2, in the Stratton state office building in Springfield.

ISP is committed to transparency with the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules and the public, the agency said. We appreciate JCAR working with us to allow the emergency rule to remain in effect as ISP works to address the concerns raised within our statutory authority.

Photos: Pritzker Military Archives Center
Allotey Jacobs has waded into discussions about the resignation of Founder and General Overseer of the United Denominations of Action Chapel Churches Worldwide, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, and the President of the Eastwood Anaba Ministries, Rev. Eastwood Anaba, from their positions on the Board of Trustees for the National Cathedral project in Ghana.



The two clergymen were appointed to serve on the Board of Trustees overseeing the construction of the National Cathedral.



President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo made a pledge before the 2016 election to build a National Cathedral if he won the election but the Cathedral has become subject of controversy since its conception.



Reason for Resignation



The clergymen said in a letter that their conscience and faith could not permit them to remain on the project.



"Further to the National Cathedral in January 2023 as Trustees of the Board of Trustees we submitted a draft Resolution to the said Board resolving that current activities advancing the construction of Ghana's National Cathedral be deferred until the findings of an audit. This deferment included a cessation of activities of the Board of Trustees. Specifically, our Resolution stated, in the spirit and cause of transparency and accountability to the Ghanaian people the current Board of Trustees of The National Cathedral shall appoint an independent accounting firm to audit all public funds contributed to The National Cathedral. This appointment of an auditor shall take place before the deferment of the activities of the Board of Trustees."



Despite our prayers, best hopes and wishes, unfortunately, a needed audit to help restore public confidence and trust in this consequential project has not been enacted to the best of our knowledge. Since January 2023, we awaited news, to no avail. regarding the finding of the audit We. therefore, regret that as a matter of conscience and faith, we hereby submit to you our resignation from the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral", parts of the letter read.



Other Resignees



Early in 2023, Dr. Mensa Otabil, the General Overseer of International Central Gospel Church, Bishop Dag Heward-Mills, Founder and leader of the Lighthouse Chapel International and Cephas Omenyo, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, all resigned citing various reasons.



Even Demon Supervised Solomon's Temple



Passing a comment about Archbishop Duncan Williams and Eastwood Anaba's resignation coupled with other controversies in relation with the Cathedral, Allotey expressed regret that instead of people supporting the President, they are rather opposing his good intention to build the Cathedral.



"It pains me that something to glorify our God, our only one true God, that we will build an establishment for all Ghanaians irrespective of our religion and churches can gather there has become a sin," he said.



He wondered why there is too much bad energy from people against the Cathedral and specifically cautioned the North-Tongu Member of Parliament, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa over his intense criticisms of the project.



"Even the temple that King Solomon built, it was a demon that supervised the construction of the temple of Solomon. Go to Israel and ask, they will tell him that the one who ensured the establishment of the temple was a demon that was commanded, instructed to supervise over the construction of the temple of Solomon," Allotey Jacobs exclaimed while joining Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" Wednesday team.



Watch video below





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has expressed his sympathy to victims of the Akosombo Dam spillage which has displaced several households in the Volta Region and some parts of Eastern and Greater Accra Regions.



The spillage displaced communities in about eight districts and the Vice President, on Wednesday October 18, 2023, toured some of the affected communities in the Volta Region as well as some holding centres providing temporary shelter for the victims.



Addressing a gathering of Chiefs and residents in the communities, Dr. Bawumia empathized with the victims saying "when I look into the eyes of our mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers who are seated here, I see so much sadness and pains. Their lives have been turned upside down as a result of what has happened".



"These are people who were going about their normal duties everyday to take care of themselves, but now they have to really depend on others for livelihood and I am saddened by that", he added.



Dr. Bawumia urged the victims to find solace in the Holy Book and thank God for the gift of life.



"We are told in the good Book that in all things, we should give thanks to God. Why are we thanking God in this situation? Because He has saved the lives of all those here. So far, we have not heard of the loss of life and life is more important."



"We thank God for their lives. In many situations, such disasters are accompanied by loss of lives and we thank God that everybody here is safe. With life, we can restore what we have lost."



The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and other government agencies through the Inter-Ministerial Committee set up by the government has swiftly responded to the disaster by evacuating the affected people to about 20 holding centres and also provided them with emergency relief items.



Dr. Bawumia pledged government's committed to restoring the livelihoods of the affected people.



He stated "I want to assure that Government will do everything possible to assist the affected people to provide relief and also restore the livelihoods of those affected", adding "we are not only looking at temporary relief, we are also looking at a more sustained support through the Inter- Ministerial Committee, so that those affected can restore their livelihoods".



The Vice President commended NADMO for their proactiveness which he said has helped in averting what could have been a bigger disaster.



"I want to thank the NADMO for their proactiveness. We could have had a major disaster in our hands without the proactiveness of NADMO, through the simulation exercise they conducted last year, when they did not even know this would happen."



"I also want to thank the army, the navy, VRA and all stakeholders for their collective efforts so far."

Among communities the Vice President visited were New Bakpa in Central Tongu district, Sogakope and Sokpoe, both in South Tongu district.



The Vice President was accompanied by the Interior Minister, Ambrosse Dery, Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Volta Regional Minister, Archibald Letsa and officials of NADMO and the Volta River Authority.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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A Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Engineering and Operations) at Volta River Authority (VRA), Ing. Edward Ekow Obeng-Kenzo has replied critics who blamed the management of the Authority for the unfortunate flooding situation in the Volta Region as a result of the Akosombo dam spillage and are therefore calling for their dismissal.



The Akosombo dam, which has been opened to allow a reduction in the water levels to avert danger to the dam, has caused floods in nearby communities.



The residents have been displaced and have been kept in holding centers while the government and NADMO together with the inter-Ministerial Committee set up to manage the plight of the affected people provide relief to them.



The spillage, to some critics, is because the VRA management and staff failed to do due diligence.



But, according to VRA boss, they have done an exceptional work.



He said in interview on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show that before the spillage, the Authority had engaged the community in a thorough simulation exercise with all relevant measures put in place to appropriately respond when the spillage occurs.



He noted that the Authority also assessed their data and made all necessary predictions among others to address the situation ensuring the dam as well as lives are saved.



The Deputy CEO argued that their staff and management have the requisite expertise to manage the dam and, to him, it is unfair for anyone to ask for their dismissal.



"There's nobody in this country who has run a hydro-power plant than people of VRA. We have all the datas. We have run the power plant 60 plus years. We have the expertise, so I won't say there's somebody who can say it's more expert than a VRA person who has the data, knowledge backing him to take decisions".



"If someone says we don't know our work, I will say maybe the person didn't speak well. At least for 60 years, we have managed the dam up to this point . . . This is one of the best managed dams in the world. Every five years, we have people from abroad who come to assess the dam, assess our data we use to operate the dam; always they give us high marks with small lapses on what we should do to make sure the dam is properly secured so that we don't bridge the dam," he told host Kwami Sefa Kayi.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Former Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan has sent a strong message to the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ketu North, Abla Dzifa Gomashie for being overly critical of the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.



Dzifa Gomashie has been voicing her frustrations over the President's comment during his visit to victims of the Akosombo Dam spillage and his inability to respond early and quickly to the flood situation because he had travelled to the United States.



She accused the President of treating the people of Volta Region like non-Ghanaian citizens, insinuating he doesn't care about them, so he disregards their plight meanwhile extends his condolences to the King of Morocco over an earthquake in the country.



Following the President's visit to the victims after his return to Ghana, Dzifa Gomashie also found fault with a comment he made while addressing the unfortunate incident.



The President, in his remarks while speaking to the victims at Mepe in the Region, said; "When these things happen and government acts, politics does not come into the matter at all. When I took the Oath of Office as President, I took the oath as president for every single individual in Ghana, all people in Ghana, all districts and whether they voted for me or not, once I have taken the oath, I am the President of all the people so Togbe, I want the people here, beginning with you, and the elders to understand that when something like this happens and Government acts, Government is acting for Ghanaians, all Ghanaians.



"I came here because Ghanaians are having difficulties and are suffering, and it is my responsibility to try and help. Because, if it is a question of counting who votes for me and who doesn't vote for me, then I shouldn't be here, because you don't vote for me. But that is not my concern. And, in any event, one day you will vote for me and my party."



In a radio interview with Class FM on Tuesday, October 17, she described the President's comment as unfortunate, stating "His Excellency the President should be ashamed of himself".



But Kwamena Duncan finds Dzifa Gomashie's comments "divisive" and warned her to desist from attacking the President.



"She should use her knowledge to unite the country. She shouldn't cause divisions and using the people of the Volta Region as pawns to do her dirty politics," he cautioned while reacting to the MP's criticisms during a panel discussion on Peace FM's morning show "Kokrokoo".







Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Renowned rapper, Okyeame Kwame has revealed that he defied his parents' religious reservations just to marry the woman of his dreams.



Shedding light on the hurdles he and his wife, Annica Nsiah-Apau faced when their love clashed with their family's religious beliefs, he said his parents strongly disapproved of his union with Annica, just because she was Jehovahs Witness.



The Faithful artiste disclosed that his family was hesitant to welcome his wife into the family because of their religious differences.



The father of two said it was more important for him to be with the woman he loved than to succumb to his family's expectations, adding that he believed the success of a marriage was dependent on the blessings of God and not human approval.



They [parents] never agreed to our marriage. We were going to play a show in Kumasi by then and she was working in a law firm. When we got to Nkawkaw, she [Okyeame Kwames wife] said, 'Okyeame, do you know that in Ghana we have three key elements in marriage? We have an ordinance, customary, Mohammedan, and another one. So with the people who dont support our marriage, will they come and live with us?' Then I said 'No,'" Okyeame Kwame explained during an interview with Angel FM.



Okyeame Kwame also disclosed that he informed his parents about the impending marriage just one night before the ceremony and their marriage did not receive the blessing of his parents.



"Both families loved each other, but because of religion, they didnt agree. I told my mum about the marriage a night before the marriage because I understood that I was not going to marry the lady for my mother but for myself," Okyeame Kwame emphasized.



He also highlighted the practical aspect, questioning the need for his mother's approval in a marriage where they wouldn't live together.



Okyeame Kwame and Annica Nsiah-Appau exchanged their vows in 2009 and have been blessed with two children.

Source: graphic.com.gh









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Renowned comic actor John Okafor, fondly known as Mr. Ibu, has turned to social media to solicit public aid as he confronts a health condition that may lead to the amputation of his leg.



From his hospital bed, the Nollywood veteran actor made the heartfelt plea on Wednesday. In a video shared on his Instagram page, Mr. Ibu revealed that he has been hospitalized for several weeks.



Speaking about the gravity of his ailment, he disclosed that his doctors have warned him that amputation might be the last resort if all other options are exhausted.



His daughter, Jasmine Okafor, also spoke, expressing concern that Mr. Ibu's condition is not showing signs of improvement and that his financial resources have been depleted. She therefore urged compassionate individuals to assist in facilitating his treatment abroad.



Accompanying the video, Mr. Ibu included a message: "Dear Good people of Nigeria, we are counting on your support at these points we need it the most."





Please and please. Lets do this for Mr. Ibu.



The account number is on the video. Ive done my own small thing



No matter the amount even if its N1,000 it will go a long way



He is a supportive man. If you dont have, you can retweet. Thank you so much. pic.twitter.com/PzgvAogB51  Mo-Mo (@Morris_Monye) October 18, 2023

Source: graphic.com.gh









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The two panels of "The Melun Diptych" (circa 1455) by Jean Fouquet: "Etienne Chevalier with Saint Stephen" (on the left), and "Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels," in an exhibition at the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin, Germany. Credit: Sailko, CC BY 3.0.

More than 500,000 years ago, our human ancestors used large, stone tools known as "Acheulean handaxes," to cut meat and wood, and dig for tubers. Often made from flint, these prehistoric oval and pear-shaped tools are flaked on both sides and have a pointed end.

Handaxes have long been a source of fascination in our social and cultural history. Prior to the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, people thought that they were of natural origin and referred to them as "thunderstones shot from the clouds," according to texts, with the earliest records dating back to the mid-1500s.

But researchers from Dartmouth and the University of Cambridge have identified that "The Melun Diptych" (circa 1455), painted by Jean Fouquet, depicts what is likely the earliest artistic representation of an Acheulean handaxe, demonstrating that these objects had an even earlier place in the modern world. The findings are published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

"The Melun Diptych" was commissioned by Etienne Chevalier, who was from Melun, France, and served as treasurer for King Charles VII of France. The diptych is comprised of two oil paintings on wood panels: "Etienne Chevalier with Saint Stephen" on the left, and "Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels" on the right.

The researchers found that an Acheulean handaxe appears to have been represented in the left panel. In the painting, Chevalier is depicted wearing a crimson robe with his hands folded together as if he were praying while Saint Stephen, his patron saint, is standing next to him holding the New Testament as a stone object resembling a handaxe rests on top of the book. The stone object symbolizes the death by stoning of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

Fouquet is considered one of the most important French artists prior to the Renaissance given his ability to work with oil paint.

Art historians have always referred to the stone in "The Melun Diptych" as a "jagged stone" or a "large, sharp stone," but no one had ever identified it as something human made. However, Steven Kangas, a senior lecturer in the Department of Art History at Dartmouth and study co-author, had a hunch that it wasn't just a rock.

"I've known about Fouquet's painting for years and I had always thought that the stone object looked like a prehistoric tool," says Kangas. "So, this was always sort of stuck in the back of my mind, as something that I needed to pursue in the future."

That future arrived in 2021 when Kangas attended a seminar at Dartmouth about the Isimila site in Tanzania, which is famous for handaxes. The talk was delivered by Montgomery Fellow Charles Musiba, a professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado-Denver and expert on human origins in Tanzania and South Africa.

After the seminar, Kangas chatted with Musiba and Jeremy DeSilva, a professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth and co-author. Upon showing them a picture of the left panel of "The Melun Diptych," the fellow professors agreed the stone object in the painting resembled a handaxe.

Close-up detail of the hand-axe like object in Jean Fouquet's "Etienne Chevalier with Saint Stephen," left panel of "The Melun Diptych" (circa 1455) by Jean Fouquet. Credit: Sailko, CC BY 3.0.

To investigate this further, the researchers collaborated with colleagues at the University of Cambridge, who led the analyses of the painted stone object in the diptych.

The team conducted three analyses. They investigated the overall teardrop shape of the stone object in the painting using an approach called Elliptical Fourier Analysis, which quantifies the shape of an object. They found that its shape was similar (within 95%) to other Acheulean handaxes from the region where the paintings were made.

The researchers examined the stone object's color and compared its color to that of 20 French Acheulean handaxes. Although the colors in the painting are possibly distorted by the pigment and varnishes that have been applied, the color-variation on the object's surface of yellow, brown, and red hues was consistent with other handaxe artifacts.

As the co-authors report in the study, the high level of color-variation on the surface indicates that Fouquet went to great care and detail to paint the stone object. An infrared analysis of the painting revealed both an underdrawing and an underpainting for which the stone object had clearly been reworked.

Although an artist always has artistic license when creating their work, it's possible that Fouquet may have been replicating an actual handaxe or recreating one from memory. "Fouquet seems to have taken a special interest in the stone object, probably because he had seen one that struck his attention and imagination," says Kangas.

The researchers counted the flake scars on the surface of the painted stone object. On average, they found 33 flakes on the surface, which was consistent with the average identified on 30 handaxes that were randomly selected from their French handaxe assemblages.

"The data from our shape, color, and flake scar analyses of the stone object in the painting were remarkably consistent with that of other Acheulean handaxes from where Fouquet lived," said co-author James Clark, a graduate student in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.

Prior research has provided evidence of pre-Homo sapiens species in Europe using Acheulean handaxes, making them one of the longest-used tools and most investigated Paleolithic artifacts.

"I love this idea of connecting a handaxea utilitarian object that helped hominins survive half a million years agowith a medieval French painting, which is so well-known that it's taught in introductory art history classes," says DeSilva. "From the Paleolithic Age to the Renaissance and beyond, handaxes have beenand continue to bepart of human history."

More information: Alastair Key et al, Acheulean Handaxes in Medieval France: An Earlier 'Modern' Social History for Palaeolithic Bifaces, Cambridge Archaeological Journal (2023). DOI: 10.1017/S0959774323000252 Journal information: Cambridge Archaeological Journal
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Artist's impression (landscape orientation) of the discovery of microsecond bursts. The foreground shows the Green Bank Telescope (United States) with which the research was done. Incoming radio waves are shown as white, red, and orange streaks that follow each other in rapid succession. The long red streaks are the previously known millisecond flashes. Credit: Danielle Futselaar/artsource.nl

An international team of researchers led by Dutch Ph.D. candidate Mark Snelders (ASTRON and University of Amsterdam) has discovered radio pulses from the distant universe that last only millionths of a second. They found these microsecond bursts after a meticulous examination of archival data from a known millisecond source. It's unclear how the ultrafast bursts are created.

The researchers published their findings in Nature Astronomy.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are unpredictable, extremely short flashes of radio waves far beyond our Milky Way. They are possibly caused by magnetic neutron stars, also known as magnetars. The first bursts were discovered in 2007. So far, most bursts last longer than a thousandth of a second and emit as much energy as our sun generates in a day.

In 2022, researchers at the University of Amsterdam and ASTRON hypothesized that there might be bursts that would last not thousandths, but only millionths of a second. "During our group meetings, we often talked about it," says Mark Snelders, Ph.D. candidate at ASTRON and the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), and in charge of the research that uncovered the ultra-fast radio bursts. "By coincidence, I found out that there was a public dataset that we could use for this."

Five hours of data

The Dutch researchers used a public archive from Breakthrough Listen, a project designed to search for extraterrestrial life. That archive, originating from the Green Bank Telescope (United States), contained five hours of data from the known repeating fast radio burst FRB 20121102A located some three billion light years away toward the constellation of Auriga.

Artist's impression (portrait orientation) of the discovery of microsecond bursts. The foreground shows the Green Bank Telescope (United States) with which the research was done. Incoming radio waves are shown as white, red, and orange streaks that follow each other in rapid succession. The long red streaks are the previously known millisecond flashes. Credit: Danielle Futselaar/artsource.nl

The data is somewhat comparable to a movie. The researchers divided each second of the first thirty minutes of data into half a million individual images. Next, they used software filters and machine learning to search for outliers. In this way, they discovered eight ultra-fast bursts that lasted only ten millionths of a second or less.

Now that the first ultra-fast microsecond source has been detected, researchers expect to find more such sources. However, finding them may be easier said than done, as some data files are not detailed enough to cut into half a million pieces per second.

Ultimately, the researchers want to use the bursts to create a kind of map of the space between stars and galaxies. With such a map, they can better understand how galaxies are being fed by the surrounding gas.
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Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

College students face different, often co-occurring barriers that may prevent them from participating in healthy leisure activities, like exercising or reading for pleasure, according to new research led by Penn State College of Health and Human Development researchers and alumni.

"Establishing healthy leisure habits in college can contribute to long-term health and well-being, and this research demonstrates the need for universities to actively support student engagement in healthy leisure," said principal investigator Jennifer Agans, assistant professor of recreation, park and tourism management at Penn State.

Agans and her collaborators published their results in the journal Leisure Sciences.

Students may be preventedor think they are preventedfrom participating in healthy leisure because of structural barriers like a lack of money, time or transportation; social barriers like not knowing people to participate in healthy activities with; or personal barriers like a lack of skill in an activity.

To understand which barriers students are facing, the researchers performed a latent profile analysis on survey responses from 605 students at a university in the midwestern United States collected in 200910. Latent profile analysis allows researchers to identify previously undetected groups within data. In this case, the researchers modeled which barriers to healthy leisure are likely to co-occur.

Because the researchers who collected the data were interested in the students' perceptions about the barriers they face, the surveys did not define what constituted healthy leisure. Despite the lack of a concrete definition, most respondents identified similar healthy activitiesincluding exercise, reading and spending time with friendsand unhealthy activitiesincluding substance misuse, unhealthy eating and being a "couch potato."

In the analysis, the researchers identified four profilesor co-occurring groupsof barriers to healthy leisure activities. Since the data were self-reported, the profiles represent barriers perceived by the students. Students in the family/community/resource constraints profile made up 46% of the sample and were most likely to perceive barriers from family suggestions, religion, convenience, affordability and their knowledge level.

Students in the social/comfort/time constraints profile made up 28% of the sample and were most likely to perceive barriers from social circumstances, shyness, time and competing commitments. Students in the few perceived constraints profile made up 18% of the sample and did not believe they faced significant barriers to healthy leisure. Students in the culture/ability constraints profile made up 9% of the sample and were most likely to perceive barriers from disability, skill level and cultural background.

"The profiles that we identified in this analysis should not be regarded as categories that exist everywhere," Agans said. "They are relevant to the university where we collected the data, but they probably differ somewhat from profiles you would find at other schools. The ability to identify profiles, however, is significant. If universities ask their students what barriers to healthy leisure they are facing, the universities will find commonalities among their own students and be better equipped to help their students overcome those barriers."

In 2022, according to the American College Health Association, almost 75% of students across the country reported experiencing moderate to severe psychological distress, over 50% experienced loneliness and only 40% met national recommendations for physical activity. For many students, the removal or reduction of barriers could help them develop healthier habits and alleviate some of the emotional anguish, according to Agans.

"Different people face different barriers to healthy leisure, and some of these break down along demographic lines," Agans said. "People with disabilities may not be able to easily access facilities where leisure activities occur, and women may have safety concerns about exercising outside at night. But college students of all backgrounds face barriers to healthy leisure, and they all need to be empowered to participate. Importantly, not all women have similar needs, nor do all people with disabilities."

Agans said people's brains often go straight to demographics like race and gender if diversity is mentioned. She cautioned, however, that the ways that people differ from each other may or may not map onto our assumptions.

Universities will make mistakes if they make assumptions, according to Agans. As an example, she mentioned that a recreation center could offer classes that teach students how to use exercise machines, but religious or cultural mores may prevent some women from participating in a co-ed class. The co-occurrence of barrierslike knowledge of the equipment and religious or cultural modestymay prevent participation in ways that cannot easily be predicted.

"If we want healthy leisure to be accessible to everyone, we must examine the barriers that groups of people face and understand how those people try to overcome these barriers," Agans said. "But these groups should not be based on things we already know about the studentslike the fact that they are second-year students, international students or women. Instead, groups should be based on shared barriers that people face. If we ask people what prevents them from participating in healthy leisure, and we help them overcome those barriers, then we can help them establish healthy habits that could last a lifetime."

More information: Jennifer P. Agans et al, College Students' Healthy Leisure: Latent Profile Analyses of Constraints and Negotiation Strategies, Leisure Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1080/01490400.2023.2252434
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Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Text messages began to circulate about five minutes after an earthquake warning sounded for celebrants at St. James' Episcopal Church in South Pasadena on Sunday morning.

About 80 congregants, clergy and choir members lay in the pews and covered their heads as a simulated earthquake hit the sanctuary. After about 20 seconds, parishioners rose and exited the church, heading to a designated meeting spot in the adjacent open parking lot.

Most church members texted designated cohort leaders, letting them know they were safe and outside the building.

Some parishioners did not respond, though. And others who gathered in the parking lot stood directly in the path of a telephone pole and overheard power lines, which could have caused severe bodily harm had Sunday's drill been a powerful earthquake.

Seismologist Lucy Jones, California's earthquake expert and the chief architect of Sunday's drill, took note of the final tally. Six of seven cohorts responded that their parishioners were safe and no one was hurt or lost.

"Actually, this worked out better than I thought it would," Jones, a parishioner at St. James, said through a laugh. "I thought we were going to be having a comedy of errors, to be honest, and this was a nice surprise."

St. James was one of six Episcopal parishes, out of the 135 that make up the Los Angeles Diocese, to take part in Sunday's disaster resiliency event. Drills also took place at All Saints of Riverside, St. Andrew's in Irvine, St. Edmund's in San Marino, St. Luke's in Monrovia and St. Peter's in San Pedro.

Churches, temples, mosques and other faith-based institutions could serve as key places to help communities prepare for natural disasters, Jones contends.

In 2016, after more than 30 years with the U.S. Geological Survey, Jones launched the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society, and she's created a Connected Communities Resilience Program intended to help community- and faith-based organizations as well as local governments and nonprofits create a community-resiliency action plan to prepare for earthquakes or other disasters.

In a program established for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, churches are called on to understand the risk their parishioners facewhether from earthquakes, extreme heat, flooding or wildfires and then create a disaster-resilience program.

"When we talk about earthquake preparedness, that gets everyone's attention," Jones said. "But it's also about preparing and becoming resilient for other disasters that also happen."

Potential steps in these preparedness plans could include reducing earthquake vulnerability in the church as well as members' homes, stocking emergency supplies of water and food or creating a cooling center for intense heat waves. Churches may also decide to organize parishioners into groups who are assigned to text mobility-impaired parishioners to see whether they need help.

Other action items could include having the church's building evaluated for structural safety and securing bookshelves and electronics to walls.

Jones classified the fight to stop climate change as a "moral imperative" but also said it was necessary to understand that "facing more disasters" is unavoidable.

The best way for communities to survive is to "shorten what is needed for recovery" after a disaster, she said.

The two methods to accomplish that are mitigationchecking retrofitting and evaluating flood risks, for exampleand building community bonds. With the latter, Jones said that communities that share resources and stay in communication have a better chance of recovering.

The Rev. Melissa McCarthy, canon to the ordinary of the Diocese of Los Angeles, emphasized that proximity is not always an advantage in community building.

The diocese's first cohort includes three San Gabriel Valley parishes within minutes of one another, along with churches in Irvine, Riverside and San Pedro.

She said an earthquake centered in the San Gabriel Valley would probably leave the three neighboring parishes in need, while the damage would be less severe in other areas.

"In that instance," she said, "a parish like the one in Irvine could come through with aid and vice versa if there was a fire in Irvine, which has happened before."

The potential for earthquake damage is a non-theoretical pursuit at St. James. In 1987, the Whittier Narrows' magnitude 5.9 thrust fault earthquake rocked the church on Oct. 1 while a 5.3 aftershock struck three days later.

St. James' 75-foot bell tower was scarred with fissures, popping bricks and pieces of cornice. While the church and bell tower underwent repairs, the structures were also earthquake-retrofitted.

"Some of the tower had collapsed, and plaster covered everything inside the church," said 92-year-old Jan Arenz, who was a congregant at St. James' in 1987. "For two years, we met in the parish hall, so earthquake safety is wonderful and necessary."

Arenz admitted she didn't "entirely lie down" on the pew, leaving her feet still on the ground because the position wasn't entirely comfortable.

When Jones announced an earthquake was happening, 81-year-old Pasadena resident Judy Barbatoe immediately covered her head.

The retiree, who uses a wheelchair, hoped to avoid hypothetical falling ceiling plaster.

At that moment, Barbatoe became aware of all the dangers and shortcomings of her surroundings: nearby hanging chandeliers and stained-glass windows along with exits that are not wheelchair-accessible.

"Sometimes you need events like these," she said, "to realize all the dangers around you and how best to get ready."

2023 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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The Pleistocene of Northern Spain showing woolly mammoths, cave lions eating reindeer, tarpans, and woolly rhinoceros. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Mauricio Anton

In searching for life in the universe, a field known as astrobiology, scientists rely on Earth as a template for biological and evolutionary processes. This includes searching for Earth analogs, rocky planets that orbit within their parent star's habitable zone (HZ) and have atmospheres composed of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. However, Earth's atmosphere has evolved considerably over time from a toxic plume of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and traces of volcanic gas. Over time, the emergence of photosynthetic organisms caused a transition, leading to the atmosphere we see today.

The last 500 million years, known as the Phanerozoic Eon, have been particularly significant for the evolution of Earth's atmosphere and terrestrial species. This period saw a significant rise in oxygen content and the emergence of animals, dinosaurs, and embryophyta (land plants). Unfortunately, the resulting transmission spectra are missing in our search for signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres. To address this gap, a team of Cornell researchers created a simulation of the atmosphere during the Phanerozoic Eon, which could have significant implications in the search for life on extrasolar planets.

The research was led by Rebecca Payne and Lisa Kaltenegger, a research associate and assistant professor with the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University (respectively). The paper that describes their findings, "Oxygen Bounty for Earth-like exoplanets: Spectra of Earth through the Phanerozoic," was recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. They have made the full model and high-resolution spectra available online, which provide a tool to plan, optimize, and interpret observations with ground- and space-based telescopes.

The study of exoplanets is currently experiencing a transition. With 5,528 exoplanets confirmed to date, and another 9,899 candidates awaiting confirmation, the process has been moving from discovery to characterization. This transition has benefitted from next-generation ground and space-based telescopes capable of obtaining spectra directly from exoplanet atmospheres. This is a process where light is analyzed using spectrometers to identify absorption features that correspond to different chemical compounds, thus revealing vital data about the composition of an exoplanet's atmosphere.

This can be done using the direct imaging method, where astronomers examine light reflected from a planet's atmosphere (or surface). Another method involves obtaining transmission spectra, where astronomers analyze light passing through an exoplanet's atmosphere as it passes in front of its star relative to the observer (transits). Thanks to observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers can finally obtain transmission spectra from smaller rocky planets that orbit closer to their sunswhere potentially habitable, Earth-like planets are believed to reside. As Prof. Kaltenegger told Universe Today via email:

"To date, we know of about 35 rocky exoplanets circling in the habitable zones of their stars. While at the edge of technical capability for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, analyzing the atmosphere of some of these exoplanets is now a possibility. But scientists need to know what to look for. Our models identify planets like a Phanerozoic Earth as really promising targets to find life in the cosmos, of course, that life by no means would have to be dinosaurs."

Despite the plethora of exoplanets that have been discovered and characterized, there is a shortage of Earth analogs whose atmospheres are in various phases of evolution. This is particularly true of the Phanerozoic Eon, the current and the latest of the four geologic eons preceded by the Proterozoic, Archaen, and Hadeon Eons. This period was particularly important for the evolution of terrestrial lifeforms because of the many crucial developments that took place throughout. This includes the Cambrian Explosion, characterized by the appearance of most modern animal species in the fossil record. Credit: Universe Today

It also included the Devonian, where countless aquatic species adapted to dry land; the Triassic and Jurassic, which began and ended with major extinction events (the PermianTriassic and the TriassicJurassic extinction event extinction events, respectively); the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, the extinction of the dinosaurs; and the Neogene, where mammals and birds continued to evolve into modern forms, and the first modern humans appeared in the geological record. To predict what the atmosphere of this Eon would look like, said Kaltenegger, they created a model that combined established models with new atmospheric simulations:

"Our models simulated the transmission spectra generated by a planet with an atmosphere crossing our line of sight to its star, a transit. The planet's atmosphere absorbs some of the colors of the starlight but lets others filter through, creating a 'light fingerprint' that scientists use to determine the atmosphere's composition and whether there are signs of life in that atmosphere. Using estimates from two established climate models (called GEOCARB and COPSE), Rebecca Payne simulated Earth's atmospheric composition and resulting transmission spectra over five 100-million-year increments of the Phanerozoic, the epoch when the biosphere diversified and forests became widespread, changing the mix of oxygen and other gases in the air."

Key to their simulations was the oxygen content of the atmosphere, which rose from about 10% at the beginning of the Phanerozoic (the Cambrian period) to 35% by the end (the Neogene). The resulting higher oxygen levels, they state, were arguably a prerequisite for the evolution of complex lifeincluding the dinosaurs, mammals, and hominids (eventually leading to modern humans). Regardless, the "light fingerprint" their simulation produced would stand out even more than that of modern-day Earth because of the higher oxygen content.

"Analyzing the most recent 540 million years of Earth's evolution, the Phanerozoic Eon, we found that chemical signatures of life in the atmosphere of an Earth-like exoplanet are more pronounced than for modern Earth," said Kaltenegger. "During the Phanerozoicthat includes the time of the dinosaurs (245-66 Mio years ago), two key biosignature pairsoxygen and methane, and ozone and methaneappeared stronger about 300 million years ago, when oxygen levels were significantly higher."

This research is bolstered by another recent study led by a team from Dartmouth College (on which Kaltenegger was a co-author). In their paper, which was accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is available on the arXiv preprint server ("An Information Theory Approach to Identifying Signs of Life on Transiting Planets"), the team described how they simulated a range of transmission spectra to create an algorithm for identifying potential biosignatures on Earth-analogs. They tested this algorithm on three epochs of atmospheric evolution for Earth-like planets orbiting a range of host stars.

The resulting diagnostic tool, they said, can be applied to future observations to constrain planetary habitability. This research and the model created by Payne and Kaltenegger could have drastic implications for astrobiology by providing a template for finding planets in various stages of habitability.

As Kaltenegger summarized, "So for identifying potentially habitable worlds, there was a time when this fingerprint of life was even more pronounced than nowand it was during the reign of the dinosaurs. Thus, even though finding life in the cosmos is incredibly hard, it just might have gotten a little bit easier than we thought. Jurrasic worlds with their large, complex lifemight just give us the chance to find it a tiny bit easier. And who knows, maybe we get lucky, and there are other dinosaurs waiting to be found."
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Holotype of Laodracon carsticola Gen. et sp. nov. (NUOL R.2022.01), adult male, in life A: General lateral view; B: General ventral view; C: General dorsal view; D: Head in lateral aspect; E: Head in ventral aspect; F: Head in dorsal aspect; G: Tail base in ventral aspect; H: Tail base in dorsal aspect; I: Volar aspect of right foot; J: Opisthenar aspect of left foot; K: Volar aspect of left hand; L: Opisthenar aspect of right hand. Scale bar equals to 10 mm for AC, to 5 mm for DL. Photographs by Nathanael Maury. Credit: Zoological Research (2023). DOI: 10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2023.062

An international team of biologists, animal management specialists, geneticists and forestry managers has discovered a new species of "dragon lizard" in Laosone with very impressive camouflage capabilities. In their paper published in the journal Zoological Research, the group describes how the lizards were found and what they learned from two samples they captured.

So called "dragon lizards" have been known in parts of Laos for many yearsthey are of the Agamidae family and as their name suggests, slightly resemble fictional dragons. The new species was found living on the pinnacles of an outcrop of limestone in what is known as a karst landscape in Khammouan Province.

The first was spotted by a photographer from the National University of Laos who was out looking for exotic birds late last year. A guide escorting tourists there for zipline rides spotted a second one climbing around on the rocks soon thereafter. The second lizard was eventually captured, as was another when the team of researchers visited the site. Both have been extensively examined.

The lizards have impressive camouflage capabilitiestheir black and gray scale patterns match the rocks upon which they climb. The researchers note that unless they move, it is almost impossible to spot them. Both specimens were approximately 15 centimeters long. They also had blue/gray eyes and some red and blue spots and rough skin, an asset for a creature that climbs around on coarse rock.

Natural habitat of Laodracon carsticola Gen. et sp. nov. in Nam Sanam-Phou Pha Marn PPA., Khounkham Dist., Khammouan Province, central Laos A: Macrohabitat of the new species on karst pinnacles. B: A specimen of Laodracon carsticola Gen. et sp. nov. in situ (not collected) showing disruptive camouflage that hides the lizard while it perches on limestone. Photographs by Santi Xayyasith. Credit: Zoological Research (2023). DOI: 10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2023.062

They also had unique swollen tail bases. Genetic testing showed the lizards to be of an entirely new genus belonging to the subfamily Agamidae. The team named it Laodracon carsticola, and suggest the common name Khammouan karst dragon. Initial study of the lizards suggests they survive on ants.

Karst habitats are typically home to caves and hills due to underground water dissolving the rock, resulting in the creation of homes for a wide variety of creaturessuch habitats are known for their rich diversity.

The researchers also spoke to locals in the area who said the lizard was rarenone had seen it anywhere but on the outcrop upon which it was officially observed.

More information: Saly Sitthivong et al, Hiding on jagged karst pinnacles: A new microendemic genus and species of a limestone-dwelling agamid lizard (Squamata: Agamidae: Draconinae) from Khammouan Province, Laos, Zoological Research (2023). DOI: 10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2023.062

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A passenger disembarks from a ferry arriving from Peaks Island, Feb. 4, 2023, in Portland, Maine. United States winter looks likely to be a bit low on snow and extreme cold outbreaks, with federal forecasters predicting the North to get warmer than normal and the South wetter and stormier, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, in releasing their winter outlook. Credit: AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File

The upcoming United States winter looks likely to be a bit low on snow and extreme cold outbreaks, with federal forecasters predicting the North to get warmer than normal and the South wetter and stormier.

A strong El Nino heavily moderates and changes the storm tracks of what America is likely to face from December to February, with an added warming boost from climate change and record hot oceans, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday in releasing their winter outlook.

The forecast warmth will likely turn some storms that would have dumped snow into rain in the nation's northern tier, but there's also "some hope for snow lovers," with one or two possible whopping Nor'easters for the East Coast, said Jon Gottschalk, operations branch chief of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. Parts of the East Coast, particularly the Mid-Atlantic, may get more snow than normal because of that, he said.

Most of the country is predicted to be warmer than normal with that warmth stretching north from Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska and Nevada, along with nearly all of California. The rest of the nation is forecast to be near normal or have equal chances for warm, cold or normal. NOAA doesn't predict any part of the U.S. to be cooler than normal this winter.

"The greatest odds for warmer than average conditions are in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and northern New England," Gottschalk said.

A man walks in the rain along a street in Austin, Texas, Nov. 11, 2022. United States winter looks likely to be a bit low on snow and extreme cold outbreaks, with federal forecasters predicting the North to get warmer than normal and the South wetter and stormier, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, in releasing their winter outlook. Credit: Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File

A similarly large southern swath of the country is predicted to be wetter. The forecast of added moisture stretches from Massachusetts down the East Coast along most of the South below Tennessee, and extending west through Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and most of California, but excluding good chunks of New Mexico and Arizona.

The Great Lakes region and the furthest northern parts of the nation stretching from Lake Erie to eastern Washington are forecast to be drier than normal.

All this is because of El Nino, which is a natural periodic warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather patterns worldwide and generally heats up global temperatures, Gottschalk and other NOAA scientists said. El Nino has its strongest effects, especially in the United States, during the winter. That's when it sends the jet stream, which moves storm fronts, on an unusual path that is dominated by warmer and wetter Pacific air plunging south.

That means more rain in the South and extra storminess in the late winter, Gottschalk said. El Nino often means "unusual severe weather across the state of Florida because of a strong subtropical jet stream," he said.

Those changes in the jet stream often can bring a storm along the East Coast with moisture from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico "to get very juiced up" and fall as heavy snow in big eastern cities, Gottschalk said. That depends on timing of temperatures and other conditions, so it's not likely to happen more than a couple times. But if the timing is right, "these storms can really explode off the East Coast," he said.

Travis Grout uses his cross country snow skis to get around the West Front of the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 6, 2010. Federal forecasters are predicting on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, less snow in general for the United States winter, but they said big snow events are possible like Washingtons paralyzing Snowmageddon storm that dumped more than 2 feet on the capital region during an El Nino. Credit: AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File

He pointed to Washington's paralyzing 2010 Snowmageddon storm that dumped more than 2 feet on the capital region during an El Nino.

Normally the South gets not just wetter but cooler during an El Nino, but Gottschalk said the warmer ocean temperatures and record hot summer temperatures led forecasters to ditch a cooler outlook.

NOAA scientists said climate change is an added factor to their forecast, especially with winter being a season where the world sees some of the most warming above old normals from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Winter in the Lower 48 has warmed on average 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) in the past 40 years, according to NOAA data.

Meteorologists outside NOAA see the winter playing out somewhat similarly.

Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research, a commercial firm outside of Boston, has become prominent because of his successful forecasts based on fall Siberian snow cover and study of the infamous polar vortex. The Siberian snow cover, El Nino and other factors "indicate an overall mild winter," he told The Associated Press.

A man walks in the snow-covered street in Boston, Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022. Federal forecasts say United States winter looks likely to be a bit low on snow and extreme cold outbreaks, but a few big snow events are still possible, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, in releasing their winter outlook. Credit: AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File

When Siberia has less fall snow, the polar vortex, a mass of cold air centered at the top of the globe, tends to stay strong and keeps the frigid Arctic air penned up near the pole, Cohen said. When there's more snow, the polar vortex is weaker and the frigid air escapes to the United States.

People on the East Coast should be prepared for "weather whiplash" with not much snow in general except for one or two real gangbusters, especially in the Mid-Atlantic, Cohen said.

The private firm AccuWeather forecasts below average snowfall in Boston, New York City, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Chicago and Minneapolis, with near average in Kansas City, Salt Lake City and Philadelphia and more than normal in Denver.

AccuWeather predicts less warmth than NOAA, with pockets of southern California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee cooler than normal.

 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory scientists created a collection of over 40 tomato strains with natural and engineered mutations that affected fruit size. The strains were grown over several years and across several geographic locations, including Florida and Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Credit: Lippman lab/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

For tens of thousands of years, evolution shaped tomatoes through natural mutations. Then, humans came along.

For centuries, we've bred and cherry-picked tomatoes with our preferred traits. Today, CRISPR genome editing allows us to make new crop mutations that improve traits even further. However, individual mutations, whether natural or engineered, don't work alone. Each operates in a sea of thousands of so-called "background" mutations. These changes have been sowed by evolution and agricultural history. And what if just one could dramatically alter the desired outcome of an engineered mutation?

Now, a plant geneticist and a computational scientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have teamed up to explore just how predictable plant breeding actually is with natural and CRISPR mutations. To do so, they turned back the evolutionary clock. Their work has been published in Science.

CSHL Professor and HHMI Investigator Zachary Lippman and Associate Professor David McCandlish wondered if different natural and engineered mutations could have similar effects on tomato size depending on the presence of two other gene mutations. Using CRISPR, they created a series of mutations in the SlCLV3 gene. (Natural mutation of this gene is known to increase fruit size.) They then combined those mutations with others in genes that work with SlCLV3.

Altogether, they created 46 tomato strains with different combinations of mutations. They found the SlCLV3 mutations produced more predictable effects when certain other mutations were also present. Mutations in one gene produced predictable changes in tomato size, but mutations in another yielded random outcomes. Remarkably, the most beneficial effect involved two mutations that arose millennia ago and were central in tomato domestication.

A collection of tomatoes with different combinations of artificial and natural mutations. The mutations affected the number of locules, or seed pockets, resulting in different fruit sizes. Lyndsey Aguirre, a CSHL School of Biological Sciences graduate, led the project. Credit: Lippman lab/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

New research by McCandlish and Lippman may help us better understand genetic predictability. But one thing's certain. Context matters when introducing new crop mutations. Lippman explains:

"Is genome editing a way to quickly bring in consumer benefitsbetter flavor, nutrition? The answer is probably yes. The question is how predictable is it going to be."

Lippman and McCandlish's work suggests the role of background mutations demands reassessment. "The field will have to grapple with this as we start to make more highly engineered organisms," says McCandlish. "Once you start making 10, 20 mutations, the probability of having unanticipated results may increase."

The book of evolution has been written in all different languages, many of which we're still learning. Plant genetics and computational biology offer two means of deciphering the text. Lippman and McCandlish hope their collaborative interpretation will help science meet the challenge. Looking ahead, it may also help humanity adapt crops to meet the ever-evolving needs of society.

More information: Lyndsey Aguirre et al, Idiosyncratic and dose-dependent epistasis drives variation in tomato fruit size, Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.adi5222. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi5222 Journal information: Science
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Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A new study by Dr. Veronica Lamarche, from the University of Essex Department of Psychology, has discovered that equal consumption is more important than levels of drunkenness. This was the case even when couples had drunk to excess and was the same across sexualities and genders.

The work is published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

Dr. Lamarche discovered that romantic rendezvous were seen most positively when couples drank the same low level of alcohol. Encounters where one partner was drunk and the other was sober were more likely to be seen as non-consensual, coercive, and dangerous.

Dr. Lamarche said, "I am interested in understanding the consequences of existing in a sexual world where our lived experiences with sex don't always match legal definitions. We're finding that people rely heavily on contextual information to decide whether they believe non-violent sexual experiences are consensual or not. People understand alcohol is a risk factor for non-consensual sex, but both partners being similarly drunk seems to challenge their assumptions about assault."

More than 500 British people participated in the research that unfolded across four studies. They were presented with a variety of scenarios and given details of how many shots had been consumed before sex. They were then asked to judge levels of coercion, sexual assault, perceived responsibility and if the encounter was likely sexual assault.

It is hoped that the study will help shine a light on perceptions of sexual assault and show how alcohol influences how people support victims of assault by reducing barriers to reporting and prosecution.

Dr. Lamarche added, "People not only rely on how much alcohol someone consumed prior to a sexual encounter, but more importantly whether partners were equally drunk. We want victims to feel empowered to come forward, and this research can help us identify important barriers and biases that keep victims of sexual assault from getting the support they need."

Dr. Lamarche worked with two undergraduates on the study Ellen Laughlin, Molly Pettitt and Dr. Laurie James-Hawkins from the Department of Sociology.

More information: Ellen Laughlin et al, Just One Shot? The Contextual Effects of Matched and Unmatched Intoxication on Perceptions of Consent in Ambiguous Alcohol-fueled Sexual Encounters, Journal of Interpersonal Violence (2023). DOI: 10.1177/08862605231182378 Journal information: Journal of Interpersonal Violence
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Distribution of threats of human expansion to biodiversity in Asia over 20002020. (A) Map of continuous threat degrees (1  1 km2 cell size resolution) and average threat degrees; and (B) three threat levels to biodiversity (i.e., high, moderate, and low). Credit: Research (2023). DOI: 10.34133/research.0226

Biodiversity is essential for sustaining food security, livelihood, ecosystem health, and economic development and for preventing future epidemics. Asia, with nearly 60% of the world's population, stands out as a priority for urgent biodiversity conservation due to its large threatened species and protected areas (PAs), and many countries globally are facing extreme biodiversity and ecological threats.

Satellite observations have shown that the human activities (i.e., cropland and artificial surface creations) in Asia have rapidly expanded since the 21st century and are being expanded to highlands (hilly and mountainous regions). Obviously, the intensification of human activities has induced widespread habitat losses and fragmentations and has subsequently threatened biodiversity.

Therefore, the comprehensive assessment of the threat degree of human expansion to biodiversity, especially the threat difference in lowland and highland developments, can provide a basis and new insight for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. Unfortunately, the knowledge of threats of human expansions in lowlands and highlands to biodiversity remains unknown.

To address this conundrum, the research team from Shenzhen University (Chao Yang, Qingquan Li and their colleagues) has proposed a threat degree index (mainly integrating density maps of patch number, patch area, and number of threatened species involved in the patches of human expansions) to explore the threat degrees and differences of human expansions in highlands and lowlands to biodiversity at the continental (Asia), national (48 Asian countries) and hotspot (6,502 terrestrial PAs within Asia established before 2000) scales.

Their results show that human expansion poses widespread threat to biodiversity in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia, with Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam having the largest threat degrees (1.51.7 times of the Asian average level). Human expansion in highlands induces higher threats to biodiversity than that in lowlands in one-third Asian countries (most Southeast Asian countries). Moreover, human expansion in highlands is more likely to pose a threat to biodiversity.

The regions with threats to biodiversity are present in 75% terrestrial PAs (including 4,866 PAs in 26 countries), and human expansion in PAs triggers higher threat degrees to biodiversity than that in non-PAs.

Their findings provide novel insight for the Sustainable Development Goal 15 (SDG-15 Life on Land) and suggest that human expansion in Southeast Asian countries and PAs might hinder the realization of SDG-15. To reduce the threat degree, authors call on all countries should strengthen their regulation of biodiversity.

Asian developing countries should accelerate economic transformation to reduce highland developments, especially in Southeast Asian countries. The developed countries in the world should reduce the demands of commodity trade (i.e., trade leading to the loss of wildlife habitats) from Southeast Asian countries to alleviate human expansion, especially in PAs and highlands.

The findings are published in the journal Research.

More information: Chao Yang et al, Human Expansion-Induced Biodiversity Crisis over Asia from 2000 to 2020, Research (2023). DOI: 10.34133/research.0226 Journal information: Research

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Robin Allert (left) and Prof. Dominik Bucher are working on new quantum sensors. Credit: Technical University Munich

The development of tumors begins with miniscule changes within the body's cells; ion diffusion at the smallest scales is decisive in the performance of batteries. Until now, the resolution of conventional imaging methods has not been high enough to represent these processes in detail. A research team lead by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed diamond quantum sensors which can be used to improve resolution in magnetic imaging.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an important imaging method in research which can be used to visualize tissue and structures without damaging them. The technique is better known from the medical field as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), where the patient is moved into a bore of a large magnet on a table. The MRI device creates a very strong magnetic field which interacts with the tiny magnetic fields of the hydrogen nuclei in the body. Since the hydrogen atoms are distributed in a particular way among different types of tissues, it becomes possible to differentiate organs, joints, muscles and blood vessels.

NMR methods can also be used to visualize the diffusion of water and other elements. Research for example often involves observing the behavior of carbon or lithium in order to explore the structures of enzymes or processes in batteries. "Existing NMR methods provide good results, for example when it comes to recognizing abnormal processes in cell colonies," says Dominik Bucher, Professor for Quantum Sensing at TUM. "But we need new approaches if we want to explain what happens in the microstructures within the single cells."

Sensors made of diamond

The research team produced a quantum sensor made of synthetic diamond for this purpose. "We enrich the diamond layer, which we provide for the new NMR method, with special nitrogen and carbon atoms already during growth," explains Dr. Peter Knittel of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF). The work is published in the journal Science Advances.

After growth, electron irradiation detaches individual carbon atoms from the diamond's perfect crystal lattice. The resulting defects arrange themselves next to the nitrogen atomsa so-called nitrogen-vacancy center has been created. Such vacancies have special quantum mechanical properties needed for sensing. "Our processing of the material optimizes the duration of the quantum states, which allows the sensors to measure for longer," adds Knittel.

Spatially resolved PGSE NV-NMR experiments within microfluidic structures. Credit: Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh3484

Quantum sensors pass the first test

The quantum state of the nitrogen-vacancy centers interacts with magnetic fields. "The MRI signal from the sample is then converted into an optical signal which we can detect with a high degree of spatial resolution," Bucher explains.

In order to test the method, the TUM scientists placed a microchip with microscopic water-filled channels on the diamond quantum sensor. "This allows us to simulate microstructures of a cell," says Bucher. The researchers were able to successfully analyze the diffusion of water molecules within the microstructure.

In the next step the researchers want to develop the method further to enable the investigation of microstructures in single living cells, tissue sections or the ion mobility of thin-film materials for battery applications. "The ability of NMR and MRI techniques to directly detect the mobility of atoms and molecules makes them absolutely unique compared to other imaging methods," says Prof. Maxim Zaitsev of the University of Freiburg. "We now have found a way, how their spatial resolution, which is currently often deemed insufficient, can be significantly improved in future."

More information: Fleming Bruckmaier et al, Imaging local diffusion in microstructures using NV-based pulsed field gradient NMR, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh3484 Journal information: Science Advances
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The efficiency of the WS 2 /N-rGO-CC electrocatalyst was optimized through the integration of nitrogen into rGO to improve contact of water with the substrate, the formation of WS 2 nanoflowers to increase surface area of the electrode and number of active sites, the incorporation of 50% DMF during the final hydrothermal synthesis step to increase the amount of metallic, phase 1T-WS 2 present in the electrocatalyst and the integration of WS 2 directly in the conductive materials of the electrode without the use of binders. Credit: Nano Research, Tsinghua University Press

As a combustible fuel, the burning of hydrogen gas does not contribute to global warming. Today, the majority of hydrogen gas is generated from fossil fuels, however, and this process releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Generating hydrogen gas from clean sources, such as the splitting of water molecules with electricity through electrolysis, is important to achieving future carbon neutrality, but current methods are inefficient and limit the commercial practicality of hydrogen-based technologies.

A new electrocatalyst leverages enhanced electrochemical activity, reaction surface area and durability to improve the efficiency of hydrogen gas production via electrolysis.

Researchers from Center of Excellence for NaNo Energy & Catalysis Technology (CONNECT), Xiamen University in Malaysia synthesized and characterized an efficient and durable water electrocatalyst composed of the transition metal dichalcogenide tungsten disulfide (WS 2 ), a two-dimensional material with semiconducting properties, that functions as an electron acceptor or donor in the electrolysis reaction.

The electrocatalyst, WS 2 /N-rGO/CC, is created on a carbon cloth (CC) that is bound to reduced graphene oxide (rGO), a two-dimensional lattice semiconductor, combined with a very small amount of nitrogen (N) to alter the properties of the reduced graphene oxide semiconductor. A hydrothermal reaction converts two-dimensional WS 2 into microscopic, three-dimensional flower-like structures called nanoflowers that increase the surface area of the electrocatalyst to improve reaction efficiency.

The team published their results in the journal Nano Research.

"Synthesizing a self-supported electrode for the hydrogen evolution reaction in water hydrolysis is crucial because it addresses a fundamental challenge in clean energy production. Traditional methods often rely on expensive catalysts and supports, which can limit the efficiency and scalability of hydrogen production. Our work represents a significant advancement by creating a self-supported electrode that not only enhances the electrocatalytic activity, but also offers a cost-effective and sustainable solution for hydrogen generation," said Feng Ming Yap, lead author of the paper and graduate student in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at Xiamen University Malaysia in Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.

Because the active species of the electrocatalyst, tungsten disulfide, is directly incorporated into the conductive materials of the electrode, WS 2 /N-rGO/CC is considered a self-supported electrode. No polymer binders or additives are present in the synthesized electrocatalyst to mask catalyst active sites or decrease electron conductance, maximizing reaction efficiency.

The research team experimented with incorporating various amounts of dimethylformamide (DMF) in the final hydrothermal synthesis reaction to determine the best concentration for the preferred metallic 1T phase transition of WS 2 for the electrode. The electrode developed using a 50% concentration of DMF in water (50% WGC) during the last hydrothermal reaction demonstrated superior characteristics to electrodes synthesized using 0, 25, 75 and 100 percent DMF solutions.

"Our electrode can efficiently produce hydrogen under a wide range of pH conditions, making it versatile and adaptable for various practical applications. It is a step towards sustainable and efficient hydrogen production, which is essential for a cleaner energy future," said Wee-Jun Ong, supervisor of the project and associate professor in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at Xiamen University Malaysia.

Importantly, the 50% WGC electrocatalyst outperformed the platinum benchmark electrocatalyst, 20% Pt-C/CC, for the HER in both acidic and basic conditions. Specifically, 50% WGC demonstrated a lower overpotential, or energy required to split water, than 20% Pt-C/CC. The overpotential for 50% WGC was 21.13 mV compared to 46.03 mV for 20% Pt-C/CC.

The research team believes that more cost- and energy-efficient electrocatalysts, like 50% WGS, are paramount to achieving the world's clean energy goals. "We aim to explore the scalability and practical implementation of our self-supported electrode technology. Our ultimate goal is to contribute to the transition to a sustainable energy landscape, where hydrogen can play a crucial role as a clean and renewable energy source," said Ong.

Jian Yiing Loh from the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering and the Center of Excellence for NaNo Energy & Catalysis Technology (CONNECT) at Xiamen University Malaysia in Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia also contributed to the study. This research is part of the initiatives of the national policies in Malaysia, namely National Energy Transition Roadmap (NETR), and Hydrogen Economy and Technology Roadmap (HETR), to facilitate Malaysia's sustainable energy in the next five years.

More information: Feng Ming Yap et al, Synergistic integration of self-supported 1T/2HWS2 and nitrogen-doped rGO on carbon cloth for pH-universal electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution, Nano Research (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s12274-023-6118-8 Journal information: Nano Research

Provided by Tsinghua University Press
A community favorite painting from the Hyde House made a long journey home last week after being featured in the Jeu de Paume gallery of Chateau de Chantilly in France. Paolo and Francesca, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1819 returned from a Ingres exhibition at the historic French chateau.

Hyde Curator of the Permanent Collections Bryn Schockmel was flown by Chateau de Chantilly to retrieve the painting to be returned to the walls of the library in the Hyde House.

The historic artwork is a troubadour style middle age depiction of troubled passion between two lovers, soon to be murdered by Francescas husband. The scene is from the first book of Italian writer Dante Alighieris 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy.

There are seven different versions of the painting by Ingres, some showing Francescas husband lurking in the corner about to strike and some without him. The Hyde House has a version that is without the husband, solely focuses on the act of passion for one another.

Schockmel said the version without the murderous husband might have had a personal appeal to founder, Charlotte Pruyn Hyde.

Thinking about Renaissance and this time period, a lot of the stories we see in Renaissance paintings come from antiquity. We have all these stories like Virgil and Homer popular during the Renaissance, and they resurge again at this time of the painting that we call the Neoclassicism period, she said.

The artwork is back on display for the Glens Falls community to admire once again and has a unique viewing experience.

Rather than being lit under bright lighting, the library allows guests to experience it in time period appropriate lighting. Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Derin Tanyol and Schockmel both noticed finer details of the painting such as the wallpaper of the room just before it was hung up.

Its not a Neoclassicism even though Ingres was a Neoclassicist. That can make itself clear in a number of ways, mainly that the figures are almost naive. You dont have much defined musculature and anatomical correctness that is so important to classical painting, Tanyol said.

The trip for Schockmel was not only a great experience but she also played a large role in monitoring the travel of the historic painting. The lending process allows other art galleries to temporarily borrow a painting for an exhibition and is all paid for by the borrower.

Schockmel not only did a condition report of the art, she also watched the art come off the wall and be placed back into the custom shipping container, took truck rides with it, and was even shown a picture of the shipping container being put on the plane.

An agent from the company we were working with called Masterpiece stayed with it the entire time so they took it to the plane, put it on the plane since Im not allowed on the tarmac, she said.

Companies like Masterpiece handles all the customs fees so we dont have to worry about it, Registrar and Collections Manager Rachel Lovelace-Portal added.

Once the plane touched down at JFK Airport in New York, rather than getting to go home, unpack, and recover from any lingering jetlag, Schockmel was in a truck with the painting with a destination of The Hyde.

The shipping container sat unopened for 48 hours at the museum so the painting was allowed to reacclimatize. Reacclimatizing a painting is crucial so there are less chances of cracking or peeling of the old paint.

A positive of lending permanent collection art from the Hyde House is it allows the name of the museum as the founders permanent collection be seen both nationally and internationally. Schockmel said it is likely that The Hyde will continue to lend art and grow the connections of artists and other museums or galleries.

The fact that we lent it in the first place is exciting because its great for The Hyde when we are able to lend work to both institutions in the United States and internationally. It helps get our name out there and people who might not know about us could go to an exhibition and see us on the collection label or in a catalogue, she said. Its great to be able to build connections with other museums.
ATLANTIC CITY  A contractor received almost $2.6 million for repairs it made earlier this year at multiple public housing communities in the city, only for its service on underground gas lines at Stanley Holmes Village to be deemed bad work with massive leaks and potential system failures by the Atlantic City Housing Authority.

Representatives of the company, EJustice Mechanical LLC, however, say they are being wrongfully blamed by the authority, which is operating under federal oversight and facing a lawsuit from nearly 90 Stanley Holmes tenants over living conditions.

EJustice Mechanical had registered as a business in New Jersey just weeks before being hired by the authority in February on an emergency basis without competitive bidding.

Over the next four months beginning in March, the authoritys Board of Commissioners passed resolutions to pay EJustice at least $2,584,679. The compensation covered emergency repairs at the troubled Stanley Holmes and other Housing Authority communities, and renovating at least 100 units in several Inlet properties so they could be used to relocate Stanley Holmes residents, according to EJustice CEO Erick Lauffer.

But the work halted in June when the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development told the local Housing Authority that all work done under emergency measures had to stop and it must get competitive bids and contracts.

Lauffer and Chief Operating Officer Michael Carbone said the stoppage implemented in June is to blame for continuing issues with the gas system.

Were getting thrown under the bus here saying that we didnt do the gas correctly, Carbone said Thursday. I think the Housing Authority is looking for a scapegoat because we went in there, we did everything right.

A report submitted by the Housing Authority as part of its defense in the tenant lawsuit in Atlantic County Superior Court, however, claims the work was poor and will need to be redone.

Atlantic City Housing Authority delivers Stanley Holmes Village plan to court The Atlantic City Housing Authority delivered a large packet of material on the future of Stanley Holmes Village to Superior Court by its deadline late Wednesday, a court spokesperson said.

The authoritys chief operating officer, Tom Sahlin, declined to comment on the reports characterization of EJustices work, citing the pending litigation. Stephanie Marshall, chair of the agencys Board of Commissioners, did not return messages requesting comment.

The court document includes the minutes of an internal Sept. 8 meeting of the Stanley Turnaround Tiger Team, as well as a draft presentation of the Stanley Holmes repair plan. It said work on the gas system had been completed in eight buildings, but not in adherence with plans and specifications generated by the Engineer of Record. Massive leaks and potential system failures are occurring on gas lines repaired by EJustice and leaks are present on gas lines that have not been repaired.

The authority entered these records last month in response to the latest order from Superior Court Judge John C. Porto, who is presiding over a lawsuit filed last fall by 87 Stanley Holmes residents over what they describe as unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

The document also claims EJustice never pulled permits for the piping it ran in some crawlspaces.

Lauffer and Carbone say that claim isnt accurate and that permits were issued for work on Stanley Holmes gas lines, and that city inspectors and another Housing Authority consultant that served as a general contractor reviewed EJustices work. EJustice also provided the agency with weekly progress reports that included photographs, they said.

Alexxus Young, a spokesperson for the city government, confirmed permits were issued to Jeffrey Alvarez T/A South Jersey Subcontractor of Woodbine. Alvarez is one of three EJustice partners. Carbone and Lisa Andrews, of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, are the others.

Young also said city inspections took place in April and May.

The work was approved, Young wrote in an email.

Atlantic City Housing Authority consultant to lead Linden public housing Jerry Volpe, the consultant who handles all purchasing and bidding for the Atlantic City Housing Authority and has been criticized for a lack of materials needed to make repairs, is now the interim executive director of the Linden Housing Authority in Union County.

While EJustice had only officially formed as a business in New Jersey in late February, two weeks before receiving its first check from the authority, Lauffer said its leadership, employees and subcontractors all have decades of experience.

The company was formed to take on the government job, he said.

This is our first time working for the government, so we had to actually structure our LLC pertaining to that, Lauffer said.

After the work stoppage, the company brought on Atlantic City attorney Dan Gallagher, who is involved in DEEM Enterprises, the developer behind a $3 billion plan for Bader Field, as its authorized representative.

The company was selected by then interim Executive Director John Clarke, who tasked it with handling a range of emergency repairs, particularly at the 420-unit Stanley Holmes Village.

Jerry Volpe, who has overseen procurement for the authority as its contracted purchasing agent since August 2022, brought the company on with Clarkes approval, according to both men.

Clarke, who left the authority May 4, said it was challenging to find contractors at that time and that a mounting backlog of maintenance requests and a large number of emergencies meant EJustice was handling a variety of repairs.

Asked about the spending on EJustice in light of the authoritys critical report, Volpe said he had authorized a small amount of money for the firm but that former Executive Director Matthew Doherty authorized millions of dollars.

Atlantic City Housing Authority faces Wednesday deadline for Stanley Holmes Village plan The Atlantic City Housing Authority is due to deliver a detailed plan on the future of the troubled 420-unit Stanley Holmes Village to a judge Wednesday.

He declined to answer additional questions about that assertion.

But a Press of Atlantic City review of board-approved financial reports found that 10 checks, totaling $1.8 million of the $2.6 million, were sent to EJustice on or before May 4, four days before Dohertys first day on the job.

Jerry Volpe is not telling the truth, Doherty said in response last week. Jerry Volpe managed any and all procurement, and he was responsible for EJustice and all the other vendors chosen.

This is not the first time Volpe and Doherty have been at odds. During an Aug. 24 board meeting, Doherty issued a blistering statement that blamed Volpe for HUDs Aug. 9 decision to designate the authority as troubled. Two weeks later, the board voted to terminate Doherty.

As the administrative upheaval played out, Stanley Holmes residents continued to call on the authority to address critical issues in their homes, including some residents living without a functioning shower or working stove. There are also ongoing concerns over black mold, interruptions to heat and hot water, and gas leaks that are impacting dozens of units.

The job of remedying the bad work EJustice did, according to the boards report, now falls to Kisby Shore Mechanical Contractors, which should have a clear plan of action for the gas pipe repairs by Oct. 31, according to legal filings.

The authoritys attorney, Richard DeLucry, did not respond to requests for comment about whether the board will seek any refunds from EJustice.
ATLANTIC CITY  The Press of Atlantic City and Stockton Universitys William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy will host debates between candidates running for the states 2nd Legislative District Senate and Assembly seats Thursday at the colleges City Campus.

The debates are scheduled to start at 6 p.m. at the John F. Scarpa Academic Center at 3711 Atlantic Ave. They also will be livestreamed on the Hughes Center and the Press of Atlantic Citys websites.

As part of the debate, candidates will answer a variety of questions posed by Buzz Keough, executive editor of The Press of Atlantic City, and Liz Myers, a student at Stockton who is also the editor of the schools student-run newspaper, The Argo.

John Froonjian, director of the Hughes Center, will moderate the debate.

At 6 p.m., incumbent Republican Sen. Vince Polistina will debate his Democratic challenger, Caren Fitzpatrick, who is currently an Atlantic County commissioner.

At 7 p.m., incumbent Republican Assemblymembers Don Guardian and Claire Swift will debate Democratic challengers Lisa Bender and Alphonso Harrell.

No other candidates qualified to participate in the debate based on standards previously published by the Hughes Center.

Members of the public are allowed to attend, but in accordance with state law, attendees cannot bring campaign hats, signs, shirts or any other campaign materials onto state property. A recording of the debate will be archived on the Hughes Center website.
Here we go again. Another frozen conflict goes red hot  this time between Israel and the Palestinians of the adjacent Gaza Strip. The West should stay out of it and let these neighbors resolve it between themselves. Whoops, too late.

The Wests lack of neutrality in the Middle East has always been self-serving. It has long backed Israel as a sort of militarized Airbnb for itself within the oil-rich region. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, provided the West with oil. Hence why both are defended and supported, no matter what they do. Meanwhile, any country in the region not interested in kowtowing to Western economic interests  Iran, Syria and Iraq, notably  gets sworn enemy status and is subject to relentless regime change attempts.

But in 2023, things have been changing. The United States is no longer dependent on Middle Eastern oil. It gets over half of its petroleum imports from Canada, another 10 percent from Mexico, and just 7 percent from Saudi Arabia, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Seeing the writing on the wall on the need to get along and trade with each other amid increasing North American energy independence, Middle Eastern countries, including Israel, have spent the past few years normalizing relations with each other in the interests of long-term stability.

The rapprochement is nothing new, at least behind the scenes. Saudi Arabia and Israel have long been cooperating on intelligence matters, for instance, with Israels military-grade hacking tools even ending up in the hands of the Saudi leadership, which has been accused of using the technology against dissidents. But the Biden administration has seemed keen to expedite the wrapping up of loose ends in the Middle East and focus on global economic competition with China. To that end, and with a growing lack of interest in the region, Washington has been pushing for Saudi Arabia and Israel to formalize a peace deal that also puts to rest the Palestinian question with a two-state solution in which Israel reverts to its pre-1967 borders.

But its precisely the Palestinian sticking point that blew apart any hope of a Saudi-Israeli peace deal last month, as Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of catering to the more radical elements of his government that rejected Palestinian statehood.

So Israel refuses to waiver on the demilitarization of Palestine to defuse what it considers to be a threat on its border from Hamas fighters. And on that point, Washington has been nothing but supportive  particularly in the wake of the latest attack on Israel by Hamas. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeatedly expressed solidarity with Israel several times on social media, as it launched a massive offensive against the usual guys (this time with hang gliders). Unelected European Commission President (and de facto queen of Europe) Ursula von der Leyen referred to Hamas terrorists from which Israel has the right to defend itself  today and in the days to come.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that France stands in solidarity with Israel and the Israelis, committed to their security and their right to defend themselves.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chimed in to say that Canadians stand with Israel and fully support its right to defend itself.

Israel has an absolute right to defend itself, said British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Do all these folks share the exact same playbook, or what? Even school kids cribbing each others essays know to at least change up the wording a bit.

Theyre hardly advising that Israel  a massively militarized state  moderate or measure its response to avoid leveling Palestinian territory in self-defense.

The resemblance here to the Russia/Ukraine conflict is overwhelming  as is the hypocrisy. Like Israel, Russia also refused to accept the ever-growing militarization on adjacent land and the endless shelling of Russophones on its border with Ukraine  with the two objectives cited by Russian President Vladimir Putin for his special military operation being denazification and demilitarization. Much is (and will be) made by the West of Arab state support for Hamas against Israel while conveniently ignoring their own training of neo-Nazi Azov brigade fighters against Russia.

Hamas is reacting to increased systematic Israeli annexation of Palestinian land, which is met by a shrug from the collective West. Were talking about the same West that loses its mind over Russia annexing Crimea.

So what accounts for the multiple double standards? Certainly not the fact that Palestine isnt yet a state while Ukraine is. The White House and the rest of the collective West have repeatedly advocated in favor of a Palestinian state as a solution to this endless drama. So the difference in treatment to the two conflicts effectively doesnt lie there.

Its as simple as the fact that Israel gets a pass because its a Western ally. Russia doesnt, because it isnt. For the same reason, neo-Nazi Azov fighters get hailed as heroes attacking big, bad Russia, while Hamas gets slapped with the Islamist terrorist label when it strikes Israel, underscoring the well-worn adage that one mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist.

The Middle East is a mess largely because of the Wests endless mucking around. Now they want to shove the genie back in the bottle and move on for the sake of convenience, but unintended consequences have just prevented that from happening  the kind that apparently blindside all of their own intelligence services. Maybe theyll learn something and cut their losses in Ukraine before they blow past that exit ramp, too? Just dont hold your breath.

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of independently produced talk shows in French and English.
Editor's note: This is the second of a series of four ghost/haunting stories the Quad-City Times/Dispatch-Argus will publish in the coming weeks. The stories are as told to us by readers.

When Linda Roelens was 10, she met a boy she couldn't see.

They only ever met once, as she stood in an abandoned, fire-damaged duplex in Japan. But Roelens, now 53 and a Rock Island resident, recalls the event in clear detail.

When this experience occurred, Roelens lived in Negishi Heights, in Yokohama. It was military housing, as her father was in the Navy.

They'd moved there, Roelens thinks now, probably in 1980.

The family home was on a cul-de-sac with a number of others. One of these, up the street, was empty and partly boarded up. The boarded up side of the duplex did not have a roof.

It was like that when Roelens family arrived.

The other children in the neighborhood had a story about the place: A fire. A boy had died. The duplex was haunted.

The story of a haunted house on her street did not at first draw Roelens to the ruin.

"It was interesting, but not enough for me to want to get near the house," she said. "I believe in spirits, but not enough that I wanted to investigate by myself."

Then on one bright, clear summer day in 1981, Roelens was out looking for something to do.

Kitchen door to burned out house unlocked

I was being a tomboy, Roelens said. I love to be outdoors. I did not like being in a house. I got outside at every opportunity that I had.

She found no other children on the playground, which was near the empty duplex. And, through a series of whims, she went behind the burned building and tried its kitchen door.

It was unlocked.

It caught me by surprise, because I questioned myself like, why would anybody leave this unlocked? That's not safe, she said.

Even so, she decided to go inside.

The kitchen was lit by sunlight coming through from the door she had just opened. She could see no smoke damage.

Light blue walls. No appliances. Empty drawers. Empty cabinets. Dusty.

She remembers only her footprints in that dust.

She only found one thing in the kitchen  a calendar in a closet. It was open to July 1978. At first, Roelens wanted to take it but then thought better of it.

Roelens next stepped into the doorway that led to the dining room. It was dark there, but there was sunlight shining in the open kitchen door, and around the boards on the windows and front door. The floor, the walls, were charred. The smell reminded her of, maybe, an old fireplace  sort of charcoal and dust.

As she stood there, someone spoke to her.

Boy's voice sounds from within

Linda Roelens, as told to Anthony Watt:

I heard a boy. Not from my ears, but from within me, and it was the intonation like: There's another child here!

And he wanted to play.

And he said, Come upstairs.

And I stood there thinking, Okay, am I hearing things?

So there's a combination: excitement, a little bit of fear. What's going on here?

I didn't think it was coming from behind me. So I didnt turn around. It definitely felt like it was coming forward.

So I just stood there quietly and I just started examining the dining room again.

And I hear the boy again. Same tone.

Come upstairs.

And the emotion to it was: I want to play.

Like he can see me. He senses me. That's what I felt.

I was like, OK, this is weird.

The next thing I wanted to do is I wanted to follow that voice. Yeah! Let's play! Because you're 10. Yeah, this is kind of exciting, spooky.

And as a 10 year old, you know. You know this is trouble. You're not supposed to be in a house that's supposed to be locked.

Possibly, maybe I'm hearing a voice. Could be upstairs.

Made no sense, but you're 10, right?

'You just get used to it.' Davenport mother and daughter haunted wherever they go Objects move. Shadows without substance. Voices and visions. A mother and daughter tell of the story of being followed by something.

Play with a spirit?

Roelens began looking for a way to go upstairs.

Do I do a crab and try to stay away from the middle? she said. Because maybe the middle is unstable? Or do I just kind of run across real fast?

She wanted to be sure. Was there someone up there? Was she making it up?

Then she thought of something else.

In military families, the parent who is serving warns the children early on not to get into any trouble that would get the parent in trouble. Like if she fell through the floor of the duplex and was hurt. Like if someone heard a disturbance and called the police.

My dad would get in trouble, she said.

Roelens decided not to go any farther. She told the boy she was sorry, but she couldnt go upstairs.

I just felt the need to apologize to the boy, even though it didn't make any sense because he was clearly not there, Roelens said.

There was no response.

Then Roelens left. She closed the kitchen door, but did not lock it. She walked away.

I never, ever went back, she said.

What happened after

Roelens family lived in Negishi Heights until about 1984.

She did not immediately tell anyone what happened in the duplex.

I kept it to myself for a very long time, Roelens said. I don't remember when the first time I actually shared that story.

She thinks now that she did so when she was in her 20s, telling the story to her sister.

She said she wishes she had the strength to talk to her parents about it when she was a girl.

I know my mother would have believed me, she said.

However, it was the 1980s.

And you just didnt talk about these things, she said.

Initially Roelens also did not look into the story of the fire. Since the rise of social media, though, she has tried to find out more.

There are Facebook groups focused on Negishi Heights and she has asked around, trying to verify the neighborhood story about the fire.

She hasnt found that verification yet.

Its more to confirm my experience is true, she said.

People like validation, Roelens said. They are uncomfortable when they dont have evidence.

And so, even though I believe my experience was real, it would be comforting to know that, you know, an incident did happen, Roelens said.

She said people being skeptical of such experiences does not bother her. Its not her job to make someone a believer.

That is my experience, she said. My experience and its true to me. Obviously, I dont have evidence of it.

If she chose to share her account with such a skeptic, she would tell the story. Then she would ask her listener if they had any questions.

If they're aggressive, and they start calling me out, or asking good questions because they want to believe, maybe, or theyre curious, then I will proceed to answer them, Roelens said. I don't mind skeptics at all.
Retention bonuses are expected to be cut at the end of the year at Thomson Federal Prison, and a number of local unions are showing their opposition to the plan.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest union that represents federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) correctional officers. Thursday morning the union released a statement, calling on BOP Director Colette Peters to retain the retention pay incentive at Thomson Federal Prison in Illinois.

Our members at Thomson prison protect their communities and our nation every day while dealing with some of the most dangerous criminals in the country, AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. They perform difficult, necessary work, which is one reason why recruiting is so difficult for these positions at Thomson prison. The Bureau of Prisons attempt to cut retention pay will only end up leading to more difficulties in hiring, a loss of existing staff and will gravely insult the staff members who currently put their safety and health on the line to serve their country.

The BOP Public Affairs office said in an email to the Quad-City Times/Dispatch-Argus on Thursday the 25% group retention incentive was still in place at USP Thomson but set to expire on Dec. 31, 2023. No further comment was provided.

Members of AFGE Local 4070, which represents 450 correctional officers at Thomson, said in a news release that the proposed cuts would endanger prison workers, inmates and the communities surrounding the prison.

Over 33% of our current staff have already written to the union stating that they will have to leave Thomson Federal Prison if Director Peters cuts are implemented, said Jon Zumkher, president of AFGE 4070.

Speaking to a reporter in August, Zumkher said this retention bonus comes out to about $16,000 annually. Part of the reason for putting it in place, he said, was that Thomson is in a remote location and factory jobs in the area pay higher. The goal of the retention bonus was to make the job more appealing.

Illinois AFL-CIO President Tim Drea echoed Zumkher's sentiment, saying ensuring USP Thomson was set up for success should be paramount and removing retention bonuses would cause an adverse reaction.

Staffing shortages at Thomson prison have been noted for years. In early 2022, with the support of then-U.S. Reps. Cheri Bustos and Dave Loebstack and Senators Tammy Duckwork and Dick Durbin, AFGE Local 4070 was able to work with management to achieve a 25% increase in retention pay.

AFGE District 7 National Vice President Jason Anderson vowed the union would stand united in its, "commitment to protect the welfare of the dedicated staff of USP Thomson" and called on Peters to stop any action that would reduce pay. Other unions weighed in as well, such as the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Corrections Lodge 263, which called the potential action, a "slap in the face for the heroes who put their lives on the line every day."

The Illinois FOP Corrections Lodge 263 unequivocally stands with AFGE Local 4070 members and strongly urges Director Peters to leave intact the pay for Thomson workers, who earn every penny of their hard-fought-for wages while doing a task that very few others could handle," President Scott Ward said.

In August, Thomson was permanently converted to a low-security prison, and Brian Lammer was named the new warden. This followed after it was confirmed in February that inmates were being moved out of the prison with no explanation. In March, the motive became clear when the BOP announced Thomson would temporarily be converted into a low-security prison.
China's top political advisor meets Kazakh president

Xinhua) 10:59, October 19, 2023

Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meets with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Huning on Wednesday met with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Wang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said that Kazakhstan plays an important role and has significant influence in international Belt and Road cooperation.

China and Kazakhstan should act on the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, accelerate the building of a China-Kazakhstan community with a shared future featuring everlasting friendship, strong mutual trust and solidarity, and facilitate common development and prosperity, said Wang.

Tokayev said Kazakhstan is willing to deepen all-round cooperation with China and make new achievements in the Kazakhstan-China permanent comprehensive strategic partnership.

Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meets with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
The Coast Guard will host Mission Mighty Mississippi on Saturday in Rock Island to engage with the public and display Coast Guard capabilities and career opportunities.

Vice Adm. Kevin Lunday, the U.S. Coast Guard's Atlantic Area commander, and other Coast Guard members will host the day featuring interactive displays including MH-65 Dolphin helicopters, response boats, a K-9 and marksmanship unit, a search-and-rescue demonstration, a video gaming tournament hosted by the Coast Guard Gaming team and a cooking demonstration by Coast Guard culinary staff.

The free family event will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Schwiebert Riverfront Park, 101 17th St.

Members of the public are invited to attend the event, speak with Coast Guard members and learn about Coast Guard capabilities and officer and enlisted career paths.

For information on how to join the U.S. Coast Guard, visit GoCoastGuard.com.
DES MOINES  It is now less than three months until the Iowa caucuses, and according to polling, Donald Trump's lead over the GOP field remains stubbornly high.

Despite the best efforts of his opponents with millions spent in advertising and ground game, Trump's support in polls has not fallen below 45% since September.

At events over the past few days, I asked Trump's supporters why they think none of the candidates have been able to make major inroads among Iowa's Republican voters.

Gary Leffler, a Trump supporter and Polk County Republican Central Committee member, said he thought Trump had a baseline of support around 50%. That means, despite the efforts of other candidates, they're fighting for around 50% of the pie as well, making it difficult for any single candidate to challenge Trump.

This can also be seen in polling: No non-Trump candidate has registered more than 25% of support in polls since July, and when one candidate starts to gain traction, it usually comes at the expense of another, while Trump has kept fairly steady.

Leffler also said Trump created an energy that was unmatched by other candidates. He said Trump's rallies were "like a rock concert."

"You'll see something that you may never again see in your lifetime, to have that kind of a leadership," Leffler said. "And just the way he responds with the people and connects with the people. That's DeSantis' problem. He says all the right things, but he doesn't connect with people."

But Carl Cleveland, a voter from Sioux City and a Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis supporter, said he thinks Trump's support on the ground is not as high as the polls suggest.

"Trump is not showing off crowds like he was before because he's not getting them," Cleveland said. "And he's going on the border states ... my feeling is, he's not going to win Iowa."

While many indicators, from polls to fundraising, suggest Trump has a dominant lead, one thing I think is worth considering is how well Trump's support in polls will translate to support on caucus night.

For many who aren't deeply engaged in the primary, Trump is a default choice. He's the recognizable name and still the de-facto leader of the party. If they get a call, they may say they're going to caucus and that they'll vote for Trump.

But a caucus is more involved than an election, and it requires some time commitment and research to even know where you should go to participate. It's not a certainty that those poll respondents will actually go out and caucus.

At Trump's small-scale "commit to caucus" events in Iowa, his campaign surrogates have explained how to find caucus locations, walked attendees through what happens at a caucus and encouraged people to bring friends when they caucus on Jan. 15.

It's not a tactic unique to the Trump campaign, but I think it illustrates that they are trying to be certain they have their support locked down as Trump's opponents are pouring money, people and time into Iowa.

Gaza refugees split candidates

Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have gotten into a spat over support, or rather, lack thereof, for refugees from Gaza as Israel's retaliation to a Hamas terror attack has displaced more than 1 million people in northern Gaza.

DeSantis made headlines on Saturday saying that he would reject refugees from the war-torn Gaza Strip. He argued that though Gaza residents do not all support Hamas, "they're all antisemitic" and want to abolish Israel.

Responding to those comments, Haley said that half of Gaza opposes Hamas and that the U.S. "has always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists."

While Haley never said the U.S. should take in refugees from Gaza, DeSantis seized on those comments, saying to NBC News that Haley "would import people  that's been her position."

Haley's campaign hit back and said Haley "has always opposed settling Middle East refugees" in the U.S., arguing that other Arab countries should take refugees.

Never Back Down, the Super PAC associated with DeSantis, on Tuesday dropped an ad claiming Haley flip-flopped on her support for refugees. The ad clips Haley's confirmation hearing from 2017, in which she says South Carolina "always welcomed the refugee program."

But in the original hearing, Haley immediately followed that by saying her position changed when it came to refugees from Syria. According to local reporting at the time, Haley briefly supported a faith group's efforts to resettle refugees from Syria in 2015, but she reversed her position that year after a terrorist bombing in Paris because of vetting concerns.

Trump and South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott have also said they would reject refugees from Gaza.

It's not surprising these candidates are going after each other on this issue, as Haley has been making a play for DeSantis's second-place spot in Iowa and nationally. And, there is not much daylight between the candidates' views on Israel, so creating some friction may not be a bad strategy.

What I'm reading

Organizing is key to the Iowa Caucuses. Who has the ground game to take on Trump? (Brianne Pfannenstiel, Des Moines Register): An in-depth look into the organizing ground games in Iowa for Trump, DeSantis, Haley and other GOP presidential candidates.

What Republican presidential candidates are saying about the Israel-Hamas war (Jeongyoon Han, NPR): This is a great summary of what each candidate has said and the positions they've taken as war between Israel and Hamas has unfolded.

Photos: Former President Donald Trump speaks at Commit to Caucus event in Waterloo Trump 1 Trump 2 Trump 3 Trump 4 Trump 5 Trump 6 Trump 7 Trump 8 Trump 9 Trump 11 Trump 12 Trump 14 Trump 15 Trump 16 Trump 17 Trump 18 Trump 19 Trump 20 Trump 21 Trump 22 Trump 23
Patsy Clines legendary music and life will be celebrated in InClined  A Patsy Cline Experience, an evening of songs and stories about the power of Patsy.

InClined  A Patsy Cline Experience will be performed at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, at The Park in Rapid City. Seating is limited. Go to thepark.ticketspice.com for tickets.

Rapid City native Si Issler sings Clines songs in a soulful alto voice, backed by a band of local and regional musicians Dylan Fleming, Lon Schnittgrund, Carla Oerter, and Michael and Melissa Moore.

Though Cline only had an eight-year recording career before she died in a plane crash at age 30 in 1963, she is considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. Her hits such as Crazy and Blue are timeless, as are deep personal connections people have to it.

Its what we call the power of Patsy. Its that connection people have to the music, and thats something very personal to them. Its bigger than all of us, Issler said.

Issler has a degree in theater, performed professionally for a few years in Seattle, and she is a fan who has studied Clines life. Issler said though she and Cline share similarities, shes not a Cline impersonator.

Ive got a similar look (in terms of) my body build, the same range in my voice, and I felt absolutely comfortable singing that music, Issler said. I dont have to change a lot with the way I sing. I already know my voice sounds similar.

InClined evolved from a Black Hills Community Theatre show, Always, Patsy Cline, in 2010. The similarities between Issler and Cline inspired Issler to audition for and land the leading role in Always, Patsy Cline. The performances sold out  a first at the time in BHCTs history  and because it was so popular, three more shows were added.

When we started doing the show, somebody, if not multiple people, would come up and tell me what Patsy Cline meant to them during a certain time in their life, or some of them saw herand felt transported. Theres people out here that have met her. Every single time weve done the show, somebody told me how important this music is to them, Issler said.

Issler said Clines determination, grit, directness and drive helped make Cline a star.

She had a vision of what she wanted to do when she was in her teens, and she kept to it the entire time. She didnt let marriages get in her way, she didnt let setbacks get in her way or kids get in her way. She always had her eye on being as big a performer as possible because she loved singing, Issler said. She stuck to her dreams. She was pushing people to get her more gigs. She was pushing people to get her on the radio. She was pushing people to bring her more songsNothing got in this womans way.

InClined mingles Clines songs with anecdotes about her life.

Theres some interaction. Si will get a couple of people up on stage for fun. We like to keep it light-hearted and theres some laughing and some serious stories and everybody knows the sad ending. We dont dwell on that, Michael Moore said.

There are still people in the Black Hills who remember when Cline performed at Dans Bar and Ballroom in Rapid City in 1961 and 1962. Issler said according to the book Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline by Ellis Nassour, Cline had a real bad crush on South Dakota rancher Bill Lane, who owned Dans Bar. Lane was crazy about Cline, too, and often surprised her by showing up or sending orchids.

Issler said Cline stayed at the Hotel Alex Johnson and shed have her driver take her to Dans Bar early so she could see Lane, though the two never had more than a friendship.

Patsys daughter, Julie Fudge, runs a Facebook page (facebook.com/OfficialPatsyCline). I do reference that. I want to make sure if her daughter does catch wind of us, she knows Im paying attention to what she has to say, Issler said.

Michael Moore said all the performers in InClined hear from the audience about how Clines music left an impact and continues to affect them.

We were a little surprised at (the show in April) practically no one danced. People were engrossed, watching and listening, he said.

Everybody has such a personal attachment to this music, Issler said. I feel like were giving them something bigger than just a show, whether its a memory or a tribute or were taking them back to a better time. People are glowing when they come up to talk to me.

Performing Clines music together forged an enduring friendship among the Always, Patsy Cline cast, who continued semi-regular performances of Clines music in the area for about three years before their lives took them in different directions. This year, the cast reunited to present InClined, which was a sold-out performance in April. Issler said she and cast members hope to continue InClined a few times a year.

When Issler and the band were first cast in Always, Patsy Cline, Michael Moore said all of them were involved in music to varying degrees, but performing Clines songs posed a new challenge.

There was something about it that was new to us. I had never played this kind of music, and I had grown up listening to Patsy Cline but never played anything that required the control and finesse like this music does. Its not as easy as it sounds, he said. We all enjoyed that, were still having fun with that aspect of it for sure.

My favorite part of the story of the whole project is how strangers came together and became close friends for almost 15 years. I think part of the secret is we were all kind of out of our element, out of our comfort zone learning new things at the same time as we were getting to know each other. It turned out to be quite a significant bond for us, Michael Moore said.

Everyone in the band has their own contributions, Issler said. Our strong friendships with each other has kept us together just as much as the music. I wouldnt want to be performing this music with anyone else.

If you miss InClined this weekend, watch for another show in a few months. Issler hopes the cast can schedule the next InClined in spring 2024. Go to mdmoore9585.wixsite.com/inclined-epk for more information about InClined, and to hear Issler performing Crazy.
Lewies Burgers & Brews reopened Monday in Lead under new management with the same burgers and atmosphere customers know and love.

Jeremy McKay is the new operator of Lewies Burgers and Brews. Lewie Sternhagen announced in a Facebook video Aug. 30 that while he owns the building, the restaurant is under new management.

Lewies Burgers & Brews still has its restaurant, bar, party room and outdoor seating on the deck. Its distinctive interior filled with memorabilia is the same, and its gift shop is selling t-shirts, hoodies, hats and other Lewies merchandise.

McKays goal is to keep the restaurant and menu much like its always been  including the signature burgers. The beloved eatery was voted as one of the top 25 burger places in the Midwest by Midwest Living Magazine.

Were cooking burgers the same way Lewie did, McKay said. Everybody comes here for the burgers, but we wanted to add a couple of things to the menu. For the most part everything is exactly the way it was. We added a Nashville hot chicken sandwich (and other chicken items).

We wanted the place to be exactly what it was, McKay said. Right now, the main focus is to have people walk in and say, Its exactly what I remember.

McKay grew up in the Black Hills, and running Lewies is an opportunity to preserve the restaurant thats been his familys go-to spot for decades.

We love this place, and thats the main goal behind getting this open, he said. Weve been into Lewies since 1990 (when it first opened).

Lewies has always been part of my familys history since I was 11 years oldMy dad and I would go up and ski and come back down for lunch at Lewies, McKay said. Big events in my life have happened here. My sister had a rehearsal dinner here before her wedding.

As McKay and his siblings grew up and moved elsewhere, their father would periodically send them photos of his burger whenever he ate at Lewies. When McKays siblings were visiting the Black Hills, they stopped at Lewies. The restaurant was even the place McKays grandmother had one of her last meals with her family before moving into a nursing home, McKay said.

McKay has worked in the restaurant industry since 2002, opening many restaurants, running Taco Johns and Culvers franchises and serving as director of operations for Del Taco in New Mexico.

Lewie decided to open up and let me run the placeIts been such a great thing to happen, and Ive been dreaming of my own place for a long time, McKay said. I couldnt have gotten here without my family and friends helping me every step of the way.

McKays family has been so enthusiastic about the re-opening of Lewies that they offered to wait tables and do dishes at the restaurant, McKay said, and his father was trimming weeds in the parking lot.

McKay said hes considering a grand opening at the end of October, but for now, Lewies Burgers & Brews is having a soft opening. Lewies is in need of more cooks and is accepting applications at lewiesburgers.com.

We want people to have a good experienceand make sure the staff is OK and make sure were not completely overrun, McKay said. Were just happy to be open.

Lewies Burgers & Brews is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
NEAR VALENTINE  Their low, rumbling bellow first cuts through the silence of the Sandhills.

Next comes the crunch of pointed hooves, trudging their way through tall prairie grasses.

Then, the oohs of the out-of-towners watching  people up close and personal with the majestic thousand-pound mammals for the first time.

This is Golden Prairie Bison, a ranch nestled in the Sandhills where Carl and Vicki Simmons raise a herd of 50 bison. Theirs is one of the dozens of bison ranches in Nebraska, one piece of an ongoing effort to rebuild North Americas once-decimated bison population.

The Simmons herd is small compared to large-scale operations like Turner Ranches  the driving force behind Nebraskas No. 2 ranking for most bison.

But to Carl and Vicki, this isnt about size or money. Its about the bisons bond to Nebraskas oft-forgotten and important grasslands. And as one of the growing number of ranchers integrating tourism into their operation, its a story theyre telling one visitor at a time.

(The bison and the prairie) belong together, Carl said. There have been droughts and catastrophes that have caused their numbers to go up and down. But the one constant has been the native prairie.

***

Carl, a third-generation cattle rancher, started with five bison calves he bought from Custer State Park in 1997.

Dont call them buffalo, he says  bison have bigger humps and shorter horns. The two species live on different continents, too.

He thought the burly animals were fun. They had personalities, running at groups of unexpecting cattle, scaring them, then seeming to look at each other and laugh. There was no business plan for these bison, Carl said. It was, initially, just a hobby.

Carl bought five more calves from North Dakota. He bought a bull from the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge up the road from his ranch.

One year, Vicki learned from a radio announcement that Carl was the top bison buyer at the refuges auction that day. She didnt mind.

We were just as infatuated with them as Carl, she said. I think they kind of get under your skin and grow on you.

They started to share that fascination with family and friends, driving them out to see the massive animals.

Then, they thought, what if we shared this with strangers?

During a Zoom call during the pandemics early days, Carl and Vicki floated the idea by their four kids: What if we turned our bison hobby into a tourism business?

The kids, scattered across different states, were on board. They built a website and wrote the text. One filmed a video, while another helped them complete legal forms.

Now, a few times a week, Carl and Vicki pile small groups of Sandhills tourists into a 23-year-old Ford Excursion.

Vicki dons heavy gloves to undo the barbed wire fence. Carl lurches the SUV over the hilly prairie.

But before visitors can see the main attraction, they have to listen to Carl tell a story. A story about grass.

He plucks tall stalks and flowering forbs, naming them, describing their root patterns. Yellow sunflower and goldenrod. Purple dotted gayfeather. Velvety white sagebrush, feathery switchgrass.

The grasses and rich soil have the power to sequester carbon, he tells visitors, affecting the atmosphere and weather. Grazing bison help the prairie flourish. Their hooves till the soil, and their dust baths create wallows, that collect water and offer new habitat for plants and bugs.

The Nebraska Sandhills are the worlds most intact prairie, Carl says, improving air and water quality, protecting species from extinction and mitigating wildfires and floods.

And theyre disappearing, being replaced by farmland and development.

...this story of the prairie, and how its an integral part of us  it needs to be out there that the prairie is important, Carl says. We charge money, but thats not the purpose. The purpose is to tell the story.

Then, its time to find the herd. Sometimes, Carl pulls out a drone to find where theyre gathered.

Sometimes, the bison  big, brown splotches on the golden prairie  come lumbering up on their own, their furry humps popping out from the grass.

The hulking masses of deep brown curls poke their shiny noses toward the windows of the Ford, sticking out their long tongues to receive snack pellets. The fluffy, red-furred calves stick close to their mothers.

They sniff around the car of newcomers. They nuzzle the ground for the tastiest pieces of grass.

Carl and Vicki have shared this tour with fellow ranchers who want to compare bison to raising cattle. With campers from Colorado escaping the crowds of Rocky Mountain National Park.

There were the doctors from Chicago, taking a break and camping at one of the four sites on the Simmons ranch listed on the website HipCamp.

Ive read about the healing aspect of nature, one of them told Vicki. But Ive never experienced it until now.

There was a family pulled out of international work because of the pandemic, whose kids went from being miserable while camping to being fascinated by the bison and not wanting to leave.

And the group of middle school girls from a nearby reservation, on a trip with their science club. They knew their tribes history with bison. But the girls had never seen one in real life.

They looked at me, and they said, Do you think they can tell were Native? Can they tell that we have this deep connection? Vicki said.

***

Millions of bison once roamed North America, according to the National Park Service. Uncontrolled hunting started pushing their numbers down during the 19th century.

By the 1860s, the U.S. government was encouraging the slaughter of bison to intentionally harm the Native tribes of the Plains. It worked: By 1884, there were only 325 left in the country.

Conservation efforts have helped rebuild their numbers. Bison herds now roam national parks and wildlife refuges, like Fort Niobrara in the Sandhills and Crane Trust in Hall County. Theres a push to restore bison on tribal lands.

Ranchers like Carl have also leaned into bison. From 2012 to 2017, the number of bison in Nebraska grew from 23,152 to 28,047.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2022 census has yet to be released. But experts and monthly USDA reports suggest the number of Nebraska bison continues to increase.

Im confident that the bison numbers are up, said Jim Matheson, executive director of the National Bison Association. Were processing about 10% more bison than we were a year ago in 2022. 2022 was up 8% compared to the year before ... we think there are more animals out there on the ground.

It might not make sense for increased bison consumption to tie to efforts to grow bison numbers. But with about 90% of bison living on private land as livestock, ranchers are a key part of conservation, Matheson said.

We call it commerce by conservation, Matheson said. Through selling the end product  the meat, the fiber  we are in turn creating an economic incentive for property owners to have bison on their land.

For Carl and Vicki, financial stability comes from cattle ranching. Theyre selling bison meat on a small scale. Their tours are small, too.

This summer, they started averaging two a week. On Labor Day weekend, they had four in a day. They recently started having to turn people away for the first time.

Theyve heard of ranches that pile dozens of people into open air buses and talk about bison on a loudspeaker.

Carls family has ranched this land since 1914. A bus tour is the last thing he wants.

What we want is something thats personal, where we can meet each person that comes, he said. There are lots of special places. But this is really a special flyover place. Even though its not these great grandeur mountains and lakes  (grasslands) are a unique thing. People start to understand that there are unique things everywhere. And its worth our attention.

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraskas first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.

Photos: Nations only Buffalo Roundup draws crowd to South Dakotas Custer State Park
Some of the people behind the social media groups opposing an expansion project at Holland Lake Lodge say they worked very hard to not allow threatening language and they dispute any allegation of "death threats" directed at the lodge's owner. They also dispute the notion that they profited off merchandise sales.

Last week, the Missoulian reported that Holland Lake Lodge owner Christian Wohlfeil is withdrawing his applications to the U.S. Forest Service to upgrade the buildings and will be offering Holland Lake Lodge for sale for $3.5 million. Wohlfeil is ending his partnership with POWDR, a Utah-based ski resort company.

"For the last 24 years, we've been honored to host breathtaking summers of s'mores by the fire, weddings on the lake and lifetimes of memories that can only be made in Montana," Wohlfeil said in a statement. "This summer was different. While we were sold out each night, sadly, my family, our staff and our guests were subject to a deliberate campaign of misinformation. The irresponsibility manifested in anonymous threats, destruction of (lodge property) and even death threats."

Jacole Johnson of Missoula is the person who started and administers the two main social media accounts that opposed the expansion project, Save Holland Lake and Hands Off Holland Lake. Both accounts have thousands of followers and were very active for the past year.

Johnson said that Wohlfeil's statements to the Missoulian painted the groups in a negative light and they didn't deserve that.

"I feel it did not accurately reflect our grassroots group of civil, educated and peaceful folks," she told the Missoulian.

Johnson and David Roberts, another person who is part of the "core group" of organizers behind the opposition, said they worked very hard to keep the conversation civil.

"We've been very active about trying to tamp down and not allow and discourage any kind of momentum behind anything like (threats of violence)," Roberts said. "It's something we've been pretty vigilant about. We've not been perfect, but about as perfect as we can be on social media."

Johnson and Roberts said there were only between 6-12 comments posted to the two social media accounts over the past year that crossed the line and had to be deleted.

The Save Holland Lake Facebook account is public, and anyone can join and see the posts. The Hands Off Holland Lake page is private, and users must request to join.

In the public forum this past September, Johnson said someone made a comment that was similar to "I can see the lodge through the scope of my rifle."

Johnson said she deleted the comment after it was brought to her attention.

"In terms of that threatening comment, in the very beginning there were all these comments and all this stuff coming through, and this isn't my job, I don't know how to do social media very well," she explained. "In the beginning I just kind of left everything out there. I didn't delete it right away. It was then when we heard that Christian was saying that there were threats that I sat down and went through every comment and every post."

She said she spent hours combing through all the comments.

"And I found that one and I thought, I'm sure it was just an offhand comment from an upset local or something, but I thought 'oh this doesn't look good' so I deleted it," she said. "So it wasn't immediately, it was as soon as we realized that people were taking it as a threat seeing it on the public page."

As far as other comments that Roberts and Johnson decided to delete, they said they were able to get to them within an hour or two or even 10 minutes. Wohlfeil had also been upset that someone took a photo of his mom's car when she was parked there to clean up as the lodge closed for the winter.

Johnson and Roberts said that the woman who took the photo was in her 60s and was under the impression that the lodge was still operating because she saw a car there.

"It was nothing like intimidating or stalking," Roberts said. "That's not something any of us want to be associated with. A group of us, the core group of Save Holland, had breakfast with Christian and (POWDR executive) Stacey Hutchinson in June. We told them we don't condone (intimidation or threats) and gave them several contacts. We told them if they saw anything they could immediately reach out."

Someone inadvertently posted the phone numbers of Hutchinson and Wohlfeil in a picture at one point, and Johnson said they deleted the photo after Hutchinson called.

Johnson said she was told by law enforcement, including the FBI, that they were not aware of any threats against Wohlfeil or POWDR.

Johnson said it's also untrue that anyone made any money off merchandise sales, as Wohlfeil said he believes is true.

"Absolutely no money has been made off of the merchandise I've worked with local businesses to create and sell," she said.

Johnson and Roberts both said they don't own any of the cabins on Holland Lake, but one person in the core group of nine who operate the Save Holland accounts owns a cabin on leased land on the lake. Another person in the group has access to a cabin their partner owns.

"The other seven of us are simply public land enthusiasts who did not feel this expansion was what's best for the public land at/around Holland Lake," Johnson said.

Roberts said that Holland Lake is one of the last relatively undeveloped alpine lakes in western Montana that can be easily accessed by people with disabilities or who don't move very well.

"Every one of us has a slightly different opinion of what we'd like to see there, other than we want to see the resources protected," Roberts explained.

"None of us are against the buildings getting fixed up," Johnson said. "That doesn't mean knocking down 10 historic buildings and building 28 new cabins right along the shoreline. We're not against things changing there, but it was what they proposed and the way they went about it that we were against."

DEQ sampling

Separately, on Oct. 18, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality announced it is "requiring sampling, installation of groundwater monitoring wells and plans for new liners at the wastewater treatment lagoon operated by a contractor on behalf of the United States Forest Service, that serves the Holland Lake campground and Holland Lake Lodge.

The sewage system at Holland Lake Lodge came under scrutiny this summer after it was revealed that the Forest Service failed to report to DEQ a tear and subsequent 2022 repair in the lagoons liner. The lagoon is about 1,000 feet away from the lake. The liner failure was uncovered in a public records request by Save Holland Lake. This August, DEQ ordered the Forest Service to study possible wastewater leakage from the lagoon; the Forest Service was granted an extension for completing the study, from September to November. The Missoula City-County Health Department also ordered the Forest Service to retroactively apply for a new permit for the system covering because of the latters failure to report repairs.

Critics of now-abandoned plans to expand Holland Lake Lodge had questioned whether the existing wastewater system could handle increased usage. As of Wednesday, no more wastewater was being sent into the lagoon.

Missoulian reporter Joshua Murdock contributed.
Brandon Beckman received a 100-year sentence in Montana State Prison for his role in the 2022 killing and robbing of Michael Biggs near a Rimini campsite during a hearing Wednesday in Helena.

District Court Judge Christopher Abbott granted the prosecution its requested sentence with little modification.

Abbott told Beckman before handing down the sentence that he understands Beckman likely has mental health issues that have never been fully addressed, longstanding substance abuse issues and that Beckman comes from a socioeconomic background "that hasn't given him a lot of advantages in life and partially explains why we're here."

Abbott also noted Beckman has five children. Two are being cared for by Beckman's father in Washington and three are in the Washington foster care system.

"I recognize Mr. Beckman is more than his offense," Abbott said.

Abbott then listed several aggravating circumstances to the crime.

"There are a couple of factors in this case that do suggest to me that you are a danger to the community," he said, citing the end goal of the crime was pecuniary gain.

"When someone commits a crime for purpose of gaining money, as opposed to acting out, snapping, in the heat of the moment, there's something very cold about that," Abbott said. "Also, the idea that you'd trade a life or risk the loss of life to get some money I think is a complete devaluation of Biggs' life."

Abbott also said the luring of Biggs to his death with the promise of a big drug score demonstrated a "level of planning."

"The willingness to participate in this kind of scheme speaks to a real risk for other folks out there in the community," Abbott said. "When I weigh all those factors together, I think that the state's sentence is an appropriate one."

For the count of deliberate homicide, Abbott sentenced Beckman to 100 years in Montana State Prison with no time suspended. For the count of tampering with or fabricating evidence, Abbott sentenced Beckman to 10 years in prison to run concurrently with the initial sentence and no time suspended. Beckman is credited with time served since his Jan. 16, 2022, arrest.

Abbott also ordered that prior to receiving parole, Beckman at minimum complete substance abuse treatment, programming focused on criminal thinking and accountability, and obtain high school equivalency or GED "to set yourself up for success if you were to ever be paroled. I don't know if you ever will be."

Beckman, who is 38 years old, will not be eligible for parole until he is in his 60s. He declined to provide a statement during the sentencing.

The prosecution also played a brief segment of a recorded phone call between Beckman, who was incarcerated at the time, and his mother, during which Beckman tells his mother he has "contacts all over the place" with Mexican Mafia and will have co-defendant Robert Harvel killed.

Harvel, also charged with deliberate homicide and awaiting trial, has stated in court that Beckman is the one who pulled the trigger, killing Biggs.

From the stand, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office Detective Jess Metcalf said the recording "sparked concern."

Abbott did not reference the phone call when explaining his reasoning for the sentence.

An uncle of Biggs, Marty Lane, provided a statement to the court ahead of the sentencing.

"He always tried to help people any way he could, and you took advantage of that and killed him," Lane said from the witness stand, addressing Beckman. "He would've given you the shirt off his back, and you turned around and shot him."

"We'll be there at your parole hearing. You better believe that," Lane said.

Beckman and Harvel are believed to have driven Biggs to Moose Creek Campground near Rimini under the false pretense of a meth deal, then shooting and killing Biggs and taking his money.

According to Lewis and Clark County Sheriff and Coroner Leo Dutton, Biggs body was found by people traveling on Rimini Road about 4.5 miles off U.S. Highway 12 west of Helena. The body was frozen and had a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.

A caller also reported helping two males in a blue sedan who were stuck in the snow near the area where the body was found.

The caller said the two people in the car were acting nervous and provided descriptions that matched Beckman and Harvel. The vehicle involved was impounded at the time of the call, as Harvel had been arrested by the Montana Highway Patrol in an unrelated matter.

That car and one other belonging to Beckman were towed and impounded, and Lewis and Clark County Attorney Kevin Downs requested the court grant the county sheriff $375 in restitution from Beckman.

Both defense attorney Samuel L. Martin III and Abbott agreed that such costs are inherent to the work of investigating a crime.

Abbott compared it to seeking reimbursement for a detective's salary.

Abbott did order that Beckman pay $2,642 in restitution to cover the expense of a funeral for Biggs incurred by the Lewis and Clark County Coroner Division.




Kathmandu, Nepal, October 19, 2023: The ongoing 11th National Convention of the Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA) is going to elect a new leadership for the upcoming term. As all the efforts to elect the leadership unanimously failed, a new leadership is going to be chosen through elections process.





NRNA convention delegates in Nepal have started voting from 10 am today while the delegates of the NRNA convention abroad have been voting through the online voting system since last night. The voting will be continue 6 pm today, the election committee has said.





Of the total 4,227 delegates, about 900 delegates are casting their votes from Nepal while others living abroad are casting throng online voting system.





Three candidates -Badri KC, Mahesh Shrestha and Rajendra Kumar Sharma are competing for the post of president with their respective panels.





Ravina Thapa, the current president of the working committee, also filed her candidacy for the post of president, but she withdrew her candidacy at the end.





Thapa, who was initially considered a strong candidate for the post of president, has said that she withdrew her candidacy after her efforts for unanimous leadership failed.




Bon Secours wants to build two outpatient surgery centers in Short Pump and Midlothian for a combined $31 million, but a competing proposal could derail the health systems plans in western Henrico County.

The nonprofit health system has proposed a $14 million cardiac catheterization center in Short Pump and a $17 million general surgery center on the campus of St. Francis Medical Center in western Chesterfield County.

But another cardiology practice, Virginia Cardiology Services, has proposed a similar cardiac facility in Henrico.

The proposals kick start a months-long process in which the health department will consider merits of the projects, including whether the surrounding community needs them, their costs and whether a new proposal would hurt an already existing service. State Health Commissioner Dr. Karen Shelton makes the final decision.

Health systems have moved quickly to locate in the growing and wealthy population of western Henrico. Bon Secours already operates a freestanding emergency room in Short Pump just a few hundred yards from the Goochland County border. HCA Healthcare is planning a medical office building and imaging center across the street, and down the road, Virginia Commonwealth University Health has a five-story clinic nearby that treats various specialties.

Next to the Short Pump emergency room at 12320 W. Broad St., Bon Secours wants to build a one-story, 13,000-square foot building. The health system already owns 21 acres in the vicinity.

The facility would have 12 full-time employees and would open in the summer of 2025.

Partnering with Bon Secours is a North Carolina-based developer that specializes in ambulatory surgery centers, Compass Surgical Partners. Bon Secours would own 51%, and Compass would own 49%. Together, they secured financing from First Citizens bank in the form of a 10-year loan.

Its expected that 700 patients would visit the center each year, bringing $11 million in revenue and $9 million in costs its first year.

Bon Secours parent company, Bon Secours Mercy Health, lost $1.2 billion in operations in 2022, as patient revenue declined and the cost of paying employees increased.

During cardiac catheterization, a tube is guided through a blood vessel to the heart, where doctors can test the hearts pressure or conduct treatment, such as opening an artery. Its become increasing common to conduct such procedures in an outpatient setting, Bon Secours said.

Bon Secours competitor, Virginia Cardiology Services, has proposed a similar facility at 8007B Discovery Drive near Henrico Doctors Hospital. Its cost to build is just $2.5 million  a factor the health department considers.

Further details of the companys proposal were unavailable Wednesday.

In Midlothian, Bon Secours wants to build a two-story multi-specialty outpatient surgery center with two operating rooms. The $17 million building would go up on the campus of St. Francis Medical Center at 13701 Bon Secours Drive.

Its unclear if there is any opposition this plan or competing applications. A spokesperson for the state health department did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Like the Short Pump facility, the surgery center would be co-owned with Compass Surgical Partners and financed by First Citizens Bank.

Its services would include general surgery, vascular care, pain management, orthopedics, ear, nose and throat treatment and more. Bon Secours said it would alleviate the crowded surgical center inside St. Francis, which operates at capacity.

St. Francis, which has 130 beds, is undergoing a 55-bed expansion due to open early next year.

Moving the procedures to an outpatient setting increases efficiency and lowers costs, the health system said. The new center would have a staff of 14 and open in 2026, a year after Short Pump. The health system expects 1,500 patients to visit each year.

Western Chesterfield is another area experiencing growth. The county grew 16% between 2011 and 2021, among the highest rates in the Richmond area.
A Godwin High School nurse who was arrested in the schools parking lot with drugs appeared in court on Thursday as several charges were dropped.

Leslie Minter Johnson, 47, was pulled over for an expired registration on Aug. 17 while driving on Ridgefield Parkway. She pulled over into her high school parking lot, police said.

Henrico County police officers allegedly found drugs in her car, including Suboxone, cocaine, methamphetamine and Xanax.

On Thursday, Johnson appeared for a preliminary hearing. She stood charged on four counts of possession  two for schedule I and II drugs, one for schedule III drugs, and another for schedule IV drugs. The latter two are misdemeanors.

Johnson waived her right to a preliminary hearing as prosecutors agreed to drop the two misdemeanor charges, as well as charges for her expired registration and suspended license.

The schedule III and IV have been dropped based on the developing evidence in the case, said Nikita Wolfe, Johnsons lawyer. Thats all I can say right now.

Johnsons remaining two charges are being certified to a grand jury, after which it will shift from Henrico General District Court to Henrico Circuit Court. Her next court date is Nov. 28. Currently, her case is pre-set for trial.

A number of Johnsons family and friends were in the courtroom for the hearing, which lasted minutes. Her family declined to speak.

Court records indicate that Johnson worked at Henrico Public Schools for two years. They also indicated that she was arrested on a petit larceny charge in January 2023. That case was deferred and then finally dismissed on Aug. 4, two weeks before this more recent arrest.

Henrico Public Schools spokesperson Ken Blackstone did not say whether the county was aware of her prior arrest. Blackstone said Johnson no longer works for the school district.

Johnson is being held at Henrico Jail East without bond.

Today in history: Oct. 19 1950: Pyongyang 1953: Ray Bradbury 1960: Martin Luther King Jr. 1977: Concorde 1987: "Black Monday" 2002: Charlie Robertson 2016: Donald Trump 2021: Steve Bannon
Another Cancun prison guard gunned down in broad daylight

Cancun, Q.R.  A woman identified as a Cancun prison guard was gunned down in broad daylight Wednesday. Her body was found in between two vehicles in a parking lot of the private residential area where she lived.

Neighbors who heard the 6:30 a.m. gunfire called police. The shooting happened as the woman was walking to her car in the Prado Norte residential area of Cancun early Wednesday morning.

She was pronounced dead at the scene. Neighbors reported seeing two subjects aboard a motorcycle open fire before speeding away. According to neighbors, six shots were heard.

The deceased woman, Luz S, was a prison guard at the Social Reintegration Center (Cereso) of Cancun. She is the fourth Cancun prison guard, the second female guard, executed this year. Police searched the area for the gunmen but have not announced arrests.

Three weeks ago, a Cancun prison guard was shot and killed while walking to his vehicle after leaving a shift. His murder was captured on prison security cameras. An arrest has not been announced in his murder.
Cozumel construction worker lands on concrete below after ladder fall

Cozumel, Q.R.  A construction worker was rushed to Cozumel hospital Wednesday after suffering a fall from site. Paramedics were called to the center of San Miguel Wednesday afternoon where the man lay face down on the concrete below.

The worker was at a site on 20th Avenue between Benito Juarez and Primera Sur in the Centro neighborhood when he is reported to have fellan from a ladder. He landed face down on a partial sidewalk.

A member of the work crew was a relative of the injured man who was transferred to a private Cozumel hospital. Details as to how the man fell are not known.
Group block road in protest of poor residential conditions

Cancun, Q.R.  A group of residents of the Tres Reyes irregular neighborhood of Cancun partially blocked a main roadway in protest of poor conditions. Area residents partially blocked a section of Jose Lopez Portillo Avenue, one of the main accesses to the city, to demand authorities pave roads, add lighting and increase security.

Around 130 residents blocked two of the three avenue lanes as well as completely blocking the entrance to their neighborhood.

Initially, they had blocked one entire direction of Jose Lopez Portillo Avenue, but Pablo Gutierrez, the General Secretary of the Benito Juarez City Council, arrived and had them free one lane for traffic.

The residential protesters displayed a banner with photographs showing flooded streets among other problems neighborhood families face.
Oaxaca man caught robbing Playa del Carmen home detained after neighborhood chase

Playa del Carmen, Q.R.  Police apprehended a Oaxaca man after he was caught robbing a Playa del Carmen home. The robbery was reported Wednesday when the owner of the home arrived to find a man inside stealing random belongings.

Municipal Police responded to the call, arresting a subject for the possible crime of robbery in the Quinta del Carmen subdivision, the SSP reported in a statement.

Preventive police received a report to the 9-1-1 emergency number of a subject who entered a home stealing clothing and personal accessories, the Seguridad Publica Solidaridad (SSP) said.

Upon arriving at the indicated location on 20th Avenue and 24th Street, a group of area residents pointed out the subject who they said was running from the scene, but they caught up with him and secured him.

Solidaridad police proceeded to arrest 41-year-old Javier N from Oaxaca after he was positively identified by the homeowner. The detainee was transferred to the police department and subsequently placed at the disposal of the State Attorney Generals Office for the corresponding legal procedures.
Residential report of men fighting leads Playa del Carmen police to kidnap victim

Playa del Carmen, Q.R.  A man heard yelling from inside a private home was rescued by Municipal Police. On Wednesday, Solidaridad officers responded to the 911 report from Villas del Sol.

When they arrived, they located a man inside a private home who said he had been kidnapped and was being physically assaulted. Neighbors who made the report believed the yelling was a fight between men.

An ambulance was called for the injured victim who was taken to the General Hospital of Playa del Carmen. His captors were successful in escaping before police arrived.

During a hospital interview, the unidentified victim told police that he had been kidnapped from another part of the city, but could not remember where or how long ago.
The story of John Newtons conversion is legendary. His hymns, like Amazing Grace, perennial favorites. His pastors heart, exemplary. His fight for an abolition of the slave trade, monumental. But none of this came quickly or easily.

John Newton (17251807) is a pivotal figure in the English evangelical revival or awakening. His is an early example of a settled evangelical ministry in the second half of the 18th century, involving pastoral work, hymn-writing, and even mentoring the likes of a William Wilberforce. Yet Newton began as an unconverted, rugged sailor, known for mocking authority and trading in slaves. His conversion to Christ, however, initiated a slow but steady transformation. As theepitaph for his gravestone reads, which he himself composed:

John Newton  once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ preserved, restored, pardoned and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy.

John Newton was born on July 24, 1725, to John and Elizabeth. His mother was devout, his father regularly absent at sea. His mother died before his seventh birthday; his father remarried quickly. Newton himself was destined for a career at sea, and there were numerous ships and voyages, a press gang, and even a desertion. At age 21, he entered the employment of Amos Clow and thus began his direct involvement with the slave trade, through which he prospered. Newtons father, who remained concerned for his sons welfare, sent a ship to the African coast to seek him out. Newton, attracted by a made-up story of a legacy and the not-made-up story of his love for Polly Catlett (his eventual wife), joined the Greyhound and headed back across the Atlantic.

On board, extraordinarily but by divine providence, Newton picked up a copy of Thomas a Kempiss Christian classic, The Imitation of Christ. He had never encountered anything like it, and he began to wonder if the Christian claims might be true. On March 10, 1748, Newton was awakened in his cabin by a storm, the ships rotten timbers broken by the waves and floodwater swirling into his cabin. One man was swept overboard, and the ship was badly damaged. As he recorded in his Authentic Narrative, published in 1765, this was when he began to pray and read the scriptures. Newton viewed his spiritual encounter on the Greyhound as his conversion experience, a day much to be remembered by me, on that day the Lord sent from on high and delivered me out of the deep waters. Yet he knew that he understood little and experienced many setbacks and backslidings. It was over the next seven years that his Christian life and convictions would be shaped.

It is perhaps hard for us to understand why Newton continued to captain slave-trading ships after his conversionfirst the Brownlow (as second-in-command), then the Duke of Argyle, and two voyages on the African. Indeed, in his Authentic Narrative, there are no reflections on the evils of the slave trade; that conviction would come later. He married Polly in 1750 and corresponded with her on his last trip on the African, telling her that he was praying for her and reading the scriptures. On this trip, he also met a Christian trader (not in slaves), Alexander Clunie, who mentored Newton in the faith. He then became acquainted with George Whitefield, first in London and then Liverpool, describing himself as a Methodist for the first time. (Methodist was used at this time to describe all evangelicals, rather than to describe a separate denomination.) As Methodists taught, sanctificationa growth in holiness and Christian maturityis a process,and for the hardened sailor and slave trader Newton, it took some time.

Newton felt increasingly drawn to ordained ministry but was less sure about which denomination. He had some objections to the Church of England, but these softened under the influence of other ministers. The path, however, was not straightforward.

To gain ordination you needed a post, testimonials to character, and a willing bishop. The last of these was the most problematic for Newton. Initially he was refused ordination by the Bishop of Chester and then by the Archbishop of York.

What was the problem? Although Newton felt well disposed toward the Church of England, he also made it clear that he was not attached to any particular denomination and expressed doubts about both infant baptism and the apparent assumption of salvation in the burial service. He was also concerned about a regnant opposition to evangelicals within the Church.

He received several offers to accept appointment in independent churches and was close to accepting one from a Presbyterian church, when an evangelical aristocrat, the Earl of Dartmouth, intervened. He had read Newtons autobiographical Authentic Narrative and was impressed. He controlled the appointment to a post in Olney in Buckinghamshire and offered it to Newton. Newton was again rebuffed by the Bishop of Lincoln and the Archbishop of York, but then Dartmouth pleaded directly with the Bishop of Lincoln, who agreed to interview Newtonwho proceeded to express his doubts about the liturgy. Finally, on April 29, 1764, Newton was ordained, after a seven-year saga. He declared that his only hope is in the name of Jesus. The this-world hero of the story, however, is Lord Dartmouth, preventing the bishops from washing their hands of Newton altogether.

Newton was in post in Olney from 1764 to 1779. Evangelicals had a gift for revitalizing moribund parish ministries. Newton was known by his parishioners; he walked the streets, not in clerical clothing, but in his sailors jacket. He visitedthem. He supported and cared for the poor and needy, wrote letters, ensured the supply of Bibles where needed, and studied the scriptures himself. He preached twice on a Sunday, three other times in the week, and gave a lecture on Sunday evenings. He was not naturally a great preacher and was sometimes both unprepared and unguarded in what he said.

Central to Newtons Olney ministry was his relationship with William Cowper (17311800). Cowper (pronounced Cooper) was one of the greatest English poets of the 18th century but who faced a long-term struggle with mental illness. His deep and lasting friendship with Newton produced the Olney Hymns. Cowpers mental anguish was very deep and included time in an asylum. He came under the care of an evangelical household, the Unwins, and after her husband died, Mary Unwin and her two children, with Cowper as the lodger, moved into a property adjacent to Newtons rectory in Olney. Newton reached out to his depressed visitor with Christian compassion and practical encouragement, and would sometimes be called to the Unwin home at 3 in the morning to calm Cowper. During one bout of serious mental despair that befell Cowper in 1773, Newton noted in his diaries that My dear friend still walks in darkness. I can hardly conceive that anyone in a state of grace and favour with God can be in greater distress.

Newton worked with Cowper to write hymns, culminating in the publication of the Olney Hymns (1779). This entailed a three-fold division, with 141 hymns on selected texts of scripture, 107 on progress and changes in the spiritual life, and 100 on various other subjects. Newtons writing was characterised by simplicity, rhythm, and an ease of singing. Cowper was always the poet. Examples still sung today include Newtons How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds and Cowpers Jesus Wherever Your People Meet with its reminder that Christ is not confined by walls (the very release that Jesus offered to Cowper). And, of course, there is Amazing Gracewritten for a service for New Years Day, January 1, 1773.

Olney, though, was not easy ministry, with numbers in church and at prayer meetings beginning to fall. After 15 years, fresh pastures beckoned. Newtons ministry had become more widely known and appreciated, and an opportunity opened up for Newton to obtain a post in the City of London, the business and banking district, where an evangelical presence was weak. In 1779, he was appointed to the rectory of St. Mary, Woolnoth, a church that nestled in the shadow of the Bank of England. In his first sermon, he described the Bible as the grand repository of the truths that it will be the business and the pleasure of my life to set before you. Newtons ministry attracted a growing number of hearers, and soon a gallery had to be built at the church to accommodate them.

When William Wilberforce was a boy, his aunt and uncle brought him to meet Newton at Olney. In late 1785, whenWilberforce was 26, he wrote to Newton requesting a secret meeting. Wilberforce himself was a converted and changed man but struggling with whether to remain in public life as a member of Parliament or to enter the ministry. Wilberforce was so anxious about being spotted, he twice walked round the square where Newton lived before knocking at the door. In early 1786, Newton wrote to Cowper about Wilberforce, saying that I hope the Lord will make him a blessing, both as a Christian and a statesman.

It was a turning point. Wilberforce became a regular Saturday visitor and Sunday congregant. Newton became a public campaigner for the abolitionist movement when, in 1787, he collaborated with Wilberforce and others in the formation of the Anti-Slavery Society and in January 1788 he published his highly influential pamphlet Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade, describing the horrors he had seen. In this Newton acknowledged his personal involvement and responsibility, and he repented. His personal experience put him in a strong position to campaign, which he did with Wilberforce for the next 19 years. Although he was perhaps late to the scene, both evangelical and wider public opinion was changing. Abolition of the slave trade succeeded in the year Newton died.

Unlike Wilberforce, Newton was not a politician or a statesman. But he was a pastor. Unlike Whitefield, he was not a great orator. But he spoke powerfully. Perhaps most important, Newton had a backstory, one that formed and shaped him in the campaign against the slave trade. He also exemplified the somewhat uneasy relationship betweenevangelicals and the Church of Englandthe former were committed to the established church but were as much at ease in an independent chapel. The preaching of the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ was what mattered most. This Newton knew, and in time proved a great model, mightily used by God.
A $35 million project planned for a Glenvar industrial park is an expansion by a existing Roanoke County business. County officials turned down my request for the company name.

As reported in August, SunCap Property Group in Charlotte, North Carolina, asked officials to permit warehousing and distribution at the Roanoke Center for Research and Technology. SunCap has in mind a 90,000-square-foot warehouse with 80 to 100 employees and also refused to name the company that would use the building.

But minutes of a routine September meeting show that the project was discussed, with a county representative revealing that the company already does business in Roanoke County. Those minutes were released in connection with an Oct. 3 meeting, also about the project and other projects.

Authorities have scheduled a decision on the permission request Oct. 24. The project would move forward with a government review of blueprints followed by construction, if it follows a typical path. Sooner or later, the name will come out.
Youve probably heard the hoary phrase about somebody being put through a wringer.

That refers to obsolete technology. Decades ago, many home washing machines sported a funky-looking double roller on top. Known as the wringer, it squeezed excess water from washed items before they were hung on a clothesline to dry.

Wringers on home washers went out of fashion 70 or more years ago, after some genius invented an affordable spin cycle. Today, wringers are mostly found in museums.

Wendy Baldwins year-old Maytag washing machine has no wringer. But the 78-year-old Blacksburg resident feels like shes been put through one, ever since Lowes delivered the appliance a little more than a year ago.

Baldwin is retired from the National Institutes of Health, where she served as deputy director for extramural research. She bought the front-loading model in August 2022, online from Lowes, after her trusty, 20-plus-year-old Kenmore went kaput.

The Maytag rests on a $359 pedestal that Baldwin purchased in the same transaction. In all, the total price came to right around $1,400.

Lowes installed both in a small utility closet just steps off Baldwins kitchen. But the machine has never worked right, she told me. Among other issues, it vibrates violently and loudly during its spin cycle. Sometimes the vibrating machine moves or walks.

The vibration was so bad that it caused a full jug of Tide to vibrate [off the washers top] onto the floor, Baldwin said. And it quits prematurely, eight or nine minutes before the cycle ends.

After Lowes delivered and installed the appliances, the retailer twice sent technicians to evaluate Baldwins complaints. They replaced her pedestal but the malfunction persisted. Ultimately, Baldwin said, Lowes told her to contact Maytag/Whirlpool, deeming the problem a manufacturers warranty issue.

That was in September 2022. Now its October 2023, and Baldwin still has the same malfunctioning washer. Apart from the two Lowes service calls, Maytag/Whirlpool has sent authorized repairmen at least 11 times.

Baldwin jotted down the dates of those visits on her calendar. They occurred: Dec. 5; Feb. 7; Mar 6; June 9; June 16; July 7, July 13; July 27; Aug. 16; Sept. 1 and one occasion this month, too.

By the end of September, technicians had removed and replaced most of the machines innards, including a large rotating drum assembly, Baldwin said. Basically, theyve rebuilt the entire machine in her house. But it still vibrates.

During this repair saga, Baldwins 81-year-old husband, Del Futrell, died unexpectedly from a brain injury he suffered during a nighttime fall. Two weeks after his death, Baldwins 97-year-old mother died in her sleep.

Amid those heartbreaks, scheduling the never-ending repair visits became a giant pain in the keister, Baldwin noted.

Each time the repairmen set a tentative appointment, Baldwin blocked off that day on her calendar. Then, the techs would call the day before the appointment, and further refine the time to a specified two-to-four hour block. Then, theyd call the day of the appointment when the technician was 10 minutes away.

I dont need to tell you how much of my time has been spent hanging around and blocking my time from other activities, Baldwin noted. If she wasnt retired, that might have been impossible.

During one back-and-forth with a Maytag/Whirlpool rep, Baldwin asked to speak with her supervisor. She said hell just tell me what she is telling me. So, I asked to speak with his supervisor. She said she didnt know who that was, Baldwin told me.

Thats customer service? Baldwin asked.

Following months of fruitless repair efforts, Kristen R, a customer service rep for Maytag/Whirlpool, sent Baldwin the following email on Oct. 3.

I am so sorry to hear youre experiencing an issue with your appliance, Kristen wrote. After reviewing your file again, we find no additional information that would change our decision as stated in your previous contacts with customer service representatives.

We do apologize for your dissatisfaction with your appliance concern; and, we are sorry that, in this instance, no further assistance than what has already been suggested can be offered.

That left Baldwin particularly peeved. She interpreted it as a polite kiss-off.

It seemed her only remaining option was to throw out the Maytag, eat the $1,400 and buy a different brand.

I was at the end of my rope, Baldwin said.

But before she shopped for a functioning washer, Baldwin appealed to the court of public opinion. She called yours truly and emailed documentation regarding the cursed washer and her unhappy warranty saga. Her beef with Maytag/Whirlpool seemed legit.

On Oct. 9, I contacted Chad Parks, a senior manager in Chicago-based Whirlpools customer-service department. I sent him Baldwins receipt from Lowes, the list of dates that technicians visited her house and outlined the problems still plaguing her washer.

She is seeking either a $1,400 refund or a working machine, I wrote Parks. He replied that hed notify his team.

Two days later on Oct. 11, I received an email from Baldwin.

I guess it would be wrong to say Im in love with you, she began, but Whirlpool just called and they are sending me a new washer and pedestal!! OK, lets just say I am your biggest fan.

Later on the phone, she thanked me profusely.

Patrick Turner, with Whirlpool Corp.s executive office staff, later clarified to Baldwin that the replacement washer and pedestal will be delivered Tuesday afternoon.

Between now and then, lets all cross our fingers, knock on wood and hope that Wendy Baldwins new washing machine works.

Im sure Ill hear something if it doesnt.
A group of landowners is seeking an emergency injunction from a federal appeals court that would pause construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline on their property while their lawsuit is pending.

Three couples who own three tracts of land along the pipelines route are challenging the companys use of eminent domain, which it invoked in 2018 to take their land for the natural gas pipeline.

Concerned about delays in the case, attorney Mia Yugo of Roanoke filed a request Tuesday for an injunction with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Bulldozers are on the property, Yugo said. MVP is causing daily irreparable injury to private property and hoping to finish the project before this constitutional case is heard.

First filed in 2020, the case is the last remaining legal challenge to the controversial pipeline, which was delayed for years by litigation from environmental groups before Congress passed a law in May that fast-tracks its completion.

The emergency motion asks the court to halt all construction on a tract in eastern Montgomery County owned by Cletus and Beverly Bohon, a tract on Bent Mountain in Roanoke County owned by Robert and Aimee Hamm, and a tract in Franklin County owned by Wendell and Mary Flora.

Yugo asked for a ruling by Oct. 24, writing that irreparable injury escalates daily.

The Bohons, Hamms and Floras are contesting the condemnation of their land by arguing that eminent domain  which should be a legislative power  was improperly delegated by Congress to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which governs interstate pipelines.

Under the Natural Gas Act, FERC can allow private companies to take land if it finds a public necessity for their projects, which the commission did for Mountain Valley in 2017.

The landowners claimed that Congress violated the separation of powers doctrine by delegating to FERC a power that it should have exercised itself, but was unwilling to do so because eminent domain is often a highly controversial practice.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., dismissed the case, ruling that he did not have jurisdiction. Yugo then appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which revived the case in April and sent it back to the court of appeals.

Less than two months later, Congress passed a law that averted a government default by raising the countrys debt ceiling. Tucked into the must-pass legislation was a provision green-lighting Mountain Valley. The Fiscal Responsibility Act ordered government agencies to issue all of the pipelines remaining permits, while forbidding any legal challenges of them.

Mountain Valley then cited the law in asking the D.C. Court of Appeals to dismiss the landowners case.

Yugo responded by challenging the constitutionality of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, arguing that Congress again violated the separation of powers doctrine, this time by intervening into a matter for the courts.

In what Yugo said was stalling tactic, FERC and Mountain Valley asked for additional time to file a response. The court gave them until Nov. 13, meaning a decision in the case will likely not come until next year.

Mountain Valley has said it hopes to complete construction of the 303-mile pipeline by the end of this year. Unless the court stops construction while it considers the case, Yugo argues, any legal relief for the landowners could come too late.

The request for an injunction includes a sworn statement from Cletus Bohon, who says that construction workers have begun blasting, clearing trees and digging trenches for the buried pipeline close to his home on Yellow Finch Lane.

My wife and I moved here for the peace and quiet, the declaration states. Now when we sit on our porch, instead of hearing the birds singing, we hear the sound of loud machinery. Beeping, clattering and pounding on rocks with jackhammers is what we endure all day.

Meanwhile, pipeline opponents are continuing their efforts to block construction by gathering in the projects right-of-way and chaining themselves to heavy equipment.

Three individuals  from California, Minnesota and New York  were charged with trespassing and other misdemeanors after a demonstration Monday near Elliston. Since construction resumed in July, there have been about a dozen arrests.
Representatives with RiverStreet Networks and Appalachian Power Co. say construction on a much anticipated broadband project that will provide every household and business in Patrick County with broadband service, will begin in February.

More than $846 million has been invested in Virginia since 2018 to connect more than 429,000 homes and businesses to high-speed internet and the West Piedmont Planning District Commission and RiverStreet were awarded $87 million and leveraged another $65 million to build fiber broadband to unserved locations. The West Piedmont Planning District includes Patrick, Henry, Franklin and Pittsylvania counties, the cities of Martinsville and Danville, and the town or Rocky Mount.

This is some rough terrain in areas with sparse populations, but we have power lines throughout the area, said Amanda Cox, Appalachian Power manager of external affairs. We have dual-purpose fiber in place and already use it for automatic metering and monitoring of equipment. We will maintain it and will be making the repairs.

Cox said Appalachian Power will drop fiber lines from utility poles to RiverStreet technicians and they will take it into the homes.

Youre going to see some movement on this project. There have been delays, Cox said. We have approximately 12,000 customers in Patrick and Henry counties. Thats 144 miles of fiber in Patrick County alone.

RiverStreet is headquartered in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and Zack Church, the companys director of network engineering and construction said all of Patrick County has been visited and weve got a good idea of what we need to do.

By comparison, Brightspeed provides a digital subscriber line (DSL) to internet customers in Patrick County. DSL is the oldest of the three primary technologies now used to provide internet service and has a download speed range of one to 10 megabits per second.

Xfinity provides internet via cable mostly to the town of Stuart and has implemented fiber that has download speeds up to 1,200 megabits per second, according to company officials.

For fiber customers, download speeds average between 250 and 1,000 megabits per second.

We have all new fiber, so there shouldnt be any issues, said Cox. Everyone here will be able to enjoy what the rest of Virginia has been able to enjoy.

Church confirmed RiverStreet will be offering a fiber connection with download speeds of 100 megabits up to a gig [1,000 megabits].

There will be programs for lower income as well, Church said. RiverStreet is a co-op at heart and were rural. Were off the beaten path, so were at home here [Patrick County] as well.

Cox added that a price point for service is yet to be determined, but would be fair and equitable.

Said Cox: When we do start building in February, we will be ready to go.

In other matters, the board:

Heard from Monica Flora, a counselor with Piedmont Community Services. Our services are growing, said Flora. Weve hired 27 peer recovery specialists. In Patrick County we have a mobile unit that works as a one-stop shop. Flora said the clinic is looking to rent recovery residences in Patrick County. Weve watched our services boom, but were still not able to meet all the needs of the community.

Heard from Roger Haden, a resident of the Dan River District, regarding solar farm construction. I do not like solar because it is erratic, said Haden.

It only works when the sun is shining. Solar farms are taking up a lot of land. Please lets keep Patrick County beautiful.
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FLORENCE, S.C.  Convicted cop killer Fred Hopkins will spend the remainder of his natural life in a South Carolina prison, a sentence about which his victims and family members of his victims have thoughts.

Circuit Court Judge Eugene Griffith Jr. during a Thursday afternoon hearing in Florence sentenced Hopkins to seven consecutive sentences  a life sentence for the murder of Florence Police Sgt. Terrence Carraway and another life term for the murder of Florence County Sheriff's Office investigator Farrah Turner. He got 30-year sentences on five attempted murder charges.

The sentences came after victims and family members delivered victim-impact statements to Hopkins and Griffith. The statement contained hard-to-hear details about their injuries, their continuing recovery and the empty spaces left in the Carraway and Turner families.

Hopkins Sentencing Circuit Court Judge Eugene Griffith Jr. talks with attorneys Thursday afternoon in Florence during a sentencing hearing for convicted cop kill

A day before the shooting, Hopkins told members of his pub trivia team that his family was being torn apart and that if any law enforcement were to approach his home, he would shoot them, Solicitor Ed Clements told Griffith based on sworn testimony he was willing to present.

Clements also told the court that he was prepared to offer testimony that during a monitored phone call, Hopkins referred to killing Turner as "just taking out the trash."

Hopkins Sentencing Solicitor Ed Clements addresses witness and spectators Thursday afternoon at the conclusion of the sentencing hearing for convicted cop killer

Hopkins, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, armed himself in a hardened location downstairs and fired at the deputies as they stood on his porch. He kept shooting as more officers rushed to the scene to save their comrades.

The shooting started as part of an investigation in which deputies initially gathered in the parking lot at a West Florence Fire Rescue station on Hoffmeyer Road in preparation of serving a warrant.

Investigators Oct. 3, 2018, initially contacted Hopkins' wife, who told them she'd be at the house in about 15 minutes, according to court testimony. Deputies decided to roll ahead of the wife, worried that the additional time could lead to the destruction of evidence.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence County Sheriff T.J. Joye addresses the court Thursday during the sentencing of convicted cop killer Fred Hopkins

Turner and four other deputies went to Hopkins' home in Vintage Place subdivision as part of a child abuse investigation and, after knocking on his door, came under fire.

Calls of "officer down" brought help, which also came under fire at close and distance range. Turner, shot initially knocking at the door, was shot a second time during this period when she had fallen to the ground.

Deputy Sara Miller was shot. Carraway was shot in his cruiser upon arrival. Deputy Arie Davis Chandler was shot. Florence Police Officer Scott Williamson was shot as he arrived. Florence Police Officer Travis Scott was shot at about a 300-foot range, as was Florence Police Office Brian Hart.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence Police Chief Allen Heidler pauses for a moment during his statement to the court in the sentencing hearing for convicted cop killer F

Other officers and deputies came under a seemingly endless fusillade of lead as they tried to get their fellow officers to safety.

So many rounds were fired that it took up to 30 minutes to get an armored vehicle close enough to rescue the wounded officers. Hopkins used three firearms in the ambush, and more than 100 guns were found in his home.

Hopkins Sentencing Fred Hopkins gets wheeled into the courtroom Thursday by Richland County sheriffs deputies.

The Hopkins residence was situated such that anyone at the home had a commanding field of fire several blocks deep that made it a challenge to approach the home.

Officers and deputies testified to having been rescued from the field by pickup trucks and the sheriff's office's MRAP and then removed from the field of fire to be taken to area hospitals.

Carraway died that night at a hospital. Turner died 19 days later at a hospital.

Hopkins Sentencing Convicted cop killer Fred Hopkins will spend the remainder of his natural life in a South Carolina prison. Circuit Court Judge Eugene Griffith

Hopkins was initially charged under the state's death penalty law, something Solicitor Ed Clements explained was justified with Hopkins having killed a law enforcement officer, two in this instance, and having killed more than one person in the same event.

Clements argued that a sentence of anything less would be an insult to those involved in the ambush.

Hopkins' court appearance earlier during which he pleaded guilty was unannounced and reporters following the widely publicized case were not in the courtroom in Aiken County, some 120 miles from where the attack occurred in October 2018.

Griffith and Clements, at different points in the hearing, explained the unusual circumstances of the plea.

The guilty plea came just a few days past the five-year anniversary of the shooting.

Hopkins Sentencing The Caraway family gathered in the parking lot of the Florence County courts building Thursday ahead of the sentencing hearing for convicted c

The move to plea came after Hopkins talked with David Ferrier, who works with Vietnam veterans. Griffith and Clements both said there was quick action on the part of the state to accept the plea and Aiken was where it happened. Some police officers and some family were present for the guilty plea.

Clements said the move to the life-in-prison approach was unanimously supported by the victims and their families.

To continue to pursue the death penalty risked that Hopkins would die before there was resolution in the form of a conviction, Clements said.

One of the subjects of the investigation, the son, 33-year-old Seth Hopkins, pleaded guilty in 2019 to second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and is serving 20 years in prison.

In their victim-impact statements, several lamented that, for Hopkins, his life sentence would likely be short. Several, though, suggested what should come following the completion of his sentence and suggested hell would be the best place for him to serve eternity.

I'm lucky to be standing here

Florence County Sheriff's investigator Ben Price led the approach of two marked and three unmarked cruisers to the Hopkins house.

"We were met with bullets," Price said. "I'm fortunate to be standing here. Some aren't."

Hopkins Sentencing Florence County Sheriff's investigator Ben Price Thursday delivers his impact statement to the court during the sentencing hearing for Fred Hopkins.

Price said he was able to escape the shooting on the porch and sheltered up against the Hopkins home in a spot that was out of sight of Hopkins as he fired at deputies.

"We were just there to do our job," he said.

Price had a good view of what happened next.

The investigator alluded to Hopkins' plans to possibly use his post-traumatic stress disorder from his service in Vietnam as his defense.

Price has returned to active duty.

He said he now has PTSD.

Gunned down

Sara Miller said in delivering her statement that she hopes Hopkins burns in the fires of hell.

Shot once as she stood on the porch, Miller was able to crawl out of the immediate line of fire and sheltered behind a pickup until the MRAP arrived to retrieve her.

Miller was hit in the abdomen, where the bullet did a lot of damage.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence County Sheriff's investigator Sara Miller Thursday delivers his impact statement to the court during the sentencing hearing for Fred 

The smell of blood, hers, and gunshots were two of the things Miller said she still remembers.

She said she was there when Turner was shot a second time.

Miller said she remembers passing in and out of consciousness as she was taken by ambulance to a hospital.

She also testified about the time she spent on a ventilator, about rehabilitation, being a 30-year-old with an ostomy bag and about the wound vac she had to wear for several months after the shooting.

Miller has returned to active duty.

Has cried herself to sleep

Deputy Arie Davis Chandeler said there are nights she's OK, other nights she cries herself to sleep.

Chandeler was also shot while standing on the porch and didn't need anyone to tell her she'd been shot.

Chandeler credited Deputy Chase McDaniel, who was not in the initial spray of bullets, with helping her get out of the field of fire.

Chandeler, hit in the leg, testified that she had to learn to walk again and will have other surgeries ahead of her as she ages.

They were fellow officers

Scott Williamson was off duty and on his way home when the "officers down" call came across the radio and he rolled to assist.

"Didn't know who was there. Didn't care. They were fellow officers," Williamson said.

Williamson said upon arrival at the firefight, a law enforcement officer waved him off and that likely saved his life.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence Police officer Scott Williamson Thursday delivers his impact statement to the court during the sentencing hearing for Fred Hopkins.

As it was, Williamson was shot in the head, lost control of the right side of his body, hit the accelerator and drove into one of the Vintage Place homes where he remained pinned until he was later rescued.

Williamson said he next recalled the voice of a deputy who was trying to get him out of his cruiser and into the back of a pickup, where he received initial medical care while being driven out of the field of fire and to an ambulance.

Williamson said he remembered asking the doctors in the emergency department to clean up his face so his wife didn't see him looking like that.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence Police officer Scott Williamson Thursday delivers his impact statement to the court during the sentencing hearing for Fred Hopkins.

Williamson was initially treated at a Florence hospital for two weeks before being flown to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, where he learned to walk again, initially with a walker, then a cane and then unassisted.

The veteran officer said he still suffers problems with his right side.

"For five years I've thought about what I would say," Williamson said of his statement. "There is no justice in this."

"It wouldn't matter if he was 20 years old, there'd be no justice," Williams said of Hopkins. "Nothing can fix this."

Pissed off then and now

Florence Police officer Travis Scott, like others, heard the "officer down" call and responded.

Scott said he followed fellow officer Brian Hart into the incident, the two stopped and Scott went to the trunk of his cruiser to get a rifle and that was when, at a range of about 300 yards, he was shot in the leg.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence Police officer Travis Scott Thursday delivers his impact statement to the court during the sentencing hearing for Fred Hopkins.

He said as he was shot, his military training kicked in and he was able to quickly get to shelter and waved off several nearby firefighters standing their engine who saw him get shot and were heading his way.

Scott indicated to the firefighters he and Hart would come to them.

Hopkins, to make a 300-yard shot, had to first acquire a target, then sight down the barrel on him and pull the trigger  none of which is a spur-of-the-moment action, Scott said.

"I was pissed off then and pissed off now," Scott told the court.

The officer said Hopkins has had five years since the initial incident and all he wanted was five minutes.

Vengeance, though, Scott said, belongs to the Lord.

Right in the hand

Hart, who led in Scott, said his shift ended at 3 p.m. but he had to stay over to finish up a DUI arrest.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence Police officer Brian Hart Thursday delivers his impact statement to the court during the sentencing hearing for Fred Hopkins.

When he initially rolled up, he said. it was quiet and it felt like it was over.

He was walking over to Scott when Scott was hit, as was Hart, who was shot in the hand.

When he was shot, Hart said, he didn't even know from where he was taking fire and as he sheltered by his cruiser, he worried he was just waiting to be murdered.

Hart told the court that he still has problems with his hand.

Lost her best friend

Allison Carraway, widow of Terrence Carraway, led her family in testimony, followed by several others.

"Terrence was there less than two minutes before he was killed," she testified.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence Police Sgt. Terrence Carraway's widow, Allison Carraway, Thursday delivers his impact statement to the court during the sentencing he

Carraway described her husband missing out on seeing his son get married, something he helped plan. He also missed the birth of his first grandchild.

An Air Force veteran, Carraway was a key player in many Darlington civic activities and youth sports. His name is attached to an annual 5K that's the first race run as part of Darlington Raceway's Labor Day Weekend races. Proceeds from the race go to the Terrence Carraway Foundation.

His murder did nothing but elevate his name and reputation in the Pee Dee and around the world, she said.

"I close my eyes and see his big, bright smile throwing up his deuces," Carraway said.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence Police Sgt. Terrence Carraway's son, Terrence Rashad Carraway, Thursday delivers his impact statement to the court during the sentenc

"We have made it over this hurdle and we will carry on," she said.

"When you decided to pull the trigger Oct. 3, your life sentence and final destination were set," Carraway told Hopkins.

"My husband's goal in law enforcement was to serve and protect," she said.

He died doing just that.

"Justice will prevail and this evil man will be destroyed," son Terrence Rashad Carraway said.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence Police Sgt. Terrence Carraway's son, Terrence Rashad Carraway, Thursday delivers his impact statement to the court during the sentenc

Rashad said as a result of the shooting, he has trouble sleeping and trusting people.

Brother Daniel Blathers works in the building beside the law offices of Hopkins' wife, which serves as a daily reminder of what was taken from him.

"I know God has a bigger plan," Blathers said.

"Pure evilness was in the house that day," Blathers said as he read a statement from Carraway's sister.

Several other Carraway family members also spoke.

The funeral all over again

Turner's mother, Katie Godwin, was too emotional to deliver her statement, which was then read by family member Brittany Weaver.

"It feels like her funeral all over again," Godwin wrote in the statement.

Hopkins Sentencing Florence County Sheriff's Office Farrah Turner's mother, Katie Godwin, Thursday delivers her impact statement to the court during the sentenci

Godwin and others stood and sat by Turner as she fought for her life from a hospital bed.

"He showed no remorse for killing two and trying to kill five others," Godwin wrote in her statement. "Shameless coward."

"I hope the general population treats you the way you deserve the rest of your worthless life," Godwin said through her statement of Hopkins' time in prison.

Turner, like Carraway, lives on through a foundation and is also the namesake of a 5K race.

Hopkins Sentencing Brittany Weaver Thursday reads Katie Godwin's impact statement impact statement to the court during the sentencing hearing for Fred Hopkins.

"She died as she lived, fighting to protect others," April Godwin, sister, said of Turner.

Twin-bother Ferrell Turner had his statement read by a family member.

"She was doing what the citizens of Florence County expected her to do, investigating crimes against children," her aunt Linda Goodwin Weaver said.

Weaver said Hopkins should "burn in hell one day, preferably sooner rather than later."

Former sheriff's office investigator and now-Timmonsville City Manager Thomas McFadden said he had been scheduled to work that day but needed to change shifts.

As events played out, McFadden said he reached out to her family so they could hear the news from a friend before it became widespread knowledge.

Florence Police Chief Allen Heidler and Florence County Sheriff T.J. Joye wrapped up impact statements.

Change of plans

"Hopkins deserves the death penalty," Clements said. "We didn't want him to escape judgment. We wanted him to go out as a convicted murderer."

Hopkins sentencing 2 Solicitor Ed Clements fields questions about the handling of the case against convicted cop killer Fred Hopkins.

"We had what we needed to go for the death penalty, we just didnt have the time," Clements said of the case, which started before the COVID-19 pandemic and pleaded out afterwards.

Hopkins, as of Thursday, has served the first 1,842 days of his life sentence, Clements said.

Hopkins, for his part, declined to make a statement and did little more than look at the defense table for the three-or-so hours the hearing took.
COLUMBIA, S.C.  The South Carolina Department of Social Services recently announced Adrienne Wingate as the new Darlington County DSS director. Her duties began Oct. 2.

Prior to her career with DSS, Wingate worked with South Carolina Mentor serving adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and medically complex needs. She also served in the Communities in Schools program assessing the unique needs of children and youth and connecting students with community resources and support.

Wingate began her DSS career in 2007 as an adoptions case manager. She also served in the role of an adoptions supervisor from 2012 to 2014 and was promoted as the Pee Dee regional adoptions administrator in 2014. Prior to accepting the Darlington County position, she served as interim county director for Marion County.

It is an honor to return to my hometown and serve the community of Darlington, said Wingate. I understand the disparities and the importance of stability and strengthening families. To be able to serve Darlington County by promoting the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and vulnerable adults, helping individuals achieve stability, and strengthening families is a mission that I hold in very high regard. I am excited to give back to my community in this capacity along with passionate social services professionals of the agency, community partners, and providers as we strive to build capacity for those in need in the greater Darlington community.

Wingate is a native of Darlington County. She graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2004 with a bachelors degree in psychology with a minor in social work. She earned her masters degree in psychology in 2010 from Walden University.
A 79-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing a South Carolina deputy investigating his family over sexual abuse and an officer responding to the shooting. Investigators say Frederick Hopkins wounded five other officers in October 2018, firing from a snipers nest set up behind an oak desk in the sunken den of his home in an upscale Florence neighborhood. Hopkins was a Vietnam veteran who was awarded medals for marksmanship. Hopkins says he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder when police arrived and thought he was back in Vietnam. Prosecutors took the death penalty off the table in exchange for the guilty pleas.
Retrait de l'ONU du Mali: la junte denonce une "trahison" et accuse la France

La junte au pouvoir au Mali a denonce une "enieme trahison" a propos du retrait en cours et sous tension de la mission de l'ONU du pays, en accusant la France de tenter de l'accelerer pour favoriser les groupes jihadistes.





Les colonels arrives au pouvoir par la force en 2020 ont reclame et obtenu du Conseil de securite en juin, apres des mois de degradation des rapports avec la mission onusienne, le depart de la Minusma deployee depuis 2013 dans ce pays en proie au jihadisme et a une profonde crise multidimensionnelle.





La Minusma doit avoir quitte le pays d'ici au 31 decembre. Elle a deja transfere aux autorites maliennes quatre des camps qu'elle occupait, et doit en liberer plusieurs autres dans les jours ou les semaines a venir dans la region de Kidal (nord).





Ce depart a exacerbe les rivalites pour le controle du territoire entre acteurs armes qui se disputent le controle des vastes etendues du nord malien.





Les groupes separatistes a dominante touareg ont repris les hostilites contre l'Etat central et le Groupe de soutien a l'islam et aux musulmans (GSIM) affilie a Al-Qaida a multiplie les attaques contre les positions militaires.





Le deroulement de son retrait, une operation d'envergure menee sous la menace des attaques, vaut a la Minusma des critiques a la fois des autorites et des rebelles.





La Minusma a commence en debut de semaine a se retirer de ses camps de Tessalit et Aguelhok dans la region de Kidal, dans un climat de haute tension. Jeudi, un avion cargo C130 tunisien affrete par la Minusma a essuye des tirs lors de son atterrissage a Tessalit sans faire de degats, ont indique des sources aeroportuaires sur place. L'information a ete confirmee localement par un membre des Nations unies.





Un haut responsable de la Minusma, El Hadj Ibrahima Dieng, a reconnu dans une video diffusee mardi soir par la television d'Etat malienne que "l'evolution de la situation securitaire sur le terrain" necessitait "une procedure acceleree" qui, a-t-il precise, sera menee "en concertation avec toutes les parties".





Or un changement de calendrier bouscule les plans de l'armee malienne autour de la liberation des emprises de la Minusma, qu'elle compte bien ne pas laisser aux groupes armes.





Le porte-parole du gouvernement malien, le colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, a reagi en accusant l'ancien allie francais duvrer pour que la Minusma accelere le mouvement.





"La junte francaise ne menage aucun effort en vue de faire fuir la Minusma, en lieu et place dun retrait ordonne", a-t-il dit dans un communique lu mercredi soir par la television d'Etat.





"Les objectifs de cette fuite orchestree, en pretextant des raisons fallacieuses et en violation du calendrier de cession des emprises aux autorites maliennes, constituent une enieme trahison dont sont victimes les Forces armees et de securite du Mali et visent a equiper les groupes terroristes, en abandonnant deliberement des quantites importantes darmes et de munitions pour realiser leur dessein funeste", a-t-il dit, sans qu'apparaisse clairement a qui l'accusation de trahison est adressee.





La Minusma a prevenu lundi qu'elle pourrait avoir a detruire ou mettre hors service des equipements "sensibles" qu'elle n'aurait pas pu evacuer.





Sollicitee par l'AFP, la Minusma n'a pas reagi dans l'immediat.




Sweden took home the 2023 trophy with Loreens song (PA)

This year, the UK co-hosted the 67th Eurovision Song Contest alongside Ukraine in Liverpool even as the war against Russia raged on.

The trophy was taken home by Swedens contestant, Loreen, who sang Tattoo and won the competition for the second time. And thus began Swedens search for where it would host the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest.

This will be the seventh time the Scandinavian nation will be home to Eurovision and it coincides with the 50th anniversary of Abbas big win, making it even more special.

The BBC has confirmed that the search for the 2024 act and song for the United Kingdom has taken place over the summer, led by Lee Smithurst, executive producer at BBC Studios, alongside Will Wilkin, commissioning executive for BBC Music. The broadcaster hinted that an announcement would be coming "in due course".

If youre already counting down to next years event, here is everything that has been revealed about it so far.

When is Eurovision 2024?

The 68th Eurovision Song Contest is set to take place in early May, as always.

The semi-finals will be held on May 7 and May 9, 2024, while the big finale will take place on May 11.

Where will Eurovision 2024 take place?

Sweden has announced that after dialogue with several cities, it has decided to host the event in Malmo.

The coastal town in the south of Sweden was selected after organisers evaluated the citys venue facilities and accommodation availability given the fact that thousands of visitors flock to the Eurovision host city.

Malmo, the countrys third-largest city, will host all stages of the competition at the Malmo Arena.

Welcome back to Malmo! 



Malmo will host #Eurovision for the third time on 7, 9, and 11 May 2024 



All the details here  https://t.co/9BPywblwx7 pic.twitter.com/VrvZDHgQA7  Eurovision Song Contest (@Eurovision) July 7, 2023

Talking about the decision, executive supervisor of Eurovision Martin Osterdahl said: Malmo holds a special place in the history of the contest, having successfully hosted it firstly in 1992 and then in 2013  following Loreens last win.

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Were excited to be returning to this vibrant and dynamic city, which has demonstrated it has the venues and infrastructure that are perfect for staging the worlds largest live music event.

When will Eurovision 2024 tickets go on sale?

The official Eurovision website says that tickets for Eurovision will be on sale soon.

It explains that ticket prices and availability are based on the chosen venue and the amount of space it has, as organisers need to evaluate where the cameras, technical equipment, and stage will go before arranging audience seating.

How to watch Eurovision 2024 live

All three live programmes  both semi-finals and the grand final  will be broadcast live on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in 2024, meaning you can watch the contest live for free in the UK.

This comes after overall coverage of Eurovision across TV, radio, and online in 2023 increased by 55 per cent since 2022, reaching 29.8 million people.

What rules could be changed for Eurovision 2024?

The first Eurovision Song Contest Workshop took place at the Meistersaal, in Berlin, Germany, on September 12, 2023.

During the workshop, various potential rule changes were discussed.

A new draw

First and foremost, a draw could be introduced to determine which semi-final each participating country will be assigned to during the Eurovision Song Contest.

The allocation process will involve grouping semi-finalists into different sets, taking into account past voting trends.

The purpose of this is to minimise the likelihood of bloc voting, where groups of countries tend to vote in the same direction.

It is believed that it will also increase suspense during the semi-finals, while also deciding in which semi-final the automatic qualifiers, including the host country Sweden and the Big Five countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom), will participate. Plans are already underway for it to take place in January 2024.

Voting system changes

There may also be changes to the voting system on the way, with Norway's NRK broadcaster pushing for discussions with the EBU about revisions to the jury-voting procedure.

Following last years result, where Sweden came out on top despite Finlands high number of televotes and Norway placing sixth and fifth in 2019 and 2023 despite also receiving high numbers of televotes, Norway believes the system needs to be changed.

Specifically, Stig Karlsen, the Norwegian head of delegation, suggested reducing the jury's influence on the final score, lowering the jurys share from the current 49.4 per cent to either 40 per cent or even 30 per cent. Official announcements regarding these ideas are expected to be made in January.

AI in Eurovision

Finally, the idea of prohibiting any AI content was also discussed, with the aim of safeguarding human creativity moving forward.
Palestinians carry belongings as they leave al-Ahli hospital, which they were using as a shelter, in Gaza City, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. (PHOTO:AP Photo/Abed Khaled) (AP)

SINGAPORE Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan have expressed their condolences to their Palestinian counterparts on Wednesday (18 Oct) following a blast at a hospital in Gaza.

The explosion at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital on Tuesday marked the deadliest single incident in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, claiming the lives of hundreds of Palestinians.

In a letter addressed to Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, Prime Minister Lee conveyed his deep sadness over the "dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the loss of Palestinian civilian lives, including the tragic toll at the Ahli Arab Hospital".

He extended Singapore's "deep condolences" to the grieving families and called on all parties involved to adhere to international humanitarian law, prioritising the safety and security of civilians.

Prime Minister Lee also told Dr Shtayyeh that the Singaporean government had contributed S$300,000 toward humanitarian aid in response to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Tharman expresses concern over the situation

President Tharman, in his letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, expressed his concern about the "dire humanitarian situation" in Gaza and the immense loss of lives and suffering endured by innocent civilians.

"These have arisen from Israeli military operations in response to the attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October," he added.

He extended the deepest sympathies of the people of Singapore to the wounded and the bereaved families.

"Singapore urges all parties to do their utmost to protect the safety and security of civilians, abide by international humanitarian law, and allow for the urgent delivery of aid to the affected civilians in the Gaza Strip," Tharman added.

In his communication with Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Riad Al Malki, Foreign Affairs Minister Balakrishnan wrote that he was "extremely saddened by the mounting civilian toll in the Gaza Strip" in the aftermath of the hospital blast.

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He also extended his deepest condolences to the affected families and expressed concern about the "increasingly dire humanitarian situation in Gaza Strip".

Dr Balakrishnan mentioned the efforts by the Singapore government, the Singapore Red Cross, and the people of Singapore to raise funds for humanitarian support in Gaza.

He also said Singapore endorsed international calls for urgent humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip.

Singapore reiterates calls for a two-state solution

All three leaders also reiterated Singapore's position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, emphasising the necessity of a negotiated two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can coexist peacefully and securely.

Prime Minister Lee articulated this position, saying, "A negotiated two-state solution with Palestinians and Israelis living side-by-side in peace and security is the only viable way to break the repeated cycles of violence. I hope all parties will find ways to achieve this vision, consistent with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions."

President Tharman expressed his hope that all concerned parties would "find a way to work towards this critical goal."

Dr Balakrishnan also highlighted Singapore's belief that a negotiated two-state solution, in accordance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions, "is essential for a durable, just and comprehensive solution to this long standing conflict."

Do you have a story tip? Email: sgnews.tips@yahooinc.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Also check out our Southeast Asia, Food, and Gaming channels on YouTube.
Pancake Breakfast

St. John Lutheran Church, 2801 Jackson St., will host a pancake breakfast from 8 to 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21. This will be the last pancake breakfast of the year. Menu will include pancakes, sausage, eggs, coffee, juice, milk, butter, syrup. Donations will help the church's community outreach effort and support other non-profit groups, including St. John's twice-monthly food pantry.

Food Giveaway

Mayflower Congregational UCC, 1407 W. 18th St., will host its monthly Food Giveaway on Saturday, Oct. 21. The event is from 9 to 10:30 a.m. and is a drive-up or walk-up service in front of the church. All are welcome.

The Fabulous Blackwood Quartet

Trinity Lutheran Church, 220 Hardy St., Akron, Iowa, will host the Fabulous Blackood Quartet at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 22. Free will offering hosted by the Akron Ministerial Association.

Fall Craft & Vendor Fundraiser

St. Luke Lutheran Church, 2039 S St. Aubin, will present a Craft & Vendor Fundraiser from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4. Vendors & Crafters are called - $30 table fee. Bake sale items will be available. Call Michelle at 712-898-9349 to reserve your table. Free admission. Proceeds go towards the Youth Gathering trip to New Orleans.

Red Mass

Bishop Walker Nickless and the Sioux City Cathedral Parish will host a Red Mass Nov. 6 for workers in the legal profession. Bishop Nickless will celebrate the Mass at 5 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Epiphany.

Legal professionals and their families planning to attend are asked to RSVP to info@sccathedral.org. However, anyone who arrives without an RSVP is welcome to attend the Mass and the meal afterward.

The Man of the Shroud

Siouxland Catholic Radio will host an up-close experience of the most studied artifact of all time  The Shroud of Turin, what many believe to be the authentic burial cloth of Christ. The Man of the Shroud exhibit will include 42 beautifully designed panels. The exhibit will be on display at Siouxland Catholic Radio, located at 701 West Fifth St. (located in the historic St. Boniface Rectory and Social Hall) from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 14-16. This exhibit will raise the questions, Could the Shroud be the most important archaeological artifact ever found? Does it provide clues to what happened during the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus?

On Nov. 16, Shroud expert Jim Bertrand, M.Ed. of the American Confraternity of the Holy Shroud, will give two special presentations, at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., plus a rare viewing of a Shroud replica. The replicas of the Crown of Thorns, whips, nails, and Holy Sponge used in the Passion of Our Lord will also be on display from Spirit Catholic Radio, KVSS, from Omaha.

The exhibit is being held in conjunction with Siouxland Catholic Radios fall pledge drive. The exhibit and presentation are free and open to the public. A free-will offering will be taken on Nov. 16 for the American Confraternity of the Holy Shroud and to help offset Bertrands expenses.

For more information on this exhibit, visit siouxlandcatholicradio.com/shroud-of-Turin or contact Siouxland Catholic Radio at 712-224-5342.

Citywide confessions

In an effort to encourage the Catholic faithful to participate in the sacrament of reconciliation (confession), the four Catholic parishes in Sioux City are collaborating on citywide confessions throughout the next year.

Each parish will host one of four come and go confessions in the next 10 months to remind Catholics that the sacrament is available throughout the year  not just during the liturgical (church) seasons of Advent and Lent.

Confessions will be available at the following locations from 7 to 8 p.m. and the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed for confession participants to pray in adoration if they wish. Multiple priests will be present at each citywide confessions event.

Dec. 19 at the Cathedral of the Epiphany at 1000 Douglas St.

March 19 at Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ Church at 4241 Natalia Way

June 18 at Sacred Heart Parish at 5010 Military Rd.

Pastors of the four parishes include: The Rev. David Hemann of Holy Cross Parish, which includes Blessed Sacrament and St. Michael churches; The Rev. David Esquiliano of Cathedral Parish, which includes the Cathedral of the Epiphany, St. Boniface and St. Joseph churches; The Rev. Brad Pelzel of Mater Dei Parish, which includes Immaculate Conception and Nativity churches, and The Rev. Tim Friedrichsen of Sacred Heart Parish

Food pantry

St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 1200 Douglas St., will have its food pantry open from 10 a.m. to noon Mondays.
SIOUX CITY  The City of Sioux City is reminding residents not to dispose of grass clippings and leaves in streets, detention basins, creeks, ditches or drainage ways.

The city said in a statement that depositing grass clippings and leaves in the street is a violation of city code and can result in blocked storm inlets, which can cause local flooding and has a negative impact on water quality. Homeowners are responsible for proper disposal of grass clippings and fallen leaf debris.

Residents can dispose of yard waste in the following ways:

Residential garbage containers - All yard waste, including grass clippings and leaves, can be placed in a residential garbage container. The city prefers that yard waste be bagged.

Yard waste bags - If garbage containers are full, paper yard waste bags may be used and can be purchased at any hardware store. A solid waste sticker must be attached to each bag. Stickers are available for $1.50 at City Hall, Hy-Vee, Fareway, Walmart and Bomgaars (Hamilton location only).

Citizen's Convenience Center (CCC)  Grass clippings and leaves are accepted at the CCC free of charge for Sioux City residents. There is a fee charged to commercial lawn care businesses for disposal of leaf/grass debris.
Because of previous felony convictions, Wilson was prohibited from possessing firearms. Trial evidence showed that while Sioux City police were investigating a June 9, 2022, homicide, they learned Wilson had been at the crime scene before and after the homicide with a backpack containing several guns. Officers executed a search warrant on Wilson's home and found a loaded gun in his bed and the backpack containing ammunition, but no guns.
SIOUX CITY  Police on Thursday publicly identified the vehicle driver who fled from the scene of a fatal hit and run crash Friday.

Police said Wesley Staten, 30, of Sioux City, voluntarily spoke with police Saturday, the day after he's suspected of crashing a Ford Expedition into another car at Sixth Street and Wesley Parkway, resulting in the death of the car's two occupants.

Staten has not been arrested or charged with an offense, and the crash investigation continues.

The crash was reported at 9:11 p.m. Friday at the Sioux City intersection. According to police, Staten was driving west on Sixth Street at a high rate of speed in the SUV, went through a red light and struck a Ford Fusion heading north on Wesley Parkway.

Terry Alan Frisbie, 51, of Sioux City, and 50-year-old Judith Lee Jordan, of Le Mars, Iowa, were killed in the crash.

Both vehicles left the roadway and hit a traffic signal pole, and Staten fled the scene on foot, police said.
SIOUX CITY  The Woodbury County Board of Supervisors continues to discuss details of the new law enforcement center.

Two weeks in a row the Board of Supervisors has had significant conversations about the details surrounding the delay of the completion of law enforcement center, financial damages due to the delay, potential legal representation and other concerns that have arisen.

The new law enforcement center project was to be completed on Sept. 14, but it was discovered that 38 fire dampers were missing from the building, pushing the project completion date to a proposed April 9, 2024.

One main concern the supervisors discussed is having the same lawyer represent both the Law Enforcement Center Authority, Baker Group and potentially the board of supervisors.

The LEC Authority signed a letter of agreement with Fredrikson & Byron P.A. in August to represent them. No information was given regarding why the law firm was representing them and the engagement letter was not made public.

Supervisor Jeremy Taylor said when looking into Fredrickson & Byron, he was told the attorney representing the LEC Authority, Jodie McDougal, often represents the Baker Group.

Taylor has been asking for legal counsel on a variety of LEC matters for the last two months. For matters related to the project such as construction, maintenance, contracts, and bonds, Taylor said the board was told outside counsel was needed for the issue. He was advised the Board of Supervisors and the LEC Authority could be jointly represented by McDougal.

He said the board has waited over a month to receive an engagement letter and was told they would need to sign a conflict waiver.

Taylor said being represented by McDougal would be just as much of a conflict as if they were represented by the attorneys for the project's architect or contractor.

I believe it would be a huge mistake by this board, he said.

When previously challenged regarding the conflict of interest, McDougal said she was transparent with the Authority regarding her previous work with the Baker Group and had asked if there was any adversity between The Baker Group and the Authority. Because there was no adversity, they signed the engagement letter.

If a conflict would arise between the two groups, McDougal would step aside and no longer represent the Authority, LEC Authority Chair Ron Wieck said.

Taylor asked that the letter of engagement between the Authority and Fredrickson & Byron be made public.

He said the board could use an outside attorney to receive an independent review of the situation, keep the interest between the Authority and the Board of Supervisors aligned, and answer the questions the board has had about the project up to this point. Supervisor Keith Radig also expressed interest in the board retaining an attorney for the issue.

I do think, in my view, there is an extreme conflict to have hired the same attorney, he said.

Radig also expressed concern regarding the Baker Group taking part in closed sessions regarding the discussion of potential litigation. He said he was concerned about having someone who could be potentially liable for the delay present in the closed session.

And then you hired that persons attorney, he said.

Board Chair Matthew Ung said the board has numerous concerns regarding the project, but the main priority should be completing the project and getting the appropriate financial recuperations due to the delay.

He said whatever law firm the board potentially chooses to hire needs to be able to expedite the damages and claims process. Ung said he would rely on the County Attorneys Office to vet any potential attorneys.

Mark Nelson, a supervisor and Law Enforcement Center Authority member said he could see a way for the Board of Supervisors to seek damages separate from the Suthority.

Other conversations that took place on Tuesday included:

Nelson said 30 of the 38 missing fire dampers have been installed, but 11 need electricity to be wired;

On LEC site the punch list for the County Attorney's space has completed, the parking lots have been stripped, landscaping is being done and the state jail inspector visited the site;

Nelson asked that there be an LEC update on the Board of Supervisors agenda every other week;

Nelson will ask the LEC Authority to allow citizens two minutes per agenda item to ask questions and three minutes during the public concerns section of the meeting;

Ung and Taylor suggested the LEC Authority record their meetings and post it online for the public to be able to view and;

Dan Bittinger asked for the process of getting the supervisors on the site to be expedited.

Nelson addressed concerns regarding Baker Group's pay increase and the hiring of Ron Wiecks son.

The Baker Group is the Law Enforcement Center Authoritys owner representative, and their contract was set to expire on Oct. 1. The Authority approved the contract extension for $34,000 a month until the project is complete. So far, the LEC Authority has paid $1.46 million to Baker Group for their services.

The original contract was amended to have the Baker Group fee set at $1.325 million until April 1 as a cost-saving measure. It was then amended again to increase that sum by $138,000 to cover the additional time frame of April 1 through Oct. 1.

When the contract was extended in April at $138,000 for six months, Albrecht said Baker Group charged the bare minimum of what was needed to operate for that timeline.

Nelson said he was concerned about the cost increase but understood that this additional cost would become part of the damages that the county will seek to recuperate.

He said the original $1.325 million contract was for 34 months, breaking down to $38,970 a month. When it was extended for an additional six months, the monthly cost was $23,000 a month.

Nelson said the average is $36,575 a month.

Learning that information I think its appropriate that the $34,000 maintains, the $23,000 a month was a gesture to try to get us through, he said. Baker Group says they just cannot sustain that contract price the rest of the way through ... and even the $34,000 is not necessarily where they would like to be either but theyre trying to be a good partner.

Another topic from last weeks LEC Authority meeting included the employment of Todd Wieck as the Baker Groups onsite manager for the jail project. Todd Wieck is the LEC Authority Chair Ron Wiecks son. Citizens who attended the meeting expressed disapproval of the continued employment of Todd Wieck.

Nelson said Todd Wieck was hired well after The Baker Group had a contract with the LEC Authority. He said at that time, they could have used better judgment.

I think that the two parties should not have been involved, he said.

Despite the conflict of interest, Nelson said everyone involved with the project has said Todd Wieck has done an impeccable job.

Nelson said he will ask Ron Wieck to recuse himself from any future discussion regarding contracts or pay for The Baker Group.
DES MOINES  Iowa U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks switched her vote for House speaker on Wednesday, joining nearly two dozen Republicans who voted against Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio on his second try at clinching the position.

She was the only Iowa Republican to vote against Jordan, while Reps. Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson and Zach Nunn stuck with the majority of Republicans in supporting the hard-right chair of the House Judiciary Committee. All four voted for Jordan on Tuesday.

Miller-Meeks cast her vote Wednesday for Republican Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, the House Appropriations Committee Chair who also voted against Jordan.

Jordan, the co-founder of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, won the majority of Republicans' support for speaker in a closed-door vote last week, but he could not muster the needed votes to win more than half of the House of Representatives to become the speaker.

Miller-Meeks, who represents Iowa's southeast 1st Congressional District, said in an interview on Tuesday she had reservations about Jordan becoming speaker. Those concerns included past opposition to the farm bill and biofuel subsidies, as well as the pressure tactics used by Jordan allies to whip votes, but she said she spoke with Jordan and he addressed those concerns.

"Given those assurances, I honored my commitment and respect for our rule," she said. "Our conference rule is whoever gets the majority gets the vote on the House floor. I honored that commitment, and I honored my desire to open the House."

A representative for Miller-Meeks did not immediately respond to a request for comment on her vote change.

Miller-Meeks faces what is expected to be a competitive reelection challenge from former Democratic state Rep. Christina Bohannan, who lost her 2022 challenge to Miller-Meeks' seat.

In an emailed statement on Wednesday, Bohannan skewered Miller-Meeks' initial vote for Jordan, noting he has opposed farm bills in the past and supported a nationwide strict abortion ban.

"Then she switched her vote to Kay Granger, who has been called a 'hero' of the movement to ban all abortions," Bohannan said. "Miller-Meeks continues to sell us out rather than work in a bipartisan way to get the job done for Iowans."

Hinson calls to empower Patrick McHenry

The House is expected to reconvene on Thursday for a potential third vote with no clear path forward to unify around a speaker.

A number of House Republicans are calling to empower speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, who currently lacks significant power, in order to perform Congressional functions and pass legislation. McHenry is a Republican from North Carolina and ally of ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson said in a video posted to X that the House should not have adjourned for the day, and she criticized the far-right "chaos agents" that orchestrated McCarthy's ouster.

She said if a consensus candidate cannot be found quickly, House Republicans should empower McHenry to carry out House business.

"We should be on the floor voting for speaker, or in conference to work out some kind of a plan," Hinson said in the video. "This embarrassing chaos and dysfunction cannot continue."

Miller-Meeks joined Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, in a social media post on Wednesday calling for the House to immediately come back to session, though she did not say what she thought the next step should be.

Miller-Meeks suggested on Tuesday House Republicans could empower McHenry.

"I think that you can have a privileged resolution on the floor to empower the Speaker Pro Tem to be able to do the business of the House," she said.

Grassley says there is 'urgency' to elect new speaker

Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley told reporters on Wednesday House Republicans need to resolve the speaker gridlock quickly in order to respond to pressing issues facing congress, including in Israel and the Middle East.

He said the failure to elect a speaker risks a government shutdown, as a short-term funding bill passed last month is set to expire on Nov. 17.

"They've lost a whole half of the time between three weeks ago and Nov. 17 to get the appropriation bills done," Grassley said. "So there's a lot of urgency to getting a speaker, whoever he is."

Grassley said he did not want to comment on how House Republicans should move past the impasse and that getting involved as a senator would "do more harm than good."
Early voting in Iowas city and school elections began this week ahead of the election on Nov. 7. Heres everything you need to know to be ready to cast your ballot.

Iowans will vote for nonpartisan city council, mayor and school board offices.

City and school elected officials play a critical role in our day-to-day lives, so its vitally important for Iowans to make their voices heard in Novembers elections, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said in a statement this month. The best way to make your voice heard is to vote, and to be successful in voting, Iowans should solidify their voting plans early.

How to register to vote

Voters can check their registration at Iowas secretary of state website. If you are not registered, or you moved since you last voted, you may need to update your registration.

Iowa residents with a state drivers license or non-operators ID can register online at the Iowa DOT website, or mymvd.iowadot.gov/voter registration.

Otherwise, you can print a form from the Iowa secretary of states website, and either bring it to your local county auditor or send it in the mail.

To be eligible to register you must meet the following requirements:

 Be a U.S. citizen

 Be an Iowa resident

 Be at least 17 years old, and at least 18 on or before Election Day

 Not judged mentally incompetent to vote by a court

 Not claim the right to vote anywhere else

An Iowa ID is required to register online. You dont need an ID to register with your county auditors office, but you will need a valid ID to vote, both early and on Election Day.

If you want to register to vote before election day, you must register 15 days early, by Oct. 23. If you miss that deadline, you can register on Election Day if you have an ID and proof of residence.

Voting early

You can vote early both by mail and at satellite voting locations set up by your county auditor.

An absentee ballot can be requested from your county auditor by filling out a request form, which can be found online, and sending it through the mail or bringing it to the auditors office in person.

You will need the following information to fill out your absentee ballot request form:

 Name

 Date of birth

 Iowa residential address

 ID number or four-digit voter PIN located on the back of your Voter ID Card

 The name or date of the election for which you are requesting an absentee ballot

The absentee ballot request must be received by your county auditor by Oct. 23 if you vote by mail. When returning an absentee ballot, it will need to be received by your county auditors office by 8 p.m. on Nov. 7. Any ballot received after that date cannot be counted.

You also have the option of voting early in person at a satellite voting location or at your county auditors office. Most auditors offices are open for early voting during business hours between now and the Monday before the election. Check with your county auditors office for a list of satellite early voting locations.

Voting on Election Day

To vote on election day, voters will need to go to their local precinct. You can find your precinct at the secretary of states website, or through your local county auditor.

Polls will generally be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Iowa requires an ID to vote, so you will need to bring a drivers license or non-operator ID. Voters who do not have a drivers license can obtain an Iowa Voter ID card when they register to vote. Other acceptable IDs include a passport, military or veteran ID or tribal ID card.

A voter without an ID can also have another person attest to their identity, or cast a provisional ballot and provide ID before the time the votes are canvassed.

If you register on Election Day, you will also need a proof of residence. More information can be found at the Iowa Secretary of State website.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP)  Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes Thursday, including in the south where Palestinians were told to take refuge, as the Israeli defense minister ordered ground troops to prepare to see Gaza from the inside, though he didnt indicate when the ground assault would begin.

Gazas overwhelmed hospitals tried to stretch out ebbing medical supplies and fuel for generators, as authorities worked out logistics for a desperately needed aid delivery from Egypt. Doctors in darkened wards across Gaza performed surgeries by the light of mobile phones and used vinegar to treat infected wounds.

Amid the violence, President Joe Biden pledged unwavering support for Israel's security, today and always, while adding that the world cant ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians" in the besieged Gaza Strip.

In an address Thursday night from the Oval office, hours after returning to Washington from an urgent visit to Israel, Biden drew a distinction between ordinary Palestinians and Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. He linked the current war in Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin "both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.

Biden said he was sending an urgent budget request to Congress on Friday, to cover emergency military aid to both Israel and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, an unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment delivered to Congress estimated casualties in an explosion at a Gaza City hospital this week on the low end of 100 to 300 deaths. The death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life, U.S. intelligence officials said in the report, seen by The Associated Press. It said intelligence officials were still assessing the evidence and their casualty estimate may evolve.

Biden and other U.S. officials already have said that U.S. intelligence officials believe the explosion at al-Ahli Hospital was not caused by an Israeli airstrike. Thursdays findings echoed that.

The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for the devastating Oct. 7 Hamas rampage in southern Israel. Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north of Gaza and flee south, strikes extended across the territory, heightening fears among the territory's 2.3 million people that nowhere was safe.

Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel from Gaza and Lebanon, and tensions flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In a fiery speech to Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant urged the forces to get organized, be ready to move in. Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border.

Whoever sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the inside," he said. It might take a week, a month, two months until we destroy them, he added, referring to Hamas.

Israels consent for Egypt to let in food, water and medicine provided the first possible opening in its seal of the territory. Many Gaza residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.

Egypt and Israel were still negotiating the entry of fuel for hospitals. Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Hamas has stolen fuel from U.N. facilities and Israel wants assurances that wont happen. The first trucks of aid were expected to go in Friday.

With the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah closed, the already dire conditions at Gazas second-largest hospital deteriorated further, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel of Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis. Power was shut off in most of the hospital and medical staff were using mobile phones for light.

At least 80 wounded civilians and 12 dead flooded into the hospital after witnesses said a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis. Doctors had no choice but to leave two to die because there were no ventilators, Qandeel said.

We cant save more lives if this keeps happening, he said.

The Gaza Health Ministry pleaded with gas stations to give fuel to hospitals and a U.N. agency donated some of its last fuel.

The agency's donation to Gaza Citys Shifa Hospital, the territorys largest, would keep us going for another few hours, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said.

Al-Ahli Hospital was still recovering from Tuesday's explosion, which remains a point of dispute between Hamas and Israel. Hamas quickly said an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital, which Israel denied. The AP has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

The blast left body parts strewn on the hospital grounds, where crowds of Palestinians had clustered in hopes of escaping Israeli airstrikes. The U.S. assessment noted only light structural damage, with no impact crater visible.

Near al-Ahli, meanwhile, another explosion struck a Greek Orthodox church housing displaced Palestinians late Thursday, resulting in deaths and dozens of wounded. Abu Selmia, the Shifa Hospital director general, said dozens were hurt at the Church of Saint Porphyrios but could not give a precise death toll because bodies were buried under rubble.

Palestinian authorities blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike, a claim that could not be independently verified. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchy of Jerusalem condemned the attack and said it would not abandon its religious and humanitarian duty to provide assistance.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under rubble, authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas deadly incursion. Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

More than 1 million Palestinians, about half of Gazas population, have fled their homes in the north since Israel told them to evacuate, crowding into U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters or the homes of relatives.

For the first time since Israel captured Gaza from Egypt in 1967, a major tent camp arose to house displaced people. Dozens of U.N.-provided tents lined a dirt lot in Khan Younis.

The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territorys only connection to Egypt, remained fragile. Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians and that it would thwart any diversions by Hamas. Biden said the deliveries will end if Hamas takes any aid.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, according to Khalid Zayed, the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai.

Under an arrangement reached between the United Nations, Israel and Egypt, U.N. observers will inspect the trucks before entering Gaza. The U.N., working with the Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent, will ensure aid goes only to civilians, an Egyptian official and European diplomat told the AP. A U.N. flag will be raised on both sides of the crossing as a sign of protection against airstrikes, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

It was not immediately clear how much cargo the crossing could handle. Waleed Abu Omar, spokesperson for the Palestinian side, said work has not started to repair the road damaged by Israeli airstrikes.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV that foreigners and dual nationals would be allowed to leave Gaza once the crossing was opened.

Israel said it agreed to allow aid from Egypt because of a request by Biden  which followed days of intense talks with the U.S. secretary of state to overcome staunch Israeli refusal.

Israel had previously said it would let nothing into Gaza until Hamas freed the hostages taken from Israel. Relatives of some of the captives were furious over the aid announcement.

The Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said.

The Israeli military said Thursday it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including militant tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centers. Palestinians have launched barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.

Violence was also escalating in the West Bank, where Israel carried out a rare airstrike Thursday, targeting militants in the Nur Shams refugee camp.

Six Palestinians were killed, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, and the Israeli military said the strike killed militants and resulted in 10 Israeli officers being wounded. More than 74 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war started.
This piece originally appeared in the Conversation

Ohios Amish Country, located in the northeastern part of the state, draws over 4 million visitors every yearsecond only to Cedar Point amusement park as the Buckeye States most popular tourist attraction.

October, with its cooler temperatures and spectacular colors, is the regions peak month for tourist traffic. Hundreds of thousands of tourists descend on the area in the fall to shop for Amish-made furniture, enjoy buggy rides, and visit small towns that many Americans romanticize as bucolic escapes from the world.

And what will they find in the shops that line the main streets of towns like Berlin, Sugarcreek, and Walnut Creek? Among other things, a plethora of items that feature Christian nationalist motifs, intense patriotism, and ominous suggestions of violenceall antithetical to the core values of the Amish.

The reality is that Amish Country tourism has long been at odds with the plain and simple life of the Amisha discrepancy at the heart of my 2012 book Selling the Amish: The Tourism of Nostalgia.

A Life Apart

Descended from Anabaptist immigrants who fled religious persecution in Europe, the Amish typically live in rural areas where they seek to live a different sort of life, resisting aspects of contemporary American culture that undermine their commitments to church, family, and community.

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To live at a slower pace, they drive horse-drawn buggies instead of cars. To pursue their calling to follow Jesus rather than chase personal ambitions, they stop school after eighth grade. To avoid the distractions of consumer culture, they prohibit TVs and internet connections in their homes. And to keep themselves humble, they yield to communal rules about dressing plainly, living in modest homes, and keeping their businesses small.

Seeking to follow Jesus, they embrace nonviolence and find inspiration in the story of a 16th-century Anabaptist, Dirk Willems, who was imprisoned for his faith. He escaped, but because of his commitment to love his enemy, he turned back when he saw that his captor had fallen through the ice. His captor survived to witness Willems being burned at the stake.

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Out of their deep commitment to separation between church and state, the Amish refuse to swear oaths, receive Social Security benefits, or join the military. Thats why you wont see an American flag in an Amish school or hear Amish students recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Amish Brand

Yet tourist towns capitalizing on what has become the Amish brand are full of gift shops selling merchandise you would not expect to find in an Amish homeUncle Sam cutouts, Mickey Mouse yard flags, ornate lace curtains, and Elvis Presley figurines.

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As a scholar of rhetoric and religion, Ive long been curious about Amish Country tourism, since it seemedat least on the face of itto have so little to do with the Amish themselves. Selling the Amish was my attempt to explain why many Americans found Amish Country so compelling.

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My answer was that Amish Country tourism afforded visitors a nostalgic experience of a simpler time when Americans could imagine that they were in control of technology, that men were men and women were women, and that families sat down to Moms home-cooked meal every evening.

The regions tourist towns play into the nostalgic desire that visitors have for a future that resembles an imagined past. In that imagined future, they would, like the Amish, escape cultural forces that they think have compromised Americas ability to be the Christian nation it supposedly once was.

A Glimpse of Real Life

Since 2008, Ive taken students from the University of Dayton to the Amish settlement located in Holmes and Wayne counties in northeastern Ohio.

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In the course of the day, we visit a two-room school run by the New Order Amish, whose rules for daily life are among the least strict among the Amish. Then were off to a candle shop owned and operated by five Old Order Amish sisters, followed by a visit to a Swartzentruber Amish farm. The Swartzentruber are among the strictest Amish groups. In the small shop located between the house and a woodworking shop, a young woman sells woven baskets, homemade preserves, and wood furnishings crafted by her father. We also enjoy meals and conversation at two Amish homes.

Of course, the stops we make are part of the tourism industry. And many Amish make their living from that industry, whether they are crafting solid wood furniture, serving diners in Amish-style restaurants, or preparing hotel rooms for guests.

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Importantly, the Amish dont own the big Amish-style restaurants or gift shops or hotels. And because I want my students to have conversations with the people they have been studying, we spend very little time in these tourist towns.

When I was invited to present a paper last summer on Amish Country tourisman update of Selling the Amish, as it wereI was obliged to spend some time in those tourist towns.

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Guns and Crosses

What I saw blew me away. There I was, in the heart of the biggest Amish settlement in the world when measured by the number of congregations. This area is home to nearly 40,000 Amish people deeply committed to pacifism: people who would rather suffer solitary confinement and reduced rationsas some did during World War Ithan participate in the war machine, and who would never sing the national anthem.

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Yet, I saw the Stars and Stripes everywhere: on T-shirts, ball caps, decorative wreaths, candles, and, perhaps most strikingly, wooden crosses. There were concrete statues of soldiers kneeling at crosses, patriotic bunting and images of the Founding Fathers, with facsimiles of the Declaration of Independence, the Ten Commandments, and the Pledge of Allegiance nearby.

A large display in one Berlin shop featured merchandise from Hold Fast, a company whose website says its merchandise is designed for freedom loving Americans who want to see Biblical values preserved and are taking a stand and letting their voices be heard. Flags figure prominently across the merchandise, along with messages like One nation under God. Psalm 33:12. Hold Fast.

I was even more taken aback by home decor items announcing that the 2nd Amendment is my gun permit, along with thermoses challenging government authorities to come and take itit being a gunand coffee mugs that listed gun calibers (.22, .380, 9 mm, .40, .45), proclaiming, All faster than dialing 911.

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Amish Country tourism has never simply been about the plain and simple life of the Amish. But these days, sites that fuse Christian symbols and sacred texts with a brand of nationalism that celebrates masculine bravado, guns, and the military marks a further and dramatic remove from the character of Amish life.

Still, if one ventures down a back road and ends up behind a slow-moving buggy or ducks into an Amish-owned shop selling bulk foods, handmade brooms, or half-moon pies, they can still encounter a people whose life is wildly at odds with so much that characterizes mainstream America today.
Each week, Prudie discusses a tricky letter with a colleague or friend, just for Slate Plus members. This week Jenee Desmond-Harris discusses her response to What Do I Owe? with fellow Slate writer (and also her husband) Joel Anderson.

Dear Prudence,

My brother, Greg, is over a decade younger than me, born during my absent fathers second marriage. We were raised in different states, but I looked in on him during the early days of COVID and found that he was busy producing right wing social media content about COVID conspiracies and racist ideas. Greg and I recently reconnected over a few visits home while my grandmother was dying. I was very closed off to him at first, but to my surprise he admitted that he used to just repeat everything his conservative stepdad said and just wanted to get attention on the internet by being inflammatory. It was a level of self-awareness Ive never heard from someone with those views, and it made me curious about whether a reconciliation would be possible. But given that he mostly just rolled his eyes at his younger self, Im not sure hes had a true change of heart.

Greg is getting married next year and asked if I would attend and help with the wedding (Im in the industry). My gut says theres no way I want to block off a valuable summer weekend, pay for a flight, and also do actual work for this personbut Im torn on whether I should just say Im busy or if I should explain why I wont be attending. They havent set a date yet, and its going to be pretty small and casual, so he suggested they could work with my schedule as the only out-of-town guest. I really just dont want to go, but I wasnt prepared to maybe have to take a stand about something that seems to be actively cooling off. If we were peers, it would be an easy decision to not spend time with a racist, but as the much older sibling I feel some pangs of guilt for not being around to guide him. Our father abandoned both of us, and I feel like I abandoned him too, even though I was just a kid too for half his life. What do you think?

What Do I Owe?

Read Prudies original response to this letter.

Jenee Desmond-Harris: So obviously both of us reflexively hate Greg because we know what conservative combined with inflammatory means: RACIST AS HELL.

Joel Anderson: Hell yeah, and the LW thankfully has recognized and labeled him as such. And even more credit to them for confronting him, or at least broaching a conversation with him, about his views and the things that hes posted online. Im actually impressed that shes torn about what to do here, even though thats probably not much solace.

Jenee: Its not even like he was just consuming the content and maybe repeating it around the dinner table. He was producing it!

Joel: Yeah, thats a whole other level of engagement. He mightve been posting memes about how the Irish were slaves. And you know what? I didnt read anything about how hes disavowed those previous beliefs, or how hes working to become a better, more open-minded person. Where is Greg in his journey from being a handmaiden for the alt-right? Seems like the LW should figure that out.

Jenee: Right, and even if hes changed, the fact remains that he and the LW just arent very close. The LW says I wasnt prepared to maybe have to take a stand about something that seems to be actively cooling off but not attending the small wedding of a sibling you really dont know isnt taking a stand. Its just doing something that reflects your current relationship. Now, if LW said they were desperate to become closer to Greg, that would be a different story, and this would be a great way to create some intimacy. But thats not where we are.

Joel: I didnt read or even detect anything in the letter that says the LW actually desires a relationship with Greg. They feel guilt, but not necessarily affection. Is Greg becoming the kind of person that the LW wants to spend time with going forward? It sure doesnt seem like it.

My one caveat here though is that: If the LW doesnt go to the wedding, theyll likely never have a real sibling relationship with Greg. And they need to decide if theyre OK with that. Because, as weve discussed before, weddings are often a big deal in building or solidifying relationships.

Jenee: Yeah, these events do have the potential to change the trajectory of a relationship. But Im just not seeing it for LW and Greg! And a relationship based on guilt and obligation is never going to really be rewarding to either of them.

Joel: True, but we do have to appreciate that the LW has some desire to explore forming a new sibling bond with Greg. So maybe what needs to be done is the really hard thing: Revisiting that previous conversation about his previous racist online work, and getting a sense for what he believes now. If the LW doesnt like the answer, then they can move on. But on the off-chance that Greg disavows his earlier beliefs, or is at least embarrassed by them, then maybe the wedding is a good test for what comes next in their relationship.

Im guessing  you disagree.

Jenee: I mean, you know I am not above cutting off a sibling over his atrocious beliefs. Been there, done that. But putting myself in the LWs shoes, I think they are likely more tolerant than I am, and if they can get Greg to say I dont actually think Black people are genetically inferior anymore, I just think theres a problem with Black culture and Black Lives Matter is a gang they might chalk it up to political differences and be satisfied! Who knows! If there is something they would hear that would make them want to be close, and being close would make them happy, Im all for pursuing it.

Joel: Right, we have to set our beliefs aside here because were not people who believe that political differences are insignificant. I have a hard time believing people can just walk away from racist beliefs if theyre not actively working to correct them. BUT, if the LW is OK with Gregs evolution, then maybe they can have the sibling relationship theyve never had before. I promise not to judge you, LW. Well, not publicly.

Jenee: Just dont be shocked if you take time away from work, volunteer your services at the wedding, and then the first dance is to that racist country song everyone was talking about a few weeks ago and youre made out to be the mean, intolerant bad guy for not liking it.

Joel: Or maybe a wedding toast about the great replacement theory and how the couple needs to have more white babies? Lol.

Jenee: OMG. I mean, everyones entitled to their opinion, right?
Justice Amy Coney Barrett recently became the second member of the Supreme Court, joining Justice Elena Kagan, to explicitly support the adoption of a SCOTUS ethics code. It would be a good idea to adopt a code, she told an audience on Monday at the University of Minnesota Law School, particularly so that we can communicate to the public exactly what it is that we are doing in a clearer way than perhaps we have been able to do so far. That was admirable candor, not least because it must have ruffled some feathers among the likely holdouts on the court.

But then Barrett continued with an assurance that there is unanimity among all nine justices that we should and do hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards possible. Who was she kidding? Perhaps she had to concede something like that as a matter of politesse, but anyone who has been paying attention knows that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have not been holding themselves to the highest ethical standards possible. At best, they have grudgingly adhered to the bare-minimum legal requirements of their job, while flouting anything resembling the highest possible standards. Alito has even bragged of his belief that no institution can hold the justices accountable.

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A justice committed to the highest ethical standards would recognize that even the appearance of impropriety is damaging to the legitimacy of the court. That justice would scrupulously follow financial disclosure obligations, carefully reading the rules to ensure compliance, never making the same mistake twice, avoiding feeble excuses, and erring on the side of disclosure whenever there is doubt.

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Thomas has done virtually the opposite. He failed to disclose his wifes employment for two decades, correcting his responses only after the omission was reported in the press. His excusethat he misread the simple instructions for 20 yearswas implausible at the time, yet he has recently reused it twice: once for his failure to disclose a real estate transaction with billionaire Harlan Crow, and again for the omission of bank accounts on his financial reports.

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Speaking of Crow, Thomas and his wife, Virginia, accepted decades of luxury vacations and other lavish gifts from Crow and other Republican megadonors, all without disclosure, on Thomas dubious theory that cruises to Indonesia and the Caribbean, as well as flights on private jets, were nothing more than personal hospitality for which the public had no right to or interest in full information.

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Alitos disclosures have been much the same, with the added twist that he justified omitting a private jet flight to an Alaska fishing resort, hosted by yet another Republican billionaire, by calling the plane a transportation facility. He also claimed that the trip fell below the disclosure threshold because his seat would have otherwise been vacant.

Thomas and Alitos view of financial disclosure has been cramped, narrow, and reluctant, but that is not the worst of it. Their approach to recusal has been in blatant disregard of both law and ethics.

Related From Slate It Turns Out John Roberts Was Right About Supreme Court Ethics Rules Read More

On April 25, all nine justices signed a Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices, which they submitted to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Regarding recusal, the statement affirmed that the justices would follow the same general principles and statutory standards as the lower federal courts, which adopted the Code of Judicial Conduct in 1973. Moreover, the statement added, a justice may provide a summary explanation of a recusal decision by referencing the code. Despite their signatures on the statement, Alito and Thomas have done neither so far.

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In a Wall Street Journal interview, Alito actually declared that he did not consider himself bound by the federal recusal statute. He later followed through by denying a recusal request in a contentious case, announcing that it was strictly a personal decision, while overtly failing even to mention the federal law or judicial code.

Meanwhile, Thomas recusal choices have been, shall we say, questionable under the standardwhether impartiality might reasonably be questionedfound in both the federal statute and judicial code. In January, for example, the justice fully participated in a case involving former President Donald Trumps attempt to block a congressional committees subpoena for White House records relating to the Jan. 6 insurrection, even though Virginia Thomas had exchanged numerous texts with Trumps chief of staff in the days leading up to the attack on the Capitol. Although Virginia had attended the Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6 and had protested the House Select Committees investigation, Thomas cast the sole dissenting vote when the court turned away Trumps request to shield the records.

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Thomas did recently recuse himself in a failed appeal by his former clerk John Eastman that sought to bar access to emails relating to his efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Like Alito, Thomas made no mention of federal law or judicial ethics in the one-sentence order removing himself from the case. And because Thomas offered no explanation of his reasoning, it is unclear whether the recusal was prompted by his own relationship with Eastman or by Virginia Thomas involvement in the election protests.

The Supreme Court remains the only court in the U.S. without a written code of conduct. If Barrett is going to change that, she will have to confront the depressing reality that while some justices do regard ethics as an aspiration, for others they are just a nuisance.
This is Totally Normal Quote of the Day, a new feature where we pull a particularly wild statement from the news as a reminder of just how extremely normal everything has become.

Right now, the construct is everyone gets in a room, we open a mic, and its a therapy session.  Thats not working.  It sounds silly, but lets go to Gettysburg or something.  We need to sequester ourselves somewhere else outside the beltway. GOP Rep. Mike Garcia, after Jim Jordan lost his second speakership vote on Oct. 18

The quest continues, as Republicans endeavor to fulfill perhaps the most basic job of a congressional majority: picking a speaker. It was never going well, and somehow, its going worse than ever. Jim Jordan has now lost two speakership elections and, on Thursday, said he would not walk directly into a third unsuccessful vote, following Steve Scalise into a withdrawal and a failed bid. (Although, wait, maybe he will.) In the meantime, the GOPs Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry will continue the job hes held since Kevin McCarthy got his pink slip on Oct. 3, possibly with some made-up additional powers to complement his interim role. But even McHenry is nowhere near becoming the for-real full-time speaker of the House.

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Related From Slate A Democrat Made the Worst Suggestion Yet for the Next Speaker of the House Read More

In their past two weeks, headless Republicans have put together the most disordered display of governance in memory. Some members, like Mike Garcia, who represents a California district won by Joe Biden, are no doubt getting a little antsy. Therapy is not a terribly comforting thing to invoke to describe the most basic procedural activity of the legislative chamber.

Garcias solution? A weekend getaway to Gettysburg.

Fall is a nice time for travel on the Eastern Seaboardorange foliage, apple pickingbut presumably that suggestion has something to do with the famed Civil War battle and Abraham Lincolns 1863 Gettysburg Address. Perhaps Garcia thinks taking the fractious GOP caucus to see a be-costumed reenactment of the Unions great triumph is the very thing that Republicans need to set their differences aside.

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But its not clear what exactly he expects them to glean from Lincoln. Sure, the House GOP is locked in its own civil war of sorts, but the caucus overwhelming majority has chosen repeatedly to nominate a member who was closely involved with an insurrection attempt, voted to overturn the 2020 election results, and then lost. If you had to choose, youd have to say that that would put them more in league with the Confederacy than the Union. And some House Republicans wouldnt bristle at that comparison.

The last lines of Lincolns address seem somewhat relevant: that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. But then you remember that what these Republicans are looking for in a replacement speaker of the House is someone more willing than Kevin McCarthy was to shut down that very same government.
Update, Oct. 19, 12:15 p.m.: According to multiple reports including the Washington Posts, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan is pausing his effort to become speaker of the House and will support a plan to expand the authority of interim speaker Patrick McHenry and extend his tenure through January.

Original post, Oct. 18, 5:50 p.m.: On Monday, Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan appeared close to becoming speaker of the House. But on Tuesday, only 200 members of his 221-member party caucus voted for his candidacy on the House floor. It was more than twice as many no votes as hed reportedly expected, and it left him 17 votes shy of the 217 he needs. (One of Jordans supporters was unable to attend Tuesdays vote but has since returned to the Hill.) On Wednesday, he came back for another vote, and  22 members of his party voted against his candidacy, leaving him 18 votes short, which is more than 17.

The group of Republicans voting against Jordan, a major supporter of former President Donald Trump who was active in the efforts to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021, includes both vulnerable front-line members from swing districts and safer veteran members who have roles on the Appropriations Committee. The latter legislators have long seen their efforts to pass budget bills interrupted by right-wing agitators in the Freedom Caucus, and theyre not keen to see Jordan, one of the Freedom Caucus founding leaders, benefit from the deposing of former Speaker and California Rep. Kevin McCarthy by other hard-liners.

Related From Slate The Wrestlers Trying to Stop Jim Jordan From Becoming House Speaker Read More

The day did introduce a new subplot: behind-the-scenes discussion of a proposal by Ohio Rep. Dave Joyce to extend the tenure, and expand the powers, of temporary Speaker and North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry. (Specifically, Joyces plan would make McHenry speaker until January.) As we discussed on Tuesday, while McHenry is a true-blue (true-red?) conservative, hes also seen by moderate Republicans and Democrats as someone who would be responsible enough to run the chamber without engaging in the kinds of disruptive stunts that Jordan has specialized in. Its within the realm of possibility that Republicans could agree to give the job to McHenry for the next few months (or that enough Democrats would support a motion to elevate him that it could pass even if hard-line right-wing Republicans opposed it).

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While Joyce is circulating this plan, though, it hasnt actually gotten put up for a vote. Thats likely because any Republican who voted for McHenry right now would be perceived by his or her colleagues as undermining Jordan while his candidacy is still nominally alive.

And it is! Nominally! Jordan still says hes hoping to become speaker. But none of the members who voted against him have given reporters an indication, on or off the record, that they might change their votes. (One of Jordans supporters told Bloomberg that Jordan had tried to win the votes of several members of the New York delegation by offering to support an increase in the amount of the state and local deduction that individuals can take on their federal taxes but that his offer was rejected.) Jordan hasnt called for a third round of floor balloting on his candidacy, and a closed-door meeting of Republican representatives for which a room in the Capitol had been blocked off didnt take place, leading to an avant-garde NBC News update, titled House Republicans arent meeting, about the  news? . of a not-meeting:

House Republicans had planned to hold a meeting when the chamber recessed earlier, but so far, the meeting room remains empty and there are no signs of a meeting.

Per an official announcement, voting in the House on Thursday will begin no earlier than 12:00 p.m. The lower chamber of Congress has adopted the schedule of a teenager whose parents are about to make him get a summer job.
On Thursday, Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to misdemeanor election interference charges in Fulton County, Georgia, becoming the highest-level figure to admit guilt in the vast conspiracy to try to overturn the 2020 election.

To put it more colloquially, Powell flipped. This is awful news for Donald Trump, as Powell also immediately becomes the highest-level known cooperating witness against him. Given what we know about Powells role in the days surrounding Jan. 6 and the very lenient terms of her plea deal, she appears poised to offer damning testimony against the former president.

How seriously will we be able to take that testimony? Given her history of flamboyant statements and conspiracy theories, former special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee Norman L. Eisen notes that the jury is literally out on how probative she will be as a witness. He continued: She may have particularly damning pieces of information to share with a jury that are corroborated so that any credibility issues are bolstered by other witnesses, documents, or evidence.

Powell is only the second domino to fall among Trumps alleged co-conspirators agreeing publicly to cooperate against Trump. So far, she is the most damaging for Trump, but she is likely to be joined by others who were targeted in the 19-person RICO conspiracy case filed in August by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, and her cooperation places further pressure on others to agree to testify against Trump.

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Having previously asserted her right in Georgia under the states speedy trial act, jury selection in her case was due to begin on Friday. Powells deal, essentially, could not have come any later.

Her decision also comes on the heels of a devastating ruling for her by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who rejected in full Powells efforts to dismiss the case before trial. That ruling left Powell with little choice but to face immediate trial and likely conviction on charges that carried many years in prison, or plead guilty and agree to testify against Donald Trump. Now her co-defendant in that trial, Kenneth Chesebro, is left holding the bag on the eve of trial proceedings.

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Related From Slate Trumps Gag Order Is Crafted Perfectly to Withstand a First Amendment Claim Read More

Under the terms of Powells agreement, she will receive a small monetary fine and a six-year sentence of probation, and she will have to write an apology letter to the people of Georgia. This may seem like a slap on the wrist for one of the top figures implicated in the Jan. 6 cases, but it could mean she gave up a significant amount of evidence against even higher-level figures as part of her deal. Indeed, the agreement included a pledge to turn over all documents, testify against all of her co-defendants, and offer a recorded statement to prosecutors. Shes already done the last part.

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That testimony against her co-defendants could start as soon as next month, when the trial of Chesebro is projected to begin. While Powell is not obligated by the agreement to testify against Trump as part of special counsel Jack Smiths federal prosecution, scheduled for March, any testimony she gives in the Chesebro trial could potentially be used by Smiths team. If Powell refuses to testify in the federal case, Judge Tanya Chutkan could decide to admit any Georgia testimony. Her testimony will be on the record and potentially admissible, in the federal case, said Eisen.

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There are several reasons why Powell could prove to be such a critical witness against Trump. For one thing, the original RICO indictment alleged that she was deeply involved in a scheme to steal voting machine software in Coffee County.

Whats more important, for the purposes of the prosecutions against Trump, though, is that the House Jan. 6 committee revealed that she was an active participant during a critical White House meeting in the weeks before Jan. 6, during which Trump allegedly sought to have her appointed as special counsel in order to seize voting machines. Eisen called that the the Oval Office meeting that has been described as one of the craziest of the Trump administration, and said testimony on it is likely to be critical to the overall conspiracy charge.

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As Slate has reported, theres also previous testimony about that meeting that indicates that Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani might have had some knowledge of the Coffee County plot. The next on the ladder would be Trump himself.

During the Dec. 18 meeting in question, a group of Trumps most extreme outside advisers, including Powell, debated with a team of more professional White House attorneys and appointees what the presidents ability to seize voting machines was. At that point, Trump advisers had already written two draft executive orders authorizing the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to seize the machines. The draft orders, which were never enacted, specifically mentioned alleged voting irregularities in Coffee County as justification for the unprecedented move.

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Powell had publicly pushed a conspiracy theory, since widely debunked in and out of court, that Dominion Voting Systems machines had been rigged to steal votes from Trump and give them to President Joe Biden. In that meeting, she was part of a group saying that Trump had the authority to seize the voting machines, or appoint Powell as special counsel to do it herself. According to Jan. 6 committee testimony, Trump at one point asked his staff to prepare the forms to have Powells appointment made official. The appointment never happened.

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During the meeting, Giuliani indicated that he knew of an alternative path to acquiring the voting machines that didnt require government seizure. White House staff secretary and counselor to the president, Derek S. Lyons, testified to the Jan. 6 committee that Giuliani indicated he was working on another way to acquire the voting machines: Giulianis point of view was that in some way the campaign, I believe, was going to be able to secure access to voting machines in Georgia through means other than seizure, Lyons testified.

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This could be in reference to any number of efforts to acquire the machines, including the now-infamous Jan. 2 phone call during which Trump tried to berate Georgias Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find the precise number of votes he needed to overturn the result in the state. Five days after that effort failed, the voting system in Coffee County was breached, allegedly at the behest of the Trump campaign and with the help of a local official, Misty Hampton, who is also facing charges in the Fulton County RICO case.

Powells link to both the Dec. 18 meeting and the Jan. 7 vote machine theft will make her a critical witness against Giuliani, who was also charged in Fulton County, and against Trump. But now, Powells cooperation is likely to significantly increase pressure on Giuliani to reach a similar deal. Trump, meanwhile, is scheduled be tried in federal court on March 4, which is when Powells likely testimony against Chesebro could come into play.

If Powell were to back out of that testimony, she would be subject to her probation being immediately revoked by McAfee, which could result in her being sent to serve the remainder of her six-year sentence in jail.

The only downside for prosecutors in calling Powell is her credibility, given the wildness of the conspiracy theories she has espoused in the past. One wonders how good a witness she can be, former federal prosecutor Frank Bowman told Slate. She seems to have, shall we say, a rather eccentric and unpredictable personality.
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Business travel is a balance of being safe while sticking to your plans, but its often difficult to know whether youre traveling as safely as possible. Therefore, its essential to keep safety a top priority when undertaking international business travel or domestic travel. Thats why this article is looking more closely at business travel, and specifically, business travel tips to help you travel more safely for work, including state department advice.

What is the Biggest Risk for Business Travellers?

With business, travel comes quite a few risks, so its important to stay aware and take extra care. For example, you might be traveling to far destinations with political unrest or other issues, taking sensitive or confidential information as well as expensive office equipment.

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During business travel, its important to protect yourself and your belonging just as you would with personal travel. For females, its also crucial to seek out travel safety tips for women specifically to ensure youre feeling safe and comfortable before leaving and while in your destination.

Top Travel Safety Tips for Business Travellers

To help make business travel as smooth as possible, weve put together some practical tips to help you travel safely. While this isnt a complete list, these tips are a great starting point to help you plan a safe and productive business trip.

Read More: business travel tips

1. Purchase travel insurance

Business travel often means that youre traveling with sensitive information and office equipment. Purchasing travel insurance protects your trip not only in case of cancelations and delays but also the contents of your belongings while traveling to keep you perfectly safe.

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2. Keep your important documents safe

When traveling for work, youre likely going to carry crucial documents  both personal and professional with you. That might include:

Passport

ID

Drivers license

Work clearance

Work visa documents/entry authorization

Contracts

Memos

Competitive research and/or product information

Keep your documents in your hotel room as much as possible, and use the safe for storing important information for when youve left your room to prevent any issues. Save copies of the documents on Google Drive for an extra layer of protection.

3. Keep an eye on personal belongings

Like your documents, keeping your personal belongings safe should be a priority. Use the hotel safe when possible, but also invest in travel equipment that has a protective element when youre out in the city. For example, a tamper-proof day bag or something like a messenger bag where its kept close to you can help keep your valuables safe when out of the hotel.

4. Dont put all your money in one place

Always separate your credit cards and cash when traveling. Generally, the safest bet is to keep some cash and one card with you and leave an emergency credit card and some cash in different bags like your suitcase and carry-on. This ensures that you always have some kind of access to emergency money and other valuables, even if youre in an unfamiliar destination.

5. Be extra cautious when traveling alone

There needs to be extra caution practiced on these kinds of trips for solo travelers. When traveling solo, take extra care to keep yourself and your belongings safe. Stay alert when out and about, and always trust your gut feelings  if something doesnt feel right, even if its as simple as eye contact for a little too long, walk away. Paying attention to your surroundings, particularly on public transport, is also crucial. Also, try to learn some of the local language and local customs beforehand.

6. Ensure you have access to emergency money

Emergency money is incredibly vital and in different forms. As mentioned earlier, make sure you divvy up your money and ensure that you have a way to access your accounts and transfer money. Test out local ATMs with small amounts with your card, and always keep a few bucks on you in pockets or bags -its better than not having anything at all.

7. Drink responsibly when traveling

Its tempting to go out in a foreign country, but if you are, drink responsibly  especially if its your first trip for work! Its easy to get carried away, and thats when someone will most likely try taking advantage of you. So keep your drinking limited to two or three, and stay aware of your surroundings when making your way back to the hotel.

8. Purchase a money belt

Try to keep a credit card with you that doesnt have foreign transaction fees as a backup so you can save money. Travel equipment like money belts helps protect your cash and credit card from thieves and pickpockets. You can place a dummy wallet in your pocket as a distraction and use a money belt to keep your important stuff, such as cash and credit cards, safe when navigating around the city.

Read More: international business travel

9. Invest in a travel lock

Another key piece of travel equipment for your business travel should be travel locks. You can use them for suitcases and bags during transit and have a locked bag while youre staying at the hotel. Travel locks come in different types, including a travel lock where you can set your own combination for extra security. You can use this in case youre traveling with pricy equipment such as expensive camera gear or even flashy jewelry.

10. Watch out for travel scams

Unfortunately, travel scams are pretty common in most parts of the world, and visitors tend to be easy targets. Double-check before you leave about what kinds of scams are specifically done so you can be aware. In addition, you can reach out to other travelers for safety tips and read up on blogs and travel experiences to understand what professional scammers are doing so you can avoid it.

11. Look for travel advisories

Some destinations are safer than others, so check any advice that might be out there before embarking on your next trip. Additionally, the State Department and other government bodies often post-travel advice depending on political, economic, or weather conditions that are work checking out before you solidify your travel plans.

12. Note down your local embassy contact details

Whenever youre in a new country, always do some research on the nearest embassy. When unexpected circumstances come up, such as political issues, a stolen passport, or other emergencies, your countrys embassy can help you with the situation and provide safety information.

13. Write down numbers for emergency services

Following the last point, one of the most important travel tips is also researching emergency services. It would be best if you have emergency info on hand for the country youre visiting. That includes locating the nearing police station, your credit card company phone number, and noting any posted signs as you explore the city.

14. Purchase a local SIM where possible

If you dont want to pay expensive roaming charges, you can still have a working phone by purchasing a local SIM. It ensures that theres an easy way for family members to reach you and that you have access to data. That enables you to use Google Maps more easily and navigate public transportation without identifying yourself as a non-native too easily.

15. Use a virtual private network for business

Whether youre doing work at a local office or a coffee shop, you should always use a VPN when working from abroad. This protects your work data while also keeping your computer device from being easily compromised, especially when using open networks and public wifi.

16. Share your accommodation details

This is particularly important if youre traveling by yourself for business, but also during general travel. Share where youre staying with a family member, your general plans, and any other information that might be helpful in case of an emergency.

17. Do your research

Most travel safety tips will always come back to this one  research! While you wont be able to cover absolutely everything when digging around, you can learn a lot just through a quick search on the country youre planning to visit. Look up basic information, including the latest news, any laws travelers should be aware of, and any context that can help you navigate easier as a local. Travel communities on websites such as Reddit might also be able to help you provide on-the-ground advice before arriving and while youre at your destination.

Travel Tip Description Purchase travel insurance Protect your trip and belongings with travel insurance, especially when carrying sensitive information and equipment. Keep your important documents safe Safeguard vital documents like passport, ID, and work-related papers. Use hotel safes and store digital copies on Google Drive. Keep an eye on personal belongings Use protective travel equipment and hotel safes to secure personal items and valuables when you're out. Don't put all your money in one place Separate cash and cards, keeping some on you and some in different bags. Ensures access to emergency funds even in unfamiliar places. Be extra cautious when traveling alone Practice extra caution, stay alert, and trust your instincts when traveling solo. Learn local language and customs for added safety. Ensure you have access to emergency money Diversify your money storage and ensure access to accounts. Test local ATMs, carry some cash, and keep emergency funds available. Drink responsibly when traveling Limit alcohol consumption to stay aware of your surroundings and avoid potential vulnerabilities. Purchase a money belt Use a money belt to protect cash and credit cards from theft and pickpocketing. Consider a backup credit card with no foreign transaction fees. Invest in a travel lock Use travel locks for suitcases and bags during transit, and lock your hotel room for added security. Consider combination locks for flexibility. Watch out for travel scams Stay informed about common scams in your destination and seek advice from other travelers and online resources to avoid falling victim. Look for travel advisories Check government travel advisories for safety information related to your destination, including political, economic, and weather conditions. Note down your local embassy contact Research and have contact details for your country's embassy in the destination country for assistance during emergencies or issues. Write down numbers for emergency services Research and keep numbers for local emergency services, police stations, and your credit card company handy. Pay attention to posted signs for additional guidance. Purchase a local SIM where possible Avoid expensive roaming charges by getting a local SIM card, ensuring communication and access to data for navigation. Use a virtual private network for business Protect your work data and device security by using a VPN when working from abroad, especially on public Wi-Fi networks. Share your accommodation details Share your accommodation details and general plans with a family member or colleague in case of emergencies. Do your research Conduct thorough research on your destination, including local laws, news, and traveler insights from online communities, to navigate safely and gain valuable insights as a visitor.

Conclusion

Business travel is an essential aspect of professional life, but it comes with its unique set of challenges and risks. Ensuring safety during international business travel or domestic travel should always be a top priority. This article has highlighted the importance of staying vigilant and taking precautions to safeguard oneself and belongings while on business trips.

The biggest risks for business travelers often involve traveling to distant destinations with potential political unrest, handling sensitive information, or carrying valuable office equipment. These risks underscore the need for careful planning and adherence to safety measures.

The provided business travel safety tips offer valuable insights into ensuring a secure and productive business trip. From purchasing travel insurance to keeping important documents safe and being cautious when traveling alone, these tips provide a comprehensive guide for travelers. Its crucial to stay alert, stay informed about travel advisories, and be prepared for unexpected situations.

Traveling for business doesnt mean sacrificing safety. By following these tips and conducting thorough research, business travelers can minimize risks and make their journeys safer and more enjoyable. Always remember that preparedness and vigilance are key to a successful business trip, allowing you to focus on your professional objectives while ensuring your personal well-being.

International Travel Safety

Before traveling internationally, its always wise to look at State Departments advice on other countries and whether its safe to travel. You can find a complete list of no-travel zones on the official State Department website travel advisories. It includes an updated list of countries that are safe to visit, medium and high-risk countries, including detailed advice for citizens planning their trips.

As of April 2022, here are some of the destinations that are listed under the no-travel zones. Please note that this list is subject to change often, so its crucial to double-check on official government websites when planning travel.

Libya

Hong Kong

Syria

Ukraine

Sudan

South Sudan

Somalia

Russia

Moldova

Haiti

Yemen

Venezuela

Tonga

Papua New Guinea

North Korea (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea)

Mali

Iraq

The Central African Republic

Burma (Myanmar)

Burkina Faso

Afghanistan Travel Advisory

Read More: travel safety tips for women

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Ultranationalist MP Rudolf Huliak will not become environment minister.

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President Zuzana Caputova will not appoint ultranationalist MP Rudolf Huliak (SNS/Narodna Koalicia) as the new environment minister.

Huliak, who is the mayor of Ocova village in central Slovakia and a passionate hunter, denies climate change, attacks LGBT+ community verbally, and disseminates various pieces of disinformation.

Smer leader Robert Fico, who submitted a list of ministers to the president earlier this week, was asked to come up with a different name.

Huliak is a danger to the environment

As the president said, Huliak is not the right fit for the job because he questions Slovakias long-term environmental policy and international commitments. In addition, a candidate who says that climate change is a hoax cannot stand at the helm of the ministry whose goal is to protect nature.

At the same time, a candidate who publicly approves violent dealings with ideological opponents, especially from the ranks of conservationists and activists, cannot, according to the president, be qualified to lead the Environment Ministry.

In the presidents view, there are strong legal and constitutional grounds that disqualify him for the job.

His appointment would not guarantee the proper functioning of this constitutional body, the president concluded.

SNS stands up for Huliak

The ultranationalist Slovak National Party (SNS) insists on its nominee and has no intention of withdrawing Huliak from the list. The decision will be up to Fico, though. In 2009, when Fico ruled Slovakia for the first time, he decided to take away the Environment Ministry from the Slovak National Party, his coalition partner, because of corruption scandals.

On Thursday, SNS leader Andrej Danko called on Caputova to respect the election results and to not go beyond her constitutional competences. Smer is said to be insisting on the nomination as well, according to TV Markiza.

Huliak himself objected to the presidents decision.

She just proved that she is not the president of all citizens, he said.

The SNS parliamentary caucus will have 10 MPs, but only SNS leader Danko is an SNS member. To make it more stable and have more control over the caucus, Danko is alleged to have nominated Huliak, chair of the nationalist party Narodna Koalicia, for minister. In this way, Huliaks substitute, who comes from SNS, would become an MP. Danko could apply a similar approach to other non-SNS members and MPs in the caucus who might be offered jobs, for example, at ministries.

Huliak ran on SNS slate in the 2023 election. He received 58,875 preference votes.

Sports ministers contacts

Disinformation TV presenter Martina Simkovicova and Huliak are not the only controversial candidates nominated for ministers. SNS deputy chair Jan Krisanda should become sports and tourism minister from January 2024 when the ministry is said to be established.

Krisanda, who is a certified judo coach and a sports official, exchanged more than a hundred text messages with convicted and imprisoned businessman Marian Kocner between 2014 and 2017. Kocner is also believed to have masterminded the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova in 2018.

Krisanda and Kocner discussed business activities with the state and influencing the courts, writes the Sme daily.

Moreover, Krisanda knows oligarch Anton Siekel. Siekel, who is considered to be connected to the Slovak National Party, heads the Slovak Olympic Committee. Krisanda proposed him for the job.

Siekel became rich thanks to the voucher privatisation in the nineties.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/archaeologists-aim-to-use-treasure-map-to-find-ancient-sites-across-northwestern-france-1114303500.html

Archaeologists Aim to Use Treasure Map to Find Ancient Sites Across Northwestern France

Archaeologists Aim to Use Treasure Map to Find Ancient Sites Across Northwestern France

Archaeologists studying a mysterious stone fragment have made a startling discovery: the markings on the slab can be used to help them find other sites used by ancient humans, making it one of the oldest known maps of a territory.

2023-10-18T21:44+0000

2023-10-18T21:44+0000

2023-10-18T21:40+0000

beyond politics

brittany

france

bronze age

archaeology

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The Saint Belec slab was first found in 1900 in western Brittany in a prehistoric burial ground dated to be some 4,000 years old. However, the artifact was lost for over a century before being rediscovered in the cellar of a chateau in 2014, when serious study of its markings resumed.Since then, archaeologists have been working to decipher the slabs markings, realizing they are likely a map."Using the map to try to find archaeological sites is a great approach. We never work like that," Yvan Pailler, a professor at the University of Western Brittany (UBO), told US media. "It's a treasure map.The slab doesnt have words on it, but the archaeologists realized the lines matched the contours of rivers and mountains in Brittany, Frances westernmost region, which is rich in megalithic sites made by prehistoric humans. Other markings include dots and pock marks, which might delineate burial sites or other locations of importance to the Bronze Age humans who made them.The slab is among the oldest known maps of a territory created by humans, dating to roughly 2,000 years before the Roman conquest of Gaul, or several hundred years after Stonehenge was built in England.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/israeli-archaeologists-find-possible-first-known-grave-of-ancient-greek-courtesan-1113749681.html

brittany

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brittany; france; saint belec slab; bronze age; treasure map
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/british-museum-pledges-to-digitalize-entire-collection-after-theft-scandal-1114304625.html

British Museum Pledges to Digitalize Entire Collection After Theft Scandal

British Museum Pledges to Digitalize Entire Collection After Theft Scandal

The British Museum announced Wednesday that it would digitalize its entire collection to improve security after thousands of artifacts were found missing in the summer.

2023-10-18T23:06+0000

2023-10-18T23:06+0000

2023-10-18T23:02+0000

world

british museum

artifacts

digitalization

theft

stolen artifacts

united kingdom (uk)

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"Over the next five years we have set ourselves the objective of improving and completing the online record of every object in the British Museums collection," Interim Director Mark Jones said. Jones predecessor, Hartwig Fischer, stepped down in August in response to the theft after it was revealed some 2,000 valuable items had been stolen from the museums storage room over several years. Hundreds of them popped up on eBay and are in the process of being recovered but many others remain unaccounted for. The museums admission that the theft was likely an inside job caused a scandal, with Greece, Egypt and China demanding that the London museum, which credits itself for safeguarding ancient treasures, hand over the relics they see as looted by the British Empire. Jones said the British Museum would upload or upgrade online records on some 2.4 million artifacts in its possession. He promised that everyone, no matter where they lived, would be able to see everything the museum holds. George Osborne, chairman of the museum's trustees, reiterated a public apology on Wednesday for the loss of the artifacts. He told a parliamentary panel that the museum had fallen victim to someone they put trust in. The stolen items featured gold jewelry, semi-precious stones and glass hailing from the early 19th century. Jones confirmed to the panel that some 350 missing items were in the process of being returned and that work was underway to track down the rest.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230825/british-museum-director-resigns-amid-scandal-over-stolen-artifacts-1112896023.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/nearly-two-decades-later-joran-van-der-sloot-admits-to-2005-murder-of-natalee-holloway-1114303182.html

Nearly Two Decades Later, Joran Van Der Sloot Admits to 2005 Murder of Natalee Holloway

Nearly Two Decades Later, Joran Van Der Sloot Admits to 2005 Murder of Natalee Holloway

Sloot has confessed to murdering American teenager Natalee Holloway in 2005. The (now) 36-year-old Dutch man has long been connected to her murder, but due to lack of evidence has long evaded arrest.

2023-10-18T21:39+0000

2023-10-18T21:39+0000

2023-10-18T21:36+0000

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After years of toying with authorities, as well as extorting the mother of his victim, Joran van der Sloot has confessed to murdering American teenager Natalee Holloway in 2005. The (now) 36-year-old Dutch man has long been connected to her murder, but due to lack of evidence has evaded arrest in the case.As part of a plea agreement, Van der Sloot agreed to provide a full, complete, accurate and truthful account of how he murdered Holloway, in exchange for a 20-year sentence for extorting the victims family. In his chilling confession, Van der Sloot said he kicked the then 18-year-old Holloway in the face, causing her to lose consciousness, and then proceeded to bludgeon her with a cinder block because she refused his sexual advances.After bludgeoning the teenager with a cinder block he found, Van der Sloot (who was also 18-years-old at the time), dragged her body into the ocean.I walk up to about my knees into the ocean and I push her into the  into the sea. Uhm, and uhm, yeah, after that I  I get out. I- I walk home, the transcript read.The murder took place in Aruba, after Van der Sloot met Holloway at a bar in downtown Oranjestad. Holloway, who was celebrating her high school graduation trip with classmates, was last seen leaving the bar at 1 a.m. local time with Van der Sloot and two other men. Aruba is a Caribbean island nation and a former Dutch colony where Van der Sloot was living at the time.Today marks the end of 18 years of wondering what happened to Natalee Holloway, Prim Escalona, the interim United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, told reporters after the hearing.Van der Sloots sentence for the murder of Flores will expire in 2045, but if he is released from prison sooner, he will have to serve the remainder of his 20-year sentence in the US.After brutally murdering Holloway, Van der Sloot exploited grief-stricken Beth by extorting her for $250,000. He claimed to have knowledge of Natalees remains, and proceeded to give the mother incorrect information regarding her daughters remains.As far as I am concerned its over. Its over, she said. Im satisfied knowing that he did it, he did it alone and he disposed of her alone. Adding that the confession means weve finally reached the end of our never-ending nightmare.I have no doubt she would have made all her dreams come true. She really would have, Beth Holloway said of her daughter.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20210707/heineken-holloway-and-kennedy-top-high-profile-cases-shot-crime-reporter-de-vries-covered-1083322398.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/us-issues-six-month-waiver-easing-sanctions-on-venezuelas-oil-industry---treasury-1114304787.html

US Issues Six-Month Waiver Easing Sanctions on Venezuela's Oil Industry - Treasury

US Issues Six-Month Waiver Easing Sanctions on Venezuela's Oil Industry - Treasury

The US Department of Treasury announced in a news release that it issued a six-month waiver easing US sanctions on Venezuela's oil and gas industry.

2023-10-18T23:32+0000

2023-10-18T23:32+0000

2023-10-19T02:52+0000

americas

venezuela

us sanctions on venezuela

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oil

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"Treasury today: issued a six month general license temporarily authorizing transactions involving the oil and gas sector in Venezuela," the release said on Wednesday. Moreover, the US Treasury issued a license authorizing dealings with Venezuelan state-owned gold mining company Minerven and removed secondary trading ban on certain Venezuelan sovereign bonds, PDVSA debt and equity, the release added. The United States is providing partial sanctions relief in response to the agreement reached between the Venezuelan government and opposition on the holding of the presidential election in 2024.A senior US administration official remarked during a conference call that the Biden White House has been "clear that other sanctions and restrictions imposed by the United States on Venezuela remain in place."It was further noted that Qatar partnered with the United States to encourage a deal with Venezuela as part of a larger effort to bolster election integrity in exchange for limited sanctions relief.The United States with the assistance of Qatar has worked to support and encourage this process as well, and make sure that an incentive structure to make real changes exists, the official said on Wednesday.Additionally, it has been detailed that the partial lifting of sanctions does not impact Venezuela's frozen assets in the US, or the judicial process related to the CITGO bankruptcy case. It will also not apply to new investments or services from entities owned or controlled by Russia.Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has stated that the agreement will pave the way for the nation to enter the oil and gas market with strength and a progressive approach.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230923/venezuela-calls-oil-price-cap-market-manipulation-violation-of-intl-trade-principles-1113614453.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/amman-will-never-allow-mass-displacement-of-palestinians-to-jordan---foreign-minister-1114305159.html

Amman Will Never Allow Mass Displacement of Palestinians to Jordan - Foreign Minister

Amman Will Never Allow Mass Displacement of Palestinians to Jordan - Foreign Minister

Jordan will not allow mass displacement of the Palestinian population to the country and will not let Israel expand the crisis into Jordan, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Wednesday.

2023-10-19T00:32+0000

2023-10-19T00:32+0000

2023-10-19T00:32+0000

world

palestine-israel conflict

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"We will never allow population transfer from Palestine into Jordan," Safadi told US media.Any attempt to move the Palestinian population to Jordan while neither Palestinians nor Jordanians want that could only expand the area of the conflict or even cause another one, the Jordanian foreign minister added. Safadi also emphasized that amid the West's strong support of Israel, the Jordanian population increasingly perceived the conflict between Palestine and Israel as a Western-Arab-Israeli conflict, which must be prevented. He called for a return to sanity and laying down arms. Meanwhile, protests have been going on for a second consecutive day in front of the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital Amman, a Sputnik correspondent reported. The crowd has continued to gather Wednesday evening as protesters condemn the deadly bombing of a hospital in Gaza. Jordanian police said several officers had been injured in the clashes with the demonstrators and rushed to hospital. On Tuesday, a missile hit the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, causing a massive blast in which more than 500 people were killed, according to the Health Ministry of Gaza. Hamas blamed the explosion on an Israeli strike, a narrative that was rejected by the Israel Defense Forces, which said the hospital had been hit by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. On October 7, Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip and breached the border, killing and seizing people in neighboring Israeli communities. Israel launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than 2 million people, cutting off supplies of water, food and fuel. Thousands of dead and injured have been reported on both sides as a result of the escalation.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/israel-delaying-gaza-invasion-for-fear-of-hezbollah-attack-from-lebanon-1114285531.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/atacms-deliveries-designed-to-shut-up-pro-ukraine-lobby-wont-change-conflicts-outcome-1114316164.html

ATACMS Deliveries Designed to Shut Up Pro-Ukraine Lobby, Wont Change Conflict's Outcome

ATACMS Deliveries Designed to Shut Up Pro-Ukraine Lobby, Wont Change Conflict's Outcome

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that Russian Aerospace Forces MiG-31 jets armed with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles would start regular patrols over the Black Sea in response to aggressive US actions. Sputnik reached out to leading US and Russian geopolitics and military experts for their takes on what the deployment means.

2023-10-19T12:22+0000

2023-10-19T12:22+0000

2023-10-19T12:59+0000

mark sleboda

vladimir putin

russia

kiev

black sea

pentagon

russian aerospace forces

army tactical missile system (atacms)

high mobility artillery rocket system (himars)

kinzhal missile system

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On my instructions, the Russian Aerospace Forces will commence permanent patrols in the neutral airspace over the Black Sea. Our MiG-31 aircraft are equipped with Kinzhal systems, which have a speed of Mach 9 and a range of over 1,000 kilometers, President Vladimir Putin said, speaking to reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.The ATACMS delivery, coming amid NATOs continued escalation of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, seems designed to placate the Kiev regime and its lobbyists in Washington, with the Pentagon apparently deciding to pawn off older versions of the missile on Ukraine to save the more potent models for China, says veteran international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda.First of all, it was pretty clear from announcements in Washington that the ATACMS was going to be sent  even what type was going to be sent, and that it was an older model of the ATACMS missile with a cluster munition warhead instead of a normal high explosive. Why? Because these are old on-the-shelf [weapons] and the Pentagon doesnt feel that it needs them for its war with China, Sleboda told Sputnik. The remaining normal ATACMS in the US arsenal will be held onto to prevent a conventional missile gap in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, he added.Having said that, Russia shouldnt discount the deadliness of even these older, inertial navigation-dependent weapons, Sleboda stressed, pointing out, for example, that while the absence of GPS makes them less accurate, it also makes it more difficult, if not impossible, for them to be jammed using electronic warfare.Instead, he said, Kiev has attempted to use them to target Russian airfields and an arms depot.That falls within what it can be used for because, stupidly, whoever is in charge of these airfields left some aviation, in this case some nine helicopters, outside of protected shelters. And if theres one thing that should have been learned from both sides in this war right now, its that if you arent immediately using aviation, then it should be in protected shelters or it is a target Its not a crippling loss. Russia has over 100 Ka-52 helicopters in its inventory, but its not insignificant either, Sleboda noted.They also supposedly hit an arms depot. Arms depots are hit in this conflict every day, and possibly an air defense missile launcher. But thats it. We know that the Kiev regime fired 18 of these missiles. They say 18 And from Ive heard, about half of them were taken down by Russian air defense. And what got through is what did that damage. And again, its damage that could have very easily been avoided with the type of cluster munition warhead that was used if the helicopters had been properly stored and protected, the observer reiterated.Now, he added, Kiev may have as few as two ATACMS left in its inventory. And while its likely that more will be sent in fresh US arms packages, the numbers shows just how small doses these are being doled out.Kinzhal ResponseFor his part, Russian military expert and reserve Captain 1st Rank Vasily Dandykin told Sputnik that however many ATACMS the US ends up giving to Kiev, Russias forces will be able to counter them with its Pantsir, Tor, Buk-2, Buk-3, S-300, S-350, and S-400 air and missile defense systems, which have already been fine-tuned to counter American systems, including the HIMARS.This issue will be resolved, and they will be fired, judging by their range, from the southern shores of the Black Sea region, including Odessa, Nikolayev, perhaps a little further in Dnepropetrovsk region, Dandykin told Sputnik.Our response will include the patrol of long-range interceptor jets carrying Kinzhal missiles. They carry one Kinzhal apiece. In principle, this is a hypersonic missile with a speed of Mach 9, and a range up to 1,000 kilometers, enough to target enemy forces virtually across any point in the Black Sea aquatorium, and presumably including the ATACMS and other NATO missile system launch sites in Ukraine.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231017/ukraine-used-atacms-missiles-with-cluster-munitions-to-attack-russian-cities-1114266625.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russian-air-defenses-well-adapted-to-taking-out-aged-atacms-missiles-us-gave-to-ukraine-1114299944.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231012/atacms-why-are-us-war-hawks-so-desperate-to-send-tactical-missile-system-to-ukraine-1114148434.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/biden-visits-israel-trump-leads-gop-race-presidents-putin-and-xi-discuss-foreign-policy-1114305558.html

Biden Visits Israel; Trump Leads GOP Race; Presidents Putin and Xi Discuss Foreign Policy

Biden Visits Israel; Trump Leads GOP Race; Presidents Putin and Xi Discuss Foreign Policy

President Joe Biden is visiting Israel in the midst of a major military conflict that threatens to spiral out of control.

2023-10-19T04:01+0000

2023-10-19T04:01+0000

2023-10-19T10:35+0000

the critical hour

radio

army tactical missile system (atacms)

craig murray

gop

israel

palestine-israel conflict

ukraine

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Biden Visits Israel; Trump Leads GOP Race; Presidents Putin and Xi discuss Foreign Policy President Joe Biden is visiting Israel in the midst of a major military conflict that threatens to spiral out of control.

Dr. Ken Hammond, writer and professor of East Asian and global history at New Mexico State University, joins us to discuss China. The presidents of China and Russia have met in Beijing to discuss economic policies, but they have included time to consider the crisis in the Middle East. Ken Hammond says that geopolitical changes are desperately needed and are taking place. There is a lingering aftermath of European colonialism and US hegemony are severe threats to developing nations.Mark Sleboda, Moscow-based international relations security analyst, joins us to discuss Ukraine. Mark Sleboda talks about the news reports confirming the discovery of the US secretly providing Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles, and what this means in the overall conflict.Cheryl LaBash, Cuban solidarity activist and co-chair of the National Network on Cuba, joins us to discuss Cuba. The United Nations is considering a resolution to end the brutal US blockade against Cuba. Cheryl LaBash says that only the United States and Israel have traditionally opposed the solution introduced yearly. She also says that US imperialism is behind the genocide unleashed against Gaza. Cheryl also says that the sanctions program is an effort of economic strangulation to force countries to abandon their national sovereignty.Robert Fantina, journalist and Palestine activist, joins us to discuss the Middle East. President Biden is visiting Israel as the region is on fire over the Israel-Palestine crisis. Robert Fantina says that Joe Biden is telling Middle Eastern nations not to interfere in the region as the US reserves the right to act as it pleases. He says that what the US government officials want regarding power and profits is not in the interest of the people.EJ Magnier, veteran Middle East War correspondent, joins us to discuss the reasons given by President Biden for the Ukraine conflict. Elijah Magnier says that the Americans rarely win, but they spend a fortune on the endeavor. The US wants to appear uninvolved now because the Ukrainians are losing. He says this is a defeat for the Western sponsors of the conflict.Dr. Jim Kavanagh, whose work can be found at Jim Kavanagh's Substack, thepolemicist.net, joins us to discuss US Elections. Donald Trump is leading the 2024 GOP primaries. Dr. Jim Kavanagh says the ruling elite does not understand the populous base. He also says Trump stands out because he is not seen as part of the establishment. JFK Jr. was also discussed as a person who speaks against the establishment.Steve Poikonen, national organizer for Action4Assange, joins us to discuss foreign policy. The British government has harassed Craig Murray under UK terrorist laws. Steve Poikonen says that the UK government. He says that the UK wants to challenge everyone associated with Julian Assange.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 in the US at 105.5FM, 104.7FM, 102.9FM, 1390AM, 1140AM

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the critical hour, biden's visit to israel, putin's visit to china, long-range atacms missiles, us blockade against cuba, ukraine conflict, julian assange
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/bidens-humiliation-in-middle-east-reflects-popular-contempt-for-us-role-1114315973.html

Biden's 'Humiliation' in Middle East Reflects Popular Contempt for US Role

Biden's 'Humiliation' in Middle East Reflects Popular Contempt for US Role

Richard Becker, west coast coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, and Robert Fantina, journalist and Palestine activist, discussed how US diplomacy in the Middle East had been reduced to cheerleading for its ally Israel.

2023-10-19T17:12+0000

2023-10-19T17:12+0000

2023-10-19T17:12+0000

world

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israel-gaza conflict

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hamas

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US President Joe Biden's "humiliation" by Arab leaders on his visit to the Middle East is a sign of popular rage against his support for Israel.Biden was left with egg on his face after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pulled out of a four-sided meeting with his US counterpart in the Jordanian capital Amman which Egypt was also set to attend. Jordanian King Abdullah II called off the summit shortly afterwards, forcing Biden to cancel his trip to Israel's eastern neighbor. The unprecedented snub was in protest at the bombing of the al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza  run by the Church of England  on Tuesday evening, which the Palestinian Health Ministry said killed at least 500 people and injured hundreds more. Most of the victims were civilians sheltering in the hospital's grounds after being driven from their homes by Israeli bombing.In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, Biden endorsed Tel Aviv's claim that the massacre was caused by "the other team" when a home-made rocket launched by Islamic Jihad guerrillas fell short.Peace campaigner Richard Becker told Sputnik that Biden had suffered a great "humiliation."The hospital attack provoked spontaneous protests that night across the capitals of the Middle East, from Egypt to Turkiye and Morocco to Iran  many of them targeting Israeli, US, British, and French diplomatic missions  as the people rejected Netanyahu and Biden's claims."Why against the French? Why against the British?" the activist posited. "It's really an indication and really another proof of the fact that the era of colonialism, while it's largely over, is not really over, and that the anger that still exists because the whole region was colonized by Europe and then the US after World War II."The author said Biden's comment that one does not "have to be a Jew to be a Zionist" was a wake-up call to anyone still harboring the "illusion" that the US "could be the honest broker" in the Middle East."It's a sign of like how important Israel actually is to the United States," Becker said. "And I don't think that's out of humanitarian concerns. It's because Israel is really like a modern day Sparta, a built-up military power that really is an extension of US military power."US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also humiliated on his whirlwind tour of the Middle East before Biden's arrival, when Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman made him wait all night for an audience last weekend  but then returned to Israel to pledge further support to Netanyahu's government.Palestine solidarity campaigner Robert Fantina told Sputnik that Biden's intervention had only made the situation more dangerous.He stressed that Middle Eastern nations "Have every right to assist their allies the same way any country does.""But Biden is fanning the flames of war. He is doing nothing to prevent war and nothing to prevent genocide," Fatina said, and "nothing to prevent these other countries from assisting the Palestinian people."The activist argued that Biden that an intervention on Palestine's side by Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement, Syria, or regional power Iran "would force him to send ground troops."For more in-depth analysis of world events, tune in to our Sputnik Radio shows.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/biden-believes-gaza-hospital-attack-carried-out-by-other-team-not-israel-1114294528.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231016/saudi-crown-prince-makes-blinken-wait-overnight-for-audience-amid-gaza-crisis-1114233496.html

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hamas attacks on southern israel, israeli bombing of gaza, israeli plans to invade gaza, bombing of the al-ahli hospital in gaza
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/brazils-parliamentary-commission-approves-report-accusing-bolsonaro-of-coup-attempt-1114307245.html

Brazil's Parliamentary Commission Approves Report Accusing Bolsonaro of Coup Attempt

Brazil's Parliamentary Commission Approves Report Accusing Bolsonaro of Coup Attempt

The Brazilian Parliamentary Inquiry Commission approved in a 20-11 vote a report on the January coup attempt in the country, presented by CPI Rapporteur Eliziane Gama and calling for the indictment of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro.

2023-10-19T04:15+0000

2023-10-19T04:15+0000

2023-10-19T04:15+0000

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"Lawmakers, with 20 votes in favor, 11 votes against and no abstentions, supported the report of Senator Eliziane Gama calling for the indictment of 61 people, including former President Jair Bolsonaro," Brazil's Federal Senate said in a statement on the website."Despite a strong protest from the opposition, which voted against the final report, the document will now be sent to the authorities responsible for the criminal prosecution for deeper review and determination of responsibility."The CPT commission in the report accused Bolsonaro of forming a criminal association, attempting to forcibly obstruct the democratic rule of law, a coup attempt and use of measures to impede the free exercise of political rights, with Bolsonaro facing up to 29 years in prison on these charges. Similar charges were brought against former Defense Minister Walter Souza Braga Netto, ex-Minister of Justice and Public Security Anderson Torres, former Institutional Security Secretary Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira, former secretary of Bolsonaro's presidency Luiz Eduardo Ramos Baptista Pereira, and ex-Defense Minister Paulo Sergio Nogueira de Oliveira. Opponents of the report said it would not succeed in the competent authorities as the testimony of convicted Brazilian hacker Walter Delgatti, on which the accusation against Bolsonaro is largely based, cannot be accepted under the country's norms as evidence for indictments. The report is next due to be brought before Brazil's attorney general, who will ultimately make the decision on whether or not to files criminal charges over the events.Months before the riots, Bolsonaro voiced doubts about Brazil's electronic voting machines, saying that the system was allegedly vulnerable to tampering. He is also under investigation for his dealings as president. Lawyers representing Bolsonaro have reportedly denied there was any evidence that he committed a crime related to the protests. In August, Delgatti told a parliamentary inquiry that Bolsonaro had offered to pardon him if he suffered legal consequences for tampering with an electronic ballot box during the 2022 presidential election.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231017/report-brazils-bolsonaro-plotted-to-set-the-country-on-fire-in-failed-coup-attempt-1114271173.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/china-ready-to-expand-trilateral-cooperation-with-mongolia-russia---xi-1114311793.html

China Ready to Expand Trilateral Cooperation With Mongolia, Russia - Xi

China Ready to Expand Trilateral Cooperation With Mongolia, Russia - Xi

China is ready to expand trilateral cooperation with Mongolia and Russia and foster the development of an economic corridor spanning the nations, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday.

2023-10-19T09:39+0000

2023-10-19T09:39+0000

2023-10-19T09:39+0000

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china

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mongolia

belt and road initiative

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"China is ready to expand trilateral cooperation between China, Mongolia and Russia and steadily promote the construction of the economic corridor between the three countries," China Central Television quoted Xi as saying at the meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Xi pledged that his country would continue to help Mongolia revitalize its economy, advance the construction of land ports and "open new channels for connectivity between the countries." Khurelsukh is visiting Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum, which was held from October 17-18. In 2016, China, Russia and Mongolia reached a deal to develop the economic corridor spanning the three countries. Its aims to improve transport connectivity and cross-border trade through infrastructure development with a view to becoming an alternative transit route for goods and investment in the Eurasian region. The Belt and Road Initiative, a project launched in 2013, is inspired by the Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes that spanned the Asian and European continents for about 1,400 years until the mid-15th century. Its new iteration will link China with Central Asian nations, Russia and Europe by land, while maritime routes will connect it to Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, all the way to Latin America and the Caribbean. By June 2023, more than 150 nations had signed the Belt and Road cooperation pacts with China.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231010/russia-china-mongolia-to-launch-great-tea-road-tourist-route-economy-ministry-1114071674.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/elon-musk-reportedly-eyeing-removal-of-twitterx-from-europe-over-eu-regulations-1114306451.html

Elon Musk Reportedly Eyeing Removal of Twitter/X From Europe Over EU Regulations

Elon Musk Reportedly Eyeing Removal of Twitter/X From Europe Over EU Regulations

Elon Musk is considering removing his social networking service X from Europe amid the EU's investigation into compliance with the Digital Services Act, US media reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the company.

2023-10-19T03:02+0000

2023-10-19T03:02+0000

2023-10-19T03:02+0000

world

science & tech

elon musk

x

twitter

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internet regulation

eu regulation

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Musk is increasingly frustrated with having to comply with the EU's regulation, one of the insiders told the media, adding that the entrepreneur has discussed the removal of the X application's availability in the region or blocking users in the EU from accessing the app  the way Meta* is blocking users in Europe from accessing its Treads app. Musk has met with European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton at least twice this year about what X needs to do to comply with the regulations, but he has lost patience with the situation, the magazine cited one of the people as saying. In August, the EU adopted the DSA  a set of regulations aimed at creating a safer digital space across the EU, which requires online platforms to have effective and transparent systems for content moderation and remove false, misleading, or harmful information. Earlier Wednesday, the European Commission published a set of recommendations for member states to "coordinate their response to the spread and amplification of illegal content, such as terrorist content or unlawful hate speech," to ensure compliance by online platforms with the DSA and enable its prompt enforcement. Breton said last week the European Commission sent X a formal request for information, which he called "a first step in our investigation to determine compliance with the DSA." *banned in Russia for extremism

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231011/musk-fires-back-at-eu-regulator-x-content-on-palestine-israel-conflict-open-source--transparent--1114085475.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/european-parliament-condemns-hamas-attacks-against-israel-1114329170.html

European Parliament Condemns Hamas Attacks Against Israel

European Parliament Condemns Hamas Attacks Against Israel

The European Parliament in a resolution on Thursday condemned Hamas attacks against Israel and expressed serious concerns over the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

2023-10-19T15:19+0000

2023-10-19T15:19+0000

2023-10-19T15:19+0000

humanitarian crisis

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hamas

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"In the resolution adopted on Thursday with 500 votes in favour, 21 against and 24 abstentions, MEPs strongly condemn the brutal attacks, express their support to Israel and its people and underline the need to 'eliminate the terrorist organisation Hamas,'" the press release read. In the resolution, the European Parliament members express "serious concern over the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip," and call for differentiating "Palestinian people and their legitimate aspirations" from the Hamas group, which the resolution defines as "terrorist." In the final version of the resolution, the members of the European Parliament called for a "humanitarian pause," as the attacks from both sides pose a threat of "reinforcing a cycle of violence in the region," which is likely to lead to never-ending deaths of civilians, including medical workers and journalists. The resolution also advocates for an Israel-Palestine solution based on the 1967 lines with two neighboring countries living in peace and following the democracy principles, and calls on the European countries to launch an initiative for peaceful settlement of the conflict. The EP is also calling for immediate release of the hostages held in Gaza saying that "this is the worst massacre of human beings on the basis of Jewish identity since the Holocaust." The parliament recognizes "Israels right to self-defence," which is provided for in international law, however, the parliament underscores that Israels actions "must therefore strictly comply with international law." The parliament is calling for inclusion of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the EU list of terrorist organizations and for a "thorough investigation into the role of Iran, as well as other countries such as Qatar and Russia, in financing and supporting terrorism in the region."On October 7, Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip and breached the border, killing and seizing people in neighboring Israeli communities. Israel launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than 2 million people, cutting off supplies of water, food and fuel. The escalation of the conflict has resulted in thousands of people killed and injured on both sides.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/gaza-hospital-missile-blast-leaves-trail-of-blood--tears-1114278410.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231013/palestinian-journalist-we-feel-as-if-we-are-already-dead-here-in-gaza-1114166805.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231017/life-in-gaza-and-west-bank-grows-more-precarious-amid-israeli-military-crackdown-1114255790.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russia-says-masks-are-off-after-us-vetoes-unsc-resolution-on-israel-palestine-ceasefire-1114294854.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/gaza-hospital-strike-biden-speaks-from-israel-and-putin-xi-meeting-1114304308.html

Gaza Hospital Strike, Biden Speaks From Israel, and Putin-Xi Meeting

Gaza Hospital Strike, Biden Speaks From Israel, and Putin-Xi Meeting

On todays episode of The Backstory, host Rachel Blevins discussed current events including Jim Jordan losing in the second of votes for House Speaker, and Joe Biden pledges 100 miliion in humanitarian aid for Gaza.

2023-10-19T04:02+0000

2023-10-19T04:02+0000

2023-10-19T10:38+0000

the backstory

radio

antiwar

china

gaza

doxing

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international law

joe biden

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Gaza Hospital Strike, Biden Speaks From Israel, and Putin/Xi meeting On todays episode of The Backstory, host Rachel Blevins discussed current events including Jim Jordan losing in the second of votes for House Speaker, and Joe Biden pledges 100 miliion in humanitarian aid for Gaza.

In the first hour, Rachel spoke with international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda about the US ATACMS missiles sent to Ukraine, Ukraine destroyed nine Russian helicopters, and the President of Jordan cancels a meeting with Joe Biden. Mark spoke about the New York Times revealing the Biden administration sent twenty ATACMS missiles to Ukraine and the US will always support the Israeli narrative.Rachel spoke with writer, political analyst, and author Caleb Maupin about the Harvard truck doxxing individuals, younger Trump supporters are in favor of cancel culture, and the anti-war right has become pro war in the name of Israel. Caleb talked about the way corporate social media figures have been picked as leaders and the forces on social media manipulating the anti-war movement.In the second hour, Rachel spoke with writer, author, and human rights attorney Jonathan Kuttab about the Muslim world angry at Joe Biden, Jewish voice for peace, and the rise of anti-Semitism. Jonathan talked about the Jewish Voice for Peace occupying the US Capitol and the rise of anti-Semtitsm across the world, due to Israel's treatment of the people of Gaza.Rachel spoke with author, journalist and geopolitical analyst KJ Noh about China standing on the side of peace, the US greenlights more genocide, and China celebrates the ten year anniversary of the Belt and Road initiative. KJ talked about the meeting between Putin and President XI and this being only President Putin's second trip out of Russia, since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine.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 in the US at 105.5FM, 104.7FM, 102.9FM, 1390AM, 1140AM

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/israel-plans-to-turn-gaza-into-hiroshima-but-without-nuclear-weapons---sy-hersh-1114308532.html

Israel Plans to Turn Gaza Into 'Hiroshima' But Without Nuclear Weapons - Sy Hersh

Israel Plans to Turn Gaza Into 'Hiroshima' But Without Nuclear Weapons - Sy Hersh

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have every intention of staging in the Gaza Strip something similar to the US destruction of the Japanese city of Hiroshima, only without nuclear weapons, wrote American journalist Seymour Hersh.

2023-10-19T06:41+0000

2023-10-19T06:41+0000

2023-10-20T06:40+0000

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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have every intention of staging in the Gaza Strip something similar to the US destruction of the Japanese city of Hiroshima, only without nuclear weapons, American journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in an article on Substack.Furthermore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has every intention to wipe out Hamas, with little concern for hundreds of thousands of citizens of Gaza that were told to evacuate and move south of the enclave on October 12, underscored Sy Hersh, referencing unnamed intelligence analysts in Washington.Netanyahu formed an emergency unity government a few days ago with ex-military Chief of Staff Benny Gantz to bring his National Unity party into the governing coalition and join the war cabinet including Defense Minster Yoav Gallant. Israel has vowed to "destroy" the Hamas movement ruling in the Gaza Strip after its attacks on Southern Israel. After calling up a reported 350,000 army reservists  totalling around a tenth of the country's workforce  since October 7, Israel appeared to be holding back on an invasion.While the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt remains closed, at some point, American-made bombs in the Israeli arsenal, including those known as bunker busters, may be targeted on the underground tunnel systems where Hamas manufactured the weapons and conducted planning for the horrific attacks in southern Israel on October 7, wrote Hersh.Under the Israeli plans, there would be no need for a massive ground invasion, insiders had informed Hersh, while Israeli troops, would be needed for hunting down those Hamas members underground who choose to surrender. However, the orders to the Israeli military, according to a cited official, would be shoot on sight, with surrender not an option.Accordingly, Netanyahus plan, as per the official referenced by Hersh, is to ensure that the Israeli Army destroys the Hamas tunnel system, along with every member of the militant group they can hunt down. After that, the remnants of Gaza City would be purportedly barricaded at the southernmost end. Hamas stragglers would be tracked down as Israeli soldiers scored every block in the destroyed city.Sy Hersh also weighed in on the visit paid by US President Joe Biden to Israel on Wednesday. After earlier sending to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel two US Navy carrier strike groups led by the USS Gerald Ford and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, Biden pledged support to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's operation in the Gaza Strip. Recalling Bidens Sunday interview for US media, where he conceded that while Hamas must be eliminated entirely, while adding that there needs to be a path to a Palestinian state, Hersh suggested that the latter was not on Israels agenda.His visit had come a day after an attack on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in northern Gaza, where locals were sheltering from Israeli airstrikes on the enclave.The entire international community was shocked by the catastrophe, with citizens across the globe rallying in support of Palestine and urging for a ceasefire. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stressed that the attack on the hospital is an act of dehumanization. Russian President Vladimir Putin described the hospitals destruction as a tragedy and a humanitarian catastrophe. Speaking at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, he voiced hope that the horrific event will be a signal that the bloody conflict in Gaza needs to end as soon as possible.Regarding the US show of force in the region amid the escalation of hostilities, Sy Hersh cited an official as saying:The unnamed official also purportedly speculated whether Joe Bidens fleeting visit to Israel might have been an attempt to keep the Ukraine war off the front pages, amid Kiev's botched counteroffensive

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/gaza-hospital-missile-blast-leaves-trail-of-blood--tears-1114278410.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russia-and-china-may-help-end-israeli-palestinian-conflict-for-good---expert-1114299641.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/israeli-analytic-blames-misfired-palestinian-rocked-for-deadly-gaza-hospital-blast-1114310012.html

Israeli Analytic Blames Misfired Palestinian Rocked For Deadly Gaza Hospital Blast

Israeli Analytic Blames Misfired Palestinian Rocked For Deadly Gaza Hospital Blast

The missile that fell upon a hospital in Gaza triggering a deadly blast that killed at least 500 people was likely launched by the Islamic Jihad organization, Avi Melamed, Middle East Intelligence Analyst, told Sputnik.

2023-10-19T12:38+0000

2023-10-19T12:38+0000

2023-10-19T12:46+0000

analysis

palestine-israel conflict

gaza strip

palestine

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The long range missile that fell on a hospital in Gaza triggering a deadly blast that killed at least 500 people was supposed to fall in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem, as it was likely launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization, Avi Melamed, Middle East intelligence analyst, told Sputnik.Amid the outrage caused across the globe by the deadly blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip on October 17, the Israeli and Palestinian authorities have blamed each other for the incident. Islamic Jihad earlier issued a statement dismissing claims of its responsibility for the attack.The Israel Defense Forces published very clear evidence that the catastrophe that happened was caused because a missile launched by the Islamic Jihad group basically disintegrated, with the warhead of the missile falling on the hospital and causing the blast, Avi Melamed said.This was a missile that was launched from a cemetery located close to the hospital And Islamic Jihad was launching a long-range missile from that cemetery. And because it's a long-range missile, it has two phases: one is the launching. Then at some point, the engine has to kick in and to ignite. It's not clear whether there was a technical malfunction of the engine, or maybe it's an outcome of an Israeli interception [by the Israeli Iron Dome]. But the bottom line was that this missile disintegrated shortly after it was launched. And then what happened was that the warhead of the missile fell straight on the area of the hospital and caused this huge blast. So it wasn't an attack, insisted the commentator, educator, lecturer, and author of the book Inside The Middle East.Furthermore, there are three major reasons why it's very significant for Israel to prove that it is not responsible for what happened, emphasized the Middle East intelligence analyst. From the international perspective, the attack launched out by Hamas on October 7 has provided Israel with the legitimacy, in the eyes of the international community, to really move and act very decisively, Avi Melamed pointed out.On October 7, the Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip and breached the border, killing and seizing people in neighboring Israeli communities. Israel launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than two million people, cutting off supplies of water, food and fuel. Thousands of dead and injured have been reported on both sides as a result of the escalation.Large-scale pro-Palestinian protests have been taking place internationally, and throughout the Arab world. Emphasizing the massive international reaction to the horrific Gaza hospital blast, with people storming the streets in Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Turkiye, Israel has found itself in a "very challenging" situation, said the analyst. But Israel has provided visual evidence" and audio evidence that it is not responsible for the catastrophe, he claimed."...And basically by doing that, Israel is basically keeping the legitimacy for an Israeli upcoming military massive ground operation to take down Hamas, Avi Melamed stated. By offering evidence in a bid to refute blame for the fatal Gaza hospital blast, Israel is hoping for a de-escalation of the widespread anger in the Arab world, he added.The Israel Defense Forces have since released footage that they claim proves that the deadly explosion at the Gaza hospital was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group.The Israeli military insisted that if its ordnance had been used, it would have left behind a crater."There is no direct outside hit. There is damage in the parking lot, maybe other things, but it is not from a direct [hit] from the outside, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters. Furthermore, the spokesperson argued that the IDF had intercepted what was described as audio proof of "terrorists talking about rockets misfiring."US President Joe Biden, who made a brief visit to Israel on Wednesday, also claimed that he doesnt believe Israel was involved in the Tuesday tragedy.Based on what I have seen, it was done by the other team, not you. But theres a lot of people out there who are not sure. So weve got to overcome a lot of things, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.'Horrendous Massacre'Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian militant group Hamas are blacklisted by Israel as terrorist organizations. In a Wednesday statement published in media reports, Islamic Jihad rejected Israeli allegations and attempts to point the finger of blame at it as groundless, accusing Tel Aviv of trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed. The movement said it does not use places of worship or public facilities, especially hospitals, as military centers or weapons stores.As heart-wrenching scenes from the fatal explosion at the Gaza hospital flooded mass media and the front pages of media outlets, Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal called it "Israel's deadliest airstrike since 2008. He was echoed by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, which condemned the hospital attack as a "horrendous massacre and a "crime against humanity." The ministry urged the international community to intervene so as to make Israel "end its destructive war in the Gaza Strip and stop ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people."Russian military experts also told Sputnik that a video of the Gaza hospital being rocked by the blast supported Palestines stance that the Israeli Air Force had launched an airstrike on the facility. According to them, a US-made GBU [Guided Bomb Unit]-31JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition] bomb could have been mistakenly dropped from an Israeli warplane. Furthermore, a US news network cited a deputy health minister in the Gaza Strip as claiming that the IDF had conducted an airstrike on the Gaza hospital a few days before the fatal blast, and purportedly notified its head that the shelling was a warning. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Gaza hospital blast a tragedy and a humanitarian catastrophe."As regards the hospital [attack], the tragedy that happened there is horrific. Hundreds of dead and injured are, of course, a catastrophe. [It happened] in one place, a place of humanitarian nature. That's why I expect this to be a signal that the conflict should be ended as soon as possible. Anyway, it is necessary to initiate some contacts and talks," Putin told reporters after talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Wednesday.Referring to the Gaza hospital blast, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, for her part, told Sputnik that Israel must provide satellite images to prove that its military was not involved in the Gaza hospital attack.

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/israeli-president-condemns-bbcs-refusal-to-call-hamas-terrorists-1114323541.html

Israeli President Condemns BBC's Refusal to Call Hamas Terrorists

Israeli President Condemns BBC's Refusal to Call Hamas Terrorists

Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned at a meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak the unwillingness of the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC to call the Palestinian movement Hamas a terrorist organization.

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At a meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned the unwillingness of the state-affiliated British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to call the Palestinian movement Hamas a terrorist organization.Herzog acknowledged that in modern democracies, the authorities do not always have the ability to intervene, but since the BBC represents Britain and is known worldwide, it is necessary to oppose the broadcaster's position and rectify the situation. Sunak responded by saying that it was necessary to call things by their proper names and noted that Hamas' attacks were "a barbaric act of terrorism perpetrated by an evil terrorist organization."Earlier, the BBC faced a barrage of criticism over its refusal to call Hamas terrorists. British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps, among others, condemned the BBC's position, calling it "on the verge of disgrace."On Tuesday, the British state-affiliated broadcaster temporarily sidelined six correspondents responsible for covering events in the Middle East. The decision came in response to concerns surrounding specific social media posts that appeared to express support for Hamas' actions in the ongoing Palestine-Israel conflict. These posts, originating from journalists affiliated with BBC News Arabic, some of whom are stationed in Egypt and Lebanon, raised questions about their stance on the conflict. Some of the posts seemed to voice solidarity with Palestine or presented challenges to Israel's perspective. As of now, all six reporters have been withdrawn from their on-air roles, although no formal suspension has been publicly declared. The BBC initiated an immediate inquiry into the conduct and activities of these individuals in their capacity as BBC personnel.Nevertheless, the broadcaster refuses to call Hamas a terrorist group, stressing their commitment to impartial reporting.

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An instructor from Stanford University has been suspended after allegedly downplaying the Holocaust, making Jewish students stand in a corner, and calling Israel a colonizer.

A Stanford University instructor has been suspended from teaching duties after allegedly downplaying the Holocaust and singling out Jewish students and making them stand in a corner.

The suspension comes as the school investigates the incident following reports that the issue occurred during a discussion of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. In a statement released on Wednesday, the university said that the reports are a cause for concern, adding that academic freedom does not permit the identity-based targeting of students.

Stanford University Instructor Suspended

It also said that the instructor involved in the incident is not currently teaching while the investigation seeks to determine the facts of the situation. The school did not reveal the name of the instructor, who is not a faculty member.

The decision of the university comes as fierce fighting continues this week between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, which have increased tensions in the Middle East. In the United States, some Jewish people have expressed fear of being targeted as the nation contends with widespread reports of anti-semitism, as per CNN.

The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks antisemitic incidents, recorded nearly 3,700 incidents in the U.S. last year, which is the highest number since the tracking started in 1979. The executive director of Stanford's Jewish community center, Rohr Chabad House, Rabbi Dov Greenberg, said that the students were "shaken up."

He added that he has spoken with the students who were involved in the incident with the instructor, saying that they were "not doing well" and are afraid to face backlash or bullying on campus.

Greenberg said that when speaking to the students, they said that the instructor tried to justify the actions of the Hamas militant group and asked them how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust. When one answered by saying "6 million," the instructor then said that more people have been killed by colonizers and noted that "Israel is a colonizer."

Israeli student leaders on the campus, Nourya Cohen and Andrei Mandelshtam, said that they also spoke with the 18 students of the instructor this week. The teacher allegedly blamed the outbreak of violence in Israel on Zionists and said that Hamas' actions were part of a resistance, according to Business Insider.

Read Also: Only Palestinian Lives Matter? BLM Chicago Slammed for Tweet Celebrating Hamas Attack

Israel-Palestine Conflict

Cohen said that the instructor then supposedly asked Jewish students to raise their hands and then separated them from their belongings. He explained that he was simulating what Jews were doing to Palestinians.

The lecturer also allegedly separated people in two classes into different groups based on their identities and backgrounds, calling them "colonizers" and "colonized." Greenberg also recounted his discussion with some students who explained the same incident.

Greenberg also said that the students were too afraid to speak at the time against the lecturer and came out of the incident feeling traumatized. They said that the instructor did not make any mention of Hamas' atrocities against Israelis and offered a full-throated defense of the terrorists' actions.

In a statement, the executive director said that the teacher allegedly said that Hamas is a legitimate representation of the Palestinian people. He also claimed that the militant group is not a terrorist organization and called them freedom fighters, said the New York Post.

Related Article: Joe Biden Urged to Act Against Pro-Hamas Protests in Colleges

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/lavrov-palestinian-israeli-conflict-may-escalate-into-regional-one-1114307991.html

Lavrov: Palestinian-Israeli Conflict May Escalate Into Regional One

Lavrov: Palestinian-Israeli Conflict May Escalate Into Regional One

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict may escalate into a region-wide one, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday.

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As for the Gaza Strip, the risk of this crisis escalating into a region-wide conflict is quite serious, Lavrov told reporters.Russia and Turkiye are in contact on the situation in the Middle East, Sergey Lavrov added.At a press point in Pyongyang, Lavrov was asked to comment on Turkiyes initiative to create a system of guarantor countries for the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for peaceful settlement.We believe any approaches should be based on a balance of interests of the parties, and not the imposition of someones interests at the expense of the interests of others. It seems to me that the Turkish initiative is dictated by the desire to ensure such a balance. We will be ready to cooperate to consider it, he said.Contacts between Moscow and Pyongyang at various levels will continue, Lavrov said.A month ago there was contact at the top level, today at the high level. I am confident that they will continue, Lavrov said at a press point in Pyongyang when asked whether the schedule of bilateral contacts on the high and top levels was discussed during his meeting with his North Korean counterpart.Sergey Lavrov said that the intergovernmental commission of Russia and North Korea in November will discuss the cooperation in the geological survey and energy supplies.The minister added that all areas of cooperation, discussed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny spaceport in September, will be considered there."It includes geological survey, plans to supply energy and other goods that our friends from North Korea need," Lavrov said.Western Military Activity on the Korean PeninsulaRussia, together with North Korea and China, stands for the establishment of a regular negotiation process on security issues on the Korean Peninsula without preconditions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.Russia and North Korea are seriously concerned about the intensification of military activity in the region by the United States, Japan and South Korea, and Washingtons policy of transferring strategic infrastructure, including nuclear aspects, to the region, the minister said, adding that Moscow and Pyongyang pursue a course to ensure de-escalation in the region and the inadmissibility of escalating tensions.

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Israel Mulls Creating Buffer Zone Inside Gaza Strip - Agriculture Minister

Israel intends to create a buffer zone within the Gaza Strip once the conflict with Hamas is over, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said on Thursday.

"On the Gaza Strip all along, we will have a margin. And they will not be able to get in. It will be a fire zone. And no matter who you are, you will never be able to come close to the Israeli border," Dichter was quoted by UK media as saying at a media briefing.

The current situation, in which the greater part of Israel's border security infrastructure was located several hundred meters inside the Israeli territory, was a mistake and is no longer feasible, the minister, who used to be the head of Israel's domestic security agency, said.

The width of the potential buffer zone will be defined "according to the area, the needs of the military, according to the distance of the Israeli military or the Israeli settlements," Dichter said.

Israel used to maintain a buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip after it withdrew from it in 2005, but with time, the buffer eroded partly due to negotiations with Hamas to ease blockade on Gaza, media reported.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/maduro-says-venezuela-waiting-for-complete-sanctions-waiver-by-washington-1114308308.html

Maduro Says Venezuela Waiting for Complete Sanctions Waiver by Washington

Maduro Says Venezuela Waiting for Complete Sanctions Waiver by Washington

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Wednesday, following the US Treasury Department's announcement of a partial easing of US sanctions on the country's oil and gas industry, that Caracas was ready for a new stage of relations with the United States that would result in the complete sanctions waiver.

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Earlier on Wednesday, the US Department of Treasury announced that it issued a six-month waiver easing US sanctions on Venezuela's oil and gas industry, which will be renewed only if Venezuela meets its commitments under the electoral roadmap as well as other commitments with respect to those who are wrongfully detained. "Let's restore a relationship of respect, cooperation, yes, cooperation for the sake of peace, coexistence of the entire Western Hemisphere, the entire American and Caribbean continent. This is my message to the decision-makers, those in power and the government of the United States of America. We as Bolivarians, as successors of the legacy of [former Venezuelan President and] Commander Hugo Chavez, are ready, as he always wanted, for a new stage of relations with the United States of America - respect, equality and progress," Maduro said at a meeting with a delegation representing the government in talks with the opposition in Barbados. Maduro said Caracas has made a first step toward the continuous lifting of all sanctions against Venezuela, adding that this is the "global consensus" of Venezuelans as "84% of citizens one way or another demand that sanctions be lifted." During the meeting, Maduro accepted the proposal of Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez to organize a national conference for peace, where a wide range of Venezuelans can formulate a unified position "to defend the great interests of the country, to demand the complete lifting of all illegal and criminal sanctions." Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who participated in the meeting in Caracas, read out the provisions of the US license and called it "the first step in restructuring international legitimacy toward economic, trade and financial freedoms." Rodriguez said in April that Caracas had lost $232 billion since 2015 when the administration of then-US President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on the South American country. Obama declared Venezuela a national security threat and ordered the US Treasury Department to freeze the foreign property and assets of several Venezuelan officials in 2015. Washington has since expanded the sanctions regime.

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/no-combat-experience-required-captured-ukrainian-soldier-reveals-how-to-become-uaf-officer-1114323187.html

No Combat Experience Required: Captured Ukrainian Soldier Reveals How to Become UAF Officer

No Combat Experience Required: Captured Ukrainian Soldier Reveals How to Become UAF Officer

A captured Ukrainian soldier has acknowledged that his countrys army has begun recruiting soldiers with zero battle experience for officer positions.

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Andrey Sakara is a second lieutenant in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) who was captured by Russian troops when they were assaulting fortified areas in Zaporozhye.Sakara said that he was mobilized on December 12 and enlisted in the 82nd Brigade. After a little over six months, on August 1, he was enrolled in an officer training program. Just two months later he was promoted to the rank of officer.Sakara had a shrapnel wound and a fractured ulna (radius bone) when he was captured by Russian troops. He added that a few of his fellow soldiers also sustained injuries.

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/northern-sea-route---key-to-global-trade-1114321168.html

Northern Sea Route - Key to Global Trade

Northern Sea Route - Key to Global Trade

The Northern Sea Route, a vital maritime passage, traverses the Arctic Ocean along the Russian coastline, offering a promising and strategic shipping lane for international cooperation and trade.

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The Northern Sea Route (NSR) holds a special place in Russia's vision for economic development. It offers a shorter and more efficient pathway for transporting goods between Europe and Asia, significantly reducing transit times and costs. Russia envisions this route as a key driver for its economic growth, enhancing connectivity between its Far East and European regions. Furthermore, the prospect of year-round navigation along this route, due to changing climate conditions, amplifies its allure for international commerce.The Belt and Road Forum was held in Beijing on October 17-18 in the year of the 10th anniversary the initiative's launch. Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks during the forum on Wednesday. As for China, the NSR represents an extension of the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. This strategic project aims to create an extensive network of trade and transportation corridors, linking over 60 nations across Central Asia, Europe, and Africa.The Northern Sea Route's development and utilization are crucial for the international community. It offers an alternative trade route that could alleviate congestion in traditional maritime passageways, such as the Suez Canal. Diversifying transportation options enhances global trade resilience and fosters economic growth. The NSR serves as a pivotal conduit for international cooperation and trade, fostering economic development for Russia and China while aligning with the Belt and Road Initiative's overarching goal of enhancing trade connectivity across vast regions of the world. This endeavor promises to reshape the global trade landscape, providing opportunities for collaboration and prosperity among nations.Check out Sputnik's infographic to learn more about the Northern Sea Route:

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/not-in-our-name-hundreds-of-protesters-demand-israeli-ceasefire-on-capitol-hill-dozens-arrested-1114306067.html

Not in Our Name: Hundreds of Protesters Demand Israeli Ceasefire on Capitol Hill, Dozens Arrested

Not in Our Name: Hundreds of Protesters Demand Israeli Ceasefire on Capitol Hill, Dozens Arrested

More than 1,000 protesters with the organizations If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace descended on the US Capitol complex in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, demanding a ceasefire amidst ongoing violence in Gaza.

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More than 1,000 protesters with the organizations If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace descended on the US Capitol complex in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, demanding a ceasefire amidst ongoing violence in Gaza.The massive demonstration began in the citys National Mall area before protesters entered the Cannon House Office Building. There, individuals gathered on the floor in the buildings rotunda and chanted protest slogans, many of them wearing black t-shirts that read not in our name and Jews say cease fire now.Open your eyes, said Holtzman in a message addressed directly to US President Joe Biden.Protester Hannah Lawrence from Vermont agreed, urging Biden to use [his] power to save innocent lives.The account for US Capitol Police on the X platform addressed the arrest of over 100 protesters who were detained for their participation in the act of civil disobedience, explaining that demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings.Former US Justice Department prosecutor Ronald Sievert told Sputnik that demonstrators who were arrested for their involvement in the protests on Capitol Hill are likely to face trespassing offenses similar to charges leveled against protesters from the January 6, 2021, storming of the federal building. "I would not expect lengthy jail time except for those who assaulted officers," Sievert said.Benjamin joins a number of prominent Jewish Americans who have spoken out against US support for Israel recently, including commentator Katie Halper, Chapo Trap House co-host Felix Biederman and academic Norman Finkelstein.Large pro-Palestinian protests also continue to take place internationally in England, Scotland, and throughout the Arab world. German police used water cannons to disperse pro-Palestinian protests Wednesday. A French court upheld a ban on pro-Palestine protests enacted over a week ago by the Macron government, but demonstrators have taken to the streets regardless.Back in Washington, US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) released a statement Wednesday that appeared to be aimed at intimidating Jewish protesters, calling Jewish Voice for Peace a pro-Islamic antisemitic group.Greenes comments mirrored a deteriorating democratic situation in Israel on Wednesday as a committee aligned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu banned opposition lawmaker Ofer Cassif from parliamentary proceedings for 45 days. Cassif criticized his punishment as political persecution, calling it another nail in the coffin of freedom of political expression in Israel.As the hours tick by, the magnitude of the horror is revealed  horrific crimes that the mind does not tolerate against children, women and the elderly, read a statement by Cassif blasting Israels recent conduct in Gaza. Monstrous beastliness and scenes reminiscent of the Holocaust, nothing less than the burning of families and houses on those who are in them. There is no sane person who can not be shocked, seething and disgusted by these sights.Netanyahus current cabinet has been criticized by observers as beyond extreme and includes at least one official who has openly self-identified as a fascist.Israel Defense Forces continued to indefinitely delay a promised ground invasion of Gaza on Wednesday, instead firing rockets at mosques and other buildings in the territory. Meanwhile, Israeli troops killed two Palestinian teens in the West Bank amidst protests over Tuesdays destruction of a Gaza hospital.Israel has been engaged in attacks on Gaza since an October 7 surprise attack by Palestinian group Hamas that killed 1,400 Israelis. The death toll among Palestinians quickly eclipsed that tally, in accordance with Israels official policy of disproportionate force, now standing at at least 2,750 per Gazas Health Ministry.Unbalanced coverage in Western media has endangered Muslims globally as well; on Wednesday, hundreds gathered near Chicago, Illinois, to mourn the death of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy who was stabbed to death by his landlord. Reports indicated the landlord became radicalized by Islamophobic talk radio programs.Israel has been engaged in violence against the countrys indigenous Palestinian Arab population since large numbers of Zionist settlers arrived in the territory in 1948.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231010/roots-of-israel-hamas-conflict-1114064324.html

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israel-palestine conflict, us capitol building, capitol hill protests,
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/palestinian-israeli-crisis-has-turned-mideast-into-powder-keg-ready-to-blow-iran-warns-1114336581.html

Palestinian-Israeli Crisis Has Turned Mideast Into Powder Keg Ready to Blow, Iran Warns

Palestinian-Israeli Crisis Has Turned Mideast Into Powder Keg Ready to Blow, Iran Warns

Israel and its allies have accused Iran of broad complicity in Hamas surprise hit-and-run attacks in southern Israel earlier this month, with Israeli jets striking Iranian-backed militias in Lebanon and Syria  a key Iranian ally. So far, Tehran has not taken the bait to escalate, joining Russia and China in calling for a halt to the violence.

2023-10-19T19:10+0000

2023-10-19T19:10+0000

2023-10-19T19:30+0000

world

mohammad baqeri

hossein amir-abdollahian

ebrahim raisi

middle east

israel

iran

gaza

hamas

organization of islamic cooperation (oic)

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Top Iranian diplomats and military officials are concerned about the risks of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis widening into a regional war, and have slammed US efforts to expand the conflicts geography.In the bilateral meetings, there was serious criticism of US President Biden; first of all, because a hospital in Gaza has been targeted by Zionist bombs and more than a thousand civilians, patients and medical staff have been martyred but Biden visits the region in support of the warmonger, Amir-Abdollahian said, referring to Tuesdays deadly al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing in Gaza City.Amir-Abdollahian expressed special thanks to Saudi Arabia for hosting the emergency OIC meeting, and characterized last weeks first-ever phone call between Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman as an important step at the right time.Separately on Thursday, speaking by telephone with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Baqeri similarly warned that the Palestine-Israel conflict threatens to escalate into a regional conflagration.Shoigu and Baqeri reiterated the need for an urgent ceasefire, and reportedly agreed to cooperate on the provision of humanitarian assistance.In a separate call with Qatari Defense Minister Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah, Baqeri called for an immediate halt to the transfer of US weapons to Israel.The United States on Wednesday vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for humanitarian pauses to Israels Gaza operations, citing Tel Avivs right to self-defense, with a Russian proposal calling for an immediate ceasefire and a halt to attacks against civilians also rejected by Washington and its allies.President Raisi slammed the US move to veto the resolution, characterizing it as a double oppression against Palestinians and humanity, and expressing hope that the blood of the oppressed Palestinian martyrs will definitely shatter the current world order and establish a just system in the world.Earlier in the week, Raisi outlined to Brazilian President Lula da Silva Irans three-point vision for relieving regional tensions, including a halt to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, a ceasefire and the immediate lifting of the blockade against the Strip.Iranian officials moderate position amid the Palestinian-Israeli flare-up contrasts sharply with statements by Israeli, US and European officials over the past week regarding the Islamic Republics role in the crisis, ranging from allegations of Iranian advance knowledge of or involvement in Hamas' surprise October 7 attack, to claims of broad complicity and support, to the purported involvement of proxy commanders.Iran has not shied away from expressing support for Hamas operations inside Israel, but has forcefully rejected any and all claims of direct involvement. Those who say what the Palestinians did was caused by non-Palestinians have not yet gotten to know the Palestinian people and make wrong calculations, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said last week.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/western-leaders-posturing-shuttle-visits-to-israel-an-effort-to-buoy-hold-on-power-at-home--1114325687.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231013/us-tries-to-manufacture-consent-for-war-with-iran-by-blaming-tehran-for-israel-crisis-1114169021.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/scott-ritter-us-not-ready-for-war-with-iran-1114312615.html

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iran, israel, gaza, palestine, crisis, conflict, escalation, powder keg
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/russia-china-map-out-new-economic-order-in-beijing-1114324537.html

Pepe Escobar: Russia, China Map Out New Economic Order in Beijing

Pepe Escobar: Russia, China Map Out New Economic Order in Beijing

History  complete with poetic justice overtones  presented us this week with the ultimate, glaring contrast between the geopolitics of the past, enacted in an incendiary corner of southwest Asia, and the geopolitics of the future, enacted in East Asias Beijing, one of the capitals of emerging multipolarity.

2023-10-19T15:16+0000

2023-10-19T15:16+0000

2023-10-20T09:38+0000

world

vladimir putin

russia

china

beijing

european union (eu)

brics

northern sea route

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Lets start with the future. The 3rd Belt and Road Forum in Beijing worked as a sort of road map for Eurasia economic/infrastructure integration. It was preceded by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China releasing on October 10 a quite detailed white paper on the New Silk Roads  or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the actual overarching foreign policy concept of China for the foreseeable future.BRI, initially defined as OBOR (One Belt, One Road) was launched 10 years ago by President Xi Jinping, first in Astana, Kazakhstan (part of the belt, as in a series of economic belts) and then Jakarta, Indonesia (part of the road, as in the Maritime Silk Road).Ten years, nearly 150 participating nations and over $1 trillion in Chinese investments later, the white paper summed it all up: BRI is steadily advancing as a multi-layered platform of international trade and connectivity; as a mechanism to develop vast swathes of the Global South/Global Majority; and as a practical counterpart to Western hegemony.The bulk of BRI projects concern extractive industries and transportation corridors. Its not by accident that key extractive industries are concentrated in Russia and the Persian Gulf  and that is intimately linked to Beijings complex strategic drive to bypass Hegemon containment and instances of Hybrid War.Thus its no wonder that the guest of honor at the 2023 Forum was President Putin; and all discussions made it quite clear that Russia from now on will be even more of a key BRI partner  in line with the deepening of the Russia-China strategic partnership, whole leaderships are totally in synch.Faithful to meticulous, symbology-heavy Chinese protocol, it was also inevitable that at the entrance to the Forums gala dinner, the first was guest of honor Putin. Right behind him were leaders from Central Asia (Tokayev and Mirziyoyev, from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) and Southeast Asia (Joko Widodo, from Indonesia).Up Next: The Northern Silk RoadPresident Xi announced that participants of the business summit at the Forum clinched new infrastructure deals worth a whopping $97.2 billion.Thats the new paradigm. Compare it with the old Forever Wars paradigm: the White House working on a $100 billion package to fund the Ukraine-Israel wars.The 3-hour-long face to face meeting between Putin and Xi was crucial in more ways than one. It was a graphic illustration of Russia-China co-hosting the drive towards a multipolar world. And of BRI working side by side with the upcoming BRICS 11 (in effect on January 1, as Russia starts its BRICS presidency).Putin, sly as a fox, commented that he could not tell us everything he discussed with Xi. What he could say is that they went through "the entire bilateral agenda, a lot of issues there: it's the economy, finance, political interaction, and joint work on international platforms."Additionally, "we discussed in detail the situation in the Middle East as well. I also briefed the president on the situation on the Ukrainian track in detail. All these external factors are common threats (italics mine). They strengthen Russian-Chinese interaction."China-Russia signed the largest deal in their shared history for the supply of grain; 2.5 trillion rubles for 70 million tons of grain, leguminous and oilseed cargo delivered for 12 years.That completely destroys serial US Think Tankland wet dream scenarios advocating a naval blockade as the key strategy for the containment of China, to starve it of food and raw materials.On the energy front, Xi expected the extended Power of Siberia II, or Russia-Mongolia-China gas pipeline to make substantial progress as soon as possible.As much as Putin stressed both Russia and Chinas respect for civilizational diversity as well as the right of each civilization-state to its own development model, what really stood out was his detailed explanation of connectivity corridors.That was a direct reference to the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), whose main hubs are Russia, Iran and India. That will interconnect, in the medium and long term, with BRIs central Eurasian corridors.Putin added that other sections will pass through Siberia, the Urals and Yamal. The Northern Sea Passage will be built - to the Arctic Ocean. The railway routes will run from central Siberia to the south  to the Indian and Pacific Oceans () A corridor will also pass from the Arctic to the south - a railway line from BAM to Yakutia will be built, bridges across the Lena and Amur, highways will be modernized, and deep-sea terminals will be created.Putins characterization of the Northern Sea Route is particularly crucial:All these transportation corridors from north to south in the European part of Russia, in Siberia, and in the Far East open up the possibility of directly connecting and integrating the Northern Sea Route with major logistics hubs in the south of our continent, on the coast of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. As far as the Northern Sea Route is concerned, Russia is not just inviting its partners to actively use its transit potential. Let me say more: we invite interested states to participate directly in its development and are ready to provide reliable ice navigation, communication and supply. As early as next year, navigation for ice-class cargo ships along the entire length of the Northern Sea Route will become year-round. The creation of the above-mentioned international and regional logistics and trade routes objectively reflects the profound changes that are taking place in the global economy.So here we have Putin personally inviting companies and businesses from all over the Global South to directly invest in Eurasia-wide integration. And for those who didnt get the message, the Suez canal, for many across the Global South, will soon become a relic of the  geoeconomic  past.Scythians on Horseback Go High-TechThe Forum was a graphic illustration that BRI, an open platform  a concept unintelligible in the West - goes way beyond trade, infrastructure development and connectivity corridors. It is also about cross-cultural interaction and those notorious, Xi-defined people-to-people exchanges, setting an example when it comes to civilization coexistence.Central Asians and Southeast Asians were fraternizing all over the place. Hungarys Viktor Orban was delighted to talk to everybody without being branded an authoritarian contrary to EU values. The Taliban* delegation upgraded their networking when they were not discussing Chinese investment in copper and building a new road through the Wakhan corridor directly connecting northern Afghanistan to Xinjiang.It's as if this was a high-tech remix of the spirit of the Ancient Silk Roads, when nomad Scythian horsemen, fond of gold jewelry and Chinese silk, opened a new commercial front by acting as middlemen facilitating trade across Eurasia between Asia and Europe.Europe, by the way, and the whole collective West, were nearly invisible at the Belt and Road Forum.Which brings us to the myth of a universalist West now lying in tatters.The key inflection points, lately, have been the Hegemon humiliation in Afghanistan; the collapse of Project Ukraine - with the incoming, cosmic humiliation of NATO; and the collapse of allegedly incomparable Israeli intel in Palestine, blindly avenged via collective punishment.Compare all that with Putin-Xi in Beijing. The accumulated debacles point to the inexorable dissolution of the end of History Western project. And it gets worse: the new geoeconomics paradigm discussed in Beijing will continue to speed up the pitiless, relentless overstretch, economic and geopolitical, of the most powerful nation in the history of the world (copyright The White House).The Americans are absolutely terrified, among other instances, of the fact that now Iran and Saudi Arabia are strategizing The Big Picture together: the inevitable consequence of a detente first engineered by the Russians and then clinched by the Chinese.The Americans are absolutely paralyzed by the fact that BRI and BRICS 11 are already engaged in the process of turning upside down the imperial, neocolonial Western business model.Putin, Xi and the guests at the Belt and Road Forum made it quite clear this is essentially about new commodity supply chains; new and improved Maritime Silk Roads; and bypassing Western-controlled choke points  as the (attached) map shows. Its all leading to an interconnected maze featuring BRI, BRICS, EAEU and SCO.The Russia-China-led BRICS 11  and beyond (Putin gave a hint that Indonesia will become one of the new members in 2024) is already turning all Mackinder-drenched fantasies upside down, on the way to uniting Eurasia and configuring Afro-Eurasia as an extended, peaceful, predominant Heartland.*Taliban is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/russian-energy-exports-to-china-up-by-17-this-year---novak-1114312075.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/china-ready-to-expand-trilateral-cooperation-with-mongolia-russia---xi-1114311793.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230414/brazil-china-support-brics-expansion-joint-statement-1109541005.html

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new economic order, russia, china map, southwest asia, geopolitics
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/russia-wants-answers-on-us-biological-activities-in-ukraine-1114331405.html

Russia Wants Answers on US Biological Activities in Ukraine

Russia Wants Answers on US Biological Activities in Ukraine

Russia at the United Nations on Thursday reiterated its request for the United States to shed light on its biological activities in Ukraine.

2023-10-19T16:42+0000

2023-10-19T16:42+0000

2023-10-19T16:42+0000

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sergei vorontsov

ukraine

russia

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"We want to receive answers to the following question. What are the indicators on public health in the recent 10-15 years that have improved thanks to the United States assistance in Ukraine?" the Russian Foreign Ministry's Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department Deputy Director Kosntantin Vorontsov said at a UN first committee meeting. Vorontsov requested several more answers from the United States on pathogens and biological weapons. Vorontsov stressed that Russia has provided a "mass of evidence" regarding the US's military biological program in Ukraine, and it requires close attention. Since March 2022, Russia has repeatedly accused the United States of conducting biological research in Ukraine for military purposes. Russia has pointed out that up to 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine were likely involved in those efforts. The United States has denied the allegations.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russias-questions-on-us-military-biological-program-in-ukraine-remain-unanswered-1114300701.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/russian-energy-exports-to-china-up-by-17-this-year---novak-1114312075.html

Russian Energy Exports to China Up by 17% This Year - Novak

Russian Energy Exports to China Up by 17% This Year - Novak

Russian energy exports to China have increased by 17% this year compared to the same period of the last year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday.

2023-10-19T09:43+0000

2023-10-19T09:43+0000

2023-10-19T09:43+0000

economy

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alexander novak

energy

export

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"Energy is one of the key areas of our cooperation. For many years, Russia has been a reliable partner of our friends in ensuring energy security. Russian exports of energy goods to China this year have increased by 17% compared to the same period last year," Novak said at the fifth Russia-China Energy Business Forum. Russia sees high potential for increasing energy supplies to China, the official said, adding that Russia will be glad to see Chinese businesses as partners in the development of promising hydrocarbon fields.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230419/russia-rolls-out-fish-shuttle-with-exports-bound-for-china-asia-pacific-1109654337.html

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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visits Israel to call for a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict after promising to keep Jewish people safe.

British Prime Minister Sunak visits Israel amid the Middle Eastern conflict with the Hamas militant group after promising to keep Jewish people safe.

Sunak's planned trip comes as global leaders are trying to de-escalate the situation in Gaza. The British prime minister is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday before he travels to other regional capitals.

Rishi Sunak Visits Israel

He will also offer his condolences to the civilians killed in the deadly Hamas attacks in the Middle Eastern region. Sunak will also call for humanitarian aid to be delivered to the people of Gaza as soon as possible.

In a statement about his trip, the British prime minister said that every civilian death is a tragedy, adding that too many lives have already been lost in the conflict. Earlier this week, there were reports that Sunak was planning his first trip to Israel but did not confirm his travel arrangements until Wednesday evening, as per BBC.

On the other hand, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is set to meet with leaders in Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar in the following days. He plans to seek support for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Israel and Gaza.

Cleverly will work on pushing for an agreement on humanitarian access to Gaza and the release of British hostages that Hamas militants are holding. Officials have also pointed out that Defense Secretary Grant Shapps met with his American counterpart, Lloyd Austin, in Washington. The former allegedly went on the trip to coordinate their approach to the conflict in the Middle East.

The trips of global leaders to Israel follow the one made by United States President Joe Biden, which was overshadowed by a deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday that killed hundreds of civilians.

Read Also: Israel Allows Egypt to Deliver Humanitarian Goods into Gaza

Calling for a Peaceful Resolution

Sunak left London on Wednesday evening and will meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday. The British prime minister's travel to other regional capitals did not contain much information due to security reasons as well as the fast-changing situation in the region, according to The Guardian.

On Wednesday in parliament, the British prime minister said that British intelligence was working to uncover the truth behind the blast at a hospital in Gaza. This comes as the Israeli military produced evidence that it claims that the explosion resulted from a rocket launched by Hamas misfiring.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu said that his country would allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid across to Gaza. Downing Street and Sunak expressed the need to expedite the process and called for UK nationals trapped in Gaza to be allowed to leave.

In a statement before he visited Israel, Sunak said that the attack on Al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and worldwide. He said that the incident should compel them to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict, said Inquirer.

Related Article: Readout of Biden's Remarks on Hamas's Sabbath Attack, Resilience of Israel

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/russias-kinzhal-packing-jets-patrol-over-black-sea-to-target-atacms---military-experts-1114314582.html

Russias Kinzhal-Packing Jets Patrol Over Black Sea to 'Target' ATACMS - Military Experts

Russias Kinzhal-Packing Jets Patrol Over Black Sea to 'Target' ATACMS - Military Experts

Russias fighter jets equipped with hypersonic Kinzhal missiles patrolling the Black Sea airspace will be tasked with carrying out strikes on launch systems with US ATACMS missiles, said a Russian military analyst.

2023-10-19T14:07+0000

2023-10-19T14:07+0000

2023-10-19T14:07+0000

russia

vladimir putin

mig-31

army tactical missile system (atacms)

kinzhal missile system

military

alexei leonkov

igor korotchenko

russian aerospace forces

black sea

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The mission of Russias MiG-31K aircraft equipped with hypersonic Kinzhal missiles patrolling the airspace over the Black Sea will be to carry out instant strikes on launch systems with American ATACMS missiles identified by intelligence, according to a Russian military analyst.He added that the Kinzhal hypersonic complex will be used as part of the reconnaissance strike contour, specifically tasked with timely identification of launchers, firing positions, and storage sites for ATACMS.Military expert Alexei Leonkov agreed with Korotchenko's views.At the same time, Korotchenko did not rule out that there may be other patrol mission goals involved. The Kinzhal is, to a certain extent, a forward-deployed weapon, so it could be seen as a clear demonstration that Russia does not exclude any response options in the event of a specific political or military decision. We are aware that the Kinzhal can be used both in its conventional version and with special ordnance, ie a nuclear warhead, the analyst explained.The primary task of the Kinzhal during the development stage was to face off against American aircraft carriers, Leonkov recalled.Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered MiG-31 fighter jets packing Kinzhal missiles to be scrambled. The Russian president also pointed out that this move is not a threat to anyone. Putin delivered these remarks hours after ATACMS missiles delivered by the US were used by the Kiev regime to attack the Russian port city of Berdyansk on the shores of the Sea of Azov which is connected to the Black Sea. Vladimir Rogov, a senior official of the Zaporozhye regional administration, announced that M74 cluster submunitions were discovered at the site of a Ukrainian missile strike in Berdyansk suburbs.The head of the Kiev regime Volodymyr Zelensky gloated over the use of ATACMS missiles by Ukrainian forces, writing online that the weapons had performed very accurately, as he thanked US President Joe Biden for the delivery. For months the US had hesitated about giving Ukraine the longer-range ATACMS over fears that Kiev would use them to strike inside Russia, further escalating the conflict. Over recent days, reports surfaced stating that the United States finally secretly shipped a small number of surface-to-surface missiles, boasting a a range of about 100 miles (160km), to Ukraine as part of the ongoing botched counteroffensive.According to the Russian president, the delivery of ATACMS missiles from the United States to Ukraine, as in the case of other billions'-worth of military aid packages from NATO countries to Kiev, will only prolong the regimes "agony."Putin added that Russia is able to repel the ATACMS attacks, and that these missiles will not radically change the situation on the frontline of the Ukrainian conflict.The oldest version of the ATACMS missiles with cluster warheads that the US provided to Ukraine will be of limited use because of their age, and Russian defense systems are well-adapted to deal with them, experts told Sputnik. They added that their impact on the failed Ukraine counteroffensive would be limited.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russian-aerospace-forces-equipped-with-kinzhal-missiles-begin-patrol-airspace-over-black-sea---1114284453.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russian-air-defenses-well-adapted-to-taking-out-aged-atacms-missiles-us-gave-to-ukraine-1114299944.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/russias-rushydro-says-ready-to-take-part-in-myanmar-hydroelectricity-projects-1114331793.html

Russias RusHydro Says Ready to Take Part in Myanmar Hydroelectricity Projects

Russias RusHydro Says Ready to Take Part in Myanmar Hydroelectricity Projects

Russian hydroelectricity company RusHydro said on Thursday it is interested in providing engineering services to Myanmar for various projects including Nam Lang and Middle Paunglaung hydroelectric power plants construction.

2023-10-19T17:43+0000

2023-10-19T17:43+0000

2023-10-19T17:44+0000

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On October 13, a Myanmar delegation led by Electric Power Minister Nyan Tun visited the Zagorskaya pumped storage plant (PSPP) located near Moscow to adopt best practices in use and maintenance of PSPPs. The parties also agreed on meeting in Myanmar to discuss the scale of RusHydros participation in Myanmars projects, according to the company. RusHydro is the second-largest hydroelectricity company in Russia. Installed electricity generation capacity of the company's power plants reaches 38.4 gigawatt.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/rmafc-aims-to-strengthen-energy-sector-ties-between-russia-and-myanmar-1113729311.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/scott-ritter-us-not-ready-for-war-with-iran-1114312615.html

Scott Ritter: US Not Ready for War With Iran

Scott Ritter: US Not Ready for War With Iran

The current phase of the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel exploded upon the international scene on October 7, when Hamas carried out a deadly surprise attacks that killed 1,300 Israelis, including more than 220 soldiers.

2023-10-19T10:26+0000

2023-10-19T10:26+0000

2023-10-19T10:47+0000

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The Israeli responsethe mobilization of some 360,000 troops who subsequently laid siege to the Gaza Strip, home to some 2.1 million Palestinianshas generated the ire of much of the world, especially in the face of sustained aerial bombardment that has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, more than half of them children, and unleashing a humanitarian crisis among the survivors, many of whom have been displaced from homes destroyed by the Israeli actions.The suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel has prompted supporters of Hamas, including Hezbollah and Iran, to threaten military intervention against Israel, raising the specter of a wider regional conflict. This, in turn, has resulted in American policymakers, like Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, to weigh in on the issue. Heres my message. If Hezbollah, which is a proxy of Iran, launches a massive attack on Israel, I would consider that a threat to theto the State of Israel, existential in nature. I will introduce a resolution in the United States Senate to allow military action by the United States in conjunction with Israel to knock Iran out of the oil business. Iran, if you escalate this war, were coming for you.Lindsey Grahams rhetoric is inflammatory in nature, but when viewed in the context of modern-day reality, is empty. One of the strategic goals of the United States is government change in Iran. During the Trump administration, the US military and the CIA were tasked with developing covert action plans designed to sow dissent within the Iranian government and, in the process, delegitimize it in the eyes of the Iranian public.While these plans never reached fruition under Trump, they were fully executed by the Biden administration. The tragic death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022 was used by the CIA as a catalyst around which to unleash a massive pre-planned program of domestic political unrest designed to weaken and, ultimately, overthrow the Iranian government. For decades, the CIA had fostered relationships with a variety of Iranian opposition groups, including the Kurdish, Azeri, Baluchi, and Arab ethnic minorities, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), and various monarchist organizations, to create a powder keg of political dissent capable of being ignited upon demand.The death of Mahsa Amini (which, contrary to the CIA-driven propaganda, was from natural causes) was seized upon by the CIA as the trigger for unleashing this weaponized opposition. In the weeks and months that followed, Iran was subjected to massive domestic political unrest and violence which the US tried to leverage into regime-change potential akin to what was done on the Maidan in Kiev, Ukraine, in February 2014. This effort failed, and Iran emerged from the violence stronger and more unified than ever behind the very government the US tried to overthrow.With covert regime change off the table, the only option available to the Biden administration in dealing with Iran along the lines threatened by Senator Graham is war. The United States has assiduously avoided direct large-scale military conflict with Iran for the simple fact that to prevail in such a conflict, the United States would have to dedicate military power sufficient to the task at a time when the finite resources of the US military were being allocated to Europe and the Pacific. Even if the US were to reallocate the forces necessary to prevail in a general war with Iran, it would take months to assemble the force needed.Generating combat power is one thing. Deploying it in a manner that is logistically sustainable is another. The US was able to deploy some 750,000 troops into the Middle East in 1990-1991 only because it had access to friendly ports and airfields in the region where troops and military material could be offloaded in uncontested fashion. Any general war between Iran and the US would inevitably result in Iran challenging any major US military deployment, which means the airfields and ports that would normally be used to support such a deployment would be under constant Iranian attack.As a result, the US would need to execute a forced entry option into Iran, seizing a major Iranian port city, such as Chah Bahar or Bandar Abbass. This would require a major amphibious effort where the ships containing the landing force would have to run a gauntlet of Iranian missiles that would cripple or destroy the landing force before it got within striking distance of Iran. In short, the US cannot physically defeat Iran using conventional military power without undergoing a massive mobilization of resources that would be politically unsustainable.This leaves the option of an air campaign. Israel has long advocated for a military strike using air power against Iran. One of the major problems facing Israel is the physical distance between Israel and Iran, which would necessitate the kind of large-scale air-to-air refueling support that only the United States possesses. Israel and the US have carried out joint military training involving the air-to-air refueling of Israeli strike aircraft by US refueling aircraft as part of a training exercise known as Juniper Oak, conducted in January 2023. This training also included US bombers and ground forces.The problem facing the US, however, is that Iran is a huge country which is not conducive to the delivery of a knock-out blow, even if delivered by the combined resources of Israel and the United States. Lindsey Grahams threat to knock Iran out of the oil business may sound good to the opponents of Iran, but it is simply empty rhetoric. If the US and/or Israel were to target Iranian oil infrastructure, Iran would unleash a retaliation which would cripple the oil production infrastructure of the entire Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Such an action would throw the US and global economies into chaos. Moreover, Iran would retain sufficient strike capacity to devastate US military bases in the region and Israeli cities alike. In short, there is no military option available to either Israel or the United States, individually or working in tandem, that can defeat Iran.Were the United States of America for Gods sake, Biden responded, with his trademark bellicosity, the most powerful nation in the historynot in the world, in the history of the world. The history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense. We have the capacity to do this and we have an obligation to. We are the essential nation, to paraphrase the former secretary of state. And, he concluded, trying his best to muster the steely-eyed stare of a man who means business, if we dont, who does?The answer, it seems, is no one.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/israel-plans-to-turn-gaza-into-hiroshima-but-without-nuclear-weapons---sy-hersh-1114308532.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russia-and-china-may-help-end-israeli-palestinian-conflict-for-good---expert-1114299641.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/ukraine-suffers-up-to-260-military-casualties-in-donetsk-direction---mod-1114322031.html

Ukraine Suffers Up to 260 Military Casualties in Donetsk Direction - MoD

Ukraine Suffers Up to 260 Military Casualties in Donetsk Direction - MoD

Ukraine has suffered up to 260 military casualties in the Donetsk direction over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

2023-10-19T12:00+0000

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2023-10-19T12:00+0000

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Over the given period, the Russian armed forces repelled one attack by Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk direction, two attacks in the Zaporozhye direction, six attacks in the Krasny Liman direction and 11 attacks in the Kupyansk direction. "The enemy's total losses over the past day [in the Donetsk direction] amounted to up to 260 Ukrainian military personnel killed and wounded, a tank, two armored combat vehicles and four cars," the ministry said in a statement. Ukraine has also list up to 190 soldiers in the South Donetsk direction and over 235 soldiers in the Krasny Liman direction, the ministry added.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/ukraines-military-casualties-amount-to-170-troops-in-south-donetsk-direction-in-past-day-1114291043.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/us-elites-need-middle-east-war-to-preserve-regional-hegemony---economist-1114326355.html

US Elites Need Middle East War to Preserve Regional Hegemony - Economist

US Elites Need Middle East War to Preserve Regional Hegemony - Economist

Hamas surprise October 7 assault across the impregnable Iron Wall barrier separating Israel from Gaza has sparked the deadliest escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since the Second Intifada of 2000-2005. Veteran US economist Michael Hudson tells Sputnik why neocons threaten to turn the crisis into a new 9/11 moment for Washington.

2023-10-19T15:38+0000

2023-10-19T15:38+0000

2023-10-19T16:07+0000

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benjamin netanyahu

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hamas

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The Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues to intensify, with the Israeli military continuing large-scale air and artillery strikes on Gaza, with the operation designed, in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus words, to wipe out Hamas, but threatening to unleash an unprecedented humanitarian crisis across the blockaded 365 square kilometer strip of territory.The United States on Wednesday vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for humanitarian pauses to the bombing to provide aid to Gazas residents, citing Israels inherent right of self-defense as reflected in Article 51 of the UN Charter. A Russian proposal demanding an immediate ceasefire and halt to attacks on civilians was rejected by the US and its allies.Up to one million Palestinians have been displaced inside Gaza, complementing about half a million Israelis displaced in southern Israel. Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the escalation to date, with over 17,000 more wounded, many of them women and children.The crisis also threatens to turn into a major regional conflagration amid the deployment of US carrier strike groups to the region in support of Tel Aviv, Israeli preemptive attacks against Hezbollah militia forces in Lebanon, IAF airstrikes against Syria, and warnings by Iran  the Jewish states regional arch-rival, that other actors could enter the fray if the crisis continues.Palestinian-Israeli Crisis: Ploy for US Neocons Ambitions?But the Palestinian-Israeli conflict itself could very well be mere filler behind US neocons broader plans for the Middle East, says veteran economist, former Wall Street analyst, and Professor Michael Hudson. The present conflict merely masks an attempt by the US to attack Syria and Iran and take over the whole Near East. Thats what this whole fight nominally about Israel is all about, Hudson believes.Ive heard American generals talk to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahus main economic advisor, Uzi Arad, when we worked together at the [Hudson] Institute. The American generals would tell him, Youre our landed aircraft carrier there. Were using Israel. We can always use that to make sure that we control the Near East and its oil supplies. Well, that was in about 1974 and thats almost 50 years ago. And its still the mentality of the United States, the academic told Sputniks New Rules podcast.They want to do to Syria and Iran what theyve done to Iraq, the economist warned, pointing to recent saber rattling in this direction by high profile neocons in Washington, from top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell to longshot GOP presidential candidate and neocon favorite Nikki Haley.In the aftermath of 9/11, Hudson recalled, instead of going after against those deemed to be responsible for the terrorist attacks, the US invaded Iraq.Pointing to the rapid breakdown of the US-led "international rules-based" order, Hudson stressed that the world today is seeing the rapid militarization of what is fundamentally economic conflict centered on neoliberalism and US attempts to maintain its hegemony over other countries.'Deliberately Risking World War III'Commenting on the effort by countries including Russia, China, and Iran to create a new, multipolar, interconnected Eurasia, Hudson emphasized that the US is intentionally triggering and escalating regional conflicts, including in the Middle East, amid its global loss of power.They think that right now maybe Russia has already tied up its army in Ukraine and theres nothing it can do to come to the aid of Syria if the United States moves against Syria, and once it moves against Syria, the neocons in the national security establishment have already said, First we go to Iraq, then Syria, and then Iran is where were all aiming all of this. Theyve spelled it all out in national security reports. This is not sleepwalking [into war, ed.]. This is a very conscious plan that the leading neocons, [Under Secretary of State] Victoria Nulands group, have all put together. And they are actually trying to trigger it all, Hudson explained, pointing to US plans to "secure" Irans oil to continue try to assure the current exploitative unipolar systems survival.GDP is basically based on electricity and power consumption: oil, gas, and electricity. This is actually all spelled out visibly. Thats what the United States is doing, and it has let the whole world know that Yes, we do have a plan to exploit you. What are you going to do about it? Because if you defend yourself, were going to do to you what we did to Iraq, what we are doing to Syria, what we did to Iran, what we did to Ukraine. Do you really want to go through that? Thats the gauntlet that the United States has thrown down. And I think other countries are saying Were not going to be a part of that. Weve got to go our own way, the observer said.Can US Fight and Win a Three-Front War?Sources told US legacy media this week that the Biden administration is preparing to unveil a $100 billion all-in-one supplemental funding request to Congress for money to finance the Israeli, Ukrainian and Taiwanese flashpoints, plus the US-Mexico border, with Ukraine and Israeli funding reaching about $60 billion and $10 billion, respectively.The attempt to link the funding together comes amid growing opposition among the House GOP to continue funding the Ukraine quagmire, as well as growing calls among rebel Republicans to break bills down to individual issues.And while Washington might be able to declare a war on three fronts, Hudson says theres also no question that itll lose  whether in Ukraine, in a new war of aggression in the Middle East, or a battle against China over Taiwan or in the South China Sea.I remember during the Vietnam War, when I was working with [venerated military strategist and systems theorist] Herman Kahn at the Hudson Institute. We would meet with the leading generals that were planning the Vietnam War. Id have dinner with them, and they sounded like they were leading a peace march, [saying] We cant possibly win, this is awful, there is no way we can with to get out. They knew that they were losing, and that its the politicians who overruled the army that had this illusion of world dominance, Hudson recalled.* Daesh (ISIS/IS/ISIL) is a terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/live-updates-israel-defense-forces-strike-hezbollahs-observation-point-along-lebanon-border-1114307620.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/scott-ritter-us-not-ready-for-war-with-iran-1114312615.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/israel-plans-to-turn-gaza-into-hiroshima-but-without-nuclear-weapons---sy-hersh-1114308532.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/us-navy-says-sent-another-military-ship-from-italy-to-eastern-mediterranean-1114315054.html

US Navy Says Sent Another Military Ship From Italy to Eastern Mediterranean

US Navy Says Sent Another Military Ship From Italy to Eastern Mediterranean

The United States has deployed another navy ship from its homeport in the central Italian coastal city of Gaeta to support US operations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East, the US Sixth Fleet said.

2023-10-19T10:37+0000

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"The US 6th Fleet Blue Ridge-class command and control ship USS MOUNT WHITNEY LCC 20 departed Gaeta, Italy, Oct. 18, 2023, in support of US operations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea," the statement said on Wednesday. The amphibious command ship would be dispatched to the US European Command area to engage with allies and partners and support maritime operations there, the statement added. The US has deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region to bolster deterrence efforts in response to the Hamas attacks on Israel. On October 10, the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean, where it will be joined by the Dwight D Eisenhower carrier strike group. The first strike group includes the US Navy aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser Normandy and the Arleigh-Burke class guided missile destroyers Thomas Hudner, Ramage, Carney and Roosevelt. The Dwight D. Eisenhower strike group comprises the US guided-missile cruiser Philippine Sea, guided-missile destroyers Gravely and Mason, as well as Carrier Air Wing 3 with nine aircraft squadrons.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231014/us-sends-2nd-strike-group-with-aircraft-carrier-to-eastern-mediterranean---secretary-1114204950.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/western-leaders-posturing-shuttle-visits-to-israel-an-effort-to-buoy-hold-on-power-at-home--1114325687.html

Western Leaders' 'Posturing' Shuttle Visits to Israel an Effort to Buoy 'Hold on Power at Home'

Western Leaders' 'Posturing' Shuttle Visits to Israel an Effort to Buoy 'Hold on Power at Home'

European leaders' only concern is to strengthen their hold on power at home by photo opps in Israel, and posturing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gilbert Doctorow told Sputnik.

2023-10-19T15:19+0000

2023-10-19T15:19+0000

2023-10-19T15:19+0000

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palestine-israel conflict

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As they embark upon a flurry of visits to Tel Aviv amid the latest flare-up of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, European leaders are demonstrating once again that their only concern is to strengthen their hold on power at home by photo ops in Israel, and posturing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gilbert Doctorow, an international relations and Russian affairs analyst, told Sputnik.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, US President Joe Biden, and now UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have all made successive visits to Tel Aviv amid the latest violent escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. At the same time, ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip region show no signs of abating, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pounding what they claim are Hamas targets inside the Palestinian enclave.The Gaza death toll has already exceeded 3,300, according to Palestinian authorities. One million people have been displaced in the span of 10 days, according to the United Nations. Furthermore, since the start of the complete blockage of the Gaza Strip by Israel, the Palestinian Ministry of Health warned of a severe shortage of medicines, water, and growing risk of an outbreak of disease in the besieged enclave. On Tuesday, even European Council President Charles Michel admitted that the siege of the Gaza Strip by Israel violates international humanitarian law."When you cut the basic infrastructure, when you cut access to water, when you cut electricity, if you do not allow food to be delivered, this is not in line with the international law," Michel told reporters in Brussels after an extraordinary video conference of the European Council on the situation in the Middle East.Furthermore, over 500 perished in a blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday night, where locals were sheltering from Israeli airstrikes. The Israeli and Palestinian authorities have blamed each other for the fatal incident. Hamas said that a missile was launched by the IDF, while Israeli officials put the blame on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement - something the latter denied in a statement. US President Joe Biden, during a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, laid the responsibility for the Gaza hospital blast on the "other team," and not on Israel.Gesture PoliticsAs for European leaders, they "have nothing to offer to the parties to the conflict except some small donations that are meaningless in the face of the total devastation that Israel is now dealing out to Gaza," Gilbert Doctorow emphasized.I'm not sure whether Europe or European leaders can do anything. It is just gesture politics when it comes to their visits to Israel and having discussions and talks with Benjamin Netanyahu. So by doing this and traveling to Israel and meeting with the Israeli politicians, they reaffirm and show their support and they pledge allegiance to Israel and to the Israeli course," Adriel Kasonta, a London-based foreign affairs analyst and former chairman of the International Affairs Committee at the Bow Group think tank, told Sputnik.This flurry of shuttle diplomacy cannot but call to mind the eagerness with which all these Western leaders have been making forays to Kiev. As they made a bee-line for Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky, the aforementioned politicians have offered him successive vast weapons packages that have failed to impact the stuttering counteroffensive, while only further fanning the flames of the ongoing NATO proxy war against Russia. The same Western leaders have made no bones about being ready to prop up Kiev to the last Ukrainian.So the optics of another round of such so-called peacemaking shuttling, with vows to "absolutely" support Israel's right to defend itself, while the death toll accumulates in the enclave, feed into speculation that, similar to Ukraine, the back-and-forth visits will fail to defuse tensions.Weighing in on speculation whether there are tools to influence Israel with regard to its mulled ground operation in Gaza, Doctorow said:Adriel Kasonta voiced the opinion that the only country that holds cards as far as the Israel and Palestine conflict is concerned is the United States. Underscoring that Washington was the greatest supporter of the Israeli state, especially when the sale of armaments is concerned and also providing money for Israel, Kasonta, however, pointed to the recent move by the US to oppose the United Nations motion to establish a humanitarian corridor to Gaza.Adriel Kasonta speculated that Russia and China were emerging as two countries that oppose what is happening with the Palestinian people and what is happening in Gaza. He voiced the opinion that these two countries could support the outcome of this conflict by using their powers, their soft power.I think that these two great powers, as I said, China and Russia, can influence and should influence global opinion and somehow influence Israel itself. We know that many expats from Russia are living in Israel. We know that Israel is very much interested in having good economic relations with China. So I think that these two countries have certain leverages to use and to influence Israel to spare the lives of the Palestinian people. As we can see at the moment, this doesn't look very well. And I'm not sure whether the two-state solution is still on the table. It certainly doesn't look this way at the moment, Kasonta underscored.According to the ex-chairman of the International Affairs Committee at the Bow Group think tank, there is currently little will on the side of the Israeli government to spare lives of the Palestinian people, because they are using its bogus arguments of trying to raze Gaza to the ground in order to destroy Hamas. Adriel Kasonta deplored the huge humanitarian crisis which is already unfolding, and warned that the actions of Israel would destroy the two-state solution project completely.Certainly, if the United State would not greenlight the actions of the Israeli government, Israel would not conduct this annihilation of the Palestinian population, Kasonta believed.The US has readily used the escalation of hostilities to assemble a show of force in the region, sending to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel two US Navy carrier strike groups led by the USS Gerald Ford and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower. Furthermore, another navy ship - US 6th Fleet Blue Ridge-class command and control ship the USS Mount Whitney LCC 20 - was deployed from its homeport in the central Italian coastal city of Gaeta to support US operations in the aforementioned area. President Bidens moves do nothing for de-escalation, Gilbert Doctorow argued, saying:

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231019/israel-plans-to-turn-gaza-into-hiroshima-but-without-nuclear-weapons---sy-hersh-1114308532.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russia-says-masks-are-off-after-us-vetoes-unsc-resolution-on-israel-palestine-ceasefire-1114294854.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russia-and-china-lead-multipolar-development-as-us-pours-fuel-on-israeli-fire-1114295992.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/putin-russia-always-advocated-for-establishment-of-independent-palestinian-state--1114284368.html

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Winners of 2023 Andrei Stenin Contest Announced in Moscow

Winners of 2023 Andrei Stenin Contest Announced in Moscow

The winner of the Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest announced the winner of the Grand Prix as part of a ceremony at the international multimedia press center of the Rossiya Segodnya international news agency in Moscow.

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andrei stenin international photo contest

andrei stenin

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The main award of the ninth competition was won by Russian journalist Alexei Orlov's black-and-white photo series Blaze.The competition was born thanks to a tragic event - the death of our war correspondent in 2014. Back then, we did not yet call our correspondents and photographers that, at the place where the war began. And now we date the beginning of this war to 2014, and then we did not yet understand the scale of the flare-up process, but we already had the first losses in our journalistic corps. Unfortunately, this summer in Yekaterinburg we buried another correspondent of ours, war correspondent Rostislav Zhuravlev. This profession involves such risk and self-sacrifice. And, unfortunately, in this competition there is more war more than before, this probably reflects the global trend where the world is heading, said Dmitry Kiselev, director general of Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group.He also noted that photographs are the creation of artistic images of the modern world, and thanks to them we understand the world more deeply, more acutely. According to Kiselev, we should expect something new in the next annual competition named after Stenin.Blaze is a report on the events in Donetsk and Mariupol, shot less than a month after the start of the special military operation.This is how the photographer describes his work in the zone of the special military operation in March 2022: Those days were probably the hardest in my life because I saw people who endured through those events in Donetsk and Mariupol. My goal was to show the place as one collective image of a city whose peaceful days had come to an end,  Alexei Orlov said. It is important to me as a documentary photographer. Of course, it is exciting because it is a major competition with many strong entries. This fact only drives me to give my very best, he added. Along with the Grand Prix, the prizes won by all the shortlisted competitors were announced at the ceremony. The awards ceremony also paid tribute to all shortlisted competitors, whose selected works will go on tour in galleries in India and the UAE early next year.Ayman Yaqoob from Bahrain was singled out for his photo of a Houthi strike on a Saudi oil depot in Jeddah in the Top News category. In the My Planet category, Sayan Adhikary from India won the first prize for a black-and-white shot of Indian stilt-wearing fishermen, while Spanish documentary photographer Adra Pallon won the best series award for her report on the depopulation of rural Galicia.In the Sports category, the top prize for the best single photo as well as the special prize from Al Mayadeen TV went to Russian photographer Edgar Breshchanov, who documented a football match in Moscow, while his fellow-citizen Sergei Bobylev won the best series award for his coverage of the 2022 Beijing Olympics.In the Portrait category, a black-and-white phantasmagorical photo of a passerby by Russias Vladislav Nekrasov took best single, while French reporter Lucie Hodiesne Darras took best series with her "Inside View of Autism," featuring her brother Antoine.The event at the Rossiya Segodnya international press-center launched an international tour of the winning works. In early 2024, the exhibition of selected works will be hosted by galleries in India and the UAE.About the ContestThe Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest, organized by Rossiya Segodnya under the patronage of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO, aims to support young photographers and draw public attention to the challenges of photojournalism today. It is a platform for young photographers  talented and sensitive individuals open to all things new  to highlight people and events near us.General media partners: VGTRK (National State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company) (Russia), SMOTRIM online-platform (Russia), Rossiya-Kultura TV channel (Russia), Moskva-24 TV channel (Russia).International media partners: Sputnik news agency and radio (International), RT TV channel and website (International), Independent Media (South Africa). ANA (South Africa), Shanghai United Media Group (SUMG) (China), China Daily (China), The Paper (China), Al Mayadeen (Lebanon).Industry partners: Russian Union of Journalists (Russia), YOung JOurnalists (Russia), Russian Photo (Russia), Photo-study.ru (Russia).

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The Standardbred Horse Sales Company's Mixed Sale catalogue is now available.

The Mixed Sale will be held on Thursday, Nov. 9 and Friday, Nov. 10 at the Pennsylvania State Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The catalogue can be accessed at theblackbook.com and on equineonline.

"We have a very strong mixed sale this year and are super excited about it," said Judy Casey, Executive Assistant of the Standardbred Horse Sales Company.

A small supplement of five horses include the following:

To be sold Thursday

All Girls Club (My MVP-Females Rule), in foal to Muscle Hill (LBD 03/20/2023)

Blameitonthenight (Mach Three-What Could Be), in foal to Huntsville (LBD 03/01/2023)

To be sold Friday

My Special Event (Lazarus N-Senorita Santanna) p,2,1:53.1 ($36,800)

Heaven Hanover (Father Patrick-Hillarmbro) 3,1:50.3 ($511,071)

Secret Volo (Walner-Secret Serenity) 3,1:53.3 ($395,862)

Supplement horses will be sold at the end of each day.

(With files from Standardbred Horse Sales Company)
The Forward Party of Virginia recently announced its endorsement of independent candidate Elizabeth Melson for State Senate in District 28.

Elizabeth Melson, of Rappahannock County, represents forward-thinking change in Virginia, according to a release from a state representative of the political party formed in 2020 by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

Melson is co-founder and president of FairVote Virginia. Three years ago, she collaborated with advocates of Ranked Choice Voting to introduce a local option bill in which voters rank candidates on the ballot by order of preference, the release stated. Melson is a sustainable farmer, small business owner and advocate for electoral and criminal justice reform.

From championing regenerative agriculture and solar energy to pushing for sentencing reform and rights restoration, Elizabeths influential network across the political spectrum is a testament to her commitment. The Forward Virginia Party is honored to endorse her as their FWD Independent, the release stated.

Melson said in a statement the Forward approach to cross-partisan coalition building is one with which she is familiar and comfortable with from her tenure on several statewide organizations in Virginia.

Ive previously struggled to find a political home in the major and minor parties. The option to affiliate is an inclusive and creative solution for candidates to test the waters of the Forward way. Forward is a beacon of hope for a better approach to politics in Virginia and beyond, Melson said.

Also running in the District 28 State Senate election are incumbent State Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania, and Jason Ford, D-Culpeper.
(Photo : Bryan R. Smith / AFP) (BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images)

The United States has vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned all attacks against civilians in Gaza as well as calling for humanitarian aid to the region.

The United States has vetoed a resolution by the United Nations that called for a pause to the Israel-Hamas conflict to pave the way for humanitarian aid to be delivered to Palestinians in Gaza.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield argued that the UN Security Council needs to allow current diplomatic efforts, including those made by President Joe Biden, to play out. She also urged the council to find out more facts before sending humanitarian aid to people hammered by the conflict.

US Vetoes UN Resolution

Additionally, the US ambassador criticized the measure for allegedly failing to underline Israel's right to self-defense. Brazil was the one that sponsored the resolution, and it had wide support and would have condemned all violence against civilians. This includes the "heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas" against Israel.

The vote for the resolution in the 15-member Security Council resulted in 12 votes in favor and the US against, with Britain and Russia abstaining. Thomas-Greenfield argued that Biden was already in the region engaging in diplomacy, hoping to protect civilians, secure the release of hostages, and prevent the conflict from spreading to other regions, as per NowThisNews.

The US ambassador added that the Security Council needs to speak out but should also be informed by facts on the ground and support direct diplomacy efforts that can save people's lives.

Thomas-Greenfield also criticized the UN resolution for not discussing Israel's right to self-defense following the Hamas militant group's attack on Oct. 7. At the time, the terrorist group killed more than 1,400 people.

But since then, the Gaza Health Ministry said that nearly 3,500 people have already been killed in Gaza and that more than 12,000 others were wounded. British UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward also criticized the resolution's alleged failure to mention Israel's right to self-defense.

Read Also: Israel Allows Egypt to Deliver Humanitarian Goods into Gaza

Calling for Humanitarian Aid for Gaza

Before Brazil's resolution was put into a vote, Russia had two proposed amendments that called for an immediate, durable, and full ceasefire and the end of attacks against civilians. The two proposals were both rejected by the United Nations Security Council, according to UN News.

In a statement, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that the time for diplomatic metaphors has long passed. He added that anyone who did not support Russia's draft resolution would be responsible for what happens next in the Middle East.

Nebenzia noted that Russia's amendments proposed a call to end indiscriminate attacks on civilians and infrastructure in Gaza as well as the condemnation of the imposition of the blockade on the enclave. The proposals also added a new point for a call for a humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The supporters of the resolution expressed their disappointment after the US voted no against it despite days of negotiations and a humanitarian situation that is rapidly escalating. Aljazeera said the vote also came as tensions in the region soared, with large crowds of protesters taking to the streets in various countries after the deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital.

Related Article: Readout of Biden's Remarks on Hamas's Sabbath Attack, Resilience of Israel

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A Mooresville bookkeeper pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a $1.6 million embezzlement scheme.

Marc Weiss, 48, of Charlotte, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge David C. Keesler on Wednesday. Weiss pleaded guilty to wire fraud for embezzling approximately $1.6 million from two companies, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina Dena J. King said in a news release.

According to court documents, from 2016 to 2022, Weiss engaged in a scheme to defraud two Mooresville companies where he was employed as a bookkeeper, King said.

Over the course of the scheme, Weiss abused his position and access to the companies financial accounts to make more than 120 fraudulent transfers totaling $1.6 million from the companies accounts into bank accounts under Weisss control. To disguise the fraud, Weiss created fake entries in the victim companies books and records, categorizing the fraudulent transfers as payments to existing vendors for software development and advertising and marketing expenses, King said.

Weiss admitted in court that he used the embezzled funds to pay for personal expenses, including to pay for a luxury apartment in Charlotte, to make payments for high-end vehicles and to pay for travel and vacations, King said.

Weiss was released on bond following Wednesdays plea hearing. The wire fraud charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. A sentencing date for Weiss has not been set, King said.
The National Park Service has purchased a pair of crumbling oceanfront homes on the northern end of Rodanthe, a move that could be the first step toward removing more homes in that erosion-threatened part of the Outer Banks.

The homes have East Beacon Road addresses, but any visitor to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore will find them sitting in the middle of the beach strand just past the end of East Beacon Road or East Point Drive. They are two of about a dozen homes in Rodanthe that sit seaward of the dune line.

In the next 30 to 45 days, the Park Service will start demolishing the homes, David Hallac, superintendent of the Park Services Cape Hatteras National Seashore, told The News & Observer. The land where they stood will be turned into a beach access. And Hallac believes these two houses could be the beginning of a broader effort in the area.

There are a number of homes that are if not threatened, imminently threatened, Hallac said. When I say that, I mean that the structures or the houses are frequently surrounded by water and in some cases the houses may not be able to be lived in. So there are a number of additional structures that would likely be suited for this type of mitigation in the future.

The National Park Service bought the houses using the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is generated from the federal governments leasing of land for oil and gas exploration. The federal government uses the money to purchase land that helps the Park Service achieve its management goals.

Erin Seekamp, the director of N.C. State Universitys Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative, told The News & Observer theres irony to using the Land and Water Conservation Fund rather than taxpayer money to pay for the mitigation project.

Basically were using the economic benefits of oil and gas leasing to be able to offset some of the carbon impacts that are accelerating sea-level rise by using those funds to purchase these houses, Seekamp said.

Since 2020, five homes have collapsed into the ocean around Rodanthe. To Hallac and the Park Service, those pose a threat to the ecology of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and to the people who want to visit it.

Septic tanks that crack open from the abandoned homes leach human waste into the water. Pieces of siding and roof and nails wash dozens of miles up and down the coast, especially if the wreckage is left to linger.

A May study prepared for Dare County found that the beach in Rodanthe is eroding at rates of about 10 feet per year. That study also found that the dune line there provides little to no storm protection.

Buying properties threatened by that erosion helps owners escape a situation that offers no simple answers, Hallac said. But the goal is really to protect the seashore and the wildlife living there from the impacts of any future collapses.

The owners do end up selling their homes and being able to walk away from a difficult situation but the purpose really is to remove that structure, to remove those impacts to the resources and the visitors and finally, and this is a tremendous benefit, to make the area a public access site following the restoration of the beach area, Hallac said.

Headaches at Mermaids Kiss

Erick Saks has loved the Outer Banks since he visited them as a child. He and his wife, Vanessa, took frequent trips there when they were stationed at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia. They were married in Duck.

So when the Sakses retired from the military, they decided to use a chunk of their savings to buy a house on the Outer Banks. They found the home at 23292 East Beacon Road and purchased it for $360,000 in October 2021.

I have that connection, and I wanted to own part of it, Erick Saks told The News & Observer. You know how it is when you own land or own something, youre more likely to go there because youve got it. I saw it as a reason that we would make several trips out there per year and it just didnt work out that way at all.

They knew that buying an oceanfront home carried some risk, but believed there was enough sand on the beach to protect the house.

The section of Rodanthe that is increasingly threatened used to receive sand replenishment in order to protect N.C. 12, the critical Outer Banks road that runs from Hatteras to Corolla. But with the completion last year of the Jug Handle Bridge, the N.C. Department of Transportation isnt expecting to nourish or provide sandbags in the area any longer.

So the problems arrived quickly.

Within months of the Sakses purchase, their homes septic field washed out.

Once the septic system goes out, its considered uninhabitable. You cant have anybody there, you cant be sending things out to sea, Saks said.

That dashed not only the familys plans to have a vacation home in the place they loved, but also to operate a vacation rental.

Saks spent between $20,000 and $30,000 to make the necessary repairs to the septic system. Acquiring the required permits, working with contractors and the actual repairs took about six months.

Within 24 hours of the newly installed system receiving its necessary approvals, it washed out again.

That was absolutely devastating, Saks said.

Next, they considered moving the house.

But Saks quickly found out that purchasing an adjacent lot would cost about $250,000. Moving the house would cost about $50,000 more, then hooking it up to utilities would cost about $50,000 more.

I was looking at it and I was like we might go down this path, but if we do were getting dangerously beyond my comfort point, Saks said.

Additionally, Saks said, the beach had lost about 10 feet of sand in the less than two years he owned the house. And the tide line was steadily moving up the beach, starting to threaten the vegetated dune line that sits west of his home and protects dozens of other Rodanthe houses.

Dare County explored the possibility of using state disaster relief money to buy out homes threatened by rapidly encroaching tides. Ultimately, the county learned it would be difficult to qualify, in large measure because virtually none of the homes in the area are primary residences.

Hallac and the Park Service developed the idea of using federal money to mitigate the threat posed by the homes and approached Saks and his neighbors, Carly and Daniel Kerlakian of Cincinnati, about the buyout.

The homes needed to be appraised  Saks thought his offer was low, but that was because the house didnt have an operating septic system, something the appraisers considered even if the homes were going to be torn down.

He ended up accepting $260,000 for the property, $100,000 less than he paid before even considering all of the repairs. His advice to homeowners who may be eligible for a similar buyout in the future is to take it when you can, before the elements cause damage to the home that might send its value plummeting.

Removing more houses?

Since word about the East Beacon Road sales started to spread, Hallac and the Park Service have heard from about a half dozen other owners offering to sell their homes.

Thats exciting to Hallac, who along with the N.C. Division of Coastal Management co-chairs a working group that meets regularly to discuss homes threatened by tides and is trying to figure out how local, state and federal governments can work together to remove some of their threat.

By buying the two East Beacon Road houses, Hallac hopes he is creating a process that allows the Park Service to remove more tide-threatened homes from Rodanthes northern end. Whether the program works will become clear after the houses are demolished and the beach is restored.

If all that goes well, then I think we will know that this is a tool that we should consider using in the future and a program that we should consider scaling up, Hallac said.

What exactly a scaled-up program could look like remains unclear. Its also not clear that the National Park Service would be the only party either buying or moving homes, with Dare County and the Division of Coastal Management both actively involved in discussions about the Rodanthe homes.

Acting before a home is uninhabitable or surrounded by tides would be ideal, Hallac said, because that would mean less pollution and storm debris impacting the seashore.

In the future, I think the goal is to mitigate the impacts of the threatened oceanfront structure before its standing in the water, before it becomes imminently threatened, Hallac said.

Seekamp, the N.C. State professor, also called for real estate agents to take more responsibility in selling homes, particularly to buyers who might not understand how quickly coastal dynamics can put a home at risk.

Awareness is super low and a lot of responsibility has to come down to the real estate market. That education that needs to occur when people are purchasing properties at this point, Seekamp said, adding there also need to be efforts to tell tourists theyre in places where septic tanks could be failing.

Danny Couch, who represents Hatteras Island on the Dare County Board of Commissioners, said the Beacon Road effort represents a good starting point to address the problems in northern Rodanthe.

The area makes sense for the mitigation projects, Couch said, because the federal government already has such a large footprint in the area with the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Still, Couch said, local and state governments will have a role to play moving forward.

We cannot buy our way out of this because theres not enough money for the Park Service to do that. ... Its a multifaceted problem thats going to take multifaceted solutions, Couch said.

When Saks visited the home to move some belongings out in September, he realized that a structure he had once considered well-braced against the elements was showing signs of wear. The tides rushing underneath the house had started to peel a staircase and balcony, and the structure is beginning to lean.

To remove things from the house, Saks and some friends jerry rigged a pulley system they could use to send things past the high tide line.

I love the Outer Banks. I have only fond memories except for this one chapter and I hated the fact that I started to think of that area negatively when in the past its been only joy for me. So it was relieving to close this chapter and move on and now I can go back to fond memories, Saks said.

The Saks family only stayed in the house two or three times. They rented it only a handful more. Saks said hes unsure if hell ever own another beach house.

This story was produced with financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
Fighters came prepared with anti-armour missiles and Iranian-made Ababil drones, according to Sawt al-Asima.

Affiliated groups of Hezbollahs Radwan unit have recently arrived at one of the military barracks surrounding the village of al-Suhailiya in the northern countryside of Daraa. They came prepared with anti-armour missiles and Iranian-made Ababil drones, and the operation was led by two prominent party leaders, Hajj Noureddine Shuaito and Hajj Abbas Salem, with Hajj Salem being the key figure responsible for overseeing unit operations.

Simultaneously, the Imam Hussein Brigade militia mobilized 60 of its members equipped with mortars, rocket launchers, and anti-armour missiles, relocating from the town of Sayyeda Zeinab in the Damascus countryside to Tal al-Zaatar, situated near the northern entrance to the city of Daraa. Additionally, members of the brigade were involved in the reinforcement and rehabilitation of fortifications, screens, and tunnels in Tal al-Zaatar, while medium and heavy machine guns were deployed along its outskirts.

In the last two weeks, Hezbollah has commenced the construction of a military parade runway within the headquarters of the 82nd Air Defense Brigade near Sheikh Miskin in Daraa countryside. This effort coincides with an extensive period of fortification, military preparations, and the strategic redeployment of forces along the border area with Israel in anticipation of potential future confrontations.

Furthermore, the organization has transferred drones from its military facilities in the town of al-Ghazlaniyeh in the Damascus countryside to the headquarters of the brigade mentioned above, aligning with the ongoing runway preparation.

On the morning of October 7th, Hezbollah militias and other groups affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards executed a relocation of their headquarters and storage facilities within the western countryside of Damascus and the southern region of Syria. This move coincided with the commencement of Operation al-Aqsa Flood in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip.

Increasing the state of alert

It appears that Iran, in a clandestine and unpublicized visit to Syria on October 15 that lasted for two days, issued directives to the Assad regime. General Esmail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, conducted this visit. During this visit, a joint operations room was set up for Irans allies in Syria and Iraq, aimed at monitoring the current situation and facilitating the coordination of forces. This information was reported by the Arabic Post website.

The primary objective of this operations room established by Iran is to enhance the coordination among its allies. In times of difficulty or peril, this room will be entrusted with making crucial decisions, primarily under the supervision of officers from the Revolutionary Guards.

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.
Jaafar al-Husseini said Americans were essential partners in killing the residents of the Gaza Strip, according to Athr Press.

After the attacks that targeted American bases in Iraq, a number of leaders of the Iraqi resistance factions announced that the United States of America had become part of the escalation carried out by the Israeli entity in Palestine, stressing that based on this fact, the Iraqi resistance began targeting American bases.

The military spokesman for the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, Jaafar al-Husseini, said: The Americans are essential partners in killing the residents of the Gaza Strip and therefore they must bear the consequences, pointing out that the Brigades and from today have practically begun the resistance in Iraq by directing their strikes at American bases, according to what was reported. Al-Manar channel.

Al-Husseini announced that the resistance in Iraq achieved the first casualties yesterday, Wednesday, and operations will continue at a higher pace, adding that the Americans know very well the capabilities of the Iraqi resistance, which have multiplied for some time, and today we are at a stage capable of striking all American bases in Iraq.

In turn, the official spokesman for the Iraqi Al-Waad Al-Sadiq Corps, Mr. Abu Al-Jaafar Al-Moussawi, said yesterday, Wednesday: The Corps targeted the Ain Al-Assad base in Iraq, where the American occupation forces are present, today, Wednesday, and this is the beginning of what the resistance promised to target American interests inside. And outside Iraq, according to what was reported by the Russian Sputnik agency.

Al-Moussawi explained, The American base was bombed by three drones, and that the bombing came as a first response to the heinous crimes committed by the Zionists in Gaza, the most recent of which was the heinous massacre targeting the National Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip, in which hundreds were killed and wounded.

Al-Moussawi stressed: From this day we officially declare that there is no place for the American occupation forces in Iraq, and from tomorrow morning all the bases and interests of the American occupation are our targets.

The Secretary-General of the Al-Waad Al-Sadiq Corps of the Iraqi Resistance Forces, Muhammad Al-Tamimi, said in statements to the Iraqi Al-Mutalaa Agency: The resistance fighters are waiting for the zero hour to storm the border with Israel, noting that the resistance is ready to enter the battle of Gaza without any delay. He hesitated and waited for the zero hour.

The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar also quoted a leader in the Iraqi Al-Nujaba Movement  who refused to reveal his identity  The armed factions are ready to fight the Zionist entity, as well as to destroy American bases in Iraq and the region in general.

Yesterday, Wednesday, the Iraqi resistance factions targeted the Iraqi Al-Harir and Ain Al-Assad bases, which are considered among the largest American military bases in the Middle East. Today, the American Al-Tanf and Koniko bases in Syria were also targeted, without any party claiming responsibility for targeting these two bases in Syria, until the time of preparing this. the report.

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.

The French War Crimes Units Investigative judges issued international arrest warrants for four senior Syrian officers. Simultaneously, a drone attack targeted an oil facility in eastern Syria, which housed American troops, along with a nearby US base.

Government sends military reinforcements to Homs following ISIS attack

North Press reports that military reinforcements for Syrian government forces arrived Thursday in the town of al-Sukhnah, east of the city of Homs, central Syria. This comes after cells of the Islamic State (ISIS) attacked government forces in the area.

On Wednesday night, ISIS launched a surprise attack on government forces in al-Sukhnah, in which they targeted military posts and managed to take control of some of them and seize weapons and vehicles.

A military source in the government forces told North Press that large military reinforcements of the government forces and the National Defense Forces (IDF), a pro-government militia, arrived at dawn in the town of al-Sukhnah after many posts were attacked by ISIS militants.

The source added that the government forces found the bodies of three soldiers after they managed to regain control of the posts.

As for the 15 soldiers abducted by ISIS members after the attack, the source said that their fate is still unknown.

The source said that clashes are still ongoing on the outskirts of al-Sukhnah, though at a lower intensity compared to Wednesday night.

Judges of the French War Crimes Unit Issue International Arrest Warrants Against Four High-Ranking Syrian Officers Charged with Complicity in War Crimes.

Paris  19 October 2023 The Investigative judges of the French War Crimes Unit issued yesterday, 18 October, international arrest warrants against four high-ranking Syrian officers, including two former Defence ministers, Major General Ali Abdallah Ayoub and Major General Fahed Jassem al-Fraij, in addition to the commander of the Air Force, Brigadier General Ahmad Balloul, and the commander of the 64th helicopter brigade, Brigadier Ali Safetli, for complicity in war crimes (intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population and murder of a person protected by international humanitarian law).

These arrest warrants are the conclusion of a judicial investigation, which started in 2017, initiated by Mr. Omar Abou Nabout, after the killing of his father during a barrel bomb attack carried out by Syrian governments forces in June 2017, in the framework of the military operation led by the Syrian army against the city of Daraa, with the active support of Russia. The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) joined the proceedings as a civil party.

Omar Abou Nabout, the victims son who now lives in Paris, says, After six years of determination, I am proud of myself today because my call for accountability of war criminals and my fathers killers has become a reality. I remember well when I applied to the French public prosecutor to open an investigation into my fathers death. My goal is to prevent war criminals from impunity.

This is the first case dealing with the crime of targeting civilians as a war crime, as well as the first dealing with the use of indiscriminate weapons such as barrel bombs. On 7 June 2017, a Syrian Air Force helicopter dropped a barrel bomb on a three-story building in the Al-Sadd Road area in the city of Daraa, home of the French-Syrian citizen, Salah Abou Nabout, which led to his death. The targeted building housed a school for children, Al Sadd (Ajyal), which was managed by a Jordanian-based NGO. Salah Abou Nabout had previously been arrested and incarcerated by the Syrian government forces between April 2013 and the summer of 2015, when he was released from Adraa prison. During his detention, his family fled to Jordan and then to France.

Schools, hospitals, and medical personnel have been deliberately and systematically targeted by Syrian government forces for the past decade. This is the first time the judiciary has examined the role of the Syrian Air Force in targeting vital installations and using barrel bombs. These arrest warrants are a step towards accountability for these crimes and achieving justice for their victims said Lawyer Mazen Darwish, founder and general director of SCM.

SCM actively contributed to the investigation by providing the investigative judges with names of witnesses, a large collection of photos and videos, which documented the 7 June 2017 bombing in Daraa, as well as key information on the chain of command of the Syrian air force and military. SCM also provided the mechanism for issuing and executing combat orders within the Syrian air force. It submitted to the judiciary a special study that determined the type of plane that carried out the attack (a Russian-made ME helicopter) and the airport from which it took off. It also identified the type of weapons used during the attack (explosive barrels). SCM would like to extend its thanks to all the military forces and security services defectors who provided information, Zaman al-Wasl newspaper, and Jisr newspaper.

Al Ajyal School was not the only school that was targeted in Daraa, seven other schools were also bombed during that time. Pictures and videos show the killing of a number of children in schools in the Daraa area as a result of government forces attacks backed by the Russian military.

In this context, lawyer Tareq Hokan, director of the Strategic Litigation Project at SCM said: This is the first case that SCM is working on completely independently and without international partners. Our team prepared and built the entire case file and submitted it to the French court. It is another clear message that victims themselves and local organizations are the main guarantee for achieving justice and putting an end to impunity in order to build sustainable peace in Syria.

In 2018, the French judiciary issued arrest warrants against three high-ranking Syrian security officials, Major General Ali Mamlouk, Head of the National Security Bureau, Major General Jamil Hassan, Director of the Air Force Intelligence Department, and Brigadier Abdel Salam Mahmoud, Head of the Investigation Branch of the Air Force Intelligence, for their involvement in committing crimes of torture, forced disappearance, and killing of Mazen and Patrick Dabbagh, amounting to crimes against humanity.

The Abou Nabout case comes as the first of its kind, focusing on murder and deliberate attacks against civilians, constitutive of war crimes, to be considered before the judiciary. The use of barrel bombs and deliberate attacks against civilian population have caused thousands of deaths in Syria since 2011, across the country. The widespread and ongoing nature of such crimes shows how accountability is essential to put an end to them.

This case perfectly illustrates the courage and determination of Syrian survivors and civil society. These international arrest warrants, the first ever issued against top officials of the Syrian regime for war crimes, show that, after the historical verdict issued in Koblenz, Germany, last year, and the order issued on 29 March 2023 by French judges to send Syrian officials to trial for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes, the fight for accountability continues said Clemence Bectarte, lawyer of the civil parties.

SCM welcomes the decision issued by the investigative judge of the French War Crimes Unit in the case of the murder of the Syrian citizen Salah Abou Nabout and commends the essential role of the victims son, as he represents a model of determination to seek justice for victims by all legal means available. Moving forward with this case, in addition to all previous litigations, represents a step forward in supporting the victims efforts to achieve justice, and comes within the context of working on available alternatives in order to preserve the rights of the Syrian people, and in preparation for a comprehensive national transitional justice process in the future.

Syria airport strikes said to stop Iranian missile shipment

The reported Israeli strikes on airports in Damascus and Aleppo on Oct. 12 prevented 10 tons of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles from reaching the country from Iran, according to Israeli media.

The airstrikes, not only forced Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to land in Baghdad instead of Damascus but also stopped an Iranian shipment of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles from landing in the city, Israel Hayom reported on Tuesday.

The report, which appears to be accurate, noted that a Mahan Air Airbus A340-313 took off from Tehrans Mehrabad International Airport en route to Damascus on Tuesday carrying 10 tons of missiles and that the Damascus airport was hit 10 minutes before it was scheduled to land.

The strike on the landing strip at the Aleppo airport was intended to prevent the flight from diverting there, according to the report. With both airports out of commission, the plane had no choice but to head back to Iran.

Iran-backed groups said to target US bases with drones in Syria

Syrian opposition activists say a drone attack has been conducted on an oil facility in eastern Syria housing American troops and a US base in a nearby area, AP reported.

There was no immediate word on casualties and the US military didnt immediately respond to requests for confirmation.

Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet, says that three drones with explosives struck the Conoco gas field in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq.

Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, confirms that five explosions were heard at the Conoco gas field.

The Observatory also reported that three drones attacked the US base of Tanf in eastern Syria near where the borders of Syria, Jordan and Iraq meet. It said two drones were shot down before reaching their targets while the third hit the base, causing some material damage.

The Observatory and Abu Layla say the attack appears to be the work of Iran-based fighters who are deployed in eastern Syria and western Iraq.

Drone strikes target US military bases in Syria, Iraq as regional tensions from Israel-Hamas War escalate

Drone expert Brett Velicovich joined FOX & Friends First to discuss attacks against U.S. military bases in the Middle East as war rages between Israel and Hamas, FoxNews reported.

A drone strike targeted a U.S. base in Syria on Wednesday, the same day as the attempted drone attacks in Iraq, Fox News has learned.

A U.S. defence official told Fox News that an undisclosed number of drones targeted the U.S. Al-Tanf base, located near Syrias shared border with Iraq and Jordan.

Lebanons Iran-aligned Al Mayadeen TV reported on Thursday that two U.S. military bases in Syria came under attack, Reuters reported. In addition to the drone attack on the Al-Tanf base, Al Mayadeen TV reported a missile targeted the Conoco base in the countryside of the northern Deir al-Zor region.

A drone at a US base in Iraq

In Iraq, the U.S. intercepted three one-way attack drones, targeting two different military bases, U.S. Central Command confirmed. (AYMAN HENNA/AFP via Getty Images)

As of Thursday morning, there was no official confirmation of either attack.

It is unclear what injuries or damage to the base, if any, was caused. It is also not immediately clear how many drones were used or who was responsible.

In Iraq, the U.S. intercepted three one-way attack drones, targeting two different military bases, two defense officials confirmed to Fox News. U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) later confirmed the attack.

Two drones targeted the Ain al-Asad air base in Western Iraq, where American troops are located. Minor injuries among the coalition forces were reported.

Another drone targeted a base in northern Iraq, according to USCENTCOM. No injuries were reported.

In the last 24 hours, the U.S. military defended against three drones near U.S. and Coalition forces in Iraq. In western Iraq, U.S. forces engaged two drones, destroying one and damaging the second, resulting in minor injuries to Coalition forces. Separately in northern Iraq, U.S. forces engaged and destroyed a drone, resulting in no injuries or damage. We are continuing to assess the impacts to operations, USCENTCOM said.

It added, In this moment of heightened alert, we are vigilantly monitoring the situation in Iraq and the region. We want to emphasize U.S. forces will defend U.S. and Coalition forces against any threat.

The U.S. currently has about 900 U.S. forces in Syria and 2,500 troops in Iraq, U.S. officials confirmed to Fox News. The officials declined to say who was responsible for operating the drones.
These attacks took place only one day after the targeting of the Ain al-Assad and Harir bases in Iraq, Athr Press writes.

Less than 24 hours after the targeting of the American bases Ain al-Assad and al-Harir, which are considered to be among the most strategically important American bases in the Middle East, a missile strike of unknown origin struck the American base in the Conoco gas field located in Deir-ez-Zor, eastern Syria. Additionally, the American base in al-Tanf, southern Syria, was subjected to an attack by drones that achieved direct hits.

Sources from Athr Press confirmed that several missile barrages were launched against the US base in the Conoco gas field at approximately eight oclock on Thursday morning. Subsequent to the attack, the airspace in the vicinity experienced a significant increase in helicopter activity, with commando forces conducting search operations around the targeted base. These sources characterized the attack on the US base in Conoco as extensive, involving multiple rocket barrages.

In Tanf, located at the southern border triangle between Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, Athr Press sources also confirmed an attack on the US base, which was carried out by three drones. These drones achieved direct hits, prompting a heightened state of alert among the US soldiers stationed at the base and an increase in readiness.

These attacks took place only one day after the targeting of the Ain al-Assad and Harir bases in Iraq. The US Central Command issued a statement on Wednesday regarding these attacks, stating, In the past 24 hours, the US military has repelled three assaults near US and coalition forces in Iraq. The statement elaborated on the engagement with drones in western and northern Iraq, leading to the destruction of some of them, minor damage, and slight injuries to a coalition member.

Shortly after these attacks, the Iraqi resistance claimed responsibility for the incidents in Iraq, pledging further actions against US forces, as reported by al-Mayadeen TV. A leader from the Iraqi Harakat al-Nujaba stated to the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar that armed factions are prepared to combat the Zionist entity and target American bases in Iraq and the broader region. The leaders statement was made before a joint meeting of these factions regarding the situation in Palestine. He stated, Our meeting has several objectives, including supporting the Palestinian cause, staging extensive protests in front of the US embassy to demand the expulsion of its ambassador, and considering military options to stand in solidarity with Lebanese Hezbollah and other resistance forces against Israel and the United States, as cited by al-Akhbar

These attacks on US bases in Syria and Iraq coincide with increased tensions in Palestine and the military and political support provided by Washington to Israel. Iraqi resistance factions have underscored their determination to target US bases in response to direct American involvement in the escalation.

American alert in Hasakeh

The US bases in Hasakeh have been placed on high alert as a precautionary measure following recent strikes targeting the US base in the Conoco gas field in Deir-ez-Zor and the U.S. base in Tanf, situated in southern Syria near the border triangle between Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.

Sources from Athr Press report that the US bases in al-Shadadi, Rumailan, al-Qahtaniya, and al-Yarubiya, located in the northeast of the governorate, are currently in a state of heightened readiness. Over the past few days, there has been a noticeable reduction in the frequency of helicopter flights, which had been a daily occurrence in the region. Additionally, patrols in border cities, particularly in the Malikiyah area, have been conspicuously absent.

A reliable source has confirmed to Athr Press that US forces recently dispatched military reinforcements to their base in the city of al-Shaddadi in the southern countryside of Hasakeh. This reinforcement convoy, consisting of approximately 60 vehicles, entered the base via the eastern road leading to the city of Shaddadi, passing through the al-Hol area. The convoy includes trucks carrying heavily concealed materials as well as refrigerators and military vehicles.

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.
A judge found a Vancouver woman who stabbed her boyfriend with a 4-foot-long sword not guilty by reason of insanity Monday at her attempted murder trial. Clark County Superior Court Judge Derek Vanderwood found Tednisha Louise Lee Dicksons mental health conditions impacted her ability to interact and perceive threats from others. He ordered she be committed to Western State Hospital for treatment.

Court records indicate a state forensic psychologist who evaluated Lee Dickson, 31, shortly after the incident found she was not competent to stand trial. The psychologist said she exhibited symptoms of schizophrenia and other mental health disorders. She underwent a restoration period at Western State Hospital and was later found competent to stand trial.

The victim, James Turley, then 53, told investigators Lee Dickson had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Lee Dickson told investigators that Turley was a robot, and she stabbed him to kill him, the affidavit states.

According to a defense filing, the couple had been together for five years, and Lee Dickson had suffered from mental health problems the entire time. Turley had reportedly tried to take Lee Dickson to hospitals for treatment numerous times.

Clark County sheriffs deputies responded at about 9:30 a.m. March 1, 2022, to a report of an assault with a weapon at the Quality Inn & Suites, 7001 N.E. Highway 99.

Turley told a 911 dispatcher that Lee Dickson stabbed him in the side with a broad sword that belongs to Turley, according to the sheriffs office.

He was treated by medics and taken to a local hospital, where doctors determined he suffered some tissue damage near his ribs, the affidavit says.

Deputies said the couple lived together at the motel and were arguing when Lee Dickson stabbed Turley.
In the span of two and a half years, 62-year-old Woodland resident Joseph Thuney faced the loss of his wife to cancer, murder of his daughter and heart-wrenching lost custody battle over his granddaughter.

Thuneys wife was already diagnosed with lung cancer before the tragic events of May 15, 2020, when his 32-year-old daughter, Brittany Thuney was gunned down in Kelso by her childs paternal grandfather Scott Belenksi, who also turned the gun on himself.

Joseph Thuney chronicled his journey in a new memoir and is set to speak at a vigil dedicated to domestic violence victims Monday in Longview to help others struggling from similar nightmares.

His daughter was a victim of domestic violence since she was a teenager, he said, and a previous TDN report states she had a domestic violence-related protection order against her then-partner Kyle Belenski about a year before her murder.

Joseph Thuney said he remembers his daughter as a person who cared about people, who truly enjoyed having people smile and laugh.

And the writing process for the book, he added, has been a cathartic experience.

It has been helpful in writing it and talking about it afterwards, he said.

Bad policy

Joseph Thuney said an unhelpful law caused him to lose custody of his grandchild.

Even though the child had a protection order against Scott Belenski, Joseph Thuney said his daughter still had to obey the courts parenting plan, meaning she had to drop off the child with her father, who at times lived with the eventual gunman.

Just months prior to the attack, Scott Belenski was charged in Lewis County for molesting his granddaughter. The case was dismissed after his death.

The series of tragic events spurred Joseph Thuney to write his memoir Unimaginable Loss: A True Story of Murder, Heartbreaking Injustice, and Surviving the Unthinkable for those going through similar situations and also urge change from Washington state lawmakers regarding guardianship.

The law Joseph Thuney is referencing is RCW 11.130 or Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other protective Arrangement Act, a law he learned about when trying to renew the guardianship over his grandchild.

Originally Joseph Thuney and his wife had custody of their grandchild, though his wife passed away four months after the shooting.

Kyle Belenski was sentenced in 2021 to 10 days in jail for violating a no-contact involving a child and obstructing the investigation of Brittany Thuneys murder.

In September 2022, a court ordered full custody to Kyle Belenski.

Joseph Thuney argues the law favors biological parents, even if their background includes crimes, substance abuse issues, or other issues that prove they are unfit to have guardianship.

This ... law allowed this little girl (to) go with this man that has caused the majority of every bad thing thats happened in her life, he said.

The shooting

Joseph Thuney said he heard the shots that killed his daughter over the phone.

He told the host of a Pacific Northwest podcast his daughter called him just after the 2020 attack, saying Scott Belenski shot her.

Brittany Thuney and her childs father were separated and she was engaged to another person when she dropped off her daughter that day.

As she drove away, police report Scott Belenksi shot Brittany Thuney near the 1800 block of Boyd Street in Kelso. She stopped at the AM/PM at 1700 Allen St. in Kelso, but the gunman entered the parking lot after her and fired a handgun while she was still in her car.

Joseph Thuney said in the podcast he heard the events unfold while on speaker phone; his daughter pleaded for him to get her child. He then heard three pops.

Scott Belenski reentered his vehicle, drove to the other side of the parking lot, and turned the gun on himself, police report.

Seeking help

One of the people who heard Joseph Thuneys story was Jill Mathews, shelter manager at Longviews Emergency Support Shelter, who invited him to speak at the organizations annual candlelight vigil at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Emmanuel Lutheran Church to honor those whose lives were changed by domestic violence and celebrate victims who dared to start again.

If you go What: Emergency Support Shelter candlelight vigil When: 6:30-7:30 p.m., Monday. Where: Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 2218 E. Kessler Blvd, Longview. Info: www.emergencysupportshelter.com

October is domestic violence awareness month, and in addition to the candlelight vigil, the Emergency Support Shelter planted 300 purple pinwheels outside the Longview Public Library to spread awareness.

Mathews said domestic violence is more unique than other forms of physical violence because the victim has emotional investment with their abuser.

For 90 days, people escaping domestic violence can stay at the shelter and receive services from child care, to resume assistance, to legal aid from outside organizations.

To prevent abusers from finding victims, the Emergency Support Shelter can remove tracking apps from electronic devices, which Executive Director Sarah J. Hancock estimates has been done for about 80% of shelter residents.

The shelter also uses fingerprint technology at the entryways and cameras around the outside of the building to ensure safety. Each client has their on entryway into the building, and the shelter has an onsite kennel so people can bring pets.

Hancock and Mathews said the agency helped 770 victims of intimate partner domestic violence from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, which does not include children or secondary victims.

The organization also plans to hold a memory walk for Brittany Thuney at 1 p.m. Oct. 28 near the area of the shooting.

Editor's note: A photo caption in this story has been updated to clarify how many shelter organizations in the state allow residents to bring pets.
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UNSPECIFIED, UNSPECIFIED - JANUARY 07: A U.S. Air Force MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), carrying a Hellfire air-to-surface missile lands at a secret air base in the Persian Gulf region on January 7, 2016. The U.S. military and coalition forces use the base, located in an undisclosed location, to launch airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria, as well as to distribute cargo and transport troops supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. The Predators at the base are operated and maintained by the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, currently attached to the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing.

The US military intercepted multiple aerial drones aimed at its personnel stationed in Iraq early Wednesday morning, according to the Pentagon.

US officials are on high alert for potential attacks on American forces in the Middle East as the conflict escalates, as per Politico.

Iranian-Backed Militias Target US Bases Amidst Middle East Battle

Central Command issued a statement stressing their vigilance in monitoring Iraq and the surrounding region, affirming that US forces will protect US and coalition personnel against any potential threat.

The attacks specifically targeted US bases are believed to be linked to Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, responding to American support for Israel.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an amalgamation of Iranian-backed militias, has claimed responsibility for these attacks, vowing further operations against the "American occupation."

The recent Hamas-Israel conflict exacerbated the ongoing tensions, bringing into focus the situation's fragility. While much attention has been directed towards Hezbollah, a potent ally of Hamas in Lebanon, it is essential to recognize that Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are also making ominous threats against US facilities due to their support for Israel.

Ahmad "Abu Hussein" al-Hamidawi, the leader of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, declared their readiness to launch "qualitative strikes" against the US and its interests if they intervene in the ongoing conflict. Al-Hamidawi also threatened to target Israeli installations.

In the aftermath of a devastating explosion at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds, these Iranian-backed militias pointed fingers at the US and its backing of Israel, asserting that the US presence in Iraq should end. Hamas attributed the hospital explosion to an Israeli airstrike, whereas Israel claims it resulted from a misfired rocket by Palestinian militants.

The situation is undoubtedly delicate and potentially destabilizes the region further, according to VOA News.

Read Also: Russian Online Espionage Threats Against Finland Worsens

Drone Attacks and Iran-Backed Groups

A US defense official confirmed the drone attack on the al-Asad military base in western Iraq. Another Iranian-backed group, Tashkil al-Waritheen, claimed responsibility for a second drone attack on the al-Harir airbase in northern Iraq. US authorities have not yet responded to this claim.

Meanwhile, an intercepted drone was reported to have crashed in an open area near the village of Batas in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Furthermore, Iran-allied groups in Iraq have announced the formation of a "joint operations room" to assist Hamas in its ongoing conflict with Israel.

This development indicates the broader regional implications of the current situation. While some Iranian-backed factions in Iraq are more deeply intertwined with Iraqi politics and are thus more cautious, others are purely militant and tend to take direction from Iran, potentially escalating regional conflicts.

Lahib Higel, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, suggests that the Iraqi groups aligned with Iran and Hamas may initially assume a supporting role, given their geographical separation. However, the situation could evolve rapidly if the Hamas-Israel conflict intensifies or prolongs.

Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, points out the divided nature of Iran-backed groups in Iraq, some deeply entangled in politics. In contrast, others are militant and beholden to Iran's influence.

As the situation unfolds, it is critical for the international community to monitor the developments closely and remain vigilant, ensuring the safety and security of US and coalition forces in Iraq and the wider region.

The interplay of regional actors and the ongoing Middle East conflicts has created a volatile environment, necessitating a carefully calculated response to prevent further escalation and instability in the region, AP News reported.

Related Article: NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg Urges Release of Hamas Hostages, Warns Iran May Take Advantage on Israel-Palestine Conflict

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The mayors of all five cities in Cowlitz County are sending a joint letter to the Cowlitz County commissioners, urging them to extend the sales tax that funds services such as the countys drug court.

The letter has been supported by the Longview City Council and the Kelso City Council within the last week. Kelso modified their letter to reflect the unanimous support of the councilmembers for the mental health sales tax, set to sunset in 2024.

The Mayors of Cowlitz County see an incredible and increasing need for the funding created by the 1/10 of 1% sales tax, which provides a utility for the wellness of citizens in need in our cities, the letter states.

The mental health sales tax funds the countys drug court treatment program, which offers extended drug addiction treatment as an alternative to jail time in certain cases, and could expand the program to district court. The sales tax also pays for the behavioral health experts who respond along with the Cowlitz County Sheriffs Office on service calls, as well as mental health officers at the county corrections department.

County Commissioner Arne Mortensen has stated his interest in letting the sales tax expire, saying he is not convinced of the effectiveness of drug court in preventing future arrests. He also said he is in favor of not further taxing the public, while County Commissioner Rick Dahl has said he would prefer staff be paid using the general fund, as opposed to another source.

Others disagree on how well drug court and the other programs funded by the tax revenue work. The joint letter says the programs paid for by the sales tax are supported by police chiefs and law enforcement officers, mental health professionals, managers, elected officials, judges, and citizens of Cowlitz County.

Woodland Mayor Will Finn said he fully supports the letter and would be bringing it to the Woodland City Council soon. Finn added that if the county commissioners want to end the tax, they need to propose a plan to replace the services instead of letting all the programs expire.

The Kalama City Council is scheduled to vote on approving the letter Thursday night. No date is set for action by the Castle Rock City Council.
A Lewis County Superior Court judge has sentenced Michael Frietze, a massage therapist arrested in June for sexually assaulting female massage clients in Chehalis between 2021 and 2023, to a minimum of about 14 years in prison.

In a guilty plea dated Sept. 1, Frietze, 46, of Chehalis, admitted to sexually assaulting three separate female patients: one on or about June 23, 2023; one on or about April 11, 2023; and one between May and June of 2022.

He pleaded guilty to one count of indecent liberties without forcible compulsion stemming from the June 2023 incident; one count of second-degree rape without forcible compulsion stemming from the April 2023 incident, and one count of second-degree rape without forcible compulsion stemming from the 2022 incident.

On Monday, Judge James Lawler sentenced Frietze to 75 months in prison on the indecent liberties charge and 170 months to life, meaning he can only apply for release after the initial 170 months are up, on the rape charges. The two sentences are set to run concurrently. He will receive credit for time served since his June 27 arrest.

As part of his conviction, Frietze will remain on probation for the rest of his life if released and is required to register as a sex offender upon his release.

The sentencing follows the agreement laid out in Frietzes guilty plea, where prosecuting attorneys stated they planned to recommend a sentence of a total of 170 months in prison followed by a lifetime in community custody, in addition to sexual assault protection orders in favor of Frietzes victims from both charged and uncharged offenses, and a requirement for Frietze to register as a sex offender.

The sentencing judge was not required to follow the prosecuting attorneys recommendation but is generally limited by state law to the standard sentencing range, which in Frietzes case was 57 to 75 months for the indecent liberties charge and 146 to 194 months to life for the rape charges.

As part of the guilty plea, three counts of indecent liberties without forcible compulsion, stemming from three separate incidents between June 2022 and June 2023 involving three separate female victims, have been dismissed.

The plea also counts as a global resolution to the case and by agreeing to accept the plea, the state agrees they shall not and will not prosecute the defendant for any crimes committed prior to the date of sentencing that were committed during the course of medical treatment, to include massage/massage therapy, he performed on any victims presently known or unknown, according to court documents.

The clause includes an exception for crimes involving forcible compulsion or crimes where the victim was under the age of 18 at the time of the offense. The Chehalis Police Department opened an investigation into Frietze after a victim reported a possible assault at a business in the 2500 block of Northwest Kresky Avenue at 10:52 a.m. on June 23.

The victim told law enforcement she had received multiple massages from Frietze in the past without incident, but alleged that during a scheduled massage on June 23, Frietze reached beneath the sheet multiple times and touched her inappropriately.

The victim stopped the massage by telling (Frietze) the massage needed to be done, and left, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in Lewis County Superior Court on Wednesday, June 28.

Between that first report on June 23 and when detectives referred the case to local prosecutors on June 27, a total of six victims came forward to report incidents of sexual abuse by Frietze, according to the affidavit.

A Lewis County Superior Court judge approved sexual assault protection orders for 17 separate victims when Frietze entered his guilty plea on Sept. 1. Those orders do not expire.
With around a month left until Vancouvers third Safe Stay must be completed, the city is making progress on the location of the downtown temporary homes, including giving the site a name: 415 West.

Plumbing, electrical, paving and fencing work is underway at the site at 415 West 11th St. Once the lot is prepared, 20 pallet shelters and a community gathering center will be built on the property.

Local outreach teams, including the city of Vancouvers Homeless Assistance Resource Team and Outsiders Inn, the organization that runs Vancouvers first Safe Stay, The Outpost, started creating a list of people from the downtown area that could potentially move into 415 West.

Those groups are processing applications and background checks for those individuals, according to Jamie Spinelli, the city of Vancouvers homelessness response coordinator.

Adam Kravitz, executive director of Outsiders Inn, hopes the opening of 415 West will reduce some of the visual camping in downtown Vancouver.

Once the Safe Stay is operational, camping will be prohibited within 1,000 feet of the location, according to the citys unlawful camping ordinance.
On Wednesday morning, May 3, 2023, security personnel with the City of Dallas were horrified when their security software alerted them that they had likely become the target of a ransomware attack. Multiple servers across a range of departments were affected: 911 dispatchers, courts, and police services couldnt use their computers for days.

It later emerged that sensitive data had been stolen800,000 files containing full names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and the health and insurance data of at least 30,000 city employees and other individuals. Two weeks later, the Royal ransomware group, which took responsibility for the attack, threatened to release the information. In particular, police officers and others whose data had been stolen feared the data could fall into the hands of violent offenders who might try to retaliate.

The City of Dallas wasnt the first government to be hit by ransomwareor the first ransomware attack where lives could have been lost. The Royal ransomware group was originally part of the Conti group, which previously took credit for bringing the entire Irish healthcare system to a halt in 2021.

One of the reasons Royal was able to strike so quickly and effectively in Dallas is that they took advantage of todays fastest-growing ransomware trend: partial encryption.

The term partial encryption may sound more benign at first than traditional attack strategies, since theoretically less damage is being done. However, in fact, its no less devastating to organizations that find themselves under attack.

In this post, well explore the emergence of partial encryption as a strategy to make cybercrime even more profitable, which industries are at risk, and finally, a few key steps to help you protect your business.

Why Do Attackers Choose Partial Encryption for Ransomware Attacks?

Encryption is a tried and true strategy for malware actors. Malware within the victims systems leaves their data in place but completely inaccessible. Attackers then demand a price to unlock the data so victims can resume business as usual. In a second-tier strategy, in the event that victims refuse to pay, attackers can still make money by selling the compromised data.

Based on this model, ransomware has become big business over the last decades. And like all big businesses, attackers are always seeking to optimize their operations and find more efficient, cost-effective ways to achieve the same or better results.

Encryption in particular can be very time-consuming, especially for large amounts of data. This has led attackers to seek more efficient, effective ways to render victims data inaccessible unless they pay the ransom.

Partial encryption, also known as intermittent encryption, has emerged as just one example of increasingly sophisticated attack tactics, often in readily available off-the-shelf ransomware products that are openly sold on the darkweb much like traditional software.

Rather than encrypt the entire compromised system, partial encryption does just that: It encrypts a portion of the victims files either at random, encrypting a predetermined percentage of the data, as Royal ransomware does, or encrypting only the most important files, as determined by fingerprinting: financial documents, photos, and personal information. Ransomware can also selectively encrypt files related to a particular project or task, bringing it to its knees until payment is made.

For attackers, the advantages of partial encryption over complete encryption are clear:

Speed  Faster and less resource-intensive than traditional encryption, attackers can finish partial encryption before victims even notice the intrusion.

 Faster and less resource-intensive than traditional encryption, attackers can finish partial encryption before victims even notice the intrusion. Complexity  Because only some data is encrypted, its harder for victims to restore data from backups, increasing the odds that they will simply pay the ransom.

 Because only some data is encrypted, its harder for victims to restore data from backups, increasing the odds that they will simply pay the ransom. Less detectable Automated scanners might not notice the smaller-scale modifications made by partial encryption while compromised systems may not behave as erratically as completely encrypted systems, triggering fewer alerts.

Royal ransomware is particularly insidious because it not only uses partial encryption but also a multithreaded model, another increasingly popular strategy. In a single attack, there is only one ransomware process; a multithreaded attack uses multiple CPU cores to encrypt files simultaneously. This can quickly overwhelm the available processing power and make the attack more difficult to stop; even if one or two child processes can be stopped, the others will continue to encrypt files. This means that multithreaded ransomware attacks can be very destructive.

Even more frightening, todays attackers have begun using a triple extortion strategy. With a double extortion strategy, as previously described, attackers not only hold the encrypted drives for ransom, they threaten to release or sell encrypted data if the organization does not pay. For the victim, this means that even if files can be restored from a backup, they must still pay to avoid data leakage.

However, a triple extortion strategy unfolds, as the name suggests, over three stages:

Infiltrate and encrypt . Attacker profits when the initial victim pays the ransom.

. Attacker profits when the initial victim pays the ransom. Exfiltrate and threaten to sell . Attacker can profit from the sale of data.

. Attacker can profit from the sale of data. Ransom third parties. Attacker demands ransom from third parties whose data has been stolen, such as patients or employees; they may also threaten the organization or its partners with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

However, whether ransomware attackers use one of these new strategies or a more traditional approach, the goal is always the same: to extort money. And the truth is that even after paying up, few organizations can reconstruct 100% of their compromised data.

Therefore, the best defense against todays ransomware is thwarting attacks altogether.

Who Are the Attackers?

When combating ransomware, its important to understand who youre up against. Todays ransomware attackers are far from the stereotypical hooded criminal-in-a-basement, although that may have been who was behind very early ransomware, 10 to 15 years ago. Attackers back then would use broad-scale, fairly obvious, and generally imprecise attacks that succeeded in bringing in small amounts of money.

Today, like all technology industries, ransomware has matured beyond these modest origins. Ransomware gangs have formed larger-scale enterprises and brought talented developers on board to research and implement increasingly sophisticated techniques, methods deployed against wealthier targets to reap the highest rewards.

And these illicit enterprises have found safe havens in places like Russia, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Today, in addition to these large and highly professional enterprises, hostile governments and other nation-state entities are using ransomware for nation-level intelligence-gathering operations. And beyond literal warfare, ransomware has become a powerful digital weapon in corporate warfare as well.

There are numerous hacking groups out there, but a few leading ones deserve a mention.

Chernovite  A likely nation-state group and the developer of Pipedream, U.S. law enforcement has called this modular industrial control system (ICS) toolset a Swiss army knife for attacking utility companies (electricity, water, natural gas) in the U.S. and Europe.

 A likely nation-state group and the developer of Pipedream, U.S. law enforcement has called this modular industrial control system (ICS) toolset a Swiss army knife for attacking utility companies (electricity, water, natural gas) in the U.S. and Europe. Bentonite  An opportunistic group affiliated with Iranian hacking groups Phosphorus and Nemesis Kitten, Bentonite leverages known vulnerabilities in maritime oil and gas, government, and manufacturing infrastructure.

 An opportunistic group affiliated with Iranian hacking groups Phosphorus and Nemesis Kitten, Bentonite leverages known vulnerabilities in maritime oil and gas, government, and manufacturing infrastructure. ALPHV/BlackCat  BlackCat is a relatively new ransomware group that popped up in late 2022. It is known for its sophisticated encryption and ability to target a wide range of organizations. It is believed BlackCat is operated by a group of Russian-speaking cybercriminals and is known to use intermittent encryption via customizable byte-skipping patterns.

 BlackCat is a relatively new ransomware group that popped up in late 2022. It is known for its sophisticated encryption and ability to target a wide range of organizations. It is believed BlackCat is operated by a group of Russian-speaking cybercriminals and is known to use intermittent encryption via customizable byte-skipping patterns. Hive- Before being brought down by the U.S. FBI, German law enforcement, and the Dutch National High-Tech Crime Unit, this ransomware group had extorted over $100M by terrorizing healthcare organizations, schools, and public infrastructure worldwide. While the investigation is ongoing, Hive is believed to have ties to the Kremlin.

Attacks

In just the first half of 2023, 48 ransomware groups including these and otherssuch as Ryuk, Medusa, Play, LockBit3, and many morehave breached over 2,200 victims, 45% of whom are in the U.S.

These groups use two main vectors to introduce ransomware: through software vulnerabilities, which are unintentional weaknesses or flaws in applications or code libraries that can go unpatched for years, and social engineering techniques, such as phishing. Attacks often combine these two strategies, or use variations such as callback phishing attacks, which are commonly used by the Royal ransomware group, the group behind the Dallas attack.

Regardless of how individual groups operate, and which encryption technologies theyre using, the consequences can be dire, as in an August 2023 ransomware attack on two Danish cloud hosting companies that resulted in the total loss (to encryption) of all customer data. An unidentified attack group demanded 6 bitcoins in ransom (approx $155,000 as of this writing), an amount CloudNordic was unable to pay; the company has since shut down its operations.

What Industries Are Most at Risk?

There are several sectors that find themselves frequently targeted by ransomware attacks.

Healthcare Medical IT departments are both the most obvious and the most sensitive target since lives are most clearly on the line. When the Rhysida ransomware group, which had gained notoriety for its attack on the Chilean army, attacked Prospect Medical in August of 2023, the companywhich operates 16 hospitals and numerous clinics all over the U.S.was forced to use paper charts until systems could be restored. Healthcare data is both sensitive and valuable; it also features a large threat surface and a wide range of device types, including a mix of old and new technologies. This type of environment is hard to securely administer and update. This is especially true of medical IoT devices, which are often not built securely by design. Finally, healthcare organizations are historically more likely to pay ransoms compared with other industries, specifically so that life-saving operations will not be interrupted. The year 2022 brought an average of 1,426 attempted breaches per week per organization in the healthcare industry, a 78% year-over-year increase. There was also a distinct uptick in mortality following a cyber attack, although attributing deaths directly to ransomware is almost impossible due to the complexity of the events involved. Deaths connected with ransomware attacks can come about due to slowdowns, meaning delays in important surgeries and other care, as well as a lack of electronic health records, leading to a higher chance that patients will be given the wrong medication or an incorrect dose. In a recent Ponemon study of healthcare IT professionals, almost half (45%) said ransomware led to increased complications from medical procedures, up from 36% just a year earlier.

Higher Education  Just as school was starting back in September of 2021, Howard University, one of the U.S.s five largest historically black colleges and universities, was forced to cancel classes due to a ransomware attack. Attacks against higher education institutions are on the rise, with at least eight reporting ransomware attacks since December 2022. Why are attackers targeting these schools? Colleges and universities are seen as attractive targets because they hold valuable data and their IT departments are often understaffed and outdated, with limited security resources. Educational institutions are also considered slower to recover than other sectors. Despite the fact that 64% of higher education institutions experienced attacks in the past year, many are still unwilling to discuss these incidents due to the negative influence they may have on a schools reputation. Unfortunately, because of this silence, others in the sector may not realize that they are at riskfurther perpetuating the cycle.

 Just as school was starting back in September of 2021, Howard University, one of the U.S.s five largest historically black colleges and universities, was forced to cancel classes due to a ransomware attack. Attacks against higher education institutions are on the rise, with at least eight reporting ransomware attacks since December 2022. Why are attackers targeting these schools? Colleges and universities are seen as attractive targets because they hold valuable data and their IT departments are often understaffed and outdated, with limited security resources. Educational institutions are also considered slower to recover than other sectors. Despite the fact that 64% of higher education institutions experienced attacks in the past year, many are still unwilling to discuss these incidents due to the negative influence they may have on a schools reputation. Unfortunately, because of this silence, others in the sector may not realize that they are at riskfurther perpetuating the cycle. Manufacturing In February of 2023, MKS Instruments, a little-known U.S.-based supplier to major players in the semiconductor industry, woke up to every manufacturers worst nightmare: a ransomware attack. Hackers compromised production and business systems, leading to predictions of $200M in losses from the attack. But the worst may be yet to come: Employees have filed a class action suit, claiming that the company did not adequately protect their sensitive personal data. Attacks on semiconductor companies have continued: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) itself, the worlds largest chip manufacturer, was hit by the LockBit ransomware group in June 2023. The group demanded $70M, adding: In the case of payment refusal, also will be published points of entry into the network and passwords and logins company. But the semiconductor sector is not alone; almost every major field of manufacturing is being targeted. In fact, the manufacturing sector has been the industry most heavily hit by ransomware. The primary vector is unpatched vulnerabilities, particularly in industrial control systems. Manufacturers may also be more likely to pay ransoms to avoid production disruptions and financial losses, as well as devastating repercussions up and down the supply chain.

Tips to Protect Your Business From Todays Sophisticated Ransomware

Although these three industries are among the most frequently targeted, attacks like the one in Dallas, the cloud providers in Denmark, and other victims profiled above reveal the broader truth that any organization storing sensitive data is at risk today, from financial services and insurance to retail and logistics.

Thats especially true now, with partial encryption likely to increase in popularity as ransomware gangs study one anothers techniques. As more and more adopt this hyperefficient technique, they will find it easier and more effective than ever to steal your assets and avoid interception. So regardless of your industry, now is the time to take a few important steps to protect your organization from ransomware.

Inventory Assets  All comprehensive security strategies begin with a comprehensive assessment of what you need to protect, including OT assets that may be the weakest link in your organization.

 All comprehensive security strategies begin with a comprehensive assessment of what you need to protect, including OT assets that may be the weakest link in your organization. Stay on Guard 24/7  When it comes to ransomware attacks, hackers usually take advantage of times when people are not as vigilant. In the past year, most breaches have occurred on weekends and holidays.

 When it comes to ransomware attacks, hackers usually take advantage of times when people are not as vigilant. In the past year, most breaches have occurred on weekends and holidays. Patch, Patch, Patch  Keep up to date with a rigorous patching regimen, since known vulnerabilities are a popular attack vector. Also, automate patching wherever possible.

 Keep up to date with a rigorous patching regimen, since known vulnerabilities are a popular attack vector. Also, automate patching wherever possible. Watch for Pre-Ransomware  Trojan malware infections like Trickbot, Emotet, Dridex, and Cobalt Strike should be dealt with immediately, as these can all be used to let ransomware in the door; similarly, taking steps to prevent phishing and train users can help foster a culture of security.

 Trojan malware infections like Trickbot, Emotet, Dridex, and Cobalt Strike should be dealt with immediately, as these can all be used to let ransomware in the door; similarly, taking steps to prevent phishing and train users can help foster a culture of security. Get Backed Up  Store multiple copies of data in different locations (cloud, on-premises, and physical locations), and establish a backup testing regimen. Remember, never attach an uninfected backup to an infected computer. This could spread the ransomware to the backup and make it impossible to recover your data.

 Store multiple copies of data in different locations (cloud, on-premises, and physical locations), and establish a backup testing regimen. Remember, never attach an uninfected backup to an infected computer. This could spread the ransomware to the backup and make it impossible to recover your data. Minimize the Blast Zone  Reduce the impact of a potential attack with security measures such as strong user authentication and network segmentation to limit the radius of an attacks spread.

 Reduce the impact of a potential attack with security measures such as strong user authentication and network segmentation to limit the radius of an attacks spread. It is important to note that none of these measures can provide complete protection. And particularly in light of the fact that partial encryption is notoriously difficult to detect, your best bet is a comprehensive anti-ransomware solution.

Check Point Harmony: The Industrys Best Prevention

The best way to keep your organization safe is effective threat prevention with an organization-wide anti-ransomware solution that uses up-to-the-minute threat intelligence data along with advanced algorithms that work automatically in the background, around the clock.

Check Point Harmony is the first unified security solution that protects users, devices, and internet connections from the most sophisticated attacks, including phishing, zero-day ransomware, and more. It also ensures that users only have access to the applications they need, which helps reduce the risk of data breaches.

Check Point Harmony delivers peace of mind with a total, holistic defense against malware:

Constantly monitors for ransomware-specific behavior

Detects threats fast so teams can act quickly to minimize harm

Identifies illegitimate file encryption; signature-less to detect new attack types

Uses forensic analysis to detect and quarantine all elements of a ransomware attack

Automatically restores encrypted files from snapshots to ensure business continuity

Check Point Harmony is prevention-focused, stopping attacks before they become a threat to your organization. Powered by real-time threat intelligence through Check Points ThreatCloud AI and backed by the industry-leading Check Point Research team, Check Point Harmony gives you todays best security, hands down.
Senior Chinese military officer meets Serbian defense minister

Xinhua) 13:19, October 19, 2023

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, met with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Milos Vucevic here on Tuesday.

Vucevic is in company with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Zhang said China-Serbia relations have grown increasingly stronger over time, and the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership has maintained high-level development.

China will maintain close exchanges with Serbia, strengthen strategic communication, deepen practical cooperation, and advance the relations between the two militaries, said Zhang.

Vucevic said Serbia is a sincere strategic partner of China, adding that the Serbian side firmly follows the one-China policy, and stands ready to strengthen military cooperation with China and elevate the relations between the two militaries to a higher level.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Fans of the Harry Potter franchise have lost another Potterhead after the bodies of 12-year-old Noya Dan and her 80-year-old grandmother Carmela were recovered by Israeli emergency services after they went missing after Hamas's deadly sabbath attack on October 7.

The family of Carmela and Noya - who was also reported to be autistic - have been clinging to hope that they would be found as hostages and not as part of the deceased.

Missing Potterhead

Prior to the announcement, the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel's foreign ministry took to X, formerly Twitter, to reach out to Harry Potter series author JK Rowling to let the world know that a Potterhead was missing after Hamas's attack.

"Noya is sensitive, kind, funny, and a massive Harry Potter fan," the tweet wrote while sharing a picture of her sporting a Hogwarts-related costume. "@jk_rowling, can you help us get her story out?"

Rowling responded by retweeting the post.

Kidnapping children is despicable and wholly unjustifiable. For obvious reasons, this picture has hit home with me. May Noya and all hostages taken by Hamas be returned soon, safely, to their families. https://t.co/YIbf3egib4  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 16, 2023

"Kidnapping children is despicable and wholly unjustifiable," she said. "For obvious reasons, this picture has hit home with me. May Noya and all hostages taken by Hamas be returned soon, safely, to their families."

Read Also: Dumbledore is Dead: Harry Potter Actor Sir Michael Gambon, 82

Noya's Last Moments

Galit Dan, Noya's mother, shared her daughter's tragic final voice message to her while hiding inside her grandmother's home in the Nir Oz kibbutz before the confirmation of her death was reported.

"Mom, there was a big boom at the door that scared me," she was heard saying in Hebrew in a voice note played by her mother to Israeli media.

"All the windows in Grandma's house were broken at the entrance. Because there was another boom, there are many broken windows. Mommy... I'm scared."

Aside from Noya and Carmela, three other members of the Dan family - Ofer, Sahar, and Varez - were understood to be still unaccounted for.

"Just because she is autistic, doesn't mean she doesn't understand. She understands everything," Galit told local media. "Where are they keeping her? What are they doing with her? I hope they're together, praying."

However, the Dan family confirmed on Facebook late Wednesday night (October 18) that the bodies of both Noya and Carmela have been identified by rescue workers.

"Carmela Dan [and] Noya Dan are no longer with us," Sharon Calderon wrote. "May they be remembered for love. We continue to fight to bring Ofer, Sahar, [and] Varez home."

We are devastated to announce that Noya and her grandmother Carmelas bodies were discovered yesterday.



Thank you to all of you who shared her story to help us bring her home.



Our hearts are broken . https://t.co/1I9r4fibsP  Israel   (@Israel) October 19, 2023

The deaths were also confirmed by the Israeli foreign ministry.

"We are devastated to announce that Noya and her grandmother Carmela's bodies were discovered yesterday," the tweet update wrote. "Thank you to all of you who shared her story to help us bring her home. Our hearts are broken."

Related Article: British Prime Minister Visits Israel After Promising To Keep Jewish People Safe Amid Conflict

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Secluded behind a shroud of trees on a dead-end street in College Station stands one of only two Amazon Prime Air Facilities nationally using drone delivery technology.

Since December 2022, the College Station location and the second Prime Air Facility in Lockeford, California, have successfully delivered thousands of packages, and plans to expand internationally are already in the works, according to Amazon officials.

The company announced Wednesday that by the end of 2024, additional drone delivery facilities are planned for the U.S., United Kingdom and Italy. Starting immediately, Amazon drone customers are also able to receive pharmaceutical prescriptions via air.

College Station resident Penny Zent lives close enough to the Amazon facility that she has been able to receive packages via drone since about mid-August. She said she has so far received multiple items each week and it has been exciting to watch each time.

Everybody was talking about What size are they? and that kind of stuff, so the first one was really quite an experience, Zent said. Its so fun to watch it. As I have been using the service now, I have come to recognize and realize the value of it because of certain things. If people cannot get out of their homes, for example, or they dont have transportation that day or they need something as mundane as some headache medication or something like that, Amazon has it.

With pharmaceuticals now available, Zent said she thought people would take advantage of it even if she might not want to migrate her prescriptions over to the service.

Unfortunately, I take a lot of medications and theyre on automatic shipment so Im going to have to figure out how thats going to work for me, she said. I think for people, especially [those] that are perhaps younger than I am that order medications on a pretty regular basis, it would be a very suitable type of thing because they dont have to wait to go to the pharmacy.

Additionally, a new drone called the M30 was announced and will include improvements such as a lighter and smaller frame, better weather adaptability and an estimated 50% reduction in propeller noise. Amazon said this next-generation drone will allow the company to fly nearly twice as far and make deliveries in smaller areas.

College Station Site Leader Christina Carter said the facilitys goal is to deliver a package within an hour.

We have thousands of products here in our fulfillment center, Carter said. We package those products safely, get those out to our pad out here, to our drone, where we package it and it goes the customer.  Sometimes its less than 30 minutes. So, say youre sitting on your couch and your batteries run out on your remote, we can get that out to you within 60 minutes.

College Station and Lockeford were chosen specifically as the testing grounds for the new technology, Carter said.

We picked these two locations after we analyzed a lot of cities here in the United States, she said. To speak on College Station here, we were really drawn to the innovative culture here as well as the spirit of the community. So being able to have this start here, essentially, is really exciting for us.

Carter said safety is also a high priority and that the drones always stay within the line of sight of company observers who watch the drone during the entirety of its air time, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration. Amazon achieves this by having multiple observers atop a tall tower near the landing pad and will even send out vehicles with observers to maintain a line of sight, if necessary.

So, we do have a sense and avoid [system], which is the reason that makes our service very safe here, she said. Thats going to go ahead and detect people, pets and property. And the only thing that we use those cameras footage for is to make sure we continue to provide a safety service.

An Amazon spokesperson later clarified that the drones do not record video while in the air.

Carter is hopeful to expand the service in the future and is excited to be at the forefront of emerging technology.

Being able to give those products to everybody within 60 minutes, I think, is huge, especially coming from such a safe and efficient product [that is] fully electric, for sustainability purposes, she said. I saw an opportunity like this with something so innovative and, of course, I wanted to be a part of it. Something so big, so innovative, efficient, quick and I really care about the customers and making sure that were able to provide that service.

Zent said she was glad that College Station was chosen as one of the first two locations to offer drone deliveries and that she has enjoyed watching the technology develop exponentially.

When drones first started, it was Oh my gosh, little Johnnys going to have a drone and fly it around the neighborhood, she said. Then we have gone from that to the drones are being used at wartime and that kind of stuff, to having it available for this kind of thing where its something that is so useful for the common everyday person.
Editors note: Voters have amended the Texas Constitution 517 times since 1876, and they will get the chance again Nov. 7. This is the ninth of a series of articles examining the intention and implications of the 14 amendments on the ballot.

When University High School Principal Annette Perez retired in 2004 after 24 years in Texas public education, George W. Bush was president, Rick Perry was in his second elected term as Texas governor and gas cost a little more than $2 a gallon.

More than two decades after retiring, Perez has yet to receive a cost-of-living adjustment.

She is not alone. The Texas Retired Teachers Association estimates roughly 70% of its membership retired after 2004 and also are waiting for an adjustment.

That could change if voters on Nov. 7 approve Proposition 9, an amendment to the Texas Constitution that would authorize the transfer of about $3.3 billion to the Teacher Retirement System of Texas trust fund to pay for a cost-of-living adjustment of between 2% and 6% for the roughly 475,000 retired Texas teachers and school employees.

The official ballot wording for the amendment, laid out in House Joint Resolution 2, is less descriptive: The constitutional amendment authorizing the 88th Legislature to provide a cost-of-living adjustment to certain annuitants of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.

The working details of the amendment are in its enabling legislation, Senate Bill 10, authored by Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, which passed without opposition in both the House and Senate. The measure allows the Legislature to transfer $3.3 billion from the states general revenue fund to the Teacher Retirement System trust fund, provides a mechanism for future cost-of-living increases and allows a one-time benefit payment of $2,400 for the states 104,000 Teacher Retirement System retirees and beneficiaries 70 to 74 years old and $7,500 for the 186,000 retirees 75 and older.

The amendment will not require a tax increase to finance. If passed, the cost-of-living adjustment would take effect in January.

The cost-of-living amendment culminates years of lobbying and work by teachers groups, said Tim Lee, executive director of the Texas Retired Teachers Association. With a $33 billion budget surplus predicted before the 88th Legislative Session, the groups redoubled their efforts.

Its a big step forward, Lee said.

He said teachers who retired before the last cost-of-living adjustment have lost an estimated 34% in purchasing power over that time. Most retired Texas teachers do not draw Social Security benefits for their teaching years in Texas. Teachers retirement benefits are determined by an average of their three highest-paid years. For teachers who retired several decades ago, the salary levels at which they retired are considerably lower than todays average teaching salaries.

Perez can speak to both issues. She qualified for Social Security thanks to eight years teaching in New Jersey before coming to Texas, and her salary at retirement was approximately $70,000, lower than the current level paid high school principals. She said a longtime friend and former teaching colleague from New Jersey was earning about $98,000 after retiring with roughly as many years in teaching as Perez.

Gerald Brewer retired from Waco Independent School District in 2007 after 35 years in the district as an Earth science teacher, Waco High School ninth grade counselor and then assistant principal. He draws Social Security thanks to his part-time jobs with Cox Department Store, then Jos. A. Banks before its Waco store closed due to a corporate bankruptcy.

Brewer, 75, recalled his starting salary as a teacher in the 1970s was around $6,000 and, as for many of his colleagues, a second job after school hours or during the summer was needed to help pay the bills.

The Texas Retired Teachers Association estimates 75,000 retirees would receive the 6% increase, 195,000 retirees the 4% increase and 150,000 the 2% increase based on their retirement date.

Brewer falls in the group qualifying for the 4% increase, which, if Proposition 9 passes, would mean about an extra $100 in his monthly paycheck, he said. Brewer said the cost-of-living increase also would affect custodians, bus drivers and cafeteria workers and other school employees who pay into the Teacher Retirement System.

Its (the cost-of-living increase is) not going to be an extreme amount of money, but its very much needed for some people, he said.

Perez, who said she might still be in education today if her students and colleagues were all she had to deal with, agreed.

This is very welcome.  Hopefully it wont be the last of it, she said.
Editors note: Voters have amended the Texas Constitution 517 times since 1876, and they will get the chance again Nov. 7. This is the 10th of a series of articles examining the intention and implications of the 14 amendments on the ballot.

About $100,000 a year of local tax revenue is at stake in McLennan County if Texas voters on Nov. 7 approve Proposition 10, which exempts some medical manufacturers from inventory taxes.

The constitutional amendment is intended to make Texas attractive as a place to make medical devices. But the exemption will shift the tax burden for school, city, county and college taxes to other taxpayers, said Joe Don Bobbitt, chief appraiser for the McLennan Central Appraisal District.

For these businesses this will be a good thing and will reduce their tax burden, he said. But for every exemption passed the tax burden is shifted to those that dont qualify.

Proposition 10 could reduce the tax paid by about 17 companies in Waco and surrounding cities, which combined pay about $100,700 in inventory tax, Bobbitt said.

Granted a $100,000 shift isnt enough of an impact in terms of total tax levy in this county and wouldnt be noticed by your average taxpayer, Bobbitt said.

State Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, was the author of Senate Joint Resolution 87, which put Proposition 10 on the ballot.

The amendment allows for a personal property tax exemption for the equipment and supplies used to make medical products and for the products themselves. Those companies would continue to pay other taxes, including property taxes on real estate.

Huffman acknowledged on the Senate floor that her amendment amounts to preferential tax treatment, but she said Texas needs these products to be made here, rather than outside the U.S., which is mostly the case now.

Huffman said the loss of the inventory tax would be offset by an increased tax base and high-paying jobs that come with medical manufacturing.

Companies in the Greater Waco Area that could be affected if Proposition 10 passes include BioLife Plasma Services and Epiphany Dermatology, P.A., which each paid about $25,000 in inventory taxes to Waco, the Waco Independent School District, McLennan County and McLennan Community College.

The language on the ballot for Proposition 10, also known as Senate Joint Resolution 87, will read, The constitutional amendment to authorize the legislature to exempt from ad valorem taxation equipment or inventory held by a manufacturer of medical or biomedical products to protect the Texas healthcare network and strengthen our medical supply chain.

Proposition 10 would allow the Legislature to exempt medical and biomedical manufacturers as well as companies that make pharmaceuticals and medical personal protective equipment from the property tax on inventory, according to a Focus Report of the Texas House of Representatives House Research Organization.

Property to be used in the manufacturing or processing of medical or biomedical products also could be exempted, the Focus Report said.

In addition to property tax on homes and buildings, Texas also levies property tax on inventory held by manufacturers as finished goods and on equipment used to make or process those finished goods.

The current tax structure on medical and biomedical manufacturing inventories can discourage capital investment and expansion, the House committee analysis of the proposed amendment says.

Huffman said the amendment would allow vaccines and pharmaceutical products developed at research institutions in Dallas and Houston, and elsewhere in Texas, to be manufactured in the state.

Texas is the only large manufacturing state that imposes this type of tax (on inventory) and it has seriously dampened the enthusiasm for manufacturers in these industries to come to Texas, Huffman said before the Texas Senate voted to put Proposition 10 on the ballot. It will support job creation and bring in real estate and other types of taxes.

Huffman also reminded her colleagues that the recent pandemic exposed the risk of making medical equipment and PPE outside the state. She said Proposition 10 would strengthen the medical supply chain and protect the Texas health care network.

Texas Representative Brian Harrison, R-Ellis County, voted against the measure in the House because he thinks it doesnt go far enough.

If the inventory tax is a problem, lets scrap it for everyone. Harrison said by phone last month.

Unforeseen consequences could include market distortions, Harrison said.

When a state gives tax exemptions to some businesses and not others, it distorts markets, Harrison said. I support biomedical and biopharmaceutical manufacturing in Texas just like I support every other business.

Harrison would like to see Texas have the lowest tax rates and smallest regulatory burdens across the board.

It isnt fair to shift that tax burden away from the biomedical and biopharmaceutical manufacturers and onto every other taxpayer, he added.
Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in Apartment Income REIT Corp. (NYSE:AIRC  Free Report) by 2.2% during the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 735,529 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 16,102 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc.s holdings in Apartment Income REIT were worth $26,545,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in AIRC. Allworth Financial LP increased its position in shares of Apartment Income REIT by 872.2% in the first quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 700 shares of the companys stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 628 shares in the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Apartment Income REIT in the first quarter worth approximately $27,000. Belpointe Asset Management LLC grew its position in Apartment Income REIT by 356.7% in the first quarter. Belpointe Asset Management LLC now owns 813 shares of the companys stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 635 shares in the last quarter. Signaturefd LLC grew its position in Apartment Income REIT by 776.2% in the first quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 1,139 shares of the companys stock worth $41,000 after acquiring an additional 1,009 shares in the last quarter. Finally, First Manhattan Co. bought a new stake in Apartment Income REIT in the first quarter worth approximately $121,000. 98.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AIRC has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Truist Financial upgraded shares of Apartment Income REIT from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $44.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, August 28th. Mizuho reduced their price objective on shares of Apartment Income REIT from $40.00 to $33.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 26th. Wedbush began coverage on shares of Apartment Income REIT in a research note on Tuesday, October 3rd. They issued an outperform rating and a $37.00 price objective for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Apartment Income REIT from $41.00 to $39.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Monday, August 21st. Finally, 92 Resources reiterated a reiterates rating on shares of Apartment Income REIT in a research note on Wednesday, June 28th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $39.78.

Apartment Income REIT Stock Performance

Apartment Income REIT stock opened at $31.52 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $4.70 billion, a PE ratio of 15.08 and a beta of 0.90. The companys 50-day moving average is $32.34 and its two-hundred day moving average is $34.46. The company has a current ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 0.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52. Apartment Income REIT Corp. has a 1 year low of $29.64 and a 1 year high of $40.28.

Apartment Income REIT Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, August 29th. Investors of record on Friday, August 18th were paid a $0.45 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 17th. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.71%. Apartment Income REITs dividend payout ratio is presently 86.12%.

About Apartment Income REIT

(Free Report)

Apartment Income REIT Corp (NYSE: AIRC) is a publicly traded, self-administered real estate investment trust (REIT). AIR's portfolio comprises 73 communities totaling 25,739 apartment homes located in 10 states and the District of Columbia. AIR offers a simple, predictable business model with focus on what we call the AIR Edge, the cumulative result of our focus on resident selection, satisfaction, and retention, as well as relentless innovation in delivering best-in-class property management.

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Bell Bank boosted its holdings in Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ  Free Report) by 6.9% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 3,973 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 256 shares during the quarter. Bell Banks holdings in Johnson & Johnson were worth $658,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Atlantic Private Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Johnson & Johnson during the 1st quarter worth approximately $32,000. 25 LLC bought a new position in shares of Johnson & Johnson during the 1st quarter worth approximately $55,000. Horizons Wealth Management lifted its position in shares of Johnson & Johnson by 1,730.0% during the 2nd quarter. Horizons Wealth Management now owns 366 shares of the companys stock worth $61,000 after buying an additional 346 shares in the last quarter. Bay Harbor Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Johnson & Johnson during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $66,000. Finally, Sanctuary Wealth Management L.L.C. bought a new position in shares of Johnson & Johnson during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $109,000. Institutional investors own 68.40% of the companys stock.

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Insider Activity

In other news, insider William Hait sold 14,698 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $172.00, for a total transaction of $2,528,056.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 87,747 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,092,484. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, VP Peter Fasolo sold 20,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $170.32, for a total value of $3,406,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 102,696 shares in the company, valued at $17,491,182.72. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider William Hait sold 14,698 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $172.00, for a total transaction of $2,528,056.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 87,747 shares of the companys stock, valued at $15,092,484. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.20% of the companys stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on shares of Johnson & Johnson from $195.00 to $186.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 31st. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Johnson & Johnson from $158.00 to $162.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a report on Thursday, October 12th. Royal Bank of Canada started coverage on shares of Johnson & Johnson in a report on Wednesday, October 4th. They issued an outperform rating and a $178.00 price target on the stock. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an overweight rating and issued a $215.00 price target on shares of Johnson & Johnson in a report on Wednesday. Finally, HSBC started coverage on shares of Johnson & Johnson in a report on Wednesday, September 6th. They issued a hold rating and a $175.00 price target on the stock. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $170.41.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson Stock Down 2.2 %

Johnson & Johnson stock opened at $152.72 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $162.04 and a 200 day simple moving average of $162.54. The firm has a market capitalization of $396.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.91, a P/E/G ratio of 3.18 and a beta of 0.55. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. Johnson & Johnson has a 1-year low of $150.11 and a 1-year high of $181.04.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 20th. The company reported $2.80 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.62 by $0.18. The firm had revenue of $25.53 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $24.63 billion. Johnson & Johnson had a net margin of 13.35% and a return on equity of 36.72%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 6.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.59 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Johnson & Johnson will post 10.03 earnings per share for the current year.

Johnson & Johnson Profile

(Free Report)

Johnson & Johnson, together with its subsidiaries, researches, develops, manufactures, and sells various products in the healthcare field worldwide. The company's Consumer Health segment provides skin health/beauty products under the AVEENO, CLEAN & CLEAR, DR. CI:LABO, NEUTROGENA, and OGX brands; baby care products under the JOHNSON'S and AVEENO Baby brands; oral care products under the LISTERINE brand; TYLENOL acetaminophen products; SUDAFED cold, flu, and allergy products; BENADRYL and ZYRTEC allergy products; MOTRIN IB ibuprofen products; NICORETTE smoking cessation products; and PEPCID acid reflux products.

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Exxon Mobil Co. (NYSE:XOM  Get Free Report) has been assigned a consensus rating of Moderate Buy from the twenty-one brokerages that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and twelve have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $127.22.

XOM has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Mizuho restated a buy rating and set a $139.00 price target on shares of Exxon Mobil in a research note on Monday, September 25th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Exxon Mobil from $127.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, September 22nd. Wolfe Research cut shares of Exxon Mobil from an outperform rating to a peer perform rating in a research note on Friday, July 7th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. Redburn Partners upgraded shares of Exxon Mobil from a sell rating to a neutral rating and increased their target price for the stock from $100.00 to $105.00 in a research note on Thursday, August 31st. Finally, StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Exxon Mobil in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock.

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Check Out Our Latest Report on XOM

Insider Activity at Exxon Mobil

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Exxon Mobil

In related news, VP Darrin L. Talley sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $115.00, for a total transaction of $172,500.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 27,772 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,193,780. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website . In other news, Director Jeffrey W. Ubben purchased 458,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, July 31st. The shares were acquired at an average price of $106.93 per share, with a total value of $48,973,940.00. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 1,635,000 shares in the company, valued at $174,830,550. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website . Also, VP Darrin L. Talley sold 1,500 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $115.00, for a total transaction of $172,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 27,772 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,193,780. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . 0.04% of the stock is owned by insiders.

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Stone House Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Exxon Mobil in the 1st quarter worth about $25,000. KB Financial Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Exxon Mobil in the 1st quarter worth about $27,000. Financial Connections Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Exxon Mobil by 105.4% in the 2nd quarter. Financial Connections Group Inc. now owns 306 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $32,000 after purchasing an additional 157 shares during the period. Artemis Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Exxon Mobil in the 1st quarter worth about $36,000. Finally, Trivant Custom Portfolio Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Exxon Mobil in the 1st quarter worth about $38,000. Institutional investors own 58.53% of the companys stock.

Exxon Mobil Stock Up 1.4 %

Exxon Mobil stock opened at $112.95 on Monday. Exxon Mobil has a twelve month low of $98.02 and a twelve month high of $120.70. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $112.46 and a 200-day moving average price of $109.50. The company has a market capitalization of $452.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.04, a P/E/G ratio of 3.93 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a quick ratio of 1.09, a current ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18.

Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 28th. The oil and gas company reported $1.94 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $2.00 by ($0.06). The business had revenue of $82.91 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $81.80 billion. Exxon Mobil had a net margin of 13.72% and a return on equity of 25.82%. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 28.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $4.14 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Exxon Mobil will post 9.32 EPS for the current year.

Exxon Mobil Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 11th. Investors of record on Wednesday, August 16th were issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.22%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 15th. Exxon Mobils dividend payout ratio is currently 29.12%.

Exxon Mobil Company Profile

(Get Free Report

Exxon Mobil Corporation engages in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas in the United States and internationally. It operates through Upstream, Energy Products, Chemical Products, and Specialty Products segments. The Upstream segment explores for and produces crude oil and natural gas.

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First Republic Investment Management Inc. cut its stake in Robert Half Inc. (NYSE:RHI  Free Report) by 21.2% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 26,778 shares of the business services providers stock after selling 7,194 shares during the quarter. First Republic Investment Management Inc.s holdings in Robert Half were worth $2,014,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of RHI. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich increased its stake in shares of Robert Half by 107,547.9% in the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 56,186,845 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $4,226,375,000 after acquiring an additional 56,134,650 shares during the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Robert Half by 116,277.2% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 7,941,582 shares of the business services providers stock worth $586,327,000 after acquiring an additional 7,934,758 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors bought a new position in shares of Robert Half during the 1st quarter worth approximately $636,060,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Robert Half by 173.4% during the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,491,723 shares of the business services providers stock worth $200,758,000 after acquiring an additional 1,580,365 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Millennium Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Robert Half by 2,249.5% during the 4th quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,597,852 shares of the business services providers stock worth $117,969,000 after acquiring an additional 1,529,845 shares in the last quarter. 91.63% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Robert Half from $84.00 to $76.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 27th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price target on shares of Robert Half from $88.00 to $82.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 26th. StockNews.com raised shares of Robert Half from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Sunday. Bank of America cut their price objective on Robert Half from $63.00 to $53.00 in a report on Thursday, July 27th. Finally, Credit Suisse Group cut their price objective on Robert Half from $63.00 to $57.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 26th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $72.11.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Robert Half news, EVP Robert W. Glass sold 14,751 shares of Robert Half stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $75.15, for a total transaction of $1,108,537.65. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 209,927 shares of the companys stock, valued at $15,776,014.05. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, Director Dirk A. Kempthorne sold 2,050 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.15, for a total value of $152,007.50. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 12,934 shares of the companys stock, valued at $959,056.10. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Robert W. Glass sold 14,751 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $75.15, for a total transaction of $1,108,537.65. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 209,927 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $15,776,014.05. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 2.80% of the companys stock.

Robert Half Price Performance

RHI stock opened at $75.55 on Thursday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $74.49 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $73.77. Robert Half Inc. has a one year low of $64.65 and a one year high of $89.78. The stock has a market cap of $8.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.99 and a beta of 1.30.

Robert Half (NYSE:RHI  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 25th. The business services provider reported $1.00 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.13 by ($0.13). Robert Half had a return on equity of 34.51% and a net margin of 7.84%. The company had revenue of $1.64 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.69 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $1.60 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was down 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Robert Half Inc. will post 3.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Robert Half Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 25th were given a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 24th. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.54%. Robert Halfs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.10%.

About Robert Half

(Free Report)

Robert Half Inc provides talent solutions and business consulting services in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The company operates through three segments: Contract Talent Solutions, Permanent Placement Talent Solutions, and Protiviti. The Contract Talent Solutions segment provides contract engagement professionals in the fields of finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal and administrative, and customer support.

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Koshinski Asset Management Inc. lessened its holdings in Genuine Parts (NYSE:GPC  Free Report) by 25.8% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,467 shares of the specialty retailers stock after selling 511 shares during the period. Koshinski Asset Management Inc.s holdings in Genuine Parts were worth $248,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Oakworth Capital Inc. raised its position in Genuine Parts by 6.0% in the second quarter. Oakworth Capital Inc. now owns 1,311 shares of the specialty retailers stock worth $222,000 after purchasing an additional 74 shares in the last quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its position in Genuine Parts by 73.2% in the second quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 4,734 shares of the specialty retailers stock worth $801,000 after purchasing an additional 2,001 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New Hampshire raised its position in Genuine Parts by 3.0% in the second quarter. Bank of New Hampshire now owns 6,159 shares of the specialty retailers stock worth $1,042,000 after purchasing an additional 180 shares in the last quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC increased its holdings in shares of Genuine Parts by 4.0% during the second quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC now owns 11,759 shares of the specialty retailers stock worth $1,990,000 after buying an additional 448 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Yarger Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Genuine Parts during the second quarter worth approximately $533,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.51% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

GPC has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. UBS Group initiated coverage on shares of Genuine Parts in a report on Thursday, October 12th. They set a neutral rating and a $160.00 price objective for the company. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Genuine Parts in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a buy rating for the company. Stephens dropped their price objective on shares of Genuine Parts from $172.00 to $168.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 21st. Northcoast Research initiated coverage on shares of Genuine Parts in a report on Wednesday, June 28th. They set a buy rating and a $195.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Truist Financial dropped their price objective on shares of Genuine Parts from $191.00 to $172.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 5th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $173.56.

Genuine Parts Price Performance

GPC opened at $148.73 on Thursday. Genuine Parts has a one year low of $139.66 and a one year high of $187.73. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 0.58. The companys 50 day simple moving average is $150.01 and its 200-day simple moving average is $158.35.

Genuine Parts (NYSE:GPC  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 20th. The specialty retailer reported $2.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.34 by $0.10. Genuine Parts had a net margin of 5.30% and a return on equity of 32.43%. The firm had revenue of $5.92 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $5.96 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.20 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Genuine Parts will post 9.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Genuine Parts Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, October 2nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 8th were paid a $0.95 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 7th. This represents a $3.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.55%. Genuine Partss payout ratio is presently 44.44%.

About Genuine Parts

(Free Report)

Genuine Parts Company distributes automotive replacement parts, and industrial parts and materials. It operates through Automotive Parts Group and Industrial Parts Group segments. The company distributes automotive replacement parts for hybrid and electric vehicles, trucks, SUVs, buses, motorcycles, recreational vehicles, farm vehicles, small engines, farm equipment, marine equipment, and heavy duty equipment; and accessory and supply items used by various automotive aftermarket customers, such as repair shops, service stations, fleet operators, automobile and truck dealers, leasing companies, bus and truck lines, mass merchandisers, farms, and individuals.

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UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH  Free Report)  Stock analysts at Leerink Partnrs increased their FY2023 earnings per share estimates for UnitedHealth Group in a research report issued on Monday, October 16th. Leerink Partnrs analyst W. Mayo now anticipates that the healthcare conglomerate will post earnings per share of $24.95 for the year, up from their previous forecast of $24.65. The consensus estimate for UnitedHealth Groups current full-year earnings is $24.93 per share. Leerink Partnrs also issued estimates for UnitedHealth Groups Q1 2024 earnings at $6.79 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $27.90 EPS, FY2025 earnings at $31.65 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $35.96 EPS.

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UNH has been the subject of several other reports. Mizuho dropped their price objective on UnitedHealth Group from $600.00 to $549.00 in a research note on Tuesday, July 11th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on UnitedHealth Group from $616.00 to $561.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 13th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on UnitedHealth Group from $572.00 to $596.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Monday. TD Cowen lowered their target price on UnitedHealth Group from $562.00 to $555.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Monday, July 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their target price on UnitedHealth Group from $580.00 to $584.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Monday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of $578.70.

UnitedHealth Group Stock Down 0.1 %

Shares of UNH stock opened at $536.06 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 0.80 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $500.92 and a 200 day moving average price of $493.41. UnitedHealth Group has a one year low of $445.68 and a one year high of $558.10. The stock has a market cap of $496.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.58 and a beta of 0.64.

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Friday, October 13th. The healthcare conglomerate reported $6.56 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.33 by $0.23. The firm had revenue of $92.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $91.41 billion. UnitedHealth Group had a return on equity of 26.58% and a net margin of 6.02%. UnitedHealth Groups quarterly revenue was up 14.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $5.79 earnings per share.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On UnitedHealth Group

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of UNH. Kraft Davis & Associates LLC boosted its holdings in shares of UnitedHealth Group by 3.4% in the 3rd quarter. Kraft Davis & Associates LLC now owns 577 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock worth $294,000 after purchasing an additional 19 shares in the last quarter. Secure Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 0.8% during the 3rd quarter. Secure Asset Management LLC now owns 2,456 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock valued at $1,238,000 after acquiring an additional 19 shares during the period. Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 1.6% during the 3rd quarter. Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,217 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock valued at $614,000 after acquiring an additional 19 shares during the period. Apeiron RIA LLC boosted its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. Apeiron RIA LLC now owns 2,581 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock valued at $1,222,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the period. Finally, Zullo Investment Group Inc. boosted its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Zullo Investment Group Inc. now owns 3,001 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock valued at $1,443,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.69% of the companys stock.

Insider Activity at UnitedHealth Group

In related news, EVP Erin Mcsweeney sold 4,498 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $544.28, for a total value of $2,448,171.44. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 9,218 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,017,173.04. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.35% of the stock is owned by insiders.

UnitedHealth Group Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 19th. Investors of record on Monday, September 11th were given a $1.88 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 8th. This represents a $7.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.40%. UnitedHealth Groups dividend payout ratio is presently 32.64%.

About UnitedHealth Group

(Get Free Report)

UnitedHealth Group Incorporated operates as a diversified health care company in the United States. It operates through four segments: UnitedHealthcare, Optum Health, Optum Insight, and Optum Rx. The UnitedHealthcare segment offers consumer-oriented health benefit plans and services for national employers, public sector employers, mid-sized employers, small businesses, and individuals; health care coverage, and health and well-being services to individuals age 50 and older addressing their needs; Medicaid plans, children's health insurance and health care programs; and health and dental benefits, and hospital and clinical services, as well as health care benefits products and services to state programs caring for the economically disadvantaged, medically underserved, and those without the benefit of employer-funded health care coverage.

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Ever since Elon Musk purchased what was previously known as Twitter, it has been the subject of many controversies. With that on top of platform changes that no one wanted, the social media site continues to die a slow death.

Declining Web Traffic

People are starting to spend less time on the platform, likely because of all the changes that Elon Musk has implemented. The microblogging site is getting farther and farther away from the Twitter that everyone came and stayed for.

Based on the year-over-year global web traffic estimates, X is down 14% this September 2023. It has taken a slightly bigger hit with its advertisement with a 16.5% decline, which can spell trouble since it's a huge source of revenue for the company.

X's biggest contributor in web traffic is the US, and Similarweb estimates show that it's down by 19% since September 2022. In the UK, there is an 11.6% decrease, 13.4% in France, 17.9% in Germany, and 17.5% in Australia.

It might also have something to do with Musk's ongoing battle with mainstream media outlets, specifically his distrust of the publications. Given that X is one of the platforms that people go to for news, the tech billionaire's issue with news companies raises huge problems.

Not only that, Musk is also actively making it difficult for news providers to operate within the social networking site. Just recently, X no longer displayed headlines in news article links, only the photos and the caption that the user types in.

Prior to that, It was also reported that the links to sites that Elon Musk disliked were slowed down on purpose. Affected websites were The New York Times, Instagram, Bluesky, Threads, Substack, and more, as per The Stateman.

The delay was only five seconds long, but it could be enough for users to grow impatient and not visit the sites altogether. This, in turn, would affect the revenue that is usually based on web traffic. Other sites like YouTube and Fox News remain unaffected.

X's former Head of Trust and safety even expressed that it was "one of those things that seems too crazy to be true, even for Twitter, until you see it inexplicably take 5 seconds for Chrome to receive 650 bytes of data."

Read Also: X is Showing Unlabeled Ads with No Means to Block or Report

X Will Soon Be Behind a Paywall

As if things were not bad enough, Elon Musk is going through with his plan to put the platform behind a paywall. It has already started in the Philippines and New Zealand, where new users are required to pay $1 a year to access the majority of X's features.

Without the subscription, users will be limited to just reading posts. They will not be able to publish, reply, repost, quote, or bookmark posts on the platform. The program which was named "Not-a-Bot" is a way for the company to get rid of bot accounts.

It's no secret that X has a bot problem even after Musk implemented the X Blue verification system. By putting account creation behind a paywall, the Tesla CEO hopes that it would be too expensive to create bot accounts and that users will no longer create them.

Related: X is Will Soon Charge $1 per Year in the Philippines, New Zealand
New York State Teachers Retirement System cut its position in shares of DXC Technology (NYSE:DXC  Free Report) by 15.9% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 250,748 shares of the companys stock after selling 47,535 shares during the period. New York State Teachers Retirement Systems holdings in DXC Technology were worth $6,700,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Franklin Resources Inc. grew its stake in DXC Technology by 7.1% in the first quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 18,540,675 shares of the companys stock valued at $473,900,000 after purchasing an additional 1,223,426 shares in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in DXC Technology by 0.4% in the first quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 9,333,459 shares of the companys stock valued at $238,563,000 after purchasing an additional 35,672 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in DXC Technology by 3.0% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,927,445 shares of the companys stock valued at $202,625,000 after purchasing an additional 232,024 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in DXC Technology by 7.0% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 6,151,651 shares of the companys stock valued at $157,231,000 after purchasing an additional 402,534 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in DXC Technology by 0.6% in the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,008,256 shares of the companys stock valued at $127,965,000 after purchasing an additional 30,979 shares in the last quarter. 88.09% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

DXC has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft downgraded DXC Technology from a buy rating to a hold rating and decreased their price target for the company from $35.00 to $23.00 in a research note on Thursday, August 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on DXC Technology from $29.00 to $28.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, August 22nd. BMO Capital Markets lowered DXC Technology from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $27.00 to $25.00 in a report on Thursday, August 3rd. TD Cowen reissued a market perform rating and set a $25.00 target price (down from $34.00) on shares of DXC Technology in a report on Thursday, August 3rd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lowered DXC Technology from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $34.00 to $29.00 in a report on Thursday, August 3rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and seven have assigned a hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $25.30.

DXC Technology Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE DXC opened at $20.91 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 1.14 and a quick ratio of 1.14. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $20.80 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $23.76. DXC Technology has a one year low of $18.61 and a one year high of $30.27. The firm has a market cap of $4.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -7.36, a P/E/G ratio of 1.23 and a beta of 1.92.

DXC Technology (NYSE:DXC  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 2nd. The company reported $0.63 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.82 by ($0.19). DXC Technology had a negative net margin of 4.47% and a positive return on equity of 17.63%. The firm had revenue of $3.45 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.56 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.75 earnings per share. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 7.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts forecast that DXC Technology will post 3.16 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP William L. Deckelman, Jr. sold 75,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $20.72, for a total transaction of $1,554,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 142,908 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,961,053.76. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.87% of the companys stock.

About DXC Technology

(Free Report)

DXC Technology Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology services and solutions primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, Australia, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Global Business Services (GBS) and Global Infrastructure Services (GIS).

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Janney Montgomery Scott LLC lifted its holdings in NextEra Energy Partners, LP (NYSE:NEP  Free Report) by 2.3% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 53,207 shares of the solar energy providers stock after buying an additional 1,184 shares during the quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLCs holdings in NextEra Energy Partners were worth $3,120,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Impact Partnership Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NextEra Energy Partners in the second quarter worth $26,000. Fiduciary Alliance LLC purchased a new position in shares of NextEra Energy Partners in the second quarter valued at $32,000. Global Wealth Management Investment Advisory Inc. purchased a new position in shares of NextEra Energy Partners in the first quarter valued at $36,000. Lazard Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of NextEra Energy Partners by 69.6% in the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 546 shares of the solar energy providers stock valued at $45,000 after purchasing an additional 224 shares during the period. Finally, HBC Financial Services PLLC purchased a new position in shares of NextEra Energy Partners in the first quarter valued at $46,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.99% of the companys stock.

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NextEra Energy Partners Stock Up 4.3 %

Shares of NYSE:NEP opened at $22.76 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.41, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a current ratio of 1.22. NextEra Energy Partners, LP has a 1-year low of $20.17 and a 1-year high of $81.32. The companys fifty day moving average is $40.49 and its two-hundred day moving average is $52.44. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.57 and a beta of 0.98.

NextEra Energy Partners Increases Dividend

NextEra Energy Partners ( NYSE:NEP Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 25th. The solar energy provider reported $0.53 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.72 by ($0.19). NextEra Energy Partners had a return on equity of 1.06% and a net margin of 12.22%. The firm had revenue of $350.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $392.92 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.61 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that NextEra Energy Partners, LP will post 1.14 EPS for the current year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 14th. Investors of record on Friday, August 4th were issued a $0.854 dividend. This represents a $3.42 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 15.01%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 3rd. This is a boost from NextEra Energy Partnerss previous quarterly dividend of $0.84. NextEra Energy Partnerss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 201.78%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on NEP shares. Scotiabank decreased their target price on shares of NextEra Energy Partners from $85.00 to $58.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on shares of NextEra Energy Partners from $40.00 to $24.00 in a research note on Monday, October 9th. Mizuho decreased their target price on shares of NextEra Energy Partners from $86.00 to $40.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 28th. Oppenheimer downgraded shares of NextEra Energy Partners from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 27th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on shares of NextEra Energy Partners from $76.00 to $47.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, September 28th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $50.20.

Read Our Latest Report on NEP

NextEra Energy Partners Profile

(Free Report)

NextEra Energy Partners, LP acquires, owns, and manages contracted clean energy projects in the United States. It owns a portfolio of contracted renewable generation assets consisting of wind, solar, and battery storage projects, as well as contracted natural gas pipeline assets. NextEra Energy Partners, LP was incorporated in 2014 and is headquartered in Juno Beach, Florida.

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Verdence Capital Advisors LLC lowered its stake in Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC  Free Report) by 20.0% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 3,233 shares of the business services providers stock after selling 806 shares during the quarter. Verdence Capital Advisors LLCs holdings in Omnicom Group were worth $308,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other large investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. CBOE Vest Financial LLC grew its stake in shares of Omnicom Group by 250.6% in the second quarter. CBOE Vest Financial LLC now owns 54,892 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $5,226,000 after buying an additional 39,235 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Omnicom Group by 11.3% in the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 27,009 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $2,570,000 after buying an additional 2,740 shares in the last quarter. Oakworth Capital Inc. grew its stake in Omnicom Group by 102.4% during the 2nd quarter. Oakworth Capital Inc. now owns 338 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 171 shares in the last quarter. Independent Advisor Alliance grew its stake in Omnicom Group by 272.8% during the 2nd quarter. Independent Advisor Alliance now owns 11,472 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $1,092,000 after purchasing an additional 8,395 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH grew its stake in Omnicom Group by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH now owns 377,500 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $35,919,000 after purchasing an additional 2,496 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.71% of the companys stock.

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Omnicom Group Price Performance

Shares of OMC opened at $75.33 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $14.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.09, a PEG ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 0.86. Omnicom Group Inc. has a 52 week low of $67.43 and a 52 week high of $99.23. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.53. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $77.32 and a 200-day moving average of $86.53.

Omnicom Group Dividend Announcement

Omnicom Group ( NYSE:OMC Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 17th. The business services provider reported $1.86 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.84 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $3.58 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.55 billion. Omnicom Group had a return on equity of 41.29% and a net margin of 9.66%. The businesss revenue was up 3.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Omnicom Group Inc. will post 7.38 EPS for the current year.

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 21st were issued a $0.70 dividend. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.72%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, September 20th. Omnicom Groups dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 41.24%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have weighed in on OMC. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on Omnicom Group from $103.00 to $100.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 6th. Bank of America lowered their price objective on Omnicom Group to $73.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 20th. StockNews.com began coverage on Omnicom Group in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. Wells Fargo & Company lowered Omnicom Group from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $109.00 to $88.00 in a research note on Monday, July 24th. Finally, Citigroup restated a buy rating and set a $113.00 price objective on shares of Omnicom Group in a research note on Tuesday, September 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $93.38.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on OMC

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Linda Johnson Rice sold 467 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $80.24, for a total value of $37,472.08. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,591 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $769,581.84. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Company insiders own 1.30% of the companys stock.

Omnicom Group Profile

(Free Report)

Omnicom Group Inc, together with its subsidiaries, offers advertising, marketing, and corporate communications services. It provides a range of services in the areas of advertising and media, precision marketing, commerce and brand consulting, experiential, execution and support, public relations, and healthcare.

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Private Trust Co. NA decreased its position in CMS Energy Co. (NYSE:CMS  Free Report) by 23.9% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 782 shares of the utilities providers stock after selling 245 shares during the period. Private Trust Co. NAs holdings in CMS Energy were worth $46,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Covington Capital Management bought a new position in CMS Energy in the 3rd quarter worth about $27,000. Spirit of America Management Corp NY bought a new position in CMS Energy in the 1st quarter worth about $34,000. Clear Street Markets LLC boosted its stake in CMS Energy by 94.9% in the 1st quarter. Clear Street Markets LLC now owns 573 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 279 shares in the last quarter. Householder Group Estate & Retirement Specialist LLC purchased a new position in CMS Energy in the 1st quarter worth about $37,000. Finally, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. raised its position in CMS Energy by 41.5% in the 1st quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 644 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $40,000 after buying an additional 189 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 95.98% of the companys stock.

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CMS Energy Trading Down 0.6 %

CMS Energy stock opened at $53.95 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $55.35 and a 200 day moving average of $58.57. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.58, a P/E/G ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 0.38. CMS Energy Co. has a 12-month low of $49.87 and a 12-month high of $65.72. The company has a current ratio of 0.95, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87.

CMS Energy Announces Dividend

CMS Energy ( NYSE:CMS Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.69 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $1.56 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.04 billion. CMS Energy had a net margin of 9.07% and a return on equity of 10.38%. The firms quarterly revenue was down 19.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.53 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that CMS Energy Co. will post 3.1 earnings per share for the current year.

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 31st. Investors of record on Friday, August 4th were issued a $0.4875 dividend. This represents a $1.95 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.61%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 3rd. CMS Energys dividend payout ratio is 78.00%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CMS has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on CMS Energy from $58.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Thursday, September 21st. Barclays initiated coverage on CMS Energy in a research report on Wednesday, August 23rd. They issued an equal weight rating and a $58.00 target price for the company. UBS Group decreased their target price on CMS Energy from $66.00 to $59.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 4th. Argus decreased their target price on CMS Energy from $75.00 to $62.00 in a research report on Monday, June 26th. Finally, Guggenheim decreased their target price on CMS Energy from $61.00 to $54.00 in a research report on Monday, October 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $62.36.

View Our Latest Research Report on CMS Energy

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other CMS Energy news, SVP Brandon J. Hofmeister sold 1,667 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.27, for a total value of $93,802.09. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 61,765 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,475,516.55. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other CMS Energy news, Director Jon E. Barfield sold 2,345 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.06, for a total value of $131,460.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 13,982 shares in the company, valued at approximately $783,830.92. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Brandon J. Hofmeister sold 1,667 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.27, for a total value of $93,802.09. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 61,765 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,475,516.55. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.40% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

CMS Energy Profile

(Free Report)

CMS Energy Corporation operates as an energy company primarily in Michigan. The company operates through three segments: Electric Utility; Gas Utility; and Enterprises. The Electric Utility segment is involved in the generation, purchase, transmission, distribution, and sale of electricity. This segment generates electricity through coal, wind, gas, renewable energy, oil, and nuclear sources.

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Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. acquired a new position in V.F. Co. (NYSE:VFC  Free Report) during the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm acquired 10,862 shares of the textile makers stock, valued at approximately $207,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in V.F. by 541.1% in the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 279,253 shares of the textile makers stock worth $5,331,000 after buying an additional 235,692 shares in the last quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S raised its stake in shares of V.F. by 17.4% in the 1st quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 7,728 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $177,000 after purchasing an additional 1,145 shares in the last quarter. Citigroup Inc. raised its stake in shares of V.F. by 206.1% in the 1st quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 227,393 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $5,210,000 after purchasing an additional 153,106 shares in the last quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC raised its stake in shares of V.F. by 77.2% in the 1st quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC now owns 232,474 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $5,326,000 after purchasing an additional 101,279 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Community Bank of Raymore acquired a new stake in shares of V.F. in the 1st quarter valued at about $933,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.81% of the companys stock.

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V.F. Price Performance

NYSE VFC opened at $18.68 on Thursday. V.F. Co. has a 52 week low of $15.11 and a 52 week high of $34.90. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 0.64 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.11. The stock has a market cap of $7.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 62.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.39 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $18.24 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $19.46.

V.F. Dividend Announcement

V.F. ( NYSE:VFC Get Free Report ) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The textile maker reported ($0.15) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.13) by ($0.02). V.F. had a return on equity of 24.13% and a net margin of 1.02%. The firm had revenue of $2.09 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.07 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.09 EPS. V.F.s revenue for the quarter was down 7.8% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that V.F. Co. will post 2.05 EPS for the current year.

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 20th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 11th were issued a $0.30 dividend. This represents a $1.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.42%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 8th. V.F.s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 400.01%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of V.F. in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a sell rating on the stock. Barclays cut their target price on shares of V.F. from $20.00 to $19.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 2nd. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on shares of V.F. from $25.00 to $22.00 and set a market perform rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 2nd. Piper Sandler lowered shares of V.F. from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and cut their target price for the company from $28.00 to $20.00 in a research note on Monday, September 18th. Finally, Wedbush reaffirmed a neutral rating and set a $21.00 price objective on shares of V.F. in a research report on Tuesday, August 29th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $24.53.

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V.F. Company Profile

(Free Report)

V.F. Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the design, procurement, marketing, and distribution of branded lifestyle apparel, footwear, and related products for men, women, and children in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. It operates through three segments: Outdoor, Active, and Work.

Further Reading

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Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC increased its stake in Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX  Free Report) by 27.4% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 8,582 shares of the medical research companys stock after acquiring an additional 1,848 shares during the period. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLCs holdings in Quest Diagnostics were worth $1,206,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of DGX. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Quest Diagnostics by 4.8% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 14,014,030 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,917,961,000 after purchasing an additional 636,301 shares during the period. Providence Capital Advisors LLC boosted its position in Quest Diagnostics by 14,887.6% during the 1st quarter. Providence Capital Advisors LLC now owns 4,331,410 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $30,615,000 after buying an additional 4,302,510 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its holdings in Quest Diagnostics by 3.1% in the 2nd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,233,625 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $454,518,000 after acquiring an additional 97,425 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. increased its position in shares of Quest Diagnostics by 62.2% in the first quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 2,728,816 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $386,073,000 after acquiring an additional 1,046,746 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Quest Diagnostics by 46,022.7% during the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,914,554 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $270,871,000 after acquiring an additional 1,910,403 shares during the last quarter. 87.76% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Quest Diagnostics Stock Performance

Shares of Quest Diagnostics stock opened at $122.79 on Thursday. Quest Diagnostics Incorporated has a 1 year low of $119.59 and a 1 year high of $158.34. The firms 50-day moving average is $127.45 and its 200 day moving average is $134.42. The stock has a market cap of $13.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.87 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 0.92 and a quick ratio of 0.83.

Quest Diagnostics Dividend Announcement

Quest Diagnostics ( NYSE:DGX Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The medical research company reported $2.30 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.23 by $0.07. Quest Diagnostics had a net margin of 8.37% and a return on equity of 16.32%. The firm had revenue of $2.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.25 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.36 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 4.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Quest Diagnostics Incorporated will post 8.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 6th will be issued a dividend of $0.71 per share. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.31%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 5th. Quest Diagnosticss payout ratio is currently 41.34%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have commented on DGX. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Quest Diagnostics in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an equal weight rating and issued a $145.00 target price on shares of Quest Diagnostics in a research report on Thursday, August 3rd. Piper Sandler reduced their price target on shares of Quest Diagnostics from $145.00 to $130.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. Finally, Evercore ISI lowered their price objective on shares of Quest Diagnostics from $136.00 to $130.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 11th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $145.45.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Quest Diagnostics

Quest Diagnostics Profile

(Free Report)

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated provides diagnostic testing, information, and services in the United States and internationally. The company develops and delivers diagnostic information services, such as routine testing, non-routine and advanced clinical testing, anatomic pathology testing, and other diagnostic information services.

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Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC increased its position in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS  Free Report) by 8.8% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 23,867 shares of the casino operators stock after purchasing an additional 1,935 shares during the period. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLCs holdings in Las Vegas Sands were worth $1,384,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Las Vegas Sands by 1.5% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,537,902 shares of the casino operators stock worth $1,381,358,000 after purchasing an additional 519,620 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. lifted its stake in Las Vegas Sands by 1.4% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 23,298,767 shares of the casino operators stock valued at $1,338,514,000 after acquiring an additional 330,221 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Las Vegas Sands by 2.9% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,898,679 shares of the casino operators stock valued at $540,242,000 after acquiring an additional 394,616 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Las Vegas Sands by 5,139.8% during the 1st quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 9,242,005 shares of the casino operators stock valued at $530,953,000 after acquiring an additional 9,065,624 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in Las Vegas Sands by 8.6% during the 1st quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 8,391,096 shares of the casino operators stock valued at $482,068,000 after acquiring an additional 666,588 shares in the last quarter. 39.16% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Las Vegas Sands Trading Down 1.6 %

Shares of LVS opened at $44.60 on Thursday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $49.63 and a 200 day moving average of $55.58. Las Vegas Sands Corp. has a fifty-two week low of $33.38 and a fifty-two week high of $65.58. The firm has a market cap of $34.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 637.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.98 and a beta of 1.22. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.57, a quick ratio of 2.75 and a current ratio of 2.76.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Las Vegas Sands ( NYSE:LVS Get Free Report ) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 18th. The casino operator reported $0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts consensus estimates of $0.55. The business had revenue of $2.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.72 billion. Las Vegas Sands had a return on equity of 5.73% and a net margin of 0.75%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 178.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.27) EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Las Vegas Sands Corp. will post 1.87 EPS for the current year.

Several equities analysts have weighed in on LVS shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on Las Vegas Sands from $71.00 to $64.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 26th. Argus dropped their price objective on Las Vegas Sands from $72.00 to $68.00 in a research note on Friday, July 21st. Barclays dropped their price objective on Las Vegas Sands from $70.00 to $69.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 20th. Bank of America decreased their target price on Las Vegas Sands from $66.00 to $65.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 20th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Las Vegas Sands from $71.00 to $69.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $69.73.

View Our Latest Analysis on Las Vegas Sands

Las Vegas Sands Company Profile

(Free Report)

Las Vegas Sands Corp., together with its subsidiaries, develops, owns, and operates integrated resorts in Macao and Singapore. It owns and operates The Venetian Macao Resort Hotel, the Londoner Macao, The Parisian Macao, The Plaza Macao and Four Seasons Hotel Macao, Cotai Strip, and the Sands Macao in Macao, the People's Republic of China; and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

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A number of state-back threat actors from Russia and China have been observed exploiting a recent security flaw in the WinRAR archiver tool for Windows as part of their operations.

The vulnerability in question is CVE-2023-38831 (CVSS score: 7.8), which allows attackers to execute arbitrary code when a user attempts to view a benign file within a ZIP archive. The shortcoming has been actively exploited since at least April 2023.

Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG), which detected the activities in recent weeks, attributed them to three different clusters it tracks under the geological monikers FROZENBARENTS (aka Sandworm), FROZENLAKE (aka APT28), and ISLANDDREAMS (aka APT40).

The phishing attack linked to Sandworm impersonated a Ukrainian drone warfare training school in early September and distributed a malicious ZIP file exploiting CVE-2023-38831 to deliver Rhadamanthys, a commodity stealer malware which is offered for sale for $250 for a monthly subscription.

APT28, also affiliated with the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) as it's the case with Sandworm, is said to have launched an email campaign targeting government organizations in Ukraine.

In these attacks, users from Ukraine were prompted to download a file containing a CVE-2023-38831 exploit  a decoy document that masqueraded as an event invitation from Razumkov Centre, a public policy think tank in the country.

The result is the execution of a PowerShell script named IRONJAW that steals browser login data and local state directories and exports the information to an actor-controlled infrastructure on webhook[.]site.

The third threat actor to exploit the WinRAR bug is APT40, which unleashed a phishing campaign targeting Papua New Guinea in which the email messages included a Dropbox link to a ZIP archive containing the CVE-2023-38831 exploit.

The infection sequence ultimately paved the way for the deployment of a dropper named ISLANDSTAGER that's responsible for loading BOXRAT, a .NET backdoor that uses the Dropbox API for command-and-control

The disclosure builds upon recent findings from Cluster25, which detailed attacks undertaken by the APT28 hacking crew exploiting the WinRAR flaw to conduct credential harvesting operations.

Some of the other state-sponsored adversaries that have joined the fray are Konni (which shares overlaps with a North Korean cluster tracked as Kimsuky) and Dark Pink (aka Saaiwc Group), according to findings from the Knownsec 404 team and NSFOCUS.

"The widespread exploitation of the WinRAR bug highlights that exploits for known vulnerabilities can be highly effective, despite a patch being available," TAG researcher Kate Morgan said. "Even the most sophisticated attackers will only do what is necessary to accomplish their goals."
Honda, Unilever, Heineken top foreign taypayers in Vietnam

By Tri Duc Thu, October 19, 2023 | 11:16 am GTM+7

Automaker Honda remained the biggest foreign taxpayer in Vietnam in 2022, according to the General Department of Taxations latest list of the top 1,000 contributors of corporate income tax (CIT).

According to the list released by the tax authority on its website Wednesday, other top foreign or foreign-invested taxpayers were Samsung Electronics Vietnam Thai Nguyen, Samsung Electronics Vietnam, Unilever Vietnam, Heineken Vietnam, Toyota Vietnam, Shinhan Bank Vietnam, Hyundai Thanh Cong Vietnam, Samsung Display Vietnam, and CP Vietnam.

In comparison with the 2021 list, two new names were Shinhan Bank Vietnam and Hyundai Thanh Cong Vietnam, pushing Hitachi Astemo Vietnam and Suntory Pepsico Vietnam out of the top 10.

A production line of Honda in Vietnam. Photo courtesy of Honda Vietnam.

Honda

Motorcycle and automaker Honda Vietnam was established in 1996 as a joint venture between Japans Honda Motor, Thailand-based Asian Honda, and Vietnam Engine and Agricultural Machinery Corp.

As the biggest motorbike brand in Vietnam, Honda recorded sales of 990,227 units in April-September this year (first months of its fiscal year 2024), down 10% year-on-year, according to Hondas September report. Besides, the export figure reached 16,223 units. For vehicles, 10,702 were sold in the same period, down 32.9%.

Samsung

Samsung is one of the biggest foreign companies operating in Vietnam. About 60% of Samsung smartphones worldwide are made in Vietnam.

Samsung's four subsidiaries in Vietnam made a total profit of KRW2,999 billion ($2.26 billion) in the first half of this year, down 11.2% year-on-year, according to the South Korean tech giant's interim business report.

In the same period, sales at the four subsidiaries, namely Samsung HCMC CE Complex (SEHC) in Ho Chi Minh City, Samsung Electronics Vietnam (SEV) and Samsung Display Vietnam (SDV) in Bac Ninh province, and Samsung Electronics Vietnam Thai Nguyen (SEVT) in Thai Nguyen province, dropped 18.1% year-on-year to KRW38,690 billion ($29.18 billion).

Unilever Vietnam

Established in 1995, Unilever Vietnam has become one of the most successful corporations in the countrys fast-moving consumer goods industry.

Unilever's turnover exceeded the milestone of 1 billion euros ($1.09 billion) in Vietnam in 2022 thanks to broad-based double-digit growth, the consumer goods giant said. Vietnam is now Unilever's 12th biggest market with enormous potential, thanks to a thriving economy and the leading positions its brands hold in many categories, according to a company release early this week.

Almost 80% of brands across its portfolio are top in terms of sales and consumer choice. About 35 million Unilever products are consumed daily in Vietnam, company data shows.

Heineken Vietnam

The Ho Chi Minh City-headquartered brewery is a joint venture between Dutch brewing company Heineken and HCMCs Saigon Trading Group. The company grew from its first brewery in HCMC in 1991 to six nationwide with over 3,000 employees today, according to its data.

The firm offers a wide product portfolio with several brands like Heineken, Tiger, Larue, Bivina, Bia Viet, Strongbow, and Edelweiss.

Vietnam contributed significantly to a 5.6% year-on-year fall in Heineken's global sales in the first half of the year, said the leading beer maker. In its H1 report, Heineken said the economic slowdown in Vietnam, especially in major cities, continued into the second quarter and disproportionally impacted the premium beer segment.

In particular, Heinekens net revenue in Vietnam declined by over 20% as the result of a 25% fall in sales volume. The brewer estimated that the total market was down by high single-digits in the second quarter, according to CEO Dolf van den Brink.

Vietnams beer market retail sales value reached EUR11 billion ($12.07 billion) in 2022, Heineken said in a recent review, adding that it held the leading market position in the country. In the report, Heineken said Vietnams beer market volume hit 46 million hectoliters, up 3.6% against 2021.

Toyota Vietnam

A leader in terms of market share in the country, the Japanese carmaker was one of Vietnams first auto joint ventures. Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV) was founded in September 1995 with $89.6 million in investment by Japans Toyota (70%), Vietnam Engine and Agriculture Machinery Corp. (20%), and Kuo Singapore Pte.Ltd (10%).

TMV operates a 70,000-car-per year factory in Vinh Phuc province, employing about 1,500 people, according to its website.

The Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association (VAMA), not including VinFast and Hyundai, sold 209,929 vehicles in January-September this year, down 29% year-on-year. Of which, Toyota was the best-selling brand among VAMA members with 38,490 units.

Shinhan Bank Vietnam

In August, Shinhan Bank officially marked 30 years in Vietnam and is proud to be a trusted financial partner for millions of Vietnamese customers, the bank said. The South Korean bank established its first representative office in Ho Chi Minh City in August 1993, not long after Vietnam and Korea officially established diplomatic relations. In December 1994, Shinhan Bank was formally approved by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to open its Ho Chi Minh City branch, becoming the first Korean bank to establish a branch in Vietnam.

Shinhan Bank Vietnam Ltd. posted post-tax profits of VND2.39 trillion ($99.4 million) in the first half of this year, up 48.23% year-on-year. According to the banks half-year report, its return on equity (ROE) improved from 14.07% from H1/2022 to 17.47% in H1/2023. Its capital adequacy ratio (CAR) rose from 17.13% in end-June 2022 to 20.43% in end-June 2023

Hyundai Thanh Cong Vietnam

Automaker Hyundai Thanh Cong Vietnam is a joint venture between South Koreas Hyundai Motor and Vietnams TC Group. In August, it unveiled its IONIQ 5 electric vehicle (EV). The release marked Hyundais first high-tech EV to be made in Vietnam, paving the way for Hyundai to bring more EV models to the country and build a developed eco-system for users.

Outside VAMA, Hyundai reported sales of 41,168 units in January-September, according to a report by TC Group, the manufacturer and official retailer of Hyundai vehicles in Vietnam. Hyundai was the best-selling brand in Vietnam in the first nine months of this year.

CP Vietnam

The Thai corporation established its first animal feed factory in Vietnam in the southern province of Dong Nai in 1993, focusing on feed, farms and food. It has since become a dominant player in the countrys livestock market. The company is an integrated agro-industrial and food subsidiary of Thailands C.P. Group.

Thailands Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Limited (CPF) recorded a revenue of THB58.23 billion ($1.64 billion) from its Vietnam operations in the first half of this year, down 6% year-on-year.
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At this point, Elon Musk saying something controversial is no longer surprising. The tech billionaire expressed his opinion about people who work from home, and weirdly enough, it was part of his answer to a question about pricing for Tesla.

Against Work-from-Home Setup

In the past few months, it's been clear that the Tesla CEO is not too fond of the idea that a person can and should work from home. After all, he did implement a return-to-office mandate which received a lot of backlash from workers who didn't need to be in the office.

During a third-quarter earnings webcast for Tesla, the interviewer asked Musk about the pricing of the vehicles from Tesla, he veered the conversation to the "why doesn't everyone work from home crowd," stating that it's "like some real Marie Antionette vibe."

"What about all the people that have to come to the factory and build the cars? What about all of the people that have to go to the restaurant and make your food and deliver your food?" the tech billionaire continued, as mentioned in The Verge.

Upon getting to the subject of lowering the price of a Tesla and the price elasticity in the current macro environment, he stated that he slept in the factory so many times "because it mattered." Before that, he even said that people who work from home are "detached from reality."

These statements are no longer shocking, especially with the recent events of Musk mandating his employees to return to the office. Back in November 2022, the X owner sent his employees an email saying that they should prepare for difficult times ahead.

In the same email, he said that remote work was banned unless he personally said it was okay. It's important to note here that Twitter already allowed a remote work setup for its employees before Musk acquired the social media company, as per Bloomberg.

Many of his employees refused to adhere to the new policy, given that they can do their jobs just as well, if not better when they work remotely. It was then that the X owner said that if they could physically make it to an office and didn't show up, then "resignation accepted."

Read Also: NLRB Rules Against Tesla Dress Code Requiring Workers to Wear Pre-Approved Black Shirts Only

NLRD Says X Retaliated Against Employee

Referring to the "resignation accepted" statement from the tech billionaire, software engineer Yao Yue said that employees should let Elon Musk fire them since they they will "gain literally nothing out of a resignation."

Five days after posting that on X, Yue was fired from the company. It's believed that losing her job was due to opposing the return-to-office mandate. The National Labor Relations Board says that it was in violation of federal law by "interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees."

Even before that, Tesla also caught the attention of the NLRB when the company fired an employee for trying to organize a union. According to The New York Times, Musk said that unionizing would affect the employees' stock options as well.

Related: Tesla Alleged To Have Violated Labor Laws; NLRB Files New Complaint
The South Carolina Law Enforcement division is investigating a report of a criminal sexual assault in a South Carolina State University dorm.

S.C. State issued a lockdown alert to students and employees on at 9 p.m. Wednesday after Campus Police were notified of a complaint of criminal sexual assault levied by a student in a campus residence hall.

Campus Police lifted the lockdown around 11:30 p.m.

SLED is leading the investigation with the assistance of campus police.

Sonja Bennett-Bellamy, S.C. States vice president for communications, marketing and strategic alliances, said the administration takes this report seriously and responds to all allegations brought to its attention.

The university says it has a zero-tolerance policy regarding serious criminal acts.

Bennett-Bellamy said that over the last two years, S.C. State has implemented numerous initiatives to enhance safety on the campus. Improvements include:

 More than 700 security cameras have been installed on campus.

 Twenty-seven emergency call boxes have been placed in key locations.

 A comprehensive lighting improvement program is ongoing.

 The university is recruiting additional security personnel, including sworn police officers.

 Additional patrols have been added to monitor the campus perimeter.

The university says it continues to educate students about best practices for maintaining safety and security both on and off campus. These include walking in groups after dark, locking residence hall doors and vehicles, locking up valuables in secure locations and making sure all visitors are well known by them.

Students are encouraged to contact Campus Police at 803-378-4754 or dial 911 to report situations of emergency or criminal activity. Campus residents also are encouraged to report complaints to the residence hall supervisory staff.
Beth Simonetti, executive vice president and chief human resource officer at TD SYNNEX, will speak at Claflin University from 2 p.m-2:40 p.m. Thursday, in the Orange and Maroon Room at Corson Hall.

A question-and-answer session is scheduled after her remarks.

Simonettis Claflin visit will include meetings with university administrators, faculty and School of Business students to discuss career, internship and partnership opportunities.

This visit by TD SYNNEX's chief human resource officer to Claflin marks a significant opportunity for our students to engage a C-suite executive which could lead to myriad opportunities for our students and the university, said Dr. Nicholas J. Hill, dean of Claflins School of Business. We are hopeful Beth will gain insight into our outstanding legacy of student success while our faculty, staff and students get a chance to show why Claflin is a premiere liberal arts university and a U.S. News and World Report Top 10 Best Historically Black College/University (HBCU).

We want to showcase the campus community and our high-achieving scholars, as we explore partnerships that will provide mutual benefits for TD SYNNEX and Claflin University."

TD SYNNEX is a $62B global technology business with more than 23,000 employees in over 40 countries.

Simonetti has seen the company through numerous acquisitions, including the $10 billion Technology Solutions division of Avnet, followed by the purchase of Tech Data by Apollo Global Management and going back public with the merger of SYNNEX.

With over 50 mergers and acquisitions in her portfolio, Simonetti has developed expertise working with boards and executives to integrate and align leadership teams, organizational structures, compensation and talent management strategies.

She is focused on driving strategic business goals, culture transformation, aggressive financial targets, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Diversity, Equity & Including (DE&I) objectives.

Simonettis early career was leading human resources through exponential growth at Cardinal Health, as they went from $3 billion to $65 billion in revenue and 3,000 to 65,000 employees over 12 years.

Just prior to her current role with TD SYNNEX, she led human resources for Baker & Taylor, privately held distribution business.

Simonetti received her bachelors degree from Miami University and her masters from Ohio State University. In April 2022, Simonetti also completed the Northwestern Kellogg School of Business Executive Womens Director program.

She has been the recipient of multiple HR recognitions, including Human Resources Person of the year in Tampa Bay, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Moffitt Cancer Center Hospital in Tampa, Fla.

To see Simonettis presentation and the question-and-answer session via zoom, see the link below:

Meeting ID: 990 4281 2162

Passcode: 354476
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Uganda: Authorities said Wednesday they are hunting down gunmen who killed honeymooning tourists - a South African woman, a British man and their safari guide - in one of the country's famed national parks in an attack claimed by an Islamic State-linked group.
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Wyomings congressional delegation joined Gov. Mark Gordon in demanding the Bureau of Land Management withdraw its proposed Rock Springs management plan, which could expand federally protected lands in Wyoming by millions of acres.

Outcry from politicians and the public over the controversial management proposal prompted the Wyoming BLM to extend its public comment period for another 60 days. The new deadline to submit public comment is Jan. 17, 2024.

The long-awaited guideline for the use of 3.6 million acres of public lands in the southwestern part of the state outlines four potential plans. One emphasizes resource development. One favors conservation. Another takes a middle road. Theres even one plan that proposes doing nothing and maintaining the guidelines that were put in place in 1997.

The BLMs preferred plan favors conservation and would designate a total 1.6 million acres of land in Rock Springs as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, or ACECs  roughly 1.3 million acres more than current designated ACECs in that area. (Some people have said that there are 1.8 million acres total designated ACECs in the BLMs preferred plan, but that number isnt quite right, Wyoming BLM spokesperson Micky Fisher said.)

Theres an additional 227,960 acres of Wilderness Study Areas in the proposed plan. The BLM is responsible for managing these lands until Congress decides whether to officially designate them as wilderness. The acreage for these areas is the same for all four alternatives.

The proposed designation of additional ACECs has been a point of intense angst for some politicians and citizens across the state given that these designations would come with certain use restrictions; in addition to Wyomings congressional delegation and Gordon, many state lawmakers have called on the BLM to withdraw the plan completely.

To be clear, the BLM cant just throw the entire proposal in the trash and start over, because that would go against the process required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Fisher told the Star-Tribune. Weve got to carry forward with the NEPA process, Fisher said. But the agency could choose to go with alternative A  the alternative that proposes doing nothing and maintaining the management plan that was put in place in 1997.

Wyomings Sens. Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso urged the federal agency to withdraw its proposed Rock Springs plan entirely in a letter they signed two weeks ago along with Utah Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney.

Barrasso and Lummis express concern that the ACECs would have a negative impact on those who live, work, and recreate here; the designation, they said, would inevitably end grazing, critical transmission line improvements, and gas production that powers the region.

The senators also expressed concern over the lack of information about how many ACECs are in effect, as the BLM doesnt have a standard format for reporting information about ACECs within the agency or to the public.

The absence of a standardized format of ACEC data, while the BLM pushes for more land to be designated as ACECs, is already leading to a growing delta of distrust of what this draft RMP could mean for future BLM land decisions, they wrote.

Fisher shared a spreadsheet with the Star-Tribune containing some information about ACECs, including ACEC acreage across several states.

Though the letter asks for a complete withdrawal of the Rock Springs proposal, a spokesperson for Lummis said in an email that the senator would support a plan thats crafted and supported by the local community. In many ways, the spokesperson added, Alternative D  which takes a middle path between conservation and resource use  fits that bill. This option would decrease ACEC acreage from the current 286,470 acres to 246,634 acres.

A spokesperson for Barrasso, on the other hand, said in an email that the senator believes all the alternatives disregard more than a decades worth of collaboration with local stakeholders, ranchers, grazing permittees, etc.

Wyomings Rep. Harriet Hageman sent Stone-Manning her own letter on Monday, describing the proposed plan as entirely unbalanced and asserting that the BLMs preferred plan would block almost all opportunities for economic development, particularly as it relates to energy production and mineral extraction.

Such an outcome will severely hamper the states ability to generate revenue for essential services, and even further restrict our ability to meet our national energy demands.

She said in an emailed statement to the Star-Tribune on Thursday that she considers alternative A  the option to maintain the guidelines from 1997  to be the best choice among those proposed.

The congressional delegates letters follow another from Gordon to Stone-Manning, the BLM director, from late September. Gordon similarly asked Stone-Manning to withdraw the draft plan entirely. Though he expressed disappointment in a Thursday statement that the draft hasnt been withdrawn, he was also appreciative that the BLM had at least extended the public comment period.

BLM officials have conceded that the proposed expansion of ACECs would close some of these areas off to resource extraction like potential oil and gas leasing and mineral development  lost opportunities that could be of concern to local economies.

But some of the other claims that have come from the public and various groups  that all these areas would be closed to hunting, fishing and bike riding, for example  arent true, and proposed restrictions vary depending on the area.

Part of the spread of misinformation is the BLMs own fault; the agency has said that the proposed Rock Springs plan contained erroneous language from a different travel management draft plan, the Star-Tribune previously reported. The travel management language describes restriction on off-highway vehicles and off-road vehicles.

BLM officials have emphasized repeatedly that the process is ongoing, and that the agency may very well choose one of the less conservation-oriented alternative options following public comment.

The public can give feedback on the proposal through Jan. 17, 2024. Members of the public can submit comments online by clicking on the green Participate Now tab on the left of the page at this link: https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/13853/510.
Amazon has been gravitating toward innovative solutions with its AI-powered robots and drone deliveries. The retail giant claims that with the use of robots in warehouses, the work will be faster and safer for everyone involved.

Robots for Faster Fulfilment

The field of robotics is getting more advanced and Amazon aims to use that to expedite businesses. Through the AI-powered machines known as Sequoia, the company aims to speed up the process of dealing with products by up to 75% and order fulfillment by 25%.

The way it works is that the robot system will use vehicles to transport the products, which will then be put through a sorting machine. This will eliminate the extra work for employees as it uses its hardware and computer vision to identify inventory, as per Engadget.

The robotic process is already used in an Amazon warehouse in Houston. Amazon claims that through the system, workers will be able to avoid certain dangerous tasks as the packages are placed at the waist level of workers. That means that workers won't have to climb up to reach items.

While could be an innovative approach to warehouse operations, it could soon become a threat to jobs. If a robot is able to do the jobs that humans can, Amazon might opt for a one-time investment instead of employing workers they have to pay monthly.

Other than that, reports say that having robots in the workplace has actually been more dangerous for human workers. From 2016 to 2019, there were twice as many injuries in warehouses that had employees working with robots.

However, Amazon denied that the robots made the working environment more dangerous. One other claim from the same publication said that employees needed to scan 400 items per hour instead of 100 after the robots were added to the facility.

Read Also: Amazon to Launch New Devices in September; New Headquarters Now Open

Amazon's Drone Deliveries

Other than robot help in warehouses, Amazon plans to use drones for its deliveries as well. The program is starting off in Italy and the UK. The retail giant says that aircraft delivery will begin in late 2024, which aims to deliver 500 million packages every year by the end of the decade.

Amazon Vice President of Prime Air David Carbon says: "We are excited to announce the expansion of Prime Air delivery internationally, for the first time outside the US." adding that they have built a safe and reliable delivery service and have partnered closely with regulators and communities.

The company already has a drone-based delivery system in Texas and California which has been operational for a year. Carbon says that Amazon drones have already delivered thousands of packages, as per The Guardian, and that they have thousands of customers.

The company will open more facilities over time, with the service starting slowly. Carbo also expressed that Amazon is starting the commercial service. "The testing's been done. We know the drone has been proven."

Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos already mentioned a faster delivery system back in 2023, referring to the use of drones as he said that "it will work, and it will happen, and it's going to be a lot of fun."

Related: UK's CMA Launches Merger Inquiry of Amazon-iRobot Acquisition
When I open my browser to see what developments are occurring around the world, often, when news concerning our national congress appears, there is an unfortunate anxiety about the conduct of our elected officials. From temper tantrums to fire alarms, it appears our congress is more concerned about theatrics than results for the American people. Filled with career politicians, literal actors, and people dead-set on diminishing the institution by showing up in gym shorts, the word dysfunctional comes to mind. Watching the House of Representatives scramble has been unsettling to say the least.

Contrast this with one of the latest issues facing the state of Wyoming, the Bureau of Land Managements controversial Rock Springs Resource Management Plan. The federal government is attempting to take advantage of Wyomings small population by enacting plans that would directly impact the lives of everyday Wyomingites. In the most recent Travel, Recreation, Wildlife & Cultural Resources committee meeting, we heard that many people showed up to protest these plans. Elected officials told us about the outrage of the crowd and the exclusion of public comment. The true colors of this mission were revealed. This plan does not exist to serve the people, but to push an agenda at the peoples expense.

Through this nonsense, the true colors of the legislature have also been revealed- despite conflicts in political ideology, we can agree to fight for the people. In this meeting, I saw people from all sides of the ideological spectrum working together. Everyone denounced the plans, from Freedom Caucus member John Winter to Senate Minority Whip Mike Gierau. It was refreshing to come together for a common goal, not just the legislature, but also the governors office.

I left that day feeling inspired. It was clear from every committee member that this wasnt petty politics. There was no mud-slinging, no backbiting, or secret conversations. We had to work together to fight for the people of Wyoming. We were unified. My hope is that we can take this unity and foster it. To me, everyone serving has a deep love for their community and their state. Even if we fiercely disagree on an issue, each of us can discern the common ground we have with each other.

I believe that despite the chaos existing in our system, we have things easy compared to other countries. Sweden has a legislature with more than seven parties. India has six national parties, countless regional parties, and even a Communist Party. As chaotic as all that sounds, Nations like these are capable of exceptional and creative policies that the world envies. I point to how Sweden handled the COVID-19 outbreak as an example of how multiple parties can work together to make policy that best serves the people. There is nothing new under the sun. One of my favorite authors is Seneca, a Roman philosopher and playwright. He was a Stoic, which is very different from another philosophy of the time, Epicureanism.

He had this to say about a thinker whom he disagreed with; And I shall continue to heap quotations from Epicurus upon you, so that all persons who swear by the words of another and put a value upon the speaker and not upon the thing spoken, may understand that the best ideas are common property. (Letters from a Stoic, Letter 12, On Old Age).

The best ideas are common property. If we claim to work for the common good of the people, we must search for and refine the best ideas. We can only achieve this through a willingness to listen to each other, honestly defend our ideas, and stand firm to our genuine convictions. Unity is not a passive trait; it requires humility, patience, and dedication. Before the session started, Speaker of the House Albert Sommers said, At no time in my life have I seen our state so divided. We must pull back from the abyss. I could not agree more. There are ample opportunities for people to find things we can agree on.

I, for one, am happy to work with anyone if it means creating a better society for the people of Wyoming. I know I am not alone.

Blessed are the peacemakers...
DECKER Petroleum and Marketing Company Ltd (DPMCL), based in Trinidad and Tobago, has written the US District Court of Delaware officially expressing its interest in acquiring the asphalt assets of Venezuelan oil refiner Citgo.
THE Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) has filed its notice of appeal, as it seeks to challenge the recent Appeal Court ruling that former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar was forced by Chief Justice Ivor Archie into resigning from her position as a High Court judge.
Three men live under the Endeavour overpass along the highway in Chaguanas.

One appears to be a once-hopeful migrant, now a member of Trinidads growing underclass.
We understand that the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) is on the frontline of a significant battle and that their human and other resources must naturally be focused on the unbridled violence the society experiences daily.
The sound of revving engines and screeching tires is a recurring problem across Tucson as illegal street racing is at an all-time high in some neighborhoods.

Tucson City Council Member Nikki Lee, who represents Ward 4, wants to see it stop.

Lee and fellow council members met Tuesday to discuss possible solutions, including installing automated speed enforcement cameras.

The council didnt reach any conclusions but agreed to reconvene in 45 days to consider potential solutions. The council directed city staff and Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar to come up with concrete solutions for the council to consider.

Lee brought up the issue after residents complained about street racing along South Houghton Road. Recent road improvements and expansions along Houghton have attracted racing.

Speeding has become a bigger issue since the pandemic, when police relaxed speeding enforcement, Kasmar told council members.

That so-called toxic car culture quickly led to an increase in reckless speeding and disruptive late-night drag racing and street takeovers where racers blocked off all directions of an intersection so they can do dangerous stunts, Kasmar said.

Those events attract criminal and life-threatening consequences, Kasmar said. That includes an August 2022 incident when Tucson police received 55 calls about street racing and gunfire along South Kolb Road in what callers described as large street takeovers, the Star has reported.

A month later, police arrested 124 adults and 53 juveniles in a special operation targeting illegal racing, the Star reported.

Street takeovers are designed by organized racing groups that use social media to remain anonymous, Kasmar said. The social media platforms attract younger people to the takeovers, he said.

This is such a timely conversation because we are trending again this year to set another traffic fatality high number, Kasmar told the council. These types of driving behaviors, including a recent drag racing fatality, are just proof that what were doing is not enough and we need help.

Lee pointed to the City of Seattles recent plan to combat illegal street racing and unsafe driving with speed cameras and creating designated no-racing zones.

Lee said she consulted Tucson police and the City Attorneys Office to ensure that the use of cameras would align with what voters endorsed in 2015 under Proposition 201, which made it illegal for the city to prosecute red-light runners if the only evidence came from the cameras.

Other ideas from the council included impounding offenders vehicles, targeting drivers insurance and constructing preventative road designs to deter speeding.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative gave $250 million for the opening of a new research center that will specialize in early disease detection and treatment called the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York (CZ Biohub NY).

Read Also: Lawsuit Against Social Media Platforms Advances in California Court

Chan Zuckerberg to Work With Universities in Developing CZ Biohub NY

The organization headed by Priscilla Chan and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a sizeable commitment that will be added to the $10 million contribution from each State of New York and New York City. Moreover, universities such as Rockefeller University, Columbia University, and Yale University will be joining the development of the biohub.

The CZ Biohub NY will study how the immune system can be harnessed to detect, prevent, and treat diseases before it further advances. The creation of the hub was motivated by various diseases which are only detectable after the onset of symptoms.

"To change that, researchers and engineers at the New York Biohub will bioengineer immune cells to scout, report, and repair damage to our cells before it leads to serious illnesses," Chan explained.

Bioengineering of Immune Cells

The biohub will be using single-cell biology tools, cutting-edge experimental technologies, and machine learning tools such as AI in order to bioengineer new functions into the immune cells. These cells are the best way to test as immune cells are capable of monitoring and maintaining the health of the organs.

"The ultimate goal is to not go after a specific disease - it's to create a new tool or platform that all scientists can use to study and make more specific advances," Zuckerberg stated.

For its first trial, the hub's initial focus will be on learning more about molecular memory and the states of immune cells. From there, the researchers will gradually move into training the immune cells to make targeted pairs that will help activate a robust immune response.

Related Article: Gene-Editing Research Shows Chickens Can Be Made Resistant to Avian Flu
Arizona counties are prohibited by law from hand-counting all ballots in an election, even if they want to do so because county leaders bought into conspiracy theories that vote tabulation machines are untrustworthy, the state Court of Appeals ruled.

Wednesdays decision by the three-judge panel comes in an appeal bought by the two Republicans who control the Cochise County Board of Supervisors of a ruling issued by a local judge after the 2022 election. Cochise County tried to hand-count all early and Election Day ballots after the results were machine tabulated.

The Arizona Association of Retired Americans, a retiree group with ties to the Democratic Party, sued. The local judge ruled the expanded count wasnt allowed and barred the county from doing it.

The ruling over what happened in 2022 sets an important precedent.

The county has indicated that it intends to conduct full hand-count audits in future elections, wrote appellate court Judge Michael F. Kelly. He said thats why the court agreed to hear the appeal to address the issue.

Its not just about Cochise County.

Republican lawmakers have been making the rounds of the states other counties  at least those overseen by GOP majorities on their boards of supervisors  urging them to expand the hand-counts done after elections to ensure machine counts are accurate.

Arizona Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, has been telling boards that a resolution adopted by the Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year gives them that authority. But the resolution, which passed without Democratic support  and never was sent to Gov. Katie Hobbs  is not law.

The new court ruling lays out what the law is. And it does not allow counties to expand those hand-count audits, Kelly wrote.

He noted that the state constitution gives the Legislature authority to write election rules. And in this case the Legislature laid out a detailed process for small samples of early and Election Day ballots to be hand-counted to confirm the machine tallies.

Because the legislature provided for a detailed method to verify the results from electronically tabulated voting machines, counties must follow that method unless and until the Legislature determines otherwise, Kelly wrote. Accordingly, the county did not have independent authority to conduct a hand-count audit of all precinct or early ballots in the first instance for the 2022 election.

Attorneys for Cochise County had argued before the appeals court in July that they have the legal option of expanding the hand count to include all ballots and not just the small samples laid out in the law and the Election Procedures Manual, a document created by the secretary of state to lay out more detailed election rules.

Lawyer Bryan Blehm, representing the county, said the board is required to certify the election. Because that law gives the board broad authority and discretion to oversee elections, it can expand the count to satisfy themselves of the machine-count result, he said.

But Kelly and the other two judges flatly rejected that, saying the Legislature wrote laws laying out specific rules on the size and scope of hand-counts and thus took away any discretion supervisors might have.

The law establishes detailed procedures for conducting hand audits of electronically tabulated ballots, Kelly wrote. Because there is not an absence of statutory guidance here, but rather a detailed legislative scheme, neither (the law nor previous case decisions) supports the countys position.

Blehm had also pointed to a provision of the procedures manual that gives counties discretion to expand hand-counts of early ballots, which make up more than 80% of the votes cast in Arizona elections.

But the Court of Appeals shot that down as well, saying that while the manual may give that discretion, the actual law does not, and it trumps the manual.

There is a provision in state law for a full hand count. But Kelly said these can occur only when a random hand count of a small percentage of ballots turns up an unacceptable level of error. That leads to a larger sample.

If subsequent counts of batches find disparities with the machine count, Kelly said, counties are permitted to do a full hand count. But only then.

Interpreting (the law) to allow a county to begin with a full hand-count audit of all precincts would render the statutes multi-step process superfluous, and that is not acceptable, the judge wrote.

Peggy Judd, one of the Republican Cochise County supervisors who pursued the appeal, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Doubts about machine counts were first stoked by former President Donald Trump, who lost his 2020 reelection bid.

They also were embraced by many Republicans, including those leading Cochise County, Borrelli and others. But there is no evidence of any issues with machine counts, and extensive testing and pre- and post-election checks confirm their accuracy.

The ruling comes just days after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed a lawsuit challenging the use of voting machines brought by losing 2022 candidates Kari Lake and Mark Finchem.
The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

On September 29th, 2023, the City of Tucson took final measures in submission to the property managers of the Ocotillo Hotel and Apartments after weeks of recognizing the occupants residing there having fallen prey to a medical insurance scam  and moved forward with condemning the property, ushering about 200 individuals out of housing, and out to the regions washes, lots, and parks. The very spaces that the city has also been working so diligently in sweeping thousands of houseless folks from, within the last few years.

The Citys most recent comments made following the Oct. 3 city council meeting freshly preserves the municipalitys active stigmatization of homelessness. Prominent city workers stood in defense of the resources plastered together to look good on paper but were somehow refused by residents. And some of our leaders thinly condescending input of a difficult situation made worse by mutual aid groups does little to clear up the citys vague motives. These statements eerily echo a similar outcome that evictees of the Knights Inn contended with this past summer, and adequately provides the public more insight as to the limited perspective, the minimized values, and the unclear objectives of some of our elected officials and their subordinates.

Its bold to make an assumption that mutual aid groups, who have maintained an exceptional amount of dedication, and community encouragement, are the central culprit of this event, when the facts say otherwise. Several recent reports have demonstrated that those in need who seek services rarely even receive them or have been waiting months for housing. The 2023 City of Tucson Homeless Needs Assessment highlighted that of those who were surveyed, those who had completed a housing assessment 56% were still waiting for a follow-up, 13% were offered services but were not able to access them, and 13% reported that they received the services they were seeking. The most frequently mentioned needed-but-inaccessible type of service was longer-term support and assistance following connection to services (especially after being placed in housing), states the assessment.

In contradiction to the citys abundance of preventive services provided, many Ocotillo residents were devastated by the uneven trade-off of being offered only temporary, congregate shelter, shortsighted services, and being placed on extensive housing waitlists, after spending several months trying to build a life in their own apartments. These former residents now join the citys already colossal 1,500+ unhoused population, as the city touts their Housing First initiative and the historic levels of funding in housing programs. But Housing First is not sustainable if you first dont provide enough housing, especially when the current reports from Tucsons own gap analysis states the city requires a total system demand of 9663 units of housing in order to achieve a functional zero rate of houselessness, and Tucsons current housing inventory is at 3395.

This is a pivotal moment for how our local government will move forward in defining its values regarding housing as a human right. How can our city officials be taken for their word when the parameters of services and housing they claim to offer are contradictory to the multiple sources of recent data presented? Why arent these issues valued in the current budget?

Consequently, how will these circumstances shape the actions our council members will take, given Arizonas dismal housing laws?

We know that the city holds an infirm grasp on enforcing more tenant-centered laws in housing, but we also cannot deem this excuse acceptable. The Mayor and Council will have to admit to the obvious conclusion that Tucsons high-barrier standards of living are no longer suitable for its people trying to survive in the Southwest, and we need more supportive alternatives, and transparency in how Tucson solves our housing and houseless crises.






House of Representatives

Well, this is not what our country needs now, but it is what we have. Our country is at a crossroads of what path we will venture down. Who wins? Right now, in the early state of the chaos of the house, God help us! I truly believe in the goodness of the American people. I also believe we can learn from history and not repeat Englands Chamberlains mistakes. We must be a beacon of hope for and direction for the world. This walk with democracy is not easy, always finding its way. We must support Ukraine as they are so deserving of our pledge and commitment. When and where did we decide not to be a true American? We need our love as a country and what we have always thought of our direction, moving together for a goal for our futures. Thats what WWII was, teamwork and working across the aisle for a common goal for all.

Mary Beth Schneider

East side

Freedom

Our democracy is under assault by some Americans who openly embrace autocracy. They take for granted the freedoms that we enjoy in our democracy.

In China, access to YouTube is blocked. In North Korea, males must serve in the military for ten years. In Russia, people who want to see the movie Barbie must do so in secret. In Saudi Arabia, women are discouraged  and sometimes banned  from going certain places without a male escort. And I could go on and on.

Some flirt with autocracy due to fear of changing demographics, loss of control, and frustration with the slow maturation of democracy itself. Others want to follow and not be led. Unlike autocrat wannabe Donald Trump, who is only out for himself, Joe Biden has the experience, wisdom and kindness to lead us out of chaos during this grave moment in our history. For those who want to destroy our democracy, be careful what you wish for.

Cynthia Bordelon, retired lawyer and member of

CommonSense American

Downtown

Yes on Proposition 413

The YWCA is committed to eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all. Thats why we support Proposition 413. Tucson City Council Members earn a meager $24,000 annually, equivalent to less than the current hourly minimum wage. Salary levels also lag significantly behind those of their counterparts in Arizonas five other largest cities. Pay disparities further rob women of purchasing power and security. All of these factors create a financial barrier limiting who can afford to hold office. This means Tucson is less likely to have women and people of color providing voice to their communities and contributing to our citys growth and progress. Just as we work towards pay parity for women, we insist on parity for our public servants. Proposition 413 is a crucial step towards equity and another step forward for Tucson to take its place as a major American city. We urge you to vote Yes on Prop 413.

Lara Ruggles, Director of

Development, YWCA

Southern AZ

Downtown

American discord spurs Hamas

I hope Americans realize we are headed for World War III. Irans actions in supplying Hamas and Hezbollah with armaments, are deliberately meant to arouse Americas need to support Israel. This draws us into an armed conflict. We witness in Gaza, Irans collaboration with Russia sprouting seeds. Russia is ramping up its efforts in Ukraine after an infusion of weapons and munitions from North Korea.

Worldwide, evils are becoming more courageous because they now realize that the greatest nation in the world is running amok politically. The Republican Party, governed by 10-20 extremists too young to understand history, makes decisions laughed at 30-40 years ago. They have tried their best to destroy America.

History repeats itself is NOT just words on a calendar  it is a reality that affects us, learned in our ancestors blood. The Freedom Caucus plays with our descendants lives.

In other Islamic theocracies and monarchies, we have seen the outcome autocracy.

Sheldon Metz

Northeast side

Candidate requirements

Our homeowners association is soliciting for new board members. Here are the qualifications needed:

Willingness to Serve; good people skills; calm judgement; good character; strong integrity; relevant work or volunteer experience; desire to put the best interests of the association first.

Sounds like great requirements for candidates for elected office. Plus realizing that violent rhetoric is as intrinsic to fascism as civil dialogue is to democracy. There ought to be a law.

Dee Maitland

Marana

If only...

I am shocked and amazed to read that tax cuts for rich people and limitless expansion of an already expensive, Republican backed program is resulting in a 400 million dollar budget hole.

Speechless really.

If only somebody would have said something at the time. Or, I dont know, perhaps we could have had decades of experience with this sort of Republican backed, trickle down fiscal responsibility that could have warned us that, somehow, there was even the slightest possibility that this could have happened.

I wish we knew then what we know now.

David Reynolds

East side

Choices

Re: the Oct. 13 letter Ageism is appropriate.

Yes, getting to Joe Bidens age does take a toll on ones mind and body. But this is a mind and body with decades of experience in our federal government, and is a steady hand at the helm. We do have a strict two-party system. The next President will be either Republican or Democrat. And with the cadre of nut cases the Republicans are offering, led by the most dangerous nutcase who is the most imminent danger to our Democracy in history, Id vote for Bugs Bunny to defeat Trump!

Thad Appelman

Northwest side

The Santa Ritas

I find it alarming that no one is speaking of the permanent damage planned for the Santa Ritas by the aggressive copper mining companies. The several-miles-long flattop tailings pile to the west of Green Valley will be an eyesore for much longer than Green Valley will exist, even as ruins. It will take tens, even hundreds, of millions of years before that damage is gone. So another extreme tailings pile and slag heap, as a testament to greed and indifference to the earth, is in the works for the Santa Ritas. No wonder there is opposition to it.

William Winkelman

Southeast side

More roundabouts needed

There are multiple four-way stops and traffic lights which hold up traffic. Roundabouts slow down traffic at intersections but they keep the traffic moving. As a comparison to traffic lights where at times of low traffic a whole direction of traffic needs to be stopped to let a few people go in the other direction. It would also eliminate the need for speed bumps on side roads, as people would need to slow down at the intersections. The speed bumps create an unnecessary need to slow down and speed up in between intersections. People at four way stops arent sure whether or not to go. People end up going when they shouldnt or dont go and slow down traffic by not going. A roundabout would solve this problem as it is more clear as to when to go. Although some people struggle with them, if they are more common people will quickly learn how to use them leading to smoother flow of traffic and safer intersections.

Elias Kadlec

Northeast side

Yes on Prop. 413

The Tucson Police Officers Association is encouraging the Tucson community to vote yes on Proposition 413, compensation adjustments for the Mayor and Council members. As the organization that represents police and community service officers, we advocate for all city employees to earn a living wage. For far too long, our city council members have been forced to do full time work for part time pay, and as a result most of our elected officials have second jobs in addition to leading our community. Our council members and Mayor need to be compensated fairly for their role in our community, and competent candidates in the future should not have to choose between serving our city and earning a living wage. Our Mayor and Council have made pay equality a priority for all city employees, and they deserve the same. Please vote yes on Proposition 413.

Mike Gamez on behalf of The Tucson Police Officers Association
MADISON, Wis. (AP)  A man who twice brought guns to the Wisconsin state Capitol and demanded to see Gov. Tony Evers has been arrested again on suspicion of a concealed carry violation he allegedly committed that same night, the governors administration said Wednesday.

Police arrested Joshua Pleasnick, 43, of Madison, on Tuesday night. He was released from jail on Wednesday afternoon after prosecutors declined to level any additional charges against him, Dane County District Ismael Ozanne told The Associated Press in an email.

Pleasnick already faces a misdemeanor count of openly carrying a firearm in a public building. He's set to make his initial court appearance on that count Thursday morning. Online court records did not list an attorney for Pleasnick.

Pleasnick entered the Capitol on the afternoon of Oct. 4 without a shirt, guiding a dog on a leash and openly carrying a holstered handgun, according to prosecutors and investigators. He approached Evers' office and demanded to speak with the governor. Evers wasn't in the building at the time.

Pleasnick was arrested, booked and released on bail. According to prosecutors, he returned to the Capitol that same night with an AK-style semi-automatic rifle and a police baton in his backpack. He again demanded to see Evers but the building was already closed.

He was taken into custody again that same night and was formally charged on Monday with the misdemeanor firearms count.

Evers' administration said that he was arrested again Tuesday night for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit on Oct. 4, the day he entered the Capitol. Department of Administration spokesperson Tatyana Warrick said in an email to the AP that the baton in his backpack violated concealed carry statutes.
Advocates and Nebraska lawmakers are defending a reporter after Gov. Jim Pillen said her story about environmental concerns at his farms wasn't worth discussing because the reporter was from communist China.

The Asian American Journalists Association, the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and some state lawmakers have condemned Pillen and demanded that he apologize to Flatwater Free Press reporter Yanqi Xu.

The comments, which received a flood of publicity this week when the online media organization's executive director wrote a scathing column, is just the latest in the nation in which an elected official has personally attacked a reporter. The scrutiny the story is getting also comes amid a wave of pandemic-driven anti-Asian racism and new laws restricting foreign ownership of farmland.

Pillen's staff has not responded to emails or phone messages seeking comment, although he likely will be asked about it Friday during a news conference to discuss the hiring of people with intellectual disabilities. News about his remark has spread widely published through the U.S. and even in Chinese news outlets.

It all started last month when the Free Press published Xu's story revealing that 16 of Pillens farms recorded nitrate levels at least five times higher than what is considered safe to drink. His children now operate the business called Pillen Family Farms, which the Free Press reported consisted largely of hog barns.

A company official told the Free Press in a statement that the company worked closely with state regulators and was dedicated to ensuring "groundwater is protected."

No. 1, I didnt read it. And I wont, Pillen, a Republican, responded days later when asked about it on a radio show. No. 2, all you got to do is look at the author. The author is from communist China. What more do you need to know?

Xu recalled in an interview Thursday that she was shocked and saddened when an editor pulled her aside to tell her what the governor said. But before writing more, the paper wanted to check about any potential repercussions for Xu.

She grew up in China but has lived in the U.S. since 2017. After graduating from the University of Missouri, she went to work two years ago at the Flatwater Free Press, an independent, nonprofit news organization based in Omaha.

The column that ultimately was published had her blessing.

In difficult times. I just felt that we shouldnt stay silent, she said. And then, of course, I was thinking about the community behind me and, you know, who also might have felt really hurt because of the governors comment.

Tweets flooded in, offering her support as the column began to circulate, and she said she was deeply, deeply moved.

Among those tweeting was Omaha Sen. Megan Hunt, a left-leaning lawmaker who fled the Democratic Party mid-session to register as an independent, who called that the governors remark Racist and disgusting. Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh retweeted the rebuke and chastised the governor in a phone interview.

The discriminatory implications behind the statement, taking that and setting it aside for a moment, this is part of a broader pattern of behavior of conduct and language used by the governor, said Cavanaugh, who led a filibuster this year in an attempt to derail a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

She noted in an interview that during the signing ceremony for the new law, the governor suggested that children and their parents who seek gender-affirming treatment are being duped, and called it "absolutely Lucifer at its finest.

With the pandemic raging, CNN reporter Natasha Chen went on the air to describe how a Florida beachgoer told her to get out of the country and that she was responsible because of her ethnicity.

U.S. reporters also have been singled out. In 2020, Weijia Jiang of CBS News asked President Donald Trump a question about the pandemic. Trump said that maybe thats a question you should ask China. Dont ask me. Ask China that question.

Jiang  who was born in Xiamen, China, and emigrated with her family to West Virginia when she was 2  wondered why the president directed that remark to her. Trump said he would say it to anyone who asks a nasty question.

Meanwhile, governors have been raising concerns about foreign land ownership. Prior to this year, 14 states had laws prohibiting or restricting foreign ownership and investments in private farmland. But that ballooned to 24 states this year as lawmakers in nearly three-quarters of states considered legislation on the topic, according to The National Agriculture Law Center at the University of Arkansas.

Naomi Tacuyan Underwood, executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association, described what happened to Xu in an interview as another example of how people always resort to the perpetual foreigner trope and question our loyalties."

She said journalists aren't the only ones subjected to this, recalling that earlier this year a GOP lawmaker questioned the loyalty of U.S. Rep. Judy Chu based on her Chinese heritage.

Chu, a Democrat from California who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, was among those who joined the clamor for an apology from Pillen, condemning his remarks as a baseless xenophobic attack.

This story has been updated to correct the name of Pillen Family Farms.
FLORENCE, S.C. (AP)  A 79-year-old man was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for fatally ambushing police at his South Carolina home.

Frederick Hopkins killed two officers, including the lead investigator in a sexual abuse case involving his son, and wounded five others in 2018. The Vietnam veteran, who was awarded medals for marksmanship, fired from a sniper's nest he set up behind an oak desk in the sunken den of his home in an upscale Florence neighborhood, said prosecutor Ed Clements.

The families of the officers killed and the wounded all asked for the life sentence after Hopkins agreed to plead guilty and prosecutors promised not to seek the death penalty.

Many of them hoped for the life sentence was short and uncomfortable for Hopkins, who entered court in a wheelchair.

"I'm sure he will have a swell time in prison for the few remaining months and years he has left. And after that I hope he enjoys the fires of hell," said Florence County deputy Sarah Miller, who spent 16 days in the hospital recovering from her wounds.

Hopkins was waiting for officers that day. They let his family know investigators were coming with a search warrant because someone in the home reported being sexually abused by Hopkins' adult son.

Miller said the officers arrived in polo shirts and knocked twice with no answer on Oct. 3, 2018. Hopkins suddenly opened the door and started firing.

Florence County Sheriffs deputy Farrah Turner was the main investigator in the sex abuse case. Miller said after seeing Turner was wounded, Hopkins shot her before retreating inside. She would undergo nine surgeries, including the amputation of her legs, because of blood loss, before dying from her injuries 19 days later.

Officers rushed to try to help but Hopkins, using a high-powered rifle pointed down his street that was straight for blocks, kept picking them off.

Florence Police Sgt. Terrence Carraway was killed with a bullet to the chest fired from at least 300 yards (275 meters) away, investigators said.

One officer kept waving the dozens of would-be rescuers pouring into the neighborhood away from the line of fire. An armored military vehicle had to be brought in from dozens of miles away to rescue the wounded, who were put on the beds of pickup trucks to be taken to ambulances. It took at least 30 minutes.

Miller and others hurt said they watched time pass on their cellphones, listening to dozens of shots being fired and not daring to make a noise because there might be other people waiting to finish them off. Most of the shots from police were fired into a second story window because the officers couldn't pinpoint where the gunfire was coming from, Clements said.

Hopkins pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder last week in an unannounced hearing more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from where the shootings took place.

He was sentenced to life for both murder charges and the maximum of 30 years in prison for each attempted murder charge.

Hopkins said he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder that night from a firefight in 1970 where 27 men in his 101st Airborne Division were killed. His defense introduced a report from David Ferrier, a private investigator who works with Vietnam veterans, who reviewed his military and health records.

After reading the report, Hopkins stopped insisting he was acting in self defense and agreed to plead guilty, defense attorney Boyd Young said.

Ferrier's report cited a long history of PTSD claims from Hopkins since his 1977 medical discharge from the Army and cited a doctor saying he appeared to have the onset of dementia shortly before the shooting.

While they can in no way ameliorate the tragedy of his actions I firmly believe they provide a genesis for the explosion which resulted in the death of these two officers, Ferrier wrote.

That defense irritated many of the victims and their families.

"I served in two wars. Never have I mistaken anybody for being my enemy. You shot me from over 300 yards  lined up the sight, looked down the barrel and pulled the trigger," Florence police officer Travis Scott said. Last time I checked, I didn't look like somebody who you were fighting in a war in Vietnam.

The sexual abuse case against Hopkins' son moved foreword and 33-year-old Seth Hopkins is serving 20 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2019 to second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor.

Hopkins, an attorney who agreed to give up his law license in 1984 after he was accused of taking $18,000 of fees improperly, had interrupted previous hearings with rants about how the legal system was railroading him or to insult the prosecutor.

On Thursday, he said nothing at all in court.

Defense lawyers, prosecutors and the judge kept much of the case away from reporters. In June, they all agreed to close the courtroom to the media and the public during pre-trial hearings and kept all motions and records off South Carolinas public court records site.

Clements said the families of the dead and the wounded officers agreed to the life sentence, knowing at 79 Hopkins was never going to see the execution chamber.

If anybody deserves the death penalty it might be Mr. Hopkins, Clements said. We had what we needed to go for the death penalty. We just didnt have enough time.

When Hopkins was told of Turner's death weeks after the shooting, he replied he was just taking out the trash, according to his monitored phone calls from jail.

Turner's mother had no pity for him either.

I hope the general population treats you in the manner you truly deserve for the rest of your worthless natural life, Katie Godwin said in a statement read in court by her niece.
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP)  A New Mexico county official is the subject of a recall petition following controversy over a Spanish conquistador statue.

The Santa Fe New Mexican said a county resident filed a complaint last week to begin the recall process, alleging Rio Arriba County Commission Chairman Alex Naranjo committed malfeasance or misfeasance in office and/or violation of the oath of office.

The newspaper said Antonio DeVargas would have to gather just more than 1,200 signatures to force a recall vote in a special election.

Among the accusations Naranjo is facing is that he violated the state Open Meetings Act by unilaterally deciding to place the statue of Juan de Onate at the Rio Arriba County Office Complex.

Chaos erupted and a single shot was fired at a Sept. 28 outdoor gathering in Espanola over canceled plans to install a bronze likeness of de Onate, who is both revered and reviled for his role in establishing early settlements along the Upper Rio Grande starting in 1598. A New Mexico man is facing an attempted murder charge in the shooting and wounding of a Native American activist amid confrontations about the aborted plans.

Naranjo told the New Mexican he had not yet been served with the complaint and he would never be in violation of the Open Meetings Act.
OkieSpice & Trade Co., 107 N. Main St. in Sand Springs, will close its doors Oct. 28.

The store specialized in Oklahoma-made products, cooking and grilling paraphernalia, as well as proprietary spice blends and blended artisan cheeses.

Steve Zieg, who owns the store with his wife, Kim, said the decision to close the store had nothing to do with how the business was doing.

Business has been fine, actually, he said. Its just that were both getting to the age where its time to hang this up and try new things.

Related

Were both in our 60s, but since were still in reasonably good health and can get around all right, we thought the time was right, Zieg said. Weve been having a lot of people coming in telling us how sad they are were closing, but we plan to sell our spice blends online.
Jimmie Tramel Tulsa World Scene Writer Follow Jimmie Tramel 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

Dwight Twilley, a revered power pop music artist from Tulsa who recently was unanimously selected for inclusion in the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, died Wednesday. He was 72.

The news was confirmed by Twilleys wife, Jan, and this was shared on the Facebook page of Church Studio: With heavy hearts, we share the devastating news of Dwight Twilleys passing. Today, he peacefully departed this world, surrounded by the love of his life, Jan, and close friends. The loss is immeasurable and our words cant capture the depth of our grief. Dwights musical prowess touched countless lives, leaving an indelible mark on the hearts of many. We are profoundly thankful for the enduring musical legacy he has bestowed upon us all.

Twilley was driving alone when he had a massive stroke, lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a tree. He died at Ascension St. John Medical Center in the Critical Care Unit with his wife and close friends at his side.

Power pop aficionados appreciate Twilleys larger body of work (he released more than two dozen albums), but the native Tulsan charted two top-20 songs: Im on Fire with the Dwight Twilley Band in 1975 and Girls as a solo artist in 1984.

When I think of Tulsa, I think of one of my favorite bands, the Dwight Twilley Band, drummer Clem Burke of Blondie said prior to a 2018 concert here. They were a great band.

Born June 6, 1951, Twilley grew up in a home where his father always had musical instruments available. Twilley was fueled to pursue a music career after seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, and it was his love of the Beatles that led to a fortuitous encounter with musical partner Phil Seymour.

Twilley visited the Boman Twin theater to see a double feature that included a Beatles film and a surfer movie. Seymour, who lived a block away from Twilley, also happened to be there and they chatted each other up about the Beatles.

Twilley and Seymour went to Twilleys house and began recording music. After continued sessions, they wondered if anyone in the record business might listen to their demo tapes.

We knew we couldnt afford to go to L.A. or New York, Twilley said in a 2021 interview. We packed up my little 58 Chevy station wagon, and Memphis was the first place we went.

Twilley and Seymour visited Sun Records, the launching pad for Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, and they had only an inkling that the place was known for something. They played their demos for music industry ears in Memphis and Nashville. They were matched with Ray Harris, an early Sun Records rockabilly artist who had a studio in Tupelo, Mississippi. Harris told the Tulsa boys they sang like sissies.

Message received, Twilley and Seymour went the opposite direction for another try. Armed with an album and half worth of material, they headed to Los Angeles and secured a deal with Shelter Records, which was co-owned by Leon Russell and Denny Cordell.

Shelter Records had offices in California and Tulsa. Twilley said everybody in Tulsa was trying to break into the music business through Shelter Records at that time, but he and Seymour werent trying to do that. They journeyed to California, where there were more options. But Cordell liked what he heard and he suggested the Tulsans change their band name from Oister to the Dwight Twilley Band.

Twilley and Seymour returned to Tulsa and made themselves at home at Shelter Records Church Studio. They were asked to familiarize themselves with the equipment and were instructed not to cut a record. Of course the kids made a record. Said Seymour to Twilley: Lets make a hit.

The hit was Im on Fire, a success despite an absence of promotion. That song, and other Twilley songs, continue to be licensed for use in TV and film projects, most recently in a flashback episode of Reservation Dogs.

Other acts signed to the Shelter Records label included the Tulsa-based Gap Band and Mudcrutch, later to be known as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. When Twilley performed on the short-lived CBS Saturday morning variety show Wacko in 1977, Petty was a backing musician. Petty and Twilley contributed to each others recordings. Twilley and Seymour sang backing vocals on the Petty song Strangered in the Night. Seymour sang backup vocals on American Girl and Breakdown. Petty re-recorded Breakdown after Twilley identified the songs hook, according to Twilley. Petty played on Looking for the Magic, a track on the Dwight Twilley Bands second album. Petty contributed backing vocals on Twilleys hit single Girls.

Girls earned heavy airplay on MTV, but Twilley was embraced by the music network before the songs release. In 1982, MTV aired an hour-long special with concert footage of Twilley performing at Rockabillys in Houston. Clips from the show became MTV videos.

I definitely had a connection with MTV early on, and that was a big deal to have an hour special on MTV, Twilley said. They would advertise it as Watch your clock and be sure to see Dwight Twilley.

Former MTV veejay Martha Quinn posted on social media that she was sorry to hear Twilley had died. Dwight Twilley was part of the first wave of artists who put MTV on the map, she said.

Twilley had to overcome instances when his momentum was sabotaged by industry-related complications that were out of his control.

After Im on Fire became a hit, the Dwight Twilley Band performed Shark (in the Dark) on American Bandstand. It was intended to be a follow-up to Im on Fire, but Jaws was in movie theaters at the time, so Shelter vetoed the shark single. Also, the Dwight Twilley Bands debut album (Sincerely) wasnt released until more than a year after Im on Fire because Cordell and Russell parted ways and Shelter Records lost its distribution deal. Seymour struck out on his own after the Dwight Twilley Bands second album.

In the 1980s, Twilley seemed poised to capitalize on the success of Girls, a track on the album Jungle. He recorded a follow-up album, Wild Dogs, for a new label after parting company with EMI America. When an individual at the new label became a figure in a payola scandal, Wild Dogs was funneled to a different label and was released with minimal promotion. The album was made available for release on CD for the first time by Iconoclassic Records in 2022.

Twilley returned to American Bandstand following the release of Girls, and host Dick Clark spoke on-air with Twilley about label-related problems. Offering an example, Twilley said he called his record company after the release of the Dwight Twilley Bands second single to see how the song was doing. The person who answered the phone said, The record company is not here anymore.

Twilley returned to his hometown of Tulsa and built Big Oak Studio after a 1994 earthquake destroyed his residence in California. One of his songs (Why You Wanna Break My Heart) was covered by Tia Carrere for the multi-platinum Waynes World soundtrack in 1992, and royalties provided funds for the studio. He continued to record albums at the home studio.

Twilley was interviewed by the Tulsa World prior to his 70th birthday. He said he was glad he was able to dream and make some of his dreams become real  and convince other people to go along. He also said this: As I age, its strange that so many of those people that were around in the beginning are no longer with us anymore.

During the interview, he complimented the abilities of bandmates like Seymour, who died in 1993 at age 41, and guitarist Bill Pitcock IV, who died in 2011 at age 58.

In 2018, Twilley was invited to join Robert Plant, Neil Young, Jack White, Kings of Leon, Alanis Morissette, The Pretenders, The Bangles and others as performers at the Arroyo Seco Weekend Festival in Pasadena, California.

Twilley was asked in 2021 if there is something about performing that provides a rush unlike anything else. His response: Performing isnt quite like finishing a song, because a song comes from absolutely nowhere. Its invisible. Its very magic.

An Edison High School graduate who briefly attended Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, Twilley was a lover and creator of art. His creations were displayed at art shows while he was in the music business. He returned to Church Studio for an art exhibit and Q&A in February of 2023.

Jan Twilley said her husband died surrounded by love. Among those at his side was music artist Susan Cowsill.

Church Studios Facebook post about Twilleys passing said to expect further details in the days to come as we honor and remember the remarkable life of Dwight Twilley. For a Church Studio interview with Twilley, go here.

The new Tulsa World app offers personalized features. Download it today.

Photos: A look back at Tulsa music artist Dwight Twilley's career Dwight Twilley Dwight Twilley 1997 Dwight Twilley 1997 Dwight Twilley 1997 Dwight Twilley 1997 Dwight Twilley 1997 Dwight Twilley 1997 Dwight Twilley 1997 Dwight Twilley 1999 Dwight Twilley 1999 Dwight Twilley 1999 Dwight Twilley 1999 Dwight Twilley 1999 Dwight Twilley 2000 Dwight Twilley 2001 Dwight Twilley 2001 Dwight Twilley Band 2003 Dwight Twilley 2003 Dwight Twilley 2005 Dwight Twilley 2010 Dwight Twilley 2010 Dwight Twilley 2013 Dwight Twilley 2018 Dwight Twilley 2018 Dwight Twilley 2018 Dwight Twilley 2018 Check out our latest digital-only offer and subscribe now HIDE VERTICAL GALLERY ASSET TITLES
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 California man who claimed to have made $30 million from illicit methamphetamine sales in Oklahoma and Missouri has been sentenced to four life sentences in prison.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour ordered Luis Alfredo Jacobo, 32, to serve the four life sentences concurrently, along with 21 four-year prison terms for his role in at least three drug conspiracies.

A Tulsa federal jury found Jacobo guilty on Nov. 7, 2022, on 25 of 30 counts in a third superseding indictment filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.

Coughenour sentenced the Bakersfield resident on Wednesday after Jacobo was found guilty of one count of continuing criminal enterprise and three counts of drug conspiracy.

Jacobo received the 21 four-year prison terms after being found guilty of unlawful use of a communication facility.

Luis Alfredo Jacobo led a drug enterprise responsible for bringing countless amounts of meth into the state of Oklahoma from California, U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson said in a statement.

The life sentences handed down today should put those who peddle poison in our communities on notice. The U.S. Department of Justice together with our law enforcement partners are organized and will prosecute to the full extent of the law.

Using Mexican sources of supply and Bakersfield as a base of operations, Jacobo managed more than 12 cohorts in California, northeastern Oklahoma and southwestern Missouri for more than five years in at least three drug conspiracies operating in and around the Northern District of Oklahoma, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

From May 2016 to December 2018, one drug conspiracy operated in Bakersfield and later in and around Grove. A second drug conspiracy also worked out of Grove from September 2018 to August 2019, and a third operated from September 2018 to March 2021 in and around Grove and southwestern Missouri.

Coughenour recommended that the federal Bureau of Prisons assign Jacobo to a facility near Bakersfield.

Jacobo indicated that he intends to appeal his judgments and sentences, according to court records.

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Dr Pallav Prakash is a brilliant individual. He is a strategist and self-made leader in sustainable and innovative technologies that will serve the future. Prakash is a powerhouse who had a humble start in the Indian Navy. He now drives innovation, strategy, growth, and partnerships at several organizations through program management. His current work is an impressive goal to deploy Electric Vehicle (EV) school buses at scale in the US K-12 education system. And have them contain a Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) system that connects the buses to a community's electric grid, harvesting and storing energy to use as neededa move towards a cleaner and healthier future for schoolkids and their neighborhoods.

It is this distinguished individual that I had the pleasure of speaking to about the evolution of the very technology he is working with and his experience while driving towards this goal.

When did you first interact with EV technology?

It was during my time in the Indian Navy. I was a submarine officer. And the Navy's submarines were predominantly battery-operated. It made me comfortable with the technology.

And I guess you've continued working with this technology until now?

Exactly. All my life, I have worked on battery systems. The types have changed, of course, but I have worked with whichever battery is most current. It's an old phenomenon, battery use. For war machines. And space exploration. Solar panels charge batteries for space rovers.

Compared to that, using it for school buses seems so simple...

Yes, deploying it on land is far easier. And I would say that had I not been in the Navy, I wouldn't have been comfortable using and deploying the technology today. Experience and knowledge about something always help you work with said something.

You do have an impressively vast portfolio of experience, especially on the educational front. How has that impacted your current work?

I have more than two decades of experience working with battery technology. It's been supplemented by my many academic ventures. My MBA from Johns Hopkins University and my post-grad certificate in 'Business Management' from IIM, Lucknow, have supplemented my business knowledge. My doctorate in 'Innovation and Strategy' from Westcliff University taught me how to work with innovations in technology. It's all set me up to deploy EV in the K-12 school bus system at scale in the US, where V2G is an in-built solution to offset costs.

It must be a huge venture to overcome the cost of deployment. Who helps with that?

The government. State and Federal agencies, as well as other connected institutions, play lead roles in offsetting costs and making newer technology deployable. And they have worked hard to deploy cleaner technologies. It helps the goals of non-public entities such as myself. I can help and impact the government's aim for a cleaner future, supporting the generations of today and tomorrow. For that, I am truly thankful to these various governmental agencies.

That does sound very helpful, especially since EV technology has changed much over time. What are your thoughts on this evolution?

In the development of any type of technology, it is often an endeavor to support the unmet needs of the customer. It is one of the fundamentals of tech deployment. To do that, you have to provide a value proposition to the customer. For EV tech, which has undergone fundamental changes, one of these values is the ability to provide cleaner energy. Another is the use of artificial intelligence to support the mission of clean energy, which is critical due to the deployment of transportation systems being done at scale.

So, changes in EV technology relate to the value they provide users. Like the drivers or school districts?

That's right. One thing I've seen change is manual directions. Now, computers are used, and AI is leveraged for deployment. It takes the burden off drivers and mechanics and allows them to accept the changes more easily. Another is how combining various platforms offsets costs and supports the energy needs of the community at large, especially during peak hours. So, it's not just providing clean energy and transportation but bringing different individuals and groups into the mission of a cleaner future.

Teamwork truly makes the dream work.

Yes. And that is one of the things I have learned in all this. Teamwork is not a function of desire but a collaborative environment where all stakeholders play an important part. From the school districts where the ideas have been sold to communities with whom ideas have to be hashed out. From utilities that import and export energy sources to companies specializing in EV-based hardware and software. And finally, the individuals involved, the drivers and mechanics, the school kids, and their communities. Everyone has to be on board.

Would you say that's been your biggest learning lesson?

As we say in the Navy, "We all swim together." That is the beauty of teamwork.

What about your biggest challenge?

My biggest challenge would have to be bringing everyone into the mission, and the learning curve has been particularly steep. There are many differences in culture, knowledge, ways of thinking, ideas for solutions...Bringing everyone together despite these differences is hard. But it is something that must be done because when everyone works together, the light at the end of the tunnel seems so much brighter than if you were alone. I suppose to put it simply, there are just so many stakeholders involved in this project. I had to think about how to work with all of them to support the future of society- our children.

That is quite insightful. On an end note, what drives your passion for this project?

I think about the future and how our children will shape it. And I think if future generations can benefit from a technology that impacts well-being, then I have achieved my aim. That is what gives me satisfaction.

[Dr. Pallav Prakash currently works as a Program Manager at Zum Services Inc., leading the EV vertical and initiative on the Net Zero Transition. He is also a judge at Stanford University for the subject of 'Value creation for the Real Economy,' as well as a mentor to the students at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, University of California at Berkeley. Pallav is an alumnus of The Johns Hopkins University and Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, India.]
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Joe Biden's nominee to be ambassador to Israel told senators Wednesday that he would ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself and would work with the U.S. ally to end the attacks by Hamas if he were confirmed.

Jacob Lew, a treasury secretary under President Barack Obama, promised to coordinate with the international community and address the humanitarian crisis facing civilians in Gaza amid Israeli military strikes. His hearing came as Biden visited Israel to reinforce U.S. support and try to ease tensions in the latest war with Hamas.

At this moment, there is no greater mission than to be asked to strengthen the ties between the United States and the State of Israel and to work toward peace in a region that has known so much war and destruction, Lew said in his opening statement.

The Senate is moving quickly to confirm Lew, who was nominated by Biden last month after Tom Nides left as ambassador in July. Democrats say Lews wealth of government experience  he also was chief of staff to Obama and White House budget director under Obama and President Bill Clinton  makes him the right person to fill the post at a a critical moment in the two countries relationship.

"Hamas has started a war," said Sen. Ben Cardin, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as he began the hearing. Given the dangerous state of emergency that Israel faces, the United States needs a confirmed U.S. ambassador in Jerusalem."

Cardin, D-Md., has said Lew, who goes by Jack, is an outstanding, qualified person and that it is urgent to have a confirmed ambassador to help Israel as it navigates the new war, works to release hostages held by Hamas and deals with increasing concerns about tensions on the northern border with Hezbollah. Cardin said it is also important to keep normalization talks alive that could improve diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab countries in the region.

Several Republicans on the committee said they had concerns about Lew, and their opposition could slow his nomination. The committee is expected to vote next week and move it to the full Senate.

The Republicans criticized Lew for his role in the Obama White House when it negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015, among other foreign policy moves. The deal with Iran  the chief sponsor of Hamas  was later scuttled by former President Donald Trump. Biden has sought to resurrect the pact, which would provide Tehran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for the country agreeing to roll back its nuclear program.

Lew indicated that he believes that further talks on the issue should be on hold, at least for now. I dont think this is the moment to be negotiating with Iran, he said.

Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the committee, was among those with concerns.

Not only will you need to support Israel as it responds to these attacks, but also as it contends with the enduring, and indeed existential, Iranian threat, which I think is an underlying and foundational issue here, Risch told Lew. I have reservations about your ability to do that.

Lew defended his work in the Obama White House and called Iran an evil, malign government.

I want to be clear  Iran is a threat to regional stability and to Israels existence, Lew said. If confirmed, I will uphold President Bidens warning to anyone in the region who might try to take advantage of the current crisis: dont.

Lew expressed sympathy for the civilians on both sides who have been injured or killed in the fighting. It must end, Lew said, but it has to end with Israels security being guaranteed.

Lew, who is Jewish, said he cannot remember a time in his life when Israels struggle for security was not at the forefront of my mind.

His pledge to get Israel what it needs comes as the White House has told lawmakers that it is considering a request of between $90 billion and $100 billion for the wars in Israel and Ukraine and for Taiwan as it faces threats from China, according to four people familiar with the conversations. The request to Congress would cover a year, according to another person familiar with the Biden administrations expected request. The people requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and because the funding request is not final.

The White House could make a formal request for the foreign war aid as soon as this week. Though there is near-unanimous support for Israel in Congress, a $100 billion package, if that is what the Democratic administration requests, could face major obstacles because some Republicans have balked at linking the money for Israel with the war in Ukraine. Also, the House has been in chaos since Republicans unexpectedly ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., two weeks ago and is for now unable to pass legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that the Senate must act as a steady, bipartisan force.

At this moment of crisis in Israel, and of chaos in the House of Representatives, the Senate must step into the breach and stand firmly together to get emergency military and humanitarian aid to Israel, said Schumer, D-N.Y.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has also strongly supported linking aid for the two countries and Taiwan but said it would have to come with additional measures to help control immigration at the U.S. border. McConnell would not say whether he supported Lews confirmation.
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National advocates for the continued separation of church and state in the U.S. have launched an inquiry into State Superintendent Ryan Walters push for PragerU curriculum in Oklahoma classrooms.

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State says it believes the online catalog of right-wing videos, lesson plans, worksheets, and online books and magazines that Walters has encouraged Oklahoma social studies teachers to use is often-misleading propaganda  that undermine the countrys foundational principle of church-state separation and advance the myth that America was founded to be, and must remain, a Christian nation.

Americans United is already involved in a legal challenge by a group of Oklahoma taxpayers to the creation of the nations first religious charter school here.

On Thursday, the religious freedom advocacy organization issued requests for public records detailing communications with and the vetting process of PragerU by the Oklahoma State Department of Education and the Florida Department of Public Education, both of which are promoting the use of PragerU materials in public schools.

Public schools are the building blocks of our democracy. We owe it to our children to ensure their public schools provide a high-quality education that is free from religious coercion and rooted in facts, not theology or political ideology, said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, in a statement to the Tulsa World.

A shadow network of Christian Nationalists and their political allies are working to destroy public education and church-state separation. Theyre trying to ban books, prevent public schools from teaching lessons about race, sexual orientation, gender identity and even menstruation, and encouraging teachers to pray with public school students while displaying the Ten Commandments and In God We Trust in classrooms.

She added:

Christian Nationalists are trying to use the machinery of the state to impose their religious beliefs on all of our children  and to get taxpayers to fund this. Not on our watch, Laser said. We need a national recommitment to keep church and state separate  our public schools and our democracy depend on it.

Despite the U in its name, PragerU is not a university or an accredited education entity at all. It is a foundation co-founded by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager that collects millions of dollars from conservative donors to produce cartoon videos meant to promote American values and serve as a free alternative to the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education.

In September, Walters announced that the State Department of Education had entered an ongoing partnership with PragerU Kids and linked to the content on the states official social studies page in hopes that public school teachers and districts would begin using them.

However, under state law such curriculum decisions are a matter of local control decided by locally elected school boards.

Walters office did not respond Thursday to a request for comment on this story.
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Recommendations including broader access to treatment and a cap on medical marijuana potency were offered by law enforcement and mental health professionals during a breakfast meeting with legislators at LaFortune Parks clubhouse Wednesday.

The state of mental health in Oklahoma, back when I began as a prosecutor, almost seemed better than where we are currently, said Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, the meetings organizer and a critic of the states mental health system. Thats not the fault of any one individual or agency. If you look at the statistics across the country, everybody is experiencing these exact same problems.

Kunzweiler noted that the state has spent a good deal of money, much of it from COVID relief funds, to build and improve facilities.

There is momentum at the state level, and we want to continue down that path, he said.

The breakfast served as a sort of launching pad for initiatives in next springs legislative session. About a dozen lawmakers heard from six speakers: Kunzweiler, Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado, Dr. Jason Beaman of the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Dr. Kathy LaFortune of the Tulsa County Public Defenders Office, mental health consultant Crystal Hernandez, northeastern Oklahoma District Attorney Jack Thorp, and Community Health Connection Director of Behavioral Health Denise Dart.

Beaman wears many smocks at OSU-CHS but is probably best known as an authority on addiction and psychosis. He said the state needs more professionals and a plan to train and retain those professionals.

In many years, he said, the majority of psychiatrists who graduate from OSU-CHS leave Oklahoma.

We need more of an evidence-based, high-quality workforce in Oklahoma to get evidence-based outcomes, Beaman said.

Later, in response to a question, Beaman lent his support to regulating the THC content of medical marijuana. THC is cannabis primary active ingredient.

There is a strong correlation between the percentage of THC and several mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, he said. Im a severe mental illness psychiatrist. Ive seen 10,000 individuals with schizophrenia. Two have never smoked marijuana.

Im not saying marijuana causes schizophrenia, Beaman continued. Im telling you weve got a schizophrenia problem in Oklahoma, and we have a pharmacy in every strip mall, every gas station, in every parking lot.

Beaman said all marijuana research of which he is aware used cannabis of no more than 9% THC, while most being sold in Oklahoma is at least twice that potency.

LaFortune touched on the staffing issue and said Oklahoma lacks sufficient capacity for the most seriously mentally ill residents. She noted that more than 30 Tulsa County jail inmates are awaiting space in the states lone facility for the most dangerously mentally ill, the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita.

Some of those, she said, have been in custody for more than a year.

Regalado said hes suggested leasing one or both of the county jails unused pods to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, saying that could provide up to 100 additional beds. He also said money that now goes to county sheriffs for mental health and addiction programs might be more effectively spent on professional treatment outside the jails.

Hernandez, a former administrator of the Oklahoma Forensic Center, said the shortage of suitable facilities causes many people experiencing serious mental health episodes to simply be kept in hospital emergency rooms until theyre exhausted, and then theyre sent home.

Nevertheless, Kunzweiler advocated making involuntary civil commitments easier, with greater judicial oversight of those placed in hospitals.

The most personal account came from Dart, who said her adult sons treatment-resistant schizophrenia has grown steadily worse since they moved to Tulsa from Arizona seven years ago.

I would never have imagined that after living here nearly seven years we would still be unable to obtain even remotely equivalent treatment, Dart said. The very treatment that helped him stabilize after traumatic hospitalizations and involvement with law enforcement has been repeatedly denied him in Tulsa.

Specifically, Dart said her son had benefited in Arizona from whats known as an assertive community treatment team, consisting of mental health professionals who come to the patients home if necessary. She said in Tulsa patients are not eligible for such teams until theyve had an encounter with law enforcement or multiple hospitalizations.

Our goal as a community should be to keep our vulnerable and suffering out of these traumatic settings rather than make them a requirement for treatment, Dart said.

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Iran is ultimately responsible for the attack on southern Israel two weeks ago and should be held accountable for the deaths that followed, U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin told constituents during a conference call Tuesday night.

You can go after Hamas and wipe them off the face of the earth, but the fact is Iran is the one that sponsored it, Mullin said. You can cut the tail off the snake, and the snake can still live, but you cut the head off the snake, and they begin to die. Thats what has to happen here.

Is it our responsibility to take them out? Mullin said. No. I really think thats Israels responsibility. But if Israel cant handle it, weve got to be there.

The U.S. State Department reported in 2020 that Iran gives Hamas, the organization that has taken credit for the attack that resulted in 1,300 Israeli deaths, about $100,000 a year. Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel and has controlled the Palestinian enclave in Gaza since 2007.

The Palestinians are a group displaced by the creation of Israel in 1947. Their status and treatment is a long-standing source of tension in the Middle East.

Responding to a question, Mullin seemed to downplay the idea of a grand scheme involving Iran, Russia, China and North Korea, but he did say U.S. resolve is being tested.

That, he said, began with the United States calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan two years ago. He also, however, blamed Americans  most of whom seem to be fellow Republicans  whose support of Ukraine in its fight against Russia is wavering.

The U.S., Mullin said, has a long-standing commitment to aid Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion, and to walk away from that commitment would destroy American credibility.

Were only as good as our word, Mullin said. I tell people, If I shake your hand and make a promise, Ill die before I drop that obligation. The United States should be the same way.

Mullin, who has been more outspoken than most Senate Republicans about the ouster of his friend and former colleague Kevin McCarthy as House speaker and the resulting leadership stalemate, returned to the subject Tuesday night. He lambasted the eight Republicans whose votes, along with the Democrats, pushed McCarthy out.

He said those who think Republicans should not even negotiate with Democrats  or among themselves  are being unrealistic with the Senate and White House in Democratic control. The result is a GOP House majority that cannot act.

A strong Republican bill isnt feasible to be signed into law, Mullin said. If you cant get a bill signed into law, youre saying, Government is working perfectly, and were going to leave it the way it is.  You have to negotiate. You have to take the wins you can from legislation that will move all the way to the presidents desk.

Some of these individuals that (are being) called RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) are the people that keep us in the majority, Mullin said. They come from very tough districts. They come from very tough states.  They may not vote with us all of the time. But Id rather have a Republican that votes with us 80% of the time than a Democrat that votes (against) us 100% of the time.

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Rite Aid has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to sell part of its business as it attempts to restructure while dealing with losses and opioid-related lawsuits.

The company said Rite Aid stores will continue to fill prescriptions, and customers will still be able to visit its locations or shop online while it goes through its voluntary Chapter 11 process. But that process also will allow it to speed up its plan to close underperforming stores.

Going through Chapter 11 will help significantly reduce the companys debt while helping to resolve litigation claims in an equitable manner, Rite Aid late Sunday.

Rite Aid Corp. said in its federal bankruptcy filing that it runs more than 2,000 stores. Most of its locations are on the East and West Coasts.

The Philadelphia company, which is marking its 60th year in business, has posted annual losses for several years and has been cutting costs and closing stores as it dealt with long-standing financial challenges. It has said it expects a net loss of as much as $680 million in the current fiscal year, which will end next spring.

The company, like its rivals, also faces financial risk from lawsuits over opioid prescriptions. Rite Aid already has reached several settlements, including one announced last year with the state of West Virginia for up to $30 million.

In March, the U.S. Justice Department intervened in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by former employees under the False Claims Act. Federal officials said in a statement that the drugstore chain filled at least hundreds of thousands of illegal prescriptions for drugs including opioids.

Rite Aid called the governments claims hyperbolic in a subsequent motion to dismiss. The company said facts alleged in the case actually showed it exceeded regulatory requirements for diversion control.

Drugstores also have been dealing with several issues that frustrate customers. Theyve handled prescription drug shortages, and they have struggled to fill their stores with enough pharmacists and technicians to run the pharmacies. Rivals CVS and Walgreens both have dealt with walkouts by pharmacy employees concerned about their growing workloads and lack of help.

The stores also have had to weather tight prescription reimbursement and waning COVID-19 vaccine and testing business in recent quarters. Plus online competitors like the retail giant Amazon have hurt sales of consumer goods found outside the pharmacy areas of their stores.

Rite Aids larger competitors like CVS and Walgreens, which each run several thousand more locations, have moved more aggressively into health care, opening clinics and adding other sources of revenue.

Deutsche Bank analyst George Hill said in an August note that Rite Aid operates on a much thinner profit margin than its competitors and while it can pay costs to service its debt, it wont be able to cover principal payments based on the current trajectory of the business.

The companys filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey listed $8.6 billion in total debts and $7.6 billion in assets.

Rite Aid said Sunday that it had reached an agreement with some key creditors on a financial restructuring plan to cut its debt. The company also said it obtained $3.45 billion in fresh financing from some of its lenders, which will help support the company through the Chapter 11 process.

Rite Aid says it does not know yet which stores it will close, but it will transfer workers to other Rite Aid locations where possible.

Gabelli Funds portfolio manager Jeff Jonas expects the company to close several hundred locations. He noted that this could ease some pressure on drugstores struggling to find workers.

All those people will get new jobs immediately, he said. You hate to say that someones bankruptcy is a positive, but it kind of is."

Rite Aid also said Sunday that it reached a deal to sell its small pharmacy benefits manager, Elixir, to MedImpact Healthcare Systems. Elixir runs prescription drug coverage and a specialty pharmacy among other services.

Rite Aid said MedImpact will serve as the stalking horse bidder in a court-supervised sale process.

The company also said that Jeffrey Stein, who heads a financial advisory firm, was named CEO, replacing interim leader Elizabeth Burr. She had replaced Heyward Donigan, who left in January.

Rite Aid said Stein has experience working with companies that are undergoing financial restructuring.

A few years ago, Rite Aid propped up its share price with a 1-for-20 reverse stock split that took more than a billion shares off the market. But the share price has slid for most of this year and tumbled back below $1 in August. The stock last traded at roughly 65 cents.

Earlier this month, Rite Aid notified the New York Stock Exchange that it was not in compliance with listing standards. During a grace period, the companys stock continues to be listed and traded.

Walgreens attempted to buy Rite Aid for about $9.4 billion in a deal announced in 2015. But the larger drugstore chain scaled back its ambition a couple years later and bought only a chunk of Rite Aid, around 1,900 stores, to get the deal past antitrust regulators.

In 2018, Rite Aid shares plunged after the company called off a separate merger with the grocer Albertsons, which is currently trying to merge with another grocer, Kroger.
President Joe Biden has visited Israel on an urgent mission to keep the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a broader regional conflict. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza from Egypt following a request from Biden.

The president's visit came after hundreds of people were reported killed in an explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital. There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the hospital blast. Officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was due to a missile misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. The Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

The war that began Oct. 7 has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured in the past 11 days.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, and at least 199 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Currently:

1. Biden says the U.S. will provide $100 million in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians affected by conflict in Gaza and the West Bank. 2. Egypt and other Arab countries typically dont want to take in Palestinian refugees. 3. Relatives of people taken hostage by Hamas militants tell their stories as they hope for their safe return. 4. The U.S. has vetoed a proposed U.N. resolution to condemn violence against civilians in the Israel-Hamas war. 5. Rage at the Gaza hospital blast carnage spread throughout the Middle East.

Here's what's happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:

AIRSTRIKE KILLS 7 SMALL CHILDREN IN GAZA HOME, RESIDENTS AND DOCTORS SAY

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip  Residents and doctors in this southern Gaza town said an airstrike slammed into a home, killing seven small children.

The news spread quickly on social media, as grisly images of dead and bloodied toddlers lined up side by side on a hospital stretcher stirred outrage in Gaza and the West Bank.

Bandaged and caked in dust, the bodies were brought to the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis along with three other dead members of the Bakri family. Photographers swarmed the operation room as women covered their eyes and doctors wept.

This is a massacre, hospital director Dr. Yousef Al-Akkad said, his voice choking with emotion. Let the world see, these are just children.

Local medics also confirmed that the children were killed in a strike and said the Bakri family was just one of many such cases Wednesday.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

LIVERPOOL AND EGYPT STAR SALAH URGES LEADERS TO PREVENT MORE BLOODSHED, GET HUMANITARIAN AID TO GAZA

CAIRO  Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Salah, arguably the most celebrated Arab footballer, called on world leaders to come together to prevent further slaughter of all innocent souls and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza.

There has been too much violence and too much heartbreak and brutality, the Liverpool striker said in a video that lasted a little under a minute. The escalations in the recent weeks is unbearable to witness. All lives are sacred and must be protected. The massacres need to stop. Families are being torn apart.

Aid to Gaza must be allowed immediately, he added. The people there are in terrible conditions.

They were Salah's first comments on the Israel-Hamas war, after he was criticized by some Arab fans for his silence.

Officials said Wednesday that some aid will begin flowing into Gaza in the coming days.

US SENATORS SAY AFTER CLASSIFIED BRIEFING THAT ISRAEL NOT BEHIND HOSPITAL BLAST

WASHINGTON  Senators who attended a classified briefing with top defense, intelligence and other administration officials said they were briefed that Israel was not responsible for the hospital blast.

The intelligence community assesses that Israel is not to blame for the explosion of the hospital in Gaza, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said as he left. They believe it was an errant rocket from terrorists in Gaza.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said the intelligence is definitive that it was not an Israeli operation.

In a joint statement earlier, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the panel, said they reviewed intelligence and feel confident that the explosion was the result of a failed rocket launch by militant terrorists and not the result of an Israeli airstrike.

UN OFFICIALS WARN OVER GAZA HEALTH SYSTEM, RISK OF CONFLICT EXPANDING

UNITED NATIONS  U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that the deadly destruction of a hospital has heaped further pressure on Gazas crumbling health system, depriving the territory of a facility that cared for 45,000 patients every year.

Speaking in a video briefing from Qatar, Griffiths also said the Al Ahli hospital was previously struck on Oct. 14.

He also said the death toll in the 11 days since Hamas' surprise attack inside Israel has already exceeded what was seen during seven weeks of Israeli-Hamas hostilities in 2014.

Meanwhile the U.N. Mideast envoy warned that the risk of the conflict expanding is very real and extremely dangerous.

Tor Wennesland told the council that recent events have served to reignite grievances and re-animate alliances across the region.

Earlier in the day at the U.N., the United States vetoed a resolution that would have condemned violence against civilians in the Israel-Hamas war and pushed for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said President Joe Biden was in the region engaging in diplomacy and We need to let that diplomacy play out.

BRITISH PM RISHI SUNAK HEADS TO MIDDLE EAST IN BID TO CONTAIN CONFLICT

LONDON  British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is flying to Israel and nearby countries as part of diplomatic efforts to stop the crisis triggered by Hamas Oct. 7 attack from worsening.

Sunaks office says he will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog on Thursday. He will condemn Hamas horrific act of terror and express condolences for the terrible loss of life in both Israel and Gaza.

Hell also visit a number of other regional capitals, Downing Street said, without providing details.

The British leaders trip follows a visit to Israel on Wednesday by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Sunak said in a statement that Tuesday's explosion at the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict.

U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is also on a regional visit beginning with talks in Egypt on Thursday. He will also visit Qatar and Turkey.

BIDEN SAYS EGYPT AGREES TO OPEN RAFAH CROSSING FOR GAZA AID

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said Egypts president has agreed to open a border crossing into Gaza to allow in 20 trucks with humanitarian aid.

Biden said he spoke with Egypt President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi after his visit to Israel, where leaders there agreed to allow the aid in. Biden was speaking to reporters on Air Force One during a refueling stop in Germany on his way back to the U.S. from Tel Aviv.

Israel sealed off the Gaza Strip, stopping all entry of food, water, medicine and fuel to its 2.3 million people following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7.

White House officials said the aid would flow in the coming days. Biden said if Hamas confiscates the aid, it will end.

Earlier in the day, the United States promised $100 million in humanitarian assistance to help Palestinian people who have been displaced or otherwise affected by conflict in Gaza and the West Bank.

SECURITY FORCES ARREST DOZENS, FIRE LIVE ROUNDS TO DISPERSE PROTESTS IN THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK

JERUSALEM  Rights groups in the occupied West Bank say Palestinian security forces arrested dozens of Palestinians protesting the deadly explosion at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.

The protests late Tuesday devolved into skirmishes with Palestinian security forces, who fired tear gas, stun grenades and live fire to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators, wounding several.

Lawyers for Justice, a legal aid group, said Wednesday that some 50 protesters were arrested overnight by Palestinian security forces in Ramallah.

The Palestinian Red Crescent meanwhile reported that Israeli soldiers using live rounds and rubber bullets shot and wounded 10 Palestinian protesters in the southern city of Hebron and 21 people in the northern city of Nablus. A 24-year-old Palestinian man was killed, according to the organization.

PROTESTS AROUND THE WORLD

Thousands demonstrated outside the consulates of Israel and the United States in Istanbul late Wednesday. Many waved Palestinian flags, shouted anti-Israeli slogans and called for revenge against Israel a day after the deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza.

Betul Balcik, a 22-year-old student, told The Associated Press that humanity is dying in Gaza and she and friends were there to denounce war crimes commited by Israel.

Large protests also erupted in Tunisia and Morocco, with demonstrators outraged by the blast at the hospital in Gaza.

Protesters gathered outside the Parliament in Rabat chanting Down with America and demanding that Morocco reverse its 2020 decision to normalize relations and deepen security ties with Israel.

In Tunis, protesters gathered outside the U.S. and French Embassies to condemn those nations support of Israel and demand that their ambassadors be removed from Tunisia.

The demonstrations were among the largest since the Arab Spring more than a decade ago, observers said.

There was also a march by an estimated 10,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Athens, Greece, that was quelled by riot police who fired tear gas. Earlier in the day about 100 people took part in a pro-Israeli gathering.

Demonstrators in Amman, Jordan; the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh in south Lebanon; and Tokyo directed some of their criticism at the U.S. and Biden for their support of Israel.

NEW YORK GOVERNOR VISITS ISRAEL TO SHOW SOLIDARITY

TEL AVIV, Israel  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul arrived in Israel to show support for the country.

The Democrat was met at Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv by Israels ambassador to the U.S., Michael Herzog.

After a security briefing, Hochul met with families and was scheduled to head to a food pantry to help pack and drop off boxes for people displaced by the conflict. Hochul was expected to stay in Jerusalem overnight.

She said her trip is meant as a gesture of solidarity and support. New York is home to the largest Jewish population of any U.S. city, according to the American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University.

There is a deep, direct connection between New York state and Israel that has always been there, a bond steeled over decades, Hochul said.

HAMAS REJECTS CLAIMS THAT ISRAEL ISN'T BEHIND HOSPITAL BLAST

BEIRUT  Hamas is denying Israel's claims that another militant group was responsible for the massive explosion at a Gaza City hospital that killed hundreds of people.

In a statement Wednesday, Hamas said that in the days before Tuesday's blast at al-Ahli Hospital, Israeli authorities sent threats to several Gaza Strip hospitals and told each to evacuate or they would be responsible for what happens.

Hamas said Israeli forces have targeted several emergency departments and ambulances since the violence began, adding that Israeli military officials contacted 21 hospitals including Al-Ahli, demanding that they evacuate immediately because they are located in area of operations for the Israeli army.

HOSTAGES' FAMILIES DECRY ISRAELI DECISION TO LET AID INTO GAZA

JERUSALEM  The families of hostages held in Gaza have harshly criticized the Israeli governments decision to allow limited humanitarian aid into Gaza.

A statement by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said the move only increased their suffering.

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals and without human conditions, and the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers with baklavas and medicines, the statement read.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said earlier Wednesday that Israel would allow deliveries of food, water and medicine to Gaza as long as the supplies do not reach Hamas.

Hamas says militants are holding 250 hostages.

US SAYS INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT SHOWS ISRAEL NOT BEHIND GAZA HOSPITAL BLAST

WASHINGTON  An intelligence assessment shows Israel was not responsible for the explosion at a Gaza hospital, but information is still being collected, the White House said Wednesday.

The assessment is based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a social media post.

The announcement followed President Joe Bidens comment to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.

Biden said there were a lot of people out there who werent sure what caused the blast, which sparked protests throughout the Middle East. He later said he made the assertion based off data from my Defense Department.
Taiwan-based Foxlink International Investment Ltd will build an electronics manufacturing plant worth US$135 million in investment at the Da Nang Hi-Tech Park in Da Nang City, central Vietnam, confirmed a local official on Thursday.

The Foxlink Da Nang plant will manufacture touch pens, wireless earphones, batteries, charging stations, and printed circuit boards, according to Vu Quang Hung, head of the Da Nang hi-tech park and industrial zone authority, which described the plant as one of the major hi-tech projects in the city.

The facility, which covers 11.35 hectares of land at the Da Nang Hi-Tech Park, is expected to offer employment to nearly 2,000 people in this coastal city and neighboring provinces.

The city had earlier attracted U.S. firms to develop a $110-million semiconductor manufacturing plant and a $170-million aerospace component manufacturing factory there.

Da Nang is set to focus on developing the hi-tech industrial, industrial electronics, microchips sectors which are expected to drive the citys growth.

Hung told Tuoi Tre (Youth) that the Da Nang hi-tech park and industrial zone authority has attracted investors to develop 28 projects in the city, including 16 domestically-funded projects worth a combined VND7.024 trillion ($287.5 million) and 12 FDI projects with a total pledged capital of $702 million.

He added that the city prioritizes investors who plan to execute major hi-tech projects worth over $100 million each at the Da Nang Hi-Tech Park.

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Many tech companies, especially app-based food delivery services, are finding it difficult to maintain their market shares in Vietnam, with several being forced to scale down operations.

A rumor that South Korean food delivery giant Baemin fired dozens of employees before withdrawing from Vietnam recently spread across social media.

That rumor, however, proved to be untrue.

The firm is streamlining its workforce for restructuring and effective operation in the market as a means of battling competition and a challenging economic situation, according to a Baemin representative.

The Baemin food delivery platform was still operational as of Wednesday.

Over the past few years, staff cuts at tech companies have become the norm.

Ride-hailing service provider Grab, which owns GrabFood, has laid off employees in markets around the world in several rounds of cuts since 2020.

The most recent round of lay-offs in Vietnam took place in June.

Facing the same fate, e-commerce giant Shopee, which runs ShopeeFood, cut employees in hordes across Southeast Asia in 2022.

Tech group GoTo, which owns Gojek, also streamlined its workforce in November last year.

Many executives in charge of managing the Vietnames market for these firms lasted only a short time, including Nguyen Thai Hai Van at Grab Vietnam for just two years; Song Jinwoo at Baemin for nearly two years; and Le Diep Kieu Trang at Go-Viet, now known as Gojek, for a mere five months.

Food delivery services recorded massive profits during the COVID-19 pandemic due to skyrocketing demands, leading to an upsurge in hiring.

However, after the market normalized, customers began limiting their food budgets.

As a result, these food delivery service providers laid off workers in order to maintain operations and improve service quality.

In the global market, Foodpanda and Uber Eats have sacked a record high number of employees in several countries over the past few months.

High pressure on the food delivery industry comes from investors demands for profits, while customers typically choose providers based on promotions and discounts.

In developed countries such as the United States and South Korea, on-demand food delivery company Doordash and Baemin have existed for over 10 years.

They have played a key role in reshaping food delivery services and customer habits in these markets.

These famed food delivery platforms mostly say no to discounts to attract customers.

Instead, they focus on developing and upgrading technologies as well as building the subscription model to create a stable revenue and make the apps become part of consumers lifestyle.

In Vietnam, such food delivery service providers should focus on cooking instructions, cuisine tours, and subscriptions.

Many economic experts said that tech companies should make breakthroughs in their mindset of trading and creating long-term products.

Together with modern technology, the food delivery industry is expected to develop sustainably.

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Vietnamese State President Vo Van Thuong had a brief meeting with United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday on the sidelines of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, China.

This was the first time State President Thuong had met the UN leader.

The top Vietnamese official is on a visit to China through Friday at the invitation of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and President of China Xi Jinping.

During the meeting, the Vietnamese state leader highly valued Guterres role in and the UNs contribution to global peace, stability, and security.

Vietnam always throws its weight behind these mutual efforts, he affirmed.

State President Thuong underscored that Vietnam is proactively joining hands with many organizations under the UN to implement numerous projects to advance sustainability, respond to climate change, speed up digitalization, and enhance its participation in keeping peace.

The state president proposed the UN continue helping Vietnam realize international commitments.

The UN secretary-general thanked Vietnam for its cooperation with and support for the UN in all priority aspects, mainly peacekeeping activities, and efforts in maintaining international security, as well as water and food security.

Guterres underlined that Vietnam is a typical model for many developing nations, and is the UNs key partner.

The UN leader expected Vietnam to further contribute to global governance.

In addition, Guterres said that the UN will accompany Vietnam on its journey of fulfilling commitments to sustainability and response to climate change.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe (L) meets with Vietnamese State President Vo Van Thuong. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

State President Thuong met with his Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickremesinghe on the same day.

Thuong affirmed that Vietnam always cherishes the traditional friendship with Sri Lanka, and expected to deepen the ties.

The top Vietnamese official proposed that the two nations foster bilateral cooperation, especially in tourism, education, training, and people-to-people exchanges, while creating favorable conditions for the two sides' firms to do business in order to drive up two-way trade.

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By Kwon Mee-yoo

Prepare to be transported to the turbulent 1930s in Korea, an era marked by vigorous independence movements and artistic defiance, as the highly anticipated musical "Il Tenore" takes to the stage at the CJ Towol Theater of the Seoul Arts Center from Dec. 22 to Feb. 25, 2024.

The production stars Hong Kwang-ho, Park Eun-tae and Seo Kyung-soo in a riveting blend of opera and resistance against the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of Korea in the years leading up to the 1950-53 Korean War.

At the heart of the musical is Yun I-seon, portrayed by the trio of leading actors. Initially, a dutiful student aspiring to become a doctor at his parents' insistence, Yun discovers an untapped talent in opera singing and, spurred by this revelation, dreams of becoming Koreas first operatic tenor.

Parallel to Yun's artistic journey is the story of Seo Jin-yeon, a gutsy leader of an independence activist group which operates under the guise of a literary club. Played by stage veterans Kim Ji-hyun, Park Ji-yeon and Hong Ji-hee, Seo directs Yun's first opera while orchestrating anti-Japanese activities.

Another key character Lee Su-han, played by Jeon Jae-hong and Shin Sung-min, is an architecture student passionately involved in the fight for Korean independence. He becomes part of the opera production as a set designer with an aim of stirring patriotic feelings among the populace.

Inspirations for "Il Tenore" were drawn from the life of Lee In-seon (1906-60). A pioneering tenor and doctor, Lee was the first from Korea to study singing in Milan and to present an opera in his home country La Traviata  in 1948.

Adding another layer of depth to "Il Tenore" is the creative powerhouse duo of composer Will Aronson and lyricist Hue Park, who have also co-written the book for the musical. Known for their previous collaboration on "Maybe Happy Ending," the pair have once again combined their artistic ingenuity to craft a compelling storyline as well as music.

Director Kim Dong-yeon, renowned for past productions such as "Death Note" and "Maybe Happy Ending," heads the creative team, which includes choreographer Connor Gallagher and set designer Oh Pil-young. An 18-piece orchestra will offer a rich auditory backdrop.

Produced by OD Company under the helm of Shin Chun-soo, "Il Tenore" aims to resonate not just in Korea but globally, serving as a stepping stone for the company to go international.

"Set against the backdrop of the Japanese occupation of Korea in the 1930s, the story has a compelling twist on the archetypal plot of a real-life character, dramatizing a personal narrative," producer Shin said.

"Together with the creative team, we will present a work that will touch audiences around the world."
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Da Nang City, central Vietnam on Wednesday informed medical agencies citywide of a probable monkeypox (Mpox) case at Da Nang Hospital.

The Da Nang CDC asked medical units to adopt measures to prevent the possible spread of the disease, including putting the suspected Mpox patient under quarantine and making a list of people who have been in close contact with the case.

These people need to self-monitor their health for 21 days following contact with the suspected case or until the suspected case tests negative.

The Da Nang Hospital will also have to undergo disinfection.

The CDC Da Nang asked the Medical Center of Lien Chieu District to collect more information about the suspected case and related people.

The Lien Chieu Medical Center on the same day provided chloramine B for the family of the suspected case in Lien Chieu's Hoa Binh Ward to disinfect their house.

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Police in Hai Phong, northern Vietnam are in the process of verifying a report of a group of young people riding motorcycles at a speed of up to 277 kilometers per hour and doing a wheelie in Cat Hai District.

A leader of Hai Phongs road and rail traffic police unit told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Wednesday afternoon that the unit was coordinating with police in Cat Hai District to investigate the incident, which occurred last Sunday.

Police in Hai Phong City, northern Vietnam are verifying a report of some young people riding motorcycles at a speed of up to 277 kilometers per hour and doing a wheelie.

In particular, youngsters divided themselves into smaller groups to speed through the center of Cat Ba Town under Cat Hai District.

They recorded videos of themselves racing through the town and doing a wheelie before uploading them to social media, attracting thousands of views and shares.

A video screenshot shows a motorcycle rider taking a bend with his knee touching the road surface.

A video screenshot indicates a vehicle reaching a speed of 277 kilometers per hour.

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Vendors at the iconic Ben Thanh Market in downtown Ho Chi Minh City have said they do not feel secure to do business as the market has deteriorated.

It is often leaky and flooded whenever heavy rains or high tides hit the city.

Its firefighting and wastewater drainage systems fail to meet the demand.

Stalls of fabrics, souvenirs, and dried foods are clean but the walls above are wet and blistered with an interlacing system of electric wires.

T.T.H., the owner of a fashion stall, said vendors in the area get wet whenever it rains due to the leaky roof, so most have prepared tarpaulins to cover their goods.

The wastewater drainage system and floor at the fresh food area of Ben Thanh Market have deteriorated. Photo: N.Tri / Tuoi Tre

Trinh Thi Van, the third generation of a family selling goods at Ben Thanh Market, said the marketplace had been increasingly deserted with the number of visitors being fewer than one-fourth of that in previous years.

Supermarkets and convenience stores are mushrooming, not to mention peddlers surrounding the market, putting traders at the market at a disadvantage, Van explained.

Mentioning the infrastructure at the market, Van said the weak foundation had caused subsidence.

Many kiosks of fresh goods have run down with rusty roofs and bars.

In addition to the stuffy atmosphere during the dry season, traders often suffer the leakage and inundation whenever it rains or tides rise," H. added.

I expect the city to repair and upgrade the market early so that traders and tourists can set their minds at rest."

A wall near an entrance of Ben Thanh Market is blistered. Photo: N.Tri / Tuoi Tre

A representative of the market management board told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the venue has been dilapidated.

After over 100 years of operation, many facilities at the market have become ramshackle.

In particular, the drainage system has failed to deal with the much higher volume of wastewater, while the roof has worn out.

The road in front of the market is now higher than the ground of the marketplace, whereas it was lower in the past.

The market management board has repeatedly repaired the roof, dredged drains, and handled subsidence sites.

A degraded stall at Ben Thanh Market in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: N.Tri / Tuoi Tre

However, the market is large and its drainage and water supply systems are complicated, while the budget is limited, so the market has been repaired in a patchy and unsystematic manner, according to the official.

In the past, vendors sold products on the floor, but they now operate in kiosks which are close to one another and separated by partitions, making the market stuffier.

The market has installed fans to make the space airier but the efforts were in vain.

The solution of equipping the market with air conditioners is unfeasible as Ben Thanh is a traditional market so it requires an open space.

A floor area is broken at Ben Thanh Market in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: N.Tri / Tuoi Tre

Earlier, the administration in District 1 informed that the century-old Ben Thanh Market has deteriorated and proposed revamping it, including replacing its current tile effect roofing sheets with roof tiles, which needs some VND95 billion (US$3.9 million).

An additional VND45 billion ($1.8 million) will be sourced for the renovation of the wastewater drainage, electricity supply, and fire prevention and fighting systems, as well as the repair of the 10,000-square-meter floor.

Ben Thanh Market was built from 1912 to 1914 on an area of 13,000 square meters. It was last renovated in 1985.

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Police in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday detained Tran Thi Ngoc Trinh, well known as Ngoc Trinh, a 34-year-old lingerie model, and filed charges against her for allegedly causing social disorder.

Police officers also searched her house in District 7 on the same day.

Besides, police forces launched legal proceedings against Tran Xuan Dong, 36, who resides in District 4, for using counterfeit documents of authorities and organizations, and causing social disorder.

Dong is banned from leaving his residence.

Tran Xuan Dong (wearing a white shirt) is present at a police station. Photo: Supplied

Police said that officers on October 10 imposed an administrative fine on a man seen lying down on his motorcycle while riding the vehicle at the Saigon Hi-Tech Park in Thu Duc City in a video.

The man was identified as Dong, who trained Ngoc Trinh in how to ride a motorcycle standing on its footboards and letting go of both hands.

A screenshot captured from a video shows Ngoc Trinh lying down on a motorcycle.

Previously, a one-minute video showing a woman putting both legs to one side of a motorcycle, kneeling on the saddle, and riding the vehicle with one hand went viral on social media.

Authorities in Thu Duc City under Ho Chi Minh City quickly verified the video and identified the woman as Ngoc Trinh

After being summoned to a police station, the lingerie model admitted to violating the Law on Road Traffic by driving hands-free and lying down on her motorcycle.

She was booked for covering the motorcycles number plate while riding it, and having no special license that allows riding a motorcycle with engines of over 175 cc.

Ngoc Trinh, whose hometown is Tra Vinh Province in the Mekong Delta region, is infamous for her sensual fashion style and is dubbed an underwear queen in Vietnam.

She started her fashion career when she was 16, and then competed in a model contest.

She has some six million followers on her verified Facebook account.

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2018 Australian of the Year Professor Michelle Simmons will deliver the 2023 Boyer Lecture screening tonight on ABC.

Professor Michelle Simmons, who this week was awarded the top honour at the Prime Ministers Prizes for Science, will trace the path from the discovery of the atom to the race to create the worlds first quantum computer in her first Boyer Lecture, The Atomic Revolution.

Her lecture will reflect on what started out a quarter century ago as frontier science to test the bounds of what was technically possible. In that time, she has demonstrated the ability to manipulate atoms into working atomic-scale devices and created a clear pathway for making a quantum computer.

Professor Simmons said This is a story that links fundamental physics with extraordinary technological advancement and the future of computing. It is also largely an Australian story.

My teams ability to make electronic devices at the level of single atoms puts us at the very forefront of this field and has given us a unique opportunity to build a quantum computer here in Australia.

Current estimates suggest that 40% of our economy has the potential to be impacted by quantum computing and that the global quantum computing opportunity could be worth $150 billion per annum by 2040.

My team and I are now on a mission to use our atomic assembly technology to build a prototype quantum computer for which all the functional elements are manufactured and controlled at the atomic scale.

The Atomic Revolution with Professor Simmons will screen live on ABC TV and ABC iview on Thursday 19 October at 8pm.

ABC RN will broadcast the four Boyer lectures weekly from Sunday 22 October at 9.30am and anytime on ABC listen.

Professor Simmons is the CEO of Silicon Quantum Computing and the Director at the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at the University of New South Wales. She was the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of Nature Quantum Information.

Professor Simmons is a pioneer in atomic electronics and a global leader in quantum computing. Her achievements include developing the worlds first single-atom transistor, the worlds narrowest conducting wires, the ability to encode and read information on single atoms and the world s first integrated circuit made with atomic precision.

Professor Simmons is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the American Academy of Arts and Science, the American Association of the Advancement of Science, the UK Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and of the Australian Academy of Science.

She has been awarded the Bakerian Medal from the Royal Society in the UK, the American Foresight Institute Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the George R Stibitz Computer and Communications Pioneer Award from the American Computer Museum and was named Asia Pacific 2017 LOreal-UNESCO Women in Science Laureate. She was the 2018 Australian of the Year and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2019.

8pm tonight on ABC.
Mondays Australian Story profiles broadcaster Sami Shah and the unexpected story behind his online date.

When broadcaster and comedian Sami Shah met academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert through a dating app, he had no idea who she was and wondered why the joke hed made about her being a spy had fallen so flat. It was a week later that he saw her photo in a newspaper and realised she was the Australian academic recently released after 804 days in an Iranian prison.

When Shah and Moore-Gilbert met, they were both piecing their lives back together. He was recovering from losing his job as ABC Melbourne radio host and the collapse of his second marriage, just months after the wedding. She was still coming to terms with her prison ordeal and the discovery that her husband had left her for one of her colleagues while she was behind bars.

After just a few dates, Shah and Moore-Gilbert were thrown together by Melbournes long Covid lockdown. I had spent so much time alone in prison I didnt want to be alone again, Moore-Gilbert tells Australian Story. And in a way we healed each other.

Both had to learn to trust again and they also needed to win the trust of Shahs 14-year-old daughter Anya, who had lost faith in her fathers ability to judge women.

But love blossomed and they recently celebrated the birth of a baby girl. For twice-divorced Shah, it is the second child he always wanted. And for Moore-Gilbert it is the child she thought shed never have, following her 10-year prison sentence.

For a long time, Kylie Moore-Gilbert was this academic who goes to Iran, ends up in jail for two years, comes back and then ends up lonely, which is a tragic story, Shah tells Australian Story. Except I know the other story, which is that she and I went on a date and shes my Kylie. And thats a very different experience.

Producers: Greg Hassall and Belinda Hawkins

8pm Monday on ABC.
Former 10 news presenter Natasha Exelby has had her license suspended after crashing he vehicle into into a parked car in Toorak

Police officers attended the scene on Orrong Rd on June 26 where she returned a blood alcohol reading of .220 -four times over the legal alcohol limit.

Appearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday, her defence lawyer Raj Malhotra told the court Exelby consumed a couple more than two drinks after suffering a mental health breakdown.

He argued Exelby had remained abstinent from alcohol since the incident three months ago and that she had no prior criminal offences.

There was also discussion around a suspended license.

Judicial Registrar Sivaratnam Kandasamy, acknowledged, This incident seems to be a one-off because there is no history of alcohol use.

In a statement Exelby cited major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, adding ,At the time of the incident, I was going through a very dark period with multiple medication changes.

Never in my life did I think I would be capable of what happened but regardless of my mental health, my actions were shocking beyond words and I take full responsibility.

When she departed 10 in February she noted, I somehow survived a military coup while living in Turkey where my house was sprayed with bullets. Reporting from nations like Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. learning their stories of torture and loss, has taught me humility, and the breathtaking brilliance of humanity  even when unimaginable evil strikes.

She was fined $2000 and her license was disqualified for 22 months.

Source: news.com.au
This synopsis for Planet America was very likely penned at ABC before trouble erupted in the Middle East.

With Biden currently in Israel no doubt Chas Licciardello and John Barron have much to discuss.

Americas last election ended in a flurry of lies, violence and scandal.

Now Americas oldest-ever President Joe Biden is running for a second term and once again he could face twice-impeached Donald Trump, the only former President to be criminally indicted.

The 2024 campaign for the White House could see at least one candidate in the Big House and now Biden is facing an impeachment inquiry of his own.

Dont miss the unbelievable plot twists in this sequel to end all sequels!

9:30pm Wednesday October 25 on ABC.
By Yi Whan-woo

Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance filed the most lawsuits to deny the claims of its clients among major insurers nationwide in recent years, data showed, Wednesday.

In the data compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), a total of 54,464 lawsuits were filed by companies from the life and non-life insurance sectors combined in their bids to reject customers requests for coverage from 2021 to the first half of 2023.

Such legal disputes were more severe in the non-life insurance business, where 48,652 cases were reported compared to 5,812 reported in the life insurance industry.

Under the circumstances, Samsung Fire, the non-life insurance arm of the countrys No. 1 conglomerate Samsung, filed a total of 11,257 lawsuits against its own customers.

The figure accounted for more than one-fifth of all lawsuits brought by the non-life insurers during the cited period.

Samsung Fire was also the only general insurance company where the number of lawsuits exceeded 10,000.

Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance reported 8,364 cases, followed by DB Insurance at 7,927, KB Insurance at 7,227, Hanwha General Insurance at 3,195 and Meritz at 3,109.

IBK Insurance was the only non-life insurer that had no legal disputes at all with its clients over the cited period.

The list of the companies was released by Rep. Park Jae-ho of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on the occasion of the National Assembly audit of the FSS this week.

Large insurers live on premiums paid by clients, but paradoxically, many of them spend massive amounts of money to deny their clients claims for coverage, the lawmaker said.

He noted that the cost for the 54,464 lawsuits amounted to 44.2 billion won ($32.7 million), with 33.67 billion won spent by non-life insurers.

Of the 33.67 billion won, Samsung Fire accounted for 6.82 billion won.

The authorities should come up with relevant guidelines for the firms to refrain from recklessly seeking legal actions against clients, Rep. Park said.
Five winning teams were selected as winners of the 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge in recognition of their innovative solutions in the "Inspiration for People" and "Inspiration for the Planet" categories

Winners of the People's Choice and Media Choice Awards were also announced at the event

Singapore, Singapore--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - OPPO yesterday announced the five winning proposals of 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge following the completion of the Global Final Demo Event in Singapore. Initiated by the OPPO Research Institute and supported by Qualcomm, GSMA 5G IN, Amazon Web Services and LinkedIn, this year's Inspiration Challenge saw entrants submit proposals in the two categories of "Inspiration for People" and "Inspiration for the Planet", each aimed at identifying powerful solutions that support OPPO's belief in "Virtuous Innovation". Following three regional challenges and an acceleration camp, five winning proposals were selected from among 687 proposals submitted by teams based in 66 countries and regions worldwide. These teams will go on to engage in further collaboration with OPPO and its partners to bring their ideas to life.





The five winning teams of the 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge



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"We are extremely grateful for the collaborative support of our partners and to all the technology professionals and entrepreneurs who have taken part in this year's OPPO Inspiration Challenge, especially the top five teams who truly demonstrated the incredible potential of innovative technology," said Jason Liao, President of the OPPO Research Institute. "Following five months of extensive evaluation, we have seen many innovative and cutting-edge solutions to a number of critical but overlooked social issues raised by start-ups from around the world. Together, through the Inspiration Challenge, we look forward to working with these teams to bring the power of virtuous innovation to all corners of the world."

Story continues





President of the OPPO Research Institute, Jasion Liao, delivers the opening remark at the Global Final Demo Event

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During the Global Final Demo Event, OPPO collaborated with 6 startup teams from both this and last year to showcase their cutting-edge products and prototypes. Among them, Bluepha Co., Ltd. has teamed up with OPPO to create environmentally friendly packaging for mobile phones, as well as art installations made from biodegradable materials that showcase both the lightness and flexibility of OPPO's foldable smartphones and OPPO's commitment to the environment. Woola, another sustainability-focused startup, demonstrated its packaging for the OPPO Watch made from recycled wool. One of the winners of last year's Inspiration Challenge, TangTang Quan, returned to the stage this year to demonstrate the results of its collaboration with OPPO promoting a blood glucose monitoring function for the OPPO Watch 4 Pro that enables diabetes patients to monitor their blood glucose levels in real time using a customized smart watch interface.

The onsite demo area at the Global Final Demo Event

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This year, OPPO also teamed up with Deloitte China for the first time to launch an Acceleration Camp prior to the Global Final Demo Event. During the camp, experts from the OPPO Research Institute joined members of OPPO's software, hardware, investment, universities and research, IoT departments, and industry experts from Deloitte to engage in discussions with the top 15 teams and provide advice on technology, industry trends, and the business prospects of their proposals.





Acceleration Camp of 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge

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At the end of the event, five winning proposals were ultimately selected from among fifteen finalists by a panel of judges comprising members of the OPPO Research Institute, OPPO's investment department and experts from Temasek International, GSMA, Fidelity International and XNode. The judges assessed the proposals against the four criteria of Feasibility, Innovation and Originality, Long-term Potential, and Social Values, with winning teams each receiving a grant of USD $50,000 plus opportunities to further develop their ideas in collaboration with OPPO and its partners. Further to this, "3D interactive platform" and "Flint Paper Battery" were awarded the People's Choice awards in the "Inspiration for People" and "Inspiration for the Planet" categories, and "Impulse (Non Surgical Hearing Aid)" and "Flint Paper Battery" received the Media Choice awards.





The Winners of the 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge



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OPPO will continue to bring together technology professionals, entrepreneurs, and startup teams through the Inspiration Challenge to develop and implement innovative solutions that enable more people to benefit from the power of technology.

To learn more about the OPPO Inspiration Challenge and the winning proposals from this year's competition, please visit the official website at https://www.oppo.com/en/proposal/.

Hashtag: #OPPO

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About OPPO

OPPO is a leading global smart device brand. Since the launch of its first mobile phone - "Smiley Face" - in 2008, OPPO has been in relentless pursuit of the perfect synergy of aesthetic satisfaction and innovative technology. Today, OPPO provides a wide range of smart devices spearheaded by the Find and Reno series. Beyond devices, OPPO also provides its users with ColorOS operating system and internet services such as OPPO Cloud and OPPO+. OPPO has footprints in more than 60 countries and regions, with more than 40,000 employees dedicated to creating a better life for customers around the world.

Media Contact:

press@oppo.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184537
Belfast engineering consultancy, ByrneLooby has rebranded to parent company Ayesa, global engineering, technology and consulting firm. Pictured are Nicolas Costabile, chief corporate services officer, Adam Tilling , regional director, UK & Ireland, USA & Canada, Australia, John Byrne , country manager UK & Ireland, Jose Luis Manzanares Abasolo, CEO, Michael Looby, director, Rafael Fernandez Cantillana, senior chief investment officer and Rosalio Alonso Peces, chief operating officer (COO). Credit INPHO/James Crombie

Belfast structural and civil engineering firm ByrneLooby has rebranded to its parent company, Ayesa after 25-years in business.

The move follows an 18-month integration period after Ayesa acquired ByrneLooby in February 2022.

In the UK, Ayesa is in the top 10 geotechnical consultants, and globally, Ayesa is ranked 44 out of 225 international engineering design firms, both surveyed by revenue in 2022.

While the name changes, ByrneLooby, which operates in the UK, Ireland and the Middle East, will continue to build upon its reputation for technical excellence.

Over the decades, the Northern Ireland firm has helped deliver significant infrastructure projects such as The Shard, 22 Bishopsgate, Lowestoft Port, Blanchardstown Regional Drainage Scheme, Saggart Reservoir, HS2 and landmark city developments in Dublin and London. It has also been pivotal in developing major wind farms in Ireland and the UK, and finally, Giga projects in the Middle East, including Amaala and Red Sea Global.

The UK and Ireland territories will be headed by John Byrne, co-founder of ByrneLooby, who has seen the company develop into a respected engineering and geotechnical leader over the past three decades. Having experience acquiring companies during his tenure as a business owner, he underlines the importance of rebranding under one brand name to maximise synergies and opportunities.

John Byrne, Ayesas UK and Ireland manager, explained: From the beginning, we could see that both companies are very similar in goals, culture and philosophy, with teams striving to deliver better quality and a more sustainable and resilient built environment. Since the acquisition, weve continued to grow our revenues, staff and capabilities, making significant inroads into the UK & Ireland's vibrant infrastructure sectors. Im excited about the future as we can do much more with greater agility, maintaining our core offering of highly technical and multidisciplinary services but now on a global scale.



As Ayesa, ByrneLooby is now positioned to operate at a greater scale, drawing from the global engineering and technology specialists deep pool of resources to offer additional services. Significantly, it empowers the organisation to compete for more large-scale infrastructure projects within the UK, Ireland and the Middle East without compromising the client-centric, highly personalised services for which their multidisciplinary teams have become renowned.

Now, as one united brand, it will enable the company to share expertise and teams to achieve better outcomes and services for clients.

John will be supported by a dynamic and forward-thinking team comprising some of the best engineers in the industry in the Ireland, the UK and the Middle East.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg chants slogans in loud speaker as she sits in front of the entrance of the Bank JP Morgan in Canary Wharf. Credit: Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images.

Greta Thunberg joined climate activists outside JPMorgans Canary Wharf Office this morning to protest against the bank's funding of fossil fuel projects.

Employees were greeted with chants of their profit, our loss as the demonstration, led by Fossil Free London (FFL), criticised the inequality resulting from rising fuel and household bills.

According to a report on the involvement of the banking sector in the climate crisis, compiled by groups including Oil Change and BankTrack, JPMorgan is the biggest global funder of fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.

Karolina, an organiser with FFL, said: "London is one of the world's carbon capitals and JPMorgan consistently one of the worst offenders.

A net zero target for 2050 is meaningless if today you are pouring money into new dirty fossil fuels. Their profit is our loss. Their profits are being made on the back of a climate and cost of living crisis.

Polluters like JPMorgan must pay for the damage they are funding across the world, from the catastrophic floods we saw in Pakistan last year to the droughts and famine in Kenya and Ethiopia now.

Ms Thunbergs appearance in east London comes just a day after she and 25 others were charged in connection with a protest held outside the Energy Intelligence Forum (EIF) earlier this week.

Todays action follows a series of demonstrations planned by FFL, which also included activists yesterday (October 18) protesting outside 10 Lloyds of London offices to demand it rules out insuring two major fossil fuel schemes.
Manchester United have confirmed Casemiro is unavailable for Saturday's game against Sheffield United.

Manchester United have confirmed that Casemiro is unavailable for Saturday's Premier League encounter against Sheffield United.

It was confirmed by the club last week that the ex-Real Madrid star had picked up a knock while on international duty, but he played the full 90 minutes as Brazil lost to Uruguay in midweek.

It was presumed, therefore, that Casemiro would be available for the trip to Bramall Lane, but United announced on Thursday afternoon that he won't be an option for Erik ten Hag.

"Casemiro was absent [from training on Thursday] having remained in Brazil, on the clubs advice, to recover as swiftly as possible from a small issue picked up while playing for his country," the Red Devils said via their official website.

United added that Casemiro is set to return to England 'early next week' and will resume training ahead of the Champions League encounter against Copenhagen, although the 31-year-old is suspended for the game following his red card last time out against Galatasaray.

After playing a starring role last term at Old Trafford, Casemiro has struggled to perform at the same level this season, and he was replaced at half-time in United's final game before the international break: a 2-1 win over Brentford.

Elsewhere, with the club have confirmed that Sergio Reguilon and Sofyan Amrabat have trained this week. The latter didn't feature in either of Morocco's matches over the international break, leading to suggestions he is injured, while Reguilon hasn't played since the 1-0 win over Burnley on 23 September, due to injury.

His return will be a significant boost for Ten Hag given fellow left-backs Luke Shaw and Tyrell Malacia are injured at present. Assuming both are fit to start, Reguilon and Amrabat are likely to be named in United's XI on Saturday, with the Red Devils aiming to build on that injury-time comeback against Brentford.

Ten Hag is expected to give a full fitness update in Friday's press conference, with the availability of Jonny Evans, Kobbie Mainoo and Amad unclear, while Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Lisandro Martinez and Jadon Sancho are absent, along with Shaw and Malacia.
Manchester United's predicted line-up to face Brentford includes three changes from the last XI that faced Brentford.

Manchester United are back in Premier League action this weekend when they travel to Sheffield United for an 8pm kick-off.

After such a disappointing start to the new campaign, Erik ten Hag will be hoping his side can build on the impressive injury-time comeback against Brentford two weeks ago. The United boss had plenty of injury issues to contend with for that encounter, and the Dutchman is in desperate need of more defensive options for this weekends match.

Raphael Varane and Sergio Reguilon both missed the Brentford game but are expected to be options this weekend after returning to training over the international break. Jonny Evans and Sofyan Amrabat have also suffered from knocks recently, but United confirmed they were involved in training on Thursday.

It has been suggested that Ten Hag should consider dropping the error-prone keeper, but the Cameroon international will most likely keep his place.

However, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Lisandro Martinez, Luke Shaw and Tyrell Malacia remain unavailable, with Casemiro a fresh absentee. The ex-Real Madrid picked up a knock while away with Brazil and has remained in his homeland for a few extra days.

It means Amrabat, McTominay, Christian Eriksen, Mason Mount, Hannibal and Bruno Fernandes are Ten Hag's midfield options this weekend, while the ex-Ajax boss may give an update on the injured Kobbie Mainoo in Fridays press conference.

McTominay is a particularly interesting dilemma for Ten Hag, who rarely starts the Scotland international, but following his Brentford heroics it would be difficult to leave the 26-year-old out on Saturday.

The only other confirmed absentee for United is Jadon Sancho, who remains exiled by Ten Hag following the wingers social media outburst in early September. Marcus Rashford, who has been out of form for United, scored for England on Tuesday night and might just keep his starting place at club level, despite recent impressive cameos from Alejandro Garnacho.

The Portugal international is likely to start given he is the only fit right-back at the club.

Antony may be recalled out wide, although Fernandes could operate in that role, while Rasmus Hojlund and Anthony Martial are the main options to play at centre forward.

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United have a huge Champions League encounter against Copenhagen on Tuesday which could influence Ten Hags decision-making this weekend, although he is still expected to name his strongest XI at Bramall Lane. Heres how we think United will set up for the match...

Expected to be available following a minor knock that ruled him out against Brentford.

Likely to start above Harry Maguire, after what has been an understandably difficult week for the Sweden captain.

Trained on Thursday and will almost certainly start at Bramall Lane, assuming hes match fit.

Casemiros absence could place more a defensive burden on the on-loan Fiorentina man.

With Casemiro out, Ten Hag will likely choose between Mount and McTominay. Hes preferred the ex-Chelsea man this season, so Mount will probably start, despite McTominays incredible cameo against Brentford.

A player who is always selected by Ten Hag, and was described as a dream by international manager Roberto Martinez this week.

Was selected by Brazil over the break so should be a tad fresher than some of his team-mates.

Netted for Denmark during the week and has been Uniteds best performer over the last few matches.
Facebook's only requirement for working as a content moderator in the Spanish city of Barcelona was to know the local language.

It' seemed like an attractive position, with a salary that could reach 2,400 per month for viewing between 300 and 500 videos per day.

However, what seemed like a good opportunity turned out to be a bad decision for many of the workers who got the Barcelona jobs.

More than 20% of the staff of CCC Barcelona Digital Services - owned by Telsus, the company that Meta hired to check the content of Facebook and Instagram, are on sick leave due to psychological trauma.

The images posted on the social networks they were supposed to check showed the worst of humanity: videos of murders, dismemberments, rapes and live suicides.

"In one of the videos, a father shows his baby, who would have been one year old. He sticks a knife in its chest, rips out its heart and eats it," Francesc Feliu, lawyer for more than a dozen workers who decided to sue the company, told Euronews.

"Apart from the absolutely inhumane content, there is a lot of noise, screaming and blood," Feliu added.

The employees have criticised the working conditions imposed by the company on the content moderators, which leave them extremely exposed to serious mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression.

"We are talking about people who were healthy and suddenly these mental disorders appear. Some of these workers have attempted suicide," says the lawyer.

"They are allegedly producing dozens and dozens of relatively young people who are mentally ill. It is extremely serious," he adds.

The facebook search tool. - Unsplash

The first European complaint

Chris Gray started working for CPL, the contractor Facebook worked with in Ireland, in 2017. His contract as a content moderator lasted a year.

The Irishman, now 50, was the first to take the social network to court.

When he started working, video only made up 20% of the content he had to review, working mostly with text, photos and some live video.

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The images that stick in his mind are of migrants being tortured with a burning metal rod or dogs being boiled alive.

"I didn't realise how much it affected me. It was only later that I realised I was a mess, I was very stressed. I couldn't sleep and I became very aggressive. If anyone ever talked about my work, I would cry afterwards," Gray told Euronews.

When he realised he couldn't cope any longer, he tried to talk to the company psychologist. "I filled in questionnaires saying I felt overwhelmed at work. But it took ages to get an appointment with someone".

Like Gray, 35 other content moderators have complained to the Irish High Court, where Meta has its European headquarters.

"We have clients from Ireland, Poland, Germany and Spain. Some of them realised the job was hurting them after a few weeks, others claim they didn't realise the impact until their family and friends told them their personalities had changed," says Diane Treanor, a lawyer with Coleman Legal who is representing Gray.

Not being able to access psychological support is something that the Spanish workers also complained about.

"When watching a video, many of these people collapsed, they couldn't go on. The psychologist would listen to them and then tell them that what they were doing was extremely important for society, that they had to imagine that what they were seeing was not real but a film, and that they should go back to work," says the Spanish lawyer.

In addition, the workers were not tested beforehand to see if the people they were hiring had any prior mental health issues, something that might make them unfit for the job.

However, when contacted by Euronews, Facebook claims that it is working with Telsus to urgently address the issue.

"We take the support of content reviewers seriously and require all companies we work with to provide 24/7 on-site support from trained practitioners."

The Facebook app. - Unsplash

It scars you for life

Workers say that even five years on, many are still undergoing psychological treatment. Some are even afraid to go out on the street.

"This kind of content scars you for life. We are not machines or computers without feelings," says Feliu.

Both lawyers agree that Meta's policy of forcing employees to watch the entire video in order to explain all the reasons for censorship aggravates the trauma.

They say that if the employee can already see after 10 seconds the reason the video should be censored, then there is no need to watch the whole video. They also complain that the moderator often has to watch the same video again and again because more than one user has reported it.

On this issue, Facebook claims that there are "technical solutions to limit exposure to graphic material as much as possible".

"People who review content on Facebook and Instagram can adjust the content review tool so that graphic content appears completely blurred, in black and white, or without sound."

Three years ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described criticism of the company's working conditions as "a little overdramatic". The comments, made at a staff meeting, were leaked to the press.

"It's not that most people just see horrible things all day long. But there are really bad things that people have to deal with, and making sure that they have the right counselling and the space and the ability to take breaks and get the mental health support that they need is a really important thing," Zuckerberg told employees.

But that is not the experience of former workers.

"The company's policy is to deny it," says the Spanish lawyer.

"If they wanted to solve these problems, there would be a different dynamic, but at the moment the only solution is the criminal route."
A weather warning for heavy rain has been issued for Portsmouth and much of the south of England. Picture: Habibur Rahman.

The Met Office has forecast rain and thundery weather in the Portsmouth area at 2pm and 3pm as the effects of Storm Babet continue following yesterdays rain.

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A yellow weather warning is in place for Friday with strong winds predicted throughout the rest of the week. The forecaster warns that homes and businesses could be flooded, and journeys by car and public transport could be affected.

The Met Office has also issued a rare red danger to life warning for parts of Scotland, which is set to be worst hit by the weather system.

Deputy chief meteorologist Steven Keates said: Storm Babet will bring impactful rain to many parts of the UK, but especially parts of eastern Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England later this week. Heavy and persistent rain will fall onto already saturated ground bringing a risk of flooding. It is important to stay up to date with warnings from your local flood warning agency as well as the local authorities.

As well as heavy rain, Storm Babet will bring some very strong winds and large waves near some eastern coasts too. Gusts in excess of 60mph are possible in eastern and northern Scotland from Thursday. It is likely Met Office warnings will be updated through the week.

Meanwhile, RNLI water safety partner Sam Hughes said: The RNLI advises staying a safe distance away from the water and cliff edges as the conditions could knock you off your feet or wash you into the sea. It is not worth risking your life.

If you see someone else in danger in the water, call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coastguard if by the coast, or the fire service if inland. 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.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency have also issued warnings around the coast following yellow and amber weather warnings for parts of the UK.

John Kushnick, legal operations director at National Accident Helpline, said: A yellow warning for Storm Babet has been issued for many parts of the country. With disruptive weather like this, its vital that people take extra care and precautions. Before a storm, people should secure loose objects such as ladders and garden furniture and keep parked cars clear of buildings and nearby trees.

During a storm, people should try to stay indoors as much as possible but if they do have to leave, take extra precautions such as not walking too close to buildings or trees. For those who are required to work outdoors, employers have a responsibility to ensure they provide a safe environment where staff are not placed at risk of being injured.

It is critical employers take all reasonable steps to reduce the foreseeable risks to employees which arise from working in cold conditions. It is important that employers are aware of the actions which can be taken to limit the health impact of working in stormy weather conditions.
The UK is bracing for impact from Storm Babet, with a rare red weather warning in place as Ireland endures flooding in the wake of the storm.

Storm Babet will bring 70mph gusts and over one months worth of rain in the worst-affected regions of the UK on Thursday.

A red Met Office warning says from 6pm there is danger to life from fast-flowing or deep floodwater in Aberdeenshire and Angus in eastern Scotland, with extensive road closures expected.

There may be power outages and some areas could be cut off for days, with people urged to check for flood updates, avoid travel and expect school closures.

Angus Council said schools will close at lunchtime on Thursday and remain shut on Friday to ensure the safety of children, young people, parents, and school staff.

Mass train cancellations have been imposed by ScotRail, expected to last from Thursday until Saturday.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has three flood warnings in place as of 6am, along with 14 flood alerts.

It is the first red warning for rain issued in the UK since Storm Dennis in February 2020.

An amber wind warning has also been issued for parts of eastern Scotland.

Met Office forecaster Greg Dewhurst said: Were going to see prolonged heavy rain, where we could see 200 to 250 millimetres of rain falling within a day which is well over a months worth of rainfall for eastern parts of Scotland.

Were likely to see flooding, power disruption, travel disruption, there is a risk to life as well.

(PA Graphics)

Theres also an amber wind warning out for eastern parts of Scotland, where we could see gusts of 60 to 70 miles an hour, just adding to the extremely dangerous weather coming for parts of Scotland.

Storm Babet hit Ireland on Wednesday after sweeping in from the Atlantic, bringing with it heavy rainfall and causing extensive flooding in parts of the country.

Members of the Irish Defence Forces were deployed in the town of Midleton, Co Cork in the south of Ireland, where more than 100 properties were flooded.

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Cork County Council said more than a months worth of rain had fallen in the space of 24 hours, leading to unprecedented flooding, saturated land and high river levels across the county.

Large swathes of already-saturated Scotland, Northern Ireland, and northern and eastern England will also see strong winds and heavy rain on Thursday, with yellow severe weather warnings issued through to Saturday.

Storm Babet, a complex area of low pressure which developed to the west of the Iberian peninsula, was named by the Met Office on Monday morning.
Dungannon Courthouse. Credit: National World

Twenty-nine-year-old Slavi Apostolov, from Charlemont Street in Dungannon, was said by his solicitor to have been asked by a woman in Bulgaria he was talking to on the phone to carry out the act.

Apostolov, who claimed he was taking cocaine at the time, appeared at Dungannon Magistrates Court on Wednesday charged with indecent behaviour at Brick Row, Moy, on June 14 last.

District Judge Michael Ranaghan told him that according to the victim impact statement, the injured party had been "significantly impacted" by the incident.

Mr Ranaghan said the custody threshold had been passed, however the defendant appeared in court with a clear record and made a full admission and entered an early plea.

Read more: PSNI hunt for men who called at house in Co Tyrone claiming to be police officers

The judge told Apostolov that he would sentence him to unpaid work in the community but warned him that if he failed to complete the order, he would be brought back to court and sentenced to four months in custody.

Prosecuting counsel said at approximately 10.15pm on June 14, the woman saw the defendant standing just off a path masturbating in full view of her.

The lawyer said the view screamed and ran off and went to The Square, Moy, where she asked staff members in a shop to get a photograph of him.

She said police observed the defendant in the Charlemont Street area at 7.15pm on June 15 and arrested him. He told them: This is true. I was under the influence of drugs and drink, and made a full admission.

HIs solicitor said the defendant had been working in a food factory until last week, but now had no employment.

He explained he was a Bulgarian national who lived with his parents.

"He says he had cocaine and went outside to this area and was talking to a woman on the phone in Bulgaria who asked him to do this act, he said.

The solicitor stressed that the act was not directed at the injured party.

He added that the defendant admitted his guilt at the earliest opportunity and had now ceased taking drugs.
McKinsey Asia Media Day in Seoul delves into challenges facing Asia

By Anna J. Park

Korea is forecast to grow into the world's seventh-largest economy by 2040, with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) expected to surpass $70,000, according to the head of McKinsey & Company in Korea on Thursday.

During the Asia Media Day hosted by McKinsey & Company, a full-day program packed with a total of seven sessions at The Shilla Seoul, Song Seung-heon, managing partner at McKinsey Korea, highlighted key takeaways from the firm's latest report on Korea's next economic growth model.

Under the presentation title of "Korea's Next S-Curve," Song emphasized that Korea has now entered a new period of economic growth in which Korea needs to focus on high-tech industries, such as semiconductors, bio and artificial intelligence (AI), to implement a necessary transition to a value-added economy.

McKinsey suggested that Korea implement eight major tasks, including industrial structure reform, business model reform, conversion to new businesses centered on original technology and AI, among others, under the three axes of reorganization, transformation and construction.

If Korea boldly implements the key tasks with a growth mindset, it will be possible for Korea to become the worlds seventh-largest economy by 2040 with achieving a per capita GDP of $70,000, Song said during the session.

Besides Song's presentation, six other sessions were held during the Asia Media Day event in Seoul, with dozens of consultants from Shanghai, Singapore, London, Sydney and more joining the program to share the global management strategy firms insights into the outlook for Asia in the coming future.

The sessions covered various topics, ranging from generative AI, energy and green technology to inclusive prosperity, yet the common denominator of the sessions was the new challenges facing Asian countries.

Despite Asia's successes in leading the global economic growth over the past decades, serving successfully the role as the nexus of the world with its ample population and technological innovations, the region now faces a challenging period ahead, requiring a new set of strategies for businesses.

In the past era, Asia, including South Korea, benefited more than any other region from the major trends of globalization and digitization. And it starts a new era in a strong position. Looked at collectively, the diverse and dynamic countries of Asia are now such a large part of the global economy, they can shape a new era, Seong Jeong-min, a partner at McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), said during the session titled Asia on the cusp of a new era at the event.

A new era is going to have very different underlying forces than in the past, and Asia will be at the center of these forces, Chris Bradley, a McKinsey senior partner and MGI director, said during the session as well. Asia will be the furnace in which a new era is forged, and it may be that Asia experiences a more concentrated, heightened version of global challenges.

The two speakers delved into how to navigate the challenging period facing Asian countries in five key domains  world order, technology platforms, demographic forces, resource and energy systems and capitalization. Many thought-provoking questions were raised, including whether Asia could reinvent itself as a technology creator from the current global hub for tech-manufacturing. Demographic challenges of aging population and low fertility rate are another major headwind facing Asian economies.

While the pace of aging is very fast in the region, Korea shows the highest number in the old age dependency ratio. In addition, Koreas fertility rate dropped to 0.78 in 2022, the lowest figure among OECD countries. Shanghais urban fertility rate also stood at only 0.7, even lower than that of Korea, Seong pointed out during the session, adding that the demographic challenge brings in difficult policy options like cross-border migration or relocation of workforces to address labor mismatches.
Is there anything more life-affirming than the sight of the sun slowly transforming a late afternoon blue sky into a magnificent blend of vibrant hues? When the sun sets over the sea it is even more magical to behold. We can't help but gaze at the shimmering waters under a crimson sky, reflecting on the past, dreaming of the future, and savouring this present moment.

That's why, at the end of each day, all around the world, we instinctively travel to the coastline in search of a perfect sunset with the ones we love the most.

But where is the most perfect sunset? Of course, this beautiful place we call Planet Earth boasts many incredible beaches for sunset viewing. Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is one of the most famous. Every day locals and visitors flock to this spot, whether it's for a leisurely bike ride along the coast, or to take a cable car up to Pao de Acucar, the 395-metre-high coastal mountain, from where you can feast your eyes on a magical sunset. Another beloved sunset spot for global travellers is Santorini, Greece, where tourists and locals love to enjoy dinner and drinks at cliffside restaurants which boast sweeping views of the Mediterranean.

But in recent times, travel magazines as well as popular forums have been buzzing about the beauty of Phu Quoc Island, a tropical beach destination, located off the southern coast of Viet Nam in the Gulf of Thailand, that is fringed with white sand and azure waters. Viet Nam has a long coastline, which mostly faces the East Sea. But Phu Quoc is home to a number of beaches that look to the West from where you can watch the sunset over the sea.

As you might guess from the name, Sunset Town is perfectly situated so visitors can feast their eyes on the horizon and watch a spectacular sunset at the end of the day. The Mediterranean-inspired town features an array of charming and brightly coloured houses, which add to the charm of this coastal enclave.

Sunset Town is also home to Kiss Bridge  a spectacular pedestrian bridge that runs across the sea's surface. Unlike other bridges from around the globe, this uniquely designed structure is composed of two 400-metre walkways, which are not connected but separated by a tantalising distance of 50 centimetres. This gap marks the most mesmerising spot to watch the sunset! At twilight, the sun emerges as a crimson dot perfectly positioned in between the two walkways. The beauty of the bridge at this moment is truly awe-inspiring.

The bridge is known as an ideal place for lovers and honeymooners. In fact, in the Vietnamese language the bridge is called Cau Hon which literally means both Kiss Bridge and also proposing marriage  so it's surely the perfect place to 'pop the question' and then seal the deal with a kiss!

Even if you are not there with your sweetheart, this is truly an iconic spot for photographs that will make for a much-loved memento in years to come. Indeed, it's no surprise that Kiss Bridge has rapidly become one of the world's most iconic sunset spots on Instagram and other social media platforms.

This spectacular setting is also the backdrop for Kiss The Stars, Asias largest multimedia show operating on seawater, which combines a mesmerising light show, breathtaking special effects, lasers, music, visuals - and more! Before the sun goes down, visitors can also check out Sunshine Square, where street performers dance vibrantly as the twilight thickens.

Or, alternatively, you could enjoy the sunset as you ride in a cable car that connects Sunset Town to Hon Thom  an island of incredible beauty that is part of the Phu Quoc archipelago. Recognised by the Guinness World Record as the longest cable car across the sea in the world with a length of 7,899.9m, this is a truly incredible sunset experience - you will glide over untouched islands where hundreds of boats gracefully float atop sun-kissed waters and behold the magnificent transformation of nature in all its glory.

So, if you are searching for the perfect sunset, why not travel with your beloved to Phu Quoc Island in Viet Nam and stay in Sunset Town? Paradise awaits you!
HCM CITY  The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) is looking for potential investors to acquire Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), which is currently facing financial difficulties.

Once interested investors are identified, the SBV will seek government approval for the acquisition.

After facing a bank run in October 2022, SCB was taken over by the central bank to minimise the negative impact to SCB customers and the overall sector.

Several banks had encountered similar situations in the past, and have managed to recover and thrive.

In October last year, Truong My Lan, chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Group, and several others were arrested for alleged fraud related to the issuance and trading of bonds worth trillions of ong.

Following the arrest, depositors rushed to SCB to withdraw their money as they believed the chairwoman was a major shareholder of SCB, one of Viet Nams largest private banks, resulting in the bank being placed under the "special control" of the SBV.

According to the SBV, SCBs operations have begun to stabilise and the bank is now focusing on turnaround efforts.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in April requested a transparent and asset-loss-preventing restructuring plan from the central bank for troubled banks, including SCB.

In addition to SCB, authorities have approved domestic commercial banks to acquire four other troubled lenders, including CBBank, OceanBank, GP Bank, and DongABank.

The SBV has taken over CBBank, OceanBank, and GP Bank at no cost since 2015 while placing DongABank under close scrutiny.

The acquiring banks have been asked to submit their acquisition plans to the government.

To establish mechanisms for restructuring weak banks and prevent manipulation within the banking system, the SBV is currently working on amendments to the Law on Credit Institutions.

The amendments are expected to be approved by the National Assembly in the upcoming session later this month.  VNS
HA NOI  Vietnamese enterprises should develop solutions to comply with international labour standards to be able to participate in global support chains and promote export sustainability, experts have said.

Viet Nam participated in and negotiated 17 free trade agreements (FTAs), four of which contained labour commitments and were classified as new generation, including the FTA between Viet Nam and Eurasian Economic Union (VN-EAEU), Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), EU  Viet Nam FTA (EVFTA) and the UK  Viet Nam FTA (UKVFTA).

ang uc Anh, Deputy Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), said that FTAs allowed Vietnamese export goods to enjoy preferential tariffs when entering more than 50 markets, including most major trade partners, accounting for over 70 per cent of the countrys total export revenue.

Despite bringing opportunities for increasing trade exchanges, new-generation FTAs attach special importance to sustainable development goals, including labour standards, Anh said.

Nguyen Minh Thao, Head of CIEMs Business Environment and Competitiveness Research Department, said that although the level of labour commitments in FTAs was different, there was compliance pressure on Vietnamese enterprises.

In order to be able to participate in global supply chains, Vietnamese firms must prove compliance with sustainable development standards, including international labour standards, Thao said.

Thao said that besides the compliance pressure, the requirement for sustainable development was pushing enterprises to increase competitiveness to have the opportunity to participate in the global supply chains.

Tran Thi Hong Lien from Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that complying with international legal regulations was the responsibility and obligation of enterprises.

Lien said that labour regulations of Viet Nam were being improved to approach international commitments and FTAs requirements, adding that complying with international labour standards could also help strengthen the position of enterprises when exporting as international partners were paying increasing attention to this issue.

Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, General Secretary of Viet Nam Leather Footwear and Handbag Industry, said that complying with international standards might not be a big problem for large-scale or foreign-invested enterprises but it would be to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and newcomers who would be in need of support and consultancy.

From a macro-economic viewpoint, Nguyen inh Cung, former CIEMs Director, said that the figure that 75 per cent of export value belonged to foreign-invested enterprises indicated that the FDI sector was taking opportunities from FTAs better than domestic enterprises.

The limitations of domestic enterprises were the shortage of capacity and lack of market information, Cung said, adding that a specialised team should be established to provide support to enterprises and help them comply with international requirements.

In addition, enterprises which had undergone labour standards assessments by their partners should be exempt from similar inspections by the management agencies, Cung said.

According to Thao, it was necessary to hasten reforms and improve the business environment towards international practice, internalise international commitments ensure effective implementation.

The focus should be on reducing compliance cost and enhancing competitiveness for domestic enterprises, she said.  VNS
HA NOI  Online phishing attacks continue to increase in many sophisticated forms. Most scammers target financial institutions and banks.

Data from the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) shows that the agency received more than 4,000 reports from internet users about fraudulent activities in the first half of this year.

Of these, more than 95 per cent target the banking and finance sectors. Notably, as banks undergo deeper digital transformation, cybersecurity risks also increase.

The report from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) also noted that there were 9,519 cyber attacks in the first seven months of this year in Viet Nam, causing incidents to information systems.

Accordingly, the centre has blocked 926 fraudulent websites, including many pages impersonating banks and financial institutions.

Phan Viet Linh, Director of CDNetworks Viet Nam, said that banks currently often face attacks on Layer 3/4, Layer 7 DDoS, and web applications with a variety of attack methods.

CDNetworks statistics show that more than 87 per cent of attacks combine two or more attack methods. Additionally, the banking system also faces the risk of slow connectivity with global applications, which greatly affects the customer experience.

NCS Technologies recorded that the number of websites of State agencies with the domain name .gov.vn and some educational organisations with the domain name .edu.vn that were attacked, infiltrated, and inserted with advertising codes for gambling and betting by hackers reached nearly 400 websites in the first half of this year.

This is a particularly alarming number because not only can hackers insert advertising links, but when they control the system, they can steal databases, including users' personal data, and might even post malicious content or links that spread malicious code in the near future, said Vu Ngoc Son, NCS Technology Director.

Enhancing multi-layer security

Tran ang Khoa, Deputy Director of the Authority of Information Security (AIS) under the MIC, said that agencies, businesses, and users are increasingly applying information technology and services on the internet.

In particular, the banking and finance industry plays a "lifeblood" role in the economy, greatly impacting macroeconomic stability, said Phan Viet Linh, director of CDNetworks Viet Nam.

With a vast amount of member and customer data, the security of customer information, in particular, and banking data, in general, is a mandatory requirement for all units.

Therefore, organisations and businesses in this field need to be equipped with modern technologies and constantly enhance multi-layer security capabilities, said Linh.

Furthermore, banks must also regularly issue warnings about new fraud techniques to protect customers' accounts, he noted.

Not only banks, many believe that businesses, especially SMEs, should also adopt a comprehensive defence concept to equip, inform, and guide security teams in the fight against targeted and sophisticated cyber attacks.

According to MIC forecasts, forms of online fraud, network attacks, and targeted APT attacks will continue to occur in the coming months.

However, with the participation of the authorities in eliminating junk bank accounts, especially with the decree on personal data protection taking effect, Khoa expects that this will provide an opportunity for the fraud situation to soon be resolved. VNS
HA NOI  Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai has urged drastic measures to lift Viet Nam out of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)s list of Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring (grey list) within two years.

Chairing a meeting of the steering committee for money laundering prevention and combat on Thursday, he said the FATF added Viet Nam to the list in June 2023. In response, the Government sent a commitment to the FATF President about the implementation of an FATF-recommended action plan over two years.

The inclusion in this list will have adverse impacts on Viet Nam, especially in terms of economy, trade, investment, and international cooperation, he noted. The Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) recently worked with the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and relevant agencies to seek ways to help remove the country from the grey list, he said.

Khai stated that Viet Nam has integrated into the world and must comply with common international standards. Numerous solutions are required to have the country removed from the list, and the most complex issue is institutional reform.

The requirements set by the FATF are highly urgent, and Viet Nam has very little time to carry them out. If the country does not take proactive and effective actions, the situation will become very complicated, the Deputy PM pointed out.

He asked the SBV, the standing body of the steering committee, and related ministries and sectors to carry out the tasks as soon as possible.

Highlighting the significant impacts of the FATFs official inclusion of Viet Nam in the grey list, SBV Deputy Governor Pham Tien Dung called on ministries and agencies to coordinate with the central bank to perform tasks.

Viet Nam might be named in the EUs list of high-risk country jurisdictions in terms of money laundering and in the FATFs black list if it fails to prove that it is cooperating in implementing the FATFs recommendations. If that happens, particularly severe consequences will arise, forcing companies to pay more for business expenses or even suspend operations, he warned.

This would also undermine Viet Nams political stature and reputation in the international arena and negatively affect the countrys external relations and finance-banking systems, Dung added.

He continued by saying that in October 2023, the FATF also added Viet Nam to the list of countries with significant activities of virtual asset service providers. Therefore, it may request the country to implement priority measures to establish a legal framework for combating money laundering in terms of virtual assets.

Echoing the SBVs view, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Hang opined that there remains a significant workload ahead. The implementation of recommendations is a highly technical and legal issue requiring substantive measures.

The EU also named Viet Nam in its grey list on 18 August. Apart from the FATFs grey list, inclusion in the EU list will also have major impacts as Viet Nams trade, financial, and banking relations with EU countries are substantial, she said.

Hang suggested Viet Nam consider the implementation of commitments as beneficial for not only minimising risks but also aiding in perfecting regulations and policies, combating corruption and crimes, improving the investment and business climate, and enhancing the countrys prestige.

At the meeting, officials examined the draft national action plan for addressing the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing for the 2023-28 period. They also discussed measures for ministries and sectors to implement the Prime Ministers decision on issuing a national action plan on combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.  VNS
HCM CITY  Standard Chartered Bank Vietnam, in collaboration with Viet Nam Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (VSDC), on Tuesday co-organised the annual Viet Nam National Market Practice Group 2023  the 10th Working Group Meeting in HCM City.

The event brought together representatives from the Ministry of Finance, VSDC, executives and industry experts from custodian banks, securities companies, insurance, fund management companies and financial technology firms. The event highlights Viet Nams carbon emission trading market plan, ESG investment strategy, and emerging innovative technology shaping the future operating model in securities services.

Opening the meeting, Dr Nguyen Son, Member in charge of Board member, VSDC said: The annual Viet Nam National Market Practice Group Meeting 2023 is an important and meaningful event for the securities services industry. The increasingly diverse market members in terms of industry segments have contributed to affirming the importance of the National Market Practice Group to the Vietnamese market.

Michele Wee, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Vietnam, said: Viet Nam is a high growth market for both high tech and sustainability - a key growth market in the world and certainly for Standard Chartered. We have been operating in Viet Nam for 119 years. Our commitment to Viet Nam is unwavering not only to continue to expand and grow our business but also to the growth agenda of this great country. Viet Nam has ambitions for High Growth, High Income, High Tech, Net Zero, Regional Hub and Global Supply Chain. We have contributed and will continue to contribute thought leadership, product and services in service of the nation to achieve its ambitions.

Digitalisation is one of Standard Chartered key priorities. Francois Verlaine, Regional Head, Financing and Securities Services, ASEAN, and South Asia, Standard Chartered shared the view about Future Operating Models. He brought in the key trends impacting securities services industry, the challenges faced by Asset Managers and Asset Owners, and the various operating models being adopted, ranging from in-house application all the way to tokenisation of assets.

Lucy Palairet, Director, Carbon Market Development, Standard Chartered, presented the carbon markets development. In her view, beyond climate, voluntary carbon markets can also deliver critical socio-economic development while supporting the transition to a low carbon economy, but these additional co-benefits are often overlooked. Developing countries have much to gain from the development of carbon markets, which can be a source of much needed investment into mitigation and adaptation activities. Standard Chartered is leading the markets development by championing key infrastructure as well as advocating for consistent governance standards that allow for integrity and scale. We welcome the latest developments within Viet Nam.

At the panel discussion on ESG investment strategy, panellists also had an interesting and interactive discussion around the experiences on ESG journeys, increasing the awareness of ESG investment at all levels, the challenges around integrating the ESG perspectives into the business and investment strategy, and related risks, from the perspective of the Buy Side.

Standard Chartered Bank Vietnam signed an MoU with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) on tackling climate change and carbon market development in September 2022. The bank is partnering with MoNRE to work with GFANZ for Viet Nam JETP implementation. Moreover, the bank has been strengthening its leading position in the securities services space, servicing the first domestic ESG dedicated fund, contributing thought leadership, and investing in maximising the benefit of an end-to-end digital solution for our clients.  VNS
HA NOI  With a brand value of US$46.5 million, Vicostone JSC ranked 11th in Forbes Vietnam's Top 25 leading consumer goods and industrial companies.

Vicostone, a subsidiary of the Phenikaa Group, is one of five enterprises from the construction materials sector that have made the list.

According to Forbes Vietnam, Vicostone is one of the third-largest suppliers of engineered stone countertops to the global market, with the capacity to produce over three million square metre slabs each year.

The company's products are widely used in interior design for luxurious spaces. Vicostone's brand position arises from its comprehensive control over the raw material supply chain, encompassing quartz stone, polyester resin, cristobalite from domestic sources and internal subsidiaries, it said.

2023 is the eighth consecutive year that Forbes Vietnam has calculated and announced the ranking and the third year they've assessed company brands categorised by a particular industry.

This year's list focused on companies within the consumer goods and industrial sectors, following previous financial (2021) and F&B (2022) assessments. The list aims to honour industry giants renowned for their robust brands with extensive market coverage products.

With assistance from SSI Securities Company, Forbes Vietnam compiled this list following the evaluation approach used by Forbes US, analysing the role of a brand in business performance. This approach excludes profits generated from tangible assets to ascertain a company's earnings derived from intangible assets.

Afterward, Forbes Vietnam compares the brand's impact within each industry with the average price-to- earning ratio of that industry at the time of assessment to determine the brand value of each company.

With over two decades experience in the construction material manufacturing industry, Vicostone has demonstrated a solid commitment to quality and brand reputation with all stakeholders.

Operating in more than 50 countries across five continents, Vicostone has actively embraced technological innovation, invested in enhancing production through a comprehensive digital transformation platform, intensified research efforts, and applied advanced technologies that follow green - clean and smart principles.

"This strategy is essential to Vicostone's mission of consistently improving value, delivering top-notch products in terms of quality and aesthetics, and retaining its prominent position as the preferred choice for professionals and consumers locally and globally," the company said in a statement.

In addition to being honoured among the Top 25 leading consumer goods and industrial companies, Vicostone has received recognition from reputable organisations such as Viet Nams 50 best performing companies, Top 100 most valuable brands in Viet Nam, and the Top 500 best profitable companies in Viet Nam in 2023.

During the 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Shareholders, two scenarios were approved for the 2023 business plan.

Under the first, net revenue is expected to reach more than VN5.89 trillion while pre-tax profit will likely hit over VN1.32 trillion.

Following the second scenario, in case the economic, political and social contexts develop in an unfavourable direction beyond the companys expectation, net revenue is predicted at above VN4.71 trillion and total profit before tax at over VN1 trillion.

They also approved the cancellation of its stock purchase plan to ensure capital for production and business activities in response to complicated market movements,.

Vicostone said it continues to push R&D activities to sharpen its unique edge in the field of green and sustainable materials, securing its competitive position in the key markets and the development of potential markets.

The company also seeks to stabilise jobs and incomes for employees, improve corporate governance capacity based on international management practices and focus on training high-quality human resources to ensure sustainable development.

The firm earned revenue of more than VN1 trillion (US$42.6 million) in the first quarter of this year. It also posted an after-tax profit of VN190 billion in Q1.  VNS
"We are focused on building and developing our product portfolio, distribution channels, and operating model. These are the steps we will take to create differentiation in the Vietnamese market," shared Mr. Bae Seung Jun, General Director of Shinhan Life Vietnam, in an interview with Viet Nam News.

Given the challenging economic environment and the insurance market's specific challenges, many insurance companies had to adjust their strategies. How about Shinhan Life?

Since Shinhan Life entered the Vietnamese insurance market later than other companies, we need to create something unique as a competitive advantage. The three key sections of differentiation will be our products, distribution channels, and operational model.

I understand that the current situation in Viet Nam, like many other economies, is facing difficulties, especially in the insurance sector. Therefore, at Shinhan Life, we are closely monitoring the market and consulting with our parent company in South Korea to gain the most accurate direction. South Korea's insurance market has also experienced similar fluctuations in the past. South Korean customers are meticulous, detail-oriented, and value customer rights. We can leverage the lessons learned from our parent company to enhance service quality and design products that meet the increasing standards of Vietnamese customers. Simultaneously, we have plans to focus on training, and improving the expertise and ethics of our advisory team to serve customers better.

Shinhan Life's business development strategy still involves distributing insurance through banks, financial companies, and digital platforms, is it correct, sir? Do you have plans to expand into other distribution channels in the future?

Shinhan Lifes bancassurance channel focuses on customers with good incomes who are concerned about asset management and investment products. For younger customers or those with protection needs, we will distribute insurance products with reasonable coverage and premiums through telemarketing and through partner distributors.

Furthermore, Shinhan Life Vietnam is preparing to launch the professional Financial Consultant channel (FC) next year with a focus on the quality of the personal insurance agency. We will also leverage the strengths of other member companies within the Shinhan Financial Group to collaborate and enhance differentiation from other insurance companies.

What are your thoughts on the importance of the agency channel in emerging markets like Viet Nam, where insurance companies can proactively ensure both quality and quantity?

Due to the complexity of insurance products, in-person consultant agents are essential for helping customers understand their own needs and the features of the products. Therefore, I believe that the agency channel remains important in the present and future.

Regarding the role of insurance agents (or financial advisors), if in the past, they only focused on product advice, the market trend going forward will require them to become more professional. Financial advisors should not only advise on products but also guide customers on their personal and family financial situations to provide the most suitable financial solutions. Therefore, financial advisors will need to invest in training and time for their jobs to become professional financial experts and keep up with market trends and the times.

Our professional agency channel is still in the preparation stage and will officially launch next year. We will not focus on quantity but rather on quality, recruiting highly experienced personnel for a solid foundation.

Regarding the product strategy, the market has witnessed a sharp decline in revenue from previously popular insurance products, especially unit-linked insurance products. How does this affect Shinhan Life's product development strategy?

The market is shifting towards a focus on customer rights, so in the future, companies need to develop a product portfolio that better suits customers' actual needs. Besides investment-linked insurance products, I believe that protection-focused products, such as health insurance, will also gain more attention from customers.

Currently, only about 11 per cent of Viet Nam's population is insured, so more people are expected to buy life insurance, creating opportunities for insurance companies. Joining the market later is also an advantage for Shinhan Life because we can develop step by step, adapting to market dynamics and the market's development patterns.

I would also like to share that Shinhan Life aims to become a leading insurance company in protection-focused insurance products. We believe this is a niche market that other companies have not focused on much, while we anticipate a strong increase in demand for insurance, particularly health insurance, in the near future. Additionally, Shinhan Life will continue to develop other products, such as investment-linked products, to diversify our product portfolio.

The recently amended insurance business law has introduced several new, tighter regulations for controlling insurance product distribution through bank channels. How do these adjustments affect the market, and what are your forecasts for the market in the near future?

It is true that many legal regulations regarding the insurance business are becoming stricter, especially in the distribution of insurance products through bancassurance channels. However, I see these changes as positive because they not only focus on improving the quality of insurance companies' operations but also require insurance companies to prioritize customer rights.

As insurance companies are intensifying efforts to enhance the quality of their sales team, sales processes, and customer services, I believe that the insurance industry, in general, will regain customer trust. This, in turn, will help the life insurance market recover and grow in the near future.  VNS
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov thanked North Korea for supporting its war in Ukraine and pledged Moscow's "complete support and solidarity" for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Russia's foreign ministry said.

Lavrov arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday for meetings seen as setting the stage for a visit by President Vladimir Putin, who has stepped up cooperation with politically isolated North Korea.

Speaking at a reception hosted by the North on Wednesday, Lavrov said Moscow "deeply" values Pyongyang's "unwavering and principled support" for the war, which it calls a "special military operation."

"Likewise, the Russian Federation extends its complete support and solidarity with the aspirations of the DPRK ... in ... their chosen paths of development," Lavrov said according to the transcript of the speech released on the Russian foreign ministry website. DPRK are the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Lavrov's two-day visit comes a month after North Korean leader Kim made a rare trip to Russia, during which he invited Putin to Pyongyang and discussed military cooperation.

This week's visit will offer a "valuable opportunity" to review and outline practical steps for the implementation of the agreements reached between the two leaders, Lavrov said.

Russia's TASS news agency earlier said Lavrov may also brief North Koreans on the results of Putin's visit to China.

The White House last week said North Korea recently provided Russia with a shipment of weapons in what it called a troubling development.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that the Western allegations were not based on evidence. (Reuters)
HA NOI  The Field of Heritage is one of the most outstanding musical concerts of the Monsoon International Music Festival 2023, combining visual art with music to depict the present-day ethnic communities in the north west of Viet Nam through a contemporary lens.

The Field of Heritage is organised by Thanh Viet Production, founded by renowned Vietnamese composer and music producer Quoc Trung, and The Cryptic, a Scottish art house that has won numerous international awards.

The project is supported by the British Council as part of the UK/Viet Nam Session 2023, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Trung and The Cryptic's founder, Cathie Boyd, worked as the project's creative directors and co-producers.

The concert was performed to the public on Monday, featuring musicians and visual artists from the UK and Viet Nam.

We want to tell the story of Vietnamese ethnic people in remote areas moving to cities, leaving behind their villages and roots, Trung said.

The project immerses the audience in a journey from mountain to city, portraying ethnic individuals nostalgic for their homeland, highlighting their distance to origins and ecological imbalances in the Northwest mountainous area.

Xinh Xo, a Vietnamese-American electroacoustic composer and improviser, joined the project to tell the two-chapter story through electroacoustic music.

Trung depicted the tranquil villages through music in the first part, while Xo captured the hustle and bustle of urban life in the second.

Two artists from The Cryptic, digital artist/VJ Veronica Petukhov and installation designer Heather Lander, recreated the stunning mountainous landscape and the lovely ethnic people that they took photographs during their field trip.

Veronica and Heather also featured the busyness of Vietnamese city life, drawing a contrast between the two chapters of the concert.

Lighting and visual technology were also used to its fullest potential in order to combine music, sound, and visual effects.

The Field of Heritage fused Western electronic music with traditional folk elements such as folk songs, local literature and languages, to recreate the essence of Vietnamese folk melodies.

Three years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 breakout, Xo and I came up with the idea to exploit traditional musical materials in the Northwest region of Vietnam in a contemporary approach, Trung said.

However, it was not until a field trip to meet artists from The Cryptic to that this idea began to take shape.

The Field of Heritage creates the best conditions for artistic collaboration between Viet Nam and the UK and provides avenues for public introduction and promotion of the two countries' shared cultural heritage.

Artists in Viet Nam and the UK have the chance to learn more about the aesthetic and cultural traditions of other nations.

After the Monsoon Music Festival 2023 in Viet Nam, the concert will be performed in Glasgow, Scotland.  VNS
by Le Huong

Professional painters and art lovers in Viet Nam have long been familiar with Saeko Ando, who spent 27 years in the country, where she absorbed the culture and essence of traditional lacquer painting.

When I first came to Viet Nam, I was just a tourist, she told Viet Nam News. But when I came back and started to explore, taking photographs and sketching, I realised that there were so many lacquer paintings in town. I had thought this was something original from my own country in Japan, but Vietnam had this interesting art form, lacquer like a painting. We don't make lacquer like a painting in Japan, but mostly 3D artworks use lacquer.

She knew more than the average Japanese would know about lacquer in Japan.

But it was only in Viet Nam that she started to learn this skill and create something herself.

Saeko learnt the art from painter Trinh Tuan, and lacquer masters Doan Chi Trung and Lam Huu Chinh.

I think it's quite interesting for people who see my artwork because the material that I use is nothing different from Vietnamese artists, so the only difference is my mindset or my aesthetic, my soul or maybe my Japanese background, she said.

She has created many beautiful lacquer works.

Her latest exhibition, Moon, was a highlight of the cultural activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between Japan and Viet Nam.

The collection includes 10 lacquer paintings, reflecting the special bond with the moon she developed when she created the key visual for the Opera 'Princess Anio.

The opera showcases the love story between a Vietnamese princess and a Japanese merchant in the 17th century.

The moon is used to express the nostalgia of the princess.

The opera and exhibition also mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Viet Nam and Japan.

Its a story about a Vietnamese Princess marrying a Japanese merchant in the 17th century, she said. She married him and then moved to Japan, and because the Shogunate policy changed, she was never able to come back. So it's a love story between the two, and also the love for family and love for homeland.

Saeko said when she thought of the princesss life, all the different feelings she had and what she experienced, she thought the Moon was something of the essence that she couldn't miss.

That made me think that the princess must have looked at the moon and thought of the one that she loved, so my attachment to the moon started there, she said.

Saeko painted different colours, different feelings from doing the concept Moon, and she picked Waka and Tonka, traditional Japanese poems which share the same emotion with each painting that she created.

Doi Katsuma, Director of The Japan Foundation Centre which hosted her exhibition, said when it comes to art, Saeko Ando had a background in learning Vietnamese lacquer art.

She further enriched her artworks by creating her own techniques which take inspiration from Japanese lacquer art, he said. What sets her artworks apart are not only her distinctive aesthetic sensibilities but also her appreciation for Japanese philosophy. Therefore, the artworks showcased here are not merely Vietnamese lacquer creations; they represent a captivating connection between Vietnamese and Japanese cultures.

Her creations wowed international audiences.

Nguyen Thi Hoa, an art lover in Ha Noi, said she found these paintings very beautiful and guessed that it took a lot of time and hard work to create these paintings.

I feel much admiration. It's also inspiring to learn that the Japanese artist chose to work in Viet Nam, she said.

Kohki Ohno, a tourist from Japan, said Japanese lacquer art has existed for a long time, but young people often don't care for it much.

I think the use of natural lacquer in these artworks is not only highly effective but also incredibly beautiful, he said.

Lifelong passion

Saeko has hosted many exhibitions all over the world, including in Japan, the UK, mainland China, Taiwan and the US.

She has chosen tranquil Hoi An in the central province of Quang Nam to live and create artworks.

She said natural scenes like rice fields, rivers and the ocean have inspired her in art.

Saeko likes son ta (lacquer resin) extracted from cay son (Toxicodendron succedaneum).

Her works are often made with many layers of lacquer resin, with colours and patterns made from various materials like gold, silver, egg shell and oyster shell.

The works are then polished in water to give them a certain shine.

She admitted that Vietnamese lacquer resin has higher transparency than that of any other natural resin.

Saeko said the older the work gets, the harder and more transparent the lacquer resin layers become, bringing brighter colours out in the work.

Lacquer paintings are like high quality wine, which improves as time passes.

Saeko has also become known as a researcher in the field of natural lacquer art, who often shares her findings at lectures and conferences throughout the world.

Each day the artist continues to be inspired by Vietnamese culture and people in her home in Hoi An.

Saeko said Vietnamese people are tolerant, though they may be late sometimes and sing karaoke loudly. VNS
HA NOI - On this beautiful autumn day with the sun shining, Ha Noi bids farewell to one of its own - loyal, talented and a freedom fighter spirit: Maestro Chu Minh, 93, composer of some of the most powerful pieces of music that touched not only the heart but also the conscience of the people.

"The country bows before you, people miss you, and your name shall live forever, our beloved Uncle Ho Chi Minh," he wrote in the lyrics to one of his most famous works, Nguoi La Niem Tin Tat Thang (Thou Are the Inevitable Victory). This is a mourning song dedicated to President Ho Chi Minh in the days after he died in 1969. Today, a quintet of the country's most prominent tenors sang this song at the ceremony to say good bye to its author Chu Minh as his family, music students and fans from across the country lined up to walk around his coffin.

Born Trieu at Hien in 1931 to a wealthy family in Ha Noi, the young man first learned the violin at 11. When the August 1945 Revolution broke out, to finally succeed in 1954, he left all the comfort of a city life to join the resistance against the French at the tender age of 15. He first worked as a courier, then moved to a publicity unit, then to an art ensemble. His early days working with fellow young men from Ha Noi earned him a new name, Chu Minh, which became his stage name until his last day.

Showing early musical talents, Chu Minh was sent to Wuhan, China to study music and penned his first songs in 1950 with various themes including, The Border Victory (1950) and Viet - Trung - Xo (Viet Nam - China - Soviet Union). Later he wrote The Lotus and We Love Uncle Ho in 1951. He came back to Viet Nam the same year to found the People's Central Music and Dance Troupe at the Viet Bac (Northern Viet Nam) resistance base.

When peace was restored in the North following the Geneva Agreement in 1954, he was inspired by the new life in the countryside and wrote, Rice of the Co-operative and other songs praising the labour of working people.

In 1960, he went to the Beijing Music Conservatory for college and graduated in 1965. Back home to the fierce wartime when the United States intensified its air war of destruction against the North, he went to the battlefields like a soldier and wrote a number of songs with cheerful tunes that helped boost morale and were loved by liberation soldiers.

His biggest hit song was Nguoi La Niem Tin Tat Thang in 1969 and was performed for the first time at President Ho Chi Minh's funeral by songstress Bich Lien, which captured the hearts of not only those present at the ceremony, but many others listening to it on the radio, including the people living in the South under the Sai Gon administration.

Chu Minh wrote a Tu Hao i Len Oi Viet Nam (We March Forward with Pride, Viet Nam) in 1972, but it became a hit right after the country was reunited in 1975.

"Our boat is rather small, but keep steering steadily, stay focused in the direction ahead. Go Viet Nam, with our heads held high!" says the lyric of the song Chu Minh adapted from a piece by poet Hoang Trung Thong.

Today, these two works have become Vietnamese classics and are loved by millions of people.

Underneath these two popular songs, Chu Minh worked as Dean of Music Theory, Composition and Directing at the Ha Noi Conservatory of Music from 1965 until 1994. He has trained many generations of composers and song writers for Viet Nam, including Pho uc Phuong, Nguyen Cuong among others. Composer uc Trinh, current Chairman of the Musicians Association was also his student.

After he retired, Chu Minh co-ordinated with the Military College of Arts and Music in Ha Noi, and many other institutions in the country.

Little did many people know that he belonged to an ethnic Hoa family (people of Chinese origin living in Viet Nam). But his heart and soul had completely fallen for the city Ha Noi where he was born and the country he fought so hard to win independence for.

In 2019, a tribute concert commemorating his life as a composer took place in Ha Noi where his songs were sung by top artists and orchestral works performed by the Viet Nam National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of People's Artist Pham Ngoc Khoi.

"One concert cannot perform all of his works, but we hope it can display the ground-breaking works he had done for Viet Nam's orchestral and chamber music," o Hong Quan, chairman of the Viet Nam Musicians Association, said at the concert.

One of the near-centennial giants of Viet Nam's patriotic music, his philosophical viewpoints dramatically influenced the people's fight for independence and national reunification.

In Chu Minh's work, he used western methods to portray the oriental soul, using the heptatonic notes (seven-note system) with chords resembling the pentatonic scale (eastern style). His works also bore many layers of thoughts, reflecting philosophical dimensions of a rather sophisticated state of mind.

Chu Minh was honoured with Viet Nam's highest distinctions: the State Prize and the Ho Chi Minh Prize for the Arts. He was also awarded a Resistance Order, an Independence Order and a Labour Order.

He is survived by two daughters and four grandchildren. VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam strongly condemns acts of violence against civilians, humanitarian facilities, and essential infrastructure, Spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pham Thu Hang said on October 18 concerning escalating tensions in the Middle East.

"Viet Nam calls on all parties to immediately cease fire, end the use of force, respect international humanitarian law, resume negotiations, and resolve differences through peaceful means, based on international law and relevant United Nations resolutions to achieve a fair, satisfactory and lasting solution to the Middle East peace process and ensure the peoples lives, security, and safety," the diplomat stated.

She stressed that Viet Nam supports and is ready to join the international communitys common efforts to promote dialogue and provide humanitarian assistance to those living in conflict-affected areas, contributing to peace, security, and stability in the region and the world.

In a related development, at the 18th meeting of the Legal Committee of the 78th General Assembly, Ambassador ang Hoang Giang, Head of the Vietnamese Delegation to the United Nations, said that in the context of the world facing numerous complex and new challenges as it does today, the implementation of the rule of law at all levels is crucial for the development of each nation and the international community as a whole.

This responsibility is not only the duty of countries, regardless of their size, but also a means to rebuild trust, demonstrate sincerity, strengthen unity, uphold multilateralism, and effectively respond to common challenges.

Explaining and enforcing laws according to double standards or selective criteria is unacceptable, Ambassador Giang noted.

Regarding the current conflicts in various regions of the world, the representative of Viet Nam calls on all relevant parties to comply with their obligations under international law and humanitarian law, promptly cease violence, restore peace, protect the security and safety of civilians and essential infrastructure, and provide humanitarian assistance.  VNS
BEIJING  Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong met with General Secretary of the Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith on the sidelines of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing, China, on Thursday.

At the meeting, Thuong affirmed that Viet Nam always attaches much importance to its relations with Laos, and considers the neighbouring country a priority in its foreign policy. He described the Viet Nam-Laos ties as an invaluable common asset of the two peoples, and an exemplary and pure relationship, which is rare in international relations.

Thongloun, for his part, said Laos treasures its relations with Viet Nam, and has made tireless efforts to nurture and develop the great friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation in a more sustainable and deeper way. He also promised to make contributions to bolstering the ties between the two Parties and States.

Amidst global complicated changes which posed both opportunities and challenges, the two leaders agreed to continue promoting their close political relations, joining hands to maintain a peaceful and stable environment for development, and focusing on the effective implementation of high-level agreements, deals and cooperation plans between the two Parties and States.

Along with meticulous preparations for high-level activities as well as sound implementation of bilateral cooperation mechanisms, the two leaders agreed to step up defence-security cooperation, which is a pillar in the bilateral relations.

They highlighted the need to maintain cultural, sport and tourism exchange mechanisms, and reached consensus on carrying out the project on improving the quality and efficiency of the Viet Nam-Laos cooperation in education and human resources development during 2021-30.

Besides, they concurred to remove bottlenecks for important economic-trade-investment projects, and boost collaboration in the fields of science, innovation, digital economy and e-commerce, among others.

They affirmed the importance of enhancing cooperation and connectivity among Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia, especially in economy-trade, infrastructure, tourism and cultural exchanges.

The leaders also agreed to promote coordination to ensure that Laos will successfully accomplish its role as the ASEAN Chair in 2024, helping promote the central role of ASEAN and bring practical benefits to the ASEAN people.  VNS
BEIJING  President Vo Van Thuong had a meeting with officials and staff members of Vietnamese representative agencies in China on Thursday as part of his trip to attend the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.

Briefing participants on the objectives of his trip, President Thuong said that along with realising the common perceptions reached by leaders of the two Parties and countries during Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's visit to China last October, it also aims to affirm Viet Nam's support to initiatives benefiting peace, cooperation and development in the region and the world.

It also provides a chance for the Vietnamese President to meet with heads of state and heads of delegations from different countries and international organisation to discuss measures to enhance the efficiency of comprehensive cooperation between Viet Nam and the countries and organisations, he said.

The State leader informed the participants about the home country's socio-economic situation recently, President Thuong said that the Party and State consistently pursues a foreign policy of being a friend, trustworthy partner and responsible member of the international community. On the foundation of national interests, Viet Nam is willing to set up diplomatic relations, cooperate closely and expand partnership with all countries on the principle of equality, fairness, ensuring national independence, territorial integrity and respect for international law for peace and development in the region and the world, he said.

He underlined the significance of the Chinese market to different sectors of Viet Nam, especially agricultural products, and asked the agencies to pay attention to maintaining, expanding and developing the market.

The President also hailed the efforts of officials and staff of the Vietnamese embassy and diplomatic agencies in China in organising visits of delegations from the Party, State, sectors and agencies at all levels to China, expressing his hope that they will continue to overcome all difficulties to complete all assigned tasks.

Earlier the same day, President Thuong visited a model of new-style rural area in Xiaoludian village in Heizhuanghu township in Chaoyang district, which is about 20km from Beijing downtown. The village is famous for the traditional profession of ornamental fish farming.  VNS
HA NOI  Experts concurred that the draft amended Law on Social Insurance should supplement maternity benefits in voluntary social insurance in a workshop on Wednesday in Ha Noi.

The workshop on expansion of maternity protection in Viet Nam was co-organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).

It is held in response to the Vietnamese Womens Day, which falls on Friday.

Representatives at the workshop said that the adjustment would connect social security policies with economic and employment policies, as well as child care services.

Speaking at the workshop, Caroline Nyamayemobe, acting representative of the UN Women in Viet Nam, emphasised that when facing poverty or financial difficulties, women might not take maternity leave or have to return to work earlier than medically recommended.

By helping to protect women's employment and income during and after childbirth, maternity protection would ensure that women's reproductive role would not compromise their equal opportunities, economic, health and family security, she said.

Acknowledging Viet Nam's superior policies on maternity leave and maternity benefits for workers covered by social insurance, Nyamayemobe noted the need to research more appropriate policies for women who are not eligible for compulsory social insurance, including informal workers who do not have access to maternity benefits.

Because without income from maternity benefits, women having to take time off work and facing increased expenses due to pregnancy, childbirth and child care will bring financial difficulties for most families.

Within the workshops framework, representatives shared experiences and successful lessons in expanding maternity benefits for women.

Andre Gama, social protection programme manager for ILO Country Office in Viet Nam, noted the right to maternity benefits for women, with the goal of protecting the health and safety of mothers and children.

It will also protect women facing economic vulnerability caused by the risks of income and health loss from pregnancy and giving birth.

Maternity protection must include employment protection and non-discrimination when women take maternity leave, financial and medical benefits for mothers during breastfeeding.

It should also protect workplace health for women when returning to work after maternity leave.

Some experts mentioned challenges in the work, including the fact that people paying voluntary social insurance at present do not have any maternity benefits.

They agreed that it was necessary to review and evaluate the current policies to amend and supplement them in accordance with actual conditions and the country's socio-economic development.

Maternity policies should be integrated with other policies in national target programmes for socio-economic development.

Maternity benefits in Viet Nam are among the best in the region in terms of leave time and benefit rate.

But the limitation is the low coverage rate. Only people participating in compulsory social insurance are entitled to maternity benefits, with the beneficiary rate only accounting for about 30 per cent of the workforce, according to the ILO.

Currently, employees participating in voluntary social insurance are not entitled to maternity benefits.

Considering this, in the draft amended Law on Social Insurance, the maternity regime is redesigned in the direction of expanding voluntary social insurance regimes, creating favourable conditions for transition between voluntary social insurance and compulsory social insurance.  VNS
LAO CAI  The Military Command of Bao Yen District in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai on Thursday removed a 350-kilogramme bomb left from wartime in Bao Ha Commune, and destroyed it safely.

The bomb was found lying at a depth of four metres on Monday by a worker while he was operating an excavator at a construction site of Bao Ha No.1 Primary School in Bao Ha Commune.

Receiving the information, the Bao Ha Commune Peoples Committee promptly zoned off the dangerous area, asked students to stay at home, and evacuated two households nearby.

Decades after the end of war, Viet Nam still suffers from the deadly threat from bombs, mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) left by war.

According to the Viet Nam National Mine Action Centre, all 63 provinces and centrally-run cities in Vietnam are contaminated with UXO, with 6.1 million hectares of land in total (18.41 per cent of the countrys acreage) affected. It is estimated that between 600,000-800,000 tonnes of UXO are still hidden underground, and 110,000 people have so far become victims of UXO.  VNS
HA NOI  A media campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer called "Working together for the woman I love" was launched on Thursday afternoon in Ha Noi.

The campaign was launched in response to World Breast Cancer Prevention Month and the 93rd anniversary of the Viet Nam Women's Union (October 20).

It was kicked off by the Bright Future Fund, a fund to support cancer patients, with the companionship of the Roche Pharma Vietnam Co Ltd and other partners.

The campaign was organised with hope that women will take care of their health and love themselves, especially proactively implementing breast cancer screening.

Under the campaign, lots of activities for breast cancer patients across the country will be conducted.

The series of programmes "Breast Cancer Patients Forum" will be held in Ha Noi and HCM City to update official information on diagnosis and treatment, and answer questions from patients during and after treatment.

This will be also an opportunity for patients and medical staff to meet, share experiences, and give each other strength and optimism during the treatment journey.

The event "Hair for people with cancer" with the message "So many strands of hair, so much love" will be organised at hospitals and cancer centres nationwide.

During the treatment process, in addition to facing fatigue and pain, the female patients were also extremely self-conscious because their shiny, smooth hair was reduced to only a few stray strands, and even their eyebrows and eyelashes were gone because of chemical side effects. Understanding and sympathising with the sick, the Bright Future Fund brings encouragement and joy to the warriors by donating wigs woven from real hair, which expresses the affection and care of the community for the resilient women.

The campaign has been implemented for the past 10 years.

It has provided free screening to more than 72,000 women nationwide.

Thousands of women have been instructed how to care for their breasts, how to detect the disease early, how to effectively prevent the disease and received information related to breast cancer.

In addition, events such as parading double-decker buses to raise awareness of early detection of breast cancer have also attracted a large number of people's attention and positive responses.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Minister of Health ao Hong Lan said, "The campaign has made a big splash in recent years. I call on the community to work together to repel breast cancer. Cancer screening in general and breast cancer screening in particular should be included in periodic health check-up programmes when women turn 40.

The work is towards a strong and healthy Viet Nam, she said.

Associate professor Nguyen Thi Xuyen, former Deputy Minister of Health and Chairwoman of the Bright Future Fund, said: Screening and early detection of breast cancer for women is extremely important. Through this campaign, we hope that Vietnamese women will be equipped with knowledge and raise awareness about this leading fatal disease.

Lennor Carrillo, general director of Roche Pharma Viet Nam, said: "For the past decade, Roche Pharma Viet Nam has been at the forefront of optimising breast cancer care through early screenings and access to innovative treatments. Today, we celebrate the 10th year anniversary of our partnership in advocating for a healthier future for women in Viet Nam. We are honoured to be a part of this meaningful journey and remain dedicated to creating a positive impact in the fight against breast cancer."

The Bright Future Fund under the Ministry of Health was founded on August 18, 2011.

Breast cancer is a common cancer among women in Viet Nam and most countries around the world.

Statistics of the health ministry showed that each year Viet Nam sees 182,563 new cases of cancer, of which breast cancer is 21,555 cases, accounting for 11.8 per cent.

The disease can be completely cured if detected early, treated promptly and with the right method. The earlier it is detected, the simpler and more effective the treatment, with a high cure rate and low treatment costs.

The prerequisite is treatment when the cancer is in its early stages.

Therefore, screening and early detection of breast cancer as soon as women reach the age at high risk of the disease (from 40 and older) is very important.

Although in recent years, education to raise community awareness about breast cancer prevention has been deployed in provinces and cities, many women have not been proactive in screening for breast cancer, according to the health ministry.  VNS
HA NOI  Doctors from the Viet Nam National Heart Institute (VNHI) have successfully conducted a valve-in-valve replacement surgery for an 82-year-old male patient.

This is the first surgery of its kind in Viet Nam, and the success of the operation further affirmed Vietnamese doctors mastery of many advanced techniques in the cardiovascular sector, said the VNHI.

The patient T. received a transcatheter aortic valve replacement at the VNHI 10 years ago. He was among the first patients receiving this surgery at the VNHI at that time.

Recalling that time, doctors said that T. was hospitalised in very serious condition with severe heart failure and pneumonia, so he had to be intubated.

Examination showed that he had severe aortic valve stenosis. He could be at special high risk of danger if a surgery were performed.

Doctors still decided to conduct surgery and it was successful.

He then recovered well. For many years, he had regular check-ups and had a happy life with his family.

But during the past year, he often had to go to the hospital because of severe heart failure.

Ultrasound showed that the biological valve had severely degenerated, had significant valve regurgitation, and dilated heart chambers.

After discussing, the doctors decided that replacing his valve was mandatory, and as his health condition did not allow for open heart surgery, the optimal choice for the valve replacement was through a valve-in-valve catheter.

Cardiologists, anaesthesiologists, critical care physicians, echo-cardiographers and surgeons agreed on the plan and performed the procedure.

T. underwent the 30-minute surgery on Wednesday.

Now he is in stable condition. Hemodynamic indicators are significantly improved.

At present, degenerative aortic valve disease is increasingly common as life expectancy rises and cardiovascular risks accumulate.

In developed countries, it is estimated that about one to three per cent of over-75-year-old people have aortic valve disease at serious levels. Treatment for it previously required open heart surgery.

However, in cases of severe condition and old age, the risk is very high and in many cases surgery is not possible.

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement has become the superior choice which offers many advantages for elderly patients with aortic valve stenosis, as it does not require open heart surgery and is usually followed by quick recovery.  VNS
At least 189 decomposing bodies removed from funeral home in U.S. Colorado

Xinhua) 13:41, October 19, 2023

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 189 decomposing bodies have been removed from a funeral home in the western U.S. state of Colorado, up from the initial 115 reported earlier this month, according to authorities.

The "improperly stored" bodies were discovered on Oct. 4 in the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, a town in Fremont County, after police took a closer look at the "green" funeral operator's storage facility.

"On October 13, 2023, all decedents were removed from the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose. The effort was coordinated by the Fremont County Coroner's Office with support from several entities," said the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in a press release on Tuesday.

The agency noted that at least 189 individuals were removed and transported to the El Paso County Coroner's Office but "the total number of decedents could change as the identification and investigative processes continue."

Officials said the second phase of the comprehensive process includes confirming identification and completing family notifications.

"While the investigation for this incident continues, we also remain focused on the impacted families," said Fremont County Sheriff Allen Cooper in the release. "We want to do all we can to provide the families the support they need as we shift to the next phase in this process."

Cooper told media after the bodies were first discovered earlier this month that "the area of the funeral home where the bodies were improperly stored was horrific."

A disaster emergency has been declared in the county, which will make more resources available.

Return to Nature Funeral Home described itself on its website as a family-owned and operated mortuary service, and "has operated with three generations of funeral service experience and education."

The funeral home explained that "Green/Natural Burial is a return to the traditional way of burial. No chemicals, metal or unnatural materials."

Colorado Public Radio, a public radio state network, pointed out that "Under Colorado law, green burials are legal, but state code requires that any body not buried within 24 hours must be properly refrigerated."

The news outlet added that "Colorado has some of the weakest rules for funeral homes in the nation with no routine inspections or qualification requirements for funeral home operators."

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his visit to Pyongyang will mark an opportunity for "substantial results" for implementing agreements reached between their leaders, North Korea's state media said Thursday.

Lavrov arrived at Pyongyang International Airport on Wednesday at the invitation of North Korea's foreign ministry "amid the enthusiasm of friendship growing higher than ever," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in an English-language dispatch.

The visit is a follow-up to the rare summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 13, as the two countries move to strengthen military ties amid speculation over their suspected arms deal.

Speaking at a reception Wednesday evening, Lavrov said his visit would serve as a "significant occasion of bringing substantial results" for the implementation of the agreement made at the recent summit, according to the KCNA.

He added that Russia "fully supports" all of North Korea's policies adopted to defend its national interests, calling North Korea a genuine independent state "unfazed by any pressure of the U.S. and the West."

Lavrov also thanked Pyongyang for supporting its "special military operation" in Ukraine, according to a transcript of his speech released by Russia's foreign ministry on its website.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui expressed expectation that the "comprehensive and constructive relations" between the two countries would be expanded on a higher level during Lavrov's visit.

Lavrov and Choe are expected to discuss ways to bolster bilateral cooperation, including preparations for Putin's possible reciprocal visit to Pyongyang. (Yonhap)
Intel Corporation, one of the leading private enterprises in the United States, has begun operating in Vietnam since 2006. Up to now, the total investment capital of this group in Vietnam is approximately 1,5 billion USD

Intel Corporation, one of the leading private enterprises in the United States, has begun operating in Vietnam since 2006. In 2021, with an investment worth 1 billion USD, Intel became the first US enterprise inaugurated the world's largest chip assembly and testing factory in Vietnam.

Furthermore, in 2021, Intel also announced that it will increase investment in Vietnam, with a scale rising nearly 50% compared to Intel's previous 1 billion USD investments since 2006 to produce 5G products and core processors. Intel's additional investment has contributed to bringing this group's total investment capital in Vietnam to approximately 1.5 billion USD.

A recent report from VinaCapital said that Intel Vietnam's facility is currently researching the 13th generation Raptor Lake and the new generation Meteor Lake, accounting for more than 50% of global output for assembly and testing. This is a significant number and Intel is planning to further expand its assembly and testing capacity in Vietnam.

Giving a speech at the recent meeting of the foreign investment business community, Mr. Phung Viet Thang, Intel Vietnam representative, said that recently, Intel Vietnam has been considered the most successful facility of Intel in global. To achieve that result, accompanying Intel is the support of the Vietnamese Government as well as the support of ministries and branches.

Intel Vietnam does not consider itself an investor who has invested in Vietnam, but we always prove ourselves as the next potential investor in Vietnam. We always innovate, research, and invest in new technology," Mr. Thang said.

The representative of Intel Vietnam stated that it could be seen that policies or fluctuations in the economy always affect manufacturing companies like Intel and the comprehensive policies issued by ministries and agencies. This industry is extremely important to businesses.

Besides, Mr. Phung Viet Thang also raised a number of major problems that businesses need assistance from the Government, ministries, and branches. The first is the human resources of the semiconductor industry. According to Mr. Thang, this human resource problem not only lies in the capacity of engineers and workers but also requires a policy related to early supply training for the semiconductor industry.

"To do this, I think it needs a lot of determination from ministries and branches," an Intel Vietnam representative said at the Conference.

The second issue is about the global minimum tax. Mr. Thang said that this is not a unique problem to businesses or the Ministry of Finance that needs the support of many other ministries and branches.

"Therefore, the Government's specific actions are not only motivation and lessons for Intel but also for other businesses that can learn, consult, and help us make important decisions.", Mr. Phung Viet Thang emphasized.
After three-quarters of staff reduction, some businesses have started recruiting brokers again to prepare for the recovery wave of the real estate market.

Since the end of September, in Hanoi, many companies such as Dat Xanh Mien Bac, OneHousing, and Pho Xanh Realty have continuously posted recruitment notices from dozens to hundreds of employees with many remuneration policies in the context of investment has restarted and launched many projects later this year.

Dat Xanh Mien Bac needs to recruit brokers for projects from Sapa to Phu Quoc. Employees can enjoy a fixed monthly salary of up to 12 million VND, commissions from 50 million VND per transaction, and support up to 90% of marketing costs... OneHousing is expected to have 1,000 brokers by the end of this year, focusing on a number of both high-rise and low-rise projects in the Hanoi metropolis. This unit also aims to increase its brokerage force 10 times next year.

Mr. Nguyen Tung, head of sales at a brokerage unit with a large market share in Hanoi, said that in the first half of the year, this company had to stop operating a few offices, and the staff was reduced from more than 2,000 to 300-400 people. However, after the recent recruitment push, the number of brokers has increased to more than 1,000 people, who will focus on selling many apartments and investment projects of the company in Hanoi. At the same time, this company also cooperates in distributing resort projects with a basket of more than tens of thousands of units, such as in Phu Quoc and Quang Ninh.

According to Mr Tung, the company is also prioritizing the recruitment of old brokers who have quit their jobs recently to save time on training. This group received a fixed salary of 5 million VND a month but was not assigned revenue targets for two months. This unit still recruits new, inexperienced staff but does not pay salaries if they cannot sell products.

"Customer sentiment and interest in projects is much better than a few months ago. Brokers have also been busier, especially on weekends when investors restart a series of events to stimulate demand. ", Mr Tung said.

Similarly, in the South, many companies are also recruiting brokers. Mr. Tran Khanh Quang, General Director of Viet An Company, said the real estate market is still difficult. Still, recently, there have been positive signals, such as customers being more interested in apartment projects. Large investors have begun to return to the market, preparing to have huge sales from now until the end of the year. Therefore, according to Mr. Quang, brokerage companies have had to recruit new people to start the system and rerun sales programs for investors, especially apartment projects serving real housing needs.

In a report earlier this week, BHS Group also informed that many units actively offer hot bonuses to boost sales even when brokers invite customers to deposit.

Mr Quang assessed that customer psychology could improve, but it has improved significantly. "This is shown by the recent successful bookings and opening sales of some investors in the South. In previous years, investors could successfully open 200 products for sale at one time, but now they can also successfully launch sales of 200 products at one time closed 50-60 units," Mr Quang shared.

However, this expert believes that only the return of 10% of the brokerage force is enough to meet demand from now until the end of the year. He said that the current market is not yet the time to need 70-80% of brokers like before because the basket of goods still needs more.

On the contrary, many exchanges and small-scale brokerage companies still freeze recruitment after narrowing operations and restructuring assets to have cash flow to maintain the operations of the core human resources system monthly. Mr. Nam Anh, director of a real estate brokerage company based in Nam Tu Liem district, commented that the new recruitment wave has only begun on large floors, selling to potential investors.

Last year, Mr. Kien's company, specializing in selling investment and land products, had about 200 brokers, but now there are about 10 people. He said he is still trying to hold out until the market thaws. During this time, he and a few company leaders still had to sell products themselves.

Real estate brokers are still hesitant to return to their profession after being owed salaries and commissions. According to the General Director of Viet An Hoa, the number of brokers owed 3-6 months of salary and commissions is still very large. According to him, since the end of last year, many investors have had difficulty with cash flow, and commission payments to brokerage floors have slowed down and gradually stopped. Therefore, brokerage companies are also affected.

Also read: Advantages of investing in commercial real estate in central Phu Quoc, Vietnam

Five projects were handled problems, the real estate market in Ho Chi Minh City received more than 5,400 apartments

Real estate in the Vietnam Southwest is on the rise

According to him, some small brokerage business owners have to spend their money to maintain company operations, but some units deliberately do not pay commissions to brokers. However, Mr. Khanh Quang recognizes that these are only temporary barriers and require understanding from both sides, business owners and brokers.
Chinese investors are pouring more money into Vietnam, photo Le Toan

Pham Ngoc Thien Thanh, head of Research and Consultancy at CBRE Vietnam, recently gave a positive outlook for Vietnams industrial real estate sector for 2023.

Accordingly, last weeks findings by CBRE Vietnam indicate a robust influx of investors, predominantly from China, Japan, the US, and the EU, who are keen on acquiring industrial land and warehouses in Vietnam. These investors account for a notable 70-80 per cent of inquiries received by CBRE, predominantly from the southern and northern Vietnamese regions.

Vietnams deepening ties with influential global partners, especially China and United States, have catalysed this investment momentum. As these relationships continue to flourish, we expect the Vietnamese industrial real estate market to see even more pronounced interest from foreign investors in the near future, Thanh said.

In a strategic move to expand its global footprint, Chinas Trina Solar, the worlds leading solar energy producer by revenue, in late September unveiled that it is on the brink of unveiling its third production facility in Vietnam. Set to span 25 hectares, with an investment of around $400 million, this plant is slated to be operational by 2025.

Similarly, Chinas Sunny Group has received an investment certificate to develop a $150-million factory in the central province of Nghe An. The factory will specialise in producing cameras for both mobile phones and vehicles, as well as other electronic devices.

The facility is targeted to commence operations in Q4/2025, potentially offering employment to 20,000 individuals.

Interestingly, an industry insider revealed that Sunny Group just began its assessment for a potential investment site in Nghe An in early July 2023. Merely two months later, the group set its sights on the WHA Industrial Zone, finalising their investment proposal by September 12.

Remarkably, in just a week following their proposals submission, all bureaucratic hurdles were cleared, underlining the groups efficient decision-making. By September 20, Nghe An province expedited its approval, granting Sunny Group the investment registration certificate for their project, the source said.

In the southern province of Binh Phuoc, Chinas Shandong Haohua Tire has secured an investment certificate for a $500-million tyre factory.

Amid these developments, Zhang Manping, vice president of Energy China, emphasised the companys renewable energy endeavours, remarking, Our ventures in provinces such as Ha Tinh, Ninh Thuan, and Quang Tri highlight our unwavering dedication to green energy. The statement came during a discussion with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh last month.

Chen Yun, chairman of China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), voiced a keen interest in railway projects, expressing, Were poised and ready to contribute.

Furthermore, Wang Xiaojun of PowerChina shared aspirations for power project investments and showcased a penchant for Vietnams high-speed railway initiatives.

In addition, Huawei is another key name involved. Simon Lin, chairman of the Asia-Pacific region for Huawei Technologies, highlighted the companys unwavering commitment to Vietnam.

Huaweis dual-focused strategy in Vietnam aims to both hasten the countrys green transition and bolster its digital talent reservoir, he said.

Huawei has been instrumental in Vietnams telecommunications evolution, having significantly contributed to the nations 2G, 3G, and 4G infrastructures.

South China Morning Post last month also noted an unprecedented interest from Chinese business owners exploring the idea of relocating their factories to Vietnam during the China-ASEAN Expo in September.

A testament to this burgeoning interest was witnessed when, after a business networking session lasting over an hour with more than 300 participants at the CAEXPO, a business representative of the Deep C Industrial Zones in Vietnam, still had dozens of potential Chinese clients waiting for consultations.

Chinas media agency further emphasised the allure of Vietnam, citing the countrys stable political environment and its young, low-cost workforce. Vietnam has long been recognised as a powerhouse in manufacturing and exports within the region due to these strengths.

In a Reuters report in August, it was highlighted South Korean and Chinese magnet companies, including an Apple supplier, are making moves to inaugurate their factories in Vietnam. This shift is reportedly a conscious effort to diversify supply chains, particularly away from China, to mitigate the risks associated with the escalating China-US tensions.

Specifically, South Koreas Star Group Industrial (SGI) and Chinas Baotou INST Magnetic are joining the growing tide of companies that are diversifying their assembly lines. These companies, hailing from sectors as diverse as electronics to automobiles, are making the shift in the face of mounting trade barriers.

PM calls for more Chinese investments Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh called on Chinese investors to expand investment in Vietnam, while addressing the Vietnam - China Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum in Beijing on June 28 within the framework of his official visit to China.

Vietnam's energy sector sparks interest from Chinese corporations The energy sector in Vietnam has piqued the interest of Chinese corporations, paving the way for collaborations and potential investments in renewable energy projects.
Held by Pharma Group, the event attracted over 400 attendees, both in person and virtually via Zoom. The forum was attended by Deputy Minister of Health Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, Ambassador of the European Union to Vietnam Julien Guerrier, and Ambassador of Ireland to Vietnam Deirdre Ni Fhalluin.

Scientists, doctors, policymakers, and businesses gathered at the second Healthcare Innovation Forum

Addressing the event, Huong said that the prime minister has recently signed a decision approving the National Strategy for developing Vietnam's pharmaceutical industry for the period to 2030, with a vision to 2045. The strategy presents the orientation, goals, and solutions to develop production, distribution, circulation, quality, use, and more.

There is a focus on developing domestically produced brand-name drugs with new dosage forms and bio medicines, striving to reach level 4 according to the World Health Organization's assessment classification, she added.

At the same time, work is being done to build a digital data ecosystem and health platform to allow for a tracking and monitoring system for drug supply activities to optimise patients' use.

At the event, speakers provided valuable insights into research, innovations, and knowledge-sharing. It sought to contribute significantly to the industry's goals, bringing it on par with other advanced countries in the region and around the world.

The forum featured inspiring presentations and engaging discussions from scientists, doctors, policymakers, and businesses, offering diverse perspectives. New approaches were explored, including strengthening research capacity, facilitating clinical trials, and driving the development of new medicines.

Additionally, the forum focused on applying advanced technologies such as AI, digital transformation, and data management to enhance the system's management capabilities.

Furthermore, it emphasised attracting investments by creating a favourable legal environment and providing incentives for scientific research activities, technology transfer, high-tech applications, and more.

Dr. Emin Turan, chairman of Pharma Group said, Vietnam has enormous potential to foster an environment that encourages innovation thanks to its skilled and diligent workforce. The nation is striving to improve its healthcare sector and develop it into a hub for science and innovation.

Dr. Emin Turan, chairman of Pharma Group

We suggest enhancing the research and development (R&D) capabilities, encouraging the swift implementation of the digital transformation, and creating a sustainable policy climate to support innovation. Pharma Group and our member companies are dedicated to being a reliable partner and supporting healthcare innovation in Vietnam with a focus on patient benefits, he added.

Healthcare experts agreed that innovation and creativity are crucial for Vietnam's development, particularly in the healthcare sector. They highlight that they bring numerous benefits to patients, healthcare providers, and the overall healthcare system. These include improved quality of care, increased access to services, optimised management of resources, and advancements in medical research.

To foster a vibrant and resilient healthcare sector that is capable of addressing the future challenges, experts recommended strengthening R&D, establishing a more diverse healthcare ecosystem, enhancing capacity, and promoting partnerships and solution-oriented approaches.

Dr. Nguyen Lan Hieu, director of Hanoi Medical University Hospital, said that the application of innovative and creative solutions has had a direct impact on the healthcare industry, and also contributes to improving examinations and treatments.

Many modern remote healthcare and monitoring devices have been applied. Currently, at Hanoi Medical University Hospital, the medical records have also been digitalised, which is much more convenient for patients, doctors, and hospitals, he added.

The application of innovation has practical significance for medical development in Vietnam and will become a trend in the future, he noted.

The event served as a commemoration of Pharma Group's 25th anniversary. It highlighted the unwavering dedication of Pharma Group and its members to support Vietnam's healthcare sector in realising a strong, prosperous, and sustainable future for the country. This commitment is rooted in fostering innovation and creativity as fundamental pillars for progress.

Pharma Group represents the voice of the pharmaceutical industry in Vietnam, with 22 member companies sharing the same mission to ensure patients have fast and sustainable access to safe, high-quality, and innovative medicines.
Vietnam goes long on semiconductors, Photo: Shutterstock

Amkor Technology, a global powerhouse in the semiconductor industry from South Korea, has officially inaugurated its state-of-the-art facility at the Yen Phong II-C Industrial Zone in the northern province of Bac Ninh. This establishment is pegged as the worlds largest semiconductor factory within the Amkor Groups portfolio.

Back in November 2021, the South Korean conglomerate made the decisive move to invest in a semiconductor manufacturing, assembly, and testing facility at the same location.

With an initial investment hovering around $530 million, the plant spans an impressive 23 hectares. The companys commitment does not end there. By 2035, Amkor has vowed to bolster its investment to an approximate $1.6 billion.

After nearly two years of construction, we are thrilled to see our vision come to life as the factory is now fully operational, said Susan Y. Kim, vice president of Amkor Group.

Amkor Bac Ninh is set to become a pivotal anchor in our global semiconductor operations network. This endeavour not only underscores our commitment to sustainable development in the semiconductor sector but also paves the way for fostering a robust semiconductor ecosystem in Vietnam.

Essentra Components, a powerhouse in the global industrial components sector with British roots, last week also unveiled its ambitions to strengthen its position in Vietnam. Though its venture in the country began in 2022, the firm now aims to deepen its local market penetration.

Scott Fawcett, CEO of Essentra Components, said, As manufacturers diversify their supply sources, they seek partners who meet global standards. Our expansion in Vietnam ensures top-notch service that aligns with the needs of our global clientele.

Prior to the Amkor and Essentra Components announcement, Hana Micron, another South Korean heavyweight, launched a $600 million semiconductor facility in the northern province of Bac Giang.

The first phase of Hana Microns factory has been operational since November 2020, and its current operations denote phase II.

Choi Chang Ho, chairman of Hana Micron, revealed plans to elevate their investment in Vietnam to $1 billion by 2025. By then, we anticipate Hana Micron Vietnam to generate a yearly revenue nearing $800 million, providing employment for over 4,000 workers. Hana Micron Vina is primed to be the leading manufacturing base in our global operations, Ho said.

Beyond these names, tech giants such as Intel and Marvell have also made considerable strides in Vietnam. While Intel boasts a $1.5 billion factory in Ho Chi Minh City, Marvell recently publicised the establishment of its Microchip Design Centre in the same city, coupled with plans for further investments in the country.

Other significant players like Renesas, Applied Micro, Synopsys, NXP Semiconductors, and Hanmi Semiconductor have also marked their presence with varied investment and business activities in Vietnam.

The consecutive investments from industry titans like Intel, Amkor, Hana Micron, and Marvell have certainly put Vietnam on the semiconductor industrys radar. However, the nations potential transcends mere acknowledgements. Vietnam is poised to dive deeper into the global semiconductor supply chain, nurturing and expanding its own semiconductor industry.

Arnaud Ginolin, general director of Boston Consulting Group Vietnam, expressed his enthusiasm. Vietnams foray into the semiconductor realm needs to be audacious and pragmatic. Its imperative to discern the key segments, establish concrete visions, implement plans, and draft policies that act as catalysts, he said.

Alongside global heavyweights, local Vietnamese entities, such as FPT, are also joining the semiconductor sectors bandwagon.

FPTs chairman Truong Gia Binh last week also revealed the companys ambitious plan, Our immediate goal is to strengthen our talent pool with 10,000 individuals, potentially increasing to as many as 20,000-30,000 annually.

In September, FPT disclosed significant orders for 67 million chips for 2024 and 2025, serving clients from Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. This followed their transition to full-scale production of power management integrated circuit products.

We aim to supply 25 million chips globally in 2024 and 2025, Binh said.

Vietnams FPT Semiconductor JSC in late September collaborated with US-based Silvaco to bolster human resources, setting sights on launching a training hub in Vietnam and delving deeper into advanced technological sectors.

Last month, Vietnams National Innovation Centre under the Ministry of Planning and Investment and US-backed Cadence Design Systems inked an MoU to bolster the design and development capabilities of semiconductor chips in Vietnam.

Additionally, the NIC has also signed an agreement with Arizona State University, on the development of a skilled workforce for Vietnams semiconductor industry. Concurrently, Vietnams Ministry of Education and Training partnered with Intel Corporation in an MoU dedicated to nurturing talent for high-tech sectors.

Research firm Technavio underscores Vietnams potential, predicting the semiconductor market in the country will grow by $1.65 billion between 2021 and 2025, a growth rate of roughly 6.5 per cent annually.

Giants like Intel, Samsung, and Synopsys have established bases in Vietnam, and domestic firms such as FPT are also joining the race.

However, the countrys rapid growth highlights a challenge: a shortage of skilled labour. Economist Tran Du Lich noted, Vietnams semiconductor sector will need about 50,000 engineers over the next five years.

Despite playing a pivotal role in the semiconductor arena, Vietnams focus has been on assembly, testing, and packaging. The nations talent pool is a significant bottleneck. With a workforce of just 5,000 engineers, the country is a minnow in a multi-billion-dollar market, Lich said. Where will the talent come from if we cant train them swiftly?

Vietnam and US companies collaborate on semiconductors and innovation High-level meetings between the US and Vietnam have paved the way for a strategic partnership focusing on the technology sector, with semiconductors and innovation at the forefront.

Semiconductors a future key industry of Vietnam To maintain a high growth rate of exports, it was necessary to target new trends, including semiconductors, said experts.
On October 19, VIR hosted a seminar themed "Revising the Land Law: Creating Land Funds for Tourism." The seminar saw various speakers offering insights, analyses, and recommendations pertaining to policies aimed at enabling investors to access land, develop tourism infrastructure, services, and promote economic growth within the amended Land Law framework.

According to data presented by the Vietnam Real Estate Association (VREA), there are currently around 239 tourism and resort real estate projects across the country.

Among these, condotel projects are estimated at $12.52 billion, villa projects at roughly $10.28 billion, and shophouse projects at about $6.5 billion. The cumulative value of these three property categories stands at around $30 billion.

However, this sector has faced a considerable deceleration in recent years following a period of rapid expansion. The market has essentially stagnated, and transaction volumes have dwindled significantly.

The chief factors contributing to this pronounced market downturn, besides the lingering impact of pandemic, include the absence of a comprehensive development strategy for the tourism sector. Of particular concern is the lack of a well-defined legal framework governing the efficient utilisation of land resources and the essential infrastructure required for tourism development in Vietnam.

A survey conducted by the Vietnam Real Estate Research Institute highlights the factors inhibiting the pace, scale, and commitment of participation in the tourism and resort real estate market in Vietnam.

Economic and financial factors account for 30 per cent, legal considerations for half, and other elements for 20 per cent. These figures underscore the legal gaps in the sphere of tourism and resort real estate operations, causing apprehension among investors regarding legal security and potential risks, the survey said.

In stark contrast, both the Tourism Development Strategy for Vietnam up to 2020, approved in Decision No. 2473/QD-TTg, and the Comprehensive Tourism Development Plan for Vietnam up to 2020, approved in Decision No. 201/QD-TTg, unequivocally assert that tourism is slated to evolve into a pivotal economic sector with an escalating share in the GDP structure.

According to economist Can Van Luc, Resolution No.08/TW of the Vietnam Communist Party regarding the elevation of tourism into a spearhead economic sector explicitly underscores a pivotal task and solution: to elevate tourism into a spearhead economic sector, and by the year 2030, draw in 47-50 million international tourists to Vietnam, contributing approximately 14-15 per cent to the GDP.

"Vietnam stands at a moderately competitive level when it comes to tourism infrastructure, encompassing aspects like restaurants, hotels, resorts, and economic security," Luc said

However, to attain its ambitions of joining the top 30 global tourist destinations, a pivotal elevation in tourism infrastructure is imperative.

"In the post-Covid-19 era, tourists are especially concerned about their experiences related to accommodation and transportation," Luc said.

Despite significant growth, Vietnam's lodging infrastructure has been progressing at a relatively leisurely pace. As of the close of 2022, the total number of tourism accommodation facilities stood at 35,000, reflecting a 16.7 per cent increase compared to 2019. Furthermore, the aggregate room count reached 700,000 rooms in 2022, marking a 7.7 per cent upturn from the end of 2019.

The majority of these accommodation facilities are either of a 3-star rating or remain unclassified. Shockingly, a staggering 82.7 per cent of these establishments at the close of 2022 held a 3-star rating or remained unclassified, signifying that they fell short of the rating standards.

Premium-grade accommodations constituted a comparatively smaller fraction, with 5-star rated establishments accounting for 10.7 per cent and 4-star rated entities representing 6.6 per cent.

The discernible challenge that Vietnam faces is not only the quantitative expansion of its hospitality offerings but also the qualitative upliftment of these facilities. This issue becomes more pertinent as the country seeks to draw in a more diverse range of tourists, each with unique preferences and requirements. In response, there is a compelling demand for increased investment and renovation in tourism accommodation and services.

One of the major roadblocks is the lack of a specific and detailed policy framework supporting the tourism industry, Luc said.

He also emphasised the need for clear incentives for the sector, which are currently lacking in key laws and regulations like the 2020 Law on Investment and the 2020 Public-Private Partnership Law.

Moreover, the absence of a competitive land allocation process for tourism projects is a noteworthy concern. Vietnam's current regulations don't allow tourism businesses to acquire land through competitive bidding for land-use rights, a situation outlined Decree No. 25/2020/ND-CP, in February 2020.

Furthermore, there is an aspiration for Vietnam to carve its niche as a sustainable and high-quality tourism destination, with a focus on offering memorable experiences to travellers. To attain these goals, the elevation of tourism infrastructure is unequivocally necessary, Luc added.

Dr. Do Thanh Trung, advisor to Phuc Khang Corporation's Board of Directors, underscored the pivotal role of land legislation within Vietnam's legal framework.

This legislation has far-reaching implications for various stakeholders, from the government and businesses to citizens, significantly influencing socioeconomic development, particularly in the tourism sector, Trung said. "Vietnam possesses substantial potential for tourism development. However, the existing infrastructure may not be commensurate with this potential. There's an urgent need to create better conditions for the growth of tourism-related real estate projects. After all, a competitive advantage alone, without a developmental platform, might be challenging."

Furthermore, he highlighted the necessity for an appropriate policy framework that facilitates land allocation for tourism development and the essential conditions required to include tourism lands within the 30 cases in which the state can requisition land for economic development.

Amended land law can remove current limitations The Law on Land is an essential law, institutionalising the major guidelines of regulation on continuing to innovate and complete institutions and policies, and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of management and use of land, creating a driving force to help Vietnam become a high-income developed country.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP)  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul arrived Israel on Wednesday and met with victims of the deadly Oct. 7 assault and families of hostages as part of a trip intended to show support for the country during its war with Hamas.

The Democratic governor landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport around 5:40 p.m. with a group of state police officers and top aides, according to a pool report. She was met at the airport by Israels ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog.

Hochul received a security briefing then traveled about 30 minutes away to meet with families.

Today I saw pain, hurt, and mourning  but I also saw the incredible strength of the Jewish people, Hochul said in a message posted on X, formerly Twitter.

She is seen in an online video meeting and embracing volunteers at a food pantry, where the governor helped pack and drop off boxes for people who have had to move because of the conflict. Hochul said it was extraordinary to see how Israelis are showing up for one another in a time of crisis.

From there, Hochul was scheduled to be taken to Jerusalem, where she was expected stay for the night.

Hochul said her trip is meant to be a gesture of solidarity and support for Israel. New York is home to the largest Jewish population of any U.S. city, according to the American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University.

A nonprofit organization is funding travel costs for Hochul and her staff, and the state is covering the costs for her security detail, a spokesperson for Hochul said on Wednesday.

There is a deep, direct connection between New York state and Israel that has always been there, a bond steeled over decades, Hochul said. And its easy to go when the sun is shining and everything is fine.

The community feels, in Israel and in New York, that my going during these times will be the most significant symbol of their importance to us than anything else we could do, she said.

The war that began Oct. 7 has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured in the past 11 days.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, and at least 199 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli authorities

The start of Hochul's visit comes a day after a massive blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds of people.

Hochul has said she wanted to ensure Israel has the resources to protect their citizens, while also allowing Gazan civilians to get the humanitarian assistance they need, as long as it would not benefit Hamas.

It is still my strong position that Israel must defend itself against terrorism, or else terrorism will know no boundaries, and we have seen what terrorism looks and feels like in our own city streets, she said during a press briefing Tuesday.

A spokesperson for Hochul said Wednesday that they dont have an exact number on how many New Yorkers are stuck in either Israel or Palestine because of the conflict.
Carnell Petetan Jr. was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for the 2012 murder of his estranged wife in Waco, after the death sentence he received at trial in 2014 was tossed out.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the death sentence in 2021, ruling the jury that handed down the sentence did not have enough evidence to establish that Petetan is not intellectually disabled. The ruling left Petetan's capital murder conviction in place but prompted the new punishment hearing Thursday.

Petetan, 46, was initially charged in 2012 with the murder of Kimberly Farr Petetan, 41, who was Petetan's estranged wife. The Tribune-Herald reported at the time that the two had met as pen pals while Petetan was serving a 20-year prison sentence for attempted murder and aggravated assault, and they and married in 2010 while he was imprisoned. He was released from prison in May 2012 and moved in with her in Waco, but repeated fights soured their relationship, causing him to move back to his hometown of Port Arthur.

Petetan was convicted of murdering Kimberly Petetan on Sept. 23, 2012, when he also kidnapped her 9-year-old daughter after he burst into her apartment and demanded she drop domestic abuse charges against him in Jefferson County. Testimony from the trial revealed Petetan shot her in front of her daughter and two of his friends before fleeing and later being arrested in Bryan.

During the trial, Petetan testified one of the friends was the killer, but testimony from the two friends and Kimberly Petetan's young daughter implicated Petetan. He was convicted of capital murder on April 21, 2014, and sentenced to death a week later.

Before the trial, Petetan was found competent to stand trial after Petetan and his lawyers claimed he was intellectually disabled. However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, overturned the sentence in May 2021, ruling the jurys rejection of Petetans affirmative defense of intellectual disability was against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence.

A press release Thursday from the McLennan County District Attorney's Office says evidence from Petetan's school and juvenile records indicate a possible intellectual disability. A neuropsychologist retained by Petetan's attorneys ruled he is disabled, while a different neuropsychologist retained by the DA's office could not rule out the disability, according to the press release.

Since the disability could not be disproven, prosecutors elected not to pursue another death sentence and instead sought a sentence of life in prison without parole, the only other sentence for a conviction of capital murder. The press release says prosecutors wanted to avoid another lengthy trial and many years of appeals.

Kimberly Petetan's daughter, now 20 years old, took the stand Thursday in Waco's 19th State District Court to give a victim impact statement. She cried and looked Petetan head-on as she described how her mother's murder changed the trajectory of her life and made her into a strong woman.

The daughter said she has wanted to say many things to Petetan over the years, and said God delivered justice when Petetan was originally convicted and sentenced for her mother's murder. She said she was a scared and confused little girl when she witnessed Petetan gun down her mother and kidnap her.

"Regardless of what the IQ test says, God holds the truth," she said.

She also said Petetan was undeserving of the second chance at life he received when he was released from prison in 2012. Petetan was originally convicted on the attempted murder and assault charges when he was 16.

"On behalf of my mother, you never deserved the love she gave or the second chance you received," she said.

The daughter said she has prayed for Petetan in the 11 years since the murder. She said she has forgiven him and will continue to pray for him. As she said this, Petetan broke down in tears and said "I didn't kill her," before being quieted by one of his attorneys.

Finishing her statement, the daughter looked Petetan head-on as she declared "I forgive you."

Petetan was represented by attorneys Jim Young and Darla Davis. First assistant DA Ryan Calvert was the prosecutor for the state.

In a statement, McLennan County DA Josh Tetens said the DA's office is grateful Petetan will never be free again.

"Despite Carnell Petetan's decades of violence and murder, the law forbids a death sentence for anyone who is intellectually disabled," Tetens said. "While the evidence does not support seeking another death sentence for Petetan, we are grateful this monster will never again breathe fresh air."
A Waco man whom prosecutors portrayed as a gang member has become the second defendant to plead guilty in the 2021 murder of 18-year-old Damon Morgan Jr. in East Waco.

Vincent Lamar Snell, 21, accepted a 25-year prison sentence in a plea deal Thursday with McLennan County prosecutors. Omarion Mayes, 20, was sentenced last week to 40 years in the same murder after a plea deal.

Snell was 19 when he was arrested late April 2021, after Morgan's murder on April 4. Mayes, then 18, was arrested in May 2021.

The Tribune-Herald reported at the time that Morgan was killed in a drive-by shooting in the 1000 block of Lennox Avenue as a result of a social media feud between Morgan and Snell. In affidavits, police called the shooting a gang-related incident.

Witnesses saw Snell driving a gold Chevrolet Impala as Mayes stood up through the sunroof and fired at Morgan as they drove by, according to affidavits.

In addition to the murder charge, Snell faced two charges of engaging in organized criminal activity, possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and unauthorized use of a vehicle.

Prosecutors dropped the meth charge in exchange for Snell's guilty plea on the remaining charges. He got 25 years for murder, 15 for organized criminal activity and two years for the unauthorized use of a vehicle. All the sentences will run concurrently.

Snell was represented by attorney Philip Frederick, and the case was prosecuted by McLennan County Assistant District Attorney Ryan Calvert.

During the plea hearing in Waco's 19th State District Court, Morgan's mother gave a victim impact statement in which she called Snell "the most cowardly coward of all cowards."

"You are a different kind of monster," she said.

Morgan's mother said Snell had tormented her family from the day he was charged with her son's murder, and said she will be a "thorn in his side" by ensuring he serves the entirety of his 25-year sentence and is not released on parole.

"You are spoiled fruit from a rotten tree, and I hate you," she said.

In a statement, Calvert said even though Snell was not the shooter, he shared responsibility in Morgan's murder.

"Our office will punish harshly anyone who participates to any degree in gang violence in our community," he said.

In a statement, McLennan County District Attorney Josh Tetens said youth gang violence is on the rise in Waco.

"Today, another violent gang member was taken off our streets and sentenced to 25 years in prison, which comes after the shooter in this terrible murder, Omarion Mayes, pled to 40 years in prison," Tetens said. "Youth-related gang violence is on the rise in our community and with the help of the (Texas Anti-Gang) unit, our office will continue to seek harsh sentences despite the age of these offenders."

Snell and Mayes will be eligible for parole after serving half of their sentences.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his family are growing less hesitant to show off their luxury goods, often worth up to millions of dollars a year, to a population largely suffering from chronic food shortages, Seoul's unification ministry said Thursday.

Exports of luxury goods to North Korea are banned under a 2006 U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution, but the reclusive regime has managed to bring in luxury vehicles and consumer goods, including French designer bags and watches.

"North Korea appears to be introducing luxury goods worth hundreds of millions of Korean won to billions yearly for the Kim Jong-un family," a ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

He added that the "volume of imported goods shrank during the COVID-19 pandemic due to border controls but has been recovering since the latter half of last year."

The ministry made the assessment based on sources from the South Korean intelligence and North Korean defectors, the official said, citing difficulty in gaining access to exact figures and data on the Kim family.

The ruling family also seems to be "showing off their luxury goods without caring about the eyes of the public."

Photos released by state media often show Kim and his wife, Ri Sol-ju, wearing Swiss luxury watches.

In September, Kim's powerful sister, Yo-jung, was also seen holding a black leather bag, presumably from the French luxury brand Christian Dior, during the leader's visit to Russia.

The North's leader is known to use such luxury goods to keep North Korean officials loyal to him.

"Kim gives luxury cars as gifts to officials who he particularly favors or those who have made special accomplishments in the military field," the official said. "He also hands out Swiss watches like Omega or the latest electronic devices at events commemorating the birthdays of the Kim family or the party congress meeting." (Yonhap)
PRESS RELEASE

Cockpit USA and the American Airpower Museum are hosting a Halloween Meet, Greet & Photos with Top Gun Fighter Pilot MAVERICK, at the American Airpower Museum. Known as @CaliforniaTomCruise on Instagram, Jerome Le Blanc is the Worlds most famous Top Gun MAVERICK Impersonator, who will be at AAM with his Co-Pilot, ICEMAN @ArizonaIceman, to take photos and welcome AAM attendees!

Attendees, please show up in your best Top Gun costumes! Attendees who arrive in costume are part of Cockpit USAs Movie Hero Jacket giveaway! The contestant with the best Top Gun costume will win a jacket from the Movie Hero Collection and be featured on Cockpitusa.com!

Cockpit USAs Iconic Movie Hero Collection will be available to purchase at the museum gift shop. The Movie Hero Collection includes the highly coveted Movie Hero Top Gun brown leather flight jacket and the CWU  36/P sage green textile jacket, as seen in the 2022 film Top Gun: MAVERICK. Along with the Movie Hero Collection, new styles will be unveiled at the event. Special pricing and prizes are only available on site at the American Airpower Museum during this event!

Admission- Adults: $15; Seniors (65+) and Veterans: $12; Kids 5 to 12: $10 (under 5 free). Your contributions support AAMs mission to honor Veterans and U.S. aviation history, by preserving the aircraft and their legacy for future generations. Help Keep Em Flying!

What: Meet & Greet & Photos taken with TOP GUN MAVERICK Impersonator @CaliforniaTomCruise

Where: American Airpower Museum, 1230 New Highway, Farmingdale, New York 11735

When: Sunday, October 29th, 2023, 10:30 a.m.  3:30 p.m., 3:00 p.m. for Giveaway Announcement

The American Airpower Museum is an aviation museum located on the landmarked former site of Republic Aviation at Republic Airport, Farmingdale, NY. The Museum maintains a collection of aviation artifacts and an array of operational aircraft spanning the many years of the aircraft factorys history. The Museum is a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Educational Foundation Chartered by the New York State Board of Regents. For more information, visit www.americanairpowermuseum.com
Vintage Aviation News staff did not write this article; the content comes via our partners who wish to help support our website.

Whether it is for national security or the public interest, the government needs to focus on optimizing aerospace procurement. In an ever-changing world, there is a great need for an effective procurement process. Here is why cost-effective solutions can be found when procuring aerospace parts.

The Best Solutions For Procurement

Events in recent years have shown how complex, as well as how sensitive supply chains can be. The pandemic and the blockage of the Suez Canal show just how risky it can be. Furthermore, outsourcing exposes how many risks supply chains can face. This is why governments must choose suppliers who can deliver fast problem-solving to fulfill their needs.

An experienced vendor like Greenwood Aerospace at governmentprocurement.com specializes in delivering cost-efficient, modernized aircraft parts without compromising the quality. The company has a vast network of suppliers, which is why they can afford to negotiate prices. With long experience in the aircraft procurement industry and clients from all military branches, every customer will surely be in safe hands.

Types Of Aerospace Parts

Depending on the industry, there can be different needs for parts. In the case of aircraft parts of the military, there needs to be the utmost focus on secure parts in order to maintain national security. In the aviation industry, there are different types of parts. These include rotables, spares, repairables, consumables, as well as special and general tools and special equipment. These are the absolute essentials.

Because these are necessary when considering procurement, buyers will have to determine their objective when purchasing. Is it to get as fast delivery as possible? Or is reducing material costs the goal? In different cases, it can be necessary to choose just one vendor. Otherwise, selecting parts from different suppliers can slow down making decisions.

How To Cut Supplier Costs

So what is the solution if buyers want a cost-effective, fast and easy solution? The industry also faces challenges since governments and buyers have reduced their budgets. Therefore, they prefer cost-effective solutions since there isnt a financial latitude to buy sophisticated equipment.

Governments can begin by making their procurement process more streamlined and standardized. This step will initially reduce costs. Furthermore, governments will have to negotiate with suppliers by getting the full scope of the actual equipment costs. Otherwise, they will have to choose a supplier with cost-competitive prices. Maintaining a good relationship with the vendor can also be an essential step. By improving communication, you can hold your suppliers accountable for the agreed standards, which can result in a reduction of costs.

Green Technology in Aerospace

In order to future-proof the procurement process, governments should also consider purchasing goods that align with the green transition. When governments use their power to work towards reducing emissions, this can be an essential step in reaching sustainability goals.

For example, by mentioning green technology, NATO has also considered how it can contribute to environmental sustainability. This can come in renewable energy, where NATO bases can use solar or wind power through solar and wind farms. Choosing a more sustainable procurement can make it easier for governments to reduce their carbon footprint.

Conclusion

The procurement process is no easy task, but with the help of reliable vendors, it can become much more accessible. Finding a trustworthy vendor can also result in more cost-effective solutions. Vendors with many years of experience also likely have a variety of suppliers which they can negotiate prices with.

Investing in green technology might also become a better solution in the future. If more governments decide to spend their money on green technology, they can reduce their energy costs in the long term.

Vintage Aviation News staff did not write this article; the content comes via our partners who wish to help support our website.
WINTHROP  Buchanan County sheriffs deputies continue to investigate an Oct. 3 crash that led to a pickup truck catching fire.

Deputies have obtained a search warrant to exam blood samples of the driver, Andrew Gage Anderson of Dubuque in connection with the collision. Authorities found drug paraphernalia at the scene of the accident, according to court records.

According to the sheriffs office, a woman called 911 around 8:15 p.m. on Oct. 3 to report a pickup following her and driving aggressively at her on U.S. Highway 20 near mile marker 269.

Dispatchers advised her to exit the highway, and the pickup continued to follow when she did. She turned onto Iowa Highway 187 and then onto 210th Street.

The pickup went into a ditch near Washburn Road. It left the ditch and then re-entered and rolled, according to the sheriffs office.

Deputies arrived in the area and found Anderson walking in the 3000 block of 210th covered in blood with his clothing ripped. He said his truck was on fire.

A short time later, deputies found the Chevrolet Silverado pickup in flames in a farm field.

Anderson was taken to Regional Medical Center in Manchester.

The Buchanan County Sheriffs Office was assisted by the Iowa State Patrol, Winthrop Fire Department and Regional Medical Center Ambulance.

Deputies said charges are pending in the incident.

The crash came a week after Anderson was sentenced to probation for a June incident where he allegedly assaulted his mother in Dubuque.

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
WATERLOO  Trial for a man accused of setting a fire that killed his friend in 2022 has been delayed while the defense gathers evidence that may challenge the cause of the fatal blaze.

John Walter Spooner, 60, of Denver, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Tony Lewis Grider, 60. Spooner had been staying at Griders home at 309 E. Second St. on Aug. 19, 2022, when an early morning fire broke out.

Grider died in his second-floor bedroom.

Authorities allege Spooner used gasoline to set a fire on the front porch. He was seen sparking a cigarette lighter before the fire and tossing a gas can into the street shortly before smoke and flames began showing.

Defense attorney Nichole Watt said experts hired by the defense have found additional clues to the fire.

An expert with the Forensic Fire Analysis Institute determined samples taken from the porch deck dont match the gasoline found in the can, according court records filed by the defense.

And an engineer with Combustion Science and Engineering Inc. indicates he may have found an alternate location for where the fire started, records state.

The defense asked the court to allow testing of blood samples taken by the Iowa Medical Examiners Office during autopsy in an effort to find traces of hydrogen cyanide. Burning foam cushions can emit poisonous gases, and finding such traces in the samples could point to a furniture fire.

Judge David Odekirk ordered the Medical Examiners Office to preserve any blood samples following a Monday hearing.

Trial for the murder case was postponed pending a December hearing.

Spooner was convicted of arson in connection with the fire during a November 2022 trial, and sentencing for that charge was also delayed.

Photos: House Fire, East 2nd St., Aug. 19, 2022 081922jr-fire-e2nd- 081922jr-fire-e2nd-1 081922jr-fire-e2nd-3 081922jr-fire-e2nd-4 081922jr-fire-e2nd-5 081922jr-fire-e2nd-6
WATERLOO  A Waterloo teen has been detained for allegedly firing a gun during an argument with a girl on Wednesday afternoon.

Authorities allege the two were involved in an argument around 4:45 p.m. at 1601 W. 11th St.

The male then fired a single shot outside and returned the house, according to police.

Officers searched the house and found two firearms inside. The alleged shooter, age 17, was charged in juvenile court with reckless use of a firearm and assault while displaying a weapon.

No injuries were reported.

The deadliest and safest cities for pedestrians The deadliest and safest cities for pedestrians Deadliest cities for pedestrians The smaller cities on this list have higher rate-adjusted fatality rates than major cities Safest cities for pedestrians Where did fatality rates rise or fall the most?
WAVERLY  The Rev. Maggie Garberg Falenschek will be inducted as Wartburg College's Herbert and Cora Moehlmann Chaplaincy Chair at 10:15 a.m. Monday, Oct. 23, during the college's regular chapel time.

Falenschek also will be installed into her new pastoral call as Wartburg's dean of spiritual life by the Rev. Kevin Jones, bishop of the Northeastern Iowa Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

The community is invited to attend the service.

Falenschek came to Wartburg from Gustavus Adolphus College, where she served as chaplain, director of campus ministries and director of the Gustavus Academy for Faith, Science and Ethics. As dean of spiritual life, she will provide visionary leadership for the advancement of spiritual life on campus, engaging a religiously diverse campus in actively caring for their spiritual selves in and out of the classroom.

"Chaplain Maggie's impact has been evident on our campus and in our community since the moment she arrived. Under her leadership, we are leaning into our Lutheran identity in new and innovative ways so that all can thrive," said Wartburg President Rebecca Ehretsman.

A graduate of Concordia College in Moorehead, Falenschek completed her Master of Divinity at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, Calif. It was in California that she fell in love with campus ministry while interning at Stanford University with the Episcopal Lutheran campus ministry team. She returned to the Midwest to serve as a pastor for youth and family ministries in Urbana, Illinois, before landing at Gustavus.

"So much of my work on campus is intersectional and relational. It was really important for me to invite folks from across campus to play an active role in my installation to symbolize that none of this work is done alone," Falenschek said. "I have felt so welcomed into the Wartburg community in my first two months in this role, Monday is a celebration of that and a really exciting future at Wartburg College."

The Moehlmann Chair was established in 1990 with gifts from Chaplain Herbert Moehlmann in memory of his wife, Cora, and Lutheran Brotherhood. Moehlmann graduated from Wartburg College in 1915 and Wartburg Seminary in 1918. He was the first pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Waterloo. In 1930, he joined the U.S. Army to serve as a chaplain and was stationed in Hawaii at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He continued to serve throughout World War II, attaining the rank of colonel while supervising more than 200 chaplains in the European Theater.
CEDAR FALLS  A City Council majority went forward Monday with repealing the College Hill visioning plan for future growth, development and improvements.

The move came despite a flurry of public protests from stakeholders including University of Northern Iowa President Mark Nook and College Hill Partnership Board President Hannah Crisman.

As of Friday afternoon, Mayor Rob Green was still considering a veto. He can do so within 14 days of passage.

I will take into account the comments from the university and College Hill Partnership, said Green immediately following the lengthy discussion.

The council voted 4-3 to withdraw the Imagine College Hill! plan approved on May 3, 2021, after councilmembers Daryl Kruse, Susan deBuhr, Dave Sires and Dustin Ganfield recommended earlier this month the previous endorsement be removed from the record.

Councilmembers Kelly Dunn, Simon Harding and Gil Schultz voted against rescinding the plan developed under the advisement of Ferrell Madden (now Geoffrey Ferrell of Washington, D.C.), a consultant hired by the city.

The council also scheduled a committee meeting for Nov. 6 to come up with a new version of the plan focused on a smaller area.

Nook said there is an urgent need to take action on aspects of the plan.

This is an area that has caused concerns for some of our parents of some of our students, and having it revitalized is important, Nook said. Repealing this plan means starting over.

A veto would be Greens first in 2023. His last was in December. He vetoed an ordinance would have reduced the council voting threshold from a five-member super-majority to a four-member simple majority for overriding Planning and Zoning Commission decisions on zoning code amendments. It came as the majority was attempting to adopt amendments to what were new downtown zoning rules.

Revisions sought

Kruse, deBuhr and Sires were all on the council at the time the College Hill plan was passed in 2021.

DeBuhr argued Monday the area covered by the plan is too large and wants to eliminate areas not even part of the Hill in her mind. The plan covers a swath of territory south of 12th Street and north of Seerley Boulevard between Iowa Highway 57 and Hudson Road. A smaller subsection also exists south of University Avenue and the UNI campus.

She asked the council to focus on the areas where she feels most everyone wants to see revitalization  the Multiple Residence (R-4) and Commercial (C-3) districts on the current zoning map  encompassing the Hill business district, a small northern residential area up to 19th Street and a southern strip west of College Street down to University Avenue.

Councilmember Dave Sires was previously adamant about narrowing in on areas 1, 2 and 3 in the current visioning plan. That is a little bit larger than whats covered by the C-3 and R-4 areas, but in the same vicinity.

The council had already paused implementation of the plan and removed funding for new zoning initiatives, which the minority brought up in its argument against repeal.

Councilmember Simon Harding pushed for moving forward with the plan and then choosing aspects everyone agrees should be implemented.

However, the majority doesnt want to be in a position again where it appears the opportunity was missed to make significant changes. They felt that was the case after a downtown visioning plan was adopted and new zoning code was crafted and approved in 2021 under a different council.

Thats why close to two years ago a majority of the council initially favored a building permit moratorium in the downtown commercial areas. What councilmembers wanted and eventually got was a recommendation to repeal the downtown zoning.

It never happened, though, because Ganfield split from the other three. He noted at the time making changes to the new code would be more productive. In addition, he had not heard from enough people interested in the full repeal.

Form-based coding approach is based on traditional American town and city form and function  creating places that are inherently pedestrian-friendly and mixed-use. We operate under the guiding philosophy that the great neighborhoods, towns, and cities in America did not happen by accident  they were planned with a physical vision, states Ferrell Madden on its homepage.

Among the downtown changes debated and voted on have been parking requirements and the use of vinyl siding. They also include the elimination of the public process for site plan review because the code has been described as more black and white.

The codes are not written in the abstract, but rather to produce a specific place  one envisioned by the local citizens and grounded in the reality of the local economic, political, and community context, states the company.

All changes to zoning directly affect new construction and certain expansion projects.

Harding also noted an election is right around the corner and recommended the next council and mayor take up the matter in 2024. Green agrees with that sentiment, another reason hes giving thought to a veto.

Sires, deBuhr, Harding and Green all have terms expiring at the end of the year and are not seeking reelection.

In other business, the council:

Held a public swearing-in ceremony for new police dog Boona, Cedar Falls first K9 officer in 20 years.

Approved a $450,000 agreement with Strand Associates of Madison, Wisconsin, for planning and preliminary design services at its wastewater treatment plant in advance of major upgrades.

Approved agreements with Kubica Corporation on land conveyance and a partial tax exemption to allow the company to move forward with constructing new facilities in the citys industrial park as part of the move to make Cedar Falls its headquarters.

Authorized the acquisition of easements and fee titles from 36 properties in advance of the reconstructions of West Viking Road from Union Road to Production Drive, as well as the North Cedar Heights area, along Woodlawn Drive and East Ridgewood Drive to Greenwood Avenue. The West Viking Road project includes improvements all the way down to the Hudson Road corridor. Ganfield dissented to the North Cedar Heights acquisitions in the 6-1 vote.

Inside the newly remodeled Cedar Falls City Hall council chambers Cedar Falls City Hall - 1 Cedar Falls City Hall - 3 Cedar Falls City Hall - 14 Cedar Falls City Hall - 13 Cedar Falls City Hall - 2 Cedar Falls City Hall - 4 Cedar Falls City Hall - 5 Cedar Falls City Hall - 16 Cedar Falls City Hall - 6 Cedar Falls City Hall - 7 Cedar Falls City Hall - 8 Cedar Falls City Hall - 9 Cedar Falls City Hall - 17 Cedar Falls City Hall - 11 Cedar Falls City Hall - 12 Cedar Falls City Hall - 15 Cedar Falls City Council - 19
Kim Cheol-ok, who had lived in China for 25 years, was among hundreds of victims

By Jung Min-ho

After escaping North Korea at 14 in the midst of a catastrophic famine in 1998, Kim Cheol-ok settled down in a small town in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin, where she married a Chinese man and gave birth to a daughter.

Kim did not want to be married, set up by a Chinese marriage broker, but she gradually came to love her family and accept her new life there while assimilating into that community. But the family fell apart on Oct. 9, when the Chinese government deported her and hundreds of other North Koreans against their will. This move came after she was arrested on April 4 for unknown reasons.

The news immediately broke the hearts of her entire family. They fear that torture, death or both may be awaiting her in a North Korean prison.

Her husband, daughter and other members of the family desperately want her back, calling for her safety and release, Kim Hyuk, her cousin living in South Korea, told The Korea Times on Thursday. After living in China for more than 20 years, she barely speaks Korean, which I worry about deeply. She could be treated even more harshly than others because of that.

Kim Hyuk speaks from experience. After being caught crossing the border in 1998, he was sent to a concentration camp where he suffered beatings and torture for three years.

The guards beat me every time I said something they did not like or could not understand, he said.

He added that releasing her name and picture was their last resort to keep her alive.

It might be impossible to free her immediately at this point. But if she dies, all hopes of a reunion would die. We want to keep them alive for that possibility no matter how scant it is, he said.

Her repatriation suggests that any North Korean living in China could be targeted, regardless of how long he or she has been in the country and how brutal the government could be to its own citizens, experts said.

More than 70 percent of North Korean escapees are women, many of whom end up forming families, often against their will. If their children are born, they can obtain Chinese citizenship as long as they meet certain requirements.

By separating such Chinese citizens from their wives and mothers, the Chinese government violates the basic human right to family life, said Lee Kyu-chang, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a state-funded think tank.

In a democratic country, such state violence would be met with civil resistance. But in China, there have been no public calls over the issue.

This is astonishing that China sacrifices the rights of its citizens for the relations with North Korea despite its enormous influence over the state, said Shin Hee-seok, a legal analyst at Transitional Justice Working Group, a Seoul-based rights group.

I think the Chinese attitude demonstrates the little value of its citizens rights rather than the high value of its diplomatic relationship with North Korea.

He also pointed out that North Korean women returning from China pregnant are forced to have abortions, which he thinks is not just a serious violation of international law but also the North Korean regimes violence against would-be Chinese citizens.

It is ironic that the Chinese authorities deport North Korean women to North Korea where forced abortion or infanticide of their babies awaits them because Chinese blood is viewed as corrupting Korean racial purity. I cannot think of any country other than North Korea that carries out mass abortions or infanticide on such racist grounds, nor can I think of any country other than China that would enable such mass abortions or infanticide against its own blood, he said.
DES MOINES  It is now less than three months until the Iowa caucuses, and according to polling, Donald Trump's lead over the GOP field remains stubbornly high.

Despite the best efforts of his opponents with millions spent in advertising and ground game, Trump's support in polls has not fallen below 45% since September.

At events over the past few days, I asked Trump's supporters why they think none of the candidates have been able to make major inroads among Iowa's Republican voters.

Gary Leffler, a Trump supporter and Polk County Republican Central Committee member, said he thought Trump had a baseline of support around 50%. That means, despite the efforts of other candidates, they're fighting for around 50% of the pie as well, making it difficult for any single candidate to challenge Trump.

This can also be seen in polling: No non-Trump candidate has registered more than 25% of support in polls since July, and when one candidate starts to gain traction, it usually comes at the expense of another, while Trump has kept fairly steady.

Leffler also said Trump created an energy that was unmatched by other candidates. He said Trump's rallies were "like a rock concert."

"You'll see something that you may never again see in your lifetime, to have that kind of a leadership," Leffler said. "And just the way he responds with the people and connects with the people. That's DeSantis' problem. He says all the right things, but he doesn't connect with people."

But Carl Cleveland, a voter from Sioux City and a Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis supporter, said he thinks Trump's support on the ground is not as high as the polls suggest.

"Trump is not showing off crowds like he was before because he's not getting them," Cleveland said. "And he's going on the border states ... my feeling is, he's not going to win Iowa."

While many indicators, from polls to fundraising, suggest Trump has a dominant lead, one thing I think is worth considering is how well Trump's support in polls will translate to support on caucus night.

For many who aren't deeply engaged in the primary, Trump is a default choice. He's the recognizable name and still the de-facto leader of the party. If they get a call, they may say they're going to caucus and that they'll vote for Trump.

But a caucus is more involved than an election, and it requires some time commitment and research to even know where you should go to participate. It's not a certainty that those poll respondents will actually go out and caucus.

At Trump's small-scale "commit to caucus" events in Iowa, his campaign surrogates have explained how to find caucus locations, walked attendees through what happens at a caucus and encouraged people to bring friends when they caucus on Jan. 15.

It's not a tactic unique to the Trump campaign, but I think it illustrates that they are trying to be certain they have their support locked down as Trump's opponents are pouring money, people and time into Iowa.

Gaza refugees split candidates

Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have gotten into a spat over support, or rather, lack thereof, for refugees from Gaza as Israel's retaliation to a Hamas terror attack has displaced more than 1 million people in northern Gaza.

DeSantis made headlines on Saturday saying that he would reject refugees from the war-torn Gaza Strip. He argued that though Gaza residents do not all support Hamas, "they're all antisemitic" and want to abolish Israel.

Responding to those comments, Haley said that half of Gaza opposes Hamas and that the U.S. "has always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists."

While Haley never said the U.S. should take in refugees from Gaza, DeSantis seized on those comments, saying to NBC News that Haley "would import people  that's been her position."

Haley's campaign hit back and said Haley "has always opposed settling Middle East refugees" in the U.S., arguing that other Arab countries should take refugees.

Never Back Down, the Super PAC associated with DeSantis, on Tuesday dropped an ad claiming Haley flip-flopped on her support for refugees. The ad clips Haley's confirmation hearing from 2017, in which she says South Carolina "always welcomed the refugee program."

But in the original hearing, Haley immediately followed that by saying her position changed when it came to refugees from Syria. According to local reporting at the time, Haley briefly supported a faith group's efforts to resettle refugees from Syria in 2015, but she reversed her position that year after a terrorist bombing in Paris because of vetting concerns.

Trump and South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott have also said they would reject refugees from Gaza.

It's not surprising these candidates are going after each other on this issue, as Haley has been making a play for DeSantis's second-place spot in Iowa and nationally. And, there is not much daylight between the candidates' views on Israel, so creating some friction may not be a bad strategy.

What I'm reading

Organizing is key to the Iowa Caucuses. Who has the ground game to take on Trump? (Brianne Pfannenstiel, Des Moines Register): An in-depth look into the organizing ground games in Iowa for Trump, DeSantis, Haley and other GOP presidential candidates.

What Republican presidential candidates are saying about the Israel-Hamas war (Jeongyoon Han, NPR): This is a great summary of what each candidate has said and the positions they've taken as war between Israel and Hamas has unfolded.
An Iowa nurse accused of using a bed sheet to tie a patient to a wheelchair has agreed to surrender her license.

In July 2023, the Iowa Board of Nursing charged Teresa King of Creston with committing an act that might adversely affect patient welfare. The board also charged her with excessive use of alcohol to the extent that it might impair her ability to practice nursing with reasonable skill and safety.

The board alleged that on Aug. 30, 2022, King pleaded guilty to a charge of drunken driving, and that on Aug. 20, 2022, while working at an unspecified care center, King wrapped a sheet around a resident in a way that restricted the individuals movement or created a hazard.

Last month, King and the board agreed to a settlement that requires her to surrender her license to practice. She can apply for reinstatement in one year.

The Board of Nursing records provide no other information on the care-facility allegations, but state inspections reports indicate King was working at the Lenox Care Center on the day in question.

According to state inspectors, a female resident of the home was trying to leave the facility the evening of Aug. 20, 2022, when a nurse approached the doorway and grabbed her by the arm to force her back into a common area used by residents.

As she was pulled backward, the woman allegedly began to scream and cry out, saying, Ow, stop, you are hurting me  You are abusing me, I know my rights.

According to workers at the home, the woman fell to the floor and the nurse grabbed her by the shoulders and forcibly slammed her into a chair, and then instructed an aide to hold the woman down while the nurse wrapped a sheet around the womans legs to tie her into the chair.

According to the workers description of the incident, the woman was fighting like hell to get out of the chair and was screaming, Help! Why are you doing this? When the accused nurse was interviewed by inspectors, she denied having abused the woman.

Asked why she had asked a colleague to bring her a bed sheet, the nurse admitted making the request but said she quickly decided she just could not do it and so she never used the sheet  a claim that was contradicted by other staffers.

Federal officials fined Lenox Care Center $34,661 for the alleged physical abuse of a resident.

In 2009, the Iowa Board of Nursing charged King with using a controlled substance, alleging that while working at a nursing home she tested positive for marijuana and later admitted smoking marijuana the night before. The board placed Kings license on probation for one year.

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 The United States is to blame for the tragedy in the Middle East, Biden must be held accountable.

Since 1945, 80% of all wars that have occurred in the world have occurred with the direct participation of the United States. And today, to whom is war, whose mother is dear, said Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin at the plenary meeting.

He noted that Washington has allocated money to Israel and promises assistance to Palestine. The war cannot end in this situation. Therefore, the United Nations needs to initiate holding Biden accountable, the Chairman of the State Duma emphasized.

Let us remind you that today the deputies unanimously adopted an appeal to the UN and parliaments of the world in connection with the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

WtR
No slouching, the time to wait is over

***

***

 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held negotiations with the DPRK Foreign Minister Choi Song Hui

 Pyongyang, October 19

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 Signing ceremony of the Inter-MFA Exchange Plan

 Pyongyang, October 19

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***

 Opening remarks by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation S.V. Lavrov during negotiations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Choi Song Hee

 Pyongyang, October 19, 2023

 Exactly a week ago we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries.

75 years ago, the Soviet Union, which played a key role in the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule, was the first to recognize the young Korean state, and then assisted it in the development of the national economy, science, culture, and education.

We will always remember the invaluable contribution that Comrade Kim Il Sung and then Comrade Kim Jong Il made to the development of our relations.

 Now, after the historic summit between Russian President V.V. Putin and Chairman of State Affairs Kim Jong-un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome on September 13, we can say with confidence that these relations have reached a qualitatively new, strategic level.

Our task now is to achieve full implementation of all agreements reached at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. We are making this visit in order to begin this work without rocking.

I am confident that our negotiations will be substantive and useful.

***

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Get it done and into the future we go

WtR
A survivor of six heart attacks and a brain tumor, a grumpy bear of a man, whom has declared Russia as his new and wonderful home. His wife is a true Russian Sweet Pea of a girl and she puts up with this bear of a guy and keeps him in line. Thank God for my Sweet Pea and Russia.
 Speech and answers to media questions by S.V. Lavrov at a press conference following his visit to the DPRK (Pyongyang, October 19, 2023)

 The DPRK is a close neighbor and long-time partner of our country. We are unanimous in the opinion that the progressive development of bilateral relations meets the interests of our states and contributes to the strengthening of peace and security in Northeast Asia.

We, like our North Korean friends, are seriously concerned about the increase in military activity here by the United States, Japan and South Korea, as well as Washingtons policy of transferring elements of its strategic infrastructure, including nuclear aspects, to the region.

We strive to constructively offer alternatives to the escalation of tension here. We advocate that a regular negotiation process on security issues on the Korean Peninsula be established without any preconditions.

From the answers to the questions:

 As for the Gaza Strip, the risk of this crisis escalating into a regional conflict is quite serious.

The United States vetoed the revolution, which called for a stop to any hostilities and to begin resolving humanitarian issues. Thus, the United States showed that it is not ready to call for a truce , a ceasefire.

Its hard for me to judge what goals are being pursued. We are seeing attempts again to blame everything on Iran. We consider them quite provocative .

WtR
The nomination of Michael Puetz, owner of Sugar Loaf Ford Lincoln in Winona, for the 2024 TIME Dealer of the Year award was announced Wednesday.

Puetz is one of a select group of 49 nominees from across the country who will be honored at the 107th annual National Automobile Dealers Association Show on Feb. 3 in Las Vegas.

The TIME Dealer of the Year award is one of the automobile industrys most prestigious and highly coveted honors. The award recognizes the nations most successful auto dealers who also demonstrate a long-standing commitment to community service. Puetz was chosen to represent the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association in the national competition.

The most rewarding aspect of my job is ensuring that people with limited resources who need a car for their family and older customers who are vulnerable get a fair and trustworthy deal, Puetz said. We help guide them financially and steer them in the best direction. They trust us, and we do not disappoint them.

A 1979 graduate of Rochester Community and Technical College in Rochester, where he studied carpentry, Puetz started his retail automotive career in sales at Walz Buick Oldsmobile GMC in Winona in 1996.

By 2003, Puetz was named general manager of Chrysler Winona and had invested in a Kia franchise in Wisconsin, which he eventually sold in 2005. That year, he left the Chrysler store to run Sugar Loaf Ford Lincoln for Bill Hutmacher, the owner. He eventually purchased the dealership from Hutmacher and later added Chrysler Winona to his portfolio.

Sugar Loaf Ford Lincoln was named the Best Place to Work 2022-23 by the Minnesota Retailers Association and also received the Above and Beyond Award from the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, which recognizes and honors employers of military families.

Puetz is an active member of the Winona Area Chamber of Commerce, where he has served on the board of directors. In 2020, he was named the Chamber Supporter of the Year for his good works and for his annual contribution of a vehicle to the organizations car raffle.

Puetz also works to promote the automotive industry as a viable career path for students in his region. He is a member of the automotive board for Minnesota State College Southeast in Winona and has been a guest speaker at Winona State University.

Dealers are nominated by the executives of state and metro dealer associations around the country. A panel of faculty members from the Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan will select one finalist from each of the four NADA regions and one national Dealer of the Year. Three finalists will receive $5,000 for their favorite charities and the winner will receive $10,000 to give to charity, donated by Ally.

Ally also will recognize dealer nominees and their community efforts by contributing $1,000 to each nominees 501(c)3 charity of choice.
A second Republican candidate has joined the 2024 race for the Minnesota House 26A seat.

Stephen James Doerr announced Thursday that he will return to the race for the second election in a row, after previously facing off against incumbent Rep. Gene Pelowski in 2022.

Doerr lost the race to Pelowski after 55.04% of 2022 voters supported Pelowski, while 44.85% supported Doerr.

"Winona is home; from Cathedral grade school, Cotter, studies at Winona State University and SMU, I know Winona. Great Grandpa Leon Bronk would bring vegetables to town with horse drawn wagons, Grandma Florence shared many stories of her and Rose having to walk the horses in the field  we grew up here, as a child I sold vegetables and berries we had picked off the farm. I'm raising my children here and want them to be safe, from the farm fields to fishing the river," Doerr said in a press release announcing his candidacy.

Doerr is a high school math teacher, farmer and over-the-road truck driver.

"As I followed this last legislative session, I became worried for our future if we continue with DFLs wasteful spending and overtaxing," Doerr said. "Our school children and businesses are not safe under the DFL control. The DFL have doubled down on their social experiments over needed literacy, workforce and college readiness.

"I want to stop the Minnesota DFL from fleecing the working class of Winona County. I believe that the hard working people of Winona County deserve more genuine representation. I have worked my way through college in Winona, including: Renk Trucking, Lawrence Transport (formerly RTL) delivering Bay State Milling Co. products to Chicago. I farmed with my grandfather Albert and family; now is the time for a new perspective. With the help of family and the citizens of Winona County we forged a path to restore freedom and I am committed to win back, in 2024, our HD26A seat for the working class.

Doerr, who lives in Winona with his wife, Maria, and their eight children, is a member of the Winona Civic Association and the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart Parish, along with being an inductee of the Knights of Columbus.

He has also served as a volunteer fire and rescue member.

Doerr said he has completed an educational administration certification, along with accounting and computer science courses, and has previously helped Stockton businesses with bookkeeping and tax preparations.

Doerr faces more competition in the upcoming election than he did in 2022.

Doerr is not alone in his attempt to unseat Pelowski. Unlike when he ran in 2022, Doerr is expected to face a primary election for the Republican Party spot on the ballot after Winona City Council at-large member Aaron Repinski announced his candidacy for the seat last week.

Pelowski, a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, confirmed after Repinski's announcement last week that he will seek his 20th term as the 26A Minnesota House representative, having first been elected in 1986.

The House seat will be on the general election ballot in November 2024, with a primary election expected to be held in August.

The 26A district includes both Winona and Goodview, along with several surrounding communities in eastern Winona County.
Baraboo is currently the lone Sauk County municipality that does not allow all-terrain and utility-terrain vehicles on its roads, and an area riders group is looking to change that.

The Baraboo Bluffs ATV and UTV Club consists of riders from a broad range of ages and has been attempting to persuade Baraboo city officials to open the Sauk County seats streets to ATV and UTV traffic. Allowing such vehicles could be a boon to the citys economy and tourism industry, said club president Bob Spencer, who is the 21st District supervisor on the County Board.

Our whole goal is to support local businesses through ATV recreation, Spencer said. If you look through other communities, ATV recreation is definitely an economic benefit. We want to get people in from other communities plus the residents here to be able to support the local businesses.

Sup. Andrea Lombard echoed her fellow board members sentiment regarding benefits to Baraboo businesses from lifting ATV and UTV prohibitions and said it could attract new businesses.

Spencer said some residents of Baraboo own terrain vehicles and the city street prohibitions cause them to have to either store the vehicles on a site in another municipality or tow them through city streets. Baraboo Bluffs member Allen Steele said he has to store his UTV away from his home.

If Baraboo was open, I could leave right from my home and have my machine right there, Steele said. This is my opportunity to mingle with people, so this is very important to me. Being able to just go out without having to drive 5 miles just to get the machine and come back would be a real blessing to me.

Spencer also said ATV and UTV activities are an ideal way for area residents to socialize. He and Steele said a misconception about ATV and UTV use is that it would be a disturbance because of younger riders using them in an unruly fashion.

The majority of terrain vehicle users are from a wide array of age groups and use them as simply a more desirable means of travel, according to Spencer. ATVs and UTVs are also expensive, Steele said, which would keep people from using them in a reckless manner in order to take care of them.

If the Common Council were to allow this, they would be pleasantly surprised, Steele said.

Currently, Sauk County has roughly 1,400 miles of roadways that allow terrain vehicles, out of 1,899 total miles of county roads, according to Spencer. The county website has a map of all roads that permit them, as well as hours within each municipality. Sauk City and Prairie du Sac do not have any streets that allow the vehicles but have no prohibitions against them.

Gaining ATV and UTV access to Sauk County roads has been a multiyear process, which Spencer said began late in the last decade. After opening up a large number of roads in 2021, the county approved a measure to open all county trunk highways to terrain vehicles in July 2022.

Most streets in Wisconsin Dells and Lake Delton allow terrain vehicle access, as well as all streets in Reedsburg.

A lot of times, this is a family activity, Lombard said. Having these roads open just makes it much more family friendly. Im so glad that Sauk is pretty open to this.
A key North Korean official in charge of Pyongyang's missile development has been leading an agency considered to be handling the country's policy of strengthening its nuclear force, South Korea's unification ministry said Thursday.

Jang Chang-ha, president of the Academy of National Defense Science, has been identified as the chief of the Missile General Bureau, as the name tag on his military uniform points to his new title, the ministry said, citing photos carried by the North's state media outlets.

"The missile bureau is presumed to be the agency in charge of North Korea's project to strengthen its nuclear force, given that the flag representing it has a symbol of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and nuclear weapons," a ministry official told reporters.

The existence of the bureau was first known in February, when its flag was detected at an enlarged military meeting in photos carried by the North's state news agency. North Korean observers speculate it was created in April 2016 as an entity overseeing the production and management of North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles.

Jang, regarded as a key missile official, was promoted to a general last November for his contribution to the development of the Hwasong-17 ICBM.

He is among blacklisted North Korean officials under U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. He has also been on the list of unilateral sanctions by South Korea and the United States.

Meanwhile, the unification ministry said it is keeping close tabs on a possible change in the status of Ri Son-gwon, the head of the United Front Department (UFD) tasked with handling inter-Korean relations, at the ruling Workers' Party.

Ri may have been demoted from an alternate member of the party's political bureau, but there seems to be no change in his status as the UFD chief, it added. (Yonhap)
An award winning Americana band from Madison is performing this Saturday at the Portage Center for the Arts.

There is nothing I love more than playing in a new place, in a new venue, for new people, said Jason Horowitz, The Whiskey Farms guitar-playing song-writer.

We have a really nice following in Madison, and I love when we go to a bar and its people we know and it feels like a party. But, the opportunity to go to a listening space with people who havent heard us before is such an opportunity to make a connection with new people and share something of yourself, Horowitz said.

The Whiskey Farm will perform at 7:30 p.m. in the Zona Gale Theatre at the Portage Center for the Arts, 301 E. Cook St.

The two 40-minute sets separated by an intermission will mark the second installment of the centers 2023-24 Performing Arts Concert Series.

Tickets for the concert are $20 and can be purchased in person, by phone, at the door 30 minutes before the performance, or online at portagecenterforthearts.com/tickets.

Season ticket packages for six shows can also be purchased starting at $100 for adults and $50 for students.

The Whiskey Farms members  who also include vocalist Chantelle Thomas, bassist Mike Steen, mandolinist Brett Wilfrid and drummer Chad Bartell  have been playing a mixture of upbeat folk-rock, alternative country and blues music together since 2010, the band said.

We all met kind of one at a time through a series of fortunate events, said Horowitz. And we are all just really good friends, which is how we have stayed together for so long. ... Its a special group of people, and being able to get together and make music together is really uplifting for me.

Madison author shares fondness for Wisconsin Dells area with book of must-do activities Melanie McManus shares her fondness and familiarity with Wisconsin Dells and the surrounding area in her new book, "100 Things to do in Wisconsin Dells Before You Die."

The bands first record, Middle of America, won the 2012 Madison Area Music Award for Best Americana/Folk song for its lead track, If I Were You. Since then, the band has released four more records and added four more awards  three of them coming from the groups most recent record in 2022, Over These Green Hills, which won Madison Area Music Awards for Best Folk Performer and Best Folk/Americana Song and Album.

The songs written and played by the band range from personal confessions they want to share with listeners to historical storytelling ballads, which they perform in venues ranging from small stages with a handful of audience members to music festivals and small intimate theatres, similar to the Zona Gale Theatre, which Horowitz said are the bands favorite venues to play.

In the summer we play a lot of outdoor festivals, and bars in the winter, so there is not always a listening room, which is one of the reasons Im really excited about the shows this weekend, said Horowitz. In these venues you can talk a little more, get the audience to know you a little bit and have a more intimate exchange, and I really value those opportunities.

The next installment of the Portage Center for the Arts concert series will feature Wisconsin blues band The Jimmys on Jan. 20.

To view the concert series full list of acts visit portagecenterforthearts.com/concertseries.

Wisconsin Senate passes $2 billion income tax cut, rejects Evers' $1 billion workforce package The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Senate has approved a $2 billion income tax cut as part of a package also targeting child care costs, which Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is expected to veto. Republicans gutted a $1 billion Evers package that he called on them to pass in a special session last month. Instead, Republicans on Tuesday passed an income tax cut that Evers has already vetoed that is part of a package that the governors spokesperson discounted as an embarrassing response and a completely unserious proposal. Evers and the Legislature have been tussling for months over tax cuts and funding for child care services.
A package of ratepayer-focused bills being circulated in the Legislature is being touted by consumer and free-market advocates as a positive step toward more transparent regulation and affordable energy in Wisconsin.

The bills, introduced for co-sponsors last Friday, would reduce some of the costs utility companies could recover from ratepayers, require the state utilities commission to reopen cases that have considerable price overruns and require utility companies to provide more comprehensive details about their buildout plans.

The proposals have already garnered support from the state watchdog group Citizens Utility Board and conservative Americans for Prosperity. The Republican-authored package has been proposed by Sens. Rob Cowles, of Green Bay, and Duey Stroebel, of Saukville, and Reps. Nate Gustafson, of Neenah, Adam Neylon, of Pewaukee, and Paul Tittl, of Manitowoc.

The package represents an important step to increase affordability, transparency and to protect consumers, Megan Novak, director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin, said in a statement.

We hear almost every day talking to voters in Wisconsin about how much utility bills have already increased, and how much it is impacting their bottom lines, Novak continued. As utility companies seek another round of rate hikes, we should, at the very least, have additional transparency and consumer protections in the process.

As the package of bills was being circulated Wednesday, Capitol Square was the scene of a parade of more than 80 utility trucks as representatives from the Municipal Electric Utilities of Wisconsin met with legislators to lobby for unrelated legislation affecting community-owned utilities.

One of the bills introduced last week would require utility companies to regularly report to the Public Service Commission detailed information on the companys future plans for the power grid, including alternative locations and fuel types. The change would mark a shift from current practice, where the commission reviews utility project proposals or rate increases on an individual basis.

Tom Content, executive director of the state watchdog Citizens Utility Board, said the proposal would boost transparency in the process and could end up in savings for ratepayers as utilities transition to new sources of energy. The process of forward-looking energy planning, often called integrated resource planning, is used by 33 other states.

That allows the commission to actually say, What is the plan that makes the most sense for customers and are we tapping sources of energy that can actually save people money? Content said.

Utilities would also need to report to the commission any plans for closing large power plants  those that exceed 100 megawatts  at least 180 days before shuttering a facility.

Currently, the early closing of a power plant often does not come before the agency, and ratepayers can find themselves paying for outstanding debt on a facility that is no longer in use.

Environmental trust financing

The bill would also greatly expand the use of environmental trust financing, a tool used by utilities to refinance certain debt on improvements made to power plants that have closed before the full debt has been retired. The process, called securitization, currently only applies to pollution controls.

The refinancing tool has been used just once in Wisconsin, on improvements to the Pleasant Prairie coal plant, which closed in 2018.

Todd Stuart, executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, who helped draft Wisconsins original securitization law 20 years ago, said in an email that expanding the tools use, at a time when the PSC is considering billions of dollars in pending utility capital plans, would help save ratepayers money.

The PSC is currently considering a total of a half-billion dollars in higher electric rates and natural gas rates for 2024 and 2025, Stuart said. Now is a good time to raise questions regarding the speed and cost of the massive utility capital spent in Wisconsin.

The proposed legislation would expand the refinancing program so that it could be applied to all remaining debt on the closure of a power plant. While securitization is currently voluntary, the bill would give the PSC the authority to compel its use.

Enabling more savings for customers on plants that are being jettisoned just makes sense for the people paying the bills, Content said.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed 2023-25 biennial budget requested expanding the use of securitization in the state, as well as requiring integrated resource planning. However, the Republican-controlled budget committee removed both proposals from the two-year spending plan.

Cost overruns

Another bill would require the commission to reopen discussion on any ongoing utility project if the company reports cost increases at least 5% greater than what was initially approved.

While utility companies are required to notify the PSC of cost overruns, the commission does not require additional approval.

In 2022, the owners of the planned Cardinal-Hickory Creek power line through southwestern Wisconsin notified the PSC that the cost would exceed the authorized $492 million price tag by about $49 million, or more than 10%. The project was nearly $90 million over its initial budget as of July, according to PSC filings.

The Commissioners refused to allow further engagement and effectively approved the substantial cost overruns  costs which we will have to pay, according to a memo seeking co-sponsors for the bill. And this isnt the first time this has happened, nor, without additional statutory measures to ensure transparency and consumer protection, will this be the last time it happens.

Another proposal would dramatically reduce the costs that utility companies seeking rate increases, construction projects or pilot programs would be able to recoup through customer rates.

Currently, when an investor-owned public utility in Wisconsin seeks approval from the PSC for a specific project, the commission determines the cost of staff time and other expenses to assess the utility bill. The company then has the ability to recover as much as four times the PSC assessment through customer rates.

Ratepayers should not be paying the utilitys costs to help the utility raise our rates, a co-sponsorship memo for the bill states. (The bill) restricts the amount that may be recovered from ratepayers down to only the costs assessed by the PSC, a regulatory cost, and not the costs that the utility incurs.

Complaints, transparency

Other bills in the package seek to increase transparency in PSC actions and offer ratepayers more options when filing complaints against a utility company.

One proposal would reduce the required threshold for a formal complaint from 25 individuals to a single person, while the commission would still be able to combine multiple complaints into a single investigation if they are substantially similar. The bill also would allow individuals to file a complaint if the construction of a large power plant or transmission line resulted in service interruptions exceeding 180 minutes or at least two separate interruptions in a one-year period.

The bill would also bar the commission from dismissing a complaint unless a majority of the agency votes to do so in an open meeting. The commission would also have the power to order relief for a substantiated complaint, including a lower bill rate, bill credit or other compensation.

Of the 774 complaints filed with the PSC against Wisconsin electric and gas utilities last year, 772 were deemed informal, meaning the complainants did not have any right to a proceeding, fact finding or any relief from the commission.

Another proposed bill aims to boost ratepayer transparency by requiring the PSC to list online all names that a utility company may be known by. For example, Alliant Energy is regulated within the state as Wisconsin Power and Light, while the commission identifies Xcel Energy as Northern States Power Co.

Bill authors say the proposal aims to reduce confusion some customers face when trying to follow rate cases or other matters through the PSC process.

PSC spokesperson Meghan Sovey said the commission is currently reviewing the proposals.

As Wisconsins independent utility regulator, the Public Service Commission takes our obligation for transparency and public participation extremely seriously  thats why we have multiple existing opportunities for public involvement in cases that come before the Commission with decisions made in meetings open to the public and broadcast live on YouTube, Sovey said in an email.

Transportation is the largest source of carbon emissions in the US. Here's how it breaks down by state Transportation is the largest source of carbon emissions in the US. Here's how it breaks down by state How transportation emissions compare to other sectors Transportation emissions approached pre-pandemic levels in 2021 Alaska has the most transportation emissions per capita
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Officers are asking anyone who may have seen something or know something that can help the investigation to call police.
FBI Special Agent In Charge Jay Greenberg, right, speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's St. Louis field office in downtown St. Louis. Thousands of information technology workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program, FBI and Department of Justice officials said.
Mourners take the last look at the Bodies of Ibrahim Awad, left, and Mohammad Fawaqa, during their funeral in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. Awad was killed during clashes with Israeli settlers near his home village of Dura al-Qara' and Fawaqa was killed during an Israeli army raid in the village of Qebia, west of Ramallah, while two other Palestinians were killed during Israeli army raids early morning in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian ministry of health said. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
President Joe Biden swept into wartime Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that offered support for the Israeli people and produced a deal to get limited humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt, potentially by the end of the week. Biden also warned against allowing rage over the deadly Hamas attack to be all-consuming. Biden urged Israel to step back from the brink. He said doing that would ease growing tensions in the Mideast that threaten to further spiral into a broader regional conflict. And he said finding a way to step back would be for the greater good of a world rattled by the shocking images of carnage and suffering in both Israel and Gaza.
Lawyers for Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro have met with prosecutors and the judge overseeing the case to hash out what will be asked on a lengthy questionnaire when the first group of 450 prospective jurors arrives at the courthouse later this week. Whether that should include their opinions about potential witnesses, the other defendants and issues that go to the heart of the case dominated that discussion Monday. Powell and Chesebro, both attorneys, were indicted in Fulton County in August along with Trump and 16 others, accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to keep Trump in the White House. The pair is set to go to trial in the coming weeks, with jury selection to begin Friday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets N. Korean leader Kim

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his visit to Pyongyang will mark an opportunity for "substantial results" for implementing agreements reached between their leaders, North Korea's state media said Thursday, the second day of his visit, which involved a meeting with the North's leader.

Lavrov arrived at Pyongyang International Airport on Wednesday at the invitation of North Korea's foreign ministry "amid the enthusiasm of friendship growing higher than ever," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in an English-language dispatch.

The visit is a follow-up to the rare summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 13, as the two countries move to strengthen military ties amid speculation over their suspected arms deal.

Speaking at a reception Wednesday evening, Lavrov said his visit would serve as a "significant occasion of bringing substantial results" for the implementation of the agreement made at the recent summit, according to the KCNA.

He added that Russia "fully supports" all of North Korea's policies adopted to defend its national interests, calling North Korea a genuine independent state "unfazed by any pressure of the U.S. and the West."

Lavrov also thanked Pyongyang for supporting its "special military operation" in Ukraine, according to a transcript of his speech released by Russia's foreign ministry on its website.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui expressed expectation that the "comprehensive and constructive relations" between the two countries would be expanded on a higher level during Lavrov's visit.

Lavrov and Choe are expected to discuss ways to bolster bilateral cooperation, including preparations for Putin's possible reciprocal visit to Pyongyang.

In a separate announcement, Russia's foreign ministry said Thursday that Lavrov has met Kim in a meeting that lasted over an hour. It did not provide further details.

North Korea's state media has yet to report on their meeting.

Seoul's foreign ministry urged North Korea and Russia to cooperate toward a path that helps bring "peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," saying it is "keeping close tabs" on the visit.

"North Korea will never be recognized as a nuclear-weapon state regardless of its actions and assertions, and the sanctions of the international community will only deepen," ministry spokesperson Lim Soo-suk said in a press briefing.

He also stressed that the North's nuclear and missile program is a clear violation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions. (Yonhap)
FILE - Travelers walk through LaGuardia Airport's Terminal B, Nov. 22, 2022, in New York. The net worth of the typical U.S. household grew at the fastest pace in more than three decades from 2019 through 2022, while low interest rates made it easier for households to pay their debts, according to a government report Wednesday.
Captain Sam Brown failed to disclose his association with a Texas company he manages while running for the US Senate. While Brown's campaign team has suggested that the LLC is not in use and does not have a bank account, his failure to disclose his association with the company raises questions about his adherence to federal disclosure requirements.
Halloween 2020 is not cancelledat least not if these San Francisco residents have boo to say about it.

While trick-or-treating is strongly discouraged this year, as are gatherings of more than 12 people, the city isn't giving up on one of its favorite holidays. Homes across SF have gone all out to keep things festive, with towering skeletons, goblins, and graveyards invading lawns and stoops from Presidio Terrace to Forest Knoll. SF photographer Brendan Mansfield captured the witchy mood.
When it comes to deciding when to claim Social Security, most people say they want the most money they can get.



AARP recently surveyed nearly 3,400 U.S. adults ages 25 to 66 for an upcoming report on Social Security knowledge. According to preliminary findings, 71 percent said maximizing retirement income is very important to their benefit decision.

AARP Membership Join AARP for $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine. Join Now

But when it actually comes to claiming Social Security, what people do is often different.

Less than 10 percent of the approximately 3.4 million people who started retirement benefits in 2022 were at least 70 years old, the age at which you can get your highest monthly payment, according to Social Security Administration (SSA) data. The average claiming age was about 65, and nearly a quarter of claimants were 62, the earliest age of eligibility.

Thats down considerably from 20 years earlier, when more than half of people starting Social Security did so at 62, despite receiving a sharply reduced monthly payment. But its still a lot of people potentially leaving a lot of money on the table: Claiming at 70 results in a benefit as much as 77 percent bigger than what youd get at 62.

They still want to take it

Why do so many people settle for so much less every month?

I think most people take Social Security because they think they want it, they earned it, they deserve it, says Alexander Joyce, president and CEO of ReJoyce Financial in Carmel, Indiana.

At our practice, we deal with pretty high-net-worth people, and even those high-net-worth people are struggling to make Social Security decisions at 62, Joyce says. Even if they dont need the benefit income at that point to retire comfortably, he adds, they still want to take it.

Financial planners typically recommend delaying your claim as long as possible to secure the biggest possible monthly benefit. Social Security bases your payment on your lifetime earnings history, but you only get 100 percent of the calculated amount if you claim it at full retirement age, or FRA (currently between 66 and 67, depending on your year of birth). Claim earlier and you get a lesser payment, for life. Wait past FRA and your benefit is permanently bumped up.

Still, deciding when to start Social Security doesnt always come down to when youll nail down the biggest monthly check. Health, family and financial issues can affect the calculus of when to claim.

Don't take Social Security in a vacuum, Joyce says. You have to plan for this thing.

Here are three circumstances planners say may justify taking a benefit hit to get your Social Security income flowing sooner, and three when it makes more sense to wait as long as you can. These are general guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules. Try AARP's Social Security calculator to get estimates based on claiming benefits at different ages, or, if you can, consult a financial adviser about your options.
The health minister on Thursday called for doctors to support the government's push to expand the medical school enrollment quota to maintain vital health care services.

The remark came after the government hinted it is reviewing an increase of over 1,000 in the annual medical school enrollment quota, currently at 3,058, to address the shortage of doctors and enhance public health care.

"The expansion will be implemented after sufficiently reviewing schools' capacity and education capability," Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said during a press briefing.

Cho said the government will maintain close coordination with the medical sector, experts, and patient organizations to develop a comprehensive set of policies for enhancing regional health care services.

"It is the basic duty of the government and the medical sector to protect the lives and health of the people," Cho said.

"We hope that the medical sector proactively engages in talks with the government, in response to the public's strong anticipation for an increase in the quota," he added. (Yonhap)
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The 31-year-old Grammy-winning femcee, who is no stranger to firing back at online trolls, is forced to defend herself after one user on X, formerly Twitter, describes her as a 'lazy' Mexican.

Oct 19, 2023

AceShowbiz - Cardi B has had enough of haters. The "Bongos" raptress was forced to defend herself after facing backlash on social media for wishing death on one of her online critics.

The 31-year-old had to deal with trolls after one user on X, formerly Twitter, wrote, "cardi the only mexican I know that dont work hard." Catching wind of the post, the femcee fired back, "Hope you and ur mom die."

Cardi's response didn't sit well with many online users. "It's power in the tongue. Gotta be careful how you speak," one person argued, while another fumed, "SHE HOPES [SOMEONE'S] MOM DIES [IN FRONT] OF MILLIONS because she was called MEXICAN!? PSYCHOTIC."

A different individual penned, "Keep wishing death on people and watch how it come back on you." Replying to the last comment, Cardi wrote, "Idgaf f**k y'all ...y'all can call me Mexican bring me down ,hurt my feelings talk s**t bout everything this why I don't release music."

Cardi is no stranger to slamming haters. In September, she lashed out at those spreading rumors about her husband Offset's infidelity. She penned on X, "ExactlyThe fact that they had to watch a 24 hour stream to fake piece things together is EMBARRASSING!!! They some do bads lmaaoooooo."

The Grammy winner was replying to a fan tweet that read, "Yall are lying and just putting random clips together. They were laughing because they caught him sleeping, and that's definitely his brand manager/cousin." Along with it, the fan uploaded a video that featured a note on it that read, "[Kai Cenat] caught Offset trying to sneakily sleep upstairs during their 24 hour stream."

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The 'Full House' actor shares the memories of the alleged assaults only hit him while he was writing his upcoming memoir 'If You Would Have Told Me', which is set to be released on October 24.

Oct 19, 2023

AceShowbiz - John Stamos says he was sexually abused by his female babysitter. The "Full House" actor shared the memories of the alleged assaults only hit him while he was writing his upcoming memoir "If You Would Have Told Me", which is set to be released on October 24.

The 60-year-old added he would play "dead" to try and get his minder to stop. He told PEOPLE, "I remembered it slightly. It has always been there, but I packed it away as people do, right?" John added that even though the abuse was "always in the back" of his head he had previously dismissed it and didn't tell anybody.

He noted, "It was like you're playing dead so they'll stop. But it wasn't totally aggressive. I don't know. It was not good. I was probably like 10 or 11 (at the time.) I shouldn't have had to deal with those feelings."

John said he has written about his memories of being abused in his autobiography, but said it was only "a page or something" as he "didn't want the book to be" about it. Stamos also didn't want the focus of his tell-all to be about his marriage and divorce from the now 50-year-old actress Rebecca Romijn, but did open up to PEOPLE about their "shattering" split.

He admitted about his ex, "I just hated her. I couldn't believe how much I hated her, and it ruined my life." John said he also viewed the actress as the "devil" when they split, but admitted he later came to terms with him being just "as much to blame" for the collapse of their marriage.

John and Rebecca have rarely spoken about their breakup since they parted ways in 2004, before they finalized their divorce the following year and moved on with actress Caitlin McHugh, 37, and actor Jerry O'Connell, 49, respectively.

Rebecca admitted in a 2022 episode of "The Talk" she misses "a lot" of things about John. "Divorce feels like a failure and there were a lot of things that I had to let go of that were very sad. I have a lot of really fun memories," she shared.

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In a new episode of 'The Kardashians', the SKIMS founder reveals that she decides to hire a male nanny so their kids, whom she shares with the rapper, will have a male influence in their life.

Oct 19, 2023

AceShowbiz - Despite the controversy and drama surrounding them, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are doing their best to co-parent their four children following their divorce. In a new episode of "The Kardashians", Kim revealed that she hired a male nanny so their kids would have a male influence in their life.

"I do think that my household, and even in our family - it's, like, very female-dominated," Kim said in a confessional. That prompted the SKIMS founder to hire a manny, male nanny, because she "really wanted a male around that was gonna be picking him up and taking them to sports."

The 42-year-old went on to say that she was "scared" to tell Ye about her decision. "I was scared outta my mind to tell their dad that." Thankfully, Ye, who shares North, Saint, Psalm and Chicago with the "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" alum, seemingly was not against it and even shared some advice with the manny on how to teach his kids.

Kim recalled, "When he was dropping off the kids, Kanye introduced himself, played two-on-two with Saint and him. [He] has been so nice to him and saying, 'Hey, if you're gonna help raise my son,' - 'cause he handed him the ball, like, really easily or something - and he's like, 'Don't do that. Make him go get it himself. These are, like, some of the rules that I would want.' And I was like, 'Oh, my God. Okay That's great.' "

Fans had mixed responses to Kim's revelation. "Nah y'all tryna talk s**t but this is smart and innovative thinking on their behalf. Kanye is not always there and kids model what they see. It's a reason why we're seeing all these sassy boys in our generation.. they're copying behavior from their single mom," a fan lauded Kim.

Echoing the sentiment, someone added, "I think this is a dope idea actually. Especially being a single mother raising a son. Boys need to be around other positive male figures and it doesn't always have to be family or a mate." One other said, "This is smart, he's not replacing their dad he's just being a male figure for the kids while his dad travel for work."

Some others, meanwhile, criticized Kim's decision. "Let me replace a father figure with a male nanny. We get it," one sarcastically said. One other wasn't convinced that Ye was really cool with Kim hiring a manny for their kids, saying, "Let Kanye tell us himself he is kool with it."

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The 'Like a Prayer' hitmaker has reportedly entered 'advanced talks' to perform on one of the main stages at the annual Worthy Farm music festival next year.

Oct 19, 2023

AceShowbiz - Madonna is said to be in "advanced talks" to headline next year's Glastonbury festival. The Queen of Pop, 65, who started her delayed "Celebration" world tour earlier this month in London, has never performed at the event on Worthy Farm near Somerset, south-west England and sources say her team are planning what would be one of its biggest-ever performances.

"Negotiations are well underway between Glasto organiser Emily Eavis and Madonna's manager Guy Oseary. Both teams are keen to make it happen and striking a deal shouldn't be a problem. Emily was blown away watching Madonna perform in London and is desperate to get her on the Pyramid Stage next year," a music insider told The Sun.

Madonna's "Celebration" shows in London were sold out, and after watching one of her dates at London's O2 Arena, Emily, 44, said on social media, "She's back! Incredible."

Madonna's headline appearance would be a blow to those who criticised Emily for filling this year's Glastonbury line-up with male acts, including Sir Elton John, the Arctic Monkeys, and Guns N' Roses.

She defended the bill by saying, "We did have a female headliner, and she unfortunately had to pull out... it changes all the time. But next year it's looking like we've got two female headliners, so fingers crossed."

The Sun reported Taylor Swift, 33, was the female act who pulled out of the festival.

Glastonbury 2024 is set to take place from June 26 to 30, with tickets going on sale next month.

Madonna - who was forced to delay her new world tour after being hospitalised in the summer with a "serious bacterial infection" - is set to wrap up her 78-show tour next April, which would leave plenty of time for her to rest and prepare for a slot on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage.

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Director Martin Scorsese admits he was not really impressed by his lead actor when the Oscar-winning star improvised his lines on set of their latest movie.

Oct 20, 2023

AceShowbiz - Martin Scorsese barred Leonardo DiCaprio from improvising on their new film. The filmmaker has re-teamed with the actor and his regular collaborator Robert De Niro for the epic "Killers of the Flower Moon", and he has reflected on the actors' respective approaches, with the former's "endless" discussions and improvisation on set.

"Then Bob didn't want to talk. Every now and then, Bob and I would look at each other and roll our eyes a little bit. And we'd tell him, 'You don't need that dialogue,' " Martin laughed when speaking to the Wall Street Journal.

The film marks the sixth time "Gangs of New York" star Leonardo has worked with Martin while the filmmaker has now teamed up with Robert on 10 films. But this is the first time the actors have appeared together in a full-length movie by the director.

The "Taxi Driver" maker teamed up with Eric Roth to pen the script for the film based on David Grann's 2017 book of the same name, which focused on the FBI investigation into the murders of Osage Native Americans in Oklahoma throughout the 1920s.

Leonardo was originally lined up to play head investigator Tom White. Martin ended up completely overhauling the script after two years, and changing the story's focus to the character of Ernest Burkhart and his marriage to an Osage woman named Mollie.

After changing the script, Martin switched Leonardo's role, giving him the part of Ernest, while Jesse Plemons took on the role of Tom White, who became a supporting character.

And it was Leonardo who felt the story should be told from the Osage community's perspective instead of the bureau agents investigating. Speaking to The Irish Times, Martin said, "Leo came to me and asked, 'Where is the heart of this story?' "

"I had had meetings and dinners with the Osage, and I thought, 'Well, there's the story.' The real story, we felt, was not necessarily coming from the outside, with the bureau, but rather from the inside, from Oklahoma."

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Air India Express and AirAsia India, both subsidiaries of the Tata-owned Air India, unveiled a common, refreshed branding as Air India Express, on a new Boeing 737-8 aircraft.

With a modern look and bold, bright colours and aircraft livery, the airline invited guests to Fly As You Are, announcing its intention to differentiate itself with a by making meaningful connections across places, people and cultures, curating frictionless and digitally enabled travel experiences to provide best-in-class value, and offering service with a sense of unique Indian warmth.

The grand unveiling, where Campbell Wilson, Chairman of Air India Express, and Aloke Singh, Managing Director of Air India Express, inaugurated the refreshed brand identity, logo, and the aircraft livery on the first brand-new Boeing 737-8, the latest addition to the airlines rapidly growing fleet of 58 aircraft.

Campbell Wilson, Chairman, Air India Express, emphasised, With the merger of Air India Express and Air Asia India now in the final stages, we are also seeing the transformation of the aviation landscape. We are proud to present the new brand of Air India Express, a vitally important part of the new Air India Group, charged with providing the best value, accessibility and domestic and regional connectivity to every Indian, and to become the airline of a new generation. The broader ambition of these efforts is to better connect India and Indians, to each other and to the world.

The airlines new visual identity features an energetic and premium colour palette of Express Orange and Express Turquoise with Express Tangerine and Express Ice Blue as secondary colours. The dominant Express Orange symbolises Air India Express brand values of enthusiasm and agility while reflecting the positioning of quintessential Indian warmth. The Express Turquoise embodies the brand personality traits of style with a contemporary premium sensibility and a digital-first approach.

Speaking of the new brand identity, Aloke Singh, Managing Director, Air India Express, said, The integrated Air India Express-AirAsia India entity will operate as Air India Express, with a modern, refreshed branding, positioned as New Indias Smart Connector. The re-branding marks a new phase in our ambitious growth and transformation journey, starting with induction of the modern fuel-efficient Boeing 737-8 aircraft. With 50 aircraft set to be inducted into the fleet over the next 15 months, we double in size in a short span of time. Over the course of the next 5 years, we aim to grow to a fleet of about 170 narrow-body aircraft, with a network spanningthe domestic India and short-haul international markets. Continuing with our unique tradition, the aircraft livery will feature a variable tailfin design inspired by the rich art and craftsheritage of the country, themed as The patterns of India.

While launching the new brand identity, Air India Express also unveiled its new signature sonic identity, a vibrant melody, embodying the essence of a progressive New India filled with aspirations, optimism, and confidence. Air India Express distinctive musical logo evokes the Rasas of Karuna, Adbutha, and Veera, a harmonious welcome to the sounds of New India.

The livery of the first new Boeing 737-8 aircraft showcased at the launch, draws inspiration from the Bandhani textile design. The upcoming aircraft being inducted will feature designs inspired by other traditional patterns, including Ajrakh, Patola, Kanjeevaram, Kalamkari, etc., showcasing Indias artistic diversity. The airlines Patterns of India theme encapsulates the spirit of the nation and shares its stories through a visual journey. This reaffirms the brands position and its commitment to delivering aspirational travel experiences leveraging technology, accessibility, clever design, and an unmistakable sense of Indian hospitality.
Adani Wilmar Limited (AWL), one of India's leading FMCG companies, is delighted to announce the launch of special Durga Puja packs for its marquee oil brands, Fortune Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil and Fortune Soyabean Oil 1-Litre Pouches, in West Bengal. With this step, the brand becomes the first in the segment to touch upon an integral cultural nuance of the Durga Puja festivities in the state.

Staying true to its brand ethos as India's top cooking-oil choice with 100% purity, Fortune Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil and Fortune Soyabean Oil with Nutrilock action that offer five essential nutrients, have also consistently been the trusted preferences in households nationwide and are synonymous with homemade meals and good health. However, the brand, with the introduction of special Durga Puja packs, seeks to elevate the festive experience for consumers and celebrate the gastronomic goodness and indulgences during the Pujo season and festivity. The specially designed packages capture the essence of the festival, encapsulating the spirit of joy and togetherness that defines it, much like the diverse array of culturally significant dishes prepared during this auspicious time.

The brand understands that the essence of Bengal lies in its diverse flavours and traditional dishes that reflect the cultural tapestry of the region. Fortune Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil and Fortune Soyabean Oil, enriched with essential nutrients, not only ensures a perfect blend of health and taste but also enhances the dining experience as it complements culturally relevant delicacies from the regions, which includes iconic dishes like Beguni, Aloo Bhaja, Luchi Alur Dum, Aloo Posto and Shukto among others.

Mr. Mukesh Mishra, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Adani Wilmar Limited, expressed his enthusiasm about the new pack, Durga Puja occupies a significant spot in the hearts of every Bengali, and the new packs reflect the essence that is so distinctly associated with festivities. Adani Wilmar encourages its consumers to immerse themselves in the spirit of Durga Puja and relish the delightful combination of their products with the essence of 'Ghar Ka Khana Ghar ka Khana Hota Hai' during this auspicious period. While each dish, prepared with Fortune Mustard Oil and Fortune Soyabean Oil, will showcase the rich flavours of Bengal, it will also add a tinge of nostalgia to the dining experience made of scrumptious food and cherished traditions that flourish in the heart of every home.

Adani Wilmars exclusive Fortune Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil and Fortune Soyabean Oil 1-Litre Pouches for Durga Puja will be available at retail outlets across West Bengal. The brand invites consumers to embrace the spirit of Pujo with the delightful combination of its trusted products and iconic personalities during this auspicious festival.
Mr. Hemant Nerurkar, Chairman of the Board is retiring on October 20, 2023 upon the expiry of his second term. The Board of Directors' at its meeting held on October 17, 2023, decided to appoint Mr. Sundaram as Chairman succeeding Mr. Nerurkar. Mr. Sundaram has been on the Board of the Company since 2015 and has served as the Chairman of the Audit Committee and Risk Management Committee since inception. The Board acknowledged the extensive contribution of Mr. Nerurkar in helping shape Crompton Greaves Electricals.

The Board also inducted two noted industry veterans, Mr. Anil Chaudhry and Mr. Sanjiv Kakkar, formerly with Schneider Electric and Unilever respectively, as Non-Executive Independent Directors, with effect from October 17, 2023, for a first term of five years. This is subject to the approval of the shareholders.

Brief Profiles:

Mr. Sundaram has been serving as a Non-Executive & Independent Director at Crompton since 2015. With over 34 years of invaluable experience at one of the countrys top FMCG companies - Hindustan Unilever Limited, he brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the organization. He currently holds the position of Non-Executive Vice Chairman at TVS Capital Funds Ltd. He also currently serves as an independent director on the boards of Infosys, GSK Pharma India and Schneider Electric. Mr. Sundarams outstanding contributions has also earned him prestigious accolades, including the CFO of the Year for FMCG Sector award by CNBC TV18 in 2006 and 2008. In addition, he was honored as the Best Independent Director in 2019 by the Asian Centre for Corporate Governance and Sustainability in December 2020.

Mr. Anil Chaudhry is the former CEO & Managing Director of Schneider Electric India Pvt. Ltd (SEIPL) and President of Schneiders India Business. Schneider Electric is a global leader in digital automation and energy management. Mr. Chaudhry was instrumental in the acquisition of L&T Electrical & Automation Division by SEIPL making the combined entity as Indias largest Low Voltage Switchgear company. With over 40 years of global leadership experience in management, operations, sales, strategy, and business development, he has a strong commitment to energy efficiency, sustainability, climate change, access to energy, and skill development. Mr. Chaudhry is dedicated to implementing innovative techniques to provide top-tier solutions and services to customers. He is also a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, championing related initiatives throughout his career.

Mr. Sanjiv Kakkar, former Executive Vice President of Unilever, heading North Africa, Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the Central Asia Region. He is a distinguished leader with 38 years of experience. Sanjivs career began in India with Sales and Marketing assignments and he joined the Board of Hindustan Unilever Ltd., India, as Executive Director  Foods, followed by Executive Director - Customer Development. He thereafter moved on to head Unilevers business for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus followed by regional assignments as EVP - Unilever. He has transformed one of Unilever's largest clusters into one of its fastest-growing and most profitable regions. He was the Founder Chairman of the Advertising Business Group, Middle East, Dubai, and a Board Member for the International Chamber of Commerce, Dubai, nominated by the Ruler of Dubai. Moreover, Forbes recognized him as the top Indian business leader in the Middle East in 2018. Currently, Mr. Sanjiv Kakkar runs an Advisory Service to help founders and CEOs to unlock their business potential.

Promeet Ghosh, Managing Director & CEO, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Ltd. said, I would like to extend heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Hemant Nerurkar, Chairman, for his immense contributions on the Board. He has been instrumental not only in providing strategic direction but also in moulding Crompton into a Board led & professionally managed Company. I am thrilled with Mr. Sundaram succeeding Mr. Nerurkar as the Chairman of the Board. He has played a pivotal role on the Board of the Company since inception. I am also excited to welcome our two new Directors, Mr. Anil Chaudhry and Mr. Sanjiv Kakkar, to the Crompton family. Their wealth of experience and exceptional track records in industry will add tremendous value to our organization.
Dentsu India recently marked yet another milestone on its path to sustainability by celebrating the latest edition of its flagship volunteering initiative  One Day for Change. Aligned to the networks 2030 Sustainability Strategy, the seventh iteration of this initiative was themed around one of the networks global sustainability pillars  Fair and Open Society.

One Day for Change is dentsus annual initiative driven by its commitment to create solutions to impact business and society positively. This year, the event focused on cultivating a more diverse and inclusive community through activities that empowered individuals to think, feel, and act with empathy and mindfulness.

On October 4 and 6, 2023, a two-day event was organised at dentsu offices in Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bangalore, and Pune. Indoor and outdoor activities were planned in collaboration with Giftabled, an NGO that focuses on life skills, fine motor skills, and perception for children with autism and developmental delays. The event drew enthusiastic participation from over 478 employees contributing over 1,434 hours across the two days.

The outdoor activity emphasised the importance of eating nutritious meals and creating healthy and hygienic behaviours in children. It also provided them with the necessary knowledge and abilities to care for themselves, prevent illness, and live better lives. The indoor exercise, on the other hand, was designed to address the issues connected with sensory processing and perceptual skills that are frequent in children with cognitive deficits and autism. It gave volunteers the opportunity to design games for children who struggle with sensory processing and perceptual skills utilising colours and sensory aspects.

Commenting on the event, Harsha Razdan, CEO, South Asia, dentsu, said, Sustainability is not just an idea; it is a way of being. At dentsu, our social impact goals are driven by our commitment to offer people-centered transformations that shape society. Our priority is to empower people  in business and beyond. As a leader in the space, we are privileged to have the expertise to influence people, making it our moral responsibility to ensure that opportunity and equality are provided as fundamental rights. They are not meant to be earned, but rather to be owned. Our goal for One Day for Change 2023 was to give this vision a boost, modify preconceptions, and embed the values that drive an open and fair society for all.
Ferrero India Private Limited, part of Ferrero Group, one of the worlds leading manufacturers of sweet, packaged products, has announced the launch of Ferrero Collection, a go-to-choice for ultra-premium gifting during important festive occasions. With this new offering, Ferrero India expands its luxury chocolate and confectionery portfolio which includes the widely loved Ferrero Rocher. An exquisite addition to the product range of Ferrero India  Ferrero Collection embodies the highest form of craftsmanship, made for the select few who wish to experience the art of fine taste.

The Ferrero Collection has a selection of the signature Ferrero range of products: Ferrero Rocher, Raffaello, and Ferrero Rondnoir. The collection aims to offer an experiential journey through taste, packaging, and presentation, aligning with the evolving lifestyles and taste of the Indian consumers.

Ferrero Rocher: A Hazelnut Speciality with a whole hazelnut inside

Raffaello: A crisp Coconut speciality with a whole almond inside

Ferrero Rondnoir: A crisp dark Chocolate specialty

Mr. Zoher Kapuswala, Head of Marketing at Ferrero Pralines said, India has a long-standing custom of gifting during festivals and special occasions. With the premium gifting market on the rise, todays consumers are looking for novel premium gifting options that create lasting impressions and Ferrero Collection is the perfect gift choice. The luxurious set and select assortment of different products in the Ferrero Collection are ideal for consumers looking for a premium gift for their loved ones.

The brand has further strengthened its relationship with Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan who features in the campaign film, where Hrithik Roshan explains how some things in life are meant to be exquisitely designed, crafted, and curated to stand out from the rest, just like the Ferrero Collection.

Ferrero Collection is available in packs of 15 and 24 pieces in leading modern trade stores and e-commerce platforms.
Details still under wraps amid possible backlash from doctors

By Jun Ji-hye

President Yoon Suk Yeol made it clear, Thursday, that he will push ahead with a plan to raise the enrollment quota of medical schools to help stop or at least slow down deepening regional disparities in medical services and prepare for an aging society.

However, the president did not announce specific plans yet, such as how much the quota will increase annually, apparently mindful of the possibility of massive protests from doctors, who publicly oppose a hike and have urged the government to address more urgent issues first, such as improving working conditions for physicians.

Increasing the number of doctors and nurturing talent is a necessary condition to revive regional medical services and prepare for the nation's transition to a super-aged society, Yoon said while presiding over a meeting to discuss measures to reform the countrys health care system. The government will deal with the collapse of the medical service supply system.

During the meeting, a set of strategies to guarantee better public access to medical services, especially in rural areas, were announced by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, but detailed plans for the medical school quota hike were excluded from the announcement.

It was widely seen as the government taking one step back, as the Korea Medical Association (KMA) representing doctors threatened to stage fierce protests if officials push ahead with the announcement without sufficient consultations with the association.

The government has been seeking to increase the annual medical school enrollment quota, as the country has faced serious shortages of surgeons, obstetricians, pediatricians and other physicians needed to provide essential medical care.

The total admissions quota of the 40 medical schools in Korea has remained unchanged at 3,058 since 2006.

According to the health ministry, the number of doctors per 1,000 people in the country stood at 2.5, far below the OECD average of 3.7.

A high-ranking official at the presidential office noted that the government is clearly committed to increasing the medical school quota starting in 2025.

The official said the government has yet to decide on how much the quota will increase, but the Yoon administration is expected to increase it by more than 1,000.

As this policy is mainly aimed at improving regional disparities, the government is considering increasing the quota at medical schools of state-run universities located outside the Seoul metropolitan area, according to sources.

The government is also considering establishing new medical graduate schools to cultivate more health experts.

The move has been largely supported by the public and even opposition parties, following a number of cases where patients died in ambulances while being transported to other emergency rooms after being rejected by hospitals that cited a shortage of doctors or beds.

Shortages of pediatricians have also forced many parents to wait for hours to see a doctor when their children are sick.

Yet, the government chose to hold off on announcing specific plans regarding the quota hike and instead looked to gain time to consult more with the doctors group.

This choice was based on the lessons of the past, as the previous Moon Jae-in government eventually retracted its 2020 proposal to raise the medical student quota by 4,000 over 10 years, after facing fierce protests by physicians and trainee doctors as well as medical students.

Reforming the health care system is for the people, Yoon said. The government will communicate sufficiently with doctors in the field and experts, so the policy for the people can be implemented effectively.

Yoon vowed to work together with the medical community to resolve problems cited by the doctors group as more urgent issues to be addressed, such as comparatively low compensation for surgeons, obstetricians and pediatricians as well as emergency medicine specialists.

Meanwhile, the health ministrys strategies to guarantee better access to medical services, announced during the meeting, included developing national university hospitals into a central pillar of the essential medical care system.

Health Minister Cho Kyu-hong said the measures are aimed at preventing the collapse of health services in rural regions.

Toward that end, oversight of national university hospitals will be transferred to the health ministry from the education ministry, Cho said during a media briefing later in the day.

Regarding the governments announcement, the Korea Medical Association said it agrees with the need to nurture and support workers who are needed in essential and local medical care.

We will closely cooperate with the government and do our best to supplement measures to support the essential and local medical care system, the association said in a statement.
In its latest quarterly earnings report, Netflix has announced the success of its global initiative to combat password sharing and unveiled plans to increase subscription rates.

Over the past three months, the streaming giant added 8.8 million new subscribers, a significant leap beyond expectations and a substantial increase from the 2.4 million added during the same quarter in the previous year.

In the US, the cost of a basic Netflix subscription will rise by $2, reaching $11.99, while premium subscriptions will experience a $3 increase, reaching $22.99. Across the pond in the United Kingdom, the price of the basic subscription will climb by 1 to reach 7.99, and premium memberships will see a 2 hike to reach 17.99.

In Australia, prices will remain constant, but the basic subscription tier, previously priced at $10.99, will no longer be available to new or returning subscribers starting next week.

The basic tier will also be phased out for new subscribers in Germany, Spain, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil, commencing next week. It has already been discontinued in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Canada. Netflix has taken steps to curtail the practice of password sharing during the summer months. The company reported that the number of cancellations stemming from this initiative was lower than originally expected.

Netflix has introduced an ad-supported subscription tier a year ago, which now constitutes 30% of new subscribers. However, the company acknowledged that building this service "from the ground up" would require some time.

Netflix reported revenues of $8.54 billion, in line with expectations. Net profit surged by 20%, reaching $1.68 billion in the third quarter, exceeding its own forecasts. This strong financial performance resulted in an over 11% increase in Netflix's share price during after-hours trading.
Nokia is set to undertake a substantial workforce reduction, with the goal of cutting as many as 14,000 jobs as part of a broader cost-cutting strategy. The Finnish company specifically attributed its decision to its underwhelming performance in the North American market in terms of 5G equipment sales, despite the rapid deployment of 5G technology in India.

Notably, in 2021, Nokia had already revealed its intention to reduce its workforce by a range of 5,000 to 10,000 employees over the next two years. This new announcement is an extension of that plan.

Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark said: Our third quarter performance demonstrated resilience in our operating margin despite the impact of the weaker environment on our net sales. In the last three years we have invested heavily to strengthen our technology leadership across the business giving us a firm foundation to weather this period of market weakness.

"We continue to believe in the mid to long term attractiveness of our markets. Cloud Computing and AI revolutions will not materialise without significant investments in networks that have vastly improved capabilities. However, given the uncertain timing of the market recovery, we are now taking decisive action on three levels: strategic, operational and cost. I believe these actions will make us stronger and deliver significant value for our shareholders."
Federal Laboratory for Materials Testing and Research

Dubendorf, St. Gallen und Thun, 19.10.2023 - Construction is underway, once again, at the research and innovation building NEST. The new unit goes by the name of STEP2. Over the past three years, project partners from various disciplines have developed innovations with high market potential, which will be implemented in a real-world construction project for the very first time.

The goal of NEST, Empa's and Eawag's research and innovation building, is to accelerate the speed of innovation in the energy and construction sector. To achieve this, new modules  so called units  are implemented in NEST on a regular basis. Through these projects, research and industry partners have the opportunity to try out new things and to develop their innovations in a real-world environment. Particularly interesting is the fact that those units not only serve as a real-world construction scenario but are actually used as office and living spaces. Construction of the newest unit, STEP2, has officially begun and should be completed in spring 2024.

Cooperation on equal terms

From the very first discussions about STEP2, we defined as the main goal to only build what would have an actual use case in the construction industry. Thus, we evaluated every single innovation on its relevance and potential within the market, says Enrico Marchesi, Innovation Manager NEST and project leader at Empa. To achieve this goal, the team heavily relied on a co-creation approach. We are convinced that real innovation, which can succeed in the market, is only possible if partners all along the value chain are involved. As a longtime member of Switzerland's research and innovation community, it is imperative for us to be able to identify solutions with economic potential in cooperation with our partners as early as possible  and to contribute to a successful realization of these innovations with our knowledge and expertise, says Olivier Enger, Senior Innovation Manager at BASF.

BASF is the main partner of STEP2 and contributes to the unit's success with their expertise, their network and the use of sustainable materials. Thus far, the cooperative approach really paid off: partners from a variety of disciplines were able to develop and refine groundbreaking innovations over a three-year planning period. I'm really excited to be able to implement those solutions into an actual building structure, says Slivan Oesterle, lead architect at ROK.

A ceiling that is saving both resources and CO2

The upper floor of the two-story unit contains a ceiling, which consists of several newly designed ribbed filigree slabs. These were developed by the architectural firm ROK in cooperation with engineers from WaltGalmarini AG and Stahlton Bauteile AG. This ceiling permits a span width of 8 to 14 meters, which makes it ideal for the construction of office spaces and high rises. The slabs were prefabricated at Stahlton Bauteile AG with the help of 3D-printed stencils. These stencils are completely mineral-based and provide the possibility for circular use. After their fabrication, the slabs were transported to NEST and installed on site.

Digital design and 3D-printing lead to a 50 percent reduction in resources and CO2 emissions compared to a regular concrete floor. What's more, the use of circular concrete allowed zirkulit AG to improve the sustainability of the ceiling even further; this concrete contains less cement than standard concrete and can even take up and store CO2. As an additional feature, the ceiling comes with integrated soundproofing. Chemistry partner BASF was able to achieve this through 3D-printed acoustic boxes that are filled with a sound absorbing foam called Cavipor. The result is a clear and comfortable acoustic atmosphere, despite the hard concrete surface.

Digital construction of a concrete staircase

A concrete staircase named Cadenza leads to the upper floor of the STEP2 unit. The project team consists of experts from ROK, the Chair of Digital Building Technologies at ETH Zurich, the BASF subsidiary BASF Forward AM, the 3D printing company New Digital Craft, the precast concrete manufacturer SW Umwelttechnik, WaltGalmarini AG and the Empa spin-off re-fer.

As with the ceiling, the team was using the full potential of computer-assisted design and 3D printing for the construction of the innovative staircase. Using 3D-printed formwork allowed the creation of more complex shapes than would have been possible with conventional formwork. At the same time, the team was able to use the stencils multiple times, which significantly reduced the amount of materials required for the construction of the staircase. The prefabricated steps were assembled at Empa in Dubendorf, where they were fixed using re-fer's prestressing technology, and the final staircase was installed as a single component inside the unit. Since the individual steps were threaded onto one another, they can be dismantled and thus reused rather easily. The staircase demonstrates in an impressive manner how customized, resource-saving concrete elements can be realized with digital production methods.

The building facade as a development environment

Building envelopes offer great potential for optimizing energy use and increasing user comfort. One of the goals of STEP2 is thus to accelerate the development of innovations in the field of building envelopes. With the help of the expertise of Aepli Metallbau AG, the surface was designed to allow different installations to be tested with minimal effort. This offers NEST partners the opportunity to easily implement and validate new technologies and materials. Moreover, Aepli's new solution for "closed-cavity" surfaces eliminates the need for mechanical conditioning of the space between different modules of the building's shell.

Efficiency meets comfort

To ensure that the unit runs as energy-efficiently as possible while offering maximum comfort for its users, WaltGalmarini AG has developed a comprehensive energy and comfort concept. Its application should provide optimized interaction between the various components. These include automated facade flaps, thermally activated mass and highly insulating glazing. The lighting concept for STEP2, developed by Bartenbach, is intended to provide additional comfort.



Address for enquiries

Loris Pandiani

Empa / NEST, Communications & Event Manager

Phone +41 58 765 47 03

loris.pandiani@empa.ch

Publisher

Federal Laboratory for Materials Testing and Research

http://www.empa.ch




Local 2083 UPDATE

We are pleased to announce the strike in Tuscaloosa, AL is OVER. The tentative agreement has been ratified by the membership. Congratulations to our members, the Local 2083 bargaining committee & Servicing Representative Robbie Collins. #WhoAreWeUAW pic.twitter.com/R7LKhFWqV2  UAW Region 8 (@uawregion8) October 19, 2023

Members of the United Auto Workers announced an end to a strike against Mercedes-Benz supplier ZF in Tuscaloosa today, about a month after it began.

Approximately 190 union members took part in the strike that began Sept. 20.

On the social media platform X, the UAW announced: We are pleased to announce the strike in Tuscaloosa, AL is OVER. The tentative agreement has been ratified by the membership. Congratulations to our members, the Local 2083 bargaining committee & Servicing Representative Robbie Collins.

ZF Chassis Systems is a tier-1 supplier for Vances Mercedes-Benz US International plant, making drive train components. It has been operating in Tuscaloosa for 26 years and employs more than 300 people.

The strike began after the local voted down a third contract proposal, according to the union. Healthcare, wages and tier structures were the main issues. There was no immediate announcement on the terms of the new agreement.

The UAW began a strike last month against Detroits Big Three automakers in what has been dubbed the Stand Up Strike.

Alabamas automakers - Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Honda and Mazda-Toyota - have largely resisted large-scale unionization, as have all other Southern car marking plants.
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The lawmaker who created a loan program to save Birmingham-Southern College says shes disgusted at recent efforts to deny funding to the school.

Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, worked with a local delegation to create $30 million in state funding for the small liberal arts college. The school said Wednesday that its application for $27 million of that funding has been denied by state treasurer Young Boozer -- and that its suing him.

In an interview with AL.com Wednesday, Givan said Boozer acted in bad faith throughout the entire process. She said she received a call last week about the denial, and at the time, lawmakers were hopeful that negotiations wouldnt fall by the wayside.

Im very disgusted today. Im very disgusted, she said. I think its absolute foolery, what has gone on here.

Birmingham-Southern officials revealed the extent of the schools financial woes last winter, and spent months working with lawmakers to come up with a solution. The loan program was signed into law in June, and contained just enough money  $30 million  to fulfill the colleges bailout request. Officials originally applied for a lump sum of $27 million to avoid depleting the fund, then proposed a plan to gradually draw $30 million over the course of three years  neither of which were granted.

A lawsuit filed in Montgomery Circuit Court Wednesday claims Boozer urged legislators to vote against the bill before it went to the House floor last spring.

Then, after Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill, Boozer went to Attorney General Steve Marshall to seek an advisory opinion on the constitutionality of the loan program. In August, Marshall denied his request and Boozer finally launched the application on the treasurys website.

He showed his hand on day one, Givan said. Its not his money. He showed his hand day one. So my thing today is, is he above the legislature? Because obviously he is. And he proved that when he denied that loan in bad faith.

Circuit Judge James Anderson granted an expedited hearing set for Oct. 19 at 1:30 p.m. at the Montgomery County Courthouse. Officials are asking the treasurer to disburse the loan by the end of the month.

In the meantime, officials plan to continue normal operations, including recruitment for the class of 2024.

Givan, who represents the Bush Hills neighborhood where the college is located, said shes concerned about the impact a closure could have on the historic Birmingham community.

The area is still reeling from closures of a local hospital and historically Black college, she said, and cant stand to lose another community fixture.

These institutions are businesses that went bust and there was no plan of action, she said. We saw further decay and dilapidation in the community, further blight.

A closure would cost the city 300 jobs, school officials said, and impact at least another 1,200.

Im very disheartened with the corporate community in Birmingham, Givan said. Im very disheartened with the city of Birmingham. Im very disheartened with the county commission. Because this is Birmingham-Southern.

I am a graduate of Miles College, the Miles College, she added. Im very proud of my educational institution. But I fought for Birmingham-Southern even against my beliefs with regards to public-private dollars, because I know what it will do to the community.

Officials are urging school supporters, students and alumni to contact Boozer directly to urge him to comply with state law.

Theres a lot of moving parts and components at play, Givan said. Everybodys talking about us trying to see what they can do. But if we put so much power in one man, ultimately, hes the decision maker.
Tropical Storm Tammy got stronger on Thursday as it continued to track closer to the Leeward Islands.

The National Hurricane Center said Tammy will bring up to 6 inches of rain, gusty winds and rough seas to some of the islands on Friday and Saturday. A hurricane watch and tropical storm watches have been issued for some of the islands.

The official forecast path then shows Tammy continuing to strengthen and possibly becoming a hurricane by early Saturday.

It is then forecast to take a turn to the northeast and out to sea. It is not expected to threaten the continental United States but could bring rain to the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

As of 4 p.m. CDT Thursday, Tropical Storm Tammy was located about 200 miles east of Barbados and was tracking to the west-northwest at 13 mph.

Tammys sustained winds were 60 mph. The hurricane center expects Tammy to continue strengthen and be near hurricane strength (winds 74 mph or higher) when it moves near the islands.

The hurricane centers forecast path takes the center of the storm near or over some of the Leeward Islands on Friday or Saturday. Then it could take a turn to the northeast and avoid the Bahamas.

A hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning have now been issued for Antigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, St. Kitts, and Nevis and Guadeloupe.

A tropical storm warning is also in effect for Dominica.

Tropical storm watches continued on Thursday for Barbados, Martinique, Anguilla, St. Barthelemy, Saba and St. Eustatius, St. Maarten and St. Martin.

Tammy could bring 3 to 6 inches of rain, with maximum amounts of 10 inches, to some of the northern Windward into the Leeward Islands. One to 2 inches with maximum amounts of 4 inches will be possible for the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and eastern Puerto Rico.

Tammy is the only system in the Atlantic being tracked by the hurricane center. The rest of the Atlantic remained quiet on Thursday.
For the first time in a long time, Guy Fieris Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives returns to Alabama in an episode premiering Friday night. Heres what we know going in.

The tease for a while has been that the fifth episode of Triple Ds 38th season, titled East, South, West, will feature a stop in Mobile, where a farm-to-table joint is cooking up killer crawfish etouffee and chicken-fried quail. The episode also serves up Philly cheesesteaks in Greenwich, Conn., and a lights-out lamb flatbread in Cody, Wyo.

Though the Food Network hasnt gone big with the name of the Mobile venue, it served up a skillet-sized hint on its webpage for the episode, which includes a recipe for The Noble South Heirloom Cornbread. A network representative confirmed that The Noble South, at 203 Dauphin St. in downtown Mobile, is indeed the featured spot.

It promises to be the first of several. Fieri was in the area back in June, and Mobile area-restaurateur Panini Pete Blohme, a longtime Fieri collaborator, said afterward that Food Network crews had hit six area venues for future episodes of DDD. Thats a big deal: A fan site that tracks DDD locations says the show has featured more than 1,400 restaurants since 2008. But only four of those have been in Alabama, and those came when Fieri hit a string of Eastern Shore venues in 2008.

The locations and airdates for all six new segments havent yet been confirmed by the Food Network. East, South, West will air for the first time at 8 p.m. Central time on Friday, Oct. 20. More airings follow at 11 p.m. Friday; 10 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4; 1 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 5; and 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 24.

The next episode, premiering at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27, is titled Sandwich-Fest and itll showcase the Wagyu French Dip sandwich and other treats at Southwood Kitchen in Daphne.

Noble South owner Chris Rainosek couldnt give away any spoilers ahead of Fridays premiere, but said the filming experience had been a good one.

We were obviously honored to be to be asked, and his team was great, said Rainosek. We did have a really good experience with all that. They were super nice, super helpful. [They] made it really easy on us [and] treated all our guests very well.

The Noble South brought a fresh farm-to-table menu to Mobile's downtown dining scene when it opened in 2014.Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com

The same went for Fieri himself. Rainosek said it wasnt stressful having the celebrity chef in his kitchen, looking over his shoulder.

He was very generous with his time and very curious and very appreciative of what we were trying to do with the restaurant as a whole, Rainosek said. We kind of explained, you know, the concept and what we try to do as far as a place that highlights local ingredients and puts our own spin on Southern food.

Rainosek, whod previously been a chef at The Wash House in Fairhope, opened The Noble South in 2014. Its farm-to-table approach to elevated Southern cuisine set it apart. Eye-catching options on the current menu include Radiatore Pasta with an alligator Bolognese sauce; pork belly with heirloom rice and peas; redfish with cream kale and fall squash; fig crepes (on the brunch menu); a Wagyu cheeseburger; and small plates including Mapo tofu, Chesapeake Bay scallops and beef tartare.

The Noble South will mark 10 years this spring, a significant milestone for a venue that rapidly became an institution.

Weve been very lucky to have developed the relationship with the city that we have, said Rainosek. I think weve turned people on to lots of new things and new ideas as far as food goes, that maybe was a little bit outside the norm, especially before we got here.

Looking back, he sees that The Noble South opened at the beginning of a boom that brought 30 or more new restaurants to downtown. He appreciates the development of Mobiles dining scene and said that was part of his motivation for agreeing to be on the show.

Its been really cool to see it kind of grow up, and and weve always taken the mindset that, you know, just the more people we can get down here is kind of better for every everybody, he said.

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives can be seen via cable and streaming providers that carry the Food Network, and via www.foodnetwork.com. Streaming services that carry Food Network programming include Philo and FuboTV.
A former member of Grace River Community Church in Decatur said Tuesday that he left the church after one of its leaders was arrested and charged with electronic solicitation of a child and violating the Sex Offenders Registration and Community Notification Act.

It seems to me that a background check wouldve caught this, said Josh Harris, 38, of Decatur. It blew me away. How did this happen? How did this guy get around my children?

The defendant is 51-year-old John Justin McCall, of Madison, and authorities said he was arrested on the charges after a multi-agency investigation, including assistance from the Department of Homeland Security and the Decatur Police Department, that ended with a search of his residence by the Madison Police Department on Oct. 11.

McCall failed to register his sex offender status with the Madison Police Department when he moved to Evalyn Street in Madison on or around Jan. 25, according to an investigators affidavit filed in Madison County District Court on Monday. State law requires people who have been convicted of a sex offense to register their address and their place of employment.

Madison police did not say when or where the prior sex-offense conviction alleged to be the basis of his Sex Offenders Registration and Community Notification Act (SORNA) charge took place.

The investigator alleges McCall, between June and August, tried to meet with a child online for the purpose of engaging in a sexual performance, an obscene sexual performance, or sexual conduct for his/her benefit.

A LinkedIn profile for McCall lists his position with Grace River Community Church, located at 2018 Cleveland Ave. S.W., as worship pastor since July 2022. His duties included overseeing youth groups and teaching new songs, according to the profile.

The profile also says McCall was responsible for computer safety training for youths and for complying with all Alabama state licensing and local regulations for health and safety, including all criminal background checks and child abuse index.

Harris began attending the church after he and his 16-year-old daughter, with whom he plays music, were invited to be part of the worship team led by McCall. Everything seemed fine, he said, until McCalls arrest.

Thats what was so scary about it, he said. Ive been to many churches around here over the course of my life, and I remember having to take a background check just to help with the kitchen one time at a church. I didnt think anything of it.

Harris said that when he asked church leaders if they had run a background check on McCall, they told him no.

The reason was that he did a 10-year stint at the Ark Encounter in Kentucky or something, Harris said. Kind of scary that he got through that, too, you know?

The Ark Encounter is a creationist theme park in Williamstown, Kentucky. McCalls LinkedIn page notes that he sang daily at the park with Steve Hess and Southern Salvation, a Christian music group, between 2012 and 2022.

I was not part of the youth services, but my daughter said that McCall was, Harris said. He was there when they were at youth service all the time. To my knowledge, it was never just him alone with anybody or anything like that.

Harris said he had decided to give church another try after a two-year hiatus. He had only been attending Grace River for about a month and a half before McCalls arrest. He said nobody in the congregation saw it coming.

Church is supposed to be a spot for the broken, a spot where you can be vulnerable, he said. Its just sickening as a family that has seen firsthand what that kind of abuse can do. Just knowing that and then knowing its in the church, the place where most people would go for help with that, that bothered me a lot.

Harris said he was also bothered by the silence of lead pastor Barry Sempsrott in the aftermath.

I believe its important to kind of stand against stuff like this and even making a statement  I think its important for people to know theyre safe in church, but also think its important that people know you wont put up with this, he said.

Harris said the response, or lack thereof, by church leaders played a role in his decision to leave the congregation.

Sempsrott did not answer calls but responded by text to inquiries about McCall with a Bible verse.

Gal 6:1-3 nothing else to say, the text said.

Galatians 6 describes restoring those who have sinned and carrying the burdens of others.

This couldve been way worse, Harris said. There are good people in the church, and they didnt do this. At the same time, this is just something you cant not talk about.

There are over 16,000 sex offenders in the Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys (ALEA) Sex Offender Registry. According to ALEA, offenders must report to their local law enforcement office every three months for registration. Local law enforcement then forwards that information to the ALEA repository. McCalls name is not on the Alabama registry.

Sex offenders convicted outside of Alabama may not be subject to ALEAs sex offender registry until after a due process hearing, according to ALEAs website.

Records show McCall was booked into Madison County Jail after his arrest and held in lieu of a $43,000 bond. He was released from jail Tuesday.

 david.gambino@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438.

___

(c)2023 The Decatur Daily (Decatur, Ala.)

Visit The Decatur Daily (Decatur, Ala.) at www.decaturdaily.com

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This fall, the Lede is reaching out to your elected representatives and asking what theyre anticipating for the 2024 session and what theyre doing to stay in touch with constituents until then.

District 47 Rep. Mike Shaw, R-Hoover, recently answered some questions about whats on his mind for the upcoming session.

Was there anything in your first legislative session that was surprising to you?

The pace was surprising. Just how much stuff we had to look at and vote on very quickly. And Ive heard it was a little unusual to look at that much legislation. In city government things are just as intense [Shaw served as a Hoover city councilor for 6 years], but the pace is slower throughout the year. So, if you have an ordinance coming up, you have two or three weeks to get familiar with it. But with this, you might have two or three pieces of legislation in a day. That is different than what Im used to. So just the pace and the amount of information you have to process quickly.

And Im used to getting emails from people with questions but in this role, I was surprised how few people knew what was in the bills. People tended to rely on TV or media or chainmail or something like that. And so, I was surprised at just how many constituents would talk to me about a bill and what they said wasnt in there at all. I spent a lot of time digging through bills when people had questions on something and cutting and pasting this is what it actually says, you know. So that was a little surprising. Theres a lot of different places where people get their information. And so, a lot of times, whats actually in the bill gets lost. So that was an interesting thing.
Authorities are asking for the publics help in identifying the suspect in a shooting at a Brighton convenience store.

Brighton police were dispatched just before 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to the Chevron at 3597 Jaybird Road on a report of shots fired, said Lt. Kenneth Hooten.

When officers arrived on the scene, they found a white Kia Forte and a silver BMW had been struck by gunfire, as well as the store windows.

Hooten said while he was on the scene, he learned a 20-year-old man had shown up at UAB West with a gunshot wound to the hand.

Police then located the victims bullet-riddled Toyota Camry in the 900 block of 22nd Street North in Bessemer.

Video surveillance footage from the Chevron showed a black Honda Accord stopped at the end of the parking lot. When the victims vehicle approached the end of the parking lot, two to four men got out of the Honda and opened fire.

The victim fled the scene, as did the suspect vehicle.

Hooten said the suspects vehicle  the Honda  had been reported stolen. The tag number is AL 4234BL9.

The suspects are believed to be armed and dangerous. Anyone with information about the suspects, or the location of the vehicle, is asked to call Brighton police at 205-425-8934.
Japan is preparing to take home about 20 Koreans, along with its own nationals, on a special flight from Israel, local media have reported, apparently returning the favor after Seoul brought back dozens of Japanese people from the war-torn region last week.

Japan has offered to provide Korea with a limited number of available seats for Koreans as it is working to determine the demand for the emergency transport among its own people, Kyodo News has reported, citing government officials.

Tokyo has sent an Air Self-Defense Force transport aircraft to Jordan for the transportation of its citizens.

The plane is expected to leave Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv at around 8 p.m. Thursday (local time) and arrive at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo early Saturday.

The flight will apparently be provided for free.

Japan's plan is seen as returning the favor to Seoul after a Korean military aircraft brought back 51 Japanese citizens, together with 163 Koreans, from Tel Aviv on Saturday.

Soon after the arrival, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa had a phone call with her Korean counterpart, Park Jin, and thanked Seoul for helping the Japanese nationals safely return home.

The mutual cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo comes against the backdrop of a significant warming of bilateral relations as Korea decided not to seek compensation from Japanese companies for the harsh labor many Koreans were forced into under Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.

About 470 Korean nationals are staying in Israel, up from the previous tally earlier this week, as those staying on missionary purposes have newly been added, the foreign ministry said. (Yonhap)
Prosecutors in Aruba on Thursday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to send them records from its investigation of Joran van der Sloot, a spokeswoman told AL.com.

The request came after van der Sloots confession to having killed Natalee Holloway in 2005 and disposing of her body was made public in federal court in Birmingham on Wednesday.

Spokeswoman Ann Angela said prosecutors in Aruba wish to review DOJ records before deciding on the procedural steps to be taken.

It has been widely reported that because the statute of limitations for homicide in Aruba is 12 years it was unlikely van der Sloot would be prosecuted for the killing of the then 18-year-old Mountain Brook High School graduate.

AL.com asked prosecutors in Aruba on Wednesday if there was any plan to charge van der Sloot in light of the detailed confession.

Your question as to whether the suspicion against Joran van der Sloot is statute-barred, cannot be answered with a straightforward yes or no, Angela replied today.

It depends on several factors within the investigation. The Police Force, the Public Prosecutors Office of Aruba and other investigative entities will follow up on any serious leads that could solve the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. The Holloway case is still an open investigation in Aruba. As it is an ongoing case, the Public Prosecutors Office will only provide limited information to the media, Angela wrote in an email to AL.com.

Natalees mother Beth Holloway on Wednesday said she had no hope he would be charged in Aruba.

Hopefully, maybe, they will look into that. I have what I need, Holloway said. I dont know about that. Im just sticking with victorious right now.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson will hold a hearing Thursday afternoon in Birmingham-Southern Colleges lawsuit against State Treasurer Young Boozer, a case that could determine whether the 167-year-old private college survives its financial problems.

Birmingham-Southern sued the state treasurer on Wednesday after Boozer turned down the colleges request for a $27 million loan from the Alabama Distressed Institutions of Higher Education Revolving Loan Program.

The Legislature passed a bill this year creating the loan program in response to requests from officials, alumni, and supporters of Birmingham-Southern, who said the college would close without an infusion of public funds to serve as a bridge while it raised money from donors and private sources.

Birmingham-Southern is asking the court for an emergency order requiring Boozer to approve the loan and disburse the first $8.8 million by Nov. 6, with another installment of $7.2 million in February.

Without emergency relief from the court, Birmingham-Southern will likely close for good before the end of the year, lawyers for the college told the court.

Birmingham-Southern said it completed its application on Aug. 24, the first day the treasurers office made applications available. The college said it provided adequate collateral for the loan and meets all the legal requirements to obtain it.

The statute setting up the loan program made the state treasurer the administrator of the program. But the college said the law does not give the treasurer the discretion to deny a loan to a college that meets the criteria spelled out in the statute.

The law says the State Treasurer is authorized to establish the terms and conditions of any loan made pursuant to this program.

The law says, The State Treasurer may, in his or her judgment, award a loan to any eligible institution that meets the requirements provided in this section and shall be responsible for the administration of the loan, subject to the provisions of this section.

Read more: Judge questions whether court can order state treasurer to issue loan to save Birmingham-Southern
A Florida man was critically wounded when his son opened fire on him after deputies say the man tried to run over his son and wife outside their home.

According to the Baker County Sheriffs Department, deputies were notified of a disturbance in progress just before 1 a.m. Tuesday. As they were in route to the location, a second 911 call notified them that someone had been shot at the residence.

Arriving at the scene, deputies learned there had been a domestic incident between a husband and wife, with the wife reportedly being physically abused by the husband. That led to an altercation between the man and his adult son, who also lived at the residence.

The son had stepped in to protect his mother, according to the sheriffs office, and he and his father had a physical altercation in the front yard of the home. The mother and son both told deputies the father/husband then got into a vehicle and attempted to run over his wife and son.

The son, however, had retrieved a firearm and opened fire at the moving vehicle, striking his father at least once. Deputies responding to the scene rendered aid before the man was airlifted to a trauma center in Jacksonville, about 30 miles east.

No injuries were reported to the mother and son. The identities of those involved have not been released.

No charges have been filed, but the sheriffs office said they are in contact with the Florida State Attorneys Office and the investigation remains ongoing.
Authorities are searching for a vehicle suspected of striking and killing an Athens man riding a bicycle Wednesday.

Senior Trooper Brandon Bailey of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) said the incident happened at about 5:35 p.m. Wednesday on Looney Road near Pine Road, about six miles north of Athens in Limestone County.

Charles S. Olney, 68, was operating a bicycle when he was struck in the roadway by a vehicle. After the initial impact, the bicycle left the roadway and Olney was thrown off. The vehicle left the scene and the exact vehicle type, as well as the driver, is still unknown.

The vehicle is believed to be a Chevrolet Colorado or a GMC Canyon, with damage to the passenger side. Anyone with information is asked to contact ALEA Troopers at (256) 353-0631.

Bailey said Olney was taken to Athens Limestone Hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

Troopers with ALEAs Highway Patrol Division continue to investigate.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson questioned lawyers Thursday about whether the court has the authority to order State Treasurer Young Boozer to issue a loan intended to keep Birmingham-Southern College from closing.

Anderson held a hearing in Birmingham-Southerns lawsuit against Boozer, which the college filed on Wednesday after receiving a letter from Boozer rejecting its loan application.

Birmingham-Southern has asked the court to order Boozer to approve the colleges application for a $30 million loan and disburse the first $16 million this academic year.

The judge did not announce a decision but said he would move the case quickly and scheduled another hearing for next week.

Time is critical for BSC in getting to an agreement with the state on the loan terms, BSC President Daniel B. Coleman said in a statement after the hearing. It is clear that Judge Anderson understands the urgency of our situation.

We remain confident that BSC meets all of the qualifications for the loan, and that our financial restructuring plan makes clear how and when we plan to repay it.

In the lawsuit, lawyers for Birmingham-Southern say the college met all the requirements the Legislature established for receiving the loan when it created the Alabama Distressed Institutions of Higher Education Revolving Loan Program. The bill was passed in response to requests by officials, alumni, and supporters of Birmingham-Southern, a 167-year-old private college. The college said it needs the public funds as a bridge while it raises money from private sources to overcome financial problems.

Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill into law in June.

Lawyers for the college said it could close for good after this semester if it does not receive the loan.

Anderson said he was sympathetic to Birmingham-Southerns position and the urgency of its request. But the judge raised the question of whether the Legislature gave the state treasurer discretion over whether to approve loans.

The State Treasurer may. in his or her judgment, award a loan to any eligible institution that meets the requirements provided in this section, the law says.

Anderson noted the Legislatures language, may, in his or her judgment, award a loan. He said lawmakers could have used the word shall award a loan if their intent was to limit the treasurers discretion and require the treasurer to issue loans to colleges that met the criteria.

Lawyers for Birmingham-Southern said the law requires the state treasurer to issue loans to colleges that met the requirements spelled out in the law, including adequate collateral.

The college claims that Boozer was arbitrary, capricious, and acted in bad faith. It claims that the treasurer unnecessarily delayed the loan application and a decision on whether to approve it

Birmingham-Southern said it submitted its application on Aug. 24, the first day applications were available. The college said it pledged collateral in property on its 192-acre campus and in U.S. Treasury notes that exceeded what was required for the amount it was borrowing.

The denial of the loan application came in a letter from Boozer that Birmingham-Southern said it received on Wednesday. The letter was dated Oct. 13. Birmingham-Southern attorney Robert Battle said Boozer did not inform the college of the decision except through the letter, which came by regular mail.

In the letter, Boozer said Birmingham-Southern did not fulfill the requirements spelled out in the law for collateral and a restructured financial plan.

Anderson said Boozers assertions in the letter establish disagreements on facts that the court would have to settle if the case proceeds. But first, the judge said he would decide whether Boozer is shielded from the lawsuit by sovereign immunity and has full discretion over whether to award loans.

Jim Davis, a lawyer from the attorney generals office who represents Boozer, said its the states position that Boozer has sovereign immunity. Davis told Anderson the state would make its arguments in a motion to dismiss the case by Monday.

Anderson scheduled another hearing for Wednesday.

Lawyers for Birmingham-Southern said the college needs to know by Oct. 30 whether it will receive the money so the Board of Trustees can make a decision about whether the college continues to offer classes after this semester. That decision will affect 731 full-time students, including 439 Alabama residents, and 284 employees, the college said.

Birmingham-Southern asked the court to order the first $8.8 million draw by Nov. 6, followed by another $7.2 million on Feb. 1. The college is seeking $9 million in the 2024-25 academic year and $5 million in the 2025-26 academic year.

Read more: Architect of Birmingham-Southern bailout disgusted by states denial of funding
Tommy Nelson, the longtime senior pastor of Denton Bible Church in Texas, announced his retirement earlier this month exactly a year after a FOX 4 report alleged his church ignored red flags of abuse by a former youth pastor. Nelson is also a best-selling author of several books on marriage and family.

Nelson shared news of his retirement in a letter sent on Oct. 4. A church like Denton Bible Church needs to always be, to always exist, he wrote to congregants. A church that is fundamental, premillennial, Calvinistic, dispensational, discipleship-focused, elder ruled, complementarian, and non-woke must continue.

Nelsons letter included no mention of the Denton megachurchs former youth pastor Robert Shiflet, who was sentenced to 33 months in prison in 2021 for sexually assaulting two girls on church youth trips in the late 90s. A third-party investigation commissioned by the church into Shiflet found credible reports of sexual assault against 14 girls, 11 at Denton Bible and 3 at an Arkansas church he worked at later. Shiflet was released from prison for good behavior in January 2023 after serving only 25 months.

In their investigation published in October 2022, FOX 4 spoke with one of the victims Shiflet was convicted of assaulting. The victim, who spoke anonymously, described being abandoned by the church after she told a Denton Bible Church counselor about Shiflets abuse when she was 19. The church did not report her claims to law enforcement for over a decade.

FOX 4s report also included a five-page statement from the church that summarized the findings of a third-party investigation into the churchs handling of Shiflets behavior. The investigation found many failures on the part of Denton Bible Church to respond to reports of abuse and suspicious behavior.

The statement said that many of the 40 individuals interviewed throughout the investigation described an us vs. them mentality toward those outside of our active church membership which caused us to not really see or provide care for victims that had since left the church. The investigators also found that people within our church were afraid to raise concerns, or even participate in the investigation, because of a feeling that it would be seen and treated as disloyalty.

Nelson and Denton Bible Church did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

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Joy Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for The Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.

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2023 The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The big question with any winter forecast in Alabama is: Is there a chance for snow?

Theres always a chance. But most of the time its not a great chance.

What about this winter?

Now, whether those higher precipitation chances coincide with colder air and generate snow is anyones guess.

The winter outlook covers meteorological winter, or the months of December, January and February.

El Nino will be a strong influence on this winters weather, according to forecasters.

The Climate Prediction Center suggests there will be an increased probability of above-average precipitation for much of Alabama -- and a large part of the southern U.S. as well.

There will be equal chances of above-average or below-average temperatures for Alabama this winter, according to the outlook.

The precipitation outlook is at the top of this post. Below is the temperature outlook:

Alabama's temperatures this winter have equal chances of being above or below average, according to this outlook from the Climate Prediction Center.

For the U.S. as a whole, NOAA is predicting wetter-than-average conditions for northern Alaska, parts of the West, the southern Plains, Southeast, Gulf Coast and lower mid-Atlantic. Drier-than-average conditions will be possible across the northern tier of the U.S.

An enhanced southern jet stream and associated moisture often present during strong El Nino events supports high odds for above-average precipitation for the Gulf Coast, lower Mississippi Valley and Southeast states this winter, said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch of the Climate Prediction Center.

El Nino is a climate phenomenon which is signaled by above-average sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Those warmer waters can influence weather patterns worldwide.

This El Nino could last through the winter. It could be a strong one, according to the Climate Prediction Center.

The winter outlook doesnt guarantee that Alabama will have snow over the winter months, however.

NOAA said its seasonal outlooks do not project seasonal snowfall accumulations because snow forecasts are generally not predictable more than a week in advance.

But above-average precipitation could help in the drought department. Drought conditions have persisted -- and worsened -- across parts of the state this week.

Drought conditions backed off a bit in a few spots but expanded in others in the past week. Not much if any improvement is expected in the coming week with little rain in the forecast.

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor report, released Thursday, shows that a good part of the state is in moderate to severe drought, and parts of south Alabama are in extreme drought. (It also should be noted that October is typically one of Alabamas driest months.)

Some things to look for this fall and winter:

* The time changes Nov. 5.

* The Atlantic hurricane season ends on Nov. 30.

* Meteorological winter begins Dec. 1.

* Astronomical winter begins Dec. 21.

* Meteorological spring begins March 1, 2024.

* Daylight-saving time begins March 10, 2024.

* Astronomical spring begins March 19, 2024.
Were almost to the peak of the Orionid meteor shower and, with a little planning, you just might catch a glimpse of a bright fireball streaking through the sky.

The Orionid meteor shower will peak on Oct. 22, though plenty of meteors will be visible both before and after that day. You can watch for Orionid meteors on both the morning of Oct. 21 and early Oct. 22 after midnight and in the hours before dawn, EarthSky.org reported. Meteors will be visible through Nov. 22.

Under a dark sky with no moon, EarthSky predicts you can see as many as 20 meteors per hour this year.

The Orionids are considered one of the most beautiful showers of the year and its meteors are known for their brightness and speed. As NASA points out, the meteors are fast  traveling at about 148,000 mph. The fast meteors can also leave glowing trains  incandescent bits of debris in the wake of the meteor  that make the show even more exciting.

Meteor showers are created when pieces of space debris interact with our atmosphere. In the case of the Orionids, the debris is created by the Halleys Comet. Each time Halley returns to the inner solar system its nucleus sheds ice and rocky dust into space, NASA said, with that dust eventually becoming the Orionids in October and the Eta Aquarids in May.

Halleys Comet takes about 76 years to orbit the sun. It made its last appearance to casual observers in 1986 but wont return to the inner solar system again until 2061.

How to see the Orionids

The radiant for the Orionids  the point in the sky from which the meteors appear to come  is the constellation Orion but you should let your eyes take in the entire sky for your best chance to see the meteors. NASA said its actually better to view the Orionids from 45 to 90 degrees away from the radiant, the place in which the fireballs will appear longer and more spectacular.

You should find an area well away from the city or street lights and come prepared with a sleeping bag, blanket or lawn chair, NASA recommends. Lie flat on your back with your feet facing the southeast and look up to take in as much of the sky as possible. It will take about 30 minutes for your eyes to adapt to the dark and give you the best chance to see meteors.

And stay off your phone. The light from digital devices can make it harder for your eyes to adapt to the dark.
Alabama Sen. Katie Britt is part of an eight-member Senate delegation that will leave Washington Thursday night for a trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Britt, who took office in January, is the only freshman in the Senate included in the delegation.

The trip comes after President Joe Biden visited Israel earlier this week in the aftermath of the start of a war launched by Hamas.

NEWS  BLINKEN, who is currently meeting with McConnell, will meet afterward with the senators heading on this CODEL to Israel, Saudi Arabia & Egypt.



Updated list:

Lindsey Graham

Cory Booker

Jack Reed

John Thune

Richard Blumenthal

Chris Coons

Susan Collins

Katie Britt https://t.co/QQ30wbXW4y  Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) October 19, 2023

Other senators on the trip are Democrats Cory Booker, Jack Reed, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Coons and Republicans Lindsey Graham, John Thune and Susan Collins.

Andrew Desiderio of Punchbowl News, who posted on X the names of senators making the trip, said the group will meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken before departing. Blinken was meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier Thursday, according to Desiderio.

Britts office did not immediately confirm that she will be part of the delegation.

@SenKatieBritt:



We must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel as they eradicate Hamas.



We cannot turn a blind eye to evil. pic.twitter.com/AV8ArJN0iQ  Senate Republicans (@SenateGOP) October 18, 2023

Britt has been outspoken in her support of Israel.

When we see whats happening in Israel, yall it is pure evil, Britt said at a press conference earlier this week. You cant look at it as a parent, as an American, just as a person, and not be able to say that. Its not only disheartening, its not only gut-wrenching, it is  without a doubt  evil. I believe as Americans, we must look evil in the eye and take it down.

We must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel as they eradicate Hamas terrorists. These terrorists dont care -- they dont care how many men they kill, how many women they rape, how many children they kidnap. If you havent watched the video of the children, the toddlers, the babies being held by terrorists, them using them as human shields  go watch it. If you havent listened to the reporters tell about walking into the places where these atrocities happened, then giving their recounting of what they saw, what it felt like  go watch it.

Britt also called for the Biden administration to apply economic strangleholds to Hamas and their allies in the war against Israel.

We cannot turn a blind eye to evil, Britt said. We must stand firm with Israel, and I am hopeful that the Biden Administration will do much more than just refreezing the $6 billion that is headed to Iran. We know what to do. Weve got to squeeze out any type of financial resources theyre getting through that. Through also working with our G7 colleagues, to make sure that we return to a posture of maximum pressure, bone-crushing sanctions drying up each and every dollar that is headed to their hands.

We know that Iran is the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorists. We know that. We know, they have told us that their goal is to wipe Israel off the face of this earth. We need our leaders to stand firm and [holding] them accountable. And then knowing that Hamas not only wants to wipe out Israel, but has said that they want to wipe out the Jewish people. To all of the people here in America, to those suffering and hurting in Israel, we want you to know we stand with you and we stand ready to do everything possible to not only hold these people accountable, but ensure your safety and prosperity moving forward.
Rep. Susan DuBose (R-District 45) hosted a lunch-and-learn event Wednesday to review her legislative priorities at the North Shelby library in Mt. Laurel, including her viewpoints on public libraries.

DuBose told the 25 attendees shes on the same page with Gov. Kay Ivey on adjusting library guidelines so we can have reconsideration on books so that we can move them from one department to another without being considered censorship.

We want libraries to have options, Dubose said.

Angie Hayden of Read Freely Alabama, a group that opposes book challenges, attended the event and asked if DuBose is a member of Clean Up Alabama, a group thats been challenging books they deem sexually inappropriate for about the past year.

District 45 Rep. Susan DuBose Photo courtesy of Susan DuBose

DuBose said she is not a member but believes in respectful conversation and debate. She said she received phone calls from dozens of parents concerned about inappropriate books, particularly an LGBTQ pride display in June at the library. DuBose complained over the summer to the Alabama Public Library Service board about the display.

We are letting a small group of people cause a little bit of chaos, Hayden said. DuBose estimated at least 100 people are on each side of the library debate.

Where can we un-complain? one of the attendees asked.

In a July statement, North Shelby library director Kate Etheredge said of the more than 8,600 people who visited the library in June 2023, only about 1% expressed an opinion about the display.

We received 76 supportive written comments and 39 negative written comments, Etheredge said in the statement. At the Board meeting on June 19, 2023, more people signed up to speak in support of the display than against. I would also like to note that the number of visitors to the library in June increased by more than 3,000 from last year.

Etheredge said in an Oct. 4 phone interview that there are no sexually explicit books in the childrens section. She said because a book has two dads or two moms doesnt make it sexually explicit, and the library should represent every kind of family.

Just because a book is not appropriate for your family does not mean theres not a child or a family out there that doesnt want that kind of book, Etheredge said.

There was also discussion at the luncheon on library board member elections. DuBose said Shelby County is uniquely positioned because library board members are publicly elected. The next board meeting is Oct. 19 at 4 p.m.
The top American general on Wednesday highlighted the South Korea-U.S. alliance's watchword, "We go together," as he reflected on the past and present of the evolving bilateral partnership forged in the crucible of war decades ago.

At the Korean National Day event hosted by the South Korean Embassy in the United States, Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, touched on the 1950-53 Korean War, where he said the watchword reverberated among South Korean and U.S. soldiers on the ground.

"They fought side by side, shoulder to shoulder for freedom, democracy and the rule of law. 'We go together' became our shared slogan," Brown said. "Ever since then, our two countries have worked together to combat regional and global threats."

The general said the alliance, "born from combat and conflict," is now geared toward promoting "peace, vigilance and strength." He also stressed that the partnership between the two nations has deepened "beyond just our military alliance."

"We work together to strengthen our respective economies and recently focused on our future opportunities, including in space, energy and health," he said. "The alliance has proved just how much we can achieve when we work together."

Also attending the event was National Security Council Coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs Kurt Campbell who underscored the expanding scope of the alliance.

"We go together not just on the Korean Peninsula, but global," he said. "We work together in the Indo-Pacific. We work together on common challenges and technology. Our peoples have never been closer together."

Noting that the allies confront "unprecedented challenges" from North Korea, Campbell said, "We will remain vigilant no matter what we face."

Campbell also expressed his satisfaction at the headway that the U.S. has made in forging stronger ties with regional allies.

"One thing that gives me encouragement when I get up and think about doing my job is that our partnership with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific has never been stronger," he said. "In many respects, this is the absolute high point of what we have sought for decades and for years."

He also noted President Yoon Suk Yeol's role in the alliance.

"I do want to say that the person that we look to in the Indo-Pacific for courage and leadership is President Yoon. He has led us in remarkable ways," he said.

Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, took note of South Korea's growing influence in American society.

"We've already seen Korea's rise to the level of truly global influence. It's not just your power. It's not just your influence and your economic mind," he said. "Korean culture, Korean food, Korean music are everywhere whether it's BTS or the movie, Parasite."

South Korean Ambassador Cho Hyun-dong underscored the "deep-rooted, multifaceted" relationship between Seoul and Washington as he commented on progress in economic and other aspects of the bilateral ties.

"On the economic front, the U.S. is Korea's second largest trade partner, and may soon overtake China as our number one export destination," he said. (Yonhap)
Laptops, office furniture, tools, boats, vehicles  including a bus  are among the items up for bid for the next online state surplus property auction starting Saturday.

The Surplus Property Division of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs is hosting an online auction via GovDeals.com from Saturday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 a.m. through Sunday, Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. For information on becoming an authorized bidder, visit here. The auction items will be listed here starting Saturday.

Auction items can be inspected on-site at the Surplus Property Divisions Montgomery Distribution Center at 4590 Mobile Highway Oct. 23-27 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. You can see photos of some of the items here.

In addition to property no longer needed by state and federal agencies, ADECA acquires items abandoned voluntarily at several airports in the Southeast.

For more information about the online auction, visit adeca.alabama.gov/surplus or call 334-284-0577.
One relative is questioning the Decatur police chiefs correction to the initial police report on the shooting death of Stephen Perkins about two weeks later.

Sheree Head, a Perkins relative, said the police chief took too long to release the new statement.

My issue is it took you 13 days to come up with what we already knew and what we all knew already, what we saw in these videos, Head said during the public comments section of the Decatur City Council meeting this week.

You had videos with audio that told you what they said was a lie. But you all allowed it to stand for 13 days to disparage his character and to make it appear that he was some aggressive person, that he was some predator of some nature when you knew it was a lie.

Day two, we knew this, and you allowed it to stand so that you could shape the publics opinion about him, Head said Monday.

Home camera recording of the event on the morning of Sept. 29 showed Perkins telling a tow driver repossessing his vehicle about a quarter to 2 a.m., put the truck down before the shooting.

The footage appeared to show a police officer coming from the corner of his house on 3900 Block of Ryan Drive SW and shouting, Hey, hey, police, get on the ground, and began firing. The police report that day said he turned a weapon towards an officer.

The interaction lasted about one second before gunshots rang out. A family attorney said seven bullets hit him; a neighbor said six hit his house, and he was lucky to escape death.

The Decatur police initially explained that they were responding to a tow truck company call after someone pulled a gun on a tow truck driver. Another home footage viewed by AL.com indicated the tow truck driver was at the house at about midnight.

Officers made their way to the residence, along with the tow truck driver, the Decatur police said in the statement explaining what happened about two hours later.

The homeowner exited the residence armed with a handgun and began to threaten the tow truck driver. Officers on scene ordered the homeowner to drop his weapon, which he refused to do. It was at this time the homeowner turned the gun towards one of the Officers on scene. The Officer discharged his duty weapon, striking the subject.

About ten days after the incident, longtime Decatur councilman Billy Jackson called for the firing of the police chief, calling to question the procedure that the three officers seen on home camera footage followed that day.

I dont know of any policy that would justify that, Jackson said on Oct. 9. I dont know of any procedure that would have allowed us to go out there at that particular time in aid of, or in assisting a tow truck driver at that particular time when all we had to do was turn on the lights and knock on the door.

Police chief Todd Pinion released a statement correcting the initial release, adding that the department is conducting an investigation into what led up to the shooting, the use of force itself, and officers actions afterwards to determine if there were any violations of department policy.

Pinion acknowledged that the officer fired after ordering Perkins to get on the ground before the shooting and did not order him to drop his weapon, as indicated in the initial statement.

That means that we also erred in stating Mr. Perkins refused to drop his firearm prior to the shooting, he wrote. I apologize for the inaccurate description of the encounter in our initial statement, and we have already taken steps to improve our public information sharing process.

The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency is investigating the case.

A family attorney, Cannon Lambert, Sr, told AL.com he was disappointed that he flew in from Chicago on Tuesday expecting ALEA to allow him to view the bodycam footage of the incident.

An ALEA spokesperson in an email to AL.com Tuesday said the attorney did not follow the agencys layout process.

ALEA has a process by which an individual who is the subject of a law enforcement recording, or that individuals personal representative, may request disclosure of body camera or dash camera video evidence, the spokesperson said. That process has not yet been completed in this instance.

Lambert told AL.com that ALEA requires the lawyers to fill out a form before ALEA considers whether to provide the videos.

Briona Watkins is one of the lead organizers of protests that have been going on in Decatur daily, asking for justice with regard to Perkins killing. She told AL.com Saturday after a protest event that the police chief has not come out with the whole truth.

He admitted that their original statement was wrong, but saying that (is not enough), his officer did not fully even finish his command. Not only that, he didnt even give Steve a chance to react to his command, she said.
The woman who fell 90 feet to her death at Cherokee Rock Village Saturday was only on her second outside climb, according to friends and fellow climbers.

The Cherokee County Coroners Office said Yutong Faye Zhang, 18, originally from Minnesota, was killed in an incident Saturday at about 12 p.m.

Investigators were called to Cherokee Rock Village, off Cherokee County Road 70. Investigators say Zhang fell while climbing.

Zhang, originally from Minnesota, was a member of the University of Georgias Foundation Fellowship, the schools top academic scholarship. Greg Trevor, a UGA spokesman, said Zhang was a first-year student at the school.

Cherokee Rock Village sits atop Lookout Mountain in Cherokee County. Its a popular site for rock climbing, hiking and camping, affording a memorable view of nearby Weiss Lake.

According to WSB, Zhang was involved with Active Climbing, an indoor rock-climbing gym near the UGA campus, and visited two to three times a week.

Owen Donnelly, a friend, described Zhang as, GentleI thinkwould be a good word.

Adrian Prelipceanu, owner of Active Climbing, said the climbing community in and around Athens are all heartbroken about it. You could tell by the vibe around here.

According to Climbing magazine, Zhang that morning texted her family, Person organizing trip cooked delicious breakfast. She had already finished one climb that day and had impressed those around her with her confidence.

The fall happened at Misty, a popular climbing route at Cherokee Rock Village with a steep overhang.

Those with Zhang at the time of the accident believe she inadvertently put the rope holding her into a position so that when it was weighted, it came unclipped.

Karsten Delap, a guide with the International Federation of Mountain Guides posted an analysis on social media of what might have happened.
Five attorneys faced off this week at the Huntsville Board of Zoning Adjustments meeting over a new kind of development in one of the citys older neighborhoods.

Eleven neighbors who live in the Blossomwood neighborhood near 1005 Hermitage Avenue filed a complaint with the Board during the summer, objecting to the zoning administrators decision to not only divide a plot of land into two as they saw it but also allow for prefabricated homes on the property.

The neighbors said those decisions were against the zoning ordinances guidelines for the neighborhood, tagged an R1B, and asked the Board to declare the structures a nuisance.

GSH of Alabama, LLC had purchased the property in the post-war neighborhood at an auction and has since put a prefabricated structure on one of the lots.

Zoning Administrator Travis Cummings said Tuesday at the board meeting that such modular homes are all over the City and that he did the right thing. The Board agreed with him and rejected the neighbors demands, with no member moving any of the five motions board chairman Martin Sisson outlined for the case.

Demet Jerkins, who lives close to the divided lot, worries about the impact of having the modular home near her property on the value.

They put the structure up, and now theyre going to compare it to everybody elses property, she said. Theyll probably cost them, I dont know, a dime on a dollar in comparison to what we paid in our investments and our hard-earned money, and so theyre going to increase their property value while theyre decreasing everybody elses property value over time, and that is not fair.

I have nothing against people trying to make a good investment, but dont make your investment on everybody elses expense, she added.

Josh Guffey, another neighbor, also objects to the Boards decision.

The lot at 1005 Hermitage Avenue.Kayode Crown/kcrown@al.com

This really sets a precedent going forward on what can and cant be done, he said. Builders of modular types of homes can come into the future, not just R1B, but other residential areas, pay inflated prices that other people simply cannot afford to pay because they have cheaper homes that theyre putting on these lots.

GHS of Alabama, LLC attorneys Jody Schilleci and Patrick Miller said any attempt by the Board of Zoning Adjustment to grant the Blossomwood residents plea could leave the City of Huntsville carrying the bag for the high financial cost the company had borne.

GSH has invested almost $1.2 million in this structure were going to be talking about today, Schilleci said. It has every intention of building similar modular homes throughout the city of Huntsville, which are, to my knowledge, fully allowed and approved in the city of Huntsville.

But because of this appeal, through no fault of GSH, theyve been delayed and been prevented from doing that; theyve been prevented from getting a final certificate of occupancy on this structure, he added. So despite their investment, despite their every good intention, despite their reliance on whats been told to them about this property, theyve been prevented from doing that.

And now theyre being harmed further from the loss of their use of the house, loss of their income, their income from use of it, loss from their investment, and its our view that the appeal as its done really is not correct and should be dismissed. And more importantly, from GSHs perspective, GSH is going to look for remedies somewhere for having to be put through this thing, and we think the certificate of occupancy should be issued.

Miller said an order to remove the structure if declared a nuisance would be inappropriate under the law, but a grave injustice and impractical and economic waste to declare this structure, which exists and has been built.

Attorney Patrick Chesnut said the zoning administrators decision violated the zoning ordinance, which he believes provides the treatment of two contiguous 50-foot-wide lands owned by the same individual as one lot in that part of the City. He added that the city council would need to create a law guiding the placement of modular homes in the City as a legislative initiative.

There are 50-foot lots all up and down Locust and Hermitage, yes..that has nothing to do with it, Patrick Chesnut said. Also, if they have done it wrong in the past, that doesnt mean it is right to do now.

Theyve been doing things wrong for years, he added. So just because we caught him now and theyve done it wrong in the past doesnt mean they can steamroll over all these people.

Other attorneys who represented the neighbors are Richard Chesnut and John A. Brinkley, Jr. The appellants disagree with the opinion of the board, Brinkley Jr told AL.com and said the neighbors may appeal the Boards decision to the local circuit court.
A familiar face from Alabama is playing a significant role in the well of the House chamber as lawmakers continue to wrangle over who will be the next Speaker of the House of Representatives.

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, sits at the front desk as a teller counting the votes during the selection process.

Sewell is among four members, two Republicans and two Democrats, who were selected by their partys leaders to manually tabulate the votes of her colleagues. Sewell was tapped by serve by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York.

Sewell so far has served during two rounds of voting Tuesday and Wednesday as the Republican majority seeks a consensus on who will lead the chamber of 435 members. No candidate has been able to secure the votes to claim the gavel.

Another vote could occur this afternoon following two failed attempts by U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to secure the win.
Carlee Russell wont have to come up with the nearly $18,000 a Hoover municipal judge recommended she pay in restitution for faking her abduction on one condition, according to conservative commentator Candace Owens.

Owens offered to pay Russells fine if the Hoover resident appears on Owens show and accounts for the 48 hours she went missing in mid-July. Owens made the announcement on the Oct. 13 episode of her show.

I will pay the $18,000 fine if you sit down with me and give me a one-on-one on where you were for the 48 hours. I mean that. Take it to the bank, Carlee Russell, Owens said, just talk to me on this show about where the heck you were for 48 hours. America deserves to know.

Hoover Municipal Judge Brad Bishop found Russell guilty Oct. 11 of false reporting to law enforcement authorities and falsely reporting an incident based on the recommendation of state prosecutors.

Bishop recommended one year in jail and $17,874 in restitution. He also recommended two fines of $831 each.

Russell is appealing Bishops recommendations to circuit court in Bessemer.

Owens, who has previously opined on the Russell saga on her show, claimed she would visit Russell if Russell has to serve prison time.

I want to be very clear: If Carlee Russell goes to prison for one year, I will be on the visitor log. I will be seeing her, probably daily. Ill probably see her at least see her once a week, because I feel attached to the story. I feel attached to Carlee. Carlee feels like shes my cousin the way Ive been covering the story, Owens said.

So, Carlee, I want you to know that if they put you behind bars for one year I am going to visit you and Im going to bring you things, Owens continued. I will bring you candy, because I need to talk to you, I need to understand where you were for 48 hours. I will give you anything. Please, come on this show.

We would break the internet, Carlee Russell, Owens said. Lets break the internet, Carlee Russell.

Emory Anthony, one of Russells attorneys, deferred comment to the Alabama attorney generals office when asked where his client was when she went missing.

The AGs office I dont think it being...compassionate, he said. They know the young lady was not off on a whim. They knew the young lady was not off with some young man. So they know that.

Russell seemingly vanished Thursday, July 13, after calling 911, and a family member, to report seeing a child, about 3 or 4 years old only wearing a diaper, walking alone on I-459.

The family member reported hearing a scream, and then only interstate noise through the open cell phone line.

Russells disappearance sparked a massive search and widespread concern.

Two days later, Russell showed up alone at her parents Hoover home. She was taken to UAB Hospital for evaluation.

While at UAB Hospital, Russell told Hoover police she escaped the clutches of a man and woman who abducted her.

Authorities determined Russell left her job at Woodhouse Day Spa  from which she has since been fired  after taking a robe, toilet paper and a small amount of cash.

She ordered food from Tazikis at The Colonnade. Carlee then traveled to Target on U.S. 280 where she bought some granola bars, Cheez-its, and a drink.

She remained in the parking lot there until 9:21 P.M., then drove to I-459.

Russell called 911 at 9:34 p.m. She then called her brothers girlfriend, and about 9:36 p.m. went missing.

No one else ever reported seeing a toddler there.

Russell traveled approximately 600 yards while on the phone with 911.

Police found Russells wig, cell phone and purse near her vehicle. Her Apple Watch was in her purse.

The food from Tazikis was in her car. Items from Target, as well as the items taken from the spa, were not at the scene.

In her interview after her return  the only interview she has given to police - Russell told officers she was abducted.

She told detectives that while traveling down the interstate, she saw a baby walking down the side of the road and called 911. When she got out of her vehicle to check on the child, a man came out of the trees, Derzis previously said.

That man then picked her up and she screamed. He then made her go over a fence. He then forced her into a car and the next thing she remembers is being in the trailer of an 18-wheeler. She stated that the male was with a female, however she never saw the female, only hearing her voice. She also told detectives she could hear a baby crying, he said.

She told detectives the male had orange hair with a big bald spot on the back. She was able to escape the 18-wheeler and fled on foot, only to be captured again and put into a car, Derzis said.

She said that they took her into a house and made her get undressed. She believes they took pictures of her, but she does not remember them having any physical or sexual contact with her. She stated that the next day, she woke up and was fed cheese crackers by the female, according to Derzis.

She stated the woman also played with her hair, but she could not remember anything else.

She was put back in a vehicle that she claims was able to escape from while it was west Hoover area. She told detectives that she ran through lots of woods until she came out near her residence, the chief said.

Detectives noted that Carlee had a small injury to her lip, and she complained of her head hurting. She also had a tear in her shirt. Detectives also noted that she had $107 in cash in her right sock.

Police announced the charges against her two weeks after the staged disappearance, which Russell admitted was fabricated in a statement released through her lawyer.

As we all know, actions can have consequences and thats why we are here today, Derzis said when announcing the charges.

Her decisions that night created panic and alarm for the citizens of our city,, he said, and even across the nation as concern grew that a kidnapper was on the loose, using a small child as bait.

Numerous law enforcement agencies, both local and federal, began working tirelessly not only to bring Carlee home to her family, but locate a kidnapper that we now know never existed, Derzis said. Many private citizens volunteered their time and energy into looking for a potential kidnapping victim that we now know was never in any danger.
An Alabama library board did not discriminate when it fired its Black interim director six years ago when she complained a library presentation celebrated Confederate Memorial Day, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

Mary Harris, the former interim director of the Monroe County Public Library and a library employee for 35 years, alleged the library fired her because of her race and terminated her after she filed a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint in 2017 about the Confederate event.

At the event, which was organized by a library trustee and included a presentation on Confederate Army units based in Monroe County, Harris claimed an attendee called her the N-word. She also alleged the event was attended by more than 70 known Ku Klux Klan affiliates, and that she became uncomfortable.

The library board had a meeting with Harris after a local newspaper reported on her allegations about KKK affiliates attending the Confederate Memorial Day event. Four trustees at he meeting voted to fire Harris due to defamation of character concerning the allegations that 70 citizens that attended a program at the library were members of the KKK. The trustees said they believed Harris allegations were false because [w]omen cannot be members of the KKK and most of events attendees were women.

The EEOC complaint was dismissed by the commission because the library had fewer than 15 employee.

Harris went on to sue the board and the Monroe County Commission in federal court over her firing, but a judge dismissed her lawsuit on several grounds, including that Harris was an at-will employee and she was given a chance to be heard before she was fired. The judge also found Harris did not have a viable retaliation claim.

On Wednesday, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the lower courts ruling.

The appeals court also found Harris was an at-will employee and did not offer direct evidence that she was discriminated against due to the color of her skin.

She has identified no statement that, if believed, shows without inference or presumption that she was terminated because of her race, the court ruled.

Ms. Harris understandably found the events at the library immensely disturbing and frightening, the appeals courts ruling continued. But it is not our role in this case to rule on the propriety of the defendants behavior. Instead, we must apply the law to the claims before us. For the reasons set forth above, we affirm the district courts judgment.
This is a guest opinion column

As if it wasnt already hard enough, working parents and families in Alabama are now facing even more challenges.

The federal child care stabilization grant program ran out at the end of September, impacting an estimated 8 in 10 child care programs here and across the nation. Some are scaling back their schedules or limiting attendance. Others will be forced to close entirely.

For Alabamians, the situation is especially dire. Were already facing a shortage of child care workers and in some rural areas child care is extremely limited, if it even exists.

Meanwhile, access to affordable childcare is one of the leading issues keeping mothers and parents out of the workforce. The expiration of this vital support means an estimated 33,000 kids will lose child care as 570 child care programs across the state are expected to close.

What can we do about it?

For starters lets give businesses more tools to support child care for their employees. One way is to establish an employer tax credit and a child care provider tax credit to enhance workforce participation and help ensure all our children are set on a path to success.

Under the program, which I introduced in the House and Senator Gudger introduced in the Senate, employers would have three paths to qualify for the credit: building an on-site facility, partnering with local facilities, or providing a stipend for employee child care expenses.

They could receive a credit of up to $1 million (with a total cap of $15 million) and child care facilities would be eligible for a credit of up to $25,000 (with a total available credit of $5 million).

In addition, the proposal prioritizes enhanced support for child care centers based on quality ratings and criteria. For example, support for centers with a five-star quality rating is $2,000 per eligible child, a four-star quality rating is $1,750 per eligible child, a three-star quality rating is $1,500 per eligible child, and so on.

With rising costs and a lack of options, child care is a growing obstacle for working parents, especially women and moms, to advance their careers and prosper. In fact, Alabamians miss work for child care purposes at a higher percentage than any other state.

The numbers speak for themselves:

Almost 20 percent of employed Alabamians missed work due to child care challenges in 2021.

4 in 10 Alabama kids lack access to child care, impacting both their futures and their parents ability to work.

Last year, nearly 85,000 Alabama families needed access to child care but had no quality, affordable options in their communities.

See, the lack of accessible and affordable childcare has real economic consequences.

For example, due to the end of the childcare stabilization grant program, Alabama parents are expected to lose an estimated $75 million in earnings by being forced to cut their hours or leave work altogether. In turn, that translates into $86 million less in employer productivity and $2.7 million less in state income tax revenue.

The bottom line is parents make up about 35 percent of our workforce and for too many of them getting to work isnt always as simple as just getting off their fannies. It requires real investments in infrastructure, like childcare, transportation, broadband, and more. And it calls for bipartisan legislative solutions, like childcare tax credits, to grow our economy and give all hard-working families the opportunity to prosper.

Instead of just lamenting low workforce participation, its time for Alabama to take a hard look at the underlying reasons and address them through pro-growth policies that benefit families, children, and businesses. I am honored to serve on the ad hoc committee assembled by Speaker Ledbetter to study Alabamas labor force participation rates and identify barriers to workforce entry.

Recently, the bipartisan committee held its first meeting and we identified childcare as a primary focus. I hope we can come together to begin to address this issue head-on because, with the lack of a clear path forward in Congress, its going to be left up to us.

As a parent of two young children, I know just how important quality, affordable, reliable childcare is.

Even with a steady childcare provider, some days our schedule can seem like a juggling act between work, activities, family commitments, and more.

But equally, if not more, important is supporting childcare as an investment in the workforce of tomorrow. We knowthat the majority of brain growth and development takes place early on in life. We know that the workplace is becoming increasingly reliant on technology, robotics, automation, and AI.

One day these kids are going to lead Alabama into the future. Lets not waste a moment preparing them to succeed today.

Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, has served as House Minority Leader in the Alabama Legislature since 2017.
This is an opinion column.

Miss Holderness. She may have been married but in elementary school, every adult was addressed Miss or Mister, maam or sir.

Miss Holderness was the librarian at Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary School during my earliest years there. Beyond her name, I remember little about her.

Yet I remember having a library card. And that it was a big deal. Back in the days before children needed laminated IDs hanging around their necks to walk into school, it was a kids first identification card. Their first official possession with their name on it.

Nerd kids like me were at the library all the time. Curious kids. Kids seeking to know. To grow.

Libraries are places of wonder. Places to wander and explore.

Places to check outnot just books, but ideas, authors, and perspectives. To check out experiences and thoughts that either differed from mine or reinforced them. That piqued my thinking.

That challenged me.

Places our parents sent us not fearing what we might find. Not fearing we might come upon a writer who thinks differently. Or lives differently. Or loves differently.

Not places to fearas some now make them to be. To fear like spooky, haunted dungeons with books lurking to leap from the shelves and scare the bejeesus out of young people with ideas, perspectives, and experiences that differ from theirs.

Libraries are sanctuaries of discovery. Libraries are America.

Yet John Wahl, chair of Alabamas GOP, wants to attack them as if they are a threatening insurgent.

He sits on the board of the Alabama Public Library Service (APLS) yet is also slated to speak next month to a group stoking fear of librariesfear of ideas, perspectives, and experiences that differ from theirs.

Absurdly named Clean Up Alabama, the group is just one in the state frothing in its fear. Its deemed 101 books dangerous for young people (whom they always call children to make you believe librarians are pole-dancing for first graders), books it claims on its website to contain pornographic and obscene materials.

Books which, in truth, contain only ideas, perspectives, and experiences that differ from theirs.

Books that arent in the childrens section at all but may be accessible to teens, who should digest ideas, perspectives, and experiences to know and grow.

I stand with another group, Read Freely Alabama (RFA), which is challenging fear-mongers seeking to stifle the senseless book censorship campaigns statewide.

I stand with folks like Fairhope pediatrician Dr. Jennifer Walker and the Rev. Jenny Allen, a retired minister. They spoke Monday at what was thankfully a civil convergence of residents at a meeting of the Fairhope Library Board, most of whom came to support the library.

I think we can all agree that we want safe spaces for our children to learn and grow in, said Walker, as reported by Mary Helene Hall. The idea of a library banning books based on a specific organizations opinions is antithetical to the idea of our library being one of those spaces.

Its the hardest thing we do as human beings, is raise people, Allen shared. I dont believe its anyones duty to demean someone because of what they believe, because each one of us chooses what we choose to believe.

As also reported this week, by my colleague Williesha Morris, RFA wrote a letter to APLS stating that Wahl actively spread misinformation about Alabama library collections and publicly suggested revising laws that would allow for prosecution and imprisonment for librarians.

It cited a recent appearance by Wahl on the Jeff Poor Radio show when the GOP chair lobbied for legislation that would turn librarians into criminals by removing the obscenity exemption that protects libraries and educational institutions from zealots who declare any idea, perspective, and experience that differ from theirs to be obscene.

Libraries are abusing their status here in putting explicit sexual material in front of children in childrens sections, Wahl charged on the show without, of course, citing any specific examples. Without offering any truth.

I think the legislature is well within its bounds to say, Look, if youre going to do obscene material, you might not should have that exemption in the law for the obscenity provisions where the law does protect children in other areas of media.

 do obscene material. Those dang pole-dancing librarians!

On Wednesday, Wahl tried to temper his earlier remarks and insisted there was no conflict of interest in attending the meeting.

I work very hard to try to be genuine, to try to be a peacemaker, Wahl said. I really do want to get to the bottom line of things and talk about the issues and have a respectful conversation.

Legislation that would criminalize librarians is cropping up around the nation. Many, thankfully, have failed.

RFA charged Wahls words may conflict with his responsibilities as an APLS board member, and said it was are happy to hear Wahls clarification. Still, his words certainly conflict with common sense, with the library as an oasis of knowledge.

Of ideas, perspectives, and experiences that differ from theirs.

Attacking them--and good folks like Miss Holderness--is obscene.

More columns by Roy S. Johnson

Decatur should not have to pray for truth, transparency in police killing of Stephen Clay Perkins

This baseball fan laments disappearing 20-game winner

Tubervilles racist military words set us dangerously back

I want to cry too, at sight of Black men flailing, failing our youth

Remembering Rep. Barbara Jordan

Im a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame, and winner of the Edward R. Murrow prize for podcasts for Unjustifiable, co-hosted with John Archibald. My column appears in AL.com, as well as the Lede. Check out my new podcast series Panther: Blueprint for Black Power, which I co-host with Eunice Elliott. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, The Barbershop, here. Reach me at rjohnson@al.com, follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj
The United Nations-led multilateral system is feared to be losing its standing as a key international body, as countries are increasingly becoming divisive in pursuit of their own political interests rather than seeking compromise, the president of the U.N. General Assembly said Thursday.

Dennis Francis, president of the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA), highlighted the need to reinvigorate multilateral engagement based on trust and dialogue so that the world can better address pressing global issues like the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

"We are witnessing a growing chasm, sowing unprecedented discord within the U.N. and among its member states ... Megaphone diplomacy and political grandstanding have replaced genuine dialogue towards problem solving," Francis said in his keynote speech during a meeting of the Council of Presidents of the U.N. General Assembly (UNCPGA) in Seoul.

"Seeking consensus or compromise is increasingly viewed as weakness by those exclusively focused on achieving the national interest at all costs," he said.

Francis described the recent vetoes in the U.N. Security Council on resolutions regarding disarmament and non-proliferation in Ukraine, Syria and North Korea as "concrete manifestations of divisive dynamics" that undermine the essence of diplomacy and multilateralism.

"This raises major questions about the U.N.'s legitimacy and relevance ... (and) about the future of the United Nations and the sustainability of our multilateral system," Francis said.

Francis called for a need to dispel the growing misconception that multilateralism diminishes sovereignty, and to bolster efforts to revive "genuine cooperation and solidarity based on trust."

"On the contrary, multilateral engagement enhances sovereignty by uniting the powers and capabilities of members in common cause," he said, calling for efforts to restore the strength of international collaboration.

Francis is a senior diplomat from Trinidad and Tobago serving his term as the UNGA president for one year until September 2024. He was in Seoul to attend the UNCPGA, a gathering of past UNGA presidents.

Former South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo was elected as the UNCPGA chair in October last year for a three-year term. (Yonhap)










English News Publishing cooperation promotes mutual learning between China, Arab countries

Alwihda Info | Par pd - 18 Octobre 2023



In recent years, the book copyright trade between China and the Arab countries has flourished, with Chinese writers gaining popularity among Arab readers, he noted, adding that the experiences of China also provide valuable insights for the development of the publishing industry in Arab countries.

By Zhang Zhiwen, People's Daily The Riyadh International Book Fair 2023 recently concluded in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia. As one of the largest book exhibitions in the Arab world, the event was attended by over 1,800 publishing houses from some 30 countries and regions, and received over 1 million visits.



During the book fair, Chinese publishing companies gathered to showcase a collection of excellent China-themed books to Arab readers. Various cultural exchange activities between China and Saudi Arabia, as well as China and other Arab countries, were held to inject new vitality into promoting China-Saudi Arabia publishing cooperation and enhancing mutual understanding and exchange between civilizations.



An exhibition booth in the exhibition hall No. 3 with an eye-catching red color caught the attention of many visitors. Neatly arranged on several rows of shelves were China-themed books in Chinese, Arabic, English, and other languages. Among them were notable titles such as "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China" and various books on Chinese history, philosophy, and tourism.



Bayt Al-Hekma Cultural Group, a publishing house mainly devoted to the Arabic translation of Chinese books as well as Chinese language learning books and courses, is the sales agent of "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China" in Arab countries. Ahmed al-Saeed, CEO of the group, told People's Daily that the fourth volume of the book in Arabic is popular among readers in Arab countries.



"Many readers hope to gain a comprehensive, multi-dimensional, and vivid understanding of China's achievements today through this work," he added.

As this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), many books on Belt and Road cooperation in Arabic were displayed at the book fair, such as "The Belt and Road Comparative Studies on Regional and National Economic Development" and a picture encyclopedia of the Silk Road history. They served as valuable references for readers to gain a deeper understanding of the achievements of the BRI.



Dr. Hamad A. Altowaijri, assistant professor of Economics at the College of Business Administration, Saudi Arabia's King Saud University, told People's Daily that the deep synergy between the BRI and Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 formed in recent years has forcefully driven the development of the relations between Saudi Arabia and China.



"It is believed that the publishing cooperation between the two countries will inject more wisdom to the steady and long-term development of Saudi Arabia-China ties," he noted.



"Do you have any books related to ancient Chinese history?" A 14-year-old boy from Saudi Arabia named Rakan, who was attending the book fair, said that he had been studying Chinese for 10 months, and an increasing number of his friends were beginning to learn the language as well.



"I hope to have the chance to delve into Chinese history, which will allow me to gain a deeper understanding of Chinese culture," he added.

As China-Saudi Arabia relations continue to develop, there has been a surge of interest in learning the Chinese language in Saudi Arabia.



Since 2019, the Saudi Arabian government has incorporated the Chinese language into the country's national educational system, and launched a series of measures to stimulate students' enthusiasm for learning the language.



Relevant enterprises have also released Chinese language textbooks and supplementary materials tailored to the specific conditions of Arab countries and catering for learners at different proficiency levels.

At the book fair, there was a constant flow of Saudi Arabian readers seeking to purchase Chinese language textbooks.



During this book exhibition, China and Saudi Arabia signed an implementation plan for projects in the fields of literature, publishing, and translation, which was a high on the agenda of the event. It marked the beginning of a new chapter of publishing exchange and cooperation between the two countries.



Yahya Mahmoud Bin Junaid, Chairman of Saudi Arabia's Center for Research and Intercommunication Knowledge, pointed out that China has a long history and a splendid culture, and in recent years, more and more international readers are eager to understand China as the country constantly increases its global influence.



"Arab countries attach great importance to the Arabic-Chinese translation and publishing industry, aiming to help more Arab readers gain a deeper understanding of China through these efforts," he noted.



In recent years, the copyright trade between China and Arab countries has shown a positive trend of increasing quantity, improving quality, and stable momentum. The annual volume of copyright trade between China and Arab countries has reached 2,000 items for consecutive years, accounting for 10 percent of China's total copyright trade with countries worldwide.



In response to the new trend of digitalization around the world, publishing institutions in China and Arab countries have collaborated to develop Arabic e-book websites, Arabic digital reading platforms, and China-Arab copyright trade platforms, successfully bringing high-quality books from China and Arab countries into the digital realm.



According to Guan Hong, the Deputy General Manager of China Intercontinental Press, the downloads of the digital reading mobile application launched by the company have exceeded 8.8 million, with users from 175 countries and regions. The application currently ranks second among the digital reading platforms of local publishers in the Arab region, Guan added.



Abdullah Kaabi, Chairman of the Emirates Publishers Association, stated that Arab countries and China make an exemplary model for cross-cultural exchange and dialogue.



In recent years, the book copyright trade between China and the Arab countries has flourished, with Chinese writers gaining popularity among Arab readers, he noted, adding that the experiences of China also provide valuable insights for the development of the publishing industry in Arab countries.



It is hoped that the two sides can continue to strengthen cooperation and exchange in the publishing field, and play a greater role in promoting mutual learning and exchange between the two great civilizations, he remarked.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Finance Ministers' Meeting Seeks $30 Billion Boost for Water and Sanitation AI Beauty Ranking: The Most Attractive U.S. Presidential Candidates for 2024 Chinese enterprises show strong vitality in innovation Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News To raise extensive consultation, joint contribution, shared benefits to new heights

Alwihda Info | Par pd - 19 Octobre 2023



China is willing to work with all other parties to take the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to strengthen confidence, maintain resolve, raise extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits to new heights. Cooperation will thrive, and the BRI can look forward to an even brighter future.

By He Yin, People's Daily The State Council Information Office of China on Oct. 10 issued a white paper titled "The Belt and Road Initiative: A Key Pillar of the Global Community of Shared Future."



The white paper was released ahead of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to introduce the achievements of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the past 10 years. This will help enhance the international community's understanding of the initiative, facilitate high-quality development of Belt and Road cooperation, and bring the benefits of the initiative to more countries and peoples.



Only by placing the BRI under the grand coordinates of history can its significance for the times and the world be better understood.



In today's world, as technological revolution and productive forces develop, economic globalization has become a historical trend. However, the economic globalization dominated by a few countries failed to achieve inclusive and shared development.



The world is moving ever closer towards greater multipolarity, economic globalization, and cultural diversity, and becoming increasingly information-orientated in the process. It is increasingly clear that humanity is a global community of shared future in which everyone's interests are inseparably entwined.

However, the deficits in peace, development, security and governance continue to grow rather than shrink. At the critical crossroads of history, building a global community of shared future is where the hope lies for the progress of human society.



The BRI takes the building of a global community of shared future as its overarching goal, creating a platform for action and offering approaches to realizing this goal. It turns visions into reality, and is an important public good for improving global governance.



In the 10 years that have passed since the launch of the BRI, cooperation under the BRI framework has brought remarkable and profound change to the world and become a major milestone in the history of humanity. The BRI has boosted China's development and benefited the rest of the world.



The initiative boosts development and builds poverty reduction capacity in participating countries. It delivers notable results in projects that improve people's lives, bringing tangible benefits to participating countries.



The BRI boosts the momentum for global development, encourages deeper regional economic cooperation, promotes global trade, and maintains the stability of global supply chains, thus adding vitality to economic globalization.



It follows the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, promotes and activates authentic multilateralism, and strengthens the position and role of developing countries and emerging economies in the world market system. It marks a significant improvement in global governance.

The BRI boosts people-to-people exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, garnering strength for the progress of human civilization. Facts have proven that BRI cooperation responds to the call of the times and benefits the peoples in participating countries. It thus enjoys popular support. It is a path for all participating countries to achieve modernization and a path of hope leading to a bright future. It is resilient and vigorous, and offers broad prospects.

The reason for the BRI to have gathered world-changing strength in the past decade is that it always adheres to the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, and advocates win-win cooperation in pursuit of the greater good and shared interests. It emphasizes that all countries are equal participants, contributors and beneficiaries, and encourages economic integration, interconnected development, and the sharing of achievements.



The principle of extensive consultation signifies that the BRI is not a solo endeavor by China, but a collaborative effort involving all stakeholders. From the making of blueprints to specific project design and implementation, the BRI emphasizes equal participation, effective communication, collective wisdom, and freedom from any political or economic preconditions.



The principle of joint contribution highlights that the BRI is not one of China's international aid programs or geopolitical tool, but a collaborative effort for shared development. It aims to align with existing regional mechanisms rather than becoming their substitute and leverage complementary strengths.



China has signed more than 200 BRI cooperation agreements with more than 150 countries and 30 international organizations across five continents, to strengthen strategic synergy and promote interconnected development.



The principle of shared benefits underscores the importance of win-win cooperation. It aims to identify common interests and grounds for cooperation, meet the development needs of all parties, and address the real concerns of the people. This principle emphasizes sharing development opportunities and outcomes among all participating countries, ensuring that none of them is left behind.



Most participants are developing countries, all seeking to leverage collective strengths to address challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, lagging industrial development, limited industrialization, insufficient capital and technology, and a shortage of skilled workers, to promote their own economic and social development.



It is based on the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits that the BRI has achieved authentic win-win cooperation.



In a world full of uncertainties and instabilities, all countries should urgently bridge differences through dialogue, oppose rifts with unity, and promote development through cooperation. Against this backdrop, the BRI becomes more meaningful and is an initiative to be welcomed.



China is willing to work with all other parties to take the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to strengthen confidence, maintain resolve, raise extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits to new heights. Cooperation will thrive, and the BRI can look forward to an even brighter future.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Finance Ministers' Meeting Seeks $30 Billion Boost for Water and Sanitation AI Beauty Ranking: The Most Attractive U.S. Presidential Candidates for 2024 Chinese enterprises show strong vitality in innovation Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)
Sometimes, something is so hard to swallow that it causes acid reflux. Heartburn causes us discomfort, but, unless it is truly debilitating and usually long-lasting, it tends to be quickly forgotten  especially if caused by some food we like.

Those reflections come after reading Ezekiel Emanuels essay, The Moral Deficiencies of a Liberal Education, in the October 17 New York Times.

Emanuel, who teaches bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, bemoans the moral blinders so prominently on display on various college campuses  especially, but not only, elite ones like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Penn  in the initial reaction to Hamass terror attack on Israel. That undergraduates could demonstrate in support of barbarians who killed women and children makes Emanuel declare: We have failed.

Yes, we have.

But I am not sure that Emanuel knows how to stop failing.

He thinks we should require undergraduate to take at least two ethics classes, one in general, one in applied ethics. But then he concedes that ethics classes alone wont do the trick, so we should ramp up the overall curriculum to ensure we are challenging students, [not] avoid putting hard questions to them[.] He notes that most colleges and universities have reduced (one could say minimized) their required general education courses or turned them primarily into vocational training. He throws a compliment in passing to Catholic colleges and universities, because many still require an ethics course or two. He opines that we must rethink what passes for being educated and that, once that happens, everyone associated with the school should advance that vision. He even  hold your seats  declares that college presidents should stop focusing on endowments and fund-raising and focus on what it means to graduate educated people.

In the end, there is probably little I would substantively disagree with as goals. That said, my conviction is that such sentiments will have the shelf life of a new years resolution.

Americans felt a bit dyspeptic when they saw pictures from Israel of people slaughtered, then scenes of Ivy-land students declaring solidarity with their murderers. Many started asking: what is really going on at todays American college campuses?

Thats good. But I suspect that the initial moral nausea will be like acid reflux: this too will pass.

Professor Emanuel is right that there is something deeply rotten on the modern college campus. But he doesnt identify what.

He wants to ensure that never again [should] we have our students make patently uneducated and alarmingly immoral declarations.

But, given the dictatorship of relativism in modern thought, I wonder how he hopes to accomplish this.

First, he proposes ethics classes. As a moral theologian, I am all for: it guarantees me a job. But, to be honest, teaching ethics will get you only so far.

Morality, after all, is fundamentally in the will, not the intellect. People may be mistaken about what is right and wrong, but right and wrong is not basically a matter of knowing. It is, above all, a matter of choosing. All dissimulation aside, most people know perfectly well what is right and what is wrong  and they still choose the wrong. And modern American life pays no small tribute to the ethic of choice. We even have it on the warrant of a much-saluted Supreme Court justice that defining ones own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and the mystery of human life (Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 at 851) is the heart of liberty. Werent the pro-Hamas demonstrators merely voicing an alternate concept of existence, their own view of the mystery of human life?

Can we overcome the reduction of morality to procedural ethics: how rather than what we decide? Caseys sweet mystery of human life passage is procedural: who chooses rather than what is chosen. The one philosopher Emanuel cites is John Rawls, the star of modern American ethical proceduralism.

But even if we pass beyond the way station of proceduralism, what ethic do we adopt? The primary contender in secular American ethics to proceduralism is some form of utilitarianism, some calculus of benefit/bane or pleasure/pain. But every form of ethical calculation ultimately depends on what factors one considers relevant to the costs of the ethical choice. Is the benefit of long-term national liberation commensurate to a few lost lives? After all, dont you have to crack some eggs to make an omelet?

As a Catholic theologian, Id contend your ethics is only as good as its underlying theory of reality: is there a real world of good and value outside your head, or are good, value, and even being created and defined in your head? That conundrum bedevils not just American, but larger Western thinking today.

So not just any ethics will do. Nor, in the end, will just teaching it. Ethics involves not education, but formation, a deeper and more personal process that makes me not just know, but want the good.

Thats what colleges should be doing. But its going to require the abandonment of a lot of todays intellectual baggage to get there. Jettisoning moral relativism. Recapturing the colleges role as a moral formator. A common faculty vision that means getting rid of faculty who dont share it.

Yes, it means college presidents should check whats going on in classrooms rather than collect checks on the rubber chicken donors circuit. That change alone would be a revolution!

But those kids cheering for Hamas killers didnt come out of nowhere. They are very much the product of confused modern thinking  a thinking we cheer in our leaders. Changing that is not going to come from adding some ethics classes. It will come only from a thoroughgoing, root-and-branch readiness to examine many of todays sacred cows...and even butcher a lot of them.

Image via Pxfuel.
[Russell] Brand is not a threat to the elites, says The Independent, a magazine owned since 2010 by Alexander Lebedev, Russian oligarch and former KGB agent.

The irony in Independent was too fun to pass up there  almost as funny as Saudi businessman Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel, who has close ties to the Saudi royal family, buying a 30% stake in it, too. But this is beside the point. Regarding Russell Brand, a non-threat to the elites, the article goes to on state,

Brand said the allegations make me question is there another agenda at play? He goes on to say, Im aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while watch out Russell theyre coming for you, youre getting too close to the truth. Which begs the question  what truth? Just before the investigation was published on 16 September, Brands most recent videos were on the Covid vaccine, Big Pharma, the war in Ukraine, the JFK assassination, an interview with Hitler was OK until he tried to globalise Candace Owens, and one about Bill Gates doing something with fruit.

Aside from the fact that he left out Brands exposes on BlackRock  the company that owns the top shares in 80% of the whole stock market, rewards well behaved top-level government employees with lucrative jobs, and is deeply embedded in the Biden administration  aside from this, I say, what we saw The Independent list so flippantly above is the biggest medical scandal in the history of the whole world, the decades-long poisoning and looting of sick Americans, possibly the biggest embezzlement scheme in the history of Western aid, a coup detat that robbed Americans of democracy, an interview with the woman who turned millions of black men Republican, and an attempt by Bill Gates to monkey with our food supply. In other words, these are subjects deeply affecting all of us, skewering corruption and conspiracy at almost all the upper levels of our society.

This brings us to ask the obvious question: arent these things historically left-wing issues?

The Independent, a magazine described by Media Bias Fact Check as center-left, argues otherwise.

Fortunately for multimillionaire Brand, numerous other multimillionaires  and at least one billionaire  have leapt to his defence. Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Donald Trump Jr, Steven Crowder  the list seems to grow by the day. In fact, if Brand has many more ultra-wealthy people and oligarchs defending him there wont be much of an establishment left to threaten. And one might think, with friends like those, who needs the deep state as an enemy?

In other words, to leftists such as The Independent, your label doesnt describe whom or what youre fighting for; its whom youre fighting alongside. And it gets even more absurd from there. In their eyes, the establishment is Elon Musk  whos not only hated by the press, but lost his richest man spot fighting for free speech; Tucker Carlson, a man who was just fired from Fox News for not stepping in line with the narrative; Andrew Tate, an Instagram influencer its dangerous to praise in the breakroom; Dr. Peterson, whom the Canadian government is forcing to undergo re-education; Alex Jones, who was fined a billion dollars to ruin his anti-establishment radio show; Ben Shapiro, a Jewish beta-boy who owns the liberals by making snarky comments; and Donald Trump, Jr. and Steven Crowder  two completely random millionaire loudmouths. Influential? All yes  but almost all on the receiving end of a beating from the powerful.

What the Independent failed to mention is that none of these people is even remotely connected to the big money and the bureaucracy known as the Deep State. They have no power to assassinate or jail their biggest rivals or even bury them (like Trump) in frivolous lawsuits. Although wealthy, they lack the means (unlike BlackRock) to pull strings with 80% of the stock market. Listed above are zero owners of colleges, zero oilmen, zero owners of mainstream media outlets, zero bigwigs at the FBI or CIA, no manufacturers of warplanes or mandatory drugs or any people supported by the government in general. Theyre part of no international banking cartels that rank us by ESG scores and threaten to blacklist us. In other words, they have zero hands on the levers of actual power, and they openly criticize said levers, yet each and every one of them is considered a right-winger.

The Independent goes farther:

Brand can rail against the corporate media as much as he likes, but a very simple and provable truth is: hes part of it. His show is on Rumble, a media platform backed by (you probably guessed) a huge Wall Street corporation  Cantor Fitzgerald  and has in the past few years been receiving investment from a group of prominent conservative venture capitalists, including JD Vance and the tech billionaire Peter Thiel. You know, the little guys. The underdogs who fight against the elites.

What the Independent is doing is equating success with establishment  as if the second you own a part of the world, youre running it, and the only way to retain your credibility fighting the man is to fail: not only to abandon the use of any platform like Rumble or YouTube, both of which are owned by people with money (oh, no!), but also not to have any money to fight with. To be really anti-establishment, in the Independents eyes, is to lose  exactly what everyone on the establishment would want you to believe. Its no wonder to me that the writer of this article is self-described as a comedian. Hes also described (without any further explanation) as a writer, which in a written article seems a bit redundant.

But consider another view of things  a way not approved by the Saudis or the KGB or BlackRock or the MSM or the CIA. We conservatives have Joe Rogan the free-thinking acid-eater. We have Bill Maher the free-speecher fighting for us, even though hes a Democrat. We have Russell Brand the long-haired anti-establishment hippie. Were the ones trying to take our medical system back from the money-men and the poisoners. Were the only ones, at this point, standing against perpetual war and the military-industrial complex. Were the people who fight the tightly controlled narrative and the bankers. We bring up uncomfortable truths and get called radicals and conspiracy theorists. We get locked out of social media and barred from businesses and news outlets. Conservatives, I cant believe Im saying this: welcome to the Left Wing.

But if Republicans are the leftists, what are the people who call themselves leftists? If you consider whats been said above, they fall in line and swallow whatever theyre told, as long its from the right source. Theyre less concerned with whats being done to the public and more concerned with which color or gender its (allegedly) being done for. They believe in the rule of a minority at the expense of the majority. They believe that representation isnt the power of the people, but the color or gender of the person in power. Thus, theyre everything a ruling class ever dreamed of: a mob more likely to aim their attention, scrutiny, and hatred at the people living next to them than at the people standing on top of them. They squabble like the Balkans. They swallow and repeat lies like fascists. They dont mind living in a banana republic. Theyre unworthy of liberty, and the elites are happy to own them.

Jeremy Egerer is the author of Prejudices  a collection of troublesome essays on Substack. Email him at letterssubscription@gmail.com to get a free copy of his essays or to see what he says next.

Image: Michael Theis via Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0.
During the attack on Israel, a member of Hamas grabs a Jewish girl. He lies down on top of her, comes to orgasm, stands up, and shoots her. What kind of sadistic twists were already present in his head that allowed the softness of sexual relations to be entwined with the violence of murder?

No one asks this question in America because it means looking deeper than most people want. But it needs to be asked since it is central to the problem of future peace or the lack thereof. Everyone knows there are cultural differences between people. Do some differences make it impossible to co-mingle groups? Yes, indeed! It is particularly true in the case of Arabs and Jews.

Sexuality between family members among the Jews is seen as destructive to family unity. Violations are condemned roundly. Among Arabs, sexuality is part of the family package. The most common manifestation is polygamy. Most American women expect exclusivity in marriage. It provides financial and social security, as well as clear lines of inheritance for their children.

This is a complex topic since most Arab males do not engage in polygamy. Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon Westerners to understand that polygamy may be the force that most disrupts relations between Arabs and Westerners, because it causes an unnatural social condition where there is a chronic shortage of women. If one man takes four wives, three men go without. It is an arithmetical inevitability.

Image: An Arab man with his three wives and two servants (1892-1893).

In the olden days, this problem was addressed by attacking neighboring villages to kill the men and take the girls and women. Always the strong killing the weak. Moreover, these extra men made up a willing army to go to war since success led to family life, status, and a slave to keep house while the husband sat at the coffee house with his friends. This situation is best described as women as objects.

For the man, sexual appetite was always to be fulfilled upon demand. This made for some really unhappy women. Failure of the woman to comply or be happy about it could easily lead to the entrance of a new and younger wife. All children belonged to the men, so divorce would lead to women alone on the street, bereft of their children and means of support.

Now, we get to the hub of things. All men of every culture have always been exempt from diaper changing. There has always been the small but not zero possibility of his making the child into a sexual objectboy or girlespecially if marital relations were strained. Unfortunately, this insight is true of women as well, especially under conditions of unhappiness.

There is also the issue of the ever-present pure ignorance of the consequences of early sexual arousal. The infant, toddler, or childas an objectis not in control of the stimulation of the one or the other parent. It is my contention that such early stimulation creates a form of confusion of sexuality and violence on the one hand and affection on the other.

Non-sexual affection draws the youngest members of the family closer together with parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles, and even the occasional strangers who enter the house like family friends. However, if sexuality is imposed by others (including all of the above), that makes people, particularly children, afraid of one another. Sex is always an imposition. Thus, the need for affection that undercuts the innate violence of the sexual act.

The thesis here is that the dysfunctional Arab family reflects how sexuality is manifest in the early lives of the children.

I want to be very clear: In general, good, nice, and kind people (including Muslims) have been protected socially and sexually during their earliest years. Later, such people can offer affection and manifest altruism.

Children who have been abused socially and/or sexually from infancy will show various levels of pathology as adults. This is a simplified understanding of adult psychopathology that can arise from multiple sources, but being used as a sexual object early in life is a form of violence that makes later sexual expression a problem for the individual, perhaps without an easy, or even any, solution.

Most males in the Western world could not seek affection and closeness during sexual expression and then stand up and kill their partners. In the United States, we lock people up who rape and then murder.

Social structures that induce anger between men and women become a systematic source of their individual pathologies. Here, the social pathology is a mixing of sexuality and violence. Thus, war and rape have always been linked.

Still, there are differences between cultures. A nitwit whose name Ive deliberately forgotten wrote a masters thesis at Hebrew University arguing that Israeli soldiers do not rape Arab women during war because the soldiers are racist.

No, nitwit! The confusion between anger and sex is the pathological state. Gazan men apparently have received the lions share of this confusion from their earliest childhoods, as demonstrated by their actions in Israel. This conflation of sex and anger rolls from one generation to the next with permission and support from cultural norms.
The heinous actions of the Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 can unequivocally be described as evil. It had as its genesis the inculcated belief that Jews are malevolent and subhuman, therefore, they are deserving of death, destruction and being conquered by any means possible including the unconscionable and premeditated slaughter of women, children and the elderly.

In keeping with a tactic almost as old as mankind itself, the self-appointed leaders of Middle Eastern Islamic terrorist groups and the political leaders of nations such as Iran have manipulated their maleducated followers or citizenry into believing Israel and the Jews have either taken what is rightfully theirs, are the personification of evil, or are responsible for their misery.

Throughout the history of mankind unscrupulous leaders and their disciples have exploited mankinds base nature as exemplified by what the Catholic Church defines as the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. These human failings invariably lead to a near-irreversible loss of respect for human life and in due course a society riddled with uncontrolled evil.

The loss of respect for life has also begun to dramatically infiltrate the American ruling elites and the overall society as over the past two decades the following, previously unthinkable, changes have occurred within the United States:

Unfettered abortion up to the point of birth and post-birth infanticide has become a policy position of the Democrat Party.

Euthanasia is openly discussed and supported by an ever-growing (73%) segment of the population.

Sexually confused teens are being coerced into mutilation and permanent disfigurement in order to appease the gods of transgenderism, accompanied by an unabashed campaign to legalize pedophilia.

A significant plurality of Americans is demanding the censorship, imprisonment, and persecution of their political adversaries while they, and recent Islamic immigrants, are openly supporting and justifying the slaughter of Jews by Hamas.

Tribalism has been mainstreamed and with it the belief that certain ethnicities or races are inferior to others and also responsible for societys ills, therefore, they are deserving of disrespect, abuse and discrimination.

The path the United States is presently traveling will inevitably lead to the darkening shadow of unfettered evil descending upon the land leading to national self-destruction.

Respect for life runs counter to mankinds base nature and a world that oftentimes sees human life as expendable for reasons of political power, economic gain, territorial conquest, and supposedly, in the name of religions that coincidentally promulgate respect for life.

Respect for life is not just a religious value, it is a foundational value of all societies in which reasonable people would want to live. Those who see mankind as having dignity just because they are human, believe that respect for life requires they do not intentionally kill, abuse or torture another human being.

The worlds major religions, which represent 78% of the global population, believe and teach that respect for life is fundamental to all religious sensibilities and societies. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam believe God created mankind; thus, human life is entitled to respect and dignity. Hinduism views human life as a manifestation or expression of the Divine. And Buddhism sees human beings as entities that can ultimately attain enlightenment (Buddhahood) and are entitled to respect. All major religions agree in unequivocally stating that life is sacred.

Therefore, the taking of human life is regarded as among the gravest of transgressions, except where it may be necessary to protect oneself or others from greater harm.

An ironic commonality of language underscoring the sanctity of life and the condemnation for the taking of it can be seen first in the Jewish Talmud (200 AD) and later in the Islamic Quran (600 AD). In the Talmud, Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9:

Whoever destroys a life, it is considered as if he destroyed the entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved the entire world.

The fifth chapter of the Quran, Surah Al-Maidah verse 32:

that whosoever kills a human being for other than murder or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he has killed all mankind, and whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he saved the life of all mankind.

Yet, Hamas, Hezballah and other middle eastern terrorist groups profess an explicit belief in Islam and in Gods revelations to Mohammad as recorded in the Quran, the central religious text of Islam. Unfortunately, many militant Islamists seize upon other verses amid the 114 chapters of the Quran they claim can be interpreted to fit their agenda or personal animosities or as justification for violence and conquest.

Once evil controls a society it cannot be bargained with or appeased. The deep-seated disregard for life extends to their own population who are sacrificed by their leaders either via unending warfare, imprisonment, or execution. Ultimately, as history has repeatedly revealed, these societies either destroy themselves from within or are, by necessity, conquered by others.

Once again, the world has been reminded that evil exists. As in Europe in the 1930s, the unbridled evil rampant throughout the Middle East will metastasize into another global conflagration if not addressed and ultimately eliminated and that the underlying root cause is not economic, or territorial, or religious but malevolent disregard for human life.

Image: Franz von Stuck
Joe Biden concluded his tour of Israel, warning Israel, rather than the Hamas terrorists, not to get too "consumed with rage."

According to the Associated Press:

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP)  President Joe Biden swept into wartime Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that produced a heaping dose of vocal support, a deal to get limited humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt, likely by the end of the week, and a plea for Israelis not to allow rage over the deadly Hamas attack to consume them. I understand. Many Americans understand, Biden said as he wrapped up his stay in Tel Aviv, likening the Oct. 7 Hamas assault to the attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people. You cant look at what has happened here ... and not scream out for justice, he said. But I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it, he said. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

What an obnoxious message, given that supposedly he was there to show support to our longtime ally. He seemed to think that Israel was the problem, and the terrorists were just part of the furniture, and they needed to get used to them.

It's not surprising. The far left, which controls him, has already taken the Hamas side -- in the universities, in the streets, in a slew of leftist redoubts. Biden doesn't like to upset the people pulling his strings.

Rather than telling Israel to press forward and know that America would always be at its side in its darkest hour, he seems to be there to slow Israel's advance on the terrorists and has taken to telling Israel not to go overboard as if they were the biggest problem here, not the terrorists which is an inappropriate message to anyone, but especially to one which hadn't done anything but show restraint.

It reminds me of George H.W. Bush's low points -- when he warned battered, Soviet-oppressed Ukraine in 1991 about its "suicidal nationalism" instead of expressing support for its aspirations for freedom beyond the nightmare of communism. Quite appropriately, it was called his "Chicken Kiev" speech. I remember how furious I felt when it happened.

This was far from his only blunder in that seven-and-a-half-hour trip.

He got a meeting canceled on him while he was mid-flight, when Arab states Egypt and Jordan blamed Israel for a terrorist missile hitting a Gaza hospital parking lot. Hamas tried to make political hay for itself by falsely blaming Israel for it. That has been well debunked here. While that may speak more ill for them than him, given that they did it, it also shows that he's not particularly strong or respected by these leaders of U.S. aid-recipient countries who ought to be scared of offending him. They weren't.

He made his first appearance - and fell asleep.

Biden is collapsing in this Israel meeting. He cant even stay awake



This is hard to watch



Its no wonder everyone is taking advantage of him pic.twitter.com/Jco3siuO57  Jack Poso  (@JackPosobiec) October 18, 2023

Posobiec said in a later tweet that he thought it could be the effect of the drugs he takes to seem sentient and presentable in public messing with his circadian rhythm. Not a good look for a leader who is supposed to project strength to our enemies.

Later, when asked about the Gaza hospital attack, he called the terrorists "the other team."

According to the Guardian:

He said he was sad and outraged by an explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, which Hamas said killed hundreds of people. Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But theres a lot of people out there not sure, so weve got to overcome a lot of things, Biden told the Israeli PM.

He couldn't say 'filthy terrorists'? He had to call them 'the other team' like this was some game they were playing, and they were equally matched on a moral level? What garbage, what an inartful term, given that these are Hitler-like mass murderers hellbent on genocide and wiping Israel off the map.

It reminds me of President Obama calling ISIS the "the J.V."

All in all, he's not up for the job, and putting him on display has only driven the message home -- to the Israelis, the terrorists, and our adversaries further afield.

What a sorry picture. Get that guy out of there, and let's console ourselves that his trip wasn't longer. He makes a mess wherever he goes.

Image: Screen shot from CNN video, via YouTube
President Biden recently condemned Hamas attack on Israeli civilians. Its abhorrent, he said. The brutality of Hamas bloodthirstiness brings to mind the worst rampages of ISIS.

Our aged commander-in-chief must have forgotten the $6 billion in humanitarian aid he sent to Iran over the last month. Though the Biden administration is scrambling to freeze the transfer, its too late; Iran has already freed up its own funds to support terrorist activity.

Despite White House calls for ceasefire and deescalation, its hard to ignore the fact that Hamas new war is partly funded and coordinated by the Iranian terrorist regime, which has been reinvigorated with billions of dollars from the American government. America needs to rethink its copious humanitarian support of hostile states.

For starters, the U.S. should stop sending aid to corrupt nations that want to see it wiped from the face of the earth.

Over 1,400 Israeli civilians have been massacred in Israel, and thousands more injured. Hamas is openly celebrating its military support from Iran: We thank the Islamic Republic of Iran who provided us with weapons, money and other equipment! He gave us missiles to destroy Zionist fortresses, and helped us with standard anti-tank missiles!

This is nothing new. In 2006, Hamas received $22 million from Qassem Soleimani -- the Iranian general killed under Trump in 2020. In 2018, Deputy Hamas chief Salih al-Arouri complimented Iran on its support of the Gaza resistance, stating, What Iran provides the resistance is not symbolic or superficial. It is real, central and essential to the resistances undertaking

In 2021, Iranian commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh admitted how, all the missiles you might see in Gaza and Lebanon were created with Irans support.

The U.S. even has its own report showing how the regime spends $1 billion a year on terrorists.

So why are we sending billions in humanitarian aid? And why has the Biden administration been so diligent in enacting sanction waivers to allow Iran to work with China and Russia on nuclear developments?

With the massacre unfolding, Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted a video of Israelis fleeing in terror with the caption: God willing, the cancer of the usurper Zionist regime will be eradicated at the hands of the Palestinian people and the Resistance forces throughout the region. That $6 billion in freed-up funds is not being used for humanitarian purposes. We shouldn't forget that Iran executes its own citizens for speaking out against the regimes abuses.

This isnt the first time American involvement led to humanitarian crises. Ukraine's 2014 Euromaidan uprising against Russian-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych was supported by the CIA. Reports show how, since 2015, the agency trained neo-Nazi groups like Azov to radicalize local populaces for Western interests.

We have given over $100 billion for what is looking to be Ukraine's war to lose. Almost half a million are now dead as a result, and American weapons are stolen, captured, and sold off by Russian forces to Iran.

Bidens haphazard Afghanistan retreat left $8 billion in military equipment -- including drones, tanks, and machine guns -- to the Taliban. Despite this, Afghanistan still receives American money: over $2 billion in humanitarian aid since 2022. Its been reported by Sama News Agency, a Palestinian paper, that small arms abandoned in Afghanistan have been spotted being used by Hamas in Gaza.

The Biden administration's careless foreign policy shows how disastrous interference actually is. Money officially intended for humanitarian aid is evidently emboldening terrorist groups to carry out their heinous attacks. Were funding the very people who want to see us, and our allies, six feet under. Our track record proves how bribing hostile states will only incentivize them to commit more atrocities, not less.

The horrors in southern Israel were funded by American tax dollars and military equipment. This has to stop.

Connor Vasile is a law student and Young Voices contributor who writes on American politics and economics. You can find him on Twitter @connor_vasile.

Image: AFP
James Jesus Angleton, former head of CIA counterintelligence, once said that the intelligence business is a wilderness of mirrors. Surely he was speaking about intelligence and policy at the merge, a junction now obscured by secrecy, bigotry, war, and abject incompetence.

Policy is ill served by intelligence bias and partisanship. The country, in turn is ill served by policy that gets lost in the tactical weeds at the expense of coherent strategy. The American approach to terror and Islamism is a hodgepodge of contradictions, naive and piecemeal at best.

American Intelligence knows the name and nationality of every Islamist terror group and also knows the names and nationalities of every state supporter of Islamism. Still, two decades hence after 9/11, America still does not have a coherent policy or a plan to take out the Islamist threat.

The real enemy is the collective Arab and/or Muslim tolerance of terror and support to Islamist haters, gunmen, and bombers. The real enemy is Ummah indifference, active and soft support to the shooters. Ironically, authoritarian countries like Russia, China, and Egypt have successfully crushed their Islamic jihads. Every authoritarian state in the Ummah could do the same -- if they chose to.

Collectively, Arab and Muslim states could end religious terror tomorrow, just as Egypt did. The fact that the Ummah does not, tells us everything we need to know about Islams toxic fetish with ultimate religious and political supremacy.

Israel is a keystone state for Western civilization as we know it. If Israel goes, so does America. If Andrew Murray is correct, the EU is already on the ropes.

After 9/11, team Bush attacked Iraq; a war that made as much sense as killing a roach to cure a rat problem. America didnt have the courage to neutralize the real sponsors of 9/11 in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

And now we have October 6 as Israels 9/11.

Americas October fail in the Middle East is not just another warning, data, or evidence failure. The perennial failure to act at all against all of Mohameds bad actors is the real fail.

American policy pathology guaranteed Israel would have their version 9/11 on 6 October 2023.

If we cut through all the blather, smoke, and mirrors; Israel is clearly expendable. When little Satan is gone, big Satan will be next -- again.

We never learn.

G. Murphy Donovan is a former USAF Intelligence officer who served as the Chief of Research and Russian Studies under General James Clapper, when Clapper was the ACS/I at HQ USAF.

Image: RawPixel.com
China's economy harvests prosperity in golden autumn

13:41, October 19, 2023 By Ma Qing ( Chinadaily.com.cn

This photo taken on Oct 15, 2023 shows a floral decoration at Xidan area in Beijing, capital of China. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's economy is enjoying a bountiful golden autumn in October with a stable positive trend boosting confidence across sectors, according to CCTV news on Sunday.

The economic progress extends to a wide variety of aspects, including the macro economy, small and medium-sized enterprises, the steel industry, the emerging cloud sector, the Belt and Road Initiative, trade exhibitions, technological advancements and others.

Strong growth momentum is evident in both domestic and international sectors, across traditional and emerging industries, reflecting China's resilient and consistent economic upturn.

China's economy continues to be on track toward a stable recovery, despite facing downward pressures, according to the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday.

The country's gross domestic product grew by 5.2 percent to 91.3 trillion yuan ($12.5 trillion) in the first three quarters, NBS data shows.

Its value-added industrial output - a gauge of activity in the manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors - grew by 4 percent in the first three quarters compared to the same period last year.

From January to September, retail sales grew by 6.8 percent year-on-year, while fixed-asset investment, including infrastructure, property, machinery and equipment, went up by 3.1 percent compared to the same period last year.

From January to August, China's SMEs have seen a sustained recovery in production and operations as reflected by electricity consumption, confidence index and operating margin.

The latest data shows that electricity consumption by micro and small enterprises increased by 2.4 percent year-on-year from January to August.

In August, SMEs achieved a 61.9 percent confidence index and a procurement index of 50.6 percent, up by 0.7 and 0.3 percentage points from July, respectively.

These enterprises continue to demonstrate strong innovative capabilities as data for the first eight months of this year shows that the value-added industrial output of SMEs increased by 3.6 percent year-on-year.

Among them, "little giants" - referring to SMEs that typically specialize in niche sectors - are commanding high market shares and boast a strong innovative capacity, achieving an operating margin of 10.3 percent.

A cold-rolled steel factory of Baosteel Co Ltd in Baoshan district, Shanghai. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's steel production has steadily increased in 2023, with its proportion of global output growing, according to the 12th China International Steel Congress and the Global Low-Carbon Metallurgy Innovation Forum 2023 held in Shanghai.

Data shows that China's steel production accounted for 53.9 percent of the global total in 2022 and the industry focuses on low carbon emissions and optimal energy efficiency.

In the first eight months of this year, companies improved their steel production efficiency with a 0.1 percent reduction in energy use, 0.36 percent less electricity consumption and a 3.4 percent decrease in freshwater consumption per ton of steel.

Major steel enterprises have achieved world-leading levels of air pollutant emission intensity, with over 500 million tons of production capacity having completed or undergoing ultra-low emission upgrades.

Telecommunication and technology firms are boosting investments in the cloud industry. The rapid development of next-generation information technologies, led by cloud computing, has fostered new industries and revitalized traditional ones.

Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that, in the first half of this year, the cloud computing market exceeded 260 billion yuan ($35.55 billion), a year-on-year growth of over 40 percent.

The surge has prompted major telecom companies and internet giants to put more investments in the cloud industry.

China's cloud market is expected to remain in a high-growth phase and the overall market size is projected to surpass a trillion yuan by 2025, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, or CAICT, a Beijing-based think tank.

This photo taken on May 23, 2023 shows containers to be transported near the Nairobi Station of the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway in Nairobi, Kenya. [Photo/Xinhua]

Since the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed in 2013, economic cooperation between China and participating countries has borne fruit.

From 2013 to 2022, the cumulative value of imports and exports between China and BRI partner countries reached $19.1 trillion, with an average annual growth rate of 6.4 percent.

In 2022, the value of imports and exports between China and partner countries reached nearly $2.9 trillion, accounting for 45.4 percent of China's total foreign trade over the same period, representing an increase of 6.2 percentage points compared with 2013.

The cumulative two-way investment between China and partner countries reached $380 billion, including $240 billion from China, which has injected imputes into the global trade and investment.

The 134th session of the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, opened with a record exhibition area on Sunday in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong province.

The fair covers a total exhibition area of 1.55 million square meters, featuring over 28,000 participating companies, both of which mark record highs.

According to data, over 50,000 overseas buyers attended the fair on opening day.

The fair's import section has further expanded, hosting 650 companies from 43 countries and regions. Among them, 60 percent of these exhibitors are from countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.

The World Marine Equipment Expo 2023 closed on Sunday in Fuzhou, Fujian province, with business deals worth over 60 billion yuan sealed.

The event, covering an exhibiting area of nearly 100,000 square meters, focused on the cutting-edge technologies and achievements in the maritime equipment sector.

In recent years, China has made remarkable advancements in high-tech research and development and the construction of maritime equipment.

Highlights include the operation of the Bacalhau, the world's first M350 floating, production, storage and offloading vessel, and the maiden voyage of China's first domestically built large cruise ship, Adora Magic City.

The share of advanced ship types produced in China keeps increasing, injecting fresh energy to the global maritime equipment industry with Chinese innovation.

The 13th China International Patent Fair, held in Dalian, Liaoning province from Oct 14 to 16, featured the participation of over 2,400 patent projects.

The event focused on the intellectual property achievements guiding industry digital transformation and valuable patent technologies and products in related fields.

From 2016 to 2022, China's core industries in the digital economy saw an average annual growth rate of 18 percent in granted invention patents.

By the end of 2022, the total number of granted invention patents in China's core digital economy industries had reached 1.6 million, accounting for 38 percent of the total granted invention patents.

These patents have played a vital role in the progress of digital transformation within the industry.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
Korea will provide $2 million worth of humanitarian aid to help civilian victims in the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

The provision will be made through international organizations, and the government will make sure the resources are transparently used for humanitarian purposes, the ministry said.

Since the Hamas group launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the deadly clashes have so far claimed more than 4,800 deaths  about 1,400 from Israel and 3,400 from Palestine. (Yonhap)
Renowned journalist and Middle East expert Caroline Glick says Israel is now facing dangers from a quarter no one anticipated: the Biden administration.

During yesterdays broadcast of The Caroline Glick Show on JNS TV, Glick outlined how her own sources described whats been happening behind the scenes.

Speaking from her home in Israel, Glick said, We are in danger of losing ... sovereign control over our military.

She then presented what sources told her really happened when secretary of state Tony Blinken met with Israels war cabinet on Monday.

From what came out of the meeting, Tony Blinken wasnt trying to help Israel at all. What he was doing was demanding that Israel enable resupply to Gaza, the euphemism of which is humanitarian aid. She continued to say that Blinken threatened to withhold American war materiel from Israel, such as bunker buster bombs and regular ordinance.

And Israel didnt just decide to invite Biden. His administration demanded that Israel invite him, she said, adding, I dont know; ask his presidential campaign.

While Israels forces have been being held in limbo at the Gaza border, those charged with carrying out the mission began demanding they be allowed to go in. They cited difficulties in maintaining the readiness and morale of troops as well as a loss of the momentum they had after the October 7 massacre. Glick said that lapse in time also allowed the international media to turn on Israel. We have all these Hamas supporters throughout the Western world who are feeling empowered, and not unreasonably given the backing theyre receiving from the media.

Most disturbingly, Glick said commanders at the southern border were told, We cant do anything until Biden leaves. So that Biden is literally acting as a human shield for Hamas  so long as he hasnt arrived yet, and hasnt left yet, their terror state is going to be free from invasion.

She continued to stress that demands to get humanitarian aid to Gaza are demands to resupply Hamas because they control every person and inch of land in Gaza. She then pointed to a tweet from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) that read: UNWRA received reports that yesterday a group of people with trucks purporting to be from the Ministry of Health of the de facto authorities in Gaza, removed fuel and medical equipment from the Agencys compound in Gaza City. That tweet quickly disappeared as fast as UNWRA put up this thing disavowing the social media posts claiming that Hamas had been plundering their offices. Ironically, Glick said that reports that have come out over the past many years have shown that most of the UNRWA employees in Gaza are members of Hamas.

According to Glick, this further supports the fact that Tony Blinken sat for seven hours with Israels war cabinet demanding they resupply Hamas.

Just before Glicks broadcast was released, UNRWA reported that an alleged Israeli strike on an UNRWA school had killed six people, and that Israel showed a flagrant disregard for the lives of civilians, adding, No place is safe in Gaza anymore, not even UNRWA facilities.

But again, as Glick points out, Hamas has a history of launching its missiles from beneath UNWRA schools and hospitals.

Making matters worse, the U.S. said they would supply Israel with the bombs, but they werent allowed to use them against the missile launching sites  i.e., the UNRWA schools and hospitals.

It is well known that Hamas military headquarters have been, for years, located under Shifa Hospital, Glick said.

What Glick described about Blinkens demands amounted to extortion: if Israel didnt open up a humanitarian corridor  i.e., allow Hamas to be resupplied  the U.S. wouldnt provide the bunker buster bombs and the ordinance for Israels fighter jets. Without those things, IDF ground forces would likely be slaughtered like the victims of October 7.

Adding insult to injury, Glicks sources said the U.S. told Israel they werent allowed to open up a war with Lebanon despite being bombed from Hezballah in the north.

Glick questioned whether American carrier ships in the Mediterranean were actually providing any deterrent, citing constant shelling from Lebanon and deaths reported in the Israeli community of Matula on Tuesday. She summarized the situation this way:

Hezballah has 150,000 missiles pointing in our direction and the United States is saying that were not allowed to open an operation to blunt that. ... I mean the amount of fire power directed against us is equivalent of a nuclear bomb and the United States says no, you cant take that out. Were not going to support you if you do.

Glick blamed this on the Israel-Lebanon maritime deal in 2022 that the Americans shoved down Israels throat on the eve of our elections. That deal, she claimed, has a secret annex that bars Israel from attacking Lebanon.

In a rare emotional monologue, she pointed out what weve known all along: the United States has been arming and funding the enemies of Israel. (Glick doesnt gloss over Obamas contribution to this mess, either.)

Responding to Bidens one word for those threatening Israel  dont  Glick asked, Wheres the or else? What are you going to do? Because [on Wednesday, October 18] the U.N. sanctions that bar Iran from selling or purchasing ballistic missiles on the international market are set to expire ... Iran is going to be able to purchase and sell as many ballistic missiles wherever it wants, to whoever it wants, at whatever price.

Richard Goldberg, a member of the National Security Council under the Trump administration, said the removal of sanctions on Iran will be a huge victory for Tehran that is simply serving as a reward for terrorism and proliferation around world.

Concluding her remarks, Glick questioned the roles of agents in Bidens administration like Ariane Tabatabai, who, despite being outed for checking in with Irans Foreign Ministry before U.S. policy meetings, has never been fired. Also in her focus were Hady Amr, the 1st United States special representative for Palestinian Affairs (born in Lebanon) and appointed by Biden in 2022, as well as Maher Bitar, the Palestinian American in charge of the flow of intelligence for the Biden White House.

You can see Glicks full show here.

Susan D. Harris can be reached at www.susandharris.com.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
At American Thinker, we are careful not to call our American political opponents Nazis because that cheapens discourse and dishonors the Nazis victims. Ill acknowledge that the Nazis were, and many of the Democrats are, proud socialists. And, as has become obvious in the past week, the Nazis loathed Jews, as do many at the heart of the Democrat party. But Democrats are not slaughtering Jews en masse and are not seeking world domination through force of arms. However, Islamists (an umbrella term that includes Hamas) share every metric with Nazis and, now that we have more details about how they slaughtered Jews, that similarity is more apparent than ever before.

Nazis were socialists, meaning that all power was centralized in the state. Everyone, voluntarily or not, was part of the socialist collective. Islamists are theocrats, meaning the religion and the state are one. Everyone, voluntarily or not, is part of the theocratic collective.

Nazi socialism had as a central tenet the belief that Jews were the enemy of the fascist state and must be destroyed. This tenet came from both Marx and Hitler. It is inseparable from the belief system. To this end, the Nazis came up with the idea of the Holocaust.

Islam has as a central tenet the belief that Jews are the enemy of the Sharia state and must be destroyed. This tenet comes directly from Muhammed. It is inseparable from the belief system. To this end, Muslims have been slaughtering Jews since the 7th century, a practice that continues today.

Hitler and the Mufti of Jerusalem greatly admired each other because of (among other things) their shared antisemitism:

Hitler dreamed of world domination. Islam is also based upon the principle of a global caliphate. Hitler was, and Muslims always have been, willing to act with tremendous violence to advance this globalist vision. In India alone, some estimates hold that ascendant Islam killed 90 million Hindus over four centuries. Nazis and Islamists have always needed their lebensraum.

Nazis were proud of their actions, with soldiers photographing their acts and Nazi bureaucrats keeping meticulous records about the civilians they murdered. With Hamas, one of the reasons we know so much about what they did to the Jewish civilians they attacked is because they filmed themselves and then shared those videos, sending them to family members of those they murdered and posting them on social media.

And heres an interesting likeness that you probably didnt see coming: Hitlers forces were able to commit their atrocities against civilians and non-civilians alike because they were drugged to the gills with amphetamines. This engine powered the initially unstoppable Third Reich and dulled the troops ability to see civilians as fellow human beings.

That was in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Today, Israel announced that it discovered powerful amphetamines on the bodies of the Hamas terrorists who tortured and murdered men, women, and children:

Hamas terrorists who carried out a surprise attack on October 7 were found to be under the influence of Captagon, a synthetic amphetamine-type stimulant that has been clandestinely produced in southern Europe and trafficked through Turkey to the consumer markets on the Arabian Peninsula, as reported by Nir Dvori of Channel 12. The pills were recovered from the pockets of many terrorists who lost their lives on Israeli soil. This stimulant drug, also known as the cocaine for the poor, allowed the terrorists to commit heinous acts with a sense of calmness and indifference. Simultaneously, it kept them highly alert for extended periods and suppressed their appetite.

Incidentally, ISIS fighters, part of the worldwide Muslim caliphate, used the drug, too, when they were slaughtering and enslaving Yazidis.

With their moral sense absent because of religious indoctrination and any spark of humanity dulled by drugs, heres what Hamas soldiers did (and you try to tell yourself that its any different from what Nazis did). They tortured young children to death:

What the Palestinian terrorists did to the Israeli families before they executed them in their own homes. pic.twitter.com/6wd15cnUXX  Marina Medvin  (@MarinaMedvin) October 19, 2023

They murdered a woman in front of her children, booby-trapped her body, and used the children as human shields.

They forced a boy to call out to his neighbors that all was safeand then slaughtered the neighbors, making him complicit in their deaths.

I could go on and on for hours. I wont. Its sickening. Unbearably sickening. It eats at your soul even to think of these horrors.

And just to give you more context about whos the Nazi, look at what Hamass supporters in America are saying:

Hey @ucdavis, do you think its appropriate that one of your faculty advisors, @jemmaisOKeh, is publicly threatening to murder Jews at their homes and their children at their schools? pic.twitter.com/xAx97LHYbr  Jason Bedrick  (@JasonBedrick) October 19, 2023

Hamas supporters are proud of the Nazi-Hamas nexus:

Fury as pro-Palestine activist waves a SWASTIKA at anti-Israel protest in NYC's Times Square as thousands take to the streets for demonstrations across the US https://t.co/q39W3XCCea pic.twitter.com/nCNFCscHYd  judy morris (@judymorris3) October 8, 2023

If it walks like a Nazi, talks like a Nazi, proudly boasts of being a Nazi and uses amphetamines to torture and murder civilians, including children, its a Nazi. So, if youre one of those trying to find some moral equivalence between the drugged-out Hamas fighters deliberately targeting and torturing civilians, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the Israelis, trying desperately to run a clean war by giving civilians a chance to remove themselves from the infrastructure behind which Hamas hides, youd better ask yourself, Am I the baddie?

And by the way, remember that theyre coming for you. This video came out a few years ago, but it seems appropriate now:

Image: An entire family laid to rest, killed only because they were some of over 1,000 civilians slaughtered merely for being Jewish. You can be certain that they did not die easy. None of them did.

UPDATE: Just so you know: "There is evidence of mass rape of [sic] so brutal that they broke their victims pelvis  women, grandmothers, children. [snip] People whose heads have been cut off. Women standing in their night dresses woken up and shot. Faces blasted off. Heads smashed and their brains spilling out. A baby was cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded and then the mother was beheaded."
Amid the migrant surge at the border, Joe Biden instituted the questionable position of "asylum officers" instead of legally mandated judges to adjudicate asylum claims for the millions of illegals crossing into the U.S. and being allowed to move about the country.

I've warned in the past that the positions would be filled by open-borders activists from the NGOs who would wave through every claim as valid, but it's worse than that.

According to the Daily Wire:

The U.S. immigration enforcement agency hired a former spokeswoman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and put her in a position to determine who gets to come into the country as an immigrant or asylum seeker. Now the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officer is repeatedly posting pictures of Hamas terrorists parachuting in with guns and writing, F*** Israel and any Jew who supports Israel, a Daily Wire investigation found. Nejwa Ali worked in 2016 and 2017 as a public affairs officer for the Palestinian Delegation to the U.S., which according to its own website, served as the PLO office in D.C. That office was expelled from the country by the Trump administration, but Ali landed on her feet, according to a screenshot of her LinkedIn profile, securing a job at DHS as an Asylum Officer, where she was tasked with applying immigration laws and regulations to asylum applications.

The Daily Wire lists an appalling string of recent social media posts she made which are absolutely appalling -- artwork of Hamas paragliders coming in to murder a music festival, portrayed in heroic descent:

And things like this, cheering the recent Hamas terrorist massacre, which murdered 1,400 innocent people in some of the most gruesome ways imaginable:

"F*** Israel, the government, and its military. Are you ready for your downfall?"

She also posted raw, bona-fide anti-Semitic posts, such as this statement:

F*** Israel and any Jew who supports Israel

Which is disgusting enough in itself, but the anti-Semitic element is even worse if that is possible. Someone needs to ask her what she thinks about all the non-Jews who support Israel. Notice that she threatened only Jews for holding such views.

She additionally posted vile cartoons of "evil" Jews with big noses of the most lowlife sort common among the terrorists.

And what's with her supposed fangirl love for Hamas, given her PLO past? Isn't the PLO widely reported as a bitter rival to Hamas -- the moderates, secular, reasonable side of the Palestinian factions?

Seems that's not the case. She cheers Hamas with the gusto of the rest of them.

That's a minor point. What's big is that her loyalty to the U.S. itself needs a good look -- what's with this statement?

Respect our existence, or expect resistance. Simple. No Apologies.

Did I just read the word "our"? What's with this "our"? I thought she was supposed to be American, working for its government and sworn to uphold its laws. Her loyalty seems to be with another group of people.

Her Hamas support is not only repellent to any person of decency, it's also actually against American law, as Sen. Tom Cotton has pointed out.

Does that include US Homeland Security employee Nejwa Ali?? pic.twitter.com/UQbTq5LndN  Lucy Loo (@HatchardLp48816) October 18, 2023

Although Twitter's "community notes" hastens to point out that this creature was hired in 2019 during the Trump years despite a PLO background of sufficient trust that she was actually its spokeswoman, this can't be pinned on Trump. That is because the DHS back then was run by a bunch of Trump-hating snakes such as the miserable Miles Taylor, who penned the 2018 'Anonymous' essay for the New York Times, and, being a cad by nature, allowed loyal NSC staffer Victoria Coates to be accused of that outrageous and slimey act of disloyalty, failing to man up to his own crummy act. Dirtbag much, Miles? It was his Homeland Security that hired Nejwa Ali.

What's more, while she may have been ensconced at DHS as the cleaning lady or something given her subliterate spelling skills, she got her 'asylum officer' position much later, probably in 2021, given that the mere position of 'asylum officer' is new, instituted by Joe Biden in 2021 to wave asylum cases through, without the messy need for court-tight legal proof or actual U.S. immigration law.

Back in 2022, this NBC News story ran:

The Biden administration is issuing a new rule Thursday that will allow asylum officers, rather than just immigration court judges, to adjudicate the claims of immigrants seeking asylum at the border, according to officials with the departments of Homeland Security and Justice. The new process is part of an effort to shorten the time between when an immigrant crosses the border and the ruling on whether they should be deported or allowed to stay in the United States. Under the new rule, if an asylum officer grants protections to an immigrant, the immigrant can remain in the U.S. and bypass immigration courts.

Which brings us to her as the new asylum officer, spewing anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism on social media.

You can guess who she granted asylum to and who she didn't -- and that ought to be looked at by Congress, because right now, we have a major risk of terrorists in this country.

Who did she let in? Who did she keep out? Would a terrorist organization like Hamas find her mighty useful?

Why on earth was this horrid person ever allowed in such a position? And why is this person still on the taxpayer dime, what with even Joe Biden claiming he supports Israel?

The Daily Mail reports that she is now on leave, and she does seem to have deleted her Jew-hating social media accounts as if maybe she'd rather the investigators not notice such things.

If this isn't a case against the whole horrible notion of 'asylum officers' what is? She can't be the only bad apple there, given the egregiousness of her views and her casual comfortableness in expressing them. There must be a slimey culture over there. The job itself appears to be a magnet for those who hate America and want to see its population replaced with people more to their liking, so the gatekeeper position inherently in it works just fine for those aims.

Shut it down now. And fire this noisy supporter of Hamas massacres immediately at a minimum. If she's improperly used her office, charge her with those violations, too. Hamas needs people like her in positions of U.S. power. The rest of us don't.
Climate change is in the news daily, with each featured story getting an attention-grabbing sensationalist headline. The frenzy is at its peak now because its the time of year for tropical storms and wildfires. However, to appreciate that these stories are pure narratives, its a good time to consider the facts behind the so-called greenhouse gases.

Several atmospheric gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor, absorb light in the infrared region. These are collectively known as the greenhouse gases because absorbing infrared energy warms up the airhence the name greenhouse effect.

Carbon dioxide, on a per-molecule basis, is six times as effective an absorber as water is. However, thats offset by the fact that carbon dioxide is only about 0.04% of the atmosphere (400 parts per million). This means that, overall, its much less important than water vapor in terms of its ability to warm the atmosphere.

And then theres methane. Pound-for-pound methane can trap 25 times more heat than carbon dioxide. However, there are two reasons why scientists say it will never significantly contribute to global warming. Primarily, it is by far the rarest of the green house gases.

But there is another reason why we will probably never have to worry about methane being a major contributor to global warming: Methanes narrow absorption bands, at 3.3 microns and 7.5 microns , perfectly matchwaters! Did you catch that? Its worth emphasizing: The ratio of the percentages of water to methane is such that the effects of methane are completely masked by water.

Image: Termites in a wetland by AI.

Nor is methane a cow problem that humans can remediate by going meatless. Instead, wetlands and termites are the real methane producers: When it comes to methane, another greenhouse gas, termites are responsible for 11 percent of the worlds production from natural sources. Seventy-six percent comes from wetlands

Many studies have attributed a methane spike to soaring emissions from tropical wetlands, predominantly in Africa. A significant change in tropical weather ascribed to human-caused climate change has led wetlands to get bigger and more plants to grow there, thus leading to more decomposition  a process that produces methane.

You noted, of course, how the quoted language blames methane on human-caused climate change. Yet this same human-caused climate change is also blamed for transforming lush Hawaii into an arid ticking time bomb that, in the summer of 2023, erupted into a devastating inferno. Moreover, it seems like it wasnt that long ago when environmentalists were ardent supporters of wetlands.

Meanwhile, ignoring the predominance of naturally occurring methane, a band of climate fanatics wants to eliminate traditional farming and ranching because they are sources of methane, primarily from ruminant livestock and paddy rice. Rice growing produces methane gas by feeding microbes that live under the rice paddies. Cattle produce methane during their digestive process.

In Ireland, farmers may be forced to kill some of their livestock to meet government requirements:

Greenhouse gas emissions in Irelands agriculture industry must be reduced by 25 per cent by 2030. This is part of the countrys latest Climate Action Plan, which pledges to halve overall carbon emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.

Current initiatives to cut methane gas emissions from domestic livestock like cows and pigs by culling them, a potentially famine-inducing policy, fail to take into account the sheer volume of feral animals. For example, in Australia, there is 10 times the number of feral pigs ... than domestic.

By some estimates, Australia contains  400,000 wild horses, five million donkeys, 150,000 water buffalo, one million camels, and 24 million feral pigsin comparison, the United States contains just six million feral pigs.

To put things in perspective, lets go back to the lowly termites. Consider that, in 1992, it was estimated that the digestive tracts of termites produce about 50 billion tons of CO2 and methane annually. That was more than the worlds production from burning fossil fuel.

In 1982, the journal Science published an article titled Termites: A Potentially Large Source of Atmospheric Methane, Carbon Dioxide, and Molecular Hydrogen. Here is the key sentence: The estimate gross amount of carbon dioxide produced is more than twice the net global input from fossil fuel production.

That same year, the New York Times ran an article titled: Termite gas exceeds smokestack pollution.

None of this information stops the Biden administration. In November 2021, it proposed regulations on methane emissions by the U.S. oil and gas industry, at a direct cost of more than $1 billion annually, to deal with a nonexistent problem.

Wouldnt it be nice if a little science got through to the policy-makers behind so-called climate science?
When the federal government is looking for qualified persons to vet asylum seekers, where would you look?

For the Biden administration, it seems they thought a good place was in the bowels of a terrorist organization that Trump kicked out.

Somehow, they believe that a former spokesperson from the PLO is well qualified. Nothing better than plucking a person from an organization that wants to snuff out America and Israel to decide who should be allowed to come to the U.S. What could go wrong?

Isnt it great that they picked a woman who said f--- Israel and any Jew who supports Israel ... are you ready for your downfall? Nothing better than for an anti-Semite to have such an important position, as they always lecture us about fairness and inclusion.

We might as well pick Russians, Chinese, Cubans, Iranians, and Mexican cartels to decide who should be allowed in America to fill out the personnel roster.

Essentially, that is what the Biden administration is doing with his open border policy. But Biden said some nice words in support of Israel, so the media and many Republicans cheer.

Former PLO Spokeswoman Working for the Biden Administration, and It Gets Crazier from There

A new report has exposed that a former Palestinian Liberation Organization spokeswoman is being employed by the Biden administration, and the story only gets crazier from there. According to Luke Rosiack, who famously broke the Loudoun County non-binary rape story that helped shift the 2021 election, Nejwa Ali is currently working for the Department of Homeland Security vetting asylum seekers. Before that, she worked for the Palestinian Delegation to the United States, which is a subsidiary of the PLO. Why is that important? Because the PLO is a designated terrorist group. Apparently, DHS is just a jobs program for terrorists and we were all just unaware. Certainly, it seems ludicrous to have a former PLO spokesperson in charge of deciding who gets into the country or not. But as I said, the story gets even crazier. Not only is Alis former employment highly concerning, but shes a rabid antisemite who praised the massacre of Jews in Israel on October 7th by Hamas invaders.

And whom did Biden pick for ambassador to Israel? Jack Lew, who, like Sullivan, Blinken, and so many in the Biden administration, worked very hard to make sure Iran got access to hundreds of billions even though the Iranians pledge death to America and Israel.

If you really cared about the safety of Israel, would you pick anyone who worked hard to build up Iran so they could better fund terrorists?

When I saw Biden reading what other people had written for him in Israel, he looked like a talking zombie. He said the other team was responsible for the bombing of the hospital. It reminded me of Obama calling ISIS the J.V. team  another brilliant comment.

Trump put severe sanctions on Iran. Biden lifted them.

Trump put severe sanctions on the Russian pipeline, and Biden lifted them.

Trump did everything he could to keep oil prices down, which put pressure on Russia and Iran. Biden works hard to destroy oil companies in the U.S., which greatly helps Iran and Russia.

Trump worked hard to close our border and screen people coming in. Biden works hard to let people from around the world stroll in.

Trump put in place a program to monitor Chinese spying. Biden stopped the program, which had to please the Chinese.

And somehow the media and other Democrats claim that Trump is the dangerous one, and Biden has the smart foreign policy. That is pure propaganda to mislead the public.

Image: Tom Hilton via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
Throughout history, animals have held significant roles in wars and conflicts. Cavalry horses were deployed to charge the enemy, pigeons conveyed messages from the front lines to headquarters, while mules and donkeys were responsible for transporting weapons and supplies. Dogs have consistently occupied a unique position in human affairs, serving in various capacities such as tracking enemies, detecting weapons and explosives, functioning as patrol or messenger dogs, and, in the case of Gunner, responding to their acute sense of hearing.



The bombing of Darwin. Photo credit: RAN Historical Collection/Wikimedia Commons

In 19 February 1942, the city of Darwin in Northern Territory, Australia, was subjected to a Pearl Harbor kind of attack by Japanese air forces. The Japanese pilots targeted the ships in Darwin Harbour and the RAAF airfield with devastating accuracy in an attempt to prevent the Allies from using them as bases to contest the invasion of Timor and Java during World War II. All that was left after the rampage was the wreckage of the hangers and the mangled steel of the light bombers, and a very frightened black and white kelpie pup with a broken leg.

Leading Aircraftman Percy Westcott found the dog under the ruins of a mess hut at the airbase. Wescott picked up the dog and took him to the field hospital, where a medical officer reportedly insisted that he could not treat a patient without knowing their name and number. Westcott and his friends quickly made up the right enlistment form and named him Gunner upon which the doctor set his leg and put it on a plaster. Within a few days Gunner was happily limping around the camp.

It soon became apparent that Gunner had an acute sense of hearing. He could hear the sound of the cooks knives on steel as they prepared to cut meat, but more importantly, he could hear the sound of approaching aircrafts when they were still more than a hundred miles away.



Percy Westcott and Gunner.

Related: Why The Romans Punished Dogs And Honored Geese

The Japanese continued to revisit Darwin with monotonous regularity, and each time before a raid, Westcott and his friends noticed that Gunner would become agitated and start to whine and jump. In those times, radar technology was primitive and Gunners warnings consistently beat the official air raid siren by as much as 20 minutes, enough to scramble defensive fighters into the sky.

Gunners hearing was so acute that he could differentiate between the sounds of the engines made by Allied and Japanese aircraft, and only became excited when enemy airplanes approached. Gunner was so reliable that the commanding officer gave Westcott a portable air raid siren to pass on Gunners warnings to the base. Only on two occasions did Gunner missed out because they were quick follow-ups to earlier attacks.

Gunner became an integral part of the air force. He slept under Westcott's bunk, showered with the men in the shower block, sat with the men at the outdoor movie pictures, and went up with the pilots during practice take-off and landings.

Fifteen months later, Westcott was transferred to the south, while Gunner stayed behind in Darwin. Nobody knows what happened to Gunner after that.

I never heard what happened to him in the end, Westcott said. I thought Id go back after the war or see somebody but you know how these things go.

References:

# A man's very best friend in a nasty situation, The Canberra Times
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that the company donates $8 million to support relief efforts for victims of the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas. The funds will be distributed to several local nonprofits that provide aid and assistance to those affected by the violence.

Israel is one of the main bases for Google, and the tech giant has over 2,000 staff in Tel Aviv and Haifa offices. In a statement, the company said their initial efforts were focused on ensuring the safety of employees and then battling misinformation. The next step for Google would be donating $8 million in relief funds to local nonprofits.

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Google gives $8 million in relief funds to local nonprofits in Israel and Gaza

Pichai also expressed sympathy for both Jews and Muslims Googlers who are affected by the incident and are experiencing a rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Local NGOs could benefit significantly from the $8 million fund. The fighting has destroyed essential infrastructure and basic services. Many families lack access to electricity, clean water, or health care.

Google employees with company match raised $1 million. The company itself also donates $1 million in Search Ads for nonprofits. This could help NGOs to better connect with people and provide information to impacted people.

Google.org also raised an additional $3 million for local emergency response, and psychological and emotional support for victims, children and families. Another $3 million donated by Google allocates to organizations supporting people in Gaza, including Save the Children.

Besides providing financial aid, Google also adapts some of its apps for emergencies. The tech giant further added theyd deployed language capabilities to support emergency efforts. This includes universal dubbing, emergency translations, and localizing Google content to help users, businesses, and NGOs.

Interestingly, as schools are closed, Google Meet has become a primary platform for Israeli children. Google explains the Israeli Ministry of Education uses Meet as its core teach-from-home platform.

Finally, Google asserted content moderation is a critical focus for now, and they continue to battle misinformation. Following the conflict, many social platforms are dealing with offensive messages and fake content from both sides.
Google has fired at least 40 people from its news division. The source says that Google fired somewhere between 40 and 45 workers from the Google News division. That info was shared with CNBC by an Alphabet Workers Union spokesperson.

Google unfortunately fired at least 40 people from its news division

That same source said that there are still hundreds of people left in that division. He added the following: Were deeply committed to a vibrant information ecosystem, and news is a part of that long-term investment.

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He also mentioned internal changes that will help streamline Google News, as a result of these layoffs. The spokesperson did say that Google is supporting everyone [who got fired] with a transition period, outplacement services and severance.

Needless to say, Google News is a popular source of news for many people. The company presents articles from various different sources and publishers, thus keeping people informed on the happenings according to their interests.

Google claims that these layoffs will not affect the quality of the service

Googles spokesperson was also asked about the impact of these layoffs on Googles battle against misinformation. He said the following: These internal changes have no impact on our misinformation and information quality work in News.

Following the layoffs, a staff engineer at Google News shared a post via LinkedIn: These are some of the best and brightest people Ive ever worked with, while adding the following: Were definitely worse off without them.

These layoffs are actually a part of the bigger picture over at Google. Back in January, Google announced it was going to cut 12,000 jobs across the company. That basically means it announced that itll fire around 6% of its entire workforce. Last month hundreds of jobs got eliminated, prior to these 40-45 layoffs.

It remains to be seen if this will have an effect on Google News as a product.
Google may have resumed work on Project Iris, its effort to make AR (augmented reality) glasses. Code strings found inside the latest version of the Google app for Android hint at the ongoing development of the product. This comes just a few months after a report claimed that the company had shelved the project.

Googles Project Iris may be alive and kicking

We first heard about Project Iris in January 2022. Several tech giants, including Meta and Apple, were working on new AR and VR (virtual reality) headsets at that time. Google wanted a slice of this emerging market and started developing its own AR glasses. It demoed an early version of the product during Google I/O in May 2022. The glasses could translate spoken languages in real time and show transcriptions right in front of your eyeballs.

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The company said it would start testing the futuristic glasses in public in July 2022. However, that never happened. In the meantime, both Meta and Apple went on to unveil their respective AR headsets. Then came the dreaded news in June 2023. Multiple people familiar with the matter confirmed that Google has pulled the plug on Project Iris. It reportedly wanted to focus on software solutions for such products.

However, Google hadnt buried Project Iris for once and all. While the company was no longer actively working on the glasses, the sources said that the door was open for work to resume in the future. Some suggested that the firm may have folded the project into its joint mixed-reality venture with Qualcomm and Samsung announced in January this year. While things arent clear yet, Project Iris appears to be very much alive and kicking.

During a teardown of the Google app for Android (beta version), 9to5Google found a string tagged Iris. It explains how users can activate Google Assistant with a long press on their right temple without the saying Hey Google hotword. The string is as follows: <string name=assistant_bisto_oobe_iris_finish_setup_description_no_hotword>Just touch & hold the right temple to talk to your Assistant.</string>

Google may offer a deep Assistant integration with the product

As noted by the publication, there already exist some wearable devices, including the Sony LinkBuds, that let you summon Google Assistant with a similar gesture. However, this string isnt related to those devices. Its for products that Google has given the iris_device attribute. The company could refer to all AR glasses with the Iris codename, but chances are high that its a Google-made device.

This APK teardown also revealed that the product will feature a deep Assistant integration. The publication could find code strings hinting at Assistant actions such as calling friends and setting timers. Unfortunately, theres no telling when Googles Project Iris will see the light of day, if at all. Its also unclear whether the device will be different from the one its developing jointly with Qualcomm and Samsung. Hopefully, it wont be long before we have more information.
Google will soon start producing Pixel smartphones locally in India. The company is in talks with international and domestic manufacturers in the country for the project. It expects the first locally manufactured Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro to hit the Indian market in 2024. The firm is also expanding its service network across the nation.

Google is gearing up to manufacture Pixel phones in India

Despite a relatively late entry into the smartphone hardware business, Google has quickly established itself as one of the biggest names in the industry. Its Pixel phones have a strong fan base globally. The devices are among the best flagship options in the Android space, competing directly with Samsungs S-series models.

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Like many other companies, India is a massive market for Google. It is the worlds most populous country with immense scope for growth. The Narendra Modi-led Indian government has been urging global tech firms to increase local production, offering incentives of up to $2 billion through the Make in India initiative.

Google has already pledged support for the initiative, teaming up with HP to produce Chromebooks locally in the country. Its now gearing up to launch Made in India Pixel phones as well. The company hasnt named any manufacturing partners yet but a report in June said its in talks with Lava International, Dixon Technologies India, and Bharat FIH, Foxconns Indian unit.

Details such as the location of the manufacturing plants, capacity, and starting date are not known. However, with the first batch of the Made in India Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro expected to arrive in the market next year, Google may be close to finalizing things. The company says it will share more information in the coming months. We will keep you posted accordingly.

India is a priority market for Pixel smartphones, and were committed to bringing the best of our hardware and underlying built-in software capabilities to people across the country, said Rick Osterloh, senior vice president of devices and services at the company. In recent years, India has established itself as a truly world-class hub for manufacturing, resulting in a thriving environment for businesses to flourish.

Googles service network in India is growing too

Google expects local production of Pixel phones in India to boost sales. In anticipation of that, the company is expanding its service network in the country. In partnership with F1 Info Solutions, it currently operates 28 service centers in 27 cities across the nation. The firm plans to expand to more locations and cities in the coming months. Time will tell whether a local production helps Google increase Pixel sales in India.
Korea's foreign ministry on Thursday expressed "deep concerns" over the escalating civilian casualties following a recent deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza in the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

"Our government expresses deep concerns over the increasing number of civilian casualties due to the escalating armed conflict between Israel and Hamas," the ministry's spokesperson, Lim Soo-suk, said in a statement.

The government hopes for a swift end to the current conflict and civilian damage, and will continue to cooperate with the international community toward that end, he added.

He then strongly urged the two sides to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law and to take measures to protect civilians, as well as allow humanitarian aid to those in need.

At least 1,400 people in Israel and 3,400 in Palestine have died since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, according to the ministry.

Tensions further flared up this week following Tuesday's deadly explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza that claimed hundreds of innocent civilian lives. (Yonhap)
A few days ago, the latest Motorola Razr Plus security update rolled out to users in the US. This update is coming before two updates that some users are looking out for with eagerness. The first update users of this device are expecting is Android 14 and the second is the Moto Unplugged feature that is already available on some Razr devices.

While the new security update is small and doesnt bring major changes, it helps apply new security patches to the device. The update is just 95.81 MB in size, and it brings Android security patches through 1 September 2023. Users of the Motorola Razr Plus will get a prompt on their device to install this update as soon as possible.

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Users will be able to install the update from the System update page in the settings app. Some users are still expecting more updates to come in the coming weeks, one of which is already available on the more affordable Motorola Razr 2023 entry. This expected update will bring the Moto Unplugged feature to the Razr Plus, and here is what you need to know about this feature.

Users will need to wait for the Moto Unplugged feature on the Razr Plus

Android 14 is already rolling out to Pixel devices around the world, and other brands are planning the rollout timeline. Motorola, on their part, are yet to come out with an Android 14 rollout plan for their devices. This doesnt mean that the brand is neglecting its rollout of updates to users, as the September security update is now available for users.

While users wait on the news for the Android 14 rollout, there is one feature that the Motorola Razr Plus is yet to get. This feature is already available for usage on the Motorola Razr, which is the base model for the 2023 line-up. Users of this more affordable device are getting the feature known as Moto Unplugged on their clamshell folding devices by default.

The Moto Unplugged feature is similar to Focus Mode on Android devices. It permits users to block off access to certain apps during a set period so that the user can focus. Well in Motorolas case, this feature will help users to unplug from any distractions the set app might bring.

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Of course, Motorola executes this productivity-oriented feature differently from that on Androids Digital Wellbeing app. Users of the more affordable 2023 clamshell folding device from Motorola already have access to this feature. Motorola isnt clear on when the Razr Plus will get this feature via an upgrade.

Users of this device just have to be patient as they expect a coming update to bring this feature. In the meantime, users will have to make do with the security update that the Razr Plus just got while waiting on other features. In the coming days, more information on the Motorola Android 14 rollout will become available.
Netflix is raising prices for two of its streaming plans. The Basic and Premium Netflix plans will now cost more than they did a few months ago. Netflix announced the price increases to these plans in their shareholder briefing document, where it touched on a lot of issues. Under the monetization and growth section of the document, the company announces its increase in the pricing for Basic and Premium plans in certain regions.

Netflix is raising prices again, two streaming plans affected

Yes, the coming change to the pricing of the Basic and Premium plans will stay the same in certain regions. The area of focus for this increase at this point is the US market, where both will get $2 in addition to their previous pricing. In other regions, the prices of all Netflix subscription plans will stay the same without any adjustments.

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Instead of $9.99 for the Basic plan, subscribers will soon start paying $11.99 for this plan. As for Premium subscribers, theyll have to pay $22.99 in place of the $20.99 which was the price a few weeks ago. At the moment, there is no information as to when the new prices from Basic and Premium plans will go live in the US.

Streamers in the US should prepare to see the price hike of two Netflix problems

This isnt the first time that Netflix has hiked prices for different subscription plans in different regions. It appears that the price increase has been part of Netflixs plans for quite a while now. The streaming service provider only held off on these increments as a result of making paid sharing available to users.

Over the past few months, Netflix has been fighting to bring an end to password sharing. Netflixs struggles in this regard are finally paying off as the company is seeing more subscribers on their platform. Now the company plans to refine and optimize its approach to business to get more subscribers over the next few months.

This will affect just the US for now

After gaining more subscribers and bringing an end to password sharing, Netflix is ready to increase subscription prices. This increment will affect just the US for now, and theres no information on whether other regions will also see this hike. In the US, the Basic and Premium plan will see a $2 increment on their current prices.

As for the new ads subscription plan, it will not see any price increment. At just $6.99 this plan with ads is the choice for lots of streamers on a budget. This plan was recently introduced to netizens during the Netflix fight against helicopters.

The streaming service provider is already making a lot of plans for the coming months. These plans include adding more games to Netflix, bringing retail destinations to locations around the world, and so much more. In the coming months, more details on Netflixs plans will become available.
Nokia has just announced a massive job cut. The Finnish telecommunications company plans to lay off up to 14,000 employees to reduce its operational costs amid declining earnings. The mass layoffs will affect 16 percent of its current global workforce.

Nokia to lay off 14,000 employees across its global offices

In its earnings report for Q3 2023, Nokia said its net sales declined 20 percent year-on-year (YoY). The company generated a revenue of 4.98 billion (roughly $5.25 billion) this past quarter, down from 6.24 billion it made during the same period last year. Its profit declined a whopping 69 percent YoY to just 133 million (roughly $140 million).

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Nokia says it will take decisive actions on three levels to tackle this economic downturn. The first action is strategic, with its business groups getting more operational autonomy for accelerated execution of plans. Second, its embedding sales teams into the business groups for a more streamlined corporate structure.

Finally, Nokia plans to reduce its cost base to increase operational efficiency and protect profitability. The firm is aiming to lower its cost base on a gross basis by between 800 million and 1,200 million by the end of 2026 compared to 2023. It expects these actions to help it achieve an operating margin of at least 14 percent by 2026.

Unfortunately, this will mean a massive job cut too. Nokia says its total global workforce may drop to 72,000 employees over the next three years, which means 14,000 layoffs from the 86,000 workers it has today. It has yet to finalize this layoff plan, but the company expects to cut at least 9,000 jobs in the coming years.

Nokia assures that the mass layoffs will not affect its R&D efforts

Nokia is one of the largest telecommunications equipment makers in the world. It recently opened a first-of-its-kind 6G Lab in India. The lab will be its research hub for accelerating the development of foundational 6G technologies such as Network as a Sensor, Network Exposure, and Automation. The company assures that these layoffs and strategic decisions will not affect its R&D capacity and commitment.

A slowdown in 5G deployment in Nokias major markets, including India and the US, affected its earnings this past quarter. We saw some moderation in the pace of 5G deployment in India which meant the growth there was no longer enough to offset the slowdown in North America, Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark said in a statement. It remains to be seen whether the plans work effectively to improve Nokias earnings in the coming years.
Imagine a world where youre using true wireless earbuds for your games, and you can use your PS5 controller to charge them when they need a battery boost. Sony has imagined it, and it seems possible the company may actually be working on developing this type of controller.

Recently Sony filed for a patent on a PS5 controller design that has a slot for charging true wireless earbuds. And based on the drawings the earbuds would fit into a slot where the touchpad is on the current DualSense. The figure drawings suggest Sony is envisioning the earbuds fitting beneath the touchpad. So it wouldnt actually be replaced. However the patent also shows other potential locations for them. Several drawings show the earbuds fitting beneath the touchpad but in different positions. Whereas another one imagines them fitting into slots in the hand grips.

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The patent (spotted by GameRant) shows that the controller would act as both a way to store the earbuds when not in use and charge them. Serving a dual purpose. Its not clear if Sony has these in R&D or if it plans to ever release such a controller. But with the recent launch of the INZONE Buds and the upcoming PlayStation Explore earbuds, a controller like this makes perfect sense.

Sony may never release a PS5 controller that charges earbuds

While this seems like a perfectly fine idea and it would actually be a good move considering the PlayStation Explore earbuds, theres no guarantee Sony will ever launch such a controller. Patents are not a guarantee that Sony is even working on the product. All they are, are a way for Sony to secure this idea before other companies do the same thing with the same kind of tech. Having said that, the fact that Sony has filed for the patent means at the very least Sony is interested.

Someone at the company has kicked around the idea of making this a reality. Enough for the company to work up drawings and describe how the tech might work before filing for the patent. In truth it would be an extremely useful feature. So heres to hoping Sony ends up making these for a release down the line.
After the roll-out of the Fitbit app redesign via an update, some users expressed their dislike for it. These users took to the feedback section of the Play Store to express their dislike for this redesign. Google got to see the responses from various users and thought of a way to take their suggestions to mind, hence applying necessary changes.

To do this, the team at Google have given a detailed rundown of all the changes they are bringing to the app and why they are necessary. With this, the team aims to change users minds and possibly make them come to terms with the redesign. Altogether, Google aims to bring five design changes and features to the Fitbit app.

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These changes will help liven up things on the app and fix the redesign flaws that users kicked against. In the coming weeks, these changes will come with an update to the users app via the Google Play Store.

Everything Google is planning to roll out with the coming update to improve the Fitbit app redesign

Following users response to the new Fitbit app redesign, Google is now working on some fixes. Part of these fixes will bring new features to the app and also improve design quality. In a recent community blog post to the Fitbit website, the team was able to outline all the changes thatll come to the app in the coming weeks.

The first change in the apps design will be the addition of the users Fitbit watch or trackers battery percentage to the Today tab. This change is coming based on users requests, and itll be a helpful feature for most users. Users will also be able to see their battery percentage under the Devices Connected to Fitbit tab.

Next in line is the ability to see step streaks directly from the apps interface, not only on the watch or tracker. This feature was available on only the iOS app before Google took it down, and now they are bringing it back. Well, iOS users wont be the only ones to enjoy this feature, as itll also be making its way to the Fitbit Android app.

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As for users who set daily goals for workouts or other activities, Fitbit plans to make completing these goals more entertaining. For this reason, the design team is adding a celebration to the Fitbit app for the completion of daily goals. Fitbit will also reduce spacing and optimize the layout on the Today interface, hence making it easier to read.

Lastly, users of the Fitbit app should expect new focus metrics, helping users customize the app to suit their tastes. There might also be a dark mode layout option coming to the app in the coming months. These changes will come in an update thatll roll out to users over the coming weeks.
Wondering how many people are ditching X (Twitter) in favor of another service? Well, some new data has just surfaced showing just how many people have left the site.

According to data from SimilarWeb, which is a company that tracks visits for most websites, X (Twitter) lost about 600 million visitors in September alone. It dropped from 6.4 billion in August to 5.8 billion in September. This is about a 10% decrease.

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As if that wasnt enough, of the 176 countries that accessed Twitter in September, about 83% of them saw a decline in traffic, month-to-month to X. On top of that, Google Trends data shows that searches for Twitter have dropped pretty consistently since Elon Musks takeover about a year ago. From around 14 million monthly searches to about 11 million a year later.

Is X (Twitter) in trouble?

As much as Musk likes to claim that traffic is better than ever on X (Twitter), its clear that they are losing users and visitors pretty quickly. While some advertisers have come back to the platform, many have not. Which is definitely affecting the revenue that X (Twitter) is getting here. This might have something to do with why Musk wants everyone to pay for X (Twitter). Just this week, the company announced they were starting a pilot program in New Zealand and the Philippines where new users would need to do pay $1 per year to use basic functions like posting.

Of course, many believe that the real reason for that is, Musk wants credit card numbers. Not so much so he can steal identities, but so he can build the everything app that he wants X to be. Which includes a payment app. But at just $1 for the whole year, most of that cost is going to go to credit card processors like Stripe  which is what X(Twitter) uses in the US for payments.
By Kim Hyun-bin

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy embarked on a pivotal visit to Korea, reinforcing the robust economic, academic and cultural bonds between New Jersey and Korea.

In an interview with The Korea Times, the governor emphasized the significance of the Korean partnership and his aim to capitalize on a unique generational opportunity for the two regions to come together to launch innovative industries and generate job opportunities for their citizens.

"Korea has been a vital partner for New Jersey in numerous aspects, encompassing economic, academic and cultural ties," Murphy said.

"Our state is home to the third-largest Korean community in the United States, and our economic relationship with Korea is worth nearly $5 billion annually. It is my goal to reaffirm our enduring connections and make a compelling case for us to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to collaborate on new industries that will benefit generations of our citizens."

The governor said despite its relatively small geographical size, New Jersey boasts exceptional advantages. It is the most densely populated state in the United States, strategically situated in the nation's most economically advantaged region. The state's highly educated and talented workforce is second to none, making it an attractive destination for businesses.

Murphy pointed out that New Jersey serves as a critical economic hub, with approximately 20 percent of America's GDP flowing through the state and its neighboring proximity to two major American markets, New York City and Philadelphia.

Given our talent and location, New Jersey provides incredible value to businesses, which is what has led top-performing companies like Samsung and LG to establish their North American headquarters in our state, the governor said.

And we are so proud to have them and looking to forward to expand those relationships and create new ones on this trip.

Notably, recent developments have seen the Korean government and CJ Logistics, Korea's leading logistics giant, investing in large distribution centers in New Jersey and Chicago. Murphy highlighted that this visit has further expanded the partnership between New Jersey and CJ.

During his visit, he signed a new research collaboration between CJ and Princeton University, the number-one ranked American institution of higher learning, located in Princeton, New Jersey. This collaboration is poised to unlock a new wave of innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

The visit also focuses on creating new partnerships between New Jersey and Korean universities and companies, fostering research and innovation opportunities. In addition, trade missions and delegations are being established to deepen ties with other international biotech centers, strengthening global collaborations.

Murphy announced a landmark agreement between New Jersey and Korea, referred to as the "driver license reciprocity" agreement. This agreement simplifies life for Korean citizens in New Jersey and New Jersey residents in Korea. Under this agreement, individuals with a valid Korean driver's license can drive in the U.S. using their existing license while they settle into New Jersey, without the need for exhaustive testing.

Murphy underscored the shared similarities between Korea and New Jersey, emphasizing their outstanding workforces, world-class transportation systems, and remarkable track records in incubating groundbreaking innovations.

Our workforces are second-to-none. Our transportation systems are world-class. And our track-records in incubating game-changing innovations are unrivaled, Murphy said.

The governor emphasized that New Jersey is also celebrated for offering the highest quality of life compared to any state in America, with the nation's number-one ranked public education system and a strong commitment to public safety and individual rights and freedoms.
(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 19 - Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Thursday that Italy's decision to suspend the Schengen Treaty and temporarily reintroduce controls at the border with Slovenia does not mean there is the threat of a terrorist attack here.

"We have only closed Schengen on the border with Slovenia to prevent terrorists who could strike in our country or in Europe from arriving through the Balkan route," Tajani told Mediaset television.

"There are no indications that there is a risk of attacks, but we cannot lower our guard.

"On the contrary, we are raising it precisely because of the need for prevention and in order to protect sites, in particular those frequented by Jewish citizens".

Premier Giorgia Meloni said Wednesday that the "worsening situation in the Middle East and the increase in migratory flows along the Balkan route" made it necessary to suspend the Schengen Treaty.

It has emerged that the Tunisian Islamist who killed two Swedish people in Brussels this week previously had spells in Italy and reportedly entered EU via the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Piantedosi stressed that Italy's decision to suspend the Schengen Agreement and introduce controls at its border with Slovenia was "temporary" and "proportionate".

Speaking on the sidelines of the Internal Affairs Council, he said he had spoken to his Slovenian and Croatian counterparts and they would probably meet on November 2 in Trieste to discuss implementation.

"I presented the position of the Italian government (at the council meeting), which is that of reassuring its citizens that there are no concrete signs of an imminent alarm," Piantedosi said.

"However, the situation (in the Middle East) and the way in which these episodes (of terrorist attacks) occurred in Belgium and France lead us to maintain a high level of attention and that is what we are doing". (ANSA).


(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 19 - Deputy Premier and Transport and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini on Thursday called for stiffer penalties, including jail, for protesters engaged in acts of civil disobedience to highlight the need to address the climate crisis.

The League leader made the call after members of the Ultima Generazione (UG - Last Generation) group blocked traffic in both directions on the Turin-Milan motorway on Thursday, causing major disruption.

"Eco-imbeciles!!!" Salvini said via X.

"Gluing yourself to the asphalt and stopping one of Italy's most important motorways, creating problems for workers and students and damaging the environment and trade, is a criminal act.

"For this reason, the League is committed to pursuing its proposal to increase the penalties - with heavy fines, jail and arrest when caught in the act - to the cretins who block roads to the detriment of thousands of innocent citizens. Enough!".

The UG protestors held up a banner calling for a "Reparation Fund" of 20 billion euros to be set up to help people suffering the effects of the climate crisis, such as the communities devastated by the deadly floods that hit Emilia Romagna in May.

(ANSA).


Thousands of people with pancreatic cancer could live longer if low treatment rates for the disease are tackled, a charity has said.

Pancreatic Cancer UK is calling for more effective pathways from diagnosis to treatment to ensure no patient falls through the cracks, regardless of whether their cancer is treatable or not.

The charity claims seven out of 10 patients receive no treatment for pancreatic cancer.

It also has the lowest treatment rate (34%) compared with breast (86%), bowel (74%) and lung (56%) cancers.

According to Cancer Research UK, pancreatic cancer is the tenth most common form of the disease in the UK and its poor outlook is due to the fact it is often diagnosed at a late stage.

On average, there are about 10,500 new cases of pancreatic cancer in the UK every year.

In localised cases  where the cancer remains in the pancreas  55% of people survive for one year or more, with 25% surviving for three years or more.

However, if the cancer has spread to other areas of the body, 50% of patients survive for one year or more and 15% survive for three years of more.

In a bid to tackle survival rates, Pancreatic Cancer UK has launched its Dont Write Me Off campaign, calling on all UK governments for sustained funding to implement a new care pathway that will ensure patients are diagnosed within 21 days of being sent for tests, and start treatment within 21 days of being diagnosed.

It also wants expert care and support for everyone, regardless of where they live or their chance of survival.

Diana Jupp, chief executive of Pancreatic Cancer UK, said: For seven in 10 people with pancreatic cancer to receive no treatment at all  not even chemotherapy  is shocking.

Those treatment rates have remained stagnant for at least a decade and people with this devastating disease deserve better.

There is simply no time to wait, delays are costing people their only chance of survival. The path from diagnosis to treatment must be faster, more efficient and encompass all aspects of a persons care.

Nobody should ever feel written off or fall through the cracks  regardless of whether their cancer is operable or not.

Modelling carried out by the charity found its proposed care pathway would increase survival rates among pancreatic cancer patients from 7.1% to 10.4% by 2028.

It claims such an increase would represent the biggest improvement in 50 years.

Ms Jupp added: The Improved Care Pathway represents the consensus of hundreds of health professionals and people affected by the disease who all care deeply about those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, wherever they live, having the best possible chance of survival and as much precious time with their loved ones.

Now we need governments to implement the pathway and provide the sustained investment needed, so the NHS can meet the unique challenges posed by the deadliest common cancer.

A Department of Health and Social care spokesperson said that survival rates were improving but added: We are determined to do more to boost detection and improve treatment for this terrible disease.

We have opened 123 community diagnostic centres to offer quicker and more convenient checks outside of hospitals  including for pancreatic cancer  and have introduced a new standard requiring doctors to diagnose or rule out cancer within 28 days of an urgent referral.

The NHS is treating more people for cancer and at an earlier stage than ever before and we are committed to building on this progress by improving cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment through our Major Conditions Strategy.
Britains biggest police force is using game-changing facial recognition technology to catch prolific shoplifters.

The Metropolitan Police asked 12 retailers to provide images of 30 of the worst offenders who steal from their shops in a pilot of the new software.

They were compared against the forces custody shots, and of 302 images submitted, 149 came up as positive matches.

Those matches are now being investigated further with a view to building criminal cases.

The software uses biometric measures of a persons face and works even if part of their face is covered. It takes around 60 seconds to find a match.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said the use of facial recognition could revolutionise the way crime is investigated (James Manning/PA)

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said: Were working with shops across the capital to target and track down criminals in a way we never have before.

Were pushing the boundaries and using innovation and technology to rapidly identify criminals.

The results weve seen so far are game-changing. The use of facial recognition in this way could revolutionise how we investigate and solve crime.

He claimed that most of the prolific offenders were involved in other, more serious criminal activity.

Whats most powerful is what weve learned about those involved in this offending so far. Its clear the majority are career criminals involved in serious crime, Sir Mark said.

This data and information helps us focus our efforts in an even more precise way than we originally anticipated.

Through this tactic were not only improving how we protect shops and support the business community, were stepping further forward in identifying and tracking down serious criminals and protecting all of Londons communities.

The scale of business crime in London is huge. To be successful we have to be precise in our approach and this is a really promising step forward.

Chief executive of the Association of Convenience stores James Lowman said while the technology could save police time, there is still a challenge in getting offenders off the street.

He said: Using artificial intelligence to identify prolific offenders can be an effective way of drastically reducing the amount of police time it takes to make links between crimes committed against different businesses locally.

Whether its artificial intelligence or local intelligence that leads to criminals being identified, the real challenge remains apprehending these offenders and getting them off the streets.

The Met started using the software in August and began the retail pilot in late September.

The new system can use images from CCTV, dashcams, doorbell cameras or phones.

It uses the same algorithm as the Mets live facial recognition technology, about which there have been well-publicised concerns over potential bias.

Lindsey Chiswick, director of intelligence for the Met and national policing lead on facial recognition, said the algorithm has been independently tested by the National Physical Laboratory.

She said: Facial recognition technology, which is able to match faces after the event, has actually been around for quite a few years.

Whats changed and what is improving all the time, and in the last few years with real speed, is the accuracy of the algorithm. And thats the real game changer here.

With this technology, its an algorithm that weve independently tested through the National Physical Laboratory so we have assurance its 100% accurate when it comes to retrospective usage, and we understand how it works.

Around 50,000 shoplifting incidents were reported to the Met last year, estimated to be between 5% and 10% of the offences that are actually committed.

Emmanuelle Andrews, from human rights charity Liberty that has campaigned against the use of facial recognition, said: Facial recognition has no place on our streets, in our shops  or in any other areas of our lives.

This technology threatens our privacy and stifles free speech  and we should all be worried about moves to expand its reach.

Were also concerned about the creep of facial recognition technology into other areas of policing.

Lets be clear: we cannot rely on tech to solve deep societal problems, this is an unjustified expansion of state surveillance and there are numerous alternatives.
Gardai who arrived on the scene of the attack on schoolteacher Ashling Murphy have told a court of their intensive efforts to save her life.

Ms Murphy, 23, was assaulted and killed while out running along a canal path in Tullamore, Co Offaly, in January 2022.

Jozef Puska, 33, of Lynally Grove in Mucklagh, Tullamore, has pleaded not guilty to the teachers murder.

On the third day of the trial at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin, two gardai who were the first emergency services personnel on the scene on the afternoon of January 12 gave evidence.

Garda Tom Dunne and Garda Shane Hunter performed CPR on Ms Murphy while they awaited an ambulance crew.

A vigil was held previously in memory of Ashling Murphy, pictured, at Leinster House in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA)

Ms Murphy, who was a talented musician, was found lying face up in thick undergrowth in a ditch around six feet from the canal path. A bike with distinctive green markings was found close by.

Two cyclists had discovered her and were waiting beside the ditch as the gardai arrived in a patrol car.

Garda Dunne had received the call reporting a serious assault at Tullamore Garda station around 10 minutes earlier.

He had alerted colleagues and then he and Garda Hunter drove immediately to the scene.

Both guards described observing Ms Murphy lying on her back in the ditch.

She had a lot of blood around her face and neck and her hair was badly matted, they told the court.

Garda Dunne went down into the ditch and felt for a pulse.

He said he did not believe there was a pulse but, if there was, it was a very faint one.

Garda Dunne said he then commenced CPR on Ms Murphy, with Garda Hunter taking over, before he resumed again.

We just alternated between the two of us, I would say for 10 minutes or more, Mr Dunne told the court.

A bunch of red roses placed on the bridge across the Grand Canal in Tullamore, Co Offaly (Niall Carson/PA)

Garda Hunter said they alternated to ensure neither of us got fatigued.

Both gardai told the court of the injuries they observed around Ms Murphys neck.

The trial has heard the 23-year-old was stabbed 11 times in the neck and suffered a further slicing laceration in the neck area.

Slovakian national Puska, wearing a grey jacket, listened on from the dock during Thursdays proceedings with the assistance of an interpreter.

Members of Ms Murphys family watched from the public gallery of the court.

The jury heard the teacher was wearing a navy running jacket and bottoms and a top of her local GAA camogie club Kilcormac Killoughey when she was found.

She also had a necklace with her name Ashling on it.

Garda Hunter told the court that Ms Murphys phone had a fitness app still running when he found it in her clothing.

He said when he looked at the screen at 4.15pm, the app showed an exercise session that was at one hour, 22 minutes and 20 seconds long, with 3.2 kilometres having been covered.

The court also heard from Detective Sergeant David Scahill who arrived at the scene minutes after Garda Dunne and Garda Hunter.

The trial is being held at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA) (PA)

He described the actions of his colleagues as they performed CPR.

They were doing it alternately, they were doing the best they could do, he said.

He later added: Were not doctors, we do our best at the scene.

We were doing everything we could to help Ashling.

The court heard that when ambulance personnel arrived at the scene, Ms Murphy was lifted from the ditch onto the canal path to allow the life-saving efforts to continue.

The attempts proved in vain, and Ms Murphy was declared dead at the scene.

State pathologist SallyAnne Collis also gave detailed pathology evidence to the court on Thursday.

She described the extensive injuries Ms Murphy sustained to her neck area.

These included significant damage to her voice box.

Ms Collis said the injuries would likely have prevented Ms Murphy from making any normal noise in the period prior to her death.

The trial also heard from a woman who while walking her dog saw a man cycling on a bike on the canal path prior to the attack.

Emma Doyle said when she first observed the man, she wondered whether he was in the company of a woman walking on the path, because he was cycling so close behind her.

People hold a vigil outside the London Irish Centre in Camden in memory of murdered primary school teacher Ashling Murphy (PA

Ms Doyle said the man then cycled passed the woman and then proceeded past her.

She said the bike had neon green colouring on the front of it and had straight handlebars.

Ms Doyle said the man was wearing a black tracksuit top with what she believed was some sort of red logo on it, and dark tracksuit bottoms.

He had a tight crew cut, dark hair and stubble and sallow skin, she said.

Ms Doyle remembered he had striking and unusual eyes.

She said the man had said hello to her as he passed. Ms Doyle said she did not think he was Irish.

Ms Doyles parents live beside the canal and after her walk along the path she returned to their house.

It was then she saw joggers Jenna Stack and Aoife Marron out of the front window appearing upset.

On the second day of the trial, Ms Stack, who had been out running with Ms Marron, told the trial she had seen a man in a hedgerow who seemed to be crouched over a female who was kicking out like she was crying out for help.

She said the man shouted at her to go away.

On Thursday, Ms Doyle described going out of her parents house to join Ms Stack and Ms Marron as they spoke about the incident.

The three women then directed the Garda cars to the scene as they arrived.

The trial heard that Detective Sergeant Scahill knew both Ms Stack and her husband Niall.

He told the court that she was panicked and agitated when he pulled up in a Garda car and she pointed him to where she had seen the incident.

Detective Sergeant Scahill continued on to the scene, but said he later tried to call Ms Stack to obtain a description of the man she saw in the undergrowth.

He could not reach her but did manage to get through to her husband. He said Mr Stack told her he had spoken to his wife, and he passed on a description of the suspect.

Mr Scahill relayed this description to Garda colleague Andrew Dolan who was standing beside him.

Garda detective Dolan later gave evidence to the court that he believed the description may have been a match for a man known to him. He passed on that suspicion to investigating colleagues.

That man, who was not Puska, was arrested on the day, but later released.

The trial continues.
An investigation has been launched into Welsh Water after the company admitted illegally spilling untreated sewage.

Natural Resources Wales said it was examining the severity and frequency of permit breaches by the water company.

Welsh Water said between 40 and 50 of its wastewater treatment plants are currently operating in breach of their permits after being shown data by an environmental campaigner.

Analysis by Professor Peter Hammond, from campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, showed the worst offender is the Cardigan plant in west Wales, which spilled untreated sewage on 1,146 days from the start of 2018 to the end of May 2023.

The plant discharges into the River Teifi, which flows into Cardigan Bay  the home of Europes largest population of bottlenose dolphins.

Prof Hammonds analysis of data over a five-year period showed there were 2,274 days when untreated sewage was released in breach of a permit.

Water treatment works are allowed to discharge untreated sewage in order to ensure it does not become overwhelmed during heavy rain, but this overflow level is regulated by permit.

Welsh Water said it plans to build a new 20 million water treatment works for Cardigan as part of a 40 million package in the county.

Ann Weedy, operations manager at Natural Resources Wales, said: We are aware of significant compliance issues at the Cardigan wastewater treatment works, and we have used our regulatory powers to enforce the improvements required at the site over the years.

The issue is now unresolvable without significant investment and upgrading of infrastructure by Welsh Water. But this is the kind of investment that we and the public expect.

The enforcement action we are taking at this site requires Welsh Water to commit to this programme of work during their next investment period and we will work with them to drive the improvements at this site that we all want to see.

We are currently investigating the severity and frequencies of the permit breaches at the site and this investigation is ongoing.

Welsh Waters Cardigan plant discharges into the River Teifi, which flows into Cardigan Bay, home to Europes largest population of bottlenose dolphins (Gavin Haskell/Alamy/PA)

A Welsh Water spokeswoman said: We have a longstanding record of being open and transparent in relation to our environmental performance.

We have applied this approach to compliance with our treatment works permits and have always raised any areas of non-compliance with our regulator, Natural Resources Wales, as soon as they are identified.

We have extensive monitoring arrangements, amongst the most extensive in the sector, which we use to monitor our sites.

Each site presents its own and sometimes very complex challenges, with NRW reviewing the information we provide, agreeing appropriate timescales for resolving the issues, and taking enforcement action where appropriate.

We always aim to resolve any issues as quickly as possible, to limit any impact for both the environment and our customers.

An Ofwat spokeswoman said: We are currently investigating all 11 water and wastewater companies, including Welsh Water, for potential failures at sewage treatment works that may have led to sewage discharges into the environment.

We have contacted Welsh Water to provide more information which will feed into our existing investigation. We are also liaising with Natural Resources Wales on this issue.

Politicians are calling for a review of Welsh Water and called for tougher action against sewage dumping.

Janet Finch-Saunders, the Welsh Conservative shadow climate change minister, said: For this to be described as the worst sewage works in terms of illegal discharges shows how Labour has dropped the ball on sewage in Wales.

Welsh Water has broken the law and must face the consequences.

At a time when Welsh Water are planning to increase bills, even though their customers experience the second highest average bill in Wales and England, is completely unacceptable when they have been misleading the public for years and dumping harmful sewage into our waterways.

The Labour Government need to follow the lead of the UK Government and start holding this disgraceful dumping to account by fining and start prosecuting Welsh Water, their inaction is harming our environment and waterways.

Jane Dodds, a Liberal Democrat MS, added: This is a shocking admission and the Welsh Government can no longer dodge the issue, she said.

We have the second highest bills across the whole of England and Wales, company bosses have been awarded thousands in bonuses and at the same time have been illegally dumping sewage into our rivers.

I have repeatedly led calls in the Senedd for tougher action on sewage dumping and for a full review of Dwr Cymru and its operation.

The Welsh Labour Government must take those calls seriously or risk the future of our rivers.
Heads of Samsung, Hyundai to join Yoon for Saudi tour

By Nam Hyun-woo

President Yoon Suk Yeol will make a six-day visit to Saudi Arabia and Qatar amid escalating volatility in the Middle East in the wake of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

With the U.S.-backed plans to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia believed to be the fundamental reason behind the war, Riyadh is signaling a return to the Arab world. This will likely test Yoons diplomacy, as he will have to carefully balance the political value of solidarity with Israel and Western countries against the lucrative economic projects that Korea has on the table with Saudi Arabia.

According to First Deputy Director of National Security Kim Tae-hyo, Thursday, Yoon will arrive in Riyadh on Saturday for a six-day state visit to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It is the first time for a Korean president to make a state visit to the countries.

During his stay, Yoon will meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and discuss ways to bolster bilateral ties and economic partnerships. During their meeting, Kim said the leaders are anticipated to exchange opinions on the geopolitical situation in the Middle East, given the conflict between Israel and Hamas is escalating.

The Korean government has grave concerns about the increasing civilian death toll, and it will provide support for civilians in Palestine under a purely humanitarian purpose, Kim said. Through Yoons visit, we are seeking to discuss ways for cooperation to promote peace in the Middle East and strengthen our national security.

Koreas Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday it will provide $2 million (2.7 billion won) in humanitarian aid to help civilians in Israel and Palestine.

Given the regional volatility, Yoons talks will likely focus on finding the common ground for practical cooperation (with Saudi Arabia) against the backdrop of ongoing geopolitical complexity, a senior official at the presidential office said. While exploring Koreas humanitarian support in the ongoing conflict, we will take a comprehensive review on how to build future-oriented relations with Middle Eastern nations.

The comments are in line with Koreas cautious position in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

After Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Yoon met with a six-member U.S. bipartisan Senate delegation in Seoul on Oct. 11 and condemned Hamas' indiscriminate attacks on Israel, according to a statement released by Yoons office. The statement did not mention whether Yoon has expressed Koreas support of Israel, similar to the U.S. and other Western countries.

This was comparable to Yoons message during his summit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, Sept. 20. The leaders described each other's countries as nations which share the values of free democracy, human rights and the rule of law and pledged to pursue joint research projects and defense industry cooperation.

While Yoon did not explicitly state Seouls support of Israel, observers anticipate that Washington will likely exert increased pressure on Seoul to align with Western countries in the context of its values-based diplomacy  similar to the approach taken during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia is signaling its alignment with the Arab world. The kingdom has paused talks on normalizing ties with Israel, and Reuters earlier reported that Washington had pressed Riyadh to condemn the Hamas attack though the Saudi foreign minister has pushed back against this.

Amid this complexity, Yoon has to seek ways to renew economic partnerships with Saudi Arabia amid the kingdoms efforts to prepare for the post-oil era.

As Middle Eastern countries prepare for the post-oil era, it is time for us to renew our partnerships with them, senior presidential secretary for economic affairs Choi Sang-mok said. And Korea, which has technological capabilities and industrial progress, is a suitable partner for them. The visit will serve as an important opportunity to expand Seouls economic partnerships with the Middle East ... electric vehicles, shipbuilding, smart farms, culture content and other future industries.

Choi said a double-digit number of memoranda of understanding are expected to be signed during Yoons stay in Saudi Arabia. For this, an economic delegation comprised of 130 domestic business leaders will accompany Yoon to Riyadh. They include Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chairman Chung Euisun, Hanwha Vice Chairman Kim Dong-kwan and other heads of energy and construction firms.

After attending a number of business events, Yoon will fly to Doha, Qatar, Oct. 24, for his two-day state visit to the country. While there, Yoon will visit the International Horticultural Expo 2023 to celebrate the opening of a Korean pavilion, and will have a summit with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. He will return to Seoul on Oct. 26. A delegation of 59 Korean businessmen will also visit Qatar to seek expanded economic partnerships.

Meanwhile, the senior official at the presidential office said there will be no discussions between Yoon and the Saudi crown prince over the two countries bids to host the World Expo 2030.

Currently, Koreas Busan and Saudis Riyadh are staging a neck-and-neck race to host the event, with the vote for selecting the host nation to be held at the 173rd General Assembly of the Bureau International des Exposition on Nov. 28.
Israels president has told the UK Prime Minister there should be a correction issued over the BBCs coverage of the conflict in the Middle East, accusing the corporation of a distortion of the facts.

In a meeting with Rishi Sunak, Isaac Herzog said there should be an outcry over the corporations decision not to refer to Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

The Prime Minister met with the head of state after landing in Israel on Thursday at the start of a two-day trip calling for any escalation in violence in the wider region to be avoided.

Mr Herzog told him: We feel that, Ive made it out public, the way the BBC characterises Hamas is a distortion of the facts.

He added: There has to be an outcry so that there will be a correction and Hamas is defined as a terrorist organisation. What else do they need to see to understand that this is an atrocious terrorist organisation?

In response, Mr Sunak said of the October 7 attacks that we should call it what it is  an act of terrorism perpetrated by an evil terrorist organisation.

Downing Street said Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has been in contact with BBC director-general Tim Davie on a number of occasions over the past week and there will likely be further conversations, suggesting the BBC and other outlets should reflect on their coverage and learn lessons for the future following the exchange.

It follows an interview with the Daily Mail in which Mr Herzog said Israeli families had been wiped off the face of the earth.

Mr Herzog told the paper: I feel the BBCs reporting is atrocious.

The fact that it does not recognise Hamas as a terror organisation requires a complete legal battle and public battle. Its unbelievable.

Isaac Herzog with his wife Michal (Markus Schreiber/PA)

Ive seen the booklet that each of those terrorists received. Each one is instructed to go into an innocent village and kibbutz or city and immediately torture whoever is abducted, immediately.

Under its editorial guidelines, the BBC said it does not use the word terrorist but attributes it and makes it clear that Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK Government.

A statement from the BBC board, after its regular monthly meeting held earlier this week, said: No one who has watched or listened to harrowing reports over the last 10 days could be left in any doubt about the horror brought about by Hamass attack on defenceless civilians in Israel.

As this war continues, with so many deaths of innocent civilians in both Israel and Gaza, the BBC will no doubt continue to come under scrutiny about the way in which we cover it  that is to be expected and also welcomed. The BBC is listening.

We believe that our editorial guidelines serve us well, and continue to serve us well in difficult circumstances; we do periodically review them as a matter of course, and when we do so at our next planned review in the spring, we will consult and debate these issues just as we always do.

Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt suggested the BBC needs to kick the tyres (Peter Byrne/PA)

On Monday, the BBC said it has received complaints about its coverage of the conflict and there have been accusations of bias from both sides.

Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt suggested the BBC needs to kick the tyres to ensure it meets the required broadcasting standards when reporting on the conflict.

Responding to concerns from Conservative former minister Theresa Villiers, Commons Leader Ms Mordaunt told MPs: There are two issues here. One is the Ofcom Code and certain broadcasters adherence to it. In the guidance for that code, it says broadcasters should have regard to the list of proscribed terror groups or organisations in the UK, and that is incredibly important.

But I also think it is critical that reporters  sometimes stationed in very stressful environments  need to be reporting facts as facts and those things that are not facts, that have not been verified or are lines to take from terrorist organisations should not be treated as facts. I think thats very important.

I think the BBC does focus on these things to a very large degree but we know that sometimes it doesnt get things right  as we saw recently with their code of conduct surrounding the Gary Lineker situation  so Im sure they would want to kick the tyres and ensure that anyone listening to a BBC outlet is being given the best possible information.

Downing Street did not accommodate UK journalists travelling with the Prime Minister for his visit to Israel in what was an unusual move.

The PA news agency understands it was due to space constraints on the plane Mr Sunak journeyed on, with No 10 in-house communications staff having to make separate arrangements to cover the engagements in the Middle East.

The British media were also shut out of Mr Sunaks talks with his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

Told that US President Joe Biden and Germanys Chancellor Olaf Scholz brought press with them to Israel, the Prime Ministers official spokesman told reporters: Obviously we always seek to facilitate media access.

Highlighting Mr Sunaks comments to the media while in Israel, his spokesman added: Im sure he will do more media engagements as part of this trip.
Classic book Lord Of The Flies will be adapted for television for the first time and the search is under way to find the young boys to star in the drama.

The 1954 novel by author William Golding follows a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves.

Producer Eleven, the company behind Sex Education and Ten Pound Poms, has announced a call out for boys aged between 10-13 to be considered for a role in the four-part BBC drama, which will be written by Jack Thorne.

Thorne is best known for writing the stage play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child and TV series His Dark Materials, National Treasure, Help and The Accident, as well as the Enola Holmes movies.

Casting director Nina Gold, who has worked on Game Of Thrones and The Crown, will lead the casting process and shooting on the series is due to begin in Australia in April 2024.

Casting director Nina Gold (Ian West/PA)

The production is looking for children aged between 10 and 13 to play the leading roles of the main boys, which is expected to be faithful to the book in its portrayal of the characters.

The children do not need to have had previous acting experience.

The book has previously been adapted into two films, one in 1963, directed by Peter Brook, and one in 1990, directed by Harry Hook.

Lord Of The Flies author William Golding (Archive/PA)

It has also been made into a Filipino film and inspired numerous other projects, including the plane crash survivor drama Lost, which ran for six series from 2004, and the critically acclaimed TV series Yellowjackets, about a group of girls stranded in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash, which recently concluded its second series.

Parents and guardians interested in Lord Of The Flies are asked to apply by email to lotf@ninagold.co.uk with a video filmed on a phone in which the boys tell the producers, in no more than 30 seconds, what they would like to have with them if they were stranded on a remote tropical island, and why.

They should also give their name, age, and general whereabouts in the UK.

Parents and Guardians must state their relationship to the applicant and that they have their permission to be considered for a role in this production.
The Metropolitan Police was protecting terrorist sympathisers when officers stopped campaigners displaying images of Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas, a group has claimed.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) accompanied vans with electric screens showing the images in central London on Wednesday.

They came across Palestinian protesters in Parliament Square who threatened and intimidated them, the group claimed.

Ive just had one of the most disturbing experiences in nine years at Campaign Against Antisemitism. Who are the police protecting here? Those standing up to terrorists, or those who sympathise with them? We are considering our legal options and a public protest. pic.twitter.com/2eTwhXZk19  Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) October 19, 2023

Police told the CAA to turn the billboard screens off and leave the area before physically restraining its chief executive Gideon Falter, the campaign group said.

The Met Police said its priority was the safety of everyone involved, while the CAA said it was considering all legal options related to the force.

A video shared on X, formerly Twitter, and recorded by Mr Falter showed the large electronic billboard with a picture of Amelia and Ariel, who it claimed were kidnapped by Hamas.

When challenged by Mr Falter, a female police officer can be heard saying: What we dont want to do is people coming this way and doing any damage to their vans.

Speaking after the incident, Mr Falter said: This was the most disturbing incident that I have experienced in nearly a decade at CAA. Our volunteers were left shaken by the protesters who were harassing and intimidating them, and the police did nothing.

 We absolutely understand why @antisemitism is raising awareness of an abhorrent act of terrorism. Having watched the video, we can understand why the intervention of officers was seen as preventing this. Our statement: https://t.co/CDNjkfboqd.https://t.co/J62fGlB0rw  Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) October 19, 2023

Instead, the officers told our drivers to turn off their billboards and stop showing the faces of children kidnapped by a proscribed terrorist organisation, apparently because their sympathisers on British streets might attack us for showing them.

Then when I attended the scene the police did the same thing, going so far as to restrain me, supposedly for my own safety.



We never imagined that it would be the police who would stop us from showing the faces of children kidnapped by a terrorist group banned by the UK Government.



Who are the police protecting here? Those standing up to terrorists, or those who sympathise with them?

In a response on X, a spokesperson for the Met Police said they understand why the video caused concern.

They said the officers were in the area because of a vigil held by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

The force had reviewed officers body-worn footage to establish the full sequence of events and would get in touch with the CAA to discuss the matter, the spokesperson said.

They said: This exchange happened at the same time as the vigil came to an end and the priority of officers was the safety of everyone involved and those nearby.
London red bus operator Arriva is to be snapped up by US infrastructure investor I Squared.

German owner Deutsche Bahn secured the sale, understood to be worth around 1.6 billion euros (1.4 billion), after lengthy efforts to offload the firm to reduce its debt.

Sunderland-based Arriva is one of the UKs largest train and bus operators, which includes the largest fleet of Londons famous red double-decker buses.

We warmly welcome the news that an agreement between Deutsche Bahn and I Squared Capital has been signed for the sale of the Arriva Group, including our operating businesses across 10 countries. Read more here  https://t.co/ZRoslmKMKt pic.twitter.com/BSMaqxloK4  Arriva Group (@ArrivaGroup) October 19, 2023

The company, which also runs the London Overground rail network and the Chiltern and CrossCountry rail franchises, employs around 34,000 people across 10 European countries.

The takeover deal is expected to complete next year, subject to customary closing conditions and approvals.

I Squared, which last year attempted to buy London-listed rival transport firm FirstGroup, committed to significant investment in Arriva following the deal.

Arriva also runs the Chiltern Railways franchise (Jonathan Brady/PA)

Arriva Group chief executive Mike Cooper said: This is a great opportunity for Arriva and the start of an important new chapter for our business.

I know that the team at I Squared share our belief in providing sustainable transport services that cater for the needs of tomorrow, as well as the pressures of today.

I Squareds investment in our business will help to unlock new opportunities and create value for everyone who is important to Arriva  our people, the planet, and above all the passengers we are privileged to transport every day.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union reacted angrily to the sale to I Squared, which it claims is registered in the Cayman Islands tax haven.

 Arriva sold to Cayman Islands registered company:@RMTunion has reacted angrily to the sale of the Arriva rail company by the German state railway to a firm registered in the Cayman Islands tax haven.https://t.co/VcUidB1SaW  RMT (@RMTunion) October 19, 2023

General secretary Mick Lynch said: This sale of Arriva by German state railway to a tax haven-registered company underscores what a perverse and corrupt system rail privatisation is in this country.

Our members have not had a pay rise in over three years despite huge profits and dividends generated for shareholders.

And now we have the prospect of these ill-gotten gains ending up in a tax haven where there is even less scrutiny and even more wealth to be extracted from our railways.
A mother-of-four who disappeared without a trace more than a decade ago feared her then-boyfriend might try and kill her, a court has heard.

Claire Holland, 32, has not been seen alive since leaving a pub in Bristol in June 2012 and her ex-partner Darren Osment, 41, is now on trial accused of her murder.

Prosecutors allege Osment, a pub chef, killed Ms Holland on the night of June 6 and disposed of her body after blaming her for their child being taken into care in 2010.

Bristol Crown Court heard both were alcoholics and there were allegations of domestic abuse between them during their two-year relationship.

Jurors heard witnesses recall conversations they had with Ms Holland describing the violence she suffered at the hands of Osment, while one said they had warned her not to meet up with him shortly before she disappeared.

Social worker Debbie Whitcliffe described speaking with Ms Holland either shortly before or after she gave birth to the defendants child in 2010.

She told jurors she had gone to the couples home in Bradley Stoke with two police officers and Osment was not present.

Claire Holland has not been seen alive since June 2012 (Avon and Somerset Police/PA)

I remember Claire saying that she and Darren had an argument, and I dont remember exactly what it had been about, she told the court.

She said they had both been drinking and Darren had hit her. In her presentation, she was very shaky and she said she was very scared of him.

In response, my question was, How scared are you? and she said she wouldnt put it past him to try and kill her and she also said on a separate occasion he had tried to strangle her.

The advice that I gave her was that we could find her a place in a womens refuge, that she should take the place in the womens refuge because it is a place of safety.

Claire was very reluctant to go to a refuge and so she opted to go and stay with a friend instead.

The court heard Miss Whitcliffe had told the police of this conversation in a statement in January 2023.

Ray Tully KC, representing Osment, suggested the passage of time may have affected her memory.

The suggestion is that over 10 years after the event, when you were first being spoken to about it, you were able to recall these things without the need to consult any records at all?, he asked.

She replied: That was the recollection of my memory.

Mr Tully asked: You have obviously attended many events in the intervening years and no doubt attended events before then.

Do you think it is possible that you may be miss-remembering some of this?

She replied: I dont know. I cant say if I am miss-remembering it. Thats my recollection as I do recall it.

Darren Osment, 41, denies murdering Claire Holland (Elizabeth Cook/PA)

Miss Whitcliffe agreed with Andrew Langdon KC, prosecuting, there was no doubt in her mind the conversation happened but she was not 100% sure about being told about the allegation of strangulation.

The jury also heard from Kerry Davis, who supervised the contact sessions between Ms Holland and Osment and their child who was in foster care.

Describing their relationship, she said: There were good times and bad times, there was domestic abuse.

Most of the time it was fine. On one particular time in the back of my car, Darren was quietly aggressive towards Claire.

I didnt know them well and Darren was with Claire, and I could see she was uncomfortable. I didnt hear what was being said.

When they were living together, she said that he had grabbed her on separate occasions, he had wet the bed and made her clear it up.

On one occasion he had spat at her.

Shortly before she disappeared, Miss Davis had helped Ms Holland move into a flat in Lawrence Weston and she told her she was planning on meeting Osment.

Miss Davis told jurors: She said she was going to meet Darren to discuss the child. I advised her not to do that and she said they needed to discuss things about the child, so I advised her to meet in a public place.

Asked why she gave that advice, she replied: Because of their history. Their relationship it was very volatile, they both drink.

When I found out she had gone missing I thought, Oh God, she went to meet Darren.

Mr Tully suggested it would be common sense to advise someone to meet in a public place.

In the world in which you work, dealing with people where there has been a breakdown of difficult relationships that would be standard advice, good advice, to anyone?, he suggested.

Yes, she replied.

The defendant, of Chessel Drive, Patchway, South Gloucestershire has pleaded not guilty to murder on a date between June 5 and June 8 2012.

The trial continues.
The post-mortem examination report on French general and statesman Napoleon Bonaparte is set to go on public display for first time later this month.

The document detailing the first emperor of Frances cause of death will go on show as part of a wider exhibition arranged by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) examining changing views of death throughout history.

The exhibition, in Edinburgh, is expected to encourage visitors to consider how an acceptance of death in the past has given way to an unwillingness to accept it in the present and aims to show how unprepared we are now when our time comes.

The death mask of serial killer William Burke, a diary documenting the last days of Edinburgh obstetrician James Young Simpson, and a coffin shaped like a police box are among a host of other unusual items set to go on display at the Physicians Gallery in Queen Street next week.

A vintage aquatint print depicting the death of Napoleon Bonaparte in May 1821 (Alamy/PA)

Other items include the dream diary of a 19th century Edinburgh doctor, Alexander Le Sassier Hamilton, in which he analysed his death dreams to uncover their meanings, a broadsheet proclaiming the execution of William Burke, and a rare 16th century copy of Dantes Divine Comedy.

The exhibition has three main themes: memorialising (exploring rituals of remembering, grief and bereavement); the process of dying (examining palliative care and terminal illness); and what happens to the body after death (including cannibalism, cremation and dissection).

Public interest in Napoleon Bonaparte is high at the moment with film director Ridley Scotts historical drama, starring Joaquin Phoenix, due to be released in cinemas in November.

Napoleon is widely considered to be one of the greatest military generals in history, having conquered much of Europe in the early 19th Century.

He later abdicated the throne twice following military defeats and was exiled to the remote island of St Helena where he died.

He died there in 1821 aged 51, and his post-mortem examination report was signed on the island.

Daisy Cunynghame, curator of the exhibition, said: Death is a universal experience and one we all understand and engage with differently.

Responses to grief vary and After Life explores that nuance. From antiquity to the modern day, death resonates with us.

Death is a challenging subject to discuss. We made sure when developing this exhibition that we didnt just look at this from a medical perspective, but we included personal experiences  both historical and contemporary.

The free exhibition will run from October 27 to July 5 next year.
The Prime Minister has arrived in Israel to express solidarity with the country over Hamass October 7 attack as part of a two-day trip calling for any escalation of violence in the wider region to be avoided.

In a meeting with President Isaac Herzog, Rishi Sunak said the country has not just a right but a duty to restore its security.

After landing at Ben Gurion airport, Mr Sunak told reporters on the ground: Above all, Im here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you.

As part of the two-day trip, he will urge Middle East leaders to avoid further dangerous escalation, saying that too many lives have been lost already in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

The visit comes after the US president flew into Israel on Wednesday in a diplomatic bid to prevent fighting from spiralling into a larger crisis.

I am in Israel, a nation in grief. I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism. Today, and always.  pic.twitter.com/DTcvkkLqdT  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

Joe Biden urged Israel not to be consumed by rage in the wake of Hamass deadly incursion on October 7 and to avoid making the same mistakes that the US did after September 11 2001, following the Islamist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The presidents trip appeared to mark a breakthrough, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office announcing it had approved a request to allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came a day after a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital is understood to have killed hundreds.

In a readout of Mr Sunaks meeting with President Herzog, No 10 said the two leaders had agreed on the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support to ordinary Palestinians in Gaza who are also suffering.

The Prime Minister and President Herzog stressed the imperative need to avoid further escalation of violence in the region. They agreed to continue working together to that end, the statement said.

Mr Sunak told the head of state that Israel has not just a right but a duty to restore security to the country, while the president thanked the PM for your support and your decisions and your leadership.

He will travel to Saudi Arabia following his meeting with Mr Netanyahu, before an expected return to the UK on Friday, Downing Street said.

Hamas has blamed Israel for the hospital strike, while Tel Aviv pointed the finger at a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad has dismissed the claim.

Appearing on Thursdays morning media round, security minister Tom Tugendhat said British intelligence services are still working to establish the facts surrounding the blast.

He accused some of engaging in irresponsible speculation which he said had led to Arab leaders calling off planned talks with the US president.

The reason were going to be so careful about this is that the premature speculation comes at a cost, he told Times Radio.

It now appears that that was at best speculation and at worst propaganda by a terrorist organisation.

Mr Tugendhat said he would not name names over whom in particular he thought was responsible for the speculation but pointed to commentary on social media platforms.

The minister said he would not give a legal opinion on whether cutting off the water supply to Gaza, as Israel had done, was within the rule of law.

But he said Hamas was ultimately to blame for the shortages as it has stolen aid from the Palestinian people and profited from their misery.

The hospital deaths sparked protests across the Middle East, including angry scenes in Jordan and in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, where hundreds of demonstrators clashed with security forces near the US embassy on Wednesday.

The Hezbollah group, a key ally of Hamas, also held a rally in the city.

The Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to leave now while commercial options remain available.

During the Prime Ministers trip to the Middle East, in which he is expected to meet a number of counterparts, No 10 said he plans to press for aid to be allowed into Gaza and for those trapped in the territory to be allowed to leave the 25-mile area.

He will call for the barbaric acts carried out by the Hamas not to become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region.

US President Joe Biden in Israel this week (Miriam Alster/Pool/AP)

The 2,200-mile trip means Mr Sunak will not be in the UK when the results of Thursdays Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-election contests are announced in the early hours of Friday, with the Conservatives battling to hold on to what were once regarded as safe seats.

In parallel with Mr Sunaks travel, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly will visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in the coming days to underline the UKs message.

Since the flare-up of violence in Israel and Gaza, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, and police have recorded a steep rise in antisemitism in the UK.

Robin Simcox, the commissioner for countering extremism, said the increase is a sign that Britain is very sick indeed and should be a wake-up call.

In an article for The Times, he suggested the normalisation of anti-Israel extremism and antisemitism is because of a failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism.

Mr Tugendhat disputed the argument that the UK has become a permissive environment for such sentiments, saying threats to all communities are treated extremely seriously.

He drew a distinction between perfectly legitimate support for Palestine and the promotion of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist group in the UK, which he said should result in arrests.
Voters will head to the polls in two by-election tests for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as his party admitted it faces difficult headwinds.

Labour has also downplayed its chances of winning in the contests in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire, which it described as super safe seats for the Conservatives.

Polls in both constituencies will open at 7am on Thursday, with the results likely to be known in the early hours of Friday.

Mr Sunaks press secretary said the by-elections had come about after difficult local circumstances.

Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries quit her Mid Bedfordshire seat following a row after she was not given a peerage in former prime minister Boris Johnsons resignation honours list, accusing Mr Sunak of abandoning the fundamental principles of conservatism.

The cause of the Tamworth poll is linked to one of the pivotal moments of Mr Johnsons downfall.

Chris Pincher, who had represented the Staffordshire seat since 2010, stood down after being found to have drunkenly groped two men in an egregious case of sexual misconduct at Londons exclusive Carlton Club last year.

Mr Johnsons handling of the case last year led to an onslaught of ministerial resignations that forced him out of Downing Street.

Thursdays electoral battles will be a key test for Mr Sunaks pitch that the Conservatives represent a vote for change, which he set out at the Tory Party conference after making a number of policy shifts.

Those have included axing the northern route of the HS2 rail project and delaying steps designed to help the UK achieve a net zero carbon economy by 2050.

Boris Johnsons handling of the complaints against Chris Pincher led to the end of his premiership (Andrew Boyers/PA)

On Wednesday, the Tory leader declined to condemn an apparent suggestion by the partys Tamworth candidate that out-of-work parents who cannot afford to feed their children should f*** off.

Mr Sunak was asked during Prime Ministers Questions about a photo of a flowchart shared by Andrew Cooper on Facebook.

The diagram suggested that those who are out of work, pay for TV Sky/BT/etc, or have a phone contract + 30 should f*** off rather than seek help.

In reply to the question, the Prime Minister said only that he was proud of our record supporting people with the cost of living, before outlining Government policies aimed at supporting people through the crisis.

Mr Cooper told Channel 5 News he was sorry if Ive offended somebody after the post was publicised.

Asked if regretted sharing the image, he said: Obviously it is not something I would share now in todays world.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing a stern electoral test during Thursdays by-elections (Frank Augstein/PA)

We obviously mature and have different opinions than we do three years ago.

He added: Of course Im sorry if Ive offended somebody. But it is very hard in todays world to have an opinion and not to offend somebody.

Mr Sunak will not be in the UK when the results come in, having journeyed to Israel following a flare-up of violence in the region after Hamass bloody attack on October 7.

The Prime Ministers press secretary told reporters that mid-term by-elections are extremely tough for incumbent governments but said the Tories were fighting for every vote.

Sir Keir Starmers Labour Party has held at least a double-digit lead over the Tories in opinion polls for some time.

That gap was borne out in a huge by-election win in Selby and Ainsty, North Yorkshire, in July when Labour overturned a blue 20,000 majority on a 21% swing.

Labour is hoping to repeat the feat on Thursday in Mr Pincher and Ms Dorries former seats but has been cautious not to appear complacent, with a spokesman saying it is a moonshot to win either or both seats.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been canvassing in Mid Bedfordshire ahead of the by-election (Jacob King/PA)

He said that neither of the seats feature on our target list for the general election.

The spokesman said: These are in super safe Tory seats that would require for us to overturn results larger than those which we overturned in Selby.

If we were to win Tamworth and had that swing at a general election, it would mean that the Tories will be down to fewer than 60 seats at the next general election.

So a little bit of perspective is required here. Tamworth is a seat where the Tories got 66% of the vote at the last election. Mid Bedfordshire is a similarly safe Tory constituency.

The Tories have held Mid Bedfordshire since 1931 and Ms Dorries held on to it in 2019 by 24,664 votes over second-placed Labour.

The governing party is defending a 19,600 majority in Tamworth.

Ahead of Thursdays poll opening in Mid Bedfordshire, there has been sustained campaigning by both Labour and the Liberal Democrats  which has pulled off a number of by-election shocks in recent years  in a bid to take it off the Tories.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urged Saudi Arabia to support stability in the Middle East as Israel geared up for a long war with Hamas.

Mr Sunak visited Tel Aviv on Thursday  where he said he wanted Israel to win the war  before heading to Saudi Arabia for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of an effort to prevent the Israel-Hamas confrontation spiraling into a wider conflict.

The Prime Minister said: As an international community, we must not let Hamass terror attack become a catalyst for a terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We will work together to ensure regional stability and prevent a dangerous escalation.

I've landed in Saudi Arabia. As an international community, we must not let Hamas' terror attack become a catalyst for a terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We will work together to ensure regional stability and prevent a dangerous escalation. pic.twitter.com/mwUXn0luSS  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

In a statement following the meeting with the crown prince, No 10 said the pair agreed that the loss of innocent lives in Israel and Gaza over the last two weeks has been horrific and underscored the need to avoid any further escalation in the region.

Mr Sunak encouraged the crown prince to use Saudis leadership in the region to support stability, both now and in the long-term, No 10 said.

The Prime Minister earlier had meetings with Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog.

Mr Netanyahu told Mr Sunak that he hoped for the UKs continuous support in his countrys long war as it fought back against Hamas following the Palestinian militant groups deadly and unprecedented assault on Israel on October 7.

The Israeli premier said his forces were fighting against the worst monsters on the planet during the worlds darkest hour as he warned there would be ups and downs during the war.

Mr Sunak, speaking at a joint press conference after discussions with his counterpart lasting about two hours, said he was proud to stand with Israel and that the UK Government wants you to win.

Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant has told ground troops on the Gaza border to be ready to enter the Occupied Palestinian Territory, but he did not say when the invasion would start.

Asked what Mr Sunak made of Mr Netanyahus assessment that Israel was facing a long war, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said: It is not for us to comment on the detail of the Israeli approach.

The latest figures from No 10 confirmed that at least nine British nationals were killed in the Hamas raids on Israel.

A further seven British nationals are missing some of whom are feared to be among the dead or kidnapped, Downing Street said.

The PA news agency understands that one of the Britons was Yonatan Rapoport, who was killed when Hamas gunmen rampaged through a kibbutz.

Mr Rapoport, known as Yoni, was reportedly one of those murdered in the attack on Kibbutz Beeri.

Prime Minister @netanyahu, I stand with you in Israels darkest hour. I welcome your commitment to ensure routes into Gaza are opened for humanitarian aid. I support your work to secure the release of hostages, to strengthen your security and to end the threat from Hamas. pic.twitter.com/ZrLJALTzBN  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

He had two children, Yosefi and Aluma, and, as a Manchester United fan, had planned to take his son to Old Trafford next month for his first game, the BBC reported.

The UK Government has not confirmed how many Britons are among the hostages held by Hamas, although at least two are known to be being kept captive, with Mr Sunak meeting with their families while in Tel Aviv.

The British leader thanked the Israeli government for its efforts in helping to secure the release of UK citizens being held hostage. About 200 people in total are said to have been snatched in the Hamas raids.

Mr Sunak welcomed Mr Netanyahus decision, after lobbying by US president Joe Biden, for Israel to start letting aid into the Gaza Strip.

It marks a potential break in a punishing and highly controversial siege on the territory after Israels retaliation on Hamas saw it block access for water, food, electricity and other essential supplies to the 25-mile strip, while also carrying out strikes.

The Prime Minister said the UK would seek to get more support to people as quickly as we can as he reiterated that Palestinians living under Hamas rule in Gaza were also victims.

The UK Government is being urged to lobby for a ceasefire by both British political leaders and charities working in the region (Abed Khaled/AP)

Israel continued to pound locations across Gaza on the day of Mr Sunaks visit to Tel Aviv, including firing on parts of the southern strip that had been declared safe zones.

Many among Gazas 2.3 million residents have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water amid dwindling supplies.

Scotlands First Minister, Humza Yousaf has called on Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who is on his own diplomatic blitz across Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, to press for a resolution that could help those UK citizens trapped in Gaza.

Shameful that UK citizens trapped in Gaza dont even get a mention. Might be helpful if you give them at least a passing mention in your discussions. They're trapped in a warzone & need you, Foreign Secretary, to demand a ceasefire, and the Rafah crossing opened to let them out. https://t.co/o0XbTnPRA2  Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) October 19, 2023

Mr Yousaf, whose mother and father-in-law are stuck in the territory, said the lack of focus on those unable to escape the bombardment in the 25-mile strip was shameful.

Katy Chakrabortty, Oxfams head of advocacy, said Mr Sunak should be pushing for a ceasefire: Wanting Israel to win is not a helpful statement. Nobody wins when the scale of human suffering, devastation and pain is so vast and relentless.

We need all parties to commit to a ceasefire and for full, unfettered humanitarian access to Gaza now.

Mr Sunak is expected to stay overnight in Saudi Arabi following talks with the Crown Prince. No 10 is yet to confirm whether he will visit another Middle East capital before wrapping up his two-day trip on Friday.
Rishi Sunak has thanked Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu for Tel Avivs support in attempting to free British nationals who are being held hostage by Hamas.

The Prime Minister, who No 10 confirmed will travel to Saudi Arabia later on Thursday, said the UK wants Israel to win its battle against the Palestinian militant group as Mr Netanyahu warned of a long war.

Mr Sunak has followed US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholzs lead in travelling to Israel to personally offer condolences for Hamass attack on October 7 which left hundreds of Israelis dead and saw almost 200 people taken hostage.

Ahead of meetings with Mr Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Mr Sunak met the families of British hostages.

In a press conference following his meeting with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Sunak said: I want to thank you for the support that your government has given to the families of British nationals caught up in this horror, including your efforts to release the hostages, to secure their release.

And I know that we will continue to co-operate, particularly with regard to British nationals that are involved.

To have a child taken from you is a parents worst nightmare. This morning I heard from families going through this unbearable agony. Working with our partners, were determined to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists. pic.twitter.com/F7AV021o9x  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

He also welcomed Mr Netanyahus decision, after lobbying by Mr Biden, to allow Israel to start letting aid into Gaza.

It marks a potential break in a punishing siege on the territory after Israels retaliation on Hamas saw it block access for water, food, electricity and other essential supplies to the 25-mile strip, while also carrying out strikes.

The Prime Minister said the UK will seek to get more support to people as quickly as we can as he reiterated that Palestinians living under Hamas rule in Gaza are also victims.

In his own address, Mr Netanyahu recalled Britains part in the Second World War as he urged continuous UK support during a war that he said is likely to have ups and downs.

The Israeli leader said his forces are fighting against the worst monsters on the planet.

He told Mr Sunak during their joint press conference: Eighty years ago, Prime Minister, the civilised world stood with you in your darkest hour.

This is our darkest hour. It is the worlds darkest hour. We need to stand together and we will win.

And this is why I support I value your support and the fact that youre here  we must win together.

Mr Sunak said he was proud to stand here with you in Israels darkest hour as your friend.

He added: We will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people. And we also want you to win.

No 10 confirmed that Mr Sunak will next travel to Saudi Arabia, an influential player in the Middle East, to hold talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The British leaders two-day trip is expected to allow Mr Sunak to make his plea for Hamass incursion, and Israels subsequent reply, not to spark a wider conflict in the volatile region.

Live now: Statement with Prime Minister @netanyahu following our meeting today https://t.co/5WFoRVNR0n  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

It comes as the UK continues to go through the evidence before coming to a conclusion over who was responsible for the bombing of al Ahli hospital in Gaza City, a blast that left hundreds dead.

With both sides blaming each other  and the US backing Israels protestations  Downing Street said Britains intelligence services are still reviewing the facts available.

Speaking to broadcasters after his conversation with the Israeli premier  which UK media was shut out of  Mr Sunak said Hamas represent pure evil following its chilling assault, as he defended Israels right to self-defence.

But he stressed that no-one wants to see the barbaric act of terrorism lead to further violence.

It is important that the conflict doesnt escalate regionally. That is why Im talking to as many people as I can across the region, he said.

Ive already done that and Ill be able to see more people in person on this trip.

Rishi Sunak is set to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia on Thursday during his Middle East tour (Leon Neal/PA)

No-one wants to see this conflict escalate. And indeed the UK has sent various military assets into the Mediterranean to prevent regional escalation.

Some of our surveillance aircraft, for example, are ensuring that arms shipments dont find their way to people like Hezbollah.

The Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, home to Hamas ally Hezbollah and a country that shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to leave now while commercial options remain available.

Rami Mortada, Lebanons ambassador to the UK, said the Israeli-Hamas conflict is out of everybodys hands and has the potential to spill into a regional conflict.

He told Times Radio: If the situation in Gaza worsens, it would be very difficult to contain the conflict in its original theatre of operation.
South Korea has proposed holding top-level diplomatic talks with Japan and China late next month, which Tokyo is positively considering, a Japanese media report said Thursday, in what could open the way for the first trilateral summit among their leaders in four years.



"South Korea, as the rotating chair of the trilateral framework, has sounded them out about the three-way talks on around Nov. 26 in Busan, and Japan is positive about the plan," Japan's Kyodo News said in its English-language report, citing diplomatic sources.



The envisioned talks in the southeastern port city of Busan would likely bring together South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, along with his Japanese and Chinese counterparts, Yoko Kamikawa and Wang Yi, respectively.



The top diplomats may also hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of their gathering, Kyodo said, adding that final arrangements will be made for the talks "taking into consideration Beijing's responses and the latest international situations."



The Japanese report anticipated the possible ministerial talks could pave the way for a trilateral summit, which last took place in the southeastern Chinese city of Chengdu in December 2019.



An official in Seoul's foreign ministry said the three countries have concurred on holding the diplomatic talks in Busan and are at the stage of scheduling a suitable date.



Three-way talks among Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo typically start with working level discussions and progress into ministerial talks, and a summit, raising the prospect of a long-stalled summit this year.



In a high-level meeting of foreign officials last month, South Korea, China and Japan agreed to resume their trilateral summit at the "earliest convenient time" and swiftly convene a ministerial meeting for preparations. (Yonhap)
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Nick LaLota voted against Jim Jordan for speaker on Wednesday.

Both said they received death threats soon after.

On Tuesday, Rep. Don Bacon similarly said he and his wife were receiving anonymous threats.

Two Republican representatives said they've received death threats since they voted against fellow GOP Rep. Jim Jordan for speaker of the House.

On Wednesday, after Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks cast her first vote against Jordan's candidacy after supporting him just a day before, she announced in a press release that her office received a "barrage of threatening calls" and that she "received credible death threats."

Additionally, freshman GOP Rep. Nick LaLota, who voted for former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin in both speaker votes, also shared a threat to X that he and his office received on Wednesday.

"My vote card belongs to me and the people of NY's First Congressional District," LaLota wrote. "I will not succumb to threats. Rather, I'll support a Speaker candidate who will fund the WTC Health Fund, Nat'l Flood Insurance and SALT, while keeping the gov't open + secure border & cut spending."

The threats against Miller-Meeks and LaLota arose a day after Politico reported that Republican Rep. Don Bacon and his wife, Angie, had received anonymous texts and emails urging the congressman to vote for Jordan or else get voted out.

In response to the series of threats and vitriol spewed at Miller-Meeks, LaLota, and Bacon in recent days, Jordan wrote online that he condemns "all threats against our colleagues."

"Stop," he wrote. "It's abhorrent."

Bacon acknowledged Jordan's comments on X after seeing them in an article from the Washington Post, simply noting "They are your supporters."

As it stands, the House is set to meet again on Thursday at noon, where a third round of voting for a House speaker is expected to occur. Due to the GOP's slim majority in the House, Jordan can't win if more than four Republicans don't vote for him.

That first occurred on Tuesday, when 18 Republicans voted for candidates other than Jordan and sunk his first speaker bid. One day later, that number rose to 20. As it doesn't appear that the number of Jordan detractors has vanished overnight, the likelihood of a Jordan speakership in the near future is quickly fading.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Courtesy of Uniworld Boutique River Cruises

Venice. Budapest. Nairobi.

The names set a hook: circles inked on a map, fingers tapped on a drawing room globe, stickers layered on a valise. We set off from here. We head thereto a great city, up a grand river, into the African wild. We plan and thrill at whats to come. A journey that echoes of historic provenance and links us with travelers of the past but that seizes us by the collar amid the high-velocity hurly-burly of 21st-century life and says: Slow down. Regard. Savor.

These are grand journeysthese are the Great Journeys. But can something distinctly old resonate as powerfully today? Can we find the slow gear and inhabit the deeper beauty of such travel? With the murmurs of diarists and explorers in my ear, I set out on three Great Journeys to test the theory: Paris-bound aboard the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (VSOE); cruising the snow-flecked Danube to Christmas markets in Hungary and Austria, Germany and Slovakia; and flying into the Kenyan bush for a week on safari. What did I discover? Where do I begin?

Courtesy of Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, A Belmond Train

"How do you find your cabin?

My steward, Melissa, flicks her glance warmly at me while never losing track of the Veuve Clicquot shes pouring. Im dumbstruckby her crisp posture amid the gentle shudder of our train car as it lumbers across the watery landscape outside Venice but also by the wild under-statement of the question



Simply put: My cabin is gorgeous. All I can manage is to blurt in clumsy French that I want to live here foreverbut we both know that in less than 24 hours Im going to step onto the platform of the Gare de lEst and my life on the Orient Express will be over.



But what a cabin to inhabit until then. A jewelry box to human scale, this triumph of restoration and imagination is one of eight Suites installed in a pair of circa 1920s and 1930s cars that joined the VSOE this summer. The Suites are a new category between the trains Historic Cabins and their haute-opulent cousins, six Grand Suites with full or twin beds, sofas, dining tables, and full baths.

Courtesy of Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, A Belmond Train

The new Suites lie literally between the categories. Each has a commodious banquette and tablea setup that converts to a double bed (or two twins) with crisp white sheetsand an en suite bath. Rachel Johnson of Londons Wimberly Interiorsconjured the four distinct designs, each inspired by the trains Art Deco heritage and the landscape we traverse (mine is La Foret, the forest) and rich in French marquetry, ArtNouveaustyle textiles, hand-blown and-etched glass fixtures, brass hardware, and a marble bath that would charm an aristocrat.

Its enough to pass an entire day in this intimate Arcadia, but three dining cars beckon with their ebullient patterns and palettes, ample velvet and tassels. Its said one can never overdress for dinner on the Orient Express, and jolly travelers oblige, with some in fully formal attire, others in thoughtful semiformal dress. The service brandishes lots of Champagne, while the rhythm of cocktail shakers and standards at the grand piano in the famed Bar Car 3674 sing a post-prandial siren song.

Courtesy of Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, A Belmond Train

And thisbrilliantlyis the sum of life aboard the Orient Express. Its a journey of jostled, colorful mini journeys from my cabin down hallways so narrow they require side-ways slides, smiles, and nods; luxuriating at meals; chatting and laughing in the bar; and repeating with the cadence of lunch, dinner, nightcap, midnight brunch, and breakfast in my cabin as Paris looms to the west.

My only duty, really, is to discover I can roll down my window to let the cool Alpine air refresh my cabin, then lean my head out and spy my trains gorgeous curves as it rounds bends north through Italy and Austria, then turns west across Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

To count cows and chalets, to wonder at the world sliding past. To look down at a book, to feel the soothing conversation of old wheels with stalwart rails. And to pause at border stops to step down to the platform, examine the navy shine of our cars with the gold letters telling the world who we are, and catch the curiosity of passersby. We lucky overnighters.

Courtesy of Uniworld Boutique River Cruises

Here's to you, Maria Theresa, I think, lifting my steaming mug of gluhwein in tribute.

Its the perfect place to toast the 18th-century empress: I stomp my boots against the frost-glazed forecourt facing Schonbrunn, Viennas Baroque masterpiece that was her favorite palace, and take in the glimmering goodwill of the market stalls that surround me.

With mulled wine in hand, Ive spent an hour in besotted stroll among vendors offering the bounty we imagine the idealized European Christmas market would contain: gifts and decorations made from blown glass, carved wood, pottery, needlework, even dried fruitwhere plastic or paper cups seem never to have existed (all gluhwein comes in decorative ceramic mugs, to keep as souvenirs or return for a small refund).

Despite the December chill the market is rich with aromaroasted nuts, waffles, and crepes, with top notes of cloves, cinnamon, and citrus. Crimson-cheeked schoolchildren roam in excited packs, queuing up for chocolates. Crystal lights wink overhead, and I swear I hear classical music. Perhaps from the palace, perhaps in my head. It doesnt matter, because this journeyup Europes Danube Riveroccupies that gently liminal geography between history and dream.



pressdigital - Getty Images

The empress is with me for the entire weeknot just this Viennese afternoon. My journey is aboard the SS Maria Theresa, a cruise ship designed to honor her historic empire along the river. (And reign she does, overlooking the lobbys marble double staircase from a massive 18th-century portrait.)

Fittingly Uniworlds interior designer Toni Tollman has created the closest thing to a Habsburg palace on the water: My staterooms walls are covered in fabric; my bed canopied; my bathroom lined in marble. Antiques and artwork from the period keep company with gilded reproductions; in the resplendent lounge and bar, five murals by decorative artists at Londons Croxford and Saunders wrap the scene in Austrian rurals.

It would already be a Great Journey to ply this historic artery through Europe as we do, linking centers of art, politics, and culture. From Budapest we sail overnight into Slovakia and Bratislava, which, although rich with Gothic, Baroque, and Art Deco architecture, feels like a new European discovery after its years hidden away under Soviet rule.

Gliding through Austria we tour the museums and walk the grand boulevards of Vienna, meander and marvel at the sky blue Baroque tower in the riverfront village of Durnstein, and leave our ship for the day to drive up to cinematic Salzburg. Finally, we cross the German border and to Passau, another startling discovery of Baroque and Rococo architecture both church-like and civil. Each day we tread nimbly down our gang-plank into each world to feel the overlapping sunbeamsand shadowsof empire.

Courtesy of Uniworld Boutique River Cruises

And of course, at this time of year, the journey takes on the additional patina of the Christmas markets, each speaking its own dialect of history, food, and crafts. From honey wine in Bratislava to spun sugar in Passau, I taste (and try to pronounce) something new every day. I collect a few gluhwein mugs. And I thank, again, Maria Theresa for her imperial inspiration and for the water that ties this world together.

Jonathan Cosh of Visual Eye

Today is a day for elephants.

We can feel them out there, roaming the Kenyan grasslands; its just a question of finding them. We joke that the only elephant weve seen so far has been on our bottle of Amarula, the creamy African liqueur that plays a sweet role in our sundown ritual. But today, my safari-mates and I assure one another, climbing into our Land Cruiser, is a day for elephants.



This is the optimism of the adventurer, and a safari of any length, anywhere, hands you the chance to occupy that exotic position. But its a double down to anchor that safari at Mahali Mzuri, the luxury tented camp created by Sir Richard BransonsVirgin Limited Edition. For one, the camp leaps forward in design, leaving the traditional silhouettes (and colonial aftertaste) of pale canvas tents behind for swooping shelters inspired by the bows carried by Maasai hunters. Secondly, Branson chose land adjacent to Kenyas famed Maasai Mara reserve (where so many safari operators go) and helped steer it, with other partners and Maasai people, into conservancy.

Courtesy of Mahali Mzuri

So we spend a week here in the Olare Motorogi Conservancy, sometimes in pursuit of spotting the fauna famed for this part of East Africalions, cheetahs, leopards, Cape buffalo, antelope, giraffes, warthogs, hyenas, jackals, and yes, elephantsbut other times in conversations with Mahali Mzuris partners at a nearby school, with elders who work to manage cattle movement to ease the burden on the habitat, and with leaders of a handicraft collaborative offering financial independence to local women. After so many years of tourism taking from Kenyas ecosystem and cultural currency, this approach to parity and partnership with people and animals and habitat feels like a new form of an adventurers optimism.

In other words, it might be enough to bounce merrily along river valleys and across ancient volcanic plains, seeking encounters with these astonishing members of the animal kingdom, pausing for bush picnics, and gathering after dark below the spread of a baobab for a campfire, songs, and dancing. But its far more to know that my Great Journey into the African bush treads lighter and joins a forward-looking relationship with this fragile global treasure.

Tracey Minkin

And then, one brilliant late morning under the Kenyan sun, we find our elephants. Its a threesome: a newly born calf, trotting gamely to keep up with its older sibling, then nuzzling the rear leg of its mother, who gracefully allows her baby back into the familys rhythm.

I watch from the quiet of our SUV, as I had watched from my ship pulling into a historic port, as Id watched from the cabin of my train, and think yet again: This is the gift of the Great Journey. An opportunity to be small, to observe, to be led. To be slow. To be taught. To draw memories close to the chest, and to dream of the next great chance. To spin the globe and let the globe spin us.

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The first time Carl Kruse asked his partner Doris Kriks-Kruse to marry him, she said no.

I told him I was too independent, the 96-year-old Kriks-Kruse told USA TODAY Wednesday afternoon. I had been a widow for 5, 6, 7 or 8 years.

Doris was married twice before meeting Carl and he was married once. He unsuccessfully tried to convince her that getting married to each other had more benefits than she could imagine.

Carl, who is also 96 years old, was persistent and asked again last month for her hand in marriage. Last Sunday, the pair tied the knot at the very same senior living community that brought them together.

The pair live at Cedar Lake Village in Olathe, Kansas, about 30 miles southwest of Kansas City.

They met at the senior living community when Doris moved in about 2 years ago. Carl had been there for about 10 years already, he said.

The community has lots of on-campus events and groups for residents to take part in, including a group that enjoys playing pool.

We play every morning except Sunday and I've been playing for over 80 years. I enjoy the game and Carl does too, Doris said, adding that she just walked in and started playing and getting acquainted with everyone.

As the pair got to know each other, their connection grew and Carl decided to pop the question.

She didn't say Yes right away but I'd been a widower for 10 years and I just felt that Id ask her again, he said. She said Yes the second time.

Newlyweds Carl Kruse and Doris Kriks-Kruse. They met at senior living community Cedar Lake Village in Olathe, Kansas in 2021. They married on the property on Oct. 15, 2023.

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96-year-old newlyweds share an affinity for pool, religion

As Carl and Doris got to know each other, they found that they had some really important things in common, including their religion.

She was a pastor's wife, so she knew the parsonage and my father was a minister, so I grew up in a parsonage, Carl said.

It took some convincing for Doris to accept Carls proposal, the pair said. They also laughed reminiscing on his proposal, calling it more of a discussion.

I finally said Are you proposing marriage to me? Doris laughed during an interview with USA TODAY.

And while Doris didnt initially accept Carls marriage proposal, the new apartment theyd get to move into wasnt a bad deal, she said.

Doris Kriks-Kruse and Carl Kruse on their wedding day, Oct. 15, 2023.

Carl also mentioned the pension shed get if they stayed married for one year.

But those are just perks. The couple gets along well, they love worshiping together and they are also both into music. Doris plays the piano and Carl plays the violin.

Carl loves that Doris is a quick decision-maker and doesnt sweat the small stuff.

She has a good attitude toward life and doesn't seem to be upset by the little things, he said. She just rolls over and keeps going.

Doris said Carl is a very good worship leader and the community has a service each week in the Cedar Lake Village Worship and Life Center, where they got married Sunday.

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Bride felt like crying on her wedding day

No regularly scheduled worship services were disrupted by the wedding Sunday at the Cedar Lake Village Worship and Life Center: The couple had their regular church service and then went upstairs to get ready for their big day.

A total of 39 friends and family members looked on as they devoted themselves to one another.

When I first came into the church, I felt like crying, Doris said. It was so wonderful to see all of those family members together and getting acquainted with each other. They all stood up and then after the vows were taken, we sang a hymn, Blest Be the Tie That Binds our hearts in Christian love.

Newlyweds Doris Kriks-Kruse and Carl Kruse at their wedding on Oct. 15, 2023.

They celebrated afterwards with lunch in the community's dining room. There, family and friends were able to ask the couple questions and get to know them better.

They asked if Carl had served in the Army, and where we are going on our honeymoon, Doris recalled. I said Our new apartment.

Aimee Middleton is the vice president of operations at Good Samaritan Society, which owns Cedar Lake Village. She said Good Samaritan Society loves to lift up awesome stories of love so they were thrilled to find out about Carl and Doris love story.

People come to senior living communities like this one for various reasons, Middleton said. Some people arrive already married and others are single and just looking for a nice, easy place to live.

Maybe they've lost their ability to drive and so they want to have all that convenience in life all in one spot, she said.

She loves that Doris and Carl invited community and team members to celebrate with them.

They already have a huge family already so for them to include all that and to recognize that they're a part of their family, its just a really awesome love story, she said.

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Newlyweds Doris Kriks-Kruse and Carl Kruse at their wedding on Oct. 15, 2023.

Newlyweds offer advice to couples thinking about marriage

Both Carl and Doris have been married before and said its important to be patient and unselfish in marriage.

Carl stressed that he doesnt try to change Doris and she doesnt expect him to change either.

We all have our habits, he said. We have our ways and we need to respect each other's backgrounds  But I think the thing that draws people together is when they see something that needs to be changed and they're willing to do it on their own. We don't change each other.

He also shared a word of advice he got when he was just 13 years old. A minister told him to live each day with a willingness to follow whatever God leads and you will be okay.

We weren't trying to set any records this way but it seems that not a lot of people do get married this late in life, he said. Marriage is a sacred obligation to each other. That's the way I take it and I plan to live the rest of my life following what I said I would do.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Couple, 96, marry after meeting at Kansas senior living facility
The Arizona Democratic Party sent $10,000 to Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego for his Senate campaign last quarter as he stockpiles cash to seek the seat held by independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema  a former Democrat who left the party late last year and hasnt said whether shes running for re-election.

The contribution, detailed in a recent filing with the Federal Election Commission by Gallegos campaign, shows the party sent him $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general election on Sept. 30. It is the most aggressive move the state party has made yet to boost Gallego, solidifying his standing as the favorite for the Democratic nomination.

The national party, however, has steered clear of the race so far, as Sinema remains an incumbent who gets her committee assignments from the Democratic Party and contributes to its 51-seat Senate majority.

An independent bid by Sinema, who has cut ties with the state Democratic Party and has warm relationships with many Republicans, could make the Arizona race unpredictable in 2024.

Shes pitching donors on a strategy that involves winning a larger share of Arizona Republicans than Democrats. Before Sinema left her old party, state Democrats censured her last year for voting to retain the Senate filibuster.

Asked about the contribution, Gallego said: Im immensely proud of the grassroots coalition were building. Arizonans know they deserve a senator who will actually fight for them  and thats exactly what I plan to do.

On the Republican side, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb and Donald Trump-endorsed Kari Lake, the GOP's losing nominee for governor last year, are vying for the seat in the highly competitive state.

Republicans need to flip two Senate seats next year to guarantee control of the chamber, though they could also capture the majority with one net gain and the presidency, because the vice president can break 50-50 ties in the Senate.

Overall, Gallego raised nearly $3.1 million in the third quarter, about half of which came from small donors, and spent nearly $1.9 million, leaving just over $5 million in the bank.

Sinema, who is more reliant on big-dollar contributors, raised only $826,000 by comparison and spent most of it: $784,000. But she has built up money in her campaign account longer, ending the third quarter with $10.8 million on hand.

Lamb raised $475,000 and burned slightly more money than he brought in. He finished the quarter with $307,000 in the bank, while Lake wont file her first campaign finance report until January after having jumped into the race this month.
Its hard to believe that what we now call the Dude Fire burn scar once was a ponderosa pine forest.

Thousands of acres at the edge of the Mogollon Rim northeast of Payson were decimated in the deadly 1990 fire.

What grew back in the three decades since is tangle of scrub brush so thick that even wildlife has trouble traversing it.

Even worse, the manzanita and juniper that now dominate its vistas are not adapted for periodic, lower-intensity fire  the kind that once helped prune the ponderosas and clear the way for beneficial ferns and grasses to grow underneath.

This new landscape burns hot and quick, making the area even more dangerous for people and infrastructure should it ever burn again.

It is Arizonas cautionary tale.

Why Arizona can't just let forests burn

A dead ponderosa pine tree towers above the unthinned scrub brush that now dominates the landscape on Sept. 29, 2023, in the Dude Fire burn scar northeast of Payson.

We suppressed low-intensity forest fires for decades and killed off a functional logging industry, creating a ponderosa pine forest so full of fuel that any spark can quickly kill everything in its path, burning so hot that even the soil turns to glass.

Arizona has been working for years to rectify this problem, though efforts to thin millions of acres of overgrown forests remain woefully small-scale and behind schedule.

The logging industry we need to help return the forests to their previous health is barely hanging on, even with unprecedented federal funding now in the pipeline.

There simply arent enough bodies to do the work, both within the industry and in the overwhelmed U.S. Forest Service that must offer up acreage each year for cutting.

Some folks argue that we should just let it burn. A giant fire would at least clear out the overgrown parts and give us a clean slate to start again.

But thats not what were seeing in places like Dude.

Ponderosa pines don't always come back

Elvy Barton, who oversees forest thinning efforts for Salt River Project, digs her foot through a layer of mulched juniper and manzanita in an area that had been recently thinned on Sept. 29, 2023, northeast of Payson.

The cautionary tale from this area is that when ponderosa pines burn, they dont always come back.

Its hotter and drier now, and that makes it tough for pines to dominate the landscape like they once did.

Quicker-growing brush that flourishes in these conditions  but that also is not as well-adapted to fire  is crowding out the few slower-growing trees that remain.

On southern facing slopes, the change is permanent: Precipitation doesnt stick around long enough to nourish new pines. Even if we were to plant trees in these places, theyd be unlikely to survive.

Thankfully, workers have begun to clear the overgrown brush that grew back after the Dude Fire.

Giant machines pulverize most of the scrub into mulch that will dry for a few years until it can be cleared with a controlled burn. They leave any spindly ponderosa they can find, as well as a variety of oak tree with acorns that are special to local tribes.

The hope is that will buy time for the ponderosa to grow before the scrub moves back in.

But even still, the landscape will never return to how it was before that fateful day in 1990 when a lightning bolt changed everything.

Problems after a fire can last for years

There are a lot more reasons to thin the forest before it burns in a cataclysmic blaze.

Ponderosa pine are a keystone species, for example, one on which the entire ecosystem relies. Lose too many and one day it will reach a tipping point.

We also know that massive fires send ash and debris careening downhill with the melting snowpack that becomes our drinking water, causing dangerous flooding, cutting short the life of our reservoirs and degrading water quality so much that treatment plants cant accept it, because the crud in the water will tear up their pumps.

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This cycle can continue for years in areas that have been severely burned.

Salt River Project deserves major props for its efforts to thin thousands of acres across the Mogollon Rim, including the Dude Fire area.

Because juniper and manzanita have no logging value, these acres probably would have never been thinned without the utility and its partners  including corporate sponsors  underwriting the effort.

We'll still have losses, but let's limit them

SRP also is doing a ton of science in the burn scar, not only to model how much additional water can be produced in healthier, thinned areas, but to determine how far it flows.

Thats critical, because the more we can quantify the benefits of forest thinning  beyond saving the landscape for future generations  the better chance we have of gaining more partners to accelerate the work.

As it is, SRP is being strategic on where it thins, using prevailing winds to choose areas that have the best chance of de-escalating a fire when it starts.

This is both necessary and realistic. Even if we can find more bodies to do the work, were never going to thin every inch of overgrown forest.

There will probably be swaths of ponderosa that we lose forever, replaced by areas of juniper and manzanita that act like tinder boxes.

But the more we can limit these losses, the better off all of Arizona will be.

Reach Allhands at joanna.allhands@arizonarepublic.com. On X, formerly Twitter: @joannaallhands.

If you love this content (or love to hate it  hey, I won't judge), why not subscribe to get more?

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Fire is wiping out Arizona forests. Some are now lost forever
Arnold Schwarzenegger once had an unfortunate run-in  quite literally  with first lady Barbara Bush.

While appearing on the Oct. 18 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, the actor said he was inadvertently responsible for injuring the first lady's leg in 1991.

Clarkson began by asking Schwarzenegger how the incident came to be. The 76-year-old explained that he would regularly visit President George H.W. Bush at Camp David when he served as chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

"He would invite me up there literally like every month. He loved hanging out with me and working out with me," he said.

One winter, Schwarzenegger was visiting when the president suggested that they head outdoors for a little adventure.

"He says, I have this great sled, which wasn't really a sled. It was a toboggan," he said. "And so with sleds, you can steer the sled with your feet, but that one I couldn't really steer."

Schwarzenegger further set the scene as Clarkson listened intently.

"So we go down the hill in the snow. He's sitting behind me and he says, You steer. And I did not know how to steer," he recalled. "So I mean, it's just going faster and faster, and all of a sudden we're approaching this tree. And all of a sudden Barbara comes up behind the tree, and then we just ran into her leg."

Clarkson's mouth then opened up wide in amazement.

"So poor Barbara Bush, she had to go to the hospital afterwards. She had a sprained leg and she got a cast on it and the whole thing," he said.

Luckily, Schwarzenegger said, the Bush family wasn't upset about the accident.

"I have to say that they were very gracious about it and the way they took it. And, you know, I apologized. I said, I feel really bad," he said.

Clarkson was impressed and said, "Nobody has this story. That's incredible."

Schwarzenegger then noted that Barbara Bush was a "wonderful first lady."

Arnold Schwarzenegger with President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush (Cynthia Johnson / Getty Images)

The White House shared a different version of the story at the time of the accident, saying the first lady broke her left leg when she hit a tree while sledding on an icy hill, according to The New York Times.

It occurred during a sledding outing that included the president, various Bush grandchildren, Schwarzenegger and his then-wife, Maria Shriver, the New York Times reported at the time.

The New York Times reported that Barbara Bush would need to use a wheelchair for a few days, followed by crutches. The White House described the injury as a "nondisplaced fracture of the left fibula bone."

The first lady's press secretary, Anna Perez, told the New York Times that Barbara Bush was riding on a saucer-type sled when the accident occurred.

She doesnt know why she didnt bail out, Perez said then. She just held on, and the next thing she knew, there was the tree.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com
Grammy-nominated rapper Saweetie is heading to Phoenix on Saturday, Nov. 11, alongside Hey, Mickey! collaborator Baby Tate to put on a free concert at Arizona Financial Theatre exclusively for Arizona State University students.

And its all because of Tinder.

The dating app recently partnered with Saweetie to launch Swipe-Off, a nationwide challenge where the college with the most swipe activity gets a free concert headlined by the rapper.

Tinder sees the highest influx of new 18-year-old members during freshman orientation.

To encourage these new users to put themselves out there and make new on-campus connections, Tinder partnered with the Tap In rapper to launch the Swipe-Off challenge.

Why Saweetie loves Tinder

April 1, 2023 : Saweetie performs as part of the Super Saturday Concert at the AT&T Discovery District.

Saweetie has been vocal in her affinity for both the college experience and Tinder, with the USC alum referencing the brand in her viral hit single Tap In.

Whether they were a fling, a friend or something more serious, the people I met at USC are what made my time there a blast, Saweetie said in a press release.

Im excited to partner with Tinder in encouraging todays college students to tap in to the possibilities that come from meeting new people.

How to get free tickets to Saweeties Tinder concert in Phoenix

Students at ASUs Tempe, West, Phoenix and Polytechnic campuses are eligible for a ticket. Heres how to get one:

Students with ASU in their Tinder bio will receive in-app notifications from Tinder with a link for preregistration.

Users will then be asked to enter their ASU student email to verify their affiliation with the school.

One ticket will be emailed immediately following confirmation.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ASU wins free Saweetie concert in Tinder Swipe-Off challenge
Attorney General Alan Wilson has sued the makers and distributors of a key weapon used to fight fires at airports and military bases, alleging the material contains toxins that polluted South Carolinas environment.

Wilsons lawsuit, filed in state court Tuesday, says firefighting foam contained so-called forever chemicals that the manufacturers and distributors knew would contaminate the environment, even though other reasonable alternatives could be used.

Wilsons suit seeks compensation for natural resources damage, such as pollution of rivers and fish, from firefighting foam. But it also seeks compensation for damage to water supplies.

The lawsuit is the second of its kind filed by Wilson, a conservative Republican not known for taking action on environmental issues against industry. A suit he filed in August against manufacturers alleged that sources of PFAS other than firefighting foam  such as sewer sludge and wastewater discharges  had polluted the states environment.

The attorney generals lawsuits arent unique to South Carolina. There are thousands of legal cases nationally over contamination from the chemicals, which once were widely used to manufacture everyday products, as well as firefighting foam. Nationally, most suits are against the makers and distributors of forever chemicals, formally known as per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

Recent settlements, in cases pending in a Charleston federal court, have garnered billions of dollars from two of the biggest makers and distributors, 3M and DuPont, to clean up drinking water contaminated across the country by forever chemicals.

Hundreds of millions of dollars could also potentially come South Carolinas way from 3M, DuPont and others as a result of the recent Wilson lawsuits. The funds would go to the attorney generals office and likely be marked for distribution by the Legislature.

Through this action, Attorney General Wilson is seeking to hold these companies accountable and award South Carolina damages for the decades of injury to South Carolinas natural resources and public safety caused by the toxic forever chemicals, Wilsons office said in a news release Wednesday afternoon.

Utilities across South Carolina may need funds because the cost of retrofitting water systems to control PFAS is substantial. Columbia estimates the cost could be more than $100 million.

The latest suit names 3M and DuPont, as well as four companies tied to DuPont, including Chemours.

It also names Tyco Fire Products and Chemguard, companies owned by Johnson Controls Inc. Also named are National Foam Inc., and Buckeye Fire Equipment Co., both of North Carolina.

Efforts to reach representatives of some of the companies were not successful Wednesday afternoon, but a spokesman for DuPont de Nemours, one of the DuPont businesses named in the suit, distanced itself from the others.

DuPont de Nemours has never manufactured two major types of forever chemicals or firefighting foam, spokesman Daniel Turner said. A spokesperson for Johnson Controls declined comment.

While we dont comment on litigation matters, we believe this complaint is without merit, and we look forward to vigorously defending our record of safety, health and environmental stewardship, Turner said in an email.

A spokesman for 3M said the company has learned about PFAS through the years and how it should manage the material. In an email late Wednesday afternoon, 3M spokesman Grant Thompson referred to the recent settlements that he said supports cleanup of PFAS in public water systems.

We have and will continue to deliver on our commitments  including remediating PFAS, investing in water treatment, and collaborating with communities, he said., noting that 3M also will continue to address other PFAS litigation by defending itself in court or through negotiated resolutions, all as appropriate.

A major problem emerging in South Carolina is the pervasiveness of forever chemicals.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control has found them in virtually every river it has tested, as well as dozens of drinking water systems. Most recently, DHEC has documented forever chemical pollution in fish, crabs and oysters. The agency cautioned recently against eating certain types of fish tainted by PFAS.

Forever chemicals are a class of compounds, some of which were created and manufactured beginning in the 1940s. They have been used in non-stick frying pans, carpets and clothing. A major benefit is they are durable and good at repelling water.

They also were used in firefighting foam, a material routinely used in fire training centers, airports and military bases. The material, known formally as aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, was developed in the 1960s to fight extremely hot, dangerous fires started by flammable liquids. The foams containing forever chemicals were effective at suffocating fires that could not be put out with just water.

But forever chemicals are also toxic, spread quickly in the environment and easily dissolve in water. Long-lived in the environment, they can get into sediments and fish, moving up the food chain, according to the attorney generals lawsuit this week.

These chemicals, for people exposed over time, can cause certain types of cancer, thyroid problems, elevated cholesterol and immune system deficiencies, making it hard to fight off disease. The major pathway to exposure is eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water.

Attorney Vincent Sheheen, a former Democratic candidate for governor who was hired by Wilsons office to help on the case, said lawyers decided to file a second suit specifically about firefighting foam because foam is a more identifiable source than other sources of PFAS noted in the previous suit.

The AAAF pollution is very specific and it is easier to identify where it came from, Sheheen said. We know it is clustered around air force bases, airports, these very specific places, whereas (PFAS in wider areas) are coming from products and manufacturing processes. We felt like it was best to deal with this in separate cases.

Chemicals from firefighting foam are polluting groundwater, wetlands, soil and/or rivers from eight current or former bases, the suit said. Among them are the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island; McEntire Joint National Guard Base southeast of Columbia; Joint Base Charleston; the old Myrtle Beach Air Force Base; McCrady Training Center in Columbia; and Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, the lawsuit said. The state has previously documented PFAS pollution in private wells serving mobile home parks next to Shaw.

Foam used at the states major airports also has polluted the environment, the suit says. Those include Charleston International Airport, Myrtle Beach International Airport, the Columbia Metropolitan Airport and the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. The S.C. Fire Academy also was a source, the suit says.

Wilsons suits do not name individual bases, airports or other sites as defendants, noting that the hazards of forever chemicals went largely unknown for years, other than at the manufacturers.

Wilsons lawsuits follow a series of stories in The State chronicling the hazards of forever chemicals in sewer sludge, another suspected major source of PFAS pollution in groundwater, rivers and soil across South Carolina. Some 3,500 sludge fields dot the state. PFAS from sludge has been tied to contaminated water in Darlington County, The State reported in July.

This story has been updated with comments from DuPont and 3M.
(Reuters) - Beijing is weighing holding up U.S. chipmaker Broadcom Inc's $69 billion purchase of cloud computing company VMware Inc, the Financial Times reported on Thursday citing three sources familiar with the matter.

China's State Administration of Market Regulation has not signed off on the deal and is likely to delay approving the transaction after U.S. President Joe Biden's administration introduced tougher chip controls on Tuesday, the report added.

Shares of VMware fell 7.5% in premarket trading on worries of China delaying deal approval.VMWare and Broadcom did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. China's SAMR could not immediately be reached for comment.

China's merger and acquisition approvals for US companies now require additional consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Council, the report added citing two people familiar with the talks.

Broadcom said in May 2022 it would acquire VMware in a deal consisting of $61 billion in equity and the rest in debt, the chipmaker's biggest and boldest bid to diversify its business into enterprise software.

The U.S. chipmaker said earlier that it continued to expect the transaction would close in the current fiscal year. Broadcom received legal merger clearance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, South Africa, and Taiwan, and foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions, the company said in July.

The deal has been probed previously by UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that approved the deal following an in-depth investigation. The chipmaker also secured EU antitrust approval of the deal this year after offering remedies to help rival Marvell Technology, so the companies can compete on the same level.

China has been closely monitoring deals involving chipmakers. Earlier this year, Intel Corp scrapped its $5.4 billion deal to buy Israeli contract chipmaker Tower Semiconductor Ltd after their merger agreement expired without regulatory approval from China.

(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
President Joe Biden will deliver a major address on the 10 day-old war between Israel and Hamas and Russias nearly two year-old war against Ukraine from the Oval Office on Thursday evening, the White House has said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement late Wednesday that Mr Biden would address the nation at 8pm ET to discuss our response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine.

Mr Bidens formal address to the nation will come less than a day after returning to the US from Israel, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet just 10 days after terror attacks by Hamas left more than 1,000 Israelis dead and scores taken captive by the militant group.

The president has rarely made use of the Oval Office format and has seldom asked for airtime to address Americans during the evening hours.

His most recent Oval Office address came in June of this year, when he spoke to Americans in prime time about the deal hed reached with congressional Republicans to avoid a catastrophic default on Americas sovereign debt by raising the nations statutory debt ceiling.

Last year, he delivered planned remarks in prime time on several occasions, including a major televised speech on what the White House described at the time as the continued battle for the soul of the nation outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

During the first year of his presidency, Mr Biden spoke to Americans in prime time in March, less than two months after taking office, to mark the first anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the remarks on Covid were delivered from the East Room, not from the Oval Office. And Mr Bidens speech from Philadelphia was not covered in the same way as an Oval Office address by some news outlets because they deemed the content to be too political in the midst of the 2022 midterm election season.

The presidents planned remarks come as he is expected to ask Congress to consider legislation to fund continued defence aid to Ukraine as well as the unprecedented arms package he has pledged to ask Congress to authorise for Israels use against Hamas.

But Mr Bidens plans may have to wait for half of Congress to get their own House in order, as the House of Representatives has been without a Speaker since a group of eight Republicans masterminded the ouster of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

No Republican has since been able to gain the requisite 217 votes needed to gain control of the Speakers gavel. And without a Speaker, the House cannot take up any legislation.
A U.S. defense official on Wednesday voiced confidence over the strength of America's "extended deterrence" commitment to South Korea, saying, "We've never been in a better place."

Richard Johnson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and countering weapons of mass destruction policy, made the remarks, highlighting the allies' efforts to reinforce the credibility of the United States' deterrence commitment to using the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear, to defend South Korea.

The efforts culminated in the Washington Declaration that Presidents Yoon Suk Yeol and Joe Biden adopted during their White House summit in April. The declaration included the launch of the Nuclear Consultative Group designed to discuss nuclear planning and strategic issues.

"I will stipulate that I don't think extended deterrence can be any stronger than it is right now with our close allies in the ROK," Johnson said during a forum hosted by the Brookings Institution, a U.S.-based think tank. ROK stands for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

"I really encourage people to read the Washington Declaration and to see the work that we are doing to implement that," he added.

As part of U.S. deterrence endeavors for South Korea, Johnson pointed to visible efforts, namely the recent visit to the Korean Peninsula by a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber, as well as submarine deployments that he said are "by definition not visible."

"I actually feel very confident in where we are right now with the ROK. I think we've never been in a better place," he said.

At the same forum, Robert Einhorn, a former U.S. State Department adviser on nonproliferation and arms controls, stressed the need to seek engagement with the North to avoid miscalculation that could lead to accidental conflict.

"We should set aside, just for the time being, this denuclearization agenda, which North Korea isn't really interested in, and instead shift to a focus on risk reduction whether bilaterally, trilaterally, six-party whatever," he said.

"But to look at various confidence-building communications ... transparency arrangements could reduce the risk of any inadvertent armed conflict," he added. (Yonhap)
By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden will try to sell Americans on the need to spend billions more dollars on Israel and Ukraine on Thursday, even as the U.S. House of Representatives, without a leader, cannot approve new spending on the two wars.

"Hamas's terrorist attacks against Israel," Biden wrote in a social media post listing topics for his White House speech. "The need for humanitarian assistance in Gaza. Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukraine."

He added: "We are at a global inflection point that is bigger than party or politics."

His televised remarks, at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday (0000 GMT on Friday), follow a Middle East trip upended by a hospital blast in the Gaza Strip. It is only the second prime-time Oval Office address in the Democratic president's nearly three years in office; in June he cheered the end of a debt ceiling standoff.

The White House said Biden will unveil a new funding request this week believed to be as much as $100 billion. It may include $60 billion for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel, sources say, as well as billions for Asia and U.S. border security.

In Tel Aviv on Wednesday, the president pledged $100 million in new funding for humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and said he would ask Congress for unprecedented aid to boost Israel's fight with Hamas.

"This will also be very much a message to the American people: how those conflicts connect to our lives back here, how support from the American people and the Congress, frankly, is essential," U.S. deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told MSNBC early on Thursday when asked about the speech.

Any funding measure must pass both the Democratic-led U.S. Senate, where additional aid has bipartisan support, and the Republican-led House, which has not had a speaker for 17 days.

Conservative Jim Jordan, an ally of former President Donald Trump, vowed to continue his floundering bid to be House speaker after failing to win majority support among Republicans.

House Republican lawmakers in recent weeks nearly brought government to a halt over chronic budget deficits and $31.4 trillion in debt, threatening to slash government spending across the board.

About four in 10 respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week said the U.S. should support Israel's position in the current conflict when given a range of options. Nearly half said Americans should remain neutral or not be involved.

In a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month, roughly the same proportion agreed with a statement that Washington "should provide weapons to Ukraine."

"By bringing these two issues together, it will enable Biden to have a conversation with the nation not just about wars that are taking place in isolation, but conflict globally that has significant repercussions for American security interests as a whole," said Carmiel Arbit, a senior fellow at Atlantic Council, a think tank.

The U.S. president's argument may get a wider-than-normal audience. Fox News, the most-watched cable-news channel, will air the speech in a slot normally reserved for a conservative commentator, after opting out of airing his first Oval Office address.

Biden's brief Israel trip aimed to offer U.S. support following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israeli villages and military bases. Biden's planned summit in Jordan joined by the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders was canceled after the Gaza hospital explosion.

Meanwhile, the USS Mount Whitney, a sophisticated command, control, communication and intelligence ship, was heading to the eastern Mediterranean to join a host of U.S. warships already there, the U.S. Navy said.

The U.S. Defense Department told members of Congress at a briefing on Wednesday that it intends to send its two Iron Dome missile defense systems back to Israel as part of a leaseback deal, having experimented with the systems for several years.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Idrees Ali, Mike Stone, Jason Lange, Patricia Zengerle and Helen Coster; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis, Heather Timmons and Howard Goller)
Editors Note: A version of this story appears in CNNs Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the regions biggest stories. Sign up here.

Some of the United States closest Arab allies gave President Joe Biden the cold shoulder as he and his diplomats shuttled around the Middle East in an attempt to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a wider regional conflagration.

Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority canceled a planned meeting with Biden less than 24 hours before he was supposed to meet them for a four-way summit in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Wednesday. The cancellation followed a massive blast in Gazas Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital that reportedly killed hundreds of Palestinians. Palestinian officials blamed Israel for the hospital blast, while Israeli officials said it was caused by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket.

The summit wont be able to stop the war, which is what we want, Jordans Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Al Jazeera early Wednesday, calling the hospital blast a war crime. So, we decided not to hold it, he said.

Biden arrived in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of the Israeli war cabinet. The president pledged continued backing of Israel and told Netanyahu that the hospital explosion appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. The National Security Council said Wednesday that the government currently believes Israel is not responsible for the blast.

CNN cannot independently verify what caused the explosion, nor the extent of casualties.

Arab leaders appear to be alarmed at Washingtons near-complete support for Israel in the war and are trying to distance themselves from the Biden administration as anger grows on the Arab street against the Jewish state. At least 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 attack on Israel by Gazas Hamas rulers, which killed at least 1,400 in the country.

After news of the hospital blast broke on Tuesday, anti-Israel protests erupted in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Iran and Turkey, and in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Arab leaders are also likely to be wary of protests at home spiraling as images of dead Palestinians stream in with round-the-clock coverage of the Gaza war on almost every Arabic news channel. Jordan is particularly vulnerable to protests as a large proportion of its population claims Palestinian descent.

Egypt on Wednesday declared three days of mourning for the Gaza hospital victims.

What we have seen from Biden, we have probably not seen from any previous US president, in terms of being so emotionally attached to Israel, said Abdul Khaleq Abdulla, a commentator from the United Arab Emirates who is attuned to official thinking. Arab states, he said, are shocked as hell by Bidens perceived unwillingness to criticize Israel or bring a stop to the bloodshed.

The feeling now is that he is a full partner in this crime committed against Palestinians, he told CNN, adding that Arab states are now trying to detach themselves, not to meet him, neglect him.

Egypt and Jordan, both of which border Israel and the Palestinian territories, have notably pushed back against a US plan to establish a safe corridor for Palestinians fleeing Gaza in Egypts Sinai Peninsula, which borders Gaza.

Displacement is a red line

Jordans King Abdullah warned Tuesday that the displacement of Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt is a red line, and said neither Jordan nor Egypt would accept refugees from Gaza. He said that any suggestion of the two countries taking in fleeing Gazans was a plan by the usual suspects to try and create de facto issues on the ground, suggesting that the refugees may not be allowed to return to their homes.

The US suggestion has been met with fury in the Arab world, where media outlets have said that it serves Israels interest to de-populate the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and even to re-occupy it, rendering the Palestinians homeless once again without prospects of return. Israel ruled Gaza from 1967 to 2005 and it settled Jews there during that period.

Egyptian newspapers have denounced the idea of Palestinians being expelled from their homes, saying it would be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, or catastrophe, when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that led to Israels creation. Most Gazans are already refugees whose ancestors came from areas that are now part of Israel.

In a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi spoke out against the prospect of moving Palestinians to the Sinai in charged words, saying that Israel, not Egypt, should take in the refugees.

If there is an idea of expulsion (of Gazans), then there is the Naqab (Negev) desert in Israel, where Palestinians can be moved until Israel finishes its announced operation to liquidate the resistance or the armed groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the strip, Sisi said.

He warned that the presence of Gazans in the Sinai could turn the peninsula into a base for anti-Israel militancy that would prompt Israel to strike Egypt.

Timothy Kaldas, deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, DC, said no Arab leader wants to be seen as facilitating the emptying out of Gaza.

Sisi is working very hard to create some distance between himself and his Western partners on this issue, to insulate himself from what could become a lot of public criticism and anger, he said.

Sisis comments came a day after his foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, told CNNs Christiane Amanpour that just as Europe and the US are sensitive about the idea of refugee influx, so is Egypt.

Why should Egypt be presumed to allow the influx of 1 or 2 million people? Shoukry told CNN Tuesday, adding that the country already hosts nine million refugees. He said he didnt understand the purpose of the transfer of Palestinians, adding that it could be intentional.

Kaldas said Western governments that have fraternized with Arab autocrats have often seen their ability to disregard public opinion as a benefit. That may not be true, he added, especially now.

The reality is that even autocracies have populations with opinions and passions and breaking points, Kaldas said. And this is certainly something that has infuriated everybody in Egypt pretty much.

CNNs Akanksha Sharma, Hamdi Alkhshali, DJ Judd, Eyad Kourdi, Tim Lister, Chloe Liu, Ben Wedeman, Celine Alkhaldi and Abeer Salman contributed to this report.

Go deeper into the biggest stories and trends in the Middle East and what they mean for your world. Sign up for CNNs Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter right here.

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President Joe Biden on Wednesday said it appeared that the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital which had upended plans for a visit to Jordan had been an accident caused by Hamas militants inability to accurately target their own weapons.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One during a stop at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, Mr Biden said: Im not suggesting that Hamas deliberately did it.

Its that old thing: Gotta learn how to shoot straight, he said, adding later that the Tuesday explosion, which the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry had falsely attributed to an Israeli airstrike, was not the first time that Hamas has launched something that didnt function very well.

The Israeli government has released intercepted phone calls and other evidence that supports the theory that a botched rocket launch caused the deadly conflagration, though it attributed the weapons accident to a different militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, rather than Hamas.

Mr Biden told reporters that he trusts the assessment of US officials, who thus far have concurred with the Israeli governments theory of the case.

I dont know all the details, but I do know the people at the Defense Department who I respect and the intelligence community that I respect, say it is highly improbable that Israel did that, he said.

The presidents comments, made while returning to Washington from a brief one-day visit to Israel, came as the White House announced that he will deliver a major address on the 10-day-old war between Israel and Hamas and Russias nearly two-year-old war against Ukraine from the Oval Office on Thursday evening.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement late Wednesday that Mr Biden would address the nation at 8pm ET to discuss our response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine.

Mr Bidens formal address to the nation will come less than a day after returning to the US from Israel, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet just 10 days after terror attacks by Hamas left more than 1,000 Israelis dead and scores taken captive by the militant group.
Britishvolt had been developing a 3.8bn gigafactory near Blyth, Northumberland

The new owners of collapsed firm Britishvolt are planning to use the Northumberland site to supply batteries to the Australian military.

Australian firm Recharge Industries bought Britishvolt after it went into administration earlier this year.

Since then Recharge has been in negotiation with administrators EY to also secure use of the site near Blyth.

EY declined to comment, but people familiar with the matter said a deal was "close".

Securing use of the site is the crucial first step in Recharge's plan to build batteries for military, heavy commercial and stationary storage purposes.

Australian energy firm EDEA has been involved in talks with Recharge to build power units for Australian military vehicles.

The BBC understands a deal would see Recharge paying EY 2.5m for outstanding fees. It would pay an additional 11m to property investor Katch, which has a financial claim to the site.

If it does go ahead, the planned manufacturing plant would not produce batteries for mass market cars for the foreseeable future, but it is hoped it would still provide thousands of jobs in the north east of England.

However, the BBC understands members of Northumberland County Council still have doubts over Recharge's ability to deliver the multibillion pound plant.

Britishvolt collapsed in January after its former owners failed to secure government funding, which Recharge Industries has said it does not need.

But the Australian firm, which is ultimately owned by a New York-based investment fund called Scale Facilitation, is also a start-up with little battery manufacturing experience. It bought Britishvolt out of administration.

Securing the coveted Northumberland site is a crucial first step in Recharge's plan to supply batteries for military, heavy commercial and stationary storage purposes. Australian energy firm EDEA has been involved in talks with Recharge to deliver their contract to supply batteries for Australian military vehicles.

Ian Lavery, Labour MP for Wansbeck, which includes the Cambois site, said he hoped the plan would be an economic boost for the north east of England.

There had been a number of "false dawns" on this project, he told the BBC, but having met some of the principal players in the deal he was "cautiously optimistic" it could now move ahead and ultimately create thousands of highly skilled jobs directly and in the supply chain.

The Northumberland site is considered ideal for building batteries because of its close proximity to offshore power grids. But its previous owners were dogged by concerns that the business lacked a track record in battery development, sufficient funding and obvious customers.

Many of these same concerns linger over the new owners.

The New York investment fund which owns Recharge Industries is run by Australian, David Collard, who has a background in finance rather than engineering.

David Collard, chief executive of Scale Facilitation

The BBC understands that members of the Northumberland County Council have misgivings about Recharge's ability to deliver on its plan and have an option to repurchase the site in December 2024 if substantial progress has not been made to develop the site.

However, people close to the matter claimed a wealthy European investor "with strong industrial products and infrastructure ties" has been lined up to fund the land deal, and a new proposed structure would ultimately see Recharge Industries rent the coveted site from a joint venture majority-owned by property investors Tritax, which is backed by huge fund management group Abrdn.

There have also been discussions between Recharge and major energy firms about using the site as a convenient connection point for offshore wind farms in the North Sea to connect to the UK mainland. That would generate additional revenue for the site owner.

Potential investors told the BBC that Recharge gaining control of the site would fire the starting gun on a development process they could support.

Supporters also say the project would demonstrate a way to reduce dependence on China for minerals critical to battery production, as Australia has abundant supplies and would be in keeping with the recent AUKUS (Australia UK US) trilateral security pact.

But there are still many question marks over this project.

The investor supposedly putting up the money to secure the site remains anonymous.

The financing of the build of the gigafactory is a multi-billion-pound, multi-stage process that has inherent risk which will need to be addressed and managed over time.

Companies controlled by Recharge's owner, David Collard, are facing ongoing tax investigations in Australia, with which Mr Collard says the company is fully cooperating.

The company has not had any meaningful contact with UK government departments over the plan, which seems strange, given the site's strategic importance to UK industrial ambitions. However, Recharge are not expecting to call on the UK government for financial assistance - unlike the previous owners who hoped to secure 100m in government grants, if they had hit development milestones, which they failed to do.

A plan to build batteries in Northumberland for the Australian military seems unusual - outlandish even. Particularly as Recharge Industries also had plans to develop a battery plant in Geelong, Australia.

But backers say that the power links and geographical advantages of the Cambois site offer a faster route to production and will create a template that can be repeated elsewhere. They also insist that batteries for high volume car makers could be produced at the site in time.

People close to the situation seem confident that this first crucial hurdle - securing the site - is within reach and imminent.

But doubts about the financial and engineering muscle of the new owners to make this new plant a reality persist.
Burt Young, who played Paulie in six of the Rocky films starring Sylvester Stallone, drawing an Oscar nomination for supporting actor for his performance in the 1976 original, has died, his daughter Anne Morea Steingieser confirmed to the New York Times. He was 83.

Roger Ebert gave Young his props for his performance in the first Rocky film: And Burt Young as (Adrians) brother  defeated and resentful, loyal and bitter, caring about people enough to hurt them just to draw attention to his grief. The New York Times  in an absolutely scathing, completely dismissive review of the film  nevertheless said: Burt Young is effective as Rockys best friend, a beer-guzzling mug.

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Youngs temperamental, jealous but nonetheless loyal and caring Paulie Pennino was Rockys best friend  he would defend the Italian Stallion if someone insulted him. But he was a problematic friend who shouts at Adrian during her pregnancy, resulting in the premature birth of Rockys son; draws Balboa into a street fight; and in 1990s Rocky V, is the cause of the Balboas bankruptcy.

In 2006s Rocky Balboa, Paulie is back where he started, working at the meat-packing plant, but hes laid off and loses his skepticism about Rockys return to the ring and serves as his cornerman. Young did not appear in 2015s Creed, as Paulie is said to have died in 2012.

The exceptionally prolific Young  who was never much to look at, making him the perfect character actor  had a way of taking a thug or a goon or a mug and giving him more personality, more sympathy, somehow, than the role deserved.

In a negative 2011 review of Robert Aldrichs 1977 police dramedy The Choirboys, a poor adaptation of the Joseph Wambaugh novel, critic Richard Winters wrote: There are a few bright spots. I really liked the Burt Young character. Many people remember him best from the Rocky movies. Here he plays an incredibly grungy, crass police sergeant who exposes a tender side at a completely unexpected moment.

Young played one of the truckers in Sam Peckinpahs execrable Convoy (1978), starring Kris Kristofferson, and played the chauffeur and bodyguard of the Rodney Dangerfield character in the 1986 comedy Back to School.

Another example of the actor managing to score despite a generally mediocre film was Robert Aldrichs 1981 girls wrestling film All the Marbles, starring Peter Falk. Critic Dennis Schwartz wrote in 2011: Burt Young as the oily wrestling promoter who resents Falk for his independence, has a nice turn in a supporting role.

In a memorable scene in Sergio Leones Once Upon a Time in America (1984) that also featured a young Joe Pesci, Young played a hood who eats crudely and tells a very off-color story about how he got clued into a Detroit diamond shipment ripe for heisting. The actor played Bed Bug Eddie, a vindictive mobster whose $150,0000 the two protagonists in 1984s The Pope of Greenwich Village, played by Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke, unwisely steal from a safe.

In another characterful turn, in Uli Edels 1990 film Last Exit to Brooklyn, he played Big Joe, one of many whos thrown out of work by the strike at the heart of the movie. He is violent, none too bright and yet somehow a decent man concerned about his family  a classic Burt Young character. Big Joes wife tells one day that his daughter, played by Ricki Lake, is eight months pregnant, to which he replies, Shes just fat.

In the 1999 romantic comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, in which Hugh Grant falls in love with a gal (Jeanne Tripplehorn) from a mobbed-up family, James Caan played her father and Young played the big boss. By this point Young had made as many movies with Caan as he had with Stallone.

In 2006s Transamerica, in which Felicity Huffman delightfully played a very proper pre-op transsexual whos traveling across the country, Fionnula Flanagan and Young played her crass parents, whom she visits in Phoenix.

In Tom McCarthys 2011 film Win Win, Paul Giamatti played a fed-up lawyer who double crosses his client (Young), whos moving into Alzheimers but refusing to leave his home, by becoming his legal guardian and moving him into a nursing home.

The actor had a supporting role in Raymond De Felittas 2014 crime drama Rob the Mob, starring Michael Pitt and Ray Romano.

Young tried series-regular television with the NBC comedy Roomies (1987), about a 50-year-old former Marine sergeant who rooms with a young genius, played by Corey Haim, when they both go to college, but the show lasted only eight episodes.

Young appeared in TV movies and guested on Tales From the Crypt, Columbo, The Outer Limits, Russian Doll and even Walker, Texas Ranger. More fittingly, he appeared in a 2001 episode of The Sopranos as the father of Steve Schirripas Bobby Bacala Baccalieri. Tony mentions to Bobby Bacala that it was odd that hed never whacked anyone considering his father, who fronted as a barber, was the fuckin Terminator in that respect.

Youngs Bobby Sr., whos suffering from lung cancer, comes out of retirement after Tony gives him the job of killing Salvatore Mustang Sally Intile, but he died after choking on blood, losing control of his car and crashing into a sign post while leaving the scene of his final hit.

More impressive, however, was the actors masterful performance in a 1997 episode of Law & Order called Mad Dog. He played a paroled sex offender whos presumed to be guilty of newly committed crimes fairly similar to those that got him incarcerated, but hes put under so much pressure by the police and especially Sam Waterstons executive D.A. McCoy that, ultimately, he is perhaps forced into reoffending, with disastrous results. (Young also later appeared on an episode of Law & Order: SVU.)

Young was born in Queens, New York, to parents of Italian heritage; in a 1978 article, People magazine said Young was mysterious about many details of his past, including his familys original last name. He dropped out of school when he was 15 to join the Marines, serving from 1957-59. He was trained by Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

The actor made his uncredited screen debut as a bartender in an episode of The Doctors in 1969. The next year he made his big-screen debut (credited as John Harris) in the horror film Carnival of Blood. He had a small part as a hood in Ivan Passers Born to Win (1971), which starred George Segal and Paula Prentiss and featured a young Robert De Niro, and appeared in the crime comedy The Gang That Couldnt Shoot Straight, starring Jerry Orbach, with De Niro again in a supporting role, and the well-regarded crime drama Across 110th Street (1972).

Young had a supporting role in Mark Rydells Cinderella Liberty (1973), starring James Caan and Marsha Mason, as a Navy master-at-arms, but he first really made an impression in Roman Polanskis Chinatown, as Curly, the fisherman who hired Jack Nicholsons J.J. Gittes on an earlier case and is willing to help out when Gittes wants Curly to smuggle Faye Dunaways Evelyn and her daughter/sister Katherine out of the city and away from John Hustons Hollis Mulwray  a plan that fails.

In Karel Reiszs James Toback-scripted The Gambler (1974), starring Caan, Young played another hood, but this time he attracted the notice of critic Jonathan Rosenbaum in the Monthly Film Bulletin, who, in a negative review of the film, declared: It is worth noting that some of the actors do what they can to enliven the relatively marginal parts of the narrative: Burt Young as Carmine, the loan shark hood, describes a parabola from homely amiability to casual brutality that is truly terrifying.

In Sam Peckinpahs contemporary action thriller The Killer Elite (1975), Young was again reteamed with Caan, playing the loyal driver Mac for Caans agent Mike Locken in a movie full of betrayals. (It was in this role that Young caught the attention of Stallone.)

In Mark Rydells period heist film Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), starring Caan and Elliott Gould and clearly inspired by The Sting, Young got a chance to be on the other side of the law for a change, playing the warden of the prison in which the grand scheme is hatched.

But that same year he made another film that would be far more important in determining the arc of his acting career: the John G. Avildsen-directed Rocky, scripted by Stallone and with Young third billed as Paulie.

Young penned the screenplays to the 1978 CBS TV movie Daddy, I Dont Like It Like This and the 1978 film Uncle Joe Shannon, in which he starred as the title character.

Stallone paid tribute to his Rocky co-star on Instagram, writing, To my dear friend, Burt Young, you were an incredible mans and artist, I and the World will miss you very much.

Youngs wife Gloria died in 1974. He is survived by a daughter, Anne Morea.

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Bobby Singh looked at his ringing cellphone and noticed the caller was the FBI. He wasnt surprised.

He answered the phone and the agent on the other end informed Singh that he might be in imminent danger. That, too, did not surprise him.

Just two days earlier, Singh, who is a Sacramento Sikh rights activist, had heard devastating news. A man he considered a mentor, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was slain by masked gunmen outside a gurdwara  a Sikh place of worship  near Vancouver, Canada. Nijjar was a leader of a movement to create an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking in Parliament, would later say that Canadian intelligence had found credible evidence that agents of the government of India had carried out the assassination. The increasingly Hindu nationalist government of India, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had labeled Nijjar a terrorist and sought his extradition for years.

The June 18 assassination and growing tension between Sikhs and the Modi government are of particular concern in the Central Valley and Bay Area, home to a large Sikh population. California elected officials of Sikh descent, including Elk Groves mayor and a member of the California Assembly, told The Sacramento Bee that the assassination of Nijjar is part of a worrying trend of transnational repression that they believe can be traced to the government of India.

For Singh, the assassination was especially personal.

Singh, whose parents immigrated from India in the 1980s, befriended Nijjar at a Sikh activist conference in Toronto in 2019. Nijjar and the young activist communicated frequently via texts and phone calls.

It was just so shocking. Its something I am still coming to terms with, Singh said. We all have to carry on his work.

Singh said that two days before Nijjar was cornered by a vehicle and shot with dozens of bullets, he told Singh in a phone call he was being followed. Singh said that Nijjar told him he strongly suspected India.

Three days after the shooting  and just a day after he received the call from the FBI concerned for his safety  Singh received this text, which he shared with The Bee: Just a head up for you. Youre next in the USA. We have all the tools ready to fix the problems.

The text message was sent from a masked cellphone number. The chilling message, which Singh shared with the FBI, concluded with a nationalist Indian slogan, Jai Hind, which translates to Victory to Hindustan.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers a question during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in September. India expelled a senior Canadian diplomat and is accusing Canada of interfering in its internal affairs a day after Trudeau said Canada was investigating allegations India was connected to the assassination of Sikh independence advocate Hardeep Singh Niijar in Canada in June, and expelled an Indian diplomat.

The threat to Singh is just one of a number of troubling instances that have been shared with The Bee following Nijjars assassination.

On June 24, two days after Dr. Pritpal Singh, founder of the American Sikh Caucus Committee, was warned by the FBI about concerns for his safety, security footage showed an SUV taking cellphone images in front of Singhs Fremont home.

In August, after Sikh American Assemblywoman Jasmeet Kaur Bains championed a resolution declaring a massacre of at least 3,000 Sikhs in Punjab province in 1984 a genocide, Bains said that four Indian men visited her Bakersfield office and threatened her. Bains told The Bee she filed a complaint with Bakersfield Police and the California Highway Patrol.

On Sept. 7, according to a gurdwara in Stockton, known for being an important center of Khalistan activism, a man claiming to be a representative of the Indian government visited the gurdwara and told a priest that there would be immigration and other consequences if the gurdwara did not back off its pro-Khalistan activism. According to the gurdwara, the man asked for and received phone numbers for board members of the gurdwara.

On Oct. 15, a man was arrested at a gurdwara in Fremont after he allegedly tore down posters memorializing Nijjar. As police took the man away in handcuffs, he could be heard in a cellphone video recorded by a bystander yelling, Khalistan is a terrorist organization.

The Indian consulate in San Francisco and the Indian embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to inquiries from The Bee.

Bobbie Singh-Allen, Elk Groves mayor and the first elected Sikh woman mayor in the United States, told The Bee that it is hard to know, given the current tense climate, what is state-sponsored harassment and what is simply a byproduct of polarization created by the Modi government.

You want to support your community, Singh-Allen said, but these days you have to look over your shoulder and wonder what the consequences will be.

A Washington Post investigation last month into a digital campaign by Hindu nationalists to inflame India concluded that, They have perfected the spread of inflammatory, often false and bigoted material on an industrial scale.

Singh-Allen said that she has felt the flames of hatred directed toward her numerous times, including when she spoke out against a three-day shutdown of the internet in her native Punjab in March. The shutoff was justified by the Indian government as a necessary part of a manhunt for a Sikh separatist.

Can you imagine our government blocking forms of communication to the outside world while looking for one person? Singh-Allen wrote on Facebook.

The mayor told The Bee that men she suspected of having connections to the Indian government confronted her at a conference in Los Angeles.

A few aggressive men cornered me, and asked, why am I against India? she recalled. Im not against India, Im against the worlds largest democracy not behaving like one. Anytime a Sikh speaks up, they are labeled suspicious.

The Sacramento State activist Bobby Singh was not the only person to receive a call or be paid a visit by the FBI following the assassination of Nijjar.

Sikh activist Bobby Singh, left, a Sacramento State student, stands in 2019 at a Sikh activism conference in Toronto with Hardeep Nijjar, who was allegedly assassinated by Indian intelligence on June 18 in Canada.

The Bee learned of at least a half-dozen such outreach efforts in California including one to Dr. Pritpal Singhs home in Fremont. According to Singh, he was visited by agents who told the founder of the American Sikh Congressional Caucus they had a duty to warn.

Tipped off by FBI concern, Singh reviewed security footage and discovered a person on June 24 (six days after the assassination of Nijjar) in a black SUV in front of his gate taking cellphone photographs for several minutes. He provided the footage to the FBI.

Singh said he suspects that the SUV was sent by the Indian government.

We will not be intimidated by Indias transnational repression threatening individuals on U.S soil, he said. He added that he believes its important that Congress receives a full briefing from the intelligence community on the threats posed to Americans by the rogue Indian state.

Little Punjab

While Sikhs make up 2% of the overall population in India, about 40% of Californians of Indian descent are Sikhs, or an estimated 250,000, with the majority living in the Central Valley and Bay Area.

People fill Bradshaw Road as they walk past the Sacramento Sikh Society temple in Vineyard during the societys first Nagar Kirtan parade in March. The Central Vallley has a large Sikh population.

So many Sikhs have settled in Yuba City, an hour north of Sacramento, the city is informally referred to as Little Punjab. An annual Sikh festival in November, Nagar Kirtan, draws hundreds of thousands.

While Sikh leaders say they are concerned about several incidents in California, none raised more alarms than the Sept. 7 visit to the Stockton Gurdwara by a mysterious visitor.

The gurdwara, the oldest Sikh house of worship in the United States, provided The Sacramento Bee with security footage showing a man entering the gurdwara on foot and ultimately, gurdwara leaders said, delivering a message to a priest: Either back off pro-Khalistan activism or face consequences. Afterward, the man could be seen on the security video making a call on his cellphone. Minutes later he was picked up by a 2023 Cadillac Escalade.

The gurdwara said it has alerted the FBI. Its not known if the man was officially representing the Indian government. The FBI declined to comment on any investigation into Indian intelligence operations in the United States.

According to the president of the gurdwara, Ravinder Singh Dhaliwal, the visit followed mysterious phone calls he received with similar warnings to curtail Sikh activism.

Whats ironic, Dhaliwal said, is that our gurdwara in the early 20th century played a pivotal and historic role in Indias Independence movement from the British. Now it seems the government of India is attacking our fundamental rights of free expression.

Dhaliwal said that during the visit with one of its priests, this visitor claimed that the visit was part of an Indian governments operation to keep a watch on all gurdwaras in the U.S. This man told the employee that the Indian Government can influence the employees legal status.

According to Dhaliwal, the priest provided the visitor with a list of board members of the gurdwara, including their phone numbers.

Jasjit Singh, a Sacramento City Unified School District School board member and practicing Sikh, said that the Stockton incident was particularly chilling because Nijjar was slain outside a gurdwara.

Gurdwaras are open to anybody regardless of religion, race, creed, sexual orientation, he said. That openness and acceptance is part of being a Sikh.

But when you put on the hat of the Indian state, especially after the killing of Hardeep, what is being described is not the visit of an average person, its state business, used to intimidate and strike fear into community members.

Intelligence experts said that Sikhs in California have reason to be concerned.

After Mr. Nijjar was killed in British Columbia, Sikhs in Canada were saying, Oh, its India, its India. And then all of a sudden you find out it almost certainly was India, Dan Stanton, Former Executive Manager of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told The Bee.

Stanton added, If they can do this in Canada, they can do this anywhere, Im certain U.S. officials are taking concerns of the Sikh diaspora very seriously.

For the moment U.S. officials, who seek Indias cooperation on the international stage in the Middle East, China, and Ukraine have only made relatively reserved statements on the Nijjar killing, though, behind the scenes, assisted Canada with intelligence.

Were very concerned about the allegations that have been raised by Canada, by Prime Minister Trudeau, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said at a news conference last month. Blinken added, we have been in close contact with Canada about that and at the same time we have engaged with the Indian government and urged them to work with Canada on an investigation.

India under Modi, who was first elected in 2014, has long been concerned about Sikh activism in California. In 2016, officials from the Indian consulate in San Francisco made the unusual move of visiting every member of the Fresno City Council, stalling a resolution recognizing the 1984 coordinated killing of thousands of Sikhs as a genocide. After a nine-month delay, the resolution ultimately passed.

Protesters chant outside of the Consulate General of India office during a protest after the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver, Canada, on June 24.

Seven years later, Bains, a family physician who became the first South Asian woman elected to the California Assembly in 2022, described a toxic backlash when she introduced a resolution in the assembly in March recognizing the 1984 mass killing of Sikhs as a genocide.

After the resolution passed, Bains said she received numerous anonymous threats to her safety. Then in August, four Indian men paid a visit to her office.

Bains thought the meeting was just a typical get-together with constituents, but things derailed when one of the men uttered a racist trope.

Sikhs were created to protect Hindus, Dr. Bains recalled one of the men telling her. I told him that is offensive, my identity is much larger than that as a Sikh American.

The same man, according to Bains, began yelling and pointing his finger at her, telling her, I will do whatever it takes to go after the person behind this. This is an open challenge to you Dr. Bains.

Bains says she filed complaints with both the Bakersfield Police and the California Highway Patrol, which protects California legislators. She said because the incident happened in a state office, she believes several laws were broken.

Bains said she would like to see more forceful statements of concern from U.S. officials about the Nijjar killing and the general atmosphere that Sikhs are facing.

When the Canadian Prime Minister spoke out, I think that there was a collective feeling amongst California Sikhs that we were absolutely right to think this way, she said. The concern is now that we have proof, why isnt more being done to protect Sikh activists within America?
BEIJING (Reuters) - China wants the Israel-Hamas war to be stopped as soon as possible, President Xi Jingping was quoted by Chinese state media as saying on Thursday, adding Beijing was willing to work with Arab governments for a lasting solution to the conflict.

Xi also said a ceasefire was "imperative" as soon as possible to prevent the conflict from expanding, or spiralling out of control, the state media said.

Xi was speaking after meeting Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, who was the only senior delegate from the Middle East to attend China's infrastructure Belt and Road Forum this week.

China supports Egypt's efforts to let in humanitarian aid to Gaza, state media quoted Xi as telling Madbouly. The Chinese president's remarks are among the first he has made about the conflict which erupted after Hamas launched an assault on Israel on Oct. 7, triggering a major military assault on Gaza.

Egypt and the United States agreed on Wednesday to bring humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip "in a sustainable manner" through Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Separately, Xi also said China was willing to work with Egypt to strengthen cooperation in infrastructure, agricultural technology, and renewable energy, adding that he will also encourage capable Chinese enterprises to invest there.

(Reporting by Liz Lee and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Kim Coghill and Miral Fahmy)
The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, is threatening to cut diplomatic relations with Israel, and calling the government, Nazis.

Does he have any understanding at all of what a Nazi is?

They were a right-wing organization of the government who was instrumental in destroying and gassing to death 12 million innocent men women and children, because of their religion.

Does Petro even understand what happened in Israel?

Is he seriously a president using no historical facts?

Someone must have lost a crap shoot to get him elected. He should be embarrassed by his statement and no less apologize.

Janet Weller,

Coral Springs
With the recent attack by Hamas on the nation of Israel, the specter of a serious war emerges. While I do not think we are on the brink of a third world war, if there were to be one, it would begin in the Middle East.

More: Can Alabama Sen. Katie Britt run for president? | GARY COSBY JR.

My mother called me deeply worried about my two sons who are in the U.S. Army. I assured her it was unlikely that we would be sending any ground troops. I dont think Israel needs the help as they have proved repeatedly throughout their short history, but the possibility exists that America and other powers allied with the nations of the Middle East could become entangled in a growing conflict.

I know many people fear China, but China and the U.S. are not going to war over Taiwan. If we do, it will be a brief conflict waged mostly by the navies of the two nations. It would not likely involve ground forces since the United States will definitely not be landing troops to invade China and the same is true of China invading the U.S. Therefore, there is little likelihood that anything other than a naval conflict could erupt over Taiwan.

Other than the United States, China is the only nation even attempting to build a military of global significance. To do so, they have thrown their own economy into a turbulent, even perilous situation. That was what ultimately doomed the Soviet Union. While China has the largest naval force in the world in terms of the numbers of ships, they are still a regional power rather than a global one.

Russia, the other supposed world superpower has been badly exposed by the debacle in Ukraine. The Russians have not been able to win a border war, much less project real military power. The Russian nuclear arsenal is formidable, but nuclear arms are political weapons. They allow a second-rate country to rattle a sword, but it is a sword that cannot be used for conquest.

Israeli army soldiers patrol an undisclosed area in northern Israel bordering Lebanon on October 15, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel exchanged deadly border fire on October 15, with the Iran-backed group claiming responsibility for strikes that Israel said killed a civilian, further raising cross-border tensions during Israel's war with Gaza-based militants.

A nuclear attack on another country renders that countrys territory uninhabitable and guarantees a reprisal attack that would do the same to the aggressor, so strategic arms are meaningless in terms of military conquest. The only real use of a nuclear weapon is as a vengeance weapon.

This turns us back to the Middle East, the only region where a vengeance attack would even be attempted. Due to the pure hatred between Jews and Arabs and all the military and economic alliances between those nations and the world powers, that is the one spot on the globe where one must have worries in regards to another bloody global war.

The greatest hedge against global war is the global economy. The world economies are tied together so tightly that a major disruption in the economic health of one nation can create a tidal wave across the economies of other nations. Given this, apart from a madman arising in an unstable government with plenty of military power, the likelihood is that money speaks and people want money far more than they want the conquest of foreign lands.

During World War I, the wealth of nations was still mostly held within national borders and in the hands of a political and economic elite within those countries. Economies were not well-integrated even in Europe where countries shared borders but not economic policy or currency. Even in that time of limited economic integration, a major event did have global impact.

The Great Depression shows that devastation to a major world economy, the United States in that situation, could and did spread globally. Can you even imagine the impact of an economic catastrophe of that magnitude today?

By the time World War II began, world economies had integrated to a greater degree, but it was that war that really brought the world into one enormous economic basket with the United States emerging as the worlds wealth generator if not its banker.

The post WWII world is so tied together that a war of any size causes hardship and disruption across the world. This was especially clear at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the economic disruptions that small conflict caused.

Economic integration could also be seen in the flow of money and military equipment into Ukraine, a move that is equal parts the desire to stop a dictatorial leader as it is an effort to maintain the economic stability in the region since Ukraine is a huge producer of food, heavy industrial products, and natural resources.

The Middle East remains the most likely flashpoint for a global war. Unstable governments are more plentiful across the region and some possess enough military power to be disturbing.

In Iran, where religious zealots hold power, there is a real threat to world peace, which is why you see an international effort to keep nuclear arms out of the hands of the Iranians. They are one of the few nations that might actually use nukes as a vengeance weapon, an act that would certainly spark a global military response.

Gary Cosby Jr.

Gary Cosby Jr. is the photo editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can email him at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Israel-Hamas conflict becomes a world concern | GARY COSBY JR.
Over a packed dinner and celebration in Dover, over a public livestream with hundreds online, the top state official held an envelope with one name among 20 candidates nominated by their school districts or Delaware's charter network as the best Delaware teacher.

Late Wednesday night, Gov. John Carney announced the 2024 Delaware Teacher of the Year.

And the statewide honor came to Cory Hafer.

"Holy water buffaloes," Hafer said from the podium, shocked to smiles as he began to thank those who touched his 11-year career as an educator. The Appoquinimink School District teacher earned the recognition working in Middletown High School, where he teaches engineering and science.

After nominations, after detailed portfolio submissions, after classroom observations, after a panel of judges delivered its consideration  Hafer and his guests heard the official honor come down from the Delaware Department of Education.

Cory Hafer of Middletown High School is congratulated after being named the 2024 Delaware State Teacher of the Year. Hafer, of the Appoquinimink School District, was one of 20 district teachers of the year honored in a gathering in Dover, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

He will now become the state's nominee in the national program, while also receiving a $5,000 grant for students and a personal grant of $3,000. The winner also received several gifts from sponsors, past winners, advocates, commemorative plates from the Division of Motor Vehicles and access to a full doctorate program from University of Delaware and Wilmington University. All nominees are set to receive $2,000 grants from the state.

This wasn't an easy decision, to be sure. DDOE said every nominated educator had to:

Be an exceptionally dedicated, knowledgeable and skilled teacher

Inspire students of all backgrounds and abilities to learn

Have the respect and admiration of students, parents and colleagues

Play an active and useful role in the community as well as in the school

Be poised, articulate and possess the energy to withstand a taxing schedule

"Each of these teachers represents the very best qualities of the profession of teaching. Each has the respect and admiration of students, colleagues, faculty members, teachers, parents, administrators, and members of their community," Holodick said as the awards ceremony started.

"This outstanding presentation showcases Delaware's best."

More: ACLU points to one Delaware charter school to spotlight lessons in inclusive culture

Appoquinimink educator takes home Teacher of the Year

He knew after a question about earthquakes.

Hafer had been working in a research lab when he began asking himself what was next, he said in a candidate video presentation shared during Wednesday's ceremony. Would he go to medical school? Would he stick around and get a master's degree as a researcher?

"I realized that actually liked training students in the lab and training new hires," he said. "And my first day in the classroom, I interacted with a student, and he asked me a question about earthquakes."

Hafer had no idea what the answer was  and that's what sold him.

"It was just so fun being like, 'I don't know the answer to the question. That's really cool. Let's look that up,'" he recalled. "And I realized when I was with those students in that classroom, that's what I needed to do."

Hafer graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor of science in molecular, cellular and developmental biology before earning his master of arts in biology teaching from Columbia Universitys Teachers College. He taught at schools in New York, Massachusetts and Michigan before joining the Middletown High School faculty in 2019.

The Appo educator said he feels confident administration at Middletown High has his back, while his district isn't afraid to innovate. Hafer said he's come to value that all of his students learn differently, and now tries to focus on working toward shared goals, even if "we're all kind of working at our own pace."

"Each year just being open to well, 'Why do all my students have to be right here on this day?'" he posed. "I think once you break that mindset, it's not easy to allow that flexibility, but it becomes possible."

One mentor in his engineering program, WL Gore & Associates executive Shawn Daly, said Hafer "has a deep passion for teaching and sincere commitment to his students success," while delivering a warm, inclusive environment for kids. His dedication, he said, meets a commitment to align his teaching with research on external business and industry best practices.

"It constantly forces me to learn," Hafer said. "And I love that about teaching."

We broke down the numbers: How much do Delaware schools spend on legal services and why?

Last year, Ashley Lockwood of Lulu Ross Elementary School was named State Teacher of the Year. Milford's Lockwood took the title from 2022's Jasha Tabron of Brandywine High School. The duties of the states nominee include addressing legislators, business leaders, community groups and educational organizations, as previously reported by Delaware Online/The News Journal, to inform the public about the status of Delaware schools. Lockwood called it a fulltime job.

Lockwood addressed the winner and every nominee.

"Each of you have a message that we need to hear. My hope for you is that after tonight, you continue to share that message. Continue to be leaders in your buildings, in your districts and in your communities," Lockwood said. "Keep advocating for students and for teachers. Stay connected with one another  because as I've said before, the change that we wish to see comes from strong collaboration from working together."

Hafer told DDOE he will use his position to advocate for the importance of building student connections and maintaining restorative practices.

"Our ultimate goal should be to have sufficient connections with our students, that they feel comfortable being themselves and confident asking for support," he said in a press release after the event. "Without these connections, other learning strategies and efforts to develop strong lessons will not meet the needs of all learners.

Got a story? Kelly Powers covers race, culture and equity for Delaware Online and USA TODAY Network Northeast, with a focus on equity education. Contact her at kepowers@gannett.com or (231) 622-2191, and follow her on Twitter @kpowers01.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware picks its 2024 Teacher of the Year from Appoquinimink
South Korea and the United States kicked off combined river-crossing military drills Thursday to enhance the interoperability of the allies, Seoul's Army said.

Approximately 6,600 soldiers, including some 100 American soldiers, will join the drills near the border with North Korea and other regions, involving 630 pieces of equipment, 700 military vehicles and 40 helicopters.

The exercise with the U.S. troops is aimed at enhancing the combat capabilities of the armored divisions and their combat unit, the Army said.

The two-week drills are conducted as part of the Hoguk field training exercise, which is annually held in the latter half of the year, involving the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

This year's exercise will simulate various threats posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons, missiles and unmanned assets, according to the Joint Chiefs Staff. (Yonhap)
Delphi murders suspect Richard Allen was set to return to court Thursday for a bombshell hearing over the leak of sensitive crime scene photos.

But his defence attorneys withdrew from the case, leaving him without representation. Mr Allen, who had not yet been brought into court when the announcement was made, was then hauled back off to jail where he will remain in custody of the Indiana Department of Correction.

Special Judge Fran Gull told the court that without counsel, the hearing cannot proceed. She said it was outside of their control and ordered new counsel for Mr Allen. A new court date was set for 31 October.

The hearing was meant to address a leak of graphic photos of the crime scene that allegedly originated from a man close to Mr Allens defence, according to The Murder Sheet podcast.

It marks the latest twist in the tragic case which began in 2017 when Libby German and Abby Williams were found brutally murdered on a walk along the Monon High Bridge in their hometown of Delphi, Indiana.

In October 2022  over five years later  Mr Allen was arrested and charged with their murders.

Who is Delphi murder suspect Richard Allen?

Thursday 19 October 2023 21:30 , Andrea Cavallier

The 50-year-old married man was arrested and charged in connection with the 2017 Delphi murders of teenage best friends Libby German and Abby Williams.

Richard Matthew Allen, from Delphi, Indiana, was taken into custody 26 October and booked into Carroll County Jail on two counts of murder.

His arrest marked a bombshell development in the high-profile case that has rocked the small, close-knit community of Delphi and had gone unsolved for more than half a decade.

Before Mr Allens attorneys quit on 19 October, they previously claimed that their client was innocent and that the victims died at the hands of a pagan white nationalist cult.

Rachel Sharp reports...

Who is Richard Allen, the man charged over the 2017 Delphi murders?

WATCH: Delphi murder suspects attorneys quit

Thursday 19 October 2023 20:30 , Andrea Cavallier

The attorneys representing #RichardAllen, the Indiana man accused of killer two young girls, withdrew themselves from defending him in his murder case on Thursday. This came shortly before a hearing was scheduled to discuss the recent crime scene photo leaks in the case. Allens pic.twitter.com/CrX99Wydbi  Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) October 19, 2023

Judge ordered new counsel to be appointed for Richard Allen

Thursday 19 October 2023 20:15 , Andrea Cavallier

The judge in the Delphi murder case said the motion filed by the defence attorneys to withdraw was unexpected.

She ordered new counsel to be appointed for Allen.

He should have new representation by the next court date on 31 October.

Who are the attorneys who ditched the Delphi murder suspect?

Thursday 19 October 2023 20:00 , Andrea Cavallier

Richard Allens defence attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi have represented him since November 2022.

The team withdrew their representation just before the hearing.

It happened just hours after defence attorney David Hennessy filed a memorandum on behalf of Baldwin, arguing he should be able to remain counsel to Allen following a reported evidence leak.

Back in early October, a photo had circulated on social media showing a tree with what was claimed to be markings etched with Libbys blood. These photos have not been verified.

The Murder Sheet podcasters  journalist Aine Cain and attorney Kevin Greenlee  told The Independent that days later, on the morning of 5 October, a source sent them a number of graphic crime scene pictures and other images that are part of the discovery in the case.

Not knowing where the leak originated from, they said that they contacted both Mr Allens attorneys and law enforcement to report the leak.

After that, they learned that the photos had been shared with the source by an individual allegedly connected to Mr Allens attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi.

The man was a close friend of Mr Baldwin and previously worked as an employee at his law firm, the podcasters said.

However, he had never worked on the Delphi case and left the firm years ago.

The individual died by suicide last week after a police investigation into the leak was launched.

Judge resets court date

Thursday 19 October 2023 19:55 , Andrea Cavallier

The judge has reset the next court date for 31 October

Richard Allen did not appear in court today.

No hearing today for Delphi murder suspect

Thursday 19 October 2023 19:45 , Andrea Cavallier

As the hearing began on Thursday afternoon, it was announced that Richard Allens defence attorneys had withdrawn their representation earlier today.

He is now without a defence team and has been transported back to the Department of Correction.

Judge Gull told the court this means his trial will likely be pushed back.

Without counsel Allens hearing cannot proceed," Gull said.

She added it was outside of their control and apologized to the court.

Richard Allens attorneys withdraw from case

Thursday 19 October 2023 19:40 , Andrea Cavallier

Attorneys have confirmed with the court that they are withdrawing from the case.

Richard Allen was not in the courtroom and has been transported back to Carroll County.

The judge is discussing a new trial date.

Hearing in Delphi murder case begins

Thursday 19 October 2023 19:35 , Andrea Cavallier

A hearing on the Delphi murder case has started.

Attorneys for both sides arrived at 2:15pm and the judge started the proceedings at 2:30.

There is a 30-minute delay, so it is expected to be available to watch at 3pm ET.

How to watch Delphi murder case hearing

Thursday 19 October 2023 18:30 , Andrea Cavallier

Delphi murder suspect Richard Allen will appear in court on Thursday for a hearing and for the first time in this case, cameras will be allowed in the courtroom.

The hearing will not be livestreamed, but shown on a 30-minute delay.

It is set to start at 2pm and coverage will start around 2:30pm.

Allen is charged with two counts of murder in the February 2017 deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German in Delphi.

Defence files memo addressing leaked evidence ahead of hearing

Thursday 19 October 2023 17:45 , Andrea Cavallier

Richard Allen filed several motions just hours before todays hearing, claiming the leaked evidence was created by people not related to the defence team, Fox59 reported.

There were three disseminators, one of which committed suicide after the law enforcement investigation began, the filing read. Attorney Baldwin did nothing wrong. He was snookered and abused.

It stated that Allens attorney Andrew Baldwin trusted a friend to respect his office but he was betrayed. They have since taken steps to keep all Delphi-related items locked in a room or locked fireproof file cabinet.

On Thursday morning, the team filed an affidavit under seal, a limited appearance on behalf of Mr Baldwin and a memo regarding possible disqualifications or sanctions.

The defense claimed the disqualification of either of his court-appointed attorneys would greatly prejudice his right to counsel and a timely trial.

ICYMI: Delphi murder suspect wants key evidence thrown out

Thursday 19 October 2023 17:00 , Rachel Sharp

What to expect in court today?

Thursday 19 October 2023 16:40 , Rachel Sharp

The court hearing will begin at 2pm ET on Thursday.

It will be the first time that cameras have been allowed in court in the Delphi murders case, following a ruling from Allen County Judge Frances Gull.

The judge said that the hearing is to discuss the upcoming hearing on 31 October and other matters which have recently arisen.

Several matters will be on the agenda today including:

Leak of crime scene evidence

Defence motion seeking to have the search warrant thrown out

Defence motion seeking to have ballistics evidence thrown out

Defence request to deny state accessing Richard Allens medical and mental health records

Defence request to have Richard Allen moved out of the state maximum security facility Westville Correctional to a local jail

What is Odinism? The Delphi murders suspect claims a pagan cult is behind the killings.

Thursday 19 October 2023 16:20 , Rachel Sharp

The notorious Delphi murders case has taken another shocking twist as accused killer Richard Allen made a bombshell claim about the killings of teenagers Libby German and Abby Williams.

In court documents released on Monday, the 50-year-old local man maintained his innocence of the 2017 killings and instead claimed that the murders were carried out by a pagan cult hijacked by white nationalists.

Members of a pagan Norse religion, called Odinism, hijacked by white nationalists, ritualistically sacrificed Abigail Williams and Liberty German, his attorneys write in the documents seen by The Independent.

Mr Allens attorneys said that possible Odinism signatures were left behind by the killers at the crime scene with the victims bodies staged by trees with branches and sticks laid across their bodies in the shape of pagan symbols.

While Mr Allen has no known connection to any pagan cult, his defence attorneys also took the extraordinary step of naming four individuals they say are involved in Odinism as potential suspects.

None of these individuals have ever been named by law enforcement as suspects or persons of interest in the case.

What is Odinism?

Delphi murders suspect makes bombshell claim that victims were sacrificed by white nationalist cult

Thursday 19 October 2023 16:00 , Rachel Sharp

Delphi murders suspect Richard Allen has made the bombshell claim that teenage best friends Libby German and Abby Williams were killed as part of a ritualistic sacrifice at the hands of a white nationalist cult.

In sensational court documents, filed on Monday, attorneys for the 50-year-old accused killer claim that the brutal 2017 murders were carried out by members of a pagan Norse religion and white nationalist group called Odinists.

Members of a pagan Norse religion, called Odinism, hijacked by white nationalists,ritualistically sacrificed Abigail Williams and Liberty German, state the documents, seen by The Independent.

The nature of the crime scene pointed to the work of a cult from the get-go, according to the bombshell 135-page document.

The Independents Rachel Sharp has the story:

Delphi murders suspect claims victims were sacrificed by Odinism cult

Could crime scene evidence leak derail the case?

Thursday 19 October 2023 15:40 , Rachel Sharp

A leak of crime scene photos from the Delphi murders case could threaten to derail the trial of accused killer Richard Allen.

Graphic photos of the scene where teenage best friends Libby German and Abby Williams were found brutally murdered in February 2017 have been circulating among members of a social media community, according to The Murder Sheet podcast.

In a bombshell twist, it has emerged that the leak allegedly originated from a man close to the defence team representing Mr Allen  the 51-year-old local man now charged with the murders.

If the court finds that Mr Allens legal team is behind the leak, the attorneys could be dismissed and a new legal team would need to be appointed to represent him.

This would inevitably lead to his trial being delayed from its start date of 8 January 2024  and once again delay any possible semblance of justice or closure for the families of Libby and Abby.

How did the crime scene photo leak unfold

Thursday 19 October 2023 15:22 , Rachel Sharp

Back in early October, a photo had circulated on social media showing a tree with what was claimed to be markings etched with Libbys blood. These photos have not been verified.

The Murder Sheet podcasters  journalist Aine Cain and attorney Kevin Greenlee  told The Independent that days later, on the morning of 5 October, a source sent them a number of graphic crime scene pictures and other images that are part of the discovery in the case.

We were very disturbed by what we saw, said Ms Cain.

The discovery is under a protective order by the court so that it cant be leaked or disseminated in any way. So its not only disturbing to see these images but its disturbing in terms of what it means for the case.

Not knowing where the leak originated from, they said that they contacted both Mr Allens attorneys and law enforcement to report the leak.

After that, they learned that the photos had been shared with the source by an individual allegedly connected to Mr Allens attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi.

The man was a close friend of Mr Baldwin and previously worked as an employee at his law firm, the podcasters said.

However, he had never worked on the Delphi case and left the firm years ago.

The individual died by suicide last week after a police investigation into the leak was launched.

A .40 calibre round, creepy man and Snapchat video: How police pinned the Delphi murders on Richard Allen

Thursday 19 October 2023 14:52 , Rachel Sharp

A single .40 calibre bullet discovered near the bodies of Libby German and Abby Williams turned out to be the smoking gun that initially led police to charge 50-year-old CVS worker Richard Allen with their murders in October.

The criminal affidavit, which was partly-redacted and released in November, revealed for the first time that the local man was finally tied to the murders through ballistics on a bullet found at the bloody crime scene.

Here, The Independent explains key details revealed in the criminal affidavit outlining the case against Mr Allen:

Delphi murders: How police pinned the 2017 slayings on Richard Allen

What happened to Libby and Abby?

Thursday 19 October 2023 13:40 , Rachel Sharp

Libby German and Abby Williams went missing on 13 February 2017 after they set off on a hike along the Monon High Bridge Trail in Delphi, Indiana.

During the walk, Libby had posted photos on Snapchat of her and Abby along the trail.

The happy image of the two best friends is believed to be the last photo of them before they died.

Their bodies were discovered the next day in a wooded area around half a mile off the trail.

In a move that propelled the investigation forward, Libby also captured a grainy video on her phone of a man dressed in blue jeans, a blue jacket and a cap walking along the abandoned railroad bridge.

Investigators released a grainy image from the video and a chilling audio of the man telling the two girls: Go down the hill.

Investigators have long suspected that this man is the girls killer and have praised the girls for documenting the video as evidence.

Libby German (left) and Abby Williams (right) pictured together (Facebook)

Delphi murders: What we know about suspect Richard Allen

Thursday 19 October 2023 13:20 , Rachel Sharp

More than five years on from when teenage best friends Libby German and Abby Williams were last seen alive, a 50-year-old local married man was arrested and charged in connection with the 2017 Delphi murders.

Richard Matthew Allen, from Delphi, Indiana, was taken into custody 26 October and booked into Carroll County Jail on two counts of murder. He was then moved to a state facility, reportedly for his own safety.

Mr Allens arrest marked a bombshell development in the high-profile case that has rocked the small, close-knit community of Delphi and had gone unsolved for more than half a decade.

The 50-year-old has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Heres what we know about the suspect in the infamous case:

Who is Richard Allen, the man charged over the 2017 Delphi murders?

WATCH: Cameras will be in courtroom for Delphi murder case hearing

Thursday 19 October 2023 13:02 , Rachel Sharp

The murders of Libby German and Abby Williams

Thursday 19 October 2023 12:40 , Megan Sheets

The spine-chilling murder case began on 13 February 2017 when Libby German and Abby Williams set off on a walk along the Monon High Bridge in their hometown of Delphi.

During the walk, Libby posted a photo of her best friend on Snapchat as they walked on the bridge.

Minutes 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 footage  found on Libbys phone following their murders  the man tells the two girls: Guys, down the hill.

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  Valentines Day 2017  their bodies were discovered in a wooded area less than half a mile off the trail along the side of Deer Creek.

In October 2022  over five years later  Richard Allen was arrested and charged with their murders.

He is set to face trial in January 2024.

Cameras allowed in court for the first time

Thursday 19 October 2023 12:30 , Megan Sheets

Broadcast cameras will be allowed to capture todays status hearing, marking the first time throughout the case against Richard Allen that weve gotten a live view inside the court.

Judge Fran Gulls decision to allow cameras in her Allen County courtroom likely received a positive response from Mr Allen and his defence team, which had filed in support of the request.

Prosecutors, however, are sure to be less pleased. They had expressed serious concerns about broadcasting the proceedings given the massive national attention on the case - which they say has led to critical information leaks online.

Crime scene photo leak threatens to derail Richard Allen case

Thursday 19 October 2023 12:20 , Rachel Sharp

Earlier this week, The Independent reported that a leak of crime scene photos from the Delphi murders case could threaten to derail accused killer Richard Allens trial.

Graphic photos of the scene where teenage best friends Libby German and Abby Williams were killed have been circulating among members of a social media community following Mr Allens arrest, according to The Murder Sheet podcast.

It has emerged that the leak allegedly originated from a man close to the defence team representing Mr Allen.

Investigators in Indiana are now probing how this sensitive evidence came to be released ahead of a newly-planned court hearing scheduled to take place on Thursday.

Read more about the leak from Rachel Sharp:

Delphi murders crime scene photo leak threatens to derail case

Richard Allen to appear in court today

Thursday 19 October 2023 12:14 , Megan Sheets

Delphi murders suspect Richard Allen is set to appear in court today for a status hearing.

The hearing, which was scheduled just last week, is set to begin at 2pm local time at the Allen County Courthouse in Indiana.

As for the purpose of the hearing, Judge Fran Gull vaguely said it was to discuss the upcoming hearing on October 31, 2023, and other matters which have recently arisen.

Rumours have swirled that those other matters will include an alleged leak of photos from the crime scene where Abby Williams and Libby German were murdered in February 2017.

An investigation into the leak was launched last week, just before the status hearing was set.

Follow along for live coverage by The Independent.
To topple a two-term congressman and former Miami-Dade County mayor, Democrats may turn to a candidate from the Florida Panhandle who speaks only a little Spanish.

On Wednesday, Democrat Phil Ehr, a 26-year U.S. Navy veteran, ended his campaign for U.S. Senate and announced that he would instead launch a campaign to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez for his South Florida House seat.

Joined in front of the Cuban Memorial at Tamiami Park by former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who lost to Gimenez in 2020 and is now running for Senate, Ehr railed against what he described as the recent chaos in Washington and abroad. Pointing to a prolonged fight among Republicans over the House speakership, a coming government-funding deadline and ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, he argued that Gimenez had failed to provide steady leadership in Congress.

Carlos Gimenez is missing in action, Ehr said. Carlos Gimenez is not providing leadership nor looking after people.

Gimenez represents Floridas 28th congressional district, which spans from southern Miami-Dade County to Key West. More than two-thirds of the people living in the district are Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Ehr previously mounted an unsuccessful bid in 2020 to oust Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who represents a Florida Panhandle district more than 600 miles away from Miami. He launched a campaign for Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scotts seat earlier this year. Members of Congress arent required to live in the district they represent, but Ehr told the Miami Herald that hes in the process of moving his residence from Pensacola to either Miami or the Keys.

His decision to drop out of the U.S. Senate race in favor of a House campaign effectively clears the way for Mucarsel-Powell to seek the Democratic nomination to take on Scott in 2024 without much of a primary fight. While she entered the Senate contest in August as the clear favorite, Ehrs candidacy raised the potential for a potentially bitter primary season.

Ehr is the first notable Democrat to launch a challenge to Gimenez. Only one other Democrat, Marcos Reyes, has filed paperwork to run for the seat.

Floridas 28th congressional district was previously seen as a key battleground for both parties. Mucarsel-Powell ousted Republican former U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbello from the seat in 2018 before losing to Gimenez two years later.

But redistricting and a broader GOP shift in Florida has turned the district into more reliably Republic territory. Last year, Gimenez won reelection by a staggering 27-point margin. In a statement to the Herald, Gimenezs campaign said that the congressman looks forward to continuing to represent the people of Miami Dade and the Florida Keys.

Its unclear how much support Ehr will get from national groups, like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Asked on Wednesday about whether he had received any reassurances or commitments from national organizations, Ehr said he had only been promised that the DCCC would remain impartial in the primary.

Ive talked to the DCCC and theres not any commitments made except that theyre going to treat this race fairly, he said, but added that the district is still winnable for Democrats. A spokesperson for the DCCC declined to comment on this story.

Mucarsel-Powell also demurred when asked about national support for her Senate bid, saying that her goal is not to depend on anyone but my campaign to make sure I have the resources to win.

Im going to make it impossible for national groups to not invest in this state, she said.
SPIN @ Sundance: Can Sean Penn Actually Play Robert Smith?

On a quiet January evening in 2010, a 7.0 earthquake ravaged the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 of its people. Amongst those who rushed to help were actor Sean Penn and Ann Lee, a lifelong humanitarian worker, dedicated to public service and international aid for more than 20 years, including work for the United Nations. Together they created Community Organized Relief Effort, or CORE, a nonprofit devoted to helping the more than 1.5 million Haitians affected by the earthquakes aftermath, as well as other underserved, marginalized communities in crisis around the world.

More from Spin:

We are small but mighty and have a lot of heart, Lee tells me, from COREs Los Angeles homebase. I think our strength is that were more targeted about who we help, so we cant address the hundreds of thousands of people who need help. We focus in on the thousands or the most vulnerable who get the least amount of support after a disaster, and we do it as comprehensively as possible.

Lee with Sean Penn. (Credit: CORE)

CORE not only helps clear away the debris and broken buildings, but they re-energize the area, bringing back the fundamental elements required for a healthy, living community. Its not just about having food and water and a roof over your head  you need life, Lee says, of their holistic approach. You need education, you need things that are fun to do, you need mental health supportyou need the arts. When we respond to crises around the world, we need to be thinking about what impacts the quality of life for these communities.

One of the things Sean and I really got attached towas this idea that we need to get the people from these camps back out into the community, she adds. How do we do that?

In Haiti, the quality of life for young people is severely impacted by the daily danger of local gangs who, according to the UN, control about 80% of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. Rape and kidnappings occur regularly, forcing parents to keep their children indoors. To provide an escape from their difficult realities, CORE funds an after-school music program that was founded in 2014 by Music Heals International.

(Credit: Music Heals International)

The music program helps as a therapy for the youth in these difficult moments, says Emmanuel Piervil, manager of the program. Their testimonies and the songs they write express that. Music keeps their minds alive. They are not tempted to sit around doing nothing or get mixed up with bad influences on the street. On the contrary, they prefer to come practice their instruments, so they can improve and work toward their goals.

After the earthquake, more than 60,000 Haitians were displaced and homeless. CORE founded the School of Hope to provide education, music, and a meal for children in the displacement camp. With 300 students, the school also offers a network of support for other schools in the area, including teacher training.

Lee says that in spite of the overwhelming adversity they face, the music they experience in the program has an illuminating, transformative effect.

Imagine a place where its hard for kids to do anythingto just play outside and theres no place to go. Its one of the few outlets that they have, Lee explains. The school and the programs we do here are really an oasis for so many of these kids. Its helping them cope with the realities of the day. When you bring in musicthe kids transform.

(Credit: CORE)

It was a shock how it completely changed the kids testing scores and their behavioral problems, she continues. Its become such a fundamental piece [of] their education because it has helped so much. It helped some kids become calmer, helped with anxiety, helped with some of anger and aggression.

A major reason why CORE creates long-lasting change in places like Haiti is because they go after issues deeper than earthquake rubble.

We take a very big social-justice lens in the work that we do because we know that whether its an earthquake or a hurricane or war there can be underlying issues of long-standing inequalities that have been just festering, Lee says. This makes certain groups of people a lot more at risk during these disasters than others. Its always the poorest living in high-risk areas, like low-lying flood areas. And their access to assistance is harder because they dont have the same networks or the capital or even information. It doesnt make any sense.

Even with deep, systemic inequalities rooted in the communities they work with, Lee and Penn are relentless, empowered by all of the expectations they surpass.

We were told by experts that it would take 50 years to remove all the rubble in Port-au-Prince, but all that rubble was removed in four years, Lee says proudly. Thats what we learned and thats always been a touchstone for us, like when COVID hit. Who are we, this tiny little organization with seven, US-based staff and [with] no experience in the health sector? But we figured it out by providing three million [COVID] vaccines and seven million tests around the United States  we were the biggest provider of testing and vaccines that was non-governmental. But because of what we accomplished in Haiti, we were like, Fuck it. Lets just jump in and figure it out and get people to join us.

Sean and I are two people who both look at a problem and are like, Why not? Its that audacity that, even if it feels so daunting, we can do it, she adds. We have this personality type where we just pick up a shovel and start digging. When you do that, you can do anything  thats our ethos.

But Lee is adamant that when they do pick up that shovel to help, its a result of the ambitious action and attitudes of those on the ground already, covered in dirt and dust, trying to gather the pieces of their destroyed lives.

I remember when we had to take down these two and three-story buildings in the slums of Haiti  you couldnt get heavy equipment into these little areas, Lee recalls. There were teams of 10 local people with pickaxes and sledgehammers taking those buildings down by hand. And were going to stand here and talk about how its going to be really hard? Were following these communities and these people who are not waiting around for anybody to give them a hand.

They figure shit out and that is so inspiring.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  Hamas fighters likely fired North Korean weapons during their Oct. 7 assault on Israel, a militant video and weapons seized by Israel show, despite Pyongyang's denials that it arms the militant group.

South Korean officials, two experts on North Korean arms and an Associated Press analysis of weapons captured on the battlefield by Israel point toward Hamas using Pyongyangs F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon that fighters typically use against armored vehicles.

The evidence shines a light on the murky world of the illicit arms shipments that sanction-battered North Korea uses as a way to fund its own conventional and nuclear weapons programs.

Rocket-propelled grenade launchers fire a single warhead and can be quickly reloaded, making them valuable weapons for guerrilla forces in running skirmishes with heavy vehicles. The F-7 has been documented in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, a weapons expert who works as the director of the consultancy Armament Research Services.

North Korea has long supported Palestinian militant groups, and North Korean arms have previously been documented amongst interdicted supplies, Jenzen-Jones told the AP.

Hamas has published images of their fighters with a launcher with a rocket-propelled grenade with a distinctive red stripe across its warhead, and other design elements matching the F-7, said Matt Schroeder, a senior researcher with Small Arms Survey who wrote a guide to Pyongyangs light weapons.

It is not a surprise to see North Korean weapons with Hamas, Schroeder said.

The North Korean F-7 resembles the more widely distributed Soviet-era RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade, with a few noticeable differences. Jenzen-Jones described the F-7 rocket-propelled grenade as intended to offer a lethal effect against personnel given its shape and payload, rather than armored vehicles.

Weapons seized by the Israeli military and shown to journalists also included that red stripe and other design elements matching the F-7.

In a background briefing with journalists Tuesday, South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff specifically identified the F-7 as one of the North Korean weapons it believed Hamas used in the attack. The Israeli military declined to answer questions from the AP about the origin and the manufacturer of those rocket-propelled grenades, saying the ongoing war with Hamas prevented it from responding.

North Korea's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment from the AP. However, Pyongyang last week through its state-run KCNA news agency dismissed claims that Hamas used its weapons as a groundless and false rumor orchestrated by the United States.

Hamas propaganda videos and photos previously have shown its fighters with North Korea's Bulsae guided anti-tank missile. Jenzen-Jones said he believed, based on imagery of the weapons wielded by Hamas fighters in the Oct. 7 attack, they also used North Korea's Type 58 self-loading rifle, a variant of the Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Many North Korean weapons have been provided by Iran to militant groups, and this is believed to be the primary way by which Palestinian militants have come to possess North Korean weapons, Jenzen-Jones said.

Iran also has modeled some of its ballistic missiles after North Korean variants.

Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. Officials in Iran long have supported Hamas and have praised their assault on Israel.

In December 2009, Thai authorities grounded a North Korean cargo plane reportedly carrying 35 tons of conventional arms, including rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, as it made a refueling stop at a Bangkok airport. Thai officials then said the weapons were headed to Iran. The United States later said in 2012 the shipments interdicted by the Thais had been bound for Hamas.

North Korea also faces Western suspicions that it supplies ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia to support its war on Ukraine. The White House said last week that North Korea recently delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

___

Gambrell reported from Jerusalem.
What are the laws of war? When did the term first appear?

The laws of war, also called International Humanitarian Law, refer to a group of statutes agreed upon in international conventions and treaties over the last 150 years. A series of treaties, known as the Geneva Conventions, were adopted in 1864, 1906, 1929 and 1949 to limit the barbarity of war, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Additional Protocols of 1977, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, as well as conventional weapons conventions, are also part of International Humanitarian Law, also known as IHL.

The overriding goal of IHL is to protect civilians by restricting the actions of military forces. They are designed to protect people who do not take part in the fighting, such as civilians, medics and aid workers, as well as those who can no longer fight, such as wounded and sick combatants, and prisoners of war.

In the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, all 196 members of the newly created United Nations adopted the four original Geneva Conventions, making them one of the worlds most widely agreed upon international agreements.

There are five basic principles under International Humanitarian Law: military actions must be necessary; they must distinguish between civilians and legitimate military targets; they must be proportionate, meaning they must avoid to the extent possible incidental harm; they must avoid unnecessary suffering, sometimes referred to as humanity; and, finally, the actions taken by the military must be honorable.

Image: Israel Declares War Following Large-Scale Hamas Attacks (Amir Levy / Getty Images)

The International Committee of the Red Cross, a global nonprofit based in Switzerland, is an independent, neutral organization that works to ensure humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence. Known as the ICRC, its mandate and mission is to take action in response to emergencies and promote respect for international humanitarian law and its implementation in national law. The ICRC can investigate allegations of war crimes, but on its own has no power to prosecute them.

Humanitarian law does not regulate when and if wars are justified or when they can start or end, said Ilia Utmelidze, director of the Case Matrix Network, a nonprofit group that investigates war crimes. It is a minimum standard of protection when wars are fought.

Who prosecutes people or nations accused of committing war crimes?

All signatories to the Geneva Convention are obligated to investigate and prosecute war crimes domestically if they are aware of them. But the decisions are often wrapped in politics. Bottom line, we have the jurisprudence, the experience and the rules of procedure and evidence to prosecute those who commit war crimes, said David Crane, an American international law expert and the founding chief prosecutor of the United Nations Special Court for Sierra Leone. But the bright red thread about whether a international tribunal is convened is political, not legal.

Crane pointed out that, nevertheless, international tribunals have been convened to prosecute war crimes in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia, where war crimes occurred.

In 1989, an effort was launched to create an International Criminal Court that would prosecute war crimes globally. The citizens or soldiers of any nation that signed a treaty known as the Rome Statute could be investigated and tried by the court for committing war crimes if such crimes are committed on the territory of this country.

All told, 123 nations have signed the Rome Statute, including the "State of Palestine," the U.K., France, Germany and Japan. Dozens of nations, including the United States, Russia, China and Israel, have declined to ratify the Rome accord. They cite fears of bias by the court and argue that their own national military justice and legal systems are already adequately prosecuting war crimes.

For some time now, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry has been collecting and preserving evidence of war crimes committed by all sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, according to The Associated Press. That evidence could be added to an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court into possible war crimes by Israel and Hamas in past conflicts.

Sirens warning of incoming rockets sound around Gaza, near Tel Aviv (Amir Cohen / Reuters)

As part of its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Hamas fired on Israeli military posts on its border with Gaza. Is that a war crime?

Experts on the laws of war say that attacks on military posts are generally not war crimes. While the decision by Hamas to attack Israel can be condemned and criticized as wrong, it does not in itself violate the rules of war. As a military, you get a license to kill, said Utmelidze, from Case Matrix Network, but you have to be prepared to pay with military lives of your own.

Hamas attacked Israeli villages and a musical festival, taking hostages and killing civilians. Are those actions war crimes?

It is indisputable that Hamas committed war crimes in their brutal attack on Israeli citizens, according to David Scheffer, one of the foremost experts on the laws of war. Scheffer, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, was the first ever U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues during the Clinton administration.

Scheffer noted that since Gaza and the West Bank are signatories to the ICC, it is possible that both Hamas and the individuals accused of committing crimes against humanity could face prosecution at The Hague.

Intentional targeting of civilians and civilian objects without a military necessary reason to do so is a war crime, period, said Crane, the international law expert. And thats a standard that both sides are held to under international law.

Experts told NBC News that one of the central determinants in assessing whether war crimes have been committed is if the actions were intentional and without military purpose. Furthermore, they say, the mutilation of bodies, torture and hostage-taking are all considered war crimes.

On Oct. 8, Israel cut off food, fuel, water and electricity to all of Gazas 2.2 million people. More than half of them are children. Is that a war crime?

Crane said that, while blockades are legal, the nation imposing the blockade must take into consideration the effect on the civilian population. There is no bright line, he said, but we will know when it has gone too far.

Scheffer said, It is an acceptable short-term tactic, but clearly it cannot be of a long duration.

On Monday, the World Health Organization warned there were only 24 hours of water, electricity and fuel left in the Gaza Strip before a real catastrophe occurred. On Wednesday, Imene Trabelsi, a spokesperson for the ICRC, told NBC News that the water situation in Gaza is near catastrophic.

The Israeli air force has reportedly dropped more than 6,000 bombs over Gaza since Oct 7. Is that a war crime?

The Israeli military is allowed to eliminate the Hamas threat, said Scheffer, but must do so in ways that protect Palestinian civilian lives and ultimately gives them the right to return to their homes.

As Israel seeks out military targets and strikes them from the air, or engages them from the ground, it will always have to balance the safety and well-being of the civilian population with the military objective of eliminating Hamas, Scheffer said. Its a calculation that must be made in wartime.

In Gaza, officials have reported more than 1,200 people killed in Israel's uninterrupted campaign of air and artillery strikes, while the UN said more than 338,000 people have been displaced. (Ibrahim Hams / AFP - Getty Images)

Crane said that Israel is in an impossible situation. It appears Israel is trying to follow the Geneva Convention and the law of armed conflict but, because the battlefield is one of the most densely populated areas on earth, and because Hamas has a history of hiding behind civilians, protecting the Palestinian people will be complex and civilian lives will be lost.

Scheffer said Israel needs to tread carefully taking into account the guardrails that exist to protect civilians in Gaza. The laws of war can be complex, Scheffer conceded, but certain principles are crystal clear, for example, atrocities committed by Hamas do not permit Israel to commit atrocities in return.

Are attacks on hospitals and schools war crimes?

On Tuesday, a massive explosion destroyed Al-Ahli Hospital in central Gaza. Palestinian Health Ministry officials said it killed hundreds of civilians. Targeting hospitals is specifically outlawed under the first Geneva Convention. But even the protection of hospitals is not absolute. If hospitals are used to commit  acts harmful to the enemy, then attacks on them may be permitted so long as they follow the rules of proportionality and precaution.

The Israeli Defense Forces say it does not target hospitals and have offered evidence that the tragedy was the result of a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. U.S. intelligence officials have also assessed that Israel did not cause the blast. Since Oct. 7, the World Health Organization has reported 41 attacks on health care facilities and 74 attacks on ambulances or other medical transport vehicles in Gaza.

On Tuesday, a U.N.-run school in northern Gaza was hit and six people were reportedly killed. Like hospitals, schools are civilian facilities and cannot be attacked, unless enemy combatants use the school as a base for attack. But even then, the attack must be proportionate. In other words, according to the IHL, if only a few combatants are inside, a small special forces team might be used for an attack, but demolishing the school with a large bomb would be disproportionate.

Israel knows it will be under close scrutiny, said Scheffer. Israel must be able to defend itself without abandoning its own principles. If it fails to do so, it may find itself in a militarily superior position but ostracized on a risky perch.
An explosion on a cruise ship docked in Maine has left one crew member burned and led to the evacuation of more than 200 people onboard.

Firefighters responded to a call just before 7.30am on Wednesday to the Ocean Navigator, a five-deck cruise ship owned by American Queen Voyages, after reports of smoke coming from the engine room, a spokesperson for the city of Portland said in a press release.

Additional crews were simultaneously able to stabilise the engine room issue and remained on scene to assist with extensive ventilation efforts and complete overhaul to prevent any further issues," the city of Portland said.

The ship was docked at a pier in Portland, Maine, where the citys fire department received reports that a possible explosion broke out inside an engine room, suggesting it could be linked to a generator on the ship.

A crew member onboard the Ocean Navigator had been burned, potentially by the generator fire, and was taken to a nearby hospital.

Officials said the crew member was seriously injured, but their injuries were not life-threatening.

The crew member is currently thought to be the only person injured in the fire, according to Portland officials and the US Coast Guard, CBS reports.

The ship evacuated all 128 passengers and 82 crew members off the ship, who are all currently housed at a local hotel.

By 7.44am, the fire was back under control, but the crew was in the process of ventilating and cleaning all the smoke from the cruise so officials could conduct an investigation, the city of Portland said.

Coast Guard Leuitenant Commander Ryan Koroknay spoke to The Sun Journal and said the explosion and fire had damaged equipment in the engine room.

(WMTW)

We dont know whats operational. A determination still has to be made on how and when the ship will be able to leave. Its hard to tell, Mr Koroknay said.

The US Coast Guard is now trying to figure out if the ship is seaworthy enough to continue its cruise by conducting an investigation, which will also try to source why the generator exploded, according to the outlet.

Passengers and crew could be seen waiting in a nearby terminal and have now been transported to hotels while they wait to hear what will happen to the ship, WMTW reported.

According to CruiseMapper, the ship embarked on its journey on 10 October from Montreal in Canada and cruised around the Canadian coast before it reached Portland in Maine.

The ship was due to arrive in Boston on Thursday, said the website.

In a statement to The Independent, an American Queen Voyages spokesperson also confirmed that their crew member sustained injuries and is currently being treated in hospital.

However, they also stated that they have cancelled the remainder of the trip on the Ocean Navigator.

American Queen Voyages has made the difficult decision to cancel our Oct. 19 sailing from Portland to St. John due to a combination of the recent mechanical issues caused by the generator fire from the previous sailing as well as the adverse weather conditions forecasted for the upcoming weekend, the spokesperson said.

We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our passengers, and we want to emphasize that this decision was not made lightly. The safety and security of our guests and dedicated crew is our top priority, and after careful consideration and evaluation of various factors by our Captain, it has been determined that it is unsafe for us to embark on this journey. We remain dedicated in continuing to provide safe, enjoyable and memorable experiences for our guests as well as our Crew.

The Independent has contacted US Coast Guard for comment.
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's legal jeopardy has mounted since he narrowly lost last year's presidential election to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, barring him from upcoming elections and raising the prospect of jail time.

The far-right former army captain was already the subject of police probes before and during his four years in office. But his efforts to undermine faith in Brazil's voting system, which culminated in a Jan. 8 insurrection by thousands of his supporters in Brasilia, have only added to his problems.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied breaking any laws, and calls allegations against him a witch hunt by his political opponents.

Among the legal headaches now facing Bolsonaro:

BARRED FROM OFFICE TILL 2030

In June, Brazil's federal electoral court (TSE) barred Bolsonaro from public office until 2030 for his conduct during last year's election. Five out of seven justices voted to convict him of abuse of power and misuse of the media when, in July 2022, he summoned ambassadors to vent unfounded claims of vulnerabilities in Brazil's electronic voting system.

CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRY

On Wednesday, a congressional probe which has been investigating the Jan. 8 insurrection by Bolsonaro's supporters recommended that he and several allies face charges of criminal association, political violence, disrupting the democratic order and an attempted coup d'etat. The inquiry has no power to punish Bolsonaro or others, but can issue recommendations for them to face criminal or civil charges.

SUPREME COURT PROBES

Bolsonaro is still the subject of at least five criminal investigations led by the Supreme Court. They include alleged spreading of fake news about COVID-19 vaccines, leaking of details from a sealed federal police probe, interference in the federal police, propagation of online misinformation and masterminding the Jan. 8 riots in the capital.

AIDE TURNS STATE WITNESS

Bolsonaro and his former aides are also being investigated by the federal police for allegedly forging his vaccination records to travel to the United States. In May, police arrested former aide Mauro Cid for his alleged role in the scheme.

Cid was also a central player in another alleged racket, in which Bolsonaro and his team are suspected of selling expensive jewels given to his administration by the Saudi government.

Last month, after months in jail, Cid agreed to cooperate with the federal police and was freed from behind bars.

In September, Brazilian media reported that Cid allegedly told police that Bolsonaro had sounded out commanders of the armed forces about a draft decree to overturn the election.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Brad Haynes and Jonathan Oatis)
A 30-year-old woman is in critical condition after a man pushed her into a moving subway train, the New York Police Department has said.

NYPD officers responded to a 911 call on Wednesday at noon at the East 53 Street and 5 Avenue subway station at the southbound "E" train platform, according to a police report. When officers arrived at the scene, they observed a 30-year-old woman with trauma to the head. Upon investigation, it was noted that the woman was pushed into a moving train that was departing from the station.

EMS administered medical aid to the woman and transported her to the Weill Cornell Medical Center in critical condition, said the police.

Meanwhile, the suspect fled the location on foot, exiting the turnstiles at West 53 Street and 5 Avenue, police said.

Officers seal the 5 Av-53 St subway station in Manhattan on Wednesday, Oct 18, 2023 after a customer was pushed against a train by an assailant and fell to the roadbed, suffering critical injuries.

NYC subway shooting: Frank James sentenced to life in prison

Suspect identified

MTA Chair & CEO Janno Lieber and NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper visit the scene and provide a media update at 5 Av-53 St on Wednesday, Oct 18, 2023 after a passenger was pushed against a train by an assailant and fell to the roadbed, suffering critical injuries.

In a press conference, NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper said that the woman, whose identity has not yet been revealed, was standing on the platform when the man shoved her onto the moving train in an attack that was described as random.

"Fortunately, there were eyewitnesses and Good Samaritans that were on that platform that helped her back off the roaded [tracks] and onto the platform," said Kemper, adding that detectives are working with the eyewitnesses to investigate the attack.

The police chief said that a suspect, 39-year-old Sabir Jones, was identified using surveillance footage from video cameras installed at the station and that he was known to the department, though no arrests were made.

Police have released this video hoping to get the public's help in finding Jones.

The police are requesting anyone with information to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).

Tips can also be submitted online by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Mental illness: a potential factor in attack

While the police did not share further details on the suspect, the New York Times reported that Jones has a history of homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse.

MTA Chair Janno Lieber also stated that the attack appeared to have been done by a person who was struggling with mental health issues.

"I'm not a mental health professional, but I'm sure that that the people who are, have to figure out how to get these people out of the public space and into treatment so that they get in better condition for themselves and more important for New Yorkers who are just trying to live their lives," said Lieber. "We feel for them, but we need for them to get in treatment and out of the public space."

Lieber said that his department has made "tremendous progress on subway crime," bringing it down 9% from where it was before COVID "but that's no consolation to the family of this young woman, who is fighting for her life in the hospital."

"New Yorkers are put up with alot. What they can't put up with is people randomly coming up to them, which appears to be the case here, and attacking them," said Lieber.

NYPD officers investigate the attack that took place at the 5 Av-53 St subway station in Manhattan on Wednesday, Oct 18, 2023 in which a customer was pushed against a train by an assailant and fell to the roadbed, suffering critical injuries.

'Fly-by-night companies': 2 men charged with pocketing millions intended to help New York Citys homeless people

Another tragic subway incident in New York this week

In a separate incident, an 18-year-old was found dead on the tracks on a subway station in Queens on Tuesday.

She has been identified by officials as Jessica Marleny Ajtzac Guarcas of Queens.

Authorities responded to a 911 call on Tuesday at around 6:30 a.m. at the Roosevelt Avenue and Broadway subway station, stated a police report.

Officers arrived to find the teenager unconscious and unresponsive with trauma about the body on the tracks. EMS responded and pronounced her deceased at the scene.

ABCNews6 reported that she collapsed on the platform as a train was approaching. The operator of the incoming train saw her fall and pulled the emergency brakes but was unable to stop in time, authorities told the media outlet.

Police say that an investigation is ongoing and a medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

'We've got a deep problem': Jordan Neely NYC subway chokehold death sparks outcry

Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @saman_shafiq7.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NYC woman in critical condition after man shoves her into subway train
By Liliana Salgado and Daniel Becerril

HARLINGEN, Texas (Reuters) - The first U.S. deportation flight to Venezuela under a new Biden administration initiative landed in Caracas on Wednesday, as part of a tougher approach to border enforcement as the U.S. struggles with record illegal crossings.

At an airport in Harlingen, Texas, on Wednesday morning, buses dropped Venezuelan men and women in shackles on the tarmac where they were patted down and ushered onto a charter plane, Reuters witnesses said. About 130 Venezuelans were deported, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has grappled with record numbers of migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, a trend fueled by a sharp increase in Venezuelans fleeing economic and political instability in their home country exacerbated by U.S. sanctions.

More than 380,000 Venezuelans have been caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally since Biden took office in 2021, up from about 2,200 in fiscal year 2019 and 1,200 in 2020.

The deportation restart comes weeks after the Biden administration granted deportation relief and work permits to nearly half a million Venezuelans who arrived in the United States on or before July 31, citing "Venezuela's increased instability and lack of safety."

U.S. and Venezuelan officials said earlier this month that direct deportations would restart after being stalled for years due to diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens told reporters in Texas that migrants should use legal pathways to enter the U.S. or schedule an appointment to approach a legal border crossing rather than cross illegally.

"The message is simple. If you want to come to this country, do it the right way," Owens said.

Corey Price, a senior ICE official, said that the agency aimed to send several deportation flights to Venezuela per week.

On Tuesday, Venezuela's government and its political opposition agreed to electoral guarantees for 2024 presidential elections. Reuters reported on Wednesday that the Biden administration plans to provide some sanctions relief for Venezuela's oil and gas sector in response.

Earlier this month, immigration advocates criticized the move to ramp up deportations to Venezuela.

Jennifer Piper, a Colorado program director with the American Friends Service Committee, called it "deeply cruel and deadly" and urged the Biden administration "to end deportations to dangerous locations immediately."

(Reporting by Liliana Salgado and Daniel Becerril in Harlingen, Texas; Writing by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Mary Milliken and Aurora Ellis)
Prosecutors on Thursday indicted actor Yoo Ah-in for habitually using illegal drugs, nearly a month after an arrest warrant for him was dismissed for the second time.

The 37-year-old actor, who was not detained, is accused of getting injections of propofol and other medical drugs on 181 occasions at clinics across Seoul since 2020 under the pretext of having cosmetic procedures.

Yoo, whose legal name is Uhm Hong-sik, reportedly took four types of medical drugs: propofol, midazolam, ketamine and remimazolam.

The actor is also charged with allegedly using other people's names to illegally purchase some 1,100 sleeping pills on 44 occasions, smoking marijuana with four people and coercing others to take the narcotics in the United States in January.

The police filed an arrest warrant for Yoo in May, but the court rejected the warrant, saying Yoo is unlikely to destroy evidence or flee.

Prosecutors in June sought an arrest warrant for him for the second time,adding additional charges of attempting to have evidence destroyed and abetting people to smoke marijuana.

The court, however, dismissed the request, saying sufficient evidence of the crime had been secured, and some of the charges against Yoo are still up for debate. (Yonhap)
Florida had three of the top six metro areas with the largest share of cost-burdened renters and five of the top 15, tying with California for the most markets with the highest share of cost-burdened renters in the country, according to Apartment List.

Florida had three of the top six metro areas with the largest share of cost-burdened renters and five of the top 15, tying with California for the most markets with the highest share of cost-burdened renters.

The Miami metropolitan area topped the list for places where people paid the highest portion of their household budgets for housing, followed by the Orlando area (No. 3), Cape Coral-Fort Myers (No. 6) and Daytona (No. 9), with Sarasota-Bradenton-North Port just outside the top 10 at No. 12.

Across almost much of the country, rents have spiked, but incomes have not kept pace, leading to housing costs eating up an ever larger portion of household budgets.

The share of renters who pay more than 30% of their income in rent shot up to the highest levels since 2005 with 51.9% of the nation's renters cost-burdened by their housing costs in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and statistics from the American Community Survey analyzed by the website Apartment List.

"Even in markets with below-average cost burden rates, the affordability picture is worsening," the Apartment List report stated. "All but six of the nations 100 largest metros saw rent burden worsen from 2019 to 2022, with rates exceeding 50 percent in 65 of those metros."

Rounding out the top 10 were Honolulu (No. 2), Riverside-San Bernardino (No. 4), Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, N.Y. (No. 5), Sacrmenton, Calif. (No. 7), Thousand Oaks-Ventura (No. 8) and Las Vegas (No. 10).

The share of renters who pay more than 50% of their income in rent each month was 31% in Sarasota-Manatee, a proportion that housing advocates describe as "severely cost burdened." Another 27% of renters pay between 30% to 50% of their income for housing in the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metro area.

William Russell, the president of the Sarasota Housing Authority, said the increased share of renters defined as cost-burdened crystalizes the need for more action from national, state and local leaders.

"Our policymakers really need to really look at what levers they can pull to see some sort of relief," he said.

Housing demand outstrips supply in Sarasota-Manatee

Russell said both increased demand and rising costs in recent years have led to declining housing affordability in Southwest Florida and across the country.

He said there has been some discussion that the market may correct itself in the coming years, but without intervention, Russell doesn't think that's likely.

"Short of a major recession, I do not see the real estate market becoming more affordable," he said.

Since 2019, the Sarasota Housing Authority has built more than 200 affordable units across two projects that took years of planning and funding requests, but the area's population has seen tens of thousands of new people added over that time.

A U.S. Census Bureau estimate of Sarasota-Manatee's growth over the past two years pegs the population increase at nearly 60,000  about the equivalent of a city the size of Sarasota  for the two-county area.

While the Sarasota Housing Authority has started construction on an 84-unit development near Amaryllis Park called Cyprus Square at a cost of $28.4 million, that's a drop in the bucket compared to the area's affordable housing need.

Russell said as a developer of affordable housing, he understands the challenges private developers face in the current market, pointing to increased insurance, maintenance and operation costs for apartment owners.

Increased costs threatened Cyprus Square leading Russell to seek funds from the Sarasota County Commission to fill a $3 million gap in construction costs.

"The Housing Authority cannot develop our way out of this problem," he said. "It's just really expensive to develop apartments."

A list of the most cost-burdened metropolitan areas in the U.S. as of 2020, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by Apartment list, with the percentage of renters considered cost burdened, meaning they spent more than 30% of gross household income on housing:

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, 65% Urban-Honolulu, Hawaii, 61% Orlando-Kissimmee-Sandford, 61% Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California, 60% Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, New York, 60% Cape Coral-Fort Myers, 59% Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, California, 59% Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, California, 59% Deltona-Daytona-Ormond Beach, 59% Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, Nevada, 59% San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, California, 59% North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, 58% Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, California, 58% New Orleans-Metairie, Louisiana, 58% Springfield, Massachusetts, 58%

Recent coverage: Study shows more Sarasota-Manatee retirees are struggling economically

More: Sarasota's rising area income means higher rents for some, housing assistance for others

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Florida metros lead list of cost-burdened renters after rent spike
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When audiences travel to the theater to see Martin Scorsese's latest film, Killers of the Flowers Moon, they'll likely experience a brutal piece of American history for the first time. Though the Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro-starring film will dramatize certain events, the story is based on a real series of murders in Oklahoma's Osage Nation during the 1920s. For nearly a century, the story was largely suppresseduntil journalist David Grann published his book of the same in 2017, which led to a massive uncovering of the region's dark history. "They suffered one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, yet many people, myself included, werent taught about it," Grann told The Telegraph in October. "Weve effectively exorcised it from our consciousness."

The horrible story began roughly fifty years before the murders, when the Osage were driven off their land in Kansasand relocated to a Oklahoma reservation that was unfit for cultivation. To the Osage's surprise, they found that lands were rich with massive oil reserves. This brought enormous riches to the Osage, who maintained "head rights" over the area, meaning that the land could only be inherited, not purchased. Soon enough, the revelation led to a criminal conspiracy in Oklahoma's Osage Nation wherein white entrepreneurs would marry into the Osage, then murder their spousesjust to flee with their family's wealth. J. Edgar Hoover, the future director of the FBI, sent the Bureau of Investigation to uncover the conspiracy and expose the masterminds behind the killings

Fast-forward nearly 100 years, when Grann researched the historical event for his book. After digging through the Fort Worth archives, he found something even more sinister at play. Grann told The Telegraph that he found a ledger listing deaths that "defied any natural death rates" of the time. Grann concluded that this was evidence of a systematic murder of the Osage people. "I dont know of a single Osage family which didnt lose at least one family member because of the head rights," Grann added.

The mastermind at the time was reportedly William Hale, a wealthy rancher who married his nephew, Ernest Burkhart, to an Osage woman named Mollie Burkhart. De Niro plays Hale in Killers of the Flower Moon, and DiCaprio stars as Ernest. DiCaprio was originally set to play investigator Tom Whitewho worked with Hoover to organize an undercover operation in Oklahomabut Scorsese rewrote the entire film to have him take on Ernest. Wheres the heart of the film? DiCaprio reportedly asked Scorsese, with the director responding, "Well, the heart is with her and Ernest."

Shop Now Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI amazon.com $18.52

So, the two traveled with actress Lilly Gladstonewho plays Mollie in the filmto visit the Osage and gain their approval. "You deal with Native Americans and Indigenous people, you gotta make sure everything we do, everything we do, is as authentic," Scorsese told CBS Sunday Morning. DiCaprio added, "We did our absolute best to listen to the Osage community."

Scorsese reportedly hired many Osage to work both in front of and behind the camera, and the crew maintained a healthy relationship with Osage Nation Chief Standing Bear. "They really worked hard at this and earned our respect," Standing Bear said. "If you're not comfortable with Martin Scorsese, you're not going to be comfortable with anybody!" DiCaprio also learned to speak a bit of their language for the film, with Gladstone joking that he, "did an incredible job of doing it the way a white man would say it!"

During a press conference following Killers of the Flower Moon's world premiere at Cannes Film Festival, Chief Standing Bear took part in the film's panel. He praised the director's efforts, stating that he hoped the film would be a lesson about the dangers of trust. "My people suffered greatly, and to this very day, those effects are with us," Standing Bear said. "But I can say, on behalf of the Osage, Marty Scorsese and his team have restored trust, and we know that trust will not be betrayed."

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Maybe you didnt know just how unaffordable the housing market has gotten. Americans now need to earn more than six figures in order to purchase a median-priced home, according to calculations in a new Redfin report. Thats a lot more than the average American makes, to say the least.

A prospective homebuyer needs to make $114,627 to afford a home, the brokerage and real-estate research firm says. Thats a 15% year-over-year increase and the highest annual income on record to buy a home. This is a problem considering that median household income was $74,580 in 2022about $40,000 shy of whats needed to meet Redfin's target. (Redfins reporting takes into account income, average monthly mortgage payments, and current mortgage rates.)

And this doesnt even consider regional variation, or famously expensive markets such as New York City. Just to rent an apartment in Gotham, most landlords will require that your annual income equals at least 40 to 45 times the monthly rent.

"While the income needed to purchase a median-priced home in the U.S. is higher than the average income of most American households, it is now more expensive to rent homes and apartments in most markets, Maureen McDermut, a realtor with Sotheby's International-Montecito, tells Fortune. New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles have all seen dramatic increases in the price to rent a home. (McDermut started her 20-year career selling commercial real estate in Los Angeles.)

Plus, the reality is that renting will usually cost more in the long run, as it comes with the opportunity cost of not building equity or wealth, McDermut says.

'Renters and buyers alike are affected'

It has to do with the difference between how your salary looks (in most cases pretax) and how you need to come up with cold hard cash in the rental market. For instance, back in December 2020, prospective NYC renters needed to earn more than $10,000 (pretax) each month to meet the $3,100 median rent at the time. Fast forward to today, however, and average monthly rent in Manhattan hit an all-time high this summer at $4,400meaning that renters would need to make a whopping $176,000 per year (pretax) to even be eligible to rent.

This trajectory, while concurrent with what we've observed in the realm of homeownership, accentuates a broader theme: escalating housing costs, John Walkup, co-founder of NYC real estate analytics company UrbanDigs, tells Fortune. The fact that rental costs have followed a similar upward trend as home prices underscores that renters and buyers alike are affected.

Its important to consider, of course, that places like NYC are an extreme example of rent prices. When looking generally at buying versus renting from a monthly payment perspective, renting is more affordable than borrowing to buy a home in most metro areas, Daryl Fairweather, Redfins chief economist, tells Fortune. In fact, there are only four major markets, as defined by Redfin, where its cheaper to buy than to rent: Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Houston.

The strain on housing affordability is largely driven by mortgage rates, which just hit 8% on Wednesday, and rising home prices, which have increased 5% year-to-date.

Indeed, housing affordability is the worst it's been this century, with mortgage rates exceeding 7% and home prices that are up 5% year-to-date. Monthly mortgage payments reached an all-time high of more than $2,800 per month, Redfin data shows.

But one-fourth of homeowners were paying more than $3,000 per month as of July, leaving many of them house-poor. Meanwhile, average U.S. monthly earnings in July 2023 were just $4,600, according to economic data firm CEIC. That means some homeowners could be spending more than 60% of their paychecks on their mortgagemuch higher than what is considered affordable. A monthly mortgage payment is considered affordable if the homebuyer spends no more than 30% of their income on housing, Fairweather says.

In a homebuyers ideal world, rising mortgage rates would push demand and home prices down enough to make up for high interest payments. But thats not whats happening now, Chen Zhao, Redfin economics research lead, said in a statement. Although new listings are ticking up slightly, inventory is still near record lows as homeowners hang onto their low mortgage ratesand thats propping up prices.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Nearly two decades after Natalee Holloway vanished in Aruba, Joran van der Sloot finally confessed to killing her, revealing that he kicked her in the face when she refused his sexual advances, and then bludgeoned her to death with a cinder block.

Van der Sloot, who has been the prime suspect in Holloways disappearance and death in 2005, appeared in a Birmingham, Alabama court on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to trying to extort $250,000 from her mother Beth Holloway in exchange for information about the location of her body.

Holloway was declared dead in 2012, but her body has never been found. US District Judge Anna Manasco said its clear her remains will never be recovered.

Van der Sloot received a 20-year sentence on each of the two convictions on the extortion charges. Those sentences will run concurrently with each other and also concurrently with his 28-year sentence in Peru for the murder of Stephany Flores in 2010. He will now return to Peru to serve the rest of his time.

After 18 years, Natalees case is solved, Beth Holloway said with a smile shortly after the hearing ended. Its over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer a suspect in my daughters murder. He IS the killer.

The Dutch national from Aruba is not charged in Holloways death. But just before he was sentenced, Holloways mother made a statement revealing he had confessed to the murder during a proffer, held as part of a plea deal, admitting he had bludgeoned her to death and then disposed of her body into the ocean. And he did it alone.

You changed the course of our lives and you turned them upside down, Beth Holloway said in court, standing just a few feet from van der Sloot. You are a killer. You have finally admitted that, in fact, you murdered her.

A transcript of the proffer was later released that revealed how van der Sloot carried out the brutal slaying on the night of 30 May 2005.

He explained how they were walking along the beach in Aruba when he laid her down in the sand and they started kissing. When he started to feel her up, he said Holloway told him no, but he kept going.

She said no, but I insist. I keep feeling her up and she knees me in the crotch, according to the transcript. I get up on the beach and I kick her extremely hard in the face.

Beth Holloway speaks to media with her son Matt Holloway after the appearance of Joran van den Sloot outside the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse Wednesday (AP)

Van der Sloot then said, according to the transcript, that he saw she was unconscious, possibly even dead, but definitely unconscious.

I see a huge cinder block and I smash her head completely, he said. Smash her face in. Its dark but I see her face is smashed in.

Van der Sloot goes on to explain that he did not know what to do and that he was scared so he pulled her body into the ocean, pushed her into the water and walked home.

You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005, Holloway said after he pleaded guilty. You didnt get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her....You are the one in Aruba no one wants to be, the black mark on the island.

Van der Sloot wore an orange jumpsuit as he stood to address the court.

I would like to take this chance to apologise to the Holloway family, to apologise to my own family, he said, adding that he is now a Christian. I am no longer that person I was back then.

Joran van der Sloot is seen in June 2023 after he was extradited from Peru to Alabama (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Attorney John Q. Kelly, who represented Holloways mother during the alleged extortion attempt, said the plea deal was contingent on van der Sloot providing details about what happened to Holloway. Her parents were able to listen in on the confession that he told prosecutors prior to the hearing.

Before the sentencing, Judge Manasco said she considered van der Sloots confession to Holloways murder as part of the decision.

You have brutally murdered, in separate instances years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances, the judge said.

You knew the information you were selling was an absolute lie, Judge Manasco added, speaking of his extortion of Beth Holloway.

The judge said the pain of Holloways death was compounded by the fact that her family has not found and will not find her remains.

Natalee Holloway has been missing since 2005 (via AP)

Holloways case has captivated the publics attention for nearly two decades, spawning extensive news coverage, books, movies and podcasts. A heavy media presence assembled outside the federal courthouse nearly three hours before the hearing Wednesday.

Holloway was 18 years old when she vanished during a high school graduation trip with classmates to Aruba. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, a student at an international school.

The mysterious disappearance sparked years of news coverage and true crime podcasts, books and movies. Van der Sloot was identified as a main suspect and was detained for questioning but no charges were filed in the case.

Holloways family has long sought answers about her disappearance. But those answers have proven elusive as van der Sloot has given a variety of conflicting descriptions over the years about what happened.

Federal investigators in the Alabama case said van der Sloot gave a false location of Holloways body during a recorded 2010 FBI sting that captured the extortion attempt.

(AP2005)

Prosecutors in the Alabama case said van der Sloot contacted Kelly in 2010 and asked for $250,000 from Beth Holloway to reveal the location of her daughters remains.

Van der Sloot agreed to accept $25,000 to disclose the location, and asked for the other $225,000 once the remains were recovered, prosecutors said.

Van der Sloot said Holloway was buried in the gravel under the foundation of a house, but later admitted that was untrue, FBI Agent William K. Bryan wrote in a 2010 sworn statement filed in the case.

Van der Sloot moved from Aruba to Peru before he could be arrested in the extortion case.

He was extradited from Peru to Alabama in June for the extortion case. U.S. authorities agreed to return him to Peruvian custody after his case is concluded.

If his prison sentence in Peru ends early, van der Sloot will finish out the rest of his time for the extortion conviction in the United States. However, because the statute of limitations for murder in Aruba is 12 years, he will not be charged with Natalees murder, despite confessing to her killing.

Her family said the confession is justice to them.

This confession means we have finally reached the end of this never ending nightmare, Beth Holloway said.
Kevin Porter Jr.'s ex-girlfriend posted a statement on social media Wednesday about the alleged assault allegations. (Photo by Justin Ford/Getty Images) (Justin Ford via Getty Images)

Content warning: This story includes graphic description of alleged domestic violence.

Former Houston Rockets guard Kevin Porter Jr.'s ex-girlfriend, Kysre Gondrezick, refuted prosecutors' claims Porter beat and strangled her in a social media post Wednesday.

"It is unfortunate that misleading information and narratives were shared to bring forth current charges in this case," Gondrezick wrote in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday.

Porter was arrested Sept. 11 on felony assault and strangulation charges in connection to an incident that occurred at a New York hotel. Authorities responded to a 911 call to the room at 6:45 a.m. ET. Upon arrival, officers determined Porter "struck [Gondrezick] multiple times upon her body and placed his hands around her neck," a police spokesperson said.

During Porter's arraignment the next day, prosecutors claimed he continued hitting Gondrezick until she ran out into the hallway covered in blood, leaving her with a fractured neck vertebra and a laceration above her right eye.

Gondrezick directly responded to those allegations, claiming she never granted prosecutors an interview or permission to make statements  despite Assistant District Attorney Mirah Curzer's attempts:

"She went ahead and provided false narrative of details specifying that Kevin had balled his fist up and repeatedly punched me five times in the face along with strangling me until the point of losing breath causing redness, strain, and scars which I did not have and never occurred," she wrote. "The harassment and eagerness for me to support these claims to justify their position and remarks is a matter an Assistant DA took into her own hands while I was vulnerable, emotionally healing, and unavailable at the time of information being released."

Gondrezick said Curzer fabricated the claims of the case based on statements from an officer who was present after the alleged assault and "overheard possible comments from medical personnel."

"The information Assistant DA, Mirah Curzer, received was by hearsay and invalid to my truth," Gondrezick added.

Porter appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court for a scheduled hearing Monday, a day before he was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder and then waived. During that appearance, prosecutors dropped one of the assault charges against him.

The charge of second-degree assault was connected to Gondrezick's alleged fractured vertebra. Porter's defense team reportedly had documents to show Gondrezick had a congenital defect, not a new injury.

Curzer reportedly cited "insufficient evidence" as the reason for dropping the charge. Gondrezick claims the evidence couldn't have been insufficient because "it never existed."

Porter still faces charges of second-degree strangulation and third-degree assault, to which he has pleaded not guilty. He is due in court again Nov. 27.
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Britney Spears is dropping major revelations with the first excerpt of her highly anticipated memoir, The Woman in Me. Excerpts include a few mother-daughter happy hours...when she was in middle school.

According to Britney, who released the first taste of her book to PEOPLE on Tuesday, she and mom Lynne would drink daiquiris together when she was just in the eighth grade.

"For fun, starting when I was in eighth grade, my mom and I would make the two-hour drive from Kentwood to Biloxi, Mississippi, and while we were there, we would drink daiquiris," Britney writes in the excerpt. "We called our cocktails 'toddies.'"



And while she may have been well below the legal drinking age, she says experience with alcohol was much different than her controversial father's.

"I loved that I was able to drink with my mom every now and then," she continues. "The way we drank was nothing like how my father did it. When he drank, he grew more depressed and shut down. We became happier, more alive and adventurous. "

Following Britney's stint on the Mickey Mouse Club in 1994, the pop star returned to Kentwood, Louisianabut not for long. After stepping back into the spotlight, Britney was put under the conservatorship of her father in 2008.

"I became a robot. But not just a robota sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself," she said, according to Billboard. "The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child. I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me."

Under the conservatorship of her father, she had to grow out her hair and "get back into shape," per her father's demands. "He repeatedly told me I looked fat and that I was going to have to do something about it."

Britney's memoir is set to hit book stores on October 24.

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A man accused of bringing guns to the Wisconsin Capitol grounds twice in a day earlier this month pleaded not guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor charge of carrying a firearm, court records show.

Joshua Pleasnick, 43, was arrested the afternoon of October 4 after he entered the state Capitol building openly carrying a handgun and asked to speak with Gov. Tony Evers, according to a charging document filed Monday. After posting bail, Pleasnick returned that night with an AK-47-style rifle and was detained, the Wisconsin Department of Administration said at the time.

Pleasnick was given a $500 signature bond Thursday, according to court records, and was ordered to not go within 1,000 feet of the Wisconsin governor or any of the governors family. He was also ordered not to possess any type of dangerous weapon or go to certain portions of the Wisconsin Capitol grounds.

Pleasnick faces the misdemeanor charge in connection with his first arrest, the charging document states.

A pre-trial conference is set for November 20. CNN has reached out to Pleasnicks attorney Michael Edward Covey for comment.

Wisconsin statutes are clear. Open carry of a firearm is legal and just openly carrying a firearm alone is not grounds for a disorderly conduct offense, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told CNN. Open carry is not permitted in public buildings which are posted as prohibiting firearms. It appears the second time Mr. Pleasnick had contact with law enforcement their detention of him was due to a safety concern vs. a violation of a Wisconsin Statute.

When Pleasnick first entered the Capitol building around 2 p.m., he was shirtless and had a small dog on a leash as he walked past the checkpoint gate and tried to go to the governors office and speak with Evers, the document says. A State Capitol Police officer stopped Pleasnick and asked him to step behind the gate and fill out a form to meet the governor, the document says.

Pleasnick was openly carrying a holstered handgun, the complaint says. At no time did he attempt to brandish the firearm, it notes.

When officers informed Pleasnick he was not allowed to carry the weapon openly inside the Capitol, Pleasnick replied he would not comply with that rule, the complaint says. Pleasnick was then arrested.

Pleasnick told police he was not aware that open carry is banned in the Capitol, according to the complaint.

I didnt know I wasnt supposed to take a firearm into the Capitol, for that I am guilty, Pleasnick told the officer, according to the document.

Athletes run past the Wisconsin Capitol during the Ironman Wisconsin event in September 2021. - Patrick McDermott/Getty Images/IRONMAN

Pleasnick told the officer he wanted to speak to the governor about his concern that men who have been abused by women are not taken seriously by police or the justice system  something he had personally experienced, the document says. Pleasnick said he carried the gun for self-protection because he feared his ex-girlfriend may try to harm him, it says.

On October 16, 2023, the Dane County District Attorneys Office issued a criminal complaint for Mr. Joshua Pleasnick for unlawfully carrying a firearm into a public building. This charge stems from the original October 4 incident when Mr. Pleasnick entered the State Capitol building while openly carrying a holstered firearm, Warrick said, adding, Pleasnick was released from his initial confinement on the evening of October 17.

After he posted bail, Pleasnick returned to Capitol grounds around 9 p.m.  after the building had closed to the public  armed with a loaded AK-47-style rifle and repeating his request to see the governor, the state administration department said. Police also found a collapsible police-style baton in his backpack, which is illegal to carry concealed without a permit, the department said.

Officers then took Pleasnick into protective custody for a psychiatric evaluation after he made a concerning statement, the administration department said.

Shortly after his release, Mr. Pleasnick was arrested for the violation of Wisconsin concealed carry law relating to the original October 4 incident, she added.

The complaint does not detail the second incident during which Pleasnick was taken into custody.

Incidents like this always prompt reevaluations of security policies, Evers told reporters earlier this month, adding he was OK.

The Capitol police took control of the situation and so its over, but its always something that  you dont want to see happen, but thats why we have good people in the police departments and the Capitol Police and the state patrol, theyre doing their great work, the governor said.

CNNs Joe Sutton and Christina Maxouris contributed to this report.

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A Marine has been apprehended in connection with the death of another Marine at the Camp Lejeune base in North Carolina Wednesday evening, officials said.

The death unfolded in an on-base barracks room Wednesday, but no further details have been revealed about how the Marine died or their identity. But the U.S. Marines described it as a "homicide."

The suspect was arrested at 10:15 p.m.

Further details will be provided as they become available, the U.S. Marines said.

Camp Lejeune is a training facility in Onslow County in southeastern North Carolina, near Jacksonville, and occupies over 153,000 acres.

The installation is home to over 137,000 Marines, sailors, retirees, their families and civilian employees and is known as the Home of Expeditionary Forces in Readiness, according to the bases website.
After making remarkable progress in her fight with a rare form of pneumonia last week, Olympic icon Mary Lou Retton experienced a scary setback this week, her daughter announced.

Rettons daughter, Shayla Kelley Schrepfer, said Wednesday on Instagram that her mom had experienced a setback in the ICU on Tuesday.

Basically at the beginning of this week, we were going on the up-and-up, Schrepfer said in a video. We were so excited, seeing so much progress. Then yesterday we had a pretty scary setback. She is still in ICU and were just working through some things as far as her setback goes. I just wanted to give an update there. She had a better day [Wednesday], which is great. [She is] just really, really exhausted.

Retton, who was the first American woman to win all-around gymnastics gold at the Olympics, was hospitalized earlier this month and has been in the ICU due to a very rare form of pneumonia. Her daughters said she was fighting for her life and wasnt able to breathe on her own.

Her daughters have been providing updates on her condition on social media ever since. Schrepfer did not get into specifics about the setback Retton experienced this week. Her family has launched a fundraiser page for Retton, which had raised just more than $450,000 after setting an initial $50,000 goal as of Thursday afternoon.

Mary Lou Retton, seen here at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, is battling a rare form of pneumonia and is in the ICU. (Tony Triolo /Walt Disney Television via Getty Images) (ABC Photo Archives via Getty Images)

Retton first won gold at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, which the Soviets boycotted, with a perfect 10 vault. She won silver in the team and vault events, and bronze in the floor exercise and uneven bars. She was the first American woman to ever win the all-around title at the Olympics. An American woman has won all-around gold at the Olympics in the last five Games, most recently with Sunisa Lee in 2020. Retton was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1997.
A Mississippi man and his cousin from Alabama were sentenced to prison for their role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Justice Department announced this week.

Thomas Harlen Smith, 45, of Mathiston, Mississippi, was sentenced to 108 months in prison, and 36 months of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Mississippi said in a news release Tuesday. His cousin, Donnie Duane Wren, 44, of Athens, Alabama, was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison, with 24 months of supervised release.

Back in May, a jury convicted convicted Smith of 11 charges, including felony offenses of assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon, obstruction of an official proceeding, and two counts of civil disorder. On the same day, Wren was convicted of civil disorder and assaulting, impeding, or resisting officers, both felonies, and a misdemeanor charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, the release added.

The case, which was investigated by the FBI's Washington and Birmingham Field Offices and the Homestead, Florida, and Oxford, Mississippi, resident agencies, was aided by assistance from the U.S. Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the Prince Georges County Police Department, the released added.

Capitol riot arrests: See who's been charged across the U.S.

Clash against police

According to court documents and evidence presented in the trial, Smith traveled from his home in Mississippi to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021, to attend a rally held by former President Trump the next day and picked up Wren from his Alabama home along the way. The next morning, both Smith and Wren attended the rally and afterward made their way toward the Capitol building.

Before entering the grounds, Smith climbed up a column near the African American History Museum holding an "outdated" Mississippi state flag, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. When the cousins arrived on restricted Capitol land, they saw other rioters climbing the scaffolding set up around the stage for the presidential inauguration. The two men then climbed the structure and made their way toward the Lower West Terrace Tunnel.

Smith pushed his way to the front of a group of rioters and thrust a flagpole "like a spear" five times trying to break a window next to the doors of the Lower West Terrace, officials said. Smith then "surged" through the door and he and other rioters pushed into a line of Metropolitan Police Department officers attempting to hold the door shut.

Smith then exited the tunnel and met with his cousin Wren, who federal prosecutors said had seen the violence directed at police officers in the Capitol. Both men posed for a photo on the Lower West Terrace before they climbed up a railing to the Upper West Terrace and confronted a line of officers in riot gear attempting to clear the area, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Federal prosecutors later said both men placed their hands on the officers shields and pushed against the line. Wren leaned all his weight on the riot shield, preventing an officer from advancing, and was one of the first assaults on the Terrace that began a fight between rioters and police trying to clear the area.

During this altercation, according to prosecutors, Smith saw an object fly by him and strike an officer to whom he yelled: You deserve that, you piece of s!

At about 4:35 p.m., prosecutors said Smith kicked an officer in the back, knocking him to the ground. He then picked up a metal pole and threw it toward the police line, striking two officers in the head.

Smith posted about the Capitol breach on his personal Facebook page writing: Patriots stood together and battled the tyrannical cops throughout the entire afternoon.

Ongoing investigations into the Jan. 6 riot

The announcement comes nearly three years since rioters breached the Capitol on Jan. 6. More than 1,100 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach, including more than 400 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony, according to officials. The attack left five people dead and sent lawmakers and former Vice President Mike Pence fleeing to shelter.

At least one person has been arrested from every state and the District of Columbia.

Last month, a Proud Boys member, Dominic Pezzola, who a judge called the "tip of the spear" for being the first to breach Capitol during the attack, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Pezzola was convicted for smashing a Senate window with a police shield, allowing other rioters to enter the Capitol building, officials said. He later spent 20 minutes in the building.

Officials are still investigating the breach. Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.

Capitol breach: Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola gets 10 years for smashing Senate window with police shield

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jan. 6 riot: Cousins sentenced to prison for attacking Capitol police
The number of cases of distorted facts on Korean history identified by the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS) rose over the past three years, but the proportion of corrections being made almost halved, government data showed Thursday.

The number of inaccuracies on Korean history compiled by KOCIS rose from 411 cases in 2020 to 443 in 2021 and 592 in 2022, according to the data submitted to Rep. Chun Jae-soo of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea.

But of them, the proportion of information being corrected shrank by nearly half from 31.6 percent to 15.9 percent over the same three-year period.

KOCIS operates a "Facts Korea" website, which aims to correct misinformed, inaccurate and deliberately distorted facts on Korea and the country's history.

In particular, it saw a 47 percent uptick in cases in which Japan's preferred names were used to address the body of water and the rocky islets located between Korea and Japan.

Korea supports the use of the term "East Sea" to address the body of water bordered by the two nations while Japan calls it "Sea of Japan."

The two neighbors have also been at odds over the sovereignty of Dokdo, the rocky outcroppings in the East Sea.

Korea keeps a small police detachment on the islets, effectively controlling Dokdo. Still, Japan has repeatedly claimed sovereignty over the rocky outcroppings.

Japan's territorial claim over Dokdo has long been a key source of diplomatic friction in relations with Korea, where many people still harbor deep anti-Japanese resentment for its brutal 1910-45 colonial rule. (Yonhap)
Israel Palestinians Daily Photo Gallery (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Twenty-four hours ago, it looked like there was little reason for President Joe Biden to follow through on his pledge to visit Israel and Jordan after meetings with a trio of Arab leaders were called off in the wake of an explosion which had rocked the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital in Gaza.

Mr Biden had been set to meet with King Abdullah II of Jordan, President Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas before the blast, which may have killed upwards of 300 people.

But as he traveled by motorcade to Air Force One, it was announced that the second leg of the trip  set to occur after Mr Biden met with Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv  had been canceled, leaving just the opening part in Israel remaining on his agenda.

The king, Mr El-Sisi and Mr Abbas had all pulled out on account of the blast, which initial reports  based on claims by Palestinian officials in Gaza  had attributed to an Israeli airstrike on the hospital, a protected location under international law.

The development had the potential to derail one of the most important diplomatic trips of Mr Bidens presidency. By meeting Arab leaders, the president had hoped to calm fears of an escalation that could widen the war and draw in regional powers.

At home, left-wing voices on the fringes of Mr Bidens Democratic Party had grown louder and more emboldened to speak out against US support for Israel in the wake of the explosion, with some in Congress such as Palestinian-American Rep Rashida Tlaib of Michigan tweeting out statements that aligned with Hamas version of what had happened.

Yet by the time he landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, the facts began to come out and shift things in the US presidents  and in Israels  favour.

Both the Israeli Defence Forces and US intelligence spent the hours while the president was in the air pouring over available evidence, including video from news cameras mounted around Gaza and from radio intercepts of Hamas militants.

What they found was that the thing that had set off the deadly explosion was not an Israeli munition of any type. In fact, both the IDF and the US National Security Council have now assessed that the blast was touched off by a botched rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

US President Joe Biden leaves the room at the end of a press conference following a solidarity visit to Israel, on October 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv (AFP via Getty Images)

Or in the words of Mr Biden upon landing and greeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it was the other team that had killed hundreds of vulnerable Palestinians while they sheltered at a hospital.

So while much of the Arab world chose to accept the word of Hamas, which has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the US for decades, the broader world saw the US president, fresh off Air Force One, make clear that it was not Israel which had blown up a hospital.

That use of the bully pulpit and the unique media bubble that follows a sitting president wherever he goes might have been enough of a win for Mr Biden, but he followed it up with an even bigger breakthrough when he met with Mr Netanyahus war cabinet.

He made the announcement during remarks at the conclusion of his trip, in which he stressed that the US stands with the Palestinian people  not the terrorists, but the innocent people of Gaza and the West Bank  as much as it does with Israel, an ally since that countrys founding.

Noting that the people in Gaza still need live-saving provisions of food, water, medications and shelter, Mr Biden said hed asked Israels war cabinet to allow humanitarian aid to pass through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, which has remained closed despite the best efforts of US diplomats.

They said yes.

Based on the understanding that there will be inspections and that the aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas, Israel agreed that humanitarian assistance can begin to move from Egypt to Gaza, he said, adding later that a $100 million aid package from the US would be delivered to support critical needs in Gaza and the West Bank.

The White House later told reporters aboard Air Force One that Egyptian President El Sisi has agreed to open up the Rafah crossing to allow up to 20 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israels current government is the most right-wing in the nations 75-year history. The current prime minister has spent years meddling in US politics, most often to the detriment of members of Mr Bidens party.

Yet in visiting Israel in the wake of the tragic hospital explosion, Mr Biden was able to set the record straight about what happened in Gaza on Tuesday and convince that right-wing government to allow humanitarian aid to people who members of that government have condemned as less than human.

At a time when support for Israel still commands large majorities in both chambers of Congress, making a point of stressing the need to support the Palestinians humanitarian needs might not seem like a popular choice.

But Mr Biden was willing to put some of his political capital at risk to get the Israelis to do the right thing. And for whatever reason, they agreed to do it.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov welcomed in a ceremony following his arrival in Pyongyang on Wednesday, 18 October

Moscow has pledged its "complete support" for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, says Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Mr Lavrov, who is on an official trip to North Korea, also thanked the country for its support in Ukraine.

His ongoing trip sets the stage for a possible visit to the country by President Vladimir Putin.

Last week, the US said North Korea had begun sending large shipments of arms to Russia for use in Ukraine.

Mr Lavrov's two-day visit follows on the heels of Mr Kim's days-long visit to Russia in September - his first trip abroad since the pandemic - where he met Mr Putin to discuss "possibilities" for military cooperation.

Earlier in July, Russia's defence minister also visited North Korea and was shown the country's latest weapons, including the Hwasong intercontinental ballistic missile.

At an official reception on Wednesday, Mr Lavrov pledged Moscow's "complete support" for Mr Kim and accused the US and its allies of unleashing a "war against the Russian federation".

He also said he was there to discuss implementing the arrangements made when Mr Putin and Mr Kim met last month, but did not elaborate further.

It is unclear if Mr Lavrov would meet with Mr Kim during his current trip, like he did on his last visit to Pyongyang in 2018.

However Washington had warned that Moscow is buying weapons from Pyongyang for its war against Ukraine, and said any help from the North would violate United Nations resolutions.

On Friday, the US released intelligence and evidence, which it said showed the transfer of ammunition and artillery had already started.

Satellite images showed 300 containers had been shipped from the North Korean port of Nanjin to Dunay on Russia's east coast in early September, and then transported to a military warehouse near Tikhoretsk, close to the Ukrainian border.

Moscow would be keen on North Korean arms due to their compatibility with Russian weapon systems, experts earlier told the BBC.

North Korea has a large stockpile of arms, due to its unresolved conflict with the South. The two countries are technically still at war.

International sanctions and pandemic restrictions - which have only begun loosening recently - have left North Korea's economy in a dire state, with the country short of essentials like food and medicine.

Some analysts believe Mr Kim would have asked for humanitarian aid during the alleged arms deal with Russia in September. Still, some think that Pyongyang may be reluctant to hand over too much ammunition given their relative lack of resources.

Over the past six months, both North Korea and Russia have pledged to deepen ties with each other as both countries have become increasingly isolated on the world stage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he told President Biden during their meeting Wednesday that aid from Israel to Gaza would continue to be blocked until the hostages are released.

Regarding the captives, I clarified three things for President Biden, Netanyahu said in a speech Thursday. First, I demanded the return of our captives, and we are working together for their return in every way possible.

Second, until their return, we demand Red Cross visits for our captives, he continued. Third, we will not allow humanitarian assistance, in the form of food and medicines, from our territory to the Gaza Strip.

Following a request from Biden, Netanyahu said Wednesday that a limited amount of humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza from Egypt.

Egypt, the only country other than Israel to share a border with Gaza, has been preparing its aid. Israels military has been adamant that it will allow Egypt to deliver the aid  as long as it is only food, water and medicine.

Biden, speaking in Tel Aviv, announced the aid deal from Egypt and confirmed $100 million of U.S. funding for assistance to civilians in Gaza. Biden spoke to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who would allow up to 20 trucks of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza at the Rafah border crossing.

An Israeli military spokesperson said Thursday that the families of the more than 200 people believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas and taken into Gaza had been notified.

The war, one of the deadliest in the Gaza region, began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants entered Israel and conducted a surprise attack, and Netanyahu vowed to destroy the group.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded. More than 1,400 people in Israel were also killed in the initial attack.

More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have also been forced to flee areas in the north after Israel told them to evacuate.

Israels airstrikes on the region continued early Thursday morning, including in areas declared as safe zones.

The Associated Press contributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Black students are more likely than white classmates to be charged with disorderly conduct  data that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says shows policing in North Carolina schools is arbitrary and discriminatory.

The new Consequences of Cops in North Carolina Schools report released Thursday by the ACLU of North Carolina highlights racial disparities in school-based complaints and disorderly conduct in school charges.

The ACLU wants schools to replace school resource officers with more counselors, nurses, social workers and psychologists to help meet the mental health needs of students.

Reliance on policing in schools in North Carolina does not work, Amanda Meyer, staff attorney in the ACLU Racial Justice Program, said in an interview. This has made students less safe and not more. This has created a climate of distrust and fear, especially for Black students and students with disabilities.

The report comes at a time of rising concerns about school safety. Security lockdowns and the installation of weapons detectors have become far more common..

North Carolina has seen a 170% increase in state funding for school resource officers in the past five years. Once typically found only in high schools and middle schools, more officers are being placed in elementary schools after last years mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

If you have a threat that comes to a school, do you really want to wait for the officer to come? Leon Godlock, a longtime school resource officer and ex-officio member of the North Carolina Association of School Resource Officers, said in an interview. Officers really deter more crimes than are being reported.

School resource officer Victor Montalvo, right, greets a student with a high-five as students arrive for the first day of school at Waxhaw Elementary School on Monday, August 28, 2023.

Disparities in disorderly conduct charges

The report particularly focuses on the states disorderly conduct in schools law, which makes it a crime to disrupt, disturb, or interfere with teaching. The ACLU says this can put students into the states criminal legal system and produce negative lifelong consequences..

Vague laws like the disorderly conduct in schools law give police officers unbridled discretion to define when, and under what circumstances, typical childhood conduct crosses the line into criminal behavior, according to the report.

Between 2017 and 2023, law enforcement and school staff filed school-based complaints of disorderly conduct against Black students at four times the rate of white students. Black students accounted for 56% of the disorderly conduct referrals while making up 23% of the youth population.

The disparities are widening, according to Meyer, who is one of the reports authors. Between 2021 and 2023, Black students were being referred for disorderly conduct at five times the rate of white students.

The ACLU found other county-level data that raised concerns.

 The report singles out how Black students in Gaston, Forsyth, Moore, Wake and Pitt counties were referred 23 to 42 times more than white students for disorderly conduct. In Wake County, Black students were 26 times more likely than white students to be referred.

 From 2017 to 2023, schools in 25 counties referred only Black students for disorderly conduct. In 21 of those counties, Black students account for less than 50% of the student population.

 Six counties that had at least 50 disorderly conduct referrals didnt refer a single white student. Black students made up less than 50% of the student population in all six counties.

Numerous incidents have come to light within the last three years of police officers directing abusive, unlawful, and violent behavior towards students in North Carolinas schools, the report says. Students have been tased, tackled, handcuffed, and pepper sprayed. Multiple school police officers have been arrested for sex crimes involving students at the schools they patrol.

CMS tries to address student behavior

Between 2017 and 2022, the report found that law enforcement and school staff filed school-based complaints against Black students at three times the rate of their white counterparts.

The report says the racial disparities are the highest in Madison, Vance, Washington, Mecklenburg, New Hanover, Forsyth, Nash, Durham, Chatham and Tyrell counties.

It really shines the light on the harm police in schools are having, Meyer said. Police officers in schools have not been shown to improve safety. Police officers are doing more harm than good for Black students and students with disabilities.

The ACLU report mirrors what CMS school board members discussed in February when they said making the reduction of out-of-school suspensions a priority.

Black students are being suspended disproportionately compared to others, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education Progress Monitoring Report.

CMS is addressing the problem with two initiatives: Intervention Centers and more behavioral specialists.

Behavior of Black students

The statewide racial disparities exist even though Meyer says Black students dont misbehave more than white students. Instead, she said, the current climate of policing in schools makes adults more susceptible to act on implicit biases against Black students.

It is well-established that Black students are not generally more likely to misbehave than other students, even after accounting for different socioeconomic backgrounds, yet adults are far more likely to punish Black students (and to punish them severely) than their white peers for similar conduct, the report says.

The ACLU report has several recommendations, including repealing the disorderly conduct in schools law and ending the regular presence of law enforcement in schools. The ACLU says more mental health staff should be hired to help schools reach nationally recommended staffing levels.

Demonstrators led by the Wake County Black Student Coalition march along Dillard Drive in Raleigh while demanding the Wake County Public School System remove the school resource officer program Tuesday, July 14, 2020. A march and sit-in coincided with a Wake County School Board meeting.

SROs are doing an awesome job

The impact of police on campus is far more positive, according to Godlock, who has been a school resource officer for more than 20 years. Godlock came out of retirement with the Rutherford County Sheriffs Office to serve as a part-time school resource officer.

I will work wherever Im needed, Godlock said. You have to have a love and concern for young people. The majority of officers who work in schools want to be there.

Godlock said most school resource officers are doing an awesome job. He said school resource officers can build positive relationships with students that lead to tips that prevent crimes from happening.

On Wednesday, Godlock said the relationships hes built with students led to him being told that a middle schooler had brought a small knife to school.

What if that knife had been a gun? Godlock said. The presence of a positive school resource officer that interacts with the children really helps make the children safer. Its not just the SROs eyes. By establishing positive relationships with the kids, youve got everyone looking.

After finding the knife, Godlock contacted the state Department of Public Safetys Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Godlock says he was told he didnt need to file an incident report and could leave the matter in the hands of the school.

Since the states Raise The Age law went into effect on Dec. 1, 2019, Godlock says more cases involving students have been diverted away from the legal system. Under that law, teens ages 16 and 17 are no longer automatically charged as adults for all crimes.

Regardless of color or race, officers are helping young people get rehabilitation instead of incarceration, said Godlock, who is Black.
WASHINGTON  President Joe Biden spoke to the nation in a rare prime-time address Thursday, explaining why he believes its crucial for Israel and Ukraine to win the respective wars theyre fighting, as he looks to build support for a hefty aid package aimed at strengthening both countries.

Though Israel endured a horrifying attack from Hamas militants on Oct. 7, Biden said that he cautioned Israelis not to repeat the mistakes an angered U.S. made after terrorists attacked the country on Sept. 11, 2001, an apparent reference to the prolonged U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"When I was in Israel yesterday, I said that when America experienced the hell of 9/11, we felt enraged, as well," Biden said. "While we sought and got justice, we made mistakes. So I cautioned the government of Israel not to be blinded by rage."

Follow here for Israel-Hamas war live updates

Bidens Oval Office speech followed a quick visit Wednesday to Tel Aviv, where he met with Israeli leaders and discussed the next phase of a counterattack in Gaza that began with an aerial bombardment and may now shift to a risky ground incursion.

As with his trip to Ukraine in February, Biden ventured to an active war zone to show his solidarity with a U.S. ally battling an enemy that wants to wipe it out of existence.

The terrorist group Hamas unleashed pure unadulterated evil in the world," Biden said in his address. "But sadly, the Jewish people know perhaps better than anyone that there is no limit to the depravity of people when they want to inflict pain on others."

He added that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people."

Biden sought to connect the two distant wars for an audience that might not see why U.S. interests are at stake. Both Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin aim to destroy neighboring democracies, and if they succeed they're bound to feel emboldened and look for more conquests, Biden said.

"History has taught us that when terrorists don't pay a price for their terror  when dictators don't pay a price for their aggression  they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going, and the costs of the threats to America and the world keep rising," he said.

Bidens remarks also had a more immediate and practical purpose. He wants to put pressure on Congress to approve an emergency funding package that his administration plans to submit Friday. Biden may request $60 billion in aid to Ukraine and a total of $40 billion for Israel, Taiwan and the U.S.-Mexico border, people familiar with the matter said this week.

"It's a smart investment that's going to pay dividends for American security for generations," he said. "We're going to make sure other hostile actors in the region know that Israel is stronger than ever and prevent this conflict from spreading."

Biden is in a weakened posture as he tries to shape public opinion toward the wars. A CNBC poll taken this month found that only 31% of Americans approved of Bidens handling of foreign policy, compared to 60% who disapproved.

He spoke to Americans who appear to be tiring of the war in Ukraine, which started in February 2022 with Russias invasion. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this month found that 41% agreed with the statement that the U.S. should provide weapons to Ukraine  down from 46% in May.

The U.S. has sent about $44 billion in security aid to Ukraine since Russia first rolled its tanks toward Kyiv, according to the State Department.

Ahead of the speech, Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the status of the war with Russia, according to a White House readout of the conversation.

"President Biden underscored the continued strong bipartisan support in the United States for Ukraine's defense of its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democratic future," according to the White House.

As the wars unfold overseas, the fallout at home is growing more pronounced.

Israels counterattack has already triggered angry demonstrations from American protesters demanding a cease-fire. On Capitol Hill, about 300 protesters were arrested after they massed inside a House office building Wednesday in a demonstration calling for an end to hostilities. Rabbis were among those who joined in the protest. Some of the demonstrators wore T-shirts reading: Jews say ceasefire now.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., wrote on X this week that it is Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken's "job to protect Palestinian Americans."

"They are failing," she wrote.

More than 400 congressional staffers anonymously signed on to an open letter calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and saying they are profoundly disturbed that such shows of humanity [for Israelis] have barely been extended to the Palestinian people.

Separately, a State Department official working in a bureau overseeing U.S. arms sales resigned in protest this week, citing America's continued  indeed, expanded and expedited supply of weapons to Israel as it conducts its counterattack.

Josh Paul, the bureaus director of congressional and public affairs, wrote in a resignation letter: I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people. Pauls resignation was first reported by HuffPost.

An Oval Office address is a powerful forum that presidents typically reserve for national crises or messages of overriding importance. It's the stage John F. Kennedy selected to explain the Cuban Missile Crisis and the one George W. Bush chose to reassure a frightened nation the night of the 9/11 attack.

Biden spent part of the speech urging tolerance and compassion for people of all faiths. He mentioned an alleged hate crime in Chicago. Authorities say a landlord stabbed and killed a 6-year-old Muslim boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, and also attacked the boy's mother. Law enforcement officials said both victims were targeted because of their Muslim faith.

"We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism," Biden said. "We must also, without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia. And to those of you that are hurting, I want you to know I see you. You belong. And I want to say this to you: You're all American. You're all American. In moments like these and when fear and suspicion, anger and rage run hard, we have to work harder than ever to hold on to the values that make us who we are."

Though Biden has aligned himself with Israel in the conflict, he and his senior Cabinet officials have made it clear that the powerful Israeli military cannot devastate Hamas at any cost. Through diplomatic means, he said, Biden has ensured that vulnerable Palestinian civilians in Gaza will receive humanitarian aid.

Flying home from Israel on Wednesday night, Biden told reporters that he had spoken by phone to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who had agreed to open a border crossing into Gaza that will permit aid to go through and assist the civilian population. If Hamas confiscates the aid, Biden added, the flow will stop.

Biden also obliquely suggested that he is pressing Israel to find an alternative to a ground attack that could result in large numbers of civilian casualties.

Asked whether Israel might forgo a ground incursion, Biden said: We had a long talk about that and what alternatives there are."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to nominate his top White House Asia aide Kurt Campbell to serve as deputy secretary of state, said three U.S. sources on Thursday, tapping the veteran policy-maker as Washington seeks to stabilize ties with China.

The sources, who included a U.S. official, a congressional source and a U.S. source familiar with the matter, were confirming an earlier report by the Politico news organization.

Campbell is viewed as an intellectual author of former U.S. President Barack Obama's "pivot to Asia" strategy, a vaunted but so far still limited rebalancing of resources to the region.

He outlined his approach to Asia in a 2016 book "The Pivot" which advocated strengthening existing alliances and building closer relations with states like India and Indonesia in the face of a rising China.

China poses a daunting diplomatic challenge for the United States, which wants to counter its growing military without provoking a conflict and to curb what Washington views as its unfair business practices while avoiding an all-out trade war.

Campbell now serves as White House coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs. During the Obama administration, he was assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

At the White House, Campbell has overseen the difficult relationship with China, which under the Trump and Biden administrations has deteriorated to its lowest level since normalization of diplomatic ties with Beijing in 1979.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Campbell, and the State Department declined comment.

(Reporting By Humeyra Pamuk, Patricia Zengerle and Steve Holland; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by David Gregorio)
President Joe Biden left for home after seven hours in the Israeli war zone with an increasingly tense Middle East in worse shape than when he arrived.

Biden told reporters on Air Force One that he was satisfied he got a job done  notably on the issue of unblocking humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza, which has been under heavy Israeli bombardment since the horrific Hamas terror attacks on October 7.

But his mission also showed the limits of US leverage in a region on the brink of wider violence as conflicting narratives between Israel and Arab states about a blast at a hospital in Gaza City believed to have killed hundreds of people deepened the crisis.

The president did accomplish one key goal of his mission  expressing his deep respect for Israel, movingly shouldering the countrys trauma and grief and invoking Holocaust analogies in vowing to stand forever with the Jewish people.

But he also pleaded with Israeli leaders not to allow the rage over the killings of your fathers, your grandparents, sons, daughters, children, even babies to blur the clarity over their objectives in trying to destroy Hamas.

The president drew a firm distinction between Palestinian people and their radical Hamas rulers, whom he accused of using civilians as human shields for weapons and tunnels, and bemoaned the innocent lives lost in Gaza after days of Israeli bombardments.

But as protests over the hospital blast raced across the region, the dire possibility of Israels war with Hamas escalating beyond its borders loomed even larger when Biden climbed aboard Air Force One to fly home on Wednesday. The president admitted to reporters that his emergency mission had been a risk but insisted he had pulled off a success.

Still, given the huge political investment of American prestige and leverage involved in a sudden presidential trip, its fair to raise the question of what exactly Bidens trip delivered.

Hospital blast overshadowed Bidens trip from the start

The trips wider goals never had a chance after a Tuesday blast at a Gaza hospital that Palestinian officials say killed hundreds sparked protests in multiple Arab nations. It was exactly the kind of incident that the president had hoped to prevent by traveling to the region, but his high-stakes trip came too late. Biden sided with Israeli claims that the explosion was caused by a misfiring Islamic Jihad rocket launched toward Israel  an assessment he said was backed up by US intelligence on the incident.

But questions over the origins of the blast did little to defuse the fury that it triggered across the Arab world, where there is little confidence in the statements of the US or Israeli governments and great anger about the long-term treatment of the Palestinians.

The tragedy prompted the cancellation of a critical onward leg of Bidens visit to Amman, where he had been due to meet Jordans King Abdullah II, the Egyptian president and the leader of the Palestinian Authority.

Instead of hosting a presidential summit, Amman on Wednesday was rocked by a second night of huge protests that crystalized anger in Arab nations over the Israeli pounding of Gaza. Demonstrations also erupted in Tunisia, Iraq, Iran, in the occupied West Bank and Lebanon. The US State Department advised Americans not to visit Lebanon, and the rising public unrest about the situation in Gaza appeared to harden the attitudes of key regional powers. For instance, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on all humanity to take action to stop this unprecedented brutality in Gaza in a post on X, calling the blast at the hospital the latest example of Israels attacks devoid of the most basic human values.

The meeting in Amman was going to be vital to Bidens effort to balance his unequivocal support for Israel  after the killing of more than 1,400 civilians by Hamas and the taking of more than 200 hostages  with an effort to engage Arab leaders he needs to help contain the conflict.

The fact that the king, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas were willing to snub the president of the United States  a key ally and aid donor  doesnt say much for Washingtons leverage at this moment or hopes that Washington can save a regional peace initiative.

The possibility that unrest across the Arab world could spread and cause instability is now likely to weigh on the political decisions of key leaders in the region  even those that are allied with the US.

Bidens jarring other team remark

Biden may have exacerbated regional suspicions of the US role when he said the hospital explosion appeared to have been caused by the other team. This was a reminder of how Biden often creates tonally awkward moments that play into Republican claims that, at the age of 80, he may struggle to fulfill his role in a possible second term. The phrase also came across as flippant given the unspeakable horror that unfolded in the hospital in Gaza City, which was packed even before the blast because of Israels ongoing airstrikes as they go after Hamas. And more importantly, it also likely further eroded Bidens capacity to perform a complex straddle vital to easing tensions in the region by operating as a third party between Israel and the US Arab allies.

Biden endorsed Israels claim that the Islamic Jihad militant group was behind the strike, noting that he was working off assessments based on US Defense Department data. The National Security Council also said it believes Israel was not responsible for the attack. Islamic Jihad has denied involvement.

The presidents reputation is also on the line over aid to Gazan civilians. He appealed to the Israeli cabinet to allow life-saving humanitarian assistance into the enclave from Egypt on the condition that it should go to civilians and not Hamas fighters.

As they probably told you, I was very blunt with the Israelis, Biden told reporters on Air Force One on his way home. Israel has been badly victimized, but the truth is if they have an opportunity to relieve the suffering of people who have nowhere to go, thats what they should do.

If they dont, he continued, theyll be held accountable in ways that may be unfair.

Biden also said he had spoken to the Egyptian president for over an hour on Air Force One and that Sisi had agreed to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza to 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid.

The president said the road has to be fixed before the trucks could pass and that he expects them to be rolling Friday. The crossing would only open for aid, Biden said, not for evacuations.

While the arrival of the trucks would mark a breakthrough, the level of need among civilians in Gaza who have nowhere to flee the Israeli attacks is immense. And there are questions over whether even the 20 trucks will make it through.

The devil is in the details, Mark Regev, a senior Netanyahu adviser, told CNNs Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday, arguing that past aid shipments had been stolen by Hamas.

Bidens veiled warnings to Israel

Not everything that happens on a presidential trip is visible. Private meetings with foreign leaders often yield understandings that influence future events. So immediate indications are not always a useful barometer over the effectiveness of such travel. But however much White House officials tried to downplay expectations, there was a clear imperative for Bidens mission to tamp down tensions  a goal that was not achieved.

Bidens speech to the Israeli people, however, was an eloquent statement of support to an ally traumatized by a terror attack. And politically, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been weakened by the crisis, is now in the presidents debt so he may be more susceptible to US pressure. Calls for mercy for Palestinian civilians might get a better hearing among the angry and grief-stricken Israeli public given Bidens willingness to travel to the country in a dark hour.

Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to NATO, told CNNs Anderson Cooper that Bidens visit had been worthwhile in demonstrating that Israel was not alone. But Daalder also noted Bidens allusions to how decisions born from anger and grief after the September 11 attacks in 2001 had led America down some dubious roads.

I think he did use the visit to engage Prime Minister Netanyahu and the war cabinet in some very serious conversations about the strategy that Israel has embarked upon, Daalder said. I think the president was sharing some doubt that, in fact, the current effort by Israel is moving in the right direction.

Biden also sent a warning to Israeli enemies other than Hamas  like Iran and Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah  that the US was prepared to do everything necessary to defend its ally. Bidens presence bolstered the message sent by two aircraft carrier battle groups he has deployed to the area.

My message to any state or any other hostile actor thinking about attacking Israel remains the same as it was a week ago: dont  dont  dont, Biden said.

But by failing to make any immediate breakthroughs, Bidens trip also showed the limits of US leverage in a grave geopolitical situation and therefore suggested, worryingly, that it may not be possible to stop events spinning out of control.

This story and headline have been updated with additional information.

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As California schools strive to improve state test performance that fell during the remote learning of the COVID-19 pandemic, scores released this week show a slight decline in English but small gains in math. In Modesto, high school students improved in both areas compared to test results last year.

Modesto City Schools actually is two districts: one K-8 and the other 9-12. In the high school district, about 45% of students met or exceeded the state standard in English. In math, more than 17% of students met or exceeded the state standard. Both increased by one to two percentage points compared to last year.

We are encouraged that our scores in the high school district in English Language Arts exceed the county and are in line with the state average, said Sara Noguchi, the superintendent of Modesto City Schools. We are equally encouraged that we grew more than the state average and anticipate greater growth in the coming year as we continue to collectively focus on supporting our instructional programs.

Noguchi said MCS administrators are encouraged by math programming with a focus on increasing and accelerating student achievement. The programming includes a co-teaching model for all high schools in algebra.

As for MCS elementary schools, just a tad over 27% of students met or exceeded the state standard in English. In math, a little more than 19% of students met or exceeded the state standard. English scores for elementary schools are slightly lower from the previous years, while math remains the same.

To ensure our students meet academic expectations, all teachers are increasing their academic expectations by focusing on the rigor of the grade-level standards, and engaging students in critical thinking, Noguchi said.

She said the district is focusing on teachers professional development as research shows that the classroom teacher has the greatest influence on students academic achievement.

In Modesto high schools, the test scores of Black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students continue to lag in both English and math. Around 72% of Black students and 70% of Hispanic students did not meet the state standard for math. For English, 39% of Black students and 35% of Hispanic students did not meet the state standard.

Looking at all grade levels, Noguchi said the student achievement for Black and Latino students parallels the level of achievement at the county and state levels.

Statewide, around 70% of Black students and 64% of Latino students did not meet standard for English and 83% of Black students and 77% of Latino students did not meet the standard for math.

Seeing only slight improvements in already alarmingly low levels of student achievement is cause for concern, not celebration, said Dr. Christopher J. Nellum the executive director of the Education TrustWest in his statement about the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) test score results. Perhaps even more troubling, scores on English Language Arts assessments remained essentially flat or dropped for Black, Latinx and Native American students.

In Turlock Unified School District, both English and math scores slightly lowered.

Nearly 39% of students met or exceeded the state standard in English in Turlocks school district, while in math, 25% of students met or exceeded the state standard.
Xi Jinping shakes hands with Vladimir Putin at the Belt and Road summit in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing (AFP via Getty)

Xi Jinping warned the West against breaking economic ties with China on Wednesday as he welcomed his dear friend Vladimir Putin and other allies to a global summit in Beijing.

The Chinese president was hosting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum, part of its long-term plan to build global infrastructure and energy networks connecting Asia with Africa and Europe through overland and maritime routes.

Representatives of more than 130 countries  largely from the global South, but including Hungary  attended the forum.

We stand against unilateral sanctions, economic coercion, decoupling and supply chain disruption, Mr Xi told more than 1,000 delegates gathered in an ornate conference room in the Great Hall of the People near Tiananmen Square.

Mr Putin sat with key Chinese officials from the 25-member Politburo on the front row, as Mr Xi delivered his opening remarks.

Western leaders insist their goal is not to decouple from China but to de-risk by diversifying supply chains that have become too dependent on the worlds second-largest economy. Chinas threats to Taiwan and the trade disruptions of the pandemic years have added urgency to the desire to limit their dependence on China.

Leaders and delegates with Chinas president Xi Jinping on Wednesday (POOL/AFP via Getty)

As Mr Putin made a speech praising the BRI, several European officials left the hall.

During a three-hour meeting on the sidelines of the conference, Mr Xi told the Russian leader that both sides should explore cooperation in strategic emerging industries and deepen regional cooperation.

China hopes that the China-Mongolia-Russia natural gas pipeline project will make substantive progress as soon as possible, Mr Xi said. Both leaders also had in-depth discussions on the Middle East conflict, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

In the current difficult conditions, close foreign policy coordination is especially required, Mr Putin said in his speech.

So, in terms of bilateral relations, we are moving forward very confidently, he added, noting that Moscow-Beijing trade is on track to pass a record 164bn this year.

China is a key customer for Russian oil and gas, providing Moscow with an economic lifeline in the face of punishing Western sanctions imposed over its campaign against Ukraine.

Just weeks before Russias invasion of Ukraine last February, Mr Putin and Mr Xi met in Beijing and signed an agreement pledging a no-limits relationship.

Hungarys prime minister Viktor Orban shakes hands with Putin in Beijing, in defiance of EU opposition to Russia over the invasion of Ukraine (EPA)

Meanwhile, Estonias prime minister Kaja Kallas said pictures of Mr Putin shaking hands with Hungarys Viktor Orban were very, very unpleasant.

How can you shake a criminals hand, who has waged the war of aggression, especially coming from a country that has a history like Hungary has? she told Reuters.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Mr Putin in March, accusing him of the war crime of illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.

It is not so distant past what happened in Hungary, what the Russians did there, Kallas said.

The 1956 Hungarian Uprising was crushed by Soviet tanks and troops. At least 2,600 Hungarians and 600 Soviet troops were killed in the fighting.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report.
A total of 2,154 infants born in the country between 2015 and 2022 were not documented after birth, the state audit agency said Thursday.

The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) disclosed the findings during its routine audit of the health ministry, in the wake of a series of high-profile cases involving the abandonment and murder of unregistered babies.

Among the infants examined in a sample investigation of 23 cases, the BAI reported that six of them either died or remain unaccounted for.

Among these cases, a baby born in 2022 was also found to have died from malnutrition in the southern city of Changwon, the BAI said.

It said the whereabouts of another baby born in 2021 in the central city of Hwaseong remain unknown. The mother of the baby told the police that she had handed the baby over to an unidentified individual.

Without a birth registration, a child would be unable to receive routine vaccines and other health care services and would even face difficulties attending school.

The BAI emphasized the need for comprehensive efforts, such as using temporary infant identification numbers held by the ministry.

Bipartisan efforts are under way to address the problem, such as passing a law that mandates medical institutions to report the birth of babies.

In Korea, only parents are required to report the birth of their children to the government within a month after birth, but violators are punished only with small fines. (Yonhap)
A couple accused of punching a Missouri officer, running her over and trying to steal her patrol truck have been arrested in Kansas, officials said.

Brandon Lucky David and Raven Cheyenne Gomez were arrested in Allen County on Wednesday night after the incident Monday night with the Jasper, Missouri, officer who responded to a disturbance in progress at a Petes convenience store.

During a pat search for weapons on Gomez, Gomez punched the officer in the face, knocked the officer to the ground causing her to hit her head on the pavement, the Jasper Police Department said in a Facebook post. The hit to the pavement caused the officer to become disoriented ... David got out of the passenger seat of the suspect vehicle, and punched the female officer several times in a VERY COWARDLY ACT.

Gomez was driving a black car that ran over the officers foot while backing up and then did it again when going forward, police said.

David then apparently tried to take the patrol vehicle but we believe he wasnt smart enough to figure out how to put the vehicle in drive due to the different gear shift newer vehicles have, the police department said.

He hopped back into the black car driven by Gomez and the two took off.

The officer was treated and released from a hospital.

KOAM TV has surveillance footage of the incident.

Jasper is north of Joplin, Missouri. The two were arrested Wednesday five miles southeast of Moran, Kansas, the Allen County Sheriffs Office said.

While we do have some local charges, they can wait, the sheriffs office said in a Facebook post. We anticipate getting them back to Missouri as soon as possible.

David, 45, and Gomez, 26, who are both from Columbia, Missouri, were still at the Allen County Jail as of 2:15 p.m. Thursday.

The Bourbon County Sheriffs Office assisted in the arrest. A spokesperson for that sheriffs office said the couple is accused of robbing a Petes convenience store in their county earlier in the week. That incident happened in Fort Scott.
A security guard stands watch in front of a synagogue on Oct. 9 in Los Angeles. (Eric Thayer / Getty Images)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved millions in state funding to boost the presence of police at synagogues, mosques and other places of worship as fears ratchet up over the possibility of local violence stemming from the Israel-Hamas war.

The expansion will allow for the disbursement of $10 million to fund police officers at religious institutions by reimbursing overtime costs incurred.

The funding will also provide an additional $20 million to the California State Nonprofit Security Grant Program, doubling its budget this year. The program allows for nonprofits in the state to apply for grant funds for increased security measures, such as reinforced doors, cameras and alarms.

"Amid the horror unfolding in the Middle East following the unconscionable terrorist attacks in Israel, California is authorizing the immediate deployment of funds to increase security and police presence at places of worship across the state," Newsom said in a statement. "No matter how and where one prays, every Californian deserves to be safe.

Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), who wrote the legislation that led to the creation of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2018, said the program was key for moments like this.

"The sad reality is that we know, when there's violence and conflict in the Middle East, it can lead to spikes of antisemitism in the United States," Gabriel said.

Gabriel emphasized the grant program was for all minority groups that encounter hate and oppression. He said the grant could be a lifeline for smaller nonprofits and religious organizations that might not have the resources to budget for expensive security measures.

"The state can come in and can help ease that burden," he said. "It goes a really long way in protecting life, which is ultimately the goal here."

Religious institutions and other nonprofits that seek to utilize the grant program have until Oct. 27 to apply for funds.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Three variations of the AR-15 assault rifle are displayed at the California Department of Justice in Sacramento. (Associated Press)

A federal judge Thursday overturned California's three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, finding it has no equivalent in early American history and is therefore unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, of San Diego, found that modern semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15 are common household items used for self-defense by millions of law-abiding citizens in the U.S. and that those citizens may not have their 2nd Amendment rights abridged by the state simply because others may misuse the same weapons in mass shootings and other deadly violence.

"Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law-abiding responsible citizens are necessary," Benitez wrote. "To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear firearms commonly owned and kept for lawful purposes."

Read more:The judge upending Californias gun laws: 'Blessed' jurist or 'stone-cold ideologue'?

The decision was expected from Benitez, who had previously struck down the law in a 2021 decision in which he famously compared the AR-15 to common knives  an analogy he took up again Thursday.

"Like the Bowie Knife which was commonly carried by citizens and soldiers in the 1800s," Benitez's latest decision begins, "'assault weapons' are dangerous, but useful."

Benitez's decision would overturn several state statutes related to such weapons, but it does not take effect immediately. As part of his decision, Benitez gave the state 10 days to seek a stay on the ruling as part of an appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta's office, which has been defending the law in court, immediately filed a notice of appeal and stressed the state's ban remains in effect for now.

"Weapons of war have no place on Californias streets," Bonta said in a statement. "This has been state law in California for decades, and we will continue to fight for our authority to keep our citizens safe from firearms that cause mass casualties."

John Dillon, an attorney for the plaintiffs who sued to overturn the law, said they were "very happy" with the decision and ready to keep fighting to preserve it.

"It seems like the court has applied the standards properly and correctly. There's no doubt about it," he said. "We're glad that our plaintiffs' rights are going to be respected."

Read more:Federal judge again overturns California ban on high-capacity gun magazines

The ruling is the second recent decision against California gun restrictions from Benitez. Last month, he overturned the state's ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines on similar grounds.

Benitez's ruling is also the latest blow to gun restrictions nationally since the U.S. Supreme Court's monumental pro-gun rights decision last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. Inc. vs. Bruen.

In that case, the nation's highest court rejected a long-standing pillar of 2nd Amendment law  that governments may enforce certain firearms restrictions if they have a compelling government interest in doing so. Instead, the high court said most restrictions on firearms can be legitimate only if they are deeply rooted in American history or analogous to some historical rule.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had sent the case decided Thursday back down to Benitez, specifically to decide in light of the Bruen decision.

Benitez rejected all of the state's arguments for why the ban should remain intact, writing that the state was "grasping at straws" and making "longshot" legal arguments for why there was historical precedent for such restrictions.

He dismissed as off the mark, insufficiently analogous, or less restrictive and therefore incomparable a host of historic laws put forward by the state. Those included laws prohibiting weapons such as dirks and daggers; banning particularly deadly weapons such as machine guns; barring specific uses of weapons such as guns being set as traps; banning the carrying but not the possession of certain weapons; or restricting certain classes of people, but not the population at large, from possessing certain weapons.

"Notwithstanding having significant time to do so, the State has identified no national tradition of firearm regulation so broad in its coverage or so far reaching in its effect as its extreme 'assault weapon' statutes," Benitez wrote.

Benitez also wrote that Americans hear a lot about mass shootings using such weapons  such as in Uvalde, Texas; Sandy Hook, Conn.; Parkland, Fla.; Orlando, Fla., and elsewhere. But, he wrote, they don't always hear about cases in which people used such firearms to defend themselves and their families from armed intruders who meant them harm. He went on to describe three such cases, two from Florida and one from Oklahoma, in detail.

Bonta called Benitez's decision "dangerous and misguided" and said the Supreme Court in Bruen left room for states to maintain sensible gun laws.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has pitched a constitutional amendment to enshrine gun restrictions into federal law, criticized Benitez's decision as another "love letter to the gun lobby" from a judge "hellbent on making it more dangerous for our kids to go to school, for families to go to the mall, or to attend a place of worship."

Cody J. Wisniewski, an attorney for the plaintiff group Firearms Policy Coalition, said in a statement that Benitez appropriately recognized California's law "flies directly in the face" of law-abiding citizens' rights, and that his group will continue making the same point "in courtrooms in California and across the country."

The California statutes in question currently bar people from possessing a host of guns  and from manufacturing, lending, selling or transporting them in the state  based in part on whether they have certain accouterments.

They ban centerfire rifles that are particularly short and concealable, centerfire rifles with fixed magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, and centerfire rifles that do not have fixed magazines but do have certain other features  such as pistol grips, folding or telescoping stocks or flash suppressors.

The statutes also ban semiautomatic pistols with added features such as threaded barrels and semiautomatic shotguns with features such as telescoping stocks and pistol grips.

The lead plaintiff in the case, James Miller, is a board member of the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, which is also a listed plaintiff.

In the initial complaint in 2019, Miller alleged the state's assault weapons ban unjustly precluded him from using a large-capacity magazine with his legally owned semiautomatic centerfire rifle, because doing so would reclassify the firearm as a prohibited "assault weapon" under state law.

Miller "would like to exercise his rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, by possessing a semiautomatic, centerfire rifle, in common use for lawful purposes, but which the State considers an 'assault weapon' solely by virtue of its magazine capacity," the complaint read.

Benitez on Thursday said the state's restrictions go way too far in infringing on Miller's and others' 2nd Amendment rights, particularly because rifles such as the AR-15 are as "ubiquitous as Ford F-series pickup trucks."

"The American tradition is rich and deep in protecting a citizen's enduring right to keep and bear common arms like rifles, shotguns, and pistols. However, among the American tradition of firearm ownership, there is nothing like California's prohibition on rifles, shotguns, and handguns based on their looks or attributes," Benitez wrote. "Here, the 'assault weapon' prohibition has no historical pedigree and it is extreme."

Whether the ban will fare any better before higher courts  including the 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court  remains to be seen.

State officials, gun rights advocates and experts on 2nd Amendment law are all waiting to see how the Supreme Court will handle the wave of gun cases being relitigated under Bruen  and how it will apply it and its history and tradition test in cases involving more dangerous weapons, and dangerous groups of people.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Any desire to see two of Irelands bright, young things  Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal  finally united on screen will be swiftly drained by Foe, a sci-fi drama desiccated of meaning. Theyve been coupled up here, playing young lovers out on a Midwestern farm. She, Henrietta, wears calf-grazing, tradwife skirts. He, Junior, has on a James Dean uniform (jeans and a white T-shirt, with the sleeves rolled up). Their Terrence Malick, Days of Heaven role-play is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a strange man, Terrance (Aaron Pierre), who informs them that Junior has been hand-picked to colonise space.

It is, in fact, not 1965, but 2065  fresh water and habitable land are now rare commodities. Humanity has not been able to fix the problems on Earth, so weve opted simply to abandon it. Junior will be a canary in the metaphorical space mine, set out into the galaxy to test whether a person can thrive amongst the stars. Henrietta, Terrance adds, will be duly compensated: with an AI substitute for her absentee husband, so fleshy and freethinking that shell barely recognise the difference.

But, first, Terrance has to stick around and observe the couple, so that Juniors replacement can be as accurate as possible. His presence alone  an interruption to the status quo  triggers earthquakes in the lives of these wistful, lustful, American dream types, their brows perpetually slick with sweat. Henrietta drapes herself mournfully over dead trees, as she watches her man work the land; Junior, puffed up by turmoil and envy, punches holes in the stained, floral wallpaper of their home.

Ronan and Mescal try their best to connect on screen here, but its impossible to shake the knowledge that this is all merely the performance of passion, a false dream captured by Matyas Erdelys sun-streaked cinematography. A braver film could have even lent into that artificiality, almost as a sly commentary on AI and self-identity  ideas that inevitably consume the films third act and its thuddingly obvious climactic twists.

This is the third feature by Garth Davis, following his Rooney Mara/Joaquin Phoenix starrer Mary Magdalene and the adoption drama Lion. His usual self-seriousness and sincerity seem ill at ease with the material hes adapting, even if his script was co-written alongside its source novels author, Iain Reid. The first of Reids books to make it to screen, Im Thinking of Ending Things, felt poles apart from this. Directed by the surrealist Charlie Kaufman, the Jessie Buckley-led Netflix film was complex and dreamlike in its structure, with room for all kinds of emotional contradictions and tricky thoughts. Foe is far too plain-spoken. He doesnt really see me anymore, Henrietta laments. Its as if hes replaced me with someone else. She does so several scenes before anyones even mentioned the robot clones.

There are other questions for Foe to ponder. Terrance (who Pierre plays as a cool-headed enigma) asks Junior whether he wants to live a mundane life or open himself up to the possibilities of the cosmos. Foe, as a film, settles comfortably for the former. Its easier, it seems, to chase after Tennessee Williams-sized exasperations, with Mescal a hairs breadth away from shaking his fists in the air and screaming, Henrieeeeetttttttaaaaaa! From what Ive heard, he did the Stanley Kowalski schtick a lot better on stage  when he actually played Stanley Kowalski.

Dir: Garth Davis. Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Paul Mescal, Aaron Pierre. 15, 110 minutes.

Foe is in cinemas from 20 October
Lamb, a Black man, was shot and killed in 2019

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)  A former Missouri detective convicted in the 2019 death of a Black man plans another appeal and asked for bond Wednesday, a day after he was jailed.

Eric J. DeValkenaeres lawyer asked appeals court judges to reinstate his bond so he can remain free pending requests for a rehearing or an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court.

Eric DeValkenaere, a former Kansas City, Mo., police detective, was convicted in the death of Cameron Lamb (Rich Sugg/The Kansas City Star via AP, File)

The former officer had been free on bond during his initial appeal, but judges revoked bond Tuesday after upholding his conviction of second-degree manslaughter and armed criminal action in the death of 26-year-old Cameron Lamb.

DeValkenaere surrendered himself Tuesday but has not yet been transferred from a Platte County jail to state prison.

His lawyer did not immediately return a request for comment from The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Republican Attorney General Andrew Baileys office supports DeValkenaeres bond request. Bailey has played an unusual role in the former detectives case, in June asking the appeals court to reverse DeValkenaeres conviction or order a new trial. In Missouri, the attorney generals office handles criminal appeals and typically defends convictions, rather than appealing them.

Rumors have swirled that Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson was considering pardoning or granting clemency to DeValkenaere, although on Tuesday spokesperson Johnathan Shiflett said in an email that the governor is assessing the situation and no decision has been reached on whether to grant a pardon.

Lambs stepfather, Aqil Bey, during a Wednesday press conference asked Parson to think about Lamb when deciding whether to pardon DeValkenaere.

Assistant prosecuting attorney Dion Sankar, right, leads Laurie Bey, mother of Cameron Lamb, to the witness stand to give a statement during the sentencing hearing of former Kansas City police detective Eric DeValkenaere, Friday, March 4, 2022, in Kansas City, Missouri. (Jill Toyoshiba/The Kansas City Star via AP)

We pray that he take into consideration who Cameron Lamb was, what he would offer this city and could offer this city as an upstanding citizen (and) as a father to his children, Bey said.

Kansas City Law Enforcement Accountability Project founder Steve Young asked supporters to call Parson and request that he not pardon DeValkenaere.

He has one foot in and one foot out (of jail), Young said. Who gets that kind of privilege?

DeValkenaere, who is white, was found guilty in 2021 in the death of Lamb, who was parking a pickup truck in his backyard in Kansas City when the officer shot him.

The judge who found DeValkenaere guilty in a bench trial said police were the initial aggressors and had a duty to retreat, but DeValkenaere illegally used deadly force instead.

Prosecutors and Lambs family have alleged a handgun was planted after the shooting, but that issue was not addressed by Jackson County Circuit Court Presiding Judge J. Dale Youngs when he convicted the detective.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel ruled unanimously there had been enough evidence to convict DeValkenaere. He had been sentenced to three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and six years for armed criminal action, with the sentences to run consecutively.

Police said DeValkenaere and his partner, Troy Schwalm, went to Lambs home after reports hed been chasing his girlfriends convertible in a stolen pickup truck. DeValkenaere said he fired after Lamb pointed a gun at another detective. The judge said the officers had no probable cause to believe any crime had been committed, had no warrant for Lambs arrest, and had no search warrant or consent to be on the property.

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The post Former Missouri officer who fatally shot Cameron Lamb plans another appeal and asks for bond appeared first on TheGrio.
An Oregon man who sexually assaulted female inmates while he was working as a nurse at a correctional facility was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

Tony Klein, 39, committed the assaults at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, which is Oregons only state prison for women, from 2010 to 2017, officials have said. He began abusing women around 2012, according to prosecutors.

He was found guilty in July after having previously been indicted on charges of depriving the victims of their constitutional right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

The Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, Ore. (Kelly Jordan / USA Today Network)

Natalie Wight, the U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon, praised the courage and resolve of his victims in a statement.

She said the sentence sends a clear message that using a position of authority to prey on individuals in custody will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice.

Klein made up reasons to get some women alone, the U.S. attorneys office said. He assaulted others during or around the time of medical appointments, it said.

"The defendant preyed on his victims, knowing that they would not dare report his crimes, because they would not be believed," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Prosecutors had asked for a 41-year sentence.

Seventeen women testified against Klein at trial. Some said he forced them to have sex, while others said they believed they could face discipline if they refused his advances, The Associated Press reported when he was convicted.

A jury found Klein guilty on 17 counts of depriving his victims of their constitutional rights and four counts of perjury.

Klein's defense team said that Klein was wrongfully convicted.

"We continue to believe Tony Klein is an innocent man," attorneys Matthew McHenry and Amanda Thibeault said in a statement. They said Klein has consistently denied committing the offenses and has passed two polygraph examinations.

"We look forward to the opportunity to appeal Mr. Kleins convictions and are privileged to continue to support him and his family throughout that process," they said.
Hundreds of pro-Palestine demonstrators were arrested on Wednesday 18 October after taking part in an unauthorised demonstration in the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

Activists rallied in Washington DC calling on the Biden administration and Congress to press for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The US Capitol Police said its officers began arresting protesters who refused to comply with orders to disperse, with some 500 other demonstrators blocking off Independence Avenue.

Many of the protesters were from the group Jewish Voice for Peace, and could be heard chanting The world is watching.

They wore black T-shirts emblazoned with the messages Jews Say Cease Fire Now and Not in Our Name.

Capitol Police made 300 arrests, according to reports.
The Israeli military has bolstered its northern defences as tension with the militant group Hezbollah grow on the Lebanese border, with mounting concerns of a wider war in the Middle East.

Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been locked in an increasingly fierce exchange of fire on the Lebanese border since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza after Hamas bloody attack nearly two weeks ago.

Both Iran and Hezbollah have warned of pre-emptive action if Israel pushes ahead with a ground invasion, which is the anticipated next step.

Rishi Sunak and US president Joe Biden have travelled to the Middle East in the last few days, mounting a frantic effort to rein in a widening conflict.

But as the violence continued, the UK, the US and Germany issued travel warnings urging their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately.

Now, Israel says it has shored up its northern defences and is ready to respond to any attack from its neighbours.

[Israel] has zero tolerance for Iran-backed organisations trying us at this time, Major Marcus Sheff, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, told The Independent.

I think Lebanon needs to ask whether it wants to risk its future for the Hamas terror organisation. We will deal with Hezbollah as necessary. The [Israeli military] is ready, ready to respond to any attack.

Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border earlier this week (AFP)

Jordan, which has been a historic broker of peace, called for an immediate ceasefire and warned that continued bombardment of Gaza would only see the conflict widen.

The growing perception on the street, as they see the unequivocal iron clad support for Israel in this war, is that this is a Western-Arab Muslim war, said foreign minister Ayman Safadi.

Unless we are able to stop this catastrophe [in Gaza] that anger is going to mount. All of us will pay a price.

There has been growing fury at the worsening humanitarian crisis for the 2 million people in the Strip, which is running out of food, water, fuel and power under a crippling Israeli siege. Gazas health ministry has begged petrol stations and citizens to donate diesel supplies for hospital generators.

Medhat Abbas, the director of Gazas largest hospital al-Shifa, told The Independent his teams were desperately searching for fuel across Gaza as their generators would shut at any moment, meaning ventilators and incubators could be switched off.

They are searching in all gas stations to find any amount at all, he said.

The US brokered a deal between Israel and Egypt where 20 trucks of aid would be allowed into the south of the tiny strip. But rights groups say this is only a scratch on the surface of the needs on the ground.

Hospitals are collapsing, lacking even basic supplies like painkillers and bandages. Disease outbreaks are inevitable in overflowing and unsanitary shelters. People are drinking seawater to try to stay alive, said Melanie Ward, head of Medical Aid to Palestine that runs clinics in Gaza.

ActionAid said that insufficient aid could lead to more innocent deaths in Gaza and that the lack of fuel in particular meant that hospitals could stop operating at any hour.

Protesters wave Palestinian, Lebanese and Hezbollah flags in Beirut (EPA)

Many fear a ground invasion of Gaza will be the final touchpaper in the conflict.

Israel has repeatedly signalled an invasion was imminent but has backtracked in recent days amid growing concerns it could trigger a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon on a second front.

The Israeli military would not confirm or deny to The Independent whether they had shelved the plans.

However, on Thursday Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant told infantry troops gathered at Gazas border that they will soon see Gaza from the inside, suggesting a ground invasion could be nearing.

You see Gaza now from a distance, you will soon see it from inside. The command will come.
U.S. Rep Kay Granger of Fort Worth is defending her vote against Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House and responding to the backlash from supporters of the hard-right Republican from Ohio.

Granger, the chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, wrote in a post on the social media platform X on Wednesday that intimidation and threats will not change my position. She said she voted her conscience for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise to serve as speaker, calling him an honorable man.

Her tweet had nearly 600,000 views and more than 6,000 comments within a few hours.

Steve Scalise is an honorable man and has earned my vote for Speaker. This was a vote of conscience and I stayed true to my principles. Intimidation and threats will not change my position.  Rep. Kay Granger (@RepKayGranger) October 18, 2023

Jordan lost a second House vote on Wednesday with only 199 of the 217 votes needed to win the speakership. Jordan secured 200 votes in the first round Tuesday.

Granger, a former mayor of Fort Worth, was one of three lawmakers from Texas who voted against Jordan in favor of other Republicans. The others were Rep. Jake Ellzey of Midlothian and Tony Gonzales of San Antonio.

Ellzey voted for California Republican Rep. Mike Garcia and Gonzalez voted for Scalise on Wednesdays race. Ellzey serves Texas 6th congressional district, which includes Ellis, Navarro, and Tarrant counties.

One lawmaker voted for Granger for speaker on Wednesday  Iowa Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks  but she is not actually considered in the running.

Many of the comments on Grangers post on X were harshly critical, some calling her a RINO or Republican in name only and predicting she will have formidable competition from more conservative candidates in the 2024 Republican primary

A user responded with, Not sure who taught you to do this job but your constituents asking you to respect their wishes and for once represent them is not intimidation and threats. Its your job.

Another user wrote: We are telling you what we want. You are supposed to vote based on what we want. You are supposed to represent us. Not your special interest donors. And its not a threat. If you dont vote how we want, youre gone.

Other users also criticized Grangers post, mentioning Scalises withdrawal from the House Speaker race Thursday.

One comment thanked Granger, saying she was getting creamed online by MAGA.

So many of them say that she should have voted the way the voters wanted her to vote and not her conscience! MAGA has no conscience! She does! THANK YOU REP GRANGER!

Jordan, from Ohio, co-founded the House Freedom Caucus in 2015 and is an ardent supporter of former President Donald Trump. He defended Trump during both impeachment hearings and was part of promoting the conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen.

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TEL AVIV  The United States has assessed that the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital Tuesday was most likely caused by a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, according to two U.S. officials and a congressional staffer. The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.

NBC News consulted four military and munitions experts. One agreed with the U.S. assessment, which was hinted at by President Joe Biden during his trip to Israel on Wednesday. Three agreed the blast wasnt from Israel. The experts were shown parts of more than a dozen videos and pictures from the incident at al-Ahli Baptist Hospital and its aftermath that have been geolocated and analyzed by NBC News, with some saying the marks left by the projectile arent consistent with the weaponry Israel has recently used.

The analysis of the experts and U.S. officials will likely do little to staunch the anger felt across the Arab world, which gives credence to the version of events put forward by Palestinian officials and Hamas: that Israel hit the hospital and killed hundreds of civilians in a deliberate act.

Palestinians carry usable items from the heavily damaged Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City. (Belal Khaled / Anadolu via Getty Images)

It will also do little for Gaza residents like Abu Fulla Mohammed, who rushed to the scene because he knew his family members were nearby. For Mohammed, it was just the latest burst of rubble and human carnage from which there is no escape.

It was as if I was in a scene from the Day of Resurrection, with fires everywhere, he said, discovering that shrapnel had hit his sister in her back. I was walking and jumping over the bodies of martyrs. I swear to God, there were corpses of children, women, elderly people.

The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, has been pummeling Gaza from the air since the surprise Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 killed some 1,400 people in kibbutzim, at a music festival and on city streets. It says it only targets Hamas positions, but hundreds have been killed during its bombing campaign, which has struck other hospitals and, the United Nations said Tuesday, a school, as hundreds of thousands flee south ahead of an expected Israeli ground assault.

In the same time frame, rockets have repeatedly been fired from Gaza toward Israel, with most intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system

Verification of who is responsible for the hospital explosion is particularly difficult because its not currently possible for outside experts to enter Gaza, which is under blockade and surrounded by Israeli forces.

A woman cries in the garden of Al-Ahli hospital, after it was hit, in Gaza City on Oct. 18, 2023. (Mustafa Hassona / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The explosion was broadcast live by Al Jazeera, a news organization owned by the Qatari government, whose cameras were trained on Gaza.

At 6:59 p.m. local time  just before noon ET  the pictures showed a projectile arcing through the sky and appearing to explode midair. Another live shot on the network showed two explosions on the ground, the larger of the two geolocated to the Ahli Baptist Hospital parking lot by NBC News, which compared the skyline in the video illuminated by the blast to satellite imagery of Gaza.

Another geolocated video on social media is filmed from within Gaza itself. The camera points through an ornate fence before a whooshing sound tears through the night and a large fireball plumes in the middle distance.

After the explosion, Israeli officials began to release what they said was their own intelligence indicating that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad was responsible.

At a briefing at IDF headquarters Wednesday, its spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, blamed a barrage launched from a cemetery southwest of the hospital a minute before 7 p.m.  the same time captured by al Jazeera.

The IDF released aerial footage that it said showed that the hospital buildings themselves had not in fact been damaged, and that the blast had hit a parking lot.An analysis by Bellingcat, an independent investigative nongovernment organization, also found that the hospital itself was not hit, but rather the adjacent parking lot.

The only location damaged is outside the hospital in the parking lot where we can see signs of burning, no cratering and no structural damage to nearby buildings,said Bellingcat director of research and training Giancarlo Fiorella on Wednesday, adding that the distance between the crater area and where people were was about 20 to 30 feet.

The parking lot analysis also appears to tally with verified photos posted on social media, including by a local journalist, Mohamed Masri, and the Reuters news agency, which released a picture showing a small crater with the spray of debris arcing in a southwesterly direction.

In the hours that followed the explosion, gruesome videos emerged from the hospital on social media showing dozens of mangled bodies and detached limbs lying in the grass by the hospital parking lot. Childrens backpacks could be seen beside bloodsoaked blankets and bedding, suggesting the victims were sleeping outside at the time of the blast.

Al-Ahli hospital after it was hit in Gaza City. (Ali Jadallah / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Archbishop Hosam Naoum, who is part of the Diocese of Jerusalem that runs the hospital, said Palestinians across Gaza were using the hospital as a sanctuary from the constant barrage of strikes. He said that the hospital had been hit three days earlier by airstrikes and had received multiple evacuation notices afterward. The World Health Organisation said the hospital was operational with patients, health and care givers, and internally displaced people sheltering there.

Hamas  the militant group that controls Gaza and has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., E.U. and other countries  immediately blamed Israel for the bombing, calling it a crime of genocide, without offering evidence. Shortly afterward, Palestinian United Nations Ambassador Riyad Mansour said he was outraged by the massacre committed by the Israeli forces. And Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told NBC News on Wednesday about the U.S. assessment: Nobody is buying that narrative in this part of the world.

The Palestinian health ministry spokesman, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said that hundreds were killed. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a surgeon who was at the hospital at the time of the explosion, told NBC News that part of the operating room ceiling fell and that he estimated 300 people were killed.

National Security Council spokesman Adrienne Watson said that while we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the hospital explosion.

The bodies of the victims of an explosion at al-Ahli hospital lie at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. (Mohammad Abu Elsebah / dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a military-focused think tank in London, agreed. Based on what Ive seen so far, I really doubt that this was an airstrike, he said, adding that the blast damage seen so far doesnt fit with the missiles that Israel has been using to strike Gaza over the past week and a half.

Retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former supreme allied commander of NATO and an NBC News contributor, held a similar opinion. To my eye, the damage on the ground does not look at all like what you would see from an airstrike, or a precision-guided weapon, he said. It looks like a projectile with a lot of fuel in it hit a parking lot and created a fireball.

Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army major and weapons and munitions expert, said that the Israeli case was pretty thorough and conclusive, although he cautioned that he would want to see remnants of the munition recovered from the rubble.

He added that as more evidence emerges it appears it may well be an errant Palestinian rocket, he said. We should not be blinkered that this may indeed be an error on the part of the Palestinian forces.

Retired Lt. Gen. Stephen Twitty, a former deputy commander of the United States European Command and an NBC News military analyst, said the trajectory from the Al Jazeera footage showed it had been fired from the ground, rather than the air, but he stopped short of any further conclusions.

Relatives of the people who died in the explosion at Al-Ahli hospital mourn during a funeral ceremony in Gaza City. (Belal Khaled / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The scenes of carnage provoked anger across the Arab world, with governments from Turkey to Saudi Arabia blaming Israel. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah called for a day of rage, and Jordan canceled a meeting of Arab leaders that Biden was set to attend Wednesday  a major setback for American diplomatic efforts.

The blast overall brought more misery on the hemmed-in people of Gaza, currently in the throes of a humanitarian crisis.

Since Hamas terror attack, Israel has imposed a siege of Gaza. Clean water, food, fuel, medical supplies and electricity are dwindling or gone. Promised humanitarian aid coming across the border with Egypt has not yet materialized.

We were sitting in groups with our families and friends, Muhammad Al-Turk told NBC News of the scene Tuesday at the hospitals grounds, where many had gathered as they fled Israeli airstrikes and a mounting humanitarian crisis. Suddenly, there were lights in the sky, and when we looked up, a missile fell, he added.

The stones of the buildings fell on us. We saw martyrs everywhere, in hundreds, he said. I covered my face while friends who were close to me were martyred, my relatives were also injured.

Abu Fulla Mohammed, whose sister was injured, said the scene will haunt him forever: What I saw will remain in my mind until I die.

Relatives of the people who died in the explosion at Al-Ahli hospital mourn during a funeral ceremony in Gaza City. (Belal Khaled / Anadolu via Getty Images)

u Fulla Mohammed, whose sister was injured, said the scene will haunt him forever: What I saw will remain in my mind until I die.u Fulla Mohammed, whose sister was injured, said the scene will haunt him forever: What I saw will remain in my mind until I die.e were sitting in groups with our families and friends, Muhammad Al-Turk told NBC News of the scene Tuesday at the hospitals grounds, where many had gathered as they fled Israeli airstrikes and a mounting humanitarian crisis. Suddenly, there were lights in the sky, and when we looked up, a missile fell, he added.he stones of the buildings fell on us. We saw martyrs everywhere, in hundreds, he said. I covered my face while friends who were close to me were martyred, my relatives were also injured.u Fulla Mohammed, whose sister was injured, said the scene will haunt him forever: What I saw will remain in my mind until I die.
U.S. pledges military support to Israel as protests erupt across Mideast over hospital blast, Israeli attacks

Xinhua) 13:49, October 19, 2023

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18, 2023. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off. The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as it entered the 12th day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

JERUSALEM, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday met with U.S. President Joe Biden in Israel, where they agreed on "unprecedented" U.S. military assistance to Israel in its ongoing conflict with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In a broadcast statement, Netanyahu said that he and Biden, who arrived in the morning for a brief visit to Israel, agreed on "actions and cooperation that guarantees the continuation of our just war."

Biden, who travelled back to Washington in the afternoon after a pre-scheduled four-way Arab summit in Jordan was canceled, said during his brief stay that Pentagon intelligence indicates that the blast on the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital on Tuesday was caused by "the other team" and not an Israeli airstrike. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said Israeli airstrikes caused the explosion in the hospital that killed at least 471.

Israel released intercepted communications between two Hamas operatives discussing how the hospital was struck by a failed rocket fire.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesman Daniel Hagari presented the audio recording during a press briefing, denying Israeli responsibility for the blast and accusing the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) of a failed rocket launch.

In the audio, two individuals can be heard conversing in Arabic over a phone call. During the conversation, one person informs the other that the explosion resulted from a rocket misfire by the PIJ, an armed group in Gaza.

According to Hagari, the failed rocket, carrying an ignited propellant load, was fired from near the hospital.

He also presented aerial photos and infrared images of the explosion's location, collected by the Israeli military. "Analysis of our aerial footage confirms that there was no direct hit on the hospital itself," he said.

According to Hagari, since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, militants in Gaza carried out 450 failed rocket launches.

Israel's wartime cabinet announced on Wednesday it will allow a limited humanitarian aid to enter Gaza through Egypt's border. Netanyahu's office announced in a statement that "Israel will not obstruct humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as they consist of only food, water, and medicine for the civilians located in the southern Gaza Strip," warning "any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted."

In addition, the cabinet stated that Israel demands to allow visits by the Red Cross to the hostages held by Hamas.

Hamas on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off.

Over the past few days, tons of aid supplies from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Trkiye, and the World Health Organization have arrived at the Rafah border crossing, waiting for access to the Palestinian coastal enclave from the Egyptian side.

Earlier on Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi expressed Egypt's firm support for the Palestinian people and a strong rejection of any attempts to relocate them to Egypt's adjacent Sinai Peninsula.

Meanwhile, violence along the Israeli-Lebanese border has continued to escalate on Wednesday. The Israeli military said that militants in Lebanon launched rockets and anti-tank missiles at Israeli communities near the border. The Israeli military responded with fire toward the origins of the shootings, the military said in a statement, adding that an Israeli military drone thwarted "a terrorist cell which fired mortar shells toward the area of Turmus."

Following the hospital blast, thousands of Egyptians on Wednesday held demonstrations in the capital Cairo and other provinces to show their solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Protests also took place in Iran, Lebanon, Jordan and Tunisia to condemn Israel's attacks on Gaza. Lebanese and Palestinian demonstrators clashed with security forces near the U.S. embassy in Awkar, north of Beirut, resulting in several injuries.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, now in its twelfth day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides.

A Palestinian young man transports water in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18, 2023. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off. The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as it entered the 12th day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

Palestinians fetch water in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18, 2023. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off. The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as it entered the 12th day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18, 2023. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off. The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as it entered the 12th day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

Palestinians fetch water in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18, 2023. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off. The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as it entered the 12th day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

Palestinians fetch water in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18, 2023. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off. The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as it entered the 12th day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

Palestinians charge phones from one power source in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18, 2023. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off. The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as it entered the 12th day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

A Palestinian man transports water in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Oct. 18, 2023. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off. The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as it entered the 12th day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Seoul's unlimited transit card faces challenges in Gyeonggi Province, Incheon cooperation

By Jung Da-hyun

Local governments are intensifying their efforts to offer competitive transit discount systems for their residents.

The latest plan was introduced by the Gyeonggi Provincial Government, Tuesday, under which it will return 20 percent of commuting expenses for residents and even for those who use it outside the province.

This initiative, linked with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's upcoming K-Pass system planned for next year, focuses on providing enhanced benefits to Gyeonggi Province's residents. The K-Pass offers a 20-percent refund of transportation costs, up to 60 trips, for individuals who use public transportation more than 21 times a month.

As for the Gyeonggi Pass, it unlimitedly allows a 20-percent refund of total transportation expenses for those who use public transportation more than 21 times a month. Furthermore, it offers a 30-percent refund to young people, aged 19 to 39, and a 53-percent refund for low-income groups.

Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Dong-yeon emphasized the superiority of the Gyeonggi Pass over Seoul's unlimited transit pass during a parliamentary audit on Tuesday.

This announcement is casting a shadow over Seoul City's plan to launch its unlimited transit card, named Climate Card.

Climate Card, which is scheduled to be introduced in January next year, offers access to all bus routes, subway lines in Seoul, and even the city's bike-sharing service for a monthly fee of 65,000 won ($47.86).

However, it has faced ongoing controversy regarding its effectiveness.

Critics argue that the Climate Card's benefits are limited to public transportation only within the Seoul Metropolitan area. Commuters departing from Seoul to areas like Gyeonggi Province and Incheon can use the pass, but not vice versa.

The Gyeonggi Provincial Government claims they are implementing a transportation plan tailored to the province's unique characteristics. The region has various public transportation methods, including city buses, express buses and the Shinbundang Line each with different fare systems.

Due to the wide regional variation, the refund system is deemed more advantageous for residents than a standard monthly ticket, said Kim Sang-su, a director of the Transportation Bureau at Gyeonggi Provincial Government.

Incheon has also requested comprehensive research to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Seoul's Climate Card. Based on the findings, the city will decide whether to collaborate with Seoul's unlimited transit card or establish its own discount system, according to Incheon Metropolitan Government.

Seoul City, however, emphasizes that the Climate Card is not a policy that conflicts with other transportation discount systems.

We understand Gyeonggi Provinces decision and the intent of their independent policy. But we see the Climate Card as an additional option for the public, said a Seoul City official.

Meanwhile, meetings of the consultative group, discussing cooperation with Gyeonggi Province and Incheon on Seoul's unlimited transit card, will continue, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

On the first meeting, held on Sept. 26, Seoul City, Gyeonggi Province, and Incheon agreed to share all related documents and analyze data to evaluate the card's effectiveness.
WASHINGTON  In a closed-door meeting Thursday, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., told GOP colleagues he might resign as speaker pro tempore if Republicans push him to try to move legislation on the floor without an explicit vote to expand his powers, according to multiple lawmakers in the room.

If you guys try to do that, youll figure out who the next person on Kevins list is, McHenry told the room, three sources said, referring to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's secret list of GOP lawmakers who would serve as temporary speaker in the event of a vacancy.

McHenry's comments underscore the quandary Republicans are in: They can't really do anything until they choose a new speaker, but they can't agree on someone who can get the votes to be that new speaker.

And McHenry is unwilling to set a precedent that would give future temporary speakers the full power of speakers who are elected on the House floor. It could mean that the House wouldn't need to elect speakers in the future.

It's an idea that McCarthy himself has been floating, and it was the subject of debate during Republicans' 3-hour private meeting Thursday. During the discussion, some Republicans asked whether they could give McHenry more power "by acclamation" or whether they needed to take an internal vote in the room.

It's a different idea from the formal resolution proposed by Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, which would require a floor vote to empower McHenry to move legislation like spending bills and aid packages for Ukraine and Israel.

A GOP lawmaker described McHenry's remarks as an implicit threat of resignation. The lawmaker said McHenry had made the same suggestion to individual members before he spoke to the larger conference.

A second GOP lawmaker said that McHenry made the remarks tongue in cheek but that the message was clear: He questioned the constitutionality of such an option and said he did not want the greater authority unless Republicans agreed to grant it to him through a formal vote.

McHenry will not act in a manner he interprets as unconstitutional as speaker pro tem, a third member in the room said.

In individual conversations with members, McHenry also has threatened to resign as speaker pro tem if such a resolution were passed on the floor, the GOP lawmaker said.

McHenry's office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

McCarthy has been one of the most vocal proponents of the idea that McHenry does not need the House to allow him to bring legislation to the floor.

When I put McHenrys name down it was my belief that if something happened to me that McHenry could run the floor until we elected a new speaker. It was not my intention when I put a name down that they couldnt do anything, McCarthy told reporters after Thursday's meeting, during which lawmakers debated whether to vote on Joyces resolution.

McCarthy was referring to the fact that since 2003, in the wake of the 9/11 attack, House rules have required the speaker to submit a list of names to the clerk of members to act in case of a vacancy in the position and to ensure continuity of government.

McHenry has consistently denied any interest in expanding his role.

Im focused on electing Jim Jordan, the speaker nominee, as speaker of the House, he told reporters Thursday when he briefly left the conference meeting. Thats my goal. Thats my purpose.
Liverpool and Egypt star Mo Salah has called for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza immediately and called on world leaders to help put an end to the fighting.

The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza said that at least 3,478 people have been killed and more than 1,250 injured by Israeli airstrikes since Hamas surprise attack on October 7, which left more than 1,400 people dead in Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel announced a complete siege of the enclave in response, but United States President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, had agreed to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza for humanitarian aid  the only one not controlled by Israel.

After Tuesdays deadly blast tore through Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, Israel has laid out evidence that it says shows a misfire by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast, while Palestinian officials and several Arab leaders nevertheless accuse Israel of hitting the hospital amid its ongoing airstrikes in Gaza.

It is not always easy to speak in times like this. There has been too much violence and too much heartbreak and brutality, Salah said in a video posted to social media. The escalations in the recent weeks is unbearable to witness.

All lives are sacred and must be protected. The massacres need to stop. Families are being torn apart. What is clear now is humanitarian aid to Gaza must be allowed immediately. The people there are in terrible conditions.

The scenes at the hospital last night were horrifying. The people of Gaza need food, water and medical supplies urgently. I am calling on the world leaders to come together to prevent the further slaughter of innocent souls - humanity must prevail.

Salah during a match against Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League on October 8. - Steve Bardens/Getty Images

On Monday, the Egyptian Red Crescent, a charity that provides medical services and humanitarian aid, confirmed that Salah had made a donation to help its relief efforts in Gaza.

Thank you, Mohamed Salah, for his donation to support the people of the Gaza Strip, the charity wrote on Facebook. Thank you from the heart.

Salah, one of worlds most prolific forwards, has won the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup since signing with Liverpool in 2017.

Salah and Liverpool face Everton at home in the Merseyside Derby on Saturday.

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A Louisiana man is accused of setting a New Orleans home on fire and killing three children Tuesday.

Joseph Washington Sr., 29, was arrested in New Orleans a day after the fire that killed his three children, ages 8, 5 and 3, police said in a statement.

The childrens mother called 911 at 11:55 p.m. and said that she was at work but that their father was threatening to burn down their house, police said.

fire deaths investigation (WDSU)

Audio of the call played by NBC affiliate WDSU of New Orleans includes the mother telling a dispatcher that someone is on the phone threatening to set the house on fire and to please hurry.

Moments after the 911 call, a fire was reported, police said. The 8-year-old and the 5-year-old were rescued but died at a hospital, and the 3-year-old was found dead inthe burned home, police said.

Washington faces three counts each of second-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to a juvenile, as well as one count of aggravated arson, police said.

He was in custody Wednesday night, according to jail records. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney.

He jumped from an overpass before he was arrested and was taken to a hospital for an evaluation of possible injuries, New Orleans police said.
A mysterious loud boom that startled a neighbourhood across Melbournes north is believed to be a meteorite hitting Earths atmosphere.

The residents in Doreen, a suburb in Melbourne, heard a loud explosion at around 9pm Wednesday, capturing videos of the moment when it happened.

CCTV footage shared on social media by a Doreen resident showed a sudden burst of light, accompanied by a noise resembling a loud bang, as a resident was stepping out of his car.

Several locals took to social media to report their experiences and asked what was the massive explosion while some linked it to an astronomical phenomenon.

That was fucking loud, our whole house shook. Someone posted this on a local page, maybe a meteorite?  pic.twitter.com/FakoRqxL7d   (@onlyrebz) October 18, 2023

Our whole house shook, a resident said on X, sharing the CCTV footage that someone posted on a local page, guessing it maybe a meteorite?

Ok, massive explosion wasnt how I expected tonight to go!, one user who was from Mernda area said. What in the world was that?!

The authorities are yet to comment on origin of the sound.

But an astronomer from the Australian National University told Melbourne-based radio show 3AW that the flash and boom suggest it could be a meteor.

It would have been a bit of an asteroid broke off, travelled through space, [and] hit the Earths atmosphere, Mr Tucker said.

He said given the velocity at which the material would be moving, a "sonic boom" would become audible upon its entry into Earths atmosphere.

Essentially all this energy [is] being released in the sky, and the meteor or asteroid fragment [is] breaking apart.

He said the brightness and the sound of explosion are based on the size of the material entering into the Earth from space.

Dr Gail Isles, a science expert from RMIT University, told the show that the object could potentially be a meteor, especially considering the ongoing Perseid meteor shower, which is anticipated to peak this weekend.

But said it could more likely a fragment from a navigation satellite rocket launched from Russias Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

"Its come back in somewhere between the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere and then it started to appear quite large to our eyes from Melbourne, Dr Isles said.

Weve seen it as this big burning fireball.

In August, residents in Victoria saw a ball of light passing over the night sky and heard a loud boom. Australias space agency later confirmed that it was a space junk, remnants of a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket which re-entered the Earths atmosphere.
North Carolina lawmakers have drawn Rep. Jeff Jackson, a Democrat from Charlotte, out of his district  just as he predicted.

At the same time, mapmakers created room for state House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican from Cleveland County, to run for Congress if he so chooses.

Thats the case in both of two congressional maps released by state Senate Republicans on Wednesday afternoon that could win approval in the GOP-dominated legislature next week. One of them would take North Carolina from a 7-7 split between Republicans and Democrats to a map that gives Republicans 10 seats, Democrats three seats and leaves one swing district. A second map would create an 11-3 split in the Republicans favor.

Among the Democrats who would likely lose their seat under both versions is Jackson, whose district would go from blue to red based on data from past elections. Jackson said Wednesday in a written statement that gerrymandering is open political corruption.

It shows weakness  never strength, Jackson said. It was wrong when my party did it and it is wrong when the other party does it.

A congressional map proposed in Senate Bill 756.

Jackson currently represents North Carolinas first ever 14th Congressional District. The state was granted an additional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after the last census showed its population had increased.

Jackson made himself more well-known by creating weekly, easy-to-understand TikTok videos that break down what is happening in Congress each week.

Jackson only won after seizing an unexpected opportunity in 2022.

Republicans first drew a district that would favor Moore if he chose to run. At the same time, they slightly diluted the district to the far west, making it a bit more challenging for former Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a young and controversial lawmaker.

Cawthorn announced he would hop over and run against Moore in the district to his east. That move made Moore immediately announce he wouldnt run for Congress. In the end, a court-ordered redrawing made the 14th more favorable for a Democrat. Cawthorn returned to the far-west district where he lost in a primary election.

Jackson, who had just pulled out of a U.S. Senate race to allow Democrats to put their entire support behind his opponent, who ultimately lost, ran for House instead and won with more than 57% of the vote against Republican Pat Harrigan.

Harrigan has already announced his intention to run again.

A congressional map proposed in Senate Bill 757.

Jackson, who is rumored to be eyeing an attorney general run, has said he needed to see how state lawmakers drew the maps before making a decision. He had predicted the new map would leave him without a favorable district.

He didnt comment on his plans Wednesday.

House Speaker Tim Moore, center, confers with his chief of staff, Neal Inman, left, and Rep. Destin Hall, a Caldwell and Watauga County Republican, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, prior to the first of several votes on the budget at the General Assembly.

Moore announced he would not seek reelection for both House speaker or his legislative seat, but had remained mum on what his plans are next.

Both proposed maps center a district on his home county of Cleveland, with one end in Mecklenburg County and the other in the mountains. One would stretch as far west as Buncombe County.

Moore did not return a voicemail seeking comment.
Protesters led by progressive Jewish activists rally outside the Brentwood home of Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff on Thursday morning. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Since this month's attacks on Israel by Hamas militants, thousands of protesters have taken to Los Angeles' streets, waving Israeli and Palestinian flags and at times sparking tense confrontations. On Thursday, as Israel continued its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, a smaller group tried to bridge the bitter divide by taking their pleas for peace to Vice President Kamala Harris' Brentwood home.

Led by progressive Jewish activists for Palestinian rights, about 50 people pulled up in cars outside Harris' home in the quiet Westside enclave around 7:20 a.m. and walked to the front gate holding signs that read Jews say ceasefire now and No war crimes in our name.

They prayed, sang and read poetry. Speaking Hebrew, they recited the Mourners Kaddish, a Jewish prayer praising God to mark the death of a loved one.

The peaceful demonstration at the home of Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, was organized by IfNotNow, a left-leaning group of American Jews calling for the end of U.S. support for Israels apartheid system, according to the groups website. Harris was in Washington, according to a White House news guidance about her Thursday schedule; representatives for Harris and Emhoff did not respond to requests for comment.

Read more:'And then I had to go out and speak': Doug Emhoff on being Jewish right now

We are outside the house of Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff asking them to join us in demanding a cease-fire, said IfNotNow L.A. organizer David Shapiro, who led chants and prayers of peace. We are American Jews with ancestors around the world. We honor our tradition rooted in the belief that human life is sacred. To achieve genuine safety for ourselves as Jews, for Israelis and for Palestinians, we need to work together toward equality and justice for all and an end to apartheid.

Speakers called on Harris and Emhoff to advocate for a cease-fire, at one point chanting, Join us, Doug. Some organizers wearing neon green vests helped to make sure traffic was not blocked on the two-way street.

Members of the advocacy group IfNotNow cover their eyes while offering a prayer on Thursday morning outside the Los Angeles home of Vice President Kamala Harris, calling "on those in power to oppose any policies that privilege one group of people over another, in Israel/Palestine and in the U.S." Harris was not in Los Angeles at the time of the protest. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Some drivers slowed to hear the message, chanting in favor of Israel, and others honked car horns, shouted and pumped their fists. Two men in separate vehicles called the protesters terrorists before driving away.

A Times reporter on the scene heard a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant tell protesters not to stretch police resources by having officers arrest people. No order for the crowd to disperse was given, and the demonstration ended around 11 a.m. with no arrests and no violence.

Organizer Noa Kattler Kupetz, who said she "grew up right around the corner from Harris' home, told the crowd that the event was a huge win for us.

My feeling after this is that our work here is not done, she said. We have to make it clear to all of our elected officials, our local leaders in Los Angeles and the leaders of our country like Kamala Harris that there needs to be an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

Read more:As Biden visits, rage spreads amid dueling narratives from Israel, Hamas

The Brentwood demonstration was a continuation of recent protests by Jewish activists who oppose Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and the airstrikes on Gaza as the death toll soars.

On Capitol Hill, hundreds of demonstrators organized by IfNotNow and another progressive group, Jewish Voice for Peace, were arrested Wednesday after rallying inside a congressional building to demand a cease-fire. Three were accused of assault on a police officer, according to the U.S. Capitol Police.

"While 500 Jews, rabbis, and descendants of Holocaust survivors chant 'Let Gaza live' and get arrested inside, a crowd of 10k sings outside," Jewish Voice for Peace posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. "We wont stop until our demands of a cease-fire are met!"

Israel has declared war and continued to bomb and seal off the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controls, ever since Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 Israelis and taking at least 100 hostages into Gaza. At least 3,785 Palestinians, including 1,524 children and 120 older people, have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza as of Thursday, and at least 12,493 have been wounded, according to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.

About half of Gaza's population, amounting to about 1 million Palestinians, have fled their homes in the north after being told to evacuate by Israeli officials. Israeli airstrikes continued across Gaza on Thursday, including in southern areas that were deemed "safe zones" by Israel.

Israel has also cut off all water, power and medical supplies into Gaza, exacerbating an existing blockade of the region. Limited humanitarian aid will be allowed from Egypt into Gaza at the request of President Biden.

Read more:Gaza awaits aid from Egypt as Israel readies troops for ground assault

Biden is expected to request $10 billion in military aid to Israel from Congress in the coming days, according to media reports. Biden has already pledged $100 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank.

Harris told reporters last week in the wake of the Hamas attack that she was "completely outraged" by the "extreme acts of terrorism."

A few days after the Hamas attack, Emhoff spoke at a roundtable at the White House with other Jewish community leaders.

We witnessed a mass murder of innocent civilians. It was a terrorist assault, he told the audience. And there is never any justification for terrorism. There are no two sides to this issue."

On Wednesday, the U.S. vetoed a United Nations resolution sponsored by Brazil to condemn all violence against civilians in the war, citing the need to find out more facts on the ground first. The resolution had broad support, with 12 out of the 15 members of the Security Council voting in favor, Russia and Britain abstaining, and the U.S. voting against it.

Read more:'I need to ask God why.' In Israel and Gaza, the scale of death overwhelms the living

IfNotNow volunteer Asher Kaplan said that as the violence mounts, despair has been building within the Jewish community for the last few weeks. One of Kaplan's childhood friends was nearly killed in Hamas attack.

Yet, he said, those feelings of grief and anguish should not be used as a justification for mass killing.

We know that the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians being conducted by Israel as we speak and supported by the United States government will not make Jews safe, Kaplan said.

The advocacy group IfNotNow held a demonstration Thursday morning outside the Los Angeles home of Vice President Kamala Harris. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Brentwood resident Michael Cohen bristled when he saw a Jewish activist wearing the traditional Palestinian kaffiyeh while holding a banner reading, Jews say ceasefire now.

OK, cease-fire and then what? said Cohen, who is in his mid-40s, as he watched the protest after dropping off his three kids at a nearby elementary school.

The bombing in Gaza was to eradicate Hamas and not Palestinians, Cohen said.

The point is what will be done with Hamas, and something needs to be done with Hamas before we can talk about peace, he said.

Read more:What do Hamas and Israel see as the endgame? What would 'victory' look like?

Another Brentwood resident, Lydia Sorrentino, 53, went to Thursdays protest out of curiosity. She had just dropped off her first-grade son at nearby Kenter Canyon Elementary Charter School and pulled her car over near the gates of Harris home. The commotion came as a surprise to her.

This is usually a very quiet neighborhood; I think this is the first time weve had something like this, she said. I had to see what was happening.

Although Sorrentino was aware of the Israel-Hamas war, she said she didn't really understand the issue.

Thats why Im here, to hear whats being said and what the protest is about, she said. Sorrentino pulled out her phone to record a couple of speeches and then headed back to her car and home.

I have a lot to learn, she added.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Vladimir Putin said Russia will be able to repel attacks by Ukraines new long range weapons supplied by the US, which Kyiv used to launch one of the most damaging attacks on the Kremlins air assets since the start of the war.

While the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, result in an additional threat, the weapon would not change the situation along the 1,500km (932 mile) frontline, Mr Putin told reporters in Beijing. He said his forces will be able to repel attacks by the top-tier missile system.

For Ukraine, in this sense, theres nothing good it only prolongs the agony, the Russian president said during his visit to China.

Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said that Washingtons decision to provide Ukraine with ATACMS is reckless and a grave mistake that wont alter the continuing wars outcome.

On Tuesday, Ukraine said it used the ATACMS to destroy nine Russian helicopters, as well as ammunition, an air defence system and other assets at two airfields in regions occupied by Russia, marking a significant blow to Mr Putins military infrastructure.

While Russia claimed it is not majorly affected, experts have said ATACMS will shift the battlefield layout to some degree because it will create pressure on Moscows forces to disperse its aircraft and ammunition depots parked near the frontline and in the Ukrainian territories it currently occupies.

Russia has actively used aircraft to halt Ukraines ongoing counteroffensive.

For more than 600 days now, Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine has continued in stages of slow-grinding warfare and active fighting in eastern and southern fronts on the battlefield.

A protracted war of attrition is expected at least through next year as Ukraine seeks to push off every Russian soldier from its territory.

Russia and Ukraine are eyeing battlefield advantages alongside consolidating their positions ahead of the three months of slow operations as rain, snow and poor visibility are expected to hamper the movement of tanks.

The British defence ministry has said Russian forces are currently trying to push forward in some parts of eastern Ukraine. But these areas are well defended by Ukraine and it is highly unlikely the Russians will accomplish their goal of a major breakthrough.
A Republican candidate for Missouri attorney general will help former President Donald Trump appeal a recent gag order imposed on him in his upcoming trial over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Will Scharf, a former assistant U.S. Attorney from St. Louis, has joined Trumps appellate team, a Trump campaign spokesperson confirmed to The Star.

The decision to join Trumps team comes as Scharf, a Republican, is mounting a primary challenge to Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in 2024. Scharf also served as policy director in former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens brief administration.

Scharf, who left the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Eastern District of Missouri last year, is the first person to challenge Bailey, who was appointed to the position this year by Republican Gov. Mike Parson. His campaign has centered around his past work as a prosecutor against violent crimes.

Scharf is seeking to appeal to the right wing of the Missouri Republican Party. His association with the former president is likely to help his campaign in a state that Trump won by more than 15 percentage points in 2020.

He declined to comment to The Star, directing questions to Trumps campaign. The campaign confirmed that Scharf was joining the former presidents team.

Trump is appealing a narrow gag order imposed on him this week by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that bars the former president from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and court staff. Chutkan is overseeing the criminal case in the District of Columbia that accuses Trump of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.

Scharfs involvement in the D.C. case comes as Trump faces a slew of criminal charges in three other cases in New York, Florida and Georgia.

Trumps legal team filed a notice of appeal on Tuesday. A campaign spokesperson in a statement to The Star painted the gag order as a violation of Trumps First Amendment rights and said his team planned to file an emergency motion to stay the order.

No court has ever imposed any such gag order on a political candidate conducting a political campaign  least of all the leading opposition candidate for President of the United States, the statement said in part.

The case centers around Trumps efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election, which he lost, and includes accusations that he urged Republican officials to undermine the results in states that Biden won. A mob of his supporters to stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in an effort to prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Biden after the former president held a rally in Washington after months of spreading misinformation about the election results.

Two other Missouri attorneys, Dean John Sauer and Michael Talent, have also joined Trumps appellate team.

Sauer, a former solicitor general in Missouri, entered an appearance in the case on Wednesday. He left the attorney generals office earlier this year.

Talent, a former deputy solicitor general in Missouri who served from 2021 to 2022 and the son of former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, has also joined the team, a Trump spokesperson confirmed.
Inside story of Korea's feminist movement sheds hopes for future gender equality

By Lee Hae-rin

Korea remains a hostile environment for womens rights amid an intensifying gender divide and ongoing anti-feminist backlash in politics.

But the #MeToo movement as a generational experience will shape the mindsets of young Koreans and ultimately contribute to uprooting sexual discrimination and violence, according to journalist Jung Ha-won.

In her first book Flowers of Fire, Jung chronicles the firsthand inside story of the both crushing defeats and hard-won victories of Koreas feminist movement between 2015 and 2021, based on nearly 100 interviews with survivors, activists, academics and experts.

As a former correspondent for the AFP news agency, Jung, born and raised in South Korea, wrote about the two Koreas for over a decade from the death of then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2011 to the rise of K-pop on the world stage.

She then brought the spotlight to Koreas #MeToo movement in global news media, which tended to primarily focus on North Korea issues and chaebol, or South Koreas family-owned conglomerates, at the time. Her extensive coverage was shortlisted in the 2019 Awards for Editorial Excellence by the Society of Publishers in Asia.

During a recent interview with The Korea Times, Jung said that the Korean women she met while reporting are trailblazers, advocates and champions who led one of Asias most remarkable feminist movements with their hidden inner strengths.

Prosecutor Seo Ji-hyun, for example, looks tender on the outside and sounds quite soft-spoken, but she is a very strong person. Most of the women I met were like that, too, soft on the outside but fierce on the inside, she said, referring to the prosecutor at the Tongyeong branch of the southeastern Changwon District Prosecutors Office, who gave force to the countrys #MeToo movement with the disclosure about her sexual harassment experience from her male supervisor in January 2018. In May 2020, Seo was appointed as the ministrys supervisor in gender equality policies and led a digital sex crime task force, which ended last year.

This is in contrast to Western stereotypes of Asian women, in Jungs view.

For all Westerners who still fantasize about the sweet and docile Asian women like Miss Saigon, Id say, Wake up! Your Miss Saigon was dead and gone a long time ago. Shes not here anymore, Jung wrote in her book.

As a reporter, she witnessed their transformations over the years from traumatized victims into champions who stepped up in solidarity to raise their voices for other victims of sexual violence and brought institutional changes for gender equality in the economically advanced yet culturally patriarchal nation.

However, these hard-won victories are definitely under attack amid an ongoing anti-feminist backlash in Korean politics, she said, explaining thats not how she expected the story to unfold when she started writing the book in 2019.

Im not going to lie, its not easy. The sociocultural atmosphere has changed, but on a central government level, the gender ministry is on the verge of extinction with its role weakened, while local government offices in charge of gender equality are downgraded or rebranded into something in charge of family, population and child care, focusing primarily on womens reproductive roles as mothers and caretakers, she said.

Rep. Lee Jun-seok, the ousted chairman of the ruling conservative People Power Party (PPP), as well as President Yoon Suk Yeol swept into power on a wave of anti-feminist sentiment among young men in recent years, while conservatives are engaging in campaigns to ban books on gender equality and diverse forms of families from public libraries, she explained.

Jung believes Koreas battle for gender equality is going through a long, harsh winter.

An explosive moment like 2018s #MeToo movement is very rare and unusual, she said, forecasting a little possibility of another strong momentum like the #MeToo movement to arise and overthrow the backlash.

However, many Korean young men have made remarkable improvements, growing to embody the values of gender equality and abandon the patriarchy while living next to young women, although they still have strong antipathy even against the term feminism, she said. The memories of the #MeToo movement and social issues and protests revolving around sexual violence will be imprinted on their minds as generational experiences, in Jung's view.

We still have a long way to go, but changes are afoot. This generation wants to differ from their fathers and I think thats the silver lining. There could be political, government-level and policy-wise regression (in gender equality), but what has happened over the years  like the #MeToo movement  will shape peoples worldviews and mindsets and lead to cultural changes. Thats something difficult to reverse, I think, she said.

She added her hopes for the book to become a time capsule in testimony of Koreas changing times and a lighthouse of hope for future feminist movements.

I hope this book can serve as an inspiration for them to take up their own fights at home, she said.
Rishi Sunak has said Israel has both a right and duty to go after Hamas to restore its security at the start of a two-day visit to the region.

The prime minister called the terrorist group pure evil and, at a joint press conference, told Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu we want you to win.

In rhetoric recalling Winston Churchill, Mr Sunak added that he was proud to stand here with you in Israels darkest hour as your friend.

He also met with two families whose loved ones have been held hostage by Hamas following the attacks on 7 October, which saw more than 1,400 killed.

In a bid to prevent the conflict from spreading across the region, Mr Sunak flew to Saudi Arabia where he and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman agreed to coordinate action in a bid to avoid further escalation.

Mr Sunak also encouraged the crown prince to use his countrys leadership in the region, where it is a key player, to support stability, both in the coming days and in the long term.

It came as:

Netanyahu said he was preparing the country for a long war against worst monsters on the planet

UK and US advised their citizens to leave Lebanon now as tensions rise between Hezbollah and Israel

Eight Britons killed and seven missing in Hamas attacks as total number of hostages reaches 203

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant tells troops on Gaza border that they could see the enclave from inside soon

Hundreds of lorries with vital supplies still waiting to enter Gaza after President Biden secured aid agreement

The Archbishop of Canterbury arrived in Jerusalem to show solidarity to those impacted by the conflict

While in the Middle East, the prime minister is expected to work on efforts to try to secure the release of the hostages and prevent the conflict from spreading across the region.

There is increasing concern that it will, starting with Lebanon. The UK, the US and Germany have issued travel warnings urging their citizens to immediately leave the country.

Israel also said it had bolstered its northern defences and was ready to respond to any attack from its northern neighbours. Major Marcus Sheff, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, told The Independent: I think Lebanon needs to ask whether it wants to risk its future for the Hamas terror organisation. He added: "We will deal with Hezbollah as necessary. The [Israeli military] is ready, ready to respond to any attack.

Jordan has called for an immediate ceasefire and warned a continued bombardment of Gaza will only see the conflict ripple past their borders.

On Thursday Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant told infantry troops gathered at the border that they will soon see Gaza from the inside, suggesting a ground invasion could be approaching.

There has been growing regional fury at the worsening humanitarian crisis for the two million people in Gaza, who are running out of food, water, fuel and power under a crippling Israeli siege.

The US brokered a deal where 20 trucks of aid would be allowed in via Egypt. But rights groups say this is only a scratch on the surface of whats needed.

While in Israel, Mr Sunak offered support for military action in response to the Hamas attack, which saw more than 1,400 killed, during talks with Mr Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog.

Appearing alongside Mr Netanyahu, he said Israel has the right to go after Hamas, take back hostages and strengthen your security for the long term.

He also told Mr Herzog that Britain stood in solidarity with your right to defend yourself, adding: You have not just a right to do that, I think you have a duty to do that, to restore that security to your country.

But as he walked a diplomatic tightrope, Mr Sunak again stressed that Israels response should be in line with international law at the same time as offering strong backing for action.

He also pushed Israeli leaders for progress in allowing aid into Gaza, amid warnings of a humanitarian disaster.

Rishi Sunak meets with Israeli president Isaac Herzog (EPA)

Mr Netanyahu said Hamas were the new Nazis and the worst monsters on the planet, telling the British PM: You fought the Nazis 80 years resolutely and the entire world supported your action.

Mr Herzog said he was extremely grateful to Mr Sunak for visiting during Israels darkest hour and said the country was determined to turn it into their finest hour  using the language of Churchills most famous wartime address.

To have a child taken from you is a parents worst nightmare.



This morning I heard from families going through this unbearable agony.



Working with our partners, were determined to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists. pic.twitter.com/F7AV021o9x  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

In Israel Mr Sunak also met with two families whose loved ones have been held hostage by Hamas following the attacks on 7 October.

In a post on X, the PM was pictured hugging one mother: To have a child taken from you is a parents worst nightmare, he said  repeating his determination to see hostages released.

Mr Sunak also called Hamas pure evil and said he had been chilled by videos showing those killed and kidnapped. The PM said: They are horrific. They chill you  they have certainly done that to me  and everyone can see that [Hamas] represent pure evil.

But Mr Sunaks language was condemned by Oxfam, who said it was wrong that he had not called for a ceasefire and added nobody wins when the scale of human suffering, devastation and pain is so vast and relentless.

Sunak tells Netanyahu he supports military action to restore security (EPA)

His visit to Israel comes after US president Joe Biden helped secure a deal which saw the first aid getting over the Egyptian border. Mr Biden also backed Israel by saying that the other team were behind the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital.

Mr Biden said his claim that the explosion was the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group was based on data from the US defense department. Mr Sunak said on Thursday that it was important not to jump to conclusions and that UK intelligence agencies were still reviewing the facts available.

Before his meeting with Mr Sunak, Mr Herzog attacked the BBC for its refusal to call Hamas a terrorist group  accusing them of a distortion of the facts. Asked about the Israeli presidents remarks on the BBC, No 10 said the broadcaster should reflect very carefully and learn lessons from the initial coverage of the hospital blast.

The PMs arrival in Israel came as his security minister Tom Tugendhat said that the destruction of the terrorist organisation Hamas would be a blessing.

Calling Hamas barbarous murderers, the Tory minister offered backing for Israels planned military action in Gaza: The destruction of Hamas would be a blessing not just for the Israeli people but for the Palestinian people ... I would love to see a world without Hamas in it.

Mr Tugendhat said Hamas had stolen aid from civilians and used the Palestinian people as their slaves to build tunnel complexes. He also accused Iran of pouring money into Hamas to kill Jews.

Foreign secretary James Cleverly, who is also in the region on a three-day trip which will see him visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, said he would push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages.

The Archbishop of Canterbury also arrived in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, saying it was a crucial time to show solidarity and care to those impacted by the war, and is set to meet other Christian leaders in the region.

During his visit, Lambeth Palace said Justin Welby will renew an appeal for the release of hostages held by Hamas, as well as offering sympathy and condolences for Israeli victims since the conflict broke out.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to leave now while commercial options remain available.

In a speech at Mansion House on Wednesday night, King Charles III praised the tolerance of people in the UK as he urged the world to be more understanding of difference amid such heart-breaking loss of life in Israel and Gaza.

But Robin Simcox, the commissioner for countering extremism, said the rise of antisemitism was a sign that Britain was very sick indeed and should be a wake-up call.

In an article for The Times, he suggested the normalisation of anti-Israel extremism and antisemitism was because of a failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism.
In the Caldwell School Board race, incumbents in Zones 2, 3 and 4 are facing challengers after a contentious year.

In January, the board drafted a potential policy over gender identity and sexual orientation in schools. The board was forced to end an ensuing meeting early when it devolved into shouted threats and insults towards the board, according to prior Idaho Statesman reporting.

Six candidates are running for three Caldwell School Board seats. From left are Travis Manning, Nicole Trakel, Nicole Hyland, Manuel Godina (bottom center) and Andrew Butler (bottom right). Ray Horrell, not pictured, is also on the ballot.

The meeting began to break down when Sen. Chris Trakel, R-Caldwell, accused the board of risking student moral health and safety and raised his voice at them, sparking the crowd into yelling. The next board meeting following the incident was canceled over security concerns.

Trakels wife, Nicole Trakel, is challenging incumbent Travis Manning in Zone 3 in the Nov. 7 election. Nicole Hyland, who has received donations from Sen. Trakel, is challenging Andrew Butler in Zone 4.

Ray Horrell is challenging incumbent Manuel Godina in Zone 2.

Each candidate has views about the future of the Caldwell School District on topics from funding to board transparency.

Zone 2 includes southwestern Caldwell, surrounding the intersection of Ustick and Farmway roads. Zone 3 includes western Caldwell and a portion of downtown. Zone 4 covers most of northern Caldwell. Zones 1 and 5, which are not on the ballot this year, cover south, east and central Caldwell.

Vallivue School Board race

Incumbent Paul Tierney is facing challenger Brian Bishop in the race to represent Vallivue School District Zone 4.

The district surrounds the western, southern and eastern edges of Caldwell and borders Nampa. Zone 4 includes the northeastern corner of the district, east of Caldwell and north of Nampa.

Incumbents Toni Brinegar and Amy Johnson, who represent Zone 3 and Zone 5, are running unopposed to keep their seats. The seats representing Zone 1 and 2 are not on the ballot this year.

The Idaho Statesman sent surveys to each candidate in the contested Zone 4 race, and their responses are presented below, unedited. Candidate Ray Horrell did not respond.

Swipe below to see all the candidates, or use the slider below them.

Brian Bishop, left, is challenging incumbent Paul Tierney for Vallivue School District Zone 4 in the Nov. 7, 2023, Idaho general election.

To learn about this race and other local elections, visit the Idaho Statesmans election page.

Caldwell School Board

Vallivue School Board
Leonard Cures mother held a photo of her son as she somberly addressed the crowd at a news conference Wednesday, two days after a Georgia deputy fatally shot Cure during a traffic stop.

My heart is disconnected and my soul aches, Mary Cure said during the event.

Leonard Cure died Monday during an altercation with a Camden County sheriffs deputy on Interstate 95 near the Georgia-Florida border. The death came three years after he served 16 years in prison for an armed robbery conviction he was exonerated of.

The 53-year-old had been visiting his mother in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and was returning home in metro Atlanta. Mary Cure recalled the last conversation she had with her son early Monday morning, before they parted ways.

He said, I love you and Ill see you soon, thats the last I heard from him, she said.

I was uneasy every time he left, because I was like, Will he get a traffic stop? Is he going to be a victim of that? the mother said. From the time that he was released, he was never set free, she continued. Lived in constant fear  is this going to be the day that theyre gonna lock him up, beat him up, or kill him? I lived with that. That is torture.

Camden County Sheriffs Office released dashboard and body camera video showing the deputy pulling Cure over and ordering him to put his hands on the back of his pick-up truck and then behind his back. Cure appeared to comply until he learned that the deputy intended to arrest him for speeding and reckless driving, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the sheriffs office.

The deputy fired a stun gun at Cure and a fight ensued, with Cure grabbing the deputy by the neck and pushing his head backward, the video shows. The deputy shot the stun gun twice at Cure and hit him with a baton before shooting him with a gun at point-blank range. Cures family said the mans time behind bars likely played a role in his deadly altercation with the deputy.

I believe there were possibly some issues going on, some mental issues with my brother, Michael Cure told The Associated Press of his sibling. I know him quite well. The officer just triggered him, undoubtedly triggered him. It was excitement met with excitement.

Leonard Cure (Innocence Project of Florida via AP file)

Michael added of his brother: He really should be alive. The officer hit him with his baton and he tased him, twice as a matter of fact. But he did not have to shoot him.

The officer involved has been placed on administrative leave, a spokesman for the sheriffs office told NBC News. When asked whether the office believes the shooting was justified, the spokesman said that will be determined by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

In 2020, Cure was the first person exonerated by Broward Countys Conviction Review Unit. Hed been wrongfully convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to life in prison in 2004. He was freed three years ago, after the Innocence Project of Florida, which supports wrongfully imprisoned people, convinced authorities to review the case. It was determined, through examining an ATM receipt and other evidence, that Cure could not have been involved in the act because he was miles away when the robbery occurred. The Broward County prosecutors office concluded that Cure did not commit the crime.

Since being freed, Cure held down a job, reconnected with his family and was in the process of buying a home when he was killed, according to the Innocence Project. Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, said during the news conference that the psychological trauma of being unjustly incarcerated for 16 years may have prompted Cure to fear the arrest.

He, like many of my other clients, their biggest fear is that at a moments notice theres going to be law enforcement on the other side of that front door or at a traffic stop who is going to  without cause, for something they didnt do  send them back right where they worked so hard to get out of, and I can only imagine that mustve been what he was thinking during this traffic stop, Miller said during Wednesdays news conference.

He was a good person who deserved to get home on Monday, Miller said.
A year after he became the youngest person to win the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Yunchan Lim has been signed to the Decca Classics record label, according to a news release.

Lim, a 19-year-old from South Korea, received the largest standing ovation at the Cliburn since Olga Kerns Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in 2001 (and one of the longest standing ovations in Cliburn history) last year, when he was 18.

The runners-up were Russian pianist Anna Geniushene, 31, with the silver medal, and Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni, 28, with bronze.

Yunchan Lim (center), 18, from South Korea, won the gold medal at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth. The silver medal was awarded to Russian pianist Anna Geniushene (lef), 31, and the bronze medal was awarded to Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni (right), 28.

After following him across the globe for his much sought-after signature, including trips to his concerts in Seoul, New York, London, Rome, Tokyo, Paris and Amsterdam, the label announced Wednesday hed agreed to sign.

His performance of Rachmaninoffs Piano Concerto No. 3 brought conductor Marin Alsop to tears on the stage and has been watched more than 12 million times on YouTube. He has already released a live recording of his rendition of Beethovens Emperor Concerto with the Gangju Symphony Orchestra. Now, the record label plans to release his debut under its name next spring.

Before the album is released, Lim is slated to perform at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 21, and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Ochestre de Paris and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
SAN BENITO, Texas (AP)  A Texas police officer was fatally shot after joining a lengthy chase of two men who fled a traffic stop, switched cars and raced through several cities near the U.S.-Mexico border before they were finally caught hours later, authorities said Wednesday.

Lt. Milton Resendez of the San Benito Police Department was pronounced dead at a hospital after a bullet went through the door of his patrol car and struck him in the abdomen just below his body armor, Chief Mario Perea told reporters. Perea did not say which of the suspects shot Resendez and he said they didn't know how many rounds were fired.

Earlier in the pursuit, before Resendez was shot, the suspects had exchanged gunfire with another group of officers who were not injured, authorities said.

He cared about everyone. He got along with everyone, Perea said of Resendez, who had spent about 30 years as a police officer.

The two suspects  Rogelio Martinez Jr., 18, of Brownsville and Rodrigo Axel Espinosa Valdez, 23, of Mexico  are facing multiple charges including capital murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and evading arrest, Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz said. Online jail records do not list attorneys who can speak on their behalf.

Saenz said the pursuit began around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday on South Padre Island when a truck carrying the two men, two women and two small children was pulled over for speeding on the beach. As the driver was being questioned outside of the truck, a passenger started the truck, the driver jumped into the bed and they sped off, he said.

At one point, the two women and the children got out of the vehicle, Saenz said. The women were detained and questioned.

Saenz said that after the men were pursued into Brownsville, an exchange of gunfire made officers stand back and lose sight of the truck.

Later, the truck was found disabled. At about 10:30 p.m. the suspects were spotted in a sport utility vehicle in Brownsville and a pursuit ensued that went into San Benito, where Resendez was shot.

The pursuit then returned to Brownsville, where the men were arrested after fleeing from their sport utility vehicle after officers disabled it by performing a maneuver where a vehicle is intentionally bumped, Saenz said.

Perea said that Resendez spent most of his law enforcement career with the San Benito police.

It's hard right now, Perea said. We lost one of our own. He worked with us for so long he's not just a coworker, he's part of our family now.

Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement that hearts across Texas grieve with the family and loved ones of Resendez.

The Texas Rangers are investigating.
Boyle County Schools removed over 100 books from its libraries in recent months under its interpretation of Senate Bill 150. Now, the Kentucky Department of Education says the new law does not apply to school libraries.

Boyle County Superintendent Mark Wade told the Herald-Leader Wednesday that books in his district were removed from school libraries based on Kentuckys new law Senate Bill 150. He cited part of the law that states: Any child, regardless of grade level, enrolled in the district does not receive any instruction or presentation that has a goal or purpose of students studying or exploring gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation.

The controversial Republican-backed SB 150 was approved over Democratic Gov. Andy Beshears veto. It bans gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, restricts classroom teachings on gender and sexuality, prohibits districts and schools from asking teachers and staff to use a trans students pronouns, and mandates districts create policies that prevent trans students from using restrooms that align with their gender identity.

KDE spokesperson Toni Konz Tatman said Wednesday morning that SB 150 does not provide for the removal of library media resources from a school library.

If the library media resources are not used for a course, curriculum or program on human sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases, the law does not apply, Tatman said.

If library media resources are associated with and used for a course, curriculum, or program on human sexuality, the school district should provide an alternative without penalty for students and be subject to parent inspection and notification, she said.

Tatman said she is not aware of school districts in Kentucky other than Boyle that have removed library books based on SB 150.

The Danville Advocate Messenger first reported on the issue Tuesday.

Boyle County parent concerned by book removal

Shonna Storz, a parent of two children at Boyle County High School, told the Herald-Leader that Boyle County Schools removing books from the library in response to SB 150 was very concerning.

She provided the Herald-Leader with a list of the books removed, which included titles like Being LGBTQ and Anne Frank, about the child who died during the Holocaust.

They are misinterpreting the law, said Storz. The law is very clearly about the act of instruction and the curriculum used in instruction. This is not a book ban. And yet they are reading it that way.

The library removed books from the libraries on topics ranging from sexual consent, teen pregnancy and parenting, gender equality, reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights, said Storz.

Im outraged that theyve taken an incredibly conservative stance on this. These are challenging times for our youth and they deserve access to these reputable resources to be educated and informed on these important social and political issues, Storz said.

The books were removed shortly after the law went into effect earlier this year, said Storz. A much larger number of books were initially removed, she said.

After parents spoke up at school board meetings, administrators went back through the list and put some books back, Storz said. The current list, which Storz received on September 20, contains 106 books.

After Tatman said SB 150 did not provide for the removal of school library books, Wade responded: In school libraries, which operate differently than a public library, materials are instructional resources. Upon review with legal counsel, KDE and district leadership, a small percentage of books were removed because they did not align with the curriculum or standards being taught.

Wade said the district reviewed current courses, programming, instructional resources and learning experiences to ensure compliance with SB 150. School library media specialists, legal council and our district leadership team were all involved, he said.

School libraries are instructional support entities within our school. As such, school libraries operate differently than a public library system, Wade said. This bill could continue to evolve. As a state public school, we are obligated to implement the law and we will respond if there are changes to the legislation.

The 2023 General Assembly also passed Senate Bill 5 which requires schools to adopt a complaint resolution policy for parents who allege that materials taught in school are harmful to minors.

This article is a developing story and may be updated.
An affidavit alleges Brown shot Burns with a handgun at an apartment complex on Jackson States campus. The judge in the case approved two bench warrants, one on a charge of murder and a second for weapons possession on school property.

Authorities in Hinds County, Mississippi, have arrested a man in the death of Jackson State University student Jaylen Burns.

Jaylen Burns was shot and killed on the campus of Jackson State University on Sunday. Authorities have arrested a 19-year-old man. (YouTube screen grab via CBS Chicago)

Officials at Mississippis Raymond Detention Center told theGrio by phone that Joshua Brown, a 19-year-old student at Jones College, is currently being held at the detention center. Jones College did not immediately return a phone call seeking information about Brown.

An affidavit alleges Brown shot Burns with a handgun at an apartment complex on Jackson States campus. The judge in the case approved two bench warrants, one on a charge of murder and a second for weapons possession on school property.

There was no information on arraignments or other court actions as of this writing.

A statement posted to the university website said Burns, an industrial technology major from Chicago, was shot at the on-campus University Pointe Apartment Complex. The university said Burns was transported to a local hospital following the shooting, however, Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade told WAPT-TV that Burns tried to drive himself to the hospital after being shot multiple times but didnt make it.

Burns father, Jason Burns, told WLS TV in Chicago that his son was shot while trying to break up a fight.

The death of Burns comes just days after a string of gun violence at several HBCUs this month, including Tuskegee University in Alabama and in Maryland during Bowie State University and Morgan State Universitys homecoming festivities. Police have since arrested an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old in connection to the Morgan State shooting.

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The post Suspect arrested in death of Jaylen Burns, who was shot on Jackson State campus appeared first on TheGrio.
Terror attacks on Israel are seen as more justifiable than other countries, and even a cause for celebration a government expert is set to warn.

The Home Offices independent adviser on extremism Robin Simcox is also concerned Hamas and Iranian networks operating in the UK could carry out or incite acts of violence on Britains streets.

In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) this afternoon, Mr Simcox will say that the government must have the confidence and will to commit to a long-term strategy for taking on extreme ideologies.

His address comes as prime minister Rishi Sunak begins a two-day trip to the Middle East amid fears the Israel-Hamas conflict may spread across the region.

Hamass terror attack on Israel on 7 October, in which an estimated 1,400 people were killed and dozens taken captive, took the countrys sophisticated security forces by surprise.

Last week, home secretary Suella Braverman ordered police to step up scrutiny of displays of Palestinian support.

Hamas is banned in the UK, and supporting it could lead to jail sentences of up to 14 years.

But Mr Simcox will voice his concern that support for Hamas does not carry the stigma that support for other terrorist groups does.

He will say that too often, support for Palestinian rights has translated into rhetoric supportive of Hamas and that too many in positions of prominence have praised them or their leadership or sought to rationalise or excuse their acts of terror.

Robin Simcox will warn that Hamas and Iran could attempt to carry out or incite acts of violence in the UK (Sky News)

Mr Simcox will also outline several other key concerns, including:

A push to normalise the Talibans governance of Afghanistan;

Freedom of expression being threatened by those striving to impose a de facto blasphemy code around criticism of religious prophets;

The ongoing challenge posed by Islamist ideology;

The extreme right wings attempt to bolster its support by exploiting issues of mainstream concern; and

Increased concern over how the extreme left wings rhetoric and tactics.

The home secretary is to give fresh powers to the Commission for Countering Extremism to oversee standards and compliance around the Prevent programme.

There has been a surge in anti-semitic incidents across the UK since Hamass attack, which plunged the region into crisis and sparked fears of a wider war across the Middle East.

The Community Security Trust (CST), which represents British Jews on issues of racism and policing, said it had recorded 320 antisemitic incidents between 7 and 16 October - a sevenfold increase on the same period last year.

The incidents included six assaults, three instances of damage to Jewish property, 66 related to abusive behaviour and 22 took place online.

Security has also been stepped up at synagogues and schools amid fears children could be targetted on the way to and from lessons. Some schools have told pupil not to wear their uniforms to avoid being identified.

A woman was arrested last Thursday on suspicion of supporting a terrorist organisation following a protest in Brighton the previous weekend.

The suspect, 22, was arrested under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Section 12 makes it an offence to invite support for an organisation that has been proscribed terrorist by the government.

Responding to the rise in antisemitism, Mr Sunak announced 3 million of extra funding for the CST to help the organisation protect schools, synagogues and other Jewish community buildings.

Rishi Sunak arrives in Tel Aviv for talks with other leaders (No 10 / X)

Mr Sunak said the UK must and will stand in solidarity with Israel as he condemned the third deadliest terror attack in the world since 1970.

Both he and Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, have repeatedly supported Israels right to defend itself while urging the countrys army to avoid harming civilians in its response to Hamass brutal attack.

The PM touched down in Israel last night for talks with leaders in the Middle East and is expected to call for any spread in the violence in the Israeli-Hamas war to be avoided.

Mr Sunak will hold talks with his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog as he starts a two-day trip expected to take in other capitals in the region.

He will urge Middle East leaders to avoid further dangerous escalation, saying that too many lives have been lost already since Hamas terrorist attack on Israel killed more than 1,400 people .

Protests have broken out in cities across the Middle East amid Israels continued bombing of the Gaza strip and intensified following a blast at a hospital in Gaza city which hundreds were said to have been killed and injured.

Both Israel and Hamas have denied responsibility for the explosion. The Israel Defence Forces has published a dossier of evidence which it says proves it was not responsible.

Following the blast, Lebanons Iran-backed Hezbollah movement called for a day of rage which was followed by angry protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco and Iran.

Death to America! Death to Israel! hundreds of Hezbollah supporters chanted at a rally in Beiruts southern suburbs on Wednesday.
Multiple scouts who participated in the 2023 World Scout Jamboree held in South Korea in August have applied for refugee status in the country, sources said Thursday.

The applicants, mostly underage but also including adults, had applied for refugee status with the government as soon as they arrived in South Korea for the global event, according to the legal sources.

The sources said that last Thursday they underwent an education program for refugee applicants provided by the justice ministry's immigration support center.

This year's World Scout Jamboree, held from Aug. 1-12 in Saemangeum, a reclaimed land area on the southwestern South Korean coast, had brought together some 43,000 adolescent scouts and scout leaders from 158 countries.

A justice ministry official confirmed that some jamboree participants sought refuge with the government but declined to disclose the number of people or their nationalities.

The ministry plans to make a decision on whether to grant the application after conducting the necessary screenings. (Yonhap)
By Idrees Ali and Costas Pitas

(Reuters) -A U.S. Navy warship on Thursday intercepted three cruise missiles and several drones launched by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement from Yemen potentially toward Israel, the Pentagon said.

Washington is on heightened alert for activity by Iran-backed groups as regional tensions soar during the Israel-Hamas war.

The Pentagon said the destroyer USS Carney was operating in the northern Red Sea on Thursday when it brought down the projectiles and there were no injuries.

"We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel," Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it did not appear that the warship was the target.

The U.S. has sent a significant amount of naval power to the Middle East in the past week, including two aircraft carriers, their support ships and about 2,000 Marines.

While the White House says there are "no plans or intentions" for their use, it means U.S. military assets would be in place to protect U.S. national security interests if needed. The U.S. also has an array of bases in the Middle East with troops, fighter aircraft and warships.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Cynthia Osterman and Daniel Wallis)
By Olena Harmash

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine's parliament gave initial approval on Thursday for the 2024 budget, which will increase funding for the army and national defence because of the war with Russia.

Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said the government's priorities next year included accumulating funds for defence and security, and securing social payments for the population "to bring Ukraine's victory closer."

The budget law, which was approved in its first reading, sets budget revenues at 1.7 trillion hryvnias ($46.4 billion), and spending is targeted at 3.3 trillion hryvnias, lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak said on the Telegram messaging app.

The budget deficit is expected to be about 1.6 trillion hryvnias, he said.

Officials have said that about half the state budget is planned to go to the defence sector next year.

Marchenko told Reuters last week that donor "tiredness" was growing as the war with Russia dragged on but that he would continue working with international partners to raise the necessary funds to close the budget gap.

Ukraine has attracted nearly $34 billion in Western financial aid so far this year after receiving $31 billion in 2022.

Last year, the economy shrank by about one-third as millions of people fled the war, towns and cities were bombed, logistics routes and supply chains were disrupted, and the power sector and critical infrastructure were damaged by air strikes.

But nearly 20 months after Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv says businesses in Ukraine have adapted to the new reality and is cautiously optimistic about the economic prospects for the rest of this year and 2024.

The government has forecast economic growth of about 5% next year after an expected increase of 4.7% this year.

Kyiv finances its defence spending with revenues from taxes, duties and domestic borrowing, while Western aid helps it to fund social and humanitarian spending.

This year the government had initially planned to spend 1.1 trillion hryvnias on defence but has twice had to increase spending on army.

The budget is still to be approved in the second reading by parliament.

(Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Universal Music sued AI startup Anthropic over systematic and widespread infringement of their copyrighted song lyrics, per a filing Wednesday in a Tennessee federal court.

One example from the lawsuit: When a user asks Anthropics AI chatbot Claude about the lyrics to the song Roar by Katy Perry, it generates an almost identical copy of those lyrics, violating the rights of Concord, the copyright owner, per the filing. The lawsuit also named Gloria Gaynors I Will Survive as an example of Anthropics alleged copyright infringement, as Universal owns the rights to its lyrics.

In the process of building and operating AI models, Anthropic unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works, the lawsuit stated, later going on to add, Just like the developers of other technologies that have come before, from the printing press to the copy machine to the web-crawler, AI companies must follow the law.

Other music publishers, such as Concord and ABKCO, were also named as plaintiffs.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI research executives and funded by companies including Google, Salesforce and Zoom. The company has raised $750 million in two funding rounds since March and has been valued at $4.1 billion.

In May, Anthropic was one of four companies invited to a meeting at the White House to discuss responsible AI development with Vice President Kamala Harris, alongside Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft and Microsoft-backed OpenAI.

In July, Anthropic debuted Claude 2, the latest version of its AI chatbot, and said the tool has the ability to summarize up to about 75,000 words  roughly the length of a 300-page book  compared to OpenAIs ChatGPT, which can handle about 3,000 words.

We have been focused on businesses, on making Claude as robustly safe as possible, Daniela Amodei, co-founder and president of Anthropic, told CNBC in a July interview.
From the time she got married in September 2021, Kenya Appling had looked forward to having a child.

That dream was crushed four months after her wedding when Appling, 42, was diagnosed with uterine cancer and, at the advice of her doctor, underwent a hysterectomy, as well as chemotherapy and radiation.

It was really devastating. I could not come to terms with it for a while, she said of the diagnosis. Immediately after surgery, I kind of locked myself off. I didnt want to talk to anyone. I did not want to be around anyone, even though I knew that I needed help, because I couldnt do a lot of things on my own. It was really heartbreaking.

Appling, who says her doctor told her she did not have any established risk factors before her diagnosis, believes the cancer was caused by harmful ingredients in the chemical hair straighteners she had used monthly since childhood.

She is among thousands of Black women who have sued LOreal, Revlon and other makers of chemical hair straighteners, alleging the companies products caused them irreparable harm and serious injury.

Chief among those injuries for many of them is the devastating loss of the ability to have children.

I still have moments to this day where I wonder what it would have been like just to be pregnant, just to feel the kick of a baby, Appling said. And Ill forever have those moments for the rest of my life.

Kenya Appling Portrait in Grand Prairie (Nitashia Johnson for NBC News)

Studies associate relaxers with higher cancer risk

Concern about the health risks associated with chemical hair straighteners has grown over the last year since the National Institutes of Health released a study that found that women who used them frequently were more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer as those who did not. Chemicals in the hair products, like parabens and phthalates, disrupt the hormone-regulating endocrine system, researchers said.

A similar study released this month by researchers at Boston University found that postmenopausal Black women who reported long-term use of chemical hair relaxers were at increased risk of uterine cancer.

The studies, however, do not go so far as to say the products cause cancer.

Most treatments for womb cancer result in infertility, and Black women are more likely to undergo hysterectomies.

LOreal did not reply to repeated requests for comment. Last year, it said the lawsuits had no legal merit. A spokesperson for Revlon declined to comment. Both companies have filed motions to dismiss the lawsuits.

What I think were dealing with here is a product that is a conduit for severe reproductive harm that manifests itself in a number of different ways, said Danielle Ward Mason, an attorney who is representing thousands of Black women in cases against the beauty companies. But its all equally tragic. And its all emotionally taxing and devastating. And its all physically debilitating.

More than 90% of her clients have had hysterectomies, while the rest have had one or more myomectomy procedures to remove uterine tumors or fibroids, said Mason, a managing partner at Bullock Ward Mason.

The L'Oreal SA global headquarters in Paris (Nathan Laine / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Nothing can prepare you for this

The increased attention on the possible dangers of hair-straightening products is little salve for women like Bree-Shawna Watts, 32, who had a hysterectomy last year after she was diagnosed with uterine cancer.

Watts underwent surgery in April 2022 to remove what her doctors believed was a fibroid in her uterus that was causing her to have very heavy periods and serious pelvic pain. Her doctor, she said, hoped to save her uterus during the procedure so she would still be able to have children. But she recalled waking up after her surgery and asking a nurse whether everything had gone as planned.

And she just looked down, and she looked so sad, Watts said, her voice breaking as she cried. The way she looked at me was like, You have no idea what is about to happen.

The nurse told her that her uterus could not be saved. The most crushing news came later, when she learned from her doctor that she had uterine sarcoma, a type of cancer.

And she said, Because it had spread, I had to take everything except the ovary and the fallopian tube, Watts said. So she took my uterus, my ovary, my fallopian, my perimetrium.

Her doctor assured her that they would fight the cancer that had also been found in the wall of her abdomen and suggested she quickly retrieve eggs before her remaining ovary was removed.

Watts said she opted not to harvest her eggs because it required her to inject the hormone estrogen into her body and she did not want to risk worsening her diagnosis  a decision she now regrets.

She underwent 25 rounds of radiation and also started hormone therapy, which she said she will have to continue for 10 years.

After her operations and 25 rounds of radiation, Watts said, she plummeted straight into menopause at 31, an ordeal she described as hellish.

I thought I was so strong, she said, but  actually, nothing can prepare you for this.

Bree Watts, who saw fertility complications due to the hair relaxer, seen in her home in Atlanta (Rita Harper for NBC News)

Rising cases of uterine cancer

Dr. Onyinye D. Balogun, a radiation oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and an assistant professor of radiation oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine, said that uterine cancer will become the third most common type among women by 2040 and that Black women die of uterine cancer at twice the rate white women do.

Its one of the few cancers where incidence and mortality are rising, she said. Were going backwards when it comes to uterine cancer.

Researchers have produced new evidence this year linking chemical hair straighteners to those harmful effects, including Boston Universitys Black Womens Health Study, which surveyed 45,000 women and followed them for up to 22 years.

A hairdresser uses a comb to apply a cream relaxer in the hair (Kehinde Akinbo / Alamy)

In order to identify whether this is a cause, we would probably need to do a randomized clinical trial, said Kimberly Bertrand, an epidemiologist at Boston Universitys Slone Epidemiology Center and corresponding author of the study. But again, given what we know about the potential toxicity of these products, not just with cancer, but with other reproductive health outcomes, it wouldnt be ethical to randomize people to use these products.

Bertrand said she believes the products need stricter regulation or replacement with safer alternatives. Product labels, she said, could also be more explicit about the use of potentially harmful ingredients. Except for color additives, cosmetic products and ingredients are not required to have approval from the Food and Drug Administration before they are sold to the public. And until last year, when Congress passed a bill giving it new powers, the FDA had limited regulatory authority over the cosmetics industry, which includes companies that make hair products.

Balogun would also like the product manufacturers to be pushed to respond.

If it warrants things like warning labels, especially for Black women who are disproportionately affected, its time for us to do those sorts of things that might make someone say, Hey, let me take a second and think about this, she said.

Bree-Shawna Watts, who once considered hair relaxing a rite of passage, wants chemical straightening products pulled from store shelves. (Rita Harper for NBC News)

Completely devastating

Watts said she is angry for herself and the many other Black women she believes have been harmed by chemical hair straighteners.

I live in a Black community, said Watts, an Atlanta resident. I grew up in a Black community, and the messaging, they do a really good job at telling us that this is how our hair needs to be.

She remembers getting her hair relaxed  a word Black women use to describe the process of chemical hair straightening  at age 5, the night before she started kindergarten. She likened it to a rite of passage among Black women, motivated by pressure to appear presentable by changing the texture of their natural hair. She relaxed her hair every couple of months until the pandemic started and working from home brought less societal pressure to conform.

She hopes that because of her suit, the products will no longer be sold.

Chenetra Buchannon, who is suing LOreal, also wants the makers to be held accountable after her dream of having three children was dashed.

Chenetra Buchannon received a

Buchannon, 46, of Auburn, Alabama, believes long-term use of chemical hair straighteners caused the fibroids and infertility she struggled with for years before she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer two years ago.

She said the diagnosis, which required she undergo a hysterectormy, was completely heartbreaking.

She also hopes that by speaking out she brings awareness to the plight of those with reproductive and gynecologic problems.

I just want people to show more compassion when it comes to these types of issues, said Buchannon, a psychologist. Just because the entire thing is completely devastating.

She said she also hopes to highlight the physical trauma of cancer treatment, including hysterectomy.

Theres so much emotional and cognitive damage that also comes with a level of treatment that we have to have in order to fight cancer, she said. Cancer is very harsh, very dangerous, and the treatment has to be equally as harsh in order to get rid of it, which causes so much damage to our bodies physically and psychologically.
By David Shepardson

(Reuters) -United Auto Workers union members who went on strike at Mercedes-supplier ZF's plant in Alabama last month demanding higher pay and better healthcare benefits ended a nearly month-long walkout on Thursday.

The union said the strike by 190 workers was over after a tentative agreement had been ratified. Workers last month had rejected an earlier contract offer.

ZF, which makes front axles used by Mercedes-Benz at its nearby Alabama plant, said last month the Tuscaloosa factory would operate while talks with the union continued.

A ZF spokesperson said the company was "glad to be able to move forward and continue to provide world class technology to our customers from ZF Tuscaloosa."

About 34,000 UAW members remain on strike at the Detroit Three automakers - Ford Motor, General Motors and Chrysler parent Stellantis. UAW President Shawn Fain met at the bargaining table on Thursday with both GM and Stellantis, officials said.

Stellantis said on Friday it was temporarily laying off another 100 workers in Ohio at a machining plant and bringing the total to 1,520 employees on furlough.

The UAW last expanded its strike on Oct. 11 when it walked out at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant, the company's largest plant worldwide. The strike at targeted facilities began on Sept. 15.

Ford said late on Wednesday that it was temporarily laying off another 150 workers because of the strike, bringing the total to 2,730 workers furloughed since the start of the strike. GM has more than 2,300 workers furloughed.

Fain said on last week that UAW members would now walk out of additional facilities without warning rather than waiting until Fridays to announce new plans, as the union had done initially.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Jamie Freed)
Wafaa Abuzayda holds her son Yousef. They, along with husband Abood Okal, are US citizens trapped in Gaza amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war (Courtesy of Sammy Nabulsi)

Despite the ongoing bombardment of Gaza, where Israel cut the tiny enclaves electricity, the Alarayshi family had managed to find a signal. They dashed off a message to the Arab American Civil Rights League (ACRL), an advocacy group based in Michigan.

People left for evacuation and they were killed on the streets and by air, Zacharia Alarayshi wrote, according to court documents. Some made it back alive and they are hiding inside now. The situation is getting worse.

They just hit the house next to us, he added. We are scared. We cant go to the bathroom; we cant go anywhere. We dont have electricity, were without water, theres nothing.

That was five days ago.

Our family is hurting, and we just want them back, family member Lisa Alarayshi said from the steps of a federal courthouse in Michigan this week.

Zacharia and his wife Laila, who live in Livonia, Michigan, were in Gaza visiting family before the war broke out. Now theyre among the estimated 500 to 600 US citizens, many of them Palestinian-American Muslims, trapped in the Strip by the ongoing war. Advocates from Massachusetts to New Jersey to Michigan told The Independent theyre working to free these families with what little leverage they have. Many feel forgotten by their government.

Civil rights groups argue in an ongoing lawsuit, filed last week in Michigan federal court, that the US government has failed to treat the lives of the Alarayshi family with the same urgency as US citizens trapped in Israel, who have been evacuated to Europe on charter flights and a luxury ocean liner.

Lisa and Yahya Alarayshi speak with reporters outside of a federal courthouse in Michigan. Civil rights groups have sued the US government on their behalf, alleging agencies havent done enough to rescue their family members, Palestinian-American US citizens trapped in Gaza. (CBS News Detroit)

Are some lives worth saving while others are not? reads the suit, filed by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee and the ACRL. Does the United States Government get to decide that on the basis of religion or national origin, some lives are more valuable than others?

I dont believe that Gaza is any less secure than Saigon was in 1975 or Baghdad was in 2003 or any of the dozens of times that we have evacuated American citizens from peril, either from military conflicts or natural catastrophes, James Allen of the ACRL told The Independent. We just want to obtain for our fellow citizens of Palestinian Muslim descent the same protections that are being provided to their fellow citizens outside of the Gaza Strip in the same war zone.

The Independent has contacted the State Department, Defense Department and White House for comment.

The Biden administration has said publicly it will support American citizens throughout the conflict zone.

Whether they are Palestinian-American, whether they are dual citizens, American citizens are American citizens, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a briefing last week.

But according to news from the ground in Gaza, that support has been non-existent, even as the Israeli army prepares to mount a potential ground offensive.

Massachusetts father Abood Okal, his wife Wafaa Abuzayda, and their one-year-old son Yousef were visiting family in Gaza when the war began.

They frantically reached out to the US embassies in Jerusalem and Cairo for assistance, but their attorney said they got none.

Wafaa Abuzayda and her family are trapped in Gaza, where Israel has conducted airstrikes near the main border-crossing into Egypt (Courtesy of Sammy Nabulsi)

They were left completely on their own for days, Sammy Nabulsi, a Boston-based lawyer, told The Independent. They were provided no information whatsoever.

It is totally outrageous, he added. It is a total failure of government.

As the Israeli siege continues, in response to the devastating 7 October attacks from Hamas, the family is now running out of food, water and milk for Yousef. An airstrike hit less than a kilometer away from where they are staying. Yousef has had a fever for days and has developed an ear infection.

My biggest fear is that we are headed towards a situation where the US is going to look the other way as US-made weapons, US-provided weapons and other support, may be used even inadvertently to harm or even potentially kill American citizens, Mr Nabulsi said. The lawyer added he hasnt seen reports of a single US citizen able to leave Gaza so far.

So far, US citizens trapped in Gaza have reportedly been advised, as the Alarayshis were, to attempt fleeing into Egypt at the Rafah border crossing.

"We have informed US citizens in Gaza with whom we are in contact that if they assess it to be safe, they may wish to move closer to the Rafah border crossing," a State Department spokesperson told Reuters. "There may be very little notice if the crossing opens and it may only open for a limited time."

Conditions at this vital lifeline have rarely appeared safe so far. Israel has attacked the border crossing and nearby sites, and officials from the US, Egypt, and Israel have been unable to craft any agreement to allow US citizens to leave, despite reported negotiations.

In the meantime, confusion has abounded as the humanitarian situation in Gaza heads towards what UN leaders called a bone-chilling crisis, with Gazans drinking sea water and hospitals running out of supplies and suffering explosions in the conflict.

American officials previously claimed Egypt agreed to open Rafah to people with US passports, but Egyptian leadership said Monday it had never agreed to such a provision, The New York Times reports.

So far, only aid has been certified to pass through the crossing, not US citizens.

On Wednesday, President Biden announced that Egypt would allow up to 20 trucks of humanitarian aid to pass into Gaza through Rafah. Israel said it would not thwart the shipments.

If Hamas confiscates them or doesnt let it get through  then its going to end, President Biden told reporters on Air Force One as he departed from a recent trip to Israel. The bottom line is [Egyptian president] Sisi deserves a lot of credit, Mr Biden said. He was completely cooperative  He stepped up, as did [Israeli prime minister] Bibi [Netanyahu].

The president also alluded to the priority of evacuating civilians, but offered no additional details on how he hoped to do so.

If you have an opportunity to alleviate the pain, you should do it, he said, adding, Were going to get people out.

Adding to the complications is the fact that many of those with ties to Gaza are part of mixed immigration status families, where not everyone may have a US passport.

Rania Mustafa, executive director of the New Jersey-based Palestinian American Community Center, said shes been working to support Palestinian-American families from the state who are stuck in Gaza.

Shes heard from various federal and local legislative offices that in many cases, only an executive order would have the legal power to get members of these mixed-status families on the same evacuation priority as US citizens.

Unfortunately, from what Ive been seeing, especially from our federal administration, our Palestinian lives, our Palestinian-American lives, matter less than Israeli-American lives, she said. I would dare saying Palestinian-American lives matter less than even an Israeli life [to the US government.]

People on the ground feel abandoned, she added.

The US government is even reportedly having trouble evacuating its own employees out of Gaza. Three US government personnel with USAID were stuck inside the blockaded enclave as of earlier this week, The Washington Post reports.

Israel said Wednesday it would not thwart humanitarian supplies arriving from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population.

Advocates worry the US may look the other way as an Israeli bombardment puts Palestinian-American US citizens in danger (AP)

The compounding crisis leaves American families in limbo right alongside the more than one million displaced people in Gaza, a tiny territory thats only 88 square miles and whose population is nearly half children.

Some argue that the USs failure to swiftly support US citizens in Gaza is part of a larger asymmetry in how America views Israel and Palestine.

For the last week, most American officials from Biden to Secretary of State Blinken have, every single post that theyve posted, every single address that theyve made, has been simply condemning Hamas for its attacks on Israel on October 7, Ayah Ziyadeh, of Americans for Justice in Palestine Action, a human rights advocacy group, told The Independent. Not one statement of condemnation has been put forward for the war crimes against Palestinians.

What were seeing here is very clear, she added. Its not just turning a blind eye anymore. Its complicity.

Mr Nabulsi, the lawyer for Abood Okal and Wafaa Abuzayda, said its hard not to wonder whether Americans stuck in Gaza are being treated differently because of their background.

I am an American citizen, he said. I hope to God that the reason weve just completely abandoned them is not related to the colour of their skin, the people theyre connect to or the religion they practice...Frankly the contrast in the treatment between American citizens versus American citizens is night and day.
Five days after giving birth, Melissa Crespo was already back on the streets, recovering in a damp, litter-strewn water tunnel, when she got the call from the hospital.

Her baby, Kyle, who had been born three months prematurely, was in respiratory failure in the neonatal intensive care unit and fighting for his life.

The odds had been against Kyle long before he was born last summer. Crespo, who was abused as a child, was addicted to fentanyl and meth  a daily habit she found impossible to kick while living homeless.

Crespo got a ride to the hospital and cradled her baby in her arms as he died.

I know this happened because of my addiction, Crespo said recently, just after a nurse injected her on the streets of downtown Redding with a powerful antipsychotic medication. Im trying to get clean, but this is an illness, and its so hard while youre out here.

Crespo, 39, is among a growing number of homeless pregnant women in California whose lives have been overrun by hard drug use, a deadly coping mechanism many use to endure trauma and mental illness. They are a largely unseen population who, in battling addiction, have lost children  whether to death or local child welfare authorities.

She and other women are now receiving care from specialized street medicine teams fanning across California to treat homeless people wherever they are  whether in squalid encampments, makeshift shantytowns clustered along rivers, or vehicles they stealthily maneuver from one neighborhood to another in search of a safe place to park.

Melissa Crespo, who is homeless in Redding, receives medical care from Dr. Kyle Patton in October 2023.

"This is a really impoverished community and the big thing right now is maternity care and prenatal care, said Kyle Patton, a family doctor who leads the street medicine team for the Shasta Community Health Center in Redding, about 160 miles north of Sacramento in a largely rural and conservative part of the state.

Patton, who dons his hiking boots and jeans to make his rounds, has managed about 20 pregnancies on the streets since early 2022, and even totes a portable ultrasound in his backpack to find out how far along women are. Hes also helping homeless mothers who have lost custody of their children try to get sober so they can reunite with them.

I didnt expect this to be a huge part of my practice when I got into street medicine, Patton said on a hot June day as he packed his medical van with birth control implants, tests to diagnose syphilis and HIV, antibiotics and other supplies.

The system is broken and people lack access to health care and housing, so managing pregnancies and providing prenatal care has become a really big part of my job, Patton said.

Street medicine isnt new, but its getting a jolt in California, which is leading the charge nationally to deliver full-service medical care and behavioral health treatment to homeless people wherever they are.

The practice is exploding under Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration has plowed tens of billions of dollars into health and social services for homeless people. It has also standardized payment for street medicine providers through the states Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal, allowing them to be paid more consistently.

The federal government expanded reimbursement for street medicine this month, making it easier for doctors and nurses around the country to get paid for delivering care to homeless patients outside of hospitals and clinics.

State health officials and advocates of street medicine argue it fills a critical gap in health care  and could even help solve homelessness. Not only are homeless people receiving specialized treatment for addiction, mental illness, chronic diseases, and pregnancy; theyre also getting help enrolling in Medi-Cal and food assistance and applying for state ID cards and federal disability payments.

Dr. Kyle Patton brings medical care to people who are homeless in Redding and Shasta County in October 2023.

In rare cases, street medicine teams have gotten some of the states sickest and most vulnerable people healthy and into housing, which supporters point to as incremental but meaningful progress. Yet they acknowledge that its no quick fix, that the expansion of street medicine signals an acceptance that homelessness isnt going away anytime soon  and that there may never be enough housing, homeless shelters, and treatment beds for everyone living outside.

Even if there is all the money and space to build it, local communities are going to fight these projects, said Barbara DiPietro, senior director of policy for the Tennessee-based National Health Care for the Homeless Council. So street medicine is shifting the idea to say, If not housing, how can we manage folks and provide the best possible care on the streets?

The expansion of street medicine and other services doesnt always play well in communities overwhelmed by growing homeless populations  and the rise in local drug use, crime, and garbage that accompany encampments.

In Redding and elsewhere, many residents, leaders, and business owners argue that expanding street medicine merely enables homelessness and perpetuates drug use.

Patton acknowledges the process of getting people off drugs is long and messy. More often than not, they relapse, he said, and most expectant mothers lose their babies.

This is true especially of homeless mothers like Crespo, who has been using hard drugs for nearly two decades but is desperate to get clean so she can reconnect with her four living children; they range in age from 12 to 24, Crespo said, and she is estranged from all of them. Two other children have died, one from lymphoma at age 15 and baby Kyle, in August 2022, primarily due to complications from congenital syphilis.

Patton is treating Crespo for mental illness and addiction and has implanted long-acting birth control into her arm so she wont have another unexpected pregnancy. He has also treated her for hepatitis C and early signs of cervical cancer.

Although shes still using meth  as is her boyfriend, Kyles father  shes six months sober from fentanyl and heroin, which are more deadly and addictive. Youd think I could just get clean, but it doesnt work that way, said Crespo. Its an ongoing fight, but Im healing.

Patton doesnt see Crespos continued drug use as a failure. His goal is to establish trust with his patients because overcoming addiction  which often is rooted in trauma or abuse  can take a lifetime, he said.

Were playing the long game with our patients, he said. Theyre really motivated to seek treatment and get off the streets. But it doesnt always work out that way.

'Street medicine' takes off

Patton is a young doctor. At 39, hes on the leading edge of a movement to entrench street medicine in California, home to nearly a third of all homeless people in America. He has specialized in taking care of low-income patients from the start, first as an outreach worker in Salt Lake City and, later, in a family medicine residency in Fort Worth, Texas, focused on street medicine.

In the past two years, the number of street medicine teams operating in California has doubled to at least 50, clustered primarily in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, with 20 more in the pipeline, said Brett Feldman, director of street medicine at the University of Southern Californias Keck School of Medicine.

Redding 'respite center' opens for homeless patients to recuperate after hospital stays

Teams are usually composed of doctors, nurses, and outreach workers, and are funded largely by health insurers, hospitals, and community clinics that serve homeless people who have trouble showing up to appointments. That may be because they dont have transportation, dont want to leave pets or belongings unattended in camps, or are too sick to make the trip.

Feldman, who helped persuade Newsoms administration to expand street medicine, notched a critical success in late 2021 when the state revamped its medical billing system to allow health care providers to charge the state for street medicine services. Medi-Cal had been denying claims because providers had treated patients in the field, not in hospitals or clinics.

The state isnt pumping new money into street medicine, but primarily redirecting Medicaid funds that would have paid for services in brick-and-mortar facilities.

Cooper has also pushed insurance companies that cover Medi-Cal patients to contract directly with street medicine teams, and some have done so.

Its a better use of taxpayer funding to pay for street medicine rather than the emergency room or constantly calling an ambulance, said Katherine Barresi, senior director of health services for Partnership HealthPlan of California, which serves 800 homeless patients in Shasta County and contracts with Shasta Community Health Center.

'There's no accountability'

Redding is the county seat of Shasta County, which has experienced a major political upheaval in recent years, driven in part by the anti-vaccine, anti-mask fervor that ignited during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Trump presidency.

Yet residents of all political stripes are growing frustrated by the surge in homelessness and open-air drug use  and the spillover effects on neighborhoods  and are pressuring officials to clear encampments and force people into treatment.

I dont care if youre left, right, middle  whats happening here is out of control, said Jason Miller, who owns a local sandwich shop called Lucky Millers Deli & Market. Miller said hes had his windows smashed three times  costing $4,500 in repairs  and has caught homeless people defecating and performing lewd acts in his doorway.

He said he also understands that many homeless people need more services  such as street medicine.

I get what theyre trying to do, he said of street medicine providers. But theres a lot of questioning in the community around what they do. Theres no accountability.

Patton isnt deterred by the communitys skepticism or the cycle of addiction, even among his pregnant patients. The way he sees it, his job is to provide the best health care he can, no matter the condition his patients are in.

Its a lot of wasted energy, judging people and labeling them as noncompliant, he said. My job isnt to determine if a patient is deserving of health care. If a patient is sick or has a disease, I have the skills to help, so Im going to do it.

'I have the willpower'

Shasta County, like much of California, is seeing its homeless population explode  and get sicker. An on-the-ground count this year identified 1,013 homeless people in the county, up 27% from 2022. Most are men, but women account for a growing share of Pattons patients because more and more are getting pregnant, he said.

County welfare agencies have little choice but to separate babies from their mothers when substance use or homelessness presents a risk to the children, said Amber Middleton, who oversees homelessness initiatives at the Shasta Community Health Center.

We are off the charts with maternal substance abuse, said Middleton, who previously worked for Shasta Countys child welfare agency. A lot of these women are trying to get clean so they can get their children back, but theyre also trying to give themselves the childhood that they never had.

Crespo turned to alcohol and drugs to deal with deep emotional pain from her youth, when she was passed among family members and, she said, beaten repeatedly by one of them.

He would give me black eyes and I would run away, she recalled in tears, admitting she has perpetuated that cycle of violence by punching her former husband when she felt provoked.

She has overdosed more times than I can remember, she said, and credits naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal drug, for saving her life repeatedly.

Patton routinely tests Crespo and other patients for sexually transmitted infections, gets them on prenatal vitamins, and treats underlying conditions like high blood pressure that can lead to a high-risk pregnancy. And hes helping women get sober, often using a drug called Suboxone, which is a combination of two medications used to treat opioid addiction. Its forms include a strip that providers snip to make the needed dose.

Police continue ousting Redding's homeless. Where do the city's down-and-out go?

A lot of these women have already had children removed, and many are pregnant again, he said. If I can get them on Suboxone, theyre going to have a better chance of being successful as a family when they deliver.

On that sweltering June day, he met Tara Darby, who was on fentanyl and meth and living in a tent along a creek that feeds into the Sacramento River. Patton started her on a course of Suboxone and got her into a hotel with her boyfriend to help her deal with the initial detox.

He also administered a pregnancy test and discovered she was already a few months along. Its rough out here. Theres no bathroom or water. Youre nauseous all the time, Darby, 40, said. I want to get out of this situation, but Im terrified about getting clean, the detox, having my baby.

When Patton offered her support from a drug and alcohol treatment counselor, Darby promised to try. I want to do it. I have the willpower, she said.

Across town, Kristen St. Clair was nearly 7 months pregnant and living in a hotel paid for by Shasta Community Health Center. Patton was helping her and her boyfriend, Brandt Clifford, get off fentanyl.

I want to have a healthy, happy life with my baby, said St. Clair, 42, who already had one baby taken from her due largely to her drug use.

Despite their desperation to kick their drug habit, St. Clair and Clifford have since relapsed, Patton reported. St. Clair delivered in early September, and her little boy was taken into custody to withdraw in a neonatal abstinence program, Patton said.

Darby, who was evicted from her hotel room after relapsing, was in residential treatment to get sober as of early October.

Crespo is making headway, Patton said. She and her boyfriend, Andy Gothan, 43, are staying at a hotel while Pattons team helps her hunt for a landlord who will accept a low-income housing voucher.

Im so close. Theyve helped me so much, Crespo said. Meth is always around, always available. If I can get inside, itll help me deal with the stress of getting clean without all those triggers.

This story was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Redding doctor delivers care to homeless women battling addiction
Approximately 300 people were arrested by Capitol Police during a large-scale demonstration on Wednesday against the Israel-Hamas war, a Capitol Police spokesperson said.

Most were arrested for demonstrating in the Capitol, according to the spokesperson.

Hundreds of people had gathered in and outside of the U.S. Capitol complex on Wednesday before the arrests, calling for an end to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that launched a terror attack in Israel earlier this month.

Some of the demonstrators, organized by a left-wing Jewish group, then entered the Cannon House Office Building at different security entrance points and assembled in the rotunda, the police spokesperson said.

The large-scale demonstration follows a similar event at the White House earlier this week that also resulted in dozens of arrests.

Protesters, like the rest of the public, can legally enter the Capitol complex and only risk issues when they cause a disturbance, according to the police spokesperson.

PHOTO: Demonstrators are detained by U.S. Capitol police officers during a protest calling for a cease fire in Gaza while occupying the rotunda of the Cannon House office building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 18, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Police departments from the surrounding areas were called in to help at the complex on Wednesday, including Washington's Metropolitan Police and officers from Virginia, according to law enforcement sources.

Some lawmakers, who have offices in the Cannon House Office Building, chided the demonstrators.

"The irony is the US Constitution protects these protesters freedom to be absolute idiots," Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., wrote in a post on X.

ABC News' Jack Date contributed to this report.

300-plus arrested after gathering at Capitol complex to protest Israel-Hamas war originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Egypt's Rafah crossingthe only viable entry point into the besieged Gaza Stripwill "hopefully" open tomorrow, World Health Organization officials said at a Thursday news conference.

The United Nations agency has supplies sufficient to care for 2,000 patients waiting on the Egyptian side of the border, with 80,000 additional pounds of supplies set to arrive over the next week, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the news conference.

The WHO is initially being allowed five truckloads of supplies, and they're ready to go as soon as the border opens, officials said. But the organization needs assurances that those delivering them will be allowed to do so safely.

Not only would deconfliction ensure there is no loss of life during delivery, but it would also assist officials in ensuring the supplies reach civilians in needand that they don't fall into the hands of terrorists, Dr. Teresa Zakaria, health emergency officer for WHO, said.

Officials from various organizations and nations have said for days that the border would open imminently, to no avail. Opening the border requires cooperation from both Egypt and Israel, which each control a gate on their side, as well as Hamas, which must provide assurances that the group will not interfere.

Even if it is opened tomorrow as promised, roads have been "very badly destroyed" in the course of warfare, Dr. Michael Ryan, the organizations executive director of health emergencies, said.

There is a "long road to go" in ensuring even a few truckloads of supplies safely make it across the border into the right hands, he said, adding: "I'll prayand I don't pray very oftenthat the border will open tomorrow."

Ghebreyesus said he hoped Egypt would honor the promisebut based on the country's recent track record, the WHO is "worried whether this will happen tomorrow or not."

"We urge those who can do it to please, please make this happen," he said, "to avoid the tragedy in front of us."

'A drop in the ocean of need'

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi had agreed to help the WHO deliver humanitarian supplies through the crossing on Oct. 9, Ghebreyesus previously said. Since then, a number of world leaders have made similar announcementsthe latest being U.S. President Joe Biden, who said Wednesday that Al Sisi agreed to let up to 20 trucks of assistance through.

A one-time opening is a "gesture," Ryan said Thursday, emphasizing that the border needs to be open to humanitarian aid on a daily basis.

"Twenty trucks is a drop in the ocean of need right now in Gaza," he said, adding that continuous risk management and deconfliction guarantees were needed.

When asked about the supplies being chosen for the five trucks the WHO has been allotted, Ryan replied, "You get to send 20 trucks into a situation where 2.5 million people are thirsty, without food, without water, without medicine. Would you like to be choosing ... who gets the boxes?"

"It shouldn't be 20 trucks, it should be 2,000 trucks," he said, "and we shouldn't have to be making these choices."

Still, choices are being made, in concert with officials from the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population, the Egyptian Red Crescent and the UN, he said"awful choices."

The list of supplies set to be delivered on the first run "doesn't make for easy reading," Ryan said. They include amputation kits, intubation kits, pneumothorax kits for punctured lungs, external fixators for broken bones, wound dressings, anesthetics, and pain killers.

It's "all the stuff we'd expect when we get sick, we get hurt, we crash our car on the way homeall of what would be available to us," he said. "There are probably trucks pulling up to hospitals all over the world tonight with all of this stuff. It's unfortunate that there are no trucks pulling up to hospitals in Gaza tonight with all of that stuff."

But the area has far more needs, including fuel to run desalination plants, bakeries, and hospitalsGaza "technically ran out a few days ago," Ryan said, and is conserving a small amount that was scrounged up; insulin for diabetics; medicine for cancer patients; and bags to collect donor blood, of all things.

Earlier this week WHO officials had warned that there was only one week's supply of blood in Gaza. But that's not for lack of donors, Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for Gaza, said Thursday. It's due to the lack of supplies with which to collect the blood.

The idea that the Gaza area is approaching some kind of cliff it's about to fall off of, due to the continually deteriorating humanitarian situation, is an incorrect picture, Ryan said.

"We passed the cliff edge long ago. We're collectively careening toward the ground."

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
President Yoon Suk Yeol said Thursday that an increase in medical personnel is essential to restore local and critical health services and prepare for the nation's transition to a super-aged society.

Yoon's remark, which came during a meeting with hospital and government officials, appeared to underscore his government's commitment to raising the enrollment quota at medical schools, an issue that has sparked controversy amid opposition from doctors' groups.

"Local and essential medical care, which is directly connected to the people's health and lives, is collapsing," he said during the meeting held at Chungbuk National University in Cheongju, 112 kilometers south of Seoul.

"In order to revive local and essential medical care, and prepare for a super-aged society, expanding medical personnel and training talented individuals are necessary conditions."

The government has reportedly been looking to raise the annual enrollment quota at medical schools by more than 1,000 from the current 3,058, starting in 2025. The move comes amid a shortage in doctors providing essential medical services, especially in pediatrics and emergency care.

According to the health ministry, the number of doctors per 1,000 people in Korea came to 5.6, far below the average of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member nations.

But doctors have fiercely opposed the plan, saying the government should instead explore ways to better allocate physicians and boost compensation.

"There are many people who are unable to receive timely treatment due to difficulties in supply and demand of personnel in essential treatment departments, such as pediatrics and obstetrics," Yoon said. "The problem of the medical gap between regions has also reached a serious level."

He further noted the need to develop national university hospitals into a central pillar of the essential medical care system in order to prevent the collapse of local health services.

To that end, he said the government has transferred oversight of national university hospitals from the education ministry to the health ministry.

Moreover, Yoon said the government will invest finances to dramatically improve the capacity to treat serious illnesses and work to increase personnel in the obstetrics and pediatrics fields by reducing the legal risks involved in their practice, adjusting relevant insurance fees and updating compensation plans. (Yonhap)
By Soo-hyang Choi

SEOUL (Reuters) -Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russia's foreign ministry said on Thursday, as the two countries forge closer ties in the face of what they see as a hostile and aggressive U.S.-led Western camp.

Russia's state-run TASS news agency reported that Lavrov's meeting with Kim had lasted over an hour but the ministry did not provide further details.

Lavrov, who arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday, earlier thanked North Korea for backing Russia's military actions in Ukraine and pledged Moscow's "complete support and solidarity" for Kim, Russia's foreign ministry said.

Lavrov's visit is seen as setting the stage for a visit by President Vladimir Putin, who has stepped up cooperation with politically isolated North Korea.

Speaking at a reception hosted by the North on Wednesday, Lavrov said Moscow strongly valued Pyongyang's "unwavering and principled support" for Russia in the Ukraine war, which it calls a "special military operation".

"Likewise the Russian Federation extends its complete support and solidarity with the aspirations of the DPRK," Lavrov said, according to the transcript of the speech released on his ministry's website. DPRK are the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

After talks with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, Lavrov later told reporters that increased military activities by the United States and its allies Japan and South Korea were a cause for concern, Russia's state-run RIA news agency reported.

The U.S. and South Korean navies on Thursday joined those of four other countries - Canada, Belgium, New Zealand and the Philippines - for an anti-naval mine exercise off South Korea's south coast, the South Korean defence ministry said.

A U.S. B-52 bomber made a rare landing in South Korea on Thursday to underline the two countries' alliance against North Korea's rising nuclear threats, South Korea's military said.

In his comments, Lavrov said North Korea, China and Russia were pursuing a policy of seeking to ease regional tensions.

North Korean state media said Lavrov's visit would mark a "significant occasion" in further consolidating relations between Pyongyang and Moscow.

Photos released by the Russian foreign ministry showed Lavrov being greeted by people holding flowers and flags of the two countries upon arrival.

INCREASED CONTACTS

Lavrov's two-day visit comes a month after North Korean leader Kim made a rare trip to Russia, during which he invited Putin to Pyongyang and discussed military cooperation.

Russia's TASS news agency said Lavrov might also brief North Korean leaders on the results of Putin's visit this week to China.

A U.S. think-tank said on Tuesday that satellite images showed continued activity around a North Korean port near Russia, indicating at least six trips by sea between the two countries since late August.

The shipments between the port of Rajin and Russia's Dunai are possibly related to the transfer of North Korean munitions to Russia, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said.

Separately, a North Korean cargo-passenger ferry that had carried foreign tourists from Japan or South Korea was seen at a drydock at the same port this month, most likely for maintenance, CSIS said.

It was not clear whether the vessel would be used to supplement trade activity between Russia and North Korea, it said.The White House said last week that North Korea had recently provided Russia with a shipment of weapons in what it called a troubling development. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Western allegations were not based on evidence.

South Korea and the United States have expressed concern about increased exchanges between Russia and the North, and the allies have stepped up military drills together with Japan in response to the threat from North Korea.

South Korea has urged Russia to comply with United Nations resolutions in its exchanges with North Korea, a South Korean foreign ministry spokesperson told a briefing on Thursday.

(Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi, Jack Kim, Ju-min Park and Maxim Rodionov;Editing by Sandra Maler, Ed Davies, Gerry Doyle and Gareth Jones)
Russia's foreign minister proposed regular security talks with North Korea and China to deal with what he described as increasing U.S.-led regional military threats, as he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his top diplomat Thursday in Pyongyang.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in North Korea's capital on Wednesday on a two-day trip expected to focus on how to boost the two countries' defense ties following a September summit between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Last week, the United States said North Korea had transferred munitions to Russia to boost its fighting capabilities in Ukraine in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban any weapons trading involving North Korea.

During their talks, Lavrov and Kim exchanged views on making joint efforts to expand bilateral ties in all areas and discussed other key issues of mutual concern, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported. It said Kim expressed his resolve to carry out the unspecified agreements reached with Putin last month.

Lavrov met his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son Hui, earlier Thursday and lauded deepening bilateral collaboration.

Lavrov and Choe discussed "resuming full-fledged contacts" and intensifying economic cooperation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It added that Lavrov invited Choe to visit Moscow at her convenience. KCNA said the two ministers discussed bolstering joint action on several regional and international issues, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

The Lavrov-Kim meeting means that the recent fleet of containers likely carrying munitions from North Korea to Russia was not the last Kim-Putin transaction the world has to worry about," said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha University in Seoul.

After accepting Pyongyangs help to resupply the illegal invasion of Ukraine, Moscow is set to commit further violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions by providing North Korea with weapons technology that could threaten stability in East Asia, Easley said.

Russia's state-run news agency Tass quoted Lavrov as telling reporters that he supports holding regular talks on security issues on the Korean Peninsula with North Korea and China.

The United States, Japan and South Korea intensifying military activity here and Washington working toward moving strategic infrastructure, including nuclear aspects, here, are of great concern to us and our North Korean friends, Lavrov said, according to Tass.

The recent flurry of diplomacy between Russia and North Korea underscores how their interests are aligning in the face of their separate, intensifying confrontations with the United States  North Korea over its advancing nuclear program and Russia over its war with Ukraine.

The U.S. has been expanding regular military drills with South Korea and temporarily deploying more powerful military assets around the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea's barrage of missile tests since last year. The U.S. and South Korea have also resumed some trilateral military exercises with Japan.

The focus of outside attention during Lavrovs visit was whether the two countries would provide any hints of how they will solidify their security cooperation or announce the timing of Putins promised trip to Pyongyang to reciprocate Kim's visit to Russias Far East.

During his travel to Russia, Kim met Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russias most important domestic space launch center, and inspected other key Russian weapon-making sites. That triggered intense speculation that Kim seeks sophisticated Russian technologies to modernize his nuclear arsenal in return for supplying conventional arms to refill Russias declining weapons inventory. Neither Russia nor North Korea has disclosed what Putin and Kim agreed to during the summit.

During a dinner banquet held for him on Wednesday, Lavrov said Russia deeply values North Koreas unwavering and principled support for its war on Ukraine as well as Pyongyangs decision to recognize the independence of Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, according to Russias Foreign Ministry.

KCNA said Lavrov also praised North Korea for remaining unfazed by any pressure of the U.S. and the West, and said that Russia fully supports Kims push to protect its security and economic interests.

The White House said Friday that North Korea had delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia. The White House released images that it said showed the containers were loaded onto a Russian-flagged ship before being moved via train to southwestern Russia.

Since last year, the U.S. has accused North Korea of providing ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia, likely much of them copies of Soviet-era munitions. North Korea has steadfastly denied it shipped arms to Russia, but South Korean officials said North Korean weapons provided to Russia have already been used in Ukraine.

Lim Soosuk, spokesperson of South Koreas Foreign Ministry, told reporters Thursday that Seoul was closely monitoring Lavrovs visit to North Korea and that any cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang should be conducted in a way that complies with U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Orla Prendergast top-scored with 64 for the Irish in Almeria

One-day international - second of three, Desert Springs, Almeria, Spain Ireland 270-6 (50 overs): Prendergast 64, Paul 58, Hunter 56; K Bryce 2-44 Scotland 191 (39 overs): K Bryce 67, A Lister 47; Canning 4-36, Kelly 2-36, Murray 2-37, Sargent 2-33 Ireland win by 79 runs Scorecard (External)

Ireland levelled the one-day series against Scotland in Spain with a 79-run win which set up a decider on Saturday.

Orla Prendergast's 64 plus 58 and 56 from Leah Paul and Amy Hunter helped Ireland post 270-6 in their innings.

In reply, Scotland reached 43-0 in only 6.2 overs before Sarah Bryce's departure heralded a collapse to 59-3.

Kathryn Bryce's 67 helped put on 84 for the fourth wicket but she was one of Ava Canning's four victims as the Scots were dismissed for 191 in 39 overs.

The only late resistance came from Ailsa Lister who hit 47 before being dismissed by Canning to leave the Scots on 177-9.

Arlene Kelly completed Ireland's win by taking her second wicket when she had Olivia Bell caught by Hunter.

Skipper Bryce's knock followed her highest international score of 78 on Tuesday - when she shared a second-wicket partnership of 65 with sister Sarah - which helped the Scots clinch a 40-run win in their first one-day international.

After winning the toss, Ireland opted to bat and opener Paul helped put her side in a strong position, enjoying a second-wicket partnership of 70 with Hunter before being caught and bowled by Priyanaz Chatterji.

Hunter's dismissal left Ireland on 188 for three but Prendergast kept the runs flowing, eventually falling lbw for 64 to Scotland captain Bryce.

Ireland skipper Laura Delany finished unbeaten on 28 to set Scotland a target of 271, but despite a solid start from Sarah Bryce and Darcey Carter, they then lost three wickets within 16 runs as Bryce fell for 23 followed by Carter (16), before Chatterji was out for a duck.

Kathryn Bryce smashed 67 off 58 balls before being bowled by Freya Sargent, and the spinner clipped the top of leg stump to dismiss new batter Lorna Jack with her very next delivery.

Lister tried to dig Scotland out of a hole but wickets tumbled quickly at the other end as Ireland wrapped up victory.

Following Saturday's one-day series decider in Almeria, the sides will have two further T20 contests at the Desert Springs venue on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Across the BBC banner
U.S. citizens traveling abroad are urged to "exercise increased caution" in light of the heightened global tensions spurred by Hamas' terror attack on Israel and the unfolding Israel-Hamas war, the State Department said in a new advisory on Thursday.

"Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution," officials said in the "worldwide caution" alert.

The department also told Americans overseas to "stay alert in locations frequented by tourists."

The last time the department issued such a warning was in August 2022, following the counterterrorism strike in Afghanistan that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

At that time, U.S. officials warned supporters of al- Qaida, or its affiliated terrorist organizations, may seek to attack U.S. facilities, personnel, or citizens.

Separately, the State Department has been instructing its embassies and consulates around the world to conduct emergency security reviews amid ongoing protests sparked by the fighting, according to sources familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by ABC News.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also instructed personnel to evaluate whether embassies should issue alerts to Americans in their respective countries about potential threats posed by the demonstrations, as many have already done.

A number of posts have asked the State Department to modify their operations due to security concerns, sources said, but at this point it does not appear that any additional embassies have asked to go on authorized departure, and so far none have requested a full evacuation.

State Department issues 'worldwide caution' alert amid Israel-Hamas war originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Stephen Rubin died on Oct. 13, 2023, at age 81.

NEW YORK  Stephen Rubin, a longtime publishing executive with an eye for bestsellers and a passion for music and public life who helped launched the career of John Grisham, among others, and released such blockbusters as The Da Vinci Code and Fire and Fury, has died. He was 81.

Rubin died Friday at a hospital in Manhattan after a brief and sudden illness, according to his nephew, David Rotter.

Book publishing is hard to imagine without the raspy-voiced Rubin, a powerful and colorful presence for decades with his tortoiseshell glasses, stylish suits and wide range of friends and colleagues, from Jacqueline Kennedy to Beverly Sills. He hosted memorable parties at his spacious West Side apartment and was a prime source of gossip and alternately profane and loving assessments of friends, colleagues and the greater world.

He would enter a room and immediately fill it, close friend Jane Friedman, the former CEO of HarperCollins Publishers, told The Associated Press via email. He had very strong likes and dislikes and he NEVER changed his mind.

Rubin was a former New York Times journalist who broke into publishing in the 1980s and rose to top positions at Doubleday, where Kennedy worked for a time as an editor, and Henry Holt and Company. Most recently he was a publishing consultant for Simon & Schuster.

Rubins many notable projects included the million-selling Killing history series by Bill OReilly and Martin Dugard, Laura Esquivels Like Water for Chocolate, Mitch Alboms Tuesdays With Morrie, Hilary Mantels Bring Up the Bodies and former President George W. Bushs Decision Points, a million seller which Rubin helped sign at a time Bush was widely unpopular in the publishing world and beyond.

Book executives dream of overseeing even one phenomenon: Rubin scored at least three times.

In the early 1990s, he was just starting out at Doubleday when the publisher was set to release a thriller by a little-known author, John Grishams The Firm. The novel helped make Grisham synonymous with courtroom drama and marked the beginning of a long friendship between him and Rubin, who would acknowledge taking advantage of the authors good looks and featuring them in promotional ads (Grisham would rebel for a time by appearing at photo shoots unshaven).

Steve Rubin was a great publisher, Grisham said in a statement. He loved books, especially those on the bestseller lists, and he knew how to get them there. He was a writers dream  loyal, generous, and never shy with his opinions. He was seldom wrong, but never in doubt.

A decade later, Doubleday took on a then-obscure author who had sold few copies for Simon & Schuster but now had a promising manuscript for a religious/art thriller set in Europe. With a relentless promotional campaign, including thousands of advance copies sent to booksellers and others in the business, Dan Browns The Da Vinci Code was an immediate and lasting sensation. Sales topped 70 million copies, even as some critics and fellow authors despised it and some religious officials thought it blasphemous.

Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" was the runaway best-seller that got the world interested in the adventures of Robert Langdon.

The book was so successful that Browns earlier novels, Angels & Demons and Digital Fortress, also became top sellers.

Steves infectious enthusiasm for my work was every authors dream, Brown said in a statement. A world class oenophile, Steve used to send me cases of lavish Italian wines  a secret plot, he joked, to saddle me with a refined palate so I could never afford to stop writing. I am eternally grateful for his belief, his encouragement, and, above all, his friendship.

In 2018, when Rubin was in his mid-70s, he had one more extraordinary ride. He was the publisher of Holt and overseer of a signature book of the Trump presidency, Michael Wolffs Fire and Fury, which Rubin agreed to take on after meeting for cocktails two years earlier with the veteran and often controversial journalist.

Fire and Fury was the first work to vividly capture the ongoing chaos of the administration and proved so unflattering that Trump threatened to block its publication and fired a top aide, Steve Bannon, who had spoken with Wolff. Rubin would call the book the wildest experience of his career.

For more than a month, it was humanly impossible to miss Fire and Fury, Rubin wrote in his memoir Words and Music, published earlier this year. It was a triumph for Michael and for Holt. It was also exhilarating and fun.

'Da Vinci Code' author Dan Brown settles lawsuit from ex-wife alleging secret life

Rubin was a New York City native whose initial and enduring passion was music, especially the opera. After graduating from New York University, he received a masters in journalism from Boston University. (A waste of money, he later wrote). He started out at UPI and Vanity Fair and eventually wrote profiles of Luciano Pavarotti and Sills, among others, for The New York Times Magazine.

Rubin joined Bantam Books, a venerable paperback publisher, in the mid-1980s, and remained there for six years before leaving for Doubleday. Throughout, he retained his affinity for opera and classical music and, along with his wife Cynthia, who died in 2010, helped run the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, a great source of pride.

But he knew that books would define his legacy, especially the one which sold the most copies. In his memoir, he offered a succinct, if incomplete prediction: I suppose the headline of my obit will read Publisher of The Da Vinci Code dies.

'The Da Vinci Code' author Dan Brown, best known for authoring thrillers, is writing a children's book

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Stephen Rubin dead: 'The Da Vinci Code' publisher was 81
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the second leg of his Middle East tour that included a visit to Israel, where he was told to brace for a long war with Hamas.

Mr Sunak is set to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday evening as he urges leaders in the region not to allow the Israeli-Hamas battle escalate into a wider conflict.

I've landed in Saudi Arabia. As an international community, we must not let Hamas' terror attack become a catalyst for a terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We will work together to ensure regional stability and prevent a dangerous escalation. pic.twitter.com/mwUXn0luSS  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

The Prime Minister tweeted: As an international community, we must not let Hamass terror attack become a catalyst for a terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We will work together to ensure regional stability and prevent a dangerous escalation.

He travelled from Tel Aviv after meetings with Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog.

Mr Netanyahu told Mr Sunak that he hoped for the UKs continuous support in his countrys long war as it fought back against Hamas following the Palestinian militant groups deadly and unprecedented assault on Israel on October 7.

The Israeli premier said his forces were fighting against the worst monsters on the planet during the worlds darkest hour as he warned there would be ups and downs during the war.

Mr Sunak, speaking at a joint press conference after discussions with his counterpart lasting about two hours, said he was proud to stand with Israel and that the UK Government wants you to win.

Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant has told ground troops on the Gaza border to be ready to enter the Occupied Palestinian Territory, but he did not say when the invasion would start.

Whoever sees Gaza from afar now will see it from the inside, he told Israeli infantry soldiers.

Asked what Mr Sunak made of Mr Netanyahus assessment that Israel was facing a long war, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said: It is not for us to comment on the detail of the Israeli approach.

Downing Street has updated the number of Britons killed in Hamass assault on Israel since the Prime Ministers arrival in Saudi.

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said: We can now confirm that at least nine British nationals were tragically killed in last weeks terrorist attacks.

And a further seven British nationals are missing, some of whom are feared to be among the dead or kidnapped.

In a statement to the Commons on Monday, the Prime Minister said six British nationals had died, with a further 10 missing.

The PA news agency understands that Yonatan Rapoport was killed during the Hamas ambush which left hundreds of Israelis dead.

Mr Rapoport, known as Yoni, was reportedly one of those murdered in the attack on Kibbutz Beeri.

Prime Minister @netanyahu, I stand with you in Israels darkest hour. I welcome your commitment to ensure routes into Gaza are opened for humanitarian aid. I support your work to secure the release of hostages, to strengthen your security and to end the threat from Hamas. pic.twitter.com/ZrLJALTzBN  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

He had two children, Yosefi and Aluma, and, as a Manchester United fan, had planned to take his son to Old Trafford next month for his first game, the BBC reported.

The UK Government has not confirmed how many Britons are among the hostages held by Hamas, although at least two are known to be being kept captive, with Mr Sunak meeting with their families while in Tel Aviv.

The British leader thanked the Israeli government for its efforts in helping to secure the release of UK citizens being held hostage. About 200 people in total are said to have been snatched in the Hamas raids.

Mr Sunak has welcomed Mr Netanyahus decision, after lobbying by US president Joe Biden, for Israel to start letting aid into Gaza.

It marks a potential break in a punishing siege on the territory after Israels retaliation on Hamas saw it block access for water, food, electricity and other essential supplies to the 25-mile strip, while also carrying out strikes.

The Prime Minister said the UK would seek to get more support to people as quickly as we can as he reiterated that Palestinians living under Hamas rule in Gaza were also victims.

The UK Government is being urged to lobby for a ceasefire by both British political leaders and charities working in the region (Abed Khaled/AP)

Israel continued to pound locations across Gaza on the day of Mr Sunaks visit to Tel Aviv, including firing on parts of the southern strip that had been declared safe zones.

A residential building in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter, was among the places hit.

Medical personnel said they had received at least 12 dead and 40 wounded. Thousands in Gaza have died since retaliatory Israeli strikes started in the aftermath of Hamass incursion.

Many among Gazas 2.3 million residents have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water amid dwindling supplies.

The UK Government is being urged to lobby for a ceasefire by both British political leaders and charities working in the region.

Scotlands First Minister, Humza Yousaf has called on Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who is on his own diplomatic blitz across Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, to press for a resolution that could help those UK citizens trapped in Gaza.

Shameful that UK citizens trapped in Gaza dont even get a mention. Might be helpful if you give them at least a passing mention in your discussions. They're trapped in a warzone & need you, Foreign Secretary, to demand a ceasefire, and the Rafah crossing opened to let them out. https://t.co/o0XbTnPRA2  Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) October 19, 2023

Mr Yousaf, whose mother and father-in-law are stuck in the territory, said the lack of focus on those unable to escape the bombardment in the 25-mile strip was shameful.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the SNP leader said: Theyre trapped in a war zone and need you, Foreign Secretary, to demand a ceasefire, and the Rafah crossing opened to let them out.

Katy Chakrabortty, Oxfams head of advocacy, said: The Prime Minister is right to call for the safe return of all hostages in Gaza but his failure to call for a ceasefire is wrong.

Wanting Israel to win is not a helpful statement. Nobody wins when the scale of human suffering, devastation and pain is so vast and relentless. We need all parties to commit to a ceasefire and for full, unfettered humanitarian access to Gaza now.

Mr Sunak is expected to stay overnight in Saudi Arabi following talks with the Crown Prince. No 10 is yet to confirm whether he will visit another Middle East capital before wrapping up his two-day trip on Friday.
The Prime Minister will arrive in Israel on Thursday as he prepares to meet leaders in the Middle East and call for any increase in violence to be avoided.

Rishi Sunak will hold talks with the countrys prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Isaac Herzog as he starts a two-day trip that is expected to take in a number of capitals in the region.

He will urge Middle East leaders to avoid further dangerous escalation, saying that too many lives have been lost already in the Israeli-Hamas war.

His visit comes after the United States president flew into Israel on Wednesday in a diplomatic bid to prevent fighting from spiralling into a larger crisis.

Joe Biden urged Israel not to be consumed by rage in the wake of Hamass deadly attack on October 7 and to avoid making the same mistakes that the US did after September 11, 2001, following the Islamist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The presidents trip appeared to herald a breakthrough, with Mr Netanyahus office announcing it had approved a request from Mr Biden to allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came a day after a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds.

Hamas blamed Israel for the strike, while Tel Aviv pointed the finger at a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad has dismissed the claim.

Liverpool and Egypt forward Mohamed Salah used his significant social media following to call for the massacres in the conflict to stop and for aid to be allowed into Gaza immediately.

In a video post, Salah said: The scenes at the hospital last night were horrifying. The people of Gaza need food, water and medical supplies urgently.

The hospital deaths sparked protests across the Middle East, including angry scenes in Jordan and in the Lebanese capital Beirut where hundreds of demonstrators clashed with security forces near the US embassy on Wednesday. The Hezbollah group, a key ally of Hamas, also held a rally in the city.

The Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to leave now while commercial options remain available.

During the Prime Ministers trip to the Middle East, in which he is expected to meet a number of counterparts, No 10 said he plans to press for aid to be allowed into Gaza and for those trapped in the territory to be allowed to leave the 25-mile area.

A Downing Street official said he will share his condolences for the terrible loss of life in Israel and Gaza in the last two weeks as a result of Hamass brutal terrorist attacks.

He will call for the barbaric acts carried out by the Palestinian militant group not to become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region.

Ahead of his departure, the Prime Minister said: Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamass horrific act of terror.

The attack on al Ahli hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict.

US President Joe Biden pictured in Israel (Miriam Alster/Pool Photo via AP)

I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort.

The 2,200-mile trip means Mr Sunak will not be in the UK when the results of Thursdays Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-election contests are announced in the early hours of Friday, with the Conservatives battling to hold onto what were once regarded as safe seats.

In parallel to Mr Sunaks travel, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly will visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in the coming days to underscore the UKs message.

Mr Cleverly said: It is in no ones interests  neither Israeli, Palestinian nor the wider Middle East  for others to be drawn into this conflict.

I am meeting counterparts from influential states in the region to push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages.

Since the flare-up of violence in Israel and Gaza, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, and police have recorded a steep rise in antisemitism in the UK.

Robin Simcox, the commissioner for countering extremism, said the rise was a sign that Britain was very sick indeed and should be a wake-up call.

In an article for The Times, he suggested the normalisation of anti-Israel extremism and antisemitism was because of a failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism.
WASHINGTON  In a closely watched racial gerrymandering case, the Supreme Court declined Thursday to allow a federal judge in Louisiana to move forward with plans to oversee the drawing of new state congressional map that could be used in the 2024 election.

The court rejected the emergency requests of civil rights groups challenging Republican-drawn map used in the 2022 election that they say shortchanged Black voters.

No justices publicly dissented from the decision, with liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing a brief opinion saying she agreed with the outcome.

She noted that the lower court's role in overseeing the drawing of a new map was merely delayed and that the process should be completed in time for the 2024 election.

The justices left in place a ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prevented U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick from holding a hearing on imposing a court-ordered map.

The state had objected to the move, saying among other things that it had not had enough time to draw its own revised map.

The Supreme Court action is not the final word in the case, as a separate issue is pending at the appeals court.

Dick ruled last year that the state's original map was most likely discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act, but the ruling was put on hold while the Supreme Court handled a similar case from Alabama.

In the Alabama case, the Supreme Court in June unexpectedly upheld a lower court ruling that said the Republican-drawn map in the state discriminated against Black voters, paving the way for a new map to be drawn for 2024. That map has now been drawn.

In light of that decision, the challengers to Louisianas map said there should be a similar outcome in their case.

Using the Louisiana Legislature's original map, Republicans won five of the six districts in Novembers midterm elections.

The plaintiffs say there should be two districts that would allow Black voters to elect the candidates of their choosing instead of just one district.

Black voters have historically voted for Democrats, and a revised map could give Democrats an opportunity to pick up a seat, which could help them regain control of the closely divided House of Representatives.
Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung will officially return to party duties next week, a party official said Thursday, after weeks of hospital treatment to recuperate from his 24-day hunger strike against the government.

Lee will appear in a Seoul court for a trial on his corruption allegations Friday and will resume his duties as the chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) starting Monday, Kwon Hyuk-ki, an aide to Lee, told reporters.

The DPK leader has been absent from duties since being transferred to a hospital on Sept. 18, after his health conditions worsened from weeks of hunger strike.

He left the hospital last week and has since been recovering at home.

Lee is already standing trial on two other separate cases, involving alleged election law violations during his unsuccessful presidential bid in 2022 and corruption charges connected to another property development project launched during his term as Seongnam mayor, respectively. (Yonhap)
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne on Wednesday announced a new program to address vacant school resource officer positions in Arizona schools.

The Arizona Department of Education has contracted with Off Duty Management, a company that schedules off-duty police officers for security positions, to assign off-duty officers to schools that do not have a dedicated school resource officer, which is the title used for a full-time police officer assigned to a school.

The Department of Education granted funding to every school district that requested a school resource officer through its School Safety Program. This state-funded competitive grant program was established by the Legislature in 1994 to place school resource officers in schools and expanded in 2019 to include the placement of school counselors and social workers.

But, due to a shortage of police officers in the state, there weren't enough officers to fill the positions funded in the most recent grant cycle. There are 138 vacant school resource officer positions across the state, Horne said.

"That was quite a serious problem," he said. The positions staffed by this new initiative  school safety officers  will be armed, perform the same duties as a school resource officer, conduct site assessments, provide recommendations for school safety and ensure their assigned school has an updated Emergency Response Plan, according to the Department of Education.

The school safety officers won't receive as much training as school resource officers. While school resource officers receive 40 hours of training, school safety officers will receive eight hours of asynchronous training from the Department of Education on "things that are unique to the school environment," said Michael Kurtenbach, who oversees school safety efforts for the Department of Education. Part of that training is to let officers know they are at schools to enforce the law, not as an extension of the school administration to enforce school policies, he said.

Underway: Arizona schools chief Tom Horne announces commission for workforce development

Horne said the school safety officers, as compared to school resource officers, won't "do as well" cultivating relationships with students because an individual school safety officer is more likely to be at a school one or two days a week  different officers may fill the position at a school throughout the week  rather than five.

Off-duty officers in the Phoenix area will make $100 an hour through this program, Horne said.

It will be a cross-jurisdictional program, with officers able to travel to other cities to fill positions in schools.

Brian Manley, the president of Off Duty Management, said it was the first agreement the national company has had with a state entity like Arizona's Education Department. Off-duty officers are typically scheduled for security positions at places like movie theaters, restaurants and traffic construction zones, he said.

Thirty-three school districts, which had School Safety Program requests for school resource officers approved but were unable to staff those positions, have opted into the program for the school year, Kurtenbach said.

Horne said he hopes that the shortage of police officers will ultimately be solved and schools can hire full-time school resource officers.

Shared goal: Tom Horne strikes alliance with Moms for Liberty over flipping Arizona school boards

Madeleine Parrish covers K-12 education. Reach her at mparrish@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @maddieparrish61.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Horne announces program for off-duty officers to staff Arizona schools
The man accused of fatally shooting rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996 appeared in a Las Vegas courtroom on Thursday for his arraignment  however, it was postponed once again citing attorney issues.

Judge Tierra Jones asked Duane Keefe D Davis to figure out his attorney situation and then postponed his official arraignment from two weeks from now.

This is the second time Mr Daviss arraignment has been rescheduled. He was supposed to be arraigned in early October but it was postponed because he was unable to obtain a lawyer.

Mr Davis, 60, is supposedly being represented by the well-known attorney Ross Goodman who has represented mobsters, athletes and other famous clients according to The Associated Press.

Mr Davis was arrested at the end of September outside of his home and charged with murder.

For years, Mr Davis publicly acknowledged he was at the scene of the crime in 1996. He said he was in the front seat of the white Cadillac that pulled up alongside Shakur and fired gunshots.

Shakur was shot four times and eventually died from his injuries at just 25 years old.

Key Points

How Las Vegas police caught Tupacs alleged murderer after three decades

Arraignment expected to occur at 9am PT

Jada Pinkett Smith says soulmate Tupac Shakur proposed to her from prison

Arraignment continued for two weeks

Catch up with the case: How Las Vegas police caught Tupacs alleged murderer after three decades

15:44 , Ariana Baio

Twenty-seven years after Tupac Shakur was gunned down in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas strip, an alleged gang leader was arrested on 29 September and charged with the hip-hop legends murder.

According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Duane Keefe D Davis was the leader of a plot by the Southside Compton Crips gang to kill Tupac, after the rapper and his entourage fought a member of the gang following a Mike Tyson fight on 7 September 1996.

Bevan Hurley reports:

How Las Vegas police caught Tupacs alleged murderer after three decades

Arraignment expected to occur at 9am PT

15:49 , Ariana Baio

Duane Keefe D Davis is expected to be arraigned today at 9am PT / 12pm ET in Clark County, Nevada.

This is the second time Mr Davis will face a potential arraignment. The first time his arraignment was postponed because he appeared without a lawyer.

Now Mr Davis will be represented by well-known attorney Ross Goodman.

Who is Ross Goodman, the attorney representing Duane Davis

16:00 , AP

Attorney Ross Goodman told The Associated Press Wednesday hell appear in Duane Keffe D Davis defense against accusations that Davis orchestrated the drive-by killing of the rap music icon. Davis wont immediately enter a plea, Goodman said, hell seek another two weeks to confirm that hell be hired for Davis case.

Goodman is a son of former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and current Mayor Carolyn Goodman. As a lawyer for more than two decades, he has handled a range of high-profile cases including a plea deal in August with which former Las Vegas Raiders cornerback Damon Arnette resolved a felony gun charge by pleading guilty to two misdemeanors.

His father, Oscar Goodman, is a lawyer who represented mob figures including the ill-fated Anthony Tony the Ant Spilotro before serving three terms as mayor. He was famous for making public appearances with a martini in hand and a showgirl on each arm.

Jada Pinkett Smith says soulmate Tupac Shakur proposed to her from prison

16:15 , Brittany Miller

Jada Pinkett Smith has recently opened up about her relationship with the late rapper Tupac Shakur.

On Friday 13 October, a teaser clip for Matt Barnes and Stephen Jacksons All The Smoke podcast showed Pinkett Smith discussing her memoir, Worthy, and her relationship with Shakur. The full podcast episode is set to be released today.

Pinkett Smith and Shakur first met as classmates when they were both at the Baltimore School for the Arts back in the 1980s. In 1995, Shakur served eight months in prison on sexual abuse charges but was released pending an appeal of his conviction. He was bailed out by Suge Knight, the co-founder of Death Row Records.

On the podcast, Pinkett Smith revealed that she visited the rapper while he was serving time on Rikers Island, and included moments from their visits in her memoir. She claimed that it was, aaone of the most painful parts of the memoir-writing process.

Seeing him there, the condition that he was in, and having to leave him there, he was in bad shape, she told Barnes and Jackson, before revealing that the All Eyez On Me rapper proposed to her during one of her visits.

So when he asked me to get married, I knew at that time that he needed somebody to do time with him - which I was going to do anyway. You aint have to marry me to do time, Im here, Pinkett Smith said.

Pinkett Smith said she viewed the proposal as Shakur looking for a support system, and not because he loved her or wanted to get married. I think that for him, he just felt like: OK, if I can tether myself, itll keep me on a trajectory, she said, noting that the marriage proposal wouldnt have amounted to anything at the end of the day.

Duane Keefe D is being held without bond

16:30 , Ariana Baio

Duane Keefe D Davis is currently being held in Clark County Detention Center without bail.

Mr Davis, 60, was initially arrested on 29 September on murder charges related to the death of prolific 90s rapper Tupac Shakur. Since then, he has been held in jail.

Mr Davis will appear before Judge Tierra Jones at 9am PT for his arraignment.

Who is Duane Keefe D Davis?

16:45 , Graeme Massie

Duane Keffe D Davis is a former Southside Compton Crips gang member and one of the last people ever to see rapper Tupac Shakur alive.

In his book, Mr Davis wrote that he spoke for the first time with federal and local authorities in 2010 about the killing.

In both the 2018 Netflix documentary Unsolved: The Tupac and Biggie Murders and in his book Compton Street Legend which he published in 2019, Keffe D claimed that his nephew Orlando Anderson fatally shot Tupac  and that he was in the car with him when he opened fire.

Tupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath his seat, he writes in the book.

It was the first and only time in my life that I could relate to the police command, Keep your hands where I can see them. Instead, Pac pulled out a strap, and thats when the fireworks started.

Mr Davis says that he was in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and had slipped the Glock pistol into the back seat where his nephew sat.

Duane Keefe D' Davis is led into the courtroom at the Regional Justice Center on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023, in Las Vegas. (AP)

He wrote that he was facing life in prison on drugs charges and agreed to speak to investigators about the Tupac murder and the killing six months later of rapper Biggie Smalls, also known as the Notorious B.I.G.

He was arrested and charged with murder with the use of a deadly weapon in the 1996 killing of the renowned rapper on the Las Vegas strip on Friday 29 September, hours after a grand jury returned an indictment against him.

Mr Davis, who Rolling Stone says spent 15 years in prison for his role running a multi-million-dollar nationwide drug empire as part of the Southside Compton Crips, says he is not worried about charges over the Tupac Shakur killing.

They want to put me in jail for life? Thats just something I got to do, Mr Davis said in a March 2023 interview with DJ Vlad.

Watch: Bodycam footage shows moment Tupac's suspected killer arrested

17:15 , Ariana Baio

Arraignment continued for two weeks

17:18 , Ariana Baio

Judge Tierra Jones continued Duane Keefe D Davis arraignment for two weeks citing his need to figure out his attorney situation, according to court reporters.

This means Mr Davis will remain in jail until two weeks from now when his new arraignment date is set.

The most bizarre conspiracy theories surrounding Tupac Shakurs murder

17:30 , Ariana Baio

Wild stories continue to circulate about the gangsta rapper, who was gunned down in a still-unsolved drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996.

Joe Sommerlad reports:

Bizarre conspiracy theories surrounding Tupac Shakurs murder

Duane Keefe D Davis claims to have attorney problems

18:00 , Ariana Baio

For the second time, Duane Keefe D Davis was unable to be arraigned because of attorney problems.

Mr Davis, who appeared in a Las Vegas courtroom on Thursday, stood before Judge Tierra Jones side-by-side with his supposed attorney Ross Goodman. However, Mr Goodman told the judge that he was unable to assert that he was representing Mr Davis and asked for a two-week delay.

The judge agreed to postpone it but requested they figure out the situation quickly given Mr Davis has been in jail awaiting the arraignment for weeks after he was initially arrested at the end of September.

Jada Pinkett Smith wants to know who called the hit on Tupac Shakur

18:30 , Ariana Baio

Jada Pinkett Smith has reacted to the recent arrest of Tupac Shakurs alleged murderer, Duane Davis, saying that for justice to feel complete, she needs to know who called the hit.

Nearly three decades after the rappers fatal killing in a drive-by shooting in 1996, Las Vegas Metro police arrested and indicted Davis on 29 September. Prosecutors claim that while he wasnt the gunman, he was the ringleader who ordered Shakurs death.

Nevada law states that you can be charged with a crime  including murder  if you aid in committing the crime.

Inga Parkel reports:

Jada Pinkett Smith wants to know who called the hit on Tupac Shakur

In photos: Duane Keefe D Davis appears in court

19:00 , Ariana Baio

Duane

Duane Keefe D Davis, 60, arrives in a Las Vegas court on October 19, 2023 (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
A repatriation flight from Texas that landed in Caracas main airport on Wednesday kicked off direct U.S. deportations to Venezuela, less than two weeks after the Biden administration announced their resumption.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flight left Harlingen, Texas, on Wednesday morning, according to FlightAware, before making a crew stop in Miami. It landed in the Simon Bolivar International Airport near Caracas in the afternoon. IAero Airways, a major ICE contractor previously known as Swift Air, was the operator, according to the flight tracker. There were 135 single adults on the flight.

The deportation flights come as the Biden administration struggles to reduce the number of Venezuelans arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. Between last October and August of this year, Customs and Border Protection registered 199,511 encounters with Venezuelan nationals, nearly 12,000 more than in all of fiscal year 2022. CBS News recently reported that a record high of some 50,000 Venezuelans had crossed the border in September alone.

The first deportation flight also took place on the one-year anniversary of the Biden administration rolling out a new parole process that allows Venezuelan nationals to temporarily come live and work in the United States, another way the federal government has tried to curb irregular migration in the region.

Tom Cartwright, an independent volunteer analyst, told the Miami Herald that it was the first direct Venezuelan repatriation he has tracked since he started monitoring ICE flights in January 2020.

The Department of Transportation barred aviation companies in May 2019 from flying cargo and passengers to and from Venezuela, following a request from a Trump-era Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who said dangerous conditions in Venezuela were risky to passengers and air crews. On Oct. 10, Homeland Security asked the federal transportation agency to allow charter flights to take Venezuelans with final deportation orders to Caracas, according to federal government records, saying that the flights would happen as soon as they were allowed.

This exemption is urgently needed to undertake one of the core statutory missions of the Department: Securing the United States borders and safeguarding the integrity of its immigration system. It would respond to an increase in migration from Venezuela that is straining immigration systems throughout the hemisphere  including our own, reads the letter from Blas Nunez-Nieto, the DHS Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy.

Nunez-Nieto said the agency would operate flights that would fly to Caracas and back to the U.S. on the same day and have security teams aboard to reduce risks. He added that the flights could be expected to happen several times a week. The Department of Transportation granted an indefinite exemption within days of receiving the letter.

READ MORE: U.S. strikes deal with Maduro government, will start deportation flights to Venezuela

On Oct. 5, Homeland Security announced the flights would resume for Venezuelan border crossers who do not establish a legal basis to remain, following an agreement with Venezuelas government and conversations with Mexico, Colombia and Panama.

Todays announcement makes clear that we are committed to strictly enforcing immigration laws and quickly removing individuals who do not avail themselves of these orderly processes and choose to cross our border unlawfully, DHS said at the time in a statement.

Immigration activists denounced the development, saying that it endangers deportees, who would be at the mercy of the Venezuelan government and conditions in the country. They also said that it contradicts another recent DHS decision that gave Temporary Protected Status to an additional half a million Venezuelans because conditions in the country were unsafe.

More than 7 million people have fled Venezuela in recent years, according to the United Nations, as its residents live with food shortages, insufficient healthcare and a crumbling infrastructure.

Human-rights groups have also documented extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and repression of opposition and journalists. The U.S. government said last year that the Maduro regime took no effective action to meaningfully identify, investigate, prosecute, or punish officials who may have committed human rights abuses or engaged in corruption.

READ MORE: U.S. to ease Venezuela sanctions if Maduro commits to fair elections this week

The deportations come as the United States considers easing economic sanctions on Venezuela if the countrys government strikes a deal with the political opposition to host free and fair elections. A Department of State spokesperson previously said that the deportations were part of a regional effort to address the historic irregular migration challenge  and limited to that issue only.

The repatriations are also part of wider efforts from the Biden administration to reduce irregular migration to the United States. The federal government has rolled out several programs to curb irregular migration, including a parole process that allows eligible Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans to come to the United States for two years.

On Wednesday, the U.S. announced a family reunification program for Ecuador, as more Ecuadorians flee cartel-related violence and illegally cross the Darien Gap, a dangerous jungle on the border of Panama and Colombia, to come to the United States.
Former University of Pennsylvania trustee Vahan Gureghian is calling for Liz Magill, the Ivy League schools president, to step down and warned the backlash from powerful donors will likely get worse over a growing uproar over how the school has dealt with allegations of antisemitism on campus.

She is negligent and not really up to the job of being the president of one of the eight or so most elite universities in the world, Gureghian, a charter-school magnate, told CNN in a phone interview on Wednesday.

A growing list of high-profile donors have pulled their funding from Penn, arguing Magill and her administration did not go far enough to condemn the Palestine Writes Literature Festival that took place last month on campus. UPenn leaders acknowledged that event included speakers with a history of making antisemitic remarks, issuing a statement ahead of the festival condemning antisemitism broadly  though not the festival specifically.

In the wake of Hamas attack on Israel, donors displeasure increased rapidly, as they argued the university wasnt sufficiently battling antisemitism on campus.

The call for Magills resignation comes after Gureghian himself stepped down from the board of trustees late last week in protest of the schools response to a Palestinian literature festival that took place last month, before the terror attacks by Hamas against Israel.

Vahan Gureghian, former University of Pennsylvania trustee, is calling for Liz Magill, the Ivy League school's president, to step down amid deepening donor backlash. - From CSMI

As a trustee, Gureghian was among the people in charge of ultimately approving Magill to become the universitys ninth president last year.

Its a gigantic operation. Some people arent up for that job. Maybe we picked the wrong person. Maybe its time for her to go. I think it is, Gureghian, who is the founder and CEO of charter school operator CSMI Consulting Group, told CNN.

Gureghian added that he doesnt know if Scott Bok, who chairs the schools board of trustees, should stay on either because he bears responsibility, too.

Donors protest with their checkbooks

The Palestine Writes festival has proven to be a lightning rod for criticism at one of Americas most prestigious universities and the stated catalyst for a series of prominent backers to halt their financial support.

Billionaire Marc Rowan, former US Ambassador Jon Huntsman, venture capitalist David Magerman and hedge fund billionaire Cliff Asness have all vowed to close their checkbooks.

People are just going to turn that spigot off. Thats a major, major thing for a university of this stature, Gureghian said. Youre going to see day after day after day major donors pulling their support at the University at Pennsylvania. It is a situation where she cant survive this.

President of the University of Pennsylvania M. Elizabeth Magill - Shutterstock

The tipping point for Gureghian was billionaire Ronald Lauders letter, first reported by CNN, to Magill earlier this week. In that letter, Lauder, a prominent Penn backer, revealed he made a special visit to Philadelphia to try to persuade Magill to cancel the Palestine Writes festival and two subsequent phone calls in that effort.

I told you that those invited to the event had a history of not just strong anti-Israel bias, but outright antisemitism. You were already aware of much of this, Lauder wrote in the letter.

Gureghian argues Magill should have gone to the board of trustees at that point to seek their advice on whether to hold the Palestine Writes festival.

It was a lay-up for her to find out if this was going to be okay. You dont need to be president of the year to figure that out, Gureghian said, adding that Magill should for sure resign. Liz has been around the block. This is not her first rodeo. But apparently Liz is not ready for this job.

Debate over free speech, antisemitism

Magill was not only facing pressure from Lauder and other opponents of the Palestine Writes festival. There were also vocal backers of the event, including even some members of the Jewish community.

Days before the festival was scheduled to begin on Sept. 22, dozens of Jewish members of the UPenn community wrote to Magill to express their enthusiasm for the event and even criticized her condemnation of antisemitism. Three dozen members of the UPenn faculty also wrote a letter in student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian to support the Palestine Writes festival.

Organizers of the Palestine Writes festival denied that it embraced antisemitism, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Asked about Gureghians criticism, UPenn referred CNN to a statement Magill issued on Tuesday saying the school has a moral responsibility to combat antisemitism and to educate our community to recognize and reject hate in all its forms.

In a new message on Wednesday, Magill addressed campus demonstrations that are coming at a time when many members of our community are fearful and experiencing tremendous pain.

Hateful speech has no place at Penn. No place. I categorically condemn hateful speech that denigrates others as contrary to our values, Magill said. In this tragic moment, we must respect the pain of our classmates and colleagues and recognize that our speech and actions have the power to both harm and heal our community. We must choose healing, resisting those who would divide us and instead respect and care for one another.

Bok, who chairs UPenns board of trustees and serves as CEO of investment bank Greenhill & Co., said in a statement on Monday that dozens of current and former UPenn trustees gathered for a pair of virtual conversations in recent days to discuss the situation and hear from Magill.

The unanimous sense of those gathered was that President Magill and her existing University leadership team are the right group to take the University forward, Bok said.

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The United States is easing sanctions on Venezuela after the South American country's government and opposition agreed to have next year's election monitored by international observers.

Sanctions will be eased on Venezuela's oil, gas and gold sectors.

The next election in Venezuela has been scheduled for the second half of next year.

Other sanctions imposed over the suppression of protests and the erosion of democracy remain in place.

Washington has cautioned that the relaxation could be reversed if the electoral pact collapses.

A new general license issued by the US treasury department authorised Venezuela, which had been under hefty sanctions since 2019, to produce and export oil to its chosen markets for the next six months.

No time limit has been specified regarding the gold sector.

The US warned Venezuela that they must "define a specific timeline and process for the expedited reinstatement of all candidates" by the end of November, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

"All who want to run for president should be allowed the opportunity," he said, while calling for the release of "all wrongfully detained US nationals and Venezuelan political prisoners".

The deal between the Venezuelan government and opposition was signed in Barbados on Tuesday.

The agreement contains 12 points, which include promises to give all candidates access to public and private media, and to guarantee their free and safe movement throughout the country.

The two sides have also agreed to update the voter registries, both inside and outside of the country, in order to ensure that the millions of Venezuelans who have emigrated can exercise their right to vote.

But the two opposition and the government disagree on whether the agreement allows for the exclusion of opposition frontrunner Maria Corina Machado.

Maria Corina Machado is running in the primary to choose a candidate to run against President Maduro

The administration of Donald Trump imposed harsh sanctions on Venezuela to punish President Nicolas Maduro's government following his 2018 re-election, which the US has described as "illegitimate".

But engagement between the two countries has improved under President Joe Biden.

The US has a vested interest in the crisis in Venezuela easing as the dire state of the economy in the Andean country has driven more than seven million Venezuelans to emigrate, with many heading to the US.

Venezuela also has the world's largest proven oil reserves and a scaling back of US sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry would benefit both countries economically.
PANAMA CITY  For Olivia Cooley, her husband, Tommy, not only was the funniest man she ever met, but also a "natural-born leader."

Tommy Cooley, a pillar in the Bay County community, died on Oct. 12 at age 85. He was a businessman as well as a former chairman of the Bay County Commission, Bay County Chamber of Commerce, Bay Medical Hospital Board of Trustees, Military Affairs Committee and Port Authority.

Tommy Cooley (right), a pillar in the Bay County community, died Oct. 12 at age 85 years old. Here he is seen with his wife of 50 years, Olivia, and their children, Tommy Cooley and Elizabeth Nelson.

"Tommy lived a very full life," Olivia Cooley said. "He was the funniest man I ever met. ... He was the master of one-liners, and everybody always talked about his wit and how funny he was. We could always find humor in anything.

"He had a very positive outlook on life. He was a joy to be around."

Tommy Cooley was born on Feb. 24, 1938, in Alford. His family moved to Bay County when he was 3 years old. He attended St. Andrew School, Jinks Middle School and Bay High School, where he was president of the sophomore and junior classes, as well as president of student government.

After graduating high school in 1937, Tommy attended the University of Florida and served in the Army Reserves.

"He grew up very humble, and he was the last of eight (children), and they didn't have much money," Olivia Cooley said. "He just felt like God had blessed him beyond measure. He felt like it was not a choice, but it was an obligation to repay that debt to society and to those less fortunate.

"He did it with joy and gratitude. He never took credit for any of his accomplishments. ... I think it's one of the things I love most about him."

According to his obituary, Tommy Cooley was a self-man man who at the age of only 10 began selling crabs and cleaning fish at the St. Andrews Marina. A true "a jack of all trades" with a lengthily resume, he established a handful of local businesses, including Cooley Management.

Information from Olivia notes he husband "always had his priorities in order:" God, family and his community. He was a member of First Baptist Church of Panama City.

He and Olivia were married 50 years. They had two children and three grandchildren.

Remembering Michael: 'How far we've come': Looking back on Hurricane Michael 5 years after it hit Bay County

Olivia noted that one of the things Tommy was most proud of was the work he did during the decade he served as chairman of the Bay Medical Hospital Board of Trustees. An administration building was named after him at the hospital, which now is known as Ascension Sacred Heart Bay.

"He really believed that all people, regardless of their status in life, should have basic health care, and he worked very hard for that for 10 years as chairman," Olivia said. "In recognition of that, they named the administration building after him. It was a huge honor ... and he never forgot that."

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Bay County pillar Tommy Cooley dies at 85
During one of the busiest periods in the still early 2024 presidential campaign, White House hopefuls are making a civic pilgrimage to New Hampshire.

The Republican contenders are chatting with people at diners, coffee shops and bookstores. Some are trekking to the state capitol in Concord to sign their name at a historic desk to be on the ballot.

Others are sharing their messages through several town halls and other stops, including a GOP dinner that happens once every eight years.

Voters have a message, too: some of you need to drop out.

"Its still early. There's still a lot on that stage," said Laura Williams, a registered Republican from Rochester, N.H., who plans to vote in the primary. "Let some weed themselves out, and those that rise to the top, you know, well wait it out and see."

Whether Granite State natives or political tourists traveling across states lines to get a closer glimpse at the candidates, many are wishing for fewer options after what some called a disastrous second primary debate hosted by the Republican National Committee in California.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the Seacoast Media Group and USA TODAY Network 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Town Hall Forum held in the historic Exeter Town Hall in Exeter, New Hampshire. The entrepreneur spoke to prospective New Hampshire voters about issues during the hour-long forum.

"Frankly, I was put off by all their debate performances in the last one. They were all talking over one another," Vaughn Annis, a retired chemical engineer, told USA TODAY.

"The field was too crowded on that stage to get anything as a meaningful debate."

Annis, a registered Republican who hails from Henniker, N.H., hasn't made up his mind on a presidential candidate, but he is giving Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott closer attention.

A candidate he would like to see exit this race is former Donald Trump, the frontrunner with a commanding lead.

"Where I have voted in the past for him, I think Trump needs to step aside and let others move forward, younger people in the party that aren't as controversial," Annis said. "I think that would be helpful for not only the party but also the country."

Trump rules, but N.H. primary remains fluid

A USA TODAY/Boston Globe/Suffolk University survey of likely voters showed Trump at 49% with Haley, a former South Carolina governor, the closest rival at 19%.

The non-Trump voters say they are hoping one of the other Republicans can break through, but they are by no means certain that's possible.

Larry Provencher, a semi-retired artist in Exeter, N.H., fears Trump may be the Republican nominee, adding how he believes the former president "just lost a few upstairs."

Former US President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Windham High School in Windham, New Hampshire, on August 8, 2023.

He said when interacting with voters, the other candidates need to share their vision in detail and forget about the frontrunner.

"You know, like, Chris Christie, I think his main goal is to get Trump out. I want to hear what else you're gonna do," Provencher said.

Those in the anti-Trump camp said they are hoping if some of the other candidates exit, they will unite behind a single challenger. In the most recent example, former Rep. Will Hurd, of Texas, left the race and endorsed Haley.

Haley, a former UN ambassador, has surged in the New Hampshire poll ahead DeSantis, the governor of Florida who was once held as chief alternative to Trump.

Norman Stuart, a veteran and retired machine shop worker, attended a Haley event at the Rochester American Legion last week. He was impressed with her, but he remains undecided.

Oct 12, 2023; Exeter, NH, USA; Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks during the Seacoast Media Group and USA TODAY Network 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Town Hall Forum held in the historic Exeter Town Hall in Exeter, New Hampshire. The former Governor of South Carolina and former United States Ambassador to the United Nations spoke to prospective New Hampshire voters about issues during the hour-long forum.

Although Stuart said he was considering several of the candidates, who he declined to name, he stated emphatically: "I did not go to Wolfeboro to see Trump."

That provides a glimmer of light for the other Republicans, who hold out hope that despite Trump's strong standing in the polls, there are some signs the race is fluid.

Those surveyed in the Suffolk poll, for instance, are split 48%-44% when asked whether Trump's nomination was inevitable or whether some other candidate could win the nomination.

Nearly 4 in 10 said they might change their minds before the January primary.

But the Trump base is fiercely loyal, with 84% saying their minds were made up to back him and just 15% saying they might switch to someone else.

I know a lot of people don't like him. I don't like his personality. I think it stinks," said Ronald Sassi, of Chichester, N.H., who wants Trump to win. "But he doesn't have any lobbyists telling him what he has to be or beholden to them."

Independents giving single-digit candidates a shot

Jo-Ann Jacob, an independent from Exeter, N.H., doesn't want to rush in making a choice before she gets a chance to hear from more candidates.

Several of the Republican contenders are "too much" in the sense they brag about themselves or insult others. She prefers the more somber style of North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum or former Vice President Mike Pence, who she describes as more "down to Earth."

Both men are in the basement of the polling at 1%, according to the Suffolk University survey.

Other independent voters, who can participate in the New Hampshire GOP primary, said they aren't sure what to make of the current field yet.

At this point, I'm really unsure, Lynne Chase, a registered nurse who lives in Grantham, N.H., told USA TODAY.

Chase, who identifies as an independent, said she has "deep concerns" about the country's partisan divide, and how, "this is the pool that we have to select from."

"That's why I choose to remain a middle ground voter, she said.

Other voters said they are drawn toward Haley and Burgum because of their experience and record as their state's chief executive.

When you govern a state, you have a lot of experience in governing within a structure of government, Patricia Squires, a Republican from Wolfeboro, N.H., told USA TODAY.

Distaste of a Biden-Trump rematch

Many voters shared how they aren't crazy about the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024, but don't see a way to change that probability.

Rachel McKaig, a Democrat, said there is a general frustration that President Joe Biden will be the partys likely nominee come next November.

I genuinely wish we had another candidate, said McKaig, a University of New Hampshire graduate. "I just can't see him doing anything amazing over the next four years, because he hasn't done anything amazing in the past four years.

Republican presidential candidate Doug Burgum greets supporters after the Seacoast Media Group and USA TODAY Network 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Town Hall Forum.

Given its status as the "first-in-the-nation primary," New Hampshire draws a fair amount of out-of-state visitors.

Those voters said they were impressed with lesser-known candidates they had a chance to see in-person, but admit there is an underlying pessimism that makes it hard for others to take that contender seriously.

I just know that you look at the people who are ascending because that tends to continue," said John Sweeny, a retired appellate judge who came to New Hampsire from Hudson Valley in New York.

"The ones who were staying flat  it would take a miracle for something to happen that they're going to say, Oh, wow, you're wonderful. I didn't notice you before. Let me pay attention to you now," he added. "It just doesn't happen."

Shawn Rieke, a retired technician from Johnstown, Colo. who is vacationing in New England, waited outside the old State House for a glimpse of DeSantis after he filed.

People may not like Trump's "crudeness" or the personal attacks he makes, but they agree with him on many issues, he said. They also think the criminal charges against him are politically motivated.

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis greeting supporters outside of the New Hampshire Secretary of State offices after he filed paperwork at the New Hampshire State House to get on the New Hampshire 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot.

"At this point it looks like it's pretty much locked up," Rieke said. "It is what it is."

Republican Rachel Hannah Swift, 46, who comes from Hagerstown, Maryland said no one is happy with the prospect of a Biden-Trump re-match, and she has a unique response: Running for president herself.

As her colorful car blared pop music outside of the old State House, Swift said: "These politicians are kinda boring...They don't have a lot going on. I'm going to beat both of them."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Thin out the 2024 field? N.H. voters want more GOP candidates to exit
An Indiana woman was found dead at her home after months-old texts revealing a plot to kill her late husband came to light, according to investigators.

Deputies with the Jackson County Sheriffs Office responded to Marsha Allens home, off of State Highway 135, on Oct. 16 after family members called to say they couldnt get in contact with her, according to a news release from Sheriff Rick Meyer posted on Facebook. Allen was found dead at her home with no signs of violence, Meyer said.

Allens death comes as she and her daughter, Ashley Jones, 29, are under scrutiny by investigators, according to the release.

Nearly a month earlier, on Sept. 19, there was a break-in at Allens house, the sheriffs office said. Deputies investigated and determined two men were responsible, but they committed the burglary at the direction of and with the assistance of [Allens] daughter Ashley Jones, the release said.

Investigators seized Allens phone and found text messages between her and Jones talking about killing her husband, Harold Allen, with poison in December 2022, the sheriffs office said.

Deputies returned with a search warrant and took more electronic devices as evidence, according to the release.

Investigators didnt say why Jones asked the two men to burglarize her mothers home, but during an Oct. 17 interview with officers, she said she had purchased a chemical online called ethylene glycol, which she gave to her mother. Jones said she didnt poison her mothers husband, according to the sheriffs office.

Allen slipped the ethylene glycol in her husbands drink, Jones told investigators.

Officials didnt provide a motive for the killing, but the investigation is ongoing.

Deputies arrested Jones on Wednesday, Oct. 18 on charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and burglary, the release said.

Jackson County is roughly 50 miles south of Indianapolis.

Trail of blood leads cops to severed head in bathtub of Texas home, police say

Co-workers got odd texts from womans phone before ex-boyfriend killed her, cops say

Mysterious package shows up at Wisconsin home  then armed men break in, cops say

Customer shoots family-owned car dealership worker to death over pricing, Texas cops say
A woman identified as an employee of New Yorks court system was arrested after approaching the front of a courtroom and calling out for Donald Trump during the 12th day of a civil trial alleging the former president and his business empire fraudulently inflated his net worth and assets for years.

The woman, whose name had not yet been released, disrupted the hearing on 18 October after approaching the defence table where Mr Trump was seated with his attorneys, according to a statement from a New York courts spokesperson shared with The Independent.

She began yelling out to Mr Trump indicating she wanted to assist him, according to the statement.

New York state court officers escorted her out of New York Superior Court Judge Arthur Engorons courtroom on the third floor of the building on Centre Street, and she was placed into a squad car on an adjoining street.

She was charged with contempt of court in the second degree for disrupting a court proceeding, according to a courts spokesperson. She also has been placed on immediate administration leave pending an investigation and is barred from entering other court facilities until further notice, the statement added.

Earlier on Wednesday, the former president tossed his hands up in frustration and spoke aloud from the defence table to his lawyers, drawing a warning from the judge to stop commenting during witness testimony.

A woman was escorted from New York Superior Court and charged with contempt of court on 18 October after briefly interrupting a civil trial stemming from a lawsuit targeting Donald Trumps business empire. (REUTERS)

Mr Trump, now appearing at the trial for a second consecutive day, returned to the courthouse in lower Manhattan on Tuesday as the trial entered its third week, hearing testimony from former Trump Organization executives and accountants, real estate appraisers and others who worked closely with the former presidents chief executives on years of financial statements that are central to the case.

VIDEO: Arrested woman who approached the front of the courtroom amid proceedings today in Donald Trumps fraud trial. Officers would not immediately confirm the charge. pic.twitter.com/L5EtKLugKL  Frank G. Runyeon (@frankrunyeon) October 18, 2023

Last month, Judge Engoron granted partial judgment in favour of New York Attorney General Letitia James in her sweeping lawsuit alleging the former president, his adult sons and chief associates fraudulently inflated his wealth and assets to secure lucrative financial benefits.

The judge issued a gag order against Mr Trump earlier this month after his Truth Social posts and courthouse statements aired false claims about a chief clerk. An appellate court judge also rejected the former presidents attempt to halt the trial altogether while he appeals Judge Engorons order against his business empire from last month.

Michael Cohen, a star witness for Ms Jamess team, was expected to testify this week, drawing speculation that Mr Trumps appearance was intended as an in-person face-off between the former president and his former attorney. His testimony was postponed due to an unrelated medical procedure.

The frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination has characterised the case, as well as the four criminal cases and an upcoming defamation trial against him, as a Democratic conspiracy to keep him out of office.

During breaks, the former president has raged against the judge, Ms James and his political rivals to news cameras on either side of a hallway directly outside the courtroom, and his campaign has amplified his narrative of political persecution to raise millions of dollars with a flood of daily fundraising messages that mention the trial.

At the base of the steps of the courthouse on Wednesday, Ms James called Mr Trumps appearances performative.

Inside the courtroom, her team accused Mr Trumps attorneys of performing for the press with a series of combative questions to a former real estate appraiser whose testimony suggested that the former president and his chief associates made up the valuations of his properties at the centre of the case.

Following Doug Larsons apparently damning testimony one day earlier, attorneys for Mr Trump on Wednesday alleged he committed perjury.

See whats happened? The government lied, the former president said in remarks to reporters outside the courtroom. They just lie. They didnt reveal all of the information that they had  They didnt reveal all the evidence that made me totally innocent of anything that they say.

Following Mr Larsons testimony, state attorneys introduced Jack Weisselberg, the son of the Trump Organisations longtime chief financial officer, who was convicted last year on separate fraud crimes connected to the business and was recently released from prison.

His son Jack  testifying one week after his fathers moment on the witness stand  arranged financing for Mr Trump while working as an executive at Ladder Capital. Those arrangements involved Mr Trumps top financial executive working directly with his son who handled financing for some of the most well-known properties in the former presidents real estate portfolio.

Ms Jamess lawsuit hasnt alleged wrongdoing in that relationship, but his testimony and evidence obtained by the attorney generals office appears to offer a window into the financial dealings of Mr Trump and his associates, including loans for marquee properties Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street.

In one email to different Ladder Capital executives about commercial mortgage-backed securities loans in 2012, Allen Weisselberg wrote that Mr Trump was nervous about Trump Tower rent for one of the tenants, Gucci, becoming public.

As he tends to embellish from time to time, he wrote.
By Kim Sun-ae

This summer I participated in an improvisation dance workshop for those who are interested in the climate crisis. The workshop was a precious opportunity for various people  from a 10-year-old boy to a woman in her 60s  to be able to gather and dance together.

Improvisational dance shows varied aspects of life. One person moves like a leaf or a young branch in the breeze, another moves like a big tree and another like a flame or a river. Diverse people create harmony with one another, which leads to beautiful moments.

In the workshop, I danced with an energetic partner whose movements were dynamic. With the lively partner, I could also dance freely, feeling the energy in me. Sharing the dance, I could see her movements affect my movements and vice versa. All beings influence one another. All of us are interconnected. Maybe that is why we can keep making efforts to take care of the Earth.

Due to unavoidable sea level rise, risks for costal ecosystems, people and infrastructure will continue to increase beyond 2100, according to Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The situation is very serious. Nevertheless, this does not mean that our efforts to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are not meaningful.

The report says: Sea level rise is unavoidable for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt, and sea level will remain elevated for thousands of years. However, deep, rapid and sustained GHG emissions reductions would limit further sea level rise acceleration and projected long-term sea level rise commitment. Clearly recognizing the seriousness of the current state, we need to take every possible action. Our every action is important and will affect the present and future.

The government is planning to build new local airports, although their construction and operation will result in the destruction of the ecosystem where various plants and animals live, and a lot of GHG emissions. We need policies that can prevent the worsening of the climate crisis and enable the peaceful coexistence of people and other living things. And to be able to implement such policies, reforming the political system is necessary. But sometimes that seems too difficult.

Nonetheless, it gave me strength to dance and share thoughts and feelings with brave people who are taking climate action, including young climate activists and people who are joining in a campaign against the construction of a new airport on Busan's Gadeok Island.

After the workshop, I took part in the Climate Justice March in Seoul on Sept. 23. I was glad to meet some of the participants in the dance workshop there. I marched with one of them, dancing together.

If we continue acting together for a better future, remembering that there are people who care for our beautiful, one and only planet, we will be able to make big changes.

Kim Sun-ae (blog.naver.com/everythingchanges) wrote "Old Potato, New Potato" and translated "Little Lord Fauntleroy."
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS. On 19 October , the 61st Meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC) Economic, Commercial and Financial Affairs Committee was held in Yerevan, the Armenian Parliament's press service said in a readout.

The Meeting was attended by delegates from Armenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine.

The topic Strengthening Parliamentary Cooperation in the Field of Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Assistance in the BSEC Region was at the core of the discussions.

The meeting was chaired by the Member of the RA NA Delegation to PABSEC Sergey Bagratyan, who is also the Vice-Chairman of the abovementioned Committee .

Welcoming the guests, the RA NA Vice President touched upon the unblocking of the road, stressing that Armenia can become crossroads, connecting East with the West, stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean , North with South.

In Armenia we called this project Crossroads of Peace. I hope that the member countries would like to be part of this Crossroads of Peace and have their contribution to its establishment and development. Unblocking the roads is very important for the Republic of Armenia, because our country has been under blockade by Azerbaijan and Turkey for 30 years, the NA Vice President underlined.

The RA NA Vice President Hakob Arshakyan underscored that the National Assembly of Armenia is interested in strengthening cooperation within the framework of the Parliamentary Assembly. He mentioned with regret the fact that we continue to clash with security serious challenges in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation region.

In this context the NA Vice President reminded about illegal blockade of Lachin Corridor , after the inhumane siege of the peaceful Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan unleashed another large-scale military aggression against those people on September 19. As a result, there have been hundreds of killed and wounded, t he whole population of NagornoKarabakh (more than 100. 000 people) was forcibly displaced and fled to Armenia.

It is extremely sad, that despite of decisions of the International Court of Justice, resolutions of the European Parliament, PACE and the parliaments of individual countries, appeals of executive bodies, the international community, we all were unable to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani actions are not confined to Nagorno Karabakh but extend to the sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia: In 2021 and then in September 2022, Azerbaijan launched another unprovoked military aggression along Armenia's eastern and southeastern borders, invading and occupying sovereign Armenian territories, some of which remain under Azerbaijan's illegal control. Azerbaijans approach is to impose its preferred solutions on Armenia through force , the NA Vice President recorded.

According to him, for over three years Azerbaijan has refused to return Armenian prisoners of war and other civilians. To conviction of the NA Deputy Speaker, all these aggressive actions of Azerbaijan endanger the prospect of peace and stability in the region. The situation created by the use of force and aggression against Armenia cannot become a basis for stable and lasting peace.

Touching upon the importance of the topic of the committee meeting, Hakob Arshakyan noted that the issue of prevention of the threat of natural disasters and provision of emergency assistance is more than relevant for the Black Sea region. This is evidenced by the devastating earthquake that took place in Turkey in February of this year, as well as the forest fires and water disasters that some countries of the Black Sea region faced. In this context he underlined that the Republic of Armenia did not remain aloof in sending a rescue team and humanitarian cargo to Turkey.

In his welcoming speech, the PABSEC Vice-President, the Head of the RA NA Delegation to the structure, the Deputy Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs Babken Tunyan also referred to the serious security challenges that our country is facing. The Head of the Armenian delegation reminded about the illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor and the irreversible consequences of another large-scale aggression of Azerbaijan, the policy of ethnic cleansing. He underlined that the whole population of Nagorno-Karabakh was forcibly displaced and fled to Armenia, adding that Armenia faced an emergency situation in accepting and providing asylum to our compatriots. Babken Tunyan described this situation as a humanitarian disaster. To his assessment, the belligerent rhetoric and destructive approach of one member state of the organization towards another pose security threat to the entire region, undermining every attempt to normalize relations.  Despite the difficulties and challenges, Armenia remains committed to promote the efforts to establish peace in the region,  the MP underscored.

Touching upon the topic under discussion, Babken Tunyan highlighted the importance to strengthen the parliamentary cooperation in the field of disaster risk reduction and emergency relief and the enhancement of the legal framework for effective assistance and risk management.

As our region is often facing various natural and man-made disasters, the prevention and neutralization of consequences of which is often not possible only at the national level. I am sure that the deepening of cooperation at the regional level in this area can be very effective,  the RA NA representative stated.

The participants of the meeting were welcomed by the Deputy Secretary General in Charge of Organisational Matters of the PABSEC Miltiadis Makrygiannis and the Head of the PABSEC Serbian Delegation, the PABSEC Vice-President Igor Becic.

Since there was no quorum at the meeting, discussions were organized, but the decisions will be made during the General Assembly to be held in the near future. Items on the agenda were discussed, regional issues were touched upon.

The participants of the meeting exchanged ideas on the draft of the report Strengthening Parliamentary Cooperation in the Field of Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Assistance in the BSEC Region. The threats to people's lives and safety due to natural and man-made disasters and the necessity to prevent them and the importance of the joint struggle of the PABSEC member states against them were addressed. It was noted that the PABSEC should be able to ensure legal bases for applying stable and complex mechanisms of struggle in this area. The features of the national legislations in this field were presented, the importance of the methods of combating disasters in war situations was touched open .

The member of the RA NA D elegation to the PABSEC, the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs Gevorg Papoyan emphasized the response of the PABSEC states in emergency situations, assessment of capacities and relating t o them. The MP presented in detail the steps implemented in this field in our country both at the legislative level and within the framework of the Government's activity programme. To his assessment, due to geographical and climatic conditions, Armenia is exposed to many risks, there are also technological factories, the safety of which is important as well. The RA NA deputy referred to the legislative regulations of the sector, the actions arising from the Government's programme for 2021-2026, highlighted the steps taken in the direction of preventing man-made disasters.

 It is important for us to be a participant in prevention and elimination of the consequences both at the international and regional level. The last example in this regard was the earthquake that happened in Turkiye and Syria, in which Armenia took part to the maximum extent as a supporting country in the elimination of the consequences. The aim of all the states is one, to prevent not only through criteria, but also through raising people' s awareness,  Gevorg Papoyan mentioned.

Other items on the agenda were discussed, information was presented about the activity of the organization of the PABSEC. The next Committee meeting is designed to be held in Kyiv, ahead of the plenary meeting.
I did a double-take last week upon seeing the Wall Street Journals belated rave for what the newspapers art writer, Lance Esplund, described as an enchanting, community-curated show of Pueblo pottery (Grounded in Clay, to June 4, 2024). It had opened at the Metropolitan Museum some three months before the WSJs review appeared.

As CultureGrrl readers know, I had serious reservations (no pun intended) about how that show of Native American works was being organized: The mishmash that I saw at the July 13 press preview confirmed my doubts. To me, the show represented an abdication of the museums curatorial responsibilities.

Heres how I had described my misgivings in my June 16 blog post, in advance of my actually seeing the show:

According to the press release for that upcoming show (July 14, 2023June 4, 2024), members of a newly established Pueblo Pottery Collective, described as a group of more than 60 individual members of 21 tribal communities, will lead the selection of objects for Grounded in Clay (as the Mets Pueblo pottery show is titled): Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

I noted that I had authored several WSJ reviews of museum displays of Native American material over the years [including: here, here, here and here], and I fully understood the need to incorporate Native American voices and perspectives in exhibitions of their work. Such consultation is essential. The Met in 2020 had (belatedly) hired its first ever full-time curator in Native American Art (as described by director Max Hollein, quoted in the Mets announcement) and I asserted (in my advance post) that Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purepecha) should have been the curator for Pueblo Pottery.

Patricia Marroquin Norby, speaking at the Mets Grounded in Clay press preview

At right: Jar by Lonnie Vigil, Nambe Pueblo, 1995, School for Advanced Research Collection

Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

As described on the Mets website, the show was curated by the Pueblo Pottery Collective, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum [emphasis added]. That collective was organized by the not-for-profit, Santa Fe-based School for Advanced Research (SAR) and the Vilcek Foundationa New York-based nonprofit established in 2000 by Jan and Marica Vilcek, immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia, according to their foundations website. By my count (from the illustrated checklist), some 43 of the objects in the show are from SARs collection; 10 from the Vilcek Foundation, five from other sources. As Norby revealed at the press preview, all of the shows texts were written by the Pueblo Pottery Collective.

Heres what SARs website says about the Met projects Methodology:

The Grounded in Clay project aligns with the tenets of the SAR Guidelines for Collaboration, which call for a more equitable exchange and partnership between communities of origin and those who steward museum collections. This exhibition applies the SAR guidelines by acknowledging and embracing the complexities of community-based work. Community curators chose one or two works for this exhibition and wrote about their pieces in whatever format or style they wished. SAR staff offered editing, oral history recording, or transcription assistance as needed. Participants were compensated for choosing a piece, writing an entry for the catalogue, and working on the overall project. From that point, staff worked with the group to organize the chosen pieces into themes defined by the Pueblo Pottery Collective. Although most Pueblo pottery exhibitions focus on historical timelines and Western-derived concepts of fine art, this exhibition focuses on the lesser-known and intangible aspects of pottery that are intrinsic to the art and enduring cultures of Pueblo people.

Two of the objects in the show flout the exhibitions title: Theyre landscape paintings (not pottery) by Mateo Romero and Michael Namingha, respectively (L to R). The Mets press release describes them as a diptych by artists and members of the Pueblo Pottery Collective:

Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

To my eyes, Grounded in Clay is an odd assortment of objects of mixed quality, many in compromised conditionfalling short of the Mets usual goal of presenting the finest examples of world culture. A case in point: the Mets label that tried to make the best of this homely clay cooking jar (ca. 1880-1900) from the San Felipe Pueblo:

Heres the accompanying text:

And heres an odd assortment in a nearby display case:

Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

Still, there were some pieces that did resonate with me, including the pot belowa Melon Bowl that was among the objects featured in the Mets signature image for its exhibition:

Helen Naranjo Shupla, Santa Clara, Melon Bowl, before 1985.

Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

As I had noted here, it resembles a modestly priced melon jar that had caught my eye during my vacation visiting Southwestern pueblos many years ago:

Melon Bowl, Jemez Pueblo, N.M. Signed: Pauline Romero

The CultureGrrl Collection

That said, I felt a palpable sense of relief when I crossed the threshold from this hit-or-miss agglomeration to the more consistently satisfying array of gifts to the Met from the Charles & Valerie Diker Collectiona long-term installation consisting primarily of promised gifts, donations, and loans from that couple, accompanied by a few pieces from other patrons.

That said, questions have been raised about the collections provenance.

One of the Diker Collections guest curators at the Met was Gaylord Torrence, about whom I had written in reviewing for the WSJ (here) the Nelson-Atkins Museums reinstallation of its sizable Native American collection.

Here are a couple of Diker highlights by preeminent Native American potters, who are well represented in museum collections of indigenous American art:

Maria & Julian Martinez (San Ildefonso), Black-on-Black Jar, 1919-20

Nampeyo (Hopi-Tewa), Polacca Polychrome Water Jar, ca. 1859-1900

Photos by Lee Rosenbaum

While community input matters, curatorial standards should still hold sway in deciding what merits display at our countrys preeminent art museums.
Indias much-maligned law enforcement agencies are rendering yeomans service to the nation on the China front.

Sixty-one years have gone since October 20, 1962, when Communist Chinas founder and overlord launched the Sino-Indian war, with the primary objective of humiliating Indias first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, known across the world as an apostle of peace, non-violence, harmony and a live-and-let-live practitioner of the post-Western imperialism era of the Third World. As a disciple and the chosen successor of Mahatma Gandhi, there could not be a bigger contrast between Nehru and Mao, who was held responsible for millions of deaths on his long march to power in Beijing in 1949.

Democratic India was a symbol of hope to the newly-free nations of Asia and Africa, while the Peoples Republic of China was a pariah state led by a hostile muscleman of murderous ideology, who had fought against the United Nations in Korea and had brutally invaded and conquered an independent and peaceful Tibet, driving the Dalai Lama into exile in India. The contrast between New Delhis democratic PM and the Dragons autocratic ruler was so stark that Mao had to prove himself as a true Son of Heaven and look beyond the Hwang Ho valley into the sub-Himalayan terrain.

In 1962s aftermath, Maos evil designs are now in the public domain. The archives reveal that a meeting took place in Beijing between Mao and a group of Naxal leaders from India in December 1967. Mao would have ended the border dispute with India by returning the land south of the McMahon Line if a peoples government had come to power in New Delhi. This and many such suggestions were made by the Communist Party of Chinas head, who claimed he didnt want the 90,000 sq km but for the capitalist and feudal government in India.

Li Danhui, of East China Norma University, who had access to the Chinese archives, reveals this little-known important piece of history: Because India is an imperialist, feudal and bureaucrat-capitalist government, China had to fight for every inch of land and had been using dilatory tactics in dealing with the issue. Clearly, the objective was to destroy Nehru and bring him down.

As the current core leader of the CPC, Chairman Xi Jinping, is a self-proclaimed re-incarnate of Mao, it would be useful to peruse what his demigod (Mao Zedong) had to say in 1938, with utter contempt about the political systems which didnt toe, or fall in line with, the CPCs autocratic brand of criminality: Chinas war of resistance was an extraordinary spectacle in the history of warfare. It would in the future influence not only the fate of China and Japan; it would also surge forward the progress of all countries, and in particular of oppressed peoples such as India, to march forward (Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume II).

The point today is that due to the monumental folly of a sizeable chunk of gullible and ignorant Indians obsession with China and addiction to all things Chinese, the ship of the Indian State is slowly but steadily sailing on to the doomed rocks. If territory was the prime target of Mao in 1962, multiple lip-smacking lucrative economic, commercial and money-spinning ventures are on CPC boss Xi Jinpings radar in 2023.

Today, the Xi brigades main mission is to ensure that Delhi must be destroyed. Virtually all countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, big and small, are being lured to pay obeisance at Mr Xis court. One of the key exceptions is India, which stands defiant despite a humongous $100 billion-plus trade deficit, the erosion of automobile industry caused by the CPCs companies, humiliating and irreversible territorial losses, the addiction of Indias cost-conscious customers to cheap

Chinese-made phones and a variety of electronic devices and the destruction of industry by a sizeable number of import-loving traders who collude and connive with CPC-sponsored agent provocateurs in the guise of merchants.

Despite this gloomy scenario, however, theres also glimmer of hope. Indias much-maligned law enforcement agencies are rendering yeomans service to the nation on the China front. Court filings by the Enforcement Directorate reveals that Rs 1.07 trillion (about $13 billion) have been remitted outside India by Chinese company Vivo to trading companies controlled by its Chinese parent masking layers, intended to escape the Government of Indias notice. While no profits are shown from 2014-15 to 2019-20 in statutory filings and no income-tax paid, huge sums siphoned off out of India, in July 2022 alone, the ED estimated a figure of Rs 624.7 billion ($7.5 billion) remitted abroad, mainly to China.

Vivo, however, is just the tip of the CPCs criminal gang iceberg in India. Although the Indian media does occasionally refer to chronic Chinese shenanigans, a Western media outfit put it much more starkly: Inside the deadly loan apps that blackmail with nudes: the Chinese-masterminded blackmail scam is using instant loan apps to entrap and humiliate people across India. The Chinese criminals not only make billions but are also killing Indians inside their homes. How will the CPCs overlord react if the same thing happened in reverse direction?

At a time when Mr Xi is being assiduously wooed and re-cultivated by German carmakers and other European businessmen desperate to boost exports and their governments, and a battery of President Joe Bidens Cabinet members and senior officials are making repeated pilgrimages to the Dragons court in Beijing, will the arrest of Vivos top Chinese executives and their associates in India re-ignite the flames? Will the Chinese make renewed attempts to hammer New Delhi with multiple assaults to cripple its finances, economy, trade, commerce and hit it hard diplomatically in front of its South Asian neighbours through more posturing at the sub-Himalayan frontier?

At a time when President Biden himself is looking ahead to a face-to-face meeting with President Xi at the landmark Apec summit in the United States next month, India is rocking the Chinese boat by arresting their nationals for illegally making billions for a Beijing state enterprise run by the CPC as its personal fiefdom! This, when Mr Xi considers hes at the cusp of determining and shaping the destiny of mankind along with Mr Biden in San Francisco in November?

The strategy of Xi Jinping is clear. He feels he is a worthy torch-bearer of the late Chairman Mao to take on India because thats the last bastion standing in the way between the Dragon Emperor and a large part of the world falling head over heels at his feet!
Today's news: Pakistan aims to repatriate all Iranian and Afghan nationals illegally present in its territory; Student shot by Hong Kong police in 2019 protests convicted in court; Japan cuts deficit by more than 75%; In Minsk Lukasenko negotiates with Tehran's top leadership to deliver assault drones; After the arrest of the first three, Aleksej Naval'nyj's fourth lawyer, Aleksandr Fedulov, leaves Russia.

ISRAEL - PALESTINE

US President Joe Biden has succeeded in securing the reopening of the Rafah crossing that connects Egypt to Gaza from Egyptian President Sisi. It had been open for three days but was inaccessible due to road problems and the Netanyahu government's desire no one to leave the Strip. 20 humanitarian aid trucks will enter the enclave, where people are short of food, water, fuel and other basic necessities. Biden did not provide a timeline, but US homeland security spokesman John Kirby believes it will happen in the next few days after road repairs are completed.

IRAN - BELARUS

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko received a visit in Minsk from Iranian First Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Mohber, who had already agreed with Moscow a year ago on the deliveries of Iranian weapons, surface-to-surface missiles and additional batches of assault drones.

PAKISTAN

Pakistan's acting information minister, Jan Achakzai, said illegal migrants from Afghanistan, Iran and other foreign individuals staying without proper documents in the country would be repatriated to their respective nations by November 1: This is our final decision regarding the repatriation of all illegal foreign citizens - Achakzai said -. Our goal is to guarantee their return to their countries of origin by October 31st."

HONG KONG

Tsang Chi-kin, a 22-year-old student who was shot by Hong Kong police during anti-government protests in 2019, was jailed for three years and 11 months for rioting, assaulting an officer and perjury. The deputy district court judge on Wednesday told the defendant, who was 18 at the time of the protests, that the gunshot wound would not be a mitigating factor in his sentencing because the officer used "lawful force" after Tsang ignored repeated warnings.

INDIA

Hurting religious sentiments: this is the charge against Rahul Gandhi, president of the Indian National Congress. The reason would be that he had given a dog named Noorie to his mother Sonia Gandhi. The complaint comes from Mohammad Farhan, leader of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), who claims that the dog's name has hurt his religious feelings since the word "Noorie" is mentioned in the Quran.

JAPAN

Japan - the G8 country, together with Italy, with the highest debt to GDP ratio - reduced its deficit by 75.1% to 2.72 trillion yen (18 billion dollars) in the first half of 2023. , while imported energy costs have fallen after a surge amid Russia's war in Ukraine and the yen's collapse. Exports grew at a record level, despite the crisis with China triggered by the Fukushima radioactive water spill into the ocean.

CHINA

An innovative system of self-driving, artificial intelligence-based drones was presented in Beijing. They are designed to put out fires in the upper floors of skyscrapers, but also in remote forests. The drone is mounted on a fire brigade vehicle and operates with compressed air foam. Firefighters in Nyingchi, in the Tibet Autonomous Region, used these systems to put out a forest fire in an impervious canyon. The drones will remain experimental with the aim of coming into operation next year in cities and forested regions of China.

RUSSIA

Alexei Naval'nyj's fourth lawyer, Alexander Fedulov, left Russia after the arrest of the first three, announcing it on Instagram only after his arrival in a safe place. Meanwhile, Naval'nyj will be forced to attend the court sessions via video from the harsh prison where he is being held, without having been able to obtain a postponement of the trial, as the lawyers "did not make official requests and it was not possible to contact them" , the court wrote after the arrest of the lawyers.
by Vladimir Rozanskij

Destroyed monuments and defaced gravestones: since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in the mass burial places of prisoners shot in the Soviet era or in the cemeteries of the concentration camps many symbols have started to be targeted. The cemetery in Levasovo, near St. Petersburg, where many Ukrainian and Polish victims of imprisonment on the Solovki Islands are buried also targeted.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Following the invasion of Ukraine, the "cold war" of monuments, headstones and memorial stones has continued for months throughout the territory of the Russian Federation. In the last 35 years, starting from the last Gorbachev years, around two thousand monuments to the victims of political repression in the USSR had been installed in Russia. Most of them were the result of spontaneous initiatives by groups of citizens, in the places of mass burial of shot prisoners, or in concentration camp cemeteries.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, many symbols and memorial objects have begun to disappear or be defaced, one after another. Most of them are those dedicated to Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian deportees in places of detention and confinement, in Siberia, in the northern regions or in those of concentration such as Mordova or Ingushetia.

Anonymous vandals tear the monuments to pieces, or tear off the lists of commemorated people, and the local authorities do not even open investigations into these facts. According to the Russian section of the BBC, at least 11 memorial complexes have been destroyed, and at least 15 others have been defaced, as confirmed by Irina Flige, director of the "Memorial" research center.

At the end of September this year in Yakutsk, in eastern Siberia, the monument to the deported Poles and Lithuanians, which had been installed in 2002, disappeared. Before the summer, access had been blocked with bars, so they were away are the tombstones and finally also the granite stones, the fundamental element of the complex.

The municipality had promised to shed light on what happened, but the department for the conservation of cultural heritage objects in the region concluded in recent days that it had no information on where everything could have ended up, and only a space remained on the site devastated, full of holes.

In March, another monument to Poles and Lithuanians was lost in Galjasor, in the northern region of Perm, a stele with a Latin cross under which a tablet reported the names of 89 deportees, placed near the cemetery with private funds.

The leak was discovered only in April, as it is in a difficult-to-access place in the woods, where it is almost impossible to reach before the spring thaw. Tatiana Margolina, member of the Human Rights Council of the Russian Presidency, declared that she "felt ashamed of this action, they used winter techniques by going behind the forest so as not to be seen". The police opened an investigation against unknown persons, to no avail.

A place very dear to the memory of repression is the Levasovo cemetery, near St. Petersburg, where many victims of the Solovki Islands concentration camp are buried. Here too, the tombstones of Ukrainians and Poles were defaced, although the entire area is a protected national park, but the monuments have no official status. Even earlier, in November 2022, three memorials to Poles were semi-destroyed in the Siberian region of Tomsk; November 11 was Poland's Independence Day, and the previous night the lists of Poles repressed under Stalin were removed.

In June this year, the graves of Poles deported to the Sverdlovsk region, in Siberia south of the Urals, were even desecrated. All the tombstones, installed by the victims' relatives, were smashed and thrown to the sides of the burial fields. In the cemetery of the village of Recka Misikha in Buryatia, the large cross above the chapel of the Polish victims was also sawn down.

Similar events were repeated in the Irkutsk and Vorkuta regions, in St. Petersburg and in other places. Instead, new monuments and memorial symbols appear dedicated to Soviet leaders, including Stalin himself, and also to Lenin, Kalinin, Dzerzhinsk (the founder of the Cheka-KGB), Sverdlov and other obscure figures from a returning past.
The site of the old Crystal Palace Dinner Theater building is where developer Mark Hunt and RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) have an RH Guesthouse planned. The city on Wednesday said that the project has not progressed in the last six months.
By Emanuel Pastreich

If Koreans draft a constitution for a unified Korea that will transform the entire peninsula in the manner that the United States was transformed by the Constitution of 1787, then that Korean constitution must have distinctly Korean roots and spirit.

The constitution must be Korean in the sense that it is drafted by Koreans and that it draws on the long tradition of moral governance on the Korean Peninsula, a tradition that addresses statecraft from a long-term perspective and employs a humanistic conception of the individuals moral conscience, a conscience that draws its strength from the individuals position as part of a harmonious family; a family that, in turn, extends naturally its influence to the state, and to the realm.

Specifically, the Korean concept of hongik should be central in this uniquely Korean contribution to the development of constitutional governance. Hongik is the ideal of sharing benefits between all members of society that dates back to Korean antiquity and that has made a unique contribution to human civilization in that it demands a just and equitable social order, but predicates such justice and equity on a spiritual awareness of the divine, and thus stands in marked contrast to Western ideologies which assume that social equality must be accompanied by an embrace of materialism, and the denial of all spiritual aspects of human experience.

Dr. Hyunjin Preston Moon has wisely highlighted the tremendous potential of hongik as a spiritual bridge to bring together all Koreans, and also to bring together the entire the entire world.

There are also precedents for good governance to be found in the administrative structures of the Goryeo and Joseon Dynasties, and before that offer tremendous opportunities for reinterpretation to meet the needs of the current day in this new constitution.

To give just one example, the Joseon Dynasty established the Hall of History (Chunju-gwan) at the time of its founding in the 14th century, an institution that was run by official record keepers who were given remarkable authority, and immunity, that allowed them to record accurately the activities of the government. Even when the king, or high officials, were displeased with the criticisms made by the record keepers, or corruption or malfeasance exposed, the creation of accurate records went on. The Hall of History played a vital role in assuring that accurate records were maintained in spite of all pressures so that no one was beyond responsibility to govern morally and the true history was preserved for future generations.

Such a system could be a model for how the constitution of a united Korea assures accuracy of information, an issue overlooked by the American founding fathers, but that has assumed critical importance in this information age.

The larger mansions of Eastern civilizations also offer unique contributions to this constitution that will raise it to a new level in human history. The traditions of Confucianism and Buddhism have much to offer  although there are other traditions like Daoism that also deserve consideration.

Confucianism, the central philosophy of the Joseon Dynasty, places tremendous emphasis on the family as the basic unit of governance and stresses the continuum between the structure of the healthy and functional family and the ethical administration of government.

Moreover, Confucianism assumes that it is practice, and daily rituals, and not just law, that assures an ethical society. This emphasis on practice, or propriety (ye), is best known in Korea as yehak, the study of propriety and behavior. Yehak offers a new approach to constitutional governance wherein the manner in which children are raised, taught to be respectful in behavior, and to be empathetic towards friends and neighbors, is treated as the fundamental basis of a healthy society. As the American constitution is silent on morality within the family, or propriety and ethical practice in daily life, the Confucian tradition has much to offer to a new Korean constitution.

Confucianism also demands a moral economy in which profit is not the primary concern, but rather mutual support for a greater good is the primary regulator of economic activity. The Confucian economy is conceived of for the long-term, including plans for the political economy that extend hundreds of years into the future and considers the environment and agriculture  the organic production of food  as a common concern for all members of society. This concern with the long-term health, and the sustainability of society and the environment is also missing from the American Constitution and therefore turning to the Confucian tradition can help immensely for Korea to take the constitutional republic to the next green stage.

Finally, Confucianism is concerned with governance by the wise, or noocracy, and it proposes concrete programs by which those serving in government are selected by tests designed to assess moral commitment to universal values and the ability to solve real-life problems in governance in an ethical manner. Although the Confucian exams were subject to ridicule in the late imperial period because of the deep corruption that took root in Korea and China in the 19th century, the basic concept of the exam system for those in government based on ethics is invaluable and is clearly a blank spot in the American Constitution.

The democratic process by which the citizens select their leaders should be paralleled by an examination system based on moral principles that assures us those working in government uphold universal values and are less likely to be corrupt, and are more committed to knowing the truth  something that can never be determined through democratic means alone.

Buddhism also has much to offer to a new Korean constitution. The Buddhist moral imperative for the middle way offers concrete strategies for avoiding extremism and divisiveness in politics that could be integrated into a more refined strategy for a balance of powers in the government.

Moreover, Buddhism has a long tradition of promoting harmony within government, and between states (through diplomacy) which has concrete examples in the governance system of the Goryeo Dynasty. Such Buddhist strategies for avoiding conflict and division in politics offer great potential for creating a society that encourages harmony and cooperation, as opposed to the selfishness, competition and narrow-mindedness that can result from legal codes that are grounded exclusively in property rights.

Emanuel Pastreich is president of Asia Society, researcher at Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University and senior fellow at Global Peace Foundation. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.
Owner of Mississippi Mechanic Shop Arrested After Customer Complaints

Zachary Coalburn faces a charge of "intent to cheat or defraud" customers at his shop, C&C Diesel Performance.

Written by Kate Bieri, FOX13 Memphis

Published Oct. 19, 2023

Hernando, MS, officers arrested and booked the owner of a mechanic shop on Oct. 11 after multiple customers complained of service.

Zachary Coalburn, 29, faces a charge of false pretense, defined as "intent to cheat or defraud."

Capt. Kyle Hodge with the Hernando Police Department confirmed to FOX13 the charge is in connection to his business at C&C Diesel Performance.

On Oct. 12, FOX13 met several customers who were frustrated with the quality of service they've received there.

An Olive Branch, MS, woman said she needed her brakes and a fuse repaired for her 2011 Ford Explorer.

She said she was charged for work she didn't need or want.

I saw charges for $700 worth of suspension work," the woman explained. "I was like, 'Well, wait, hold on. Brakes and a fuse. Where did that come from?'

She asked not to be identified because she still hopes to get her money back.

A Hernando man told FOX13 the shop charged him $5,000 to fix a broken air conditioner in his car, but it continued to blow hot air.

I believe he was just throwing parts at it knowing he wasnt going to fix it," the man said.

It is not clear if those specific customer complaints led to the arrest.

Hernando police said they executed a search warrant at the business Oct. 11 and arrested Coalburn at that time.

We thank FOX13 Memphis for reprint permission.
South Dakota Entrepreneurs Receive Abra Top Gun Award

The trio own four Abra locations that provide best-in-class service.

Written by Autobody News Staff

Published Oct. 19, 2023

Mike Brown, Doug Sharp and Chet Lockwood, the multi-store owners of Abra Brookings, Abra Faribault, Abra Watertown and Abra Mitchell-SD in South Dakota, were recently named winners of the Abra Top Gun Award at the Driven Brands U.S. collision conference in Kissimmee, FL.

Abras Top Gun Award is presented to multi-store owners who embody the Abra mindset in everything they do.

With more than two decades of ownership prior to joining the Abra network, Brown, Sharp and Lockwood have maintained operational excellence in every facet of the business while effectively and efficiently managing four locations. The best-in-class service they provide is evidenced by their 4.8 Google Star rating based on more than 600 satisfied customer reviews. Abra Brookings and Abra Waterdown also places an emphasis on community engagement, hosting events with local partners such as the Uncle Sam Jam this past summer.

We are so proud of our team, said Lockwood. We could not do what we do without them, and could not have achieved this recognition. We made the transition to Abra more than two years ago and we retained all of our employees. They are a great group of people.
Toyota wants to play a game of guess the car with us. Based on the height, width, and the interior from a face-on perspective, its most likely the XV80 ninth-gen Camry due for the 2025 model year.

Photo: Toyota

SUV

The other possibility is the Corolla, but were not exactly holding our breath for such a thing. Not only is the Corolla newer than the Camry in the Japanese automakers lineup, but its not as big of a seller in the United States market as the larger sibling.How do they stack up in terms of year-to-date sales from January 2023 through September 2023? As per Toyotas third-quarter sales report, no fewer than 217,975 examples of the Camry were delivered in the US compared to 165,693 for the Corolla.This, in turn, means the Camry is the second best-selling Yota in the United States after the RAV4 , which clocked 302,831 deliveries in the first three quarters of 2023. In production since 2017 as opposed to 2018 for the Corolla, the Camry rides on the TNGA-K platform of the Crown and Prius.Speaking of which, the shadowy teaser pic also reveals LED signature lighting inspired by the Avalons indirect successor and the Prius. A pair of humongous air intakes can also be seen, as well as two canards at the sides of the front bumper.Canards? Wait, is Toyota giving us a GR Camry or something of the sorts? It would be incredibly sweet of Toyota, but alas, we simply dont know at press time. Believed to drop this winter, the all-new Camry isnt exactly all-new because it features an evolution of the eighth gens front-biased platform. The GA-B through GA-K architectures cover everything from subcompacts to full-size crossovers like the Lexus TX and Toyota Century inflavor.Hearsay suggests the V6 will be dropped for 2025, which may hold water because the Crown packs naturally-aspirated 2.5 and turbocharged 2.4 engines. Both of them hybrid, that is. The 2.5 should return as the standard engine, joined by the 2.4-liter turbo that Toyota also employs in the Tacoma mid-size pickup truck and Land Cruiser 250 series.The interior will obviously get a major overhaul as well, aligning the ninth-generation Camry to the Crown and Prius. A 12.3-inch touchscreen infotainment unit such as the Toyota Audio Multimedia system in the Highlander is doable, along with a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster.LA Auto Show isnt all that far away, and chances are Toyota will continue teasing us right until media and industry day on November 16. Oh, and one more thing before signing off: expect the all-new Camry to cost a little more than the 2024 model.Last updated in July 2023, the outgoing Camry is available to configure at $26,420 for the LE trim level or $28,855 for the LE with hybrid oomph. At the other end of the spectrum, the sporty TRD commands a sticker price of $33,485 (sans destination charge). As for the priciest trims available as of October 2023, those are the XLE V6 and XSE V6 at $36,295 and $36,845 from the outset.
Physicians need to embrace wider perspective

Korea has an absolute shortage of doctors  the statistics and whats happening at medical facilities daily back it up.

For instance, the number of physicians (excluding traditional medicine practitioners) per 1,000 Koreans is half of the OECDs average. Severely ill children cannot get treatment due to a lack of pediatricians, and emergency patients die in ambulances while traveling between ERs with paramedics.

Still, doctors say otherwise. The Korean Medical Association (KMA), the largest trade group with 130,000 members, claims the problem is not the number but their misallocation by specialties, hospitals and regions.

It is true to an extent. But doctors must be more honest with themselves.

The only people who say there is no shortage of doctors in Korea are Korean doctors, an elderly physician confides. The nation must increase physicians first and rectify structural problems later, not vice versa. The government should tackle the two tasks simultaneously, meaning the increase of medical school enrollment quota is a prerequisite.

A ranking health ministry official recently visited Germany and explained the Korean situation. Why do doctors oppose increasing doctors? We can hardly imagine, the official quoted German doctors as saying. The two countries have quite different medical systems, from how they educate and train doctors to the share of public health care. But a wider gap lies in how they see health care and the medical profession.

Korean doctors cannot deny that the controversy over the optimal number of physicians boils down to their scarcity and worth  money. They reduced the yearly enrollment quota by 351 in 2006 and have since frozen it at 3,058 for 17 years. The comparable quota for Germany, with a population 1.5 times larger than Koreas, is 11,752. Berlin plans to increase it by 5,000 this year. Three years ago, the Moon Jae-in government tried to increase it by 4,000 over 10 years, but failed in the face of a doctors strike.

We agree with physicians calls for medical reforms. Policymakers should rectify the medical fee structure by prioritizing difficult but essential care, like pediatrics, obstetrics and surgery, while reducing non-reimbursed areas in cosmetics and dermatology. They also should exonerate or reduce penalties for doctors who commit medical accidents in good faith. Doctors who work on weekends or holidays should get extra fees, and those serving in remote areas deserve financial and other incentives. But an increase in doctors must occur simultaneously with or before them.

Doctors say the population decline will reduce the number of optimal doctors. However, most industrial countries with the same problem increase physicians to prepare for rising demand amid population aging. The KMA says the abrupt rise in medical school students will lower the quality of their education. However, a study shows that one professor teaches about 1.6 students now, more like tutoring. The comparable ratio at law schools is seven students per professor.

About a decade ago, Korea sharply increased the number of lawyers. Now, legal consumers enjoy a much better services with far greater access and lower fees. Lawyers incomes fell, but they enjoy better work-life balance. We think doctors should follow in lawyers footsteps.

Some express concerns  rightly  that the current concentration of excellent students in medical schools will aggravate. It will be so for the time being. However, that will disappear if doctors incomes drop, maybe a decade later. Until then, the government should improve treatments for other sciencemajors.

The time has long passed for the KMA and its members to drop their vocational selfishness and cooperate to improve society from a broader and longer-term perspective. They are dying of overwork but hate to lose vested interests.

The ruling and opposition parties have agreed on the same goal for the first time under this government. More than 70 percent of people also support it. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration should push to increase the enrollment quota by at least 1,000 and discuss details with the KMA, including concrete methods and supplementary steps.

Yoon should do this for the peoples right to a healthy life, not to win more parliamentary seats in the general elections next April.

Voters will know the difference.
In 1966, Chrysler let the HEMI loose on the streets, casting some 3,350 big-blocks to sport hemispherical heads to tickle NASCARs ego. The engine almost wouldnt have come to be, had it not been for an engineering lesson learned the race way by Mother Mopar. In the early 60s, the Max Wedge engine was getting pounded by Pontiacs and Chevrolets in NASCAR, and an emergency task force was appointed to make things right.

As it turns out, the small team of six men didnt straighten things out at all but instead went the opposite way, conceiving a very curvaceous dome shape for the cylinder heads to optimize airflow in the combustion chambers. The Race HEMI was born  and it wouldnt take long before the monstrosity V8 became the apex predator on the speedways. The first three cars at the Daytona 500 in 1964 were Mopars equipped with the new powerplant.However, there was an issue  to run under the NASCAR rule book, the engine had to have a street-going version. That happy piston miracle befell upon the car universe in 1966  the most prolific year for the engines production. In a short six-year life, some 11,000 V8s with hemispherical heads fell between the front fenders of various Mopars, from the most nefarious Chargers, Challengers, and Cudas to average-Joe Road runners and GTXs.The last name arrived in the vast picture of Chrysler products one year after the HEMI hit the streets in 1967, and it was a range-topping trim level of the Plymouth Belvedere II. The first generation lasted precisely one model year, as 1968 saw the GTX sitting at its own table. Being a B-body meant the first-year GTX was entitled to receive the 426 cubic inches of honor reserved for that platform in its first year on the market.The GTX came standard with the 440 cubic-inch V8 (the 7.2-liter Raised Block), and the HEMI was the alternative. As Plymouth's single offer for performance in the intermediate-sized segment, the GTX was also the first muscle car built on that platform. Sure, from a book-keeping perspective, the Belvedere IIs got the HEMI in 1967, but the dozen or so assembled dont really make any difference in the overall picture.Chrysler touted the automobile as the most exciting Supercar to come out of Detroit in years and reserved the 440 CID engine for the GTX (among the B-bodied Plymouths). 12,690 GTXs came out in the sub-models inaugural year, with only 733 sporting the high-revving HEMI. Naturally, those low numbers make the cars that have made it to 2023 highly desirable for collectors.And, unlike other Mopars that ask obscenely high prices for little more than an overdose of rust and scrap iron, the GTXs can be obtained for decent sums. Look at the example featured in the photo gallery  an original first-year GTX with the matching numbers powertrain. The Californian climate (where the car started its road adventure) was kind to this one-year-only Plymouth, but it left scars on the roof, trunk, and floor. Also, at some point, someone decided it would be a good idea to expand the rear wheel arches using metal shears.The car would make a good foundation for a restoration project , especially considering that the engine and TorqueFlite three-speed automatic transmission have been rebuilt. Thats also why the V8 and its gearbox are not in the car. The 8  rear diff comes with the Plymouth-recommended 3.23 gearing with Sure-Grip (Chryslers suggestion for the best GTX performance).However, the car comes with a lot of rust, especially on the roof  a separate top is available for DIY-ers, should one wish to reinstate this GTX to its full HEMI rights. When it left the factory, the automobile wore a blue coat over a black interior, bucket seats, and power disc brakes. Regarding the powertrain, the intake and exhaust manifolds, the dual four-barrel carburetors, the valve covers, the air filter, and the distributor are all correct.This Plymouth is still wearing the sheet metal welded by the factory  minus the cutaways above the rear wheels. The car is for sale, should anyone feel like bringing it back to road-worthiness, and it comes with a separate list of accessories  including the patches for the quarter and wheelhouse for one side (the seller doesnt mention for what side, but it doesnt make a difference).This scarred Mopar has new interior door trim panels, seat kits, and wiring harnesses. The exciting aspect is that the seller offers to restore the car  for what money? Its up to the buyer to negotiate. The booster for the power brakes  the original-to-the-car unit  and the disc brakes are very restorable. Take that last statement either way  the parts are in good shape, or the seller wasnt to get more money out of this car than its sale value.The current bid of $21,600 isnt enough to get a new title with a new owner's name on it, and the reserve is above this threshold. You can see it here on eBay or in Springfield, Oregon if you can talk the seller into an inspection.
Not exactly focused on build quality and reliability, the biggest automaker of the Big Three in Detroit has issued a recall for improperly bonded windshields. More specifically, suspect windshields may have been assembled to certain examples of the 2023 model year GMC Acadia, Cadillac XT5, and larger XT6 without the proper urethane sealant.

Photo: Cadillac

A quality manager submitted this concern to General Motors through Speak Up For Safety on August 9, a program that General Motors launched bang in the middle of the ignition switch fiasco back in 2014. Said quality manager became aware of a customer-filed complaint alleging a windshield leak on a brand-new Acadia . Come August 15, the automaker started investigating, only to determine that its build quality leaves much to be desired.As per the report attached below, assembly plant workers at Spring Hill Manufacturing in Tennessee built vehicles without urethane sealing during a shift on June 10. The question is, how come not a single worker signaled the missing urethane sealing to any of their superiors? Also worth asking, how come said vehicles passed end-of-line quality control?General Motors being its usual self, alright! GM is aware of a single relevant field incident and 42 potentially affected vehicles produced for the United States market. Said vehicles are split between 25 examples of the 2023 model year GMC Acadia, 8 units of the Cadillac XT5 , and 9 copies of the XT6 family-sized crossover utility vehicle.In addition to water leaking into the cabin and excessive wind noise, an improperly bonded windshield increases the risk of injury to the occupants in a crash. Care to guess what actually happened on June 10 at the assembly plant?The report below reads that a urethane pump hose somehow became disconnected, therefore no longer dispensing the super-sticky adhesive required to bond the windshield to the body. Dealers have already been informed to inspect and  if needed  to apply primer and urethane. If the windshield is damaged, service techs are required to replace it.Owners will be informed via first-class mail about GMs blunder next month. The mailed envelopes should arrive no later than November 27.Of the three vehicles mentioned above, only the Acadia received a thorough redesign for the 2024 model year . Unleashed at the 2023 North American International Auto Show in Detroit Motor City, the Acadia shares the C1XX-2 platform with the newly refreshed Chevrolet Traverse. Both rely on a 2.5-liter turbo I4 and an eight-speed automatic.The full-size crossovers will be produced at Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Michigan rather than Spring Hill Manufacturing in Tennessee. Pricing, however, isnt available at the moment of reporting. The Cadillac XT6 and XT6, on the other hand, will set you back at least $43,895 and $48,795.Both ride on the C1XX platform. Whereas the XT5 comes standard with a 2.0-liter turbo I4, the XT6 is exclusively offered with a 3.6-liter V6 of the naturally-aspirated variety. Said engine is optional in the XT5. Regardless of powertrain, the Cadillac siblings share a nine-speed transmission
During a gloomy third-quarter earnings call, Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla is slowing down Gigafactory Mexico plans "to get a sense of what the global economy is like." The announcement came as the next-generation EV platform is making progress.

EV

Photo: @ajtourville via Twitter

Apart from the Cybertruck deliveries, Tesla fans are the most excited about the upcoming mass-market electric vehicle, which Tesla calls next-generationor next-generation platform. The plans for the most affordable Tesla EV were officially confirmed in March during Investor Day, and they involved groundbreaking manufacturing techniques that required a whole new factory layout. That's where Tesla's next-generation gigafactory entered the stage, with the prototype being built in Nuevo Leon, Mexico.Elon Musk always referred to Tesla Gigafactories as the "machines that build the machines," and you can understand why when you realize how different they are from the industry's golden standard. The best representative of the Gigafactory concept is Giga Shanghai. This car manufacturing facility is optimized for efficiency, with almost all components produced on-site or very close and no warehouses to begin with. All the parts and components used are off-loaded directly on the production lines at precise moments and locations, requiring sophisticated choreography.Giga Mexico was supposed to become the first gigafactory to pioneer a new manufacturing process called "unboxed vehicle." This requires a new factory layout , with the benefit of much higher efficiency and productivity while minimizing footprint. A lot of ink has been spilled this spring about Giga Mexico, but soon, it would become obvious that progress was slower than expected.If you recall, Tesla brought Tom Zhu from China to supervise the construction work and ensure that Giga Mexico would advance from groundbreaking to building cars even faster than Giga Shanghai. Everybody was confident that the Nuevo Leon gigafactory would become visible on satellite maps before this year's end and start making cars sometime next year. And yet, nothing happened besides some permits and the promise of imminent groundbreaking.The first hint that something was awry with Giga Mexico arrived with Walter Isaacson's book about Elon Musk. According to the famous biographer, Tesla changed plans and will not start the next-gen EV production at Giga Mexico. Instead, Tesla will build a pilot production line at Giga Texas and, when everything seems right, will transplant it to Giga Mexico and, possibly, to other gigafactories.This information has now become official, as Elon Musk expressed his concerns about the economic environment. Tesla is working on infrastructure and factory design in parallel with the engineering and development of the next-gen platform, but Giga Mexico construction is now on hold. According to Musk, Tesla is "laying the groundwork to begin construction," but wants to see where the economy is heading before going "full tilt on the Mexico factory." But that doesn't mean the factory will be scrapped."We're definitely making the factory in Mexico," Musk replied to a question from Wells Fargo's Colin Langan. "We feel very good about that. We put a lot of effort into looking at different locations, and we feel very good about that location, and we are going to build a factory there, and it's going to be great. The question is really just one of timing."Musk said that Tesla will start the initial construction phases next year, about a year later than initially announced. Tesla's CEO is terrified by the high interest rates and what this might bring if the global economy enters a recession. He recalled the 2009 crisis when GM and Chrysler went bankrupt, while "Tesla was just hanging on by a thread during that entire time."
In just a few short decades the world has changed drastically. And by that I don't only mean geopolitically, but also in terms of technologies used for daily activities. And in the field of the military, that poses significant challenges.

In a bid to adapt to the new reality, all branches of the American military are currently engaged in efforts meant to modernize anything from hardware to methods. And although the U.S. Air Force (USAF) takes the center stage in this respect, the Army doesn't fall far behind either.One of the avenues for modernization the Army is currently exploring is its fleet of aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft. Crucial in giving soldiers the best view possible of the enemy and its intentions, the planes currently in use, about 60 of them, date back to the period of the Cold War.That's not necessarily a bad thing for the planes themselves, as we're constantly seeing even older machines still flying missions, but it's terrible as far as the tech they use for ISR missions goes. So now the Army is out looking for a new kind of aircraft, with the most modern of technologies, to replace the old fleet.The program through which it does this is called High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System, or HADES. It calls for the creation of new solutions for ISR outings, with a special focus on the ones that "do not rely on access to allied military installations to continue the mission."The hardware should be installed on a platform that can withstand high speed, have more than decent range, and have altitude capabilities that would allow it to spy from very high up. Which is, more or less, the perfect description of a business jet.It's this class of aircraft the Army settled on for the development of HADES technologies. The airplanes are collectively called for this purpose Aerial Technology Demonstrators (ATD), and they have also been chosen because they allow the installation of a large number of sensors.The Army has been flying ATDs since 2020, when an undisclosed type of business jet codenamed Artemis was gifted with ISR sensors to see how it would behave.The sensors apparently worked as advertised, but more than that the jet proved it could fly for longer, can deploy faster, and travel further than turboprops, which make up for the majority of present-day ISR planes. Because they can also fly higher, sensor penetration was found to be deeper.Following the Artemis another ATD aircraft called Ares was deployed, and as per the Army it revolutionized the contribution of the Army in a joint fight. No details as to what exactly that means were given, but it all sounds impressive. Especially given how the plane is still flying, "competing nearly every day with the nation's most advanced adversaries."And now things are about to heat up as three defense contractors have joined hands for HADES: L3Harris Technologies, Leidos, and MAG Aerospace. All three are already involved in other ISR projects, but they now have joined forces to deliver a complete fleet of brand-new ISR aircraft.Their proposal will be based on a Bombardier Global 6500, a jet that's been around since the late 1990s mostly serving corporate needs.The plane is powered by a pair of Rolls-Royce Pearl engines that can keep it going for distances as large as 7,600 miles (12,200 km) and can raise it to an altitude of as much as 51,000 feet (15,500 meters). The top speed the plane can reach is close to the speed of sound, namely Mach 0.9 (691 mph/1,100 kph).Generally speaking the plane has enough room inside to carry up to 17 people  it is, as per its maker, the plane with the largest cabin in its class. Because it's a business jet it can be configured to highly luxurious specifications, but that's probably not what will happen in this case.As per the plan announced this spring, the Army intends to field at least 14 of these new ISR planes for its needs. Unlike the way the current turboprops are spread around the world, at multiple locations, the jets will fly from as few locations as possible as a means to "improve on training and force generation mission command."The first purchase of such a machine is expected to take place during the upcoming fiscal year, with deliveries expected to begin sometime in 2027. By the middle of the next decade a full deployment of the new flying spy platforms is expected.It's unclear at this point exactly how much the entire effort will cost, but given all the things currently taking place in the world it will probably all be a worthy investment. As Sgt. Bryden Jones from the 104th Military Intelligence Company says, "we have stepped away from the counterterrorism operations and started looking at a bigger, wider, more strategic objectives."The trio of companies that announced their project this week did not reveal a timetable for their conversion of the Global 6500.
SUV

Since the beginning of the year, Toyota introduced the Prius 'Hybrid Reborn,' including in 220-hp Prime plug-in hybrid form, swapped the base C-HR with the new Corolla Cross Hybrid, brought the 2024 Grand Highlander three-row CUV as a North American exclusive alongside the ritzier Lexus TX, and also announced a slew of Nightshade plus GR special editions.Oh, and let us not forget about the absolute superstars  the 2024 Toyota Tacoma N400 mid-size pickup truck and the reborn 2024 Land Cruiser, which returns to America in early 2024 after a short but stingy hiatus. Now, the new base of both passenger car and crossoveroperations is only the award-winning, record-holding Corolla nameplate.As such, you can have it as a sedan from $21,900 for the 2024 model year or as a $23,600 CUV if you choose the 2023 Corolla Cross  making the compact crossover SUV quite a great deal cheaper than the $28,275 RAV4 best-seller. Launched in production during the summer of 2020, the Toyota Corolla Cross represents an interesting alternative to the RAV4, which is probably going to grow closer to the $35k Venza (offered only as a hybrid with five seats) and $36,620 Highlander mid-size CUVs when it's time to switch generations.However, some people may be more interested in what the Corolla Cross offers. Well, in the real world, the 2024 Corolla Cross Hybrid also joined the dark side and adopted the Nightshade trim level special edition alongside many of its Corolla and CUV peers. But things are a tad quirkier in the imaginative realm of digital car content creators. As such, the good folks over at the Q Cars and AutomagzTV channels on YouTube aim to present their visions for one of the most affordable Toyotas out there  complete with full redesigns even if the compact CUV only needs a mid-cycle refresh around that time.First, the resident pixel master at Q Cars went for a nice, OEM-like morphing that's not too far from the original model  only with updated front and rear fascia treatments and a more muscular side profile appearance. As always, there's also a second design project that tries to push the styling further into the future  but, as always, we need to take all these renderings with a grain of salt because nothing is official just yet.Secondly, the peeps over at AutomagzTV take things to the conceptual extreme with help from the computing and designing power of AI. The result is undoubtedly mesmerizing, but it's even more far-fetched to believe that Toyota would ever jump on board with such creations. Instead, this hypothetical Corolla Cross looks ready for a Hollywood movie set in the not-too-distant future.
Every refugee lacking decent housing is to receive 50,000 drams ($125) per month to pay rent and utility bills at least until next March. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian pledged such support during the mass exodus of over 100,000 Karabakh Armenians who lived in the region as of September 19.

His government claims to have housed more than half of the refugees in hotels, disused public buildings and empty village houses. It now expects 40,000 of them to apply for the housing compensation scheme this month.

We are thereby encouraging our compatriots to rent apartments, Pashinian said during a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan. He suggested that the sums allocated to them should be enough to cover their housing expenses.

Labor and Social Affairs Minister Narek Mkrtchian clarified that starting from next month those refugees who own homes in Armenia or continue to live in temporary shelters provided by the government will not be eligible for this financial aid.

Some refugees are already using their modest savings to rent homes in and outside Yerevan which have become much more expensive in recent years. They include the family of Suzanna Arzumanian, a Karabakh mother of two. Their rented apartment in Yerevans Nor Nork suburb did not even have beds when they moved there earlier this month.

Arzumanian complained that despite repeated government pledges, municipal authorities have not provided her family with food, clothing or any other basic necessities.

The government approved on Thursday unpublicized rules for the distribution of such humanitarian assistance. It was not clear whether they will apply to at least $35 million in aid to the refugees promised by the United States, the European Union and some EU member states.

The government aid also includes a one-off cash payment of 100,000 drams ($260) to every refugee. Officials say 80 percent of the displaced Karabakh Armenians have already received that money. Many of the refugees interviewed by RFE/RLs Armenian Services and other media outlets still say that they havent, however.

It also remains unclear whether the government will pay Karabakhs pensions and other social benefits. Dozens of elderly refugees visit the Karabakh government office in Yerevan every day to inquire about their pensions.

They wont tell us anything, Sergei Mirzoyan, a pensioner from Stepanakert, said on Wednesday, referring to Karabakh officials working there. He hopes to continue receiving his monthly pension of 72,000 drams in Armenia.

Pashinian cited earlier a legal problem hampering such payments. He did not say on Thursday whether it has been resolved.
There are many bodies, including of civilians, transported from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia that carry signs of torture and/or mutilation, Anahit Manasian told reporters. This shows that those people were subjected to the kind of treatment which was mentioned by me. There were children and women among them.

Manasian did not specify the number of the victims of the alleged war crimes, saying that her office is continuing its fact-finding work on the September 19-20 assault that enabled Baku to regain full control of Karabakh.

According to Karabakh officials, the Azerbaijani offensive left more than 200 Karabakh soldiers and two dozen local civilians dead. More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians lived there prior to the exodus.

Manasian said that her office has drawn up a preliminary report containing purported evidence of atrocities collected by it so far. The reported has been submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), added the state human rights defender.

The Armenian government appealed to the United Nations court on September 28 to order Baku to guarantee the safe and speedy return to their homes of the Karabakh Armenians who have taken refuge in Armenia. It also wants the Azerbaijani side to withdraw military and security personnel from Karabakh civilian facilities, give the UN and other international organizations access to the depopulated region and protect its religious and cultural monuments.

Baku has denied targeting Karabakh civilians during the two-day military operation or forcing them to flee their homeland in the following days. It has pledged to protect the rights of local residents willing to live under Azerbaijani rule.
Avinian, who is allied to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, was sworn in on October 13 almost one month after municipal elections in which the ruling Civil Contract party made what many observers see as a poor showing.

The party led by Pashinian won 32.5 percent of the vote, falling well short of an absolute majority in the city council empowered to appoint the mayor. It managed to install Avinian thanks to a power-sharing deal with a pro-establishment party and the effective backing of another group led by a controversial video blogger wanted by Armenian law-enforcement authorities.

Despite the obvious election setback, Avinians inauguration, attended by Armenias top state officials but boycotted by opposition groups, was held with unprecedented pomp that raised eyebrows in the country.

The municipal administration revealed the cost of the ceremony in a written statement to RFE/RLs Armenian Service. It said half of the money was spent on decorations evoking the ancient kingdom of Urartu whose 8th century BC ruler Argishti I is considered the founder of Yerevan.

Avinian was greeted by men dressed as Urartian warriors as he made his way into the inauguration hall. The 34-year-old put his hand on a replica of a cuneiform inscription left by Argishti as he took the oath of office.

Avinian defended the unusual event staging when he spoke to reporters afterwards. He said it was meant to remind Armenians of the origins of Yerevan.

But his political opponents saw extravagance, waste of public money and poor taste. Izabella Abgarian, a newly reelected city council member representing former Mayor Hayk Marutians party, the election runner-up, said Avinian exposed his sick vanity.

In my view, this was a real disgrace given the current state of our country, Abgarian told RFE/RLs Armenian Service. Now that we are receiving refugees from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) I see a serious problem with morality in such a pompous and costly ceremony.
19 October 2023 22:00 (UTC+04:00)

Abbas Ganbay Read more

15 October was a significant day for the whole of Azerbaijan, President Ilham Aliyev raised the Azerbaijani flag in the city of Khankendi on the anniversary of 20 years of his service as President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. His magnificent, informative speech is both inspiring and reassuring. Azerbaijan has fully restored its territories, and the threats of separatism no longer exist. The West is closely watching and jealous of Azerbaijan's success and wants to interfere in the Caucasus in every possible way, looking for ways to unleash conflicts.

In his speech, the President reminded that 17 years of negotiations were meaningless, and Armenia would not give even an inch of land. Not a single country has supported Azerbaijan in the 100 years since the establishment of the 'Nagorno-Karabakh autonomy', which has no basis in Azerbaijan. All major powers have supported Armenia and today history has shown it once again.

According to Russian historian, and political scientist, professor Oleg Kuznetsov, who gave a comment for AZERNEWS, 15 October became a memorable day in the modern history of Azerbaijan, when President Ilham Aliyev raised Azerbaijani state flags in all major settlements of Garabagh.

"I will not be surprised if this day is declared another public holiday in the near future. Azerbaijan has proved that the will of the people multiplied by the wisdom of the leadership is able to work miracles and resist the widest international coalition. Azerbaijan has proved its self-sufficiency and viability as a full-fledged subject of international law through decades of persistent struggle for territorial integrity, which cannot be said about its neighbors in the South Caucasus region. Azerbaijani people have something to be proud of," the expert said.

The successes of the Azerbaijani leadership are encouraging, but there is a thorn in the face of the West and its close attention to the Caucasus, where the West wanted to undermine the authority of Azerbaijan at the international level, with its support for the separatist regime, indifference to Azerbaijan and its people that, despite the cold-bloodedness of the West, coped with all the problems on the way to today, the liberation of the occupied territories, with mass disinformation from the separatist clan. The West and state structures still have a grudge against the Caucasus and may wish to prevent the signing of a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"I have carefully read the Russian translation of President Ilham Aliyev's speech on the occasion of his visit to Garabagh. In it, my attention was drawn to one circumstance that none of the Azerbaijani or foreign political analysts and experts had paid attention to."

The Russian pundit pointed that when the Azerbaijani President was speaking about the perspective of further relations with Armenia, in his speech he named 4 important issues that are yet to be solved - the state border, the opening of the Zangazur transport corridor, return of the remaining 7 villages under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan and signing of the peace treaty.

"The signing of the peace treaty forms the sequence of these issues, which says a lot about the tasks of Azerbaijan's foreign policy in the near future. For 20 years of leading Azerbaijan, President Aliyev has tamed the whole world to the fact that he is a man of his word - what he says is what he does. That is why in his speech he essentially speaking in legal language made an offer, i.e. a public proposal to Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan, in which he formulated steps to normalize Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, and if he persists in his non-acceptance of his position, we will most likely have to expect another operation to force Armenians to peace and good-neighborliness," the political analyst added.

It is important to recall that during the peaceful co-existence of Azerbaijanis and Armenians in Azerbaijan under the leadership of national leader Heydar Aliyev, strong propaganda was carried out from the West and France fuelling the conflict between the peoples. In 1987 Heydar Aliyev was dismissed from the post of the Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as well as the First Deputy Representative of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, and after two weeks Armenian nationalists raised the issue of transferring the "Nagorno-Karabakh" autonomous region from Azerbaijan to Armenia. It was raised by an Armenian nationalist living in Moscow, and published in a French newspaper.

"The Western world or the collective West is now in such a state of overload with regional conflicts, in which it is involuntarily or voluntarily involved, that it is hardly capable today of providing Armenia, which is striving with all its might to embrace it, with any military and political assistance. Consequently, the intensity of the situation in the South Caucasus will only intensify in the short term. There are many more interesting events ahead of us," Kuznetsov stressed.

In conclusion, Russian political scientist importantly emphasized that the West's attitude towards Azerbaijan was formulated by the British back in 1918, at the time of the occupation of Baku by British colonial troops, which was unsuccessful.

"From that moment the Western countries perceived Azerbaijan exclusively as their petrol station, which once again found its confirmation in the plan in 1941 of the Vichy France government of Marshal Philippe Petain, an ally of Nazi Germany, to seize Baku after Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union. For the same purpose, Western countries, through the Armenian diasporas, supported and sponsored Armenia in its aggression against Azerbaijan in the 1990s. But instead of obediently becoming a semi-colony and raw materials appendage of Europe and America, it was planned by Azerbaijan's enemies.

Azerbaijan chose the path of independence in all spheres and won on this path. Striving for freedom, independence, and justice - these are the geopolitical dominants that today bring Russia and Azerbaijan closer in their vision of their place in the modern world, and that is why our countries are strategic allies on all geopolitical and macroeconomic issues," the expert underlined.

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Abbas Ganbay is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter:

@Noend33

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
19 October 2023 17:55 (UTC+04:00)

Qabil Ashirov Read more

The government of Azerbaijan gets rid of its foreign currency debts, and instead of foreign debts, it attracts funds from the domestic marketAzernews reports.

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Chyung Eun-ju Joel Cho

By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

In the modern age of rapid technological advancements, our lives have become increasingly intertwined with the digital world. From the inception of the internet, it has been taking over our lives at a rapidly growing speed. So much so that now we find ourselves online at almost every moment of our waking lives.

The world feels big, or rather eclectic. These days we feel overwhelmed and disoriented with the pace of digital advancement. In the three worlds  physical, digital, and virtual  we take on different identities.

With constant technological advancements, virtual communication and networking tools have changed the way we connect. However, it seems that this ultra-connected digital world we have created has brought with it a new and unique form of loneliness.

The digital revolution has undeniably enriched our lives in numerous ways, giving us access to a never-ending source of information, breaking down territorial boundaries for social interactions and allowing instant interactions across any user around the globe. However, with it, the way we interact with each other, and the world has shifted as well.

One of the most alarming facets of this digital age is the gradual shift away from in-person communication. Smartphones, social media platforms and virtual communication apps have made physical presence optional, and in some cases, even irrelevant. So while these technologies have bridged geographical gaps, they've created a void in the authenticity of our connections, resulting in an increased feeling of loneliness within the unique context of the digital age.

A study from an article in Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine titled Associations between social media use and loneliness in a cross-national population: do motives for social media use matter? found that more time spent on social media was associated with higher levels of loneliness, even when adjusting for age group, living with spouse/partner, employment, and health worry and that although recognizing the limitations of the study conducted, they were able to conclude that statistically significant associations were shown between more time spent daily on social media and higher levels of loneliness.

So this digital loneliness can be perceived as a novel form of isolation arising from our growing reliance on technology for social interaction. It's an eerie paradox -- individuals now feel lonelier despite having larger amounts of social interactions with hundreds, even thousands of virtual friends or followers. This paradox reveals the not-always-great reality of our hyper-connected world.

According to the Social Security in Statistics 2022 reported by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the amount of people living alone has more than doubled in the past two decades. In a poll conducted by the ministry, 21.3 percent of a sample of 9,471 single-member households faced the risk of a lonely death. People in their 50s were the majority at risk of lonely death. However, even the youth were found to live a disconnected life, with difficulty conducting a normal life. To be more exact, 3.1 percent of the Koreans in the age group of 19 to 39 were considered lonely. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family even stepped up to support isolated young South Koreans with 650,000 Korean won (about $500) per month to improve their mental and emotional stability. This is interesting as South Korea is known to be a tech-savvy nation with soaring smartphone and internet usage, and the conducted survey offers a revealing glimpse into how technology impacts social well-being. These findings in South Korea resonate globally, signaling that digital loneliness is not an isolated problem but rather a symptom of the broader societal shifts brought about by technology.

Even this Chuseok holiday, several elderly people queued to eat their holiday meal at a soup run for social connection, as most of them lost connection with their families. Rather than filling their stomachs, most of the elderly population seemed to come for emotional support, as the soup run was full of people to interact with.

Its now a widely accepted fact that in the digital world, we craft meticulously curated profiles, presenting a sanitized and selected view of our lives. Social media platforms not only compel us to showcase idealized versions of ourselves, fostering feelings of inadequacy, but they also normalize the idea that social interaction does not require physical presence.

Additionally, the surge in online communication tools and virtual meetings, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has irrevocably altered the dynamics of our interpersonal relationships. These tools are lifelines in a socially distanced world like the one we were experiencing not long ago, but they, too, contribute to digital loneliness. The absence of physical presence, subtle nonverbal cues and the emotional depth of face-to-face interaction leave individuals yearning for authentic connections. Yet, we may never go back to a social dynamic with physical connections, and maybe the solution lies in a digital aspect.

A South Korean startup, BlueSignum created a social robot in 2019 that provides emotional support in order to help people living alone. The founders developed an AI engine that examines users emotional states so that the robot could respond accordingly to particular situations. When we helped our elder relatives use ChatGPT, most of them said it helped alleviate the pain of loneliness. So perhaps, a social robot could be the solution to the not so prevelent availability of physical interactions.

As we enter a period where social interactions are based on digital technology, the metaverse may be the mainstream society for social connection. This may be the loneliest period in human history. In the process of digitizing our physical social interactions, we can create or live in worlds that cater to our personal needs, allowing our community to be divided among different digital worlds or realms. Even now, we have a greater ability to customize our lifestyles compared to the past, resulting in the creation of a wider array of niche communities. Considering the implications of an even more social digital immersion is quite scary but also seems like the only solution left to the paradox of digital loneliness.

Chyung Eun-ju (ejchyung@snu.ac.kr) is studying for a masters degree in marketing at Seoul National University. Her research focuses on digital assets and the metaverse. Joel Cho (joelywcho@gmail.com) is a practicing lawyer specializing in IP and digital law.
19 October 2023 16:44 (UTC+04:00)

Abbas Ganbay Read more

Aydin Karimov, Special Representative of the President of Azerbaijan in Shusha district, announced the start of construction of a new road network in Shusha, Azerbaijan, Azernews reports.

According to Karimov, the process of naming 85 city streets has already been completed.

The new road network will include water, sewerage, and household waste collection infrastructure. All existing water, gas, and electricity lines in the entire city will be laid under the ground and sidewalks, and the streets will be completely rebuilt according to the Special Representative.

The new highway connecting Shusha with Fuzuli International Airport is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2024, according to Karimov. The 101.5-kilometer road will include many tunnels and passages and will facilitate the construction of fast communications.

Construction of the new road to Shusha has begun from the village of Ahmadbayli in the Fuzuli district and will be laid to Shusha through the city of Fuzuli, the villages of Taghaverdi and Dashalty. The road will be six-lane - three lanes in each direction, with the main part being four-lane. Two lanes will be service lanes and are intended for the movement of trucks and special equipment. The overall completion of the road is expected to take a year and a half.

The new road is not related to the previously functioning Aghdam-Khankandi-Shusha road AZN 50 mln ($29.4 mln) has been allocated from the reserve fund of the President of Azerbaijan for the design and construction of the Ahmadbayli-Fuzuli-Shusha highway.

Thanks to the Ahmadbayli-Fuzuli-Shusha highway, the distance from Baku to the city of Shusha will be reduced to 345 km.

Construction of the Fuzuli-Shusha highway is planned to be completed by the end of this or the beginning of next year.

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19 October 2023 11:13 (UTC+04:00)

Laman Ismayilova Read more

President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Ersin Tatar has visited the International Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation.

Recalling that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was granted observer status in the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) within the Samarkand Summit held last November, President Ersin Tatar hailed the rich history of Turkic world, including its culture, literature and music, Azernews reports.

He emphasized that Northern Cyprus and its people are a part of the Turkic world, President Ersin Tatar expressed his hope that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus will soon be among the countries cooperating with the International Turkish Culture and Heritage Foundation.

Speaking about the friendship and brotherhood between the Turkic states, the foundation president Gunay Afandiyeva noted common roots, traditions, language, folklore, and religion, which create a solid foundation for the joint future of the Turkic world.

Gunay Afandiyeva also informed President Ersin Tatar about the foundation's large-scale activities and international projects aimed at protecting the centuries-old cultural heritage of the Turkic world and passing it on to future generations.

The sides discussed the issues of mutual interest and prospects for future cooperation.

Initiated in 2012, the Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation focuses on the preservation of the Turkic heritage in member countries as well as conducting projects in collaboration with partners in third nations.

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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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
19 October 2023 14:53 (UTC+04:00)

Laman Ismayilova Read more

Azerbaijan National Art Museum has displayed 50 miniatures by People's Artist Arif Huseynov.

The exhibition themed "Miniatursayag" is the final project in a series of exhibitions dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the national artist, Azernews reports.

In their remarks, the Secretary of the Azerbaijan Artists' Union, People's Artist Aghali Ibrahimov, Honored Artist, Ziyadkhan Aliyev and others emphasized Arif Huseynov's contribution to the development of fine arts in Azerbaijan.

During his fruitful creative life, the master of the brush created many works that were included in the treasury of national art.

It was emphasized that Arif Huseynov is a true patriot of his country. In his works one can feel the boundless love for the Motherland; his art pieces, whether graphics, illustrations or miniatures, provide insight into the Azerbaijani culture and history.

In his speech, Arif Huseynov expressed gratitude to the organizers and all participants of the event.

My creative activity covers several areas, including illustrations for literary works, graphics and miniatures. Therefore, the exhibition "Azerbaijani Fairy Tale" was previously held in Baku. That exposition included art works based on 30 classical Azerbaijani fairy tales and two modern ones. It was followed by two exhibitions-Graphics and Miniatursayag, which is the final one," the artist said.

For many years, the artist who uses his inexhaustible creative potential in the machine and graphic arts has been striving to revive the ancient miniature art traditions in a new form and artistic-aesthetic attitude.

His series of paintings on national folklore, tradition, material, and cultural examples can be considered a new and creative look at Azerbaijan's ancient miniatures.

Arif Huseynov created modern images for fairy tales. He brilliantly combined tradition and modernity in his designs for the books of fairy tales.

His personal exhibitions have been successfully held in Baku, Moscow, Prague, Istanbul, and Tokyo. Arif Huseynov's paintings are kept in the National Art Museum, the State Art Gallery, and the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow, as well as in private collections.

According to the People's Artist, the three national brands of Azerbaijan related to art are carpet, mugham and miniature. Arif Huseynov expressed hope that over time an International Center for Miniatures will appear in the country.

The exhibition "Miniatursayag" will last until October 20.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr

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19 October 2023 10:43 (UTC+04:00)

Abbas Ganbay Read more

Western Azerbaijan Community calls on the International Organisation of the Francophonie to be cautious and responsible, Azernews reports.

Armenia and France continue their efforts to turn the International Francophone Organisation (IFO) into a staunchly anti-Azerbaijani platform. In this regard, the recent statements of the BFT Secretary General in Yerevan are a cause for concern.

This is stated in the statement of the Western Azerbaijan Community.

It was noted that the Secretary-General while emphasizing the importance of protecting Armenian cultural heritage in Garabagh, did not address the sad situation of the cultural heritage belonging to the Azerbaijani people in Armenia, which is a manifestation of clear bias and double standards.

The Western Azerbaijan Community calls on the Secretary General of the International Federation of International Trade Unions not to become a tool in the dirty activities of Armenia and France against Azerbaijan, and to be careful and responsible in his statements about Azerbaijan.

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19 October 2023 15:45 (UTC+04:00)

Abbas Ganbay Read more

European media published an article about President Ilham Aliyev raising the Azerbaijani flag in Azerbaijan's Khojaly. The article talks about justice for Khojaly and the Armenian minority living in Garabagh under the former separatist regime's pressure.

Besides, the article goes on to speak of the necessary measures to restore human rights for all, alluding to the Azerbaijani and Armenian victims of Armenian terrorists now behind bars and on trial in Baku. The Human Rights Organisation demands disclosure by Azerbaijan of the facts of the violation of the rights of the Armenian population of Garabagh by the illegal regime.

AZERNEWS presents the article:

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev raised his countrys flag over the town of Khojaly

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev raised his countrys flag over the town of Khojaly. In February 1992 the Azerbaijani residents of Khojaly were subjected to one of the most horrific massacres of the First Karabakh war. This evokes a sense of justice demanded for 30 years for the 613 innocent victims of the Khojaly massacre. This sense is strengthened now when the former war-lords, who had run the illegal regime in Karabakh and who have been presumably involved in a number of war crimes such as massacre in Khojaly await their hour of justice behind bars in Baku.

However true reconciliation to come to these war-torn lands requires justice and restoration of human rights for all. Now when the legal gray zone have been eliminated in Karabakh it is very important that we do not forget the rights of the Armenian population, which have been violated in the gray zone of Karabakh for all the years the illegal regime existed. Therefore, during the trial of these former war-lords Azerbaijan should ensure also the disclosure of violations of the rights of the Armenian population of Karabakh by the illegal regime.

On our part Karabakh Human Rights Awareness Campaign launched last year to raise international awareness on human rights abuses in Karabakh is back with monitoring this process, revelation of human rights violation Karabakh Armenians experienced under the gray zone regime and ensuring restoration of their rights. Our objective is justice and true reconciliation of communities but also helping those Armenians who might wish to return to Karabakh to live in dignity with ensured security of their fundamental human rights.

It is protection of human rights not political manipulations with the fate of this people is the only way to just and sustainable peace in the region.

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19 October 2023 10:18 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijan Defense Minister, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov is paying an official visit to Uzbekistan at the invitation of the Uzbekistan Defense Minister, Lieutenant General Bakhodir Kurbanov. Azernews reports.

Development prospects of cooperation between the two countries in military, military-technical, military-educational and other fields, as well as a number of issues of mutual interest are planned to discuss during the meeting.

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19 October 2023 11:58 (UTC+04:00)

Abbas Ganbay Read more

Ignoring the right of Azerbaijanis to return to Armenia and demanding amnesty for war criminals by the EU increases tensions in the region, the Western Azerbaijan Community stated, Azernews reports.

"We, as the Western Azerbaijan Community representing Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia, strongly condemn the anti-Azerbaijani statement made by the European Union (EU) on 18 October 2023 at the meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

First of all, we stress that by making this shameful statement on 18 October, the Day of Restoration of Azerbaijan's State Independence, the EU symbolically expressed its biased attitude towards our country and people.

We would like to emphasize that by applying the right of return only to Garabagh Armenians and denying this right to Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia, the EU has clearly demonstrated its discrimination against Azerbaijanis on ethnic grounds.

Furthermore, despite the numerous war crimes committed during the conflict, we are deeply concerned by the EU's demand for an amnesty for "all Garabagh Armenians". Granting amnesty for war crimes not only violates the principles of justice and accountability but also makes sustainable peace and reconciliation in the region impossible by creating an atmosphere of impunity.

The EU's demand for amnesty for war crimes and crimes against humanity shows the growth of a racist mentality and the erosion of humanistic values in this institution, as well as its lack of interest in establishing peace and justice in the region.

Moreover, while the statement calls on Azerbaijan to protect the human rights and cultural heritage of the local population, it does not call for Armenia's responsibility with regard to the rights and cultural heritage of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia and the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. This is further evidence of the EU's biased and anti-Azerbaijani approach.

Finally, while the statement calls on Azerbaijan to reaffirm Armenia's commitment to territorial integrity, Armenia is not called upon to do the same. Given the fact that Armenia has occupied Azerbaijani territories for decades and the EU has turned a blind eye, with this call the EU is actually encouraging Armenia to engage in the next military aggression against Azerbaijan.

This statement and the position demonstrated by the EU recently have undermined its credibility and role as a partner for peace. We call on the EU to abandon its anti-Azerbaijani approach and respect the principles of human equality in terms of rights and dignity, as well as the principles of sovereign equality of states and the right of return of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia," emphasized in the Community's statement.

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19 October 2023 11:43 (UTC+04:00)

Qabil Ashirov Read more

Sabina Aliyeva, Commissioner for Human Rights of Azerbaijan (Ombudsman), participated in the VII international scientific-practical conference on "Problems of Human Rights Protection: Sharing Positive Experiences on the Powers of Ombudsmen," Azernews reports.

At the event attended by ombudsmen of forty-seven countries, during her speech on the topic "Activity of the Azerbaijani Ombudsman in the War and Post-war Period", the Ombudsman emphasized the role of ombudsman institutions and national human rights institutions in the field of effective protection of human rights and freedoms, and gave detailed information about the activities of the Ombudsman institution of Azerbaijan in the relevant direction.

The commissioner talked about the reforms carried out for the effective protection of human rights and freedoms in Azerbaijan, and about the changes made to the Constitutional Law "On the Human Rights Commissioner (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan" regarding the expansion of her mandate in the relevant fields in accordance with the existing international standards.

Noting that the war and terrorist acts that have occurred in recent years have led to the violation of fundamental human rights and the emergence of a humanitarian crisis, the Ombudsman also spoke about the war crimes committed by Armenia in the Azerbaijani lands occupied for nearly thirty years.

Sabina Aliyeva pointed out that as a result of the Second Karabakh War, Azerbaijani lands were liberated from occupation and the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan was restored in accordance with the requirements of international law.

The ombudsman noted that monitoring was carried out for the purpose of investigating war crimes committed by Armenia both in the Patriotic War and in the post-war period, and appeals, reports and statements containing the facts of gross violations of international humanitarian law were addressed to relevant international organizations and institutions operating in the field of human rights protection.

Stating that the wars not only cause human casualties, but also cause their disappearances, the Commissioner brought to the attention of the conference participants that about 4,000 Azerbaijanis went missing in the First Karabakh War, and Armenia has not yet informed them about their fate.

Speaking about the mine terror committed by Armenia in Azerbaijans liberated territories, S. Aliyeva noted that hundreds of people have become mine victims since the Second Karabakh war as a result of the mine explosion.

In the end, S. Aliyeva expressed her hope that the relations between institutions in the field of human rights protection will be further strengthened, and that effective activities and constructive dialogue will continue.

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19 October 2023 11:24 (UTC+04:00)

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has addressed the participants of the 6th Congress of Azerbaijani Women.

The letter reads:

Dear congress representatives!

Dear ladies!

I am sending my greetings to you on the occasion of the opening of the Sixth Congress of Azerbaijani women, wishing you all good health, happiness and every success in your future activities.

The fact that the Congress is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Great Leader Heydar Aliyevs birth has profound meaning. The National Leader has always attached special importance to the active participation of our women in public and political developments and their extensive representation in public institutions. The first congress of Azerbaijani women held at the initiative of the Great Leader 25 years ago initiated a qualitatively new stage of women's movement in our country. Since that time, our women, whose position in society has become even stronger, have made valuable contributions to the strengthening the socioeconomic, cultural and scientific potential of the republic. Their praiseworthy reputation is the result of the consistent implementation of the state women's policy, the fundamental principles of which were defined by Heydar Aliyev.

At a time when globalization is picking up pace and national identity is subject to lasting changes, the contribution of Azerbaijani women to the preservation of our cultural and moral values is truly unparalleled. I am pleased to note that women are also successfully continuing the traditions of their enlightened predecessors, adding new strength to our public life with their initiatives and extensive public and cultural activities, thus writing bright pages in the annals of our independence. Each of our achievements is also underpinned by a great effort of women. A clear example of the love of our selfless mothers for the Motherland is the young generation with genuine national convictions, which demonstrated the fighting spirit of our people with their unmatched bravery on the battlefield for the sake of restoring the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state.

Azerbaijan is going through a glorious period in its history, which abounds in fateful events. Various large-scale projects are being implemented in connection with the Great Return to our territories liberated from occupation. Our women spare no effort for the well-being of our country and are heavily involved in this extensive construction work.

I am sure that your Congress will play the role of a useful platform with its discussions of current issues and valuable recommendations, and will direct women's movement in our country into the solution of the tasks arising from our national priorities.

Ilham Aliyev

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Baku, 18 October 2023

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19 October 2023 15:23 (UTC+04:00)

Abbas Ganbay Read more

"As a result of the first Garabagh war, 52 percent of our compatriots who became refugees and internally displaced persons are women," Ombudsman Sabina Aliyeva said this during her speech at the VII Congress of Women of Azerbaijan, Azernews reports.

"At the same time, 267 of our 4,000 missing compatriots were women. Unfortunately, despite repeated appeals, Armenia has still not provided any information about their fate. It is a fact that all the armed conflicts, wars and natural disasters that have taken place "The greatest difficulty falls on women and children as vulnerable groups," the Ombudsman adds.

It should be noted that the VI Congress of Azerbaijani Women is being held on the 100th anniversary of great leader Heydar Aliyev.

The VI Congress of Azerbaijani Women, which gathered about 600 women from all regions of Azerbaijan, is being held on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of national leader Heydar Aliyev, who founded the women's movement in our country, as well as the 25th anniversary of the first Women's Congress.

State officials of the Republic of Turkiye, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, deputies of parliament, government and non-governmental organisations, as well as representatives of international organisations and embassies of foreign countries in our country, including representatives of all regions of the republic, will also take part in the Congress. Prominent social-political figures will take part, who will discuss the mentioned issues and bring their proposals to the attention of the public.

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Consulting firm distinguishes GenAI from Amazons hiring tool, IBM Watson

By Park Jae-hyuk

McKinsey & Company dismissed skepticism over the future of generative artificial intelligence (AI), saying the technology is unlikely to follow in the footsteps of Amazons hiring tool and IBM Watson, which both had disadvantages.

The worlds leading consulting firm told global journalists at the Asia Media Day event in Seoul, Thursday, that generative AI will have a significant impact on all industries, despite risks that are still inherent in the technology.

Based on the optimistic view, McKinsey talked about the potential of generative AI in two sessions of the event, which was held on the sidelines of the gathering of McKinseys senior executives worldwide.

The company was initially expected to review a variety of tech trends ranging from cloud and edge computing to quantum computing, during one of the three morning sessions. However, the great interest in AI in recent months prompted the sessions speakers to focus more on the topic of generative AI.

Lareina Yee and Vinayak HV, senior partners of McKinsey, admitted that the growth of generative AI will deal a blow to knowledge workers in sectors such as banking and consumer retail, also mentioning risks associated with the technology, such as hallucinations and intellectual property infringement.

However, Vinayak believed that generative AI will bring less toil and more joy, speaking about his own experience and changes in workflow witnessed in various industries.

Yee also said that a study on call center workers showed that agents became happier after the introduction of AI, as the technology enhanced their productivity, allowing the employees to build expertise.

In response to concerns that the use of AI may cause bias as Amazons hiring tool previously advised the tech giant to hire white males, Yee, who previously served as McKinseys chief diversity officer, emphasized that generative AI differs from Amazons, which was an analytical AI.

She noted that the new technology will help recruiters save time, allowing them to look more broadly when reviewing the applicants.

But at the same time, she did not rule out the necessity of human decision for the final judgement.

In the afternoon, McKinsey Senior Partner Jeff Galvin, who is also an Asia co-leader of QuantumBlack, McKinsey's AI consulting arm, delivered a presentation on generative AI, saying that it has transformed how people interact with technology.

Generative AI is poised to boost performance and unlock trillions of dollars across functions, he said. Generative AI will have a significant impact across all industries.

According to the senior partner, generative AI will unlock $4.4 trillion in annual value for the global economy.

In terms of the ability to learn from unstructured data and inflow of capital into the sector, he also drew a line between generative AI and IBM Watson, which is considered to have eventually failed to reorganize the health care industry.
19 October 2023 16:21 (UTC+04:00)

Qabil Ashirov Read more

On October 17, the opening ceremony of the crisis communication training organized by the Institute of Development and Diplomacy of ADA University for the specialists of the Digital Development and Transport Ministry was held, Azernews reports.

Nargiz Ismayilova, the head of the specialization programs of the Development and Diplomacy Institute, greeted the training participants and informed them about the goals of the program, and at the same time talked about the activities of the institute. Nargiz Ismayilova added that within the mentioned training program, practice and theory will be presented in a balanced and systematic manner, and the knowledge and skills of the participants will be updated in the relevant direction.

Adviser to the Digital Development and Transport Minister Rashad Bayramov said in his speech that this training is not only a learning experience, but also a platform for applying experience. Rashad Bayramov, who talked about the Ministry's Crisis Communication Plan last year, expressed his confidence that the participants who completed the training will acquire the necessary skills to minimize the possible consequences of the crisis.

The media and communication expert who will teach the training program, Shafaq Mehraliyeva, the director of the Communication and digital media program of ADA University, emphasized in his speech that during the training period, success formulas and templates in the effective organization of communication will be analyzed, and experiences in this field will be examined. He added that participants will develop effective management skills by strengthening communication management skills.

Turkhan Ahmadov, one of the trainers of the program, and the head of the Public Relations and Communications Department of the Nobel Energy Company, pointed out that during the training period, parallels will be made on the events reflected in real life, and practice-based teaching will be preferred.

It should be noted that more than 60 employees of the ministry and subordinate institutions will participate in the training.

The main purpose of the training is to teach response measures to protect the organization and stakeholders from threats or to mitigate the impact of threats when a crisis occurs. Also, conducting a communication audit, identifying risk areas and potential threats, and developing crisis communication and standards are among the goals of the training.

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19 October 2023 16:54 (UTC+04:00)

Minister of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov, who is on an official visit to Uzbekistan at the invitation of the Uzbekistan Defense Minister, Lieutenant General Bakhodir Kurbanov, visited the Bahouddin Naqshbandi memorial complex, Azernews reports.

After getting acquainted with the complex, Colonel General Hasanov arrived at the Bukhara combined arms training range.

An official welcoming ceremony was held. The defense ministers passed along the guard of honor, and the national anthems of both countries were performed.

Defense ministers met first in private and then in an expanded format with the participation of delegations.

At the meeting, the sides exchanged views on the prospects for the development of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan in military, military-technical, and military educational fields, the organization of regular mutual visits of experts from both countries and a number of other issues of interest.

Then there was an introduction to the activity, material, and educational base of the training range. The guests watched the exemplary exercises of servicemen.

The sides exchanged presents, and a photo was taken.

In the end, the "Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2024" was signed.

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19 October 2023 18:00 (UTC+04:00)

Abbas Ganbay Read more

Baku will host an international conference "Neocolonialism Human Rights Violations and Injustice" organized by the Baku Initiative Group (BIG) on 20 October, Azernews reports.

The conference will be attended by representatives of 14 countries, as well as the overseas territories of France and Corsica.

The program of the international conference includes speeches by participants on the situation in the territories they represent, France's gross interference in the internal affairs of states in its former colonies, France's gross violation of human rights in its current colonies, as well as broad discussions by participants on the topic of decolonization.

It should be noted that the Baku Initiative Group was established on 6 July 2023 in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement chaired by Azerbaijan.

BIG supports the struggle for freedom of people located in different regions of the world still suffering from colonization in the 21st century.

It should be reminded that the BIG events are attended by representatives of independence and national movements of the French overseas regions of New Caledonia, French Polynesia, French Guiana, Martinique, and Guadeloupe, representatives of Corsica and the Melanesian Initiative Group, as well as officials of the countries that have long been French colonies on the African continent. Representatives of the independence and national movements declared that they would continue the struggle until the complete liberation from French colonialism and its eradication.

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19 October 2023 17:14 (UTC+04:00)

Abbas Ganbay Read more

"New Caledonia is grateful to Azerbaijan for its support in the struggle for independence, the representative of New Caledonia," says Kayizi Pier at a press conference, Azernews reports.

Kayizi Pier also expressed gratitude to Azerbaijan for the opportunity to find support in the struggle of the people of New Caledonia for their rights.

Pier also stressed that France is trying in every possible way to avoid including New Caledonia in the list of countries that were colonized.

Thanks to Azerbaijan, we were able to convey our voice to the world community through such an influential platform as the Non-Aligned Movement and ask for support. We demand a second referendum on independence. We didnt participate in the previous referendum. To do this, we need to enlist the support of the international community, Pier said.

Also in the conference take part Wea Kuanene, a representative of the Kanak youth movement, with the speech We hope that the Baku Platform will allow us to take the fight for the rights of Kanaks to a new level,"

We are here to protect the rights of our indigenous peoples. The Kanaks' struggle is to achieve legitimacy. We strive to bring our problem to the whole world and get support from other countries. We hope for support from countries participating in the Non-Aligned Movement. We hope that the fight for our rights and the discussion of this issue will be successful thanks to Azerbaijan and will extend beyond Baku, Kuanene noted.

The international conference Neo-colonialism: violation of human rights and injustice, organized by the Baku Initiative Group (BIG), opens in Baku on October 20.

Representatives from 14 countries and regions, including the overseas territories of France and Corsica, will take part in it.

The Baku Initiative Group (BIG) was created on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants in the Complete Elimination of Colonialism conference within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordination Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement chaired by the Republic of Azerbaijan.

BIG supports the struggle for the freedom of people in various regions of the world still suffering from colonization in the 21st century.

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19 October 2023 08:00 (UTC+04:00)

In a ceremony held in Barbados, the government of Venezuela led by President Nicolas Maduro and the country's opposition reached an agreement on Tuesday to schedule presidential elections for the second half of 2024. The consensus comes as the United States considers easing certain oil-related sanctions on Venezuela, Azernews reports, citing Anadolu Agency.

After a suspension of almost a year, the two sides announced their commitment to respect electoral guarantees, including the authorization of all presidential candidates "who meet the legal requirements to participate." It did not, however, reverse bans on some opposition figures, including Maria Corina Machado.

Primary elections are set to take place in Venezuela on Sunday, where candidate Machado is expected to win. However, some opposition leaders, including Machado, are currently barred from holding public office.

Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the Venezuelan government delegation, emphasized that disqualified individuals will be able to run for the presidency. Whether the US government, led by President Joe Biden, will allow these terms to stand remains uncertain.

If Washington agrees to the terms, it could provide much-needed relief to President Maduro by easing oil sanctions, which have restricted oil exports to the US since 2019. The Biden administration began gradually lifting some restrictions on Venezuela's oil sector last year.

President Maduro, who has been in power since 2013 and was re-elected in 2018 in an election widely criticized by the international community as neither free nor fair, is expected to seek another term in office next year, although he has not officially announced his candidacy.

The Barbados agreement specifies that international observers from the European Union and the United Nations will oversee the upcoming vote in 2024.

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19 October 2023 19:20 (UTC+04:00)

Kazakhstan on Thursday announced that it has suspended exports of 106 types of goods to Russia, local media reports saidc Azernews reports, citing Anadolu Agency.

Kazakhstan exports all types of commodities, except for 106 specific types of goods (that) it has had to curb, Vice-Minister of Trade and Integration Kairat Torebayev said.

Torebayev expressed that Kazakhstan imposed restrictions specifically on the export of drones, their components, chips, and special electronics to Russia.

Kazakhstan does not manufacture those goods, but only imports them, Torebayev was quoted as saying.

Last month, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin that his country would adhere to the sanctions regime imposed by the West on Russia.

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19 October 2023 19:50 (UTC+04:00)

Two Turkish vehicle manufacturers, Otokar and Nurol Makina, on Wednesday signed contracts with Estonia for the supply of 230 armored vehicles worth around 200 million (approximately $211 million), Azernews reports, citing Anadolu Agency.

A contract signing ceremony was held in the Estonian capital Tallinn for the 230 4X4 and 6X6 vehicles to be delivered to Estonian security forces by the Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (ECDI).

Additionally, four wheeled armoured vehicles have been purchased for the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Centre of the Estonian Rescue Board. These armoured vehicles are intended to safeguard members of the Defence Forces in combat situations, ensuring their rapid and secure deployment on the battlefield, according to a statement from the ECDI.

During the ceremony, Turkish National Defense Minister Yasar Guler and his Estonian counterpart Hanno Pevkur signed a Letter of Intent, and Haluk Gorgun, president of the Turkish Defense Industry Agency, and Magnus Valdemar Saar, director general of the ECDI signed a protocol for cooperation in the two countries' defense industries.

Later, contracts were signed between ECDI and Otokar for the supply of ARMA 6X6 armored combat vehicles, and NurolMakina for the supply of NMS (YORUK) 4X4 armored combat vehicles. Otokar Deputy General Manager Sedef Vehbi and Engin Aykol, Nurol Makinas CEO signed the contracts.

Speaking at the event, Turkish Minister Guler said the signed letter of intent will strengthen the two countries' excellent relations and allow the defense industry and companies to collaborate more.

Noting that the two countries have very good relations based on mutual respect, Guler said the 100th anniversary of bilateral relations will be celebrated in 2024.

Relations in the defense industry will bring the two countries closer, the minister said, adding The products of Turkish companies will further strengthen the Estonian army and contribute to regional security. The memorandum of intent will further develop good relations.

For his part, Estonian Defense Minister Pevkur said that following the Ukraine-Russia war, Estonia realized it did not have much time to strengthen its defense.

I am very pleased to sign this letter of intent, which will further our cooperation in the defense industry, Pevkur said.

He also added that NATO is a great military power and the latest developments in Ukraine and Israel have reaffirmed the importance of keeping this great power together.

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19 October 2023 23:05 (UTC+04:00)

German businesses will be able to count on receiving benefits when investing in Uzbekistan, the German publication Deutsche Welle reports, Azernews reports, citing Kun.uz news agency.

Germany included Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Georgia on a list of 34 selected countries with which the government will encourage economic cooperation through preferential investment guarantees.
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China's Shanghai Electric collaborates with Malaysia on waste-to-energy plant

Xinhua) 13:50, October 19, 2023

Guests attend the groundbreaking ceremony for a waste-to-energy plant in Malaysia's Selangor state on Oct. 17, 2023. China's Shanghai Electric is collaborating on a waste-to-energy plant in Malaysia's Selangor state, helping the country meet its sustainability commitments.(Photo by Chong Voon Chung/Xinhua)

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- China's Shanghai Electric is collaborating on a waste-to-energy plant in Malaysia's Selangor state, helping the country meet its sustainability commitments.

The project will help the state dispose of waste using the least possible land and generating power with the latest technology that is the safest way, Selangor state Chief Minister Amirudin Shari said during the groundbreaking ceremony of the plant on Tuesday.

The plant can dispose about 2,900 tons of solid waste per day and generate about 52 megawatts (MW) of electricity, and is scheduled to start operations in 2026, enabling waste disposal while ensuring that new land will not have to be used for additional landfills.

For his part, President of Shanghai Electric Power Generation Engineering Co. Sha Yunfeng said the company is excited to play its role in the project. "Together with our partners, we aim to introduce new standards of sustainable waste management and innovative energy generation to benefit the people of Selangor," he said.

Meanwhile, the project's owner Worldwide Holdings said the project would have a positive impact on the local economy, creating 900 jobs during the construction phase and 250 jobs in operation.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Minister apologizes for Jamboree controversy, but says it was not fiasco
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Email Dan Walters of CalMatters at dan@calmatters.org. CalMatters is a nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture committed to explaining how Californias state Capitol works and why it matters. For more columns by Walters, go to calmatters.org/dan-walters.
By Park Jae-hyuk

The rapid growth of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry in recent years has reminded some people of themes from dystopian sci-fi movies, such as The Terminator, causing fear that machines may take over the world.

However, AI experts from corporate, academic and government sectors unanimously expressed an optimistic outlook for the future during a panel discussion at the Korea Times Forum, Wednesday, expecting the technology to have positive impacts for society.

Kim Myoung-shin, LG AI Research principal policy officer, emphasized that AI will help to overcome various crises facing humanity.

AI needs a massive amount of energy at this moment, but the technological development has enabled consumption of less resources for better performance, he said. AI also predicts how drought, flood and wildfire will spread, so it contributes to dealing with climate change and natural disasters.

Although Kim admitted that the gaps between countries and companies could be widened depending on whether they secure advanced technologies, he added that AI can alleviate geographic polarization to some degree by promoting the development of novel drugs and agricultural production.

Chang Joong-ho, professor at Seoul School of Integrated Sciences & Technologies (aSSIST), forecasted the emergence of new jobs and industries that can counteract negative and illegal uses of AI.

Numerous crimes and accidents have occurred in the wake of the growth of the internet and mobile businesses, and these problems have created new businesses, such as cybersecurity companies, he said.

Uhm Yul, director general of the Artificial Intelligence Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, dismissed concerns over the famous saying, AI will not replace you, but the person using AI will.

People using AI may reduce the number of jobs in the short run, but once the technology is applied to various industries, jobs will increase ultimately, he said.

Singularity already here

Yang Yoon-seok, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the State University of New York, Korea, advised policymakers and companies to focus more on minimizing the negative impacts of AI, saying it is impossible to go against the trend of technological development.

He noted that the speed of AIs development has been much faster than engineers expected.

Ray Kurzweil defined singularity as the moment when artificial intelligence exceeds human intelligence, and a recent paper from Microsoft claimed that singularity is already here technologically, he said. I personally think that singularity is near.

Kim and Uhm agreed that singularity will occur in the near future.

The happening of singularity relies on choice, the LG AI researcher said. If the government does not control the technological development, singularity may happen earlier than expected.

Chang, however, pointed out that the AI industry will face regulatory hurdles someday, although he also believes that singularity will occur after society breaks through those barriers.

The first AI winter in 1960s and the second winter in late 1990s resulted from technological problems, he said. The third winter will come, due to problems regarding ethics and regulations.

Cautious approach to AI regulations

There was a consensus among the panelists about the necessity of a code of AI ethics, although they maintained a cautious stance on regulating the technology.

As a policymaker, Uhm saw that regulations may have negative impacts on the industry, although the legally binding force could make companies act more socially responsible in their development of AI.

The government has made efforts since 2019 to establish AI ethics, based on the OECD AI Principles, he said.

Kim agreed to punishing companies that caused problems with their AI, but in terms of preventing the possible problems caused by AI, he recommended that the government induce investments to flow into ethical technologies, rather than prioritizing regulations.

Users should also have AI literacy, so that they can avoid unethical companies, he said.

Kim, who previously worked for UNESCO to draw up AI principles, pointed out that it could be difficult for different countries to follow a single global AI code of ethics, although most nations feel the necessity of such ethics. He therefore called for international discussions on which ethical values can be changed more flexibly.

Each country has different ethical standards and beliefs, due to their different histories and traditions, he said. The biggest tasks in the AI industry over the next several years will be the agreement among the major players on the AI ethics.

Chang noted the need for countermeasures against fake news generated with AI.

In addition, the professor who also runs a small AI startup asked the government to be clearer about regulations, so that smaller firms do not suffer from uncertainties.

Yang said AI companies and the government should prevent machine learning from using biased data, because biased responses from AI will have significantly negative impacts on students.

We should be more careful about using AI at schools, and machine learning should be done with refined data, he said. Companies and the government should come up with better guidelines.

Regarding this issue, Kim answered that LG has avoided web crawling in teaching its AI, saying that the company has secured millions of papers and theses it calls "qualified" in collaboration with its partner firm, to minimize AI hallucinations, confident responses by an AI that do not seem to be justified by the data a system is trained on.
Extreme Sneaker Wave Danger on S. Oregon Coast, Yet All of Coast Sunny, Near 70 This Week

Published 10/17/23 at 4:52 a.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Coos Bay, Oregon)  From Reedsport down through Brookings, there will be an extreme sneaker wave threat for the entire south Oregon coast, with the National Weather Service (NWS) saying not to go on beaches Tuesday night through Wednesday evening. While the northern half of the shoreline won't be quite as unruly, wave height is falling just below warning levels. (Photo courtesy Gleneda Borton / King Tides: Bandon at extreme tides)

Ironically, all this will be happening as the entire Oregon coast gets really sunny for the next few days, with unseasonably warm temps, especially down south where it will get as high as the mid 70s. There's a good run all along the coast of sunny conditions for Tuesday through Friday, even though sneaker waves in the south will make the beaches too dangerous.

The NWS said on social: Tuesday night through Wednesday afternoon will NOT be a good time to be walking the beach.

They also issued a special weather statement  which is just shy of a warning.

Waves can run up significantly farther on a beach than normal, including over rocks and jetties, the NWS said. These sneaker waves can suddenly knock people off of their feet and quickly pull them into the cold ocean waters, resulting in serious injury or death.

The culprit is a big swell from the west with a high period timing of 20 seconds coming in on Wednesday, according to the NWS. This refers to the timing between waves. If that timing is the mid teens or higher, waves can build up considerable power by bunching together into one much larger wave. Hence, a sneaker wave.

20 seconds is an extreme number for timing  rather unusual. The timing and wave height are considerable on the north Oregon coast as well, but just below the sneaker wave statement threshold, even though timing is at a whopping 24 seconds sometimes.

However, for now, the NWS is concentrating its warnings for the southern beaches in a statement made at 2 a.m. on Tuesday.

While tonight there will be a high risk for sneaker waves, the risk increases to extreme around 5 AM PDT Wednesday and lasts into the afternoon, the NWS said. We are anticipating the sneaker wave risk to decrease later Wednesday evening as the period decreases and an overlapping swell 'merges' into one wave group by Thursday.

Basic Forecast:

Tuesday: sunny with highs in low to mid 70s on south coast, upper 60s on north coast.

Wednesday: forecast is nearly identical.

Thursday: Same.

Friday: Mostly sunny with highs more in the 60s for both areas.

With such warm temps close to the mid 70s and sunny skies, it will be tempting to wander the beaches of the south coast. Do not do so. Stay on high ground and watch the spectacle.

Suggestion: Shore Acres by Coos Bay should be nearly maniacal.

Even up north, be prepared for sneaker waves in areas like Florence, Newport or Seaside. The NWS is looking at some rather extraordinary wave patterns.

We continue to monitor the progress of a large swell train associated with a strong Aleutian low that will move into the Gulf of Alaska Tuesday, the NWS said of the north coast. While there are no ship reports nearby as ships are wisely avoiding this storm, wave heights on the order of 40-50 feet were modeled for swell generation region of this storm. While wave heights will be nowhere near that by the time these waves arrive at the coast, they will likely only decay to around 13-16 ft by the time they reach the US West Coast.

See Washington Coast Weather - Oregon Coast Weather

Forerunner swells on the order of 5-8 ft with dominant periods of 20-24 seconds are currently forecast for the coast Wednesday, which will result in a highly elevated threat of sneaker waves during a period of nice warm and sunny beach weather.

On Wednesday, conditions up north get a little more dicey.

Wednesday night into Thursday, periods decrease to 16-19 seconds, but swell height increases to 13-16 ft. While this remains below High Surf Advisory criteria, the concurrence with some of the higher tides of the month could lead to significant runup and potentially minor beach erosion as these waves reach shore.

In short, from Florence northward it is a time of caution on the beaches as well. This may well turn into beach hazard warnings for that area too.

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N. Oregon Coast Trolley Expands as Astoria Gets New Century-Old Tram Soon

Published 10/11/23 at 7:42 p.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Astoria, Oregon)  What's old is new again on the north Oregon coast, as Astoria gets ready to add a new vintage trolley car to its already-popular trolley system. Joining the 110-year-old Old 300 trolley car will be a slightly younger one that was built in 1917. (Photo courtesy historictrolleysandparts.com)

The Astoria Riverfront Trolley Association (ARTA) is the non-profit group that runs the Astoria Trolley, that picturesque and extremely popular ride that putt-putts its way through the north Oregon coast town from spring through fall.

David Reid, executive director of the Astoria Warrenton Chamber of Commerce, along with ARTA president Willis Van Dusen, said the trolley system is getting so busy it could really use a backup.

The trolley and its crew have become iconic and beloved fixtures for locals and visitors alike, serving over 50,000 passengers a year and featuring in innumerable photos, paintings, television shows, and even Hollywood films, Van Dusen said.

Old 300 occasionally has to go in for repairs, and that could mean taking it offline and leaving no trolley. Yet it also requires periodic restoration work to keep its lifespan up.

ARTA also hopes to create more excitement for the Astoria Trolley system, and providing a focal point for recruitment of operators, mechanics, and other volunteers to ARTA.



Courtesy historictrolleysandparts.com

The new tram should provide a new host for dedicated runs and special event rentals, like group outings, weddings or conferences. ARTA also hopes this will preserve this unique presence along Astoria's riverfront.

Tram 183 comes to the Oregon coast burgh through funds provided by an anonymous donor, ARTA said. They called it an extraordinarily rare opportunity to purchase a second vintage trolley car.

Currently, the car is in Willits, California, and is expected to make it here between November 1 and the end of 2023.

The history of Tram 183 is an interesting one that spans two continents and yet only 70 years of service out of its 100 years of existence.

According to Oregon's Gales Creek Enterprises, which put up Tram 183 for sale, the original body  made of wood - was built by an Australian company back in 1917. It was not completed until about 1920, and then was put into service in Melbourne, Australia for about 15 years. In '35, it went to Victoria, used in the town of Ballarat and renamed Car 30. In 1971, the tram car was put into storage after the tramway system in that town ended.

Nine years later it was sold and brought to Portland, Oregon in 1980. A year later, a devastating fire hit the tram car, burning most of its wooden frame. It was a shell of its former self. It went into storage until 2005, when a rebuilding project began.

The company said it has been rebuilt to spec: The entire body has been rebuilt as close to the original design as possible using traditional mortise and tenon joinery from the frame up. Considerable emphasis was placed on maintaining the original structural design and construction techniques.

Durson said the new tram will get some testing and a trial period to ensure compatibility and operability, as well as condition.

Once confirmed, Tram 183 will become a permanent part of the ARTA story, Durson said.

See the Astoria Trolley site for more.

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Interior of Tram 183 as it was being restored

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One Serene and Surreal Night Where Oregon Coast Meets the Rest of the Universe

Published 10/13/23 at 6:54 a.m.

By Andre' GW Hagestedt





(Manzanita, Oregon)  Once again, while loitering around the north Oregon coast, I find myself exploring at night. It's the wee hours, past 2 a.m., and not a creature was stirring. Except me, of course, along with a handful of truckers whizzing by on test runs of new vehicles. (All photos Andre' GW Hagestedt)

The odd and sundry things you discover at night: like that little factoid about trucks. It turns out the trucking industry tests out new vehicles in the middle of the night, so sometimes you'll see runs of them in the Oregon Coast Range in the middle of the night.

That tidbit aside, it's a beautiful mid-September and the stars are out in full force. Typical Second Summer weather, it's windless at the moment. Up above Manzanita, on the overlooks at Neahkanie Mountain, all this is quite intoxicating. In moments like these, you feel connected to everything.

The dark gray of the horizon out there meets the black of deep space  an ocean of stars intersecting with the Pacific Ocean. A comment I'd heard once that resonated with me comes to mind, something Philip Johnson of Oregon Shores and CoastWach once told me. He said something to the effect of the coast being the only place where he felt connected to the rest of the world.

Highway 101, on the overlooks above Manzanita, at 3 a.m.

Its amazing how someone else can articulate what youve been feeling all along. Phillip echoed and honed in on what Id been trying to say for many years, that it was as if the simple act of putting your toes in the water automatically connected your body and soul with the rest of the oceans around the world, and thus the rest of the land masses. Yet add to that the universe floating above you: nighttime always makes me feel like I could almost taste what it's like moving around out there.

Certainly at this moment in time, with the murmur of a calm, September surf in the distance, I felt like I was hooked up to not just with the rest of the planet in some esoteric, spiritual way, but with the rest of the universe.

Also see Green Nightglow Above Us All the Time, You Just Didn't Know: Washington / Oregon Coast Science

This wasnt hard to imagine, as the Milky Way stretched out boldly in a hazy, cylindrical gauze of light from the horizon to the east. Constellations were shining brightly and at least two stars were much brighter than all the rest, leading me to believe they must be planets.

In my head, it all goes far beyond the waters and geography of Earth now. I cant see them, but the big black holes, all the dark matter, the interstellar dust clouds and all those burning orbs and swirling galaxies seem that much more linked to this already-mysterious ocean. It's an overwhelming feeling of awe and contentment that can envelop you at moments like this. My two favorite things are right in front of me: the galaxy and the ocean.



Manzanita by moonlight

Somewhere out there, in that huge array of white and bluish dots, some other sentient creature is looking back this way  hopefully  and probably thinking the same thing. Hopefully theyre connected to an ocean this beautiful as well.

Standing up here, I was not only lulled by the water below but enthralled by what moves in the sky. From this vantage point, like so many times before, I saw no less than four magnificent shooting stars. Ive always said this spot is a lucky place. Make a wish here: you may be surprised what happens. But for astronomical purposes, Neahkahnie Mountain rocks  given the right conditions. If the sky is clear enough, I almost always see numerous shooting stars from these overlooks, no matter what time of year. Its downright magical.

Thusly protrudes the science nerd in me, and I suddenly become obsessed with capturing the Milky Way in my camera. I go from beach bum to amateur astronomer, shooting pics left and right of various angles of the sky and of the surreal mix of starscape and seascape around me, all the while hoping Ill catch one of those comets as well.



Nehalem at night

In the back of my mind I suddenly remember something about the False Dawn Of Omar Khayyam or zodiacal light, appearing right about now, an interesting astronomical phenomenon where you apparently can see a sort of pyramidic or cone shape of light. I really dont think I saw this at all, although conditions were quite ripe for it. I had to look up the details on this after my little photography session, and then cross reference the photos. Nothing.

I did, however, finally do a story on the False Dawn / Zodiacal Light.

All I know is the world is strikingly different at this time of night, and utterly fascinating. Id probably make a pretty good vampire, as there are times I enjoy the beach at night more than during the day.



The same spot under clouds at night

At this gem of a moment, the lights of Manzanita paint the clouds above, and Nehalem, farther to the east, paints the distant clouds a bit differently. These then at times look like massive, wandering ghosts.

Manzanita's overlooks are some of the most spectacular scenery on the coast during the day.

The stars are almost raging in their presence, creating this wondrous visual pairing of twinkling from above and twinkling from the village. Meanwhile, a red light from a tower  or maybe the airport  is reflected in the ocean.

Enthralling.

Then I suddenly realize theres only so much effort you can put into such beauty without suddenly succumbing to it totally and completely. I abruptly lose the need to photograph it, and simply fall back onto the side of my car, head tilted up, and soak it all in. I cant work at this any longer. All I can do is admire this enormous expanse of stars and that rustle of the ocean below.

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Lincoln City Rentals Company Offers Quite the Price Drops: Oregon Coast Early Deals

Published 10/17/23 at 8:12 p.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Lincoln City, Oregon)  It's starting to get less expensive on the Oregon coast right about now, but one set of vacation rentals in Lincoln City is a little ahead of the curve. While prices in October for lodgings start falling all over the Oregon coast, these guys are going deeper. (Above: Kristy's Cottage, Gleneden Beach)

A1 Beach Rentals has started offering 30 percent off its normal shoulder season prices, with the discounts already figured into the quotes given by their website. A lot of rates are half of what they are in summer, and some rental homes are even less than that.

As owner Karen Scrutton put it, there's a lot to love out here in Lincoln City right now, saying it's the best time of year.

Fall, especially October, is such a great time to visit Lincoln City, she said. Still many warm and sunny days. For the occasional October storm, wild surf is fun to watch from an oceanfront home.

She's quite spot-on about that this week: there are storm-like waves happening at the same time that the central Oregon coast gets sunny weather and temps near 70. That's taking place Tuesday through Friday along the beaches.



SeaStar North (courtesy photo)

Some homes, Scrutton said, are priced lower than many motels. She's not kidding. The historic Nantucket House is going for $150 per night at the moment, happening through at least January.

The 1946-built home is in the middle section of Lincoln City and accommodates four. It's right near all the tidepools of the NW 15th Ave. area, and a close drive to the outlet mall. You'll also find an outdoor hot tub, and the whole thing is very close to the beach. That will allow you to check out this week's craziness by just walking about half a block or less.



Kristy's Cottage in hidden, little Gleneden Beach is going for a little over $200 per night, about half what it is in summer. There, the beachfront home is far, far from the crowds.

It's a special one for stargazing, Scrutton said.

So dark and beautiful at night highlighting stars and sparkly white surf, she said.

A1 Beach Rentals has about two dozen vacation rental homes on the central Oregon coast. Check out each home and the availability calendar link to see and compare prices. (503) 232-5984. www.a1beachrentals.com.

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Retro Beach Rental in Newport a Tiny, Cozy Oregon Coast Gem

Published 10/16/23 at 5:52 a.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Newport, Oregon)  A beach burgh within a beach burgh, Newport's Nye Beach is a lovely little village up against the sands that feels like different eras of time travel smooshed together. While still an Oregon coast hotspot that's kind of famous, no matter how many times you set foot here you feel like it's a random semi-secret you've stumbled upon. To some degree, it's yours - always yours.

Nye Beach is easy to get attached to in that way. Yet there's probably still quite a bit you don't know about Nye Beach.

One of those bits of sundry information is a little vacation rental called View House Cottage (see the site). This diminutive gem is like that beach shack you dreamed of long ago: simple, quaint and just enough room for you and perhaps a couple, three friends. And yet it's oceanfront. Small on space  big on views. This two-bedroom charmer carries the torch of this neighborhood's storied and diverse past with that old-school exterior and interior, hearkening back to the Old Oregon Coast people still talk about, referencing the coast of the '60s, '70s and '80s. Before the beach was the bomb for the throngs, it was smaller in scale and less cookie-cutter; where wooden walls, classic fixtures along with really old, green glass float balls from Japan (and probably some amount of shag carpet) ruled the decor manuals.

View House Cottage doesn't come with the shag carpeting (nor the cigarette smoke) of yesteryear, but it feels like you could close your eyes and have those decades come to life briefly  but with that amazing view.





And what a view. An immersive experience to be sure, from left to right you get total 180-degrees of central Oregon coast prime surf and sand. You can see down towards the jetty and you have Yaquina Head in full, along with points of interest like the crumbling Jump-Off Joe not far. Whales pop up in calmer waters, and when storms come you're privy to the best of rumbling sights.

The kitchen at View House Cottage is small but fully stocked and ready for everything from munchies to gourmet experiences.

Cozy and comfy are operative words here in this wee Oregon coast retro gem, with an endearing living room that includes a sweet sofa, flat screen TV, wireless, DVD player and some cool decor touches. Right outside, you have to access to an oceanfront lawn overlooking all the soaring beauty and lull of the waves.

In fact, the latter is one of the best amenities: you can constantly hear the ocean quite well.



The master bedroom has a wondrous view, while the other bedroom has two bunks. In the living room, there's a twin size futon.

Adorbs and fire are two other operative words for this rental pad-from-the-past, and it's all a close to walk to the dee-lish attractions of Nye Beach's eateries and that inimitable beach.

The vacation rental is offered through Nye Beach and Condos, so you also get 24-hour service through the hotel next door that runs the place: The Inn at Nye Beach.

729 NW Coast St. Newport, Oregon. 1-541-265-2477 or 1-800-480-2477. Website here.

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Coos Bay Goes Spooky to Kooky and Candy-Filled for Season: South Oregon Coast October

Published 10/17/23 at 6:22 a.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Coos Bay, Oregon)  Just when you thought it was safe to head to the south Oregon coast....

In comes the Halloween season in the Coos Bay / North Bend / Charleston area, and the tricities know how to party it up. A variety of costume contests, seasonal flicks and even one freak-ay haunted house are in the mix. (Above: Yoakam Point by Coos Bay, courtesy Manuela Durson Fine Arts)



Courtesy Mahaffy Ranch

Through October 31, Everyday. 2023 Mahaffy Ranch Fall Festival. There are hayrides, a snack shack, farm animals, corn maze, a corn cannon and a u-pick pumpkin patch. You'll find the farm just outside Coos Bay along the Millicoma River. 10362 Highway 241 Coos Bay, Oregon. 541-269-3900 Website

Every Friday and Saturday This Month  and October 31. Haunted Woods Returns With New Sanatorium. Coos Bay Speedway's Haunted Woods has returned for another blood-curdling good time. There's now a sanitorium in the mix, a loony bin with creepies galore. It's a growing south Oregon coast legend.

Come hang with the clowns and walk with the zombies or get lost in the loony bin. Can you make it through the Woods of Terror if so then head on out to the Coos Bay Speedway for a fun and freaky time, said organizers.

They'll be serving up 7 Devils brews here as well as other faves, along with foods like a bacon cheeseburger. They'll also have Haunted Woods hoodies. 94320 Highway 42 Coos Bay, Oregon. 541-269-2474 Website.

October 20 - October 21. Hocus Pocus Viewing Party. The Egyptian Theatre hosts a special Halloween season showing of the '90s classic Hocus Pocus. Get your witch comedy on as well as your costume on: it's a contest as well as a movie. You can win by just looking wacky. Admission: $5 Adults, $4 Seniors, $3 Children - Rated PG. 7 p.m. Coos Bay's Egyptian Theatre is at 229 S. Broadway Coos Bay, Oregon. 541-808-8295.

October 27. 'The Mummy' Costume Party. The famed, epic Brendan Fraser horror flick comes to the Egyptian Theatre for another costume party at the illustrious Oregon coast venue. Nearing 100 years old, it started about when The Mummy takes place. Costume contest registration happens at 5 p.m.. The contest itself goes from 5:30 to 7 p.m. There's also a raffle ($5), and that goes from 7 p.m. to 7:15. The movie romp through Egypt gets underway at 7:30 p.m. Egyptian Theatre is at 229 S. Broadway Coos Bay, Oregon. 541-808-8295.

October 28. The North Bend Downtown Candy Crawl takes place in the historic little south Oregon coast burgh. It all begins at 11 a.m. where Grant Circle turns into a candy paradise. There will be food trucks, games and a photo booth, just to start off with.

From noon to 2 p.m., take the kidlets around to participating businesses and grab some treats. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for the Golden Ticket Candy Bar, which means prizes. At 2 p.m., there's a Halloween flick at the Liberty Theatre in town.





October 28 . Now, for the grownups, the Coos History Museum will be hosting its Annual Fundraiser: A Haunted Night at the History Museum from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The Museum will be transformed into a spooktactular party space with carnival games, a cake walk, silent auction, cabinet of curiosities, tarot card readings, specialty cocktails, photo booth, free food, transformed exhibits, and much more.

This event is for ages 21 and up. It will be hosted in-person at the Coos History Museum with an entry price of $35 per person. All of the proceeds from the event and its activities will go towards essential museum operations and preservation costs. 1210 North Front Street. Coos Bay. 541-756-6320

October 31 and the Downtown Trick or Treat. has Coos Bay digging deep into the Halloween holiday frivolity as downtown, Front Street and Coos Bay Village hand out candy from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. 541-266-9706 Website.

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The accreditation system is incredibly complex, to the point that there is now even an accreditor of the accreditors. The system is rather costly. Most large schools have at least one full-time administrator who oversees accreditation efforts, often involving many faculty members and other university personnel. The system is fiendishly secretive, with much valuable criticism of schools sometimes hidden from public view. Since loss of accreditation is extremely rare, what real useful consumer information is conveyed? There are embarrassing conflicts of interest. In 2022, School A may have been re-accredited by a team led by a dean from School B, while in 2023, School B may be re-accredited by a team led by an administrator from School A. Accreditation tends to be nearly binary in nature, like pregnancy-you either are accredited or are not, which fails to capture dramatic qualitative differences between accredited schools. Accreditation is a barrier to new entrants to the higher-ed marketplace-new competitors with innovative ways of providing educational services. The traditional four-year bachelor's degree model must be followed. Often, evaluations are based more on the measuring of academic inputs (e.g., the number of books in the library), rather than on student outcomes. Accreditation is a device that the federal government has used to institute an unfortunate but growing centralization of American higher education.

When you buy a car, a piece of furniture, or a pleasure boat, you typically don't ask the seller,We buy all kinds of things, even houses, despite no third party assessing the quality or integrity of the good or service being sold. Why do we behave differently with higher education?Informal higher-ed assessments abound. U.S. News, Forbes, Washington Monthly, the Wall Street Journal, and others assess the quality and reputation of colleges, and those judgments are eagerly read by the public. (I know, as one who formerly directed one of those rankings.) The federal government (belatedly) provides useful consumer information to prospective customers with its College Scorecard, which contains graduation rates, postgraduate earnings by major, and other useful data.With all of this, why do we needThough accreditors were once considered a means of identifying diploma mills and other shady operators, most of their original functions are now well provided by other organizations that engage in educational assessment.I have a radical view of accreditation. Rather than a vital protector of the public, accrediting agencies are cartels-legalized monopolies-trying to maximize the influence or incomes of accredited colleges with little regard for consumers, taxpayers (who ultimately fund much of higher education), or the broader public interest.Below, I enumerate nine problems with accreditation that are often emphasized. I then discuss a newer, even more ominous threat and conclude that collegiate institutional accreditation as we know it should end.First, the list of nine problems (see my book Restoring the Promise, chapter 14, for more details):Collectively, these nine points make me (and some educational reformers) skeptical of the way accreditation works in America.But now there is a tenth concern-maybe even the biggest one: Some accreditors are using their powers to try to enforce a woke restructuring of American universities. These officials downplay the free expression of ideas and academic merit in favor of an ideology stressing viewpoint uniformity and non-academic factors such as race, sexual preference, and value conformity.There are two types of accreditation: institutional accreditation, largely performed by six organizations serving specific geographic regions, and subject-matter accreditation, involving such groups as the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), and the American Bar Association (ABA). Efforts to enforce ideological conformity or race-driven objectives are growing in both camps.For example, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges' Senior College and University Commission issued ato California Lutheran College, a school with a 40-percent Hispanic enrollment, that it was falling behind in inclusion efforts, castigating the school for its 69-percent graduation rate for black students (which was presumably lower than that of other racial groups).When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his Republican-controlled legislature indicated they wanted major changes in rules relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the threat of a loss of accreditation by regional accreditor SACS led to alterations in the legislation.Belle Wheelan, the president of SACS, has been outspoken about changes made in Florida, hinting at negative accreditation consequences. Wheelan is not an employee or even a resident of the state and was not elected by any governmental body, yet she is seemingly asserting inordinate powers over a university system ultimately owned by the government of the Sunshine State.Accreditors' woke standards ultimately threaten the lives of persons (through a lowering of professional standards at medical schools) or lead to a decline in the quality of lawyers, creating an associated threat to the integrity of the rule of law.The accrediting arm of the ABA wants to abolish the requirement that law-school applicants take the LSAT admissions test, which has proven an excellent and accurate predictor of academic and ultimately professional success. Why? Because minorities, especially blacks, on average do much poorer on the test than do other racial groups. An attempt is being made to use the accreditation process to achieve a result that would almost certainly lower the average competence of the next generation of American lawyers.The push to use accreditation to promote progressive political objectives will be heightened by the Supreme Court's recent ruling, in the Harvard and North Carolina lawsuits, that racial preferences to achieve affirmative-action objectives are illegal. Schools will soon try to use their obsession with race to argue thatThe public's desire for information about the quality and integrity of educational institutions is legitimate, but there are other ways to assess the educational experience-including, for example, the use of a national exit examination (I call it the National College Equivalence Test, or NCEE), which would tell us whether graduating students know much that a college-educated person should know.Accrediting agencies have so much power over colleges because they've been given thepower over federal student aid. Supposedly they ensure quality, but in fact they don't. Let's de-accredit the accreditors.
By Lee Min-hyung

Hyundai Mobis plans to find new business opportunities with Japanese automakers by taking part in the Japan Mobility Show for the first time later this month, the company said Thursday.

The Korean auto parts manufacturer is scheduled to hold a series of business meetings with Japans leading auto brands, such as Toyota and Honda, during the upcoming event scheduled to run from Oct. 26 to Nov. 5 in Tokyo.

In particular, the Hyundai affiliate will showcase its state-of-the-art infotainment systems and provide a glimpse of future mobility represented by electrification, Hyundai Mobis said.

The company plans to engage in private meetings with Japanese automakers, including Tokyo, Renault Nissan Mitsubishi and Honda, and promote the firms strategic product lineups. They include electrification systems, lamps and in-vehicle infotainment, according to the company.

Hyundai Mobis has been supplying lamps, chassis components and infotainment-related products to Japanese local automakers. Last year, the company recruited two executive-level experts in Japans auto parts industry, with a view to expanding its sales and marketing capability there.

Both of them have more than four decades of experience in the Japanese auto industry. The talent acquisition is seen as part of the Korean firms strategic move to clinch more deals with local automakers there.

Hyundai Mobis identifies the latest auto industry trend, which focuses on electrification, as a fresh opportunity to widen its presence there during its infancy. The company reiterated its strong willingness to promote its expertise in traditional component manufacturing and its latest achievement to embrace the era of electrified future mobility to its Japanese clients during the upcoming event.

Koreas largest auto parts firm is accelerating its bid to widen its global footing by taking part in diverse mobility events abroad. Starting from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the United States earlier this year, the company has showcased a glimpse of future mobility by joining other global events, such as the IAA in Germany and the Detroit Auto Show in the U.S.

Hyundai Mobis will keep enhancing its efforts to penetrate deeper into overseas markets and secure more contracts with global automakers, an official from the company said.

Hyundai Mobis recently achieved a major feat by signing a large-scale contract to provide key electrification components to Volkswagen, which the company said is a positive signal for its goal of attracting $5.36 billion (7.27 trillion won) in overseas contracts this year.
26 days after the October 7th Terror attacks on Israel, where over 1400 Jewish men, women and children were gruesomely murdered, and hundreds more made hostage: Should the Biden /Harris administration finally state that the administration's primary Middle East negotiating partner, Iran, is behind the funding and strategy of the aggressors, the Hamas Terrorists, or continue to take the more moderate position of "Don't," which is clearly not working?

100% Yes, name Iran as the funding /strategy culprit, and begin to enforce the President Trump era sanctions to END Iran's ability to prosecute this war against Israel and the United States.0% No, Iran is a valuable partner in the motives of the Biden / Harris administration, and must not be named as the culprit and our enemy.0% I have larger concerns just to survive in this economy.
FINAL, 574 words

military  both active and veteran. We see this as a unique opportunity to support our

service members and ensure a smooth transition to meaningful careers after their

service to our country.

 Innovations in our approach to education and workplace practices are key drivers to

address the rapidly evolving demands of the IT industry. We in the United States need to

accelerate our ability to protect and defend our digital infrastructure. As an example of

offering accelerated cybersecurity education, learners can benefit from a competency-

based-education approach. By emphasizing hands-on experience and problem-solving

abilities, graduates are more job-ready and prepared to tackle the dynamic

cybersecurity landscape.

As Executive Dean of Western Governors University's College of IT (and former FBI agent) and Director of WGU's Southeast Region (former counterintelligence officer), we unreservedly support the National Cybersecurity Workforce and Education Strategy issued by the White House this past summer. This policy is a significant step toward bolstering our nation's collective digital infrastructure and addressing the escalating demand for highly skilled IT professionals in both the public and private sectors.The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reports that 47% of American adults have had personal information exposed by cyber criminals. The United States continues to face a significant shortfall in cyber talent, with sources citing more than 700,000 open positions in cybersecurity. Currently, there are 21,278 cybersecurity job openings in North Carolina.While those numbers appear daunting, the National Cybersecurity Workforce and Education Strategy establishes a clear roadmap to address these challenges and align resources and opportunities to meet the needs of businesses, government agencies and our personal digital lives. We are pleased that provisions of the strategy emphasize collaboration among academia, industry and government. This mirrors our own commitment to forging strong partnerships that drive excellence and innovation in cybersecurity education.To amplify employment opportunities, we must ensure that cyber training, education and career pathways are available to everyone with the passion and potential to do the work. In addition to the colleges and universities that offer cybersecurity bachelor's and master's degrees, several community colleges in North Carolina offer associate degrees in cybersecurity.While thousands of new graduates nationwide will earn cybersecurity degrees in the next 12 months, we recognize the critical work still needed to foster a robust cybersecurity workforce and strengthen our nation's defenses against cyber adversaries. We can and should focus on these critical considerations:nationwide have connections to theAs we look to Cybersecurity Awareness Month as a marker in our year to reinforce safe online habits, we stand firmly behind the national policy and pledge our unwavering support in bolstering the nation's cybersecurity workforce. With robust programs, an inclusive student body, and an innovative approach to education, cybersecurity educators are ready to play a pivotal role in fulfilling the objectives set forth by this transformative policy.Together, let us build a safer, more secure digital future for our nation.
Bill Cassidy, MD, is the only gastroenterologist serving among the 19 physicians in the 118th Congress. Dr. Cassidy is a Republican senator from Louisiana and was first elected to his seat in 2014.

Here are eight things to know about Dr. Cassidy:

1. He joined Baton Rouge-based Louisiana State University School of Medicine in 1990, teaching medical students and residents at a hospital for uninsured patients.

2. Dr. Cassidy co-founded a Louisiana-based medical clinic that provides free dental care and healthcare for working uninsured patients.

3. Following Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Cassidy led a group of volunteers to establish an emergency healthcare facility.

4. Dr. Cassidy was first elected to the Louisiana state Senate in 2006.

5. Dr. Cassidy was elected to the U.S. House in 2008.

6. Dr. Cassidy serves on the Finance Committee, the Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee in the U.S. Senate.

7. In 2023, Dr. Cassidy was appointed a ranking member of the Senate HELP Committee, the first physician to sit as a HELP ranking member since 1933.

8. Dr. Cassidy has co-sponsored several pieces of health-related legislation, including a bill to amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to ensure Medicaid coverage of mental health services and primary care services furnished on the same day and a bill to extend funding for teaching health centers that operate GME programs, community health centers and the National Health Service Corps.
Here are four moves from ASCs in the Midwest that Becker's has reported on since Oct. 16:

1. Blessing Surgery Center in Quincy, Ill., was evacuated on the afternoon of Oct. 18 because of a carbon monoxide leak.

2. Peoria, Ill.-based Springfield Clinic hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony for its Peoria Surgery Center on Oct. 18.

3. A specialized surgery center is part of a $23.3 million medical campus planned in Liberty Township, Ohio.

4. Advocate Health Care is constructing a 60,000-square-foot medical center inside of a shopping mall in Chicago that will include office space, immediate care and an ASC.
Methodist Hospital is in talks with the Bellaire (Texas) City Council to develop a medical office building in the city's downtown area, according to an Oct. 19 report from Community Impact.

In September 2022, Methodist presented the council with plans for a three-story medical office building. The council voted unanimously to postpone the decision.

On Sept. 28, 2023, Methodist met with the City Council to review a new design for the building, which includes adding 15,000 square feet of retail space and decreasing the amount of clinical space.

Methodist Hospital officials will submit a new application to the city for review, according to the report.
LSU Health New Orleans School of Dentistry expanded its dental hygiene program with an off-campus instructional site.

The site is at Louisiana State University of Alexandria's downtown campus and is the first dental hygiene program in Central Louisiana, according to an Oct. 18 new release from LSUA.

The two-year bachelor of science program will have six students each year. The courses covered include oral diagnosis, radiology and physiology.

LSU and LSUA have been trying to launch the program since 2019. The Alexandria facility underwent renovations and the program began this fall, the release said.
The University of Maine Augusta will expand its Lewiston clinic with a $655,000 grant, according to an Oct. 18 report by ABC affiliate WMTW.

The expansion will allow the center to double the number of students in the dental hygiene and dental assistant programs.

With more hygienists and assistants at the clinic, more patients will be able to receive dental care.

The increased enrollment will help combat the state's lack of hygienists and assistants. Maine has 1,090 dental hygienists and 1,230 dental assistants, according to 2022 data from the Bureau of Labor Statics.

Funding for the grant was provided by Northeast Delta Dental, the report said.
Costco CEO Craig Jelinek announced that he is stepping down on Jan. 1, 2024, as the retail giant looks to break into healthcare.

Mr. Jelinek will be replaced by Ron Varchis, according to an Oct. 18 Costco news release. Mr. Varchis has served as Costco's COO since February 2022. In September, the company announced that it would be offering virtual care through a partnership with Sesame.

Retail competitors, such as Walmart, Best Buy and Amazon, have also looked to expand their healthcare offerings. Mr. Jelinek will stay on with the company through April 2024 in an advisory role.
Four Arkansas hospitals got preliminary approval to receive $16 million in federal aid from the American Rescue Plan Act, Arkansas Advocate reported Oct. 17.

The state received $1.5 billion in total funds and set aside $60 million in August 2022 for struggling hospitals. On Oct. 20, the full Arkansas Legislative Council will vote on whether to approve the funds.

The four hospitals set to receive funds:




Hanwha Ocean mistakenly identifies Filipino defense undersecretary as Indonesian

By Park Jae-hyuk

Once regarded as an air weapon exhibition that features an airshow and display of cutting-edge aircraft and space launch vehicles, the Seoul ADEX appears to have also become an arena of competition between Koreas leading shipbuilders this year, according to industry officials, Thursday.

Hanwha Ocean participated in the biennial event with the groups other defense subsidiaries  Hanwha Aerospace and Hanwha Systems  displaying its 3,000-ton submarine, Jang Bogo-III Batch-II, and an unmanned command and control ship for the Republic of Korea Navy.

We decided to participate in the event to showcase Hanwha Groups defense technologies embracing everything from space rockets to submarines, a Hanwha Ocean official said. Through the exhibition, we want to secure a manufacturing base to enter the global maritime defense market and let the world know our Global Ocean Solutions Provider vision.

The shipbuilders exhibition drew attention of senior defense industry officials from Indonesia, the Philippines, Canada and Poland, raising expectations that the company may receive orders for warships from those countries.

However, it made a mistake in identifying Filipino Senior Defense Undersecretary Irineo Cruz Espino in a photo caption of the press release, prompting dozens of Korean news outlets to refer to him as the Indonesian vice defense minister in their articles published on Thursday morning.

HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE), a subsidiary of HD Hyundai, did not participate in Seoul ADEX 2023, but Vice Chairman Ka Sam-hyun of the company visited the event venue on Tuesday to meet with military officials and buyers. He also toured Hanwha Groups exhibition pavilion to learn about its anti-drone system.

On Wednesday, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), a subsidiary of HD KSOE, signed a memorandum of understanding with Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) and LIG Nex1, regarding their cooperation for the development of futuristic warships.

The signing ceremony was attended by HD HHI CEO Han Young-seuk, KAI CEO Kang Goo-young and LIG Nex1 CEO Kim Ji-chan.

The competitiveness of Korean warships will be enhanced through this cooperation among the three companies having the most advanced technologies in each of their sectors, Han said. Based on the cooperation, we hope to contribute to strengthening the ROK Navy and exporting our ships.
Total payments for some of the most expensive diagnostic groups were between 8% to 15% lower in physician-owned hospitals than traditional facilities, a report analyzing 2019 Medicare data found.

Such numbers could equate to $1.1 billion in savings for 20 diagnosis groups in traditional hospital settings if reimbursements had been at the same rate as physician-owned facilities, according to the report. The report was spearheaded by Robert Aseltine Jr., PhD, a professor at Farmington, Conn.-based UConn Health, and Gregory Matthews, PhD, an associate professor at Loyola University Chicago.

"Our analysis indicates that substantial savings to the Medicare program could be achieved were traditional hospitals able to provide care at the same cost as POHs in their area," the report authors concluded.

Congress now has further data to support more physician-owned hospitals, said Michael Darrouzet, vice president and board director of the Physicians Advocacy Institute and executive vice president and CEO of the Texas Medical Association.

"Hospitals owned by physicians promise significant cost savings when it comes to Medicare patients' most expensive medical conditions," he said in an Oct. 19 news release. "Better quality and notable cost savings to patients and taxpayers is a clear signal that physician-owned hospitals is a policy worthy of adoption."

Hospital advocacy groups such as the American Hospital Association continue to largely oppose such physician-owned systems, arguing they can increase patient risk and that such systems cherry-pick patients.

The report, which said populations treated both in traditional settings and physician-owned facilities were not significantly different, used data from 186 physician-owned hospitals.
There has been a lot of recent scrutiny regarding the failed VCU Health project in downtown Richmond, and now Virginia legislators are likely to investigate it, Richmond BizSense reported Oct. 17.

A subcommittee of the state's General Assembly investigative arm, the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission, recommended the project failure be investigated, with a fuller decision expected in November, the report said.

VCU Health abandoned the $325 million downtown project but has found itself on the hook for approximately $73 million for backing out, a move prompting questions about leadership decisions at the health system.

"I think it is important that we do it," said Sen. Janet Howell, who chairs JLARC. "It's highly followed by the press and I think we need to get really accurate information about what's going on there. In my mind, there is some problem with the governance structure of the health system."

Gov. Glenn Youngkin has called for VCU Health Chair and VCU President Michael Rao, PhD, to step down from his role at VCU Health, a move Mr. Rao said he agrees with. Current bylaws require the president of the university to also serve as chair of the health system.

VCU Health, currently under the helm of interim CEO Marlon Levy, MD, is also looking for a permanent CEO.
Craig Albanese, MD, an academic pediatric surgeon and former COO of Duke University Health System, took over as CEO of the Durham, N.C.-based system in March.

He joined Duke Health  which includes three hospitals, physician practices and home hospice care  in January 2022 after more than five years at New York City-based NewYork-Presbyterian, where he most recently served as group senior vice president and system chief medical officer. He previously held senior leadership positions at Stanford (Calif.) University and the University of California San Francisco.

Becker's caught up with Dr. Albanese to discuss how Duke Health plans to bend the cost curve, where its biggest growth opportunities are and how the system is supporting its "talentforce" in a challenging labor market.

Question: What are the top three strategic financial priorities for your health system in the next fiscal year?

Dr. Craig Albanese: Our business and our mission is delivering extraordinary clinical care that is safe, equitable and patient-centered. We aim to manage our daily work systematically, so care delivery and its supportive processes are efficient, timely and delivered without overburdening our workforce  or what in this era we should all call our talentforce. Our management system is grounded in a culture of respect and belonging. It only works when all in the talentforce feel psychologically and physically safe and supported, are comfortable escalating any concerns and actively contribute to daily problem solving. It's on that bedrock that we develop our financial priorities.

I have a simple three-word mantra: People. Access. Growth.

1. People. Stabilizing and growing our talentforce is our primary concern. The cost of turnover and contract labor is staggering. We are in a "people caring for people" industry and I am concerned by how many people are disaffected by the calling to healthcare, narrowing the formerly-robust pipeline for new talent. We've made major investments in salaries over the last 24 months, but engaging our skilled, dedicated people is key to success. In fact, I have asked everyone at Duke to add "chief retention officer" to their list of responsibilities  and I know our leaders have heard the call as our turnover has decreased by over 25 percent from the last fiscal year. We must all do our part to decrease attrition and bring joy back to work by tending to the varied stresses (short-staffing, workplace violence and burnout) of our talentforce.

Data and my own observations suggest we will simply not see the numbers of physicians, nurses and other staff entering the post-pandemic healthcare provider sector. North Carolina, for example, has a projected shortfall of about 12,500 RNs (9 percent of the current RN workforce) 10 years from now, concentrated in Duke's Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill home market. We must "do more with less," embracing industrial engineering principles (these form the basis of the Duke Quality System) to ensure that our people deliver valuable care in a fulfilling way. We see, and are pursuing, huge opportunities for AI tools and process improvement methods to converge and support this redesign of the talentforce  which will benefit our people and our bottom line equally.

2. Access. We're a comprehensive health system, supporting our community with everything from health promotion and primary care to groundbreaking transplants. Our ability to deliver any of those services depends on access. In the short term, this means hiring more providers, while also taking a critical look at our processes and procedures to ensure we are operationally effective and efficient.

In our hospitals, our main focus is patient flow  and efficiently managing our procedural areas. On the outpatient side, we are responding to this age of consumerism by focusing on access, convenience and experience. We continue to develop our distributed primary care network and we are embracing digital solutions that help us interact with our patients and them with us. These range from simple approaches like self-scheduling to comprehensive virtual care delivered to patients wherever they are.

One thing is of particular importance to me: we're a safety net health system, and we're committed to making all of the communities we serve healthier. Sometimes that means providing care directly and sometimes it means partnering community leaders and providers across the state to provide consultation and support. Healthcare is best delivered close to home, and while it's gratifying to know that patients across the state believe in our quality, we are committed to keeping care local (apart, of course, from certain distinctive and specialized services we're best equipped to provide) where possible.

3. Growth. We're growing in a smart way to deliver the services we believe will be most impactful five to 10 years from now. In other words, we're skating to where the puck is going. This largely means a continued expansion of our outpatient footprint, both in primary and specialty care, to growing submarkets that have a projected need for capacity. A few highlights include the opening of a new Duke Cancer Institute oncology access center that has simplified the physician referral process and accelerated scheduling for patients; expansion of specialty pharmacy services delivered straight to the home; and the ongoing development of a campus in a new and fast-growing part of Wake County that will scale and expand with the needs of that community.

Q: How do these align with the health system's overall mission and goals?

CA: At Duke Health, our mission is "Advancing Health Together," which reflects our legacy of breakthrough research that translates quickly to better care at the bedside. We're always finding new ways to address the challenges we face, to improve the health of our local community, and to be a good partner to others. It's exciting to say that we have recently completed the historic integration of the health system with our nearly 2,000 faculty physicians. Now more than ever we are all moving forward as one team to deliver top-quality care in a financially-sustainable way.

Q: What are the biggest financial challenges facing Duke Health today?

CA: No. 1, as I mentioned earlier, is that our people are our top priority. Healthcare workers, especially nurses, continue to bear the brunt of lingering pandemic and Great Resignation impacts  and they have more options, inside and outside of healthcare, than ever before. In fact, nationally, 22 percent of nurses are predicted to leave bedside care. Costly travelers can fill some gaps, but we firmly believe that they are a short-term solution to an underlying problem.

We are tackling this problem head-on and have responded by investing in our team members through salary increases, market adjustments, enhanced workplace safety programs, professional development and academic progression support, and renewing our culture so everyone feels valued, empowered, respected, and that they belong.

These actions have had immediate results. In addition to the recent reductions in turnover, applications have increased year-over-year by 15 percent. Part of this is due to local programs that encourage careers in healthcare, building the pipeline of future providers, research scientists and staff. For example, this summer we announced a partnership with Durham Technical Community College to help train their nursing students and provide them a pathway to employment at Duke after graduation.

As a result we have significantly reduced our reliance on contract labor and have line of sight to the high-reliability internal talentforce that we want.

Second, I'd be remiss if I did not mention a core challenge facing not just Duke but health systems nationwide: the use of a strained acute-care system as an unreimbursed safety net for an incredibly complex set of social and behavioral needs in the community. It's in the DNA of healthcare providers to care, and when you couple these good intentions with limited state and local resources, you crowd out acutely-ill patients who truly need the level of service only we can provide. Providers, payers and government health agencies must come together to solve for the mismatch of limited high-acuity supply and burgeoning low-acuity demand. Parties on all sides will benefit.

Finally, we're invested in bending the cost curve, in our local market and nationwide. There is without a doubt an unsustainable level of waste in the healthcare system. But the recent rise of what can only be described as nuisance denials is absolutely the worst tool for bending that curve. HHS Inspector General recently reported that Medicaid managed care organizations denied one out of every 8 prior authorization requests in 2019. A leading insurer was recently found to have spent just 1.2 seconds on each claim denial in 2022. These robodenials don't reduce the cost of care. They take doctors away from the bedside to defend medically-sound decisions and require health systems to increase the number of costly claims-processing resources. In short, they introduce more waste into the system. I'm sure I speak for many CEOs in saying that this practice is bad for the system, bad for the economy and bad for the vulnerable patients whose care hangs in the balance.

Q: On the other hand, what are Duke's most promising financial opportunities?

CA: The North Carolina General Assembly passed Medicaid expansion this spring, contingent upon a new budget that was recently approved. Medicaid expansion was Duke's top legislative priority for many years. It will provide affordable healthcare access to more than 600,000 people in North Carolina. Coupled with Medicaid expansion, CMS just approved the Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program to provide enhanced Medicaid reimbursement rates for hospitals in North Carolina. HASP is projected to bring in over $2 billion annually for hospitals in North Carolina and will help offset the state's financial share of the expansion population, which will be covered by hospitals. Medicaid expansion is the right thing to do for families and beneficial for North Carolina. We are still determining how this will financially impact DUHS specifically and health systems in general as the state moves forward with implementation, but we commend the legislators who have worked so hard on this important development.

Like every health system, we place a lot of focus on expense management. This comes through in both tactical ways (we have made great strides, for example, in supply pricing through our recent entry into the Vizient GPO and its key collaboratives) and in strategic right-sizing of our infrastructure. We undertook a rigorous redesign of organizational structure last year, which brought significant cost savings but more crucially yielded a flatter and more efficient management structure, one that empowers leaders and accelerates decision-making.

Expense management can only get us so far, however, and our biggest internal opportunity is the integration of our faculty physicians with the health system. The Duke faculty, whether we're talking about the newest recruits from top residencies or world-renowned experts, is unparalleled. They think critically and entrepreneurially about solutions to the most complex problems, and coupling that solution-oriented vision with the capabilities of our health system will be a game-changer for our market.

Q: How is your system leveraging technology and digital health platforms to enhance patient care, improve operational efficiency and generate revenue?

CA: Duke Health is continuing to build upon our longstanding history of innovative research to deliver tomorrow's healthcare today. Technology is a strategic differentiator that has limitless potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery. Among our major initiatives:

1. Duke Health is collaborating with nference, a Cambridge-based company, born out of MIT and Harvard, whose mission is to transform healthcare by making large repositories of biomedical information computable. This partnership will allow us to safely and responsibly accelerate the analysis of deidentified health information for biomedical research.

2. This summer, we announced a groundbreaking five-year partnership with Microsoft aimed at responsibly and ethically harnessing the potential of generative AI and cloud technology to redefine the healthcare landscape. The partnership marries Duke Health's leadership in patient care and medical research with Microsoft's technological expertise. This new era of innovation will include the creation of a Duke Health AI Innovation Lab and Center of Excellence. Our expectations are high for the ways in which AI improves the quality and efficiency of care.

3. We have expanded telehealth capabilities, making it easier for patients to see a provider on a variety of primary, urgent and specialty care needs virtually. We are also improving online scheduling to give patients more flexibility and schedule virtual visits at a time convenient for them. We believe it should be as easy to schedule and check in for many appointments as it is to book a hotel or a flight, and the data show this is exactly the kind of convenience patients demand.

Q: What partnerships, joint ventures, mergers or acquisitions is your system exploring to strengthen its financial position or expand service offerings?

CA: Duke Health is in a highly competitive healthcare market. Within this environment, we are seeking innovative ways to partner and collaborate to bring the best care to patients in the communities we serve. In that vein, we have recently broken ground on a new rehabilitation hospital that is a joint venture with another local health system, WakeMed, and with Lifepoint Rehabilitation, a business unit of Lifepoint Health.

The facility will function as a standalone hospital with 52 beds, all private rooms, and feature multidisciplinary therapy gymnasiums outfitted with the latest therapeutic technologies, outdoor courtyards and other spaces designed to help patients return to activities of daily living. The facility will be structurally designed in all units for the needs of patients receiving acute inpatient rehabilitation care for stroke, traumatic brain injury, amputation and other injuries and disorders.

We're pleased to continue and grow our partnership with One Medical to expand primary care access throughout the Triangle market. This partnership gives patients great benefits and makes it fast and easy to access care on demand. And now that One Medical is backed by the financial resources and innovation capability at Amazon, we're even more excited about what the future holds.

Our dedication to the local Durham community goes all the way back to James Buchanan Duke, who established the Duke Endowment in part to support Duke University and nonprofit hospitals in our area. We invest close to a billion dollars annually ($945 million in FY 2022) in total community benefit. Among our partners is Lincoln Community Health Center  the major community health organization in Durham County  and its satellite community clinics, which serve a majority of uninsured patients with incomes below the poverty line.

Q: Given the unpredictability of events like global pandemics, what are you doing to ensure financial resilience and sustainability in the face of unforeseen challenges?

CA: The pandemic taught us we need to prepare for tomorrow's problems today, and helped us to achieve a level of agility that frankly had not been a key aspect of our culture in the past. For Duke, embracing the pace of change has recently meant:

- Investing in our workforce. Our people are what make Duke Health unique. We are committed to becoming the best place to work in healthcare, so that our teams can continue to provide high-quality and safe care for our patients and communities.

- De-risking the supply chain by building in safeguards that provide access to key inputs.

- Evaluating existing processes and procedures, ensuring we are being as efficient and effective as possible while providing patients with a superior experience.

- Sharing information across our three hospitals, and our many outpatient clinics and provider offices. Through our lean Duke Quality System, we provide channels to highlight effective changes when they are made so they can spread rapidly throughout Duke Health.

- Deepening our commitment to health equity. Throughout the pandemic we saw deficiencies in the healthcare system, and we are taking a proactive approach to advancing health equity through improving clinical care, providing access to care to those who are vulnerable and investing in areas that need us most.

- Protecting our "rainy day fund." Our cash and debt positions are quite strong, and we're cognizant of the need to deploy capital strategically while maintaining that strength in order to weather market shocks and capitalize on opportunities.
Approximately 1 in 6 retirees are considering returning to the workforce, according to a study from Paychex, a human resources consulting firm.

Although many enjoy volunteer work, some retirees prefer a paycheck and a working environment that utilizes their skills. In a report published Oct. 18, Medscape detailed 19 part-time jobs for retired physicians looking to reenter the workforce:
Tempe-based Arizona State University has selected Phoenix for headquarters of ASU Health, a new 'learning health ecosystem' that includes a medical school and expanded alliance with Mayo Clinic.

The university announced the ASU Health headquarters Oct. 19, noting that the enterprise includes schools of medicine and public health technology, which will be built at a location to be determined in downtown Phoenix. ASU's Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation and its College of Health Solutions are already part of the university's Phoenix campus.

The new ASU School of Medicine and Advanced Medical Engineering integrates clinical medicine with biomedical science and engineering. ASU did not specify class size of the new school.

"The ASU School of Medicine will produce a new kind of doctor who is technologically enhanced by every tool imaginable and able to work across entire communities, not just with individual patients," University President Michael Crow, PhD, said. "It also means Phoenix will leap to the leading edge of physician development, physician-oriented research and public health-oriented research."

ASU's affiliation with Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic, known as the Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University Alliance for Health Care, will expand under the new enterprise with facilities located near Mayo Clinic's north Phoenix campus and hospital. Mayo Clinic has operated its own school of medicine since 2017 in Scottsdale.

ASU Health was announced this spring in response to requests from the Arizona Board of Regents to expand medical education in Arizona. Fred DuVal, chair elect of the board, described ASU Health as "part of the most aggressive and comprehensive health care plan in Arizona's history."

In 2021, Arizona ranked 31st in the nation for active physicians per 100,000 people, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Salem (Ore.) Health has acquired Hope Orthopedics, a Salem-based group, effective Sept 29, and hired most of its physicians and employees, according to the Salem Reporter.

Hope has 16 physicians, according to its website. Salem Health employed 29 providers and 182 other employees from the former Hope clinics, of which there are three. Less than five employees chose not to remain on staff, a spokesperson for the health system told the Reporter.

"For us, this is mission-based because without this orthopedic group in our community, we can't take care of our community," Salem Health CEO Cheryl Wolfe told the publication. "We have a decades long history of working very collaboratively and well together."

Hope is the third large group of providers the health system has employed in the last two years, according to the report.
Patients  especially those living in poverty  see better surgical outcomes when treated at a hospital ranked by U.S. News & World Report, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Surgery.

Researchers at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and James Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus studied the cases of 916,164 Medicare beneficiaries who underwent abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, coronary artery bypass grafting, colectomy or lung resection. They used multivariable logistic regression to evaluate the relationship between care at U.S. News-ranked hospitals, county-level duration of poverty and risk-adjusted 30-day mortality.

Mortality was lowest at ranked hospitals across all poverty levels  but the most impoverished patients saw the greatest benefit from care at ranked facilities, according to the report. Patients living in neighborhoods of "persistent poverty" saw the lowest mortality rates when treated at U.S. News-ranked hospitals: 5.89%, compared to 8.89% at unranked hospitals.

The surgies studied by Ohio State researchers are among the 21 procedures and conditions U.S. News publishes rankings for  so although the publication had no role in the study, the findings weren't a major shock to Ben Harder, U.S. News' managing editor and chief of health analysis.

"The initial finding that ranked hospitals are better than unranked hospitals is not a surprise to us," Mr. Harder told Becker's.

However, the magnitude of the difference in mortality was "quite stunning" to Mr. Harder  and it illustrates the importance of expanding care access, he said.

"For the healthcare system as a whole, the study highlights how important it is that we ensure that poorer patients have the same access as wealthier patients enjoy to top ranked hospitals," Mr. Harder said. "And in fact, their data suggests that it would actually be beneficial to society if poor patients had better access to the top-rated hospitals, because they get more incremental benefit in terms of better outcomes than patients from wealthier backgrounds."

U.S. News has been working to roll out its own health equity scales, including access measures that gauge whether hospitals are serving patient populations racially representative of their communities.

Despite these efforts  slow-moving due to a lack of available data, experts told Becker's last October  the publication's esteemed lists came under scrutiny this year. Law and medical schools alleged that the rankings hindered diversity measures by prioritizing prestige; some health systems followed in questioning the "best hospitals" methodology, which weighs physician opinion scores. In July, U.S. News responded with a number of changes to the rating system, including the elimination of ordinal rankings on the hospital honor roll.

The Ohio State study encourages U.S. News to continue publishing data, specifically health equity measurements, Mr. Harder said.

"It validates our decision to work on that [health equity] metric portfolio over the last few years. We're not done. That continues to be a work in progress," Mr. Harder said. "So there may be opportunities that emerge out of studies like this one around ways that we can better assess which hospitals are using their expertise to the maximum."



"But I'd say that there's a great deal that you can learn from looking up ranked hospitals on U.S. News right now and studying the access measures and the outcome disparity measures that we've published, about whether [these hospitals are] doing as much as they can to help with populations that have been historically disadvantaged," he said.
Pfizer has set the list price for a five-day course of Paxlovid at $1,390, according to an exclusive report from The Wall Street Journal.

Paxlovid's list price for a five-day course of the drug was divulged in a letter, obtained by the Journal, that Pfizer sent to pharmacies and clinics Oct. 18. The figure is more than two times what the federal government has paid for the COVID-19 treatment  $529 per course.

Some physicians and patient advocates have argued that raising the drug's price will limit patient access. A source told the Journal that Pfizer intentionally set a high list price for Paxlovid so it could offer steep discounts with PBMs to ensure wide patient access.

"Pricing for Paxlovid is based on the value it provides to patients, providers, and health care systems due to its important role in helping reduce COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths," a Pfizer spokesperson told the Journal.

Medicare patients will be able to get Paxlovid for free through 2024, while Medicaid patients and those who are uninsured can get the drug at no cost through 2028 via a patient assistance program. Pfizer will also subsidize copays for commercially insured patients through at least 2028.

Commercial sales of the drug are slated to begin later this year as the federal government's exclusive purchasing agreements with the drugmaker end.

Read the full article here.
The North American Spine Society honored four physicians in its 2023 Recognition Awards.

Jamie Baisden, MD, earned the Henry Farfan Award, according to an Oct. 18 news release. She has been a member of NASS for 28 years and is a professor of neurosurgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. She has contributed to more than 100 publications and served on multiple NASS committees.

Sigurd Berven, MD, earned the David Selby Award. He has been with NASS since 2002, and his research focuses on the assessment of outcomes for orthopedic patients. In his practice, he has expertise in spinal deformities, degenerative spinal conditions, spinal tumors and trauma.

Behrooz Akbarnia, MD, earned the Leon Wiltse Award. He has been a member for 34 years, and he established his academic practice under the San Diego Center for Spinal Disorders. He formed the San Diego Spine Fellowship Program and founded both the San Diego Spine (SDSF) and the Growing Spine Foundations.

Michael Klein, MD, earned the Spine Advocacy Award. He has been a member for 14 years, and he founded MRK Medical Consultants. He helped develop the orthopedic section of the Level II Trauma Center at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, Calif. He's also a clinical progessor at the University of California Davis Medical Center and has volunteered there for the last 30 years.
Two spine surgeons share the aspects of their job that makes going into work worth it.

Ask Spine Surgeons is a weekly series of questions posed to spine surgeons around the country about clinical, business and policy issues affecting spine care. Becker's invites all spine surgeon and specialist responses.

Next week's question: What opportunities should spine surgeons take to collaborate with other specialties?

Please send responses to Carly Behm at cbehm@beckershealthcare.com by 5 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Oct. 25.

Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.

Question: What makes going into work worth it?

Zachary Goldstein, MD. OrthoIllinois (Elgin): I know that it may sound cliche, but seeing my patients do well is the most rewarding aspect of my job. Spine patients can be some of the most miserable patients preoperatively given the severity of nerve-related pain as compared to other orthopedic injuries and generally painful conditions. This also allows spine patients specifically to become the most grateful and appreciative postoperative patients. Removing a painful disc herniation or decompressing severe spinal stenosis that has been present for years, often leads to 'tears of joy' after surgery for both patients and families alike. Receiving a genuine 'thank you' in the office or on rounds from a grateful patient is the best gift I can receive as a spine surgeon.

Christian Zimmerman, MD. St. Alphonsus Medical Group and SAHS Neuroscience Institute (Boise, Idaho): For this practitioner, many reasons direct one's motivation, such as tradition, duty to others coupled with the values of medicine. Truth be told, its my immediate staff and hospital work associates, including the many derivatives of surgical preparation, OR personnel, anesthesia and nursing who drive this worth it.

My advance providers and fellow surgical and clinical coworkers (have and continue to) shore up structure, support and the highest amount of encouragement and actuation in this surgical profession. Realizing these folks' steadfast levels of commitment to the patients and community is simultaneously humbling and reassuring in a current healthcare delivery world that continues through too many economic challenges.
Only vehicles less than 5 years old to be sold

By Lee Min-hyung

Hyundai Motor has launched its much-awaited certified used vehicle business with an online-only sales strategy to offer reasonable prices for customers, the carmaker said Thursday.

Sales for Hyundai-certified used cars will be available from Oct. 24. This came about three years after the company announced its plan to diversify its revenue streams into the used vehicle market in 2020.

No conglomerates have so far been able to enter the sector due to regulatory hurdles. But with the relevant rules alleviated three years ago, the nations largest carmaker immediately declared its intention to join the market.

The decision came in response to growing customer distrust over the local used vehicle industry. Hyundai expected its latest move to alleviate the prevalent distrust in used vehicles, as it engages in full processes from the purchase of used cars through to their sales to customers.

Last year, more than 2.38 million used cars were sold, outnumbering newly registered vehicles by 1.4 times, according to the company. Out of all the used cars sold here, the number of those from Hyundai and Genesis topped 900,000, accounting for around a 38 percent market share.

Hyundai also set a sales target of 5,000 for its used car business for the rest of this year. The carmaker aims to increase the target gradually down the road.

The company also plans to launch an online platform for customers to sell their used cars, hoping to present reasonable prices for potential vehicle sellers.

Hyundai will also offer certified warranty services for buyers of its used cars. Any customers who purchase Hyundai vehicles via the newly launched service will be able to receive a free warranty of two years and 20,000 kilometers against defects, the company said.

Only vehicles in good condition will be sold via the certified sales channel, as Hyundai will not allow sales of used cars that have traveled more than 100,000 kilometers and are more than five years old. The carmaker also pledged not to sell any vehicles with a history of accidents.

The company plans to operate two facilities for the commercialization of used vehicles, one in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province, and the other in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Hyundai will expand the number of such facilities across the nation in line with potential demand growth.

We have prepared to launch the business under the philosophy of Made by us, Cared (for) by us, Hyundai Motor Vice President Yoo Won-ha said. Hyundai will play a crucial part in improving the nations used vehicle market by building a transparent and fair used vehicle trading culture and enabling customers to make more reasonable and wise choices.
The Boathouse Restaurant announced it would shut its doors for good at the beginning of August after the company behind it, Loughshore Restaurant Ltd, revealed it had ceased trading.

The announcement was greeted with sadness from various patrons and fans of the popular spot, who said the closure was a monumental loss to the community.

However the eatery, which is known for its scenic riverside views of Lough Neagh, was saved by business owners the McLaughlin family, in partnership with Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council, who took over the reins of the restaurant last month.

The Boathouse has since underwent a restoration process and has now opened its doors to the community once again, creating an additional 20 jobs. There are also plans to invest 150,000 into the restaurant over the next 18 months.

In a statement announcing the reopening, the McLaughlin family said the restaurant saw an outpouring of support and enthusiasm from customers who were eager to savour the reimagined dining experience.

The reopening also welcomed back head chef Michael McGuigan, who returned to lead to The Boathouses culinary team, alongside a new menu which features fresh seafood sourced from local waters and produce from Northern Irish farms.

Sean McLaughlin, speaking on behalf of the family and staff, shared their pride and said he was overjoyed at the response from the community to the reopening.

We're thrilled to have reinstated The Boathouse and to witness the support and love from our wonderful community, he said.

Culinary excellence is not merely about food; it's about creating unforgettable experiences, and we are committed to delivering that promise. The excitement and buzz in the restaurant is palpable and we cant wait for the next part of this journey."

Mayor of Antrim and Newtownabbey, Councillor Mark Cooper added: I would like to wish Sean, Geraldine and the whole team every success with the reopening of this popular restaurant. I have no doubt that the Boathouse will excel and I am delighted that this vibrant dining venue is back on the menu for our local residents and visitors.
Pharmaceutical giant Almac Group is creating 550 new jobs in Northern Ireland as part of an 80m expansion plan, it has been announced.

The plans unveiled by the group include the construction of new manufacturing, production and diagnostic laboratory facilities at its global headquarters in Craigavon.

Construction of the new facilities and an expansion of the groups operations will create over 550 new jobs with recruitment already under way to fill these positions.

The new roles are part of a wider recruitment drive by the Co Armagh firm which will bring 1,000 jobs to Northern Ireland over the next three years.

The global pharmaceutical firm already employs 7,000 people across 18 facilities in Europe, the US and Asia.

The expansion is part of a global investment programme announced by the group in 2022, and will drive the growth of the Almac Pharma Services and Almac Diagnostic Services business units.

Alan Armstrong, chief executive of Almac Group said: Almac is committed to re-investing all our profit back into the business.

This 80 million expansion and the creation of 550 new, highly skilled jobs in Northern Ireland will ensure that we remain the global leaders in our industry, giving our clients and ultimately patients across the world who benefit from these therapeutics, the best possible offering from Almac.

The group, which is one of Northern Irelands most successful home-grown firms, reported a 20% jump in pre-tax profits in its most recent accounts.

Jeremy Fitch, Invest NI and Alan Armstrong, Almac

The investment will expand the firms headquarters with the construction of two new facilities.

The first is a 100,000 ft2 multi-product Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facility for Almac Pharma Services, which supports the development and commercialisation of new treatment options for a wide range of therapy areas including oncology and immunology.

This facility will house a custom designed dispensary area, multiple production suites, process equipment wash facilities and a lineside warehouse for ambient, refrigerated and frozen storage. The group expects this facility to be operational by Summer 2024.

A 40,000 ft2 four-storey diagnostic development and manufacturing centre for Almac Diagnostic Services will also be built. This arm of the business offers a range of biomarker discovery, development and commercialisation solutions to Biopharma partners globally.

Expected to be completed by the beginning of 2024, this facility will expand development and manufacturing capabilities to meet demand.

The projects are being supported by Invest Northern Ireland who has welcomed the development and ongoing expansion of the group.

Jeremy Fitch, executive director of Business Growth Group, Invest Northern Ireland said: Almacs commitment to innovation and excellence has positioned it as a cornerstone of our regions Life & Health Sciences success story and supported it to build a world-renowned reputation for ground-breaking work in the global pharmaceutical industry.

We are delighted to support this investment which is creating hundreds of employment opportunities in the Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area and will bolster Northern Irelands reputation as a hub for pharma and diagnostic development.

We commend Almacs dedication and vision and we look forward to witnessing the positive impact this investment will have on Northern Irelands economy and the advancement of life changing medicines.
Image shows members of the German-based bus operator West Verkehr team on a recent visit to Wrightbus.

Ballymena bus manufacturer Wrightbus has secured an order for 12 single deck zero-emission hydrogen buses, it has been announced.

The recent order by the German-based bus operator West Verkehr will see the company deliver a dozen Kite Hydroliners following a Europe-wide tender process.

The buses will be rolled out across Geilenkirchen, a town near the border with Netherlands.

The order is a significant one for the company as it continues to break into the global sustainable transport market. In the summer the Co Antrim firm announced that it was engaged in five major global tenders and had plans for a new hydrogen hub.

Last month it was revealed that the firm had signed a deal to provide up to 150 hydrogen buses for the site of the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk.

This will be the second German deal for the company, which last year signed a deal with German Bus operator Regionalverkehr Koln GmbH (RVK) to supply up to 60 Kite Hydroliner single deck buses.

The new buses will be manufactured at Wrightbuss headquarters in Ballymena. The manufacturer which currently employs over 1,200 people is planning to double its workforce by 2026.

Read more NI pharma giant to create 550 new jobs under 80m expansion plans

Jean-Marc Gales, chief executive of Wrightbus, said: We are delighted to be partnering with West Verkehr to put more zero-emission hydrogen buses on the streets of Germany. For Wrightbus, hydrogen represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get ahead in the large-scale manufacturing of a technology that will be in demand across the world.

This is another significant deal for us and is further evidence of the leading role we are playing on the global stage in tackling climate change through sustainable transport.

The introduction of the new Kite Hydroliner will help to prevent even more carbon from being released and its fantastic to see West Verkehr taking this vital and progressive step to decarbonise public transport.

This order is further recognition of Wrightbus as a leader in the sector, which is hugely gratifying and a testament to the reputation we have built up.

The company was rescued from administration just three years ago by JCB heir Jo Bamford.

Read more Belfast hotel put up for sale with 7m asking price

Udo Winkens, Managing Director of West Verkehr, said: "With the purchase of the 12 hydrogen-powered vehicles, we are taking an important step towards converting the West's bus fleet to emission-free drives.

We were able to convince ourselves on site that we have found an innovative and powerful partner in Wrightbus.

Wrightbus is behind the worlds first hydrogen double deck, the StreetDeck Hydroliner. The bus was launched in 2020 in Aberdeen, with the fleet entering passenger service in January 2021.

It is also behind the worlds most efficient double-deck electric bus - the Streetdeck Electroliner - as well as single-deck battery electric and hydrogen electric buses.

It is the only manufacturer in Europe to offer a complete suite of zero-emission buses, with both battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell single and double decks.
Jean-Claude Van Dram promises Belfast visit will be first of many after whiskey launch

Film star Muscles from Brussels praises friendly locals in Belfast as he launches his Irish whiskey brand

Damme good whiskey - Jean-Claude launches Old Oak in Belfast

Andrew Madden Thu 19 Oct 2023 at 09:25

Hollywood action star Jean-Claude Van Damme has promised that his visit to Belfast this week will be the first of many.
Rachel Tucker will launch hew new album at the Cadogan Hall

Rachel Tucker is releasing her new album in November 2023

Northern Irish West End and Broadway star Rachel Tucker has spoken of her excitement after announcing a new album.

The album, titled Youre Already Home, is set for release on November 3.

Produced by the musical theatre label Westway Music, Rachel says that the new album reflects the hard choices we sometimes have to make between family, home and career.

The 42-year-old actress  best known for her portrayal of Elphaba in the West End production of Wicked  is currently starring in Sunset Boulevard, directed by Jamie Lloyd.

Ive wanted to work with Jamie for a long time, and to collaborate with him on a brand-new version of one of Andrew Lloyd Webbers best scores, whilst getting to play such an iconic role, is a career-high for me, she said.

Rachel Tucker will launch hew new album at the Cadogan Hall

Born into a musical family in north Belfast, Rachel grew up singing with her sister Margaret and her father Tommy (Tucker) Kelly under the group name, Tucker Kelly and the Kelstar.

Her father had previously been a familiar face on the citys cabaret circuit in the 1980s and 90s. Her new album will consist of a wide assortment of genres and features unique arrangements of classical songs like Wouldnt It Be Loverly from My Fair Lady and Hes My Boy from Everybodys Talking About Jamie.

The album also features duets with Jamie Muscato performing Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish. For this album, I really wanted to bring my favourite musical styles together, said Rachel.

Youll find pop, rock, musical theatre, and Americana songs. But weve tried to give the pop and rock songs more theatre and drama, and the musical theatre songs more of a pop feel.

Rachel will be performing a solo concert at the Cadogan Hall in London on Sunday, November 5 to launch her new album.

I am absolutely thrilled to debut my third album at the magnificent Cadogan Hall  a venue Ive been dreaming of performing at for years, she said.

This album and show will encapsulate the music that has shaped my life, from my time in London to New York, Belfast and back!

Every note comes straight from my head and my heart, and Im eager to showcase it all to you.
Jean-Claude Van Damme had a telling off from BBC NI presenters after he swore live on radio this morning.

The Belgian action movie star is in Belfast promoting his new whiskey, Old Oak. The gaffe happened on BBC NIs radio show Good Morning Ulster.

When talking about how his father brought him to a martial arts school with much older students as a child, he said he was scared as sh*t.

After a brief giggle, presenter Chris Buckler quickly interjected with an apology, as did Van Damme.

The 63-year-old also spoke about how to make a good whiskey it was important to come to Ireland.

He said: If I want to do karate, Ill go to Japan. Kung fu, China. Old Oak Irish whiskey is from Ireland.

When asked how it feels to be an inspiration for so many people, down to earth Van Damme replied its kind of cool.

He followed up by jokingly asking presenters Buckler and Sarah Brett if he could bring them to Hollywood.

Damme good whiskey - Jean-Claude launches Old Oak in Belfast

Van Damme celebrated his birthday while promoting his whiskey in Belfast yesterday. He also lauded the hospitality and beauty of Ireland.

The people of Ireland are truly, truly amazing. I was in two places  north, south and I saw some amazing stuff. The green, your hills, the hotels, the people.

Belfast media sing Happy Birthday to Jean-Claude Van Damme
Whether shes leading a Viking pillaging raid, overseeing inmates at a Victorian jail or campaigning for womens suffrage, Stephanie Lavery doesnt break out of character

Stephanie Lavery as Eva Jones, with her gasmask during WW2, photographed in 2020

The mum-of-two, from Cookstown, has created her own business bringing history to life by posing as over a dozen different alter egos in museums, schools and historic sites across Northern Ireland.

Stephanie Laverys personas include Viking warrior Freya Svensdotter, Titanic second class passenger Victoria Smith, suffragette Elizabeth Barry and the imposing Mrs McKinley, who holds the keys to the Bridewell former jail in Magherafelt.

For each character she researches a back story, complete with morals and values compatible to the time so that shes ready to answer any questions  saying kids always want to know her birthday so she even has to get her date of birth right.

I put a lot of research into each character, she explains. Ill do a site visit where possible, or fall down a rabbit hole reading old censuses and village records. Theres a lot of attention to detail  even things like surnames need to be right so I dont pick one where there may be living descendants nearby.

Stephanie Lavery as a 1912 Titanic passenger Victoria Smith, taken in 2020

Freya the Viking is one of my favourites. She does a lot of school visits and I think the kids  especially the little girls  love to see a female warrior. They ask me if Im real and even pinch me.

I try not to break character  whatever happens. I was leading a tour round the Bridewell once as Mrs McKinley and stumbled on sunken ground in the 15th century graveyard round the back.

I had to stay stern and Victorian as I picked myself up, with a hole in my stockings and a bleeding knee, as the people on my tour tried to help me. The council had recently mown the lawn so I was also covered in grass clippings.

Stephanie (43) says shes been interested in history since growing up in South Wales near the 15th century Raglan Castle.

She studied drama in London, where she met her husband Conall (44), but when the pair moved back to his native Northern Ireland in 2004 she found it hard to find work as an actor.

She took a job for what was then Armagh City Council as a living history interpreter, giving guided tours of the authoritys historic sites and talks in schools, which enabled her to merge her acting background with her interest in history.

After having her daughter (14), she decided to go it alone, launching her own business in 2010, Time Steps Living History, which has gone from strength to strength ever since.

Stephanie Lavery as Eliza Skilbeck, a Victorian housemaid at Oldbridge House, 2018

One of my first characters was another Victoria Smith, a housekeeper at a stately home, she remembers. I definitely benefited from the Downton effect  everyone wants to know about servants lives and what goes on below stairs.

During her second pregnancy, with son (9), Stephanie worked until close to her due date, so she had to research what it would have been like if each of her characters had been pregnant at the time they were living in.

In schools, the kids would ask Freya, are you having a baby, Stephanie laughs. By the time I finished work I was huge and a lot of people at adult events and tours made jokes about needing to fetch towels and hot water for me.

Stephanie now has about 16 regular characters who work across Northern Irelands museums and historic sites, as well as giving talks to groups and going into schools.

Stephanie Lavery as Eva Jones, with her gasmask during WW2, photographed in 2020

She creates a script for each one, but has to be ready to go off-script at a moments notice as she interacts with visitors or answers questions. She can also create unique characters to suit specific events.

The costumes are expensive  Stephanie has them handmade especially for each of her characters and again pays attention to detail, with the right corsets, boots and petticoats.

The wardrobe where I keep them all is like Narnia, she laughs.

One of her favourite characters is Elizabeth Barry, a suffragette campaigning for womens rights just before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

Even now, Elizabeth is still involved with politics, and is a favourite booking for womens groups.

She did the regional AGM for the WI, laughs Stephanie. I think when we hear about the womens suffrage movement, we think about places like London, but actually the campaign was very active in Northern Ireland too.

Stephanie Lavery as Mrs McKinley in lockdown

Stephanie particularly enjoys playing strong female characters, and Mrs McKinley, the Bridewell jailer, is another favourite off hers.

Shes very strict with visitors, Stephanie laughs. Shell look upon umbrellas as potential weapons and she doesnt approve of ladies wearing trousers at all she asks those people if they are women without any morals.

The Covid lockdowns hit Stephanies business hard and for much of the time she wasnt able to work. Instead she kept her social media followers entertained by posting photos in a different costume each week.

But now  thankfully  demand for her services is booming again.

I think what I do helps bring history to life for people, she says. Its different to just going round with a tour guide because I try to make things as authentic and interactive as possible.

I do so much background research into what life was life at the time, so Im able to give my character authentic morals and viewpoints, an authentic way of talking, and respond well to any questions.

Stephanie tries to keep her characters separate, but on busy weekends she can find herself swapping between her alter egos, moving into different personalities and even different centuries, over the course of a day.

Her son loves playing with her Viking shield, but she says her daughter is now of an age where shes a little bit mortified by her mum dressing up for a living.

I love what I do, grins Stephanie. Its brilliant being my own boss and having such an outlet for my creativity. I literally get to be a different person every day of the week.

For more information on Time Steps Living History visit @timestepshistory on Instagram or search Time Steps Living History
An arrest warrant is to be issued for the alleged leader of a gang of fraudsters who has gone off the grid, a judge ordered.

Ray Lee, 30, is accused of being in charge of a criminal operation where elderly and vulnerable individuals across Northern Ireland were targeted by bogus police officers.

Up to 40 victims were allegedly conned into handing over cash and jewellery for safekeeping, with total losses of more than 200,000 reported.

Lee, of Colin Glen Green in Hannahstown, west Belfast, has not been seen since being granted compassionate bail to attend a funeral in Dublin in August.

Police declared him unlawfully at large following a failure to return to HMP Maghaberry.

Read more Former senior UVF man accused of stealing 20 legs of lamb from Tesco

He is among nine people facing prosecution in connection with the suspected racket.

Lee faces charges of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and possessing criminal property.

It is alleged that over a period between 2020 and 2021 victims were advised to withdraw funds, provide banking details, or hand over cash and jewellery kept at home in order to protect against the risk of being scammed.

People living in Belfast, Ballynahinch, Carryduff, Dundonald, Holywood, Glengormley, Bangor, Larne, Lisburn, Lurgan, Craigavon, Ballymena, Antrim, Portadown and elsewhere were all targeted, according to the charges.

Previous courts heard police believe Ray Lee was the brains behind the alleged operation.

A preliminary enquiry is to be held before the nine defendants - seven men and two women - can be returned for trial.

But Belfast Magistrates Court was told no-one knows the current whereabouts of either Lee or one of his co-accused.

District Judge Steven Keown commented: They are off the grid.

Following a formal call made for Lee to attend the courtroom, Mr Keown confirmed his steps.

There will be an arrest warrant, he ordered.

Listing the preliminary enquiry for next month, the judge warned that similar action will be taken against any of the other defendants if they fail to show.
Arrest warrants have been issued for two men accused of taking a vulnerable teenage girl to a Co Tyrone hotel and holding her against her will.

Dublin men Patrick Doyle (22) and Thomas McCarthy (18) are accused alongside Londonderry woman Serena Collins (26) with unlawfully and injuriously imprisoning the child and detaining her against her will.

At Strabane Magistrates Court today, District Judge Oonagh Mullan issued arrest warrants for Doyle, of The Park, and McCarthy, of Aughmore Lane, after being told they had not complied with bail conditions and police feared the pair had no intention of returning to Northern Ireland.

When the trio first appeared in court in May, when asked if they understood the charges Collins, of Northland Road, Derry, replied, That didnt happen. Nobody kept her against her will.

Doyle is further charged with obtaining services dishonestly by failing to pay 260 for the hotel room.

A detective constable from the PSNI Child Abuse Investigation Unit explained at a previous hearing at Strabane Magistrates that police received a report of a missing person at 1am on May 10 from the mother of the teenage girl with learning difficulties, who had failed to return home.

Around 4.30am the mother contacted police again to say the child had returned and was in a very distressed state.

Officers attended and spoke with the child who explained she had met up with Collins the previous day and they in turn were picked up by three men in a silver-grey car, driven by a male named Patrick.

They drove to Derry but were unable to get a hotel room so travelled on to Strabane and booked into the Fir Trees Hotel, the officer added.

During this time the child said the hotel room door was locked and she was unable to leave, while the group allegedly threatened to remove her phone.

She was kept in the room until she was driven back and dropped off outside her home, the court was told.

The detective said the child was, Very distressed and afraid something bad was going to happen to her, which meant her account was quite limited.

At the hotel, police discovered the three accused in a room, where a window was open, and it is believed one male had escaped shortly before officers arrived.

The others were arrested and during interview accepted driving together from Dublin, meeting up with the complainant and being in the hotel room with her, however they denied any offences occurred.

Bail was agreed at Strabane Magistrates Court for all three accused but with strict terms including residence at addresses approved by police and no contact with the complainant or each other.

They also had to sign three times weekly with police.

However while Serena Collins did largely adhere to her bail conditions police said the male co-accused had not.

A police officer today told the court: Bail terms have not been adhered to. They have never attended court and neither are residing at the agreed bail addresses. Nor have they signed with police since their release in May which reinforces our contention they have no intention of returning.

District Judge Oonagh Mullan agreed and issued warrants for arrest of both men.
U.S. President Joe Biden swept into wartime Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that produced a heaping dose of vocal support, a deal to get limited humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt , likely by the end of the week, and a plea for Israelis not to allow rage over the deadly Hamas attack to consume them.

I understand. Many Americans understand, Biden said as he wrapped up his stay in Tel Aviv, likening the Oct. 7 Hamas assault to the attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people. You cant look at what has happened here ... and not scream out for justice," he said.

But I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it, he said. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes."

Biden urged Israel to step back from the brink, not just to ease growing tensions in the Mideast that threaten to spiral into a broader regional conflict, but also to reassure a world rattled by images of carnage and suffering, in Israel and Gaza alike. One million people have been displaced in roughly 10 days, according to the United Nations.

Biden's mission was to display resolve for Israel and to diminish the likelihood of a wider war, while providing assurances that he was not overlooking the increasingly dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. Aboard the flight back to Washington Biden made progress when he spoke by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi who agreed to reopen his countrys sealed border crossing with Gaza and allow up to 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid supplies to cross.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Biden said roads near the crossing would first need hours of repairs, but that aid could begin rolling into the region by Friday. He suggested the aid could be distributed by international officials which could take a little time and added that, if Hamas confiscates it, it's going to end. We're not going to send any aid to Hamas.

I wanted to make sure that there was a vehicle, a mechanism where this could happen quickly," Biden said during a refueling stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. He added that el-Sissi was very cooperative.

He stepped up. As did Bibi," the president said, referring to Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu. But Biden was also in a mood to celebrate his own accomplishment, saying, I came to get something done. I got it done.

Not many people thought I could get this done," Biden said. "And not many people wanted me to be associated with failure."

In fact, the president said officials had a discussion of an hour or more" on whether to go" before the trip began. Had we gone and this failed, then the United States failed. The Biden presidency failed, etc., which would be a legitimate criticism," he said.

Aid moving into Gaza will accomplish a key objective for Biden, and the White House announced that the president will address the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday night to discuss our response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine.

Less clear is how far the trip would take the president in trying to tamp down volatile Mideast divisions , particularly after his plan collapsed to follow the Israel stop with an Arab leaders summit in Jordan.

His visit was full of signature Biden moments as he walked a careful diplomatic line. He doled out embraces to Netanyahu and to first responders, doctors and victims who witnessed nightmare moments. He spoke quietly of his own history with grief. He told the familiar anecdote about meeting every Israeli prime minister over more than five decades in elected office, starting with Golda Meir in 1973. He quoted an Irish poet.

I come to Israel with a single message: You're not alone," Biden said. As long as the United States stands  and we will stand forever  we will not let you ever be alone.

His presence and comments to Israeli leaders held weight. Netanyahu said the president's visit was deeply, deeply moving and said Biden had rightly drawn a clear line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism.

The civilized world must unite to defeat Hamas, the Israeli leader said.

Biden arrived in Israel as the nations across the Mideast shook with protests triggered by an explosion Monday at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds.

The blast undid plans for Jordans King Abdullah II to host Biden along with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and el-Sissi. Abbas withdrew in protest of the hospital attack; the summit was subsequently canceled outright. Yet Biden's presence in Israel prompted fresh outrage.

In Amman, a sign hoisted by one protester labeled Biden and Netanyahu war criminals and called them Partner in Crime. At the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh in south Lebanon, protesters set fire to a cardboard cutout of Bidens head with a rope around his neck and blood painted over his mouth.

Ayman Safadi, Jordans foreign minister, told a state-run television network that the war is pushing the region to the brink.

Still, Biden emerged from the day trumpeting food, water and medicine poised to move into Gaza after lengthy deadlock. Israel cut off the flow of aid and fuel to the Gaza Strip after the attack that killed 1,400 civilians by Hamas, which controls the region.

The Biden adminstration plans to ask Congress for more than $2 billion in combined additional aid for Israel and Ukraine. Biden on Wednesday also announced $100 million in aid to Gaza and the West Bank.

The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas, Biden stressed. "Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.

The tone of the discussions between Biden and Netanyahu stood in stark contrast to their optimistic meeting just a month ago on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where Netanyahu marveled that a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia seemed within reach.

The possibility of improved relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors has dimmed considerably with the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hamas war. Israel has been preparing for a potential ground invasion of Gaza. There are also fears that a new front could erupt along Israels northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah operates. The Iran-backed organization has been skirmishing with Israeli forces.

Allowing aid into the region had been seen by U.S. officials as a critical step toward the cooling of tensions in Arab nations after the blast at the hospital, which had been treating wounded Palestinians and sheltering many more who were seeking a refuge from the fighting.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible.

Officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a missile misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. The Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim. The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

Biden said data from his Defense Department showed that the explosion was not likely caused by an airstrike by the Israeli military. A White House National Security Council spokesperson followed up later with a post on social media that an analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information showed Israel was not behind the attack. But the U.S. continues to collect evidence.

Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, Biden told Netanyahu.

The leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in a joint statement said they felt confident the explosion was the result of a failed rocket launch by militants and not an Israeli airstrike.

Roughly 2,800 Palestinians have been reported killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. An additional 1,200 people are believed to be buried under the rubble , alive or dead, health authorities said. Those numbers predate the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday.

Jordan declared three days of mourning, and Jordanian officials said the summit was canceled after speaking with all leaders. Foreign Minister Safadi said they had wanted the meeting to produce an end to the war, which seems unlikely now, and to give Palestinians the respect they deserve. (AP)
A serving police officer was today charged with assault and drink driving following an alleged drunken fight at an upmarket hotel.

Although the officer did not appear at Ballymena Magistrates Court, the 30-year-old was charged with six offences arising from an alleged incident on September 22, this year.

The officer, whose address was given as c/o PSNI Brooklyn, Knock Road in Belfast, faces four charges of common assault of two men and two women, using disorderly behaviour in licensed premises, namely the Galgorm Hotel and driving with excess alcohol on the Fenaghy Road in Cullybackey.

It is understood the charges arise following an incident at a wedding which the constable, who was off duty at the time, was attending with fellow officers.

Giving evidence, a police officer said she believed she could connect the defendant to each of the charges while a prosecuting lawyer asked for the case to be adjourned for a month.

Defence counsel Neil Moore told the court he intended to apply for an anonymity order in respect of the officers identity, adding that a Detective Inspector will give evidence to found the application but the senior officer is not available today.

Representatives of the media stressed that the press are objecting to the application so Mr Moore suggested to District Judge Nigel Broderick he could impose an interim reporting restriction and adjourn the case for a week before the issue can be argued and adjudicated upon.

Putting the case back to Thursday October 26, the judge said given the defence submissions: Im going to adopt a holding position in so far that without prejudice, and this does not determine the application, but I will make an interim anonymity order under article two right to life."

District Judge Broderick ordered Mr Moore to lodge a skeleton argument by Tuesday, the media to respond by Wednesday and he would hear arguments from either side on Thursday.
A 34-year old woman appeared in court today where she denied murdering west Belfast man Anthony Browne.

Mr Browne (54), known as Tony, was stabbed in his Poleglass home last October and died in hospital from his injuries.

Wiktoria Maksymowicz appeared at Belfast Crown Court via a video-link with Hydebank, where she denied four offences aggravated by reason of involving domestic abuse.

It did, however, emerge that Maksymowicz has admitted she caused the fatal wound.

After confirming she could see and hear the court, the Polish national, with an address at Woodside Park in Dunmurry, was arraigned on four charges.

She was charged with murdering Anthony Browne on October 14, 2022, in an offence aggravated by reason of involving domestic abuse.

When asked how she pleaded, Maksymowicz replied Not guilty.

She also denied a charge of possessing an offensive weapon with intent to commit murder in an offence aggravated by reason of involving domestic abuse on the same date.

In addition, she had two charges allegedly committed on May 13, 2022, put to her  namely assaulting Mr Browne and possessing a knife on a Glider bus.

When charged with these offences  both of which were aggravated by reason of involving domestic abuse  the accused replied not guilty to them.

As relatives and friends of the deceased sat in the public gallery, they heard defence barrister Gavan Duffy KC tell Mr Justice O'Hara: It's not being suggested that the knife wound did not cause the death of the deceased and we're not suggesting anyone else inflicted the wound.

Mr Duffy said he was seeking a consultant psychiatric report in relation to the defendant to address certain issues in terms of mental health but also potentially looking at issues of diminished responsibility and matters of that type.

Mr Justice O'Hara acknowledged the presence of Mr Browne's loved ones in court and asked Just to spell out what you have just indicated, Mr Duffy, it's not denied by your client that Mr Browne died by a knife wound which was caused by your client?

This was confirmed by the defence barrister, who revealed that whilst Maksymowicz is suffering from amnesia in relation to aspects of this", she was not suggesting "the injury was caused by anyone else.

The Judge said he would review the case on January 12, 2024 when a date for the trial will be fixed.
Paul Bradley, the owner of the popular Cafe Fish in south Belfast.

Tributes have been paid to Paul Bradley, a popular Belfast chippy owner who passed away after getting into difficulty in the sea off the Co Down coast.

Mr Bradley, who was in his early 60s, had run sit-in restaurant and takeaway Cafe Fish on the Lisburn Road with wife Gabby McDowell for more than two decades, although he was in the hospitality industry for around 40 years.

SDLP South Belfast MP Claire Hanna was among those who paid tribute to Mr Bradley following his passing. She said that the warm and friendly business owner had been a family friend.

Ms Hanna said: "This is tragic and shocking news. Paul was a local businessman of decades standing and built Cafe Fish on the Lisburn Road to become the South Belfast Institution it is today.

His loss to the community will be keenly felt, Paul was a larger than life character, warm and friendly - his catchphrase of order on bellowed back into the kitchen was known by many, she continued.

He was a family friend and my mum was talking to him only last week and he was saying how he was spending more time in Newcastle, enjoying a bit of downtime after decades of throwing himself into the business.

"Our thoughts are with his beloved wife Gabby and their family as they deal with this awful shock."

Speaking via X, BBC presenter Stephen Nolan said he had spoken to Mr Bradley just days ago.

I was just talking to Paul a couple of days ago and am stunned by this sad news.

Pauls personality could literally be heard around his shop. My deep condolences to his family."

Also speaking on social media, former BBC broadcaster Donna Traynor offered her condolences and added that Mr Bradley had been known in the area for his friendly manner.

So sorry to hear about the passing of Paul Bradley. He was well known in the Lisburn Road area for his friendly banter with customers. Condolences to his family.

Alliance MLA Paula Bradshaw paid tribute to Mr Bradley, adding that she was a regular customer at the cafe.

I am deeply shocked and saddened by this awful news, she said.

I regularly frequent the cafe myself, and I know Pauls loss will be deeply felt right across the community. My sincerest condolences to Gabby, to the whole family, and to the extremely wide circle of friends.

Police responded to a report of a man in the water at the South Promenade area of Newcastle shortly after 10am on Wednesday.

Officers attended the harbour scene, together with colleagues from other emergency services, where the mans body was recovered from the water.

Despite attempts to revive him, he was pronounced dead at the scene. His death is not being treated as suspicious.

South Promenade, Newcastle, Co Down. Credit: Google Maps

Read more Storm Babet: Warning of potential disruption as NI coastline battered

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph in 2020, Mr Bradley said: "I am so passionate about fish and chips like you wouldn't believe.

When our food critic Joris Minne visited Cafe Fish in 2020, he wrote: The robust shape of proud owner and fish fryer boss Paul Bradley behind the pans, fog-horning orders to his team, runs his shop like the commander of a fisheries protection frigate in a gale.

The Ambulance Service had despatched two emergency crews, two Rapid Response paramedics and the Hazardous Area Response Team to the scene on Wednesday.

The charity Air Ambulance team was also tasked, as was Newcastles lifeboat team (RNLI) .

An RNLI spokesperson said rescuers were sent out after a swimmer got into difficulty in the water close to the lifeboat station.

The inshore lifeboat launched shortly before 10am and the casualty was quickly taken ashore, and casualty care was administered by the lifeboat crew until the arrival of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, they continued.

Local Sinn Fein councillor Willie Clarke, who used to live by the harbour, said his heartfelt condolences go out to the family and friends of Mr Bradley, who was an avid sea swimmer.

To pass away under such tragic circumstances makes it harder, added the Mournes representative.

He obviously loved sea swimming and theres a huge rise in people taking up the hobby but I suppose you have to always be mindful of the tidal conditions.

I share the grief with the local community today. Everybody is talking about this tragic incident and there is a real sadness among the group of sea swimmers in the town, who are all very close-knit. It must be devastating.

SDLP South Down MLA Colin McGrath added: This is such terrible news and my thoughts and prayers are with the mans family and friends at this difficult time.

This will have come as such a shock to the many people in the sea swimming community of Newcastle and East Down. Everyone in the area will be very saddened to hear this news.

One of the organisers of a sea swimming group in Newcastle also spoke of her sorrow.

Unfortunately the sea is always in control, she said, noting that the gentlemans tragic death is very sad.
An application to erect a large digital advertising screen in historic Cornmarket in Belfast city centre has been pushed through by DUP and Sinn Fein, against recommendations by both the council and Stormont.

The screen, proposed for 1-3 Arthur Street, on Starbucks Coffee, was described as unsympathetic by council officers given its proximity to four listed buildings.

The plan was opposed by the Stormont Historic Environment Division.

Despite this, Sinn Fein and the DUP went against advice at the Belfast City Council Planning Committee this week, and got the application approved with 12 votes, against five votes from the other parties who opposed the application.

The plan was from Alterity Investments Limited, of Annadale Avenue, Belfast, for a replacement facade to active facade to facilitate the display of internally illuminated moving images.

Read more New Starbucks to open in Co Down after planning permission granted

It is a temporary application, to last five years, with a review after three years.

The original plan was for a screen at Arthur Street and also at Castle Lane, but after a deferral on the application for a site visit by councillors, Alterity Investments withdrew the Castle Lane part of the proposal.

The council officer report states: The removal of the advertisement on Castle Lane is beneficial for this street and setting of Nos. 1-5 Castle Lane (a Grade B2 Listed building) when approaching Arthur Square from the Cornmarket and Ann Street.

However, the most prominent screening facing onto Arthur Square would remain and would continue to have a harmful impact on the setting of other listed buildings, as well as Nos. 1-5 Castle Lane from other viewpoints, including from Arthur Street and the Victoria shopping centre. Similarly, the proposal would continue to have an adverse impact on the character and appearance of the conservation area.

Conservation advice was sought on the amendments from the Plans and Policy unit. The conservation advice states that the effect on the south/north vista along Arthur Street terminated by 1-5 Castle Lane would be diminished through focal shift to the sign, and the sign would adversely impact the perception, understanding and appreciation of the space and its setting as a historic square, thereby undermining the historicity of the listed buildings therein.

The advice therefore remains as per before that the proposal  that it would have a harmful impact on the character and appearance of the conservation area. The recommendation remains to refuse permission.

Council officers concluded that the application went against planning policy.

The report states: The proposal is not sympathetic to the essential characteristics, scale, height, massing and alignment of the adjacent listed buildings by way of its scale, form, materials and detailing. It would result in a competing focus to the listed buildings, drawing the eye away from them and diluting their prominence and importance in the street-scene.

The nature of the proposal does not respect the character of the setting of the listed buildings (and) would have a detrimental impact on the setting of the listed buildings.

A representative for the applicant told the committee: There is a free advertising element which will be available to the council, which they can use to promote their own events, things such as Culture Night, Halloween, St Patricks Day etc.

We have also offered to provide free digital content to increase the knowledge and understanding for the public of the listed buildings, which sometimes gets missed, because the public doesnt realise they are there.

As a company we make proceeds of 50 percent of our profits to the LFT charitable trust, which then gives that money away to local NI based charities, particularly the smaller type of charity. We are focused on 10-20,000 grants, which can make a big difference.

Another representative for the applicant said: City screens dont have the effect you think they do. Liverpool has one of the biggest digital screens in Europe right next to one of the greatest Grade One listed buildings in the UK, St. Georges Hall. And nobody bats an eyelid, they just accept it. And St. Georges Hall hasnt collapsed or anything like that.

You have to understand that nearly every UK city centre has digital screens in, so they have accepted the digital way of looking at city centres.

DUP Alderman Dean McCullough proposed the council approve the application. He said: I disagree somewhat with the recommendations. The point has been made well, that if you look at cities across the UK and indeed Europe, there is a move towards digitisation.

There are a number of other factors, including advertising and the impact it has on the economy of the city, and also the sharing of messages. I like the idea of promoting the listed buildings, which most of the citizens and visitors of our city are not aware of.

Planning Committee Chair, Sinn Fein Councillor Matt Garrett said: I am conscious that in the middle of that area we have a sculpture which previously (was at the site of) a bandstand. Which in and of itself probably blocked some of the views of the listed buildings that surround it.

Its aesthetics  and I am appreciative of the policy context and the listed status of buildings in those areas and the conservation area  but personally I dont think it is going to take that much away from it.
Rebecca Muldrew passed away just 10 days after her father William Irwin

A young Armagh mother-of-two who passed away just 10 days after her father died has been remembered as a precious soul.

Rebecca Joy Muldrew, who was from Portadown, died at home earlier this week following a battle with cancer.

She would have celebrated a decade of marriage to her husband Gary in March.

Both Rebecca and Gary are deeply involved in the Manifest Fellowship.

The much-loved mother was a former student of Craigavon Senior High School and attended Queens University in Belfast, where she studied nursing.

Rebecca died 10 days after her father William Irwin passed away suddenly at his home.

Pastor Simon Matovu of the Manifest Fellowship spoke during a service of thanksgiving for Rebecca at Thomas Street Methodist Church on Thursday.

Read more Tributes paid to young NI mum who tragically died just 10 days after her father

He said Rebecca was a precious soul who no words could describe.

In the few years I have known her I can honestly say she was one of the most unique, beautiful people Ive ever met. I have never met anyone like Rebecca, he said.

He added that she was one of the most selfless women you could ever meet, a devoted mother to Irwin (7) and Faith (5), and a loving husband to Gary.

Following Rebeccas passing, Christian organisation The Centre in Armagh paid tribute to her.

Our beautiful friend Rebecca has gone to be with her Saviour in glory, but words cant begin to express how heartbroken we are, said the organisation.

Rebecca has been a big part of The Centre team from the very beginning, always willing to help and loved a good clean up!

She was always in the middle of the chat, craic, a good game and loved a laugh. Praying much for Gary, Irwin, Faith and the entire family circle.

Speaking in her testimony at Armagh Elim Church in 2020, Rebecca spoke of her family, the importance of her faith and her battle with cancer.

"I couldnt comprehend it and I didnt want to believe it, she said about being informed of her cancer diagnosis.

"Feeling numb, we arrived home to break the news gently. It will forever be etched in my heart how Gary and dad reacted that day and the emotions that were shown.

"My heart ached for them and I couldnt help but feel apologetic for the distress and misery I was about to put them through.

"I was very conscious of my new born and family at home, and desperately wanted to make life as normal as possible and to cherish the time we had together  those new born smells and cuddles and watching wee Irwin take to his baby sister. We were so proud.

Rebecca said she thanked God for keeping her family sheltered from the illness.
Chris Heaton-Harris wishes Jon Boutcher well during his tenure as interim Chief Constable (Photo: Chris Heaton Harris/X)

Chris Heaton-Harris wishes Jon Boutcher well during his tenure as interim Chief Constable (Photo: Chris Heaton Harris)

The newly-appointed PSNI interim chief constable Jon Boutcher has been pictured in uniform for the first time.

He was officially welcomed to the post by Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris.

Mr Boutcher was appointed to the role last week following the resignation of Simon Byrne, who stepped down from the top post after several controversies involving the PSNI including a monumental data breach and the fallout from the Sean Grahams memorial arrests when a High Court found he had acted unlawfully in his treatment of two junior officers.

The new head of Northern Ireland policing previously headed up Operation Kenova when it launched in 2016, examining the double-life of Stakeknife, widely believed to have been Freddie Scappaticci, who died in April. It is understood Scappaticci was a British spy within the IRA.

In a post on the social media website X, formerly Twitter, Mr Heaton-Harris shared a photograph of him shaking hands with the interim Chief Constable, who is seen in PSNI uniform for the first time.

Mr Boutcher is also pictured wearing a name badge which lists him as Chief Constable without the word interim.

"Wishing Jon Boutcher well during his tenure as interim @PoliceServiceNI Chief Constable. His experience and leadership will be invaluable in continuing the PSNI's vital work to keep the people of Northern Ireland safe, posted Mr Heaton-Harris.

The Secretary of State would have had to approve his appointment to the role due to a lack of functioning Executive.

Mr Boutchers first appearance in uniform comes after confirmation he is in the running for the role of Chief Constable on a permanent basis.

Mr Boutcher and Assistant Chief Constable Bobby Singleton are said to be on the shortlist for the role.

Read more Police Ombudsman and Department of Justice refuse to say if Ombudsman has offered to resign  as PSNI calls in outside force

It was previously reported that Mr Boutcher was identified as the preferred candidate subject to final agreement.

The PSNI had no comment on the reports while a spokesperson for the Policing Board said the appointment panel for the chief constable competition completed shortlisting on Wednesday, and interviews will proceed on November 6.

Mr Boutcher has previously served as Chief Constable of Bedfordshire, a force he joined in 2014 until he stood down from that position in 2019.
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said he believes the UK government is moving closer to addressing his partys concerns over post-Brexit trade.

The DUP has been blocking powersharing for more than a year in protest at the internal UK trade barriers created by Brexits Northern Ireland Protocol.

The party says the framework deal struck by the EU and the UK to reform the protocol does not sufficiently address its concerns and has made clear it will not accept a return to devolution until the Government provides further assurances, by way of legislation, over Northern Irelands place in the UK internal market.

One of the main parts of the framework  the green/red lane system for the movement of goods  became operational at Northern Ireland ports at the beginning of this month.

Talks between the DUP and the Government have been ongoing over the summer.

Sir Jeffrey was responding to BBC Question Time audience member Gary Clark, who asked: How much longer should the people of Northern Ireland have to tolerate a lack of devolved government and crumbling public services?

Speaking in Lisburn, Sir Jeffrey said there are elements of the Windsor Framework that represent progress, but there remain some areas that still have to be resolved.

He added: I think we are closer to finding a resolution than we were at the beginning of this process when no-one was listening, when the EU said there would be no renegotiation.

Sir Jeffrey said he wanted to see Stormont back up and running as the Northern Irelands finances are not adequate to deliver effective public services.

However, he said he wanted the institution to be restored on a sustainable basis and under cross-community consensus.

He said: That is why the DUP at the outset, recognised that the solution for Northern Ireland was not to put a hard border on the island, but equally, the solution is not to put a border in the Irish Sea. There are ways we can resolve this.

Sorcha Eastwood said the DUP should get out of the way if it did not want to return to powersharing (Liam McBurney/PA)

In answering the question, Alliance MLA Sorcha Eastwood said Northern Ireland should not be without a government for a second longer.

Ms Eastwood then told Sir Jeffrey that the people of Lagan Valley were hurting due to the collapse of Northern Irelands institutions.

She added: Every single one of those families is hurting. People getting sicker on waiting lists, schools having to collect money for books, toilet roll, everything else.

This is not our first rodeo. It wasnt right whenever Sinn Fein did it. It certainly isnt right whenever youre doing it.

And you know what we are saying? Not a minute longer, not a single minute longer. Youve made a decision, and its the wrong decision.

She added: We understand that you have a problem but heres where it becomes everyone elses problem.

You dont get to take your ball and go off the pitch just because its something you dont like. We didnt like Brexit but we worked on it, we made it happen and you know what?

Our job is to govern, our job is to stand for election and do our job. So if you dont want to do the job, get out of the way.

Sinn Fein MP John Finucane described as the outworking of a Brexit project that the DUP championed and welcomed with open arms.

He said it was anti-democratic not to return to powersharing.

Sinn Fein MP John Finucane said the collapse of Northern Irelands institutions was a consequence of Brexit (Liam McBurney)

Mr Finuncane highlighted an upcoming investment conference in Northern Ireland and said attending US firms would be seeking political stability.

He said: So not a single day longer should we have to wait for the absence of an assembly. We need an assembly. We need an executive.

Where I will agree with Jeffrey is that we need an executive with a single voice, demanding the resources to begin to tackle the problems that this room know that we have, but the way to do that is not outside  its inside taking your place along with everybody else.

In response, Sir Jeffrey highlighted that Mr Finuncane and other Sinn Fein MPs do not take their seats at Westminster.

He also criticised Ms Eastwood for talking about a politics of exclusion by suggesting Unionists should get out of the way.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris was accused of implementing a punishment budget (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris told the Question Time audience that this place operates on consensus and he could not intervene in the DUPs decision not to enter Stormont to govern.

He said: So my job has been to try and sort out the just concerns, and some of them are very just, for the Unionist community and their politicians.

Asked if a deal with the DUP was imminent, Mr Heaton-Harris said: I would love it to be. I think we are in the final phases of a wonderful group of talks.

Asked if he agreed talks were in the final phases, Sir Jeffrey said: We are moving closer.

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn said checks on goods on Northern Ireland have to be implemented sensibly and sensitively

He added: The question is, is that principle of how the checks operate on the green lane big enough to continue to mean that Northern Ireland has no government?

And all I can tell you is since I was appointed on September 4, just about every conversation Ive had with all the people Ive been meeting has come back down to: We havent got a functioning government and we need a functioning government.

The people of Northern Ireland need it and the current budget is not sustainable, for the reasons that have been set out so clearly, and that needs to change too.

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn (Liam McBurney/PA)

Mr Heaton-Harris was directly criticised from the audience for washing his hands of responsibility for having a functioning Executive in Northern Ireland.

It was put to him that he had imposed a punishment budget on Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Secretary rejected this, saying it was a misunderstanding of what is happening here.

He said the money was set aside in the Spending Review properly and thoroughly and that Westminster could not impose itself on Northern Ireland.

He added: How its spent is determined by the executive, if there was an executive sitting. and as someone did say, what all this needs is a joined-up approach and thats exactly what you have ministers for.

He later said he was happy to talk with a reformed executive about what makes a budget sustainable.
Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has said he believes the Government is in the final phases of talks which will lead to the restoration of Stormont.

In a Northern Ireland themed episode of BBCs Question Time filmed in Lisburn, Mr Heaton-Harris said he was currently involved in the final stages of a wonderful group of talks.

I would love it to be, he replied when host Fiona Bruce said the mood appeared to suggest a return to the Executive was imminent.

I think we are in the final phases of a wonderful group of talks and I have enjoyed the company of Jeffrey (Donaldson) in these talks.

Sir Jeffrey, who was also a panellist on Thursday nights edition of the programme, also said he believed the talks were moving closer to resolution.

I think we have made progress and moved closer, I will work day and hour to resolve these issues. But we have got to get this right.

Sir Jeffrey and Mr Heaton-Harris were also joined on the panel by Sinn Fein MP John Finucane, Alliance MLA Sorcha Eastwood and Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn in a programme which was split on debating the current affairs of Northern Irelands political system and the ongoing violence in the Middle East between Israel and Palestinian militants.

Asked why as Northern Ireland Secretary he hasnt sorted powersharing out yet, Mr Heaton-Harris said: Yeah, good question.

I guess by spelling the framework that I operate in, its consensus. One side of society does not want to go into government and I cannot intervene in that as set out in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, he added.

My job is to sort out the just concerns, because the NI Protocol did lead to companies in Great Britain not putting things for sale here in Northern Ireland.

Mr Finucane said Northern Irelands current political stalemate was a result of a Brexit the DUP championed and added the cost of living crisis was deepening across the country.

People cast their votes for parties who want to get around the table and get to work. Michelle ONeill has said from day one she wants to tackle the problems, he said.

The Windsor Framework provides dual market access that is the envy of colleagues in Scotland, we have international companies coming here to build routes, and build investment and create well paid jobs  but they want political stability. Not a single day longer should we have to wait.

During the debate, Ms Eastwood received a large applause when she pointed out Sir Jeffrey had previously made comments on a past edition of Question Time in which he decried Sinn Fein for collapsing previous power-sharing and said it was unsatisfactory one party had political veto.

This is about people, its our constituency, every single one (these) people are sick of waiting. This is not our first rodeo, it wasnt right when Sinn Fein did it and its not right when youre doing it.

Read more DUP conference: Carla Lockhart makes plea for unionist unity

You dont get to take your ball and go off the pitch, our job is to govern, if you dont want to do to the job, get out of the way.

Opening the programme on the topic of the Israel and Gaza conflict, a question was asked on the importance of dialogue in resolving conflict.

These are troubled times, Israel was attacked by a terrorist organisation, Hamas is a terrorist organisation, we should all be able to say that, said Mr Heaton-Harris.

Mr Benn, who last month was appointed Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary in a reshuffle of the Labour front bench by Sir Keir Starmer, said Northern Irelands history should provide encouragement

The experience here in Northern Ireland during dark times should give us some encouragement, he said.

When I was growing up and reading the newspapers about what was (happening in Northern Ireland) and if you asked me, will it ever end? I might have said well I hope so, but Im not sure Ill live to see it  but we did.

There was also a moment of tension in which Ms Bruce claimed Mr Finucane was not answering the question on whether he agrees with the destroying of Hamas by Israel. The Sinn Fein MP said: Well how many civilians are we allowed to watch die?

Ms Bruce then proceeded to move on, claiming Mr Finucane was continuing to avoid the question asked.

The debate also covered the issue of Lough Neagh and the ongoing algae crisis, which Mr Finucane said was a problem that needed to be addressed and addressed fast, while Sir Jeffrey said he had spoken to members of the farming community to tackle waste entering the water.

He also said a proper budget was needed to address sewage concerns in Northern Ireland and referred to Lough Neagh as an environmental crisis.
Palestinians carry belongings as they leave al-Ahli hospital, which they were using as a shelter, in Gaza City

Sinn Feins youth wing has called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland following the blast at the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza in which hundreds of people were killed.

Ogra Shinn Fein tweeted that it was time to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland though some Sinn Fein politicians later deleted their retweets of the post.

Nationalist and Alliance representatives expressed their anger at the blast, and repeated their calls for an end to the collective punishment of Palestinian civilians and the upholding of international law.

However, DUP politicians expressed solidarity with Israel and blamed the hospital bombing on the countrys opponents. President Biden has supported Israels denial and said information suggested the blast was due to an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group.

Palestinian officials have blamed Israel for the massacre, and are backed by other Arab states including Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The Prime Minister said that British intelligence services were rapidly analysing evidence to independently establish the facts.

Sinn Fein's Chris Hazzard

Sinn Fein MP Chris Hazzard tweeted in response to Rishi Sunak: British intelligence services are not, have never been, and will never be independent.

The people of Derry knew Widgery was a whitewash. The people of Baghdad knew there were no weapons of mass destruction.

The people of Gaza know it was an Israeli missile that hit their hospital.

Former Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderston tweeted: Israel tells lies. Lies of convenience. Lies of contempt. Lies of cover-up.

DUP MP Carla Lockhart expressed her support for Israels denial.

I am sure all those queuing up to condemn the Israelis for this will no doubt be first to come out and apologise. The SDLP and Sinn Fein can start.

Carla Lockhart MP

East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson tweeted: Hamas are terrorists. They indiscriminately slaughtered Israeli men, women and children. They use their own people as human shields and have no shame in using their deaths as propaganda. Big questions for the BBC and other journalists who believed Hamas lies.

UUP leader Doug Beattie described the hospital attack as an absolutely appalling loss of life. He said: A cycle of violence where the innocent continue to pay the price for war. There needs to be an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian aid, safe corridors and an evacuation of the wounded.

Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry said: The UK claims to uphold international humanitarian law yet refuses to recognise evidence of Israels breaches of it in Gaza. By maintaining their contradictory and untenable position, the UK is abetting the collective punishment of two million Palestinians.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood branded Hamas attack on Israel last week as a war crime but said one war crime doesnt excuse another.

He asked Mr Sunak to tell President Netanyahu to stop dropping bombs on innocent children in Gaza. Mr Eastwood said the international community cant stand by and ignore this.

People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll took part in a protest outside Erskine House, NIO headquarters in Belfast.

He called for the UK Government to stop financing and facilitating mass slaughter against Palestinans and for the Israeli ambassador to be expelled.
U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated his backing for Israel and apparently accused a "terrorist group" of causing a recent deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza as he visited Tel Aviv on Wednesday to stress America's solidarity with Israel following the Hamas militant group's attack this month.

Biden arrived in Tel Aviv Wednesday morning amid a spike in tensions over Tuesday's blast at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the Hamas-controlled enclave, which left hundreds of innocent civilians dead.

Hamas claimed that the blast was caused by an Israeli air strike. Israel has denied responsibility, arguing a botched Islamic Jihad rocket launch led to the tragedy.

"I was outraged and saddened by the enormous loss of life yesterday in the hospital in Gaza," Biden told a press conference following his talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's war cabinet.

"Based on the information we've seen to date, it appears as a result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza," he added.

He stressed that the United States "unequivocally" stands for the protection of civilian life during conflict, while noting that he asked the Israeli cabinet to agree to the delivery of "life-saving" humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.

He also announced $100 million of new U.S. funding for humanitarian assistance to both Gaza and the West Bank.

"I truly grieve for the families who were killed or wounded by this tragedy. People of Gaza need food, water, medicine and shelter," he said.

Biden redoubled his backing for Israelis, saying he plans to ask Congress for an "unprecedented" support package for the country's defense.

During his talks with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, his message of support for Israel reverberated.

"I want you to know you're not alone...we will continue to have Israel's back as you work to defend your people," Biden told Israel's war cabinet.

Biden also mentioned the declaration that Israeli founders made over 75 years ago that their country would be one that is based on "freedom, justice and peace."

"The United States stands with you in defense of that freedom, to pursue that justice and support that peace today, tomorrow and always. We promise you," he said.

Biden's high-stakes trip focused on reaffirming America's solidarity with Israel, preventing the ongoing conflict from escalating and exploring ways to minimize civilian damage.

His trip coincided with the U.S. Treasury Department's announcement on fresh sanctions against ten key Hamas group members, operatives and financial facilitators in Gaza and elsewhere, including Sudan, Turkey, Algeria and Qatar.

The rise in tensions over the hospital explosion was a setback to the Biden administration that has sought to reduce regional tensions while moving to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza enclave.

Biden had planned to visit Jordan for talks with Arab leaders, but the visit was called off following the blast at the hospital.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken held phone talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to express "profound condolences for the civilian lives lost in the explosion at the hospital in Gaza, according to Matthew Miller, a spokesperson of the State Department.

"The Secretary emphasized that the United States unequivocally condemns all terrorism and stressed the United States' firm commitment to upholding the law of war, to include important protections for civilians," Miller said in a statement.

"The Secretary and the President discussed continuing U.S. efforts to coordinate the provision of urgent, life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza, in tandem with partners, and efforts to prevent the conflict from spreading," he added. (Yonhap)
Pope Francis and Michael D Higgins met in Dublin in 2018 (Danny Lawson/PA)

Irish president Michael D Higgins will meet Pope Francis during a private audience in the pontiffs library at the Vatican on Thursday.

It is anticipated that President Higgins will discuss a number of issues of shared interest with Francis, including climate change, migration, poverty, food security, the rights of indigenous people and global peace.

Mr Higgins has previously praised the contribution that Francis has made to the debate on these issues.

It will be the fourth meeting between Mr Higgins and Francis, following previous meetings in the Vatican in 2017 and 2021 and at the Irish presidential residence Aras an Uachtarain in Dublin in 2018.

Michael D Higgins is heading to the Vatican (PA)

President Higgins also met Francis at the Papal Inauguration in 2013.

At their meeting, Mr Higgins will present Francis with a sculpture entitled The Expelled by renowned Irish sculptor John Behan.

The president chose to present this piece to Francis in recognition of the pontiffs work in drawing public attention to the plight of refugees and migrants across the world.

Mr Behan is one of Irelands best-known living sculptors and has a recent focus on depictions of the experiences of refugees around the world.

Pope Francis will be presented with a sculpture (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)

Following his private audience with Francis, Mr Higgins will hold a bilateral meeting with the Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Parolin.

President Higgins will then travel to Campo Santo in the Teutonic Pontifical College, where he will lay a wreath in honour of the late Monsignor Hugh OFlaherty, whose work during the Nazi occupation of Rome during the Second World War saved the lives of thousands of people.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Monsignor OFlaherty.

President Higgins will also view the exhibition Ireland and the Birth of Europe at the Irish Pontifical College in Rome. The exhibition tells the story of the role played by Irish scholars and missionaries, including Saint Columbanus and his followers, in the shaping of a shared European identity.

The events coincide with the presidents participation in the World Food Forum.
The construction site of the new National Childrens Hospital in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA)

There is not a snowballs chance that the new national childrens hospital in Dublin will be completed next year, it has been claimed.

The facility has been beset with delays and spiralling costs since it was first announced almost a decade ago.

The latest estimate on the project is that work on the building at the St Jamess site will be completed by October 29, 2024.

A commissioning programme is likely to take another six months, indicating the doors could open to patients in April 2025.

The Public Accounts Committee also heard that the spend on the project to date is 1.36 billion euro, and is set to rise further.

A budget of 1.43 billion euro had been approved.

Childrens Health Ireland is set to bring a memo to Government at the end of this month regarding the final cost of the hospital.

David Gunning, chief executive of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board gives evidence to the Public Accounts Committee (Oireachtas/PA)

David Gunning, chief executive of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, told the committee that work on the hospital was 92% complete by the end of September 2023.

However, he said in a building of such size and scale the last 10% is the slowest to complete, as it includes all the finishes, system integration and commissioning.

He said the board is in constant engagement with constructors BAM to ensure that the October 2024 substantial completion is achieved.

All our efforts are focused on getting certainty on this date, he said.

In terms of costs, Mr Gunning said by September 30, 2023, the total amount spent was 1.36 billion euro, leaving 71 million euro from the overall budget of 1.43 billion euro.

Eilish Hardiman, chief executive of Childrens Health Ireland, said the operational commissioning phase is likely to take around six months.

However, Labour TD Alan Kelly contended: There is not a snowballs chance in hell the hospital will be completed by October 2024.

He also challenged those giving evidence to contradict him if they did not believe the final cost of the project wouldnt be substantially over two billion euro. There was no response.

I dont think there is a snowballs chance of the October deadline being met next year, he said.

I just dont think that the handover positioning is going to be the stage that will allow this to happen so that we will not have this six months after that.

Id be even surprised if this is up and fully operational in 2025 at all based on the evidence that you have given us here.

The fact is this project is going well north of over two billion euro, I would expect possibly even close to 2.5 billion euro. I dont think anyone is disagreeing with that.
Rockets launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel on October 7 (Hatem Moussa/AP)

A British-Israeli man was among those murdered by Hamas during its attack on Israel, it has been reported.

Yonatan Rapoport, known as Yoni, was killed in the attack on Kibbutz Beeri on October 7, the BBC said.

He had two children, Yosefi and Aluma, and, as a Manchester United fan, had planned to take his son to Old Trafford next month for his first game, the corporation reported.

Downing Street said on Wednesday that at least seven British nationals were killed in the Hamas raids on Israel, with nine still missing.

Some of those missing are feared dead, while others could be among the hostages taken back to the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, British teenager Yahel Sharabi, 13, was confirmed as one of those murdered during Hamass attack.

She died along with her mother, Lianne, on October 7, while her elder sister, Noiya, 16, and father, Eli, are still missing.

Also among those known to have died is Nathanel Young, 20, who was serving in the Israeli army when he was killed during Hamass attack.

Bernard Cowan, who grew up around Glasgow, also died.

Jake Marlowe, 26, who went to the same London school as Mr Young, was originally recorded as missing but later confirmed dead by the Israeli embassy in London.

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on Thursday (Maya Alleruzzo/AP)

He was providing security at the Supernova music festival in the desert near Kibbutz Reim when the area was invaded by Hamas gunmen.

Photographer Dan Darlington is also feared to be dead.

A post from Mr Darlingtons sister, Shelley, on social media said he was murdered at Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel.

His death has not been officially confirmed.
People at Shefford Town Memorial Association to cast their vote in the Mid Bedfordshire by-election (PA)

Polls have closed in two by-elections which could give an indication of the scale of the challenge facing the main political parties ahead of a national contest expected next year.

The Tories are defending what should be safe seats in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth, but allies of Rishi Sunak have admitted the party faces difficult headwinds because of the circumstances of the contests.

Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries quit  eventually  as Mid Bedfordshires MP in anger at being denied a peerage in Boris Johnsons resignation honours list.

Labour candidate Sarah Edwards arrives with her dog Poykee to cast her vote (Jacob King/PA)

In Tamworth, Chris Pincher quit after being found to have drunkenly groped two men in an egregious case of sexual misconduct at Londons exclusive Carlton Club last year  an incident which helped trigger Mr Johnsons exit from No 10 because of his handling of the situation.

Although riding high in the national opinion polls, Labour said it would be a moon shot to win either seat.

The Tories have held Mid Bedfordshire since 1931 and Ms Dorries held on to it in 2019 by 24,664 votes over second-placed Labour.

Mr Sunaks party is defending a 19,600 majority in Tamworth.

Conservative candidate Andrew Cooper voting in the Tamworth contest (Jacob King/PA)

A Conservative Party spokesman said: These were always going to be challenging by-elections and the rule of thumb is that governments dont win them.

We have seen little to no enthusiasm for Sir Keir Starmer who voters can see stands for nothing and always puts short term political gain first.

It is clear that we have to maintain our focus on peoples immediate priorities whilst taking long-term decisions which will lead to the change this country needs.

The Prime Ministers press secretary said the by-elections had come about after difficult local circumstances.

She said mid-term by-elections are extremely tough for incumbent governments.

Labours national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden said his party was in the race in usually safe Tory seats.

But we have known all along that winning these seats would be a long shot, with huge majorities to overturn, he added.

The fact that we are even on the pitch is a sign of how far the Labour Party has changed.

We are making real progress in all corners of our country and showing that with Labour, we can get Britains future back.

Labour candidate Alistair Strathern with his partner Megan Corton-Scott (Joe Giddens/PA)

In Mid Bedfordshire, a three-way fight has seen the Liberal Democrats taking on Labour and the Tories, potentially making it easier for the Conservative candidate Festus Akinbusoye.

Labours Alistair Strathern and the Lib Dems Emma Holland-Lindsay have both received high-profile backing from their party leaders in a contest which they have had plenty of time to prepare for  Ms Dorries said she would quit in June but it took until late August for her to formally resign.

Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokeswoman Christine Jardine said: Whatever the outcome, it is clear that the Lib Dem vote has surged in true blue villages across Bedfordshire, as former lifelong Conservative voters choose to send this government a message.

I am bursting with pride at the campaign Emma Holland-Lindsay has run, which has offered Mid Bedfordshire a positive and inspiring vision for change. Emma has rolled up her sleeves, ran constituency surgeries whilst the absent Conservative MP was nowhere to be found, and already begun the work of helping local people who have felt badly let down. 

In Tamworth, Labours Sarah Edwards will hope to defeat Tory Andrew Cooper.

On Wednesday, Mr Cooper said he was sorry if Ive offended somebody after an apparent suggestion that out-of-work parents who cannot afford to feed their children should f*** off.

Mr Sunak was asked during Prime Ministers Questions about a photo of a flowchart shared by Andrew Cooper on Facebook.

The diagram suggested that those who are out of work but pay for TV Sky/BT/etc, or have a phone contract + 30 should f*** off rather than seek help.

In reply to the question, the Prime Minister said only that he was proud of our record supporting people with the cost of living, before outlining Government policies aimed at supporting people through the crisis.
Security minister Tom Tugendhat said it was outrageous that pro-Palestine supporters were able to put up a stage close to the Cenotaph (Yui Mok/PA)

Security minister Tom Tugendhat said it was disgraceful that a stage was erected near to the Cenotaph at a pro-Palestine march.

Images and videos posted on social media show a stage standing close to the 103-year-old war memorial on Whitehall during demonstrations at the weekend expressing support for the Palestinian people in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

The memorial in central London is dedicated to those who died in the two world wars and in every conflict afterwards. It is a focal point during Britains Remembrance Sunday service in November.

Mr Tugendhat, who was formerly an officer in the British Army reserves, told Sky News: It is disgraceful. To many of us the Cenotaph is sacred ground.

There is a reason it matters so much to our national consciousness.

It is not just a memory of wars past, where many of our grandparents  fought in the First and Second World Wars.

For many of us it is a very living memory to our friends we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan or indeed in other conflicts around the world.

So frankly, the fact that there is a stage there is absolutely outrageous.

Im told the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign didnt even ask Westminster Council for permission to put it up and Ill be doing everything I can in making sure it is not allowed to happen again.

Veterans minister Johnny Mercer tweeted on Wednesday that he recognised the hurt that the placement of the platform had caused in the veteran community.

The Conservative politician said he had spoken to Home Secretary Suella Braverman and the Metropolitan Police about the stages location.

The Met and Westminster City Council each suggested the other would have been responsible for approving where such a stage was positioned.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said police asked for the demonstration to end where it did on Whitehall.

A spokesman for Westminster City Council said: The council did not provide permission for a stage to be built next to the Cenotaph.

Protests and marches are managed by the police.

The council told protest organisers that the Metropolitan Police is the agency responsible for determining whether a structure is appropriate in a given location, and permissions lie with them.

We do not support staging at the Cenotaph during future protests, however, that is a matter for the police.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: We recognise the huge significance and sensitivity about the Cenotaph and have seen the concerns raised about the positioning of stands as part of the protests on Saturday.

We see hundreds of protests every year passing through or finishing at Whitehall and it is important to explain that police do not authorise, nor are responsible for, deciding or giving permission on where stands are positioned on public highways.

Organisers need to apply to local authorities to be given permission for placing any item or structure on their roads. In this instance, that permission would be for consideration by Westminster City Council.

Protesters took to the streets of London during a pro-Palestine demonstration on Saturday (James Manning/PA)

Met traffic officers would only be involved if the presence of the item is likely to cause danger to other road users, overhanging the carriageway, incorrect signage or if noise/public order issues are occurring.

We have fed the concerns raised into Westminster Council so that they can take this into consideration for any future protests or events.

A PSC spokesman said: Before every major demonstration, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its organising partners liaise with the police to agree our logistical planning and ensure public safety.

The same process we follow on every other demonstration was followed last Saturday, when over 100,000 people attended.

PSC requested that our demonstration end at Downing Street, to send our message to the Government that we call for a ceasefire, an end to the siege of Gaza and full humanitarian aid be sent in immediately.

The police asked us to end our demonstration further up Whitehall and that is why the stage was located where it was.

There was also some criticism expressed on social media that Met Police officers had placed their helmets on the memorial while they were monitoring protests on Saturday.

Replying to a tweet on Sunday which included a photo of police riot gear laid on the stone steps of the Cenotaph, the Met said: We apologise if it has caused any offence.

Officers worked hard yesterday to protect people and buildings but we will feed this into future policing plans.
Israels defence minister Yoav Gallant, wearing a protective vest, speaks to Israeli soldiers in a staging area near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel (Tsafrir Abayov/AP)

By Najib Jobain, Samya Kullab and Ravi Nessman, Associated Press

By Najib Jobain, Samya Kullab and Ravi Nessman, Associated Press

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip with air strikes, including in the south where Palestinians were told to take refuge, and the countrys defence minister has told ground troops to be ready to invade, though he did not say when.

Gazas overwhelmed hospitals tried to stretch out ebbing medical supplies and fuel for diesel generators to keep the equipment running, as authorities worked out logistics for a delivery of aid into the area from Egypt.

Doctors in darkened wards across Gaza stitched wounds by mobile phone light, and others used vinegar to treat infected wounds.

Meanwhile an unclassified US intelligence assessment delivered to Congress estimated casualties in an explosion at a Gaza City hospital on the low end of 100 to 300 deaths.

Smoke rises from destroyed buildings following Israeli air strikes on Gaza City (Mohammed Dahman/AP)

The death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life, US intelligence officials said in the findings, which were seen by The Associated Press.

The assessment said intelligence officials were still assessing the evidence and their casualty estimate may evolve.

President Joe Biden and other US officials have already said that US intelligence officials believed the explosion was not caused by an Israeli air strike.

Thursdays findings echoed that.

The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for a devastating Hamas rampage in southern Israel almost two weeks ago.

Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north of Gaza and flee south, strikes extended across the territory, heightening fears among the territorys two million people that nowhere was safe.

Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel on Thursday from Gaza and Lebanon, and tensions flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In a fiery speech to Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border, defence minister Yoav Gallant urged the forces to get organised, be ready for an order to move in.

Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border.

Defence minister Yoav Gallant, wearing a protective vest, speaks to Israeli soldiers in a staging area near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel (Tsafrir Abayov/AP)

Whoever sees Gaza from afar now will see it from the inside  I promise you, he said.

It might take a week, a month, two months until we destroy them, he added, referring to Hamas.

Israels consent for Egypt to let in food, water and medicine provided the first possibility for an opening in its sealing off of the territory.

Many among Gazas 2.3 million residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.

Israel did not list fuel as a permitted item, but a senior Egyptian security official said Egypt was negotiating for the entry of fuel for hospitals.

With the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah still closed, the already dire conditions at Gazas second-largest hospital deteriorated further, said Dr Mohammed Qandeel, of Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis.

Power was shut off in most departments to save it for intensive care and other vital functions, and staff members were using mobile phones for light.

At least 80 wounded civilians and 12 dead were brought into the hospital on Thursday morning after witnesses said a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis.

Doctors had no choice but to leave two of the incoming to die because there were no ventilators left, Dr Qandeel said.

Palestinians evacuate wounded from a building destroyed in an Israeli bombardment in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip (Fatima Shbair/AP)

We cant save more lives if this keeps happening, meaning more children  more women will die, he said.

The Gaza Health Ministry pleaded with petrol stations to give whatever fuel they had left to hospitals.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, gave some of its little remaining fuel stores to hospitals, according to spokesperson Juliette Touma.

The agencys donation to Gaza Citys Shifa Hospital, the territorys largest, would keep us going for another few hours, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia told The Associated Press (AP).

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults.

Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians killed during Hamass deadly incursion on October 7.

Roughly 200 others were abducted.

(PA Graphics)

The Israeli military said on Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

More than one million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory since Israel told them to evacuate.

Most have crowded into UN-run schools-turned-shelters or the homes of relatives.

The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territorys only connection to Egypt, remained fragile.

Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians in southern Gaza and that it would thwart any diversions by Hamas.

Mr Biden said the deliveries will end if Hamas takes any aid.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, according to Khalid Zayed, the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai.

Under an arrangement reached between the United Nations, Israel and Egypt, UN observers will inspect the trucks carrying aid before entering Gaza, and the UN working with Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent will ensure aid goes only to civilians, an Egyptian official and European diplomat told the AP.

Rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel over destroyed buildings following Israeli air strikes on Gaza City, central Gaza Strip (Mohammed Dahman/AP)

A UN flag will be raised on both sides of the crossing as a sign of protection against air strikes, they said.

It was not immediately clear how much cargo the crossing could handle.

Waleed Abu Omar, spokesman for the Palestinian side, said work has not started to repair the road between the two gates, damaged by Israeli strikes.

Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let out of Gaza, Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Israel had previously said it would let nothing into Gaza until Hamas freed the hostages taken from Israel.

Relatives of some of the captives reacted with fury to the aid announcement.

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.

Palestinians inspect the damage of a destroyed building following Israeli air strikes on Gaza City (Abed Khaled/AP)

The Israeli military reported on Thursday that it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including militant tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centres.

It said it also hit dozens of mortar-launching posts, most of them immediately after they were used to fire shells at Israel.

Palestinians have launched barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.

Israel has said it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they may be in Gaza.

It has accused the groups leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population, leaving Palestinians feeling in constant danger.

After Thursdays strikes in Khan Younis, sirens wailed as emergency crews rushed to rescue survivors from the crushed apartment building.

Many residents were believed trapped under twisted bed frames, broken furniture and cement chunks.

A small, soot-covered child, dangling in the arms of a rescue worker, was taken out of a damaged building.

Palestinians evacuate wounded from a building in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip (Fatima Shbair/AP)

Gazas Hamas-led government said several bakeries in the territory were hit in the overnight strikes, making it even harder for residents to get food.

Violence was also escalating in the West Bank, where Israel carried out a rare air strike on Thursday, targeting militants in the Nur Shams refugee camp.

Israeli troops raided the camp the previous night and were still battling Palestinian fighters inside.

Six Palestinians were killed in the camp, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, and the Israeli military said the strike killed militants.

Ten Israeli officers were wounded when fighters threw explosives at the troops.

More than 74 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war started.

Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Thursday said they fired missiles into northern Israel, hitting a kibbutz.

Smoke rises after a shelling in Um el-Tot, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon (Hassan Ammar/AP)

The Israeli military said no-one was injured and responded with shelling on border areas in Lebanon.

Hamas militants also fired 30 rockets from southern Lebanon towards Israeli towns.

Violence on the border comes amid fears the Hamas-Israel conflict could spread across the region.
Image shows an overview of al-Ahli Hospital after explosion in Gaza City. Satellite image 2023 Maxar Technologies via AP

At roughly 7pm local time on Tuesday night, a blast was reported in a hospital in Gaza City.

The Hamas-run health ministry quickly blamed Israel, which denied involvement, suggesting the explosion was caused by a misfired rocket by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), who also denied involvement.

Read more Nationalist parties back Palestinians... but DUP continues to support Israelis

Have videos been posted of the explosion?

Footage of what appears to be an explosion at the hospital emerged from Al Jazeera Mubasher later yesterday evening. A second video from an Al Jazeera live feed showed the same incident.

That was geolocated, which involves comparing the background in the video with satellite images to corroborate the location, by GeoConfirmed, an outfit that works alongside the Centre for Information Resilience and Bellingcat.

The location was around the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. The exact location of the fire was zeroed down to the southeast side of Palestine Square. It was also timestamped by the live feed.

What caused the explosion?

Both that and another Al Jazeera live feed showed a rocket being fired in the air and appearing to break up into two pieces, after which it hit what the geolocators believe is the Ahli Arab hospital.

A statement from GeoConfirmed read: The above footage is showing a rocket fail and breaking up in two pieces, one falling on the hospital.

At 11.28pm local time, the military correspondent for The Times of Israel posted a third video of a salvo of missiles being fired. He said the shot was from surveillance camera footage from Netiv Haasara, north of the Erez Crossing on the Gaza/Israel border.

That camera angle was also geolocated. You can see the Israeli-erected border fence in front of the camera.

In the video, a salvo of missiles can be seen fired from what appears to be a position in western Gaza towards the east. One rocket is seen splitting into two. A large explosion is then seen in the middle of the camera angle. It took 20 seconds from the missile launch to explosion, roughly.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have since published what they claim is an intercepted call between two Hamas officials discussing the strike.

In the audio, one official says to the other that PIJ fired a salvo of rockets earlier that failed. They added: They shot it coming from the cemetery behind the al-Maamadani hospital.

This hospital appears to be west of the Al-Ahli hospital. The legitimacy of the audio, however, has not been confirmed.

Is there footage of the aftermath of the explosion?

The Israeli Air Force posted a video using drone footage of the aftermath yesterday.

It appeared to show that the explosion had taken place in the car park outside the hospital. It also indicated that there had been little to no structural damage to the actual hospital.

It was followed by images uploaded by Palestinian photographers in Gaza of the car park.

One photo, taken by Mohammed al Masri, whose photos have been used by Reuters, showed at least 18 cars surrounding a black spot where the fire appears to have originated.

OSINT experts subsequently compared the photos with the official Israeli drone footage. They concluded that the two images showed the same scene.

What could have caused the explosion?

Further analysis of the two scenes, supplemented by on the ground footage posted by Mr al Masri to Instagram, showed that only 3 cars show any clear sign of kinnetic/structural damage.

They added that cars within 10 metres of the damaged cars are relatively undamaged, leading that same analyst to conclude that the photos of the scene are, to me, not consistent with an airstrike.

Another analysis suggests that the explosion looks to have been caused by a rocket motor failure, adding that a plum can be seen coming off the rocket before the explosion.

They wrote: After the rocket motor failure, the rocket disintegrates. One part lands first causing a small blast, likely part of the motor. The warhead then lands on the hospital causing the larger blast.

All this information is openly-available intelligence. It does not constitute conclusive proof that the explosion in a hospital in Gaza City was caused by a misfired rocket

Correction: The article, which was originally published in The Independent, was amended on October 26th, 2023
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov lays flowers at the base of the bronze statues of North Korean late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il at Mansu Hill Grand Monument in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday (Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service Telegram channel via AP)

The foreign ministers of Russia and North Korea met in Pyongyang for talks expected to focus on how to boost their military ties, days after the United States accused the North of sending fresh shipments of munitions to Russia to support its war efforts in Ukraine.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov flew to Pyongyang on Wednesday for a two-day trip.

During a reception speech later in the day, he thanked North Korea for its strong support for Russias war on Ukraine.

The focus of outside attention to Mr Lavrovs visit is whether the two countries would provide any hints of how they would solidify their security co-operation or announce the timing for Russian President Vladimir Putins promised trip to Pyongyang to reciprocate North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns visit to Russias Far East last month.

During his travel to Russia, Mr Kim met Mr Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russias most important domestic space launch centre, and inspected other key Russian weapons-making sites.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, foreground left, and North Korean foreign minister Choe Son Hui, foreground right, attend a laying ceremony at the base of the bronze statues of North Korean late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il at Mansu Hill Grand Monument in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday (Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service Telegram channel via AP)

That triggered intense speculation that Mr Kim seeks sophisticated Russian technologies to modernise his nuclear arsenal in return for supplying conventional arms to refill Russias exhausted weapons inventory.

After the historic summit between President Putin and Chairman of State Affairs Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome on September 13, we can confidently say that the relations have reached a qualitatively new strategic level, Mr Lavrov said at the start of his meeting with North Korean foreign minister Choe Sun Hui on Thursday, according to Russias state-run Interfax news agency.

Neither country immediately released details of the meeting. But Mr Lavrov said on Wednesday that his visit was meant to discuss implementing the unspecified agreements between Mr Putin and Mr Kim that were reached during their September summit.

During a dinner banquet held for him, Mr Lavrov said Russia deeply values North Koreas unwavering and principled support for its war on Ukraine as well as Pyongyangs decision to recognise the independence of Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, according to Russias foreign ministry.

We are fully aware that many countries worldwide share similar viewpoints and assessments, but only a select few, such as (North Korea), explicitly declare their solidarity with Russia and can express it openly, Mr Lavrov said.

According to North Koreas state media, Mr Lavrov also praised North Korea for remaining unfazed by any pressure of the US and the West and said Russia fully supports Mr Kims push to protect its security and economic interests.

Ms Choe said at the dinner banquet that Pyongyang and Moscow were building an unbreakable comradely relationship under the strategic decisions and leadership of Mr Kim and Mr Putin, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency said.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, left, and North Korean foreign minister Choe Son Hui, right, attend talks in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Thursday (Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service Telegram channel via AP)

The White House said on Friday that North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

The White House released images that it said show the containers were loaded on to a Russian-flagged ship before being moved via train to southwestern Russia.

The containers were shipped between September 7 and October 1 between Najin, North Korea, and Dunay, Russia, according to the White House.

Since last year, the US has accused North Korea of providing ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia, likely much of them copies of Soviet-era munitions.

North Korea has steadfastly denied it shipped arms to Russia, but South Korean officials said North Korean weapons provided to Russia had already been used in Ukraine.

The recently flurry of diplomacy between Moscow and Pyongyang underscores how their interests are aligning in the face of their separate, intensifying confrontations with the United States.

In July, when Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu visited North Korea, Mr Kim took him to an arms exhibition and a military parade, where some of the Norths newest and most powerful weapons were displayed.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, centre left, escorted by North Korean foreign minister Choe Son Hui, centre right, is welcomed on his arrival at Pyongyang international airport (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov thanked North Korea for its support for Russias war on Ukraine as he arrived in Pyongyang.

The visit comes days after the United States said North Korea had transferred munitions to Russia to boost its warfighting capabilities.

Russian state television ran footage of crowds greeting Mr Lavrov in the pouring rain on Wednesday, alongside a welcoming party waving pom poms.

Mr Lavrov said his visit was an opportunity to discuss implementing the unspecified agreements between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un when they met at Russias Vostochny Cosmodrome in September.

Mr Lavrov, centre left, toasts with Choe Son Hui, centre right, during a reception (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

He later attended a reception where North Korean foreign minister Choe Son Hui said the countries were building an unbreakable comradely relationship under the strategic decisions and leadership of Mr Kim and Mr Putin, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

According to comments published by Russias Foreign Ministry, Mr Lavrov told the reception Russia deeply values North Koreas unwavering and principled support for its war on Ukraine, as well as Pyongyangs decision to recognise the independence of Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.

We are fully aware that many countries worldwide share similar viewpoints and assessments, but only a select few, such as the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea), explicitly declare their solidarity with Russia and can express it openly, Mr Lavrov said.

KCNA said he praised North Korea for firmly defending its sovereignty and security, remaining unfazed by any pressure of the US and the West, and that Russia fully supports the policies of Mr Kims government to protect its security and economic interests.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mr Putin in Beijing, China (Sergei Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Earlier in the week, Mr Lavrov accompanied Mr Putin on a visit to Beijing which underscored Chinese support for Moscows war in Ukraine.

The September meeting between Mr Kim and Mr Putin triggered Western concerns about a potential arms alliance in which North Korea would supply Russia with munitions to fuel its war in Ukraine in exchange for advanced Russian technologies to boost Mr Kims military nuclear programme.

After arriving in Pyongyang, Mr Lavrov hailed Mr Putins meeting with Mr Kim as historic, saying their talks demonstrated the countries deep interest in the development of comprehensive co-operation.

The White House has said North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US believes Mr Kim is seeking sophisticated Russian weapons technologies in return for the munitions to boost North Koreas military and nuclear programme.

The flurry of diplomacy between Moscow and Pyongyang underscores how their interests are aligning in the face of intensifying confrontations with the United States.
Rough seas in Donaghadee, Co. Down, as Storm Babet batters the coastline. Picture by Graham Baalham-Curry/PressEye

Northern Ireland largely escaped the worst of Storm Babet yesterday, despite the Met Office warning a months worth of rain was to be expected.

Earlier this week, the forecaster said Northern Ireland was in for a tricky 24 hours with the storm set to hit here from 5pm.

The public was warned of possible travel disruptions, flooding and power cuts, with counties Antrim and Down expected to be the worst hit.

However, most of the adverse weather was mainly confined to coastal towns as rough seas battered seaside spots such as Donaghadee in Co Down.

Images from the area show large waves crashing against the tidal wall in the seaside town.

As the storm moves to Great Britain, the Met Office had issued a issued a rare red warning for parts of the UK today, signalling heavy rainfall and severe flooding, particularly in the east of Scotland, including Brechin, Forfar, and Kirriemuir.

The warning remains in effect until midday on Friday and is associated with dangers to life from floodwater, extensive flooding of homes and businesses, and severely disrupted travel conditions.

The last time a warning of this kind was issued was for Storm Dennis in 2020 which later became one of the most intense extratropical cyclones ever recorded and caused five fatalities.

Met Office chief meteorologist Jason Kelly said: Confidence has increased in the chances of considerable impacts from rainfall in parts of the east of Scotland from Storm Babet, which has resulted in the escalation to the red warning.

He added: 100-150mm of rain is expected to fall quite widely within the warning period, with some locations likely to see 200-250mm, which is expected to cause considerable impacts with flooding likely.

Rough seas in Donaghadee as Storm Babet hits Northern Ireland

Parts of the Republic of Ireland fared much worse than Northern Ireland with Co Cork suffering spot flooding during the morning rush hour that disrupted southern parts of the country.

The city council also reported significant surface water flooding in many areas, with council crews responding to the situation  while the town of Midleton was rendered impassable to traffic on Wednesday afternoon due to flooded roads.

In a statement, the Mayor of Cork Frank OLynn said the county was experiencing unprecedented issues due to the storm and said that a months worth of rain had fallen in the area in 24 hours.

I am calling on the people of Cork to please avoid unnecessary travel, take extreme care if you must set off on a journey and please think of vulnerable road users, especially pedestrians and cyclists, he added.

In the southern and south eastern coastal regions of Ireland, Irish forecaster Met Eireann had issued an orange rain warning for locations including Cork, Kerry, and Waterford.

The local weather warning for Storm Babet just weeks after Storm Agnes  which caused major disruption across Northern Ireland, including delayed flights at Belfast International and City airports  is due to end this morning.

However, the Met Office said the storm will bring a very wet day and strong winds for the rest of the day.

Cloudy morning with outbreaks of rain with drier and brighter weather will extend north in the afternoon. Brisk east to south easterly winds along the coast at first, soon easing down, the Met Office said about the rest of the week.
Egypt agreed to reopen its border crossing with the Gaza Strip to allow aid to reach Palestinians, the U.S. said, as the humanitarian crisis worsened in the narrow enclave and anti-Israel protests flared across the Middle East.

The region remained volatile in the aftermath of an explosion at Gaza's Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital late on Tuesday, which Palestinian officials said killed 471 people and blamed on what they said was an Israeli air strike.

Israel and the U.S. said the cause was a failed rocket launch by anti-Israeli Palestinian militants in Gaza who denied responsibility.

Lior Haiat, spokesperson for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said on social media platform X that at the hospital "several dozen people were apparently killed," a much lower toll than reported by Palestinian officials.

Amid outrage over the hospital explosion, demonstrations erupted in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and elsewhere.

Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinian teenagers in the West Bank during protests, Palestinian officials said, while Lebanese security forces fired tear gas and water canon at protesters throwing projectiles near the U.S. embassy, TV footage showed.

While flying home from a less than eight-hour visit to Israel, U.S. President Joe Biden discussed aid for Gaza with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi by phone late on Wednesday.

Biden told reporters that Sisi agreed to open the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza to allow about 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the enclave, where people are desperately short of food, water, fuel and other essentials after Israel unleashed a blockade and air strikes 12 days ago.

Biden did not give a timeline for the opening, but U.S. national security spokesman John Kirby said it would occur in coming days following repairs to the road.

Amid fears the conflict could spread beyond Gaza, Biden had planned to meet Arab leaders. But Jordan called off his planned summit there with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority after the hospital blast.

UN favors 100 trucks a day

While the agreement was a breakthrough, the flow of relief will still fall short of the perceived need.

U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council on Wednesday that the organization sought to bring aid deliveries to Gaza back to 100 trucks a day, the level before the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Biden was due to speak from the White House at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday (0000 GMT on Friday) about the U.S. response to Hamas attacks against Israel and Russias war against Ukraine, the White House said. Also on Thursday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was due to visit Israel.

Egypt, which previously said the Rafah crossing was not technically closed but was inoperable due to Israeli barrages, said Sisi and Biden agreed to provide aid to Gaza "in a sustainable manner." They were coordinating an aid effort with international organizations under the United Nations.

During Biden's visit, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel would let food, water and medicines reach southern Gaza via Egypt.

Biden faced intense global pressure to secure an Israeli commitment to ease the plight of civilians in the small, densely populated coastal enclave. Biden pledged $100 million in U.S. assistance for civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Mark Negev, an adviser to Netanyahu, said on CNN that Israel had agreed to allow aid to Gaza via Egypt "in principle" but "we don't want to see Hamas stealing aid that's directed towards the civilian population. It's a real problem."

Israel reiterated it would not allow in aid through its crossing with Gaza until Hamas released about 200 hostages seized during its cross-border attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Militants killed about 1,400 Israelis in the assault.

En route to Washington, Biden told reporters he was blunt with Israel about the need to facilitate aid to Gaza. Earlier he said he would ask Congress for an unprecedented aid package for Israel this week, although no action is possible until the House of Representatives elects a new speaker.

A source familiar with the matter said Biden was considering asking for $10 billion in aid for Israel as soon as Friday.

Biden said the United States would do everything it could to ensure Israel was safe while also urging Israelis not to be consumed by rage, reiterating that the vast majority of Palestinians were not affiliated with Hamas.

The Gaza health ministry said 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and 12,065 injured in Israeli air strikes on the besieged enclave since Oct 7.

"What sets us apart from the terrorists is we believe in the fundamental dignity of every human life," Biden said. If that was not respected, "then the terrorists win." (Reuters)
Devotees gather in front of the idol of the Hindu Goddess Durga to offer prayers during the Durga Puja festival at a temple in Dhaka, Oct. 3, 2022.

A Bangladesh government circular asking Hindus to stop or limit the use of loudspeakers during daily Muslim prayers infringes on religious freedom, leaders of the minority group said as their community prepared to celebrate the Durga Puja festival.

The five-day religious festival, which starts Friday, draws hundreds of thousands of Hindus in Bangladesh and West Bengal, in a colorful and joyous celebration where devotees immerse themselves with idols of a goddess in local rivers.

Hindus form the religious majority in the neighboring Indian state, but in heavily Muslim-majority Bangladesh, they make up only 8% of the population. Bangladeshi Hindus say they feel they have been discriminated against or targeted in violence because of their faith.

The Islamic Foundation, a government religious agency, sent letters asking authorities, including the police, to stop or limit Durga Puja rituals during the five daily Muslim prayer times in Bangladesh. The puja features the playing of traditional drums throughout the day.

Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, said the letters shocked many in the Hindu community.

The Islamic Foundations letters give us some hints about what is actually happening in the country. Government letters with such instructions are unconstitutional and hamper religious freedom, Dasgupta told BenarNews, noting the constitution prohibits discrimination based on religious or ethnic identity.

Dasgupta said the letters made his group vulnerable to potential attacks.

Since the independence of Bangladesh, the space for minorities in the country has narrowed. This suppression was sometimes supported by the state while attackers were encouraged by impunity for attacks on minorities, he said.

BenarNews has collected copies of letters sent to officials in Sylhet, Gaibandha, Habiganj, Bhola and Coxs Bazar districts.

A decision was taken to limit the use of sound devices and not to use loudspeakers during the Azan [Islamic announcement], prayer and Fridays Jummah prayer at Puja temples around the mosques during Puja celebrations, one of the letters stated.

The letters mention the times of prayers, which vary by region but last a total of six hours.

Bangladeshs state minister for religious affairs said the letters were not new  similar instructions were issued in the past.

This time it is issued through an office order so that there is no confusion, Faridul Haque Khan told BenarNews. This is done as a precaution not to undermine anyone.

Krishnendu Kumar Paul, secretary of the governments Hindu Religious Welfare Trust, said 21 trustees across the country had been instructed to limit the use of loudspeakers, sound systems and musical instruments during the Muslim prayer times.

However, throughout countries with sizable Muslim populations, mosques are known for being noisy when the local imam summons the faithful for prayers over a loudspeaker.

In Indonesia, a Buddhist woman was sentenced a few years ago to prison on a blasphemy charge for complaining about noise coming from a neighborhood mosque. In 2016, the woman had approached a neighbor and complained that the noise from calls to prayers blasted through mosque loudspeakers was hurting her ears, and asked that the volume be turned down.

A Bangladesh artist applies paint to an idol at the Ramana Kali temple in Dhaka during final preparations for Durga Puja, Oct. 18, 2023. [BenarNews]

Sion Shah, a Hindu youth from Narayanganj district, said the letters were having a negative effect on him and others.

We are always conscious of communal harmony, yet such instructions mentally make us second-class citizens, he told BenarNews.

In 2021, police arrested a man who, they said, confessed to placing a Quran at the site of a Hindu Durga Puja in the Cumilla district, where deadly violence broke out following an online post that showed Islams holy book at the festival.

The alleged desecration of the Quran apparently placed at the feet of a statue at a puja site enraged Muslims in Cumilla, who attacked Hindus, their homes, temples and puja venues. The violence spread to nearby districts and around the country over the next few days.

Police said they identified the suspect, a resident of Cumilla, from a 17-minute edited video of CCTV footage from around the puja site. The footage showed a man picking up a Quran from a mosque near the Darogabari area of Cumilla city and then seen entering the puja site before leaving without it.

A 75-year-old Hindu man who suffered injuries during the Cumilla attack died days later at a Dhaka hospital, pushing the death toll from clashes to eight. Bangladesh police said they had arrested nearly 600 people in connection with religious violence.

Muslim broadcasts

This week, Liton Chandra Das, a Hindu youth in Lakshmipur district, said he was subjected to the local Muslim community delivering sermons each year from a field next to his house, adding that the sermons can last for days and are broadcast through loudspeakers spread across the venue.

From this event, many times there is a lot of negative talk about our religion, but we ignore it by thinking about religious harmony, Das told BenarNews.

Devotees gather in front of the idol of the Hindu Goddess Durga to offer prayers during the Durga Puja festival at a temple in Dhaka, Oct. 3, 2022. [Munir uz zaman/AFP]

In the past few weeks, Hindu groups have expressed fears of communal attacks during the celebration, noting it will be the last Durga Puja before Bangladeshs general election expected in January 2024.

On Oct. 13, followers of ruling Awami League lawmaker A.K.M. Bahauddin allegedly attacked a procession of minority demonstrators in Cumilla town, injuring at least a dozen people. Police arrested two ruling party activists while the protesters filed a case accusing about 500 unnamed people for the attack.

That same day, organizers told reporters there had been incidents of vandalism at 10 puja sites in different parts of the country this year.

Durga Puja will be celebrated at 32,408 mandaps (Puja sites) across the country this year including 245 in the capital through Oct. 24, according to organizers.

Ain-O-Salish Kendra, a Bangladesh human rights group, reported at least 3,679 attacks on the Hindu community between January 2013 and September 2021.
Ganjar Pranowo (second from right) and Mohammad Mahfud MD (left) arrive at the General Election Commissions office in central Jakarta to file their paperwork for the 2024 presidential and vice presidential elections, Oct. 19, 2023.

Two pairs of candidates registered formally on Thursday for Indonesias presidential election early next year, setting the stage for what could be a tight race in the worlds third-largest democracy.

Anies Baswedan, the former Jakarta governor, and running mate Muhaimin Iskandar were the first to arrive at the General Election Commissions office in central Jakarta while thousands of supporters filled the streets, as the period for candidates to register for the polls officially opened.

The main idea is change, bringing equality, bringing justice. Thats what we bring, Anies told reporters, outlining his pitch for the Feb. 14 election. We want to make basic needs more affordable and to make farmers and fishermen live more prosperously.

Anies and Muhaimin were followed by Ganjar Pranowo, a senior member of the ruling party and the former governor of Central Java, and his running mate Mohammad Mahfud MD, the current security minister.

Ganjar said he would build on the achievements of President Joko Jokowi Widodo, who is constituaitonally barred from seeking a third five-year term.

What is clear is that I want to build Indonesia faster, Ganjar said. The good things that the government has done today, I will continue. The less good, I will improve. The bad, I will leave behind.

Prabowo Subianto, the frontrunner who leads the nationalist Gerindra Party and serves as the countrys defense minister, has not yet announced his vice-presidential pick. Jokowi appointed Prabowo, a former army special forces general, as his defense chief after defeating him as his adversary in the two previous presidential elections.

Presidential hopeful Anies Baswedan (left) and running mate Muhaimin Iskandar (right) wave to supporters as they ride to the General Election Commission in Jakarta to submit papers for their candidacies, Oct. 19, 2023. [Eko Siswono Toyudho/BenarNews]

The 2024 polls are expected to be a close contest between three coalitions of parties that offer different visions for the future of Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim-majority country and a full-fledged democracy for only the past 25 years.

Anies and Muhaimin are backed by a coalition of three parties led by the National Democratic Party, a secular party founded by media tycoon Surya Paloh.

Ganjar and Mahfud are supported by a coalition of four parties led by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, Jokowis party.

Some media reports predicted that Subianto, whos leading the opinion polls, might pick Gibran Rakabuming Raka, President Jokowis eldest son and the mayor of Solo in Central Java, or Erick Thohir, a tycoon who serves as minister for state-owned enterprises.

Prabowo and Ganjar have enjoyed high popularity ratings in recent opinion surveys.

The possibility of a Prabowo-Gibran ticket was boosted by a Constitutional Court ruling this week that granted certain candidates exceptions for the minimum-age requirement for presidential and vice presidential candidates.

The decision by the court, whose chief judge is Jokowis brother-in-law, could pave the way for Gibran, 36, to contest the race as a vice-presidential candidate while his father prepares to leave office late next year, observers said.

The ruling has been widely criticized as nepotistic, with some legal experts warning it could undermine the democratic process.

Questions have trailed Jokowi about whether he is trying to keep his imprint on politics or build a political dynasty by promoting his family members and loyalists to government.

Jokowi, who enjoys high popularity, has not formally announced support for any pairing of candidates, but his giant volunteer network known as Projo has endorsed Prabowo for president.

A man stands with an umbrella as he inspects the core government construction area from a helipad in Indonesias future capital, known as the Nusantara National Capital (IKN), in Sepaku, North Penajam Paser regency, East Kalimantan province, March 8, 2023. [Willy Kurniawan/Reuters]

Analysts said the candidates would try to appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, from religious conservatives to secular liberals, from urban elites to rural masses, from young millennials to old veterans.

Infrastructure development and economic growth are among the issues that are likely to decide the election.

One of the most ambitious and controversial projects of the current administration is the relocation of the capital city from Jakarta, a sprawling and congested megacity, to a new site in East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo.

The plan, which is expected to cost U.S. $33 billion, aims to ease the burden on Jakarta and create a more sustainable and livable city. However, it has also faced criticism for its environmental and social impact as well as its feasibility.

Jokowi this week asked China to expedite support for the new capitals construction, which has suffered several setbacks, including the withdrawal by a major Japanese investor, Softbank.

Yon Machmudi, a political analyst and associate professor of Middle East and Islamic studies at the University of Indonesia, said Anies would try to differentiate himself from the current government and highlight its failures in development and economy.

The Anies-Muhaimin ticket represents a break from the policies of the current government, Yon told BenarNews.

They sense the peoples discontent and take it up as their cause. Anies is an outsider, so he offers a different option that people can pick.

He said that religion was not a decisive factor in the presidential race because the teams of candidates formed balanced tickets that combine Islamic and secular credentials.

Indonesias relations with China, its largest trading partner and a major investor in infrastructure projects, will also likely be on debate podiums, said Idil Akbar, a political science lecturer at Padjadjaran University in Bandung.

He cited the recently completed high-speed Jakarta to Bandung railway, which was funded by China and part of its Belt and Road Initiative, as a contentious issue.

The high-speed railway is a showcase of Jokowis legacy in infrastructure development. The candidates will try to highlight [its benefits or drawbacks], he said.

The railway was initially billed at $6 billion, but an extra $1.2 billion was needed to meet rising construction costs and land compensation.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka speaks during an event at the New South Wales Waratahs rugby team headquarters in Sydney, Oct. 16, 2023.

UPDATED at 9:30 p.m. EDT on 2023-10-25

Fijis prime minister and former coup leader has called for Pacific island nations to declare their ocean territories a zone of peace as the United States and China jostle for influence in the region.

In a speech to Australias Lowy Institute, Sitiveni Rabuka light-heartedly referred to himself as a Rambo figure because of his leadership of two coups in Fiji in the late 1980s and acknowledged some people might have questions about him becoming an apostle of peace.

The blunt-talking Rabuka said Pacific island countries are poor, aid-dependent and have carried little weight on the world stage, but control exclusive economic zones larger than North America and Europe combined, which gives them a right to be heard and recognized.

History may be calling. It might be our manifest duty, destiny  to carry banners for peace and speak out for harmony in our time and forever, he said in Canberra on Tuesday.

Rabuka is on an official visit to Australia and met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday, who said Australia would sell 14 Bushmaster armored vehicles to Fiji for the countrys use in U.N. peacekeeping missions.

On Thursday, the two countries agreed to cooperate on addressing cybersecurity threats and Fiji said it would become part of Australias e-visa pilot program.

Rabuka said he would push his peace zone idea at the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum meeting next month in the Cook Islands and hoped member nations would back it.

Rabuka, however, has been at odds with the positions of some Pacific island leaders by backing Australias plan to arm itself with nuclear-powered submarines and supporting what he called the science-based view that the release into the Pacific Ocean of treated wastewater from Japans tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant is safe.

The peace zone could contribute, he said, to addressing the complex West Papua question  the conflict between Indonesia and its Papuan provinces, where an armed independence insurgency has continued for decades  or managing tribal conflicts in neighboring Papua New Guinea with the help of Fijis U.N. peacekeepers.

These are just some of the initial thoughts. Extensive discussion and negotiations will be required with many stakeholders if the project for peace is to happen, he said.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka (right) looks on as Pat Conroy, Australias minister for international development and the Pacific, speaks during an event at the New South Wales Waratahs rugby team headquarters in Sydney, Oct. 16, 2023. [Saeed Khan/AFP]

Rabuka became prime minister in December after opposition parties won a majority of votes in a national election, ending 16 years of rule by Frank Bainimarama  who first came to power in a 2006 coup  and his Fiji First Party.

Rabuka has apologized for his coups, which sought to reassert indigenous Fijian political and economic power but also unleashed violence against Indo-Fijians, who are the descendants of indentured Indian laborers brought to Fiji by the British in the late 19th century.

As part of Rabukas efforts to create a legacy that is broader than his coups, one of his governments early moves was the abolition of a Bainimarama-era media law that chilled political debate and freedom of expression.

Some of you know, I have repented, I am reborn. My past cannot be removed but I can compensate to some extent for what I have done, he said. Many years ago I became a convinced democrat.

Fijis ties with China burgeoned after Australia, New Zealand and other nations attempted to punish the Pacific island country for its 2006 coup, aiding Beijings broader push for influence in the Pacific.

Relations have cooled under Rabuka who put a police cooperation agreement with China under review. In his Lowy speech, Rabuka said Fiji continued to value its relationship with the worlds No. 2 economy even as its rivalry with the U.S. appeared to be intensifying.

Without naming any country, he said Fiji was grateful for the aid it received provided the country doesnt become entrapped by it.

Unfortunately some aid donors expect us to be compliant, to submit to their demands, so we have to be very, very careful, he said.

This report has been updated to replace the main photo.
Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner gestures as he speaks during a forum with members of the Foreign Correspondent Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) in Manila, Oct. 19, 2023. Brawner announced that the military was hiring a new breed of cyber warriors to thwart online attacks.

The Philippines is recruiting a new breed of cyber warriors to tackle rising digital threats, the nations armed forces chief said Thursday, following a wave of online attacks.

Gen. Romeo Brawner said the Philippines 200,000-strong military, including its reserve force, was equipped to deal with traditional enemies but needed support from professionals who could wage war online.

We recognize that the cyber domain is one of the more important domains in warfare, especially in the future, Brawner said at an event hosted by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

Our plan is to create a cyber armed forces occupational service. So the soldiers we are going to recruit for this will not have to go through the normal process because we understand that some of them will not be able to cope.

What we are after is their skills and intellect when it comes to cyber.

Brawners comments follow a spike in cyberattacks against government institutions over the past month, including the lower house of Congress on Wednesday. The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation and the Philippine Statistics Authority have also been targeted recently.

Brawner said the military had been under attack almost daily from both local and foreign hackers, though he declined to specify from which country. He admitted that hackers managed to leak old files and non-sensitive documents from the militarys servers two years ago.

The Philippines military already has a cyber security group that tracks and protects the country from attacks.

But the plan was to expand it to become a Cyber Security Command or Cyber Command that operated more independently, had more personnel, capabilities and equipment, Brawner said.

Globally, malicious cyberattacks by state and non-state actors are a growing problem, forcing countries and corporations to invest in defensive capabilities.

The U.S. Department of Defense identified what it said was a growing threat of malicious cyber attacks by China in its 2023 Cyber Strategy, saying Beijing had launched campaigns of espionage, theft, and compromise against key defense networks and broader U.S. critical infrastructure.

Brawner would not comment on whether Chinese actors were behind recent attacks, although tension between Beijing and Manila has been high over actions in the South China Sea.

The Philippines has accused China of dangerously harassing its supply boats, including firing water cannon at its coast guard in August.

To counter more aggressive Chinese actions in the disputed waterway, the Philippines and its staunchest ally, the U.S, have upgraded their defense alliance and are set to launch joint patrols. Cyber training has also been part of exercises.

As an added security measure, the military would also stop allowing telecommunication companies to build cell towers in military camps, Brawner said. This was cited as a major security concern by top defense officials because bases were allowed to host installations by mobile phone firms, including that of China Telecom.

The defense relationship between the Philippines and China has deteriorated so much that the Philippine military has suspended a bilateral agreement that allowed for the exchange of personnel, Brawner said.

Five officers have been sent to train in China every year since 2007, but the exchange is no more following the water cannon incident.

There are currently no Filipino officers in China for advanced schooling, Brawner said.

Jojo Rnoza contributed to this report from Manila
Trucks and buses line up along the Yangon-Myawaddy section of the Asia Highway road near Kawkareik township, Myanmar, Sept. 27, 2023.

A group of 16 Laotians released nearly two months ago from a Chinese-owned casino in Myanmar where they were forced to work for a scam ring are languishing in police detention while authorities deliberate over how to return them home, according to their relatives.

The 16 between the ages of 15 and 22 were among 45 Laotians  mostly from Laos Luang Namtha province  trafficked last year to a place called Casino Kosai, in an isolated development near the city of Myawaddy on Myanmars eastern border with Thailand.

They were held against their will at the casino and forced to earn money for their captors by scamming people online or by telephone. Those who refused or who failed to meet earning quotas, were beaten and tortured, the victims and their family members told Radio Free Asia, a news service affiliated with BenarNews.

The scam rings in Myanmar are one example of the vast networks of human trafficking that claim over 150,000 victims a year in Southeast Asia.

In recent months, the scam operators released a dozen detainees across the border to Thailand after their families in Laos agreed to pay a ransom. On Aug. 29, authorities in Myanmar convinced the group to release another 16 into their custody without payment.

Those 16 have been in police custody in Myawaddy for seven weeks with no clear timetable on their return to Laos, while another 16 Laotians from the original group of 45 remain in captivity at the casino. At least one victim from the group at the casino is known to have been sold to another scam gang, according to her family.

RFA spoke with an anti-human trafficking official in Laos who said that the delay in repatriating the 16 in police custody was related to their illegal entry into Myanmar.

The official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said their return was also complicated by the war in Myanmar following the militarys February 2021 coup, a lack of passports and visas and the Lao Embassys inability to provide police with key details of their personal information.

No access

In the meantime, Lao diplomatic staff said they have not been able to meet with the 16 since they were taken into police custody and their family members want answers.

The Lao Embassy in Yangon told RFA in August that anti-human trafficking agencies in Laos, Thailand and Myanmar were coordinating to repatriate the 16. But since then, attempts to contact embassy staff for comment on the groups situation have gone unanswered.

The anti-human trafficking official in Laos recently told RFA that his unit has been waiting for an answer from the Lao Embassy about what Burmese authorities told them to do to repatriate the 16, including how they will be sent home and who will pay for their travel.

There is nothing to worry about as all 16 were released from the casino and are safe, in the care of Burmese authorities, he said. Were just waiting for Myanmar to tell us what to do to get them home.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, told RFA that the Lao government and the United Nations need to push authorities in Myanmar to return the 16 to their families.

Its unclear what is taking the Burmese and Lao governments so long to resolve this issue, but these kids need to be returned home as soon as possible, he said. In fact, the United Nations should intervene and ask the Lao and Burmese [governments] why they remain in custody in Burma.

Robertson said the Lao Embassy is obligated to meet with the 16 to confirm they are Lao citizens before ensuring their safe return.

This is a priority for them  its one of their most important duties  but they arent doing anything, he said. The embassy staff need to do their jobs and the Burmese government should be assisting them. Instead, they havent pushed to meet with them and they arent responding to repeated inquiries from family members.

Others in captivity

For the 16 Laotians still held at the Casino Kosai, their future is uncertain.

Last month, they urged the Lao government in an interview with RFA to help free them as soon as possible, saying they were fearful of how they would be treated after Burmese authorities rescued the 16 others.

Their family members also called on Lao authorities to help them, expressing concern that the scam ring operators might sell them to another gang.

RFA more recently spoke with a woman who said her 17-year-old daughter was among the 45 held at Casino Kosai but was sold to another scam ring in July after suffering several beatings at the hands of her captors.

The mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, told RFA that her daughter recently contacted her and said she is being held at a new location not far from Casino Kosai. She said her daughters new captors have demanded she recruit 10 other Lao nationals to come work with her, but she has refused to do so.

Lao anti-human trafficking officials said there are at least 50 other Lao nationals held captive by scam rings in Myawaddy alone, along with victims from other parts of Asia.

In a sign of the scale of the issue in Myanmar, Chinese authorities last week announced that 2,349 Chinese nationals suspected of involvement in online scamming activities and telecom fraud were transferred from Burmese to Chinese custody on Oct. 14, according to a report by Chinas official Xinhua news agency.

The latest transfer brings to 4,666 the number of Chinese nationals sent back to China from Myanmar for alleged involvement in the scams in 2023 alone, according to Chinas Ministry of Public Security.
Israeli airstrikes pounded locations across the Gaza Strip early Thursday, including parts of the south that Israel had declared safe zones, heightening fears among more than 2 million Palestinians trapped in the territory that nowhere was safe.

In the nearly two weeks since Israel began attacking in response to a devastating Hamas rampage in towns across southern Israel, airstrikes have relentlessly hit the densely populated territory. Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north and head to what it called safe zones in the south, strikes continued across the entire territory.

The bombardments came after Israel agreed Wednesday to allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to Gaza, the first crack in a punishing 11-day siege. Many among Gaza's 2.3 million residents have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water amid dwindling supplies.

The announcement of a plan to bring water, food and other supplies into Gaza happened as fury over the blast at Gaza Citys al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

There were conflicting claims of who was behind the deadly hospital explosion. Hamas officials in Gaza blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence.

Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza Citys main hospital where doctors, already facing critical supply shortages, were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, often without anesthesia.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes, roughly half of Gazas population. Many who fled the north and Gaza City, after Israel told them evacuate, have crowded into U.N. schools or the homes of relatives.

Palestinians in the southern city of Khan Younis said bombings were relentless overnight, with airstrikes hitting several homes, according to the Hamas-led Interior Ministry. In Rafah, on Egypts border, Israel hit several homes. Medical staff at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said they received at least 12 dead and 40 wounded.

Homes along the Gaza border with Israel in the northern evacuation zone were also hit, the ministry said. Israel has massed troops in the area and is expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

Airstrikes also hit three residential towers in al-Zahra, within the area that was told to evacuate, the Interior Ministry in Gaza said.

Israel has said it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they may be in Gaza and accused the group's leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population.

The Israeli military said it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centers. It said it hit dozens of mortar launching posts, most of them immediately after they launched shells at Israel.

Palestinians have been launching barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people are believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas deadly incursion on Oct. 7. Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

The strikes across Gaza left Palestinians feeling they were in constant danger.

The Musa family fled to the typically sleepy central town of Deir al-Balah and took shelter in a cousins three-story home near the local hospital. But at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, a series of explosions, believed to be airstrikes, rocked the building, turning the family home into a mountain of rubble that they said buried some 20 women and children.

The dead body of Hiam Musa, the sister-in-law of Associated Press photojournalist Adel Hana, was recovered from the wreckage Wednesday evening, the family said. They dont know who else is under the rubble.

It doesnt make sense, Hana said. We went to Deir al-Balah because its quiet, we thought we would be safe.

The Israeli military said it was investigating.

Violence between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has also flared in recent days amid fears the fighting could spread across the region. In the West Bank, where scores of Palestinians have been killed since the war started, Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians in the past two days, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The deal to get aid into Gaza remained fragile.

Biden said Egypts president agreed to open the Rafah crossing to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, it will end, he said. The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.

Egypt must still repair the road across the border, which was cratered by Israeli airstrikes. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the crossing, Gazas only connection to Egypt, said the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed.

Supplies will go in under supervision of the U.N., Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and dont go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

Relatives of some of the roughly 200 people who were taken hostage and forced back to Gaza during the attack reacted in fury to the aid announcement.

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals, said a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.

In his brief visit, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing U.S. support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies. He also announced $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. (AP)
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Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continue and Israels defense minister has told troops to be ready for a ground assault on the Palestinian territory, although he has not said when that will begin
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PITTSFIELD  An audit has cited a significant deficiency in how the city reported its use of American Rescue Plan funds to the U.S. Treasury Department.

But while acknowledging the seriousness of the error, officials emphasized that the issue stemmed from a bookkeeping problem, not a spending problem, and said systems have been put in place to prevent another such mistake.

The audit, completed in late March by the citys auditing firm Scanlon & Associates, found that the city had overreported by $255,053 the amount of federal coronavirus funding it spent.

Though city officials and the audit itself show that the issue was raised and reviewed months ago, the report has taken center stage in recent City Council discussions and the mayoral election.

Last week, Councilor Charles Kronick submitted a petition for an independent audit by an outside firm of the federal coronavirus money. In debating the petition, Councilor Ken Warren drew the councils attention to the audit, which had been posted online since March.

Council members, aside from Warren, appeared unaware that the audit had been conducted and posted to the citys website. The council unanimously voted to table Kronicks petition.

The discussion drew the attention of mayoral candidate John Krol who, in a recent press release, said the audits findings and its presentation presented serious red flags for the financial dealings in City Hall.

City Council President Peter Marchetti, who is also running for mayor, said that while he was disappointed in the way the council learned about the audit, after talking with city staff he was comfortable with the solution thats been implemented.

Mayor Linda Tyer, Finance Director Matthew Kerwood and Special Projects Manager Gina Armstrong spoke with The Berkshire Eagle on Monday about the audit. The mayor said she wanted to assure the public that what the audit revealed was not an issue of misuse of funds, but an issue of overreporting.

ARPA is a brand new federal program with a very complex reporting requirement, Tyer said. In this case, the issue that was identified by the auditor is a case of where we paid a vendor once, but reported it twice.

Tyer said while the administration could have been more proactive with making sure the council was aware when the audit was completed, she said in general the discourse around the report has been overwrought.

Its ironic that its become an issue, quite frankly, Tyer said. These programs are complex and we are hearing from people who are running for office  regardless of whether its mayor or council or any other office  making very substantial claims about a program that they dont know a lot about.

What the audit found

The audit that reviewed the ARPA funds was the single audit report conducted by Scanlon & Associates, which is slightly different from the general audit of city finances that happens every year. The single audit report looks at whether Pittsfield is in compliance with the usage and reporting rules for federal money the city received in 2021.

When the federal government doled out ARPA funds to states, federal departments, municipalities and tribal governments, it created a whole new set of rules around how often and how detailed recipients have to be in reporting when theyre spending the coronavirus aid.

Pittsfield, because of its size and the amount of money it received, has to submit quarterly reports to the Treasury Department. These reports are intended to capture any allocation decisions and spending that occurred with ARPA funds in a specific moment in a quarter.

When auditors looked at a selection of the ARPA expenditures and reports for the city at that point in time, they found that the citys general ledger showed that about $1,843,660 of the $40.6 million in ARPA funds had been used.

When the auditors checked the quarterly reports the city had sent to the Treasury Department they found that on paper the city had reported about $2,098,713 of ARPA expenses  a discrepancy of $255,053.

Auditors were able to identify part of the problem: an April 21, 2022, payment to D.A. Sullivan & Sons for $235,017.58 of work on the Ashley Water Treatment Facility had been reported twice  once, incorrectly, in the first-quarter 2022 report and a second time, correctly, in the second-quarter report.

Auditors brought the reporting error to the citys attention. Armstrong then reviewed those reports again and found six other April transactions had been incorrectly reported in the first quarter report.

Expenses made over the first several weeks of April on contract tracing, software to track ARPA funds and staff payroll  totaling about $18,556  were incorrectly included in both the first- and second-quarter reports.

That leaves about $1,480 unaccounted for in the reporting discrepancy between the Treasury reports and general ledger. Kerwood said Monday that the final amount is either in the rounding or somewhere in the nuances of the payroll  we have to still hone down on that.

The city has corrected the record with the Treasury Department in recent reports.

'Significant deficiency'

Auditors said that while the city complied, in all material respects with the compliance requirements that could have a direct and material effect on its major federal programs, they called the reporting problems a significant deficiency.

A significant deficiency is a technical term used to describe an issue with the internal processes the city uses to meet the rules and regulations around the ARPA program. Issues either fall into the category of a significant deficiency or the more serious "material weakness."

A significant deficiency is when the systems set up to meet the requirements of the rules arent fine tuned and for one reason or another could mean that city employees dont find or correct an issue when one occurs. A material weakness, Tyer said, would amount to a complete collapse of the system, or the complete lack of any systems to catch issues as they arise.

Scanlon & Associates handles audits for more than 60 other municipalities in the commonwealth. Thomas Scanlon Jr., Pittsfields auditor, estimated that significant deficiencies were found in three or four of those communties' audits.

Im not going to say its common, Scanlon said. Its definitely an important requirement, he added of the ARPA reporting rules.

When the audit revealed the reporting issues, auditors recommended a solution  a double-checking of the prepared quarterly ARPA reports against the city ledger before the reports are submitted to the Treasury Department. City staff said theyve put that step in place without further issue.

We want to do good work, Tyer said. We want to be transparent. We want to provide the federal treasury with accurate information and so it was important to us to dig into the issue and find ways to prevent it from happening [again].
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PITTSFIELD  Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll say their choice for Pittsfields mayoral race is City Council President Peter Marchetti.

In an endorsement released by the Marchetti campaign on Tuesday evening, the commonwealths highest ranking politicians called Marchetti a tremendous partner.

Healey reiterated her belief in Marchettis campaign during a visit to Pittsfield on Wednesday, saying she felt the City Council president was the right person for the job.

His many years of experience  both as a banker in the banking community and community development  his work with young people, his service on the City Council, will mean a lot, I think, to the future of Pittsfield, Healey said. Its certainly a vision that resonates with the vision that I have for the commonwealth.

Im excited to support Peter in his candidacy, the governor added. I think hell make a terrific mayor.

Its a major endorsement in a race that has reconfigured the political landscape in the city, bringing former political opponents together. Marchetti is receiving support from Mayor Linda Tyer, state Rep Tricia Farley-Bouvier, former Mayor Dan Bianchi  who Marchetti ran against for mayor in 2011  and former Mayor and current School Committee member Sara Hathaway.

Mayoral candidate John Krol, the former City Council vice president, has received the support of former mayor James Ruberto and former mayoral candidate and City Councilor Melissa Mazzeo.

When discussing the endorsement news on Wednesday, Marchetti reminisced that it was just a few years ago that he was at an event at Hotel on North endorsing Healey in her run for attorney general.

Im absolutely thrilled to have the endorsement of the governor and lieutenant governor in the closing weeks of the campaign, he said. Im looking forward to working with them when Im the mayor.

Healey said whoever wins the election come Nov. 7, shell be looking to partner with the next Pittsfield mayor on housing, economic development, workforce opportunities, access to health care and transportation issues.

All of these things I know are things that the residents of Pittsfield need and its important that we work in partnership, Healey said.

She said she appreciated the partnership thats developed between herself and Tyer  first in her role as attorney general and now as the governor.
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The inclusion of retail, services and expanded emergency services could bring some flexibility for broader use in the future as demographics in Berkshire County change, according to housing advocates and others.
The city-owned hanger is being renovated and is now unenclosed, so amid recent high wind debris blew off. Scott Balawender said bits of insulation blew into his yard.
Xi meets Cambodian PM

Xinhua) 13:58, October 19, 2023

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who is in Beijing to attend the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

China and Cambodia have set a good example of relations between countries of different sizes based on equality and mutual benefit since they established diplomatic ties 65 years ago, Xi said, noting that the two countries' iron-clad friendship is unbreakable.

The two sides should maintain high-level strategic communication and well implement the action plan for building a China-Cambodia community with a shared future in the new era, he said.

Belt and Road cooperation has brought tangible development opportunities to Cambodia, the president said.

China stands ready to advance the synergy of the Belt and Road Initiative with Cambodia's Pentagon Strategy, ensure that the "Industrial Development Corridor" and the "Fish and Rice Corridor" are well constructed, and push for the implementation of more projects that benefit the public, he said.

China welcomes the entry of more Cambodian farm produce into its market and encourages more Chinese tourists to travel in Cambodia, Xi said.

Hun Manet expressed appreciation for China's long-time and valuable support for Cambodia, noting that Cambodia firmly pursues a friendly policy toward China and supports China's core interests.

The series of important initiatives put forward by President Xi have provided important opportunities and platforms for promoting world peace and development, and Cambodia is an active supporter of them, Hun Manet said.

Senior Chinese officials including Cai Qi and Wang Yi were present at the meeting.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
I knew I had gone deep into researching the End Times when I came across the phrase immanentize the eschaton, whichforgive mesounds like something Han Solo would do to fix the hyperdrive on the Millennium Falcon.

The actual meaning of the phrase? To bring about thethe final, heaven-like stage of history. It was the rallying cry of conservatives in the 60s and 70s, critiquing the utopian projects of communists, Nazis, and liberal theologians who imagined their ideology would bring Heaven on earth. I came across it the Wikipedia article about Postmillennialism, one of the historical views of the end times.

Ive been a Christian for thirty years. Im still trying to define all these terms, not to mention decide which of them I should believe.

Please tell me Im not alone in admitting that End Time jargon makes my head spin: dispensation, eschatology, premillennialism, oh, my. I want to better informedI really do. But some days, laundry is a lot simpler, and usually feels more urgent.
Scripture is profuse with its mention and directives concerning our souls. What does the Bible say about the soul?

What Is Our Soul and Where Did It Come From?

In the beginning (Genesis 1:1) God created everything ex nihilo (out of nothing). When the Lord God created man, Genesis 2:7 tells us, And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The Hebrew word used is nepes, which is also translated, soul. When we define our soul, we must realize without God having breathed the breath of life into the first mans nostrils, we would not be living souls.

The word soul is so prevalent in the Old Testament, the KJV utilizes forty-two English words to translate it, with the two most common being soul and life. Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology defines soul in the Old Testament as, simply the life principle or living being. And in the New Testament, the term psyche is used in place of soul. It frequently designates life, a person or self, the expression of emotions, and in adjectival form, soulish indicates a person governed by the sensuous nature with subjection to appetite and passion. In some instances, the Greek word (psyche) is contrasted to the physical body and refers to the immortal part of man.

As human beings created in the image of God, our souls were given by God when He breathed life into the first man  Adam. No breath of God, no life.

What Does the Bible Say About the Soul?

Our Bible says much about the soul. The Outline of Biblical Usage states the soul is portrayed in the Bible as a living being, the seat of the appetites, emotions, and passions, and the activity of the mind, will, and character. The Lexham Bible Dictionary denotes four main uses for the word soul:

- To indicate meanings of desire (Psalms 25:1; 42:2)

- A personal or individual being (Genesis 12:5; Leviticus 2:1)

- A conscious self (Leviticus 11:44-45)

- An emotional state (Genesis 26:35; Job 21:4; Ecclesiastes 7:9)

Bearing with the fact the Bible uses so many different words for soul, we will use the mentions of the word soul based on the ESV translation. The first mention in Genesis 2:7 is important to regard, however, because thats when God gave man his life (NKJV), which is the soul.

Following are few more examples of the different ways the Bible treats the word soul:

Genesis 27:4 is in the narrative about Isaac planning to bless Esau. Here he tells Esau to hunt and prepare his favorite foods for him so he could eat and so, my soul may bless you before I die (Conscious self).

1 Samuel 30:6 - And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God (An emotional state). See also Job 3:20.

Psalm 56:13 - For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life (A person).

In the New Testament, we have these examples:

Matthew 16:26 - For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (A conscious self).

Acts 2:43 - And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles (A person).

Hebrews 6:19 - We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain (An emotional state).

What Is the Purpose of Our Soul? Does It "Do" Anything While We Are Alive?

In Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (the Shema), God tells His people through Moses, You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. This passage shows us the soul is to be active in faithful usage as we love God with all our soul.

Because of the life God breathed into us, our souls allow us to commune with God, as opposed to other life forms, which do not have souls as we have. David said in Psalm 16:2, O my soul, you have said to the LORD, You are my Lord, My goodness is nothing apart from You. Our soul directs us as we pray to the Lord as the Spirit leads us.

Without our God-given souls, we would not have the ability to even perceive God, let alone be called to salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. We can stand in awe of Him because we know Who He is and what he has done, is doing, and will do, according to His Word. We, as Christians, can reflect Jesus because our soul was created by Him and for Him.

Dr. R. C. Sproul said this about our souls, Humans cannot see the soul, nor can they see, at least ordinarily, joints and marrow. God, however, is not only able to see these parts, He can divide them with His Word.

What Happens to Our Soul After We Die?

Jesus and His apostles are very clear about what happens to our soul when we die, and the Apostle Paul gives us an incredible look at the why and then what happens.

In 1 Corinthians 15, he explains what happens when Christ returns and we are raised with imperishable bodies. In this chapter, Paul likens our souls to seeds. What is sown doesnt come to life unless it first dies, and the new heavenly body were given (and that which we were created to inhabit) is raised imperishable. This must happen to enter into heaven in glory.

When we Christians die, our souls will immediately be in the glorious presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as we wait for the resurrection of our bodies at the end of the age (2 Corinthians 5:8). Its called the intermediate state.

Why Do We Say Jesus "Saves Our Souls"?

Without our souls, we are nothing  lifeless. Everyones soul is immortal, and every person will spend eternity either in the presence and joy of the Lord in heaven or apart from His goodness in hell.

Why?

God created Adam and Eve as perfect souls, until they werent. They fell to the temptation of the devil (Genesis 3) and as God said, they died (spiritually). Adams sin was imputed on the whole of humanity, yet our sovereign God instituted His plan of redemption immediately after the fall (Genesis 3:15). Thereafter, Scripture is replete with the prophecies, fulfillment, and upcoming fulfillment of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. All of Scripture, from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, is about Jesus.

The Lord gave the Old Testament sacrificial commands to the people of Israel as a shadow of the coming atonement through Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 9 describes how Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant. The Mosaic Law commanded nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22).

God does not change, and only the shedding of blood by a perfect, sinless man could erase the sins of all mankind. Jesus, as fully God and fully man, stood in our place on the cross and is the atonement for our sins. God calls whom He will to faith and repentance; they are those Jesus saved from Gods wrath against the ungodly. We are also saved for Him as His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). The first man, Adam, became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45).

Jesus tells us in Matthew 10:28, And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. This is a hopeful reminder that this temporal life on earth will make way for the eternal life to come. Christians who have surrendered in faith and repentance to Jesus Christ will reap a heavenly existence when they die to life here on earth. The souls of unbelievers will also live for eternity, but separated from Gods goodness. Pastor Don Stewart relates the sad truth that unbelievers are already under judgment (John 3:18) and there is an intermediate or in between state for the unbeliever. Between their death and resurrection, their body remains in the grave while their spirit or soul is in the unseen realm of the dead awaiting final judgment. They will not find their names written in the Lambs book of Life. (See also Luke 16:19-31.)

Though inscribed thousands of years ago, the Bible never loses its relevance (Hebrews 4:12). As believers, its our calling to share the Gospel with any audience the Lord gives us. Its the best news ever, and our loved ones not only need to see our changed lives but also hear Gods Word (Romans 1:16; Romans 10:17). Jesus and His Word are the Gospel that saves souls. May the kingdom of God gain a great harvest as God uses you to fish for men (Mark 1:17).

Photo credit: Getty Images/metamorworks

Lisa Loraine Baker is the multiple award-winning author of Someplace to be Somebody. She writes fiction and nonfiction. In addition to writing for the Salem Web Network, Lisa serves as a Word Weavers mentor and is part of a critique group. She also is a member of BRRC. Lisa and her husband, Stephen, a pastor, live in a small Ohio village with their crazy cat, Lewis.

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Funds will be utilised for growth, including talent acquisition, technology enhancement and marketing initiatives

Welcome Cure has raised over Rs 4 crore in Pre-series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures (IPV). The funds will be utilised for growth, including talent acquisition, technology enhancement, and marketing initiatives. IPV has led the round and Welcome Cure is looking at raising over Rs 16 crore in this on-going funding round.

The Mumbai-based startup addresses the growing demand for sustainable and holistic healthcare by providing a comprehensive one-stop solution in the fragmented homeopathy market, offering convenient online and offline services for diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring, with a focus on prevention and overall well-being.

Its unique proposition lies in the integration of proprietary Assisted Intelligence (AI) solutions, which serve as a valuable decision support system for physicians. This AI-powered technology enhances diagnostic accuracy, treatment selection, and monitoring, ensuring optimal patient care.

Within the last couple of years alone, the company has apparently achieved a cumulative business of over Rs 45 crore, demonstrating its strong presence in the alternative medicine space.

The homeopathy industry is currently valued at over $7 billion and is experiencing a growth rate of 18% Compound Annual Growth Rate. Projections indicate that the industry is expected to surpass $21 billion within the next 5 to 7 years, indicating significant growth potential in the near future.
Developing novel platforms and predictive diagnostics to solve for cancer metastasis

Mestastop Solutions, a biotechnology startup based in Bengaluru, has raised Rs 4.5 crore or $500k in a Pre Series A round led by 92 angels & Malpani Ventures. In 2021, the company had secured a seed funding of Rs 2 crore led by IIM Ahmedabads CIIE with participation from IKP and angel investors.

Founded by Arnab Roy Chowdhury and Debabani Roy Chowdhury, Mestastop is creating a cancer metastasis focused platform, which uses wet lab biology and predictive analytics to identify and distinguish unique properties of metastasis and leverage them for drug discovery and patient treatment.

The funds will be used to generate proof of concept data with small molecules around the identified first-in-class targets and also help progress drug repurposing efforts to delay metastasis by identifying probable clinical candidates. New animal models and clinical studies will also be supported, along with strategic business development activities.

The global cost of cancer as a disease burden is poised to be around $25 trillion by 2050. The spending on treating and research for curing cancer across would hit $400 billion by 2030. Of this, global drug discovery market size is poised to hit $150-180 billion around that time.
This is the second genomics facility to be operated by Redcliffe Labs in India

Redcliffe Labs, a startup based in Noida, has collaborated with Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) in Thiruvananthapuram to manage and operate a laboratory with Single Cell Genomics and High-Throughput Sequencing technologies  a rare combination in modern genomics. Both parties have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aiming to revolutionise the field of modern genomics.

The collaboration combines Redcliffe Labs' expertise in genomics research and its track record of delivering ambitious genomics studies and projects with RGCB's cutting-edge facilities and research prowess.

The partnership with RGCB will introduce advanced technologies like 10X Chromium, Illumina Novaseq, Nanopore Gridion, and various allied infrastructures to facilitate processing and expediting samples from the southern part of the country. By setting up a lab in Thiruvananthapuram, Redcliffe Labs is India's first company with two fully equipped genomics facilities.

Ashish Dubey, Director of Research at Redcliffe Labs, said, We aim to provide efficient, cost-effective, and high throughput NGS services to Keralas Research centres like IISR, RCC, CIFE, IISER, NISER, CPCRI, and various PSUs. This facility will be a great support system for many genomics startups in Kerala, which is turning out to be a new home for genomics startups after Karnataka and Telangana, he added.

The partnership between Redcliffe Labs and RGCB is set to advance genomics research in India and facilitate breakthroughs in healthcare, agriculture, and beyond. Prof. Chandrabhas Narayana, Director at RGCB, Thiruvananthapuram said, Genomics-based technologies like NGS help researchers and breeders evaluate and predict genetic merit."
Scopen's 8th edition of its PR Scope study in Spain has found high satisfaction levels as clients work with their communication consultants for longer, with relationships increasing from four to five years.

Source:  123rf 123rf PR Scope study in Spain has found high satisfaction levels as clients work with their communication consultants for longer

A biennial study which analyses the relationships between communication consultancies and their clients, as well as the perception and image of these consultancies in the market.

For the current edition (2023/24) in Spain, 875 professionals have been interviewed: 441 of whom work for 414 different client companies, 327 professionals from consulting firms and 107 media professionals.

The fieldwork was carried out between March and May 2023.

The average duration of the relationship between companies and their communication consultancies is 4.9 years (4.1 in the previous edition), which represents an increase of just over nine months compared to the previous edition.

Large companies have longer relationships (5.5 years) than small ones (3.6 years). The majority of consulting firms maintain a regular or continuous relationship model with the companies they work with (82%), although this type of relationship decreases compared to the previous edition, while we see an increase in project work (20% vs. 13% in 2021). The average duration of a 'Type' project is six and a half months.

Set fee renumeration

The majority of those interviewed remunerate their communication consultants through a fee set at the beginning of the year (81% vs. 85% in 2021).

Remuneration by project has decreased (22%) but there is a significant increase of the mixed remuneration model by 15% (Fee + Projects throughout the year).

Eight per cent of accounts (with no variations compared to 2021) add a variable portion to the remuneration (a bonus provided at the end of the year to reward the consultant for good results) which represents almost 13% of the annual remuneration (11 % in the previous edition).

Satisfied with service

More than 95% of clients in Spain declare themselves satisfied with the service they receive from their consulting firms, and less than one per cent are dissatisfied. Even so, eight per cent declare they are considering changing their consulting firm soon, not due to dissatisfaction with the service, but, mostly, due to the contract coming to an end.

The recommendation index of communication consultants by their clients to colleagues and friends is 8.5 (on a scale of 0-10).

Contributing to business growth

Companies interviewed consider that their consulting firm contributes, on average, to grow their business by 10%. Although this is a lower percentage than what we find with other agents these brands work with (when it comes to creative and media agencies, the value is close to 25%), if we consider the level of investment and the fees allocated to consulting firms, this is a higher contribution percentage.

Related to this, the ADC highlights, "the growing strategic importance of communication consultancies for their clients, as evidenced in the 2nd edition of the study carried out in collaboration with Scopen on the value they bring to society."

Their general director, Dolores Gonzalez Pastor, highlights that "communication consultancies are crucial allies for their clients since they provide creativity and a strategic vision, essential value factors to building the positioning and reputation of both brands and institutions".

Challenges

When professionals from client companies are asked about the challenges their companies will be facing in the coming years, the most mentioned challenges are:

Knowledge of the consumer and ability to reach them (35%)



Strengthening the prestige, reputation and positioning of the brand company (35%)



Ability to adapt to new times (21%)

Venture more on creativity-innovation (21%).

When it comes to consulting firms, they consider that their greatest challenges strengthening digital capabilities and their ability to adapt to new times, thereby showing their concern for the rapid evolution which is resulting in numerous changes to the functioning of the sector.

Hector Abanades, research manager at Scopen clarifies, Were seeing a more fragmented market, with a larger number of consulting firms. It is key to differentiate from competitors, transferring particular capabilities with real jobs that can demonstrate these capabilities.

Digital (especially Social Media and Influence), creative and content generation capacity, and the capacity for data analysis and interpretation, are the three key areas.

Consultancies that stand out

To evaluate how communication consultancies are perceived, Scopen groups together the responses of those professionals interviewed (from companies, consultancies and media professionals) and prepares various rankings analysing different aspects:

Spontaneous knowledge



Exemplarity



Attraction



Market Perception Global Ranking (taking into account key attributes)



Customer Rating Global Ranking



Competitor Opinion Global Ranking (by professionals who work in other consulting firms).

The most mentioned in the Top 3 of these six rankings are LLYC, which appears in five of them, leading the Spontaneous Knowledge, Exemplarity and Attraction, Apple Tree which appears in three, leading the global Competitor Opinion Ranking and Havas PR which also appears in three and leads the Customer Rating Ranking. The Global Market Perception Ranking is led, in this edition, by Ogilvy.
Local rugby player for the DHL Stormers, Hacjivah Dayimani, alongside business partners have released the locally produced luxury sneaker line named Hibacci. The partners have re-introduced the range of two designs for men and women and is available from 19 October 2023.

Image supplied

Hibacci has reimagined its manufacturing processes since first coming into the market, removing imports of materials completely from the shoe-making methods  to investing in local production and creating employment in the process. The materials are now sourced from across the country  collecting the finest leather from Cape Town and completing manufacturing in a factory the business has partnered with up in Gauteng.

Weve are working with a team of 15 designers and shoemakers  which is big for us; coming from the brink of bankruptcy to creating meaningful jobs that improve the livelihoods of citizens. This team is responsible for bringing our vision and shoes to life, ensuring the highest quality of design and production, Dayimani explained.

Image supplied

We were compelled to bring Hibacci back into the market due to the overwhelming demand from our clients after we halted production during the Covid lockdown because of the public backlash for importing the brand but also largely due to infrequent supply of materials, which interrupted our manufacturing processes. We couldnt be more thrilled to put in front of our supporters and lovers of Hibacci a high-quality, hand-finished range of sneakers thats perfect for both the classic and whimsical yet discerning client who appreciates locally crafted goods, said Dlamini.

The brand has come to be loved for its classic and original designs; and for the new release, it has completely reconceptualised the style it has come to be loved for. Albeit not too much of a departure, the new sneakers for men and women are even more sleek in a clean all-white colour. The designs both feature a multi-paneled upper made of leather with white shoelaces.

Image supplied

Dlamini commented: The luxury landscape has evolved in an interesting manner over the last couple of years; and our ambition is to grow alongside high-quality, locally-manufactured brands such as Maxhosa and Tshepo Jeans  who continue to prove that consumers are proud to don and support high-quality local brands. Not only that; but brands that are actively contributing to the stimulation of the economy in our market. Through this release we will create approximately ten jobs as a start in the immediate community of Gauteng where our factory is located for the skills needed in the production process.

Image supplied

It was really looking bleak for a second but were back, baby! You cant beat the African spirit of resilience that resides in all of us: weve really taken stock, digested the learnings from our first release, cemented our credentials and were proud of the product that our valued clients will see from Hibacci. I cant wait for them to experience the brand! concluded Dayimani.

For more, go to www.Hibacci.com
South Africa needs to regulate swiftly to spur demand for electric vehicles (EVs), the co-CEO of the local unit of Mercedes-Benz said on Wednesday, as the country's automotive industry risks being irrelevant to the global market.

A model E400e 4Matic of Mercedes-Benz at the 2023 Munich Auto Show IAA Mobility, in Munich, Germany, 4 September 2023. Reuters/Leonhard Simon/File Photo

For South Africa as a whole, three-quarters of its vehicle production is exported.

The luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz exports 90% of its total South African output, primarily to Europe, which plans to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035.

At the same time, South Africa's policy paper on EVs is two years behind schedule. The government has said it will be published this year.

"The train (EV shift) is a global one, and it's leaving the station. If South Africa doesn't jump onto the train, it runs the risk of being left behind," Mark Raine, co-CEO Mercedes-Benz Cars South Africa, told Reuters in an interview.

"A concrete EV Policy is definitely required and would support the inevitable evolution of the automotive industry to electric vehicles," he said further, adding the policy needs to be implemented "soonest".

Specifically, South Africa will need to boost local demand by cutting the import tax for EVs, setting up large-scale EV charging stations and investing in skills needed for the new ecosystem that EVs bring, he said.

The German carmaker has a plan to phase out diesel and petrol cars from its factories globally starting 2030, but in the absence of a robust local ecosystem, the transition in South Africa is proving to be challenging, Raine said.
South African Tourism is celebrating a successful trip to the 2023 Sanganai Hlanganani World Tourism Expo. Organised by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, the expo took place in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, from 12-14 October.

Leading up to the Expo, South African Tourism (SA Tourism) and the South African Embassy in Zimbabwe hosted a networking event in Harare where the South African Ambassador to Zimbabwe, HE TR Mabudafhasi, expressed her appreciation for the opportunity to enhance the bond between the two countries.

In her speech at the event, Ambassador TR Mabudafhasi said, Africa is an important source market for South Africa and continues to bring the largest share of tourist arrivals to the country. Tourism is a strategic sector in our respective economies. It provides economic opportunities for women and youth through employment and supports the development of SMMEs through enterprise development. Tourism has multiple linkages with other sectors of the economy and generates significant multiplier effects.

South Africas tourism sector has shown great resilience after the Covid-19 pandemic, and our Tourism Sector Recovery Plan was successfully implemented. It is therefore not a surprise that South Africa has reclaimed its position as a top destination for business events, ranking 42nd globally in the 2022 International Congress and Convention Association report, released in 2023.

From January to July 2023, a total of 4.8 million international tourists arrived in South Africa, signifying a remarkable 70.6% growth compared to 2022. Within these 4.8 million arrivals, the African region has the most significant share. I want to commend the fantastic work that South Africa Tourism has done.

After the successful event at the South African Embassy, the team made their way to Bulawayo for the annual expo, which attracted exhibitors and buyers worldwide to showcase the widest variety of Africa's best tourism products alongside international visitors and media.

Reflecting our country's beauty, culture and vast tourism offerings, SA Tourism was among the wide variety of exhibitors who showcased their tourism products, service offerings and potential as an exceptional travel destination. The countrys participation is part of tangible efforts to connect nations across our continent  evidenced by rising visa-free travel  and focus on strengthening relations between SA and Zimbabwe through tourism further to grow the strategic business alliances in the SADC region.

SA Tourism built a compelling and beautiful Visit South Africa Village for the country's stand. As part of the mandate toward transformation, the Limpopo Tourism Agency travelled with two SMME partners, Miyelani Travel and Nhlamulo Destinations, to grow their business and network in the region. The Mpumalanga Parks & Tourism Board was also amongst the provincial tourism authorities who showcased their offering, corporate partners South African Airways and SA Airlink, Sun International, South Africa National Convention Bureau and business and holiday travel operators Thompsons Africa and Peaks of Africa.

On winning Best International and Overall stand at the expo, SA Tourism Regional Manager for Africa Evelyn Mahlaba said, We are immensely proud to have received these two accolades. Our stand was intentionally curated with business in mind, focused on building sustainable relationships with those we meet, and showcasing our incredible tourism offering to our neighbours.

SA Tourism recently launched a business innovation tool, MeetSA Portal, designed as a one-stop shop for trade and tourism professionals to engage with the destination. One such tool is Get Connected, where buyers could schedule in-person meetings with SA product owners and continue to create more extended partnerships post the event. A masterclass was held as an extension of the Get Connected tool to empower buyers and MICE professionals with tips on analysing clients preferences and behaviour, customising event content, and making targeted marketing and sales recommendations, all while building meaningful connections. Amongst the many meetings held during the three-day event, 184 new trade registrations were recorded on the business portal, and over 1,000 visitors were recorded at the stand. This is just one of the many ways SA Tourism makes selling South Africa easier.

Talking about the successful media visibility created during the event, Ms Bontle Madiba says, As part of our efforts to extend brand awareness, we partnered with local radio stations to expand our brand awareness - creating awareness of our SA product owners who were exhibiting and encouraging expo visitors to come and meet SA. International media and their product interviewed Local Travel partnersand gained much-needed exposure; 12 Radio and TV media interviews were conducted over the three days.

Dr Mavungu Musitha, senior manager of destination marketing for Limpopo Province, said participating in the expo created much-needed leads for the SMME product owners. Miyelani Travel had 15 qualified leads just by exhibiting at the expo. We thank SA Tourism for creating the feeling, energy and experience of South Africa away from home. The magnitude of the stand showed that there is always more to see in the country, giving potential travellers and trade partners an idea of South Africas diverse tourism offerings.

For more information on what places to visit while in South Africa, please visit the tourism social media platforms:




A new biodiversity research project called BioSCape has been launched. The project will use data from satellites, airplanes, and field observations to better understand the biodiversity of the Greater Cape Floristic Region and how nature benefits people.

"BioSCape is a unique and exciting project that will help reveal new insights about the biodiversity of one of the most diverse regions on Earth and provide new tools for mapping and monitoring it," said Dr Jasper Slingsby, the South African lead scientist and lecturer at the University of Cape Town (UCT). "This information will be essential for supporting effective biodiversity conservation and management strategies for the region."

BioSCape is a collaborative project that brings together scientists from around the world to study the biodiversity of the Greater Cape Floristic Region. The project is committed to capacity building and education in South Africa, and it is expected to benefit the world by improving an understanding of biodiversity and developing new technologies for monitoring and managing nature's contributions to people.

Slingsby said that BioSCape will also benefit the world by improving an understanding of biodiversity and developing new technologies for monitoring and managing nature's contributions to people. BioSCape will also help us to better understand the impacts of climate change on biodiversity.

Biodiversity research in SA

Dr Mary-Jane Bopape, the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) managing director, says: "The National Research Foundation, through its business unit, the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON), is proud to be a leading partner in BioSCape.

"This cutting-edge project is a testament to the world-class biodiversity research being conducted in South Africa. We are committed to contributing to data collection and using the information generated by BioSCape to inform environmental management decisions in the region.

"An added benefit for us during the main collection period is that the SAEON Graduate Student Indibano will host some of the BioScape scientists as keynote speakers and workshop presenters, which will serve as a valuable platform for networking, knowledge exchange, and insights into cutting-edge research and tools."

After two years of intense planning, the majority of data collection will occur from mid-October to mid-December 2023 to coincide with aerial surveys conducted by NASA aircraft and instrument teams. The aerial surveys will collect UV/visible to short wavelength infrared (UVSWIR) and thermal imaging spectroscopy and laser altimetry LiDAR data over terrestrial and aquatic targets using four airborne instruments: AVIRIS-NG, PRISM, LVIS, and HyTES.

Biodiversity-related field observations

The instruments will be operated from two NASA Gulfstream aircraft. The anticipated airborne data set is unique in its size and scope and unprecedented in its instrument combination and level of detail.

The airborne data will be accompanied by a vast range of biodiversity-related field observations from vegetation surveys, measures of plant and water spectral reflectance, phytoplankton samples, recordings of bird and frog calls and environmental DNA.

BioSCape is a collaboration between the US and South Africa, funded by the United States government (NASA) and the South African government through the National Research Foundation (NRF) via the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) and the joint NEOFrontiers funding instrument with the South African National Space Agency (SANSA). The project is led by scientists at UCT, the University at Buffalo (New York, USA) and the University of California Merced (California, USA).
Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka has been recommended as South Africa's new Public Protector, as officially confirmed by the National Assembly on Thursday. Gcaleka who has been acting in the position since last year must be officially elected by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka. Source: Supplied.

Gcaleka received the necessary 60% vote, with 244 votes in favour of her election. However according to reports, members from the DA, EFF, UDM, ATM, COPE, and PAC did not participate in the vote, while the UDM, COPE, and PAC were absent from the proceedings.

Historic event

This comes after Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane's removal last month, which marked a historic event, as she was the first head of a Chapter nine institution to be ousted.

Earlier this week Mkhwebane joined the Economic Freedom Fighters and said she should be given a place of authority in the political party.

"I think I will be contributing a lot. I'm an expert in good governance, I am an expert in service delivery-related issues. The EFF has a voice out there, I will be bringing my experience, hence I say I will be working with the communities," said Mkhwebane.

According to the Public Protector's office, Gcaleka holds a LLB from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a LLM Degree in Commercial Law from the University of Johannesburg.

Experience

She has previously held the role of special advisor to the Ministers in the Departments of Public Service and Administration, Home Affairs, and Finance. Her areas of expertise include: administration, legal matters, legislation and policy development, strategy, compliance, and governance.

Furthermore, she played a crucial role in the Committee of Enquiry, which investigated the state of municipalities throughout Gauteng, and also contributed her expertise to various boards.

Her career began in 2004 when she joined the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) as a young prosecutor. She has a special interest in gender-based violence and human trafficking.

Backlash

DA Shadow Minister of Justice and Constitutional development and MP Adv Glynnis Breytenbach said Gcaleka is not ready for the top job.

"This time around, with respect to all candidates, the process delivered a crop of potential candidates who were fundamentally so far below par for a job of this magnitude, leaving the Ad Hoc committee, in my view, with no choice but to abort the process and re-advertise the position. Not one single candidate of the 8 shortlisted, in our view, met even all the minimum standards."
Did you know that globally women only make 77 cents for every dollar that is earned by men? Did you know that 90% of a woman's accessible income is reinvested into her children, their health care, their education, and the community in which she works and operates? 90%.

Source: Supplied. Lineshree Moodley, Visas country head for South Africa.

Furthermore, estimates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that only 37% of women in sub-Saharan Africa have a bank account.

Poised to change this narrative was the Standard Bank Top Women Conference 2023, which was held at the prestigious Galleria Conference and Events venue in Sandton, Johannesburg this week.

It brought together women entrepreneurs, global icons, thought leaders, and experts to offer actionable insights and practical solutions to empower and inspire attendees in their professional journeys.

Gender inequality remains a stark reality in today's world, and yet the Standard Bank Top Women Conference 2023 has presented an opportunity to witness the immense value that female empowerment brings to our world, said Haley Fletcher, director of Topco Media, organisers of the event.

Joining the conversation on the empowerment of women as a critical path to a brighter and more equitable future were Lineshree Moodley, Visa's country head for South Africa; Thandi Ngwane, head of investments at Standard Bank South Africa; Tatum Wheatley-Keshwar, executive director of Altvest Credit Opportunities Fund at Vodacom Business; and Delia Ndlovu, chairperson of Deloitte Africa.

Unlocking the potential of digital transformation

In a fireside chat, they highlighted how digital transformation for womens economic empowerment is central to realising womens rights and gender equality.

They agreed: womens economic empowerment includes womens ability to participate equally in existing markets, their access to and control over productive resources and access to decent work, and digital transformation can remove barriers to access.

Said Visa's Moodley. It can provide access to good quality education such as online training and virtual webinars where women dont need to travel to access education; it can provide access to financial- and digital services such as mobile money and e-wallets.

"Once we can see how women are transacting: how they are spending their money, and what they are paying for - that provides access to data and that data is powerful. It can give a financial service provider a view of how to extend micro loans to micro businesses to help them grow. The World Bank states that we will see more financial inclusion for women who will be enabled by mobile money, digital wallets, and who will have access to digital platforms like e-commerce where they can start up businesses.

"To this end, being included in a digital ecosystem is not a privilege, it's a fundamental right," Moodley said.

Financial inclusion disparities

Ngwane of Standard Bank interjected: That's such a sobering statistic for me to think that a little over a third of women in sub-Saharan Africa have a bank account in this day and age, but it is the reality." She spotlighted South Africa's stance on financial inclusion.

According to the statistics and the number of reports, we're in a very good position.

"A report published in July this year by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority puts the statistic in South Africa of financial inclusion at 98%, so just 2% of South African adults do not have access to a financial product or service, she said.

However, access alone is not the barrier to access, she warned.

One of the ways that we can improve access to financial services is to think about how we solve for womens needs across the value chain and to understand that access to financial services doesn't start with whether a woman wants to open a bank- or an investment account, it starts at product development.

"So when financial service providers are formulating their solutions are they tailoring that financial service to suit a woman's needs and are they cognisant of whether she is a housewife, an entrepreneur, or a corporate?"

Beyond the 30% threshold

"But, women's economic empowerment extends further," noted Ndlovu of Deloitte Africa, emphasising that women hold only about a quarter of leadership roles in global financial services firms. Contemplating gender parity in South Africa and necessary improvements, Ndlovu highlighted that women's board representation stands at around 29%, a figure largely consistent with global trends.

She challenged the 30% club campaign, a group of business chairpersons and chief executive officers taking action to increase gender diversity on boards and senior management teams. It was established in the United Kingdom in 2010 by Helena Morrissey with the aim of achieving a minimum of 30% female representation on the boards of FTSE 100 companies.

"I believe aiming for a 30% target is insufficient," Ndlovu said.

She challenged businesses to set higher goals for equitable female representation, showing that with women leading, the entire leadership dynamic of an organisation transforms.

"As an illustration, during my tenure as chair of Deloitte Africa, we increased board representation from 38% to 60%. Our CEO achieved a move from 30% to 42%, and our global chair elevated a 16% representation to 40%. This pattern is consistent, as seen in the US, where the figure rose to 50%, all because women assumed leadership roles."

While Ndlovu emphasised the transformative impact of women in leadership roles, she cautioned that mere representation in a firm is insufficient.

"Leaders should be both demographically and cognitively diverse, and those already in leadership need to be intentional and committed to this mandate," she noted.

It shows courage to support women with mentorship and sponsorship, to support their dreams and bold visions."
The appointment of Kendra Gaither as president of the US-Africa Business Center (USAfBC) has been officially announced by the US Chamber of Commerce.

Source: Twitter/@USChamberAfrica. Newly elected president of the US-Africa Business Center.

What an honour to lead the US-Africa Business Center and work with our members and partners to deepen the vital commercial relationship between Africa and the United States, said Gaither. The centre represents the business communitys belief that there is an opportunity and an imperative to grow the US-Africa trade and investment partnership.

Im thrilled to work with our incredible team to create conditions for our public- and private-sector partners to expand and modernise commercial ties between the US and the nations of Africa."

The entire chamber team is delighted that Gaither will assume this leadership role with the US-Africa Business Center as we continue to elevate our engagement with partners across the continent, said John Murphy, US Chamber senior vice president for international policy.

Gaithers role has been critical to the growing realisation among American businessowners and chief executive officers that an investment in Africa is an investment in their own future. She is a dynamic leader whose courage, commitment, and vision for the US-Africa economic relationship will take the centre to new heights.

Gaither succeeds outgoing USAfBC president Scott Eisner as he begins a new chapter as senior vice president at BGR Group.

I would also like to thank our good friend Scott Eisner, founder of the US-Africa Business Center, for his long labours making the centre into the pre-eminent voice for increasing US-Africa commercial ties, said Murphy.

Gaither's career highlights

Gaither joined the Chambers International Affairs team as a member of the Americas Department in 2015, where among other contributions she established the US-Colombia Business Council and served as its founding executive director.

She joined the chamber from Carnegie Mellon University, where she was executive director of the Center for International Policy and Innovation and supported the establishment of the Carnegie Mellon University graduate campus in Kigali, Rwanda.

Gaither began her career as a US diplomat, specialising in economic- and trade issues in Latin America and Africa for over a decade. She holds a BS in economics from North Carolina A&T State University, and an MA in international affairs and an MBA in international business finance from The George Washington University.
For over three decades, the AAA School of Advertising has been a beacon of opportunity in the dynamic world of marketing and advertising. The institution has been instrumental in shaping the careers of countless young creatives, giving them the tools and knowledge to thrive in the ever-evolving advertising landscape.

As we know, the advertising industry is a multifaceted realm where creativity, strategy, and innovation converge to shape public perception and behaviour. It's an environment that demands adaptability and fresh thinking, where staying ahead of trends is key. From traditional print and TV advertisements to the current digital and social media-centric campaigns, the industry has undergone a remarkable transformation over the years.

For over three decades, the AAA School of Advertising has played a pivotal role in opening the doors of this industry to young, aspiring creatives. It's not merely an institution; it's a launchpad for talent, a platform that empowers students to harness their creativity and channel it into impactful advertising campaigns.

By offering comprehensive, industry-aligned education, AAA ensures that students are equipped with the skills, knowledge, and insights necessary to not only survive but thrive in the advertising world. Through expert guidance and hands-on experience, the school fosters a culture of innovation and excellence that prepares graduates to hit the ground running.

The End of Year Student Showcase taking place on 30 November at the Johannesburg campus and 1 December at the Cape Town campus, is a shining testament to the school's commitment to nurturing talent. This free annual event, which has become a hallmark of the AAA experience, serves as a window into the vibrant world of advertising. It's a platform where students get to demonstrate their prowess, showcasing their projects, campaigns, and designs to an audience of peers, family, friends, industry professionals, and potential employers.

The showcase is an immersion into the diverse spectrum of advertising mediums. From print advertisements that captivate through imagery and language, to digital campaigns that leverage cutting-edge technology, the projects on display reflect the broad skill set that AAA imparts to its students.

Prospective students attending the showcase gain invaluable insights into the advertising industry. They witness firsthand the power of a well-crafted message, a clever concept, or a visually stunning design. It's an experience that transcends theory, offering a tangible glimpse into the potential impact a career in advertising can have.

Moreover, the showcase serves as a networking hub. It's a space where future advertisers rub shoulders with industry veterans, establishing connections that could very well pave the way for internships, collaborations, and job opportunities down the line.

By immersing themselves in the showcase, prospective students get a taste of what it means to be a part of this dynamic industry. They witness the creative spirit that fuels successful campaigns, the strategic thinking that underpins effective advertising, and the collaborative effort that brings concepts to life.

To attend, RSVP here: https://aaaschool.ac.za/news/aaa-2023-student-showcase/.




Around 100 communists from across the Midwest gathered over the weekend of September 30October 1 at the Minneapolis Marxist School. Comrades from Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Columbus, and other cities across the Midwest came together for the opening to kick off the 2023 Marxist School series.

[Originally published at socialistrevolution.org]

One comrade who joined the IMT just a month before attending the school described the experience of being surrounded by so many communists:

As I looked at the sea of faces that were there, I realized that if I had seen any of those faces on the street, or on the bus, or on the train, or at my job, I wouldnt have been able to tell that theyre a communist unless I were to ask them. So it clicked! Im always in the street, I take the bus all the time, the train is the way I get to work every day, I work in an airport full of 10,000 employees. Why not ask them if they are communists? It doesnt hurt to try, anyone could be a potential comrade, or at the very least youll be able to talk about communism with people who show interest in it. Ive talked about communism with so many people, and Ive met a good amount of potential comrades!

The comrades in the area mobilized and advertised the event far and wide, greatly increasing the visibility of revolutionary communism and gaining many supporters. Notably, the IMT and the Minneapolis Marxist School also gained attention on the right wing.

Republican protesters showed up outside the doors of the Marxist School / Image: Socialist Revolution

On September 29, the Republican Party of Minnesota emailed its mailing list about the Minneapolis Marxist School, saying We must take action to prevent its [communisms] spread About 20 Republican protesters showed up outside our doors on October 1 with anti-communist signs, but they ended up leaving after a mere 30 minutes without causing any disruptions. A former South Carolina Republican senator also decided to attend the event, but even he couldnt help clapping for the concluding session!

The opening plenary on Saturday set the scene for the school and its theme of World Revolution. Arman Ebrahimi led off on World Revolution Today. He explained that we live in an epoch of world revolution, with uprisings and mass movements cropping up around the world alongside massive youth radicalization.

Socialist Revolution has seen rapid growth in the region, so the comrades were able to host concurrent sessions for the first time. On Saturday, one session titled 100 Years Since the German Revolution of 1923, introduced by Josh Lucker from St. Louis, discussed the failures of the German Revolution and the rise of fascism in Germany. The parallel session was on Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism introduced by Charlotte P., covering the economic basis of imperialism, the imperialist nature of the United States, China, Russia, and other nations today, and the tasks of communists building in the belly of the beast of world imperialism.

After experiencing rapid growth in the region, the comrades hosted concurrent sessions for the first time at this event / Image: Socialist Revolution

On Sunday morning, Pete Walsh from New York City led off on The Rise and Fall of the Communist International, drawing out the priceless lessons of the history of the Comintern. The discussion covered topics such as revolutionary internationalism, the nature of Stalinism, the national question, and ultra-leftism. Meanwhile, Justin Deters introduced the discussion on the Theory of Permanent Revolution, developed by Trotsky and incredibly relevant to the communist movement today. Only the working class is capable of achieving national liberation and democratic tasks of revolutionnot the bourgeoisie.

All the discussions featured excellent political contributions and questions, such as: What is the united front tactic? Why did the Second International betray the working class for national chauvinism? Why wont breaking up the monopolies work to combat imperialism? What are the modern bourgeois democratic tasks in revolutions today?

Any and all questions were encouraged to further clarify and sharpen everyones understanding of the topics at hand. This was further supplemented with informal discussions and socializing between and after the sessions. The enthusiasm and seriousness about the study of Marxism was palpable throughout the weekend. All in all, more than $2,000 in revolutionary literature was sold at the event!

The event ended with a rousing leadoff on Building The Revolution Party: The Revolution Needs You! by Erika Roedl. She explained the necessity of a mass communist party to bring the working class to victory, and what it takes to build such a party. During the discussion, many comrades spoke about why they became active communists, and gave reports on the efforts to build the nucleus of a mass communist party across the country.

Any and all questions were encouraged to further clarify and sharpen everyones understanding of the topics at hand / Image: Socialist Revolution

Comrades reported on the explosive growth as a result of our Are You a Communist? campaign, including a new communist cell in Tulsa, OK. Many comrades explained how they were radicalized, including the anecdote from a member who became a communist at the age of 12! Comrade after comrade spoke, sharing their experiences and committing themselves to the fight for socialist revolution. Following a financial appeal, many comrades increased their dues or made additional donations to help cover the cost of the event.

Comrades reported on the explosive growth as a result of our Are You a Communist? campaign / Image: Socialist Revolution

All these communists, dedicated to the struggle for a socialist revolution in our lifetime, were radicalized by living through the horrors of capitalism. Young people have known nothing but economic crisis, instability, and endless imperialist wars. However, millions of young people are drawing the conclusion that the world doesnt need to be this way.

The barbarism of the capitalist system has forged a new generation of class fighters and created its own grave-diggers in the form of the working class, which has the power to shut down production and run society without bosses. With all of the lessons of past revolutions as well as the current uprisings and mass movements around the world, the mood in the room was electric and determined.

We know that a better world is possible, and we know we must be organized and armed with Marxist theory to overthrow the capitalist system. Pete Walsh summed up the event with some rousing closing remarks, and we ended by singing the Internationale and Bandiera Rossa.

Onward to building a mass communist party! Long live Socialist Revolution!
Bibi Netanyahu and his ideological ilk represent more of an existential threat to the continued existence of the Israeli state  and possibly the world if it gets dragged into its geopolitical melodrama -- than any foreign adversary ever could hope to.

What many casual news consumers might not know, even ones who consider themselves informed  in large part because MSNBC/CIA-funded Washington Post would never tell them  is that Hamas is in no small measure a creation of the Israeli state.

This is not to mean creation of the Israeli state in the figurative, obscure sense of Israel forced the birth of Hamas-style militancy through its Apartheid policies in the Gaza Strip, although that is certainly true.

I literally mean to say the Israeli government actively and directly participated in creating and propping up Hamas in the service of its own political machinations.

Straight from the horses mouth, heres how Netanyahu schemed behind the scenes for years to promote the terrorist group he now publicly decries and postures as the savior from.

Via Haaretz:

Effectively, Netanyahus entire worldview collapsed over the course of a single day. He was convinced that he could make deals with corrupt Arab tyrants while ignoring the cornerstone of the Arab-Jewish conflict, the Palestinians. His lifes work was to turn the ship of state from the course steered by his predecessors, from Yitzhak Rabin to Ehud Olmert, and make the two-state solution impossible. En route to this goal, he found a partner in Hamas. Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas, he told a meeting of his Likud partys Knesset members in March 2019. This is part of our strategy  to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.

On learning that Netanyahu told his comrades this, one might ask obvious questions: Why would Netanyahu be interested in keeping Palestine balkanized politically? Especially when all the government publicly proclaims to desire is peace with its Arab neighbors? Wouldnt a stable Palestinian state not obsessed with annihilating the Jews serve those purported Israeli interests?

Well, a non-militant Palestinian state might serve the interests of an average Israeli living in a village on the border of Gaza, but not Netanyahus interests nor those of the base of fanatical religious warmongers he caters to.

Keeping Hamas alive and well-funded, as Netanyahu explicitly called for, creates permanent instability. Instability, in turn, lends itself to either active war or the constant threat of war, not peace. And war is the health of the Israeli state.

If peace broke out in the Middle East, creatures like Netanyahu would be liable to suddenly find themselves out of a job. They might have to make an honest days living for once in their miserable lives.

Netanyahu feeds politically off of endless conflict with Israels regional rivals. War breathes life into his otherwise listless and deflated political ideology. What other ideas for governance has this warmonger ever had except more war?

In the immediate term, war furthermore keeps him out of jail for the time being, as he was under serious, career-threatening legal scrutiny for corruption allegations at the time of the Hamas attack. Now, as the Israeli citizenry rallies around the flag, the nation temporarily forgoes internal political conflict.

Related: No, the Hamas Invasion Was Not an Israeli Intelligence Failure

Netanyahu and the self-styled Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, are two peas in a pod in this regard. War is the health of their respective states, and they and their parties are the primary beneficiaries. Without it, they would be nothing but your average middle-aged, flabby slobs schlubbing their way through life.

In fact, in much the same way that there is no way Israeli intelligence was unaware of impending Hamas attacks, I wouldnt be shocked to learn that Netanyahu and Khamenei are coordinating behind the scenes to see if they cant finagle a potentially apocalyptic regional, if not global, war out of the current mess  and, again, if possible, drag the United States, Russia, and God knows what other states into it in the process.

Related: How Neocons Could Sleep-Walk Us Into World War III

Of course, neither the Supreme Leader (what a stupid title) nor Netanyahu will be doing any fighting themselves. Theyre much too cowardly and physically flimsy for any of that. Those personal traits are largely why theyre politicians in the first place.

Theyll simply puppeteer the apocalypse from behind the scenes. Itll be poor kids conscripted from dusty villages sent to the meat grinder.

How history has a way of rhyming! Back in the 1980s, in an entirely different conflict in the same region of the world, it was the United States that propped up a band of religious fanatics fighting, at the time, the Soviet Union that had invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 1979.

Ronald Reagans Deep State handlers went so far as to invite them to the White House.

As unstable religious fanatics who feed off of perpetual war are wont to do, they eventually switched allegiances and set their sights on the United States, of course. After all, with the Soviet Union vanquished, the Taliban needed a new war to start.

Many people living quiet lives in New York City died as a result, but the American neocons got a whole fresh set of wars out of the deal, with fresh license to kill more poor people overseas. Raytheon and Boeing stocks went through the roof. The Middle East was further destabilized, giving rise to ISIS, a failed state in Libya, and guaranteeing future war.

And around and around we go, pretending as if the vaunted statesmen who start wars for a living are anything other than bloodthirsty warmongers playing geopolitical chess with other peoples children.

But theyre brave and serious leaders of resolve, and I and anyone else who challenges them are the domestic terrorists, per the ADL, of course.

Related: Anti-Defamation League Seizes on Hamas Attack to Push DEI Agenda

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The United States welcomes the signing of an electoral roadmap agreement between the Unitary Platform and Maduro representatives, Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a news release.

Consistent with U.S. sanctions policy, in response to these democratic developments, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has issued General Licenses authorizing transactions involving Venezuelas oil and gas sector and gold sector, as well as removing the ban on secondary trading, he added.

The statement cautioned that the Treasury reserves the right to revoke any or all of the newly issued licenses in case the Maduro representatives fail to stick to their word regarding a new electoral map for Venezuela. Of course, the Biden admin won't revoke the deal as long as it gets some oil; then once Biden loses the 2024 elections all bets are off.

Reports about the deal emerged earlier this month, following a string of signals from Washington it was ready to ease the sanction regime in return for commitments from the Venezuelan government to hold new elections.

The U.S. made the biggest move in that direction last year, when it granted Chevron a license to return to Venezuela, and that was without asking for commitments from the Maduro regime because imports of Russian heavy crude had to be replaced urgently with Venezuelan heavy.

Now, the new license regime would allow financial transactions involving PDVSA, which could boost Venezuelan oil exports significantly.

Crude oil exports from Venezuela last month topped 800,000 barrels daily, which was the second-highest monthly export rate since the start of the year. Most of the exports went to China, Reuters reported in early October.

So how much oil is Biden's deal unlocking? According to Bloomberg, Venezuela could be able to raise its crude oil production by 25% from current levels if the temporary U.S. easing of the oil sanctions becomes permanent.

Venezuelas oil production currently stands at a paltry 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to various estimates. The eased sanctions would allow the South American country holding the worlds largest crude oil reserves to boost production by 200,000 bpd, analysts say, although the timing of achieving this increase remains uncertain.

Oil stocks will be in focus Thursday as crude slid on the confirmation of the sanctions being lifted.

Occidental Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Schlumberger are all lower by about 1% in premarket trading.


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On October 7 and 8, some 200 revolutionaries descended on Manhattan for the largest communist event the city has seen in decades: the 2023 New York Marxist School.

[Originally published at socialistrevolution.org]

The comrades met up to discuss and learn about key questions of communist theory, history, and strategy. Participants from New York were also joined by comrades from Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Vermont, Maine, New Jersey, Ohio, Connecticut, South Carolina, St. Louis, and moreas well as from Ontario and Quebec, Canada, and London, UK.

This landmark meeting is part of Socialist Revolutions annual Marxist School series, coming just one week after the highly successful Minneapolis Marxist School, and with two more yet to be held in Phoenix and Bellingham in November.

These Marxist Schools are by no means academic events, but rather, provide crucial training for the urgent tasks faced by communists as the movement is being reborn. Millions feel a burning hatred for the capitalist system and an urgent need to overthrow it to usher in a new and truly dignified era for humanity. As part of that project, the International Marxist Tendency is doing everything possible to find, organize, and train communists.

These schools of communism provide depth of explanation and arm us with the sharpest tools in our arsenal: the revolutionary ideas of Marxism. As such, it was appropriate that the Managing Editor of Socialist Revolution, Antonio Balmer, set the tone from the beginning with a presentation on What is Communism? Why We Need Marxist Theory.

30% of American youth view communism favorably. Antonio explained that this fact alone tells you something about the health of the system. Capitalism is at an impasse and is now in a period of decline. That produces people who do not see a future for themselves under the system  mass consciousness is now catching up to the reality of the impasse of capitalism.

Antonio also delved into the core ideas of Marxism: dialectical materialism and its application to human history, historical materialism / Image: Socialist Revolution

Antonio also delved into the core ideas of Marxism: dialectical materialism and its application to human history, historical materialism. A successful socialist revolution would mean much more than just the end of capitalism. It would usher in a true beginning of human history, enabling homo sapiens to return on a higher level to the state that we occupied for more than 98% of our time on the planet: a society without classes, exploitation, oppression, private property, money, or the state. On the basis of all the existing wealth and productive capacity, a democratically planned economy under a workers government would lay the basis for a world of superabundance, where each contributes according to their ability and receives according to their needs: a communist society.

Next up, Marxist.com Editorial Board member, Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick, kicked off a discussion of the greatest event in human history: the Russian Revolution. With special emphasis on the outstanding theoreticians of the successful revolution: Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Touching on countless lessons from the explosive events of 1917, Jack explained how Russia went from a backwards semi-feudal country to the first in space in less than half a century.

He explained that the Leninist conception of a disciplined and centralized Marxist revolutionary organization was the indispensable catalytic element that enabled that inspiring event in human history, in which millions began to struggle for a new world, elevating millions of women, children, and oppressed peoples out of the barbarous conditions imposed on them by world imperialism and the tsarist autocracy.

The days official sessions were followed by a lively fundraising social where comrades exchanged ideas and experiences for recruiting and training the golden layer of revolutionary communists coming out of the woodwork everywhere.

Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick of the marxist.com Editorial Board kicked off a discussion of the greatest event in human history: the Russian Revolution / Image: Socialist Revolution

To begin day two of the event, Socialist Revolution Editorial Board member, Jon Lange, spearheaded a discussion of the second greatest event in human history for Marxists: the Chinese Revolution of 1949. In his leadoff, Jon explained how the revolution ushered in a new epoch for the east Asian country that fully emancipated it from imperialist colonial rule, dealt a colossal blow to global imperialism, gave a tremendous impetus to the colonial revolution, smashed the dictatorship of landlordism and capital, and ended the backward semi-feudal relations that acted as a tremendous fetter on human progress.

But he also pointed out that Maoism is a variant of Stalinism, a deformed caricature of genuine Marxism which bases itself, not on the creativity, independence, and revolutionary potential of the working class, but on the peasantry. Consequently, the Chinese Revolution lacked revolutionary internationalism and workers democracy, and gave rise a deformed workers state from its inception. China was industrialized on the basis of the planned economy, but by the 1990s, the revolution was reversed and China is now a capitalist country and regional imperialist power.

Following lunch, Socialist Revolution Editorial Board member, Tom Trottier, led off on Building a Communist Party in the US: History and Lessons. He explained that much of the history of the Communist Party (CP) has been wiped out by academia, the mainstream media, and the trade union leaders, because they dont want people to know the role it played in the history of the US.

The discussion synthesized all the positive lessons of the CP at its zenith, while analyzing why it degenerated into a small opportunist sect that today tailends the capitalist Democratic Party. The CP had many self-sacrificing and committed comrades, but they were often misled or not trained in the correct ideas and methods. Above all, the CP lacked a solid foundation of the most important element of any revolutionary party: the revolutionary method of Marxism. It is up to the new generation of communists to learn from this history to build a strong nucleus of a mass communist party today.

Jon Lange explained how the revolution of 1949 ushered in a new epoch for China that fully emancipated it from imperialist colonial rule / Image: Socialist Revolution

The school ended with closing remarks from Socialist Revolution Editorial Board member, Laura Brown, who proclaimed the need to reclaim the mantle of revolutionary communism.

How would a genuine mass communist party act today?  It would use its positions to expose the corrupt nature of capitalist politics and both bourgeois parties. It would not act as a pressure group or limit itself to proposing reforms. Instead, it would push against capitalist limits and place workers at the center of the struggle by encouraging class-independent mobilization in the workplaces and streets.

She also pointed out that our Are You a Communist? campaign is just scratching the surface of the enormous potential that already exists to make this a reality. The human raw material for a mass communist party is already there. History has produced communists by the millions, just waiting to get organized. Over the past few weeks, thousands have written in to join the IMT, and hundreds have joined our ranks.

Everyone has their own particular experience under capitalism, but the common denominator is that life under this decaying system inspires an implacable struggle for its overthrow. To illustrate the point, several comrades from around the country spoke on what led them to get organized for communism: from confronting racism, to womens oppression, to poverty.

Im not only fighting for my loved onesIm fighting for the working class, said one comrade from Philadelphia. Im angry, but I can channel the anger into something productive: building the forces of communism. As a class, we need to channel that anger. We can fight back.

Several comrades from around the country spoke on what led them to get organized for communism / Image: Socialist Revolution

Another comrade from New Haven, Connecticut explained how growing up poor in a segregated Black neighborhood created a feeling of resignation, but the George Floyd protests showed her that people are willing to fight back.

I was shocked that millions were in the streets and cared, so I started organizing in my High School  But once I connected racism and capitalism, I was reading everything I could get my hands on  and then I read an IMT article on Marxism and women, I attended a branch meeting, and everything I already knew was explained in words I could use. Marxism is the way forward.

While these are the words of just some of the communists comrades who have recently gotten organized in our ranks, they express a sentiment and yearning for change that is becoming increasingly generalized. If you feel similarly, the time to act is now. Join the communists and get active in the most important struggle humanity has ever faced: the struggle for socialist revolution in our lifetime!
Communists in Britain have been attacked by the reactionary press for the use of our slogan, Intifada until victory! Cutting across the lies and distortions, we publish our response which looks at the real heritage of the Intifadas, as a source of lessons and inspiration for revolutionaries across the world.

The reactionary media mouthpiece of the British ruling class, The Telegraph, recently published two articles aiming to tar our Marxist societies with the terrorist sympathiser brush, suggesting that the British state ought to silence us for raising this slogan.

A Marxist society at a Russell Group university faces being shut down after putting up anti-Israel posters, one of the articles reads. Posters, it adds, that call for violence.

Quoting a national pro-Zionist group, the article claims that Jewish students (of course, only those Jewish students that The Telegraph is interested in talking to) have condemned this as a thinly veiled call for violence. Alongside this, the paper quotes Education Secretary Gillian Keegans threat to give 14-year sentences to anyone glorifying terrorism.

The Telegraphs exercise in so-called journalism is a call, based upon lies and slander, for censorship and repression. It is an attempt to silence those who dare to place the blame for this war squarely on Benjamin Netanyahu, the Zionist ruling class and the western imperialists that have rushed to their defence.

Both articles by The Telegraph aim through insinuation to obfuscate the real meaning of Intifada. Their journalistic hack has sought to falsely equate Intifada, and all Palestinian resistance, with terrorism and being pro-Hamas.

The ruling class have always attempted to equate revolution with bloodshed. We, however, defend the real heritage of Intifada, which is a source of inspiration and lessons for revolutionaries.

First Intifada

On 7 December 1987, the ruling class was caught aghast by news from Palestine. After twenty years of direct Israeli military occupation since 1967, the Palestinian masses burst onto the scene of history after four Gazans were murdered by an Israeli trucker.

Such acts of terror against innocent Palestinian civilians were commonplace, as they still are. But this time, as with all revolutionary movements, a point had been reached where the people had finally had enough.

The usual methods of putting down the protests of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories with bullets did not work. The arrogant assumption of the Israeli ruling class that a modus vivendi had been struck between the oppressor and oppressed was soon shattered. The Intifada was born. This was unlike any form of Palestinian resistance before.

The power of the first Intifada did not come from rocket attacks or behind-the-scenes conspiracies. The word Intifada literally means shaking off and refers to a mass uprising against oppression. It was the mass character of the movement which gave it its strength. The entire population of Palestine rose up to resist the occupation.

The usual methods of putting down the protests of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories with bullets did not work / Image: Wiki4All, Wikimedia Commons

Within a few weeks, tens of thousands of self-organised committees were set up to resist every aspect of Israeli rule. It would not be incorrect to say that the years of the first Intifada represented the most democratic movement that has ever been seen in Palestine.

Popular committees mushroomed across historic Palestine, where young men and women assumed the day-to-day responsibilities of defying the occupation. Food, healthcare, protests and self-defence were organised from the grassroots.

The sudden and sustained struggle led to general strikes, commercial strikes and roadblocks. Civil disobedience ran through the veins of the First Intifada. The famous tax revolt in Beit Sahour  where Palestinians refused to pay taxes that were levied by the Israeli authorities to fund the maiming and murder of their children  completely undermined the Israeli narrative that they were dealing with terrorists.

Liberated zones were set up across Palestinian villages, towns and refugee camps, where the shababs (young Palestinian men) would chase the IDF out with its tail between its legs. The foot soldiers of the Intifada, young boys that had experienced nothing but life under occupation, were typically armed with sticks and stones, fighting off the Israeli military machine.

This struck an iconic resonance across the world: a true David and Goliath battle, with the Palestinian youth wielding the slingshot.

The youth took control over neighbourhoods; shopkeepers closed their businesses; and the Palestinian working class refused to work in Israel. The Intifada became a clarion call for change from the oppressed and poor in the region.

The accumulated anger and humiliation of the Palestinian people exploded  and this had serious implications for the region as a whole. Solidarity spilled onto the streets of the Arab states. The struggle of the Palestinians began to resonate within Israel itself, with small but significant solidarity being expressed by elements of the Jewish working class and youth.

The brutal repression even began to shake the young IDF soldiers, who became repulsed by the occupation. Sharp divisions within the upper echelons of the Israeli military command also opened up. This was summed up by General Orr, the former supreme commander of the IDF: We all agree that the occupation must end, because maintaining it constitutes a far greater danger to our security than ending it.

The Zionists had lost control of the situation. And this is what worries the western imperialists about the call for an Intifada. It is precisely because it has nothing in common with terrorism. Indeed, it showed the Palestinian masses that they should be at the forefront of their own struggle. It showed them where the real power in society lay and threatened to teach workers across the region that lesson as well.

The Zionists had lost control of the situation / Image: Efi Sharir, Wikimedia Commons

The Intifada severely shook the foundations on which the Zionists rule  and its methods still remain the only way forward for the oppressed and poor. It was, and remains, the most effective way of fighting for lasting liberation for the impoverished Palestinian masses.

Chorus of cynics

For those that, with the boldness of ignorance, equate Intifadas with Hamas, we would refer them back to the historical record. Funded by Israeli security services, with the oversight of the CIA, Hamas was promoted precisely to cut across the strong socialist and secular currents in the Palestinian liberation movement.

As Haaretz recently wrote, Hamas has continued to be promoted by Netanyahu for his own cynical ends. Netanyahus associate Gershon Hacohen let this fact slip in a TV interview in 2019: We need to tell the truth. Netanyahus strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, its an ally.

This has been an open secret for decades. Perhaps the British media should ask Israeli officials whether they, in fact, support Hamas.

For those that are trying to outlaw the slogan of Intifada until victory, we draw their attention to the words of Michael Ben-Yair, the Israeli Attorney General 1993-96:

The Palestinian intifada is a war of national liberation. We Israelis enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities.

There is little we would add.

Violence by who?

It is true that there was violence during the First Intifada.

Extremely violent methods were used by the Israeli state to put down the popular uprising. Over a thousand Palestinians were murdered, including 237 children under the age of 17. Netanyahu himself, before he gained his current position, stated back in 1987 that the IDF should shoot to kill stone throwers. At this time he served as the Israeli ambassador to that great humanitarian institution, the United Nations.

Extremely violent methods were used by the Israeli state to put down the popular uprising / Image: Efi Sharir, Wikimedia Commons

Yitzhak Rabin, the defence secretary who would later shake hands with Arafat on the White House Lawn during the Oslo Accords, became notorious for his broken bones policy towards the shababs.

Deportations, raids, seizure of property, and threats from Shin Bet (Israeli security services) coloured the Israeli response to this show of Palestinian militancy.

It is estimated that two out of every five Palestinian males over the age of 15 in the Occupied Territories was imprisoned during 1987-93. 40,000 were held in administrative detention, kept hostage without trial or proper indictment.

Israels Ansar camps were overwhelmed with political targets, and became known as the camps of slow death. Physical and psychological torture were routine. Prisoners would be locked away in isolation rooms, with a sack over their head, handcuffed, and forced to stand. Brutal methods  echoing the abuses later seen at the USs Abu Ghraib camp during the Iraq war  were commonplace.

Naturally, there is no mention of this by our enemies. All those raising a hue and cry about inciting violence on campuses willfully ignore who perpetrates the real violence, and to what end. Their Doublespeak is understandable. By lining up behind the Israeli ruling class, they apologise for the bloodshed of a murderous, genocidal regime.

These ladies and gentlemen cry their crocodile tears as hospitals are bombed, yet remain intransigent in siding with the Israeli regime. It is no wonder that millions do not trust a single word they utter or believe the headlines they print.

Tragedy

The First Intifada opened up a truly unprecedented situation. So unstable did the situation become that US imperialism put pressure on the Zionist ruling class to pay lip service to a two-state solution. Everything had to be done to prevent a full-scale revolution.

The official Palestinian leadership was also worried about the threat of revolution. When the First Intifada erupted, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) leaders were stationed in Tunis. The Intifada had been a wholly spontaneous movement, and had thrown up its own leadership in Palestine that was beyond the control of the PLO.

Yasser Arafat, who headed up the PLO, viewed the conflict through a purely nationalist lens. He had no perspective of a socialist revolution in the Middle East. As far as the official Palestinian leadership was concerned, the spontaneous, grassroots movement had run out of their control, and they were keen to manoeuvre into the leadership and apply the brakes.

The Zionists could therefore make use of the PLO leaders.

The result  in the form of the 1993 Oslo accords  marked a humiliation of everything the Palestinians had fought for. With the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Palestinian nationalism had been put to a severe test, and failed.

Arafat used his personal authority by leaning on the Palestinian masses militancy. He traded it as a bargaining chip with Israel, while suppressing internal opposition. Handshakes, summits, roadmaps, dinners at fancy resorts, and the peace treaties that the Palestinian leadership brokered signified one thing  betrayal.

A common peace and prosperity between the peoples could not be achieved on a capitalist basis / Image: public domain

Between 1993-2000, the number of settlers almost doubled in the West Bank from 110,900 to 190,206. Israel flouted all of her main commitments set out at Oslo. The continued occupation was rightly seen by millions as the bitter fruits of the peace process.

When Israels much despised defence secretary, Ariel Sharon, visited the Al-Aqsa mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem in 2000, this was the final straw for the Palestinians. This flagrant provocation led to the Second Intifada breaking out.

This once again began as a spontaneous mass uprising of the Palestinians. All that was promised by Arafat and co. had melted into air. A common peace and prosperity between the peoples could not be achieved on a capitalist basis.

But the lack of a genuinely revolutionary leadership stymied the opportunity to end the occupation by making class appeals to all the poor and oppressed in the region to rise up. In many ways, the Second Intifada was characterised by bitterness and desperation.

The leadership of Fatah and Hamas  which was also on the rise  offered no way out. Instead of mass struggle, as had been the tradition of the Intifadas, they turned increasingly towards the methods of bombings and rocket attacks, which relegated the role of the masses and could not defeat the occupation. In the end, the Fatah and Palestinian Authority leadership agreed, under George W Bushs roadmap to peace to end armed actions, and once more assume the role of subcontractors for the IDF in the occupied territories.

The lack of a genuinely revolutionary leadership stymied the opportunity to end the occupation / Image: public domain

The rise of Hamas during these years was a direct product of the venal Palestinian Authoritys capitulation to Israel. This is the tragedy of the Intifadas.

The opportunity to overthrow the Zionist ruling class  and all the dictators in the Middle East that are responsible for the plight of the Palestinians  was squandered. But this certainly wont be the last.

Intifada until victory!

Thirty years on from Oslo, it is no surprise that the Palestinian youth are looking through the lessons of history for a way forward. The potential for a much greater conflagration across the entire region of those oppressed under the heel of imperialism is clear to all.

The Intifadas above all have two lessons. Firstly, that the masses of the region have enormous power when they enter struggle  they are the only power that can bring down Zionism and imperialism. And secondly, that leadership is a key factor: in order to truly realise this potential power, a revolutionary socialist leadership must be built.

The Palestinian general strike in May 2021  named the Unity Intifada  was a step in the direction of mass struggle. Only through revolutionary struggle against the regimes of the whole region  a new Intifada  will the masses be freed from the shackles of imperialism.

We have come under attack for using a slogan for which we make no apologies. We will continue to use every injustice against the Palestinian people to pour scorn on our hypocritical ruling class. We will continue to organise in schools, on campus and in workplaces to overthrow the capitalists and the imperialists.

We reject outright the accusation that our slogan presents a threat to Jewish people in Britain. The struggle to overthrow the Zionist state is the only way to end the enmity between the peoples in historic Palestine.

To spell it out for our enemies: communists stand on the side of the oppressed over the oppressor. That is the elementary duty of anyone struggling for a world free from war, oppression and exploitation. We will, therefore, not take moral sermons from those that make apologies for the violence of the Israeli state. Or, for that matter, by a billionaire-funded media outlet that has blood on its hands.

The communists of the IMT will continue to defend the revolutionary heritage of the Palestinian uprising, and boldly put forward the slogan at every opportunity: Intifada until victory!




NEW DELHI (PTI): The Indian defence ministry said it has signed a contract with Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd for construction of the first Indian Coast Guard training ship at a cost of Rs 310 crore.



It would be the first dedicated training platform with integral helicopter capabilities that will provide basic sea training to Coast Guard personnel and other international trainee officers, according to the ministry on Tuesday.



"The Ministry of Defence signed a contract for the construction of one training ship for the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) with Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd, Mumbai at a cost of Rs 310 crore," it said.



The ministry said the training ship with advanced and modern high-tech surveillance and monitoring systems will provide "profound insight and expertise" to the ICG cadets on the challenges at sea while ensuring the security of coastline and offshore assets.



"The majority of equipment and systems will be sourced from indigenous manufacturers, including MSMEs. The project envisages to generate significant employment over a period of three years," it said in a statement.



"While meeting the objectives of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat', the contract would also boost the indigenous shipbuilding capability and help in bolstering maritime economic capabilities," the ministry said.






MUMBAI (PTI): The Indian Navy is monitoring the developments in West Asia and also keeping a sharp watch on the Chinese Navy's activities in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) by the hour, a top Navy officer has said in the context of the escalating Hamas-Israel conflict.



Replying to a host of questions in a session at the Global Maritime India Summit 2023 here on Wednesday, Vice Admiral Dinesh Tripathi, who heads the crucial Western Naval Command, said the Navy is fully aware of Chinese activities in the IOR or the possible ripple effects of happenings in West Asia.



"There is constantly at this point of time there is someone in the naval headquarters or the command headquarters working on what could happen after whatever is happening in West Asia (a reference to the Hamas-Israel conflict)," he said.



The vice admiral said as far as the Chinese are concerned, we are keeping a sharp watch on whatever they are doing in the South China Sea.



"In the Indian Ocean, we are keeping a sharp watch as to where their research ship, spy ship, satellite tracking ship, warships (are) wherever they are by the hour," Vice Admiral Tripathi said while replying to questions.



Earlier speaking at the event, the senior naval commander also said that piracy has been one of the constant challenges in the last 10-15 years, "It is largely contained through international cooperation and coordination," he added.



Nityanand Rai, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, said with India's growing stature, its responsibility in the Indian Ocean is also increasing.



On the occasion, S Paramesh, Additional Director General, of the Indian Coast Guard, emphasised collectively increasing the sharing of information for better threat assessment and coordinated response.



"Investments in technologies like satellite surveillance and unmanned drones will greatly enhance maritime security efforts," Paramesh said.



Hostilities between Israel and Hamas began after armed Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack on Israel by land, air, and sea on October 7. Since the start of hostilities, as many as 2,778 Palestinians have been killed.



Media reports have cited official Israeli sources as saying that at least 1,400 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel.


Five third parties are now contesting Fingal Co Council's green light for Amazon Web Services's plans to construct three new data centres in north Dublin.

This follows five objectors lodging appeals with An Bord Pleanala against the decision by Fingal County Council to grant planning permission to AWS firm, Universal Developers LLC for the three new data centre buildings with a combined power load of 73MW for the AWS data centre campus on a 65 acre land-holding at Cruiserath Road, Dublin 15.

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In addition to the three granted planning permission, one AWS data centre is already operational on the campus while construction work continues on two others.

The Council granted planning permission despite opposition from Friends of the Earth, Not Here Not Anywhere, Gluaiseacht and others.

Appeals have now been lodged by Friends of the Earth, the Fingal One Future Group, Dr Colin Doyle, John Conway and Louth Environmental Group and Mannix Coyne.

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On behalf of Friends of the Earth, its Head of Policy, Jerry MacEvilly has requested An Bord Pleanala to stage an oral hearing.

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Mr MacEvilly has told the appeals board that the proposed development will impose significant pressures on electricity sector decarbonisation and it is at best unclear how the operation of the proposed development over its lifetime will be compatible with the increasingly stringent carbon budgets.

On behalf of the Fingal One Future group, Dr Sarah Zimmermann has told the appeals board that the granting of planning permission for the three data centres represents a triple threat in the context of the Irish energy system.

Dr Zimmermann states that the three threats relate to energy security, the security of our power system and to our pollution limits.

Dr Zimmermann contends that data centres currently use a fifth of all energy consumed in Ireland and is it unsustainable that more than half (62pc) of the countrys expected increase in electricity demand between 2021 and 2025 is set to come from large energy users such as data centres.

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In his appeal, Dr Colin Doyle of Station Rd, Ennis contends that the grant of permission effectively amounts to an ad hoc allocation of a portion of the remaining limited national carbon budget to the applicant.

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Dr Doyle said that the proposed development when connected to the grid would cause an immediate increased power demand of 73MW.

Dr Doyle argues that as renewables cannot instantly adjust to match a new base load, the additional generation will in fact be provided by existing fossil fuel power plants.

In the Conway and Louth Environmental Group appeals, bkc Solicitors argue that the scheme is inconsistent with the proper planning and sustainable development.

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However, in granting a seven-year planning permission, the Council concluded that the construction of the three data centres would be consistent with European and Government policy concerning the development of digital infrastructure.

The Council concluded that the project would not, in itself or taken cumulatively with other developments have a detrimental direct or indirect impact on the environment.

The planning authority included a condition that prior to the operation of the data centres, that AWS have in place a Corporate Purchase Power Agreement (CPPA) which demonstrates that the energy consumed by the data centres is matched by new AWS renewable energy generation here.

The Council stated that the new renewable energy projects shall be located in Ireland and the amount of electricity generated by the renewable energy projects shall be equal to or greater than the electricity requirements of the data centres in operation at any given time.

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Planning consultant for the AWS firm, John Spain told the council that the proposed development does not entail a new request for power because it has an existing connection agreement and will be supplied power by an existing transmission system.

Mr Spain stated that the existing connection agreement provides for eight incremental increases in power supply to the site, commencing in 2022 and completing in 2029.
An application can be made to strike out High Court proceedings by a private hospital company against the VHI health insurer next July if the company has not first come up with 1.79 million in legal costs should it lose the action, a judge has ruled.

Mr Justice Max Barrett made the ruling on Thursday when he formalised orders he made last week that Limerick Private Ltd and its director Shay Sweeney must provide security for costs in the case.

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They have sued the Voluntary Health Insurance (VHI) Board, claiming the insurer abused its dominant position by refusing to provide cover for their proposed new hospital in Limerick, in breach of competition law.

They also seek damages for interference with their constitutional right to earn a livelihood. VHI denies the claims.

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The Limerick Private Hospital project was a proposal for a five-storeys above ground structure, with three levels underground, costing some 75 million. It would have 95 beds and six operating theatres.

Planning permission was granted in March 2007.

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It is claimed that as a result of the VHI refusing cover for the proposed hospital  a key component in private hospital funding  Limerick Private was unable to obtain third party funding.

VHI sought security for costs which was opposed by Limerick Private and Mr Sweeney on grounds including that it was the actions of the defendant which led to their impecuniosity.

Mr Justice Barrett did not accept their impecuniosity was caused by the defendant's wrongdoing.

When the case returned before him on Thursday, he was told the sides had agreed the wording of orders in relation to the judge's decision on security for costs.

However, there was disagreement on whether there should be a time limit on when the monies should be provided before VHI would be entitled to apply to strike out the entire proceedings.

The judge disagreed with VHI's suggestion that the security should be provided within 90 days of the making of his order.

However, he said the money should be provided by June 24th, 2024, and if not, VHI can apply in July to strike out the case.

ends
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has said he believes the UK government is moving closer to addressing his partys concerns over post-Brexit trade.

The DUP has been blocking powersharing for more than a year in protest at the internal UK trade barriers created by Brexits Northern Ireland Protocol.

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The party says the framework deal struck by the EU and the UK to reform the protocol does not sufficiently address its concerns and has made clear it will not accept a return to devolution until the British government provides further assurances, by way of legislation, over Northern Irelands place in the UK internal market.

One of the main parts of the framework  the green/red lane system for the movement of goods  became operational at Northern Ireland ports at the beginning of this month.

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Talks between the DUP and the British government have been ongoing over the summer.

Mr Donaldson was responding to BBC Question Time audience member Gary Clark, who asked: How much longer should the people of Northern Ireland have to tolerate a lack of devolved government and crumbling public services?

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Speaking in Lisburn, Mr Donaldson said there are elements of the Windsor Framework that represent progress, but there remain some areas that still have to be resolved.

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He added: I think we are closer to finding a resolution than we were at the beginning of this process when no-one was listening, when the EU said there would be no renegotiation.

Mr Donaldson said he wanted to see Stormont back up and running as the Northern Irelands finances are not adequate to deliver effective public services.

However, he said he wanted the institution to be restored on a sustainable basis and under cross-community consensus.

He said: That is why the DUP at the outset, recognised that the solution for Northern Ireland was not to put a hard border on the island, but equally, the solution is not to put a border in the Irish Sea. There are ways we can resolve this.

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Sorcha Eastwood said the DUP should get out of the way if it did not want to return to powersharing (Liam McBurney/PA)

In answering the question, Alliance MLA Sorcha Eastwood said Northern Ireland should not be without a government for a second longer.

Ms Eastwood then told Mr Donaldson that the people of Lagan Valley were hurting due to the collapse of Northern Irelands institutions.

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She added: Every single one of those families is hurting. People getting sicker on waiting lists, schools having to collect money for books, toilet roll, everything else.

This is not our first rodeo. It wasnt right whenever Sinn Fein did it. It certainly isnt right whenever youre doing it.

And you know what we are saying? Not a minute longer, not a single minute longer. Youve made a decision, and its the wrong decision.

She added: We understand that you have a problem but heres where it becomes everyone elses problem.

You dont get to take your ball and go off the pitch just because its something you dont like. We didnt like Brexit but we worked on it, we made it happen and you know what?

Our job is to govern, our job is to stand for election and do our job. So if you dont want to do the job, get out of the way.

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Sinn Fein MP John Finucane described as the outworking of a Brexit project that the DUP championed and welcomed with open arms.

He said it was anti-democratic not to return to powersharing.

Sinn Fein MP John Finucane said the collapse of Northern Irelands institutions was a consequence of Brexit (Liam McBurney)

Mr Finucane highlighted an upcoming investment conference in the North and said attending US firms would be seeking political stability.

He said: So not a single day longer should we have to wait for the absence of an assembly. We need an assembly. We need an executive.

Where I will agree with Jeffrey is that we need an executive with a single voice, demanding the resources to begin to tackle the problems that this room know that we have, but the way to do that is not outside  its inside taking your place along with everybody else.

In response, Mr Donaldson highlighted that Mr Finucane and other Sinn Fein MPs do not take their seats at Westminster.

He also criticised Ms Eastwood for talking about a politics of exclusion by suggesting Unionists should get out of the way.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris was accused of implementing a punishment budget (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris told the Question Time audience that this place operates on consensus and he could not intervene in the DUPs decision not to enter Stormont to govern.

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He said: So my job has been to try and sort out the just concerns, and some of them are very just, for the Unionist community and their politicians.

Asked if a deal with the DUP was imminent, Mr Heaton-Harris said: I would love it to be. I think we are in the final phases of a wonderful group of talks.

Asked if he agreed talks were in the final phases, Mr Donaldson said: We are moving closer.

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn said checks on goods on Northern Ireland have to be implemented sensibly and sensitively

He added: The question is, is that principle of how the checks operate on the green lane big enough to continue to mean that Northern Ireland has no government?

And all I can tell you is since I was appointed on September 4, just about every conversation Ive had with all the people Ive been meeting has come back down to: We havent got a functioning government and we need a functioning government.

The people of Northern Ireland need it and the current budget is not sustainable, for the reasons that have been set out so clearly, and that needs to change too.

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Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn (Liam McBurney/PA)

Mr Heaton-Harris was directly criticised from the audience for washing his hands of responsibility for having a functioning Executive in Northern Ireland.

It was put to him that he had imposed a punishment budget on Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Secretary rejected this, saying it was a misunderstanding of what is happening here.

He said the money was set aside in the Spending Review properly and thoroughly and that Westminster could not impose itself on Northern Ireland.

He added: How its spent is determined by the executive, if there was an executive sitting. and as someone did say, what all this needs is a joined-up approach and thats exactly what you have ministers for.

He later said he was happy to talk with a reformed executive about what makes a budget sustainable.
The countrys largest energy supplier, Electric Ireland, breached conditions of its licences by overcharging 48,000 electricity gas customers around 1.1 million as well as issuing delayed bills to another 25,000 customers, according to the industry regulator.

The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) said Electric Ireland customers, as well as some former customers, had been overcharged by an average of 23 over a 12-month period up to August 2023.

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All customers who were overcharged have been refunded, while those overcharged by more than 40 also received some compensation.

Electric Ireland said all former customers should be refunded by the end of October, while it would make a charitable donation in lieu of any refunds that cannot be made.

The problem arose from inaccurate bills which had resulted from incorrect calculations of discount rates.

The regulator said it had determined that the company had failed to issue accurate bills on a regular basis as required under its Customer Charter and Code of Practice for Customer Billing and Disconnection.

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It also found that Electric Ireland was unaware for two months that it was late in issuing bills to some microgeneration customers.

The CRU said it would monitor the company to ensure that it continues to conform to all the conditions and requirements of its licences.

It acknowledged that Electric Ireland had already undertaken some remedial actions as well as conducting an internal review.

The CRU said once completed it would seek written confirmation that all affected customers had been refunded.

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The regulator said the overcharging arose after household electricity and gas customers who were on a high discount plan moved to a lower rate after their contract expired.

However, only the lower discount rate was applied in bills that covered the contract expiry date instead of two different rates over the relevant periods.

The CRU said the overcharging arose from a business process error.

It said there was an incorrect assumption about discount rates by Electric Ireland which was due to a lack of a clear understanding across the business that changes were required to adapt the existing product to make it fit for the products concerned.

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The company claimed the root cause of the problem was process failures rather than any inherent defects in its billing system.

The CRU said Electric Ireland had applied bill blocks while it was acting to solve the problem which had meant the issuing of some bills was delayed.

The company has asked the regulator to consider that the delay in issuing bills was a technical breach, while there was a relatively low level of customer harm.

The CRU accepted that there was no deliberate breach by Electric Ireland and that the company had self-reported both incidents and co-operated with its inquiry.

However, it noted that it was not the first instance of delayed billing by Electric Ireland that it had to examine.
President Michael D Higgins will meet Pope Francis during a private audience in the pontiffs library at the Vatican on Thursday.

It is anticipated that President Higgins will discuss a number of issues of shared interest with Francis, including climate change, migration, poverty, food security, the rights of indigenous people and global peace.

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Mr Higgins has previously praised the contribution that Francis has made to the debate on these issues.

It will be the fourth meeting between Mr Higgins and Francis, following previous meetings in the Vatican in 2017 and 2021 and at the presidential residence Aras an Uachtarain in Dublin in 2018.

Michael D Higgins is heading to the Vatican (PA)

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President Higgins also met Francis at the Papal Inauguration in 2013.

At their meeting, Mr Higgins will present Francis with a sculpture entitled The Expelled by renowned Irish sculptor John Behan.

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The president chose to present this piece to Francis in recognition of the pontiffs work in drawing public attention to the plight of refugees and migrants across the world.

Mr Behan is one of Irelands best-known living sculptors and has a recent focus on depictions of the experiences of refugees around the world.

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Pope Francis will be presented with a sculpture (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)

Following his private audience with Francis, Mr Higgins will hold a bilateral meeting with the Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Parolin.

President Higgins will then travel to Campo Santo in the Teutonic Pontifical College, where he will lay a wreath in honour of the late Monsignor Hugh OFlaherty, whose work during the Nazi occupation of Rome during the Second World War saved the lives of thousands of people.

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This year marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Monsignor OFlaherty.

President Higgins will also view the exhibition Ireland and the Birth of Europe at the Irish Pontifical College in Rome. The exhibition tells the story of the role played by Irish scholars and missionaries, including Saint Columbanus and his followers, in the shaping of a shared European identity.

The events coincide with the presidents participation in the World Food Forum.
A man who was assaulted at a barbecue, kicked in the head and ended up with multiple fractures to his face has been awarded a total of 167,000 by the High Court.

Ms Justice Carmel Stewart said Czech national Jiri Kocurek had undoubtedly suffered injuries which were traumatic and affected his life for some time. She said it was a most unfortunate case.

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Mr Kocurek (45), of Virginia, Co Cavan, had sued Piotr Swidniak, a Polish national from Ashford Downs, Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan, over the assault on March 25th, 2017, at a barbecue in Ballyjamesduff.

The case was before the court for assessment of damages only after the court heard a judgment had been previously granted in default of appearance. However, Mr Swidniak, a father of three, was in court and he asked the judge to consider that he would not be able to pay because of his financial situation.

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The judge said Mr Swidniaks appeal could not form any part of her ruling, which was solely the assessment of damages.

She awarded Mr Kocurek 167,000, which included loss of earnings and 20,000 towards the replacement of teeth he lost as a result of the assault.

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Mr Kocureks counsel, Michael Mulcahy SC with David Burke BL, told the court that Mr Kocurek lost eight teeth in the altercation, which Mr Mulcahy described as a violent and sustained assault.

He said Mr Kocurek had been kicked by Mr Swidniak, who was wearing steel-capped boots.

In the proceedings it was claimed that both men were attending a barbecue in Ballyjamesduff. Mr Swidniak allegedly consumed an excessive amount of alcohol and repeatedly insulted Mr Kocurek and also asked him to purchase alcohol for him. Mr Kocurek refused to do it and it was claimed Mr Swidniak pushed him.

It was claimed the two men fell over a fence onto the driveway of another property where Mr Kocurek was kicked in the head repeatedly. It was further claimed a childs tricycle was used to assault him.

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In evidence Mr Kocurek, who sustained fractures to bones in his nose, around his eyes and jaw, said the assault changed his life. He said he was afraid to go out and did not go back to work until 2021.

He said he had problems with his right eye and had double vision and also has numbness on his face along with a scar under his eye.

It has changed my life, he told the judge through an interpreter.
A business owner in Midleton, Co Cork, has described how water in his shop was up to his knees in just 15 minutes due to flooding from Storm Babet.

Firat 'Freddie' Uygun is the owner of the Fresh n Freddie barbershop on Main Street in the town which was severely damaged by floods.

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Counties Cork and Waterford were worst hit, with some areas still underwater on Thursday morning.

The Army and Civil Defence units supported evacuation measures in Midleton, as more than a months worth of rain fell in the space of 24 hours.

People walk past damaged shops on Main Street in Midleton, Co Cork, after Storm Babet swept in (Brian Lawless/PA)

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Mr Uygun said the intense rain caused his premises to flood extremely quickly.

Yesterday it was raining all day and then I was just walking around the town and I saw the autopark got flooded and I was running to let the people know, like my friends car was in that, in the autopark, and we were saving up the cars, he said.

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When I came back to my shop I saw the water was rising up in the back of the shop and then straight away I went to call up to get some sandbags.

When I went back, literally 20 to 15 minutes, everything happened in 15 minutes. When I went back, the water was up to my knees all of a sudden, and then I saw the flooring was floating on the water.

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Firat Freddie Uygun outside his barbershop on Main street in Midleton (Brian Lawless/PA)

As of Thursday morning, a number of homes and business were still without electricity.

Mr Uygun said he hoped to be operational again by the weekend but that extended work would be needed to repair the flood damage.

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A couple of the lads are helping me just to get rid of the flooring first, he said.

We put all the debris here on the footpath, we are waiting on the council to send the skips, which they will send eventually, hopefully.

We will just get rid of the debris and clean the shop and plan to get back in business on Saturday.

Because this part is grand, I can still work because its just a barbershop for the chairs, and keep going as long as I have electricity, which I dont at the moment.

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And then by the coming weeks I will try to get the shop fixed slowly and then everything will be grand, hopefully.

Screengrab taken with permission from video by @realLiamMac of a flooded street in Midleton, Co Cork (@realLiamMac/PA)

Mr Uygun said his business insurance did not cover flooding for his area.

They said that we did not cover for the Midleton area. I said whats the point of paying it then, he said.

Like I have public liability insurance, tradesman insurance, I have all add-ons but it still does not cover flooding. Which is ridiculous.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the Government will provide support through humanitarian schemes to help those impacted by flooding.

Mr Uygun said the Government should arrange grants for business owners to help with the costs of damage from the storm.

They set an orange warning days before they knew it was going to happen eventually, but they did not do anything, he said.

Drains were full of mud, drains did not do their job as they should have done.
A senior member of staff at BBC News has admitted the corporation made a mistake while covering the immediate aftermath of the bombing of a hospital in Gaza City.

Hamas has blamed an Israeli air strike for the attack on Tuesday, while the Israeli military said al Ahli hospital was instead hit by a rocket misfired by Palestinian militants.

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At the Media Societys Reporting The Israel Hamas Conflict event on Thursday, deputy chief executive of BBC News Jonathan Munro said the broadcasters language wasnt quite right during live reporting.

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The director of journalism at the corporation said The correspondent (Jon Donnison) was wrong to speculate about the cause of the explosion of the hospital.

At no stage did he actually say it was caused by the Israelis but nonetheless, when the impression is left that weve speculated, (it) is important to correct that which weve done.

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He added: Somewhere along the line, human beings are going to make a mistake on a bit of output and when it gets magnified and is used as an example of getting things wrong, its a very uncomfortable place to be.

And of course, it shouldnt have happened and we need to make sure that were doubling down on (keeping) our language absolutely accurate.

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This follows Israels president Isaac Herzog telling the UK prime minister on Thursday there should be a correction issued over the BBCs coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Mr Herzog told Rishi Sunak: We feel that the way the BBC characterises Hamas is a distortion of the facts.

Mr Munro also said that the BBCs use of language has been allowed or encouraged to become the primary story in media reports that have focused on the BBCs policy not to use the word terrorist in regards to Hamas.

The broadcaster has made clear that the group is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK government.

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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)

Mr Munro also said: Theres absolutely no way that we are trying to equalise whats going on between Hamas and Israel in any way, shape, or form.

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Weve used very strong language; atrocity, mass murder, abduction and kidnapping.

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Mr Munro also spoke about a pro-Palestinian group claiming responsibility for vandalising the BBCs Broadcasting House headquarters with red paint and a peaceful protest by Jewish groups.

He said: Groups representing both communities decided that they would protest at the BBC because they believe the coverage that we put on air or online was biased against their perspective.

That goes some way to explaining that we are in a very difficult situation here of impartiality, this is a very, very difficult story, to tread a line without one community or other feeling that we are less sympathetic to them than we are to the opposite perspective.

He added that he is pushing back on people saying that the BBC Today programme interviews are leaning towards one viewpoint or another.

The President of Israel, Isaac Herzog (Justin Tallis/PA)

Mr Munro also said: If you think about the perspective of those people who protest the opposite, it might give you an idea of how tricky it is to satisfy everybody who are members of our audiences.

Some of whom have views about the rights and wrongs of whichever aspect of this war were covering. That is the balance were trying to strike.

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And when you get your building door (painted), by the way, to come to a laymans point, the stress of mental health on people going about their normal daily business is really profound.

The BBC said the correspondent was giving instant analysis on the ground from Jerusalem in what was a confusing and difficult story.

The statement also read: We accept that even in this fast-moving situation it was wrong to speculate in this way, although he did not at any point report that it was an Israeli strike.

This doesnt represent the entirety of the BBCs output and anyone watching, listening to or reading our coverage can see we have set out both sides competing claims about the explosion, clearly showing who is saying them, and what we do or dont know.
EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness has said that the European Union speaks with one voice about the importance of humanitarian aid for Gaza while also being very clear in its condemnation of the Hamas attack on Israel.

It was important to stick to the rules of law and crucial that a way to talk about peace was found, she told RTE radios News at One.

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It was also true to say that among EU member states there were different nuances about this issue, she added. But I think that everyone stands on two basic principles.

"One is that what happened to Israeli families, and not only the death and destruction, but now the hostages that are in Gaza. And secondly, and that was appalling and nobody in their right mind would say other than that. But equally to Israel, that they, in response, in self-defence, have to abide by the humanitarian laws of war.

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"And I think that lesson and that message was repeated in the European Parliament. It's been repeated by leaders right across the European Union and indeed by the president.

Ms McGuinness said the EU realised that it needed to speak with one voice for human rights, for the Palestinians and families with no access to water and food.

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While the visit of US president Joe Biden had an impact, the EU was equally committed to finding a peaceful solution.

We need to find a way where peace can prevail in a region where sadly, we have so many decades of where peace has not prevailed.

And I go back to the 7th of October, and we absolutely acknowledge the pain that was suffered by Israel and its families. But also we have to acknowledge that the families, the young children who cannot have access to water, who may not have access to medical care, who are being asked to move because Israel has so far delayed going into Gaza that their lives are at risk now. And our absolute objective as one Europe is to get humanitarian aid flowing.

When asked about the comments by Ursula von der Leyen and subsequent criticism by President Michael D Higgins, Ms McGuinness said she had great respect for both presidents, neither of whom was reckless, nor thoughtless.

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I think that in this case, the president (von der Leyen) took a decision to go and to give solidarity with Israel. But equally, I think, clarified very strongly yesterday in her statement to the European Parliament that we have to make sure that humanitarian laws are abided by Israel as they go to defend themselves.

And it is, I suppose, a small, again, welcome that there is no invasion., she added. But weapons were being fired into Gaza and people were being injured.

The hospitals seem to be in a terrible state. So I think with one voice we can say that this situation in the Middle East, in this part of the world, has the risk of going from very bad to much worse unless we speak with one voice.

"So wherever there might have been some sense that that was not the case, I think now it's very clear. I think we are united in trying to help in this very, very difficult situation.
Israel has said it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came a day after a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza doctors treating the many wounded as medical supplies ran out.

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The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies came as rage over Tuesday nights blast at al Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as US president Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said the decision was approved after a request from Mr Biden.

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It said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and do not go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of badly needed fuel.

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Mr Biden said Egypts president agreed to open the crossing and, to begin with, to let in 20 trucks with humanitarian aid.

If Hamas confiscates aid, it will end, he said. White House officials said the aid would flow as early as Friday, once the roads are patched.

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At the Rafah crossing, Gazas only connection to Egypt, truckloads of aid have been waiting for days to enter. But the facility has only a limited capacity, and Egypt says it has been damaged by Israeli air strikes.

US president Joe Biden visited Israel (Miriam Alster/pool photo via AP)

Supplies will eventually go in under supervision of the UN, Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. He did not specify the number of trucks.

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Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

The war started when Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on October 7th.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the explosion at the hospital. Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli air strike, saying nearly 500 were killed.

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(PA Graphics)

Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

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The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

Upon his arrival, Mr Biden embraced Mr Netanyahu  and expressed concern for the suffering of Gazas civilians. He later said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israels fault.

Mr Biden said data from his defence department showed it was not likely a strike by the Israeli military.

And a National Security Council spokesperson later posted on social media that an analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information showed that Israel was not behind the attack. But the US continued to collect evidence.

Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, Mr Biden told Mr Netanyahu in remarks in front of the media.

Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip (Ariel Schalit/AP)

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed shortly before Mr Bidens arrival, after a 12-hour lull.

Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on Wednesday, including on cities in south Gaza that Israel had described as safe zones for Palestinian civilians.

After the hospital blast, Jordan cancelled a meeting between Mr Biden, Jordans King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Mr Biden was now visiting only Israel.

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The war between Israel and Hamas was pushing the region to the brink, Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi told state-run television.

The Israeli military held a briefing on Wednesday morning laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at the al Ahli Hospital.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said it was not firing in the area when the blast occurred.

And, he said, Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage was fired by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery at the time of the blast, around 6.59pm Independent video showed one of the rockets in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said.

The misfired rocket hit the car park outside the hospital, he said. Were it an air strike, there would have been a crater there, instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rockets warhead and its unspent propellant, he added.

The Israeli military also released a recording they said was between two Hamas militants discussing the blast, during which the speakers say it was believed to be an Islamic Jihad misfire.

Rear Adm Hagari said Israelis intelligence would be shared with US and British officials. He also questioned the death toll provided by Gazas Hamas-led Health Ministry.

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Since the war began, roughly 450 rockets fired at Israel by militant groups had landed in Gaza, the Israeli military said.

Wounded Palestinians at the al Shifa hospital in Gaza City following Israeli air strikes (Abed Khaled/AP)

Hamas called Tuesdays hospital blast a horrific massacre, saying it was caused by an Israeli strike. Islamic Jihad dismissed Israels claims, accusing Israel of trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.

The group pointed to Israels order that al Ahli be evacuated and reports of a previous strike at the hospital as proof that the hospital was an Israeli target. It also said the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bombs fall and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israel.

The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, said the hospital, run by the Episcopal Church, had received at least three Israeli military orders to evacuate in the days before the blast.

It was hit by Israeli shelling on Sunday, wounding four staffers, he said. Israel had ordered all 22 hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate last week.

He declined to cast blame on either party for the blast, saying: As people of the cloth, we are not military experts. We just want to let people see what is happening on the ground and hope that people will come to the conclusion that weve had enough of this war.

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Palestinians inspect the damage at al Ahli hospital in Gaza City (Abed Khaled/AP)

The blast left gruesome scenes. Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.

On Wednesday morning, the blast scene was littered with charred cars and the ground was blackened by debris.

Video after the blast showed the hospital grounds strewn with bodies, many of them young children.

Some 350 casualties from the al Ahli blast were rushed to Gaza Citys main hospital, al Shifa, which was already overwhelmed with wounded from other strikes, said its director, Mohammed Abu Selmia. He said doctors were performing surgery on patients lying on floors.

We need equipment, we need medicine, we need beds we need everything, Mr Abu Selmia said. He warned that fuel for the hospitals generators would run out within hours.

A man sits outside a building destroyed by an Israeli bombardment at the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip (Fatima Shbair/AP)

The death toll was in dispute, even among those in Gaza. The Health Ministry initially said 500 had died, but revised that number to 471 on Wednesday, without giving details of the dead. Al Ahli officials said only that the toll was in the hundreds. Mr Abu Selmia said he thought the toll was closer to 250.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 12,000 wounded, with most of the casualties women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians killed during Hamass deadly incursion, which resulted in some 200 hostages being taken into Gaza. Militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since towards cities across Israel.

With troops massed along the border, Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

A strike on a three-storey building in Gaza City on Wednesday killed 40 people and another on a bakery in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed four bakers, according to witnesses.

Palestinians carrying belongings leave the al Ahli hospital, where they had been taking shelter (Abed Khaled/AP)

The Israeli military says it is targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centres and accuses the militants of hiding among civilians.

Its not just that people are going hungry. People are at the risk of starvation, said Alia Zaki, a spokesperson for the World Food Programme.

More than one million Palestinians have fled their homes  roughly half of Gazas population  and 60% are now in the approximately eight-mile long area south of the evacuation zone, the UN said.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip with air strikes, including in the south where Palestinians were told to take refuge, and the countrys defence minister has told ground troops to be ready to invade, though he did not say when.

Gazas overwhelmed hospitals tried to stretch out ebbing medical supplies and fuel for diesel generators to keep the equipment running, as authorities worked out logistics for a delivery of aid into the area from Egypt.

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Doctors in darkened wards across Gaza stitched wounds by mobile phone light, and others used vinegar to treat infected wounds.

Meanwhile an unclassified US intelligence assessment delivered to Congress estimated casualties in an explosion at a Gaza City hospital on the low end of 100 to 300 deaths.



Smoke rises from destroyed buildings following Israeli air strikes on Gaza City (Mohammed Dahman/AP)

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The death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life, US intelligence officials said in the findings, which were seen by The Associated Press.

The assessment said intelligence officials were still assessing the evidence and their casualty estimate may evolve.

President Joe Biden and other US officials have already said that US intelligence officials believed the explosion was not caused by an Israeli air strike.

Thursdays findings echoed that.

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The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for a devastating Hamas rampage in southern Israel almost two weeks ago.

Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north of Gaza and flee south, strikes extended across the territory, heightening fears among the territorys two million people that nowhere was safe.

Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel on Thursday from Gaza and Lebanon, and tensions flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In a fiery speech to Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border, defence minister Yoav Gallant urged the forces to get organised, be ready for an order to move in.

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Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border.



Defence minister Yoav Gallant, wearing a protective vest, speaks to Israeli soldiers in a staging area near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel (Tsafrir Abayov/AP)

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Whoever sees Gaza from afar now will see it from the inside  I promise you, he said.

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It might take a week, a month, two months until we destroy them, he added, referring to Hamas.

Israels consent for Egypt to let in food, water and medicine provided the first possibility for an opening in its sealing off of the territory.

Many among Gazas 2.3 million residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.

Israel did not list fuel as a permitted item, but a senior Egyptian security official said Egypt was negotiating for the entry of fuel for hospitals.

With the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah still closed, the already dire conditions at Gazas second-largest hospital deteriorated further, said Dr Mohammed Qandeel, of Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis.

Power was shut off in most departments to save it for intensive care and other vital functions, and staff members were using mobile phones for light.

At least 80 wounded civilians and 12 dead were brought into the hospital on Thursday morning after witnesses said a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis.

Doctors had no choice but to leave two of the incoming to die because there were no ventilators left, Dr Qandeel said.

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Palestinians evacuate wounded from a building destroyed in an Israeli bombardment in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip (Fatima Shbair/AP)

We cant save more lives if this keeps happening, meaning more children  more women will die, he said.

The Gaza Health Ministry pleaded with petrol stations to give whatever fuel they had left to hospitals.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, gave some of its little remaining fuel stores to hospitals, according to spokesperson Juliette Touma.

The agencys donation to Gaza Citys Shifa Hospital, the territorys largest, would keep us going for another few hours, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia told The Associated Press (AP).

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults.

Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians killed during Hamass deadly incursion on October 7.

Roughly 200 others were abducted.



(PA Graphics)

The Israeli military said on Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

More than one million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory since Israel told them to evacuate.

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Most have crowded into UN-run schools-turned-shelters or the homes of relatives.

The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territorys only connection to Egypt, remained fragile.

Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians in southern Gaza and that it would thwart any diversions by Hamas.

Mr Biden said the deliveries will end if Hamas takes any aid.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, according to Khalid Zayed, the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai.

Under an arrangement reached between the United Nations, Israel and Egypt, UN observers will inspect the trucks carrying aid before entering Gaza, and the UN working with Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent will ensure aid goes only to civilians, an Egyptian official and European diplomat told the AP.



Rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel over destroyed buildings following Israeli air strikes on Gaza City, central Gaza Strip (Mohammed Dahman/AP)

A UN flag will be raised on both sides of the crossing as a sign of protection against air strikes, they said.

It was not immediately clear how much cargo the crossing could handle.

Waleed Abu Omar, spokesman for the Palestinian side, said work has not started to repair the road between the two gates, damaged by Israeli strikes.

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Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let out of Gaza, Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Israel had previously said it would let nothing into Gaza until Hamas freed the hostages taken from Israel.

Relatives of some of the captives reacted with fury to the aid announcement.

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.



Palestinians inspect the damage of a destroyed building following Israeli air strikes on Gaza City (Abed Khaled/AP)

The Israeli military reported on Thursday that it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including militant tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centres.

It said it also hit dozens of mortar-launching posts, most of them immediately after they were used to fire shells at Israel.

Palestinians have launched barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.

Israel has said it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they may be in Gaza.

It has accused the groups leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population, leaving Palestinians feeling in constant danger.

After Thursdays strikes in Khan Younis, sirens wailed as emergency crews rushed to rescue survivors from the crushed apartment building.

Many residents were believed trapped under twisted bed frames, broken furniture and cement chunks.

A small, soot-covered child, dangling in the arms of a rescue worker, was taken out of a damaged building.



Palestinians evacuate wounded from a building in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip (Fatima Shbair/AP)

Gazas Hamas-led government said several bakeries in the territory were hit in the overnight strikes, making it even harder for residents to get food.

Violence was also escalating in the West Bank, where Israel carried out a rare air strike on Thursday, targeting militants in the Nur Shams refugee camp.

Israeli troops raided the camp the previous night and were still battling Palestinian fighters inside.

Six Palestinians were killed in the camp, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, and the Israeli military said the strike killed militants.

Ten Israeli officers were wounded when fighters threw explosives at the troops.

More than 74 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war started.

Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Thursday said they fired missiles into northern Israel, hitting a kibbutz.



Smoke rises after a shelling in Um el-Tot, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon (Hassan Ammar/AP)

The Israeli military said no-one was injured and responded with shelling on border areas in Lebanon.

Hamas militants also fired 30 rockets from southern Lebanon towards Israeli towns.

Violence on the border comes amid fears the Hamas-Israel conflict could spread across the region.
The UK prime minister has arrived in Israel to meet leaders in the Middle East and call for any escalation of the conflict to be avoided.

Rishi Sunak will hold talks with the countrys prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and president Isaac Herzog as he starts a two-day trip that is expected to take in a number of capitals in the region.

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He will urge Middle East leaders to avoid further dangerous escalation, saying that too many lives have been lost already in the Israeli-Hamas war.

Speaking to reporters after landing in Israel, Mr Sunak said: You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you.

His visit comes after the United States president flew into Israel on Wednesday in a diplomatic bid to prevent fighting from spiralling into a larger crisis.

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Joe Biden urged Israel not to be consumed by rage in the wake of Hamass deadly attack on October 7th and to avoid making the same mistakes that the US did after September 11, 2001, following the Islamist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

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The US presidents trip appeared to herald a breakthrough, with Mr Netanyahus office announcing it had approved a request from Mr Biden to allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

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The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came a day after a deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds.

Hamas blamed Israel for the strike, while Tel Aviv pointed the finger at a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad has dismissed the claim.

I am in Israel, a nation in grief.



I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism.



Today, and always.



 pic.twitter.com/DTcvkkLqdT Advertisement  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

Liverpool and Egypt forward Mohamed Salah used his significant social media following to call for the massacres in the conflict to stop and for aid to be allowed into Gaza immediately.

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In a video post, Salah said: The scenes at the hospital last night were horrifying. The people of Gaza need food, water and medical supplies urgently.

The hospital deaths sparked protests across the Middle East, including angry scenes in Jordan and in the Lebanese capital Beirut where hundreds of demonstrators clashed with security forces near the US embassy on Wednesday. The Hezbollah group, a key ally of Hamas, also held a rally in the city.

The UK Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to leave now while commercial options remain available.

During the UK prime ministers trip to the Middle East, in which he is expected to meet a number of counterparts, No 10 said he plans to press for aid to be allowed into Gaza and for those trapped in the territory to be allowed to leave the 25-mile area.

A Downing Street official said he will share his condolences for the terrible loss of life in Israel and Gaza in the last two weeks as a result of Hamass brutal terrorist attacks.

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He will call for the barbaric acts carried out by the Palestinian militant group not to become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region.

Ahead of his departure, the UK prime minister said: Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamass horrific act of terror.

The attack on al Ahli hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict.

US president Joe Biden pictured in Israel (Miriam Alster/Pool Photo via AP)

I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort.

The 2,200-mile trip means Mr Sunak will not be in the UK when the results of Thursdays Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-election contests are announced in the early hours of Friday, with the Conservatives battling to hold onto what were once regarded as safe seats.

In parallel to Mr Sunaks travel, UK foreign secretary James Cleverly will visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in the coming days to underscore the UKs message.

Mr Cleverly said: It is in no ones interests  neither Israeli, Palestinian nor the wider Middle East  for others to be drawn into this conflict.

I am meeting counterparts from influential states in the region to push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages.

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Since the flare-up of violence in Israel and Gaza, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, and police have recorded a steep rise in antisemitism in the UK.

Robin Simcox, the commissioner for countering extremism, said the rise was a sign that Britain was very sick indeed and should be a wake-up call.

In an article for The Times, he suggested the normalisation of anti-Israel extremism and antisemitism was because of a failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism.
Israel pounded Gaza with more air strikes on Thursday, as British prime minister Rishi Sunak followed US president Joe Biden on visits to demonstrate support for the war against Hamas while urging Israel to ease the plight of besieged Gazans.

Sunak, who landed in Tel Aviv hours after Biden left, borrowed a phrase associated with Churchill, promising to stand by Israel "in its darkest hour" following the October 7th attack by Hamas gunmen who killed 1,400 Israelis.

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"Above all, I'm here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you," Sunak told Israeli reporters after landing.

Later appearing beside Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said: "I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas which seeks to put civilians in harm's way."

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Biden flew home on Wednesday night after an eight-hour trip having pledged to stand with Israel but having only limited success in his other mission, to persuade Israel to ease the plight of 2.3 million Gazans under a total siege.

Biden said he had secured an offer from Egypt to allow 20 aid trucks to reach Gaza in coming days, still a fraction of the 100 per day that UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council were needed.

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Two Egyptian security sources said equipment was sent on Thursday through the crossing to repair roads on the Gaza side for aid to cross. More than 100 trucks were waiting on the Egyptian side although none were expected to cross before Friday at the earliest.

Israel said it would allow limited aid to reach Gaza from Egypt, but only provided none of it benefited Hamas. It repeated its position that it will open its own checkpoints to let in aid only when all of the more than 200 hostages captured by the gunmen were set free.

And it made clear there would be no let-up in its bombing campaign: "In the Gaza Strip, every place where Hamas has touched or is touching will be struck and destroyed," a colonel identified as the commander of Israel's Ramat David air base told public broadcaster Kan.

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"We really are a war machine that knows how to do two or three times what is being done now."

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'It has never been this brutal'

Gaza residents scoffed at the gesture of promising just 20 truckloads of aid for 2.3 million people cut off from food, water, fuel and medical supplies.

"About the aid, this is something frivolous. We want nothing from Arab and foreign countries except to stop the violent bombardment on our houses," said El-Awad El-Dali (65), speaking near the rubble of ruined homes.

Health officials say bombing has so far killed nearly 3,500 people and wounded more than 12,000.

In Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, an area of shops was reduced to rubble as far as the eye could see, with a toddler's pink cot overturned on the ground, windows blown off a clothing store and damaged vehicles.

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Rafat Al-Nakhala, who had come there after obeying Israel's order for civilians to flee Gaza City in the north, said nowhere was safe.

"Im over 70 years old, Ive lived through several wars, its never been like this, it has never been this brutal, no religion and no conscience. Thank God. We only have hope in God, not in any Arab or Muslim country or anyone in the world, except for God."

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Elsewhere in Khan Younis, a man kissed the body of small baby wrapped in a shroud before it was lowered into a grave. Mourners said four small children were buried there and three others at another site, among a family killed when a three-storey building was hit.

In Gaza's north, footage obtained by Reuters from the Jabaliya refugee camp showed residents digging with their bare hands inside a damaged building to free a small boy and girl trapped under masonry. The body of a man was hauled out of the ruins on a stretcher as residents tried to light up the site with torches on their mobile phones.

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The United Nations says around half of Gazans have been made homeless, still trapped inside the enclave, one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Rage in the Middle East

The plight of Gaza civilians has enraged the Middle East, making it harder for Biden and other Western leaders to rally Arab allies to prevent the war from spreading.

An explosion at a hospital in Gaza on the eve of Biden's visit scuppered his plans to meet Arab leaders, who called off a summit with him. Palestinians blamed the explosion on an Israeli air strike; Israel said it was caused by a failed rocket launch by Palestinian fighters, and Biden said US evidence supported the Israeli account.

It fell to Sunak to be the first Western leader to visit an Arab country since the war broke out. He was due to travel after Israel to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who had been on the brink of agreeing to normalise relations with Israel before the Hamas attack.

Before Biden left, he made a plea for Israelis to rein in their wrath: "While you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes."

Later he told reporters aboard Air Force One: "Israel has been badly victimised, but the truth is they have an opportunity to relieve suffering of people who have nowhere to go... it's what they should do." -Reuters
Hamas fighters likely fired North Korean weapons during their attack on Israel, a militant video and weapons seized by Israel show, despite Pyongyangs denials that it sells arms to the militant group.

The video was analysed by two experts on North Korean arms.

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South Korean officials, two experts on North Korean arms and an Associated Press (AP) analysis of weapons captured on the battlefield by Israel point toward Hamas using Pyongyangs F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon that fighters typically use against armoured vehicles.

The evidence shines a light on the murky world of the illicit arms shipments that sanction-battered North Korea uses as a way to fund its arms programmes.

Rocket-propelled grenade launchers fire a single warhead and can be quickly reloaded, making them valuable weapons for guerrilla forces in running skirmishes with heavy vehicles.

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North Korean soldiers march during a mass military parade in Pyongyangs Kim Il Sung Square to celebrate 100 years since the birth of North Korean founder, Kim Il Sung in 2012 (Ng Han Guan/AP)

The F-7 has been documented in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, a weapons expert who works as the director of the consultancy Armament Research Services.

North Korea has long supported Palestinian militant groups, and North Korean arms have previously been documented amongst interdicted supplies, Mr Jenzen-Jones told AP.

Hamas has published images of their training that show fighters with a weapon with a rocket-propelled grenade with a distinctive red stripe across its warhead, and other design elements matching the F-7, said Matt Schroeder, a senior researcher with Small Arms Survey who wrote a guide to Pyongyangs light weapons.

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It is not a surprise to see North Korean weapons with Hamas, Mr Schroeder said.

The North Korean F-7 resembles the more widely distributed Soviet-era RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade, with a few noticeable differences.

Mr Jenzen-Jones described the F-7 rocket-propelled grenade as intended to offer a lethal effect against personnel given its shape and payload, rather than armoured vehicles.

Weapons seized by the Israeli military and shown to journalists also included that red stripe and other design elements matching the F-7.

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North Korean soldiers stand on armoured vehicles with rocket launchers as they parade in Pyongyang, North Korea, in 2015 (Wong Maye-E/AP)

In a background briefing with journalists on Tuesday, South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff specifically identified the F-7 as one of the North Korean weapons it believed Hamas used in the attack.

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The Israeli military declined to answer questions from the AP about the origin and the manufacturer of those rocket-propelled grenades, saying the ongoing war with Hamas prevented it from responding.

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North Koreas mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP. However, Pyongyang last week through its state-run KCNA news agency dismissed claims that Hamas used its weapons as a groundless and false rumour orchestrated by the United States.

Hamas propaganda videos and photos previously have shown its fighters with North Koreas Bulsae guided anti-tank missile. Mr Jenzen-Jones said he believed, based on imagery of the weapons wielded by Hamas fighters, they also used North Koreas Type 58 self-loading rifle, a variant of the Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Many North Korean weapons have been provided by Iran to militant groups, and this is believed to be the primary way by which Palestinian militants have come to possess North Korean weapons, Mr Jenzen-Jones said.

Iran has also modelled some of its ballistic missiles after North Korean variants.

Irans mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials in Iran long have supported Hamas and praised their assault on Israel.

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In December 2009, Thai authorities grounded a North Korean cargo plane reportedly carrying 35 tons (31.75 tonnes) of conventional arms, including rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, as it made a refuelling stop at a Bangkok airport.

Thai officials then said the weapons were headed to Iran.

The United States later said in 2012 the shipments interdicted by the Thais had been bound for Hamas.

North Korea also faces western suspicions that it supplies ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia to support its war on Ukraine.

The White House said last week that North Korea recently delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.
A Russian-American journalist working for a US government-funded media company has been detained in Russia and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, according to her employer.

Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva is the second US journalist to be detained in Russia this year.

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Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested for alleged spying in March.

Ms Kurmasheva, an editor with RFE/RLs Tatar-Bashkir service, is being held in a temporary detention centre, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said, citing a Russian state news agency.

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The CPJ called the accusations spurious, demanding the Russian authorities drop all the charges and release her immediately.

The Tatar-Inform agency posted video showing Ms Kurmasheva being marched into an administrative building accompanied by four men, two of whom held her arms and wore balaclavas.

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Tatar-Inform said authorities accused Ms Kurmasheva of collecting information about Russias military activities in order to transmit information to foreign sources, suggesting she received information about university teachers who were mobilised into the Russian army.

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The Committee to Protect Journalists said she was charged with failing to register as a foreign agent in her capacity as a person collecting information on Russian military activities.

It cited local authorities saying the information could be used against the security of the Russian Federation.

If convicted, Ms Kurmasheva could be sentenced to up to five years in prison, the New York-based press freedom group said.

Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty acting president Jeffrey Gedmin said.

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She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately.

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Ms Kurmasheva, who lives in Prague with her family, was stopped at Kazan International Airport on June 2 after travelling to Russia for a family emergency on May 20, according to RFE/RL.

Officials at the airport confiscated her US and Russian passports, and she was later fined for failing to register her US passport with Russian authorities.

She was waiting for her passports to be returned when the new charge of failing to register as a foreign agent was announced on Wednesday, RFE/RL said.

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Ms Kurmasheva reported on ethnic minority communities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia, including projects to protect and preserve the Tatar language and culture despite increased pressure on Tatars from Russian authorities, her employer said.

Analysts have pointed out that Moscow may be using jailed Americans as bargaining chips after US-Russian tensions soared when Russia sent troops into Ukraine.

At least two US citizens arrested in Russia in recent years  including WNBA star Brittney Griner  have been exchanged for Russians jailed in the US.

Journalism is not a crime, and Kurmashevas detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting, Gulnoza Said, the Committee to Protect Journalists Europe and Central Asia program co-ordinator, said.

Ms Kurmashevas detention comes seven months after Mr Gershkovich was detained in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, about 1,200 miles east of Moscow.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP.

He has appeared in court multiple times since his arrest and unsuccessfully appealed his continued imprisonment.

Russias Federal Security Service alleged Mr Gershkovich, acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.

Mr Gershkovich and the Journal deny the allegations and the US government has declared him to be wrongfully detained.

Russian authorities have not detailed any evidence to support the espionage charges.

Court proceedings against him are closed because prosecutors say details of the criminal case are classified.
The mother of a 13-year-old child who was surrounded by armed police after an officer mistook his water pistol for a real gun has said she feels betrayed by the Metropolitan Police.

The boy suffered soft-tissue injuries after he was rammed off his bike by a police van and handcuffed as he was confronted by marksmen in Hackney, east London, in July.

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In a statement read out on her behalf at a press conference on Thursday, the boys mother said the incident had been a deeply traumatic experience for their entire family, adding that she believed it would not have occurred had her son been a white 13-year-old boy.

Campaign group, The Alliance for Police Accountability (APA) condemned the treatment of the boy, saying his brightly-coloured water pistol was unmistakably a toy and that the incident demonstrated the adultification of black children.

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The mother of the boy, who has suffered from nightmares since the incident, said in the statement: I feel let down and betrayed, not only by the police, but also by the IOPC, and by the whole system that is supposed to look after our children, black or white.

How can I be expected to place my faith in the police to investigate themselves when they have treated my son and me with contempt?

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She added: I feel broken by it all; distraught because I was not able to protect my child from what happened.

Lee Jasper, chairman of the APA, told the press conference it was a shocking and appalling case and that the child was inches from death.

A New Scotland Yard sign. Photo: Kirsty OConnor/PA.

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He added: Not only is a child having nightmares, not only is a mother replaying a scene which could have led to tragic consequences for her son but those who witnessed it are also suffering as a consequence of what they saw that day.

Mr Jasper said there was increasing anecdotal evidence of increasingly violent interactions between police and black children.

He called on the Mayor of London and the Home Secretary to intervene in the case and for safeguarding practices to be amended to take account of the incidence of institutionalised racism.

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Mr Jasper added: Our children are routinely seen by police officers and teachers as adults instead of children.

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At the same event Leroy Logan, a former Metropolitan Police superintendent, said the incident demonstrated a failure of leadership and called on the police officers involved in the incident to be taken off-duty.

And Dr Wanda Wyporska, chief executive of the Black Equity Organisation civil rights group, said the case was an example of institutional racism.

She added: The treatment of Child X by the Met Police was unwarranted and is genuinely unfathomable.

How can a toy water gun that is blue and white be considered a credible firearms situation?

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The policing of our community and children needs significant change to get us back to the principle of policing by consent.

In a written statement Detective Chief Superintendent James Conway, in charge of policing for Hackney and Tower Hamlets, said he had apologised to the family.

He said: This incident was understandably extremely distressing for the boy involved as well as the rest of his family.

We know it may cause public concern and we want to help the public understand why we responded in the way we did.

This does not in any way detract from our recognition of the trauma caused to the boy, for which I apologised soon afterwards to his family.

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An internal investigation by the Metropolitan Police found no misconduct had been committed by the officers involved.

A further complaint accusing them of racial bias is still being investigated by the forces standards department.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct watchdog directed that the Met could carry out both investigations itself.

Mr Conway said: Our officers are dealing with fast-moving situations, based on the limited information provided to them at the time.

Such is the nature of the threat from firearms that the College of Policing is clear that officers should treat all firearms as real and loaded until proven otherwise.

The police have a positive legal obligation under human rights legislation to protect life, which shapes our approach to responding to suspected firearms.

He added: I am sorry for the trauma caused to the child and I am happy to meet with the family again if they feel that would help.

A City of London Police spokesperson said: As common practice, a firearms unit from the City of London Police attended in support of Metropolitan Police firearms units at an incident on July 19 2023.
Northern Europe is braced for bad weather including gale-force winds from the east, with authorities saying flooding could cause major problems in inland Danish waters and in the Baltic Sea.

Danish broadcaster TV2 said it will likely be the worst flooding in 110 years, and the Danish Meteorological Institute said waves could reach 13 feet along east-facing coasts.

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In the UK, the Met Office issued a red alert for parts of Scotland, warning of exceptional rainfall on Thursday and Friday, while in Ireland, Storm Babet brought flooding to several towns and villages, with some areas remaining under water and without power.

In Denmark, residents scrambled to place sandbags along exposed areas.

In Assens on the central island of Funen, the Danish Emergency Management Agency was deploying huge rubber tubes in the harbour to counter rising water levels, TV2 said.

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Jacob Nissen and Christian Mikkelsen, right, secure their summer house at Sonderballe Strand near Haderslev, southern Denmark (Claus Fisker/Ritzau Scanpix/AP)

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Southern Denmark police urged people along the east coast to leave exposed areas if the weather predictions remain, saying cottages, harbours and other places could be flooded.

Several ferry lines between Danish islands were suspended, as were ferries to Rostock in northern Germany and to Oslo.

In Germany, authorities warned of high water in bays in Schleswig-Holstein, south of the Denmark border, until mid-Saturday.

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Employees from The Danish Emergency Management Agency prepare for the storm to arrive at Sonderballe Strand near Haderslev (Claus Fisker/Ritzau Scanpix/AP)

Authorities also warned of high water in the next two days on the Baltic Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germanys northernmost state, with water levels of up to 6.6 feet above average possible in the inlet where the city of Flensburg is located.

Some ferries to the North Sea islands of Foehr and Amrum were delayed or cancelled, German news agency dpa reported.

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Norwegian meteorologists said a strong low-pressure area over Great Britain combined with high pressure over northern Scandinavia is creating strong east-northeasterly winds, with very strong gusts expected to hit southern Norway from the east.
People in the UK protesting against the use of the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge gathered at the gates of Portland Port on Thursday as asylum seekers were brought back on board.

A number of people were being taken on board the vessel at the Dorset port more than two months after it was evacuated following the discovery of Legionella bacteria in the water supply.

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A UK Home Office spokesperson said that tests for the bacteria, as well as improved fire safety protocols, had been completed ahead of the return of the occupants to the barge.

Supplies were taken on to the barge earlier this week (Andrew Matthews/PA)

The Daily Telegraph has reported that of the 39 people removed from the vessel in August, 29 would be returning.

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Others had found accommodation with relatives, one had returned to their home country and others had mental health issues exempting them from staying on the barge.

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About 30 protesters gathered at the port gates holding banners saying Scrap the prison barge! Refugees welcome.

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Annika, of Portland Global Friendship Group, had helped produce welcome bags for the arrivals, which included shampoo, toothpaste, notebooks and a map of the local area.

She said: We just want to welcome the refugees and make a gesture to show there are people here who care.

I think the barge is a horrible idea, it feels very oppressive, it feels like a prison here with the amount of security that they have to go through.

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Candy Udwin, of Stand Up To Racism Dorset, said she had been in contact with some of those who had been staying on the Bibby Stockholm.

Local councillor Carralyn Parkes, who recently lost a High Court fight against Home Secretary Suella Braverman over the barge, also attended the protest (James Manning/PA)

She said: They hate it, they say it feels like a prison, some hate being on the sea, they find it very difficult to leave and they are completely separated from the community.

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Local councillor Carralyn Parkes, who is mayor of Portland, and recently lost a High Court fight against Home Secretary Suella Braverman over the lawfulness of housing asylum seekers on the barge also attended the protest.

She said that she was continuing subsequent legal action against Dorset Council as the planning authority responsible for the port.

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She said: The Bibby Stockholm is not the way humane society treats vulnerable human beings.

The UK Home Office said it had been working with Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service to address safety concerns, including the creation of a fourth gangway.

All staff members involved in fire evacuation had received accredited fire warden training and would undergo regular drills, a spokeswoman said.

She added that those being brought to the Bibby Stockholm would be given five days notice, with each individual being assessed against a suitability criteria and screened against police and immigration databases.

They would also have their fingerprints and identities recorded.

She added that a full system cleanse of the water system had been carried out and tests had given the all-clear for the Legionella bacteria.

The spokeswoman said: The government is committed to ending the use of expensive hotels for asylum seekers.

Moving asylum seekers into alternative accommodation sites, like the Bibby Stockholm, is more affordable for taxpayers and more manageable for communities, with on-site healthcare and catering facilities.

Steve Smith, chief executive of refugee charity Care4Calais, said it was assisting asylum seekers with legal challenges against the accommodation.

He said: That includes supporting the survivors of torture and modern slavery to legally challenge their accommodation on these sites, which is contrary to the Governments own suitability criteria.

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Already, we are seeing some of these transfers being delayed or cancelled altogether because of these challenges.

Caroline OConnor, chief executive of Migrant Help, said: Its important that people on the barge are able to maintain their independence and are able to come and go, to enter towns, to experience the local culture, to learn about life here.

It doesnt help a traumatised person to be isolated from the culture that theyre trying to join.
A woman died after being swept into a river in Scotland, amid the beginning of an evacuation of 400 homes in the Scottish region of Angus and warnings that conditions caused by Storm Babet would deteriorate overnight.

Police found the body of a 57-year-old woman at 4pm on Thursday, around two hours after receiving a call saying someone had been swept into the Water of Lee at Glen Esk.

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The region is subject to a severe flood warning from Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa), and was battered by heavy rain from 8am on Thursday, with the fire service and coastguard expected to begin evacuating 400 homes in Brechin before the first of the flooding was predicted from 9pm.

A resident puts sand bags outside his door in Brechin (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Aberdeenshire Council warned residents to be ready to leave imminently and more than doubled the number of rest centres to five, from two earlier in the day.

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The UK Met Office red weather warning began at 6pm and was expanded to include Dundee, Perth and Kinross, as well as Angus and Aberdeenshire, where 20ft waves were seen crashing in Stonehaven harbour.

A police spokesperson said: Around 1.45pm on Thursday October 19, officers attended a report of a person having been swept into the Water of Lee, Glen Esk.

Around 4pm, the body of a 57-year-old woman was recovered from the river. There are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death and a report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.

Some 20,000 properties were hit by power cuts although Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) said electricity had been restored to 14,000 and staffing capacity had been increased by ten-fold in anticipation.

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A man ties up his boat at Stonehaven at the start of Storm Babet (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Schools were closed in Angus, where three rest centres were opened and ready to welcome pets as the Sepa severe flood warning was expanded to Finavon and Tannadice.

A new rest centre was opened in Alyth, Perth and Kinross, and funerals were cancelled in Aberdeenshire.

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Scotland's deputy first minister Shona Robison said: Storm Babet is still in its early stages and the worst impacts are yet to come.

The red warning has been expanded to cover further parts of Scotland and we expect weather conditions to deteriorate seriously overnight. If you live in the areas covered by the red waning, please stay at home and do not travel, unless advised to relocate to a rest centre.

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We expect to launch a major clean-up operation as we move into the weekend.

Assistant chief constable Stuart Houston said: Police officers are helping local authorities evacuate a large number of properties in the Tayside area which is seeing some of the most significant impacts of the storm.

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Waves hit Stonehaven harbour (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Paddleboarding instructor David Jacobs (56) said he saw waves around 20ft high in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, and expects it to be worse tomorrow.

He moved his huts inland in anticipation of Storm Babet, but said he was concerned for passers-by who stopped to watch the waves, as they could be hit by debris or swept into the sea.

Mr Jacobs said: The waves were about 20ft, or seven metres.

The wind is swinging east tomorrow so it will be coming directly into the harbour.

The last time I have seen weather like this was 2014, it is quite spectacular to watch but bits of trees and rocks land onto the road.

It worries me for other people.

A Severe Flood Warning has been issued for Brechin.



Follow @PoliceScotland for travel advice

Follow @AngusCouncil for local advice

Visit https://t.co/hxxDVD5Bmp for more information on the Severe Flood Warning and the potential impacts. pic.twitter.com/jvvY8GDbaX Advertisement  SEPAFlood (@SEPAFlood) October 19, 2023

Sepa has issued an additional 18 flood warnings, in addition to the sever flood warning for Angus.

Aberdeenshire Council issued instructions to residents who may have to evacuate.

It said: If the police, council or other emergency services, ask you to leave your home for your own safety and that of others, turn off the electricity and water supply at the main switch (be sure you know where these are located) and take your grab bag with you.

If you have to evacuate your home, it will make things a lot easier if you have prepared a Grab Bag in advance containing a packing list to follow should you need to use it.

A spokesman for Angus Council said: As ever, we will be targeting our energies and resources on the areas of greatest need, focusing on preserving life and ensuring the safety of our citizens.

Pascal Lardet, Sepa flood duty manager, said: There is exceptional rainfall forecast for parts of Scotland over the next 24 hours, and this will lead to significant flooding from both surface water and rivers.
Sydney Opera House chief executive Louise Herron has received congratulatory wishes from all over the world, including a letter from King Charles III, ahead of the World Heritage-listed buildings 50th anniversary today.

Since its opening in 1973 by my beloved mother, the Sydney Opera House has stood as a continuing legacy for Australians, profoundly influencing contemporary arts and culture, both locally and internationally, and having global recognition as a symbol of modern Australia, the letter from Buckingham Palace said.

Sydney Opera House CEO Louise Herron on the steps of the Opera House which celebrates its 50th birthday on Friday. Credit: James Brickwood

I extend my heartfelt congratulations to you all for a most memorable and successful celebration, King Charles III wrote in a letter to Herron, staff and Sydney Opera House volunteers.

On this day in 1973, Queen Elizabeth II opened the building, by cutting 16 bright red ribbons which hung from the two front shells which were attached to four tug boats.
What astonishes me is not that this pernicious practice still exists from time to time; it clearly does, especially if journalists with decades of experience are noting and condemning it, not to mention the cries of complaint from a frustrated public.

It happens everywhere, but the organisation most often blamed for the practice is the ABC, due to its statutory requirement to be strictly impartial and fair to all sides.

Its a recipe, they say, for platforming lies, and for balancing factual and accurate information with disinformation and spin. At worst, it even results in one side of a debate being silenced because the other side refuses to comment, and all because of the need to ensure that both sides are given the same time and column inches to ensure there is no suggestion of bias.

Its the idea that just wont die; the practice that is ruining the reputation of good journalism. In recent days, in these pages, journalists of the calibre of Laura Tingle and Niki Savva, have spoken out against the notion that both sides in a debate like the Voice referendum need to get equal time, no matter what.

Im shocked that anyone thinks it represents some notion of fair, principled journalism. In fact, it is the opposite. Balance for the sake of balance is, and always has been, an abomination, a corruption of good journalism.

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It is certainly true that, at every election, the ABC runs a share of voice tracker to measure precisely how much time each side of politics gets, and they did the same for the Voice referendum. But what have they consistently said about this tracker? The earliest discussion of it that is still online comes from the 2007 federal election, where the ABC warned that the share of voice is not a measure of bias, doesnt prove impartiality, and if one side is getting more time than the other for legitimate reasons journalists should not under any circumstances seek to make up the difference by giving more time to the other side. The idea of the tracker is simply to let producers and program teams know how much time they are giving to each side. If there are good reasons for an imbalance, it is not considered a problem.

But here is where the difficulty lies. Editorial advisers (as I was for many years) can reassure newsrooms over and over again that false balance is not necessary, and if one side gets more time for perfectly good editorial reasons, so be it. But once you start counting minutes and publicly reporting on the outcome, the pressure is on. Busy newsrooms and program teams get told every week how many minutes they have given to each side, and if the numbers are very unbalanced they will be asked to explain why. Who wants to spend time and energy digging into the history of their reporting to carefully explain a discrepancy? It is so much easier to just make sure the numbers are broadly equal, and then no one will complain. Similarly, critics of newspapers will count up the number of column inches and opinion pieces given to each side, and loudly complain if it is unbalanced.

The end result  manufacturing equal time and airing dubious views or outright lies in the name of balance  is not driven by a commitment to editorial standards, it is driven by deadline pressure, laziness and fear. Better to chuck it all in, aim for a 50/50 split and let the public decide, than to follow the weight of evidence, provide context, call out the lies and then have to justify your decisions to your boss and to the public.
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 More than 1000 kilometres out from Sydney heads, waves as tall as houses towered, black and indifferent, before crashing onto the bow of the NSW Police boat Nemesis. For two days, the boat cut through heaving swell toward an emergency beacon, then the sensors picked up two grey smudges of body heat in the darkness. One year after the Nemesis pulled two sailors in their 70s from a sinking ship, in what was the most remote marine rescue in Australian history, the crew have spoken for the first time about the daring feat as they are recognised with the 2023 National Search and Rescue Award. The Aviva after being battered by the storm as seen through an aircraft tasked to assist in the rescue. Credit: AMSA John McEnallay, 74, and his friend Keith Turner sailed away from New Zealands north island on a calm Friday on McEnallays 14-metre yacht Aviva in late August 2022. Aviva had everything it needed to cross the ditch: new safety equipment, a life raft, rigging, and most importantly an experienced skipper. But six days into the crossing, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest shore, McEnallay spotted the gathering clouds of a low-pressure system. We knew well in advance that there was a front coming. But it was so big that there was no direction we could go to get out of the road of it, McEnallay told this masthead.

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It was the roughest Id ever seen in the 10 years or so that Ive been sailing. By the evening the Aviva was enveloped by the maelstrom, 10-metre seas and 150km/h winds shredded the sails and rigging. The storm was so powerful it tore timber boards from the deck. The tattered material wrapped around the hull, keel and rudder. When the electronics failed the pair were left in darkness. The worst of the ordeal came when a massive wave hit the side of the boat. The force threw Turner into McEnallay, who then smashed his head into the navigation station, breaking the dials. The Aviva was 330 kilometres east of Lord Howe Island when McEnallay poked his battered head out of the cockpit. The hull had cracked and water was leaking into the Aviva. The pair had to bail out the water and wait for help, which was days away.

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We are in trouble here, he said, activating an emergency beacon. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, in Canberra, asked NSW Police to dispatch the Nemesis, the most advanced police boat in the southern hemisphere, to reach the Aviva. We thought they were going to turn over, and wed lose them in a capsize situation, Marine Command Superintendent Joe McNulty told this masthead. Senior Sergeant Mick Morris is the sort of person who accelerates when a wave rises, who stays calm even when the shifting sea throws the 104-foot, 100-tonne Nemesis around like a toy. McNulty calls him one of the best NSW Police have. Morris recalls finally zeroing in on the Aviva after 36 hours at sea. Its pitch black, the only way we could find them was on radar, they only had a small white light which we only saw once we got very close, Morris said.

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The Nemesis infrared camera spotted the heat signatures of the men on the ruined yacht. The crew from the Nemesis had to launch a small rescue boat backward into the black surge, unable to turn on their spotlight because it would destroy everyones night vision. Youre so far off the coast that no ones coming in after us, so our mission had to be perfect, McNulty said. McEnallay said being pulled onto the rescue boat and then the Nemesis was like being plucked from the jaws of death. The Aviva sank with all his possessions. I thought it [was] more important to save my mate than worry about the boat, he said. McNulty becomes emotional recalling the risks his crew took to save the yachties, even a year on as they received their award in Hobart on Thursday.

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Detectives are concluding their investigation into the death of a young woman whose body was found at the scene of a grass fire south of Brisbane, saying on Friday afternoon the incident was not suspicious.



On Friday morning, four firefighter crews were called to a grassy area off Waller Road in Browns Plains, after a member of the public made a call to emergency services.

Logan District Detective Inspector Chris Knight speaking at the scene in Browns Plains.

The blaze was put out by crews by 6am and police later confirmed a young womans body was discovered in the area, along with some of her belongings.

Logan District Detective Inspector Chris Knight said on Friday morning detectives were treating the incident as an unexplained death, indicating it was not suspicious.

There are circumstances surrounding this ladys movements and the circumstances of the fire, so we certainly are not saying that its homicide, he said.
The treasurer has accused the High Court of reimagining the Australian Constitution after it quashed Victorias electric vehicle tax, with Tim Pallas warning the state could be forced to completely recast the way it raises revenue.

The Victorian government fears several state taxes and charges that raise billions of dollars every year could now be vulnerable to challenge, including gaming machine taxes, waste charges and car registration fees.

Treasurer Tim Pallas has accused the High Court of reimagining the Constitution. Credit: Eamon Gallagher

In a shock decision on Wednesday, a majority of the High Court found in favour of two Victorian plaintiffs  Chris Vanderstock and Kathleen Davies  that Victorias electric vehicle tax, which is charged as a fixed rate per kilometre driven, counted as an excise.

This, the court said, rendered the controversial charge invalid. Under the Constitution, only the Commonwealth has the power to charge an excise  a consumption-based form of taxation that has historically been applied to petrol, alcohol and tobacco.
A 17-year-old Perth boy who should have attended his high school graduation this week, is instead locked up at Banksia Hill Detention Centre facing a murder charge over the death of 48-year-old Rebecca Collard.

The indigenous woman was run down and killed on Wanneroo Road in Balcatta just after 1am on October 4, with police alleging the teen deliberately caused her death.

Rebecca Collard died in Balcatta on October 4 after she was allegedly run over by a 17-year-old boy. Credit: Police Media

During a bail application at Perths Childrens Court on Thursday, details of how the woman died were aired in court but were suppressed from publication, lawyers arguing it would be detrimental to the boys case going forward.

What was revealed was how the boy had no criminal record, was an avid church-goer and had a part-time job.
Referendums are mostly awful beasts. Occasionally necessary ones, sure. But awful, nonetheless. Thats because they are designed to take endlessly nuanced, complicated questions, and reduce them to a cold binary: yes or no. They admit no qualification or condition. You cant say yes, under certain circumstances, or not quite. And the more nuanced or complicated the proposal, the more necessary such shades of response become. Without them, were left with something crushingly blunt.

Such was the case with the Voice. Yes advocates always insisted this was a simple, modest proposal. Thats true in the sense that it was meant to be an advisory body with no formal power. But as a referendum proposal, it wasnt simple at all. It required you to jump through plenty of hoops, roughly as follows.

Credit: Illustration: Andrew Dyson

Is a First Nations Voice a good idea in theory? If so, must it be a constitutional body? If so, is it prudent to entrench a largely untried institution in this way rather than try it out first? And if so, can we be confident that any unintended consequences it throws up will be manageable?

Each of these is actually a really big question. And you had to answer yes to every one of them to get to Yes. To get to No, you only needed one of them to fail. Hence, peoples reasons for saying No became so varied. Some didnt like the Voice at all. Others were sceptical of its scope. Still others would be comfortable with a Voice, but only in legislation so it could be undone if things went wrong. Some feared it would be too powerful. Some thought it would be too powerless. Some just werent terribly engaged with the whole matter. And on it goes.
A quarter of NSW Labor MPs have declared their support for Palestine, breaking ranks with Premier Chris Minns who has shown unwavering support for Israel and remains opposed to illuminating the Opera House in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

The 16 MPs are signatories of a statement released on Thursday by the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Palestine group, co-chaired by Labor MP Julia Finn and NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong.

NSW Premier Chris Minns says he still holds concerns over a second pro-Palestine rally in Sydney planned for Saturday. Credit: Oscar Coleman, Jessica Hromas

It follows federal Labor ministers Ed Husic and Anne Aly warning that Palestinian-Australians are feeling forgotten in the political reaction to the Israel-Hamas war.

Two senior government sources close to Minns who are not permitted to comment publicly said the letter is at odds with the premiers position. Since the attack by Hamas on October 7, Minns has strongly condemned the resulting atrocities and antisemitic hate speech. He also acknowledged Israels right to defend itself and approved the lighting up of the Opera House in its national colours.
Sanctions from Europe and the United States for its war on Ukraine have hammered the Russian economy and driven it closer to China than ever. At the same time, Chinese officials have been sanctioned for their roles in human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Loading Chinese technology firms have also been cut off from access to sensitive and transformational technology such as semiconductors. During the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Putin and Xi cemented the unbreakable bond and no-limits partnership that had developed between their two countries. That high-level diplomatic partnership is now filtering right through the Russian economy. The only new foreign cars being sold in Russia are Chinese, much of the energy powering China is Russian (some $140 billion worth last year) and in the port city of Vladivostok, all the famous local king crabs are being exported to diners west of the border.

In the past, some crabs were exported to South Korea but not any more because of sanctions, said a king crab shop owner in Hunchun on the Chinese border. Last week I sold almost 100 crabs in one day. It was the best time in the 14-year history of my shop. Total trade between Russia and China jumped more than 50 per cent in the first half of this year, according to figures from the Chinese customs authority. A waitress displays a king crab to Chinese customers in Vladivostok. Credit: Sanghee Liu University of NSW international relations expert Dr Alexander Korolev said there has been a consolidation of the China-Russia alignment over the past decade. The very powerful driving force is the simultaneous deterioration of US-China and US-Russia relations, he said.

In Vladivostok, Victor, a 29-year-old economist, who like many people in Russia asked only to be identified by his first name because talking to the media can be politically sensitive, said a tighter partnership between the two neighbours was inevitable. We have resources, China has the money, he said. Young Chinese tourists in Russian sailors caps next to the S-56, a replica of Stalinets-class submarine of the Soviet Navy in Vladivostok. Credit: Sanghee Liu Victor said Chinese technology brands Xiaomi, Huawei and Honor  all known for manufacturing smartphones  are flooding into the local market as US, European and Japanese companies pull out. By the end of this year, only 14 car brands will remain in Russia after the European Union and the US banned vehicle exports to the country in 2022. Three are domestic and 11 are Chinese, according to the Russian Automobile Dealers Association.

From January to August 2023, China exported 544,000 cars to Russia  a year-on-year increase of more than 600 per cent. Alexander, a Vladivostok sales manager at a car dealership for Chinese car brand Chery, said Russian sales for the company have surged over the past year. A shop sign in Chinese and Russian in Vladivostok. Credit: Sanghee Liu Because there is no other option, he said. One of his customers, a 27-year-old financial adviser at local company VTB Leasing named Sergey, said he had no choice but to buy Chinese vehicles despite his preference for Japanese cars.

Its still not clear if their fatal flaws and weaknesses have been exposed yet, he said. But Sergey was happy to be buying from a country that has not imposed sanctions on the Russian economy. Of course, we are brothers, he said. Putin-themed Russian matryoshka dolls along with Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin in Vladivostok. Credit: Sanghee Liu For Russians, who until the 1990s were used to being the dominant power in the region, the newfound dependence on China is the culmination of a sharp economic fall from the heights of the Soviet Union. Over a very short period of time, Russia deteriorated significantly. It went through economic degradation, and it was Russias own fault. Now it is completely dependent on the export of energy resources, said Korolev, the international relations expert.

China became a manufacturing superpower. Russia, which was once ahead on many parameters, is no longer a giant. In Vladivostok, Chinese tour guide Tian Xiaohong points out that the Russian emblem is a double-headed eagle watching east and west respectively. Chinese tourists here remain sceptical of Russias insatiable territorial ambition. Folk artists perform on the street in Vladivostok. Credit: Sanghee Liu But Victor has no illusions about the demise of his homeland and the rise of its superpower neighbour. I dont think Russia is one of the powers, he said. Its a little country. Only 150 million people, 10 times less than in China.

Korolev said if you compare numbers such as population and GDP between China and Russia it is a very uneven relationship. China is obviously getting ahead on multiple indicators of comprehensive power, he said. A Russian-themed amusement park in Hunchun, China. Credit: Sanghee Liu But that is only part of the story. Russia is Chinas only great power ally, so to speak. If China-US relations deteriorate further, these geopolitical factors become much more important than just simple GDP figures. The two nations most pressing common interest may lie more than 5000 kilometres away from Vladivostok, in a critical passage of water between Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

Chinas biggest headache, in terms of energy supplies, is the Malacca Strait, which is a choke point that can be shut down by the US Navy very quickly, said Korolev. Loading So that is why China is investing billions and billions of dollars in the on-land energy infrastructure with Russia. Russias Power of Siberia pipeline began supplying gas directly to China in late 2019 through a 30-year contract worth more than $600 billion. Putin advanced negotiations on a second Power of Siberia 2 pipeline from Russia to Mongolia to China on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing this week. We help and support each other in certain areas so that we can live more conveniently, said Oksana, the chef at the Solnechny Culture Centre Hotel in Vladivostok. Its good to be friends.
Israels consent for Egypt to let in food, water and medicine provided the first possibility for an opening in its sealing off of the territory. Many of Gazas residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water. Israel did not list fuel as a permitted item, but a senior Egyptian security official said Egypt was negotiating for the entry of fuel for hospitals. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the press. The first trucks of aid were expected to go in Friday (local time), Egypts state-owned Al-Qahera news reported. With the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah still closed, the already dire conditions at Gazas second-largest hospital deteriorated further, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel of Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis. Power was shut off in most departments to save it for intensive care and other vital functions, and staff members were using mobile phones for light. At least 80 wounded civilians and 12 dead flooded into the hospital Thursday morning after witnesses said a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis. Doctors had no choice but to leave two of the incoming to die because there were no ventilators left, Qandeel said.

We cant save more lives if this keeps happening, meaning more children ... more women will die, he said. The Gaza Health Ministry pleaded with gas stations to give whatever fuel they had left to hospitals. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees gave some of its last remaining fuel supplies to hospitals, spokesperson Juliette Touma said. The agencys donation to Gaza Citys Shifa Hospital, the territorys largest, would keep us going for another few hours, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said. The Gaza Health Ministry said 3785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said. Palestinian women walk by buildings destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip. Credit: AP

More than 1400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas deadly incursion on October. 7. Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives. More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory since Israel told them to evacuate. Most have crowded into UN-run schools-turned-shelters or the homes of relatives. The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territorys only connection to Egypt, remained fragile. Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians in southern Gaza and that it would thwart any diversions by Hamas. US President Joe Biden said the deliveries will end if Hamas takes any aid. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant speaks to Israeli soldiers in a staging area near the border with Gaza. Credit: AP More than 200 trucks and some 3000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, according to Khalid Zayed. the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai.

Under an arrangement reached between the United Nations, Israel and Egypt, UN observers will inspect the trucks carrying aid before entering Gaza. The UN, working with Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent, will ensure aid goes only to civilians, an Egyptian official and European diplomat told the AP. A UN flag will be raised on both sides of the crossing as a sign of protection against airstrikes, they said. The official and the diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief media. It was not immediately clear how much cargo the crossing could handle. Waleed Abu Omar, spokesman for the Palestinian side, said work has not started to repair the road between the two gates damaged by Israeli strikes. Rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel over destroyed buildings following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City. Credit: AP Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let out of Gaza, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Israel had previously said it would let nothing into Gaza until Hamas freed the hostages taken from Israel. Relatives of some of the captives reacted with fury to the aid announcement. The Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. The Israeli military reported Thursday that it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including militant tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centres. It said it also hit dozens of mortar-launching posts, most of them immediately after they were used to fire shells at Israel. Palestinians have launched barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began. Loading Israel has said it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they may be in Gaza. It has accused the terrorist groups leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population, leaving Palestinians feeling in constant danger.

After Thursdays strikes in Khan Younis, sirens wailed as emergency crews rushed to rescue survivors from the crushed apartment building. Many residents were believed trapped under twisted bed frames, broken furniture and cement chunks. A small, soot-covered child, dangling in the arms of a rescue worker, was taken out of a damaged building. Gazas Hamas-led government said several bakeries in the territory were hit in the overnight strikes, making it even harder for residents to get food. Violence was also escalating in the West Bank, where Israel carried out a rare airstrike Thursday, targeting militants in the Nur Shams refugee camp. Israeli troops raided the camp the previous night and were still battling Palestinian fighters inside. Six Palestinians were killed in the camp, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, and the Israeli military said the strike killed militants. Ten Israeli officers were wounded when fighters threw explosives at the troops. More than 74 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war started. Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Thursday said they fired missiles into northern Israel, hitting a kibbutz. The Israeli military said no one was injured and responded with shelling on border areas in Lebanon. Hamas militants also fired 30 rockets from southern Lebanese toward Israeli towns. Violence on the border comes amid fears the Hamas-Israel conflict could spread across the region.
Fort Mill, South Carolina: Ed Currie, the South Carolina hot chilli expert who crossbred and grew the Carolina Reaper thats hotter than most pepper sprays police use to subdue unruly criminals, has broken his own world record with a chilli thats three times hotter.

Pepper X was publicly named the hottest pepper in the world on October 9 by the Guinness Book of World Records, beating out the Reaper in Curries decade-long hunt to perfect a chilli that he says provides immediate, brutal heat.

When he first tried Pepper X, it did more than warm his heart.

I was feeling the heat for 3 hours. Then the cramps came, said Currie, one of only five people so far to eat an entire Pepper X. Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain.
CoreLogic has released its Auction Market Preview for the week ending Oct. 22, expecting a 10.3% increase in auction activity across the combined capitals.

The number of auctions this week is projected to be up from last week, and up 15% compared to last year. Melbourne is the busiest state with 1,129 homes scheduled for auction, up 9.7% compared to the previous week. Sydney comes second with 944 homes set to be auctioned, up 5.8% compared to last week and up 49.4% year over year.

Adelaide will host 176 auctions this week, while Brisbane will hold 165 auctions, up 37.5% compared to the previous week.

On the other hand, Canberras auction activity is expected to decline with 80 homes auctions scheduled this week. Perth is expected to auction 14 homes this week, down by 15 compared to last week. Tasmania has only one auction scheduled this week.

Thanks to a Super Saturday auction event, capital city auction activity is expected to shoot up, with close to 2,900 homes scheduled next Saturday. The auction numbers are expected to reach at least 3,500.

For last weeks results, across the capitals, 2,275 homes went under the hammer. The final clearance rate was 90 basis points lower than the previous week. This decline, according to CoreLogic, was driven by buyers, with the portion of properties passed in at auction rising to 26.4%, while the combined capital cities withdrawal rate declined to 8.4%. Over the same week last year, across the combined capitals, 1,741 homes were auctioned, and a final clearance rate of 59.8% was reported.

Have thoughts about this new report? Let us know in the comments below.
Chinese Online Fashion Retailer SHEIN Set to Raise $2 Billion in Funding Round, Eyes US Listing -Report (Photo: Business Times/SHEIN Twitter Account photo)

In the rapidly evolving world of fast fashion, Shein, a digitally native retailer, has emerged as a formidable player. With its roots in China and now headquartered in Singapore, the company's ambitions to go public in the U.S. have been met with both anticipation and skepticism.

Shein's rise to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic was nothing short of meteoric. Fashion enthusiasts worldwide were captivated by its vast assortment of trendy designs offered at astonishingly low prices. Behind the scenes, the company's valuation soared to a staggering $66 billion. Donald Tang, a former investment banker at Bear Stearns, has been appointed as the executive chair, becoming the public face of this fast-fashion behemoth.

However, the journey to Wall Street is fraught with challenges. Shein's ties to China have raised eyebrows, especially amidst allegations of using forced labor in its supply chain, potential violations of labor laws, environmental concerns, and accusations of design theft from independent artists.

Addressing these concerns head-on, Shein has been proactive in its efforts to gain the trust of U.S. regulators and Congress. The geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China has only intensified scrutiny of businesses with Chinese origins. Matt Kennedy, a senior IPO market strategist for Renaissance Capital, emphasized the importance of a "straightforward story" for potential IPO investors.

Shein's potential involvement with forced labor, particularly in China's Xinjiang region, has been a significant point of contention. The U.S. has banned imports from Xinjiang due to evidence of forced labor and human rights abuses against the Uyghur ethnic group. Shein's unique business model, which often involves shipping products directly to American consumers from its network of Chinese suppliers, has raised concerns about the possibility of circumventing these bans.

In response to these allegations, Marcelo Claure, Shein's group vice chair and former SoftBank CEO, has vehemently denied any involvement with forced labor. He emphasized the company's commitment to abiding by local laws and cooperating with investigations. Furthermore, Shein has acknowledged the presence of Xinjiang cotton in its raw materials and has taken steps to eliminate its use.

Beyond labor concerns, Shein's decision to move its headquarters to Singapore is seen as a strategic move to distance itself from the increasing regulatory scrutiny in China. However, this hasn't entirely alleviated concerns from U.S. lawmakers, who remain wary of potential data security risks and the company's ties to the Chinese government.

Another challenge facing Shein is the frequent allegations of copyright infringement. The company has faced legal battles over claims of design theft. In response, Claure stated that while mistakes can happen, Shein has a "zero tolerance policy" for copyright infringement.

Environmental concerns also loom large. The fast-fashion industry is often criticized for its environmental impact, with concerns about sustainability and the potential for products to end up in landfills. Shein, while acknowledging these challenges, has been transparent about its greenhouse gas emissions and is actively working towards more sustainable practices.

Shein's Ambitious Expansion in Latin America: A Focus on Brazil-Made Products

Shein, the Chinese fast-fashion e-commerce giant, has unveiled plans to amplify its presence in Latin America by 2026. Fabiana Magalhaes, the company's Brazilian production director, disclosed that Shein intends to distribute products crafted in Brazil throughout various Latin American markets. This initiative follows the company's recent foray into Brazilian manufacturing, marking its inaugural production venture outside its home base in China. By 2026, the company aspires for a significant 85% of its Brazilian sales, encompassing third-party vendors on its platform, to be locally produced.

Magalhaes, during a media briefing at Shein's Sao Paulo headquarters, emphasized Brazil's potential as a hub to cater to the broader Latin American region. Shein's proactive approach is evident in their internal research to facilitate these exports. While specific target countries remain undisclosed, the company's expansive reach, spanning over 150 nations since its inception in 2008 in Nanjing, speaks volumes.

Brazil, a pivotal market for Shein and its largest in Latin America, has witnessed the company's substantial investment commitment. Earlier this year, Shein pledged a whopping 750 million reais (approximately $148 million) to foster a robust manufacturing network in Brazil. This investment has already borne fruit, with 336 manufacturing partnerships established, and 213 actively producing apparel across a dozen Brazilian states.

Shein's manufacturing strategy in Brazil zeroes in on products that ensure competitive pricing, such as jeans and knitwear. While shirts are on the exploration radar, certain categories like winter attire present local production challenges. Beyond Brazil, Shein's global footprint is expanding, with manufacturing endeavors in Turkey and forthcoming plans for a Mexican factory.

Shein's aspirations to go public in the U.S. are clear, but the path is riddled with challenges. The company's ability to navigate these hurdles, maintain its core business strategy, and adapt to the evolving global landscape will determine its success on Wall Street.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid speaks to Badri 313 military unit at Kabul's airport, Afghanistan August 31, 2021 in this still image obtained from a handout video. (Photo: Taliban/Handout via REUTERS)

Amidst a changing political landscape, the Taliban, now at the helm in Afghanistan, is showing an inclination towards aligning with China's significant infrastructure venture, the 'Belt and Road' Initiative. This recent development emerges as Haji Nooruddin Azizi, Afghanistan's acting commerce minister, expressed the Taliban administration's desire to become an official part of this vast project.

China, setting itself apart from the global community, has been strengthening its relationship with the Taliban-led government, despite the fact that other nations have yet to acknowledge the administration. A recent testament to this strengthening bond was when Beijing made the unique move of appointing an ambassador to Kabul, while other countries have either retained their existing ambassadors or have not taken any formal steps in recognizing the Taliban government.

Discussing the details, Azizi informed Reuters, "We requested China to allow us to be a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Belt and Road Initiative." He further mentioned that currently, they are engaging in technical dialogues. Notably, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor stands as a prominent part of the Belt and Road Initiative, underscoring the strategic importance of Afghanistan's neighboring nation, Pakistan.

In an effort to ensure clarity on the intricacies of this collaboration, Azizi revealed plans of dispatching a technical team to China. The primary objective of this delegation will be to navigate any potential challenges that may prevent Afghanistan from joining the project.

China could significantly benefit from Afghanistan's abundant mineral reserves, a treasure trove containing coveted resources like lithium, copper, and iron. The country has already made inroads with several Chinese firms, including the Metallurgical Corp. of China Ltd (MCC), operating within Afghanistan's borders. When queried about the engagement with MCC, Azizi highlighted ongoing negotiations, albeit with certain historical considerations. He emphasized the potential of Afghanistan as a promising investment destination, stating, "Afghanistan is now, more than ever, ready for investment."

However, the global investment community is expressing reservations due to security concerns. ISIS, in particular, has been a major threat, targeting foreign entities within Kabul. In response to these concerns, Azizi was adamant about the Taliban's commitment to ensuring security, emphasizing the enhanced safety of previously inaccessible regions. "It is now possible to travel to provinces where there is industry, agriculture, and mines... security can be guaranteed," he assured.

On a broader scale, during the recent Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, Afghanistan, alongside 34 other nations, pledged cooperation in the realms of the digital economy and sustainable development, marking a significant step towards international collaboration.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi penned a letter to the people of Madhya Pradesh seeking their support in the upcoming Assembly elections. In the letter, he said, "I am confident that you will again make a double-engine government in Madhya Pradesh."

The prime minister credited Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the letter with "working tirelessly" for the state over the last 20 years. "The result of the same has been that the state saw construction of five lakh km of roads, a 16 per cent rate of economic growth, water reaching 65 lakh homes and 28,000 MW of power production," the PM wrote in the letter.

"I have always had a special connection with Madhya Pradesh and that meant that people have given us a big victory in the state in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections in the state. I am confident that you will give me similar support in the upcoming state elections in Madhya Pradesh," he said.

The prime minister further said that it was due to the efforts of the 'double-engine government' that Madhya Pradesh is on the way to feature among the top three economy-states in the country. PM Modi also cited how 13.6 million people in Madhya Pradesh have come out of the poverty net in the state due to various social welfare schemes run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.

"These 20 years have not been just about the development of Madhya Pradesh but also of the people's trust in the BJP. Today, the model of Madhya Pradesh is a source of inspiration for the welfare of the poor and women empowerment," he added.

PM Modi highlighted Madhya Pradesh government's devotion to women empowerment and said that the state government worked for both 'Ladli Behnas' and 'Ladli Lakshmis' in the state.

He also cited how MP was given "step-motherly" treatment by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre before 2014 and many of the state schemes became difficult to implement.

Also Read Trying to wash his sins: Kamal Nath slams Shivraj Chouhan's welfare schemes Madhya Pradesh polls: Congress meet underway at Kamal Nath's residence Ahead of MP polls, Shivraj Singh Chouhan promises 10 'social revolutions' 'You won't find a brother like me, you'll miss me', says Shivraj Chouhan Ahead of polls, women in Madhya Pradesh get 'rakhi gift' from CM Shivraj 'There is a deep pit in Congress manifesto for MP': Jyotiraditya Scindia CM Chouhan, state BJP chief flag off hi-tech campaign vehicles for MP polls Cong will stop Ladli Behna Yojana if voted to power in MP, says CM Chouhan Samajwadi Party announces candidates for MP polls, includes key SC leaders Tear Digvijaya's clothes, Kamal Nath shares banter; BJP claims infighting

"The whole country is a witness to how MP developed a new capacity after BJP came to power in the Centre in 2014," he said, noting how Madhya Pradesh became strong and self-reliant after being a 'bimaru state' 20 years ago.

"Who can forget how MP before 2003 did not have even basic facilities like electricity, water and roads. The confidence shown by the people has meant that MP is now among the top 10 economy-states in the country," the prime minister said.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot reiterated that the post of chief minister would not leave him and that he had the trust of the Gandhi family with him while speaking to the press in Delhi on Thursday.

The Congress party currently in power in Rajasthan held a Central Election Committee (CEC) on Wednesday to discuss candidates for the upcoming state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. The party, however, has not yet revealed any candidate list for the 200-seat Assembly in Rajasthan.

Following the meeting, the sitting CM made these statements, adding to speculations on the candidate list and the CM face for Congress in the state.





Also Read: Rajasthan elections: Uncertainty over 3 names delay Congress candidate list "After Sonia Gandhi ji became (Congress) president, the first decision she took was to make me the chief minister. I was not the CM candidate but she selected me as the CM," said the Rajasthan CM.

He also added, "A woman once told me that god willingly you should become CM for the fourth time. So, I told her that I want to leave the CM post but this post is not leaving me."

Adding to the Congress' adoption of a "united front" ahead of state Assembly elections, Gehlot assured the public that all decisions, including ticket distribution, would be taken unanimously. Gehlot also added that while he believed the post of CM would never leave him, he would accept any decision taken by the party leadership. Gehlot's government had faced a rebellion in 2020 from then Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot . Since then Gehlot has stated that he has adopted a "forgive and forget" policy to the incident.





Also Read: People in Rajasthan feel cheated by Congress, says BJP President J P Nadda Gehlot also took the opportunity to admonish the raids by the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department. He called for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to stop the raids immediately as the model code of conduct was in force. He also urged the Election Commission to intervene.

The Congress party and BJP have dominated elections in Rajasthan and have traditionally alternated governments, with Congress forming government in the last elections in 2018. The state Assembly elections will be conducted on November 25 and the votes will be counted on December 3.

Also Read Chhattisgarh elections: Polling in two phases on Nov 7, 17; result on Dec 3 Elections 2023: A look at what happened in 5-poll bound states in 2018 Rajasthan assembly elections 2023: Ashok Gehlot - Congress' magician Rajasthan CM Gehlot issues apology for 'corruption' remark in judiciary Rajasthan elections: People will make Mission 156 a success, says CM Gehlot Rajasthan elections: Uncertainty over 3 names delay Congress candidate list People in Rajasthan feel cheated by Congress, says BJP President J P Nadda All you need to know about Vasundhara Raje, Rajasthan's former CM from BJP Rajasthan elections: BJP prez Nadda to visit Kota for poll preparations Congress holds meeting to decide candidate list for Rajasthan polls

(With agency inputs)
By Sudhi Ranjan Sen

A global anti-money laundering body is poised to examine whether Indias government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is misusing local laws to crack down on non-profit organisations, like Amnesty International and policy think tanks.



The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, a 39-member watchdog that tackles money laundering and terrorism financing, is seeking to understand the adverse impact Indias laws are having on the functioning of non-profit organisations and civil society groups, according to two officials aware of the developments. They asked not to be identified as the discussions are private.

A team from the FATF is expected to visit India in November and meet representatives of non-profit organisations, including international ones, to get a first-hand understanding of the situation, the people said.

Under Indian laws, all non-profit organisations need a foreign contribution license to receive international donations, a process supervised federally by the Home Ministry.

Critics like Amnesty say Modis administration has, over the past few years, increasingly used these laws to stifle and deliberately hinder the work of thousands of non-government organisations and think-tanks, including Greenpeace. Amnesty shut its offices in India in 2020 due to what it called constant harassment from government agencies.

Earlier this year, the government revoked the Center for Policy Researchs ability to raise foreign funds. The New Delhi-based think-tank is regarded as one of the countrys finest, conducting grassroots research.

Concerns have grown in recent years about Indias commitment to democratic principles. In 2021, Varieties of Democracy, a monitoring institute based in Sweden, classified India as an electoral autocracy. Freedom House, a group that tracks the health of democracies worldwide, listed India as partly free.

The country has also slid in global press freedom rankings, slipping to 161 out of 180 countries surveyed earlier this year, as the government tightens its grip on the work of civil society groups and the media.

Evaluation Process



In a statement this week, FATF said it had started a Mutual Evaluation process and cant comment on the actions India is taking. It said the groups standards are designed to ensure legitimate charitable activities are not disrupted or discouraged.

Also Read PayPal ruling may help India in FATF review of anti-black money regime CAs, CSes concerned about new tweaks in anti-money laundering law Russia pushes India for help to avert its global financial isolation Amnesty International calls on Pakistan to restore internet services 3,110 money laundering, 12K FEMA cases registered by ED in last 3 yrs: Govt Prez attends 1st convocation ceremony of Mahatma Gandhi Central University RapidX fares: 17 km journey to cost between Rs 50-100 in standard coach Pune cop wins Rs 1.5 crore in online gaming, but ends up getting suspended Delhi Excise Policy: Court extends judicial custody of Manish Sisodia What are NCLT and NCLAT? Why has the Supreme Court accused them of 'rot'?

Its unclear what action, if any, FATF would take should its examiners find that the Indian government abused its powers.

FATF can place countries with weak terrorist financing and money laundering provisions on their gray or black list  which can restrict a countrys international borrowing capabilities. But there is no precedent for a country that is overzealous in using its money laundering laws, as would be the case with India.

India is a member of the FATF, comprising major economies such as the US, Japan, France, European Union and China.

Indias Foreign Ministry and Home Ministry didnt respond to an email seeking comment.

The FAFT evaluation could create a political headache for Modi coming just months ahead of national polls scheduled for the first half of 2024, where he is hoping to clinch a third consecutive term in office.

In July 2022, the Indian government deleted the list of organisations whose licenses were canceled in the past few years from its website. It hasnt since posted the data publicly.
India reaffirmed its stance against China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the light of the Maldives' President-elect, Mohamed Muizzu, emphasising the significance of Beijing's prominent infrastructure programme in the progress of participating nations.

The cooperation between India and the Maldives is rooted in the collaborative approach to addressing common challenges and priorities, stated Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, during a routine media briefing. This encompasses the security and developmental support that New Delhi offers to the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Responding to several questions on the Belt and Road Forum hosted by China and Muizzu's comments endorsing the BRI, Bagchi said that India's stance on BRI, including the programme's "lack of respect for our sovereignty and territorial integrity are well known and consistent".

According to Bagchi, India was not extended an invitation to this year's Belt and Road Forum by China. "I don't think we received an invitation this year," he said.

He emphasised that India's decision to abstain from participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is rooted in the fact that a significant portion of the extensive infrastructure project, specifically the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), traverses through territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Furthermore, India believes that the BRI does not offer a fair and equitable platform for non-Chinese companies to engage.

Bagchi referred to a statement issued by India in May 2017 during the first Belt and Road Forum, underscoring India's reservations about the BRI. He maintained that these "concerns still stand today". India's contention is that segments of the CPEC pass through regions under the "illegal occupation of Pakistan," amounting to a violation of India's sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said.

On cooperation with the Maldives, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, "...The assistance and platform that we have provided have contributed significantly in areas like people's welfare, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and combating illegal maritime activities. Over the last five years, more than 500 medical evacuations have been carried out"

"India has been the first responder for Maldives...We look forward to constructively engaging with the incoming administration and discussing ways to enhance our relationship further...," he added.

Notably, Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) candidate Mohamed Muizzu won the Maldivian presidential elections by securing over 53 per cent of votes in the polls.

Also Read Leaders from emerging economies visiting China for 'Belt and Road' forum Putin, Xi gather for family photo at "One Belt, One Road" forum in China India set to boycott China's Belt and Road forum for a third time Xi promises more market openness, investments for Belt and Road projects China to work with Pakistan to build CPEC into 'exemplary project': Xi IAF to equip Russian-origin Su-30MKIs with indigenous 'Virupaaksha' radar Excise case: Court allows Sisodia to sign docs to allocate funds for works In past 9 years, incidents of Maoist violence declined by 52%: Amit Shah Delhi HC tells DGCA to clarify stand on MCA notification on moratorium Plan to encourage traders to use Indian-flag vessels, says Piyush Goyal
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday continued his meeting with party leaders on the second day in Mumbai.

Supriya Sule and other party leaders were seen arriving for the meeting at the party's office here to review the NCP's preparations for the Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra ahead of the 2024 Parliamentary elections.

Meanwhile, Pawar's statement on Israel-Palestine conflict has stirred a debate between BJP and the NCP.

On October 15 while addressing a public gathering of party workers in Mumbai, the NCP chief said that while all former Prime Ministers of India have taken a firm stand supporting Palestine, Prime Minister Narendra Modi supported Israel in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

The NCP leader's statement had come under flak from Union Minister Piyush Goyal. Expressing his dismay at Pawar's remarks and emphasising the need to condemn terrorism worldwide, Goyal pointed out that Pawar had held prominent positions in the government during critical security incidents.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma gave a bizarre response to Sharad Pawar's comment and said it seems like the NCP chief will send his daughter Supriya Sule to Gaza to fight for Hamas.

Sule in her response said that Himanta Biswa Sarma and she share the "same DNA" but the "BJP trait of disrespecting women has rubbed off on him."

"He is originally from Congress. He and I share the same Congress DNA...You know how the BJP is disrespectful towards women. But I had hopes from Himanta Biswa Sarma. I am surprised how this change has happened towards women and the approach, probably going into BJP is a little rubbing off on him...BJP IT cell needs to understand and hear carefully what Sharad Pawar has said. Hear his entire statement..." the Lok Sabha MP said.

Meanwhile, both the rival factions of the NCP had on Wednesday opened separate factions in the national capital as it had to vacate its headquarters after the party lost its national status.Maharashtra deputy chief minster Ajit Pawar who heads the Pawar faction of the NCP had inaugurated its new office at North Avenue in the national capital while the Sharad Pawar-led faction had opened its central office at the Lodhi estate.

Also Read Ajit Pawar, other NCP ministers urge Sharad Pawar to keep party united Sharad Pawar leaves for Delhi to attend NCP National Executive meeting 'Dirty tricks': Opposition hits back at BJP after NCP split in Maharashtra Ajit Pawar vs Sharad Pawar: Separate NCP meeting called to find 'real NCP' Ajit Pawar vs Sharad Pawar: NCP factions fight over control over party People have rejected Congress: BJP MLA ahead of Chhattisgarh polls Gandhi family biggest supporter of dynasty politics: BJP's dig at Congress Sebi should stand firm, finish its Adani probe in timely manner: Cong Cong will stop Laadli Behna Yojana if voted to power in MP, says CM Chouhan Chhattisgarh elections 2023: Amit Shah to address two BJP rallies in Bastar
US President Joe Biden, a day after his return from Israel, would deliver a prime time address to the nation on Thursday to state the country's stand on the Hamas' attacks against Israel and Russia-Ukraine war, the White House said Wednesday.

Tomorrow, President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukraine, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

This speech will be delivered from the Oval Office at 8:00pm ET, she said. Biden was on his way back from Israel when the White House issued the statement.
As the Chinese economy struggled to recover from the post-Covid-19 blues and anti-monopoly campaigns, the ruling Communist Party in an attempt to bolster sagging business confidence has warned its cadre against inappropriate interference in microeconomic activities.

The officials of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which is headed by President Xi Jinping, were at the forefront of the anti-monopoly campaign in the last few years to rein the country's multi-billion businesses like Alibaba and corporate leaders like Jack Ma, who suddenly announced his retirement in 2019 and spent following years mostly abroad.

Ma returned home in March this year following assurances of friendly policies for the private sector to revive the struggling economy, especially by Premier Li Qiang, regarded as a friend of Ma.

Ma's return followed assurances from Xi, under whose watch the CPC in the few two years carried out a massive anti-monopoly campaign against top business houses including Alibaba which created a panic among private businesses.

Besides the crackdown, several top businessmen were whisked away by security agencies creating panic among private businesses. The problem was accentuated by prolonged stringent Covid-19 lockdowns leading to huge losses for businesses.

On Wednesday, an article in the Study Times an education journal of the CPC Central Party School, widely read by officials at all levels to gauge which way the winds are blowing in Beijing warned the cadre not to overstep.

Curbing the inappropriate interference of authorities in microeconomic activities has always been a key task in the reform of China's economic system, Cai Zhibing, an associate professor of the Economics Teaching and Research Department at the Central Party School, said in the article, citing dictates in the Central Anti-Corruption Coordination Group Work Plan (2023-27) released in September.

Such interference means those officials are not taking into consideration the requirements of high-quality development, as championed by the party's Central Committee, Cai said, adding that some authorities are not strict and civilised when it comes to law enforcement.

And one-size-fits-all regulations and measures that have popped up across the country have greatly increased economic uncertainties, burdens and risks for businesses, Cai said, without pointing any fingers, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.

Also Read Assam govt issues Rs 47 cr grant to surrendered cadres of Adivasi militants China launches military operations, patrols as 'stern warning' to Taiwan India, US should provide an alternative to Chinese model: Krishnamoorthi G20 Summit: Chinese delegations refuse to cooperate with security over bags Asiad 2023 India vs China football highlights: China thrashes India 5-1 Palestinians in Gaza feel safe nowhere amid unrelenting Israeli airstrikes Former officials ask Pak not to deport Afghans seeking relocation to US Pak HC grants Nawaz Sharif protective bail in 2 graft cases till Oct 24 Russia sends 27 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza amid Israel-Hamas war EU debates how to handle challenges as Israel-Hamas war provokes concerns

Cai blamed the pandemic, changes in global trade trends, and shifts in domestic development focus for what he called an imbalance in local government finances, warning that this has subsequently incentivised regional authorities to turn more aggressive in seizing assets and assessing fines, seeking any means to raise revenue.

As a result, such interference has disturbed the order of operation, harmed the business environment and affected confidence in business operations, Cai said.

Reducing inappropriate interference in economic activities involves mitigating authorities' circumvention of market-economy rules and ensuring fair and full market competition while effectively revitalising market vitality, he explained.

China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBC) on Wednesday cautioned that China's external environment was becoming more complex and grave and warned that domestic demand remained insufficient.

The warning came when China's economy slowed in the third quarter, amid muted global demand, deflationary pressures and an ailing property sector.

The world's second-largest economy grew 4.9 per cent year-over-year in the July-September quarter, higher than the 4.5 per cent forecast, but slowed down from the 6.3 per cent growth in the previous quarter.

The economy grew by 1.3 per cent in the third quarter, compared to 0.8 per cent growth in the April-to-June quarter.

For the first nine months of the year, China's economy grew 5.2 per cent compared to the same period last year, signifying that it is on track with Beijing's target of about five per cent growth for 2023.
Russia has sent 27 tonnes of humanitarian aid for civilians in the Gaza Strip to be transported from Egypt, the country's foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Taking to X, Russia's MFA said, "Russia's EMERCOM to deliver 27 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the people of the Gaza Strip, mainly food supplies: flour, sugar, rice and pasta. The Il-76 transport aircraft is already en route to Arish in Egypt. The Egyptian Red Crescent will ensure the delivery of the aid."

The Times of Israel cited Russia's Deputy Minister Ilya Denisov's statement, "A special plane has taken off from the airport at Ramenskoye near Moscow for El-Arish in Egypt. The Russian humanitarian aid will be handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent to be sent to the Gaza Strip."

Denisov added the aid comprised "wheat, sugar, rice (and) pasta."

Earlier on Tuesday, the office of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared details of his telephonic conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that the former briefed him on the ongoing counter-offensive against Hamas, following the October 7 terror attacks, and his talks with several leaders from the region and the Palestinian authorities.

"The Prime Minister made it clear that Israel had been attacked by brutal and abhorrent murderers, had gone to war determined and united, and would not stop until it had destroyed Hamas's military and governing capabilities," Netanyahu's office tweeted from its official handle on X.

It posted further that PM Netanyahu told the Russian President that the Israeli forces won't relent till they "eliminate Hamas".

"The Prime Minister made it clear that Israel had been attacked by brutal and abhorrent murderers, had gone to war determined and united, and would not stop until it had destroyed Hamas's military and governing capabilities," the Israeli PM's office posted further.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, during their telephone conversation, Putin highlighted the measures Russia is taking to stop the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip from escalating further."President of Russia Vladimir #Putin spoke with Prime Minister of the State of Israel @netanyahu over the phone," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia posted on X.

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"President Putin laid out the steps being taken by Russia to prevent the further escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip," it added.

Moscow said the conversation was centred on "the crisis situation resulting from the brutal escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict".

"The Israeli side was in particular informed of the essential points of telephone correspondences that took place today with the leaders of Palestine, Egypt, Iran and Syria," the Kremlin said in a statement.

The Russian President also expressed "his sincere condolences to the families and friends of the deceased Israelis", the Kremlin said.

Along with that, he informed the Israeli leader of the measures taken by Russia to "promote the normalisation of the situation, prevent a further escalation of violence, and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip".

The Russian President also expressed to Netanyahu his country's "fundamental desire to continue its targeted action aimed at ending" the crisis and achieving "a peaceful settlement through political and diplomatic means," according to a statement from the government.
Xi calls for enhancing China-Turkmenistan comprehensive strategic partnership

Xinhua) 15:21, October 19, 2023

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday called for enhancing China-Turkmenistan comprehensive strategic partnership, which serves the fundamental interests of the two countries and the shared aspiration of the two peoples.

China will continue to work with Turkmenistan to push for steady and long-term development of the bilateral relations and deliver more benefits to the two peoples, Xi said when meeting with Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, chairman of the People's Council of Turkmenistan, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
United Nations Day is celebrated globally on 24th October annually. The commemoration acknowledges the remarkable efforts of the United Nations in advocating for peace, fostering human rights and promoting global development. Recognizing this day can also provide significant insights into understanding the potential international career opportunities offered by the United Nations and its various agencies.

What Is the United Nations?

The United Nations was established following World War II. On June 26, 1945, countries signed the Charter. The United Nations was formally established in October 1945, when the Charter was signed by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States coined the name "United Nations." The United Nations is a multinational agency that gives hope to millions of people around the world. One of its primary goals is to make the planet a better place for future generations. The United Nations brings together countries with the ability to affect global change.

History of United Nations Day

In 1945, the United Nations Conference met in San Francisco. The United Nations Charter was drafted at a summit attended by 50 countries. The United Nations Organization's goal is to bring people together in order to end the war. UNO also tries to alleviate poverty around the world. The permanent members of the United Nations Organisation are the United States, India, the United Kingdom, France, Turkey, and Canada. The United Nations Day commemorates the establishment of the United Nations Organisation. Every year, the United Nations Day is observed. This year, the United Nations will mark United Nations Day 2023 by holding a Peace Conference around the world.

Arranging funds for countries below the poverty line in order to ensure that poverty is eradicated globally.UNO also works to alleviate social inequality. The United Nations resolved to advise developed countries to minimise their reliance on fossil fuels for energy and instead focus on renewable resources such as solar power and wind power. This year's theme will be unveiled on United Nations Day 2023. The United Nations Organisation will also observe Women's Day, Elders Day, World Peace Day, and other UNO-designated holidays. The theme of United Nations Day 2020 was 'The Future We Want, the UN We Need: Reaffirming Our Collective Commitment to Multilateralism'.

Significance of United Nations Day

Being a vital force that campaigns for peace and human progression worldwide, the United Nations' organisational goals and world-centric approach inspire countless individuals to pursue a job in this global institution. Celebrating United Nations Day serves as a reminder of the critical roles that the United Nations performs, and it sparks interest in numerous international career prospects that conform to the core principles of promoting global peace, justice, and sustainable progress.

United Nations Day 2023 Theme

For this year, the United Nations Day 2023 theme is "Equality, Freedom, and Justice for All".
The country's newest Indian Institute of Management (IIM), IIM Mumbai, which gained its designation just in August this year, has set its fee structure at Rs 21 lakh for two-year programmes beginning in the academic year 2024-'25. Only IIMs in Ahmedabad (31.5), Calcutta (31) and Bangalore (24.5) charge less, although the cost is among the highest in the new generation IIMs. Following passage of the Indian Institutes of Management (Amendment) Bill 2023 earlier this year, the city's National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) was elevated to the status of IIM.

After receiving the IIM title, the institute conducted its first board meeting on Monday, when it reviewed, among other things, the fee structure. The institute intends to begin accepting students for the new MBA programs in the following academic year. Shashi Kiran Shetty, Chairman of the Board of Governors, and Professor Manoj Kumar Tiwari, Director of IIM Mumbai, attended the meeting.

MBA (general), MBA in Sustainability and Management, and MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management will be offered by IIM- Mumbai. The tuition will be the same for all three, and admission will be through the Common Admission Test (CAT), as with other IIMs.

While students from diverse backgrounds will be admitted to the first two courses for the MBA in operations and management, candidates must have an engineering degree. According to modifications in the eligibility requirements announced last year, students with a background in statistics and mathematics will also be considered for the course.

"Aside from the fee structure, the board meeting also finalised the syllabus, curriculum, and infrastructural development plan," said a senior official from IIM Mumbai. The infrastructure enhancement project will be phased, concentrating on different regions of the campus and their needs. Apart from educational classrooms, dorms, and staff quarters, it will also feature the establishment of research centres and fintech study models."

Prior to its transformation into IIM-Mumbai, the NITIE offered postgraduate diploma courses in three areas: industrial engineering, industrial management, and sustainability management. Admission to these courses was limited to engineering graduates. The fee structure was Rs 7.5 lakh at the time.
Government Jobs After CA - The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India's (ICAI) Chartered Accountancy programme is one of the most profitable vocations, with chances in both the public and private sectors. Though the commercial sector is emerging as the primary employer of CAs, public sector CA employment is also in high demand. Qualified chartered accountants have numerous government career opportunities.

CA government jobs include treasury manager, accountant, manager, auditor, and other positions. Many public sector organizations, including rural regional banks, life insurance firms of India, public sector banks, and others, hire CAs for such positions. We have listed a few CA government jobs, vacancies for CAs in the government sector, information regarding CA salary in India, and more in this article.

Top Government jobs for CAs

Every government organization, from small to large, needs chartered accountants to manage their finances, conduct audits, and monitor corporate insolvency. The following are some government positions for chartered accountants in a few government entities that conduct direct CA (CA inter qualified professionals) recruitments:

1. Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) - LIC of India hires qualified and semi-qualified CAs on a regular basis. Interested individuals should visit the LIC's official website to learn more about job openings and the recruitment procedure. A CA's financial experience can assist them advance their careers in this area. In addition to LIC, there are numerous government-owned insurers in the general insurance sector.

2. Gas authority of India limited (GAIL) - GAIL is a central public sector undertaking under the Ministry of petroleum and gas. It posts vacancies for CAs to apply for and engage in its recruitment process at regular intervals.

3. National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)- The Hon'ble Prime Minister launched the NRHM plan on April 12, 2005. It is committed to providing quality healthcare to rural residents. CAs can apply for a variety of positions at NRHM. At NRHM, the selection procedure comprises an examination and/or an interview.

4. Public sector banks - PSB offer good opportunities for government jobs for chartered accountants in the banking sector. Many public sector banks (both government and semi-government) require skilled and experienced CAs to handle day-to-day operations. Banks such as the State Bank of India, the Central Bank of India, the Punjab National Bank, and even the Reserve Bank of India require the skills of Chartered Accountants to ensure the efficient operation of their organizations. For numerous roles in public sector banks, candidates must take the IBPS or SBI exams.

5. Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) - The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is a government organization that administers civil service examinations. UPSC administers a variety of tests, including civil service, engineering service, Indian Economic Service, Indian Statistical Service, and others. CAs can apply for numerous ministerial positions in UPSC. The UPSC selection procedure consists of examinations and an interview.

6. Rural Regional Banks (RRBs) - Rural regional banks are government-owned commercial banks that operate at the regional level in various parts of the country. They are yet another government career opportunity for CA. CAs can join RRBs by going through the recruiting process, which is held on a regular basis. RRBs are founded with the goal of rural development, therefore CAs can also contribute to national development.

7. Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MRCL) - CAs are eligible to apply for a variety of positions at the Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. It is one of the largest metro organizations, and it is owned and administered by the government. It creates openings for both the state and the center.

Role of CAs in Government Sector

Chartered accountants play a variety of functions in government organizations. CAs play an important part in the proper operation of industries, from financial management to regular audits and various financial corporate checks. CAs are assigned a variety of tasks according to their area of expertise. CAs fulfill the following functions in government organizations:

Financial Analysts

Branch Manager

Tax Accountants

Financial reporting managers

Loans and Advances Head

Credit Management department

AGM, Zonal Head

Auditors

Treasury Manager

Chief Manager (Accounts and Finance Departments)

Assistant Administrative Officer (CA)

Adjunct Administrative Officer (CA)

CA Government Job Selection Process

CAs must go through the organization's selection process in order to secure a position in the government sector. The following is the most prevalent CA selection procedure in the government sector:

The written exam is the most prevalent round of selection in any organization.

A personal interview follows the written exam.

The selection procedure in each organization may fluctuate slightly depending on the function and the company.

To get a government position following CA, professionals will have to go through several rounds of screening, which may vary based on the organization. An interview and a written exam are frequently included in the selection process. Many organizations choose CAs solely on the basis of their qualifications.

CA Salary Details

The Chartered Accountancy program provides the highest-paying wage package to skilled accountants. CAs with extensive articleship experience and knowledge can earn a lot of money. Salaries for chartered accountants differ across the public sector. The huge increase in the financial sector is the cause for the uniform chartered accountant remuneration. It has eventually resulted in an increase in demand and work opportunities for CAs. CA salaries vary depending on the job or role in the organization and the industry sector in which they work. CAs might find work in the banking industry as scale II and scale III officers.

A CA's annual pay in India is between Rs 8 and 9 lakhs. However, the biggest pay packages for a chartered accountant might range between Rs. 50 and Rs. 60 lakhs each year. For example, in any well-established organization, the wage range for a manager (accounts) is from Rs.1,25,000 to Rs.2,15,000 per month. Furthermore, CAs can earn excellent annual compensation ranging from Rs. 70 to Rs. 80 lakhs when working abroad. The income of a chartered accountant is determined by a variety of criteria, including experience, abilities, job description, and location.

Additional Degrees with CA

The CA certificate alone opens up numerous prospects for skilled people. However, including another specialization (along with the CA certificate) in the curriculum vitae can help you land a high-paying job. CAs pursue the following options:

Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)

Tax Management Course

Diploma in Insurance and Risk Management

Corporate Management Course

International Trade Laws and World Trade Organization

Company Secretary (CS)

Certified Management Accountant (CMA)

MBA in Finance
Explosive Growth in Indian Private Space Sector: India stands for international Space collaborations for the larger benefit of mankind. It is our solemn commitment that the Outer Space is used only for peaceful purposes and kept free of conflict.

This was stated by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh while delivering the keynote address at the 2-day Conference on 'Space - The final frontier for China in its quest for global leadership', organised by the Centre for Contemporary China Studies, MEA, at Sushma Swaraj Bhavan in New Delhi.

The Minister said, "We have consistently adhered to the principles of transparency, accountability and peaceful uses of Space. And therefore we urge upon every other nation including China to engage in open dialogue with others so that we share each other's missions, ventures without being secretive or suspicious and also ensure that we preserve a secure, safe and stable environment," he said.

Underlining that India's Space programme is not only globally competitive but also excelling, Dr Jitendra Singh reiterated that India's Space programme is entirely peaceful and that ISRO is collaborating with world's leading Space agencies to bring 'Ease of Living' for the common citizen.

"Even though the USA and the then Soviet Union had started their Space journey long before us and America also landed a human being on the surface of Moon in 1969, it was nevertheless our Chandrayaan that brought home the evidence of water on the surface of Moon," he said, adding that the NASA has offered a Joint Space Mission to the International Space Station during the historic visit to PM Modi to the United States this year.

Dr Jitendra Singh said India's space missions are designed to be cost effective, building upon human resources and skills. "The Russian moon mission, that was unsuccessful, cost Rs.16,000 crore, and our (Chandrayaan-3) mission cost just around Rs.600 crore," he said.

Referring to applications of Space Technology to different sectors like SVAMITVA, PM Gati Shakti, Infrastructure such as Railways, Highways & Smart Cities, Agriculture, Water Mapping, Telemedicine and Robotic Surgery, Dr Jitendra Singh said this 'Whole of Nation' approach has brought about 'Ease of Living' for the common man.

Dr Jitendra Singh gave full credit to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for enabling India's Space scientists to vindicate the dream of their founding father Vikram Sarabhai by "unlocking" India's Space sector and providing an enabling milieu in which India's huge potential and talent could find an outlet and prove itself to the rest of the world.

"Prime Minister Modi has broken taboos of the past. Starting from just 4 Space Startups in 2014, within just 3-4 years we have more than 150 Startups," he said.

Stating that the "Anusandhan National Research Foundation" will pave the way for a greater Public Private Partnership (PPP) model in scientific research, Dr Jitendra Singh said the NRF will catapult us to the league of handful of developed nations pioneering new research in new frontiers.

Dr Jitendra Singh said ISRO has launched more than 380 foreign satellites, earning more than 220 Million Euros and over 170 Million US Dollars by launching American satellites.

"India's Space economy today stands at about $8 billion, which I agree is not a very relaxing figure, but our own projection is that by 2040 we will be $40 billion. But more interesting is that according to some international observers, for example a few weeks back the ADL (Arthur D Little) Report mentions that we could have the potential of $100 Billion by 2040," he said.
With some personnel changes over at CAMPIs secretariat committee, it took us a while to get the September 2023 new car sales breakdown for ...
Photo: The Canadian Press Calgary Police Service officers attend the scene where a colleague was shot and injured and a suspect was killed in Calgary, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Flashing lights and police tape encircled a strip mall in northeast Calgary late Wednesday afternoon after a shootout that sent a police officer to hospital and left one suspect dead.

Police say tactical team officers were executing a high-risk warrant at McKnight Village, in the northeastern community of Falconridge, at about 1 p.m.

They say gunfire was exchanged when police attempted to make an arrest.

An officer was taken to hospital in stable condition while one of the suspects was declared dead at the scene. Another individual was taken into custody.

"It's never easy when one of our own is hurt while answering the call to serve Calgarians each and every day," acting Deputy Chief Cliff OBrien said.

"Officers were executing a high-risk warrant. We can now share that the suspects were previously involved in other firearm-related offences, which is why our tactical unit was present for the arrest."

Several police cars remained within the shopping mall parking lot. A bullet hole could be seen in the front window of a barber shop. The side window of a grey SUV, which was backed into a parking spot in front of the business, was shattered.

Two handguns were visible on the ground in front of the store.

"Everything took place within the parking lot," O'Brien said.

"There were many witnesses to this brazen and unsettling incident. There are supports available for those people."

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, which looks into incidents or complaints involving serious injury or death that may have resulted from the actions of a police officer, has been called in to investigate.

O'Brien said the injured officer is an 11-year veteran of the force. He said fortunately he has already been released from hospital.

He said the shooting affects all officers.

"Addressing gun violence continues to be our priority. I can tell you it impacted all of our members who were there," O'Brien said.

"No police officer starts their shift hoping for this type of incident. Nobody starts their shift hoping that a member of the public is dead at the end of an interaction, so we have to acknowledge that.

"Nobody starts their shift hoping they are going to get hurt ... so there's a lot of emotions going through this."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 18, 2023.
Photo: B.C. government

The fate of Canadas most endangered bird hung in the balance at a Vancouver federal court Wednesday as lawyers argued over how long the countrys environment minister could wait before calling on government to protect the habitat of critically endangered species.

The case revolves around the northern spotted owl, which was once thought to boast 500 breeding pairs throughout southwestern B.C. Today, only one wild-born individual remains in a small patch of old-growth forest in the Fraser Canyon.

On Wednesday, federal lawyers defended Minister Steven Guilbeault for waiting eight months to recommend an emergency order to cabinet under the countrys Species at Risk Act (SARA). The recommendation sought to protect more than 2,500 hectares of habitat slated for logging between April and November 2023.

Guilbeault agreed to make an emergency order recommendation to protect a swath of the owls habitat in January 2023. At the time, ministry staff said the order was necessary because, if logging continued through November, the survival and recovery of the species was highly unlikely, state documents.

But that recommendation to cabinet wasnt made until eight months later, when it was revealed federal cabinet had rejected Guilbeault's recommendation.

Over that time, the court heard that the B.C. Minister of Forests Nathan Cullen sent a seven-page letter to the federal environment minister, arguing logging was not the only cause of the spotted owls decline.

Environment and Climate Change Canada lawyer Aileen Jones argued Guilbeault acted reasonably and did not lawfully delay his duties under SARA. She said the recovery of the spotted owl would require the B.C. government take active steps within its jurisdiction.

Cabinet is going to want information about efforts to collaborate with B.C., Jones told the court, explaining the delay.

Spo'zem First Nation Chief James Hobart said he worried those conversations cost the spotted owl precious time.

This politics is overriding the science of the discussion, and it shouldn't be that way, said Hobart outside the court, pointing to a rising number of other species facing similar risks.

We were basically diluting the definition of emergency right here and we should be strengthening that definition.

Delay leads to a talk and log approach, says environmental group

By June, the delay prompted the Western Canada Wilderness Committee to file a request for judicial review, challenging the ministry over its delay and calling on the federal court to declare it unlawful.

Between January and June 2023, the environmental group said it had documented that the B.C. government had approved for logging at least 468 hectares of old-growth forest  forest the group said overlaps with critical spotted owl habitat.

A week before ministry lawyers were set to face the Wilderness Committee in a Vancouver courthouse, a letter from Environment and Climate Change Canada to the Spo'zem First Nation indicated Guilbeault had finally made the emergency order recommendation but that cabinet had turned it down.

The environmental group said it was moving ahead with its case so an environment minister cant delay an emergency order recommendation again.

Us getting a favourable ruling in this case, six months from now or longer, it's not going to bring back the habitat that was destroyed this spring and summer, said Torrance Coste, the Wilderness Committees national campaign director.

But it hopefully will set a precedent that when the federal environment minister is considering something like an emergency order, he takes into account that this is a dire situation and eight-month delay isn't appropriate.

Consultation shouldn't get in the way of an emergency, group argues

Kegan Pepper-Smith, a lawyer with the firm Ecojustice representing the environmental group, argued in court Wednesday that the eight-month wait was the latest in a series of delays  part of a talk and log approach that has failed to protect the owl.

Pepper-Smith said successive ministers refused to take necessary action to protect the owl, even through it was listed under SARA 20 years ago. Those delays included not following through on several emergency order recommendations and failing to finalize a recovery strategy for the owl that remains unfinished.

Justice Yvan Roy questioned the lawyer over Canadas obligation to consult provinces and First Nations, and carry out a socio-economic analysis before recommending an emergency order to cabinet  something that could take months.

Pepper-Smith submitted that those steps can occur at the ministerial level, as long as they dont undermine the ministers core and sole obligation under SARA: to issue an emergency order when an endangered species faces an imminent threat and before that threat materializes.

He said it doesnt require a drawn-out consultation with B.C.s forestry minister while the province approves logging in owl habitat.

Here we have a political minister saying I disagree with your science-based assessment, Pepper-Smith told the court, referring to Cullen's correspondence with Guilbeault.

The first steps should have been: get the recommendation to cabinet instead of sitting on the recommendation for eight months.

The justice, who challenged lawyers on both sides throughout the proceedings, left the governments lawyers with the task of explaining why it took Guilbeault so long to make his recommendation and how the delay fit within the law.

The impression that one has is eight months? When you have one individual left in the wild? That catches the attention of people, said Roy.

Government lawyers are scheduled to continue their submissions Thursday morning.
PPC Zimbabwe managing director steps down

19 October 2023

PPC Zimbabwe Ltd has announced the resignation of its managing director, Kelibone Masiyane. Mr Masiyane joined the company in 1994 as a trainee electrical engineer at the Colleen Bawn plant, before becoming manager of both that and the Bulawayo plant in 2009. He was appointed managing director of PPC in 2016, reports Chronicle.



After 29 years of service at PPC Zimbabwe Limited, seven years of which were spent at the helm of the company, Mr Kelibone Masiyane informed the board of the company of his intention to step down as managing director of the company, said PPC. Mr Masiyane will oversee transitional arrangements until 31 December 2023 when Mr Albert Sigei will replace him with effect from 1 January 2024.

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State Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Wednesday that Tennessee and 32 other attorneys general have reached a settlement with healthcare clearinghouse Inmediata for a coding issue that exposed the protected health information (PHI) of approximately 1.5 million consumers for almost three years. Under the settlement, Inmediata has agreed to overhaul its data security and breach notification practices and make a $1.4 million payment to states. Tennessee will receive $71,273 from the settlement.

As a healthcare clearinghouse, Inmediata facilitates transactions between healthcare providers and insurers across the United States. On Jan. 15, 2019, Inmediata learned that PHI was available online and had been indexed by search engines. As a result, sensitive patient information could be viewed through online searches and potentially downloaded by anyone with access to an internet search engine. Yet, Inmediata delayed notification to impacted consumers for over three months. Further, the notices were frequently misaddressed and were far from clear. Many consumers complained that without sufficient details or context, they had no idea why Inmediata had their data, which may have caused recipients to dismiss the notices as illegitimate, it was stated.

Todays settlement resolves allegations that Inmediata violated state consumer protection laws, breach notification laws, and HIPAA by failing to implement reasonable data security and failing to provide affected consumers with timely and complete information regarding the breach, as required by law.

Under the settlement, Inmediata has agreed to strengthen its data security and breach notification practices in the future, including the implementation of a comprehensive information security program with specific security requirements, development of an incident response plan, and annual third-party security assessments for five years.

Indiana led the multistate investigation, assisted by the Executive Committee consisting of Connecticut, Michigan, and Tennessee, and joined by Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Here is the latest Hamilton County arrest report:

APPLEBERRY, DOMINIQUE NATASHA

1717 CAMBRIDGE DRIVE CHATTANOOGA, 37411

Age at Arrest: 32 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

FUGITIVE (ARREST FOR CRIME IN ANOTHER STATE)



ARNETT, LORI LUCINDA

1806 S HIGHLAND PARK AVE APT B CHATTANOOGA, 37404

Age at Arrest: 38 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE



BARLOW, AMBER MICHELLE

313 W MIDVALE AVE CHATTANOOGA, 37405

Age at Arrest: 34 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE



BARNES, ALAN RICHARD

HOMELESS CHATTANOOGA, 37402

Age at Arrest: 67 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

VIOLATION OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY

VIOLATION OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY



BENFORD-SUTTON, RAYSHUN LEWIS

2710 DODSON AVE CHATTANOOGA, 37406

Age at Arrest: 20 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

EVADING ARREST

POSSESSING A FIREARM WITH INTENT TO GO ARMED

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE



BRYANT, JASON W

8504 GRACIE MAC LANE OOLTEWAH, 37363

Age at Arrest: 46 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

AGGRAVATED ARSON

AGGRAVATED ARSON

AGGRAVATED ARSON

AGGRAVATED CHILD ABUSE OR NEGLECT

RESISTING ARREST OR OBSTRUCTION OF LEGAL PROCESS



CHAIN, TYSHAILA NICOLE

4052 HOMMER STREET APT 2 CHATTANOOGA, 37406

Age at Arrest: 22 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

DOMESTIC ASSAULT



COYNE, MACHANA LYNN

9122 DALLAS HOLLOW RD SODDY DAISY, 37379

Age at Arrest: 41 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

DRUGS GENERAL CATEGORY FOR RESALE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSION OF LEGEND DRUGS W/O PRESCRIPTION

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

TAMPERING WITH OR FABRICATING EVIDENCE

CONTRABAND IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS



CROSS, CAMERON RENEE

629 OGRADY DR Chattanooga, 37419

Age at Arrest: 46 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

DOMESTIC ASSAULT



CROSS, TRAVIS RAY

629 OGRADY DR CHATTANOOGA, 374191305

Age at Arrest: 48 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

DOMESTIC ASSAULT



DANIELS, DEMIKE KHAYRIC

772 EAST 11TH ST CHATTANOOGA, 37402

Age at Arrest: 31 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

DOMESTIC ASSAULT

DOMESTIC ASSAULT



DAULTON, CANDICE

6327 FAIREST DR HARRISON, 373419202

Age at Arrest: 47 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

THEFT OF PROPERTY (CONDUCT INVOLV.MERCHANDISE)



DEAL, BOBBY DAVIS

3793 DEER RUN RD ALTAMONT, 373014249

Age at Arrest: 50 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING

DRUGS GENERAL CATEGORY FOR RESALE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA



FRANCE, KAYSHA VANSINILA

404 TUNNEL BLVD APT G2 CHATTANOOGA, 37411

Age at Arrest: 22 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

ASSAULT

ASSAULT

VANDALISM/MALICIOUS MISCHIEF



GADDIS, GARAEK DEWAYNE

5003 NEWPORT DR EAST RIDGE, 37412

Age at Arrest: 25 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

FAILURE TO APPEAR

FAILURE TO APPEAR



GIBSON, BRANDON LEE

4897 MCDONALD RD COLLEGEDALE, 37363

Age at Arrest: 30 years old

Arresting Agency: Collegedale

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)



GODSEY, MARILYN NICOLE

286 LAKESIDE DR Graysville, 373387761

Age at Arrest: 35 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

VIOLATION OF PROBATION (THEFT OF PROPERTY)

VIOLATION OF PROBATION (THEFT OF PROPERTY OVER $10

BURGLARY

THEFT OF PROPERTY (CONDUCT INVOLV.MERCHANDISE)

BURGLARY

THEFT OF PROPERTY (CONDUCT INVOLV.MERCHANDISE)

THEFT OF PROPERTY

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING



HAIRSTON, IVAN LEBRON

727 E 11TH ST CHATTANOOGA, 374033104

Age at Arrest: 44 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSION OF LEGEND DRUGS W/O PRESCRIPTION



HALL, NORRISHA ANN

7517 FLORENCE DR HIXSON, 37443

Age at Arrest: 38 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

REGISTRATION, EXPIRED



HAMRICK, TRACY ALLEN

837 RIVERCHASE TRL / HOMELESS CLARKRANGE, 38553

Age at Arrest: 54 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)



HARDWOOD, SARA LORAINE

202 A SPRING CAVE RD HOMELESS PIKEVILLE, 37402

Age at Arrest: 27 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING



HEFLIN, RONALD JAMES

1149 BUCKEYE TRAIL SODDY DAISY, 37379

Age at Arrest: 62 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE



HOLLOWAY, ERIC ALLEN

900 MOUNTAIN CREEK RD #U414 CHATTANOOGA, 37415

Age at Arrest: 55 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

FALSE REPORTS

FALSE REPORTS



JENKINS, BRENESHA R

3915 CAMELIA DR CHATTANOOGA, 37421

Age at Arrest: 24 years old

Arresting Agency: Chatt Housing Auth

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSING A FIREARM WITH INTENT TO GO ARMED



KELLEY, DEJUAN TYRELL

727 E 11TH ST CHATTANOOGA, 374033104

Age at Arrest: 27 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA



KILGORE, CHAD JEREMY

13911 MOORE LN SODDY DAISY, 373797923

Age at Arrest: 34 years old

Arresting Agency: Red Bank

POSSESSION OF METH FOR RESALE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

RESISTING STOP, FRIST, HALT, ARREST OR SEARCH



KING, GARY DEWAYNE

6574 E BRAINERD RD, APT 704 CHATTANOOGA, 37421

Age at Arrest: 33 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

DOMESTIC ASSAULT



LAWRENCE, CHRISTOPHER SHANE

1354 DOCK LATHEM TRAIL HOMELESS CANTON, 30115

Age at Arrest: 52 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING



LOVINGOOD, DEANGELO LABRON

2103 BLACKFORD STREET CHATTANOOGA, 37404

Age at Arrest: 33 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT

FIRST DEGREE MURDER

POSSESSING A FIREARM WITH INTENT TO GO ARMED

POSS OF FIREARM DURING A FELONY



MATTHEWS, MARTY CHARLES

909 MASTERSON AVE HOMELESS HIXSON, 37343

Age at Arrest: 33 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

DOMESTIC ASSAULT

DOMESTIC ASSAULT



MCDANIEL, DONALD CHARLES

497 JAMES THURNER RD TRACY CITY, 37387

Age at Arrest: 50 years old

Arresting Agency: Collegedale

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)



MIDDLETON, CHRISTOPHER SCOTT

9438 LOVELL ROAD SODDY DAISY, 37379

Age at Arrest: 52 years old

Arresting Agency: Red Bank

VIOLATION OF ORDER OF PROTECTION



MITCHELL, KEONTA

4604 OLD MISSION RD CHATTANOOGA, 37411

Age at Arrest: 22 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

THEFT OF PROPERTY



MORRISON, CHRISTOPHER SHANE

HOMELESS SODDY DAISY, 37379

Age at Arrest: 47 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

DRUGS GENERAL CATEGORY FOR RESALE

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA



NUNEZ, HOMERO

1211 ECHO DR HIXSON, 37343

Age at Arrest: 37 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)



OQUENDO, ANGEL ROBERTO

309 JUNIPER DR WILLIAMSON, 78626

Age at Arrest: 46 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING

DISORDERLY CONDUCT

PUBLIC INTOXICATION



PARSONS, ROSELINDA MARIA

10278 LOMA CITA LN OOLTEWAH, 37363

Age at Arrest: 27 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)



PARSONS, SAVANNAH CAROLINE

6 NORTH MOORE ROAD CHATTANOOGA, 374121110

Age at Arrest: 31 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING

PUBLIC INTOXICATION



POLLARD, KEVIN DEJUAN

1614 MARY DUPRE DR CHATTANOOGA, 37421

Age at Arrest: 33 years old

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE



RITCHIE, CARL ROGER

120 BROWN STREET ATHENS, 37303

Age at Arrest: 32 years old

Arresting Agency: Collegedale

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)



SHEPPARD, VERDALE

1804 DIXON ST CHATTANOOGA, 374212919

Age at Arrest: 57 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD

BURGLARY



SMITH, BRITTANY LEIGH

6613 LEVI RD HIXSON, 37343

Age at Arrest: 33 years old

Arresting Agency: Tenn Hwy Patrol

VIO.

DRIVERS LICENSE LAWSTEPHENS, ANDREW LEE5756 TAGGART DR HIXSON, 37343Age at Arrest: 35 years oldArresting Agency: Chattanooga PDDOMESTIC ASSAULTTANKERSLEY, HUBERT DELOY6852 COTTONPORT RD DAYTON, 37321Age at Arrest: 55 years oldArresting Agency: HC SheriffDRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSETHOMAS, MIRANDA RUTH291 CARRIANNE HILLS RD COOPERHILL, 37317Age at Arrest: 34 years oldArresting Agency: HC SheriffBooked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)TOWNSEND, TRAMMEL CALLAWAY6133 E BRAINERD RD HOMELESS CHATTANOOGA, 374214916Age at Arrest: 60 years oldArresting Agency: Chattanooga PDPUBLIC INTOXICATIONWILKEY, LEBRON ROY8307 TRAYLOR LANE HIXSON, 37343Age at Arrest: 50 years oldArresting Agency: HC SheriffVIOLATION OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRYEVADING ARRESTVIOLATION OF PROBATION (THEFT OF PROPERTY UNDER 10VIOLATION OF PROBATION (THEFT OF PROPERTY)VIOLATION OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATIONWILLIAMS, JUSTIN CRAIG6315 SHORE MANOR LN CHATTANOOGA, 37416Age at Arrest: 36 years oldArresting Agency: HC SheriffDOMESTIC ASSAULTWILSON, KELSEY LOREN2100 WISTERIA DR HIXSON, 37343Age at Arrest: 27 years oldArresting Agency: Red BankBooked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)WOOD, DANIELLE LEE727 E 11TH ST CHATTANOOGA, 374033104Age at Arrest: 43 years oldArresting Agency: Chattanooga PDBURGLARY

Here are the mug shots:

APPLEBERRY, DOMINIQUE NATASHA

Age at Arrest: 32

Date of Birth: 08/20/1991

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

FUGITIVE (ARREST FOR CRIME IN ANOTHER STATE) ARNETT, LORI LUCINDA

Age at Arrest: 38

Date of Birth: 03/10/1985

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE BARLOW, AMBER MICHELLE

Age at Arrest: 34

Date of Birth: 11/07/1988

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE BARNES, ALAN RICHARD

Age at Arrest: 67

Date of Birth: 06/16/1956

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

VIOLATION OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY

VIOLATION OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY BENFORD-SUTTON, RAYSHUN LEWIS

Age at Arrest: 20

Date of Birth: 10/10/2003

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

EVADING ARREST

POSSESSING A FIREARM WITH INTENT TO GO ARMED

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE BRYANT, JASON W

Age at Arrest: 46

Date of Birth: 02/18/1977

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

AGGRAVATED ARSON

AGGRAVATED ARSON

AGGRAVATED ARSON

AGGRAVATED CHILD ABUSE OR NEGLECT

RESISTING ARREST OR OBSTRUCTION OF LEGAL PROCESS DAULTON, CANDICE

Age at Arrest: 47

Date of Birth: 04/13/1976

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

THEFT OF PROPERTY (CONDUCT INVOLV.MERCHANDISE) DEAL, BOBBY DAVIS

Age at Arrest: 50

Date of Birth: 01/22/1973

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING

DRUGS GENERAL CATEGORY FOR RESALE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA FRANCE, KAYSHA VANSINILA

Age at Arrest: 22

Date of Birth: 07/03/2001

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

ASSAULT

ASSAULT

VANDALISM/MALICIOUS MISCHIEF GADDIS, GARAEK DEWAYNE

Age at Arrest: 25

Date of Birth: 10/20/1997

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

FAILURE TO APPEAR

FAILURE TO APPEAR

GIBSON, BRANDON LEE

Age at Arrest: 30

Date of Birth: 01/06/1993

Arresting Agency: Collegedale



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

HAIRSTON, IVAN LEBRON

Age at Arrest: 44

Date of Birth: 09/05/1979

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSION OF LEGEND DRUGS W/O PRESCRIPTION HALL, NORRISHA ANN

Age at Arrest: 38

Date of Birth: 02/22/1985

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

REGISTRATION, EXPIRED HAMRICK, TRACY ALLEN

Age at Arrest: 54

Date of Birth: 06/13/1968

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

HARDWOOD, SARA LORAINE

Age at Arrest: 27

Date of Birth: 01/08/1996

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING HENDRIE, DANIEL FRANCIS

Age at Arrest: 71

Date of Birth: 07/09/1952

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DISORDERLY CONDUCT HOLLOWAY, ERIC ALLEN

Age at Arrest: 55

Date of Birth: 12/26/1967

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

FALSE REPORTS

FALSE REPORTS JENKINS, BRENESHA R

Age at Arrest: 24

Date of Birth: 12/30/1998

Arresting Agency: Chatt Housing Auth



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSING A FIREARM WITH INTENT TO GO ARMED KELLEY, DEJUAN TYRELL

Age at Arrest: 27

Date of Birth: 04/03/1996

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA KING, GARY DEWAYNE

Age at Arrest: 33

Date of Birth: 04/17/1990

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DOMESTIC ASSAULT

LAWRENCE, CHRISTOPHER SHANE

Age at Arrest: 52

Date of Birth: 11/08/1970

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING MATTHEWS, MARTY CHARLES

Age at Arrest: 33

Date of Birth: 08/07/1990

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DOMESTIC ASSAULT

DOMESTIC ASSAULT MCDANIEL, DONALD CHARLES

Age at Arrest: 50

Date of Birth: 08/02/1973

Arresting Agency: Collegedale



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

MIDDLETON, CHRISTOPHER SCOTT

Age at Arrest: 52

Date of Birth: 10/14/1971

Arresting Agency: Red Bank



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

VIOLATION OF ORDER OF PROTECTION MITCHELL, KEONTA

Age at Arrest: 22

Date of Birth: 07/31/2001

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

THEFT OF PROPERTY NEIGHBORS, SUMMER RENEE

Age at Arrest: 42

Date of Birth: 07/04/1981

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DRUGS GENERAL CATEGORY FOR RESALE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

POSSESSION OF METH (SELL, DEL. OR MANUFACTURING)

DRIVING WHILE IN POSSESSION OF METHAMPHETAMINE 5 G NUNEZ, HOMERO

Age at Arrest: 37

Date of Birth: 06/26/1985

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

OQUENDO, ANGEL ROBERTO

Age at Arrest: 46

Date of Birth: 12/10/1976

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING

DISORDERLY CONDUCT

PUBLIC INTOXICATION PARKS, KELLY D

Age at Arrest: 47

Date of Birth: 06/04/1976

Arresting Agency: East Ridge



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE PARSONS, ROSELINDA MARIA

Age at Arrest: 27

Date of Birth: 03/23/1996

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)



PARSONS, SAVANNAH CAROLINE

Age at Arrest: 31

Date of Birth: 04/24/1992

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING

PUBLIC INTOXICATION RITCHIE, CARL ROGER

Age at Arrest: 32

Date of Birth: 11/18/1990

Arresting Agency: Collegedale



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

RODDY, CHRISTOPHER LEE

Age at Arrest: 31

Date of Birth: 01/19/1987

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

POSSESSING A FIREARM WITH INTENT TO GO ARMED

POSS OF FIREARM DURING A FELONY

DRUGS GENERAL CATEGORY FOR RESALE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA SHEPPARD, VERDALE

Age at Arrest: 57

Date of Birth: 07/24/1966

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

BURGLARY SMITH, BRITTANY LEIGH

Age at Arrest: 33

Date of Birth: 07/09/1990

Arresting Agency: Tenn Hwy Patrol



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

VIO. DRIVERS LICENSE LAW TANKERSLEY, HUBERT DELOY

Age at Arrest: 55

Date of Birth: 03/02/1968

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE THOMAS, MIRANDA RUTH

Age at Arrest: 34

Date of Birth: 11/18/1988

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

TOWNSEND, TRAMMEL CALLAWAY

Age at Arrest: 60

Date of Birth: 06/10/1963

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

PUBLIC INTOXICATION WELCH, STEVE WESLEY

Age at Arrest: 49

Date of Birth: 05/02/1974

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

THEFT OF PROPERTY OVER $5,000.00 WILKEY, LEBRON ROY

Age at Arrest: 50

Date of Birth: 07/17/1970

Arresting Agency: HC Sheriff



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

VIOLATION OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY

EVADING ARREST

VIOLATION OF PROBATION (THEFT OF PROPERTY UNDER 10

VIOLATION OF PROBATION (THEFT OF PROPERTY)

VIOLATION OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION WOOD, DANIELLE LEE

Age at Arrest: 43

Date of Birth: 11/18/1979

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga PD



Last Date of Arrest: 10/18/2023

Charge(s):

BURGLARY




Decorated Army Combat Veteran Mike Holden will be laid to rest next Monday at the Chattanooga VA National Cemetery at 12:30. SSSG Holden, who died unexpectedly on Oct. 10, will be remembered for dedicated service to his country. The North Carolina native was always willing to share his Vietnam experiences; he was there at the height of the war in 1968.



I first met the Staff Sergeant after joining Chapter 203 of Vietnam Veterans of America and would always sit at his table. SSG Holden saved his uniform and medals of the war; he had collected documents and maps from his time in the Southeast Asia country and was completing a manuscript for a book, Told To Go.

He was proud of meeting General William Westmoreland in 1971 while visiting a restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina. Mr. Holden said a few minutes later the General introduced him to LTC Colin Powell.

SSG Holden is one of many who helped make happen CPT Larry Taylor's Congressional Medal of Honor. Mr. Holden escorted the Army pilot to the White House to receive his high award. His longtime friend coordinated media events and helped with the parade honoring Capt. Taylor in downtown Chattanooga.

After the army, Mr. Holden had an extensive career in furniture sales and marketing before retiring.

Fellow Vietnam veterans will miss the Sergeant at the monthly meetings. I found a picture of one of his last meetings with his good friend Capt. Taylor reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Perhaps we didnt say thank you enough to Mike Holden for his hard work and service to our country.

Hamilton Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

Earl Freudenberg
In the heart of Tennessee, a remarkable journey of compassion and recovery began in 2010 within the confines of the Marion County jail. Recognizing a desperate need to extend support to women in crisis, Champion Recovery Community was born. Nearly 13 years later, this nonprofit organization has not only endured but has thrived, expanding its reach far and wide to touch the lives of countless women facing the challenges of addiction and incarceration.

As CRC continues to expand its reach, the upcoming radio auction on WEPG The River stands as a testament to its commitment to the Tennessee Valley community. The funds raised through this event will go directly to supporting the organization's multifaceted programs, empowering more women to break free from the chains of addiction and incarceration.

Travis Hickman [the station manager at WEPG] has played a pivotal role in championing this cause. By providing the format for this important fundraiser, WEPG is not just a broadcast station; it is a partner in the journey of recovery and hope. Travis Hickman's dedication reflects the station's commitment to using its platform to uplift and support the local community.

CRC's roots trace back to the Marion County jail, where a group of dedicated individuals saw an opportunity to make a difference. Recognizing the unique struggles faced by women in crisis, CRC set out to provide a lifeline of hope and recovery. Over the years, the organization has evolved, reaching beyond jail cells to offer a free recovery program that serves women both inside and outside the prison walls.

"Our mission is to be a guiding light for women seeking recovery, no matter where they are on their journey," says Alyson Riley, founder of Champion Recovery Community. "We believe in the power of transformation and second chances."

The cornerstone of CRC's outreach is the 12-week recovery program offered approximately three times a year. This comprehensive program addresses not only addiction but also the underlying issues that contribute to the cycle of incarceration. It provides a safe and supportive environment for women to rebuild their lives and regain control of their destinies.

"We are immensely grateful to WEPG and Travis Hickman for standing beside us in our mission," said Ms. Riley, "Their support amplifies our message and enables us to reach even more hearts and minds."

What makes this radio auction truly special is the array of exciting items that participants will have the chance to bid on. From exclusive experiences to coveted merchandise, the auction promises to be a delightful mix of fun and philanthropy. Attendees can anticipate an adrenaline-pumping auction with every bid contributing to the noble cause of Champion Recovery Community.

Whether it's a timely 6-foot pre-lit Christmas tree, services from great local businesses like Studio 306 and Top of the Rock restaurant, gift cards from great local retailers, or one-of-a-kind memorabilia, these items are more than just material possessions; they represent the collective effort to bring positive change to the lives of women in crisis. Each winning bid becomes a beacon of hope, illuminating a path toward recovery and renewal.

As the radio waves carry the messages of hope and transformation, Champion Recovery Community invites the Tennessee Valley community and beyond to participate in this significant event. Every bid, every contribution, and every moment of support makes a difference in the lives of women striving to overcome addiction and rebuild their futures.

The radio auction on WEPG The River is not merely an event; it is a celebration of resilience, a demonstration of community spirit, and a powerful reminder that recovery is possible with compassion and support. Join hands with Champion Recovery Community, WEPG, and Travis Hickman as they embark on this journey of auctioning for a cause, making a lasting impact, one bid at a time.






The Unitarian Universalist Church of Chattanooga announces its Yard Sale, taking place this Saturday from 8 a.m.-1 p.m."The event promises to be a treasure trove of bargains, offering an array of items that will appeal to the entire community," organizers said. "The Yard Sale is a beloved tradition at the Unitarian Universalist Church, and this year's event is shaping up to be one of the best yet. The entire community is invited to join us at 3224 Navajo Dr. in Chattanooga, where a wide variety of gently used items will be available for purchase."This event is an opportunity to find unique and affordable items, including, but not limited to:? Furniture? Clothing? Books? Electronics? Home decor? Toys? Collectibles? Kitchenware? Tools"In addition to offering fantastic deals, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Chattanooga's Yard Sale also serves as a community-building event," organizers said."The funds raised during the sale will go toward supporting various church activities, community outreach programs and charitable initiatives. Unitarian Universalist Church of Chattanooga is known for its dedication to inclusivity, social justice, and community involvement. By participating in this Yard Sale, you're not only securing great finds, but also contributing to a welcoming and compassionate community."
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Local nonprofit Hope Included in partnership with Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors and Play & Park Structures Inc., a PlayCore company, have announced the redevelopment of Riverview Park, transforming the space into an inclusive park that is an open and safe space carefully designed to promote play among children of differing abilities, ages and communities.

On Thursday, Commissioner Brad Turner of the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities presented Hope Included with a $500,000 check as part of its inclusive playground and facility grant.

The nonprofit is one of seven organizations and communities across the state to receive this funding and is the sole recipient in Chattanooga.

In addition to designing the playground, Play & Park is providing a matching funds grant for the equipment. Riverview Park will be designated as a National Demonstration Site by PlayCores Center for Outreach Research and Education (CORE) in three areas: 7 Principles of Inclusive Playground Design, providing opportunities for physical, cognitive, communicative, social/emotional and sensory development; Play On!, focusing on overall physical fitness while imploring six essential elements of play; and NatureGrounds, incorporating nature into the playground experience.

Individual pledges and donations from the community have reached over $420,000. The remainder of the $1 million fundraising goal will be raised in the coming months to finalize the project with updates to the pavilion, landscaping and lighting. Construction is slated for completion in summer of 2024.

Nicolle McCoy founded Hope Included after the 2019 passing of her daughter, Hope, from a rare condition called Xia-Gibbs Syndrome. Its mission is to give all members of the community, regardless of ability, access to everything that makes us love where we live and do what we love.

Ms. McCoy said, Riverview Park is where I took Hope to play during our six beautiful years together, and her physical and occupational therapists would use the park as a therapy site. We recognized the limitations of the park for children with disabilities and envisioned a more inclusive place to support the needs of all children. Now, our dream is becoming a reality.

To donate and find more information about Hope Included, please visit www.hopeincluded.org.




'The Amazing Race' fans will never see competitors head to certain countries in the world. Here are a few countries the show will never head to.

CBSs The Amazing Race has visited over 90 countries from its first season to the current one, season 35. Fans love watching the cast race around the world, but there are a few countries the show is unlikely ever to visit. Here are the countries that fans shouldnt expect to see featured in The Amazing Race, according to the co-creator and executive producer.

The Amazing Race wont head to these countries anytime soon, co-creator says

The Amazing Race takes contestants (and fans) around the world. The appeal of the first season, which aired in 2001, is that we could watch contestants race from one country to the next and see new cultures, activities, and ways of living before the same information was easily accessed online. As a child, I remember the awe that The Amazing Race would bring me and my family as we gathered around a small TV and watched the wide-eyed competitors navigate new places in just one TV hour.

While it would be extra excellent if The Amazing Race could make a goal to visit every country, thatll likely never happen. Weather difficulties and international relations have made some world areas too risky to navigate. Co-creator and executive producer Bertram van Munster spoke to The New York Times about the show never heading to Russia, China, and countries in West Africa.

The world has gotten a little smaller, van Munster said. Were not going to Russia right now. Were not going to China. There are a lot of places in West Africa where I would love to go, but where we cant go. Senegal. Logistically, maybe we can figure it out. But is it safe? We dont want to get ourselves in trouble in another country. The world is a tricky place.

Co-creator Elise Doganieri also discussed the weather conditions impacting The Amazing Race Season 35 travel. Weather has made a big change in how we travel, she explained. There are more storms, especially over Asia, and we have flight delays and cancellations that push into the schedule.

The Amazing Race Season 35 | CBS

Season 35 heads to this country for the 1st time in the history of the show

While The Amazing Race cant travel to every country, theyre making new strides in season 35 by visiting a country the show has never been to: Slovenia.

Co-creator Bertram van Munster explained how they came up with the idea to head to Slovenia during Paleyfest 2023. Elise said, Why dont we go to Slovenia? And I said, Slovenia? Thats not a bad idea,' he explained. Thats always my answer. And thats the reason. It turns out to be a spectacular country, wonderful people, high tech, very high tech, exceptionally clean. The streets are so clean, you dont see this anywhere in the world anymore. Wonderful people, spectacular locations, and a lot of good things to do.

Host Phil Keoghan also sang the praises of Slovenia. Its a very young country, he told Variety. Its the beekeeping capital of the world. Its just magnificent. The mountains, the lakes, the culture, the people. Teams absolutely loved it, and they will be getting to see the country in a very unique way, lets just say, from the sky at some point.

The Amazing Race Season 35 airs Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET on CBS.

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Cherokee Nation Public Health Medical Director Dr. David Gahn speaks to the Council of the Cherokee Nation during the legislative bodys Health Committee meeting on Oct. 16.
INTERIM FINANCIAL RESULT TO BE ANNOUNCED 23 NOVEMBER 2023

DUNEDIN, New Zealand  Cancer diagnostics company Pacific Edge (NZX, ASX: PEB) advises that its half year results for the six months ending 30 September 2023 will be released on Thursday 23 November 2023, prior to 10am.

This will be followed by an Investor and Analyst conference call at 11.00am (NZDT). This investor briefing will be available via webcast by the following link www.virtualmeeting.co.nz/pebhy23 or by phone on the following toll-free numbers:

New Zealand: 0800 449 170

Australia: 1800 896 574

Questions

Questions can be submitted online in writing via the Webcast platform or verbally via the audio call system when prompted.

If you have any queries regarding the results announcement or the conference call, please contact Stacey Stanley on 0800 555 563 or stacey.stanley@pelnz.com.

ENDS

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Lament is at the heart of Killers of the Flower Moon, the latest film from director Martin Scorsese, which premieres on Apple TV+ and in theaters on Friday, October 20. The subject may seem well-worna true-life story of a murder spreebut Scorsese elevates it into a meditation on love, guilt, and what it means to be righteous.

Based on a journalistic history with the same title, Flower Moons story opens in Oklahoma just after the end of the First World War, when Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) drifts into town following lackluster army service. His uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), offers Ernest a home and work at his cattle ranch in Osage territory.

There, Ernest meets Mollie (Lily Gladstone), a member of the Osage people, in a context that may be unfamiliar to viewers acquainted with other stories of Native Americans. In Osage country, the tables are turned. The tribes land has oiland lots of it. The Osages drive fancy cars, wear fur coats, and drip with jewels. They live in luxurious houses where they employ poor white people, like Ernest, as chauffeurs, cleaners, nannies, and cooks.

All that moneyand the young women who inherit itcreates high temptation for neer-do-well men looking for a fast path to riches. If those riches come through love, so be it. If not, murder is an option too.

In other hands, this premise would produce a predictable story, a cautionary tale of white peoples injustice to Native Americans. That element is certainly there, but Scorsese has more to say, too, dwelling on all humans capacity to ignore the darkness in our own hearts.

The villains of the story are convinced of their own righteousness. They have no interest in repentanceno sense of their need for redemptionbecause they have muted their hearts to their own sin. Can you find the wolves in this picture? DiCaprio reads in halting voiceover, in one of the movies trailers, as an image appears of respectable white characters who would never think of themselves as wolves.

That depth is possible thanks to the performances of De Niro and DiCaprio, Scorsese favorites who are here returning to well-trod ground. DiCaprios turn as Ernest is particularly remarkable: It may be easy to play a big mana dastardly villain or a dashing herobut Ernest is a small man. He is not smart. He is not hardworking or principled or even ambitious in any real way. Yet DiCaprio manages to make him sympathetic by focusing on the one pure thing in his life: his love for Mollie.

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This close focus creates something intimate and heartbreakingand with it, Scorsese masterfully prods the audience to serious reflection, too, about how we would have behaved had we lived in this storys era. It may be hard to imagine what wed have done as a Custer or a Sitting Bull, because few of us are men or women of history. But we could all be Ernest or Mollie, ordinary folk who fall in love, start families, and witness history against the intimate backdrop of our own lives.

De Niros William King Hale, meanwhile, is an unsettling figure. He presents himself as a righteous man, full of care for his Osage neighbors, always ready with a lesson from the Bible. He lauds the Osages as good people, speaks their language, knows their families by their Osage names. He is a friend to the Osages, he claims. He loves each child of God equally, he claimsand perhaps sincerely. Scorsese is assured enough in his art to leave us with more questions than answers. Does Hale truly believe in his own goodness, and if so, how is that possible? Is the human heart really so self-deceived?

That examination of hypocrisyof the Lords name taken in vainis perhaps the most disquieting part of the film. Most characters are Christians who worship together in the local Catholic church (though the Osages also maintain older traditions). The contrast Scorsese explores is not between different faiths but between publicly professed faith and lived faith, between people who talk and people who listen.

The modern world is all noise, but the Osages seek the stillness of an empty church or the emptiness of the prairie to pour out their sorrow and confusion directly to God. Each Osage character is a Jeremiah: one who cannot help but see the surrounding darknessand cannot help but hope for deliverance.

Despite the turmoil, the Osages live out their lives and faith in solemn quietthe quiet of a running stream or whispering wind. And like them, the movie is most powerful in its silent moments. Scorsese has the confidence of a director who knows when to let the wind speak.

This does not mean Flower Moon is comfortable or calm. Perhaps the most disturbing moments are the instances of casual racism, the matter-of-fact comments on a babys skin color or a parade in the background in which a group of native mothers of soldiers march alongside the Ku Klux Klan. These details are all the more powerful for their nonchalance. The characters are undisturbed, but modern viewers will be knocked off balance.

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More broadly, though, we are left with lament. There is much loss to be borne: loss of a people, loss of loved ones, loss of a dream, loss of ones own soul. Narrow is the way, one character tells Ernest. In Killers of the Flower Moon, that narrow way is left uncharted.

Caveat Spectator

Killers of the Flower Moon is rated R for violence, grisly images, and some language. There is little sexual content, the most graphic being married love that is quickly faded out. There are some images of violence and several disturbing murders. Scorsese manages to make each death felt as a new outrage.

Rebecca Cusey is a lawyer and movie critic in Washington, DC.
Update (October 19, 2023): This story has been updated to include newly available information from a US intelligence assessment.

The Arabic word ahli can be translated into English in several ways: family, membership, and people. This family is not limited to nuclear family membership. Its capacious, expanding to include a wide range of people who belong together.

This word, ahli, has appeared in news headlines across the world this week, following the explosion that killed scores seeking refuge at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

Narratives about who was to blame proliferated before the fires at the hospital were even extinguished. Some claimed an Israeli air strike was resonsible. Others blamed a misfired rocket belonging to Palestine Islamic Jihad. A US intelligence assessment, viewed by outlets including CNN on Wednesday, judged that Israel was not responsible for [the] explosion that killed hundreds of civilians, estimated the death toll at the low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum, and reported only light structural damage at the hospital.

As a historian who has published on al-Ahli Hospital, let me extend an invitation to pause while media debate and intelligence fact-finding continue. Lets pause to learn. To think. To pray.

Praying about the destruction at this hospital in Gaza needs to start, first and foremost, with knowledge of the people who were affected. Who were the people at the hospital? Why did al-Ahli Arab Hospital experience this tragedy? And how can we turn to God when nothing makes sense?

To more fully comprehend who sought refuge within the hospital, we must start with its history.

The idea of establishing a Christian hospital in Gaza began in 1878, when the British Church Missionary Society (CMS) commissioned Alexander Schapira to relocate his family to Gaza City and determine the feasibility of a medical mission there. Schapira was the ideal choice for the CMS. He was raised in a Jewish family in Ottoman Palestine and spoke Arabic fluently. He became a believer later in life and joined the CMS, where he first served in West Africa before returning to Palestine.

In one of his first letters from Gaza, which Ive reviewed in the CMS archives, Schapira described difficulty in finding accommodation, but he was nevertheless encouraged.

What a happy thought it is, he wrote, when I think of my work here with its apparent difficulties; for it is His work and I feel sure that He will be with me and bless my labor here. Shortly after writing this letter, Schapira spent everything he owned to buy medicine, print biblical tracts, and hire Asad Salim, a doctor from Beirut, to dispense free care to all those living in Gaza.

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While Schapira trusted in God, distributing free medicine wasnt a sustainable business model. The cost of medicine and printed tracts exhausted his personal finances. But in 1882, a sympathetic Englishmen donated 500 to ensure the continuation of the dispensary. This date is often cited as the beginning of the Christian hospital.

Focusing on medicine, however, misses one of the most important aspects of this Christian work in Gaza.

In 1891, the dispensary expanded into a hospital building where medical missionaries could perform both out-patient and in-patient procedures. They expected patients to attend the hospital because of their advanced surgical techniques but found that most patients were looking to fill more basic needs: a meal, a bed, a place of refuge.

From the establishment of the Christian hospital in 1891 until the present day, it has offered both healing and refuge for Gazans. It has been a site of courageous hospitality through times of peace and war.

In the 1950s, the CMS sold the hospital to the Southern Baptist Convention, who renamed it the Gaza Baptist Hospital. The Baptist name, al-maamadani, still resonates in Gaza due in part to the hospitals service during the 1967 Six-Day War.

In the weeks leading up to that war, American surgeons Merrill Moore and David Dorr decided to remain at the hospital while their families evacuated. The surgeons and hospital staff continued to open their doors to patients, adding beds to the Baptist church sanctuary to accommodate hundreds escaping violence.

Dorr had little time to write but kept an audio diary which his family shared with me. In the recordings, his voice sounds anxious but resolute. He knew that if Christians abandoned the hospital in Gaza, they might never return.

In the midst of war, when Dorr wasnt treating patients or offering radical hospitality to those seeking refuge, he paused to pray. He prayed for protection, safety, comfort, and a peaceful resolution to the violence that afflicted the hospital and those sheltered within it. That spirit of hospitality continued when administration came into Anglican hands for the last four decades.

Like many, Ive felt helpless to comprehend the current situation. The geopolitical forces at play are beyond human understanding. They are rapidly changing, and they call on us to pick sides, to choose enemies. We may never have an answer to why the hospital was struck. But we should not forget to pray.

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Pray for Gods work throughout the world. Pray for his protection over the innocent lives in Israel and Palestine. Pray for the hostages and their families. Pray for the people, al-ahli, who sought safety in the protection of Christian hospitality and faced the unrelenting atrocities of war.

Pray with confidence that, while human understanding is limited, full of gaps and inconsistencies, God is omniscient and omnipotent still.

Carter Barnett is a PhD Candidate in the Department of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He researches the history of faith and healing in the modern Middle East.
This week, Heather sits down with Viral Jesus honorary co-host Karen Swallow Prior to discuss the origins of the evangelical movements PR troubles. And few thought leaders are better qualified to put the issue into a hopeful perspective than Karen Swallow Prior. Fun Fact: This is Karens third appearance on Viral Jesus, and the most of any of our guests so far.

Karens latest book, The Evangelical Imagination, is about how art, literature, and popular culture have helped push evangelicals into an existential crisis of sorts. And of course, social media, with its penchant for both joy and destruction, plays a role in this evangelical saga.

In her wide-ranging conversation with Heather, Karen brings sociological context to the recent talk of evangelical deconstruction; she makes the case for a return to virtue; and she offers a postmortem on purity culture, showing how its roots can be spotted in the pages of classic literature. This crackling, high-energy chat will leave you ready to get your copy of Karens book posthaste.

In this episode Heather also spends some quality time with her best friend and co-blogger Scarlett Longstreet for this weeks Safe Space segment. Today, Heather asks Scarlett, who is not a Christian, to share what she likes and dislikes about the Christian influencers that she follows.

Guest Bio

Karen Swallow Prior, PhD, is a reader, writer, and professor. She is the author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023). She has a monthly column for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, and Vox.

Host Bio

Heather Thompson Day is an associate professor of communication at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. She is the author of eight books, including Ill See You Tomorrow and Its Not Your Turn. Reach out to Heather on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, at @HeatherTDay and on Instagram @heatherthompsonday.

Additional Links

Get Heathers weekly inspirational email delivered to your inbox every Friday night at 7 PM EDT. Sign up now at: www.heatherthompsonday.com/links.

Viral Jesus is a production of Christianity Today

Host and creator: Heather Thompson Day

Executive Producer: Ed Gilbreath

Producer: Loren Joseph

Mix Engineer: Alex Carter

Director of CT Podcasts: Mike Cosper
Embattled Canadian pastor who faced jail time for sermon appeals 'outrageous' guilty verdict

A Canadian pastor found guilty of mischief for delivering a sermon to truckers blocking the U.S.-Canada border last year is appealing the verdict in what he described as a battle on behalf of all Canadians.

"It's outrageous," Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who pastors the Cave of Adullam congregation in Calgary, told The Christian Post on Wednesday. "If a pastor can be arrested and found guilty of those ridiculous charges, anyone can be."

Last month, an Alberta judge found Pawlowski guilty of mischief and breaching a release order related to a 19-minute sermon he delivered to truckers protesting federal vaccine mandates in February 2022, which authorities claim incited the protesters.

In his sermon, Pawlowski urged the truckers blocking the border crossing in Coutts, Alberta, to "hold the line" against the government without resorting to violence.

Days later, he was arrested by the Calgary Police Service and served 51 days in two separate prisons, where he alleged authorities abused him, placed him in a small cage, and tried in vain to instigate other inmates to hurt him. He was later placed under house arrest until his trial last month.

The judge sentenced him on Sept. 18 to 60 days in jail but credited him with the 78 days of pre-trial detention he served and allowed him to go free. Even so, Pawlowski said he intends to fight the charges against him. His attorneys filed an appeal in the Court of Appeal of Alberta on Sept. 25 but do not expect it to come before a judge until sometime next fall.

"Truly, the notion that 'the process is the punishment' is true because they're dragging this out forever," Pawlowski told CP. "It's supposed to be swift justice; it's supposed to be as soon as possible, but the system in Canada is forever and ever draining your finances and time."

Pawlowski first made international headlines in March 2021 when he ordered public health officials and police out of his church as they attempted to inspect it for COVID-19 compliance during an Easter service.

Since then, the pastor has been continuously entangled with Canadian authorities. He was arrested five times for conducting church services in violation of a court order, including once in the middle of a busy highway and another time on the tarmac of Calgary International Airport.

Pawlowski told CP that he keeps fighting because he fears his treatment could set a precedent for others having their rights violated.

"Remember, I was not an organizer [of the trucker protest], I was not blocking anything," he said. "I just cheered people up who were suffering greatly because of what the totalitarian regime did to them. And for that, I was found guilty and criminally convicted."

"So this is not just a case for Artur Pawlowski," he added. "This is a case for every free Canadian if you want to remain free. And whatever is happening in Canada, it just goes to the United States, and Australia, and England. It infects everywhere."

Sarah Miller, Pawlowski's attorney, echoed her client, telling CP that Pawlowski's appeal addresses fundamental legal issues.

"In our legal research, what we were able to uncover [is that] there's not previously been a conviction of this nature, where a person does not participate in the protest or blockade, but they attend to speak," Miller said.

She offered the similar situation of more than 1,000 protesters arrested earlier this year for demonstrating against old-growth logging in British Columbia.

"If I were to tell you I'm in favor of the [logging protesters], does that mean I'm now inciting mischief because I'm expressing support for them? It's an important legal question from a civil liberties perspective."

Pawlowski, who potentially faced 10 years in prison for allegedly violating Alberta's Critical Infrastructure Defence Act with his sermon, worries for the future of free speech in Canada and worldwide.

"Whatever is happening here [in Canada], politicians in other countries are monitoring," Pawlowski said. "And if our politicians can get away with this, other politicians will say, 'Well, we can get away with that, as well.' This has become a global fight for freedom."
Professor encourages activist to start 'mass movement' for kids' right to sex work

A Johns Hopkins University professor appeared to advise a self-described sex work activist to create a "mass movement" to promote the idea of children in the sex industry, according to audio recorded by an undercover journalist during the Socialism 2023 conference.

Karlyn Borysenko, a psychologist and an independent reporter, attended three days of the most prominent socialist conference in the country, which took place in Chicago from Sept. 1 to Sept. 4. The conference hosts socialists and activists throughout the country for discussions on topics including Marxism and strategies for left-wing causes.

One of the panels titled "The Politics of Childhood" featured Jules Gill-Peterson, a male associate professor at Johns Hopkins University and a scholar of "transgender history" who identifies as female.

Sophie Lewis, the author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family, was another speaker on the panel.

In a statement earlier this month to Campus Reform, Borysenko said that before she began recording, the panel discussed abolishing the age of consent. The reporter also noted that most of the audience appeared accepting of the idea of children having a "right" to solicit sex.

"Socialists do not believe that children are the 'private property' of their parents," she told Campus Reform. "They believe children are little adults that can make all their own decisions."

The context of the clip is that there had already been a complete hour-long discussion of liberating children from their parents.

During the panel's question and answer portion, an attendee named Chanel introduced herself as a sex worker activist and said she didn't think she would ask her question if the event was live-streamed. The activist asked whether young people in the sex industry should be considered part of a "children's liberation vision."

According to the activist, "young people in the sex industry deserve and need rights at minimum actual liberation and justice."

"There's just like a utopia I had never really thought of before because the world feels so separated, and the issue of youth and sex work is so incredibly loaded," she said.

The activist, at one point, said that her activism includes "working at the intersection of migrants, justice, capitalism, and sex work" and that she would like to see a "liberation" movement for children that includes "highly marginalized kids on the street'" and "people selling sex to survive."

"Are we just like walking into too much trouble to try to even address that when talking about the rights of children?" Chanel asked.

Instead of responding to what Gill-Peterson described as "moral panics," the professor questioned what other strategies should be considered for creating "capacities of courage" and "truly a sense of solidarity."

"If you're part of a project trying to think about the young people's role in the sex industry, one of the ways that you might feel like you're going to be able to lend time and energy to that effort is if it doesn't feel like you could be hung up to dry alone for it, right?" the professor replied.

"So, a mass movement has a kind of persuasive value," Gill-Peterson continued.

Johns Hopkins University and Socialism 2023 did not immediately respond to The Christian Post's request for comment. The outlet attempted to reach Jules Gill-Peterson for comment Monday via his work email but received an automatic reply stating that the professor was on leave for the semester.

According to the panel's description, the discussion focused on "the urgent project  and problem  of solidarity across reproductive justice and trans justice movements." The panel takes place amid nationwidedebates about whether states should ban surgeries and the prescription of hormones for minors confused about their sex.

In a full recording of the panel published on Borysenko's Substack, both panelists can be heard describing social concerns about children as a "moral panic," with Gill-Peterson referring to this as "one of the oldest political playbooks in [the United States]."

Borysenko previously covered another speech Gill-Peterson gave at Lewis & Clark College as part of a gender studies symposium titled "Transition and Abortion as Vernacular Medicine." During his speech, the professor encouraged the use of do-it-yourself hormones, although he acknowledged that the practice can be "dangerous."

"DIY is not inherently free from danger or risk, but nothing is in life," he said. "So, I think it's a question of who do we trust more to negotiate and arrange risk and manage risk and danger in a way that we feel good about."
White House: Israel 'not responsible' for attack on Christian-run hospital in Gaza

The state of Israel is "not responsible" for a deadly explosion at an Anglican hospital in Gaza that Palestinians say killed 471 people, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

A statement from White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the assessment was based on several factors, including data from "overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information."

While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday.  Adrienne Watson (@NSC_Spox) October 18, 2023

Earlier Wednesday, during a visit to Israel amid ongoing tensions following the surprise Hamas attack on Oct. 7, President Joe Biden echoed official statements from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and said the airstrike Tuesday on the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza appeared to be linked to an "errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza."

Biden added that U.S. defense officials provided "data" proving Israel wasn't behind the attack, which he later told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he believes was "done by the other team, not you," The Washington Post reports, adding that the administration's claims have not immediately been verified. No additional details were provided.

Hamas and Israel are pointing fingers at each other for the hospital explosion, with Hamas blaming an Israeli airstrike.

On Monday, an Anglican-run news service reported an "Israeli rocket" severely damaged two floors of the al-Ahli Hospital's cancer treatment center, which includes ultrasound and mammography wards. Four hospital staff were reportedly injured in the attack.

"The Diagnostic Centre is the Crown Jewel of Ahli Hospital, providing cancer diagnosis as a prelude to various treatment options both at Ahli and in other facilities," Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem Hosam Naoum said in a statement. "Next month, we were due to open a new chemotherapy centre there in partnership with Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives  a principal reason for our visit to the hospital last week.

"Please continue to pray for the safety of the hospital, its staff, and the patients and refugees who are being housed there," he added.

Founded in 1882 and with roughly 3,500 outpatient visits per month at its 80-bed facility, the al-Ahli Hospital is the "only independent, Christian-led medical facility" in Gaza, according to The Post.

The hospital  which the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem runs  also serves approximately 300 surgery patients and 600 radiological visits per month and offers a free program for early detection of breast cancer for women 40 and up.

Its mission is to "glorify God and bear witness to His love as manifested in the life of Jesus Christ" by healthcare services to its interfaith neighbors "without prejudice to any religious or ethnic community and irrespective of social class, gender and political affiliation."

In response to the rocket attack, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem released a statement Tuesday that condemned the "criminal attack" on al-Ahli Hospital.

"This heart-wrenching crime occurred on a day when the Christian community had convened in earnest prayer, beseeching the heavens for peace, reconciliation, and the cessation of the war in Gaza," the statement read.

Quoting Psalm 34:18, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit," the statement further described the attack as "the horrifying shattering of sanctuary of compassion and healing in Gaza, culminating in the tragic loss of hundreds of innocent lives."

Israel and the surrounding Mideast region have been engulfed by violence after Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 people and wounding more than 3,400. Hamas is also holding up to 200 people hostage, some of whom are Americans.

Israeli forces claim over 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed in the attack.

Israel retaliated with airstrikes that it said were aimed at Hamas infrastructure and locations in Gaza where the terrorists hide out.

Prior to the hospital explosion, the Gaza health ministry said that as many as 2,700 people had been killed and over 9,000 injured in Gaza after Israel began retaliatory airstrikes.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement Sunday that at least 30 Americans have been killed in Israel and at least 13 are missing.
Amir Tsarfati warns Hamas wants to annihilate Jews: 'It's satanic'

Amir Tsarfati, founder of Behold Israel and Middle East news correspondent from Galilee, says the barbaric massacre carried out by Hamas terrorists in Israel earlier this month has caused the Israeli government to finally understand that unless they put an end to Hamas, it will never stop.

Hamas' attacks against Israel on Oct. 7 mark the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. More than 1,400 people were murdered, including 30 Americans, and over 3,400 were wounded. Hamas also took 199 people hostage, some of whom are Americans.

On Tuesday, the Health Ministry in Gaza said more than 3,000 people had been killed and more than 12,500 wounded since Israel began retaliatory airstrikes.

In a video interview with The Christian Post on Tuesday, Tsarfati responded to the frequent claims from some on the political left that Israel is an "apartheid state" that deprives Arabs of political and civil rights.

Arabs are everywhere in Israeli society, he said, noting that they have representation in Israel's legislative body, the Knesset, and Christian and Muslim Arabs have been justices in Israel's 15-seat Supreme Court and have other high-profile occupations in the country.

As Israel declared war in response to Hamas' attacks and prepares for a ground invasion, the IDF advised Gaza's 1.1 million residents to move south to avoid being killed.

Tsarfati believes the world is on a fast track to the End Times but stresses there are biblical prophecies that have not yet come to pass.

The war on Hamas, he said, currently reminds him of something shared in Psalms rather than the End Times battle spoken of in Ezekiel 38-39

"What I see now is what Psalm 120 says, When I say peace, they are for war. The people that dwell around me don't want peace. They want war, he explained.

"Hamas doesn't want peace. Hamas wants to kill us. In its own charter, it says that the Jews must be annihilated when Islam is taking over. That's their goal. They don't want land. They don't want peace. They want Islamic superiority over the world and the annihilation of the Jewish people. That's what they want, he maintained, warning that "We are on the fast track towards Ezekiel 38."

The Out of the Far North author said the violent attacks carried out by Hamas on civilian targets included the killing of children and the elderly and raping women.

"To call them animals is actually to give them a compliment. Animals don't do that. It's not barbaric. It's satanic; it's diabolic," Tsarfati declared after recounting the gruesome scene of a pregnant woman whose baby was cut out of her womb after being raped and murdered.

We must understand that we're dealing with a dark cloud of satanic attack on the people of Israel.

Though the aftermath of terrorist attacks earlier this month has been difficult for the Israeli native, he still sees Gods divine protection over Israel.

"On Oct. 7, we had a big miracle, he said. From what we gather so far, what could have happened, the amount of weapons and ammunition and everything that we found with them [Hamas], they should have killed 5,000 people.

The Bible prophecy teacher revealed that his intelligence sources told him that Hamas forgot to coordinate it with Hezbollah and the other militias, which would have made the attacks far greater had they all attacked Israel simultaneously.

"I'm choosing to look at this satanic attack and the godly intervention to stop it before Israel would be annihilated, Tsarfati continued. "When I look at tragedies, I ask myself, 'OK, what was originally planned and what exactly happened?' And that's how I judge it.

"I give God the glory for stopping them where they stopped. It could have been a massacre of biblical proportions that I'm talking about. Today, its 1,400, but it could have been 5,000 to 6,000 to 7,000 to 10,000 people if they really executed what they wanted.

When asked what the Christian response should be to terrorism, Tsarfati said he understands how hard it is for followers of Christ to see innocent lives being affected on both the Jewish and Palestinian sides of the war.

"Probably a lot of Christians have a hard time watching what's going on in Gaza. And they're asking themselves, what's going on here? So let me be very clear: What happened is nothing less than a genocide attempt. What happened was an attempt to completely annihilate Israel. And just as God commanded us to get rid of our enemies or else they'll get rid of us, what we see now is this.

"Our aim is not to kill the Gazans. We are begging them, leave your homes, go south. We want to walk in and deal with the terrorists. If Israel would have bombed the population without any of these warnings. I would say, 'OK, that's not right.' But Israel, from the very beginning, warned the Gazans that we're not after you, were after anyone who shelters terrorists, harbors terrorists, supports terrorists or is hiding terrorists. And that's exactly what we've been doing.

Tsarfati emphasized that Israelis are not bloodthirsty murderers. They just want to exist peacefully without the constant threat of genocide.

"The amount of explosives we dropped in Gaza so far should have killed 500,000 people if we really wanted [that]. They have less than 2,000 dead, most of them are terrorists, by the way. Why? Because our aim is not to kill innocent people. Unfortunately, in a war, there are casualties that are innocent, Tsarfati lamented.

The sooner we finish with Hamas, the better it is not only for us and the world, but for the Palestinians themselves and for the Gazans themselves. So let us do the job. Let us do it quickly. And let us free them from their biggest oppressors so we can finally live without that threat on the other side of the fence, Tsarfati told CP.

Prior to Oct. 7, Tsarfati said Israel was intensely divided over politics, but following the attack, the Jewish nation has united. Some 400,000 reservists have reported to duty, many traveling back to Israel from other countries.

"We were the most divided nation, and we are the most united right now, Tsarfati reiterated. The resolve is unbelievable; the resilience is unbelievable. No one talks about left or right. No one talks about progressive or conservative. Everyone agrees, 95% of Israelis agree: Hamas has to be eliminated.

"If I would have said that a month ago, half of the Israelis wouldn't agree with me. Now, everybody agrees. Unfortunately, it cost us dearly, 1,400 people were massacred. But now, what was clear to the conservatives is clear to everyone: this is an existential threat that has to be dealt with and it's better to do it sooner than later.

Tsarfati provides news updates from Israel on social media and the Behold Israel website.
Arab leaders cancel meeting with Biden following Hamas claims of Gaza hospital blast

Arab leaders scrapped a planned meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden Wednesday after Hamas claimed that a hospital in Gaza was struck by an Israeli airstrike, resulting in hundreds of deaths. U.S. officials said on Wednesday, however, that the blast in the hospital complex parking lot was not caused by Israel, but by a jihadist group within Gaza.

The scheduled gathering was to include Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordans King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. However, the White House said Tuesday night the meeting was postponed less than 24 hours after it was announced.

"After consulting with King Abdullah II of Jordan and in light of the days of mourning announced by President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, President Biden will postpone his travel to Jordan and the planned meeting with these two leaders and President Sisi of Egypt," a White House official said in a statement shared with the media.

"The president sent his deepest condolences for the innocent lives lost in the hospital explosion in Gaza, and wished a speedy recovery to the wounded. He looks forward to consulting in person with these leaders soon, and agreed to remain regularly and directly engaged with each of them over the coming days."

While Hamas initially blamed Israeli airstrikes for the explosion at the Anglican-run al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, Israel released intelligence showing the explosion was caused by an "errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza."

NEW: Two senior US officials claim an independent assessment of the Gaza hospital explosion shows a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad group rocket hit the hospital.



NBC suggests that satellite imagery of the blast shows it wasnt as destructive as originally thought.



Much of pic.twitter.com/jJABobNhtA  Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 18, 2023

According to intelligence information from a number of sources we have, Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is responsible for the failed rocket launch that hit the hospital," the Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement.

IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Wednesday at a news conference no Israeli air, ground or naval attacks were in the area at the time of the blast.

A failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City.



IAF footage from the area around the hospital before and after the failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization: pic.twitter.com/AvCAkQULAf  Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 18, 2023

White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement Wednesday that Israel was "not responsible" for the explosion. She said the assessment was based on several factors, including data from "overhead imagery, intercepts, and open source information."

Biden expressed his sorrow for the disaster.

The United States stands unequivocally for the protection of civilian life during conflict, and we mourn the patients, medical staff and other innocents killed or wounded in this tragedy, Biden said in a statement.

Biden was set to visit Jordan as a part of this Middle Eastern tour and "reiterate that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian peoples right to dignity and self-determination and discuss the humanitarian needs of civilians in Gaza."

Since the explosion, protests have erupted across the Middle East.

The hospital, al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, was packed with wounded individuals and those seeking refuge, The Associated Press reports, describing the scene as gruesome, with the area around the hospital littered with bodies, many of them children.

Videos verified by AP showed fire engulfing the hospital and the surrounding grounds.

Amid the escalation, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi stated that the planned summit would only occur when all involved agreed that its purpose would be to stop the war, respect the humanity of the Palestinians and deliver the aid they deserve, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Before the tragedy at al-Ahli Hospital, Israeli airstrikes had resulted in at least 2,778 deaths and 9,700 injuries in Gaza, according to figures by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

In Israel, more than 1,400 civilians have been killed, including 30 Americans, primarily due to Hamas attack on Oct. 7 targeting civilians in southern Israeli communities near the border with Gaza. Over 3,400 people in Israel were wounded and 199 were taken hostage by Hamas, including Americans.
Rakon Limited (NZX: RAK ) (Rakon) advises that, after close to 12 years with the company, its Chief Financial Officer, Anand Rambhai, has given notice of his resignation to pursue other opportunities.

Mr Rambhai will be stepping down from the role of Chief Financial Officer with immediate effect, but will continue to support the business until 22 December 2023. This will include supporting the transition of Rakons finance function to its new Chief Financial Officer.

Sinan Altug, Rakons Chief Executive Officer, commented: "Anand has been an integral part of Rakon's journey over the past decade. His commitment, hard work, and dedication have been instrumental in driving our financial strategy and contributing to our growth. His loyalty to Rakon and his unwavering professionalism have left a lasting impact on our organisation. As he embarks on his next chapter, we wish him every success and thank him for his significant contributions."

Mr Rambhai commented: after close to 12 years continuous employment with Rakon, I look forward to taking an extended break over summer, spend time with family and pursue other opportunities.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Anand for his invaluable contributions to Rakon and wish him all the best in his future endeavours. His dedication and commitment to Rakon will be greatly missed.

-ends-

Contact:

Nick Laurent

Investor and Media Relations

nick.laurent@rakon.com

+64 21 240 7541

www.rakon.com

Rakon is a global high technology company and a world leader in its field. The company designs and manufactures advanced frequency control and timing solutions. Its three core markets are Telecommunications, Positioning and Space and Defence. Rakons products are found at the forefront of communications where speed and reliability are paramount. Its products create extremely accurate electric signals which are used to generate radio waves and synchronise time in the most demanding communication applications.Rakon has three manufacturing plants, six research and development centres, and sixteen customer support offices worldwide. Founded in Auckland in 1967, Rakon is proud of its New Zealand heritage. It is a public company listed on the New Zealand stock exchange, NZX, ticker code RAK.

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Christian, Jewish leaders say Hamas must be destroyed, warn against 'premature ceasefire'

A coalition of Christian and Jewish religious leaders urged President Joe Biden not to pressure Israel into a "premature ceasefire" and demonstrate "unlimited and unqualified" support for the Jewish state amid its conflict with Hamas.

More than 50 notable Israeli and American religious leaders signed a letter published on the second page of The Jerusalem Post Wednesday, as Biden visited the country to express solidarity with the American ally.

While the signatories expressed gratitude that Biden visited Israel "in her darkest hour," they urged him to "take stronger action on behalf of Israel" and call for the release of the 199 hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack.

Hamas terrorists killed over 1,400 people, many of whom were civilians, as they attackedcommunities in southern Israel near the border with Gaza. The attack prompted retaliatory airstrikes and a potential ground invasion by the Israeli military into Gaza. The Palestinian health officials say over 3,000 have been killed and 12,500 injured.

The leaders urged Biden "not pressure Israel into a premature ceasefire."

"Israel must do all that is necessary to destroy Hamas," the letter warns. "It is not sufficient for Israel to degrade or even defeat this brutal terrorist regime, which oppresses its own people. Israel must completely destroy every Hamas terrorist, so that this evil is erased from human history. If America pressures Israel into a ceasefire, Israel's enemies will be emboldened, and Israel imperiled, long into the future."

Prominent signatories include former Prestonwood Baptist Church Pastor Jack Graham, Harvest Christian Fellowship Pastor Greg Laurie, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference President Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, Congress of Christian Leaders President Johnnie Moore, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, former Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and former President Donald Trump's spiritual advisor Paula White.

The leaders called on Biden to "send a message to terrorists who would threaten Israelis by retaliating your administration's commitment to enforcement of the Taylor Force Act." The legislation passed in 2018 allows some aid to Palestinians to be cut until they end stipends for terror convicts and families of slain terrorists.

The faith leaders expressed confidence that Israel would "do everything possible to minimize civilian casualties" as they continued to fight Hamas, stressing that "Israel must do everything necessary to completely uproot and destroy" the terrorist group.

"As Israel's greatest ally, America must demonstrate UNLIMITED and UNQUALIFIED support for Israel in its righteous battle against Hamas," the letter reads.

In a statement shared with The Christian Post, Friedman, the lead signatory on the letter, said the leaders are "united in demanding that the United States afford Israel the time, the space, and the resources to eradicate Hamas and the atrocities which it commits against Jews and Palestinians alike."

Friedman contends, "What happened on October 7 can never happen again."

Public opinion polling shows that a majority of Americans agree with the signatories' declaration that it was necessary to "destroy Hamas."

A poll of 1,007 likely U.S. voters conducted by Rasmussen Reports between Oct. 10 and 12 found that 66% of Americans seconded the assertion from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., that "Israel has no choice but to seek the complete eradication of Hamas in Gaza."

Forty-one percent of respondents told pollsters that they "strongly agreed" with Rubio's statement. By contrast, just 19% expressed disagreement with Rubio. Fifteen percent were unsure whether they agreed or disagreed with the senator.

The publication of the letter to Biden by The Jerusalem Post comes as the president held a meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday. Biden informed Netanyahu that "you are not alone," adding, "We will continue to have Israel's back as you work to defend your people."

Recalling how the founders of Israel envisioned the nation as one "based on freedom, justice, and peace," Biden assured Netanyahu that "the United States stands with you in defense of that freedom, in pursuit of that justice, and in support of that peace today, tomorrow, and always."

In addition to meeting with Netanyahu, the president spoke with "Israelis impacted or involved in the response to the Oct. 7 attacks.

The president is expected to give a speech from the Oval Office on Thursday addressing the ongoing violence in Israel and the conflict in Ukraine. The address will take place at 8 p.m. ET.
Denton Bible Church Pastor Tommy Nelson announces retirement plan

Bestselling author and leader of Denton Bible Church in Texas, Pastor Tommy Nelson, says he is ready to transition away from the helm of his megachurch and turn it over to a team of younger leaders a year after confessing that the church failed to prevent the abuse of multiple young girls by a former youth pastor.

In an Oct. 4 email to his church published by Fox 4, Nelson, 73, did not reveal exactly when the transition from his post would be complete but said, over time, he will be replaced by current Associate Pastor Logan Nyquist, 37.

"Most of you are aware by now of the man taking my place. Logan Nyquist is now the Associate Pastor with the intention that his role and responsibilities will increase over time. You will see him in the pulpit more often," Nelson said. "He is a DTS [Dallas Theological Seminary] graduate with great giftedness in biblical exegesis, preaching and languages. He has a passion for evangelism and discipleship."

Nelson, who has been at Denton Bible Church since he was 27 and began preaching full-time at the church at the age of 37, praised Nyquist, who has been working there for nine years, as well-equipped for the promotion.

"He has the tools needed, and he has been faithful where he has been planted. Most of all, he has been faithful to those things that Denton Bible stands for," he said.

Nelson said, "a church like Denton Bible Church needs to ... always exist" to represent the "fundamental, premillennial, Calvinistic, dispensational, discipleship-focused, elder ruled, complementarian, and 'non woke,'" congregation.

"Our goal is to transition the leadership of Denton Bible Church to the next generation who will preserve these truths," Nelson added.

"I've never felt anything quite so strongly as the need to transition now to the next generation. Our church is as strong as it has ever been. Twelve new young elders have come aboard. We have ministries for all. Our staff is skilled, excited, and young. Of our fifty staff, forty-eight are younger than me. All our future leadership are Gen X and Millennials," he said in his message.

Under Nelson's leadership, Robert Shiflet, a former youth pastor at the church, was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison in June 2021 for child sex trafficking charges due to a sentencing miscalculation after he was accused of sexually abusing 14 young girls placed under his care. He was released earlier this year after his sentence was reduced to 25 months for good behavior.

In 2022, the 15-member, all-male elder board of Denton Bible Church said the church failed to prevent the sexual abuse of the girls, didn't involve women leaders when evaluating abuse allegations and failed to provide adequate care for the victims.

"Our church culture lacked involvement of women in decision-making processes related to the abuse of these girls," board chair Curtis Elder and Nelson said in a letter to the congregation. "Further, in almost all meetings with the victims, no women were present, which was inappropriate."

In an email to church members responding to the Fox 4 article, Nelson stressed that his retirement has nothing to do with the cases of abuse at the church.

"Many of you heard Clarice Tinsley on Fox 4 say 'Tommy Nelson is retiring' and she sought to make it sound like it was a response to the Rob Shiflett case. I am amazed that channel 4 know me so well, a man they have never spoken to," Nelson wrote.

"I have been talking about retiring long before this story came out. But, my retirement is because I am 73 and have been in the pulpit for 50 years, and not because of any slander by Fox 4 News. Be of good cheer, we were all as surprised as many of you were. I have no definite date."
California dad files contempt motions after son undergoes trans surgery despite court order

A California father has filed motions for contempt against those allegedly involved with subjecting his trans-identified son to a surgical procedure without his consent in violation of a court order.

Ted Hudacko asked that his ex-wife, her attorney, his son's attorney and the university hospital that performed the procedure on his son be found in contempt of court for violating a court order issued by California Superior Court Judge Joni Hiramoto in 2020, as first reported by The Daily Signal.

Since his son has already undergone the procedure that installed a hormone-blocking implant in his arm, Hudacko described the contempt motions to The Christian Post as "a cleanup action."

"It's not going to get my son back," he said. "It's not going to restore his health and viability. That ship has sailed."

"Citees Christine Hudacko; her attorney, Nathaniel Bigger; minor's counsel, Daniel Harkins; and University of California, San Francisco should each be held in contempt because each knew about, then collectively conspired to willfully disobey what is herein termed the 'no surgery injunction,' i.e. Judge Hiramoto's valid August 26, 2020, court order explicitly prohibiting 'any gender identity-related surgery' upon the minor child," the motion reads in part.

Amid a tense custody battle for his then-minor son Drew (whose name has been changed to protect his identity), California Superior Court Judge Joni Hiramoto removed shared custody from Hudacko in 2020, as journalist Abigail Shrier reported for City-Journal in February 2022.

Hiramoto nevertheless issued an order on Aug. 26, 2020, prohibiting surgical intervention on Hudacko's son before age 18, stipulating that he "will not be permitted to undergo any gender identity related surgery until they are 18 years of age, absent a written agreement by both parties."

In October 2021, Hudacko claims he discovered a charge on his insurance for nearly $210,000, which he later learned was for a hormone-blocking implant that had been surgically placed in his son's arm in August 2021 in violation of the court order. His son had also begun taking cross-sex hormones.

The father maintains that both medical interventions took place without his knowledge or consent.

According to medical records reviewed by CP earlier this year, the Child and Adolescent Gender Center of UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, where Hudacko's son was treated discussed four different types of blockers, also called gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (GnRhA).

While Leuprolide acetate (Lupron) and triptorelin are injections and spironolactone is an oral tablet, the subcutaneous implant (histrelin acetate) requires a surgical procedure. The 16-year-old boy and his mother reportedly decided that he undergo the surgical procedure on Aug. 4, 2021.

According to a Tuesday announcement on his GiveSendGo fundraising page, which is raising funds for legal battles, Hudacko is also filing two more contempt motions against the legal director for UCSF Child and Adolescent Gender Center at the time, as well as the doctor who performed the implant surgery.

Hudacko noted to CP that increasing numbers of parents and detransitioners have been showing up to demonstrations and committee hearings in Sacramento to oppose transgender procedures for minors but face an uphill battle in the liberal state.

"[Republican state Sen. Scott] Wilk, at a committee hearing earlier this year, famously said, 'Parents, if you love your children, you should leave California.' I 100% agree with that, certainly based on my own experience," Hudacko said.

"If I were a parent with young children  say, toddlers who weren't quite of school age yet  then I would definitely be making plans to leave the state or finding like-minded parents and setting up a homeschooling circle. The private schools aren't safe, either."

In September, the California State Assembly approved A.B. 957, a bill that would require courts to weigh in custody disputes whether a parent has affirmed their child's self-professed gender identity or gender expression, prompting critics to express fear that the state could strip custody from parents who object.

The bill was ultimately vetoed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
4 Pepperdine women dead after speeding driver crashes into Christian university students on California highway

Members of the Pepperdine University community are expected to continue prayer vigils Thursday morning on the California campus of the Christian school after four female students were killed when a 22-year-old driver crashed his car into them along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu on Tuesday night.

Investigators believe the women were struck near three parked vehicles shortly before 9 p.m. Tuesday in the 21600 block of Pacific Coast Highway, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department told the Los Angeles Times.

The crash victims were identified by Pepperdine as: Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir and Deslyn Williams. All four women were seniors at Pepperdines Seaver College of Liberal Arts, KTLA5 said.

No day is more devastating to a tightly knit university community than the day that forces us to come together in grief and sorrow. Earlier today, we learned that four precious lives who brought joy and light to our campus were taken from us suddenly, tragically, and incomprehensibly, Pepperdines President and CEO Jim Gash wrote in a statement to the school community Wednesday.

Indeed, one of the greatest mysteries of life is when and why our time on this earth is cut short. In such times, we hold firm to our faith in the God who sustains and nourishes us even whenand especially whenwe experience lifes most significant losses, he continued. As a parent, the loss of a child is an unimaginable tragedy. No words can appropriately convey the depth of my sympathy to the families who are living through a reality no parent would ever want to endure. You are not alone. Pepperdine stands with you as you traverse these challenging waters.

Investigators said 22-year-old Fraser Michael Bohm, was speeding westbound in his dark-colored BMW along the highway when he lost control and sideswiped several parked vehicles before crashing into the women who were just walking in the area at the time. They were all pronounced dead at the scene while two others were taken to a nearby hospital, KTLA5 reported.

Officials said at a press conference Wednesday that Bohm was arrested but later released pending further investigation into the crash.

The Graphic, Pepperdines student newspaper, shared a photo of scores of students who gathered at The Well, a free worship event held at the Amphitheater, on Wednesday night.

Pepperdine officials said another prayer service will be held at 10 a.m. PDT on Thursday, while the Student Government Association is expected to hold another prayer service and candlelight vigil at 8 p.m.

To the students who loved, lived with, and were in community with the departed members of our Pepperdine family, my heart is broken with yours. I join you in your grief as we process this profound loss. To the faculty and staff members who mentored and loved these students throughout their academic journeys both inside and outside the classroom, I offer prayers of comfort, support, and gratitude, Gash said in his message to the Pepperdine community.

When the weight of grief feels insurmountable and we find ourselves walking in a dark valley, my hope is that we experience the comfort and presence of our God who promises to walk with us and give us strength. As we walk this path together, I pray we gain strength and comfort from one another. In the embrace of our community, we also pray for the fortitude to navigate this painful journey knowing that we are not alone.
Hamas terror victims were tied together, burned, forensic investigators say

Warning: Details in this article contain graphic depictions involving the torture of children and adults.

Video footage released by the Israeli government shows medical experts detailing the gruesome treatment victims of Hamas' terror attack in Israel were subject to before their deaths.

A video shared on the Israel Foreign Ministry's X account Sunday features an interview with Dr. Ricardo Nachman, who conducted autopsies on the bodies of victims who lost their lives in Hamas' attack on Israeli communities near the Gaza border that killed over 1,400 people and injured over 3,000.

Nachman is the head of the Clinical Forensic Unit and the National Coordinator of Forensic Matters at the Ministry of Health.

Viewer discretion advised.



We interviewed the experts who conducted autopsies on the bodies of Hamas massacre victims.



Several bodies were brought to us in a terrible exposition. Most of them were burned.



In this case we can see an adult and a kid that were tied together pic.twitter.com/BRdAOC7uq7  Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) October 15, 2023

Nachman spoke in front of a monitor featuring a picture of a computed tomography scan of two victims who died in the attack.

"Several bodies [were] brought to us in a terrible exposition," he explained. "Most of them were burnt."

Nachman shared the backstory behind the victims who had the internal images of their remains displayed on the screen behind him.

"[In] this case, we can see an adult and a kid that were tied together," he said.

Nachman pointed to the left side of the screen: "This is a vertebral column; what we see is an adult body."

As he pointed toward the right side of the screen, Nachman explained that "beside, very, very close with him, the other one is a vertebral ... column of a child, of a kid."

"We can see here also the kid's ribs, and for us, it's obvious that they used a kind of element to ... keep the bodies very, very close like a hug, like a whatever," he added. Nachman also pointed out "some pieces of skull," specifically "part of the almost complete cranium skull." The text accompanying the X post clarified that the "adult and kid" depicted on the CT scan were "tied together (with iron wire)."

Sunday's video was one of many that have circulated on social media in recent days featuring interviews with "the experts who conducted autopsy reports on the victims of the Hamas massacre."

Dr. Chen Kugel, the director of Israel's National Center of Forensic Medicine, discussed what his team is seeing as hundreds of bodies are being brought to the center for examination with journalists this week.

"Some of the victims were not shot as no metal fragments were discovered in their bodies, but they were burned. It's like a crematorium," Kugel said, according to Israeli news outlet i24 News.

A second video, shared by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Director of the Digital Diplomacy Bureau David Saranga features testimony from Nurit Bublil, the head of the Forensic DNA Laboratory at the National Center of Forensic Medicine.

We never imagined in our worst dreams that we would need to handle many hundreds of samples, of decayed samples, of burned samples, of samples of fingernails with polished nails of young girls.



We interviewed the experts who conducted autopsies on the bodies of Hamas massacre pic.twitter.com/an8VJbdQPC  David Saranga (@DavidSaranga) October 17, 2023

"Nothing prepared us [for] what happened on the last Saturday," she asserted, referring to the terror attack. Bublil insisted that she never predicted the "need to handle hundreds, many hundreds of samples of decayed samples, of burned samples, of samples of fingernails with polished nails of young girls."

A subsequent video, posted Tuesday, showed Kugel highlighting an additional "example [of] the atrocities that we have seen in the tragic event."

Viewer discretion advised.



We interviewed the experts who conducted autopsies on the bodies of Hamas massacre victims.



Ive never seen people that are conjoined together while they are burned trying to hug each other.

#HamasisISISpic.twitter.com/TcYX2g7Boc  Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) October 17, 2023

Pointing to the screen, he noted, "This is a burned body, of course, of an adult."

"We know that he was burned while he was alive because we can see soot in the trachea of this person," Kugel said. "And they couldn't shoot him because he was inside a shelter, so they burned the house, and everybody that was inside was burned while he was alive."

Kugel cited the circumstances leading up to the death of that particular victim as "only one example of many atrocities and many horrible, horrific things that we are seeing here in this tragedy." He maintained that until the attack, he "never saw people that are conjoined together while they are burned, trying to hug each other."

While the other two videos were much shorter and almost exclusively consisted of medical analysis and information about the torture endured by the victims of the terror attack, the video featuring Bublil included a message of solidarity designed to serve as a call to action for the Israeli people.

"The Israeli people are much ... stronger than anybody else may think of," Bublil said. "If there is someone that thinks that these events  will break the power or the spirit of the Israeli people, they are strongly mistaken."

"We will come back, and we will get up, and we will handle ourselves, and we will bury our dead. And with help from God, we will get back our ... kidnapped and the hostages, and we will come back."

Bublil vowed that Israel "will remain powerful as strong and stronger than it was" despite the fallout from the recent terror attack.

The Oct. 7 attack drew a strong response from Israel, which launched airstrikes into Gaza and is reportedly reading for a military offensive.

Gaza's health ministry claims that over 3,000 people have been killed by the retaliatory airstrikes and over 12,500 injured. Israel contends that it has targeted Hamas hideouts and infrastructure. Last week, Israel warned over 1 million people in northern Gaza to evacuate to the southern region ahead of a ground invasion.
Joran van der Sloot claims he's now born-again Christian after confessing Natalie Holloway murder

Eighteen years after the 2005 disappearance of American teenager Natalie Holloway during a senior high school class trip to Aruba, Joran van der Sloot, the man long suspected to be her killer, has confessed to murdering her after she rejected his sexual advances on a beach in the former Dutch colony but says he is now a born-again Christian.

Van der Sloots confession comes as part of a plea deal connected to federal extortion charges to which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday, ABC News reported.

Though he denied killing Holloway in a 2006 interview with Chris Cuomo, claiming he left her on a beach, van der Sloot explained in a partial transcript of a proffer meet with prosecutors on Oct. 3 how he smashed her face with a cinderblock then dumped her body in the ocean after she refused to have sex with him on the beach.

He said the night he killed Holloway on the beach she really wanted to go back to her hotel.

"She asked to go back to her hotel but I was just trying to get dropped off a little bit further away from her hotel so we could walk back to her hotel and I might still get a chance to be with her, he told investigators in a recording of his confession.

He explained that he was able to convince her to spend time with him on the beach before she went back to the Marriott Hotel.

We lay down together in the sand and we start kissing each other. I get her to kiss me again and we start kissing each other, and I start feeling her up again and she tells me, no. She tells me she doesn't want [me] to feel her up. I insist. I keep feeling her up either way, and she knees me. She ends up kneeing me in the crotch, he said.

"When she knees me in the crotch, I get up on the beach and I kick her extremely hard in the face. She's laying down unconscious, possibly even dead, but definitely unconscious. And I see right next to her there's a huge cinderblock laying on the beach."

Van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen who is now 36, says he smashed Holloways face in until it collapsed.

I take this and, yeah, I smash her head in with it completely. Her face basically collapses in. Even though it's dark, I can see her face is collapsed in, he explained.

He said he became afraid after smashing Holloways face with the cinderblock.

"I decide to take her and put her into the ocean. So I grab her and I half pull and half walk with her into the ocean. I push her off. I walk up to about my knees into the ocean and I push her off into the sea, he said. "After that, I get out. I walk home."

Holloways body was never found and in 2012, an Alabama judge signed an order declaring her legally dead, CNN reported. Van der Sloot would go on to kill again in 2010. He confessed to the murder of Peruvian woman Stephany Flores.

Judge Anna Manasco told van der Sloot that she factored his criminal history into the sentence she gave him for the federal extortion charges.

I have considered your confession to the brutal murder of Natalee Holloway, she said. You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents years apart, two beautiful women who refused your sexual advances.

Holloways mother, Beth Holloway, confronted van der Sloot at his sentencing on Wednesday.

"Joran, for 18 years you denied killing my daughter," and now "you have finally admitted that you, in fact, have murdered her."

"You are a killer. I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams," she said. Even if you have finally confessed ... you can't be tried here for her murder. But I do employ the court to give you the maximum sentence possible," Beth Holloway said.

Van der Sloot attempted to convince the court and Holloways family that he is a changed man.

"I am not the same kind of person today as I was then, I have given my heart to Jesus Christ," he said.

Natalees younger sister, Kaitlyn Holloway, told The New York Post that she is not convinced of van der Sloots religious conversion.

He is a monster and even laying eyes on him made me feel sick inside, she said. He did apologize, and he said something along the lines that he gave himself to God and that hes a Christian  that hes a changed man. I really dont think thats true. I dont think it was a sincere apology considering all the damage he has done. I think it was some BS.

Natalie Holloways brother, Matt Holloway, told Court TV that he, too, was not convinced.

He's been such a liar. This, the past, his whole life. That's all he is, is just a psychopathic liar. So I take it, I take it lightly, Matt Holloway said.

Natalies father, David Holloway, called van der Sloot evil personified in a victim impact statement.

Despite everything he has done to us, he is not sorry for what he did, David Holloway said. He expressed no remorse, regret, or even compassion  He is evil personified.
Preacher facing prison for holding Bible verse sign near abortion clinic

A Christian preacher who held a sign with a Bible verse on it inside an abortion clinic "buffer zone" could be sent to prison.

Stephen Green, 72, from south Wales, is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), which said he is being prosecuted after holding the sign within a buffer zone outside a clinic in Ealing, west London, run by MSI Reproductive Choices, formerly Marie Stopes International.

The clinic was one of the first in the country to be granted a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) by the local council forbidding prayer, protesting and "engaging in an act of approval/disapproval" toward abortion services.

Green's sign displayed the words: "Psalm 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb."

Ealing Council decided to take action against Green in February under section 67 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.

Green, the director of campaign group Christian Voice, was due to appear at a court hearing on Tuesday. He faces being sent to prison for six months and a fine of more than $1,200 (1,000).

Ahead of the hearing, Green said: "I was deeply shocked to receive the summons from Ealing Council.

"I see this prosecution as an attack on the Bible and free speech. I am determined to defend myself and fight for justice.

"People are right to be concerned about the buffer zone legislation. To bar Christian witness and to control what people can say in an area is draconian and anti-Christian.

"There is a huge principle at stake here. If we are not free to hold a sign with a verse from Psalm 139 on it in a London street, then none of us is free."

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, called buffer zones "an oppressive part of the current culture which force consent and silence dissent."

"The effect of the PSPO is to criminalize any act of disapproval of abortion and to create an area where no discussion or even prayer relating to abortion, is permitted," she said.

"There have now been over 10 million abortions in the U.K. since abortion was legalized in 1967. That is a staggering number. That is almost twice the population of Scotland and more than the entire population of London. Millions of people would be alive today if abortion had not been legalized.

"Instead of lamenting this loss of life we are industrializing it, making it ever easier to obtain abortion effectively on demand, and now we are criminalizing dissent.

"We will stand with Mr. Green as he seeks justice in this case."

Originally published at Christian Today UK
When war is necessary

No civilized person celebrates war. Recent horrific scenes out of Israel, however, serve as a sobering reminder that some national conflicts cannot be avoided. News of hundreds of young Israelis mowed down at a music festival, civilians beheaded, women raped, and children butchered serve as a warning that the moral ambiguity which often describes our modernity is logically self-defeating. All worldviews are not the same. Evil is real. What is right is never wrong, and what is wrong is never right.

Those protesting Israels right to defend itself are either morally confused or intellectually dishonest. Ask yourself if we would have tolerated the same nonsensical approach in the aftermath of 9/11. Should we grieve over innocent Palestinians who are caught in the crosshairs of a clash that they did not ask for or participate in? Absolutely. The details and history surrounding the discord in the region are complex. What is not complicated, though, is that the primary enemy of the Palestinian people is Hamas, NOT ISRAEL.

Hamas is a religious terrorist group that ousted the Palestinian Authority in 2007 to become the ruling force in the Gaza Strip. These bullies have no interest in negotiating for peace. Their stated goal is the obliteration of Israel, and jihad is a mandatory and honorable expression of their Muslim faith. Calling on fellow Muslims to join in their fight to find and kill all Jews, Hamas views any peace initiatives as a waste of time and an exercise in futility according to their covenant of existence. We cannot simultaneously grimace over the past atrocities of Nazi Germany while at the same time turning a blind eye of naivete toward an equally vile threat.

These misguided priorities have reduced peaceful Palestinians to nothing more than a backdrop for the wicked schemes that further Hamas irrational goals. Those critical of Israels defensive measures fail to acknowledge that surrounding Arab nations have done nothing to protect or evacuate Palestinian civilians. Egypt will not receive them. Iran is not coming to their aid. Saudi Arabia only wants to blame Israel. Why? Because without them, Hamas would have no human shields. Hiding weaponry in apartment complexes and mosques is par for the course for extremists who are willing, even eager to die for their faith. The great losses in the Gaza Strip are tragic, but terrorist oppressors are the primary culprits.

How should Christians think about existential threats such as these? Historically, weak pacifism has not been part of the Christian tradition. Most believers understand that one of the basic, primary responsibilities of government is to defend its citizens. Though not all governments function justly, the Lord establishes ruling authorities with the right to bear the sword in order to punish and eliminate evildoers (Rom. 13:1-5; 1 Pet. 2:13-14).

The concept of a just war requires careful attention to both the why and the how of any call to arms. Defensive measures are, at their core, justified because no nation will exist for long without them. If possible, we are called to live at peace with those around us (Rom. 12:18), but threats like Hamas require a forceful response. Israel has the fundamental right to exist without acquiescing to the pressures of terrorism. Even these noble pursuits, though, do not justify unethical wartime measures. Prioritized efforts to reduce civilian causalities are challenging when your enemy cares nothing about its own citizens, but should be sought, nonetheless.

Obviously, Christians have a greater interest in Israel for theological reasons outside of the current conflict. So many of Gods irrevocable promises center around its real estate and its Jewish inhabitants. Regardless of how the current geopolitical dilemma fits into the nations eschatological future, we know that God is not finished with His chosen people (Zech. 12:10). When the time of the Gentiles concludes, once again the Lord will turn His attention back to the house of Abraham (Rom. 11:25-32).

In the meantime, we should all pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6). We should pray for civilians on both sides of the conflict. And we should pray that democracy and justice will prevail against terrorism.

This article was first published in Kentucky Today
Christians ready to take legal action if conversion therapy bill tramples on religious freedom

The Christian Institute has repeated its call to the government to ensure that a ban on so-called conversion therapy does not interfere with everyday religious practice.

The organisation reiterated its readiness to take legal action against the Westminster government after The Times reported on Wednesday that the government is pressing ahead with a draft bill to ban LGBT 'conversion practices', contradicting reports earlier in the year that it was planning to quietly drop the proposals.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak plans to include a draft bill in the King's Speech after coming under pressure from Tory MPs, the newspaper reported.

The Christian Institute has said it will take legal action if the law prevents ordinary church activities like preaching, prayer and pastoral counselling.

The Christian Institute's Deputy Director for Public Affairs, Simon Calvert, questioned why a ban was necessary.

"By moving ahead with this Bill at all, the Government is wading into very dangerous territory. Gay and trans people are already protected, quite rightly, from verbal and physical abuse by existing law. Since those things are outlawed, what is it that this Bill will seek to criminalise?" he said.

He urged the government not to heed the call of some campaigners, like Jayne Ozanne, who want to include prayer in the ban.

"The leading activists on this issue  those the government is trying to placate  are quite clear that they want it to target conversations and ideas they don't like," he said.

"They want a kind of LGBT blasphemy law. This is profoundly illiberal."

He added, "Jayne Ozanne says she wants 'gentle non-coercive prayer' to be criminalised as part of this Bill. But it is obvious to most people that gentle non-coercive prayer is not conversion therapy."

The Christian Institute has previously sought legal advice from human rights lawyer Jason Coppel KC on the proposals. In 2021, Coppel concluded that it "would be likely to violate" Christian freedom of expression.

Some supporters are encouraging the government to copy the ban recently introduced to the Australian state of Victoria, which prohibits pastors from saying prayers that "ask for a person to not act on their attractions" or "talk about a person's brokenness or need to repent".

The Victorian law has also left parents fearful that they will be prosecuted if they do not affirm their child's preferred gender. Breaking the law carries a maximum fine of over 100,000 or up to 10 years in prison.

Mr Calvert urged Westminster parliamentarians to ensure that the proposed ban for England and Wales "does not even come close to imitating the terrible mistakes being made in Victoria".
South Korea has canceled a 2018 agreement with North Korea reducing the surveillance and spying they carry out against each other. South Korea feared that North Korea might be tempted to emulate Hamas or, worse, use its nuclear weapons. This is a dangerous form of diplomacy, and it is unclear if North Korea was contemplating such a thing. Now North Korea is prospering by selling weapons and munitions to Russia in return for cash and much-needed food. This is good news for the North Korean government, which until last year was facing more popular unrest due to poor economic conditions and not enough food. Last year Russia sought to buy weapons and munitions from North Korea to supply their troops in Ukraine. More orders followed and soon this was visible on satellite photos of increased activity on the Trans-Siberian railroad.

It is unclear if North Korea was planning to risk its newly acquired prosperity with an attack on South Korea. Yet this is what South Korea feared and thats why they canceled the 2018 treaty and resumed surveillance of North Korean military activities. All they could see was increased activity in weapons and munitions factories with most of that production being shipped to Russia. Since 2019, South Korea has not been able to get the North to negotiate about anything.

Not all the new weapons production is sent to Russia. North Korea is keeping the ballistic missile production going and testing more of them with launches into the waters between Korea and Japan. This frightens the Japanese, who note that most of these missiles seem to work and are not fired at their maximum ranges. While North Korea is pleased with this, Japan is also acquiring more BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) systems. Japan has also increased its defense spending 26 percent this year compared to last year. That comes to $52 billion, which is about 1.4 percent of GDP and the largest Japanese defense budget ever. It is also the sixth year that Japan increased defense spending and the goal is to eventually reach two percent of GDP. Japan and South Korea are now spending about the same amount on defense and are both in the top ten defense spenders in the world. The others are the United States, China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Germany and France. South Korea is number nine spending a little more than Japan at number ten.

While the United States accounts for about 40 percent of worldwide defense spending, China and Russia together only account for about 17 percent. The rest of the top ten are either allies of the Americans or friendly. Ukraine is, in terms of total defense spending that includes donations from NATO countries, figuratively in the top five when it comes to defense acquisitions. This is a dubious distinction for Ukraine, which is using it all to repel a Russian invasion. South Korea has profited from this because NATO nations bordering Ukraine or Russia have increased defense spending and purchased nearly $15 billion worth of South Korea weapons and munitions. South Korea produces a lot more military gear than the north and this is top grade stuff. One side effect is that once Poland receives all the South Korean tanks, mobile artillery and rocket (guided and unguided) launchers from South Korea, they will have the most powerful army in NATO Europe. This is to discourage any Russian attacks on Poland or any other NATO nation in the area.

NATO was created as a mutual defense organization to deal with any Russian attack. That never came during the Cold War, but Russia returned to its aggressive ways in 2022 when it invaded Ukraine. NATO is a major support of Ukraine and has agreed to admit Ukraine as a member once the Russian invaders have been dealt with. One reason Russia invaded Ukraine was to prevent them from joining NATO and the EU (European Union). The EU is mainly an economic alliance and Ukraine wants to join it and NATO rather than remaining neutral and threatened again with Russian aggression.

Iran tried to make up for its dismal economic situation by being the major military threat in the region. Its the best they can do because the religious dictatorship that has misruled Iran since the 1980s does not seem capable of much else. The religious leaders that rule Iran complain about their dire economic situation without admitting they are the problem. Russia has a similar attitude, which is one reason Russia and Iran are allies. North Korea is also part of this triumvirate of tribulations and shares many bad habits with Russia and Iran.
Teacher who made offensive comments about Jesus is banned for 2 years

A teacher at a Scottish school has been banned from the classroom for two years after making offensive comments, including that "Jesus was gay".

Donna Gilchrist was employed by Beath High School in Cowdenbeath, Fife, for only 30 days between December 2017 and January 2018.

Despite her short tenure, she made a number of comments in the classroom that drew concern from pupils, parents and staff at the school.

In August, she was struck off the teaching register by the General Teaching Council (GTC) Scotland after being deemed unfit to teach.

GTC solicitor Jennifer McPhee said the allegations against Gilcrhist were of the utmost seriousness, the Dundee Courier reports.

They included using a racial slur and telling a devout Christian pupil that "Jesus was gay".

In one incident she called a red-haired pupil "the ginger one". Other complaints concerned talking about porn in the classroom and mocking overweight people and a pupil with dyslexia while she was reading.

It was also reported that Gilchrist had played age-inappropriate videos in class containing swearing, violence and sexual references.

The GTC this week imposed a two-year teaching ban on Gilchrist, meaning that she cannot apply to be re-added to the teaching register until 2025.

The council said it wanted her to use the time to reflect on her conduct and "demonstrate insight".

"The panel considered that a shorter time period was inappropriate as the conduct found proved is very serious," the GTC said in a written judgment.

Ms McPhee said that while Gilchrist had not broken any laws, her conduct was "most definitely unprofessional".

"The public would be concerned the teacher had caused so much disruption, upset and offence during such a short tenure," she said.

"She has shown no clear understanding of how to teach pupils with additional needs or how to respect the religion of pupils.

"And the level of seriousness is compounded by the lack of insight.

"Using and allowing the use of the word n***** is completely unacceptable."
White House says Israel 'not responsible' for attack on Christian-run hospital in Gaza

(CP) The state of Israel is "not responsible" for a deadly explosion at an Anglican hospital in Gaza that Palestinians say killed 471 people, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

A statement from White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the assessment was based on several factors, including data from "overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information."

Earlier Wednesday, during a visit to Israel amid ongoing tensions following the surprise Hamas attack on Oct. 7, President Joe Biden echoed official statements from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and said the airstrike Tuesday on the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza appeared to be linked to an "errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza."

Biden added that U.S. defense officials provided "data" proving Israel wasn't behind the attack, which he later told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he believes was "done by the other team, not you," The Washington Post reports, adding that the administration's claims have not immediately been verified. No additional details were provided.

Hamas and Israel are pointing fingers at each other for the hospital explosion, with Hamas blaming an Israeli airstrike.

On Monday, an Anglican-run news service reported an "Israeli rocket" severely damaged two floors of the al-Ahli Hospital's cancer treatment center, which includes ultrasound and mammography wards. Four hospital staff were reportedly injured in the attack.

"The Diagnostic Centre is the Crown Jewel of Ahli Hospital, providing cancer diagnosis as a prelude to various treatment options both at Ahli and in other facilities," Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem Hosam Naoum said in a statement. "Next month, we were due to open a new chemotherapy centre there in partnership with Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives  a principal reason for our visit to the hospital last week.

"Please continue to pray for the safety of the hospital, its staff, and the patients and refugees who are being housed there," he added.

Founded in 1882 and with roughly 3,500 outpatient visits per month at its 80-bed facility, the al-Ahli Hospital is the "only independent, Christian-led medical facility" in Gaza, according to The Post.

The hospital  which the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem runs  also serves approximately 300 surgery patients and 600 radiological visits per month and offers a free program for early detection of breast cancer for women 40 and up.

Its mission is to "glorify God and bear witness to His love as manifested in the life of Jesus Christ" by healthcare services to its interfaith neighbors "without prejudice to any religious or ethnic community and irrespective of social class, gender and political affiliation."

In response to the rocket attack, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem released a statement Tuesday that condemned the "criminal attack" on al-Ahli Hospital.

"This heart-wrenching crime occurred on a day when the Christian community had convened in earnest prayer, beseeching the heavens for peace, reconciliation, and the cessation of the war in Gaza," the statement read.

Quoting Psalm 34:18, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit," the statement further described the attack as "the horrifying shattering of sanctuary of compassion and healing in Gaza, culminating in the tragic loss of hundreds of innocent lives."

Israel and the surrounding Mideast region have been engulfed by violence after Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 people and wounding more than 3,400. Hamas is also holding up to 200 people hostage, some of whom are Americans.

Israeli forces claim over 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed in the attack.

Israel retaliated with airstrikes that it said were aimed at Hamas infrastructure and locations in Gaza where the terrorists hide out.

Prior to the hospital explosion, the Gaza health ministry said that as many as 2,700 people had been killed and over 9,000 injured in Gaza after Israel began retaliatory airstrikes.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement Sunday that at least 30 Americans have been killed in Israel and at least 13 are missing.

 The Christian Post
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Xi, Putin hold talks in Beijing

Xinhua) 08:18, October 19, 2023

Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Putin is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF). (Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF).

Xi said Putin has attended the BRF three times in a row, demonstrating Russia's support for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Lauding Russia as an important partner as China pursues international Belt and Road cooperation, Xi said the operation of major infrastructure projects such as the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline has brought tangible benefits to the people of both countries.

China is willing to work with Russia and other member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to promote the alignment of the BRI with the EAEU, so as to foster higher-level and deeper regional cooperation, Xi said.

China hopes that the China-Mongolia-Russia natural gas pipeline project will make substantive progress as soon as possible, he added.

It is not an expediency, but a long-term policy to develop the China-Russia relations featuring permanent good-neighborly friendship, comprehensive strategic coordination and mutually beneficial cooperation, Xi said.

China supports the Russian people in pursuing the path of national rejuvenation independently and safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests, he said, calling on the two sides to promote high-quality development of China-Russia practical cooperation and actively explore cooperation in strategic emerging industries.

The historic BRICS membership expansion shows the confidence of developing countries in promoting multipolarity in the world and greater democracy in international relations, Xi said.

Xi expressed support for Russia in hosting a successful BRICS summit in Kazan next year.

China is willing to continue to strengthen communication and coordination with Russia within the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the G20 and other multilateral frameworks, so as to play a greater role in maintaining food security, energy security and the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, and to safeguard the common interests of China and Russia as well as regional and developing countries, Xi said.

Putin said the BRI has achieved great success and has become an important international public good widely recognized by the world, expressing his confidence in greater achievements of this great cause.

The evolution of the international situation fully confirms President Xi's strategic judgment of profound changes unseen in a century, said Putin.

He said Russia is willing to strengthen communication and collaboration with China within multilateral mechanisms such as BRICS, uphold the international system based on international law, and promote the establishment of a more just and reasonable global governance system.

Russia is willing to take the opportunity of celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries next year to further promote the development of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, he added.

Xi and Putin also had in-depth exchanges of views on the Palestine-Israel situation and others.

Senior Chinese officials including Cai Qi and Wang Yi attended the event.

Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Putin is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF). (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
China's Tianjin sees over 40 pct of foreign trade contributed by BRI partners

Xinhua) 15:22, October 19, 2023

TIANJIN, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Over the past decade, north China's Tianjin Municipality saw its accumulated trade with Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner countries account for over 40 percent of its total foreign trade, according to Tianjin Customs.

From 2013 to 2022, Tianjin's total trade with the BRI partner countries reached more than 3 trillion yuan (about 418 billion U.S. dollars).

During this period, trade with BRI partner countries contributed by the city's private enterprises rose from 54.78 billion yuan in 2013 to over 142 billion yuan in 2022. The private sector now accounts for more than 40 percent of Tianjin's foreign trade with BRI partner countries.

Notably, Tianjin's import value of automatic data processing equipment and its parts from BRI partner countries soared by 480 percent in 2022 compared with that recorded in 2013.

Mechanical and electrical products were among the city's major exports to BRI partner countries during the period. Its total export value of lithium-ion batteries, solar cells and electric manned vehicles to the countries posted an average annual growth of 17.9 percent over the past 10 years, said the customs.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
by Austin Bay October 19, 2023

Like Mark Twain's death, the demise of the tank has been "greatly exaggerated."

That line began a column I wrote in 2005, as sensationalist media simultaneously declared high-tech weapons had made the tank a death trap on the battlefield and -- get this -- that U.S. troops patrolling Iraq didn't have enough armor on their vehicles to protect them from ambush and mines.

The latter charge had merit. As an expedient to combat enemy mines and explosive devices, the Pentagon put light armor on various wheeled vehicles that weren't built to carry the added weight.

As for the death of the tank, I'd heard that before. An Army buddy told me about a could-be political appointee he escorted through Department of Defense briefings in the late 1970s. The pipe-smoking pontificator kept saying, "The tank's dead." My infantry pal finally turned to him and said: "Yes sir, the tank's a dinosaur, but it's the baddest dinosaur on the battlefield. You face one."

It's 2023. The tank, in the form of Main Battle Tanks (MBT) like the U.S. Army's M1A2 Abrams or Israeli Merkava 5, is far from dead. Despite media obituaries referencing Russia's disastrous 2022 tank operations in Ukraine, the 2023 MBT as built by NATO nations and allies like South Korea and Israel remains potent on the battlefield.

That is, if the 2023 tank crews manning the MBTs, and their accompanying infantry in armored infantry vehicles (mechanized infantry), and their operational commanders know how to fight a combined arms war.

That's an important point. A recent article in The Economist basically affirms my last sentence, albeit obliquely.

The Economist: "Israel's generals have been watching the battles in Ukraine over the past year and a half closely and taking notes... We saw how the Russians fought in Ukraine and the mistakes they made," said Brigadier General Hisham Ibrahim, senior Israeli Defense Forces Armored Corps commander. The Russians "fought there in a single-corps fashion, instead of using combined arms tactics."

Translation of "single-corps": tanks going into battle alone, without accompanying armored infantry and combat engineers and without coordinated artillery, air defense weapons and air support - the components of modern combined arms warfare.

The Economist mentions -- without naming -- a disastrous Israeli "single corps" experience, the 1973 Yom Kippur War's Battle of the Chinese Farm. Fought in the Sinai just east of the Suez Canal, Israeli tanks charged Egyptian positions, attacking with minimal mechanized infantry support. Egyptian surface to air missile defenses along the Canal blunted Israeli airpower. The Israelis didn't fight a combined arms battle. The charging tanks drove into a trap. Egyptian infantry armed with rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers and Sagger anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) waited in foxholes then popped up and fired on the Israeli tanks.

Everyone took notes. The "cheap" RPG and ATGM high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warheads destroyed scores of Israeli tanks.

NATO-type MBTs now have "composite ceramic vehicle armor" that is almost invulnerable to cheap HEAT warheads. In the 1980s Israel began developing other special protection kits for tanks fighting in "closed terrain" like an urban area. Gaza is certainly closed terrain.

One of the most advanced is the combat-proven Trophy ADS (active defense system) which is capable of defeating RPGs and ATGMs. Trophy is something like a miniature strategic missile defense system -- Strategic Defense Initiative writ small. Sensors on the tank pick up an incoming ATGM then fire small projectiles which intercept and destroy the incoming threat. The sensors also determine the ATGM's launch point so the tank crew can destroy the shooter.

Israel's front-line tanks and heavy Namer-type armored personnel carriers have Trophy. The U.S. is buying Trophy for its tanks. Abrams tanks also sport TUSK -- tank urban survival kits.

Ukrainian drones often attack the thinner top armor of Russian tanks. The Economist reports Israeli tanks have "slatted metal" barriers over their turrets to defend against small drone bombs. That's an expedient passive defense. Trust a Trophy-type sensor-interceptor system to thwart overhead attack is in the works. MBTs have the power and space to add other active defense measures.

The Economist article says the tank is "the only platform on the battlefield combining mobility, protection and serious firepower." I agree. My 2005 column on tanks in Iraq concluded "'staying power' on deadly streets requires heavy firepower and heavy armor protection."

Hamas is about to learn firepower is an antidote for fanaticism.

And the tank remains the baddest dinosaur on the battlefield.
Asociatia Obsteasca Prietena Mea este in cautarea unui psiholog/unei psiholoage pentru organizarea unor discutii de grup cu parintii si ingrijitorii copiilor cu dizabilitati
Membership body ACEVO received increased requests for one-to-one support from charity chief executives last year.

ACEVOs member support team responded to 341 governance and support calls and 71 crisis calls, an average of 1.6 per day during the year, according to its accounts for the year to March 2023.

This is an increase of 5% on the year prior when ACEVO received 321 governance and support calls and 72 crisis calls.

The complexity and length of time spent on issues discussed in these calls have noticeably increased from previous years, the accounts state.

Its newly filed accounts show that ACEVOs membership also increased by 3% on the previous year to 1,722.

Income up by 16%

ACEVOs total income rose by 16% on the year prior from 1.06m to 1.25m, the accounts show.

Its expenditure increased to 1.18m, rising from 966,000 the previous year, the first time it has surpassed 1m since the year ending March 2020.

Money from membership services accounted for 54% of the umbrella bodys overall income.

With membership services bringing in 656,000, this is over 17,500 more than the previous year.

Income from its training and development services also rose to 165,000 from 141,000 the previous financial year. The charity ended the year with 559,000 in free reserves.

Staff costs rise

Overall staff costs rose by 3% to 738,000 on the previous financial year as the amount of full-time equivalent staff at ACEVO increased from 11.6 to 15 members of full-time equivalent staff.

This increase was focused on the policy, representation and supporting services team.

Jane Ide became chief executive of ACEVO last May, replacing Vicky Browning, who had been at the helm for five years.

The accounts state that while Brownings salary was 88,000 plus pension benefits of 6%, Ide was appointed on a salary of 85,000 and pension benefits of 6%.

Trustees received 1,577 in travel and subsistence expenses, down from 2,921 the year prior despite an additional two trustees being appointed.

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On Tuesday, a blast hit the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, apparently killing hundreds of people including patients and other civilians who had been using the site as a shelter from Israeli missile attacks. Within minutes of the first news report on the story, accusations were flying on social media: some said that Israel was to blame, and in some cases said that they had video evidence to prove it; Israel said that the blast was the result of a failed missile launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group allied with Hamas. Amid a firehose of outrage and takes, journalists worked to try and verifyin some cases publicly and in real timewhat had actually happened, wading through testimony and images from sources of varying reliability who said wildly different things at different times.

An official Israeli account on X tweeted a video purporting to bolster its claims that Islamic Jihad was responsible, but took it down after users pointed out that its time stamp didnt match the apparent time of the blast. Later, Israel said that its intelligence services had intercepted a conversation between two Hamas operatives referring to a failed Islamic Jihad strike, and released what it claimed was audio of the discussion. Yesterday morning, Shashank Joshi, defense editor at The Economist, said that the evidence he had seen so far was more consistent with the failed missile launch hypothesis than an Israeli strike, but cautioned that this was NOT conclusive by any means. (A user accused Joshi of relying on evidence provided by the Israel Defense Forces; Joshi replied that the relevant image being analyzed, published this morning, was actually posted by an account thought to be associated with Hamas.) Other analysts reached a similar conclusion, as did the US government, the White House said. But other observers remained skeptical, pointing out, for example, that the IDF has wrongly blamed Islamic Jihad in the past. At time of writing, the online debate raged on.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, a string of incidents have challenged journalists and other professional fact-checkers; the blast at the hospital was the latest example. A document appearing to show that the Biden administration gave Israel eight billion dollars in funding turned out to have been doctored. Video footage that some said showed a Hamas soldier shooting down an Israeli helicopter was from a video game. A report on mass desertions from the IDF was said to have come from an Israeli TV stationwhich shut down in 2019. A video of a young boy lying in a pool of blood, surrounded by men in Israeli military fatigues, was offered as evidence of brutalitybut in reality was a behind-the-scenes shot from a Palestinian movie.

As my colleague Jon Allsop noted in this newsletter last week, the tsunami of content claiming to be from the conflict has also included genuine social media posts from the combatants themselves. Distinguishing the real from the doctored has not been easy. Hamas itself uploaded a number of video clips of the initial wave of attacks, many of which, CNN reported, appeared to have been heavily edited. Much of this content was uploaded initially to the messaging service Telegram, the one major social network that hasnt banned Hamas, which is a proscribed terrorist organization in a number of countries, including the US. Often, however, such content has made its way from Telegram to platforms, like Meta and X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), that have then struggled to detect it and either remove it or add context before it goes viral.

As Axios noted recently, many of the major platforms have scaled back their moderation of misinformation and other hateful and violent content over the past year. They are now scrambling to adjust to the unfolding crisis in the Middle East and to the waves of fakes and graphic imagery that have come with it. Meta said that it has developed a special operations center staffed with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers; TikTok said that it plans to add more moderators who speak those two languages. YouTube told Axios that it has removed tens of thousands of harmful videos and terminated hundreds of channels since the conflict began. And over at Xwhose gutting of its content-moderation staff has been much discussed since Elon Musk acquired the platform last yearLinda Yaccarino, the CEO, sent leaders of the European Union a letter detailing the firms efforts to tackle war-related disinformation after EU policymakers opened an investigation into its hosting and distribution of such content. (This was one of the blocs first enforcement actions under its newly passed Digital Services Act, which I wrote about recently in this newsletter.)

Although all of the platforms have failed to some extent in their attempts to remove misinformation about the conflict, various experts have said that X has been among, if not the worst for misinformation and disinformation. In the aftermath of the initial Hamas attack, Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist with the BBCs Verify service, said in a post on X that he has been fact-checking on the network for years and that theres always been plenty of misinformation during major events, but that the deluge of false posts since the war broke outmany of them boosted by users with blue check marks, which were once handed out to verify the identities of public figures (including many journalists) but have become a paid-for premium feature under Muskwas unlike anything he had seen before.

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In the days that followed, Yael Eisenstat, a former senior policy official at Facebook and current vice president of the Anti-Defamation League (which Musk has accused of driving advertisers away from X), told the Washington Post that while it was hard to find anti-Semitic statements or outright calls for violence on YouTube and even Meta, it was totally easy to find the same on X. Mike Rothschild, a researcher focused on conspiracy theories and social media, told Bloomberg that the attack was the first real test of Elon Musks version of Twitter, and it failed spectacularly, adding that its now almost impossible to tell whats a fact, whats a rumor, whats a conspiracy theory, and whats trolling. Musks changes to the service havent just made X unhelpful during a time of crisis, Rothschild said, but have made it actively worse.

Justin Peden, a researcher known as the Intel Crab, posted on X that while news outlets with reporters on the ground in Israel and Gaza struggled to reach audiences in the aftermath of the attack, xenophobic goons are boosted by the platforms CEOa reference to a post, since deleted, in which Musk vouched for the usefulness of two accounts that have been guilty of sharing misinformation, and in some cases anti-Semitic content. Emerson Brooking, a researcher at the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensics Research Lab, told Wired that the fact that X now shares advertising revenue with premium users based on engagement incentivizes those users to maximize view counts, irrespective of the truth. And analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that X is very different now from what it was when Russia invaded Ukraine last year, before Musk acquired the platform. (In addition to the steps noted above, X has since stopped labeling accounts that are affiliated with Iranian, Russian, and Chinese state media, and removed headlines from all news links.)

X now has a feature called Community Notes that allows approved users to add fact-checking comments to posts on the servicebut researchers specializing in misinformation say that the feature has been overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of fakes and hoaxes that need to be moderated. Ben Goggin, a deputy tech editor at NBC News, said last week that he reviewed a hundred and twenty posts on X that shared fake news and found that only 8 percent had community notes appended to them; 26 percent had suggested notes that had yet to be approved, while 66 percent had neither. And a recent investigation by Wired magazine found that Community Notes appears to be not functioning as designed, may be vulnerable to coordinated manipulation by outside groups, and lacks transparency about how notes are approved.

Last week, Charlie Warzel wrote for The Atlantic that Musk has turned X into a facsimile of the once-useful social network, altered just enough so as to be disorienting, even terrifying. He has a point. The platform gained much of its reputation as a source of real-time, on-the-ground news during events such as the Arab Spring in Egypt in the early 2010s. But its performance during the Israeli-Hamas conflict so far shows that it has become a funhouse-mirror version of itself: a circus filled with posts that present as accurate and newsworthy, but in reality are the opposite. If misinformation creates a fog of war, X does not seem interested in dispelling it.

Warzels article was headlined This War Shows Just How Broken Social Media Has Become. Indeed, to this broader point, the entire social media landscapethe global town square, as Warzel calls itis now a virtual minefield. If conflicts like the current one in the Middle East are lenses through which we understand our information environment, he wrote, then one must surmise that, at present, our information environment is broken. One need only have followed the hospital bombing in real time to know this. At the heart of it all, lives continue to be lost.



Other notable stories:

ICYMI: Meg Kissinger on investigating her familys history with mental health and discrimination

Mathew Ingram is CJRs chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.
MAYFIELD, Ohio

Welfare check: Beta Drive

A man requested assistance at 3:45 a.m. Oct. 14 in looking for a woman who was supposed to pick him up from a location in another city.

He said he had been talking to her, but the call dropped and she was no longer responding to his phone calls.

At first, he was uncertain which hotel she was planning to stay at when arriving from North Carolina, but eventually determined that it was the Holiday Inn.

Officers spoke to the staff at the hotel, who said the man had been there harassing them because they would not provide him information on the womans reservation for security reasons. They confirmed that they had spoken with the woman and that she said she was arriving late.

The Cleveland Heights man, 26, met with officers at the hotel and was found to have an active warrant out of North Olmsted. He was arrested and turned over to officers from that city.

It was later learned that the woman was not accepting the mans calls because her phones battery had died.

Impaired driving: Wilson Mills Road

A vehicle was found stopped partially in the roadway and partially in the parking lot of a business at SOM Center Road around 10:45 p.m. Oct. 10.

Officers found the vehicle in the parked positioned and detected an odor of alcohol on the drivers breath.

The Brecksville woman, 53, failed sobriety tests and was arrested for OVI and cited for vehicles stopped in roadways.

Disturbance: Wilson Mills Road

A caller reported at 6:38 a.m. Oct. 13 that his home shakes due to an excavator working at a neighbors house at night and before the allowed time in the morning.

Officers spoke to a worker at the neighboring home. He was unsure of what time he was allowed to start working, but agreed to stop until 7 a.m.

Unwanted guest: Wilson Mills Road

A doctors staff reported Oct. 13 that a man showed up for an appointment he claimed to have made but did not have scheduled.

They said he harassed them and left the building, then returned and began knocking on the windows of the business. They added that he had previously been told that he was not welcome to return.

Officers located the South Euclid man, 65, and told him he needed to leave and could be charged for trespassing or harassment if he returned to the business.

Attempted grand theft: SOM Center Road

Two vehicles were broken into at the Aintree Park apartments during the early morning hours of Oct. 16. Both had damage to the steering columns, but nothing was taken from either vehicle.

Both incidents are under investigation.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.  A Republican congresswoman from Iowa says she has received death threats after she voted Wednesday against U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio becoming House speaker.

U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks said in a statement on social media that she has received credible death threats after she voted for U.S. Rep. Kay Granger of Texas for speaker, one day after she voted for Jordan. On Tuesday, Jordan fell 20 Republican votes from becoming speaker, but that number grew to 22 on Wednesday.

RELATED: Jim Jordan loses another House speaker vote, jeopardizing bid for the gavel

Miller-Meeks says in her statement that her office has received a barrage of threatening calls since her vote on Wednesday. She said her office has notified authorities about the death threats.

While Miller-Meeks says she supported Jordan on Tuesday for the greater good of the House Republican party, she said her concerns about the threatening tactics of Jordans supporters, including in Congress, increased after he failed to gain enough votes.

One thing I cannot stomach, or support, is a bully, Granger says in the statement. Our party needs a consensus candidate so we can get back to the work forwarding appropriations, supporting Israel, and stopping the insane policies of the Biden Administration.

The BBC reports other members of Congress opposing Jordan, including Jen Kiggans of Virginia, Kay Granger of Texas and John Rutherford of Florida, say they have been targeted with inappropriate tactics by conservative leaders and right-wing influencers.

Jordan released a statement on social media condemning threats made toward Miller-Meeks and other members of Congress, calling them abhorrent.

No American should accost another for their beliefs, Jordan says in the statement. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. Its abhorrent.

The House of Representatives has lacked a speaker since Oct. 3, when eight Republicans led by Floridas Matt Gaetz  a longtime Jordan ally  united with Democrats in a vote to remove Californias McCarthy from the post. Jordan did not support Gaetzs effort and voted to keep McCarthy.
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CHINA GROVE, North Carolina  A mans body lay in the front yard of a vacant home for days, with a landscaping crew mowing around it, after it was mistaken for a prop used in law-enforcement training.

An investigation is underway to determine what happened to Robert Paul Owens, 34, who was found on Oct. 10, NBC News reports. Owens body was in front of an empty log cabin used for training by law-enforcement agencies, according to NBC News.

USA Today reports Owens body had been in front of the cabin for days. The day before police were notified, a landscaper mowed around the body thinking it was a fake dummy used for training by numerous law agencies on the property over the last few years and did not report it, USA Today reports.

Family members of Owens tell Queen City News that Owens was last seen alive on Oct. 1. USA Today reports that preliminary results from an autopsy ruled out signs of assault or trauma to the body. Authorities are still waiting for toxicology results.

Family members say theyre eager for answers. Owens reportedly was found facedown in his underwear and socks with one arm under him, one arm out.

Theres definitely some sort of foul play, Haley Shue, Owens sister, tells NBC News. We have been briefly told [by police] about some glass around his body. We dont know if that glass is from a car or something else. Theres no broken glass on the house.
COLUMBUS, OhioThe new lead lawyer representing the state of Ohio in appeals cases is Elliot Gaiser, whom Attorney General Dave Yost describes as an appellate ace but whose name comes up dozens of times in testimony regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.

Gaiser, who currently works for the law firm of Jones Day in Columbus, was announced by Yost on Wednesday as the AGs pick to succeed outgoing Ohio solicitor general Ben Flowers. The states solicitor general, who serves under Yost, represents the state on appeals involving the U.S. and Ohio supreme courts, among other courts.

An Ohio native and graduate of University of Chicago law school, Gaiser previously clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and federal appeals court judges Neomi Rao and Edith Jones. He also was a conservative blogger and podcaster while an undergraduate student at Hillsdale College in Michigan.

In 2020, Gaiser worked as a lawyer for then-President Donald Trumps reelection campaign on election integrity issues prior to the November election.

In the weeks after the 2020 election, then-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told the Houses January 6 select committee that she communicated with Gaiser multiple times about challenging President Joe Bidens victory.

On the night of Jan. 5, 2021, McEnany testified that she texted Gaiser about whether then-Vice President Mike Pence played a substantive role in certifying the election results  which turned out to be the case, as Pence squashed Trumps attempt to overturn the election results.

McEnany testified that Gaiser mentioned in passing that Pence could declare that he refuse to recognize electors from certain states, though she repeatedly said that she spoke with him not for legal advice, but to get information and clarification on election issues ahead of scheduled interviews on Fox News and other TV channels. McEnany testified that she didnt agree with some of the new advisers Trump brought on after the election, preferring instead to consult with Gaiser, whom she called the person who I trusted most as it came to constitutional law.

McEnany said Gaiser waved (her) off of pursuing a debunked conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the election for Biden. Instead, she said, he brought up that he drafted a speech on his own that, among other things, laid out claims regarding Pennsylvanias then-Secretary of State Kathy Boockvars decisions regarding mail-in ballots.

That draft, she told the committee, appeared to be incorporated to some extent in a speech written for Trump on Dec. 2. During his speech, Trump asserted falsely that it was statistically impossible for Biden to have won and said, All of the Democrat efforts to expand mail-in balloting laid the groundwork for the systematic and pervasive fraud that occurred in this election.

Gaisers appearance in Jan. 6 committee testimony was first reported by Bloomberg Law.

Yost, a Columbus Republican, asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2020 to overturn Boockvars ruling that mail-in ballots that arrived up to three days after the election could still be counted. On Jan. 6, 2021, Yost tweeted that he condemned the storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to forcibly stop the certification of Bidens victory.

In a statement Wednesday announcing his selection of Gaiser, Yost said that Gaiser is a master craftsman of ironclad legal arguments rooted in originalist principles and constitutional restraint.

Yost added, His accolades and versatility distinguish him from his peers and make him well-suited for the role of Solicitor General. Were glad to have him.

Asked to comment on Gaisers appearance in Jan. 6 committee testimony, Yost spokeswoman Bethany McCorkle stated in an email, Elliot is a nationally respected constitutional law expert. He is Ohios next Solicitor General because of his knowledge and expertise in the law.

Gaiser, in Yosts announcement, said in a statement that he is profoundly grateful to the jurists and lawyers who have sharpened and inspired me to pursue justice through the law.

I am eager to stand up for the safety, prosperity and freedom of all Ohioans, consistent with our constitutional principles of federalism and the rule of law, he stated.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip  Israel said Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came one day after a blast at a hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gazas struggling medical system.

The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies happened as fury over the blast at Gaza Citys al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

There were conflicting claims of who was behind the explosion on Tuesday night, but protests flared quickly as many Arab leaders said Israel was responsible. Hamas officials in Gaza blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence.

Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7. As supplies run out, many families in Gaza have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water.

The bloody devastation at al-Ahli threw the sieges impact into sharp relief. Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza Citys main hospital where doctors, already facing critical supply shortages, were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, often without anesthesia.

A steady stream of ambulances, taxis, cars and at least one motorcycle also arrived at a hospital in Khan Younis. Men jumped from the vehicles and scrambled to open doors, with hospital staff and bystanders helping carry the injured.

One man rushed in carrying a limp child in his arms. A girl with her head wrapped with a makeshift bandage was helped from a car. Many injured had to be carried by multiple men or hoisted onto gurneys.

As soon as one vehicle was unloaded, another arrived to take its place.

Biden said Egypts president agreed to open the crossing and to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, it will end, he said. The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.

Egypt must still repair the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the Rafah crossing, Gazas only connection to Egypt, said the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed.

Supplies will go in under supervision of the U.N., Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and dont go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

Relatives of some of the roughly 200 people who were taken hostage and forced back to Gaza during the attack reacted in fury to the aid announcement.

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals, said a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed Wednesday after a 12-hour lull. Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, including on cities in the south that Israel had described as safe zones for civilians.

In his brief visit, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing U.S. support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies. Upon his arrival, Biden embraced Netanyahu, said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israels fault and expressed concern for the suffering of Gazas civilians. He also announced $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Israeli military held a briefing Wednesday laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital.

Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military was not firing in the area when the blast occurred. He said Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage was fired by Islamic Jihad militants from a nearby cemetery at the time of the blast. Independent video showed one rocket in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said.

The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital, he said. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a large crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rockets warhead and its unspent propellant, he said.

Hamas called Tuesdays hospital blast a horrific massacre caused by an Israeli strike.

Islamic Jihad said Israeli orders issued days before for al-Ahli to be evacuated, and a previous strike at the hospital, proved the hospital was an target. The group added that the scale of the explosion, the angle of the explosives fall and the extent of destruction all pointed to Israel.

The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, said the hospital, run by the Episcopal Church, received at least three Israeli military orders to evacuate in the days before the blast. Israeli shelling hit it Sunday, wounding four staff, he said. Israel ordered all 22 hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate last week. The Israeli military accuses the militants of hiding among civilians.

Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping to be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south.

On Wednesday morning, the blast scene was littered with charred cars. One man who had been sheltering there with his family, Mohammed al-Hayek, said he was sitting with other men in a hospital stairwell Tuesday night when he stepped away for coffee.

When I returned, they were torn to pieces, he said.

The death toll was in dispute. The Health Ministry initially said at least 500 had died, but revised that number to 471 on Wednesday. Al-Ahli officials said the toll was in the hundreds.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas deadly incursion. Militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since toward cities across Israel.

Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes, roughly half of Gazas population. Those fleeing the north and Gaza City to move south have crowded into U.N. schools or the homes of relatives.

With Israeli airstrikes relentlessly pounding the Gaza Strip, displaced Palestinians increasingly feel that no place is safe.

The Musa family fled to the typically sleepy central town of Deir al-Balah and took shelter in a cousins three-story home near the local hospital. But at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, a series of explosions, believed to be airstrikes, rocked the building, turning the family home into a mountain of rubble that they said buried some 20 women and children.

The dead body of Hiam Musa, the sister-in-law of Associated Press photojournalist Adel Hana, was recovered from the wreckage Wednesday evening, the family said. They dont know who else is under the rubble.

It doesnt make sense, Hana said. We went to Deir al-Balah because its quiet, we thought we would be safe.

The Israeli military said it was investigating.
Recording artist Katy Perry performs onstage during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show at University of Phoenix Stadium, now known as State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Arizona, on Feb. 1, 2015.

Universal Music has sued artificial intelligence startup Anthropic over "systematic and widespread infringement of their copyrighted song lyrics," per a filing Wednesday in a Tennessee federal court.

One example from the lawsuit: When a user asks Anthropic's AI chatbot Claude about the lyrics to the song "Roar" by Katy Perry, it generates an "almost identical copy of those lyrics," violating the rights of Concord, the copyright owner, per the filing. The lawsuit also named Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" as an example of Anthropic's alleged copyright infringement, as Universal owns the rights to its lyrics.

"In the process of building and operating AI models, Anthropic unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works," the lawsuit stated, later going on to add, "Just like the developers of other technologies that have come before, from the printing press to the copy machine to the web-crawler, AI companies must follow the law."

Other music publishers, such as Concord and ABKCO, were also named as plaintiffs.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI research executives and funded by companies including Google , Salesforce and Zoom. The company has raised $750 million in two funding rounds since March and has been valued at $4.1 billion.

In May, Anthropic was one of four companies invited to a meeting at the White House to discuss responsible AI development with Vice President Kamala Harris, alongside Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft and Microsoft-backed OpenAI.

In July, Anthropic debuted Claude 2, the latest version of its AI chatbot, and said the tool has the ability to summarize up to about 75,000 words  roughly the length of a 300-page book  compared to OpenAI's ChatGPT, which can handle about 3,000 words.

"We have been focused on businesses, on making Claude as robustly safe as possible," Daniela Amodei, co-founder and president of Anthropic, told CNBC in a July interview.



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Bank of America thinks it's the right time for investors to scoop up shares of Interactive Brokers after its earnings topped analysts' estimates earlier this week. The bank has a buy rating on the global electronic brokerage firm, and its $128 price target suggests shares could jump roughly 54% from its latest closing price. "IBKR has the strongest organic growth prospects in our coverage through its broad offering for active traders, retail, brokers, financial advisors, hedge funds and prop traders globally," analyst Craig Siegenthaler wrote in a Wednesday note, referring to proprietary trading . Interactive's "key competitive advantage is its technology R & D effort which supports its first-mover advantages with new capabilities, lower product price points and a 70%+ operating margin." Siegenthaler said Interactive Brokers is "cheap," adding he's particularly bullish on the company's potential upside after it exceeded Wall Street's earnings expectations earlier this week. IBKR YTD mountain Interactive Brokers in 2023. Interactive Brokers posted third-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.55 per share on adjusted revenue of $1.14 billion postmarket Tuesday, while analysts polled by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv, had called for earnings of $1.51 per share and $1.11 billion in revenue. "We think that IBKR should trade closer to the valuations of the e-trading platforms  given its secular growth qualities and diversified profit stream (diversification of net interest revenue versus commissions)," Siegenthaler said. The analyst listed three reasons he particularly favors Interactive Brokers: The stock is "cheap," trading at 11 times the bank's 2025 earnings per share estimate. The stock has 24% upside potential to its 2025 consensus EPS. Interactive will "continue to generate strong organic growth," and grew 34% on average between 2017 and 2022. Siegenthaler added that after Interactive Brokers' chair Thomas Peterffy lowered the company's intermediate-term account growth target to 20% from 30% during its earnings call this week, he thinks expectations on the company's account inflows are back to a level that it can "beat in most quarters." The analyst noted that the stock has been a difficult play for long-term investors to own, given the company's large market cap coupled with lack of stock liquidity, visibility into succession plan and capital retention, among other factors. "Alternatively, given the mostly hedge fund interest in IBKR, we think that a bull market or an improvement in these factors could unlock significant valuation upside potential for IBKR stock," Siegenthaler said.
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Union Pacific  Shares of the freight operator added 2.1% after the company reported earnings per share of $2.51 while analysts polled by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv, forecast $2.44. The company's third-quarter revenue of $5.94 billion missed analyst estimates of $5.99 billion, however. Las Vegas Sands  The casino operator rose 2.8% after topping revenue estimates for the third quarter and pointing to a recovery in Macao and Singapore. Las Vegas Sands posted revenue of $2.8 billion, exceeding the $2.73 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG. American Airlines  Shares advanced 0.7% midday even after the air carrier posted weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue for the third quarter . However, better-than-expected operating income and margins helped lift the stock as well as revenue in its Atlantic and Pacific regions. AT & T  The telecommunications giant added 6.4% after a third-quarter earnings beat. The company reported an adjusted 64 cents per share on $30.4 billion in revenue, while analysts polled by LSEG forecast 62 cents per share and $30.19 billion. Netflix  The streaming giant soared 16% after a third-quarter earnings beat that was driven by stronger-than-expected subscriber growth. Netflix added 8.76 million subscribers in the quarter, while analysts polled by StreetAccount forecast 5.49 million. Lam Research  The semiconductor stock slipped more than 6.2% after Lam's forward guidance for the fiscal second quarter fell short of Wall Street expectations. This overshadowed earnings and revenue for the previous quarter that beat estimates. Tesla  The electric vehicle maker's shares tumbled 9.3% Thursday a fter the company missed earnings and revenue expectations for the third quarter. Several Wall Street analysts lowered their price targets on the company following the disappointing results, citing more margins pressure likely ahead. Zions Bancorporation  Shares pulled back 9.6% after third-quarter earnings missed Wall Street estimates. The company reported $1.13 in earnings per share while analysts polled by LSEG forecast $1.15. Zscaler  Stock in the cloud security firm fell about 1% following an upgrade to buy from Jefferies on Thursday, citing upside to 2024 earnings estimates. Blackstone  Shares dropped 7.9% following a weaker-than-expected report from the investment firm. Blackstone reported 94 cents in earnings per share and revenue of $2.32 billion. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had anticipated $1.01 in earnings per share and $2.51 billion in revenue.  CNBC's Alex Harring, Hakyung Kim, Samantha Subin and Tanaya Macheel contributed reporting.
A U.S. journalist has been detained in Russia, her employer said, the second such case since the war in Ukraine started.

Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual Russian-American reporter with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was detained in the southwest Russian city of Kazan on Wednesday while awaiting the return of her passports, her employer said in a statement released on Thursday.

RFE/RL said Kurmasheva, who is based in Prague, has been charged with failure to register as a foreign agent, a designation Russia requires of any organizations or individuals that it perceives as receiving foreign funding. It has been used to target journalists and people who speak out against the Kremlin.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, said RFE/RL, which is a U.S. government-funded media company. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges in March and faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

Kurmasheva has been working with the company's Tatar-Bashkir Service, RFE/RL said. She traveled to Russia for "a family emergency" in May, according to RFE/RL, and was temporarily detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at Kazan airport, where she had her U.S. and Russian passports confiscated and was not able to leave Russia since then.

Kurmasheva was waiting for her passports to be returned when the new charge was announced on Wednesday, RFE/RL said. It has called for her immediate release.

Russian news outlet Tatar-Inform said Russian authorities accused Kurmasheva of "conducting a targeted collection of military information about Russian activities via the Internet in order to transmit information to foreign sources." NBC News could not verify this claim.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House to Kurmasheva's detention.

NBC News has reached out to Russia's foreign ministry and the U.S. embassy in Moscow for comment.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a separate statement it was "deeply concerned" about Kurmasheva's detention, calling charges against her "spurious," and also called on Russian authorities to release her immediately.

Her detention follows that of Gershkovich, who is still awaiting trial after having multiple appeals declined. Gershkovich and his employer deny all charges against him and is considered "wrongfully detained" by the U.S. government.

Since the start of Russia's war in Ukraine, new draconian legislation has made reporting in the country dangerous for both Russian and foreign journalists, causing many news organizations to disband and journalists to flee the country.
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel, on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., on Oct. 18, 2023.

WASHINGTON  Jacob Lew, President Joe Biden's nominee for ambassador to Israel, defended his handling of Iran policy in the Obama administration on Wednesday at his Senate confirmation hearing.

"This whole thing is about Iran," said Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. "And holding hands with Iran under the table doesn't work for me."

As Treasury secretary under former President Barack Obama, Lew played a key role in formulating the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The deal, which was later abandoned under former President Donald Trump, provided Iran with a path to sanctions relief, in exchange for opening its nuclear program to inspectors and abandoning plans to build a nuclear weapon.

Lew was unequivocal, telling the senators, "Iran is a threat to regional stability and to Israel's existence." He also delivered a warning, saying, "anyone who's thinking of taking advantage of the current crisis: don't."

The Israel-Hamas war permeated the hearing. Early on, three protesters in the crowd tried to disrupt it and were escorted out. One protester yelled, "ceasefire now!"

Lew spoke warmly of the U.S.-Israel relationship, calling it, "the core of who I am, and what I believe is important for us."

But it was the nuclear deal that drew the lion's share of the Republican critique of Lew, especially its condition that Iran be allowed access to some frozen funds.

Several Republicans suggested that Lew had effectively opened the door to grant Iran access to the mainstream banking system.

"We did not welcome (Iran) back into the U.S. financial system," Lew said.

He went on to describe how Iranian officials "complained that my actions were what kept them from getting full access to the world financial system," and imposed Iranian sanctions against Lew in retaliation.

If he were confirmed, Lew said, he would uphold Biden's commitment to deny Iran a nuclear weapon.

The committee is scheduled to vote on Lew's confirmation next week and he is ultimately expected to be confirmed by the full Senate, albeit on Democratic votes alone.



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Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has chosen Ireland as its main operational and regulatory hub in the European Union, the company told CNBC in an exclusive interview. Coinbase submitted its application for a license under the EU's new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which is set to come into force by December 2024, with the Central Bank of Ireland. Coinbase has had an office in Dublin since 2018. The company employs about 100 people in Ireland. If and when it is approved, Coinbase will have a universal "MiCA license" in Ireland, which it can then use to "passport" its services into Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and other EU countries. That makes it easier for Coinbase to launch new products in those markets without having to apply for individual licenses in each country. Coinbase says it's confident it will be able to win this license.

Chesnot | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The company is planning to be operational with its MiCA license from "day one," Nana Murugesan, Coinbase's vice president of international, told CNBC in an interview earlier this week.

What is MiCA?

MiCA is the EU's attempt at introducing a pan-European regulatory framework for crypto companies. It seeks to introduce protections for investors buying and selling crypto assets, like bitcoin and ethereum. The rules will allow crypto companies to use one license in one country to operate across all 27 EU member states. The regulation imposes a number of requirements on crypto firms, particularly exchanges, including the requirement that they don't commingle client funds with their own assets. "As soon as MiCA was passed into law, and even before that, we've been considering a number of member states," Murugesan said. "It was a long decision making process and we've been very impressed with the engagement from Ireland throughout." "It was really important for us to choose a member state that is not only a sophisticated regulator with significant experience in regulating financial services, but also recognises the importance of a globally integrated business model, the way we are structured as a company, and also the potential of this innovative new technology." Currently, Coinbase has an electronic money institution license and virtual asset service provider registration in Ireland; a crypto license in Germany; and national registrations in other EU member states including Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.

U.S. lawsuit

The company, which is headquartered in San Francisco, is one of the largest crypto trading venues globally.

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The expansion move comes at a difficult time for the crypto industry. Crypto companies have been seeing their volumes decline, while fundraising has slowed, as macroeconomic conditions have gotten tougher and regulatory scrutiny has mounted. Coinbase is banking on growth in the European Union, a continent with a total population of 450 million, and other international hubs, as it faces regulatory pressure back home  not least from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which accuses the company of operating an illegal securities venue. Coinbase disputes the SEC's claims, and is fighting the case. However, its aim is for there to be formal crypto legislation, rather than constant litigation in the courts. Paul Grewal, Coinbase's chief legal officer, said that progress has been "slower" than he'd like when it comes to achieving crypto regulation in the U.S. But he's hopeful for more regulatory clarity in the future. "We're now seeing in court cases real questions being asked about the U.S. approach to crypto regulation and in particular securities regulation," he said. "Judge after judge is asking serious questions about the SEC's interpretation of our US securities laws and, frankly, challenging some fundamental points that the SEC has pressed on whether tokens are securities at all." "MiCA, on the other hand, I think offers ... a more substantial and serious approach to crypto regulation in that it isn't caught up with the jurisdictional fights the turf battles that we have the United States over whether particular transactions or securities transactions or commodities transactions. Instead, the focus is on keeping consumers and investors safe." As a market for crypto, digital asset usage is less prevalent than it is in the U.S. According to Chainalysis data, Central, Northern, and Western Europe is the second-biggest crypto economy in the world, behind only North America. However, Coinbase expects lots of growth in the region.

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"In recent quarters, Coinbase has earned as much as 15%, or even 20%, of top line revenue from across Europe," Grewal told CNBC's Arjun Kharpal  the firm reported $808.3 million of sales globally in the second quarter of 2023, according to its latest earnings report. "But for us, we're going to approach the opportunity in a responsible, measured way, we're going to let our customers drive our investments and drive our focus on what opportunities to pursue. It's an exciting future." Coinbase has also decided to make Germany its regional "talent hub," and will look to ramp up its hiring in that market to localize and tailor its product specifically for Germany. "We are very grateful to Germany for all the support they have provided," Murugesan told CNBC. "Our German operation has grown from strength to strength and more than doubled in headcount."

EU-first approach to products

Coinbase may even look to launch new products in Europe first before rolling them out in the U.S., Murugesan said. The EU will be a "testbed" for Coinbase to think about "utilitarian" functions of crypto that people need in their daily lives, such as payments and transacting rather than trading, he told CNBC. "With MiCA and the clarity that it offers, it allows us to innovate," he added. "And hopefully, we'll see some of those daily use cases roll out in EU first." Daniel Seifert, vice president of EMEA for Coinbase, said the company is also looking to launch integrations with other payment providers to make it easier for users to access digital tokens through Coinbase. "There's lots of exciting plans for the region that we're going to see in the coming weeks and months," Seifert said.  CNBC's Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report WATCH: How ethereum is different from bitcoin
The deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals, marks a major push from Airwallex into Latin America.

Global fintech giant Airwallex on Thursday said it has agreed to acquire MexPago, a rival payments company based out of Mexico, for an undisclosed sum to help the firm expand its Latin America footprint.

The company, which competes with the likes of PayPal , Stripe, and Block , sells cross-border payment services to mainly small and medium-sized enterprises. Airwallex makes money by pocketing a fee each time a transaction is made.

The deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, marks a major push from Airwallex into Latin America, a market that has become more attractive for fintech firms thanks to a primarily younger population and increasing online penetration.

Jack Zhang, Airwallex's CEO, said the company was looking at Mexico as something as a hedge as it deals with geopolitical and economic uncertainty going on between the U.S. and China.

"U.S. people export to Mexico to sell to the consumer there," Zhang told CNBC. "Because of the supply chain, you can also export out of Mexico to other countries like the United States."

"You get both the inflow and outflow of money," he added. "That's really what we like the most. We can take a global company to Mexico and also help the global companies making payments to the supply chain."

U.S.-China trade tensions have escalated in recent years, as Washington seeks to address what it sees as China's race to the bottom on trade.

The U.S. alleges China has been deliberately devaluing its currency by buying lots of U.S. dollars, thereby making Chinese exports cheaper and U.S. exports more expensive, and worsening the U.S. trade deficit with China.

China has sought to address these concerns, agreeing to "substantially reduce" the U.S. trade deficit by committing to "significantly increases" its purchases of American goods, although it's struggled to make good on those commitments.

"Mexico is one of the largest populations in Latin America," Zhang added. "As the trade war intensifies in China and the US, a lot is shifting from Asia to Mexico."

"[Mexico] is very close to the U.S. Labour is cheaper compared to the U.S. domestically. A lot of the supply chain is shipping there. There's a lot of opportunity from e-commerce as well."
The House of Representatives remained leaderless on Thursday without a clear path to elect a speaker after Rep. Jim Jordan's bid to secure the gavel failed in two consecutive votes this week.

Jordan has said he plans to remain in the speaker race, but his bid appears dead in the water with more than 20 Republicans opposed to him assuming leadership of the chamber.

The House will meet at noon ET Thursday and could vote for a third time on Jordan's nomination, though another ballot has not been scheduled yet.

Jordan has said he will remain in the race "until we get a speaker."

Republicans have a narrow majority in the House, which means Jordan or any other GOP candidate can only afford to lose four votes within the party.

So far, no Republican candidate has been able to rally the party behind them. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was the GOP's original speaker nominee, but the Louisiana congressman was forced to abandon his bid last week after it became clear he did not have the votes.

There is discussion among some Republicans about empowering Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina as speaker until the party can coalesce around a permanent replacement.

McHenry has been filling in as speaker since Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California was ousted by a faction of eight hard-right Republicans earlier this month, but the North Carolinian's powers are currently limited because he is acting in an interim capacity.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) talks to reporters as he heads from his office in the Rayburn House Office Building to the U.S. Capitol on October 18, 2023 in Washington, DC.

An aggressive campaign by Rep. Jim Jordan's supporters is sparking backlash from Republican holdouts, making it harder for him to become the next House speaker.

Several GOP lawmakers, as well as one member's spouse, have reported a barrage of calls and messages pushing them to back Jordan, R-Ohio, in his struggling candidacy. One even said she has received death threats.

The wife of Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., has received anonymous, threatening text messages this week pressuring her to persuade her husband to support Jordan.

Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., said his staffers have been "cussed out" in phone calls from Jordan supporters.

And Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., said he was so upset with pro-Jordan robocalls to voters in his South Florida district that he personally told Jordan to call off the attack dogs.

On Wednesday night, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, said in a statement that she'd received "credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls" after she switched her vote to another Republican in the second round of voting.

Jordan's foes, who for the past two days have blocked him from winning the speaker's gavel, face an aggressive pressure campaign from his allies and conservative grassroots activists to stop their opposition and flip to yes.

But the bloc of roughly 20 anti-Jordan Republicans say that they aren't caving and that the hardball tactics are backfiring.

"One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully," Miller-Meeks said in a statement, adding that she won't be intimidated. "Someone who threatens another with bodily harm or tries to suppress differing opinions undermines opportunity for unity and regard for freedom of speech."

In a post on the social media site X, Jordan condemned the violent threats and called for them to stop: "No American should accost another for their beliefs. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. It's abhorrent."

Moments after Jordan was rejected on a second ballot for speaker Wednesday, Gimenez recounted a tense phone call with Jordan on Tuesday.

"Robocalls  they're not free. So somebody is actually funding this. And then he told me that he wasn't behind it and he's asked people to stop. But if you've asked people to stop it, why aren't they listening to you?" Gimenez told reporters just off the House floor.

"I told him, 'I don't really take well to threats.'  Matter of fact, if you threaten me, I'd probably go the other way," he continued. "I probably head into the wind, not away from the wind, because if you succumb to threats and intimidation and all that, the rest of your life you'll just be threatened and intimidated."

Speaker nominees typically use carrots  including subcommittee gavels, seats on powerful panels and fundraising promises  to win over skeptics. It was a strategy deployed by Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the consummate insider, to secure the speaker's gavel in January. But with the speaker vacancy happening in the middle of the session, Jordan has few carrots to hand out.

Jordan's struggles emphasize the degree to which he owes his rise to his outside game, such as his talents for activating the conservative grassroots, making a splash on right-wing media and lighting up social networks with passionate GOP-leaning voters. His struggles also expose the weaknesses of his inside game, such as member-to-member relations and balancing fragile coalitions  skills that have historically been staples of successful speakers.
When it comes down to it, people are resources. But it's only when you learn to soak up what those people tell you  not just let it go in one ear, out the other  that you truly begin to make yourself useful to others and become a resource yourself.

Being curious and being a good listener are a big part of how to effectively utilize your relationship with other people in pursuit of your goals.

In the gym, if I saw someone trying a new training technique that didn't make sense to me, I would ask them about it because maybe it would help me. When I saw the great bodybuilder Vince Gironda do the side-lying triceps extension at his gym, for instance, I admit I thought it looked like a little Mickey Mouse with the tiny dumbbell he was using.

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But instead of dismissing it entirely because Vince didn't come from a heavy lifting background, I tried it. I did 40 sets during my next arms workout, which I had learned was the best way to see how a new movement impacts my body, and my outside triceps shook the whole next day.

The exercise was so effective, I had to ask Vince about it: How did you come up with this exercise? Why does this work better than other similar movements? How should I best incorporate it into a workout?

My questions served multiple purposes. The answers, if they made sense, would alleviate any of my doubts or concerns. By being curious, I showed humility and made myself an ally to Vince, which made it more likely that he might share other valuable training techniques.

But most important of all, asking good "how" and "why" questions about something you're interested in increases the chances of information sticking in your brain and connecting with other related bits of information  making all of it more useful to you when it's time to put it all to work in service of others.

That's why I loved being governor more than any job I ever had. It was an opportunity to soak up all this information about the way our society runs while being in a position to use that information to help millions of people.

I was learning nonstop. The more I learned, and the more questions I asked of the people who were teaching me, the more I understood how things were connected and the better leader I became.

Of course, I was lucky. As a governor, even if I wasn't naturally curious, I could make people explain things about the way the state worked until it made sense to me, no matter how long it took.

Most people aren't so lucky. They don't have the power to make others explain the world to them. They have to try to figure it out for themselves, which can be very intimidating and very discouraging without support.

This, I believe, is one of the reasons so many people feel stuck in their lives. They live in a world they don't fully understand. The world is what it is, and they are who they are, and it's just something they have to accept and deal with.

Maybe they were born into a life in which others were rich and they were poor, or others were tall or smart of physically gifted and they were the opposite of those things  and no one explained to them that while there are some circumstances you can't change, there are others that you can change by being curious and by being a sponge, and then using the knowledge you gain to craft a vision for yourself.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-born bodybuilder, actor, businessman, philanthropist, bestselling author, and politician. He served as the thirty-eighth governor of California.

Excerpt from "BE USEFUL: Seven Tools for Life" by Arnold Schwarzenegger, published on October 10th, 2023 by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright(c) 2023 by Fitness Publications, Inc.

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Vehicles drive on the flooded Freeway 5 after an El Nino-strengthened storm brought rain to Los Angeles on Jan. 6, 2016. Lucy Nicholson | Reuters

The El Nino weather pattern is still active heading into the winter this year and it will mean the northern and far west portions of the U.S. will have a warmer-than-usual winter. Also, some western and southeastern swaths of the U.S. will have a wetter winter than usual, according to a prediction released Thursday from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. El Nino, meaning "little boy" in Spanish, and La Nina, meaning "little girl" in Spanish, are opposite weather patterns driven by a change in the trade winds in the Pacific Ocean. When active, they can affect weather conditions around the globe. This is the first time in four years that El Nino has been active as winter begins, according to the NOAA. Temperatures in the northern and far west portions of the U.S. will be warmer than normal, especially in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and northern New England.

Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards U.S. outlook for temperature for the 2023-24 winter. Image credit: NOAA

El Nino will also mean portions of northern Alaska, some parts of the West, the Gulf Coast, the southern plains region, the lower mid-Atlantic and the southeastern U.S. will likely see a wetter-than-usual winter, according to the NOAA. "An enhanced southern jet stream and associated moisture often present during strong El Nino events supports high odds for above-average precipitation for the Gulf Coast, lower Mississippi Valley and Southeast states this winter," Jon Gottschalck, of the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said in a written statement. Parts of the northern Rockies and central Great Lakes region, specifically Michigan, northern Ohio and Indiana, are forecast to have a drier-than-normal winter.

Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Precipitation outlook for the U.S. between December and February, according to the NOAA. Image credit: NOAA

One-third of the U.S. is in a drought as of Oct.17, according to Brad Pugh, operational drought lead with the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. And so for some regions, the extra rain will be welcome. "During late October, heavy precipitation is likely to result in drought improvement for the central U.S. El Nino with its enhanced precipitation is expected to provide drought relief to the southern U.S. during the next few months," Pugh said in a statement. While El Nino rains will alleviate ongoing droughts in some regions, it may also drive the development of drought conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Hawaii's drought, which contributed to the Maui fires earlier this year, is also forecast to persist or worsen.
Shipping company Maersk posted record annual earnings for 2022 but warned that profits are set to tumble this year as a "more balanced demand environment" emerges.

CNBC's Investing in Space newsletter offers a view into the business of space exploration and privatization, delivered straight to your inbox. CNBC's Michael Sheetz reports and curates the latest news, investor updates and exclusive interviews on the most important companies reaching new heights. Sign up to receive future editions.

"Space-based technologies are the building blocks of innovation on Earth. GPS, geospatial intelligence and satellite communications are the invisible backbone that powers the world's largest industries today."

That's the core of Space Capital managing partner Chad Anderson's pitch to new investors about the value of the space industry  and I think the "invisible backbone" element serves as an important reminder. Much of the sector's investable opportunity falls in the realm of a quiet hum: GPS satellites that enable the world's financial markets, communications satellites that make inflight Wi-Fi possible, radio frequency satellites that improve weather forecasting, imagery satellites that are changing agriculture, and the list goes on.

Bringing that "invisible backbone" idea back down to Earth (pardon the pun) is simplest in my opinion when we have tangible, quantifiable examples of just how space technology improves our lives and powers the global economy. Take, for one instance, Maersk's implementation of SpaceX's Starlink internet service.

David Sherry, the Danish shipping giant's corporate platforms portfolio technology leader, says his company has seen "a sea change" (pardon his pun) as a result of Starlink's service.

"Vessels are challenged by connectivity and therefore satellite is absolutely crucial to our operations  and it doesn't matter if that's navigation, it doesn't matter if that's meteorological, it doesn't matter if that's fuel efficiency  and increasingly so as we digitize our assets and our supply chain," Sherry told me.

A few data points for context here: Maersk operates one of the world's largest shipping fleets, with 681 ships crewed by 12,500 company seafarers. Maersk last week announced a deal to add Starlink to the 336 ships that it owns, boosting onboard internet to speeds over 200 Megabits per second. Maersk conducted a pilot program with Starlink on 30 ships, and Sherry says the company was "delighted with the success."

Sherry explained that, from Maersk's point of view, there are three major stakeholders that benefit from bandwidth that's many times faster than what was available before. First, and foremost, are the crew living and working for long stretches on its massive ships.

"The feedback we've had from them as seafarers has been overwhelming," Sherry said, adding that Starlink allows for live telemedicine and "streaming video, supporting the health and safety and welfare of our crew, allowing them connectivity with their friends and family."

Second, is the broader Maersk company, with Sherry saying "notoriously, there's bad coverage in some areas" where its ships sail, and Starlink brings "more parity between shore-based cloud capability and the vessels," improving fuel efficiency and telemetry and allowing for "real-time decision making" and remote inspections.

Third, is Maersk's customers. Sherry emphasized customers "want access to greater levels of data" on cargo in transit  such as a ship "full of bananas" where "the customer may well be deciding when they want the ripening process to take place."

Maersk isn't alone among maritime adopters of Starlink. We've seen a recent "rush to sign up" by shipping companies including Hapag-Lloyd, Seaspan, Mitsui O.S.K. Line, Eastern Pacific Shipping, Polembros Shipping and more.

Satellites have been, are, and will continue to be a critical backbone of the world's industries  even if we don't notice.
People inspect the remains of a destroyed building following Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis in the southern of Gaza Strip on October 18, 2023.

The escalating conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas is pushing the Middle East region into the precipice of a "dangerous abyss," with the risk of the conflict conflagrating, the United Nations' Middle East envoy warned.

Tor Wennesland, the UN's Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, fears that "the world is at the brink of a deep and dangerous abyss that could change the trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

"This is one of the most difficult moments facing the Israeli and Palestinian people in the last 75 years," he said at the at the U.N. Security Council via a video link.

On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched a multi-pronged attack by land, sea and air and infiltrated Israel, killing more than 1,000 people and abducting 200 people, including babies and the elderly.

In response, Israel retaliated with airstrikes into the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas. Since then, the enclave has been subject to days of aerial bombardment.
President Joe Biden addressed the nation Thursday night following a trip to Tel Aviv as the Israel-Hamas conflict drags into its second week.

Biden said he'll be sending Congress an "urgent budget request to fund America's national security needs to support our critical partners, including Israel and Ukraine."



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel's conflict with Palestinian militant group Hamas will not be a short-term engagement.

Standing alongside British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as the Israel-Hamas conflict enters its 13th day, Netanyahu said, "This is a long war, and we'll need your continuous support."

Meanwhile, Palestinian militant group Hamas said an Israeli airstrike in the north of Gaza City killed the head of its Hamas-led security forces. CNBC was not able to independently verify the report.

Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi reached an agreement to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, according to Egypt's readout of the leaders' phone call  lending hope to the civilians of the besieged enclosure.

The U.S. Department of State also issued a worldwide caution advisory, asking U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution due to increased tensions in various locations around the world.

That news comes as at least 32 Americans have died in the ongoing war.
SDEROT, ISRAEL - OCTOBER 13: Israeli army take security measures as they deploy dozens of tanks and armored vehicles to the Gaza border area in Sderot, Israel on October 13, 2023. (Photo by Turgut Alp Boyraz/Anadolu via Getty Images) Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Israeli ground troops are massed near the border with Gaza, following Hamas' brutal terrorist attacks that killed 1,400 people. But after more than a week of deadly air strikes in Gaza, an expected ground invasion hasn't begun, surprising many military analysts, while officials warn of a long fight with Hamas. The war has also left much of Israel's economy in limbo. More than 360,000 reservists, the backbone of Israel's Defense Forces, are now in uniform and away from their jobs. "The economic impact of something like this is immediate," said Joseph Zeira, a prominent economist, former professor at Hebrew University and author of "The Israeli Economy: A Story of Success and Costs." A recession is almost guaranteed, Zeira predicts, as many parts of Israel are facing a drop in productivity. "Tourism has stopped. People in Israel aren't going out right now to eat or shop" said Zeira.

What's the economic fallout?

The financial world is paying attention, too. On Tuesday, Fitch put Israel's long-term debt on rating watch negative, meaning it is prepared to lower the credit rating. "The risk that other actors hostile to Israel, such as Iran and Hezbollah, could join the conflict at scale has risen significantly, as indicated by regular fire exchanges on the Israel-Lebanon border and declarations from high-ranking officials in Iran and from Hezbollah," Fitch wrote. Fitch fears the fighting could take a long time. Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday warned of a "long war." Israel has often won wars by striking fast and hard inside enemy territory, but due to the complexity of fighting in Gaza, the next phase is coming slower than expected. There is also a fear among army officers and the government that once they fully commit to a ground invasion in the south, where Gaza is located, Hezbollah will take advantage to launch an invasion from Lebanon in the north. Zeira, the economist, is also worried about a protracted fight. "The military is going to want to move slowly to avoid casualties, but the longer this goes, the more damaging it is to the economy," he said. "I don't know how the government will solve this problem." Israel's Ministry of the Economy could not estimate which economic sectors have lost the most reservists, but most of those who joined the fight are under 40 years old. That younger population plays an outsized role in Israel's technology economy which accounts for about a third of Israel's exports and a fifth of its annual gross domestic product.

How are Israeli companies reacting to the war?

Donated clothing at Varonis' Israel headquarters Photo: Guy Melamed

The war is having a particularly big impact on Israel's dynamic tech sector. Varonis is a cybersecurity company, one of many in Israel that's found large parts of its workforce reporting for military duty. The company's main campus is in Herzliyah, north of Tel Aviv. When Israel went to war with Hamas earlier this month, Varonis told its 750 Israel-based employees to work from home. Read more: How Israeli's tech community is responding to the war "We transformed our office into a temporary home with mattresses, pillows, food and clothes for 250 people who had just fled towns near Gaza," Chief Operating Officer Guy Melamed told CNBC in a telephone interview.

Israeli families forced from their homes gather at Varonis. Photo: Guy Melamed
U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) (R) talks to Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) as the House of Representatives prepares to hold a vote on a new Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol on October 18, 2023 in Washington, DC.

The House of Representatives on Friday will vote for a third time on Rep. Jim Jordan's floundering bid the become the next speaker, a spokesperson for the Ohio Republican confirmed to CNBC.

The House will vote on Jordan at 10 a.m. ET, the spokesperson said.

The Ohio Republican's bid to secure the gavel failed in two separate votes this week. Jordan is unlikely to prevail in a third vote given that he faces a wall of opposition from 20 Republican lawmakers.

The decision to hold a third vote comes after GOP lawmakers ditched a plan to empower interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry to oversee the passage of legislation until January.

Jordan said he pitched that plan during a closed-door meeting but the Republican conference did not want to move forward with the idea.

"We decided that isn't where we're going to go," Jordan told reporters. "I'm still running for speaker, and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race."

Jordan had backed the plan to empower McHenry as a bridge that would allow the House to move forward with important legislation until the deeply divided Republican conference can coalesce around a permanent replacement.

Congress faces a ticking clock to pass spending legislation by Nov. 17 to avoid a government shutdown. President Joe Biden has also urged lawmakers to pass emergency security assistance for Israel as the Middle East descends into war.

The plan to empower McHenry was one potentially viable option to end the impasse in the closely divided House because Democrats had expressed openness to supporting the proposal.

But Jordan allies were furious at the plan to empower McHenry for exactly that reason.

"Expanding powers for a temporary Speaker is a dangerous precedent and exactly what the Democrats hoped would happen," said Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana in a post Thursday on "X."

Several other GOP lawmakers after leaving the conference meeting said the resolution was dead.

"Reading the room, this thing is dead," Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida told reporters.

"It's pretty clear at our conference meeting that the resolution is not gonna be supported," said Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida. "So I think that's pretty much over."

"I don't think we're going to move forward on that resolution," said Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado.

McHenry said Thursday he has not spoken with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York or other Democrats about empowering him to oversee legislation.

"I'm focused on electing Jim Jordan, the speaker nominee, as speaker of the House. That's my goal, that's my purpose," the North Carolina Republican told reporters.

House Republicans have been unable to find a candidate with enough votes to become speaker more than two weeks after a faction of eight GOP lawmakers ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California.

The House is paralyzed and unable to pass legislation until lawmakers elect a speaker.

The GOP has a narrow majority in the House, and in the absence of Democratic support any Republican speaker candidate can afford to lose only four votes from within their party.

So far, no Republican has been able to rally the party behind them. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was the GOP's original nominee to replace McCarthy, but the Louisiana congressman was forced to drop his bid last week after it became clear he did not have the votes.

Jordan, who originally lost to Scalise in an internal party vote for the nomination, then threw his hat back in the ring.

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Morgan Stanley hiked its rating on Netflix following the streaming giant's stellar earnings report, seeing the shares potentially rising 20% on strong revenue growth. The Wall Street firm's analyst Benjamin Swinburne upgraded Netflix to overweight from equal weight Thursday, while raising his 12-month price target to $475. The new forecast represents 20.6% upside from Thursday's trading level around $394. "We believe Netflix will deliver the objectives it set out a year ago, accelerate revenue growth back to double digits and expand margins," Swinburne wrote in a note to clients. "At the same time, some of the froth in the stock and expectations have come out, creating a better entry point." Shares of Netflix surged more than 13% Thursday as the company's quarterly profit and new subscriber additions beat expectations. Netflix's subscriber growth was driven by a password-sharing crackdown effort and interest in its new ad-supported tier. It also raised prices for its basic and premium plans in the U.S. NFLX YTD mountain Netflix Morgan Stanley praised Netflix's "strong operational execution and improving return on content spend." Meanwhile, the bank said Netflix has a clear framework for investors to consider how it balances investing while driving profit margins. "Against this rising anxiety and falling stock price, the business has been accelerating, the password crackdown is working, and the competition has pulled back," Swinburne said. "With 3Q results, Netflix has provided clear guidance for its content spending and margin expectations for '24, removing some added uncertainty." The analyst's bull case for Netflix in the most optimistic scenario call for a $550 price target, or 40% upside. For the bear case, the analyst sees Netflix shares falling as low as $300, or 25% downside.  Additional reporting by CNBC's Michael Bloom.
Crypto firms Digital Currency Group and Gemini defrauded more than 230,000 investors out of a collective $1.1 billion, New York state prosecutors said in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Thursday. They cited a series of missteps, including failure to adequately manage the risk associated with exposure to Sam Bankman-Fried's bankrupt and allegedly fraudulent crypto trading firm.

To perpetrate the alleged fraud, Digital Currency Group and its subsidiaries and affiliates, including Genesis Global Capital and Genesis, lied to investors, created false financial documents and withheld information from creditors, prosecutors alleged.

Genesis was once the flagship of crypto mogul Barry Silbert's empire. An over-the-counter trading desk, prime brokerage and lender, it collected crypto from its customers and lent it out to other parties, reaping profits from the interest it charged its clients. For a time, it was very lucrative, until crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital defaulted on its loans and sent much of the crypto world into tumult.

In a statement, DCG said it had been cooperating with the New York state probe for months "in an open and transparent manner."

Genesis and DCG have since acknowledged their significant exposure to Three Arrows, or 3AC. But New York prosecutors alleged that Genesis both failed to audit 3AC properly for more than two years, and that when 3AC collapsed, Genesis and its parent company DCG conspired to conceal details of the crisis from investors and the public.

Those investors included Gemini, which was founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and its customers. Gemini operated a high-yield program called Gemini Earn, which allowed retail customers to hand over their crypto to Gemini in what was described as a "low-risk" model, prosecutors said. Gemini would then give Genesis that customer crypto for further lending, collecting a slice of Genesis' interest. The program launched in February 2021, while interest rates were still depressed and many investors were hunting for yield.

One of Genesis's biggest counterparties was Sam Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research. By extension, prosecutors say, that meant that Gemini also had exposure to Alameda  and allegedly knew they did.
Nokia new logo displayed on mobile, with Nokia logo on screen.

Nokia on Thursday said it would cut up to 14,000 jobs as part of a cost reduction plan following a plunge in third-quarter earnings.

The Finnish telecommunications giant said that it will reduce its cost base and increase operation efficiency to "address the challenging market environment."

It is targeting to lower its cost base on a gross basis from 2023 by between 800 million euros ($842.5 billion) and 1.2 billion euros by the end of 2026.

This will reduce the number of employees currently from 86,000 to between 72,000 and 77,000.

The substantial layoffs come after Nokia reported third-quarter net sales declined 20% year-on-year to 4.98 billion euros. Profit over the period plunged by 69% year-on-year to 133 million euros.

Earlier this year, Nokia's rival Ericsson announced plans to lay of 8,500 employees, also as part of a cost cutting plan.
An aerial view of a crude oil storage facility is seen on May 4, 2020 in Cushing, Oklahoma.

Oil prices settled higher on Thursday as traders remained nervous that Israel's military campaign in Gaza could escalate to a regional conflict.

Brent futures for December settled up 1%, or 88 cents, at $92.38 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures for November, which expire on Friday, settled up $1.05, or 1.2%, at $89.37 a barrel. At their session lows, both benchmarks were down more than $1 a barrel.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops gathered at the Gaza border that they would soon see the Palestinian enclave "from inside", suggesting an expected ground invasion with the aim of annihilating Hamas could be nearing.

Egyptian aid trucks moved closer to the only crossing into Gaza not controlled by Israel, but still had not passed through despite a request from U.S. President Joe Biden to allow the aid.

"We are still very much in flux and the potential to escalate, particularly from the Arab world, is an issue," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

U.S. forces in Syria brought down two drones that were targeting them, leading to some minor injuries, U.S. officials said.

Prices were supported later in the session after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the U.S. central bank would be "proceeding carefully" on future interest rate hikes, which could slow the economy and dent fuel demand.

Fed funds futures traders are pricing in a 39% probability the Fed will raise rates again by December, but only a 6% chance of a hike in November, according to the CME Group's FedWatch Tool.

Gains were limited after the U.S. issued a six-month licence authorising transactions in the energy sector of OPEC member Venezuela, whose government reached an agreement with the political opposition there to ensure fair 2024 elections.

The deal is not expected to quickly expand Venezuela's oil output but could return some foreign companies to its oilfields and provide more cash-paying customers for its crude, experts said.

Easing of U.S. oil sanctions on Venezuela is unlikely to require any policy changes by the OPEC+ producer group for now as a recovery in production is likely to be gradual, OPEC+ sources told Reuters.

On Wednesday, oil prices climbed about 2% on concerns about disruptions to global supplies after OPEC member Iran called for an oil embargo on Israel over the conflict in Gaza and after the U.S., the world's biggest oil consumer, reported a larger-than-expected inventory draw, adding to already tight supplies.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is not planning to take any immediate action on Iran's call, sources told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia had said it would keep its voluntary output cut until year end. Japan, the world's fourth-largest crude buyer, urged the Saudis and other oil producing nations to increase supplies to stabilise the global oil market which could be roiled by the conflict.

U.S. crude oil and fuel inventories dropped last week on rising demand for diesel and heating oil, according to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Distillate fuel stockpiles fell by 3.2 million barrels in the week to Oct. 13 to 113.8 million barrels, EIA data showed.

Crude inventories fell by 4.5 million barrels to 419.7 million barrels, while gasoline fell by 2.4 million barrels to 223.3 million barrels.




Piper Sandler named Microsoft as its "highest conviction" large-cap stock to own into the year-end. Analysts from the financial services company pointed to a few drivers for the stock in an Oct. 15 note. One of them is what they described as Microsoft's "first-mover advantage" in generative artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Microsoft pushed ahead with its ChatGPT AI chatbot, which was developed by OpenAI. Microsoft has since expanded its plans surrounding ChatGPT  partnering automakers to test the AI tech in vehicles, adding it to its suite of Microsoft Office applications as well as other external software plug-ins, and more. Piper Sandler also described Microsoft's upcoming M365 Copilot in November as a catalyst. The feature is the company's AI supplement to core productivity apps such as Word and Excel. Microsoft first revealed plans for Microsoft 365 Copilot in March . As of May, 600 organizations were using it in a paid early-access program. Piper Sandler is optimistic, noting there's been increased traffic to Microsoft's Copilot adoption website. "In our view, this hints at an inflection of IT administrators preparing for M365 Copilot," it said. "[There's] multiple upside levers to revenue and EPS growth over the next 3-5 years," its analysts concluded. Amy Hood, Microsoft's finance chief, said in a July earnings call that as Microsoft makes investments to meet rising demand for AI services, the company should see the impact of higher revenue in the second half of the 2024 fiscal year. Microsoft shares have jumped this year, rising 38.71% in the year to date, higher than the S & P 500's 18.5%. Piper Sandler believes it has further upside, giving it a price target of $400. That represents roughly 20% potential upside from Monday's close. It's close to the potential upside of 19.5% represented by the average price target that analysts covering the stock gave it, according to FactSet.  CNBC's Michael Bloom and Jordan Novet contributed to this report.
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It's no secret that Shein has ambitions to go public, but the fast-fashion juggernaut will have to overcome a slew of hurdles before it can win over Wall Street. The digitally native retailer skyrocketed to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic after shoppers across the globe fell in love with its fashion-forward designs, endless assortment and dirt-cheap prices. The company has a reported valuation of $66 billion and has tapped former Bear Stearns investment banker Donald Tang to be its executive chair and public face. As Shein looks to transform itself from a $5 T-shirt company into a global powerhouse equipped to compete with legacy retail giants, a public offering has long been rumored to be its end goal. But as it tries to cap off its meteoric rise with a U.S. market debut, those ambitions have been mired by its ties to China, along with mounting allegations that it uses forced labor in its supply chain, violates labor laws, harms the environment and steals designs from independent artists. Shein is taking steps to address those issues and show U.S. regulators and Congress it can be trusted to go public in the U.S., where scrutiny of businesses founded in China has intensified in recent years. The company is facing increasing pressure from lawmakers, including an investigation from the newly formed House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and has found itself caught in the geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and Beijing. "IPO investors right now want to see a straightforward story," Matt Kennedy, a senior IPO market strategist for Renaissance Capital, told CNBC. "I could certainly see some prospective investors just wanting to avoid the deal entirely, at least until some of those things are resolved."

Illustration by Elham Ataeiazar

If Shein can overcome these hurdles while maintaining the strategy that has fueled its success, it could become a winner on Wall Street, said one longtime retail advisor who spoke anonymously because they're not authorized to speak publicly about specific companies. "For all the bad press and publicity and news, they've been incredibly innovative in how they're producing product  so that to me says they've got something really good there that other retailers can learn from," said the advisor. "They have to deploy their innovation in a way that's going to address these issues and then if they can do that in a way that they still have the same kind of compelling business on top then wow, are they winning." Shein told CNBC it has not filed to go public and doesn't have plans for a public offering. Still, reports have suggested an initial public offering could come as soon as 2024. Here's what the company will need to overcome before it can turn that dream into a reality, and what it's doing to get there.

Forced labor and a battle with Congress

The House panel has been investigating Shein since May, after it heard expert testimony that the company was sourcing cotton and a range of other materials from China's Xinjiang region. Several months earlier, Bloomberg tested garments the company shipped to the U.S. and found some had been made with cotton from Xinjiang. Evidence of genocide, torture and forced labor against the Uyghur ethnic group in the region prompted lawmakers to ban the import of cotton and other products made in Xinjiang in 2021. But critics say the items can still get past U.S. borders because of a tariff law loophole known as de minimis. Under the provision, packages valued under $800 are not charged import duties and aren't subject to the same oversight from U.S. customs, which is tasked with screening packages to ensure items from banned regions don't come into the country. Contrary to traditional retailers that typically import large batches of merchandise and send them to U.S.-based warehouses for distribution, Shein often ships its products directly to American consumers through its network of Chinese suppliers. The committee is investigating Shein over concerns that Uyghur forced labor is being used in its supply chain and has gone undetected because of the de minimis provision. Similar probes into Temu, Nike and Adidas are ongoing.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, center, chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, speaks at a news conference following a GOP caucus meeting at the Republican National Committee offices in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 28, 2023. He is joined by fellow Republicans Rep. Elise Stefanik, left, and Majority Whip Steve Scalise. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

The panel in June determined "the vast majority of products" Shein ships to the U.S. "are less likely to face the same level of customs scrutiny that other retailers might face on a formal entry." The committee has not yet drawn conclusions about forced labor in Shein's supply chain. A committee aide told CNBC the probe is ongoing. In response to the investigation, some Shein executives have spent time at its Washington, D.C., outpost to meet with lawmakers and try to assuage their concerns. "As a company that abides by every single local law, we're going to cooperate with any investigation and provide any information that's requested from us," Marcelo Claure, the company's newly minted group vice chair and former SoftBank CEO, told CNBC in an interview. When asked about claims of forced labor in Shein's supply chain, Claure told CNBC he doesn't "believe those allegations are correct." "I can wholeheartedly say that there's no such thing as forced labor, or anything even close to that, as it relates to the [Shein] manufacturers that I visited" in China, Claure said, referencing visits he made in the past. However, the company previously acknowledged that cotton from Xinjiang has been found in its raw materials through Oritain, a third-party supply chain firm that can test cotton fibers and trace them to specific farms. Oritain works with a range of major retailers, including Target , Costco and Ralph Lauren . On average, 13% of Oritain's cotton tests come up positive for problematic regions, Rupert Hodges, Oritain's chief commercial officer, told CNBC. As of July, 2.1% of Shein's cotton tests came up positive for unapproved regions, Shein said. Oritain confirmed the results with CNBC. When a test came up positive, "production of affected products was stopped and any products containing cotton associated with the positive tests were removed for sale," a Shein spokesperson said. The company declined to share test results from August on but said they've "remained consistent" with the inspections conducted through July.

A view of cotton being harvested in a field in Xinjiang, China, on Nov. 10, 2021. Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

A Shein spokesperson pointed out the positive test rate is lower than the fashion industry average, but said any positive test is "unacceptable." The retailer is pushing to get its positive test rate "as close to zero as possible" and has committed to no longer using Chinese cotton in its production, a spokesperson said. Experts say the vast majority of Chinese cotton comes from Xinjiang. However, forced labor can still show up in other parts of the supply chain, said Chloe Cranston, the head of thematic advocacy programmes at Anti-Slavery International. Shein relies on thousands of contracted manufacturers, mostly in China, to design, produce and ship its products. Workers at those factories could be there against their will under state-sponsored labor transfer programs, said Cranston. "It's not only about where the cotton is coming from, it's how it's ginned, it's how it's spun, it's how it's turned into final product and so on, and we see Uyghur forced labor risks across all these tiers," Cranston told CNBC. "Oritain or comparable companies are part of the solutions, but they aren't the sole solution themselves." In response, the company said internal Shein auditors and third-party firms conduct regular and unannounced audits of its manufacturing facilities to ensure they're not engaging in forced labor or other violations. In 2022, 11% of audits turned up "zero tolerance violations," including child labor, forced labor and wage violations, and 28 suppliers were terminated as a result, according to the company. However, the audits only cover a fraction of Shein's sprawling supply chain. Last year, Shein audited just 1,941 manufacturers out of about 5,400 total suppliers. The audited contractors accounted for about 85% of Shein-brand products by procurement value, but represented less than half its suppliers, which provides a limited view of the retailer's supply chain and how widespread labor violations are. Outside of its Shein brand, the company also produces items under sub brands, including Dazy, Cuccoo and Glowmode. Shein has ramped up audits this year and plans to conduct inspections that cover 90% of Shein-brand products by procurement value, a company spokesperson said.

Chinese ties and a new home in Singapore

As Shein looks to sanitize its reputation amid rising geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing, it's quick to point out that it's based in Singapore and merely founded in China. By some accounts, Shein was founded in Nanjing, China, in 2008. But the company's official origin story began in 2012. Any references to Shein's birthplace are absent from the "About" sections on its website. It registered its headquarters in Singapore in 2019, and has been based there since 2021, a Shein spokesperson said. The retailer appears to have de-registered its original company in Nanjing in 2021, according to reports.

Clothes displayed at the Shein headquarters in Singapore on June 19, 2023. Ore Huiying | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shein's decision to move its headquarters to Singapore several years ago and plant seeds outside of China could help pave the way for its IPO, said Shang-Jin Wei, a professor who teaches Chinese business and economy, as well as finance and economics, at Columbia University's graduate schools. As long as Shein imports and exports mass amounts of product in and out of China, a top priority for the region, it could remain in the Chinese Communist Party's good graces as Beijing looks to curtail foreign investment, said Wei. "If Shein can credibly claim it's not a Chinese company, it will reduce the sensitivity in the U.S. At the same time, vis-a-vis Chinese regulators, if Shein can claim it is not a Chinese company, then presumably many of the regulatory requirements from the Chinese security regulation side do not apply to Shein as well," Wei told CNBC. Still, the bulk of Shein's sprawling supply chain remains in China, and its move to Singapore has done little to quell concerns from lawmakers. Some are worried the company is still closely aligned with the Chinese government, and fear data about Shein's American customers could wind up in its hands. "As long as you're in China or in the Chinese territory, that means the CCP has got their hooks into you. I am not convinced that the CCP does not have control over all of these companies," Montana's Attorney General Austin Knudsen told CNBC in an interview. "If the CCP demands information and demands your company's cooperation, you're going to give it to them. So, no, being in Singapore does not make me feel better." Wei agreed that Shein's exposure to China in its supply chain could be a risk for the company. "If the Chinese government does want to limit the company, of course it has many ways, as long as Shein depends on China-based suppliers," said Wei. In response to concerns about data security, a Shein spokesperson said it stores U.S. data within Microsoft and Amazon's cloud services "in data centers and regions located within the United States." The company declined to comment on whether it would be subject to Chinese securities laws if it sought offshore investment. As of publication, the company was not able to clarify whether its mysterious CEO Sky Xu is still a citizen of China but did say he "resides in Singapore." Shein's CEO has also been referred to as Chris Xu. When asked if China considers Shein to be a Chinese company, Claure said he has "no idea." "I've been investing in global companies for many years and I would consider Shein to potentially be the most global company I have ever been involved with," said Claure.

A worker makes clothes at a garment factory that supplies Shein in Guangzhou, China. Jade Gao | AFP | Getty Images

When it comes to whether Shein's Chinese supply chain is a risk, Claure said Shein is no different from other major companies that do the bulk of their manufacturing in China. However, Shein is working to localize its supply chain and is in the process of building out manufacturing hubs in Brazil and Turkey. It's currently evaluating options in India and Mexico, as well, said Claure. "I don't think it's fair to say that we're moving away from China, but we are getting as close as we can to our customers with a very simple intent and that is, the closer we are to our customers, the faster we can fulfill their needs," said Claure. In August, Knudsen, along with 15 other attorneys general, sent a letter to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler imploring the agency to ensure Shein and other foreign companies are following U.S. law before they can go public in the U.S. He has also sparred with Chinese-based TikTok over concerns that it's spying on U.S. consumers. He proposed legislation that banned the use of the app in Montana, which is slated to take effect in January, absent legal challenges. Knudsen is considering escalating his fight with Shein by issuing civil investigative demands against the company that would require it to disclose certain financial and labor documents. "I'll make the same offer [to Shein] that I made with TikTok. Move wholly to the U.S. and cut all ties with the CCP and fine, we'll drop all of this," Knudsen said.

Copyright infringement, fickle feelings on sustainability

Shein faces another risk as it is routinely sued for copyright infringement over allegations it stole designs and used them in products without permission. In July, three designers sued the company, alleging Shein's copyright infringement is so extreme, it can be considered racketeering. In response, Claure said Shein has a "zero tolerance policy" for copyright infringement but acknowledged "mistakes do happen." He said that if the company finds infringement, it "immediately" stops production of the item. A company spokesperson added Shein takes disciplinary action against designers and manufacturers when copyright infringements occur and affected artists can submit takedown notices if they suspect their work had been copied. Further, the company uses image-recognition technology to find cases of potential infringement and conducts manual reviews.
Netflix 's better-than-expected quarterly earnings has analysts cheering the company's new subscriber growth initiatives, keeping them optimistic on the stock's growth potential. The streaming giant topped earnings estimates and matched revenue forecasts during the third-quarter. Password-sharing crackdown efforts and its new ad-supported tier supported the subscriber boost. Netflix added more than 8 million global subscribers during the quarter, topping Wall Street's forecasts of approximately 5.5 million, according to StreetAccount  marking the highest quarterly net add total since the second quarter of 2020. The company also announced it would be increasing prices on its basic and premium plans in the U.S. starting Wednesday. "They crushed it. The management deserves an Emmy for managing investor expectations, but the results probably surprised them as well.  In short, it was a good quarter," Bernstein analyst Laurent Yoon said in a note. Yoon increased his price target to $390 from $375, implying 12.6% upside potential from Wednesday's close. Shares already rallied more than 13% Thursday during premarket trading, surpassing his price target. NFLX 1D mountain NFLX rallies However, the analyst remained slightly cautious and kept his market-perform rating due to questions on the company's longer-term growth plans. "Longer-term ... we return to the fundamental question  what is the narrative beyond near-term sub growth driven by paid-sharing? What does 2025 and beyond look like? Organic sub growth will still mostly be driven by international markets, which will likely be capped based on local content availability," said Yoon. Goldman Sachs was also one of the few firms with a muted neutral rating. Analyst Eric Sheridan reiterated his price target of $400 per share, suggesting 15.5% upside potential. Other analysts on the Street were more bullish. Several increased their price targets while reiterating their prior ratings on the stock. "Despite NFLX's seemingly cautious intra-quarter margin & ARM comments that resulted in a lot of (unnecessary) volatility, 3Q results were strong across most dimensions," JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in a note to clients. "Paid Sharing is clearly working, as evidenced by the 8.8M net adds in 3Q, which is the 2nd straight quarter of strong Paid Sharing bump & NFLX's highest ever net adds in a 3Q." Anmuth raised his price target to $480 from $455, implying shares could jump 38.6% from Wednesday's close. Deutsche analyst Brian Kraft said Netflix's "uplifting 3Q/4Q guide sends bears back into hibernation." Kraft reiterated his buy rating on shares. Although Kraft notched down his price target to $460 from $485, which suggests 32.8% upside, he noted that his forecast was "well above consensus" heading into the earnings announcement  and remains above the pre-earnings consensus. "Management positively surprised us today in announcing that they expect 2024 OI margin to be in the 22-23% range, versus Bloomberg consensus of 22.1% and in the face of significant concerns over margin next year in light of management's recent commentary at an investor conference, which was interpreted by many investors as 'talking down margins' in 2024 and beyond," Kraft said. Several firms have their price targets reaching $500 and higher. UBS, Citi and Evercore all reiterated their price targets of $500 on shares, while Bank of America kept its $525 target price. Netflix is the "main beneficiary of market rationalization" in the direct-to-consumer market, according to UBS analyst John Hodulik. He added that the company is "nowhere near [its] margin ceiling" and sees the company still in the early innings on advertising. Hodulik maintained his buy rating on shares. Citi and Bank of America were also bullish and reiterated their buy ratings. "Supported by its world-class brand, leading global sub base and position as an innovator we believe Netflix is poised to outperform," said Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich. She also forecasts the password sharing crackdown to drive member growth throughout the next several quarters. Evercore analyst Mark Mahaney is similarly optimistic that the ad-supported and password-sharing initiatives will drive a material reacceleration in revenue and per-share earnings growth. He added that shares are also trading at a "highly reasonable" valuation and reiterated his outperform rating. "We continue to believe that Netflix is going into these GCI catalysts from a position of strength, as the Global Streaming Leader in terms of Revenue, Subs, Viewing Hours, Content, Profits, etc ... at a time when competitive intensity is declining ... and competitors are raising prices in the hunt for profitability," Mahaney said in a Wednesday note. "Further[more], NFLX is proving out that Streaming  at least for the scaled, industry leader  can be a very good business  double-digit revenue growth, 20%+ Operating Margins with 40%-50% incremental margins, and sustainable mid- teens & rising FCF margins ($6.5B in '23)."  CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
Kyiv's forces have made some headway against Russian forces in southern Ukraine but face new Russian attacks around the eastern town of Avdiivka, the Ukrainian military said on Thursday.

In an update on Kyiv's more than four-month-old counteroffensive in the south and east, military spokesperson Oleksandr Stupun reported an advance of 400 metres (0.25 mile) to the southwest of Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Verbove is a village a few kilometres east of Robotyne, a village recaptured by Ukraine last month as it tries to push south towards the Sea of Azov. Stupun told Ukrainian television the southern advance was still difficult because of Russian minefields and heavily fortified defences.

The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank and non-profit research group, said Ukrainian forces appeared to have broken through on the left bank of the Dnipro River in the southern Kherson region. Kyiv did not comment on the report.

When Ukrainian troops recaptured parts of the Kherson region last year, Russian forces pulled out of its biggest city, also called Kherson. But they only retreated as far as the other side of the Dnipro, from where they regularly shell the city.

Making progress against Russian troops has also been hard on the eastern front, where the Ukrainian military said its forces were under fire near the towns of Kupiansk and Avdiivka.

"They do not stop their attempts to encircle the city (Avdiivka), they continue to exert pressure there," Stupun said. "They regrouped and launched new assaults there."

Hanna Maliar, a former deputy defence minister, said the Russian assault on the eastern frontline was aimed at forcing Ukraine to bring in reinforcements from elsewhere.

Ukraine has said its troops are holding out around Avdiivka, which is seen as a gateway to the nearby Russian-occupied industrial city of Donetsk.

 Reuters
Washington's tightened grip on artificial intelligence chip sales to China could have long-term implications for Nvidia , 2023's famed AI darling. Chip stocks sold off earlier this week after the U.S. Commerce Department announced new curbs on AI chip exports to China in a continued effort to slow its access to advanced computing power, and close loopholes that appeared following a ruling last year . Through Wednesday's close, Nvidia, the dominant AI player, had lost 7% this week, while Advanced Micro Devices and Marvell Technology slumped more than 2%. Some names recovered Thursday. NVDA mountain 2023-10-16 Nvidia's weekly performance While the latest export restrictions should have little immediate impact, analysts and portfolio managers say a continuation of the Commerce Department rules could dent significant sales opportunities over the long-run for many popular chipmakers, or lead China to retaliate. Already, investors point to actions earlier this year, when Chinese authorities barred operators of "critical information infrastructure" from buying Micron Technology 's products, referring to the Boise, Idaho-based maker of DRAM and NAND chips as a "major security risk." "China is a big market for them," said Greg Bassuk, chief investment officer at AXS Investments. "This is going to have staying power." What it means for Nvidia Nvidia said in an SEC filing this week that the latest government curbs could hinder its new product development timeline, and a handful of chip models. The new restrictions extend beyond the latest-generation H100 product fueling many large language models used in artificial intelligence, and will even prevent the sale of less sophisticated H800 and A800 models previously sold in China. The major aim of the latest U.S. restrictions is to prevent China from harnessing advanced semiconductor chips to strengthen its military. But it isn't the only nation affected, with the ruling adding licensing requirements for countries ranging from Vietnam to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The heightened government limits led some Wall Street investment banks to trim their price targets on shares of Nvidia to account for slowing sales. Citi analyst Atif Malik, for example, cut his Nvidia price objective to $575 from $630 this week, while Morgan Stanley's Joseph Moore trimmed his target by $30 to $600, saying that restrictions to areas such as Saudi Arabia appear a greater threat to revenue than initially expected. While Citi's price target adjustment still implies 36% upside from Wednesday's close, and the bank remains optimistic about Nvidia's long-term growth potential, Malik also lowered 2026 earnings estimates, citing reduced sales into China data centers. To be sure, Nvidia isn't the only company slated to feel the pressure from the latest export curbs. Many analysts anticipate Advanced Micro Devices and Intel will feel the pinch, too, among others. In the short-term, AXS Investments' Bassuk is bracing for volatility and downward pressure on the entire sector as investors study the news and its investment implications. What to expect over the long-term While the near-term impact to Nvidia appears limited, many analysts and professional investors are bracing for a potential bigger hit to earnings and revenues in the future. In one bear case scenario, Bank of America's Vivek Arya forecasts 5% to 10% downside to Nvidia's fiscal year 2025 sales and a 8% to 10% hit to EPS than would have otherwise been the case. While robust demand should carry Nvidia into the first half of 2024, JPMorgan Chase is bracing for an impact in the second half of next year. Assuming that the combined China and AI exposure represents 8% of revenues, analyst Harlan Sur projects a 5% impact to EPS in 2024, and as much as 8% in 2025. Nvidia's datacenter exposure to China, the world's second-largest economy, hovered at around 20% to 25% over the past few quarters. The restrictions equate to about a third of datacenter revenues, noted Goldman Sachs analyst Toshiya Hari in a recent note. "China's a big growth market," said Independent Solutions portfolio manager Paul Meeks. "We have 300 million people here. They have four to five times the population, [and are] much faster growing than we are for all products. We need them to grow." But cutting ties with China may be easier said than done, given how interconnected supply chains are, Meeks said, pointing to the aftershocks felt across industries in the wake of Covid-19 shutdowns. To be sure, while the latest U.S. ruling may hurt some popular AI chipmakers, not every subsector will feel the pain. Needham's Charles Shi said in a Wednesday note that he anticipates "minimal" impact to forward earnings for U.S. semiconductor equipment manufacturers and electronic design automation names. And the majority of the negative impact may already be baked into the stocks following 2022's restrictions, said JPMorgan's Sur. Freemont, California-based Lam Research seemed to downplay the impact, saying in a Wednesday earnings call that it doesn't anticipate a "material impact" to the current fiscal year, aside from the $2 billion hit to revenue projected from previous restrictions. But even if the latest rules have staying power among AI-focused names, many investors and analysts remain bullish on the broad outlook for the semiconductor industry. Raymond James analyst Srini Pajjuri notes that AI demand could be strong enough to offset some loss of demand in China, although he expects a potential 10% impact to next year's earnings. "China is a big market, obviously that's a lost opportunity for U.S. companies," he said. " There's no question about that."  CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed reporting
In a big win for the tax department, Supreme Court (SC) has held that without an express notification, the companies cannot, automatically, claim lower withholding tax of 5% even if provided for in the Direct Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA).

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SC was hearing a batch of 11 applications filed by seven companies. Nestle Indias Swiss parent  Nestle SA was also one among them. The issue common to all parties was the dispute on whether the payment to parent companies attracts a withholding tax of 10% or 5%. The parent companies of the applicants before SC were situated in the Netherlands, Switzerland or France. All three countries enjoy a DTAA with India.

Companies before the SC had claimed that a common thread across the DTAAs with these three countries was the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause. Under this MFN clause, if India signs a DTAA with an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country where withholding tax is lower than the tax treaty with Netherlands, Switzerland or France, then the lower rate will automatically be available to beneficiaries of DTAA with these countries.

Subsequently, the companies had argued that India had Signed DTAAs with countries like Slovenia, Lithuania and Colombia. The companies cited how these DTAAs featured a lower rate of 5%. They further claimed that due to the MFN clause, this benefit of 5% should be available even to them under DTAAs with the Netherlands, Switzerland or France.

The tax department had argued for a levy of 10% withholding tax as originally agreed upon under the DTAAs with the Netherlands, Switzerland or France. The tax department had argued that the countries of Slovenia, Lithuania, and Colombia were not OECD countries when India signed DTAAs with them. The department argued that since they were not OECD countries at the time of execution of the tax treaty, it had no bearing on India's other DTAAs.

The SC has now held in favour of the tax departments claim of 10% withholding tax. The apex court held that benefits under the MFN clause would be available only if the government issued a specific notification. SC has clarified that without a notification, the benefits under the MFN clause of DTAAs with Netherlands, Switzerland or France will not automatically flow to companies covered under the treaty.

In passing this direction, the SC has also set aside the previous Delhi HC decision that decided against the tax department.

This SC ruling is likely to hurt all companies making payments under dividends, interest, royalties and technical services, to overseas entities covered by DTAAs.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  The economic team will work closely with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for a thorough review of the previously approved implementing rules that set in motion the law that created the country's first sovereign wealth fund.

This is the response of Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman to the president's decision. The budget chief is a member of the three-man advisory body that vetted and prepared the shortlist of candidates who will make up the board of the Maharlika Investment Corporation (MIC), the wealth management company or fund manager behind the Maharlika fund.

The advisory body, which is independent from the board, consists of the secretaries of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the Budget Department, as well as the head of the Bureau of the Treasury.

That three-man team already submitted to Marcos a shortlist of candidates end of September within the timeline earlier set by Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno.

Diokno, as chairman (ex-officio) of the Maharlika Investment Corporation board, said he wants the fund operational before the year ends.

But that timetable suffers a setback after Malacanang handed down on Oct. 18 a directive recalling the IRR (implementing rules and regulations) until further study, fanning speculation that Marcos was not happy with the shortlist and now zeroes in on improvements on the funds organizational structure  apparently referring to the board.

The composition of the MIC board is as follows:

-Secretary of Finance  chairman, ex-officio

-MIC chief executive officer (CEO)

-the president and CEO of the Land Bank of the Philippines

-the president and CEO of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP)

-two regular directors

-three independent directors

Pangandaman said economic managers subscribe to the wisdom of the president in suspending the IRR and will mobilize more consultations with stakeholders ahead of the funds launch.

We subscribe to the wisdom of PBBM in suspending the IRR as this is not just an economic strategy for us but a historic first sovereign investment fund," the budget secretary said in a mobile phone reply to a CNN Philippines query.

"The economic team will work closely with the President to prudently review all provisions line by line and make sure that all things are in order," she continued. "We will also take this opportunity to engage in more multi-stakeholder groundwork in preparation for the launch of the MIF."

CNN Philippines has reached out to all members of the advisory body, but has yet to hear from the NEDA and the Treasury.

In an email reply to the network, another member of the Maharlika board, the Land Bank of the Philippines, said it already received the instruction from Malacanang.

The Landbank and the Development Bank of the Philippines earlier deposited billions of pesos in escrow with the Treasury as part of the Maharlika Fund seed money.

Yes, we have received the said instruction and we understand, as expressed by Executive Secretary Bersamin publicly, that it is to further review/study the law and its implementation," Landbank said in its email reply to CNN Philippines.

"At this point, we have nothing to add, nor do we feel it necessary to volunteer any preemptive speculation, as we also await further study of the IRR, it added.

The DBP separately said it will explore ways to abide by the Maharlika Fund Investment Acts capitalization provisions while maintaining the health of its balance sheet. The two state-run banks earlier sought regulatory relief in relation to their capitalization requirements.

Nothing else stated except further study. We will study options on our contribution, DBP President and CEO Michael de Jesus said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Diokno remained mum on queries from journalists about the regulatory relief sought by DBP and Landbank, and what happens to the two banks contributions and to the nominees to the board while the IRR is suspended.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  The multibillion-peso shelf offerings of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) and Vista Land & Lifescapes secured the go signal from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The registrations were cleared during a commission en banc meeting last Tuesday, Oct. 17, according to a SEC statement.

The corporate regulator said Thursday that it considered favorably the public offerings of the two companies.

The Ramon Ang-led SMC group plans to offer preferred shares worth up to 65 billion.

For the first tranche, SMC targets to make 30 billion from 400 million shares, valued at 75 each. The size could even increase by 20 billion more if SMC records strong demand from public investors.

The conglomerate giant is seen to net up to 49.62 billion from the initial offering, assuming the full oversubscription option is exercised.

Proceeds from this fund-raising activity would help finance SMCs existing debts, and its plan to invest in airport projects.

On the 35-billion shelf registration of Vista Land, meanwhile, the company wants to initially offer 6 billion worth of fixed-rate bonds.

Vista Land has an option to raise the offering by as much as 4 billion.

Its net may reach over 9.83 billion once the oversubscription option is tapped.

The regulator said SMC and Vista Lands offerings can be traded at the Philippine Dealing and Exchange.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 18)  Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza and launched a surprise attack on Israel, does not speak for all Palestinians, a Palestinian envoy said Wednesday.

Hamas does not represent all Palestinians, Palestinian Ambassdor to the Philippines Saleh Asa'ad Fhied Mohammad said on CNN Philippines Politics As Usual.

Mohammad pointed out that Hamas is not a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which formally represents all Palestinians.

Hamas is an independent organization with religious beliefs," he said. "They are not part of the PLO but they are Palestinians. They are controlling Gaza Strip."

Hamas fought against the Oslo Accords in 1993, a peace treaty between Israel and the PLO in which the PLO agreed to cease military struggle against Israel in exchange for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. It is known as the two-state solution.

READ: Israel is at war with Hamas. Heres what to know

The public should be aware that we have agreed, we have recognized the right of Israel to exist and live peacefully alongside with us, Mohammad said. The two-state solution indicates very clearly  one state for already existing Israel and the second state to be born for Palestinians.

"Israel continued denial of the implementation of all signed agreements -- legitimacy decisions on Palestine, 'til today we still have this problem persisting," he pointed out. "Its an occupation. This is the ugliest face of civilization  occupation, the root of every problem. Thats why we have war again and again. Israel is refusing to withdraw.

On Oct. 7, Hamas fired thousands of rockets toward Israeli towns before breaking through the border with Israel and sending militants deep into Israeli territory, killing civilians and soldiers and taking hundreds of hostages, including children.

The group said its operation was a response to what it described as Israeli attacks on women, the desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, and the ongoing siege of Gaza.

In response to the attack, Israel has declared war and dropped bombs on the densely inhabited Gaza, striking what it said are Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets.

"This is 75 continuous years of occupation. The world should shoulder its responsibility," Mohammad said.

The war has caused more than 1,400 deaths in Israel and more than 3,000 in Gaza as of Oct. 17, according to officials from both sides.
Beijing, China (CNN Philippines, October 18)  Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged more than 150 countries that are part of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to work together and find win-win cooperation as the initiative enters a new era.

Xi led the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum on International Cooperation on Wednesday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

"Belt and Road cooperation has expanded from physical connectivity to institutional connectivity," said Xi.

The Chinese leader also set his eyes on expanding the initiative from infrastructure programs to digital space.

"We have endeavored to build a global network of connectivity consisting of economic corridors, international transportation routes and information highway as well as railways, roads, airports, ports, pipelines, and power grids," he said

"Covering the land, the ocean, the sky and the internet, this network has boosted the flow of goods, capital, technologies, and human resources among countries," Xi added.

Xi also launched China's Global Initiative for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance which will increase cooperation on the emerging trend of AI.

"We stand ready to increase exchanges and dialogue with other countries and jointly promote the sound, orderly and secure AI development in the world," the Chinese president said.

Amid the ambitious plans of the BRI, Xi also warned against geopolitical rivalry and opposed decoupling that could lead to disruption of supplies. He was apparently alluding to Western countries' efforts to reduce dependence on China's economy.

"Ideological confrontation, geopolitical rivalry and bloc politics are not a choice for us," Xi said. "What we stand against are unilateral sanctions, economic coercion and decoupling and supply chain disruption."

PH can explore opportunities in clean energy, environment protection under BRI- envoy

Philippine Ambassador to China Jaime FlorCruz was among the guests invited to the Belt and Road Forum.

He said the BRI is evolving and adapting to the demands of current times.

"Knowledge transfer, creating jobs in other countries and these are what we actually need," FlorCruz said. "Clean energy and environmental protection, these are the things that we need not just for China but also for the Philippines."

The Philippines joined the BRI back in 2018.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  A group pushing for climate justice on Thursday said the government's new food stamp program will not address food insecurity and agricultural problems but instead could become a debt trap that will lead to more hunger and disaster.

The Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ) claimed it is only a "rehash" of the failed Kadiwa program of late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, the father and namesake of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.

"Food stamp program is a dole out, short term, cosmetic and will not solve in the long term the Filipinos food insecurity as well as the lackadaisical agricultural performance of the country," PMCJ National Coordinator Ian Rivera said.

The "Walang Gutom 2027: Food Stamp Program" aims to provide food augmentation to one million households under the "food poor criteria" of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). Beneficiaries will receive 3,000 food credits to buy healthy food, the government said.

Right now, we are doing the pilot implementation. Three thousand families sa loob ng limang pilot sites ang ating target [in five pilot sites are targeted], and we will go full blast sa pilot implementation come December, Department of Social Welfare and Development Undersecretary for Innovations Eduardo Punay told reporters on Wednesday.

Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian earlier said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) provided a grant of nearly $3 million for the ongoing pilot run of the program.

In a statement on Thursday, the DSWD said that the program will also provide financial assistance, and added that it is encouraging the beneficiaries to be productive citizens as the program also requires participation in capacity building and training for employment.

READ: Marcos: Ensure food stamp program free from anomaly

PH's food stamp program in design stage, to target 1 million families

On the contrary, Rivera said the program's key features will only focus on the enhancement of the "existing policy of prioritizing global markets and importation."

He cited the latest report of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which named the Philippines as the world's top rice importer for 2022-2023.

READ: PH overtakes China as world's top rice importer in 2023 USDA

Rivera warned that the program's process of assisting families through meals may lead to a "fiscal trap" that will eventually defund other services for it to be maintained.

The PMCJ also criticized the program for its supposed neglect of climate mitigation.

It said the hunger situation has worsened due to extreme weather events induced by climate impacts, with the country posting agricultural losses after nine typhoons this year.

Without any long-haul solutions such as protecting farmers and fisherfolks from adverse climate impacts on food production, the government will rely on imports leaving the entire agriculture sector behind, the PMCJ added.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  An animal shelter in Davao City that was ordered shut wants authorities to reinvestigate the complaint filed by its neighbors on alleged foul odor and loud noise coming from the facility housing over 300 stray dogs and cats.

We have filed for a reinvestigation because we dont trust the investigator that was assigned us, Happy Animals Club founder Ken Amante told CNN Philippines The Source on Thursday.

According to a Sept. 27 document, the city government ordered the 1,000-square meter shelter closed after it allegedly failed to follow sanitary orders.

A July 31 document signed by sanitation inspector Marc Dennis Serrano said Happy Animals Club was unable to address the complaints filed against them regarding foul odor and loud noises. He recommended the transfer of the animals to an appropriate area.

Amante, who started the rescue shelter nine years ago, denied the allegations made by his neighbors, calling these invalid and bogus.

Since the four years theyve been our neighbors they havent made any complaints, this really came out of nowhere, he said.

People visiting the shelter can also attest to its cleanliness and employees work round-the-clock to prevent a fight between animals, he added.

Amante said they suspect that the neighbors want to buy the land where the shelter is situated after its owner died in 2021. He said they still tried to come up with an agreement with the complainants, who were not open for such.

On their other legal options, Amante said they previously filed a temporary restraining order that was not helpful. They hope a possible counter complaint against the city health office will be favorable to them, he added.

The shelter is now padlocked and the last order given to Happy Animals Club was to leave and transfer all animals it is housing. Amante said this is not possible since the facility does not have the budget to relocate in an instant.

The Davao City government has yet to respond to CNN Philippines when asked about the issue.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19) The entire province of Nueva Vizcaya is now under a state of calamity due to the increasing African Swine Fever (ASF) cases across its nine municipalities.

According to its resolution, a total of 798 ASF cases were recorded in 42 barangays in Quezon, Bambang, Dupax del Norte, Bayombong, Bagabag, Kayapa, Kasibu, Diadi and Solano towns.

The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council and Gov. Jose Gambito filed the resolution on Oct. 9, which gives the provincial government needed resources and measures to support the national and local agencies in fighting the ASF outbreak.

"Sa local level 'meron pong task ang DARFO/LGU na i-report sa BAI within 24 hours if may confirmed na ASF case sa lugar nila. May kasama ding disease investigation report," Dr. Arlene Vytiaco na Deputy Director of Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI).

[Translation: On the local level, our DA Regional Field Offices are tasked to report to BAI within 24 hours if there are confirmed ASF cases in their places. We also conduct disease investigation reports.]

According to Agriculture Undersecretary Deogracias Victor Savellano, the department is lacking funds to combat ASF and bird flu, reiterating that using local funds can help significantly.

"Sa amin sa DA, biosecurity war na ito," he said. "Ang laban namin ay sitio kada sitio, bara-barangay, muni-munisipyo at probi-probinsiya. Ngayong wala pang aprubadong bakuna, pag-iingat na di kumalat ang ASF ang ating ginagawa."

[Translation: Here in DA, this is already a biosecurity. Our fight is from sitio to sitio, barangay to barangay, municipality to municipality, and province to province. Now that there is no approved vaccine yet, we are extra careful to not spread the ASF diseases.]

Savellano urged vaccine companies to register and undergo appropriate trials to make it locally available. He also urged the government to align 2024 budgets for ASF vaccines.

RELATED:

Oriental Mindoro detects first cases of ASF

ASF infected areas in Cebu doubled to 12 BAI
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  The head of the Batangas Police Provincial Office ordered intensified efforts in locating Miss Grand Philippines candidate Catherine Camilon.

The 26-year-old beauty queen and high school teacher was reported missing since Oct. 12. When she was last contacted that same night by her mother, she said she was at a gasoline station in Bauan town.

"All stations and units across Batangas Police Province are working together with the Tuy Municipal Police Station in searching for any trace or information regarding the whereabouts of Catherine Camilon Y Manguerra," Batangas Police Provincial Office Director PCol Samson Belmonte said in a statement on Wednesday.

READ: Miss Grand PH candidate Catherine Camilon reported missing

Camilon is 5'6'' in height, with fair complexion, and a resident of Barangay Rillo in Tuy town.

The Batangas Police Province asked anyone who has reliable information about Camilon to report it to the Tuy Municipal Police Station hotline at 0998-598-5711.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega on Thursday said the opening of the Rafah border crossing will be at any time but only for a limited span of hours, as embassy officials wait for developments to evacuate Filipinos from conflict-torn Gaza.

In a briefing, De Vega said that there are already arrangements being made for the entry of humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave, and Philippine embassy officials are ready at any moment for the crossings opening.

He added that there has been positive development regarding the opening of the border crossing with Egypt in the south of the Strip, as US President Joe Biden made a high-profile visit to Israel on Wednesday.

READ: Biden touts aid negotiations for Gaza, as US assesses Israel not responsible for hospital blast

The Israelis have also said to be ready at any time because it could be on any day, De Vega said. And when its opened, it will not be a permanent opening it will be for a window, maybe 12 hours, 24 hours.

We welcome this news that theres progress and were reminding our kababayans again to get ready, he added.

He also said that no Filipino was reported to be in the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, which suffered a blast that may have killed hundreds.

In a statement on Wednesday night, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the Philippines is profoundly saddened over the attack on the hospital and expressed grief on the hundreds of innocent lives lost.

All parties should do their utmost to protect civilians in times of war and armed conflict, the DFA said. We support efforts of the United Nations to provide humanitarian relief in the conflict areas.

The DFA has placed Gaza under Alert Level 4 or mandatory repatriation.

At least 92 out of 135 Filipinos in the Palestinian enclave have signified their intention to be flown back to the country, while 78 are already at the Rafah crossing, officials earlier said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  Another batch of Filipino repatriates from Israel is expected to arrive in Manila on Friday afternoon, officials said.

Tomorrow may darating na second batch, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Deputy Administrator Honey Quino told reporters on Thursday. Sasagutin din ito ng OWWA, DMW (Department of Migrant Workers), DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs), and other agencies. Same flight katulad kahapon.

[Translation: There will be a second batch arriving tomorrow. The batch will be supported by OWWA, DMW, DFA, and other agencies. The flight will be arrive at the same time as yesterdays.]

Sixteen Filipino repatriates, including a month-old baby, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport from war-torn Israel on Wednesday afternoon.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said agencies could not give the exact number for now of Filipinos arriving in the country on Friday, at around 3:45 p.m. or 3:55 p.m.

During the first batch's trip on Wednesday, De Vega said a Filipino was offloaded in the stopover in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates after feeling chest pains. He said the Filipino is now safe.

Alam namin almost 20 yan [We know its almost 20] but we will find out tomorrow, he said. Maaaring dumami yan [The number may increase] in the next few days as more and more Filipinos from Israel possibly indicate they will go home muna [for now].

Officials earlier said around a tenth of the 30,000 Filipinos in Israel are in conflict areas in the south.

Four Filipinos have been confirmed killed in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, while two are still missing in the Middle Eastern country.
30,000 plus Xinjiang-related stories expose how certain Western media fabricate, hype up forced labor smear

16:14, October 19, 2023 By Tuersun Aibai ( Global Times

A worker in the Pomegranate Seed Garment Co. in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region agrees to have her photo taken. Photo: Fan Lingzhi/GT

Editors Note:

Cognitive Warfare has become a new form of confrontation between states, and a new security threat. With new technological means, issues are planted and disinformation spread so as to change peoples perceptions and thus alter their self-identity. Launching cognitive warfare against China is an important means through which Western anti-China forces attack and discredit the country. Under the manipulation of the US-led West, the China threat theory has continued to foment.

Certain politicians and media outlets have publicly smeared Chinas image by propagating the "Chinas economic collapse theory and forced labor in Xinjiang fallacy in an attempt to incite and provoke anti-China reprisals among people in certain countries. These means all serve the evolution of the USs covert China containment strategy in a bid to maintain its hegemony.

The Global Times is publishing a series of articles to systematically reveal the intrigues of the US-led Wests cognitive warfare targeting China, and expose its lies and vicious intentions, in an attempt to show international readers a true, multi-dimensional, and panoramic view of China.

This is the third installment in the series. In this installment, we invite Tuersun Aibai, an expert from the School of Journalism and Communication at Xinjiang University, to share his thoughts on and analysis of the long-term forced labor smear campaign by certain Western anti-China forces, aimed at defaming the Xinjiang region through tens of thousands of groundless, biased news stories.

In recent years, anti-China forces in the West have hyped up the so-called forced labor narrative, an accusation to systematically vilify China, as an attempt to tarnish the countrys image on the international stage, weaken its international reputation, and alienate the nation by jeopardizing its friendly and cooperative relations with other countries.

In order to understand the political and economic motives behind their forced labor fallacy, as well as the exploration of the narratives manipulation strategies, transmission paths, and methods of the fallacy, I conducted a statistical analysis of over 30,000 Xinjiang-related stories from 22 media outlets in 15 countries and regions.

From these, I selected 189 pieces published by 13 media outlets that spread the forced labor slander for further analysis and found out that the claim of forced labor concocted by anti-China forces in the West is a new discourse pattern and narrative framework, which has gradually evolved from the framework of early public opinion manipulation, into a comprehensive economic blockade and repression of Northwest Chinas Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

How forced labor smear grows

Based on the analysis of 189 stories published by 13 overseas media outlets, I found that the evolution process of the forced labor smear campaign can be divided into three phases.

The first phase is a topic brewing period that spanned from December 2018 to March 2020.

In December 2018, the Associated Press (AP) first claimed that a company in Xinjiangs Hotan city had cooperated with local education and training program institutions to sell clothes made by the programs trainees to the US. The story was later quoted by many overseas media outlets and caught the attention of the US government, which in turn required that certain clothing and outdoor recreation product brands such as Adidas inspect their industrial chains, and enforced a prohibition of the importation of so-called forced labor products.

On December 18 that year, Voice of America (VOA) published a story titled US Sportswear Traced to Factory in Chinas Internment Camps, in which it alleged that Chinese government was forcing some detainees to work in manufacturing and food industries. Two days later, VOA published a second article titled US Reviews Report of Imports from Forced Labor in China Camp, quoting several infamous Xinjiang separatists as stating that there was forced labor at Xinjiangs vocational education and training centers. Other mainstream US media sources such as The New York Times (NYT) also published similar stories with incendiary claims that month.

During that period, claims of forced labor were introduced by US media outlets as fodder for a new anti-China topic of focus, and its transmission scope was mainly within the US and its media sources. The claim only served to attack the trainees working at the clothing industry in the region after receiving vocational education.

The second phase of the Wests forced labor smear campaign, a topic fomentation period, spanned from March 2020 to December 2021.

On March 1, 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think tank reliant on US defense funds and is keen to concoct and amplify various anti-China topics, released a research report titled Uygurs for sale Re-education, forced labor, and surveillance beyond Xinjiang. The ridiculous report attacked Chinas efforts in accelerating Xinjiangs development, and slandered the employment placements of trainees from Xinjiangs vocational education and training program. Western media outlets later widely referenced and quoted the report.

By further fueling the forced labor narrative, some so-called human rights groups and media outlets called on governments in Western countries such as the US and the UK to investigate the industrial chains and asked local enterprises to cut ties with their Chinese counterparts that use Uygur labor.

In March 2020, Switzerlands Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) proposed that some major clothing brands ban the use of Xinjiang-sourced cotton using the groundless forced labor accusations as a pretext, claiming that the production cotton in Xinjiang violated labor rights, and violated human rights. Following this call to action, certain US congressmen introduced the so-called Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which required companies to obtain certification from the US government that any product imported from Xinjiang into the US was not produced with the use of forced labor. The bill also required the US president to identify and designate visa or financial sanctions against any foreign person who knowingly engages in the forced labor in the Xinjiang region.

The forced labor fallacy continued to grow in the European Union (EU). In December 2020, the European Parliament passed a resolution on Xinjiang, falsely alleging the use of forced labor in the region. It required EU member countries to impose sanctions on Xinjiang officials and boycott so-called forced labor products from Xinjiang.

During this period, the scope of the forced labor smear campaign had further expanded, and some Western governments introduced related bills to legally base their forced labor accusations. The smear campaign targeted not only the employment of surplus rural labor in Xinjiang, but also extended to more industries in this region such as tomato cultivation in the agricultural sector and the photovoltaic and solar energy product manufacturing industries.

Legislatures, judiciaries, border defense, and the commerce departments of some Western countries banded together to form a community of mutual interests in this smear campaign. Western media sources, NGOs, think tanks, and enterprises also followed suit, cooperating closely with governments from the public opinion and academic standpoints.

The third phase, which started from January 2022 and is currently ongoing, is the instrumentalization and politicization period.

Sample analysis based on media coverage suggested that the focus of media outlets in most countries has shifted to the force labor fallacy, while the US and the UK conversely remain focused on actively hyping up the fallacy. Data showed that eight US- and UK-based media outlets published a total of 24 stories attacking Xinjiang between January and April in 2022.

In this phase, the forced labor smear campaign entered a new practice stage, serving the Wests goals of escalating the economic suppression of China by indiscriminately attacking all the products made in Xinjiang and all the enterprises in the region.

Worse still, with the Xinjiang-related bills coming into effect, anti-China forces in the West have completed the transition from public opinion attacks, to the introduction of legislative economic sanctions. Now the public opinion campaign has turned into an economic war waged against China. The forced labor fallacy has become an integral part of the Western anti-China forces strategic containment of China.

The graphic shows a four-step scheme of US malicious slander against China. From govt, think thanks to the media, US disinformation machines fabricate lies and pave the way for legislation that aims to contain China. Graphic: Feng Qingyin/GT

Tactics of public opinion manipulation

The forced labor fallacy did not emerge accidentally. Thanks to a long-term planned process and a clear manipulation strategy of public opinion by Western anti-China forces, who, prey on different countries perceptions of the human rights concept to create and hype up lies under the guise of protecting human rights, the fallacy gained momentum.

The concept of human rights is regarded as a value deeply influenced by the historical and cultural traditions of different countries. There are both commonalities and differences in the understanding of human rights among countries. Therefore, the UNs Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the European Declaration of Human Rights, do not specifically give a universal definition of the standards of human rights.

Since the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, the Chinese government has regarded the rights to subsistence and development as fundamental human rights, fully protected the political, economic, social, and cultural rights of the people of all ethnic groups, and continuously promoted and elevated the development of human rights work in practice. China has written human rights protection into the countrys Constitution and the Constitution of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), and further promoted the systematization and legalization of human rights protection. China has also held human rights forums and issued a white paper to comprehensively elaborate its concept of human rights.

However, the anti-China forces in the West, who ignore the differences in human rights concepts between China and the West and Chinas achievements in the protection and promotion of human rights, politicize, weaponize, and instrumentalize the concept of human rights by employing the forced labor fabrications and hype.

Some biased western media sources, by citing misleading quotes, wantonly attack the human rights situation in China, so as to promote the spread of the forced labor accusation by employing several tactics.

Tactic one: Criminalize Chinese government

The forced labor accusation falsely alleges that the purpose of the transfer of the employment policy in Xinjiang region is to strip Uygurs of their cultural identity and assimilate them. Western anti-China forces have further fabricated lies claiming that China committed so-called crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide in the region.

For instance, on March 2, 2020, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) article quoted an ASPI researcher as saying that the goal of the labor transfers was political, with an aim toward the stripping of their unique culture and identity. On November 25, The Global and Mail cited some infamous anti-China human rights groups that Uygurs and other Turkic minorities have been subject to forced labor as part of Chinas plan to control the Uygur population in the region. On August 23, 2021, the Washington Post quoted an anti-China groups statement as saying that no American corporation should be doing business in a region that is the focal point of a campaign of genocide targeting a religious and ethnic minority.

The reality is that, the Uygur population has increased from 3.61 million in 1953 to 11.62 million in 2020, an increase of over three-fold, while the Chinese national population growth rate over the same period only grew two-fold. The growth rate of the Uygur population has been higher than the national average.

Tactic two: Demonizing Chinas poverty alleviation policies

For instance, on June 24, the Washington Post groundlessly claimed that a Chinese company recruits and employs Uygurs and other minorities via state labor programs that aim to place them in factories. On March 7, CNN quoted a British scholar as saying that the job programs in Xinjiang are often non-consensual, and people who refuse can be punished with internment.

Contrary to the lies and rumors they fabricated, the fact is that workers of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang region, including those who were transferred for employment and those who had completed their studies in learning institutions and training centers, have the agency to choose their preferred jobs and regions of placement. They sign labor contracts and receive remuneration in accordance with the law, and enjoy various social insurance benefits.

The total number of rural migrant workers in China reached 30.7 million in 2021, of which 3.2 million were from Xinjiang. With an increase in the number of stable employment, the economic income of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang has continued to increase, and the regional per capita gross domestic product (GDP) had increased from 45,476 yuan ($6,225.9) in 2017 to 53,593 yuan in 2020.

Tactic three: Stigmatizing assistance measures for transfer employment

The forced labor smear campaign claims that the Chinese government assigns staff to monitor Uygur employees, and even defames the existence of administrators of ethnic and religious affairs for Uygur employees at local companies, terming it as monitoring.

On April 27, 2021, The Guardian quoted a member of an Australian anti-China group as saying that Uygurs were held in secure compounds, working extremely long hours and under constant surveillance, and with political indoctrination as part of their daily routine. On March 9, 2020, a Washington Post article even ridiculously described the psychological counseling rooms as having been set for the purpose of thought policing Uygur employees.

Such psychological rooms, far from solely being found in Xinjiang, are part and parcel of many Chinese and foreign enterprises to help relieve psychological pressure experienced by employees. This is a common international practice. In November 2019, Chinese authorities issued the Specification of Healthy Enterprise Construction (trial), which requires employers to attach importance to their employees physical and mental health, and encourages enterprises to set up mental health counseling rooms.

Tactic four: Distorting service work for labor transfer employment

On March 2, 2020, ABC quoted an ASPI researcher and separatist as saying that Uygur workers are often transported across China in special segregated trains, and authorities and factory bosses continue to closely monitor them. On April 27, 2021, The Guardian claimed that Uygurs employees have limited or no communications with their families; mothers have been separated from their babies and families have been torn apart, citing the words of an anti-China separatist.

China fully protects the legitimate rights and interests of workers of all ethnic groups in law, policy, and practices, which advocate equal pay for equal work without discrimination against any ethnic groups. Chinese laws expressly stipulate that Uygur people enjoy the same rights as other ethnic groups, and Chinese enterprises have no right to and nor should they restrict their freedom.

Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief, and the state guarantees normal religious activities. Uygur employees participate in religious activities on the premise that they abide by Chinas laws and regulations, the enterprises rules, and normal work routines.

Tactic five: Attacking China by citing misleading, tendentious claims

Based on my analysis of 189 stories from 13 media outlets, I found that when hyping up the forced labor smear, overseas anti-China media sources mainly cited research report published by the ASPI and anti-China scholar Laura Murphy, and the remarks of the separatist organization World Uyghur Congress along with its affiliated bodies.

A considerable number of their Xinjiang-related stories cited anti-China politicians and scholars to support their narratives, lack field research and first-hand information. The stories did not provide any reliable information, let alone contain actual interviews conducted with Uygur employees.

For example, in the article Canadian watchdog asked to probe allegations that imports made with forced labor in Chinapublished on April 11, 2022, The Globe and Mail quoted an executive director of a so-called Uygur rights advocacy project based in Ottawa as saying that he hopes a probe will drive Canada to take greater action against imports made using forced labor.

Obviously, some Western media outlets achieve their goals of misleading their audiences and spreading fallacies by unilaterally quoting false statements made by some anonymous and anti-China sources, and using sensational and biased headlines. Their stories and quotes, without investigating the actual situation on the ground in Xinjiang region, lack verifiability. The information they convey in their stories is full of malicious speculation and lies.

Western anti-China forces concocted the forced labor fallacy as a means to serve their goal of suppressing Chinas economic development. To clarify the lies and show the world a real Xinjiang, China should make more efforts in several aspects, such as focusing on the international communication with the Arab world and developing countries, strengthen the public dissemination of accurate information, while also paying close attention to the slanderous tactics employed by anti-China forces to defame China.

West reports Xinjiang with biased lenses Graphic: Xu Zihe, Feng Qingyin/GT

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  Makati City reported Thursday that it has already outperformed its revenue target as it welcomed more businesses following the reopening of the local economy.

In a statement, it said collection reached 20 billion in the nine months to September, buoyed mainly by the 41% increase in business tax collection.

Citing a report from the Office of the City Treasurer, Mayor Abby Binay said business tax collection hit 11.211 billion.

We are again posting double-digit growth in revenues from local sources, especially from business tax which nearly doubled even before yearend, Binay said.

It is gratifying to see how fast businesses in the city are recovering, and how investor confidence has rebounded in the past months, she added.

The local chief executive said there were 3,791 new businesses registered and 35,440 renewed business permits as of end-September, with the new entrants bringing in 25.47 billion in capital investments.

The Commission on Audit said Makati was the second richest local government unit in 2022.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19)  Former Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) executive assistant Jeffrey Tumbado went to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Thursday to submit his sworn statement amid the alleged corruption in the agency.

"Kami po ngayon ay nag-submit ng sinumpaang salaysay na naayon po sa imbestigasyon na ginagawa ng NBI at 'yun lang po ang nangyari," said Tumbado's lawyer Bernardo Masangkay in a chance interview with reporters.

[Translation: We submitted today a sworn statement based on the investigation by the NBI and that's what only happened.]

"At merong kaunting katanungan, clarificatory question ng NBI, at nasagot naman lahat ng witness 'yung mga tinatanong ng NBI," the lawyer added.

[Translation: There were also a few questions, clarificatory question from the NBI, and the witness was able to answer them.]

The NBI earlier issued a subpoena to Tumbado following his allegations of bribery in the LTFRB involving suspended chief Teofilo Guadiz III and Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista.

But he failed to appear before the NBI on Oct. 16, saying he had to take care of something.

Tumbado eventually recanted his allegations and apologized to Guadiz and Bautista. Yet, he maintained that anomalies exist within the LTFRB.

In his client's sworn statement, Masangkay said that transport operators allegedly bribe LTFRB employees for the fast processing of their franchise application.

"For example, mayroon mga franchise na inaaplyan, minsan hindi nabibigyan agad ng priority. Kaya itong mga aplikante sila mismo ang allegedly nagsusuhol sa mga tauhan ng LTFRB," said Masangkay.

[Translation: For example, there are applications for franchises that are not being prioritized sometimes. That's why some applicants allegedly bribe employees of the LTFRB.]

Masangkay said that he and Tumbado will attend the hearing at the House of Representatives on Monday, October 23.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 20)  Vice President Sara Duterte on Thursday urged Filipinos to call for a ceasefire as war rages in the Middle East.

Duterte, who's also the education secretary, said Filipinos should not take sides because everyone loses in a war, especially children.

"Ako ay nananawagan sa aking kapwa Pilipino na ipahayag ang isang tigil putukan at dalhin ang usapin ng kapayapaan sa mesa," she said in a video posted on Facebook.

[Translation: I urge fellow Filipinos to call for a ceasefire and bring the issue to the peace table.]

"Ating ipanawagan ang pagkakaisa ng mga partido upang maglabas ng kolektibong pananawagan para sa pangmatagalang kapayapaan," she added.

[Translation: Let's seek unity of the parties to issue a collective call for long-term peace.]

The vice president said the war inflicts harm not only those Filipinos living in affected areas but also their families left in the Philippines who are relying on them for financial support.

She also warned of possible hardships caused by the unrest including food security.

Duterte did not specifically mention Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas  who have been fighting in Gaza for several days already.

As of Thursday, the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed that at least four Filipinos have died in the escalating conflict.
Cebu (CNN Philippines, October 19)  Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma has warned the faithful against individuals who sell naked images of the Santo Nino de Cebu which are making the rounds of social media as an amulet or lucky charm.

Palma also denied performing a blessing ritual to images of the naked Santo Nino or Santo Nino Hubad de Cebu.

"I am making a disclaimer that no, I have never blessed Hubo nga Santo Nino," said Palma adding it was being described as an amulet to improve businesses and as a love potion.

Palma said there are claims that he was the one who gave the blessing to such an image that looked like an unclothed Holy Child Jesus.

The Cebu archbishop said he saw the image on social media and he said it does not look similar to the Santo Nino de Cebu. He said that the Church did not endorse or approve of such an image.

"What happened was some people may use us.. So be careful na lang [please be careful]," Palma added.

A Facebook page for the "Santo Nino Hubad de Cebu" showed a tiny gold-colored image which can be worn as a pendant.

"Pinakapopular na panggayuma at pampasuwerte sa negosyo. Maaari ring pang proteksyon sa anumang sakuna aksidente at panganib maging sa mga masasamang espiritu at mapanakit na pwersa gaya ng kulam at barang," the FB page posted.

[Translation: The most popular love amulet and lucky charm for businesses. This can also be used for protection from harm and from bad spirits and other harmful forces.]

The page also claimed that the image could help extend a person's life.
ARVADA, CO - OCTOBER 26: The Colorado Supreme Court, including left to right, justices Carlos A. Samour Jr., Richard L. Gabriel, and Monica M. Marquez, hear two cases at Pomona High School before an audience of students on October 26, 2021 in Arvada, Colorado. The visit to the high school is part of the Colorado judicial branchs Courts in the Community outreach program. (Photo By Kathryn Scott)
This week, Ive been at a major analyst event at Lenovo (a client of mine) where were looking closely at how the companys units work together. Most companies in Lenovos class are better known for infighting than synergy, so the absence of the former has made this a fascinating week.

One of the more noteworthy aspects has been how successful Lenovo has been with extended reality (XR) in terms of education and training.

Another analyst noted how robotics is advancing in fast-food restaurants, where Lenovo dominates in terms of employee onboarding and training with VR, raising the question of how this applies to restaurants that appear to be moving early to full automation.

Coincidently, during the event, Nvidia (another client of the author) unveiled its latest robotic technology advancements. Lenovo and NVIDIA are in deep partnerships in a variety of areas, from servers to PCs, edge computing to workstations, and gaming. But its the future of training Im focused on here, especially now that foundational AI models can translate tools developed for human training into robotic training.

In a nutshell, XR training could be used to fast-track robots for fast-food restaurants, making it part of the critical path to automation for any industry that needs it. Due to massive staffing problems and safety issues, fast-food restaurants have been moving quickly toward full automation, with several stores already in market that are fully automated.

Lets talk about how XR training could become an on-ramp to robotic conversion for any industry dealing with staffing or safety issues.

The robotic wave

Using robots to replace entry-level workers didnt initially look economically viable. We saw that when Baxter, which was brought to market to replace low-level workers, failed (though the technology lives on in revised products). Since then, thanks to companies like Nvidia, the cost of intelligent automation has dropped while the capabilities of these robots has grown. We still arent at a point where it makes sense to replace an employee with a robot unless you absolutely cant staff a position  though with cost increases being driven by unions in media and the automotive markets, that may no longer be true.

In fast food and restaurants in general, staffing has become a significant problem leading to store failures or reduced hours of operation. Where I live in Oregon, we have lost many restaurants due to staffing problems, and if you have a choice between using a robot or going out of business, the robot becomes far more viable.

It isnt just food services that are having staffing issues. I constantly see reports of companies that are unable to respond to customers due to a lack of workers. For instance, ADT, the alarm company I use, has been unable to service my system for this same reason, forcing me to look for a different security vendor.

It seems clear that robots are coming. But one of the outstanding issues is how to train them. You need a foundational source for the needed training information, but if youre already short-staffed, who do you pull to talk to coders and create a training dataset. And how do you assure the quality of the dataset, given any employee doing the training might not be excited about robots taking their job?

XR to the rescue?

Because of the estimated 150% turnover in fast-food restaurants (which means that, except for the manager, the entire staff gets replaced every nine months), restaurants have aggressively embraced virtual reality (VR) headsets to onboard and train new employees; that can assure consistency when you dont have enough people to operate the stores, let alone train new workers. (I should note that the use of VR tools have significantly improved retention, according to Lenovo.)

These XR programs are fully vetted, and have been tested during store operations for months (if not years), assuring they are accurate. They could now be given to coders, or to an appropriately set up foundational AI model, to translate them into robotic training. Given that these training programs are often unique to the type of store and equipment being used, they form a fast path to creating a robotic training module.

With Lenovo the only company in the traditional PC/server segment working on robotic solutions and with serious synergy between its units, I expect this could become a future solution from the company.

It is interesting to note that it was at Dell (a client) where I first saw arguments that traditional computer companies needed to move to robotics  a reminder that it is the execution of an idea, not the idea itself, that often makes the difference.

It is going to be an interesting decade.
How much do solar panels cost in Massachusetts? Installing residential solar panels can cost between $10,000 to $30,000 or more, though individual costs vary significantly based on your systems power output, how much sun your home gets and other factors. In Massachusetts, the typical system size is 6.5 kilowatts (kW). On the higher end, Sarin in Leominster installed a large system (36 panels, two solar batteries and two inverters) in 2021. Sarin was quoted $39,100, but the price came down to $11,300 after tax credits and incentives. Nathan in Pittsfield told us he paid $50,000 for a 17-kW system. Average cost by system size in Massachusetts

4 kW 5 kW 6 kW 7 kW 8 kW 9 kW 10 kW After federal tax credits $8,232 $10,290 $12,348 $14,406 $16,464 $18,522 $20,580 Before federal tax credits $11,760 $14,700 $17,640 $20,580 $23,520 $26,460 $29,400 Average home size the system can support 1,200 sq. ft. 1,400 sq. ft. 1,600 sq. ft. 1,800 sq. ft. 2,000 sq. ft. 2,200 sq. ft. 2,400 sq. ft. Source: EcoWatch

Are solar panels worth it in Massachusetts? Weve talked to dozens of solar customers in Massachusetts over the last couple of years. The majority seem happy or satisfied with their decision to install a solar energy system. Massachusetts receives an average of 2.5 to 3.5 hours of peak sunlight a day. Many happy customers weve talked to highlight the financial benefits. For example, Earl in Quincy said his monthly bills went from $300 to $50 or $60. I'm donating more to the grid than I use. I outlaid $17,000 in cash and I'll become whole again in six and a half years, he said. After that, I will have free electricity for the next 19 years. Its awesome. Going solar can be especially helpful if you also have an electric car, like Ronald in Groton: Ive driven a Chevy Bolt EV since 2019, charging from my roof solar, essentially costing me nothing and saving 2 tons of CO2 by not using fossil fuel. I will have free electricity for the next 19 years. Its awesome.  Earl in Quincy It doesnt work out for everyone the same way. The return on investment wasn't anywhere near what we thought it would be, Marc in Holliston told us. But I know that our roofline has some weirdness. It's not a straight roofline. So it may not be ideal. If you live in an area that receives severe winter storms, it may also be worth purchasing batteries to receive power during outages. Kevin in Lenox said he got some incentives back for shared connections and net metering. We've had power outages and the battery backups have been great, especially in the winter time. We had one very long power outage and the batteries kept us going.  MORE: Are solar panels worth it?

Solar incentives, tax credits and rebates in Massachusetts The federal solar investment tax credit (ITC) is the biggest national incentive available for people going solar in Massachusetts. With the ITC, if you install a residential solar panel system before the end of 2032, you can deduct 30% of the system's total cost from your federal taxes. The sooner you take advantage, the better: The credit drops to 26% in 2033 and 22% in 2034. The average ITC value in Massachusetts is $5,733 in 2023. Massachusetts also offers tax exemptions, tax credits, rebates and loan programs to residents to incentivize going solar. Though some are statewide, many of these are offered locally through area electric companies and town governments. One of the most lucrative incentives is the 100% tax property tax exemption.  EXPLORE: Massachusetts solar incentives

Compare solar installation companies in Massachusetts Compare popular solar companies available in Massachusetts below. Read our guide about finding the best solar companies for more.  TIPS: Tips for getting the best solar quotes

Find a Solar Energy partner near you. ZIP Code Find a match

FAQ How are solar costs trending in Massachusetts? The cost to go solar in Massachusetts has fallen 43% over the last 10 years, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. How much can I save with solar panels? When you pay in full upfront, the average 25-year savings with solar is $33,013 in Massachusetts. The state only receives an average of 2.5 to 3.5 peak sun hours daily, so you may not be able to produce all your needed power through solar. The good news is that Massachusettsans can expect to offset their electricity bills by 80% to 108%. Anecdotally, Cori in East Longmeadow said they save $40 per month, and Thu in Methuen saves around $60. Rosineia in Hyannis is saving over $1,000 annually. How does net metering work in Massachusetts? Net metering is selling surplus electricity generated by your solar panels back to the power grid. Under the state's net metering regulations, new solar customers receive bill credits equal to 60% of their net excess kilowatt-hours. How many solar panels do I need for my house? The number of solar panels you need depends on how much electricity your household uses. In Massachusetts, the average monthly energy consumption is around 596 kilowatt-hours, according to the Energy Information Administration. For example, Brik in Bedford told us, I have like 22 panels and we only get no more than 30-40 watts (per day). But that was enough for me. Can I get free solar panels in Massachusetts? No, there are no programs in Massachusetts that offer free solar panels. You can lease or enter a PPA with little to no upfront cost, though.  FREE SOLAR PANELS: Are they really free?

Bottom line Before tax credits, residential solar energy systems in Massachusetts tend to average around $19,110, with a typical system size of 6.5 kilowatts (kW). The state offers various incentives to get residents to go solar, including a range of tax credits, rebates and loan programs. If you need help paying for your system, a solar loan, lease or power purchase agreement can make a solar energy system more within your reach.  STILL NOT SURE? Solar energy pros and cons Solar costs: Massachusetts vs. nearby states

Typical system size Upfront cost* ITC value (30%) Average cost per watt Payback period** Estimated net savings Massachusetts 6.5 kW $19,110 $5,733 $2.94 8 years $33,013 Connecticut 7.5 kW $21,000 $6,300 $2.80 8 years $42,705 Vermont 6 kW $17,220 $5,166 $2.87 9 years $26,468 Rhode Island 6 kW $17,040 $5,112 $2.84 8 years $34,519 New York 6.5 kW $19,183 $5,760 $2.94 10 years $24,387 New Hampshire 6.5 kW $18,916 $5,675 $2.91 9 years $28,409 *Before ITC federal tax credit; **When you pay in full upfront
Chevy Chase based an entire comedy career on falling down. He became a Not Ready for Primetime Player by faceplanting into a pothole to entertain Lorne Michaels. He tumbled his way through a seasons worth of Gerald Ford on SNL to win Americas heart. And he fell hard for Goldie Hawn in his movie debut, the charming Foul Play. Unfortunately for Chase, however, the rest of his movie career features more belly flops than graceful landings. There are plenty of candidates for the worst movies of his career, even when you leave out dumb cameos in disasters like Not Another Not Another Movie and voicework in atrocious animation like Panda Vs. Aliens.

All of which is to say, here are the 8 worst tumbles in the Chevy Chase cinematic catalog

Click right here to get the best of Cracked sent to your inbox.

8 Spies Like Us Advertisement Dan Aykroyd originally wrote this stinker, one of his explosions are hilarious spectaculars, to star in with John Belushi. Chase stepped in years later, candidly admitting that after years of failed comedies, Its a lot easier to work with somebody else you can flop with. Mission accomplished, according to The Washington Post: That Chase is godawful is no surprise  he's been running on empty for years with variations on that tired I'm Chevy Chase and you're not riff.

7 Man of the House Advertisement Advertisement Your career might be in the dumps when you play second banana to Home Improvement-era Jonathan Taylor Thomas. At least theres this from Low IQ Canadian: Only the smoldering sexual tension between Chevy Chase and George Wendt keeps Man of the House from being a complete waste of time.

6 Deal of the Century Advertisement Advertisement Would you buy arms from Chevy Chase? A stupid, unfunny affair, raves Gannett News Service.

5 Memoirs of an Invisible Man Advertisement This one could have been something, considering the talents of original writer William (The Princess Bride) Goldman and original director Ivan (Ghostbusters) Reitman. But Chase ran them both off with his own ideas about invisibility and loneliness. Goldman was happy to leave, as he revealed in his book Which Lie Did I Tell: Im too old and too rich for this shit. Advertisement

4 Nothing But Trouble Play Advertisement Hot off an Oscar nom for Driving Miss Daisy, Aykroyd decided to try his hand at directing with a film that indeed was Nothing But Trouble. According to Chases authorized biography, Chevy knew it was going to be the worst film he would ever make. Well, maybe fourth worst. Advertisement

3 Modern Problems Advertisement From its ludicrous premise (an air traffic controller gets telekinetic powers after being doused in radioactive goo), to its on-set danger (Chase almost died thanks to clammy skin and a string of landing lights wrapped around his arms, resulting in near electrocution), everything about Modern Problems was a disaster. The Boston Globe complained, What is comedy coming to? Advertisement

2 Oh Heavenly Dog Chevy Chase plays a dog. Roger Ebert summed it up as a total miscalculation from beginning to end.
Its not uncommon for a great comedian to find themselves accidentally (or purposefully) chemically incapacitated shortly before a set and somehow manage to pull a banger out of their ass. Jim Jefferies did it from the other side.

Anyone who has ever had a kidney stone understands that there is a merciful eye-of-the-storm phase after the devil rock passes from the kidney to the bladder and before it slips out the front door during which the horrible pain (mostly) subsides. This window of brief relief can last hours, days, or even a couple weeks before the dreaded final act starts  certainly long enough for a comedian to squeeze out a set for a bunch of obnoxiously friendly Canadians before the downstairs terror sets in. That was the situation in which Jefferies found himself during his recent touring leg of the Great White North.

After Jefferies checked himself into the emergency room in Kingston, Ontario, Canada with splitting side pain, Canadas socialized-for-citizens-only healthcare system doped him up with enough morphine to ease the six millimeter stones passing from his kidneys to his bladder  right before he was scheduled to play a show in Ottawa. Jefferies resulting doped-up set turned out to be a two-and-a-half-hour hour barn burner that was absolutely unforgettable  for everyone besides Jefferies.

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I wake up to the doctor on the phone (with) my manager, who might as well be called Colonel Parker, Jefferies told his host on last nights Jimmy Kimmel Live! of his post-morphine moment of consciousness in the emergency room. And the doctors on the phone like, I can give him some drugs that will help him stand up. Jefferies explained how, contrary to popular belief, the most painful part of passing a kidney stone is the rocks journey from the kidney to the bladder, and the Canuck clinician pumped him full of an unspecified cocktail of painkillers to carry him through the worst part of the ordeal and right into the green room.

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A heavily hazy Jefferies made it to the theater right as the stone passed into his bladder, then, apparently, he performed the show  or so he was told the next morning. Jefferies says he had no recollection of what happened once he hit the stage, quickly scouring the internet for embarrassing reports as soon as he returned to sobriety. My shows only about an hour and a half long  turns out I did two and a half hours, Jefferies said, People liked it! Im not going to say it was my best work.

That following day, Jefferies returned home, spending nine hours on multiple airplanes with the looming threat of the penile pebbles emergency exit hanging over both his heads. It looked like an emu eating a coconut, Jefferies said of his genitals as the stone began its final descent. If it helps, use an ostrich, he said for the American audience.

As for the length and severity of the last leg of his kidney stones tour, Jefferies glibly proclaimed, This is the only time Ive been really happy to have a small penis!
Having ended the first episode of this revival series by announcing that hes taken a teaching job at Harvard and bought the apartment building Eve (Jess Salgueiro) and Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott) already live in, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) has arrived at his first day of class. It doesnt go great! And I have questions.

Is It Supposed to Be a Surprise That Eve and Freddy Are Running Lines? Eve: But I need you!

Freddy: I dont believe you. Prove it to me.

Eve: Please, I cant do this without you!

Frasier: What is the word on the streets these days about herringbone? Its established in the series premiere that Eve is an aspiring actor, so its not a huge shock when this turns out not to be a heartfelt, emotional exchange about their relationship, but rather dialogue from a play shes hoping to be cast in, for which Freddy is just helping her run lines. But since theyre not holding scripts, it seems like the idea is for us to initially mistake this for a conversation between Freddy and Eve  otherwise, why would Freddy also be off-book? So if we all agree that this is the gag, why isnt it the gag? Frasier enters the scene and has no misapprehension of whats going on. Im not saying its such a great joke that its total lack of payoff is a huge disappointment, but since farcical misunderstandings were a key component of the original show, teeing this up to go nowhere is, sadly, typical of this version and its many missed opportunities.

Would Firefighters Love Backdraft? When Freddy tells Eve he doesnt quite buy her performance, she shoots back, Youre judging me on an acting scale of 1 to Backdraft. Backdraft is a cinematic masterpiece! Freddy snaps back. Advertisement This is a load-bearing joke: Its telling anyone who somehow wandered into this streaming show mid-run that Freddy is a firefighter. But is it the best possible Backdraft joke? In my experience, just about everyone whos ever seen their job portrayed on screen is annoyed by inaccuracies. Furthermore, since Freddy came to his very active, physical, traditionally-masculine-coded job out of an extremely nerdy childhood (not that any of that backstory has made it into this series yet), I would think hed have a converts zeal about firefighting and defend its fictionalization all the more passionately.

Does Frasier Know Eve Well Enough to Be Mean About Her Play? Eve tells Frasier shes auditioning to play a woman who tries to organize workers at a slaughterhouse. Frasier: Well, if the dialogue I overheard was any indication, then the cows are the lucky ones. Advertisement Hey man, you just met this lady two episodes ago. Do you really think youre at the roast phase of your relationship yet? Not to mention youre the benefactor whos providing her and her child with free rent; its not like shes in a position to zing one back at you.

Would Frasier Have Rorschach Wallpaper? According to this Vulture interview with showrunners Joe Cristalli and Chris Harris, production designer Glenda Revelo insisted on this wallpaper, telling Harris and Cristalli, (T)rust me, this is on the cutting edge. Advertisement But even if wallpaper inspired by Rorschach ink blots might be a cool touch in your home or mine, would someone were supposed to think is one of Americas most famous psychiatrists choose it? Or would he think it was EXTREMELY ON THE NOSE. Advertisement While were on the subject of Frasiers apartment, his has a second floor. Eves, across the hall, does not. Is there a third unit above hers? If so, who lives there and what do they think about their new landlord?

Would an Aspiring Harvard Provost Want Someone of Frasiers Status Teaching? Olivia (Toks Olagundoye), chair of Harvards psychology department, aggressively recruits Frasier to take a full-time teaching assignment, believing his TV celebrity will somehow drive enrollment, propelling her to the provost job she is desperate to get in order to feel she has not been bested by her older sister, provost at Yale. Her repeated references to the numbers, which she claims are bad, dont convince Frasier, and cant stand as a plot point. The episode has to show Frasier replying  correctly  that Harvards endowment alone could power a small country for centuries! Olivia also admits that it is only Frasiers skills as a dancing bear that qualify him for the teaching job shes offered him, since his lack of experience or publications definitely dont. Advertisement The show itself sells out the premise of Olivias job offer  and apparently its right to. Vultures Devon Ivie sought comment from all eight of the Ivy Leagues psychology department chairs, who all agreed that they would not hire Frasier. Shout-out to Jutta Joormann of Yale, who charitably floated the idea of having him come for a visit and give a talk to our students or even teach a course on media and pop culture  which Im sure would see large enrollments and may indeed attract students. May? Great lead-in to my next question. Advertisement

Would 2023 College Students Be Impressed by a Daytime Talk Show Host At All, Never Mind Teaching Their Class? In the shows conception, Frasiers students have signed up for his class because they know him as a syndicated daytime TV personality and are anxious to pepper him with questions about their own problems and collect gossip about him. But would they? Its a freshman class, meaning most of the students are around 18; thats a demographic cohort in which people who report watching linear TV daily are vastly in the minority. I almost buy that one kid would relay a fan question from his mother: His age would probably make her a Gen Xer, making his grandmother the more likely Craniac in the family. Advertisement Harvard Cozies Up to #MentalHealth TikTok is the real headline of a news report from the New York Times this week. We probably should have heard that Frasiers pursuit of celebrity had led him, or his shows social team, to build up his presence there. (And wouldnt it have been fun to have seen the character embracing trendy TikTok dances with the same zeal he announces his Fra-vorite Things?)

Why Would Frasier Do This Job for Almost Nothing? Frasier is distressed that the career legacy he leaves will be all the corny pandering he did on his show; were told this is why he took the Harvard job, and why hes so opposed to bringing any of his old showmanship to it, despite Olivias exhortations and manipulations. As soon as it becomes clear thats all she wants, and all his class wants, and that hes not going to be able to do anything in this gig to eclipse the one that earned him his celebrity and wealth, and that the money is negligible, AND that hes kind of bad at teaching, why doesnt he ignore Freddys needling, listen to his instincts, quit and enjoy living off all the money he didnt just spend buying a whole-ass apartment house?! Advertisement Advertisement

Who Was This Sidekick? Though weve been hearing about Frasiers daytime show since the premiere, this is the first episode where we actually get a look at what it was like, including that after a stripped-down, serious first season, Frasier eventually got a sidekick. Who was this guy? Why did he, of all possible people Frasier knew, get hired? Whats he doing now? Are he and Frasier still in touch?

How Often Are They Going to Bring Up Better Characters and Stories While Stranding Us with These Ones? As noted above, Freddy uses Frasiers demoralization to drag him about considering quitting Harvard, presumably using the very same language Frasier (and probably Lilith) did when Freddy himself dropped out. When Frasier changes course and says hes not a quitter, Freddy remembers that Frasier and Niles once bought a restaurant that they gave up on after the first night. I guess were supposed to be impressed that anyone working on this version of the show remembers anything about the original; that was definitely not in evidence in Episode Two, when we find out that Freddy, in shame, told his friends his dad was dead, exactly as Frasier did with Martin in the original show  a parallel that, bizarrely, Frasier does not note. Advertisement Advertisement Anyway, stop making us remember that version of the show or else were just going to click over and watch that instead.

Why Dont These Producers Trust Their Actors? In an attempt to redirect his students, Frasier asks Eve to join the class as an audience plant, asking a prepared question about the course material. David (Anders Keith), sitting in the front row, evidently thought that was going to be his job, and keeps interrupting. Im your helper! Im your Im your Sancho Panza! You planned this without me! You totally went over my head! Eventually, David turns on Eve and calls out the ruse, forcing Frasier to break it up. Advertisement First: If this were a Niles/Frasier scene, David Hyde Pierce would be communicating everything David is saying without opening his mouth. Presumably Anders Keith was hired because someone thought he knew how to act; give him the chance to show what he can do and stop spoon-feeding the audience. Second: In my opinion, the turn of this scene should have been that what seems like a chaotic fight was, in fact, rehearsed by Eve, David and Frasier, as a way of creating drama to focus the other students attention, ending with them arranging for a different disguise for Eve in the next episode. If were supposed to invest in Frasier staying in this job, it should be a fun surprise that, actually, he does have some natural talent for it. And I shouldnt be sitting here iterating on a sitcom scene as its going on. Thats work that should have happened in the writers room. Advertisement
This year's Black Hat USA conference saw more than 907M threat events detected in real time, according to data collected by Palo Alto Networks. This is a staggering number that shows just how attractive the event is to threat actors  and artificial intelligence (AI) was a key driver in protecting against these attempts. With new attacks being reported daily, the stakes have never been higher to protect one of the industry's top events. In collaboration with several other vendors, Palo Alto Networks supported this year's network operations center (NOC), defending against inbound threats.

AI has been an industry buzzword as of late, with the community primarily focusing on discussing how threat actors are leveraging it. Of course, the use of this technology has been accelerated with generative AI tools like ChatGPT. However, this AI transformation wave is not just being used by the bad actors  it's tapped by the good guys too. With the power of AI, this year's NOC was able to automate the triaging of threats so they could focus on what really mattered: supporting the event. For example, AI offered roughly an 80-20 split for the NOC team where around 80% of the initial investigations were ideally handled through automation, so the remaining 20% were getting the human attention they needed.

Here are three ways that we saw this year's NOC leverage automation to defend the event:

Set up for success

Before arriving in Las Vegas, our NOC team was armed with AI-powered tools including Palo Alto Networks' Cloud Delivered Security Services (CDSS), Cortex XSOAR, Cortex XSIAM, and more. CDSS provided some relief for NOC analysts by analyzing mountains of data to determine if there is a hidden threat. Prior to using AI, a threat hunter would have to manually comb through this data, which could take hours. CDSS greatly expedites this process as it takes a human being longer to blink than it does for the AI to make its verdict. Equipped with tools that were already harnessing AI, we were set up for success.

Building defense in real-time

Not only did the NOC team make use of existing AI-powered products, but they also created new code in real-time as they responded to threats. We were joined by the Cortex XSIAM team on-site who sat down during the show and spoke to me about my threat hunting process. Then, the engineer taught the logic flow to XSIAM, which allowed it to come to the same conclusions as I would have, but at lightning speed. This ultimately gave me and the other NOC analysts the ability to focus on greater, more complex threats while trusting that the AI was handling some of the simpler tasks.

Collaboration is king

Collaboration is paramount in our industry, and several vendors come together every year to power the Black Hat NOC. This year I was joined by Cisco, NetWitness, Corelight, Arista, and Lumen, to protect the event. Throughout the conference, the Palo Alto Networks team shared data from our CDSS subscriptions with these vendors. Then, they used this data within their own tools to further expand on the threat research processes.

For example, we collaborated with NetWitness to construct several new dashboards together, in their platform, to make the other threat hunters jobs easier and allowed us to create visualizations within that tool. This was incredibly helpful during the event because it allowed us to put our heads together and leverage the tools and information at all of our disposal to create a safer, successful Black Hat.

Threat actors have been using AI to be more effective for some time now. Our industry has no choice but to embrace and leverage AI to fight back too if we are to stand any hope of defending our environments effectively. When envisioning the future of cybersecurity, there isn't a path to success without the power of AI and automation heavily involved. However, it will be the interconnectedness of humans working alongside AI that ultimately will be the most effective way for us to identify and solve problems at pace.

To learn more, visit us here.
A decade ago, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta uttered a phrase that would go on to live in infamy: "cyber Pearl Harbor." Panetta was using his platform as the country's leading national security official to warn of dire future digital assaults on the United States. Energy infrastructure, transportation systems, financial platforms, and more were vulnerable to exploitation, he warned. The media, pundits, and politicians have used the phrase, along with the similarly evocative "cyber 9/11" and "cyber Katrina," galvanize support for national efforts to address cybersecurity challenges.

The infamy of the "cyber Pearl Harbor" meme lies in its utter disloyalty to the realism of global cyber conflict. The idea of Western society collapsing around our shoulders due to digital disruption, the argument goes, ignores the fact that such disruption offers no strategic utility to those actors most capable of executing such an attack, beyond the context of a shooting war with a peer state competitor. Substantial disruptions, as seen in incidents like NotPetya, are inevitable, but they are unlikely to be common, endemic, or as cataclysmic as the "Pearl Harbor" mnemonic implies. Instead, cyber usage by belligerents in recent major conflicts in Ukraine and Israel - both limited and lacking a "cyber blitzkrieg," often with a performative focus - feel much more exemplary of cyber conflicts to come.

2023 Cyber Strategy offers pragmatism

A major driver of the campaign against cyber doom nomenclature is the argument that such framing creates a disconnect between government concerns about national cyber defense and the realism of industry efforts to build a healthier cyber ecosystem. Given this, the recent publication of the Department of Defense's 2023 Cyber Strategy should be seen as a welcome evolution of government perspective on the scope of defense and deterrence challenges in the cyber domain.

Unlike previous manifestations of the defense community's strategic vision for operation in cyberspace, the 2023 document is extremely conservative. It forwards no major conceptual developments, no new branding for emergent ideas around digital operations, and no radical reactionary takes on the war in Ukraine. While cyber strategy "with the brakes on" might sound risky at first glance, this restraint in the face of recent changes that enable the activities of US Cyber Command introduces a measure of stability to national cybersecurity policymaking. More importantly, it offers breathing room within which civilian, industry, and government can find balance that has perennially been absent in public-private relations in this space.

Greater cross-sector consideration for national cyber defense

Prior to the release of the 2023 document, the 2022 National Defense Strategy outlined a new concept that will drive the vision, planning, and actions of the Pentagon called "campaigning." The concept is not cyber-specific. Instead, it is a more holistic representation of the idea that national security and foreign policy objectives are invariably secured via sequential and cumulative activities planned across multiple domains of government and national capacity. That distinction between government and national capacities is noteworthy, as the campaign idea emphasizes that military activities must align with those that are strategically relevant. This includes non-military actors, their interests, their infrastructures, and their own capacities to impact international politics and commerce.

The point of the 2022 strategy, now brought forward in cyber-specific terms in the 2023 Cyber Strategy, is that the concepts of defending forward in a domain defined by persistent engagement with adversary forces demand delegation and co-reliance across public-private boundaries. The Pentagon recognizes, quite practically relative to years past, that most cybersecurity activities occur entirely beneath the threshold of armed conflict between countries.
Photo: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images

New Yorks legal weed rollout has been a mess. More than two years since cannabis was legalized in the state, only 26 dispensaries, and just 11 of them in New York City, have actually opened their doors. (Metaphorically, at least, since some of them are delivery only.) This is far fewer than the 150 dispensaries that were supposed to be in place by this past summer. The first phase, which was meant to prioritize people with cannabis-related convictions, hit a number of snags: The application process itself was complicated. A state-investment fund to help get the first batch of shops off the ground was delayed for months. And then came the lawsuits.

The Office of Cannabis Management opened up applications to the wider public this month, and there are already hangups there as well: As The City reported this week, a little-noticed provision in the law requires applicants to notify their community boards about their proposed business location at least 30 days before applying  and now those boards have been flooded with applications that they have to sift through in a months time. Youre gonna have OCM people processing a 30-day extension from 59 boards for every damn application, one community board district manager told the publication. Is this not the craziest thing youve ever heard of?

To better understand why its taken so long to get stores up and running, we spoke to Lorraine Collins, the director of the Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research at University of Buffalo who was also part of the original working group of stakeholders convened by Andrew Cuomo to give feedback on legislation, about the ins and outs of New Yorks legal weed rollout.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Can we start with the retail delays?

Lets be real: Once the law was passed, there was the expectation among the population of New York that, oh, the law was passed in March, so in April, were going to have retail. People had this expectation of instant access. I think from a PR perspective, there could have been better messaging.

So the intention was to prioritize CAURD licenses for people who were impacted by the cannabis justice system, but implementing that was a different story.

New York went about this with the best of intentions. They didnt just want to open the floodgates, which weve seen other states do. Once Big Cannabis comes in, theyre going to overwhelm the smaller operations. So the notion of an early phase to the licensing on paper was a good one. But often theres this disconnect between legislation thats written and what happens on the ground. And this is kind of a classic case of that. So they had the CAURD licenses and that started to move again, but not as quickly as people hoped because there was no infrastructure for cannabis when the law was passed. The Office of Cannabis Management literally had to be created out of essentially very little. The implementation is where things really went off the rails.

What were some of those issues?

People went to court to basically seek restraining orders on the CAURD licenses. That has been a huge problem. So this past summer, for example, a New York State Supreme Court judge put a restraining order on licenses as a result of a case brought by military veterans, because even though they were on the list, they didnt feel like they were being considered. We also have this opt-in, opt-out component of the law. On paper it seemed like a good idea  lets allow communities to opt in or opt out. But it got complicated and messy. For example, upstate there are towns that have villages within them. So we have the village of Hamburg within the town of Hamburg. And you would find that the village said no, but the town said yes.

That seems like a nightmare.

And then there were zoning issues. For those who opted in, where is the retail going to be placed? Yes, there are rules about proximity to schools and churches and what have you, but a lot of communities wanted the cannabis retail to be in the equivalent of what Ill call a red-light district. They wanted them on the strip malls with the gentlemans clubs and the retailers are saying no.

Are there things that you think that the state and OCM should have been able to foresee or have done differently?

I have respect for the ideas that did not work for whatever reason, including litigation that no one anticipated. Maybe they shouldnt have made such a complicated law to begin with, but that ship has sailed. So we just have to hope that the steps moving forward can be implemented in a timely fashion. I think there should be more communication with key stakeholders.

Given that there are only a small number of dispensaries open right now, what have these delays actually meant for communities who were supposed to be first in line?

One of the things is that people got cultivator licenses and grew cannabis anticipating that they were going to be able to get that cannabis processed and sold in retail outlets. And then we had all these hiccups with the retail licensing. So now you have people who have invested in cultivation who have no market because given federal laws, if you grow it in New York, legally, youre not supposed to sell it elsewhere. So that becomes an issue because you cant just sit on cannabis.

It goes bad.

Its going to degrade. There will be mold. So these poor cultivators are stuck with the harvested crops that they could not sell.

And what about the retailers?

As you said, we still have very few retailers. I think that will change if theres no litigation with the new licensing, but theres still issues that have to be resolved at the state and at the local level  where are these things located? What kind of zoning do we need? Its very difficult for people to negotiate all the guidelines. At the university, weve held community activities around cannabis, and the most recent one was given by a local law firm that focuses on cannabis. And I came out of that with a headache. Seriously. How are people supposed to understand all of this? Were talking about people who either for educational, socioeconomic, or legal reasons have been disadvantaged. How are they supposed to follow all of this so that they dont get into trouble? The New York law is among the most complex in the United States. We got all tangled up in legalities and I think to some extent missed some of what we thought might happen around social justice.

It sounds maze-like.

Ive seen gatherings of people who are CAURD licensees continue to express frustration with the implementation and with complicated regulations that seem to get in the way. So they think they have a way forward then it turns out, no, theres this other thing you need to do. I think OCM is for the most part responsive and wants the thing to work. Theyre trying to implement best practices and Ive seen them at community forums and Q&As really trying. So I give them credit for that.

Even just one example I saw recently was that the requirement to notify community boards has meant theyre now flooded, which has added a bunch of delays. Do you think these are things that could have been avoided or thought about a little more?

Oh, of course it could have been thought about a little more. I mean, once we had this opt-in opt-out, the communities that were opting in should have received instructions about, Here are the issues that you need to consider. Im not aware of what instructions they got, but my impression is not much of anything because Ive heard communities saying, we dont know. Now theyre being asked to consider different locations and zoning changes, and people are up in arms about where retail is located and what have you. Theyre scrambling.

It seems way less complicated to sell, say, alcohol.

They just extended the hours when alcohol can be sold. But alcohol does more harm than cannabis. So the researcher in me is saying, What? And meanwhile, were kind of creating all these barriers to access to cannabis, which has properties that are medicinal, which does not create the level of harm that alcohol creates.

Right, and actually the delays have meant that in the meantime, the cannabis black market has been thriving.

To me that has been the worst part of all these delays with implementation and all these court cases. We should be trying to shut all of that down, but instead its flourishing because people have the notion that, Oh, cannabis is legal now, and theyre not thinking the next thought of, I should make sure I get my cannabis from a licensed retail outlet. Because guess what? There are no licensed retail outlets in their community. One of the reasons that I very much support the legal regulation of cannabis is for safety. A regulated product is tested. The dosage is clear. Otherwise you dont know if what youre getting is 3 percent THC or 80 percent THC.

Since the smaller retailers were supposed to get a head start, but many have been delayed, is there a fear of what might happen when big retailers start coming in?

What I worry about is when the national, and in some cases international, brands get a foothold in New York, and they can overwhelm the smaller retail outlets with the variety of products and the competitive pricing. Its going to be an uneven playing field, especially in areas like New York City. I think in a rural or small-town community, theyll probably disregard those areas since theres not as much money to be made. But in the five boroughs, the Big Cannabis industry is just drooling, waiting to get in.
Euro News and Price Action Setups

Lack of EU data and plenty of Fed speak could challenge euro upside

EUR/USD shows resilience despite rising US yields and USD safe haven appeal

The analysis in this article makes use of chart patterns and key support and resistance levels. For more information visit our comprehensive education library

Recommended by Richard Snow Get Your Free EUR Forecast Get My Guide

Lack of EU Data and Plenty Fed Speak Could Challenge Euro Upside

A distinct lack of EU-focused data this week has left the euro with few local drivers but despite this, EUR/USD shows resilience in the face of rising US yields and managed to extend recent progress against pound sterling.

A possible overhang for the euro was made evident this week after the Italian government approved the 2024 fiscal budget which includes tax cuts and increased spending with the intention of borrowing to make up any shortfall. To make matters worse, Italys budget deficit for the month of September was the worst on record. The indebted nation appears not to have learned the lessons of the 2011/12 European Sovereign Debt Crisis as yield spreads have widened in recent weeks with the BTP-Bund spread over 200 basis points now.

Keep an eye out this week for a plethora of Fed speak later this afternoon with Jerome Powell being the main event. Markets will be interested to know what Fed members think of the recent lift in US data from sticky CPI to the massive NFP surprise and better than expected retail sales. Next week we get the first look at US Q3 GDP which carries expectations of a 4.1% expansion over last quarter. The Feds estimation of current (Q4) GDP stands above 5%, highlighting a greater chance of a hike in the Fed funds rate in December.

EUR/USD Shows Resilience Despite Rising US Yields

The euro attempts to arrest the broader, longer-term decline in EUR/USD and has already achieved a higher low but has struggled to show signs of sustained upward momentum. The ECB meets next week and is largely expected to keep rates unchanged.

The pair is likely to remain sensitive to USD developments as it benefits from safe haven appeal during the regional tension in the Middle East. Fed speakers will also get their views and opinions across today and tomorrow ahead of the Saturday blackout period. 1.0520 remains the immediate level of support followed by the October swing low and then the long-term level of 1.0340. Resistance appears at 1.0635 followed by 1.0700.

EUR/USD Daily Chart

Source: TradingView, prepared by Richard Snow

EUR/GBP Heads Higher as UK Fundamentals Reveal Vulnerabilities

EUR/GBP appears to leave the prior range behind, as the latest rise has the pair testing a prior zone of support but now as resistance. The pair had been plagued by a tendency to revert back to the broad trading range but the recent ascendency has built on the prior bullish momentum.

Again, the move does not appear to be heavily influenced by EU drivers but is rather a function of worsening UK fundamental data. Earlier this week UK wages grew at a slower pace than expected which will be good news for the Bank of England (BoE). On Tuesday UK unemployment data is likely to reveal further easing in the labour market which could see further strides higher in the pair.

Resistance appears around 0.8725 after breaking above 0.8702 (monitor for a close above here on the daily chart). Also, it is important to note the pair trades above the 200 day simple moving average  often viewed as a trend filter suggesting the pairs range bound tendencies may be a thing of the past. Support at 0.8635

EUR/GBP Daily Chart

Source: TradingView, prepared by Richard Snow

After analysing live trades and accounts, one golden thread could be seen amongst successful traders. Discover the main takeaways in the report below:

Recommended by Richard Snow Traits of Successful Traders Get My Guide

--- Written by Richard Snow for DailyFX.com

Contact and follow Richard on Twitter: @RichardSnowFX
As with high-speed trains, you don't have to wait long for another multi-billion pound costings horror to come bowling down the line. The public accounts committee questioned four executives running the 'restoration and renewal' of the Palace of Westminster. No one was vulgar enough to mention the likely cost but two years ago it was being put at 13billion, so we can probably quadruple that.

Did the quartet on parade yesterday inspire confidence? Hardly. They used much of the same modern management-speak we heard for years about HS2, jawing on about 'base budgets' and 'strategic sustenance teams' and even, without irony, about 'nugatory costs'. This was done with emphatic nods and an eau de cologned smoothness that brooked no ribaldry. We heard about 'counterfactuals' and 'the business case' for a range of increasingly bespoke options. There was a shudder of disapproval at the idea that the cheapest of those options might be chosen.

Save a few billion? Good grief, frightful idea. You'll never become Construction Magazine's Person Of The Year in the year 2050 if you cut budgets.

The public accounts committee, supposedly a flinty-eyed defender of the public purse, was chaired by Dame Meg Hillier (Lab, Hackney South & Shoreditch). I have met a few misers in my time  bank managers, landlords, Fleet Street managing editors  and am pretty good at sniffing out a pinchpenny. Dame Meg does not strike me as such a creature. Not liverish enough. A bit too blousy.

The public accounts committee questioned four executives running the 'restoration and renewal' of the Palace of Westminster

The public accounts committee, supposedly a flinty-eyed defender of the public purse, was chaired by Dame Meg Hillier (Lab, Hackney South & Shoreditch)

She wanted the houses of parliament to be more opulently appointed. You could walk down corridors and find carpets and floors with holes in them, she exclaimed. She had even seen buckets catching raindrops. 'It is noticeable how many fewer women wears heels nowadays', she exclaimed. With Eddie Izzard hoping to become a Labour MP, things are plainly reaching a critical stage.

Dame Meg's committee, which struggled to get in much of a word once she had finished, heard that the restoration and renewal project is now on to its second 'delivery authority', the last one having been dismantled after spending 200million of taxpayers' money. Fret not. The new delivery authority has 'expert panels' and there are to be 'external safety assurers' and a 'programme board' and an executive cadre soon to comprise 40 well-remunerated aces. The chief executive, David Goldstone, is on 311,000 a year and recently pocketed a 168,000 bonus. Mr Goldstone, suave as peanut butter, was among yesterday's witnesses. He recalled his work at the London 2012 Olympics, which were a success. I did not hear him mention his time as chief operating officer at the Ministry of Defence, which has rarely, if ever, finished a project on time or budget.

Alongside him sat the 'chief operating officer of the House of Lords' and the 'interim managing director of the restoration and renewal client team' (my, they do love a title), as well as the new clerk of the Commons. The clerk, Tom Goldsmith, was a rather tremulous fellow, prone to flapping his little white hands. It is not impossible Mr Goldstone already has him running little circles.

Dame Meg was keen for MPs to abandon the premises for a decade or more so that Mr Goldstone and his contractors can work undisturbed. Contractors attended a Commons outreach session only this week, vast pound signs in their eyes. One hears rumours of ambitious proposals for making the historic palace Net Zero compliant. What a feast for all those building firms denied the HS2 teat.

Dame Meg, steering the committee like a dinghy in a high wind, badgered the inexperienced Mr Goldsmith to agree with her that a 'full decant' of MPs was essential. He looked brow-beaten. If MPs vacate the premises, will they ever return?

This was an important 'national infrastructure project' the committee was told. That old chestnut! Also, 'the Treasury is sighted on this'. Just what any chancellor needs: a project costing billions, all so that Dame Meg can wear her Louboutins.
For me, as for so many of us who don't look after ourselves properly, the health pages in the newspapers generally make profoundly depressing reading.

Day after day, we read studies concluding that just about everything we do, or fail to do, is pretty well guaranteed to send us to early graves.

In my case, I smoke and drink for England and eat all the wrong things  red meat, fatty foods, too little fruit and veg. I spend much of my life slumped on the sofa in front of the TV and keep irregular hours, with often too much sleep and sometimes too little. I haven't visited a gym since I left school half a century ago.

Furthermore, I live in an air-polluted city, drink gallons of coffee every day and have never used sunscreen to protect my skin, even on the most mercilessly sunny Mediterranean beach.

As if all this were not enough to kill me off, until my semi-retirement at 65 I had a highly stressful job for more than 40 years, daily enduring hours of idleness interspersed with bursts of panic-stricken activity to meet newspaper deadlines. A sure recipe for a heart attack, say the scaremongers.

In my case, I smoke and drink for England and eat all the wrong things  red meat, fatty foods, too little fruit and veg. I spend much of my life slumped on the sofa in front of the TV and keep irregular hours, with often too much sleep and sometimes too little. I haven't visited a gym since I left school half a century ago

Foolish

Indeed, if you were to add up all the years supposedly knocked off my life expectancy by each of these aspects of my reckless existence, you'd think I would hardly have made it to 35. Let alone would I be looking forward to my 70th birthday next month (Wikipedia please note, I was born in 1953, not 1952).

I would certainly be riddled with cancer or heart disease by now  but then, for all I know, it's possible that I am. I can't be sure, because another of my self-destructive weaknesses is that I'm terrified of doctors and never go anywhere near them, except on those very rare occasions when Mrs U marches me to the surgery at gunpoint.

I haven't had a medical MOT since 1982, when it was a condition of my offer of a job at the Financial Times.

Nor have I ever sent a sample of my poo through the post to the NHS, to be analysed for bowel cancer. This is in spite of a barrage of text messages from the NHS, urging me to take advantage of its free screening programme for the over-60s.

Yes, I know this is incredibly foolish of me, and that a great many lives have been saved by the test. Coward that I am, it's just that if I do have cancer of any sort, I don't want to know about it. Nor do I want to spend my days hanging around in NHS waiting rooms, until I absolutely have to. I see, by the way, that the health service is now splashing out our money on TV advertisements, urging everyone who's had a cough for more than three weeks to be checked out for cancer.

Good grief! Doesn't the NHS feel its waiting lists for appointments and treatment are long enough already, at some 7.5 million, without the need to drum up more customers on the off-chance that they may have something seriously wrong with them?

Good grief! Doesn't the NHS feel its waiting lists for appointments and treatment are long enough already, at some 7.5 million, without the need to drum up more customers on the off-chance that they may have something seriously wrong with them?

As it happens, I've had a cough for at least 20 years, but it has never occurred to me to trouble my GP with it. What with my 50-a-day Marlboro Red habit, I have a feeling I know what's causing it.

After all these warnings of my imminent death, therefore, what a joy it was to read this week that I may actually live to a ripe old age. And all because I've been a pretty fast walker for as long as I can remember.

I'm indebted for this cheering news to a study in the snappily named journal, Progress In Cardiovascular Diseases, which finds that people who walk more quickly than the average tend to live longer than dawdlers.

Seething

What's more, we're not talking here about just a marginal difference. If we're to believe this research, based on data from almost 400,000 Britons followed for more than a decade, 'brisk walkers' are more than a quarter less likely to die of cancer than people who walk more slowly than the average of 3-4 mph.

Meanwhile, the risk of dying young from cardiovascular disease was found to be 60 per cent lower among those of us who walk at more than 4 mph, and a whopping 70 per cent lower where early death from other causes was concerned.

Says the study's lead author, Dr Jonathan Goldney of the University of Leicester: 'We encourage walkers to pick up their pace where possible, as this may just improve their life expectancy.'

Now, I've never measured the speed at which I walk. But I do know that I'm hardly ever overtaken on the pavement

Now, I've never measured the speed at which I walk. But I do know that I'm hardly ever overtaken on the pavement. Far more often, I find myself seething behind others who walk two or three abreast, leaving me no room to get past them.

The worst offenders, as fellow sufferers will testify, are the increasing numbers who creep along, too absorbed in their mobile phones to get out of anyone's way.

Meanwhile, Mrs U, though no slacker herself, has often complained that I walk too fast, saying she struggles to keep up with me and urging me to slow down.

Well, thanks to this remarkable study, I now have the perfect riposte: 'Are you hoping to increase my chances of dying young?' (On second thoughts, don't answer that, darling!)

Impatient

Of course, there could be one glaring flaw in the theory that simply by speeding up on the pavement or in the park, we may improve our chances of longevity: is it perhaps possible that we may be confusing cause and effect?

To put this another way: do people tend to be fit enough to avoid early death because they walk quickly, or do they tend to walk quickly because they are fit enough to avoid early death?

It's a question that has clearly occurred to the Leicester study's authors but, alas, they have little light to throw on the answer. All they will say is that further clinical research is needed to establish the truth.

If my guess is right, however, brisk walkers tend, on the whole, to be non-smokers who watch their weight, take regular exercise, drink only in moderation and eat plenty of fruit and veg. Meanwhile, people like me, who walk quickly merely because we're impatient, are the exceptions to the rule.

As for how I've managed to avoid serious illness for seven decades, living the life I do, I suspect it has precious little to do with the speed at which I walk. Rather, I put it down to the devil's own luck.

And as I approach my 71st year, I won't be a bit surprised if it runs out soon, which will be no worse than I deserve.

So, no. However fast you may walk, I wouldn't for one moment recommend my way of life to those who hope to live long enough to see their grandchildren grow up.

I just rejoice that after a lifetime of being hectored and scolded by the medical establishment, I've at last read a health story that cheered me up.

So I'll keep up the pace on the pavement while I'm able to  and I'll thank you to keep out of my way.
Even among those present in the room, few would have noticed.

After a rare public speech from the Princess of Wales for World Mental Health Day in Birmingham this month, the cameras panned round to pick out her husband applauding warmly in the audience.

They caught something else, too: the discreet way that, with a minimum of fuss, William moved Kate's chair just enough to let her sit back down with ease.

With most eyes on the stage this was a routine so well-oiled it was completely unobtrusive. But that, perhaps, is the point.

After giving a rare public speech, Kate returned to her table where William was sitting - ready to discreetly pull out her chair so that she could sit down with ease

From holding umbrellas to protect Kate's hair against the rain, to balancing the load by holding her bags (to dislodging a stuck heel from an awkwardly placed drain), William) is becoming the master of quietly gentlemanly conduct.

And now sharp-eyed royal watchers are on the case.

One such episode came during an evening reception in celebration of The Queen's 2022 Platinum Jubilee at Mayan ruins in Cahal Pech, Belize.

As they left the event, the couple could be seen descending a staircase of cobbled steps, with the Prince, 41, reaching up to help Kate, 42 in her silver Jimmy Choo heels as they walked side-by-side.

Almost a decade earlier in March 2013, Kate managed to get her four-inch stiletto wedged in a drain during the St Patrick's Day Parade in Aldershot.

Fortunately, Prince William was on hand to aid his pregnant wife as the royal grabbed the arm of her husband and with a subtle twist pulled herself free.

William showed off his considerate side yet again when he stepped in to offer an umbrella to his wife after she got caught in the rain as the couple were emerging from Westminster Abbey after the Commonwealth Day service in March 2022.

After getting a nod from William, an aide darted over to the mother-of-three to offer her an umbrella while she was speaking to a group of schoolchildren but she politely declined.

Moments later she was joined by her husband, who, not realising the exchange that had just taken place, asked the same aide if he could borrow the umbrella.

The dutiful Prince strode over to Kate and held it over her head so that her hairdo wouldn't frizz in the rain as she continued chatting to the children.

William and Kate displayed not just affection, but teamwork on their Belize tour in March 2022

Prince William was on hand to help his pregnant wife when Kate managed to get her four-inch stiletto wedged in a drain during a St Patrick's Day Parade at Mons Barracks in March 2013

Dutiful husband William was seen holding out an umbrella for his wife Kate as they emerged from Westminster Abbey after the Commonwealth Day service in March 2022

William offered a helping hand and carried some of Kate's flowers during the official welcome ceremony at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in September 2016

A protective Prince William and Kate waved and smiled broadly as they carried their son, Prince George, out of hospital in July 2013

Another of William's duties when out and about together is helping Kate when she has too many bouquets of flowers to handle.

Royal expert Kate Mansey told MailOnline Royals that 'Kate and William have worked hard to create an image of themselves together as a united front.

'So, when they're on jobs together, they'd like to be pictured together - as a team.'

The Prince warmed the hearts of the nation as he held his wife's back as the proud parents introduced Prince George to the world for the first time.

William and Kate waved and smiled broadly to the waiting cameras as they held their prince on the steps of the private Lindo Wing at St Mary's Hospital in London, 26 hours after he was delivered.

One example of this teamwork came when William and Catherine took part in some abseiling and rock climbing on a visit to an activity centre in North Wales in 2015.

William was the first to have a go, with his wife holding his rope. Are you holding me? he shouted up. I've got you, she laughed.

Prince William helps his wife, Catherine, after she abseiled down a wall during a visit to Capel Curig, Snowdonia, in November 2015

William was spotted carrying the then Duchess of Cambridge's bag after the pair touched down at Teesside Airport in April 2021

Kate added: I'm quite enjoying this actually. For once I'm in control.

When it was Kate's turn, William kindly helped untie his wife from the cable once she had made it down the wall.

William was also spotted being a true prince charming just two days ahead of their tenth wedding anniversary in April 2021 as he carried the then Duchess of Cambridge's bag.

Having touched down at Teesside Airport, William eased his wife's load as the pair walked towards a waiting vehicle.
Well-designed buildings that blend into the landscape can pass people by, but bad design executions stick out like a sore thumb.

People from around the world have taken to Reddit to share the shocking design fails they've spotted.

One person posted a picture of steps which were so uneven they were dubbed 'ankle breaker' stairs.

Meanwhile, a row of houses in Monchengladbach, Germany, looked out of place because each one had a different shape, design and colour.

People from around the world have taken to Reddit to share the shocking design fails they spotted. They including steps which were so uneven they were dubbed 'ankle breaker' stairs

Elsewhere an awkward renovation of a 500-year-old castle in Glasgow was executed so badly that it's hard to look at.

And one public toilet was raised over a metre above the ground making it a nightmare for people to use.

Ironically, the College of Architecture and Planning at the Ball State University, in Indiana, ran out of space for the sign due to, ironically, bad planning and design.

Here FEMAIL takes a look at some of the most hilarious design fails from around the world...

In 2019 in Montpellier, southern France, a building called L'arbre blanc was designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and French Nicolas Laisne and Manal Rachdi with balconies jutting out at odd angles - and it might give you a headache to look at it for too long!

Taking turns! These windows are 'fighting for the honour of being open' because you can only use one at a time

Mix and match! An apartment building in the US sported five different and clashing surfaces on the exterior

The awkward renovation of the Caldwell Tower in Glasgow was executed so badly that it's hard to look at

A public toilet was raised more than a metre above the ground making it a nightmare for people to use

The College of Architecture and Planning at the Ball State University, in Indiana, ran out of space for the sign due to, ironically, bad planning and design

A row of houses in Monchengladbach, Germany , looked rather wonky because each one had a different shape, design and colour

Death trap! Someone could step out of the shower and fall down the stairs if the door was left open

These stairs seen in Poland start with a very high step making it difficult to even get up

Caught short! The design of this toilet makes it hard for people with legs to actually sit down on the loo
Gripping my office desk, I read the messages landing in my inbox. 'I'm 14, and my boyfriend wants anal in a car park while people watch.'

'I'm scared to get strangled but everyone else is doing it.'

'Sex always hurts and my boyfriend doesn't care.'

During almost every shift as an online sex and relationships adviser for young people, a teenage girl would write in, confused and upset after she'd been pressured, coerced or forced into having sex.

In particular, to have rougher and more violent sex  like the sex they said the boys were watching in online porn.

As an online sex and relationships adviser for young people, Holly Bourne frequently received messages from teenage girls who were confused and upset after they'd been pressured, coerced or forced into having sex (stock image)

I had known from my training that sexual violence would come up, but I never expected the onslaught. On a bad shift, at least half the messages would involve sexual violence.

What was especially upsetting was these girls rarely realised they had just described a rape to me  they just saw non-consensual, degrading and painful sex as a 'normal' part of their lives.

That's what broke me in the end  the girls not realising. That they were feeling ashamed, confused and upset not due to a muddled sexual encounter, but because a horrific crime had been committed against them.

It was worryingly evident what early exposure to hardcore porn was doing to this generation.

I had been warned that this kind of work takes its toll, that most people can only endure two years at the most. But I was excited for this next step in my career.

I'd worked as a journalist and editor at a youth charity website for three years and they'd asked me to step into this new role. I had a no-doubt idealised concept of what it would involve and how fulfilling it would be.

Two years later, however, I did indeed hand in my notice  a shell of the person I was before, one who needed counselling myself.

I was permanently angry, emotional and distrustful of men.

Six years on, I'm sad to say that things have got far worse for young people.

On a particularly bad shift, at least half of the messages Holly (pictured) received would be about sexual violence

Despite an onslaught of horrifying statistics about young people and pornography  one in ten children has viewed it by the age of nine; the average age of first exposure is 12; one in five under 18s admit to having a 'porn habit'  we appear unable to find solutions.

Although well-meaning, those on both the Left and Right shut down conversations about the harm porn causes our teenagers, leaving them to navigate this new sexual landscape alone.

From a conservative perspective, there's an understandable worry about what type of sex and porn education is appropriate for our children, alongside a reluctance to admit how bad the problem really is.

And, on the more liberal side, there's an often too adult view of sexuality, where fears of 'kink-shaming' or appearing 'sex-negative' outweigh the urgent safeguarding required for our teens' sexual wellbeing.

In the meantime, children keep watching porn at increasingly younger ages, with little to no framework to contextualise the brutal image being painted.

I believe the widespread consumption of hardcore pornography is now a public health emergency.

Many teenagers are aware of what it's doing to them, and are desperate for help navigating the pressures they're under, but adults can't seem to figure out what the hell to do about it.

As someone who has seen the result first-hand, it frustrates and terrifies me.

Statistics have shown that one in ten children has viewed porn by the age of nine, that the average age of first exposure is 12 and that one in five under 18s admit to having a 'porn habit' (stock image)

When I started my new role, I considered it a privilege to be privy to young people's sex and relationship anxieties. The fact the service was anonymous meant users felt safe to open up about their most intimate secrets.

My first ever question was from somebody feeling lonely at university who didn't know how to make friends. Next came a boy who was scared to disclose his depression to a new girlfriend in case it put her off.

Common themes developed: loneliness, virginity, penis and vagina worries, uncertainty about sexuality.

Young men said they were aroused by porn not real women

Within a week, I got my first rape-related enquiry. 'My friend walked me home from a house party then followed me into my bedroom and kept pushing me to have sex with him.

'It was really rough and painful. Afterwards he acted like everything was normal. I'm so confused.'

I inhaled sharply and found myself shaking. We had a 'buddy system' where a colleague was always free during a shift in case you needed support and, for the first time, I called them over.

'This will come up a lot,' they said. 'You may want to write a template answer.'

Later on, another awful message arrived. 'I don't know if I'm overreacting but I woke up the other morning to find my boyfriend having sex with me.

'He thought it would be a nice 'surprise' to wake up to, but I don't know . . . It's made me feel really strange.'

Holly frequently responded to messages where the victim didn't realise she had been raped. They were feeling ashamed, confused and upset not due to a muddled sexual encounter, but because a horrific crime had been committed against them (stock image)

I had to push my rage to one side and reply calmly and carefully. How do you explain to someone that they've technically been raped?

I re-worded it a dozen times before sending  telling her whatever she was feeling was valid, that there was no 'wrong' way to respond to this. I encouraged her to seek specialist support to talk through her next steps.

After I hit send, I told my boss I needed to go for a walk. Once outside, I started crying, letting out a shriek that scared away a flock of pigeons.

This was the third rape I'd responded to in my two-hour shift. Even worse, in each case the victim didn't realise she'd been raped. I sat on a bench and pushed back the tears.

I had compulsory clinical supervisions with a psychologist every month to ensure I was safe and sane enough to do my job properly. Every session centred around the sexual violence I was witnessing.

'I knew I would find myself supporting some victims,' I told her, 'but I never could've imagined the scale of it.'

Quite often I'd have to counsel rapists themselves. Boys would write in, describing how they'd pressured their girlfriends into doing a certain sex act 'until they gave in', or had sex with them against their will, who were now seeking atonement.

Sometimes they'd describe raping their girlfriend and then complain that she was 'being weird' with them, asking for help on how they could 'get her over it'. I'd reply professionally and then go to scream in a toilet cubicle.

'This job is starting to change how I feel about men,' I told my supervisor a year into the job. 'It's hard not to be angry at all of them, to feel they're all like this.'

Up to nine out of ten porn films show acts of physical and verbal violence, and women are the targets of this violence 97 per cent of the time (stock image)

She reassured me it was a common issue for people who work with assault victims.

'If you worked for a charity that helped victims of dog bites, you'd soon start to feel like all dogs bite,' she said. 'But that doesn't mean all dogs do.'

She suggested I find tangible ways to channel my feelings of anger and helplessness, such as creative writing, and to remind myself of the good I was doing.

I was a teenager in the Noughties, and life wasn't exactly fun back then. Drunk girls were routinely taken advantage of at house parties, and I couldn't go clubbing without getting my bottom pinched.

But the sex expected of teenage girls now is far more hardcore  and the widespread access to free, violent pornography is the obvious driving force behind that. It has changed how young people learn about sex.

In fact, they grow up thinking porn sex is what sex is.

Girls wrote to me about being pressured into anal sex. Strangulation started to crop up a lot, as well as being badgered to have sex in front of others, to be spat on, have someone 'finish' on their faces, or to be filmed.

I began researching porn and it made me even more worried. Up to nine out of ten porn films show acts of physical and verbal violence, and women are the targets of this violence 97 per cent of the time.

The sex expected of teenage girls now is far more hardcore than in previous decades  and the widespread access to free, violent pornography is the obvious driving force behind that (stock image)

Additionally, the women in porn almost always respond to this violence with pleasure or neutrality. What impact was this having on our teen's sexual psyche?

Can it be true what feminist Robin Morgan said, back in 1974, that 'porn is the theory and rape is the practice'?

Worryingly, research indicates that, at the very least, pornography contributes to a wider rape culture, and, at the worst, trains its viewers to have little regard for consent in their lives.

The charity I worked for launched a Porn Vs Reality campaign, and created an app that taught young people about sexual consent. We also did some in-depth research into young men to try to understand their side.

Male users would often write to me about how they were becoming addicted to porn, unable to get aroused by 'real' women.

Our focus groups revealed a lack of positive role models for young men, as well as pressure to get 'man points' for ticking off certain sexual acts with girls  almost like sex was a video game.

I started writing fiction to help me work through my anger and despair and was shocked and delighted when I got a publishing deal.

When the books, feminist novels for teenagers, became bestsellers, it gave me something positive to hang onto.

Holly started writing fiction to help her work through her anger and despair and was shocked when she got a publishing deal and her books, feminist novels for teenagers, became bestsellers

But as the months passed, the shifts got progressively more awful. My mental health worsened.

After 18 months, I was in an almost-constant state of rage. I'd walk around with my fists clenched.

I'd need to take long walks after each shift. I couldn't stop talking about the violence I was witnessing. I wanted people to take notice and change things.

Once I was scolded by a friend while we were out for dinner: 'Do you think you could make it through the meal without bringing up rape?'

Teens need to know sex can be about consent and tenderness

I was in a long-term relationship at the time, which deteriorated as he struggled to accept his new, permanently furious, girlfriend. I wasn't the woman he knew. I was irrevocably altered, and we decided to end things.

At a top-up training session, I spent the day with women who work on specialist rape helplines. 'You know what they say,' one joked. 'You have to be a lesbian to do this job, and if you're not, you soon become one.'

We talked about burn-out on the job, how it can ruin relationships, the 'two-year time limit' and the endless new waves of advisors needed to replenish their broken stock.

I was determined to keep going, but when I spent an entire session sobbing after a shift of almost entirely rape-related messages, the charity's psychotherapist gently suggested I'd hit my limit. I felt instant relief, alongside instant guilt.

I handed in my notice, moved near the seaside, and continued seeing a psychologist to recover from my emotional burnout.

Worryingly, research indicates that, at the very least, pornography contributes to a wider rape culture, and, at the worst, trains its viewers to have little regard for consent in their lives (stock image)

I met my husband a year later, a man who shared my rage at this issue. He listened to my stories with interest, rather than a sigh and an eye-roll, and my hope and belief in men was slowly re-established.

I carried on writing novels for teenagers about female empowerment. But, until now, I've never felt ready to write about the impact of porn culture.

As studies paint an increasingly dire picture of our teen's sexual landscape, I felt I had a duty to unlock my vault of distressing memories.

I hope the result, my dystopian novel You Could Be So Pretty, will get my teenage readers to question the nightmare reality they accept as normal.

Holly's new novel, You Could Be So Pretty, in which the protagonist Belle thinks something's wrong with her because she doesn't want to re-enact porn, seeks to normalise young girls resisting what's expected of them

My main character, Belle, thinks something's wrong with her because she doesn't want to re-enact porn. Instead she craves connection and tenderness.

I wanted to normalise young girls resisting what's expected of them. To attack this new sexual script where violence is accepted and welcomed.

I want my readers to know that nothing is compulsory sexually, especially something that hurts or scares them.

I wish governments would treat pornography as the health crisis it is. I want them to approach it as they do obesity, vaping or alcohol use.

Because what is the lasting health impact of a generation of girls being assaulted by the boys who claim to love them? Who learn that pain and degradation are supposed to be pleasurable?

There's widespread agreement that censoring porn is a futile exercise. Any digital native can easily bypass an age-restriction blocker. And though 'ethical' porn exists, this isn't the porn our young people are using.

But we have to resist somehow, and education seems the only available option.

We need to challenge the stories that teens are being taught about sex. We need to find ways to effectively teach them that 'it's OK not to want this' and 'it's illegal to do this'. To let them know that sex can be about consent, patience, tenderness and pleasure.

In the meantime, waves of burned-out support workers are crashing on the rocks every two years.

I think of them regularly, with such enormous gratitude for the vital services they're providing. And I think of all those girls, still sending in their heartbreaking messages...
Modern brides and grooms are more inclined to take risks with their nuptials.

Breaking from tradition, couples want these big moments in their lives to reflect their unique personalities and love story. One major shift in this direction is the rise in alternative wedding attire.

'I think we are in a place where people are wanting to feel like an individual - it's about believing in your own voice and not being afraid to step outside of tradition,' LAPOINTE creative director, Sally LaPointe, tells Daily Mail.

Fortunately brands across all bridal categories are responding to consumer demands. Getting hitched on the beach? No problem! La Chenille Bridal Bikini has an aisle-ready bathing suit for you! Read on for alternative bridal ideas.

'I think we are in a place where people are wanting to feel like an individual - it's about believing in your own voice and not being afraid to step outside of tradition,' said LAPOINTE creative director, Sally LaPointe

White wedding dresses have become a deeply ingrained tradition in many Western cultures, partly due to Queen Victoria's influential choice of a white wedding dress in the 19th century

White wedding dresses have become a deeply ingrained tradition in many Western cultures, partly due to Queen Victoria's influential choice of a white wedding dress in the 19th century.

The desire to adhere to established customs has played a significant role in the choice of a white wedding dress for many brides, not to mention, the color's symbolic meanings.

White symbolizes purity, innocence and new beginnings.

But in contemporary times, brides often choose a white wedding dress because it's elegant and timeless.

But not all brides!

Modern weddings are increasingly open to diverse colors and styles, with may brides ditching dresses all together, in favor of attire that resonates with who they are.

'Bridal is fun for me to design because I live and breathe on the idea of breaking the rules, and bridal is a place that I can really go there,' shared Sally.

'I was inspired by the idea of the new bride, I was thinking about all walks of life, I am not a cookie-cutter woman and I don't think I am alone in this feeling - so I wanted to provide pieces for everyone that are easy to wear and that you can make your own, ' said Sally LaPointe

The city chic bride

When designing her bridal collection, Sally tells Daily Mail, 'I was inspired by the idea of the new bride, I was thinking about all walks of life, I am not a cookie-cutter woman and I don't think I am alone in this feeling - so I wanted to provide pieces for everyone that are easy to wear and that you can make your own.'

The collection features feather jackets, cropped tops, sheath dresses and cargo pants alongside gowns for the bride who values quality but is not afraid to experiment.

The color palette includes white, cream. silver and baby blue

'Bridal is fun for me to design because I live and breathe on the idea of breaking the rules, and bridal is a place that I can really go there,' shared Sally.

The New York-based designers offerings are for the person seeking alternatives to what is expected.

Incorporated in the collection are details she's known for like ostrich feathers, along with hand embroidered spoon and delicate sequin.

The color palette includes white, cream, silver and baby blue - for a fun twist on the "something blue" tradition.

he collection features feather jackets, cropped tops, and cargo pants alongside gowns for the bride who values quality but is not afraid to experiment

'When a woman comes up to me and gushes about how much she loved wearing my bridal look on her day really is the best feeling,' said Sally.

The unique desire for something different brings many benefits.

Opting for a cutout dress instead of a princess gown or a pair of pants in place of an A-line skirt, you have the ability to wear the garment again.

Planning a destination beach wedding or an intimate elopement? La Chenille Bridal Bikini offers a selection of high-end bridal bathing suits

The beach bound bride

Planning a destination beach wedding or an intimate elopement? No gown necessary!

La Chenille Bridal Bikini offers a selection of high-end bikinis, swimsuits, trains, capes, and cover-ups with just the right amount of opulence for a bride saying 'I do' sea side.

'All love stories are special and to honor the unique nature of love, each handmade fabric rose is one-of-a-kind,' said Demi Raquel Thomas, founder and designer of La Chenille Bridal Bikini.

La Chenille offers a selection of high-end bridal bikinis, swimsuits, trains, capes, and cover-ups for bride saying 'I do' sea side

The Blooming Romance collection is designed with a soft satin fabric to keep the bride feeling cool and comfortable on her special day.

Crystal tulle, organza shimmer, and a dash of pearl-beaded charm, provide the amount of sparkle worthy of the occasion.

Crystal tulle, organza shimmer, and a dash of pearl-beaded charm, make the bride feel special

'I love how nowadays there are minimal rules when it comes to bridal styling,' said Ohad Seroya, founder and executive director of Retrofete

The multi-event bride

'I love how nowadays there are minimal rules when it comes to bridal styling,' said Ohad Seroya, founder and executive director of Retrofete.

Over the course of a wedding weekend, there's typically a welcome party, rehearsal dinner, and send-off brunch.

'With each event comes a different lookevery ensemble drawing a new aspect of their most authentic self,' he told Daily Mail.

'With each event comes a different lookevery ensemble drawing a new aspect of their most authentic self,' he told Daily Mail

According to Ohad, today's modern bride embodies a 'more-is-more' attitude while searching for new modes of self expression

Wedding guests are supposed to dress up but never upstage the bride - it's not polite etiquette.

'The RF bride is the center of attentiondaring and innovative, pushing the bounds of tradition. My favorite aspect of alternative bridal is how personal and playful they can be with their style,' said the designer whose read-to-wear party dresses have been worn by the likes Beyonce, Selena Gomez, Winnie Harlow and more.

According to Ohad, today's modern bride embodies a 'more-is-more' attitude while searching for new modes of self expression.

'Melding tradition with glamour, brides are more inclined to take style riskssearching for one-of-a-kind looks to make them feel special on their big day (or days!)'

'Melding tradition with glamour, brides are more inclined to take style riskssearching for one-of-a-kind looks to make them feel special on their big day (or days!).

'Trends were loving lately include lace-embellished mini dresses, sequin adorned matching sets, and floor-length silhouettes with feather detailing.'

For spring 2024, PatBO designer Patricia Bonaldi has delivered red carpet-worthy wedding gowns crafted by her team of Brazilian artisans

Cream and white dresses featuring intricate beading, embroidered crystals, feather details and so much more came down the catwalk

The red carpet moment bride

For the bride who really wants to feel (and look!) like a celeb, a red carpet-style dress will do the trick.

Brazilian fashion brand PatBO is known for vibrant ready-to-wear and swim collections inspired by South America.

In recent years, founder Patricia Bonaldi has showed off her couture talents with stunning eveningwear that caught the attention of many Hollywood A-listers.

For spring 2024, she's upped the ante even further with red carpet-worthy wedding gowns crafted by her team of Brazilian artisans.

Cream and white dresses featuring intricate beading, embroidered crystals, feather details and so much more came down the catwalk during New York Fashion Week.

'It is important for me to dress the PatBO customer for all of her life moments,' said Bonaldi whose first-ever bridal collection was born out of the seemingly endless requests to make the brands signature styles in white.
A woman has revealed her shock after discovering her new apartment in New York City was filthy and filled with garbage right before she was supposed to move in.

Shanna Yeh, 23, went viral on TikTok after detailing how her moving day turned into a nightmare, saying she had to pay $250 to reschedule her movers and was almost temporarily homeless.

The content creator filmed the video in her old bedroom on October 1, the day she was supposed to move into her new apartment.

'This has to be a prank,' she wrote in the on-screen text. 'New York is not for the weak.'

Shanna Yeh, 23, went viral on TikTok after detailing how her moving day turned into a nightmare, saying her apartment was filled with garbage when she arrived

The content creator said she stopped by the apartment a few hours before her movers were supposed to arrive and found piles of trash bags and furniture blocking the doorway

Yeh explained that the management company told her the key would be left inside the unlocked unit on the day she was to move in.

A few hours before the movers were supposed to arrive, she walked over to her new apartment to check it out.

'I'm so excited to see the apartment empty, see it all clean, and this is what I f*****g find,' she said, sharing a picture of the pile of trash bags that were blocking her front door.

'These are all trash bags full of who knows what and furniture in the way,' she explained. 'I had to jump over these trash bags to get to the door.

'I was like, "How the hell are my movers supposed to carry my bedframe, my mattress, [and] my desk up these stairs and into the apartment with all this stuff in the way?"'

Yeh said she was still holding out hope that the apartment itself was 'empty and spotless.' She figured she could drag the bags into the unit, so they would be out of the movers' way, and then have the management company pick them up.

But when she went to open the door, she discovered it was locked. She said she called management numerous times to no avail.

Cleaners arrived while she was waiting, and she explained the door was locked.

Yeh was still optimistic that the unit was ready for her arrival, but she was stunned to find that the inside was just as filthy as the outside

Yeh she had to pay $250 to reschedule her movers and was almost temporarily homeless

The video has been viewed more than 513,000 times and has received nearly 150 comments since it was posted

'The guy goes, "I'll open it." I'm like, "Oh slay, he has the key that I've been looking for,"' she recalled. 'No, he literally uses a screwdriver and a credit card and jams the door open. Love that.'

Yeh was still optimistic that the unit was ready for her arrival, but she was stunned to find that the inside was just as filthy as the outside.

'It is so, so dirty and filled with more furniture,' she said. 'The fridge was full of food, the kitchen cabinets were jam-packed with stuff, and the cleaners were like, "Umm..."'

An hour before her movers were scheduled to arrive, she realized there was no way she would be able to move into her new apartment that day.

'So guess who had to pay $250 to reschedule the movers,' she said. 'Thank f*****g God I can stay in my current apartment for one more night.'

Yeh never explained how or when she moved into her new apartment, but she documented the move in a follow-up video that was posted a few days later

The movers were able to get all of her belongings into the unit, which had finally been cleaned out

Yeh was smiling when she struck a pose in her new bedroom at the end of the clip

Yeh hoped the apartment would be clean and empty by the time she was ready to move in the next morning.

'It has been one hell of a morning, one hell of a first of the month  I don't know what this means for my next year here,' she concluded.

Yeh's video has been viewed more than 513,000 times and has received nearly 150 comments since it was posted.

'The new place should pay the $250 fee and all other costs incurred. And rent should be withheld for each day you are not moved into a clean apartment,' one person responded.

'It sounds like the apartment youre moving into just had someone evicted,' someone else deduced.

'This is so New York,' another added.

Yeh never explained how or when she moved into her new apartment, but she documented the move in a follow-up video that was posted a few days later.
Queen Maxima of the Netherlands brightened the room as she sported a bold purple dress on day two of the Dutch Royal Family state visit to South Africa.

The royal, 52, was effortlessly vibrant in a bright violet gown which featured an ornate statement sleeve during a Welcome Ceremony at Union Buildings in Pretoria.

Also on today's agenda is a delegation meeting with the country's politicians, as well as a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries' education ministers.

This will be followed by a private lunch at the presidential residence and a visit to Freedom Park, which is dedicated to all South Africans who fought to end apartheid.

Queen Maxima and her husband will walk along the Wall of Names which honours people who died in the struggle for freedom and includes three Dutch nationals.

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands brightened the room as she sported a bold purple dress on day two of the Dutch Royal Family state visit to South Africa. Pictured with her husband King Willem-Alexander (centre) and South African president Cyril Ramaphosa

They will lay a wreath down at the eternal flame.

The royals will go on to visit an exhibition about he fight against apartheid and enjoy a cultural performance before flying to Cape Town in the evening.

Maxima's lively ensemble for today's events featured a two-tone checkered pattern and straight silhouette.

The mother-of-three teamed her look with a matching cloche as she grinned next to the nation's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, during the outing.

To accessorise, Maxima donned aubergine stilettos and dusky pink earrings while carrying a dark clutch.

Elsewhere her husband King Willem-Alexander opted for a simple navy suit, worn with a pastel blue tie.

The ceremony featured a stunning walk through the city's historic buildings, which allowed them to take in beautiful views of South Africa.

The royal couple are enjoying a three-day state visit to South Africa, which kicked off yesterday.

Yesterday the King and Queen arrived in Pretoria, looking happier than ever as they posed for photographs on a road blooming with blossom trees.

The royal, 52, was effortlessly vibrant in a bright violet gown which featured an ornate statement sleeve during a Welcome Ceremony at Union Buildings in Pretoria

Queen Maxima's lively ensemble featured a two-tone checkered pattern and straight silhouette. Pictured right, politican Kgosientso Ramokgopa

To accessorise, Maxima donned aubergine stilettos and dusky pink earrings while carrying a dark clutch

The ceremony featured a stunning walk through the city's historic buildings, which allowed them to take in beautiful views of South Africa

Elsewhere her husband King Willem-Alexander opted for a simple navy suit, worn with a pastel blue tie

The royal couple are enjoying a three-day state visit to South Africa, which kicked off yesterday

Also on today's agenda is a delegation meeting with the country's politicians, as well as a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries' education ministers

This will be followed by a private lunch at the presidential residence and a visit to Freedom Park, which is dedicated to all South Africans who fought to end apartheid

Yesterday the King and Queen arrived in Pretoria, looking happier than ever as they posed for photographs

President Cyril Ramaphosa will host Their Majesties on the state visit, which is the second of a Dutch monarch since Queen Beatrix visited South Africa at the invitation of President Nelson Mandela in 1996

The state visit is focusing on the excellent ties and equal partnership between the Netherlands and South Africa

Queen Maxima appeared to be in high spirits as she enjoyed a laugh with the South African president

South Africa is one of the Netherlands most important African partners in the areas of economics, politics, culture, education and science - and the two cooperate actively on solutions for a more just, inclusive and sustainable future

Maxima stunned in a colourblock dress by Zeus + Dione, which she previously wore during a three-day state visit to Greece in 2022.

The mother-of-three could be seen giggling as the couple were positioned in front of a magnificent backdrop of jacaranda trees.

Pretoria is widely known as Jacaranda City due to its vast number of trees, which turn the landscape blue and purple when they flower in Spring.

The blossom trees, hailing from Brazil, also bloom every October.

President Cyril Ramaphosa will host Their Majesties on the state visit, which is the second of a Dutch monarch since Queen Beatrix visited South Africa at the invitation of President Nelson Mandela in 1996.

The state visit is focusing on the excellent ties and equal partnership between the Netherlands and South Africa.

South Africa is one of the Netherlands most important African partners in the areas of economics, politics, culture, education and science - and the two cooperate actively on solutions for a more just, inclusive and sustainable future.
Currently, the star is contracted to stay on the show through summer 2024

Whoopi has long taken Fridays off from her co-hosting duties on The View

The 67-year-old talk show host recently joked: 'I've done nothing but retire'

Whoopi Goldberg has addressed rumors that she will soon retire from her longtime gig as a co-host on daytime talk show The View.

The Ghost icon, 67, spoke to The Sun as the guest of honor at FGI's annual Night of Stars gala earlier this week.

'I've done nothing but retire. I've been retired my whole career,' Whoopi joked of her career trajectory.

'So, I kind of like that,' she added.

Whoopi Goldberg has addressed rumors that she will soon retire from her longtime gig as a co-host on daytime talk show The View

Her contract permits her to take off on Fridays - allowing her co-hosts Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Ana Navarro, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Sara Haines (all pictured) to take the reins once weekly

The famed entertainer also alluded to the fact that her contract has long allowed her to take Fridays off, with her co-hosts - Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Ana Navarro, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Sara Haines - taking the reins in her weekly absence.

'I have a contract. As long as I'm doing the contract, nobody's mad,' she said.

'But I've been off on Fridays for years now because when we did that normally, I'd go to work and do shows or do whatever because I could travel on a Friday.'

In 2021, it was reported that Whoopi is contracted to stay on with The View until the summer of 2024.

She is said to be paid $8 million annually for the four day per week co-hosting gig.

Prior to accepting the FGI's American Icon Award at Tuesday's gala, Whoopi had been on a trip to Rome, where she came face to face with the Pope.

In her acceptance speech, she gushed of the encounter.

'Listen, I was with the Pope the other day, and I said to Francis, "I'm going to get this award." And he said, "Bless you."

Whoopi debuted on The View as a co-host and moderator in 2007, replacing Rosie O'Donnell on the panel

'So I am going to get this award that he gave me, and I'm sending it out to all of you so that you can send it out to other people,' she continued.

'And you too can say, "I was with Francis the other day."'

The papal anecdote seemingly dovetailed with the fact that Whoopi is hard at work on Sister Act 3 - the third installment of the original 1992 hit comedy.

'Sister Act is coming and I want to get that up and out It'll be interesting,' Whoopi added to The Sun.

Whoopi debuted on The View as a co-host and moderator in 2007, replacing Rosie O'Donnell on the panel.
The Spanish royals looked regal as they arrived in Ovieda for a concert

Queen Letizia was pretty in pink as she attended a concert with her family this evening.

The Spanish Queen, 51, dazzled in a baby pink satin top with statement sleeves and a black belt, paired with black trousers and heels to attend the Princesa de Asturias Awards concert in Oviedo, Spain, while her lookalike daughters each looked sleek in black.

Leonor, 17, chose a long sleeved satin wrap dress with a white floral print, clinched at the waist. Meanwhile her little sister Infanta Sofia, 16, opted for a black, wide-leg jumpsuit with cut-out detailing.

King Felipe, 55, was smart as usual in a perfectly tailored navy suit - although he appeared to be nursing a wrist injury as he wore a support on his left hand.

The family were picture perfect upon arrival at the concert, which is held to celebrate individuals and groups in Spanish society who have made efforts to promote universal education, public health, and environmental defence.

Pretty in pink! Queen Letizia of Spain stunned in an oversized pink shirt, belted at the waist and with statement shoulders, as she attended an event in Oviedo, Spain, this evening

The family outing comes as Princess Leonor, who currently holds the title of Princesa de Asturias and is the heir to the Spanish throne, is undergoing three years of training at the General Military Academy in Zaragoza.

Although the Princess appears to be growing up fast, and indeed her life does not mirror that of the average teenager in Spain, royal fans were delighted with some candid, light hearted photos of the royal earlier this week.

During a royal gala in Madrid, Leonor took selfies with guests at a reception at the palace following her debut at the National Day parade.

Queen Letizia appeared at the event with her husband King Felipe and daughters, Princess Leonor, 17, and Infanta Sofia, 16

The Queen wore her brunette locks in waves and may have opted for extensions as she arrived at the concert

The look of love! Letizia, 51, beamed as she gazed up at King Felipe, 55, and chatted to him

The royal couple waved at well-wishers as they attended the Princesa de Asturias Awards Concert

The Spanish royal family looked picture-perfect as they arrived at the event

Queen Letizia oozed elegance as she stepped out of the car, opting for a showstopping evening look

Princess Leonor, pictured with her sister Infanta Sofia, looked regal as she stepped out

While King Felipe was dapper as usual in a sharply-tailored navy suit, he appeared to be nursing a wrist injury

The Princess showed in some ways she is very much a typical teenager as she snapped selfies with pals at royal gala in Madrid. She also snapped a picture with the winners of the Princess of Girona Foundation, as well as Madrid-based model Pamela Montoya Pellicer (pictured)

She then headed to a reception at the palace, where she snapped pictures with her mother Queen Letizia as well as many guests.

The Princess of Asturias chatted about how her training at the General Military Academy of Zaragoza, according to Hola!.

She also snapped a picture with the winners of the Princess of Girona Foundation, as well as Madrid-based model Pamela Montoya Pellicer.

Leonor also grabbed photos with Begona Arana, director of non-profit organisation Betania, as well as Tomas Alia , a member of the Michelangelo Foundation in Spain and 34-year-old businessman Osuman Umar.

The future queen of Spain, who reaches the milestone on October 31, has been making solo appearances and training at the General Military Academy in Zaragoza to ensure she's ready for her future in the monarchy.

Both the royal and her sister Infanta Sophia, 16, have been taking a bigger role in the spotlight as they come of age - with Leonor giving yearly speeches at the Princess of Asturias awards and often taking centre stage at family outings.

There will be some fanfare however, the Royal Mint of Spain will create a limited edition 40-euro coin to mark her birthday. Up to one million of the coins will be put into circulation by the Bank of Spain during the last three months of this year.

The coin will weigh 18 grams and be made of a mixture of silver and copper with the effigy 'Her Royal Highness the Princess of Asturias' engraved on it.

The 17-year-old is currently undergoing military training at the General Military Academy in Zaragoza.

Leonor also grabbed photos with Begona Arana, director of non-profit organisation Betania, as well as Tomas Alia , a member of the Michelangelo Foundation in Spain and 34-year-old businessman Osuman Umar (pictured)

Leonor is pictured with Begona Arana, director of Betania

The school dubbed Spain's equivalent to Sandhurst and follows a strict timetable, but the princess is able to return home at the weekends if she is not on manoeuvres.

Before starting at the academy, she took place in her first engagement without her parents as she headed to Gironda with sister Sofia.

She has also cut a professional figure at the Princess of Asturias Awards.

The UNESCO-approved awards reward scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work. She has delivered a speech at each one since the age of 13.

After the Princess's year in Zaragoza, before moving to a naval school and will then spend her third and final year of training at the General Air Academy.

Pamela Montoya Pellicer also posed with King Felipe

Guests were sure to get selfies with the Princess and Queen

The heir to the Spanish throne will become commander-in-chief of the armed forces once she is monarch.

Snaps shared by the Royal Household last month suggested that this is a role Leonor will be comfortable in- despite saying she was feeling 'a little nervous' when she was dropped off at military school.

One of the snaps, taken during a training exercise, shows the princess smiling with her fellow cadets, while dressed in fatigues and holding what appears to be an automatic rifle.

Another of the photos shows her posing with fellow students, dressed in camo and protective gear.
Actress Nicola Coughlan is spreading an important message to Aussies after her trip Down Under.

The Bridgerton star is backing a worthwhile cause helping struggling Australian women access much-needed period products.

She has teamed up with Uber Eats to provide girls, women and people who menstruate with free period products as the rising cost of living has seen an increase in period poverty.

For every packet of pads, tampons or liners ordered with the app, one period product will be donated to the Share the Dignity organisation which will then make the items available to women who need them most.

The company will be donating period products for every one bought on the app from now until the end of the year.

Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan (pictured) is the face of an Uber Eats campaign to provide Aussie woman and people who menstruate with vital period products

For every packet of pads, tampons or liners ordered with Uber Eats, one period product will be donated to the Share the Dignity organisation to give them to women who need them most

Nicola recently travelled to Australia to remind Aussies that period relievers are available on the Uber Eats app and to get the word out about the important campaign.

'(I wanted) to raise awareness about the very real barriers to accessing these important items for women, girls and people who menstruate right across Australia,' Nicola said.

'I really hope that the campaign will have a positive impact long after my commercials have stopped airing.'

One in five Australians who menstruate have had to improvise on period products as they didn't have enough money to purchase pads or tampons.

Almost half have worn a pad or tampon for longer than the recommended four hours because they didn't have access to another.

Women's services network WESNET will be one of the recipients of the donated goods and has had a long standing relationship with Uber who offer rides to women under the organisation escaping violence.

Nicola recently travelled to Australia to remind Aussies that period relievers are available on the Uber Eats app and to get the word out about the important campaign

WESNET CEO Karen Bentley said every little donation will help women seeking help in their network.

'The cost of living in Australia is a pressing issue, especially for women who are experiencing family violence which often involves financial abuse,' she said.

'Starting a new life in safety is very costly and the services that support women are also severely underfunded. This initiative will offer survivors access to manage one of their basic needs, period products.'

Share the Dignity is an organisation working tirelessly to end period poverty in Australia and hopes the campaign will get pads, tampons and liners into the hands of those who need them.

Founder Rochekke Courtenay said: 'This collaboration with Uber Eats and world-renowned actress, Nicola Coughlan, is truly a game-changer in many facets as we work to normalise periods and end the shame and stigma.'

'It's an exciting time for menstruators everywhere, as getting period products dropped straight to your door and helping someone in need at the same time becomes a reality.'
An American in Australia has warned other travellers about the serious threat of UV radiation and skin cancer Down Under.

Mary, from the US, is travelling around Australia and New Zealand and shared that she didn't trust foreign sun protection brands.

Melanoma Institute revealed that Australia has the highest melanoma rates in the world, with one person diagnosed every 30 minutes and one person dying from the disease every six hours.

'This is just your daily reminder that if you're travelling to Australia or New Zealand to throw out your sunscreen and buy one here,' Mary said.

'Australia has some of the highest UV radiation and skin cancer rates in the world, and the requirements for sunscreen here are very strict.'

@maaryfairyy I know people are going to cherry pick this but my advice would be to do your own research on SPFs that protect you from the Aus/NZ sun if visiting here  and make sure youre going for skin checkups! Xx #spf #sunsafe  original sound - Maaryfairyy

Cancer Council Australia recommends using sun protection every day when the UV level is 3 and above.

Melanoma is the most common cancer affecting 20-to-39 year old Australians, and 50 per cent of advanced melanoma patients don't respond or become resistant to new immunotherapy treatments.

However, a survey of 1,000 Australians by the Skin Health Institute in 2019 revealed many in their 20s and 30s believe they are too young too need a skin check.

Sunscreen use not only reduces the risk of skin cancer and sunburn, it also reduces the ageing effect of the sun.

SPF - sun protection factor - is a measure of how long it takes for UVB rays to burn the skin with sunscreen applied compared to unprotected skin.

So if skin protected with sunscreen takes 300 seconds to burn but bare skin burns in 10 seconds, the SPF is 30 (300 divided by 10).

The + sign on some SPF products means the rating is higher than the number. It can only be used on products with SPF 50 so SPF 50+ indicates there is an impressive protection factor of 60 or more.

These numbers can look very different in other countries and may not be regulated as strictly.

Hannah English, a pharmaceutical scientist, told Primer Australia's extreme levels of UV radiation and harsh climate have led to rigorous rules so it's worth always buying sun protection Down Under.

If sunscreen made in the US and not available in Australia, she said 'because their UVA protection testing isn't as strict, you could be subject to more UVA radiation.'

Many shared horror stories of getting sunburned in Australia and New Zealand.

'I was in the car with my mum for 15 minutes with darkest legal tint windows and got burnt,' a woman said.

'It's important to be vigilant. You can reapply every hour and still get burnt here sometimes. Most people try their best to be sun smart but it's very hard,' another wrote.

'I personally only buy 50+ SPF or invisible zinc sunscreen,' one said.

'I live in Australia and I get sunburnt walking to my mailbox and I'm not even joking,' a man shared. 'Just don't leave the house.'
New York could become the second state to enforce a 'Skittles ban'  after California passed the measure earlier this month.

The New York State assembly is currently considering a bill that would ban five food additives linked to cancer, chronic disease and mood disorders.

The ingredients  Brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, red dye No. 3 and titanium dioxide  are currently used in Skittles, Pez candies and Sun Drop soda.

If passed, it would give manufacturers five years to alter their recipes or face fines for selling in the state.

There are growing calls for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring in nationwide restrictions after reports found there are at least ten ingredients still widely used in the US which are banned in Europe over health concerns.

Skittles and other candies that use food additives linked to cancer could be banned from New York under legislature being considered by the state

Around 12,000 products sold in California use the harmful ingredients included in the state's new ban, according to the Environmental Working Group

Other lawmakers in the Northeast are understood to be considering similar bans, campaigners at Consumer Reports told DailyMail.com.

Red Dye No.3, used to color foods, and potassium bromate, which helps dough rise, have both been linked to cancers, including of the thyroid and kidney, studies have shown.

Red Dye No.3 has also been linked to hyperactivity in children.

Propylparaben, often used as a preservative in baked goods, is thought to cause fertility issues, while brominated vegetable oil has been linked to nerve damage.

Titanium dioxide, used for coloring foods and which has been removed from the California ban, has also been linked to lung cancer.

Two versions of the bill were introduced in April; one to the Assembly  by Democratic assembly member Dr Anna Kelles  and one to the Senate  by Democratic Senator Brian Kavanagh. Both were referred to their agriculture committees.

The bill must clear five hurdles before it can become law in New York State.

First, it must be supported by a majority of members in the agriculture committees in both houses.

It must then receive a majority vote on the floors of both the assembley and the senate. And then be signed off by Governor Kathy Hochul.

The New York State bill is set to be considered by the committees when the state legislature reconvenes in January next year.

The bill states: 'While the use of food additives to enhance shelf life, taste or texture of various commercial food products is nothing new, the science behind the health effects of increased consumption of such additives is shedding new light on just how dangerous some of them can be.

'This legislation protects New Yorkers from five of the most pervasive and harmful food additives by prohibiting the manufacture or sale of food containing [them].'

California's bill was first read in February this year and passed within just eight months.

New York has a shorter legislative session of six months, but a spokesman for Consumer Reports told DailyMail.com it was possible for the bill to be passed within that shortened timeframe.

They warned, however, it was possible the bill could be revised to remove titanium dioxide  like in California.

California's senate removed this additive from its bill following intense lobbying from industry stakeholders.

A spokesman for Consumer Reports told DailyMail.com: 'Now the California ban has been signed, it effectively represents a national ban because of the size of the California market.

'So New York and other states who may be interested in this issue will consider several options on how to move forward with the issue.

'They could replicate the California effort in order to reinforce it, or they could try to address other toxic chemicals not addressed in the California bill.'

California Governor Gavin Newsom sent a letter confirming he had signed the bill. To this he attached a bag of Skittles from the European Union, saying this was proof that companies could alter their recipes

When California's bill was passed earlier this month supporters heralded it as an 'important stand' against 'toxic' chemicals in American food.

Following the signing, Governor Newsom said: 'This is demonstrable proof that the food industry is capable of maintaining product lines while complying with different public health laws, country-to-country.'

A similar ban was passed in the European Union more than a decade ago to remove the additives from food.

The US lags far behind European countries in terms of food safety, with more than a dozen ingredients still approved in America that have been banned in Europe based on research into the harmful effects the additives could have on consumers.

Studies show Red No.3  a food dye in many candies  was associated with cancer in laboratory animals when they were exposed to very high doses and has been linked to behavioral issues in children.

The US banned it from cosmetic products in the 1990s, but it remains in many food products still sold in the US.

A pair of studies in 2016 found it was in more than one in 10 candies in the US and more than 80 percent of children under two years old had consumed it in the past two weeks.

Another of the substances set to be banned  brominated vegetable oil, which is made from plants and used for citrus flavoring  is suggested to harm the body's nervous system following long-term exposure.

It has also been linked to chronic headaches, memory loss and impaired balance. It was previously in the soda Mountain Dew until its parent company Pepsi removed the ingredient in 2020.

Propylparaben, often used as a preservative in baking goods, has been linked to fertility issues in mice via disrupting estrogen in females and reducing sperm counts in males.

Potassium bromate is found in many baked goods and in processed foods to make the dough rise, but has been linked to the development of thyroid and kidney cancers.

Industry stakeholders hit back at the Californian ban in March, saying the bill jumped the gun because the additives' safety was already being reviewed through a number of existing measures.

They included directors from the National Confectioners Association, California Grocers Association and the American Chemistry Council.
*** Has your child wrongly been told they are fat? Email Emily Stearn on emily.stearn@mailonline.co.uk ***

Almost half of children in parts of England are fat by the time they start secondary school, figures revealed today.

Forty-seven per cent of Year 6 pupils in Knowsley, Merseyside, are classed as either overweight or obese  nearly twice the levels logged in leafy areas such as Surrey and Richmond-upon-Thames.

Nationally, the rate stands at over a third, despite having fallen slightly since Covid began.

Waistlines shrunk among children in reception, with the proportion of youngsters deemed too fat plunging from the record highs seen in the first year of the pandemic.

Leading experts welcomed the falling trend, but warned there remains a 'shocking divide' between the richest and poorest children.

Over a million children had their height and weight measured under the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP). Nationally, the rate among children in Year 6 stands at over a third, despite having fallen slightly since Covid began

Among Year 6 pupils, national obesity fell from 23.4 per cent in 2021/22 to 22.7 per cent. Meanwhile, the proportion of children deemed either overweight or obese also dipped, from 37.8 per cent to 36.6. Both measures are above pre-pandemic levels

Almost a third of all reception-aged children (30.1 per cent) were considered fat in Knowsley, followed by Newcastle upon Tyne (27.5 per cent) and Blackpool (27 per cent)

Over a million children had their height and weight measured under the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP).

Among Year 6 pupils, national obesity fell from 23.4 per cent in 2021/22 to 22.7 per cent.

Meanwhile, the proportion of youngsters deemed either overweight or obese also dipped, from 37.8 per cent to 36.6. Both measures are above pre-pandemic levels.

When broken down by local authorities, data showed 47.2 per cent of Year 6 pupils were either overweight or obese in Knowsley.

This was followed by the London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham and Newham with a rate of 45.7 and 45.5 per cent respectively.

Whereas rates stood at 24.9 per cent in Surrey and 25.1 per cent in Richmond-upon-Thames.

HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR BODY MASS INDEX - AND WHAT IT MEANS Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on your weight in relation to your height. Standard Formula: BMI = (weight in pounds / (height in inches x height in inches)) x 703 Metric Formula: BMI = (weight in kilograms / (height in meters x height in meters)) Measurements: Under 18.5: Underweight

Underweight 18.5 - 24.9: Healthy

Healthy 25 - 29.9: Overweight

Overweight 30 - 39.9: Obese

Obese 40+ : Morbidly obese Advertisement

Among children in reception, 9.2 per cent were considered obese in 2022/23, down on the 10.1 per cent in the previous year, according to NHS England.

When the number who are deemed overweight were also included, the share stood at 21.3 per cent.

This was down by one percentage point on the previous year.

Almost a third of all reception-aged children (30.1 per cent) were considered fat in Knowsley, followed by Newcastle upon Tyne (27.5 per cent) and Blackpool (27 per cent).

For comparison, just 14.4 per cent were overweight or obese in Wokingham.

Katharine Jenner, director of The Obesity Health Alliance, said the small drop in childhood obesity and overweight figures was 'welcome' but labelled the deprivation gap 'shocking'.

She told MailOnline: 'All children have a right to grow up healthy, regardless of their circumstances and where they live.

'It is welcome that fewer children are starting primary school living with obesity compared to before the pandemic, but more children are still leaving primary school above a healthy weight than ever before.'

And Preet Kaur Gill, Labour's spokesman for primary care and public health, said: 'We need decisive action to tackle the childhood obesity crisis. It's a disgrace that almost a quarter of children are obese by the time they leave primary school.

'Excess weight has lasting consequences on children's health and will cost the NHS billions. It's Labour's ambition for children born today to be part of the healthiest generation that ever lived.'

Childhood obesity has been a growing issue for years, with easy access to fast food, more screen time and sedentary lifestyles blamed for spiralling rates in the UK.

The NCMP, responsible for today's data, was established in state-funded schools in England in 2006 and considered a key element of the Government's war on childhood obesity. Among other measures it has taken to tackle the crisis include the soft drinks industry levy, creating clearer food labelling and introducing a plan to improve equal access and the quality of PE and sport in schools.

Tam Fry, chairman of the National Obesity Forum told MailOnline: 'Every report showing a decrease in childhood obesity is encouraging but two or three similar reports are needed before breaking out the champagne to celebrate a sustained decline.

'Ironically it may well be that the cost of living crisis, with food becoming less available for tens of thousands of children, has much to do with the drop.'

Meanwhile David Fothergill, of the Local Government Association, said: 'We are encouraged to see a decline in the prevalence of overweight and obesity amongst children.

'However, this data does show some areas for concern.

'Children living in the most deprived areas are more than twice as likely to be living with obesity than children in the least deprived areas.'

John Maingay, director of policy and public affairs at the British Heart Foundation, also added: 'Todays figures show that childhood obesity rates are still far too high despite some small improvements.

'Every child deserves to grow up in the best possible health, but children living in the poorest areas are twice as likely to be living with obesity.

'Children living with obesity are much more likely to live with obesity as adults, which means a greater risk of developing heart and circulatory diseases.

'The Government needs to move fast and implement its delayed plans to restrict junk food marketing to children, and it needs to incentivise businesses to produce healthier foods.'

The NCMP measures the height and weight of children which are then used to generate a Body Mass Index.

This is compared to a national scale to determine whether that child is underweight, normal, overweight or obese.

But earlier this year, researchers from Queen Mary University of London warned the programme may do more harm than good and potentially encourage eating disorders in kids.

Parents of skinny children have even complained about their kids wrongly being labelled fat.

It comes as the World Health Organization earlier this year also revealed 37million children under the age of five are now overweight globally  four million more than at the turn of the century.

Australia ranked second in the table of 198 countries, with 21.8 per cent of children there classified as overweight.

Britain was 22nd (11.3 per cent), while the US claimed 52nd spot (7.9 per cent).

The WHO warned obesity globally is 'moving in the wrong direction' and shows 'no immediate sign of reversion'.

Obesity doesn't just expand waistlines but health care costs, with the NHS spending an estimated 6.1billion annually on treating weight-related disease like diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.

It is also believed to be responsible for more than 30,000 deaths each year in the UK, according to the British Heart Foundation.
The lawsuit claims the insurance policy is discriminatory against obese people

A woman is suing her health insurance company for refusing to cover the weight-loss drug Wegovy that was prescribed by her doctor to treat her obesity.

Jeannette Simonton, a nurse from Kittitas County, Washington, weighed 228 pounds when she was prescribed Wegovy by her doctor in February. Her weight and height meant she had a body mass index (BMI) of almost 42, putting her above the threshold of 30, which US regulators had approved as the minimum for the medication.

She was also suffering joint problems after decades of being overweight.

However, Ms Simonton was insured under Washington State Health Care Authority, health insurance provided by the state, which does not cover any obesity treatments.

Jeannette Simonton, a nurse from Kittitas County, Washington, was prescribed Wegovy by her doctor in February 2023. She is pictured here in a photo posted on Facebook in 2017

Since taking Wegovy, Ms Simonton has been able to get a knee replacement operation done

She began paying for her Wegovy prescription herself, which has cost her nearly $2,000, and lost 80 pounds on the drug. Following her weight loss, she was able to get a total knee replacement to address her joint pain.

Ms Simonton said: 'I feel amazing. I feel like I getting my life back. I'm a lot more active, I'm able to swim. I've started a lot more exercising. I've been able to get my first total knee done since then and that's freed me up, so now I can actually go for walks.'

In March, however, her health insurance informed her the medication would not be covered, citing a blanket ban on weight-loss drugs.

Finding this out was 'so disappointing', she said.

Dr Peter Billing, a bariatric and weight loss specialist doctor, told NewsNation that insurance companies should be covering the medication.

He said: 'It's discriminatory against people who are obese, and it's totally wrong.

'The thought is, people are obese because they're lazy. They don't cut down what they're eating, and they don't exercise. It couldn't be further from the truth.

'[Obesity] is a medical disease with biological markers that show that disease and Ozempic and Wegovy... treat that disease.'

The Affordable Care Act and a similar law passed in Washington State made it illegal for health insurance companies to discriminate on the basis of a disability or serious health condition.

Under Washington state law, obesity is categorized as a disability and the lawsuit lawsuit argues the rejection of the coverage is an unlawful form of discrimination.

'Today, health insurers have to base their decisions on whether the treatment is medically effective or not,' Ms Simonton's attorney, Ele Hamburger, explained.

'The science here is so clear cut, that the only reason for continuing to exclude this kind of treatment for a recognized serious medical condition is discrimination. It's discrimination on the basis of disability.'

After paying for her Wegovy prescription herself for several months, she sued the insurer in September, but admitted if she does not win the suit, she will continue to pay for it herself and will not stop taking it.

Demand for Wegovy and other appetite-suppressant drugs has skyrocketed.

But with 42 percent of American adults who are obese, insurance companies are reluctant to cover the huge price tag. The list price for a month's supply of Wegovy in the US is $1,349 per patient, while the similar drug Ozempic costs $936.

Only some private insurers cover drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic, but some federal and state insurance programs like Medicaid and Medicare do not.

Wegovy, which was originally only approved for diabetes, has also been approved for weight loss, while Ozempic is only approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat type 2 diabetes, though it is prescribed off-label for weight loss.

Most private insurance companies cover some or all of the cost of the drugs when they are prescribed for type 2 diabetes, but they are not usually covered for weight loss.

According to a benefits consultant cited by the Associated Press, less than half of employers' health insurance plans cover obesity drugs.
Rishi Sunak was described as 'Dr Death' by his now-most senior scientist during the pandemic, it emerged today at the Covid Inquiry.

Dame Angela McLean, who this year succeeded Sir Patrick Vallance as No10's chief scientific adviser, sent the WhatsApp message to a fellow Government adviser in a crunch meeting with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and then-Chancellor Mr Sunak.

At the time of the September 2020 meeting, the rule of six was in place following Mr Sunak's Eat Out to Help Out scheme and Mr Johnson had confirmed that the UK was 'now seeing a second wave coming in'.

Government advisers were urging Mr Johnson to impose a circuit-breaker lockdown but Mr Sunak was concerned about the impact on the economy.

During the same meeting, Dame Angela, who was then chief scientist at the Ministry of Defence, also called one of the scientists arguing against a shutdown a 'f***wit'.

Dame Angela Ruth McLean, who was chief scientist at the Ministry of Defence at the time, sent the WhatsApp message to a fellow Government scientist during a crunch meeting with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and then-Chancellor Mr Sunak

The inquiry was shown WhatsApp exchanges between Professor Edmunds and Dame Angela during the meeting, in which she referred to 'Dr Death the Chancellor' and said 'in ONS you'd see it'

Professor John Edmunds, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the inquiry today that he attended the meeting on Sunday September 20, along with officials including Mr Johnson, Mr Sunak and Sir Patrick.

Email exchanges between Sir Patrick and Professor Edmunds state that the meeting was so Mr Johnson could hear a 'range of views on the forward look' from the 'let it rip brigade'.

Professor Edmunds told the inquiry that this referred to 'vocal people who took the view that we shouldn't have locked down in the first place and that we shouldn't be considering that again'.

This included Oxford University professors Sunetra Gupta and Carl Heneghan, and Anders Tegnell, Sweden's leading epidemiologist, whose advice shaped the nation's controversial decision to avoid a blanket lockdown.

The scientists were each given 15 minutes to argue a lockdown was unnecessary at that point, Professor Gupta later revealed.

READ MORE: 'Professor Lockdown' Neil Ferguson denies ever calling for lockdown but admits 'stepping outside' his SAGE advisory role Professor Neil Ferguson's modelling in March 2020 for then Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested 510,000 people in the UK would die due to Covid without drastic action Advertisement

In an email to Professor Edmunds, shown to the inquiry today, Sir Patrick said 'we have tried to put together a balanced group across views and so I think what he needs is your view on future direction of the epidemic'.

The inquiry was shown WhatsApp exchanges between Professor Edmunds and Dame Angela during the meeting, in which she referred to 'Dr Death the Chancellor'.

Lead Counsel Hugo Keith KC asked Professor Edmunds: 'Did you understand those were references to the eat out to help out campaign of which you'd spoken about?'

Professor Edmunds said: 'Honestly, it's so long ago I don't know but it could well be.'

The brief WhatsApp exchange was introduced after Professor Edmunds criticised the Eat Out scheme, which was introduced in August 2020. It provided a 50 per cent discount on food and non-alcoholic drinks to customers who ate inside at participating restaurants.

Professor Edmunds, who sat on nearly 100 SAGE meetings during the pandemic, told the inquiry: 'To be honest, it (the scheme) made me angry and I'm still angry about it.

'It was one thing taking your foot off the brake which is what we've been doing by easing the restrictions, but to put the foot on the accelerator, it seemed to me perverse.

'To spend public money to do that, when 45,000 people had just died the optics of it were terrible. This was a scheme to encourage people to take an epidemiological risk.'

The barrister said that, after the meeting, Professor Heneghan and Professor Gupta argued that they had 'not had a fair hearing'.

Professor Edmunds told the inquiry: 'I had interrupted Professor Heneghan at one point because he was making some really basic epidemiological errors  the sort of ones we teach our students on day one.

'And I couldn't let it go after a while, so I did interrupt, and that slightly put the wind out of his sails, and so yes, and he hadn't interrupted me so it's fair enough that they complained.'

Mr Keith said: 'I think you described his arguments as half baked. But in any event, your argument, your views did not  to use your own words  "find favour with the Prime Minister".'

While giving evidence to the inquiry this afternoon, Professor Heneghan (pictured) was asked about email exchanges which said his approach was 'half-baked nonsense', being called a 'f***wit' by Dame Angela and being accused of not understanding 'basic epidemiology'

The brief WhatsApp exchange was introduced after Professor Edmund criticised the Eat Out scheme, which was introduced in August 2020 providing a 50 per cent discount on food and non-alcoholic drinks to customers who ate inside at participating restaurants

Mr Johnson subsequently brought in fresh restrictions, including a return to working from home and a 10pm curfew for the hospitality sector.

It was not until October 14 that he brought in a second national lockdown, which lasted until November 5.

While giving evidence to the inquiry this afternoon, Professor Heneghan was asked about email exchanges which said his approach was 'half-baked nonsense', being called a 'f***wit' by Dame Angela and being accused of not understanding 'basic epidemiology'.

He said: 'I would never in a professional capacity use such language about other individuals.

'It is not unusual to find yourself in disagreement, in a position of disagreement.

'We call it uncertainty and the job of an evidence based approach is to try and reduce uncertainties, so that you can make an informed decision.

'The very fact that you have opposing views shows you that there's a problem with the interpretation.'

He said he was asked to provide views challenging those held by those sitting on the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE).

Mr Johnson's notes following the meeting show he was 'certainly willing to be persuaded by the lockdown sceptics, but found in reality they were reluctant to argue any such case'.
If youve ever strived to become an elite Navy SEAL, you likely will have tried military-grade breath-holding techniques used by the most elite special forces in the field.

The average SEAL can hold their breath for around three minutes during high-pressure underwater exercises meant to simulate life-threatening scenarios, but the average American does not have to undergo the same rigorous testing to see how well their lungs work.

Lung capacity tests have cropped up all over TikTok, where users post videos showing a countdown of about 40 seconds. The first few should be dedicated to a profound inhale, followed by an extended period of holding that breath in before exhaling.

The online tests, though far less strenuous than the versions aspiring SEALs must complete, came easily for some people, while many others said they almost fainted, turned blue, and saw my grandma halfway through.

The user is meant to inhale profoundly for around four seconds before holding their breath for the amount of time it takes for the dot to travel clockwise to the other side for the 'exhale'

TikTok is saturated with videos made by average civilians who assert that if you can hold your breath for around 40 seconds without lights popping in your periphery, you may want to consider a career in the military.

Navy SEALs, named for the environments in which they operate (sea, air, and land), are an elite military force, famous for having raided the Pakistani compound of terrorist Osama bin Laden, that trains day in and day out to prepare for any possible wartime scenario.

Their grueling training exercises include one in which a candidate lays face down in a pool of water after instructors have tied knots in their breathing regulator, forcing them to remain calm with little oxygen while also having to untangle the knots before resurfacing.

The tests on TikTok are far simpler and dont require viewers to even leave their desk chairs. Simply inhale deeply for about four seconds, which many online say is the hardest part, then hold that breath for 40 to 50 seconds. Then, release a measured exhale.

The test making its rounds on social media is strikingly similar to one used by the UKs Royal Air Force during World War I through 1939 to measure a military candidates physical fitness.

Men were instructed to make a full exhalation followed by a deep inhalation, and then hold it for as long as possible, which was around 45 seconds on average.

Even though the test was used through the start of World War II, scientists began to realize years prior it was a poor measure of physical fitness, with one saying it only measured a persons ability to withstand discomfort, not their bodies abilities to adapt to more efficiently use oxygen.

A fierce cardio lover may have an easier time holding their breath because their lungs are stronger, while a person who vapes or smokes regularly will likely struggle more.

A 2017 study conducted by doctors in India reported smokers were able to hold their breath for 34.85 seconds while non-smokers could hold it for 46.61 seconds.

When anyone holds their breath, whether training to be in the military or swimming with friends at the pool, the body makes compensations for the sudden cut off from oxygen.

Holding ones breath stops oxygen from coming in, and it also stops carbon dioxide from being able to leave the body because exhalation has stopped.

That CO2, rather than being released, is able to cross the blood-brain barrier, a network of blood vessels and tissue that serves as a protective layer lining the inside of the brain.

This can cause a drop in the delicate pH balance of the blood. The brain then issues an urgent signal to the lungs to breathe out that harmful CO2.

A smattering of studies have reported some health benefits of practicing breath-holding techniques, including one from 2015 that reported breath-holding could help regenerate brain tissue, though the study was conducted on salamanders.

Another study 2014, argued the exercises could activate the bodys fight-or-flight response while producing anti-inflammation agents in the body that could help mediate an overzealous immune system response to foreign invaders or its own cells.

Doctors will sometimes perform their own versions of lung function tests to measure how well the lungs are working, though none that ask a patient to inhale, hold their breathe and exhale for a predetermined amount of time.
If you're trying to lose weight, you're unlikely to reach for a Kit-Kat.

But the chocolate bar maker Nestle has started to work on new products for people who might be on weight-loss drugs to ensure it doesn't suffer if people start cutting calories and stop buying its candy.

The Swiss food giant's CEO Mark Schneider said Nestle had not seen any impact from weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic on the company's sales so far, addressing the threat the medications pose to the junk food industry that has spooked investors in recent weeks.

Nestle shares fell this month after Walmart, the world's biggest retailer, said it saw a pullback in food consumption thanks to people taking appetite-suppressing drugs.

Kit-Kat maker Nestle has started to work on a new range of products for people who might be on weight-loss drugs to ensure the company doesn't lose out if people start cutting calories

'We're working already on a wide range of products that could serve as companion products,' Schneider said during an earnings briefing.

He told Bloomberg: 'When you eat less, you have certain needs of vitamins, minerals and supplements. You want to be sure that the weight loss gets supported. You want to be sure that you limit the loss of lean muscle mass.'

'The largest parts of our portfolio will not be affected' by this new breed of weight loss drugs, he said.

Globally, Nestle's biggest businesses are coffee and pet care, while frozen food, confectionary and ice cream make up 15 percent of sales.

'We're watching this carefully and will keep you updated,' Schneider said.

Wegovy, approved for weight loss, reduces cravings and makes people feel fuller longer - leading them to eat less. It has been shown to help patients reduce body weight by around 15 percent when used along with exercise and lifestyle changes.

It is available in the United States, Norway, Denmark and Germany - all countries where Nestle sells its products.

In the last three months of 2022, healthcare providers wrote more than nine million prescriptions for appetite suppression medications like Wegovy and the similiar product Ozempic.

This figure is likely to have ballooned since, as appetite for drugs like Ozempic, only approved for diabetes but prescribed off-label for weight loss, and Wegovy grew this year.

Recent analysis suggests as many as 15 percent of Americans - around 150 million people - have now tried the drugs.

Amid this rocketing trend, which shows no sign of stopping, retailers have already noticed a marked impact on grocery hauls and restaurant orders.

Thomas Makkos, the owner of Nello on Madison Avenue, New York, previously told the New York Post the restaurant is now offering 'tapas' size portions, and smaller versions of popular meals like the Gnocchi Mona Lisa. The standard version of this meal costs $51, while a newly-created more modest version costs $39.

Several more Upper East Side restaurants are evolving in a similar way.

Sammy Muscovic, who owns Sojourn and Sojourn Social in the neighborhood said the branches have begun serving smaller versions of flagship meals, including burgers without fries and three spring rolls for $8 instead of $12 for five.

Big banks, such as Morgan Stanley, predict 24 million people, or seven percent of the US population, will be taking weight-loss drugs by 2035.

An analysis by the bank also predicts patients prescribed the drugs will consume one-quarter of the candy, confectionary and other junk food they did before - slashing billions of dollars from annual revenue.

And corporations are already spooked. A recent analysis found executives at junk food companies are increasingly talking about the medications with investors.

Morgan Stanleys food analyst Pamela Kaufman said in a report: 'The food, beverage and restaurant industries could see softer demand, particularly for unhealthier foods and high-fat, sweet and salty options.'

The new class of medications can lead to a 20 to 30 percent reduction in daily calories, and people tend to eat less high-sugar and high-fat foods, meaning the makers of chips, cookies and baked goods could take a hit, with banks predicting a drop in consumption by as much as three percent through 2035.

Ozempic and Wegovy are brand names for the medicine semaglutide, which suppresses appetite and triggers weight loss.

It is a once-weekly injection and requires a prescription from the doctor.

The drugs bind to the GLP-1 receptor, a protein that triggers hormones in the brain that keep the stomach full and tell the body to stop eating and avoid cravings.

This year, doctors have already doled out more than 800,000 prescriptions for Ozempic's sister drug Wegovy.
Canada is due to legalize euthanasia for people addicted to drugs next year in a move activists are comparing to 'eugenics'.

When the country's law around medically assisted dying (MAID) changes in March 2024, mental health patients, including those with substance abuse issues, with no physical ailments will be able to seek assisted suicide.

A special parliamentary committee in the coming months is due to re-scrutinize the move ahead of the rollout, following differing opinions between political parties in Canada.

More than 10,000 Canadians were euthanized in 2021, a tenfold increase over 2016 when the practice was legalized. Some cases have involved people experiencing poverty wanting to die.

MAID became legal in Canada in 2016. Since then, the rules around who is eligible have been relaxed several times - and rates have increased tenfold to around 10,000 cases in 2021

The process for an assisted death in Canada starts with downloading a form online.

This involves the applicant answering a series of tick box questions and signing the bottom, followed by securing the signature of witnesses. There will then be a phone call and home visit from a doctor.

If the application is approved by two separate doctors, the person must wait 90 days from the time of their application, and then a doctor can administer the lethal drug via injection.

Currently, people solely with mental illnesses such as depression and personality disorders with no physical conditions are not eligible for assisted suicide.

A framework for assessing people with substance use disorders for MAID is being discussed at an annual scientific conference held in Canada this week.

The agenda for the workshop includes teaching attendees and medical professionals how to 'know the difference between suicidality and a reasoned wish to die.'

Dr David Martell, physician lead for Addictions Medicine at Nova Scotia Health, who is presenting the framework at the conference, told VICE News: 'I don't think it's fair, and the government doesn't think it's fair, to exclude people from eligibility because their medical disorder or their suffering is related to a mental illness.

'As a subset of that, it's not fair to exclude people from eligibility purely because their mental disorder might either partly or in full be a substance use disorder. It has to do with treating people equally.'

Dr Martell said suicidality might be linked to a severe, sudden crisis or be seen in someone with a long-term psychiatric condition.

Someone with a reasoned wish to die would be someone 'thinking in a calm and measured way about wanting [their] suffering to end, being able to reason through it.'

He added people can show signs of both, making it difficult to assess. Plus, it would be 'fairly impossible' to make a distinction if the person was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, he said.

At the moment, people are eligible for MAID if they have a 'grievous and irremediable medical condition', for instance a serious illness or disability, that has left them in irreversible decline.

To be approved for MAID, people must go through two assessments from independent healthcare providers.

Health Canada told DailyMail.com: 'The legislation stipulates that MAID may only be administered when two practitioners find the patient eligible for the procedure.

'To be eligible for MAID, a person must: have a serious and incurable illness, disease, or disability; be in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability; and, experience enduring and intolerable suffering. All three of these criteria must be met for a person to be deemed eligible.'

Zoe Dodd, a Toronto-based harm reduction advocate, told VICE News the practice equates to eugenics.

She said: 'I just think that MAID when it has entered the area around mental health and substance use is really rooted in eugenics.

'And there are people who are really struggling around substance use and people do not actually get the kind of support and help they need.'

Drug users and harm reduction advocates also told VICE News they think public health methods such as improved access to overdose prevention sites and medications like methadone, used to treat opioid use disorder.

They said a regulated drug supply, more housing and job opportunities would also help, they said.

Dr Martell, who has been a MAID provider himself since 2016, agreed that health care options for people with substance use disorders are underfunded.

He said he has not heard a desire for assisted death among his patients with substance use disorders and told VICE: 'The idea that we might promote or push this on people, that doesn't resonate with me at all.'
Nokia plans to cut up to 14,000 jobs by the end of 2026 in a bid to sharply reduce costs.

The Finnish technology group said on Thursday the move is part of efforts to save up to 1.04billion over the three-year period.

It will reduce its workforce from approximately 86,000 to between 72,000 and 77,000.

Job cuts: Nokia's chief executive Pekka Lundmark announced plans to cut 14,000 jobs

Nokia, which has UK offices in Bristol, Cambridge and Reading, has not disclosed where the staff cuts will be made, but the group's boss is understood to want to protect research and development.

The announcement came as the business, which produces equipment for telecom networks, reported a one-fifth sales slump over the quarter to September.

Nokia president and chief executive Pekka Lundmark said: 'The most difficult business decisions to make are the ones that impact our people.

'We have immensely talented employees at Nokia and we will support everyone that is affected by this process.

'Resetting the cost base is a necessary step to adjust to market uncertainty and to secure our long-term profitability and competitiveness.

'We remain confident about opportunities ahead of us.'

Looking ahead, he added: 'We continue to believe in the mid-to-long-term market, but we are not going to sit and wait and pray that the market will recover anytime soon. We simply don't know when it will recover.'

The business had hoped the recent introduction of 5G networks would boost trading but on Thursday it blamed a slowdown in demand for the technology in some markets, such as North America.

It comes after Swedish rival Ericsson, which has also launched a recent restructuring move, revealed its own sales slump last week.

Earlier this year, BT Group announced plans to cut 55,000 jobs, while Vodafone plans to cut 11,000 positions.

Nokia predominantly operates in telecoms infrastructure after stepping away from the mobile phone market in 2014 after selling this division to Microsoft.

But, Microsoft sold this business to HMD Global in 2016, who then struck a licence deal with Nokia to make handsets using the companys brand.

Shares in Nokia fell 2 per cent following the announcement.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies shares rose sharply on Thursday after the firm revealed details of a multi-million pound investment.

The London-listed biotech group, which spun out of Oxford University in 2005, told investors it had secured a 70million investment from French in-vitro diagnostics group bioMerieux.

As a result of the investment, bioMerieux now owns 3.5 per cent of Oxford Nanopore's shares and expects to increase this 'from time to time, subject to availability and price'.

Investment: Oxford Nanopore Technologies shares rose sharply after the firm revealed details of a multi-million pound investment

Oxford Nanopore shares were up 13.88 per cent or 26.10p to 214.20p on Thursday afternoon, having slipped around 13 per cent in the last year.

The cash will support Oxford Nanopore's further development of its 'groundbreaking' nanopore-based IVD technology.

As part of the agreement, an IVD Advisory Board will be set up to advance nanopore technology in clinical applications.

Gordon Sanghera, Oxford Nanopore's chief executive, said: 'This investment will enable us to deliver rapid, accessible, and affordable clinical tools more quickly to address unmet needs and improve healthcare worldwide.'

Oxford Nanopore added: 'Together, the companies are driving to meet a significant unmet need in the clinical and diagnostic markets- an opportunity where nanopore sequencing is uniquely suited to deliver impact where information-rich, rapid, accessible, and affordable sequencing are critical.'

Pierre Boulud, bioMerieux's boss, said: 'This investment will reinforce our existing partnership with Oxford Nanopore and provide more resources for the development of innovative IVD solutions.

'Drawing on our six decades of expertise in the in vitro diagnostic space, we consider that the new generation of sequencing technology developed by Oxford Nanopore holds promise to answer future diagnostic needs and will further improve patient care, in particular against the ever-growing infectious diseases threat.'

On top of the 70million investment, Oxford Nanopore unveiled a fresh partnership with US healthcare group Mayo Clinic to develop new clinical tests for diseases, including the detection of genetic predisposition to cancer, plus other tests to improve patient care.

It reaffirmed its target to EBITDA breakeven by 2026.

Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said: 'These updates have provided a major tailwind to its shares which have soared by almost a fifth in todays session, helping to reverse some of its year-to-date decline.

'In September it reported some challenging results with first half revenue slumping almost 30 per cent to 86million and gross profit down 37 per cent to 49.5million.'

She added: 'Born from a spin out of the University of Oxford in 2005, Oxford Nanopore floated on the stock market two years ago at the height of the pandemic in September 2021, making it the third biggest biotech listing of that year.

'Its technology was instrumental in terms of identifying and tracking the spread of Covid variants across many countries.

'With government covid testing contracts ending last year, the company is trying to navigate how to deliver results in a post pandemic world.

'Initially spiking in the months after its IPO, shares in Oxford Nanopore have struggled since December 2021, shedding around 60 per cent over the past two years even after todays bounce.'
A terrified teacher who collapsed and vomited repeatedly after a suspected spiking by injection and woke to find her leg covered in bruises, has called for better ID checks at clubs.

Chrissy Childerley, 31, has no recollection of what happened to her after she was approached by two men on a night out at Vinyl in Cambridge.

She believes one man pretended to be drunk and jabbed her when he bumped into her, while the other distracted her by engaging her in conversation.

The men disappeared when her partner, Tom Knell, returned from the toilet and she fears they would have taken her with them otherwise.

Police were unable to identify the men from CCTV footage in the club, which was obscured because Miss Childerley was sitting in a 'blind spot'.

Primary school teacher Chrissy Childerley (pictured with her partner Tom Knell) has no recollection of what happened to her after she was approached by two men on a night out

Miss Childerley believes man pretended to be drunk and jabbed her while his friend distracted her

It wasn't possible to take blood or urine samples because she waited two days before reporting the incident as she was ill, in shock and also caring for her unwell son.

'It's really scary thinking what might have happened if my partner hadn't got back in time. They could have taken me outside,' said the 31-year-old who later discovered a puncture wound and bruises on her left thigh.

The case is the latest example of the spiking epidemic across the UK. Drinks, food and even vapes are being used to deliver substances to unwitting victims, who are left at risk of abduction and sexual assaults.

Miss Childerley, a primary school assistant from Cambridge, had spent the day out in city with Mr Knell, 34, who runs a recruitment agency, and his mother.

The couple then continued on their own, visiting a bar before going to a club called Vinyl.

'We decided to go home and Tom wanted to go to the toilet before we left. I sat down next to the bar at a table with three or four chairs because my feet were aching from dancing,' said Miss Childerley.

'These two guys approached me and asked if they could sit there. I said it was fine because I was going.

'While one of them was talking to me about sitting down, his friend on the left barged into me and then said sorry.

Police were contacted two days after the August 5 incident but were unable to take any action following an investigation. Pictured: A hole where Miss Childerley believes she was jabbed

Miss Childerley noticed bruising and a needle puncture mark on her left side

'I said 'It's fine'. I thought he'd just stumbled because he'd been drinking and maybe missed the chair. He bumped into my left side.'

READ MORE: Myleene Klass recalls the terrifying moment her drink was spiked at the height of Hear'Say fame Advertisement

The men then suddenly became 'bossy', telling her to stay at the table and keep their seats while they went outside to smoke.

'They came back and thank god my partner got back in time as they disappeared. I don't remember anything after that,' she added:

'It wasn't until the next morning when I started realising what had happened. Tom asked if I remembered when I got home. He said I collapsed and passed out on the living room floor. Then I vomited black and passed out again.

'The next day my vision was blurry. I could hardly see and I was sweating really badly. Then I started being sick with black liquid again.'

Miss Childerley said she drank some cocktails and gin and tonics while out but 'nothing more than I'd had before'.

She added: 'I knew something was wrong. I'd never had a hangover like that. I couldn't eat. I kept drifting in and out of sleep the whole day.'

Her mother called later that day to ask when she was picking up her son, Brooklyn, eight, so she showered first to try and wake herself up.

Miss Childerley, who has no idea what was injected into her body and said all clubs should routinely demand IDs from customers to deter similar incidents

A total of 6,732 spiking offences were reported in the 12 months to May this year - nearly 20 a day, according to the National Police Chiefs Council. Pictured: Where Miss Childerley believes she was injected

'I was rubbing on shower gel when something hurt. I looked down and noticed the bruising and a needle puncture mark,' she said.

Police were contacted two days after the August 5 incident but were unable to take any action following an investigation.

Miss Childerley, who has no idea what was injected into her body and said all clubs should routinely demand IDs from customers to deter similar incidents, said: 'I regret not going to A&E as soon as it happened.'

She eventually went to her GP for an emergency Hepatitis B jab and was told the bruising on her thigh may have been caused by the needle hitting a blood vessel.

The suspects were described by Miss Childerley as speaking with Eastern European accents. The man who bumped into her was bald, stocky and in his late 30s or 40s. She can't remember any details about his friend.

A Cambridgeshire Constabulary spokesman said: 'An investigation was launched and inquiries were carried out but there was not enough evidence to support a case.

'It has been filed, pending any further information coming to light.'

Vinyl said guest safety was a priority, with searches carried out on '100 per cent of people on entry', free anti-spiking devices offered to guests, and 'extensive CCTV coverage throughout the venue', while staff wear bodycams.

It added: 'We always co-operate with the police and will hand over any footage on request.'

A total of 6,732 spiking offences were reported in the 12 months to May this year - nearly 20 a day, according to the National Police Chiefs Council. Needle-spiking accounted for one in seven cases.
Halloween is almost here, and that means it's almost time for trick-or-treating and indulging in candy nationwide.

Children are getting their costumes and pumpkin pails ready for trick-or-treating, hoping for candy or other goodies from different households, but are they actually impressed with the quality of the sweets they're given?

Recent studies have shown that children in specific states tend to prefer some candies over others, and the results are very unexpected.

Do you think you can guess the top 10 most popular Halloween candies across the US, in states such as New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois?

These are the most popular Halloween candies in ten out of 50 states in the US according to Candystore.com. New Jersey's favorite was reported to be Tootsie Pops, while New York's was Sour Patch Kids

According to Candystore.com , the top 10 most popular Halloween candies in the US this year are Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Hot Tamales, Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, Starburst, Hersheys Kisses, candy corn, Hersheys mini bars and Snickers

According to Candystore.com, the top 10 most popular Halloween candies in the US this year are Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Hot Tamales, Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, Starburst, Hersheys Kisses, candy corn, Hersheys mini bars and Snickers.

The favorite New York candy of 2023 is Sour Patch Kids - with Hot Tamales and candy corn coming in second and third.

New Jersey has different tastes than New York - their top three favorites this year are Tootsie Pops, then M&Ms and Skittles.

With Hershey Park being a popular attraction in Pennsylvania, it comes as no surprise that the state's favorite Halloween candy are Hershey's mini bars - followed by M&Ms and Skittles.

Connecticut's top three candies are the classic Almond Joy, Milky Way, and M&Ms.

Massachusetts tends to favor Butterfingers, Sour Patch Kids, and Double Bubble.

Florida, aka the Sunshine State, favors Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Skittles, and Hot Tamales.

Texas is loving Sour Patch Kids, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and Starbursts this year.

California's 2023 preference is M&Ms, while their second and third favorites are Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Skittles.

U.S. first lady Jill Biden waves goodbye to a child as she distributes Halloween candy with the president to visiting children at the South Portico of the White House in 2022

Adults this year are spending at least $3.6 billion in candy this year - higher than the 2022 average of $3.1 billion

Shockingly, Kit-Kat Bar's only appear on a top three list in Illinois - a state in which the number one preferred candy of 2023 is Sour Patch Kids.

Like California, Washington DC's preferred 2023 candy is M&Ms, while Tootsie Pops and Blow Pops come in second and third.

No matter the results, adults this year are spending at least $3.6 billion in candy this year - higher than the 2022 average of $3.1 billion, according to the New York Post.

Photo

The History Channel confirms via historian that trick-or-treating did not get popular within the US until 1951, when it was featured in a peanuts comic strip.

Trick or Treat later became the title of a Disney cartoon with Donald Duck and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, and the term took off.

Some of this year's best Halloween costumes include Ultimate Captain Hook, Day of the Dead, and Hocus Pocus Witch Winifred Sanderson - so look out for spooky pirates and sorcerers.

Those who are looking for last-minute couple's costumes can check costumes such as Mickey and Minnie and Barbie and Ken.
The mother of an American-Israeli soldier killed by Hamas while protecting a kibbutz from slaughter has said his sacrifice was typical of how he lived.

Second lieutenant Yannai Kaminka, 20, helped save the lives of around 90 fellow soldiers and hundreds of civilians by placing himself on the front line of the first wave of terrorist attacks last Saturday.

The eldest of four siblings was killed after leaving the relative safety of his post to take the place of younger recruits and a soldier injured under heavy artillery fire from Hamas.

In doing so, Yannai and fellow soldiers in his unit were able to thwart the militants' onslaught, saving the lives of others at his base and hundreds of civilians living in the kibbutz behind it.

His mother, Elana Kaminka, who was born and raised in Davis, California, told DailyMail.com that how her son died was 'an expression of how he lived'.

Yannai Kaminka, 20, was killed by Hamas after relieving trainees and injured at shelled post

His mother, Elana, said her son's sacrifice was 'an expression of how he lived' his life

Yannai's base at Zikim (pictured) came under heavy artillery fire at around 6.30am, October 7

'He was a complete person,' she said. 'You hear about the officers who sit in their safe office and send out their grunts to do the dangerous jobs. What he and his fellow officers did was the opposite.

'Yannai saw himself as a parent, not as a commander. As a parent, you put yourself in danger before you let your children be in danger.

'So he and his colleagues put themselves on the front line and protected their trainees and the civilians behind them and they paid a very, very heavy price for it.'

Yannai, from Tzur Hadssah, Israel, was killed defending the Zikim base, on the north side of the Gaza border, against the first wave of Hamas terrorists at approximately 8.13am on October 7.

Three other officers, two sergeants and one trainee were also killed, and several others injured.

But more than 90 trainees were saved as a result of their actions, while hundreds of civilians at Kibbutz Zikim, which is adjacent to the base, were spared the horrific massacres that befell other Israeli villages that day.

Remarkably, no casualties were recorded at the kibbutz, after the efforts of Yannai and his unit stymied the terrorists' attack.

The assault began at around 6.30am, when the base came under heavy artillery fire.

Due to it being the weekend and holidays, only one company was on duty, with several trainees spread around the guard posts.

Yannai was one of around a dozen commanders who decided the trainees did not have the experience or capacity to man these posts, so took their places while ordering the young recruits to the bomb shelters, his mother said.

Elana said her son was active in peace initiatives and believed in coexistence

READ MORE: How elderly Israeli couple completed daring escape from Hamas after being taken hostage by armed terrorists and marched towards Gaza Diana, 73, and Moshe Rozen, 72, are recovering at the Hadassah Medical Organization, Jerusalem, after their daring escape from Hamas terrorists, who had taken them hostage Advertisement

Yannai initially took a post facing towards the Mediterranean Sea, but when another commander was seriously injured at a post on the other side of the perimeter that had come under heavy fire, he ran from his post to relieve them of their position, along with three other officers.

All four were killed - it is thought by grenades - but by then had managed to take out two terrorists attacking their position, severely hampering the assault.

Ultimately, Hamas was unable to penetrate the perimeter.

'It was how he lived,' Elana said of her son's heroic actions. 'I'm proud not only of the last hour of his life, not only of the heroism that saw him give up his life, but of the whole first 20 years. It was the kind of person he was when he was alive and that's what makes me most proud.'

Elana spoke to DailyMail.com on Wednesday, shortly after receiving a visit from Yannai's fellow soldiers who paid testament to his humanity as an officer.

She said they and others who knew her son from other walks of life all said he took extra care to understand people as individuals.

'Even in the military, which runs to a very tight schedule, he would just walk around different guard posts and speak to soldiers to get to know them,' Elana said.

'He would ask the trainees about their families, their interests and their goals in life.'

Elana said her son's desire to help people was evident from an early age where he was a counselor in the scouts.

She added that he was also a talented self-taught pianist who had always been very active in peace initiatives and believed in coexistence.

Yannai has been posthumously promoted from first to second lieutenant.

His grandparents and an uncle still live in California, while another uncle lives in Colorado.

His father, Eyal, is a poet and Yannai had the last line of one his poems painted on a wall at the base, which, translated from Hebrew, reads: 'Only at night do you see the stars.'

'It's become so apt for everything we're going through now on a personal and national level,' Elana said. 'Only when you're in the hardest place of your life and the most difficult times do you also see these sparks of light.'
Furious council leaders have warned they may refuse to freeze council taxes after telling Humza Yousaf he is powerless to fulfil his conference vow.

Local authority chiefs yesterday refused to accept the SNP leaders announcement that rates would be frozen and said they deplore how he made the shock announcement.

They said they had no idea the First Minister was planning a freeze before he announced it at the SNP conference on Tuesday.

The lack of consultation with cash-strapped councils sparked outrage, and their umbrella organisation Cosla is demanding an emergency meeting with Mr Yousaf.

They suggested the shock announcement makes a mockery of the New Deal for Local Government that the Scottish Government signed in June, which promised no surprises for council budgets.

Humza Yousaf announced council tax freeze during his speech to the SNP conference on Tuesday

Cosla president, SNP councillor Shona Morrison, yesterday spoke of real anger towards Mr Yousaf.

Warning that there was absolutely no agreement to freeze council tax next year, Ms Morrison and her vice-president Steven Heddle hit out at the way the announcement was made and its substance.

In a statement, they said: The announcement of a council tax freeze as we said yesterday was made completely without reference to local government.

The decision to freeze council tax is one which can only be made by councils.

Our cross-party group leaders held an emergency meeting first thing this morning on the back of the announcement and there is real anger at the way this has been handled and what it puts at risk.

It has been shown that previous council tax freezes have been regressive, having no impact for the poorest in society and eroding the council tax base, compounding councils ongoing underfunding.

Council leaders warned freezing tax would make underfunding worse and could impact services

They also insisted that council tax rates should be left for democratically elected councils to determine.

The surprise announcement was part of spending promises made by Mr Yousaf amounting to 1billion, although the Government has been unable to explain where the money will come from.

Vast hikes of up to 22.5 per cent in some council tax bands were shelved, the First Minister revealed during his conference address.

Following the speech, the First Ministers advisers insisted they would divert more money to councils in lieu of allowing rate hikes.

A Government spokesman said: The freeze announced yesterday, fully funded by the Scottish Government, will benefit every council tax payer in Scotland at a time when rising prices are putting significant strain on household finances.

Both the First Minister and Deputy First Minister are meeting local authorities as a priority to discuss their concerns.

The announcement also came as a surprise to the SNPs coalition partners, the Scottish Greens, who were given only a few hours notice.

In a statement put out while Mr Yousaf was still on stage, Green MSP Ross Greer said they were concerned about the effect this freeze could have on already-strained public services.
A police officer was stabbed while investigating a suspected break-in early yesterday.

The attacker was being hunted last night after the 30-year-old officer was assaulted as she attended a property in Stevenston, Ayrshire, with two colleagues at 2am.

The officer was said to have been stabbed during the course of the investigation on the towns Arthur Street and was taken to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow for treatment.

She was said to be in a stable condition last night.

Police and forensics officers remained at the scene of the attack for much of yesterday.

Police forensics officers at the scene in Stevenston, Ayrshire, following the attack on the police officer

Witnesses reported seeing officers combing the area around Arthur Street and lifting drains.

Chief Superintendent Raymond Higgins, divisional commander for Ayrshire, said: In the early hours of Wednesday, October 18, three officers attended a report of a break-in at a property on Arthur Street, Stevenston.

While carrying out inquiries a 30-year-old female officer was seriously assaulted and was taken to hospital in Glasgow for treatment, where she remains in a stable condition.

This was a despicable attack on an on-duty officer and our inquiries are ongoing to trace the person responsible.

Assault is not simply part of the job for police officers, its not acceptable and it will not be tolerated. This officer was carrying out her role, serving local communities and protecting the public, when the incident happened.

The Scottish Police Federation (SPF) posted a message online stating: Horrific news. Wishing our injured colleague  stabbed on duty  well.

David Threadgold, chairman of the SPF, said: Our thoughts are with the officer concerned, her family and also her colleagues who continue to provide that service to communities knowing that something can happen in a split second that could have long-lasting effects.

The SPF will look to give the officer any support she needs.

Several locals spoke of their shock in the aftermath of the attack.

Ashley McNaught wrote online: The whole park is still taped off and guarded with police officers at all the entry points, a white tent been up since the early hours. Whatevers happened its been more than a break-in.

Another wrote: My thoughts go out to her and her family. Everyone should be able to do a job and go home to their family.

I hope the person who has done this to this young woman gets to see the inside of a cell for a while. This is shocking.

In November 2019, Graeme Davidson was jailed for ten years and three months after he tried to kill a police officer responding to a call about a disturbance.

Davidson, 39, who was drunk at the time, stabbed the officer in the chest at a house in Tayport, Fife. He was convicted of attempted murder.

The High Court in Glasgow heard the then 46-year-old officer could have died if the blade had not struck his breastbone.

In a statement, the officer had said: My heart sank. I instantly knew I was in a fight for my life.
Fires, floods, a month's worth of rain and a possible cyclone are all set to affect Australia's east in the coming days.

Tasmania is set to cop heavy rain and possible thunderstorms this weekend while firefighters continue to battle raging bushfires in Central Queensland.

All the while, meteorologists are carefully monitoring a possible tropical cyclone that is forming near the Solomon Islands.

Parts of Tasmania will start facing the well-above-average rain from Friday evening.

Thunderstorms and damaging winds could hit south and southeastern Tasmania while showers hang over Melbourne and Adelaide

'That rain is due to a deep low pressure system,' Weatherzone meteorologist Yoska Hernandez said.

'It's going to bring heavy rainfall over the weekend which will be more intense southern parts of Tasmania, including Hobart.'

'That system is expected to bring more than 100mm by Sunday and strong winds potentially exceeding 100 120km/h, especially in the southern parts of state.'

Central and eastern Tasmania, including Hobart, could also see scattered thunderstorms.

October is typically Tasmania's wettest month with rainfall averaging 62.1mm.

The downpour of more than 100mm could cause flooding and wind damage, particularly in the east and southeast.

Adelaide and Melbourne are also forecast to see some rain this weekend.

Both cities will enjoy a sunny Thursday before cloudy conditions move in from Friday.

Melbourne is expected to see showers on Sunday with a minimum temperature of just 10C.

Showers are forecast to hit Adelaide on Saturday before the clouds partially clear on Sunday for a sunny start to the week on Monday.

Perth is set to avoid any rain this weekend but conditions will grow cloudy on Saturday with grey skies to hang around into next week.

Meanwhile, favourable weather could help fires in Central Queensland.

Tasmania is forecast to see more than a month's worth of rain this weekend (pictured, the seven-day predicted rainfall total for Tasmania)

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services issued an evacuation order for properties near Oyster Creek on Wednesday night (pictured, the bushfire at Oyster Creek)

Late Wednesday night, residents near Oyster Creek, north of Bundaberg, were issued an emergency warning to evacuate.

People on properties between Uxbridge Road, Oyster Creek Road, Muller Road and Coast Road, including Kirchner Road, were asked to leave immediately.

READ MORE: Enormous bushfire will rage on for WEEKS and it's too late for people in nearby town to flee Advertisement

'A large, fast-moving fire is burning between Oyster Creek Road and Muller Road. It is expected to impact Oyster Creek Road and Kirchner Road within the next hour,' Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said.

'LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. Your life could be at risk. It will soon be too dangerous to drive.'

Watch and Act warnings have been extended to surrounding parts of Deepwater and Baffle creek.

Ms Hernandez said stable temperatures and increased air moisture means the weather won't worsen the fires.

'We're expecting today and tomorrow's temperatures to be around the mid 20s - so not particularly hot,' she said.

'Northerly winds could be concerning but they will hold a lot of moisture.'

Nearby Brisbane is forecast to stay cloudy through to Saturday before a sunny sky coupled with a maximum temperature of 31C hit on Sunday.

Parts of Sydney will be on high alert for bushfires with hot and dry conditions expected to see the danger rating reach extreme.

'This weekend going to be mostly dry, sunny and warm,' Ms Hernandez said.

'So Saturday's temperatures are expected to be in the mid 20s and high 20s on Sunday.

QFES warned 'A large, fast-moving fire (above) is burning between Oyster Creek Road and Muller Road'

A possible tropical cyclone (above) could form near the Solomon Islands early next week but is not expected to affect Australia

'This weekend a trough will be crossing which is going to increase winds on Saturday.

'Sunday will be drier and hotter due to westerly winds in the wake of the trough and fire danger is expected to be extreme for the greater Sydney area.'

Clouds hanging over Canberra on Thursday are forecast to clear on Friday.

Mostly sunny conditions are expected on Saturday ahead of a sunny Sunday.

Maximum temperatures for the weekend will peak on Saturday at 29C before falling to just 18C on Sunday.

Meanwhile, a possible tropical cyclone could form off the east coast.

'There's a chance of a tropical cyclone forming near the Solomon Islands early next week,' Ms Hernandez said.

'It should move towards Australia but remain far off shore, it's not expected to impact the mainland and will remain in sea.'
He has been charged with manslaughter - the victim has not been named

A GameStop clerk who police say fatally shot a fleeing shoplifter in Pembroke Pines, Florida, has been charged with manslaughter.

Derrick Guerrero, 33, was working at the video game store in a suburban Fort Lauderdale strip mall Tuesday night when a man grabbed five boxes of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet 'ultra-premium' trading cards - each retailing at $120 - and ran toward the door, Pembroke Pines police said in a report released on Wednesday.

Police said store security cameras show the shoplifter, who has not been named, never threatened Guerrero nor displayed any weapons.

Guerrero pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired one shot, hitting the man in the side, police described.

He then dropped the cards and ran outside the 11069 Pines Boulevard store to a waiting pickup truck, where a woman called police - the man died three hours later at a hospital.

GameStop employee Derrick Guerrero (pictured) has been charged with manslaughter after shooting a shoplifter dead, according to police

The alleged incident occurred in the store at 11069 Pines Boulevard in Pembroke Pines, Florida (above)

The 33-year-old is said to have shot the unnamed victim after he grabbed five 'ultra-rare' boxes of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet trading cards (pictured), which sell for $120 each

Does Florida's 'stand your ground' law extend to property protection? Florida, under its 'stand your ground' law, lets someone use deadly force if there is a threat of death or great bodily harm to themselves or others without fear of prosecution. However, it does not allow it simply to protect property. The law's history dates back to the late 19th century when a case permitted a homicide to be excused if the person who committed it reasonably believed there was no other way to prevent bodily harm. A 2005 revision of the law placed the burden of proof on the defendant, requiring them to show that they acted out of fear for themselves or the safety of another person. Advertisement

Manslaughter is a killing that is unplanned and in the heat of the moment.

If it is true that the deceased never threatened to harm Guerrero, this could have significant implications for the defendant.

He could appeal to Florida's 'stand your ground' law as a defense, but only if he reasonably believed that there was no other way to prevent bodily harm to himself or any other person.

A 2005 revision of that law places the burden of proof on the defendant - Guerrero in this instance.

This requires them to show that they acted out of fear for themselves or the safety of another person.

Guerrero was being held at the Broward County Jail on $25,000 bail, with jail records not showing if he has an attorney.

GameStop - a video game, consumer electronics and gaming merchandise retailer that is headquartered in North Texas - has been contacted for comment.
A rape victims distress can be used to bring their attacker to justice in court after a landmark ruling.

Lord Carloway, who sat with six colleagues, yesterday ruled that the distress displayed by a complainer to another witness can be used to corroborate sexual assaults.

The ruling comes months after Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, KC, told the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh how practices in the Scottish legal system were out of step with other countries.

Ms Bain, Scotlands most senior prosecutor, said it was wrong for jurors not to be allowed to consider that the distress shown by a rape victim in the immediate aftermath of an assault can corroborate the crime.

Ms Bains submissions were upheld, and Lord Carloway wrote: It is clear that, in the Commonwealth generally, distress can provide corroboration of a sexual assault, including rape, without any need to corroborate penetration separately.

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, KC, previously told the Court of Criminal Appeal the legal system was out of step with other countries

Scots law is out of step with the rest of the Commonwealth.

And the 126-page ruling ended: The answer to the questions in the reference is that a witness testifying to the de recenti (recent) distress of a complainer is capable of corroborating direct evidence from a complainer that she has been raped.

Rape Crisis Scotland described the judgment as a seismic change.

A spokesman for the group said: The requirement for penetration to be independently corroborated has, for decades, acted as a barrier to rape and abuse survivors receiving the justice they are entitled to.

The Lord Advocate said the decision could transform the way we prosecute all offences, in particular sexual offences, and will improve access to justice for more victims.

She added: The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service will now consider the terms of the ruling carefully.

'Since my appointment, I have sought to do all within my power to deliver justice for women and girls, who are disproportionately impacted by sexual offences.

'The potential to introduce transformative change, such as through this Lord Advocates reference, was one motivation for me in taking this office.

Campaigners claimed the law prevented many alleged rape cases going to court

Ms Bain addressed the appeal court in July after a ruling made by a judge who presided over a trial at the High Court in Aberdeen last year.

There a man, who has not been named, was accused of raping a woman in March 2019. He denied that he had any sexual activity with the complainer in the case.

The judge directed the jury that the womans distress could not of itself corroborate penetration, but could only confirm that she suffered some distressing event.

Ms Bain said this practice was wrong and should be altered.

Roddy Dunlop, KC, in opposing the Lord Advocate, said it shifted the balance too far in favour of the Crown.

The Dean of the Faculty of Advocates said: I need hardly stress the importance of this case. At stake are fundamental aspects of the law of corroboration under criminal law.

Rape survivor and campaigner Ellie Wilson, 25, welcomed the ruling.

Ms Wilson, who has waived her right to anonymity, said: Previously it was only the defence that was able to use lack of evidence of distress to disprove a rape claim but rape survivors werent able to use evidence of their distress to prove their claim. Thats fundamentally unequal.
This is the shocking moment a grown man had a full-blown meltdown in the TSA line at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Video of the incident was recently posted to Reddit and showed the encounter.

The incident happened on October 18 at approximately 9:43am when officers responded to a report of a male having a mental health crisis near the TSA checkpoint.

Footage shows the unidentified black man in red sweatpants, a black tee shirt and black socks kicks his feet in the air as approximately five cops try to get him to remain in the wheelchair and he tries to break free.

From there, the situation only devolved with the agitated man acting out and cops surrounding him.

The video showed the aggravated man as he was placed in a wheelchair and taken out of the TSA checkpoint area at the Atlanta Airport. He kept complaining that the authorities kept touching his hair as they wheeled him away

It is unclear what made the man dressed in red sweatpants, a black tee shirt and black socks so angry in the first place. It is also unclear exactly when this incident happened, but it was recently posted to Reddit

'Get your hand off my hair,' the agitated man says when cops approach.

An officer then comes up to man and asks where he is from, but the man tells the cop to tell the others to get his hands off of his hair again.

At this point, the conversation between the enraged man and the cop is inaudible until the man is heard saying 'no.'

As the cop wheeling him approaches the end of the security line, the upset man flips out and tries to get out of the wheelchair.

'Once he gets past this, he good,' a cop involved is heard saying.

'Get your f****** hands off of me,' the man screams loudly as he wraps his legs around one of the bars in line.

A cop then has a brief conversation with his fellow officer pushing the man in the wheelchair before he grabs the agitated man's feet.

The unidentified man then sporadically kicks his two feet in the air, toward the cop in front of him before he says: 'Can you please tell him to get his hands off of me so I can get up?'

As more cops continued to crowd around the unruly man, one grabbed his feet and was immediately kicked by the unknown man before he kicked down a pole. The group of cops then escorted the man in his wheelchair near the escalator

Still putting up a fight, the man hung off the side of the wheelchair as cops tried their best to get him under control. More cops came to help with the situation as one cop tried his best to calm everyone down and said: 'Wait, wait, listen, listen' before they wheeled the man away

A man from the Atlanta Fire and Rescue team comes close to the group of cops surrounding the man as he speaks into his radio

The wheelchair is then angled back as the man having the meltdown kicks down a pole.

The meltdown continues with the man hanging off the side of the chair as officers continue to move him near an escalator.

'Get your hands off my hair,' the man says as another cop tries to get him back in the seat.

A woman in another wheelchair looks alarmed crosses as she is pushed by a female airport employee who looks back at the man having a meltdown.

'Ahhhhh, ahhhhh,' the man screams at the top of his lungs as others in the airport stop and stare as they walk past.

'Get your f****** hands off of me,' he repeats again.

Another cop standing in front of the upset man tries to get the situation under control as he says to his fellow cops: 'Wait, wait, listen, listen.'

The video comes to an end as the man keeps yelling at the cops to refrain from touching his hair as he sits up in the chair before he was wheeled away.

DailyMail.com reached out to the Atlanta Police Department and they revealed that the officers briefly detained the man before he was transported to the hospital 'for care without incident'.

A female suspect stabbed three victims just recently at the Atlanta Airport, including a 71-year-old retied officer, a ticket clerk and a person that she attacked before she went inside the airport

The airport meltdown comes just weeks after a woman stabbed a 71-year-old retired officer at the same Atlanta airport.

The brave veteran police officer suffered a severed artery after being stabbed in the thigh.

The suspect also stabbed two other people, a ticket clerk and someone outside before she caused the violent scene.

All three victims were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where they were conscious and in a comfortable condition.
One of the chiefs of New Zealand's most notorious gang has unleashed about proposed policies from the country's incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

Waikato Mongrel Mob Kingdom leader Sonny Fatupaito claimed that the new National-led government's policies for gangs will result in chaos, instability and breach human rights.

One of these proposals makes gang affiliation an aggravating factor in sentencing, which would result in tougher penalties for members facing offences.

The government wants to give police the power to action warrantless searches to find weapons and to restrict meetings and communication between members.

'I feel that we have every right to be like every New Zealander. They have the same rights that we should have,' Mr Fatupaito told the New Zealand Herald.

Waikato Mongrel Mob Kingdom leader Sonny Fatupaito (pictured) expressed serious concerns over the gang policies proposed by the National party

The Mongrel Mob leader said members should be able to 'express who we are'.

Another policy the National party put forward is banning gang patches in public places, which are already prohibited on government premises.

Mr Fatupaito said while this wouldn't affect the Mongrel Mob as such, he believes this would be unfair to other gangs.

Another law is the dispersal notice policy, which allows law enforcement to slap people they suspect to be in gangs with public non-association orders.

Mr Fatupaito was especially critical of this, explaining that it was unfair that extended family or those not even associated with gangs could be targeted.

'I think that punishing everybody actually feels like it's a prison,' he said.

He said it would prevent gang members from attending events such as birthdays or tangihanga - a traditional funeral rite practised by the Maori people.

He also shared concerns that this would lead to a deterioration of the Mongrels' relationship with police after making significant 'progress'.

Despite the perceived negative consequences, Mr Fatupaito said he was open to sitting down and discussing these issues with the new National-led government.

Christopher Luxon (pictured left with wife Amanda Luxon) will be New Zealand's next Prime Minister after the National Party won 39 per cent of the vote in the election

But the Mongrel Mob leader's concerns have been rubbished by the National's police spokesman, Mark Mitchell.

'If you choose to remain in gangs, peddling drugs and misery in our communities, life will be a lot more difficult under a National-led Government,' he told the publication.

Mr Mitchell instead urged current members to leave their gangs and said the government will work with those wishing to 'rejoin society'.

He added that the National-led government would not be 'threatened or intimidated' by gangs.

Mr Luxon will be the country's next Prime Minister after the National Party won 39 per cent of the vote during the federal election, by far the largest share of any single party.

Under New Zealand's proportional system, National plans to form a coalition with the libertarian ACT Party.

The two parties combined hold only a slim majority, which could evaporate once the remaining 20 per cent of outstanding votes are counted. In that instance, the parties would also need the support of a third party, New Zealand First.

Mr Luxon said the only roles that were locked in so far were his own as Prime Minister, and his deputy, Nicola Willis, as Finance Minister.

The final vote tally will be announced in early November.
A father has been convicted of terrorism charges after the remains of his three-year-old son - whom the dad believed would be the second coming of Christ - were discovered at a makeshift compound in New Mexico that was used for terrorist training.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj abducted the toddler from his mother's home in Georgia in 2017 and taking him to a remote stretch of the desert.

He and other members of his group holed up in a squalid compound so they could engage in firearms and tactical training to prepare for attacks against the government.

The abduction was tied to an apparent belief that his son, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, was being plagued by evil spirits, but would be resurrected as Jesus Christ once they were expelled.

The child's body was discovered along with 11 other emaciated, but living, children at the compound in Amalia, near the Colorado state line, when authorities conducted a raid in August 2018.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj has been convicted of terror charges after the remains of his three-year-old son Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj were discovered in an underground tunnel at a compound in New Mexico in 2018

The exact cause of death for Abdul-Ghani Wahaj has not been determined but he suffered from frequent seizures and it is thought his father had deprived him of crucial medication needed to manage them

An exact cause of death was never determined but the boy, who lived with severe developmental disabilities and frequent seizures, and was said to have been deprived of crucial medication.

Wahhajs brother-in-law Lucas Morten was also convicted of terrorism charges, conspiracy to commit kidnapping and kidnapping that resulted in the boys death.

Wahhajs sisters Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj were convicted on kidnapping charges.

Jurors reached their decision in the dad's case after deliberating for two-and-a-half days.

The case took years to get to trial and jurors heard weeks of testimony from children who had lived with their parents at the compound, other family members, firearms experts, doctors and forensic technicians.

The defendants, who are Muslim, argued federal authorities targeted them because of their religion.

Wahhaj represented himself and told the court he was trying to protect his son from evil spirits and had used a ritual known as ruqyah, where passages from the Quran are recited.

The authorities raided the makeshift compound in Amalia, New Mexico, and discovered the boy's remains along with 11 other children living in squalid conditions

He claimed prosecutors were presenting a false narrative. He said: 'The government portrayed me to look like a monster.'

But prosecutors said the defendants had adopted 'a number of unique beliefs that set them on a dangerous path.'

'They were running and hiding because they knew what they had done was wrong,' Prosecutor George Kraehe told jurors.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj's partner - Jany Leveille, a Haitian national - was initially charged with kidnapping and terrorism-related charges, but instead reached a plea agreement on weapons charges. She did not appear at the trial.

Prosecutors argued Leveille was charting the group's course based on messages that she received from God, detailed in passages in a journal.

One of the children told an FBI agent that Leveille believed God had instructed them to move to New Mexico and that once the demons were expelled from Abdul-Ghani, he would return as Jesus and inform them which 'corrupt' institutions to take down, CNN reports.

Defense attorneys for Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj told jurors that they played no role in the boys death.

They insisted the duo was only at the compound to care for their own children and were themselves subjected to brutal conditions including cold temperatures and harsh winds.

Defendants (left to right) Jany Leveille, Lucas Morton, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Subbannah Wahhaj seen entering district court on August 13, 2018, in Taos, New Mexico, were all charged with various terror, kidnapping and weapons offences

The two talked about how one of the women searched the internet to find information on trapping squirrels and birds, so the family could eat more.

Prosecutors argued that the women were part of what they described as a 'sick end-of-times scheme' that evolved after the boys death.

A sentencing date for Siraj Ibn Wahhaj has yet to be scheduled, but the kidnapping charges carry a mandatory life sentence.

The terrorism charges are punishable by up to 15 years in prison, while the charge of conspiracy to kill a government officer or employee carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
A high-profile executive who led the campaign against Sydney's controversial lockout laws has been charged with multiple counts of rape.

David Mark Hempton, 49, was arrested by police at Waverley, in Sydney's eastern suburbs, on September 22.

Documents tendered to Waverley Local Court allege the former high-flying business executive sexually assaulted a 22-year-old woman at his Rose Bay apartment on July 13.

Hempton is a well-known businessman who ran Bondi Mermaids and led a grassroots campaign lobbying against the lockout laws in Sydney.

High profile executive David Mark Hempton (pictured) has been charged with the alleged rape of a young woman in Sydney

Court documents allege the former banker and stocks consultant sexually assaulted and sexually touched the woman between July and August, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

NSW Police will allege Hempton met the woman online while he was looking to rent out his apartment.

Police launched an investigation after the young woman reported the alleged incidents on August 28.

Hempton was charged with four counts of sexual intercourse without consent (domestic violence related).

The 49-year-old was also charged with six counts of sexually touching another person without consent.

Hempton was granted bail by Waverley Local Court. He has not entered a plea, according to court documents.

Hempton's bail conditions include that he must not advertise any accommodation.

Hempton is a well-known businessman who ran Bondi Mermaids and led a grassroots campaign lobbying against the lockout laws in Sydney (stock image)

Should he fail to comply with his bail conditions a person of reasonable character who is known Hempton will need to fork out $50,000 in surety.

Hempton is a well known Sydney businessman who played an influential role in campaigning against Sydney's lockout laws.

He claimed he was part of setting up the 'Don't Punish Us Campaign' in 2009, a grassroots campaign that aims to reduce the extent to which alcohol and drug users are punished under the law.

He also had business interests with his brother John Hempton who is a senior hedge fund manager. John Hempton is not accused of wrongdoing.
A Colorado police officer accused of putting 23-year-old Elijah McClain in a neck-hold before he died faced the first day of his manslaughter trial this week.

Denver-area cop Nathan Woodyard appeared at the Adams County Justice Center in Brighton, Colorado, on Tuesday in connection with the autistic massage therapist's death on August 30, 2019.

Woodyard is one of several officers charged over the tragedy, and his trial comes after a jury last week found his colleague Randy Roedema guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault.

Another Aurora Police Department officer Jason Rosenblatt, was found not guilty of all charges, and two EMTs are still awaiting trial.

The doctor who performed McClain's autopsy, Stephen Cina, said he died of complications from the ketamine - which he was given as officers restrained him to calm him down - while also noting that it occurred after the forcible restraint.

Denver-area cop Nathan Woodyard (pictured) appeared at the Adams County Justice Center in Brighton, Colorado, on Tuesday in connection with the autistic massage therapist's death

Elijah McClain was walking down the street when Colorado police stopped him and put him in the hold and EMS gave him drugs to calm him down. He was taken to the hospital and died in August 2019.

Woodyard was the first of three officers who approached McClain after a 17-year-old 911 caller said McClain, who was wearing earbuds and listening to music, seemed 'sketchy' and was waving his arms as he walked home on the night of Aug. 24, 2019.

McClain was often cold and wore a runners mask and jacket despite the warm weather, prosecutors said in the indictment.

The encounter quickly escalated. Prosecutors say Woodyard put his hands on McClain within eight seconds of getting out of his patrol car without introducing himself or explaining why he wanted to talk to McClain.

McClain, seemingly caught off guard, tried to keep walking.

Then, after Roedema said that McClain had reached for one of their guns, Woodyard put him in a neck hold, pressing against his carotid artery, which rendered him temporarily unconscious.

Paramedics later injected McClain with an overdose of ketamine, a powerful sedative. He was pronounced dead three days later.

Woodyard is charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, as Roedema and Rosenblatt were, but not assault, as they were.

The neck hold, called a carotid control hold, restricts the flow of blood to a persons brain. Many states, including Colorado, have passed limits on neck restraints since the murder of Floyd in Minneapolis.

A demonstrator carries an image of Elijah McClain during a rally and march in the summer of 2020

A demonstrator carries an image of Elijah McClain during a rally and march in the summer of 2020

McClain had been kept on the ground for 15 minutes when paramedics gave him 500 milligrams of ketamine.

He weighed 140 pounds (64 kilograms) but received a higher dose of ketamine than recommended for someone of his size, said Dr. Stephen Cina, a forensic pathologist who performed McClain's autopsy.

Cina ultimately decided that McClain died of complications from the ketamine, noting that it occurred after the forcible restraint.

However, he wasn't able to say if the death was a homicide or an accident. He testified at the first trial that he was not able to conclude whether the officers actions contributed to it.

Pulmonologist David Beuther testified that McClain threw up repeatedly and inhaled vomit, which made it hard to breathe.

Even before the ketamine was injected, McClains health had deteriorated to the extent that he needed intensive care, he said.

Joyce told jurors that McClain began to vomit right after being put in the neck hold.

A prosecutor initially decided not to bring charges in McClain's death largely because the initial autopsy didn't determine exactly how he died.

Following the protests over Floyd's death, though, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis directed the state attorney general to re-investigate the McClain case.

A grand jury indicted the three officers and two paramedics in 2021. Cina said he changed his autopsy findings to pin the blame on ketamine in 2021 after looking at body camera footage.

The charges came after three officers - Erica Marrero, Kyle Dittrich, and Jaron Jones - posed for photos on October 20 mimicking a chokehold close to the spot where McClain died two months earlier. They were fired over the selfie.

As they tried to appeal their dismissal, the officers argued that they sent the photo to Woodyard to try to cheer him up - but Woodyard did not respond and later told Dittrich the photos were inappropriate, according to an investigation.

Rosenblatt was later fired for replying 'haha' to the image, The Denver Post reports.

Aurora officer Randy Roedema (pictured) was convicted Thursday of criminally negligent homicide for the death of 23-year-old Elijah McClain in 2019

Former officer Jason Rosenblatt (pictured left) was cleared of all charges by the Colorado jury

Jason Rosenblatt had only been on the force for two years when McClain died. He was fired in 2020 for making light of the situation by doing an reenactment with other officers of the neck hold (pictured)

Prosecutors argued in opening statements on Tuesday that Woodyard bears responsibility for the Black man's death.

Assistant Attorney General Ann Joyce said Woodyard violated department policies on force and de-escalation and then abandoned McClain by stepping away from the scene.

Woodyard's attorney has yet to suggest McClain bore any responsibility for what happened, as the defense sometimes did in the first trial.

As in the trial against the other two officers, the defense pinned blame instead on paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec who are scheduled for trial next month.

McClains death was one of several that were revisited after the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd, and his name became a rallying cry at the ensuing social justice protests.

Body camera footage of his final moments resonated across the country as he said, terrified: 'I'm an introvert,' and 'I'm different.'

A jury convicted Randy Roedema on Thursday of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault, the least serious charges he faced, but acquitted Jason Rosenblatt on all counts.

The officers faced similar charges and the jury didn't explain its decisions. During the trial, Rosenblatt's attorneys pointed out his client wasn't near McClain when he was injected with ketamine.

Pictured: Woodyard (center) answers questions from Judge Mark Warner standing next to lawyers Andrew Ho (left) and Megan Downing (right) during his arraignment on Tuesday

Sheneen McClain (pictured), Elijah McClain's mother, burst into tears and fled a Colorado courtroom in September after she saw videos of her son pinned down on the ground

Prosecutors alleged that Rosenblatt held McClains legs when he was on the ground before Rosenblatt stepped away, while Roedema held McClain's shoulder and back.

Roedema was the senior of the two officers. He was often visible in body camera footage shown to jurors. At times, he seemed to be directing others what to do.

However, Woodyard was the first officer on the scene, and within 10 seconds he touched McClain and turned him around.

As McClain tried to escape his grip, Woodyard said, 'Relax, or I'm going to have to change this situation.'

The encounter escalated, with the other two officers arriving and all three taking McClain to the ground.

Woodyard put him in a neck hold and pressing against his carotid artery, temporarily rendering him unconscious.

The officers later told investigators they took McClain down after hearing Roedema say, 'he grabbed your gun dude.'

Rosenblatt had only been on the force for two years when McClain died. He was fired in 2020 for making light of a reenactment by other officers of the neck hold.

Former Colorado prosecutor George Brauchler said the jury seemed to be thoughtful in that it distinguished between the two officers' actions and rejected prosecutors' suggestion that there had been some complicity between them.

Brauchler, who prosecuted the 2012 Colorado theater shooting, said it appears the jury found there was enough medical evidence to hold Roedema accountable for McClain's death.

Roedema could get anywhere from probation to three years in prison when he's sentenced on January 5.

Judge Mark Warner would likely take into account that Roedema was convicted for committing a crime while in uniform and consider the type of message his sentence will send, Brauchler said.
A dog owner who was viciously attacked by her Rottweiler has been given an ultimatum: sort your dog out or the council will put it down.

Nikita Piil, 31, was rushed to Perth Royal Hospital on September 16 after being mauled by both her two pet Rottweilers at her home in Success, South Perth.

Ms Piil suffered serious injuries and 'almost lost' her life from bacterial infections as a result of the numerous bites she sustained.

She has undergone five surgeries to save both her arm and her life.

Her family revealed in a GoFundMe post that Ms Piil had 'gotten caught in a crossfire' while trying to calm down her dogs during a neighbourhood incident.

Seven-year-old Bronx was shot by police after first being Tasered.

Bronx was later put down by a vet while the younger dog, Harlem, was taken to a pound.

After a month-long investigation the City of Cockburn declared Harlem 'dangerous' and gave Ms Piil until Saturday to put down her pet before they intervene.

The owner of two Rottweilers, Nikita Piil (pictured), has been given the choice to euthanise one of her pets after the other was shot and euthanised when both animals attacked her in September

READ MORE: Family of woman mauled by pet Rottweilers shares bombshell message after dog attack Advertisement

Michael Emery, head of community safety and ranger services for the City of Cockburn, said Harlem still remains at the pound.

'Ms Piil, or her delegate, has until Saturday to comply with the States keeping of dangerous dog requirements,' he told The West Australian.

'If Ms Piil cannot comply, the City will have no option but to euthanise the dog, following any appeal period.'

Mr Emery revealed that Harlem can still dodge euthanasia if Ms Piil is able to follow strict requirements around his handling.

These include keeping him 'securely enclosed' in an area not easily accessible to children under the age of seven and being muzzled.

Ms Piil, who is understood to still be in hospital, is unlikely to face charges over the incident as a member of the public was not attacked.

The City of Cockburn had previously received complaints from neighbours over the Rottweilers' excessive barking, however there were no reported incidences of attacks prior to September 16.

Daily Mail Australia has approached the City of Cockburn for comment.

Ms Piil, who is still in hospital, has been given until Saturday to either euthanise the remaining pet or follow strict conditions relating to its handling

Seven-year-old Bronx was shot and euthanised shortly after the incident, while the younger dog Harlem (both pictured) remains in a pound where his fate lies in the balance

In another unfortunate incident involving this breed of dog, the life of a Tasmanian was taken after his Rottweiler turned on him and his wife.

Retiree Noel Backhouse, 66, and his wife Karen 'Maree' Anderson, 64, were at their home in Allens Rivulet, a small rural community 25km south-west of Hobart, when they were suddenly set upon by their Rottweiler, Ruben, on Sunday night.

A neighbour heard the commotion and called triple zero at about 10.40pm, but despite the best efforts of paramedics Mr Backhouse died at the scene after suffering critical injuries to his lower legs.

Mr Backhouse had just a year earlier put himself in harm's way to protect Ruben from an off-leash Pitbull, suffering bites to his hands and arms.

Ms Anderson, a teacher, also suffered serious injuries to her lower legs and was rushed to Royal Hobart Hospital where she remains in a stable condition.

Daily Mail Australia revealed that just five months prior to the incident, Ms Anderson shared a post suggesting some dog breeds get a bad rap over attacks when it's their owners who should be blamed.

'In the 70s they blamed the Dobermans. In the 80s they blamed the German Shepherds,' the post reads.

'In the 90s they blamed Rottweilers. Now they blame the Pitbull.

'When will they blame the humans?'
Australia's first Muslim cabinet minister warned Palestinians are being 'collectively punished' as Israel launches a large-scale retaliation against Hamas.

Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic spoke about the crisis in Gaza in during an interview with Pat Karvelas on ABC Radio National on Thursday, saying some Australians might find his comments 'uncomfortable'.

He repeatedly condemned the actions of terrorist group Hamas, which carried out a brutal massacre of Israelis on October 7 and reignited the long-running conflict, but said Palestinians in Australia were left feeling that their lives were 'considered lesser than'.

'Israel has described what happened on October 7, (as) Israel's equivalent to 9/11,' the Labor minister said.

'The number of Palestinians that have been killed so far (since then) equates to the number of people who lost their lives in 9/11. We don't see any public landmarks in Australia being lit up in red, black, white and green.

'There will be people very uncomfortable with me making that remark, but it goes to the heart of what Palestinians, and those who care for them in Australia, think; which is that Palestinian lives are considered lesser than'.

Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic spoke about the crisis in Gaza in during an interview with Pat Karvelas on ABC RN on Thursday, saying some Australians might find his comments 'uncomfortable'

Ed Husic is the MP for swathes of Western Sydney, including Rooty Hill, Doonside, parts of Blacktown and Mount Druitt. He has been praised for his frank assessment of the crisis

READ MORE: Rashays restaurateur calls for the Palestinian flag to be lit up on the Sydney Opera House - as he unleashes on the government over 'double standards' in the Israel conflict

Mr Husic described the situation in Gaza as a 'humanitarian crisis' in which up to 1,000 children were among the casualties.

'Homes, schools, medical centres destroyed. No food, fuel, medicines or water (in Gaza). There's no surprise some people are saying this is a collective punishment,' he said.

Mr Husic was asked to confirm whether he, too, believed Palestinians were being punished for the crimes of Hamas.

'I feel very strongly that Palestinians are being collectively punished here for Hamas's barbarism,' he said.

'We are leaving inter-generational scars. The rest of us will go on with our lives, but the people in the Middle East will carry those scars.

'There has got to be a more strategic and precise way to hold Hamas to account, but not affect innocent Palestinian families.'

He repeatedly condemned the actions of terrorist group Hamas, which carried out a brutal massacre of Israelis on October 7 and reignited an ongoing conflict, but said Palestinians in Australia were left feeling that their lives were 'considered lesser than'

The Labor Party has condemned Hamas and repeatedly said Israel has a right to defend itself. An amended motion moved by the Greens in the House of Representatives earlier this week to accuse Israel of war crimes was swiftly shot down.

Mr Husic is one of a handful of Labor politicians who have stepped outside the party line since the latest bloodshed erupted.

He condemned the language used by Israeli figures - who he said had described Palestinians as 'human animals' and made references to 'collateral damage' - and urged all politicians to consider the way they spoke about the conflict.

'People in decision-making positions, the language they use not only has an impact on wider communities, but also shapes the way in which decisions are taken,' he said.

'We should avoid political grandstanding... Parliamentarians should be at the front line, demonstrating by virtue of our actions, that if we believe in social cohesion we should do our best to maintain it.'

Mr Husic said he supported Israel's right to defend itself, but also noted the tragic loss of life being reported out of Gaza.

A recent strike on a hospital in Gaza left more than 500 people dead. Hundreds of civilians, children, elderly and sick were among the casualties.

Australia's first Muslim cabinet minister has noted the humanitarian crisis underway in Gaza as Israel launches a full-scale retaliation for Hamas ' brutal October 7 attacks

Neither side will claim responsibility for the attack. Israel has been warning hospitals to evacuate this week ahead of strikes, but claims a Hamas-affiliated terror group misfired a missile, which struck the hospital.

Mr Husic said the Israeli government has a responsibility to ensure any retaliatory attacks make significant efforts to protect civilian life.

'Governments are different to terror organisations,' he said. 'There is a higher expectation that there will be a protection of innocent lives.

'Governments have resources at their disposal to make sure protection of human lives can occur.'
Why bother waiting to learn the truth about the most horrific escalation yet in this febrile Israel-Hamas conflict, when you can jump on your soapbox and opine with righteous authority?

After all, that's what two elected US Congresswomen  Democrat Squad Sisters Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar  did following the blast at Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday, which left countless dead.

The images were indescribably awful. Bloodied, mangled bodies littered a parking lot. Others  men, women, children  lay dead and dying inside.

Hamas sources claimed an Israeli airstrike was to blame for the slaughter. The world held its breath and braced for more information.

Well, not Tlaib and Omar, who rushed to join a chorus of Hamas propogandists and pour gasoline of the raging inferno of Mideast war.

'Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that,' Tlaib posted on Twitter.

'Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me will remember where you stood,' she warned.

'Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that,' Tlaib posted on Twitter .

Tlaib and Omar (above) rushed to join a chorus of Hamas propogandists and pour gasoline of the raging inferno of Mideast war.

Not to be outdone by her fellow Squaddie, Omar lectured that, 'Bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes.'

Now, that much is indeed true  but it also turns out that the war criminals in question here may have been Palestinian.

Less than an hour after initial reports of an Israeli strike, the government claimed they had evidence that proved the blast was actually the fault of Hamas-aligned Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who had misfired a rocket aimed from inside Gaza at Israel.

These claims were bolstered on Wednesday with the release of footage appearing to show such a misfire.

It was a reframing of the narrative that no doubt sent editors at the New York Times  who had run with the original line, though sourced it rather vaguely to 'Palestinians' and not Hamas terrorists (you know, notoriously untrustworthy people)  into a tailspin.

Their headline swiftly evolved from 'Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say' to 'At Least 500 Dead in Blast at Gaza Hospital, Palestinians Say'.

But at least they changed it.

For, even after President Biden met Prime Minister Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and repeated the line of his National Security Council  that preliminary American intelligence analysis has found 'Israel is not responsible'  Tlaib has yet to issue a correction.

'Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me will remember where you stood,' Tlaib warned (above).

Not to be outdone by her fellow Squaddie, Omar lectured (above) that, 'Bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes.'

In fact, she has doubled down.

At the time of publication, Hamas's claims of an Israeli strike remain on her Twitter feed.

But worse, on Wednesday evening, as pro-Palestine protesters descended on Capitol, Tlaib addressed the baying crowds, saying: '[We] just continue to watch people think it's okay to bomb a hospital with children.'

In contrast, Omar has walked backed the pro-Hamas spin.

'Our office cited an AP report yesterday that the IDF had hit a Baptist hospital in Gaza. Since then, the IDF denied responsibility and the US intelligence assessment is that this was not done by Israel,' she tweeted Wednesday evening.

Bravo  though it's the very least she could do.

Is it too much to ask a member of Congress to think twice before she clicks?

Her far more incendiary original post had been viewed 10.5 million times by Thursday morning. Omar's apparent clarification has been seen by less than 730,000.

And she's a recent repeat offender. Over the weekend, she reposted a picture of children killed in a 2013 Syrian chemical weapons attack with the deceptive caption 'CHILD GENOCIDE IN PALESTINE.' Thankfully, that tweet has been removed.

This is not just morally and professionally reprehensible behavior. It's wilfully dangerous.

What priceless publicity it is for the butchers of Hamas to have such useful allies in the halls of the Congress.

Outraged throngs stormed the U.S. embassy in Beirut on the news of the hospital tragedy, setting fire to the compound and clashing with Lebanese security forces. Massive crowds in Iraq and Egypt whipped into fury chanted 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America'.

The images were indescribably awful. Bloodied, mangled bodies littered a parking lot. Others  men, women, children  lay dead and dying inside. (Above) Wounded Palestinian children inside al-Shifa hospital on October 17, 2023

Less than an hour after initial reports of an Israeli strike, the government claimed they had evidence that proved the blast was actually the fault of Hamas-aligned Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (Above) Israel also released a radar map of Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket attacks

Are Tlaib and Omar blind to the rising threat of a regional war? Do they not see the murderous Islamist forces, led by Iran, coalescing against our greatest ally in the region? Are they unaware of the murders already executed by supporters of Hamas in France and Belgium?

Perhaps it's naive to be shocked.

Omar once tweeted, 'Israel has hypnotized the world.'

Tlaib has branded Israel an apartheid state, and when challenged by a reporter last week to denounce Hamas atrocities, she literally ran away.

Neither have denounced the Democratic Socialists of America, of which they are members, who endorsed a pro-Hamas rally in New York City that celebrated the slaughter of Jews.

So ask yourself: Is it at all possible that these two educated women have, somehow, been misled?

Or is this gaslighting, out-right lying, the dirty propaganda of Hamas emanating from one of the highest offices in the land?

Tlaib and Omar claim they want peace, yet their words are inflaming this conflict as we speak.

It's well past time responsible Democrats called out their colleagues.

History won't remember well those who stood by.
Xi meets Madbouly, vowing to jointly work for more stability, certainty to region, world

Xinhua) 16:23, October 19, 2023

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with Prime Minister of Egypt Mostafa Madbouly, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF).

Over the past decade, China and Egypt have conducted fruitful cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi said, calling on the two sides to jointly follow through on the outcomes of the third BRF.

China is willing to strengthen cooperation with Egypt in such fields as infrastructure, agricultural technology and renewable energy, expand people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, and continuously promote the development of China-Egypt comprehensive strategic partnership, he added.

Xi congratulated Egypt on being invited to join the BRICS cooperation mechanism.

China stands ready to work with Egypt to uphold genuine multilateralism and jointly safeguard international fairness and justice and the common interests of developing countries to inject more certainty and stability into the region and the world, Xi said.

Madbouly said Egypt regards China as a role model for emerging economies and developing countries.

The Belt and Road cooperation has greatly improved the level of transportation and logistics in Egypt and boosted the country's economic development, said Madbouly, noting that Egypt will continue to actively participate in the Belt and Road cooperation.

On the current situation between Palestine and Israel, Xi stressed that the top priority is to cease fire and stop war at an early date.

It is crucial to prevent the conflict from expanding or even losing control and causing a serious humanitarian crisis, Xi said.

The fundamental way out of the recurring Palestine-Israel conflict lies in implementing the "two-state solution" and establishing an independent State of Palestine, so as to realize the peaceful coexistence of Palestine and Israel, Xi said.

Xi noted that China appreciates the important role played by Egypt in de-escalating the situation and supports Egypt's efforts to open humanitarian corridors.

China is willing to enhance coordination with Egypt and Arab countries to facilitate a comprehensive, just, and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue at the earliest possible opportunity, Xi said.

Madbouly said that Egypt and Arab countries commended China for its consistent and fair stance on the Palestinian issue and look forward to China's more significant role in resolving the current crisis.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
Fresh off leading the No campaign to a crushing win in Saturday's vote on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Nyunggai Warren Mundine has called for another referendum.

Mr Mundine said he still wanted Indigenous people recognised in the constitution, which would need a referendum, despite opposing the mechanism of the Voice as a means to do that.

'I thought it was important he made it clear before the referendum that the vast majority of Australians, about 90 per cent, want Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders recognised in the Constitution,' Mr Mundine told the Australian Financial Review.

However, Mr Mundine supported Opposition Leader Peter Dutton's decision to rule out one in the immediate future, saying the issue should be reviewed.

Warren Mundine said he still believes the 'vast majority' of Australians want Indigenous people recognised in the constitution despite leading the successful campaign against the Voice as a means to do that

Mr Dutton said this week that 'the public is probably over the referendum process for some time.'

Mr Mundine agreed.

'Look, I don't have a timeframe [for a second referendum], but I hope it's earlier than later, I think the Leader of the Opposition has made the right decision because people in Australia now are burned out,' he said.

'But this was such a bruising campaign for all Australians. We need a rest, to rejuvenate, and get ourselves together and this is so important for the Prime Minister, he needs to bring us all together now.'

In the wake of the referendum Mr Mundine also rejected calls by Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe for a treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

'I wouldn't support a treaty,' he said. 'And I didn't go along the line of a treaty in the Makarrata commission in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

'We've always said that because of our culture and religions spirituality that country is very important to us, it's part and parcel of our lives, so to be compatible to a modern nation, you can't have two sets of laws, two sets of sovereignty.

'Quite frankly, I don't know how that can work.'

On Wednesday Mr Mundine revealed to Daily Mail Australia the personal toll the relentless personal abuse had taken on him during the Voice referendum campaign.

Saturday's referendum delivered a crushing verdict against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament

'The biggest downer I had during the campaign was the vitriolic attacks,' he said.

'They went after me, they went after my businesses, they went after everything.'

'I was contemplating suicide during the campaign.

'The team came up to me and said "C'mon mate, we all love you, we have to keep moving".

'That's what we did, we kept on focusing on the people out there.'

He said accusations he did not care about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were particularly hurtful.

'There were these attacks saying I couldn't give a s**t, people refusing to shake my hand when I was on some of the polling booths,' he said.

Mr Mundine (pictured right with LNP Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price) said the referendum had seen him subject to relentless personal attacks

'My passion is improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and I have been doing that for about 30 years now.'

Australians delivered a crushing No verdict in the weekend's referendum against the proposed Voice despite the measure being backed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, blue chip corporations, unions and multiple other groups.

Nationally 61 percent of voters rejected the proposal and the Voice failed to win majority approval in a single state.
A new cartoon developed by a right-wing media company has been accused of being a 'blatant Bluey knock-off' for conservatives.

The animated series, Chip Chilla, is now airing on Bentkey, a streaming app for children that was launched by right-wing media outlet The Daily Wire, founded by political commentator Ben Shapiro and film-maker Jeremy Boreing.

However, many have pointed out that the characters and settings in Chip Chilla share a remarkable likeness to those in 'Bluey', extending to the animation style, music, colour palette and characters.

US animated series Chip Chilla started airing on Bentkey, a streaming app with programming designed for children that was launched by conservative media outlet The Daily Wire

Comparisons have been made with the popular Aussie animated series, Bluey, which airs on Disney+ in the US and UK and ABC iView in Australia

In Chip Chilla, the storyline focuses on a homeschooling family of chinchillas, while Bluey centres around the adventures of a family of cattle dogs.

Despite the differences in species, the similarities in artistic elements and themes between the two shows have not gone unnoticed.

'This cheap @OfficialBlueyTV knock-off is a bit ruff!' Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, said. 'They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. But Chip Chilla certainly proves that wrong.'

'Brisbane is so proud to be the home of Bluey, and this phony-looking US version is barking up the wrong tree! You can't beat Bluey!'

One social media user said: 'I've only seen a clip of Chip Chilla, it's like you took Bluey, cut out everything that made it good and charming, and replaced it with conservative values.'

Chip Chilla was developed by Ben Shapiro's conservative media company, The Daily Wire, and aired on the outlet's streaming app, Bentkey

'It's obviously a rip-off, and the writing is terrible, feels soulless and without heart, just a cash grab,' said another.

One user pointed out how the backgrounds in Chip Chilla 'look like they were copy-pasted from the show!'.

After watching six episodes, Guardian writer Janine Israel said: 'I can say the worst sin Chip Chilla commits is to be a bit dull, at least for this adult. If its mission is, as suspected, to take Bluey's winning formula and put a conservative wash on it, it's subtle.

Both shows feature a similar animation style, similar music, a similar colour palette, are designed for young children and are about a family of animals

In a video statement on Monday marking the launch, Boreing said: 'Bentkey isn't about teaching kids politics, it's about childhood and wonder and adventure. It's about values and all of the things on which politics are built later.'

Boreing explained the company's aim was to offer alternative children's programming to the perceived left-leaning kids shows that currently air.

'Why does it matter? It matters because kids go to school for 40 hours a week and then they engage in pop culture for 40 more hours every week.

'That means for 80 hours of a child's week, you are turning them over to the left. And good parents might spend 15 minutes a day in meaningful conversation with their kids.'

The Daily Wire, who sunk $100million into Bentkey, claims their children's shows will be free of 'divisive narratives' or 'insidious ideologies.'

The Daily Wire originally premiered a teaser for Chip Chilla that coincided with the launch of their video-on-demand service, DailyWire+, back in June 2022.

That teaser showed a more traditional animation style that appeared reminiscent of old Disney cartoons.

This was completely changed to the final Bluey-style design when the series was launched this week.
An Adelaide woman was horrified to find photos she'd posted on Instagram with her friends at 19-years-old had been photoshopped into pornography ads.

Adelaide musician Alexia Damokas, known by her stage name Aleksiah, has detailed the traumatic experience four years later in her newly-released song 'Pretty Picture'.

Ms Damokas, 23, said she'd had no idea the photoshopped pictures existed until an acquaintance found them on Twitter.

'Someone literally just saved photos that were public online of me just being a normal 19-year-old and photoshopped them onto pornographic images and posted them on Twitter,' she told Adelaide Now.

'Someone I did karaoke with sent me a message saying, "Hey, we don't know each other very well but I just found these on Twitter and thought I should tell you".'

Adelaide musician Alexia Damokas (above) found fake pornographic photos and ands of herself online when she was 19

Creating fake pornographic material without consent is illegal with a Brisbane man sentenced to 12 months behind bars for photoshopping his teenage stepdaughter into pornographic photos in 2018.

With the help of her friends and family, Ms Damokas was able to report the Twitter account and the pictures were removed.

Unable to fully process her feelings at the time, she bottled them up and tried to downplay the incident.

'When this first happened, I laughed it off and took it as a joke but, as I've gotten older, I've realised how much of an invasion of my privacy and disrespect of my body this act was,' she wrote in an emotional Instagram post.

It was only when the images reappeared years later that Ms Damokas was able to work through her emotions and understand the toll the edited photos took on her.

'I was angry, I was really confused, I was extremely embarrassed that people saw those photos of me because they weren't me,' she told Adelaide Now.

'It was embarrassing that people would see that, especially when I don't feel comfortable sharing images of my naked body online.'

Ms Damokas said she was initially embarrassed about the ads (one above)

Ms Damokas (above) said she's since realised the images were 'an invasion of my privacy and disrespect of my body'

Now, Ms Damokas sees the release of her new song as a chance for her to take charge of the story and the shame she once felt.

'The songs about reclaiming the pride and safety I felt I had lost and just realising how sad and pathetic that person was that made those photos,' she said.

Ms Damokas' song, Pretty Picture, is out now ahead of her tour with Adelaide group Teenage Joans in November.
Reaction to the Voice's crushing referendum defeat has divided the Indigenous community, with one elder delivering a fiery spray during a Welcome to Country.

But another Aboriginal leader, Uncle BJ Cruse, insisted there was still a way for Australians to unite, even after the devastating result of the vote for his people.

The Eden Aboriginal Land Council chairman tried to bounce back from Saturday night's blow when he delivered a Welcome to Country on the NSW south coast.

He told assembled locals, still shell-shocked by the resounding 60 per cent-plus verdict against the Voice proposal: 'We can find the middle ground.

'We don't have to chuck the baby out with the bathwater.'

Mr Cruse said it was important to find a compromise that gave Indigenous people a way to be heard even if the move to enshrine the Voice in the constitution had failed.

Aboriginal leader, Uncle BJ Cruse, insists there is still a way for Australians to unite, even after the devastating result of the referendum vote for his people

He refused to be drawn into a kneejerk war with those who voted against the Voice, telling the crowd on Sunday morning: 'That means friends are welcome.'

Mr Cruse is a devout Christian and son of an Indigenous pastor, and has been chairman of the Eden ALC for 36 years as a progressive and popular elder.

He led the campaign to rename Eden's Ben Boyd National Park - named after a 19th century Scottish businessman and slave trader - to Beowa National Park last year.

His reaction is in contrast to South Australian elder Katrina Ngaityalya Power's bitter outburst during her Welcome to Country at a business function on Wednesday.

She stunned the more than 400 guests at a South Australian Industry, Innovation and Science breakfast meeting by telling them they were on 'stolen' land.

After being applauded as she made her way to the stage at the Adelaide Convention Centre, Ms Power said she 'deserved' a better clap, the Advertiser reported.

In a reference to the scale of the Voice referendum's defeat, by around 61 per cent to 39 per cent, she said 'seven in 10 of you' didn't want her to 'have a voice'.

The Kaurna woman also called for King Charles to be 'dethroned' and claimed she could 'understand' what it was like for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Katrina Ngaityalya Power (pictured) stunned the more than 400 guests at a South Australian Industry, Innovation and Science breakfast meeting by telling them they were on 'stolen' land

State Liberal MP Ben Hood, who was at the meeting, said it was 'inappropriate for this kind of highly political commentary to occur at a taxpayer-funded event'.

He added that it was 'a huge shock that it was warmly welcomed and supported by (Premier Peter) Malinauskas' Labor ministers..

It is not the first time Ms Power has made headlines for her contentious views.

In 2017, she made a references to Indigenous 'slavery' during her 'speech of welcome' at an Anzac Day dawn service in Adelaide.

She also changed the words of the 23rd Psalm to include the phrase 'walk through the valley of invasion', which was called 'insulting and disrespectful' by some veterans at the service.

Ms Power made news again on International Women's Day on March 8, 2018, when she referred to then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as 'Malcolm Cows***'.

She refused to apologise at the time, saying 'I am not at all sorry and if the Prime Minister of Australia wants an apology he can wait 220 years'.

A South Australia government spokesman said of Ms Power's latest controversy: 'In our liberal democracy, people are free to express their views.

'The government does not script or vet the remarks of people delivering a Welcome to Country at government events.'

After being applauded as she made her way to the stage at the Adelaide Convention Centre, Ms Power (pictured) said she 'deserved' a better clap
Former Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo was eying up a presidential bid but was talked out if by his longtime ally Biden, a new book has revealed.

Cuomo, 65, resigned from his post in 2021 amid a sexual harassment scandal but was 'privately' considering running for the White House in 2019.

He decided against the move after being persuaded by his longtime friend Biden, 80, that he was 'still young'.

The president also told him that both of them running would 'cannibalize the middle' and lead to a far left politician receiving the Democrat nomination.

The revelations have emerged in a new memoir by Cuomo's former right-hand adviser, Melissa DeRosa, who served as Secretary to the Governor of New York from 2017 until 2021.

In her book, 'What's Left Unsaid' she revealed that she and Cuomo met with Biden in Virginia ahead of the 2020 presidential primary at the former vice president's Georgian mansion near the Potomac.

Ousted Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo was considering running for president back in 2019 but was persuaded not to by his longstanding friend Biden

Once there they had a meeting convened by Steve Ricchetti, now counselor to president Biden, and the two a ppealed to Cuomo to sit out the race.

'They said I was still young,' Cuomo recounted to DeRosa in the car after the meeting wrapped. 'That if I ran this time, he and I would cannibalize the middle, and a Far Lefty would get the nomination.'

Cuomo, who had been 'personal friends with Joe's son Beau before he died and was first in line at his wake', according to the book, was swayed by their reasoning.

He pledged to stand down and support Biden and did so 'every day' until his own resignation in the wake of sexual harassment allegations.

Cuomo stepped down in 2021 amid a probe into his behavior by New York Attorney General Letitia James and her damning report which found he had sexually harassed 11 women.

He has long maintained his innocence and claimed his resignation was to avoid an impeachment trial which would take up time and money.

Despite his close relationship to the president, Biden called for his resignation and admitted he had not read the report.

He said at the time: 'Look, what I said was: If the investigation of the attorney general concluded that the allegations were correct, thatback in Marchthat I would recommend he resign. Thats what Im doing today. Ive not read the report. I dont know the details of it. All I know is the end result.'

Biden told Cuomo he was 'still young' and that if both of them ran it could split voters in the party's center and lead to a far left nominee

By contrast, DeRosa quit in solidarity with her former boss and has been among his most vocal supporters. She took aim at Biden's behavior in the memoir.

DeRosa wrote: 'Two years later, Biden turned his back on his longtime friend Cuomo without so much as even a cursory glance at the report, it created a stampede.'

She also criticized 'every member of the New York congressional delegation' who called for Cuomo's resignation, including Democratic governors Ned Lamont of Connecticut and Phil Murphy of New Jersey, plus US senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

She wrote: 'None of them had read the report, and none of them asked any questions, a point underscored by the president of the United States himself when calling for his longtime friend and ally's resignation.'

At the time he was considering a presidential bid Cuomo's star was on the rise following his re-election for a third term as governor the year before.

His popularity exploded during the pandemic after he was roundly praised for his handling of Covid-19.

His daily presentations and appearances on chat shows led to him becoming a leading Democratic voice in the pandemic and a $5 million book deal detailing the state's response.

This eventually unraveled after it emerged Cuomo had presided over a disastrous policy of discharging Covid positive patients into nursing homes to deal with overcrowding in New York hospitals and then under reported the number of deaths as a result.

Cuomo (pictured in 2021 after his resignation speech) was considering the bid two years before he was forced to step down as Governor amid allegations he sexually harassed 11 women

The details of the meeting between Biden and Cuomo were included in Melissa DeRosa's upcoming book describing her years as the former governor's aide

He was ordered to pay back the profits from his book by The Joint Commission on Public Ethics but this was later overturned and he was allowed to keep every penny.

Cuomo's political reputation first began to crumble in December 2020 when former aide Lindsey Boylan became the first woman to go public with allegations of sexual harassment.

But despite mounting allegations, Cuomo refused calls to resign and only stepped down following James' report, which included an allegation by former aide Brittany Commisso who claimed Cuomo groped her breast in the executive mansion in November 2020.

The Democrat has not faced any criminal charges and he has consistently denied wrongdoing.

However both Cuomo and DeRosa were sued for damages by a state trooper who claims the ousted governor groped and sexually harassed her and that his aide allegedly covered it up.

A federal judge recently dismissed the suit against DeRosa, but it continues against Cuomo.

The former governor saw his popularity rise during the pandemic thanks to his daily briefings and appearances across the media, however it was not to last as the impact of his failed policy of discharging Covid positive patients into nursing homes became clear

The soldier, known only as Trooper 1, claims Cuomo tried to kiss her, steered conversations toward sex, asked her to help find him a girlfriend and once asked 'why don't you wear a dress?'

She also accused him of inappropriately touching her while she was working in his security detail.

As part of his defense, Cuomo has subpoenaed five of the eleven women he is accused of sexually harassing.

Subpoenas were sent to Virginia Limmiatis, Brittany Commisso, Ana Liss, Alyssa McGrath and Lindsey Boylan.
In the fog of war, the truth is all too often obscured. Claim and counter-claim compete, which is why it is so vital that news outlets verify every piece of information.

The BBC fell disgracefully short of this obligation with its questionable reporting of the devastating explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.

Within minutes of Tuesday's blast, Hamas had pointed the finger of blame at Israel, claiming an air strike had killed hundreds of patients, healthcare staff and people seeking safety in the medical centre's grounds.

Israel, meanwhile, categorically denied culpability. It insisted the atrocity was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terror group based in Gaza.

Only one of these sworn enemies could be telling the truth. Indeed, the Mail's front-page headline yesterday morning was: 'Hospital horror: Who is to blame?'

The BBC fell disgracefully short of this obligation with its questionable reporting of the devastating explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City (File Photo)

Given the volatility of the Middle East, the BBC should surely have exercised restraint rather than rushed to judgment at such a sensitive moment.

Instead, the broadcaster did the opposite. With obscene haste, it uncritically parroted the Hamas version of events.

'It's hard to see what else this could be other than an Israeli air strike,' one correspondent irresponsibly told viewers.

But of course, there is another possible explanation, which grew in credibility as the hours passed.

Is it really conceivable that Israel would have fired missiles anywhere near a hospital? The Jewish state is conscious the world is watching as it seeks retribution against Hamas for the massacre of 1,400 civilians.

Nor would the timing have made sense with US President Joe Biden visiting the country yesterday in a show of support.

It would also have handed the terrorists a massive propaganda victory.

Crucially, the hospital buildings remained standing despite the blast. An Israeli airstrike would have left nothing but a smoking crater and rubble.

A view of damage on October 18, 2023 after Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was hit in Gaza City

Evidence released by Tel Aviv yesterday  and backed by US intelligence  points overwhelmingly to the bloodshed being caused by a militant rocket aimed at Israel falling short. It wouldn't be the first time.

So why did the BBC give the world a masterclass in how to spread jihadist misinformation? There is a clue in its perverse refusal to describe the mass murderers of Hamas as 'terrorists'  despite being designated so in UK law.

The corporation's left-liberal worldview means it is institutionally biased towards the Palestinian cause and distrusts Israel.

That is why it takes the word of Hamas, a death cult dedicated to annihilating the Jews, at face value, while simultaneously holding Israel to a higher level of scrutiny.

In an interview with the Mail, Israel's president Isaac Herzog describes the BBC's reporting of the conflict as 'atrocious'. He's right. And it's more than that. It not only legitimises evil, it's extremely dangerous.

With Israel bombarding the terrorists' base in the Gaza Strip, it's inevitable most Arabs and Muslims will believe it was responsible for attacking the hospital. By regurgitating Hamas's line, the corporation  which wields unparalleled influence across the globe  validates this inaccurate view.

As a result, it risks fuelling riots across the Middle East, inciting anti-Western attacks elsewhere in the world and stirring up hatred against Jews.

Today Rishi Sunak will be the next world leader to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu.

While rightly supporting Israel's right to defend itself, the PM will urge all sides to avoid 'further escalation' and press the case for allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza.

By placing the UK at the vanguard of these efforts, he is showing that post-Brexit Britain remains a responsible presence on the global stage. If only the same could be said for the increasingly unreliable BBC.
Democrat congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar should be ashamed of rushing to blame Israel for the Gaza hospital attack, The View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said on Wednesday.

The pair - the first female Muslims elected to Congress, and two of only three Muslims in Congress - both seized on reports of the Gaza strike, and said Israel was to blame.

The Pentagon has analyzed the explosion and concluded it was a Palestinian-launched rocket, intended for Israel, which misfired and hit the hospital.

Griffin said Tlaib and Omar helped convince the leaders of Palestine, Jordan and Egypt to cancel their meeting with Biden, planned for Wednesday afternoon in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

'I want to say shame on Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar because they played a role in the fact that this agreement, with the Arab nations that he [President Biden] was going to meet with fell apart,' said Griffin.

Alyssa Farah Griffin is seen on Wednesday on The View, criticizing Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib

Rashida Tlaib (seen left, at a demonstration on Wednesday calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas) and Ilhan Omar (right) both blamed Israel for the Gaza hospital attack

Tlaib, whose parents were born in Palestine, broke down in tears on Wednesday at a rally in DC

'We now know that this hospital attack that took place, Biden said he is very confident it was not the Israelis that did it.

'It was likely Islamic Jihad and that's because of U.S. Department of Defense intelligence and footage analyzed.'

With Israel bombing Gaza, ahead of an expected ground invasion, initial reports about the al-Ahli hospital blast cited Gaza officials claiming that Israel was behind it.

The claims sparked protests around the world, with the Israeli embassy in Jordan the scene of clashes and the U.S. embassy in Beirut partially set on fire. The embassies of Britain and France - allies of the U.S. and Israel - were the scene of protests in Tehran.

Griffin said Tlaib and Omar were partly to blame, as they refused to retract their statements blaming Israel.

'What happened is people like you said, people got angry and outraged,' said Griffin.

'People took it to the streets in the middle of the night to protest and it turns out that very, very likely was not true and shame on those congresswomen for not walking back those wrong statements that they made.'

Griffin is seen on Wednesday appearing on The View

Omar, who was born in Somalia and immigrated to the U.S. as a refugee, commented on an Associated Press tweet headlined: 'BREAKING: The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 500 people killed in an explosion at a hospital that it says was caused by an Israeli airstrike.'

Omar retweeted the post, and repeated the Gazan claim that it was an Israeli strike.

'Bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes. The IDF reportedly blowing up one of the few places the injured and wounded can seek medical treatment and shelter during a war is horrific,' she tweeted.

'@POTUS needs to push for an immediate ceasefire to end this slaughter.'

Tlaib, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Palestinian territory, went even further.

She tweeted: 'Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.

'@POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.

'Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me. We will remember where you stood.'

Both Omar and Tlaib have refused to delete their tweets, despite the Pentagon now concluding that the explosion was caused by a Palestinian-launched rocket misfiring.

Tlaib even doubled down on her tweet, pointing out that Israel's army is known to have lied in the past - most notably in claiming that journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot in the head by the IDF in May 2022, was killed by Palestinian militants.

The al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City is seen on Wednesday after the strike

People inspect the area of Al-Ahli hospital where hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other

The destruction drew fury in the Arab street. Biden said he could 'understand' outrage but said Wednesday he thought the 'other team' was responsible

Biden said he put stock in analysis that an errant missile from Gaza was likely to blame

'Breaking News: Israeli PM Netanyahu has lied to the public before,' she tweeted, with a link to an Israeli newspaper fact-checking Netanyahu.

Tlaib and Omar were previously criticized by Griffin and her co-host, Joy Behar.

Griffin said: 'Joe Biden nailed it, that was a very strong moment for the American president but I hope members of the Squad tuned in.

'Yesterday Rashida Tlaib was asked to condemn the butchering of children, she refused to answer the question, she refused to condemn it.'

Behar said their response to the Hamas attacks of October 7 was 'obnoxious.'
Half eaten carcass of the animal has washed up

Beachgoers were left horrified after they discovered the remains of a four-metre-long great white shark that had washed up on shore with half of its body missing.

The body of the three metre shark was discovered by locals on Bridgewater Beach near Cape Bridgewater, around 370km south-west of Melbourne, on Tuesday.

Footage taken at the scene by local fisherman Ben Johnstone shows the dead shark lying on the sand.

The lower part of the animal's body appears to have been torn apart with only the upper portion of its body still intact.

Killer whales are suspected of mauling the great white shark before its body washed up on shore.

The body of the great white shark (pictured) was found on Bridgewater beach by locals on Tuesday

Mr Johnstone told Daily Mail Australia he came down to the beach after a friend told him about the gruesome discovery.

'I got a tip-off...that it might be out there,' Mr Johnstone said.

'I [had] no idea what had happened'.

Mr Johnstone, who is the bait shop manager at Portland Bait and Tackle, said the shark could have been attacked by orcas that were searching for food.

He said the whales were seen near the beach a few days before the shark washed up on shore.

'It probably happened in between when they were spotted in the area...when it washed up on the beach,' he said.

'The carcass was pretty fresh when I went down there.'

Mr Johnstone said orcas do prey on sharks to get at a part of the meat but bizarrely don't consume the rest of the animal.

'They [killer whales] do eat the livers out of...white sharks, that's the only part of it they eat,' he said.

'The head and pretty much everything else [was left] pretty much intact... they just want the livers.'

Parts of the animal were ripped apart (pictured) in a savage attack which was believed to have been carried out by pods of killer whales

Local fisherman Ben Johnstone (pictured) said he was told the shark had washed up on the beach by a friend before he went down to take a look on Tuesday

Parts of the shark's carcass were taken away for testing.

Flinders University trophic ecologist Lauren Meyer told the ABC killer whales along with other whale species have a particular liking for the internal organs of sharks.

'We see this with things like humpback whales, where [killer whales] come in and actually eat the tongue and leave the rest of the whale,' she said.

'We certainly see that they prefer the liver of white sharks, mako sharks, bronze whalers and sevengills, and even tiger sharks.

Ms Meyer said orcas are known to hunt only for particular types of food and each group of whales behave differently which makes them very difficult to analyse by marine experts.

'They're relatively elusive and each different pod and ecotype has such specific behaviour that it's hard to draw conclusions across all of killer whales because they all act so differently,' Ms Meyer said.

Experts say killer whales along with other whale species have a particular liking for the internal organs (pictured) of sharks.

Mr Johnstone said killer whales do visit the Portland bay area on occasion.

'Every know and then they [whales] will show up out here...you won't see them for a few years,' he said.

'For about two weeks they will hang around'.

He said it's the first time he's seen the carcass of a shark wash up on the beach mauled like the way it was.

'I've seen it on TV before, but to actually see it locally is pretty cool'.
The CEO of AirAsia raised eyebrows after posting a photo of himself getting a massage shirtless during a high-powered board meeting.

Tony Fernandes, the boss of the Malaysian low-cost airline, uploaded the image to professional social media platform LinkedIn this week - sparking uproar.

Mr Fernandes complained of feeling 'sore' after a flight and said one of his employees, AirAsia Indonesia boss Veranita Yosephine, suggested he get a body rub.

'Got to love Indonesia and AirAsia culture that I can have a massage and do a management meeting,' he said.

The image of Mr Fernandes was relentlessly mocked on the normally staid workplace social media platform.

The CEO of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes, has copped backlash for posting an image of him receiving a shirtless massage while in a management meeting (pictured) to LinkedIn

One LinkedIn user wrote that Mr Fernandes' actions were 'inappropriate and absurd'.

A second professional networker described the image as 'unprofessional', adding: 'He should be setting an example of good work ethics and culture, not flaunting his body and privilege

'Some CEOs need to stay off LinkedIn,' said a third.

The public uproar didn't stop at the hundreds of comments on LinkedIn, with more coming from X, formerly Twitter, after a screenshot of the post was posted to the social media.

'Nothing says "power" like taking a Zoom call to close that deal whilst naked to the waist being massaged by a lady in a hazmat suit,' one X user joked.

'Last time I went to a board meeting dressed like that I was up in front of HR,' a second wrote.

Other users were perplexed as to why the CEO found the need to post the 'strange' image, with one user questioning 'is this satire?'

Daily Mail Australia contacted AirAsia and Mr Fernandes for comment.

Numerous users chastised Mr Fernandes' 'unprofessional' actions while others questioned why the CEO (pictured) felt the need to post the 'strange' image

Mr Fernandes deleted the image and later made a passing reference to 'all the attention' he received in follow-up posts.

When asked to comment on the issue by Bloomberg, the CEO said 'You can never really explain the thought process behind a post, so I deleted it.'

'I didn't mean to offend anyone,' he said.

Heralded as Malaysia's answer to Virgin boss, Sir Richard Branson, Mr Fernandes purchased the budget airline for one Malaysian ringgit, about AUD$0.33, in 2001.

Mr Fernandes had mortgaged his home and dipped into his personal savings to help cover debts totalling about $30million.

Under his leadership the airline grew to Asia's fourth-largest at its peak in 2017. The airline expanded across Asia and brought in a profit of about $700million prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A tourist has revealed the one essential thing every holidaymaker needs to do before heading to Bali this summer after his vacation almost ended in disaster.

New Zealand television audio engineer Hamish Crocker and his partner Tiffany recently headed to the Indonesian island for a relaxing getaway.

But it wasn't all scenic mountain sunset tours, beaches and Bintang beers by the pool for the Auckland couple.

Mr Crocker returned home bearing additional souvenirs after a hospital visit became an unexpected inclusion on the itinerary.

He was left bloodied and bruised after falling down an uncovered drainage sewer hole on the pavement while on a walk.

Mr Crocker had to be rescued from the hole and was rushed to hospital with three broken ribs and a nasty gash on his leg.

He's grateful they had travel insurance, which meant they weren't left with a hefty hospital bill.

'I would have been $10,000 out of pocket,' Mr Crocker told Daily Mail Australia.

Hamish Crocker ended up in a Bali hospital after a holiday mishap

The Kiwi tourist had to be rescued after falling down this drainage hole

'I have had friends who have been screwed over overseas in the past because they didn't have life insurance so I've already made sure I got it.'

He issued a public service announcement reiterating the need for travel insurance, documented with photos of his gruesome injuries and hospital visit.

'Last week I posted a lovely collage of pics from Bali, but behind all that, I had days before literally fallen down a hole, and ate absolute s*** (probably) and ended up being pulled out of a drainage sewer,' Mr Crocker said.

'26 stitches, 3 broken ribs, and not exactly how the trip intended to go.

'Anyway thanks to travel insurance, and the brilliance of Tiffany, Im fine and recovering back in NZ without a huge hospital bill over me that I very much cant afford.

'Please if youre going travelling this summer, get travel insurance, its so easy and so cheap, you never know when youll walk around a corner and fall in a hole. The literal kind.'

New Zealand tourists Hamish and Tiffany are grateful they got travel insurance

Hamish Crocker suffered three broken robs. Pictured is the X-ray

Mr Crocker managed to fit in more sightseeing after the mishap with photos from a mountain sunset tour showing his bandaged leg.

Many recalled the dangers of uncovered holes in Bali.

'Yikes! I remember the dodgy footpaths well,' one woman wrote.

Another wrote: 'Just came back from 8 weeks in Bali and saw so many of these holes around the footpaths of Ubudcrazy!'

Others reiterated the importance of travel insurance.

'Hope youre feeling better! I had a snowboarding accident in Canada and cant push travel insurance enough. Saved my ass,' another said.

Mr Crocker is still on antibiotics after his leg became infected but has since returned to work.

'They thought I was crazy but that's the kind of person I am,' he said.

Many Australians and Kiwis visit Bali without purchasing travel insurance. Consequently, when they get injured, they are forced to start GoFundMe campaigns in an attempt to raise funds for their hospital bills.

The Australian government says travel insurance is just as important as a passport when heading overseas particularly if you end up needing medical assistance.

Tourists should also be aware most Bali hospitals will require upfront payment before any treatment, so getting travel insurance cover is a must.

'Without it, you or your family could suffer financially if things go wrong. No matter who you are, where you're going and what you're doing, get insurance,' Smart Traveller states.

Travel insurance meant that Hamish Crocker didn't end up with a hefty hospital bill

Hamish required 26 stitches for the nasty gash down his leg (pictured) from the fall

'Thanks to travel insurance, and the brilliance of Tiffany, Im fine and recovering back in NZ,' Hamish Crocker (pictured on his Bali holiday) wrote

'Healthcare overseas can be very expensive. Most countries won't give you free care, or subsidise the cost of your care. You, or your insurer, must usually pay full price.'

Most basic policies cover emergency treatment, general medical assistance, patient transport to hospital by helicopter or ambulance, medical evacuations back to Australia and injuries and accidents, unless it's from an excluded activity.

Personal injury claims by Australian visitors to Bali have been steadily rising , according to Todd Nelson, managing director of Cover-More travel insurers.

'As travel approaches pre-Covid levels, there has been an increase in the total number of claims and the number of claims from travellers to Bali in particular,' Mr Nelson told Daily Mail Australia.

Mr Nelson said Bali's proximity to Australia, along with its relatively low cost and 'relaxed lifestyle', made it an extremely popular choice for holidaymakers.

But this laidback attitude is also the reason some are getting seriously injured.

'We're most concerned about the number of Aussies who travel to Bali and jump on a moped or motorcycle without the correct licence, right level of cover, and most concerning of all, without a helmet,' he said.

Online travel reviews of Bali are inundated with tourists' warnings about holes on footpaths and pavements.

'Many of the main roads and smaller roads have gaps in the pavement. These cannot be avoided by walking in the road as there is too much traffic so you will need to step over over them. I fell down a small hole last night as it was dark and got badly grazed,' one states.

Hamish (pictured on his recent Bali holiday) is now recovering back home

Dangers that Aussies need to be aware of when travelling to Bali

Mopeds and the law in Bali

Helmets are legally required in Bali, but the fine for not wearing one is not particularly high at about $25, or 250,000 Indonesian Rupiah, so seeing people not wearing one is somewhat common.

Driving scooters drunk, unlicensed or speeding is also obviously illegal but still happens, despite being enforced with much higher fines or even jail.

Other lesser-known rules include that smoking and wearing flip-flops while driving mopeds in Bali is also illegal.

Travel insurance cover can be voided if the holder is doing anything illegal while riding a moped, such as not wearing a helmet.

Driving mopeds without a helmet is illegal though it is still a common sight in Bali (file image)

Bali Governor Wayan Koster recently claimed he was considering banning tourists from hiring mopeds entirely.

The ban would need to be written into legislation, but an intermediate step has already been announced in which visitors can only hire mopeds or motorbikes from licensed businesses.

Guest house owners and other locals were frequently renting scooters to tourists on an informal basis.

Water transport

Another less obvious, but just as serious, danger is Bali's massive water transport industry.

While the four Aussie surfers - Elliot Foote, Steph Weisse, Will Teagle and Jordan Short - were rescued, there are others that haven't been so fortunate.

Thousands of small wooden boats transport locals and tourists around the islands in the Indonesian archipelago.

In August four young Aussies -Elliot Foote, 30, his partner Steph Weisse, 31, and mates Will Teagle and Jordan Short, 28 - were rescued after spending 36 hours at sea clinging to surfboards when their boat sank off the island's west coast.

Four Australians who went missing when a small wooden boat sank between Nias Island and Pinang Island were found after 38 hours. (Pictured: Elliot Foote and Steph Weisse)

The moment Aussies are rescued from the water near Bali after 36 hours (pictured)

The four rescued Aussies were trying to reach renowned surfing spots in the remote Banyak Islands in the province of Aceh, which are only accessible by boat and draw thousands of tourists a year.

The industry is largely unregulated and the boats can be unsafe and overloaded - especially dangerous in wild weather conditions.

In August, another passenger boat capsized off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, killing 15 people.

Methanol in drinks

One of the other biggest dangers in Bali is alcoholic drinks laced with methanol.

While in other parts of Indonesia drinking alcohol is frowned upon, in Bali it is big business with the tax revenue pouring billions into the economy.

According to the Australian government's Smartraveller website: 'People have been poisoned by alcoholic drinks contaminated with harmful substances, including methanol.'

'Locals and foreigners, including Australians, have died or become seriously ill from poisoned drinks,' the official advice states.

A British woman, Kristy McKie, who was living in Bali, consumed a methanol-tainted drink in 2022 and died.

Charlie Bradley, 28, died outside the Bhakti Vendanta health clinic in north Kuta, three and a half hours after leaving Finns Beach Club (pictured in Sydney with his girlfriend)

Some bars have been known to serve bootleg alcohol laced with methanol (file image)

The coroner said in her findings that Ms McKie 'had inadvertently consumed methanol believing she had consumed alcohol.

'The methanol had been sold as being alcohol fit for human consumption when it was not.'

Methanol is related to ethanol, which is the type alcohol usually found in beer, wine and liquor, but is much more toxic.

It is filtered out of commercially made alcoholic drinks, but homemade liquor can leave some methanol in.

Some sketchier bars in Bali have been known to use homemade liquor, particularly Arak, disguised as other drinks to save on costs - which can be laced with methanol.

Tourists are advised to stick to sealed bottles of well-known brands, to reputable bars and restaurants, and alcohol bought duty-free.

The symptoms of methanol poisoning are similar to intoxication but more severe. They can include vision problems, and will worsen rather than improve after a few hours. Anyone who suspects methanol poisoning should seek medical help.

The recent cases of Australian tourists collapsing in Bali could be linked to methanol poisoning; however, this has not been confirmed and could be unconnected.

Charlie Bradley's family believe he likely died from methanol poisoning, though his cause of death remains unclear.

A recent study published in journal Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease looked at health and safety hazards throughout Bali's tourist hotspots and found there was a gap in preventative safety measures.

'The first stage of the project included mapping and geo-tagging of health hazards and risks as well as travel health facilities, involving 197 tourist attractions in eight regencies and one city in Bali,' the authors wrote.

They concluded there was an 'opportunity of providing site-specific preventive measures to travellers highlighted in this study'.

The authors suggested an 'integrated travel health surveillance and information system' that can be accessed through mobile phones which could map hazards and provide advice on how to avoid them as they happen.

Perhaps the Indonesian authorities should consider this and other safety initiatives in addition to their push to improve rude tourist behaviour.
Hamas and Iran pose a threat on the streets of Britain, the Government's anti-extremism tsar will warn today.

Robin Simcox, the Home Office's independent commissioner for countering extremism, will say too many people in prominent positions in British life have sought to 'excuse or rationalise' Hamas' actions.

In a keynote speech, the commissioner will say 'it is time to confront reality' and urge ministers to 'commit to a long-term strategy for taking on extreme ideologies'.

Mr Simcox is expected to say Hamas and their Iranian state sponsor pose a threat beyond the Middle East.

He will also voice concerns that 'support for Hamas does not carry the stigma that support for other terrorist groups does'.

Robin Simcox is expected to say Hamas and their Iranian state sponsor pose a threat beyond the Middle East

Hamas is a banned group in the UK, meaning that membership or demonstrations of support are a criminal offence

He will add in his speech at the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall, central London: 'Terrorist attacks on Israel are seen as not only more justifiable than attacks on other countries, but, to some, a cause for celebration.

'Too often, support for Palestinian rights has translated into rhetoric supportive of Hamas.

'Too many in positions of prominence have praised them or their leadership or sought to rationalise or excuse their acts of terror.'

Mr Simcox, who was previously director of think-tank the Counter Extremism Group, is expected to urge ministers to 'have the confidence and will to commit to a long-term strategy for taking on extreme ideologies'.

Iran, Hamas' key backer, has the capacity to carry out or incite acts of violence in the UK, as well as spread extremism here through 'regime-linked clerics, charities and educational institutes', the speech will say.

The address will also touch on how freedom of expression in Britain is being threatened by groups seeking a 'de facto blasphemy code around criticism of religious prophets'.

It will also highlight dangers posed by the extreme Right and Left.

Hamas is a banned group in the UK, meaning that membership or demonstrations of support are a criminal offence.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has urged police to use the 'full force of the law' against any pro-Palestinian demonstrators whose behaviour crosses into criminality

Earlier this week Mrs Braverman warned pro-Palestinian marchers that 'our tolerance has limits'

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has urged police to use the 'full force of the law' against any pro-Palestinian demonstrators whose behaviour crosses into criminality.

Earlier this week Mrs Braverman warned pro-Palestinian marchers that 'our tolerance has limits'.

She singled out the slogan 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', which has been chanted by demonstrators in London and other UK towns and cities.

She said it was 'disingenuous' to claim the slogan did not call for the destruction of Israel, and added that it caused 'alarm not just to Jews but to all decent people'.

'Those who promote hate on Britain's streets should realise that our tolerance has limits,' she said.
An Australian academic whose husband had an affair while she was imprisoned in Iran for more than two years has welcomed a baby girl with her new partner.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert was snatched by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp while attempting to leave the country through Tehran Airport in 2018.

She was then kept in two of Iran's most hellish prisons on false espionage charges in what she believes was a classic case of hostage diplomacy.

Once she was finally freed and allowed to return home to Australia in November 2020, Dr Moore-Gilbert found the life she'd built with her then-husband, Ruslan Hodorov, was gone forever.

While Dr Moore-Gilbert was suffering through some of the worst conditions a person can face, Mr Hodorov had started a new relationship with her university colleague and PhD supervisor, Kylie Baxter.

In an interview set to air on ABC's Australian Story on Monday, Dr Moore-Gilbert introduced the newest addition to her family and revealed she met her new partner, broadcaster and comedian Sami Shah, on a dating app.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert (pictured with partner Sami Shah and their two daughters) was held in Iranian jail for 804 days

Dr Moore-Gilbert (pictured during her imprisonment) was accused of being a spy for Israel

She had only recently returned to Australia and was still reeling from her public divorce while Mr Shah was coming to terms with losing his job as a radio host and the collapse of his second marriage when the pair met.

Now, some three years later, the couple have become a beautiful family-of-four with the birth of their little girl earlier this year.

News of the birth comes months after Dr Moore-Gilbert revealed in April she was pregnant.

'For a long time, Kylie Moore-Gilbert was this academic who goes to Iran, ends up in jail for two years, comes back and then ends up lonely, which is a tragic story,' Mr Shah said.

'Except I know the other story, which is that she and I went on a date and she's my Kylie. And that's a very different experience.'

The couple said their relationship was cemented during Melbourne's notoriously long Covid lockdown.

'I had spent so much time alone in prison, I didn't want to be alone again,' Dr Moore-Gilbert said.

'In a way, we healed each other.'

It was during that time Dr Moore-Gilbert also built a relationship with Mr Shah's 14-year-old daughter who was cautious about her dad's new girlfriend following the failure of his first two marriages.

Mr Shah admitted he'd joked about Dr Moore-Gilbert being a spy during one of their first exchanges through the dating app but didn't understand why his humour fell flat.

Dr Moore-Gilbert split her time in Iran between Tehran's Evin Prison (above) and Qarchak Prison

She and Sami Shah (together above) met on a dating app shortly after Dr Moore-Gilbert returned to Australia

It was only in the days after that he realised the same accusation by the Iranian Government had seen her entire life changed forever.

In 2018, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) arrested Dr Moore-Gilbert, the cousin of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, after two people she attended a conference alongside flagged her as 'suspicious'.

At the time, Dr Moore-Gilbert was married to Mr Hodorov - A Russian immigrant who moved to Israel with his family.

The IRGC used that relationship to justify charging Dr Moore-Gilbert as an Israeli spy, a claim she continues to deny.

An Iranian Revolutionary Court judge sentenced her to 10 years incarceration in a secret trial where no evidence against Dr Moore-Gilbert was presented.

Dr Moore-Gilbert believes she was a victim of hostage diplomacy.

Hostage diplomacy sees a country imprison someone, often on vague or false charges, to use their release as leverage in international negotiations.

Last week, Australian journalist Cheng Lei was released from Chinese prison after she was arrested for 'illegally supplying state secrets overseas' during a time of tension between Australia and China. It's believed she was a diplomatic hostage.

In Dr Moore-Gilbert's case, Australia was able to exchange her release for that of three Iranian prisoners in Thailand - two of which were involved in the 2012 Bangkok bombing which killed 22 people.

During her time in prison, Dr Moore-Gilbert said she was kept in a freezing, tiny room and subject to psychological torture.

Dr Moore-Gilbert (above) said she was kept in a freezing, tiny room and was subject to psychological torture in Iran

When Dr Moore-Gilbert returned home she found her then-husband, Ruslan Hodorov (right), was in a new relationship with her colleague, Dr Kylie Baxter (left)

She staged several hunger strikes and at one point in May, 2020, her family had to shut down rumours she'd committed suicide behind bars.

'It's psychological torture. It's a two-by-two-metre box. You go completely insane. It is so damaging. By the end of it [I was] a crazy lady. My emotional state was just so volatile. I was basically having a prolonged anxiety attack,' she told Sky News.

She believes her stay was extended by six-to-seven months after a 'perverted' prison boss took interest in her.

READ MORE: Real reason Australian journalist was detained in China for three years Advertisement

'He wanted some sort of romantic relationship with me,' she told 60 Minutes last year.

'It was a perverse romantic interest. He arranged a birthday party for me with a birthday cake. He had complete and utter control over every facet of my life.'

Dr Moore-Gilbert previously said she was forced to 'lose [her] s**t' to keep other prisoners and guards from taking advantage of her.

However, her short temper saw her transferred from Tehran's Evin Prison to the even worse, Qarchak Prison.

Once she was finally released in 2020, Dr Moore-Gilbert's suspicions her marriage to Mr Hodorov was over, were confirmed.

She said her then-husband had stopped saying 'I love you' during prison phone calls and didn't call her once she arrived back home in Australia.

While she was quarantined in Melbourne, her mother broke the news he was with another woman.

Dr Moore-Gilbert (above) said she and Mr Shah cemented their relationship during the Covid lockdown

Since her release, Dr Moore-Gilbert (above) has written a book, The Uncaged Sky, on her time behind bars and continues to advocate for human rights in the Middle East

'I knew that there was a problem at least 12 months before I came home,' she told Sky News.

'My mother told me when I arrived in hotel quarantine. She found out the day before from a third person, a third party... My family found out and called (him), and he confirmed it.'

She filed for divorce a short time later and took to Twitter to confirm the split, writing: 'Forgive the irrelevant personal announcement dear Twitter, but ladies and gentlemen, I am officially divorced! Time for a sneaky kardonnay?'

Since her release, Dr Moore-Gilbert has written a book, The Uncaged Sky, on her time behind bars and continues to advocate for human rights in the Middle East.
Labour MPs were quick to jump on unverified claims that the blast at a Gaza City hospital was an Israeli air strike.

Far-Left MPs  including John McDonnell and Zarah Sultana  blamed Israel and branded the attack a 'war crime'.

Ms Sultana, MP for Coventry South, wrote on X on Tuesday: 'More than 500 people are reported to have been killed after an Israeli air strike hit a hospital in Gaza. Political leaders of all parties  including my own  must call for an urgent ceasefire and an end to the war on Gaza.'

Former shadow chancellor Mr McDonnell said: 'Do not try and tell me that this is part of any right to defend.

'Whatever your beliefs, whatever your position in society please appeal to our political leaders, including of my own party, to demand an end to the bombing.'

Far-Left MPs  including John McDonnell and Zarah Sultana  blamed Israel and branded the attack a 'war crime' (File Photo)

Ms Sultana, MP for Coventry South, wrote on X on Tuesday: 'More than 500 people are reported to have been killed after an Israeli air strike hit a hospital in Gaza. Political leaders of all parties  including my own  must call for an urgent ceasefire and an end to the war on Gaza'

Other Labour MPs also blamed Israel. Apsana Begum, who represents Poplar and Limehouse, said: 'Reports of an Israeli air strike causing mass civilian casualties in Gaza are beyond appalling.'

And Tahir Ali, who represents Birmingham Hall Green, questioned: 'How can this be justified as self-defence?

'This is murder of innocent civilians. The bombing must stop and a ceasefire agreed. Innocent people are dying.'

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly yesterday condemned the comments and criticised those who spread 'misinformation'.

He warned: 'Everybody  whether formally involved in the reporting process or whether they are a citizen journalist or just active on social media  should be very conscious that this involves real lives.'
Celebrities including Tilda Swinton, Steve Coogan and Maxine Peake have come under fire for failing to condemn Hamas' brutal terror attacks in a letter calling for a ceasefire.

The letter was signed by more than 2,000 actors, musicians and artists, and accuses the Government of 'not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them'.

The artists condemn 'every act of violence against civilians and every infringement of international law whoever perpetrates them'.

The letter has been criticised for not mentioning the terrorist group Hamas or its assault on Israel on October 7.

Armed Palestinian terrorist leading a man during the Supernova music festival, near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel

Noa Argamani, 25, a university student, screams 'Don't kill me! No, no, no,' as she is seized by Hamas at the Nova electronic music festival in southern Israel. On October 7, Hamas terrorists attacked the festival in the desert near the Gaza-Israel border, killing at least 260 people

The message reads: 'Gaza is already a society of refugees and the children of refugees.

READ MORE: Rishi Sunak will fly to Israel in two-day mission for talks with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Arab leaders Advertisement

'Now, in their hundreds of thousands, bombarded from air, sea and land, Palestinians whose grandparents were forced out of their homes at the barrel of a gun are again being told to flee  or face collective punishment on an unimaginable scale.'

Referencing Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant's depiction of Palestinians as 'human animals', the signatories say Palestinians 'have become people to whom almost anything can be done'.

They cite the UN's undersecretary for humanitarian affairs Martin Griffiths, who has said that 'the spectre of death' is hanging over Gaza, and they are calling for 'an immediate ceasefire and the opening of Gaza's crossings to allow humanitarian aid to enter unhindered'.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured in the past 11 days.

The letter was signed by actors, musicians and artists in the UK, including Steve Coogan (pictured) and Miriam Margolyes

Maxine Peake was among the list of famous names to sign the statement

Tilda Swinton was also among the signatories. The letter states: 'Our governments are not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them'

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, and at least 199 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

On Monday, Actor Riz Ahmed called for 'an end to the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza's civilians' amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The British actor, 40, who was nominated for an Oscar for the film The Sound Of Metal, said 'staying silent is not an option' as he blasted the 'morally indefensible war crimes'.

Sharing a lengthy statement on social media, he wrote: 'We are told there are two sides to what is happening in Israel and Palestine. But in my heart, I know there is only one - the side of our humanity.'
A trans and queer activist couple who are substitute teachers for a Tennessee school district were recently busted for prostitution in Tennessee after an undercover sting by police.

Ezra Fry, 22, and David Acevedo, 25, were cited in late August when Chattanooga Police Narcotics and detectives went undercover in a prostitution sting.

The couple were detained after Fry led the undercover cop to the bedroom and was handed money for the sexual transaction.

'I don't care, everyone has seen my [privates],' Fry allegedly said to an officer.

WTVC reported Fry told authorities that the couple had been in the business for several years as a way to make extra money. Both had been substitute teachers in Hamilton County schools as recently as this year.

Ezra Fry, 22 (left) and their husband David Acevedo, 25 (right) were detained by undercover cops in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in August on prostitution charges after an undercover sting

The couple both worked as special education teachers in the Hamilton school district. Acevedo was suspended without pay on August 29, pending investigation. It is unclear if Fry was suspended but Steve Doremus, a spokesperson for the Hamilton County told WTVC that 'it's his understanding' that they have not worked as a substitute teacher since late August

When the couple were caught by undercover cops and detectives in a prostitution sting, they told authorities that they were involved in the business so they could make extra money for themselves

A police report stated an officer who posed as 'John' made contact with Fry through an 'illicit prostitution website' to set up a sexual arrangement.

The officer revealed that Fry - who is trans and uses they/them pronouns - invited the undercover officer to their house because he was a new client.

They claimed they would feel safer in the house where their husband, where Acevedo was waiting.

Fry led the officer to the back bedroom and took $150 from him after they told him what they would and wouldn't do. 'John' then identified himself as a cop and detained the couple.

Officers also found 'a large amount of drug paraphernalia' inside the home, along with a .22 caliber revolver, the report stated.

The report revealed both Acevedo and Fry said that 'they had to do this or they will starve.'

Acevedo and Fry were both given misdemeanor citations for unlawful drug paraphernalia, prostitution and promoting prostitution, unlawful possession of a firearm and possession.

The couple both worked as special education teachers in the Hamilton school district.

Acevedo was a teacher at Calvin Donaldson Elementary School and Fry was a teacher at Woodmere Elementary.

Acevedo was suspended without pay on August 29, pending investigation.

This is not the first time that Fry has been under scrutiny in the school district as a photo of them circulated online by parents and community members in April. The post said that Fry was telling their students to call them 'Mrs.', which infuriated parents

Many irate parents and community members lashed out at Fry after someone took to social media and claimed that Fry told their students to call them 'Mrs.' Fry has since denied they told the students to refer to them by the title

It is unclear if Fry was suspended but Steve Doremus, a spokesperson for Hamilton County schools, told WTVC that 'it's his understanding' they have not worked as a substitute teacher since late August.

This is not the first time that Fry has been under scrutiny in the school district as a photo of them circulated online by parents and community members in April, according to The Tennessee Conservative.

In the picture, Fry can be seen wearing a long black spaghetti- strap dress with a gray long sleeve under, bright pink hair, and a medical boot.

The caption read: 'This is a male substitute teacher at East Ridge Elementary, today. Pray for this individual that they find the help they need, but making the kids call you "Mrs." and letting this individual in a school to lead children is not acceptable, Hamilton County.'

Other angry parents and Tennessee residents spoke out online about the picture of Fry.

'Parents had no warning and no opt out. Also, read the statistics at this school. Only 18 percent are reading on grade level. Can we stop the madness and just educate our children in reading, writing and arithmetic?

Maybe the love of learning would actually return to them,' one commenter said.

Another said: 'My children would not return to that school either!'

Resident Mark Caldwell also commented on the post about Fry and said: 'For the record, I believe how an adult wants to identify is their personal business, but it becomes all of our business when they take that identity public in order to groom young children with their identity disorder.'

It is unclear if the couple will have to appear in court. In an Instagram post of the couple from three weeks ago Fry said: 'Life has been hectic but its so nice to be surrounded by so much love amidst the chaos'

Acevedo (pictured) and Fry were both given misdemeanor citations for unlawful drug paraphernalia, prostitution and promoting prostitution, unlawful possession of a firearm and possession

The Tennessee Conservative reported the Hamilton County's Superintendent was made aware of the incident and was looking into why it was 'allowed to happen.'

'Fry said claims they are a transgender woman are false and they asked students to call them "Ezra" to prevent confusion,' Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.

It is unclear if the couple will have to appear in court.

In an Instagram post of the couple from three weeks ago Fry said: 'Life has been hectic but its so nice to be surrounded by so much love amidst the chaos.'
There has been a serious incident on Melbourne Tullamarine Freeway involving a pedestrian being hit which has caused a chain reaction of other accidents leaving the busy arterial road badly clogged.

At just after 10am on Thursday a car reportedly hit a pedestrian, which lead to a truck swerving to avoid the accident, causing another collision.

As a result, three outbound lanes are now closed on the busy route to the airport and to the city's western suburbs.

Drivers are strongly advised to find alternate routes and avoid the area to prevent further congestion.

A series of accidents on Melbourne's Stella Marine Freeway are causing major traffic delays

Those intending headed for Melbourne Airport have been asked to consider taking Airport Drive from the M80 Ring Rd as an alternative.

Emergency services are at the scene.
DHS officer Nejwa Ali, 36, was placed on leave on Wednesday, following the revelation of her controversial history posting anti-Semitic and extremist posts

A Department of Homeland Security officer was put on leave after praising Hamas and sharing extremist content on social media - including one post where she wrote, 'F*** Israel ... we are ready for your downfall.'

Nejwa Ali, 36, who joined the US Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2019 and held the position of an asylum officer, was placed on leave on Wednesday, following the revelation of her controversial history.

She worked at assisting asylum seekers through the immigration process, before moving to Homeland Security earlier this year.

Along with years of alarming social media posts, it was also revealed that she previously served as a spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization delegation in the US - a group once led by Yasser Arafat - which has been called a terrorist organization by US officials.

In one recent post, Ali shared a disturbing image featuring paragliders armed with AK-47s with the caption 'Free Palestine,' glorifying the terrorists responsible for killing over 1,400 in Israel.

The Daily Wire exposed years of concerning posts made by Ali, including one in which she expressed disdain for what she referred to as 'Israeli and American privilege.'

Nejwa Ali, 36, who joined the US Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2019 and held the position of an asylum officer, was placed on leave on Wednesday, following the revelation of her controversial history

In one recent post, Ali shared a disturbing image featuring paragliders armed with AK-47s with the caption 'Free Palestine ,' glorifying the terrorists responsible for killing over 1,400 in Israel

Concerning posts made by Ali included one in which she expressed disdain for what she referred to as ' Israeli and American privilege'

It's unclear how Ali was hired in the first place in government roles and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) given her alarming previous posts and ties to the PLO.

'USCIS strongly condemns antisemitism and the use of violent rhetoric in any form,' spokesperson Matthew Bourke told Newsweek. 'USCIS employees are held to high ethical standards both on and off duty, including their presence on social media. Any violation of these standards is taken seriously by the agency.'

The Daily Wire reached Ali who angrily replied when asked about her past.

'That's none of your f****** business. Mind your business before I call the police. If I were you I'd respectfully hang up the phone right now,' she reportedly told the outlet.

In her posts, Ali claimed all Israelis should be held accountable for their government's actions if they do not condemn Israel.

'Israeli, American privilege is disgusting. When Israelis acknowledge the government and military are solely responsible for the attack. Period,' she wrote. 'I hold every Israeli accountable for their governments actions, IF they do not speak against Israel.'

Additionally, on October 9, Ali shared a post on Facebook titled 'How Nejwa wakes up,' along with a video captioned 'F*** Israel and any Jew that supports Israel.'

She featured a photo that declared, 'A nation that has nothing but Allah has everything it will ever need,' alongside an anti-Semitic caricature of a Jewish nose.

Along with years of alarming social media posts, it was also revealed that she previously served as a spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization delegation in the US - a group once led by Yasser Arafat - which has been called a terrorist organization by US officials

Prior to her current position, Ali worked as a public affairs officer for the Palestinian Delegation to the US in 2016 and 2017, according to her LinkedIn profile. The delegation served as the 'PLO office in DC', its website says.

The Palestine Liberation Organization was once declared a terrorist group by various administrations. It was led by Yasser Arafat who became the face of the effort for Palestinian freedom for decades.

When the DC PLO office was expelled by the Trump administration, Ali secured a job at DHS as an 'Asylum Officer,' where she was responsible for 'applying immigration laws and regulations to asylum applications.'

This year, she began working as an Adjudication Officer for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, where she was tasked 'analyze new or amended legislation and policy, prepare written reports of findings, and review and make determinations on cases for immigration benefits.'

Ali's social media, including her Instagram, 'Falastine Mi Amor,' appears to have been deleted.
Joe Biden gave Israel's leaders U.S. approval to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, according to a report.

Biden spent seven-and-a-half hours in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies.

His visit came as anger spread across the region over an explosion at a Gaza hospital, which Israel blamed on a misfiring Palestinian rocket, and which the Pentagon confirmed. Hamas blames Israel.

The U.S. president told Netanyahu he was 'fully in support' of Israel's plans to invade Gaza to 'eradicate Hamas', according to The Times of London.

Benny Gantz, a former defense minister and IDF chief of staff who has joined his rival Netanyahu's war cabinet, warned Biden that the incursion could take 'years,' Axios reported.

Biden spoke to reporters on his way back from Israel, on Air Force One, but did not confirm the United States' support for the invasion. The White House has not commented.

Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, are pictured in Tel Aviv on Wednesday

The sun rises on Israeli tanks amassed on the Gaza border on Wednesday

Israeli troops are pictured positioned along the border with Gaza on Wednesday

An Israeli soldier is seen patrolling the Israel-Gaza border on Wednesday

Biden is seen on Wednesday speaking to reporters on Air Force One, en route from Israel. The Secretary of State Antony Blinken and spokesman for the National Security Council John Kirby are seen standing behind him

Sources told The Times Biden urged Israel to show restraint when it goes in to Gaza, and demanded Israel allow humanitarian aid from Egypt into the devastated enclave.

Biden called Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, from Air Force One as he was flying home to confirm the agreement, and publicly thanked Sisi when he spoke to reporters on the plane.

Sisi 'deserves a lot of credit' for allowing in humanitarian aid, Biden said.

'He was completely cooperative,' Biden said, adding he 'stepped up - as did Bibi.'

Twenty trucks full of aid will be allowed to pass from Egypt into Gaza. The shipments will likely begin on Friday, The Times reported, because the road in has been bombed and needs repairs before the trucks can pass.

Biden said the U.N. will be in charge of distributing aid inside Gaza, and there may be a second shipment if the first goes well.

'If Hamas confiscates them or doesn't let it get through, then it's going to end,' Biden said.

His administration has been taking questions for days about how to provide humanitarian corridors for Palestinian residents of Gaza to flee amid an Israeli evacuation order.

'We're going to get people out,' he said, having discussed the issue with Netanyahu on his trip, as well as getting in humanitarian relief.

'I was very blunt about the need to get humanitarian aid to Gaza.'

Biden and Netanyahu are seen following their meeting in Tel Aviv on Wednesday

The two men are seen embracing as Biden arrives in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning

There was no word on what would happen in Gaza after the Israeli invasion, and Biden did not mention to reporters any discussions about the future of the enclave.

Biden privately asked Israeli officials what they intended to do with Gaza after the invasion, Axios reported. The Israelis replied they had not yet decided, and were still working on the initial push.

Biden publicly urged Israelis not to be 'consumed' by rage, and to think with 'clarity about objectives.'

He stressed Israel should not make the same mistakes as the United States did after the September 11 attacks - an apparent reference to the invasion of Iraq.

Israeli officials are concerned about keeping the international community on their side, Axios reported, and have been vague in public about what will happen to Gaza.

Eli Cohen, the foreign minister, suggested to Army Radio Israel was planning to reduce Gaza's geographical size, The Times reported.

'At the end of this war, not only will Hamas no longer be in Gaza, but the territory of Gaza will also decrease,' he said.

Biden's team is happy that Netanyahu has bought his political opponents, Benny Gantz and former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, into the war cabinet, Axios reported.

Gantz told Biden the effort to dismantle Hamas 'could take years,' according to Axios sources.

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, told Biden that 'it will be a long and difficult war, and Israel will need U.S. support for a long period of time,' an aide to Gallant said.

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, is seen speaking to Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, on Monday

Biden did not push back, but stressed again the importance of allowing humanitarian aid to Gaza and avoiding inflaming tensions.

In particular, Biden is concerned about the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group, based in Lebanon, getting involved.

White House officials have been in contact with Hezbollah figures, Axios reported, urging them to stand down.

Hezbollah has said it will stand with Hamas.

The Pentagon has sent two aircraft carriers to the region, the USS Gerald Ford, and the USS Dwight Eisenhower.

White House officials have held several meetings to prepare for a scenario of using U.S. military force if Hezbollah were to launch missiles at Israel, Axios said.
A convicted pedophile has set up camp outside a San Francisco school with signs offering 'free fentanyl' and other drugs - in a move that has drawn ire from the community.

Joseph Adam Moore, 46, lives in a tent near the Stella Maris Academy Catholic school. Records from California's sex offender register indicate that Moore was jailed for six years for lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 in 1997.

Pictures show the encampment decked out in signs which read 'Meth for stolen items' and 'Free Fentanyl 4 New Users.'

'We dont want anything of that nature anywhere near our schools, but we want to be able to work with law enforcement to establish the guidelines,' Peter Marlow, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said of the display.

Joseph Adam Moore, 46, has convictions for sexual contact with a child under 14 but has been camped outside San Francisco's Stella Maris Academy

Pictures show his encampment decked out in signs which read 'Meth for stolen items' and 'Free Fentanyl 4 New Users.'

Spotted across from a school on 9th at Geary in the Inner Richmond in San Francisco. Meth for stolen items and free fentanyl 4 new users @KPIXtv pic.twitter.com/YFiWeh61bQ  Betty Yu (@bett_yu) October 17, 2023

A Santa Cruz Sentinel article from the same year describes how Moore had been out of custody for just a month after molesting a 12-year-old girl when he committed 'statutory rape' against a 15-year-old girl.

He has also been arrested five times since 2007 for failing to notify authorities of his address as a sex offender every 30 days, the San Francisco Standard reports.

Moore told the Standard the signs at the camp had been up for a few days and have already received a 'charged response' with some people threatening his life.

He also admitted he was, in fact, selling drugs.

'Yeah, this is actually happening, but only because I'm tired. I'm tired. If you guys want to flush the whole world down the toilet, if you guys want to ignore people like me, its at your own peril. I mean, I'm a savant. You can't f****** fake that,' he said.

Moore was around 19 years old in 1997 when he was convicted but claimed he was told pleading guilty would result in a more lenient sentence that could be struck from his record with good behavior.

'Everything's lies, and there's no bigger lie than the justice system,' Moore claimed.

Moore was most recently arrested on May 11 for an alleged felony while out on bail but no further detail was available about the offense.

Moore has erected signs offering 'free fentanyl' and 'meth for stolen goods' at his camp opposite the $11,500-a-year Catholic school

His presence opposite the $11,700-a-year school has ruffled feathers, including those of the environmental charity Refuse Refuse San Francisco.

The charity shared an image of the camp and said: 'This is a sign at the encampment we regularly clean around on 9th Ave and Geary, right next to the Richmond Library.

'Can anyone justify how we accept this as normal and acceptable?'

Marlow said that police have visited Moore's camp multiple times.

'I noticed this person is well-established there. They disappeared about a month ago, and now theyve shown up again,' Marlow told the Standard.

'I had seen him for the past year before he disappeared, but now hes back. I dont know about these signs about fentanyl and all of this.'

He added the school would be examining Moore's claims he is selling drugs.

A spokesman for San Francisco's police department confirmed to the outlet there were no incident reports relating to the location and that Moore has no arrest records for the last 90 days.
A Trump-supporting Twitter influencer who was found guilty of conspiring to deprive citizens of their right to vote in the 2016 presidential election has been sentenced to seven months in jail.

Douglass Mackey, 33 - known on the internet as 'Ricky Vaughan' in reference to the famous Charlie Sheen character from the Major League films - was convicted in March.

He was flagged for his tweets encouraging Hillary Clinton supporters to cast meaningless votes by text message instead of casting an actual ballot.

Upon sentencing, Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Ann Donnelly emphasized Mackey was not going to jail for his conservative views.

'You are not being sentenced for your political beliefs or for expressing those beliefs,' she said. 'Each one of us has the right to hold opinions and express those opinions.'

Douglass Mackey, 33 - known on the internet as 'Ricky Vaughan' in reference to the famous Charlie Sheen character from the Major League films - was convicted in March

Mackey had been known as Ricky Vaughn on social media, based on Charlie Sheen's character in 'Major League', which he used as his Twitter avatar (right)

Donnelly said he was being sentenced for an 'insidious' attempt to stop people from truly voting and was guilty of 'nothing short of an assault on our democracy.'

Mackey will have to leave his wife and their child, born this month, on January 18 to report to jail pending appeal, the New York Daily News reported.

'We look forward to Doug's vindication on appeal,' said Mackey's attorney, Andrew Frisch, upon the sentencing.

Assistant US Attorney Erik Paulsen called Mackey's prison sentence 'essential.'

'It's going to send a message to the people who celebrated what this defendant did,' he said. 'And it's going to send a message to those who want to follow in his footsteps.'

Frisch previously argued that Mackey's memes encouraging Clinton supporters to 'vote from home' by text were simply 'online trash-talking' in the hopes of gaining viral fame.

'Mr. Mackey did not share the memes as some sort of grand plan,' Frisch told the jury, according to the New York Daily News, arguing the idea of voting by text was patently ridiculous to anyone with basic knowledge of US elections.

According to a criminal complaint, Mackey and unnamed co-conspirators created a number of images purporting to be Clinton campaign ads, including the one above

Mackey had numerous Twitter accounts, and was repeatedly suspended by the social-media company

Mackey, 33 - known on the internet as 'Ricky Vaughn' - was convicted over his tweets encouraging Hillary Clinton supporters to cast meaningless votes by text message

Mackey (right) was spotted leaving the Brooklyn federal courthouse in March with his father walking at his side

Frisch insisted his client had merely been 's**tposting', an internet term for making provocative satirical posts intended to shock and upset online foes.

According to a criminal complaint, Mackey and unnamed co-conspirators created a number of images purporting to be Clinton campaign ads, with messages such as 'Avoid the Line. Vote from Home. Text 'Hillary' to 59925.'

The phony campaign ads also carried fine print falsely claiming they were 'Paid for by Hillary for President 2016'.

The phone number in the fake ads received least 4,900 text message responses with variations on Clinton's name, including some from people in New York, prosecutors said.

'This wasn't about changing votes. This was about vaporizing votes, making them disappear,' said Assistant US Attorney Turner Buford during opening remarks.

'The number was real and set up to receive incoming messages,' he argued. 'The release of these fake campaign ads was timed to flood the internet before Election Day.'

During his opening remarks, Mackey's attorney argued that his memes encouraging Clinton supporters to 'vote from home' by text were simply 'online trash-talking'

Mackey, 33 - known on the internet as 'Ricky Vaughn' - is standing trial over his tweets encouraging Hillary Clinton supporters to cast meaningless votes by text message

Jessica Morales, Clinton's digital organizing director in 2016 testified in the case.

She said the 'vote by text' tweets were highly concerning to the campaign, and asked if she viewed them as a joke, she said: 'No, not a joke. Not for me. Not a parody.'

'It's a very sneaky graphic. It's designed to look like it came from the campaign... This is designed to look like what we did,' she said, according to the Daily News.

At the time of the alleged fraud, Mackey had 58,000 followers on Twitter and was considered an 'important influencer' in the election, which was won by Donald Trump, prosecutors said.

He had described himself as an 'American nationalist' who regularly retweeted Trump and promoted conspiracy theories about voter fraud by Democrats.

The criminal complaint identifies two Twitter accounts associated with Mackey, which were suspended in the weeks before the 2016 election due to alleged spreading of election misinformation.
A senior minister's decision to appoint one of his mates to a cushy well-paid role in which a female executive was already identified as the best candidate has been slammed as yet another example of Labor's 'jobs for the boys'.

Trade Minister Don Farrell appointed his friend Chris Ketter to the plum role of senior trade and investment commissioner and Australian consul-general of San Francisco ack on July 7.

Kirstyn Thomson, head of the Americas investment desk at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade), had been flagged as the 'preferred candidate' for the role, The Australian revealed on Thursday.

To make matters worse, Mr Ketter allegedly never even applied for the role, and the formal recruitment process was cancelled when Senator Farrell's office selected his mate for the reported $250,000-a-year job, the Australian reported.

Mr Ketter is a former Labor Senator who, after he was ousted, took up a role in Deputy PM Richard Marles' office as a senior staffer. He considers Mr Farrell a close friend and ally.

Trade Minister Don Farrell (centre) sits with ALP politicians at a Labor event. Mr Ketter thanked Mr Farrell for his 'friendship and support' during his first speech to parliament in 2013

Former Labor senator Mr Ketter (left, with fitness star Michelle Bridges) reportedly did not apply for the plum US job at all, and has no experience in the field, but was appointed by his friend, Trade Minister Don Farrell

Kirstyn Thomson (pictured), head of the Americas investment desk at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade), had been flagged as the 'preferred candidate' for the role

The decision required the approval of the Federal Cabinet, meaning Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was aware of - and signed off on - the appointment.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters was scathing of the decision, telling reporters in Canberra it 'stinks, to put it bluntly'.

'The Australian people voted for an end to this kind of 'jobs for the boys' nonsense. They expect better from the Albanese Government,' she said.

'Minister Farrell's decision to install an ex-Labor colleague and senior staffer in a plum industry role, instead of the woman selected through a rigorous recruitment process, simply doesn't pass the pub test.'

Ms Thomson, who has two decades of experience in trade, appears to have harboured no ill-will over the decision, telling The Australian that she went on to land a more suitable posting.

It's not the first time Don Farrell has caused dramas for Anthony Albanese.

Before September's Grand Final between Collingwood and Brisbane, it was revealed a cringeworthy exchange took place between Farrell and footy legend Dermott Brereton.

The Labor powerbroker pushed to the front of the queue and demanded a selfie with him declaring he was 'a minister'.

When asked where Don Darrell was a 'w*nker', the Hawthorn star replied: I don't know him personally, but his behaviour at that stage suggests he might well be.'

Ms Thomson has run the Americas investment desk at AusTrade since 2021, but has more than 20 years experience in the industry, including working out of London and Myanmar, according to her LinkedIn page.

She was reportedly one of 50 people who applied for the position, and was determined to be the preferred candidate.

Trade Minister Don Farrell (pictured) appointed his friend Chris Ketter to the plum role of senior trade and investment commissioner and Australian consul-general of San Francisco back on July 7

The decision required the approval of the Federal Cabinet, meaning Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was aware of - and signed off on - the appointment

Meanwhile Mr Ketter reportedly did not apply for the job at all, and has no experience in the field.

He worked as a union official in a role that was closely aligned with Mr Farrell, and used his first speech in parliament after he was elected to the Senate in 2013 to thank Mr Farrell for his 'friendship and support'.

He lost his Senate seat in the 2019 election, and went on to work as a 'senior advisor' to Mr Marles.

In congratulating Mr Ketter for the appointment, Mr Farrell said he 'brings extensive experience across government, and in the defence industry and critical technologies sector, which will help bolster Australia's AUKUS objectives'.

Daily Mail Australia approached Mr Farrell for comment.
A Liberal Senator has painted an ominous picture of what decriminalisation of drug use could mean for Canberra, warning the ACT will become Australia's 'drug capital' with bikies taking over and people flocking down the highway for the 'party lifestyle'.

Shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash made the claims on Thursday as she sought to negate the territory's decriminalisation law with a private Senator's bill, but it was rejected by Labor and the Greens.

Small quantities of a range of drugs such as heroin, ice, cocaine, MDMA and psychedelics have been decriminalised in the ACT, allowing police to issue a fine instead of putting users through the criminal justice system.

Senator Cash told the Senate the Territory would become a magnet for drug tourists travelling down the Hume Highway 'hoping to experience the ACT's party lifestyle'.

This would lead to an increase in addiction, crime and overdoses, she said.

Shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash has painted a dark picture of what Canberra could become under drug decriminalisation laws

'As the (Australian Federal Police) deputy commissioner ... has said, when police see someone doing a line of coke - and guess what, you can now do about 15 lines - historically they may have intervened, they're probably not going to now.'

Senator Cash also claimed the new laws could reach beyond Australia's shores.

'So the question has therefore been raised as a result of these ACT laws, can Australian citizens now carry ice on ships in international waters facing nothing more [than the] threat of a $100 fine?' Senator Cash told the Senate.

'Well, I would have thought before you decriminalise you actually want to know the answer to that.

'Have [ACT Chief Minister] Andrew Barr and [ACT Minister for Health] Rachel Stephen-Smith now unwittingly created a cruise ship drug charter?

'I guess I would have thought you wanted the answer to that before you went down this path. What an absolutely absurd situation.'

ACT Labor backbencher Michael Pettersson, who spearheaded the decriminalisation laws, said there was no evidence the reforms would lead to the 'outlandish claims the Liberals are spouting about drug tourism'.

ACT Labor backbencher Michael Pettersson, who spearheaded the decriminalisation laws, said there was no evidence the reforms would lead to the 'outlandish claims the Liberals are spouting about drug tourism' (stock image)

'If Liberal politicians poked their head out of Parliament House, they would see first-hand the amazing harm reduction work already underway in the ACT,' he told AAP.

'My advice to holidaymakers seeking to avoid unsociable elements when visiting Canberra is to avoid federal sitting weeks.'

Greens senator David Shoebridge reiterated the laws decriminalised use, while not legalising it.

'Instead of treating people who have addiction problems as criminals and putting them into jail - losing their job and their hope and their future and driving them down further pathways towards addiction - they will treat it as a health issue.'

ACT independent senator David Pocock said the shadow attorney-general's push to overturn a law enacted by a democratically elected Legislative Assembly 'can be seen no other way than trying to erode self-government in our territory'.

All sides of ACT politics have called on the federal Coalition not to overrule its laws.

'It is a clear unmistakable breach of our territory rights,' he said, adding the coalition needed to respect the principles of democracy.

Drug policy should be the focus, he said, as he pointed to direct alcohol-related deaths rising year on year and legal pharmaceuticals accounting for the vast amount of opioid-induced deaths.

Small quantities of illegal drugs such as cocaine have been decriminalised in the ACT

'There are clear issues across the nation when it comes to the supply of drugs and demand for drugs as well as issues with our systems to treat people with addictions and get them healthy,' Senator Pocock said.

The senator's private bill was defeated 33 votes to 27.
Wine and beer bottles could have warning labels

Beer and wine bottles could soon have health warning labels similar to cigarette packaging - if the government listens to calls from national health organisations.

The government is seeking ways to raise awareness about the health risks associated with alcohol consumption, with Australia's major health bodies and organisations pushing for warning labels to address this.

Alcoholic beverage companies would be forced to put warning labels on their bottles and cans about alcohol increasing the likelihood of developing cancer, heart disease, liver disease and other health issues.

The Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioner, and the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) are pushing for the change.

Major health groups are pushing for wine and beer bottles to have health warning labels similar to cigarette packets (pictured, mock-up image of wine and beer bottles with labels)

Assistant minister for health and aged care, Ged Kearney, is expected to consider the idea.

'The Australian government recognises the importance of labelling to raise consumer awareness of, and seek to prevent, alcohol-related harms,' Kearney told Nine Newspapers.

AMA resident Professor Steve Robson said putting labels on bottles and cans would be beneficial in informing people about alcohol harm.

'The AMA has been calling for many years for alcohol products to have simple, clearly visible front-of-pack labels that warn consumers of the health risks of excess consumption,' he said in a statement.

'Warning labels on the effects of alcohol can help consumers make better choices, improving their health and reducing the pressures on the health sector that are directly related to excessive drinking.'

RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins said there needed to be 'better information and support' about the risks of alcohol as it contributed to a 'heavy disease burden in Australia'.

However, an Alcohol Beverages Australia spokesperson argued against the idea, claiming that 'health data is complex and can't be reduced to a label'.

A recent poll that found that 78 per cent of Aussies supported putting health warning labels on bottles and cans of beer and wine (stock image)

About 6500 people die every year from alcohol consumption in Australia. Alcohol contributes to more deaths in the country than every illegal drug combined.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1559 people died from alcohol in 2021. The alcohol induced death rate was 5.4 per 100,000 people, which is the highest it has been in a decade.

Alcohol is estimated to cause 1800 liver, bowel, breast and oesophageal cancer deaths each year, according to research by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The institute reports that alcohol also results in more than 400 chronic liver disease deaths.

FARE Australia commissioned a poll that found that 78 per cent of Aussies supported putting health warning labels on bottles and cans of beer and wine.

About 10.5 per cent were against the plan, and 11.6 per cent were unsure.

The poll surveyed 1004 people from across the country.
A Silicon Valley billionaire is leasing a two-acre plot of private land to a city for just $1 a year to help address the Bay Area's housing crisis.

American real estate developer John Sobrato, 84, offered the San Jose City Council the opportunity to construct a 150-bed solar-powered temporary housing complex on Via Del Oro, Edenvale, in the south of the metropolis.

Sobrato said he approached the authority to offer his two-acre plot , which has sat unused for 30 years, after seeing increasing numbers of rough sleepers.

Although the plot lies in an industrial area, it is close to a bus line and the interstate and the project, which will be constructed by with social housing solutions company DignityMoves, has been hailed as an 'effort to end homelessness' in the city.

Sobrato agreed to a five-year lease at just $1 a year, and San Jose councilors voted unanimously to approve the development on Tuesday.

American real estate developer John Sobrato, 84, has offered the San Jose City Council the opportunity to construct a 150-bed solar-powered temporary housing complex on Via Del Oro in the south of the metropolis

The temporary housing complex will offer 150 units for people sleeping on the streets in the Bay Area

Although the plot lies in an industrial area, it is close to a bus line and the interstate

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said the complex of cabins is 'designed to be movable when the city's lease runs out' so the 'quick-build community' can be launched again on another plot.

He thanked Sobrato Philanthropies, a real estate and philanthropy network, and DignityMoves founders Elizabeth Funk and Joanne Price for their generosity.

'This contribution is especially exciting because it allows to test a new approach that could help get privately-owned but currently unused private land off the sidelines and into the effort to end homelessness in San Jose,' Mahan said on X.

'I'm so proud of our city for pushing the envelope on homelessness and constantly striving to better our approach so we can help more people suffering and improve the quality of life for everyone.'

Mahan posted a photograph of what the bedroom cabins will look like, along with a sketch of the overall layout.

City officials said the development will also include shared kitchens and laundry rooms, outdoor seating, a parking lot and extra buildings to provide services like job training and substance abuse support.

Sobrato is worth $10.3billion per Bloomberg, and while he is leasing his land for a steal, the project is expected to cost the city around $18million, according to NBC.

San Jose is home to around 1million people, and it is the third most expensive city in the United States, behind only Manhattan and Honolulu, according to the latest report from the Council for Community and Economic Research.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said the complex of cabins is 'designed to be movable when the city's lease runs out' so the 'quick-build community' can be launched again on another plot

A view of a homeless encampment on a street in West Oakland, California, last month, as local officials made moves to clear out the structures

The northern California city has become the nucleus of Silicon Valley tech culture, which is pushing prices up meaning thousands of people are unable to afford shelter.

More than 6,300 people are sleeping rough in the city this year, according to the latest homeless census figures.

The number of people without a home is skyrocketing in the US, and California is by far the worst-hit state.

It has about a third of all the country's homeless people, and Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland and other Golden State cities have among the largest numbers of unsheltered people in the country.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development says 582,462 people did not have a permanent home on the single night in January last year when researchers carried out their most recent snapshot survey.

Some 60 percent of the destitute were in shelters, crashing with friends or relatives, or had other temporary digs. The rest were 'unsheltered'  sleeping in cars, on the streets or in derelict buildings.

Sights like this, a homeless person's belongings scattered on the street next to a bank in Los Angeles, California, have become a common sight at ATMs across the country

To capture the scale of the problem, DailyMail.com analyzed the department's data, which were released at the end of last year, to show which US states and cities have the worst homelessness rates.

They show that about a third of the entire US homeless population  171,521 people  are in California. That includes more than half of the country's unsheltered homeless population, 115,491 people.

California also added 9,973 homeless people between 2020 and last year's survey.

The Golden State has the country's highest rate of homelessness, with 44 non-housed people out of every 10,000 residents. It is followed closely by Vermont, Oregon, and Hawaii.
A woman has been charged after allegedly beating her dog so badly it had to be euthanised.

The 46-year-old from Leonora, nine hours north-east of Perth, Western Australia was allegedly seen swinging the Jack Russell crossbreed by his front legs into a brick wall, punching him, kicking him in the stomach, stomping on him and throwing him onto the ground while out on a walk with a child.

The shocking incident allegedly occurred on the morning of January 1, 2022 near the Leonora Post Office on Tower Street, and was caught on CCTV footage.

A local police officer was able to identify the alleged suspect in the video.

A Western Australian woman has been charged after allegedly beating her Jack Russell so badly it had to be put down (stock image)

An RSPCA WA inspector attended the accused womans home to find the pet dog unable to walk properly

An RSPCA WA inspector attended the womans home to find the suffering dog unable to walk properly.

The dog was surrendered and a vet examination found that his injuries were so severe that one of his hind legs had to be amputated.

Sadly, the beloved pet dog was later euthanised.

The accused will face Leonora Magistrates Court on November 14.

The maximum penalty for the charges is a $50,000 fine and five years in prison.

In July, a WA woman was fined $3,500 and banned from owning a pet for five years after letting her Maltese Shih-tzu (pictured) suffer severe painful matting

In July, a WA woman was fined $3,500 and banned from owning a pet for five years after letting her Maltese Shih-tzu suffer painful and severe matting for at least six months.

Francine Janell Parfitt, 43, faced Joondalup Magistrates Court on July 7, where she was found guilty of animal neglect charges.

The court heard RSCPA Western Australia inspectors first attended Parfitt's home at Butler, north-west Perth on January 25 after reports of animal abuse.

Inspectors found the 11-year-old Maltese Shih-tzu named Emma in a 'poor condition' with severley dreaded hair with prickles strewn throughout its coat.

The court heard that Parfitt failed to comply with instructions to get Emma groomed, despite being told by inspectors the matting was causing the dog pain.

RSPCA WA later returned to the home with a warrant and seized Emma due to suspected animal cruelty.

Veterinarians at RSPCA WA's Animal Care Centre found Emma was suffering from a dental disease, leading to 10 tooth extractions.

They also found a grass seed embedded in her ear on top of her painful matting.
Harvard pro-Palestinian groups held a 'die-in' on Wednesday, just over a week after the deadly terrorist attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel.

The protests come just 12 days after the attack and a letter backed by 33 Harvard student groups that blamed Israel for the assault by Hamas terrorists sparked national outrage.

The Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee and Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine organized Wednesday's march from Harvard's main campus in Cambridge to its business school in Boston.

According to the invitation, the march was organized in part due to an 'Israeli airstrike' on a hospital in Gaza, despite US intel clarifying that Israel was not behind the explosion.

The event flyer read, 'Protest and Die-In. Over 800 Killed by Israeli airstrike on hospital in Gaza. Demand an end to ongoing genocide.'

Protestors filled the streets alongside the Charles River, with many waving Palestinian flags, chanting slogans like 'No justice, No peace' and holding signs saying, 'Stop the genocide in Gaza.'

Harvard pro-Palestinian groups held a 'die-in' on Wednesday, just over a week after the deadly terrorist attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,300 people in Israel

The Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee and Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine organized a march from from Harvard's main campus in Cambridge to its business school in Boston

According to the invitation, the march was organized in part due to an ' Israeli airstrike' on a hospital in Gaza, despite US intel clarifying that Israel was reportedly not behind the explosion

The crowd descended upon the Business School law, where they laid down in the grass as a group, pretending to be dead, as a form of 'resistance.'

The video shared by the Palestine Solidarity Committee's Instagram following the rally, shows many students dressed in Arab Shemagh Kafiya garb.

Some pro-Israel students counter-protested nearby, many offended by the lack of sympathy shown by their fellow students following the deadly terrorist attack, with many who have been personally impacted.

One student from Israel, standing alone, held an Israeli flag proudly in the face of those condemning the country while they called him a 'murderer.'

Raphael Maarek said his mother and sister are currently living in a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv.

'These demonstrations are not about peace. They're not about empathy. They're not about solutions,' he told WCVB. 'They're about erasing one people and replacing it with another.'

Another Israeli student said this is not political crisis, it is a humanitarian one.

'The war that Israel is conducting is against the terrorist organization, Hamas. It is not against the people of Gaza or against the Arabs or even against the Muslims,' Yuval Efrat told the outlet.

The video shared by the Palestine Solidarity Committee's Instagram following the rally, shows many students dressed in Arab Shemagh Kafiya garb

Videos from the event show dozens of protestors filling the streets alongside the Charles River, with many waving Palestinian flags, chanting slogans like 'No justice, No peace' and holding signs saying, 'Stop the genocide in Gaza'

The crowd descended upon the Business School law, where they laid down in the grass as a group, as a form of 'resistance'

Another student from Israel told NBC10, 'My issues are with inflammatory statements, wrong statements, not talking about facts.'

'At the end of the day that's your freedom, freedom of speech, say whatever you want, as long as it's not wrong,' she added.

Harvard has been at the center of controversy since the war began, with many major donors pulling their contributions and rescinding job offers to those who blame the Hamas attack on Israel or those who cannot simply condemn the terrorist group.

The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee issued a letter on October 7, co-signed by 33 other Harvard student organizations, stating: 'We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.'

The Anti-Defamation League denounced the statement as 'anti-Semitic' and others accused the university of tolerating hate speech.

The students leading the 33 organizations and the Solidarity Committee were named and faced calls to be blacklisted from future employment. They included the son of British businesswoman Jo Malone.

Josh Willcox, 22, is listed as one of three students who run the Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, according to Harvard's directory of student groups.

Willcox is now claiming that he had nothing to do with the letter written by his organization and said he was away from campus when it was written.

His mother - who sold her Jo Malone brand to Estee Lauder in 1999 for a sum described as 'undisclosed millions', and now runs her own Jo Loves brand - immediately rejected her son's group's statement, and described the Hamas attacks as 'abhorrent'.

But it was not until Saturday, after a week of mounting anger and widespread revulsion, that Willcox insisted he was not involved in its drafting.

'In contrast to the PSC open letter, I believe that anyone who inflicts violence on civilians is solely responsible for their actions,' he wrote on Instagram.

'I therefore do not support the letter's attribution of blame for Saturday's attacks to Israel.'

Palestinian supporters gathered at Harvard University to show their support in Gaza at a rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14

College campuses (pictured at Harvard) have become a focal point of hostilities as the nation grapples with the complex conflict in the Middle East

Pro-Israel students take part in a protest at Columbia University in New York City on October 12

One of America's most prestigious law firms rescinded job offers for three students who put the blame on Israel in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks.

Davis Polk reversed employment offers to those the company reportedly believed led organizations at Harvard and Columbia universities that issued statements blaming Israel for the violence.

The firm added that it would re-evaluate the decision for two of the students, who appealed the verdict and claimed they did not authorize the letters, which were unsigned.

Davis Polk, which did not identify the students, said in a statement: 'The views expressed in certain of the statements signed by law school student organizations in recent days are in direct contravention of our firm's value system.'

The company added that it will 'continue to maintain a supportive and inclusive work environment', and said that 'the student leaders responsible for signing on to these statements are no longer welcome in our firm.'

In an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, Davis Polk managing partner and chair Neil Barr insisted the company does not wish to employ any supporters of the Hamas attacks.

The move also reportedly spurred a large number of law students who were set to be employed by Davis Polk to reach out to the company to say that they did not support the statements, according to Davis Polk spokeswoman Katie Moss.

Moss added that many of the students - from Columbia, Harvard and other prestigious universities - said they resigned from groups that appeared to support the Hamas attacks.

Davis Polk managing partner and chair Neil Barr (pictured) said the company rescinded job offers for three students from Harvard and Columbia as it does not wish to employ any supporters of the Hamas terrorist attacks

Sweetgreen boss Jonathan Neman (left) and DoveHill Capital Management CEO Jake Wurzak (right) echoed the call

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman revealed that his fellow bosses want to know who the students are so 'none of us inadvertently hire any of their members'

An Israeli billionaire says he and his wife are also quitting the board of Harvard University's famous Kennedy School of Business over the school's president's response to the surprise Hamas attacks in Israel.

Idan Ofer is the founder of Eastern Pacific Shipping reportedly worth over $14 billion, according to Forbes. His wife Batia is an art collector and the descendant of Holocaust survivors.

Batia Ofer told the Hebrew-language outlet TheMarker that she and her husband are both quitting the school's executive board over President Claudine Gay's response to 31 Harvard organizations signing a letter placed the blame on Israel for Hamas' brutal attacks.

Now those, Hamas supporting students are begging the school for mental health services after feeling bullied for their refusal to condemn the terror group.

Harvard's Arab Alumni Association has appealed for donations to help students' mental health after they were subjected to 'relentless bullying and intimidation' for blaming Israel for the Hamas terror attacks.
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They say a man's home is his castle, but with 24 security cameras, 18 search lights and two reinforced steel gates this house in Hurstville is more like a fortress.

The otherwise-unremarkable single-storey redbrick on a quiet suburban street has locals and passers-by alike scratching their heads wondering why anyone would need so much security.

Alex and Julie Saikaly bought the 770 square metre property on Australia Street more than 30 years ago and their reason for over-the-top security is nothing sinister.

This house in Hurstville, Sydney, might be the most protected suburban home in Australia

Alex and Julie Saikaly say they bought the $60,000 worth of security because they don't trust the people in their neighbourhood who they think are thieves

The house in 2005 before the massive security upgrade has roller shutters and the gate but nothing else

'People in this neighbourhood are thieves so we don't trust them,' Ms Saikaly told Daily Mail Australia in 2016.

'This is our home and we don't want to move, so we spent a lot of money on cameras.'

At a cost of about $60,000, the whole set up is more than a third of the $160,000 the couple paid for their house in 1991 and took more than a month to install.

The cameras cover every possible angle and can even see next door's driveway.

In addition to the cameras, lights and steel gates there are electric roller shutters on the garage and windows and bars on the doors to ensure no one has any chance of making it inside.

It has 24 security cameras, 18 search lights and two reinforced steel gates

The cameras cover every possible angle and can even see next door's driveway

More of the cameras not on the front corner of the house which has at least 10 by itself

Multiple cameras and search lights have ever inch of the property covered

In addition to the cameras, lights and steel gates there are electric roller shutters on the garage and windows

Even their two trailers parked on the street outside are fulled locked down, chained together and secured with two heavy steel chains each bolted into thick rings somehow embedded into the concrete gutter.

Sydney Security Specialist managing director Michael Brilley said 24 security cameras for a single-storey home was 'probably overkill'.

'You just need to cover all of the external perimeter so youve got enough coverage so that every door and window is covered,' he told the Daily Telegraph.

It comes as a survey by Crime Stoppers shows 40 per cent of Australians have been burgled, only four per cent while they were away on holiday and none per cent while they were still in the house.

The otherwise-unremarkable single-storey redbrick on a quiet suburban street has locals and passers-by alike scratching their heads wondering why anyone would need so much security

Even their two trailers parked on the street outside are fulled locked down and are chained together

The are then secured with two heavy steel chains each bolted into thick rings somehow embedded into the concrete gutter

Bars on the doors ensure no one has any chance of making it inside
A pilot has died after a catastrophic light plane crash in Queensland.

The crash took place at Palgrave, southwest of Warwick, in the Southern Downs region, just after midday.

A local farmer rushed to the scene after spotting a fire break out on his property and tried to fight the flames himself.

Unfortunately the pilot - who was the only person on board the plane - died at the scene.

A pilot has died after a catastrophic light plane crash in Queensland

The crash took place at Palgrave, southwest of Warwick, in the Southern Downs region, just after midday

Paramedics, firefighters and police are now on the scene.

The crash sparked a nearby grass fire, initially making it hard for rescue teams to reach the wreckage.

Aerial images show the plane has been completely destroyed.

Aerial images show the plane has been completely destroyed
A reporter was left shocked after Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen dismissed her as being 'from Communist China.'

The Republican politician, 67, made the comments about Yanqi Xu, a Chinese immigrant who works for the independent outlet Flatwater Free Press, during a radio interview in September.

He was asked to respond to her article about high levels of nitrate on his hog farms.

'No 1, I didnt read it. And I wont,' Pillen told local radio station KFAB. 'No 2, all you got to do is look at the author. The author is from communist China. What more do you need to know?'

Xu, 27, hit out at his comments on Wednesday and said she wanted to hold the governor accountable. 'Im still trying to wrap my head around this,' she told NBC News. 'I can definitely see the bias there.'

Reporter Yanqi Xu, 27, was left shocked after Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen dismissed her as being 'from communist China '

Pillen, 67, (pictured) made the comments about Xu, a Chinese immigrant who works for independent outlet Flatwater Free Press, during a radio interview in September

Xu hit out at his comments on Wednesday and said she wanted to hold the governor accountable. 'Im still trying to wrap my head around this,' she told NBC News. 'I can definitely see the bias there'

'I think its important to speak up and it can be really, really hard at first because in some ways, it made you the center of the story,' Xu added.

'Especially as a woman of color, if the other person who made such a comment about you is the most powerful person in the state, how do you respond?

'But I think for me, I found myself coming back to this point of: If I dont do it, who would?'

On the day of Governor Pillen's interview, she was out working on a story on his hog farms and found out about his comments when she entered the newsroom the next day.

'My immediate reaction was, "Oh, wow, hes finally responding,"' Xu said. 'But I never expected his only actual comment was about who I am and where Im from. So I was pretty shocked.'

The journalist said she has not had any biased comments against her during her two years working as a journalist in Nebraska.

'I dont think that your country of origin defines you,' she said. 'When Im interacting with people, Nebraskans are actually pretty welcoming. And in a lot of ways I felt that I do have a community here.'

Matt Wynn, executive director of the Nebraska Journalism Trust, which created Flatwater Free Press, also came to her defense in a column published on Tuesday after consulting with immigration lawyers to make sure her visa status would not be affected.

'Yanqi has been in the United States since 2017.  This, she said, is the first time anyone has written her off based on her origin. And it was broadcast, over the air, by the governor of Nebraska,' he wrote.

The Asian American Journalists Association released a statement in support of the journalist on Wednesday

Congresswoman Judy Chu also slammed Pillen's comments as a 'baseless xenophobic attack' and called on him to apologize to Xu and her outlet

'As an employer, that infuriates me. As a believer in democracy and a free press, it saddens me. As a Nebraskan, it embarrasses me.'

Xu was grateful to her employer and said: 'I think its also super important for other Chinese Americans or other Chinese immigrants to understand that our newsroom thinks its not right for the governor to say something like this.'

She has received plenty of support following the incident and added: 'Ive heard so many positive comments and responses already, just from today. And I think that would definitely keep me going.'

The Asian American Journalists Association released a statement in support of the journalist on Wednesday.

It said: 'The Asian American Journalists Association stands with Yanqi Xu, the Flatwater Free Press journalist who was the target of remarks that attempted to dismiss her reporting because of her country of origin.'

'Having an independent and diverse press corps is essential to democracy, and Xu, an investigative reporter who grew up in China, deserves to do her job without being judged because of her nationality.'

Congresswoman Judy Chu also slammed Pillen's comments as a 'baseless xenophobic attack' and called on him to apologize to Xu and her outlet.

DailyMail.com has contacted Pillen's office for comment.
The bodies of an Israeli man and his 16-year-old daughter with cerebral palsy, victims of the shocking terror attack by Hamas at the Nova Music Festival, were finally found.

The Nova Festival near Sderot was stormed by gunmen who killed at least 260 people and took 199 people hostage on October 7.

Erick Peretz and daughter Ruth were located Wednesday at the site of the festival near the Re'im Kibbutz after the state of Israel wrote on X that they were 'brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists.'

Ruth was wheelchair-bound and suffered from cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy.

The father and daughter are among at least 260 Israelis who were massacred by Hamas.

The bodies of an Israeli man and his 16-year-old daughter with cerebral palsy, victims of the shocking terror attack by Hamas at the Nova Music Festival , were finally found

Elder daughter Yaarit Peretz, 26, told the Israeli site Ynet Monday before they were found that this was a complete shock after what had been a good trip.

'[My father] was really happy, and everything was fine,' she said.

She said Peretz would take Ruth to concerts and other events to cheer her up.

'For years he goes to these parties and takes Ruth, because it makes her really good and she loves it,' Yaarit said. 'There were times when he would take her and she didn't want to come back.'

Yaarit last spoke to her father the morning of the October 7 attack.

'He said that they barely had reception, and he didn't know where to go. He said that almost everyone ran away, and I told him that there were terrorists on the streets.'

She was especially worried about Ruth, who is mostly nonverbal, eats through her stomach and needs additional special care.

Erick Peretz and daughter Ruth (pictured left and center) were located Wednesday at the site of the festival near the Re'im Kibbutz after the state of Israel wrote on X that they were 'brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists.'

Ruth was wheelchair-bound and suffered from cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy

Peretz's elder daughter said Peretz would take Ruth to concerts and other events to cheer her up

An aerial picture shows the abandoned site of the weekend attack on the Supernova desert music Festival by Palestinian militants near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel

'I find it hard to believe that she will survive in Gaza,' she said at the time. It's crazy that so much time has passed and there are still no answers.'

The festival they was attending was one of the first places to be targeted by Hamas when the terrorist group launched its surprise attack across the Gaza border ten days ago.

Hundreds of revelers, who had been at the dance festival in the desert, were horrifically gunned down by Hamas. Others were kidnapped and taken back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 1,400 people are known to have been killed in the terrorist attacks on October 7 which has since been followed by thousands of deaths in Gaza in retaliatory Israeli air strikes.

Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have been massing in preparation for a ground invasion of the Palestinian territory, but this was postponed at the last minute over the weekend amid suggestions they had received new intelligence about hostages taken by Hamas.

President Joe Biden visited the state of Israel Wednesday, giving leaders U.S. approval to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, according to a report.

Biden spent seven-and-a-half hours in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies.

His visit came as anger spread across the region over an explosion at a Gaza hospital, which Israel blamed on a misfiring Palestinian rocket, and which the Pentagon confirmed. Hamas blames Israel.

Hundreds of revelers, who had been at the dance festival in the desert, were horrifically gunned down by Hamas. Others were kidnapped and taken back to Gaza as hostages

More than 1,400 people are known to have been killed in the terrorist attacks on October 7 which has since been followed by thousands of deaths in Gaza in retaliatory Israeli air strikes

The U.S. president told Netanyahu he was 'fully in support' of Israel's plans to invade Gaza to 'eradicate Hamas', according to The Times of London.

Benny Gantz, a former defense minister and IDF chief of staff who has joined his rival Netanyahu's war cabinet, warned Biden that the incursion could take 'years,' Axios reported.

Biden spoke to reporters on his way back from Israel, on Air Force One, but did not confirm the United States' support for the invasion. The White House has not commented.
The Israeli Defense Forces claim it has made missile attacks against military targets of Hezbollah near the border with Lebanon in the past 24 hours after President Joe Biden expressed his concerns about the terror group.

One of the many targets they hit was a military observation post in the northern town of Rosh Hanikra, they tweeted out Thursday.

One of its tanks also hit two anti-tank guided missiles in southern Lebanon in anticipation of an attack. A third was a drone strike that aimed for a terror cell in the Malkia area in Israel toward the border.

The IDF said the missile strikes were a response to shooting incidents in Israel over the past day.

The Israel-Lebanon border has become somewhat contentious amid the war going on in the wake of the Hamas attack that killed over 1,400 Israelis.

The Israeli Defense Forces claims it has made missile attacks against military targets of Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon in the past 24 hours

There have been reports of Hezbollah attacks and rockets fired from northern Lebanon toward northern Israel, the Times of Israel reported.

It comes after Biden said he was concerned about the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, getting involved.

The US is elevating its travel advisory and allowing non-emergency personnel to leave Lebanon after the embassy in Beirut was targeted by Pro-Palestinian protestors who started a fire at the complex.

US military groups deployed smoke and gas to disperse the protestors who gathered at the embassy following an attack on a hospital in Gaza. Hours after the protests began, the State Department issued the travel advisory.

'The Department authorized the voluntary, temporary departure of family members of US government personnel and some non-emergency personnel from US Embassy Beirut due to the unpredictable security situation in Lebanon,' the announcement read.

White House officials have been in contact with Hezbollah figures, Axios reported, urging them to stand down.

Hezbollah has said it will stand with Hamas.

The Pentagon has sent two aircraft carriers to the region, the USS Gerald Ford, and the USS Dwight Eisenhower.

White House officials have held several meetings to prepare for a scenario of using U.S. military force if Hezbollah were to launch missiles at Israel, Axios said.

Biden spent seven-and-a-half hours in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies.

His visit came as anger spread across the region over an explosion at a Gaza hospital, which Israel blamed on a misfiring Palestinian rocket, and which the Pentagon confirmed. Hamas blames Israel.

The U.S. president told Netanyahu he was 'fully in support' of Israel's plans to invade Gaza to 'eradicate Hamas', according to The Times of London.

Benny Gantz, a former defense minister and IDF chief of staff who has joined his rival Netanyahu's war cabinet, warned Biden that the incursion could take 'years,' Axios reported.

Biden spoke to reporters on his way back from Israel, on Air Force One, but did not confirm the United States' support for the invasion. The White House has not commented.

Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, are pictured in Tel Aviv on Wednesday

The sun rises on Israeli tanks amassed on the Gaza border on Wednesday

Israeli troops are pictured positioned along the border with Gaza on Wednesday

An Israeli soldier is seen patrolling the Israel-Gaza border on Wednesday

Biden is seen on Wednesday speaking to reporters on Air Force One, en route from Israel. The Secretary of State Antony Blinken and spokesman for the National Security Council John Kirby are seen standing behind him

Sources told The Times Biden urged Israel to show restraint when it goes in to Gaza, and demanded Israel allow humanitarian aid from Egypt into the devastated enclave.

Biden called Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, from Air Force One as he was flying home to confirm the agreement, and publicly thanked Sisi when he spoke to reporters on the plane.

Sisi 'deserves a lot of credit' for allowing in humanitarian aid, Biden said.

'He was completely cooperative,' Biden said, adding he 'stepped up - as did Bibi.'

Twenty trucks full of aid will be allowed to pass from Egypt into Gaza. The shipments will likely begin on Friday, The Times reported, because the road in has been bombed and needs repairs before the trucks can pass.

Biden said the U.N. will be in charge of distributing aid inside Gaza, and there may be a second shipment if the first goes well.

'If Hamas confiscates them or doesn't let it get through, then it's going to end,' Biden said.

His administration has been taking questions for days about how to provide humanitarian corridors for Palestinian residents of Gaza to flee amid an Israeli evacuation order.

'We're going to get people out,' he said, having discussed the issue with Netanyahu on his trip, as well as getting in humanitarian relief.

'I was very blunt about the need to get humanitarian aid to Gaza.'

Biden and Netanyahu are seen following their meeting in Tel Aviv on Wednesday

The two men are seen embracing as Biden arrives in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning

There was no word on what would happen in Gaza after the Israeli invasion, and Biden did not mention to reporters any discussions about the future of the enclave.

Biden privately asked Israeli officials what they intended to do with Gaza after the invasion, Axios reported. The Israelis replied they had not yet decided, and were still working on the initial push.

Biden publicly urged Israelis not to be 'consumed' by rage, and to think with 'clarity about objectives.'

He stressed Israel should not make the same mistakes as the United States did after the September 11 attacks - an apparent reference to the invasion of Iraq.

Israeli officials are concerned about keeping the international community on their side, Axios reported, and have been vague in public about what will happen to Gaza.

Eli Cohen, the foreign minister, suggested to Army Radio Israel was planning to reduce Gaza's geographical size, The Times reported.

'At the end of this war, not only will Hamas no longer be in Gaza, but the territory of Gaza will also decrease,' he said.

Biden's team is happy that Netanyahu has bought his political opponents, Benny Gantz and former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, into the war cabinet, Axios reported.

Gantz told Biden the effort to dismantle Hamas 'could take years,' according to Axios sources.

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, told Biden that 'it will be a long and difficult war, and Israel will need U.S. support for a long period of time,' an aide to Gallant said.
The mother of a six-year-old Muslim boy murdered by the family's landlord is so severely injured and traumatized she is yet to speak about the horrifying ordeal, the child's great-uncle said.

Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed to death on Saturday afternoon at his home, and his mother, Hanaan Shahin, 32, was stabbed 26 times.

The attack was so vicious the 12-inch kitchen knife remained embedded in the child's body until the autopsy.

The attacker, Joseph Czuba, was a friendly neighbor who built a treehouse for the little boy, but became obsessed with the coverage of the Hamas terror attack of October 7 and 'flipped', a local activist told CNN.

Mahmoud Yousef, the boy's great-uncle, told the outlet the family was yet to speak to the boy's mother, Hanaan Shahin.

'We have no idea how she is right now,' he said.

Six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume was allegedly stabbed to death by the family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, 71, on Saturday

Mahmoud Yousef, the boy's great-uncle (left), appeared on CNN on Wednesday beside the executive director of Chicago's CAIR Ahmed Rehab

The attack took place on Saturday morning in this home in Plainfield, Illinois, where both lived. Wadea's family rented a room from Czuba, who also lives at the property

The backyard of the home where Czuba stabbed the boy and his mother. It is crammed with US flags and other patriotic signs

'They are not letting us talk to her or see her or visit her. Up until this point,' the great-uncle said. 'We are trying. They have told us we have to wait.'

Yousef said he was speaking on behalf of the family, as the father, Oday Al-Fayoume, was 'still in disbelief of what has just happened.'

Asked why Shahin had not yet spoken to her relatives, Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said she was severely injured and in shock.

'This was a brutal and heinous attack,' he told CNN. 'She was stabbed 12 times.

'The little boy was stabbed 26 times. A 12-inch knife was still in his abdomen when he was taken for an autopsy.'

Rehab said Shahin was 'stabbed in the face, the cheek, she can't talk.'

'She is in severe distress emotionally, of course, with the trauma she experienced,' Rehab said. 'And so it is perhaps the hospital wanting her to be protected from the interests of the public.

'We are still trying to get in contact.'

The boy and his mother. He has one older sibling who was not harmed in the Saturday attack

The FBI and Justice Department have launched investigations into the attack. The FBI stated it 'takes the investigation of hate crimes extremely seriously'

The boy's father on Sunday. The child's funeral came as Czuba made a court appearance on murder and other charges

'This is a heavy day that we hoped would never come. As they say, the smallest coffins are the heaviest,' Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR-Chicago, said in a statement

Rehab said that 'evil' Czuba had become radicalized by coverage of the Hamas attack, which turned him against Muslims.

'Ironically just before this segment, discussing the brutalizing of this family, there was a segment discussing potential imminent threats from the Muslim community,' said Rehab.

'And it is reports like that that this evil man was watching - he got radicalized by the coverage of the media, that is being consistently lopsided and one-sided.

'Not unlike, frankly, what I am seeing on CNN and other networks. Statements from politicians.

'Causing this man, who had otherwise been normal - had built a treehouse for the boy - to become a monster.'

Yousef added: 'A lot of people have a phobia or something against Muslims.

'They look at them as monsters. Describe them as animals.'

He said politicians and community leaders needed to be more careful with their words.

'I think that it starts with leaders of our country,' said Yousef.

'When they hear something, like some type of news. Don't just say it unless you know it's true or not.'

Community members in metro-Chicago mourned the loss of Wadea Al-Fayoume, 6, during a funeral on Monday

'This is a heavy day that we hoped would never come. As they say, the smallest coffins are the heaviest,' Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR-Chicago, said in a statement

The child's school district said that counseling staffers would be available on Monday at the boy's school

Wadea was stabbed 26 times and killed in a Sunday attack. His mother, Hanaan Shahin, was stabbed more than a dozen times. She remains in the hospital

He echoed Rehab and said Czuba was 'a normal person' who became radicalized.

'There was not a problem with him,' said Rehab.

'Suddenly he just switched, because of what he hears from the news. Most of the things he hears unfortunately is not even true.

'That's where we have to start. We have to start with the community.

'The community unfortunately are judgmental sometimes.

'Why didn't you just ask if you fear something? Why don't you ask?'

In recent days, Jewish and Muslim groups have reported an increase in hateful rhetoric in the wake of the war. Several cities have stepped up police patrols.

The Justice Department said it opened a hate crime investigation into the attack.

'This horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are,' President Joe Biden said.
A veteran State Department official resigned from the agency Tuesday after Joe Biden reaffirmed America's commitment to support Israel in its war against Hamas.

Josh Paul, who worked in the State's bureau overseeing arms transfers for more than a decade, expressed disapproval over the amount of US military assistance provided to America's Middle East ally and resigned because he couldn't do anything about it.

He shared his lengthy two-page resignation letter on LinkedIn, citing a 'policy disagreement' concerning 'continued lethal assistance to Israel,' which received mixed reactions.

His resignation coincided with President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, during which he pledged a substantial $100 billion aid package.

'In my 11 years I have made more moral compromises than I can recall, each heavily, but each with my promise to myself in mind, and intact,' Paul wrote. 'I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued  indeed, expanded and expedited  provision of lethal arms to Israel  I have reached the end of that bargain.'

Josh Paul (pictured) who worked in the State's bureau overseeing arms transfers for more than a decade, expressed disapproval over the amount of US military assistance provided to America's Middle East ally and resigned because he couldn't do anything about it

His resignation coincided with President Joe Biden 's visit to Israel, during which he pledged a substantial $100 billion aid package in support of Israel and Ukraine. Pictured: Israeli soldiers patrol an undisclosed location along the Israel-Gaza border

'I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse, and which I wholeheartedly endorse: a world built around a rules-based order, a world that advances both equality and equity, and a world whose arc of history bends towards the promise of liberty, and of justice, for all.'

He emphasized he believed the recent terrorist attack in Israel, which claimed the lives of over 1,400 innocent people, was a heinous act.

However, he contended that continuing to support Israel's actions would lead to further suffering for both Israelis and Palestinians and was not in the long-term interest of the United States.

'Let me be clear: Hamas' attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy.

'But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people - and is not in the long term American interest.'

Paul asserted the current administration's response, along with much of Congress, was based on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual stagnation and bureaucratic inertia.

He argued blind support for one side in the conflict would ultimately harm the interests of both parties and cited a history of repeating mistakes in this regard.

Paul attempted to portray his neutrality by mentioning his Israeli and Palestinian friends, a research paper he had written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and his past residence in Ramallah, a Palestinian city that does not allow Israelis to enter.

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Merkava tanks in a staging area in southern Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip on October 18

Paul concluded by expressing his 'core beliefs' come from finding 'beauty everywhere in this world.'

He equated the horrors of the terrorist attack that killed 1,400 at a peaceful music festival with a 'terrorist' 'murdering' someone as they 'harvest their olive grove.'

'The murder of civilians is an enemy to that desire - whether by terrorists as they dance at a rave, or by terrorists as they harvest their olive grove. The kidnapping of children is an enemy to that desire - whether taken at gunpoint from their kibbutz or taken at gunpoint from their village.'

He also used common terms thrown out in discussions about Israel, such as 'ethnic cleansing,' 'occupation,' and 'apartheid.'

'And, collective punishment is an enemy to that desire, whether it involves demolishing one home, or one thousand; as too is ethnic cleansing; as too is occupation; as too is apartheid,' he wrote.

Paul emphasized the responsibility of third parties, like himself, to support the people caught in the middle of the conflict and work towards a better world.

'It is my firm belief that in such conflicts, for those of us who are third parties, the side we must pick is not that of one of the combatants, but that of the people caught in the middle, and that of the generations yet to come. It is our responsibility to help the warring parties build a better world.'

President Joe Biden, left, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, to discuss the the war between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv

Civil defense teams and residents launch a search and rescue operation around the buildings that were destroyed after Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip on October 19

Paul claimed many in the State Department quietly reached out in support, but his resignation sparked a range of responses, with some praising his decision and others criticizing his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The two-page letter sparked backlash among many, one of which commented, 'Thank you for leaving. In weaker times a weaker man could have succeeded but now is time for strength, man or woman. Thank you for withdrawing and not continuing to weaken this great nation. Well done.'

Another commented: 'Confusing. Was your work human rights or arming our friends? If Palestinians wanted a state they could have it, but it seems too many would rather kill Jews QED, so please no more 'occupation' slant.'

'Our enemies (Hamas, Iran, Russia, China, etc.) are only too happy to kill us and not for anything we've done to them. The two sides here are in separate moral universes. How can arming those actually fighting slavery and genocide ever be 'unjust'? This is a level of preciousness surpassing all utility or sense, a true dog in the manger.'

'Key Republican senators say the $100 billion spending package the Biden administration is preparing to send to lawmakers will include funds to bolster Israel and Ukraine  while also steering money to cities like New York and Chicago that are feeling the effects of the immigration crisis.

The administration is expected to send the aid package request within days, as President Biden returns from his seven-hour trip to Israel amid rising tensions over the Gaza hospital explosion.

The administration has signaled it will include both border money and border policy provisions, not all of which will be welcome among Senate Republicans who will be critical to passage.

.
EXCLUSIVE

A Jetstar passenger booted off a flight for vaping in the toilet has been unmasked as a Sydney plumber.

Justin Kauter was travelling from Sydney to Bali on Wednesday October 4 when he was busted vaping after setting off the aircraft's smoke alarm.

Viral footage shows Mr Kauter carrying his suitcase down the aisle as he was escorted off the aircraft by Australian Federal Police.

Now, Daily Mail Australia can reveal Mr Kauter is employed at a small family plumbing business owned by a relative.

According to social media, the young father has been working at the business for the past five years.

When contacted by Daily Mail Australia on Thursday, Mr Kauter's mother said she was aware of his trip to Bali but did not know about the vaping incident or his newfound viral fame.

Justin Kauter (pictured) was booted off a Jetstar flight to Bali earlier this month after being busted vaping in the toilet

Daily Mail Australia understands Mr Kauter rebooked a new flight and flew to Bali two days after the incident.

Sources say the commotion caused an hour-and-a-half delay for fellow passengers as airline staff called in cops to remove him from the flight.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Mr Kauter for comment.

Under Australian law, smoking and the use of e-cigarettes, such as vapes, is strictly banned on aircrafts and carries heavy penalties.

A Jetstar spokesperson said airline staff called the AFP to help remove Mr Kauter from the plane after the vapour set off the aircraft's smoke alarms prior to departure.

'Customers cannot vape on a plane, it's as simple as that,' an airline spokesman said.

'The use of all types of e-cigarettes on aircraft is strictly prohibited.

'Safety is our top priority, and this type of behaviour will never be tolerated by our crew.'

Daily Mail Australia understands Mr Kauter was not charged over the incident.

The video has been viewed more than five million times and garnered around 177,000 likes after it was posted online earlier this month.

Mr Kauter (pictured) was filmed being escorted off the plane earlier this month

Mr Kauter works as a plumber at a family business

Mr Kauter (right) is pictured on a plumbing job

The clip sparked furious debate online with dozens of vapers admitting they do it 'all the time' while other social media users slammed the behaviour.

One person said it 'seems like he's just inexperienced, I've never had any issues' while someone else suggested: 'You just hold it in and don't blow out.'

'I literally just wait for take off [then] put a blanket or sweater over my head,' a third added.

'Vape in the bathroom lol,' another woman said.

However, others were stunned by how many had admitted to breaking the aviation rule.

'The lack of self control is amazing,' one person wrote.

'This is such an obvious rule that's even written all over the plane and when you buy your ticket. How do people do this anymore? You couldn't go without it?,' another said.

Mr Kauter is not the first person to be kicked off a flight in Australia for taking a sneaky puff.

In May 2021, a Queensland man was fined $4,000 for vaping while drunk and disorderly onboard a Jetstar flight to Hobart.

Just four months later, a Perth man found himself facing a potential fine of $16,800 after being charged with vaping in his seat and the toilet before illegally using his mobile phone when the plane was approaching to land.
Aussies are being urged to get themselves organised after Australia Post announced important last sending dates to help deliveries arrive in time for Christmas.

For sending to and from most destinations within Australia via Parcel Post, parcels should be sent by Monday, December 18.

The deadline for Express Post is Thursday, December 21.

People sending to or from Western Australia and the Northern Territory should allow a few extra days, Australia Post said.

Australia Post says parcels should be sent by Monday, December 18 if they are to be delivered in time for Christmas

'We know these last-sending dates are very important for customers to help ensure cards and gifts make it in time to loved ones near and far,' Australia Post parcel, post and eCommerce services executive general manager Gary Starr said.

'Of course, if items are sent after the recommended dates, they will still be delivered as quickly as possible, but they may not arrive until after Christmas.'

Last December, Australia Post delivered a staggering 52million parcels, and a similar rush is expected this year.

Last December, Australia Post delivered a whopping 52million parcels and a similar volume is expected for 2023

International deliveries will need to be arranged earlier, with some needing to be sent as soon as November 16 for particularly far-flung destinations.

For international sending via Economy Air, last sending dates for cards and gifts fall between November 16-29, depending on the destination.

Customers sending via International Standard will have a few extra days to find the perfect gift, with the deadline being November 23-December 7.

Last-minute shoppers can give themselves another week if sending via International Express, with the deadline for that service November 30-December 13.

That will be a costly option though, with International Express prices starting at a whopping $28.05 for letters and documents and $30.35 for parcels.

Further details can be found on the Australia Post website.
A Channel Nine reporter has been accused of 'bitter bias' on the network's own social media account after a tense interview with Opposition leader Peter Dutton about the rejected Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

60 Minutes reporter Amelia Adams on Sunday night directed a number of accusative questions at Mr Dutton after the Voice was convincingly voted down in Saturday's referendum.

During the course of the testy interview Adams disputed Mr Dutton's insistence he hadn't sunk the Voice, suggested Parliament wouldn't now listen to Indigenous people and the referendum result was a propaganda victory for China.

Viewers who were not impressed by the tone or content of the interrogation took to Channel Nine's Instagram page to express their displeasure.

Channel Nine 60 Minutes reporter Amelia Adams has infuriated viewers over her confrontational interview with Mr Dutton

'Not sure Amelia, you had to interview with such bitterness & vitriol,' one person wrote.

'Maybe you need to take a breath & realise 60 percent of your countrymen & women voted NO not because we are against our Indigenous brothers & sisters (but) because we want the right to understand how this will look in our Constitution.'

'I wonder if she skipped how to learn professional impartiality in interviewing techniques,' another wrote.

'Terrible interview questions from a very bias reporter - I struggled to sit through it,' commented another irate viewer.

Mr Dutton, who retained his composure, attracted general approval for the way he handled the grilling.

'This isn't an interview, this is an attack,' one person wrote.

'How unprofessional, this gives me the ick! Good on Peter Dutton for being such a professional.'

Peter Dutton kept cool during aggressive questioning over his opposition to the Voice

'(Amelias) line of questioning was a disgrace. Dutton made her look like an amateur,' another said.

Adams had some defenders but they were in a distinct minority.

'Amelia Is an amazing interviewer,' one person wrote.

'She is very professional, and asks questions which viewers need to know.'

In introducing the segment Adams in voiceover describes the referendum result as an 'awkward political victory' for Mr Dutton.

After asking him how he felt on the day after the referendum, Adams put to Mr Dutton that his No campaign was being described as 'disgusting and shameful'.

'How does that sit with you?' she demanded.

In reply Mr Dutton said he wanted people to be 'respectful of a democratic process' and pointed out that half of Labor voters rejected the proposal, which had little to do with him.

Adams disagreed.

'They (Labor voters) certainly were influenced by your campaign... this concept of a Voice to Parliament was pretty straightforward and it it's been killed by politics,' she shot back.

Mr Dutton replied that it wasn't that straightforward and put the blame on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who he claimed went 'against advice' in going down a 'divisive path'.

'He made a deliberate decision to keep the design of the Voice from the Australian people,' Mr Dutton argued.

'I think Australians are baffled by the fact that two accomplished politicians, an Opposition Leader and a PM couldn't thrash out something to put the public together and get some good outcomes,' Adams objected.

'I think the public has spoken its mind and delivered its verdict on the Prime Minister's model and his leadership on The Voice,' Mr Dutton replied.

Mr Dutton accused Mr Albanese of not seriously engaging with him over the model for the Voice.

'I met with Anthony Albanese half a dozen times but most of them, if I'm being honest, were when the Prime Minister was on his way into a press conference so it was a courtesy.

'I think he wanted the opportunity to say "I've spoken with or I've consulted with Peter Dutton but it was cursory and it was a pleasantry, if you like, but there was no substantive discussion about what changes could be made because the Prime Minister wasn't of that mind.'

'Couldn't you also have budged and compromised more?' Adams insisted.

Mr Dutton maintained the Prime Minister was the problem saying that 'for his own reasons, for his own motivations, for his own self-interest, the Prime Minister thought that he could have his Redfern moment'.

The Redfern Moment refers to a speech former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating gave in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern in 1992, which is seen as seminal in admitting the faults of colonisation.

Adams tried a new tack asking Mr Dutton: 'How do you think this result impacts our International reputation? How will we be viewed around the world?'

Mr Dutton said he believed other countries would respect Australia's democratic decision.

However, Adams pressed the point suggesting that because Australia was the only Commonwealth nation to not officially recognise its indigenous people, it would play into the hands of Chinese propaganda.

'Isn't this idea that Australia is racist and discriminatory, it's exactly the type of disinformation that China has been spreading online?' Adams said.

Yes campaign workers mourn the result of the referendum that saw the Voice overwhelmingly rejected

'Isn't this result a gift to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)?' she asked.

Mr Dutton said he thought Mr Albanese was the one who had fostered those negative impressions.

Adams then demanded how the Government would fix Indigenous health and incarceration issues if 'our Parliament is not willing to hear from indigenous Australians on issues that affect them?'

'The fact remains we've spent close to half a billion dollars on this referendum and today nothing changes,' she said.

Mr Dutton agreed the expenditure was a scandal but rejected the other premises put to him by Adams.

Australians delivered a crushing No verdict in the weekend's referendum against the proposed Voice despite the measure being backed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, blue chip corporations, unions and multiple other groups.

Nationally 61 percent of voters rejected the proposal and the Voice failed to win majority approval in a single state.
EXCLUSIVE

Lisa Wilkinson hired her own team to defend her in the defamation case against Bruce Lehrmann because a barrister tapped by Network 10 called her Logies speech 'ill-advised' on Sunrise.

Mr Lehrmann launched a civil suit against the network in February over an episode of The Project on Channel 10 in 2021, during which Brittany Higgins alleged he had raped her in Parliament House two years prior.

Lehrmann was not named in the broadcast, but claims people in parliamentary circles were able to identify him as Ms Higgins' alleged rapist. He has continually denied the allegations.

Wilkinson chose to retain her own counsel - high-flying defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC and Gillis Delaney Lawyers to defend her in Lehrmann's defamation action.

That's instead of Thomson Geer, the law firm which Channel Ten has on retainer. Wilkinson invoiced Ten for more than $700,000 to pay for her lawyers and is now suing the network, claimed it failed to pay the fees.

Daily Mail Australia understands Wilkinson chose to seek her own legal counsel because Ten counsel Matthew Collins KC criticised her on Seven's Sunrise breakfast program on June 23, 2022 - the day after her Logies speech.

Lisa Wilkinson hired her own team to defend her in the defamation case against Bruce Lehrmann (pictured giving her Logies speech)

Four hours later, Network 10 hired him to represent both Wilkinson and the network.

Speaking with Natalie Barr and David Koch at the time, Dr Collins said: 'It's certainly possible that the authorities will be looking at the speech that she made to the Logies and assessing that speech against the standard which applies in this branch of the law.

'That standard is, did anything that she do have a tendency to interfere with the administration of justice?'

Dr Collins had said he believed Wilkinson - who has been in the media industry for more than 40 years - should have known better than to make the speech she gave at the Logies.

'You would hope that whenever the media is contemplating running a story about a serious criminal trial which is about to begin, they would be attune to the potential risks,' he said.

'The mainstream media, you guys, understand the risk inherent in talking about cases that are about to go to trial before the court, particularly high-profile cases. So clearly this was ill-advised.'

Dr Collins had explained that anyone facing a serious charge was entitled to the presumption of innocence, which meant there should be no preconceptions one way or the other.

'The concern is that potential members of the jury whose job is to apply the presumption of innocence and to focus on the evidence in the trial might be influenced by things they've been exposed to in the media and in social media.'

Wilkinson hired her own team because defamation specialist Matthew Collins KC (pictured on Sunrise in June, 2022) slammed her on the Seven Network breakfast program

Ms Higgins (right) alleged she was raped by a former colleague in Parliament House in 2019, in an interview with Lisa Wilkinson (left)

Wilkinson won her Logie for her interview with Ms Higgins and her speech was aired on national television, just days before Mr Lehrmann's jury trial was originally set to begin in the ACT Supreme Court.

She did not mention Mr Lehrmann's name in her speech, but she implied the allegations against him were true.

Chief Justice Lucy McCallum decided the speech could potentially bias jurors against Mr Lehrmann, moved the trial to October, and directed heavy criticism at Wilkinson.

Earlier on Thursday it was revealed Wilkinson had launched a civil suit in the NSW Supreme Court against Network 10 over her legal bills.

According to court documents, her legal team claim that in March and June this year the network accepted it was liable to indemnify the TV star even if she was 'independently represented'.

The network initially requested to pay Wilkinson's court costs in bulk, at the end of the trial, to allow them to add on any costs made in Mr Lehrmann's favour.

Wilkinson's lawyers said that was not reasonable because it would leave her to pay her own defence until she was reimbursed.

A Network 10 spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia: 'The lawyers engaged by Lisa Wilkinson have issued invoices for a very substantial amount of money, in excess of $700,000, and in good governance these need to be justified through due process.

'In the meantime, Network 10's focus is on defending the defamation claim brought by Bruce Lehrmann.'

Wilkinson's case against Network 10 will begin in the NSW Supreme Court on November 3.

Two weeks later, on November 22, Mr Lehrmann's defamation trial will begin in Sydney's Federal Court.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story wrongly stated Matthew Collins was a SC, rather than a KC, and suggested that he worked for Thomson Geer. We regret the error.
President Joe Biden has returned to the US from Israel ahead of an address to the nation where he plans to make a case for the nation to fund the wars in Israel and Ukraine.

The president spent a whirlwind seven hours in the Israeli warzone on Wednesday as part of a show of solidarity for the country in the wake of the Hamas attack.

He met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but missed out on a meeting with Arab leaders after a proposed summit in Jordan that was canceled in the wake of a strike at a hospital in Gaza.

Biden touched down at Andrews Air Force Base at 12.14am after affirming US support for Israel and vowing to prevent 'more tragedy.'

He is now set to speak from the Oval Office on Thursday in primetime to address the Israel war, as well the border and conflicts in other parts of the world.

Biden is expected to announce plans for a proposed $100 billion aid package, which includes resources for the Jewish nation in its war against Hamas as well as Ukraine, Taiwan and the US border with Mexico.

President Joe Biden has returned from a trip to Israel on Wednesday where he pledged ongoing US support in the war against Hamas

The president touched down at Andrews Air Force Base in the early hours of Thursday morning ahead of a speech where he is expected to make the case for the US to fund Israel and Ukraine in their respective wars

Primetime, Oval Office address for Biden are rare. The last being in June when he spoke of raising the debt ceiling.

On Thursday, he is expected to make the case that supporting Israel and Ukraine is a matter of national security.

'He's going to make the case that the cost of inaction and the cost of walking away is much higher,' one official told CNN.

A statement from the White House said: 'Tomorrow, President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukraine.'

The house has already approved $113 billion in security, humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

But it rejected a $24.1 billion aid request for the occupied country amid waning levels of public support and the Biden administration delivered the last of its 'supplemental funding requests' back in August.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen vowed the US would be 'certainly' be able to provide additional aid and said the country could finance two wars at once.

She told Sky News: 'American(s) can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel's military needs, and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia.'

A statement from the White House said: 'Tomorrow, President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukrain.'

Biden (pictured here during his last Oval Office address in June) will be making a rare primetime address

However, Biden could face opposition in getting the spending request through a divided Congress, where House Republicans have already questioned the billions of funding sent to Ukraine.

As well as offering support to Israel, Biden's visit sought to de-escalate tensions and unblock aid from reaching Gaza.

He has since confirmed that Israel has allowed 20 trucks carrying resources from Egypt into the besieged area.

He also cautioned against being 'consumed' by rage and likened the October 7 attack by Hamas to the devastation of 9/11.

He said: 'I understand. Many Americans understand. You can't look at what has happened here ... and not scream out for justice.

'But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.'
Jim Jordan's vote tally is 'going backwards', a Republican congressman has pointed out, as he predicted that the controversial hardline Ohioan would fail to be elected as House speaker.

Jordan held a first vote on his candidacy on Tuesday, and a second on Wednesday - which saw him win even less votes than the first.

A third vote is planned for Thursday, and Jordan's allies are desperately trying to win over doubters.

Don Bacon, a Nebraska congressman, said his wife had received anonymous text messages threatening him unless he voted for Jordan. Bacon said Jordan stood no chance in future votes.

'We're confident next vote he gonna lose five or six more votes,' Bacon told Fox News on Wednesday. 'He's gonna be going backwards.'

Don Bacon on Wednesday told Fox News that Jim Jordan would not be elected speaker of the House

A handful of disgruntled Republicans immediately voted against Jim Jordan on Wednesday

Second speaker vote tally Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. -- 212 Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio -- 199 Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. -- 7 Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. -- 5 Others -- 10 Advertisement

Twenty-two of Jordan's disgruntled GOP colleagues - two more than on Tuesday - voted against him on Wednesday.

'I believe he's done,' Bacon told CNN.

Angie Bacon, his wife, received a text message saying: 'Your husband better support Jim Jordan.'

Another text said: 'Your husband will not hold any political office ever again.'

A third said: 'What a disappoint [sic] and failure he is.'

Bacon voted for Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday - landing another blow to Jordan's vote tally.

Another to be named in the vote tally was former speaker John Boehner - who resigned in 2015, and now works as a lobbyist.

The disarray among House Republicans has no end in sight, two weeks after McCarthy became the first speaker in history to be ousted.

Since then, the House has been paralyzed and unable to do business with less than a month until the government shuts down again.

Now, there are questions of what the conference can do next to avoid the shambolic scenario from January, where it took 15 ballots to elect McCarthy.

With the GOP's narrow majority, Jordan could only afford to lose four votes on the floor with the GOP's razor-thin majority.

On Tuesday, 20 Republicans voted against Jordan, destroying his chance to become speaker in the first round of voting. He met the same fate on Wednesday in the second round of voting

Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry might be the clearest path toward getting a more long-term speaker solution

First speaker vote tally Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. -- 212 Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio -- 200 Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. -- 6 Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y. -- 3 Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. -- 7 Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif. -- 1 Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn. -- 1 Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. -- 1 Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. -- 1 Advertisement

'People keep making it about these personal issues they have with other members and I think that's a reason why we need term limits in Congress,' a frustrated Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a staunch Jordan supporter, told DailyMail.com after the vote.

Meanwhile those who have opposed Jordan have reportedly been getting threats from local conservative leaders claiming they would be out of a job if they did not vote for the Ohio firebrand.

For moderates, it could be a choice between voting against Jordan and risking a right-wing primary challenge and voting for Jordan and angering independent-minded voters.

'He's got the American people behind him,' Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said of Jordan, predicting he would become speaker eventually.

'Every one of these guys, they're getting a lot of phone calls, and they should,' he told DailyMail.com. 'He's an American hero.'

Rep. Mike Garcia, a moderate Republican from California, suggested Republicans take a field trip to Gettysburg to work on unity.

'It sounds it sounds silly but let's go to Gettysburg or something. Let's go to somewhere that is meaningful to our nation's history so that the Republican Party can once again remember why we do what we do.'

Republican Rep. Dave Joyce, Ohio, is expected to nominate interim Speaker Patrick McHenry for the top job on a short-term basis following Jordan's defeat. Support for that move is divided among Republicans, meaning it would require buy-in from Democrats.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said doing so would be 'contrary to the Constitution' and 'would do enormous damage to the House.'

On Tuesday, 20 Republicans voted against Jordan, destroying his chance to become speaker in the first ballot. He lost two more GOP votes in the second round.

Jordan, chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee and Freedom Caucus co-founder, had broad appeal from the right wing of his party but moderates and pragmatic conservatives were angry about the process by which he had come to the speaker nomination.

Donald Trump endorsed Jordan for the top Republican position, and reiterated his support in a post to Truth Social on Tuesday.

'Jim Jordan will be a GREAT Speaker of the House. As everyone knows, I have long ago given him my Complete and Total Endorsement!'

Democrats remain united around Hakeem Jeffries, who serves as minority leader.
Egypt has agreed to reopen its northern border with Gaza to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter the war-torn enclave  but there are growing fears Hamas will steal it for themselves or use it as cover to bring in more weapons.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tonnes of aid are now positioned at the Rafah crossing, Gaza's only connection to Egypt, to deliver food, water and medicine to the millions of civilians trapped there amid withering Israeli airstrikes.

But under the deal agreed by Egypt after intense talks with President Joe Biden yesterday, only 20 trucks with humanitarian aid will be allowed into the enclave from Friday at the earliest amid fears that Hamas will confiscate the supplies.

If Hamas terrorists do try to stop the much-needed aid from reaching Palestinian civilians, 'it will stop', Biden said during his visit to Tel Aviv where he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The supplies will go in under the supervision of the UN, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, adding that before any aid can be moved, the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes must be repaired.

The agreement marks the first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the 25-mile enclave, which has largely been obliterated by Israeli airstrikes, and comes a day after a blast at a hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza's struggling medical system.

Netanyahu said yesterday that Israel 'will not thwart' the delivery of food, medicine and water from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don't go to Hamas terrorists. His office made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

Israel fears that aid deliveries could be used as cover to bring in weapons, or could be diverted into the hands of Hamas.

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Wednesday

3 Officials gather while workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday

Volunteers and NGO staff camp in front of the Rafah border as they wait to deliver aid supplies to Gaza on Thursday in North Sinai, Egypt

Volunteers and NGO staff camp in front of the Rafah border as they wait to deliver aid supplies to Gaza on Thursday in North Sinai, Egypt

Palestinians work amidst the rubble at the site of an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday

This picture taken from Israel's southern city of Sderot shows a smoke plume erupting during Israeli bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday

The father of Alma Al Majayda, 3, killed in Israeli strikes, embraces her body during her funeral, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinians work to rescue a boy trapped in the rubble following an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday

And adding a glimmer of hope for those trapped in Gaza, Shoukry said as long as the Rafah crossing is operating 'normally' and the crossing facility is repaired, foreigners and dual nationals hoping to leave would be let through to Egypt.

Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on October. As supplies run out, many families in Gaza have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water.

Friday's aid would be the first international relief to enter Gaza since October 7, when Hamas launched shock raids into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 203 hostages.

Since then, Israel has besieged the Palestinian enclave, launching wave after wave of air strikes, enforcing a blockade and deploying tens of thousands of troops to the border in preparation for an expected ground assault.

But relatives of those hostages who were dragged from their homes to Gaza - many of them children - during the October 7 attack on Israel have reacted in fury to the aid announcement.

'Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals,' said a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. But 'the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.'

The United Nations and humanitarian groups have begged for the military stranglehold on Gaza to be eased, to allow supplies of water, food, fuel and medicines to enter.

Top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths on Wednesday said the situation in Gaza was dire, with hospitals overwhelmed, more than 3,000 Gazans killed and 12,500 injured.

'The pace of death, of suffering, of destruction' he said 'cannot be exaggerated.'

Despite the devastation, more than 100 trucks have been queued for days on the Egyptian side of the border waiting to enter Gaza.

After what he described 'blunt' negotiations and a telephone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Biden indicated that about 20 trucks would enter Gaza to start with, with more to come if all sides agree.

'We want to get as many of the trucks out as possible,' Biden said aboard Air Force One. 'If Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through... then it's going to end, because we're not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas,' Biden said.

But hours after the deal was announced, Israeli airstrikes continued to pound locations across the Gaza strip today, including parts of the south that Israel had declared safe zones - heightening fears among the millions of Palestinians trapped in the enclave that nowhere was safe.

In southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands are seeking shelter after Israel told them it would be a 'save zone', there were relentless strikes on the city of Khan Younis, hitting several homes. Medical staff at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said they received at least 12 dead and 40 wounded.

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday

Volunteers and NGO staff camp in front of the Rafah border as they wait to deliver aid supplies to Gaza on Thursday in North Sinai, Egypt

President Joe Biden talks to reporters aboard Air Force One during a refuelling stop in at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, on Wednesday as he travels back from Israel to Washington.

A man carries a wounded child at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

A damaged car is seen as Palestinians walk amidst the rubble at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

A woman consoles another as she reacts in the aftermath of Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

A man carries a wounded child at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis on Thursday

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

The father of Alma Al Majayda, 3, killed in Israeli strikes, carries her body during her funeral, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis on Thursday

This picture taken from Israel's southern city of Sderot shows smoke billowing over the northern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on Thursday

A formation of Israeli tanks and other military are positioned near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel amid an expected ground invasion on Thursday

In northern areas that Israel warned to evacuate, airstrikes also hit three residential towers in al-Zahra, the Interior Ministry in Gaza said, as well as homes along the border with Israel. Israel has massed troops in the area and is expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

It comes as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrived in Israel this morning where he is set to press for the opening of a complete humanitarian aid route in Gaza in an effort to build on Biden's progress.

The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies happened as fury over the blast at Gaza City's al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

The huge blast ripped through the hospital on Tuesday night while it was being used to treat and shelter thousands of civilians who were trying to avoid Israel's relentless barrage of airstrikes.

The devastating fireball sparked a venomous blame game between Hamas and Israel, with the terrorists claiming it was the result of an Israeli air strike while the IDF blamed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group, for a misfired rocket.

Biden sided with his ally Netanyahu after the President said he had seen 'data' from his own officials in the Pentagon to back up his claim that Israel was not to blame for the hospital strike and instead it was a result of an errant rocket fired by terrorists.

'Based on the information we've seen today it appears it was the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza,' Biden said yesterday.

But Jordan's foreign minister Ayman Safadi today said 'no one is buying' the Israeli narrative about the Gaza hospital explosion 'in this part of the world'.

'The only way people would entertain a different narrative is if there was an independent international inquiry into the tragedy with impeccable evidence that it was not Israel,' Safadi told NBC News.

Members of the Palestinian civil defence look for survivors in the rubble of a building hit during Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinians gather at site of Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Men carry on a mattress the body of a victim killed in Israeli bombardment after it was rescued from a building in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip on Friday

Relatives of Palestinians killed during an Israeli air strike mourn over their bodies at a hospital in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

People gather by the rubble of a destroyed building following Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip on Thursday

This picture taken from Israel's southern city of Sderot shows a smoke plume erupting during Israeli bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Youths look on during the search for the bodies of survivors and victims of a building collapse after Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip on Thursday

The bloody devastation at al-Ahli threw the siege's impact into sharp relief.

Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza City's main hospital where doctors, already facing critical supply shortages, were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, often without anaesthesia.

A steady stream of ambulances, taxis, cars and at least one motorcycle also arrived at a hospital in Khan Younis. Men jumped from the vehicles and scrambled to open doors, with hospital staff and bystanders helping carry the injured.

One man rushed in carrying a limp child in his arms. A girl with her head wrapped with a makeshift bandage was helped from a car. Many injured had to be carried by multiple men or hoisted onto gurneys.

As soon as one vehicle was unloaded, another arrived to take its place.

In his brief visit to Israel, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing US support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies.

He warned Israel to be cautious as it tries to remove the threat from Hamas. 'After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice we also made mistakes,' he said.

After decades in which Israel has gradually improved ties with its neighbours, the Hamas attacks and Israel's furious response have rekindled old tensions.

Anger spiked on Wednesday, with protesters pouring onto the streets in cities from Tripoli to Tehran after a strike on the hospital. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claimed 471 people had died as a result, while blaming an Israeli air strike.

Israel denied responsibility, saying an initial investigation showed the strike was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired by Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad is proscribed as a terrorist group by the United States and other Western governments.

Neither the toll nor the provenance of the strike could be immediately or independently verified. One European intelligence agency told AFP: 'There wasn't 200 or even 500 deaths, more likely between 10 and 50.'

Biden said the Pentagon also believed the strike was caused by an errant Palestinian rocket.

'Our Defense Department says it's highly unlikely that it was the Israelis. It would have had a different footprint,' he said, acknowledging that many around the region would still be sceptical.

'I can understand why, in this circumstance, they wouldn't believe. I can understand that,' he said, insisting: 'I don't say things like that unless I have faith in the source.'

Eyewitness Adnan al-Naqa said that as he entered the hospital, he heard an 'explosion' and 'saw a massive fire.'

'The entire square was on fire. There were bodies everywhere, children, women and elderly people.'

Pictured: The burning hospital building after the strike on Tuesday night

Children injured in the hospital strike cry as they receive treatment in the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern of Gaza Strip on Tuesday

Biden and Netanyahu embrace at the airport in Tel Aviv on Wednesday

In the hours following the incident, AFP reporters saw scores of bodies cloaked in bloodstained sheets and white plastic lined the floors at the nearby the Al-Shifa hospital, where victims were said to have been taken.

At the Ahli Arab hospital the day after the blast the charred husks of several vehicles littered the blackened courtyard.

The Israeli military pointed to the fire damage and the absence of a large impact crater as evidence that it was a rocket misfiring.

'When a bomb, a big bomb like the ones we use hits the ground, it creates a very big crater,' Israel Defence Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus.

Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari also said the military was not firing in the area when the blast occurred. He said Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage was fired by Islamic Jihad militants from a nearby cemetery at the time of the blast. Independent video showed one rocket in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said.

The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital, he said. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a large crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rocket's warhead and its unspent propellant, Hagari said.

Hamas has dismissed Israel's claim of a misfiring rocket, saying its 'outrageous lies do not deceive anyone.'

It also slammed the United States, accusing it of being complicit in the ongoing strikes on Gaza.
Rishi Sunak backed Israel in its 'darkest hour' today as he made a lightening dash to Tel Aviv to show support in its fight against Hamas.

The Prime Minister spoke after his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu used the phrase attributed to Winston Churchill, to describe the conflict in the Middle East.

Mr Netanyahu recalled Britain's part in the fight against Nazism 80 years ago as he urged 'continuous' UK support during a war that he said is likely to have 'ups and downs'.

The Israeli leader said his forces are fighting against the 'worst monsters on the planet', telling a joint appearance: 'Eighty years ago, Prime Minister, the civilised world stood with you in your darkest hour.

'This is our darkest hour. It is the world's darkest hour. We need to stand together and we will win.

'And this is why I support I value your support and the fact that you're here  we must win together.'

Mr Sunak said he was 'proud to stand here with you in Israel's darkest hour as your friend'.

He added: 'We will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people. And we also want you to win.'

Mr Sunak held talks with Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu today

Mr Sunak and Mr Netanyahu put on a display of unity as they held talks

The two leaders discussed the prospects of tackling Hama during their meeting

Mr Sunak told Mr Netanyahu that 'no people should have to endure' the terrorist attacks that happened earlier this month

Rishi Sunak told the Israeli president the UK 'stands in solidarity' against Hamas 'terrorism' today as he visited the crisis-hit country

The PM insisted Palestinians are also 'victims of Hamas' today as he backed Israel's right to 'self-defence'.

Standing alongside Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, the PM said 'no people should have to endure' the terrorist attacks that happened earlier this month.

He stressed that Israel had the 'right' to respond within international law - praising the way 'every precaution' was being taken to minimise civilian casualties.

The premier also welcomed news that humanitarian aid will be allowed into Gaza, announced following Joe Biden's visit yesterday.

Mr Netanyahu thanked Mr Sunak for making the trip to show solidarity, and stressed they were working together to recover hostages taken by Hamas, including Brits.

Mr Sunak said: 'I want to share the deep condolences of the British people and stress that we absolutely support Israel's right to defend itself in line with international law, to go after Hamas, to take back hostages, deter further incursions and strengthen your security for the long term.

'Now, I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians  in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas, which seek to put civilians in harm's way.

'But I also want to thank you for the support that your government has given to the families of British nationals caught up in this horror, including your efforts to release the hostages, to secure their release.

'And I know that we will continue to co-operate, particularly with regard to British nationals that are involved.'

The British PM has been flanked by a bigger than usual security detail on his visit, with the situation highly volatile.

He will travel to other countries in the region after his discussions in Israel. Behind the scenes there have been intense efforts going on to free Brits suspected to have been taken hostage by Hamas.

The PM stressed the right to 'self-defence' following the bloody attacks earlier this month as he met Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv

Downing Street also released photos of Mr Sunak meeting families whose relatives were taken hostage

Mr Sunak posted on social media as he arrived in Israel this morning

Earlier, Mr Sunak held a separate meeting with Israel president Isaac Herzog.

He told Mr Herzog that Israel had 'not just a right' but a 'duty' to 'restore security to your country'.

The PM said: 'We will stand with you in solidarity with your people and your right to defend yourself to bring security back to your country, to your people, to ensure the safe return of the hostages that have been taken and I know we will talk further about that later on.'

He added: 'You have not just a right to do that, I think you have a duty to do that, to restore that security to your country.'

Mr Herzog thanked Mr Sunak for showing 'leadership'.

'We are extremely grateful to you, Prime Minister, for your support and your decisions and your leadership,' he said.

He said the military capabilities of 'an empire of evil led by Tehran' must be uprooted so that Israelis can 'live in peace with our Palestinian neighbours.'

Whitehall sources suggested Egypt and Jordan could also be on Mr Sunak's itinerary during his tour.

A government source said the PM would 'show strong support for Israel' but also urge all sides to work to prevent the conflict 'turning into a regional war'.

Before he departed, Mr Sunak said: 'Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas's horrific act of terror. The attack on al-Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict. I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort.'

Downing Street said 'at least' seven British citizens were killed in the sickening Hamas attacks which triggered the crisis. A further nine are missing, some of whom are thought to be held captive by Hamas in Gaza.

Mr Sunak held private talks with the family of one British hostage victim before travelling yesterday.

In a round of interviews in the UK this morning, security minister Tom Tugendhat said the figures are still not entirely clear on the number of British hostages.

'At the moment the figures are not entirely clear we are doing our best to make sure that we help get the hostages released,' he told Times Radio.

'As you know the Prime Minister has just landed in Israel and the Foreign Secretary is visiting various nations to ask for help in these conversations and no doubt he will be able to update you as soon as he's made some advances,' he said.

Britain is pushing for the opening of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt in order to get aid in and allow UK nationals to leave. The UK announced a 10million aid package for Gaza this week but there is currently no way of getting humanitarian support into the war zone.

Mr Sunak arrived in Israel just 24 hours after Arab leaders pulled out of talks with Joe Biden in protest at the hospital blast.

The US President met Mr Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, but a planned visit to Jordan was cancelled in response to what they called 'a great calamity and a heinous war crime'.

Mr Biden pinned the blame for the attack on Hamas-linked terrorists, citing US intelligence.

Mr Sunak told MPs that the UK was still assessing the evidence  and criticised the BBC and others for 'rushing to judgment' that an Israeli air strike was to blame.

An image distributed by Downing Street of Mr Sunak working on his RAF flight to Israel

Ministers have been angered by the media coverage, including from the BBC, which immediately blamed Israel for the hospital attack. A government source said it was 'shoddy reporting which has not helped the situation'.

Privately, Whitehall officials believe that British intelligence analysts are likely to come to the same conclusion as their American counterparts in the coming days.

In a twin-track approach, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly will also fly to the region tomorrow for a flurry of diplomatic talks.

Mr Cleverly, who visited Israel last week, will meet senior figures in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar over the next three days.

A source said the trip was part of international efforts to 'uphold regional stability, free hostages and allow humanitarian access to Gaza'. Mr Cleverly said: 'It is in no one's interests  neither Israeli, Palestinian nor the wider Middle East  for others to be drawn into this conflict.

'I am meeting counterparts from influential states in the region to push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages.'

The visit to Qatar is likely to raise eyebrows, given its role in playing host to senior figures in the political leadership of Hamas.

But the Gulf state is said to be playing a pivotal role in trying to secure the release of almost 200 people captured by Hamas during its assault on Israel this month. Mr Sunak spoke by phone to the Emir of Qatar on Tuesday as part of efforts to help British families 'get their relatives home'.

Security will be tight for the visit amid growing concern at the deteriorating situation in the region. German chancellor Olaf Scholz's plane was evacuated on the runway at Ben Gurion airport on Tuesday night due to rocket attacks.
A woman has sparked a heated debate online after unleashing a furious rant at a beachside hostel that is offering a $350-a-week single bunk bed on a website used by renters.

Keira Ashley, from Gold Coast, has been unsuccessfully trying to find somewhere to live for six weeks.

She let fly at the Tequila Sunrise in Surfers Paradise in a video posted online when she saw what they were advertising.

The hostel was offering its capsule-style bunk beds, at $350 for a week, on flatmates.com.au instead of a short-term accommodation website.

Gold Coast woman Keira Ashley, who has been unsuccessfully trying to find a room property for six weeks, let fly at the Tequila Sunrise at Surfers Paradise on TikTok

The hostel claims on its website that its capsule-style beds 'redefine comfort and tranquility'. They were advertised for $350 a week on flatmates.com.au

'This should be f***ing illegal,' Keira Ashley said, while filming herself tapping the hostel's ad on her computer screen in a clip that she uploaded to TikTok.

'They are charging $350 for this. For this! For a hostel. I'm not kidding. Hostel. $350 a week.

'This is absolutely disgusting, honestly. The rental crisis is so real.'

But not everyone saw things the same way as Ms Ashley.

'$50 a night is normal price for a hostel in Australia,' one woman replied.

'If your travelling its actually quite cheap,' said another.

'Not bad for Gold Coast though, and decent amenities.'

'This should be f***ing illegal,' Keira Ashley said while tapping the hostel's ad on her computer screen in a clip that she uploaded to TikTok

Its website says facilities include 'a well-equipped kitchen, inviting terrace, cozy bed capsules, pristine toilet and shower facilities'.

The beds 'redefine comfort and tranquility', the hostel claims in its marketing material.

'Each capsule is designed with your ultimate relaxation in mind, featuring deluxe beds and privacy curtains that create a personal sanctuary.'

The breakfasts, only available for half an hour each morning, consist of pancakes, cereal and toast.

Online, the hostel boasts a 4.8 star review from a possible 5 stars from 467 Google reviews.

'Amazing staff, food, beds and clean restrooms,' said a recent guest in a review.

'If you're visiting Surfers Paradise, this is the absolute best place to stay,' said another. 'Breakfast and dinner is included and the food is really good. The location is fantastic as it is right in the city centre.... would highly recommend.'

Not everyone agreed with Ms Ashley's take on the hostel, but she stuck to her guns, pointing out that $350 is too much to pay just for a bed. The hostel does however also offer a quick breakfast

Tequila Sunrise hostel at Surfers Paradise (pictured) scores highly on google reviews with guests noting it has great amenities

Ms Ashley shot back that the ad should have been on a holiday accommodation website.

'Yall are missing the point as to why Im upset - this is a website for permanent rentals, not booking a hotel for a holiday,' she said.

She felt the hostel was 'taking advantage of people that are in need'.

Daily Mail Australia approached the Tequila Sunrise Hostel at Surfer's Paradise for comment.
A mum slapped with an 'unfair' fine over how her daughter wore her seatbelt has taken her fight to court - and won.

Louise Hess, from Gold Coast, was fined $413 and three demerit points for 18 months when her child, 14, was caught on camera with her arm outside the seatbelt.

Ms Hess claimed a medical condition made it uncomfortable for her daughter to wear the seatbelt the right way and she was prepared to fight it out in court.

She also said she could not reasonably be expected to monitor her child's seatbelt position while she was driving.

'You check your kids and everyone in the car before you start driving, but I didn't think I would be expected to constantly watch the position of the strap of a seatbelt,' she told 7News.

A mum (pictured left) was so infuriated by an 'unfair' fine over how her daughter (right) wore her seatbelt that she took the Department for Transport and Main Roads to court - and she won

READ MORE: Gold Coast mum fined $1,161 after chest twisted seatbelt in her car A Gold Coast mother has been left outraged after being slapped with a $1,161 fine for a situation she claims to have had 'no control over'. Advertisement

'It's not something you think you need to look at.'

The photo with the infringement notice showed the seatbelt strap under the child's arm, instead of over her shoulder, while she sat in the front passenger seat.

The fine was issued for 'driving with unrestrained front seat passenger'.

While Ms Hess admitted the seatbelt was not worn legally correctly, she believed the fine was 'revenue raising'.

'I started fighting it as soon as I got the fine,' she said.

'I'm expected to turn my head and check the position of that shoulder strap  I thought that's unfair.

'I'm a bit stubborn and I wasn't going to let them win on this one.

'I'll pay a fine if I get caught speeding or my dog's off a lead. Yeah, that's fair. But this isn't fair.'

The case was due to be heard in Southport Magistrates Court on Wednesday but the transport department suddenly dropped its defence that morning, handing Ms Hess a win.

But criminal lawyer Bill Potts said this case should mean people feel free to break the state's seatbelt laws.

While Louise Hess (pictured) admitted the seatbelt was not worn legally correctly, she believed the fine was 'revenue raising'

'People ought to obey this law,' he said. 'Parents particularly, have an obligation at all times to ensure that their children, that their passengers are correctly wearing their seatbelts.'

He said challenging traffic fines in court can be expensive and time-consuming, but that people who believe they have been wrongly fined can write to the transport department to contest it.

'A magistrate may well look at the personal circumstances and either find you not guilty or, even if they find you guilty, may impose a lesser fine,' Mr Potts said.

Or it could mean, as in Ms Hess' case, that the department drops the case on the day it was supposed to be heard in court.
Furious commuters have today demanded an investigation into the Elizabeth Line after passengers claim they were held for 40 minutes underground, while others were more than an hour late for work due to emergency rail repairs.

The disruption on the year-old Transport for London (TfL) service, which has resulted in no service between Paddington and Abbey Wood, infuriated passengers, who have questioned 'is there a week when there has been no delays on the Elizabeth Line?'

Angry rail users slammed the service, calling for an investigation into the disruption. Meanwhile a Microsoft conference being held at the Excel Center in Central London had to be delayed because 'to give people a chance' to get there on time.

Elsewhere Londoners have claimed they were 'stuck underground' for 40 minutes' because 'the doors at Paddington were broken', while others complained of the havoc making them an hour late for work.

The shiny new Crossrail tube service launched last May despite initial plans for it to start running in 2018. Since then disruption has continued, with commuters now facing years of havoc on the line after it emerged engineering work could take place until 2029.

One fed-up commuter begged this morning: 'TfL an investigation is needed into the Elizabeth Line. Everyday there is severe disruption. Especially during the peak when we need to get to work or go home.

'The incompetence of service recovery, it takes over six hours to recover a good service, unlike other lines.'

Adding to the woes, National Rail announced this afternoon that it would be carrying out safety inspections on the track between London Paddington and Heathrow meaning some trains will be cancelled, delayed or revised.

Commuters pack the Bond Street station platform during Elizabeth line disruption last week

Infuriated commuters took to social media this morning fed up with delays on the Elizabeth Line

One infuriated passenger this morning wrote on X: 'Another day of no Elizabeth Line, this is a complete joke.

'Several years late and billions over budget and it still doesn't work and can't be relied on!'

Another added: 'No Elizabeth Line between Abbey Wood and Paddington again this morning. Make sure to check before leaving home.'

A third asked: 'TfL, National Rail, is there a week when there has been no delays on the Elizabeth Line? Do you know people have jobs to go to? Delays on Monday morning, last night and now this.'

'Elizabeth Line is going to have to have me screaming in the early AM,' a fourth said.

Confirming the delays the TfL app said: 'No service between Paddington and Abbey Wood due to emergency engineering work at Tottenham Court Road. MINOR DELAYS on the rest of the line.'

The 18.9billion TfL service was opened by a beaming Sadiq Khan and his colleagues, who posed for selfies as they took the first train.

Since then it has been plagued by reliability issues and ongoing strikes, with one in six trains on the service being cancelled or delayed this summer.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan poses for a selfie on the first Elizabeth line train on May 24, 2022

One angry commuter wrote: 'Several years late and billions over budget and it still doesn't work and can't be relied on'

Others called for an investigation into the 'incompetence' of the service

The delays resulted in a Microsoft conference being held at the Excel Center being pushed back

Last week National Rail apologised for the poor service, particularly out of Paddington, as passengers became more displeased.

TfL meanwhile said there would be 'significant challenges' until new infrastructure was installed, which includes overhead power lines between Paddington and Heathrow Airport.

The works on the western section of the line could last a decade, Network Rail said.

Officials are hoping to modernise overhead power cables between Paddington and Heathrow, with work set to take place between 2024 and 2029  but this still requires final funding approval from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) regulator.

Despite the poor reliability on the line, it continues to rise in popularity with a record 738,000 passengers clambering onboard on October 11.

More than 150million passenger journeys were made in its first year, with 56 per cent of these at the peak times of 7am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm on weekdays.

The Evening Standard reported last week that at a TfL customer service and operational performance panel meeting it discussed the 'significant challenges' expected on the line until the new rail infrastructure is installed.

Elizabeth Line director Howard Smith added that it would not 'be a quick fix' and that work will continue 'next year and beyond'.

Sophie Bancroft, operations director of Network Rail's western routes, added: 'It's not a quick fix [but] it's not going to be terrible for years.'

A TfL spokesperson said: 'We sincerely apologise to customers who have had journeys delayed or cancelled this morning following earlier emergency engineering work at Tottenham Court Road and then a faulty train at Paddington. We worked to recover the service as quickly as possible and customers who were delayed for 30 minutes or more are entitled to refunds.'
This is the terrifying moment a South African motorist ran over a child carjacker who aimed a gun at his head while he was slowing down at traffic lights.

Corporate manager Mario Campbell was in a township near Cape Town when the teenager calmly walked out into the dual carriageway.

As the attacker raised his gun, the frightened father-of-two revved his engine and accelerated, aiming his Toyota Ayga, known as an Aygo in the UK, straight at the youngster.

Incredible dashcam video shows the hapless young criminal realising too late that 1.3 tons of speeding car is about to hit him.

Footage shows the wannabe teenage hijacker somersaulting over the left side of the bonnet and landing on his back in the road at Khayelitsha township, where 2.5 million people live in poverty in shacks.

It comes four months after crooks attacked Mr Campbell's car with axes on the same stretch of road.

The teen robber was seen wielding a gun as he tried going for Mr Campbell's car

Mario Campbell immediately decided to accelerate into the robber

The armed crook quickly realised he wasn't going to slow down

The attempted robbery took place in South Africa's Khayelitsha township, where 2.5 million live in poverty in shacks

Mr Campbell refused to comment for fear of reprisals after injuring the gunman

The young crook, who has not yet been identified, can be seen tumbling over the left side of the car

This wasn't the first time corporate manager Mario Campbell was attacked by armed robbers

Mr Campbell - who has an another incredible video showing him escaping a hijack by an axeman on the same stretch of road at the previous set of traffic lights 200 yards away - is then seen speeding off.

The businessman told friends on Facebook: 'First a maniac with an axe trying to smash his way into my car then a kid who should have been at school holding me up with a handgun!

'That is it dudes I am taking a different way into work from now on - I just want to go to work and come home to my family safe'.

Thousands took to social media supporting Mr Campbell as his video went viral praising him for taking the law into his own hands and hailed him a 'hero' for fighting back against criminals.

Community leader Bongile Zanazo said the Mew Way Bridge where Mr Campbell was targeted on the M32 by the entrance to Khayelitsha was a hotspot for car-jackings at gunpoint and knifepoint.

He said: 'We are aware of the various crimes incidents that keep happening there and have put into place an stiff action plan to combat it but the details of that are being kept top secret.

'We also implore the City of Cape Town to deploy more police officers to the area to prevent these crimes taking place' he said.

The first 28 second video shows Mr Campbell driving along the highway behind a station wagon and a minibus taxi as he slows down to allow a car to turn right when the gunman suddenly appears.

The youth had been waiting in ambush sitting on a crash barrier and is believed to have approached his target having seen the company logo on the car, knowing it would contain valuables.

Mr Campbell refused to comment for fear of reprisals after injuring the gunman who escaped back into the maze of shacks but a close friend said: 'He is a very brave man.

'Three months before, at almost the same spot, a robber with an axe went after him but he got away and now he has run over a gunman - that is twice and you can only be lucky so many times.

'He now takes another route to and from work and is fully aware of his surroundings at every set of traffic lights' she said.

Mr Campbell was attacked by axe-wielding robbers in June

A close friend said he was worried about Mario's safety: 'You can only be lucky so many times'

He managed to capture the terrifying incident on a dashcam

It is understood the thieves who menace dozens of miles of the local roads target company cars that are marked as it is likely they have laptops and expensive equipment inside

It is understood the thieves who menace dozens of miles of the local roads target company cars that are marked as it is likely they have laptops and expensive equipment inside.

The local Khayelitsha Police Station has more car hijackings reported than any other police station in South Africa and each year the country suffers over 22,000 such car incidents.

Local Crime Watch volunteer Juwa Dimande said: 'If you stop at a red traffic light, as a law abiding citizen would of course do, you are putting yourself at risk of an attack or even death.

'They will smash your window and if you resist them they will shoot you. Simple as that. All the traffic lights do in Khayelitsha is change colour  nobody stops for them. It's too dangerous.

'Even ambulances attending emergencies to save the lives of the township people are attacked and robbed and hijacked.'

On June 30, Mr Campbell's dashcam video, which also records inside the car, picked up two men walking alongside his car on the passenger side as he pulled up at traffic lights.

It was just 200 yards from the set of lights where the schoolboy tried to hijack him with a gun earlier this month.

The footage shows two men knocking on his passenger window to distract him while a third robber armed with a vicious axe pulls it out from under his jacket and tries to smash his window.

Fortunately the blade bounces off the Toyota Agya window allowing Mr Campbell to hit the accelerator and speed off to safety.

His attack at gunpoint is the second recent robbery attempt in which a motorist has fought back after driver Sandy-Lee Ward was caught on CCTV being robbed of her handbag in her car.

Sandy-Lee Ward was caught on CCTV being robbed of her handbag in her car

South African Police have confirmed that they would take no further action against her but would take her victim to court for aggravated robbery when he is well enough to leave hospital

She about to put in her ticket to open a car park barrier when two robbers suddenly forced her car door open

The robbers were seen running for their lives after Ms Ward hit them

Ms Ward became something of a local hero in South Africa after she fended off her attackers

Ms Ward , 45, was sitting in her Toyota Tazz in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal Province, and about to put in her ticket to open a car park barrier when two robbers suddenly forced her car door open.

One reached in and snatched a gold chain from around her neck, one grabbed her handbag, one raced to a waiting getaway car and the other ran across the forecourt of a nearby garage.

Furious Ms Ward hit the accelerator and can be seen charging through the lowered barrier, before accelerating straight toward the robber fleeing with her handbag.

A second CCTV camera in the garage shows a South African Police vehicle park up, while the robber is seeing running for his life and Ms Ward races her Toyota up right behind him.

She hits him hard with the car bonnet and he is propelled 25 feet through the air landing on his back but drops the handbag containing her ID, phone, house keys, purse and credit cards.

Ms Ward said: 'A petrol attendant ran over and picked up my handbag from the robber then ran over and gave it back to me and laughed and said "Well done sister, you got one!"

'I drove off and the police car chased me as it thought I was a hit and run but when I stopped and explained what happened they turned round and went and arrested the injured robber.

'I just saw red when he stole my handbag and don't remember driving through the boom and I don't remember planning to run him over but I know I did hit him bloody hard and got him.

'I'm glad I never killed him but am also very glad I got my stolen handbag back' she said.

Ms Ward became the heroine of social media like Mr Campbell, as her video also went viral with a number of lawyers offering to defend her for free if he police charged her.

But South African Police have confirmed that they would take no further action against her but would take her victim to court for aggravated robbery when he is well enough to leave hospital.

South Africa is one of the most dangerous countries in the world with some 76 murders a day and over 120 reported rapes.
The father of a high-flying student who was stripped of his maths GCSE over 'cheating' allegations has hit out at the claims, saying his son was treated 'worse than a criminal'.

Furious Cezary Bednarski criticised the 'scandalous' treatment of his son Emil, now 17, after he found a question during his revision online which later appeared in his exam paper.

Mr Bednarski, a renowned architect, said Emil was 'accosted' by invigilators and interrogated for three hours after sitting his paper.

He is now seeking an apology and compensation from exam board Pearson who he has accused of 'gross misconduct' over the affair.

Cezary Bednarski said his son, Emil, had been treated 'worse than a criminal' over cheating allegations

Mr Bednarski told MailOnline: 'It was really scandalous the way they did it.

'They accosted him. He was coming out of the exam and there were two guys with the headteacher.

'They took him outside and then they took him to a room. They grilled him for three hours.

'You can't accost a boy coming out of an exam without forewarning his parents that there will be an interrogation.

'A criminal would have been treated more fairly.'

He added: 'If you are a criminal you have the right to remain silent by law, and you have the right to have a lawyer with you.

'What the hell was this? You have a 16-year-old boy stressed out of [his] wits with exams. There is also the issue of his human rights.'

The family insist the exam board's findings of 'malpractice' in the case simply don't add up.

Emil, a pupil at Kensington Aldridge Academy in west London, said he found the question the night before his exam when he was searching online for practice papers.

Puzzled by the trigonometry question, he ran it past a teacher on the morning of the exam - who recognised it as material from the paper and reported it to his school.

Mr Bednarski said: 'The way you learn these days, you scavenge online - you find predicted questions, last year's questions, potential questions.

'I said to Pearson they should give my son a medal for being so proactive. They should have had a team searching online, checking if their questions had appeared and remove the questions from the paper if they have.'

Emil, 17, was stripped of his maths GCSE after finding a question during his revision online which later appeared in his exam paper

Describing the ordeal, Mr Bednarski said: 'They told him to show them his mobile phone. They need a court order to do that.

'They were in no position to force him to show his private stuff but they did.

'They could have waited until after he had finished his exams to find out what happened.

'What was the point in bothering the boy in the first week of his GCSE exams? It was his third or fourth exam.

'He heard nothing more until he went to school to get his GCSE results and he only found out that day that he was not getting his A-level maths.

'They said they would not score him because he cheated. We heard about this saga straight away. We sent them documents and they were supposed to come back to us but they took a month and a half.

'He was below predictions in all the other subjects because he was so stressed and worried.'

Emil said he believed that the exam board may have repeated a question which had been set in previous years.

But it has since emerged that questions from the maths paper, which tens of thousands of pupils sat that day, may have been leaked before the start of the exam.

Emil said he came across the question after searching for past papers on websites such as TikTok and Reddit

The pupil at Kensington Aldridge Academy in west London (pictured) was 'accosted' by invigilators and interrogated for three hours after the exam

Cambridgeshire Police confirmed an investigation had been launched after Pearson and another exam board, OCR, were targeted in a data breach earlier this year.

They said both boards had exam papers extracted from their systems and sold online.

Mr Bednarski insisted his son would not have approached the teacher before the exam if he had been cheating.

He said: 'My son didn't cheat. He didn't need to cheat - he is extremely good at maths.

'My son felt that they had just repeated the question.

'With my son they are just covering up. There was a leak and that's it.'

After an appeal, Emil was awarded a grade 5 in his maths exam - equivalent to a high C or low B under the old marking system.

The paper which featured the trigonometry question - one of three papers in the exam - was discounted.

Mr Bednarski said that had Pearson allowed all Emil's maths papers to be marked, he would have achieved a top-rated Grade 8 or 9.

He called for the exam board to re-mark the paper for all students who sat the exam excluded the question at the centre of the controversy.

He said: 'It was absolutely clear, it was not only him who found the question. He was the one to talk to his teachers and they knew about him.

'The only rational line of action for Pearson was to stop this question, remove it from scoring in the whole country.

'It could be one boy, ten boys, 100 boys, 1,000 boys. How do they know?

'They just singled out my son because he spoke to the teacher.'

Mr Bednarski said his son, who is now studying for four A-levels, is re-sitting his maths GCSE next month.

He said the furore has interfered with his studies and told how the decision by the board could impact the rest of his life.

He said: 'The problem is my son wanted to do Higher Maths which is more sophisticated stuff.

'He is not able to do that as planned and that could affect his future.

'He's retaking his GCSE maths next month but it's interfering with his education.

'Pearson should say they are sorry. They made a mistake, there was a leak but it's my son who is losing out.'
There was a time when the British royals thought it wise to keep their distance from their vast extended family of European cousins.

With Victoria's eldest grandchild, the Kaiser, declaring war on Great Britain and revolution ripping through the early 20th century, the unfortunately named Saxe-Coburg-Gothas had something of a point.

But that moment has long passed, says Richard Eden.

And the latest gathering of European royals for the 18th birthday of Denmark's Prince Christian makes today's Windsors seem conspicuous in their stand-offishness.

Future European monarchs gather for the recent 18th birthday celebrations of Prince Christian of Norway. But where were the British royals, asks Richard Eden? From the left: Princess Estelle of Sweden, Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway, Prince Christian of Denmark, Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands and Princess Elisabeth of Belgium

Known as the Grandmother of Europe, Queen Victoria and nine children and 42 grandchildren with royal offspring marrying into palaces across Europe and Russia. She is pictured here with some of her grandchildren in 1880

'The young people who will succeed to the throne in five different countries posed for a unique portrait at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen,' explains Eden in his latest newsletter for Palace Confidential. It was a vision of the future of Europes monarchy.'

Yet, as that photograph makes clear, no one was there from the British Royal Family.

'Personally, I hope that changes,' he continues. 'It would be lovely if the Prince and Princess of Wales forged closer ties with their counterparts on the Continent. They have a shared interest in demonstrating that monarchy can be a force for good.'

If Victoria and Albert overhauled the British monarchy, bringing a new-found respectability after the licentious chaos of the Regency and William IV, their influence upon European royalty was also profound.

With nine children and 42 grandchildren, Queen Victoria was known as the Grandmother of Europe. Her descendants can also be found in the royal families of Germany, Russia, Greece, Romania, Sweden, Norway and Spain.

'However, when her eldest grandchild, Kaiser Wilhelm II, led Germany into war against Britain in 1914, her dream of her descendants bringing harmony to Europe unravelled,' writes Eden.

'And when her granddaughter, Alexandra, was brutally murdered along with Tsar Nicholas of Russia and their five children by Bolsheviks in 1918, the British Royal Family distanced themselves from their continental cousins even further, lest they be tainted by the stench of revolution.

'Since then, the newly named Windsors have largely kept themselves apart from the royal families of Europe.

'They invite them to the big state occasions such as weddings and funerals but it tends to be Prince Edward, for example, who would be sent to a foreign celebration rather than King Charles or Prince William.

Prince Christian of Denmark leading the way into his 18th birthday celebrations last Sunday. His parents Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary are to each side

Prince Christian making a speech at his 18th birthday gala on Sunday

Crown Princess Victoria and Princess Estelle of Sweden attend the gala banquet at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen as part of Prince Christian's 18th birthday celebrations

'Last weekend, we saw a fascinating example of that when European royals gathered en masse for the 18th birthday party for Prince Christian, the future king of Denmark. But the Windsors were conspicuous by their absence.'

It is time to think of the future, says Eden. 'And Prince George, aged ten, would have looked cute posing next to 11-year-old Princess Estelle of Sweden.'
A masked London pervert who has sexually assaulted more than ten Muslim women on buses is being hunted by the police.

The Met Police is investigating a series of sexual assaults on buses around Ealing, Hammersmith, Westminster and Hounslow between February 2022 and September 2023.

It said the masked man targets Muslim women, sits next to them and touches them but doesn't speak to them.

Police are asking the public to help identify the man or to come forward if they believe they've also been targeted by him.

For many of the incidents, police say either the man or the alleged victims have boarded the bus at Westfield Shepherds Bush, Ealing Broadway, or Acton High Street.

A masked man who has sexually assaulted Muslim women on buses is being hunted by police

Police said a masked man targets Muslim women, sits next to them and touches them

Police are asking the public to help identify the man or to come forward if they believe they've also been targeted by him

There have been no arrests at this time.

Detective Sergeant Matthew Brown, of the Met's Roads and Transport Policing Command, said: 'We are aware of social media posts regarding this individual and appreciate the concern that these incidents will cause.

'We would like to assure the community that we are doing all that we can to identify and locate the suspect.

'While his face is covered in the images, we are hoping that anyone who knows him will recognise him or his clothing and get in touch.

'Similarly, if you believe that you may have been targeted by this man, but have not yet spoken with police, please do get in touch  at the very least so that we can know that you are okay and are being supported.'

Anyone with information can contact police on 101 or post via X @MetCC quoting reference CAD 8412/21Sep.

To remain 100 per cent anonymous call the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Analysis suggests there are multiple Putins with unique voices and mannerisms

Japanese researchers have claimed Vladimir Putin is using several different body doubles for public appearances, based on detailed Artificial Intelligence analysis.

Their research, based on AI-enhanced facial recognition, voice comparison, and body movement scrutiny, indicates there are multiple Putins, each with their own unique voice and mannerisms.

Claims of Putin using stand-ins or body doubles are not new and have been made by both Russian sources and the head of Ukraine's military intelligence Lt-Gen Kyrylo Budanov - but have been previously denied by the Kremlin.

Rumours of Putin's deployment of body doubles abound as others claim he is suffering a litany of health problems.

Yet now it appears there is compelling independent scientific evidence for his use of doppelgangers.

A report for major Japanese TV network TBS surmised that the real Putin hosted this year's annual Red Square Victory Day parade on 9 May.

But sophisticated facial recognition technology found that the Putin who inspected the Crimean Bridge ten months ago was only a 53 per cent match with the Putin on Red Square.

'Experts on face recognition would refer to this as ''not matching'' in most cases, which leads us to the assumption this can be a double,' said the commentary.

One more Putin appearance - at the war front in occupied Mariupol in March - shows only a 40 per cent facial recognition likeness with the Putin seen on Red Square, says the analysis.

Meanwhile, there was only an 18 per cent facial recognition likeness between the Putin on the Crimean Bridge and the Putin in Mariupol.

Japanese researchers have claimed Vladimir Putin is using several different body doubles for public appearances, based on detailed Artificial Intelligence analysis

Claims of Putin using stand-ins or body doubles are not new, but Japanese researchers believe their scentific analysis of different public appearances made by Putin showed considerable deviations in the Russian president's voice and movements

Analysis showed Putin spoke, behaved and walked differently in several locations

Researchers claim AI analysis established there were at least three different Putins

'AI facial recognition experts' analysis clearly displays the high probability of at least two body doubles,' the report surmised.

The broadcast also conducted voice analysis at Japan's Institute of Audio Communication Laboratory, which works closely with police on criminal investigations.

This analysis for voice biometrics concentrated on the word 'spasibo' - or 'thank you' - uttered by 'Putin' on different occasions.

The Putin who addressed the Eurasian Economic Union Forum held in May 2023 - assumed to be the real dictator - was found to be different to three other 'Putin' appearances.

The TV analysis concluded that Putin's voice was different at the forum to other Putin examples at different appearances.

'Other than the difference in pronouncing the sound ''s'', there is a remarkable gap in pronouncing 'pa' and 'si consecutively,' said the narrator.

Graphs were shown of the voice analysis highlighting the differences in emphasis.

Expert Mutsutoshi Muraoka said: 'There is a difference in the recording conditions, as well as the utterance as it is, but still it is extremely rare to have such strong differences.

'We have to say at this point that the possibility of these two voices belonging to different people is high.'

While the voices are superficially similar, the analysis graphs show them to be starkly different.

This suggests that a double was used at the military support concert in February and the Mariupol visit in March, when the same doppelganger was deployed.

This indicates that a double is used even in front of thousands of people - as at the concert.

The programme suggested this was 'risky' - making him vulnerable to being spotted as a fake.

Yet the programme suggested a double may have been used due to the risk of assassination associated with the war in Ukraine.

Akiyoshi Komaki, a member of the Asahi newspaper editorial board, commented: 'Putin was speaking a few short sentences, the stadium being huge and him standing on the stage seen from afar saying a few greetings.

'It was rather easy to use a body double if so.

'What surprised me more was his appearance at the helicopter plant and talking there for 30 some minutes.'

And the same double appeared was used at the helicopter plant in Siberia in March.

'The body double did the 30 minute speech there alone, truly remarkable of him being outstanding person for a double,' viewers of TBS NEWS DIG were told.

At the time there was speculation that this was a double - Putin was seen waving his hands around and repeatedly touching his nose, not traits especially common with the dictator.

A former KGB spy colleague Sergei Zhirnov said at the time that he believed this was a doppelganger not scared to get close to people in the way Putin had been.

Expert Mutsutoshi Muraoka said: 'There is a difference in the recording conditions, as well as the utterance as it is, but still it is extremely rare to have such strong differences'

Gait analysis showed considerable differences in the way Putin walks in several locations

Japanese TV aired the analysis, showing the researchers' claims

Major Japanese TV network TBS News talks to the country's top AI, voice analysis and gait recognition and comparison experts to verify rumours about Vladimir Putin having a double, or doubles

Body movement analysis using the latest AI techniques also leads to the conclusion that Putin uses doubles, the Japanese analysis suggested.

Analysis was made of previous Putin meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping [not this week's meeting in Beijing] and his talks with Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko - when there was a high match of these being the same Putin: 94 per cent.

'We see Putin himself walking with Xi Jinping, and.him walking during the Naval Parade in St. Petersburg [July 2022].

'We used the newest AI to compare two walking videos, and it matched at 86 per cent.'

The walking is 'similar' but Asilla company Executive Committee CTO, Masahiro Wakasa, said: 'There is a possibility of a body double.

The comparison 'couldn't reach the perfect matching and go above 90 per cent, and you cannot imitate something easily to go over 90 per cent'.

The narrator said: 'The Putin who appeared at the Main Naval Parade had 86 per cent matching.

'It surely looks high enough, but for the AI system being used, these numbers show the possibility of a different person.'

And at Mariupol, the Putin walk only showed a 75 per cent match compared to the walk with Xi, indicating this was not the same person.

'The judgement was made by looking at the body posture during the walking,' said Masahiro Wakasa, in the broadcast, originally shown to Japanese viewers in June.

The real Putin is seen as 'falling forwards' as he walks while the gait of the double is to keep a more upright posture.

'If we compare the two videos with assumed body doubles, the matching percentage drops to 69 per cent, being low. This indicates two different people.'

The investigation concluded: 'Summing up, there is a body double, and there is a high possibility of another separate body double.'

The Mariupol appearance in particular sparked speculation that Putin was using a body double, with Ukrainian sources arguing that this was a fake Putin seen driving around the war-blitzed city.

Shinji Hyodo, research secretary for the National Institute for Defence Studies, said: 'I personally found it interesting that a lot of people were saying that the person visiting Mariupol was not Putin himself.

'And here we see the scientific analysis proving the point.'

The programme queried why body doubles are now used extensively, leading to them being exposed.

One explanation could be that the real Putin is sick.

Foreign affairs expert Tsutsumi Shinsuke said: 'I think that these body doubles haven't started being doubles just recently.

'Maybe they have started from the very time Putin came into power, and he was continuously using body doubles, guiding and teaching them from back then.'

The doubles can be spotted by AI yet they give impressive appearances speaking in detail exactly espousing Putin's views.

This could be 'the possible result of the long process of training', he said.

It comes as Russian political analyst Dr Valery Solovey this week claimed that the double undertook Putin's visit to China this week, and that Xi Jinping was fully aware that he met a doppelganger.

'The fact is that the current President Vladimir Putin is living out the last days of his earthly life,' said Solovey.

'Not months, and not weeks, but precisely the last days [due to terminal illness].

'He is currently, like in previous months, being successfully replaced by his double who even goes to Beijing. And the Chinese side knows very well who they are dealing with.'
Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman has accused Palestinian authorities of lying over the death toll caused by Tuesday's explosion at the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza that sparked a furious blame game.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 'hundreds' of Palestinians were killed when the blast erupted at the hospital around 7pm Tuesday night, before later publishing an official figure of 471.

But Israeli spokesman Lior Haiat this morning said Israeli and US intelligence suggested the number of casualties was less than 100, putting the figure at only 'several dozen'.

It came as a European intelligence agency told AFP: 'There wasn't 200 or even 500 deaths, more likely between 10 and 50.'

It is the latest point of contention in a bitter war of words between Israel and Palestine, with each side accusing the other of being responsible for the blast.

Israel's Defence Forces yesterday shared a slew of evidence it claims proved that a misfiring rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) - an independent jihadist group - was behind the blast.

The proof provided by the Israeli Defence Forces included an audio clip of alleged Hamas terrorists confirming the rocket came from PIJ, a video of what appears to be the rocket in question misfiring over Gaza, and bird's eye images of the blast site that did not have characteristics consistent with an Israeli aerial strike, according to an IDF spokesman.

Meanwhile, Israel's foes - Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah and Iran - insist the IDF was behind the devastation and vowed to take revenge. Anger sparked across the Muslim world yesterday, with protesters pouring onto the streets in cities from Tripoli to Tehran in demonstration against Israel.

Jordan's foreign minister said: 'No one is buying (Israel's) narrative in this part of the world... the only way people would entertain a different narrative is if there was an independent international inquiry with impeccable evidence that it was not Israel.'

The scene at Al Ahli hospital in Gaza 18 October 2023 following Tuesday's blast

Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari speaks to the press from The Kirya, which houses the Israeli Ministry of Defence, in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023

This image provided by Maxar Technologies on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023 shows an overview of al-Ahli Hospital after explosion in Gaza City

Aerial view of the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza after hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other, in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, October 18, 2023

People react at the area of Al-Ahli hospital, where hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blame on each other, in Gaza City, October 18, 2023

Several experts and analysts weighing in on the issue largely appeared to agree with Israel's assessment that a misfiring rocket fired from Gaza caused the tragedy, but many warned it was too early to say with certainty.

Speaking to media on Wednesday morning, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari showed a series of images, satellite photos and intelligence documents he said proved the damage caused at the hospital could not possibly have come from an Israeli strike.

He explained the images showed there was no structural damage to buildings around the Al-Ahli hospital, no craters in the adjacent car park, and no debris consistent with an air strike, implying a direct hit from an Israeli missile would have caused far more destruction.

'The walls stay intact. There are no craters in the parking lot. These are the characteristics that show it was not an aerial munition that hit the parking lot,' he concluded.

He also pointed out images of what he claimed was shrapnel on the roof of nearby buildings, suggesting the rocket fell apart in the air and sprayed its detritus across a larger area.

Other images shared widely on social media later showed some small craters measuring two or three feet in diameter in the car park outside the hospital.

This morning, satellite images released of the scene showed damage to the hospital grounds and car park, but most structures were still standing.

It came after Israeli officials yesterday released a video of the moment a rocket purportedly streaking towards Israel from Gaza appeared to suffer a problem and suddenly changed course.

The projectile is seen soaring through the air before jerking away from its original path. Seconds later the flames from its engines spark even brighter before flaming out completely.

In the darkness, it is not clear whether the rocket broke apart or simply lost its trajectory.

But moments later, a pair of explosions erupt in the city below - the result of what Israel claims was the rocket falling back to Earth and striking the hospital in Gaza City.

A Palestinian girl carries blankets as she walks past the explosion site at al-Ahli hospital, in Gaza City

Injured Palestinian child taken to Al-Shifa Hospital following Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on October 17, 2023

An injured man is carried outside the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday

The IDF argued that an Israeli strike would've caused craters like those seen right from previous air strikes. A spokesperson said shrapnel seen on the rooves of nearby buildings and minimal damage to the car park next to the blast suggested an Israeli airstrike was not responsible

'The walls stay intact. There are no craters in the parking lot. These are the characteristics that show it was not an aerial munition that hit the parking lot,' IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari concluded. Damaged cars are seen in this image but no evidence of major destruction to the tarmac itself

Several other videos from varying distances and angles appeared to show rockets streaming over Gaza with the blast at the hospital seen lighting up the night sky.

The IDF later shared a map of radar data which it said showed a salvo of rockets from a PIJ site streaking past the hospital, implying one of those rockets misfired and landed on the site.

And on Wednesday afternoon, a video clip aired on Israeli Channel 12 News appeared to show a salvo of rockets being launched before explosions rocked what is believed to be the medical centre.

In the wake of the attack, a variety of experts and analysts said the evidence suggested Israel was not responsible for the strike, though they stressed they could not be sure.

RUSI aerial warfare analyst Justin Bronk wrote: 'No crater or obvious shrapnel pattern consistent with IAF JDAM/Mk80 series bombs visible.

'Still not conclusive but if this is the extent of the damage I'd say an airstrike looks less likely than a rocket failure causing an explosion and fuel fire.'

Joel Rayburn, director of the American Center for Levant Studies, said: 'There is no bomb crater here and nowhere near the destruction that would be required to cause (hundreds of deaths).

'The initial reports of an airstrike that allegedly killed hundreds of people are not plausible given this physical scene.'

Former UN war crimes investigator Marc Garlasco concurred: 'Whatever hit the hospital in Gaza it wasn't an airstrike. Even the smallest JDAM leaves a 3m crater. Widespread surface damage and total lack of cratering inconsistent with an airstrike,' he concluded.

Open-source intelligence group GeoConfirmed also said the strike was likely to have been caused by 'a missile launched by a Palestinian group [which] exploded mid-air (reason unknown) and one piece fell on the hospital causing an explosion', based on analysis of videos and images of the scene.

And Tal Hagin, an investigative analyst specialising in the Israel-Palestine conflict, said of the video footage: 'Due to the fuel time on the rocket and the explosion, I'd assume this was most likely an R-160 (rocket used frequently by Palestinian militants)... There is a high likelihood that this rocket misfired - but its payload was not entirely destroyed, resulting in a devastating explosion.

'Conclusion based on current data: A misfired rocket by Hamas/PIJ was responsible for the explosion at the hospital.'

Israel also released a radar map of Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket attacks, as well as a video of the moment a rocket purportedly streaking towards Israel from Gaza appears to suffer a problem and suddenly changes course before flaming out

However, Israel's opponents had no time for the IDF's explanations.

Hamas yesterday slammed what it said were 'outrageous lies', claiming the Israeli military evidence was fake and 'does not deceive anyone', hours after a spokesman for Islamic Jihad accused the IDF of 'trying to cover for the horrifying crime and massacre they committed against civilians.'

Palestinian Islamic Jihad maintained Israel was to blame, but without producing any evidence to justify its claim.

In a statement the PIJ said: 'The Zionist enemy is trying hard to evade its responsibility for the brutal massacre he committed by bombing the Baptist Arab National Hospital in Gaza through his usual fabrication of lies, and through pointing the finger of blame at the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine.

'We therefore affirm that the accusations put forward by the enemy are false and baseless.'

The London-based Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) said it was 'deeply horrified by the horrendous air strike by Israel on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in central Gaza, an attack that amounts to state terrorism and a war crime.

'The strike breaches all international human rights and humanitarian laws and conventions. Thousands of Palestinians were at the hospital when the building came under bombardment.

'Israel continues to commit war crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza with unprecedented support from its western allies.'

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist group based in Lebanon, called for 'a day of unprecedented anger' against Israel, while Libya's foreign ministry accused the Jewish state of 'war crimes and genocide'.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran's foreign minister, later arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday night after the hospital bombing - a remarkable show of unity between two former sworn enemies.

While there, Amir-Abdollahian issued a stark warning to Israel, with the foreign minister tweeting: 'After the terrible crime of the Zionist regime in the bombing and massacre of more than a thousand innocent women and children in the hospital, the time has come for the global unity of humanity against this fake regime more hated than ISIS and its killing machine. Time is OVER.'
Keir Starmer has again refused to rule out a pact with the Lib Dems as the Tories brace for a battering in two crucial by-elections today.

Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir are facing another high-profile test as ballots are staged in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth.

Labour are hoping to provoke panic in Tory ranks by seizing both of the previously true-blue seats - although they will need massive swings to do so.

With perhaps a year to go before a general election, Sir Keir has been revelling in consistent double-digit leads in national polls.

Conservatives have been playing down their prospects for clinging on, although in Mid Beds the Lib Dems could ease their path by splitting the left-wing vote.

In an interview with the Evening Standard, Sir Keir again hinted at a deal with Ed Davey's party to maximise their chances of defeating the Tories in the national ballot.

Asked twice whether he would form an alliance with the Lib Dems, Sir Keir merely said: 'Were going for an out and out majority. We need the strength of a Labour government to deliver.'

He also revealed that he speaks to Tony Blair 'once or twice a month' - in comments that could fuel angst on the Labour left.

Mr Sunak himself will not be in the country when the by-election results are announced in the early hours of tomorrow morning, as he is visiting the Middle East amid the Israel crisis.

Although the areas have been spared the worst effects of Storm Babet, grim conditions have still raised the possibility that turnout could be supressed.

Rishi Sunak (right) and Keir Starmer (left) face another high-profile test as contests are staged in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth

Conservatives have been playing down their prospects for clinging on, although in Mid Beds (pictured) the Lib Dems could ease their path by splitting the left-wing vote

Former MP Chris Pincher secured 66 per cent of the vote in Tamworth four years ago

The areas are expected to be spared the worst effects of Storm Babet, but conditions are still likely to be grim, raising the possibility that turnout could be supressed

Little polling has been done on the by-elections, and they are often not reflected at general elections - with voters using a 'free hit' to vent frustration at the government.

A leaked Tory internal assessment suggested earlier this week that in Mid Beds its vote share could plunge from the 60 per cent Nadine Dorries received in 2019 to 30 per cent.

Meanwhile, in Tamworth the missive to party chair Greg Hands predicted that backing could slump to between 28 per cent and 33 per cent. That compares to the 66 per cent ex-MP Chris Pincher had four years ago.

Although the claims were dismissed as expectation management, a Tory source told MailOnline that Labour had sidelined the Lib Dems as the campaign had gone on, and Ed Davey's party was now targeting blue areas.

The source said the situation reflected national polling, which has put Labour up to 20 points ahead.

Losses in the historically safe seats would be a shattering blow for the PM, and would amplify the clamour for early tax cuts. The Tories have held Mid Beds since 1931.

In July, Labour pulled off a huge by-election win in Selby and Ainsty, overturning a blue 20,000 majority on a 21 per cent swing.

However, the Opposition has insisted it is a 'moonshot' to win either or both seats in the contests today.

The contest has been bad-tempered in both seats, with attacks on the Tory candidate in Tamworth for suggesting in an old social media post that families using food banks should 'f*** off' if they could afford TVs and phones.

Mr Sunak yesterday declined to condemn an apparent suggestion by his Tamworth candidate that out-of-work parents who cannot afford to feed their children should 'f*** off'.

The Tory leader was asked during Prime Minister's Questions about a photo of a flowchart shared by Andrew Cooper on Facebook.

The diagram suggested that those who are out of work, pay for 'TV Sky/BT/etc', or 'have a phone contract + 30' should 'f*** off' rather than seek help.

In reply to the question, the Prime Minister said only that he was 'proud of our record supporting people with the cost of living', before outlining Government policies aimed at supporting people through the crisis.

Mr Cooper told Channel 5 News he was 'sorry if I've offended somebody' after the post was publicised.

Asked if regretted sharing the image, he said: 'Obviously it is not something I would share now in today's world.

'We obviously mature and have different opinions than we do three years ago.'

He added: 'Of course I'm sorry if I've offended somebody. But it is very hard in today's world to have an opinion and not to offend somebody.'

The Prime Minister's press secretary told reporters that 'mid-term by-elections are extremely tough for incumbent governments' but said the Tories were 'fighting for every vote'.

A Labour spokesman said: 'These are in super safe Tory seats that would require for us to overturn results larger than those which we overturned in Selby.

'If we were to win Tamworth and had that swing at a general election, it would mean that the Tories will be down to fewer than 60 seats at the next general election.

'So a little bit of perspective is required here. Tamworth is a seat where the Tories got 66 per cent of the vote at the last election. Mid Bedfordshire is a similarly safe Tory constituency.'

Deltapoll research published earlier this week offered more evidence of a 'glitterbomb bounce' for Keir Starmer after his conference last week.

Deltapoll research has offered more evidence of a 'glitterbomb bounce' for Keir Starmer after his conference last week

A separate Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey had slightly better news for Mr Sunak with the gap narrowing from 16 to 14 points

Labour was up four on 47 per cent while the Conservatives were down one on 27 per cent.

A separate Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey had slightly better news for Mr Sunak with the gap narrowing from 16 to 14 points.

There was little sign of a boost for Mr Sunak from the Conservative conference in Manchester at the start of the month.

But Labour's gathering in Manchester last week seemed to move the dial, with speculation that Sir Keir gained from his calm response to a protester storming the stage during his keynote speech.

A 28-year-old man was arrested after yelling that 'democracy is in crisis' as he poured glitter over the Opposition leader unchallenged.

Sir Keir - who still appeared to have some glitter on his face the following day - joked about the experience, saying it would take more than one 'idiot' to derail his plan to take power at the next election.

A YouGov poll afterwards showed Labour's lead growing to 23 points, while Opinium at the weekend found it was up two points to 16.

Sir Keir's personal approval rating rose nine points with the latter firm, to plus one. That included an 18-point increase in approval from 2019 Conservative voters.

In contrast, Mr Sunak's approval rating was minus 24.
The family of a 12-year-old Israeli Harry Potter fan who was murdered by Hamas terrorists have shared devastating footage of her singing with her mother just a month before she was killed.

Noya Dan - who was autistic - and her 80-year-old grandmother Carmela were among the hundreds of civilians killed by Hamas gunmen when they attacked Israel on October 7.

The Dan family confirmed in a tragic Facebook post late on Wednesday that the bodies of both Noya and Carmela had been identified by rescue workers. The Israeli ministry of foreign affairs also confirmed their deaths.

Noya had been staying with her her grandmother when the pair were taken prisoner in Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the several Israeli communities just miles from Gaza that were attacked by Hamas 13 days ago.

According to Israeli news sources, their bodies were found burned near the Israel-Gaza border fence by workers for ZAKA Search and Rescue organisation, though Israel did not confirm where the bodies were found.

The Dan family shared a video of Noya and her mother, 53-year-old Galit, singing to Peggy Gou's wildly popular song, '(It Goes Like) Nanana', in the car while dancing and smiling.

Noya Dan (pictured, right) was seen dancing and singing with her mother Galit (pictured, left) in the car

Late on Wednesday, the Dan family confirmed in a tragic post on Facebook that the bodies of both Noya and Carmela (left and right) had been identified. Their deaths were later confirmed by the Israeli minister of foreign affairs

An Israeli Harry Potter fan whose plight was highlighted by author JK Rowling has been found dead, the country has announced. Noya Dan (pictured), a 12-year-old autistic child, and her 80-year-old grandmother Carmela, were among those who went missing on October 7

Hamas terrorists torched several buildings in Kibbutz Nir Oz when they attacked on October 7

The carefree video stands in stark contrast to the last message Noya reportedly sent to Galit when Hamas terrorists attacked Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Noya's mother had shared her daughter's tragic final voice message to her - sent as she cowered inside her grandmother's home in Nir Oz while Hamas gunman stalked the kibbutz, searching for residents to kidnap or kill.

'Mom, there was a big boom at the door that scared me,' Noya is heard saying in Hebrew in a voice note, played by her mother to Israeli media.

'All the windows in Grandma's house were broken at the entrance. Because there was another boom, there are many broken windows. Mommy I'm scared.'

Noya's mother Galit Dan, 53, was five miles away hiding in a panic room when her daughter was taken by the terrorists. Galit told a reporter how Hamas gunmen were inside her home, in her living room, when she heard from Noya.

The youngster was hidden in darkness at her grandmother home, texting each other in silence as explosions erupted around the kibbutz on that Saturday morning.

'Just because she is autistic, doesn't mean she doesn't understand. She understands everything,' Galit told Israeli media. 'Where are they keeping her? What are they doing with her? I hope they're together, praying,' she added.

Three more members of the Dan family are understood to still be missing.

News of Noya's disappearance prompted Harry Potter author JK Rowling to condemn the Hamas attacks, and specifically the kidnapping of children.

Cruelty has no limits: 12 year-old Noya, with special needs, was taken from her bed and kidnapped to Gaza. All that remains for her mother is the last recording she sent her@ifatglick | #KanIsraelstory pic.twitter.com/JeUZ5ZH6sQ    (@kann_news) October 17, 2023

Before the devastating news, Noya's mother Galit (pictured) had shared her daughter's tragic final voice message to her - sent as she cowered inside her grandmother's home in Nir Oz while Hamas gunman stalked the kibbutz, searching for residents to kidnap or kill

Galit Dan (pictured), 53, was five miles away hiding in a panic room when her daughter was taken by the terrorists. Moments before, she sent a voice note saying she was frightened

The author on Tuesday shared a picture of Noya wearing a Harry Potter costume on X, formerly Twitter, with the caption: 'Kidnapping children is despicable and wholly unjustifiable. For obvious reasons, this picture has hit home with me. May Noya and all hostages taken by Hamas be returned soon, safely, to their families.'

In the photo posted by Rowling, a grinning Noya could be seen wearing clothes resembling the Hogwarts school uniform (the wizarding school in Rowling's books) as well as the iconic red and yellow Gryffindor tie (one of the school's houses).

She appeared to be dressed as one of the main characters - Hermione Granger - and was also holding a Hebrew copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (the fifth book in the series) as well as a wand.

Israel had previously posted Noya's picture on X on Sunday, saying: 'This beautiful 12 year old girl with autism was kidnapped from her home by Hamas terrorists and was taken to Gaza. Noya is sensitive, kind, funny and a massive Harry Potter fan.'

The State of Israel's official X account also urged JK Rowling to share Noya's story in the hopes of 'bringing her home'.

Rowling's post touched many, especially fellow Harry Potter fans, and further brought home the reality of the brutal terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas that killed as many as 1,400 people in Israel, many of whom are yet to be identified.

The terrorists also kidnapped at least 203 others, including children, and took them into the Gaza Strip to be held as hostages, according to Israeli authorities.

The brutal rampage through kibbutzim and other settlements in southern Israel sparked a retaliatory response from the country's military, which has relentlessly bombed the Gaza enclave leading to thousands of Palestinian deaths.

JK Rowling wrote on Tuesday: 'May Noya and all hostages taken by Hamas be returned soon, safely, to their families' after learning that Noya was among those missing after the attack

The deaths of Noya and Carmela were later confirmed by Israel's official Twitter account

A building in Kibbutz Nir Oz is seen in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on the community

Some estimates place the number of casualties in the Hamas attack on Nir Oz as high as 240

The tragic news was first confirmed on Facebook by people close to the family.

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'Today was a difficult day. All kinds of reasons, all kinds of feelings, many tears, many conversations. At the end of the day, difficult news arrived, ones we hoped not to receive. Carmela Dan, Noya Dan are no longer with us,' Sharon Calderon wrote.

'May they be remembered for love. We continue to fight to bring Ofer, Sahar Varez home,' she added, in reference to others who are missing.

Noam Dan, Carmela's niece, wrote on her Facebook page: 'It just dawned on us that our beloved family members Noya and Carmela are no longer alive.

'We are in great pain... we have three more souls to save in the family (and in the country - a huge amount...) so tomorrow we will continue. Thanks for the hug. From our hearts that drink from pain and gratitude.'

In a message on X, Israel said: 'We are devastated to announce that Noya and her grandmother Carmela's bodies were discovered yesterday. Thank you to all of you who shared her story to help us bring her home. Our hearts are broken.'

Last week, Noya's mother had shared the heartbreaking last conversation she had with her 12-year-old daughter before the kidnapping.

Ms Dan was five miles away hiding in a panic room when Noya sent her a voice message: 'Mummy, I'm scared. There are people in the house - help me.'

Noya hid in darkness at her grandmother Carmela's home, texting each other in silence as explosions erupted around their kibbutz.

They disappeared after Noya sent a panicked message.

Noya's mother managed to wait in safety with her husband - Noya's stepfather - and her other daughter Tomal, 9, at their home in the settlement of Kibbutz Kissufim.

Galit Dan (right) said her daughter (left) was kidnapped by Hamas from the Nir Oz kibbutz on October 7 when it was attacked by Hamas terrorists

After 22 hours, the family was evacuated to a Dead Sea resort hotel.

Ms Dan told The Sun last week: 'The pain is indescribable. My little girl went for a sleepover with her granny and was messaging us as these animals came for them.

'Our best hope now is that they have been kidnapped and will somehow survive. I am living every parent's nightmare  every parent in the world will feel our pain.'

Ms Dan told The Sun her daughter had autism and was extremely sensitive. She described her daughter as a 'very sweet, very funny, very clever little girl'. She said that her grandmother Carmela was 'vulnerable herself'. 'What do they hope to achieve by doing this to innocent helpless people?' she asked of Hamas.

Reports vary about exactly how many of Nir Oz's 400 residents were killed by Hamas, but estimates range from 20 to 240. The surviving kibbutz members were evacuated to Eilat, where many are currently staying in a hotel.

News of the tragic deaths of Noya and her grandmother came as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrived in Israel to 'express solidarity' with the country.

He will also call for any escalation of violence in the wider region to be avoided.

Sunak landed at Ben Gurion airport on Thursday morning ahead of holding talks with his counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Isaac Herzog.

'Above all, I'm here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you,' Mr Sunak told reporters on the ground.

Noya and her grandmother were captured in the Nir Oz kibbutz in southern Israel

Two women hug each other at a hotel in the southern city of Eilat on October 17, 2023, which is hosting survivors from the Israeli kibbutz of Nir Oz

People receive clothes from donations at a hotel in the southern city of Eilat

A woman walks in a hall where donated clothes are provided in the southern city of Eilat

As part of a trip, he will urge Middle East leaders to 'avoid further dangerous escalation', saying that 'too many lives have been lost' already in the conflict.

The visit comes after the US president flew into Israel on Wednesday in a diplomatic bid to prevent fighting from spiralling into a larger crisis.

Joe Biden urged Israel not to be 'consumed by' rage in the wake of Hamas's deadly attack on October 7 and to avoid making the same 'mistakes' that the US did after September 11 2001, following the Islamist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The president's trip appeared to mark a breakthrough, with Mr Netanyahu's office announcing it had approved a request from Mr Biden to allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
The police have arrested a man in his 20s following an appeal to find a missing 16-year-old girl who hasn't been seen in nearly a week.

Grace Fisher, from Gillingham, Kent, was last seen on CCTV footage on the evening of Friday 13th walking with an unknown man.

She was picked up on CCTV in Chatham town centre in Kent with a man between 6.30pm and 6.53pm but was physically last seen in nearby Gillingham around an hour earlier.

Kent Police say they have now identified a man seen with her on the evening she was reported missing.

They said they have arrested a man in his 20s as part of the investigation, but Grace still hasn't been found.

Grace Fisher, from Gillingham, Kent, was last seen on CCTV on the evening of Friday 13th

She was seen on CCTV footage in Kent with a man between 6.30pm and 6.53pm

Footage showing the man has not yet been released.

The 16-year-old girl was last seen wearing a grey jumper with a black 'New York' logo, black leggings, and white Nike trainers.

Detective Inspector Scott Relf of Kent Police said: 'We are still very keen to speak to Grace to ensure she is safe and well and, if she is reading this, I urge her to get in touch with us.'

Anyone who has seen Grace or knows where she is should call 999, quoting reference 13-1191.
A Russian-American journalist working for a US government-funded media company has been detained in Russia and been charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, according to her employer.

Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva, 47, is the second US journalist to be detained in Russia this year.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested for alleged spying in March, and lost his appeal this month.

Kurmasheva, an editor with RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir service, is being held in a temporary detention center, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said, citing a Russian state news agency.

The Tatar-Inform agency posted video which showed Kurmasheva being marched into an administrative building accompanied by four men, two of whom held her arms and wore balaclavas.

Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva (pictured) has been detained in Russia and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, according to her employer

The Tatar-Inform agency posted video which showed Kurmasheva being marched into an administrative building accompanied by four men

Tatar-Inform said authorities accused Kurmasheva of collecting information about Russia's military activities 'in order to transmit information to foreign sources,' suggesting she received information about university teachers who were mobilized into the Russian army.

The CPJ said she was charged with failing to register as a foreign agent in her capacity as a person collecting information on Russian military activities.

It cited local authorities saying the information 'could be used against the security of the Russian Federation.'

If convicted, Kurmasheva could be sentenced to up to five years in prison, the New York-based press freedom group said.

'Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children,' Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty Acting President Jeffrey Gedmin said.

'She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately.'

Kurmasheva, who lives in Prague with her family, was stopped at Kazan International Airport on June 2 after traveling to Russia for a family emergency on May 20, according to RFE/RL.

Officials at the airport confiscated Kurmasheva's US and Russian passports and she was later fined for failing to register her US passport with Russian authorities.

She was waiting for her passports to be returned when the new charge was announced on October 18, RFE/RL said.

Kurmasheva reported on ethnic minority communities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia, including projects to protect and preserve the Tatar language and culture despite 'increased pressure' on Tatars from Russian authorities, her employer said.

RFE/RL was told to register by Russian authorities as a foreign agent in December 2017.

It brought a case against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights in 2021, challenging Russia's use of foreign agent laws that resulted in the organization being fined millions of dollars.

Analysts have pointed out that Moscow may be using jailed Americans as bargaining chips after US-Russian tensions soared when Russia sent troops into Ukraine.

At least two US citizens arrested in Russia in recent years - including WNBA star Brittney Griner - have been exchanged for Russians jailed in the U.S.

'Journalism is not a crime, and Kurmashevas detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting,' Gulnoza Said, the Committee to Protect Journalists' Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said.

The 47-year-old is editor of US government-funded media company Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty

Kurmasheva was stopped at Kazan International Airport on June 2, when her officials confiscated both her US and Russian passports

Her arrest follows that of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich (pictured), who was arrested for alleged spying in March, and lost his appeal this month

Kurmasheva's detention comes seven months after the Wall Street Journal's Gershkovich was detained in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) east of Moscow.

He has appeared in court multiple times since his arrest and unsuccessfully appealed his continued imprisonment.

Russia's Federal Security Service alleged Gershkovich, 'acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.'

Gershkovich and the Journal deny the allegations, and the U.S. government has declared him to be wrongfully detained. Russian authorities havent detailed any evidence to support the espionage charges.

Court proceedings against him are closed because prosecutors say details of the criminal case are classified.
The families of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas on Thursday slammed a deal to allow aid into the Gaza Strip while their relatives are still being 'held like animals' underground.

A day earlier, President Joe Biden ended a seven-hour visit by announcing that Eqypt had agreed to open its border to allow trucks in.

Israel also said it would allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the territory, the first easing of a 10-day siege imposed after Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,400 people.

A group formed to represent the 199 or more thought to have been kidnapped said the decision angered families of the missing.

'The decision to allow humanitarian aid to the murderers of Gaza has caused great anger among the family members,' Bring Them Home Now said.

More than 199 Israelis are believed to have been kidnapped by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The issue makes their relatives a powerful political force in Israel as it decides how to handle Hamas and plan a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, where the hostages are held

President Joe Biden talked to reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington, describing concessions he won from Israel and Egypt on aid to Gaza

'We remind you that children, babies, women, soldiers, men and the elderly  some of whom have serious health issues, are wounded and shot  are being held underground like animals without any human conditions, and the government of Israel is treating the murderers to baklava and medicine.'

It is a highly charged issue. Many Israelis believed aid was a crucial point of leverage that could be used to secure the release of hostages.

But easing the suffering among Palestinians was one of the key goals of Biden's visit, along with standing in solidarity with Israel and warning off other armed groups from broadening the conflict.

However, the decision by Arab leaders to cancel a summit in Jordan meant he left the region without meeting several key figures.

Instead Biden spoke by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as he flew back to Washington. Sisi agreed to reopen his country's sealed border to allow up to 20 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies to cross.

Biden told reporters traveling with him that the deal included conditions on keeping the aid from militant groups.

'If Hamas confiscates them or doesn't let it get through  then it's going to end,' he said as Air Force One was being refueled at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.

He said that Sisi deserved a lot of credit.

'He was completely cooperative  He stepped up, as did Bibi,' he added, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A woman stands holding a sign showing the face of one of the Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militants since the October 7 attack near Azrieli Mall in Tel Aviv

Biden was greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrived on Israeli soil on Wednesday morning. Aid was one of three key issues he wanted to raise with the Israeli leader

Demands have been growing to allow aid into Gaza as the humanitarian crisis worsens, 12 days after the attack on Israel.

The Israeli Defense Forces have put the territory under siege, cutting off electricity and blocking the delivery of food, fuel, and water.

Hospitals say they are running out of medicine and surgeons are operating without anesthetic.

Israel softened its position after Biden spent an hour meeting with Netanyahu, during which the American president reportedly argued it would help keep world opinion with Israel as it fights Hamas.

'In light of President Biden's request, Israel will not prevent the flow of humanitarian aid from Egypt as long as it is food, water and medical supplies for the Palestinian population in the southern Gaza strip and as long as it doesn't go to Hamas. Any aid diverted to Hamas will be prevented,' Netanyahu's office said.
A man accused of helping Ashley Dale's killers lied to detectives because he feared they would kill his family, a court has heard.

Environmental health officer Ashley Dale, 28, was shot with a Skorpion machine pistol at her home in Old Swan, Liverpool, on August 21 last year. Five men are currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of her murder.

Kallum Radford, 26, denies assisting an offender by taking possession of the Hyundai car used in the getaway of the shooting and arranging for it to be stored at an address.

He was arrested after the car was discovered on the drive of his friend Abbie Jevins in St Helens, Merseyside, last October.

Mr Radford initially told police he had been stopped in the street by two men he did not know who paid him 100 to store the car, but later admitted in another interview months later that he did know one of them, the court heard yesterday.

Ashley Dale (pictured), 28, was shot with a Skorpion machine pistol at her home in Old Swan, Liverpool

Five men are currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of her murder

Kallum Radford, 26, denies assisting an offender by taking possession of the Hyundai car (pictured) used in the shooting and arranging for it to be stored at an address

In his first interview on October 11, Radford, who was accompanied by his sister as an appropriate adult, said he was walking to his friend's house in St Helens 'to get stoned' in late August when a car approached him and the driver asked if he knew a driveway or garage where they could park.

He told officers the man said someone was 'trying to smash their car up' and he wanted somewhere to park it for a week.

Radford said he called his friend, Ms Jevins, and when she agreed to store the car, he got into the vehicle with the men and travelled there.

He told officers: 'The lad said "there's 100 for you, lad".'

Radford said he thought the passenger of the car had a name like 'Zest'. The court has heard defendant Sean Zeisz uses the nickname Zest.

Radford also told officers he knew defendant Joseph Peers.

In a second police interview, which was played to the court, Radford answered 'no comment' to a number of questions from officers.

He told them: 'You're trying to trip me up on questions, that's why I'm no commenting everything.

Mr Radford was arrested after the Hyundai car (pictured) was discovered on the drive of his friend Abbie Jevins in St Helens, Merseyside, last October

'You are trying to get justice for that girl and I hope you do get justice but I have got to go 'no comment' so I don't get hurt.'

The officer asked if he could explain that and he answered: 'No comment.'

In a third interview, in January this year, Radford told police it was Peers who asked him to store the car.

He said Peers gave him 100 and said he would pick the Hyundai up in a week but then 'kept making excuses'.

Radford said he did not initially tell police the truth because he was 'scared'.

Asked about Peers, he said: 'He's a rat, a horrible rat, putting me in this situation.

'But, back then I would have thought he was a friend.'

He then told police he was not sure if the man with Peers was Zest.

He told officers he did not know the car was involved in the murder and said he was 'petrified'.

Ashley Dales' sister (who has requested not to be named), mother Julie Dale, stepfather Rob Jones and father Steve Dunne arriving at Liverpool Crown Court for the trial

He added: 'They're going to come for me, aren't they? People are going to come for me.

'As long as my family's going to be OK, I don't want nobody else getting hurt because of what I have said to you.'

Peers, 29, Zeisz, 28, and co-defendants Niall Barry, 26, Ian Fitzgibbon, 28, and James Witham, 41, deny the murder of Miss Dale, conspiracy to murder Mr Harrison and conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon, a Skorpion sub-machine gun, and ammunition.

Witham admits Miss Dale's manslaughter but claims he did not know she was there when he fired shots inside her home on Leinster Road.

The trial continues.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed US policy towards North Korea as 'dangerous', while touting the 'new, strategic level' of relations between Moscow and the nuclear-armed state.

The veteran envoy's two-day visit, which began on Wednesday, is expected to lay groundwork for a trip to the country by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was invited by leader Kim Jong Un last month at a high-profile summit in Russia's far east.

Speaking from Pyongyang on Thursday, Lavrov told journalists that 'like our North Korean friends, we are seriously worried about the intensification of military activity of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the region and by Washington's policies...

'We oppose this unconstructive and dangerous line,' he said, according to Russian news agencies.'

He added that the United States was placing 'strategic infrastructure, including nuclear elements', in the region without elaborating.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shakes hands with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui during a meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea on Thursday

Lavrov slammed US policy towards North Korea as 'dangerous', while touting the 'new, strategic level' of relations between Moscow and the nuclear-armed state

In the face of a record-breaking series of weapons tests by Pyongyang this year, Seoul has moved to strengthen its security relationship with traditional ally the United States while entering a trilateral defence arrangement that also includes Japan.

Seoul and Washington have staged joint military exercises with advanced stealth jets and US strategic assets, while an American nuclear-armed submarine in July made a South Korean port call for the first time in decades.

A B-52 bomber capable of carrying a nuclear payload currently sits at Cheongju airport, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Seoul, marking the first time one has landed in the country since at least 2000.

Local media reports this week said the bomber would take part in a joint aerial drill near the Korean peninsula on Sunday that would involve South Korea, the United States and Japan.

But North Korea's relationship with Russia has also been tightening, Lavrov said Thursday.

Lavrov told journalists that Russia was seriously worried about the intensification of military activity of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the region and by Washington's policies

During his meeting with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Sun Hui on Thursday he reportedly said, 'after the historic summit between President Putin and Chairman of State Affairs Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome on September 13, we can confidently say that the relations have reached a qualitatively new strategic level,' according to Russia's state-run Interfax news agency.

Choe said her meeting with Lavrov 'will become an important stage in terms of the implementation of the agreements' reached by Kim and Putin, Russia's state-run Tass news agency reported.

It cited Choe as saying that frequent meetings between the two countries' top diplomats prove that bilateral ties are developing 'vigorously.'

North Korea's state media hasn't reported about the meeting.

Lavrov also told Russian outlets that Moscow is keen to assist North Korea with its energy needs, a constant source of struggle for heavily sanctioned Pyongyang.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Sun Hui said her meeting with Lavrov 'will become an important stage in terms of the implementation of the agreements' reached by Kim and Putin

'There is geological exploration, there are also plans for the supply of energy resources and other goods that our friends from the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) need,' Lavrov said.

Both energy issues would be discussed at a joint meeting slated for November, he said.

Lavrov, who laid wreaths at monuments to former North Korean leaders Kim Sung Il and Kim Jong Il in the morning, arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday night after accompanying Putin on a trip to Beijing.

At a welcome dinner, he praised Pyongyang's support for Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine.

'We highly value your principled, unambiguous support for Russia's actions in connection with the special military operation in Ukraine,' Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russia's RIA Novosti news agency.

Lavrov laid wreaths at monuments to former North Korean leaders Kim Sung Il and Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang

Since last year, the United States has accused North Korea of providing ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia (File photo)

Kim last month travelled to Russia aboard a specially built bullet-proof train for a face-to-face meeting with Putin, declaring bilateral ties with Moscow his country's 'number one priority'.

The two leaders met at Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome, roughly 8,000 kilometres (4970 miles) from Moscow, a location seen as symbolic given North Korea's space aspirations.

The September summit fanned Western fears Pyongyang might provide Moscow with weapons for its drawn-out war in Ukraine.

On Friday, the United States said arms shipments were already under way, with North Korea delivering more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia in recent weeks.

A load of containers was shipped by sea from North Korea to Russia between September 1 and October 1, according to a graphic provided by the White House.

They were then delivered by rail to an ammunition depot about 290 kilometres (180 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters, Pyongyang was seeking a range of military assistance in return, including advanced technologies.

Moscow this week denounced the allegations, insisting Washington had no proof that weapons were being shipped.

North Korea has steadfastly denied it shipped arms to Russia, but South Korean officials said North Korean weapons provided to Russia had already been used in Ukraine.

Lim Soosuk, spokesperson of South Korea's Foreign Ministry, told reporters Thursday that Seoul was closely monitoring Lavrov's visit to North Korea and said that any cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang should be conducted in a way that complies with United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Asked whether Lavrov's comments stating Russia fully supports Kim's policies could be interpreted as an acceptance of North Korea's nuclear weapons status, Lim insisted that the North 'no matter what it does, will never be recognized as a nuclear power and will face increasing international sanctions.'
More than five years after their scandalous affair was exposed, former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, 56, is set to marry his former political adviser turned mistress, Vikki Campion, 38.

The couple, who have two sons, Sebastian and Thomas, will tie the knot in a 'bush bash' wedding in Walcha, NSW, on November 12, but there are some glaring omissions from the guest list.

Mr Joyce has four daughters from his first marriage to Natalie, but the Daily Telegraph reported that just one of them is understood to be attending the wedding.

It's not clear which of Julia, Caroline, Odette and Bridgette is expected to be at the wedding, however it is unlikely to be Odette, who once posted a picture of her mum and siblings on Instagram with the caption: 'The real Joyce family #whosbarnaby'

Sebastian and Thomas are expected to play a special role in the wedding day.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce (pictured left) is set to marry his much younger former political adviser turned mistress, Vikki Campion (pictured right)

Mr Joyce is pictured with his former wife Natalie and their four daughters, Julia, Caroline, Odette, and Bridgette

READ MORE: Barnaby Joyce forced to confront the question on EVERYONE'S mind Barnaby Joyce revealed not all of his family are happy about his engagement to his former political staffer Vikki Campion. Advertisement

Mrs Joyce was said to have been blindsided by her then husband's affair, which news of emerged in February 2018 when Ms Campion was two months away from giving birth to Sebastian.

When the couple announced their engagement in January 2022, Mr Joyce said his family's reaction was as 'one would have expected' and not everyone was pleased.

'Some are happy and some are understandably not as happy,' Mr Joyce said at the time.

He proposed with a parti sapphire ring, a stone popular in his northern NSW electorate of New England.

'Rather than being down on one knee (to propose) I ended up being down on two. I was saying my prayers,' he said.

Ms Campion said yes, and after delays due to the pandemic, the couple are set to get married at a secret location - suspected to be one of Mr Joyce's properties - next month.

Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion are pictured with their eldest son Sebastian

Barnaby's daughter Odette posted this picture of her mum and siblings on Instagram with the caption: 'The real Joyce family #whosbarnaby'

Their close friends and National Party colleagues have been invited to attend the wedding, which starts at 11am, and the celebration afterwards.

Guests are encouraged to arrive in utes or 4WDs, roll out their swags and party long into the night.

'It's very much Barnaby getting back to his country roots,' one guest said.

'The naysayers said they wouldn't get to this point but this is two people in love and we can't wait to celebrate.'

While many guests are expected to stay overnight and sleep in their vehicles or in tents, there will also be a bus to take less hardy souls to a nearby country hotel.

When his affair was exposed in early 2018, Mr Joyce resigned as deputy prime minister and Nationals leader.

The then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull slammed Joyce for what he called a 'shocking error of judgement'.

It led to Mr Turnbull introducing a so-called 'bonk ban' on coalition MPs to stop them having sex with their ministerial staff.

Mr Joyce and Ms Campion are pictured with their sons Thomas and Sebastian

Vikki Campion and Barnaby Joyce, who are getting married in November, are pictured with their son Thomas

The exact location for the wedding of Barnaby Joyce (left) and Vikki Campion (right) is being kept secret

At the time, though, Ms Campion said the ban 'doesn't protect anyone'.

She said loopholes would allow ministers to sleep with other junior staff they did not directly employ regardless of their position.

Ms Campion also said that MPs, rather than ministers, were still allowed to have sex with their own electorate staff, other ministers' staff, opposition members' staff, maintenance staff and senate staff under the ban.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Mr Joyce for comment.
A woman has been found dead in a beach car park.

The woman's body was found 'in the vicinity' of a parking area in Lorne, on Victoria's Great Ocean Road, on Thursday at 1.25pm.

She has not yet been identified.

The deceased woman was found in the vicinity of a parking area. There were no suspicious circumstances

Victoria Police said in a statement there are no suspicious circumstances to the woman's death.

Police will now prepare a report for the coroner.

The town, which is a popular stopover on the Great Ocean Road, has just over 1,100 residents most of the year but it wells to around 13,000 around New Year.
Greta Thunberg has gone on another climate change protest a day after being charged with a public order offence.

The Swedish activist, 20, has joined a protest outside JP Morgan demanding the bank stops funding fossil fuels.

Along with the group Fossil Free London, she stood outside the entrance in Canary Wharf this morning.

They moved to block the entrances of the bank by sitting on the pavement chanting 'oily money out' and waving yellow flags and banners.

It comes just one day after Thunberg - whose address was given by police as 'Dorset' - was charged with a public order offence following a protest outside a central London hotel.

Scotland Yard said protesters were asked to move from the road onto the pavement to avoid breaching the conditions on Tuesday.

Greta Thunberg takes part in a Fossil Free London protest outside JP Morgan in Canary Wharf

The Swedish climate activist shouts slogans through a megaphone during the demonstration

It comes a day after the 20-year-old was charged with a public order offence following a protest on Tuesday

Protesters blocked the entrance to the bank, waving signs and yellow flares

They sat on the pavement outside chanting 'oily money out' and waved a yellow banner reading: 'Make polluters pay'

Today's demonstration outside JP Morgan called on the bank to stop funding fossil fuels

It said the bank has been a major source of fossil fuel funding since the Paris Agreement, when governments agreed to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels

Thunberg was one of 26 people charged following Tuesday's rally outside the InterContinental Hotel in Park Lane which was hosting a major meeting of oil executives.

In today's demonstration outside JP Morgan, protesters said the bank has been a major source of funding of fossil fuel projects since the Paris Agreement, when governments agreed to limit global average temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Fossil Free London campaigner Henry, who declined to give his last name, said: 'Since the Paris climate agreement they have been the worst financiers of fossil fuels, having provided $434billion (357billion) in finances.

'They are making billions of profit every year at a time of worsening inequality when so much of the world is being devastated by the climate crisis.

'We think there should be no new fossil fuel investment or financing from JP Morgan and we think that some of their billions of profits should go towards loss and damage to the communities affected by climate change and provide the financing for adaptation and mitigation measures.'

JP Morgan has declined to comment.

Thunberg was arrested by police during Tuesday's rally outside the InterContinental Hotel in Park Lane which was hosting a major meeting of oil executives

The activist, wearing a large badge reading 'Oily Money Out', was one of 26 people arrested at the rally

She was led to a police van as activists watched on and smiled as officers told protesters to stand back

She was charged with failing to comply with a condition imposed under Section 14 of the Public Order Act - but was back protesting again this morning

Banners outside the bank read 'their profit, our loss' and 'stop financing fossil fuels'

After Tuesday's rally, Thunberg was charged with failing to comply with a condition imposed under Section 14 of the Public Order Act.

Officers said they asked the protesters to move from the road onto the pavement which would have allowed them to continue protesting legally.

They said they had imposed conditions to 'prevent disruption to the public'.

She was bailed to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on November 15.

A Met Police spokesman said: 'We have charged 26 people after a protest outside a hotel in central London.

'Officers responded to the protest on the morning of Tuesday October 17 and imposed conditions to prevent disruption to the public.

'The protestors were asked to move from the road onto the pavement, which would enable them to continue with their demonstration without breaching the conditions.'
Horrified Israeli rescue workers have been sifting through ash and rubble and finding bone fragments at a nursery that was attacked by Hamas on October 7, according to on-the-ground reports from the south of the country.

Yesterday, harrowing images from the site showed pools of blood and teddy bears riddled with bullet holes after scores of innocents were killed in the Be'eri massacre.

The kindergarten was meant to be a safe refuge for children under the age of five, but it would become the scene for one of the most barbaric and vile acts of the Palestinian terrorist group as it rampaged through southern Israel 13 days ago.

In total, at least 1,400 people were killed in the Hamas attack, with work to identify victims still on-going. The number could still rise further.

In pictures released by the South First Responders telegram channel last night - rescue workers wearing forensic and protective clothing can be seen scouring through the rubble of the nursery which was attacked and scorched.

Horrified Israeli rescue workers have been sifting through ash and rubble in search of bone fragments at a nursery that was attacked by Hamas on October 7

In pictures released by the South First Responders telegram channel last night - rescue workers wearing forensic and protective clothing can be seen scouring through the rubble of the nursery looking for human bone fragments

One man is seen holding up a small pile of dirt in his blue-gloved hand. Small white fragments are seen amongst the debris being held up to the camera.

'Here we can see the remains of bone fragments being extracted from the massacre site,' the channel says. Other pictures show the man - whose identity has been concealed - working with another on his hands and knees as they search.

The South First Responders group was set up on the messaging app to share footage from the region in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

It has since shared footage and pictures of rescue workers efforts to locate the remains of people who are still missing in the wake of the attack.

Other harrowing images from the nursery show blood smeared across the floor amid the barbaric destruction left by the Hamas terrorists.

AK47 magazines left by the gunmen are shown strewn among children's toys.

Bullet holes riddle the window and doors and drag marks in the blood suggest a desperate attempt to pull a dead or wounded victim to safety.

Outside, bicycles are seen scattered across the ground next to a wall peppered with holes that appear to have been left by either bullets or shrapnel: the terrorists are understood to have thrown grenades into some civilian buildings.

Many of the walls are also blackened from fire damage, with the South First Responders writing that parts of the nursery were torched.

Amid the sheer destruction in Be'eri kibbutz, the community's nursery was found to have pools of blood after Hamas terrorists tore through on October 7

The walls of the nursery are riddled with bullet holes, betraying signs of the violence inflicted. Children's bicycles are seen strewn across the ground near bullet or shrapnel holes

The floor of the nursery, normally a happy place filled with the voices of playing children, is now stained with blood after the horrific terrorist attack

Photos of the scene show tables and chairs pushed away and debris from the violence lying on the floor

Empty magazines from AK47 assault rifles were found discarded amid children's toys at the nursery

A pool of blood is seen on the floor of the nursery, metres away from children's books and toys

The kitchen in the nursery is covered in debris with bullet holes seen riddling the wall

Not even the classroom escaped the violence, with parts of the ceiling seen hanging off after the attack

'Sadly we have been witness in past days to arguements and claims that children were not targeted for slaughter in the Hamas assault on southern Israel,' the group wrote in a message alongside pictures from the nursery.

'We are now publishing new images from Kibbutz Be'eri obtained from our network that of human remains were found and recovered from the children's home.

'The remains of the building can be seen here, including indications that it was targeted by heavy gunfire and the subsequent torching,' it adds.

The sickening scenes were found in the kibbutz that sits three miles from the Israel-Gaza border fence. More than 100 people were killed by Hamas.

The terrorists stormed across the border on October 7 and attacked several kibbutzim in the region, bringing violence and malice to a colourful nursery and a peaceful community.

It is impossible to know what happened here on a Jewish sabbath when the nursery would have been closed, but families were free to use the play equipment any time.

Nowhere was safe from the terrorists. The library next door which had its windows decorated with cuddly blue Smurf characters was also shot to bits.

An Israeli soldier told the Sun: 'This place has many terrible secrets - and we're sadly finding more and more every day.

'Many children died here - some horribly mutilated.'

Chilling footage captured in the body cameras of Hamas terrorists and released by the Israeli military shows the nightmare the militants brought with them to Be'eri.

One harrowing clip showed gunmen brandishing automatic rifles and preparing to unleash hell on unsuspecting families.

In the next scene, security cameras from within the usually quiet kibbutz showed the terrorists lying in wait, ready to ambush. The moment comes when a resident rolls up to the security gate in a car and opens it. The gunmen quickly shoot him dead.

Moving quickly, the black-clad gunmen, ran across the kibbutz while shouting 'where are the children' before going door to door looking for Israeli families to slaughter indiscriminately or drag to Gaza as hostages.

Footage showed the terrorists murdering families in their homes or as they tried to flee in their cars. Further horrific video showed gunmen in the process of beheading a body with a hoe and burnt corpses thrown in a dumpster.

One appalling image showed the charred body of a baby, whose body is so disfigured it is impossible to make out where their arms and legs would have been.

Much of the footage featured in the 43-minute compilation is too graphic for MailOnline to publish.

Footage of Hamas gunmen searching through homes before blasting innocent victims to death have been released

In the next scene, security cameras from within the usually quiet kibbutz show the terrorists lying in wait, ready to ambush. The moment comes when a resident rolls up to the security gate in a car and opens it. The gunmen quickly shoot him dead

As soldiers walked through a family home in Kfar Aza kibbutz where they found the parents' bed and child's bed soaked in blood as the once-loving abode was left in devastation

The video showed the bodies of civilians who had been bound. A room with at least seven bodies reduced to ash. Civilians shot in bedrooms, bathrooms, front yards. Blood so thick it nearly obscured hallway floors.

READ MORE: Rishi Sunak arrives in Israel and will hold talks with Benjamin Netanyahu TODAY Advertisement

It also showed the ease with which Hamas militants moved around inside Israel, for hours unopposed by any significant Israeli response.

In Kibbutz Be'eri, people slept as the militants peered into people's dark living rooms. They toyed with outdoor decorations, using a cigarette lighter to set a dreamcatcher hanging on someone's window ablaze.

They shot randomly, at an air conditioner, at an ambulance's tires, at a dog running out to greet them. They perched on lawn chairs outside a quiet home, taking a water break. Israeli security forces were nowhere to be found.

Israel's rescue service later found more than 120 bodies there.

The town was the home of British-born Lianne Sharabi, who had made a life there with her daughters Yahel and Noiya, and her husband Eli.

But she, along her 13-year-old daughter Yahel, was brutally murdered by the terrorists as they swept into the kibbutz.

And in a fate some believe is almost as hideous as death itself, the father, Eli, and 16-year-old daughter Noiya are feared to have been abducted by sadistic thugs and taken back to Gaza.

Disturbing photos of the Sharabi family home show it covered in blood, with furniture smashed up and their pet dog killed and left to rot in the living room.

A pool of blood was found staining the floor and walls at the entrance to their property's safe room - a place most Israeli homes have to protect against attack.

Mother Lianne Sharabi and her 13-year-old daughter Yahel, described as 'a bundle of unbridled energy and joy', were murdered, while her 16-year-old daughter Noiya is feared to have been abducted

In the massacre known as 'Israel's 9-11', this particular event happened in kibbutz Be'eri, a mile or two from the Gaza border

The Sharabis, who are said to have visited the UK at least once a year, were all sheltering in the safe room when the terrorists broke in, according to relatives

This is a house of horror, covered with blood, smashed up furniture and a dead pet dog rotting in the living room

It appears to be where 'happy, friendly' 13-year-old Yahel was mortally wounded, in circumstances too distressing to imagine

Family photographs showing smiles, party balloons and grinning selfies from happier time

Yahel Sharabi, 13, disappeared after the terrorists attacked Be'eri Kibbutz

Yahel's heartbroken family this afternoon paid tribute to the 'beautiful' teenager

Another pool of blood lies in the room nearby  adjacent to a child's wooden bed. It appears to be where 'happy, friendly' 13-year-old Yahel was mortally wounded, in circumstances too distressing to imagine.

Amid the confusion of the massacre in Be'eri, the family at first feared she had been kidnapped along with her sister.

It is unclear where her body was found, but on Wednesday the family were told the numbing news that the teenager is dead.

As the search for more victims of the attack on the nursery and the surrounding region continued on Thursday, Israel pounded Gaza with more air strikes.

The brutal rampage through kibbutzim and other settlements in southern Israel sparked a retaliatory response from the country's military, which has relentlessly bombed the Gaza enclave leading to thousands of Palestinian deaths.

In the nearly two weeks since the Hamas attack, airstrikes have relentlessly hit the densely populated territory.

Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north and head to what it called 'safe zones' in the south, strikes continued across the entire territory.

Israel is also preparing for a ground assault into Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating.

This picture taken from Israel's southern city of Sderot shows smoke billowing over the northern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on October 19, 2023

Meanwhile on Thursday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak followed US President Joe Biden on visits to demonstrate support for war against Hamas while urging Israel to ease the plight of besieged Gazans.

Biden, who spent less than eight hours in Israel, flew home on Wednesday night having pledged support, and hugged and consoled survivors of the October 7 raid.

But he appeared to have only limited success in his other mission, to persuade Israel to ease the plight of 2.3 million Gazans under a total siege.

Biden said he had secured an offer from Egypt to allow 20 aid trucks to reach Gaza at some point in coming days, a fraction of the 100 per day that UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council were needed.


A bench donated to Ricky Gervais' local park by Netflix following the success of hit show After Life has been vandalised by thugs who stole its commemorative plaque.

The bench in Hampstead Heath is inscribed with the message 'Hope Is Everything', a key quote from the show - in which Gervais plays Tony, a newspaper journalist who contemplates suicide after his wife dies from cancer.

A bench just like it plays a pivotal role in the series, which carries a message of positivity around talking about mental health - but mindless vandals have torn the plaque from the seat a short distance from the funnyman's north London home.

It was one of many donated to parks around the country by Netflix, which produced the show, in a partnership with mental health charity the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM).

The plaque commemorated the fact it had been donated by the streaming giant in celebration of the programme's third and final series last year.

The bench on Hampstead Heath, with four screw holes visible where the plaque should be

The plaque, as it originally appeared on the bench when it was first installed in summer 2022

Ricky Gervais won critical acclaim for his depiction of newspaper journalist Tony in After Life

A bench in a graveyard was the scene of several pivotal conversations about grief between Tony (Gervais) and Anne (Penelope Wilton) in the series

Gervais posed with dog actor Anti, who played Tony's pet dog Brandy, to announce the distribution of the charity benches across the UK

In a tweet last summer, the comedian said the wooden seats were being distributed across the country to get people talking

READ MORE: Netflix hikes prices for millions of UK customers with premium set to cost 17.99 a month after crackdown on password sharing Advertisement

Zoe Margolis, a writer who lives locally, said: 'I think it's really sad the bench has been vandalised in this way, because it undermines the message of compassion and care.

'Seeing the show's motto, "Hope is Everything", carved into the bench must surely offer those who sit there a moment of peace in these troubled times - a chance to gather their thoughts or share them with other people.

'I do hope the plaque will be reinstated and that the bench continues to offer respite for those who need it.'

Gervais himself supported the installation of the benches across the UK in July 2022, posing with one of the donated benches with animal actor Anti, who played his character's dog Brandy in the series.

The comedian tweeted: 'If you get a chance this summer, try to find one of the 30 #AfterLife benches we've stuck around the country to encourage people to talk. #HopeIsEverything.'

Created, written, produced and directed by Gervais, After Life scooped awards including two National Television Awards, with critics praising its frank and unflinching depictions of grief balanced with gallows humour.

Its star-studded cast included comics such as Diane Morgan, Ashley Jensen, Joe Wilkinson and Roisin Conaty as friends, colleagues and acquaintances of Gervais' character Tony.

A bench in the graveyard where Tony's wife is buried becomes a fixture of the series.

His character regularly meets widow Anne, played by Penelope Wilton, at the seat where the pair talk frankly about death and mental health.

Each of the benches installed across the UK also bears an additional QR code that links to CALM's resources and reads: 'Life can be tough, but there's always hope. Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is by your side.'

Gervais, who lives in Hampstead, said at the time the benches were unveiled said he hoped the project would 'create a lasting legacy' for After Life.

The City of London Corporation, which is responsible for the upkeep of Hampstead Heath, has cleaned up the vandalism.

A spokesperson for the Corporation said: 'Vandalism is completely unacceptable on Hampstead Heath, and we have acted quickly to replace the plaque.'
The head of Hamas's security forces was killed today along with members of his family in an Israeli airstrike on their house as Israel continued its bombardment of the war-torn Gaza Strip to 'destroy' the terrorist group.

Jehad Mheisen, a key leader within Hamas, was killed in the airstrike on his home in Gaza, a Hamas-aligned news agency said, as the IDF continued to hit hundreds of targets across the enclave including tunnel shafts and command centres.

Israel has said it is attacking Hamas terrorists wherever they may be in Gaza, describing them as 'dead men walking', and accused the group's leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population.

But Israel's withering airstrikes have continued to obliterate entire neighbourhoods across the densely populated territory, leaving death and destruction in its wake.

Today, the brutal bombardment pounded locations across the Gaza Strip, including parts of the south that Israel had declared 'safe zones'.

Exhausted Palestinians desperately searched through the rubble of their homes for loved ones across Gaza this morning, their screams piercing the air as they found the lifeless bodies of their children, wives and parents.

In the nearly two weeks since Israel began its withering aerial bombardment in response to a devastating attack by Hamas terrorists that saw 1,300 people slaughtered, thousands of homes have been destroyed across the 25-mile enclave and 3,785 Palestinians killed, including 1,524 children.

For the more than two million Palestinians trapped there, nowhere - and no one - seems to be safe from the relentless Israeli strikes.

In southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are seeking any shelter they can find after Israel told them it would be a 'save zone', there were relentless strikes on the city of Khan Younis, hitting several homes. At least 12 people were killed in the aerial bombardment while another 40 were wounded.

Jehad Mheisen, a key leader within Hamas, was killed in the airstrike on his home in Gaza

The father of Alma Al Majayda, three, holds her body after she was killed in Israeli strikes,

People weep as Palestinian civil defence members and others search for survivors in Khan Yunis

Palestinians work to rescue a boy trapped in the rubble following an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinian civil defence members carry a child killed in an Israeli bombardment from a building in the southern Gaza Strip

This picture taken from Israel's southern city of Sderot shows a smoke plume erupting during Israeli bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Using a mattress, men carry bodies from a building in Rafah after Israeli airstrikes

Palestinians gather around residential buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes in Zahra City in Gaza on Thursday

My brother-in-law, a doctor in Gaza, is spending his seventh consecutive day in hospital. Nadia spoke to him & said he should go home to rest, his response "I can't leave my people when they need me."



Health workers in Gaza are heroes.



(video shared with family's permission) pic.twitter.com/mMbG1IRx51  Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) October 19, 2023

One of the strikes killed Mheisen - just days after Israel claimed it had killed Hamas commander Bilal al Kedra in an airstrike in southern Gaza. The IDF believe Kedra was behind the devastating slaughter of Israeli families at Kibbutz Nirim and Nir Oz on October 7.

Another Israeli strike on Saturday killed Murad Abu Murad, the leader of Hamas's air forces, and Ali Qadi, the 'Nukhba' commando force which gunned down Israeli civilians, the IDF said.

Today's bombardments came just hours after Israel agreed to allow Egypt to reopen its northern border with Gaza to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter the war-torn enclave.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are now positioned at the Rafah crossing, Gaza's only connection to Egypt, to deliver food, water and medicine to the millions of civilians trapped there amid withering Israeli airstrikes.

But under the deal agreed by Egypt after intense talks with President Joe Biden yesterday, only 20 trucks with humanitarian aid will be allowed into the enclave from Friday at the earliest amid fears that Hamas will confiscate the supplies or use the deliveries as cover to bring in more weapons.

If Hamas terrorists do try to stop the much-needed aid from reaching Palestinian civilians, 'it will stop', President Biden said during his visit to Tel Aviv where he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The supplies will go in under the supervision of the UN, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, adding that before any aid can be moved, the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes must be repaired.

The agreement marks the first crack in a punishing ten-day siege on the densely populated enclave and comes a day after a blast at a hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza's struggling medical system.

Netanyahu said yesterday that Israel 'will not thwart' the delivery of food, medicine and water from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don't go to Hamas terrorists. His office made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

But, within hours of Netanyahu's promise, Israeli airstrikes pounded Rafah on the border between Egypt and Gaza - and continued to obliterate homes in Khan Younis where thousands are sheltering after being told by Israel to evacuate to the south.

Harrowing footage shared by Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf, whose brother-in-law has refused to leave his post as a doctor in Gaza, shows medics treating a toddler and little girl who were covered in blood after their home was hit by an airstrike. The little girl can be seen shaking from shock following the blast.

Yousaf said his his wife, Nadia El-Nakla, had implored her brother to go home and rest after working for seven consecutive days to treat the hundreds of victims of Israeli strikes.

'His response: "I can't leave my people when they need me",' Yousaf wrote on Twitter. 'Health workers in Gaza are heroes.'

Families have been torn apart by the strikes. One grandfather was seen cradling the small body of his granddaughter and kissing her bloodied forehead before the medics zipped up her small body bag after she was killed in a blast in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.

Another family's home in the small town was reduced to rubble, with medics and rescuers seen desperately trying to search for survivors. But often, they would only emerge carrying the dead bodies of children and parents who were killed in the strikes.

Further north in Khan Younis, sirens wailed as emergency crews rushed to rescue survivors from a building in the city, where many residents were believed to be trapped under misshapen bed frames, broken furniture and cement chunks.

A small, soot-covered child, unconscious and dangling in the arms of a rescue worker, was taken out of a damaged building and rushed toward a waiting ambulance.

Palestinians are seen near debris of destroyed buildings after Israeli airstrikes at al-Zahra neighbourhood in Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinians gather around residential buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes in Zahra City on Thursday

Residential buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes are seen in Zahra City on Thursday

People gather by the rubble of a destroyed building following Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Members of the Palestinian civil defence look for survivors in the rubble of a building hit during Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Relatives of the Duheir family who were killed when their house was hit in Rafah during Israeli bombardment mourn in the Gaza Strip border city on Thursday

Palestinians gather at site of Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday

A woman consoles another while one reacts in the aftermath of Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip on Thursday

Relatives of Palestinians killed during an Israeli air strike mourn over their bodies at a hospital in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

People carry the bodies of Palestinians killed during an Israeli air strike outside a hospital in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

People dig and search through the rubble of a destroyed building following Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip on Thursday

A woman cries as she stands in a heavily damaged house following Israeli bombardment in Rafah on Thursday

Palestinians work to remove debris as they search for bodies at a house destroyed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis on Thursday

A man carries away the body of a person killed in Israeli bombardment after being rescued from the rubble of a building in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinians civil look for survivors in the rubble of a building hit during Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Gaza's Hamas-led government said several bakeries in the territory were hit in the overnight strikes, making it even harder for hungry residents to get food.

The Israeli military said it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centres.

It said it hit dozens of mortar launching posts, most of them immediately after they launched shells at Israel. Palestinians have been launching barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.

Israel has said it is attacking Hamas terrorists wherever they may be in Gaza, and accused the group's leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population.

But these airstrikes on the densely populated streets of Gaza have wreaked havoc for Palestinians who are desperately trying to survive the brutal bombardment. But for many, they fear nowhere is safe.

The Musa family fled from northern Gaza to the typically sleepy central town of Deir al-Balah and took shelter in a cousin's three-storey home near the local hospital.

But at 7.30pm on Wednesday, a series of explosions, believed to be airstrikes, rocked the building, turning the family home into a mountain of rubble that they said buried some 20 women and children.

The dead body of Hiam Musa, the sister-in-law of Associated Press photojournalist Adel Hana, was recovered from the wreckage Wednesday evening, the family said. They don't know who else is under the rubble.

'It doesn't make sense,' Hana said. 'We went to Deir al-Balah because it's quiet, we thought we would be safe.' The Israeli military said it was investigating.

In northern areas that Israel warned to evacuate, airstrikes also hit three residential towers in al-Zahra, the Interior Ministry in Gaza said, as well as homes along the border with Israel.

Israel has massed troops in the area and is expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people are believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

But adding a glimmer of those trapped in Gaza, Egypt agreed to reopen its northern border with Gaza to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter the enclave.

Egypt's foreign minister Shoukry added that as long as the Rafah crossing is operating 'normally' and the crossing facility is repaired, foreigners and dual nationals hoping to leave would be let through the border.

Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on October. As supplies run out, many families in Gaza have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water.

Friday's aid would be the first international relief to enter Gaza since October 7, when Hamas launched shock raids into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 203 hostages.

Since then, Israel has besieged the Palestinian enclave, launching wave after wave of air strikes, enforcing a blockade and deploying tens of thousands of troops to the border in preparation for an expected ground assault.

Aid convoy trucks wait at the Rafah border crossing for clearance to enter Gaza on Thursday in North Sinai, Egypt

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Wednesday

Officials gather while workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday

Volunteers and NGO staff camp in front of the Rafah border as they wait to deliver aid supplies to Gaza on Thursday in North Sinai, Egypt

President Joe Biden talks to reporters aboard Air Force One during a refuelling stop in at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, on Wednesday as he travels back from Israel to Washington.

Volunteers and NGO staff camp in front of the Rafah border as they wait to deliver aid supplies to Gaza on Thursday in North Sinai, Egypt

A man carries a wounded child at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

But relatives of those hostages who were dragged from their homes to Gaza - many of them children - during the October 7 attack on Israel have reacted in fury to the aid announcement.

'Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals,' said a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. But 'the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.'

The United Nations and humanitarian groups have begged for the military stranglehold on Gaza to be eased, to allow supplies of water, food, fuel and medicines to enter.

Top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths on Wednesday said the situation in Gaza was dire, with hospitals overwhelmed, more than 3,000 Gazans killed and 12,500 injured.

'The pace of death, of suffering, of destruction' he said 'cannot be exaggerated.'

Despite the devastation, more than 100 trucks have been queued for days on the Egyptian side of the border waiting to enter Gaza.

After what he described 'blunt' negotiations and a telephone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Biden indicated that about 20 trucks would enter Gaza to start with, with more to come if all sides agree.

'We want to get as many of the trucks out as possible,' Biden said aboard Air Force One. 'If Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through... then it's going to end, because we're not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas,' Biden said.

It comes as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrived in Israel this morning where he is set to press for the opening of a complete humanitarian aid route in Gaza in an effort to build on Biden's progress.

The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies happened as fury over the blast at Gaza City's al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

The huge blast ripped through the hospital on Tuesday night while it was being used to treat and shelter thousands of civilians who were trying to avoid Israel's relentless barrage of airstrikes.

The devastating fireball sparked a venomous blame game between Hamas and Israel, with the terrorists claiming it was the result of an Israeli air strike while the IDF blamed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group, for a misfired rocket.

Biden sided with his ally Netanyahu after the President said he had seen 'data' from his own officials in the Pentagon to back up his claim that Israel was not to blame for the hospital strike and instead it was a result of an errant rocket fired by terrorists.

'Based on the information we've seen today it appears it was the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza,' Biden said yesterday.

But Jordan's foreign minister Ayman Safadi today said 'no one is buying' the Israeli narrative about the Gaza hospital explosion 'in this part of the world'.

'The only way people would entertain a different narrative is if there was an independent international inquiry into the tragedy with impeccable evidence that it was not Israel,' Safadi told NBC News.

Meanwhile, three Palestinians, including two teenagers, were killed by Israeli forces in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank early on Thursday, Palestinian official news agency WAFA said.

Israeli forces stormed the village of Budrus, west of Ramallah, shooting dead a young man, Gebriel Awad, and wounding another, WAFA said.

In other incidents, a 14-year-old was killed by a bullet wound in the head in a refugee camp south of Bethlehem and a 16-year-old succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the town of Tulkarm, the news agency added.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the latest flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence. The West Bank is home to the Palestinian Authority (PA) which is dominated by Hamas rivals Fatah and 87-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

A damaged car is seen as Palestinians walk amidst the rubble at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

A man carries a wounded child at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis on Thursday

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

The father of Alma Al Majayda, 3, killed in Israeli strikes, carries her body during her funeral, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis on Thursday

The bloody devastation at al-Ahli threw the siege's impact into sharp relief.

Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza City's main hospital where doctors, already facing critical supply shortages, were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, often without anaesthesia.

A steady stream of ambulances, taxis, cars and at least one motorcycle also arrived at a hospital in Khan Younis. Men jumped from the vehicles and scrambled to open doors, with hospital staff and bystanders helping carry the injured.

One man rushed in carrying a limp child in his arms. A girl with her head wrapped with a makeshift bandage was helped from a car. Many injured had to be carried by multiple men or hoisted onto gurneys.

As soon as one vehicle was unloaded, another arrived to take its place.

In his brief visit to Israel, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing US support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies.

He warned Israel to be cautious as it tries to remove the threat from Hamas. 'After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice we also made mistakes,' he said.

After decades in which Israel has gradually improved ties with its neighbours, the Hamas attacks and Israel's furious response have rekindled old tensions.

Anger spiked on Wednesday, with protesters pouring onto the streets in cities from Tripoli to Tehran after a strike on the hospital. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claimed 471 people had died as a result, while blaming an Israeli air strike.

Israel denied responsibility, saying an initial investigation showed the strike was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired by Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad is proscribed as a terrorist group by the United States and other Western governments.

Neither the toll nor the provenance of the strike could be immediately or independently verified. One European intelligence agency told AFP: 'There wasn't 200 or even 500 deaths, more likely between 10 and 50.' Other reports said there were only 80 beds in the hospital.

Biden said the Pentagon also believed the strike was caused by an errant Palestinian rocket.

'Our Defense Department says it's highly unlikely that it was the Israelis. It would have had a different footprint,' he said, acknowledging that many around the region would still be sceptical.

'I can understand why, in this circumstance, they wouldn't believe. I can understand that,' he said, insisting: 'I don't say things like that unless I have faith in the source.'

Eyewitness Adnan al-Naqa said that as he entered the hospital, he heard an 'explosion' and 'saw a massive fire.'

'The entire square was on fire. There were bodies everywhere, children, women and elderly people.'
A former top US general has starkly warned that Israel's ground war against Hamas in the Gaza strip could take years to finish and may end up being like 'Mogadishu on steroids.'

David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and the US' top general in both Iraq and Afghanistan, warned that the IDF's current plan of a bombing campaign followed by a major land invasion of the 140 square mile patch of land 'could be Mogadishu on steroids very quickly.'

The warning, made to Politico, referenced the two-day battle between US forces and Somalia National Alliance (SNA) and armed citizens in Somalia's capital city in 1993.

Three US Black Hawk choppers were downed by resistance forces, leading to bloody urban fighting over several hours that ended up being the deadliest single battle fought by US soldiers since the Vietnam War.

Though the US won the battle in the end, 18 American soldiers died, and a further 73 were wounded, while Somali casualties were estimated to be as high as 700.

David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and the US' top general in both Iraq and Afghanistan, (pictured) warned that an offensive campaign may take several years

Israel is currently preparing to storm Gaza, following a series of attacks by Hamas

Patraeus, 70, warned that Hamas may deploy complex and devastating tactics and strategies in its defence of Gaza

Patraeus, 70, warned that Hamas may deploy complex and devastating tactics and strategies that may result in a similarly Pyrrhic victory for Israel.

'If [Hamas] as creative in the defense as they were in that horrific, barbaric, unspeakable attack, then you'll see suicide bombers, you'll see improvised explosive devices, there will be ambushes, booby traps, and the urban setting, again, could not be more challenging.'

He warned that the IDF's proposed offensive may take years to complete: 'It's hard for me to imagine a more difficult setting than this particular one, and I was one who commanded forces in a number of major urban operations.

'You don't win counterinsurgencies in a year or two. They typically take a decade or more, as we saw in Iraq, as we saw in Afghanistan.'

The former top general's comments comes after Israel's troops were reportedly given more freedom to shoot at potential enemies in Gaza, and may have to spend up to 18 months going door-to-door to root out Hamas terrorists.

Palestinians are seen near debris of destroyed buildings after Israeli airstrikes at al-Zahra neighbourhood in Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinians gather around residential buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes in Zahra City on Thursday

Residential buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes are seen in Zahra City on Thursday

Members of the Palestinian civil defence look for survivors in the rubble of a building hit during Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

People gather by the rubble of a destroyed building following Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

The ground troops will include tanks, sappers and commandos, with cover provided by war planes, helicopter gunships, aerial drones and artillery fired from land and sea, The New York Times reported.

They have been given additional training in how to operate in the heavily-bombed areas of Gaza, and have been planning for the expected Hamas ambush and booby traps.

Three Israeli sources told the paper that rules of engagement have been loosened to allow IDF forces to make snap decisions about potential enemies.

Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli diplomat and security adviser to the Israeli government, told the paper that some within Israel's military establishment want troops to go door-to-door for 18 months, flushing out and killing top Hamas leaders.

Relatives of Palestinians killed during an Israeli air strike mourn over their bodies at a hospital in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

People carry the bodies of Palestinians killed during an Israeli air strike outside a hospital in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

A man carries away the body of a person killed in Israeli bombardment after being rescued from the rubble of a building in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip on Thursday

A woman cries as she stands in a heavily damaged house following Israeli bombardment in Rafah on Thursday

The father of Alma Al Majayda, three, holds her body after she was killed in Israeli strikes,

People weep as Palestinian civil defence members and others search for survivors in Khan Yunis

'Others, I think, are far more sober and not talking about demolishing Hamas, but rather depriving Hamas of their ability to threaten us,' said Novik.

Israel's military says it is preparing for the 'next stages of the war' against Hamas, which could include 'strikes from the air, sea and land' with 'significant ground operations.'

The effort involves hundreds of thousands of drafted reservists and will encompass 'a wide range of operational offensive plans,' the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

In addition to the 'combined and coordinated strikes,' the Israeli Ground Forces and the military's logistics leadership are preparing IDF troops for an 'expanded arena of combat,' the statement said.
Sir Keir Starmer has been forced to personally intervene in a growing revolt by leftwing Labour councillors over his support for Israel in its fight against Hamas terrorists.

The party leader has written to local elected politicians setting out his position on the bloody conflict after a string of resignations.

Several councillors representing areas with sizeable Muslim communities have left the party to sit as independents with attacks on what they said were 'horrifying' comments that failed to criticise Israel strongly enough.

Meanwhile there have been threats from other councillors to quit en masse and cede control of councils, with anger over orders not to attend pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the weekend.

Lara Parizotto, a Brazil-born councillor in West London, was the latest to resign last night.

Writing on X she said she had also attended a demonstration 'in solidarity with Palestine' this weekend, after 'Labour councillors were advised not to attend'.

The Cambridge University politics graduate, who is a pro-migrant activist, added: 'My work and values will remain unapologetically pro-migrant, anti-racist, decolonial, and intersectional. At present, I feel unable to stand by my principles as a member of the Labour Party.'

The party leader has written to local elected politicians setting out his position on the bloody conflict after a string of resignations.

Lara Parizotto (above, right), a Brazil-born councillor in West London , was the latest to resign last night. She posted pictures online from a pro-Palestine protest in Liverpool last week.

The Cambridge University politics graduate (pictured above, far right, with Keir Starmer in 2021), said: 'At present, I feel unable to stand by my principles as a member of the Labour Party.'

The issue stemmed from the interview Sir Keir did with LBC Radio on October 11 in which he appeared to say Israel has 'the right' to withhold energy and water from Gaza.

But a Labour spokesman later said there were 'overlapping questions and answers' and Sir Keir was speaking about Israel's right to defend itself, rather than to cut off power and water.

At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Sir Keir said 'medicines, food, fuel and water must get into Gaza immediately' because 'innocent Palestinians need to know that the world is not just simply watching but acting to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe'.

But he distanced himself from a statement signed by 30 Labour MPs, calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, with the spokesman saying Israel had a right to rescue hostages taken by Hamas in its bloody border raid which left 1,300 Israelis dead.

Amna Abdullatif, a councillor in Ardwick in Manchester since 2019, said on Monday she would quit Labour after Sir Keir made 'horrifying comments about Israel having the right to withhold fuel, water, food and electricity from the 2.2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, effectively endorsing a war crime'.

It came after Shaista Aziz and Amar Latif, of Oxford City Council, said they were resigning from Labour for similar reasons.

Lubaba Khalid, a Palestinian photographer who had been a Young Labour BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) officer, said last week that she had handed in her resignation following the LBC interview.

Amna Abdullatif (pictured right in 2020), who sits on Manchester City council, announced on Monday she would sit as an independent on the Labour-dominated authority.

The Labour leader believes it is 'important that people hear directly what our position is', a spokesman said, adding: 'He respects those who are councillors who have communities to represent across the religious spectrum, across people of all faiths and none.

The spokesman said Labour's position had consistently been to 'completely condemn' the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, to say that Israel has 'a right to defend herself, to go and get the hostages back'.

But 'all parties need to act in accordance with international law' and it was 'vitally important' that humanitarian aid reached Gaza.

Councillors had been able to hear directly from the front bench to hear the party's position, the spokesman said, 'not least given how some of these issues can get edited on social media'.

Asked if Sir Keir was happy for councillors who disagreed with his stance to quit the party, the spokesman said: 'I wouldn't characterise it that way at all.

'What I would say is that this is obviously an issue where we know people have strong feelings, and it's for individuals to make their own decisions in these circumstances.

'What we have done is set out clearly what is the Labour front bench position on all of this, that's why we have taken the time to engage with Labour representatives at all levels, to be able to have that conversation.'

Sir Keir's chief of staff, Sue Gray, and shadow foreign secretary David Lammy held urgent talks with council leaders on Monday night amid fears over further pending resignations.

A source in the Labour leader's office confirmed a meeting had been held with elected representatives where 'emotion and strong views' were expressed but said they 'did not recognise' reports it had been 'heated.'

Meanwhile, MPs on Labour's left called for an immediate ceasefire in a parliamentary early day motion.

Former shadow cabinet minister Richard Burgon, secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group, said: 'Preventing the death of any more civilians must be our top priority.

'That means we need an immediate ceasefire. The UN General Secretary has called for this.

'It is crucial that political leaders across the world, including our own, back that call to avoid the loss of any more civilian lives.'
A British Army soldier who disrespected his superior by telling him his rank 'didn't matter' and that they were both 'just soldiers with numbers' has escaped with just a fine.

Lance Corporal Ramon Haywood and his team of seven were given four rooms of accommodation between them while on exercise in Germany, a court martial heard.

As a result, they spread out into more rooms than allocated to make themselves 'comfortable', but as more troops arrived LCpl Haywood then ignored orders to return to the original rooms provided.

The 41-year-old has similar previous convictions, but was warned by the judge any repetition would result in a loss of rank and period in military detention.

After admitting two counts of disrespectful behaviour to a superior officer, LCpl Haywood was fined 1,100 at Bulford Military Court, Wiltshire.

Lance Corporal Ramon Haywood is pictured at Bulford Military Court Court, where he was fined 1,100 for disrespectful behaviour

The 41-year-old soldier told a Warrant Officer that his rank 'Didn't matter' and that they were both 'Just soldiers with numbers'

Major Sarah Gerrard told the court the incident unfolded shortly after their arrival as part of Exercise Cerberus, in Sennelager, Germany.

'[LCpl Haywood] was told by Warrant Officer [Tristan] Russell that he needed to consolidate his team into a lower number of rooms to accommodate for incoming troops.'

However, he refused to do so and was adamant the order instead come from the Company Quarter Master Sergeant (CQMS).

The court heard when WO Russell asked 'who he thought he was' to get the CQMS down to sort an accommodation quarrel, LCpl Haywood asked him the same thing.

WO Russell then rang the CQMS and had him on loudspeaker, before LCpl Haywood walked away while he was still on the phone.

After admitting two counts of disrespectful behaviour to a superior officer, LCpl Haywood was fined 1,100 at Bulford Military Court, Wiltshire

Maj Gerrard added: 'He again refused to move and said his rank didn't matter and they were just soldiers with numbers.'

The court heard LCpl Haywood had previously been convicted of two charges of disrespectful behaviour, dating back to October 2020.

In mitigation, James Ross said LCpl Haywood 'now accepted' he should have followed orders of WO Russell more quickly and his conduct had been 'unacceptable'.

Judge Alistair McGrigor described LCpl Haywood as challenging the orders of a senior non-commissioned officer and 'posturing' in front of his team, adding: 'As a Lance Corporal of five years you would have known it was not your place.

'You must understand such behaviour was inappropriate and had the potential to effect unit cohesion.'

LCpl Haywood was therefore a total of 1,100 and reprimanded.

The judge warned a repetition would likely result in a loss of rank and period in detention.
The former CEO of Tinder canceled a speech at the University of Pennsylvania and labeled the school an 'anti-Semitic cesspool' in a scathing message that was posted on X.

I was supposed to speak at Penn in late November. I'm cancelling,' Ellie Seidman said. 'Penn needs to insure [sic] that it is a safe and hospitable place for Jewish students  not an anti-Semitic cesspool. A change in leadership is necessary at this point,' he added.

His message comes as UPenn officials failed to clamp down on a series of pro-Palestinian protests that took place at the school in the wake of Hamas' brutal assault on Israel that claimed the lives of at least 1,300 people and saw nearly 200 people taken hostage.

It's the latest blow to the college, which this week has seen the loss of major donors including former Utah governor and presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. On Tuesday, David Magerman, who helped build the trading systems of Renaissance Technologies, announced that he was pulling his donations.

Magerman accused the school's leadership of failing to join in Israel's 'fight against evil.'

Former Tinder CEO Elie Seidman speaks during the 2018 Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit, this week he called his alma-mater an 'anti-Semitic cesspool

Seidman was joined in his criticism of UPenn by former US presidential candidate Jon Hunstman

Seidman's message comes as UPenn officials failed to clamp down on a series of pro-Palestinian protests that took place at the school in the wake of Hamas' brutal assault on Israel

His father, Huntsman Sr, donated $50million to the school up until his death in 2018, with Jon saying the foundation will 'close its check book' on future donations

Meanwhile Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan called on the school's president, Liz Magill to resign.

'It took less than two weeks to go from the Palestine Writes Literary Festival on UPenn's campus to the barbaric slaughter and kidnapping of Israelis,' Rowan said.

Seidman agreed with Rowan's sentiments.

'I'm a proud Penn alum grateful for the education I received. And I agree with Scott Rowan of Apollo that President Magill should resign,' he wrote on X.

Before the start of the recent conflict, Seidman had not been active on the platform since March 2022. Since October 7, he has posted 12 times.

Prior to joining Tinder, Seidman was the CEO of dating site OKCupid and was on the board of short-lived interactive trivia game HQ Trivia. He stepped down from Tinder in July 2020.

He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Materials Science in 1997. Since leaving Tinder, Seidman has been with venture capital firm Shine and is the CEO of FastGrowingTrees.com.

This week, Magermann, a Torah-observant Jew accused the leadership of UPenn of failing to join 'Israel's fight against evil', in a letter to President Liz Magill and Chairman Scott Bok.

'I am deeply ashamed of my association with the University of Pennsylvania,' he said. 'I refuse to donate another dollar to Penn.

'There is no action anyone at Penn can take to change that. You have shown me who you are, my only remaining hope is that all self-respecting Jews, and all moral citizens of the world, dissociate themselves from Penn.'

David Magerman, who helped build the trading systems of Renaissance Technologies, has slammed the prestigious university for their response to the conflict

Apollo CEO Marc Rowan has called on those donating to the University of Pennsylvania to pull their funding or send just $1 in protest

College campuses (pictured at Harvard) have become a focal point of hostilities as the nation grapples with the complex conflict in the Middle East

Pro-Israel students take part in a protest at Columbia University in New York City on October 12

Rowan is a graduate of UPenn's Wharton Business School, and donated $50million to Wharton in 2018 along with his wife.

In the letter dated October 15, Magerman took aim at Magill and Bok for what he described as their 'fierce support for the Hamas-affiliated speakers at the Palestine Writes festival.'

Magerman donated $5million to the school in 2012 with his wife, and continued attacking the board by saying: 'Your equivocating statements about the heinous acts of barbarism perpetrated by the same Hamas you allowed these speakers to promote.'

He said their dismissal would be 'wholly inadequate' and accused them of presiding over a 'misguided moral compass' at the school.

University president Magill released a statement when contacted by MailOnline.com about Magerman's letter.

'Alumni are important members of the Penn community. I hear their anger, pain, and frustration and am taking action to make clear that I stand, and Penn stands, emphatically against the terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel and against antisemitism,' her statement read.

'As a University, we support and encourage the free exchange of ideas, along with a commitment to the safety and security of our community and the values we share and work to advance. Penn has a moral responsibility to combat antisemitism and to educate our community to recognize and reject hate in all its forms. I've said we should have communicated faster and more broadly about where we stand, but let there be no doubt that we are steadfast in our beliefs.'

Colleges across the country have put out statements on the war. Many have faced criticism for not going far enough in condemning Hamas' attack, or for failing to condemn civilian deaths in Gaza, or for leaving out context and history from the region.

The Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee and Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine organized a march from from Harvard's main campus in Cambridge to its business school in Boston

As of Saturday the death toll was more than 2,200 in Gaza and over 1,300 on the Israeli side  many of those civilians  and roughly 1,500 Hamas militants killed in the fighting, according to authorities.

Stanford University, for one, has shifted more toward neutrality as events unfolded.

On Monday, officials at the California school said they were 'deeply saddened and horrified by the death and human suffering' in Israel and Gaza and hoped for 'thoughtful opportunities for sharing knowledge' on campus.

In response, dozens of faculty signed a letter demanding 'unambiguous condemnation' of the Hamas attacks.

On Wednesday, Stanford sent an 'update' explaining its position on neutrality. Faculty and students 'should not expect frequent commentary from us in the future,' college officials said.

The letter from interim President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez did note an incident in which a lecturer reportedly singled out Jewish students in an undergraduate class, asked them to stand in a corner and told the room that was what Israel does to the Palestinians. T

The lecturer also reportedly called an Israeli student a colonizer.

The incident is under investigation and the lecturer has been removed, Saller and Martinez said. 'Academic freedom,' they said, 'does not permit identity-based targeting of students.'

At Columbia University, the campus was closed Thursday as a safety measure as hundreds attended dueling pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian rallies.

Some students were angry that a statement from the university president did not go far enough to acknowledge Palestinian deaths.

'Clearly we're all against violence, but we're just asking for the lives of Palestinians to be acknowledged as well,' said Nadia Ali, who demonstrated alongside hundreds of peers. Many were dressed in the green, red and black of the Palestinian flag and wearing medical face masks.

Across the Manhattan campus' main lawn, demonstrators draped themselves in the blue-and-white Israeli flag and held prayer and song circles.

One demonstrator, Yola Ashkenazie, said some Jewish students feel unsafe: 'The rise in anti-Semitism on our campus has been abhorrent.'

A day earlier, a 19-year-old woman was charged with assaulting a student in a dispute over posters bearing the names and images of hostages being held by Hamas.

At Yale University, 'Free Palestine' messages were written in chalk around campus one night. The following night, some students put up posters of Israelis taken hostage with the word 'Kidnapped.'
A British father of two has been confirmed to have been killed by Hamas terrorists during the Kibbutz Beeri atrocity.

Yonatan Rapoport, also known as Yoni, is one of at least seven Britons who was murdered in the October 7 attack.

The Manchester United fan has left behind his daughter Aluma and son Yosefi, who he was planning to take to Old Trafford for his first ever game next month.

Israeli Reds, a football-themed Facebook group Mr Rapoport was an active member of, said: 'The whole family are die-hard fans, and were going to visit Old Trafford in the upcoming game against Luton.

'The whole community embraces you and shares deeply in your sorrow.'

Yonatan (pictured, right) has left behind his two children, Yosefi (left) and Aluma (centre)

Yonatan (left) was a Manchester United Fan, along with his whole family

Yonatan (middle) and his family were set to watch Manchester United play against Luton next month

Yonatan is one of 'at least' seven British nationals who have been killed since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7

Other Britons to have lost their lives include Jake Marlowe, who was killed during Hamas' attack on the Nova festival in the south of Israel, and Nathanel Young, a soldier who was serving in the IDF.

Mr Marlowe's parents revealed he had died in the attack on Nova last week, writing in a Facebook post: 'We are heartbroken to have to inform you the crushing news that our son Jake has been confirmed dead in southern Israel.

'Repatriation plans are being put in to place, more information will follow.'

Jake Marlowe's mother Lisa (pictured with the 26-year-old) revealed his death on Wednesday

His friend Lea S (pictured with Mr Marlowe) told MailOnline that he left the UK two years ago for Israel over anxieties related to the rise of anti-Semitism

Nathanel Young, pictured with his family, was also killed by Hamas while serving with the IDF

Mr Young, 20, grew up in north London before moving to Israel after leaving school

Mr Young's family, meanwhile, said: 'We're heartbroken to share that our little brother Nathanel Young was tragically killed on the Gaza Border yesterday.'

British mother and daughter Lianne and Yahel Sharabi were also killed during the Be'eri massacre.

Hamas terrorists were seen unleashing a hail of bullets into the terrified families who lived in the isolated community of around 1,000 people that lay less than three miles from Israel's border with Gaza.

Chilling video footage showed black-clad gunmen going door-to-door looking for Israeli families to murder in cold blood on the morning of October 7.

The gunmen can be heard shouting orders at each other in the video as they run from house to house, the sickening sound of gunshots filling the morning air.

Four gunmen can be seen approaching one family home before shooting into the windows. One of the terrorists can be seen kicking down the door as a round of five gunshots can be heard in the background in quick succession.

Chilling video has emerged of the moment Hamas terrorists ran towards homes in the Be'eri Kibbutz and unleashed a hail of bullets on the terrified families living there

One of the terrorists can be seen kicking down the door as a round of five gunshots can be heard in the background in quick succession

The video cuts out before the terrorists manage to break down the door, but it was at this kibbutz they ruthlessly shot dead screaming families as they begged for their lives. Israeli soldiers would later find the bodies of 108 Israeli civilians lying riddled with bullet holes in their homes.

The Hamas gunmen also set fire to several homes here in a sick attempt to force the families out so that they could gun them down as soon as they reached their gardens.

Horrific photos too graphic to publish showed how one woman was lying face down in the bed in a pool of blood with six gaping holes in her mottled, decomposing skin.

Next to her, a man with dark hair awkwardly slipped in a gap between the bed and a wall. His black clothes, which appeared to be pyjamas, were still slick with his blood, which pooled in a dark red mess on the floor below him.

His body could be seen decomposing - his face has blackened with boils all over his arms. Chunks of his flesh were missing from his right arm and hand.

Outside, several cars were left flattened, while the bodies of people in everyday clothing can be seen lying in awkward positions.
A couple who spent four weeks ignoring emails from the National Lottery were stunned to discover they had actually won 10,000 a month for the next year.

James Briggs and his wife Sally didn't open the emails from the lottery asking them to get in touch for a month because they were too 'busy'.

Mr Briggs, 42, eventually called the National Lottery because he couldn't believe his luck and was skeptical about the emails.

But the married couple, from Walsall, West Midlands, are now making plans for what they'll spend their 120,000 winnings on.

Mrs Briggs, 40, said she wants a 'she shed' for her arts and crafts, saying 'men have man caves, I want a she shed'.

James Briggs and his wife Sally didn't open the emails from the lottery asking them to get in touch for a month because they were too 'busy'

The married couple, from Walsall, West Midlands, are now making plans for what they'll spend their 120,000 winnings on

Mrs Briggs said she wants a 'she shed', saying 'men have man caves, I want a she shed'

Mr Briggs - who has played National Lottery's Set For Life since it began - said it was only after a fourth email from the lottery asking him to contact them that he finally called up - over a month after his winning numbers were drawn.

The pair said they were still in shock after matching the five main numbers in the 'Set For Life' draw on August 3rd.

James, a senior implementation specialist, said: 'I buy my Set For Life tickets one month in advance via the National Lottery app.

READ MORE - Lucky ticket holder scoops 3.8million National Lottery prize Advertisement

'I received an email about the draw on August 3rd but ignored it as there was so much going on. I was busy with work, including an international trip to a conference.

'Then we had a holiday to Berlin to celebrate Sally's birthday.

'There was home stuff to do, so it was only after seeing the fourth email when we got back from holiday that I actually got around to reading it.

'It was a Sunday night and Sally and I were getting bits and bobs sorted before returning to work the next day.

'I was checking my emails while watching the TV.

'I didn't say anything to Sally but decided I'd call the National Lottery line the next day and see if all these emails were true.

'I called the following morning, still wondering whether it was real but, after chatting to various people and seeing everything on the app it finally dawned on me that it could actually be true.

'Having had the confirmation call with The National Lottery, I messaged Sally at work and said I had some news for her when she got back home.'

Mrs Briggs, a fleet scheduler, said she panicked when she saw the message.

She said: 'I thought there was a problem. I couldn't think of anything else until I got home.

'Then James told me, and I just kept on repeating, 'you what?', I was in total disbelief.'

The 'laid back' couple have been thinking about how they want to spend the cash, but with their parents' advice in mind to 'enjoy yourselves, but wisely.'

Mr Briggs - who has played National Lottery's Set For Life since it began - said it was only after a fourth email from the lottery asking him to contact them that he finally called up

The pair said they were still in shock after matching the five main numbers in the 'Set For Life'

Mr Briggs has more modest aspirations of buying a new front door for their house

They have already paid off their car loan with their first instalment of their winnings while Mrs Briggs has her eye on her own version of a 'man cave'.

Mrs Briggs said: 'I love arts and crafts. I attend a weekly craft club and all my materials are littered across the house.

'If I could have a room to myself, life would be so much easier, and I could be more creative.

'A special place for crafting would be a dream come true. Men have man caves, I want a she shed.'

READ MORE - How you can GUARANTEE a National Lottery win by buying just 27 tickets - but mathematicians say there's a catch Advertisement

Meanwhile, her husband has more modest aspirations of buying a new front door for their house.

He said: 'We need a new front door, and I was gobsmacked by how expensive they are.

'One quote was for nearly 5,000. I did nothing about it because we were so busy and the prices were so dear, but now we can have a nice, bespoke front door.'

But keen to also treat himself, Mr Briggs has bought a watch and wants a new laptop.

The couple are also planning a trip to Vancouver and want to invest in property long term.

Mr and Mrs Briggs met seven years ago while speed dating and said the win couldn't have come at a better time for them.

Mrs Briggs has just celebrated her 40th birthday and the couple have recently had their fourth wedding anniversary.

Mr Briggs added: 'I play Lotto and EuroMillions when there's a big rollover, but I like Set For Life because I feel there's always a good chance of winning and I'm now winning proof of that!'

The winning 'Set For Life' numbers for the draw on Thursday, August 3 were 2, 11, 17, 30 and 38 and the Life Ball 3.

'Set For Life' costs 1.50 to play and offers a top prize of 10,000 a month for 30 years when the five main numbers and the Life Ball are matched.

Players can win 10,000 a month for a whole year by matching the five main numbers.
A pregnant bank worker who was told by her male boss 'you're not the only one with problems' when she asked for extra toilet breaks has won a discrimination case.

Alicja Banks, 26, was told she should 'get used to feeling discomfort' by a Lloyds Bank boss after she went to hospital fearing she would lose her baby, an employment tribunal was told.

And when she was told she couldn't come in as she was experiencing contraction-like pain, a female manager enquired: 'What exactly seems to be wrong?'

The mother sued the High Street giant, claiming she had been forced to quit after being 'patronised' and made to feel guilty for calling in sick when she could not work due to illnesses linked with her pregnancy.

She now looks set to claim compensation from the bank after the tribunal upheld her claims of pregnancy discrimination and constructive dismissal.

Alicja Banks during her pregnancy. An employment tribunal heard her bosses at Lloyds Bank told her to 'get used to discomfort' after she had to go to hospital six months in

Ms Banks quit Lloyds after giving birth to Rosie (pictured above) and lodged a claim with an employment tribunal

The hearing was told that Mrs Banks started working as a customer service adviser (CSA) for Lloyds in Bristol in September 2019.

In April 2020, Mrs Banks - who was 23 at the time - found out she was pregnant and broke the news to her bosses shortly after.

She told the tribunal that she explained to line manager Amar Chudasama how important it was for her health and safety for her to take toilet breaks whenever she needed.

Mr Chudasama, she said, replied: 'You are not the only one with problems...you should hear what I am going through.'

The Bristol tribunal then heard that, at six months, Mrs Banks began experiencing pain that felt like contractions.

She called her other line manager, Joanne King, to let her know she couldn't work.

Ms King then asked her: 'What exactly seems to be wrong?'. The tribunal heard claims that she heavily emphasised the word 'exactly' in her question.

The conversation with her boss left her feeling guilty for being absent and she felt as if the 'significance of her pains were being downplayed', Mrs Banks said.

A day later, she emailed Mr Chudasama to say she had been sent to hospital by doctors as the pain worsened - only to receive a callous response from her boss.

Mr Chudasama replied: 'If it's not an infection and there is nothing wrong with your baby, you should be at work.

'As Joanne said, you should get used to feeling discomfort, because you are pregnant.'

Mrs Banks told the tribunal: 'Amar did not seem interested in my wellbeing, after me explaining what happened in hospital, saying that the baby is doing well and that they seem to think it's just severe cramps and growing pains, but also that I'm still waiting for test results.

'He also said that he is concerned about my absence since I've been calling in sick a lot and that we need to have a discussion about it.

'When I said that I thought pregnancy-related absence is not being taken into consideration, he replied by saying that it's customers' demands he has in mind.'

A few days later Ms King phoned Mrs Banks - who was still off sick - and asked her again 'What actually is wrong with you?' in an allegedly 'patronising' way.

Bosses at Lloyds Bank reportedly phoned Mrs Banks while she was off sick following a trip to hospital to ask: 'What actually is wrong with you?'

Feeling aggrieved and mistreated, the bank worker raised a grievance with bosses, which she said was 'not handled appropriately and was not resolved'.

She went on maternity leave in November, gave birth to daughter Rosie on Christmas Day, and never returned to work - resigning in September 2021 before lodging her tribunal claim.

Upholding her claims of pregnancy discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal, Judge Christa Christensen said Mrs Banks' 'final straw' was when she realised that her grievance was 'never going to be taken seriously and addressed'.

Judge Christensen said: 'Our findings indicate more than a difference in treatment or unfavourable treatment and the fact of the claimant being pregnant.

'The totality of our findings indicate a number of incidents which include that [Lloyds] ignores specific pregnancy requests relating to health and safety, misinformed the claimant regarding how her pregnancy absences should be treated, caused her to fear that there will be negative consequences because of her pregnancy absences.

'We are satisfied from the facts as found, that we could conclude that pregnancy and pregnancy illness indeed form the reason for the treatment.'

A remedy hearing to decide Mrs Banks' compensation will take place at a later date.

Speaking after the decision, she said the tribunal was the 'hardest thing [she] has ever done' and despite her win, has 'mixed feelings' about her claims succeeding.

She said: 'That week, I didn't sleep or eat. It was the most stressful thing I have ever had to go through.

'Pretty much the moment I got pregnant, things started getting nasty at work. It started with small comments and it escalated quickly.'

Mrs Banks said the moment that 'pushed [her] to fight' was when Mr Chudasama told her the pain she was experiencing was 'discomfort'.

She said: 'I thought I was going to lose my child, it was such a horrible thing to go through.

'To be told things like that by a man who has no children - who is he to tell me that?'

Mrs Banks now works in the civil service. Her daughter Rosie will turn three on Christmas Day this year.
A conman has faked having a heart attack to avoid paying the bill.

The man known as Aidas J., a Lithuanian who lives in Spain, scammed 20 restaurants in the city of Alicante before he was jailed.

During his performances, he would fall to the floor and clutch his chest in faked agony.

'It was very theatrical, he pretended to faint and slumped himself down on the floor,' the manager of El Buen Comer, one of the eateries the conman scammed, told the US Sun.

Aidas even requested medical attention for his fake heart problems and was only found out when he tried his skit twice at El Buen Comer.

The man known as Aidas J. (pictured), a Lithuanian who lives in Spain , scammed 20 restaurants in the city of Alicante

Aidas (pictured as he was being arrested) even went as far as requesting medical attention for his fake heart problems and was only found out when he tried his skit twice at El Buen Comer, who called the police

Aidas even requested medical attention for his fake heart problems and was only found out when he tried his skit twice at El Buen Comer (pictured)

Another restaurant worker told Spanish newspaper El Pais: 'He lay down on the floor, acted as if his chest hurt and began to shake.'

As part of his act, Aidas dresses in 'designer clothes', according to local police, and pretends to be a Russian tourist who doesn't speak Spanish.

The manager of El Buen Comer sent Aidas' picture to other restaurants in the area to warn them and stop the conman from 'striking again'.

Another restaurant owner targeted by Aidas said he had ordered several glasses of expensive whiskey, a Russian salad and a main dish like entrecote or lobster before he faked the heart attack.

The scammer has now been jailed for 42 days after he refused two fines he received for his theatrics.

As each bill he skipped was considered a small amount - ranging from 15 to 70 (13-60), Aidas only committed 'minor crimes'.

His crime spree went on for two months, during which he was arrested several times but let go because he only owed a small amount to each restaurant.

But the owners of the scammed restaurants want to file a joint complaint to get the conman locked away for longer.

The dine and dash incidents amount to 766 (666) in combined bills.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog slammed the BBC for what he said was a 'distortion of the facts' over its reporting on Hamas during a meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today.

'We feel that, Ive made it out public, the way the BBC characterises Hamas is a distortion of the facts,' Herzog told the PM, arguing the group should be referred to as 'an atrocious terrorist organisation' rather than 'militants'.

Sunak, who this morning arrived in Israel to 'express solidarity' with the country over Hamas's October 7 attack, responded: 'To your last point, we should call it what it is - an act of terrorism perpetrated by an evil terrorist organisation.'

Last night, Herzog gave an exclusive interview to the Mail in which he piled more pressure on the BBC, declaring: 'The fact that it does not recognise Hamas as a terror organisation requires a complete legal battle and public battle. It's unbelievable.

'What other type of torture do they want before they decide it was a terrorist organisation?'

Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist political group that competes with other rival movements in Palestine and governs more than 2 million people in the Gaza Strip.

But it also has a heavily armed militarised wing known as the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades - the group responsible for the ruthless attacks on Israel that saw some 1,400 people killed, according to authorities.

Hamas is officially designated as a terrorist organisation in the UK, US and the EU.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog slammed the BBC for what he said was a 'distortion of the facts' over its reporting on Hamas during a meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today

Herzog expressed his gratitude to Sunak for 'your support and your decisions and your leadership'

The public broadcaster previously justified its language use in the name of impartiality, adding its job is to explain 'precisely what is happening on the ground so audiences can make their own judgement'.

BBC director of editorial policy David Jordan said not using the word terrorist was a 'very long-standing policy' which had 'stood the test of time'.

He added: 'We've called them massacres, we've called [them] murders, we've called them out for what things are and that doesn't in any way devalue the awfulness of what is going on.'

And BBC veteran foreign correspondent John Simpson defended the coverage claiming 'calling someone a terrorist means you're taking sides'.

In recent days, Israel's official social media accounts have repeatedly called out the BBC for allegedly favourable coverage of Hamas.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister said Herzog has 'not just a right' but a 'duty' to defend his country during their talks today.

Sunak said: 'We will stand with you in solidarity with your people and your right to defend yourself to bring security back to your country, to your people, to ensure the safe return of the hostages that have been taken and I know we will talk further about that later on.'

He added: 'You have not just a right to do that, I think you have a duty to do that, to restore that security to your country.'

A No 10 spokesperson said 'The Prime Minister 'expressed his personal condolences for the horrific loss of life in Israel as a result of Hamas' terrorism'.

'He reiterated that the UK stands in solidarity with Israel and firmly believes in the country's right to self-defence in line with international law,' the spokesman added.

Herzog in return expressed his gratitude to Sunak for 'your support and your decisions and your leadership'.

'We are extremely grateful to you, Prime Minister, for your support and your decisions and your leadership,' he said as the two met in Israel.

However, Sunak also stressed the importance of getting aid to desperate Palestinian civilians after Israel blockaded Gaza amid its incessant bombing campaign of the Strip.

'Palestinians are victims of what Hamas has done and it's important that we continue to provide humanitarian access', the Prime Minister said, adding he was keen to ensure aid reaches 'those who need it'.

His statement comes hours after Israel yesterday opened a border crossing in the south of Gaza, allowing some aid trucks to enter - the first crack in a punishing 11-day siege.

Many among Gaza's 2.3 million residents have cut down to one meal a day and resorted to drinking dirty water.

Palestinians gather at site of Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, October 19, 2023

A Palestinian man cooks and prepares food for displaced people whose homes were destroyed during Israeli raids

A child is recovered from the rubble of a residential building leveled in an Israeli airstrike, in Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, 19 October 2023

Palestinians, who fled their house amid Israeli strikes, shelter at a United Nations-run centre after Israel's call for more than 1 million civilians in northern Gaza to move south, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 18, 2023

Today, Israel continued its brutal bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip.

Even after Israel told Palestinians in the north to evacuate to what it called 'safe zones' in the south, strikes continued overnight throughout the densely populated territory.

A residential building in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter, was among the places hit. Medical personnel at Nasser Hospital said they received at least 12 dead and 40 wounded.

During the Prime Minister's trip to the Middle East, in which he is expected to meet a number of counterparts, No 10 said he plans to press for more aid to be allowed into Gaza and for those 'trapped in the territory' to be allowed to leave the 25-mile area.

He will call for the 'barbaric' acts carried out by Hamas not to 'become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region'.

In parallel with Sunak's travel, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly will visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in the coming days to underscore the UK's message.

A readout of the meeting between Sunak and Herzog offered by Downing Street said: 'The Prime Minister and President Herzog agreed on the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support to ordinary Palestinians in Gaza who are also suffering.

'The Prime Minister welcomed yesterday's announcement that Israel would not stop aid from entering Gaza. He expressed his sincere hope that further progress could be made on delivering crucial food, water and medicine.

'The Prime Minister conveyed his gratitude to President Herzog for the support Israel has provided to British nationals caught up in the attacks, including to the families of those who have been taken hostage. The leaders agreed to continue working tirelessly to secure their release.

'The Prime Minister and President Herzog stressed the imperative need to avoid further escalation of violence in the region. They agreed to continue working together to that end.'
Days after fleeing their homes, people have been told it is still not safe to return as bushfires continue to burn in central Queensland.

North Queensland was also affected by a fast moving blaze, with authorities at one stage on Thursday asking residents near Mareeba to prepare to evacuate.

Firefighters have been battling all week to control a bushfire in central Queensland's Deepwater region near Gladstone that has burned through more than 3,000 hectares since Sunday.

Officers with water-bomber aerial support again worked through the evening, with about 20 crews trying to contain the large blaze that was burning between Oyster Creek Road and Pacific Drive on Thursday night.

Police and SES helped Deepwater residents to safety when they were forced to leave their homes on Tuesday night.

Days after fleeing their homes, people have been told it is still not safe to return as bushfires continue to burn in central Queensland

READ MORE: Man dies in NSW bushfire after out-of-control blaze rips through Temagog A man's body has been discovered after an out-of-control bushfire ripped through his property. Advertisement

With one house destroyed, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) warned on Thursday that it was still not safe for them to return as firefighters continued to battle the blaze.

Miriam Vale Community Centre and Rosedale Hotel have been opened as refuges for people in need of shelter.

'As quickly as possible, as soon as it is safe we will open it up for people to come home,' Paul Storrs of the QFES told reporters.

In north Queensland, a prepare to leave warning was issued to residents at Granite Creek near Mareeba but has since been cancelled after conditions eased, QFES said.

In the past 24 hours crews have battled 54 fires across the state.

The Bureau of Meteorology said challenging conditions still lay ahead.

There is currently a high fire danger rating for much of central and western Queensland, with no cool change in sight.

'Heading into the weekend we are expecting a warming trend almost state-wide,' a bureau spokesperson told AAP.

'That will start to raise those fire dangers. It will still be quite challenging firefighting conditions this weekend.'

With one house destroyed, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services warned it was still not safe for people to return as firefighters continued to battle the blaze. QFES vehicles pictured

Warming trends are set to continue through to early next week.

While central Queensland will be heating up, it won't be the worst-hit area.

The bureau said southern inland towns Charleville, Roma, Goondiwindi and St George looked set to cop the most significant temperatures.

'By the middle of next week we are looking at maximum temperatures rising to about 40 degrees for those locations and that's about 10 degrees above average,' the bureau said.
A woman whose German Shepherd savaged a postman's arm before biting his buttocks leaving him needing surgery has avoided jail - but her vicious dog will be put down.

The Royal Mail employee was left with post-traumatic stress disorder and took five months off work due to his injuries following a bloodied attack by Adele Cassidy's unmuzzled pet pooch, Ellie.

Cassidy, 57, of Paddock Lane, Lymm, Cheshire, was previously ordered to keep the out-of-control hound in a cage after a previous attack in 2020 when she charged at a social worker visiting her home and caused injuries to her back and arm.

The postie had been on his round delivering the dog owner's letters in a postbox at the end of the drive when the barking hound wriggled underneath a wire mesh fence and launched herself at him. She sunk her teeth into his arm before attacking him again and biting his buttocks.

Cassidy appeared at Minshull Street Crown Court yesterday where she admitted one count of being an owner in charge of a dog dangerously out of control causing injury.

Judge Bernadette Baxter told her she was 'not a fit and proper person to look after a dog' and sentenced her to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years. Her dog, Ellie, was made the subject of a destruction order.

Adele Cassidy, 57, of Lymm, Cheshire, has avoided jail after her German Shepherd, Ellie, savagely attacked a postman which caused him serious injuries to his hand

The court heard the postman of 21 years was frozen with fear and screamed out in pain when he was mauled by the crazed hound on August 5 last year.

Hayley Bennett, prosecuting, said: 'The dog began nuzzling and pushing its way along the fence, and quickly managed to get under the wire mesh and jumped at him with its mouth open,' Hayley Bennett, prosecuting, said.

'He had no time to react, and described being frozen in fear. He raised his hands and arms in self defence, and the dog clamped its mouth around his arm and hand. It then bit his left arm before biting him from behind on the buttock.'

Cassidy and her son failed to restrain the German Shepherd before she pounced again and gnashed at his buttocks.

The postman fell to grass feeling faint before he managed to get to his feet and scarper back to his van and drive back to his post office in Altrincham.

His rushed to hospital in his bloodied shirt and shorts where he was treated for serious injuries to his hand, which has only regained 70 percent full strength a year on from the brutal attack.

In a statement, he said: 'In my job I have been nipped by a dog before and class it as an occupational hazard. However, never in my 21 years have I been subject to such a vicious attack.

'What would have happened if it had done the same thing to a small child?'

Ms Bennett said he was unable to lift anything for a while and is undergoing counselling for PTSD.

Cassidy had a previous conviction for the same offence dating back to 2021, involving the same dog, and was given a contingent destruction order. It detailed strict conditions including to keep the dog in a secure cage and to undergo animal training.

She failed to do both, breaching the order, the court heard, with Cassidy saying she couldn't afford to pay for the training.

Cassidy was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, and banned from keeping a dog for three years. Her dog, Ellie, was made the subject of a destruction order

Representing herself, Cassidy said she had bought a 'high quality' cage with a roof and lock mechanism but on the day of the attack she was in a rush and it hadn't locked properly.

Cassidy said that at the time she was under 'a lot of pressures', including financial difficulties, issues with her mental health and was working three jobs to make sure her house 'did not get repossessed'.

Asked by the judge why she didn't get rid of the dog when facing financial problems, she said she had 'always had a dog'. 'I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't go out - to have a dog helps with my stress levels and anxiety,' she explained.

'Why didn't you get rid of the dog?' Judge Baxter asked again.

'She was the only thing holding me together,' Cassidy said, before breaking down in tears. She added that she owns another German Shepherd, and admitted that it was a 'horrendous situation'.

'I'm just sorry, sorry for the whole incident. It was as much of a shock to me as it was to him,' she concluded.

Sentencing, Judge Baxter said the dog had 'savagely' attacking the postman.

'Photographs show multiple unpleasant bites all over his body,' she said.

She added: 'If you did not follow this [contingent destruction order] as a responsible and conscientious dog owner, you should have got rid of the dog.

'This was not an unfortunate set of circumstances, it was as a result of your lack of care towards this order. You are not a fit and proper person to look after a dog.'

Cassidy was also ordered to complete 25 days of rehabilitation activity requirements and banned from keeping a dog for three years.
A bottle of the world's most expensive whisky could fetch up to 1.2 million at auction next month.

The Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 was one of only 12 bottles produced in 1986 by the Speyside distillery featuring a label by Italian pop artist Adami.

It's drawn from the Macallan's legendary cask number 263 - in recent years bottles from this cask have broken the 1 million barrier and set a series of world record prices at auction.

The rare bottle, which has undergone tests for authenticity, will go under the hammer at Sotheby's in London on November 18 and is estimated to be sold for 750,000 to 1.2 million.

The Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 was one of only 12 bottles produced in 1986 by the Speyside distillery featuring a label by Italian pop artist Adami

Drawn from the Macallan's legendary cask number 263, in recent years bottles from the cask have broken the 1 million barrier

The rare bottle, which has undergone tests for authenticity, will go under the hammer at Sotheby's in London on November 18 and is estimated to be sold for 750,000 to 1.2 million

The Macallan 1926 has long been recognised as the most sought-after Scotch whisky.

Aged in sherry casks for 60 years, just 40 bottles of The Macallan 1926 were bottled in 1986, at the time representing the oldest Macallan vintage ever produced.

Originally bottled to offer as corporate gifts to the distillery's most valued customers, the whisky has since become recognised as 'the world's rarest and most valuable whisky'.

The current world auction record for any bottle of wine or spirit was set in 2019 when a bottle from the same cask, with the distillery's iconic Fine and Rare label, was sold at Sotheby's for 1,452,000.

Next month's sale will mark the first time one of the 40 bottles has come to auction at Sotheby's since the current record was set.

Jonny Fowle, Sotheby's Global Head of Spirits, described it as 'the most desirable bottle of whisky ever to come to the market'.

The Macallan 1926 has long been recognised as the most sought-after Scotch whisky

Next month's sale will mark the first time one of the 40 bottles has come to auction at Sotheby's since the current record was set

The record-breaking bottles from the Macallan's cask #263 1987 A Guinness record was set for 'The World's Most Expensive Spirit', when a bottle was sold in New York for 5,000. 1991 A Sir Peter Blake labelled bottle sold in Glasgow for 6375 1996 A Valerio Adami labelled bottle sold in London for 12,000 2007 A Fine & Rare labelled bottle at Christies in New York sold for 45,293 2018 Five bottles were sold, breaking the world record price three times: In March a Sir Peter Blake labelled bottle at Bonhams in Edinburgh for 615,062 In May a Sir Peter Blake labelled bottle at Bonhams in Hong Kong for 816,983 In May a Valerio Adami labelled bottle at Bonhams in Hong Kong for 886,112 In October a Valerio Adami labelled bottle at Bonhams in Edinburgh 848,750 In November the Michael Dillon labelled bottle sold at Christie's in London for 1,200,000 2019 In March a Sir Peter Blake labelled bottle at Bonhams in Edinburgh for 615,062 In October, a Fine & Rare labelled bottle at Sotheby's sold for 1,452,000 (hammer price 1.2m) 2020 A Valerio Adami labelled bottle was sold online by Whisky Auctioneer for 924,000 (hammer 825,000) -- the first Scotch ever to break $1 million in an online sale. 2021 A Fine & Rare labelled bottle was sold online by Whisky Auctioneers for a hammer price of 1 million. Advertisement

It is distinguished further by the fact that it is the first bottle to have undergone reconditioning by The Macallan Distillery ahead of being presented at auction, making it 'the foundation for all other 1926 bottles that may undergo testing in the future'.

This process involved replacing both the capsule and the cork, applying new glue to the corners of the bottle labels and taking a 1ml liquid sample to test against another 1926 bottle at the Edrington offices in Glasgow.

In order to recondition the capsule, a sample swatch of the old capsule was used as a material match by a producer in Austria to recreate an identical replacement matching the original.

Mr Fowle said: 'The Macallan 1926 is the one whisky that every auctioneer wants to sell and every collector wants to own.

'I am extremely excited to bring a bottle to a Sotheby's auction for the first time since we set the record for this vintage four years ago.

'Working alongside our friends at The Macallan Distillery to recondition and perform clinical analysis on this bottle and liquid has elevated it to an unparalleled status.

'Now, as the bedrock for all Macallan 1926 authenticity and with its condition approved by master distiller Kirsten Campbell, this must surely be the most desirable bottle of whisky ever to come to the market.'

The Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 was produced in 1986, and elegantly presented in a specially commissioned cabinet or Tantalus, based on the traditional 'Brass and Glass' distillery spirit safe.

The Speyside distillery commissioned world-famous Italian pop artist Adami to design the label for 12 bottles, with fellow artist Peter Blake designing another label for a further dozen.

A maximum of 14 bottles were decorated with the distillery's iconic Fine and Rare labels, and two bottles were released with no labels at all, one of which was hand painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon. When sold in 2018, it became the first bottle of whisky to surpass 1 million.

It is not known how many of them still exist. One is said to have been destroyed in an earthquake in Japan in 2011, and at least one is said to have been opened and consumed. The remaining unlabelled bottle is unaccounted for.

Valerio Adami, born in 1935, is an Italian artist famous for painting bold, flat forms outlined in thick, black lines, in a style reminiscent of comic art. He was recommended to The Macallan by their Italian agent, Armando Giovinetti.
A British man has been charged with raping a female friend of his son at a Magaluf hotel, and faces up to nine years in prison if convicted.

The 43-year-old's lawyers failed to strike a plea bargain deal with state prosecutors at a court in Majorca on Thursday.

The hearing in the island capital Palma ended with a trial date being set for February next year over the alleged sex attack in May.

The suspect, who has not yet been named by the police or court officials ahead of his trial, was held at Palma Airport after 'packing his bags and trying to return to the UK hours afterwards.'

The British woman, thought to be aged around 20, told detectives she was forced to have sex after spending the last night of her holiday in the same room as her friend and his dad because she was due to return to the UK hours later and had already checked out of her own room.

The older man, who has not yet been named, allegedly tried fleeing Magaluf, but was stopped by police at the airport

The older man was said to have surprised her in the middle of the night after 'taking advantage' of the fact she had consumed a large amount of alcohol and was fast asleep on a sofa bed, despite her then waking up and begging him to stop.

Reports at the time said the dad's son was still out partying.

Police were alerted after she fled the unnamed hotel and raised the alarm at a Civil Guard office near to the Punta Ballena party strip in Magaluf in the early hours of May 9 this year.

Majorcan daily Ultima Hora said officers took a statement from her before going to the hotel and finding the man they were looking for had already checked out.

He was arrested at his flight boarding gate, having allegedly brought his holiday to a premature end by rescheduling his return days before he was originally due to leave by buying a new ticket home.

An investigating magistrate ordered his remand in jail after he was hauled to court for questioning during a closed session, in which the alleged victim gave her version of events.

He is believed to have been held in prison since his arrest in May.

As well as a nine-year prison sentence if convicted as charged, state prosecutors also want the accused rapist hauled to court today to pay his alleged victim 8,700 in compensation, should he be found guilty of the sex crime.

The party resorts of Magaluf and S'Arenal, east of the island's capital, have been rocked this summer by several alleged sex attacks involving foreign tourists including gang rapes.

The party resorts of Magaluf and S'Arenal have been rocked by a series of sex assault scandals

Five French people and one Swiss man were arrested for allegedly raping a British teenager at a Magaluf hotel

Two more suspected were held in France on European Arrest Warrants for allegedly taking part in the gang rape

A British 18-year-old was allegedly gang-raped at a hotel in Magaluf in the early hours of August 14.

Five French nationals and a Swiss man were arrested and remanded in jail pending an ongoing judicial investigation, while a further two suspects were subsequently held in France on European Arrest Warrants.

Earlier this week it emerged badly-behaved British tourists face being banned from the Balearic Islands under controversial new proposals being studied by regional government chiefs.

The islands' Head of Tourism Jaume Bauza confirmed on Monday that holidaymakers who break strict rules brought in to crack down on anti-social visitors could be blacklisted.

A drunken tourism decree was agreed at the start of 2020 for certain areas like Magaluf in Majorca and the West End of San Antonio in neighbouring Ibiza.

It included fines of up to 50,000 for holidaymakers caught leaping off their hotel balconies, and limits on the amount of alcohol served with meals at all-inclusive hotels.
A four-year-old boy playing in his grandmother's backyard on Wednesday afternoon was fatally mauled by a dog, according to Detroit police.

The attack transpired shortly before 3pm on the west side of the city, said officer Dan Donkowski.

'We're not sure if it's one or two dogs, but Animal Control has two dogs in custody,' he said.

'Its believed that the dogs belonged to a neighbor behind where the victim lived, but as far as how it happened, were unsure at this time.'

The dogs are believed to be pit bulls or pit bull mixes.

According to CBS Detroit, the boy - LaVel Anderson - had been playing in his backyard with one or both of the dogs when he was attached. The dog is believed to have entered the scene from a neighborhood behind the boy's house.

The Anderson family who lost a four-year-old boy to a pit bull attack in Detroit

The 9300 block of Pierson Street, Detroit, where the fatal pit bull attack occurred

At one point, the child was reportedly dragged under a small gap in the fence. The adult who was home at the time of the attack attempted to pull the child back from under the fence.

The child was pronounced dead at the scene by Emergency Medical Service workers.

Two of his aunts at the scene later called the little boy, 'full of life' and a 'gentleman,' they also said he was an only child.

Police Commander Arnold Williams told media at the scene of the tragic incident: 'we're trying to do everything that we can just to help everybody through this.'

'The loss of a child who hasn't really started their life ifs just something huge that nobody can really even fathom.

'The reminds everybody, if you do have a dog to secure your dog to make sure your dog can't get out. That's the most important thing,' he said.

He added that the department is providing support for the family: 'For a mauling like this, the child was in his own backyard pretty much doing what all kids do. So again, our support goes out to the family.'

Neighbors in the area say the attack was so horrible, they could hear it from across the street.

The family has retained an attorney.

The horrifying incident was at least the second fatal dog attack in Detroit in the last few months.

'The loss of a child who hasn't really started their life ifs just something huge that nobody can really even fathom,' said Police Commander Arnold Williams

Family members of the four-year-old gathered to mourn Wednesday evening

Pit bulls attacking, often fatally, residents of southwest Detroit is something city officials have promised to crack down on

In April, the body of a 58-year-old man who had been killed by multiple pit bulls was found in a building in southwest Detroit.

Two months later in June, a Wayne County jury found a Detroit resident not guilty of second-degree murder and other charges after his three dogs mauled-to-death nine-year-old Emma Hernandez as she rode her bike down Central Street in August 2019.

Following the young girl's death, inhabitants of southwest Detroit called for a crackdown on vicious, stray pit bills roaming around the neighborhood. City officials promised to address the problem.

In 2021, Detroit was ranked 10th - tied with San Diego - for most attacks on postal employees.
The Government's independent counter-extremism adviser has blamed a 'failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism' for the growth of anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment in the UK.

Robin Simcox, the Home Office's commissioner for countering extremism, said there was a 'permissive environment' for attacks on and criticism of Jews.

Writing in the Times he said many Hamas supporters were 'successfully exploiting one of our proudest British values - free expression - to pursue a shameful extremist agenda'.

'The UK is one of the world's most successful multiethnic democracies but that success relies on a basic level of integration,' he added.

'We cannot continue to permit vast numbers of people to come to the UK and tell them they do not need to integrate, that they can maintain certain values and ideas that are at odds with British values.'

But his comments, which came ahead of a speech today, were criticised by Security Minister Tom Tugendhat, who told Times Radio: 'No, I don't agree with that. I think that the United Kingdom is a country and an environment in which we take all threats to any communities extremely seriously.

Robin Simcox, the Home Office 's commissioner for countering extremism, said there was a 'permissive environment' for attacks on and criticism of Jews.

Writing in the Times he said protesters were 'successfully exploiting one of our proudest British values - free expression - to pursue a shameful extremist agenda'.

But his comments, which came ahead of a speech today, were criticised by Security Minister Tom Tugendhat, who told Times Radio: 'No, I don't agree with that. I think that the United Kingdom is a country and an environment in which we take all threats to any communities extremely seriously.'

'You just have to look at the response over the last 10 days - the way the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I and many others have been reaching out to the Jewish community, making sure policing is appropriate... to give reassurance.

'The way in which we've been engaging as well with the Muslim community, some of whom are feeling also vulnerable at this time, feeling stigmatised.'

The minister also emphasised the right to freedom of expression as 'absolutely fundamental' to democracy.

He drew a distinction between 'perfectly legitimate' support for Palestine and promotion of Hamas, a proscribed terror group in the UK, which he said should result in arrests.

'This country champions freedom of speech and it's absolutely right that we do because freedom of speech is... the basis in fact of every other liberty,' he said.

'I'm not going to be apologetic about freedom of speech... but I will stand up and say very clearly that proscribed organisations seeking to spread terror or hate in our community should be prevented from doing so and those who champion them should be arrested.'

The minister also disputed the suggestion that multiculturalism has failed, describing the UK as having 'phenomenal success in bringing people together'.

'I have to say I live in a multicultural home. My wife is French, we speak French and English at home.

'Many people speak different languages at home, identify with different cultures, and are able to mix all of them extremely effectively.'
A married Army Sergeant raped a colleague on an army base after spending all day drinking at a barracks mini-festival called 'Camp Messtival', a military court has heard.

Sgt Michael Ball, a 37-year-old father-of-two, spent the day and evening at the event - a parody of the well-known Camp Bestival - at Dalton Barracks in Abingdon before heading to an after-party in the junior officers' mess, something that was strictly forbidden.

A Military Court, sitting in Catterick, has heard how the decorated sergeant had been very drunk when he targeted a female corporal at the after party in July last year.

The complainant, aged in her twenties, who cannot be named, told the court how Ball 'had been acting weird' on the night of the attack.

While he had spent the afternoon and evening drinking she had been working and hadn't attended the event and didn't get back to the barracks until 3am.

Sgt Michael Ball, 37, is accused of raping a colleague at his army base in Dalton Barracks, Abingon, after he attended a mini-festival called 'Camp Messtival'

When she did encounter Sgt Ball at this point, she said, he had been so drunk he had 'been sick' in front of her and other junior ranking officers at an impromptu party in her room.

The court heard that the Sgt had been so intoxicated he had been sent to 'sleep it off' in a room next door only to repeatedly emerge to try and get back into the after party.

The court heard that in the early hours at around the time of the incident, another officer who had not attended the party had seen Sgt Ball outside the female corporal's room with his shirt off and banging on her door, apparently attempting to gain entry, after returning from the room where they had tried to get him to sleep.

It was alleged Sgt Ball then 'pretended' to fall asleep in the corporal's room and when the other attendees of the after party had all left, at around 9am, he got up and attempted to have sex with her against her will.

The married father-of-two told the Military Court he thought his female colleague was sexually interested in him as she signed a previous text message with an 'X'

Breaking down in tears as she gave her evidence, she described how she had tried to protect herself from Sgt Ball and fought him off but that 'he was twice my size' so she had not been able to stop him.

She said she had telephoned her partner and then her mother immediately following the attack in distress.

The married father told the Military Court that he thought his alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been interested in him sexually because she had previously signed a text message to him with an 'X' and that he 'thought she had a crush on him.'

He said he had returned to the area around her room to look for the woman after he heard that Military Police were looking for him regarding an allegation of rape.

When questioned, Sgt Ball told the military panel that he had returned to the scene because he 'panicked' and was 'afraid'.

A junior officer stationed on the door to protect the crime scene told the court how Sgt Ball was 'angry and agitated' and demanded to know where the complainant was before barging past him and entering the room to look for her.

Defending Sgt Ball, Matthew Bolt told the complainant that this was a case 'of buyer remorse' and that Ball, from Ormskirk, Lancashire, is a 'decorated officer'.

The trial continues.
Rishi Sunak arrived in Saudi Arabia tonight as he tours the Middle East amid the Israel crisis.

The PM is set for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, having kicked off a flurry of diplomatic activity with a visit to Tel Aviv this morning.

There had been hopes that Saudi and Israel were on the verge of normalising relations before the Hamas attacks.

Mr Sunak trod a careful line at a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu this morning, strongly backing Israel's right to respond to the atrocities committed on October 7.

But he also welcomed news that humanitarian aid will be allowed into Gaza, announced following Joe Biden's visit yesterday. Mr Sunak underlined that Israel's actions needed to stay within international law and the 'precautions' it was taking to minimise civilian casualties.

Saudi is a key power player in the Middle East, but the inclusion of the stop on Mr Sunak's whistlestop tour is likely to be controversial.

Rishi Sunak, left, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia held bilateral talks at the G20 Summit Bali last November

Mr Sunak trod a careful line at a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu this morning, strongly backing Israel's right to respond to the atrocities committed on October 7

An Israeli soldier sifts the wreckage at the Kibbutz Beeri, the place where 270 revellers were killed by militants during the Supernova music festival on October 7

There have been signs the government is attempting to repair relations after 'MBS' was frozen out by the West following the alleged assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on 2 October 2018.

Mr Sunak extended an invite to the Crown Prince to visit the UK when they met at the G20 in Indonesia last year, although there are no firm dates yet.

'MBS' was previously accused of ordering the assassination of the Washington Post and Middle East Eye writer Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, but denied involvement.

He insists rogue agents were behind the attack.

Khashoggi was a prominent writer and edited the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Watan, making it a progressive channel for Saudis.

He went into self-imposed exile in 2017 and fled the country, before going on to write articles highly critical of the regime - including the crown prince.

On 2 October 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate to collect marriage documents but was never seen to leave the building.

Reports emerged claiming he had been dismembered inside. The Saudi government initially denied his death, until Saudi Arabia's Attorney General concluded he had been murdered.

The CIA determined that MBS had ordered the journalist's assassination, flaring tensions between East and West and inviting calls to sever diplomatic ties.
A man who was wanted for failing to attend court was arrested by armed police as he sat on a British Airways plane which had just landed at Heathrow.

MailOnline has been given exclusive pictures showing officers escorting the 28-year-old man off the flight and taking him away in a marked police van.

Shocked passengers watched as the drama unfolded and were left fearful that the man might have been a suspected terrorist.

But the Metropolitan Police said he was arrested for failing to attend Wood Green magistrates court in north London on a charge which was 'not terror-related'.

A spokesperson for the Met confirmed that he had been charged with drugs offences.

The incident happened within minutes of the plane touching down just before 3pm on Tuesday after a flight from Stuttgart, Germany.

Shocked passengers feared it may have been terror-related, but the Metropolitan Police has confirmed the 28-year-old man was arrested for failing to attend court

The man was taken from the British Airways after the plane and into a police van on the runway after the aircraft landed at London Heathrow

A traveller who was sitting in Business Class said: 'There was no kerfuffle or an indication that anything was wrong on the flight.

'We had just landed and were taxiing to the terminal when the plane came to a halt and all the passengers were told to stay in their seats.

'We were stuck there for five or ten minutes, and I thought we were just waiting for an aerobridge to be connected, but all of a sudden five armed police came on the plane.

'One officer who had a hard helmet and what looked like a camera on it stayed by the cockpit while the other four walked down the aisle.

'They then quickly escorted this man off the plane. It was done in seconds.

'He seemed quite relaxed as he walked off with two officers in front of him and two at the back. The officers all had handguns in holsters, but did not draw them.

'Afterwards I looked through the window and saw him being put in a police van.

'Nobody knew what was going on and it did pass through my mind that it might have been something to do with terrorism.

'I had seen the man at Stuttgart airport before he got on the plane and there was nothing suspicious or unusual about him.

'There was no explanation about what was happening, but I overheard the head steward talking to woman passenger who I think was an ex-member of BA staff.

'I think he said something like, "We were only notified mid-flight".'

He added that he had never experienced a situation like it before although he had previously had officers on board to assist with deportations.

The incident happened within minutes of the plane touching down after a flight from Stuttgart, Germany. Passengers were able to leave the plane after the man was taken off

'Once the man was off, everyone was allowed to leave the plane and got on buses back to the terminal.

'Security at Heathrow certainly seemed enhanced as we were passing through. I don't know whether that was because of the situation in the Middle East.'

The Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: 'At around 3pm on Tuesday 17 October, police arrested a 28-year-old man on board a flight that landed at Heathrow Airport, after a bench warrant was issued by Wood Green Magistrates' Court after he had failed to appear in court. This is not terror-related.'

The spokesperson was unable to give further details about the charges faced by the man, other than confirming that they were drug offences and that he had been taken before the court.

A British Airways spokesperson refused to comment, saying: 'I've checked with our teams here and they've advised that it wasn't a BA-related issue.'
Citi has fired one of its personal bankers after she defended Hitler and the holocaust in a vile anti-Semitic post following the Hamas terror attacks.

CUNY Brooklyn College graduate Nozima Husainova, 25, sparked outrage with the remark which she posted on her now-deleted Instagram page and she's since lost her job, the bank confirmed Thursday.

Responding to a post about the Gaza hospital bombing that Israel has denied, she wrote: 'No wonder why Hitler wanted to get rid of them all,' complete with a smiley face emoji.

A spokesman for Citi branded Husainova's comments as 'revolting' and said hate speech would not be tolerated in their bank.

'We terminated the employment of the person who made the revolting antisemitic comment on social media. We condemn antisemitism and all hate speech and do not tolerate it in our bank,' a spokesman told DailyMail.com.

Citi personal banker Nozima Husainova has now deleted her Linked in profile

Husainova's comment on Instagram sympathizing with Hitler led to calls for her job

Customers were accusing the bank of tolerating 'unbridled anti-Semitism' among its staff and warning that it faces a boycott.

'Hey Citi, does your commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion include nazis?' wrote Daniel S Levy on X, formerly Twitter.

'What does it say about Citi,' asked Marian Kruss.

'This is NOT inclusiveness and your organization needs to fire her.'

'Where can I send a complaint about one of your employees, Nozima Husainova, praising Hitler's extermination of Jews?' asked Lenny Luchese.

'Or does Citi condone her words? Vile and despicable.'

'We are investigating this matter and taking appropriate disciplinary action, We strongly condemn antisemitism and other hate speech,' the bank said in a tweet.

Husainova majored in finance in June 2021 after five years at the college in New York's Bedford Avenue.

Her now-deleted LinkedIn profile suggests she is in her second year with the Wall Street bank whose parent company Citigroup employs 240,000 people across the world.

Personal bankers earn an average of $72,056 at Citi in the US according to Salary.com and the bank describes their role as 'to foster relations with customers to build loyalty and to help increase sales to individual consumer clients'.

The outrage comes after a host of senior CEOs warned they would not employ students who had blamed Israel for the Hamas terror attack that took 1,400 lives.

And one of America's most prestigious law firms rescinded job offers on Tuesday for three students who put the blame on Israel in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks.

Davis Polk reversed employment offers to those the company reportedly believed led organizations at Harvard and Columbia universities that issued statements blaming Israel for the violence.

The firm added that it would re-evaluate the decision for two of the students, who appealed the verdict and claimed they did not authorize the letters, which were unsigned.

The banker's now deleted Instagram page illustrates the glamorous lifestyle of the young Brooklynite

'We are investigating this matter and taking appropriate disciplinary action, We strongly condemn antisemitism and other hate speech,' the bank said in a tweet.

Davis Polk, which did not identify the students, said in a statement: 'The views expressed in certain of the statements signed by law school student organizations in recent days are in direct contravention of our firm's value system.'

The company added that it will 'continue to maintain a supportive and inclusive work environment', and said that 'the student leaders responsible for signing on to these statements are no longer welcome in our firm.'

In an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, Davis Polk managing partner and chair Neil Barr insisted the company does not wish to employ any supporters of the Hamas attacks.

The move also reportedly spurred a large number of law students who were set to be employed by Davis Polk to reach out to the company to say that they did not support the statements, according to Davis Polk spokeswoman Katie Moss.
A teaching assistant is standing trial at Cardiff Crown Court accused of punching a pupil with autism in the face.

Sian Brain, 59, allegedly hit the child with a clenched fist during a physical confrontation at the school leaving a bruise.

The woman from Caerphilly Wales, who has been a special needs teaching assistant for over 20 years, denies the charges against her and said she was acting self-defence after the child punched her in the face first.

The court heard that on the day of the alleged assault the child arrived at school in an upset and anxious state, and staff had to use de-escalation and distraction techniques with the child to calm them down.

However their behaviour became so challenging, they had to be removed from the classroom for the pupil's own safety and taken to the 'calming room'.

It was here that the alleged assault took place.

Sian Brain, 59, is standing trial at Cardiff Crown Court accused of punching a pupil with autism in the face

CCTV caught the incident which the prosecution argued showed Brian punch the child 'with a clenched fist' and in so doing had used 'unlawful force' on the child.

Brian, in her own defence said she had 'just wanted to create space and distance' between the pair after the child hit her in the face, but accepted that what she did, 'did not resemble' any approved manoeuvre or technique as set down in the guidance.

She said: 'I tried my best. It was messy, sloppy. It went wrong. There was never any intention.'

Brain allegedly hit the child with a clenched fist during a physical confrontation at the school leaving a bruise, however she denies all charges

A former colleague of Brian's Hashim Salmman, described working with children with special educational needs as rewarding but 'extremely challenging'.

She described Brian as 'part of the fabric of the school' and confirmed the child had been verbally and physically aggressive to her on the day in question.

Brian said it had always been her dream to work with children, but denied punching the child or trying to make contact with them.

She was sorry the child had been injured but reaffirmed that she had done nothing wrong in the situation.

The trial is ongoing.
The remaining members of the University of Pennsylvania's Board of Trustees are 'unanimously' standing behind embattled President Liz Magill as she fights for her job amid an uproar about how the school has handled antisemitism on campus.

In a letter sent to Penn alumni Thursday morning, the President of the Penn Alumni Association Michael Barrett - who is also a member of the board - issued a statement of unequivocal support for President Magill.

'As a Trustee, I have witnessed firsthand Lizs steadiness and focus, even in the face of the most personal type of attacks these past weeks, and she has been, in a word, inspiring,' wrote Barrett, the Head of Strategy, Innovation and Global Transformation for Wells Fargo Bank, Corporate & Investment Banking.

'The Board of Trustees unanimously shares this sentiment, and we reaffirmed our confidence in the President when we gathered for an update this past weekend.'

The 'unanimous' statement of support comes in the wake former University of Pennsylvania trustee Vahan Gureghian calling for the resignation of Magill several days after he resigned his board position because of what he believes has been an insufficient response from the school to the rising trend of antisemitism.

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Gureghian, a successful lawyer, entrepreneur, and charter school magnate, described Magill as 'negligent and not really up to the job of being the president of one of the eight or so most elite universities in the world.'

Embattled Penn President Liz Magill received the 'unanimous' support of the Board of Trustees as she receives media and alumni scrutiny for her handling of antisemitism on campus

The letter to alumni was signed by Michael Barrett, the Head of Strategy, Innovation and Global Transformation for Wells Fargo Bank, Corporate & Investment Banking, who sits on the board of trustees

A large and growing list of high-profile donors - many of them alumni of Penn - have pulled funding from the school in response to Magill's failure to appropriately address and condemn the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, held at the school in September, prior to the Palestinian terror attacks on Israel.

The festival - held on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar - featured a lineup of well-known antisemites.

In the wake of Hamas' barbaric campaign, donors' and some trustees have expressed increased displeasure and disappointment with the school's insufficient handling of antisemitism on campus.

Gureghian served as a non-elected trustee to Penn's board. He was appointed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2009.

In his resignation, Gureghian cited the 13million citizens of Pennsylvania whom he represented on the board. 'I can no longer report back to these constituents that UPenn is acting in their best interest,' he said.

'Like so many elite academic institutions, the leadership of UPenn has failed us through an embrace of antisemitism, a failure to stand for justice, and complete negligence in the defense of its own students' well being,' he added.

As a trustee, Gureghian was one of the few people in charge of ultimately approving Magill to become Penn's ninth president last year.

'Its a gigantic operation. Some people arent up for that job. Maybe we picked the wrong person. Maybe its time for her to go. I think it is,' he told CNN.

He said he's not sure that Scott Bok, the chairman of the board, should keep his post either.

Vahan Gureghian resigned his board position last week over the school's handling of antisemitism on campus

Penn is rapidly losing high-profile donors in the wake of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival and President Liz Magill's response to the recent terror attacks in Israel

The Palestine Writes Literature Festival - held on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar - featured a lineup of well-known antisemites.

Magill, continuing to fight for her job, issued a third statement on Wednesday to the Penn community.

The statement warned that hate speech and violence are not tolerated at Penn amid demonstrations of support for Israel and the Palestinians.

'I am also responsible, as the President of this University, for ensuring the safety and security of our entire community while also safeguarding our ability to carry out our academic mission,' she wrote.

'In this tragic moment, we must respect the pain of our classmates and colleagues and recognize that our speech and actions have the power to both harm and heal our community. We must choose healing, resisting those who would divide us and instead respect and care for one another,' she wrote.

On Sunday, after a handful of donors had begun to pull out their commitments to the university, Magill issued a statement condemning Hamas and writing that Penn 'stands, emphatically against antisemitism.'

At a University Council meeting on Wednesday, Magill addressed before students, faculty and administrators, the plight of Palestinian students on campus.

'I know that many in our Palestinian community feel especially unseen, and that their pain and grief has not been acknowledged,' she said. 'I acknowledge, and we must acknowledge and support all members of the community, including Palestinian students and faculty and staff, and we will do better.'

It is unclear how the university will move forward as it publicly loses the support of megadonors left and right.

Some of the most prominent financial backers of the school who have publicly divested in recent days include, Apollo CEO Marc Rowan, who resigned from his position as the chairman of the Board of Advisors of Wharton, encouraged donors to close their checkbooks until President Magill is replaced.

Apollo CEO Marc Rowan, who resigned from his position as the chairman of the Board of Advisors of Wharton, encouraged donors to close their checkbooks until President Magill is replaced

Former US Ambassador Jon Huntsman, who graduated from Penn in 1987, also publicly halted his family's significant donations to the university

US diplomat and former Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman - whose family has also historically funded the Hunstman international studies program at Wharton - also announced that his family will no longer donate to the school.

David Magerman, who helped build the trading systems of Renaissance Technologies, excoriated his alma mater, saying that he was pulling funding permanently from the institution.

'I am deeply ashamed of my association with the University of Pennsylvania,' he said. 'I refuse to donate another dollar to Penn.'

'There is no action anyone at Penn can take to change that. You have shown me who you are, my only remaining hope is that all self-respecting Jews, and all moral citizens of the world, dissociate themselves from Penn.'

Adding an extra gut punch, Magerman wrote to Magill: 'Marc Rowan has called for your firing as a response to your failures in leadership, but I feel your firing is unnecessary, because it is wholly inadequate. If in fact the University of Pennsylvania as an institution has such a misguided moral compass that it can fail to recognize evil when it is staring us all in the face, I don't think replacing you will accomplish anything.'
Police are on the hunt for a 39-year-old man suspected of pushing a woman into the side of a moving subway train - leaving her in critical condition and needing surgery.

Police have yet to release the name of the 30-year-old victim, who was seen being wheeled out of the 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue subway station in Manhattan after the attack just after midday on Wednesday.

Apparently unprovoked, the attack happened on the southbound platform of the E/F train and a male suspect Sabir Jones - seen fleeing the scene in surveillance video - is being sought.

Jones was homeless and battling psychosis in New Jersey as of two years ago - and police said Wednesday he is well-known to the department, citing several priors.

In a statement Thursday, cops told DailyMail.com that there have been 'no arrests and their investigation remains ongoing.' Cops wouldn't say if the suspect was suffering from mental ill health during the attack, but MTA boss Janno Lieber issued a plea for better support in the aftermath.

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Apparently unprovoked, it happened on the southbound platform of the E/F train, and the male suspect - six-foot Sabir Jones, seen fleeing the scene in security video - is now being sought

Police have yet to release the name of the 30-year-old victim, who was seen being wheeled out of the 53rd Street and 5th Avenue subway station in Manhattan after the Wednesday attack

'We need for them to get treatment and out of the public space,' Lieber said, shortly after cops aired their belief that the woman was either on her way to or from work when she was suddenly shoved.

'I'm not a mental health professional,' the subway CEO went on, 'but I'm sure that the people who are, have to figure out how to get these people out of the public space and into treatment so that they get in better condition for themselves.'

He quickly added: 'And more importantly, for New Yorkers, who are just trying to live their lives.'

He concluded: 'When ambitious young people who are just trying to live their lives are subject to random attacks, we can't put up with it.'

The incident is the latest black mark for the city's embattled subway system, which has been notoriously marred by violence in the years since the pandemic.

Moreover, this year alone, 15 people have been pushed onto the subway's tracks - an increasingly common occurrence that at this point last year, was measured at 22 people.

The strikes were, for the most part, unprovoked - as looked to be the case Wednesday, according to a statement from NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper several hours after the woman was pushed.

In it, the top cop revealed the victim was in critical condition and 'fighting for her life' after having just undergone life-saving surgery.

After sustaining an unspecified head injury, she remained in critical condition Thursday, cops confirmed - not revealing whether she conscious.

Cops on Wednesday said Jones is well known to the department - with priors including criminal sexual contact and the assault of a police officer

The woman sustained an unspecified head injury after being shoved by Jones as a train departed the platform before falling onto the tracks. She was saved by several Good Samaritans, cops said in a press conference at the station later in the afternoon

Cops wouldn't say if the suspect is mentally ill, but MTA boss Janno Lieber (pictured in August) used the incident to for better mental health services

Standing in front of a cordoned off turnstile Wednesday afternoon, NYPD Transit Chief Michael Kemper described how the incident unfolded - before revealing how Jones was already 'well-known' to the department

The attack disrupted train service at the subway station throughout the evening, with cops remaining at the scene well after the woman was retrieved from the tracks and hospitalized

Standing in front of a cordoned off turnstile Wednesday afternoon, Kemper said: 'As the train was pulling out of the station she was pushed, causing her head to strike the moving train.

'The train departed the station, then she fell onto the roadbed onto the track.

'Fortunately, there are eyewitnesses and good Samaritans who were on that platform who helped her back off the roadbed [and] onto the platform,' Kemper went on to reveal.

'911 was immediately called, EMS responded and they moved her to [Weill] Cornell hospital for head trauma.'

'We developed a person of interest almost immediately based off video surveillance, and that person of interest turned into probable cause where hes wanted,' he further disclaimed.

He named the suspect as Jones, describing him as 'known to the department' after a December resisting-arrest charge in Brooklyn.

Court records show a litany of other offenses in Newark, where in March 2021 a then-homeless Jones was reported missing, said to be battling both psychosis and depression.

'We developed a person of interest almost immediately based off video surveillance, and that person of interest turned into probable cause where hes wanted,' Kemper said

He named the suspect as Jones, who he said is wanted over December resisting-arrest charge in Brooklyn. Court records show a litany of other offenses in Newark, where in March 2021 a then-homeless Jones was reported missing, said to be battling both psychosis and depression

He named the suspect as Jones, describing him as 'known to the department' after a December resisting-arrest charge in Brooklyn

The incident is the latest black mark for the city's embattled subway system, which has been notoriously marred by violence in the years since the pandemic.

Moreover, this year alone, 15 people have been pushed onto the subway's tracks - an increasingly common occurrence that at this point last year, was measured at 22 people

As for the incident in Brooklyn, Kemper said Jones was asked to leave a subway station after police saw him riding between cars, but refused and fought with cops.

This time, though, he was able to flee the location on foot, with security video showing him exiting the turnstiles at West 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue - where train service remained disrupted well into the evening.

'Im confident he will be in custody in short order,' Kemper said.

Lieber, meanwhile, used the opportunity to tout how crime on the city's transit system has reduced this year compared to previous, while conceding the recent incident was a setback

'The past year we have made tremendous progress on subway crime, crime is 9% down where it was the past year before COVID,' he said, citing publicly available statistics.

'New Yorkers put up with a lot, what they cant put up with is people randomly coming up to them, which appears to be the case here, and attacking them.'

As of 11am Thursday, cops told DailyMail.com their search was still ongoing. They did not offer any leads into Jones' whereabouts when asked. The woman, still hospitalized, has yet to be named.

Police also did not specify whether Jones was suffering a mental episode when he allegedly carried out the attack. Sources who spoke to The New York Post told the paper they saw the man mumbling before pushing the woman into the train.

Cops' search, meanwhile, continues. DailyMail.com has asked for updates to their investigation as it unfolds.
Top universities across the country have received over $8 billion from Arab countries, with Cornell University receiving over $1.5 billion in donations

Top American Ivy League universities including Cornell and Harvard have received over $8 billion in the last 35 years from Arab countries, a report has revealed.

According to a report by the Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, Cornell University received over $1.5 billion from the Middle East.

The report, authored by Dr. Mitchell Bard, was originally released in 2021 and showed how the Ivy League school received 127 gifts totaling $1,513,778,660.

This comes amid pro-Palestinian protests at some top American universities - despite attitudes towards Israel among Arab nations changing dramatically - culminating in the Abraham Accords in 2020.

Pro-Israel students take part in a protest in support of Israel amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, at Columbia University in New York City

According to the findings, Arab states have managed to funnel money into institutions in at least 46 states.

Cornell topped the list of these, with over double the amount of money received than the second highest recipient, Georgetown University.

Saudi Arabia has donated over $2 billion, while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had donations totaling over $1 billion.

Other top universities who accepted the donations include Harvard University, who received $187 million and New York University who received $162 million.

In the report, Bard states: 'Between 1986 and 2021, colleges and universities received nearly $8.5 billion from Arab sources.

The report also notes that since 1976, governments in the Middle East and individuals have been providing Universities with grants to create centers in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies.

Supporters of Palestine gather in Harvard Yard to show their support for Palestinians in Gaza at a rally in Cambridge

While Johns Hopkins received an undisclosed amount from the UAE to build a hospital that opened in 2012.

The school was then given $50 million by the UAE to create the Sheikh Khalifa Stroke Institute to help stroke patients, with sites in Baltimore and the UAE.

The report also said that Stanford, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Texas all entered agreements with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology worth $25 million.

Bard also states in his report that $3.4 billion has went unreported by Universities in the country.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, at the end of 2021 the value of endowments given to colleges and universities stood at $927 Billion, an increase of 34 percent than the beginning of the year when it stood at $691 Billion.

The New York times said in a previous report that by funding Universities, Saudi Arabia 'gets access to the brain trust of America's top academic institutions as it endeavors to modernize its economy.'

The outlet also said: 'Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, hostile to womens and LGBTQ rights and without protections for a free press or open expression, but its associations beyond its borders can make it seem almost like an honorary Western nation.'

Supporters of Palestine gather at Harvard University to show their support for Palestinians in Gaza at a rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 2023

With the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, top universities have seen widespread protests take place.

Harvard University is currently facing a backlash after 31 of its student societies issued a statement 'holding the Israeli regime responsible' for the war.

Subsequent protests have kicked off at the University, with a group of 150 people appearing at Cambridge City Hall with placards and Palestinian flags.

One was seen stamping on a US flag as he slammed the 'brutal treatment of Palestinians since 1948'.

Israeli supporters then appeared on the scene, having brought an amplifier along and berated the protesters as terrorists and cowards.

Students at the elite school have since had their own future thrown into doubt after a host of blue chip CEOs declared them unemployable.

The CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management said he has been approached by a number of CEOs about the students who had agreed to the statement.

Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, said days later the statement does not speak for the educational institution as a whole or its leadership.

Her comments came after some criticized the Harvard administration for taking too long to denounce the student letter.

At Cornell University, students have been calling on the school's board to take action against a professor who said the Hamas assault on Israel 'exhilarated him'.

Russell Rickford is an associate professor of history and, according to his Twitter bio, a 'Historian of the black radical tradition.'

At a crowd that rallied in support of Palestine, he said: 'It was exhilarating. It was exhilarating, it was energizing.

'And if they weren't exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, the shifting of the violence of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated.'

Two students have since come forward and expressed disgust at the remarks made by the professor.

Rickford has not tweeted since June and neither he nor Cornell have responded to requests for comment.
A woman has been covered in more than 100 bedbug bites after a trip to Benidorm.

Natalie Brown, 28, was left covered in bedbug bites after she spent three days on a 203 holiday in the Spanish holiday destination with her friends.

The paralegal from Birmingham was staying at a flat in Benidorm when she noticed a bite on her arm after the first night she slept on the sofa bed. Over the next two days she accumulated more bites that left her with itchy skin.

When she returned to the UK and the itchy bites worsened day by day, Ms Brown saw her GP, who said she had never seen that many bites on a patient.

Ms Brown said: 'The doctor said it's one of the worst cases of bed bug bites she had seen. They were all over my body, and the most were on my legs.'

Natalie Brown (pictured), 28, was left covered in bedbug bites after she spent three days on a 203 holiday in the Spanish holiday destination with her friends

When she returned to the UK and the itchy bites worsened day by day, Ms Brown saw her GP, who said she had never seen that many bites on a patient (pictured: the bites on her leg and arm)

Ms Brown said: 'The doctor said it's one of the worst cases of bed bug bites she had seen. They were all over my body, and the most were on my legs'

Her reaction to the bites was so severe, Ms Brown required a course of antibiotics to clear her inflamed and itchy skin.

'My bites were incredibly itchy, they were sore, I couldn't show my legs and arm for around six months until the bites and scars went down,' she said.

'It knocked my confidence and I was embarrassed to tell people, because they were all on one side of my face.

'I had to tell work that I wouldn't be able to come into the office until those bites had reduced. I also didn't want to put my camera on for everyone to see.'

Ms Brown realised she had been bitten on the first night she slept on the sofa bed, but because she had nowhere else to sleep she had to endure the infestation there for a total of three days.

She said:'I stayed in a flat on a sofa bed on holiday in Benidorm, I was the only person staying on this sofa bed, my friends had normal beds and they didn't get bitten.

'After the first night I saw a bite on my arm, then I saw a bug on the sofa bed but my friend thought it was a beetle at first so we didn't think about it.

'But then the second night I got more bites and saw another couple of bugs on the bed.

'Sadly there was no other place to sleep so I had to manage for three days on this sofa bed.'

Her reaction to the bites was so severe, Ms Brown required a course of antibiotics to clear her inflamed and itchy skin

'My bites were incredibly itchy, they were sore, I couldn't show my legs and arm for around six months until the bites and scars went down,' Ms Brown (pictured) said

The paralegal from Birmingham was staying at a rented flat when she noticed a bite on her arm after the first night she slept on the sofa bed (pictured)

Ms Brown realised she had been bitten on the first night she slept on the sofa bed, but because she had nowhere else to sleep she had to endure the infestation there for a total of three days

Ms Brown explained that the bed bug bites were initially small and got bigger over time: 'The bites originally were quite small but they got a lot worse since coming home.

'My friends didn't think the bites were that bad when they were fresh, but then in the following weeks they got bigger and lots of people were shocked by the amount of bites on me, especially the ones on my face.

'People said they felt itchy just looking at them and commented that they looked very sore.'

She said this experience has made her extremely conscious of staying in new beds.

'It's made me extremely conscious of staying in new beds and I always inspect the bed before getting in', she added.

Ms Brown explained that the bed bug bites were initially small and got bigger over time: 'The bites originally were quite small but they got a lot worse since coming home'

Ms Brown said some people didn't believe that she could've been bitten by bed bugs: 'One friend said she thought they were mythical, like the saying "don't let the bedbugs bite", she thought it was not a real thing that could happen.

'Another friend thought that they were microscopic and couldn't cause that many bites.

'Another person said they'd be checking their beds from now on as they had never thought it would be as bad as I had it.

'Travelling is a big hobby of mine and I try to visit as many places as I can, but this was the first time I got bitten by bed bugs, I hadn't even seen them before.'

Ms Brown shared her advice for those who have the unfortunate experience of bed bug bites.

'Use anti-itch and anti-scar products, and wash all your clothes on hot washes and dryer cycles', she said.

'Check your luggage too, bed bugs can stay there. I hoovered everything and kept my luggage outside until I had done my checks.

'Contact a doctor and get antihistamines, hydrocortisone cream and if required antibiotics. I had to take antibiotics because I had a reaction to the bites.

'It caused so much itching and scarring, my legs were the worst and I couldn't show them in public until they went.'
Jurors in Maine couldn't reach a unanimous decision about a 'pedophile' who allegedly used a Build-A-Bear box to trick a seven-year-old girl into touching his genitals.

Jonathan M. Michaud, 30, went to court on Monday to face two counts of unlawful sexual contact for allegedly coercing a little girl into touching his penis.

The man from Augusta, Maine, was accused of committing sickening acts of sexual contact in 2018 and 2019 by a little girl who was seven and eight at the time.

One alleged instance involved Michaud using a Build-A-Bear toy box to play a disturbing guessing game with the little girl - where he asked her to touch a mystery item in the box and guess what it was, but in a gross twist the item was his genitals.

A mistrial for the alleged pedophile's case was declared on Wednesday after each of the 12 jurors independently said the jury was deadlocked because one of them would not budge in their stance, the Press Herald reported.

Jonathan M. Michaud, 30, went to court on Monday to face two counts of unlawful sexual contact for allegedly coercing a little girl into touching his penis. The man from Augusta, Maine, was accused of committing sickening acts of sexual contact in 2018 and 2019 by a little girl who was seven and eight at the time (pictured: Jonathan M. Michaud)

A mistrial for the alleged pedophile's case was declared on Wednesday after each of the 12 jurors independently said the jury was deadlocked because one of them would not budge in their stance (pictured: Michaud with his lawyer Scott Hess)

Assistant District Attorney Michael Madigan kicked off the trial on Monday with an opening statement that detailed Michaud's sick games.

'Jon played whats in the box?' There were two stuffed animals in there, but there was something else in the box as well. Jon would not let her see. He said, You have to guess whats in the box,'' Madigan told jurors at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta.

Another example of the Michaud's accused misconducts was reported by the little girl who said he tickled her feet with his hands at first, but then with something else that allegedly felt like skin.

The creepy tickling allegedly happened while the seven-year old was counting a litter of kittens beneath her bed. The suspect was said to have a foot fetish.

In his closing statement Madigan said he had heard two clear statements from the young girl about what had happened. He also heard testimony from witnesses, including the girl's mother.

Investigators found a single sperm cell that matched Michaud's DNA on the outside of the girl's Build-A-Bear box.

Madigan presented the evidence - which backed up the girl's claims. He said she 'described a Build-A-Bear box, her Build-A-Bear box, which just so happens to have (Michauds) sperm on it.

'Why would an 8-year-old describe the box randomly then, lo and behold, coincidentally, theres Jons sperm on it? Thats not reasonable doubt. Thats not even close.'

Michaud's lawyer Scott Hess said that inaccurate assumptions were made about what had occurred between Michaud and his alleged victim after he supposedly tickled her feet with something other than his hands.

One alleged instance involved Michaud using a Build-A-Bear toy box to play a disturbing guessing game with the little girl - where he asked her to touch a mystery item in the box and guess what it was, but in a gross twist the item was his genitals (pictured: a Build-A-Bear box, like the one used by Michaud)

Hess said that the only evidence was the sperm that police investigators found on the Build-A-Bear box.

Hess argued that the sperm cell could have gotten on the child's toy box in some other way, and suggested that the sperm somehow transferred to the box after he was intimate with his wife or when it was sitting around the house.

He said: 'There was one single sperm found on the outside of this box. I anticipate the state is going to rely heavily on that. There is more to the story than that.'

Michaud's lawyer showed jurors the Build-A-Bear box in court. It was decorated like a house and had two holes opposite each other on both sides, which is how Michaud would have carried out his alleged guessing game.

Superior Court Justice Julia Lipez ultimately called a mistrial after receiving a note from jurors claiming that one member was sticking to their stance and it would be impossible to reach the unanimous decision necessary for jury verdicts. Lipez scheduled the case for docket call on November 1.

Hess requested for Michaud's cash bail requirements to be waived because he had turned up to court when requested.

He argued that Michaud should be excused from cash bail 'especially given the length of time it has taken to get to this point, and there has been a mistrial and well be doing this again.'

Assistant District Attorney Michael Madigan waived some of the bail conditions, but maintained that cash bail was appropriate.

Lipez set cash bail at $1,000 and upheld the decision to prevent Michaud from having contact with children under the age of 12.

The two charges Michaud faces are Class B offenses which could put him in prison for up to 10 years.

The alleged victim has not been publicly identified to protect her.
A Moroccan man allegedly stabbed a pensioner to death in the street in an attack 'motivated by terrorism' that took place near a migrant hostel, a court heard today.

Ahmed Alid, 44, allegedly plunged a large knife into 70-year-old Terrence Carney after he used a cashpoint machine in Tees Street, Hartlepool, on Sunday October 15.

He had also allegedly been fighting with his housemate Javed Nouri at around 5.15am on the same day before stabbing him multiple times outside a house in Wharton Terrace, which housed four asylum seekers, the court heard.

Alid was charged with murdering Mr Carney, who died after being stabbed in the chest and neck, and attempting to murder Mr Nouri, who suffered non life-threatening injuries and remains in hospital.

He appeared at the Old Bailey today via video-link from HMP Frankland with his hands cuffed behind his back surrounded by four prison guards wearing stab vests and helmets.

Moroccan killer Ahmed Alid (pictured in a courtroom sketch), 44, stabbed 70-year-old Terrence Carney to death in the street in an attack 'motivated by terrorism', a court heard today

Alid's housemate Javed Nouri told police that he had also been stabbed during another incident on the same day outside a house in Wharton Terrace (pictured), which housed four asylum seekers

Alid was charged with murder and attempted murder following an investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North East and Cleveland Police.

Assisted by an Arabic interpreter, bearded Alid, lent forward and rested his head on the desk before he was pulled up by the guards.

Prosecutor Ben Lloyd said: 'The offending took place in the early hours of 15 October and just after 4.45am the police received a report of an ongoing fight at a house at Wharton Terrace in Hartlepool.

'There were reports of lots of shouting, screaming and males fighting with a knife.

'Police attended the address and found that Javid Nouri had sustained stab wounds to his chest, legs and mouth and he explained that he'd been stabbed by his housemate, this defendant, who then left the address with a knife.

'Police searched the local area and discovered a second victim on a nearby street.

'That individual had suffered stab wounds, first aid was administered but he sadly died at the scene. He was identified as Mr Terrence Carney.

'The defendant was located nearby in possession of a large knife which was stained in blood and the defendant had blood on his clothing and injuries to his hands.

'Although the investigation is ongoing police at this time consider the offending to have been motivated by terrorism.'

Alid, of Wharton Terrace, Hartlepool, is charged with murder and attempted murder.

The scene on Wharton Terrace in Hartlepool following the incident where a police cordon was put in place

Judge Richard Marks, KC, the Common Serjeant of London, remanded him in custody until 27 October.

Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East said: 'We are satisfied that this was an isolated incident and are not seeking anyone else in connection with this matter.

'We are grateful for the support and understanding of the local community during this investigation, which has caused understandable concern among local people.'

Deputy Chief Constable Victoria Fuller from Cleveland Police said: 'I am extremely proud of the bravery of the attending officers, that enabled the incident to be dealt with swiftly.

'Our thoughts remain with the family of Mr Carney, and the second man involved in Sunday's incident.'
New York Governor Kathy Hochul's father, 87, has died while she's been touring Israel, where the death toll continues to rise as the brutal war rages on.

Hochul's father, John Courtney, passed away from a brain hemorrhage in Florida on Wednesday night prompting the Democrat to dress in all black while visiting the Western Wall.

While there, Hochul wrote an emotional tribute to her father, while also praying for the victims of Hamas' horrific attacks.

'I pray for my father, who cherished his visit to this Holy Land, and who passed during the night,' Hochul's handwritten message read in part, the New York Post reported.

In a post to X (formerly Twitter), Hochul added: 'As I stood at the Western Wall today, I prayed for the victims of Hamas's horrific attacks, their families, and all the innocent civilians lost as a result.

'I believe the arc of the universe bends towards justice. We pray for a peaceful future.'

New York Governor Kathy Hochul's (right) father, 87, John Courtney (left), has died while she's been touring Israel, where the death toll continues to rise, as the brutal war rages on

While there, Hochul (pictured) wrote an emotional tribute to her father, while also praying for the victims of Hamas ' horrific attacks

Courtney had previously visited Israel and had encouraged his daughter to do the same.

Hochul arrived in Israel on Wednesday in a show of support, after Hamas unleashed a savage and deadly attack on the country on October 7.

Posting a picture to X as she touched down in Tel Aviv, she described the special bond between New York and Israel.

'I've just touched down in Tel Aviv. New York and Israel share a special bond, and I'm proud to be here to show our solidarity with the Israeli people following Hamas's abhorrent acts of terror,' she wrote.

The New York Governor then met with the United States ambassador of Israel, Michael Herzog, before sitting down with families of hostages and victims in the community of Kfar Aza.

On Thursday, Hochul met with President of Israel Isaac Herzog to say that 'New York stands in solidarity with the Israeli people' before making her trip to the Western Wall.

The Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall or Buraq Wall, is located in the Old City of Jerusalem and forms part of a larger retaining wall of the hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount.

After penning the somber letter, Hochul, in accordance to tradition, tucked her letter into a crack in the ancient wall.

Courtney (left) had previously visited Israel and had encouraged his daughter (right) to do the same

Hochul met with the United States ambassador of Israel, Michael Herzog, before sitting down with families of hostages and victims in the community of Kfar Aza (pictured)

Hochul arrived in Israel on Wednesday in a show of support, after Hamas unleashed a savage and deadly attack on the country on October 7

'As I stand at this holy site, I pray that the arc of the universe bend toward justice, and may God continue to protect us and guide us to a peaceful, violence-free future,' the governor wrote.

'I pray for the victims of the Hamas attack on Israel, their families and all the innocent civilians lost as a result,' the note continued. 'I pray for my father, who cherished his visit to this Holy Land, and who passed during the night.'

Hochul's emotional tribute comes after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israelis to brace themselves for the days ahead.

'We are embarking on a long and difficult war that was forced on us by a murderous Hamas attack,' he said in a statement earlier this month.

On Oct. 7 Hamas militants stormed into Israel, and Israel vowed to destroy the militant group.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said that 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,500 others have been wounded.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed and an estimated 206 have been captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza.

Israel has agreed to allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip while more than 1 million Palestinians have fled homes after Israel told them to evacuate.

Israeli airstrikes early Thursday continued across the entire territory, including in areas that Israel had declared as 'safe zones.'

A day after President Joe Biden said Israel had agreed to allow aid to Gaza the focus pivoted on Thursday as Israel prepared a possible invasion.

Gazans have become increasingly desperate as a 'complete siege' on the enclave continues as dwindling resources threaten disaster for its more than two million residents.

Rockets fly over destroyed buildings following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City, central Gaza Strip, Thursday

Palestinians, who fled their houses amid Israeli strikes, were seen sitting in tents at shelters at a United Nations-run centre

Biden swept into wartime Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that produced a heaping dose of vocal support, he's seen during a refueling stop in Germany speaking to reporters after the visit

Biden swept into wartime Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that produced a heaping dose of vocal support.

'I understand, many Americans understand,' Biden said as he wrapped up his stay in Tel Aviv, likening the Oct. 7 Hamas assault to the attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people.

'You can't look at what has happened here... and not scream out for justice.'

'But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States and while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.'

The President is expected to deliver a speech Thursday about the war in Ukraine and terror attacks in Israel as his administration prepare to call on Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars in military aid for the embattled nations.

The address will mark the second time Biden has delivered formal remarks from the Oval Office since becoming president.

He's expected to address the American response to the two struggling nations and its threat to the democratic stability of the globe.
Comedian Sarah Silverman says she made a 'mistake' after sharing a post slamming those calling Israel 'inhumane' for cutting off water and electricity to Gaza.

Silverman, who is Jewish, triggered an onslaught of criticism on social media after re-sharing a post to her Instagram story.

It read: 'PSA: There is a very strange thing happening. Many are saying that it's inhumane that Israel is cutting off water/electricity to Gaza. Israel made it pretty simple - "release the hostages and we will turn it back on".

'Instead of pleading with Hamas to release CIVILIAN hostages which include BABIES and TODDLERS there are politicians (cough couch AOC) calling Israel inhumane.

'If that isn't enough for you: ISRAEL DOES NOT NEED TO SUPPLY GAZA WITH THESE RESOURCES (which they do, for FREE).

'If Hamas didn't spend billions of dollars on terrorism they would be able to build the infrastructure to support themselves.'

Actress and comic Sarah Silverman re-shared and quickly deleted a post on her Instagram story

The post slammed those who called Israel 'inhumane' for cutting off water and electricity to Gaza, reading, in part: 'If Hamas didn't spend billions of dollars on terrorism they would be able to build the infrastructure to support themselves'

The comic later admitted on Twitter that she'd taken the post down, calling it a 'mistake to post in the stoned fury of wondering where the hostages are'

Silverman uploaded the post to her Instagram, but its presence there was short-lived, with her moving to delete it after kicking off fierce debate online.

Screengrabs began to circulate on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, where Silverman's name is trending Thursday.

In response to one post condemning her for supporting the stance, Silverman wrote: 'Oh f**k yeah I took that down I put it in stories from someone, realized it was a mistake to post in the stoned fury of wondering where the hostages are in all this madness.'

Following her admission, the stand-up comic continued to be flooded with comments from users calling the post 'genocidal.'

'Sarah Silverman is justifying a million children being deprived of water - which Israel gives them for FREE. Israel has systematically over decades denied Palestine access to its own water sources. From the land stolen from them,' one person wrote.

Another user called her 'insane' and added: 'When your argument hinges on maybe the occupying force has a good reason to turn off water to women and children" then its time to reassess the status of your brain.'

Others called Silverman 'racist' while referring to a photo of the comedian in blackface - the picture, posted in 2010, is one that Silverman has since apologized for, calling it 'totally racist out of context.'

One more opined: 'Weve officially reached the "they actually dont deserve water and electricity" moment in mainstream discourse' - a statement which has garnered almost 80,000 likes at the time of publishing.

The message was deemed 'homicidal' and users on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, labeled Silverman 'racist' and 'insane'

Silverman kept up another post on her story urging people to demand Hamas send the Israeli hostages home

While the comedian has remained staunchly pro-Israel, she has referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a 'criminal' and lamented the loss of life on both sides

When news of the Hamas attack broke, Silverman expressed her support for her family in Israel and condemned the militant group in a post on X.

But some of her updates have enraged supporters of Israel.

This includes a post from October 12, where Silverman wrote: 'Israel only shoots at military targets, but they KNOW they keep those targets in populated areas - so the question is: Why are military targets more important than human life??

'Why retaliate like this? Just more murder more bodies more hate. My heart bleeds for all the innocent people killed.'

This time she was slammed by people calling her 'Jew-hating.'

'Its self defence (sic),' wrote one X user. 'What would you do if you lived in Israel?'

'Very comfy sitting in the lap of luxury in the US and giving military advice to Israel after it just suffered the worst war crime since the holocaust,' another said.

Before she was slammed for promoting 'hateful' language in the Instagram post, Silverman retweeted a message from the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

It read: 'Social media has become a new front in modern warfare: it amplifies vile rhetoric dehumanizing people & spreads disinformation. Its both a weapon for propagandists & a business focused on profiting.

'But online hate fuels offline violence - and the victims are innocent people.'

Days before Silverman herself was criticized for the rhetoric shared in the post, she retweeted a message from the Center for Countering Digital Hate

The comedian has previously described herself as 'agnostic Jewish'

She withdrew from the Democratic Socialists of America after the organization posted a message in support of Palestine

Silverman has previously described herself as 'Jewish agnostic.'

During a 2012 appearance with her sister, a former rabbi, the comedian-slash-actress said: 'I don't have religion personally, but I'm Jewish in that it's in my bones.'

Silverman has argued for more Jewish representation in media, particularly when it comes to Jewish women playing Jewish characters.

'In a time when the importance of representation is seen as so essential and so front and center, why does ours constantly get breached even today in the thick of it?' she said in 2021.

The Saturday Night Live star recently announced her departure from the Democratic Socialists of America after the organization expressed its support of Palestine.

'The DSA of which I was a proud lifetime member, has lost me forever,' Silverman wrote on Instagram.

'Over 1000 slaughtered as of now. Girls raped over the bodies of their friends. These are kids, babies, children, teens, elderly, many of whom like my family march in the streets nightly protesting Netanyahu and the occupation THATS WHO HAMAS MURDERED you F***S.

Knowing Israel will retaliate - do you get that they dont give a FUCK about Palestinian lives?????'

The Israel-Hamas conflict has entered its thirteenth day. Pictured: a Palestinian refugee camp

The death toll on the Israeli and Palestinian sides has reached 1,400 and 3,478, respectively. Pictured: charred belongings in the kibbutz Nir Oz along the border with the Gaza Strip

Israel initially imposed a total blockade on Gaza, cutting off access to food, water and fuel. Pictured: a plume of smoke rises following an artillery strike within Gaza on October 19

Israel recently agreed to allow aid into Gaza through Egypt. Pictured: tents of volunteers from humanitarian aid organizations camping outside the border gate between Egypt and Gaza

The Israel-Hamas conflict has raged for 13 days in the Middle East.

There have been more than 1,400 recorded casualties on the Israeli side, while the Palestinian toll has risen to 3,478.

The Israel Defense Forces, the national military of the state of Israel, is supported by a budget of around $23.4 billion.

Hamas is heavily dependent on foreign funding, and the extent of its military budget is not clear, according to a report in Newsweek.

About 50 percent of Gazas electricity comes from Israel, while the rest is generated in Gaza with diesel-powered generators.

By contrast, only about 10 percent of Gaza's water comes from Israel; most is drilled locally, but is contaminated with sewage and seawater.

Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza in the early days of the war, cutting electricity and blocking the entry of food, fuel, water and other supplies.

Since then, aid groups have raised the alarm over hospitals running out of medicine and materials.

Israel's war cabinet approved the entry of humanitarian aid from Egypt on Wednesday, following dogged pressure from the United States and other countries.

President Biden said that Egyptian President Fattah el-Sisi agreed to allow 20 trucks of humanitarian assistance through the Rafah Crossing into Gaza.

Gaza previously faced a 16-year Israeli blockade supported by Egypt.

However, the decision to supply aid was criticized by relatives of those taken hostage by Hamas.

The Bring Them Home Now organization, which was founded to represent the families of the kidnapped, issued a statement.

It read: 'The decision to allow humanitarian aid to the murderers of Gaza has caused great anger among the family members.

'We remind you that children, babies, women, soldiers, men and the elderly  some of whom have serious health issues, are wounded and shot  are being held underground like animals without any human conditions, and the government of Israel is treating the murderers to baklava and medicine.'
Vermont Police are continuing their hunt for the gunman who killed retired academic Honoree Fleming on a hiking trail in the sleepy rural town of Castleton.

The 77-year-old was found shot dead on October 5, her 45th wedding anniversary, on the Castleton trail which cuts through Vermont State University, where she used to serve as dean.

Now her devoted husband, Pulitzer-prize winner Ron Powers, has said his wife 'went for a walk in the meadow and America came out and killed her.'

Powers, 81, believes Fleming's killer may have been mentally unwell and certainly should not have been armed.

'One of the ways I'm trying to survive this is to drive home the point that we need to change the way we as a society deal with guns and mental illness. Because, right now, we don't deal with them' Fleming told the Boston Globe.

Fleming's grieving husband has urged media outlets not to describe Fleming as 'the wife of Pulitzer prizewinner Ron Powers,' as this overlooks her significant achievements in academia

Honoree's body was discovered on a rail trail about a mile south from the university campus. Police combed the area, interviewing witnesses - who described seeing a 5'10" male with red hair heading towards campus

Vermont State Police released a sketch of a 'person of interest' with a clean-shaven face and short, spiky hair who had been seen on the trail around the time of the murder

'This is a woman who suffered so many reversals, but she never gave up, she never gave in,' Ron Powers told the outlet.

'She never let life defeat her until life armed itself.'

Powers wrote a book about the plight of those suffering with their mental health in America: No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America.

The couple had two sons, one of whom killed himself after years of suffering with schizophrenia.

'She would have tried to help this guy recover from whatever it is that ailed him,' he said.

'Honoree didn't have an ounce of naivete in her. She knew the evil that was out there. But she had this serenity. Despite everything, all the violations, all the losses, I think she kind of believed in the world.'

Tammy Arruda, a hairstylist and close friend of the Powers family, is among the many local residents who have spoken to investigators.

'It had to be random,' Arruda said. 'Honoree didn't have a mean bone in her body. She was so unassuming.

Honoree Fleming, 77, was an accomplished researcher with a long career in academia, teaching at four schools and even serving as the dean at Vermont State University

Fleming and her husband, Ron Powers, 81, settled in Vermont with their two sons before she began her decades-long career in academia

Powers is a successful journalist and non-fiction writer who has received both a Pulitzer Prize and an Emmy Award - but he demands others recognize the accomplishments of his late wife

Fleming fought sexism throughout her career, Powers said, describing her as a 'visionary' who was denied tenure at Middlebury College after seven years of teaching

Powers fondly recalled his wife's dedication to her scientific craft, even completing lab work at the kitchen table in their Carleton home

Fleming's 40 years of bio research supports the theory of amitosis in cancerous cells and has important implications for our understanding of how the cells divide

'You would never have known how brilliant and accomplished she was.'

There were no witnesses to the shooting, which Powers said police suspect was random but have not ruled out that Fleming was targeted.

Major Dan Trudeau, chief of the State Police criminal division, said investigators are prepared to spend as long as it takes to identify the suspect.

'This type of case is going to be probably a blend of old-fashioned detective work,' Trudeau said, 'along with new age technology-based detective work.'

Police are combing through hundreds of tips that have been called in to a hot line and have released a sketch of a person of interest.

The sketch depicts a clean-shaven man with short, spiky hair and light eyes.

Detectives have also been interviewing people who live near the Delaware & Hudson Rail Trail or were in the area between 3pm and 5pm Thursday.

One witness reported seeing a man walking northbound on the trail toward campus after gunshots sounded.

Powers and Fleming met on a flight in 1976. They later married and had children - but both the boys were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and their youngest died by suicide in 2005

The couple's surviving son, Dean, warmly recalled hearing his mother laugh and described her as someone who 'wore the cares of the world on her sleeve'

In a touching message posted to Facebook, Powers wrote of his late wife: 'She has taken far more than half my own heart and soul with her'

He was described as a 5'10" male with short red hair, wearing a dark gray T-shirt and carrying a black backpack.

On Facebook, Powers revealed how the first people to come upon Honoree's body were a middle-aged husband and wife.

'The woman ran for help,' he wrote. 'The man stayed with Honoree. She was clearly dead, but he stayed with her anyway. He knelt beside her and, I gather, tried to communicate to her that she was not alone.'

He vowed to meet the couple along with his son Dean and 'say our thanks.'

Powers is a decorated writer whose 2000 book Flags of Our Father was adapted into a movie produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Clint Eastwood.

He also won a Pulitzer for his writing in 1973, becoming the first television critic to do so. This was followed by an Emmy in 1985.

Before arriving at Vermont State University, Fleming was a faculty member at the now-defunct Trinity College in Burlington, Vermont; Middlebury College; and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

In addition to her role as a dean and professor, Fleming was a passionate scientist who authored many papers.

Her 40-year investigation into cell growth and movement had implications for understanding the way cancer cells divide.

Every paper she submitted to peer-reviewed journals was published, according to her husband.
The parents of a young tradie who was crushed to death in a scaffolding collapse have made a desperate plea for changes to the law so there is no repeat of what happened to their boy.

Christopher Cassaniti, 18, died in April 2019 when 18 tonnes of building materials fell on him and a colleague while working at the Ganellen Construction site at Macquarie Park in Sydney.

The structure was holding 17,905kg but was only designed to hold 675kg, meaning it was holding nearly 30 times more than its maximum limit.

Christopher Cassaniti, 18, died in April 2019 when 18 tonnes of building materials fell on him and a colleague while working at the Ganellen Construction site at Macquarie Park in Sydney

Christopher had skipped his lunch break and was working alongside his colleague Khaled Wehbe, 39, when 30m of scaffolding above them collapsed

Christopher had skipped his lunch break and was working alongside his colleague Khaled Wehbe, 39, when 30m of scaffolding above them collapsed.

Mr Wehbe was severely injured in the horrific collapse but held onto Christopher's hand and listened as he called for help and asked for his mum. The boy died 20 minutes later.

Ganellen was warned multiple times that its site was dangerous.

'The likelihood of the risk occurring was so high that it was almost certain,' Judge Andrew Scotting said in court.

Sydney company Synergy Scaffolding was handed NSW's biggest ever workplace health and safety fine, totalling $2million, after pleading guilty to a Category One offence offence under NSW's workplace safety laws.

Christopher's parents, Patrizia and Rob said the $2million fine was nothing for a big firm and paled in comparison to their loss.

Ganellen Construction was fined $900,000, but because its insurance covered the penalty it didn't lose any money.

The company's contractor licence was cancelled by NSW Fair Trading and it permanently disqualified it from operating.

The company's director also received a 10-year disqualification.

Now NSW is on the verge of introducing industrial manslaughter laws and the Cassanitis have been among the loudest advocates for the change.

The NSW government intends to introduce a bill to parliament in the first half of next year, but has left the door open for further consultation.

The Cassanitis told 7News they want to be sure the new laws go far enough to prevent anyone suffering the fate of their boy four years ago.

The Cassanitis have been outspoken advocates for workers rights since their son's tragic death

'Consequences, we need consequences to stop people doing unsafe practices,' said Patrizia Cassaniti.

'We don't want his death to go in vain,' Rob Cassaniti added.

'Its gonna make them change and think twice about putting people's lives in danger,' he said.

The Cassanitis have been outspoken advocates for workers rights since their son's tragic death.

They regularly visit workplace health and safety seminars, armed with a tradie teddy bear containing Christopher's ashes and the clothing he was wearing that day.

Mr and Mrs Cassaniti have called for NSW to introduce industrial manslaughter laws that would allow individuals to be prosecuted for workplace deaths and increase maximum penalties.
The shower at the center of the Brentwood Airbnb tenancy battle is in fact legal  with documents showing plans for the bathroom were submitted to the City of Los Angeles in 2006, DailyMail.com can reveal.

'Tenant from hell' Elizabeth Hirschhorn, 55, is refusing to pay $60,000 in back rent and claims that she should be reimbursed $20,000 for her initial six-month stay because the guesthouse she is living in is an 'illegal unit'.

Hirschhorn claims landlord Sascha Jovanovic, 61, did not tell the city about the shower installed in the guest room and is using it as evidence in the legal battle she is waging against him.

But in a blow for Hirschhorn, building plans obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com show the opposite  that LA city officials have been aware of the shower in the unit for 17 years.

The new development comes days after Hirschhorn suffered a setback in her bid to live rent-free in Jovanovic's guesthouse when Judge George Bird said a previous ruling that sided with her was 'erroneous' and cleared the way for a full trial on the matter in December.

Harvard graduate Hirschhorn has now been 'squatting' at Jovanovic's $3.5million mansion for 554 days and has dodged three eviction attempts so far.

Elizabeth Hirschhorn (pictured left inside the Brentwood home) will be able to stay put at the Airbnb rental she is refusing to vacate for at least another three weeks

Airbnb host Sascha Jovanovic approved a six-month stay for Hirschhorn from September 13, 2021 to March 19, 2022  a total of 187 nights that she later extended to April 12, but she is yet to move out

The tenant's legal team had argued that she should be allowed to stay without paying rent because Jovanovic failed to get a certificate of occupancy for his unit and a permit for a shower in the guesthouse  but documents obtained by DailyMail.com show the contrary

She is demanding $100,000 to vacate and has allegedly rejected repeated offers of alternative accommodation, including a luxury hotel in Santa Monica, and an offer of $2,000 from Jovanovic to help cover her relocation costs.

Should the case go to trial and she loses, she could be forced to pay Jovanovic $60,000 in back rent  a tall order given that she is already paying off a $19,000 AMEX bill after failing in a lengthy legal bid to be allowed to default on it.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Jovanovic's lawyer Sebastian Rucci said he is confident that Hirschhorn's days at the Brentwood home will shortly come to an end.

'The end is coming for Hirschhorn's free stay at Sascha's house, he said.

'Based on the publicity, she is unlikely to rent even if she pays up front since she has shown a history of renting with bad intentions.

'She can no longer rent on Airbnb since they kicked the serial squatter off their platform. The media coverage will likely prevent her from renting elsewhere.

'In my view, her days of free rent are over. She must pay rent like everyone else in society.'

Hirschhorn shot to notoriety two weeks ago when Jovanovic gave an interview to the LA Times detailing the saga and his repeated attempts to get his unwanted tenant out.

DailyMail.com then revealed that the screenwriter was a serial litigant  and one who had concluded a previous tenancy dispute less than two months before moving into Jovanovic's home in September 2021.

That case was in Oakland, California, and saw her sublet a room in a $2.6m cottage but refuse to move out citing Covid-19 regulations and accusing landlords Brian and Gordon Bishop of allegedly releasing 'a noxious substance' into the home.

Hirschhorn shot to notoriety two weeks ago when Jovanovic (pictured) gave an interview to the LA Times detailing the saga and his repeated attempts to get his unwanted tenant out

Hirschhorn booked Jovanovic's property (seen in an Airbnb listing) in September 2021, paying the host $20,000 up front for her six-month rental that she has long overstayed

Harvard-educated Hirschhorn has a history of filing dubious lawsuits and has been involved in multiple disputes with landlords in the past, DailyMail.com revealed. She is pictured posing with a fellow grad at her Harvard alumni reunion in 2015

As in Jovanovic's case, Hirschhorn also refused to pay rent and stayed in the property despite having no contract with the Bishop brothers and after the man who sublet her a room moved out due to what he claimed was her 'toxic' behavior.

That case ended in a settlement as did another in Venice Beach in 2002 where Hirschhorn again sublet a room and sued the landlord.

Although she did pay rent in that case, she claimed the property had a stove that emitted toxic fumes  despite the real tenant telling DailyMail.com there was no problem with it.

Cinematographer Jim Denault, a multiple Emmy nominee whose resume includes work on smash hit series Yellowstone, told DailyMail.com he sublet his Venice Beach studio to Hirschhorn.

Despite being recommended to him by a friend of a friend for a short let while he was out of town for work, Hirschhorn turned what should have been a simple scenario into a nightmare by suing his landlord Peter Trias over what she claimed was 'chemical exposure' from the gas stove.

He said: 'It was one of those things where it seemed like a good idea at the time. All bad things end up seeming like a good idea at the time.

'I didn't have any problem helping her out and she stayed there for a month or two but while I was in New York, she sued my landlord over some sort of toxic exposure she said was coming from the gas stove  there had never been any problem with it before.'

He said that 'nicest guy ever' Trias has since died but endured a stressful situation due to Hirschhorn's lawsuit and eventually paid her off using cash from an insurance provider.

Denault added: 'I sympathize with Sascha because it was one of those things where I talked to her about it afterwards and she said, 'oh, it was terrible. I'm very sensitive to everything'.

During a hearing on Monday, Jovanovic's attorney Sebastian Rucci (left) demanded the judge overturn his ruling. Hirschhorn's attorney Amanda Seward (right) challenged the motion, saying it 'goes against everything the American justice system stands for'

Judge George Bird has set a November 6 hearing to determine whether Hirschhorn, 55, can stay in dentist Sascha Jovanovic's home until a full hearing in December

'And I was like, I've been living in that place. There's nothing wrong with it. I guess my point is this is something she's been doing for at least 20 years.'

Along with a history of tenancy disputes, Hirschhorn has also left a trail of legal cases in her wake, including a fight with AMEX over a $19,000 credit card bill that she attempted to avoid by countersuing and claiming the financial provider had failed to refund her a fraudulent fee charged by a relocation firm.

After years of legal warfare, that was settled in May last year with Hirschhorn forced to admit that she does owe the credit card company and ordered to pony up.

Other cases include a 2019 round of litigation where she attempted to sue an LA couple over a car accident that happened in 2017 and another filed in May 2010, that saw her sue motion picture literary agent Joanne Freeman after showing her 'a 76-page excerpt' from a novel she was writing at the time.

According to the complaint, Freeman then used the manuscript as the basis for a TV pilot later sold to ABC and described her conduct as 'malicious, fraudulent and oppressive'.

The case was dismissed four months after Hirschhorn filed it.

Hirschhorn is currently still holed up inside Jovanovic's guesthouse and has fought his attempts to evict her by filing multiple cross-complaints against him  including an allegation that he asked her to stay in his house with him.

Jovanovic says the offer was made so he could access the property to clean a moldy shower and came after she had turned down the offer of a hotel.

Multiple attempts by DailyMail.com to contact Hirschhorn have proved unsuccessful.

Rucci, who appealed against Judge Bird's initial ruling for Hirschhorn after seeing DailyMail.com's reporting and scored a win on Monday, is now attempting to stop Hirschhorn from ever using bad faith legal maneuvering ever again.

Oakland property: Court filings obtained by DailyMail.com reveal Hirschhorn was involved in a similar squatting dispute at this cottage she sublet in 2019. The case was settled just two months before she moved into her current rental

Further court papers obtained by DailyMail.com show Massachusetts native Hirschhorn was also sued by American Express over an unpaid credit card debt totaling $19,617.82 in February 2021

Speaking to DailyMail.com following their court win on Monday, Jovanovic said: 'It's hard to believe that the judge could not rule today after all the evidence to go straight to trial.

'He wants to be 'fair' to both parties. Not sure about this liberal judging. Be fair with fair people not with crooks and manipulators.'

He added: 'At trial, Seb wants to go after eviction firstly and then stop her from suing others in future.

'It's a kind of restriction that the judge can rule that she'll only be allowed to sue if the court allows her. I'm not sure if she'll go for trial though as her chances of winning are getting small. She might even default or disappear. All up in the air.'

Rucci added: 'The detailed complaint alleged four separate reasons for the eviction. Hirschhorn violated the procedure by submitting 18-month-old letters from the city to deny the allegations admitted under the rules for the demurrer motion she filed.

'The issue of whether the rent ordinance applied. Must Sascha pay a relocation fee? Is Hirschhorn entitled to free rent?

'These are all issues Hirschhorn can raise as an affirmative defense in her answer and prove at trial. These are not issues to be addressed by a demurrer motion,' Rucci said.

'Simply put, Hirschhorn sought to deny Sascha's right to go to trial and to deny Sascha's legal right to have a contrary view about Hirschhorn's free rent claims.

'Her bad faith motion set back the eviction by 100 days (July 27, 2023, through November 6, 2023). Hirschhorn's demurrer was filed in bad faith to secure 100 days of additional free rent.

'This is how she combined the delay from the Covid moratorium, with additional delays to secure free rent for 553 days as of today.'
Exactly five years to the day after murdering Natalee Holloway, Joran van der Sloot was able to kill again while evading justice - this time a student in Peru.

On May 30, 2010, the Dutch national brutally attacked 21-year-old Stephany Flores in a hotel room in Lima. An argument had broken out between the pair after Flores learned that he was linked to Natalee's disappearance in Aruba in 2005.

Van der Sloot grabbed her by the throat and smashed her head against a wall before smothering her with a shirt. He was later captured in Chile and has been serving a 28-year sentence in Peru since 2012.

The case has grim echoes of Natalee's. The details of the high school graduate's grisly demise were revealed for the first time on Wednesday in an Alabama courthouse where van der Sloot confessed he killed her on a beach and threw her body in the sea after she spurned his aggressive sexual advances on May 30, 2005.

Despite being arrested and detained in Aruba for 60 days after the killing, van der Sloot was able to walk free from the island after claiming the 18-year-old was drunk and he had dropped her at her hotel.

Van der Sloot, now 36, went on to torment Natalee's parents by sending them emails trying to extort $250,000 from them in exchange for revealing the location of Natalee's body. This despicable grift ultimately led to him being indicted in the US after an FBI sting operation in which his parents agreed to send a portion of money.

Van der Sloot was yesterday jailed for 20 years in Alabama under a plea deal where he admitted killing Natalee, as well as pleading guilty to extortion and wire fraud. He is being sent back to Peru to complete his 28-year sentence for killing Flores and the US jail term will run concurrently.

Joran van der Sloot managed to evade justice after killing Natalee Holloway for nearly 20 years and went on to kill another woman five years later

The killer had been serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of Peruvian business student Stephany Flores, 21

Natalee was 18 when she disappeared from the Caribbean island of Aruba during a trip with school friends in 2005

The Dutch citizen, 36, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday after he admitted to killing the 18-year-old in Aruba

While van der Sloot was the last person seen with Natalee, and remained the prime suspect for nearly two decades, her body was never found, and Aruba police were never able to find enough evidence to charge him for the murder.

Classmates said they had seen Natalee outside a nightclub in a car with van der Sloot, then 17 years old, and two other local residents - Surinamese brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.

All three were repeatedly detained but freed over a lack of evidence of a crime. The Kalpoes, who were security guards at a hotel near the one where Holloway was staying, were taken into custody in June and held for nearly a month. Van der Sloot was held for an additional 60 days.

Throughout the years, he gave several accounts about the night of Natalee's murder, including that he left her at the beach drunk and that he had dropped her off at her hotel.

Then in 2010, while living in Peru he contacted Natalee's family to offer information about her murder.

But van der Sloot was about to kill again.

Two months later, his murderous anger was unleashed on Flores in an eerily similar manner.

The pair met at a casino in Lima. The student - the daughter of a prominent local businessman - was in her third year studying business administration at University of Lima, and helped run her family's entertainment and event-promotion business.

She wanted to continue playing poker online so the pair went back to van der Sloot's hotel in her SUV.

While the two played on van der Sloot's laptop, an instant message popped up referring to Natalee's case.

He told cops the message from an unknown person said: 'I'm going to kill you, you little Mongoloid.'

When he explained what it meant, Flores lashed out and hit him, van der Sloot told Peruvian cops in his confession.

'She struck me on the left side of my head with her fist,' he said. 'At that moment, impulsively, with my right elbow. I hit her in the face exactly on top of her nose.'

He added: 'I think she started to faint. It affected me so that I grabbed her from the neck and strangled her for a minute.'

Surveillance footage shows van der Sloot and Stephany entering his hotel room in Lima before she was murdered

After killing Stephany, van der Sloot stole her poker winnings and left the hotel, instructing staff not to bother 'his girl' in the room and quickly leaving the country

'There was blood everywhere. What am I going to do now? I had blood on my shirt. There was also blood on the bed, so I took off my shirt and put it on her face, pressing hard, until I killed Stephany,' van der Sloot told detectives.

When police asked for a more detailed description of what happened, the killer obliged.

'She was on the bed when I hit her hard with my right elbow and I think her head went back and hit the wall, then she begins to bleed. Immediately I get on top of her and with both hands I begin to strangle her, keeping her that way for a minute. After that, I throw her to the floor, but she keeps breathing. At that moment I take off my shirt and put it on her face, pressing on it. I don't remember for how long, but she stops breathing. In this way I think I caused her death,' he told investigators.

After killing Stephany, van der Sloot stole her poker winnings and left the hotel, instructing staff not to bother 'his girl' in the room and quickly leaving the country.

A maid eventually found Stephany's body and van der Sloot was arrested in Chile and extradited back to Peru, where he pleaded guilty in 2012.

Just two months before van der Sloot killed Stephany, he contacted a Holloway family lawyer to offer information about Natalee's murder in exchange for money.

Van der Sloot's Natalee confession 'She asked to go back to her hotel but I was just trying to get dropped off a little bit further away from her hotel so we could walk back and I might still get a chance to be with her. 'I'm with Natalee, walking along the beach. I find a space before we get to the Marriott Hotel, where I lay her down, we lay down together in the sand and we start kissing each other. 'I start feeling her up again and she tells me no. She tells me doesn't want me to feel her up. I insist. I keep feeling her up either way. She ends up kneeing in the crotch. When she hits me in the crotch, I get up and I kick her extremely hard in the face. 'She's laying down unconscious, possibly even dead, but definitely unconscious. And I see right next to her there's a huge cinderblock laying on the beach. 'I take this and I smash her head in with it completely. Her face basically collapses in. Afterwards, I'm scared. I don't know what to do. I decide to put her into the ocean. So I grab her and I half pull and half walk with her into the ocean. I push her off. I walk up to about my knees into the ocean and I push her off into the sea. After that, I get out. I walk home. Advertisement

Wednesday's confession came after van der Sloot put Natalee's parents through torment by sending them chilling emails offering to tell them the whereabouts of their daughter's body in exchange for $250,000.

But he was eventually indicted in the US on charges of extortion and wire fraud after the FBI nailed him in a sting operation working alongside Natalee's parents.

In his confession for killing Natalee, van der Sloot said he and Natalee were kissing at the beach after meeting at a bar when he tried to take things further and she refused. He claimed that when he insisted, she kicked him in the crotch. He then stood up and kicked her 'extremely hard' in the face, knocking her out.

The killer then grabbed a nearby cinder block and 'smashed her head in with it completely,' before carrying her body into the water, walking in until he was knee-deep, and pushing her out to be carried away by the waves.

Addressing her daughter's killer in court, Natalee's mother Beth looked him in the eyes and said: 'You look like hell, Joran. I do not see how you're gonna make it ... You are a killer and I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams.'

District Judge Anna M. Manasco told the killer: 'You have brutally murdered two women who refused your sexual advances ... You knew the information you were selling was an absolute lie.'

Working with the FBI in a sting operation, Holloway's parents wired a portion of the demanded money to van der Sloot in 2010, but he then provided false information about where Holloway's remains were buried.

During his sentencing, Natelee's mother Beth told the court that van der Sloot murdered her daughter when she refused his sexual advances and then went home where he watched pornography.

Addressing van der Sloot in court, Beth said: 'You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005.

'You didn't get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her.

'I paid my daughter's killer money. That's shocking. I don't think anyone can really wrap their mind around what that means... I have no doubt she would have made all her dreams come true. She really would have.'

She added: 'By the way you look like hell, Joran. I do not see how you're gonna make it ... You are a killer and I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams.'

Van der Sloot, wearing an orange jumpsuit, addressed the court before his sentencing and apologized to the family.

The Dutch national was extradited for sentencing in the US from Peru where he is currently serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores (pictured)

Natalee Holloway, left, poses with friends Lee Broughton, Madison Whatley, and Ruth McVay, left to right, in a photograph taken with Natalee's disposable camera on the beach in Aruba

'I would like to take this chance to apologize to the Holloway family, to apologize to my own family, to say I hope the statement I provided brings some kind of closure to everyone involved,' the killer said in court. 'I am no longer that person I was back then, I've given my heart to Jesus Christ.'

The judge called van der Sloot's crimes 'heinous,' telling him: 'You have brutally murdered two women who refused your sexual advances... You knew the information you were selling was an absolute lie.'

Beth and her son Matt Holloway spoke to the press outside the courthouse after the hearing, saying that van der Sloot said he acted alone.

'I still miss her every day, we finally got the answers we've been searching for.' Beth said. 'Finally today we get justice for Natalee.'
New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit accusing crypto firms Gemini Trust and Genesis Capital of defrauding 230,000 individual investors out of some $1 billion by claiming risky investments were safe.

The lawsuit filed on Thursday focuses on Gemini Earn, an interest-bearing product that allowed Gemini users to lend out their crypto assets to Genesis with the promise of high-yield returns.

Gemini, run by the Winklevoss twins known for their legal battles with Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, touted Earn as 'low-risk' even when its internal analyses had found Genesis was on risky financial footing, James alleged.

Genesis bundled the funds into big loans for major players in the crypto space  including at one point a nearly $2 billion loan to Alameda Research, the hedge fund of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

Though the Alameda loan was recalled before the collapse of FTX sent shockwaves through the crypto industry, James alleges that it was one of the risky and under-secured loans that Gemini and Genesis concealed from Earn investors.

Gemini, run by the Winklevoss twins Cameron and Tyler (together above), is one of the companies named in a new lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James

James filed a lawsuit accusing crypto firms Gemini Trust and Genesis Capital of defrauding 230,000 individual investors out of some $1 billion by claiming risky investments were safe

Days after the implosion of FTX in November 2022, Genesis suspended withdrawals, owing at least $1 billion to more than 232,000 Earn investors, including at least 29,000 New Yorkers, according to the new suit.

The victims included a 73-year-old grandmother and her husband who invested their life savings of over $199,000 in Earn, because they believed it was a safe and secure choice, but have yet to receive any of the funds back, according to the lawsuit.

Another Gemini Earn investor, a 56-year-old New Yorker, invested and lost approximately $20,500 in Gemini Earn, virtually all his savings, the suit alleges.

Genesis filed for bankruptcy in January, and has since been involved in a bitter legal dispute with Gemini, the crypto exchange founded in 2014 by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

In addition to Gemini and Genesis, the new suit charges former Genesis CEO Soichiro Moro, Genesis parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG), and DCGs CEO Barry Silbert.

James separately accused Genesis, Moro, DCG and Silbert of trying to conceal more than $1.1 billion in losses.

Silbert told DailyMail.com in a statement: 'I am shocked by the baseless allegations in the Attorney General's complaint and intend to fight these claims in court. Honesty and integrity have always been my guiding principles.'

A DCG spokesman said: 'We fully intend to fight the claims and look forward to being vindicated in this case. DCG has always conducted its business lawfully and with integrity.

'We have actively cooperated for months with the Attorney General's investigation in an open and transparent manner. We were blindsided by the filing of the complaint, and there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by DCG, Barry Silbert, or its employees.'

A Gemini spokeswoman referred an inquiry to the company's post on X, where it claimed it was a victim in the case.

'The NY AGs lawsuit confirms what weve been saying all along  that Gemini, Earn users, and other creditors were the victims of a massive fraud and systematically lied to by these parties about Genesiss financial condition,"' the post stated.

'With that said, we wholly disagree with the NY AGs decision to also sue Gemini. Blaming a victim for being defrauded and lied to makes no sense and we look forward to defending ourselves against this inconsistent position,' the company added.

Genesis parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG), and DCGs CEO Barry Silbert (above) are also accused in the new lawsuit

James in her suit seeks to ban Gemini, Genesis, and DCG from the financial investment industry in New York, and seeks restitution for investors and disgorgement of any ill-gotten gains.

'These cryptocurrency companies lied to investors and tried to hide more than a billion dollars in losses, and it was middle-class investors who suffered as a result,' said James in a statement.

'This fraud is yet another example of bad actors causing harm throughout the under-regulated cryptocurrency industry,' she added.

The allegations are yet another example of how the meltdown of FTX rippled through the crypto industry, which continues to suffer nearly a year after the company's implosion.

According to the suit, in the summer of 2022, Genesis disclosed to Gemini that its loans were heavily concentrated in Alameda, which was the borrower for nearly 60 percent of all outstanding Genesis loans to unaffiliated counterparties.

On August 8, 2022, Cameron Winklevoss confronted a Genesis executive about the company's risk management practices, and threatened to wind down Earn unless DCG guaranteed repayment to Earn investors, the suit alleges.

Example Gemini Earn returns, which fluctuated rapidly, are seen above. The product allowed Gemini users to lend out their crypto assets to Genesis with the promise of high-yields

On August 16, 2022, Genesis recalled nearly $2 billion in loans to Alameda  but the suit alleges that this left the Genesis loan book heavily concentrated in loans to related parties, including its own parent company DCG.

Genesis also large loans to the hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which filed for bankruptcy in 2022.

Silbert told DailyMail.com on Thursday: 'Last year, my and DCG's goal was to help Genesis weather the storm caused by the collapse of Three Arrows and position Genesis for success going forward. It is unfortunate that this lawsuit omits that fundamental fact.'

Genesis filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors in January, two months after halting withdrawals.

Cameron Winklevoss has publicly said that DCG and Silbert misrepresented the financial health of DCG's lending arm Genesis.

Last month, Genesis sued DCG seeking repayment on more than $610 million of loans that matured in May. According to court papers, DCG owes more than $1.7 billion to Genesis and other debtors.
Three Colorado teens accused of killing a 20-year-old woman after throwing landscaping rocks through her windscreen 'had been hurling rocks at cars for months', a court has heard.

Nicholas 'Mitch' Karol-Chik allegedly admitted to throwing objects at moving vehicles between February and April approximately ten times with help from his co-accused, Joseph Koenig and Zachary Kwak, a Jefferson County Sherriff's Office investigator said at a preliminary hearing on Wednesday.

The trio, all aged 18, are set to face trial after being arrested in April in connection with the homicide of Alexa Bartell.

The trio allegedly threw rocks at six different cars, causing injuries to multiple drivers and the death of Bartell between 10pm and 12am on April 19 and April 20.

Koenig and Karol-Chik are also accused of throwing a landscaping 'statue head' at a vehicle carrying a couple and their children earlier that month.

Zachary Kwak, 18, listens to district court judge Christopher C. Zenisek during an arraignment in Jefferson County district court on May 3, in Golden, Colorado. Kwak allegedly 'had been hurling rocks at cars for months' before the homicide of Alexa Bartell, 20

Joseph Koenig, 18, listens to district court judge Christopher C. Zenisek during an arraignment in Jefferson County district court on May 3, in Golden, Colorado. Koenig was also accused of throwing a landscaping 'statue head' at a vehicle carrying a couple and their children earlier that month

Nicholas 'Mitch' Karol-Chik, 18, listens to district court judge Christopher C. Zenisek during an arraignment in Jefferson County district court on May 3, in Golden, Colorado. He and his two friends allegedly threw rocks at six different cars, causing injuries to multiple drivers and the death of Bartell on April 19

All three suspects have been charged with one count of first-degree murder, one count of extreme indifference, six counts of attempted first-degree murder, three counts of second-degree assault and three counts of attempted second-degree assault.

On April 19 The three teens made plans to meet up and drove to Walmart, where they picked up and loaded landscaping rocks from the parking lot's edge.

A friend of the trio told police he'd watched them several hours earlier as they loaded a truck with rocks and said the three boys picked up 'as many as they could carry'.

He said he knew 'something bad was going to happen' so asked Koenig, Karol-Chik and Kwak to take him home.

That witness later told police that Koenig 'frequently participates in destructive behavior' because he enjoys causing 'chaos'.

Koening was driving the truck when the three left the parking lot, according to court documents.

Alexa Bartell, 20, was returning from work around 10:45 p.m. when the large rock sailed through her window shield and fatally struck her

Bartell was driving the Chevy Spark when a rock came crashing through the front windshield

A picture reveals the damage caused to Bartell's car during the attack

Bartell was talking on the phone with a friend while driving in her yellow Chevy Spark at 10:45pm in Arvada, Suburban Denver, when she was hit by the rock.

After the call went silent, the friend tracked Bartell's location with a phone app, drove to her, and found the woman dead in her car, which had crashed into a field.

The killing was the fourth of six rock-hurling incidents reported from 10pm onwards on that same evening, causing minor injuries to two other drivers.

After striking Bartell's windshield, the three suspects circled back and passed the victim's vehicle, which had swerved into a field, at approximately 50 mph to inspect the damage.

Karol-Chik told investigators that Kwak became 'excited' when he hit a vehicle with rocks.

He also said that Koenig slowed down so Kwak could get a photo of Bartell's car after it crashed into a field.

He said he felt 'a hint of guilt' passing by her car, although all three got 'excited' every time they hit a car with landscaping rocks, according to court documents.

Joseph Koenig, Nicholas 'Mitch' Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak, all 18, are all charged with murder

Kwak said he took the photo because he thought that Karol-Chik or Koenig would want to have a 'memento' of what had happened, according to the arrest affidavits.

Kwak told investigators that Karol-Chik would use 'Marine' terminology, such as 'contact left,' before hitting a vehicle to the left with a rock.

He reportedly told the others: 'We have to go back and see that.'

After realizing Bartell was dead, Koenig allegedly called the group 'blood brothers', according to Karol-Chik's interview with authorities.

Kwak and Koenig were the only two suspects accused of throwing the rock that killed Bartell.

After investigators interviewed Kwak, he allegedly insisted that he did not throw the rock that killed Bartell.

When the detective who testified Wednesday told Kwak, 'I hear you,' he responded: 'I don't need you to hear me. I need you to believe me. I did not throw that rock.'
Public servants in Queensland have been offered five days of paid leave if they are suffering from psychological distress following the failed Voice referendum.

Leaders in the public sector this week received an email telling them they could grant workers special leave as well as sick leave.

The message, from Public Sector Commissioner David Mackie, called on department bosses to consider the emotional impact the referendum's result would have on indigenous workers.

He added that the initiative was to ensure staff members remained mentally well.

Public servants in Queensland have been offered five days' of paid leave if they are suffering from psychological distress following the failed Voice referendum. Yes campaigners are seen looking upset following the referendum result

'To help ensure this is realised, employees who are experiencing challenges with their social and emotional wellbeing at this time, such that they feel that they should not attend the workplace, should be supported in accessing appropriate leave entitlements to look after their health and wellbeing,' Mr Mackie wrote in the email seen by the Courier Mail.

He continued: 'Some employees may also choose to return to country and their local communities to support each other in grieving the outcome of the referendum.

'Employees may be able to seek access to paid special leave for this period.

'Delegates can exercise discretion to approve such leave, if appropriate.'

More than 60 per cent of voters across Australia voted against the adopting the Voice

Mr Mackie added that requests for flexible working should also be considered.

Indigenous leaders vowed to begin a week of mourning following Saturday's referendum result.

Queensland overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, with only 31 per cent of voters backing the Voice, which would have enshrined an Aboriginal advisory body into the constitution.

More than 60 per cent of voters across Australia voted against the adopting the Voice.
An Iowa Republican congresswoman who voted against Jim Jordan for speaker says she has received 'credible death threats,' as the party's shambolic effort to settle on a leader took a dark turn.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) revealed the threat on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, shortly after the House once again failed to elect a speaker and opposition for Iowa Republican Jordan actually expanded.

Rather than fall in line behind Jordan, an outspoken candidate with a reputation for trying to filet witnesses in combative hearings, the first-term Republican cast her vote for senior Republican Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) in an an effort to stonewall a Jordan speakership. It was a flip from the previous day, when she backed Jordan as he failed to get the needed 217 votes on the floor of the House.

'Since my vote ... I have received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls. The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully,' she said.

The lawmaker said her vote was in part due to 'threatening tactics,' amid accusations of a pressure campaign by Jordan loyalists.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) says she received 'credible death threats' following her vote for an alternative to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for speaker. Jordan failed for a second time Wednesday to get sufficient votes to become speaker, sparking talk of an alternative path for the conference

'One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully,' she added. 'Someone who threatens another with bodily harm or tries to suppress differing opinions undermines opportunity for unity and regard for freedom of speech.'

She called for the party to identify a 'consensus candidate' to get the House back on track, amid efforts in Capitol corridors to try to find a way to grant temporary authority to Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Patrick McHenry, who has only limited powers right now.

With threats becoming an issue and his own campaign for speaker in peril, Jordan tweeted Wednesday night to condemn 'abhorrent' threats.

'No American should accost another for their beliefs. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. Its abhorrent,' he wrote.

She isn't the only Jordan opponent claiming to have received threats.

Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) said his wife had received anonymous text messages threatening him unless he voted for Jordan. Bacon said Jordan stood no chance in future votes.

'We're confident next vote he's going to lose five or six more votes,' Bacon told Fox News on Wednesday. 'He's gonna be going backwards.'

Don Bacon on Wednesday told Fox News that Jim Jordan would not be elected speaker of the House

A handful of disgruntled Republicans immediately voted against Jim Jordan on Wednesday

Second speaker vote tally Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. -- 212 Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio -- 199 Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. -- 7 Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. -- 5 Others -- 10 Advertisement

Jordan's allies are desperately trying to win over doubters, and a third vote could come Thursday, but not has yet been scheduled amid the televised spectacle of repeated dysfunction.

Twenty-two of Jordan's disgruntled GOP colleagues - two more than on Tuesday - voted against him on Wednesday.

'I believe he's done,' Bacon told CNN.

Angie Bacon, his wife, received a text message saying: 'Your husband better support Jim Jordan.'

Another text said: 'Your husband will not hold any political office ever again.'

A third said: 'What a disappoint [sic] and failure he is.'

Bacon voted for Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday - landing another blow to Jordan's vote tally.

Another to be named in the vote tally was former speaker John Boehner - who resigned in 2015, and now works as a lobbyist.

The disarray among House Republicans has no end in sight, two weeks after McCarthy became the first speaker in history to be ousted.

Since then, the House has been paralyzed and unable to do business with less than a month until the government shuts down again.

Now, there are questions of what the conference can do next to avoid the shambolic scenario from January, where it took 15 ballots to elect McCarthy.

With the GOP's narrow majority, Jordan could only afford to lose four votes on the floor with the GOP's razor-thin majority.

On Tuesday, 20 Republicans voted against Jordan, destroying his chance to become speaker in the first round of voting. He met the same fate on Wednesday in the second round of voting

Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry might be the clearest path toward getting a more long-term speaker solution

First speaker vote tally Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. -- 212 Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio -- 200 Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. -- 6 Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y. -- 3 Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. -- 7 Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif. -- 1 Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn. -- 1 Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. -- 1 Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. -- 1 Advertisement

'People keep making it about these personal issues they have with other members and I think that's a reason why we need term limits in Congress,' a frustrated Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a staunch Jordan supporter, told DailyMail.com after the vote.

Meanwhile those who have opposed Jordan have reportedly been getting threats from local conservative leaders claiming they would be out of a job if they did not vote for the Ohio firebrand.

For moderates, it could be a choice between voting against Jordan and risking a right-wing primary challenge and voting for Jordan and angering independent-minded voters.

'He's got the American people behind him,' Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said of Jordan, predicting he would become speaker eventually.

'Every one of these guys, they're getting a lot of phone calls, and they should,' he told DailyMail.com. 'He's an American hero.'

Rep. Mike Garcia, a moderate Republican from California, suggested Republicans take a field trip to Gettysburg to work on unity.

'It sounds it sounds silly but let's go to Gettysburg or something. Let's go to somewhere that is meaningful to our nation's history so that the Republican Party can once again remember why we do what we do.'

Republican Rep. Dave Joyce, Ohio, is expected to nominate interim Speaker Patrick McHenry for the top job on a short-term basis following Jordan's defeat. Support for that move is divided among Republicans, meaning it would require buy-in from Democrats.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said doing so would be 'contrary to the Constitution' and 'would do enormous damage to the House.'

On Tuesday, 20 Republicans voted against Jordan, destroying his chance to become speaker in the first ballot. He lost two more GOP votes in the second round.

Jordan, chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee and Freedom Caucus co-founder, had broad appeal from the right wing of his party but moderates and pragmatic conservatives were angry about the process by which he had come to the speaker nomination.

Donald Trump endorsed Jordan for the top Republican position, and reiterated his support in a post to Truth Social on Tuesday.

'Jim Jordan will be a GREAT Speaker of the House. As everyone knows, I have long ago given him my Complete and Total Endorsement!'

Democrats remain united around Hakeem Jeffries, who serves as minority leader.
A North Korean defector has revealed how she bravely broke out of her country twice only to become a slave in China before finally escaping to the West.

Jihyun Park, who was born in North Korea in 1968, shared how she fled the country when her uncle died of starvation in front of her and her father became ill. She told MailOnline how her father's final wish was for her to save her younger brother and 'leave this country'.

Ms Park followed her father's wish and set off on her first attempt to flee North Korea with her brother in the freezing cold on February 18, 1998. Halfway through their journey, they came under attack from North Korean soldiers who opened fire.

After making it over the border into China, Ms Park revealed how she was forced to marry a Chinese man. She was then deported back to North Korea - sent to a labour camp - and then ultimately escaped and made her way to the UK.

Ms Park - who stood as a Conservative candidate in the Bury local elections in 2021 but did not win - now lives in Britain with her husband, another North Korean defector she met while crossing borders, and three children.

Now, she has appeared in the latest episode of MailOnline's new YouTube human interest series called 'My Story', which features people with extraordinary life stories.

To watch the full episode click here.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Jihyun Park (pictured) bravely shared: 'My name is Jihyun Park. I was born in North Korea in 1968. I escaped North Korea twice. I went to China, was human trafficked, and then repatriated to North Korea, stayed in prison. I am free.'

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Ms Park bravely shared: 'My name is Jihyun Park. I was born in North Korea in 1968. I escaped North Korea twice. I went to China, was human trafficked, and then repatriated to North Korea, stayed in prison. I am free.'

Ms Park told of how when she was a child, it was only pictures of Kim Il-Sung - the founder of North Korea - on the wall. He ruled the country from 1948 until his death in 1994.

'North Korea told us that Kim Il-Sung is our father and the Workers Korea Party is our mother,' she said. 'We never say to them, I love my mother, my father. Thank you my mother, my father. We never said that. We always said 'Thank you Kim Il-Sung'.'

Detailing her first escape out of North Korea, Ms Park recalled: 'So in 1996, my uncle died of starvation in front of me and my father also fell ill. Also my younger brother had joined the military, but he didn't pay loyalty money to the Government.

'So my younger brother ran away and came home. After that, the military also came to my house. They searched all of the village to find my younger brother. My ill father's last wish was "Save your younger brother". "Leave this country".'

She said that she did not believe her father had said what he had because he was a Workers Party member and respected the Kim family highly.

She continued: 'It was February 1998. I left home on the 18th, but I met my younger brother on the 22nd in the Chinese border area and then, in the midnight, we left North Korea.

'It was winter. The river was frozen. So midnight at 2am, we crossed the border with my younger brother, but when we crossed half way North Korean soldiers shouted behind us and then there was gunfire.

Ms Park (pictured) shared how she broke out of her country twice only to become a slave in China before finally escaping to the West

Jihyun Park (pictured) stood as a Conservative candidate in the Bury local elections in 2021 but did not win

Ms Park told of how when she was a child, it was only pictures of Kim Il-Sung (pictured in 1984) - the founder of North Korea - on the wall

'So my legs just were just freezing and I stopped. I couldn't walk. I was really scared this time. But my younger brother was holding my hand, "Sister, sister, wake up, wake up!". So he just bring me. Then we crossed the border.'

Once they crossed into China, they found a house with a light on where they were warmly welcomed with white rice, eggs and pork - a meal only usually served on Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il's birthdays in North Korea.

Ms Park explained how when they finished the meal, they were warned Chinese police would come and search the area because of the gunfire and the fact North Koreans had escaped.

'But we had just arrived in China only a few hours ago and we didn't know where we would go,' she added.

'So he said that "My friend lives in the Tumen area, I'll contact him". So then an hour later, his friend came to us and we moved to Tumen. But his friend was a human trafficker. He told me "You have to marry a Chinese man". He told me "If you don't marry the Chinese man, I'll just contact the Chinese police and then you both will be sent back to North Korea". I just agreed with him.

'But when the Chinese man came to me, he did not accept my younger brother. He said that "I bought only you, I didn't buy your younger brother". But my younger brother told me that "Sister, you have to go. You have to survive". That is my last communication with my younger brother.

'My life was the same as slavery, because in North Korea we are kind of machines and parrots. The North Korean Government destroyed all our emotions.'

Ms Park fled the North Hamgyong province of North Korea with her younger brother, but fell into the hands of human traffickers on arrival in China

She said that it felt the same in China because the village would keep an eye on her in case she tried to run away. When she arrived at her new husband's house, his mother did not welcome her and told her she had to borrow a lot of money to buy her son a wife. She told Ms Park that she had to pay the money back by working.

Ms Park continued: 'I wanted to give up this life because I already lost my father and lost my younger brother. But one day I found out that I was pregnant.'

Then in 2001, China made a campaign that people had to search for North Korean defectors and contact police if the were successful. The Government would then financially reward them so people who didn't want to work would help because the money was better than their salaries.

Ms Park explained: 'So they did the same to me, the villagers contacted the Chinese police. They arrested me and they sent me back to North Korea.'

She was first kept in a Chinese prison where only North Korean defectors were kept. She was strip searched by a male guard during her week at the prison.

She recalled: 'I stayed for seven days in the Chinese prison, but everyday, any time, they would come to us in the female rooms and they would search again.

She was sold to a man whose family used her as a slave, falling pregnant with a son who she raised for five years until she was captured by Chinese authorities and sent back to North Korea alone. Pictured: Ms Park campaigning for the local elections in 2021

'We had to take off all our clothes and we would just have to stand around, all of us females, and they would just keep looking at us. It was a kind of sexual assault, a violation, they would just smile, standing in front of us. I don't think many people can even imagine how it was. Then we were sent back to North Korea.'

Ms Park was then sent to a camp where there were three rooms, one toilet, one door and no windows. She shared the space with men, other women and children who all used the same toilet.

They were forced to work on a farm with stones and animal waste everywhere wearing no shoes to stop them running away.

Ms Park explained: 'Life was like an animal...not animal...I don't know how I can describe this life in North Korea. In North Korea, people are all modern slaves even in the 21st century.'

One day she woke up with a swollen leg which she thinks may have been some bacteria which became infected in her feet. She was given no medicine despite not being able to fell the lower half of her body.

'They told me that "You could die, so you can't die inside the camp, die outside anywhere!". So then they just released me,' she told MailOnline.

'So I just left that camp. But, you know, I had no family. So then I went to my village's police office, and they sent me to an orphans' house. When I stayed in the orphans' house, many children were in there, there were just children in there, adult, only me.

Ms Park said she joined the Conservative Party due to their emphasis on family values and individual freedom

'Everyday they would look to see if I would just run away. Every week, the police officers would check my condition. So if my condition had improved, then they would bring me again to the labour camp.

'The first time I escaped North Korea, me and my younger brother, it was without a broker. But the second time, in North Korea they had many, many brokers in North Korea areas and they would try to find women and girls to sell in China.

'So I found a broker and the second time, you know, I had myself human trafficked to China, because my son was waiting for me in China. My son was the last family I had left.'

When she crossed the Tumen River - in a taxi with the broker, another trafficked woman and an old man - her clothes were filthy and her hair was yellow, which sparked questions from the taxi driver.

Ms Park - the only one who could speak Chinese - told the driver they were a family and made up she was with her fake husband, father and younger sister who could not speak the language for a variety of reasons.

She did not contact her son on the first stay because she had promised the broker she would be human trafficked in China.

Ms Park continued: 'But next morning I woke up, the young lady was already gone because they already sold her, and the old man found his relative's house and he is gone.

'And then North Korean broker told me that you can contact your son, but only once, you know, I quickly dialled his grandmother's house and I contacted them and my son was on the phone. But he didn't to say any word. He just put the phone down.

I called again, he put the phone down. On the third time I said, "Son, it's mom, it's mom!". Then my son said only one word, "Mom?" and then he cried. The room was very silent and everyone heard my son cry. And then I also cried, and then my son, just put the phone down.

The North Korean broker then thanked her for saving his life for speaking Chinese to the taxi driver by not selling her and letting her find her son.

They then went to Beijing but their journey failed as they could not get into the South Korean embassy as the Chinese police were checking passports outside.

They met nine North Korean defectors in front of the embassy who had also failed to get into South Korea. Instead, they were told to go to Mongolia to find another South Korean embassy.

Ms Park continued: 'In China, they made a really strong fence in between China and the Mongolian border. So it's two metres high and really strong. So we cut off that fence and you know everyone just ran out.

'But me and my son continued to walk because my leg had problems and my son did not understand why we had to cross this border. But as we walked, a few minutes later, I saw someone come towards us. So I was really shocked. I thought that it was Chinese police.

'But one man came to us and he carried my son and held my hand. Then we just run, run, run. And after that we crossed the second Chinese fence and then run again. And after that, we arrived in Mongolia.

'The Mongolian fence was only about 50 centimetres. So we just jumped After arriving in Mongolia, I saw this man. So this man was also North Korean. We met in China. He saved me and my son's life.

'So, you know, for the first time, I fell in love. This man is now is my husband. We lived together in the UK. We have now two more children, so three children here.'

They stayed in the Mongolian desert for three days but could not find anyone there. They then crossed the border again from Mongolia to China and stayed in Beijing for two years.

It was here that they met an American Korean pastor who helped them go to the United Nations and reach the UK.
In pics: exhibition area of China at 75th Frankfurt Book Fair

Xinhua) 16:31, October 19, 2023

People talk at the exhibition area of China at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 18, 2023. The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair opened its doors to visitors on Wednesday, with an opening ceremony held on Tuesday. The five-day event running through Oct. 22 will provide diverse programs catering to both trade professionals and the public. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

A visitor walks past the exhibition area of China at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 18, 2023. The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair opened its doors to visitors on Wednesday, with an opening ceremony held on Tuesday. The five-day event running through Oct. 22 will provide diverse programs catering to both trade professionals and the public. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

A woman visits the exhibition area of China at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 18, 2023. The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair opened its doors to visitors on Wednesday, with an opening ceremony held on Tuesday. The five-day event running through Oct. 22 will provide diverse programs catering to both trade professionals and the public. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

A man visits the exhibition area of China at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 18, 2023. The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair opened its doors to visitors on Wednesday, with an opening ceremony held on Tuesday. The five-day event running through Oct. 22 will provide diverse programs catering to both trade professionals and the public. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

People visit the exhibition area of China at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 18, 2023. The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair opened its doors to visitors on Wednesday, with an opening ceremony held on Tuesday. The five-day event running through Oct. 22 will provide diverse programs catering to both trade professionals and the public. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

People talk at the exhibition area of China at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 18, 2023. The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair opened its doors to visitors on Wednesday, with an opening ceremony held on Tuesday. The five-day event running through Oct. 22 will provide diverse programs catering to both trade professionals and the public. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

People talk at the exhibition area of China at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 18, 2023. The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair opened its doors to visitors on Wednesday, with an opening ceremony held on Tuesday. The five-day event running through Oct. 22 will provide diverse programs catering to both trade professionals and the public. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
An MP broke down in the Commons today as she told how she thought she was going to die after giving birth to her daughter.

Conservative Theo Clarke became emotional as she relived being rushed into surgery after she began to bleed heavily after a difficult 40-hour labour last year.

She had to undergo emergency treatment after giving birth to Arabella at the Royal Stoke University Hospital in August 2022.

Launching a debate about 'birth trauma' she said it was 'probably the most personal speech' she will make in Parliament.

She praised her surgeon and midwives at the hospital but criticised the 'unacceptable' behaviour of a nurse who refused to help her when she asked for help.

'I was separated from my baby and rushed into the emergency room for surgery,' she said.

'I remember the trolley bumping into the walls and the medical staff taking me into theatre, and being slid onto the operating table. I spent over two hours awake without a general anaesthetic, and I could hear them talking about me, and obviously it was not looking good. It was the most terrifying experience of my life.'

As she struggled to continue former minister Andrea Leadsom intervened in her speech to give her time to compose herself. Afterwards the 38-year-old Stafford MP said: 'I genuinely thought I was going to die.'

She received a rare round of applause from the public gallery in the House of Commons from mothers and campaigners who had come to watch the debate.

Conservative Theo Clarke became emotional as she told MPs how she began to bleed heavily after a difficult 40-hour labour last year.

She was rushed into surgery after giving birth to Arabella at the Royal Stoke University Hospital in August 2022.

Ms Clarke is the aristocratic niece of ex-Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg through his wife Helena. She quit as Boris Johnson's trade envoy to Kenya in July 2022 following the row over the then PM's handling of sexual harassment allegations relating to Chris Pincher.

She was first elected as MP for Stafford in 2019, having previously twice stood as a candidate in Bristol.

Ms Clarke was opening what she described as the first debate on birth trauma in the history of the Commons.

She said her own experience 'completely opened my eyes to challenges with post-natal care'.

At one point, while in recovery, she said she was lying next to her baby, who was screaming, and unable to pick her up she pressed a call button for help, only for the person to respond by saying 'not my baby, not my problem', before leaving.

Aristocratic new mum who was deselected by local Tories after taking maternity leave Theo Clarke's pregnancy with daughter Arabella has already seen her make headlines. In February she was deselected by her local party in Stafford after returning from maternity leave. During her time away from work, she revealed she had received dozens of phone calls from angry constituents who berated her for taking time off from Parliament. A source told The Times that Ms Clarke had been subject to a 'campaign of misogyny'. The newspaper also reported at least five complaints have been sent to Tory headquarters over her treatment. The claim was later rejected by Duncan Sandbrook, chairman of the Stafford Conservative Association and she was reselected in March. She insisted her deselection had 'nothing to do with Boris' amid claims Tory MPs who helped to oust Boris Johnson as prime minister last year were being targeted by local activists. She quit as Mr Johnson's trade envoy to Kenya in July 2022 following the row over the then PM's handling of sexual harassment allegations relating to Chris Pincher. Ms Clarke is the aristocratic niece of ex-Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg through his wife Helena. Herr father was a baronet, Sir Tobias Clarke, and her mother Teresa de Chair, the daughter of an MP. She is distantly related to US presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosvelt. She attended the 25,000-a-year Downe House independent school near Newbury and later studied art history at Newcastle University. She married Henry Coram-James in 2021 and Arabella is their first child. Advertisement

The MP said such a moment was 'unacceptable', and said there is a need to address the 'postcode lottery' of services available across England.

She described her own birth injury, a third degree tear, which she said occurs in about three in 100 women.

The consequences of an obstetric anal sphincter injury, she said, can include urinary and faecal incontinence, chronic pain, sexual dysfunction and other mental and physical effects, adding: 'It is very clear, we must do more to help women.

'We need to break the taboo by talking about this,' she said.

Outlining her requests to the Government, she said: 'It is so clear to me that so much more needs to be done to support women who experience traumatic births.

'Today I call for the Government to add birth trauma to the women's health strategy, recruit more midwives, ensure perinatal mental health services are available across the UK, provide appropriate and mandatory training for midwives with a focus both on mental and physical health, ensure that the post-natal check with your GP is provided to all mothers and will include separate questions both for the mother's physical health and mental health.'

She also called for an improvement in continuity of care and national post-birth services, for the obstetric and anal sphincter care bundle to be rolled out to all hospital trusts in England, and to provide better support for partners and better education for women on birth choices and risks.

Responding to the debate, health minister Maria Caulfield said: 'By early part of next year, every integrated care system in England, and I can't comment what's happening in Labour-run Wales, but in England we will have a fully working maternal mental health service to support mothers experiencing moderate, severe or complex mental health difficulties.

'It is true that the number of women accessing perinatal mental health services has risen almost 50% over two years, but that's actually good news because we want women to come forward, our challenge as a Government in England is to be able to meet that demand.'

On the women's health strategy, she said: 'We will be updating our year-two strategy fairly soon and we'll be setting out our priorities and I can let members know about that as soon as possible.

'This is a priority for the Government and we are seeing change, but more change needs to happen.'

On Thursday, the Department of Health and Social Care also unveiled plans for how it intends to implement NHS pelvic health clinics across all areas of England - first announced in 2021 - which follows a number of pilot schemes, and which the Government said will provide better information for pregnant women, and improved aftercare.
Surveillance footage captured the moment a 22-year-old stood motionless in a Polish department store posing as a mannequin, allegedly waiting to steal.

Holding his pose until closing time, the man then sprung back to life, bag at the ready, and allegedly proceeded to burgle a Warsaw jewellery store.

'When he felt safe, he went hunting and robbed the island of jewellery', assistant inspector Robert Szumiata from the Srodmiescie District Police Headquarters said in a statement.

This was not the first instance the man had allegedly stolen from the department store.

Szumiata said on another occasion the man allegedly again waited for closing before grabbing a bite to eat at a nearby bar. He then maneuvered his way into a another store under a steel curtain and allegedly grabbed some designer clothing.

Surveillance footage captured the moment a 22-year-old man stood motionless in a Polish department store posing as a mannequin before allegedly proceeding to burgle a jewellery store

CCTV caught the moment the man maneuvered his way into a another store under a steel curtain and allegedly grabbed some designer clothing

The man was temporarily arrested for three months and faces up to 10 years in jail

'On the way, he stopped at a familiar bar once again to eat another meal. However, his luck finally ran out on him as he was spotted and captured by security personnel who called the police.'

He said it was 'known' that the 22-year-old had committed thefts and burglaries in another gallery, 'where, after its closure, he took money from several cash registers and tried to steal other items'.

Szumiata confirmed the downtown Department for Combating Property Crime has charged the man with burglary and theft.

At the request of the Warsaw Srodmiescie Ponoc District Prosecutor's Office, the court decided to temporarily arrest the man for three months.

The Penal Code provides for up to 10 years' imprisonment for these crimes, he said.
The partner of the council worker shot dead in her home was 'nonchalant and unhelpful' to the murder investigation, Liverpool Crown Court was told today.

Environmental health worker Ashley Dale, 28, was shot with a Skorpion machine pistol at home in Old Swan, Liverpool, in the early hours of August 21 last year by gunman James Witham, who admits manslaughter.

Witham, 41, and four other defendants, Niall Barry, 26, Sean Zeisz, 28, Ian Fitzgibbon, 28, and Joseph Peers, 29, deny her murder, which is alleged to have happened following a feud with her partner Lee Harrison.

Harrison,26, was seen several times by a police staff investigator and detectives following the shooting but refused to co operate, the court heard.

Harrison said on the night of the shooting he had been in a taxi on his way to a party when they passed his road and he saw the police tape. But he carried on his journey, the court was told.

Ashley Dale (pictured), 28, was shot with a Skorpion machine pistol at her home in Old Swan, Liverpool

One of the accused, James Witham (pictured), 42, admits being the man who fired two bursts from a Skorpion sub machine gun but claims that he did not know that Ashley was in the house

Hours after the shooting, Police Staff Investigator David Rawsthrone spoke to Harrison at his mother's home, the jury was told. He described him as 'totally uncooperative'.

Mr Rawsthorne said: 'He did not want to engage and did not want to help. He said he had no beef with the group.'

He added that Harrison claimed he 'had no idea why Ashley or himself would be targeted'.

The investigator said: 'He said he could offer no reason why Ashley would be shot dead. He would not engage and said there was no reason why Ashley would be killed. He said he did not believe there was any threat to him or his family.'

Mr Rawsthorne said Mr Harrison did not give his phone to police and said he had lost it in the city centre on the night of his partner's death, although police found evidence he was still using the phone after that.

Harrison accepted that Ashley must have been the victim of a targeted attack but did not accept the background to the dispute with the defendants which had been provided by Ashley's friends.

He said: 'He was nonchalant and unhelpful.'

Harrison said he could not believe that Niall Barry - who he called Branch - was 'capable of killing Ashley because of a fall out three years ago'.

He also described Witham as an 'old mate', the court heard.

When he was told that Barry, Zeisz , Witham and Peers had been charged with murder, he said 'they must have been off their heads on drugs when they did it'.

He told police he did not believe they were capable or responsible as he was 'fine with them', except one of them - who he refused to name, Mr Rawsthorne confirmed.

Harrison said he could not believe that Niall Barry (pictured) - who he called Branch - was 'capable of killing Ashley because of a fall out three years ago'

Prosecutor Paul Greaney, KC asked if Harrison's reaction 'was what you would expect from the partner of a dead person?'

Mr Rawsthorne replied: 'No, not at all.'

Mr Rawsthorne said since the killing Mr Harrison had been in Dubai on several occasions.

On Thursday, the court also heard Barry had a conviction for supplying a sub-machine gun.

Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, said Barry, using the handle Bettertrunk, had sent a message to someone on messaging service Encrochat in 2020 which appeared to refer to firearms and a 'skorp', slang for a Skorpion machine gun.

He also received a message which appeared to list weapons including a 'skorp', AK47 and Uzi sub-machine gun.

He responded asking the sender to 'get us prices', the court heard.

Other messages showed an Encrochat user asking Barry if he could 'sort' a 'strap', which the court heard was slang for a firearm, for someone who wanted to buy a 'sprayer'.

Mr Greaney told the jury: 'On June 8 this year, based upon the messages, Niall Barry was convicted of conspiracy to sell or transfer a prohibited weapon, namely a sub-machine gun.'

The court heard no firearms had been recovered from Barry or addresses associated with him.

Five men are currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of her murder

Hyundai used in the murder of Ashley Dale, on a driveway in St Helens where it was found by police

Witham, of Huyton; Fitzgibbon, of St Helens; Zeisz, of Huyton; Barry, of Tuebrook; and Peers, of Roby - all Merseyside - deny conspiracy to murder Mr Harrison and conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon, a Skorpion sub-machine gun, and ammunition, as well as the murder of Miss Dale.

Kallum Radford, 26, of no fixed address, denies assisting an offender.

Gunman James Witham told police 'I've been stitched up', a court heard.

Witham, 42, admits being the man who fired two bursts from a Skorpion sub machine gun but claims that he did not know that Ashley was in the house. He admits manslaughter but denies murder.

The jury was told that Witham was interviewed three times following his arrest on the M6 in Cumbria on his way back to Liverpool from Scotland nearly a month after the shooting.

He told the officers on the motorway that he was on his way back to Merseyside to hand himself in because of a tag which had been imposed on him after events at Glastonbury music festival.

The court heard that Witham mainly refused to comment in interview but told officers: 'I have nothing to do with it, mate, not a clue.'

But in the next interview as he was being taken back to his cell, he claimed: 'I have been set up' and later added 'I have been stitched up, it's not right.'

The prosecution claim that Ziesz, Barry and Ian Fitzgibbon, 28, were the 'organisers' of the shooting which was intended to kill Ashley's partner Lee Harrison, 26, over a feud between rival gangs in the Huyton area of Liverpool.

Witham and Jospeh Peers, 29, are alleged to be the 'foot soldiers' in the planned murder.

The prosecution claim that Witham was driven to and from the scene of the shooting by Joseph Peers, 29.

Items seized from Niall Barry's room at the Formby Hall Hotel following his arrest

Hyundai used in the murder of Ashley Dale, on a driveway in St Helens where it was found by police

All five men deny murder, conspiracy to murder Lee Harrison and conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon and ammunition.

A sixth man, Kallum Radford, 26, denies assisting an offender by hiding the Hyundai car allegedly driven by Peers.

Mr Radford was arrested after the car was discovered on the drive of his friend Abbie Jevins in St Helens, Merseyside, last October.

Mr Radford initially told police he had been stopped in the street by two men he did not know who paid him 100 to store the car, but later admitted in another interview months later that he did know one of them, the court heard.

In his first interview on October 11, Radford, who was accompanied by his sister as an appropriate adult, said he was walking to his friend's house in St Helens 'to get stoned' in late August when a car approached him and the driver asked if he knew a driveway or garage where they could park.

He told officers the man said someone was 'trying to smash their car up' and he wanted somewhere to park it for a week.

Radford said he called his friend, Ms Jevins, and when she agreed to store the car, he got into the vehicle with the men and travelled there.

He told officers: 'The lad said "there's 100 for you, lad".'

Radford said he thought the passenger of the car had a name like 'Zest'. The court has heard defendant Sean Zeisz uses the nickname Zest.

Radford also told officers he knew defendant Joseph Peers.

In a second police interview, which was played to the court, Radford answered 'no comment' to a number of questions from officers.

He told them: 'You're trying to trip me up on questions, that's why I'm no commenting everything.

Ashley Dales' sister (who has requested not to be named), mother Julie Dale, stepfather Rob Jones and father Steve Dunne arriving at Liverpool Crown Court for the trial

'You are trying to get justice for that girl and I hope you do get justice but I have got to go 'no comment' so I don't get hurt.'

The officer asked if he could explain that and he answered: 'No comment.'

In a third interview, in January this year, Radford told police it was Peers who asked him to store the car.

He said Peers gave him 100 and said he would pick the Hyundai up in a week but then 'kept making excuses'.

Radford said he did not initially tell police the truth because he was 'scared'.

Asked about Peers, he said: 'He's a rat, a horrible rat, putting me in this situation.

'But, back then I would have thought he was a friend.'

He then told police he was not sure if the man with Peers was Zest.

He told officers he did not know the car was involved in the murder and said he was 'petrified'.

He added: 'They're going to come for me, aren't they? People are going to come for me.

'As long as my family's going to be OK, I don't want nobody else getting hurt because of what I have said to you.'

The trial continues.
A 28-year-old man has died and three of his mates are fighting for life after a horror crash in South Australia.

Ari Utomo, who moved to Australia from Indonesia in search of a better life, was a passenger in a car when it ran off the road and hit a tree in the Adelaide Hills. He died at the scene.

The driver and two other passengers, who are all aged in their early 20s, suffered critical injuries and are now being treated at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, 9 News reported.

Ari Utomo has died and three of his mates are fighting for life after a horror crash in South Australia

The driver and two other passengers, who are all aged in their early 20s, suffered critical injuries

Friend and co-worker Tama Napitupulu said the group were on their way home from a night shift at the Thomas Foods abattoir at Lobethal when tragedy struck.

She added that Mr Utomo was only in that car by chance after his own vehicle broke down.

'This morning when I found out it was Ari, I couldn't even stand up,' Ms Napitupulu said.

'He was such a nice guy, he always put a big smile on his face whenever he said hello to everyone,'

Mr Utomo was only in that car by chance after his own vehicle broke down

A spokesman for Thomas Food International said: 'We are all deeply saddened by this tragic accident.

'Our thoughts are with their families and counselling support has been provided.'

Mr Utomo's family will fly his body home for a funeral in Indonesia.
Aerial photos taken today show the new asylum accommodation centre at the former home of the Dambusters HQ where 2,000 migrants could be housed, amid the Home Office being hit with a legal notice to halt work.

Rows of portable cabins have been placed on RAF Scampton's airfield, in Lincolnshire, with diggers seen parked up inside the temporary metal fencing alongside neat rows of wooden crates, stacked pallets, and ring-fenced building materials.

The Home Office wanted the huge accommodation centre at the former Red Arrows base to be full by Christmas, according to residents, but has faced fierce criticism from locals with a campaign group being backed by Conservative MP and former defence committee member Sir Edward Leigh.

West Lindsey District Council (WLDC) served a notice in September on the Home Office to halt work which also ordered the site to be returned to its original condition.

But it was 'inundated' with evidence work was continuing, although it is understood this has now stopped. A judicial review over the proposals are set to be heard on October 31.

The Home Office is currently having to dish out 8million a day on hotel bills to accommodate migrants and argue large accommodation sites are needed to slash the 'unacceptable' cost. Asylum seekers would be free to come and go from the site.

First aerial photos show portable cabins placed on the airfield at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, amid the Home Office being hit with an order to halt work on the site

Some 1,500 migrants would be housed at the former Red Arrows base but the proposals have been met with fierce opposition from locals, historians, and the MP for the area

Rows of portable cabins have been placed on the airfield with diggers seen parked up inside the temporary metal fencing alongside neat rows of wooden crates, stacked pallets, and ring-fenced building materials

It comes as the first asylum seekers returned to the Bibby Stockholm today, two months after the barge was evacuated following the discovery of the deadly bacteria Legionella.

The 617 Squadron, known as The Dambusters, was formed at the airfield and famed for its mission in May 1943 by 19 Lancaster bombers to destroy three dams in the Ruhr Valley  Germany's industrial heartland  with 'bouncing bombs'.

WLDC said work to prepare the site  which included moving in accommodation blocks  had broken rules over listed buildings and archaeology when it served the order last month.

It said the breaches related to the installation of fences, 'intrusive' surveying works, groundworks and connections to utilities which had 'the potential to cause irreversible damage to important heritage assets'.

Sir Edward, the MP for Gainsborough, lashed out at the Home Office for not complying with the order when it was issued although he said he understood work had now stopped.

He wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on October 4: 'I understand from @WestLindseyDC that the Home Office have informed them they are now complying with the stop notice.

'I have repeatedly urged them to do so. Lets hope they are fully compliant but they should have complied from the start the moment it was issued.'

The local authority had been 'inundated' with information from local residents sharing evidence of the work still continuing to take place.

A WLDC spokesperson said this was backed up by council officers who visited the site on October 13 when they witnessed an increase in the number of portable buildings on the site.

The 617 Squadron, known as The Dambusters, was formed at RAF Scampton and famed for its mission in May 1943 by 19 Lancaster bombers to destroy three dams in the Ruhr Valley

The 617 Squadron  the Dambusters  was formed at the airfield, from where 19 Lancaster bombers departed for the famous raid in 1943 to destroy three dams in the Ruhr valley. Pictured: 617 Squadron led by 24-year old Wing Commander Guy Gibson (in aircraft door)

Special 'bouncing bombs' (seen here slung below the aircraft) were used in the raid

The main entrance to RAF Scampton, an iconic airbase in Lincolnshire that was once home to the Dambusters and more recently the Red Arrows

A man wears a Rishi Sunak mask and holds a sign carrying the Morse code for 'SOS' outside RAF Scampton. Mr Sunak has made 'stopping the boats' a key Government pledge

The Red Arrows practising in the skies over Scampton. They are now based at RAF Waddington

The Home Office said it was 'carefully considering' the notice's implications and said it was 'inappropriate to comment further at this time'.

Sir Edward previously wrote to Rishi Sunak calling on the Prime Minister to step in on his government department acting 'illegally in disobeying a stop order'.

In his letter to the PM on September 27, Sir Edward called on the Home Office to act 'honourably' while also arguing the value-for-money case for housing migrants at Scampton 'had been blown out of the water'.

The Dambusters HQ had been touted as the North's 'biggest regeneration and levelling up project' after a 300million deal was struck in March to bring aviation, space, education and hospitality industries to the site - creating thousands of jobs.

Plans for the makeshift asylum accommodation centre blasted those plans into disarray and was met with fury from locals and historians.

Prominent historian James Holland blasted the plans in March and said: 'Obviously, refugees need to be housed but why there?

'Where there are listed buildings, so much heritage, and where there are such brilliant development plans in place and where such a plan is so desperately needed.

'It's absolutely insane. A desecration. And in the 80th anniversary year of the Dams Raid? Has this Govt gone totally mad???'
Sidney Powell, one of Donald Trump's former lawyers, has suddenly pleaded guilty to conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

The so-called 'Kraken' lawyer, 68, admitted six criminal counts in a deal with prosecutors that saw her receive a reduced sentence.

She avoided jail and was given six years probation during a surprise appearance at the Fulton County court in Georgia on Thursday.

In a potentially devastating blow to Trump, she also agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants - including the former president - at future trials.

Sidney Powell, one of Donald Trump 's former lawyers, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election

The shock move sparked speculation that she had 'flipped' and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, turning on her old boss.

However, Steve Sadow, the lead lawyer for Trump in the Georgia case, said Powell's plea deal would be beneficial to the former president.

He said: 'Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy.'

Powell earned her nickname in 2020, when she described the case she was mounting against Joe Biden's election victory as the 'Kraken'.

That was a reference to the mythical, octopus-like creature depicted in the Hollywood blockbuster Clash of the Titans. In the movie, the monster was slain.

In court she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges of 'conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of electoral duties'.

The so-called 'Kraken' lawyer pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of electoral duties during a surprise appearance at the Fulton County court on Thursday

Powell stands beside Rudy Giuliani at an infamous press conference on the election results in November 2020

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has pleaded not guilty to 13 charges in he case.

Her acceptance of a plea deal is a remarkable U-turn for a lawyer who had strenuously pushed conspiracy theories about the election being stolen.

In addition to probation, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ordered her to pay a $6,000 fine.

She was also ordered to write a letter of apology to the state of Georgia and its residents.

Powell was accused, alongside Trump and 17 others, of involvement in a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the election to Biden.

Specifically, they have been accused of conspiring to overturn the results in Georgia, where Biden won a narrow victory by 12,000 votes.

In doing so the defendants violated Georgia's anti-racketeering law, prosecutors allege.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is shown in a police booking mugshot released by the Fulton County Sheriff's Office on August 24, 2023

Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee presided over Sidney Powell's case

Powell is credited with being one of the loudest voices advising Trump to fight to overturn the election.

Other defendants in the sprawling case include former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a Trump lawyer, and Mark Meadows, who was Trump's White House's chief of staff.

Powell becomes the second of the defendants to reach a deal with prosecutors, following bail bondsman Scott Hall, who played a less prominent role.

She entered her pleas just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial.

Her attorneys had strenuously denied prosecutors' claims during earlier hearings and insisted they had evidence she was not a 'driving force' in the alleged conspiracy.

Powell was part of a so-called Trump 'strike force' of lawyers who toured the country after the election unsuccessfully arguing in courts that there had been widespread voter fraud.

That included publicly making unfounded claims about manipulation of voting machines.

The trial of another former Trump attorney, Kenneth Chesebro, is set to begin on Friday.

If Powell were to testify against Trump she could provide insight into a White House meeting in December 2020 at which prosecutors say strategies on how to overturn the election result were discussed.

Former prosecutor Elie Honig said the Powell plea deal was a 'really big breakthrough for the prosecutors' as they pursue Trump.

He told CNN: 'Its so important to understand there is no such thing as halfway cooperation.

'If youre a prosecutor, you would not enter into this deal with Sidney Powell unless you had been thoroughly convinced that she is telling the truth, she is going to be able to testify for you credibly in the way that you can put in front of a jury.'
A drunk driver who flew past police with two tyres missing has been banned from the roads for 14 months.

Paulius Krasausauskas, 38 from Haddenham, Buckinghamshire was stopped on the A142 by officers who saw 'sparks flying' from his black Vauxhall Astra at about 4.30am on September 16.

They were shocked to discover, once they had pulled him over that he was missing two tyres and the 'sparks' had been coming from the alloy wheels scraping along the road.

Paulius Krasausauskas, 38 from Haddenham, Buckinghamshire was stopped on the A142 by officers who saw 'sparks flying' from his black Vauxhall Astra

Police were shocked to discover he was missing two tyres and the 'sparks' had been coming from the alloy wheels scraping along the road

Krasausauskas blew almost twice the legal limit on the breathalyser and has been banned from driving for 14 months

Krasausauskas, who blew almost twice the legal limit on the breathalyser, told police he had been at a friends in Peterborough and was driving home.

He blew 65 microgrammes at the roadside, with the legal limit in the UK being 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath.

He later went on to blow 50 while in custody.

Sergeant Andrew Owen, who investigated, said: 'This case demonstrates the serious impairment alcohol has on a person's ability to drive safely.

'Thankfully no other road users were affected by his decision to drive that morning in a vehicle not fit for purpose.'

You can report drink driving cases anonymously to Cambridgeshire Constabulary on 0800 032 0845.
A hammer-wielding burglary suspect took a leap of faith as he tried to evade capture by jumping off the roof of an apartment building in Los Angeles before being shot by cops.

Bodycam footage released by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) revealed the dramatic moment as the man catapulted into the air before quickly plummeting to the ground.

Officers responded to the home invasion in south LA on September 15 after getting a 911 call from the distressed building manager of the East 33rd Street residence.

The manager had frantically called police for help after the four people had forced their way into an apartment in the complex, bound a resident and stolen his car keys.

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW

A hammer-wielding burglary suspect took a leap of faith as he tried to evade capture by jumping off the roof of an apartment building in Los Angeles before being shot by cops

The four suspects were later identified by police as (Left to Right) Aaron Flenoy, Justice Lockhart, Jeffrey Askew, Daiyaan Henderson, who are all in their 20s

On the call the manager claimed that the four had remained at the premises and were now stalking the hallways terrorizing other tenants.

'[They're] going to people's units and they're trying to break into a unit right now,' the female manager, whose name was not identified, said.

While she believed they were teenagers, the four suspects were later identified by police as Aaron Flenoy, Justice Lockhart, Jeffrey Askew, Daiyaan Henderson, who are all in their 20s.

Once police arrived on scene, Lockhart and Flenoy were taken into custody, but Askew decided to take a gamble and flung himself from the rooftop in a bid to escape justice.

Officers responded to the home invasion in south LA on September 15 after getting a 911 call from the distressed building manager of the East 33rd Street residence

'Don't do it, don't move, do not move!' officers are heard shouting as Askew appears to reach for his waistband

Police shot Askew (pictured) after he reached for his waistband for what they'd initially thought was a gun but turned out to be a hammer

Footage revealed police looking up at the building as Askew, who appeared to be aiming for another roof, jumped and bounced off it before landing on the pavement.

'Don't do it, don't move, do not move!' officers are heard shouting as Askew appears to reach for his waistband.

The hammer Askew was holding at the time of the shooting

'As officers approached Askew to take him into custody and render aid, he reached into his front waistband and removed what officers believed to be a firearm,' a police statement read.

'Askew then appeared to point the object in the officers' direction, resulting in an Officer-Involved Shooting (OIS) and a simultaneous deployment of a 40mm Less-Lethal Launcher foam projectile round.'

It was later identified that Askew was not holding a gun, but a hammer at the time of the shooting.

The burglary suspect was taken to hospital in a critical but stable condition in the days after the incident, his current condition remains unclear.

The manager had frantically called police for help after the four people had forced their way into an apartment in the complex, bound a resident and stolen his car keys

On the call the manager claimed that the four had remained at the premises and were now stalking the hallways terrorizing other tenants

The burglary suspect was taken to hospital in a critical but stable condition in the days after the incident, his current condition remains unclear

The fourth suspect, Henderson, allegedly 'attempted to escape the perimeter by changing clothes and exiting the front of the apartment complex.'

He was later spotted by officers and taken into custody without incident, police confirmed.

All four men were charged with home invasion robbery, residential burglary and felony offense against a person over 65 years of age.

Both Flenoy and Henderson were also charged with personal use of a firearm during a felony.

The LAPD said they're still continuing to investigate and analyze the incident and it could take up to a year.
There is no way to prevent Hamas helping itself to aid sent to Gaza, according to two of Israel's most senior former security officials.

Their assessment, based on years trying to rein in the terrorist group, undermines a key condition of an aid agreement brokered by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

He ended his seven-hour visit to Israel by saying he had secured a deal with Israel and Egypt to allow humanitarian supplies into the besieged Palestinian territory.

But he said the assistance would be stopped if any of it was diverted or stolen by Hamas, the group that controls the tiny enclave, collecting taxes and providing services such as schools and hospitals.

'I know Hamas very well because for five years of my life I dealt with them,' Ido Gabay, former chief of staff for the national security adviser in the Israeli prime minister's office.

'There is zero chance that you will get 100 percent of this aid to the ones who need it.

Aid for the Gaza Strip being unloaded from an Emirates cargo plane on the tarmac of Egypt's el-Arish airport in the north Sinai Peninsula on Thursday. Thousands of tons of food, water and medicine is stuck on the Egyptian side of the border

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden said he had secured a deal with Israel and Egypt to allow humanitarian supplies into the besieged Palestinian territory - so long as none went to Hamas

'The economy and the rule of law in the Gaza Strip have the DNA of Hamas built into them, meaning that anything that goes into the Gaza Strip, even if it's a bottle of water, or if it's a Sony PlayStation or BMW, they know how to benefit from it.'

Ido Gabay, former chief of staff for the national security adviser in the Israeli prime minister's office

Jacob Nagel, who was national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said there were ways of taking care of the problem.

'Ask me if I can guarantee that nothing will go to Hamas? I cannot,' he said.

'But the solution is simple ... it will be bombed.'

Israel has kept up a steady bombardment of Gaza ever since thousands of Hamas gunmen fanned out from the coastal enclave, killing at least 1,400 people on October 7.

It is massing troops for an expected ground invasion and has the area effectively under siege.

Biden arrived on a mission to both offer solidarity to Israel and try to ease an acute humanitarian crisis.

Just before he left, he said Israel had agreed to allow aid into Gaza from Egypt. It will come with inspections and safeguards against it falling into the hands of terrorists.

He added: 'Let me be clear: If Hamas diverts or steals the assistance, they will have demonstrated once again that they have no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people and it will end.

'As a practical matter, it will stop the international community from being able to provide this aid.'

The Israeli Defense Forces have told civilians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Egypt closed its border crossing after the Hamas attack on Israel, leaving civilians stranded and hundreds of trucks carrying aid waiting at the border

Image grab of footage recovered from bodies of Hamas fighters bodycam show their infiltration into Israel. Former security officials fear aid will fall into the hands of Hamas

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egyptian charities for Palestinians wait for the reopening of the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian side of the border

Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry, told Al Arabiya TV that the supplies would be supervised by the United Nations.

But Israel has a long memory of aid falling into the wrong hands.

It accused Hamas of using cement intended to rebuild bombed homes for building a network of tunnels and bunkers to protect fighters and smuggle contraband.

And just this week a U.N. agency said trucks from the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health carted off fuel and medical gear from one of its facilities in Gaza.

'Our staff were compelled to evacuate UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City on a few hours notice during the night of Friday October 13,' it said. 'Since then, UNRWA has had no access to the compound and no additional details about the removal of the assets.'

It later deleted social media posts about the incident and claimed it was 'a movement of basic medical supplies from the UNRWA warehouse to health partners.'

Gabay said it was a classic example of one of two Hamas tactics.

'They either commandeer it or they take a value added tax that goes directly to their pocket, not the government pocket, to the Palestinian Authority, but to their pockets meaning to the organization's pocket for the military efforts,' he said.

Hamas stole fuel and medical equipment from @UNRWA in Gaza.



The amount of fuel stolen is enough to power Gazas water desalination facilities for six days.



Hamas does not care about the people of Gaza.



This remains true even if UNRWA deletes its tweets. pic.twitter.com/iHF2P0CFjE  Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 16, 2023

Smoke rises from an airstrike on Gaza. Israel has kept up a heavy bombardment on the territory

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip

He added that the deal on aid was a political deal, a concrete win for Biden and designed to placate Arab anxiety about the crisis in Gaza.

Aryeh Lightstone, former adviser to Donald Trump's ambassador to Israel, said politics and placating critics at home had been put above security by Biden.

'It is impossible,' he said of keeping aid from Hamas.

'It's reckless and it's feckless policy catering towards politics instead of the safety of our American hostages and Israeli hospitals.'

For his part, Nagel said Israel was ready to agree to the plan before Biden arrived. Delivering aid was a useful tool at a time the country's defence forces were telling civilians to leave the northern end of the Gaza Strip before the next phase of its operation.

'It serves one of our goals, the goal of moving the population from north to south,' he said.

'We can tell them: Look if you move, you get water, some food. If you stay, you starve: Pray to Hamas.'

The arrangement has also angered families of hostages held by Hamas. They said any aid deliveries should be tied to releasing their relatives.
'Scalise is a nice guy who surrounds himself with killers so he doesn't have to leave fingerprints on the murder weapon,' a source told DailyMail.com

No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise's team is quietly making calls behind the scenes and urging members to vote against Jim Jordan for speaker - despite voting for him on the House floor.

The tensions between members of leadership have boiled over into the public eye ever since Kevin McCarthy's historic ouster over two weeks ago.

DailyMail.com heard from three members who have been contacted by Scalise allies urging them not to vote for the Judiciary chairman, who stepped up to run for the speakership when Scalise dropped out last week.

Two other sources familiar told DailyMail.com that during the two failed votes on Jordan's bid for speaker this week, Scalise had members of his team strategically spread out across the House floor. Once the vote was over they 'said things to members like, "hey, we should talk after this.'''

No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise's team is quietly making calls behind the scenes and urging members to vote against Jim Jordan (pictured) for speaker - despite voting for him on the House floor

DailyMail.com heard from three members who have been contacted by Scalise allies urging them not to vote for the Judiciary chairman, who stepped up to run for the speakership when Scalise dropped out last week

Scalise himself has not been asking members to vote one way or the other and he voted for Jordan in both the first and second vote series. The firebrand Republican lost 20 GOP votes on his first ballot and 22 on his second.

An anticipated third vote Thursday will no longer happen after a source familiar confirmed to DailyMail.com that Jordan supports temporarily elevating House Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry until January while he shores up more GOP support.

Jordan is not dropping out and will remain the 'speaker designee' in the meantime.

House members are now expected to move to a resolution to temporarily empower interim Speaker Patrick McHenry until January 3 so that they can resume legislative work immediately.

However, the resolution could draw an odd coalition of staunch Jordan supporters and moderate Republicans supporting it, while Scalise supporters and other conservatives oppose it.

And if McHenry is empowered to move legislation, it takes the pressure off the House to find a new speaker immediately and buys Jordan more time to court votes.

Behind the scenes, Scalise's staff are likely to continue to work against Jordan.

'Scalise is a nice guy who surrounds himself with killers so he doesn't have to leave fingerprints on the murder weapon,' a source told DailyMail.com.

'I think his team is probably quietly whipping hard, he's got a complex operation.'

Another source familiar said of why Scalise is voting for Jordan on the floor and letting his allies whip against him behind the scenes: 'It's to save political face too - he's the majority leader, I don't think he wants to put his career on the line either.'

The source continued: 'I think if he starts going against Jordan, people might be like well we're gonna go after your position in leadership.'

Scalise could be upset he jumped out of the race so early and may be looking to throw his own name in the hat again. But people familiar with the conversations say it seems more like he's just upset with the way Jordan handled the race - and the support Jordan has from longtime Scalise foe McCarthy.

But some believe Scalise is directly responsible for holding up Jordan's speakership.

'The block right now is with Scalise allies, that's the hold up. Once they move, Jordan will be speaker,' one senior GOP aide told DailyMail.com.

The aide called to mind the long-running tensions between Scalise and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. 'We've actually seen this before, where the majority leader is supporting the conference nominee on the floor, but isn't doing the work to get them across the finish line. That happened in January with McCarthy, and we're seeing it again.'

After McCarthy, Scalise won an internal Republican vote to become the GOP candidate for speaker. But Jordan supporters, mostly members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, remained obstinate - they would continue supporting Jordan even on the House floor.

McCarthy offered Scalise his support but the endorsement seemed luke warm. Asked about his relationship with Scalise when he was looking to replace him, McCarthy told DailyMail.com: 'I just wanna help anyone get to speaker.'

Jordan said he would back Scalise and offered to give a nominating speech for him on the floor - but DailyMail.com spoke with over half a dozen Jordan supporters and none had been asked by the Ohio Republican not to vote for him and to support Scalise instead.

An anticipated third vote Thursday will no longer happen after a source familiar confirmed to DailyMail.com that Jordan supports temporarily elevating House Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry until January while he shores up more GOP support.

Scalise abruptly dropped out of the running after a day - realizing he was not making headway with his right-wing opposers.

Jordan then jumped into the running and is now having trouble winning over the moderates and pragmatists of the conference.

On Wednesday, he asked Scalise for help winning them over in a meeting and Scalise rebuffed him, a source familiar told DailyMail.com.

'Jim Jordan isn't going to get the job done and doesn't have our support,' one moderate GOP member told DailyMail.com, insisting someone like Jordan would not get get the top job.

'Chip Roy would be a different story. He's principled,' he added about Roy, an outspoken member of the House Freedom Caucus - which Jordan formed.
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French winemakers today intercepted trucks carrying cheap Spanish booze and smashed crate-loads of it all over the road.

Le Boulou tollbooth, just ten miles from France's border with Spain, was turned into a battleground this morning when dozens of protesting winemakers halted lorries and tore into their contents.

They destroyed several wine shipments, smashing the bottles and pouring the red booze all over the tarmac in a vintage demonstration of the French public's penchant for demonstrating against perceived injustices.

Countless litres of white wine and bubbly were also wasted, with shocking images from the scene depicting crates upon crates of bottles littering the scene.

One enraged grape-grower leapt onto a truck with a sledgehammer, violently swinging the tool at boxes of vino, while others flicked open the tap on one lorry, unleashing a torrent of red that soaked the road.

Another group of demonstrators piled up crates of tomatoes and tyres to make an impromptu bonfire.

Frederic Rouanet, the president of a local syndicate of winemakers who organised the protest, said the demonstration comes as part of the 'economic war against economic criminals who abuse ruined winegrowers', before adding: 'We are going to take away the possibility of being able to import foreign wines.'

It remains to be seen whether Rouanet's wine-soaked manifesto will be realised, but for now the repercussions for the protest seem minimal, as the disgruntled grape-growers were mostly left alone by police, according to French newspaper Vitisphere.

Winegrowers unload wine from a lorry during a road-blocking demonstration to protest against imports of Spanish booze

Winegrowers destroy bottles of wine on the motorway at the tollbooth of Le Boulou, close to the Spanish border

Protesters destroyed several wine shipments by smashing the bottles (pictured) and pouring the wine onto the road

A disgruntled winegrower destroys bottles of wine with a sledgehammer

Un grupo de viticultores franceses organizo una operacion sorpresa en Narbona para frenar las importaciones de vino espanol. Los viticultores llegaron al peaje de Le Boulou en la frontera con Espana con el objetivo de parar el trafico y ralentizar el trafico. Como resultado, pic.twitter.com/XW5laNccqb  Alt Right Espana (@ModoAlt) October 19, 2023

Another protester flicked open the tap on one lorry, unleashing a torrent of red wine that soaked the road

Another group of demonstrators piled up crates of tomatoes and tyres to make an impromptu bonfire

The protesters smashed several crates of Freixenet bottles

Some even sprizzed the Spanish sparkling wine, leaving the road soaked in booze and foam

After opening the tab on a lorry, gallons of red wine spilled onto the road

Smoke billows from a make-shift bonfire on the tarmac

Los manifestantes han parado los camiones en la A-9 en el paso fronterizo de Le Boulou, bloqueandoles el acceso y, posteriormente, vaciando algunos vehiculos y destrozando la mercancia, incluyendo cisternas de vino. pic.twitter.com/0L4PaLulSA  Sr.Liberal (@SrLiberal) October 19, 2023

Protesters tumble over crates of Freixenet wine, which crash into puddles of white wine and foam as they hit the road

In videos posted on X, protesters can be seen tumbling over a mountain of crates carrying Freixenet wine.

Many of the crates had been upended so their valued contents spilled out across the road. Bottles upon bottles of bubbly were seen rolling around amid a sea of broken glass and wasted booze.

The protesters then took the splintered remains of the crates and added them to a pile of hundreds of cardboard boxes containing Spanish tomatoes, before lighting the whole lot on fire.

Some threw yet more boxes into the flames, while others somehow procured a batch of tyres, whose rubber whipped up a serious blaze that trailed thick plumes of black smoke into the sky.

A pair of firetrucks later descended on the scene to quell the inferno.

Before the protest escalated, a delegation of winegrowers of different local syndicates and trade unions met to discuss the cheap Spanish imports that threaten to put French winemakers out of business.

This fiery demonstration was launched just two months after French media reported in August that the government is set to pour away millions of litres of wine  and will even rip up vineyards.

The move comes as part of a bid to reverse tumbling prices amid falling sales. Production of wine has continued to rise in France, leading to a glut of unsold wine that has in turn caused prices to dip.

Major wine-producing regions, particularly the famed Bordeaux area of France, are struggling.

The French government has announced a 170million plan to buy up huge quantities of the excess, which will be destroyed.

The alcohol content will be recycled to make hand sanitiser, cleaning products or perfume.

Winegrowers in southern France are calling for more economic aid after difficult climate conditions affected the vintage

Protesters also set a pile of tyres on fire, which billowed black smoke into the air and could be seen from several miles away

They also piled up hundreds of cardboard crates carrying Spanish tomatoes and lit them on fire

Protesters stopped several trucks importing wines from Spain at the Boulou tollbooth near the southern border between France and Spain this morning

Agricultores franceses destrozan la carga de camiones espanoles en Le Boulou, al sur del pais vecino y cerca de la frontera con Espana.pic.twitter.com/RuKywsgrnY  Fabian Perez (@Fabian10_) October 19, 2023

Some threw more and more boxes into the flames, which quickly developed into grey smoke rising several feet high

Protesters emptied out the truck and threw the boxes of tomatoes onto the road

Protesters even grabbed individual packets of tomatoes and and smashed them on the floor

French agriculture minister Marc Fesneau said the fund was 'aimed at stopping prices collapsing and so that wine-makers can find sources of revenue again'.

But he stressed that the industry needed to 'look to the future, think about consumer changes... and adapt'.

Figures from the European Commission say wine consumption for the current year is estimated to have fallen 15 per cent in France, 7 per cent in Italy, 10 per cent in Spain, and a staggering 34 per cent in Portugal.

However, production in the EU has risen by 4 per cent.

The commission said the worst affected areas were those producing reds and roses from regions of France, Spain and Portugal.

Given this stunning market saturation, Spanish importers are trying to beat their French competition by offering cheaper prices, threatening the livelihoods of many French winemakers.

But this is not the first time French winegrowers made a statement against cheap imports by destroying wine.

French producers have been furious that their traditional rivals in Spain  and also Italy  are exporting hundreds of millions of litres of cut-price wine that threaten their livelihoods for years.

Dozens took to the roads at Le Boulou in 2016, stopping Spanish tankers and then emptying their wine on to the roads in a very similar protest.

Mr Rouanet confirmed at the time that four tankers were emptied, with 70,000 litres of wine wasted.

Fellow protesters scrawled graffiti on the side of the Spanish trucks, with slogans including 'wine not compliant'.
Doctors have agreed to let a 17-year-old girl with severe learning difficulties have life-saving kidney dialysis after expressing concerns about her ability to cope with the treatment.

Hospital bosses wanted a court decision on whether it was in the best interest to allow Sana Hosseini, who has chronic kidney disease to begin the gruelling medical procedure on a trial basis despite initial concerns.

At the latest hearing lawyers told specialist court judge Mrs Justice Theis that without the treatment or a transplant, Sana would die.

They added that specialists had agreed to try dialysis and that her Manchester-based parents, Maryam Nogourani and father Majid Hosseini, who live in the Manchester area, are also 'very enthusiastic' about the procedure.

Sana's case had been handed over to the Court of Protection, which deals with issues relating to those people who lack the mental capacity to make decisions for themselves.

Sana Hosseini, 17, will now be able to start a dialysis treatment trial, a judge has ruled

The judge said that while the dialysis would involve Sana having to sit still for lengthy periods several time a week and the teenager might accidentally tamper with the equipment, putting herself at risk.

But the judge, who is based in London, ruled that the benefits of dialysis 'heavily' outweighed the 'inherent risks'.

She praised the doctors working hard to prepare for Sana's dialysis, which included pretending to give Sana's favourite doll Mario similar treatment.

Bosses at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, which is based in Salford, Greater Manchester, have responsibility for Sana's care and have begun litigation. Mrs Justice Theis said she aimed to review the case in November.

Sana's parents, whose legal team was led by barrister Victoria Butler Cole KC, said in a statement: 'We were under immense pressure and stress, it is a huge burden lifted off our shoulders and now we are over the moon.

'We hugged Sana and all of us cried, and all of us were so emotional that Sana could now live happily.

'We're really grateful to Elizabeth and her wonderfully professional team for their hard work, efforts, and helpful support.'

Law firm Irwin Mitchell is representing Sana's parents. 'This is a highly emotive and time-sensitive case,' lawyer Elizabeth Ridley, based at Irwin Mitchell, said.

The judge praised the doctors working hard to prepare for Sana's dialysis, which included pretending to give Sana's favourite doll Mario similar treatment

'Without treatment, Sana would have almost certainly had a very short life expectancy.

'Sana's parents strongly consider that their daughter has already responded well to treatment and that she deserves to receive treatment like anyone else, without her learning disabilities, would.

'The court was asked to decide whether receiving this life-sustaining treatment was in Sana's best interests.

'Sana's parents and the trust have worked together to find the best way to facilitate her urgent treatment.

'The judge ruled in favour of Sana receiving this life-saving treatment and understandably her parents are delighted with the outcome.

'They now look forward to Sana being treated and will consider her future need for a donor kidney.'

Ms Ridley said: 'Following this ruling, they hope Sana will make a good recovery and ultimately be able to continue living a happy, fulfilling life with her loved ones.'

Judges normally rule that patients at the centre of Court of Protection cases should not be named in media reports to protect their privacy. But Mrs Justice Theis ruled that Sana could be named - she said publicity may help to find a kidney donor.
Channel 4 has been hit with criticism after it gave a platform to a smirking Hamas official who said reports of beheadings and the burning of children were Israeli lies and denied it had taken any hostages.

Critics accused the broadcaster of 'irresponsible journalism' by letting a spokesman for the terrorist group 'peddle lies' and deny the massacre of civilians on October 7.

Hamas Politburo member Osama Hamdan was seen smirking as Channel 4 News presenter Matt Frei challenged him about the 'appalling slaughter' of Israelis including reports of 'beheading' and 'the burning of children' by the group's fighters.

The terror group spokesman replied that Israel was 'lying', adding: 'This is a big lie created by them. They built this country on the blood of the Palestinians.'

Later in the interview when brought to ask over the kidnapping of 'innocent civilians' and taking them to Gaza, the Lebanon-based spokesman denied there were any hostages, despite the huge weight of evidence to the contrary.

Channel 4 has been hit with criticism after presenter Matt Frei (left) quizzed Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan (right) about the October 7 attacks

Hamdan said: 'There is no hostages. There is war prisoners and there is foreigners.'

In the interview the spokesperson also insisted that Israel was responsible for an explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital which Palestinian health officials claim has killed 500 people.

'They [Israel] are lying and they have to admit that they have done this crime and they have to be turned to the war crime court,' he said.

During the broadcast Mr Frei, who has been based in Israel since the outbreak of the conflict, questioned Hamdan over the horrific actions of Hamas's militants as they massacred their way through southern parts of Israel.

Challenging the Hamas spokesperson, Mr Frei said: 'Do you regret the slaughter of Israeli civilians? Because many people I've spoken to here believe that what you did on October 7 has set your cause the Palestinian cause back by decades.'

He also quizzed him over apparent rifts between Hamas and the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is the internationally recognised representative of the Palestinian people.

He said: 'President Abbas the head of the PLO has called on Hamas to release the hostages the 190 or so hostage. Why don't you release them?

'Why don't you just release the hostages? It would be the humane thing to do? They are innocent civilians. Most of them. There are some soldiers but many of them scores of them are innocent civilians,' the interviewer added.

During the course of the interview the Channel 4 News presenter also pointed out he had spoken to Israeli first responders who had described 'scenes of brutality' such as disembowelling, beheading and the burning of children.

He said: 'I spoke to Israeli First responders yesterday.

'These are the people who go in and they discover the bodies. It's a charity - that's volunteer work - and the scenes of brutality of the aftermath of slaughter of innocent civilians that they describe are profoundly shocking. Disembowelling in some cases, few cases beheading, the burning of children their hands tied behind their backs - what is your response to these appalling acts of slaughter that were carried out by your men?'

Channel 4 News' interview sparked outrage, with one social media user writing: 'Channel 4 shouldn't platform this guy'.

A baby's seat and dress are seen spattered in blood in the aftermath of a Hamas attack

Hamdan was seen smirking as Mr Frei quizzed him about the 'appalling slaughter' of Israelis including reports of 'beheading' and 'the burning of children' by the group's fighters

Another criticised the channel's 'irresponsible journalism' while a third said: 'You allowed this guy on your platform to peddle lies.'

One viewer responded: 'Do you give ISIS as much airtime? Why treat Hamas differently?'

Another added: 'Why are you giving publicity to these maniacs? Can you not see the tensions you are inflaming?'

A Channel 4 News spokesman said: 'Since the start of this conflict, Channel 4 News has reported on the unfolding crisis by relying on the principles of independence, due impartiality and accuracy.

'Last night, in light of the differing narratives emerging around the attack on the Al-Ahli Arab hospital, a senior spokesperson for the political wing of Hamas was interviewed and robustly challenged as part of the programme's independent and impartial reporting.'

This comes following a row over the BBC's refusal to call Hamas gunmen 'terrorists' in its coverage.

The corporation has consistently described the organisation as a 'militant' group and described the slaughter of Israeli civilians as a 'militant' attack.

The decision triggered a huge backlash from politicians and religious leaders.

The deputy chief of executive of BBC News has said that it has been 'tricky to satisfy' audiences during the coverage of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.

During an online event, held by the Media Society and called Reporting The Israel-Hamas Conflict, Jonathan Munro said: 'We are in a very difficult situation on impartiality.'

He also said that he would 'really push back' on questions about the BBC's reporting and called criticism of programmes 'not true or fair'.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis accused broadcasters of trying to 'wilfully mislead' by not using the word 'terrorist', saying last week: 'The murder of babies where they sleep is not the act of a 'freedom fighter'.'

The broadcaster justified its language use in the name of impartiality, adding its job is to explain 'precisely what is happening on the ground so audiences can make their own judgement'.

A number of BBC stars backed the corporation's position, including veteran world affairs editor John Simpson.

He insisted that 'calling someone a terrorist means you're takings sides'.

One appalling photograph released by Israel shows the blackened and charred bodies of a baby killed by Hamas terrorists

Nick Robinson, a presenter on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, said on social media: 'I understand entirely why some want the word 'terrorism' used.

'It is, though, the long-standing practice of BBC, ITV and Sky to report others using that language rather than using it ourselves.'

BBC director of editorial policy David Jordan said not using the word terrorist was a 'very long-standing policy' which had 'stood the test of time'.

He added: 'We've called them massacres, we've called [them] murders, we've called them out for what things are and that doesn't in any way devalue the awfulness of what is going on.'
Hamas terrorists used rocket-propelled grenades supplied by North Korea in their murderous assault on Israel, it has emerged.

The Gaza-based terrorists carried shoulder-held F-7 launchers, which are designed to take out armored vehicles, as they roamed civilian areas in Israel murdering hundreds of men, women and children.

Weapons used by Hamas and captured by Israel on the battlefield were from Pyongyang, South Korean officials and specialists in North Korean arms told the Associated Press.

During the brutal Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 some of its terrorists also used North Korean Type 58 self-loading rifles, which are a variant of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, the experts said.

Suspected North Korean-made F-7 rocket-propelled grenades, many with a distinctive red stripe on their warhead, are seen at an Israeli military base in southern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023

North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Un denied supplying Hamas with weapons

Kim Jong Un's hermit kingdom illegally sells weapons to fund its nuclear weapons program.

The F-7s and rifles are believed to have been sold first to Iran and then passed on to Hamas.

Pyongyang publicly denied that it had armed Hamas, calling the allegation a 'groundless and false rumor' disseminated by the United States.

But the evidence appeared conclusive as images published by Hamas itself showed terrorists wielding the weapons, and others were seized by the Israeli military.

North Korean rocket-propelled grenade launchers that remain in the hands of Hamas are expected to be used against Israeli tanks during an expected imminent Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, which could last months.

The weapons fire a single warhead and can be quickly reloaded, making them ideal for guerilla warfare against an opponent using armored vehicles in an urban battlefield.

It is not known how many of the weapons Hamas has.

CCTV footage shows a Hamas terrorist entering Be'eri kibbutz as mortally wounded car occupants sit in a rolling car, after it was fired upon at the gate, in southern Israel, October 7.

The F-7 has been previously found in Syria and Iraq.

Pictures published by Hamas showed terrorists carrying shoulder-held launchers with a red stripe like the F-7.

The same red stripe, and other similarities, were seen on launchers seized by the Israeli military.

N.R. Jenzen-Jones, a weapons expert at Armament Research Services, said: 'North Korea has long supported Palestinian militant groups.

'Many North Korean weapons have been provided by Iran to militant groups, and this is believed to be the primary way by which Palestinian militants have come to possess North Korean weapons.'

The White House said last week that North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 containers of weapons to Russia for its ongoing war in Ukraine.

Last month Kim traveled to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin and visit key military sites.

U.S. officials believe Kim has been asking for sophisticated Russian technology to boost his nuclear program in return for the weapons.
A BBC foreign correspondent was forced to abandon her live broadcast from Israel after sirens warning of a suspected rocket attack blared.

Lyse Doucet, the BBC's chief international correspondent, was giving her audience an update live from southern Israel on Wednesday when sirens began warning of an imminent Hamas attack, as she said: 'This is the situation now that the...'

She is interrupted by an off-camera voice shouting: 'Go, go, go.'

Panic can be heard in her voice as she said: 'The rockets are coming.'

She and her crew can then be seen piling into a black 4x4 parked nearby, before the broadcast to the BBC News channel cuts away to footage of people walking through a street.

This isn't the first time the 64-year-old broadcast veteran was forced to move her position during a live report from the bloodiest conflict between Hamas and Israel in decades.

The BBC's chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet (pictured) was broadcasting live on Wednesday

A siren forced her and her crew to leave their then-location

The broadcast veteran was reporting from southern Israel at the time

The film crew were running from a suspected rocket attack

Last week, the award-winning journalist was told she needed to move for her own safety after her team spotted black smoke rising from the area around Ashkelon, Israel.

There was also a significant risk of mortars landing in her immediate vicinity.

'This is what it's like. It's a very, very unpredictable situation. Israeli forces are trying to reassure residents of the area, it's trying as much as possible to talk about controlling the area, asserting control.

'But this is a situation Israel has never confronted before, never in all of its confrontation with Gaza.'

Several journalists have already been killed in the deadly conflict.

The US National Press Club said in a statement on Wednesday that at least 18 reporters have been killed.

Eileen O'Reilly, president of the National Press Club and Gil Klein, president of the National Press Club Journalism Institute said in a joint statement:

'We are learning more about the large number of journalists reported killed during the war between Israel and Hamas.

'Most of them are Palestinians and they are dying in Gaza from airstrikes. For the first days of the war we were not hearing about any Israeli journalists killed.

'We now know that at least three were killed in the initial Hamas attacks. They were among the first journalists killed, but. because of the circumstances (one was at the music festival, one was on a kibbutz) there was a delay in their identification.

Reuters' journalist Issam Abdallah holds a kitten while posing for a picture in Saaideh, Lebanon, July 4, 2023

Reuters' journalist Issam Abdallah takes a selfie picture while working in Maras, Turkey, February 11, 2023

Reuters' journalist Issam Abdallah pose for a picture in Beirut, Lebanon, September 24, 2020

'We now also know that five of the journalists killed are women  three Palestinian and two Israeli. And at least two of the crew seriously injured in Lebanon on Friday were women.

'There are many other journalists injured, some are missing and presumed held hostage. It's almost certain the number of journalists killed will increase as an invasion of Gaza is looming.

'The street-by-street fighting will produce extremely dangerous conditions for journalists, and we are concerned for their safety and for that of all involved.

'We are also concerned that there is some evidence of journalists being targeted in a brutal form of censorship.'

Those dead include Issam Abdallah, a Beirut-based videographer for Reuters, who was killed during a shell attack from Israel's direction towards the Lebanon border.

Abdallah and a group of other journalists were covering a spate of shelling near near Al-Shaab in southern Lebanon between Israeli forces and Lebanons militant Hezbollah group.
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has been deemed D.C.'s ultimate matchmaker after setting up 20 marriages between his staff members.

Chuck Grassley and Chuck Schumer are replacing dating apps in D.C. and setting their staffers up within the romantic walls of the White House instead.

The Republican Senator - who is the oldest member of congress following the death of California's Diane Feinstein - has earned a reputation for playing Cupid amongst his staffers.

He faces competition from the Chuck on the other side of the aisle who has already seen 14 babies born as a result of his own matchmaking.

Staff from the office of New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, 72, clearly caught the White House love bug with 11 marriages between 22 of Schumer's staffers.

He captioned the picture of them with the newlyweds: 'Jen, my chief of staff and Nick Davis got married in Cedar Rapids this weekend. They are the 20th couple to marry after meeting in my office'

Grassley has been deemed D.C.'s ultimate matchmaker after setting up 20 marriages between his staff members (pictured: Chuck Grassley with Jen Smith)

The Republican Senator - who is the oldest member of congress following the death of California 's Diane Feinstein - has earned a reputation for playing Cupid amongst his staffers

Chuck Grassley, 90, attended the 20th wedding that has been set-up under his management last weekend.

Grassley, an avid social media user, shared an Instagram picture on Monday of him and his wife of almost 70 years - Barbara Grassley - at the wedding of his chief of staff.

He captioned the picture of them with the newlyweds: 'Jen, my chief of staff and Nick Davis got married in Cedar Rapids this weekend. They are the 20th couple to marry after meeting in my office.'

Schumer earned a reputation for being a matchmaker in 2015 after seeing 11 marriages between his staffers in the space of his 16 year tenure.

The New York Senator said: 'Look, if online dating isn't working for you, this might be another way to do it!

'There are two spins on all these Schumer marriages. One is, we are the closest-knit staff on the Hill. The bad spin is, we work so hard that they don't have a chance to meet anybody else!

Elizabeth Stanley and Sean Sweeney - two members of Schumer's staff in 1999 - got married on November 21, 2009, at Saint Monica and Saint James Church on Capitol Hill. According to The Clarke County Democrat, they welcomed a baby girl, Harper Margaret Sweeney, on November 29, 2-14, and a little boy, Jackson Francis Xavier Sweeney, on June 24, 2018.

Grassley, an avid social media user, shared the Instagram picture on Monday of him wife Barbara Grassley at the wedding of his chief of staff

Grassley has been with his wife Barbara Grassley for almost 70 years

Sweeney said that Schumer would pressure him to propose to his girlfriend: 'He would just keep saying 'let's go already'', according to the New York Times.

When Sweeney finally proposed, Schumer reacted like a sportscaster and cheered 'Gooooal!'

Schumer said: 'When you get to know someone at work, you get to know the real deal, as opposed to, when you sit down at a restaurant or something on a date, where everyone's nervous and saying, 'What are they gonna think of me?' and all that.

'When I see, you know, two single people who might be good for each other - I'm not the most subtle guy in the world, but I try as subtly and as gently as I can, 'Oh, she's nice, he's nice.''

Josh Isay and Cathie Levine - another couple set up by Schumer - thought they had successfully kept their relationship a secret, until Isay's going-away party when Schumer said he 'can now be public about what we all already know,' referring to his romance with Levine.

Staff from the office of New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, 72, clearly caught the White House love bug with 11 marriages between 22 of Schumer's staffers

Schumer earned a reputation for being a matchmaker in 2015 after seeing 11 marriages between his staffers in the space of his 16 year tenure. The New York Senator said: 'Look, if online dating isn't working for you, this might be another way to do it!

Schumer went on to sign the ketubah - a Jewish marriage contract - at the couple's wedding and apparently stayed late at the reception to do 'the love train,' according to Isay.

Ryan McConaghy and Moira Campion also fell into Schumer's love trap during their time working for the Senator. Campion told The New York Times she was 'just about tried to melt into the floor' when Schumer exposed their romance at a holiday party.

Schumer's former assistant Daniel Squadron was set up by the senator and his wife, Iris Weinshall, when her chief of staff Elizabeth Weinstein caught the assistant's eye.

Years after the pair got together, they told Schumer that they were having a baby and the senator was so overcome with excitement that he accidentally announced it at a news conference before the couple got the chance to tell their friends and colleagues.

Other couples that met during their time working with Schumer include Brooke Jamison and Michael Lee Lynch, Brett Di Resta and Nicole Rutberg Di Resta, Laura Kleinstein Block and Andrew Block, and Matt Cohen and Tracie Holmberg.
The mother of a 13-year-old black child knocked off of his bike by armed police after they mistook his water pistol for a real weapon has accused officers of racial bias - as photos emerged of the toy that prompted the 'deeply traumatic' callout.

In a statement read out on her behalf at a press conference on Thursday, the youngster's mother said the incident, in Hackney, East London, would not have occurred if he had been 'a white 13-year-old boy'.

Met Police marksmen knocked the boy off of his bicycle, causing soft-tissue injuries, and handcuffed him on July 19 as he had a water fight with his younger sibling.

Images of the water pistol, which is widely available online, show it is made of blue and white plastic, with a large transparent container at the bottom for holding water; online listings describe it as 'the best gift for kids, friends and family in summer'.

The incident was sparked after an officer on patrol reported a potential firearms incident, but the boy, known as Child X, was de-arrested when the nature of the 'weapons', which were blue and pink in colour, became clear.

This is the type of water pistol that the youngster - known as Child X - was playing with as he was rammed off of his bicycle by the Metropolitan Police

A statement was read out on behalf of the boy's mother at a press conference on Thursday as community and campaign groups called on police to recognise institutionalised racism

Lee Jasper (second from right), chair of the Alliance for Police Accountability, said the incident was 'shocking and appalling'

The mother of the youngster said the Met Police had treated both her and her son 'with contempt' after she confronted police about what they had done

The Alliance for Police Accountability (APA) has condemned the treatment of the child, saying his brightly-coloured water pistol was unmistakably a toy and that the incident demonstrated the 'adultification' of black children.

In her statement, the mother of the boy, who has suffered from nightmares since the incident, said: 'I feel let down and betrayed, not only by the police, but also by the IOPC, and by the whole system that is supposed to look after our children, black or white.

'How can I be expected to place my faith in the police to investigate themselves when they have treated my son and me with contempt?'

READ MORE: Met Police sergeant and three constables are investigated for misconduct over the arrest and strip search of a 15-year-old schoolgirl Advertisement

She added: 'I feel broken by it all; distraught because I was not able to protect my child from what happened.'

Lee Jasper, chairman of the APA, told the press conference it was a 'shocking and appalling case' and that the child was 'inches from death'.

He added: 'Not only is a child having nightmares, not only is a mother replaying a scene which could have led to tragic consequences for her son but those who witnessed it are also suffering as a consequence of what they saw that day.'

Mr Jasper said there was increasing anecdotal evidence of 'increasingly violent interactions between police and black children'.

He called on the Mayor of London and the Home Secretary to intervene in the case and for safeguarding practices to be amended to 'take account of the incidence of institutionalised racism'.

Mr Jasper added: 'Our children are routinely seen by police officers and teachers as adults instead of children.'

At the same conference Leroy Logan, a former Metropolitan Police superintendent, said the incident demonstrated 'a failure of leadership' and called on the police officers involved in the incident to be taken off-duty.

And Dr Wanda Wyporska, chief executive of the Black Equity Organisation civil rights group, said the case was an 'example of institutional racism'.

She added: 'The treatment of Child X by the Met Police was unwarranted and is genuinely unfathomable.

'How can a toy water gun that is blue and white be considered a credible firearms situation?

'The policing of our community and children needs significant change to get us back to the principle of policing by consent.'

The incident comes less than three years after Child Q, a black schoolgirl from Hackney, was strip-searched unsupervised by Met Police officers

Campaigners have accused the police of treating black children like adults when it came to investigating crime. Pictured: People outside Stoke Newington Police Station in London protesting the treatment of Child Q

Hackney's police chief has apologised for the incident - but has defended his officers' approach to a report of a firearms incident. Pictured: People outside Hackney Town Hall in London protesting the treatment of Child Q

The boy's mother previously told the Guardian that a Met Police officer was 'aggressive' towards her after she challenged the force on the treatment of her child.

She told the newspaper: 'It has been a deeply traumatic experience for him, for me and for our family as a whole.

'The attitude of the police to him - and to me - is show up in the words of the senior officer at the scene when I protested to him about the conduct of his officers. He told me I was lucky that they had not arrested my son.

READ MORE: More than 330 Met police officers are waiting to face gross misconduct charges, force admits as it plans to hold 30 hearings a month Advertisement

'For what? For playing with a brightly coloured plastic water gun with his younger sibling on the streets behind our home? For being a black boy on the streets of Hackney?'

It comes less than three years after police in the same borough strip-searched a 15-year-old girl - known as Child Q - at her school while she was on her period when she was wrongly accused of having cannabis in her possession.

A Child Safeguarding Practices Review later said racism was 'likely' a factor in Child Q being searched. The identity of the girl in the Walworth case has not been revealed.

In a statement, the APA said: 'The subsequent treatment of Child X and the horrific scene that unfolded was appalling.

'A police van rammed Child X off his bicycle, knocking him to the ground.

'He was surrounded by armed police officers who pointed their firearms at him and arrested him on suspicion of being in possession of a firearm.

'He was de-arrested at the scene soon afterwards, once his mother had arrived and challenged what was happening, but she too was treated with contempt by the officers when she sought an explanation for their conduct from them.'

An internal investigation by the Metropolitan Police found no misconduct had been committed by the officers involved. Pictured: File photo

Detective Chief Superintendent James Conway, in charge of policing for Hackney and Tower Hamlets, said he had apologised to the family.

He said: 'This incident was understandably extremely distressing for the boy involved as well as the rest of his family.

'We know it may cause public concern and we want to help the public understand why we responded in the way we did.

'This does not in any way detract from our recognition of the trauma caused to the boy, for which I apologised soon afterwards to his family.'

An internal investigation by the Metropolitan Police found no misconduct had been committed by the officers involved.

Further complaint accusing them of racial bias is still being investigated by the force's standards department.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct watchdog directed that the Met could carry out both investigations itself.

Mr Conway said: 'Our officers are dealing with fast-moving situations, based on the limited information provided to them at the time.

'Such is the nature of the threat from firearms that the College of Policing is clear that officers should treat all firearms as real and loaded until proven otherwise.

'The police have a positive legal obligation under human rights legislation to protect life, which shapes our approach to responding to suspected firearms.'

Child X's family have seen body-worn video of what happened and have met Mr Conway.

He added: 'I am sorry for the trauma caused to the child and I am happy to meet with the family again if they feel that would help.'

A City of London Police spokesperson said: 'As common practice, a firearms unit from the City of London Police attended in support of Metropolitan Police firearms units at an incident on 19 July 2023.'

Just last month the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said officers will face a misconduct hearing, and a fourth lesser misconduct meeting, over the treatment of Child Q.

No drugs were found in the teenager's bags or outer clothing, and she was then strip-searched by two female officers with two male officers standing outside. Again no drugs were found.

The Child Q case sparked a wave of protests last year, with hundreds gathering at Hackney town hall, after it emerged the teenager was searched without another adult present and in the knowledge that she was menstruating.

The watchdog has investigated four other incidents since Child Q where children were strip-searched by Met officers.

Two have resulted in officers either facing disciplinary meetings or so-called internal 'reflective practices' - a strip search of a child in custody in 2022 with no appropriate adult, and the search of a 15-year-old girl at Walworth Police Station in December 2020 who was found to have a sharpened stick and a Stanley knife.

The third was a strip search of a 16-year-old boy at Ilford police station in January 2020 where no further action is being taken against the officers involved.

For the fourth, a strip search of a 16-year-old boy at Bethnal Green police station in October 2020, the IOPC investigation has yet to be completed but it is expected that no disciplinary proceedings will result.
Benghazi Marine hero Mark Geist helped evacuate a church group from Bethlehem with intel from contacts in the region, after they were trapped there following Hamas terror attacks in the region.

The group of 84 people from the Diocese of West Fargo, North Dakota, had to change their plans during their trip to Israel after the unprecedented and deadly attack forced the country into war.

The severity of the conflict was yet to reach the group, but as information trickled in, fear grew among the worshippers as they desperately searched for a way out of the conflict zone.

Father Gerald Braun, one of the Catholic priests leading the group, and another priest leading the pilgrimage, Father Phil Ackerman told Fox News Digital 'everybody was looking for a solution.'

A group of 84 people from the Diocese of West Fargo, North Dakota, had to change their plans during their trip to Israel after the unprecedented and deadly attack forced the country into war

The severity of the conflict was yet to reach the group, but as information trickled in, fear grew among the worshippers as they desperately searched for a way out of the conflict zone

The first hint something was amiss came when they attempted to make a stop at the site of Jesus' baptism on the Jordan River but were turned around.

After that the group tried to make its way to a stop in Jericho instead but quickly realized that site had also been closed.

The murmurs of war began to make their way into the group only to be replaced by an avalanche of information provided by loved ones alerting them to the developing crisis that surrounded them.

Benghazi Marine hero Mark Geist helped evacuate a church group from Bethlehem with intel from contacts in the region, after they were trapped there following Hamas terror attacks in the region

Frantically, they began reaching out for help from the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and North Dakota Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer.

Initially, the group would had thought they would be traveling from Bethlehem to Tel Aviv for a return flight but it became abundantly clear this would not be the case as rockets launched between Hamas and Israel flattened homes and displaced thousands.

It was then, when no alternative solution had been found, that the concerned sibling of a member of the group reached out to Geist.

John McDonald's sister was among those stuck in Bethlehem and he told the outlet that he'd contacted the U.S. Marine Corps veteran when hope had started to dissolve.

His sister had expressed the deteriorating situation in the Middle East which had compelled them to remain in Bethlehem for the unforeseeable future as flights began to cancel and routes out began to close indefinitely.

Geist, who was one of the American contractors who famously fought off a 13-hour assault in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012, worked quickly with contacts in the region to find intel on how to get them home safely.

'I was getting text message from my sister that were pretty panicked about what was going on,' McDonald said.

John McDonald's sister was among those stuck in Bethlehem and he told the outlet that he'd contacted the U.S. Marine Corps veteran when hope had started to dissolve - this was resolved when Geist suggested the group leave from Jordan (pictured)

A welcome home sign from the Holy Cross Catholic Church in West Fargo was erected in honor of the returning worshippers

'We were providing updates, just based on what we had seen on Fox News at that point and I reached out to Mark and asked if he had any resources.'

Geist said the information he had gathered indicated that the group would be safest looking to travel to the border with Jordan and find a way home from there.

'They were unsure of what to do,' Geist told Fox News Digital.

'Their flights were out of Tel Aviv but the airline companies at the time had told them that they couldn't rebook them.'

The information proved invaluable and according to Braun was an avenue that the group had not ventured to think of until Geist's suggestion.

'We were thinking that made sense,' Braun said, adding that the group was still hoping to hear back from the State Department, after the initial idea was floated to fly the group out of Tel Aviv.

With no word back and Air Canada canceling their flight out of Tel Aviv the group traveled to Jordan without incident.

By Thursday the American worshippers were on a flight back to the U.S. but frustrations mounted against institutions they'd hoped would have been helpful during the unfolding crisis.

'We've got to do a better job giving American citizens overseas that are stuck in a war zone information, intel, and guidance on where to go and what to do,' McDonald said.

Geist, who was one of the American contractors who famously fought off a 13-hour assault in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012, (pictured) worked quickly with contacts in the region to find intel on how to get them home safely

The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was set ablaze during a protest by an armed group said to have been protesting a film being produced in the United States September 11, 2012

A State Department spokesperson told the outlet that there is 'no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas, including U.S. government personnel and their dependents.'

The spokesperson did not address the specific incident but noted: 'The U.S. Embassy in Israel has issued multiple Security Alerts since October 7, 2023.'

'A team communicating 24/7 with U.S. citizens and providing them assistance through phone calls and an online crisis intake form.

'We have been advising U.S. citizens who wish to leave and can do so safely to check the status of the border crossings or verify flights have not been cancelled before heading to the Ben Gurion Airport.'

The spokesperson added that 'we are acutely aware of the limited capacity on commercial flights and the high demand from U.S. citizens wanting to depart.'

'Our goal is to assist U.S. citizens who want to leave Israel with a safe means of doing so.'

The State Department also pointed towards the possibility that U.S. citizens could depart Israel by taking advantage of 'commercial flights that involve transiting a third country if they are unable to book a direct flight to the United States.'

'In order to meet high demand for flights, we are exploring other contract options by air, land, and sea to nearby countries,' the spokesperson added.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., was one of those in government working behind the scenes to assist the group, Fox News Digital reported.

In an interview the North Dakota senator said he understood the frustration of families but noted that he was working tirelessly to get them home.

'I couldn't begin to blame anybody for thinking that the wheels of government are moving to slowly when you're trapped in a situation where you're surrounded by violence and uncertainty and understandably fearful,' Cramer told the outlet.

Cramer said he stayed in contact with people on the ground and Bethlehem while working with the State Department to find a solution.

The senator also pointed out that the department was suddenly tasked with the responsibility and safety of thousands of other Americans in the country as well.

Israeli police officers were seen evacuating a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on Saturday, Oct 7

Thousands have been left dead in the conflict which continues to rage on in the Middle East

'The 80 most important people in the world, or at least in Israel at that time, are my 80 people, but realizing there are also probably a couple hundred thousand other people who are the most important people to somebody else,' Cramer said.

'I tried to have some empathy for how overwhelmed our own embassy was.'

Cramer said his role was to feed information from the State Department and the group to keep them informed.

He also credited fellow North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, who he said was in 'lock step' with him to get the group home safely.

'After hearing from family members of the North Dakotans in Israel, our office notified the State Department about the group over the weekend to ensure their safety,' Hoeven's office told Fox News Digital.

'Senator Hoeven then followed up directly with Father Ackerman and Assistant Secretary Bitter at the State Department on Tuesday to connect the group directly with the ambassador's office and assist them with booking flights.'

Braun and Ackerman praised all those who helped them get home.

'Everybody was striving to do their best, to see what they can do,' Ackerman said.
Ashling Murphy's mobile phone fitness app was still running when police arrived to try to save her life, the court heard at the primary school teacher's murder trial.

Gardai who arrived on the scene of the attack on Ms Murphy have told a court of their intensive efforts to save her life.

Ms Murphy, 23, was assaulted and killed while out running along a canal path in Tullamore, Co Offaly in January 2022.

Jozef Puska, 33, of Lynally Grove in Mucklagh, Tullamore, has pleaded not guilty to the teacher's murder.

On the third day of the trial at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin, two gardai who were the first emergency services personnel on the scene on the afternoon of January 12 gave evidence.

Ashling Murphy, 23, was killed while out jogging along a canal in Tullamore, Co Offaly, in January 2022

Jozef Puska, 33, of Tullamore, Co Offaly, has pleaded not guilty to murder

Garda Tom Dunne and Garda Shane Hunter performed CPR on Ms Murphy while they awaited an ambulance crew.

Click here to listen to the Mail's new podcast The Trial 'The Trial...' takes listeners behind the headlines and into the courtroom of some of the biggest trials in the world. Our first series 'The Trial of Lucy Letby' was a worldwide hit, with over 13million downloads. Season 2 focuses on the killing of Ashling Murphy, a 23-year-old teacher from Ireland. Follow the trial's evidence, with twice-weekly reports from Deputy News Editor for Mail on Sunday Ireland Nicola Byrne and broadcast journalist Caroline Cheetham. Advertisement

Ms Murphy was found lying face up in thick undergrowth in a ditch around six feet from the canal path.

A green bike was discovered close by.

Two cyclists had discovered her and were waiting beside the ditch as the gardai arrived in a patrol car.

Garda Dunne has received the call reporting a serious assault at Tullamore Garda station around ten minutes earlier.

He had alerted colleagues and then he and Garda Hunter drove immediately to the scene.

Both guards described observing Ms Murphy lying on her back in the ditch.

She was covered in a lot of blood and her hair was badly matted, they told the court.

Garda Dunne went down into the ditch and felt for a pulse.

He said he did not believe there was a pulse but, if there was, it was a very faint one.

Garda Dunne said he then commenced CPR on Ms Murphy, with Garda Hunter taking over, before he resumed again.

'We just alternated between the two of us, I would say for ten minutes or more,' Mr Dunne told the court.

Garda Hunter said they alternated to 'ensure neither of us got fatigued'.

Both gardai told the court of the laceration injuries they observed around Ms Murphy's neck.

The opening day of the trial heard the 23-year-old was stabbed 11 times in the neck.

On Thursday, Slovakian national Puska, wearing a grey jacket, listened on from the dock with the assistance of an interpreter.

Members of Ms Murphy's family were in the public gallery of the court.

People pay their respects with floral tributes on January 19, 2022 at the Grand Canal in Tullamore where the primary school teacher was found dead

The scene in Tullamore, Co Offaly, last year after Ms Murphy was killed

A teacher from the Tullamore area yesterday told the court she saw a man holding down a woman who was kicking and crying out for help on the day Ms Murphy (pictured) was killed

The jury heard the teacher was wearing a navy running jacket and bottoms and a top of her local GAA club Kilcormac Killoughey when she was found.

She also had a necklace with her name 'Ashling' on it.

Garda Hunter told the court that Ms Murphy's phone had a fitness app still running when he found it in her clothing.

He said when he looked at the screen at 4.15pm, the app showed an exercise session that was at one hour, 22 minutes and 20 seconds long, with 3.2 kilometres having been covered.

The court also heard from Detective Sergeant David Scahill who arrived at the scene minutes after Garda Dunne and Garda Hunter.

He described the actions of his colleagues as they performed CPR.

'They were doing it alternately, they were doing the best they could do,' he said.

He later added: 'We're not doctors, we do our best at the scene.

'We were doing everything we could to help Ashling.'

The court heard that when ambulance personnel arrived at the scene, Mr Murphy was lifted from the ditch onto the canal path to allow the life-saving efforts to continue.

The attempts proved in vain and Ms Murphy was declared dead at the scene.

The trial continues.
Mother Mary Findley says her son is not a terrorist and it is all 'exaggerated'

A Cleveland man has been arrested by police for allegedly trying to cause trains in the city to derail by jamming metal into tracks and rail lines.

Joseph Findley, 43, has been arrested by the FBI on federal terrorist charges following a string of alleged attacks against railroad carriers on October 6.

He is accused of placing railroad spikes onto the path of oncoming trains and wedging pieces of metal into a rail switch.

During a test run for a CSX employee appreciation day, one train hit an obstruction on the track and temporarily derailed before the wheels dropped back into place.

Joseph Findley, 43, has been arrested by the FBI on federal charges of terrorist attacks and other attacks against railroad carriers on October 6

Multiple images of a bald man in shorts and a black shirt placing items on the tracks five times were caught between August and October 1

On investigation, CSX train employees found metal materials jammed into the tracks and rail switches. The issue became more concerning once employees began to find purposely placed materials on the tracks for months.

It is believed by officials that the way the materials have been placed matches methods taught by international terrorist groups to make homemade derail devices.

Findley lives with his parents near the CSX tracks in Clevelands St. Clair-Superior neighborhood.

His mother, Mary Findley told FOX8: 'He's never been a bad kid, never, he was always good. Hes no terrorist; somebody is making that up.'

When asked about her son's behavior on the tracks, she responded: '[He's been] depressed because he lost his job, he lost his girlfriend, but he never did anything like that.

'Theyre nuts, hes not a terrorist. I think they all exaggerated it because he never did anything bad.'

The FBI began their investigation in August and discovered that surveillance cameras at Dominion Energy were not positioned to show the nearby railroad tracks.

Once the company agreed to change the direction of the cameras, multiple images of a bald man in shorts and a black shirt placing items on the tracks five times were caught between August and October 1.

On investigation, CSX train employees found metal materials jammed into the tracks and rail switches. It is believed that the way the materials have been placed matches methods taught by international terrorist groups to make homemade derail devices

FBI agents began their investigation in August and discovered that surveillance cameras at Dominion Energy were not positioned to show the nearby railroad tracks

Once the company agreed to change the direction of the cameras, multiple images of a bald man in shorts and a black shirt placing items on the tracks five times were caught between August and October 1

The accused's mother, Mary Findley said: 'He's never been a bad kid, never, he was always good. Hes no terrorist; somebody is making that up.'

When police began to try to identify the photographed man, one employee at a nearby business recognized him as the accused.

The FBI executed a search warrant on Findleys house and he was arrested on the same day.

Apart from the CSX train's temporary derailment, no other train has suffered any severe damage. It is not yet known how far along Findley placed the jamming metal pieces on the tracks. A thorough search has not yet been ordered.

He has been charged with terrorist attacks against railroad carriers.

As per the channel, Findley is being held without bond in jail till his hearing in the U.S. District Court next week.
Content creator Sterling Fournier responded to a recent TikTok video discussing the Dock Street Dam, or what he and another user call, 'a death sentence.'

Known as IdkSterling on social media platforms, the TikToker discussed the dangers of the dam located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that's claimed the lives of 30 people.

The original video Fournier was tagged in shows a man pointing to the dam, claiming: 'Every motherf***er who ended up in there has died.'

Fournier emphatically agreed, stating that what the user said was, '100% absolutely correct.'

The dam can be found on the Susquehanna River, along with several buoys used to warn boaters of impending danger.

The Dock Street Dam in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania has claimed the lives of 30 people in the Susquehanna River since 1935

Sterling Fournier, AKA IdkSterling, discussed the dangers of the dam after being tagged in a previously posted TikTok He states that the user who tagged him was '100% absolutely correct' about the dam and the lives lost

Fournier explained why it's so dangerous, citing reasons are actually frequent issues seen in other dams.

He explained: 'It has the illusion of being safe - But the way that this wall is built right here is what makes it so deadly.'

The Dock Street Dam is a low head dam - structured to span fully from one side of the river to the other.

The Harrisburg structure includes a backwash, which Fournier said was like, 'a washing machine.'

'If you fall into this water right here, you're going to go around in circles until you inevitably end up drowning,' he continued.

Even The National Weather Service, a government agency, acknowledges that low head dams are known as 'death machines', and providing guidance on how to avoid drowning when caught in one.

These dangers and more contribute to why Fournier believes the best course of action regarding the dam is to: 'Stay the hell out of the water.'

The Dock Street Dam is a low-head dam - a structure that spans from one side of the river to the other, and includes backwash that Fournier says is like, 'a washing machine'

It is allegedly possible to escape from a low head dam alive, but it is very difficult to do so

The National Weather Service acknowledged that low head dams are known as 'death machines', but one can escape if following the proper steps

One lucky TikTok user allegedly found their way out of a low head dam alive but did not say if it was the one located in Harrisburg.

That person said: 'There is a way out, been in one myself, push down and foward to exit thru the bottom of the barrel. Agains instinct but the only way. Not easy tho.'

City of Harrisburg's Director of Communications, Matt Maisel discussed the significance of the buoys put in the river last April with Local 21 News after another boater lost their life in the Susquehanna.

'Harrisburg Fire, which goes in and puts buoys in every year, they will wait until the water is down to about 4 feet so that it is a more passable area so that they can go in and do it safely, he stated.'

At least 36 buoys are put in the river by May, but will only be there for certain parts of the year due to change of seasons and water height.

One thing that was not seen in the TikTok video were signs warning people about the dams and threats to those who wish to go into the river, and that's because they're very small.

Melvin Eichelberger told Local 21 News: 'Id like to see the city put bigger signs up or fine them $500. Do not go beyond this point, period.'

'From the city of Harrisburg or the building safety organization. Thats what they ought to do. Maybe thatll stop them.'
A grandfather was left astonished to find his dad's 1930s canary yellow open-top car on an auction website while he was looking for pictures of it so he could make a scale model, before he snapped it up for 7,000.

Malcolm Stern, 94, was looking for photos of Talbot Darracqs for his project when he 'instantly recognised' the distinctive car and original number plate.

Now he has the model and owns the car used to take the family on picnics when he was a little boy.

This week he took it on its inaugural drive after a major renovation that took thousands of hours and a 'substantial' sum of money.

'It's quite noisy compared to a modern car, it's got no power-assisted steering and you have to double declutch  but it's a pleasure because the car is so beautiful,' he told the Mail.

Malcolm Stern, 94, was looking for photos of Talbot Darracqs for his project when he 'instantly recognised' the distinctive car and original number plate

Mr Stern inside the car. This week he took it on its inaugural drive after a major renovation that took thousands of hours and a 'substantial' sum of money

'Some people have expensive paintings. I have my car.'

Mr Stern's father, Alec, bought the car while running a garage under railway arches in Waterloo, in central London, in around 1935, and used it to drive in to work from Chingford in Essex and take the family out on day trips.

But he sold it in 1942 to help make ends meet during the Second World War.

Mr Stern, the former CEO of a family firm that made products ranging from office furniture to dehumidifiers, bought a 3D printer in 2019 and made 'all sorts of models' before deciding to recreate the memorable car from his childhood.

As he began his picture research for the project, he was 'amazed' to see his father's car on the website of auctioneer Bonhams.

He and his wife, Sharon, 82, went to see it at a preview in Bicester, Oxfordshire, but took the matter no further as it was a 'wreck' after a piston smashed through the engine block at a rally, leaving it unused for years.

'We came home, I slept on it and the next day I said I've got to have it,' he said.

But when the online bids didn't meet the reserve of 10,000-15,000, it was withdrawn from sale and he thought the opportunity was gone.

However, the auction house then approached him to say the owner would take a private offer and he ended up purchasing it for around 7,000 including fees.

The car arrived at his home in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, in September 2020 and Mr Stern, a father of three and grandfather of eight, estimates renovators have spent around 2,000 hours on it, while he put in another 1,000 hours.

Mr Stern's father, Alec, bought the car while running a garage under railway arches in Waterloo, in central London, in around 1935, and used it to drive in to work from Chingford in Essex and take the family out on day trips

Mr Stern, his mother and his sister beside the car in Prittlewell, near Southend-on-Sea in Essex

Mr Stern holding up a model of the car. Speaking of the purchase of the real thing he said: 'Some people have expensive paintings. I have my car.'

The engine was rebuilt, rust was removed from the bodywork, and chrome parts that had been painted over with aluminium paint were stripped and returned to their former glory.

Work is still needed on the interior including the door trim, canvass hood, carpet and leather car seats but it is road worthy and went for its first run on Wednesday.

The public reaction showed it's not just Mr Stern's heart that beats faster at the sight of the car, which was made by Darracq and Company Ltd, a firm founded in France in 1896 and sold to an English company in 1902.

'People's heads turned and other drivers flashed their lights or hooted. There were one or two waves,' he said.

The car - which is around 14ft long, has a three litre, six-cylinder petrol engine and, in its heyday, could reach 100mph - will eventually go to the US with his son, Jonathan, who visited this week.

'I'm still very excited, very surprised that I'm 94, able to be here and do this and still be fit enough to go out in the car for a ride,' added Mr Stern.

'I think my father would be very proud. He'd be very excited as well.'

Mrs Stern admitted she hadn't been 'terribly enthusiastic' about buying the car at first.

But she said: 'It was a wonderful project during Covid. It kept him occupied and out of my hair, although there were pieces of car scattered all over the house.

'But he's done a wonderful job, so you've got to admire him. I'm so thrilled for him.'
A new programme titled The Great Amazon Heist will air on Channel 4 tonight (October 19) at 9:30pm UK time.

It sees writer, filmmaker and internet trickster Oobah Butler go undercover at one of Amazon's biggest fulfilment centres in the UK, to see first-hand the conditions faced by workers.

So, who exactly is Oobah Butler and what pranks has he gained notoriety for in the past? Read on below for everything you need to know about Oobah Butler.

In 2017, Mr Butler sent shockwaves across the internet when he managed to get a fake restaurant, named 'The Shed at Dulwich', to become the top-rated restaurant in London on TripAdvisor , despite it never actually existing.

Who is Oobah Butler?

Oobah Butler first found success after writing a piece for Vice, in which he challenged himself to be a better salesman than a Jehovah's Witness.

In 2017, Mr Butler sent shockwaves across the internet when he managed to get a fake restaurant, named 'The Shed at Dulwich', to become the top-rated restaurant in London on TripAdvisor, despite it never actually existing.

Fooling the likes of food critic Jay Rayner, Mr Butler was able to pull of the prank to such convincing levels that TripAdvisor said of the website: 'An appointment-only restaurant located in South London, The Shed has been operating privately for years.

'In 2017, it decided to open its doors. As of November that year, it was TripAdvisor's top-rated restaurant in London.'

After the prank was later revealed in Vice, Rayner held his hands up and admitted he had been taken in by a 'brilliantly executed piece of work'.

Butler followed this up by releasing a video on Vice's YouTube channel entitled How To Crash Paris Fashion Week, which saw him play the fictional persona of a fashion designer named 'Georgio Peviani'.

Going on to co-host the UK edition of Catfish - a show which explores the truths and lies of online dating - in 2021, he has also released a book titled How to Bull**** Your Way to Number 1: An Unorthodox Guide to 21st Century Success, which encourages people on how to be less inhibited in certain situations.

Now, Butler has returned to national attention to go undercover at one of the largest Amazon fulfilment centres in the UK, to see what conditions are really like for workers at one of the world's biggest global brands.

Oobah Butler attends the MTV Europe Music Awards 2022 held at PSD Bank Dome on November 13, 2022 in Duesseldorf, Germany

During his stint at Amazon for the documentary, Butler found that some Amazon drivers were working under conditions that were so strict, they were not even able to pause for bathroom breaks.

Consequently, they resorted to using empty bottles to urinate in, per The Guardian.

However, at some centres, any urine bottles found in distribution vans would lead to a penalty that could see workers fired, so the bottles sometimes ended up being discarded onto roads nearby a few hundred metres from the Amazon warehouse.

The Great Amazon Heist airs tonight on Channel 4 at 9:30pm.
The Lucy Letby inquiry looking into how the depraved child killer was able to commit her crimes will investigate hospital nurses, midwives and doctors, as well as probe the wider culture within the NHS, it has been revealed.

The Thirlwall Inquiry, was launched after Letby, 33, was sentenced to a whole-life term for murdering seven babies and trying to kill six more a the Countess of Chester Hospital Trust over a 13 month period.

This afternoon the Government revealed the 30 key questions it hopes to answer throughout the investigation.

The probe's main aim is to document the experiences of the parents who loss children under Letby's care, examining what happened when concerns were raised and how their child's deteriorating health was explained to them.

Following the sentencing of Letby, several NHS workers who raised concerns about Letby claimed their worries were dismissed, with one whistleblower who raised concerns about the nurse claiming whistleblowers were 'treated like the problem'.

The Lucy Letby inquiry looking into how the depraved child killer (pictured) was able to commit her crimes will investigate hospital nurses, midwives and doctors, it has been revealed

The inquiry will be lead by one of Britain's most senior judges, Lady Justice Thirlwall who has 'many years of experience' as both a senior judge and barrister

As it has been made a statutory inquiry, former and current NHS bosses and staff accused of negligence will be compelled under law to give evidence.

Investigators will now look into the conduct of both clinical and non-clinical staff at the NHS trust, asking for the specific concerns raised about Letby's behaviour and the outcomes of such complaints.

It will also whether Nursing and Midwifery Council or any other scrutiny bodies were contacted over her actions and examine whether better security and monitoring systems within the neonatal unit could have prevented the deliberate harm caused.

The inquiry will be lead by one of Britain's most senior judges, Lady Justice Thirlwall who has 'many years of experience' as both a senior judge and barrister.

The 30 questions the Thirwall Inquiry hopes to answer:

The experiences of all the parents whose babies were named on the indictment at the criminal trial:

1. During their involvement with the Countess of Chester Hospital and elsewhere what were the parents of each child told when and by whom about the condition of their baby, what was being done to treat them and what the prognosis was?

2. How and when were deteriorations (sudden or otherwise) in their babies conditions explained to them?

3. Where parents raised concerns about the condition and/or care of their babies, what was done and what were the parents told?

4. When were they given access to their babies medical records?

5. What information were the parents given by the hospital regarding concerns about Letbys conduct and when? What were they told was being done about the concerns?

Letby, 33, was sentenced to a whole-life term for murdering seven babies and trying to kill six more a the Countess of Chester Hospital Trust over a 13 month period

6. What were the parents of each child told about the likely cause of death or injuries? When and by whom?

7. When were the parents of each child told that Letby was suspected of causing the death or injury to their child? Was the trust sufficiently candid with the parents throughout?

8. What are the views of the parents of each child as to the adequacy of the information they were given at each stage?

9. What was the parents experience of the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)?

10. What are their suggestions for keeping babies safe on the neonatal unit?

The conduct of those working at the Countess of Chester Hospital during the period from the arrival of Lucy Letby at the hospital on 4 January 2012 to date

11. What was known and what should have been known about Letbys previous work as a nurse when she began employment at the Countess of Chester Hospital?

12. What concerns were raised and when about the conduct of Letby? By whom were they raised? What was done?

13. Should concerns, including about hospital or clinical data, have been raised earlier than they were? When? What should have been done then?

14. Were existing processes and procedures for raising concerns used, including whistleblowing and freedom to speak up guardians? Were they adequate?

15. What was the culture within the hospital? To what extent did it influence the effectiveness of the processes and procedures at question 14?

16. Whether systems, including security systems relating to the monitoring of access to drugs and babies in neonatal units, would have prevented deliberate harm being caused?

The conduct of those working at the Countess of Chester Hospital will be probed throughout the inquiry

17. Were existing processes used for reporting concerns to external scrutiny bodies where appropriate? If so, when and what happened? Such bodies may include NHS England (and its regional bodies), local commissioners, Monitor, NHS Improvement, child death overview panels, the Care Quality Commission, the police and the successor of any of these organisations.

18. When was consideration given to reporting Letby to the police? When was she in fact reported to the police and by whom?

19. What information about each of the deaths was provided to the coroner? Was the trusts provision of information to the coroner appropriate?

20. Did the relationship between clinicians and managers, nurses, midwives and managers and between medical professionals (doctors, nurses, midwives and others) at the Countess of Chester Hospital contribute to any failure to protect babies on the neonatal unit from the actions of Letby? How did professional relationships affect the management and governance of the hospital?

21. Did the structures and processes for the management and governance of the hospital contribute to a failure to protect the babies on the neonatal unit from the actions of Letby? Is the management structure and governance typical of neonatal settings in other hospitals?

22. What was the boards involvement in the way concerns about Letby were dealt with by the hospital?

23. What was the boards oversight of clinical and corporate governance?

24. How was Letby managed once concerns were raised about her?

25. Was Letby reported to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)? When? What information, if any, was provided to the NMC, royal colleges and any other external scrutiny bodies? What was done by the bodies to whom the actions were referred? What happened as a result?

26. What information, if any, was provided to the General Medical Council (GMC) and what information was requested by the GMC? What was the result of any referral or discussions with the GMC?

27. What happened to those who raised concerns about Letby?

Questions for the wider NHS

28. Whether recommendations to address culture and governance issues made by previous inquiries into the NHS have been implemented into wider NHS practice? To what effect?

29. What concerns are there about the effectiveness of the current culture, governance management structures and processes, regulation and other external scrutiny in keeping babies in hospital safe and ensuring the quality of their care? What further changes, if any, should be made to the current structures, culture or professional regulation to improve the quality of care and safety of babies? How should accountability of senior managers be strengthened?

30. Would any concerns with the conduct of the board, managers, doctors, nurses and midwives at the Countess of Chester Hospital have been addressed through changes in NHS culture, management and governance structures and professional regulation?
Nine Brits are confirmed to have died in a Hamas attack in Israel, with seven confirmed missing, the UK government has confirmed.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced today that at least nine British nationals were killed in the attack on October 7, while the other seven who remain missing are feared to be dead or kidnapped.

In a previous statement to the Commons on Monday, the Prime Minister had said six British nationals had been killed, with a further 10 missing.

Among the British nationals killed is father-of-two Yonatan Rapoport, also known as Yoni, who was tragically murdered by gunmen during the Kibbutz Be'eri attack.

Two more Britons killed by Hamas are Yahel Sharabi, 13, and her mother Lianne.

Yonatan Rapoport (pictured right), also known as Yoni, was murdered in the October 7 attack on Kibbutz Be'eri by Hamas fighters.

Yahel (left) and her mother Lianne (centre) were killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7. Noiya (right) and her Israeli father Eli Sharabi are still missing

Hamas terrorists (pictured) were seen unleashing a hail of bullets into the terrified families who lived in the isolated community of Be'eri of around 1,000 people that lay less than three miles from Israel's border with Gaza

Yahel disappeared after the terrorists attacked Be'eri Kibbutz and killed her mother, who was born in Bristol.

Yahel's older sister Noiya Sharabi, 16, and their Israeli father Eli Sharabi are still missing.

The family have confirmed this week that Yahel, 13, and her mother Lianne were murdered by the terrorists.

In a tribute, family members said Lianne was a 'beloved daughter, sister, mother, aunt and friend who enriched the lives of all those lucky enough to have known and loved her'.

'She lived a beautiful life and will be sorely missed by the heartbroken family and friends she leaves behind.'

Yonatan Rapoport has tragically left behind his two children, Yosefi and Aluma. He was a major Manchester United Fan, and planned on taking his son to Old Trafford for his first ever game next month.

Hamas terrorists were seen unleashing a hail of bullets into the terrified families who lived in the isolated community of Be'eri of around 1,000 people that lay less than three miles from Israel's border with Gaza.

Chilling video footage showed black-clad gunmen going door-to-door looking for Israeli families to murder in cold blood on the morning of October 7.

The gunmen can be heard shouting orders at each other in the video as they run from house to house, the sickening sound of gunshots filling the morning air.

At least nine British nationals died in the fatal attacks on October 7, while seven Brits remain missing, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (pictured with Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu) announced today

The UK Government has not confirmed how many Britons are among the hostages held by Hamas but Rishi Sunak, during his trip to Israel today, is known to have met two families who have a loved one being kept captive in Gaza.

Sunak said Britain is standing by Israel in its 'darkest hour' as it wages war on Hamas.

The official announcement on the number of British nationals among the victims comes after Sunak met with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel.

In a statement to the Commons on Monday, the Prime Minister said six British nationals had been killed, with a further 10 missing.

'I am proud to stand here with you in Israel's darkest hour as your friend,' Sunak said.

Sunak acknowledged the 'shocking scenes' in recent days, including the aftermath of an explosion at a Gaza hospital, saying 'we mourn the loss of every innocent life.'
A former nurse convicted of sexually abusing inmates at an all-women's prison has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

Tony Klein, 39, was sentenced on Tuesday after 17 former and current prisoners at Oregon's Coffee Creek Correctional claimed he sexually assaulted them when they sought care at or worked for the prison's medical unit between 2016 and 2017.

Then a nurse at the facility, Klein was able to commit the acts thanks to 'his access to the women', prosecutors said - as well as 'his position of power as a corrections employee' to engage in assaults that included digital penetration, oral sex or rape.

Back in July, a jury found Klein guilt of 17 counts of depriving his victims of their right to not be punished by sexual assault while incarcerated, as well as four counts of perjury for giving false testimony during a 2019 deposition.

Instead, the sentence handed down Tuesday includes five years of supervised release to be served after the 360-month bid, per the Oregon US Attorneys Office - after he was found guilty of the aforementioned counts in federal court.

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Tony Klein, 39, was handed the 30-year sentence Tuesday, after 17 ex and current prisoners at Oregon 's Coffee Creek Correctional claimed he sexually assaulted them in 2016 and 2017

Victims like Michaella Lovewell, who did a six-year bid at the prison, gave testimony in 2019 about how she and others were targeted in medical rooms, janitors closets, or behind privacy curtains by the then nurse

Prosecutors wrote in a press release: 'Aided by his access to the women and his position of power as a corrections employee, Klein sexually assaulted or engaged in nonconsensual sexual conduct with many female inmates entrusted to his care.'

'By virtue of his position as a medical provider, Klein was often alone with his victims,' they added, 'and assaulted many before, during, or after medical treatment.'

The announcement went on to recount how Klein 'manufactured reasons' to get inmates like Lisa Whipple and Michaella Lovewell alone in secluded areas such as medical rooms, janitors closets, or behind privacy curtains to commit the acts.

'Klein made it clear to his victims that he was in a position of power over them,' the statement continued - noting how the victims thought 'they would not be believed' if they tried reporting his abuse.

'Fearing punishment if they fought back against or reported his conduct, most of Kleins victims submitted to his unwanted advances or endured his assaults,' it notes.

Kieran L. Ramsey, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Portland Field Office that helped build the case against Klein, added that the sentence, while significant, 'cannot undo the trauma [Klein] inflicted on numerous victims.

'But we hope this brings them one step closer to healing,' he added.

Initially, Klein had been facing life in a federal penitentiary, but was spared such a sentence by US District Court Judge Michael H. Simon (pictured)

Initially, Klein - who worked at the prison from 2010 until January 2018 - had been facing life in a federal penitentiary, but was spared such a sentence by US District Court Judge Michael H. Simon.

Part of his role as a nurse at the all-female prison - the only one in the state - was interacting with inmates seeking medical treatment, a responsibility victims Whipple and Lowell said he took advantage of.

'It wasnt just Tony,' Whipple said after the sentence was handed down Tuesday, alleging that a more sprawling, systemic series of infractions allowed Klein to commit the acts.

She, however, added Klein was 'the ultimate predator and person in this situation', after recounting in a 2019 deposition how she was assaulted by Klein during medical appointments at the Coffee Creek.

During the testimony, Whipple - who has since been released - said she didn't report Klein because she was afraid it would add time to her prison sentence.

The only all-female prison in the state, the 1,684-bed facility opened in 2001 and has since been plagued by several scandals alleging abuse by staff

Then a nurse at the facility, Klein was able to commit the acts thanks to 'his access to the women', prosecutors said in a press release - as well as 'his position of power as a corrections employee.' Seen here is a file photo of inmates at the all-female prison

Part of his role as a nurse at the all-female prison was interacting with inmates seeking medical treatment,

She added Wednesday: 'But the Department of Corrections, theres a whole bunch of things they couldve done... to make sure that this type of victimizing does not happen within these walls.'

Meanwhile, Michaella Lovewell, who did a six-year stretch at the prison, said of Klein during her deposition: 'He would just tell me personal things about his life.'

An orderly in the prison infirmary who entered prison in 2014, she said she was pregnant at the time and first met Klein during prenatal appointments.

She recalled how Klein, at the time, treated her with kindness at what had been a low point in her life.

'I thought that like - like we had a friendship, that somebody cared, you know, somebody was nice,' Lovewell said during her deposition.

'The way you get treated in here is like youre nothing. Youre just a number and they make sure that you know that. And so I trusted him and I was wrong for that. I shouldnt have done that.'

After she gave birth, Lovewell put her daughter up for adoption and returned to Coffee Creek, where she took the job in the infirmary to support other pregnant women in custody.

It was there that Whipple also accused Klein of inappropriately touching her during her sentence, prosecutors said.

In their lawsuits, Lovewell, Whipple and 15 other women alleged Kleins friendly and behavior toward some of the women in Coffee Creek was 'designed to elicit trust.' Inmates' histories, prosecutors said, 'were easily accessed by Klein on the ODOC record-keeping database'. He was also charged for lying during his deposition in 2019 (pictured)

In their lawsuits, Lovewell, Whipple and 15 other women alleged Kleins friendly and flirtatious behavior toward some of the women in Coffee Creek was 'designed to elicit trust.'

They claimed he specially sought women who were vulnerable because they had experienced trauma, and that 'all the women selected by Klein met a rough profile of having extensive sexual abuse histories.'

Those histories, prosecutors said, 'were easily accessed by Klein on the ODOC record-keeping database.'

The Oregon Department of Corrections declined an interview request from Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The nonchalant audio confession of Joran van der Sloot, who admitted to killing Natalee Holloway in 2005 after they met at a bar in Aruba, has been released.

Van Der Sloot, 36, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Birmingham, Alabama, after pleading guilty to extortion and wire fraud in a plea deal.

During the deal, the Dutchman agreed to reveal what happened to Natalee - who was 18 when she disappeared - in a case that has captured the nation's attention for two decades.

Now, a court has released the terrifying 3 minute and 45 second clip where the killer calmly admitted to his heinous crime - as he took a cinderblock to Natalee's head causing her face to 'collapse in.'

For the first time, the public can hear Van Der Sloot's unemotional voice when he confesses: 'I start feeling her up again and she tells me no. She tells me doesn't want me to feel her up. I insist.

The Dutch citizen admitted to beating Natalee to death at a beach after she refused his advances and placed her body in the Caribbean

Joran van der Sloot finally confessed to killing Natalee Holloway in 2005 after they met at a bar in Aruba

'I keep feeling her up either way. She ends up kneeing me in the crotch. When she knees me in the crotch, I get up and I kick her extremely hard in the face.

'She's lying down unconscious, possibly even dead, but definitely unconscious. And I see right next to her there's a huge cinderblock laying on the beach.'

The Dutch citizen admitted to beating Natalee to death at a beach after she refused his advances and placed her dead body in the Caribbean, before walking home.

Five years after the killing, an FBI sting recorded the extortion attempt in which van der Sloot asked for $250,000 from Beth Holloway to reveal the location of her daughters remains.

He agreed to accept $25,000 to disclose the location, and asked for the other $225,000 once the remains were recovered.

In an interview conducted by his attorney, the killer, who had always denied murdering Natalee, provided details of the final moments of the teen's life.

The Dutch national was extradited for sentencing in the US from Peru where he is currently serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores, who he smothered to death in a hotel room in 2010.

He will be sent back to Lima and his sentences will run concurrently.

Van der Sloot's full confession She asked to go back to her hotel but I was just trying to get dropped off a little bit further away from her hotel so we could walk back and I might still get a chance to be with her. That's what I was hoping for. Deepak drops me off at another place, a little right of the Marriott Hotel known as The Fisherman's Huts. This place is not far from, you know, the next hotel is the Marriott, and the next hotel after that is another Marriott, which is a timeshare. And then it's the Holiday Inn. We walk along the beach. Deepak and Satish leave. They go back to their home, assume they go back to their home. They get in their car and leave. I'm actually with Natalee, walking along the beach. I find a space before we get to the Marriott Hotel, where I lay her down, we lay down together in the sand and we start kissing each other. I get her to kiss me again and we start kissing each other. I start feeling her up again and she tells me no. She tells me doesn't want me to feel her up. I insist. I keep feeling her up either way. She ends up kneeing me in the crotch. When she knees me in the crotch, I get up and I kick her extremely hard in the face. She's lying down unconscious, possibly even dead, but definitely unconscious. And I see right next to her there's a huge cinderblock laying on the beach. I take this and I smash her head in with it completely. Her face basically collapses in. Even though it's dark, I can see her face is collapsed in. Afterwards, I don't exactly know, I'm scared. I don't know what to do. I decide to put her into the ocean. So I grab her and I half pull and half walk with her into the ocean. I push her off. I walk up to about my knees into the ocean and I push her off into the sea. After that, I get out. I walk home. Advertisement

Natalee Holloway's mother Beth has laid bare the depth of her 'extreme emotional loss and grief' in a heart wrenching victim impact statement.

Beth delivered her statement, obtained in full by DailyMail.com, as Joran Van der Sloot finally confessed to killing Natalee in 2005 in court.

And in an extraordinary show of compassion the mother of the murdered high school senior revealed that, for years, she has wondered about the 'grief' the killer's own mother has experienced.

'I have wondered over the years about the grief YOUR mother has experienced. I've thought about how you've destroyed her life, your brothers', your grandmothers' and everyone around you,' she said.

Beth went on to ask Van der Sloot, who has a nine-year-old girl fathered while he was in prison in Peru: 'And what about your daughter?

'Imagine one day you get a call that your daughter has vanished, then you find out years later that a big bully who forced himself on her didn't get what he wanted, so he violently murdered her. Imagine that.'

She speculated: 'I've wondered if the stress you caused your father Paulus contributed to his heart attack and sudden death. You are to blame for all their suffering.'

Paulus van der Sloot died of a heart attack at the age of 57 while playing tennis in February 2010. His wife, Anita, subsequently revealed that Joran blamed himself for his father's unexpected demise.

A judge declared Holloway dead but her body has never been found

Natalee Holloway, left, poses with friends Lee Broughton, Madison Whatley, and Ruth McVay, left to right, in a photograph taken with Natalee's disposable camera on the beach in Aruba

The lawyer had repeatedly tried to shield his son in the face of intense suspicion and relentless scrutiny following Natalee's death.

In the written statement that Beth read aloud in court, she said: 'Extreme emotional loss and pain really can't be comprehended by those who haven't lived a devastating tragedy like ours, and I have also suffered great professional and financial loss.'

The bereaved mother moved to Aruba after her daughter's death in a desperate bid to uncover what had become of her.

Today she revealed she had lost her teaching license and tenure as a result and had to go back to school to have her license reinstated.

She added: 'Since 2010 when you extorted me and tried to sell me her bodily remains, I incurred attorney and investigative expenses that totally about $215,000.'

Natalee, who was killed days after graduating high school, would be celebrating her 37th birthday on Saturday had she lived.

Holloways body was never found, and no charges were filed in the case. A judge declared Holloway dead in 2012

Natalee Holloway murder suspect Joran van der Sloot has pleaded guilty to trying to extort $250,000 from her family

Beth Holloway said: 'You didn't get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her'

She had aspirations to go to medical school and her mother revealed she thinks about what kind of doctor she might have become.

She would, her mother imagined, have been married and had children - her grandchildren.

'But you have destroyed all this,' Beth told Van der Sloot, 'You terminated her potential, her dreams and her possibilities when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005.'

Beth's sentiments were echoed in a letter submitted to Judge Anna M. Manasco by Natalee's father, David Holloway.

In the letter, also obtained by DailyMail.com, Holloway stated: 'We were robbed of a promising future together with our beautiful, talented Natalee. And now we know who took that future from us.'

Asking the judge to sentence Van der Sloot 'to the fullest extent of the law' Holloway said: 'Despite everything he has done to us, he is not sorry for what he did. He expresses no remorse, regret or even compassion for committing the horrific crime that violently ended Natalee's life and irreparably changed the trajectory of all of ours.'

He branded her daughter's killer, 'evil personified'.
The US and the UK have warned their citizens to get out of Lebanon as soon as possible, amid fears that Israel's war with Hamas may become a war on two fronts if Hezbollah joins the fray.

The two nations have said that flaring tensions and increasing instability may leave people stranded if they wait too long.

The warnings come as Lebanon, which shares its southern border with Israel, warned that its border dispute with Israel has become a tinderbox that may ignite at any time.

The US State Department publicly said on Wednesday that 'US citizens [should] not travel to Lebanon due to the unpredictable security situation.

'The Department of State urges U.S. citizens in Lebanon to make plans to depart as soon as possible while commercial options are still available.

Lebanese people gather in front of the United States Embassy to stage a protest about the Gaza hospital strike

Protestors started several fires at the US embassy in Beirut

'We recommend that U.S. citizens who choose not to depart prepare contingency plans for emergency situations.'

It also advised that Americans in Lebanon make plans to depart that do not rely on the US government.

The US' warning comes amid growing rage outside its embassy in Beirut, with Lebanese citizens' anger at the US culminating in fires being set outside.

All non-essential State Department staff have been told to leave the city, and a level four travel advisory has been issued to all Americans advising against travel to Lebanon.

The UK swiftly followed suit, with the FCDO starkly warning: 'Do not rely on the FCDO being able to evacuate you in an emergency.

'Events in Lebanon are fast moving. The situation has potential to deteriorate quickly and with no warning.

'Commercial routes out of Lebanon could be severely disrupted or cancelled at short notice and roads across the country could be closed. If you are currently in Lebanon, we encourage you to leave now while commercial options remain available.'

The FCDO's map of safe places to travel in Lebanon is entirely red, indicating it advises against all travel in the country

The UK has also withdrawn family members of staff at its embassy in Beirut, but stressed: 'The embassy continues with essential work including services to British nationals.'

The US and the UK were not the only nations to warn its citizens of the dangers of travelling to or staying in Lebanon.

France, Canada, Spain and Australia all issued warnings to its citizens not to travel to the Middle Eastern nation.

The FCDO starkly warning: 'Do not rely on the FCDO being able to evacuate you in an emergency'

Protesters held up a doll with red paint on its face, along with a sign which said: ' Crime against humanity,' and Palestinian flags in Tunis today

Riot police lobbed dozens of tear gas canisters and fired water cannons to disperse demonstrators in Lebanon

Demonstrators in Beirut, Lebanon, attempt to remove barbed wire

READ MORE: Moment terrified German officials sprint off government plane and lie face down on tarmac at Tel Aviv airport with Chancellor Scholz rushed to a waiting car after air raid warning Advertisement

Germany's Foreign Ministry urged German citizens to leave Lebanon on Thursday.

German citizens were also urged to register their contact details on an online crisis portal and be aware of current safety advisories in the country, the ministry wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

And several Nordic countries, including Denmark, Sweden and Norway have further tightened their travel advisories for Lebanon and cautioned against travel there until further notice.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said Thursday that Norway was 'tightening the travel advice due to the serious security situation in the region. There are daily military actions on the border between Lebanon and Israel. This increases the risk throughout Lebanon.'

Denmark's Foreign Ministry said the security level in Lebanon had been changed to red.

'Staying in Lebanon entails a very high security risk,' the ministry said. It 'strongly encouraged' Danish citizens in the country to leave.

Lebanese soldiers carry one of their team members on their back after they clashed with protesters outside US Embassy in Beirut

Lebanese soldiers clash with a man outside the US embassy in Beirut, Lebanon today

Lebanese army soldiers scuffle with protesters during a demonstration in Beirut

Protesters try to remove barbed wires that block a road leading to the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon

Barth Eide noted that flights were still available from Beirut but that 'at short notice, it may become even more difficult to leave Lebanon.'

Sweden's travel advice was updated late Wednesday.

Lebanon warned Israel of 'uncontrollable escalation' as protests broke out across several Muslim countries - after Hezbollah called for a 'day of rage' over a hospital that was bombed in Gaza.

Israel's military said that it is responding to shots fired at military posts across the Lebanon border and said posts are being attacked in the Zar'it area.

Sirens sounded in northern Israel near the Lebanon border, including in the city of Kiryat Shmona, warning of possible incoming rocket attacks, the Israeli military said.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said today that continued aggression against Gaza could ignite a 'fire that could consume the whole region'.

Bou Habib speaking at a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, warned against sparking tensions 'that could lead to an uncontainable escalation.'
President Joe Biden will address the nation from the White House Thursday night as he asks Congress for $100 billion to bolster US allies Israel and Ukraine at a time of worldwide turmoil.

The president is fresh off his seven-hour trip to Israel, where he showed support for the US ally and hugged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but didn't get the chance to sit down with the heads of Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority following a hospital explosion in Gaza.

Israel has massed thousands of troops on the border with Gaza in preparation for a possible ground assault, while Israel Defense Forces on Thursday pounded Hezbollah targets across the border in Lebanon.

Biden has bluntly warned adversaries who might try to exploit the turmoil in the region, telling them simply 'don't.' He is facing conflicting cross-pressures, demonstrating repeatedly that he has Israel's 'back' and deploying a sea and air armada to the region, while Arab citizens have taken to the streets in protest against Israel even after the bloody Hamas attacks of October 7.

President Joe Biden is set to address the nation at 8 pm Thursday evening amid worldwide turmoil. He is asking Congress for funds to aid Israel as well as Ukraine

Biden pressed Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi during a phone call Wednesday to open up deliveries of humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza, but Netanyahu is resisting calls to allow deliveries from Israel. He is first demanding visitation and the return of hostages Hamas seized during its lightning attack, with virtually no information on the status of about 200 captives, including a small number of U.S. citizens.

To have the security impact he wants, Biden must get an aid package through Congress  with one half of the Capitol not even able to organize after Republicans have repeatedly failed to come together to elect a Speaker, while his own approval ratings at home remain low on the cusp of an election year.

Biden's speech will be 'to discuss our response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine,' according to a brief White House statement.

That comes after the White House made a strategic decision to combine funds for both conflicts into a single passage, after growing House Republican opposition to support for Ukraine stymied his earlier $24 billion package for that conflict.

Now, the administration is set to ask Congress for $100 billion to bolster Israel, provide arms and support to Ukraine, help Taiwan bolster itself while facing a potential invasion from China, and beef up the border.

Biden's trip to Israel got off to a difficult start after the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza

The Israeli Defense Forces claims it has made missile attacks against military targets of Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon in the past 24 hours

Republicans have demanded action on the border, pointing to chaos there and daily crossings that have hit 10,000 during peaks. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told DailyMail.com the package will include both border funding and perhaps policy provisions.

But Senate Republicans might not care for the administration's spending ideas. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) complained that the administration planned to steer funds to 'sanctuary cities'  Democratic enclaves where GOP governors have been shipping migrants by bus and plane.

The stakes are high for Biden, who is essentially tied with former President Donald Trump in polls even as Trump faces four criminal indictments.

'The @potus is poised to pitch a grand bargain tonight touching on a suite of urgent needs--aid for Israel; Ukraine; and border security/disaster relief here at home. And he almost certainly will challenge Congress to FINALLY get its act together to deal with it,' said David Axelrod, a former top advisor to President Barack Obama, writing on the X platform.

That comes after two more failed attempts by House Republicans to elect a speaker, this time with Biden nemesis Rep. Jim Jordan drawing opposition from 22 of his GOP colleagues. He is taking a leading role in the House impeachment inquiry into the president.

Biden's speech comes at a time of attacks on US embassies, sectarian attacks around the world including a firebomb assault on a synagogue in Berlin on Wednesday, and fears of an expanded Middle East war that could bring in Iran.

It came in a week where Russian President Vladimir Putin visited China, amid information that Hamas terrorists relied on rocket-propelled grenades provided by North Korea.

Amid the turmoil, the U.S. State Department issued a 'Worldwide Caution Security Alert.' It advised U.S. citizens overseas to 'exercise increased caution due to the potential for violence and increased tensions at various locations around the world.'
New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez and his wife were first charged in September when investigators found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars in their home

New Jersey Democrat Senator Bob Menendez's wife and three other defendants pleaded not guilty to revised charges alleging corruption and bribery.

Nadine Menendez and three associates, Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, entered their pleas Wednesday in a New York City court.

In September, the New Jersey senator and his wife were charged with accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a luxury car from three New Jersey businessmen to gain influence.

Those charges alleged that, in March 2022, Nadine met with a jeweler Hana connected her with to sell two one-kilogram gold bars she falsely claimed came from her mother.

The new indictment filed last week added a new charge of conspiring to utilize the senator as an agent of the Egyptian government.

New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine have been charged with conspiring to utilize the senator as an agent of the Egyptian government in a revised indictment

New Jersey businessmen Jose Uribe (left), Fred Daibes (center) and Wael Hana (right) pleaded not guilty to the revised conspiracy charges

Authorities said they found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars at the Menendez home. In March 2022, Nadine met with a jeweler to sell some gold bars she falsely claimed to have gotten from her mother

Menendez and his wife are accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to use his power as a senator to benefit the three businessmen and the country of Egypt.

'Piling new charge upon new charge does not make the allegations true. The facts havent changed, only a new charge. It is an attempt to wear someone down, and I will not succumb to this tactic,' Menendez said to Fox News Digital.

'I again ask people who know me and my record to give me the chance to present my defense and show my innocence.'

Authorities said 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 shares with his wife.

The senator, who gave up his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after his arrest, was excused from the proceeding until Monday because of senate business.

Nadine Menendez left federal court on Wednesday after pleading not guilty to additional conspiracy charges

Sen. Bob Menendez, left, arrived to a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday. He has been excused from the criminal proceedings due to senate business

At Wednesday's proceeding the judge denied a request by Hana that a GPS monitoring device attached to his leg be removed.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Richenthal opposed the request and said Hana, a citizen of the U.S. and Egypt, was a flight risk because of his connections to the Egyptian government and he had more than $25 million in assets overseas.

Hana's attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, said the device makes his client uncomfortable and that he has every intention of staying in the country to prove his innocence.

The New Jersey senator previously pleaded not guilty to the original bribery charges.
The State Department has issued a rare 'worldwide caution' travel advisory telling Americans to be on alert everywhere they go overseas due to 'increased tensions' and the potential for terror attacks as Israel's war against Hamas rages.

Today's alert comes after widespread, anti-American protests in the Middle East, that included a 24-hour siege of the US Embassy in Beirut.

The last time the alert was issued was in 2022 after the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Protesters set fire to a US flag during a protest outside the US Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, on October 11 after Israel's retaliation against Hamas in Gaza

The alert reads: 'Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution. US citizens should:

Stay alert in locations frequented by tourists.

Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive information and alerts and make it easier to locate you in an emergency overseas.

'Follow the Department of State on Facebook and Twitter.

Anti-American protests swept much of the Middle East yesterday and tensions against the US were felt further afield, including in Buenos Aires where a bomb threat was reported at the US Embassy.

The siege in Lebanon prompted the State Department to relieve all non-essential staff from their positions, and allow them to leave the country.

There were also protests in Adana, Turkey, and outside the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, where protesters burned US flags and held up signs denigrating President Biden.

The President flew to Israel this week in an overt display of support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he continues in his strikes against Hamas in Gaza.

The visit was the first of any US President to Israel during a time of war.

The State Department is running charter evacuation flights for US citizens and dual citizens in Israel. It has not initiated rescue flights from Lebanon.

Anti-American protests swept much of the Middle East yesterday and tensions against the US were felt further afield, including in Buenos Aires where a bomb threat was reported at the US Embassy
A business partner of The Breakfast Club co-host DJ Envy has been arrested on a federal wire fraud charge in an alleged Ponzi-like real estate scheme.

Cesar Humberto Pina, 45, was arrested on Wednesday, as prosecutors said he bilked investors in his New Jersey home flipping scheme out of millions with false promises of huge returns.

Pina, who also goes by the moniker 'Flipping NJ', appeared often on the popular Breakfast Club morning radio show, hosted by DJ Envy and Charlemagne Tha God, where he touted his investment schemes.

DJ Envy, whose real name is RaaShaun Casey, has not been charged with wrongdoing, although a criminal complaint identifying him only as 'Individual-1' calls him Pina's business partner, saying his fame was key to the alleged scheme.

As part of the probe, federal agents raided the offices of iHeartMedia, which syndicates the Breakfast Club, and seized electronic devices, according to WNBC-TV.

Cesar Humberto Pina, 45, was arrested on Wednesday as prosecutors said he bilked investors in his New Jersey home flipping scheme out of millions

Pina (right) appeared regularly on the popular Breakfast Club morning radio show, hosted by DJ Envy (left) and Charlemagne Tha God

DailyMail.com has reached out to iHeartMedia for comment. DJ Envy appeared on The Breakfast Club as usual on Thursday morning, but the show did not address Pina's arrest.

Prosecutors say that since 2017, Pina has solicited investments from small investors to flip homes in New Jersey and elsewhere, promising returns of 20 to 45 percent in five months.

But instead of investing the funds as promised, the complaint alleges that Pina siphoned some of the funds for personal use, and used other victim funds to pay off earlier investors in a 'Ponzi-like' scheme.

'We allege Pina offered a ridiculously high rate of return to investors, then took the millions he got and invested it in himself,' said Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy of the FBI's Newark field office.

'History has proven time and again, Ponzi-schemes don't work. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow eventually runs out. Investors take note  it's your money, don't let them steal it,' he added.

A criminal complaint reviewed by DailyMail.com does not name DJ Envy, but he is clearly identifiable by the description provided as the person dubbed 'Individual-1'.

'Pina and his business partner, a well-known disc jockey and radio personality ('Individual-1'), operated a company that conducted real estate seminars around the country,' states the complaint written by Pankaj Sharma, a special agent with the US Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey.

'Together, they used Individual-l's celebrity to promote various real estate enterprises that Pina controlled,' added Sharma.

'During real estate seminars, private one-on-one sessions, advertisements, public appearances, and otherwise, Pina represented that he was a highly successful real estate investor, owned thousands of properties in multiple states, and had business relationships with numerous celebrities.'

Pina, who also goes by the moniker 'Flipping NJ', appeared often on the iHeart syndicated show The Breakfast Club, hosted by DJ Envy (right) and Charlemagne Tha God (left)

As part of the probe, federal agents reportedly raided the offices of iHeartMedia and seized electronic devices

Pina traveled the country holding seminars like the one above in Houston, where he solicited investments in his purported home flipping scheme in New Jersey

DJ Envy (above), whose real name is RaaShaun Casey, has not been charged with wrongdoing, and says that he was unaware of any fraud that Pina might have perpetrated

Pina and DJ Envy regularly teamed up for seminars on home flipping opportunities in New Jersey.

DJ Envy could not be reached for comment, but previously denied any knowledge of the fraud, saying on his radio show: 'Now the reasons why I did this seminars is because I wanted to uplift my community.

'I wanted to teach my community about real estate, things that I didn't know when I was first buying my first home. I wanted to teach our community about investing and in generational wealth,' he added.

'Now, Cesar? If he took money, I wasn't privy to it nor did I even know. But, I do understand how people feel if they did give him money, because I gave him a lot of money that I didn't see a dollar of returned. But for anybody to say I was involved, that is totally not true.'

Prior to the charge against Pina, numerous alleged victims spoke out in interviews saying they had been swindled out of millions.

'He's advertising this all over radio and television, so I thought this was legit,' Jose Santiago told WNBC last week, saying he thought Pina would help him achieve the American dream.

'We invested $200,000 and it looks like we won't ever get it back.'

'Plain and simple, the defendant ran a fraudulent scheme. They falsely represented the nature of their business and lied about potential investment returns to bilk unsuspecting victims out of millions,' said Tammy Tomlins, Special Agent in Charge of IRS  Criminal Investigation Newark Field Office.

'Today's arrest highlights IRS Criminal Investigation and our law enforcement partners' commitment to investigate and prosecute unlawful behavior.'

Pina pleaded not guilty and was released on a $1 million secured bond with electronic monitoring.
A North Carolina woman who nearly died after falling off a cliff while hiking has been gifted a new wheelchair.

Sarah Hussey was out walking with her fiance near Badin Lake in April 2022, just days before 24th birthday, when she plummeted down a 60ft drop.

Reflecting back on the traumatic event, Hussey says she is 'so blessed to be alive.'

'At only 23 I was scalped, broke over 30 bones, ruptured my spleen and lacerated my kidneys,' Hussey posted on Facebook.

'One week exactly after my fall I turned 24 and spent the next few months learning to feed and dress myself, bathe myself, had to relearn how to write and will soon work on learning how to walk again.'

Sarah Hussey, 25, nearly fell to her death last year - after slipping on a hike and plunging 60 feet

The accident left her with over 30 broken bones, a ruptured spleen and lacerated kidneys

Since the accident, Hussey has been unable to work and was denied disability twice

She spent one month in the hospital and has been using the same wheelchair since - despite it not being made for long-term use.

The mother-of-two is unable to work and has been denied disability twice so far.

In September, she decided to get back into baking to raise the $1,700 needed for a new motorized wheelchair.

'I decided to start a bake sale to raise money to buy myself this custom wheelchair that I need to go to my kids sporting events and be back in their lives more,' Hussey told FOX 8.

'They just miss me being in their lives and I miss it so much.'

But the mother-of-two delivered treats to customers in three counties as well as the Badin County firefighters who rescued her after her fall.

The baked goods use only farm-fresh eggs from free-range chickens, as well as homemade brown sugar and sourdough.

The November menu includes glazed and cinnamon sugar donuts, chocolate chip cookies, muffins and buttermilk biscuits.

'Because Im in pain and my body hurts does not mean that I need to sit here and be miserable,' Hussey said. 'I can still try and be a happy person.'

She began physical and occupational therapy after the harrowing fall and has been in the same wheelchair for over a year and a half - despite it not being made for long-term use

She began selling baked goods to pay for a new wheelchair - but was shocked when she was gifted one by the same firefights who rescued her

Hussey needs a motorized wheelchair to be able to attend her children's sporting events - 'They just miss me being in their lives,' she says

With nearly half the funds raised from her baking, Hussey plans to put the money towards bills and Christmas presents for her children

Since her accident, a community has been rallying around her.

On Wednesday, the Badin Fire Department shared that it would be buying the motorized wheelchair for her, and it will be delivered to her before Christmas.

With nearly half the funds raised, Hussey plans to put the money towards bills and Christmas presents for her children.

The past year and a half has been a series of small victories.

'As a mom one of the greatest gifts we receive is to be able to watch our children grow and meet their milestones,' Hussey's mother wrote in May 2022.

'I never would have ever imagined being able to redo this with one of my children.

'I was so excited when Sarah called me to tell me that she brushed her own teeth, put on deodorant and washed her face.'

The same month, Hussey started physical therapy and occupational therapy.

'Ten days after an accident that has an almost non-existent survival rate, she's sitting on the side of the bed,' her father wrote.

'She put shorts on this morning (quite a feat considering broken fingers on two broken hands) over her new leg hardware.

The past year and a half has been a series of small victories after suffering life-altering injuries

Despite Hussey's progress - she was only able to move one finger for a period of time - the young mom is still greatly limited in her physical capabilities

Hussey reunited with the firefighters who saved her life. A supportive community has rallied around her for the past year and a half

'As I sit here now thinking about making this update, I can't figure out what brings the most tears; knowing how bad her condition has been, or seeing how far God has brought her in such a quick time.'

Despite Hussey's progress, she is still greatly limited in her physical capabilities.

She only plans to take orders 'here and there' after the fundraiser due to the toll on her body.

'The first and only thing I could move for a period of time was my finger but the ICU nurses said they knew I would go far,' Sarah wrote on Facebook.

'Instead of crying because I could only move one finger I was telling every person who walked in... Look, I learned a new trick!" And would barely move my index finger.

'We know there's light at the end!'
A pensioner who lost an arm and a leg during a horrific mauling by two Rottweilers was 'dragged around like a rag doll', it has been revealed.

An eyewitness, who did not wish to be named, said the victim, 77-year-old Vic Franklin, even woke up asking if everyone was safe'.

Mr Franklin lost his left leg, right arm and left middle finger following the horrific attack near his home in Bognor Regis, West Sussex on August 18.

The eyewitness said of the attack: It was absolutely horrific. Ive never seen anything so horrendous in my whole life.

He was being dragged around like a rag doll by the two dogs. One had his arm and the other had his leg and they were shaking him violently. He was trying to bat them off and get to his feet.

Vic Franklin, 77, sustained life-changing injuries after the horrific attack near his home in Bognor Regis, West Sussex on August 18

The two dogs involved - Rottweilers - were killed to stop them attacking anyone else, while a 29-year-old man was been arrested

His shirt and trousers were ripped and his shoes were lying on the grass and he was covered in blood.

Mr Franklin had been walking his pet spaniel dog on large grassland adjoining Lewes Close, Bognor.

The pensioner, who was described as a friendly soul and lived alone with his dog, retired to the seaside town from London several years ago.

The eyewitness said: I heard shouting and screaming and went outside to see what was happening.

The two dogs were totally crazed. The owner was standing to one side and running around and shouting at the dogs but was unable to get them to stop attacking the man.

READ MORE - Pupils are evacuated from classrooms as XL Bully dog mauled its owner at home before escaping and running into a school car park Advertisement

It seemed to go on for ages. I ran back home to see if someone had called the police and when I returned he was still be attacked. They wouldnt let him alone. He was covered in blood. I thought he was going to die.

He said armed police arrived shortly afterwards and the dogs were shot when they broke away from the stricken pensioner.

An ambulance arrived and paramedics treated him at the scene before rushing him to hospital.

The man said no other people were attacked by the dogs and it didnt appear anyone else was in danger.

They seemed to be totally focused on the old man. They were just going for the kill. Its absolutely shocking someone let them off their leads - they were killing machines.

Mr Franklin was airlifted to hospital and has since undergone several operations. As he continues his recovery in hospital, he has expressed his gratitude to those who came to his aid.

'Simply put, I wouldn't be here without the assistance of our emergency service workers,' he said.

'From the first responders including police and paramedics, to the air ambulance crew and the selfless staff at Royal Sussex County Hospital, I am eternally grateful.'

After receiving several 999 calls from members of the public, specialist police firearms officers were deployed to the scene and granted authority to bring the dogs safely under control.

After receiving several 999 calls from members of the public, specialist police firearms officers were deployed to the scene and granted authority to bring the dogs safely under control

This is a stock image of a Rottweiler dog. Mr Franklin was attacked by what are believed to have been two Rottweilers

Mr Franklin's son Lee praised his father's bravery.

'We were completely devastated when we heard what happened,' he said.

'It sent shockwaves through the family because dad has been the glue that holds us all together.

'Our main concern was not only the preservation of his life, but also the quality of his life.

'We realised we didn't have a choice and after having his left leg, right arm and left middle finger amputated, we feared the worst.

'You just don't know what's going to happen.

'But with dad in recovery now, everyone who sees him says how much of an inspiration he is.

'He's still dad, and he still manages to make everyone laugh.'

Lee added: 'The first thing he said when he woke up from surgery was 'everyone is safe now' after hearing the news about the attack.

'His first thought was to ensure everyone was safe and that the dogs could do no further harm.

'As far as we're concerned he's our hero.'

A 29-year-old man from Bognor Regis was arrested on suspicion of being in charge of a dog dangerously out of control.

He was bailed until November 16, pending further enquiries.

The police investigation remains ongoing and anyone with any information who has not yet come forward is urged to report it online or call 101, quoting Op Byfleet.
The arraignment for the man accused of killing Tupac Shakur was delayed a second time on Thursday as he has not yet found an attorney to represent him.

Duane 'Keffe D' Davis was charged last month in connection with the 1996 drive-by killing of rapper Tupac Shakur.

Close to 30 years after the death of the rapper, Davis, 60, was indicted by a Clark County grand jury on one count of open murder with use of a deadly weapon with a gang enhancement.

He has been in jail since he was arrested near his Las Vegas home.

On Thursday, Davis appeared in Clark County Court in a navy blue jumpsuit and shackles.

He was walked into the room chained to other accused criminals who were there for processes concerning their cases.

Duane 'Keffe D' Davis appeared in court in Las Vegas on Thursday

Davis was arrested last month nearly 30 years after the killing of Tupac Shakur

His beard seemed to be graying and growing out.

The man stood as the judge began and ended his hearing in just seconds after Ross Goodman, THE lawyer representing him, said he could not confirm that he would remain his attorney and that they needed two more weeks to figure it out.

The judge, Tierra Jones, said that if Goodman and Davis were not prepared by November 2, she would appoint a public defender.

'In two weeks, we're going to get this case moving,' she said.

Goodman is a well known Las Vegas criminal defense attorney. His mother, Carolyn Goodman, is the current mayor of Las Vegas, and his father, Oscar Goodman, was also the city's mayor.

Earlier this month, Davis' arraignment was postponed a first time after he told the judge that his attorney, who was not in court with him that day, required a two-week continuance.

Shakur died at the age of 25 on September 7, 1996 days after being shot while in a car near the Las Vegas strip.

A white Cadillac pulled up next to the rapper's car and immediately began shooting, according to police.

The fatal encounter happened just a few hours after a fight at the MGM Grand between members of two rival gangs from Compton, California.

The gangs were the Mob Piru Bloods and the South Side Compton Crips. Davis was, at the time, the 'shot caller' for the Crips.

He is accused of orchestrating the 'retaliatory shooting' that killed Shakur, though he may not have pulled the trigger himself, say authorities.

Davis has previously admitted to being in the Cadillac at the time of the shooting.

Shakur died at the of 25 on September 7, 1996 days after being shot while in a car near the Las Vegas strip

Ross Goodman, Davis' current attorney, is a well known Las Vegas criminal defense attorney. His mother, Carolyn Goodman, is the current mayor of Las Vegas, and his father, Oscar Goodman, was also the city's mayor

Davis stood for just moments before the judge, who said he and his attorney had two weeks to get the show on the road before she assigned a public defender

Davis wrote in his 2019 tell-all memoir 'Compton Street Legend,' that he was in the Cadillac involved in the Tupac shooting

Police say that even if Davis did not fire the kill shot, his command would have authorized the trigger pull by someone else.

He is also accused of providing the gun used in the shooting. They believe Davis obtained the gun that was used from a 'close associate,' but have declined to give any more details, saying they will emerge during the trial.

Police say that Davis is the only living suspect in the homicide case that remained dormant for years until it was 'reinvigorated' in 2018 when new information surfaced.

'Specifically, Duane Davis' own admissions to his involvement in this homicide investigation that he provided to numerous different media outlets,' Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Lt. Jason Johansson told reporters in September.

Johansson said the police department 'knew this was likely our last time to take a run at this case to successfully solve this case and bring forth a criminal charge' after Davis made 'admissions to his involvement' of the homicide.

Davis wrote in his 2019 tell-all memoir 'Compton Street Legend,' that he was in the Cadillac involved in the shooting.

During and after his career, Tupac Shakur was nominated six times for a Grammy Award and is largely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time

In the book, he said that he told authorities about his involvement in the killing in 2010, during a closed-door meeting with federal and local authorities.

'They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them out,' he wrote.

At the time, he was 46 and facing life in prison on drug charges when he agreed to speak with the authorities.

He was arrested two months after Vegas cops raided Davis' wife's home on July 17, looking for items 'concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur.'

During and after his career, Shakur was nominated six times for a Grammy Award and is largely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time.

He was feuding at the time with rap rival Biggie Smalls, also known as the Notorious B.I.G., who was fatally shot in March 1997.

At the time, both rappers were in the middle of an East Coast-West Coast rivalry that primarily defined the hip-hop scene during the mid-1990s.
The relatives were speaking about those captured during Hamas's raid on Nir Oz

Desperate families of Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas - including a baby and a four-year-old seen being taken away with their weeping mother - broke down on live TV as they made heartbreaking appeals for their rescue.

Speaking at a press conference with other families who had loved ones snatched in Hamas's raid on Nir Oz kibbutz on October 7, one relative was unable to hold back her tears as she recounted seeing a video of her cousin being taken by the terrorists.

At least 203 people are thought to have been taken hostage after Hamas's surprise attack more than a week ago.

The woman, who introduced herself as Efrat at the press conference, is related to Shiri Bibas Silverman.

Video of Shiri holding her two redheaded sons, Ariel, 4, and baby Kfir, as they were taken away from their home went viral following the terrorists' bloody invasion.

The woman, who introduced herself as Efrat at the press conference, is related to Shiri Bibas Silverman

Video of Shiri Bibas Silverman holding her two redheaded sons, Ariel, 4, and baby Kfir, covered in a blanket as they were taken away from their home went viral following the terrorists' bloody invasion

The press conference was for families who who had loved ones snatched in Hamas's raid on Nir Oz kibbutz on October 7

Efrat said the family was 'surrounded by terrorists' and 'covered in blood, not their own'.

'This is the only sign of life that we have from them,' she said.

She said tomorrow will mark 14 days since they were taken, before realising that one of the children, Kfir, will have turned 10 months old since his kidnap.

She said: 'He was born on January 18. I don't want to sit here in two months' time in a press conference celebrating his first birthday.

'On Monday we received a photo of Yarden, their father, being driven into the Gaza strip on a motorcyle.

'He is severely injured in his head. We know nothing - we have no photos of my aunt and uncle. We only received the confirmation that they're not among the dead and they're probably there as well.

'My aunt has severe Parkinson's disease. She is without her medication. I don't know if the baby has formula. He doesn't eat food well yet, to survive.'

She added: 'They're innocent civilians, innocent children. In hard conditions. They're not a pawn or a game in a war. They need to be released and released now.

'This is crazy. This is a nightmare.'

In the video, Efrat appears unable to continue and puts her head in her hands.

Ohad Munder, nine, was due to have his birthday party this weekend before he went missing following Hamas's invasion on October 7.

'Unfortunately he won't be able to celebrate his birthday,' Merav Raviv said at the press conference today, adding that his mother had already sent out the invitations.

She paid tribute to the missing boy who she described as 'talented' and 'sporty'.

One father at the press conference spoke of his two sisters, aged 34 and 45, his twin daughters Emma and Yuli Aloni, aged three, and his niece Amelia Aloni, aged five, being kidnapped.

He said: 'The conception that these are freedom fighters. This is not freedom. These are fighters, these are terrorists and they are grabbing children, mothers, unarmed men and they are doing God knows what to them at the moment.

'They need to get out of there now. Don't negotiate anything. They just need to release them. Because otherwise, they are lower than animals.'

Ohad Munder, nine, was due to have his birthday party this weekend before he went missing following Hamas's invasion. 'Unfortunately he won't be able to celebrate his birthday,' Merav Raviv (pictured) said today, adding his mother had already sent out the invitations

One father spoke of his two sisters, aged 34 and 45, his twin daughters Emma and Yuli Aloni, aged three, and his niece Amelia Aloni, aged five, being kidnapped

Children kidnapped by Hamas

Shiri and her little boys appear to have been pushed into armoured vehicles by Hamas fighters after their village was stormed

Social media footage of Shiri sobbing as she and her children are taken away by the terrorists has sparked anguish

The whereabouts of three-year-old Ariel and nine-month-old Kfir are not known after Hamas terrorists kidnapped their family

Doron Asher Katz, 34, was visiting her mother in Nir Oz near the Gaza border with their two daughters, aged two and four, when Hamas attacked

Horrifying video shows the moment Shiri and her two young sons are dragged screaming from their home near the Gaza border by Hamas terrorists before disappearing.

Shiri, 30, was hiding in a safe room with her husband Yarden and their children Kfir and Ariel when Israel was invaded by the terrorists on October 7.

Armed with just a small pistol, Yarden hoped to defend his family and their home in Nir Oz kibbutz as houses were raided - in an attack that saw hundreds of Israelis killed and dozens taken hostage.

The father texted relatives 'I love you all' as they sheltered, with terrorists firing semi-automatic weapons outside their window, according to reports.

Half an hour later, he ominously wrote 'they're coming in', before communication ceased.

The family has not been heard from since, and Shiri's parents, Yosi and Margit Silberman, who are in their late 60s, are also missing and feared abducted.

Later, video emerged showing the distraught mother clutching her two children as they were kidnapped, with no sign of their father, as horrified onlookers screamed: 'She has a baby.'

Social media footage of Shiri sobbing as she and her children were taken away by the terrorists sparked anguish among the Jewish community worldwide.

The mother's distraught expression and pictures of her innocent sons in happier times have been used by demonstrators around the world to illustrate the terror inflicted on Israel by Hamas.

Two days after the attack, Israelis at a vigil outside Downing Street in London held up pictures of the mum and her boys being taken, with one placard pleading: 'Let the children go'.

Devastated relatives spoke of their shock at seeing the footage, with Shiri's cousin Yosi telling Sky News that his family member's disappearance has made him 'want to go and fight'.

'The first time I saw the pictures I couldn't believe it,' he said. 'I couldn't comprehend what I saw, then I look at another picture and it was very clear that this is my cousin Shiri and the two little children.'

'My fear's that they separated them, that they separated them, that they killed them, that they're injured, that we wont see them again, that we won't even get any piece of information with them and we will stay in this blank forever.'

Grandparents Margit and Yosi and parents Yarden and Shiri have not been heard from since October 7

Weeping Israelis held a vigil outside Downing Street holding up pictures of Kfir and Ariel on October 9

Shiri's niece Yifat Zailer, who spoke to the New York Times, said she will not rest until her relatives are returned home.

'I just hope that they are alive, and that they are together. And I want them home, with me, so I can hug them tightly again,' she said.

'We feel that those responsible don't know what to do, because this is a situation we've never been in before. That's the feeling in Israel,' she added. 'It's a catastrophe.'

Other families were captured during the attack on Nir Oz.

Father-of-two Yoni Asher said he received a call from his panic-stricken wife saying terrorists had stormed into the house.

Doron Asher Katz, 34, was visiting her mother in the settlement with their two daughters, aged two and four, when Hamas attacked.

After losing contact with her, Yoni saw a video of them on social media being loaded into a cart by terrorists.

'I surely identified my wife, my two daughters and my mother-in-law on some kind of a cart, and terrorists of Hamas all around them,' he said.

He was able to track his wife's mobile phone and saw its location was in Khan Yunis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip.

He said: 'My little two girls, they are only babies, they are not even five years old and three years old.

'I don't know in what terms they are captive. I don't know what happened to them.'

Yoni appealed directly to Hamas to not hurt his family and even offered to exchange himself for their safe return.

The remains of a family home in Nir Oz kibbutz following a deadly infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip

The remains of a family home in Nir Oz kibbutz following the terrorist attack

The devastation from the attack on Nir Oz kibbutz

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continue and Israel's defense minister has told troops to be ready for a ground assault on the Palestinian territory, although he has not said when that will begin.

More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza's population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told them to evacuate.

The airstrikes early on Thursday continued across the entire territory, including in areas in the south that Israel had declared as 'safe zones'.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza from Egypt following a request from U.S. President Joe Biden.

The war that began on October 7 after Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel, and Israel vowed to destroy them, has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides.

The Gaza Health Ministry said on Thursday that 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly in the initial attack.
An Israeli minister has told troops massing at the border that they will soon see Gaza 'from the inside' sparking fears a ground invasion is imminent.

Yoav Gallant, who is the country's defence minister, told Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers to 'get organised, be ready' to move into the Palestinian territory as he vowed there would be 'no forgiveness' for Hamas, only it's 'total annihilation'.

Another cabinet minister has claimed that the military has been given the 'green light' to invade the territory whenever it is ready, warning that the tunnels dug by Hamas would become the 'world's biggest cemetery'.

Thousands of Israeli troops have gathered at the border with Gaza since pushing back Hamas terrorists that brutally massacred hundreds of people in a cross-border attack on October 7.

Since then the Jewish state has pummelled Gaza with airstrikes, killing thousands of people, and has warned people living in the north of the territory to leave for their own safety.

Tensions have been ramped up further in recent days after a blast at a hospital in Gaza killed hundreds of people, with Israel and Palestinian terror groups blaming each other for the devastation.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops to 'get organised, be ready' to move into Gaza

Thousands of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) troops have gathered at the border with the Palestinian territory

Israeli soldiers patrol an area near the border with Gaza on Thursday, as fears mount over a ground invasion

Israeli air strikes have continued in Gaza for the 13th day after Hamas launched its surprise attack on October 7

An Israeli tank moves in an undisclosed location in the south of the country close to the border with Gaza

The violence has shown no signs of abating though, with Israel continuing to launch air strikes across Gaza, including in the south where civilians were told to take refuge.

And the fiery rhetoric has continued, with Defence Minister Gallant warning a ground invasion could happen at any time in a meeting with Israeli infantry on Thursday.

He told them: 'Whoever sees Gaza from afar will soon see it from the inside. The command will come, I promise you.

'There is no forgiveness for this thing. Only total annihilation of Hamas organisation  terror infrastructures, everything that has to do with terrorists and whoever sent them. It will take a week, it will take a month, it will take two months, until we eliminate them.

'You are not alone in battle. We trust you and count on you. Carry on training while there is time.'

It came the same day that the country's Economy Minister, Nir Barakat, told ABC News the military had the 'green light' to invade.

The cabinet minister added that the miles of tunnels built by Hamas under the territory would become the 'world's biggest cemetery'.

'We shall do all efforts to bring our hostages, to bring our hostages [back] alive' he said, but the 'first and last priority' is destroying Hamas.

Tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers are positioned for a ground assault on the Gaza Strip, where Hamas is holding 199 Israeli and international hostages.

They were abducted during a terror attack on October 7 in which 1,400 defenceless men, women and children were butchered. Israel's warplanes and artillery have bombarded Gaza targets in retaliation, destroying Hamas strongholds but also killing large numbers of civilians.

According to the Palestinian authorities more than 3,000 people have died, with 12,000 wounded.

A ground offensive, which will include squadrons of Israeli tanks, unmanned drones, special forces and conscripts, is expected to result in further major casualties.

Israel has codenamed the offensive Operation Swords of Iron. Its mission template includes what the UK military calls 'FIBUA'  Fighting in a built-up area.

Gaza's densely-populated urban terrain strongly favours the defending side and Hamas has prepared the ground with mines and booby traps. Israel's publicly-stated objectives are to destroy Hamas's leadership and to rescue the hostages.

In what may prove another indication of an impending full-scale conflict, the US yesterday issued a rare security warning to its citizens. The State Department's 'Worldwide Caution' notice highlighted the 'potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against US citizens and interests'.

The warning followed the targeting of US diplomatic buildings across the Middle East and North Africa over recent days.

The Foreign Office has advised Britons to consider leaving Israel if it is not essential they remain there. More than 900 UK citizens have been airlifted from the country since Hamas's attack.

Britain has also joined the US and Germany in advising its citizens to leave Israel's northern neighbour Lebanon following attacks by Hezbollah which, like Hamas, is armed by Iran.

Israeli soldiers sit in an army vehicle as they gather close to the border with Gaza on Thursday

Israeli troops travel along a road close to the Gaza Strip as forces continue to gather ahead of a mooted invasion

Israeli soldiers patrol near the Gaza border on Thursday as fears mount over an imminent ground invasion

Smoke plumes into the air after an Israeli missile strikes in the Rafah, in the southern part of Gaza

An Israeli military Apache helicopter flies near the border with Lebanon on Thursday as tensions continue to rise

An Israeli F-15 fighter jet flies through the air close to the border with the Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinian emergency services look through the rubble of a building in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, after it was destroyed in an Israeli air strike

Indications of an imminent Israeli ground attack came after the UK's Prime Minister departed the country after discussions with his Israeli opposite number Benjamin Netanyahu.

During a joint address, Rishi Sunak told his counterpart 'we want you to win' while the Israeli PM indulged in Churchillian prose, describing Hamas's attack as his country's 'darkest hour'. Mr Sunak offered a public reassurance that the UK 'absolutely' backed Israel's 'right to defend itself, in line with international law'.

He said: 'I am proud to stand here with you in Israel's darkest hour as your friend. We will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people.

'I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians, in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas.'

Mr Netanyahu thanked him and predicted his country's battle with Hamas will be a 'long war' and that Israel will need Britain's 'continuous support'.

He said: 'We have to win, we have to release the hostages. We have there children, babies, women, elderly, Holocaust survivors.

'We have to work together in every way possible. We discussed practical co-operation on many fronts. Eighty years ago the civilised world stood with you in your darkest hour. This is our darkest hour, the world's darkest hour.'

Mr Netanyahu branded Hamas 'the new Nazis'  and warned that the terror group and its Iranian backers had formed an 'axis of evil' that was hell-bent on taking the Middle East 'back to the Middle Ages'.

He told Mr Sunak: 'Eighty years ago, Prime Minister, the civilised world stood with you in your darkest hour. This is our darkest hour. It is the world's darkest hour. We need to stand together and we will win. I value your support and the fact that you're here  we must win together.'

READ MORE HERE: Get out of Lebanon NOW: Brits and Americans are given urgent warning to leave the country amid growing fears Israel-Hamas war will spread Advertisement

It is understood that Mr Sunak and Mr Netanyahu held one-to-one talks for two hours. Mr Sunak later appeared to give his blessing to Israel to launch a ground invasion of Gaza.

Asked directly if he would support an invasion, the PM said: We have been consistently clear that Hamas has perpetrated absolutely appalling, barbaric acts of terror, which have taken the lives of so many and caused untold misery and suffering. Israel has every right, given that, to defend itself.'

Mr Sunak also met families of those murdered before flying to Saudi Arabia. He is expected to discuss the crisis with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday saw a venomous blame game erupt between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups.

Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) claimed an Israeli air strike was responsible for the blast, which health officials claim killed hundreds of people.

But Israel has insisted it is not responsible, instead laying the blame at the door of PIJ, which it said had caused it with a misfired rocket.

In the aftermath there were pro-Palestine protests across the Arab world, Europe and the United States, while Israel's enemies vowed revenge. These have continued today, with more protests in the French capital of Paris.

As the violence to the south has raged, there has also been shooting at the border with Lebanon between the IDF and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

In Gaza itself, authorities are still working out logistics for a delivery of aid into Gaza from Egypt, overwhelmed hospitals tried to stretch out ebbing medical supplies and fuel for diesel generators to keep the equipment running.

Doctors in darkened wards stitched wounds by mobile phone light.

A doctor at the largest hospital said staff were using vinegar from the corner shop to treat infected wounds.

Israel's Iron Dome air defence system fires to intercept a rocket directed towards Ashkelon from the Gaza Strip

An Israeli soldier gestures to passers-by as he drives a military vehicle near the border with Gaza

Debris is strewn on the streets of Gaza City outside the Islamic University after an air strike

British prime minister Rishi Sunak walks with his Israeli counterpart during a meeting in Jerusalem on Thursday

The British premier also met with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh

Thousands of people took part in a pro-Palestine demonstration in the French capital of Paris on Thursday

Israel's consent for Egypt to let in food, water and medicine provided the first possibility for an opening in its sealing off of the territory.

Many among Gaza's 2.3 million residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.

Israel did not list fuel as a permitted item, but a senior Egyptian security official said Egypt was negotiating for the entry of fuel for hospitals.

With the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah still closed, the already dire conditions at Gaza's second-largest hospital deteriorated further, said Dr Mohammed Qandeel, of Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis.

Power was shut off in most departments to save it for intensive care and other vital functions, and staff members were using mobile phones for light.

At least 80 wounded civilians and 12 dead were brought into the hospital on Thursday morning after witnesses said a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis.

Doctors had no choice but to leave two of the incoming to die because there were no ventilators left, Dr Qandeel said.

'We can't save more lives if this keeps happening, meaning more children ... more women will die,' he said.

The Gaza Health Ministry pleaded with petrol stations to give whatever fuel they had left to hospitals.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, gave some of its little remaining fuel stores to hospitals, according to spokesperson Juliette Touma.

The agency's donation to Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, the territory's largest, would 'keep us going for another few hours', hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia told The Associated Press.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults.

Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians killed during Hamas's deadly incursion on October 7.

Roughly 200 others were abducted.

The Israeli military said on Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

More than one million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza's population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory since Israel told them to evacuate.

Most have crowded into UN-run schools-turned-shelters or the homes of relatives.

The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territory's only connection to Egypt, remained fragile.

Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians in southern Gaza and that it would 'thwart' any diversions by Hamas.

US President Joe Biden said the deliveries 'will end' if Hamas takes any aid.

Egypt must still repair the road across the border, which Israeli air strikes cratered in a no-man's land and on the Gaza side.

No equipment had arrived to start the repair work as of Thursday afternoon, the Hamas spokesman for the crossing, Wael Abu Omar, said.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, according to Khalid Zayed, the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai.

Doctors stand outside al-Shifa hospital surrounded by a sea of dead children brought in from nearby al-Ahli hospital after the explosion

US officials said the first deliveries were likely to take place on Friday at the earliest, with an initial group of 20 trucks.

The Egyptian security official also said the first trucks were expected to go in on Friday.

Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let out of Gaza, Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV: 'As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.'

Israel had previously said it would let nothing into Gaza until Hamas freed the hostages taken from Israel.

Relatives of some of the captives reacted with fury to the aid announcement.

'Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals,' the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

But 'the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers'.

The Israeli military reported on Thursday that it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including militant tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centres.

It said it also hit dozens of mortar-launching posts, most of them immediately after they were used to fire shells at Israel.

Palestinians have launched barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.

Israel has said it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they may be in Gaza.

It has accused the group's leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population, leaving Palestinians feeling in constant danger.

After Thursday's strikes in Khan Younis, sirens wailed as emergency crews rushed to rescue survivors from the crushed apartment building.

Many residents were believed trapped under twisted bed frames, broken furniture and cement chunks.

A small, soot-covered child, dangling in the arms of a rescue worker, was taken out of a damaged building.

Gaza's Hamas-led government said several bakeries in the territory were hit in the overnight strikes, making it even harder for residents to get food.

Violence was also escalating in the West Bank, where Israel carried out a rare air strike on Thursday, targeting militants in the Nur Shams refugee camp.

Israeli troops raided the camp the previous night and were still battling Palestinian fighters inside.

Six Palestinians were killed in the camp, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, and the Israeli military said the strike killed militants.

Ten Israeli officers were wounded when fighters threw explosives at the troops.

More than 74 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war started.

Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Thursday said they fired missiles into northern Israel, hitting a kibbutz.

The Israeli military said no-one was injured and responded with shelling on border areas in Lebanon.

Hamas militants also fired 30 rockets from southern Lebanon towards Israeli towns.

Violence on the border comes amid fears the Hamas-Israel conflict could spread across the region.
A US Navy warship stationed near Yemen intercepted multiple missiles today fired by Iranian-backed militants in the latest sign of escalating tensions in the Middle East.

The USS Carney shot down two land missiles and three drones fired by Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.

It's unclear whether the target was Israel or the ship. There were no injuries onboard the ship and none were reported on land among civilians.

The incident was the fourth in three days of increased aggression against US troops in the region.

On Tuesday, troops at the al-Asad airbase in Iraq intercepted three drones. To the north, troops the Al-Harir Air Base intercepted another two.

Yesterday, there were additional attacks on troops in Syria, near the al-Tanf airbase near Syria's border with Iraq and Jordan.

Another was reported at the Conoco airfield. Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iran-backed group, has claimed credit for the attempted strike against the Conoco base, but US officials are yet to confirm that specific strike.

On Wednesday, a contractor at the al-Asad airbase in Iraq died of a heart attack while sheltering amid reports of an incoming attack.

The incident was the fourth in three days of increased aggression against US troops in the region

It's unclear if the USS Carney, the warship, was the intended target of the missiles fired from Yemen on Thursday

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack took place on Wednesday against U.S. forces at Al-Tanf base, near Syria's borders with Iraq and Jordan

There were minor injuries at the al-Asad base, where troops were only able to intercept one of the drones and damage the other.

The extent of those injuries is unclear.

It also remains unclear whether the strikes against the al-Tanf airbase resulted in any damage or injuries.

The strikes come amid increased tension in the Middle East over the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which many now view as a conflict between the West and the Arab world.

President Biden has been steadfast in his support of Israel since Hamas attacked on October 7, supplying military aid and flying to the region in a show of strong alliance.

His visit and ongoing support of Israel whipped up anti-American protesters in Lebanon, where crowds laid siege to the US Embassy in Beirut yesterday.

The State Department has now issued a rare worldwide caution travel advisory for Americans traveling overseas, citing the potential for terror attacks and 'increased tensions' as reason to be on high alert.
The 'Mega-unit' section of the Royal Navy's newest nuclear submarine HMS Dreadnought was kept under wraps as it headed north to Barrow shipyard.

Incredible images show the submarine being moved along Cumbrian streets covered in black plastic.

As part of a 31bn programme, the huge section of HMS Dreadnought is seen protected against the elements by what the Royal Navy describe as 'what must be the world's largest black bin bag'.

The nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines are being constructed by BAE Systems at its Barrow-in-Furness shipyard.

The move occurred on September 21, but given the highly sensitive nature of the programme, the MOD have only today cleared the pictures.

The 'Mega-unit' section of the Royal Navy's newest nuclear submarine HMS Dreadnought was kept under wraps as it headed north to Barrow shipyard

Incredible images show the submarine being moved along Cumbrian streets covered in black plastic

The nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines are being constructed by BAE Systems at its Barrow-in-Furness shipyard

A BAE Systems spokesperson comments: 'The longest ever 'mega-unit' so far for Dreadnought Boat 1 has been moved down the road into BAE Systems Submarines' Devonshire Dock Hall (DDH) in Barrow-in-Furness.

'At more than 20m, it was the longest submarine unit to move by road since the fore-end mega-unit moved to the DDH for the final Vanguard boat in the mid-1990s.

'This mega-unit will now take its place on the Dreadnought build line as we continue construction of the next generation of deterrent submarine.

'Three of the four Dreadnought submarines are currently under construction in Barrow and will deploy into the Royal Navy fleet in the early 2030s.

'BAE Systems' site on the edge of the Lake District is the home of UK submarine building.'

The Royal Navy add: 'All will be assembled under cover in the dock hall - 260 metres long, 58 wide and 51 high, making it almost large enough to accommodate the Titanic - where the final two Astute-class submarines, HMS Agamemnon and Agincourt, are in the later stages of construction/completion, and where the 'mega unit' will take its place on the Dreadnought build line.

HMS Dreadnought is due to enter service in the early 2030s.

As part of a 31bn programme, the huge section of HMS Dreadnought is seen protected against the elements by what the Royal Navy describe as 'what must be the world's largest black bin bag'

The move occurred on 21 September but given the highly sensitive nature of the programme, the MOD have only today cleared the pictures

HMS Dreadnought is due to enter service in the early 2030s

The Dreadnought Class will replace the existing Barrow-built Vanguard fleet and will be the Royal Navy's biggest, most powerful and technically advanced submarines.

Their construction is the biggest defence project underway in the UK today, BAE Systems said, involving new levels of innovation, technology and collaboration, and is also one of the largest and 'most complex engineering projects in the world'.

Work on the first two boats in the class - Dreadnought and Valiant - is well underway.

BAE Systems is building the fleet of four submarines, with each one measuring more than the length of three Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Dreadnought is the first Royal Navy submarine to have mixed crews so has been designed with separate male and female crew quarters.

It has also been designed with 'day' and 'night' lighting and a host of technological innovations.
The U.S. Marines are set to welcome a group of new recruits to the ranks, robotic goats.

Troops began testing the so-called quadruped robotic platform at California's Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC) last month.

The exercise saw the agile bot showing off its moves before a test-fire situation was initiated.

U.S. Marines shot a M72 LAW unguided anti-tank weapon from the goat's back, while the unit was secured between sandbags for safety.

Deployment of the robots could allow human counterparts to stay in cover while the goat attacks the enemy.

Troops began testing the so-called quadruped robotic platform at California's Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC) last month

The exercise saw the agile bot showing off its moves before a test-fire situation was initiated

U.S. Marines shot a M72 LAW unguided anti-tank weapon from the goat's back, while the unit was secured between sandbags for safety

According to an official report of the exercise, the Tactical Training and Exercise Control group (TTECG), in concert with the Office of Naval Research (ONR), 'test fired an M72 Light Anti-tank Weapon rocket launcher from the robotic goat.'

'Its important to note that this is not a mil spec platform. This is not what we would issue to Marines, this is a test platform for ONR,' a Marine says in the video.

'That thing's creepy,' another says.

'The bigger one, they actually put a goat head mask on it. And its able to growl, bark, and even throw sirens,' the controller says in the clip.

'The robotic goat can carry various sensors or weapon systems that would otherwise be carried by a Marine,' the report added.

1st Lt. Aaron Safadi, officer in charge, emerging technology integration section, TTECG, explained: 'Instead of having a Marine handle the weapon system, manipulate the safeties, we could put a remote trigger mechanism on it that allowed it to all be done remotely.

'The Marine could be behind cover and concealment, the weapon system could go forward, and the Marine could manipulate the safeties from a safe place while allowing that weapon system to get closer to its target.'

No timeline has been given for deploying robotic goats, but the exercise is described as giving 'Marines the opportunity to test emerging technology in an unscripted force-on-force exercise.'

Russia unveiled a new robo-dog 'weapon' at an arms fair in Moscow in 2022, claiming it is able to carry and fire an anti-tank grenade launcher

Observers believed the robot is actually a Chinese 'home helper' that has no military capabilities and is available for anyone to buy online for as little as 2,500

In September 2022, Russian military contractors unveiled what they said was a robotic attack dog that could hunt dogs in the wild.

However, internet sleuths say the robot's hexagon-shaped head and the position of two camera eyes peeping out of a slit in the front revealed the truth.

They believe the robot is actually a 'Go1' Yushu Technology Dog that is manufactured by a company called Unitree.

Adverts on AliExpress - a Chinese online store similar to Amazon - show the dog can be bought for between 2,500 and 3,000.

In Russia, the Go1 is sold by a firm called Robosobaka which has links to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Emergencies, according to The Insider.

Robosobaka says the dog cannot traverse wet or muddy terrain because it doesn't have sufficient water or dirt protection, cannot negotiate rough ground, and should only be walked in 'sunny weather'.

Customer reviews on Chinese websites also suggest that its battery is only large enough to run for two hours, and sometimes as little as 30 minutes.
This is the dramatic moment a suspected car thief was boxed in by police before officers started smashing the windscreen and dragging the driver out of the vehicle.

Videos capturing the take down shows five police cars and a van surround the 'stolen' silver car, in Worthing, West Sussex, following a 11-mile pursuit of the vehicle from neighbouring Brighton.

In the coordinated trapping of the vehicle, one police car hits the front bumper of the silver car, stopping it in its tracks on North Street after police received reports of a stolen vehicle at about 1.30pm on Thursday.

Police can then be seen flinging their doors open to approach the driver, taking batons to smash the windows and windshield of the car.

One officer also appears to kick in the direction of the passenger side of the vehicle.

Videos capturing the climactic take down shows five police cars and police van surround the 'stolen' silver car, in Brighton , East Sussex

In the coordinated trapping of the vehicle, one police car hits the front bumper of the silver car, stopping it in its tracks

Officer can then be seen flinging their doors open to approach the driver, taking batons to smash the windows and windshield of the car

In a tense escalation, two officers pull out their taser guns, pointing them at the driver while yelling

It is not clear whether the taser guns carried by officer, that were pointed in the direction of the driver, were fired

Failing to come out of his vehicle, the shirtless driver is then dragged out of the car following what appears to be a short tussle inside the car

The 31-year old man is then grappled to the ground by several officer during the arrest

In a tense escalation, two officers pull out their taser guns, pointing them at the driver while yelling. It is not clear whether they were fired.

Failing to come out of his vehicle, the shirtless driver is then dragged out of the car following what appears to be a short tussle inside the vehicle with one of the officers.

The man is then grappled to the ground by several officers during the arrest.

Sussex police confirmed that they received reports of a stolen car in Richmond Parade, Brighton, earlier today at about 1.30pm.

A 31-year old man was arrested at the scene, near a Lidl, where officers has stopped the car and boxed it in.

A cordon was put in place around the area of the incident.

Sussex Police told The Argus: 'Sussex Police received a report of a stolen car in Richmond Parade, Brighton at about 1.30pm on Thursday, October 19.

'Officers stopped the vehicle in North Street, Worthing following a pursuit and arrested a 31-year-old man.'
The Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has told soldiers at the border to 'get organized, be ready' for their move into Palestinian territory

Satellite imagery has revealed where Israel has deployed hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles, as it prepares to invade Gaza.

The military buildup seen in satellite images is some four miles north of the Erez Crossing, a primary entry point on Gaza's northern border.

Tanks and other armored vehicles are seen in the pictures, which were taken at the end of last week by Planet Labs.

Among those include Merkava tanks, armored personnel carriers and militarized bulldozers, according to the New York Times.

Ahead of the ground invasion, Israel had demanded that the population of northern Gaza evacuate to the southern half of the territory.

Despite this, Israel have continued to fire on parts of the southern strip that had been declared safe zones.

A residential building in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter, was among the places hit.

Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel on Thursday from Gaza and Lebanon, and tensions flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In a fiery speech to Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border, defense minister Yoav Gallant urged the forces to 'get organized, be ready' for an order to move in.

Speaking to the tens of thousands of troops that Israel have amassed on the border, he said: ''Whoever sees Gaza from afar now will see it from the inside  I promise you.

'It might take a week, a month, two months until we destroy them,' he added, referring to Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his forces were fighting against the 'worst monsters on the planet'.

The Israeli Prime Minister added that this was during the 'world's darkest hour' as he also warned there would be 'ups and down'.

U.S. President Joe Biden, left, pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas

Defence minister Yoav Gallant, wearing a protective vest, speaks to Israeli soldiers in a staging area near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel

Israeli soldiers patrol an area near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel October 19, 2023

Shortly after Gallant's statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a video of himself with troops near the border promising victory.

Tensions have been ramped up further in recent days after a blast at a hospital in Gaza killed hundreds of people, with Israel and Palestinian terror groups blaming each other for the devastation.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults.

Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas' deadly incursion on Oct. 7.

Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said on Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

Israels consent for Egypt to let in food, water and medicine provided the first possibility for an opening in its sealing off of the territory.

Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, Israel, Thursday, Oct.1

Smoke rises during an Israeli military raid on Nur Shams, West Bank, on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023

Many among Gazas 2.3 million residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.

Israel did not list fuel as a permitted item, but a senior Egyptian security official said Egypt was negotiating for the entry of fuel for hospitals.

With the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah still closed, the already dire conditions at Gazas second-largest hospital deteriorated further, said Dr Mohammed Qandeel.

Power was shut off in most departments to save it for intensive care and other vital functions, and staff members were using mobile phones for light.

At least 80 wounded civilians and 12 dead were brought into the hospital on Thursday morning after witnesses said a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis.

Doctors had no choice but to leave two of the incoming to die because there were no ventilators left, Dr Qandeel said.

A Palestinian inspects the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, 19 October 2023

A view of damaged buildings of the Islamic University in Gaza City, 19 October 2023

The Israeli military reported earlier today that it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including militant tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centers.

It said it also hit dozens of mortar-launching posts, most of them immediately after they were used to fire shells at Israel.

Gazas Hamas-led government said several bakeries in the territory were hit in the overnight strikes, making it even harder for residents to get food.

Violence was also escalating in the West Bank, where Israel carried out a rare air strike on Thursday, targeting militants in the Nur Shams refugee camp.

Israeli troops raided the camp the previous night and were still battling Palestinian fighters inside.
Top Republicans are plotting how to hold up President Biden's anticipated $100 billion supplemental funding ask - saying there's no path forward if Israel, Ukraine and southern border aid are tied together.

Biden is expected to officially announce the massive aid package - including $60 billion to Ukraine and the remaining $40 billion split between Israel, Taiwan as it faces a growing threat from China and the southern border - during a primetime address to the nation Thursday evening.

The president mentioned the request Wednesday during a stop in Tel Aviv to meet with Israeli leaders and affirm U.S. support for the nation, saying he would be sending to Congress an 'unprecedented support package for Israel's defense.'

Israel has faced a barrage of rockets launched by Hamas terrorists from Gaza following a deadly attack on October 7, which left over 1,400 Israelis and over 30 Americans dead - with many still being held captive by the Iran-back militants.

But Republicans are not warmly accepting the president's anticipated request.

Biden is expected to officially announce the massive aid package on Thursday evening

President Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023

'Republicans need to be involved in crafting every aspect of this supplemental, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told DailyMail.com. 'I hope our conference holds together to deny cloture until we have a full seat at the table,' he continued.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn said to DailyMail.com that Biden's request is 'irresponsible' because the money will be 'held hostage' by linking it to other issues, including a 'bailout' for sanctuary cities.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., led a letter including eight of his GOP colleagues to Senate leadership Thursday demanding that Israel and Ukraine aid be debated separately.

The senators expressed their disdain for bundling Ukraine and Israel aid together saying Biden is 'risking a government shutdown' by tying them into one package.

'My colleagues and I firmly believe that any aid to Israel should not be used as leverage to send tens of billions more dollars to Ukraine. These are two separate conflicts at different stages and cannot be considered as a 'package deal,'' wrote Marshall.

Republican opposition to sending more aid to Ukraine has intensified in recent months.

The United States has authorized over $113 billion in assistance to Ukraine in the nearly two years since Russia launched a war of aggression against the state. Republicans are demanding additional oversight of funds and want Europe and the rest of the international community to pull their weight.

'These are two separate and unrelated conflicts and it would be wrong to leverage support of aid to Israel in attempt to get additional aid for Ukraine across the finish line,' continued Marshall who was joined by Johnson, Josh Hawley, Mike Lee, Rick Scott, Cynthia Lummis, Mike Braun, J.D. Vance and Marsha Blackburn.

Thune, the Senate minority whip, said a basis for the proposal was a package to send about $4 billion to so-called 'sanctuary cities' that are getting slammed by the migrant crisis, in part after GOP governors began bussing migrants to northern cities and town.

Thune ran down the idea as '$4 billion that was going to be going to these New Yorks and Chicagos,' calling it 'basically a sanctuary city money to help with relocation of migrants,' in reference to cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

'And, you know, obviously, our folks are going to want something that deals with the border itself, and making it more secure,' he told DailyMail.com Wednesday.

Across the Capitol in the chaos-ridden House of Representatives, top Republican lawmakers are disgruntled as well.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., told DailyMail.com Thursday that Biden's ask is a non-starter because Hamas' attack showed to the world the 'importance of borders.'

'Border security and aid for our indispensable ally, Israelafter the Jewish people faced its deadliest day since the Holocaustcannot be held up for more aid for Ukraine,' Green told DailyMail.com.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., told DailyMail.com that Biden's ask is a non-starter

'We need to secure our border and send aid to Israel to defeat evil today. Each of these issues must be debated separately. The American people demand thatand deserve that.'

But the House remains unable to conduct any basic legislative work while the House speaker position is unfilled.

Infighting among the GOP led to an unprecedented ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy over two weeks ago.

Now, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan is attempting to clinch the top leadership spot.

But after he lost the first two rounds of votes Tuesday and Wednesday, he is backing giving Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry temporary power until January while he shores up support.
The boogeyman is a mythical creature invented by adults to scare children into behaving - but the urban legend is not only a U.S. tale, countries all over the world have their own 'boogeyman'.

The U.K. and U.S. name for the scary entity is boogeyman (or bogeyman) which come from bugge or bogge - meaning 'frightening spectre'. The boogeyman is known to be from the 15th century, but scary stories about the creature go back much farther.

The boogeyman that Americans are familiar with is a masculine monster with both human and supernatural and some animal features. The boogeyman has been passed down through generations as an old wives tale about an evil creature that punishes children for being naughty.

Popular culture has documented the timeless tale of the boogeyman over and over again in horror movies like Child Eater, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Babadook and in books like Stephen King's The Boogeyman.

The boogeyman is a mythical creature invented by adults to scare children into behaving - but the urban legend is not only a U.S. tale, countries all over the world have their own 'boogeyman' - which are seen in this map published by TheToyZone

North America

Another North American iteration of the Boogeyman is Canada's the Seven' O'Clock Man, also known as 'Bonhomme Sept-Heure' because of the Quebec-myth's French roots. The Seven O'Clock man was a bedtime story parents told their children about an old man with a heavy sack over his shoulders filled with children.

The story is that he would come to the bedroom of a child who was supposed to be asleep - and if he caught them awake they would be snatched and stuffed into his sack and either eaten by the frightening figure or never returned to their family again.

Digg dubs The Seven O'Clock Man Canada's 'best kept secret', but some people in the comments insisted they'd simply never heard of the myth. One reader said: 'I'm Canadian. NEVER heard of a "Seven O'Clock Man."'

According to Digg, another variation of the boogeyman that lives in the U.S. is the Jersey Devil. The myth is not widely known by Americans, but the legendary creature is said to hang around the forests of Southern New Jersey.

The Jersey Devil is usually described as a flying biped with hooves - and looks similar to a kangaroo-like creature with a horse head and leathery bat wings, horns, and claws. The creature has a 'blood-curdling scream'.

The story that parents tell their children about the Jersey Devil is that it's the 13th unwanted and cursed child of Mother Leeds. There have been many reported 'sightings' of the Jersey Devil in Pennsylvania and New Jersey - apparently the creature has been suspected of attacking livestock and wreaking general havoc.

Another North American iteration of the Boogeyman is Canada 's the Seven' O'Clock Man, also known as 'Bonhomme Sept-Heure' because of the Quebec-myth's French roots (Pictured: North American boogeyman) credit: https://thetoyzone.com/nightmare-fuel-iterations-of-the-boogeyman

Europe

Most European countries have their own boogeyman and all of them are unique in appearance but similar in nature.

Portugal's 'Coco' is a mythical ghost-like monster that comes into the houses of disobedient children to take them away. Coco is described as 'horrible' to look at and can take on the appearance of a faceless hairy monster.

Spain's El Hombre Del Saco translates to 'the old man of the sack' and refers a character from Spanish folklore that wanders the streets after dark and searches for lost children to kidnap in his large sack.

A digg user commented that: 'Spain also has 'El Coco'. The difference being that the 'Hombre del Saco' kidnaps children for unknown purposes, while the Coco just eats them.'

Gryla comes from a tale of Icelandic Christmas Folklore. She is described as a 'hideous' giantess or troll with an appetite for flesh of mischievous children which she cooks in a large pot.

Austria's Krampus version of the boogeyman has become a common character in popular culture. Krampus is a horned anthropomorphic creature who cares naughty children during the advent season. Krampus - a 2015 Christmas comedy horror movie from Universal Studios - told the story of a family haunted by the creature in the days before Christmas.

Austria's Krampus version of the boogeyman has become a common character in popular culture. Krampus is a horned anthropomorphic creature who cares naughty children during the advent season (Pictured: European boogeymen) credit: https://thetoyzone.com/nightmare-fuel-iterations-of-the-boogeyman

Africa

Lamia is a Libyan child-eating monster that is regarded as a night-haunting spirit that torments children. She is depicted as a half-serpent half-woman creature with long hair.

Uganda and Zimbabwe both have tales of Rompo - a mythological beast described as having the head and mouth of a hare, the ears of a human, a mane, a slender body, a long tail, the front feet of a badger and the rear feet of the bear. Parents tell their children that Rompo feeds on human corpses to scare their children into behaving.

Popobawa is the name for the evil spirit in Tanzania that haunts the islands on the East African coast. Popobawa is a shapeshifter that can take on animal or human form and visits homes at night to attack families.

Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan share the myth of Werehyena a werewolf crossed with a hyena that can be disguised as a human. The creature is said to terrorize villages and people during the night.

Uganda and Zimbabwe both have tales of Rompo - a mythological beast described as having the head and mouth of a hare, the ears of a human, a mane, a slender body, a long tail, the front feet of a badger and the rear feet of the bear. Parents tell their children that Rompo feeds on human corpses to scare their children into behaving (Pictured: African boogeymen) credit: https://thetoyzone.com/nightmare-fuel-iterations-of-the-boogeyman

The Middle East and Central Asia

Azerbaijan's Div variation of the boogeyman is a monstrous creature within Middle Eastern lore. Their depictions come from Persian mythology and were integrated to Islam. They are described as having a body like that of a human - but far more massive with horns and teeth like the tusks of a boar. The stories say that these monsters relish the taste of human flesh and can use magic to to give their victims nightmares.

Iraqi folklore has the Saalua - which is a half-witch half-demon ghoul that parents tell their children stories about to spook them into being well-behaved.

Afghanistan has the Madar-i-Al, a nocturnal hag that slaughters infants in their cribs. Parents tell their children this to frighten them into obedience.

Iraqi folklore has the Saalua - which is a half-witch half-demon ghoul that parents tell their children stories about to spook them into being well-behaved (Pictured: boogeymen from the Middle East/Central Asia) credit: https://thetoyzone.com/nightmare-fuel-iterations-of-the-boogeyman

The Rest of Asia and Oceania

Bunyip - a creature derived from aboriginal mythology - is Australia's take on the Boogeyman. The word bunyip is translated by Aboriginal Australians to mean 'devil' or 'evil spirit'. The bunyip is an aquatic creature that lurks in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds and waterholes. Bunyips 'seen' by witnesses resemble seals or look like long-necked creatures with small heads. Australia has a whole museum devoted to their boogeyman in New South Wales where they showcase a peculiar skull that is claimed to belong to a bunyip. Stories about bunyips claim that the creatures devour women and children and make roaring noises.

Filipino folklore tells tales about Aswang - their version of the boogeyman. Aswang refers to shape-shifting evil creatures that can take the form of vampires, witches, ghouls and weredogs. The monsters come out at night and are described as inherently evil by nature.

Grandmother Tiger is a figure used to terrify naughty children in China and Taiwan. The creature is depicted as a tiger disguised as a grandmother. Parents tell their children: 'sleep little child or Grandmother Tiger will come.'

Bunyip - a creature derived from aboriginal mythology - is Australia's take on the Boogeyman. The word bunyip is translated by Aboriginal Australians to mean 'devil' or 'evil spirit'. The bunyip is an aquatic creature that lurks in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds and waterholes (Pictured: boogeymen from the rest of Asia and Oceania) credit: https://thetoyzone.com/nightmare-fuel-iterations-of-the-boogeyman

South America

Brazil has Cuca - an ugly alligator woman that steals naughty children - as their version of the boogeyman.

Pishtaco is Bolivia and Peru's evil monster take on the boogeyman. The pishtaco is depicted as a dangerous white male stranger who preys on unsuspecting natives to kill them and abuse them in many ways.
A mother-of-four who disappeared without a trace more than a decade ago was very scared of her then-boyfriend and feared he might to try kill her, a court has heard.

Claire Holland has not been seen since leaving a pub in Bristol on the weekend of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June 2012 and her ex-partner Darren Osment, 41, is now on trial accused of her murder.

She was 32 at the time and despite a number of high-profile appeals and campaigns, no trace of her has ever been found.

Prosecutors allege Osment, a pub chef, killed Ms Holland on the night of June 6 and disposed of her body in a river after blaming her for their child being taken into care in 2010.

Bristol Crown Court heard both were alcoholics and there were allegations of domestic abuse between them during their two-year relationship.

Mother-of-four Claire Holland went missing after a visit to a pub on the weekend of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012

Prosecutors allege Osment, a pub chef, killed Ms Holland on the night of June 6 and disposed of her body in a river after blaming her for their child being taken into care in 2010

Jurors heard witnesses recall conversations they had with Ms Holland describing the violence she suffered at the hands of Osment, while one said they had warned her not to meet up with him shortly before she disappeared.

Social worker Debbie Whitcliffe described speaking with Ms Holland either shortly before or after she gave birth to the defendant's child in 2010.

She told jurors she had gone to the couple's home in Bradley Stoke with two police officers and Osment was not present.

'I remember Claire saying that she and Darren had an argument, and I don't remember exactly what it had been about,' she told the court.

'She said they had both been drinking and Darren had hit her. In her presentation, she was very shaky and she said she was very scared of him.

'In response, my question was, "How scared are you?" and she said she wouldn't put it past him to try and kill her and she also said on a separate occasion he had tried to strangle her.

'The advice that I gave her was that we could find her a place in a women's refuge, that she should take the place in the women's refuge because it is a place of safety.

'Claire was very reluctant to go to a refuge and so she opted to go and stay with a friend instead.'

The court heard Miss Whitcliffe had told the police of this conversation in a statement in January 2023.

Ray Tully KC, representing Osment, suggested the passage of time may have affected her memory.

Darren Osment has been charged with killing Ms Holland, with whom he had been in a relationship and had a child

'The suggestion is that over 10 years after the event, when you were first being spoken to about it, you were able to recall these things without the need to consult any records at all?,' he asked.

She replied: 'That was the recollection of my memory.'

Mr Tully asked: 'You have obviously attended many events in the intervening years and no doubt attended events before then.

'Do you think it is possible that you may be mis-remembering some of this?'

She replied: 'I don't know. I can't say if I am mis-remembering it. That's my recollection as I do recall it.'

Miss Whitcliffe agreed with Andrew Langdon KC, prosecuting, there was 'no doubt in her mind' the conversation happened but she was 'not 100% sure' about being told about the allegation of strangulation.

The jury also heard from Kerry Davis, who supervised the contact sessions between Ms Holland and Osment and their child who was in foster care.

Describing their relationship, she said: 'There were good times and bad times, there was domestic abuse.

'Most of the time it was fine. On one particular time in the back of my car, Darren was quietly aggressive towards Claire.

'I didn't know them well and Darren was with Claire, and I could see she was uncomfortable. I didn't hear what was being said.

'When they were living together, she said that he had grabbed her on separate occasions, he had wet the bed and made her clear it up.

'On one occasion he had spat at her.'

Shortly before she disappeared, Miss Davis had helped Ms Holland move into a flat in Lawrence Weston and she told her she was planning on meeting Osment.

Miss Davis told jurors: 'She said she was going to meet Darren to discuss the child. I advised her not to do that and she said they needed to discuss things about the child, so I advised her to meet in a public place.'

Asked why she gave that advice, she replied: 'Because of their history. Their relationship... it was very volatile, they both drink.

'When I found out she had gone missing I thought, "Oh God, she went to meet Darren".'

Mr Tully suggested it would be 'common sense' to advise someone to meet in a public place.

'In the world in which you work, dealing with people where there has been a breakdown of difficult relationships that would be standard advice, good advice, to anyone?,' he suggested.

'Yes,' she replied.

Earlier this week, the court heard how Osment had 'confessed' on a number of occasions during the years to 'unburden' himself as he struggled to live with his 'horrific' actions.

In one confession, he said he had strangled her as 'no c**t, no stupid bitch is going to keep me away from my boy.'

Bristol Crown Court heard the victim met the defendant in 2008 when they became colleagues at the same cafe.

She eventually became pregnant with her third child, and his first, but the relationship turned 'sour' and 'abusive' as she was drinking too much, the prosecutor said.

They split up and she had a fourth child with another man, but prosecutors said she had been living a 'rather chaotic and no doubt at times unhappy existence' for years - but had begun to 'stabilise' in the six months before her disappearance.

She had found her own flat and was taking pride in it and re-establishing contact with family and was described by one social worker as 'happier than she had ever seen her.'

Claire was reported missing on Thursday June 14 when she didn't turn up at a contact session for her child.

Nothing has been seen or heard from her since. Mr Langdon added: 'We suggest that you will be driven to the regrettable conclusion that Claire has been silent since that night, not because she has chosen to disappear without trace, but because she is dead.'

By the start of 2014, as the missing person case had gone cold, the defendant had moved to Devon and was living and working with an ex-prisoner named Adrian Mulcahy, and developed a relationship with his sister.

During one conversation, the prosecution say he made his first confession to the killing. He is alleged to have told him: 'I did kill my ex. I threw it (the body) off* into the river off Avonmouth Docks in Bristol.

He is said to have told him 'I strangled her' and when asked why added: 'No c**t, no stupid bitch is going to keep me away from my boy.'

The court heard he later tried to 'row-back' from what he said but he then made a second confession in November 2018 to Mike Salaway while drinking with him at a pub in Topsham.

Mr Langdon said the defendant told the witness he had paid someone 500 to 'have the mother of my child executed.'

The prosecutor said there were further confessions made, what would be outlined to the jury later.

He added: 'If these confessions were being made by Darren Osment about killing or being responsible for the killing of Claire Holland were true, then a number of questions arise.

'Why was he volunteering them to others? And why the inconsistency? He said he strangled her to Adrian; to Mike he said he paid someone to do it.

'Is he for some reason trying to claim responsibility for something he did not do? To make himself look big? Or was he, in the various drunken confessions he made, trying to relieve himself of the burden he carried?

'If that is so, then it appears that he lacks the courage to describe what he actually did. The memory of what he did is so horrid, so ghastly that when it comes to it, he can't bring himself to spell it out.'

The defendant, of Chessel Drive, Patchway, South Gloucestershire has pleaded not guilty to murder on a date between June 5 and June 8 2012.

The trial continues.
A British Airways captain and co-pilot were rushed to hospital after the pair breathed in a 'foul odour' and fell ill in the cockpit during a flight to London today.

The Captain and First Officer of a BA flight were forced to don oxygen masks after reporting the stench, while at 30,000ft in the air on Thursday morning.

After getting in contact with emergency services on the ground, the packed plane landed at Heathrow airport, after its take-off from Newcastle.

The pair were rushed to hospital after 'keeling over' amid fears that they may have been exposed to toxic chemicals.

Ambulances and fire services scrambled to BA's Crew Report Centre, where the two pilots were initially assessed after suffering 'smoke inhalation' in the dramatic cockpit incident.

The Captain and First Officer of a British Airways flight resorted to putting on oxygen masks after reporting a 'foul' stench, while at 30,000ft in the air

They were then sent to hospital for further tests.

One source told The Sun: 'This was a shocking incident. The immediate concern is obviously for the two pilots.

'But also striking is the worry about what could have happened had these two cockpit crew been intoxicated when they were still at the controls of a crowded jet at 25,000ft. It doesn't bear thinking about.

'Investigations have started into this alarming incident.'

British Airways said: 'The flight landed safely and customers disembarked normally following a minor technical issue with the aircraft.'

The pilots behind the controls of a BA Shuttle 13C landed the Airbus A320 at Heathrow's Terminal 5 at 9.14am this morning, after taking off from Newcastle at 7.41am.

The schedule departure for the flight was 6am - one hour and 41 minutes before it actually took off - while it took 91 minutes to land, making it one hour and 54 minutes behind its expected arrival.

On October 9, British Airways passengers arriving from Barcelona fell ill as cabin crew donned chemical suits and were 'held' on the plane for nearly two 'traumatic' hours despite fears of toxic 'fumes' swirling around them.

In June this year, a Boeing 777 flight from New York to London had to be cancelled after passengers and crew became alarmed by a pungent smell.

Hundreds of passengers were in their seats on BA flight 176 when it was dramatically diverted back to JFK.

A spokesman for BA described the incident on BA flight 176 as a 'technical issue'.

The Unite union told The Sun that BA was attempting to spin the nature of such instances and 'manipulate' statistics 'to downplay how widespread the problem really is in the industry'.

London Ambulance Service said: 'We were called at 10.39am today (October 19) to reports of an incident at Terminal 5 Heathrow Airport, Hounslow.

'We sent an ambulance crew, an incident response officer and members of our hazardous area response team (HART) to the scene.

'We treated two patients at the scene for smoke inhalation and took them to a local hospital.'

British Airways said that the aircraft was met by emergency services on arrival as a precaution, as is 'standard procedure'.

They added: 'The safety of our customers and colleagues remains our highest priority.'
House Republicans almost came to blows in an hours-long all-conference meeting on Thursday, with Jim Jordan's bid for speaker hanging on by a thread.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., got into a near-physical altercation as emotions reached a tipping point during the three-hour meeting.

Bost was allegedly blaming Gaetz for ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy over two weeks ago and plunging the House into disarray and cursing him out. Gaetz said Bost later apologized for getting emotional.

The House has been paralyzed for 16 days as Republicans scramble to find a candidate that can get 217 votes - an increasingly hard feat with the divisions with their conference.

Gaetz described the meeting 'like a Thanksgiving dinner' with Bost being the drunk uncle.

After meeting with the whole Republican conference for nearly four hours, Jordan held a smaller sit-down with those who opposed him. None of the holdouts who attended the meeting signaled they could be swayed to vote for him.

'We want nothing. Thats the problem is we want nothing,' Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., told DailyMail.com when asked if there was anything Jordan could offer to change his mind.

A third vote for Jordan's bid is expected Friday at 10 a.m.

A visibly frustrated Jordan stormed out of the meeting of roughly a dozen of the 22 holdouts and took no questions, telling the press only that the meeting was 'good'

Jordan is seen leaving a meeting with holdouts who refuse to vote for him holding a piece of paper that says: 'what's the real reason?'

A visibly frustrated Jordan stormed out of the meeting of roughly a dozen of the 22 holdouts and took no questions, telling the press only that the meeting was 'good.'

He was seen holding a piece of paper that says: 'what's the real reason?'

Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., told reporters when leaving the meeting that it was more a meeting for holdouts to change Jordan's mind than Jordan to change theirs.

'He failed his moment of leadership when he failed Steve Scalise and that was pretty much everyones opinion,' Rutherford said, referring to the House Majority Leader who ran for the job before Jordan - but bowed out when Jordan supporters would not back him.

'The whole country I think would scream at Matt Gaetz right now,' said McCarthy

oAt one point, Gaetz stepped up to the microphone to speak to his colleagues and McCarthy told him to 'sit down.'

'I told him to sit down and he sat down,' McCarthy told reporters. 'I think the entire conference screamed at him.

'The whole country I think would scream at Matt Gaetz right now.'

Gaetz was the one who launched a vote to oust McCarthy two weeks ago, and since then the House GOP has burnt through two speaker candidates, with Jordan's bid for the top job hanging on by a thread.

He was also asked if former Speaker Kevin McCarthy yelled at him for leading the effort to oust him, to which Gaetz replied: 'Well, you know he loses his temper sometimes, maybe it's the Irish in him. But I actually think it was a productive discussion.'

Meanwhile, a handful of members, including Texas Republicans Nathaniel Moran and Lance Gooden along with Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, told the conference Jordan should step down.

Jordan said after the meeting he needs to talk to his wife and the 20-some Republicans who oppose him before calling a vote for his third shot at the speaker's gavel.

He then hopes to call for a third ballot, but some moderates have warned that Jordan could bleed even more votes.

Jordan had wanted to bring a resolution to the floor to temporarily empower interim Speaker Patrick McHenry to bring up legislation. McCarthy, who supports Jordan, also supports the plan.

The move would allow McHenry to move legislation like spending bills and support for Israel with a month until the government shuts down again. It would take the urgency away from the speaker's race, allowing Jordan to take more time to court votes.

Rep. Matt Gaetz , R-Fla., above, and Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., got into a near-physical altercation as emotions reached a tipping point

Bost was allegedly blaming Gaetz for ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy and plunging the House into disarray and cursing him out

It could have also allowed McHenry to take up the hot-button issues like working with Democrats to fund the government for 2024 and bringing up Ukraine aid.

But now, members say that plan is 'dead' after it became clear it did not have broad support from Republicans or Democrats.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the House's number two Republican, and Whip Tom Emmer, number three, are both against the move to empower McHenry.

DailyMail.com reported that Scalise is quietly working to undermine Jordan's bid for speaker. Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, the House's number four Republican, is also against the effort.

The resolution to empower McHenry would need sign-on from Democrats, who have not embraced it widely.
A teenager who was filmed brandishing a zombie knife at Notting Hill Carnival has admitted to possessing an offensive weapon and now faces an 'immediate prison sentence', a court heard today.

Samuel OBrien, 19, was photographed earlier this year as he charged towards onlookers armed with the two foot long weapon.

Shocking images showed OBrien, who was dressed in a black hoodie and black sweatpants, appearing to approach members of the crowd with the weapon raised above his head as revellers watched in helpless horror.

It came as eight people were stabbed at the street party amid unsustainable and unacceptable levels of violence which led to a government crackdown on the blades.

Earlier today, OBrien appeared at Isleworth Crown Court, West London, via video link from Wandsworth Prison.

Samuel OBrien, 19, was photographed earlier this year as he charged towards onlookers armed with the two foot long weapon

Shocking images showed OBrien, who was dressed in a black hoodie and black sweatpants, appearing to approach members of the crowd with the weapon raised above his head as revellers watched in helpless horror

He admitted violent disorder, possessing an offensive weapon and possessing cannabis but denied a charge of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm.

The offences are alleged to have taken place in Portobello Road on August 28.

Dressed in a grey jumper and jogging pants, OBrien spoke only to confirm his name and that he could hear the proceedings.

During the 10-minute hearing his barrister Andrew Hill asked for a probation report to be prepared before sentencing.

He said: My client is 19 years of age. I have spoken to family members. There has been quite a chaotic lifestyle in recent years particularly more recently with a lot of family members passing including his putative father, his grandfather, who passed very, very recently.

It may be that the sentencing court will take the view inevitably that imprisonment follows but I think it may go to the length of such a period if a pre-sentence report was obtained.

Judge Alistair Hammerton ordered OBrien to remain in custody before adjourning the case for sentencing on December 21.

He told OBrien: Can I make clear to you that in ordering reports the court has ruled nothing in and nothing out.

There is a substantial likelihood that you will receive an immediate prison sentence but its very important that all matters are fully investigated.

In the fallout of the violence-marred carnival the government announced that possessing a machete or zombie knife with no practical use will carry a jail sentence of up to two years under a crackdown to close loopholes in the law.

Rishi Sunak said the event illustrated the need to give police and courts powers to crack down on knife crime in the capital.

Zombie knives earned their nickname as they mimic weapons frequently seen in horror films, particularly zombie apocalypse movies.

A man is seen holding his face in his hands as he is escorted away from the Notting Hill Carnival by a pair of Metropolitan Police officers on August 28

This years carnival saw sickening outbreaks of disorder with two victims, aged 19 and 29, suffering serious injuries following knife attacks.

In total eight men, aged between 18 and 40, were stabbed while police made 308 arrests for violence, sexual offences and possession of drugs and dangerous weapons. A firearm was also seized.

More than 75 police were attacked with officers kicked, punched, spat on, bitten, head-butted and even sexually assaulted.

Officers were also reportedly urinated on from upstairs windows.

The Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, described the incidents as absolutely disgusting'.

It said it was aware of six incidents in which officers were bitten, one sexual assault against a police officer, and another who was injured so badly they were taken to hospital for treatment.

'No wonder our members dread policing this event,' a tweet from the federation said.

The new legislation cracking down on zombie knives means that machetes designed to look intimidating and threatening will be made illegal under new legislation.

The maximum sentence for possessing, selling, manufacturing or importing the banned weapons will be increased from six months to two years, as will the maximum penalty for sales of knives to under 18s.

Police will also be given new powers to seize and destroy knives found on private premises if there are reasonable grounds to believe the blade would be used in a serious crime.

Under current laws, police cannot seize knives found during a search on a property, even if they have suspicions of criminal use.

Notting Hill Carnival Ltd, which organises the two-day street party, distanced itself from the street party's violent scenes, saying those responsible 'have nothing to do with Notting Hill Carnival or its values'.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the firm said: 'Notting Hill Carnival has once again been a spectacular weekend of colour and sound, the culmination of a year's long work, that results in this hugely important and unique cultural event.

'Carnival is about these communities and people, who dedicate so much time, love, incredible creativity and effort to the parade, sound systems, music, food, costumes and much more that makes up the event.

'We deplore all acts of violence, these people have nothing to do with Notting Hill Carnival and its values.

'Tragically, these incidents are all too common in our society. Last year the Office for National Statistics shows that 12,786 knife offences were carried out in the capital over the 12 months to the end of March, this sadly affects us as much as any community.

'We will continue to work hard with our partners to protect Notting Hill Carnival and the people who make it so special.'
Two New York Police Department officers are being praised for stopping a man from jumping off an overpass to his apparent death.

Officers Carl Fayette and Eleodoro Mata are seen in newly-released footage taking action to help prevent the death of an unidentified civilian.

As the man stands on Riverside Drive, near West 130th Street in New York, contemplating his fate, Fayette is heard offering some advice and words of reassurance.

'Ive been in your shoes and it's not worth it. Listen, I'm a man and you're a man, you understand what I'm saying,' he says.

Officers Carl Fayette and Eleodoro Mata are seen in newly-released footage taking action to help prevent the death of an unidentified civilian

As the man stands on Riverside Drive, near West 130th Street in New York, contemplating his fate, Fayette is heard offering some advice and words of reassurance

Mata is also heard reassuring the man while telling him 'everybody is here for you'

'And like I said, I have been in your shoes brother and there are solutions, there are ways to get out of this situation and I promise you that as NYPD, we do have the resources.

'I believe you are a good man. You are a good man and I promise you brother, well do anything in our power to help you. Please, listen to me.'

Mata is also heard reassuring the man while telling him 'everybody is here for you'.

He also kept reminding the man that he is 'stronger than this' and that 'he can defeat this without any help'.

While both officers try to convince the man not to jump, a third officer is seen trying to get closer to him in the background.

By the end of the video, the ESU can be seen holding the man and pushing him back as Fayette breaks down in tears.

While both officers try to convince the man not to jump, a third officer is seen trying to get closer to him in the background

The incident comes a few months after a Tennessee cop was hailed as a hero after she convinced a struggling 17-year-old father not to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge.

Officer Tina Shaw rushed to the Memphis I-40 bridge that overlooks the Mississippi River on February 2 after receiving a call about a teenager standing on the ledge.

Shaw was on duty with the Crisis Intervention Team when she rushed to the bridge while other officers were deployed to an officer-involved shooting.

Shaw, who is also a mother-of-two, described the moment she helped bring the teenager away from the precipice of the icy bridge after talking to him for about 15-minutes about his struggles of being a father.

'He was pretty much crying out for help, and I saw it in his eyes, and I was telling him "Hey, your son needs you,"' Shaw told WATE. 'There is no you without him, and there is no him without you.

Shaw gently approached the teenager in the conversation that would eventually end in tears and a warm embrace.

By the end of the video, the ESU can be seen holding the man and pushing him back as Fayette breaks down in tears

In another incident, Memphis Officer Tina Shaw saved the life of a teenager about to commit suicide. The two were seen hugging after he came off of the bridge's ledge

Officer Tina Shaw rushed to the Memphis I-40 bridge that overlooks the Mississippi River on February 2 after receiving a call about a teenager contemplating

'I actually had to lift his leg over and he grabbed me by my shoulder, and after he came back on the other side, we just immediately hugged each other,' Shaw said.

She then told the teenager while tightly embracing him: 'Son, its going to be okay. God [going] get you through this. Its gone be ok.' The youth broke down in tears, as did Shaw.

With 15 years in the force serving as a mental health specialist behind her, Shaw insisted that despite the horrible police-related incidents, including the death of Tyre Nichols on January 7, that there are good officers in the world.

'Despite all the negativity, there are quite a bit of officers on this department that are great,' she said.

The teenager was sent to a facility for mental health treatment.
Cybercriminals who have hacked into an ancestry website could use the data to target hundreds of thousands of Britons.

The DNA profiling firm 23andMe has warned that a hacker named 'Golem' leaked the genetic profiles of 4million of its users, including data linked to the British Royal Family and dynasties such as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers.

Chillingly the hacker has said that the massive release is to target 'families serving Zionism', sparking fears it could be used to target users based on their ethnicity, especially the Jewish community.

But experts have warned that data from the site, and other firms such as AncestryDNA and MyHeritage, could be used to target anyone who has submitted a 100 swab.

It is claimed that nefarious criminals could use the information obtained through hacking these sites to blackmail users and impersonate them.

23andMe is a leader in the $3 billion genetic testing market. For prices up to $200, customers can take a test which reveals their ethnic background

Anne Wojcicki, who co-founded 23andMe in 2006, has yet to comment on the alleged data breach

Data about people's DNA is in high demand on the black market, according to The Street.

Information about people's ancestry and familial relationships could be ripe for use in blackmail plots if people have hidden secrets, it claims.

Additionally, the personal information taken from people's profiles on the sites, including phone numbers, addresses, names and birth dates could be used in scams and fraud.

The dataset taken from 23andMe includes four million customers who have ancestry in Great Britain, Golem has claimed, saying the genetic profiles include 'the wealthiest people living in the US and Western Europe.'

23andMe's CEO Anne Wojcicki is said to be worth $850million and co-founded the business in 2006. She was married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin for eight years, becoming one of America's richest couples until their divorce. She is yet to comment on the alleged data breach - but a spokesman for the company said it is 'reviewing the data to determine if it is legitimate.'

For 99 23andMe users are sent a kit in the post. They spit in a saliva collection tube and send it back to a lab. Within three to four weeks a report detailing their DNA and ancestry is created online via a password-protected account. For 238 the DNA is analysed for health data including chance of cancer, heart attack and high blood pressure.

Golem has claimed that the stolen detailed DNA profiles include email addresses, photos, gender, date of birth and genetic ancestry. Posts online suggest profiles are $10 each or $1 if bulk bought in blocks of 100,000 - but a chunk of 4million were allegedly leaked online.

'There are samples from hundreds of families, including the royal family, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and more,' the hacker added, referring to the wealthy European and American families, respectively.

A hacker has released millions of additional genetic profiles stolen from DNA testing firm 23andMe, claiming that the leaked dataset includes members of the British royal family

23andMe's CEO Anne Wojcicki is said to be worth $850million and co-founded business in 2006. She was married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin (pictured together) for eight years until the Silicon Valley power couple's divorce

The Royal Family is seen in a file photo. A hacker claims to have published DNA from four million people with British ancestry, including members of the Royal Family

A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What kind of data does 23andMe hold? The company 23andMe, founded in 2006, sells tests which determine a customer's risk for developing a number of inherited diseases and conditions, including genes linked to diabetes, heart disease and breast cancer. With the help of a saliva sample sent by mail, the firm can tell customers whether they are a carrier of any of the conditions - including cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anaemia - and the risk of passing it to children. It therefore now holds the genetic data of more than 10 million people across the world, including those in Britain. Campaigners had previously voiced fears about the 'huge cybersecurity implications' of holding such a vast dataset of private information, concerns that have now been realised. Some four million DNA samples have been leaked by a hacker - data which also shares insights into a person's ancestors and their children. As one cyber security expert put it: 'If your computer is hacked, you can change your passwords. 'You can't change your DNA.' Advertisement

One worried customer told MailOnline: 'I've only had one email, which made me feel like they had handled it and nothing to worry about. That last email was over a week ago, but now I've read about what's really happened.

'I submitted my DNA to get a better understanding of my ancestry, it's quite eclectic, I don't share it for research, so to find out there is someone out there using it to search for Jews makes me feel sick.

'23andme need to update their customers, especially those with Jewish ancestry, immediately.'

At least some of the newly leaked stolen data matches known and public 23andMe user and genetic information, according to TechCrunch, supporting the authenticity of the leak.

'23andme need to update their customers, especially those of us with Jewish , immediately.'

The hacker accused German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of 'serving Zionism' and said the release consisted of one-third of the total profiles with German origin in the stolen database, threatening to release more if Germany maintains its support for Israel.

Cybersecurity experts had more questions than answers about the apparent breach.

'Little is known about this hack. Who was responsible? Was their motivation financial or political? Was 23andMe specifically targeted? How did the hacker obtain the data?' Brett Callow, a threat analyst with cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, told DailyMail.com.

'We don't yet have conclusive answers to any of the questions. One thing that is obvious, however, is that giving your DNA to a third-party is not without risk,' he added.

The latest tranche of leaks follows offers from the hacker to sell stolen DNA profiles, and a prior leak of millions of profiles of people with Jewish and Chinese ancestry.

'These breaches are getting more brazen and more worrisome,' Dimitri Sirota, the CEO of data security firm BigID, told DailyMail.com.

'They are targeting contextual identifiers like membership in an ethnic group. This could be used for targeted campaigns by ethnicity, race, gender, political affiliation or membership in another group,' he added, saying it raised concerns about cyber breaches turning into 'hate crimes'.

Golem, the hacker posting the stolen data, appears to have initially offered the profiles for sale for $10 per profile or less if bought in bulk

The email received by customers informing them of the data breach

23andMe has said it did not detect any system-wide breaches, and claimed the data may have been stolen from individual users who re-used passwords that had been breached on other sites.

If that is the case, the hackers may have only breached a limited number of accounts, but scraped millions of profiles using the 'DNA Relatives' feature that 23andMe users can opt into to find information about family members.

Golem, the hacker posting the stolen data, appears to have initially offered the profiles for sale, and wrote on Wednesday: 'I would like to remind you that even the data I'm sharing here is extremely valuable.'

But the hacker in the recent leaks sounded more politically motivated, lashing out at Israel and citing a recent explosion at a hospital in Gaza that killed hundreds as motive for releasing the new genetic profiles.

Palestinians blame Israel for the blast, while Israel says the hospital was struck by a misfired rocket launched by militants within Gaza.

READ MORE HERE: Woman who took home DNA test discovers her real father is not an anonymous donor but in fact a removals man from Essex Advertisement

'I'm not a Muslim, but I'm holding myself back with difficulty from uploading hundreds of [terabytes] of data to torrents due to the despicable Israel attacking the hospital,' wrote Golem.

23andMe said in a statement on Wednesday: 'We recently learned that certain profile information  which a customer creates and chooses to share with their genetic relatives in the DNA Relatives feature  was accessed from individual 23andMe.com accounts without their authorization.

'We immediately started an investigation and do not have any indication at this time that there has been a data security incident within our systems, or that 23andMe was the source of the account credentials used in these attacks.

'Our investigation indicates the threat actor was able to access certain customer accounts in instances where users recycled login credentials  that is, usernames and passwords that were used on 23andMe.com were the same as those used on other websites that have been previously hacked.

'We have since notified customers and taken additional security measures, including requiring all accounts to go through a password reset and advising customers to enable multi-factor authentication. We are working with outside forensic experts as part of our ongoing investigation, as well as with federal law enforcement.

'Today we were made aware that the threat actor involved in this investigation posted what they claim to be additional customer DNA Relative profile information. We are currently reviewing the data to determine if it is legitimate.

'Our investigation is ongoing and if we learn that a customer's data has been accessed without their authorization, we will notify them directly with more information.'

23andMe is a leader in the $3 billion genetic testing market. For prices up to $200, customers can take a test which reveals their background and can also identify gene variants linked to diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
A video of anti-terrorism K9 dogs enjoying some downtime by chasing balls across the airport floor has gone viral on social media.

The footage captures three airport security dogs relishing their off-duty moments, enthusiastically chasing a ball in a terminal before returning to their handlers.

The clip, shared by @mybudgettravel, has garnered six million views, along with thousands of comments and shares on TikTok as of Thursday.

The caption reads: 'POV you're spending the night at the airport and see the police dogs having a break from the service.'

Social media users expressed delight at the security dogs appeared to be Labradors featured in this latest viral video.

The footage captures three airport security dogs relishing their off-duty moments, enthusiastically chasing a ball in a terminal before returning to their handlers

The clip, shared by @mybudgettravel, has garnered six million views, along with thousands of comments and shares on TikTok as of Thursday

'Idk why I forgot service/police dogs also have time to play as well,' the most liked comment read.

'I've always loved seeing police dogs, "off the clock" and every time I've gotten to witness it, the handler has the biggest smile on their face too,' another wrote.

Many social media users said they wanted to pet the dogs, with one saying: 'the worst part about traveling: I want to pet the police dogs but can't because they are working.'

The content creator who posted the video replied: 'sometimes it is hard, this time was harder'.

Among those amused by the cute dogs, one seems to be perplexed. 'How are they still full of energy after working long hours,' they wrote.

'Two possibilities: they are using the "material" seized or they are simply Labradors,' the creator wrote back.

Labrador Retrievers are often used for narcotics nd explosives detection

K-9 dogs are considered a specialty unit, technically they could run a department without them, unlike police cars, police officers, and their training'

Labrador Retrievers are often used for narcotics nd explosives detection, according to the national police dog foundations.

It's one of the breeds that the police commonly use for detection, search, and evidence discovery.

K-9 dogs are considered a specialty unit, according to the police dog foundation. 'Technically they could run a department without them, unlike police cars, police officers, and their training,' the foundation's website says.

But sometimes they can be aggressive, as one K9 dog named Jax was shot dead a few months ago by armed cops after biting his female handler's leg during a missing person hunt.

PD Jax was dispatched by firearms officers after he became 'aggressive' and savagely bit his handler - leaving them with a serious leg injury.

Lancashire Police said the dog, which is a cross between a Belgian Malinois crossed with a Dutch Herder, was searching for a member of the public in the village of Walton-le-Dale when the incident unfolded.
A police officer embarked on a five-year campaign of sectarian and racist abuse towards colleagues.

Kyle Cruickshank made the comments while working from Glasgows Maryhill police station between 2017 and 2022.

The 32-year-old called a constable of Asian descent a curry muncher and referred to Catholics as Fenian b*******.

He was known to ask for colleagues surnames to see if they sounded Catholic and said Catholic potential victims of crime would get the jail.

He also made misogynistic remarks about female colleagues.

Cruickshank, who has now left force, abused colleagues over several years

Cruickshank pleaded guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to pursuing a racially aggravated course of conduct towards an officer.

He further admitted behaving in a threatening or abusive manner aggravated by religious prejudice.

Cruickshank  who has since left Police Scotland after six years  also pleaded guilty to assaulting a female officer.

Father-of-one Cruickshank made racist comments such as Pakistani people being dirty, the court heard.

The officer worked from Maryhill Police station in Glasgow

He also made the curry muncher remark towards colleague Safdar Sadiq when he took food to work.

Cruickshank referred to Mr Sadiq and Jewish colleague Barnaby Rose abusively.

Prosecutor Louise James said: The comment was about throwing cash on the floor and seeing who would pick it up.

The pair would avoid coming into the police station at certain times to avoid Cruickshank.

Ms James added: Cruickshank also made comments such as I hate Catholics and dirty Fenian b*******.

He also said women belong in the kitchen and called some female officers wee dirties.

Officer Rachel Kerr was sprayed on the face with hand sanitiser by Cruickshank while in the police reporting room. Matters were investigated after she reported him.

Sentence was deferred on the first offender. Chief Superintendent Catriona Henderson said Cruickshanks conduct fell well below the expected high standards of professionalism that the public rightly demands from policing.
Rishi Sunak was hit with demands for immediate tax cuts to win back Tory voters today after Labour seized two ultra-safe seats in disastrous by-elections.

The PM has been warned he is 'looking general election defeat in the face' after Keir Starmer's party overturned massive majorities in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire.

Sir Keir rushed to Mid Beds to take the glory this morning, gloating about 'making history' and Labour 'redrawing the political map'.

The grim meltdown triggered alarm in the Conservative ranks, with polling experts saying it points to a landslide on the scale of Tony Blair's 1997 wipeout. MPs called for 'far-reaching changes' including reducing the tax burden to convince Conservatives to come back to the fold.

Ministers argued that turnout was low amid bad weather, and insisted there is still no 'enthusiasm' for Sir Keir.

Extraordinary footage showed Mid Beds candidate Festus Akinbusoye and Tamworth hopeful Andrew Cooper scurrying out of the count as soon as their loss was formally announced, without the normal courtesy of listening to their rivals' victory speech.

Although by-elections are not directly reflected at general elections, a swing of the scale seen overnight could theoretically reduce the Tories to 20 seats.

Mr Sunak is set to respond to the by-election results as he continues his trip to the Middle East in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks in Israel.

Labour gained Mid Beds, which was vacated this summer by Tory ex-Cabinet minister Nadine Dorries, for the first time in the constituency's century-long history.

Sir Keir's party celebrated an historic victory after a 20.5 percentage point swing towards them since the 2019 general election.

It was the largest majority in terms of votes overturned by Labour at a by-election since 1945.

Labour's Alistair Strathern delivers a victory speech after his win in the Mid Bedfordshire by-election

Extraordinary footage showed Mid Beds candidate Festus Akinbusoye leaving the count without listening to his rival's victory speech

Tamworth hopeful Andrew Cooper was also seemingly given the nod by aides that he should make a hasty exit

Labour supporters embrace each other as they celebrate their party's stunning success in Mid Bedfordshire

Sarah Edwards, the victorious Labour candidate in Tamworth, said local voters had chosen a 'fresh start'

Ms Edwards, who secured a last-minute endorsement from TV's Ross Kemp on polling day, will replace Chris Pincher as the local MP

In its 105 years of existence, Labour had never won Mid Beds and were 24,664 votes behind the Tories at the 2019 general election.

Labour shadow cabinet minister Peter Kyle, who masterminded his party's victory in Mid Bedfordshire, hailed a 'political earthquake'.

'This is the biggest by-election shock in history, it is a political earthquake and it is one that is sending an unignorable message to Westminster and to Rishi Sunak that this country deserves better,' he said.

Alistair Strathern took the constituency with a majority of 1,192 votes over his Tory rival Festus Akinbusoye - who dramatically walked out of the count without listening to his rival's victory speech.

Victory for Labour in Brexit-backing Tamworth saw the party overturn the Tories' 19,600-vote majority from the 2019 general election.

The swing from the Tories to Labour in the Staffordshire constituency was 23.9 percentage points, which is the second-largest managed by Labour at a by-election since 1945.

It was even bigger than the 23.7 percentage points that Labour achieved when winning the Selby and Ainsty by-election in July.

Polling guru Sir John Curtice pointed out that the change was in line with Labour's 1996 by-election victory in the forerunner seat.

The Tamworth contest was triggered by the resignation of former Tory deputy chief whip Chris Pincher after he was found to have drunkenly groped two men in a posh London club.

Labour candidate Sarah Edwards defeated Tory rival Andrew Cooper by a majority of 1,316 votes. He also made a swift exit from the count without listening to her speech.

Following the double by-election victory, Sir Keir said: 'These are phenomenal results that show Labour is back in the service of working people and redrawing the political map.

'Winning in these Tory strongholds shows that people overwhelmingly want change and they're ready to put their faith in our changed Labour Party to deliver it.

'Voters across Mid Bedfordshire, Tamworth and Britain want a Labour government determined to deliver for working people, with a proper plan to rebuild our country.

'To those who have given us their trust, and those considering doing so, Labour will spend every day acting in your interests and focused on your priorities. Labour will give Britain its future back.'

Party chair Greg Hands said he was 'disappointed' but blamed 'specific circumstances' in the constituencies and said their voters had simply stayed at home.

'We need to think particularly about the fact that Conservative voters are not coming out to vote,' he told Sky News.

One veteran Tory told MailOnline: 'Normally by elections are protest votes, this appears to be protest non votes.'

Mr Sunak will be left reeling after he attempted to revive Tory fortunes with a recent policy blitz.

The PM has made announcements on Net Zero, the HS2 rail line, an A-levels shake-up, and a New Zealand-style smoking ban.

He has also overhauled his Downing Street team, but has yet to see much improvement in the Conservatives' opinion polling.

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns wrote on social media: 'Voter apathy is evident yet again in both the #ByElections, low turnout -20k failed to turnout in Tamworth, 24k failed to turnout in Mid Beds since the last election.

'We need to make far reaching major changes now to instil confidence in the Conservative voters.'

In Tamworth, Conservative candidate Andrew Cooper rushed off stage and out the nearest fire exit just as Labours Sarah Edwards began her victory speech pic.twitter.com/fR7f4x4aPT  Jack Surfleet (@jacksurfleet) October 20, 2023

Although by-elections are not directly reflected at general elections, a swing of the scale seen overnight could theoretically reduce the Tories to a rump of seats

Labour sources stressed Tamworth is not even among the party's target seats for the general election and is the 57th safest Tory constituency in the country.

Tory minister Andrew Bowie admitted the Conservatives had suffered a 'disappointing' night, but told Sky News: 'It's very unusual for governments to win by-elections.

'What's quite clear and what's been demonstrated is that while people support the priorities of the Government... people are reserving judgment about who they're going to vote for in the general election.'

He pointed to how Labour had won less votes at the Mid Bedfordshire by-election than they did at the 2019 general election, while they only added around 800 votes to their tally from the last general election in the Tamworth contest.

Mr Bowie claimed the by-election results did not show a 'groundswell' of support for Labour, adding: 'There's no enthusiasm behind the Keir Starmer project.

'I would be very surprised if these results were to be repeated in a general election.'

A Conservative spokesman acknowledged a 'difficult result' in Tamworth but pointed to a 'much-reduced turnout' in the by-election of 35.9 per cent, compared to the larger number of voters at the last general election.

The spokesman added: 'It's important to see it in context. The government of the day rarely wins by-elections and there were specific reasons around the nature of the departure of the previous MP.'

Professor Sir John Curtice said the two by-election results were 'extremely bad news' for the Conservatives and suggested Mr Sunak was on course for general election defeat.

'This isn't destiny, but it is a pointer and it is a pointer that, unless the Conservatives can fairly dramatically and fairly radically turn things around, then they are in truth staring defeat in the face in 12 months' time,' he said.

He warned the Tories 'may get caught in a pincer movement between some of their former Leave voters wandering off to Labour but others going off to Reform UK'.

Reform secured 1,487 votes in Mid Bedfordshire and 1,373 in Tamworth, in both instances more than Labour's majority over the Conservatives.

Mr Sunak was set to be told the by-election results while continuing a Middle East trip, during which he has held talks with Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman

Ms Edwards, the victorious Labour candidate who secured a last-minute endorsement from TV's Ross Kemp on polling day, said voters in Tamworth had chosen a 'fresh start'.

'They've sent a clear message to Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives that they have had enough of this failed Government, which has crashed the economy and destroyed our public services,' she added.

'The people of Tamworth have made it clear. It's time for change.'

She demanded that Mr Sunak 'do the decent thing and call a general election' following her victory.

Mr Strathern said his by-election victory in Mid Bedfordshire had 'made history' and sent a 'resounding message'.

Giving his victory speech, he said: 'Tonight residents across Mid Bedfordshire have made history, after decades of being taken for granted, feeling left behind, being under-represented, they made a decision it was time for a change.

'Nowhere is off limits for this Labour Party and tonight's result proves it.'

Since becoming PM, Mr Sunak has already suffered crushing defeats in by-elections in Selby and Ainsty, and Somerton and Frome.

Both of those were previously Tory strongholds before being won by Labour and the Lib Dems, respectively, in July.

The by-election contests have been bad-tempered in both seats.

Mr Sunak this week declined to condemn an apparent suggestion by Andrew Cooper that out-of-work parents who cannot afford to feed their children should 'f*** off'.

The Tory leader was asked during Prime Minister's Questions about a photo of a flowchart shared by Mr Cooper on Facebook.

The diagram suggested that those who are out of work, pay for 'TV Sky/BT/etc', or 'have a phone contract + 30' should 'f*** off' rather than seek help.

In reply to the question, the PM said only that he was 'proud of our record supporting people with the cost of living', before outlining Government policies aimed at supporting people through the crisis.

Mr Cooper told Channel 5 News he was 'sorry if I've offended somebody' after the post was publicised.

Asked if regretted sharing the image, he said: 'Obviously it is not something I would share now in today's world.

'We obviously mature and have different opinions than we do three years ago.'

He added: 'Of course I'm sorry if I've offended somebody. But it is very hard in today's world to have an opinion and not to offend somebody.'
A quartet of fossil dealers have been charged with buying $1 million worth of dinosaur bones stolen from public lands in Utah and illegally shipping them to China for a profit.

An indictment announced on Thursday by federal prosecutors in Utah hit the four defendants with 13 felony counts for allegedly dealing in 150,000 pounds of stolen paleontological resources, including dinosaur bones.

Two Utah resident were charged in the case: Vint Wade, 65, and Donna Wade, 67, who together own Wade's Wood and Rocks in Moab.

Oregon resident Jordan Willing, 40, who is the founder and CEO of educational supply company Blue Marble, was also charged alongside his father, 67-year-old Steven Willing, a Los Angeles resident and Blue Marble executive.

The indictment alleges that the quartet conspired to purchase dinosaur bones from two unnamed, unindicted co-conspirators, who illegally excavated and removed them from public lands.

A quartet of fossil dealers have been charged with buying $1 million worth of dinosaur bones stolen from public lands in Utah and illegally shipping them to China (evidence photo)

Evidence photos shared by prosecutors showed jewelry labeled 'gembones' that appeared to be made from cut and polished dinosaur bones, destroying their scientific value

The four defendants are represented by different attorneys at separate law firms, all of whom declined to offer immediate comment when reached by DailyMail.com on Thursday afternoon.

Prosecutors say that in addition to selling over $1 million in looted dinosaur bones, the defendants caused over $3 million in damage with the scheme, including the lost commercial and scientific value of the bones, and the cost of restoration and repair.

Evidence photos shared by prosecutors showed bone fragments as well as jewelry labeled 'gembones' that appeared to be made from cut and polished dinosaur bones.

'By removing and processing these dinosaur bones to make consumer products for profit, tens of thousands of pounds of dinosaur bones have lost virtually all scientific value, leaving future generations unable to experience the science and wonder of these bones on federal land,' said US Attorney Trina A. Higgins.

'The United States Attorney's Office and our law enforcement partners are dedicated to protecting paleontological resources throughout the State of Utah,' she added. 'We will hold accountable anyone who seeks to engage in similar criminal conduct.'

Investigators are seen with evidence recovered in the case. Prosecutors say that in addition to selling over $1 million in looted dinosaur bones, the defendants caused over $3 million in damage with the scheme

Bone fragments are seen after being seized as evidence. Prosecutors say the fossil dealers conspired to deal in 150,000 pounds of stolen dinosaur bones

Arches National Park in Moab, Utah is seen in a file photo. The area is rich in dinosaur bones but removing them from public lands is a federal offense

According to the indictment, the Wades purchased the dinosaur bones from unindicted co-conspirators who had removed from federal land, and stockpiled them for resale to national vendors at gem and mineral shows.

Those sales include $1 million worth of bones bought by the Willings, who used their company to export them to China, mislabeling them and deflating their value to avoid US export bans, according to the indictment.

The indictment alleges that 'all parties knew or should have known that these paleontological resources were excavated, removed, sold, purchased, exchanged, transported, and received from Federal lands.'

The Bureau of Land Management and FBI are investigating the case with assistance from the Grand County Sheriff and San Juan County Sheriff Offices.

'The Bureau of Land Management should be greatly commended in dismantling the illegal trade of paleontology artifacts here in our community,' said Grand County Sheriff Jamison Wiggins.

All four defendants are charged with conspiracy against the United States, Paleontological Resources Preservation Act violation, theft of property of the United States, money laundering, and other charges.

The defendants were scheduled for their initial court appearance on Thursday afternoon in Salt Lake City.
Families face the threat of tax rises and spending cuts after the Deputy First Minister said tough decisions are needed to fund Humza Yousafs 1billion policy splurge.

Shona Robison yesterday added to fears of tax and cuts pain in her December Budget to pay for policies unveiled in the First Ministers speech to the SNP conference.

She also confirmed the flagship announcement of a council tax freeze was not signed off by the Cabinet and the decision was only finalised between 24 hours and 48 hours before Tuesdays speech.

She said this was too late to allow local authorities to be informed.

Advisers to Mr Yousaf admitted they chose to focus on council tax  which is controlled by local authorities  rather than cutting taxes the Scottish Government controls because they did not have time to get expert advice about the impact from tax forecasters.

First Minister Humza Yousaf announced a raft of policies during his conference speech this week

Councils have reacted with fury at the attempt to force them to freeze taxes under their control, and warned they may refuse to implement it unless they are compensated in full for the lost revenue.

Critics raised fears about income tax rises and accused Mr Yousaf of using the announcement in his address to seek easy headlines.

Speaking on BBC Good Morning Scotland, Ms Robison, who is also the Finance Secretary, said: This wasnt signed off by Cabinet, this was a discussion that happened at political cabinet, and there were decisions made after that.

It was a very short period of discussion, it happened in the few days running up to the First Ministers speech.

She confirmed the decision on council tax was made in the run-up to the speech and said the normal consultation and communication methods about the announcement were not followed because it was part of the leaders speech at a party conference and the decision to go ahead was made late on.

Ms Robison said the Scottish Government would fully fund the freeze but was unable to say how much would be provided to councils.

Other pledges announced by Mr Yousaf included 300million to tackle NHS waiting times, 100million for the arts and culture and 500million to support the offshore wind supply chain.

The spending will keep financial pressure on the Scottish Government, which was already facing a 1billion budget black hole.

Ms Robison said there is a very challenging Budget ahead of us and the latest announcements would be priorities in that process.

Asked if she would have to increase tax or cut spending to pay for the pledges, she said: It will be tough.

'There will be tough decisions to be made.

Everyone earning more than 27,850 a year already pays more income tax in Scotland than in other parts of the UK.

Scottish Tory finance spokesman Liz Smith said: Hard-pressed Scots will be worried that they will once again be asked to pay more in income tax to fill the 1billion black hole the SNP has created in Scotlands finances.

Shona Robison has effectively confirmed that this announcement [on council tax] was rushed out for political reasons and to secure easy headlines for her party during their conference.
Israel was 'probably not' responsible for Tuesday's explosion at the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, US intelligence has found.

They also estimate that there were likely between 100 to 300 people killed in the blast, which sparked a venomous blame game between Israel, Hamas and their allies.

According to an unclassified assessment sent to Capitol Hill by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 'only light structural damage at the hospital' was reported, after earlier reports suggested the explosion had 'torn through' the entire building.

'Israel Probably Did Not Bomb Gaza Strip Hospital: We judge that Israel was not responsible for an explosion that killed hundreds of civilians yesterday [17 October] at the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip,' the assessment obtained by CNN states.

'Our assessment is based on available reporting, including intelligence, missile activity, and open-source video and images of the incident', it added.

The US intelligence community also estimated that the total number of deaths from the hospital blast were at the 'low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum,' according to the assessment, a lower number than figures initially cited by Hamas of more than 500.

Aerial view shows people standing before destroyed cars at the site of the Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Tel Aviv, Israel on Wednesday

Bodies of Palestinians killed by an explosion at the Ahli Arab hospital are gathered in the front yard of the al-Shifa hospital on Tuesday

The intelligence community 'observed only light structural damage at the hospital,' with no observable damage to the main hospital building and no impact craters, according to the assessment.

'We see only light damage to the roofs of two structures near the main hospital building, but both structures remained intact,' the assessment states.

The US intelligence community released its initial assessment on Wednesday that Israel was not responsible after President Joe Biden stated publicly while in Israel that the strike appeared to have been 'the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.'

Earlier today Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman accused Palestinian authorities of lying over the death toll caused by Tuesday's explosion.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 'hundreds' of Palestinians were killed when the blast erupted at the hospital around 7pm Tuesday night, before later publishing an official figure of 471.

But Israeli spokesman Lior Haiat this morning said Israeli and US intelligence suggested the number of casualties was less than 100, putting the figure at only 'several dozen'.

It came as a European intelligence agency told AFP: 'There wasn't 200 or even 500 deaths, more likely between 10 and 50.'

It is the latest point of contention in a bitter war of words between Israel and Palestine, with each side accusing the other of being responsible for the blast.

Israel's Defence Forces yesterday shared a slew of evidence it claims proved that a misfiring rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) - an independent jihadist group - was behind the blast.

The proof provided by the Israeli Defence Forces included an audio clip of alleged Hamas terrorists confirming the rocket came from PIJ, a video of what appears to be the rocket in question misfiring over Gaza, and bird's eye images of the blast site that did not have characteristics consistent with an Israeli aerial strike, according to an IDF spokesman.

Meanwhile, Israel's foes - Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah and Iran - insist the IDF was behind the devastation and vowed to take revenge. Anger sparked across the Muslim world yesterday, with protesters pouring onto the streets in cities from Tripoli to Tehran in demonstration against Israel.

Jordan's foreign minister said: 'No one is buying (Israel's) narrative in this part of the world... the only way people would entertain a different narrative is if there was an independent international inquiry with impeccable evidence that it was not Israel.'

Several experts and analysts weighing in on the issue largely appeared to agree with Israel's assessment that a misfiring rocket fired from Gaza caused the tragedy, but many warned it was too early to say with certainty.

Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari speaks to the press from The Kirya, which houses the Israeli Ministry of Defence, in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023

This image provided by Maxar Technologies on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023 shows an overview of al-Ahli Hospital after explosion in Gaza City

Injured Palestinian child taken to Al-Shifa Hospital following Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on October 17, 2023

Speaking to media on Wednesday morning, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari showed a series of images, satellite photos and intelligence documents he said proved the damage caused at the hospital could not possibly have come from an Israeli strike.

He explained the images showed there was no structural damage to buildings around the Al-Ahli hospital, no craters in the adjacent car park, and no debris consistent with an air strike, implying a direct hit from an Israeli missile would have caused far more destruction.

'The walls stay intact. There are no craters in the parking lot. These are the characteristics that show it was not an aerial munition that hit the parking lot,' he concluded.

He also pointed out images of what he claimed was shrapnel on the roof of nearby buildings, suggesting the rocket fell apart in the air and sprayed its detritus across a larger area.

Other images shared widely on social media later showed some small craters measuring two or three feet in diameter in the car park outside the hospital.

This morning, satellite images released of the scene showed damage to the hospital grounds and car park, but most structures were still standing.

It came after Israeli officials yesterday released a video of the moment a rocket purportedly streaking towards Israel from Gaza appeared to suffer a problem and suddenly changed course.

The projectile is seen soaring through the air before jerking away from its original path. Seconds later the flames from its engines spark even brighter before flaming out completely.

The IDF argued that an Israeli strike would've caused craters like those seen right from previous air strikes. A spokesperson said shrapnel seen on the rooves of nearby buildings and minimal damage to the car park next to the blast suggested an Israeli airstrike was not responsible

Israel also released a radar map of Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket attacks, as well as a video of the moment a rocket purportedly streaking towards Israel from Gaza appears to suffer a problem and suddenly changes course before flaming out

People react at the area of Al-Ahli hospital, where hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blame on each other, in Gaza City, October 18, 2023

In the darkness, it is not clear whether the rocket broke apart or simply lost its trajectory.

But moments later, a pair of explosions erupt in the city below - the result of what Israel claims was the rocket falling back to Earth and striking the hospital in Gaza City.

Several other videos from varying distances and angles appeared to show rockets streaming over Gaza with the blast at the hospital seen lighting up the night sky.

The IDF later shared a map of radar data which it said showed a salvo of rockets from a PIJ site streaking past the hospital, implying one of those rockets misfired and landed on the site.

And on Wednesday afternoon, a video clip aired on Israeli Channel 12 News appeared to show a salvo of rockets being launched before explosions rocked what is believed to be the medical centre.
The Health Secretary has slammed NHS bosses for wasting taxpayers' money on costly diversity officers rather than spending it on frontline care.

Steve Barclay yesterday told managers to axe the posts or publicly explain why they think they are more valuable than doctors and nurses.

In a letter to health leaders, he also told them to stop paying fees to external diversity advisers, such as controversial LGBT+ group Stonewall. Mr Barclay is understood to have acted after discovering a hospital is trying to recruit a 'director of equality, diversity and inclusion' on a salary of up to 96,376.

The job advert, which was still live last night, comes months after he ordered health agencies and trusts to ensure they were delivering value for money.

The Health Secretary has already slashed one in six jobs at the Department of Health and Social Care as part of an efficiency drive, and it has no standalone diversity roles.

Steve Barclay wrote to NHS managers telling them axe diversity officers or publicly explain why they think they are more valuable than doctors and nurses

The Health Secretary has already slashed one in six jobs at the Department of Health and Social Care as part of an efficiency drive

Mr Barclay's letter, sent to the chairmen of England's integrated care boards, said: 'In the department, we have been focused on delivering efficiency so that we can move resources from the back office to the frontline.

'Other parts of the health family, including NHS England, are also making progress on this. I am therefore concerned that many local NHS organisations are actively recruiting into dedicated DE&I [diversity, equality and inclusion] roles.

'Current live adverts include jobs with salaries of up to 96,376, which is above the basic full-time pay for a newly promoted consultant.

'I do not consider that this represents value for money, even more so at a time when budgets are under pressure as we work to tackle the backlog left by the pandemic.'

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust is looking to recruit a full-time director of equality, diversity and inclusion on 83,571 to 96,376 a year. The job description says: 'You will lead our ambition that equality and equity of access is a thread throughout all that we do.'

Matthew Taylor, of the NHS Confederation, said that the NHS needed to more to explain to the Health Secretary what 'a focus on equality and diversity makes to our staff and patients'

A source close to Mr Barclay said: 'NHS cash should be spent on frontline patient care and not wasted on woke backroom bureaucracy. 'The Heath Secretary has got rid of dedicated diversity staff from the department  now the NHS should do the same.'

Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts, said: 'Equality, diversity, and inclusion can help create an NHS-wide culture where leaders feel equipped to deal with all forms of discrimination.'

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents healthcare organisations, added: 'We clearly need to do more to assist Mr Barclay's understanding of the contribution that a focus on equality and diversity makes to our staff and patients.'
Delphi murder suspect Richard Allen's lawyers have sensationally quit after gruesome pictures of the crime scene were leaked to the public - forcing the judge to find a new trial date.

Richard Allen, 50, is accused of killing Libby German, 14, and Abby Williams, 13, while they were hiking through Indiana's Delphi Historic Trails on 13 February 2017.

Their bodies were discovered the next day and the case puzzled police for years - until a bullet found at the bloody crime scene linked Allen to the slayings in 2022.

Judge Fran Gull called a hearing on Thursday to address 'other matters which have recently arisen' after pictures of the crime scene were made public, allegedly via a leak from the defense team.

But after a short delay, Judge Gull announced that the hearing wouldn't be taking place - because the defense attorneys, Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi, had quit.

Richard Allen, 50, is accused of killing Libby German, 14, and Abby Williams, 13, while they were hiking through Indiana 's Delphi Historic Trails on 13 February 2017

Andrew Baldwin (left) and Bradley Rozzi (right) were appointed by a court to defend Richard Allen. They have withdrawn their counsel - forcing the trial in January to be postponed

They were court-appointed attorneys set to represent Allen in his murder trial, but withdrew their counsel today in an 'unexpected turn of events,' Gull said.

Allen was sent back to Westville Correctional Facility on Thursday as a result. He will now have to be given new attorneys to plead his case in court.

Allen's trial was set for January 8, 2024 - but this will now be delayed.

It was suspected that the trial may have been delayed anyway if the judge found that the serious evidence leak indeed did come from the defense team. The images allegedly came from a former employee of attorney Andrew Baldwin.

Baldwin has not commented, citing a court-enforced gag order.

Ahead of today's hearing, another defense lawyer David Hennessy came to the aid of Baldwin and argued in a legal filing that he should be allowed to continue defending Allen, despite the leak.

Hennessy called the evidence leak a 'horrible tragedy created by persons not related to the defense of Mr. Allen. Mr. Allen has developed a strong and trusting bond with Mr. Baldwin.

'Disqualification of either of his court appointed attorneys would greatly prejudice his right to counsel and a timely trial.'

Hennessy, who clearly made the filing before Baldwin ultimately decided quit, said the lawyer was 'betrayed' and that Baldwin kept 'all Delphi-related items locked in a room or a locked fireproof cabinet.'

Following the sensational turn of events, Judge Gull requested that Allens former attorneys assist his new defense team, and all evidence gets handed over to the state in the interim.

There will be a new hearing on October 31.

Judge Fran Gull called a hearing on Thursday to address 'other matters which have recently arisen' after pictures of the crime scene were made public, allegedly via a leak from the defense team

This comes after lawyer Kevin Greenlee and journalist Aine Cain who run 'The Murder Sheet' podcast said they were sent the horrible scene photos from a source and contacted the police.

Cain described them as 'some of the worst I have ever seen. Very very disturbing, very upsetting not only what we are seeing but also the fact that they got out.'

Before quitting, Allen's attorneys for the suspected Delphi killer claim that Liberty German and Abigail Williams were 'ritualistically sacrificed' in bombshell court filings.

Unsealed legal documents sensationally claim that the two teenagers were killed by members of a pagan Norse religion and white nationalist group called 'Odinism.'

They asked Allen County Judge Frances Gull to throw out evidence collected during a search of his home before his arrest last year.

His previous team argued that authorities left out important information in their request for a search warrant, including the link to Odinism.

The unsealed filings state: 'Members of a pagan Norse religion, called Odinism, hijacked by white nationalists, ritualistically sacrificed Abigail Williams and Liberty German.'

Libby German, 14, and Abby Williams, 13. Their bodies were discovered and the case puzzled police for years - until a bullet found at the bloody crime scene linked Allen to the slayings in 2022

Their filing, which is more than 130 pages, have questioned the validity of the search warrant and is pushing for Allen to be moved to a different facility, in a separate motion.

It claims that a report by the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit found the 'individual(s) responsible for the homicides were involved in Nordic beliefs.'

Libby's iPhone was discovered under her body in 2017, and contained the 43-second video that helped investigators piece the case together.

Search warrants show that investigators searched Allen's home in Delphi, including outbuildings, a shed and his car, looking for firearms and knives.

They also scoured the home for electronic devices, clothing and a specific cell phone.

Law enforcement recovered numerous items, including boots, multiple knives and sweatshirts, multiple cell phones, an iPod, a hard drive, laptop and other electronics.

An affidavit released in November 2022 shows that an unspent .40 caliber round was found between the teenagers' bodies, and it was later linked to Allen's Sig Sauer Model P226 firearm through forensic evidence.

Prosecutors believe the gun links Allen directly to the case, after forensics determined a bullet found next to the girl's bodies had cycled through his gun.

Kathy Allen also confirmed to police that her husband owned several guns and knives, as well as a blue Carhartt jacket similar to the one worn by 'Bridge Guy.'

He has pleaded not guilty to both counts of murder, his defense attorney Andrew Baldwin previously said Allen was the 'wrong guy' and the sealed probable cause affidavit is 'flimsy' adding: 'You expect more than what I saw.'

Prosecutors have not named any potential accomplices. Ron Logan, who died in 2022, had long been the prime suspect in the killings after the girls' bodies were found on his property, and Kegan Kline was also named as a possible murderer.

Both girls' bodies were discovered on Logan's property - just 1,400ft from his house - and it was revealed over the summer that his alibi for the day of the murder did not line up.

His home was searched and he was arrested shortly after the killings, but he was released and never charged.

The voice in a clip released by police of a man talking to the girls shortly before their deaths was described as being 'not inconsistent' with that of Logan, the FBI investigation concluded.
A maniac who allegedly shoved a 30-year-old woman into moving NYC subway train was arrested Thursday, with cops saying he may have attached another minutes before.

Sabir Jones, 39, was arrested near the train stop at Newark Penn Station after a passenger recognized him after cops launched a manhunt following an incident on Wednesday. He was then sent to a hospital.

Jones is accused of shoving the woman into a moving subway train at the 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue subway station in Manhattan and then fleeing the scene.

Jones was homeless and battling psychosis in New Jersey as of two years ago - and police said Wednesday he is well-known to the department.

The victim suffered a critical head injury and has been sent to New York Presbyterian Hospital for treatment. She is currently out of surgery and has not been identified.

A 26-year-old man claims he saw the suspect punch him minutes before he allegedly pushed the woman onto subway tracks. Jones had been screaming obscenities and punched in his face, according to the New York Times.

Apparently unprovoked, it happened on the southbound platform of the E/F train, and the male suspect - six-foot Sabir Jones, seen fleeing the scene in security video - is now being sought

Police have yet to release the name of the 30-year-old victim, who was seen being wheeled out of the 53rd Street and 5th Avenue subway station in Manhattan after the Wednesday attack

He says heard Jones screaming and walked away quickly, but the suspect came up from behind and punched him in the left side of his face.

The alleged unprovoked attack left the Queens student with a fractured jaw. He requested to remain anonymous as the alleged attacker was still at large when he spoke about the assault Thursday.

The 26-year-old stated that he didn't witness Jones pushing the woman into the approaching subway.

He reported the incident to police after he learned what happened to the woman while he was in the hospital preparing for an upcoming surgery.

Jones is understood to be an 'emotional disturbed homeless man' with criminal history and known to the department by his constant presence in subway stations and a December resisting-arrest charge in Brooklyn, Michael Kemper, the Police Departments chief of transit said.

Authorities cited his priors including criminal sexual contact and the assault of a police officer

Jones' social service records show he has a history of homelessness, mental illness, and drug abuse, the New York Times reported.

He used the synthetic marijuana K2, took psychiatric medication and had been homeless for four years, he told a worker from an organization that does homeless outreach on the subway in November 2021.

Cops on Wednesday said Jones is well known to the department - with priors including criminal sexual contact and the assault of a police officer

The woman sustained an unspecified head injury after being shoved by Jones as a train departed the platform before falling onto the tracks. She was saved by several Good Samaritans, cops said in a press conference at the station later in the afternoon

Authorities revealed how Jones was already 'well-known' to the department

A worker from the organization wrote 'he was able to demonstrate nonthreatening behavior' and 'communicated effectively with a friendly demeanor', and concluded that he could be a good candidate for a less-restrictive homeless shelter.

But Jones did not appear to go to the shelter called 'safe heaven', an outreach worker told the Times.

Court records show a litany of other offenses in Newark, where in March 2021 a then-homeless Jones was reported missing, said to be battling both psychosis and depression.

He was known to sleep in Newark Penn Station and panhandle on a nearby highway and had a previous address in Maryland.

As for the incident in Brooklyn, Kemper said Jones was asked to leave a subway station after police saw him riding between cars, but refused and fought with cops.

Standing in front of a cordoned off turnstile Wednesday afternoon, Kemper said: 'As the train was pulling out of the station she was pushed, causing her head to strike the moving train.

'The train departed the station, then she fell onto the roadbed onto the track.

'Fortunately, there are eyewitnesses and good Samaritans who were on that platform who helped her back off the roadbed [and] onto the platform,' Kemper went on to reveal.

'911 was immediately called, EMS responded and they moved her to [Weill] Cornell hospital for head trauma.

'We developed a person of interest almost immediately based off video surveillance, and that person of interest turned into probable cause where hes wanted,' he added.

The attack disrupted train service at the subway station throughout the evening, with cops remaining at the scene well after the woman was retrieved from the tracks and hospitalized

Jones is wanted over December resisting-arrest charge in Brooklyn. Court records show a litany of other offenses in Newark, where in March 2021 a then-homeless Jones was reported missing, said to be battling both psychosis and depression

The incident is the latest black mark for the city's embattled subway system, which has been notoriously marred by violence in the years since the pandemic.

Authorities said subway crime in New York City is down overall but it is not consolation to a New Yorker who 'is just trying to live her life'.

'The past year we have made tremendous progress on subway crime, crime is 9% down where it was the past year before COVID,' said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber.

'But that's no consolation to the family of this young woman who is fighting for her life in Cornell Hospital.'

'New Yorkers put up with a lot, what they cant put up with is people randomly coming up to them, which appears to be the case here, and attacking them.'

'I'm not a mental health professional, but I'm sure that the people who are, have to figure out how to get these people out of the public space and into treatment,' said MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber.

'When ambitious young people who are just trying to live their lives are subject to random attacks, we can't put up with it,' Lieber added.
The doctor turned the gun on himself as police rushed to apprehend him

She confessed to her family weeks before the shooting that Wendling had been abusing her for months

Gina Bryant, 25, was abducted and shot in the head by her ex-boyfriend, 26-year-old Justin Wendling

A University of Michigan-Flint student was shot dead after being kidnapped and killed by her ex-boyfriend - who then turned the gun on himself.

Gina Bryant, 25, had been studying to be a nurse before she was murdered by 26-year-old Justin Wendling, a resident at Ascension Genesys Hospital, last week.

Two weeks before her death, Bryant left the relationship and the apartment she shared with Wendling in Grand Blanc Township.

Her mother and sister told The Detroit News that they helped her move out after Bryant revealed to them that Wendling had been abusing her for months.

Bryant had only been dating Wendling since August 2022 - under a year - before she was killed.

Gina Bryant, 25, was studying to be a nurse at the University of Michigan-Flint before she was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, 26-year-old Justin Wendling

Bryant broke up with Wendling two weeks before her death and moved out of the apartment they shared

She went home for lunch on October 12 and her employer filed a missing persons report when she didn't return. Her body was found the next day

On October 12, Bryant, who worked as a medical assistant, went home for lunch.

Coworkers were worried when she did not return after her break and they began receiving odd text messages from her phone, according to the Macomb County Sheriffs Office.

Her employer filed a missing persons report.

An investigation revealed that Wendling been waiting at Bryant's home for her to return.

The next day, Bryants lifeless body was discovered was next to the fuel pumps at the Flying J Travel Stop along Intestate 80 and Civic Road.

She had been left there for hours after being shot in the head, LaSalle police said.

Surveillance video and witnesses confirmed that Wendling killed Bryant at about midnight on October 13, according to law enforcement.

Police were dispatched to the area after Wendling allegedly called his parents and told them he took Bryant to Illinois and killed her.

'They alerted law enforcement officials to the location of the suspect and victim in LaSalle,' the sheriffs office said.

'The suspect also stated he had killed the victim and was going to kill himself.'

Neither Bryant nor Wendling had any prior connection to the area where the shooting occurred, police say - nearly 350 miles southwest of their apartment.

LaSalle police issued a nationwide alert bulletin after learning that Wendling had fled, but he was dead within hours.

Just before midnight on October 14, cops in Bettendorf, Iowa found the doctor alive inside his car. As they approached, a gunshot rang out.

Ascension Genesys Hospital is 'fully cooperating with law enforcement,' according to a spokesperson.

Emotional and spiritual services are being offered to staff and providers at the hospital.

Bryant's sister (left) helped her move out of the apartment she shared with Wendling after learning that he had been abusing her for months

Bryant had been shot in the head and left at the gas station for hours, according to police. Wendling later turned the gun on himself

Those who knew Bryant posted tributes online in the days following her death.

'There are truly no words to fully capture the anguish that losses like this cause our community,' UM-Flint School of Nursing Dean Cynthia McCurren said in a statement.

She described Bryant as 'an extraordinary young woman with much ahead of her.'

Bryant attended International Academy, which was ranked as the third best high school in Michigan by the U.S. News & World Report.

She spent her senior year at Stevenson High School in Sterling Heights, where she graduated cum laude in 2016.

The 25-year-old also volunteered at the Friendship Circle, a nonprofit offering support to people with special needs.

'Im struggling to find words,' one friend wrote on Facebook.

'Geanie, Im so sorry that your life was taken too soon. Sorry does not begin to measure what Im feeling right now. Im not going to lie, I still think the world is playing a trick on us and that you will walk in any minute now.'

She shared that her family had reminisced over their favorite memories of Bryant, who 'felt like family.'

'Weve all agreed that you were such a light and impacted so many people in your lifetime,' the friend wrote.

'I still dont think these words emulate just how much you mean to me.'
The picture was on the White House Instagram page for hours

The White House has been forced to delete a photo of President Joe Biden meeting U.S. special forces in Israel - which showed their faces and could have revealed their identities.

It was already known that a small group of U.S. special forces are in Israel advising on how to potentially rescue scores of hostages, including Americans, held by terror group Hamas in Gaza.

The image of Biden shaking hands with them during his visit to Israel on Wednesday was published on the official White House Instagram page for hours and garnered thousands of likes and comments.

It appeared to violate Department of Defense rules by revealing the men's faces, which are usually blurred in any officially released photographs.

The White House was forced to DELETE a photo of Biden meeting with US Special Forces in Israel without blurring their faces. Dailymail.com has blurred them

Joe Biden meeting first responders in Israel where he was also pictured with U.S special forces

Everyday Pentagon practice is to hide the elite units' identities, whether in training or on deployment.

The men, unshaven with beards, wore camouflage and had American flags on their arms as they shook hands with Biden.

It came during an event at which the president met with Israeli medics who had responded to the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 which claimed the lives of hundreds of Jewish men, women and children.

The now deleted White House Instagram post read: 'In Israel, President Biden met with first responders to thank them for their bravery and the work theyre doing in response to the Hamas terrorist attacks.'

The White House eventually apologized for the mistake in showing the special forces operators' faces, and took the photo down.

'As soon as this was brought to our attention, we immediately deleted the photo,' a White House spokesman told DailyMail.com.

'We regret the error and any issues this may have caused.'

Republicans slammed the blunder, with GOP Rep. Diana Harshbarger calling it 'gross incompetence'.

President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meet with victims' relatives and first responders who were directly affected by the Hamas attacks

Joe Biden speaks with Dr. Jordanna Hadas Koppel, during a meeting with Israeli first responders

On the presence of the special forces operators in Israel a Pentagon spokesman said: 'We are providing planning and intelligence support to the Israelis as it pertains to hostage recovery.

'That's about the extent of what I'm able to provide right now.'

Separately a Pentagon official said last week: 'There are personnel on the ground as part of a larger assistance package in support. And that includes military personnel advising and consulting on hostage recovery efforts.'

The White House has said there are a 'small handful' of U.S. hostages among the more than 150 being held by Hamas in Gaza.

The U.S. is 'actively trying' to locate them but there are 'no plans or intentions to put U.S. troops on the ground to fight in this fight between Israel and Hamas' according to the White House.

In 2018 aides to President Donald Trump posted a video on social media showing the faces of an elite team of Navy SEALs that had deployed to Iraq.

The President met with troops, posed for selfies, and signed autographs.

Afterwards, aides posted a video on Twitter feed showing unblurred footage of Trump shaking hands with members of the group, who were wearing full battle gear and special night vision goggles.
Twelve years ago, I was a happily married, middle-aged man with a good job and three wonderful children. But something was wrong. I had convinced myself that I had been born into the wrong sex.

After years of crushing anxiety and even moments of physical self-harming caused by this understanding, I transitioned in 2012 and underwent gender reassignment surgery four years later.

But I only did this after a series of challenging, sometimes painful  yet ultimately rewarding sessions with a qualified psychotherapist. She did not deny my feelings. Rather, she insisted that we should explore every possible avenue before I resorted to an irreversible chemical and biological change.

Although I went ahead with my transition, my conversations with this professional were invaluable. Whenever I have doubts about my decision, I can remind myself that I did everything possible to ensure it was the only way to relieve the pain and distress I felt as a man. This is why Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is wrong to ban so-called 'conversion therapy', as he is expected to do in a draft Bill in the King's Speech.

Last month, a government source said the putative ban was 'dead in the water', after a raft of groups raised concerns about it. But now, should the Bill become law, it will become a criminal offence to influence someone's sexual orientation or gender.

'Twelve years ago, I was a happily married, middle-aged man with a good job and three wonderful children. But something was wrong'

'I transitioned in 2012 and underwent gender reassignment surgery four years later'

'The Bill is a Trojan Horse, and the radical gender ideologues championing it know as much'

On the face of it, it sounds reasonable. But the truth is that the Bill is a Trojan Horse, and the radical gender ideologues championing it know as much. It goes without saying: nobody wants to see gay people bullied or brainwashed into being 'straight'.

When, in 2018, Theresa May first mooted this legislation, her government said it wanted to end 'abhorrent conversion practices' including 'gay cures'. These ranged from 'pseudo-psychological treatments' to surgery and even 'corrective rape'.

Yet a number of Tory MPs voiced well-founded concerns about 'unintended consequences'  specifically relating to people with gender dysphoria. They worried the legislation could effectively criminalise parents, teachers, therapists and others who question a confused child's apparent wish to transition.

If Rishi goes ahead with this ban, and a close male friend, knowing my background, were to confide in me that he too was questioning his gender, I could be legally forbidden from gently suggesting he examine his feelings. Doing so might make me a criminal.

People with gender dysphoria are vulnerable: they deserve support and to be questioned and guided through their feelings. A world where individuals' concerns about gender dysphoria go unchecked could be one in which people  perhaps unhappy for reasons other than their gender  do not get the help they need and many take radical action they later regret. It's too easy to make a mistake, and I've met too many people who regret transitioning.

I am a secondary-school teacher: young people are constantly exposed to idealised, Photoshopped images of perfect bodies. No wonder so many are deeply unhappy with their appearance.

And when trans activists such as those in Stonewall or Mermaids offer an explanation for this unhappiness, who can blame such malleable minds for falling for their propaganda? We need sensible adult voices who can talk them through their struggles.

So why is Rishi Sunak pushing this through now? I can't believe it's down to principle on his part. When he became Prime Minister, he appeared willing to stand up to the dogmatic trans-rights lobby. Yet now, under political pressure, he seems to have had a change of heart.

A healthy nation is one in which feelings and opinions are challenged: that's why we have opposition parties in Parliament. Well, this ban would close the door on debate regarding gender  and I feel sick to think of the damage it will do.

If Sunak really cares about vulnerable people, he will ditch the ban immediately. The question is, does he care more about political expediency, or helping the people his office was designed to serve?

Debbie Hayton is a teacher and journalist.

Ministers press on with conversion therapy ban

By Martin Beckford

Ministers insist they are pressing ahead with a law against conversion therapy despite campaigners and some MPs warning against it.

Parliament was told this week that the Government remains 'committed' to the ban  which would make it illegal to force someone to change their sexual orientation or gender identity  and that details will be published 'very soon'.

Tory Chief Whip Simon Hart is said to have warned of a revolt if the Government failed to go ahead with it

Minister Sarah Dines said on Wednesday: 'The Government have made it clear that conversion practices are abhorrent and have no place in our society'

Opponents, including Sir Peter Bottomley, claim the Government has not been able to define the practices it wants to outlaw nor produce evidence that conversion therapy is taking place

A long-delayed draft Bill could be included in next month's King's Speech after Tory Chief Whip Simon Hart is said to have warned of a revolt if the Government failed to go ahead with it.

Home Office minister Sarah Dines told a Westminster Hall debate on hate crime on Wednesday: 'The Government have made it clear that conversion practices are abhorrent and have no place in our society. We are grateful to those who have responded to our consultation, which was very wide and well thought-out.'

Red wall Tory MP Peter Gibson said he was 'really pleased to see we are moving forward with a ban on conversion practices  abuse by another name  of LGBT people'.

But opponents claim the Government has not been able to define the practices it wants to outlaw nor produce evidence that conversion therapy is taking place. There are also fears that the law would criminalise parents, doctors and teachers merely for talking to young people who are questioning their gender identity.

Tory backbencher Miriam Cates said: 'I'm very concerned about the potential for unintended consequences.

'No one has so far been able to define what 'trans conversion therapy' is, so what are we banning? What seems clear from other countries is that such a ban could lead to the criminalising of parents.'

Father of the House Sir Peter Bottomley told the Times: 'Over the past three years I and others have asked a succession of ministers and their officials to name one or more of the practices they intend to criminalise which are not already criminal. There is no specific answer . . .

'Without being specific about what you are criminalising you are putting parents at risk, you are putting other advisers and supporters of children at risk.'

Prominent women's rights campaigner Maya Forstater said the proposal was 'stupid and harmful'. 'There is no evidence of abusive 'conversion therapy' in the UK.'

The Christian Institute's Simon Calvert added: 'By moving ahead with a Bill at all, the Government is wading into very dangerous territory.

'Gay and trans people are already protected, quite rightly, from all verbal and physical abuse by existing law.'
The kind act of a stranger has brought a community together.

A young woman shared a photo of a bench looking out at the ocean in Cronulla, part of south Sydney's Sutherland Shire, on Thursday.

She captioned the snap: 'Thank you to the kind man who stopped his bike ride and gently approached me to ask if I was okay and would like a support person to talk to today.

'Kindness goes a long way. Thank you.'

The woman further explained in the comments she'd visited the park to grieve her late brother and was crying by the time the man checked on her.

'I had a chat with my brother in heaven up there and tears were leaking,' she said.

'I'm alright though, it cheered me up to have a stranger stop and take a moment to check on another stranger.'

The heartwarming post received hundreds of reactions and dozens of supportive comments.

A woman was upset thinking about her late brother on a park bench (above) in Cronulla when she was approached by a kind stranger asking if she'd like to chat

'What a beautiful human being who stopped to check in on you. It doesn't take much to light up another persons darkness,' one wrote.

'What a beautiful post to share and so encouraging to know there are kind people all around us,' another wrote.

'Its not hard to be kind. I'm glad you got to feel that kindness today,' a third said.

'Its amazing what one act of kindness can do . If we all did even one a day . Doesnt need to be big just a small gesture can go a very long way . Thank you for sharing this as for someone else who may be having a bad day this post can brighten theirs as well,' another added.

A fourth said: 'So many people are doing it tough atm. Its a crazy time to be alive. Just keep your chin up and know the rollercoaster of life has its ups and downs. '

Psychic Merrilee Hayes also offered some words of support for the young woman.

'Not sure if this helps you at all but I will tell you I have had a near death experience and your brother is back home where we all come from.

'You will see your brother back home again when it's your time just know he's in bliss and happiness and love and do your thing here until you go back.

'The man that approached you today - I don't believe in coincidence, perhaps your brother made him come to you as he knew you were sad.'

Other commenters offered to catch up with the woman while she navigates her grief.

'If you're local and ever wanna talk always here I'm in Cronulla, can have a walk and chat or cuppa,' one wrote.

'I'm also local if you feel for a cuppa and walk and talk. My puppy can join too for cuddles,' another said.

'Beautiful post. I'm local and always up for a walk and chat, please know you're not alone and we are all here for you,' another wrote.
Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck revealed Thursday that he's facing eviction from his district office and has received multiple death threats for refusing to endorse Rep. Jim Jordan's bid for speaker of the House.

Buck sat down with NBC's Meet the Press host Kristen Welker Thursday afternoon as the chaos on Capitol Hill continued, with Jordan refusing to give up his campaign for the speakership despite already losing on the House floor twice.

Buck is against Jordan's bid because the Ohio Republican pushed former President Donald Trump's 2020 election fraud lies and voted against the certification of President Joe Biden's win.

'So far, I've had four death threats, I've been evicted from my office in Colorado, I have a notice of eviction, because the landlord is mad with my voting record on the speaker issue. And everybody in the conference is getting this,' Buck said.

During both floor votes, Buck yelled out the name of Rep. Tom Emmer, saying on CNN Tuesday that he chose the Minnesota Republican because, 'I dont like Tom Emmer. I figured this would be the worst job in America,' which he later clarified was a joke.

Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck revealed Thursday that he's facing eviction from his district office and has received multiple death threats for refusing to endorse Rep. Jim Jordan's bid for speaker of the House

Buck (left) sat down with NBC's Meet the Press host Kristen Welker (right) Thursday afternoon as the chaos on Capitol Hill continued, with Jordan refusing to give up his campaign for the speakership despite already losing on the House floor twice

Buck was also one of the eight Republicans who voted in favor of removing now former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The reaction to the disarray has been serious - both on Capitol Hill and with the Republicans' Trump-aligned MAGA base.

Buck confirmed to Welker that McCarthy shouted down Rep. Matt Gaetz in a closed door caucus meeting earlier Thursday.

It was Gaetz who filed the motion to oust McCarthy from the speakership on October 3, leaving the House leaderless now for more than two weeks.

Buck described the three and a half hour GOP caucus meeting as 'painful.'

McCarthy, he said, spoke throughout the meeting, as he still - as the most recent House speaker - retained the power to speak for as long as he liked.

'Matt Gaetz got up and wanted to make a point. Kevin told him to sit down. At that point tempers started flaring a little bit,' Buck said.

He noted the altercation only lasted only a minute and half.

WATCH: Tempers flared in a GOP meeting on the House speaker vote, as some lawmakers face harassment by constituents.@RepKenBuck (R-Colo.): "So far I've had four death threats. I've been evicted from my [district] office.  And everybody in the conference is getting this." pic.twitter.com/5YiRmZVVng  Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) October 19, 2023

Rep. Jim Jordan has lost two floor votes for House speaker but hasn't yet given up his campaign. In the meantime, the now 22 House GOP detractors are receiving death threats from the 'far right'

'Part of the reasons that there's temper right now is this constant barrage of phone calls,' Buck said. 'I have six full-time people answering the phones, I have 20,000 messages, where we couldn't' keep up with the call volume.

'Family members have been approached and threatened, all kinds of things are going on, there's going to be some tension,' he added.

A senior GOP source told Axios that Rep. Drew Ferguson told the conference that he's had to have a sheriff stationed outside his daughter's school and at his home over death threats from the 'far right.'

Ferguson backed Jordan's former rival, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, in Wednesday's failed vote.

'Let me be very clear, this is not Jim Jordan's fault,' Buck told Welker. 'You know there are a lot of TV pundits, there are a lot of radio pundits, there are a lot of grassroots groups putting out misinformation and hateful information. And it just stirs people up.'

'And there are a lot of people scared about the direction of this country and they're taking this to heart,' Buck said.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin - a member of the January 6 House committee and the lead manager for Trump's second, January 6-related impeachment - responded to the news with a comment that indicated he believes you reap what you sow.

'The GOPs refusal to renounce and denounce political violence on January 6th is now coming back to haunt their own members who voted against Jim Jordan for House speaker,' Raskin posted to X. 'Several House Republicans have now received death threats - appalling but not shocking.'
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have clashed with Jewish activists showing the faces of Israeli children kidnaped by Hamas on billboard vans.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) said drivers of the vehicles were stopped by chanting anti-Israel protesters as they made their way through London on Thursday evening.

The organisation blasted the Metropolitan Police for its handling of the confrontation, claiming officers had told them to 'turn off the billboards and clear out of central London'.

It came on the same night that multiple people were filmed in the capital ripping down flyers of children taken hostage by the terrorist group and smuggled to Gaza.

Footage circulating on social media showed one angry confrontation where a woman brazenly shouted 'f*** Israel' and mockingly said 'go cry' to upset British-Israeli activists.

Shocking video shows one woman in London tearing down posters of kidnapped children

An aghast pro-Israel activist was seen saying 'we just want them [the children] back' as the woman ripped the flyers off the wall

The woman, who shouted 'f*** Israel' also appeared to mock the families of those who have had relatives kidnapped by feigning crying

Ive just had one of the most disturbing experiences in nine years at Campaign Against Antisemitism.



Who are the police protecting here?



Those standing up to terrorists, or those who sympathise with them?



We are considering our legal options and a public protest. pic.twitter.com/2eTwhXZk19  Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) October 19, 2023

In recent days Jewish activists have put up posters showing the youngsters' faces, their names and ages, with the captions 'kidnapped by Hamas' and '#bring them back'.

The CAA said when it hired out billboard vans with these posters on, they were confronted by pro-Palestinian protesters and told by police they risked causing 'a breach of the peace'.

In a video posted to X, CAA chief executive Gideon Falter said he was forcibly moved away from his drivers and then 'restrained' when he asked why they had to stop.

Mr Falter said: 'How on earth could police stop people in central London, in our capital, from showing the pictures of children kidnapped by a terrorist organisation, banned by our government?'

Footage from the video shows a small group of pro-Palestine protesters stood in front of the van as it passed Big Ben and chanting: 'One, two, three, four, occupation no more, five, six, seven, eight, Israel is a terrorist state.'

In a statement released on X, the Metropolitan Police said: 'We have watched the video and we understand why this has caused concern.

'The officers were in the area because of a vigil that was happening nearby organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

'We have reviewed the body-worn video of the officers involved to establish the full sequence of events.

'This exchange happened at around the same time as the vigil came to an end and the priority of officers was the safety of everyone involved and those nearby.

'We will be making contact with the Campaign Against Antisemitism to discuss the matter further and update them on the work taking place across the Met to tackle hate crime.'

It is not the first time pro-Palestine activists have targeted people trying to raise awareness of Hamas's crimes.

In shocking footage posted on social media on Thursday night, a horrified Jewish woman was seen being shouted at by a woman in London's Baker Street who was tearing down flyers.

If I knew theyll be so many videos of people tearing down these hostages posters in the U.K. I would have paid for a bigger iCloud storage plan. pic.twitter.com/vcRxtM5LkZ  Elad Simchayoff (@Elad_Si) October 19, 2023

Activists have been putting up posters showing Israeli's kidnapped by Hamas in a bid to raise awareness

Police came under fire last night after forcing Jewish activists in London to switch off billboard vans displaying the faces of kidnapped Israeli children

In the video, the aggressor could be seen shouting 'how about the Arab kids who are dead?' before the activist quietly responds 'I do [care about them]'.

However, this does not calm the other woman down, who shouts: 'No you don't, stop acting like a victim. Don't f****** video me.'

The aghast woman responds 'we just want them [the children] back home'.

But the aggressor rants back 'I don't care. F*** Israel. You're pieces of s***. Go cry' before making mock crying gestures and marching off.

The Metropolitan Police said it was aware of the video and 'an investigation is under way'.

A spokesperson said: 'Officers are carrying out enquiries to identify the woman removing the posters. If you can name her, please call 101 quoting CAD 7114/19Oct.'

There were similar scenes elsewhere in the capital, with footage showing another woman ripping down posters of missing Israeli children.

In the video the woman says 'that's fine by me' when she's accused of supporting terrorists.

MailOnline has contacted the Met Police about this video.
A Bigfoot expert has revealed the couple who recently claimed they spotted the mythological creature in Colorado probably saw a guy in a suit.

Shannon Parker and her husband Stetson Tyler said they saw the beast during a Narrow Gauge train ride from Durango to Silverton on October 8.

A video captured on the trip shows the alleged creature prowling around the hillside before the animal squats down into a seated position and blends into the brown shrubbery.

But specialist Michael Rugg, curator of the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in California, doused their claims.

'I have to say I looked at the video and [the creature] had a strong possibility of being a guy in a suit,' Rugg told The New York Post.

Bigfoot expert Michael Rugg has revealed the couple who claimed they spotted the mythological creature in Colorado probably saw a guy in a suit

Shannon Parker and her husband Stetson Tyler said they saw the beast during a Narrow Gauge train ride from Durango to Silverton on October 8

He was not able to say for certain the footage was not of Bigfoot despite having his suspicions.

'It didnt look right to me. Its not muscular enough. Theres not enough detail to be able to judge it but it wouldnt surprise me if somebody from [another Bigfoot] museum was out to build up publicity.'

Parker and her husband claimed to have seen Bigfoot on their romantic trip.

'We were looking for elk in the mountains and my husband sees something moving and then cant really explain it,' she said. 'So hes like "Bigfoot!".

'It was at least six, seven feet or taller. It matched the sage in the mountains so much that hes like camouflaged when crouching down if you asked before our trip we would have said maybe [Bigfoot] could be real, but now were convinced.'

The 44-year-old contractor from Cheyenne, Wyoming, shared a video of the sighting on Facebook and claimed the train conductor said there were previous non-human sightings.

'He said that he went out snowshoeing in those mountains before and had seen footprints that were larger and of much bigger stride than snowshoes would have been,' she said.

'He has seen unexplainable things as well.'

The interaction was filmed by another passenger named Brandon who saw the couple react and decided to pull out his phone to record the mythical beast.

'The ever-elusive creature Bigfoot,' he said as he took the video.

The alleged Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, camouflages into the dark brown shrubs around him in the clip as he moves back and forth and looks toward the steam engine train.

A video captured on the trip shows the alleged creature prowling around the hillside before the animal squats down into a seated position and blends into the brown shrubbery

Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, has mystified humans for centuries and ten years ago, it was reported that genetic testing had confirmed that Bigfoot was a human relative that arose some 15,000 years ago

Bigfoot hunters said that the ape, also known as Gigantopithecus blacki is believed to still be out there, alive and well, as it hides out in the forests of the Pacific Northwest

'He still moving?' a passenger said in the background.

'He can stand up,' said another passenger.

The video then loses sight of the mythical human-like creature as the train chugs along.

Parker received comments from skeptical people who claimed it could have been a hunter in a camouflage suit or someone who was pulling a prank.

'It didnt look like a hunter because a hunter would have had a weapon like a bow since its bow season,' she said. 'It didnt seem to be carrying anything.'

Rugg has insisted that Bigfoot does exist and he has spoken to 'hundreds of witnesses' and saw one with his own eyes.

'They are out there,' he said. 'I saw one when I was a child. It was a great big hairy man about two or three feet taller than my parents.

'And the one I saw had a plaid shirt just on its arm. I figured it took it off a clothesline, got it up to the armpit and it wouldnt go further because it was too small for him, so he left it on his arm.

'It was quite a sight seeing a bigfoot just standing there with a shirt on one arm.'

But he added he 'did not feel threatened' at the time because he 'had no preconception.'

'I had no reason to fear this as it didnt have its teeth bared and wasnt making scary noises or coming after me.'

'It was just standing there and probably curious how Id react to it.'

The Bigfoot expert claims to have heard it scream multiple times while looking for one.

Rugg said: 'One bigfoot was screaming and others responded then a pack of coyotes joined in. weve had that happen a few times.

'The dogs here learn that if Bigfoot goes through your yard, you dont bark and wake up people, because he doesnt want people to know its there.'

Despite being further away from the recent action, Indiana Bigfoot Research Organization kicked off their autumn campout on October 12 with around 40 'squatchers' camping out over the weekend to connect with other believers and try their luck at catching a glimpse of the creature

Colorado, Oklahoma and Indiana are increasing their Bigfoot-searching efforts despite the fact that none of the areas rank in the top 10 most likely states to 'find bigfoot'

Thousands of people claim to have evidence of Bigfoot's existence from California to Washington state and Utah to Mississippi

A multi-state investigation was launched after the compelling 'Bigfoot sighting' in Colorado energized other US states to step up their search efforts.

Indiana and Oklahoma have initiated recent expeditions to find Bigfoot after the hopes of Sasquatch believers were energized following Colorado's viral video evidence of a 'sighting'.

The Native Oklahoma Bigfoot Research Organization launched an investigation in McAlester, Oklahoma, after several reports of 'Bigfoot sightings' popped up in September and the groundbreaking train-sighting in the neighboring state of Colorado.

Despite being further away from the recent action, Indiana Bigfoot Research Organization kicked off their autumn campout on October 12 with around 40 'squatchers' camping out over the weekend to connect with other believers and try their luck at catching a glimpse of the creature.

Colorado, Oklahoma and Indiana are increasing their Bigfoot-searching efforts despite the fact that none of the areas rank in the top 10 most likely states to 'find Bigfoot'.

Washington takes first place - with 713 Bigfoot sightings reported and the other West coast states of California (461) and Oregon (257) both rank highly.

Indiana's neighbors, Ohio (321) and Illinois (303), come in fourth and fifth place respectively but Indiana falls far behind its surrounding states in sightings of the hairy creature.

Nine out of ten Bigfoot sightings are never reported because people don't want to be ridiculed for claiming that they saw a sasquatch, according to Bigfoot expert Brian Terrell.
A Cornell University professor who called the Hamas terror attacks 'exhilarating and energizing' has apologized for his 'reprehensible' choice of words.

Russell Rickford told an October 15 rally at Ithaca Commons, the downtown shopping district in the New York city, that he was thrilled by Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, in which 1,400 Israelis were killed.

His words were met by anger, and Rickford, a history professor, attempted to explain - and doubled down of his outrageous views.

He said he condemned the killing of any civilians, but said he was angered by 'the injustice and the hypocrisy of Western support in celebration of Israeli war crimes, and the equation of any form of Palestinian resistance with terrorism.'

On Wednesday, Rickford sent a letter to The Cornell Daily Sun and said he was deeply sorry for his words.

'I apologize for the horrible choice of words that I used in a portion of a speech that was intended to stress grassroots African American, Jewish and Palestinian traditions of resistance to oppression,' Rickford noted.

A Cornell professor with a history of radical left-wing views called the Hamas terror attacks in Israel 'exhilarating' and 'energizing' at a pro-Palestine rally on October 15. He is now apologizing for the comments

'I recognize that some of the language I used was reprehensible and did not reflect my values.'

He apologized for 'the pain that my reckless remarks have caused my family, my students, my colleagues and many others in this time of suffering.'

Rickford concluded that he 'unequivocally oppose and denounce racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, militarism, fundamentalism and all systems that dehumanize, divide and oppress people.'

Rickford is known for his pro-Palestine activism, and described by the local newspaper as 'no stranger to controversial remarks'.

He told the Ithaca Commons rally: 'Hamas has challenged the monopoly of violence.

'And in those first few hours, even as horrific acts were being carried out, many of which we would not learn about until later, there are many Gazans of good will, many Palestinians of conscience, who abhor violence, as do you, as do I. Who abhor the targeting of civilians, as do you, as do I.

'Who were able to breathe, they were able to breathe for the first time in years.

'It was exhilarating. It was energizing. And if they weren't exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated.'

Rickford is an associate professor of history and, according to his Twitter bio, a 'Historian of the Black radical tradition'

An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of the Hamas attack on the Kfar Aza kibbutz

Hamas left a trail of devastation at a series of kibbutzes near the border with Gaza, including children's beds soaked in blood

An Israeli soldier breaks down in tears at the sight of a family dining table on which there is still Challah bread from Friday's Kiddush at the Kfar Aza kibbutz

Palestinians wave their national flag and celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence on October 7

He added: 'What has Hamas done? Hamas has shifted the balance of power. Hamas has punctured the illusion of invincibility. That's what they have done. You don't have to be a Hamas supporter to recognize that.

'Hamas has changed the terms of the debate. Israeli officials are right  nothing will be the same again.'

University president Martha Pollack, asked about his comments the next day, said she was 'sickened by statements glorifying the evilness of Hamas terrorism.'

She added: 'Any members of our community who have made such statements do not speak for Cornell; in fact, they speak in direct opposition to all we stand for at Cornell.

'There is no justification for or moral equivalent to these violent and abhorrent acts.'

The following day, October 17, a second statement was sent out, condemning Rickford by name.

'We learned yesterday of comments that Professor Russell Rickford made over the weekend at an off-campus rally where he described the Hamas terrorist attacks as 'exhilarating.',' wrote Pollack and the chair of the board of trustees, Kraig H. Kayser.

'This is a reprehensible comment that demonstrates no regard whatsoever for humanity.'

Pollack and Kayser added: 'The university is taking this incident seriously and is currently reviewing it consistent with our procedures.'

Universities and campuses across the country have become hotbeds of anger following the October 7 attack.

Supporters of Palestine gather at Harvard University to show their support for Palestinians in Gaza at a rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14

Supporters of Palestine gather in Harvard Yard to show their support on October 14

The letter caused a massive backlash after 34 student societies backed the statement written by the PSC at Harvard 'holding the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence'

Academics have waded in: a geneticist at Washington University in Missouri sparked outrage by claiming that Israel was carrying out a 'much needed cleansing' in Gaza, while a law professor at Berkeley called on law firms not to hire 'my anti-Semitic students'.

On Wednesday, a climate scientist teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago issued a groveling apology after calling Israelis 'pigs', 'savages' and 'irredeemable excrement.'

Dr. Mika Tosca, who describes herself on social media as 'Chicago's radically optimistic transsexual climate scientist', published a screed on her Instagram Story on Tuesday.

'Israelis are pigs. Savages,' she wrote. 'Very bad people. Irredeemable excrement.'

She apologized on Wednesday, saying the rejected her own words, and wanted to retract them.

'Yesterday I wrote some things on my Instagram Story that I unequivocally reject and do not stand behind,' she wrote.

'I am deeply sorry for writing what I wrote, and for hurting many people with my words, and I am especially sorry to Israeli people that I broadly placed at fault for the war.

'You did not - and do not - deserve that, and I was wrong to post what I posted: I know that my words perpetuated harmful stereotypes.'

At Harvard University, the Palestinian Solidarity Committee has been condemned for issuing a letter on October 7, co-signed by 33 other Harvard student organizations, stating: 'We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.'

Some of the signatories have been named and shamed, and billionaire financier Bill Ackman is demanding that companies refuse to hire them.

Harvard's president has apologized for the statement, and said it does not represent the views of the university.

Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania are both scrambling to limit the fallout: The schools could lose $487 million in funding, based on current and prior donations by those now speaking out against the students for defending Hamas' attacks.
The BBC has admitted a controversial report about the cause of the Gaza hospital explosion was flawed as a minister said it was not the corporation's 'finest hour'.

In the immediate aftermath of the blast, correspondent Jon Donnison said it was 'hard to see' what else it could be other than an 'Israeli air strike'.

Despite this claim, growing evidence has emerged that the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City was caused by Islamic Jihad.

Minister for security Tom Tugendhat singled out the report when he appeared on the Today programme yesterday, saying it had been 'really serious' and had 'real costs'. He even implied it could have contributed to Joe Biden abandoning his Middle East peace summit. He added: 'This was not the BBC's finest hour.'

Minister for security Tom Tugendhat singled out the report when he appeared on the Today programme yesterday, saying it had been 'really serious' and had 'real costs'

The BBC admitted a controversial report about the cause of the Gaza hospital explosion was flawed as a minister said it was not the corporation's 'finest hour'

Last night following huge criticism, the corporation issued a statement on the 'Corrections and Clarifications' page of its website, which admitted 'it was wrong to speculate in this way'.

The BBC is already facing huge criticism over its refusal to call Hamas fighters terrorists, even though it is classified as a terrorist group by the Government. This comes as Downing Street said Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer had spoken to BBC director-general Tim Davie 'on a number of occasions in the past week'.
Seven people have been taken to hospital after a skydiving plane carrying 17 passengers crashed at an airport in Victoria's southwest.

Emergency services were called to Leopold, near the Barwon Heads Airport in Geelong at about 8am on Friday.

One man aged in his 30s had to be airlifted to hospital after suffering injuries to his upper body. He is in a stable condition

Three others were taken to hospital in serious conditions while another three were taken for further assessment.

Paramedics assessed ten other patients at the scene but they did not need further treatment.

Two people have been injured after a skydiving plane carrying 17 passengers crashed near an airport in Victoria's southwest

It's understood the aircraft had ran off the end of the runway.

The pilot and 16 solo skydivers were able to exit the aircraft unassisted after the crash.

Photos of the wreckage show the nose of the airplane completely ripped off.

The plane had crashed on the Leopold side of Lake Connewarre, with emergency crews remaining at the scene.

An investigation into what caused the accident will be launched.
Scotland Yard is bracing for a weekend of pro-Palestine activism as it emerged leaders of several groups behind scheduled protests had links to Hamas or had expressed support for the terrorist organisation.

A rally beginning at Marble Arch in central London on Saturday is expected to be larger than protests attended by tens of thousands last weekend that saw some openly support Hamas' attacks of October 7.

Nine police officers were injured and 15 people were arrested in what the Metropolitan Police described as 'unacceptable criminality' during the March for Palestine.

Among those showing support for the terrorist acts in Israel were two women who were photographed wearing images of Hamas paragliders on their jackets.

Following the rally Home Secretary Suella Braverman warned protesters who celebrated Hamas atrocities would feel the full force of the law.

But the Jewish Chronicle revealed that leaders of some of the groups behind tomorrow's march have expressed sympathies with Hamas.

Scotland Yard is bracing for a weekend of pro-Palestine activism as it emerged leaders of several groups behind scheduled protests had links to Hamas or had expressed support for the terrorist organisation

Thousands of people take part in a vigil outside Downing Street for the victims of an airstrike on Al-Ahli Al-Arabi Baptist hospital on Wednesday

A rally beginning at Marble Arch in central London on Saturday is expected to be larger than protests attended by tens of thousands last weekend that saw some openly support Hamas' attacks of October 7

The Friends of al-Aqsa was founded by Ismael Patel, a Leicester-based activist who told a rally in 2009: 'Hamas is no terrorist organisation we salute Hamas for standing up to Israel.'

John Nicholson, of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, told a rally in Oldham earlier this week: 'We support the Palestinian resistance.

'Let Suella Braverman hear this clearly: Oldham supports the Palestinian resistance.'

Mr Nicholson, who has previously referred to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a terrorist, added: 'We have a right to wave a flag, we have a right to sing a little song that they are forbidding, and I'll ask you to join with me, if you want to do a little gentle law-breaking in Oldham this afternoon. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.'

Hamas was proscribed as a terrorist group in November 2021 and membership carries a potential prison sentence.

Ms Braverman last week wrote to chief constables urging them to clamp down on those who glorify terrorism.

She referred to the chant 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' as 'a staple of antisemitic discourse.'

The home secretary added: 'To hear it shouted in public causes alarm not just to Jews but to all decent people.'

Lord Pickles, special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, called for tomorrow's rally, which comes just two weeks after more than 1,400 civilians were murdered in Israel by Hamas, to be called off.

'We don't want a march glorifying racial hatred on our streets,' he told the Jewish Chronicle.

Former independent reviewer of terror legislation, Lord Carlile KC, added: 'The wise course would be for the demonstration not to take place, and for a period of public calm respectful to all victims in Israel and Gaza to occur.'

The Metropolitan Police deployed more than 1,000 officers at protests last weekend.

Deputy assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor warned at the time that anyone seen with a flag in support of Hamas or another proscribed organisation would be arrested.

An expression of support for the Palestinian people or waving the Palestinian flag would not constitute a criminal offence, but there were some situations where the presence of a banner or flag could be seen as intimidation, he added.
Gaza suffered yet more destruction overnight as Israel levelled a northern district overnight and hit an Orthodox Christian church where others had been sheltering.

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the main Palestinian Christian denomination, said Israeli forces had struck the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, where hundreds of Christians and Muslims had sought sanctuary.

Israel has pounded Gaza with air strikes and put the enclave's 2.3 million people under a total siege, banning shipments even of food, fuel and medical supplies. Since Oct. 7, 3,785 Palestinians have been killed including more than 1,500 children, Palestinian officials say. The U.N. says more than a million have been made homeless.

Video from the scene showed a wounded boy being carried from rubble at night. A civil defence worker said two people on upper floors had survived; those on lower floors had been killed and their bodies were still in the rubble.

A woman cries at the Greek Orthodox Church after an Israeli attack in Gaza City, Gaza on October 20, 2023

Gaza City suffers more destruction as several people who were sheltering in a Greek Orthodox church are killed in an explosion

'They felt they would be safe here. They came from under the bombardment and the destruction, and they said they would be safe here but destruction chased them,' a man cried out.

Gaza's Hamas-run government media office said 18 Christian Palestinians had been killed. There was no immediate word from the church on the final death toll. It said targeting churches that were used as shelters for people fleeing bombing was 'a war crime that cannot be ignored.'

The Israeli military said part of the church was damaged in a strike on a militant command centre and it was reviewing the incident.

In Zahra, a northern Gaza town, residents said their entire district of some 25 multi-storey apartment buildings was razed to the ground.

They received Israeli warning messages on their mobile phones at breakfast time, followed ten minutes later by a small drone strike that hammered the message home. Half an hour after the initial warning, F-16 warplanes brought the buildings down in huge explosions and clouds of dust.

'Everything I ever dreamt of and thought that I have achieved was gone. In that apartment was my dream, my memories with my children, and my wife, was the smell of safety and love,' Ali, a resident of the district, told Reuters by phone, declining to give his full name for fear of reprisals.

The United Nations humanitarian affairs office said more than 140,000 homes - nearly a third of all homes in Gaza - have been damaged, with nearly 13,000 completely destroyed.

The south of the enclave has also been regularly hit. Gaza authorities said there were several dead and wounded in fresh strikes on Khan Younis, the enclave's main southern city.

While Israeli troops are massing around Gaza in anticipation of an order to invade, conflict is also spreading to two other fronts - the West Bank and the northern border with Lebanon.

The defence ministry ordered residents of the largest Israeli town near the Lebanese border, Kiryat Shmona, to evacuate to guest houses. Clashes at the border between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement have been the deadliest since a full-blown war in 2006.

Personnel carry an injured civilian at the scene of destruction after an Israeli attack on the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City

In the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said 13 people were killed including five children after Israeli troops raided and called in air strikes on the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm.

The territory, where Palestinians have limited self rule under Israeli military occupation, has seen the deadliest clashes since the second intifada uprising ended in 2005.

Diplomats fear the conflict could spread even further. The Pentagon on Thursday said a U.S. Navy warship operating in the northern Red Sea intercepted three cruise missiles and several drones launched by the Houthi movement in Yemen, potentially toward Israel.

The Houthi, like Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon's Hezbollah, are backed by Iran, which has lauded the Hamas attacks on Israel though it denies being behind them.

Western leaders have so far mostly offered support to Israel's campaign against Hamas, although there is mounting unease about the plight of civilians in Gaza, which has yet to receive long promised aid.

'We can't ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have opportunity,' Biden said in his speech.

Israel has said it will allow no aid from its own territory to reach Gaza until more than 200 hostages captured by the gunmen are set free, a position Palestinians say amounts to unlawful collective punishment of the civilian population.

Biden secured a promise from Israel to allow some aid to enter Gaza from Egypt, provided it is monitored to ensure none reaches Hamas. So far, the trucks remain backed up on the Egyptian side of the crossing.

Aerial view shows people standing before destroyed cars at the site of the Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza

US intelligence has found that Israel was 'probably not' responsible for Tuesday's explosion at the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza.

According to an unclassified assessment sent to Capitol Hill by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 'only light structural damage at the hospital' was reported, after earlier reports suggested the explosion had 'torn through' the entire building.

'Israel Probably Did Not Bomb Gaza Strip Hospital: We judge that Israel was not responsible for an explosion that killed hundreds of civilians yesterday [17 October] at the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip,' the assessment obtained by CNN states.

'Our assessment is based on available reporting, including intelligence, missile activity, and open-source video and images of the incident', it added.

The US intelligence community also estimated that the total number of deaths from the hospital blast were at the 'low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum,' according to the assessment, a lower number than figures initially cited by Hamas of more than 500.

The intelligence community 'observed only light structural damage at the hospital,' with no observable damage to the main hospital building and no impact craters, according to the assessment.

'We see only light damage to the roofs of two structures near the main hospital building, but both structures remained intact,' the assessment states.

The US intelligence community released its initial assessment on Wednesday that Israel was not responsible after President Joe Biden stated publicly while in Israel that the strike appeared to have been 'the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.'

Earlier today Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman accused Palestinian authorities of lying over the death toll caused by Tuesday's explosion.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 'hundreds' of Palestinians were killed when the blast erupted at the hospital around 7pm Tuesday night, before later publishing an official figure of 471.

But Israeli spokesman Lior Haiat this morning said Israeli and US intelligence suggested the number of casualties was less than 100, putting the figure at only 'several dozen'.

It came as a European intelligence agency told AFP: 'There wasn't 200 or even 500 deaths, more likely between 10 and 50.'

It is the latest point of contention in a bitter war of words between Israel and Palestine, with each side accusing the other of being responsible for the blast.

Israel's Defence Forces yesterday shared a slew of evidence it claims proved that a misfiring rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) - an independent jihadist group - was behind the blast.

The proof provided by the Israeli Defence Forces included an audio clip of alleged Hamas terrorists confirming the rocket came from PIJ, a video of what appears to be the rocket in question misfiring over Gaza, and bird's eye images of the blast site that did not have characteristics consistent with an Israeli aerial strike, according to an IDF spokesman.

Meanwhile, Israel's foes - Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah and Iran - insist the IDF was behind the devastation and vowed to take revenge. Anger sparked across the Muslim world yesterday, with protesters pouring onto the streets in cities from Tripoli to Tehran in demonstration against Israel.

Jordan's foreign minister said: 'No one is buying (Israel's) narrative in this part of the world... the only way people would entertain a different narrative is if there was an independent international inquiry with impeccable evidence that it was not Israel.'

Several experts and analysts weighing in on the issue largely appeared to agree with Israel's assessment that a misfiring rocket fired from Gaza caused the tragedy, but many warned it was too early to say with certainty.

Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari speaks to the press from The Kirya, which houses the Israeli Ministry of Defence, in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023

This image provided by Maxar Technologies on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023 shows an overview of al-Ahli Hospital after explosion in Gaza City

Injured Palestinian child taken to Al-Shifa Hospital following Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on October 17, 2023

Speaking to media on Wednesday morning, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari showed a series of images, satellite photos and intelligence documents he said proved the damage caused at the hospital could not possibly have come from an Israeli strike.

He explained the images showed there was no structural damage to buildings around the Al-Ahli hospital, no craters in the adjacent car park, and no debris consistent with an air strike, implying a direct hit from an Israeli missile would have caused far more destruction.

'The walls stay intact. There are no craters in the parking lot. These are the characteristics that show it was not an aerial munition that hit the parking lot,' he concluded.

He also pointed out images of what he claimed was shrapnel on the roof of nearby buildings, suggesting the rocket fell apart in the air and sprayed its detritus across a larger area.

Other images shared widely on social media later showed some small craters measuring two or three feet in diameter in the car park outside the hospital.

This morning, satellite images released of the scene showed damage to the hospital grounds and car park, but most structures were still standing.

It came after Israeli officials yesterday released a video of the moment a rocket purportedly streaking towards Israel from Gaza appeared to suffer a problem and suddenly changed course.

The projectile is seen soaring through the air before jerking away from its original path. Seconds later the flames from its engines spark even brighter before flaming out completely.

The IDF argued that an Israeli strike would've caused craters like those seen right from previous air strikes. A spokesperson said shrapnel seen on the rooves of nearby buildings and minimal damage to the car park next to the blast suggested an Israeli airstrike was not responsible

Israel also released a radar map of Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket attacks, as well as a video of the moment a rocket purportedly streaking towards Israel from Gaza appears to suffer a problem and suddenly changes course before flaming out

People react at the area of Al-Ahli hospital, where hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blame on each other, in Gaza City, October 18, 2023

In the darkness, it is not clear whether the rocket broke apart or simply lost its trajectory.

But moments later, a pair of explosions erupt in the city below - the result of what Israel claims was the rocket falling back to Earth and striking the hospital in Gaza City.

Several other videos from varying distances and angles appeared to show rockets streaming over Gaza with the blast at the hospital seen lighting up the night sky.

The IDF later shared a map of radar data which it said showed a salvo of rockets from a PIJ site streaking past the hospital, implying one of those rockets misfired and landed on the site.

And on Wednesday afternoon, a video clip aired on Israeli Channel 12 News appeared to show a salvo of rockets being launched before explosions rocked what is believed to be the medical centre.
EXCLUSIVE

A NSW government staffer is under investigation over a LinkedIn rant appearing to defend Hamas terrorism and accusing Israel of genocide.

Farah Abdurahman, a contractor who works as a senior media advisor for the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, posted a lengthy criticism of the Israeli government on Wednesday in the wake of the bomb blast at a hospital in Gaza which has claimed the lives of almost 500 people.

Hamas blamed the Israeli military for the attack but Israel said it was the result of a failed rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad - a claim U.S. President Joe Biden also supports.

But Ms Abdurahman appeared to be in no doubt who was behind the deadly strike in a lengthy LinkedIn post, pointing the finger at Israel.

'This morning Gaza hospital was bombed in what can only be described as a deliberate attack on civilians,' Ms Abdurahman wrote.

Farah Abdurahman (pictured), a contractor who works as a senior media advisor for the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, posted a lengthy criticism of the Israeli government on Wednesday in the wake of the bomb blast at a hospital in Gaza which has claimed the lives of almost 500 people

Ms Abdurahman's now-deleted LinkedIn post caused outrage for appearing to defend the actions of Hamas terrorists (pictured above and below)

'To say I am triggered is an understatement.

'I have sat in utter despair and disbelief as not only our own government, but every Western democratic country on this planet has stood idly by while the political Zionist movement in Israel commits genocide.'

Ms Abdurahman, who previously worked as a news reporter for the now-defunct channel Television Sydney and who describes herself as a 'Human Rights Activist', then cast doubt on widely-reported claims that Hamas terrorists raped women and beheaded babies.

'When firstly Islam has clear rules of engagement in our book of faith regarding war that forbids desecrating a body and further, if consensual sex outside of marriage is punished by lashes or stoning to death then why and how would this supposed rape have occurred?' she asked.

The media advisor called on people to 'put their foot on the neck of the Zionist movement causing these atrocities'.

She also called on Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to 'end the occupation' and demanded he be 'tried for war crimes'.

'If you choke a people under the most injumane constraints of apartheid for 75 years and expect them to remain passive then you are mistaken,' she wrote in an apparent defence of Hamas attacks on Israel which left almost 1,500 people dead, including babies.

'Justice will be had.'

The Australian Jewish Association shared screenshots of Ms Abdurahman's now-deleted post.

'If confirmed, then this this nasty piece of work needs to be sacked immediately and the hiring policies of NSW Government Departments need to be investigated,' the association wrote.

A Palestinian woman reacts as others rush to look for victims in the rubble of a building following an Israeli strike in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 17

A Department of Communities and Justice spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia they expect a 'high standard of behaviour from staff'.

'This extends to staff activity on social media.

'The Secretary of DCJ, Michael Tidball, is reviewing a social media post, made by a contractor, relating to the situation in Israel and Gaza, in the light of the Departments social media and employment policies.'

In the wake of the furore, Ms Abdurahman has deleted the post and removed her last name and profile picture from her LinkedIn account.

She has now added a disclaimer: 'All views expressed are explicitly my own and do not represent the views of any organisations I may be affiliated with'.

Daily Mail Australia contacted Ms Abdurahman for comment.
The ex-partner of Julia Gillard has used his relationship with the former Prime Minister to lessen his sentence over a perverted sexual assault on a female friend.

Tim Mathieson - known during Ms Gillard's reign as Australia's 'first bloke' - pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of sexual assault and was convicted and fined $7000.

The Melbourne Magistrates' Court heard Mathieson sucked the nipple of his friend after she fell asleep on her couch, before going back for more when she objected.

In pleading for mercy, Mathieson's barrister Brad Penno gave a lengthy description of his client's previous relationship with the former prime minister, outlining how they came to meet, fall in love and ultimately separate.

Tim Mathieson sexually assaulted his vulnerable neighbour after she fell asleep on her own couch

Prosecutors described Mathieson's offending as an aggravated and opportunistic sexual assault against a supposed friend in her own home.

Mathieson had hoped to have walked free without conviction on a good behaviour bond, but Magistrate Belinda Franjic had different ideas.

The respected magistrate condemned Mathieson's behaviour, describing it as a serious example of sexual assault.

'It involves a victim who is vulnerable by virtue of being asleep. Secondly it occurred in the victim's own home, which makes it particularly egregious. Thirdly it wasn't fleeting ... he kept trying to get his mouth back on her breast, so that aggravates the seriousness of the offending,' she said.

'It's a particularly intimate form of sexual assault.'

The court heard Mathieson's victim had lived a floor beneath his Brunswick East apartment, which he had originally purchased with the former PM.

The pair had met while walking their dogs and became close friends during Victoria's harsh Covid-19 lockdowns.

On March 13 last year, the court heard the woman invited Mathieson over for dinner.

After a lengthy drinking session, the court was told the pair sat down to enjoy a Whitney Houston documentary.

Senior Constable Simpkin said Mathieson pounced when his victim fell asleep, slumping over onto her left side.

'The complainant woke some time later to feel someone sucking her right nipple. The complainant froze and noticed her top had been pulled down exposing her right breast and the accused had his mouth over her right nipple while his hand was cupping her right breast,' she said.

Tim Mathieson, the ex-partner of former prime minister Julia Gillard, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman. He is pictured with Ms Gillard in 2010

'The complainant pushed the accused off and stated "Don't do that". As the complainant pushed the accused away he kept trying to get his mouth back on her breast.'

Mathieson left in disgrace before apologising the following day about his behaviour.

He initially denied sexually assaulting his former friend, telling police his victim had been a consensual participant.

The former hairdresser only pleaded guilty after prosecutors agreed to withdraw two counts of stalking, amid accusations he entered the woman's home without her permission.

Tim Mathieson is accused of intentionally touching the woman's nipple without her consent at Brunswick East in Melbourne's inner-city on March 13 last year

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard has unwittingly become embroiled in her ex-partner's grubby sexual assault

The woman provided a heartbreaking victim impact statement to the court outlining how she had been forced to leave the country such was her fear and shame over the unwanted attack.

Mr Penno told the court Ms Gillard had owned a share in the East Brunswick apartment, but never actually lived there with him.

In an attempt to mitigate his client's offending, Mr Penno claimed his client's victim had often slept in his bed with him.

Mr Penno said Mathieson was extremely drunk at the time of the attack and had little memory of it.

The pair had been friends since 2020 with Mathieson told repeatedly she was not sexually interested in him.

'In the early stages of the relationship the complainant wa not sure how the relationship with Mr Mathieson would develop ... it could best be described as a close, but non-sexual relationship,' Mr Penno said.

'It was clear in the later stages of the relationship that the complainant was not interested in pursuing a sexual relationship with Mr Mathieson and she made that clear to him.'

Mathieson faced up to 10 years behind bars over the offence.

Mathieson lived with Ms Gillard in the Lodge in Canberra when she was Prime Minister, but Gillard revealed in early 2022 that the couple had split up some time earlier.

He had been a hairdresser when he hooked-up with Ms Gillard in 2004.

He has three children, with daughter Sherri Mathieson once appearing on television reality show The Bachelor.

Mathieson is pictured leaving his lawyer's office in Melbourne on Thursday

After Ms Gillard became Prime Minister in 2010, the pair became the first unmarried couple to live at The Lodge until she was toppled in a leadership spill in 2013.

Mathieson frequently accompanied the Prime Minister on engagements within Australia and on her official overseas trips.

During his time as prime ministerial spouse, Mathieson undertook voluntary work for Kidney Health Australia, Indigenous Diabetes Association and mental health group Beyond Blue.

He was also patron of the Australian Men's Shed Association, dedicated to encouraging men to meet and discuss problems in a comfortable environment.

Ms Gillard told the Adelaide Advertiser in March this year that she had split with Mathieson more than a year ago, after a decade and a half together.

Despite declaring in 2011 that he wished to wed Ms Gillard, the couple never married.
Satanic abortion rituals and visions from God led a Texas man to kill a lawyer and leave her husband for dead, the accused murderer testified in court.

In bizarre and explosive testimony in his own murder trial, Joseph Angel Alvarez, 40, told jurors he went to Memorial Park near the couple's El Paso home in November 2020 after God revealed to him that satanic abortions were happening there.

Alvarez approached the house with a gun hidden inside a pizza box before breaking into the home.

Once inside, Alvarez allegedly shot lawyer Georgette Kaufmann - whose body was found in the garage - and her husband Daniel, who survived five gunshot wounds, according to KWTX.

Describing himself as a 'very religious man', Alvarez testified he ended up at the park through 'divine intervention' after studying the Bible and the Book of Enoch.

Joseph Angel Alvarez, 40, took the stand in his own defense Wednesday in an El Paso, Texas courtroom

Georgette G. Kaufmann, 50 (left), and husband Daniel L. Kaufmann, 47 (right), were shot in their home Saturday evening. Georgette was killed and Daniel was left in critical condition

In a 22-page manifesto he called 'Judgment Day', Alvarez included photos of trees at Memorial Park he believed Satanists and witches were planting aborted babies under, reported local station KFOX.

'The trees, they grow contorted. Theres a strangeness to them,' Alvarez said.

He also believed babies were burned alive at picnic tables and benches, and then trolls and demons would accept them as human sacrifices.

Alvarez recounted how he began studying religious texts after he was fired from his job at United Airlines in February 2020 because he asked his co-workers if they were having pre-martial sex.

He told the jury that he had never had a romantic relationship himself and that led him into deep prayer.

El Paso's Memorial Park (pictured) is where Alvarez believed aborted babies were being planted under trees as part of a satanic ritual

Alvarez was arrested in September 2021, nearly a year after the murder.

'How can this lesbian be having fun, but not me,' he said in court.

His religious studies led him to have very strong feelings about pre-martial sex and abortions.

Alvarez put together his manifesto, which he claimed he emailed to multiple government and military agencies to convince them to overturn abortion rights.

He believes his emails helped to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The day of the slaying, Alvarez said went to the park, believing the satanic rituals happening there had 'cursed' the houses and residents nearby, according to the El Paso Times.

The Kaufmanns had celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary just days before the shooting

Before the deadly shooting at the Kaufmann residence, Alvarez admitted he went to another house and rang the doorbell. When no one answered, he went back to his car to pray.

During this prayer, he claimed a tree at the park pointed to the Kaufmann home, and he went there.

The Kaufmanns are survived by their 18-year-old son, who was out of town on a fencing trip when his parents were shot.

Alvarez faces 99 years in prison if convicted, though his lawyers argue he is mentally ill.
Residents fed up with woke policies in Austin, Texas allowing the homeless to camp out in public places and even on private property fought back today - dumping shopping carts abandoned by the vagrants at city hall.

One cart bearing the name of each elected official was propped up just feet away from where the mayor and city council were meeting inside Thursday.

'Our elected officials, they don't want to do anything about homelessness,' local advocate Jaime Hammonds posted to social media.

'There are thousands of these shopping carts around Austin right now in the woods, in the green belts, in the parks, on private property, and the city refuses to do anything with them, so we decided we're going to bring them to the city.'

The liberal capital of Texas actually has a local ordinance that bans the homeless people - referred to by the city as 'people experiencing homelessness' - from camping in public spaces, but it's rarely enforced.

Shopping carts with the names of each Austin elected official were dropped off at city hall to draw attention to the city's homeless crisis

Many of Austin's homeless are camping in wooded areas of the state capital

'Every council member has their name on their cart; even the mayor there. I hope they enjoy their carts,' Hammonds quipped as he documented the scene.

'City of Austin refuses to do anything about the homeless camps, the trash, the shopping carts and the danger.'

In some cases, transients have set up camp sites on privately owned property. When the owners have gone to the city for help, officials have taken the vagrants' side and refused to force them off the land, Hammond told the DailyMail.com

Adding insult to injury, the private land owners were later cited by the city for not picking up after the homeless - including shopping carts they used to carry their belongings or even to start fires.

Even the stores where the carts came from don't want them back, the local filmmaker who focuses on the homeless added, because they're dirty and damaged.

Hammond has previously documented how Austin's homeless are living in hidden camps inside woods and greenbelts.

Filmmaker Jamie Hammonds has spoken openly about his struggles with homelessness where he slept on the steps of a church for months

Some are even taking their grievances with the city to court, like Rupal Chaudhari who sued the city to protect the family business.

The Homewood Suites owned by her family is next door to a Candlewood Suites hotel recently purchased by the City of Austin.

Mayor Kirk Watson has pledged to do more to house the homeless population.

The plan is to turn the Candlewood Suites into some sort of shelter for the homeless, but the city never notified Chaudhari and the people living in the surrounding homes of their plans, she claims.

'They're planning to put the homeless in people's backyards,' Chaudhari told the DailyMail.com Thursday.

'There is no separation between the hotel and the private property. They just railroaded us.'

Chaudhari is part of a group hoping to stop the city from moving forward with housing the homeless in their neighborhood.

Although the city has yet to move a single person into the Candlewood, Chaudhari claims they let themselves in-- squatting in the vacant hotel.

Her hotel has been dealing with homeless people who regularly walk onto her property and harass guests-- banging on room doors and cars in the parking lot.

'Why has it become my problem,' she asked.

'It's a crime against me. It's a crime against my business. We are the ones dealing with this crisis everyday.'

A homeless shelter next door would mean business would drop and she would have to lay off employees, she fears

Her lawsuit against the city is currently in appeals court.

The City of Austin did not immediately respond to the DailyMail.com's request for comment.
Furious Netflix users have threatened to cancel their accounts as the streaming service announced it was hiking its prices for millions of customers in the UK.

Users will now face monthly fees of up to 17.99 to access the service - an increase of 2 per month.

Film fans have blasted the decision, calling Netflix 'greedy'.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), users have criticised Netflix for providing a worse service at a higher cost, claiming that the streaming service is full of 'filler content'.

Others have threatened to turn to illegal streaming sites, or digital piracy, in response to Netflix's decision.

Furious Netflix users have threatened to cancel their accounts as the streaming service announced it was hiking its prices for millions of customers in the UK

Film fans have blasted the decision to increase subscription prices in the UK, with some calling Netflix 'greedy'

How Netflix subscriptions are increasing in price UK Basic plan: Up by 1 a month to 7.99 per month Standard: Unchanged at 10.99 per month Premium: Up 2 to 17.99 per month US Basic plan: Up $2 to $12 per month Standard: Unchanged at $15.49 per month Premium: Up $2 to $23 per month Advertisement

Netflix has announced that the premium ad-free subscriptions will hit 17.99 in the UK, 2 a month higher, while a basic plan will increase 1 a month to 7.99.

The company also says it's raising the price for its most expensive streaming service by $2 to $23 per month in the US - a 10% increase - and its lowest-priced, ad-free streaming plan to $12 - another $2 bump.

On X, several commenters say that this price increase has been the final straw in their decision to leave the service.

'I think it is time to cancel. Another price hike for a declining service is just not worth it', one user said.

'This is like the 3rd time in 2 years they've increased prices. I'm officially going to cancel. Its been real Netflix', added one commenter, while another said: 'Netflix being greedy again'.

One commenter even joked that Netflix should 'hurry up with the last season of stranger things so I can cancel this'.

Some commenters on X went further, angrily expressing their frustration that the quality of content on Netflix was not worth the price being demanded.

'F*** Netflix', one X user furiously wrote.

'Another price hike? For what, a bunch of filler content.'

Another X user laid out their step-by-step reasoning why other customers should quit the service:

'1. Netflix is 99% s***. 2. The 1% of stuff worth your time can be watched over the course of one month every year,' they tweeted.

'3. Cancel Netflix, sign up for one month a year, and get everything you want from them for $22.99. 4. Buy tickets to indie films with the money you save.'

Frustrated customers say they are no longer prepared to pay an increased rate for Netflix's streaming service

While some Netflix customers were content to cancel their subscriptions and miss out on the streaming services' content, many suggested that they would be turning to illegal streaming to fill the void.

Many fans cheekily referenced the Disney film series Pirates of the Caribbean, sharing pictures of Johnny Depp as the pirate captain Jack Sparrow, in a nod to digital piracy and infamous illegal streaming site The Pirate Bay.

'Back to the seas we go', suggested one X user, while another cryptically wrote: 'Yo ho, yo ho'.

As more streaming services increase their prices or introduce adverts into lower-cost subscriptions, rates of digital piracy have been on the rise.

Research from Muso published this year found that film piracy increased by 38.6 per cent in 2022 compared with the previous year, while visits to piracy websites for TV content grew by 8.8 per cent, totalling 215 billion visits.
The new discovery of 5,000 year-old wine at an ancient Egyptian tomb has led archaeologists to a surprising conclusion.

They believe the burial site in Abydos, central Egypt, may actually be the final resting place of Egypt's forgotten female 'king', Meret-Neith.

Her husband King Djet and son King Den were among the rulers of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt, but recent excavations suggest she too may once have held such power, rather than just being Djet's queen.

If true, it would make her the first female ruler of ancient Egypt  although some experts dispute the theory because they say 'wives and daughters were not typically considered in terms of royal succession', especially this early on.

Nevertheless, the discovery that her tomb was piled high with goods fit for a royal, including hundreds of sealed wine jars, suggests Meret-Neith was an influential figure with 'unusually high levels of authority'.

Theory: Archaeologists believe that this burial site in Abydos, central Egypt, may actually be the final resting place of Egypt's forgotten 'female king', Meret-Neith

Meret-Neith's husband King Djet and son King Den were among the rulers of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt, but recent excavations suggest she too may once have held such power

WHO WAS MERET-NEITH? Meret-Neith was the wife of King Djet and the mother of King Den, who were among the rulers of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt. She may also have been the first female ruler, reigning from around 2950 BC. Inscriptions discovered inside her tomb suggest that Meret-Neith held a number of important governmental positions around 3000 BC, including a role in the treasury. Her name has previously been discovered alongside that of her son on an inscribed list of rulers in his tomb at Saqqara. Experts say this suggests she may have ruled as regent during Den's youth, which may explain why she is the only woman to possess a grand tomb in Egypt's earliest royal burial ground in Abydo. Her name means 'beloved of the goddess Neith'. Advertisement

The grape seed-filled jars  some of which were remarkably well-preserved and still in their original condition  are among the oldest evidence of wine ever uncovered.

They were discovered by a team of archaeologists led by Christiana Kohler from the University of Vienna.

'The wine was no longer liquid, and we can't tell if it was red or white,' she said in a statement.

'We found a lot of organic residue, grape seeds and crystals, possibly tartar, and all of this is currently being scientifically analysed.

'It is probably the second oldest direct evidence for wine; the oldest also comes from Abydos.'

Kohler added: 'The new excavations bring to light exciting new information about this unique woman and her time.'

Thanks to careful digging methods and various new archaeological technologies, experts were also able to establish that Meret-Neith's tomb complex was built in several construction phases and over a relatively long period of time.

First uncovered by archaeologists in 1900, it was found to have been made with mud bricks, clay and wood, and includes the graves of 41 courtiers and servants.

This is not the only other evidence of great power, however.

Inscriptions discovered inside the tomb suggest that Meret-Neith held a number of important governmental positions around 3000 BC, including a role in the treasury.

Thirsty work: Meret-Neith's tomb was first uncovered in 1900, but the discovery of 5,000 year-old wine during recent excavations at the burial site led experts to their surprising conclusion

The jars  some of which were remarkably well-preserved and still in their original condition  are among the oldest evidence of wine ever found. Pictured are the grapes seeds inside them

Her name has previously been discovered alongside that of her son on an inscribed list of rulers in his tomb at Saqqara.

Experts say this suggests she may have ruled as regent during Den's youth, which may explain why she is the only woman to possess a grand tomb in Egypt's earliest royal burial ground in Abydo.

'The very fact of having added her name to the list of kings shows that something highly important had to have happened with Meret-Neith,' Ronald Leprohon, a professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Toronto, told Live Science.

However, what exactly that was remains a mystery, according to Kohler.

'No other queen in the early dynastic period possessed so many royal privileges,' Jean-Pierre Patznick, an Egyptologist at Sorbonne University in France who was not involved in the recent excavation, previously said.

Clever: Thanks to careful digging methods and various new archaeological technologies, experts were also able to establish that Meret-Neith's tomb complex was built in several construction phases and over a relatively long period of time

The 5,000 year-old tomb was discovered in Abydos, central Egypt in 1900. However, new excavations are helping to learn more about Meret-Neith's possible rule of ancient Egypt

Even if Meret-Neith did rule, however, she would likely not have been considered a 'pharaoh'.

That's because experts say the term emerged much later, around the 18th Dynasty from 1550 to 1295 BC.

It has been suggested that the title  which means 'great house'  may have been coined by Queen Hatshepsut because it was gender-neutral.

Nevertheless, questions about Meret-Neith's status and influence are 'at the core of ongoing research', according to Kohler.

She added: 'I'm almost sure that once we have completed the excavation of this huge complex, we will know more.'
The idea of a pitch-black river may sound like something from the latest Hollywood adventure movie.

But such a waterway exists in the real world, and it's so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face.

The Ruki River, a tributary of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is one of the world's darkest bodies of water.

In the first-ever scientific study of the river, researchers from ETH Zurich found that the Ruki gets its colour from high levels of dissolved organic matter from the surrounding rainforest.

Dr Travis Drake, lead author of the study, said: 'The Ruki is essentially jungle tea'.

The Ruki River in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the darkest rivers in the world according to scientists

Researchers from ETH Zurich measured the water levels of the river for a year to calculate the total volume of water passing through

Read More: Have we finally discovered the Amazon's source? Scientists pinpoint the Amazon's origin - making the river 57 miles longer than previously thought Advertisement

Across a drainage basin four times the size of Switzerland, carbon-rich compounds are leached out of rotting plant matter and swept into the Ruki by heavy rain and floods.

Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Drake said: 'DOC [dissolved organic carbon} levels are so high because there is a high density of forest vegetation in the watershed for rainfall to leach.

'The organic compounds leached from this vegetation absorb light, so the higher the concentration, the darker the water will appear. It would be like brewing an extra concentrated tea using many tea bags.'

The area surrounding the Ruki River is covered by the untouched lowland rainforest of the Congo, the second-largest rainforest on Earth.

To understand how this abundance of plant matter affects the colour of the Ruki River, as well as the entire Congo River, Dr Drake and his team set up a measuring station near the city of Mbandaka.

The team measured the water discharge every two weeks and the daily water level for a year to determine the volume of water passing through.

Water samples were also collected and sent back to labs at ETH Zurich to determine the DOC content.

Working without a permanent power supply, limited infrastructure, or even a power drill, the researchers say they often had to improvise to obtain the data they needed.

However, taking measurements from this remote location was vital as it allowed the team to study a huge area from a single point.

The Ruki Basin is an area four times the size of Switzerland, although it only makes up one twentieth of the vast Congo Basin

WHERE IS EARTH'S CARBON STORED? Amazon rainforest: 200 billion tonnes Siberian permafrost: 950 billion tonnes Arctic: 1,600 billion tonnes Oceans: As much as 38,000 gigatonnes, according to World Ocean Review These figures are estimates, but true values may be higher. By contrast, humans produce an estimated 36 billion tonnes of carbon annually. Advertisement

'We need to collect samples from only one location to gain information about a huge area, like a doctor who takes a blood sample to determine the condition of a patient's health,' said co-author Dr Matti Barthel.

Using these measurements the team found that the Ruki River was 1.5 times darker than the Amazon's Rio Negra, the largest blackwater river in the world.

And, even though the Ruki only makes up a twentieth of the Congo Basin, a fifth of all dissolved carbon in the Congo comes from this one tributary.

Understanding the flow of carbon through the Ruki is important for understanding how CO2 and other greenhouse gases are stored in rainforests and river basins, the researchers say.

The Ruki, like most rivers globally, is a source of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, Dr Drake explains.

When water passes through soil, it picks up microorganisms that decompose plant matter, releasing CO2.

Likewise, the dissolved carbon in the river is also eaten by microorganisms to produce yet more CO2.

'Because of these processes, most rivers are "supersaturated" with CO2 compared to the atmosphere, which means they have a higher concentration,' Dr Drake told MailOnline.

The Congo River, seen here from space, is surrounded by untouched lowland rainforest and peat bogs, making it a valuable store of carbon

'This CO2 then escapes from the river surface, especially when the river water experiences turbulence, such as flowing through a rapid. This process is similar to shaking a soda and seeing the bubbles of CO2 escaping from the top.'

However, this study found that since the Ruki isn't very turbulent the levels of emissions are not exceptionally high, despite the extremely high carbon content.

What's more important in terms of global warming are the vast peat bogs that sit beneath the Ruki Basin.

Peat is a highly rich organic soil which forms when the ground is saturated with water and runs out of oxygen used by bacteria that would normally decompose plant matter.

Should the river be affected by resource extraction in the area this could cause the peat bogs to dry, releasing massive amounts of Carbon into the atmosphere

These 'anoxic' conditions allow organic matter to accumulate, trapping carbon absorbed from the atmosphere during the plants' lifetime.

The researchers found that the Ruki draws very little carbon out of the peat bogs it covers but rather keeps these areas stable underwater.

The scientists estimate that the peat bogs in the Congo Basin store some 29 billion tonnes of carbon.

However, some companies have taken an interest in the natural resources of the Ruki Basin and changes to land use or deforestation could alter the river and dry the peat bogs.

'It is important that the peat bogs stay wet so that they aren't exposed to oxygen which would allow them to decompose and produce large quantities of CO2, which would end up in the atmosphere,' Dr Drake concluded.
As mysteries about the universe go, the idea that fast radio bursts (FRB) are actually being sent by aliens is about as tantalising as it gets.

These peculiar signals were only detected for the first time 15 years ago but experts have no idea how or why they originate.

What they do now know, however, is that FRBs can be used to measure the 'missing' matter between galaxies, which is particularly exciting because it offers us a new method of 'weighing' the universe.

This discovery came about after astronomers spotted the most distant and most energetic FRB ever detected, which came from a galaxy so far away it took eight billion years to reach us.

The mysterious signal may have lasted less than a millisecond but it released an enormous amount of energy  the equivalent of our sun's total emission over a 30-year period.

Is anyone out there? A mysterious fast radio burst (FRB) signal that could be evidence of an advanced alien civilisation has been spotted further from Earth than before. This artist's impression (not to scale) illustrates the path of the FRB from its distant galaxy to Earth in the Milky Way

READ MORE: Unusual FRB lasts up to three seconds - 1,000 times longer than the average Signal-labelled FRB 20191221A is currently the longest-lasting FRB Advertisement

When it comes to estimating the mass of the universe, one of the biggest problems is that current methods have thrown up conflicting results.

Some even challenge the standard model of cosmology: only last month astronomers were left scratching their heads after research found our galaxy could be a fifth as heavy as previously thought.

'If we count up the amount of normal matter in the universe  the atoms that we are all made of  we find that more than half of what should be there today is missing,' said Ryan Shannon, a co-author of the latest study and professor at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia.

'We think that the missing matter is hiding in the space between galaxies, but it may just be so hot and diffuse that it's impossible to see using normal techniques.'

He added: 'Fast radio bursts sense this ionised material. Even in space that is nearly perfectly empty they can "see" all the electrons, and that allows us to measure how much stuff is between the galaxies.'

The discovery of the most distant FRB, named FRB 20220610A, was made in June last year by the ASKAP radio telescope in Australia and confirmed with the help of the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT).

It smashed the research team's previous distance record by 50 per cent.

'Using ASKAP's array of dishes, we were able to determine precisely where the burst came from,' said co-author Stuart Ryder, an astronomer from Macquarie University in Australia.

On the lookout: The discovery of the most distant FRB, named FRB 20220610A, was made in June last year by the ASKAP radio telescope in Australia

Team work: It was confirmed with the help of the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT)

'Then we used [ESO's VLT] in Chile to search for the source galaxy, finding it to be older and further away than any other FRB source found to date and likely within a small group of merging galaxies.'

Researchers say finding distant FRBs is key to accurately measuring the universe's missing matter, as the late Australian astronomer Jean-Pierre ('J-P') Macquart discovered in 2020.

'J-P showed that the further away a fast radio burst is, the more diffuse gas it reveals between the galaxies. This is now known as the Macquart relation,' said Ryder.

'Some recent fast radio bursts appeared to break this relationship. Our measurements confirm the Macquart relation holds out to beyond half the known universe.'

Fellow researcher Shannon added: 'While we still don't know what causes these massive bursts of energy, the paper confirms that fast radio bursts are common events in the cosmos and that we will be able to use them to detect matter between galaxies, and better understand the structure of the universe.'

With the latest FRB discovery, astronomers have essentially reached the limit of what is discoverable with today's telescopes.

However, they hope that the construction of two new ones  the international Square Kilometre Array Observatory in South Africa and Australia, and ESO's Extremely Large Telescope in the Chilean Atacama Desert  will change that.

These observatories should be capable of finding thousands more FRBs, including extremely distant ones that are even further away than FRB 20220610A and currently undetectable with current equipment.

The new study has been published in the journal Science.
The Pentagon's dedicated UFO investigations office has fielded at least 291 UFO cases within the past year, according to a report made public late Wednesday night.

Some of these seemingly advanced craft appeared to exhibit 'concerning performance characteristics,' the military's UFO investigators wrote, including 'high-speed travel' and 'unusual maneuverability.'

The report caps off a summer hot with extraterrestrial intrigue in Washington, where multiple government UFO whistleblowers have come forward, some publicly, some behind closed doors, with allegations of an illegal UFO crash retrieval program.

The claims  which have included 'intact and partially intact vehicles,' exotic weapons programs, charges of witness intimidation and recovered 'non-human' bodies  are now being investigated by federal and congressional oversight authorities alike.

While that new report concludes that none of 2023's airborne mysteries were the result of classified US programs, the Pentagon's UFO chief told reporters that a few UFOs displayed 'concerning' signs of being made by America's foreign adversaries.

In fact, the Pentagon UFO head said 'a lot' of these UFO cases have been referred to law enforcement and, in some serious cases, US counterintelligence investigators.

While that new report concludes that none of 2023's airborne mysteries were the result of classified US programs, the Pentagon's UFO chief told reporters that a few UFOs displayed 'concerning' signs of being made by America's foreign adversaries

'A lot' of UFO cases were referred to law enforcement last year, Dr. Kirkpatrick told reporters, and, in some serious cases, to US counterintelligence investigators. Above a heat map of the UAP or UFO hot spots that have emerged from the past year of reports to the Pentagon

'I am worried from a national security perspective,' physicist Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the US Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) told CNN in advance of his office's new UFO report.

'There are some indicators that are concerning that may be attributed to foreign activity,' Dr. Kirkpatrick said, 'and we are investigating those very hard.'

The physicist  whose classified work prior to assuming leadership of AARO included stints with the Air Force Research Laboratory and the CIA  expressed fear that foreign nations may be designing espionage drones specifically to evade US radar and other detection hardware.

'There are ways to hide in our noise that always concern me,' Kirkpatrick told CNN.

The annual report published Wednesday by Dr. Kirkpatrick and his team included a glossary to aid in the standardization of the once fringe topic of UFOs, now known professionally as UAP, for 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon.'

The glossary defined 'UAP Threat' as any UAP that demonstrate a national security risk to military 'persons, materiel, or information,' in an indication of the priority AARO has given to intelligence and espionage risks posed by the phenomenon.

Despite Kirkpatrick's statement that his office is actively chasing down possible foreign espionage cases, AARO's annual UAP report drew a more measured conclusion: 'None of these UAP reports have been positively attributed to foreign activities'

US Customs and Border Protection recently confirmed the authenticity of the April 25, 2013 Aguadilla, Puerto Rico UFO video (above) in a release of ten govt. UFO videos

In one now infamous wave of cases, following identification of a large white Chinese spy balloon last February, military officials identified more potential airborne surveillance platforms by readjusting the sensitivity of their radar system filters.

'I suspect that filters on US systems had previously been ignoring things that were too slow, high, or small to be considered threats,' RAND Corporation senior technical analyst and former US Navy aviator Brynn Tannehill told Wired that month.

'Now that the parameters on the filters have been adjusted, we're seeing more of what was already there for the past few years.'

Those adjustments to US military radar's noise reduction methods led to the identification of an object, first spotted north of Anchorage, Alaska, reportedly the size of a small car.

US Air Force F-22 Raptors and F-16s were dispatched by the Biden White House to shoot down the sedan-sized UFO and others spotted over Canada's Yukon territory and the Great Lakes north of Michigan.

Despite Dr. Kirkpatrick's statement that his office is actively chasing down potentially similar cases, AARO's annual report Wednesday drew a more measured conclusion.

'None of these UAP reports have been positively attributed to foreign activities,' according to AARO's unclassified report for fiscal year 2023.

In addition to statistics on the typical elevations and locations at which UAP have been reported, the FY2023 AARO reported took pains to note the issue of 'collection bias' and its future plans to better collect space-based and undersea data on UAP.

'The space and maritime domains need to be fully integrated into AARO's processes,' the report stated.

Kirkpatrick's UFO office plans to work with the US Navy and the National Intelligence Manager for Military Integration (NIM-MIL) to improve the speed and quality of reporting on undersea UAP or sea-to-air transmedium UAP.

'Collaboration with Space Force, US Space Command, NRO [the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees US spy satellites] and NASA is well underway,' AARO said in the report.

In a nod to NASA's own UAP advisory panel, the report made numerous references to the need to better calibrate, or prepare and standardize, military sensors in an effort to obtain the kind of reliable and comparable data needed to investigate UAP.

Despite the ostensible openness and promises detailed in AARO's report, many longtime civilian UFO researchers, expressed concern that the office has overseen a retrenchment in transparency on the topic.

At least one longtime UFO researcher, government open records advocate John Greenewald, Jr., described the Pentagon's new policies as 'a weird mixture' of 'increased excessive secrecy surrounding UAP' and 'preaching about 'transparency.''

Greenewald has noted new difficulties in obtaining government records on UFOs via the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the years since the creation of dedicated UAP investigative mandates internally within the Pentagon.

He flagged one comment from the new AARO report as particularly worrisome, which stated the belief that 'most UAP will likely resolve to ordinary phenomena.'

'AARO's, and subsequently the DoD's, position is once data is fine tuned and proper, most - if not all - UAP cases will resolve to simply being 'ordinary,'' Greenewald posted to X (formerly Twitter).

'This is exactly how Project Blue Book progressed and then ended,' he said, in reference to the US Air Force's Cold War-era UFO investigation program.

'They concluded the majority were explainable; they convened a panel of scientists to independently look at the findings; and it all ended with the military halting interest and stopping all funding for more than 40 years,' Greenewald said.
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A miniature crystal castle of golden rutile quartz. The dark phosphorescent armor of a blue-black weevil. Slime molds growing spores that look like rich caramel apples. An otherworldly alien pineapple, nested as the stamen and stigma of a Hibiscus flower bud.

These eerily beautiful images  and over 80 more  were honored this year as part of the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.

The Japanese camera-maker and imaging technology firm has held the competition, which spotlights the photographic achievements of those taking images through a microscope, for nearly half a century since 1974.

For this year's competition, an estimated 1,900 photos were submitted to an open call by photographers and scientists from 72 countries. The pictures were then judged by a five-person panel that included a Princeton cell biologist and the photo editor for the BBC's Science Focus magazine.

The top award for this year went to neuroscientist Hassanain Qambari, a researcher at the Lions Eye Institute's Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science in Perth, Australia. Qambari's picture, a microscopic, compound photo of a rodent's optic nerve head taken via confocal microscopy, also had a practical purpose: aiding patients with diabetes.

Qambari's work at the Lions Eye Institute has focused on the issue of diabetic retinopathy, a complication from diabetes that can lead to blurry vision or blindness due to damage in the blood vessels near the back of the eye.

'Current diagnostic criteria and treatment regimens for diabetic retinopathy are limited to the late-stage appearance of the disease,' Qambari said in a news release, 'with irreversible damage to retinal microvasculature and function.'

He hopes his retinal imaging work will aid in the early detection and reversal of the disease, which impacts approximately 1 in 5 people with diabetes.

A blistering close-up of the tip of a match, as it ignites along a matchbox, took the second-place prize, a submission from German digital artist Ole Bielfeldt.

Third place went to a healthcare consultant based in Warsaw, Poland, Malgorzata Lisowska, for her image of a serendipitous valentine growing within a cluster of breast cancer cells.

But all of the top 86 images from Nikon's competition this year are marvels to behold. Below are twelve that the DailyMail.com can't stop thinking about.

This castle-like golden rutile in quartz was snapped by Danny Sanchez from California. The inclusions are needle-like strands that are often reddish or golden in appearance. The stunning stone is popular among the spiritual community as people believe the quartz enhances the ability to provide new opportunities and direction. This image won honorable mention

These budding slime molds were captured by Dr. Frantisek Bednar from Slovakia. Slime molds are single-celled organisms that lack a brain and neurons. But somehow, these colonies can make complex decisions to survive, allowing them to determine which direction will take them to the best food source

The ultra-close image of a blue-black weevil pest was photographed by Dr. Andrew Posselt of the University of California. Weevils are beetles but don an elongated snout. The image of the pest is six times magnetized to capture even the smallest details on its antennas, which feature chewing abilities

(lLeft) A 25-times magnification of crystallized sugar syrup was taken by Dr. Diego Garcia of Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain using a polarized light method. Simple syrup crystallizes when enough of the sugar molecules stick to one another that they become insoluble in the water. This image won 11th place. (Right) A blistering close-up of the tip of a match as it ignites along a matchbox. The picture, submitted by German digital artist Ole Bielfeldt, took the second-place prize this year. The image shows the moment the friction creates heat, converting red phosphorous to white phosphorous that ignites from the heat

This fluorescent photo of an Acropora aspera shows individual polyps with symbiotic zooxanthellae Dr. Pichaya Lertvilai of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California took the images at five times magnification. This stony coral is typically found in the Indian Ocean and western parts of the Pacific Ocean. Each polyp has a stomach that opens at only one end. This image won 15th place in the competition

(Left):Developing stamen and stigma inside a Hibiscus flower bud by Raghuram Annadana from India. It takes just a few days for the bud to bloom into a stunning Hibiscus flower. (Right) Sunflower pollen on an acupuncture needle taken by John-Oliver Dum in Germany. The pollen is waxy and has long, sharp spines. Instead of catching the wind like most pollen, it clumps onto other pollen and drops into the ground

A cryptocrystalline micrometeorite was submitted by Scott Peterson of Minnesota and won 18th place. This type of micrometeorite is glassy with small-grained crystallites throughout. Micrometeorites differ from meteorites in that they are smaller in size, more abundant, and different in composition

Venomous fangs of a small tarantula taken by John Oliver Dum in Germany won fourth place in the competition. The fangs are hollow and filled with venom that paralyzes prey. However, the venom is not deadly to humans - it will feel like a bee sting when bitten.

Dr. Arthur Chien of Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia took this amazing image of a clear mouse embryo. The scientist was able to capture the small bones forming in the embryo, such as its spine and legs

(Left) Adult transgenic zebrafish head showing blood vessels (blue), lymphatic vessels (yellow), and the skin and scales (magenta), as photographed by Daniel Castranova and Dr. Brant M. Weinstein of the US National Institutes of Health. This image won 20th place. (Right) This image may look like a stained-glass window, but it shows malonic acid crystals dissolved in ethanol. The photo was taken by Cagri Yalcin in the Netherlands using polarized light at 4X magnification

This image shows diatoms arranged on the head of a pin, which Jan Rosenboom captured in Germany. Diatoms are unicellular organisms and a major group of algae. Diatoms are encased within a hard cell wall made from silica

This incredible image shows motor neurons growing in a laboratory on a chip, allowing scientists to conduct medical tests on the chip. Motor neurons are a specialized type of brain cell called neurons located within the spinal cord and the brain. The image was taken by Melinda Beccari and Dr. Don W. Cleveland of the University of California and won 10th place
A travel blogger has shared an innovative way to save money if you are flying to South East Asia from London.

Sharing the video to his account, TikTok user @Ralph_Travels has revealed there is a way to save more than 40% on your flights.

In the video, which has been viewed over 25,000 times, Ralph Smith, 20, says you should change your route to take a stop that could end up almost halving the cost of each flight per person, based on the price of one adult ticket.

Sharing how you can pull this off, Mr Smith says: 'Instead of flying direct from London, what you want to do is fly [from] London to Athens and then go from there [to Singapore]'.

Flights from London to Athens are available from as little as 18 with WizzAir during the month of April 2024, according to Skyscanner.

A travel blogger has shared an innovative way to save money if you are flying to South East Asia from London . Sharing the video to his account, TikTok user @Ralph_Travels has revealed there is a way to save more than 40% on your flights

On the same site, the Athens to Singapore leg is available to purchase for 176, leaving a total cost of just 194 for both flights.

Conversely, the cheapest direct flight from London to Singapore in April 2024 is currently available for 494, per Skyscanner, an increase of 155%.

Ralph also points out that many other destinations in South East Asia are very cheap to reach from Singapore, making it the ideal stop-off point if you plan to travel to other nearby countries such as Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia.

It comes as he has also revealed how to fly to Milan for around 12 this month.

'If you type in London to Milan in October, as you can see, you can get flights for around 12 each way.

'And even return is 11, bringing the total cost to 23,' Ralph said.

The travel creator even gave an example of what flights you could get for the small amount of money paid.

He showed a Ryanair flight on his screen that departed at 7am from London Stanstead and arrived in Milan at 9.55am.

'Instead of spending loads of money on a fancy restaurant, head onto Google, book that flight for 23, have one or two nights in Milan and you could probably do it all for under 150.

'I went to Milan last year with three friends and honestly it was unbelievable. We didn't spend that much at all, and we still had an amazing time,' Ralph said.
Two deer struggling in the waters of southeast Alaska's famed Inside Passage finally made it to land, thanks to two Alaska Wildlife Troopers, who gave them a lift in their boat.

Sgt. Mark Finses and trooper Kyle Feuge were returning from a patrol in nearby Ernest Sound to Ketchikan on October 10 when they spotted the deer, agency spokesperson Justin Freeman said in an email to The Associated Press.

The deer were about four miles (6.4 kilometers) from any island in the channel, which is favored by large cruise ships taking tourists in summer months to locations such as Ketchikan and Juneau.

The deer were floating down Clarence Strait about 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) northwest of Ketchikan, but not toward any particular island, Freeman said. They were fighting the current during midtide.

'Out in the middle of Clarence, they're in rough shape, like on their last leg,' Finses said on a video he shot with his phone and that the troopers posted to social media.

Two deer struggling in the waters of southeast Alaska's famed Inside Passage finally made it to land, thanks to two Alaska Wildlife Troopers who gave the deer a lift in their boat

Sgt. Mark Finses and trooper Kyle Feuge were returning from a patrol in nearby Ernest Sound to Ketchikan on October 10 when they spotted the deer

The troopers stopped their 33-foot (10-meter) patrol vessel about 150 yards (137 meters) from the two deer, which saw the boat and headed toward it. The troopers shut off the engines so the animals wouldnt be spooked.

When the deer reached the boat, they butted their heads against it, then swam right up the swim step, at which point the troopers helped them get the rest of the way onboard. Once in the boat, the deer shivered from their time in the cold water. The average temperature of the water in Ketchikan in October is 50.4 degrees Fahrenheit (10.2 degrees Celsius), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

'Im soaked to the bone,' Finses says on the video. 'I had to pick them up and bear hug them to get them off our deck and get them on the beach.'

The troopers stopped their 33-foot (10-meter) patrol vessel about 150 yards (137 meters) from the two deer, which saw the boat and headed toward it. The troopers shut off the engines so the animals wouldn't be spooked

When the deer reached the boat, they butted their heads against it, then swam right up the swim step, at which point the troopers helped them get the rest of the way onboard. Once in the boat, the deer shivered from their time in the cold water. Once back on land, the deer were able to trot off

Once back on land, the deer initially had difficulty standing and walking, Freeman said. But eventually, they were able to walk around slowly before trotting off.

'The deer ended up being completely OK,' he said.

Its common to see deer swimming in southeast Alaska waters, going from one island to another; what's not common is to have deer swim up to a boat and try to get on it, Freeman said.
Samantha Barks has given birth to a baby boy with her husband Alex Stoll.

The Frozen star revealed she welcomed a son on Monday, alongside a black and white snap of the newborn's hand.

In the caption, Samantha revealed her son's sweet name, writing: 'Welcome Rafael Richard Barks-Stoll, born on 16th October. My heart could burst with happiness.'

Her post was soon flooded with congratulatory messages, with Alan Carr writing: 'Wow! Amazing!!! Congratulations my darling.'

Tanya Burr added: 'Yay! So happy for you xx.'

New arrival! Samantha Barks has given birth to a baby boy with her husband Alex Stoll, revealing the newborn's sweet name on Instagram on Thursday

Glowing: The Frozen star (pictured last month) revealed she welcomed a son on Monday, alongside a black and white snap of the newborn's hand

New addition: Samantha announced she was expecting her first child with her husband Alex Stoll back in August

The West End star and her husband Alex Stoll announced they were expecting their first child together back in August.

Taking to Instagram, she shared an adorable video of her West Highland Terrier, Ivy's paws covering an ultrasound image of their unborn child.

Samantha and Alex's hands were covering Ivy's paws, as they took turns to remove them from the shot before revealing the scan.

Referencing her dog, Samantha wrote: '@missivybarks is being promoted'.

Samantha then shared a picture of a white basket holding a pair of baby boots and a teddy.

There was a note inside the basket, which read: 'We have been keeping a tiny little secret. Baby Barks Stoll. Due October 2023.'

Alongside the post, Samantha wrote: 'We are so excited to meet you little one.'

The couple were flooded with congratulatory messages from their friends and fans in the comments section of the post.

So cute! Samantha shared a video of her West Highland Terrier, Ivy's paws covering an ultrasound image of their unborn child

Scan: Samantha and Alex's hands were covering Ivy's paws, as they took turns to remove them from the shot before revealing the scan

Babymoon: Since announcing the pregnancy the couple have enjoyed the final stages of pregnancy as they shared some quality time together on the babymoon

Getaway: The pair looked like they were having a wonderful time as they spent some time in the outdoors and indulged in delicious food and afternoon tea

Maternity leave: The musicals star, who played Elsa in the West End adaptation of Disney film Frozen, also received a lovely farewell from her co-stars as they celebrated her last day

Grateful: 'I have had the most beautiful last day at @frozenlondon before I start my maternity leave! Performing as Elsa to 8 months pregnant has been one of the greatest joys of my life'

EastEnders star Jacqueline Jossa and American actress Rachel Zegler both sent their well wishes, with Rachel writing: 'CONGRATS!'

Meanwhile, Irish actress Stephanie McKeon, wrote: 'Woooo!! Ivy is giving big sister extraordinaire! So happy for you guys!!'

Since announcing the pregnancy the couple have enjoyed the final stages of pregnancy as they shared some quality time together on the babymoon.

Joined by Ivy the dog, they headed for a mini break to Ellenborough Park retreat in the Cotswolds for a relaxing holiday pre-baby.

The actress looked positively radiant in snaps as she showcased her growing bump in sweet snaps with Ivy.

The pair looked like they were having a wonderful time as they spent some time in the outdoors and indulged in delicious food and afternoon tea.

Samantha captioned the snap:'Babymooning

'I have wanted to come and stay here for a long time as I had heard how dog friendly they were and they certainly did not disappoint!!

'@missivybarks had the best few days of her life and was spoiled rotten by them. We had such a lovely relaxing time and didnt want to leave!! I highly recommend (especially for all the dog parents out there!!)'

The musicals star, who played Elsa in the West End adaptation of Disney film Frozen, also received a lovely farewell from her co-stars as they celebrated her last day.

Posting a picture of the whole team together, Samantha wrote: 'I have had the most beautiful last day at @frozenlondon before I start my maternity leave! Performing as Elsa to 8 months pregnant has been one of the greatest joys of my life and I am so grateful to @frozenlondon for making it possible and being so supportive every step of the way!!

Incredible: Taking to Instagram Samantha gave fans a sneak-peak of the special day

Quirky! The musicals star went all out for the party with a stunning afternoon tea laid out as well as a three-tiered 'nappy' cake, with two small milk bottles as decoration on top

Attention to detail: Among the food options for the day, guests had the chance to choose from bruschetta, macaroons, cupcakes and intricately designed baby-inspired cookie

'I want to thank this amazing cast for their love and support and for such a glorious year together on and off stage!! This building is truly special and I cant wait to return to Arendelle in the new year!

'Today they threw me a beautiful party to send me on my way for maternity leave and my heart is full to the brim with all the love they have showed me!! Thank you everyone at @frozenlondon  BIG love to @bencirish for the most incredible cake '.

Samantha also shared an inside look into her lavish baby shower at the beginning of August.

The mother-to-be went all out for the party with a stunning afternoon tea laid out as an incredible grazing table.

Among the food options for the day, guests had the chance to choose from bruschetta, macaroons, cupcakes and intricately designed baby-inspired cookies.

There was also a three-tiered 'nappy' cake, with two small milk bottles as decoration on top.

The table was decorated with a stunning selection of white roses and heart-shaped candles.

Samantha even shared that she used her grandmother's afternoon tea china set for the occasion, stunningly adorned with navy blue detailing.
Ashley Benson is expecting her first child with billionaire mid-2000s party boy fiance Brandon Davis according to a new report.

The 33-year-old Pretty Little Liars alum and 44-year-old oil heir- who were engaged earlier this year - are not only planning a wedding but it is claimed that the two are going to be parents soon.

An insider close to Ashley told InTouch Weekly last week: 'Ashley Benson is pregnant. I don't know how far along she is, but she has been showing since at least September.

'She is wearing loose fitting clothes, avoiding photos, and is trying to keep it under wraps.'

DailyMail.com has reached out to reps for Ashley and Brandon and have yet to hear back.

Happy news: Ashley Benson is expecting her first child with billionaire mid-2000s party boy fiance Brandon Davis according to a new report from InTouch Weekly

The source claims that the actress is 'likely a few months pregnant at this point' due to the timeline of their engagement announcement in July.

The insider explained: 'Her inner circle already knows but I'm not sure she will say anything publicly until the baby is born but she is pregnant and excited for this new chapter in her life.'

Us Weekly reported Thursday that Benson 'around the four month [mark] and so excited to be a mom.'

The source continued: 'She's been eating really well and taking care of her body.Ashley's family is also thrilled for her.'

Another insider dished that the pregnancy 'was not a surprise' and that Benson 'wanted to start a family with Brandon.

'It was something that was extremely important to him and was vocalized from the very beginning.

'She initially wasnt expecting to have kids at this time in her life but that changed after falling so deeply in love with him.'

It is a big year for Ashley as she and Brandon got engaged back in July with the billionaire proposing with a massive $800K engagement ring.

The actress  who has dated the likes of rapper G-Eazy and model Cara Delevingne  shared the news by flashing her giant diamond engagement ring on Instagram.

As per her Stories, Brandon proposed to Ashley over a romantic dinner date.

He called her the 'love of my life' in a post on his Instagram Story while Ashley wrote: 'My best frienddddd I love you' in response.

The couple were first romantically linked in January but have been in the same Hollywood circle for years.

'They have a lot of mutual friends and are both super fun and very social people,' a source told PEOPLE in February.

An insider close to Ashley told InTouch Weekly last week: 'Ashley Benson is pregnant. I don't know how far along she is, but she has been showing since at least September. She is wearing loose fitting clothes, avoiding photos, and is trying to keep it under wraps'

Brandon is the grandson of the late oil tycoon Marvin Davis, a billionaire who owned such eye-watering assets as 20th Century Fox and the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Over the years, Brandon has been arrested for battery, cocaine possession and a DUI and has been in treatment for substance abuse twice.

He briefly dated Paris Hilton in the 2000s, and at other times was just a close pal who was often seen with her on the nightclub circuit.

In 2006 Paris was caught cackling on camera while Brandon launched into a scathing diatribe about 'fire-crotch' Lindsay Lohan, whom he said 's***s out freckles.'

'I think she's worth about $7 million, which means she's really poor. It's disgusting,' he sneered, wondering: 'And who would want to f*** her?'

The viral TMZ video marked the beginning of Paris' infamous feud with Lindsay, which finally came to an end only in late 2021.

Brandon dated Mischa Barton from 2004 to 2005, when she was 18 to 19 appearing on The OC and he was 24 to 25.

He was also linked to Brittny Gastineau in 2007, the year after he became a media sensation because of his jabs at Lindsay.

Congrats! Back in July the Pretty Little Liars star revealed her engagement; seen in January

Wow! The actress, 33  who previously dated the likes of rapper G-Eazy and model Cara Delevingne  shared the news by flashing her giant diamond engagement ring on Instagram

As per her Stories, Brandon proposed to Ashley over a romantic dinner date

The couple were first romantically linked in January but have been in the same Hollywood circle for years; seen in April

Ashley was last linked to photographer Sofia Malamute just a few months before taking her relationship with Brandon public.

Ashley seemingly came out as pansexual in 2021 as she told Cosmopolitan UK that 'it's about who I connect with, not gender.'

'I usually keep my relationships private. You obviously can't help if you get photographed together,' she added.

Her relationship with British runway maven Cara is considered her most publicized and adored by fans.

Ashley and the 30-year-old beauty sparked romance rumors in 2018.

They met on the set of Her Smell where they portrayed lovers Cassie and Roxie in nineties riot grrrl band Akergirls.

It's been rumored that Cara is the 'first' girl that Ashley had ever dated.

They mostly kept their relationship out of the public eye and made rare event appearances.

But in May 2019, Ashley and Cara went viral after they were photographed hauling a leather sex bench into their West Hollywood home.

It gave curious fans some insight into their racy love life as they revealed their extremely saucy purchase in photos obtained by DailyMail.com.

Lovers: Ashley's two-year romance with model Cara Delevingne was her most publicized; seen in 2019

End of an era: Cara and Ashley put on a loved-up display while attending Milan Fashion Week in February 2020 (pictured) but they broke-up just a few months later in May

That same month, Ashley was spotted hanging with G-Eazy and they became an on/off item for two years

Fling: She briefly dated Glee hunk Chord Overstreet in 2012 after attending the Teen Choice Awards together (pictured)

Good times: After Chord, Ashley found herself in the throws of an on/off three-year romance with Justin Bieber's close pal Ryan Good; seen in 2015

Nothing official: She was also rumored to have had a secret romance with her Pretty Little Liars co-star but he told Teen Vogue that they 'never officially dated'

Cara and Ashley put on a loved-up display while attending Milan Fashion Week in February 2020 but they broke-up just a few months later in May.

That same month, Ashley was spotted hanging with G-Eazy and subsequently 'liked' an Instagram post confirming to fans that she and Cara were done.

She and G-Eazy had connected while working on music together in quarantine.

After engagement speculation and G-Eazy publicly declaring his 'love' for Ashley, they parted ways in February 2021.

They reconciled the following year and a source told Us Weekly that Ashley and G-Eazy 'like to keep their relationship private.'

Their finite split came sometime in 2022.

After becoming a teen queen of Pretty Little Liars in the mid-2010s, Ashley found herself linked to a number of eligible bachelors.

She briefly dated Glee hunk Chord Overstreet in 2012 after attending the Teen Choice Awards together.

Socialite: He briefly dated Paris Hilton in the 2000s, and at other times was just a close pal who was often seen with her on the nightclub circuit; pictured with Paris and Nicky Hilton in 2006

Actress: Brandon dated Mischa Barton from 2004 to 2005, when she was 18 to 19 appearing on The OC and he was 24 to 25; seen in 2004

Brandon is the grandson of the late oil tycoon Marvin Davis, a billionaire who owned such eye-watering assets as 20th Century Fox and the Beverly Hills Hotel; seen with Nicky Hilton seen in 2003

After Chord, Ashley found herself in the throws of an on/off three-year romance with Justin Bieber's close pal Ryan Good.

They called it quits in 2015.

She was also rumored to have had a secret romance with her Pretty Little Liars co-star but he told Teen Vogue that they 'never officially dated.'

He did admit that 'sometimes the lines blurred a little' while navigating life as co-workers and close pals.

The actor continued: 'We had periods when we felt more for each other, but ultimately we're good buds. For the most part, those rumors made us laugh.'
Sam Armytage is returning to host Farmer Wants A Wife in 2024.

But not all fans are happy with the announcement after Armytage took over main hosting duties this year, demoting former leading lady Natalie Gruzlewski to co-host.

On Wednesday, the show's official Instagram page posted a clip of Sam at the Channel Seven Upfronts in which she talked about the new season of the upcoming dating show.

In the video, Sam shared her excitement as she dished the latest details about the farmers and their suitors.

But longtime viewers seem to be unhappy with Sam's ongoing role, after Natalie was axed as host last year, and they made their feelings clear in the comments.

Sam Armytage (pictured) is returning to host Farmer Wants A Wife in 2024

However, not all fans are happy with the announcement after Armytage took over main hosting duties this year, demoting former leading lady Natalie Gruzlewski (pictured) to co-host

Several fans commented, 'Bring back Nat' as they begged Natalie to return as host.

'NAH, no interest in the show anymore since Nat was rudely given the flick,' added another.

'Bring Natalie [Gruzlewski] back please,' begged yet another.

Channel Seven has confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that Natalie will also be returning to the show in 2024 as co-host of the wildly popular series.

Longtime viewers seem to be unhappy with Sam's ongoing role, after Natalie was axed as host last year, and they made their feelings clear in the comments

'The 2024 season is ready to roll, with more episodes, more farmers, and Samantha Armytage and Natalie Gruzlewski on a quest to find our farmers their one true love,' the network said in a statement.

Daily Mail Australia also contacted Natalie Gruzlewski and Sam Armytage's representatives for comment.

Sam took over hosting duties for FWAW in 2023, replacing Natalie - who still appeared on the show in a diminished role.

Within the first 15 minutes of the show, Natalie, 46, was only featured in several frames, where she interviewed past couples, while Samantha was heavily featured as she introduced the new contestants.

Sam took over hosting duties for FWAW in 2023, replacing Natalie - who still appeared on the show in a diminished role

Sam joined the dating show as a 'guest host' last year, but her minor role has now been expanded while Natalie is 'scaling back' her duties.

Natalie presented her own segment called 'Nat's Getaway' during the 2023 season, with Sam 'front and centre' as the face of the franchise.

An insider told New Idea recently that Sam had successfully won over network executives by transferring her presenting skills to the reality TV realm.

'She is now in a place to get just about anything she wants from hereon in,' they said.

They added Sam was an ambitious woman who was already considering further opportunities with Seven after switching from breakfast show Sunrise to FWAW.

'Sam has plans afoot. She's cleverly stayed on the network's radar knowing if she landed and nailed a lead role like in FWAW then doors would open.'
Big Brother contestants Zak Srakaew and Paul Blackburn left their housemates shocked as they revealed what is top of their to do list when they leave the house.

Chatting on Wednesday's episode, the two guys revealed their raunchy plans for when they leave the reality series.

And it seems both men are thinking along the same lines as they revealed sex is their top priority after the show.

As Zak asked his co-star how he'll celebrate after the show and Paul responded: 'First thing did you say? Um.. sh*g.'

The model from Manchester agreed with the Liverpudlian security officer as he said: 'Yeah I'm going to go and see the boys. See my Mrs, sh*g, then go see the boys and then go home and sh*g again.'

Stunned: Big Brother Zak and Paul left the housemates shocked in Wednesday's episode as they revealed the first thing they plan to do after leaving the show

Shock: It seems both men are thinking along the same lines as they revealed sex is their top priority after the show

The reference to his girlfriend comes after fans insisted they spotted a potential romance with him and Noky Simbani.

The pair were spotted getting cosy in the bedroom during last weeks challenge when the housemates were tasked with lying in a giant bed as long as they could without getting up or falling asleep.

While lying in the bed during the task, fans noticed Noky running her fingers through Zak's hair as they lay together during the challenge.

After clocking the moment, one person said: 'Zak and Noky think we couldn't see them, let the showmance cook!'

Another said: 'I feel like Zak and Noky are well suited ngl.'

Zak joins Henry as the two latest nominees to be up for eviction ahead of Friday's public vote.

Zak received five nominations from Hallie, Kerry, Chanelle, Jenkin and Henry.

Meanwhile, Henry received four nominations from Dylan, Olivia, Noky and Jenkin.

Lads: As Zak asked his co-star how he'll celebrate after the show and Paul responded: 'First thing did you say? Um.. sh*g'

Joking around: 'Yeah I'm going to go and see the boys. See my Mrs, sh*g, then go see the boys and then go home and sh*g again,' revealed Zak

Getting cosy: Fans noticed sparks between Zak and Noky during last week's episode as Noky ran her fingers through Zak's hair as they lay together during the challenge

Jenkin accused Zak of being 'disingenuous' as he nominated him for his second vote whilst Henry said he struggled to connect on a 'deeper level' with him.

Paul's name was also thrown into the mix as Trish called him out for his lack of deep conversation.

The latest nominations come after it was reported that Big Brother are 'reviewing' an incident which saw housemate Kerry use a 'derogatory' gay slur during a tantrum.

During Monday's live broadcast, the NHS manager, 40, expressed her frustration by using an 'awful, outdated' comment after her fellow co-stars played a prank on her.

Split into two teams, throughout the day, housemates competed in various tasks, giving them the chance to become VIP Glampers and win a more luxurious camping experience.

Kerry secured her spot in the VIP area during the shopping task, but her fellow contestants decided to hide her mattress.

Joking Olivia and Jenkin told Kerry that fans at home had voted for one housemate to lose their luxury bed.

Expressing her anger at the situation, she complained to her co-stars and exclaimed: 'Well, this is gay.'

ITV told The Daily Star that they are 'reviewing' the situation following viewer's complaints.

MailOnline has contacted Big Brother representatives for comment.
Hugh Jackman was spotted stepping out for a walk in New York City on Wednesday.

The Australian actor, 55, took himself out for a casual stroll around the world famous Greenwich Village.

He wore a tight black polo, showing off his bulging, vein-covered biceps, black pants, and black shoes.

As he strode down the sidewalk holding his phone in one hand and a drink bottle in the other, he completed his look with a pair of wide-rimmed spectacles.

The dashing Hollywood star has been traveling all over the globe lately enjoying single life ever since his shock split from wife Deborra-Lee Furness.

Hugh Jackman (pictured) took himself out for a casual stroll around the world famous Greenwich Village. He wore a tight black polo, showing off his bulging, vein-covered biceps, black pants, and black shoes

As the 55-year-old Hollywood star strode down the sidewalk holding his phone in one hand and a drink bottle in the other, he completed his look with a pair of wide-rimmed spectacles

It comes as Jackman is said to be preparing to release a new tell-all memoir following his breakup.

According to US Weekly, the Australian actor is currently in the early stages of writing a tell-all book.

His new memoir is set to feature details of his life and 'bombshell' revelations.

'Hugh is choosing to [write this book] now because he's finally [being] honest with himself and the divorce,' an insider said.

Jackman is 'in the early stages of writing new bombshell memoir' following his separation

'The content will be Hugh speaking about his life. He'll be opening up about his life like never before.'

Hugh and Deborra-Lee shocked fans when they announced they were divorcing after 27 years of marriage last month.

'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.

His new memoir is set to feature details of his life and 'bombshell' revelations

'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.

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.
Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed her future plans after building her multimillion-dollar wellness and lifestyle company Goop.

The American actress, 51, told Bustle this week, she would eventually like to enjoy a 'more relaxed lifestyle'.

'I will literally disappear from public life. No one will ever see me again,' she said.

'We as women are so programmed to be busy. It's like a badge of honour, and we've all bought this thing from the patriarchy hook, line, and sinker that we have to be busy and overperforming.'

The bombshell comes as Gwyneth prepares to help Australian radio star Jackie 'O' Henderson launch her business venture, Besties.

Gwyneth Paltrow dropped a career bombshell as she prepares to help Jackie O Henderson launch her new business venture Besties

'I'd like to move into the next phase more from a place of discovery and gentleness. To let life unfold, as opposed to 'I'm not doing enough,' Paltrow admitted in the interview.

She explained she starts to feel 'anxious' if she takes a weekend off because she is not used to 'just sitting down and daydreaming'.

Henderson recently revealed Gwyneth's pivotal role in her events business' debut this month.

In a post to Jackie's official Instagram account in July, she wrote the Oscar winner was 'coming to Sydney this October for an exclusive visit to the @bestiesau stage.'

And her co-host Kyle Sandilands revealed he played a part in landing the A-lister, by 'charming' Paltrow during a dinner in New York.

'Did she remember the dinner we had with her in New York?' asked Kyle after his co-host's bombshell announcement.

'She did. It was one of the reasons she said yes [to Besties] actually,' Jackie revealed.

The American actress told Bustle this week, she would eventually like to enjoy a 'more relaxed lifestyle'. 'I will literally disappear from public life. No one will ever see me again,' she said

'Because of my charm?' asked Kyle, to laughter from Jackie.

'She knew we'd have a good time on stage together,' Jackie said, before saying their conversation would cover topics including her Goop business, Hollywood career, and sex.

The event will take place on Friday, October 27.

The radio queen launched the new business with her close friend Gemma O'Neill which 'celebrates the most important relationship in your life - your best friend'.

Besties appears to be an event-based business which sells experiences for 'best friends' to create memories together.
Kourtney Kardashian flaunted her substantial baby bump while clad in only a black bra and panties in an autumn-themed Instagram slideshow she posted on Wednesday.

The expecting 44-year-old enjoyed a long-awaited romantic reunion with her neighbor-turned-husband Travis Barker, who's recovering from gnarly knuckle injuries sustained while on tour in England.

Tuesday marked the second anniversary of the SoCal natives' Malibu beach engagement before they tied the knot over three wedding ceremonies in 2022 - April 4, May 15, and May 22 - after a whirlwind 16-month romance.

The 47-year-old Blink-182 drummer pulled out all the stops to surprise Kourtney by filling her $8.5M six-bedroom Calabasas mansion inside the Estates at the Oaks with hundreds of red roses and lit black candles on Tuesday.

Kourtney and Travis - collectively known as 'Kravis' - then cuddled up in her backyard for a screening of their favorite movie True Romance.

Baby on board! Kourtney Kardashian flaunted her substantial baby bump while clad in only a black bra and panties in an autumn-themed Instagram slideshow she posted on Wednesday

In fact, the Barkers love Tony Scott's critically-acclaimed 1993 cult classic penned by Quentin Tarantino so much they dressed up like the main characters played by Patricia Arquette and Christian Slater for Halloween 2021.

The DTA Records founder even named his 17-year-old daughter Alabama Luella Barker (with ex-ife #2 Shanna Moakler) after the call girl character Alabama Whitman.

Travis and The Kardashians producer-star - who each have three children from prior relationships - will soon welcome their first child together, a son.

Kourtney - who boasts 277M social media followers - also shared a snap of some tulips she received from her 11-year-old daughter Penelope Scotland Disick (with babydaddy Scott Disick), whose attached note read: 'I hope you feel better Mom! Love, P.'

'I still don't have a birth plan except for talking to the baby all the time and telling him "Everything is going to be amazing,"' Kardashian told Vogue on Tuesday of her geriatric pregnancy.

'I've finally been able to let go of the fear and worry that everybody else put in us because of this pregnancy. I'm ready to go in, have the baby, and have the experience we're meant to have.'

The Lemme founder will next release Mama, a $40 prenatal multivitamin with Choline to 'support baby's development from pre-conception to pregnancy to recovery and nursing' dropping on November 2.

Kourtney is hoping her new supplement gets a better reception than her pineapple-flavored Purr probiotic gummies falsely claiming to sweeten the taste of women's vaginas, which were blasted as 'unethical' by OB-GYNs and health experts in February.

Spooning: The expecting 44-year-old enjoyed a long-awaited romantic reunion with her neighbor-turned-husband Travis Barker, who's recovering from gnarly knuckle injuries sustained while on tour in England

'Forever': Tuesday marked the second anniversary of the SoCal natives' Malibu beach engagement (pictured in 2021) before they tied the knot over three wedding ceremonies in 2022 - April 4, May 15, and May 22 - after a whirlwind 16-month romance

Teary emoji: The 47-year-old Blink-182 drummer pulled out all the stops to surprise Kourtney by filling her $8.5M six-bedroom Calabasas mansion inside the Estates at the Oaks with hundreds of red roses and lit black candles on Tuesday

The 'I love you' scene! Kourtney and Travis - collectively known as 'Kravis' - then cuddled up in her backyard for a screening of their favorite movie True Romance

Throwback! In fact, the Barkers love Tony Scott's critically-acclaimed 1993 cult classic penned by Quentin Tarantino so much they dressed up like the main characters played by Patricia Arquette and Christian Slater for Halloween 2021

Will their miracle child be named 'Rocky 13'? The DTA Records founder even named his 17-year-old daughter Alabama Luella Barker (R, pictured July 19) after the call girl character Alabama Whitman

Sneak peek at the nursery! Travis and The Kardashians producer-star - who each have three children from prior relationships - will soon welcome their first child together, a son

Kourtney also shared a snap of some tulips she received from her 11-year-old daughter Penelope Scotland Disick (with babydaddy Scott Disick), whose attached note read: 'I hope you feel better Mom! Love, P'

Kardashian told Vogue on Tuesday: 'I still don't have a birth plan except for talking to the baby all the time and telling him "Everything is going to be amazing." I've finally been able to let go of the fear and worry that everybody else put in us because of this pregnancy. I'm ready to go in, have the baby, and have the experience we're meant to have'

'It's so deeply personal to me': The Lemme founder will next release Mama, a $40 prenatal multivitamin with Choline to 'support baby's development from pre-conception to pregnancy to recovery and nursing' dropping on November 2

'London Here We Come': Kourtney currently executive produces and stars in her famous family's 10-episode fourth season of The Kardashians, which airs Thursdays on Hulu

Meanwhile, Columbia will release Blink-182's ninth studio album One More Time... this Friday

Still touring! Barker's Grammy-nominated rock band - including bassist-vocalist Mark Hoppus and guitarist-vocalist Tom DeLonge - will next bring their 93-date Blink-182 world tour to the Las Vegas Fairgrounds this Saturday and Sunday (pictured July 7)

Kardashian currently executive produces and stars in her famous family's 10-episode fourth season of The Kardashians, which airs Thursdays on Hulu.

On May 7, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians spin-off triumphantly won the best docu-reality series trophy at the 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards.

The half-Armenian socialite was the first member of her family to star in a reality show - The Simple Life-inspired eight-episode series Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive, which aired in 2005 on E!

Meanwhile, Columbia will release Blink-182's ninth studio album One More Time... this Friday.

Barker's Grammy-nominated rock band - including bassist-vocalist Mark Hoppus and guitarist-vocalist Tom DeLonge - will next bring their 93-date Blink-182 world tour to the Las Vegas Fairgrounds this Saturday and Sunday.

From October 23-February 7, the heavily-tattooed musician will be on break to enjoy the new baby until they kick off the Australian leg of their tour at the RAC Arena in Perth on February 8.
Kristen Stewart has been out promoting the new paranormal show Living For The Dead, which follows LGBTQ+ ghost hunters exploring some of the worlds most infamous haunted locations.

The Hollywood leading lady serves as the executive producer, alongside her fiancee Dylan Meyer, and narrator of the eight episode ghost-hunting docuseries that's now streaming on Hulu.

On Wednesday, Stewart appeared to be business mode when she was spotted seemingly moments before making her way to a meeting in the Soho neighborhood of Downtown Manhattan.

She looked to be in great spirits, if the big beaming smile on her face was any indication.

TCB: Kristen Stewart, 33, looked stylish when she headed out to take care of some business in the Soho neighborhood of Downtown Manhattan on Wednesday

On this day, Stewart looked business ready in a black-white plaid blazer over a black bra, along with a black skort and matching leather shoes and socks.

The Oscar-nominated actress accessorized in the skort suit by BETTTER with an assortment of rings, a necklace and light-lens sunglasses, all while she carried a stylish black purse.

Rounding out her overall look, the Charlie's Angels actress had her tresses dyed a darker shade and pulled back off her face, styled over her ears, in a messy look.

Eventually, Los Angeles native came back out the same doors and back to the bustling streets of New York City with a big smile on her face.

After being approached by several people for a selfie or autograph, a man stepped in and helped usher her off to her next destination without too many interruptions.

Stewart looked to be going about her day solo, as there was no sign of Meyer, whom she has been engaged to for about two years.

Meyer and Stewart were first romantically linked in summer 2019, but the couple actually met six years before on a movie set (most likely Camp X-Ray) and then reconnected through a mutual friend, sparking a whirlwind romance.

"The day that I met her, it was like all bets were off," Stewart said during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show in November 2019.

Stylish: The Hollywood leading lady made her way to her destination in a black-and-white plaid blazer over a black bra and matching short, shoes and socks

Eventually Stewart reappeared, seemingly after a meeting, and was greeted by fans and people looking to snap a photo or get an autograph

Glowing: The actress flashed an infectious smile as she made her way back out to the bustling streets of Downtown Manhattan in the skort suit by BETTTER

New gig: Stewart has been out promoting the new paranormal show Living For The Dead, which follows LGBTQ+ ghost hunters exploring some of the worlds most infamous haunted locations

Following in the footsteps of her screenwriter father, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Nicholas Meyer, Meyer has racked up numerous credits both as a writer and actress, most recently having worked on the screenplay for Amy Poehler's 2021 coming-of-age Netflix film, Moxie.

Her writing resume also includes Loose Ends (2015) and XOXO (2016), which stars Modern Family's Sarah Hyland, as well as eight episodes of the comedy series Miss 2059 (2017-2018).

Hailing from the creators of Queer Eye, Meyer and Stewart have been working behind-the-scenes on their friend CJ Romero's Living For The Dead.

The series follows five LGBTQ+ ghost hunters roaming the country. Dubbed 'Ghost Hunties,' theyll explore various haunted locations as they push the boundaries between the living and the dead. Along with Le May and Taylor, the ghost-hunting team also includes Juju Bae, Ken Boggle and Roz Hernandez.

The cast work together to investigate locations that includes Copper Queen Hotel, Waverly Hills Sanatorium, the Clown Hotel, Palace Theater and the Palomino, according to People.

Partnering up: Stewart serves as narrator and executive producer, alongside fiancee Dylan Meyer, on the new Hulu docuseries Living For The Dead

Item: The couple started dating in 2019, six years after first meeting on a set, and have been engaged for about two years

'Its so cool and enlivening that me and my best friend CJ Romero had this funny idea, and now it's a show,' Stewart said in a statement, as reported by Bloody Disgusting.

She went on to reveal that the show started as 'a bit of a hypothetical silly pipe dream, and now I am so proud to have shepherded something that is as moving and meaningful as it is truly a gay old time.'

Commending the cast, she said they 'make me laugh and cry and they had the courage and heart to take us places I wouldn't go by myself.'

She ended the statement by sharing how it's been a 'cool maiden voyage' for the company she started with Meyer and Maggie McLean.

'This is just the beginning for us and for Living for the Dead,' Stewart said, adding, 'We wanna one day have traipsed across the entire spooky a** country. Maybe the world!'
Abbie Chatfield has made an impassioned plea to her fans to donate to Indigenous charities in the wake of The Voice referendum being defeated on Saturday.

The reality TV star, 28, posted to Instagram on Wednesday and told fans she wanted to rally support for Indigenous causes over the next few days.

'In light of the Referendum being defeated, my stories for the next few days are going to focus on some charities that help First Nations people in Australia,' she began.

'I'll give you a summary of what they do and why and provide a link. If you can't donate, share and reflect on why these charities even need to exist.

She then posted information about several Indigenous charities to her Stories, including Djirra, Children's Ground and Coota Girls.

Abbie Chatfield (pictured) has made an impassioned plea to her fans to donate to Indigenous charities, in the wake of The Voice referendum being defeated on Saturday

'If you have any suggestions for other charities that help First Nations people, please DM me and I will share,' she added.

Abbie's appeal comes after Australia voted No to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament - with every single state rejecting the proposal and only the ACT voting Yes.

And celebrities who voted Yes have shared their devastation online, with many posting to social media to decry the decision.

The reality TV star, 28, posted to Instagram on Wednesday

Abbie led the sad posts, writing: 'Heartbreaking. Unfortunately I'm not shocked. Australia has shown its true colours.

'Sending love to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. Worried for the fallout of this.'

Meanwhile actress Magda Szubanski, 62, took to social media on Saturday shortly after the referendum was called to post a heartbreaking message of support to First Nations people.

Chatfield then posted information about several Indigenous charities to her Stories, including Djirra, Children's Ground and Coota Girls

'I'm so deeply saddened this has been the result. To all our beautiful First Nations people My heart goes out to you tonight I wish this had been different,' she began.

'Please know that there are millions of us who love and treasure and support you, that we hear your Voice and we will continue to walk with you.'

ABC election guru Antony Green first called Tasmania for the No camp shortly after 7pm AEST, followed by New South Wales about 7.15pm and South Australia about 7.25pm.

Australia voted 60-40 in favour of No to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament on Saturday - with every single state rejecting the proposal and only the ACT voting Yes.
Gina Rodriguez enjoyed some quality time with her bundle of joy, her seven-month-old son Charlie.

The Jane The Virgin actress, 39, welcomed her baby boy with husband Joe LoCicero in March, and looked as happy as can be with the newborn in her arms.

She wore a grey 'Los Angeles' sweat suit, her hair pulled up into a bun, and smart spectacles over her eyes.

The actress was spotted with her baby in the City of Angels on Wednesday.

She strolled across the pavement with a backpack slung onto her shoulders and her feet slipped into pristine white sneakers.

Mommy and me! Gina Rodriguez enjoyed quality time with her bundle of joy, her seven-month-old son Charlie, in Los Angeles on Wednesday

Her youngster adorably checked out his surroundings with a curious eye as he hitched a ride in his mother's arms.

Gina is best known for playing the title role on the acclaimed CW series Jane The Virgin from 20142019.

It was in 2016 that Jane and Joe met on set, and by 2018 she revealed that they were engaged. The lovebirds married in 2019.

Speaking about parenthood back in April, Gina told People: 'I'm like in newborn heaven, honestly.

'He's completely developing and evolving every single day. It went from him not making eye contact to making eye contact, him not smiling to smiling.'

'He's starting to giggle. Every day is a new something. I swear, sometimes it's a nap and he wakes up and there's a new something, and you're just mind-blown,' she said.

'He's so freaking adorable, and you just want to eat him up.'

This past Father's Day Gina paid a gushing tribute to the 'love of her life' as she shared adorable snaps of Joe with their son.

Oh boy! The youngster adorably gazed at his surroundings as he hitched a ride in his mother's arms

'I knew it when I met you that I found a man like no other. When I walked down the aisle and you cried tears of joy, I knew I found someone extra special. I knew a great man would make a great dad.

'I dont know much but I know Charlie and I are two of the luckiest people in the world to have you. To the love of my life, my best friend, the man who makes me laugh every single day and made me a mama, HAPPY FATHERS DAY! @joe_locicero,' she posted.

Joe has tried a variety of trades, including acting and modeling, and he has even worked as an MMA fighter.

So cute! This past Father's Day Gina paid a gushing tribute to the 'love of her life' as she shared adorable snaps of Joe LoCicero with their son

Aww: Jane shared precious snaps of her husband with their newborn in honor of Father's Day

In January 2016, Gina confessed on The Ellen DeGeneres show that her time starring on Jane The Virgin had given her baby fever.

'I feel like they bring the baby [playing her son] up to me and my ovaries are like, "Ahhhh, come here baby!"' she joked to the host.

At the time, she said she was considering adoption so as to avoid the 'whole process' that comes with pregnancy.

'I want one. So bad. I do, but I dont want the whole process,' she admitted. 'I just want one to arrive like the stork conversation, right?'
Raquel Leviss revealed she raised $14,800 for charity, after selling off 'triggering' possessions related to her ex Tom Sandoval.

The Vanderpump Rules star, 29, announced earlier this month that she was putting up a necklace and two hoodies on sale, with proceeds going to the National Alliance of Mental Illness.

The auction ended on Tuesday, and Raquel's rep revealed the amount she received for the Sandoval goodies.

The reality TV personality made $5,300 for a lightning bolt necklace, and $9,500 for the two hoodies, for a total of $14,800, her rep told People.

Leviss wore the infamous lightning bolt necklace amid her months-long affair with ex Sandoval, 40, last year.

Auction: Raquel Leviss, 29, revealed she raised $14,800 for charity, after selling off 'triggering' possessions related to her ex Tom Sandoval, 40; seen in 2021

Scandoval: The Vanderpump Rules star - who had an affair with Sandoval - announced earlier this month that she was putting up a few items on sale; seen with Sandoval and his then girlfriend Ariana Madix

Raquel announced the auction earlier this month.

While in 'the process of letting go' of possessions that 'no longer serve' her, the star told her more than 633,000 Instagram followers that a few of the most well-known Scandoval pieces are available for purchase.

'I'm cleaning out my closet, I have found a few items that are a little bit triggering,' she said in a video, uploaded to her social media accounts.

While speaking about the items that she listed on eBay, the TV personality confessed that she never wants to 'see them' or 'wear them again.'

'In honor of World Mental Health Day today, I am creating a fundraiser all of the proceeds will go to NAMI, which is the National Alliance of Mental Illness, and it's all about like creating a better mindset, changing your environment, so that you can set yourself up for success,' she explained.

Leviss proceeded to provide a link to her 14K gold lightning bolt necklace, from Caitlin Nicole Jewelry, which retails for $765.

'This necklace was symbolic of my devotion to another person who I allowed to have power over me. He no longer does,' she wrote on the listing.

Meanwhile, her two TomTom hoodies are going for $7,100.

An infamous accessory: The reality TV personality made $5,300 for her infamous 14K gold lightning bolt necklace from Caitlin Nicole Jewelry

A coveted item: She also made $9,500 for her two TomTom hoodies

Triggering: 'I'm cleaning out my closet, I have found a few items that are a little bit triggering,' she said in a video, uploaded to her social media accounts earlier this month

Symbolic: While Sandoval and Leviss' managed to keep their fling under wraps from the public and their closest friends, they seemed to keep each other close by rocking gold lightning bolt pendants; seen in 2021

The infamous three tone topaz on black TomTom hoodie is the one she wore to day three of Bravo-Con.

'[It] is also the same style hoodie I boldly gave to Andy Cohen on WWHL the night everything blew up in my face,' she reminded fans in its description. 'I added the black hoodie to the listing since it is more worn and not in pristine condition.'

She also offered to sign the sweaters upon request.

As for what prompted her to donate the proceeds to charity, Leviss remarked that while she 'cant rewrite history' but 'can use something from' her 'darkest days towards a good cause.'

She went on to inform her followers that all money earned will be given to National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), which offers educational programs and advocates for individuals and families affected by mental illness.'

When news broke of her affair with Sandoval, behind his then girlfriend Ariana Madix's back, social media sleuths discovered a number of obvious signs that the duo were 'hooking up' and 'communicating inappropriately for months.'

While Sandoval and Leviss' managed to keep their fling under wraps from the public and their closest friends, they seemed to keep each other close by rocking gold lightning bolt pendants.

While Sandoval wears the accessory almost daily, Leviss only began wearing a similar necklace last year, months after they began seeing each other.

According to a Reddit user, who claimed to be a friend of the former pageant queen, the jewelry was used by the couple to say 'I love you' to each other.

She was photographed in the necklace several times on social media and at BravoCon in October 2022.

Blocked! Leviss is continuing to distance herself from Sandoval, four months after their split. In response to his groveling birthday message underneath her latest Instagram post in September, she blocked her former lover from contacting her on the platform

Split: The pair split during her stay at a mental health facility, after receiving public backlash over their affair, which ended his nine-year relationship with their Vanderpump Rules costar Ariana; (L-R) Madix, Sandoval, Leviss and Tom Schwartz

As for the TomTom hoodie, Sandoval wore a similar one while dressed up as Leviss for Halloween last year.

Leviss is continuing to distance herself from Sandoval, four months after their split.

In response to his groveling birthday message underneath her latest Instagram post in September, she blocked her former lover from contacting her on the platform.

In his bizarre comment, Sandoval wrote: 'Happy birthday Rachel, I really hope you're finding peace and happiness. Miss u friend.'

Following his attempt at an olive branch, she shared a screenshot of his Instagram page, on her Instagram Story, which showed a red circle with a slash around his profile picture and a hot pink sticker on it, which read: 'Ok bye!'

The pair split four months ago, during her stay at a mental health facility, after receiving public backlash over their affair, which ended his nine-year relationship with their Vanderpump Rules costar Ariana.
Heather Rae El Moussa took to Instagram on Wednesday with a 'bittersweet' parenting update.

The reality TV star, 36 - who has proudly shared her son's milestones with her fans - revealed she's a 'little sad' because Tristan, eight months, no longer wants to breastfeed.

The Selling Sunset beauty posted two sweet snaps with her little one, along with a lengthy caption as she explained her breastfeeding journey.

'8 1/2 months postpartum. As I write this, my heart is full but also my mama heart is a little sad because my big boy does not want to breast-feed anymore.'

'It's bittersweet for me because breast-feeding as a new mommy was something I grew to love - I love the bond, the skin to skin, the cuddles, and if Im being honest, it would have been harder for me to make the decision to stop.'

Bittersweet: Heather Rae El Moussa, 36, took to Instagram on Wednesday to share she's a 'little sad' because her son Tristan, eight months, no longer wants to breastfeed

She went on: 'About 2 1/2 weeks ago, Tristan started to get un-interested & would just pull away and blow bubbles but he would still end up enjoying our morning feeds until today.

'And I dont want to force him so Im trusting the process, like I have from the start. I will still offer it to him but hes a busy boy these days & is just so distracted.'

'I do want to say that Im really proud of myself that I made it this long. I passed my goal of 4 months, then 6 months, and Im proud of my Tristan bear,' Heather continued.

'Breast-feeding was something that was initially hard for him when he was just a newborn because he struggled with his tongue, cheek, & lip ties. But we were a team. It definitely wasnt the easiest process and I had so many tearful nights & stressful times.'

'Breastfeeding is so freaking hard to begin with and there was many times I wondered if I was drying up or wondering if he was getting enough milk.'

'But at the end of the day, Im so proud of us and so proud of all the mothers out there - no matter how long or short you decide to breastfeed or breastfed at all because you are incredible and I hope you never feel (or felt) ashamed or let anyone judge you for YOUR process.'

She wrapped up the caption writing: 'Sending so much love & strength to all the mamas out there that are in the thick of it. Im here for you because I myself have gone though it all.'

Heather also shared two snaps of her and her little one to her Instagram Stories, that saw him drinking milk from a bottle.

'Sad': '8 1/2 months postpartum. As I write this, my heart is full but also my mama heart is a little sad because my big boy does not want to breast-feed anymore,' she wrote

Bond: 'It's bittersweet for me because breast-feeding as a new mommy was something I grew to love - I love the bond, the skin to skin, the cuddles, and if Im being honest, it would have been harder for me to make the decision to stop'

Milestones: Heather has kept her fans updated with Tristan's milestones. In July she took to her social media to inform her followers that Tristan tried real food for the first time

Adorable: The star shares Tristan with her husband Tarek El Moussa, 41. They welcomed the adorable baby boy in January

Blended family: Tarek also shares daughter Taylor, 12, and son Brayden, seven, with ex-wife Christina Hall, 40

'I will miss it, but I'm so proud of us,' she wrote.

The star shares Tristan with her husband Tarek El Moussa, 41. They welcomed the adorable baby boy in January.

Terek took to Heather's comments and left three red hearts on her candid post.

Heather has kept her fans updated with Tristan's milestones.

In July she took to her social media to inform her followers that Tristan tried real food for the first time.

Sharing a number of photos to her Instagram and a video of the special moment to her TikTok she wrote, 'Our big man had real food today!!! Seriously cherishing these memories & moments forever. it was so cute seeing T eat food.'

She went on: 'After reading up on it we decided to lead with something less sweet first since babies tend to like sweets (obviously lol) so he tried organic mashed avocado first and he absolutely LOVED it.'

'He kept grabbing the spoon and wanting more. After that we tried organic pureed butternut squash with veryy small amount of cinnamon, and he also loved it and kept wanting more.'

Renewed: It comes after their show The Flipping El Moussas was renewed for a second season on HGTV

It comes after their show The Flipping El Moussas was renewed for a second season on HGTV.

In fact, the network has such faith in the couple and their house flipping ways that they have expanded the episode order from eight to 14 for season two.

'During the new season, the couple will face unexpected challenges both professionally and personally, including welcoming a new baby and contending with strong headwinds from the tumultuous southern California real estate market,' the statement from HGTV read.

'Despite it all, this new family of five will still make time for fun family celebrations, while the couple solidifies their working relationship in an unpredictable economy.'

Season two of The Flipping El Moussas is expected to land in early 2024.

Tarek rose to fame alongside his ex-wife Christina Hall, 40, on HGTV's Flip or Flop, which ran for 10 seasons. Together they share daughter Taylor, 12, and son Brayden.
Scott Disick wore his Star of David necklace while out in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

The reality star, who was raised Jewish, was spotted departing Polacheck's Jewelers in Calabasas in the company of a security guard.

Scott, 40, donned a black T-shirt, colorful tie-dye shorts, white sneakers, and smart sunglasses. His brunette hair was slicked back away from his head.

The Kardashians favorite looked cool, calm and collected as strolled down the path with his hands plunged into his pockets and a flashy watch adorning his wrist.

His security personnel kept an eye out as he led the way for the E! alum.

Stepping out: Scott Disick wore his Star of David necklace while stepping out in Los Angeles on Wednesday

Scott has yet to comment on the Israel-Hamas war, though he has proudly worn his Star of David necklace on TV and his Instagram in the past.

On a recent episode of The Kardashians, Scott wore the necklace in what appeared to be a response to Kanye West's anti-Semitic rants.

On the episode, Kris Jenner told Scott just how much she loved his Star of David and Chrome Heart necklaces during a visit to her house.

'I have to represent for my Jews these days,' Scott replied. However, he didn't specifically mention West during the exchange.

And earlier this year, he documented his Passover celebrations at home.

The entrepreneur posted a few pictures to his Instagram Story that showed his three kids enjoying bowls of matzo ball soup and fresh challah.

Wearing traditional yarmulkes, Scott and his kids spent some quality time together as they observed the sacred Jewish holiday.

The reality star shares sons Mason, 13, Reign, eight, and daughter Penelope, 11, with his former long-term partner Kourtney Kardashian.

Style: The Kardashians favorite looked cool, calm and collected as strolled down the path with his hands plunged into his pockets and a flashy watch adorning his wrist

Follow the leader: His security personnel kept an eye out as he led the way for the E! alum

Showing it off: Disick has proudly worn his Star of David necklace on TV and in Instagram posts

Holiday feast: And earlier this year, he documented his Passover celebrations at home

Scott first rocketed to fame alongside the Kardashians-Jenners when he appeared on their iconic reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which documented his tumultuous on/off relationship with Kourtney.

Disick appears to be in on the joke of his image as he has been making a fortune with his latest venture, a fashion brand called Talentless.

Scott started his clothing line in 2018, describing it as a 'big F**K YOU to everybody in the world that basically said that anybody that was in the reality business 10, 15 years ago didn't have talent.'

In addition to Talentless, he is also makes 'a lot of money' running a collection of vitamin and tanning companies such as QuickTrim and Monte Carlo Perpetual Tan.
Kim Kardashian's character emerged as a sinister behind-the-scenes plotter on Wednesday's episode of American Horror Story: Delicate on FX.

The 42-year-old reality star portrays brassy publicist Siobhan Corbyn on season 12 of the anthology horror series that follows indie actress Anna Victoria Alcott [Emma Roberts] while she tries to have a baby via IVF.

Siobhan raised red flags while having dinner with Hamish Moss [Dominic Burgess], the director of Anna's critically acclaimed breakout film The Auteur, as part of their secret affair.

'Darling,' Hamish said to Siobhan at the table while she was looking at her phone.

'Ew, don't call me that,' Siobhan said.

Sinister character: Kim Kardashian 's character emerged as a sinister behind-the-scenes plotter on Wednesday's episode of American Horror Story: Delicate on FX

'Could you put down your phone, if only just for the rest of the meal?,' Hamish asked.

He then grabbed Siobhan's phone and said, 'Thirty seconds, that's all I ask.'

'Do you realize there's hundreds of millions of dollars in deals in your hand right now?,' Siobhan said.

'But there is nothing more valuable than human connection,' Hamish countered.

'I already came over here for dinner with you. As if we're like ...a couple. And now I have to f***ing listen to you talk? That's way too much to ask of me, Hamish,' Siobhan bluntly said.

'You know something? Just answer my question and I will give it back,' Hamish said.

'Are you f***ing kidding me?,' Siobhan yelled.

'Tell me the truth,' Hamish demanded.

Anthology series: The 42-year-old reality star portrays brassy publicist Siobhan Corbyn on season 12 of the anthology horror series

Indie actress: American Horror Story: Delicate follows indie actress Anna Victoria Alcott [Emma Roberts ] while she tries to have a baby via IVF

Dinner date: Siobhan raised red flags while having dinner with Hamish Moss [Dominic Burgess], the director of Anna's critically acclaimed breakout film The Auteur, as part of their secret affair

Expensive phone: 'Do you realize there's hundreds of millions of dollars in deals in your hand right now?,' Siobhan said as Hamish grabbed her phone

'About what?,' Siobhan asked.

'That film script you gave me just over a year ago. The one you told me to put my name on, and direct without any other information whatsoever, including who wrote it, and how you got your hands on it. That film. Which everyone told me, including my own agents, would go absolutely nowhere, especially if I cast Anna Victoria Alcott, who you insisted upon, is now a frontline awards contender and has been nominated for no less than 11 Golden Globes,' Hamish said.

'Why are you saying that like it's a bad thing?,' Siobhan said.

'What the f*** is going on, Siobhan? And who the hell are you?,' Hamish said.

Siobhan answered him only with an icy stare.

Anna later watched the Golden Globes at home after her travel was restricted due to doctor's orders.

Her awards season rival Babette Eno won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for her work in Daddy, Do You Love Me.

'Um, I can't believe I'm even up here. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the amazing shoulders I've been privileged to stand on. My fellow nominees, thank you for paving the way for me. Anna Victoria Alcott...,' Babette said during her victory speech as Anna watched and coughed up blood at home.

Anna heard ominous laughing followed by a call from Siobhan.

'Shouldn't you be at the Golden Globes with your new f***ing client?,' Anna said, referencing Siobhan's other client Babette.

'Look, I'm disappointed, too. But I'm gonna ask you something. Do you want an Oscar?,' Siobhan said.

'You know I do,' Anna answered.

'Do you want it as much as a baby?,' Siobhan asked.

'Yes,' Anna replied.

'Are you willing to do whatever I say to get it?,' Siobhan said.

'Yes,' Anna answered.

'Good. I'll call you in the morning,' Siobhan said as she hung up.

A hand then suddenly covered Anna's mouth as she screamed and in the next scene her husband Dexter Harding [Matt Czuchry] was gently waking her up.

'What's wrong?,' Anna asked.

Dexter sat next to her on the bed and showed her his phone that had a breaking news story with the headline 'Golden Globe Winner Babette Eno Decapitated In Car Crash'.

Anna gasped while reading the story and then looked at her phone to see that her publicist and friend Siobhan was calling her as the episode ended.

Kim last month made her scripted TV debut portraying Siobhan on the FX series.

Coughing blood: Anna coughed up blood while watching her awards season rival win at the Golden Globes

Good question: 'Look, I'm disappointed, too. But I'm gonna ask you something. Do you want an Oscar?,' Siobhan asked Anna

Oscar focus: 'You know I do,' Anna answered when Siobhan asked if she wanted an Oscar

Next morning: Dexter sat next to her on the bed and showed her his phone that had a breaking news story with the headline 'Golden Globe Winner Babette Eno Decapitated In Car Crash'

Her character has been delivering raunchy lines and had a steamy romp with Hamish in previous episodes.

American Horror Story: Delicate will return next week on the FX network as Anna continues on her horrific IVF journey.

Kim currently stars on the Hulu reality show The Kardashians and previously starred in Keeping Up With The Kardashians from 2007 to 2021.

Her other credits include Kim Kardashian, Superstar in 2007 and the 2008 parody film Disaster Movie.
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Amanda Kloots wowed in two sizzling looks as she lead the glamour at the Industry Dance Awards & Cancer Benefit Show, held at the historic Avalon Theater in Hollywood, on Wednesday.

The 41-year-old dancer and television personality arrived to the event, which she also hosted, in a spectacular glittering spaghetti strap white dress that clung to her enviable figure.

The Talk co-host  who showed off her toned physique in a pink bikini earlier this summer  teamed the eye-catching outfit with a pair of sparkling pointed-toe silver heels, and a diamond necklace.

She wore her blonde tresses in a halfway updo, and opted for a bronze glow and black eyeliner to highlight her magnetic blue eyes.

The mom-of-one later slipped into a plunging pink chiffon dress that showcased her cleavage and featured a shimmering gold embellishment.

Sizzling! Amanda Kloots wowed in two sizzling looks as she lead the glamour at the Industry Dance Awards & Cancer Benefit Show, held at the historic Avalon Theater in Hollywood, on Wednesday

Magnetic: The star, who hosted the event, wore her blonde tresses in a halfway updo, and opted for a bronze glow and black eyeliner to highlight her magnetic blue eyes

While on the red carpet Amanda mingled with YouTube sensation JoJo Siwa, 20, who wore a colorful look.

JoJo rocked a two-toned peach and pink blazer over a white button up shirt. She paired the unique ensemble with metallic silver shorts and glittering platform converse sneakers.

The Dance Moms star wore her blonde tresses in two pigtails.

Also among the fashion parade at the event was Julianne Hough, 35, who rocked an edgy oversized black blazer over a transparent black lace mermaid tail gown.

Her jacket was belted in at the waist, and she accessorized the look with a matching black purse.

The Dancing with the Stars beauty wore her blonde tresses cascading down her back. As for glam she opted for a delicate pink blush, winged eyeliner, and nude lip.

Hough caught up with fellow dancer and choreographer Allison Holker, 35, at the show.

The wife of the late Stephen 'tWitch' Boss was the epitome of elegance in a black ball gown with a bow accent.

She finalized her look with pointed-toe black Club L London heels, and wore her blonde tresses in loose waves.

Spectacular: The 41-year-old dancer and television personality arrived to the event in a spectacular glittering spaghetti strap white dress that clung to her enviable physique

Sparkling: The Talk co-host teamed the eye-catching outfit with a pair of sparkling pointed-toe silver heels, and a diamond necklace

Stylish gal: The mom-of-one later slipped into a plunging pink chiffon dress that showcased her cleavage and featured a shimmering gold embellishment

Colorful: While on the red carpet Amanda mingled with YouTube sensation JoJo Siwa, 20, who wore a colorful look

Julianne also ran into her hunky co-stars Gleb Savchenko, 40, and Artem Chigvintsev, 41, while on the red carpet.

Gleb looked handsome as ever in a metallic black suit and a Louis Vuitton belt.

Meanwhile Artem rocked a double-breasted white blazer over a black tee and pants.

Iconic actress Shirley MacLaine, 89, looked classy as ever in a floral black blazer and matching slacks.

The sister of Warren Beatty paired her look with black heels and a golden watch.

She was joined by Peter Levine, who looked dapper in a navy suit and red tie. The duo made their rounds on the red carpet while holding hands.

MacLaine was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the event. Annette Bening, 65, presented MacLaine with the award.

The two ladies are actually sisters-in-law, as Bening is married to to MacLaines brother, Warren.

After posing solo for photographers, she also snuggled up with Bening for another round of pictures. She also posed with film director Adam Shankman, 58, who looked handsome in a black suit.

Edgy: Also among the fashion parade at the event was Julianne Hough, 35, who rocked an edgy oversized black blazer over a transparent black lace mermaid tail gown

Unique: Her jacket was belted in at the waist, and she accessorized the look with a matching black purse

With the hunks! Julianne ran into her hunky co-stars Gleb Savchenko, 40, and Artem Chigvintsev, 41, while on the red carpet

Dancers unite: Hough also caught up with fellow dancer and choreographer Allison Holker, 35, at the show

Hugs: The ladies shared a friendly hug as they posed for the photographers

Elegant: The wife of the late Stephen 'tWitch' Boss was the epitome of elegance in a black ball gown with a bow accent, pairing the look with some Club L London heels

Bright! JoJo rocked a two-toned peach and pink blazer over a white button up shirt

Mix and match: She paired the unique ensemble with metallic silver shorts and glittering platform converse sneakers

Youthful style: The Dance Moms star wore her blonde tresses in two pigtails

Icon: Actress Shirley MacLaine, 89, looked classy as ever in a floral black blazer and matching slacks

Honoree: MacLaine was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the event

Her date: She was joined by Peter Levine, who looked dapper in a navy suit and red tie

Hand-in-hand: The duo made their rounds on the red carpet while holding hands

MacLaine rose to prominence in Around The World In The Trouble With Harry (1955), 80 Days (1956), Some Came Running (1958), Ask Any Girl (1959), The Apartment (1960), The Children's Hour (1961), Irma la Douce (1963) and Sweet Charity (1969).

She has been nominated for six Academy Awards during her illustrious career, winning Best Actress for her emotional performance in the drama film Terms of Endearment (1983).

The Industry Dance Awards is an annual event that brings the global dance community together as they celebrate creativity in the industry.

The event honors dancers and educators for their outstanding achievements and artistic contributions.

Along with the celebration of the dance industry's outstanding achievements and artistic contributions this past year, the event is also part of the global fight against cancer.

Some of the other honorees at the IDAs included Alison Faulk (Dance Innovator Award Recipient), Jennifer Jones (Dance Role Model Award Recipient), and Art and Nancy Stone (Trailblazer Award Recipients), according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Some of the other awards handed out during the festivities were Best Hip-Hop Performance, Best Jazz Performance, Best Open/Ballet/Acro, Best Tap, Best Lyrical, Best Novelty/Musical, Peoples Choice and Choreography Of The Year.

There was also a star-studded red carpet, fabulous performances, and a presentation from Dancers Against Cancer (DAC).

Proud moment: MacLaine posed with her sister-in-law Annette Bening, 65, and Amanda, after receiving her Lifetime Achievement Award

Family: Bening is married to to MacLaines brother, Warren Beatty

Making the rounds: She also posed with film director Adam Shankman, 58, who looked handsome in a black suit

Hosting duties: Kloots was pictured onstage during her hosting duties

Sweet: Bening beamed as she presented the award to Shirley

Together: The ladies were pictured speaking to the audience

Feeling great! Shirley was in a joyous mood onstage

Celebrating creativity: The Industry Dance Awards is an annual event that brings the global dance community together as they celebrate creativity in the industry

Taking a bow: The legendary star took a bow after accepting her award

This go-around, the Industry Dance Awards and Dancers Against Cancer are presenting the inaugural Stephen 'tWitch' Boss Legacy of Hope Scholarship.

The scholarship aims to honor Boss 'by passing the torch to a new generation of gifted dancers, encouraging and supporting their continued journey and passion for dance via an annual scholarship.'

Boss was a dancer, choreographer, actor, DJ and producer who got his big break on So You Think You Can Dance before spending nine years on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Sadly and tragically, the father of three took his own life this past December at the age of 40 after struggling with his mental health throughout his life.
The dance industry takes center stage at the annual Industry Dance Awards & Cancer Benefit Show at the historic Avalon Theater in Hollywood on Wednesday.

The event brings together dancers, educators, pioneers, and dance icons that will be recognized for their outstanding achievements and artistic contributions in 2023.

Along with the celebration of the dance industry's outstanding achievements and artistic contributions this past year, the event is also part of the global fight against cancer.

With a deep-rooted history in dance, Shirley MacLaine was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award during the ceremony, which was given to her by actress Annette Bening, 65.

The two ladies are actually sisters-in-law, as Bening is married to to MacLaines brother, Warren Beatty.

Honoree: Shirley MacLaine, 89, was all smiles before being honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 Industry Dance Awards at the Avalon Theater in Hollywood

MacLaine, 89, was absolutely beaming while on the red carpet dressed in black slacks, with a matching patterned top a floral black blazer ad black flats.

After posing solo for photographers, she also snuggled up with Bening for another round of pictures, and again with Peter Levine, who appeared to be her date for the evening.

The Talk co-host Amanda Kloots, who's a former Broadway dancer and Radio City Rockette, served as the host of the ceremony.

Some of the other honorees at the IDAs included Alison Faulk (Dance Innovator Award Recipient), Jennifer Jones (Dance Role Model Award Recipient), and Art and Nancy Stone (Trailblazer Award Recipients), according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Some of the other awards handed out during the festivities were Best Hip-Hop Performance, Best Jazz Performance, Best Open/Ballet/Acro, Best Tap, Best Lyrical, Best Novelty/Musical, Peoples Choice and Choreography Of The Year.

There was also a star-studded red carpet, fabulous performances, and a presentation from Dancers Against Cancer (DAC).

This go-around, the Industry Dance Awards and Dancers Against Cancer are presenting the inaugural Stephen 'tWitch' Boss Legacy of Hope Scholarship.

The scholarship aims to honor Boss 'by passing the torch to a new generation of gifted dancers, encouraging and supporting their continued journey and passion for dance via an annual scholarship.'

Dance dreams: The Oscar-winning actress had hopes of being a ballerina before her career as an actress, which began professionally in 1955

Family: Actress Annette Bening, 65, presented the LifeTime Achievement Award to MacLaine, who happens to be her sister-in-law due to her marriage to Warren Beatty

All in the family: Bening married MacLaine's brother Warren Beatty in 1992

Boss was a dancer, choreographer, actor, DJ and producer who got his big break on So You Think You Can Dance before spending nine years on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Sadly and tragically, the father of three took his own life this past December at the age of 40 after struggling with his mental health throughout his life.

With hopes of being a ballerina, MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty) began with ballet when she was just three-years-old in 1937, as a means to strengthen her weak ankles.

The Richmond, Virginia native ended up moving to New York City to try her hand at acting the summer before her senior year in high school, resulting in her earning minor success in the chorus of Oklahoma!

After graduating, she returned to Manhattan and landed a spot on the dancing ensemble of the Broadway production of the musical Me And Juliet (1953-1954) at the Majestic Theatre.

Sweet: MacLaine also shared the evening at the ceremony with Peter Levine

Broadway bound: After graduating from high school, MacLaine returned to New York City and landed a spot on the dancing ensemble of the Broadway production of the musical Me And Juliet (1953-1954)

She would score another dance-based role as the understudy to actress Carol Haney in The Pajama Game (1954) at the Shubert Theatre.

In May 1954, Haney injured her ankle during a matinee performance, which opened the door for MacLaine to replace her.

After performing the role of Dancer/Gladys for a few months, and Haney still injured, film producer Hal B. Wallis saw one of the shows and decided to sign her to a deal with Paramount Pictures.

She rose to prominence in Around The World In The Trouble With Harry (1955), 80 Days (1956), Some Came Running (1958), Ask Any Girl (1959), The Apartment (1960), The Children's Hour (1961), Irma la Douce (1963) and Sweet Charity (1969).

Debut: MacLaine began her career as an actress with a role in The Trouble With Harry (1955)

Ballet movie; MacLaine has earned six Oscar-nominations during her illustrious career, including for The Turning Point (1977), which centered around the world of ballet in New York City; she's pictured in 1955

Eventually, MacLaine landed one of the lead roles in the drama film The Turning Point (1977), which centered on the world of ballet in New York City and featured choreography by George Balanchine and the famed Alvin Ailey, who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater that's still up and running.

Both MacLaine and co-lead Anne Bancroft were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, which was just two of the 11 nominations it received.

Along with MacLaine and Bancroft, the cast also included Mikhail Baryshnikov, Tom Skerritt, Leslie Browne, Martha Scott, Marshall Thompson, Anthony Zerbe, James Mitchell, Alexandra Danilova, Lisa Lucas, Philip Saunders, Antoinette Sibley, Marshall Thompson, Starr Danias, Anthony Zerbe and Daniel Levans.

MacLaine has been nominated for six Academy Awards during her illustrious career, winning Best Actress for her emotional performance in the drama film Terms of Endearment (1983).
She recently revealed she's been struggling with Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD).

Yet Oti Mabuse put on a brave face as she enjoyed a night out with husband Marius Iepure on Wednesday night.

The former Strictly pro, 33, has been battling SPD - stiffness of the pelvic joints - while she awaits the birth of her first child but put on a brave face as she attended the House of Flamenka gala night at Peacock Theatre.

She looked radiant in a chic black dress that clung to her baby bump and skimmed over a pair of heeled boots.

The presenter layered up with a blazer and accessorised with a small cross body bag.

Cute couple: Pregnant Oti Mabuse cosied up to husband Marius Iepure at the the House of Flamenka gala night at Peacock Theatre on Wednesday evening

By her side was Marius, 40, a Romanian dancer who worked on the German version of Strictly, Let's Dance.

The couple's outing comes as they eagerly count down the days to welcoming their first child.

Yet Oti's pregnancy hasn't been easy as she revealed her SPD left 'frustrated' she hasn't been able to workout as often as she was used to and has been battle intense pain at night.

The NHS states SPD or Pregnancy related Girdle Pain (PGP) is a collection of uncomfortable symptoms caused by a stiffness of your pelvic joints or the joints moving unevenly at either the back or front of your pelvis.

The former Strictly star took to Instagram earlier this month to share a video of herself doing a series of exercises.

Oti wrote: 'Working out with SPD. I completely fell off the bandwagon with my fitness and I immediately could feel it when I went back.

'My core strength was not what it was, my balance was off and my ability hold certain positions was gone.

'The pain started really slow but at night while sleeping would intensify (Im not wearing a belt yet but as weeks go on I definitely will).'

All smiles: The former Strictly pro, 33, has been battling SPD - stiffness of the pelvic joints - while she awaits the birth of her first child but put on a brave face as she attended the gala

Looking good: She looked radiant in a chic black dress that clung to her baby bump and skimmed over a pair of heeled boots

Two's company: By her side was Marius, 40, a Romanian dancer who worked on the German version of Strictly, Let's Dance

Out and about: Former Strictly Come Dancing professional Robin Windsor was also in attendance for the dance show

She continued: 'Aside from physiotherapy exercises, I still try continue to stay active in any way that is not painful. My level of activity depends on how severe my SPD is that day.

'It can be very frustrating if you used to exercise regularly and have to stop. Walking, sitting, driving all become a bit painful.

'But we push on and grand ourselves some GRACE! Taking it slow and breathing through everything - Change is good, it might be difficult but its all for a good reason.

'I know Im not alone dealing SPD - how are you dealing or dealt with it?'

Movie magic: American film director and producer Paul Feig looked in good spirits at the bash as did film producer Alessandra Lo Savio
China-Laos Railway shortens travel time, provides modern passenger services

People's Daily Online) 13:18, October 19, 2023

A train drives on the China-Laos Railway's Luang Prabang cross-Mekong River super major bridge in Laos, May 28, 2023. (Xinhua/Chen Chang)

It was early morning and train attendants were making their final preparations onboard train D887 before its departure from Kunming, capital city of Yunnan province in southwest China. At 8:08 a.m., the train left Kunming South Railway Station, heading for Vientiane, capital of Laos.

The 1,035-km-long China-Laos Railway is an iconic project of the high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by China and Laos.

Zhao Yingjing, the chief conductor, walked through the carriages helping passengers look for their seats and stow their luggage. Zhao, who was born in Yunnan, has been a member of China Railway Kunming Bureau Group Co., Ltd. for 11 years. In addition to her native Chinese, she can also speak Lao, Thai and English.

Zhao Yingjing stands outside a carriage of the Fuxing international passenger train on the China-Laos Railway. (Peoples Daily Online/Du Mingming)

Zhao's grandfather served as a soldier in the Railway Engineering Corps of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army, while her mother worked as a train attendant. Inspired by her family's connection to the railway, Zhao set her sights on becoming a member of the crew on trains running along the China-Laos Railway, which began construction in 2016.

On Dec. 3, 2021, when the China-Laos railway began operation, Zhao achieved her dream of becoming the chief conductor of the inaugural train on this historic route.

Duan Mingkun (first from right) and his family. (People's Daily Online/Xu Zheng)

34 year-old Duan Mingkun and his family embarked on their journey from the train station in Pu'er city, Yunnan. Duan had previously studied the Lao language whilst at university and currently holds a position at a Chinese company in Savannakhet province, Laos. It was during his time working for this company that he met a Lao woman, and their feelings grew into a loving relationship. Today, they are happily married and have a 4-year-old daughter together.

"Before the China-Laos Railway opened to traffic, whenever I wanted to go home, I had to take a detour through Vientiane. I would catch a flight from there, but since the flights usually departed in the morning, I had to arrive in Vientiane a day prior. Once I landed in Kunming, I still had to endure a four to five-hour car journey to finally reach home," recalled Duan.

However, since the commencement of the China-Laos international passenger train service in April 2023, travel times have been greatly reduced and the experience, as a whole, has been improved. The journey from Vientiane to Puer now takes a mere seven hours.

At noon, the train made a stop at Mohan station, the final station in China before crossing into Laos.

International passengers on the China-Laos Railway experienced the unique process of going through customs and immigration checks twice during their journey. On reaching Mohan, the Chinese border station, travelers had to complete exit procedures. Similarly, on arrival at Boten, the border station in Laos, passengers underwent entry procedures to officially enter the country.

Passengers board a train at the Luang Prabang Railway Station in Laos. (People's Daily Online/Du Mingming)

July 22 marked the 100th day since operations on the China-Laos railways began. Since then, an impressive 200 train services  carrying 41,735 passengers from 49 different countries and regions  have been provided by the railway.

24-year-old Phuang Soulapheang, from Luang Prabang, is a customs inspector at the Boten border station.

"I majored in business management as a university student. I worked at a hotel after graduation from university. After I saw the recruitment information provided by the Laos-China Railway Co., Ltd., I applied for the job," the man said. "Railway transport is an emerging industry in Laos and it will surely enjoy a bright future," he expressed.

During his training and internship period, Phuang performed exceptionally well and received special rewards from the company. When talking about his work, he often mentioned his Chinese mentor.

"Before the construction of the China-Laos Railway, Laos had almost no railways, and there were no corresponding expressions for many railway terms in the Lao language, such as 'rail'. The Chinese mentor patiently taught me bit by bit, and I gradually became proficient until I can handle things independently now," Phuang said. He chose to work at the Boten border station because it is closer to China.

Photo shows the Vientiane Railway Station in Laos. (People's Daily Online/Du Mingming)

Thongsawan is a Lao student studying in Yunnan, who was traveling with his classmates.

"In the past, it would take two to three days by car to travel from Vientiane to Kunming, with at least three transfers along the way. Now, taking the train from Laos to China is much more convenient. We don't have to spend the night on the train and can enjoy the scenery along the way," he said.

Zachariah and his wife Madeline from Louisiana, the U.S., were visiting Laos for the second time. As they entered the train compartment, both of them had surprised expressions on their faces. "We never expected to be able to ride such a modern train in Laos. The seats are very comfortable," Madeline told Peoples Daily.

"It's truly admirable to see a modern railway built in such a complex terrain!" Zachariah said.

The couple had planned a detailed itinerary for their two-week travel in Southeast Asia, with their next destination being Vang Vieng. "Being able to ride such a fast train has saved us a lot of time," Zachariah added.

At the Vang Vieng station, a group of passengers disembarked while new passengers filled the train.

Shortly after the train pulled away from Vang Vieng, it began to rain outside. Yet, inside the carriages, passengers were treated by the melody of a familiar Chinese song. It was being sung by Jestar, a Thai traveler who had been studying Chinese for 10 years and knew many Chinese songs. This was his first trip to Laos. "I have traveled to many places in China and often took high-speed trains there. Thanks to China's efforts in promoting connectivity, Southeast Asia now has such modern trains," he said.

Later that evening, the train arrived at its final destination of Vientiane. Crowds of passengers walked out of the station and entered the brightly lit city. The 1,035-kilometer-long China-Laos Railway has tightly linked the two countries, further enhancing the well-being of the people of both nations and the region as a whole.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
Actress and game show host Mayim Bialik is reflecting back on how her profile has played a prominent role in her life and career.

More specifically, the Big Bang Theory alum is remembering an old SNL sketch that mocked her for having what she called an an 'undeniably Jewish' nose, in an essay for Variety's Antisemitism and Hollywood package.

The 1994 skit was a parody of Blossom, an NBC sitcom that starred Bialik in titular role, beginning when she was just 14-years-old.

While the parody focused on mocking the show's penchant for being sweet and sentimental storylines, as well as co-star Joey Lawrences catchphrase of "Whoa!" it also made a point to highlight that Bialik was indeed Jewish.

'The actress portraying me was dancing and mugging for the camera and she was hilarious,' Bialik wrote, in a reference to the former SNL cast member Melanie Hutsell. 'But. She wore a prosthetic nose. In order to truly convey that she was Blossom, she wore a fake, big nose.'

Mayim Bialik, 47, recalled an old Saturday Night Live sketch in 1994 that mocked her for having what she called an an 'undeniably Jewish' nose, in an essay for Variety

Initially in the essay Bialik, now 47, writes about the progression of her looks, and how it eventually became a talking point in her life.

'I got my nose in around about 4th grade. Before then, I had more of a little button nose. Adorable,' she shared, before adding, 'But from the time I was 10, the pointy chin I had pretty much since I could crawl was joined by what I think of as a prominent, somewhat regal, nose in the style of what is called a "Roman" nose.'

She went on to start acting professionally by her Middle School years. As a form of encouragement, her parents compared her look to two huge stars that happened to also be Jewish: Barbara Streisand and Bette Midler, both of which had been known to have prominent noses but still persevered to have huge careers.

By the time Blossom premiered on NBC in 1990 the scrutiny began to heighten.

One early review from 'a prominent publication described the lack of "sense" that my face made to him.' she said, adding how the shape of her face confused this critic.

'He said that my features did not seem to match one another,' she said of the review.

Bialik knew of the significance being parodied on Saturday Night Live, so she was very excited to see how she would be portrayed.

But after watching the SNL skit with Hutsell, Bialik recalled being 'confused' because the prosthetic she wore struck her as 'odd.'

'No one else on the show was parodied for their features,' Bialik noted. 'I never thought to talk about it and mostly I tried to forget it.'

Painful portrayal: 'The actress portraying me was dancing and mugging for the camera and she was hilarious,' Bialik said of former SNL cast member Melanie Hutsell. 'But. She wore a prosthetic nose. In order to truly convey that she was Blossom, she wore a fake, big nose'

While looking back to her Blossom days for the essay the actress revealed that she wondered how her fans who looked like her felt 'when they saw an actress playing me with a comically prosthetic nose'

She went on to admit she hoped no one had noticed the skit, but in the end all of her friends at high school saw it and she 'felt ashamed.'

Bialik would recall how MAD magazine did its parodies, explaining how 'everyone is caricatured,' but when it came to her SNL parody she felt 'singled out' for her nose.

It turns out the unpleasant memory of the SNL skit was triggered when Bialik saw the backlash actor Bradley Cooper got when he was accused of wearing 'Jewface' due to the prosthetic nose he wore while playing legendary composer Leonard Bernstein in Maestro.

'And I started scrutinizing the photos of Bradley and Leonard and wondering if it was necessary,' the San Diego native admitted. 'I don't know how I feel.'

But Bialik does seem to care about how young girls, who looked up to her when she starred on Blossom, feel about being criticized for 'features I inherited from my mixed Eastern European-Ashkenazi past.'

The catalyst: It turns out the unpleasant memory of the SNL skit was triggered when Bialik saw the backlash actor Bradley Cooper got when he was accused of wearing 'Jewface' due to the prosthetic nose he wore while playing legendary composer Leonard Bernstein in Maestro

'Girls all over the world used to tell me that they had never seen a Jewish girl like me on TV before they saw me on Blossom,' the actress explained. 'Many said they knew I was Jewish and it made them proud to be. That was so touching to me, and it still is.'

She added, 'I wonder how those girls felt when they saw an actress playing me with a comically prosthetic nose.'

During the essay Bialik was open and honest about not always loving her nose, but confessed she 'never wanted to change it.'

'I have come to see my face as distinctly mine as given to me from G-d,' she wrote. 'My genetic makeup is mine alone, and also, it is the combination of cultures shoved together after the Holocaust spilled so many of us out on the shores of Ellis Island. My nose is undeniably Jewish, and I am as well. Is it because of my nose? Perhaps. But I don't have to know because we will always be one and the same.'

Along with her five season run on Blossom (1990-1995), Bialik is also known for playing neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory (2009-2019), and as the host of the popular game show Jeopardy! (2021-present).
Bizarre webcam footage of Married At First Sight UK contestant Georges Bert squatting and exposing his buttocks for his online fanbase can be revealed today by MailOnline, in scenes which are likely to anger new wife Peggy Lawrence.

The newlyweds have argued over Georges's sideline work ever since Peggy, 32, discovered during their honeymoon that her husband makes money for doing 'favours' on his online gaming channel.

And now MailOnline can reveal exactly what Georges does to entertain his followers in exclusive footage that shows the reality personality, 30, exposing his bare thighs wearing a tight-fitting leotard and dominatrix style leather belt.

The video will come as a shock to Married At First Sight viewers after Georges reassured Peggy and her family that he was 'fully clothed' while performing the squats on camera, but in reality, his buttocks are on show for the world to see.

Georges, who so far in the E4 series has refrained from having sex with Peggy, was carrying out the exercises during a live stream on his 30th birthday  two days before the couple got married.

Bizarre webcam footage of Married At First Sight UK contestant Georges Bert squatting and exposing his buttocks for his online fanbase can be revealed today by MailOnline

The scenes are likely to anger Georges new wife Peggy Lawrence who vowed that she would never expose herself for money online

Resurfaced footage shows the reality personality exposing his bare thighs wearing a tight-fitting leotard and dominatrix style leather belt

The couple married after meeting at the altar on the E4 series but have argued over Georges online antics, which Peggy heavily disagrees with

A source told MailOnline: 'Georges promised Peggy that his antics online weren't in any way sexual but wearing a leotard and squatting on camera for money isn't something she would ever dream of her husband doing.

'This video has caused problems in their marriage from the very beginning and Peggy was mortified that her family had seen the footage before she had a chance to.

'If their romance is going to work then Georges will have to stop behaving this way online because Peggy finds it terribly strange and it's not a situation that she's willing to tolerate.'

Georges has his own gaming channel called French Berty on the platform Twitch where users have 'redeems' and the most popular request from his followers was to perform squats because he's known for having 'good legs.'

After explaining this to Peggy on their honeymoon, the couple clashed, and Georges has since found it difficult to justify his actions online to his wife.

This week, the married pairs were visited by friends and family at their London apartments and Peggy's sister was quick to bring up the footage she had been sent of Georges squatting.

Defending his actions, Georges insisted that he was 'fully clothed' while Peggy remained unawares because in the TV process, contestants aren't allowed to have any contact with the outside world.

The couple also clashed over their views on explicit subscription site OnlyFans after Georges said he would be happy for Peggy to make money on the platform.

Peggy's sister explained during a family weekend this week that she had seen the video of Georges squatting for money on his online gaming platform

The reality star's mum was alarmed to hear Georges's sexual desires, revealed by her daughter, which left her new son-in-law cringing

During a livestream which was aired on Georges' 30th birthday earlier this year, the groom wore a moustache as he earned cash from his bedroom

Georges succumbed to the requests of his online community on Twitch, who demanded he squatted to celebrate turning the milestone age

The video will come as a shock to Married At First Sight UK fans after Georges promised Peggy and her family that he was 'fully clothed' when in reality, he is wearing a revealing leotard

Georges has struggled to win over many of his cast mates over the past few weeks but his relationship with Peggy is going strong

Peggy was left in tears after Georges gave his blessing for her to share adult content, vowing: 'I wouldn't do anything for money.'

She continued: 'I don't think you should want your partner exposing themselves online no matter how much money they got for it... I'm just being completely honest with you.'

In a magazine interview, Peggy affirmed: 'To me, it's not that I condemn anyone that does it, I just didn't want to hear the person I'd just married would be okay with me exposing my private parts online for money, so that was difficult to hear.'

The couple have been honest about their resistance to be intimate together, with Peggy telling Georges she prefers to wait until they have sex.

However, during her parents' visit, Peggy shocked viewers by exposing Georges's sexual desires, which left him mortified.
She shot to fame as dreamy Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter film franchise.

But Evanna Lynch now looks completely different after undergoing a dramatic hair transformation.

The actress, 32, began her career in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2007, when she was cast as fan-favourite Luna.

Evanna bleached her hair light blonde for the role, from her natural dark blonde locks and kept the colour for several years.

However, she recently took to her Instagram to reveal she had decided to change things up.

Wow! Evanna Lynch looks completely different from Luna Lovegood after undergoing a dramatic hair transformation

Usual look: The actress, 32, bleached her hair light blonde for the Harry Potter films, from her natural dark blonde locks and kept the colour for several years (pictured in 2019)

Popular: Evanna began her career in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2007, when she was cast as fan-favourite Luna (pictured)

She shared a stunning new selfie, showing she had chopped her tresses shorter and dyed them black, after being inspired by her dreams.

Captioning the gorgeous new snap, she wrote: 'Big mood shift lately. Here is my new look!

'I do feel blonde suits me better but lately in all my dreams I was consistently sporting these glamorous shiny raven locks for some reason.

'I felt I was being stalked by my dark and shadowy twin so I had to become her! I so want to cut it to a bob again but will wait for further dream guidance'

She was flooded with compliments from her followers, including her Harry Potter co-star Bonnie Wright, who played Ginny Weasley, who commented a slew of heart-eyed emojis.

Evanna beat 15,000 other girls to get the role of Luna in the later Harry Potter films and was already a huge fan of the books and character.

The teenager, who had been struggling with an eating disorder, had written to JK aged 11, in a letter sent through the author's publisher.

When a response arrived from JK herself, the two struck up an unlikely pen friendship, even while Evanna was in a residential clinic for her eating disorder.

'Big mood shift': She shared a stunning new selfie, showing she had chopped her tresses shorter and dyed them black, after being inspired by her dreams

Fan-favourite: Evanna beat 15,000 other girls to get the role of Luna in the later Harry Potter films and was already a huge fan of the books and character (pictured in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

Two years later, Evanna was trawling through a Potter fan site when she came across a casting call for Luna.

Evanna then spoke out in support of JK after the author continued to face backlash about her 'transphobic' opinions.

The actress said she had been naive when she supported JK in 2020, but now wished more people would listen to her.

JK waded into the trans debate in 2020 when she criticised an article's use of the phrase 'people who menstruate' and then wrote a personal essay defending her opinions on sex and gender, before continuing to share her gender critical views.

Evanna told The Telegraph that the debate was difficult and that she understood what it meant to be 'too triggered' to have a conversation.

'I was very naive when I was dragged into that conversation. I didn't even know there were two sides. I had a view of, like, good and bad. I do have compassion for both sides of the argument.'

Referring to her experience of anorexia as a teenager, she added: 'I know what it was like to be a teenager who hated my body so much I wanted to crawl out of my skin, so I have great compassion for trans people and I don't want to add to their pain.'

Evanna said she wished the author would stop discussing the topic 'over Twitter through fragmented thoughts', calling it 'irresponsible'.

Defense: Evanna then spoke out in support of JK Rowling after the author continued to face backlash about her 'transphobic' opinions, but also voiced her support for trans rights (JK and Evanna pictured in 2013)

Divided: Evanna said she wished the author would stop discussing the topic 'over Twitter through fragmented thoughts', calling it 'irresponsible' (pictured 2021)

But she added that she couldn't help but remember JK's past kindness to her, calling her 'a friend'.

She said: 'I wont be helping to marginalise trans women and men further. I think its irresponsible to discuss such a delicate topic over Twitter through fragmented thoughts and I wish Jo wouldnt 

'That said, as a friend and admirer of Jo I cant forget what a generous and loving person she is.'

She sent JK a copy of her 2021 memoir, The Opposite Of Butterfly Hunting: The Tragedy And The Glory Of Growing Up, and said she would work on more Harry Potter projects.
First-look photos for the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action series have been released by Netflix.

The legendary story of the last standing Air Nomad, Aang, is being reimagined in a series that brings together the four focal nations of the Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation and Air Nomads, set to debut some time in 2024.

Like the animated version, the eight-part first season follows Aang, the titular last Airbender, as he trains to fulfill his destiny as the Avatar and bring peace to a world that has been annihilated by a war waged by the Fire Nation.

Gordon Cormier will star as Aang, the fearless 12-year-old who is keeper of the world's balance and peace.

The actor will be joined by Kiawentiio as waterbender Katara, Ian Ousley as Kataras brother, Dallas Liu as the firebending Sokka and the Fire Lord Zuko, played by Daniel Dae Kim.

First-look: First-look photos for the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action series have been released by Netflix (pictured Daniel Dae Kim as Fire Lord Zuko)

New take: Aang, is being reimagined in a series that brings together the four focal nations of the Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation and Air Nomads (Elizabeth Yu as Azula)

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is cast as Uncle Iroh, Elizabeth Yu plays Azula, and Ken Leung stars as Commander Zhao.

Thousands of fans erupted after seeing the first shots of characters Aang (Gordon Cormier), Katara (Kiawentiio), Sokka (Ian Ousley), and Zuko (Dallas Liu), unveiled by the stars at Tudum's Global Fan Event in Brazil earlier this year, in June.

Newly released photos showcase a number of Fire Nation characters, specifically: Daniel Dae Kim as Fire Lord Ozai, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as General Iroh, Ken Leung as Commander Zhao, and Elizabeth Yu as Princess Azula.

The elaborate, heavy costumes worn in the images depicts the time period of which the series is set in: 99AG ("after the genocide") at the tail end of a hundred years' war, according to Screen Rant.

The World of Avatar is a fantasy world inspired primarily by East Asian cultures, including China, Japan and Tibet, alongside some Inuit, Polynesian, Aztec and South Asian influence.

According to Ranker, the Air Nomads that Aang is descended from are based on Eastern monks, with Aang's clothes resembling those traditionally worn by Shaolin monks.

The attire worn by the characters represents their nation, by wearing colours that symbolise their native element: Air Nomads dress in orange and yellow, while the people of the Water Tribe wear blue, purple, and white clothing.

Those from the Earth Kingdom dress in brown, yellow, and green attire, while the people of the Fire Nation wear various hues of black, red, brown, black, pink, and gold.

Lead character: Like the animated version, the eight-part first season follows Aang (Gordon Cormier), the titular last Airbender, as he trains to fulfill his destiny as the Avatar

Representative: The attire worn by the characters represents their nation (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as Uncle Iroh)

Period attire: The elaborate, heavy costumes worn in the images depicts the time period of which the series is set in: 99AG (Ken Leung as Commander Zhao)

Film flop: A live action film of the original animated series had already been theatrically released in 2010 - but it was largely panned by both critics and fans

In August 2021, showrunner Albert Kim wrote a statement, published on Netflix, explaining why he was thrilled about adapting the iconic animated show, originally debuting on Nickelodeon in 2005.

He wrote: 'A live-action version can not only faithfully translate what had been done in animation - it can bring a rich new visual dimension to a fantastic world. We'll be able to see bending in a real and visceral way weve never seen before.'

Earlier this year, in April, it was announced that an animated Avatar: The Last Airbender film will be released on October 10, 2025.

A live action film of the original animated series had already been theatrically released in 2010 - but it was largely panned by both critics and fans, with several publications calling it 'one of the worst films of all time.'

Paramount Pictures confirmed the project will be released in two years at CinemaCon with the original characters appearing as adults.

The film will be the first of three animated Avatar films that Avatar studios is planning for fans of the franchise.
Richard Curtis has revealed he's written Notting Hill 2 and admitted Hugh Grant avoided working with him on a 'Meet Cute' project in a new interview.

The screenwriter and film director, 66, said that he was going to be bring his iconic romcom back, in the name of charity, for a ten minute special.

Speaking on brand-new TV reviews podcast Have You Seen?, with hosts Mariella Frostrup and Peter Fincham, Richard spoke of his ideas in aid of Comic Relief.

He explained: 'Recently I wrote I was going to do it for Comic Relief I wrote Notting Hill 2, which was going to be a 10-minute special set in the divorce lawyers office with Hugh and Julia splitting up, and then they both realised they loved each other again.'

The film, that stars Julia Roberts as American megastar Anna Scott and Hugh as floppy haired book seller William Thacker, became the highest grossing British film of all time on its release in 1999.

Exciting: Richard Curtis (pictured in February), 66, has revealed he has written Notting Hill 2 and admitted Hugh Grant avoided working with him on a 'Meet Cute' project in a new interview

Project: The screenwriter and film director said that he will be bringing his iconic romcom back, in the name of charity, for a ten minute special (Hugh Grant pictured last month)

One day Anna happens to walk into William's book store in London's Notting Hill, he later bumps into her again on the street, spilling his orange juice all over her top.

Despite the character striking up a romance after their meet cute scene, Richard admitted that Hugh was unwilling to work with him on a new script called Meet Cute, about a man whose name was Cute.

He explained: 'John Cute. Meet John Cute. Again, it was a thing for Comic Relief, I had this idea that I was going to write a sequence of 10 min films and I talked to Hugh Grant about it.

'Every episode was going to be a "meet Cute" where he met somebody, and then by the end of the episode, they were going to have split up, and then wed have another "meet Cute".

'And Hugh, who is, a man whos 90% charity, everything about him is aiming to make the world a better place and eventually, after consideration, he quoted me quite a large amount of money that he was going to give to Comic Relief not to do it. So it never happened!'

Earlier this year, Hugh Bonneville defended Notting Hill against critics who complained about its lack of multiculturalism, saying a scene showing the area's diversity was cut.

The actor, 59, appeared in the film as a stockbroker who memorably told Julia's A-list actress character that most actors only earn 8,000 a year.

The film came under fire from some who thought it didn't portray the diversity of the area of London it's set but Hugh has fired back, saying we should 'allow art to be art.'

He explained: 'I was going to do it for Comic Relief I wrote Notting Hill 2, which was going to be a 10-minute special set in the divorce lawyers office with Hugh and Julia splitting up' (Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts pictured as William Thacker and Anna Scott in the 1999 film)

He told The Independent: ' There was a whole sequence about the multiculturalism of Notting Hill. But test audiences said, "Where's the star? Where's Julia Roberts?" So the producers cut out that three-minute multicultural sequence.'

Hugh insisted films shouldn't be canceled just because modern audiences may not appreciate them in the same way as older viewers.

He said: 'I think we all need to take a huge dose of perspective and allow art to be art. All forms of artistic expression should be allowed to breathe.

'I think respect should always be there  with expression comes responsibility. But I don't think it's right to say, "I don't agree with you, therefore you should be cancelled".'

Both Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts scored Golden Globe nominations for their performances as bookstore owner William Thacker and his famous girlfriend Anna.
Strictly Come Dancing star Angela Scanlon has revealed the reason she's shunned one of the show's biggest traditions - getting a spray tan.

The presenter, 39, said that while taking part on the show she's proudly showed off her naturally pale skin in a bid to set a positive example for her two daughters.

Appearing on Thursday's Lorraine with her dance partner Carlos Gu, Angela referenced her alabastar complexion by saying: 'I am see through, I am almost blue.

'I have two daughters and I'm telling them to be comfortable in their own skin, so I have to embody that myself.'

Angela previously admitted it's taken her 15 years to accept her complexion, adding that 'she doesn't need fake tan to feel confident.'

Revelation: Strictly Come Dancing star Angela Scanlon has revealed the reason she's shunned one of the show's biggest traditions - getting a spray tan

Insight: The presenter said that while taking part on the show she's proudly showed off her naturally pale skin in a bid to set a positive example for her two daughters

During her Lorraine appearance, Angela admitted she has struggled to get to grips with her American Smooth this week.

She said: 'I like it, I did hate it on Monday and I wanted to crawl away but I do like it now.'

After ditching the fake tan for her TV appearance, Angela previously revealed she's become a role model for other flame-haired fans.

She told The Sun last month: 'I feel really touched when I get a message from somebody who says their daughter is suddenly OK with not wearing fake tan because she saw me on the telly with my white legs out.

'I never felt that when I was young. I never saw anyone super pale on telly and, obviously, there's different levels of that across so many minorities.

'There's been absolutely no pushback from Strictly on it. If you want to wear tan, you wear it. If you don't, you don't.'

Last week Angela and Carlos scored just 28 points out of 40 for their Viennese Waltz, with head judge Shirley Ballas berating her for dancing on the tips of her balletic toes.

The star was left looking embarrassed after she accidentally made an inappropriate joke on Thursday's episode of It Takes Two.

Admission: Appearing on Thursday's Lorraine with her dance partner Carlos Gu, Angela said: 'I have two daughters and I'm telling them to be comfortable in their own skin'

Nope! Angela previously admitted it's taken her 15 years to accept her complexion , adding that 'she doesn't need fake tan to feel confident'

Tough: During her Lorraine appearance, Angela admitted she has struggled to get to grips with her American Smooth this week

As Janette welcomed the head of the wardrobe department, Vicky, onto the show she revealed Angela will don a bright green dress which features a dramatic skirt with a hidden surprise.

While the dress appears mainly green and turquoise, underneath the skirt the stylist revealed a bright pink underskirt, which will be revealed when she kicks her leg in the air.

The added pop of colour surprised Angela and Janette, as the contestant joked: 'I love it, and the theme is, we're in the woods, it's warm and romantic, and then you just flash a bit of pink!'

Realising her mistake at the rude innuendo, the star was mortified and took back the embarrassing comment as she muttered 'I'm so sorry' under her breath.

Angela couldn't contain her laughter as her and Vicky shared the joke and Janette wrapped up the segment.
Paris Fury has admitted she is fearful that her sons will want to grow up to be boxers like their dad Tyson.

The mother-of-seven, 33, said she worried about her children's futures and revealed she used to be reluctant to even let them watch the heavyweight's fights.

Speaking on Thursday's BBC Breakfast she said being ringside 'wasn't a place for children' but that the older ones have starting getting more involved or watching on the TV.

Paris and Tyson are parents to newborn baby Prince Rico, four weeks, Venezuela, 13, Prince John James, 11, Prince Tyson II, seven, Valencia, five, Prince Adonis Amaziah, four, and Athena, two.

Paris explained of whether her kids go to Tyson's fights: 'There are risks and some of the older ones wanted to come to the latest fight and they did but I never wanted the younger ones to come. I don't think it's a place for children.

Worry: Paris Fury has admitted she is fearful that her sons will want to grow up to be boxers like their dad Tyson

Difficult: The mother-of-seven, 33, said she worried about her children's futures and revealed she used to be reluctant to even let them watch the heavyweight's fights

'It's too emotional there is too much going on. But some of them did come and they said 'I don't want to see daddy get hit'.

'When it goes wrong they've cried and been emotional. I'm fearful of the boys growing up and wanting to box but the health and fitness and discipline side of it is good.'

As she left the studios she cut a stylish figure in a boucle jacket dark jeans and white trainers.

She also chatted about how Tyson, 35, becomes less involved in family life when he is preparing for a fight.

The blonde beauty said: 'He doesn't really do family up close to a fight as he needs to be in the right mental zone.

'We still talk but we don't have that in home relationship. He can't be soft loving daddy he needs to be stern and strong and a fighter ahead of a match.'

Host Naga Munchetty then asked why the couple choose to share so much of their life after the release of their Netflix show At Home With The Furys.

She told her: 'I share my life so much because people have a perception of what our lives are like and we want to show that we are just normal people with kids and a manic lifestyle.

Family: Paris and Tyson are parents to newborn baby Prince Rico, four weeks, Venezuela, 13, Prince John James, 11, Prince Tyson II, seven, Valencia, five, Prince Adonis Amaziah, four, and Athena, two

Pretty: As she left the studios she cut a stylish figure in a boucle jacket dark jeans and white trainers

Mother: During the chat Paris also spoke about whether she would have more kids - after giving birth just four weeks ago

'I think it makes people respect us more than thinking we are just celebrities living this high life.'

During the chat Paris also spoke about whether she would have more kids - after giving birth just four weeks ago.

Paris explained: 'I always wanted a big family, I used to want ten but I've got to seven and at the moment I am dead set that I'm never having another but I've said that a few times!'

It comes after Paris revealed she hasn't ruled out having an eighth child with her husband Tyson, just weeks after welcoming Rico to their brood.

Appearing on Loose Women earlier this month, she spoke about the possibility of further extending their brood.

She said: 'We're on the fence whether this is going be the last one. Every time I have a baby I say no more.

'Then they go off to school and I get this little inkling. But seven is a lot, I'm not going to lie. It's very busy in my house.'

Paris went on to address why her latest book is titled How Does She Do It? as she said: '[Raising seven kids] it sounds unbelievable.

'When I wrote my first book, people started to get to know me, that's what they all asked, they kept coming up to me or my messages in my Instagram kept saying, 'How do you do it?'

'So when they said, 'Did you want to do another book?' I was like, 'Well, this is where we've got to aim with this.'

'I did put in some serious tips in there on how I juggle the kids, how I'm a mom, how I'm doing business, how I support Tyson and his work.'

She also revealed that since Rico was born she hasn't slept for three weeks, but still tries to still make some time for herself.

Paris went on: 'You've got to create five minutes for yourself - a girls night out, half an hour in the gym, a walk - anything for yourself, as a woman you need that to make yourself feel good.'

Speaking about Prince Rico Paris Fury's name choice, Paris told OK! magazine recently: 'All of my kids have got unusual names and obviously it's also really personal to Tyson.

'We also added my name because I've had seven kids and I still haven't had one named after me, so Tyson thought, 'Come on, it's about time!''

All four of the couple's sons share the same first name of Prince with Tyson previously revealing: 'I'm a king and they're princes until they earn their rightful name'.

While Paris is a nod to herself, Rico was chosen to honour Tyson's late cousin, who was tragically murdered last year.

Rico Burton, 31, was fatally stabbed outside a bar in Altrincham, Cheshire, in August last year. His attacker, Liam O'Pray, 22, was found guilty of murder last month.

TV: Speaking on Thursday's BBC Breakfast she said being ringside 'wasn't a place for children' but that the older ones have starting getting more involved or watching on the TV

Decisions: Paris explained of whether her kids go to Tyson's fights: 'There are risks and some of the older ones wanted to come to the latest fight and they did but I never wanted the younger ones to come'

Change: She also chatted about how Tyson, 35, becomes less involved in family life when he is preparing for a fight

Father: The blonde beauty said: 'He doesn't really do family up close to a fight as he needs to be in the right mental zone'

Quizzing: Host Naga Munchetty then asked why the couple choose to share so much of their life after the release of their Netflix show At Home With The Furys

Announcing the birth of her seventh child to OK! Magazine, Paris revealed her son was born at 2.29am on September 18, weighing 6lb 13oz.

She said: 'We're over the moon to have welcomed our baby boy to the Fury family. His brothers and sisters can't wait to meet him and create lots of Fury fun!

'Our boy is the most perfect addition and we're bursting with love for him. It's crazy how you can love someone so quick.'

Tyson and Paris are childhood sweethearts and got married when they were 21 and 19 respectively, with Tyson going on to find massive fame as a boxer.
Madness put on an electric performance at Camden's KOKO on Wednesday night to promote their new album, Theatre Of the Absurd Presents C'est La Vie.

Having not played at the venue since Madness were known as The Invaders and KOKO was The Music Machine, the performance allowed just 1,400 fans the opportunity to catch them playing songs from the new album, along with some familiar favourites for the very first time.

While fans were loving the new material, one heckler couldn't wait to hear some of their old material and started calling out the names of his favourite songs.

Frontman Suggs, 62, hit back: 'Yeah we're going to get to that. We're performing new songs from the new album that's kind of how it works.

'You've got to wait about 20 minutes and then we'll do them. Alright?' to much laughter from the crowd.'

You what? Madness performed an exhilarating homecoming show at Camden's KOKO to promote their new album on Wednesday as frontman Suggs delivered the perfect response to a heckler in the crowd

Oi! The heckler couldn't wait to hear some of their old material and Suggs hit back: 'Yeah we're going to get to that. We're performing new songs from the new album that's kind of how it works. 'You've got to wait about 20 minutes and then we'll do them. Alright?'

Tour dates... November Thu 30 Aberdeen P&J Live December Fri 1 Glasgow OVO Hydro Sat 2 Newcastle Utilita Arena Mon 4 Cardiff International Arena Tue 5 Nottingham Motorpoint Arena Thu 7 Liverpool M&S Bank Arena Fri 8 Leeds First Direct Arena Sat 9 Manchester AO Arena Mon 11 Brighton Centre Tue 12 Bournemouth International Centre Thu 14 Sheffield Utilita Arena Fri 15 London The O2 Sat 16 Birmingham Utilita Arena Advertisement

Suggs was clad in a smart black suit and was sporting his trademark black sunglasses for his performance.

They performed cult hits such as Our House, One Step Beyond, House Of Fun and Baggy Trousers.

And they also delighted the crowds with single Cest La Vie, which has an eerie space-ska fee and the song reflects on the perils of everyday life.

According to composer/keyboard-wrangler Mike Barso Barson, the title track is 'about these crazy times were living in, and how I just want to stay on my boat and not be a part of all this madness. But of course, Im a member of a group called Madness. Perhaps we should have called ourselves Sanity

Madness famously emerged from the backstreets of Camden Town in the late 70s and recently released a three-part original docu series with TV channel AMC about the beginnings of the band in the area.

Before We Was We: Madness by Madness, chronicles the rise of one of the most loved bands in British culture.

Throughout their career, Madness have had 10 UK top ten albums, 15 top ten singles and have won a multitude of awards including a prestigious Ivor Novello.

Theyve performed on the top of Buckingham Palace as part of the Queens Jubilee celebrations and set the record for the biggest ever audience for the BBCs Live New Years Eve Broadcast - the most watched TV music event of 2018.

Hit after hit: The band performed cult hits such as Our House, One Step Beyond, House Of Fun and Baggy Trousers
Nadia Bartel flashed her knickers on Thursday as she shared a very helpful underwear hack for those who like to dress up.

The former AFL WAG, 38, showed off her undergarments on her Instagram Stories as she spruiked the Fine Lines lingerie brand.

Holding up her nude thong for all to see, the socialite said they were the best pair of undies to wear beneath sheer clothing because no one can see them.

'It's a good time of year to talk about underwear because obviously it's getting into that period of time where everyone's going out,' she said.

'Maybe we're wearing more dressy items. I've been actually wearing a lot more sheer items lately because I just love that look at the moment.'

Nadia Bartel, 38, (pictured) flashed her knickers on Thursday as she shared a very helpful underwear hack for those who like to dress up

The former AFL WAG showed off her undergarments on her Instagram Stories as she spruiked the Fine Lines lingerie brand

She continued: 'Everyone has been asking what underwear I have been wearing [beneath sheer clothes], and once again it's been the Fine Lines invisible thong.'

Nadia went on to say she always makes sure to get the tiny undies in nude so it's not visible through her slinky sheer dresses.

The brunette beauty's cheeky tip comes just weeks after she had had a ball while on holiday in Ibiza with her boyfriend Peter Dugmore.

In July, Nadia posed in blue and white swimwear as she stood alongside a gorgeous watery vista in photos shared to Instagram.

She then changed into a white dress, working her angles in a series of selfies alongside her handsome beau.

'Just in awe of this place. As the sun comes down, the water gets even better,' she wrote in a long caption.

Holding up her nude thong for all to see, the socialite said they were the best pair of undies to wear beneath sheer clothing because no one can see them

READ MORE: AFL WAGs Nadia Bartel and Rebecca Judd show off their cleavage in tiny bikinis in throwback photos from their wild European trip Advertisement

Nadia went on to say she always makes sure to get the tiny undies in nude so it's not visible through her slinky sheer dresses

Nadia said she was 'in full meditate mode' and boasted that she had arrived by boat to their lunch spot Juan Y Andrea.

'Just showing off my new dress and love the fact I don't have to wear shoes on this island,' she added.

The Henne designer and her fitness model boyfriend documented their entire trip around the island on Instagram.

Nadia had only just returned from a Gold Coast break with Peter and her two sons Aston, seven, and Henley, four, the month prior.
Madonna has revealed she's 'heartbroken and frightened' by Israel's conflict with Palestine in an emotional on-stage speech.

Speaking during her Celebration Tour in London, the hitmaker, 65, said it would be 'irresponsible' to keep quiet about the conflict and fought back tears as she called for 'peace.'

The conflict, which began on October, 7, has so far seen 3,785 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

In her speech, Madonna urged fans to 'light enough candles and use our consciousness to change the world,' while recalling the alleged stabbing of Wadea Al-Fayoume, six, by his landlord Joseph Czuba in Chicago.

Madonna began her speech: 'I need to talk about children, and all the things that are going on in the world right now, it would be irresponsible of me not to say something.'

Moving: Madonna has revealed she's 'heartbroken and frightened' by Israel's conflict with Palestine in an emotional on-stage speech

'What's happening right now between Israel and Palestine, obviously is heartbreaking, and nobody wants to see what's happening,' she added.

'I turn on social media and I want to vomit. I see children being thrown off motorcycles, kidnapped, babies being decapitated, children at peace raves being shot and killed, what the f**k is going on in the world?

'How can human beings be so cruel to one another, and it's just getting worse, and it frightens me.

'I want to paraphrase James Baldwin... and that is the children of the world belong to all of us, I don't care where they are, what headdresses, what the colour of their skin is, what their religion is, the children belong to us, and we are responsible for them, a six year old boy was stabbed to death in Chicago yesterday, it was a hate crime because he was Muslim.

Madonna then told the crowd: 'We have to remember that we are human beings here, we cannot lose our humanity. Our hearts may be broken but our spirits cannot.'

Earning a huge cheer, she continued: 'No one can break our spirit. And you might look at what's going on in the world and say 'what the f**k can I do I'm just one person I'm helpless', no you are not.

'Each and every one of you have the power to turn light on in the world we are all candles we can bring light to the world. Are you with me London?

'And if we turn enough light on, and if we light enough candles, the collective consciousness of generosity and unity will change, no politicans, no laws, no sanctions, no land given or taken.

Moving: Speaking during her Celebration Tour in London, the hitmaker said it would be 'irresponsible' to keep quiet about the conflict and fought back tears as she called for 'peace'

Scary: In her speech, Madonna urged fans to 'light enough candles and use our consciousness to change the world'

'We with our consciousness can change the f*****g world are you with me London?

'And thank you for turning your lights on that means everything to me, that's means you are listening. This is not for me this is for all of you.'

Posting her speech on Instagram, Madonna captioned her post: 'The Children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the Globe;  #jamesbaldwin

'Our hearts may be broken but they cannot break our spirit. Lets bring more light to the world #madonnacelebrationtour.'

Since the conflict began 12 days ago, many stars have openly expressed their devastation and heartbreak, with some facing criticism for their stances.

Gigi Hadid posted a large handful of statements equivocating the suffering of Israelis to that of the Palestinians.

She was then slammed by the Israeli government, in a post on their Instagram Stories which read: 'There is nothing valiant about Hamas' massacre of Israelis. Condemning Hamas for what it is (ISIS) is not anti-Palestine and supporting Israelis in their fight against barbaric terrorists is the right thing to do.'

The account of the State of Israel then directed comments at Hadid specifically, tagging her account and writing: 'Have you been sleeping the past week?'

'Or you just fine turning a blind eye to Jewish babies being butchered in their homes? Your silence has been very clear about where you stand. We see you.'

Devastating: On Tuesday a massive blast ripped through a Gaza hospital, reportedly killing nearly 500 people, though the figure has not been verified

Tragedy: The conflict, which began on October, 7, has so far seen 3,785 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, according to the health ministry in Gaza

On Tuesday a massive blast ripped through a Gaza hospital, reportedly killing nearly 500 people, and Palestinian leaders initially said Israel was to blame while Israeli Defense Forces said a rocket launched by Islamic Jihad from Gaza had misfired and exploded.

It comes after Israel opened a border crossing in the south of Gaza on Wednesday, allowing some aid trucks to enter - the first crack in a punishing 11-day siege.

Even after Israel told Palestinians in the north to evacuate to what it called 'safe zones' in the south, strikes continued overnight throughout the densely populated territory.

After decades of conflict between the two territories, tensions erupted again earlier this month after Hamas, an Islamist militant group who seized control of Gaza in 2006, fired thousands of rockets at Israel.

The country responded by saying the country is 'at war' and fired at targets in Gaza in response.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has visited Israel to 'express solidarity' with the country, and called for any escalation of violence in the wider region to be avoided.

Sunak landed at Ben Gurion airport on Thursday ahead of holding talks with his counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Isaac Herzog.

'Above all, I'm here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you,' Sunak told reporters on the ground.

As part of a trip, he will urge Middle East leaders to 'avoid further dangerous escalation', saying that 'too many lives have been lost' already in the conflict.

The visit comes after the US president flew into Israel on Wednesday in a diplomatic bid to prevent fighting from spiralling into a larger crisis.

Joe Biden urged Israel not to be 'consumed by' rage in the wake of Hamas's deadly attack on October 7 and to avoid making the same 'mistakes' that the US did after September 11 2001, following the Islamist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The president's trip appeared to mark a breakthrough, with Netanyahu's office announcing it had approved a request from Biden to allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
Monica Bellucci dazzled in a black fishtail dress and 6,000 of Cartier jewellery as she attended the Diabolik Chi Sei? premiere at Rome Film Festival on Thursday.

The Italian actress, 59, showed off her classic sense of style as she modelled Clash de Cartier earrings worth 4,200 and a matching ring worth 2,300.

Monica elevated her look further in a pair of towering suede Louboutin platform heels worth 1,600.

The screen star completed her look with a shiny black Dolce & Gabbana x Kim shoulder bag worth 1,500 as she worked her magic in front of the cameras at the Auditorium Parco Della Musica.

The brunette bombshell accessorised with a pair of bold sunglasses as she attended the first day of the annual festival.

Classy: Monica Bellucci dazzled in a black fishtail dress and 6,000 of Cartier jewellery as she attended the Diabolik Chi Sei? premiere at Rome Film Festival on Thursday

Gorgeous: The Italian actress, 59, showed off her classic sense of style as she modelled Clash de Cartier earrings worth 4,200 and a matching ring worth 2,300

Elegant: Monica elevated her look further in a pair of towering suede Louboutin platform heels worth 1,600

Monica plays Altea di Vallemberg - a woman desperately looking for her man and thief Diabolik who was kidnapped by a gang.

Little is known about the plot but fans are teased with the following plot summary: 'Captured by a ruthless criminal gang, Diabolik and Ginko get locked in the same cell, with no way out. Diabolik reveals his mysterious past to the inspector. Meanwhile, both Eva Kant and Altea are desperately looking for their men.'

Monica's appearance comes after she admitted she was happy to be sexually objectified during the early years of her career because it helped turn her into a global phenomenon.

The Italian star rose to prominence as a model with Dolce & Gabbana before transitioning to TV and film, with notable roles in Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mel Gibson's controversial religious epic The Passion Of The Christ.

She credits the objectification she experienced as a young model and actress for giving her a solid professional foothold.

The actress told Harper's Bazaar Spain : 'Being objectified didn't bother me. When I felt that critical attitude towards me, I went along with it. Sometimes beauty creates masks.'

Monica finally confirmed her romance with Tim Burton, 64, in June after months of dating in secret.

News of their romance emerged in February, when Paris Match said the couple 'briefly met on the steps of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes in 2006, but it was only sixteen years later, behind the scenes of another festival, that they got closer'.

Stylish: . The brunette bombshell accessorised with a pair of bold sunglasses as she attended the first day of the annual festival

Past: Monica recently admitted she was happy to be sexually objectified during the early years of her career because it helped turn her into a global phenomenon

The pair were also seen heading in to watch the re-production of Silent Documentary Film, directed in 1895 by late French filmmaker Louis Lumiere.

Monica told Elle France: 'What I can say... I'm glad I met the man, first of all,' she said. 'It's one of those encounters that rarely happens in life... I know the man, I love him, and now I'm going to meet the director, another adventure begins.'

In February, they were seen sharing a passionate kiss as they took a romantic walk on Valentine's Day.

Monica has two daughters, Deva, 19, and Leonie Cassel, 14, with ex-husband and French actor Vincent Cassel, 56.

The star has been single since she split from artist Nicolas Lefebvre in 2019.

She was previously married to Vincent from 1997 until 2013. The former couple met in 1996 on the set of Gilles Mimouni's film l'Appartement and were together for three years before marrying in a quiet ceremony in Monaco, on the French Riviera.

Other A-listers at the Rome Film Festival on Thursday included Tom Sturridge and Haley Bennett, who attended a photocall for the movie Widow Clicquot.

Haley wore a cream silk shirt and matching trousers, teamed with a gold clutch and matching accessories.

Widow Clicquot actor Anson Boon also was pictured at the event wearing an all-black outfit.

Elsewhere, Dave Stewart and Greta Scarano attended the Rome Film Festival photocall for Who To Love earlier on Thursday.

Duo: Other A-listers at the Rome Film Festival on Thursday included Tom Sturridge and Haley Bennett, who attended a photocall for the movie Widow Clicquot

Handsome: Widow Clicquot actor Anson Boon also was pictured at the event wearing an all-black outfit
Si Spencer fans have been patiently awaiting the release of the Netflix adaptation of his thrilling novel - but, finally, Bodies became available to watch on the streaming platform.

Based on the mind-bending titular book by the novelist, who passed away aged 59 in 2021, the new eight-part series is centred around four detectives, four timelines and one body.

Created by Paul Tomalin and starring Stephen Graham as the mysterious political leader Elias Mannix, the series is set across a period from 1890 to 2053 - in which the same murder occurs multiple times over the 150 years span.

When the same body is found on Longharvest Lane in London's East End in 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053, one detective from each period must investigate.

But, is the eerie Longharvest Lane a real place? And where are all of the seemingly East End locations from the drama really based? Find out more below.

Mysterious: Renowned actor Stephen Graham stars as the mysterious political leader Elias Mannix in the Netflix series, Bodies

Is Longharvest Lane a real place?

The show's plot surrounds the same naked dead man found in the same street in Whitechapel, east London - a grimy, barren, tunnel-led alleyway overgrown in foliage, named Longharvest Lane.

Fortunately, the sinister East End street is only fiction, as the scenes in Longharvest Lane and the surrounding area were actually shot in Sheffield.

Eerie: The same naked dead man in the series is found in the same street in Whitechapel, east London - a grimy, barren, tunnel-led alleyway overgrown in foliage, named Longharvest Lane

No lane in London: Fortunately, the sinister East End street is only fiction, as the scenes in Longharvest Lane and the surrounding area were actually shot in Sheffield

Where was the show filmed and where are the scene locations based?

According to iNews, the scenes depicting Whitechapel and its surrounding area were actually filmed in Hull and Bradford.

There were also sightings of film crews filming the show in Hull Old Town and Princes Quay shopping centre in Hull.

National World reported that the filming in Bradford took place City Hall, Salts Mill, and Burnett Street in Little Germany.

The 2053 scenes were shot in Lister Mills - the largest silk factory in the world - in the Manningham district of Bradford.

Further scenes from the show were filmed in Leeds, Rotherham, Grimsby and Bolton.

Filming in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, took place at the opulent Grade I listed country home, Wentworth Woodhouse.

According to The Bolton News, film crews rolled into Bolton town centre in September 2022 to shoot scenes for the series.

The crew chose Le Mans Crescent as a site to film some Victorian period scenes, with the historical location previously used in many a hit drama - including Peaky Blinders, of which Graham also had a starring role.

Le Mans Crescent was established in 1862 by Jonas James, and now houses a public museum, aquarium and art gallery after being acquired by Bolton Library and Museum Service.

In conclusion, the majority of the series was not filmed in Whitechapel, or London - much was filmed in and around Yorkshire.

Uncanny: Many scenes from the show were not filmed in London - but, rather Leeds, Rotherham, Grimsby and Bolton

Opulent location: Filming in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, took place at the opulent Grade I listed country home, Wentworth Woodhouse (Pictured, in 2020)

Bolton bound: Film crews rolled into Bolton town centre in September 2022 to shoot scenes for the series

Historic: Le Mans Crescent was established in 1862 by Jonas James, and now houses a public museum, aquarium and art gallery

Famous landmark: The crew chose Le Mans Crescent as a site to film some Victorian period scenes, with the historical location used in many hit dramas - including Peaky Blinders

Is Bodies available to watch now?

All eight episodes of the limited series is available to watch now on Netflix, with each episode ranging from 55 to 62 minutes long.

The show's cast includes Stephen Graham, who has ditched his strong Liverpudlian accent for his serious role in the thriller as he stars as the enigmatic Elias Mannix.

The renowned actor is joined by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as DS Karl Whiteman, Shira Haas as DC Iris Maplewood and Amaka Okafor as DS Shahara Hasan.

Also starring is Kyle Soller as DI Edmond Hillinghead and Tom Mothersdale as Gabriel Defoe.

Bodies is available to stream now on Netflix.
While the cast of Made In Chelsea can normally be found roaming the affluent area of west London, the stars of the Channel 4 reality show are filming the new series much further afield.

The group have travelled all the way Australia for another spin-off coming this December called Made in Chelsea: Sydney.

And as filming began on Thursday the stars headed to Bronte Beach in the city's posh eastern suburbs.

While out and about the stars have given a glimpse of upcoming storylines as newcomer model Lauren Sintes packed on the PDA with Reza Amiri-Garroussi.

The brunette beauty, 27, showed off her gorgeous curves in a patterned blue swimsuit as she got up close with the hunk.

Heating up: Made In Chelsea newcomer Lauren Sintes packed on the PDA with Reza Amiri-Garroussi as they filmed the new series in Sydney on Thursday

Fun: Also soaking up the sun on the beach was long-standing cast member Olivia Bentley, 28, who was enjoying some drinks with pal Bella Sharpe

Although sparks could be set to fly as it was revealed on Monday's explosive episode that she had enjoyed a fling with Harvey Armstrong - leaving his current flame Willow Day devastated.

Newcomer Lauren has been modelling for eight years, and during her career has modelled for brands including Boohoo, ASOS and PrettyLittleThing.

She is already firm friends with Rez, Emily Blackwell and Tiffany Watson, and Ruby Adler used to be her booker at Storm, a modelling agency based in London where Ruby used to work.

Also soaking up the sun on the beach was long-standing cast member Olivia Bentley, 28, who was enjoying some drinks with pal Bella Sharpe.

David Templer and Harvey Armstrong were also showing off their shirtless physiques as they chucked a ball around.

Newcomer Hugo MacKenzie Wood was also seen out enjoying the day with the others.

Olivia recently hinted that she and Hugo are dating - as she shared a cosy snap sat on his lap and called him her 'lover'.

Ruby Adler, Sam Prince and Yasmine Zweegers have also jetted to Sydney to film the new series.

Stunning: Brunette beauty Lauren, 27, showed off her gorgeous curves in a patterned blue swimsuit as she got up close with the hunk

Drama: Although sparks could be set to fly as it was revealed on Monday's explosive episode that Lauren had enjoyed a fling with Harvey Armstrong - leaving his current flame Willow Day devastated

Hunk: David Templer (pictured) and Harvey Armstrong were also showing off their shirtless physiques as they chucked a ball around

Sam and Yasmine appear to be continuing their romance after getting together quickly after he dumped ex-girlfriend Inga Valentiner.

The couple called time on their two-year relationship in dramatic scenes captured for the show's last series filmed in Corsica this summer.

Despite breaking down in tears after losing his 'dream girl', within days of their romance ending, Sam, 26, moved on by kissing co-star Yazmin, 24.

Inga said at the time: 'It was a savage breakup. It was really heartbreaking. I was really sad, and it was very dramatic.'

Since returning to London, Sam has moved out of the rented flat he shared with Inga but continues to pay the monthly costs on the property.

Shortly before their split, Sam claimed that he wanted to propose to his then girlfriend, but later admitted he was acting on 'impulse.'

He said at the time: 'We moved into our flat very quickly and we still have the flat today which she's living in. I wasn't 100 per cent in the relationship... there's a bit of an age gap, it just didn't feel right.

'I saw her as my dream person to be with and we shared so many happy memories, but it was an impulse thing. I was speaking about a dream world.'

Popular: Lauren is already firm friends with Rez, Emily Blackwell and Tiffany Watson, and Ruby Adler used to be her booker at Storm

Sporty: They were seen getting some light exercise as they all larked about on the sunny beach

Getting on well: Newcomer Hugo MacKenzie Wood (third left) was also seen out enjoying the day with the others

Larking about: Close friends Olivia and Temps were having fun during the day out at the beautiful beach

Having a great time: Bella looked like she was having fun as she showed off her figure in a black and white bikini
Julia Fox has admitted that 'turned a blind eye' to the 'early red flags' in her relationship with Kanye West before bringing an end to their month-long romance.

The actress, 33, admitted that the opportunity to 'relinquish her power' in the relationship was 'a welcome change' during a difficult time in her personal life, but she soon realised it would be 'unsustainable.'

Speaking on Radio 4's Women's Hour, Julia, who has penned a memoir about her troubled upbringing, also detailed her career as a dominatrix, after learning that she could use her body 'as a tool' to make money.

In the book, Julia refers to a relationship she had with someone called The Artist, and while she doesn't directly name Kanye, details allude to her turbulent romance with the rapper.

Kanye and Julia first stepped out together after his split from ex-wife Kim Kardashian in 2021, and after weeks of stunning with their outfits, the pair ended things in February 2022.

Speaking out: Julia Fox has admitted that 'turned a blind eye' to the 'early red flags' in her relationship with Kanye West before bringing an end to their month-long romance

She told Emma Barnett: 'I think at the time there were definitely some red flags that I chose to turn a blind eye to because it was fun, exciting, shiny and new, and also I was going through a lot in my personal life and it just felt like a welcome change.

'Sometimes it's nice to just relinquish power and not have to think about the little details, it's definitely felt like a relief in the beginning, ''oh finally someone can take the reigns.''

'But that became unsustainable so that's why the relationship only lasted a month.'

In her book, Julia details her troubled upbringing in Italy and New York, before finding work as a dominatrix at the age of 18, after emailing a Manhattan dungeon that was hiring on Craigslist.

And during her radio appearance, she explained that after struggling to embrace her appearance, she took the job as a way to excel using her figure.

She said: 'I think in life you're dealt certain cards and one of them was that I ha d a nice figure and I had to play that card to win at life, and I used my body as a survival mechanism as a tool to make money, then being a dominatrix.'

'Every time I speak about being a dominatrix and sex work I always talk about it in a positive light and I get such bashlash for it. and I don't think people understand.

'Being a dominatrix is so unique because the dungeon is the only place in the world where it's very matriarchal and the women rule and the men are there to serve and be submissive.

Revelation: In an interview on Women's Hour, the actress admitted that the opportunity to 'relinquish her power' in the relationship was 'a welcome change' after a tough time

Over: Kanye and Julia first stepped out together after his split from ex-wife Kim Kardashian in 2021, but split just weeks later in February 2022

'I think seeing that at a very young age just opened up a whole new world to me, and I was just like ''this is the way it should be this works, we are graceful rulers, we are cool, kind and caring, and we don't abuse our power I think as much as men do.

'I think overall it was such a self-esteem booster I think prior to that I had, prior to that men would tell me I was pretty or hot or attractive but I just never believed them, but then I started working at the dungeon and I saw that I was getting more money then some other girls, and I was getting booked more.

'That was a metric I could actually measure and then I believed it once it was fact and then I started to see my worth a little bit more and thought ''oh I am pretty'' because I had never seen myself like that a little bit more.'

Kanye Julia confirmed their split after West shared a slew of Instagram posts declaring 'I wish my wife were with me' and pining for his family to be reunited.

Fox, who appeared with Adam Sandler in 2019's Uncut Gems, previously described her romance with West as 'organic' and 'natural,' and off to a strong beginning.

'Time will tell, you'll just see,' she said. 'Obviously, it looks a certain way, but people don't know the conversations happening behind the scenes, and you know, I've been around.'

Fox said it was 'unfortunate' that people have compared her to Kardashian, saying their only similarities have been fashionable ones.
Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman are returning to the world of Baz Luhrmann's Australia, but in a drastically new form.

The 55-year-old X-Men star  who recently trimmed down his bushy beard after his split from his wife Deborra-Lee Furness  joined the 56-year-old Big Little Lies actress in the first official trailer for Luhrmann's upcoming miniseries Faraway Downs, which was released on Thursday.

The new miniseries  which premieres on Hulu on November 26  is based on footage for Luhrmann's 2008 epic Australia, but the filmmaker has now expanded that film thanks to copious footage that was left on the cutting room floor before he shaved the final product down to 165 minutes.

The miniseries follows Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) as she travels to Australia to sell a cattle ranch named Faraway Downs that is tucked away in the Outback.

The Englishwoman's journey gets off to an unfortunate start when her philandering husband, whom she hopes to confront, is murdered before she even reaches the ranch.

Together again: Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman are returning to the world of Baz Luhrmann 's Australia, but in a drastically new form in the trailer for Faraway Downs

Longer than ever: The miniseries expands Luhrmann's 2008 epic Australia with footage originally cut from the 165-minute film

The trailer opens with Lady Ashley's journey from England to Australia via plane, before she confesses that her husband has been killed on her way.

She's seen in montage as she arrives down under, where she sticks out with her expensive clothing, which isn't suited for the dust and dirt.

'This place is barren, I can't understand what he would have seen out here,' she says of her late husband.

Then Jackman makes his grand entrance as a cattleman known as The Drover. He's pictured in closeup with a mountain in the distance, which is intercut with shot of majestic horses running in a herd.

'Welcome to Australia,' he says gruffly yet charmingly. 'This should be interesting.'

The Drover is set to initially bring her to her husband, and afterward he helps her to drive the cattle.

Lady Ashley is game to explore the countryside with him, and she suits up with a pith hat, a white veil and protective glasses.

'It's all very Outback adventure, isn't it?' she says excitedly.

'I'm not saying it's for everyone,' he replies.

Sad news: The trailer opens with Lady Ashley's journey from England to Australia via plane, before she confesses that her husband has been killed on her way

Fish out of water: She's seen in montage as she arrives down under, where she sticks out with her expensive clothing, which isn't suited for the dust and dirt

There he is! Then Jackman makes his grand entrance. 'Welcome to Australia,' he says gruffly yet charmingly. 'This should be interesting'

Assistance: Jackman plays The Drover, who initially takes her to see her husband and then helps drive her cattle. 'It's all very Outback adventure, isn't it?' she says excitedly as they drive

Lady Ashley is then transfixed by a young boy named Nullah. She discovers him in her home late one night when she awakens from her slumber.

He is the child of an Aboriginal mother and a white father. The Drover reminds Lady Ashley that Nullah is 'all alone,' but she tells him she is 'not good with children.'

Nullah seizes up Lady Ashley almost instantly. Over a shot of her riding a horse, he says in voiceover, 'When you first come to this land, you look but you not see. Now, you get your eyes open for the first time.'

Then Lady Ashley declares: 'I'm going to bring Faraway Downs back to life.'

She then asks Nullah to help her, which he agrees to.

But Nullah's safety becomes an issue for Lady Ashley after a police sergeant comes knocking at her door.

He has been tipped off about the 'half-blood Aboriginal child' and wants to capture him and put him in a church-run orphanage, where he will likely be abused and cut off from his culture.

The villain Neil Fletcher (played by David Wenham) is then shown in closeup, suggesting he had something to do with the police visit.

Surprise guest: Lady Ashley is then transfixed by a young boy named Nullah. She discovers him in her home late one night when she awakens from her slumber

Can't handle it: He is the child of an Aboriginal mother and a white father. The Drover reminds Lady Ashley that Nullah is 'all alone,' but she tells him she is 'not good with children'

Change of perspective: Nullah seizes up Lady Ashley almost instantly. Over a shot of her riding a horse, he says in voiceover, 'When you first come to this land, you look but you not see. Now, you get your eyes open for the first time'

Big mission: Then Lady Ashley declares: 'I'm going to bring Faraway Downs back to life.' She then asks Nullah to help her, which he agrees to

Sinister: But Nullah's safety becomes an issue for Lady Ashley after a police sergeant visits. He has been tipped off about the 'half-blood Aboriginal child' and wants to capture him and put him in a church-run orphanage, where he will likely be abused and cut off from his culture

The bad guy: The villain Neil Fletcher (played by David Wenham) is then shown in closeup, suggesting he had something to do with the police visit

He hopes to steal Faraway Downs from Lady Ashley, but she's not ready to part with the property she so recently took ownership of.

'I need money!' she seethes to The Drover, who tells her that her cattle are 'worth more than your land.'

She then uses his skills and has him help to drive the cattle to market far away.

She's then seen at a high-society dance, as she's warned that 'A cattle station is like a country, and you have no one to protect it' by her dance partner.

'We can't let them win,' she says defiantly to The Drover.

He plans to drive her cattle with just his two assistants, but Lady Ashley and Nullah want to accompany him.

Their journey gets even more dramatic as Japanese fighter planes attack the area, forcing an evacuation.

Amid the devastation of the attack, The Drover and Lady Ashley find time for a romantic kiss in the rain.

The Drover then warns Lady Ashley that the only thing she can really own in life is her 'story.'

On a mission: In order to stop Fletcher from stealing Faraway Downs, Lady Ashley has The Drover drive her cattle to market to sell them for a quick cash infusion

All alone: She's then seen at a high-society dance, as she's warned that 'A cattle station is like a country, and you have no one to protect it' by her dance partner

Not giving up: 'We can't let them win,' she says defiantly to The Drover

Along for the ride: He plans to drive her cattle with just his two assistants, but Lady Ashley and Nullah want to accompany him

At last: Amid the devastation of a Japanese attack, The Drover and Lady Ashley find time for a romantic kiss in the rain

Coming soon: Faraway Downs will premiere in the US on Hulu on November 26, with all episodes available to stream at once

'Just try and live a good one,' he urges her in the trailer's final moments as kangaroos are seen jumping past a grand estate.

Luhrmann announced last year that he intended to expand Australia, which was a commercial disappointment in the US at the time of its release but a hit in other parts of the world, including the title country.

'I originally set out to take the notion of the sweeping, Gone With The Windstyle epic and turn it on its head  a way of using romance and epic drama to shine a light on the roles of First Nations people and the painful scar in Australian history of the "Stolen Generations,"' Luhrmann said in a statement in June of 2022. 'While Australia the film has its own life, there was another telling of this story; one with different layers, nuances and even alternative plot twists that an episodic format has allowed us to explore.'

Faraway Downs will premiere in the US on Hulu on November 26, with all episodes available to stream at once.
Will Smith, 55, continued to be a supportive spouse to Jada Pinkett Smith, 52, on Thursday, showing up at the Baltimore stop of her book tour.

The Fresh Prince star wrapped a supportive arm around his wife of 26 years  in spite of Jada's recent bombshell revelation that they've been separated since 2016.

However, the estranged couple presented a united front as the I Am Legend leading man helped Jada promote her buzzworthy memoir, Worthy.

The tea-spilling author was also joined by their kids Willow and Jaden, as well as his son Trey Smith from his first marriage, as they arrived at the Enoch Pratt Free Library to show their support.

Will's appearance at his wife's Baltimore book tour stop follows the hilarious 'official statement' he posted on TikTok where the Academy Award winner poked fun at the situation.

No trouble in paradise: Will Smith showed his support for wife Jada Pinkett Smith at her book tour stop in Baltimore on Thursday after Jada's bombshell revelation that they've been separated for seven years

We are family: Despite recent insiders saying that Willow and Jaden 'felt bad' for Will, the duo also showed up in Baltimore for their mother, in addition to Trey Smtih, Will's son with ex-wife Sheree Zampino

Despite fans of the superstar couple begging Jada to stop promoting her memoir, Will has appeared to take it all in stride.

He even took a well deserved respite on a solo boat trip this past weekend, making yet another comical post about the ongoing relationship drama on his Instagram for his 64.5 million followers.

Utilizing a voiceover that said. 'Fun fact about me - I can take a nap almost anywhere,' the Bad Boys star cheekily captioned the video with 'Notifications off,' with a smiley face, as the sound of phone notifications kept buzzing in the video.

In another show of marital support, Jada herself commented on the video, throwing in several laughing emojis under her estranged husband's tongue-in-cheek post.

Displaying a level of emotional coolness about the situation, Will opened up further to the New York Times about how Worthy 'kind of woke him up' to another side of his wife that he'd never seen.

He wrote in an email to the outlet 'When you've been with someone for more than half of your life a sort of emotional blindness sets in.'

Will admitted that you can 'all too easily lose your sensitivity to [a spouse's] hidden nuances and subtle beauties.'

In another shocking turn of events, the Worthy memoirist has even claimed that her estranged husband wants to write a book with her.

According to Jada, the yet-to-be written tome would be titled Don't Try This At Home.

Unrelenting: Despite fans begging Jada to stop talking about her book, Will Smith's estranged wife has continued on, even claiming that Will wants to write a book with her; seen on Tuesday

Staying strong: The only statements Will has made on the situation on social media haven't been actual statements, but rather short clips poking fun at the situation

The way they were: The couple, who have been married since 1997, have been quietly separated since 2016; seen in 2006

Speaking her truth: Jada has insisted that her marriage with Will is 'stronger than ever' despite her recent jaw-dropping truth reveals

Show of support: Despite being separated during the infamous Oscars slap incident, the couple appeared more united than ever; seen in 2022

The 4ft11in Red Table Talk host told Extra that divorce was 'off the table'.

Finding the light in the recent drama-stirring situation, the Madagascar actress told the outlet that she and Will had found their way 'back' to each other.

Will echoed her comment in his email to the NYT, writing 'We had to find our independence in order to come back in an interdependent way.'

The couple have been married since 1997.

'
Emily Ratajkowski looked runway ready as she posted a snap to her Instagram while cuddling her beloved dog Colombo.

The model held her dog's head close to her cheek as she snapped the cute selfie.

Later, the mom of Sylvester, two, was spotted out on the streets of Manhattan wearing a baggy, v-neck, long-sleeved red sweater dress that fell to her mid-thigh.

She paired the 1980s-style dress with knee-high black boots and a black handbag.

The bright red color of her dress set off her long, dark brown hair beautifully.

Leggy: The mom of Sylvester, two, was spotted out on the streets of Manhattan wearing a baggy, v-neck, long-sleeved red sweater dress that fell to her mid-thigh

Woman's best friend: Emily Ratajkowski looked runway ready as she posted a snap to her Instagram while cuddling her beloved dog Colombo

Her makeup featured smokey eyes that were in contrast to her more natural-colored lips.

The My Body author is frequently seen walking her dog through her neighborhood in New York City.

EmRata's young son Sylvester often accompanies his mom and dog on the walks.

The iCarly alum shares her son with her ex-husband, Sebastian Bear-McClard, 36, who she split from in 2022 after four years of marriage.

She has been linked to a series of stars since her divorce including Pete Davidson, 29, Harry Styles, also 29, and comedian Eric Andre, 40.

Recently, The My Body author spoke about being a single mother during an interview with Harper's Bazaar.

'I've never had such clear priorities before in my life. Number one is Sly, and that's that,' she stated.

She then discussed how becoming a mother inspired her to think about the lessons she wanted her child to learn.

Gorgeous: She paired the 1980s-style dress with knee-high black boots and a black handbag

Beautiful: The bright red color of the dress set off her long, dark brown hair beautifully

Errands: Her makeup featured smokey eyes that were in contrast to her more natural-colored lips

Dog mom: The My Body author is frequently seen walking her dog through her neighborhood in New York City

'Having my own business and working with a group of women that I love, that are my friends... that has been so enjoyable,' she stated.

The fashion industry personality also discussed being able to exert more influence over her professional life.

'What I like now is that, in my career, things are more in my hands and in my control,' Ratajkowski said.

She added: 'Failures feel more like road bumps than huge losses and I feel less impacted by other people saying no.'
Shona Manderson was axed from Married at First Sight following a series of 'toxic' rows with her husband Brad Kelly over the past few episodes.

However the star has reportedly moved on and has found new love after the show.

According to The Sun, Shona is now dating MAFS co-star Matt Pilmoor.

In footage obtained by the publication, the couple were spotted enjoying a casual date in Starbucks and are officially an item.

A source saw the pair together as they revealed they had even brought their pet dog along for the trip out.

Spotted! According to The Sun, Shona is now dating MAFS co-star Matt Pilmoor. The couple were spotted enjoying a casual date in Starbucks and are officially an item

In love again: Married At First Sight star Shona has found a NEW love with show co-star after she recently revealed what REALLY happened off camera with husband Brad

'I'm a big fan of the show so I couldn't believe it when they strolled in together because Matt's only just joined the show,' said the source.

While Shona's MAFS journey is well and truly over, window cleaner Matt only joined the show this week when he married Adrienne Naylor.

The source continued: 'I'm really disappointed I saw them to be honest because there's still a month or so to go  and now I know his marriage to Adrienne won't last.

'But I wish them all the best and hopefully they both fare better in the real world than they did on the show.'

Adrienne and Matt are the show's newest couple, tying the knot last Monday in a fairytale wedding.

The Channel 4 rules state couples aren't allowed to confirm or deny whether they are still in a relationship with their partner, until their final episodes have aired.

A spokesman from the channel told The Sun: 'While we don't comment on speculation, we are well aware of how much our audience dislike spoilers  we do too.

'We hope audiences will continue to follow the journeys of our couples Monday  Thursdays at 9pm on E4 or you can stream on Channel 4. There are plenty more twists and turns to come.'

Toxic: Shona Manderson was axed from Married at First Sight following a series of 'toxic' rows with her husband Brad Kelly over the past few episodes

Unfair: Brad believes viewers saw unfairly edited scenes featuring the couple as footage of them 'laughing' and 'joking' failed to make the cut, and he feels producers wanted to portray a negative narrative

New couple: While Shona's MAFS journey is well and truly over, window cleaner Matt only joined the show this week when he married Adrienne Naylor (pictured)

On Monday, Shona appeared on the 'Its Not You, Its Them, But It Might Be You' podcast with LalalaletMeExplain as she discussed Brad's behaviour with the dating expert.

Shona explained: 'We stayed together on the outside for, I think, about five to six weeks and the same behaviour continued.

'He was exactly the same person. It was the listing, it was the harsh criticism, it was belittling me, like making me feel so small and questioning myself.

'And it got to the point where I just doubted my every word, like constantly gaslighting me and asking me questions and I just felt like he was constantly going in on me and then one day and I was thinking, Shona, everything in your body is saying that this is wrong, like why, why are you still with this person?

'And then he called me one day and he just said, "the way I feel about you is so mental, it's so crazy, but like I don't love you, I just lust you and I think you're really sexy and I think it's physical for me, but like I still want to be with you" and I was like "what?" I just woke the hell up.'
Shannen Doherty took to Instagram on Thursday to share a photo from what she described as a 'much needed' night out with friends.

The 52-year-old former Beverly Hills, 90210 actress - who received a standing ovation at 90s Con - posed with two gal pals in the post.

Engaging her 2.1 million followers, she wrote in the caption: 'Much needed girls night.'

She and her companions, friends Kristy and Julie, gathered together for a photo op outside of Kristys Village Cafe in Malibu.

It comes as the star has been battling stage four breast cancer that has spread to her brain.

Fun: Shannen Doherty took to Instagram on Thursday to share a photo from what she described as a 'much needed' night out with friends at Kristys Village Cafe in Malibu

Struggle: It comes as the star has been battling stage four breast cancer that has spread to her brain

Days earlier, Doherty took to the app to share a gorgeous selfie in a light face of glowy makeup.

She wrote, 'Today has been a hard day. Obvious reasons and not so obvious reasons. But every day I pick myself up and hope that I do better. That people do better.'

The raven-haired beauty added, 'That what's obvious is not so convoluted. While I send myself love and peace, I also send love to every single one of you.'

She referenced backlash to statements she's made about the Israel-Palestine conflict as she continued, 'Even those that have threatened me in the last week.'

Finally, she wrote, 'May God be in your hearts.'

Earlier this year Doherty announced that her cancer had spread to her brain in an Instagram post that showed her undergoing radiation therapy.

In the vulnerable video clip, she cried as the camera focused in on her face.

First diagnosed with breast cancer - which included the presence of multiple tumors - in 2015, the Charmed alum had a single mastectomy in May 2016.

Fighter: The star has been battling stage four breast cancer that has spread to her brain

Support system: Last month Shannen enjoyed the company of her good friend Chris Cortazzo

Stress relief: Doherty took to social media recently and shared that she was indulging in baking a pan of brownies

It was followed by chemotherapy treatments and radiotherapy, to treat cancer, which was more advanced than doctors thought.

By 2017, Doherty announced that her cancer was in remission. But in February 2020, she revealed the cancer had returned in 2019, and that she was in stage four.

'On January 5th, my CT scan showed Mets in my brain,' Doherty captioned the clip posted in June. 'Yesterday's video was showing the process of getting fitted for the mask, which you wear during radiation to your brain. January 12, the first round of radiation took place.'

She added, 'My fear is obvious. I am extremely claustrophobic and there was a lot going on in my life.'

The actress added that she had been able to take solace in the great doctors and techs at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
The Score (Theatre Royal, Bath)

Verdict: nicely composed.

Rating:

He has a rugged face that looks like it was hacked from rock with a blunt chisel. And it's a face that's played some pretty bad guys in its time: Logan Roy, the monstrous media mogul in TV's Succession, and the evil CIA puppet master in The Bourne Identity films.

But in Bath we get to see a whole other side to Brian Cox  sad, tender and actually rather sweet as the great German composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

In a play written by fellow thesp and classical guitarist Oliver Cotton, Cox stars as the musician in his autumn years, when he was summoned to the court of King Frederick II of Prussia.

Ostensibly, the king wanted to hear Bach play and consult him on his harpsichord collection. But he also wanted to catch him out with a devious musical challenge.

Cotton's script for the first half at least is amiable, costumed chit-chat including an amusing appearance from the radical French philosopher Voltaire. But then it focuses on the musical challenge, and Bach's daring to confront the King over allowing his army to rape and pillage.

In The Score, we get to see a whole other side to Brian Cox  sad, tender and rather sweet as the great German composer Johann Sebastian Bach

Actor Brian Cox has become a household name after playing Logan Roy in hit TV series Succession

There are echoes of the horrors of war in Russia and the Middle East today, but the play also touches on questions of faith, and Bach's belief in divine inspiration. As Voltaire quips: 'Life is a ship wreck but we must sing in the lifeboats.'

It's a fairly gentle walk in the park for Cox, and Trevor Nunn's grand production allows his leading man to sit for much of his time on stage. But that doesn't mean Cox lacks vigour. His rich tenor voice glows like a homely fire  letting off the odd falsetto spark of surprise. And he's thoroughly at ease with his real-life wife, Nicole Ansari-Cox, playing Bach's historical wife, Anna.

The acting is flamboyant throughout, with Peter De Jersey making sport of courtly manners as Voltaire. Matthew Burns is impressively forthright as Bach's son, Carl, who is loyal to his father but also fearful for his fortunes. And Stephen Hagan is an urbane yet formidable warlord as King Frederick, despite looking like a drag queen in silver satin and powdered wig.

The staging impresses, too, thanks to Robert Jones's design featuring a pretty collection of harpsichords, as well as a series of backdrops displaying Imperial portraits, and a huge pastoral tapestry.

It may help to know your fugues from your toccatas (I don't), but even without specialist knowledge it's a handsome dream of royal rebuke, told from an admiring modern perspective.

On song, even if the scripts a little preachy...

By Georgina Brown

Choir Boy (Bristol Old Vic)

Verdict: Harmony until the music stops

Rating:

Nancy Medina's first production as artistic director of Bristol Old Vic opens with a soaring gospel song sung by the choir of an all-black American boarding school. Unusual and exceptional, but everything else in this school hall is oddly conventional, with boys in blazers and headmaster in mortar board.

In Medina's well-performed production, the singing never fails to take your breath away; but the writing in between remains dismayingly flat

There's nothing surprising either  alas  about the vile Bobby (a swaggering Alistair Nwachukwu) hissing 'cissy' and 'faggot' at the unashamedly gay soloist Pharus (a compelling Terique Jarrett).

Tarell Alvin McCraney's Choir Boy covers familiar ground: boys being boys, joshing, bullying, loving and hating one another Pharus raises a more original cultural concern about black history in the classroom when he asks what spirituals mean today. Are they merely balm for the soul or can they galvanise and lead to an Obama-like cry of freedom: 'Yes we can'? However, this argument soon fizzles out.

In Medina's well-performed production, the singing never fails to take your breath away; but the writing in between remains dismayingly flat.

Portia Coughlan

Almeida Theatre, London

Verdict: Misery marathon.

Miseryguts love nothing better than to eat your time and prey on your goodwill. Irish playwright Marina Carr is well versed in these vices and her play Portia Coughlan is an early example from 1996. With Alison Oliver from Sally Rooney's Conversations With Friends on TV in the title role, it's the tale of a 30-year-old woman in middle Ireland who married a nice but dull businessman at 17, has two children she can't love, and lives in a house that 'creaks like a coffin'.

Portia's problem - which she bitterly resents discussing - is that she lost her twin brother fifteen years earlier. In any event, she is extremely poor company, bad-mouthing everyone and wanting nothing from anyone. It's never clear why her friends or family put up with her - let alone why we should. Soulful new songs composed by Maimuna Memon seek to make her more relatable in what seems intended as a psychological mystery play. But running at two and a half dispiriting hours, it is instead a doleful wake of the undead.

Carrie Cracknell's defiantly glum production features a dingy living room and a stony river bank beyond. Oliver seems fully immersed in her vision of a woman on Skid Row: a bitterly rhapsodic harridan guzzling brandy at 10am, who is wholly relieved of redeeming features. She is hemmed in by sharply-drawn local deadbeats, with vicious vernacular of their own. But Queen of the heap is Sorcha Cusack as Portia's fabulously dyspeptic, wheelchair-bound granny who condemns the human race as 'poor haunted monsters'.

Bleak as it is, it didn't also need to be so sullen.
Penny Lancaster looked in great spirits as she arrived to open a photographic exhibition Street Child at Oxo Wharf on Thursday.

The TV presenter was joined by her husband Sir Rod Stewart for the exhibit which explores life in Ukraine War zones and refugee camps.

The English model looked stylish as she donned a chic black leather biker jacket for the event and a gorgeous floral patterned dress.

Yet Penny was still aided by her crutches after she revealed last week that she has suffered a torn meniscus on her right knee.

The model has been spotted using a pair of crutches several times over the past week and it seems the injury is still causing her complaint.

Chic: Penny Lancaster, 52, looked stylish in a black leather biker jacket as she relied on support of her crutches for exhibition opening on Thursday

BEaming: The English model looked stylish as she donned a chic black leather biker jacket for the event and a gorgeous floral patterned dress

The star completed her look with some rhinestone studded black ankle boots in keeping with the autumnal look.

Meanwhile her musician husband kept it smart in a black paisley patterned suit jacket and black pin striped trousers.

Rod paired the jacket with a cream waistcoat, white shirt and black tie.

Adding a quirky element to his look his black shoes were embellished with white skull and crossbones.

Penny and Rod joined Chris Kamara, Nick Hewer and founders of global charity Street Child as they celebrated the organisations 15th birthday with the launch of the photographic exhibition called FIFTEEN.

The charity taught teenagers how to use cameras in five different countries where they operate- Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, Uganda, and Ukraine.

The teenagers then captured images that represented what life means to them, and what its like to be 15-years-old and facing extreme adversity.

The free exhibition at the gallery@oxo at Oxo Tower Wharf will run from October 18 - 29 from 11am to 6pm.

Penny was seen last week using the crutches as she arrived at Geri Horner's Tower Of London book launch.

A spokesperson told the Daily Mail 'Penny has suffered a torn meniscus on her right knee.

Smart: Meanwhile her musician husband wore a black paisley patterned suit jacket and black pin striped trousers

'The cause of the injury is not known; nor at this stage, is the treatment. The injury is believed to have been sustained abroad and is not connected with her activities as a special constable.'

While Penny was previously using two crutches, it looks as though the star was only reliant on one for her latest outing.

Yet Penny isn't letting the injury get in her way after she also attended Madonna's concert at London's O2 Arena on Sunday.

The star looked in high spirits as she left the pop icon's Celebration Tour, despite still needing the support of her crutch.

Penny playfully stuck out her tongue as she got into her waiting car to whisk her home.

She dressed up for the gig, wearing a 80s Madonna themed outfit to see the iconic pop star perform.

Penny donned a sparkly white sheer tutu and a coordinating black glittery oversized jacket over a black lace top.
Monica Bellucci and Tim Burton looked cosy on Thursday as they stepped out for their first red carpet experience together since confirming their romance.

The Italian actress, 59, and iconic film director, 65, put on a loved-up display at the Diabolik Chi Sei premiere at the 18th Rome Film Festival.

Monica showed off her age-defying figure in a figure-hugging charcoal gown that complimented her gorgeous frame with a criss-cross neckline.

The youthful beauty looked as glam as ever as she held hands with her boyfriend Burton.

The couple could barely keep their hands off one another as they publicly showed they were together.

Sweet: Monica Bellucci and Tim Burton looked cosy on Thursday as they stepped out for their first red carpet experience together since confirming their romance

New couple alert: The Italian actress, 59, and iconic film director, 65, put on a loved-up display at the Diabolik Chi Sei premiere at the 18th Rome Film Festival

Burton was supporting his new flame, who plays Altea di Vallemberg in the film.

They had been secretly dating for months, but Monica finally confirmed their relationship in an interview with Elle France in June.

The Italian actress professed her love for the filmmaker months after they were first linked.

'What I can say... I'm glad I met the man, first of all,' she said. 'It's one of those encounters that rarely happens in life... I know the man, I love him, and now I'm going to meet the director, another adventure begins.'

The model has been shooting Beetlejuice 2 with Burton in London as of late, and gushed about the filmmaker's vision.

'I love Tim,' she continued. 'And I have great respect for Tim Burton.'

Speaking of his work she said: 'I love this dream world where the monsters are kind, like we can turn our darker aspects into something bright, forgiving. Tim Burton's films talk about that a lot.'

Monica and Tim first met 16 years ago but are said to have started dating after seeing one another at the Lumiere Film Festival in Lyon in October.

News of their romance emerged in February, when Paris Match wrote that the couple 'briefly met on the steps of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes in 2006, but it was only sixteen years later, behind the scenes of another festival, that they got closer.'

Stylish: Youthful beauty Monica looked as glam as ever as she cosied up to her boyfriend Burton

Glamorous: Monica showed off her age-defying figure in a figure-hugging charcoal gown that complimented her gorgeous frame with a criss-cross neckline

Monica, who was an honorary guest at the festival, presented Tim with the Lumiere lifetime achievement award on stage around the time they went official.

As he was handed the prize, Tim said: 'All my life put together, I have never felt so much love as tonight. Welcome to the best funeral I ever had!'

The pair were also seen heading in to watch the re-production of Silent Documentary Film, directed in 1895 by late French filmmaker Louis Lumiere.

In February, they were seen sharing a passionate kiss as they took a romantic walk on Valentine's Day.

Monica has been single since she split from artist Nicolas Lefebvre in 2019. She was previously married to Vincent Cassel from 1997-2013.

The former model met Cassel in 1996 on the set of Gilles Mimounis film lAppartement. They have two daughters, Deva, who was born in 2004, and Leonie, who entered the world in 2010.

They were together for three years before marrying in a quiet ceremony in Monaco, on the French Riviera.

Monica spoke about love in an interview with Paris Match back in 2011 when she was still married to Cassel, admitting there is 'no rationality' for her when it comes to relationships.

Former flame: Burton pictured with his former long-term partner Helena Bonham Carter in 2013

She said: 'I am carried by the moment and instinct. No rationality, only emotions. You love or you don't.'

'You don't decide sitting around a table: OK, so I have two kids, 16 years of life as a couple, that would be nice if it lasts, but how I am going to make it work?

'I don't think at all that a couple is something "you work out", as we say.'

Tim was famously in a relationship with The Crown actress Helena Bonham Carter, 57, but they sadly split in 2014.

The pair were never married, but were together for 13 years and share two children; son Billy and daughter Nell.
Music legend Gwen Stefani burst into floods tears as she received a coveted star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The No Doubt alum, 54, became the latest star to be recognized by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, and some of the biggest names in music turned out to show their support - including her husband, Blake Shelton, 47.

Music executive Jimmy Iovine and country icon Reba McEntire were also in the crowd, and Iovine even delivered some remarks on behalf of the hitmaker.

Gwen looked stunning in a metallic mini dress adorned with stars as she struck poses by brand new star.

She worked fishnet tights and shiny silver boots with her vibrant blonde locks slicked up into a high ponytail and her trademark red lip adding a pop of color.

Emotional: Music legend Gwen Stefani shed tears as she received a coveted star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday

Her biggest fan! Stefani was cheered on by her husband Blake Shelton

Officially a Hollywood icon! Gwen looked sensational as she posed on the walk of fame

Fittingly, Stefani's plaque has been cemented beside the Amoeba Music store, a beloved music establishment, and is the 2,764th star added to the boulevard, according to ABC7.

Blake was among the big names singing her praises. As he took to the podium, Gwen stood by his side with a huge smile on her face.

Recalling their first time meeting on The Voice in 2014, Blake said he remembered how the songstress didn't have any security detail - however her sons acted like her bodyguards, according to KTLA.

'It was clear to me that she was a mother, first and foremost, over anything else in the world. That was her number one job,' he said. 'But today, its nice to see her honored for her side project, which is being one of the biggest stars in the world.'

Gwen became emotional listening to her husband sing her praises, according to KTLA.

Once it was her turn to speak to the crowd, she gushed: 'Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think, this girl right here from Orange County, would have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It just doesnt make sense to me.'

She then gave a shout-out to Iovine, saying to him: 'Jimmy! What are we doing?'

Gwen then described the first time they met at a music showcase, where he predicted she would be a 'star' in six years.

With her boys! Stefani's sons Kingston, Apollo, and Zuma proudly showed their support for their mother

Singing her praises! Shelton delivered remarks from the podium as his wife watched on with a huge smile on her face

XOXO! Gwen gazed adoringly at her spouse

Country icon! Reba McEntire also dropped by support her co-star on The Voice

She's a star! The No Doubt alum posed by her newly minted star

Getting into the theme! She wore a metallic mini dress adorned with shiny stars

'You said "In six years, youre going to be a star." And I said "six years, thats just weird!" Like, "in six years Im going to be pregnant with my fifth child. I wont be doing music,"' she said.

But then: 'Six years on the dot Dont Speak was number one around the world and he was right!'

Gwen also gushed about her three sons, Kingston, 17, Zuma, 15, and Apollo, nine, who were present at the ceremony.

She referred to them as her 'biggest blessings', saying 'I can't believe I get to be your mom. I'm so proud of you guys.'

Congratulations! Jimmy Iovine embraced Gwen as he hit the podium

What an honor! Gwen gushed about the achievement, working with Iovine, and her three sons

There she is! The Voice judge grinned with glee

Showing their love! Reba was joined by her boyfriend, Rex Linn

Music legend: Irving Azoff also praised Stefani

Good times! Gwen jubilantly threw her hand into the air

It's official! She posed with her fresh plaque

Lovebirds! The couple cosied up together

Front row and center! Blake had his arm wrapped around his wife

There he is! Jimmy was looking stylish in jeans and a colorful top

There it is! Gwen gazed at her new star in amazement

Not only did Gwen officially achieve star status, but today has been named Gwen Stefani Day by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

'Gwen Stefani, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a star on the boulevard. Forever, perfectly together. Now tell me Gwen, wouldnt that be sweet,' said Steven Nissen, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce.

Stefani rose to fame as a member of the legendary ska-punk band No Doubt in the 1990s and remains a household name to this day.

After releasing hits such as Don't Speak and Sunday Morning with the group, she eventually launched her own solo career, with her debut solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby being released in 2004.

Not only was she a force to reckon with in the world of music, but she has also made her mark in the fashion and beauty industries with her L.A.M.B. and GXVE lines.

She has been a judge on The Voice since 2014, where she met her second husband Blake Shelton.

They married in 2021, five years after she divorced her first husband Gavin Rossdale. She shares her three sons with Gavin.
Julia Fox has spilled a fresh set of jaw-dropping new details about her former life as an 18-year-old dominatrix - and her hair-raising first session with a aging client caught in a web of confusion about his sexuality.

Long before she hit the headlines for her role in Uncut Gems or her relationship with Kanye West, Julia, now 33, worked in a sex dungeon in Manhattan.

In an GQ excerpt from her new memoir Down The Drain, she spilled the racy details of her first-day on the job while on probation for credit card fraud.

She found the posting on the 'Adult gigs' section of Craigslist, then filled out an application that required her to 'Describe in detail your most sadistic sexual fantasy.'

'Easy,' Julia reasoned. 'I dont have experience as a dominatrix but I certainly have some experience in hating men.'

The past: Julia Fox has spilled a fresh set of jaw-dropping new details about her former life as an 18-year-old dominatrix - and her hair-raising first session; pictured last month

She fell back on the dominatrix job 'to fulfill my probation requirement,' but also because she was hard up for cash after being busted for fraud.

'The numbers I had stolen off my dads credit card stopped working and we cant steal checks from my friend Serenas dad anymore because he threatened to have us arrested and hes totally the type to do that,' she complained.

To Craiglist she went, quickly finding a dominatrix posting that required 'a recent full-body picture' and 'a quick bio with age, height, weight, and level of experience.'

Requirement number three was the description of her sadistic sexual fantasy - a task Julia was able to complete with brio.

She wrote a lengthy and graphic passage about stomping barefoot on a man's penis in exchange for allowing him to 'kiss my big juicy a**.'

'As you begin to yell and scream, I squat down so that your face is now in between my legs,' she wrote in her job application. 'I then sit on your face with all my weight, muffling your cries and suffocating you at the same time. I untie one of your hands and you begin jerking off until you c** in under ten seconds.'

In a flash, she got a reply from a man called Ronald who offered her an interview - where she regaled him with a story about humiliating a boy from school.

'In third grade,' Julia told Ronald: 'my dad used to make me have playdates with the biggest nerds in my class. He said it was because he felt sorry for them. One of the boys was Fabien. I used to force him to strip down completely naked and make him get on his knees. And then I would ride him around like a pony and make him pick things up off the floor with his mouth.'

Looking back: Before her role in Uncut Gems or her relationship with Kanye West , Julia, now 33, worked in a sex dungeon in Manhattan; pictured in Milan this February

Ronald, deeply impressed, gave her the job and she started the following day - working under the 'mistress name' Valentina.

Julia's first day did not start promisingly, as she arrived with tatty bondage gear that provoked utter derision from her colleagues.

Nor did her mediocre costume meet the approval of the sex dungeon's obese, middle-aged Ukrainian receptionist Greta.

'Valentina. What de fack are you wearing?' Greta exclaimed. 'This is high-class place, Valentina! You look like cheap hooker!'

On her way to pick up the sex toys she needed, Julia walked past a 'wall covered in paddles, whips, handcuffs, ropes, and chains,' then a pitch-black hallway filled with trash bags stinking of 'latex, lube, and piss.'

Finally, however, she reached her destination - a 'phallic wonderland' where 'Dildos of all shapes, sizes, and colors line the walls from top to bottom.'

Julia was told 'the dildos are stored in the hallway in case the cops decide to raid the place...again. "No dildos, no penetration, no problem," Greta quips nonchalantly.'

While trying out the costumes, Julia was driven to nausea as she began to put on catsuit and noticed that it was stained with what appeared to be semen.

New work: In an GQ excerpt from her new memoir Down The Drain, she spilled the racy details of her first-day on the job while on probation for credit card fraud

She settled on an outfit and headed to a room called 'the Xing Palace' for a scheduled two-hour session with an avid smoker called Stewart.

Once she got through his haze of cigarette smoke, she found that he was 'completely naked, and his balls are tightly bound to a rope thats connected to a torture device hanging from the ceiling.'

Offering her a cigarette, Stewart - whom Julia immediately noticed had a 'small penis' - offered to let her 'spit in my mouth or even pee.'

Halfway through their allotted time they took a break, during which he subjected her to recordings of his cover band playing several songs by the Strokes.

Julia made her way through a grueling session that saw her smoke cigarettes until her tongue felt as if it were 'on fire' - with Stewart still unable to get an erection.

In a stroke of luck, Julia realized she needed to urinate - which she proceeded to do through a funnel into Stewart's mouth, finally getting him aroused.

He then retrieved his laptop and opened up his saved queue of porn videos, 'all of older men forcing themselves onto submissive younger-looking men.'

Julia, 'unsure whether hes come to terms with his obvious queerness,' decided to goad him: 'I bet you wanna suck that c*** like a little slut, dont you?'

Wow: She found the posting on Craigslist, then filled out an application that asked her to 'Describe in detail your most sadistic sexual fantasy'; pictured this February

The gambit worked, and after Stewart masturbated to completion on his hand, Julia fed him the results, much to his delight.

Stewart became a regular of hers immediately, and the experience taught her a vital tool of her new profession, which was: 'I have to know what they want before theyve even come to terms with it. I understand the secret to this trade.'

She would 'never turn down a job. I revel in the fact that I can be anyone at any given moment. I transform into your mean mommy, an evil nun, the b****y popular girl in high school, all in a days work. My strong intuition and excellent improvisation skills keep the job interesting and the money rolling in.'

The remarks come after she opened up about her brief and 'unsustainable' relationship with Kayne, claiming that it had been similar to raising a second child.

Julia - who recently admitted that she had ignored 'red flags' while dating the Flashing Lights rapper - discussed the topic while stopping by The Drew Barrymore Show on Wednesday.

The mother of one has been busy promoting her latest memoir titled, Down The Drain, where she talks about her relationship with West, whom she called The Artist in the book.

Fox reflected to the talk show host: 'I think he needed a full time person, and I just couldn't be full time. I had my son.'

The model shares two-year-old son, Valentino, with ex-husband, Peter Artemiev.

She further dished on the relationship, stating, 'And then he'd want to talk on the phone a lot, and I'd have to change diapers. So I bought a pair of AirPods so that I could keep it in while I was doing mom stuff.'

Opening up: Julia recently opened up about her brief and 'unsustainable' relationship with ex Kayne West, claiming that it had been similar to raising a second child

Focus: The model reflected to the talk show host, 'I think he needed a full time person, and I just couldn't be full time. I had my son'; former couple seen in January 2022 in Paris

'It was so overwhelming and so unsustainable. I think I realized very quickly it just wasn't going to be sustainable because, ultimately, I can not put anybody else first,' the media personality admitted.

The Italian-born star continued, 'My son has to be first. It just became too much. I didn't sign up to have two babies.'

During the interview, Julia explained that when she began dating the performer, also known as Ye, she 'thought nobody would ever hear about it.'

'Because a lot of the time, you date these celebrities, but they, you know, are very hush-hush. And they're like, "Don't post a picture in my bathroom." So I kind of just thought it would be a secret.'

'So, when it suddenly got mysteriously leaked - it wasn't me - I just really was not expecting that at all. And then, I just embraced it.'

'I was like, "Okay, I'll do the fashion. I'll wear the clothes. I'll do what he says." And I only could do it for so long,' Fox expressed to Barrymore.

The former couple had a short-lived romance in early 2022, not long after the rapper's split from ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.

At one point in the candid interview, Drew brought up how West had made Julia 'bigger' during the course of their relationship. Fox replied with, 'He did want me to be bigger.'

'Unsustainable': 'It was so overwhelming and so unsustainable. I think I realized very quickly it just wasn't going to be sustainable because, ultimately, I can not put anybody else first,' the media personality admitted

Comparing: The Italian-born star continued, 'My son has to be first. It just became too much. I didn't sign up to have two babies'

Memoir: The mother of one has been busy promoting her latest memoir titled, Down The Drain, where she talks about her relationship with West, whom she called The Artist in the book

'He did. Like, when I'd be getting a lot of press, he was thrilled. That's the thing about him. When he has a vision for someone, he gets very obsessed with the vision and it becomes almost like his little project, his masterpiece in a way.'

She then added, 'He really is super fascinating and I never ever want to talk down on him or even that relationship.'

'Even though it didn't work out, I still feel like I learned so much and he is a genius, you know? I think he's very tortured. I think he definitely has his issues...It feels even silly to talk about it now, 'cause it was for such a short time.'

In regards to what she is looking for when it comes to dating, Julia told Drew, 'It would need to be someone who also has kids so that they understand that they can never come first.'

'Then it would have to be someone that's okay with seeing me once a week for a two-hour window. Also, they have a driving force in their life that isn't me, you know what I mean?'

'I can't be the center of somebody's life,' she further explained. 'I can't have someone's world revolve around me. I tend to get into those kinds of relationships, and it just never ends well.'

'Because ultimately, whatever vision of me they're projecting onto me isn't who I actually am.'

The model has been filtering through a busy schedule and has been celebrating the release of Down The Drain - which hit shelves earlier this month on October 10.

Looking for: 'I can't be the center of somebody's life,' she further explained. 'I can't have someone's world revolve around me. I tend to get into those kinds of relationships, and it just never ends well,' she explained

Family first: In regards to what she is looking for when it comes to dating, Julia told Drew, 'It would need to be someone who also has kids so that they understand that they can never come first'

'Red flags': And while recently appearing on Radio 4's Women's Hour, the actress admitted that she ignored 'red flags' while dating Ye; seen in January 2022 in Paris

On Thursday, she was spotted out in London wearing a Princess Diana shirt and flowy white skirt amid her promotional tour.

In an excerpt from the book recently obtained by The Guardian, Julia also made bombshell claims about her relationship with Kanye.

She claimed that the rapper had offered to pay for her to get a 'boob job' during a game of Uno, but explained that she had turned down the offer.

Fox also revealed that she was, 'being used as a pawn in this grand master plan to get back at his ex-wife.'

And while recently appearing on Radio 4's Women's Hour, the actress admitted that she ignored 'red flags' while dating Ye.

Offer: She claimed that the rapper had offered to pay for her to get a 'boob job' during a game of Uno, but explained that she had turned down the offer

Short-lived: The media personality then added, 'But that became unsustainable so that's why the relationship only lasted a month'; seen in September in NYC

'I think at the time there were definitely some red flags that I chose to turn a blind eye to because it was fun, exciting, shiny and new, and also I was going through a lot in my personal life and it just felt like a welcome change.'

'Sometimes it's nice to just relinquish power and not have to think about the little details, it's definitely felt like a relief in the beginning, ''Oh, finally someone can take the reigns.''

The media personality then added, 'But that became unsustainable so that's why the relationship only lasted a month.'

While talking to the Los Angeles Times, the mother of one explained, 'I really understood him on a visceral level...But I learned very quickly that I was being weaponized. I just felt like his little puppet.'
David Walliams was offered a new 1million contract on Britain's Got Talent despite bosses knowing he had made controversial remarks about contestants, it was claimed last night.

The comedian, 52, decided to leave the ITV talent show after he was forced to apologise for describing an elderly contestant as a 'c***' in 2022.

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'.

Walliams is now suing his former bosses at Britain's Got Talent and has reportedly accused London-based Fremantle, which produces the reality series, of an unlawful data protection breach.

According to High Court documents seen by The Guardian, Walliams's lawyers state that Fremantle was 'fully aware of the allegations' when Walliams was offered a 1million contract to appear in the 2023 season.

Walliams is suing his former bosses at Britain's Got Talent and has reportedly accused London-based Fremantle, which produces the reality series, of an unlawful data protection breach

His legal team also claim that the offer was only withdrawn after the Guardian published a story about the comments last year.

A source at Fremantle told The Guardian that the show's judges were aware their conversations were being recorded, adding: 'It seems somewhat bizarre, as it was widely reported in 2018 that all the comments judges made at the desk were going to be recorded, even when they weren't speaking to contestants.'

Court documents seen by The Sun have apparently revealed the impact the row has had on Walliam's mental health as he left the judging panel after a ten-year stint.

His psychiatrist Dr Mark Collins wrote in the documents that the TV star suffered from suicidal thoughts and they also show he was suffering a mental breakdown, the newspaper claimed.

The documents are alleged to read: 'He is plagued by uncontrollable negative thoughts, including active suicidal thoughts.'

David Walliams (pictured: left), 52, decided to leave the ITV talent show after he was forced to apologise for describing an elderly contestant as a 'c***' in 2022

A source at Fremantle told The Guardian that the show's judges were aware their conversations were being recorded

The newspaper also revealed that Walliams was taking medication for depression, anxiety and insomnia.

In the High Court writ Walliams reportedly accuses Fremantle of recording, transcribing and retaining private conversations for ten years. He is said to have alleged that his microphone was kept on throughout the entire day during filming, including when he went to the toilet.

It has been alleged Fremantle produced and retained transcripts of the recordings, which he claims included private information with 'no relevance to production'  such as conversations about his marriage, sex life and family disputes.

The transcripts reportedly amounted to 1,700 hours of recordings across ten years, as well as 41,526 hours of visual recordings from 191 days of filming.

Fremantle told The Sun: 'We had a long and productive relationship with David and so are surprised and saddened by this legal action. We remain available and open to dialogue to resolve this matter amicably.

'However, in the interim, we will examine the various allegations and are prepared to robustly defend ourselves if necessary.'
Jeezy is breaking his silence more than a month after he shocked his fans by filing for divorce from his wife Jeannie May.

The 46-year-old rapper, who filed his paperwork in mid-September, has now shared a statement about his ongoing divorce and his relationship with the 44-year-old television host.

'The decision to end this chapter in my life was not made impulsively and comes with a heavy heart,' he declared, according to Just Jared.

The Soul Survivor rapper also included a kind word for his ex Jeannie, who denied rumors of an affair with Mario Lopez just days after her estranged husband's divorce filing.

'Despite this, my love and respect for Jeannie remains and the time we spent together holds a cherished place in my heart,' he continued.

Having his say: Jeezy finally spoke out after his divorce filing in a statement saying his decision was 'not made impulsively,' according to Just Jared; seen September 30 in Atlanta

Conciliatory: The 46-year-old rapper  who filed to divorce Jeannie Mai, 44, in September  said his 'love and respect for Jeannie remains and the time we spent together holds a cherished place in my heart'

'Our beautiful daughter is the best gift from our relationship and I am committed to assuring she feels the love and stability she deserves,' continued the rapper, whose legal name is Jay Wayne Jenkins.

The hitmaker concluded with a request for privacy for his family.

Jeezy and Jeannie Mai share a one-year-old daughter named Monaco, whom they welcomed in January 2022.

In his initial divorce filing, the rapper requested joint custody of their child.

He also stated that the exes have a prenuptial agreement in place that should guide the divorce outcomes.

The songwriter also described their marriage as 'irretrievably broken,' and he added that 'there is no hope for reconciliation.'

It was only last week that Jeannie spoke out in the wake of the divorce filing. Although she avoided referencing her split from Jeezy directly, she shared a photo of a notepad that read: 'Sometimes, you need to take a break and disconnect, to heal.'

Jeezy's divorce filing in September threw his wife's fans for a loop, and several shared their shocked and quizzical reactions on her social media accounts afterward.

Their baby: 'Our beautiful daughter is the best gift from our relationship and I am committed to assuring she feels the love and stability she deserves,' he added. The couple share one-year-old Monaco (pictured)

Oblique: It was only last week that Jeannie spoke out in the wake of the divorce filing. She avoided referencing it directly and instead shared a photo of a note written in pen

Shocker: The split seemingly came out of the blue, as Jeannie supported her husband at his concert in Atlanta in August, and she congratulated him on his bestselling memoir earlier in September; seen in February 2020

The split seemingly came out of the blue, as she had been seen supporting the musician in August when he performed at the Tabernacle concert hall in Atlanta as part of the hip-hop tribute show City Sessions: 50 & Forever Featuring Jeezy & Special Guests, which was put on by Amazon.

She was also seen showing an affectionate side on social media when she congratulated the Put On rapper for his new memoir's commercial success.

'Today I celebrate a remarkable milestone achieved by my husband, @jeezy, whose memoir Adversity For Sale has soared to the New York Times bestsellers list,' she wrote on September 6, just over a week before Jeezy filed for divorce.

'I'm endlessly grateful for your voice in this world. Honored to walk beside you my love,' she added.

Jeezy and Jeannie Mai began their relationship back in 2018, and they went on tie the knot at their home in Atlanta in March of 2021, with their daughter arriving less than a year later.

Last month, a source told Page Six that Jeannie was 'devastated' over her split from Jeezy.

'The truth is Jeannie wants her marriage to work, and wants her family to be one solid unit,' they said

'She deeply loves Jeezy, and she wants to work things out. She did not get married to get divorced,' they continued. 'This was not a part of the plan. This is not how she ever imagined things would go down.'

The source added that she hoped for some kind of reconciliation despite her estranged husband's divorce filing, but his latest statement suggested that there was no relief in sight for her.

Awkward: They appear to be living through a particularly awkward home life, as the two were still living together in the Atlanta home as of last last month, according to TMZ, though they try not to interact with each other

They appear to be living through a particularly awkward home life, as the two were still living together in the Atlanta home as of last last month, according to TMZ.

The publication noted that the estranged couple avoid interacting whenever possible, though they sometimes run into each other when leaving or arriving at home.

In addition to the daughter he shares with Jeannie Mai, Jeezy has three other children: 27-year-old son Jadarius Dykes Jenkins (from his relationship with Tenesha Dykes), 23-year-old son Shyheim Jenkins and nine-year-old daughter Amra Nor Jenkins (whom he shares with his ex-fiancee Mahlet Gebregiorgis).

Jeannie's marriage to the rapper was her second. She was previously married to Freddy Harteis from 2007 until their 2018 divorce.
Lachlan Gillespie and wife Dana Stephenson made a rare public public appearance at Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles premiere at SXSW Sydney on Thursday.

The couple, who are both part of the children's supergroup, were all smiles as they lead the celebrity arrivals on the red carpet.

Purple Wiggle Lachlan serves in the main cast of the supergroup, while Dana, a ballet dancer, has appeared in many of The Wiggles productions.

Dana looked glamorous in a longline green frock which hugged her slender figure.

She was glowing in minimal makeup and wore her chocolate locks down in a straight style.

Lachlan Gillespie and wife Dana Stephenson made a rare public public appearance at Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles premiere at SXSW Sydne y on Thursday

Meanwhile, Lachlan was casual in a white T-shirt by Nana Judy which he paired with a black blazer and matching trousers. He finished his look with sparkling sneakers.

Lachlan was previously married to Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins before the couple split in 2018. Lachlan and Dana starting dating soon after.

The couple welcomed twins Lulu and Lottie in September 2020.

Meanwhile, Ex-Bachelor Matt Agnew did the famous Wiggles fingers as he posed on the red carpet with a friend

The private pair tied-the-knot at a ceremony in the Bowral, in the Southern Highlands of NSW, in November last year.

Meanwhile, Ex-Bachelor Matt Agnew did the famous Wiggles fingers as he posed on the red carpet.

Red Wiggle Simon Pryce also attended the event with his wife, Lauren Hannaford

Red Wiggle Simon Pryce also attended the event with his wife, Lauren Hannaford.

Simon stood out in a quirky graphic shirt, which he paired with a black suit, while Lauren opted for an off-the-shoulder purple minidress.

The pair beamed as they held hands before watching the screening together.

Former reality star Cameron Merchant looked to be in a good mood as he posed on the red carpet for the event

Founding members of The Wiggles, including Jeff Fatt, Murray Cook, Greg Page and Anthony Field, all did the iconic Wiggles fingers as they posed for a group shot. Pictured from left to right

Founding members of The Wiggles, including Jeff Fatt, Murray Cook, Greg Page and Anthony Field, all did the iconic Wiggles fingers as they posed for a group shot.

Newer members of the group, including Lachlan and Simon John Pearce and Tsehay Hawkins, also posed for a happy snap.

Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles exposes the backstage drama behind the world's biggest children's group.

In the documentary, Blue Wiggle Anthony, 60, opened up about his harrowing battle with depression throughout his incredibly successful career. Pictured with daughter, Lucia Field

Blue Wiggle Anthony, 60, opened up about his harrowing battle with depression throughout his incredibly successful career.

He said he was 'bursting into tears backstage' during The Wiggles' very first tour in England and no one could understand what was wrong with him.

'Talking to one of my brothers, I told him I felt sad all the time and he said, "What have you got to be sad about? You're successful, you have got all the comforts - what's wrong with you?"' Anthony said.

If you, or someone you know, needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles premieres October 24 on Prime Video.
Their tempestuous romance ended in heartbreak but now Princess Margaret's relationship with Group Captain Peter Townsend, whom she regarded as the love of her life, has been put into slightly disquieting perspective by her Lady-in-Waiting for 30 years.

Lady Anne Glenconner's verdict on Townsend is not flattering, even though he earned three medals as a fighter pilot before he was made equerry to George VI in 1944. Townsend, who died in 1995, recalled at the time of his appointment that Margaret was 'as unremarkable as one would expect of a 14-year-old girl'.

But Lady Anne, 91, says Queen Elizabeth II's sister remembered it differently.

'I once asked her about it, actually. He was a war hero, very attractive. She was very, very young. She was only 15 [sic] when he first arrived and he was a married man. I think he encouraged her, which he shouldn't have done.'

Asked on today's Rosebud podcast if she thinks Townsend, 15 years Margaret's senior, was taking advantage of his proximity to her, Lady Anne says she does. 'That isn't something that has been brought out very much, but I couldn't agree more,' she adds.

The relationship between Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend has been put into slightly disquieting perspective by her former lady-in-waiting Lady Anne Glenconner. Princess Margaret is pictured with Group Captain Peter Townsend in 1947 when she was 16

Lady Anne said she thinks Townsend, 15 years Margaret's senior and equerry to King George VI, was taking advantage of his proximity to her. Margaret sand Captain Townsend are picture in 1947 in South Africa when Margaret was just 16

Townsend earned three medals as a fighter pilot before he was made equerry to George VI in 1944. Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth with Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend (wearing shorts) on their arrival at Bloemfontein airfield during the Royal Tour of South Africa on 18th March 1947

Townsend's first marriage, to Rosie Pawle, by whom he had two sons, began to unravel. They divorced in 1952. He and Margaret then discovered his status as a divorcee eliminated any chance they might marry.

He wrote a memoir but Rosie, who died in 2004, refrained from doing so. 'She was offered, as you could imagine, as much as 500,000, to come up with all the stories,' her son by her second marriage, Piers de Laszlo, tells me. 'She never did once, which was bloody good of her.'

Lord Ivar Mountbatten, the first Royal Family member to have a same-sex wedding, has combined work and pleasure.

The TV personality, 60, and his husband James Coyle, are giving talks on a cruise around Polynesia for two weeks run by a firm that 'reimagines LGBT+ holidays'. Lord Ivar, a first cousin, once removed, of Prince Philip and a third cousin, once removed, of Queen Elizabeth, says: 'Being trapped on board a boat with 250 gays may be your idea of hell, but, truth be known, it is blooming good fun  and they certainly know how to party. I feel another holiday may be needed to get over this one.'

Lord Ivar Mountbatten, seen here with husband James Coyle, was the first Royal Family member to have a same-sex wedding

Director Paul Feig warned that the actors' strike 'has to get solved' because otherwise 'Hollywood soon won't exist'

Hollywood director Paul Feig, whose hit comedies include Bridesmaids and the 2016 Ghostbusters remake, says the actors' strike is no laughing matter.

'It has to get solved, and everybody needs to come to the table and figure it out or Hollywood soon won't exist,' he tells me at the House of Flamenka gala night at the Peacock Theatre in London's West End. Actors in the U.S. remain on the picket lines because of disputes with film studios over pay and the use of AI. The 61-year-old director adds: 'I worry about the crews because those are the people I rely on.

'I rely on actors and writers, too  but I worry most about the crews, because what are they supposed to do in the meantime?'

Rishi Sunak is trying to stub out smoking, and it seems Dara Huang is unconvinced by the habit.

The mother of Princess Beatrice's stepson Christopher has shared this photo of her puffing on a cigar at a Mayfair private members' club.

The mother of Princess Beatrice's stepson Christopher shared this photo of her puffing on a cigar at a Mayfair private members' club

Wearing a gold metallic dress and white blazer, she says: 'My first and last cigar.' The architect, 40, was engaged to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi when the property developer met Beatrice, the daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah, Duchess of York.

Their seven-year-old son, known as Wolfie, was best man at Beatrice and Edo's wedding in 2020.

I previously disclosed that American Dara is so close to her ex-fiance that she relocated her London office in 2020 from Clerkenwell to the Kensington building where his property development firm is based.

Heres a charming prince who may have found his Cinderella.

As staff cleared up after Prince Christian of Denmarks lavish 18th birthday celebrations last weekend, they found a gold stilleto apparently abandoned by a party-goer.

Rather than go from house to house seeking its owner, the Prince instead asked the Palace to post a photograph of the shoe on social media.

As staff cleared up after Prince Christian of Denmarks lavish 18th birthday celebrations last weekend, they found a gold stilleto apparently abandoned by a party-goer

Anne-Sofie Tornso Olesen was invited to the party at Copenhagens Christiansborg Palace to represent the area where she lives outside the Danish capital

Anne-Sofie Tornso Olesen, 18, tells me: Yes, the shoe is mine'

Now, a beautiful young woman has come forward to claim the shoe as her own.

Anne-Sofie Tornso Olesen, 18, tells me: Yes, the shoe is mine.

She was invited to the party at Copenhagens Christiansborg Palace to represent the area where she lives outside the Danish capital. I won the invitation in a tombola, she tells me.

It remains to be seen whether Christian returns the shoe in person to Anne-Sofie, who does have something in common with our own Queen  her father is a wine merchant just like Camillas was.

He's the immaculately turned out former Celebrity MasterChef finalist who was recently likened to a 'computer-generated Tudor nobleman' by artist Sir Grayson Perry.

So it's no surprise to hear that BBC Radio 2 presenter Rylan Clark likes to keep things spotless, even in the bedroom. The 34-year-old broadcaster reveals that he has a phobia of crumbs, describing them as his biggest 'ick'.

At the Pink News Awards in Lancaster Gate, central London, he tells me: 'If someone gets food on my naked legs, that makes me sick.' He adds: 'Don't eat in bed.'

Wouldn't dream of it.

Think British waterways are polluted? Comedian Al Murray agreed to take a dip in the sacred River Ganges in India while filming his latest Sky documentary, Why Does Everyone Hate The British Empire?, and found himself sharing the water with an animal carcass.

'That was horrible,' wails 55-year-old Murray, who is best known for his Pub Landlord comedic character. 'There was a dead dog with a crow picking bits off it.'

Sir Don McCullin has risked his life in war zones and survived relatively unscathed.

But now the photojournalist, 88, reveals long days in tropical climates have nearly cost him his eyesight. McCullin, about whom Angelina Jolie is set to make a film starring Tom Hardy, discovered itchy spots under his eyes were skin cancer.

I had to have the operation or I would have been blinded, he tells me. I had a growth removed and 50 stitches under my left eye and some under the right one.

A doctor friend had spotted the problem and said, You better have that done.
Killers of the Flower Moon

Verdict: Masterful storytelling.

Rating:

Foe

Verdict: Too quirky by half.

Rating:

Were you ever to watch Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Martin Scorsese's Killers Of The Flower Moon back to back on a transatlantic flight, they would occupy you pretty much all the way from London to New York.

For those of us who value concise story-telling, it is mildly dispiriting that the two leading contenders for Best Picture at next year's Academy Awards (at least according to the bookmakers), together last about six-and-a-half hours.

In terms of duration, Scorsese's lavish picture  starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio  is the mightier of the pair, at 206 minutes. Still, it tells a weighty tale, and implies an even bigger one: what is sometimes called America's original sin, the appalling treatment of its indigenous population. So the veteran director gives his film (which is getting a short cinema release before streaming on Apple TV+) commensurate length.

It was inspired by a book, David Grann's 2017 non-fiction bestseller Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI. In fact, Scorsese and his co-writer Eric Roth mostly swerve the beginnings of J. Edgar Hoover's bureau of investigation, instead focusing on the sustained attempt, by a cabal of white businessmen in Oklahoma, to steal the wealth of the Osage tribe by killing off dozens of them.

The Osage had become astoundingly rich following the discovery of oil on their land in 1897. By the 1920s, when this film is set, they have become the wealthiest people per capita on Earth, sending their children to expensive private schools and riding around in fancy chauffeur-driven cars.

Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, which stars Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, grapples with the appalling treatment of the United States' indigenous population

Oil brought wealth to the Osage Nation, but the black gold brought white interlopers, who manipulated, extorted, and stole as much as they could before resorting to murder

Based on a true story and told through the improbable romance of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), this is an epic western crime sag

But we still see them being abysmally treated. Deemed unfit to spend their own money freely, they can only do so through white 'guardians', who are complicit in a heinous system of over-charging.

Systematic theft, however, is not enough. De Niro plays a cattle baron called Bill Hale, the self-styled 'king of the Osage Hills', who affects to be the tribe's greatest champion and benefactor. He laments the fact that 'most Osage don't live past 50'.

But one reason they don't is that he is discreetly having them murdered, sometimes by stealth (poison, mainly), sometimes with a bullet in the back of the head. That way, if there's a white man in the family, their land can be inherited.

One of the principal instruments of his dastardly scheme is his sleazy, slow-witted nephew Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio), whom Hale manoeuvres into marriage to Mollie (Lily Gladstone), the Osage heiress he drives around.

I first saw this film at this year's Cannes Film Festival, where the world premiere was greeted with huge excitement, not least because De Niro and DiCaprio, Scorseses two favourite actors, had not appeared on screen together since This Boys Life way back in 1993. Unsurprisingly, they are both wonderful; the latter somehow acts jaw-first, to suggest shared family characteristics with De Niro's character.

But Gladstone pinches the film from under their illustrious noses. She gives a superb, award-worthy performance as Mollie, who watches her mother and sisters die in various horrible circumstances, before falling mysteriously ill herself. Actually, at one engrossing level, Killers Of The Flower Moon is simply a portrait of a marriage, for despite his murderous agenda, despite being in thrall to his amoral uncle, Ernest genuinely falls in love with Mollie and she with him.

The film is not a whodunnit, still less a why-do-it. It's not really a thriller or a crime procedural, even once Jesse Plemons as a smart, tenacious FBI man enters the fray, two-thirds of the way through.

What it is, albeit at prodigious length, is a masterly example of story-telling by one of cinema's greatest exponents of the art, with an unexpectedly cheeky conclusion that, despite the tragic events depicted, will send you away with a smile.

Foe is another drama set in the American Midwest, but in the future rather than the past. The year is 2065 and a young couple, Hen and Junior, played by the Irish pair of Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal but as locals, are living on a desolate farm.

Foe is another drama set in the American Midwest, but in the future rather than the past

The year is 2065 and a young couple, Hen and Junior, are living on a desolate farm

Around them, climate change has wrought such havoc that the U.S. government is promoting 'off-Earth habitation'

Around them, climate change has wrought such havoc that the U.S. government is promoting 'off-Earth habitation', sending people to live in space for a few years.

For reasons that are never quite explained, Junior has been chosen for the programme but Hen has not. However, the enigmatic Englishman (Aaron Pierre) sent to recruit him lets them know that once Junior has gone, he will be replaced by an AI 'life form', an exact replica.

Foe is directed and co-written by Garth Davis, the Australian director whose 2016 film Lion I loved, but this intense sci-fi tale quite quickly begins to flounder in its own strangeness. Ronan and Mescal are both terrific, and they have genuinely sizzling screen chemistry (not least in a few pretty steamy sex scenes). But Foe is not really worthy of their talents.
Lady Gaga unveiled her new hairstyle as she showed off her sense of style while stopping by Electric Lady Studios in New York City on Wednesday.

The Bad Romance songstress, 37 - who was recently seen with on-and-off again boyfriend Michael Polansky in Las Vegas - donned two different ensembles as she spent time at the recording studio.

As she made her grand arrival, the Grammy winner sported a shimmering, black outfit that contained a hem that stopped a few inches above her ankles.

The beauty layered the look with a striped, dark gray blazer with sparkling details that she chose to leave unfastened at the front.

She slipped into a pair of black, knee-high heeled boots to coincide with the monochromatic color scheme.

New look! Lady Gaga, 37, unveiled her latest hairstyle as she showed off her sense of style while stopping by Electric Lady Studios in New York City on Wednesday

Lady Gaga - whose real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta - carried a sleek, Celine bag in her hand to hold a few items she needed as she visited the studio.

The House Of Gucci actress accessorized her first look with a long, gold-chained necklace and added a pair of fashionable, black shades.

Her locks were parted in the middle and flowed down past her shoulders in light waves, allowing her new bangs to gently fall down straight onto her forehead.

She was spotted making her way through a crowded sidewalk as she entered the recording studio. Later in the evening, Gaga was seen leaving the venue and sported a different ensemble.

The star wore a sheer, white blouse with ruffled details and added a black bralette underneath.

The beauty put on a leggy display in a pair of glittering, black shorts while also donning the same boots she had worn earlier in the night.

For a pop of color, the Just Dance hitmaker added an oversized, orange-patterned blazer that contained black lapels.

Her makeup coincided with her looks, and comprised of a warm blush to her cheekbones, as well as a reddish-orange, glossy tint to her lips.

Stylish: For a pop of color, the Just Dance hitmaker added an oversized, orange-patterned blazer that contained black lapels

Recent collaboration: The Rolling Stones also released a new single, Sweet Sounds Of Heaven, which featured Gaga and also Stevie Wonder, last month in September

Lady Gaga has been filtering through a busy schedule, and recently concluded a brief residency in Las Vegas at Dolby Live in Park MGM.

The show was titled: Lady Gaga Jazz & Piano and the songstress held performances from late August through October 5.

The Rolling Stones also released a new single, Sweet Sounds Of Heaven, which featured Gaga and also Stevie Wonder, last month in September.

The track is part of the rock group's upcoming album, Hackney Diamonds, which is slated to officially drop later this week on Friday, October 20.

The song received positive reception among fans, with one expressing on social media, 'I'm long-standing fan and I thought you can't surprise me. But it's beautiful. So huge, emotional, strong. Sounds so great. Beautiful song.'

When she is not busy working on music or other film and television projects, Gaga puts focus on her beauty brand, Haus Labs, which launched back in September 2019.

During a recent interview with Glamour UK in May, she opened up about her company and stated, 'At Haus Labs, we're collaborating with folks screening for novel ingredients in a space that hasn't been innovated in decades.'

The businesswoman added, 'Making makeup that is beautiful to your skin and can transform who you are, that's what Im excited about.'

Performances: Lady Gaga has been filtering through a busy schedule, and recently concluded a brief residency at Dolby Live in Park MGM

Business focus: When she is not busy working on music or other film and television projects, Gaga puts her focus on her beauty brand, Haus Labs, which launched back in September 2019

She later explained, '...I'm not just someone who wears makeup, or loves makeup, I'm somebody that makes makeup.'

'So I spend a lot of my time educating myself about makeup and skincare and skin science because I want to make makeup that is not only artistry driven (although, of course I want to give people that form of self-expression) but also, it's really good for you.'

Gaga - who will appear in the upcoming film Joker: Folie a Deux - also discussed her future while talking to Wallpaper Magazine in March. 'I'm actually really interested in living more of a life of solitude,' she admitted to the outlet.

'It's really nice to just have time to be alone, and be expansive, and know that you're enough. I wish I could tell my younger self that.'
At the end of September, three African countries embarked on a pilot program to improve the overall care of breast and cervical cancers, which account for more than half of female cancers in Africa. This initiative is a step in the fight against this scourge, which began at the turn of the 2010s on the continent.

Supported by Ivory Coast, Kenya and Zimbabwe with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the pharmaceutical laboratory Roche, it consists of integrating the entire chain of care for these female cancers into a comprehensive public health policy, from the promotion of basic care dedicated to women to early detection, including prevention and treatment.

In our constrained economies, despite the problems of hierarchy of emergencies, the idea of global health has emerged, key to our development, testifies Professor Cheikh Tidiane Cisse, head of the gynecology-obstetrics department of the Institute of social hygiene polyclinic of Dakar, who presented, Tuesday October 10, during the congress of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Paris, the experience of Senegal in the fight against cancer of the cervix and breast. We are moving away from the compartmentalization of care. To do this, we must continue to invest in the prevention of these non-communicable diseases. 

Doubling of cases over the next twenty years

If cancers  but also cardiovascular pathologies, hypertension, diabetes, obesity  have long remained in the shadow of major infectious diseases, a health priority for the continent for decades, the International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC) predicts a doubling of cases over the next twenty years in sub-Saharan Africa. The WHO projects that by the end of the decade, cancer-related mortality will exceed that of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV combined, which killed about 1.5 million people on the continent in 2021.

Long considered the lot of rich countries, cancers and other non-communicable diseases have become a part of the lives of Africans as "junk food", a sedentary lifestyle, pollution, smoking and alcohol consumption have taken over major cities. cities, whose population doubles every twenty years. The aging of the continent, where life expectancy has increased by ten years since 2000, also has an impact on this explosion.

Its a double burden for Africa and a paradox, explains Professor Maimouna Ndour Mbaye, director of the National Diabetology Center in Dakar, Senegal. We are living longer and that is good news, but by adopting a Western lifestyle, we now have time to develop chronic pathologies while we are not yet free of malaria or tuberculosis. . 

On the cancer front, over the last ten years, much has been done. Most African countries have adopted national control plans and numerous radiotherapy centers have been built. In 2022 and 2023 alone, eleven have been built, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa  Benin is due to open its own in 2024  and 39 countries on the continent out of 54 are now equipped, according to data from the international register of centers of radiotherapy. But there is still a lack of money to ensure comprehensive patient care and a quality care pathway remains the privilege of an urbanized middle class.

Patients often diagnosed too late

The continent, which bears a quarter of global cancer deaths, only invests 1% of total health spending in the fight, according to the report published in 2019 by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, while only 2% of multilateral and bilateral aid, the pillar of emerging health systems, benefits non-communicable diseases, including cancers, according to an analysis carried out the same year by the British Medical Journal. Finally, Africa has two to four times fewer oncologists than the recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

On the ground, patients are therefore often diagnosed too late and access to care remains complicated and expensive, even when States provide partial coverage. Thus, Senegal, which decreed in 2019 total free chemotherapy for breast and cervical cancers, can still only subsidize half of the treatment for other cancers.

Patients must therefore still pay numerous additional diagnostic or follow-up costs, such as mammography or analyses, as well as numerous travel expenses. Because, outside the Maghreb, South Africa and Kenya, which are well equipped with radiotherapy centers, patients often have to travel tens, or even hundreds of kilometers, to be treated in the capital or the largest city. closer.

Most families go so far as to go into debt to care for their loved ones, explains Helene Kane, an anthropologist from the University of Rouen who is leading a special report on cancers in the Sahel for the social sciences journal LOuest saharien to be published. early 2024. Worse, they often have to interrupt treatment due to lack of resources. We manage to pay for the first treatment, we sell our goods for the second, we go into debt for the third, and we abandon the fourth. 

Strengthen screening

Patient aid associations and national cancer leagues, more and more numerous and often created by formerly cured patients, provide financial support, support and even accommodation through mutual aid networks. . But here too, resources are limited.

Prevention, much less expensive for States, therefore remains crucial. Vaccination, when possible, in particular against human papillomaviruses (HPV, very contagious, responsible for cancers of the cervix but also of the anus, penis, mouth or throat) or hepatitis B and C (liver), is being generalized on the continent. According to WHO data, more than 21 African countries have achieved 70% HPV coverage.

As for screening, if it must be strengthened for an effective fight and less expensive for health systems when it is early, "it poses a real ethical problem for doctors who cannot ensure all the care of their patients, testifies Helene Kane, who worked for more than ten years in Mauritania. It is a real suffering for them. This must raise the question of palliative care, which is almost non-existent in sub-Saharan Africa. But, whatever the progress of the fight and the means, we must face it, because this epidemic, which has remained invisible for a long time, is indeed taking place. 
"We want to request the collaboration of the Spanish Government before the Barbados agreements to reactivate negotiations for Spanish citizens detained in Venezuelan prisons, especially in our case of my daughter Maria Auxiliadora Delgado and my son-in-law, Juan Carlos Marrufo. We beg the government to take all necessary steps to achieve the release of these children who have already been detained for more than four years. God will reward all these efforts." The desperate appeal is from Osman Delgado, father of the Spanish-Venezuelan prisoner Maria Auxiliadora, one of the four political prisoners with Spanish nationality, whose families are living these hours with anguish waiting for her release.

The government of Pedro Sanchez has not been part of the countries that have held the event in Barbados, where Norway served as sponsor with the support of Russia and the Netherlands, plus the fundamental presence of the United States. Latin American foreign ministers, such as the Colombian, also supported the agreements with their presence, in addition to France, with a starring role (Macron has offered to lead electoral observation in the presidential elections) that has particularly stung Spanish diplomacy.

The other Spanish prisoners are Angela Exposito and Karen Hernandez, as well as Jorge Alayeto. All of them are united by similar stories, from the torture suffered to the arbitrariness and injustice of their trials. Against Delgado, 47 years old and also the sister of a soldier, the cruelty that she and her husband, an Italian national, suffered a false release in October 2019 weighs: after 170 days with a freedom decree, they were finally released and They sent a taxi home, but Maduro's feared Special Forces (FAES) detained them again to present them before another judge, who accused them of treason.

Exposito, like the others, was involved in the alleged 2018 drone attack and was sentenced to 24 years in prison for it. The Hispanic-Venezuelan was in charge of a foundation that rescued animals that were left without owners due to political reprisals.

Karen Hernandez was involved in the failed Operation Gedeon, carried out by a group of rebel soldiers who tried to land in Venezuela from Colombia. She is accused of treason, rebellion and a series of other crimes.

The merchant Jorge Alayeto has been imprisoned since 2017, when he was detained and interrogated for hours in his own home to later be tortured. Chavismo accuses him of being an accomplice in Operation David, which was intended to attack a military barracks.

The four Spanish-Venezuelans are part of the large group of 273 political prisoners counted by the Penal Forum, which yesterday welcomed the release of the first six prisoners, but warned that in other releases the revolution abused the so-called "revolving doors": the release of a group of prisoners, compensated in the following months with new arrests.

In his last appearance before the United Nations organizations, the Chavista prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, insisted that "Venezuela does not have political prisoners." That is the "reason" why his release was not included in the drafting of the partial agreements in Barbados, although it is part of the fine print of what was secretly negotiated with Washington for months.
This Thursday in the Senate, the Popular Party raised the wall of its territorial power against Pedro Sanchez and its aspiration to once again preside over the Government of Spain following an agreement with the pro-independence parties and the nationalist left. Eleven regional presidents, one vice president and the leaders of the two autonomous cities, representing 70% of the population, exhibited their diversity and multilingualism to oppose the negotiation undertaken by the socialist candidate for the investiture, understanding that it will imply a  betrayal" to the State, to the Constitution, to Justice and to the Spanish people in exchange for a handful of votes that would guarantee him remaining in Moncloa.

The session of the General Commission of the Autonomous Communities was not actually a debate. It was a succession of interventions that barely deviated from a common line of argument: no, to the amnesty that Sanchez designed for those involved in the 2017 attempt against the State; no, to contemplate, neither in the short nor in the medium nor in the long term, the possibility of a self-determination referendum in Catalonia; and not to accept a bilateral negotiation of financing and debt forgiveness with the Generalitat.

Madrid, Aragon, Castilla y Leon, Extremadura, Cantabria, Galicia, Murcia, Valencian Community, Andalusia, La Rioja, Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla. They all formed a common front, an accusatory court against the candidate for the investiture for being willing to surrender to the independence "blackmail" "what belongs to everyone", for being determined to "break equality among Spaniards", "grant impunity and privileges" and "humiliate the State" to satisfy "their personal interests." And, furthermore, do it "clandestinely" and with "opacity."

No representative of the acting Government attended the session, nor did any of the three socialist regional presidents. Neither did Lehendakari Inigo Urkullu. The justification of all of them was that the PP "instrumentalized" the Senate by imposing a debate in which its position is overwhelming.

The lone socialist voice was assumed by Juan Espadas, who accused the PP of engaging in politics of "confrontation" and "frontism" with the sole objective of "avoiding a progressive government."

In the last general elections, the Popular Party obtained an absolute majority in the Upper House and in the municipal and regional elections they increased their power - in several cases by agreeing with Vox - in up to 12 of the 17 communities and in the two autonomous cities. The rules of democracy grant them control of the Senate in the same way that Sanchez and his possible allies could be allowed control of Congress. The absence of the Government was widely described as "shocked" and "cowardice."

At this Thursday's meeting, there was only one dissenting voice: that of the president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Pere Aragones, who did not want to waste the speaker provided by the Chamber of Territorial Representative to launch his proclamation again. The amnesty is essential but it is only the starting point; "The destiny is that the citizens of Catalonia vote on independence." A vote that, he said, "must be done in a recognized and agreed manner."

With this last precision, Aragones qualified to a large extent the challenge of "unilaterality" launched by his close enemy Carles Puigdemont, the fugitive from Justice who, from Waterloo, manages seven decisive votes for the investiture of Pedro Sanchez.

The president of the Generalitat made a brief intervention and when he finished he left the old plenary hall without staying to listen to the arguments of the remaining regional presidents. His attitude was criticized as "contempt."

The harshest intervention was the one delivered by the president of the Community of Madrid. Isabel Diaz Ayuso displayed her spearhead status against the acting president, openly accusing him of perpetrating "the greatest betrayal that can be done to a country." For Ayuso, the socialist candidate "is auctioning off the country and the institutions in exchange for a few more months or years in the easy chair" and wants "Spain to apologize in exchange for her investiture."

The Madrid native maintains that, with Sanchez, "the system is moving to the side of betrayal and crime." And he finished by calling on the historical socialists to "defend their own party." "What are we going to ask of those who have signed a pact with the blood and freedom of their companions?" He shot. According to Diaz Ayuso, if the "felony" of the amnesty is consummated "there will soon be no Spaniards."

The president of Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, stressed that with Sanchez "we are risking the future of Spain." He was the first to bring up the Catalan intention to "mutualize its supposed historical debt" and demanded, to avoid it, "multilaterality" in budget negotiations and regional financing.

Also the Andalusian, Juanma Moreno, insisted that he will not allow his citizens to "pay the bills of others." For him, Sanchez's negotiations with the independentists will cause "some Spaniards to lose and others to win" and the amnesty will mean "apologizing and granting recognition as victims" to those who attacked the State.

His Murcian counterpart, Fernando Lopez Miras, went one step further by ensuring that "granting privileges to criminals threatens a society of free and equal citizens." The Murcian president and the Aragonese president, Jorge Azcon, announced the presentation of an appeal for unconstitutionality as soon as an amnesty law is approved. The second assured that what Sanchez negotiates with secessionism "is illegal, immoral and a direct attack on the equality of Spaniards and the unity of Spain." For Azcon, the presumed amnesty is an "infamous transaction."

The president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazon, claimed "unity from plurality" and regretted that "disloyalty is amnestied since those who are of good sense do not have the capacity to influence decisions." Mazon warned Sanchez that "blackmail never ends if the person being blackmailed does not stand up" and assured, with an eye toward a new regional financing model, that Valencians "will not accept the crumbs of the banquet received by those who put a price on their vows to satisfy the vanity of a single person.

The presidents of Extremadura and the Balearic Islands conspired to be "resistance", as the first, Maria Guardiola, assured. And that of Cantabria, Maria Jose Saenz de Buruaga, rebelled against the socialist's intention to "trample the dignity of the Spanish people." The point of equality and dignity was also influenced by the Riojan, Gonzalo Capellan and the Castilian from Leon, Alfonso Fernandez Manueco, for whom the pacts with the independence movement "are not reconciliation or concord, but rather a commercial contract of amnesty for votes."

It was during the groups' turn that the voice of the PSOE was heard for the first and only time. "It is not time to dig trenches or even one, large and free one, but to build bridges and coexistence," Espadas said. The Andalusian socialist reproached the popular for their "manual of preventive attacks" against Sanchez and for "shooting" against his party "just in case." "The PSOE has been, is and will be the guarantor of unity, plurality and constitutionality," he defended.
Egypt and Jordan, the two countries that flank Israel and share a border with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, have accelerated their diplomatic efforts in recent days to avoid being affected by the regional escalation unleashed by the war between Israel and Hamas. The monarchy announced this Thursday in a tweet the visit of King Abdullah II of Jordan to Cairo, to discuss with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah Al Sisi, "the means to end the Israeli aggression against Gaza." The meeting comes a day after the four-way summit planned in Amman, in which both leaders were expected to meet with US President Joe Biden; and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.

King Abdullah II canceled the summit after a bombing at a Gaza hospital caused numerous deaths, mostly refugees seeking shelter in the health facilities. The attack, whose authorship has not yet been clarified, provoked unanimous condemnation from the Arab world of the attacks by Israel, who they blame for the bombing.

Egypt and Jordan were the first Arab and regional countries to normalize relations with Israel, in 1979 and 1994 respectively. Cairo and Amman have commercial dealings with Israel and have acted as mediators in previous conflicts between the Hebrew Government and the Palestinian authorities. Both also host large numbers of Palestinian refugees from previous wars. It is estimated that more than a million Palestinians were forced into exile after the wars of 1948 and 1967, mostly taking refuge in Egypt, Jordan and Syria. These refugees and their descendants today number six million people who have never been able to return to their homes due to the territorial and bureaucratic blockade imposed by Israel.

Once again the refugee issue has put Israel's two regional allies in check. Following the Israeli army's order to force the displacement of 1.1 million Gazans to the south of the Strip, Benjamin Netanyahu's Government has insisted that Egypt take in some of the refugees in the Sinai province. Cairo has refused to take them in, fearing that it will be a permanent expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Their displacement could also move the conflict within its territory, since the Arab country shares a border with the Gaza Strip and southern Israel.

Jordan reiterated this week that Israeli pressure to force the Palestinian population to leave their homes is a "red line" for countries in the region. "This will lead the region to the hell of war... we have to put an end to this madness," warned Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in a meeting with his Canadian counterpart. "The war is killing and displacing thousands of innocent Palestinians and will leave the region and the world facing the repercussions of an environment of destruction and despair created by Israel in Gaza," he said. Days before, King Abdullah II tried to settle the issue: "There will be no refugees in Jordan, there will be no refugees in Egypt. The conflict must be resolved within Gaza and the West Bank," he warned. Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, tension has increased in the West Bank, which shares a border with Jordan, where Israeli troops and settlers have killed 72 Palestinians, while more than 120 have been detained. Abdullah II's warning came a day after Iran and the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah party - allies of Hamas in the region - warned of "preventive" attacks against Israel and a response from the Muslim world in the streets.

For his part, Egyptian President Al Sisi expressed concern about the regional consequences of the war unleashed in the neighboring country. Al Sisi assured that the conflict is not only aimed at fighting the Palestinian group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, but is also "an attempt to pressure civilians to migrate to Egypt." Cairo has even urged Israel that it should host Palestinian refugees on its own land, in the Negev Desert.

In the Gaza Strip, the only crossing that remained open until a few days ago was the Rafah crossing, which connects the south of the territory with the Egyptian province of Sinai. Egypt has closed it after being bombed up to four times by Israel, although it has been working with other countries to agree to the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been without electricity for six days and is running out of water due to the Israeli blockade. Israeli authorities finally relented on Wednesday to the entry of 20 aid trucks, which are scheduled to cross on Friday. For its part, Egypt will host a new summit next Saturday with Turkey, Iraq and Qatar to move towards regional de-escalation.
While Google has announced the manufacturing of Pixel smartphones in India, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has asked the company to start production of its Tensor chipset in India in three years. The communications and IT minister has also suggested Google to bring premium Pixel Fold devices in India at the earliest.

The Tensor G3 chipset includes the latest generation of ARM central processing units, an upgraded Graphics processing unit (GPU), and next-gen Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) to support Googles artificial intelligence (AI) models.

GPU and application-specific chips are crucial to support the development and implementation of AI technologies, but there is a shortage in their supplies due to advanced bulk orders from the US and China-based entities.

I have asked them to bring the fab of Tensor to India in three years. In the coming days, they should start manufacturing Tensor in an Indian fab, Vaishnaw told reporters on the sidelines of the Google for India event.

The minister said Indias manufacturing ecosystem has become very good, and he has asked Google to support it and deepen it further.

The entire supply chain team of Google will be working here to ensure that the Indian component system gets deeper, Vaishnaw said.

At the event, Google Senior Vice President for Devices and Services Rick Osterloh announced that the company will make the Pixel series of smartphones in India, starting with Pixel 8, and plans to roll out the India-made devices in 2024.

He said that the company will partner with international and domestic manufacturers to make the phones in India.
The Israels Gaza campaign can upset many bilateral agreements

Two world leaders in the middle of almost every geo-political discussion for the past year, travelled out to their respective countries, to resolve the unfolding Israel war on terror. US President, Joe Biden travelled to Israel to express solidarity with one of its closest allies in West Asia. His next stop was Jordan where according to the white house statement, the presidents trip reiterated that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian peoples right to dignity and self-determination and discuss the humanitarian needs of civilians in Gaza. The President also met with leaders from Egypt, and Palestinian Authority in Amman during the trip. A careful balancing of risks involved with the Presidents trip to Israel played out in the background, with several senior officials in the White House admitting about the possible PR fallout of the high-level visit.

The fear of a ground attack on Gaza, with US marines in the vicinity, or joining in, causing huge casualties of Palestinians, could trigger a backlash against the war against terror globally. The collective memory of people around the world is currently bombarded with visuals of human tragedy and piles of rubble, caused first by the war in Ukraine for the past year, followed by the Gaza strip, even though, many of them would have preferred, some more time to come out Covid induced economic misfortunes. Additionally, President Biden faces a tough re-election next year, with political sentiments in the US on a slippery ground regarding the state/number of wars America can afford. The world, particularly US citizens, may have a war fatigue, with the one in Ukraine, directly aided by billions of dollars, refusing to die down even in the second year.

At this juncture, for President Biden, to be drawn into a full-fledged war against terror group Hamas in West Asia with its ally Israel, could suitably upset domestic political equations. The US has gradually pulled out from West Asia, in the past decade, leaving it up to local sovereign players to come to terms with each others sensitivities. The ongoing war on terror as a response to the dastardly act, caused by US recognised terror group Hamas, could pull it back to the region upsetting its existing bilateral relations with several other countries present in the vicinity. To be sure, the US led the Arab world and Israel to slowly start patching up through the Abrahms Accord, which involved a bunch of bilateral agreements between the countries persuaded by Washington DC to work towards a common good. The US also stitched together the I2U2 framework, which brought India, Israel and UAE to work closely on global and regional issues of concern. The current conflict in West Asia could upset some of these equations.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin landed in Beijing, his second international trip since the International Criminal Court (ICC)issued an arrest warrant on him earlier this year. This trip was widely followed, as it marked the reiteration of no limits friendship, between Russia and China which are trying to lead a world order without the US and its allies. President Putin travelled to Beijing, immediately before he attacked Ukraine last year. Meanwhile, despite the arrest warrant, issued by ICC, President Xi landed in Moscow on a state visit and showered praises on the Russian premiere. President Putins trip to Beijing this week was more to support the Belt and Road Initiative which he had termed as one meant for international cooperation earlier.

India meanwhile has to play a tight diplomatic walk with its full-fledged support to Israel for its war against terror along with the US. India has not ruptured its relations with Russia, while it continues to have abnormal relations with China due to the military conflict and is opposed to the Belt and Road Initiative, as it runs through India's acknowledged disputed territories. India is on a wait-and-watch, which it has done in the past on the Ukraine war, the Israel conflict may be no exception.

(The writer is a policy analyst; views expressed are personal)
While the Arab states make a hue and cry about Israels wrongdoings in Gaza, they themselves are not doing anything to help Palestinians in distress

US Presidential aspirant, Nikki Haley has put the cat amongst the pigeons by asking some straight questions. She stated, You're going to hear all those Arab countries vilify Israel for what's about to happen. You're going to hear all of them say, how dare you not do more for the Palestinian people? and then posed bluntly, But where are the Arab countries? Where are they? Where is Qatar? Where is Lebanon? Where is Jordan? Where is Egypt? Do you know we give Egypt over $1,000,000,000 a year? Why aren't they opening the gates? Why aren't they taking the Palestinians? You know why? Because they know they can't vet them, and they don't want Hamas in their neighborhood. So why would Israel want them in their neighborhood?

It is true, but for shedding insincere tears and making political gold out of the issue of Palestine, the Arab Sheikhdoms have never done anything worthwhile for the Palestinians, now or before. Its the same curse which afflicted the Middle East when the Syrian-Iraqi refugee exodus took place in the aftermath of ISIL running over swathes  boatloads of refugees had risked the unsafe water-crossing into Europe but no boat or bus seemed to have moved towards the borders of the cash-flush Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates etc.

Instead, Europe and its leadership was hauled up the coals when they started closing their borders, given their own socio-economic concerns and inability to take any further refugees. But the Arab leadership was quick, garrulous, and snarky to call out the insensitivity of the West but did precious little to alleviate the sufferings of their own Arab brethren. Now, it seems to be a replay of the exact same double game today, when the Arab regimes are halfheartedly and conveniently pointing fingers at Tel Aviv following the brutal Hamas attack, after having walked a considerable distance with Israel, themselves.

It was pursuant to the Abraham Accords that had sought to officially normalise (so called secret talks in parallel are the worst kept secret) relations between Israel and Arab countries, ostensibly to solve the protracted Israel-Palestine issue. Except that the Accord was virtually predicated on ignoring the Palestinians and their miserable conditions and participation in the same, as irrelevant. Assumption of Palestinian invisibility from those deliberations has come to haunt the region, now. Many Palestinians had not resigned to their proposed fate of slow death and forgetfulness, and sadly it metastasised into the Hamas attack.

The Abrahamic Accord was eventually as ignoble and inefficacious as the peace talks between the Americans and Taliban, in Doha. Beyond countries like Egypt, Turkey and Jordan who have had diplomatic relations with Israel for long, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan, and Bahrain had rushed into signing deals with Israel  the emotions reserved for Palestinian suffering were conveniently and tellingly forgotten.

Now Bahrain was left issuing an embarrassingly platitudinous and mealy-mouthed statement urging, the need for de-escalation among all parties to preserve the lives of people, Moroccos King Mohammed VI expressed deep concern and the Emiratis called it a serious and grave escalation. They are clearly caught between condemning either the Hamas action or the disproportionate Israeli revenge, as they have been party to the brewing secondment of the Palestinian cause. Nikki Haley only questioned the obvious.

Importantly, the so-called siege of Gaza may not be practically true as there is a 12-kilometer-long border between Egypt and Gaza.

Public memory is short, but long before Donald Trump embarked on his infamous Wall along the border with Mexico  Egypt along with US help had started a steel wall along the Egypt-Gazza barrier. Unsurprisingly today, the same border (Rafah crossing) remains sealed to refugees, food, medical aid and other humanitarian supplies, all of which the Egyptians could deploy to aid the beleaguered Palestinians, if they wanted to. History of the massacres of Palestinian refugees by countries like Jordan (Black September in 1970) or Lebanon (Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982) etc., all point to the duplicitousness of Arabs towards Palestinians.

Besides, the meekly contextual defense of the Hamas by countries like Saudi Arabia also betrays an underlying concern feared by the Arab Sheikdoms  Hamas is essentially an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which gave sleepless nights to Arab countries during the Arab Spring. Because it threatens the Arab regimes, Muslim Brotherhood is banned in authoritarian-monarchical regimes in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt etc.,

Beyond postures necessitated by having to pander to Ummah (Islamic Society) concerns and solidarity, the Arab Sheikhdoms would not touch the Hamas with a bargepole. In the entire melee, it is the hapless Palestinians who stand to suffer the most, and to that extent, the Arab Sheikhdoms are complicit for having run with the hare and hunted with the hound.

The entire plan to remodel the Middle East in line with the powers-that-be has been undone by those in whose name the peace was sought to be negotiated  except the Palestinians were ignored, even by their supposed own.

(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. The views expressed are personal)
The BJP on Wednesday highlighted corruption charges against the Gandhi family as it hit back at Rahul Gandhi for his attack on the government over the reports of inflated invoicing by the Adani Group in coal imports.

BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia claimed the matter involving the business conglomerate is in the Supreme Court and Gandhi's comments on the issue shows he has no faith either in the Constitution or in the apex court.

Alleging that the Gandhis are the "most corrupt" family in the world, Bhatia said at a press conference that Rahul Gandhi is himself on bail in the National Herald case.

The Congress leader never speaks on the corruption charge against him and the alleged scams of his brother-in-law Robert Vadra, the BJP leader said.

Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi cited a media report to accuse the Adani Group of over-invoicing in coal imports and fleecing people to the tune of Rs 12,000 crore in electricity rates. He attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking him to come clean on the Adani issue by initiating a probe into the matter.

Bhatia took a swipe at some opposition leaders also on their stand on the Palestine issue amid hostilities between Israel and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, a part of Palestine.

While foreign policy is a domain of the Indian government, some opposition parties are only interested in appeasement politics and can't condemn a terrorist organisation, he said in a reference to the attack by Hamas militant on Israel that killed hundreds of civilians.

Some MPs consider themselves above the country and made statements ignoring the country's interests, he said.

Several opposition leaders had recently met the Palestinian envoy here in an expression of solidarity with the people of Palestine and were critical of Israel for its "indiscriminate bombing" on Gaza.

The BJP has also been taking swipes at the Congress after its CWC resolution on the issue made no reference to the Hamas' attack on October 7.

At the press conference, Bhatia raised the issue of Karnataka minister and Congress leader Shivanand Patil being showered with currency notes in the poll-bound Telangana and accused the party of defiling democracy and elections with its alleged use of corrupt money.

Patil, he said, has acknowledged that it was he in in the viral video but there has been no reaction from the Congress leadership.

He must be immediately sacked as the continuation of such a "corrupt" minister is a threat to democracy, Bhatia said.

On the one hand there is an honest prime minister and the BJP serving people under his leadership, on the other there is massively corrupt Congress, he claimed.

Corruption is in the DNA of the Congress, he alleged.

The Congress has made Karnataka an ATM for its corruption, he said, questioning the presence of ministers from the state in Telangana where the assembly polls are scheduled to be held on November 30. The BJP leader spoke of a Congress leader in Rajasthan allegedly kicking off the headgear of a person and asserted that people will demolish the party's arrogance in the upcoming polls.
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed shock over the attack at a hospital in Gaza which killed more than 500 people and said that those involved in this act should be held responsible, he conveyed condolences on Thursday over the deaths to Palestinian Authority President. Modi also assured that India will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the people of Palestine.

Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence, and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue, Modi said in a message on social media.

Earlier in the day, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi in reply to a question on humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people said that India has been supporting them.

India has been supporting Palestine and Palestinian refugees through significant contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). A total of USD 29.53 million has been contributed to UNRWA between 2002 and 2023, he said.

The Indian annual contribution to UNRWA was increased from USD 1.25 million to USD 5 million in 2018. India has pledged an annual contribution of USD 5 million for the next two years (FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25), Bagchi said. He added that India urges strict observance of international law in the context of the attack on the hospital in Gaza.

There are four Indians in Gaza and the situation is not conducive for an evacuation at the moment, he said, adding they will be repatriated at the first opportunity.

The situation in Gaza is difficult for any evacuation but if we get a chance, we will get them out, Bagchi said. One of them is in the West Bank, he said.

Enunciating Indias position on the conflict, Bagchi said, We have expressed concern over civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation arising out of the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. You have seen the Prime Ministers tweet. The PM has expressed his concern over the death of civilians and extended his condolences to the families. India condemns all forms of violence.

He added, On the Palestine issue, we have reiterated our position in favour of direct negotiations for a two-state solution.

We would urge strict observance of international humanitarian law, he said at his weekly media briefing while replying to questions on the attack on the hospital this week.

We have strongly condemned the horrific attack on Israel, Bagchi said, adding the international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms.

Around 500 people were reported to have been killed on Tuesday in the explosion on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, triggering strong international condemnation.

Palestinian authorities blamed Israeli air strikes for the explosion at the hospital while Israel said it was caused by a misfired rocket launched from Gaza by militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Prime Minister Modi on Wednesday expressed shock at the loss of lives in the attack on the Gaza hospital and that those involved in civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict should be held responsible.

Deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured, Modi said on X.

Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible, he said.

The conflict has been triggered by unprecedented and multi-pronged attacks against Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza since October 7. Israel has launched a massive counter offensive in Gaza to avenge the attacks. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 3,300 people have been killed and over 12,000 wounded in Gaza since the conflict began.

Around 1,400 people in Israel have been killed and 3,800 injured in the deadly attack by militant group Hamas since October 7. Nearly 200 others were abducted by Hamas.

In a social media post soon after Hamas launched 5,000 rockets at Israel in 20 minutes and began a multi-pronged attack by land, air and sea on October 7, Prime Minister Modi had said he was deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel and expressed Indias solidarity with the country in the difficult hour. Modi reiterated his support for Israel on October 10, when he had posted that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called him and given him an update on the deadly conflict.
The Assembly elections due this month have apparently developed a strained relationship within the major stakeholders of the four-month-old coalition of Opposition parties under the banner of the INDIA alliance after the breakdown of Congress-Samajwadi Party seat-sharing talks in one of the poll-bound States, Madhya Pradesh.

While the Congress has been unhappy with the Samajwadi Party (SP) for assuming a dominant role in seat-sharing talks in Uttar Pradesh, the SP led by Akhilesh Yadav is accusing the Congress of doing the same in the Madhya Pradesh State elections, which has 230 Assembly seats. Interestingly, another major stakeholder in the INDIA bloc, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), has also proceeded to announce its candidates in the poll-bound States of MP, Chhattisgarh, and now Mizoram.

Sources within the Congress, the SP, and the AAP have stated that the apparent breakdown in alliance talks could have an impact on the INDIA alliances plans in Uttar Pradesh for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, for which the coalition has been formed to challenge the dominance of the BJP.

While the Congress has moved forward with announcing its candidates in crucial Madhya Pradesh, where it emerged as the winner in the last polls in 2018, the SP has also declared nine candidates in the State. Sources suggest that it may ultimately field about 40 candidates. The SP had only won one seat in MP in the 2018 Assembly elections.

Sources have indicated that the SP is also considering fielding candidates in Chhattisgarh, a move that may further strain its ties with the Congress. In Uttar Pradesh, the SP is reluctant to allocate more than 2-3 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress. Uttar Pradesh holds significant importance in the Lok Sabha elections, contributing the highest number of 80 MPs. The BJP has secured substantial victories in the state in both the 2014 and 2019 general elections.

Akhilesh Yadav, addressing a related query, stated, Congress should clarify whether the INDIA alliance operates at the national or State level. If it is not at the State level, it will not be so in the future for other States as well. I continuously come across misleading media reports about a seat-sharing agreement for UP in 2024. I want to affirm that the SP is formulating a strategy to contest all 80 seats in UP with the utmost responsibility, aiming to defeat the BJP.

On his part, senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath said the INDIA alliance operates at the central level, but discussions are ongoing with the SP. He emphasised that both parties should work together to defeat the BJP.

In contrast, UP Congress chief Ajay Rai expressed the view that Yadav should refrain from contesting in Madhya Pradesh, as the Congress holds a strong position there. He reiterated that his party is prepared to contest all 80 seats in UP.

Akhilesh, the former UP CM, remarked that SP leaders would not have engaged with Congress on seat sharing if they had known that there would be no INDIA alliance at the state level.
The name Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan may sound strange and unfamiliar even to people from Kerala. However, if you mention VS Achuthanandan, or simply VS, it is certain that even his rivals start smiling with admiration.

Achuthanandan, the sole surviving founding member of the CPI(M), turned 100 on Thursday. Born on October 23, 1923, Achuthanandan was sworn in as the chief minister of Kerala at the age of 83 on May 18, 2006, which makes him the oldest politician to reach the top position in the State. Interestingly, it was his charisma and sincerity that propelled him to the chief ministers chair.

There was a strong anti-Achuthanandan lobby within the CPI(M) against fielding him as a candidate in the 2006 assembly election. However, Kerala witnessed an uprising within the CPI(M) demanding his candidature, and the rest is history. Though he had a lackluster tenure as chief minister from 2006 to 2011, as the party leaders had restricted his authority by denying him the crucial Home Department.

Achuthanandan was a victim of a surreptitious group within the CPI(M).

There was no shortage of internecine groups and turf wars in the party, which claims to be an organisation with strong moral values. The Nairs against the Eezhavas, the Eezhavas against the Thiyas, and the Travancore faction against the Malabar faction fought against each other. Achuthanandan was the chief ministerial candidate in the 1996 assembly election. Although the CPI(M) led LDF won the polls, Achuthanandan suffered a shocking defeat in his constituency because the faction in the party opposed to him undermined his campaign. This led to the swearing-in of EK Nayanar as chief minister for the third time.

Even as his friends and comrades celebrate his birthday, VS, the birthday boy, lies in a semi-conscious state in his rented house in Thiruvananthapuram, where he is being cared for by his wife Sumathi and son Arun Kumar. VS is one of the 32 members who walked out of the national council of the CPI, the parent organisation, in protest against the latters infatuation with capitalism and politics of compromise. Born into a poor family in Alappuzha district, he had a difficult childhood and youth. Achuthanandan had to drop out of primary school after losing his father and began working as a tailor at the age of 10. This experience turned him into a fighter, advocating for the rights of workers.

He started his political career at the age of 14 and participated in a party meeting held in Pallathuruthi on the bund of a canal. The life of VS was a struggle for the rights of the working class, and there is nothing surprising about him emerging as one of the greatest Communist leaders in the country. From an ordinary party worker, Comrade VS rose to become the Secretary of the partys State wing and then to the position of chief minister, reminisces G Sudhakaran, who served as a minister in VS cabinet for five years.

What made him unique was his uncompromising stance against all forms of communalism. During his tenure as chief minister, Achuthanandan openly stated to the national media that organisations like the Popular Front of India posed a threat to the country. They are working towards the Islamisation of India, and Love Jihad is proof of this agenda, he declared during a media briefing in New Delhi in 2010. This statement sealed his fate, as Islamists within the party sought his removal from the CPI(M), a move carried out by the nouveau rich faction within the party.

He was subsequently removed from the partys politburo. The alliance of Pinarayi Vijayan, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, and Prakash Karat ensured that Achuthanandans influence was curtailed. The 2011 election witnessed internal strife within the CPI(M), leading to the partys narrow loss. Over the next five years, Achuthanandan waged an all-out war against corruption and nepotism. Although the LDF achieved an impressive victory in the 2016 polls, orchestrated by Achuthanandan, the new leadership brought in Pinarayi Vijayan as chief minister and marginalised the former. When asked about VS sidelining, party secretary Sitaram Yechury retorted, He is the Fidel Castro of Kerala, what more does he need? However, what the party secretary seemed to forget was that the original Castro was on life support. A shocked VS has not recovered from that humiliation since then, noted a source close to him.
The Crime Branch took action against illegal shops of firecrackers in the Bairagarh area and seized firecrackers worth Rs 10 lakh; no valid documents were found with the shop owner.

Crime Branch Bhopal was informed by an informer that a person named Sanjay Soni, who runs Soni Firecracker near Halalpura, was selling fireworks in a residential area without valid documents by renting two shops in Dev Traders on Bam Bam Bhole Road.

Firecrackers were kept due to which any accident could happen. Senior officers were informed about the above information and Naib Tehsildar Rajesh Gautam Bairagarh was informed about the information.

Later, Naib Tehsildar Chanchal came to the intersection and took them along to the place told by the informer which was near the shops and found it locked and a person was standing in front of the shops, from whom when inquired about the shops, he told that both the shops were his own.

The person was Sanjay Soni of Sarvodaya Colony, Bairagarh, Bhopal and after informing him about the information, Sanjay Soni got the locks of the said shops opened in front of Naib Tehsildar Rajesh Gautam, then boxes of fireworks and firecrackers were found kept in both the shops. When Sanjay Soni was interrogated by Naib Tehsildar Saheb in this regard, Sanjay Soni told that there were about 450 boxes of fireworks and firecrackers in the shops, the total value of which was said to be around Rs 10 lakh and the goods were said to be his own.

Soni was asked to present valid documents regarding keeping the firecrackers in the shops, which were not presented by Sanjay Soni, after which the said shops were locked and sealed by the Naib Tehsildar Saheb after which the goods were seized.
After government orders were nullified by High Court based on petition filed wheels of 146 city buses plying within a radius of 25 kilometers outside the Municipal Corporation limits in the district stopped from Tuesday, now these will run only in the city.

In fact, bus operators had filed a petition in the High Court regarding the government's order to run buses outside the corporation limits, which the court accepted and canceled the government's order. Now operations can begin only when the government notifies the order.

The High Court said that the scheme under which this order was issued has not even been published in the Gazette. Whereas as per the provision in Section 99 of the Motor Vehicle Act, publication of the scheme in the Gazette is necessary.

After this order, in Bhopal too, BCLL has hurriedly stopped the operation of buses running on more than 10 routes outside the corporation limits. Currently 146 city buses were being operated on more than 10 routes in the district including Kanhasaiya, Hinotiya, Bangarasia, Ratibad, Bilkisganj, Bagroda, Sukhasevnia, Phanda and Parwaliya. Now due to their closure, more than 20000 people will have face problems.

The petition said that the state government had issued an order on May 31, 2022, ordering all the municipal corporations to operate city buses within a radius of 25 kilometers outside the municipal limits.

Advocates Ashish Rawat, Brijesh Dubey and others, on behalf of the petitioners, termed the order as against the rules.

At the same time, advocate Anshuman Singh, on behalf of Jabalpur City Transport Service Limited, argued that this decision was taken for the convenience of passengers under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission. Under the AMRUT scheme, the scope of operation of this bus service was increased in public interest.

Here, the bus operators argued that due to not getting tax exemption from RTO, operating the buses would be expensive, because the fares of these buses are less than private buses. In this matter, RTO officials say that even though the general public is benefiting from transportation in rural areas, as per the rules, city buses will have to pay state carriage tax for operating in rural areas. They do not have the provision to give relaxation in this.

The High Court has canceled the government order in which bus operations were started within a radius of 25 km outside the corporation limits. This order applies to all urban bodies. In such a situation, the operation of buses going outside the corporation limits in Bhopal has been stopped, said RTO Sanjay Soni.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Thursday that by December 2023, 1.25 crore families in Uttar Pradesh would be given ownership rights of leased land under the PM SVAMITVA scheme.

The chief minister said this while addressing the Scheduled Caste/Tribe Conference organised at the Numaish Maidan in Aligarh. During this, he inaugurated/laid the foundation stones of 208 development projects worth Rs 497 crore. The chief minister also distributed certificates to the beneficiaries of various schemes.

Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Yogi said, Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the nation has embarked on a remarkable journey of transformation and development over the past nine and a half years.

The chief minister underscored that during this period, the country had witnessed the emergence of a new India, where every segment of society was offered the opportunity to progress with dignity, free from the shackles of caste, creed, religion, region, or language.

This ethos is embodied in the spirit of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, which guides our actions, he added.

Chief Minister Yogi further said, We align ourselves with the ideals instilled by Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya.

The chief minister emphasised that economic progress should be measured not by the prosperity of those at the pinnacle of society but by the advancement of the most underprivileged. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was unwavering in his commitment to actualising this vision.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath pointed out the substantial improvements made in the lives of individuals belonging to Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Before the year 2017, people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Tribes used to face an identity crisis. They no longer grapple with the identity crisis due to the combined efforts of the double-engine government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The governments efforts are dedicated to realising the harmonious society envisioned by Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar throughout the country, exemplifying the essence of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat, he said.

The construction of the grand temple of Lord Shri Ram in Ayodhya is going on. There have been significant transformations at Baba Vishwanath Dham. The sacred birthplace of Maharishi Valmiki is being revitalised in Lalpur, and substantial beautification projects are being carried out in the holy birthplace of Saint Ravidas, Yogi said.

The chief minister highlighted the governments accomplishments in terms of enhancing security for peaceful celebration of festivals and implementing government schemes effectively. Technology is harnessed to eliminate corruption by transferring funds directly to beneficiaries through DBT, and E-POS machines are employed to ensure fair distribution of ration, he said.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also elaborated on various schemes, such as PM Vishwakarma, Vishwakarma Shram Samman, Mukhyamantri Samuhik Vivah Yojana, Kanya Sumangala, and farmer accident insurance, aimed at integrating the marginalised and impoverished into the states mainstream.

The chief minister noted that there are 75 lakh families in the state who have been provided possession of the land where they reside and by December 2023, one crore 25 lakh families of Uttar Pradesh will be given ownership rights of leased land under the PM SVAMITVA Yojana.

Furthermore, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath praised Prime Minister Narendra Modis commitment to transforming the places associated with Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar into revered pilgrimage sites, whether in Mau, Delhi, or Mumbai, or in the building in England where he received higher education, or in Nagpurs Deeksha Bhoomi. All these locations have been established as Panch Tirtha, he said.

He also pointed out that the Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar International Centre is being established in Lucknow, offering scholarships to Scheduled Castes and Tribes youth for higher education and competitive examinations. The initiative for advanced studies is in its final stages, he added.

He said, In cases where individuals belonging to the Scheduled Caste/Tribe are residing on land that does not fall under the reserved category, the double-engine government will take steps to grant them a lease of that land for constructing a house. For those on reserved category land, we will ensure suitable arrangements for their rehabilitation, including the provision of additional land. It is our unwavering commitment that the administration will not partake in any endeavours to uproot impoverished and marginalised individuals from the Scheduled Caste and Tribe communities, as the double-engine government steadfastly stands by your side.

Following his address, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath personally oversaw the ongoing construction of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University in Aligarh. During his inspection, he gave specific instructions to ensure the universitys timely completion without compromising on the construction quality.
The Vigilance police on Wednesday conducted simultaneous raids on 11 locations of Prasanna Kumar Pani, Junior Engineer (Technical Consultant), Samagra Sikhya Abhiyan, office of BEO, Pallahara in Angul district ,on the allegation of possession of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Movable and immovable assets worth crores of rupees have been unearthed so far in the names of Pani and his family members.

The assets included a triple-storied building with total area of 3,186 sqft near Friends Club, Sundarpada in Bhubaneswar worth Rs75 lakh, a triple-storied building with total area of 2,468 sqft at Ebaranga in Bhubaneswar, a triple-storied building with total area of 2.845 sqft at Sundarpada, a triple-storied building at Amlapada of Nimapada in Puri, a flat at High Tech Plaza in Sundarpada in Bhubaneswar, 26 plots in prime area of Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Pipili and Nimapara (Puri), Jankia and Jatni (Khordha), bank, insurance and other deposits worth over Rs 64.18 lakh, cash of Rs 3,33 lakh, gold jewellery weighing 831.83 grams worth Rs 32 lakh, a car, four two-wheelers and household articles worth over Rs 18.79 lakh.

Further searches were continuing. Unearthing of more assets was likely and overall valuations were likely to increase.
A delegation of Lugu Buru Ghanta Bari Dhorom Garh met Chief Minister Hemant Soren at Jharkhand Ministry today. On the occasion, the delegation, through a memorandum, requested the Chief Minister to cancel the LUGU PAHAR HYDEL PUMPED STORAGE PROJECT proposed by Damodar Valley Corporation Limited on Lugu Pahad, the religious heritage of tribal Santhals.

On this occasion, the delegation informed the Chief Minister that Lugu Mountain is a historical and famous pilgrimage site of the tribal Santhali community, which is full of natural beauty and priceless forest wealth. It is a symbol of world class religious faith. Here, Lugu Baba Cave, the center of the sacred Mahadharma place of the tribals, is situated, which is famous all over the world by the name of Lugu Buru Ghanta Bari Dhorom Gadh. There is a rush of devotees here every Amavasya and Kartik Purnima.

The delegation urged the Chief Minister that keeping in mind the culture, customs, faith and unwavering faith of the tribals, the State Government should take the initiative and take appropriate decision regarding the cancellation of the LUGU PAHAR HYDEL PUMPED STORAGE PROJECT proposed by Damodar Valley Corporation Limited..

On the occasion, Chief Minister Hemant Soren assured the delegation that the state government will always keep the faith, tradition, culture and customs of the tribals intact. He said that since the formation of the government, preserving the religious places of tribals has been the priority of our government. It is also the moral responsibility of all of us to save Lugu Mountain, the religious heritage of tribal Santhals. Regarding the Lugu Pahad Handle Pumped Storage Project proposed by Damodar Valley Corporation Limited, the state government will take legal action and take a decision in accordance with public sentiments.

The CM said that tribal identity will be protected at all costs. Will not allow any kind of hurt to the sentiments of the tribals. He said that the decision on Lugu Pahad Handle Pumped Storage Project will be taken after legal consideration in public sentiment and public interest.

On this occasion, Minister (status) and Member-State Coordination Committee Yogendra Prasad, President of Lugu Buru Ghanta Bari Dhorom Garh Babuli Soren along with Jairam Hansda, Mithilesh Kisku, Dinesh Murmu, Ludu Manjhi, Hiralal Tudu, Sukhram Hansda, Durga Charan Murmu, Shankar Soren, Panchanan Soren, Binde Soren, Budheshwar Kisku, Bablu Hembram, Prem Tudu and others were present.
The invest in Uttarakhand campaign undertaken by the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has yielded positive results. Under the leadership of Dhami memoranda of understanding (MoU) worth Rs 54,550 crore have so far been signed with industry representatives in the campaign which will culminate with the global investors summit scheduled to be held in the month of December in Dehradun. Sounding upbeat while interacting with the media in New Delhi after his successful tour of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the CM said that the State government is endeavouring to ensure that all the agreements reached so far for the investors summit are grounded soon. He said that meetings with different investment groups have been held in London, Birmingham, Delhi, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The CM said that many agreements in the tourism, health, education, pharmaceuticals and agriculture sectors have been signed. There is enthusiasm among the investors to come and invest in Uttarakhand. The CM claimed that MoUs worth thousands of crores of rupees have been signed during the roadshows held in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and dialogue and roadshows with investors in other cities will also be held soon.

The CM said that the assessment of the proposals in terms of their usefulness and benefit for the future will be done. The proposals aiming to provide employment to local people and strengthen the primary sector will be encouraged on priority. The CM said that the State government has formulated policies while keeping in mind the interests of investors, industry and people of the State.

The CM said that MoUs worth Rs 15,475 crore were signed during his two day visit to UAE.

MoUs worth Rs 54,550 crore have so far been signed for the investors summit out of which MoUs of Rs 15,475 were inked in UAE, Rs 12,500 crore in Britain and Rs 26,575 crore in two roadshows held in New Delhi. The State government has taken a target to attract an investment of Rs 2.5 lakh crore from the global investors summit.
Hundreds of youths have taken oath on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar to make the city a special district. In the campaign for declaration of Bhubaneswar as a district, the voices of various institutions are being collected from different parts of Bhubaneswar, including people residing in the city outskirts like Balipatna, Balianta and Nakhara on behalf of the 'Milita Mahamancha', under the leadership of its convenor Dr Lingaraj Sahoo.

Now, the collection of signatures of various members of Durga Puja Committees and Lakshmi Puja Committees has started. With the help of senior persons and institutions, a signature collection campaign was conducted to present the signatures to the Government to make Bhubaneswar a district.

The members of the Mahamancha claimed that there are many reasons for making Bhubaneswar a district when almost all the capitals are districts. When the Khordha district was formed in 1992, its population was 11 lakh, but now it has reached 22 lakh. Even before the reorganisation of 13 districts, the Justice Das Commission in its report had recommended Bhubaneswar to be formed as a revenue district.

Late Satapriya Mohanty, the then Minister, had proposed to make Bhubaneswar a district and set up many offices here. Former Chief Minister late Nandini Satpathy had also formed a committee under the chairmanship of a retired judge of the Orissa High Court to grant district status to Bhubaneswar, they said, adding that the issues of Lingaraj Temple Trust Board or any problem in the district can be solved immediately in Bhubaneswar district.

In this oath taking ceremony, Anchalika Bikash Parishad president Brundaban Sahu, vice president Akshay Swain, secretary Arun Kumar Purohit, Baishalini Patnaik, Bishnu Biswal, Laxmidhar Pradhan and Prashant Mishra, among hundreds of people actively participated. Similarly, the collection of signatures has been started from various Durga Puja Committees.
The full dress and final rehearsal of the Police Memorial Day Parade was held on Thursday morning at the Martyr Memorial Complex located at the Lal Parade Ground.

Every year, Police Memorial Day is organized on October 21, at 8 am in the Martyr Memorial Complex located at Lal Parade Ground.

Additional Director General of Police SAF Farid Shapu inspected the full dress rehearsal parade. Also took stock of other arrangements for Police Memorial Day.

Head constable Ramchandra Kushwaha played the role of chief guest during the full dress rehearsal for Police Memorial Day on Thursday.

The final practice parade was led by Indian Police Service officer Shiyaz K M. The 2IC of the parade is Assistant Commandant Naveen Tiwari of the State Police Service. The parade includes contingents of Women Platoon of District Force, Men Platoon of Special Armed Forces, Men Platoon of District Police Force, Home Guard Platoon, Pallbearer, Color Party, Police Band Platoon, Equestrian Team and Dog Team.

At the time of full dress rehearsal, Police Commissioner Harinarayan Chari Mishra, Deputy Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma, Deputy Inspector General of Police Navneet Bhasin, Amit Singh, Commandant Seventh Corps Atul Singh and other senior police officers were present. During this, tribute was paid to the martyrs by offering floral tributes amidst the melodious tunes of patriotic songs being played by the police band. Initially, the honor roll was installed in the memorial fund by the pall-bearer party and the salute was given at the Martyr's Memorial.

On October 21, 1959, a contingent of CRPF soldiers, under the leadership of Sub Inspector Karam Singh, was patrolling at an altitude of 16 thousand feet in the Hot Springs of Ladakh when 10 soldiers were martyred in an encounter with the Chinese army. This day is remembered in memory by all the police units of the country. This year, 17 soldiers of Madhya Pradesh Police have sacrificed their lives for the country.
The Haryana Government has actively been implementing a range of innovative and pioneering schemes aimed at improving the well-being of journalists and one of the recent highlights of these initiatives is the increase in the monthly pension for journalists from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15,000, making it the highest in the country, Director General Information, Public Relations and Languages Department, Dr. Amit Agrawal informed during a meeting with the members of the Press Council of India (PCI) on Thursday.



In addition, a total of Rs. 161.74 lakh has been disbursed to date among their dependents or legal heirs in cases of severe need due to reasons such as illness, demise, accidents, or other unforeseen emergencies under the Haryana Media Personnel Welfare Fund Administration Scheme.



An official PCI delegation is currently on a three-day visit to Punjab, Chandigarh (UT) and Haryana, with the objective of addressing the challenges encountered by journalists. The PCI delegation, led by Council Convener Vinod Kohli, also included L. C. Bhartiya, Jai Shankar Gupta, and Prasanna Kumar Mohanty.



During the interaction with the delegation, Dr. Agrawal highlighted that the Haryana Government is actively implementing a term/group insurance scheme, providing coverage of Rs. 10 lakh to 1,269 accredited journalists. This insurance scheme provides essential financial security for journalists, ensuring their well-being as they continue to serve the public through their work.



The delegation also visited the newly renovated Media Center, which received high praise for its impressive design.



Joint Director (Press), Dr. Sahib Ram Godara assured the PCI members that the Haryana Government is already committed to implementing the Council's recommendations and guidelines. The government had established a Journalist Welfare Fund in the state, which provides financial assistance for the treatment of serious illnesses. He also informed the delegation about the Press Facility Office and Web Studio and shared details of various welfare schemes launched by the state government to support journalists.
Inspector General of Police, Indore (Rural) Range, Rakesh Gupta and Deputy Inspector General of Police, Indore (Rural) Range, Rajesh Hingankar, have launched a special campaign assigned to all the SPs of the range. Superintendent of Police, Dhar, Manoj Kumar Singh is continuously working for making the upcoming assembly elections 2023 fair and in compliance with the model code of conduct.

Special instructions were given to take action against purchase/sale and transportation of illegal liquor. Abiding by the orders Additional Superintendent of Police, Dhar, Dr. Inderjit Bakalwar, instructed all the police station in-charges and sub-divisional officers of Dhar district to curb criminals and illegal liquor transportation in their respective sections and police station areas.

In compliance with which, on being directed by Sub Divisional Officer (Police) Dhamnod Monica Singh to take action against illegal liquor transportation, Police Station Incharge Dhamnod Sameer Patidar instructed the entire police station staff to keep an eye on the illegal liquor mafia and on National Highway 52 (A.B. Four lane road) police team was also deployed for continuous checking.

On Sunday night Dhamnod police station received information from the informer that mini container number HR-67-D-9279 was carrying illegal liquor coming from Indore-Manpur side. On the information of which, the police station in-charge Dhamnod immediately took cognizance and formed a special team and blocked "Madhuban intersection AB Road Dudhi Dhamnod".

After some time, suspicious mini container number HR-67-D-9279 arrived which was stopped by blockade. The police team interrogated the driver Inderjit Kashyap who told that the mini container was filled with liquor. While checking the permit and documents of the loaded liquor, prima facie the said liquor was found to be illegal.

When the police team checked the liquor loaded in the vehicle, it was found to contain a total of 501 boxes (06 bottles in each box) of Indri Singal Malt Indian Whisky, the total quantity of which was 3006 bulk litres, the total market price of which was Rs 1 crore 50 lakh 30 thousand and Vehicle container worth Rs 30,00,000/- was found to be worth Rs 1 crore 80 lakh 30 thousand. The said illegal liquor was duly seized by the police team and crime number 868/23 under Section 34(2), 46 Excise Act was registered in Dhamnod police station and taken for investigation. The said liquor was found being transported from Karnal (Haryana) to Kochi (Kerala) state.

Details of seized Mashruka

A total of 3006 bulk liters of 1 Indri Single Malt Whiskey (1000 ml) in 501 cases. Price of 01 bottle is Rs 5,000/-. Whose market price is Rs 1,50,30,000.

A total of 501 cases of English wine.

Total quantity 3006 bulk litres.

Total Mashruka worth Rs 1,80,30,000. (One crore eighty lakh thirty thousand rupees)

2. 01 container of Eicher company worth Rs 30,00,000.

Name of the arrested accused

1. Inderjit Kashyap, father Veersingh Kashyap, age 21 years, resident of Naglavan district, Kansganj (Uttar Pradesh).

Under the guidance of SDOP Mrs. Monika Singh, police station in-charge Dhamnod Mr. Sameer Patidar Sauni Sanjay Mishra, Sub Inspector Narayan Rawal, Sub Inspector Surendra Singh Vaskle, Sub Inspector Sanjay Purohit were the part of the team.
Let this column not be taken as a sponsored one by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD). Having been keenly watchful of hundreds of events, the inference drawn is that any other political outfit could not have done any better in 23 years of stable administration. The BJD Government has done numerous things for the people that deserve praise. These are roads and electricity to all villages, jobs for the rural folks and big investments by national and global corporate giants to set up shops to employ many. On the flip side, quite a few political rogues have occupied centre-stage, those that cannot define poverty or development or wouldnt know indices of any kind of human development. Most of these guys are plain lumps of flesh gifted with loud mouths only. The selection of Pramila Mallick as Speaker seems to have not gone well with people as she had been entangled in some dal scam' in the past with a brother having pulled unethical strings to make easy money. The Balbantray fellow is also a public irritant for his role in minerals exploitation.

There are also some bureaucrats who have been occupying critical seats for more than seven to eight years. Many District Magistrates are not shifted at all, which is construed by people as matters of vested interests which though are not necessarily so or proven as yet. All the same, people are putting two and two together. Officers glued to seats for long be shifted immediately as the issue of transparency has been diluted. The bureaucratic machinery has been purposefully empowered by the restless, impatient Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to keep nearly the whole political gang at bay. Bureaucrats have been instructed to keep the so-called peoples representatives under control, away from Naveen's glare as he has persuaded himself to believe that except a miniscule number, the rest of the political community is a bunch of thugs or pinheads.

Truth is that a scheme like the Biju Swasthy Yojana is proving to be a boon. But unfortunately it is meant only for the branded poor, not all categories of the demographic spread. Most significantly, quite a few important cities, townships, suburban locations, hitherto rated abysmally low for being garbage yards, have been transformed into posh places attracting huge crowds from all over including overseas. Places of worship of all faiths equally have had facelifts through grand beautification measures, which have pleased all. Puri, the temple town on sea, is now comparable with any such global counterpart with terrific tourism potential. The capital city Bhubaneswar has been declared one of the smartest cities of India though the inner lanes and by-lanes are still in primitive state without good roads and other smart facilities.

Just to substantiate claim of BJD having done really well, one can take the example of the transformation of the filthy sewer-grade Taladanda Canal of Cuttack now transformed into a heavenly waterway finer than the river Thames of the UK capital London.

The BJD Government has done countless things for the people which is good enough reason for envy expressed by the outwardly-advanced States like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat, where only short-lived populist schemes come and go.

The BJD government, not wholly free of blemishes though, would score over all governments that have ruled Odisha ever since Independence. The Janaki Ballav Patnaik administration was a make-believe stable government with manipulations being at the highest level as much as corruption. Thugs intruded into the machinery which JB Patnaik let go by looking to the other side to keep government from falling. As already made clear severally in earlier articles, a family of a relative of Patnaik amassed immeasurable wealth by grabbing precious mines for songs and abusing connections to even grab land of other less powerful people by crude intimidation methods.

Lastly, the Congress party in Odisha is still an abstract idea only. The noisy BJP in the State is no better. The BJP front-liners seem to have been instructed to keep the battle lamp burning only to remain live in the minds of the masses. Though the BJD for some small reasons has lost popularity insignificantly in some pockets of the State, it is still way ahead of all other competing political outfits that have neither the number nor the face to project any creature as Chief Minister.

What the BJD has done in 23 years with its share of tiny blunders, no other parties have ever achieved nor are likely to achieve as long as the simple, reticent, no-nonsense go-getter Naveen Patnaik is fit and kicking.
The Wall Art Festival Returns with a Splash of Colour



Chandigarh: The third edition of the Wall Art Festival took off at the Alliance Francaise in Sector 36 on Thursday. For its third edition, the Wall Art Festival has invited four artists - two from France, one from India and one from Reunion Island. 14 locations will be transformed by French artists, which includes Chandigarh, where the festival will be concluding. It took off from Colombo and other locations are Trivandrum, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Udaipur, Pondicherry, Pune, Bhopal, and Chennai. The mural art performance in Chandigarh, is on 20th October, by the French artist Sandre and the closing ceremony will be on 21st October with three different artists - Sandre, Super Bab & Aashti Miller.

Hry CM announces to increase stipend of ASHA Workers by Rs. 2100



Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday gave a pre Diwali bonanza to the Asha Workers and announced an increase of Rs 2,100 in the monthly stipend for them, taking it to Rs 6,100. He also announced a retirement benefit of Rs 2 lakh for these workers. Khattar made this announcement during a meeting held with Haryana ASHA Workers' representatives. He said that a letter will be written to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, to augment the incentive amount for ASHA workers.Notably, ASHA workers are already provided with Rs 3 lakh in case of unfortunate incidents leading to their demise during their service.

Punjab Cong leader Jagwinderpal Singh joins AAP



Chandigarh: Congress leader Jagwinderpal Singh, who unsuccessfully contested the 2022 Punjab assembly polls from the Majitha seat, joined the Aam Aadmi Party here on Thursday. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann inducted Singh into the party. Welcoming Singh, Mann said the people of Punjab are "very happy" with the working and policies of the AAP government. "We are working diligently to take the state forward in every field and the leaders who want to work for the people of Punjab are welcomed in the AAP," he said in a statement issued by the party. The party is getting stronger in every corner of the country, he said. Jagwinderpal Singh has been with the Congress since 1987. He remained a councillor in 1992. He was also the Punjab Youth Congress' general secretary in 1999. He had contested the 2022 assembly elections on a Congress ticket from the Majitha seat in Amritsar district.



2 IAS officers transferred in Hry



Chandigarh: Haryana Government on Thursday issued transfer and posting orders of two IAS officers with immediate effect. Ashima Brar, awaiting posting orders, has been posted as Director General, Urban Estates relieving TL Satyaprakash of the charge. She has also been appointed as Director General, Medical Education and Research, vice Dr. Priyanka Soni, who has proceeded on maternity leave. Mandip Singh Brar awaiting posting orders has been posted as Director General and Secretary, Mines and Geology, relieving Narhari Singh Banger of the charge. Brar will also look after the work of Mission Director, Mukhya Mantri Antyodaya Parivaar Utthaan Yojna relieving Khetmalis Makarand Pandurang. He has also been given the charge of Managing Director, Haryana State Warehousing Corporation Ltd vice Jaibir Singh Arya.



21 new works under Rural Augmentation programme worth over Rs 21 crore in Hry



Chandigarh: Haryana Government has decided to implement 21 new projects worth over Rs. 21 crore under Rural Augmentation programme in districts namely Kurukshetra, Kaithal, and Jind. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday accorded administrative approval for the works to be implemented by the Public Health Engineering Department, said an officials spokesperson.
The Annual Survey of Industries 2020 reported on the industrial development of the usually backward States such as Odisha. During the last twenty years, the number of factories has increased from 1,749 to 3,079. It is a slow growth in comparison to industrially advanced States. The top ten most industrialised States with a number of factories are Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, AP, UP, Telengana, Karanatak, Punjab, Hariuyana and Rajastan. It is estimated that nearly 60 per cent of the total factories are in five most industrialised States like TN, Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP and AP.

It is reported that during the last 25 years of liberalisation, these States have seen visible growth of factories. TN has the highest number of factories i.e. 38,837 till 2020 from 16,617 in 1990, followed by Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP and AP. Odisha is a major supplier of migrant workers to these States.

Odisha has only 3,079 factories, mostly mineral based. The number is even less than Bihar, Kerala and Chhattisgarh. In terms of employment, Odisha has engaged about 3 lakh persons whereas TN has engaged more than 27 lakh persons. Kerala, which is geographically smaller than Odisha, has 7,796 factories. The State employs 3, 50,000 people. The economic growth of TN is put together on a port based economy, trade and manufacturing, having well-built infrastructure such as three major ports, 15 minor ports and eight airports with rail and road networks. The minerals are mostly sold out from Odisha for the last 70 years without any value addition.

The mineral and metallurgical products, steel and aluminum constitute a major share of the Odisha's total export. They are being shipped to China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, USA, Vietnam, Russia, Canada, Iran, UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, and UAE mostly from the Paradip Port. But the coastline also remains unexplored. The coastal highway and minor ports have not been developed like other States.

Industrialization is the prime mover of any regions economy and has paved the way towards economic development. Odishas Annual Survey of Industries observes that the State remains industrially backward. The availability of natural resources as industrial raw materials is not enough without availability of basic infrastructure such as international airports, sea ports, railway lines, highways, waterways and other links which are foundations for industrialization. In an increasingly globalised economy there has been a growing movement of skilled manpower and for that purpose, the State must build world-class education and skill development centers to meet the growing need of workers for the industrial sector.

It has been observed that the sociopolitical condition of the State is not supportive of industrialisation and the issues that arise are not addressed by the Government. As a result, misunderstanding and fear become a factor of anti-industry. The past experience relating to industrialisation in Odisha shows that many projects are not grounded in time because of protests by affected people and, most importantly, due to the failure of the Government in implementation of rehabilitation and resettlement laws. The major reason for protests by locals is some basic issues relating to land ownership, which have not yet been solved by the Revenue Department in the absence of proper survey and settlement and clarity over land rights. It is expected that before the launch of any project, the Government must come up with whitepapers for each plan with clarity about the interests of the affected people.

Unfortunately, the State Government has mishandled local peoples protests with brutal police operations, illegal arrests, false cases against protesting leaders, denial of proper compensation, undermining environmental concerns without going for a patient hearing of locals concerns especially, relating to their life and livelihood.

The poor, marginalised sections of the State are being motivated to continue with traditional agricultural and primary sector economies as the most sustainable way of living, while industry and service sectors are globally emerging as alternative sources of livelihood for the majority. Unfortunately,opinion makers very seldom advocate for industrialisation; rather, these days, rational ideas, application of science and technology and industrialisation have been opposed on the grounds of so-called traditions and preservation of traditional agricultural societies. While the whole world is marching forward by the best use of science and technology, Odisha is celebrating its backwardness on TV screens by over-imposing discussions in violation of age-old religious traditions and not creatively engaging people to ponder over the States poor health infrastructure in tribal areas, quality of life with good health and education, solutions for persistent natural calamities, unemployment and distress migration of vulnerable youths; and, above all, about industrial backwardness.

It is evident that globally, almost all countries, irrespective of political ideas of Government, have opened up their economy to major global players but with restrictions and protection of domestic industry. Till recently, the Central and State Governments in India were major promoters of industrialisation, but the withdrawal from industrialisation and especially disinvestment of the public sector are certainly not going to boost backward States such as Odisha.

All the major industries in Odisha, such as SAIL, NALCO and NTPC have started with Government investments. Why Odisha remains backward in industrialisation though it is the most advantageous compared to others having a long coastline and rich mineral resources, is a pertinent question. Other minerals-owning States like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh don't enjoy this privilege. Almost all the coastal States of India are becoming urbanised and industrially developed, but Odisha is an exception.

Many countries in the world which have gained independence after World War II have excelled in industry and economic growth, but this has not happened in India, where there are backward States and regions that have not utilised their natural resources and manpower. The farmers, fishers, and forest-based communities of the State remain backward and underdeveloped; still, a majority of them depend on traditional ways of cultivation, and mostly, paddy is the principal crop.

The quality of life and living standards is one of the poorest in the country with a low wage rate and social security. Its IMR and MMR are just equal to the condition of Ethiopia and sub Saharan Africa. There are continued huge regional imbalances and persistent inequality among different social groups. In the process of slow growth of industry-based employment, the rural youths prefer to migrate to industrially advanced States in search of employment. There is an increasing trend of migration in recent times. Odisha is not emerging as an attractive economic destination; rather it is seen as a labor supplier State.

Maybe a few Odias are better placed at national and international level, but that has not been able to change the overall image of the State. There is wider scope for rapid industrialisation which can change both material and social conditions in Odisha.

(manasbbsr15@gmail.com)
Chief Electoral Officer Anupam Rajan held a meeting with Collectors, District Election Officers and Superintendents of Police of 8 districts under Bhopal and Narmadapuram divisions at RCVP Noronha Academy of Administration and Management, Bhopal on Thursday. Rajan reviewed in detail the preparations being made in the districts for Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections 2023.

Collectors, District Election Officers and Superintendents of Police of both the divisions present in the meeting gave detailed information through PPT about the preparations being made in their respective districts. In the meeting, Inspector General of Police, Law and Order, Security, Madhya Pradesh and State Police Nodal Officer Anurag, Joint Chief Electoral Officer Rakesh Singh and Smt. Ruchika Chauhan, Commissioner of Bhopal and Narmadapuram Division Dr. Pawan Kumar Sharma, IG, DIG of police ranges of both the divisions along with collectors and district election officers and superintendents of police of Bhopal, Vidisha, Raisen, Sehore, Rajgarh, Narmadapuram, Betul and Harda districts were present.

Rajan said that strict action should be taken against criminal tendencies and anti-social elements in all the assembly constituencies of both the divisions under NSA and other prohibitory sections including Zilabadar. To increase the voting percentage and make voters aware about voting, all districts should speed up voter awareness activities. Special round the clock surveillance should be ensured at inter-state and inter-district checkpoints. Transportation of illegal cash, liquor, illegal weapons and other objectionable materials including drugs should be checked and campaigns to seize such materials should be conducted. Order the SST, FST and VST teams to work with complete alertness and caution.

Rajan directed to make additional security arrangements in polling stations in vulnerable areas. Make concrete arrangements for webcasting (live-streaming) of sensitive polling booths.

Rajan gave instructions to operate the voter help desk number 1950 established in the districts with full activeness and seriousness. Rajan said that every call coming from voters on the helpdesk should be attended and their problem should be resolved appropriately. Maximum publicity should be given so that citizens can complain about violation of the Model Code of Conduct through the cVigil app.

Rajan said that those senior citizens above 80 years of age who want to vote from home should seek approval by filling Form-12D. Similarly, disabled voters with more than 40 percent disability are to be provided the facility to vote from home. In order to provide convenient voting facility to the voters in polling booths with more than 1550 voters, auxiliary polling booths will be built in or near the main polling booth premises, the proposal for the same should also be made available as soon as possible. Along with this, also send the proposal for the counting venue.
The Haryana government has put in place stringent measures to ensure the successful and unfair means-free conduct of the Common Eligibility Test (CET) for the recruitment of 13,536 Group D posts in the state.



Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday presided over a high-level meeting through video conferencing with Divisional Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, Range IGs and Superintendents of Police to review the comprehensive preparations for the examination. During the meeting, Khattar issued directives to all officers, emphasizing that recruiting based on merit is the government's primary objective. Therefore, it is imperative that the examination proceeds without any disruptions and this responsibility falls on all of us.



The CET examination for Group D posts is scheduled for October 21 and 22 and will be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). A total of 13,75,151 candidates have registered for this examination. The CET examination will be held at 798 examination centers across 17 districts of the state including Panchkula, Ambala, Yamunanagar, Kurukshetra, Karnal, Panipat, Sonipat, Gurugram, Faridabad, Kaithal, Hisar, Bhiwani, Fatehabad, Sirsa, Palwal, Narnaul, and Rewari as well as Chandigarh. The examination will be conducted in two shifts, one in the morning and the other in the evening. The examination will take place in two sessions, from 10:00 am to 11:45 am and from 3:00 pm to 4:45 pm. As a result, approximately 3.5 lakh candidates are expected to appear for the examination during each shift.



In the meeting, Khattar emphasized the need for a comprehensive revamp of the staff deployment at the examination centers to prevent incidents like paper leaks, unauthorized access, copying or impersonation. To achieve this, he said that staff deployment remain undisclosed even to the staff themselves, ensuring they are unaware of their examination center until the last moment. In addition, candidates should be identified at the examination centers through technologies like biometric and face authentication.



Khattar underscored the transformation in Haryana's recruitment practices, adding that prior to 2014, the state had a tainted reputation for the sale of jobs. However, we undertook the Mission Merit commitment and initiated government recruitments free from any forms of bribery or undue expenses or favour. This time also, it is our collective responsibility to ensure recruitment purely on merit basis. He also directed for arrangements, particularly for female teachers, with regards to the celebration of the festivals of Saptham and Ashtami on October 21 and 22, including the provision of fruits.



In addition, the Chief Minister stressed the importance of ensuring accommodation arrangements for candidates in various districts. Deputy Commissioners were instructed to identify suitable Dharamshalas within their respective districts and collaborate with social and religious institutions to ensure comprehensive arrangements.



It was informed that special transportation arrangements have been put in place by the Transport Department to ensure convenient travel to the examination centers on October 21 and 22. A sufficient number of buses will be accessible in all districts. For this, 3000 buses of Haryana Roadways and buses of various educational institutions will be utilized. Travel services will be extended to all candidates upon presentation of their admit cards. Apart from this, help desks will be established at bus terminals and railway stations to further assist candidates with their transportation needs.



Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal, Chief Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Rajesh Khullar, Additional Chief Secretary Home TVSN Prasad, Additional Chief Secretary Energy Department AK Singh, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister V. Umashankar, amongst others, attended the meeting.
An INTUC Odisha State Branch Working Committee meeting was held here under the presidentship of former MP, INTUC national vice president and State president Dr Rama Chandra Khuntia.

It was unanimously resolved to revise the minimum wages in Odisha to Rs 26,000, ensure health safety under Biju Swastya Kalayan Yojana, social security benefits like ESIC and provident fund for all workers working in construction, forest, agriculture, NMR work charged and contractual in public and private sector, besides Rs 50,000 to all construction workers at the time of delivery.

The Modi Government has waived Rs 6 lakh crore interest and Rs 10.5 lakh crore loan on industrial houses whereas the MNGREGA funds have been reduced and also budget allocations in education and health have been reduced, the speakers lamented in the meet.

Although the PM has been advocating for social security and health safety but not a single rupee has been allocated for the social security for 48 crore workers. The Central Government has not taken any strategic steps for ratification of ILO Convention 187 and 155 and implementation of health and safety resolution of ILO, they alleged further.

The committee also demanded the old pension scheme for the State and Central Government employees, apart from Rs 6,000 minimum pension for provident fund linked pension scheme. The committee expressed concern that the Government of India was not signing the non-binding convention of UNO meant for the protection of migrant workers right.

While appreciating the 33% reservation of women in Parliament and Assembly election, the committee demanded implementation of the quota from 2024. It was also demanded to reserve 33% posts for women in employment. The committee urged upon the State Government to create employment opportunity to bring back 40 lakh migrant labourers of the State and open all defunct or closed sugar and cotton mills.
A group of talented school students from among Odisha, participants in the Olympic Values Education Programme (OVEP) met with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here on Thursday.

The students presented the CM a letter from Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This letter lauded the ongoing OVEP project in Odisha and its achievements and contributions to the field of education and sports.

In the letter, Bach expressed his heartfelt appreciation for the excellent cooperation between the IOC and the Government of Odisha for OVEP and the Odisha Ridley Project. He thanked the CM for his support for the Olympic values.

Students Bharati Sabar, Mohammad Hammad Noorain, Pratyasha Sahoo, Soumya Ranjan Barik and Suchismita Sahoo enthusiastically shared their inspiring experiences of attending the international IOC session in Mumbai.

The Chief Minister commended the students for representing Odisha on a global platform.
A record 3,509 individuals face section 107 of CrPC in 3 districts of the police range here Garhwa, Latehar and Palamu.

IG of police Palamu range R K Lakra said it's 2000 individuals in Palamu, 608 in Garhwa and 901 in Latehar district. These people are to be served notices of 107 CrPC.

Asked if such a huge number is any indication of indiscriminate and indiscreet use or invocation to the section 107 of the CrPC against 3,509 people as the law of the land asks for caution and justification for invoking this section of the CrPC in such a wholesale fashion to which IG said "It's a legitimate identification. It is not indiscriminate. It's for law and order and public tranquility."

'Tamila of 107 notices' is equally an arduous job as identifying or justifying an individual to be a 'potential nuisance' is not easy also to which IG reiterated "The sub divisional magistrates are expected to work it out faster. Proper verification has been done. Antecedence of the individuals not in accordance with law has been taken into account for 107 section."

"There are 202 Puja pandals in all in these 3 districts out of 1,302 Puja pandals to have been declared as sensitive. It is sensitive for reasons of law and order and also having a tinge of communalism" reminded the IG.

The breakup of the sensitive Puja pandals is as follows - 66 in Palamu, 89 in Garhwa and 47 in Latehar. However when it comes to matching with the figure of invocation of section 107 of the CrPC against the individuals, the tally is a misfit. 89 Puja pandals in Garhwa district are sensitive. Here in Garhwa district 608 individuals face section 107 of the CrPC. 66 Puja pandals in Palamu are sensitive and here a hopping 2,000 individuals. are to be slapped with 107 CrPC notices.

The total number of Puja pandals in this Palamu police range is 1,302, out of which 581 are in Palamu, 575 in Garhwa and 146 in Latehar district.

The IG commenting on this said " Proper verification of past incidence related to the individuals have been done. It's not that it is being done in any ill prepared way."

There are 150 quick response teams in all in these three districts. Stating this IG gave a breakup like 83 in Palamu, 42 in Garhwa and 30 in Latehar.

Apart from section 107 of the CrPC police have opened 'Goonda Panji' in these 3 districts and here too Garhwa tops with 100 while Latehar has 64 and Palamu 86.

Central security forces, India Reserve Battalion, district armed police etc will be pressed in during the peak of the Durga Puja.

Bihar, UP and Chhatisgarh touch with our districts in this range and as Chhatisgarh is a poll bound state now there is a great need to be extra vigilant reminded the IG.
Under the minimum support price scheme for the Kharif marketing year 2023-24, the Yogi Adityanath government has proposed to start procurement in the districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh from November 1 and in the districts of western Uttar Pradesh from October 1.

A total of 3,08,663 farmers have registered online for paddy sale in eastern Uttar Pradesh so far, resulting in the purchase of 13,648 metric tons of paddy from 2,282 farmers. Last year, during this period, 1,614 metric tons were purchased from 332 farmers.

According to the instructions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, in order to support the welfare of farmers, the procurement of paddy will commence on October 20 in several districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh. These districts include Lucknow, Rae Bareli and Unnao from the Lucknow division, as well as Sultanpur, Amethi, Ayodhya, Ambedkar Nagar and Barabanki from the Ayodhya division.

The district magistrates of the districts concerned have been instructed to activate purchasing centres and initiate paddy procurement from farmers. The farmers in these districts can sell their paddy starting from October 20.

Last time, a total of 1,614 metric tons of paddy was purchased from all the agencies. According to the Food and Logistics department, as of Wednesday, they have successfully procured 13,648.46 metric tons of paddy, benefiting 2,282 farmers. Over 13,640.22 metric tons of common paddy and 8.24 metric tons of hybrid paddy have been purchased sequentially at 730 centres.
In yet another sensational killing of a priest in the temple town Ayodhya, a Naga sadhu was brutally murdered in an ashram located in the Siddha Peeth Hanuman Garhi temple complex in Ram Janmabhoomi police station area of the district.

There were deep cuts inflicted with some sharp weapon on the neck, chest and back of the victim. It is suspected that he was first strangled with a thin wire and then stabbed with a knife.

On getting information of the murder on Thursday morning, Senior Superintendent of Police Rajkaran Nair, Superintendent of Police (City) Madhuban Singh and Circle Officer Bikapur Dr Rajesh Tiwari reached the spot along with a forensic team and started investigation.

The deceased sadhu was identified as Ramshaare Das aka Durbal Das (44), a disciple of Ram Sahare Das. He was associated with Basantia Patti.

Durbal Das reportedly lived in the third room of the innermost part of the ashram. Two disciples also lived with him. After the murder came to light, a disciple named Rishabh Shukla was found absconding while the other disciple Govind Das has been detained by the police.

According to information, Durbal Das had kept Rishabh Shukla with him 15 days ago and he used to cook food.

Robbery is suspected to be behind the murder.

The Naga sadhus living in and around the temple say that Durbal Das used to do the shringar of Hanumanji.

CCTV was installed in all the rooms of the ashram but someone had switched it off. Police have found some footage in which the person who switched off the CCTV has been captured. The police have taken the footage and hard disc into their custody.

SSP Rajkaran Nair said that the body had been sent for post-mortem and four teams had been deployed to work out the case.

It may be mentioned that this is the second such incident in Hanuman Garhi campus within a month. Earlier, in another ashram located in front of this ashram, a Sanskrit student had committed suicide by hanging himself.

Meanwhile, a youth who set himself on fire in front of the main branch of the State Bank of India (SBI) in Gonda on not getting a loan on Wednesday, died during treatment in Lucknow on Thursday.

Divyaraj Pandey, son of Munna Lal Pandey of Sarhara Pandeypurwa under Itiyathok police station of Gonda district, was trying to take a business loan from the bank. He had come to the main branch of the district along with Vishwanath Pandey of the village. On Wednesday afternoon, Divyaraj set himself on fire by sprinkling some inflammable substance on himself in front of the bank. While trying to save him, Pradeep Pandey also got burnt.

State Bank of India Regional Manager Gyan Prakash informed media persons that there was no loan related case of the victim with any branch of the bank.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police has arrested two more persons in connection with the Rs 4-crore LED bulb and scholarship fraud by the Vastav India Trust.

The arrested were identified as Nishant Prakash Jaiswal and Amar Danish, the respective State field officer and project in-charge of Vastav India Trust for Odisha. The duo was arrested from Ranchi in Jharkhand.

The accused were produced before the JMFC Court in Ranchi and brought to Bhubaneswar on transit remand. They were produced before the OPID Court in Cuttack on Wednesday.

This case is the outcome of an inquiry conducted by the EOW on a petition of one Sebati Mahanta and others against the Vastav India Trust. The allegation was against the president, secretary, CMD and project in-charge of the organisation for duping the public and parents on the pretext of selling or supplying LED bulbs in their solar awareness programme and giving pre-Matric scholarship to the students in their Chuuloo Aasman programme to the tune of Rs 4 crore.

Subsequently, the trust officials disappeared by closing down their offices. The Vastav India Trust registered with Sub-Registrar, Ranchi, opened an office at Bomikhal in Bhubaneswar in March 2022.

The arrested accused Amar Danish and Nishant Prakash Jaiswal being the respective project in-charge and State field officer of the said trust, in connivance with others launched two programmes on solar awareness and pre-Matric scholarship namely Chuuloo Aasman under solar awareness programme, they used to collect Rs 1,650 in cash from each applicant as member fee with assurance to supply them with LED bulbs.

The survey application form so provided by the trust was containing the logo of the Ministry of MSME, which was forged in order to win the trust of the people. In their pre-Matric scholarship program named Chuuloo Aasman, the trust was offering scholarship of Rs 1,000 per month up to 24 months on their one-time deposit of Rs 3,000 as membership charge.

The scholarship amount was payable to the bank account opened in the names of the parents of the concerned students. This way, the trust collected Rs 4 crore from more than 3,500 persons.
Around 90 students from National Institute of Technology of Rourkela participated in the Quiz competition organised at NIT, Rourkela by the Vigilance Department of SAIL, Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) on 15th October to mark the ensuing Vigilance Awareness Week 2023. Dr. K Uma Maheshwar Rao, Director NIT Rourkela was the Chief Guest on the occasion. Soumit Kumar, GM (Vigilance) & Acting ACVO, RSP, Prof. Sidhartha S Jena,Dean Student Welfare, NIT, Rourkela, Prof. Rajeev Kumar Panda, President (SAC), NIT, Rourkela and Rohan Dhiman, Registrar NIT, Rourkela, were also present on the occasion.The dignitaries handed over the trophies and mementoes to the winners and finalists of the Quiz Competition.

Out of the 45 participating teams, 8 were selected for the final round. The competitions were based on this year's Vigilance Awareness Week 2023 theme that is "Say no to corruption; commit to the Nation

Speaking on the occasion Dr. K Uma Maheshwar Rao, Director NIT Rourkela commended the efforts of the organisers and shed light on the all inclusive nature of corruption which is not only about money but also regarding immoral attitude and behavior. He urged all to end corruption by raising voices and awareness.

At the outset Prof. Rajeev Kumar Panda, delivered the inaugural address. Soumit Kumar, delivered his address while Sandeep Bansal, AGM (Vigilance) proposed a formal vote of thanks. Arpan Chakraborty,Student of NIT,Rourkela coordinated the event.

Earlier, on 6th October, 2023 the quiz competition was organized at Delhi Public School, Rourkela for the students of Class XI and XII by the Vigilance Department of RSP. The Quiz competition was conducted in 2 rounds. 52 students in 26 teams participated in the first written round out of which 6 teams comprising 12 students qualified for the 2nd and final oral round. Siddharth Rath, Principal, DPS presided over the event. Smitha R Athreya and Himali Sehgal were the Quiz Masters and moderated the entire session.
The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Enforcement Directorate (ED) over its hurry in filing an application before a trial court seeking a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against an accused in a money laundering case in Chhattisgarh.

A Bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul stayed the NBW, noting that the apex court had on July 18 ruled that the ED must stay their hands in all manner.

The Bench, also comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Manoj Misra, was hearing an application filed by Anwar Dhebar seeking a stay on the operation of the trial courts October 13 order for issuing NBW against him.

Dhebar also sought the courts direction that no coercive steps be taken against him in the ED case.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Dhebar, told the top court that the Chhattisgarh High Court had on October 6 dismissed his bail application after having granted him interim bail in July.

He said the ED had made an application dated October 9 before the trial court in Raipur seeking a NBW against Dhebar.

Once we say you dont have to take any coercive steps, is it (NBW) not in overreach of our order? That is the point. Right or wrong, we are seized of it, the Bench told the ED counsel.

The judges sought the EDs response on the application and posted the matter for hearing after six weeks.

In the meantime, the petitioner will continue on interim bail and the order issuing non-bailable warrant is stayed, the court said.

Why such a hurry, I dont understand, Justice Kaul remarked.

Dhebar, in his petition filed through advocate Malak Manish Bhatt, said the ED moved an application before the special judge seeking a NBW against him in absolute violation of the apex courts July 18 order.

The application claimed despite the entire investigation and proceedings in relation to the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) being completely illegal and without jurisdiction, the applicant will be taken into custody in light of the order issuing NBW against him.

On May 16, the top court told the ED not to create an atmosphere of fear, after the Chhattisgarh government claimed the probe agency was running amok and was trying to implicate Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel in a money laundering case linked to the alleged liquor scam in the state.

The Chhattisgarh government earlier alleged that several state excise department officials have complained about ED officials threatening them and their family members with arrest.

The ED has alleged a massive scam in liquor trade in Chhattisgarh perpetrated by a syndicate comprising officials, private persons and political executives.
In a significant stride towards elephant conservation, the Odisha Government in partnership with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) launched a Gaj Utsav campaign here on Wednesday.

The event witnessed the presence of distinguished dignitaries such as Forest and Environment Minister Pradip Kumar Amat, PCCF and CWLW, Odisha Forest Department Sushil Kumar Popli, PCCF and HoFF, Forest Department Debidutt Biswal, Additional Chief Secretary, Forest, Environment and Climate Change, Satyabrata Sahu alongside other esteemed guests.

The launch ceremony was marked by the unveiling of six elephant art pieces handcrafted by local artisans. This was followed by a symbolic baton handover from Minister Amat to Dhenkanal DFO Sumit Kar, Collective Initiation For Social Solidarity (CISS) NGO Bijaya Dash and Chief of Conservation, Wildlife Trust of India, Dr Sandeep Tiwari. This unique Public-Private Partnership will take forward the vision of bringing the Gajah (elephant) to the Prajah (public) through the elephant districts of the State.

The event showcased a series of engaging activities including cultural performances, a cycle rally, origami and storytelling workshops for students and informative sessionsall designed to highlight the importance of protecting these magnificent creatures and their habitats. It concluded with a media panel discussion on "Sensitive and Responsible Wildlife Journalism.
The Congress party in Madhya Pradesh has received another big blow today from the Vindhya region after Siddharth Tiwari, grandson of former Assembly Speaker late Shrinivas Tiwari, known as the Lion of Vindhya, left the Congress today and joined the BJP.

Siddharth Tiwari has contested elections from Rewa Lok Sabha seat in the year 2019 on Congress ticket. It is believed that BJP can give assembly ticket to Siddharth Tiwari from Rewa.

He took the membership of BJP in Bhopal in the presence of CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan and State President VD Sharma.

Siddharth Tiwari has contested elections from Rewa Lok Sabha seat in the year 2019 on Congress ticket. Along with Siddharth Tiwari, former MLA Phunderlal Chaudhary from Gunnaur seat of Panna also joined BJP.

It is being said that Congress may suffer loss of Brahmin votes in Vindhya due to Siddharth Tiwari joining BJP after Abhay Mishra. Siddharth Tiwari was denied ticket to contest by Congress.

At the BJP office in Bhopal, Siddharth Tiwari said that he has taken this decision after being influenced by the ideology of BJP and Prime Minister Modi. They are joining BJP because of the development that has taken place in the country and the state during the BJP rule. He said that today every patriotic youth will say that the country is progressing under the leadership of Modi.

Before the date of assembly elections was announced, former Congress MLA Abhay Mishra and his wife Neelam Mishra had given a shock to the Congress in Vindhya and joined BJP. After this, a big question was raised as to why the Mishra couple returned home. Actually, Abhay Mishra had written a letter to PCC Chief Kamal Nath and made serious allegations against Rewa District Congress in-charge and former MP Pratap Bhanu Sharma.

In the letter given to Kamal Nath, he has written that Pratap Bhanu Sharma is the maternal uncle and father-in-law of the real brother of BJP MLA from Semaria, KP Tripathi. They are maintaining a relationship. At the behest of the BJP MLA, they want to get tickets from Congress to such candidates. So that it becomes easier for BJP to win.

After this Abhay Mishra and his wife Neelam Mishra joined BJP.

In the 2018 elections, BJP had got 26 seats out of 30 seats in Vindhya region. This time it is a big challenge for BJP to repeat the old results. At the same time, the increasing resentment of the leaders in Congress can make its path difficult.

Meanwhile, The Bharatiya Janata Party kick-started a three-day outreach program in 65,000 booths across 12,000 locations in the poll-bound state on Monday.

The party functionaries, on the condition of anonymity, stated that the outreach program would mark the beginning of BJP's election campaign, followed by doorstep reaching, and public rallies. Under this booth Vijay Abhiyan (victory campaign), the party cadre will take a pledge to ensure the BJP's win at every booth in Madhya Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh's BJP wing has recently said it will soon come out with fifth list for the Assembly election scheduled for next month.

Speculations are rife that Central Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia might also contest for a post in the state for the first time.
Keeping in view maximum participation of citizens in the elections to be held under Assembly elections 2023, a voter awareness board for signature campaign was installed at the gate of the Municipal Corporation office under the sweep activity.

On Wednesday, the signature campaign was launched by Commissioner Rajneesh Kasera with the signatures of Corporation Deputy Commissioner Finance Punit Shukla and Deputy Commissioner Devbala Piplonia. On this occasion, the Commissioner said that the corporation is continuously running an awareness campaign to encourage voters to use their franchise fearlessly and as much as possible in the upcoming assembly elections.

''We, the citizens of India, with full faith in democracy, take this oath that we will maintain the dignity of the democratic traditions of our country and will keep intact the dignity of free, fair and peaceful elections, fearlessly irrespective of religion, class, a pledge board was signed stating that everyone will exercise their right to vote in all elections without being influenced by caste, community, language or any other inducement.

On this occasion, Corporation Assistant Engineer Indu Bharti, Deputy Engineer Dinesh Chauhan, Dilip Malviya, Raghavendra Sen, Umesh Chaturvedi, Bholasih Jadon, Munna Qureshi, Hemraj Sangate, Azimuddin Shaikh, Vishal Jagtap, Manish Mandloi, Sunil Joshi, Himmat Shinde, Narayan Shriwas, Anand Dubey. Corporation employees including Muzaffar Ali, Kamla Bangar, Kala Suryavanshi, Afsha Shaikh, etc. also attended and participated in the signature campaign.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will on Thursday address two rallies in Chhattisgarh's Bastar division, where polling will be held in the first phase on November 7, a BJP leader said.

This will be Shah's second visit to the Congress-ruled state after the announcement of election schedule for the 90-member assembly.

The former BJP president, a key poll strategist of the party, earlier addressed an election rally in Rajnandgaon on October 16.

Voting in the state will be held in two phases on November 7 and 17.

Shah will arrive at the Maa Danteshwari Airport in Jagdalpur from New Delhi shortly after noon, said the BJP leader.

The Union minister will attend a public meeting and nomination rally at Lalbagh Maidan in Jagdalpur, he said.

Shah will later leave for Kondagaon where he will attend another election meeting and nomination rally at Police Ground, he said.

Both Jagdalpur and Kondagaon fall under the Naxal-affected Bastar division of the state.

In the first phase, polling will be held in 20 assembly segments - Konta, Bijapur, Dantewada, Chitrakot, Jagdalpur, Bastar, Narayanpur, Kondagaon, Keshkal, Kanker, Bhanupratappur, Antagarh, Mohla-Manpur, Khujji, Dongargaon, Rajnandgaon, Dongargarh, Khairagarh, Kawardha and Pandariya.

The remaining 70 seats will be covered in the second phase.

The ruling Congress has so far declared candidates for 83 out of the 90 seats.

The opposition BJP has announced its candidates for 86 seats, including all 20 going to polls in the first phase.

The Congress registered a landslide victory in the 2018 polls, winning 68 of the 90 seats.

The BJP, which had ruled the state for 15 years (2003-2018), was reduced to 5 seats, while the JCC (J) and the BSP bagged 5 and 2 seats, respectively.

The current strength of the Congress in the assembly is 71.
The Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed the bail petition of Tamil Nadu Minister V Senthil Balaji, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case.

Justice G Jayachandran dismissed the bail petition of Senthil Balaji.

The judge observed that since the brother of the petitioner was absconding and the petitioner was holding the post of a Minister without portfolio, he may likely tamper with witnesses.

Balaji was arrested on June 14 by the ED in connection with a money laundering case linked to cash-for-jobs scam when he was the Transport Minister during the earlier AIADMK regime.
The Congress on Thursday urged the SEBI to stand firm and finish its investigation into the Adani matter in a timely manner, even as it reiterated that only a JPC probe can investigate the full scope of the issue.

In a post on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh cited a media report which claimed that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has asked the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) to give it access to key documents about the allegations of stock manipulation and accounting fraud against the Adani Group.

"Recently, the Organised Crime & Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found clinching evidence that Adani associates were controlling opaque shell companies in overseas tax havens that had amassed huge stakes in Adani Group companies. All this was done in blatant violation of SEBI regulations," Ramesh said.

Major global papers like the Financial Times and the Guardian covered the story in detail, he pointed out.

"The Adani Group and its minions in the BJP attempted to discredit OCCRP as 'Soros-funded interests'. Now, it emerges that SEBI itself had approached OCCRP to get access to the documents proving that Adani was in fact indulging in round-tripping and money-laundering benami funds," Ramesh said.

"Will Adani apologists attack SEBI as conspiring with Soros? Does this not prove that SEBI is finally taking these disclosures seriously and attempting to fulfill its duty to the nation," he said.

"We urge SEBI to stand firm and finish its investigation in a timely manner. However, we reiterate that only a JPC can investigate the full scope of the Adani MegaScam, including the close and enduring relationship, financial or otherwise, between the PM and his friend Adani," Ramesh said.

The opposition party has been questioning the financial dealings of billionaire Gautam Adani's Group after US research firm Hindenburg alleged "irregularities" and charged it with stock price manipulation.

The Adani Group has denied all the allegations made in the Hindenburg report and claimed there had been no wrongdoing on its part.
A US analysis indicates that Israel was not responsible for the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds of civilians on Tuesday, the White House has said, basing its assessment on intelligence overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information.

The assessment by the US came on Wednesday the same day when President Joe Biden made a show of solidarity with Israel during his visit there.

The massive explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital late on Tuesday night killed 471 people and injured 314 others, the Palestinian Health Ministry has said. The US government assesses that Israel was not responsible for an explosion that killed hundreds of civilians yesterday at the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip, White House National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu on Tuesday unveiled a new version of its artificial intelligence model, Ernie 4.0, claiming that it rivals models such as GPT-4 in the U.S. Baidus CEO Robin Li demonstrated Ernie 4.0 at the companys annual Baidu World conference in Beijing. He said the model has achieved comprehension, reasoning, memory and generation, which uses algorithms to produce and create new content.

Li said that Ernie 4.0 was able to understand complex questions and instructions and apply reasoning and logic to generate answers to questions. It is not inferior in any aspect to GPT-4, Li said, stating that the latest model was significantly improved compared to its original Ernie Bot model.

In a live demonstration, Li prompted Ernie 4.0 to generate advertising materials including advertising posters and a marketing video. He also asked Ernie 4.0 to come up with a martial arts novel complete with characters with various personalities. Baidu is a frontrunner among a slew of Chinese companies racing to come up with artificial intelligence models, after OpenAIs ChatGPT took the world by storm last year. Beijing sees artificial intelligence as a key industry to rival the United States and aims to become a global leader by 2030.

Beijing-based Baidu started off as a search engine firm and over the past decade has invested heavily in artificial intelligence technology such as autonomous driving and more recently, generative AI to stay competitive.

The companys Hong Kong-listed shares fell 1.7 per cent Tuesday following the announcement. Baidu introduced its Ernie Bot in March. In August, it made the model available to the public. Ernie 4.0 is not yet available to the general public but some people have been invited to try it.

Li said Baidu plans to incorporate artificial intelligence technology into its search engine, maps and cloud drive services, and its business intelligence offerings for enterprise customers. He did not give a timetable for that.

The technology can transform how certain products work. Baidus search engine might generate a customized answer to a query instead of just providing a list of results and links.

China has recently sought to regulate the generative AI industry, requiring companies to carry out security reviews and obtain approvals before publicly launching their products. Companies that provide such AI services must also comply with government requests for technology and data. The US does not have such

regulations.
Russias foreign minister proposed regular security talks with North Korea and China to deal with what he described as increasing U.S.-led regional military threats, as he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his top diplomat on Thursday during a visit to Pyongyang.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in North Koreas capital on Wednesday on a two-day trip expected to focus on how to boost the two countries defence ties following a September summit between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Last week, the United States said North Korea had transferred munitions to Russia to boost its fighting capabilities in Ukraine in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban any weapons trading involving North Korea.

On Thursday, Lavrov met Kim for talks that lasted about an hour, Russias state-run Tass news agency reported, without elaborating. Lavrov met his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son Hui, earlier Thursday and lauded deepening bilateral collaboration.

Lavrov and Choe discussed resuming full-fledged contacts and intensifying economic cooperation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It added that Lavrov invited Choe to visit Moscow at her convenience. The ministry also said Lavrov recommended that Russian tourists start holidaying in North Korea. Tass also quoted Lavrov as telling reporters that he supports holding regular talks on security issues on the Korean Peninsula with North Korea and China. The Lavrov-Kim meeting means that the recent fleet of containers likely carrying munitions from North Korea to Russia was not the last Kim-Putin transaction the world has to worry about, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha University in Seoul.

After accepting Pyongyangs help to resupply the illegal invasion of Ukraine, Moscow is set to commit further violations of UN Security Council resolutions by providing North Korea with weapons technology that could threaten stability in East Asia, Easley said. The United States, Japan and South Korea intensifying military activity here and Washington working toward moving strategic infrastructure, including nuclear aspects, here, are of great concern to us and our North Korean friends, Lavrov said, according to Tass. We oppose this unconstructive and dangerous policy with a course toward de-escalation and inadmissibility of escalating tensions here.

The recent flurry of diplomacy between Russia and North Korea underscores how their interests are aligning in the face of their separate, intensifying confrontations with the United States  North Korea over its advancing nuclear programme and Russia over its war with Ukraine.

The US has been expanding regular military drills with South Korea and temporarily deploying more powerful military assets around the Korean Peninsula in response to North Koreas barrage of missile tests since last year. The U.S. and South Korea have also resumed some trilateral military exercises with Japan.

The focus of outside attention during Lavrovs visit is whether the two countries will provide any hints of how they will solidify their security cooperation or announce the timing of Putins promised trip to Pyongyang to reciprocate Kims visit to Russias Far East.

During his travel to Russia, Kim met Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russias most important domestic space launch centre, and inspected other key Russian weapon-making sites. That triggered intense speculation that Kim seeks sophisticated Russian technologies to modernize his nuclear arsenal in return for supplying conventional arms to refill Russias declining weapons inventory. Neither Russia nor North Korea has disclosed what Putin and Kim agreed to during the summit.

After the historic summit between President Putin and Chairman of State Affairs Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome on September 13, we can confidently say that the relations have reached a qualitatively new strategic level, Lavrov said at the start of his meeting with Choe, according to Russias state-run Interfax news agency.

Choe said her meeting with Lavrov will become an important stage in terms of the implementation of the agreements reached by Kim and Putin, Tass said. During a dinner banquet held for him on Wednesday, Lavrov said Russia deeply values North Koreas unwavering and principled support for its war on Ukraine as well as Pyongyangs decision to recognize the independence of Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, according to Russias Foreign Ministry.

North Korean state media said Lavrov also praised North Korea for remaining unfazed by any pressure of the US and the West, and said that Russia fully supports Kims push to protect its security and economic interests. Choe said Pyongyang and Moscow were building an unbreakable comradely relationship under the leadership of Kim and Putin.

The White House said Friday that North Korea had delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia. The White House released images that it said showed the containers were loaded onto a Russian-flagged ship before being moved via train to south-western Russia.

Since last year, the US has accused North Korea of providing ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia, likely much of them copies of Soviet-era munitions. North Korea has steadfastly denied it shipped arms to Russia, but South Korean officials said North Korean weapons provided to Russia have already been used in Ukraine. Lim Soosuk, spokesperson of South Koreas Foreign Ministry, told reporters Thursday that Seoul was closely monitoring Lavrovs visit to North Korea and that any cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang should be conducted in a way that complies with UN Security Council resolutions.

When asked whether Lavrovs comments stating that Russia fully supports Kims policies could be interpreted as an acceptance of North Koreas nuclear weapons status, Lim insisted that the North no matter what it does, will never be recognized as a nuclear power and will face increasing international sanctions.
Shares of The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA  Get Free Report) have been assigned an average recommendation of Moderate Buy from the sixteen ratings firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and ten have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month target price among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $246.00.

BA has been the topic of several research reports. TheStreet raised Boeing from a d+ rating to a c- rating in a report on Tuesday, August 15th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on Boeing from $250.00 to $275.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Monday, July 31st. Susquehanna reaffirmed a positive rating and issued a $270.00 target price on shares of Boeing in a report on Wednesday, September 13th. UBS Group initiated coverage on Boeing in a report on Tuesday, October 10th. They issued a buy rating and a $275.00 target price on the stock. Finally, StockNews.com initiated coverage on Boeing in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock.

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Boeing Stock Up 0.0 %

Shares of Boeing stock opened at $185.69 on Monday. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $208.99 and its 200-day simple moving average is $211.05. Boeing has a 52 week low of $132.21 and a 52 week high of $243.10. The company has a market capitalization of $111.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -24.79 and a beta of 1.45.

Boeing (NYSE:BA  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 26th. The aircraft producer reported ($0.82) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.99) by $0.17. The business had revenue of $19.75 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $18.59 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.37) earnings per share. Boeings revenue was up 18.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Boeing will post -3.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Theodore Colbert III sold 8,500 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $238.37, for a total transaction of $2,026,145.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 59,255 shares of the companys stock, valued at $14,124,614.35. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, Director Steven M. Mollenkopf purchased 850 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 31st. The stock was purchased at an average price of $237.00 per share, for a total transaction of $201,450.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 3,767 shares of the companys stock, valued at $892,779. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Theodore Colbert III sold 8,500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $238.37, for a total value of $2,026,145.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 59,255 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $14,124,614.35. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.15% of the companys stock.

Institutional Trading of Boeing

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of BA. WASHINGTON TRUST Co lifted its holdings in Boeing by 2.6% during the third quarter. WASHINGTON TRUST Co now owns 63,227 shares of the aircraft producers stock worth $12,119,000 after buying an additional 1,592 shares during the period. Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in Boeing by 26.2% during the third quarter. Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC now owns 289 shares of the aircraft producers stock worth $55,000 after buying an additional 60 shares during the period. Secure Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Boeing by 20.5% during the third quarter. Secure Asset Management LLC now owns 1,709 shares of the aircraft producers stock worth $328,000 after buying an additional 291 shares during the period. SS&H Financial Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in Boeing during the third quarter worth $588,000. Finally, Syntegra Private Wealth Group LLC lifted its holdings in Boeing by 1.5% during the third quarter. Syntegra Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 9,783 shares of the aircraft producers stock worth $1,875,000 after buying an additional 149 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 61.33% of the companys stock.

About Boeing

(Get Free Report

The Boeing Company, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, manufactures, sells, services, and supports commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense, human space flight and launch systems, and services worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space & Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital.

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DTE Energy (NYSE:DTE  Get Free Report) has earned an average rating of Moderate Buy from the seven research firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $121.57.

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Barclays assumed coverage on DTE Energy in a report on Wednesday, August 23rd. They issued an overweight rating and a $117.00 price objective for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on DTE Energy from $120.00 to $121.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 12th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on DTE Energy from $115.00 to $118.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, September 21st. 58.com restated a maintains rating on shares of DTE Energy in a report on Thursday, June 29th. Finally, Mizuho increased their target price on DTE Energy from $119.00 to $121.00 in a report on Thursday, July 13th.

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Insider Transactions at DTE Energy

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

In other news, SVP Joann Chavez sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $113.53, for a total value of $283,825.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 12,107 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,374,507.71. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink . Corporate insiders own 0.23% of the companys stock.

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in shares of DTE Energy by 0.9% in the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,079,409 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $118,238,000 after acquiring an additional 9,982 shares in the last quarter. AE Wealth Management LLC increased its position in DTE Energy by 1.0% during the 2nd quarter. AE Wealth Management LLC now owns 166,362 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $18,303,000 after buying an additional 1,661 shares in the last quarter. Credit Suisse AG increased its position in DTE Energy by 10.4% during the 1st quarter. Credit Suisse AG now owns 140,672 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $15,409,000 after buying an additional 13,309 shares in the last quarter. Glenview Trust co increased its position in DTE Energy by 3.9% during the 1st quarter. Glenview Trust co now owns 5,645 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $618,000 after buying an additional 210 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arizona State Retirement System increased its position in DTE Energy by 2.7% during the 1st quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 56,326 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $6,170,000 after buying an additional 1,488 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 74.72% of the companys stock.

DTE Energy Price Performance

DTE opened at $97.11 on Monday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $102.38 and a 200-day moving average price of $108.36. DTE Energy has a 12-month low of $90.14 and a 12-month high of $122.40. The company has a current ratio of 0.89, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.10, a PEG ratio of 2.64 and a beta of 0.61.

DTE Energy (NYSE:DTE  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 27th. The utilities provider reported $0.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.89 by $0.10. DTE Energy had a return on equity of 10.44% and a net margin of 8.02%. The firm had revenue of $2.68 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.04 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.88 EPS. Equities analysts predict that DTE Energy will post 6.21 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About DTE Energy

(Get Free Report

DTE Energy Company engages in the utility operations. The company's Electric segment generates, purchases, distributes, and sells electricity to approximately 2.3 million residential, commercial, and industrial customers in southeastern Michigan. It generates electricity through fossil-fuel, hydroelectric pumped storage, and nuclear plants, as well as wind and solar assets.

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Magna International (NYSE:MGA  Get Free Report) (TSE:MG) had its price objective raised by Evercore from $70.00 to $75.00 in a note issued to investors on Tuesday, BayStreet.CA reports. The firm presently has an outperform rating on the stock. Evercores target price points to a potential upside of 45.97% from the companys previous close.

Other analysts have also issued reports about the company. TD Securities lifted their price target on Magna International from $64.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, August 8th. Citigroup dropped their price target on Magna International from $61.00 to $58.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Magna International from $63.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, July 20th. UBS Group dropped their price target on Magna International from $63.00 to $58.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 10th. Finally, TheStreet upgraded Magna International from a c rating to a b rating in a report on Friday, August 11th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $66.47.

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Magna International Stock Down 3.7 %

Shares of NYSE:MGA opened at $51.38 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $14.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.86, a PEG ratio of 0.50 and a beta of 1.65. The company has a quick ratio of 0.77, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. Magna International has a 12-month low of $48.18 and a 12-month high of $68.92. The businesss 50 day moving average is $55.56 and its 200 day moving average is $55.41.

Magna International (NYSE:MGA  Get Free Report) (TSE:MG) last announced its earnings results on Friday, August 4th. The company reported $1.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.23 by $0.27. The company had revenue of $10.98 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $10.45 billion. Magna International had a return on equity of 11.63% and a net margin of 2.30%. Magna Internationals quarterly revenue was up 17.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.83 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Magna International will post 5.39 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Magna International

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Thomas White International Ltd. grew its position in Magna International by 8.6% during the first quarter. Thomas White International Ltd. now owns 13,142 shares of the companys stock worth $845,000 after buying an additional 1,043 shares in the last quarter. Achmea Investment Management B.V. purchased a new position in Magna International during the first quarter worth about $2,036,000. Power Corp of Canada purchased a new position in Magna International during the first quarter worth about $574,000. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SA grew its position in Magna International by 549.6% during the first quarter. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SA now owns 26,177 shares of the companys stock worth $1,683,000 after buying an additional 22,147 shares in the last quarter. Finally, BNP Paribas Arbitrage SNC grew its position in Magna International by 272.2% during the third quarter. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SNC now owns 72,430 shares of the companys stock worth $3,435,000 after buying an additional 52,971 shares in the last quarter. 62.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Magna International Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Magna International Inc designs, engineers, and manufactures components, assemblies, systems, subsystems, and modules for original equipment manufacturers of vehicles and light trucks worldwide. It operates through four segments: Body Exteriors & Structures, Power & Vision, Seating Systems, and Complete Vehicles.

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First Republic Investment Management Inc. reduced its position in Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc. (NYSE:BXMT  Free Report) by 92.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 127,072 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after selling 1,522,072 shares during the quarter. First Republic Investment Management Inc. owned 0.07% of Blackstone Mortgage Trust worth $2,644,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in BXMT. Private Trust Co. NA raised its holdings in Blackstone Mortgage Trust by 14.5% in the second quarter. Private Trust Co. NA now owns 7,568 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $157,000 after purchasing an additional 959 shares in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in Blackstone Mortgage Trust by 5.2% in the second quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,822,880 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $37,934,000 after purchasing an additional 89,576 shares in the last quarter. Horan Securities Inc. bought a new position in Blackstone Mortgage Trust in the second quarter worth about $88,000. Institute for Wealth Management LLC. raised its holdings in Blackstone Mortgage Trust by 57.6% in the second quarter. Institute for Wealth Management LLC. now owns 39,142 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $815,000 after purchasing an additional 14,312 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James & Associates raised its holdings in Blackstone Mortgage Trust by 5.9% in the second quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 89,348 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $1,859,000 after purchasing an additional 4,982 shares in the last quarter. 52.89% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Blackstone Mortgage Trust Stock Down 2.3 %

Shares of NYSE BXMT opened at $21.26 on Thursday. The businesss 50 day moving average price is $21.88 and its 200 day moving average price is $20.36. The firm has a market cap of $3.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.63 and a beta of 1.35. Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc. has a 52 week low of $16.60 and a 52 week high of $25.82.

Blackstone Mortgage Trust Dividend Announcement

Analysts Set New Price Targets

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 13th. Investors of record on Friday, September 29th were given a $0.62 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 28th. This represents a $2.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 11.67%. Blackstone Mortgage Trusts dividend payout ratio is currently 158.98%.

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on BXMT. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on Blackstone Mortgage Trust from $18.50 to $21.00 in a research note on Monday, July 24th. StockNews.com began coverage on Blackstone Mortgage Trust in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Citigroup boosted their price target on Blackstone Mortgage Trust from $17.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, July 27th. Finally, BTIG Research boosted their price target on Blackstone Mortgage Trust from $19.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Monday, July 17th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $21.25.

View Our Latest Analysis on Blackstone Mortgage Trust

Insider Activity at Blackstone Mortgage Trust

In related news, CEO Katharine A. Keenan sold 2,274 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $21.98, for a total value of $49,982.52. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 153,719 shares in the company, valued at $3,378,743.62. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In other Blackstone Mortgage Trust news, CEO Katharine A. Keenan sold 2,275 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $23.20, for a total value of $52,780.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 150,284 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,486,588.80. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Katharine A. Keenan sold 2,274 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $21.98, for a total value of $49,982.52. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 153,719 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,378,743.62. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 7,101 shares of company stock worth $160,704 over the last quarter. Insiders own 1.02% of the companys stock.

About Blackstone Mortgage Trust

(Free Report)

Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc, a real estate finance company, originates senior loans collateralized by commercial properties in North America, Europe, and Australia. The company, together with its subsidiaries, originates and acquires commercial mortgage loans and related investments. It operates as a real estate investment trust for federal income tax purposes.

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KBC Group NV trimmed its position in Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL  Free Report) by 49.1% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 98,033 shares of the companys stock after selling 94,626 shares during the period. KBC Group NVs holdings in Royal Caribbean Cruises were worth $10,170,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of RCL. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Royal Caribbean Cruises by 1.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 23,355,449 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,956,721,000 after purchasing an additional 314,385 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Royal Caribbean Cruises by 2.4% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,521,734 shares of the companys stock valued at $294,589,000 after buying an additional 105,705 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its position in Royal Caribbean Cruises by 1,314.9% during the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 2,759,035 shares of the companys stock worth $231,152,000 after buying an additional 2,564,035 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Royal Caribbean Cruises during the 4th quarter worth approximately $100,326,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its position in Royal Caribbean Cruises by 3.1% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,819,774 shares of the companys stock valued at $89,951,000 after acquiring an additional 54,172 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.64% of the companys stock.

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Insider Activity at Royal Caribbean Cruises

In other news, CFO Naftali Holtz sold 5,949 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $110.62, for a total value of $658,078.38. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 30,967 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,425,569.54. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Royal Caribbean Cruises news, CAO Henry L. Pujol sold 18,908 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $106.74, for a total value of $2,018,239.92. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 23,521 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,510,631.54. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Naftali Holtz sold 5,949 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $110.62, for a total transaction of $658,078.38. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 30,967 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,425,569.54. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 44,857 shares of company stock valued at $4,650,818. 8.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Trading Down 4.2 %

Shares of Royal Caribbean Cruises stock opened at $82.83 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.28, a current ratio of 0.20 and a quick ratio of 0.18. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has a 52 week low of $45.80 and a 52 week high of $112.95. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $95.40 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $89.19.

Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The company reported $1.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.58 by $0.24. Royal Caribbean Cruises had a negative net margin of 0.47% and a positive return on equity of 6.76%. The business had revenue of $3.52 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.41 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted ($2.08) EPS. Royal Caribbean Cruisess revenue was up 61.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. will post 6.1 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on shares of Royal Caribbean Cruises from $135.00 to $130.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, September 15th. Barclays reduced their price target on Royal Caribbean Cruises from $132.00 to $127.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, October 9th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on Royal Caribbean Cruises from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 3rd. Susquehanna upped their target price on Royal Caribbean Cruises from $85.00 to $127.00 and gave the company a positive rating in a report on Friday, July 28th. Finally, Truist Financial raised shares of Royal Caribbean Cruises from a hold rating to a buy rating and increased their target price for the company from $115.00 to $137.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 19th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Royal Caribbean Cruises presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $111.31.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Royal Caribbean Cruises

Royal Caribbean Cruises Company Profile

(Free Report)

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. operates as a cruise company worldwide. The company operates cruises under the Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea Cruises brands, which comprise a range of itineraries. As of February 13, 2023, it operated 64 ships. The company was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida.

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Verdence Capital Advisors LLC lessened its position in shares of Molson Coors Beverage (NYSE:TAP  Free Report) by 42.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,814 shares of the companys stock after selling 3,495 shares during the period. Verdence Capital Advisors LLCs holdings in Molson Coors Beverage were worth $317,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in TAP. FNY Investment Advisers LLC acquired a new position in Molson Coors Beverage during the 1st quarter worth approximately $25,000. Private Trust Co. NA grew its holdings in Molson Coors Beverage by 125.4% during the 2nd quarter. Private Trust Co. NA now owns 444 shares of the companys stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 247 shares in the last quarter. Lindbrook Capital LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Molson Coors Beverage by 2,192.0% in the 1st quarter. Lindbrook Capital LLC now owns 573 shares of the companys stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 548 shares in the last quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Molson Coors Beverage by 85.7% in the 4th quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 650 shares of the companys stock valued at $33,000 after buying an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hanseatic Management Services Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Molson Coors Beverage in the 2nd quarter valued at $39,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.95% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on TAP. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Molson Coors Beverage in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Barclays lowered their target price on shares of Molson Coors Beverage from $68.00 to $66.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 12th. 58.com restated a maintains rating on shares of Molson Coors Beverage in a report on Monday, June 26th. Morgan Stanley restated an equal weight rating and issued a $63.00 target price on shares of Molson Coors Beverage in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Molson Coors Beverage from $64.00 to $65.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a report on Wednesday, October 4th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Molson Coors Beverage presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $65.19.

Molson Coors Beverage Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of Molson Coors Beverage stock opened at $59.28 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $12.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 370.50, a PEG ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 0.64 and a current ratio of 0.87. Molson Coors Beverage has a one year low of $46.90 and a one year high of $70.90. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $62.53 and a two-hundred day moving average of $63.10.

Molson Coors Beverage (NYSE:TAP  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 1st. The company reported $1.78 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.63 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $3.27 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.31 billion. Molson Coors Beverage had a net margin of 0.31% and a return on equity of 8.17%. On average, analysts forecast that Molson Coors Beverage will post 5.06 earnings per share for the current year.

Molson Coors Beverage Profile

(Free Report)

Molson Coors Beverage Company manufactures, markets, and sells beer and other malt beverage products under various brands in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company offers flavored malt beverages including hard seltzers, craft, and ready to drink beverages. It provides its products under Aspall Cider, Blue Moon, Coors Original, Hop Valley brands, Leinenkugel's, Miller Genuine Draft, Molson Ultra, Sharp's, Staropramen, and Vizzy Hard Seltzer above premier brands; Bergenbier, Borsodi, Carling, Coors Banquet, Coors Light, Jelen, Kamenitza, Miller Lite, Molson Canadian Lager, Molson Dry, Molson Export, and Niksicko, Ozujsko under the premium brands; and Branik, Icehouse, Keystone, Miller High Life, Milwaukee's Best, and Steel Reserve under the economy brands.

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Occidental Petroleum Co. (NYSE:OXY  Get Free Report) has been assigned a consensus rating of Hold from the eighteen analysts that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12-month target price among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $70.76.

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on OXY. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Occidental Petroleum in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a sell rating for the company. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Occidental Petroleum from $72.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, October 4th. Raymond James decreased their price objective on shares of Occidental Petroleum from $80.00 to $75.00 and set a strong-buy rating for the company in a report on Monday, July 24th. Stephens reiterated an overweight rating and issued a $74.00 target price on shares of Occidental Petroleum in a research note on Thursday, October 12th. Finally, Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Occidental Petroleum from $78.00 to $82.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 27th.

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Occidental Petroleum Trading Up 1.5 %

Occidental Petroleum stock opened at $66.50 on Monday. The companys fifty day simple moving average is $63.94 and its 200-day simple moving average is $61.60. The company has a quick ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.96. Occidental Petroleum has a 12 month low of $55.51 and a 12 month high of $76.11. The stock has a market cap of $58.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.29, a P/E/G ratio of 0.72 and a beta of 1.73.

Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 2nd. The oil and gas producer reported $0.68 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.70 by ($0.02). Occidental Petroleum had a net margin of 21.36% and a return on equity of 31.59%. The company had revenue of $6.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $6.92 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.16 earnings per share. The companys revenue was down 37.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Occidental Petroleum will post 4.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Occidental Petroleum Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 13th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 8th were issued a dividend of $0.18 per share. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.08%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 7th. Occidental Petroleums payout ratio is 12.22%.

Insider Transactions at Occidental Petroleum

In other news, major shareholder Petroleum Corp /De/ Occidental sold 5,100,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $25.00, for a total transaction of $127,500,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 185,181,578 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,629,539,450. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.35% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Occidental Petroleum

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Steward Financial Group LLC bought a new position in Occidental Petroleum during the 2nd quarter valued at about $25,000. Wolff Wiese Magana LLC lifted its holdings in Occidental Petroleum by 5,000.0% during the 1st quarter. Wolff Wiese Magana LLC now owns 510 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 500 shares during the last quarter. Cyrus J. Lawrence LLC bought a new position in Occidental Petroleum during the 1st quarter valued at about $33,000. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC bought a new position in Occidental Petroleum during the 1st quarter valued at about $35,000. Finally, Resurgent Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in Occidental Petroleum during the 4th quarter valued at about $35,000. 77.54% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Occidental Petroleum Company Profile

(Get Free Report

Occidental Petroleum Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of oil and gas properties in the United States, the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America. It operates through three segments: Oil and Gas, Chemical, and Midstream and Marketing.

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EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG  Get Free Report) was downgraded by analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research note issued on Tuesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. They presently have a $146.00 target price on the energy exploration companys stock, down from their prior target price of $155.00. Sanford C. Bernsteins target price indicates a potential upside of 7.56% from the companys current price.

Several other research analysts also recently commented on EOG. TD Securities raised their price target on shares of EOG Resources from $125.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a report on Friday, August 4th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on shares of EOG Resources from $150.00 to $145.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 12th. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of EOG Resources from $156.00 to $157.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Monday, August 14th. Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. downgraded shares of EOG Resources from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Thursday, August 24th. Finally, Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of EOG Resources from $155.00 to $157.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Monday, September 18th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, EOG Resources currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $149.54.

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EOG Resources Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE:EOG opened at $135.74 on Tuesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $128.95 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $121.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 2.39 and a quick ratio of 2.02. EOG Resources has a one year low of $98.52 and a one year high of $150.88. The company has a market cap of $79.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.15, a PEG ratio of 0.41 and a beta of 1.55.

EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 3rd. The energy exploration company reported $2.49 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 period last year, the firm earned $2.74 EPS. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 24.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that EOG Resources will post 11.36 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at EOG Resources

In related news, COO Lloyd W. Helms, Jr. sold 4,551 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.76, for a total transaction of $595,088.76. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 145,259 shares in the company, valued at $18,994,066.84. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.40% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On EOG Resources

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in EOG Resources by 6.2% in the second quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 186,635 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $21,359,000 after purchasing an additional 10,969 shares during the period. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of EOG Resources by 18.2% in the first quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 65,998 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $7,565,000 after buying an additional 10,154 shares in the last quarter. Procyon Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of EOG Resources by 41.9% in the second quarter. Procyon Advisors LLC now owns 4,659 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $533,000 after buying an additional 1,376 shares in the last quarter. Continuum Advisory LLC lifted its stake in shares of EOG Resources by 6.6% in the first quarter. Continuum Advisory LLC now owns 7,112 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $815,000 after buying an additional 438 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Beese Fulmer Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of EOG Resources by 1.0% in the second quarter. Beese Fulmer Investment Management Inc. now owns 46,478 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $5,319,000 after buying an additional 447 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.21% of the companys stock.

EOG Resources Company Profile

(Get 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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Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) had its price target upped by BMO Capital Markets from $52.00 to $54.00 in a report released on Monday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a market perform rating on the financial services providers stock.

WFC has been the subject of several other research reports. HSBC assumed coverage on shares of Wells Fargo & Company in a research report on Thursday, September 7th. They issued a hold rating and a $45.00 price target for the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a buy rating and issued a $44.00 target price on shares of Wells Fargo & Company in a report on Friday, September 22nd. StockNews.com assumed coverage on Wells Fargo & Company in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Citigroup increased their price objective on Wells Fargo & Company from $50.00 to $52.00 in a research report on Sunday, July 16th. Finally, Odeon Capital Group lowered Wells Fargo & Company from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $43.75 target price on the stock. in a report on Monday, July 17th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Wells Fargo & Company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $48.31.

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Wells Fargo & Company Stock Down 1.1 %

WFC opened at $41.53 on Monday. Wells Fargo & Company has a one year low of $35.25 and a one year high of $48.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.17, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 0.87. The stock has a market capitalization of $151.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.97, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.84 and a beta of 1.12. The businesss 50-day simple moving average is $41.50 and its 200-day simple moving average is $41.56.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, October 13th. The financial services provider reported $1.39 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.24 by $0.15. Wells Fargo & Company had a return on equity of 11.18% and a net margin of 17.06%. The company had revenue of $20.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $20.09 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.30 earnings per share. The firms revenue was up 6.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Wells Fargo & Company will post 4.88 EPS for the current year.

Wells Fargo & Company Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 4th were paid a dividend of $0.35 per share. This is a positive change from Wells Fargo & Companys previous quarterly dividend of $0.30. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 3rd. This represents a $1.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.37%. Wells Fargo & Companys payout ratio is 30.24%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Wells Fargo & Company

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Barrett & Company Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Wells Fargo & Company in the first quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Studio Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in Wells Fargo & Company during the 4th quarter valued at $28,000. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL purchased a new position in Wells Fargo & Company during the first quarter worth $28,000. Activest Wealth Management acquired a new position in shares of Wells Fargo & Company in the first quarter worth $30,000. Finally, Financial Connections Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Wells Fargo & Company by 288.0% in the second quarter. Financial Connections Group Inc. now owns 741 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 550 shares in the last quarter. 72.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Wells Fargo & Company

(Get 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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It was like an episode out of a Scooby Doo cartoon, the detectives gathered round the captured Governor and have now revealed the truth about the corrupt officials true identity.

We found out today that the Governor of Illinois is Perez Hilton the gay blogger from the internets. Yeah, its him, we unmasked the true identity of this corrupt official, Police Sergeant, Enus McMasters told Fox News.

The incredible find has shocked the world of politics and the blogosphere, the internet has been buzzing with gossip all week.

I saw his shitty haircut and his stupid clothes and I knew that was Perez Hilton, cmon look at that haircut! Thats what gave it away. Plus the bitch wants to make money, hes greedy like PerezI hope they take his gay ass blog down or maybe he can do it while hes in prison, an internet forum chatter exclaimed.

No one knows how Perez Hilton became the Illinois Governor but conspiracy nuts are cropping up with many theories every day.

Jones Valasquez of the Conspiracy Blog had this to say about the whole sorry affair: Perez was Rod Blagojevichs buttboy but when he tried to extort money from him after a session, Rod refused to pay up. Thats when we think Perez blew his gay bunny boiler antics and he must have snuffed the real Governor out. We dont know how long he has been masquerading as a Governor but we believe he loves the power and money. We also do not know where he stashed the body, we need to bring in CSI for that shit.

A thorough Pentagon investigation is underway and even though the Federal Bureau of Investigation has also joined the case there is still a media blackout on the whole affair.

President-Elect, Barack Obamas office has not made a comment about the scandal and when contacted yesterday refused to talk about the issue.
According to the Scum newspaper, the most recent celebrity detainee at her majesties pleasure, Jack Tweed, has been roasting a mean duck recipe from the confines of the prison kitchens.

A source told the newspaper: That caused uproar. He cooked up this noncey duck roast with orange juice or summat he then said, Im not a nonce fellas but eat up you might like it.

Prisoners are calling him a duckie, slang for a roaster of game birds, and keep shouting what theyll do to him.

The tabloid also reports that the abuse Tweed has experienced from other prisoners for cooking up the posh nosh is taking its toll on his mental wellbeing, sparking fears that he could commit suicide with grief over the whole sorry affair.

An insider explained: He has been really depressed over this drubbing by the prisoners. He went to all that effort and spent hours over the stove and roasting dish only to have the duck thrown back in his face.

He told me hes at his wits end and is thinking of throwing in his apron. If the hardened lags dont want his gourmet roast duck they can go back to eating mush and gruel.

The former Celebrity Big Brother leech and pigfucker was remanded in custody on Saturday after being charged with unlawful roasting offences in his Essex bachelor pad. His lawyer has said that Tweed will vigorously deny any claims of unlawful roasting the allegation made against him.

Here is Jack Tweeds special jailbird recipe for Duck a lOrange:



Freshly ground Viagra & Red Bull

1 oz (25g) Butter 2 Essex slappers Legs or Breasts (with Skin left on)Freshly ground Viagra & Red Bull1 oz (25g) Butter For the Orange Sauce

1 Large crushed Orange carton

4 fluid oz (100ml) Cheapo Red Wine

4 kegs of cheap lager

2 fluid oz (50ml) semen and urine

23 Tablespoons of cocaine
Estranged half-sister of Meghan Markle, Samantha Markle, has hired a voodoo priestess to get back at the royals and their treatment of her dad as well as her half-sister, the now Duchess of Sussex.

On Saturday, she travelled to Port-au-Prince in Haiti to find what is called a Mambo.

Samantha was seen at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in her wheelchair and a pack of photographers from the National Enquirer in tow, local press reported.

According to experts in the voodoo religion, the Mambo will conduct intricate rituals which may also require blood sacrifice to please the Vodou gods who will carry out the dastardly deeds prescribed by Samantha Markle.

It has gotten to this level of hate that Samantha displays in her daily broadcasts to the tabloid newspapers that she has now resorted to crazy methods to get back at her lying half-sister, a close friend commentated on the whole sorry affair.
Luvvies including Tilda Swinton, Steve Coogan and Maxine Peake have come under fire for failing to condemn Hamas brutal terror attacks in a letter calling for a ceasefire.

We dont see Jews as humans, so anything that happens to them, we just ignore it and laugh. If it was a bunch of Palestinian babies beheaded, then we would acknowledge our disgust, one of the celebrities said, giggling inanely.

Being a champagne socialist Marxist celebrity is not easy these days because some people are seeing through their virtue signalling and narcissism.

I was having luncheon at some 4-star Michelin restaurant when a Jewish woman came up to me and showed me a picture in the paper of a beheaded Jewish baby. I practically choked on my Canard Challandais au sang roti, ses cuisses confites et puree de potimarron, navets boule dor et condiments de raisins secs, sauce au xeres et au poivre. Havent you got better things to do than to bore me with such awful Israeli propaganda? I mean, theyre Jews, they deserved it, another leftist luvvie quipped.

Such is the vitriol against Jews by leftist woke celebrities that many dont even acknowledge that Jews are human beings and dehumanise them at every opportunity. They also firmly do not believe that Israel has the right to defend itself from attack, let alone exist in the first place.

In any war, one should acknowledge both sides of the coin, especially when it concerns innocent unarmed civilians suffering. In the case of the current Middle Eastern conflict, those in Gaza and Israel all are humans affected adversely. By not mentioning the atrocities by the Hamas terrorist group, these celebrities have shown their true anti-Semitic hateful nature.
One rouble at a time, it falls and falls, causing mayhem in the Russian exchanges. The West is adamant that its policy of lowering the global oil price is nothing to do with Russia.

Nah, are you kidding? Were engineering a lower global crude oil price because we want more motorists to have the feel good factor, its nothing to do with destroying the Russian economy, Secretary of State, John Kerry told the Wall Street Journal.

As the tanks roll into Ukraine from Russia, it is the Wests pervasive action of provocation which is slowly bringing the world to the brink of war.
President Bush has big plans for the regeneration of Iraq and one of the first things he plans on doing is building as many shoe shops as he can for the Iraqi people.

On his last momentous visit to Iraq, the president was greeted with many shoes from the Iraqi public showing their gratitude and happiness at his presence on their home soil.

If the shoe fits..

In Iraq, if we really like someone we throw shoes at them and slap them around with the soles of our flip flops. It is a custom that has been around for a thousand years. This is why we greeted president Bush with the soles of our shoes. He has done so much for our country, Mahmoud Ali Akbar, who has had both of his legs amputated from the knee down and has no need for any shoes, told Iraqi Daily News.

The signs of progress are all too clear. Bushs Perpetual War of Terror has brought wonderful delights to the Iraqi people, they are all now languishing in a quality of life that is unrivalled in the Middle East.

Since the Americans came and installed democracy through the end of a barrel of a gun, we have been so happy. I have seen how democracy works from the inside of Abu Ghraib jail where I have been enjoying activities like waterboarding, electric musical chairs and scrotal bungee jumping, Walid Abdul Masjoud told Reuters.

President Bush has been very proud of his achievements in Iraq and was on hand at the Iraqi conference to applaud his victory over the Iraqi people.

Iraq is the new frontier in the Middle East for the New American Century. We now own this territory and we have conquered the valuable resources within this country. Every day, more oil and profits are taken from the land and we as Americans are safer in our SUVs and Hummers on American soil. We can live in the knowledge that gas prices will stay lower than many countries because we now own the second largest oil deposits in the world.
Coming hot off the heels of the Chinese Coronavirus that is spreading across the globe ruthlessly killing people and murdering the global economy, we now have Chinese Hantavirus, which comes from rats, something the Chinese love to eat.

The #Hantavirus first emerged in 1950s in the American-Korean war in Korea (Hantan river). It spreads from rat/mice if humans injest their body fluids. Human-human transmission is rare. There were even vaccines developed for it. Please do not panic, unless you plan to eat rats.  Dr Sumaiya Shaikh (@Neurophysik) March 24, 2020

Rat meat is popular all over the countryside outside of the bigger cities. There are dealers who go out into the countryside and farmlands every other week. They stop at every farm where the farmers have collected all the rats they have caught that week and keep them in a burlap sack. These Rat Dealers buy the rats from the farmers take their haul back into the town areas where they sell the rats to restaurants at a higher price of course. The restaurant cook takes the reats in the burlap sack and place the sack into a large tub of water to drown the rats. The dead rats are taken to the chopping table where the head,feet and tails are removed and the rat is gutted. Next they heat oil in a large pan and the rats are sauted with spices and chili peppers and served with sauce over a bed of rice. The Chinese people have been eating rats for hundreds of years and rat meat dishes are very popular over all of China. SOURCE

Not for the faint-hearted, the video below shows the eating of live baby rats, which is considered a great delicacy in Guangdong province, China.

Its only a matter of time before the Chinese Hantavirus mutates and is transmitted human to human, much like the Chinese Coronavirus did.

Thanks to the filthy Chinese cities where exposure to the urine, droppings or saliva of infected rodents can result in the virus being transmitted, including bites from infected rats and mice, as well as the despicable barbaric culinary traditions Chinese people practice, the world is now facing a terrible pestilence that threatens to kill millions of people.
Kate Newnham: Appreciating the beauty of Chinese culture in museums

14:22, October 19, 2023 By Xueyan Shi, Yu Ying ( People's Daily Online

The Bristol Museum & Art Gallery in southwest England aims to encourage the visitors who go through its doors to gain a thirst for knowledge and a deep appreciation of beauty. This regional museum is renowned for its Chinese collection, particularly its exquisite Chinese porcelain and glass.

Kate Newnham (Photo/Patrick Shead-Simmonds)

Behind the wonderful Chinese collection is the museums Senior Curator, Kate Newnham, who is also an expert in Chinese art history. Since 2000, Newnham has overseen the Asian Art & Culture and Visual Arts collections here, and has been actively involved in organizing an array of exhibitions and events that immerse visitors in Chinas rich cultural tapestry. Every year, Newnham plays host to a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration at the museum, inviting local visitors to take part in various activities to explore and enjoy the many facets of Chinese culture.

In an interview with Peoples Daily Online, Newnham highlighted Bristol Museums role as a window of cultural exchange, embracing diverse cultural traditions from around the world. Beyond engaging with the depth of Chinese culture, the museum takes visitors on an exploration of various global cultures to enrich their understanding and appreciation.

An encounter with works of contemporary Chinese artists

Kate Newnham at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery (Photo/Patrick Shead-Simmonds)

Newnham described how the 200-year-old Bristol Museums first encounters with Chinese culture can be traced back to the 1840s. A hundred years later in 1946, Max Schiller (1868-1946), who was the chief judge in Bristol, bequeathed over 400 Chinese artefacts, most of which were collected by his brother, Ferdinand Schiller (1866-1938), making the Chinese collection at Bristol very significant. Ferdinand Schiller had been an early member of the Oriental Ceramic Society in London. The collection is known for exquisite ceramics from the Song (960-1279) and Tang (618-907) dynasties. Creamy, light green and plain glazes give Song dynasty ceramics a distinctive Chinese elegance. This was a new kind of aesthetic for the collectors at the time, different from the normal taste of Westerners, who liked rich colors, patterns, and designs, Newnham explained.

Visitors to Bristol Museum can also view beautiful traditional Chinese glass from the Han dynasty (202 BC  220) to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911); each showcases exceptional craft skills and vivid artistic styles. Bristol has been a renowned center of glassmaking since the 18th century, so it made sense that the bequest of Henry Burrows Abbey (1872-1949), which comprises 300 pieces of Chinese glass, came to the museum through The Art Fund in 1950.

One of my favorite pieces is a bit of a mystery. It is a piece of Chinese glass with a very Chinese shape, but it has Venetian or Italian style stripes on it. When you look at it you cannot help but think, can that be Chinese? Newnham said as she showed a rare vase with a unique type of design. It was made in the Imperial workshops at a time when French missionaries and Chinese craftspeople were working together, and it has a mark on the base of the Qianlong Emperor (reigned 1735-1796). There are only two vases like this existing in the world; the other one is in the Palace Museum in Beijing. For Newnham, this piece shows how both European and Chinese craftspeople learned from each other and collaborated to perfect their art.

Glass vase with spiral threads of colored glass (vetro a fili), Qianlong mark and period (1736-1795).  Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, N4746

In recent years, Bristol Museum has been actively collaborating with contemporary Chinese artists. In 2014 and 2015, the museum curated a temporary exhibition called Ahead of the Curve: New China from China, which showcased the work of contemporary Chinese potters and glass makers. We partnered with Claire Blakey from the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent and Helen Brown from the Wilson Art Gallery in Cheltenham for this project and travelled to China on several occasions. We were able to visit Tsinghua University, Shanghai University and Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute and meet with professors and students there to have discussions and learn about their work. We collaborated closely with Professor Shannon Guo and staff at Twocities Gallery in Shanghai and their help was invaluable. We eventually brought over the work of 15 ceramic artists and five glass artists to tour three UK museums, Newnham said. Recalling this ground-breaking exhibition, Newnham said that these daring contemporary Chinese artworks received high praise from visitors. Han Xis Lost, Shao Changzongs Faceless and Wan Liyas Birds Twitter and Fragrance of Flowers as well as other inspiring works by contemporary Chinese ceramic and glass artists were acquired by the Bristol Museum after the exhibition.

Newnham also mentioned a joint project with the British Museum called China: Journey to the East. The exhibition was specifically aimed at children from the ages of 7 to 14, exploring a variety of themes, ranging from technology and beliefs to food and language, spanning 3,000 years of Chinese history and culture. Currently, Newnham is planning an exhibition of Miao textiles and embroideries from southwest China, allowing visitors to appreciate the beauty of the work by Chinese ethnic minorities. In particular, the exhibition will showcase beautiful embroideries collected by two Bristol ladies over the last 20 years.

Sharing Chinese culture with the local community

Kate Newnham at the 2023 Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration

A culturally diverse city, Bristol has a population of about 1 million, with people coming from 180 countries and speaking over 90 different languages. Bristol Museum recognizes the importance of embracing different unique cultures to foster better communication and understanding between people, and celebrates a range of cultural events, such as the Mexican Day of the Dead, Diwali and peach and cherry blossoms in Japan.

For the staff at Bristol Museum, the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration provides an important opportunity to spread cultural understanding. The museum hosts the biggest Chinese Lunar New Year celebration in the southwest of England, an annual highlight in its calendar over the last 20 years. Newnham and colleagues are at the heart of the celebration, working closely with local people and Chinese students at the citys universities, and planning and delivering a vibrant array of activities related to Chinese culture. Newnham also hosts the celebratory event. The celebration offers visitors the chance to experience various fun and engaging activities ranging from lion dance, martial arts, traditional Chinese dance, and music to hand-made lanterns, artefacts, and calligraphy. The museum also creates an animal trail every year based on the 12 Chinese zodiac signs for visitors to follow and look around the museum.

Our Chinese Lunar New Year event is the biggest event in the museum calendar. This year, we asked the University of Bristol Chinese lion dance troupe to perform four times over the weekend, so everyone could have an opportunity to enjoy their fantastic performance. The local martial arts groups also performed their Shaolin routines during the celebration; the crowd absolutely loved the praying mantis and monkey Kung Fu routines, she said. For Newnham, whether its through music or dance or trying out calligraphy and learning Chinese poetry, all these activities are ways to offer locals the chance to get a small taste of Chinese culture.

Newnham explained that alongside the permanent gallery and temporary exhibitions, Bristol Museum also hosts regular lectures and gallery talks. The other day, when we were doing a talk about jade and ceramics, there was a little boy around 10 years old who was really fascinated with Chinese history, and he asked us if people in China were in contact with the Romans 2,000 years ago. He was also very interested in Chinese coins and wanted to know if we had any in the collection. So, in order to answer the request from our little visitor, we are doing a lot more work on the Chinese coins in our collection, which span about two and a half thousand years in date, and we hope to have a new display soon, she noted.

Newnham emphasizes that museums offer spaces that bring people from different cultural backgrounds together to understand, learn and experience diverse cultural traditions, as well as being places where visitors can enjoy learning about art, science, and natural history. Yesterday, we had a group of students from a local college, who are learning English, and they come from nine different countries. Probably none of them have been to China, but it is a way that they can get the first taste of Chinese culture.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Wu Chengliang)
Found in a dusty forgotten corner of Jerusalem, bible historians and archaeologists have recovered parchment papers revealing the incredible discovery that Jesus Christ of Nazereth, otherwise known as the Messiah could not swim  but he could walk on water, amongst his many miracles.

Professor of Theology at Arkansas University, Brad Furlong, discovered the parchment which dates back to the first century AD.

The parchment was part of the New Testament and it was signed by the apostle St. Paul. It details the fact that Jesus was a very poor swimmer, and nearly drowned once when he fell off his fishing boat. The fact that Jesus could walk on water was only mentioned at the end of the short script, and St. Paul reckons that Jesus was given a helping hand by God when he walked on water.

The archaeological team worked for six weeks to uncover the find and avoided any coronavirus lockdown in place.

By the grace of God, and the saviour of humankind, Jesus, we were able to find this rare parchment which we will give to the Vatican library for safe keeping, the professor added.

Christians across the globe were astounded at the new news about Jesus, and have started Christian swimming clubs to praise their Lord. No one however has mastered the art of walking on water yet.
The great nation of Japan may have to step up to the line once more to defend itself from the rogue communist nation of China, which is now on a major global expansionist drive. Under the tyrant Xi Jinping, China has threatened to nuke Japan into non-existence if it even raises one ship or plane when it invades Taiwan.

Just as Obama lost half of Ukraine to Russia, it is certain that Biden will lose Taiwan to China. Joe Biden, who is Chinas biggest cheerleader, will be ordered by Xi Jinping to stand down when Taiwan is invaded. Biden does not like confrontation and will also abandon Japan if it comes down to that as well, a Pentagon observer revealed.

China is rapidly becoming increasingly desperate to acquire more land due to its mass industrialisation, most of the country is now heavily polluted and not fit for human or animal life.

The Chinese military officials released the Covid-19 virus, but news in the CCP is that the operation has been a failure. The Chinese were expecting more global deaths and economic mayhem to take down many Western countries completely, but this never happened. This is why they are now working on an even deadlier virus, but in the meantime, their sabre rattling is continuing, another analyst revealed.

This is why Japan may have to resurrect its Bushido spirit to fight with all its might against the vengeful Chinese one last time.
I just want my body back, the beheaded man told an Al Qaeda affiliated news service in Syria.

The man is also demanding a full compensation package which could run into millions of Dinars if the case goes ahead.

For now, the mans head is languishing in a fridge freezer and attempts to sew his head back onto his body have been unsuccessful.

Mahmoud Al Jizzeera, one of the rebels involved in the beheading explained how sorry the team were for chopping the head of the wrong man off.

It was a mistake anyone could make. We were told to behead a man with a beard holding a gun and shouting Akbars every two seconds. Just take a look around, youd be hard pressed to find anyone else, Mahmoud Al Qitira, another jihadist rebel leader exclaimed.
See ticket link below

The enchanting production of Cirque du Soleil brings acrobats, musicians, singers and actors together in Dayton for five shows at The Nutter Center this Fall.

Corteo at the Wright State University Nutter Center Nov 16-19

Cirque du Soleils North America arena tour of "Corteo," will return to Dayton in 2023 for five shows only this November.

Corteo, the enchanting Cirque du Soleils arena production will return to Dayton at the Wright State University Nutter Center this Fall. Since its creation, the show has amazed over 10 million spectators, in 20 countries, on 4 continents. This unique production, directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, first premiered in Montreal under the Big Top in April 2005.

Corteo, which means cortege in Italian, is a joyous procession, a festive parade imagined by a clown. The show brings together the passion of the actor with the grace and power of the acrobat to plunge the audience into a theatrical world of fun, comedy and spontaneity situated in a mysterious space between heaven and earth.

The clown pictures his own funeral taking place in a carnival atmosphere, watched over by quietly caring angels. Juxtaposing the large with the small, the ridiculous with the tragic and the magic of perfection with the charm of imperfection, the show highlights the strength and fragility of the clown, as well as his wisdom and kindness, to illustrate the portion of humanity that is within each of us. The music turns lyrical and playful carrying Corteo through a timeless celebration in which illusion teases reality.

In a Cirque du Soleil first, the stage is central in the arena and divides the venue, with each half of the audience facing the other half, giving a unique perspective not only of the show, but also a performers eye view of the audience. An atmosphere like never seen before in Cirque du Soleil arena shows. The set curtains, inspired by the Eiffel Tower, and the central curtains, which were hand painted, give a grandiose feel to the stage. This sets the tone for the poetry of Corteo.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (PTI)

New Delhi: After the horrific strike at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday night in which at least 500 people were reported killed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday evening spoke to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and expressed his condolences at the loss of civilian lives while assuring continued Indian "humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people". PM Modi also shared his "deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region" and "reiterated India's long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue". The latest developments indicate that New Delhi continues to express its strong support to the Palestinian people and cause even as it strengthens strategic ties with Israel.

While Israel had earlier on Wednesday blamed the Palestinian militant organisation Islamic Jihad for the missile strike at the hospital, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry had blamed Israel for the attack. It may be recalled that after the terror attack on October 7 by militant group Hamas on Israel that triggered the ongoing bloodbath in that region, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had on October 10 called up PM Modi and "updated" him on the situation. PM Modi had then told the Israeli Prime Minister that the "people of India stand firmly with Israel in this difficult hour" and had strongly condemned that terror attack.

At his weekly briefing in response to a query, MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India has pledged annual contribution of US$ 5 million for the next two years (FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25) to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to support Palestine and Palestinian refugees and that New Delhi had so far contributed a total of US$ 29.53 million to the UNRWA between 2002 and 2023 for this. He added that the Indian annual contribution to UNRWA was increased from US$ 1.25 million to US$ 5 million in 2018.

The MEA Spokesperson also said India had expressed its concern at the civilian casualties due to the ongoing conflict and that it remained concerned about the humanitarian situation. New Delhi also urged "full respect and strict observance of international humanitarian law". He pointed out that PM Modi had on Wednesday expressed deep shock at the tragic loss of lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, and had stated that "civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern" and that "those involved should be held responsible". PM Modi had also offered India's "heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured".

Mr. Bagchi said, "We have also expressed our concern at the civilian casualties due to the ongoing conflict. We also remain concerned about the humanitarian situation. We would urge the full respect and strict observance of international humanitarian law." On the terror attack on October 7 by militant group Hamas on Israel, Mr. Bagchi said, "You would have seen the comments by Prime Minister as well as our statement. We have strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel, and we believe the international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations."

On India's stand on the Palestine issue, he reiterated, "As regards Palestine, we have reiterated our long standing position of advocating the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine living within secure and recognized borders, side by side at peace with Israel."

In a query on humanitarian assistance to Palestine, the MEA Spokesperson said, "India has been supporting Palestine and Palestinian refugees through significant contributions to the UNRWA."

On Operation Ajay launched by India earlier to facilitate the return from Israel of Indian citizens who wish to return", the MEA Spokesperson said a total of 1200 people had returned so far from Israel on five flights that included 18 Nepalese citizens. He also said there were about four Indians still in the Gaza Strip and about 12 or 13 Indians in the West Bank. Mr. Bagchi also said one Indian woman had earlier been injured in Israel (in a reported rocket attack) but that her condition is stable.
Speaking at an event organised by the FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) in Hyderabad, titled Future Role of Women in India', Irani rejected the notion of women waiting to be rescued in the name of empowerment. (Image: DC)

Hyderabad: Union women and child development minister Smriti Irani said the struggle for the women's reservation bill was not merely 30 years old, as claimed by the Congress, but a battle spanning seven decades. She pointed out that women had foreseen the need for political parity when the Constitution was being written. Their foresight and determination led to the demand for equal opportunities, rather than added indulgence.

She commended the BJP for acknowledging the need to guarantee gender parity within the Constitution and stressed that such affirmative actions do not take away rights from any man, but instead, add value to society.

Speaking at an event organised by the FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) in Hyderabad, titled Future Role of Women in India, Irani rejected the notion of women waiting to be rescued in the name of empowerment.

"Just like our Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, women need to lead boldly and spearhead development themselves," she said.

She noted that women entrepreneurs were not just contributors to the tax system but were driving economic growth. However, she criticised the current data collection process, particularly in indices like the Global Hunger Index and employment indicators, for overlooking significant contributions made by women elected to panchayats, Assemblies and Councils. "Women in self-help groups and SME segment are not computed, they exist but are not counted," she said.

Irani asserted that she would never subject herself to victimhood and urged others not to blame the country for the actions of politicians. Addressing the disparity in BJP's popularity between north and south India, she attributed it to the fabric of local politics, assuring that the party would find its footing in due course.

Refusing to comment on the Israel-Palestine war, she said that anybody's words  apart from the external affairs minister  would not be helpful, given the consequences of such statements.

Saying her life was far from a sob story, and that she was driven by the determination to live a life free of regrets, Irani, at the tender age of 12, made a solemn commitment to her family: To embrace the consequences of her own choices, rather than relying on others.

Irani said that Rudyard Kipling's words to treat success and failure alike truly defined an Indian woman.

Irani emphasised the importance of self-responsibility in raising one's children and shaping one's home. She underscored the necessity of maintaining a sense of responsibility and ethics. "My daughter once complained that all her friends parents were their best friends, I told her, too bad, you can make more friends but you'll only have one mother," she said.

She said that relationships should not be reduced to mere transactions, calling for a deeper sense of connection and empathy in society.

Addressing a question on the role of women in sustainability, she said women define sustainability and have been doing it for years now. "From finding several ways to drape or use a single piece of garment to being resourceful with the little and ensuring even a vegetable peel is put to use, Indian women have always been and will continue to be at the forefront of sustainability," she said.

She took a moment to appreciate Deccan Chronicle photographer Pavan, who stood still during the National Anthem, in contrast to others.
Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu

Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh high court dismiss the bail petition of TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu in the AP skill development scam case.

Arguing on behalf of the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister his lawyer Luthra stated that all the other accused in the case were out on bail while Naidu was still inside for the last 40 days.

Chandrababu's counsel also requested the court to grand bail on the grounds of his deteriorating health condition. The judge hadsa time till noon to understand the details of naidu's health condition before proceeding with a case earlier in the day and had adjourn it till noon.

Naidu also stay to that there was no progress in his case so far. However, the court refuse to grant him mail on Thursday.

The Andhra Pradesh high court dismiss the bail petition of TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu in the AP skill development scam case.

Arguing on behalf of the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister his lawyer Luthra stated that all the other accused in the case were out on bail while Naidu was still inside for the last 40 days.

Chandrababu's counsel also requested the court to grand bail on the grounds of his deteriorating health condition. The judge had saught time till noon to understand the details of naidu's health condition before proceeding with a case earlier in the day and had adjourn it till noon.

Naidu also stay to that there was no progress in his case so far. However, the court refuse to grant him mail on Thursday.
Minister K.T. Rama Rao meets differently-abled people at Telangana Bhavan on Thursday. S. SURENDER REDDY

Hyderabad: Forget the talk of B-Teams in Telangana politics.

There is now a C-Team  a Chor team  which, according to BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao, is led by "BJP covert A. Revanth Reddy, TPCC president, and he will sell all Congress MLAs to the BJP after the elections.

Taking the BRS attack on the Congress a notch higher on Thursday, Rama Rao, referring to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi calling the BRS the B-Team of BJP, said, "the Congress is the C-Team, the Chor Team. Rahul should know he handed over the party here to a BJP covert who will take whoever wins on that party ticket to the BJP. You (Rahul) handed over Gandhi Bhavan to Godse."

Referring to Revanth Reddy as Rifle Reddy, Rama Rao said the Telangana Congress chief was caught in the cash for vote case, and now busy with note-for-seat business. He said Revanth Reddy "is a bigger thief than Charles Shobraj and Dawood Ibrahim".

Seeking to deliver yet another blow to the opposition party, Rama Rao said Rahul speaking about corruption was strange given the fact that it was during Congress rule that corruption bloomed. "I can go from A to Z on Congress corruption. A for Augusta (helicopter deal) B for Bofors, C for Commonwealth and so on. That party robbed the country and even Rahul and Sonia Gandhi have ED cases on them in the National Herald case," Rama Rao said.

Rama Rao was addressing a meeting of the differently-abled persons at Telangana Bhavan where he called on the divyangs to support the BRS, and called on the around 5.5 lakh differently-abled people in the state to recruit 10 people each to vote for the BRS. That will be more than 50 lakh votes for the BRS and that will be enough, he said.

He said Telangana was the only one state which is providing a pension of Rs 4,016 to the differently abled, and in all, the BRS government spent Rs 10,300 crore for their welfare.

On Congress failure to address the fluorosis crisis in the old Nalgonda district, he said every fluorosis victim in the state is a result of Congress neglect and unwillingness to provide safe drinking water, something that KCR had done. The Congress cursed us with fluorosis and now it comes and asks for a chance to rule," he said.

Later, taking to X (formerly Twitter), Rama Rao continued his attack on Rahul Gandhi saying the Congress leader, who went up to Manthani on Thursday, should have visited the Kaleshwaram project, sprinkled some water from Godavari river on himself to wash off his sins, and learn how Telangana government took up, and completed one of the greatest lift irrigation projects in the world.

Rama Rao said the project is a testament to the will power of the BRS government to deliver water to people by harnessing Godavari river. At least now, Rahul Gandhi should stop levelling baseless allegations on the project and corruption of Rs 1 lakh crore on a project that cost Rs 80,000 crore. "You should also apologise to the farmers of Telangana for effectively destroying their lives for 60 years of your party rule here," Rama Rao said.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrives at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel (AP)

JERUSALEM: Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Thursday that Israel has suffered an "unspeakable horrific act of terrorism" as he became the latest western leader to carry out a solidarity visit.

"I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you," Sunak said on his arrival for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.

Sunak said on X, the former Twitter, that Israel was "a nation in grief" and pledged his support "against the evil that is terrorism".

He follows US President Joe Biden who was in Israel on Wednesday and Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier this week. Others are expected.

Before leaving, Sunak said he would be concentrating on efforts to head off a wider conflict in the region after the October 7 attacks by Hamas which left about 1,400 people dead in Israel.

He is also expected to press the case for increased humanitarian aid to be let into Gaza, where the Hamas-controlled health ministry says around 3,500 people have died in Israeli air raids since the attacks.

Britain has increased its Palestinian aid package.

Israel has said it will allow food water and medicine into the beleaguered territory from Egypt.

In parallel, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is to visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar "in the coming days", according to the government.
Hundreds of Israeli tanks were deployed near the border in south Israel on Thursday, waiting for the all-clear from the country's political establishment and the military top brass. (ANI)

Tel Aviv: As a "ground offensive" of the besieged Gaza Strip loomed, hundreds of Israeli tanks were deployed near the border in south Israel on Thursday, waiting for the all-clear from the country's political establishment and the military top brass.

Israeli tanks and troops mounted on armoured vehicles were deployed in the region, seeming to suggest that a ground assault on Hamas in their backyard, Gaza, could begin any time soon.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said four rockets of nine launched from Lebanese territory were intercepted, adding that several anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon towards Israeli forces.

The IDF added that in response to the attacks, Israeli forces targeted the site in Lebanon from where rockets were fired into Israel and also struck at Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure using tank fire.

The Israeli forces also claimed to have thwarted and dismantled a terrorist cell using a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) of the IDF.

As Israel gears up for an all-out ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, one of the biggest challenges they face is Hamas' extensive underground tunnel network in the area. Several experts have warned that in the event of a ground offensive, Israel will lose the clear advantage it has over Hamas in terms of firepower, as it will have to fight the enemy on its terrain.

The densely populated area with a network of tunnels is likely to pose a security challenge for the IDF as it prepares for a ground assault.

An Israel Defence Forces spokesperson on Wednesday said they were striking parts of the tunnel network, but it won't be an easy battle.

Earlier, during a joint press briefing with US President Joe Biden, Netanyahu said the crimes that the Hamas terrorists perpetrated on civilians in Israel included rape, burning, kidnapping, and targeting small children, adding that the death toll from the Hamas terror attacks stood at 1,400 and was likely to mount.

"October 7 is another day that will live in infamy," said Netanyahu.

He reiterated President Biden's statement that "Hamas is worse than ISIS."

He added, "On Oct 7 Hamas murdered 1400 Israelis in a single day....October 7th, is another day that will live in infamy. Mr President, you rightly said that Hamas is worse than ISIS. The civilised world must unite to defeat Hamas."

Additionally, The United States deployed two carrier strike groups, each consisting of an aircraft carrier, its planes, and several escort warships, which appeared to have deterred Hezbollah from attacking Israel in a major war, The New York Times reported.

According to the NYT report, quoting American officials, the US and Israeli Intelligence agencies are working to determine whether Israel's expected ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip could prompt Hezbollah to launch a large-scale military campaign against Israel from Lebanon.

The US-based daily reported that the officials have assessed that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah does not want an all-out war with Israel, for fear of the damage it would do to his group and Lebanon. U.S. officials said that assessment could change as more intelligence is gathered and events unfold.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has vetoed proposals from his government of a pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah, according to American officials and others briefed on the discussions.

Earlier, the US Defence Department reiterated its full support to Israel in the ongoing war on Hamas, saying that the US Secretary of Defence was in continuous touch with the Israeli authorities and leaders.

The US Department of Defence (DOD) said in a statement, "Since meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and members of the Israeli War Cabinet in Tel Aviv on Friday, Austin has remained fully engaged with the country's leaders as the US works ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself from further attacks."

Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said in a statement, "Since leaving Israel, he has held calls with MOD Gallant ... on a near daily basis and will likely have another call today", adding, "We are working to meet Israel's needs, which include air defence, precision-guided munitions, artillery and medical supplies."

In addition to quickly sending military aid to Israel, the US has bolstered its presence in the region to deter further aggression.

Over the weekend, US Defence Secretary Austin directed the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group to join the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean last week.

The Navy units are part of a broader bolstering of US forces in the region. Last week, the Air Force announced the deployment of F-15 and F-16 fighter squadrons and A-10 attack squadrons to the region, according to a US Department of Defence press release.
Aryzta (OTCMKTS:ARZTF  Get Free Report) is one of 167 public companies in the Packaged Foods industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Aryzta to related companies based on the strength of its profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk, earnings, dividends and institutional ownership.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Aryzta and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

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Gross Revenue Net Income Price/Earnings Ratio Aryzta N/A N/A 1.51 Aryzta Competitors $1.86 billion $55.75 million 292.35

Aryztas peers have higher revenue and earnings than Aryzta. Aryzta is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Aryzta N/A N/A N/A Aryzta Competitors -34.31% -245.53% -11.79%

Analyst Recommendations

This table compares Aryzta and its peers net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Aryzta and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Aryzta 0 0 1 0 3.00 Aryzta Competitors 487 2140 2603 45 2.42

As a group, Packaged Foods companies have a potential upside of 19.75%. Given Aryztas peers higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Aryzta has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

44.2% of Aryzta shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 31.4% of shares of all Packaged Foods companies are owned by institutional investors. 26.0% of shares of all Packaged Foods companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Aryzta beats its peers on 6 of the 11 factors compared.

Aryzta Company Profile

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ARYZTA AG provides frozen B2B baking solutions in Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. It offers pastries, cookies, donuts, muffins, buns, bread rolls and artisan loaves, sweet baked and morning goods, and savory and other products. The company also provides asset management services; and distributes food products. It serves large retail, convenience, and independent retailers, as well as quick service restaurants and other foodservice customers. In addition, it sells product under the Hiestaud, Mette Munk, Pre Pain, Cuisine de France, Coup de Pates, La Brea, Oits Spunkmeyer, and Fornetti brands. The company has 26 bakeries in 27 countries. ARYZTA AG was founded in 1897 and is based in Schlieren, Switzerland.

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Eagle Point Credit (NYSE:ECC  Get Free Report) and BAE Systems (OTCMKTS:BAESY  Get Free Report) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Eagle Point Credit and BAE Systems net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

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Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Eagle Point Credit 35.65% 15.00% 10.12% BAE Systems N/A N/A N/A

Dividends

Eagle Point Credit pays an annual dividend of $1.54 per share and has a dividend yield of 16.4%. BAE Systems pays an annual dividend of $1.10 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Eagle Point Credit pays out 175.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Eagle Point Credit has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Eagle Point Credit is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Analyst Ratings

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Eagle Point Credit 0 1 1 0 2.50 BAE Systems 0 1 5 0 2.83

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Eagle Point Credit and BAE Systems, as reported by MarketBeat.

Eagle Point Credit presently has a consensus price target of $11.00, suggesting a potential upside of 17.27%. BAE Systems has a consensus price target of $475.00, suggesting a potential upside of 797.41%. Given BAE Systems stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe BAE Systems is more favorable than Eagle Point Credit.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Eagle Point Credit and BAE Systems revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Eagle Point Credit $53.50 million 9.65 -$101.81 million $0.88 10.66 BAE Systems $26.30 billion 1.53 $1.97 billion N/A N/A

BAE Systems has higher revenue and earnings than Eagle Point Credit.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

26.4% of Eagle Point Credit shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.3% of BAE Systems shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Eagle Point Credit shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Eagle Point Credit has a beta of 0.85, indicating that its stock price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BAE Systems has a beta of 0.7, indicating that its stock price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Eagle Point Credit beats BAE Systems on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Eagle Point Credit

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Eagle Point Credit Company Inc. is a closed ended fund launched and managed by Eagle Point Credit Management LLC. It invests in fixed income markets of the United States. The fund invests equity and junior debt tranches of collateralized loan obligations consisting primarily of below investment grade U.S. senior secured loans. Eagle Point Credit Company Inc. was formed on March 24, 2014 and is domiciled in the United States.

About BAE Systems

(Get Free Report)

BAE Systems plc provides defense, aerospace, and security solutions worldwide. The company operates through five segments: Electronic Systems, Cyber & Intelligence, Platforms & Services (US), Air, and Maritime. The Electronic Systems segment offers electronic warfare systems, navigation systems, electro-optical sensors, military and commercial digital engine and flight controls, precision guidance and seeker solutions, military communication systems and data links, persistent surveillance systems, space electronics, and electric drive propulsion systems. The Cyber & Intelligence segment provides solutions to modernize, maintain, and test cyber-harden aircraft, radars, missile systems, and mission applications that detect and deter threats to national security; systems engineering, integration, and sustainment services for critical weapons systems, C5ISR, and cyber security; and solutions and services to intelligence and federal/civilian agencies. It also offers data intelligence solutions to defend against national-scale threats, protect their networks, and data against attacks; security and intelligence solutions to the United Kingdom government and allied international governments; anti-fraud and regulatory compliance solutions; and enterprise-level data and digital services. The Platforms & Services (US) segment manufactures combat vehicles, weapons, and munitions, as well as provides ship repair services and the management of government-owned munitions facilities. The Air segment develops, manufactures, upgrades, and supports combat and jet trainer aircraft. The Maritime segment designs, manufactures, and supports surface ships, submarines, torpedoes, radars, and command and combat systems; and supplies naval gun systems. It also supplies naval weapon systems, missile launchers, and precision munitions. The company was founded in 1970 and is based in Farnborough, the United Kingdom.

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Deluxe (NYSE:DLX  Get Free Report) is one of 2 public companies in the Blankbooks, looseleaf binders, & bookbinding & related work industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare Deluxe to similar businesses based on the strength of its earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, profitability and valuation.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

85.0% of Deluxe shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.0% of shares of all Blankbooks, looseleaf binders, & bookbinding & related work companies are owned by institutional investors. 3.0% of Deluxe shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 5.2% of shares of all Blankbooks, looseleaf binders, & bookbinding & related work companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

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Dividends

Deluxe pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.6%. Deluxe pays out 99.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. As a group, Blankbooks, looseleaf binders, & bookbinding & related work companies pay a dividend yield of 6.4% and pay out 164.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Deluxe is clearly a better dividend stock than its competitors, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Earnings and Valuation

Gross Revenue Net Income Price/Earnings Ratio Deluxe $2.24 billion $65.39 million 15.06 Deluxe Competitors $2.09 billion $26.10 million -1.07

This table compares Deluxe and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

Deluxe has higher revenue and earnings than its competitors. Deluxe is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Risk and Volatility

Deluxe has a beta of 1.58, indicating that its stock price is 58% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Deluxes competitors have a beta of 1.70, indicating that their average stock price is 70% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Deluxe and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Deluxe 0 0 1 0 3.00 Deluxe Competitors 1 27 60 0 2.67

Deluxe presently has a consensus target price of $30.50, suggesting a potential upside of 67.40%. As a group, Blankbooks, looseleaf binders, & bookbinding & related work companies have a potential upside of 35.66%. Given Deluxes stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Deluxe is more favorable than its competitors.

Profitability

This table compares Deluxe and its competitors net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Deluxe 2.37% 24.46% 4.97% Deluxe Competitors 0.46% 18.40% 4.26%

Summary

Deluxe beats its competitors on 12 of the 14 factors compared.

About Deluxe

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Deluxe Corporation provides technology-enabled solutions to enterprises, small businesses, and financial institutions in the United States, Canada, Australia, South America, and Europe. It operates through four segments: Payments, Data Solutions, Promotional Solutions, and Checks. The company provides treasury management solutions, including remittance and lockbox processing, remote deposit capture, receivables management, payment processing, and paperless treasury management solutions, as well as payment exchange, and fraud and security services; data-driven marketing solutions and hosted solutions, such as digital engagement, logo design, financial institution profitability reporting, and business incorporation services, as well as web hosting and design services. It also offers business forms, accessories, advertising specialties, promotional apparel, and retail packaging services; and printed personal and business checks. The company was formerly known as Deluxe Check Printers, Incorporated and changed its name to Deluxe Corporation in 1988. Deluxe Corporation was founded in 1915 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk (OTCMKTS:PIFFY  Get Free Report) is one of 167 publicly-traded companies in the Packaged Foods industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk to related businesses based on the strength of its earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

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Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk 0 0 0 0 N/A PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk Competitors 487 2140 2603 45 2.42

As a group, Packaged Foods companies have a potential upside of 19.75%. Given PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbks competitors higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Valuation and Earnings

Gross Revenue Net Income Price/Earnings Ratio PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk N/A N/A 0.00 PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk Competitors $1.86 billion $55.75 million 292.35

This table compares PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbks competitors have higher revenue and earnings than PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk. PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

0.1% of PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 31.4% of shares of all Packaged Foods companies are owned by institutional investors. 26.0% of shares of all Packaged Foods companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk pays an annual dividend of $2,701.39 per share and has a dividend yield of 17,772.3%. PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk pays out 32.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, Packaged Foods companies pay a dividend yield of 95.5% and pay out 27.5% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Profitability

This table compares PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk and its competitors net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk N/A N/A N/A PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk Competitors -34.31% -245.53% -11.79%

Summary

PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk competitors beat PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk on 6 of the 10 factors compared.

About PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk

(Get Free Report)

PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk, together with its subsidiaries, produces and sells consumers products in Indonesia, rest of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and internationally. The company operating through six segments: Noodles Division, Dairy Division (dairy products), Food Seasonings Division, Snack Foods Division, Nutrition and Special Foods Division, and Beverages Division segments. It offers noodles, sauces, and instant seasonings; sweetened condensed milk, liquid milk, powdered milk, ice cream, and butter; chips and non-chips snacks, such as potato biscuits, cassavas, and wheat flour; and food seasonings, including powdered and liquid seasonings, condiments, and syrups. The company also offers nutrition and special foods, such as baby cereals, follow-on cereals, noodle soups, and baby biscuits, as well as fortified milk for expectant and lactating mothers; and beverages comprising ready-to-drink tea, packaged water, and fruit-flavored drinks. In addition, it manufactures packaging materials and non-alcoholic beverages; markets and distributes culinary products; processes oil and fats; manages restaurants; acts as investment and trade export agency; and provides management consulting and industrial estate services. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia. PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur Tbk is a subsidiary of PT Indofood Sukses Makmur Tbk.

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Portrush Music Society is thrilled to announce its 63rd and historic production, bringing Andrew Lloyd Webbers iconic masterpiece, "The Phantom of the Opera," to the stage at Coleraine Leisure Centre.

In an unprecedented move, the Leisure Centre will be magically transformed into the enchanting Paris Opera House for a week of mesmerizing performances from November 7 to 11.

Under the direction of the talented Kerry Kane, renowned for her creative vision and attention to detail, this production promises to transport the audience into the captivating world of the Paris Opera House. With Terry Cloughley as the Musical Director, audiences can expect a flawless orchestration of the iconic musical score, ensuring an unforgettable auditory experience.

Taking centre stage as the enigmatic Phantom is the exceptionally gifted Aidan Hughes, whose portrayal of this mysterious character is certain to send shivers down your spine. Opposite him, the enchanting Nuala Osborne steps into the role of Christine Daae, bringing her unparalleled vocal and acting prowess to the character. Luke de Belder shines as Raoul, the handsome and heroic suitor vying for Christines affections, creating a compelling love triangle that adds depth to this timeless tale.

The Phantom of the Opera is a story of passion, obsession, and unrequited love, and Portrush Music Societys rendition promises to capture the essence of this iconic tale in a way that will leave audiences spellbound.

Dont miss your chance to experience the magic of The Phantom of the Opera as it graces Coleraine Leisure Centre from November 7 to 11. Tickets are available now, and this is an opportunity you wont want to miss.

Portrush Music Society is a dynamic and passionate community of performers dedicated to bringing exceptional musical theatre productions to the north coast of Northern Ireland. With a commitment to artistic excellence and captivating storytelling, they continue to delight audiences with their outstanding performances.

For more information and ticket bookings, please visit ticketsource.co.uk/portrush-music-society or contact pmsboxoffice@gmail.com
Concerns have been raised about 'proliferation' of Israeli flags in the Waterside area amid allegations Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The flags were allegedly raised on Tuesday night, the same day nearly 500 Palestinians were killed in a strike on a hospital.

Catherine Hutton of Derry Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign said a member of the public contacted the group about the flags.

A member of the public contacted us, concerned about the proliferation of Israeli flags, particularly on Glendermott Road but they are displayed quite frequently in the Waterside area, and in Loyalist areas, she said.

I know that the reply will be 'but you fly Palestinian flags' but considering around 500 Palestinians were murdered in Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza last night and the flags went up yesterday evening it was obviously in response, it was done as a sick insult to the hundreds who were killed.

This isn't the first attack on a healthcare facility either as well as schools and UN centres where Palestinians are trying to shelter from the constant bombardment.

She says flags tend to be flown in bigger numbers when tensions rise in the region.

It always seems to happen at times when Israel attacks Gaza or in response to events in Israel and Palestine. I know we fly Palestinian flags but Israel is the occupier, Palestinians are the occupied and the oppressed.

The occupying force has a duty of care to the people of the land that they are occupying, and they are not carrying out that duty of care. They are murdering. They are bombing. They are oppressing. There's an apartheid system in place. They are committing war crimes every day. They are flouting international law every day.

I'm not excusing what happened to Israeli civilians, I think it was horrific. What I would say is the Israeli response since then has been absolutely Barbaric.

Catherine believes some members of the Loyalist community see a misguided 'affinity' between themselves and the state of Israel.

There seems to be a perception that somehow they and the Israelis share some sort of affinity but they don't see the bigger picture.

I think the Loyalist communities within Northern Ireland, in Derry in particular, I sense there's a lack of education about what is actually happening and has happened in Palestine to lead up to this.

I'm not saying that I'm going to get through to them, but I do think that the Department of infrastructure needs to act on this and take those flags down.

Health authorities in Gaza say it was an Israeli air strike that hit the hospital on Tuesday evening.

Israels military said it was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed group. The group has denied responsibility.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health put out a preliminary number on the casualties suffered in the attack saying there were 471 people killed, 314 wounded and 28 in critical condition. At time of writing there were about 1,300 people still under the rubble, including 600 children.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said a total of 3,478 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air attacks, while another 12,000 people have been wounded since 7 October. At least 1,400 Israelis were killed on 7 October according to the countrys Prime Minister.

According to the United Nations, between 2008 and 8 October 2023 a total of 6,720 Palestinians and 658 Israelis had been killed in the conflict.

Raz Segal, an Israeli Holocaust and Genocide Scholar, has stated the latest assault on Gaza can be understood 'as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes'.

A UN human rights expert warned on Tuesday 14 October that 'Israel has gone well beyond the limits of international law' and 'in the name of self-defence, Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing.'

A spokesperson for the Department for Infrastructure said: Article 87 of the Roads (NI) Order 1993 makes it an offence to attach unauthorised signs or advertisements to structures such as lamp posts.

One of the Departments primary considerations is the safety of the public and where unauthorised flags or attachments pose a hazard to road users, the Department will seek to remove that danger.

Where there is no such danger, the Department will liaise closely with other key stakeholders and seek to provide a solution.

A rally organised by the Derry IPSC will be held on Saturday at 1pm in Guildhall Square.
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Detectives are investigating a pipe bomb attack at a house in Derry on Wednesday night, October 18.

A woman in her 20s was inside the home in Heron Way when the device partially exploded at the backdoor at around 11.30pm. She wasn't injured however damage was caused to the door.

A number of nearby homes were evacuated for a time while police and ATO examined the scene.

The device has now been recovered for forensic examination.

Establishing a motive for the attack will now form part of the investigation however a sectarian hate crime motivation is one line of enquiry.

Detectives at Strand Road CID are keen to hear from anyone with information regarding this crime, and anyone who may have captured any footage in the area on Wednesday evening.

They can be contacted by calling 101, quoting reference 2099 18/10/23. Information can also be provided online at www.psni.police.uk/ makeareport/ or, via Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at www. crimestoppers-uk.org
A male pedestrian in his late 30s was killed after being struck by a lorry in Dublin on Wednesday night.

Gardai at Finglas are investigating the fatal road traffic collision involving a lorry and pedestrian that occurred at Kilshane Cross, Newtown on Wednesday, 18th October, 2023.

Shortly after 9.30pm, gardai and emergency services were alerted after a male pedestrian was struck by a lorry on the R135 at Kilshane Cross.

He was pronounced deceased at the scene and his body has since been removed to the Dublin City Morgue. The driver of the lorry did not require immediate medical treatment.

The road at the crash site is closed for examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators and traffic diversions are in place.

Investigating Gardai are appealing to anyone who may have witnessed this incident to come forward.

They are also appealing to any road users who were travelling in the Kilshane Cross area and have camera footage, including dash cam recordings, to make this available to them.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Finglas Garda Station on 01 666 7500, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda station.
HIGHLIGHTS The OnePlus Open is equipped with a 6.31-inch AMOLED cover display.

The OnePlus Open features the Hasselblad tuning for its cameras.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset.

OnePlus has finally launched the much-awaited smartphone from the brand, the Open. The OnePlus Open is the first foldable smartphone from the Chinese brand and is said to be the global version of the Oppo Find N3, which also launched today in China exclusively. The smartphone has one unique design feature: Alert Slider. This is the first smartphone that comes with an alert slider to put the smartphone in silent, vibrate, and ring mode.

Now that the smartphone has been rolled out in the Indian market, I am comparing the OnePlus Open with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. Lets see how it goes.

OnePlus Open vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: Design

As I mentioned before, the OnePlus Open would be the first foldable smartphone to come with an alert slider. Apart from that, it weighs 239 grams and measures 153.4 x 142.8 x 5.88 mm in an unfolded state, meaning it has a squarish design. The smartphone comes in two colour options; Emerald Dusk and Voyager Black. Additionally, the Emerald Dusk variant features a glass back and the Voyager Black has a vegan leather back. On the back, it has a huge circular camera module that houses a triple camera setup and features H for Hasselblad branding. Furthermore, it also features an IPX4 rating against water.

On the other hand, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 measures 154.9 x 129.9 x 6.1 mm in the unfolded state and weighs 253 grams. It comes in five colours that are Icy Blue, Phantom Black, Cream, Gray, and Blue. Looking at the back, youll see three camera rings placed vertically in a compact cylindrical camera island. This smartphone has a glass back that is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

Also read: Watch this OnePlus Open First Look video for a sneak peek of the hinge mechanism

OnePlus Open vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: Display

The OnePlus Open is equipped with a 6.31-inch AMOLED cover display that comes with a 2K resolution. This display supports up to 120Hz refresh rate and 10-bit colour. Furthermore, it features a 7.82-inch foldable AMOLED display with a 2K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and 10-bit colour support. Apart from that, both the displays also feature TUV Rheinland Intelligent Eye Care and have 2800nits of peak brightness.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 has a 6.2-inch outer AMOLED display that has a 904 x 2316 pixels resolution and supports up to 120Hz refresh rate. When unfolded, theres a 7.6-inch AMOLED display that has 1812 x 2176 pixels resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ support.

OnePlus Open vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: Performance

The OnePlus Open is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, which is paired with 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB UFS 4.0 storage. It operates on OxygenOS 13.2 based on the Android 13 operating system. The Open is packed with a 4805mAh battery that supports up to 67-watt fast charging support.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset. However, it offers 12GB RAM paired with up to 1TB storage. The OneUI 5.1.1 skin based on Android 13 runs on the smartphone. It packs a 4400mAh battery that supports up to 25-watt fast charging and also supports 15-watt wireless charging.

Also read: OnePlus Open: First foldable confirmed by phone company that never settles

OnePlus Open vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: Camera

The OnePlus Open has a triple camera setup on the back, which holds a 48-megapixel main camera, a 64-megapixel Telephoto sensor with up to 3x optical zoom, and a 48-megapixel Ultrawide lens. On the cover display, there is a 32-megapixel selfie shooter, whereas, the foldable display features a 20-megapixel camera. Apart from that, the OnePlus Open also features the Hasselblad tuning for its cameras.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is also equipped with a triple camera setup, featuring a 50-megapixel main camera, a 10-megapixel Telephoto sensor, and a 12-megapixel Ultrawide lens. For selfies, there is a 10-megapixel camera on the cover display and a 4-megapixel sensor on the foldable display.

OnePlus Open vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: Price and availability

OnePlus has launched the Open in India at a starting price of 1,39,999. It will be available for purchase on Amazon and OnePlus official store from October 27. Currently, the smartphone is available for pre-booking. OnePlus is also giving a 5000 discount on ICICI bank cards and OneCard.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is available on the brands official website at a starting price of 1,54,999.
HIGHLIGHTS Samsung offers a 6.7-inch IPS LCD display that supports an FHD+ resolution.

It is packed with a 5000mAh battery which supports 25-watt fast charging.

Samsung is also offering a 1000 launch discount on the SBI Credit card.

Samsung has launched another budget-range smartphone in the Indian market today. It is the Samsung Galaxy A05s, which has been launched under 15,000. Samsung has rolled out this smartphone in three colour options: Light Green, Light Violet, and Black colors. Apart from that, the brand is also giving away a launch discount. This budget smartphone is packed with a 5000mAh battery, a 50-megapixel camera, and more. If you are looking to buy an affordable smartphone, check the story out.

Samsung Galaxy A05s specifications

Samsung offers a 6.7-inch IPS LCD display that supports an FHD+ resolution. Unfortunately, the display comes with a 90Hz refresh rate support. There is a water-drop notch at the front that houses the selfie camera.

Also read: Samsung could launch Galaxy A05 series this week in India: Heres what to expect

Speaking of the performance, the Samsung Galaxy A05s is powered by the Snapdragon 680 processor, which is paired with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. You will also get an option to expand the RAM up to 6GB and storage up to 1TB. The smartphone runs on OneUI 5.1.1 skin that is based on Android 13 OS. Furthermore, it is packed with a 5000mAh battery which supports 25-watt fast charging.

For photography, the Samsung Galaxy A05s uses a 50-megapixel main camera along with a 2-megapixel macro lens for close-up shots, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor for portrait shots. For selfies, it has a 13-megapixel front-facing camera.

Some more additional features of the Galaxy A05s are Dolby Atmos, a side-mounted power button cum fingerprint scanner, Face-Unlock, and more

Also read: Samsung Galaxy A04e launched with dual cameras and a 5000mAh battery: Full details and price

Samsung Galaxy A05s price and availability

Samsung has launched the Galaxy A05s at a price of 14,999 and is available on Samsungs official website and retail stores. Additionally, the brand is offering a 1000 launch discount on the SBI Credit card, so you jab it for 13,999.
Research Insight: US export curbs on chips to impact China's data center infrastructure

The US has announced additional chip rules against China. DIGITIMES Research posits that these measures will heighten the challenges associated with China's acquisition of AI and high-performance HPC chips, subsequently complicating their efforts to establish AI and supercomputer systems, potentially impacting China's data center development.

To close loopholes left by the export curbs unveiled in 2022, the US Commerce Department announced updated rules to prevent China from acquiring advanced chips and developing supercomputers on October 17.

In October 2022, the US announced control measures against China based on chip processing power and transmission bandwidth to stop China from using US chips or chips using US technologies to enhance China's performance in AI and supercomputer systems, with potential military applications, to reduce the threat to US national security. On October 17, the US also announced the Interim Final Rule (IFR) as last year, allowing the implementation of certain rules without the procedure of collecting public comments, which are used in situations that require swift action, especially in national security issues.

DIGITIMES Research observes that although the US has removed the interconnect bandwidth parameter in the updated measures, the chip processing power threshold remains at 4,800 TOPS and more. The US also added the performance density threshold parameter to limit China from purchasing many AI chips to build computing power of 4,800 TOPS and more for AI systems, supercomputers, or data centers. Besides, the IFR creates a new License Exception Notified Advanced Computing for consumer-grade chips with AI capabilities below the restricted threshold of 4800 TOPS, which means the US export curbs have reached beyond total processing power and into application areas.

The curbs will restrict HPC chip suppliers, such as Nvidia, AMD, and Intel, from shipping lower-end chips compared to their most premium products to China-based customers, which may impact Nvidia's A800 and H800 and Intel's Gaudi 2.

In addition to restricting the export of high-performance chip technology to China, the US has also added emerging China-based GPU suppliers, including Biren Technology and Moore Threads and their subsidiaries, to the entity list, further constraining these companies from developing high-end GPUs using US technology, thereby curtailing China's development of high-performance computing chips and heading off the possibility of these companies using overseas foundries for advanced processes to produce high-performance chips.

IFR also emphasizes that foundries should strengthen due diligence to understand their products' ultimate use and end customers. Additionally, the chips' total processing power must be summed if they are packaged together. Furthermore, the US closed a loophole by preventing companies from exporting US-controlled technology and chips to China through regions like Macau.

The IFR definition of advanced processes remains at 16/14nm and below for logical ICs, 18nm and below for DRAM, and 128-layer and more for NAND Flash. Adjustments have been made for semiconductor equipment exports, and restrictions on US individuals or US companies supporting the production of advanced chips in China continue.

The curbs on semiconductor equipment are similar to the ones proposed by Japan in July 2023, which include restrictions on equipment designed for silicon or silicon germanium (SiGe) epitaxial growth, equipment designed for dry etching, wet chemical processing and having the largest silicon germanium to silicon etch selectivity ratio of greater than or equal to 100:1, and spatial ALD equipment, etc.

Furthermore, the additional measures also prevent US companies from supporting advanced semiconductor production in China, especially during the chip development or early production stages.

The US not only seeks to control high-performance chips that previously fell into the gray area (i.e., did not meet control thresholds) but also increases restrictions on sales and shipments to certain countries and regions, an attempt to address the issue of companies circumventing US control policies to supply products or technology to China. Additionally, Chinese GPU designers have been added to the entity list to cut off their chip design and production capabilities.
GlobalFoundries receives US Department of Defense funding to accelerate GaN on Si offering

GlobalFoundries (GF) has received US$35 million in funding from the US Department of Defense (DoD) in support of its gallium nitride on silicon (GaN on Si) platform at GF's Essex Junction, Vermont facility, according a company press release dated October 18. The funding, awarded by the Trusted Access Program Office under the DoD, is expected to bring the company closer to volume production of GaN on Si on 200mm wafers. According to GF, 200mm wafer is state-of-the-art for GaN technology.

To achieve the target, the foundry plans to purchase additional tools to expand development and prototyping capabilities. GlobalFoundries' Vermont facility is a "trusted foundry" accredited by the Defense Microelectronics Activity to manufactures secure chips for the US defense industry. The Trusted Access Program Office (TAPO) administers the trusted foundry program.

"This strategic investment continues to strengthen our domestic ecosystem of critical dual-use commercial technologies, ensuring they're readily available and secure for DoD utilization. In concert with key partners, we're proactively shaping the future of our defense systems," said Christopher J. Lowman, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment.

Alongside its operation in Vermont, GF also operates a trusted foundry in Malta, New York. Information from TAPO shows that the Vermont site offers various fabrication platforms at a wide range of process nodes, the maturest being 0.5 . Apart from CMOS, the facility's fabrication platforms include RF CMOS, High-Voltage CMOS, SOI CMOS, Bipolar CMOS and silicon germanium.

For now, the only GaN platforms accessible under the Trusted Foundry Program include those from Wolfspeed, Qorvo, M/A-COM Technology Solutions, BAE Systems Microwave Electronics Center, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon RF Components. The most advanced GaN-based process node avaliable under the program is offered by Wolfspeed at 140nm.
Suzuki reportedly to make India its first EV export hub, a rare case for Japanese carmakers

Suzuki Motor is reportedly looking to make India its first EV production and export hub, a rare case for Japan-based companies as they typically establish domestic production before global expansion.

Nikkei quoted sources saying that Suzuki had chosen India as its first EV production hub due to its huge market and low manufacturing cost. Suzuki will also position India as an EV export hub. According to Nikkei, Japan-based carmakers such as Toyota and Nissan began developing products and making EVs in Japan before moving the production lines to other countries.

Manufacturing cost was cited as a factor for Suzuki to position India rather than Japan for its first EV production site. According to the 2022 Survey on Business Conditions of Japanese Companies Operating Overseas by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), manufacturing cost in India is 79.2% of that in Japan.

In March 2022, Suzuki said it planned to invest JPY150 billion (US$1.3 billion) to build EVs and batteries in India's western state of Gujarat. EVs and batteries are expected to enter mass production in 2025 and 2026, respectively.

Another factor for Suzuki to produce EVs in India can be attributed to the market potential in India, which surpassed Japan in becoming the third-largest vehicle market in 2022. According to Vahan Dashboard, despite a low penetration rate in the overall four-wheeler market, India's electric four-wheeler registrations more than doubled from 42,960 units in 2022 to nearly 100,000 in the first nine months of 2023.

Maruti Suzuki, Suzuki's Indian subsidiary, said in 2022 that the carmaker's focus is other low-carbon vehicles such as those running on CNG or biofuels and hybrid vehicles. India-based Tata Motors enjoyed an approximate 73% market share of India's electric four-wheeler market from January to September 2023.

Meanwhile, according to The Economic Times, India may launch an incentive policy to encourage local production of electric four-wheelers based on related investments. Besides the rumored plans by Suzuki, Korea-based Hyundai and Vientma-based VinFast unveiled plans to make EVs in India. Tesla is reportedly talking with the Indian government about similar plans.

Source: JEITRO, February 2023
Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) recently welcomed ten International Mobility Scholarship recipients who will spend one semester in the Department of Hospitality in the Institute.

These Students are partaking in the Indonesian Vocational Education Ministry of Education (IISMA) programme, which is an open and dynamic academic exchange and plays an important role in preparing Indonesian students with the future-ready mindset, knowledge, and skills they need to succeed.

A spokesperson said:

"DkIT has been selected for this international programme due to the Institutes renowned collaboration with prominent industry partners on an international scale; equally important is the DkITs' internationally recognised qualifications; and from a students perspective, the Institutes Hospitality Department is extremely experienced at hosting International Students."

As part of the welcome to DkIT; the Hospitality Department hosted a Coffee afternoon  to see how the students were settling in and to informally meet the academic team.

Speaking at the event, a student said: "Living abroad for approximately five months will help me, as Im an introverted person, I hope this experience will help me to be more comfortable with socializing, especially with new people. I have already made a lot of friends and good connections with students from all around the world. I am looking forward to finding out about Irish Hospitality and culture.
Today An Post, the Irish Postal Service, issued a stamp marking the 50th anniversary of Sydney Opera House. The stamp was unveiled onsite at Sydney Opera House by Consul General of Ireland Sydney, Rosie Keane; Kieran Rice, son of Peter Rice, the late Irish Structural Engineer who made possible the buildings infamous white sails roof, Isabella Rice and Kerryn Coker, Co-Chair of Arup Australasia, the original design company.

Dundalk man and Structural Engineer Peter Rice (1935-1992) played a central role in creating the revolutionary modern structure using his mathematical expertise and artistic intuition to convert concrete, steel and glass into a world-renowned building, famous for its iconic, white sails roof structure.

His son Kieran Rice responded to the stamp issue, saying, We, Peter Rices family, are all really touched that his contribution to the Sydney Opera House design is being recognised with this wonderful First Day Cover of the commemorative stamp on 50th anniversary of the completion of the Sydney Opera House.

"The stamp is a lovely artwork in itself and Peters quote on the FDC is very well-chosen and is often used in our family to motivate his grandchildren.

"Peter was a proud Irishman, who worked across the globe on many iconic projects, but the Sydney Opera House was where it all started.

"He moved to Sydney in 1963 for three years with his wife, Sylvia, and two young daughters Julia and Heidi. Our time in Sydney had a huge impact on our family  Kieran was born there, and Sylvia still visits friends every year who were made at that time.

"Peter was very proud of his involvement with the Sydney Opera House design and construction especially his work on programming the setting out of the sails. He would have been humbled to be recognised in this way in his native Ireland.

Consul General of Ireland Sydney, Rosie Keane said: 50 years on from its construction, the Sydney Opera House is still one of the most loved and recognised landmarks in the world.

"As the Irish Consul General in Sydney I feel enormous pride that the Irish engineer Peter Rice played a significant part in the creation of this unique and graceful design. I was delighted to join with Kieran and Isabella Rice and Kerryn Coker from Arup at the Sydney launch of this An Post stamp, commemorating the great Peter Rice and his historic legacy in this city.

An Post CEO David McRedmond commented: Ireland has been slow to recognise its contribution to Modernism. The 50th anniversary of Sydney Opera House is the perfect time to celebrate the role of Irish people, and of engineer Peter Rice in particular, to the great canon of world-class architecture and engineering.

An Posts stamp shows a striking illustration of Sydney Opera House by renowned Irish artist David Rooney capturing the organic nature and acoustics of the building, while also referencing art created by First Nations Australians.

The W rate international stamp 2.20 covers postage anywhere in the world and is available online at anpost.com/shop (with free delivery) and from the GPO and selected post offices nationwide.

The renowned engineers visionary career is also celebrated with a limited edition First Day Cover envelope featuring the new stamp alongside an illustration of Peter Rice and a quote from his writings: The courage you need is the courage to start. Once launched, then each step can be evolved naturally.
A HEALTHCARE worker opened up about his joy at being granted Irish citizenship after a devastating tragedy led him to Cork.

Schubert Fomufod has been living in Cork city for more than 11 years after initially travelling here to feel closer to his sister Ashley Fri. The Cameroon native felt his world had been shattered after learning of her untimely death some years ago.

Mr Fomufod still visits her grave in Midleton on a daily basis and paid tribute to her after being granted Irish citizenship at one of three recent ceremonies held in Dublins Convention Centre in recent weeks.

He was among 3,000 people from 131 countries who participated in the occasion which he described as a joyful day.

Schubert spoke about how he fell in love with the country he initially only visited as part of his grieving process. The adopted Cork man is glad to be finding light at the end of the tunnel following several painful years. He is also grateful to be taking care of unfinished business for his sister who had been in the process of applying for citizenship before her sudden death.

Some people might not see the importance of this, he told The Echo.

They may only see it as a piece of paper. I see it as a part of my soul. I understand what it means to become part of a nation. It is a liberation to your spirit and your mind that also has such a positive impact on your mental state.

DEEP CONNECTION TO IRELAND

He reflected on his deep connection to the country.

I have history in the country. My sister came here and, God bless her soul, she did not make it. She passed away when she was in the process of becoming an Irish citizen. I came to the country with a mourning spirit. When I looked at the situation and the death of my sister it became clear to me that I would not be coming back. That was when I took the steps towards establishing myself in Ireland.

Schubert spoke of how he felt his sisters presence during the memorable event in Dublin.

During the ceremony her image flashed through my mind and it was like she was with me. This has turned into a beautiful story. Im now positive about what life has to offer.

He said his niece (Ashleys daughter) was delighted to hear his good news.

When I told my niece on the phone she cried, he said.

Mr Fomufod said he is grateful to be working in the healthcare industry in Cork.

Before my sister died I had planned to study medical science in the UK. She was my sponsor at the time. I still have a copy of my admission letter for the sake of remembrance. I see how situations can change in life. Im glad to be able to work in healthcare now. When I look at my clients I see that same spirit that I wanted to extend through care.

The healthcare worker is looking forward to the future.

It wasnt my plan to live in Ireland but I didnt feel like it was a situation where I could just come in, understand what this was and leave, he said. While my circumstances played a part indirectly, there were so many more reasons why I saw the place as my new home. I did not come to Ireland to gain citizenship. That all happened naturally. It wasnt easy when I first came here because of the loss of my sister. Now, I am beginning to see things from a new and positive angle.
A YOUNG man who walked out of a supermarket without making any effort to pay for a smart TV and a bottle of spirits explained to a sentencing judge: I was very fond of the drink.

John McDonagh, 33, of 1 Inchera Close, Mahon, Cork, pleaded guilty to carrying out the crime on May 12 at Tesco in Wilton where he stole a 250 Smart television and a 28 bottle of spirits, neither of which was ever recovered by the store.

Defence solicitor, Shane Collins-Daly said the accused was serving a sentence of ten months for other crimes and was due for release from prison in February 2024.

Sergeant John Kelleher said the crime at Tesco was caught on CCTV and that the accused was clearly identified. He had 89 previous convictions, including 34 for theft and one for burglary.

Mr Collins-Daly said the accused had a longstanding alcohol addiction and had committed a lot of thefts.

Judge Joanne Carroll said of the accused: He has not seen fit to return it, he has held on to the TV. The solicitor said: He instructed me he had no recollection of it. He asked me to get CCTV. He is seen picking up the bottle of alcohol and putting it in his pocket. He picks up TV and literally walks out in full view. He could not possibly have got away with this offence.

The defendant added, as he appeared by video link from prison: At the time I was very fond of drink. Im learning from this now. I am in school in prison. I am back with my wife. I have a young family Im trying to get out to. I am on disability... No one would give me work.

Would you put me on a 12-month probation bond for me to link in with them (probation)  I would be very happy with that.

Judge Carroll said: Im sure you would be.

The judge considered the matter and concluded: Probably a mistake but I will put you on a bond for 18 months on condition that you must attend for alcohol addiction treatment and not commit further offences.
Areas of Cork city were completely impassable today as a result of the severe weather brought on by Storm Babet.

Cork City Council said up to 100 council staff had been at 50 different locations preparing for the flood event and responding to various issues as they arose.

The council said that over the past three days, operations crews cleared gullies and trash screens at regular intervals.

A pedestrian makes his way through flood waters on Rutland Street, Cork city during Storm Babet on Wednesday morning. Picture: Larry Cummins

Independent councillor Ger Keohane said that while every effort was made by city council outdoor crews to help alleviate the damage, more staff were required for such an undertaking.

City council outdoor crew down here in Glanmire are fantastic but they need more staff just do to the basic maintenance of keeping the drains cleared and clearing the branches accumulating under the archways of bridges but its no fault of the council staff down here its just the lack of manpower.

They cannot get enough outdoor crew to do the basic maintenance. Thats the problem. Mr Keohane said that Glanmire was under severe threat with all low-lying areas affected by the flooding.

Residents of Copper Valley View were particularly affected, with about 25 to 30 homes badly flooded.

Fire brigade pumping out a house in Copper Valley View in Glanmire. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Fianna Fail TD Padraig OSullivan said: Ive been looking at stuff in the Glashaboy River in the last number of months thats just not cleared out efficiently and Ive no doubt that that exacerbated things, Im not saying caused it, but it definitely doesnt help.

I generally think there needs to be a good, strong look at areas that are prone to flooding about how we keep and maintain our rivers and clean them. Today is pure rainfall and pure volume but its a general point to make.

Sarsfield Hurling Club, who beat Midleton in the senior county final at Pairc Ui Chaoimh on Sunday last, also felt the full effects of Storm Babet.

Flooding at Sarsfield Hurling Club.

In a post on social media, the club said: We will be forever proud of our Senior Team on Sunday and today Sars Hurling Club experienced heroism in the form of our pitch committee and volunteers.

Although we wanted to ensure we could limit the damage to the club house we made the decision to open the 2 large gates (behind the bar area and at the end of the pitch).

As a result, our main pitch essentially became a flood plain in order to relieve the flooding to the immediate Riverstown area, Orchard Manor and surrounding businesses.

We won a county, lost a pitch but hopefully saved a part of the Glanmire community.

The town park in Glanmire flooded. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Elsewhere in the city, Blackpool Village was another area that was described by Cork City Council as impassable and was closed for a period of time before reopening shortly after 6.30pm.

Mick Moriarty, who owns the Baldy Barber, was abroad today but had been liaising with the manager of the business.

Blackpool is very, very badly impacted today. My shop is closed. All the businesses are closed in Blackpool, Mr Moriarty told The Echo.

Thank God we had the barriers up so were ok, he said, when asked about damage to the premises.

Fine Gael TD for Cork North Central, Colm Burke, said his office had been in touch with Cork City Council to close the village to traffic.

We were onto Cork City Council today about closing off the road because as cars were passing through the place they were pushing water up against doors of commercial premises, so in fairness it was closed off. The Fire Brigade came down there was well, he said.

Trojan work by @cc_civildefence volunteers today  spent the afternoon pumping water in Blackpool village leaving just before 6pm with most of flood waters gone  #StormBabet pic.twitter.com/jyzOSR0AYx  Cork City Council (@corkcitycouncil) October 18, 2023

Mr Burke said Cork City Council and Cork County Council would need to be furnished with additional funding to carry out the necessary remedial work across the city and county.

Ive been onto ministers all day today about getting funding.

Cork City Council have a budget, but they dont have the funding to do whatever remedial work will be required to be carried out and we need to get additional funding from Government for the city council and the county council, he said.

In a joint statement later with his party colleagues David Stanton, Michael Creed, Tim Lombard and John Cummins, Mr Burke welcomed that assistance will be provided to communities to support those affected by the flooding in Cork and Waterford.

We spoke with our colleagues, Ministers Simon Coveney, from Cork South Central and Minister Heather Humphreys to ensure that assistance can be offered as soon as possible.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Department of Social Protection have schemes which we believe need to be activated as soon as possible and our Ministerial colleagues immediately concurred with this and are offering as much assistance as possible, the statement said.

In the city centre, South Terrace, and adjoining streets, were seriously impacted by surface water, as was North Mall and the South City Link Road.

Flood waters on Rutland Street, Cork city during Storm Babet on Wednesday morning. Picture: Larry Cummins

Lavitts Quay, Popes Quay and Wandesford Quay in the city centre were also badly flooded.

Colleges such as Cork College of FET Douglas Street Campus and St Francis College in Rochestown were closed due to weather and road conditions and many schools had to contact parents to collect their children due to flooding.

Cork City Council said this evening that it had received reports of motorists ignoring road closure signs in the city.

Our emergency services, including the Civil Defence, are working at full capacity to response to calls as they arise, please do not ignore signage and enter heavily flooded roads, the local authority said.

City council added that while the weather will remain wet in the coming days, tidal flooding is not expected.
CORK students were among almost 71,000 students nationally to receive their Junior Cycle examination results yesterday.

Aoife Murphy, Emily Wafer, Elisa Donegann, Joy O'Connell, Saoirse Blake and Laoise O'Callaghan who received their junior cycle results at the Community School in Carrigaline, Co. Cork. - Picture: David Creedon

A total of 629,189 grades were issued across 21 individual subjects examined in what marked the second full year of examinations in the reformed Junior Cycle.

Speaking to The Echo, principal of Kinsale Community School, Fergal McCarthy, said that by and large students were very pleased with their results.

They were delighted. The results that they got were really, really excellent, he said.

Junior Cert students across the country received their results today. Mount St. Michael students Cathal and Eoin O'Shanahan with their results. Picture: Andy Gibson.

Its great that they have this affirming exam completed and it allows them to derive guidance from it now as they work on what their subject options will be for going into fifth year.

Mr McCarthy encouraged any student disappointed by their results not to be disheartened.

If youre a little bit upset by what youve got then dont worry about it because its not that high-stakes an exam.

It provides a really good, affirming indication of where it is that youre at, but it doesnt define any student and it merely guides them in respect of the choices theyll be making in respect of senior cycle, he said.

The Minister for Education Norma Foley led the tributes to students who received examination results yesterday offering her "sincere congratulations and good wishes to all".

Novie O'Farrell with her daughter Nathalia who received her junior cycle results at the Community School in Carrigaline, Co. Cork. - Picture: David Creedon

Through the energy and dedication you have applied to your school lives to date, you have attained a great deal of knowledge and developed a myriad of talents, skills and ambitions which will pave the way as you embark on the next stage of your education journey.

Junior Cert students across the country received their results yesterday. Mount St. Michael students Karol McCarthy; Adam Baker; Emma Whooley; Gavin Collins; Aine O'Donovan and Vincent Daly with their results. Picture: Andy Gibson.

I want to congratulate you and wish you all the very best for those exciting next steps that lie ahead, she added.

She also paid tribute to students families, teachers and school communities for their support and guidance.

I would also like to take the opportunity to recognise and thank your families, teachers and school communities for the many ways in which they have worked to guide and support you towards reaching this milestone today," Ms Foley said.

Minister of State for Special Education and Inclusion Josepha Madigan also extended her well wishes.

I would like to send congratulations to each and every student receiving results today, particularly those with special educational needs," she said.

You have put in the hard work to get to this point and have so much to celebrate as you reflect on all you have achieved and look forward to all that lies ahead."
BRITISH pub giant JD Wetherspoon has put its regional Irish pub portfolio on the market for 10m.

Its pubs in Cork, Waterford, Galway, and Carlow are now for sale.

It comes 10 years after the company opened Wetherspoons pubs in Ireland. The joint price for the portfolio is 10m, but individual pricing is available from the joint selling agents, Savills and CBRE.

The pubs for sale are: An Geata Arundel, Arundel Square, Waterford; The Linen Weaver, Paul St, Cork; and The Tullow Gate, Tullow St, Carlow.

The fourth property is the former Carbon Night Club, 19-21 Eglington St, Galway which is not trading, but has recently been granted planning permission to permit licensed premises and restaurant use.

A spokesperson for JD Wetherspoons said the company is hopeful that it can sell its Cork hostelry as a going concern and that the 50 workers at The Linen Weaver will secure ongoing employment under the new owners.

JD Wetherspoons spokesman Eddie Gershon told The Echo that the chain was selling these pubs in order to concentrate on its businesses in Dublin and Belfast.

The pandemic clearly had a big effect on the hospitality industry, and no one has been immune, he said.

Weve decided, in Ireland, to concentrate on Dublin and Belfast, and intend to review the situation in a year or two, when profits are back to pre-pandemic levels.

He confirmed that there were 50 staff members, including full-time and part-time employees, working in the Paul St premises.

We are happy to offer employment in our remaining pubs to anyone working in the pubs that are being sold, he said.

The four pubs [including The Linen Weaver, Cork] are being sold as going concerns, and we hope that there will be continuing employment opportunities in the same pubs.

The pubs are described as an exceptional collection of landmark licensed properties in some of the most coveted locations in the country.

Stephen McCarthy of Savills said: The Wetherspoon portfolio offers a rare opportunity to acquire an exceptional collection of landmark licensed properties in some of the most coveted locations in the country.

Accordingly, we anticipate the portfolio will appeal to a broad cross-section of hospitality groups seeking to scale their existing operation and benefit from the extensive investment which has already being committed to these assets.

John Hughes, of CBRE, said: The trading properties ... are in excellent condition, offering a rare opportunity to acquire the businesses individually or as a portfolio.
TAKING a photograph of court proceedings in Courtroom 1 of the courthouse at Anglesea Street in Cork resulted in a mother-of-four being taken into custody.

Registrar Daire Coughlan said during yesterdays sitting of Judge Joanne Carrolls court that the woman had taken a photograph and that he had seen the flash from her phone.

As soon as the judge was alerted to the incident, gardai confiscated the womans phone and handed it to the registrar.

Mr Coughlan said there was no sign of a photograph of the courtroom on the confiscated phone.

The woman insisted that she only picked up her phone because someone was calling her  while the phone was on silent.

Judge Carroll said to the woman: You are this close to being taken into custody. If that photo was on the phone, that is where you would be going. I say, if you had.

Lisa Keenan, of no fixed address in Cork and now living in Mahon, said: I havent taken a photo.

However, minutes later, Mr Coughlan, registrar, said that he located a photograph of the courtroom in the Recycle Bin folder of the phone.

She was trying to delete it, the registrar said.

Ms Keenan then said it was possible to hit a button at the side of the phone which would cause a picture to be taken.

The judge directed that the woman be taken into custody in the cells at the courthouse.

I have four children, she said. The judge replied: It doesnt matter if you have 12. I am remanding you in custody until your case is called.

Two hours later, Judge Carroll called for the defendant to be brought to court. She was given the opportunity to purge her contempt of court in relation to the taking of a photograph.

Shane Collins-Daly said the 36-year-old apologised. He said he had known the defendant a long time and it was the first time he had seen her in tears. Ms Keenan said: Sorry Judge.

Judge Carroll asked: Why did you take a photo in the courtroom of people doing their work?

She replied: I dont know, it just happened.

The judge said: Make sure it doesnt happen again.

The reason she was present in court was that a previously suspended nine-month sentence for shoplifting was triggered by a conviction under the Road Traffic Act. However, that nine-month sentence was not activated.
A MAN who is accused of having stashes of cocaine and cannabis with a total street value of 246,000 at his flat in Cork city was remanded in custody for a fortnight.

When he appeared at Cork District Court by video link from prison yesterday, Judge Joanne Carroll remanded Italian national Owayne Ventura in custody until November 1.

Mr Ventura was refused bail when Detective Garda Dermot Crowley brought him before the court.

His solicitor Diarmuid Kelleher indicated that an appeal of the bail refusal was pending before the High Court in Dublin.

Mr Ventura, who was living at a flat on Rutland Place, Douglas St, Cork, faces four counts under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

He is charged with having cannabis and cocaine and being in possession of the drugs for the purpose of sale or supply.

While the accused said in court that he would be pleading guilty to the charges and that he was holding the drugs for a gang, he repeatedly told gardai: I am not a drug dealer.

The charges relate to Wednesday, October 11, when the Garda Drugs Unit went to the defendants home with a search warrant.

It is alleged that they located a stash of drugs in his bedroom and another quantity of drugs in the hotpress of the flat.

In his application for bail, he said he understood the severity of the case and would not leave the country before his case was heard.
A Halloween event for dogs is happening at the Marina Market on Saturday and Sunday, October 28 and 29.

Top Barkz Cork, which runs dog training courses at their Play, Education, and Training Centre in the popular Cork marketplace, will be hosting two morning events for dogs of all shapes and sizes.

The Trick-N-Treat Halloween Parties, now in their second year, will consist of a fun agility course with a Halloween theme so you can test their skills.

There will also be a pumpkin patch photo shoot opportunity and a trick n treat workshop, and fancy dress for both owners and dogs is optional but encouraged.

The event is split into different age and size categories with duplicate schedules on both days, starting with puppies under six months at 10.15am.

Next up at 11.30am is the category for six to 12-month-olds as well as dogs weighing under 20 kilos, and the adult and larger dogs is at 1.30pm.

Esther Ring, the founder and head trainer of Top Barkz told The Echo that the breakdown was to ensure that the course could be more tailored so that it would be challenging but not impossible for every dog taking part.

Places are limited to ten dogs per course, with Esther explaining: We need a lot of space for them to do the agility course, and to make sure theyre not on top of each other - dog safety is always our priority, to make sure every dog is comfortable.

She added: We are excited to run the event again this year at Marina Market, its a spooktacular occasion for you and your dog to have some fun in a safe environment.

Tickets are available at Eventbrite at 25 per dog, and as many humans as desired can attend with their dog.
By Cillian Sherlock, PA

Ireland has announced 13 million in additional funding for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians, as the countrys leaders called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Tanaiste Micheal Martin reiterated a call from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for a pause in hostilities to establish humanitarian corridors.

Mr Martin said on Wednesday: The Government has also made clear that we support an immediate humanitarian pause, or humanitarian ceasefire, to give space to establish humanitarian corridors to meet the immediate needs of all civilians in Gaza.

He was speaking during a session dedicated to discussing the conflict in the Dail parliament.

The speaker of the house, Sean O Fearghail said there was unprecedented interest in the issue: I have never received as many communications, in respect of anything.

Meanwhile, as politicians debated the matter, hundreds of people staged a protest outside the Leinster House complex in Dublin.

Brothers Ryan Atmeh, four, Sahem Al din Atmeh, six, and Karim Atmeh, eight, from Skerries, Co. Dublin, join a demonstration outside Leinster House (Brian Lawless/PA)

Gathering in the pouring rain, the demonstrators blocked the roadway outside the parliamentary buildings as speakers made demands for a ceasefire, a condemnation of Israels instruction for Gazans to move to south Gaza, and calls for the resignation of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Mr Martin, who is also Minister for Foreign Affairs, said the Government unequivocally condemns the Hamas attack on Israel and that he had expressed Irelands condolences to the Israeli people.

The indiscriminate killing of civilians going about their daily life, the targeting of young party-goers at a music festival, the seizing of hostages, including children and elderly people. These are reprehensible actions.

Protesters take part in a demonstration outside Leinster House (Brian Lawless/PA)

I have been absolutely clear that all hostages, Israeli and international, must be released unconditionally. I have underlined that there is no justification  none  for such terror.

However, Mr Martin also told the Dail that Israels right to defend itself against attack must be done within the parameters of international humanitarian law.

Water, electricity and fuel supplies into Gaza have been seriously disrupted. Hospitals are running out of power. People are running out of essential supplies.

Over one million people were given an order to evacuate the north of Gaza by the Israeli military  that is simply unworkable. Civilian deaths are increasing.

Micheal Martin called for a humanitarian ceasefire (Niall Carson/PA)

We watched in horror the appalling strike on the al Ahli hospital in Gaza last night; hundreds of civilians  patients, staff and those seeking shelter from aerial attacks by Israel  have died.While we do not yet know who was responsible for that strike, have seen all too clearly the anguish and pain that it has caused.

Let us be unambiguous. As the UN Secretary-General has underlined, even wars have rules. International humanitarian law applies in all conflicts, in all circumstances, to state and non-state actors alike. It is not optional. It is obligatory. The protection of civilians is at its core.

The funding announced by the Government on Wednesday amounts to 10 million in additional core funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides essential services to 5.7 million Palestine refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and an additional three million euro to the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) Occupied Palestinian Territories Humanitarian Fund.

It brings Irelands financial support to the people of Palestine in 2023 to 29 million.

Mr Varadkar had earlier branded Tuesdays bombing of the al Ahli hospital in Gaza as an atrocity but said an independent investigation was needed to establish who was responsible, while Mr Martin said the International Criminal Court would have a role in determining whether it was a war crime.

Hamas has blamed an Israeli air strike for the blast that claimed almost 500 lives.

However, Israel claims the devastation was caused by a misfiring rocket launched by Hamas militants and released imagery and communications intercepts it claims support that case.

During the Dail session, opposition politicians also called for a ceasefire.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald called the conflict in Gaza a humanitarian catastrophe (Brian Lawless/PA)

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said the world was witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

Ms McDonald said: Israel has unleashed the weight of its military might upon a beleaguered refugee population. They rain their arsenal of missiles down upon two million impoverished people hemmed into an area half the size of Co Louth.

She said Israel was imposing an apartheid regime in Gaza.

Our hearts break for the loss of Israeli lives on that fateful night of October 7, but be very clear that the Israeli offences against Palestine predate that night of horrific loss which has been roundly and fully condemned.

That condemnation stands in stark contrast to the refusal and failure of our own government in Dublin and in governments across the European Union and the world to condemn Israeli violations of international law.

Ms McDonald said the increased funding to Palestinians did not relieve the Irish government of its primary responsibility to hold Israel accountable.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik said the world had been shocked and horrified to see the unfolding violence in Gaza and Israel.

Ms Back added: Since then, weve seen the horrific escalation of violence and an increasing civilian death toll in Gaza.

Israel has engaged in clear and egregious breaches of international law which have brought about thousands of civilian deaths  again of women and children  in Gaza.

She said Israel must be called to account for war crimes.

Ms Bacik added: Ireland can play a significant role in seeking, crucially, that immediate ceasefire.
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.

Quick Key Facts

The planet has a total of 6,555 national parks.

Northeast Greenland National Park is the biggest national park in the world.

Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States, established in 1872.

On average, there are 10.6 percent more animal species inside a protected area than outside one.

More than 50 million people visit wildlife refuges in the U.S. each year.

In the U.S., more than 800 wilderness areas in 44 states protect over 110 million acres.

Eighty-one rivers in the U.S. covering nearly 2,700 miles have been protected under the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

What Is a Nature Reserve?

Nature reserves are large areas of land that have been set aside to protect and preserve natural habitat and ecosystems for common, rare and endangered animal and plants species and their natural processes.

Designating areas to be protected from human development ensures everyone will have access to these spectacular ecosystems for recreation, wildlife observation and the pure enjoyment of being surrounded by the beauty of nature.

Its important to remember that nature reserves now owned by the U.S. government as public lands were, for thousands of years, the sacred homeland of Native American Tribes. In order to establish these protected areas, the government drove Tribal communities from their rightful territory. Tribal members were the original stewards of these lands and waters, which hold great importance to their culture and livelihoods.

What Are the Benefits of Nature Reserves?

Preserve Natural Habitat

The primary threat to species and the main driver of extinction and biodiversity loss is habitat destruction. Humans have developed land at a rapid pace, but have done a poor job at making sure their land use does not destroy wildlife habitats.

Agricultural expansion is the biggest driver of deforestation, degradation of forests and loss of biodiversity within those forests. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, agriculture is the main threat to more than 85 percent of species facing extinction.

The best way to protect species from habitat loss is to protect their natural environment from agriculture, development, logging, overgrazing, oil and gas drilling and any other activity that disrupts, threatens or destroys their habitat.

Promote and Protect Biodiversity and Genetic Diversity

The proposed Anthropocene Epoch  a new geological time period beginning from the start of significant human impact on the planets ecosystems and geology, including human-caused climate change  is an era that has also been referred to as the sixth mass extinction due to species becoming extinct at an alarming rate.

The protection that nature reserves provide species has, according to studies, led to a 10.6 percent higher average number of species inside a protected area than outside of it. Population numbers of the same species found inside the protected area are also 14.5 percent higher.

Sandhill cranes on a frozen lake at sunrise over the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. Joe Sohm / Visions of America / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Freedom of Movement for Species

Nature reserves provide enough space to allow species to move freely, have a more expanded range and exist without human encroachment and development. This allows them to forage for food, migrate, find mates and reproduce in a wider area, allowing for greater biodiversity and land health, while promoting genetic diversity.

Prevent Habitat Fragmentation

The U.S. is a patchwork of Native, public and private lands. The more large, protected areas we have, the less that animals will have to grapple with their habitats being bisected by human developments such as roads, energy plants and cities.

If you look at a map of the West Coast of the U.S., a myriad of national forests connect to provide extensive, uninterrupted habitat for many species. It truly is a green wonderland.

Forests in Olympic National Park in Washington State. Carmen Martinez Torron / Moment / Getty Images

Prevent the Spread of Disease

When habitat is cleared to make way for commercial agriculture or development, animals are displaced and ecosystems become imbalanced. When wild animals are driven from their homes, they can come into increasing contact with humans, leading to the spread of infectious diseases.

But when ecosystems are left intact to maintain their healthy balance, the spread of the estimated 60 percent of diseases that are zoonotic and infectious can be avoided.

Allow People to Connect With Nature

Spending time in nature and green spaces has been proven to reduce anxiety and depression and improve mental health. Nature reserves give people the opportunity to experience nature in all its splendor, inspiring a feeling of connection to something larger than ourselves  a feeling of awe  that has been found to improve well-being. Who couldnt use some of that?

Visitors enjoy poppy fields by the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in Lancaster, California. FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP via Getty Images

Protect Indigenous Peoples Land Rights

In certain countries, especially those in Latin America, some nature reserves are established to protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Community members own the land and can collect park fees, as well as continue their cultural practices and protect them for future generations.

The ability of nature reserves to preserve and protect the land and its waterways also ensures healthy ecosystems, soil, plants and clean water for the community.

Build Climate Change Resilience

Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane are stored in the silt and soils of our planets oceans, forests and peatlands. The sequestration of these harmful gases means they stay out of the atmosphere, thus preventing the disruption of climate regulation. Razing these natural carbon stores means an enormous amount of greenhouse gases is released, leading to global heating, extreme weather, sea level rise, the melting of Arctic sea ice and a feedback loop of climate change effects.

Preserving natural wildlands allows our planet to maintain its balance of pulling carbon from the air, turning it into oxygen and sequestering what is stored in plants when they break down into the soil.

Types of Nature Reserves

National Parks and Preserves

National parks are created by the government to preserve the natural landscapes that are habitats for wildlife and plants. Home to thriving ecosystems, these wildlands are examples of what nature looks and feels like when it is protected from human development and destruction.

There are a whopping 6,555 national parks on Earth. The five largest are Northeast Greenland National Park, Australias Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park in Mozambique, Namib Naukluft Park in Namibia and Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada.

Northeast Greenland National Park was established in 1974 and preserves 375,291 square miles of Greenlands interior and northeast coast. It has no roads, developments or permanent residents. The park is bigger than all but 29 countries in the world.

Northeast Greenland National Park. Olaf Kruger / imageBROKER / Getty Images

The first national park in the U.S. was Yellowstone, established in 1872 and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant.

National parks are primarily wild animal and plant habitat, but recreation like hiking, kayaking, canoeing and camping are permitted.

National preserves in the U.S., such as Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in Alaska, tend to allow commercial activities like hunting, trapping and oil extraction under specific circumstances. These activities are detrimental to animals, as they bring pollution to otherwise unpolluted areas, destroy habitat and the noise and light pollution interfere with foraging, breeding and hibernation.

National Wildlife Refuges

The first national wildlife refuge in the U.S. was Pelican Island in Washington State, established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903. The purpose of wildlife refuges is to conserve wildlife, fish and plants, as well as their habitats and ecosystems. In the U.S., they are managed by the Fish & Wildlife Service.

The U.S. wildlife refuge system has grown to more than 560 sites, 500-plus of which allow activities like hiking, canoeing, kayaking, wildlife viewing and fishing. More than 50 million people visit wildlife refuges in the U.S. each year.

A small herd of American bison in the National Bison Range in Montana. Photo by James Keith / Moment / Getty Images

National Conservation Areas

National conservation areas in the U.S. are similar to national parks in that they are lands that have been set aside by Congress for people to enjoy now and for generations to come. Part of the Bureau of Land Managements system of National Conservation Lands, they are designed for recreation and also feature historical, scientific and cultural sites.

Examples of the 905 national conservation areas that cover more than 37 million acres across more than a dozen states include Californias Lost Coast, King Range National Conservation Area and Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area on the Oregon Coast.

Wilderness Areas

Wilderness areas are lands set aside to preserve pristine areas, whether they be part of public lands, national wildlife refuges or national parks. In the U.S., more than 800 of these wildlands in 44 states protect over 110 million acres.

Wild and Scenic Rivers

Wild and scenic rivers are those that have been preserved in their free-flowing, natural state, without dams or modifications of any kind. These rivers allow fish and wildlife to use the stream as their ancestors have for millenia. They help increase climate change resilience and protect biodiversity.

The U.S. 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act has protected 81 rivers, covering nearly 2,700 miles, including Oregons Rogue River and the Rio Grande, which flows through Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico, where it empties into the Gulf.

Oregons scenic Rogue River flows about 215 miles from the Cascade Range to the Pacific Ocean. Bob Pool / Photographers Choice RF / Getty Images

National Seashores and Lakeshores

In the U.S., shorelines and surrounding islands are safeguarded when they are designated as national seashores and lakeshores. National seashores and lakeshores are protected wildlife areas, as well as public lands. While they include beaches for recreation, they also extend inland to natural areas like forests, marshes and wetlands. Some of them feature historic estates and lighthouses.

There are 10 national seashores in America along the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, each with its own unique combination of aesthetic beauty, wildlife and ecosystems.

Some of the national seashores located on the East Coast are Cape Cod National Seashore, designated in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy; Fire Island in New York; Assateague Island on the coast of Maryland and Virginia, which is home to two herds of small wild horses that freely roam the beaches; and Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a 70-mile stretch of wild, protected beaches in the Outer Banks of North Carolina that is known for its lighthouses, strong currents, storms, surfing and shipwrecks.

The Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts. Thomas Roche / Moment / Getty Images

The West Coasts lone national seashore is Californias Point Reyes. Located on a peninsula in Marin County, this Pacific Ocean haven is home to almost half of the bird species in North America, as well as nearly 20 percent of the plant species in California. The San Andreas Fault separates Point Reyes National Seashore from nearly all of the continental U.S. Tule elk, once abundant in the meadows and prairies of Point Reyes, roam freely in this unique nature reserve. This National Park Service site has continued to allow dairies and ranches to operate within its boundaries, including more than 5,000 cows.

Any natural freshwater lake can be designated as a national lakeshore, but all four in America are on the Great Lakes.

Seashores and lakeshores are important habitats for nesting sea turtles, sea birds, sea lions, seals, crabs, clams, scallops, sea anemones, starfish, worms, sand dollars, insects and microorganisms.

National Trails

In the U.S., there are three types of national trails designated by Congress: historic, recreational and scenic. Examples include the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, which starts in Springer Mountain, Georgia, and goes all the way up to Katahdin, Maine, traversing 14 states along the way, and the Pony Express National Historic Trail, which goes through eight states, beginning in St. Joseph, Missouri, and moving across the Old West to Sacramento, California.

The Appalachian National Scenic Trail with a view of the Smoky Mountains on Max Patch Bald Mountain in North Carolina. Jon Lovette / Photodisc / Getty Images

There are nearly 1,300 land- and water-based national recreation trails in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. They range from backcountry trails to rail and urban trails and can be found here.

National trails cross through the countrys varied terrain in its wild state, and the National Park Service encourages everyone to develop, protect and maintain them.

Challenges Facing Nature Reserves

Human Activities

All over the world, nature reserves are under threat from human activities that are illegal within their boundaries, such as poaching, mining, logging, agriculture, human settlements and industrial development.

Other human activities, such as the introduction of invasive species, pollution and climate change, also pose threats to nature reserves, even if they originate outside their borders.

Connectivity

A lack of connectivity between nature reserves and other protected areas is another challenge, since large species like bears, bison, big cats, elk and caribou need extensive swaths of land to be able to roam freely to find mates and food sources.

In order to remedy this issue, many more wildlife corridors need to be constructed to allow the free movement of species between protected areas of habitat.

A wildlife crossing bridge over a highway in Alberta, Canada. Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Funding

Funding is often an issue with nature reserves, since establishing and managing them takes money, something not many countries can afford. Lack of funding is an especially acute problem for marine protected areas and developing countries.

Novel sources of revenue must be found for the establishment of new nature reserves, as well as for the maintenance of those that already exist.

Management

The management of nature reserves is necessary for ensuring they maintain their status as protected areas, keep human activities in check and are monitored for habitat health. Without effective management, human threats and climate change can erode the vitality and biodiversity of nature reserves.

What Can We Do to Support Nature Reserves?

As a Society?

As a society, we can rethink our relationship with nature in general, not as something that provides resources for us  like water, food, recreation and habitat  but as something we coexist with and are stewards of.

We can become more aware of the wildlife that surrounds us, adopting a mindset of asking what they need and what we can do to help provide that.

Human products and activities like vehicles, industrial activities, oil extraction, construction, shipping and bright lights disrupt animals in their habitat; nature reserves are places where wildlife should be protected from those activities.

In Our Own Lives?

There are many things we can do in our own lives to help protect nature reserves, but it starts with reducing our ecological footprint and conserving the habitats around us.

Plastic has caused great damage to habitats all over the world, and the less we use it, the less demand there will be. Try not to use anything you wouldnt want to see on the forest floor because the more things like plastic water bottles, straws, cutlery and plastic bags are used, the more likely they are to end up in waterways, the ocean and pristine areas like nature reserves.

We can organize trips to nature reserves near us, join conservationist groups, use books and phone apps to identify animals and plants in the wild and participate in citizen science projects.

When we visit nature reserves, we can be respectful of our surroundings by picking up trash and limiting noise and light pollution; not touching or bringing home native plants, wildflowers or wild animals; and not leaving human food for wildlife to find. Consuming human food disrupts their natural microbiome and can adversely affect their health.

Be aware of your surroundings and respect wildlife and their habitat. Youre a visitor, this is their home.

Takeaway

Nature reserves are there for everyone to enjoy, but are especially intended to preserve the natural habitats of native plants and animals and protect them from human activities. Support the creation of new nature reserves, the establishment of corridors to connect those that already exist and be respectful of them when you visit.




Livestock group foresees minimal increases in Malaysia's chicken prices once price ceiling lifted

A group representing livestock farmers in Malaysia expects minimal hikes in the price of chicken once the country's price ceiling on chicken is lifted next year.

Jeffrey Ng, adviser to the Federation of Livestock Farmers' Associations of Malaysia (FLFAM), said this is partly due to the declining price of chicken feed, which now sells at between RM123 (US$25.92) to RM130 (US$27.40) per 50kg.

"A rise in chicken prices is guaranteed (after the ceiling is removed) because the current price ceiling is lower than our production costs," said Ng. "If it doesn't rise, farmers will be at a loss. Who would want to farm chickens anymore if that is the case?

"However, we expect chicken prices to stabilise and balance out because the price of chicken feed has gone down a bit. This month alone it has decreased by RM2 (US$0.42) for a 50kg bag, and we're hoping that it decreases further.

"If it does, then that means our production and operation costs will reduce again," he told FMT, adding that a 50kg bag of chicken feed sold for about RM80 just three years ago.

Ng said chicken prices cannot go up too much as it will lead to an oversupply in the market, as no one would be purchasing the birds if prices were exorbitant.

In tabling the 2024 budget, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the price ceiling for eggs and chicken will be lifted. He said the details on this will be announced by the agriculture and food security ministry.

The current price ceiling set by the government for a standard chicken is RM9.40 (US$1.98) per kilogramme, while the price for eggs are Grade A (45 sen per egg), Grade B (43 sen) and Grade C (41 sen) in the peninsula.

In Langkawi, Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan, the maximum price for both items differ according to the respective zones and districts.

Meanwhile, Ng said FLFAM met with government officials to discuss the suggested prices when the price ceiling is removed.

"We have given our suggestions, and now we wait for the government to decide," he said. "We ask the government to help farmers for a while (until prices stabilise). We don't want farmers to end up registering losses when the prices are floated."



- FMT
Arizona rancher says MS-13 gang members came to his door

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Arizona rancher Jim Chilton sounds the alarm about drug cartels trafficking drugs through his property.

An Arizona rancher is urging officials to continue building a border wall after MS-13 gang members showed up at his front door when his wife was home.

Jim Chilton joined "Fox & Friends" Monday to discuss how the border crisis has directly impacted his ranch and urged the Biden administration and Congress to secure the southern border.

"The first thing you have to do is secure the border, finish the wall."

Chilton told Steve Doocy that drug traffickers have "taken over" the trails leading to his ranch.

"It's everybody now coming through is in camouflage carpet shoes with cartel scouts on our mountains guiding them through.  They're never seen by people. They just move through the country. About 20% are packing drugs, according to an intelligence officer of the Border Patrol in our ranch area," he explained.

AT LEAST 64,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS EVADED BORDER PATROL IN OCTOBER, 205,000 APPREHENSIONS

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Chilton said he's seen a significant increase in drug smugglers  sometimes toting guns  crossing his land and has found the bodies of migrants who died on his property trying to make it into the U.S.

"We've been here 35 years now, and it's a wonderful ranch, except we are very ticked off that all these drug packers are coming to my ranch to poison our American people," the owner of Chilton Ranch, told Fox News Digital last week.

He said MS-13 gang members showed up on his property while his wife was home, asking if they could use a phone. Chilton said his wife refused, but gave the group food.

"She went and made lunches for them. It was kinda scary. That's just life on the border."

ARIZONA RANCHER MAKES DESPERATE PLEA TO BIDEN AFTER FINDING TOTAL OF 16 DEAD MIGRANTS ON PROPERTY

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Despite the crisis, Chilton told Doocy he plans to stay.

"I am a fifth-generation rancher, and I'm tough. I am going to stay on the ranch. We have a family cemetery, and I'll be on top of the ground or below the ground. Many of our neighbors have left. They couldn't take the pressure."

Chilton detailed two break-ins that occurred at his home, including one where intruders stole guns, cameras and computers.

"It was outrageous, just outrageous.  We see the humanitarian crisis," Chilton said. "The real truth is a wall can save lives."

He said he's installed drinking fountains on the property so that migrants will not come to the house looking for water.

Video

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Nearly 4 million migrants have crossed into the U.S. since Biden took office, according to CBP . Close to 1 million of those migrants have traveled through Arizona.

Chilton blames the influx on the unfinished border wall that Biden halted in 2021.

"Congress needs to appropriate the money to secure the border," Chilton said. "If there was a wall, people wouldnt be losing their lives on my ranch and other ranches."

Fox News' Megan Myers contributed to this report

Elizabeth Heckman is a digital production assistant with Fox News.
Lujiazui Photo:VCG

Since 2012,there has been a succession of new thoughts and proposals emanating from Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and the CPC leadership. It has been a highly fertile and thought-provoking period. In rough chronological order it has included the Chinese Dream, Belt and Road Initiative, AIIB, new concept of major power relations, community with a shared future for mankind, and dual circulation. Between 2012 and 2016, this flow of new thinking captured the attention not only of China but much of the world. From 2017, Trump's emergence on the global stage provided a counter-narrative that succeeded in stealing some of China's thunder. But this did not stop the flow of creativity from Beijing.The 20th CPC National Congress has provided us with a further rich vein of new thinking.Perhaps the most important and consequential idea is that of Chinese modernization. Modernization has long been a critical concept in China's development. Its origins lie in China's failure to industrialize at the same time as Britain, which, as other European countries followed in Britain's tracks, was to leave it historically stranded - backward, vulnerable, and poverty-stricken. As a result, China embarked on industrialisation - or, to use a related term with a broader meaning, modernization - well over 150 years later than Britain. The great task facing China after 1949 was modernization - with the bar, and template, set by the West, which by then had become a distant speck on the development horizon, such was its progress.It meant that China had no alternative but to adopt the Western paradigm for modernization. After 1978, China relentlessly pursued the task of modernization, with the US acting as the main influence. In important respects, nonetheless, the Chinese model was to remain distinctive. How could it not have done? China, as a latecomer, competing with Western countries that were much further down the road, had to make things up as it went along. However much it borrowed, it still had to invent its own path. Chinese modernization was a hybrid, part Western and part indigenous.But China is now in a very different position. It may still be primarily a developing country, but parts of the economy are already on a par with Silicon Valley. The latest congress set the goal of China reaching the same level of development as middle-ranking European countries by 2035. That will mean some features of China will be well ahead of these countries by 2035, and in other respects it will still lag behind: China is a "continent," and transforming a continent is a very uneven process. The big takeaway here is that China has, in important respects, now arrived at the leading edge of modernity. Modernity, so long a creature of the West, no longer belongs to the West.Take the example of common prosperity. Western-style globalization has led to growing inequality in many countries, with China being no exception. China's Gini coefficient is more or less the same as that of the US. This cannot be acceptable in a socialist country. Under the aegis of common prosperity, a debate has begun on how to reduce inequality. There is a similar debate in the West but it has had little effect. Indeed, inequality has continued to grow. It has become one of the great questions of our time. If China can find a way of successfully addressing inequality, in the way it has conquered absolute poverty, such a fairer and more inclusive modernity will have an enormous global impact.Or take COVID-19. China and the West tackled it in very different ways with very different outcomes. China drew on its Confucian and communist traditions of social cohesion combined with an extensive use of digital technology and vaccination, while the West has relied very heavily on vaccination. China's results were much superior, with far less deaths and infections.A new type of Chinese modernization depends on a new kind of balance in the relationship between Western and Chinese input. China must place greater stress on its own intellectual and cultural capacity and become less dependent on American influences. How is this to be achieved? There is a powerful emphasis in Xi's speech on the importance of producing many new Chinese experts in the fields of science and technology in order to promote Chinese modernization. Likewise, he stresses the need for a great expansion of the Chinese university sector.But what kind of Chinese universities? There has been a strong tendency to ape American universities, to regard them as a template for what Chinese universities should be like. Sure, China can learn a great deal from the best US universities, but Chinese-style modernization requires different kinds of universities, experts, and ways of thinking. The same applies to academic disciplines. Academic economics in China, for example, pays too much respect to, and has been too influenced by, US academic economics.Chinese modernization is an enormous intellectual challenge. A new kind of modernity requires new ways of thinking. Modernization 1.0 must progressively be replaced by modernization 2.0. Chinese modernization will still be a hybrid, but the Chinese component will be far greater.The author was until recently a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University. He is a visiting professor at the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University and a senior fellow at the China Institute, Fudan University. Follow him on twitter @martjacques. [email protected]
Taiwans Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. July 11 on forming a strategic partnership to explore business opportunities stemming from an upgrade to the islands F-16 A/B fighter jets.

The two companies said they hope to jointly carry out the refitting project and component manufacturing in Taiwan.

The memorandum was signed by AIDC President Butch Hsu and Ana M. Wugofski, Lockheed vice president of international business development, at the Farnborough International Airshow in the U.K.

AIDC spokesman Mike Lee said that as Lockheed is the original manufacturer of the F-16s, the inking of the agreement would allow the retrofitting to be carried out in Taiwan if Lockheed wins the bid for the project. This would create a lot of jobs in Taiwan, he added.

According to Lee, Lockheed recently sent personnel to Taiwan to evaluate AIDC and concluded that it is the only aerospace company in Taiwan with the capacity to carry out the upgrading project.

The state-owned AIDC said it is actively seeking the support of the ROC Ministry of Economic Affairs for the establishment of the required maintenance center and joint component production.

We hope to combine the efforts of affiliated domestic industries and build a world-class F-16 maintenance center, so as to elevate Taiwans ability to conduct its own repairs, Lee said.

Taiwan Today

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Chinas Minister of Defense Liang Guanglie on Wednesday met with Timothy Keating,holiday inn express horseshoe casino vice chief of New Zealand Defence Force, and they pledged to further military cooperation.

Liang said bilateral military ties have seen continuous development, as state-to-state relations have maintained sound development momentum.

He said China will work with New Zealand to explore new ways and areas for practical military cooperation, so as to contribute to regional security and bilateral ties.

Keating, who is here to attend the fifth strategic dialogue between the two militaries, said the two sides scored consensus in this round of talks.

New Zealand will push forward practical cooperation with the Chinese side to boost the friendship to a new high, said Keating.

The China-New Zealand strategic dialogue mechanism was established in 2007.

Xinhua

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China will fully support Russia in its hosting the leaders summit of the Group of 20 (G20) economies next year,blackjack oyna free top bet online a senior Chinese official said here Friday.

Speaking at a press conference after a meeting with the Russian sherpa of the G20 Ksenia Yudaeva, Cui Tiankai, Chinese vice foreign minister and also one of the G20 sherpas, said China will give its full support to the summit and all related activities.

Russia will take over the presidency of the G20 in December and host the leaders meeting next year.

Cui said the G20 serves as an important platform for global economic governance and contributes to a strong, sustainable and balanced world economy.

As two major members of the G20, China and Russia have maintained fruitful coordination and cooperation in tackling the international financial crisis over the past years, Cui said, adding that both countries agreed to step up cooperation and advance common interests within the framework of the G20.

The G20, whose member economies account for 90 percent of global output and two thirds of the worlds population, has become the primary forum for economic and financial cooperation.

The G20 groups Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the Republic of Korea, Turkey, Britain, the United States as well as the European Union.

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Contractor sought for 'emergency' demolition of Tramway Terrace

The Department of Infrastructure (DOI) are asking for Contractors registered with the Construction Isle of Man Accreditation Scheme to provide a quotation to carry out the emergency demolition of 1-3 Tramway Terrace, Douglas.

Since the Isle of Man Government took ownership of the building in 2018, a regular programme of monitoring has taken place along with a range of repairs and remedial work.

However, following a recent inspection after recent stormy weather led to a structural assessment and subsequent demolition recommendation. This view was reinforced by a separate inspection undertaken by external consultants.

Demolition will take place as soon as a contractor is appointed. A propping scaffold is in place to help secure the building in the short-term, and the footpath in front of the buildings and the car park to the side have been closed as a precautionary measure.

Infrastructure Minister Tim Crookall MHK said: The decision to demolish has been reached by taking into account specialist advice and the Department is now looking for a firm to carry out the work straightaway.

This development is, of course, regrettable due to the buildings age and relationship with the historic horse tram operation. I would add that the historic stable block to the rear of the building is unaffected by the demolition plan and is expected to remain in use for many years to come.

Companies interested in tendering for the work should visit the Isle of Man Government procurement portal.
Rapper Pras Michel, one-third of the legendary hip-hop group The Fugees, accused his lawyer from a recent federal criminal case of using AI in his closing arguments. Ars Technica reports that the Ghetto Supastar artist claims his one-time attorney, David Kenner, used an AI program with which the lawyer potentially had a financial interest. Pras, whose legal name is Prakazrel Samuel Michel, was found guilty in April of 10 counts of conspiring and acting as an unregistered foreign government agent and faces up to 20 years in prison. The rapper is seeking a new trial.

Pras motion for a new trial says Kenner used an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) program to draft the closing argument, ignoring the best arguments and conflating the charged schemes, and he then publicly boasted that the AI program turned hours or days of legal work into seconds. That quote was pulled from a promotional article for EyeLevel.AI, litigation assistance technology that lists an entity called CaseFile Connect as a launch partner. The motion says CaseFile Connects principal address is the same as Kenners law firm.

It is now apparent that Kenner and his co-counsel appear to have had an undisclosed financial stake in the AI program, and they experimented with it during Michels trial so they could issue a press release afterward promoting the programa clear conflict of interest, Pras motion alleges.

Attorney David Kenner (Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images)

The Fugee claims Kenners use of the AI tool led him to make embarrassing musical misattributions in his closing arguments. It accuses the lawyer of attributing the lyrics Every single day, every time I pray, I will be missing you to Pras group, The Fugees. (That line was from Puff Daddy and Faith Evanss 1997 Biggie Smalls tribute Ill Be Missing You.) The motion also alleges Kenner credited Michels 1998 solo hit Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are) to The Fugees.

In addition to the AI accusations, the motion alleges that Kenner was ineffective and that his actions severely prejudiced the defense. It says the attorney failed to familiarize himself with the charged statutes, causing him to overlook critical weaknesses in the Governments case. In addition, it accuses Kenner of failing to understand the facts or allegations while outsourcing trial prep and strategy to contract attorneys at a friends e-discovery company (among other allegations).

Pras was found guilty in April of funneling money from Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho to Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign. Prosecutors insisted Pras donated the money for Low, while the rapper argued he was only trying to help the businessman take a photo with Obama. Pras then allegedly tried to quash a DOJ investigation and influence an extradition case.

If Pras complaint sounds familiar, it parallels the ChatGPT lawyer Steven Schwartz, who cited fictional cases as an erroneous precedent in a legal document. Schwartz, his associate Peter LoDuca and their law firm Levidow, Levidow and Oberman were fined $5,000 for having abandoned their responsibilities in the case. Schwartz claimed he used the chatbot to supplement his research while insisting he was unaware of the possibility that [ChatGPTs] content could be false.
Oppo's first two horizontally folding phones caught our attention with their shorter 9:8.4 "golden" aspect ratio, but with the brand new Find N3 (aka OnePlus Open in select markets), the company sided with a more conventional design, which is backed by some new software tricks to boost the multitasking experience. Not to mention an upgraded set of Hasselblad-branded rear cameras, a vastly improved folding durability, and the alert slider inherited from OnePlus  as we've already seen on the recent Find N3 Flip.

The new foldable AMOLED display on the Oppo Find N3 comes in at 7.8 inches wide, with a resolution set at 2,240 x 2,268, which ends up being a pixel density of 426 ppi. As far as crease goes, it's even less visible than before, so it's definitely fair to call it "virtually crease-free" this time round. The more interesting feature here is the new self-healing coating, which can apparently smooth out scuffs to keep the panel in pristine condition for a little longer.

With the increased body height, the Find N3's cover display features a more familiar  and arguably more practical  20:9 aspect ratio (though it's still shorter than, say, the Xiaomi Mix Fold 3). Here we have a flat 6.3-inch, 2,484 x 1,116 AMOLED panel (431 ppi), and much like the flexible screen, it supports 1,440Hz PWM dimming for less eye fatigue, 1-120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, up to 1,400 nits in High Brightness Mode and up to 2,800 nits peak. This is noteworthy, considering that many earlier foldable phones have weaker display properties on the inner screen.

Oppo

The Find N3 is built with Oppo's third-generation Flexion hinge, which consists of zirconium-based liquid metal for compactness, as well as the company's self-developed aircraft-grade steel for strength. The flexible screen is also backed by carbon fiber support plates for structural strength, making the device "36-percent more resistant to warping than past-generation foldables." Better yet, Oppo got TUV Rheinland to certify the Find N3's 1,000,000-fold durability, which is more than double that of the Find N2's "mere" 400,000 folds, let alone the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5's 200,000 folds. The fold counts remain at 100,000 for both the 50C (122F ) and -20C (-4F) tests. While there's no Ingress Protection Rating here, Oppo has applied a weather-sealing process to make the Find N3 splash-proof.

Photography is also a significant upgrade here. Find N3 is the first smartphone to pack Sony's 48-megapixel (4:3), 1/1.43-inch LYTIA-T808 sensor (it's actually 52 megapixels, 1/1.35 inches in full  20-percent larger than the main rival's). This is apparently the first sensor to feature a two-layer transistor pixel structure, which is a cunning trick to let each pixel receive more light, thus more image detail. Sony goes as far as claiming that this chip "rivals the high-quality 1-inch type sensor." Additionally, this f/1.7, 24mm-equivalent main camera comes with optical image stabilization.

There's also a 64-megapixel, f/2.6 periscope telephoto camera with an unnamed 1/2-inch sensor  one that's apparently three times larger than what you'd get on a main competitor's foldable. With this 70mm-equivalent lens, you get 3x optical zoom and 6x "lossless" zoom (by cropping), both of which are assisted by optical stabilization via a floating prism structure. You can use the same camera in Hasselblad Portrait mode.

Last but not least, the 48-megapixel, 14mm equivalent ultra-wide camera packs a Sony IMX5811/2-inch sensor, which Oppo claims to be 130-percent larger than key rivals. It comes with an f/2.2 lens, a 114-degree field of view and macro shot support down to 4cm.

Oppo

To complement the photography hardware upgrade, the Find N3 packs a new Oppo Computational Photography (OCP) feature, which captures the original brightness information for fine-tuning each HDR shot "pixel by pixel." The result is supposedly "a more natural image with rich highlights and shadows." This sounds somewhat like what the now-retired MariSilicon X imaging neural processor would have handled in the past, but Oppo has yet to dive into the technical details on OCP. On a related note, the ProXDR display mode in the gallery app leverages OCP details to optimize the screens peak brightness, in order to make the photos pop; but you can also long-press the ProXDR button to see the photos as-is.

For video calls, you also have the option to use either the external 32-megapixel f/2.4 selfie camera (1/3.14-inch, 22mm equivalent), or the internal 20-megapixel f/2.2 counterpart (1/4-inch, 20mm equivalent).

As for the remaining core phone specs, the Find N3 is unsurprisingly packing Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, along with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, a dual SIM tray, NFC, a triple-speaker system (with spatial audio support) and a larger 4,800mAh battery. With 67W SuperVOOC charging support, the device reaches over 80-percent charge in 30 minutes, or a full charge in 42 minutes. You'll find the new alert slider (silent, vibrate and ring) located right next to the volume rocker, which is above the side-mounted fingerprint reader. The whole package comes in at 239 grams heavy and 5.8mm thick when opened  not record-breaking numbers but still impressive in this category.

On the software side, Oppo justified its shift in aspect ratio by adding some handy multitasking features. In this ColorOS 13.2 (based on Android 13), the new "Global Taskbar" offers an "App Library" button on the far left, which toggles a pop-up menu for quickly launching an app or even dragging it into a split-screen view. There's also a "File Pocket" button next to that, which is another pop-up menu showing your recent files, images and clipboard items, so that you can easily drag and drop into an active app.

Oppo

Another powerful multitasking feature is "Boundless View," which is basically split-screen on steroids. By tapping the top bar above your desired app in split-screen mode, you can click on "Expand View" which then automatically widens said app, but still leaving a small portion of the other app in view, thus letting you quickly swipe between apps. Similarly, you can also have up to three apps in this horizontal split-screen view  just drag the third app from the dock to the center of the screen. By expanding all three apps in this split screen, you'll be creating a "15-inch Boundless View" layout, and you can get an interactive overview with a four-finger pinch at any time. Much like the usual split-screen mode, you can save these Boundless View app combos for quick access on the home screen.

My favorite handy features from before, namely two-finger split screen (swiping down the middle of the screen) and "FlexForm Capture" (partly open the phone while in the camera app), are here to stay. As a bonus, Oppo promises four years of software updates and five years of security updates for the Find N3.

Oppo

The Oppo Find N3, available in "champagne gold" and "classic black," will be rolling out to global markets soon, with pre-orders starting in Singapore on October 20th. The damage is S$2,399 (around US$1,745) which, to our surprise, is a big jump from the Find N2's price for the same 16GB RAM and 512GB storage configuration. The China version is offered as a premium kit, which is asking for 12,999 yuan or about US$1,777, and it comes with a kickstand case, a car charger and other accessories. Luckily for folks over there, they also have a more affordable 12GB RAM and 512GB storage variant for just 9,999 yuan (about US$1,367), but this is still a lot pricier than last year's base model. It'll be interesting to see how the supposedly near-identical OnePlus Open will differentiate itself from its Oppo twin, be it pricing or software.
COP28 Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum announces partnerships with Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Economic Forum, Asian Development Bank, Africa Finance Corporation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and XPRIZE.

Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum announces partnerships with Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Economic Forum, Asian Development Bank, Africa Finance Corporation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and XPRIZE. Collaborating for the first time on the same platform, the Forum's partners will represent a diverse range of regions and sectors, ensuring an inclusive global outlook.

This coalition will coordinate strategies on how the private sector can help address the financing gap of over USD 3 trillion required annually to achieve net-zero emissions, support climate adaptation, reverse nature loss and restore biodiversity.

required annually to achieve net-zero emissions, support climate adaptation, reverse nature loss and restore biodiversity. Together, this coalition will advance the Forum's mission to bridge the gap between ambition and action, fostering transformative and inclusive climate initiatives for a sustainable future.

(Informacion remitida por la empresa firmante)

ABU DHABI, UAE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The inaugural COP28 Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum, hosted by the COP28 Presidency on 1 and 2 December 2023 in parallel with the world leaders World Climate Action Summit, has announced key partnerships with leading global organizations, joining forces to drive global climate and nature action.

The Forum will convene 500 business and philanthropy leaders alongside policymakers to accelerate solutions and drive bolder results. This first of a kind multi-stakeholder engagement strategy for climate and nature is driven by the UAE's ambition to host an inclusive climate conference that marshals full and broad support with engagement from all regions of the world.

The Forum is proud to partner with major global delivery partners including Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development  Network of Foundations Working for Development (OECD- NetFWD), World Economic Forum  Giving to Amplify Earth Action, Asian Development Bank, Africa Finance Corporation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and XPRIZE. These global partners offer distinct expertise and resources to coordinate strategies for the private sector to help address the annual financing gap of over USD 3 trillion necessary for achieving net-zero emissions, reversing nature loss, and restoring biodiversity. This signifies a new era of collaborative climate action guided by the COP28 Action Agenda, which includes fast-tracking a just and orderly energy transition; fixing climate finance; putting nature, lives, and livelihoods at the heart of climate action; and underpinning everything with full inclusivity.

COP28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber said, "Businesses and philanthropists must play leading roles in meeting net zero pathways and delivering sustainable development, and through the Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum at COP28, they will have a platform to do so. The BPCF is a key part of our Presidency's agenda to help deliver concrete outcomes from the private and philanthropic sectors. We are committed to hosting a fully inclusive COP, and it would be impossible to do this without the vital input of our business and philanthropy communities."

COP28 Special Representative for Business & Philanthropy, Badr Jafar commented, "Working together to create a truly inclusive action platform, the Forum's partners will be instrumental in collectively turning our aspirations into actionable outcomes for climate and nature. Their broad expertise, resources, and unwavering commitment is what is required to harness the true potential of both business and philanthropy, working alongside an enabling policy environment, to generate a multiplier effect on impact towards increasingly urgent climate and nature goals."

Collaborating across the Forum's transformative agenda, the Forum's strategic partner Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) will help bring together global leaders to align industry, investment, and country roadmaps to showcase the progress achieved and chart the path for expediting and expanding these efforts.

Highlighting the importance of the Forum, SMI CEO, Jennifer Jordan-Saifi, added, "Building on the foundations of the SMI's Terra Carta Action Forums this platform will ensure, for the first time, meaningful integration of the private sector into the official world leaders' program at the UNFCCC COP. As we accelerate action to 2030, this Forum sets a bold new standard for future COPs with a commitment to monitoring and showcasing global private sector progress. This Forum will be the 'must attend' event at COP28."

The Forum's partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, underscores the development finance sector's commitment to green investments. Makhtar Diop, IFC Managing Director stated, "IFC is the leading global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. We create investable climate project pipelines and mobilize institutional capital at scale to accelerate a resilient and inclusive transition in emerging markets. We're delighted to serve as a delivery partner in the Forum."

Commenting on the partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which works with over 100 countries, Head of the OECD's Networks, Partnerships and Gender Division, Bathylle Missika added, "The OECD is committed to raising international awareness around philanthropy's contribution to climate adaptation and mitigation. That's why we are honored to be named as a delivery partner of the COP28 Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum, where we will continue the work started at the New Global Financing Pact and position the collective voice of philanthropy."

Since 1971, the World Economic Forum has been promoting and driving multi-stakeholder engagement across all sectors. Brge Brende, President of WEF commented, "The World Economic Forum launched its Giving to Amplify Earth Action (GAEA) initiative to turbocharge corporate and public action across climate and nature by bringing the catalytic tools of philanthropy into the conversation. We are honored to be an official delivery partner of COP28's Business & Philanthropy Climate and look forward to working together to unlock ambition and action for people and planet".

"The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is committed to enhancing collaboration between philanthropy, business and the public sector in order to enhance climate action across Asia and the Pacific," said Woochong Um, Managing Director General of ADB. "We are excited about being a delivery partner to the COP28 Business and Philanthropy Climate Forum. Partnerships are critical for ADB to deliver on our USD 100 billion climate finance ambition by 2030."

The African Finance Corporation emphasizes the importance of climate resilience across particularly vulnerable regions within the Global South. Samaila Zubairu, President & CEO of AFC, added, "Our collaboration must advance often-overlooked natural capital solutions emerging from Africa, which hold the key to sustainable, environmentally conscious development not only for our region, but also for progressing global efforts to net zero. This Forum is critical to galvanizing the urgent action needed if we are to transform our global economy in a way that ensures a balanced coexistence with nature, building a promising future for generations to come."

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stated that "the business and philanthropic community is uniquely positioned to catalyze innovation and find solutions to address climate change, including mitigation and adaptation. We believe that the COP28's Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum will inspire and encourage bold action to overcome the climate challenges for the most vulnerable communities that are already feeling the impacts, especially smallholder farmers."

XPRIZE, an established global leader in incentivizing crowd-sourced, scientifically viable solutions to humanity's greatest challenges, injects the spirit of competition, inspiring breakthrough solutions that can reshape the climate narrative. XPRIZE CEO, Anousheh Ansaricommented, "XPRIZE has long been dedicated to incentivizing the creation of innovative solutions to our climate challenges, and we're excited to participate in this Forum to set bold new moonshots at a critical turning point for our planet. The Business and Philanthropy Climate Forum offers an incredible opportunity to discover new ways to collaborate, and XPRIZE looks forward to accelerating positive change together as we continue building a more equitable and abundant future for all."

Together, these partners advance the Forum's mission to bridge the gap between ambition and action, fostering transformative and inclusive climate initiatives for a sustainable future.

The Forum will be held across both the COP28 Blue Zone and Green Zone, at the beginning of the two-week COP28 program that runs from 30 November to 12 December. The two-week agenda for COP28 was developed in consultation with stakeholders from around the world in a six-week open consultation  the first such approach taken by a COP Presidency.

For interview requests and other media enquiries related to the COP28 Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum, please contact media@bpcforum.org

Notes to Editors COP28 UAE:

COP28 UAE will take place at Expo City Dubai from November 30- December 12, 2023 . The Conference is expected to convene over 70,000 participants, including heads of state, government officials, international industry leaders, private sector representatives, academics, experts, youth, and non-state actors.

UAE will take place at Expo City Dubai from . The Conference is expected to convene over 70,000 participants, including heads of state, government officials, international industry leaders, private sector representatives, academics, experts, youth, and non-state actors. As mandated by the Paris Climate Agreement, COP28 UAE will deliver the first ever Global Stocktake  a comprehensive evaluation of progress against climate goals.

UAE will deliver the first ever Global Stocktake  a comprehensive evaluation of progress against climate goals. The UAE will lead a process for all parties to agree upon a clear roadmap to accelerate progress through a pragmatic global energy transition and a "leave no one behind" approach to inclusive climate action."

The Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum is COP28's private sector engagement platform to convene and engage business leaders and philanthropists from around the world.

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Archivo - COMUNICADO: nShift: Four steps toward sustainable shipping - NSHIFT/PR NEWSWIRE - Archivo

(Informacion remitida por la empresa firmante)

Introduction of "nShift Insurance" supports the 57% of online shoppers who expect full refunds on damaged goods

LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Some 57% of online shoppers expect a full refund if their package arrives damaged.[1] With over half of consumers receiving damaged goods each year, online retailers risk significant revenue loss to replace and reship those items if accidents happen during the delivery process. [2]

nShift, the global leader in parcel and delivery management software, and Cover Genius, the insurtech for embedded protection, today introduced nShift Insurance, which can provide shipping insurance for one billion shipments from European merchants.

The embedded protection solution, enabled by Cover Genius' global distribution platform, XCover , allows nShift's online retailers, brands and webshops to replace items that are lost, stolen, or damaged in delivery. This will help them deliver better service to their customers, build loyalty, and encourage repeat purchasing.

Online retailers and carrier companies typically take great care to ensure that customers receive their items in great condition. But accidents happen.

nShift Insurance addresses this problem and is available starting with nShift Transsmart as of today. Through XCover, the insurance offers vendors and shippers:

Simplified, carrier-agnostic, global protection covering available carriers

covering available carriers Greater customer loyalty through a seamless claims process that has proven to reduce end-to-end claims finalization

through a seamless claims process that has proven to reduce end-to-end claims finalization Cost and time reductions - Cover Genius' streamlined approach to protection is up to 20% cheaper and up to 20 days faster than insurance from logistics carriers

- Cover Genius' streamlined approach to protection is up to 20% cheaper and up to 20 days faster than insurance from logistics carriers No minimum wait times - XCover has reduced claim times making it possible to start investigations without having to wait for carriers marking parcels as lost or damaged

- XCover has reduced claim times making it possible to start investigations without having to wait for carriers marking parcels as lost or damaged Instant payouts - XCover aims to complete 95% of claims within three days of claim filing

- XCover aims to complete 95% of claims within three days of claim filing Reimbursements equal to the full retail value of lost, stolen, or damaged goods

of lost, stolen, or damaged goods Tailored protection options that can be attached in-path or at an account level

options that can be attached in-path or at an account level Convenience  fully embedded into the merchant's working processes (such as booking and label printing)

Maarten Tops, Transsmart Product Director at nShift, said, "nShift Insurance will help our customers improve the experience they give their customers, build loyalty with shoppers, and grow their revenue.

"Partnering with Cover Genius enables us to offer efficient, end-to-end and scalable protection solutions in new markets around the world. It will help retailers and webshops protect themselves from inevitable accidents. It gives shoppers confidence in the delivery process and strengthens trust between vendor and consumer.

"In today's online shopping environment, giving both retailer and shopper confidence in the delivery process is essential to delivering ecommerce success."

Justin Turner, Vice President, Global Partnerships - Shipping, at Cover Genius, said, "We are proud to become nShift's exclusive global insurtech partner and look forward to serving their ecommerce companies across Europe. We have co-created protection solutions that will help their merchants reduce claims processing times and fees leading to a better shipping experience for them and their customers. The AI-backed solution makes it easier to offer total shipping protection customised to each merchant, each purchase and reduces shipping barriers for millions of shipments, wherever they want to go."

nShift is the global leader in parcel and delivery management software. Its range of solutions enables online retailers and webshops to build an end-to-end delivery experience from checkout to returns. nShift connects its customers to the world's largest carrier library, featuring over 1,000 ready-made carrier connections. nShift Insurance will be available on other nShift platforms in the coming months.

Cover Genius partners with the world's largest digital companies to distribute protection via its XCover platform, which enables companies to embed and offer any line of insurance or other type of protection solution directly to their global customers with a single API call.

https://nshift.com/solutions/transsmart

www.covergenius.com

Cost savings referenced in this press release are based on a comparison of all Cover Genius shipping protection versus published carrier rates for Fedex, UPS, DHL, USPs, UPS, Old Dominion, DHL, XPO Logistics, Estes Express Lines, YRC and TForce Freight as at June 27, 2022. Time savings are based on average resolution times (i.e. the duration from initial filing to completed payment) for all XCover shipping protection claims as at May 31, 2022 (sample size = 868) compared with the industry average time including payment settlement (min. 6 days) and period to acknowledge a filed claim.

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.

About Cover Genius

Cover Genius is the insurtech for embedded protection. Through XCover , our global distribution platform for any insurance or other type of protection, we protect the global customers of the world's largest digital companies, including Booking Holdings, Ryanair , Icelandair, Turkish Airlines , Ola, and SeatGeek. We're also available at Amazon , Flipkart , eBay , Wayfair, and SE Asia's largest company, Shopee .

Together with our partners, we co-create solutions to embed tailored, optimised protection that's licensed or authorised in over 60 countries and all 50 US States.

In addition, we provide customers with a seamless, end-to-end experience via XCover.com. XCover.com handles customers' needs  from the initial sale through to administration and claims, resulting in an industry-leading post-claims NPS of +65. Its award-winning service design has shown to reduce support tickets by 7x.

 The score includes any type of claim and claim outcome across our partner network except for those partners with less than 30 claims and those not assessed by Cover Genius. Inquiry statistics are derived from an internal analysis of 1,355 random XCover support inquiries from December 2022, of which 1, 19 Oct. (93%) - had not activated their XCover account and 97 (7%) had.

[1] https://www.amcor.com/insights/blogs/how-much-a-damaged-pack-can-really-cost-your-business [2] https://nshift.com/blog/parcel-damage-what-it-means-and-how-to-prevent-it

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In a week of fights near Avdiivka, about 5,000 occupiers lost their lives, and at least 118 units of military equipment were destroyed. The Defence Forces of Ukraine attacked enemy airfields in the temporarily occupied Berdiansk and Luhansk with ATACMS missiles. Comprehensive and sustainable peace in the Middle East can be realized within the framework of unconditional implementation by the parties of relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
Thursday, October 19, 2023

Treat Kids to Brain Candy This Halloween



Feed kids' minds instead of their cavities

SAN JOSE, California, Oct. 17, 2023  This Halloween, Books for Treats will mark 22 years of delighting children with gently read books instead of candy. The brainchild of Rebecca Morgan of San Jose, Books for Treats is encouraging people to swap traditional Halloween sweets for something every family lovesbooks!

Average Halloween Haul250 pieces of candy

Back when kids just trick-or-treated on their block, they usually bagged a few dozen candy pieces. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the average trick-or-treater now consumes nearly three cups of sugar and 1.5 cups of fat, eating over 3000 calories on Halloween night alone. The total number of candies collected can top 250 pieces, 3 pounds of sugar, and 9000 calories. This not only wreaks havoc with kids' energy levels and digestive systems, it can contribute to cavities, obesity, and diabetes," says Morgan.

Shifting to Brain Candy to Excite Minds

Morgan started Books for Treats in 2001 to inspire others to "feed kids' minds, not their cavities. Give brain candy." In 1995, she began offering books from her doorstep. Scouring local library book sales meant she was able to purchase gently read children's books for what she would have spent on candy. Trick-or-treaters chose from the dozens of books that she had carefully sorted by grade level, even putting younger kids' books at eye level on lower tables.

Gifting 10,000 books annually to San Jose trick-or-treaters

Since Halloween 2001, Books for Treats has given up to 10,000 books a year to San Jose's trick-or-treaters. This simple idea has spread from San Jose to communities across the US and Canada. Tax-deductible donations to the non-profit Books for Treats are used to buy books, spread the word and assist more communities in starting their own events.

-more-





Worried about eggs or toilet paper?

Is this movement stealing the fun from the holiday? "Not at all. Kids love books. Since they get to choose their book from the age-appropriate box, they are excited to have a treat that lasts much longer than a few seconds." A commonly heard comment from the kids and parents is, "We made sure to come to the book-lady's house."

Kids love books

Seven-year-old Alana said that she preferred books to candy. "A book lasts a long time and candy is gone in a bite! And I can sit on my daddy's lap and read the book over and over with him."

"I offered books this Halloween, said one participant. "Two children were so excited they left their sacks of candy at the door and took off with the booksthey had to come back later and retrieve their candy."

Getting involved

Go to BooksForTreats.org to download a free kit with instructions on setting up Books for Treats for residents and communities.

About Books for Treats

Books for Treats (501c3) encourages individuals and communities to give gently read children's books at Halloween. Their motto is "Feed kids' minds, not their cavities. Give brain candy." With increasing childhood diabetes and obesity, it's a fun and healthy way to treat kids this holiday.





Communities and individuals across North America are hosting Books for Treats events. The Books for Treats website, www.BooksforTreats.org, has free downloadable kits to help everyone interested to set up their own event.
The Internal Revenue Service recently awarded a lucrative contract to help modernize its computer databases to the same Washington firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, that employed the man who pleaded guilty last week to stealing and leaking thousands of private tax returns of wealthy Americans, including former President Trump, according to records reviewed by RealClearInvestigations.

The massive IRS theft is the third major breach of confidential and classified government information by Booz Allen contractors over the last decade  including Edward Snowden's 2013 leak exposing the National Security Agencys worldwide anti-terror surveillance program.

Cyber-thief Charles Chaz Littlejohn was working on an IRS contract for Booz Allen in 2018 when he stole more than two decades of Trumps personal tax records from IRS computers. He later leaked them to the New York Times, which published negative stories on Trumps long-sought returns several weeks before the 2020 election, which Trump narrowly lost in a handful of battleground states.

After the election, Littlejohn leaked a trove of sensitive IRS data on Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg and other billionaires  including major conservative donors  to ProPublica. The left-leaning news site used them to write a series, The Secret IRS Files, about how the rich use loopholes and tricks to avoid paying taxes. Congressional Democrats cited the series in their push for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba said she suspects Littlejohn was an operative in a broader political conspiracy to sabotage the former president before the 2020 election.

What Mr. Littlejohn did, I do not believe he did alone, she said last week at the Washington courthouse where he pleaded guilty. Habba added that the leak probably cost my client thousands of votes and was all by design.

A Democrat donor, Littlejohn struck a deal with federal prosecutors in which he copped to a single count of disclosing tax information without authorization. Though facing a maximum of five years, his plea deal calls for an estimated range of eight to 14 months when he is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 29.

That looked more like a Hunter Biden plea deal, Habba said. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) agreed, saying Littlejohn is getting a slap on the wrist.

The most profitable government contractor in the world, Booz Allen Hamilton has been connected to a number of high-profile Democrats over the years, including former employee James Clapper, who served as President Obamas intelligence czar. Clapper was involved in an intelligence community operation just weeks before the 2020 election to suppress information about Biden foreign influence-peddling found on his sons laptop. At least two Obama administration alumni sit on Booz Allens board. President Clintons IRS commissioner also holds a seat. In the 2020 election cycle, federal records show Booz Allen contributed a total of $238,776 to Joe Biden versus $85,657 to Trump. The company also gave almost four times more money to the Democratic National Committee than to the Repubican National Committee.

Federal investigators were closing in on the 38-year-old Littlejohn this summer when the Biden administration decided to rehire his former employer, Booz Allen, through a contract with a ceiling value of $2.6 billion to help overhaul the IRS' IT operations. The massive new IRS contract may explain why the Biden administration wont identify Littlejohns employer by name in court papers and press releases about the case. The Justice Department would only say that Littlejohn "served as a contractor to Company A, a consulting firm that serviced public and private clients. The Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS and also investigated Littlejohn, has not identified Booz Allen as the firm, either. Nor have Littlejohns lawyers, who declined comment.

The Washington media have gone along with the blackout describing Littlejohn as an IRS Contractor." Even as they have reported in some detail on the mechanics of Littlejohns thievery  he uploaded data to a private server instead of downloading it to a flash drive which might set off IRS alarms  news outlets never explained the key question of how he had access to the tax returns in the first place: because he was working for Booz Allen. The New York Times reported that Littlejohn "was working for a company contracted by the IRS. The company that employed the contractor was not named. The Washington Post described Littlejohn as a financial consultant and left it at that. Meanwhile, Politico has published at least three stories on Littlejohn without naming Booz Allen as his employer.

The identity of his former employer is not difficult to find on the internet. A Pew Charitable Trust bulletin dated Feb. 26, 2018 describes Littlejohn as an associate with Booz Allen Hamiltons finance and economic development practice.

In a 2008 blurb Littlejohn wrote for the University of North Carolina alumni newsletter, he stated: Upon graduating from Carolina in 2007, I went to work for the strategy and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton in their civil finance division. The civil finance team works with the IRS  In my time at Booz Allen, I have had the opportunity to work on a workload transition project at the IRS."



The dates track with the employment record prosecutors laid out in their charging document: From 2008 to 2010, from 2012 to 2013, and from 2017 to 2021, Littlejohn served as a contractor to Company A.



Asked if Booz Allen terminated Littlejohn in 2021, or if he left on his own, company spokeswoman Jessica Klenk said, "We're not in a position to speak to that at this point.



The massive IRS breach raises new questions about Booz Allens ability to protect sensitive government information.

In 2013, Booz Allen put Edward Snowden to work at the National Security Agency. That May, Snowden left the country with thousands of top-secret documents that he soon leaked to journalists, exposing the agencys worldwide anti-terror surveillance program. Snowden fled to Russia and in 2022 was granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin. At the time of the breach, Booz Allen condemned it as a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm and vowed to investigate the matter.



But another rogue employee soon put the top Beltway contractor back in the spotlight. In 2016, Booz Allen computer analyst Harold Martin III was arrested for stealing other data from the NSA. To address the fallout, the company hired former FBI Director Robert Mueller to conduct an external review of its security procedures, including how it screens employees. We are committed to doing our part to detect potential insider threats, the company stated. Mueller presented his findings and recommendations around June 2017  the year before Littlejohn stole thousands of private tax returns. In an interview with RealClearInvestigations, Booz Allen spokeswoman Klenk declined to say what reforms it implemented, if any, to safeguard such information. The McLean, Va.-based company employs more than 20,000 consultants with government security clearances handling some of the nations most confidential data.

Despite this track record of breaches, the IRS has trusted Booz Allen to help modernize its computer system. In late June, the IRS awarded the company part of a multibillion-dollar contract to update its databases, which involves consolidating roughly 400 different systems into a new, cloud-based architecture. Booz Allen is committed to supporting IRS modernization and tax administration efforts for years to come, the company said in a statement touting the awarding of the seven-year contract under the headline, Applying IT modernization to enhance taxpayer experience."

The IRS did not respond to requests for comment about Booz Allen. In a press statement following Littlejohns arrest, Commissioner Danny Werfel said the agency has tightened security in the wake of the leaks. In a separate public statement, a Treasury official added that the American people have every right to expect the utmost integrity from those who are granted access to sensitive taxpayer information through their employment with the IRS. Treasurys inspector general is "still investigating" the case, according to a Department of Justice press release. Prosecutors have not offered a motive for Littlejohns crime. If they know why he leaked Trumps tax information to the media, they're not saying.



A search of Federal Election Commission records turns up small-dollar donations Littlejohn made to Democrats through ActBlue, a liberal fundraising platform. When he first started working for Booz Allen in 2008, he said he shared the firm's social mission and that it gave him the flexibility to pursue research I started as an undergraduate on agricultural markets in Uganda." A Pro-Democrat Family

Littlejohn was raised in an affluent Democrat household in St. Louis. He is the son of retired PR executive Steve Littlejohn and attorney Stefanie London, both of whom are Biden donors, according to the Federal Election Commission database.



His father, who also gave $900 to Barack Obama, has posted a number of anti-Trump tweets. Steve Littlejohn, who began his career in Wilmington, Del., is a fan of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. In 2017, he retweeted the liberal host's false conspiracy theories about Trump's coordination" with the Russians to rig the 2016 election in his favor. The next year, his son stole Trumps tax filings.

Littlejohns mother, who specialized in document retention and intellectual property protection during her law practice, previously clerked for the late federal judge Theodore McMillian, a Jimmy Carter appointee. She is the daughter of famed St. Louis public defense attorney and self-described social liberal Norm London. Records show Stefanie London, who started her education at the University of Pennsylvania, also supported the Senate campaign of liberal Democrat Beto ORourke.

Court filings reveal Littlejohn didnt just steal Trumps tax filings but also those of entities and individuals related to him. Its not clear if the tax returns of Trumps family members were also leaked. But investigators have the evidence. As part of his plea deal, Littlejohn agreed to forfeit to investigators his interest in about a dozen electronic devices and private web accounts. Investigators found one of the flash drives he used to store the purloined data hidden inside the lining of a wood and leather box that contained an ornamental camel."

Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes invited Trump to deliver a statement at Littlejohns sentencing, which she set for Jan. 29. It is not immediately known if Trump will take her up on the offer. But after the New York Times published his tax records just five weeks before the 2020 election  in a story headlined, Long-concealed records show Trumps chronic losses and years of tax avoidance  he railed against what he called the fake news media. Now the GOPs 2024 frontrunner, Trump explained that he was "entitled, like everyone else" to take write-offs against income, such as "depreciation [deductions] and tax credits."
Upper Missouri Waterkeeper and local landowners are suing the Montana Department of Environmental Quality over approving a new wastewater system in West Yellowstone, alleging the agency failed to follow the public participation process.

The Deep Well Regional Wastewater treatment and disposal system would serve the KOA Mountainside and Holiday West Yellowstone campgrounds and future campground development just outside Yellowstone National Park. KOA is a private campground franchise that operates nationally.

Waterkeeper and local land stewards of the adjacent Diamond P Ranch, Rex Portmann and Brandon Lewis, filed the lawsuit in Gallatin County District Court last Friday, Oct. 13. The lawsuit is seeking an injunction to halt the project.

The complaint alleges that DEQs approval of the wastewater system is based on flawed environmental analysis without any public process or transparency. According to the lawsuit, DEQ approved the system in March 2022 and crafted two environmental assessments, but failed to publish notice or provide the public opportunity to comment on the proposal.

The public process is typically afforded to citizens under the state constitutions right to know clause and Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA). The lawsuit language also argues the project violates the Montana constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.

Plaintiff Lewis, ranch manager for Diamond P, said he only received details about the project, which is a few hundred feet from the ranch property, after filing a Right to Know Request that DEQ answered in September 2023, months after the approval.

DEQ said in an email to the Chronicle they do not comment on active litigation.

In the complaint, DEQ officials wrote that the public water and wastewater laws under which the regional system were reviewed do not have separate public meeting requirements.

In a press release, Waterkeeper detailed the scope of the project.

The system will consist of wastewater treatment lagoons to store up to 3.9 million gallons  or nearly six Olympic-sized swimming pools  worth of wastewater. It will also include a new sewer main connecting the system to the Mountainside KOA Sewer Outfall line and use center pivot wastewater disposal.

Our 19th century family homestead and guest ranch is located less than a couple hundred feet from new center pivot sewage discharge sprinklers, spraying aerosolized human waste into the wind that will inevitably damage my property, livelihood, and business, Rex Portmann, owner of the Diamond P Ranch, said in the release. Yet I was never informed of any land application disposal until it was too late.

Guy Alsentzer, Upper Missouri Waterkeepers executive director who is litigating the case on behalf of the group, said DEQs failure to involve the public is even more concerning given the projects proximity to Yellowstone National Park and Yellowstones greater ecosystem.

When DEQ works behind closed doors to allow commercial development it unnecessarily threatens local businesses, communities, water supplies, and wildlife, Alsentzer said in the release. In West Yellowstone, this situation is even more disturbing as the agency failed to consider the impacts of a new regional wastewater facility on local waterways and wildlife just outside of our nations first National Park.

In addition to not honoring the public process, Alsentzer said DEQs environmental assessments did not adequately analyze the impacts of the wastewater system.

Just five miles outside the park, the area is an important wildlife corridor for big game like grizzly and black bears, wolverines, elk and pronghorn.

Denny Creek, a tributary of the Madison River that flows into the Hebgen Reservoir, also flows through the wastewater system location, prompting pollution risks to waterways, Alsentzer said. Impacts to the river from the wastewater lagoons, which may leak into nearby surface and groundwater, and the sewage water dispersed through irrigation pivots were not adequately analyzed, he said.

This is such an ecologically unique place, boasting iconic wildlife (and) world-class rivers, Plaintiff Lewis said in the release. Its disturbing that the DEQ approved these plans without notifying their neighbors or conducting a meaningful environmental assessment. We deserve more, nature deserves more, and law itself affords us more.
Fairfield, MT (59436)

Today

Sunny. High around 55F. Winds WSW at 15 to 25 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Low near 35F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.
My wife, Terri, has always loved being outdoors. She hikes through Yellowstone Park every year and in January of 2024 will hike, with her girlfriends, in the territory of Patagonia.

She skis cross country, right out our back door. She also has a mountain bike that racks up the miles of her hard labor. She is not a novice to camping and spending time away from the comforts of home.

On one particular afternoon, finishing her ride on the mountain bike, she asked me if I would consider investing, as she called it, in a bike for myself. I almost choked on my raspberry-filled doughnut. And then she said, if I would consider buying, we could take both our bikes up to Stanley, Idaho, for my first experience on a mountain bike. She would pack all the camping gear, set it up and do the cooking.

I caved in to her request and paid more for the bike than I would have paid for a saddle horse.

A week later we arrived at Redfish Lake, unloaded the bikes and found a trail suitable for me to begin. Terri was very encouraging but the trail was so rocky we turned around, arriving back to camp  a total of two hours of biking.

The day was winding down, and I was dug out to my toenails hungry. So, I offered to help set up camp and even to cook. First thing, we grabbed the tent and set out all the pieces to it. No tent fly. That wasnt a big deal as the weather was supposed to be warm.

Next, we squared up the tent, hammered stakes in each corner, and I reached in the bag to discover no tent poles. Once again not a serious problem. We would put our sleeping bags in the tent and sleep with the roof of the tent laying on top of us. But wouldnt you know it? No sleeping bags to be found. Both of them still tucked away at home on the camping shelf.

Terri was devastated. I assured her our trip was still going to be enjoyable, as it had been so far. We would pack up our gear, find a restaurant, order prime rib and then laugh about what happened during our four-hour ride home. Finally, there was a smile on her face.

After a short drive, and my belly thinking its throat was cut, we sat down and ordered prime rib. I would be taking out a second loan on my truck just to pay for dinner.

I couldnt help but notice our waiter was a little tipsy. Each time he helped a table, he would then walk to the bar and tip one up. By the time our meal came, I was helping him carry our plates so our dinner didnt end up on the floor. He was then escorted off the floor by the manager  his wife. He received a standing ovation from those of us in the dining room.

Our trip was turning out to be a success. The prime rib was the best Ive eaten in years, and the entertaining drunk waiter, lets just say we are still laughing about it.

After we left the restaurant, I managed to convince my wife there must have been a real reason why we werent sleeping in our tent. Who knows, with the luck we were having a grizzly bear probably would have wandered into our camp and paid us a visit.

Our camping debacle turned out to be one of the better Friday night dates with my wife. We had never laughed so much. But now that I think of it, where was the cooler with the t-bone steaks, the baked beans and the ambrosia salad? Hmm?
SAINT JOSEPH, Mo.  Margaret Maggie Davis, Bidwell, Ohio, recently earned the National Junior Angus Associations Bronze and Silver awards.

Maggie, 15, is the daughter of Jon Davis and attends Gallia Academy High School. She is a member of the NJAA and the Ohio Junior Angus Association, where she currently serves as treasurer. She has participated in state, regional and national shows.

The Bronze and Silver awards are the first two levels of the NJAA Recognition Program that began in 1972. Junior Angus breeders must apply for the awards, and then meet point requirements in many areas of participation before receiving the honors.

Applicants are evaluated in areas of junior Angus association activities and leadership, participation in showmanship, contests and shows, using performance testing to improve their herd and their progress in producing and merchandising Angus cattle.
A couple's retirement after a 60-year family link to a Shropshire farm has prompted a dispersal sale of their farm implements and machinery.

Auctioneer Halls are conducting the sale at the 400-acre Kenwick Farm, near Ellesmere, on behalf of Mark and Pam Edwards, who have farmed there since 1963.

The sale includes a 2014 Manitou MLT 634-120 PS Elite Loadall, a 2011 Massey Ferguson 6480 Dyna 6 4WD tractor and a 1996 Massey Ferguson 390 2WD tractor.

It also includes five trailers, a wide range of livestock and cultivation equipment and an extensive range of workshop equipment, sundries and spares.

Ive had a very happy life farming, especially enjoying tractor work and cattle, Mark said, As my children are pursuing other careers, now is the time to retire.

The couple began as dairy farmers before moving into beef and arable in 2001. More recently, Mark has been rearing dairy heifers for a neighbour.

Used to starting work at 6am and often finishing late, he and his wife, a retired biomedical scientist, said they are looking forward to spending time travelling.

Having been a farmer all my working life, I do find it difficult to switch off, explained Mark.

"We have a beautiful house nearby which needs renovating, so that will keep me busy.

Halls chairman Allen Gittins, who is organising the dispersal auction, said: The Edwards have built up an extensive and very usable range of farm implements, machinery and vehicles.

The items on offer have been extremely well looked after, washed off after use and stored indoors, so purchasers can therefore bid with total confidence.

The sale will be conducted on Saturday 28 October starting at 11am.
Up to 50 farmers are being invited to join a new AHDB programme which aims to build a 'more resilient future for British agriculture.'

The levy board's Roots to Resilience programme will challenge attendees to "stop thinking in black and white and unlock their full potential".

Farmers and industry stakeholders can apply to join now, with the initiative commencing from 13 to 15 December in Sutton Coldfield.

Samantha Charlton, AHDB head of engagement for beef and lamb, said Roots to Resilience was about shining a light on the people within farming businesses.

She said: "It can be challenging for farmers to focus on the future and invest in themselves when their time and brain space is filled with daily tasks and problem-solving.

"We want to challenge their thinking and help them reach their long-term goals by looking at the entire system instead of focusing on technical applications alone.

"We understand that every farmer and every farm is different and that the one-size-fits-all approaches are outdated and rarely successful."

The programme kicks off with a three-day workshop for up to 50 farmers, incorporating part of the renowned Ranch Management Consultants (RMC) 'Ranching for Profit' course, which will be presented by RMC owner Dallas Mount.

Dallas has worked with thousands of farmers and ranchers across the US, Canada, Mexico and Australia to position their businesses for economic profit and ecological health.

Attendees will be able to develop a bespoke action plan for their farm businesses, including identifying worry areas to address, communication at home and within the business.

They will also be able to take part in four quarterly virtual 'check-in' sessions in 2024 with Dallas, where he will continue to support them on their journeys to a profitable business.

A two-day workshop will also run for industry consultants ahead of the farmer-specific session from 11 to 12 December.

Samantha Charlton said the farmer workshop in December would give delegates the opportunity to step away from practical farming for three days and focus on long-term planning.

"It is very much about focusing on people and what they want to achieve, not just in their businesses but in their lives, as we know how intrinsically linked the two are," she said.

"The workshop will play a pivotal role in not only providing those attending with bespoke action plans for their businesses but in equipping us at AHDB with greater insight into the topics that our levy payers want."

Whats in it for farmers?

AHDB's new Roots to Resilience programme aims to equip farmers with the knowledge, tools and skills to identify business aims and plan future goals.

 Three-day residential workshop, held 13 to 15 December 2023 near Sutton Coldfield

 Technical modules freely available online to levy payers after the workshop and beyond as we get into the programme

 Led by Dallas Mount, owner of Ranch Management Consultants, home of the Ranching for Profit School

 Maximum of 50 farmers
Police officers have recovered a haul of stolen cars following a raid on a farm near Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

Police searched a shipping container at the farm, located on Ollerton Road, Carburton, and found two vehicles.

They included a silver Land Rover Defender and a black Land Rover Sport HSE that were reported stolen in the West Midlands earlier this month.

Outbuildings at the farm were subsequently searched and a further five vehicles  also believed to be stolen  were found.

They included two BMWs, two Mercedes and a red Jaguar F-Pace V6. Checks found the cars had been reported stolen from London, Warwickshire, Birmingham, Derbyshire and Newcastle.

The warrant was executed on 15 October and lead to the arrests of a 63-year-old man and a 67-year-old woman on suspicion of handling stolen goods.

They have been released on bail pending further investigation.

The warrant was executed as part of a wider investigation into the seizure of four shipping containers  each containing stolen vehicles  that were intercepted at ports in London, Felixstowe and Southampton earlier this month.

Eleven stolen vehicles were recovered across the four containers, including a Lexus, two Toyotas, Jaguar, three BMWs, Audi, Mercedes and two Land Rovers.

Detective Inspector Simon Harrison said: Our ongoing operations to tackle organised vehicle crime show how seriously we treat this issue and our determination to do everything we can to disrupt people who look to profit from their illegal enterprise.

We know what an impact it has on someone when their car is stolen, which is why we work together with other forces to take robust action when there is information about a stolen vehicle.

We encourage people to call us if they suspect a garage or unit is being used for criminal purposes. It may be that valuable cars are regularly arriving at a location but are not seen leaving."
Joe Biden will seek an "unprecedented" aid package for Israel.

Joe Biden is looking to send an 'unprecedented' aid package to Israel

The US president has committed $100 million in humanitarian assistance as he reaffirmed America's support for Israel during his visit to the region on Wednesday (18.10.23).

The aid will go to Gaza and the West Bank to support over a million people displaced by the conflict.

Biden revealed that he planned to ask Congress for an "unprecedented support package for Israel's defence" but did not elaborate further.

The president explained that aid would be delivered via the United Nations and international non-governmental organisations and warned Hamas against commandeering the supplies.

Biden said: "Let me be clear, if Hamas averts or steals the assistance, it will have demonstrated once again that they have no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people."

The politician had arrived in Tel Aviv just hours after an explosion killed hundreds of people taking shelter at a hospital in Gaza.

Speaking after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, Biden said: "I was outraged and saddened by the enormous loss of life yesterday in the hospital in Gaza."

Israel and Hamas have both blamed each other for the deadly hospital blast and Biden expressed his grief for civilians who have lost their lives.

He said: "The United States unequivocally stands for the protection of civilian life during conflict. And I grieve, I truly grieve for the families who were killed or wounded by this tragedy."
Sex is less pleasurable when you're hungry.

Couples should have something to eat before getting intimate

A new study suggests that dining sets the mood for making love as "soft caresses" feel less satisfying when a person is famished.

Experts from the University of Oslo explained that the unusual effect is down to ghrelin - also known as the 'hunger hormone'.

Ghrelin is produced and released mainly by cells in the stomach and previous studies have found that it is linked to other rewards.

The researchers explained: "Beyond its established role as an appetite-stimulating hormone, ghrelin is also involved in assigning value to social rewards such as touch."

For the experiment, 60 participants were asked to come to the laboratory for tests on two separate days - one a 'food' day and the other a 'fasting' day.

On both days, participants had their right shin touched at various speeds as their brains were scanned using an fMRI scanner.

The results revealed that the touches were rated as more pleasant on the 'food' days than on the 'fasting' days.
Jada Pinkett Smith has been slammed by The View host Alyssa Farah Griffin for revealing her and Will Smiths marriage secrets.

Jada Pinkett Smith has been slammed by The View host Alyssa Farah Griffin for revealing her and Will Smiths marriage secrets

The actress, 52, has just published her autobiography Worthy in which she told the world she and Will, 55, have been secretly separate for seven years, and Alyssa, 34, said she had no idea why the star didnt want to protect their privacy.

She said on the Behind the Table podcast about Jada: I think she needs to be more in tune with (Wills) feelings.

The former White House press secretary also hit out at Jada for refusing to file for divorce despite saying she was leading a separate life from her estranged husband.

She added: Its also OK to admit a marriage didnt work. Thats what I guess Im struck by, like, if youre dating other people, youre not doing any of the things that are marriage, why not just go ahead (and file for divorce.)

There shouldnt be a stigma to divorce.

Alyssa admitted being a co-host on The View sometimes demands she shares details about her personal life, but she said she makes an effort to check her instincts.

She added: I would never say something that would hurt my husband or that would embarrass him or that would put him in an uncomfortable position.

Alyssas fellow View host Ana Navarro, 51, last week said Jada should not have divulged so many intimate details about her marriage and accused the mum-of-two from profiting from her fractured family.

She added: I think shes having a relationship with her bank account because every time she needs to increase the ratings of the Red Table Talk (Jadas talk show), every time she needs to sell books, she drops these bombshells.

I find it unseemly and I will tell you this, Be careful of anybody who pretends to have a perfect marriage.

But Will seems unbothered by his estranged wifes tell-all book and press interviews to promote the autobiography.

On Tuesday (17.10.23) he posted a video of himself on Instagram titled OFFICIAL STATEMENT, suggesting the revelations were meaningless compared to the size of the universe.

The clip started with him sitting in a living room saying: I got something for you, heres my opinion on the .

He then pretended to sneeze and the camera zoomed out and out until it was nearly above the Earth.

And earlier this week, the Men in Black star posted another Instagram video of himself, showing the actor sleeping on a boat with the caption: Notifications off :).

Jada commented on it by posting crying-with-laughter emojis.
Martha Stewart refuses to dress for her age as she hates the concept.

Martha Stewart refuses to dress for her age as she hates the concept

The former TV host, who has been trolled for posting so-called thirst trap photos on her social media despite the fact shes aged 82, added she doesnt think about ageing and refuses to comply with anyones idea of how older people should behave or dress.

She told Page Six Style when asked if she has any plans to change her wardrobe as she ages: Dressing for whose age? I dont think about age. I think people are more and more and more (fabulous) than theyre ever been in their senior years, and I applaud every one of them.

Mum-of-one Martha, who was a former teen model and whose daughter is broadcaster Alexis Stewart, 58, added: Ive dressed the same since I was 17.

She also insisted: If you look at my pictures on my Instagram, I look pretty much the same.

It comes after she shrugged off criticism over the summer for sinking a small iceberg into her cocktail on a cruise from Greenland from Iceland.

She showed off her drink on an Instagram Story during her holiday, sparking massive backlash from fans of her use of pieces of naturally formed bergs in her booze amid the climate change crisis that has seen wildfires sweep the globe.

Martha was accused of posting a tone deaf update on her social media in August by bragging about her use of the ice during a Swan Hellenic cruise on the SH Vega expedition ship.

She captioned a carousel of photos of her break on social media: End of the first zodiac cruise... into a very beautiful fjord on the east coast of Greenland.

We actually captured a small iceberg for our cocktails tonight.

Her post included a snap of chunks of ice on a drinks cart and others toasting with their drinks.

Despite being slammed for their use of the ice, Martha hit back on Instagram by posting an image of an iceberg with the caption: Pleated iceberg. perfect for cocktails!

She also reposted a Washington Post article with the headline, Martha Stewart put an iceberg in her drink. Experts say its no big deal.
Prepare for some Wickedly Evil thrills and bloody chills, in this comedy horror caper that sees a group of hapless hodlums lives spiral out of control as they attempt to lay low in the Irish countryside after pulling off a heist. Marking the directorial debut of Garry Walsh (Older Than Ireland), the film is set for its UK digital release this November, courtesy of 101 Films.

Wickedly Evil

Incompetent gangsters, Frankie (Joseph McGucken  The Doireann Project), Dancer (James Farrelly) and Gaz (Darryl Carter) have successfully robbed a notorious Irish crime family, but thats the last thing that goes right for them... Spotted making a run for it by Clare (Louise Bourke  Who We Love), the mobs youngest sister, things take a terrifying turn for the worse.

With Clare taken hostage, one of the gang missing and another nursing a gunshot wound, the men have no choice but to lay low in the remote Irish countryside in a safe house, where their problems continue to mount... Their boss, The Chief (Owen Roe  Intermission), is concerned more about the cocaine and the cash than the safety of his crew.

Meanwhile, suspicions begin to brew among the local police, while the well-meaning next-door neighbour, Sadie (Cat L. Walsh), offers leftover lasagne and warnings about a couple that recently vanished in the area...

As paranoia takes hold and tensions flare, the situation begins to spiral out of control and the gang soon discovers that evil lurks in the most unexpected places...

With its blend of boisterous humour, blood curdling monstrous mayhem and a totally twisted narrative, you won't want to miss this Wickedly Evil horror-comedy.

Due for release on digital 13 November 2023

by Matt Shine for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Anne Hathaway once revealed why she used to look up Priyanka Chopras name every single day and the reason won everyones hearts.





In a 2019 interview, Anne Hathaway confessed her appreciation for Priyanka's perfect skin while promoting her movie Serenity with co-star Matthew McConaughey. Priyanka was all Anne could talk about, and she admitted that she frequently looked up Priyanka's skincare regimen online.

Anne humorously declared, "Priyanka Chopras skin. Right? I have nothing on her. My god! So right now, I am online every night going... 'What is she... how did she do it."
Half Love Half Arranged Update: Amazon miniTV - Amazon's free video streaming service, recently released its romantic comedy-drama series, 'Half Love Half Arranged'. The series is making waves among the rom-com aficionados and has garnered a high rating of 8.4 on imdb. Following the amusing journey of a millennial gynaecologist, Riya Tanwar who gets stuck in the midst of a chaotic arranged dating world and meets Jogi, who sweeps her off her feet turning her planned life upside down. Maanvi Gagroo who has portrayed the role of Riya, is being appreciated for her commendable work in the series.

Talking about the experience of shooting in Delhi, Maanvi shared how the conversations usually revolved around the food. "Yes, we shot most of the series in Delhi. And like it is with all Delhi shoots, especially on this set, conversations about food dominated. So, it's safe to say our Delhi schedule had a happy well fed set," she said.

She further commented on finding the middle ground between love and arranged in a relationship. "It's called choice," she shared. Adding to this, she shared her all-time favourite rom-com shows, "Schitt's Creek, Notting Hill, 10 things I hate about you and Sex & the city."

Grab your bucket of popcorn and indulge in the crazy world of arranged dating with Riya and Jogi in Half Love Half Arranged. If you haven't watched this laughter filled mushy romance yet, the series is streaming exclusively on Amazon miniTV available on Amazon's shopping app, on Fire TV and on Play Store.
Remember when Lokesh Kanagaraj and Thalapathy Vijay had first collaborated for Master in 2021? Well after the stupendous success of the movie, the director-actor duo collaborated once again for one of the biggest releases of 2023. We are talking about Leo which has finally hit the theatres amid massive fanfare. The movie, which is touted to be an action thriller, also features Trisha Krishnan, Arjun Sarja, Gautham Menon, Mysskin, and Priya Anand in key roles along ith Sanjay Dutt as the lead antagonist.

As everyone was eagerly waiting for Leo, there has been a major speculation about whether Leo is a part of LCU (Lokesh Kanagaraj Universe). The rumours came to light after DMK Youth Wing Secretary Udhay Stalin shared the review of the movie on micro-blogging site Twitter (now X) and used the hashtag #LCU. The tweet went viral with fans curious to know if Leo is a standalone film or a part of LCU.

Well, the wait is over and big revelation has been made. Leo is a part of LCU (Lokesh Kanagaraj Universe) and it has been announced in the movie. To note, the first movie of LCU happened to be Kaithi which was released in 2019 which was followed by Kamal Haasan starrer Vikram. And now Leo is the third entry in LCU.

Meanwhile, Leo has opened to mixed reviews from the audience. While fans are in awe of Thalapathy Vijay's acting skills, Lokesh's direction and Aniruddh's background music, there is a section among the audience who is quite disappointed with the lagging first half, weak flashbacks and computer graphics.

On the other hand, talking about this much anticipated Thalapthy Vijay starrer action thriller, Lokesh Kanagraj said, "Leo is a very special film for me. I have tried something experimental. I have no words to describe the amount of work that Vijay anna put in for this movie. And I am eager to show everything to the audience". To note, Leo has released in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi languages.
Leo FDFS review Photo Credit: Gallery

Leo FDFS Review: As millions of fans all around the world waited with bated breaths, the much-hyped action-thriller of the year, Leo, finally hit the screens at the strike of October 19. Thalapathy Vijay and director Lokesh Kanagaraj have set off another firecracker that is going to rewrite the history of Tamil cinema and impact Indian cinema on a global level.

Leo, which features the epic combination of Vijay and Trisha for the fifth time after 14 years, has a plethora of highly-talented actors like Sanjay Dutt and Arjun Sarja, in addition to Gautham Menon, Mysskin, Mansoor Ali Khan, Priya Anand among others. Made on a budget of about Rs 300 Crore, Leo's advance bookings itself made somewhere around Rs 35 Crore, even before the film hit the screens.

LEO Premise

A cafe owner becomes a local hero but his actions bring forth unimaginable consequences from a dangerous underworld that can shake his entire life from its roots.

Leo Story

Parthiban aka Parthi is a chocolatier who is attacked by ruthless gangsters Antony and Harold Das, who assume Parthiban as their estranged younger brother Leo Das. What happens next? How did Parthi handle the mayhem? What is the connection between Parthiban and Leo Das? forms the crux of the film.

Is Leo Thalapathy Vijay's Career Best?

Ever since the movie was released a couple of hours ago, fans of the actor and director, and regular film buffs are raving positive reviews for the film calling it a phenomenon. The majority vouched for the action-packed first half, which assured them another blockbuster on the lines of Vikram but only bigger than that.

Several tweets surfaced on the internet stating Leo is Thalapathy Vijay's career's best. Check them out here.

#Leo's first half is more than enough to set records  Ufff, the first half is loaded with intense violence. Brace yourself for the second half. #ThalapathyVijay delivers a career-best performance   KARTHIK DP (@dp_karthik) October 19, 2023

Career best going on...

Thalapathy Vijay #Leo  AB George (@AbGeorge_) October 19, 2023

Leo stars Vijay, Trisha, Sanjay Dutt, Arjun, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Arjun, Mysskin, Mansoor Ali Khan, Mathew Thomas, Priya Anand, Kiran Rathore, Sandy Master, Babu Antony, George Maryan, and Abhirami Venkatachalam among others in prominent roles.

Leo is produced by SS Lalit Kumar and Jagadish Palanisamy under the Seven Screen Studio banner on a budget of about Rs 300 Crore. Philomin Raj and Manoj Paramahamsa are working as the film's editor and cinematographer.
Bigg Boss 17 Elimination: Salman Khan's reality show has been making waves ever since it premiered with a blockbuster episode on October 15. It's just four days since its launch but Bigg Boss season 17 has already become the talk of the town. From Abhishek Kumar fighting with Sunny Arya, Isha Malviya, Arun Srikanth to Mannara Chopra breaking down after getting nominated, the contestants are hogging all the limelight on social media.

BIGG BOSS 17 NOMINATED CONTESTANTS

Three contestants are in the danger zone as Abhishek Kumar, Mannara Chopra and Navid Sole have been nominated for eviction in the first week. The voting lines were open till Thursday 10am. Unlike the previous seasons, the voting lines were closed before Friday as Salman Khan will reportedly shoot the Weekend Ka Vaar episodes a day earlier this time.

According to the voting trends that have been circulating online, Mannara Chopra received the highest votes from the audience. She has gained a significant fan following, courtesy of her bond with Munawar Faruqui and individual game. She locked horns with Isha Malviya and Vicky Jain after they nominated her for eviction in the first week of Bigg Boss 17.

BIGG BOSS 17 EVICTION: NO ELIMINATION IN FIRST WEEK?

If the recent buzz is to be believed, the makers might not eliminate any contestant from the show in the first week. While Colors channel and the production house have not confirmed the development, gossip mills suggest that Salman Khan might give a chance to the nominated contestants to prove their worth to the show.

According to a report in Siasat, there will no elimination in the first week and Salman Khan & BB 17 team might be kind to the contestants. Viewers need to take the rumour with a pinch of salt as things can change anytime inside the Bigg Boss house.

On a related note, Bigg Boss 17 Weekend Ka Vaar will witness special appearances from Tiger Shroff and Kriti Sanon as they will promote their new release Ganpath. Vishal Aditya Singh, who was a participant in Bigg Boss 13, will grace the show to talk about his new show Chand Jalne Laga. The romantic drama co-starring Kanika Mann will also air on Colors channel.
Bigg Boss 17 Update: Hosted by Salman Khan, the seventeenth season of Bigg Boss premiered on Colors TV last weekend and has been entertaining loyal viewers since then. Bigg Boss 17 boasts a diverse lineup of contestants, featuring TV stars such as Ankita Lokhande, Neil Bhatt, Aishwarya Sharma, and Rinku Dhawan, alongside social media sensations like Anurag Dobhal, Sunny Aryaa (also known as Tehelka Bhai), and Munawar Faruqui.

BIGG BOSS 17: PRESS CONFERENCE FOR JIGNA VORA

Viewers have been responding favorably to the show's new season. Although only three episodes of Bigg Boss 17 have aired on Colors TV, it's still too early to make definitive judgments about the contestants. To make the show more interesting and entertaining for fans, the makers are set to host a press conference in tonight's (October 19) episode.

Usually, the makers organize press conference towards the center of the show, however, this time, they decided to do it in the very beginning to create buzz. As shown in the promo, journalists will enter the Bigg Boss 17 house to question ex-crime journalist Jigna Vora who was once accused in a murder case and even went to jail for around nine months. Wondering why Jigna went to jail and what was the whole controversy. Here's everything you need to know.

Bigg Boss 17 Week 1: Munawar Faruqui Vs Anurag Dobhal, Who Will Win Boss Meter In First Week?

Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai Twist: Katha Ankahee Star To Enter Harshad Chopda-Pranali's Show Post Leap?

ALL ABOUT JIGNA VORA AND JAIL CONTROVERSY

Mumbai-based crime reporter Jigna Vora grabbed headlines when she was accused in connection with the 2011 murder of senior crime reporter Jyotirmoy Dey aka J Dey. At the time, she held the position of deputy bureau chief for a newspaper's Mumbai bureau. The murder of Jyotirmoy Dey drew attention due to the involvement of unidentified gunmen. Jigna Vora's name swiftly emerged as a potential suspect, dramatically altering the course of her life.

She faced charges of conspiring in the murder of the journalist alongside gangster Chhota Rajan. Following the murder trial, Vora received a seven-year prison sentence, whereas gangster Chota Rajan was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Jigna Vora was taken into custody, serving nine months behind bars. In 2012, she was granted bail from Byculla Jail in Mumbai. However, it wasn't until seven years later, in 2018, that she was finally acquitted of all charges by a special court under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, due to a lack of evidence.

KARISHMA TANNA PLAYED ROLE INSPIRED BY JIGNA VORA IN SCOOP

Subsequently, she penned a memoir titled Behind Bars in Byculla: My Days in Prison, providing a vivid account of her experiences during her time in jail. Her book inspired the Netflix series Scoop, directed by Hansal Mehta. Interestingly, Bigg Boss 8 runner-up Karishma Tanna played the lead role in it alongside Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub. It was a huge success.
Pyaar Ka Pehla Naam Radha Mohan, the mature romantic drama airing on Zee TV and set in contemporary Vrindavan, has garnered a dedicated following since its debut. Featuring a captivating plot and well-defined characters like Mohan (Shabir Ahluwalia), Radha (Neeharika Roy), and Damini (Sambhabana Mohanty), the series has consistently held its viewers in rapt attention. In the recent episodes, viewers witnessed how Damini is planning to kill Gungun (Reeza Chaudhary) and making attempts to ruin Mohan's reputation in the society.

In the upcoming episodes, audiences will have the chance to see Mohan secure a contract for the prestigious International Book Festival, paving the way for an exciting journey to the Maldives for both Radha and Mohan as they compete in the event. To capture this thrilling storyline authentically, the show's cast and crew have traveled to the Maldives for on-location shooting.

Shooting on location can get mundane, but when it's in a place like the Maldives, it's like a working vacation. While the shoot is in full swing, the leads - Shabir, Neeharika, and Sambhabana - are making the most of it by exploring the stunning surroundings. They've visited tourist spots, basked in the sun on beautiful beaches, and enjoyed the turquoise waters. During their free time, they've strolled through local markets and are savoring the local cuisine whenever possible.

Shabir Ahluwalia said, "We're currently shooting in the stunning Maldives for an exciting segment in the show. I'm thrilled to be here; it's an amazing place to unwind and enjoy water activities. Despite our busy shooting schedule, Neeharika, Sambhabana, and I are making time to explore nearby attractions. We're having a blast, and I'm confident the audience will love the intense drama we're capturing here."

Neeharika Roy said, "I am thrilled to be in the Maldives for the very first time, all thanks to my work. When I found out that our upcoming show sequence would take us to these stunning islands, I was beyond excited. Before even arriving here, I had researched all the places I wanted to explore during my free time, and now I'm simply following my planned itinerary. Our accommodation is in a gorgeous property, and being here, I can wholeheartedly recommend that everyone should consider visiting the Maldives at least once in their lifetime."

Sambhabana Mohanty said, "Maldives is beautiful, and coming here for work is like cherry on cake. I love work trips; they are always very refreshing. In the last one and a half years, this is our second work trip and I feel this change is really very rejuvenating. Shabir, Neeharika and I are having loads of fun here, along with shooting for the show. I have planned to take lots of souvenirs for the rest of the cast who could not travel for the shoot here, in fact, I have been given a list by them to shop, I just hope I get enough time for it."

While Shabir, Neeharika, and Sambhabana are having a gala time in Maldives, it will be interesting for the viewers to witness how will Radha and Mohan win the International Book Festival. Or will Damini ruin their chance to win the competition?

To discover the unfolding events, tune in to Pyaar Ka Pehla Naam Radha Mohan every day at 8 pm, exclusively on Zee TV!
Renu Desai Second Marriage: Tollywood actress and former model Renu Desai made a splash in the film industry with her cute looks and impeccable acting skills. She debuted back in 2000 opposite her ex-husband Pawan Kalyan in Badri and became an instant craze among fans.

The 41-year-old diva left cinema after getting married in 2009; however, she remained in the headlines for her other works and personal life troubles. She is currently hogging all the limelight, and rightfully so, as she is making her comeback after a long gap with Ravi Teja's latest film, "Tiger Nageswara Rao."

Meanwhile, she has also grabbed headlines for her alleged second marriage, which was confirmed by the actress herself.

Renu Desai second marriage

Renu Desai has always been candid about her life, family, and work. In a recent media interaction, she disclosed that she would be getting married again soon. For the unversed, it was reported that her engagement was called off by Renu; however, she has refuted the claims.

Nitin Desai Death: Noted Art Director Left A Video Recording Before Suicide, Talked About His Last Wish

Responding to the reports of breaking up her second marriage with a Pune-based businessman, Renu stated, "My daughter was seven when I got engaged and was puzzled if I could allocate time for her. I decided to call off the wedding. She is now 13, and my kids are well mature."

Renu, a mother of two teen children, a girl and a boy, also mentioned her plans to get married in the next two years. Further, she also expressed that she would want to continue working in films and has two small-budget movies in the pipeline.

Renu also clarified that she is not interested in joining politics and affirmed that she would just continue doing meaningful cinema. Her daughter is in college studying architecture, while her son is enrolled in a music program. She refused to indulge in any further personal details.

About Tiger Nageswara Rao

Tiger Nageswara Rao, starring Ravi Teja, Nupur Sanon, Anupam Kher, and Gayatri Bhardwaj in lead roles, is releasing tomorrow, October 20. Directed by Vamasi Krishna Naidu and Vamsi Krishna Akella, the period drama marks Renu Desai's comeback after many years.

When Renu Desai Opened Up About Her Relationship & Divorce With Ex-Husband Pawan Kalyan; 'He Was Like Friend'

Its synopsis read, "During the 1970s, thief Tiger Nageswara Rao masterminds a series of daring heists and becomes a legend for his ingenious methods of outwitting the police."
Tiger Nageswara Rao Overseas Review Photo Credit: Gallery

Tiger Nageswara Rao Overseas Review: Massraja Ravi Teja is back on the big screen with a crime action-thriller titled Tiger Nageswara Rao. The energetic self-made star played the title role in this biopic of a notorious criminal from Stuartpuram village in Andhra. Vamsee is making his directorial debut with this high-budget film which hit the screens on October 20.

Tiger Nageswara Rao Premise

Set in the time of 1970, in the infamous village called Stuartpuram in Andhra Pradesh, which is known for thieves and burglars, there is a notorious criminal by the name Nageswara Rao, who is referred to as Tiger Nageswara Rao. He is the man behind several daring heists and used ingenious methods. He earned an image among his community and villagers while the cops were always hunting him down after he escaped from prison.

Tiger Nageswara Rao Overseas Review

As Ravi Teja's movie opened to viewers across the USA at 3.30 IST on October 19, the NRI film buffs and fans of the actors thronged theatres to watch the FDFS of this hyped action-drama. These enthusiastic cinephiles couldn't control their excitement and took to their respective social media handles to share their movie-watching experience of Tiger Nageswara Rao. They shared glimpses from the theatres along with their opinions which made for a mini review of sorts for the curios fans all over the world. Check out their opinions below.

2nd starts with emotional note and there comes brutal mass sequence  .. Where I felt like 3 times bigger than kgf.. the director handles the script and village background very well ... Bgm is pakka is a raamp  #TigerNageswaraRao 3.5/5 https://t.co/v34JauEiyy  N@| Nnu (@Karthiksharma__) October 19, 2023

Here comes Our Annayya @RaviTeja_offl ... My heart is filled with Love and pride .... One of the best performances from Mass Maharaja... He nails it with an ease and energy level is next level... Hatsoff for your dedication Anna  #TigerNageswaraRao https://t.co/zhcWjZ9lt5 pic.twitter.com/9wJqTE85fp  N@| Nnu (@Karthiksharma__) October 19, 2023

TIGER HUNT BEGINS FROM NOW

B L O C K B U S T E R @RaviTeja_offl ANNA Real TIGER in PERFORMANCE @DirVamsee THOPE DIRECTION @gvprakash BGM...

VISUALLY #BlockbusterTNR#TigerNageswaraRao pic.twitter.com/KnPYzrrW8m  FrUsTrAtEd RTF (@koushik8686) October 19, 2023

Tiger Nageswara Rao Cast

The movie features Massraja Ravi Teja as Tiger Nageswara Rao. Actress Nupur Sanon will be seen in the role of Sara. Anupam Kher as IB Officer Raghavendra Rajput, Renu Desai as Hemalatha Lavanam, Jisshu Sengupta, Murali Sharma as DSP Vishwanath Sastry, and Gayatri Bharadwaj among others are part of the film's cast.

Tiger Nageswara Rao Crew

The crime-action drama is co-written and directed by Vamsee. Srikanth Vissa penned the dialogues for the movie which is bankrolled by Abhishek Agarwal under the Abhishek Agarwal Arts banner. R Madhi cranked the camera and GV Prakash Kumar worked on the film's entire background score and music. Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao worked on the film's editing.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 18, 2023) - Caravan Energy Corporation (CSE: CNRG) (OTCQB: CENCF) (FSE: V69) ("Caravan" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Stephanie Sharma as Corporate Secretary of the Company.

Ms. Sharma is a corporate services specialist, often acting as a Corporate Secretary, in a variety of industries. Ms. Sharma has extensive experience in providing corporate secretarial, governance, compliance, facilitating financings and disclosure consulting services to various private and publicly listed issuers, including companies listed on CBOE Global Markets (previously the NEO Exchange), TSX Venture Exchange, Canadian Securities Exchange and the OTCQB.

Mr. Philip Ellard has stepped down as Corporate Secretary in order to focus on his role as Chief Financial Officer of the Company.

The Company is also please to announce that is has granted, pursuant to its equity compensation plan, an aggregate of 275,000 stock options and 4,000,0000 restricted share units to certain directors, officers, and consultants of the Company.

About Caravan Energy Corp.

The Company is a mineral exploration company based in Vancouver, BC and holds options over the EBB Nickel-Cobalt Property and owns 33 rare earth mineral claims, all of which are located in British Columbia, Canada.

Contact information

For More Information please contact:

Charn Deol - Director

E-mail: charnee@gmail.com

Tel: 604 681 119 4

The CSE has not reviewed, approved, or disapproved the contents of this press release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184504


Dt & SanoMedics Chairman, Charles Park (Park, Chae Gyoo) and Avance Clinical CEO Yvonne Lungershausen co-hosting the Global Clinical Trial Strategy Symposium in Korea last week.

Adelaide, Australia & North Carolina, USA, Oct 19, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - Avance Clinical, the Australian and North American market-leading CRO for biotechs, was asked to present their GlobalReady drug development solution to more than 45 Korean biotechs and pharmaceutical companies in Seoul, Korea last week as part of a special symposium at KoNECT Korea Conference.Avance Clinical's Korean CRO partner Dt & SanoMedics initiated the Global Clinical Trial Strategy Symposium and invited Avance Clinical to co-host.The Avance Clinical team, including CEO Yvonne Lungershausen, and Vice President, Commercial Business Development, Liahna Toy discussed drug development options including conducting clinical trials across South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States to support fast tracking clinical trial development programs.Yvonne Lungershausen said Avance Clinical offers two critical solutions for biotechs."Avance Clinical in Australia can maximise the 43.5% rebate on clinical trial spend, and in the United States can provide high quality trials following the FDA pathway. Both approaches were received as attractive propositions for biotechs wanting to maximise their data captured and conserve funding," she said."Our Avance Clinical teams in Australia and the United States offer world-class quality data and cultural alignment for Korean biotech clients designed to make their drug development programs seamless and successful.""Avance Clinical's study data is accepted by all the main regulatory authorities including the MFDS and FDA; and conversely the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia recognises data generated in Korea."Yvonne Lungershausen thanked Korean CRO partner Dt & SanoMedics for arranging the Global Clinical Trial Strategy Symposium."This was an impressive group of biopharma companies and we are extremely excited to be part of their clinical program as they expand to the United States.""Thank you to Chairman of the Dt&C group, Charles Park and Yujin Lee, Vice-President of Dt & SanoMedics, and the entire team for welcoming and hosting Avance Clinical in South Korea."Dt & SanoMedics VP Yujin Lee said the partnership with Avance Clinical has been further strengthened with the team providing valuable international drug development strategies for the Korean biotech community."We are pleased to introduce the Avance Clinical team because we know they stand for quality. Importantly, they have the experience and track-record especially in the United States which is where most biotechs will be conducting their later phase trials.""We believe this has been an important visit which has enabled us to enhance our partnership and actively help Korean companies enter the US and Australian pharmaceutical markets," she said.About Avance ClinicalAvance Clinical is a full-service CRO for biotechs with a proven track-record for delivering clinical excellence in Australia, New Zealand, and North America. As the largest premium full-service CRO in Australia and North America, Avance Clinical specializes in delivering top-tier clinical trials that yield globally accepted data.Award-winning CRO for BiotechsAvance Clinical has been recognised for the fourth consecutive year by Frost & Sullivan in 2023, being awarded the Best Practices Customer Value Leadership for Biotech's award, for its continuous exceptional performance.Pre-clinical through to Phase I and BeyondAvance Clinical offers pre-clinical consultancy services with their experienced ClinicReady team right through to Phase I and beyond clinical services leveraging significant Government incentive rebates of up to 43.5% and rapid start-up regulatory processes that are available in Australia and highly qualified sites and networks within the United States. With experience across more than 110 therapeutic indications, Avance Clinical can deliver world-class, high-quality, internationally accepted data suitable for FDA and EMA review.TechnologyAvance Clinical uses state-of-the-art technology and gold-standard systems across all functional areas to provide clients with the most effective processes. Medidata, Oracle, Zelta, Veeva and Medrio are just some of Avance Clinical's technology partners.www.avancecro.comMedia Contact:Avance ClinicalKate Thompsonmedia@avancecro.comSource: Avance ClinicalCopyright 2023 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Perth, Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 18, 2023) - Golden Horse Minerals Limited (TSXV: GHML) ("Golden Horse" or the "Company") wishes to advise that the Company has further bolstered its board of directors (the "Board") with the appointment of highly experienced Director and Executive, Mr. Paul Andre Huet to the position of Non-Executive Director effective October 18, 2023.

Mr. Huet embarked on his mining career over 35 years ago and throughout that time has built a reputation in developing world class mining companies. In his current role as Executive Chairman and CEO of Karora Resources, a TSX listed gold company (TSX: KRR), he oversaw a 10-fold growth in market cap, to over A$1 billion within a three-and-a-half-year period (current market cap of ~A$860 million). Mr. Huet is an expert in corporate and operational affairs and has a strong understanding of capital markets.

Mr. Huet's previous roles include President, CEO and Director of North American gold miner Klondex Mines from 2012-2018 until its acquisition by Hecla Mining Company (NYSE: HL), Chief Operating Officer of Premier Gold Mines Limited, General Manager at the Hollister mine (while owned by Great Basin Gold) and Mine Manager at the Midas Mine (while owned by Newmont and Franco-Nevada). Mr. Huet earned an Honors degree in Mining Engineering Technology from the Haileybury School of Mines in Ontario, and an Executive MBA from the Stanford University School of Business and has served on several non-profit and publicly traded company corporate boards.

Commenting on the appointment, Golden Horse Chairman and Interim CEO Graeme Sloan said:

"Paul brings to Golden Horse an extensive portfolio of corporate, operational and capital markets expertise, acquired from many years of professional work in the gold industry. His background is marked by a successful track record of developing gold deposits and efficiently steering projects into full production. Paul's strong global network will provide valuable assistance in the growth of the Company and will be a huge windfall for Golden Horse shareholders.

Paul's appointment comes at an important period in the Company's re-structure and growth, especially with the Company's plans for a TSXV and ASX dual listing later this year, early next year. Paul's appointment along with the recently announced appointment of Jonathan Lea as a Non-Executive Director, adds incredible depth to the Golden Horse Board. I look forward to working with Paul, Jonathan and the other Board members as we continue to fast track our exploration and development activities in the highly prospective Southern Cross region of Western Australia.

On behalf of the Board and shareholders, I would like to welcome Paul to the Golden Horse team."

On behalf of Golden Horse Minerals Limited

For more information contact:

Graeme Sloan

Director / Interim CEO

Email: graeme.sloan@goldenhorseminerals.com.au

+61 9322 1788

Josh Conner

Chief Operating Officer

Email: josh.conner@goldenhorseminerals.com.au

+61 9322 1788

Media

David Tasker

Chapter One Advisors

Email: dtasker@chapteroneadvisors.com.au

+61 433 112 936

Investors

Adam Davey

Canaccord Genuity Financial Limited

Email: ADavey@cgf.com

+61 8 9225 2811

Mason Brown

Canaccord Genuity Financial Limited

Email: mpbrown@cgf.com

+61 8 9225 2862

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information

This release contains "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws, which may include, but are not limited to statements relating to the Company's planned dual listing on the ASX and the Company's exploration and development opportunities. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ from those in the forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to exploration and development, the ability of the Company to obtain additional financing, the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations, fluctuations in the prices of gold and other commodities, operating hazards and risks inherent in the resource industry, competition and other risks and uncertainties, including those described in the Company's financial statements and/or management discussion and analysis available on www.sedarplus.ca. The Company does not undertake to update forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, except as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184508
Hyundai Mobis participates Japan Mobility Show starting from October 26 th to November 5 th to expand Japanese market

Plans to secure new business opportunities with Japanese automakers showcasing strategic products, including electrification, IVI, ADAS, and lamps

Hyundai Mobis poise to strengthen global presence via active participation in global mobility events, following CES (USA) and IAA (Germany).

SEOUL, South Korea and TOKYO, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Mobis (KRX: 012330) is making its first appearance at the Japan Mobility Show, previously known as Tokyo Motor Show, aiming to secure new orders from local automakers. Hyundai Mobis anticipates creation of new business opportunities through aggressive sales strategy, in response to the changing environment in the Japanese automotive market, which is in the midst of a transition from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles to future mobility solutions like electrification and autonomous driving.

Hyundai Mobis announced on the 19th that it will participate in 'Japan Mobility Show' which will be held in Tokyo, Japan from October 26th to November 5th, showcasing the company's strategic products such as electrification, IVI (In-Vehicle Infotainment System), and ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). This marks the first time that Hyundai Mobis is participating in mobility-related events held in Japan, including the former Tokyo Motor Show.

Hyundai Mobis plans to run its exhibition with a focus on 'private booths' at this year's show to concentrate its efforts on creating new business opportunities. The exhibition venue will also be catered to accommodate pre-invited customer meetings. During the exhibition, Hyundai Mobis will discuss business cooperation plans with key Japanese automakers, including Toyota, Renault Nissan Mitsubishi, and Honda.

While this is the first time for Hyundai Mobis to be participating in a mobility-related event in Japan, the company has supplied products like lamps, chassis, and IVI products to local Japanese automakers in the past. In particular, in the first half of last year, Hyundai Mobis expanded its dedicated local customer organization and recruited two executives with automotive industry expertise to oversee business operations and orders within Japan. These experts have accumulated extensive experience and built networks in the Japanese automotive and component manufacturing industry, having worked in the field for nearly 40 years. The recruitment of these two professionals demonstrates how Hyundai Mobis has been building a strategic foundation to secure new business opportunities in Japan.

In addition, the recent shift towards future mobility in Japan, exemplified by electrification, autonomous driving, and IVI, is being viewed as an auspicious opportunity for Korean automotive suppliers to sign with new business prospects. Hyundai Mobis intends to target Japanese automakers by offering customized solutions that combine core technologies in the field of future mobility with their existing expertise in component production.

Starting with CES in the United States at the beginning of the year, Hyundai Mobis has been actively participating in major mobility events globally, including the IAA in Germany, the Detroit Auto Show in the United States, and now the Japan Mobility Show, in a concerted effort to strengthen its overseas market expansion and order acquisition. Hyundai Mobis recently achieved a significant success by securing a large-scale order with Volkswagen for core electrification components, further signaling a positive outlook towards achieving this year's overseas sales target of 5.36 billion dollars.

Media Contact

Jihyun Han: jihyun.han@mobis.co.kr

Myong Sun Song: sms@mobis.co.kr

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1166884/4348086/hyundaimobis_CI_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/hyundai-mobis-to-exhibit-at-japan-mobility-show-2023-for-the-first-time-301961374.html
19 October 2023

PRESS RELEASE

Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 listing rules:



GAM Holding AG announces first steps in turnaround

Completion of the CHF 100 million financial support from anchor shareholder; appointments to strengthen Group Management Board; investment in client service and portfolio management and an update on investment performance and assets under management



Highlights

GAM has entered into a CHF 100 million agreement with Rock Investment SA ("Rock") which secures financing and has assured long-term financial stability for the firm

Rock, together with the other NewGAMe investors, will control almost 30% of GAM shares once their tender offer is completed

Group Management Board (GMB) strengthened with new appointments focused on growing the business and a return to profitability

Immediate focus on investing in client service and portfolio management: Hiring additional senior sales and distribution team members focusing on Continental Europe and the UK Appointments of additional investment managers for the Luxury Brands and Credit Opportunities strategies

Investment performance continues to be strong with 82% of Assets under Management (AuM) in GAM funds outperforming their benchmarks over 3 years as of 30 September 2023 compared to 90% as of 30 June 2023

Total AuM CHF 64.9 billion as of 30 September 2023 compared to CHF 68.0 billion as of 30 June 2023. Investment Management AuM is CHF 20.2 billion as of 30 September 2023 compared to CHF 21.9 billion as of 30 June 2023

The sale of the third-party Fund Management Services ("FMS") activities to Carne Group is progressing well







Rock is part of NJJ Holding SAS ("NJJ"), the investment holding company of Xavier Niel, which has a reputation as a committed, long-term and knowledgeable investor and a proven track record of turning around businesses.

The financing agreement entered into by GAM and Rock provides up to CHF 100 million in funding. The term of the loan is until 30 June 2025 with the option for it to be extended by an additional 12 months.

The appointments to the GMB reflect the deep bench of talent at GAM. All the newly appointed members have the relevant experience to lead the implementation of GAM's turnaround under the overall leadership of Elmar Zumbuehl and oversight of the Board of Directors. In addition to the internal appointments, Albert Saporta has been appointed to the GMB as Global Head of Investments and Products. Albert has deep knowledge and expertise in alternatives and played a leading part in ensuring that GAM remained an independent asset manager.

The GMB now consists of Elmar Zumbuehl (Group Chief Executive Officer), Rossen Djounov (Global Head of Sales and Distribution), Martin Jufer (Global Chief Operating Officer & GAM CH CEO), David Kemp (Global Head of Legal and Compliance & GAM UK CEO), Richard McNamara (Group Chief Financial Officer) and Albert Saporta (Global Head of Investments & Products). The GMB will focus on growing GAM's existing core strategies and exploring new opportunities including distribution partnerships, wealth management and specialised investment strategies such as alternatives.

GAM's depth of investment talent and continuing strong investment performance is reflected in the many awards that have been received by the investment teams during 2023. The recent double award for GAM from Citywire for investment performance complements a series of awards including the Private Shares strategy receiving Emerging Fund of the year in Australia from Financial News, the inclusion of the two managers for the UK equity income strategy in the Citywire elite investor list and two strategies - Cat bonds and commodities - recognised in the Fund Selector Asia awards in Singapore.

Elmar Zumbuehl, CEO GAM said: "I am delighted to have been able to strengthen the Group Management Board with these appointments and together we will lead the turnaround of GAM. Our first priority is to focus on investing in our client service and portfolio management teams. The continuing strong investment performance and the support from our anchor shareholder Rock means that we can move forward with confidence and with a focus on growth and returning GAM to profitability."

Anthony Maarek, Managing Director of NJJ Holding of which Rock is a subsidiary said: "GAM is an important long-term strategic investment for NJJ, and we are committed with management to restoring the company to a best-in-class global asset management firm. We view it as the first step in developing an investment pillar in financial services as part of NJJ's long term strategy."

Assets under Management

As of 30 September 2023, Group AuM totalled CHF 64.9 billion compared to CHF 68.0 billion as of the end of June 2023.



Investment Management assets and flows

Assets under management movements (CHF bn)

Capability Opening AuM

1 July 2023 Net flows

Q3 2023 Market/FX

Q3 2023 Closing AuM

30 Sept 2023 Fixed income 9.5 (1.0) 0.2 8.7 Equity 5.0 (0.4) (0.2) 4.4 Alternatives 1.1 (0.1) - 1.0 Multi asset 6.3 (0.2) - 6.1 Total 21.9 (1.7) (-) 20.2

Fund Management Services assets and flows

Assets under management movements (CHF bn)

Fond domicile Opening AuM

1 July 2023 Net flows

Q3 2023 Market/FX

Q3 2023 Closing AuM

30 Sept 2023 Rest of Europe 38.4 (0.2) (0.7) 37.5 Switzerland 7.7 (0.5) - 7.2 Total 46.1 (0.7) (0.7) 44.7

Background on GMB members:

Elmar Zumbuehl, Group CEO



Prior to being appointed Group CEO, Elmar had been Global Chief Risk Officer and member of the Group Management Board since 2017. Elmar joined GAM in 2010 as senior legal counsel and risk manager and in 2011 became general counsel and corporate secretary of GAM Holding AG and director of a number of GAM subsidiaries. Prior to joining GAM, Elmar had worked at Julius Baer for ten years in a number of senior roles. Elmar was admitted to the bar in Switzerland in 2000, is a graduate of the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and holds masters degrees in business administration (lic. oec. HSG), specialising in finance and accounting as well as operations research, and law (lic. iur. HSG). Elmar is a Swiss citizen.

Rossen Djounov, Global Head of Distribution and Sales



Prior to being appointed Global Head of Distribution and Sales, Rossen was the Managing Director and Head of GAM's Asia Business based in Hong Kong where he was responsible for APAC distribution and for the business management of GAM's offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. Rossen joined GAM in 2008 in London to help build the Structured Investments business. From 2015 to 2017 he was GAM's Head of International Distribution leading the firm's distribution activities in US offshore, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Prior to GAM, Rossen spent 12 years at Forsyth Partners in various roles in London and Dubai including Head of Investments and Head of Distribution. He holds an MBA in Financial Services from the University of Exeter. Rossen is a UK and Bulgarian citizen and is based in Hong Kong.

Martin Jufer, Global Chief Operating Officer and CEO Switzerland



Prior to being appointed Global COO, Martin was Global Head of Wealth Management. Until 2022 Martin was the region head of continental Europe and oversaw GAM's Fund Management Services Business. From 2013 to 2015, Martin had been responsible for GAM's continental European operations function. Before joining GAM, Martin had spent 17 years at Julius Baer in various roles including chief operating officer and head of products and services for Swiss & Global Asset Management and prior to that he had been responsible for fund administration, middle office and IT. Before joining Julius Baer, Martin was an auditor with Ernst & Young. Martin holds an MBA from the University of St. Gallen (HSG), and he is a certified European financial analyst (CEFA), US certified public accountant (CPA) and a certified ESG analyst (CESGA). Martin is a Swiss citizen.

David Kemp, Global Head of Legal and Compliance & GAM UK CEO



Prior to being appointed UK CEO and Global Head of Legal and Compliance, David was Global Head of Compliance. Prior to joining GAM in October 2018, David was General Counsel, Asset & Wealth Management at Schroders from 2012. He previously held a number of senior front office positions in investment banks including Head of Sales and Structuring. His experience includes credit, commodities, infrastructure, direct lending, non-performing loans, alternatives, quantitative strategies, supply chain finance and sharia compliant products dealing with institutions, corporate and high net worth clients across Asia, the Middle East Europe and North America. David began his career as a solicitor with a leading City law firm. David holds a post-graduate diploma in law and legal practice course from the College of Law, Guildford, a master's degree in Business Finance from Brunel University and a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from King's College, University of London. He holds the FT NED Diploma. David is a UK citizen.

Richard McNamara, Group CFO



Richard McNamara was appointed group chief financial officer and became a member of GAM Holding AG's Group Management Board in 2015. After a short break in 2022, Richard returned in early 2023 in an interim position to help support the process of securing a strategic outcome for the firm. Richard has now re-joined GAM as group CFO and a member of the GMB. Before joining GAM Richard had been at Henderson Group since 2009 in various roles including managing director, finance. Prior to Henderson, Richard held senior finance roles at Western Asset Management, Legg Mason and Citigroup Asset Management. Richard is a chartered accountant and holds a BA (Hons) in finance and accounting from Brighton University. He started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers where he was a senior manager in the investment management industry group. Richard is a UK citizen.

Albert Saporta, Global Head of Investments & Products



Albert Saporta has 40 years' experience in global financial markets, with over 30 years in the hedge fund industry focusing on special situations and arbitrage. Albert started his career at Paribas in Paris, where he managed the Japan/Asia mutual funds from 1984-85. He joined Merrill Lynch in London as Vice President of Japanese equity sales from 1985-88, covering major UK, European and US institutional accounts. In 1988, he joined UBS Securities in London where he headed quantitative research and hedge fund sales for Japanese equities until 1991. He then joined IFM, at the time the first London-based hedge fund of size and owned by Jacob Rothschild's St James's Place and AIG and where he set up and managed relative value global equity arbitrage strategies until early 1995. He then left to set up Geneva-based AIM&R, a hedge fund advisory and research firm, managing the top-performing SOG and SOGAsia funds (the latter in a strategic JV with UOB). In March 2006, Albert sold AIM&R 's research and hedge fund businesses to ABN Amro Bank (London). As part of the transaction, he set-up the Special Opportunities Group (SOG) at ABN (based in London, Singapore and Sao Paulo), managing a balance sheet of over US$ 1bn in global arbitrage strategies and special situations. AIM&R was relaunched in 2011 under its current form as a research and trading advisory firm, and advising some of the largest global hedge funds, pension funds, prop trading firms and UHNW family offices. Albert has a master's in International Affairs from Columbia University (1984), an MBA (1983) and BSc in economics (1982) from New York University, and a Math/Physics degree from the University of Nice (1980). In his career, Albert has lived and worked in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Geneva, Tokyo, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Tel Aviv. He is fluent in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese. Albert is a French, Israeli and Spanish citizen.

For further information please contact:

Charles Naylor

Global Head of Communications and Investor Relations

T +44 7890 386 699

Media Relations

Ute Dehn Christen

T +41 58 426 31 36

Visit us: www.gam.com

Follow us: Twitter and LinkedIn

GAM

GAM is an independent investment manager that is listed in Switzerland. Total assets under management were CHF 64.9 billion as of 30 September 2023, with Investment Management at CHF 20.2 billion and Fund Management Services at CHF 44.7 billion. GAM has global distribution with offices in [14] countries and is geographically diverse with clients in almost every continent. Headquartered in Zurich, GAM Investments was founded in 1983 and its registered office is at Hardstrasse 201 Zurich, 8037 Switzerland.

Other Important Information

This release contains or may contain statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "estimate", "aim", "project", "forecast", "risk", "likely", "intend", "outlook", "should", "could", "would", "may", "might", "will", "continue", "plan", "probability", "indicative", "seek", "target", "plan" and other similar expressions are intended to or may identify forward-looking statements.

Any such statements in this release speak only as of the date hereof and are based on assumptions and contingencies subject to change without notice, as are statements about market and industry trends, projections, guidance, and estimates. Any forward-looking statements in this release are not indications, guarantees, assurances or predictions of future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the person making such statements, its affiliates and its and their directors, officers, employees, agents and advisors and may involve significant elements of subjective judgement and assumptions as to future events which may or may not be correct and may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any such statements. You are strongly cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and no person accepts or assumes any liability in connection therewith.

This release is not a financial product or investment advice, a recommendation to acquire, exchange or dispose of securities or accounting, legal or tax advice. It has been prepared without taking into account the objectives, legal, financial or tax situation and needs of individuals. Before making an investment decision, individuals should consider the appropriateness of the information having regard to their own objectives, legal, financial and tax situation and needs and seek legal, tax and other advice as appropriate for their individual needs and jurisdiction.

Attachments
Sustainability ratings leader EcoVadis places AFYREN in top 21% of all companies evaluated

Award is a validation of AFYREN's CSR commitments and performance

Regulatory News:

AFYREN (Paris:ALAFY), a greentech company that offers manufacturers bio-based, low-carbon ingredients produced using unique fermentation technology based on a completely circular model, announced today that it was awarded a silver medal by EcoVadis, one of the most recognized independent CSR assessment platforms.

In its first EcoVadis rating, AFYREN obtained a score of 61/100, placing it in the top 21% of companies out of more than 85,000 assessed worldwide, and earning it a silver medal. This recognition by a third-party organization rewards AFYREN's constant efforts to comply with best practices in terms of social and environmental responsibility, and aligns perfectly with its purpose: "We enable low-carbon, circular industry by providing biobased solutions built with our partners to benefit the environment."

EcoVadis ratings are based on international CSR standards, such as the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact, the conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and ISO 260000. These ratings provide an evidence-based analysis of performance and an actionable roadmap for continuous improvement. Each company is assessed on key issues according to its size, location and business sector.

Caroline PETIGNY, AFYREN's Chief Sustainability Officer, said: "We are proud of this very good score awarded by one of the most reputable CSR rating agencies. Our value proposition is based both on our environmental commitments, through our bio-based, low-carbon and fully circular model, and on our social commitments. We are delighted that our progress in these areas is recognized year after year by independent bodies."

About EcoVadis

EcoVadis is the world's leading platform for assessing and rating corporate sustainability performance. It offers innovative solutions for measuring, monitoring and improving the CSR practices of companies worldwide. Its main objective is to promote CSR by assessing performance using a rigorous methodology and transparent rating criteria. More than 85,000 companies in over 175 countries have been assessed by EcoVadis. The EcoVadis evaluation takes into account 21 CSR criteria divided into four fundamental themes: Social Environment, Human Rights, Ethics and Responsible Purchasing.

About AFYREN

Founded in 2012 to address manufacturers' growing need to reduce the carbon footprint of their inputs and move towards more natural ingredients, AFYREN manufactures biobased products to replace petroleum-derived molecules. With its innovative, unique, and proprietary process, the French greentech company offers low-carbon, bio-based alternatives in the following sectors: human and animal nutrition, cosmetics, flavors and fragrances, and fine chemicals. By valorizing local, non-food biomass, AFYREN helps manufacturers offer more sustainable finished products while remaining competitive.

The company is pursuing an ambitious development plan to better serve its international customers. Its first plant, AFYREN NEOXY, a joint venture with Bpifrance's SPI fund, is located in France, primarily to serve the European market. In early 2023, AFYREN announced the launch of a factory project in Thailand, partnering with a world leader in the sugar industry. AFYREN is also expanding its presence on the American continent, in line with distribution agreements already signed.

By 2023, AFYREN employed more than 110 people in Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand Carling Saint-Avold; the company invests 20% of its budget in R&D every year.

AFYREN has been listed on Euronext Growth in Paris since 2021 (ISIN code: FR0014005AC9, ticker: ALAFY).

Find out more: https://afyren.com/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018330836/en/

Contacts:

AFYREN

Director for ESG, Communications and Public Affairs

Caroline Petigny

caroline.petigny@afyren.com

Investor Relations

Mark Reinhard

investisseurs@afyren.com

NewCap

Investor Relations

Theo Martin Mathilde Bohin

Tel: 01 44 71 94 94

afyren@newcap.eu

NewCap

Media Relations

Nicolas Merigeau Gaelle Fromaigeat

Tel: 01 44 71 94 98

afyren@newcap.eu

BOGERT-MAGNIER COMMUNICATIONS

International Media relations

Bogert-Magnier Communications

James Connell

+33 6 2152 1755

jim@bogert-magnier.com
COP28 Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum announces partnerships with Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Economic Forum, Asian Development Bank, Africa Finance Corporation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and XPRIZE.

Collaborating for the first time on the same platform, the Forum's partners will represent a diverse range of regions and sectors, ensuring an inclusive global outlook.

This coalition will coordinate strategies on how the private sector can help address the financing gap of over USD 3 trillion required annually to achieve net-zero emissions, support climate adaptation, reverse nature loss and restore biodiversity.

Together, this coalition will advance the Forum's mission to bridge the gap between ambition and action, fostering transformative and inclusive climate initiatives for a sustainable future.

ABU DHABI, UAE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The inaugural COP28 Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum, hosted by the COP28 Presidency on 1 and 2 December 2023 in parallel with the world leaders World Climate Action Summit, has announced key partnerships with leading global organizations, joining forces to drive global climate and nature action.

The Forum will convene 500 business and philanthropy leaders alongside policymakers to accelerate solutions and drive bolder results. This first of a kind multi-stakeholder engagement strategy for climate and nature is driven by the UAE's ambition to host an inclusive climate conference that marshals full and broad support with engagement from all regions of the world.

The Forum is proud to partner with major global delivery partners including Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - Network of Foundations Working for Development (OECD- NetFWD), World Economic Forum - Giving to Amplify Earth Action, Asian Development Bank, Africa Finance Corporation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and XPRIZE. These global partners offer distinct expertise and resources to coordinate strategies for the private sector to help address the annual financing gap of over USD 3 trillion necessary for achieving net-zero emissions, reversing nature loss, and restoring biodiversity. This signifies a new era of collaborative climate action guided by the COP28 Action Agenda, which includes fast-tracking a just and orderly energy transition; fixing climate finance; putting nature, lives, and livelihoods at the heart of climate action; and underpinning everything with full inclusivity.

COP28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber said, "Businesses and philanthropists must play leading roles in meeting net zero pathways and delivering sustainable development, and through the Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum at COP28, they will have a platform to do so. The BPCF is a key part of our Presidency's agenda to help deliver concrete outcomes from the private and philanthropic sectors. We are committed to hosting a fully inclusive COP, and it would be impossible to do this without the vital input of our business and philanthropy communities."

COP28 Special Representative for Business & Philanthropy, Badr Jafar commented, "Working together to create a truly inclusive action platform, the Forum's partners will be instrumental in collectively turning our aspirations into actionable outcomes for climate and nature. Their broad expertise, resources, and unwavering commitment is what is required to harness the true potential of both business and philanthropy, working alongside an enabling policy environment, to generate a multiplier effect on impact towards increasingly urgent climate and nature goals."

Collaborating across the Forum's transformative agenda, the Forum's strategic partner Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) will help bring together global leaders to align industry, investment, and country roadmaps to showcase the progress achieved and chart the path for expediting and expanding these efforts.

Highlighting the importance of the Forum, SMI CEO, Jennifer Jordan-Saifi, added, "Building on the foundations of the SMI's Terra Carta Action Forums this platform will ensure, for the first time, meaningful integration of the private sector into the official world leaders' program at the UNFCCC COP. As we accelerate action to 2030, this Forum sets a bold new standard for future COPs with a commitment to monitoring and showcasing global private sector progress. This Forum will be the 'must attend' event at COP28."

The Forum's partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, underscores the development finance sector's commitment to green investments. Makhtar Diop, IFC Managing Director stated, "IFC is the leading global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. We create investable climate project pipelines and mobilize institutional capital at scale to accelerate a resilient and inclusive transition in emerging markets. We're delighted to serve as a delivery partner in the Forum."

Commenting on the partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which works with over 100 countries, Head of the OECD's Networks, Partnerships and Gender Division, Bathylle Missika added, "The OECD is committed to raising international awareness around philanthropy's contribution to climate adaptation and mitigation. That's why we are honored to be named as a delivery partner of the COP28 Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum, where we will continue the work started at the New Global Financing Pact and position the collective voice of philanthropy."

Since 1971, the World Economic Forum has been promoting and driving multi-stakeholder engagement across all sectors. Brge Brende, President of WEF commented, "The World Economic Forum launched its Giving to Amplify Earth Action (GAEA) initiative to turbocharge corporate and public action across climate and nature by bringing the catalytic tools of philanthropy into the conversation. We are honored to be an official delivery partner of COP28's Business & Philanthropy Climate and look forward to working together to unlock ambition and action for people and planet".

"The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is committed to enhancing collaboration between philanthropy, business and the public sector in order to enhance climate action across Asia and the Pacific," said Woochong Um, Managing Director General of ADB. "We are excited about being a delivery partner to the COP28 Business and Philanthropy Climate Forum. Partnerships are critical for ADB to deliver on our USD 100 billion climate finance ambition by 2030."

The African Finance Corporation emphasizes the importance of climate resilience across particularly vulnerable regions within the Global South. Samaila Zubairu, President & CEO of AFC, added, "Our collaboration must advance often-overlooked natural capital solutions emerging from Africa, which hold the key to sustainable, environmentally conscious development not only for our region, but also for progressing global efforts to net zero. This Forum is critical to galvanizing the urgent action needed if we are to transform our global economy in a way that ensures a balanced coexistence with nature, building a promising future for generations to come."

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stated that "the business and philanthropic community is uniquely positioned to catalyze innovation and find solutions to address climate change, including mitigation and adaptation. We believe that the COP28's Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum will inspire and encourage bold action to overcome the climate challenges for the most vulnerable communities that are already feeling the impacts, especially smallholder farmers."

XPRIZE, an established global leader in incentivizing crowd-sourced, scientifically viable solutions to humanity's greatest challenges, injects the spirit of competition, inspiring breakthrough solutions that can reshape the climate narrative. XPRIZE CEO, Anousheh Ansari commented, "XPRIZE has long been dedicated to incentivizing the creation of innovative solutions to our climate challenges, and we're excited to participate in this Forum to set bold new moonshots at a critical turning point for our planet. The Business and Philanthropy Climate Forum offers an incredible opportunity to discover new ways to collaborate, and XPRIZE looks forward to accelerating positive change together as we continue building a more equitable and abundant future for all."

Together, these partners advance the Forum's mission to bridge the gap between ambition and action, fostering transformative and inclusive climate initiatives for a sustainable future.

The Forum will be held across both the COP28 Blue Zone and Green Zone, at the beginning of the two-week COP28 program that runs from 30 November to 12 December. The two-week agenda for COP28 was developed in consultation with stakeholders from around the world in a six-week open consultation - the first such approach taken by a COP Presidency.

For interview requests and other media enquiries related to the COP28 Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum, please contact media@bpcforum.org

Notes to Editors COP28 UAE:

COP28 UAE will take place at Expo City Dubai from November 30- December 12, 2023. The Conference is expected to convene over 70,000 participants, including heads of state, government officials, international industry leaders, private sector representatives, academics, experts, youth, and non-state actors.

As mandated by the Paris Climate Agreement, COP28 UAE will deliver the first ever Global Stocktake - a comprehensive evaluation of progress against climate goals.

The UAE will lead a process for all parties to agree upon a clear roadmap to accelerate progress through a pragmatic global energy transition and a "leave no one behind" approach to inclusive climate action."

The Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum is COP28's private sector engagement platform to convene and engage business leaders and philanthropists from around the world.

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MALMO, Sweden, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- PinMeTo, a leading SaaS platform in the local search and marketing technology industry, is proud to announce that it has achieved ISO 27001 certification (attached).



This internationally recognized standard underscores the company's strong commitment to information security and data protection. Working with an ISO 27001 certified company like PinMeTo offers customers enhanced trust and credibility due to rigorous data protection standards. This certification ensures robust risk management, regulatory compliance, and a commitment to continuous improvement in information security. Customers benefit from increased transparency, a competitive edge, streamlined vendor management, and peace of mind, knowing that their data is safeguarded with best practices.



ISO 27001 is one of the most prestigious certifications for information security management. It signifies that an organization has met the strict standards for a comprehensive Information Security Management System (ISMS) and has implemented appropriate security controls to manage and protect data.

Henrik Schmidt, CEO of PinMeTo, commented on the achievement, "As we continue to serve global enterprise companies in industries such as banking, government, retail, hospitality or global enterprise brands like Hertz, Starbucks, 7-Eleven, it's imperative that we keep the highest standards of data security. Achieving this certification is helping us build stronger, deeper relationships, enabling us to work more closely with customers, and achieve more successful outcomes together."

The ISO 27001 certification is especially important for companies in the digital space. With the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats, businesses and their customers need assurance that their information is protected. The International Organization for Standardization, as an independent, non-governmental international organization, provides that assurance through its consensus-based, market-relevant International Standards. For businesses and organizations that collaborate with PinMeTo, this certification provides an added layer of trust, ensuring that their data is managed with the highest standards of security.

In the location marketing field, PinMeTo marketing and search technology for multi-location brands is proud to be the first company to be fully ISO 27001 certified. This includes not only PinMeTo products but also our global offices, processes, and all operations.

Location marketing is a strategy where businesses optimize their presence for search engines to target a specific geographic area. This allows companies to present more personalized messaging to local audiences, enhancing local sales, and actively manage their digital footprint. On search, maps and social media-platforms like Google, Apple Maps, Facebook and Instagram businesses can keep metadata such as visiting addresses, opening hours and photos current. Moreover, they can promptly address reviews, respond to messages, and engage with comments from social media ensuring real-time engagement with their local customers.

About PinMeTo

Founded in 2013 PinMeTo is a marketing and search technology for multi-location brands, trusted by enterprise companies like 7-Eleven, Asics, Hertz, and hundreds of other global brands. PinMeTo connects multi-location brands with the biggest search, map, and social media platforms, letting brands keep their business information up-to-date everywhere, manage their reviews, and maximize their social reach - all from one place.

For more information, interview opportunities, or additional assets, please contact Bernardo Candeias at bernardo.candeias@pinmeto.com or Daniel Melkersson (+46739606140). We appreciate your interest and are available to assist with any media-related requests.

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/22829/3856426/2369076.pdf ISOIEC-27001-C583993-0-en-US-20231017-20231017070453 (1) https://mb.cision.com/Public/22829/3856426/bd3394562469b8ae.pdf Press release (PDF)

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REIMS, France and MEOQUI, Mexico, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Vivescia Group, a French cooperative agri-food group with operations in 25 countries around the world, today inaugurated a new malthouse for its malting business in Meoqui (Chihuahua state - North Mexico), in the presence of all the stakeholders involved in the project.

As the first malt industry player to make a significant investment in Mexico, Malteurop is intensifying its efforts to win new business in this country while building a virtuous ecosystem from grain to glass. In addition to the 112 million investment in this malthouse, Malteurop has developed 100% local sourcing over the past three years, through a partnership with some 500 local farmers to produce malting barley.

The President of VIVESCIA Group, Christoph Buren, said: "This new malting plant highlights French industrial and agricultural expertise, while addressing local economic needs and the challenge of sustainability. During the construction of this new malthouse, Malteurop's agronomic and varietal development teams put together a 100%-local barley supply chain. This is an extension of our original business model, which is in place on VIVESCIA's cooperative territory in France".

Olivier Hautin, Managing Director of Malteurop, added: "With an annual production capacity of 120,000 tonnes of malt, which could be extended to 150,000 tonnes in the future, this new facility will enable us to meet the needs of brewers in a particularly buoyant market, which has a shortage of malt, a strategic ingredient in beer production. This project illustrates Malteurop's unique and well-established capacity to develop new industrial projects throughout the world."

A virtuous ecosystem: contributing to the development of a local barley-malt-beer value chain

Over the past three years, Malteurop has formed partnerships with nearly 500 farmers, encouraging them to diversify into malting barley as an additional crop. Malteurop was able to identify the malting barley varieties that are best suited to the region, while liaising with the VIVESCIA Cooperative's teams, who provided support for the farmers with agro-ecological best practices and low-carbon techniques, once again confirming its commitment to a methodical climate strategy involving the reduction of its carbon footprint and the promotion of regenerative agriculture.

Mexico is a major importer of malt, as well as being one of the world's fastest-growing beer markets (+8% in 2022). With its new malthouse in Meoqui, Malteurop is part of a virtuous local ecosystem, with a more sustainable short supply chain, alongside its farming and brewing partners, in particular Heineken, whose most recent site is adjacent to the malthouse.

--------------------------

About VIVESCIA Group: www.vivescia.com

About Malteurop: www.malteurop.com

Contact: contact@vivescia.com

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PARIS (dpa-AFX) - Pernod Ricard SA (RI), a French liqueur company, on Thursday reported a decline in sales for the first-quarter of 2024, particularly on unfavorable impact of foreign exchange, mainly from US Dollar, Chinese Yuan, Turkish Lira, Indian Rupee, and Argentinean Peso depreciation against Euro. For the three-month period, the company posted sales of 3.042 billion euros, which reflects a decline of two percent on organic and eight percent on reported basis. Alexandre Ricard, CEO of Pernod Ricard, said: 'As expected we experienced a soft start to the year, yet I am encouraged we have largely offset declines in US and China this quarter, thanks to our good performance in other markets. In the months to come I look forward to sharing with you exciting brand activations and innovations across our full portfolio. I am confident that we can deliver broad-based and diversified organic sales growth in FY24.' Looking ahead, Pernod Ricard noted that it remains confident in its 2023-25 mid-term financial target aiming for the upper end of positive 4 percent to positive7 percent organic net sales growth. 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.
Eddie Chandler Appointed as Europe's Head of Compliance & Chief Risk Officer

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Segpay, a pioneer in digital payment processing, announced today that Eddie Chandler has received approval by the Central Bank of Ireland as the company's Chief Risk Officer and Head of Compliance for Segregated Payments (Ireland) Limited, Segpay's Centre of European Union operations based in Dublin.

"We are excited to have someone as talented as Eddie join our European team," said Segpay CEO Cathy Beardsley. "His knowledge, attention to detail, and now the backing of the Central Bank of Ireland shows just what kind of high-level solutions Eddie can bring to ensure Segpay's European merchants funds are always safe and secure."

Eddie is a seasoned European executive with extensive compliance and risk experience across asset management, banking, payments, and crypto having started his career in Lloyds Bank. He is known for embedding a strong compliance and risk culture across businesses and borders and is experienced in rapidly scaling international businesses as well as having extensive advisory expertise.

Prior to joining Segpay Eddie held senior compliance and risk positions across the financial services sector including JP Morgan Merchant Services and Blackhawk Networks. In addition, Eddie has taken on several strategic advisory roles with KPMG, An Post, and MUFG.

"I'm excited to be joining Segpay's European Union operations Centre and working together with the team to achieve Segpay's growth ambitions," said Chandler. "The in-house systems developed since its inception in 2005 are second to none, make scaling the business much easier, especially from a compliance perspective. I'm delighted to able to bring my skills, knowledge, and experience to support Segpay at such an exciting time for the company while being mindful of the continually evolving regulatory landscape and the challenges this brings."

Eddie holds business, compliance, risk, and data privacy qualifications in addition to obtaining an MBA from Dublin City University. For more information on Chandler's role with Segpay, the Segpay EU team or how you can expand globally feel free to reach out directly to Sales@Segpay.com.

About Segpay

Segpay is a pioneer in digital payment processing, offering custom solutions including payment facilitator, direct merchant accounts and secure gateway services. The company specializes in online credit card processing for e-commerce and subscription services for global merchants. Segpay provides secure turnkey solutions to accept online payments, with a guarantee that funds are always safe and protected with its proprietary Fraud Mitigation System and unmatched customer service and support. For more information, visit http://www.segpay.com/.

Media Contact:

Kerrie Levick

Creaxion for Segpay

Kerrie@Creaxion.com

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CARGOTEC CORPORATION, PRESS RELEASE, 19 OCTOBER 2023 AT 10 AM. The order with a value close to 5 million euros was booked in Cargotec's 2023 Q3 order intake with the units scheduled to be delivered by the end of Q4 2023.



GMP has been using Kalmar straddle carriers since the early 1990s and has now ordered a total of 28 hybrid units since 2020. These eco-efficient machines are helping GMP to reduce the carbon footprint of its operations in line with its strategic goals, with the added benefit of significantly reducing noise pollution. In addition, the quay at GMP Le Havre is being expanded, creating a requirement for additional machines to serve their fleet of ship-to-shore cranes.



Louis Jonquiere, CEO GMP Le Havre: "As long-term partners Kalmar and GMP Le Havre share a commitment to safe and sustainable cargo handling. Kalmar hybrid straddle carriers have proven to be the ideal fit for our operations, so it was a relatively straightforward decision to continue on the same path. We are looking forward to welcoming the new additions to our fleet."

, Director Global Customers Kalmar: "This latest order from GMP Le Havre is another strong signal of the trust that terminal operators have in our proven hybrid solutions to reduce emissions and improve efficiency. We are very happy to continue this decades-long partnership with a terminal operator that shares our firm commitment to building a more sustainable future for cargo handling."

Damien Cols, Director Global Customers, Kalmar, tel. +32 475 77 5695, damien.cols@kalmarglobal.com

Maija Eklof, Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Kalmar, tel. +358 20 777 4096, maija.eklof@kalmarglobal.com



Kalmar is the global leader in sustainable cargo handling for ports, terminals, distribution centres and heavy industry. With our extensive electric portfolio and global service network, we help our customers move towards safer, more eco-efficient and productive operations. Together, we develop innovative solutions that shape the future of our industry, improving our customers' every move. www.kalmarglobal.com



Kalmar is part of Cargotec. Cargotec's



About GMP: GMP is the leading French container port handling operator with 2 million TEUs handled per year. The company employs more than 1,200 people, including 1,000 dockers. GMP operates the largest ships in the world 24/7. GMP terminals are connected by rail & river offering multimodal transfer services. Terminals are also digitised with full 5G coverage. The carbon neutrality approach, initiated in 2023, already offers 100% green electricity consumption. GMP is ISO QSSE - Quality Safety Security Environment - & Full OEA certified. https://www.gmportuaire.fr/en/

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CHICAGO, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cryogenic Equipment Market is expected to reach USD 16.6 billion by 2028 from USD 11.9 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 6.9% during the 2023-2028 period according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. A cryogenic equipment is any storage or transportation apparatus that helps handle cryogenic fluids (liquefied industrial gases at temperatures below -150C). Typical equipment in this category include tanks, pumps, vaporizers, heat exchangers, valves, pressure regulators, and pipes. They are used in various applications, such as the production, storage, and transportation of LNG; preservation of biological materials including human tissues, sperms, and embryos; long-term storage of biological samples such as stem cells, cord blood, and tissues; development of hydrogen fuel systems, particularly for the automotive and transportation industries; as well as cooling scientific instruments on space telescopes and maintaining extremely low temperatures for space probes and vehicles, satellite launch facilities, and air separation units. The Cryogenic Equipment Market is heavily dependent on the consumption of industrial gases that are liquefied for high-volume storage purposes. oxygen, nitrogen, argon, and hydrogen, wherein oxygen and nitrogen are such major industrial gases used across end-user industries for numerous applications. The increasing use of these industrial gases in industries such as energy & power, metallurgy, electronics, chemicals, and transportation is likely to propel the demand for cryogenic equipment. Moreover, growing popularity of liquefied natural gas as source of clean and efficient energy, will boost the demand for cryogenic equipment for the transportation and storage at LNG liquefaction and regasification terminals.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Cryogenic Equipment Market"

273 - Tables

64 - Figures

294 - Pages

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Cryogenic Equipment Market Scope:

Report Coverage Details Market Revenue in 2023 $11.9 billion Estimated Value by 2028 $16.6 billion Growth Rate Poised to Grow at a CAGR of 6.9% Largest Market Asia Pacific Market Size Available for 2018-2028 Forecast Period 2023-2028 Forecast Units Value (USD Million/Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered Cryogenic Equipment Market by Equipment, Cryogen, End-user Industry, System Type, Application, and Region. Geographies Covered Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, South America, Middle East and Africa. Key Market Challenge Supply chain disruptions due to Russia-Ukraine war Key Market Opportunities Evolving applications of cryogenic electronics Key Market Drivers Increasing utilization of industrial gases in metallurgy, oil & gas, and energy & power industries

The Tanks, by equipment, is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

Based on equipment, the Cryogenic Equipment Market has been split into tanks, valves, vaporizers, pumps and other equipments such as pipes, regulators, freezers, dewars, strainers, samplers, heat exchangers, leak detection equipment, dispensers, and accessories (manifolds, fittings, vacuum-jacketed/-insulated piping, hoses, connections). Tanks are expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecasted period. The increasing global demand for LNG tanks and microbulk tanks will be the major reason for the leading position of the tanks segment in this market in the coming years.

The nitrogen segment, by cryogen, is expected to be the largest segment during the forecast period.

This report segments the Cryogenic Equipment Market based on cryogen into six segments: nitrogen, argon, oxygen, liquified natural gas (LNG), hydrogen, and other cryogens (helium, nitrous oxide, ethylene, and carbon dioxide). The nitrogen segment is expected to be the largest segment during the forecast period owing to its high availability in the atmosphere and its inert nature. Nitrogen is widely used in industrial and medical applications; nitrogen is also used in the energy & power industry to enhance oil recovery. It is used in fertilizers and chemical industries as well.

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Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest region in the Cryogenic Equipment Industry.

Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest Cryogenic Equipment Market during the forecast period. The Asia Pacific region comprises major economies such as China, India, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, and Rest of Asia Pacific. Rest of Asia Pacific primarily includes Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Myanmar. The high growth rate and market share of the Asia Pacific region can be attributed to constant LNG infrastructure developments in China, investments in the aerospace industry in India, and increasing investments in gas production and LNG imports in Australia and Japan, respectively. The significant demand for cryogenic equipment in the region is witnessed by end-user industries such as healthcare, metallurgy, energy & power, and electronics.

Key Market Players:

Some of the major players in the Cryogenic Equipment Companies are including Linde plc (Ireland); Air Liquide (France); Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (US); Chart Industries (US); Parker Hannifin Corp. (US); Flowserve Corporation (US); Nikkiso Co., Ltd. (Japan); and INOX India Limited (India). The major strategies adopted by these players include contracts, agreements, partnership, collaborations, and expansions.

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Recent Developments

In July 2023, Chart Industries opened a second facility at Alabama. This plant is expected to fabricate the largest shop-built cryogenic tanks ever manufactured globally-70% larger than the previous model-to begin in the first quarter 2024. The tanks manufactured at this site will be used as propellant storage solutions in the aerospace industry, hydrogen and LNG storage solutions in the marine industry and many other processes and technologies adopted in the sciences and decarbonization industries.

In June 2023, INOX India Limited built an LNG facility in Tamil Nadu, which comprises 2 x 113 KL LNG tanks, regas system with a capacity of 5,000 SCMH @ 22 Bar pressure and associated equipment was supplied by INOXCVA on a turnkey basis in a record time.

In April 2023, Linde signed an agreement with Evonik, a leading specialty chemicals company, to supply green hydrogen in Singapore. According to the agreement, Linde will build, own, and operate a nine-megawatt alkaline electrolyzer plant on Jurong Island, Singapore. The plant will produce green hydrogen, which Evonik will use to manufacture methionine, an essential component in animal feed.

In March 2023, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. and Shaanxi LNG Reserves & Logistics Company signed an agreement to supply its proprietary liquefied natural gas (LNG) process technology and equipment to Technip Energies for the Xi'An LNG Emergency Reserve & Peak Regulation Project with Shaanxi LNG Reserves & Logistics Company Ltd., in ShaanXi Province, China.

Browse Adjacent Markets: Energy and Power Market Research Reports & Consulting

Related Reports:

Cryogenic Pump Market by Orientation, Design (Submersible, Non-Submersible), Type, Cryogen (Nitrogen, Argon, Oxygen, LNG, Helium, Hydrogen), End User (Energy & Power, Chemicals, Metallurgy, Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals) & Region - Global forecast to 2027

Air Separation Plant Market by Process (Cryogenic, Non-cryogenic), Gas (Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon), End-Use Industry (Iron & Steel, Oil & Gas, Chemical, Healthcare), and Region (North America, APAC, Europe, RoW) - Global Forecast to 2028

Cryogenic Tanks Market by Raw Material (Steel, Nickel Alloy), Cryogenic Liquid (Liquid Nitrogen, LNG), Application (Storage, Transportation), End-use Industry (Metal Processing, Energy Generation, Electronics), and Region - Global Forecast to 2024

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London Finance & Investment Group Plc - Notice of AGM & Posting of Annual Report

PR Newswire

LONDON, United Kingdom, October 19

19 October 2023

London Finance & Investment Group PLC.

(Incorporated in England with registered number 201151)

LSE code: LFI

JSE code: LNF

ISIN: GB0002994001

("Lonfin" or "the Company")

London Finance & Investment Group PLC

Notification regarding the posting of the Company's Annual Report and Financial Statements and Notice of Annual General Meeting

Lonfin shareholders ("Shareholders") are advised that, further to the announcement of final results and the dividend declaration for the year ended 30 June 2023, published on 29 September 2023, the Company's 2023 Annual Report and Financial Statements has been published and will be posted to Shareholders today.

The Company will hold its Annual General Meeting ("AGM") on Tuesday, 28 November 2023 at 12:30 pm (UK Time) 14:30 pm (SA Time) at Central Court, 25 Southampton Buildings, London WC2A 1AL and the Notice of the AGM is included in the 2023 Annual Report.

Pursuant to Listing Rule 9.6.1, a copy of the 2023 Annual Report and Financial Statements will be submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for viewing at https://data.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanism

The 2023 Annual Report and Notice of Annual General Meeting will also be made available as follows

- on the website of City Group PLC, the Company Secretary, at www.city-group.com; and

- by writing to City Group PLC at Central Court, Suite 1.01, 25 Southampton Buildings,

London WC2A 1AL

United Kingdom

19 October 2023

For further information, please contact:

Johannesburg Sponsor:

Questco Corporate Advisory Proprietary Limited
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!

BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Switzerland's trade surplus surged in the third quarter on recovering exports, data from the Federal Customs Administration showed on Thursday. The trade balance registered a surplus of CHF 10.54 billion, which was above CHF 9.49 billion logged in the second quarter. In the same period last year, the surplus was CHF 8.26 billion. In real terms, exports rebounded 0.8 percent, following a 1.6 percent drop a quarter ago. At the same time, the decline in imports softened to 0.6 percent from 3.2 percent. In September, the trade surplus rose to CHF 5.03 billion from CHF 3.13 billion in August, data showed. The monthly growth in exports advanced to 8.9 percent from 7.7 percent in August. Meanwhile, the growth in imports slowed to 0.3 percent from 4.3 percent. Another report from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry showed that watch exports increased 3.8 percent on a yearly basis to CHF 2.3 billion in September, despite a negative base effect. 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.


TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Auto majors Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and General Motors Co., as well as Cruise LLC, self-driving car company majority owned by GM, announced that they have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to form a joint venture to begin a driverless ridehail service in Japan in early 2026.



Cruise Origin, jointly developed by GM, Cruise and Honda and purpose built for a driverless ridehail service, will be used for the service. The three companies plan to establish the new joint venture in the first half of 2024 pending regulatory approvals.



The driverless ridehail service is expected to be launched in central Tokyo in early 2026. The service will start with dozens of Cruise Origins, which will then be expanded to a fleet of 500 Cruise Origins.



The companies also plan to subsequently expand and scale the service to areas outside of central Tokyo.



Cruise Origin, a self-driving vehicle with no driver's seat or steering wheel, features a vast cabin space that allows 6 people to ride simultaneously, facing-to-face.



In Japan, the new driverless ridehail service is expected to offer an entirely new kind of mobility experience. The companies target a wide range of customers, including business people, families, visitors and more, to use the service.



Cruise Origin will come pick up the customers at a specified location and drive them to the destination, entirely through self-driving. Customers through a dedicated app on their smart phones can complete the entire process from hailing to payment.



Kyle Vogt, Founder and CEO of Cruise, noted that all of its work scaling in dense urban US markets will position them well to address the huge opportunity for autonomous vehicles in Japan.



Toshihiro Mibe, Global CEO of Honda, said, 'Through our driverless ridehail service, we will enable customers in Japan to experience a new value of mobility, improve the quality of their mobility experiences and offer the joy of mobility. ... Providing this service in central Tokyo where the traffic environment is complex will be a great challenge, however, by working jointly with Cruise and GM, Honda will exert further efforts to make it a reality.'



In Japan, the Cruise Origin is scheduled to be on display for the first time at the Honda booth at the JAPAN MOBILITY SHOW 2023 at Tokyo Big Site.



Founded in 2013, Cruise makes self-driving cars. As per its website, Cruise has received $10 billion funding from major companies and investors, including GM, Honda, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, and Walmart, increasing its valuation 30x since being founded.



Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved



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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
Wood Mackenzie report says new metallic hubs will emerge as steel industry accelerates carbon abatement efforts

LONDON and HOUSTON and SINGAPORE, Oct. 19, 2023the report highlights the emergence of new metallic hubs and the reshaping of steel production and global trade patterns.



Wood Mackenzie's latest report says electric-arc furnace (EAF) technology, increased use of green feedstock, and evolving carbon policies will play a crucial role in this transformation. Low-carbon intensive EAF production accounts for 28% of global steel output, projected to rise to 50% by 2050. An investment of US$130 billion will be required to achieve this goal.

The shift towards less carbon-intensive steel will drive the demand for greener feedstocks such as DRI (Direct Reduced Iron) and high-grade scrap. Wood Mackenzie predicts that the share of these feedstocks in total metals demand will increase from 36% to 54% by 2050, leading to new production, processing, and trading hubs for low-carbon iron and scrap.

DRI production and trade rise will create investment and revenue generation opportunities across the value chain. Wood Mackenzie forecasts a doubling DRI capacity within 30 years, requiring an estimated US$80 billion investment. This projection does not include potential investments in green hydrogen, smelters for low-grade DRI, pellet hubs, and shipping.

Wood Mackenzie indicates that the location of new green Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) centres will be determined based on their proximity to low-carbon hydrogen production. This is particularly important given the uncertainties surrounding the transportation and storage of traded hydrogen. The Middle East and Australia are well-positioned to take advantage of this opportunity, and the number of projects in these regions is increasing.

Quality will take precedence over quantity as the cost of lower-carbon steel rises. In markets with high carbon prices, importing green DRI to manufacture low-carbon steel using EAFs will become more favourable than importing finished steel from emissions-intensive producers like China and India.

Decarbonising the iron and steel industry, which currently accounts for approximately 8% of global carbon emissions, is a challenging but achievable goal. With the right levels of investment and policy support, this transformation has the potential to redefine trade patterns and the value chain.

Editor's notes:

Read more information here. To request the report and arrange an interview with the authors, please contact Wood Mackenzie's media relations team.

About Wood Mackenzie

Wood Mackenzie is the global insight business for renewables, energy and natural resources. Driven by data. Powered by people. In the middle of an energy revolution, businesses and governments need reliable and actionable insight to lead the transition to a sustainable future. That's why we cover the entire supply chain with unparalleled breadth and depth, backed by over 50 years' experience in natural resources.

Contacts:

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LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023to its growing suite of sustainability and resilience analytics to provide powerful, geospatial insight into one of the most pressing issues facing global business today. The Dataset, launched by its risk intelligence business Verisk Maplecroft, has been developed as an end-to-end solution for insurers, corporates, banks, and investors to identify exposures to current and future climate risks across global operations, supply chains and portfolios.

Created by an in-house team of climate scientists, and based on the latest climate model projections, the Climate Risk Dataset features newly released Climate Scenarios, which assess how physical risks, such as heat, precipitation, drought, and sea level rise, evolve over time across different emissions pathways. In addition, the Dataset includes global risk indices covering climate-related socio-economic vulnerabilities and an array of transition issues to deliver a comprehensive assessment of all aspects of climate risk the world over.

"Navigating the direct and indirect impacts of climate change is an imperative for multinational organisations if they are to build resilience to a heating world," says Verisk Maplecroft's Director of Climate and Resilience, Dr Richard Hewston. "This is dependent on effectively identifying, managing, and reporting climate risk exposures - a complex task that needs credible data you can trust."

The Climate Risk Dataset covers 32 hazards and issues globally. Its Climate Scenarios encompass 16 physical climate risks across seven time periods and three emissions pathways. This amounts to over 330 global climate hazard risk indices with subnational granularity to assist with the identification of risks to assets and specific locations. The Dataset also includes subnational socio-economic indices measuring the adaptive capacity of nations, the sensitivity of societies to climate change, and overall climate vulnerability, alongside national-level transition indices quantifying risks associated with emissions, climate litigation, carbon policies, and environmental regulations.

The depth and breadth of the data will help companies:

Perform global risk assessments across operations, supply chains and portfolios

Align with climate reporting standards, such as the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS)

Stress test resilience, insurance and investment strategies

Identify commercial opportunities in new and existing markets

Isolate areas of low resilience and develop effective mitigation measures

Understand legal and regulatory challenges stemming from the energy transition

Assess the socio-economic impacts of climate change worldwide

While many companies are beginning to create mitigation plans for physical threats, 'cascading' climate risks are largely going under the radar. With data covering over 170 environmental, political risk, and human rights issues, Verisk Maplecroft's research into the interconnected nature of risk can also enable companies to identify where secondary climate impacts, such as food insecurity, migration, economic stability, and civil unrest, will emerge.

"From exposure to climate hazards and their 'cascading' impacts, to responses to the energy transition and rising regulatory obligations, companies need to demonstrate, convey, and instill confidence in their current and future performance," adds Hewston. "The Climate Risk Dataset has been developed to help them do just that."
Oppo

Virtuous Innovation Goes on Full Display at the 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge Global Final Demo Event



19-Oct-2023 / 10:31 CET/CEST

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





Five winning teams were selected as winners of the 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge in recognition of their innovative solutions in the "Inspiration for People" and "Inspiration for the Planet" categories

Winners of the People's Choice and Media Choice Awards were also announced at the event SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 19 October 2023 - OPPO yesterday announced the five winning proposals of 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge following the completion of the Global Final Demo Event in Singapore. Initiated by the OPPO Research Institute and supported by Qualcomm, GSMA 5G IN, Amazon Web Services and LinkedIn, this year's Inspiration Challenge saw entrants submit proposals in the two categories of "Inspiration for People" and "Inspiration for the Planet", each aimed at identifying powerful solutions that support OPPO's belief in "Virtuous Innovation". Following three regional challenges and an acceleration camp, five winning proposals were selected from among 687 proposals submitted by teams based in 66 countries and regions worldwide. These teams will go on to engage in further collaboration with OPPO and its partners to bring their ideas to life. The five winning teams of the 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge "We are extremely grateful for the collaborative support of our partners and to all the technology professionals and entrepreneurs who have taken part in this year's OPPO Inspiration Challenge, especially the top five teams who truly demonstrated the incredible potential of innovative technology," said Jason Liao, President of the OPPO Research Institute. "Following five months of extensive evaluation, we have seen many innovative and cutting-edge solutions to a number of critical but overlooked social issues raised by start-ups from around the world. Together, through the Inspiration Challenge, we look forward to working with these teams to bring the power of virtuous innovation to all corners of the world." President of the OPPO Research Institute, Jasion Liao, delivers the opening remark at the Global Final Demo Event During the Global Final Demo Event, OPPO collaborated with 6 startup teams from both this and last year to showcase their cutting-edge products and prototypes. Among them, Bluepha Co., Ltd. has teamed up with OPPO to create environmentally friendly packaging for mobile phones, as well as art installations made from biodegradable materials that showcase both the lightness and flexibility of OPPO's foldable smartphones and OPPO's commitment to the environment. Woola, another sustainability-focused startup, demonstrated its packaging for the OPPO Watch made from recycled wool. One of the winners of last year's Inspiration Challenge, TangTang Quan, returned to the stage this year to demonstrate the results of its collaboration with OPPO promoting a blood glucose monitoring function for the OPPO Watch 4 Pro that enables diabetes patients to monitor their blood glucose levels in real time using a customized smart watch interface. This year, OPPO also teamed up with Deloitte China for the first time to launch an Acceleration Camp prior to the Global Final Demo Event. During the camp, experts from the OPPO Research Institute joined members of OPPO's software, hardware, investment, universities and research, IoT departments, and industry experts from Deloitte to engage in discussions with the top 15 teams and provide advice on technology, industry trends, and the business prospects of their proposals. At the end of the event, five winning proposals were ultimately selected from among fifteen finalists by a panel of judges comprising members of the OPPO Research Institute, OPPO's investment department and experts from Temasek International, GSMA, Fidelity International and XNode. The judges assessed the proposals against the four criteria of Feasibility, Innovation and Originality, Long-term Potential, and Social Values, with winning teams each receiving a grant of USD $50,000 plus opportunities to further develop their ideas in collaboration with OPPO and its partners. Further to this, "3D interactive platform" and "Flint Paper Battery" were awarded the People's Choice awards in the "Inspiration for People" and "Inspiration for the Planet" categories, and "Impulse (Non Surgical Hearing Aid)" and "Flint Paper Battery" received the Media Choice awards. The Winners of the 2023 OPPO Inspiration Challenge OPPO will continue to bring together technology professionals, entrepreneurs, and startup teams through the Inspiration Challenge to develop and implement innovative solutions that enable more people to benefit from the power of technology. To learn more about the OPPO Inspiration Challenge and the winning proposals from this year's competition, please visit the official website at https://www.oppo.com/en/proposal/ . ### About OPPO OPPO is a leading global smart device brand. Since the launch of its first mobile phone - "Smiley Face" - in 2008, OPPO has been in relentless pursuit of the perfect synergy of aesthetic satisfaction and innovative technology. Today, OPPO provides a wide range of smart devices spearheaded by the Find and Reno series. Beyond devices, OPPO also provides its users with ColorOS operating system and internet services such as OPPO Cloud and OPPO+. OPPO has footprints in more than 60 countries and regions, with more than 40,000 employees dedicated to creating a better life for customers around the world. Media Contact: press@oppo.com



Dissemination of a CORPORATE NEWS, transmitted by EQS Group.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.




Saxony-Anhalt is a pioneer in medical technology - as proven on a daily basis by the 120 companies in this sector who have set up in the area. Here, they benefit from an extensive research and science landscape and networking in clusters. The close interaction between business and academia gives rise to innovations across the entire bandwidth of medtech applications.

MAGDEBURG, Germany, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On October 19, the branch will exhibit for the first time at the Germany-wide Innovation Forum held by Technology Mountains e.V. in Tuttlingen, Baden-Wurttemberg. Under the motto "Taking health to a new level", the primary focus will be on sustainability, robotics, and IT applications - and the firms in Saxony-Anhalt have extensive expertise in the latter.

The Magdeburg Port of Science is home to the Research Campus STIMULATE, for example, where more than 35 partners from industry, academia, and medicine are researching the medical technology of tomorrow in interdisciplinary teams, to improve the treatment of cancer and cardiovascular and neurological diseases, and with a focus on the development of imaging hardware and software.

Based in Halle (Saale) we have the protein specialists of NH DyeAgnostics and the Forschungszentrum Ultraschall ultrasound research center, which are working on new processes and applications, and on calibration for the quality assurance of this gentle, radiation-free technique. In Dessau, seleon specializes in fluid systems and development partnerships.

Returning to the Port of Science, recently named a "Center of Excellence Saxony-Anhalt", the medtech start-up scene is thriving. Of particular note is Raydiax, which wants to improve cancer treatment through minimally invasive procedures, and mediMESH, which is creating easier access to clinical expertise for companies, as well as start-up SecureAir, which has developed the first electronic respiratory mask that kills viruses, bacteria, and germs. Here, near the River Elbe, the exciting transPORT project has launched, for the transfer of goods just like at a traditional port, except that these "goods" will be scientific ideas and a new, holistic approach to working, living, and well-being.

But where will the many specialists this industry needs come from? They too will be trained locally. The Anhalt University of Applied Sciences offers an interdisciplinary course in biomedical technology, specializing in VR/AR. Companies in the region can use this course for apprentices and students on a combined work and study program. The Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg also offers practical training with a bachelor's degree program in medical technology and in collaboration with STIMULATE, which can be deepened with a master's program.

In our latest press kit, we delve into the world of medical technology, its innovative companies, and the movers and shakers of the medicine of tomorrow. For despite all the digitalization, ultimately medicine will remain human and the focus will be on people's well-being. You can find the relevant images here.

Your contacts at IMG:

Sabine Kraus, press officer

Tel.: +49 (0) 391 568 99 20 | Mobile: +49 (0) 172 322 16 94

Email: Sabine.Kraus@img-sachsen-anhalt.de

Frauke Flenker-Manthey, press officer

Tel.: +49 (0) 391 568 99 71 | Mobile: +49 (0) 151 / 526 264 69

Email: flenker-manthey@img-sachsen-anhalt.de

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/img-saxony-anhalt-excellent-medtech-research-cluster-and-innovative-companies-301960969.html
BEIJING, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from China.org.cn:

Ten years after the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the strategic partnership between China and Egypt has flourished, yielding substantial results in practical cooperation. Assem Hanafi, the Egyptian Ambassador to China, stated, "The Belt and Road Initiative is of great significance, offering a vision for the development of not just China, but also other countries in the 21st century."

Discussing the importance of the BRI to Egypt, Ambassador Hanafi remarked, "Egypt was among the countries that actively engaged in this initiative from the outset. Within this framework, Egypt has initiated numerous major projects."

Major undertakings in Egypt, among them, the Suez Canal Economic Zone (TEDA Cooperation Zone), the Central Business District development in the suburbs of Cairo, the large construction project in the Mediterranean coastal city of El-Alamein, the light rail system linking Cairo and its outskirts, and the green transition and renewable energy initiatives under the sustainable development framework, have been well-received by the Egyptian populace.

Ambassador Hanafi expressed appreciation for Chinese companies operating in Egypt and urged more of them to invest and start business there. "Egypt's strategic location, proximate to African, Arab, and European markets, offers a distinct advantage for Chinese investors and businesses. They can tap into the expansive Egyptian market and also leverage it as a gateway to the other markets I've mentioned."

Discussing cultural and tourism exchanges between the two countries, Ambassador Hanafi observed, "I am delighted to see an increasing number of Chinese tourists visiting Egypt and returning with fond memories. He recommended attractions such as the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, and Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada along the Red Sea coast, among others. He added, "There are now many direct flights between China and Egypt, greatly facilitating cultural and tourism exchanges between the two countries."

Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1956, the relationship between China and Egypt has consistently deepened and solidified, reaching the best ever level by the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2014. Ambassador Hanafi expressed his commitment, along with his entire embassy staff, to further promote Sino-Egyptian relations and friendship.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of launch of the Belt and Road Initiative. Over the past decade, the initiative has become a significant platform for international cooperation. The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held in Beijing on October 17-18, with representatives from over 150 countries and 30-plus international organizations in attendance.

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjD0exEbJpk&t=3s

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/egyptian-ambassador-to-china-bri-offers-vision-for-the-development-of-all-countries-301961813.html
$800,000 in pending orders to fulfill through the $5,000,000 Grant Award Notification (GAN) in California

SinglePoint Inc. retains minority interest in Ballistic Product America, LLC ("Ballistic")

Ballistic has entered into an agreement with SinglePoint in which it Ballistic agrees to pay to SinglePoint, as a periodic royalty ("Royalty"), five percent of the gross revenue of sales of the Ballistic Barrier products by Ballistic until such amounts total $2.5 million dollars

PHOENIX, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / SinglePoint Inc., (OTCQB:SING) primarily focused on building a portfolio of renewable energy-focused companies in solar, EV charging and energy storage announces acquisition of the remaining interest of Box Pure Air LLC and a new transitional leadership team to execute and deliver on the remainder of the allocated funding available to the Company through the initial $5,000,000 Grant Award Notification through the California EANS program. Currently the Company has approximately $800,000 in approved orders pending shipment.

The April 2022 acquisition of Boston Solar was a key fundamental piece of the SinglePoint energy centric strategy focused on rolling up high quality residential and small commercial solar installation companies within the fragmented solar industry. On a pro-forma basis Boston Solar grew revenues to approximately $25M in FY2022, up from approximately $17.6M in FY2021.

On April 20, 2023 the Company announced shareholder and board of director approval of various strategic transactions, including exploring options to sell or pursue a spin off of Box Pure Air/BPA Solutions to existing SinglePoint shareholders. The acquisition of the remaining 49% interest in Box Pure Air, making it a 100% wholly owned subsidiary, was necessary to give the Company optionality to continue to pursue strategic options for Box Pure Air. The company will continue to reposition certain assets and non-core business designed to allow the company the flexibility to focus and capitalize on the long-term acquisition and roll up opportunities in the renewable energy and energy storage sector including commercial energy services, solar installation, and energy storage solutions for residential and small commercial customers.

"This transaction allows SinglePoint to direct sales efforts and capitalize on the over $121B federally allocated to enhance indoor air quality in our nation's schools. Box Pure Aire is committed to providing commercial grade products and solutions that are designed to provided and improve indoor clean air to schools. We've proactively repositioned personnel starting in Q2 with Jason Lally to accelerate sales efforts to capture the remainder of the $5M award in California designated to Box Pure Air. By mobilizing additional sales and marketing professionals and leveraging strategic partnerships, we're committed to elevating awareness and offering top-tier air purification units to classrooms across California," stated Wil Ralston, CEO of SinglePoint.

Jason Lally, a California resident, has been and is actively meeting with private schools in California advocating the benefits of our portable indoor air products that were engineered and designed to foster a safer environment for students, teachers, and staff, especially those funded by the EANS II program. California remains a crucial high-growth market for Box Pure Air. Through EANS and ESSER dollars there is more than $1 Billion available for public and private schools throughout the state.

In addition to Jason Lally, SinglePoint's EVP of Revenue, Chad Miles, SinglePoint's EVP of Operations are dedicated to transition of the daily business operations and contracts associated with Box Pure Air. The Company is finalizing an agreement to add a Senior Vice President ("SVP") of Business Development who will focus on increasing revenues, product offerings and solutions in order to best position the company in the event of a sale or merger. Box Pure Air provides industrial-grade high-efficiency air purification products designed for schools and commercial buildings.

Highlights:

- SinglePoint acquires the full interest of Box Pure Air LLC from a minority shareholder

- Box Pure Air has secured a $5,000,000 Grant Award Notification (GAN) under EANS II from the California Department of Education

- Box Pure Air maintains its exclusive contract with AIRBOX, a premier manufacturer of Indoor Portable Air Cleaning devices

Box Pure Air remains committed to pioneering innovative solutions for better indoor air quality, using strategic partnerships and cutting-edge technologies. The AIRBOX Air Cleaner product line epitomizes the brand's commitment to ensuring safe and healthy environments in high-traffic areas.

About Box Pure Air:

Box Pure Air, a subsidiary of SinglePoint Inc., is a distributor of industrial-grade air purification products. The company is dedicated to helping businesses and consumers establish a healthy ambiance. Box Pure Air stands out with its commitment to surpassing national standards for indoor air quality, adhering to CDC ventilation requirements, and utilizing HEPA certified filters combined with proven antimicrobial technologies.

For more information, visit Box Pure Air

About SinglePoint Inc. (SING)

SinglePoint Inc. is a renewable energy and sustainable lifestyle company focused on providing environmentally friendly energy efficiencies and healthy living solutions. SinglePoint is initially focused on building the largest network of renewable energy solutions and modernizing the traditional solar and energy storage model. The Company is also actively exploring future growth opportunities in air purification, electric vehicle charging, solar as a subscription service, and additional energy efficiencies and appliances that enhance sustainability and a healthier life. For more information, visit the Company's website (www.singlepoint.com) and connect on social media for the latest updates.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential plans and objectives of the Company, the use of proceeds, anticipated growth and future expansion, 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. Technical complications, which may arise, could prevent the prompt implementation of any strategically significant plan(s) outlined above. The Company undertakes no duty to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.

Investor Contact:

Tra-Digital IR

Investors@SinglePoint.com

(212) 389 - 9782 ext. 107

SOURCE: Singlepoint, Inc.

via PRISM Mediawire, LLC

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794476/singlepoint-inc-acquires-remaining-49-of-box-pure-air-llc-implements-strategic-restructuring-to-enhance-indoor-air-revenue-opportunity-with-schools-in-california-box-pure-air-llc-now-a-wholly-owned-subsidiary
LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Global smokeless tobacco brand TACJA announced the arrival of its innovative nicotine pouches in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Sweden.

With eight flavours in two taste series - MELLOW and FROZEN, TACJA is dedicated to bringing users a convenient personal alternative with long-lasting enjoyment. The flavour profile is more than inclusive to indulge users in fruity and cooling tastes, against the backdrop of rich and classic tobacco flavour.

The oral tobacco brand sets itself apart by offering a nicotine concentration trio. Users are free to choose from 20mg/g, 18mg/g and 12mg/g for customised nicotine intakes on preferred levels of soothing effect.

Thanks to a variety of flavours and strengths, TACJA nicotine pouches come in tailored mouthfeels and sensations, guaranteeing an ideal fit for every taste palate, and defining how the user experience is lifted to new heights.

Moreover, TACJA lasts the taste for up to 30 minutes, striking a balance between flavour release and retention in an exceptional while consistent taste.

This vapour-free and smokeless oral tobacco also offers an anywhere and anytime option, delivering personal satisfaction without disturbing others in every worry-free moment.

With pharmaceutical-grade ingredients, TACJA nicotine pouches strictly follow highest quality standards with its products compliant with the European Union Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP).

"We are thrilled to introduce TACJA, offering a diverse range of flavours and a delightful sensory presence," said Charles An, TACJA's product in-charge. "Our nicotine pouches are designed to provide users with moments of quality and unconstraint," he added.

TACJA is committed to setting the trend in the oral tobacco market, transforming users' nicotine experience. With its rich and customisable offerings, TACJA supports users to stay smokeless with ease that stays.

About TACJA

Global smokeless tobacco brand TACJA energizes modernity, self-expression, and freedom. Aimed at pushing boundaries, and delivering an unrivalled indulgence, the brand aims to create a rich flavour experience on tastebuds and unleash the sensation from within.

For more information about TACJA as a brand and its products, please visit tacja.com.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2247912/TACJA.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/tacja-brings-nicotine-pouch-to-europe-301957319.html
October 19, 2023

Sustainability roadmap addresses opportunities to reduce carbon emissions in patient throughput, technology use, and use of consumables

Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced the completion of a comprehensive hospital-wide analysis of Tampere Heart Hospital - Tampere University Hospital's (Finland) environmental sustainability, including a deep assessment of the interventional cardiology space and evaluation of its carbon footprint. The results of the analysis have been translated into a joint action plan that will help Heart Hospital accelerate its decarbonization efforts in line with Finland's world-leading commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2035.

"Sustainability is an integral part of Tampere Heart Hospital strategy. We are aware that hospitals generate a significant amount of waste daily and consume a lot of energy. We want to contribute to the development of environmental responsibility in healthcare," said Pasi Lehto CEO and Chief Medical Officer at Heart Hospital.

"We want to ascertain where we are now and how we can further accelerate our transition towards net zero," said Aki Haukilahti, CFO at Tampere Heart Hospital. "Our long-standing relationship with Philips and their industry leadership in driving sustainable healthcare made them a natural partner to help audit our emissions and develop a roadmap for the future."

Part of an existing 15-year strategic managed services agreement between Heart Hospital and Philips, the analysis involved a detailed lifecycle assessment of the hospital's medical equipment, supply chain, and clinical operations. The analysis provided a baseline carbon footprint for Tampere Heart Hospital's interventional cardiology service and facilitated the identification of opportunities to enhance patient throughput and equipment utilization to reduce future emissions. Top findings included optimization of the hospital's patient care pathways to improve efficiency and materials use, and opportunities for reducing inbound airfreight, reducing waste and improving waste separation.

"At Philips, we are committed to driving systemic change towards more sustainable and equitable patient care. Through our healthcare technology and expertise, we can help healthcare providers to support their patients with as little impact on the environment as possible," said Robert Metzke, Global Head of Sustainability at Philips. "This valuable and informative analysis with Tampere Heart Hospital, a pioneering and leading global cardiac care provider, will help achieve our shared goal of taking care of patients and the planet at the same time."

In addition to a detailed analysis of carbon emissions associated with the hospital's medical equipment and supply chain, Philips' analysis of the hospital's current emissions also encompasses clinical operations in key patient care pathways.

This sustainability program with Tampere Heart Hospital follows similar analyses conducted by Philips earlier in 2023 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Lisbon, Portugal), aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of their diagnostic imaging.

Globally, healthcare systems have a significant climate footprint and make a major contribution to the climate crisis [1]. Building on decades of experience reducing energy consumption, waste, and materials and substance usage, Philips has operated globally carbon-neutral since 2020, embedding EcoDesign principles and circular business models into its innovation processes and ways of working . The company offers a range of health technologies and innovations that help reduce healthcare providers' impact on the environment. For example, its Philips Spectral CT 7500 uses 62.5% less energy [2], and the Philips MR - Ingenia Ambition 1.5T , which uses a breakthrough design where the magnetic components are completely sealed and only need seven liters of helium over its lifetime compared to roughly 1,500 liters with other Philips systems [3]. Additionally, with Philips MR SmartSpeed , the Ingenia Ambition 1.5T uses up to 53% less power per patient scan [3].

Read more here on how Philips is partnering with hospitals around the world to drive sustainable healthcare.

[1] https://noharm-global.org/sites/default/files/documents-files/5961/HealthCaresClimateFootprint_092319.pdf

[2] When compared to an equivalent CT model of one of the industry leaders

[3] Applicable to Ambition S. Philips SmartSpeed power consumption versus Philips SENSE based scanning. Based on COCIR and in-house simulated environment. Results can vary based on site conditions.

For further information, please contact:

Joost Maltha

Philips Global Press Office

Tel: +31 6 10 55 8116

Email: joost.maltha@philips.com

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips.

Attachment




BANGKOK, Oct 19, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - Tanachira Retail Corp PCL or TAN, a leading importer and distributor of world-class luxury lifestyle and fashion products, trades for the first time on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, highlighting its expertise in managing high-potential lifestyle brands. It moves forward to create continuous growth for its portfolio brands and expands its business ecosystem to related businesses, to create group brand synergy and become a Thai lifestyle company in the regional market. Meanwhile, its performance in the first six months of this year tops the form, with a net profit of 71.06 million baht, up 88.14% from the previous year.Mr. Tanapong Chiraphanidchakul, CEO of Tanachira (TAN), rsaid the company has initiated trading of TAN shares on the first day (October 18, 2023) in the Stock Exchange of Thailand under the service industry group, commercial business category, after successfully offering an IPO of 77.5 million shares at a price of THB 16.50 per share. This is an important step to help TAN grow into a leading lifestyle company in the region, supported by strong financial capital to expand its business ecosystem in the future. The company aims to become a leading lifestyle company in the region by delivering exceptional experiences to customers and creating value from sustainable operations for everyone.The company has laid out a strategy to expand its business ecosystem through brand extension under the lifestyle portfolio, related businesses, and adding new lifestyle product brands with growth potential to boost its strength. TAN is the owner of HARNN Group, whose body care, skincare, spa, and aromatherapy products are sold globally through expansion from being one of the leading retailers of lifestyle and fashion products with various product brands and high growth potential. The company has a comprehensive distribution channel with successful global lifestyle and fashion product brands and is pioneering and presenting lifestyle and fashion product brands to consumers in Thailand. It has been able to rapidly expand its branches and customer base while integrating marketing excellence and operational excellence, as well as experienced management teams and employees in the lifestyle and fashion product business. This helps support TAN's continuous growth and aims to become a leading lifestyle company in the region.TAN plans to use the funds raised to create sustainable growth opportunities in the future, including (1) expanding the lifestyle and fashion product business branches that the group currently has the rights to. In Q3/2023, in addition to expanding its business in Thailand, the group also expanded its branches overseas by opening HARNN's first branches in Vietnam and Singapore and Marimekko's first branch in Singapore. The company has exclusive rights to import, distribute, and market Marimekko products in Singapore for a period of 5 years. In addition, the group has been granted the right to manage the world-renowned chef Gordon Ramsey's restaurant chain in Thailand. It is expected that two branches will be opened this year. In addition, the company has invested in computer programs to support business and develop online sales channels that support changing consumer behavior. (2) Adjusting capital structure through debt repayment to institutions and (3) using revolving funds for managing existing branches, expanding new branches, as well as revolving funds for business operations."I am confident that from now on TAN will grow by leaps and bounds from a strong capital base, expanding branches both domestically and regionally, including adding new brands to the portfolio, expanding the business ecosystem from the service industry to the lifestyle food and beverage business, to create growth in Group Brand Synergy and aim to become a leading Thai lifestyle company in the regional arena," concludes Mr. Tanapong.Mrs. Chidchanok Jangpol, Chief Financial Officer of TAN, says that the company's first half-year results (January-June) of 2023 had total sales revenue of THB 655.80 million, up 18.01% compared to the same period last year. The net profit was THB 71.06 million, up 88.14% compared to the same period last year. The company's performance has returned to strong growth, reflecting the strong business fundamentals of its group of companies.Mr. Pongsak Pruekpaisal, Managing Director of Kasikorn Securities Pcl., as financial advisor and underwriter, says "TAN is a growing company and is considered a Growth Stock with expertise in managing lifestyle and fashion brands that are globally renowned and have long been popular with consumers. The company has a variety of distribution channels that can reach customers in all target groups both domestically and internationally. It has a clear business expansion plan that is in line with the trend of growth in the luxury lifestyle and fashion product industry, including management teams with vision and experience who understand consumer lifestyles. They are excellent in both marketing and operations, which has led to TAN's IPO being well received by both leading institutional investors and retail investors. After being registered on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, it is expected that TAN's potential for business operations will increase and strengthen its financial capital to be used for business expansion as planned."Mr. Pongsak expresses confidence that TAN will be a quality stock in the Thai stock market that will gain investors' trust.Press release distributed by MT Multimedia Co., Ltd. on behalf of Tanachira Retail Corporation Pcl.For more information, please contact: Thiyaporn Sriadunphan (Dah)Tel: +66 [0]87 556 6974l Email: thiyaporn.s@mtmultimedia.comTanachira Retail Corporation PLC, http://www.tanachira.co.th?[SET: TAN]Source: Tanachira Retail Corporation PCLCopyright 2023 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
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!

BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - French stocks were sharply lower on Thursday amid concerns over rising Treasury yields and lingering Middle East tensions. Bond yield surged in Europe, with Germany's 10-year government bond yield, the benchmark for the euro area, rising 3 basis points (bps) to 2.95 percent ahead of Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech later in the day. The benchmark CAC 40 was down 65 points, or 0.9 percent, at 6,900 after declining 0.9 percent on Wednesday. Carmaker Renault plunged almost 8 percent after currency depreciations in Turkey and Argentina weighed heavily on the pace of sales growth in the third quarter. Channel tunnel operator Getlink gained about 1 percent after posting a marginal rise in Q3 revenue. Pernod Ricard soared 5 percent after the spirts maker forecast higher sales in fiscal year 2023-24. 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.
HSINCHU, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- oToBrite, a renowned supplier of Vision-AI Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Driving (AD) solutions, has introduced its latest products to complete its ADAS product portfolio for heavy commercial vehicles including Blind Spot Information System (BSIS, UN R151), Moving Off Information System(MOIS, UN R159) and Driver Monitoring System (DMS). Given that heavy commercial vehicles are more likely to be involved in fatal collisions for vulnerable road users (VRU), the latest European Union General Safety Regulations (GSR) have imposed strict standards on heavy commercial vehicles, including BSIS, MOIS, DMS, and other regulations. Japan has also adopted the same regulation for heavy commercial vehicles staring from BSIS UN R151. Businesses that comply with these regulations can benefit from tax incentives and installation subsidies. The whole idea is to make road safety toward vision zero, and oToBrite endeavors to make it come true.

With strong deep learning core technology, oToBrite launched the world's first automatic parking system with only surround-view cameras using vision-AI technology and TDA2 processor in 2017 and shipped over 200K systems in China. In Japan, oToBrite has licensed vision-AI deep learning model for over 300K ADAS product. Recently, vision-AI-based BSIS product developed by oToBrite has successfully helped customers be the first one to get UN R151 certified. For more information, please visit http://www.otobrite.com/en/block/index/86

oToBrite BSIS can provide drivers the information signal of VRU, including pedestrians and two-wheelers within the blind spot area before making turn to reduce accidents. Besides, the product can expand MOIS by adding one additional camera to comply with UN R159 at the same time. With vision-AI technology, the product can handle complex urban traffic environments such as occluded VRU, a group of VRU, VRU near traffic signal pole, etc.

Besides, oToBrite vision-AI DMS leverages self-developed 3D facial landmark technology to identify drivers and classify driver behavior, including smoking, using phone, distraction, and fatigue. It even support drivers wearing level 3 sunglasses and coated glasses. In AUTOMOTIVE WORLD Nagoya - October 25-27, 2023, oToBrite will showcase the comprehensive ADAS product at booth 13-19.

About oToBrite

oToBrite is a leading vison-AI ADAS/AD solutions provider. Based in Hsinchu Science Park, oToBrite has IATF 16949 certified clean room factory and several years of experience as an automotive Tier-1 supplier. Through comprehensive research and development capabilities, oToBrite provides vision-AI algorithms, ECU/domain controllers, and automotive-grade/special-purpose cameras.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2251787/ADAS_Solutions_for_Commercial_Vehicles___BSIS_UN_R151_MOIS_UN_R159_and_DMS.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/otobrite-launches-a-comprehensive-adas-product-portfolio-for-heavy-commercial-vehicles-to-help-road-safety-toward-vision-zero-301961844.html
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / iMetal Resources Inc. (TSXV:IMR)(OTCQB:IMRFF)(FRANKFURT:A7V) ("iMetal" or the "Company") is pleased to announce completion of both a digitally-enhanced prospecting (DEP) and a data reprocessing and remodeling program at the Company's Kerrs Gold project, which lies within the prolific Abitibi Greenstone Gold Belt 90 kilometres east-northeast of Timmins, Ontario. These programs were designed to generate new and more precise targets for upcoming drilling programs.

Saf Dhillon, Chief Executive Officer, stated: "Our Kerrs Gold project is a highly prospective gold property in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. The wealth of information available has allowed us to target gold mineralization trends that we believe have a high probability for drilling success. The presence of a historical resource (7,041,460 tonnes grading 1.71 g/t gold yielding 386,467 ounces at a 0.5 g/t gold cut-off) indicates to us that the project has a high potential for economic quantities of gold."

The Kerrs Gold historical resources estimate was disclosed in "NI 43-101 Resource Estimation on the Kerrs Gold Deposit, Matheson, Ontario" prepared for Sheltered Oak Resources Inc. by Garth Kirkham, P. Geo of Kirkham Geosystems Ltd., and dated June 10, 2011. The Company considers the resource estimate relevant and reliable to drive further exploration by the Company as it was completed by a competent Qualified Person to the standards of the day. The resource estimation methods and parameters were as follows:

 Forty-one drill holes were utilized to interpolate the KBX Zone.

 Composite length of 2 m was chosen and composites were weighted by length.

 Sectional interpretations were wire-framed to create 3-D solids of the zones.

 Zones were coded to the composites, and the block model, to constrain the modeling process.

 Composites for the mineralized zone were used to interpolate into the blocks for each zone.

 Ordinary kriging was used as the interpolator.

 Relative elevation modeling was used to guide the ellipse orientation that accounts for the variation in dip due to the synclinal structure.

 A minimum of two composites were used for each block and a maximum of two composites were used per drill hole; a maximum of 12 composites were used per hole.

 A cutting factor was applied for gold with outlier composites limited to 10 g/t Au based on cumulative frequency plots. A zero-cut-off grade was used for the manual polygonal method.

 Minesight Software was used to perform the block modeling and estimations.

The Kerrs historic estimate is an inferred resource as defined in National Instrument 43-101. The Company is not aware of any more recent resource estimates, though there was further drilling completed after the historic estimate was released. The Company will need to review the historical drilling and analyses and will need to twin a number of the historic holes to bring the historic estimate current. The Company's Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to classify the historic estimate as a current mineral resource. iMetal is not treating the historical estimate as a current mineral resource.

Figure 1 - Plan Map of Kerrs Gold Project DEP Survey

The DEP was completed by Waring Minerals Inc. UAV LiDAR was flown in order to locate outcrops on the property for the purposes of sampling and mapping. The DEP results will be combined with previous IP, VTEM, and drilling results to guide the next stage of exploration which will include follow-up drilling programs. Surface samples have been reviewed by company geologists and select samples have been submitted to ALS Laboratories in Sudbury for analysis.

The Company performed an internal audit of all historical data for Kerrs and subsequently created a new interpretation of the gold-hosting zones to generate new drill targets. The re-interpretation discovered several areas indicating up-dip potential from the historic resource zones. There are also previously untested geophysical anomalies that represent possible parallel structures to the known mineralized zones. In addition, the Company believes previously identified basal till anomalies have never been properly explained by the existing discoveries.

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Scott Zelligan, P. Geo (Ontario), VP Exploration of iMetal and a qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101.

Figure 2 - Plan Map of Kerrs Gold Project with Drill Targets based on New Modeling

About iMetal Resources Inc.

iMetal is a Canadian based junior exploration company focused on the exploration and development of its portfolio of resource properties in Ontario and Quebec. The Flagship property Gowganda West, is an exploration-stage gold project with a recent discovery hole of 48.5m at 0.85 g/t gold that borders the Juby Deposit and is located within the Shining Tree Camp area in the southern part of the Abitibi Greenstone Gold Belt about 100 km south-southeast of the Timmins Gold Camp. The 665-hectare Kerrs Gold deposit comprises a series of gold-bearing pyritized quartz vein replacement breccias with a 2011 historic resource, 90 kilometres ENE of Timmins. The 220-hectare Ghost Mountain property, 42 kilometres NE of Kirkland Lake, lies 5 kilometres W of Agnico Eagle's Holt and Holloway Mine.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS,

Saf Dhillon

President & CEO

iMetal Resources Inc.

info@imetalresources.ca

Tel. (604-484-3031)

Suite 550, 800 West Pender Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6C 2V6.

https://imetalresources.ca

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include results of exploration, variations in results of mineralization, relationships with local communities, market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on

their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.

SOURCE: iMetal Resources, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794417/imetal-resources-completes-digitally-enhanced-prospecting-and-new-interpretation-at-the-kerrs-gold-project
SINGAPORE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Vymo , the leading sales engagement platform for financial institutions, joins forces with NEC Asia Pacific (NEC APAC), the regional headquarters for NEC Corporation in Southeast Asia, to support banks and insurance companies with efficient, predictable, and cost-effective mobile-first technologies.

Thailand's high mobile and internet penetration has created a growing demand for cloud technologies. The infusion of SaaS and digital platforms presents a pivotal opportunity to financial institutions to realign traditional channels, such as direct sales, agents, brokers, and bancassurance, with changing customer preferences. In response to this trend, the collaboration between Vymo's globally recognized sales engagement capabilities and NEC Thailand's wealth of local experience in implementing IT transformations allows financial institutions to digitally empower their field agents and upgrade their sales teams to the next level.

Vymo upgrades outdated legacy systems with a mobile-first interface, and brings complete visibility to daily activities and provides real-time reporting on individual agent performance. AIA Thailand, the largest insurer in the region, implemented Vymo to closely support their National Sales Heads and Business Development Managers to optimize engagement activities with their bank partner. The management team at AIA Thailand is able to monitor how sales support activities are impacting revenue outcomes and improve the quality of partner engagement.

Rajesh Sabhlok, MD - Asia Pacific, Vymo, says, "Customer experience plays a significant differentiating role for financial services providers, both in terms of brand and retention. Customers already expect individualized offers and suggestions while being serviced with ease. We are thrilled to partner with NEC Thailand and support banks and insurers to uplevel their frontline to adapt to changing customer preferences, anticipate demands, and provide higher-quality services."

Commenting on the partnership, Ichiro Kurihara, President of NEC Corporation (Thailand) Ltd., adds, "The Vymo solution has the potential to enhance the sales process and provide quick access to related reports. This solution can seamlessly integrate with NEC's existing solutions, such as the call center system, to establish a robust Tele-Sales operation. Moreover, it can be combined with other available ICT systems to offer a versatile array of solutions that cater to the evolving demands of digital transformation from our customers."

About NEC Corporation (Thailand) Ltd.



NEC started official activity in Thailand in 1962 by establishing a liaison office, and established NEC Thailand and NEC Communications Thailand (NCOT) in 1987 and 1988 respectively.NEC Corporation (Thailand) Ltd. was formed in 2003 by merging these 3 entities to provide IT and network support in Thailand. We provide IT solutions in various industries, superior technical support and solutions in the areas of telephony, network, contact center, network communication, infrastructure, IT platform, safety and security systems for the cyber world, enterprises and the community. In addition, retail solutions, display monitor solutions, systems integration, and network operations in logistics are also provided. NEC Corporation (Thailand) aims for a society that connects all people equally by helping eliminate the digital divide.

About Vymo

Vymo ( www.vymo.com ) is the Sales Engagement Platform of choice for 350,000 salespeople across 65+ Global Financial Institutions such as AIA, Berkshire Hathaway, Generali, AXA, Sunlife, and HDFC Bank. The platform drives productivity bottom-up through nudges and interventions across the customer lifecycle.

Gartner recognizes Vymo as a Representative Vendor in the Sales Engagement Market Guide.

Vymo has raised over $45M in funding from Sequoia Capital, Emergence Capital, and Bertelsmann India Investments and is also a winner of CB Insights' Demo Day and Microsoft's 'AI for All' awards.

Relevant Links

Know more about Vymo - https://www.vymo.com

Watch how Vymo can help convert more leads - https://youtu.be/W8KODHivO_U

Media Contact

Gunjan Saha

pr@getvymo.com

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1026997/4064512/Vymo_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/nec-thailand-and-vymo-to-support-banks-and-insurance-companies-with-mobile-first-sales-engagement-technologies-301961862.html
After a decade and a half of pioneering modular and prefabricated construction and establishing large-scale container sites, Module-T has launched a new depot in Southern France. This strategic initiative strengthens their market position in France and facilitates direct preassembled land shipments across Europe.

Module-T, a leading prefabricated container manufacturer that builds multipurpose portable cabins, has launched its first warehouse in southern France. The Turkish company aims to amplify its foothold in the French region and expedite monobloc road shipments throughout Europe through this venture.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019853947/en/

Prefabricated and modular construction manufacturer Module-T to expand into Europe from the South of France (Photo: Business Wire)

Having expanded its operations to countries including Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Greece, Malta and Iceland, Module-T exports its portable cabins-ranging from prefabricated offices to schools, hospitals, changing rooms, WCs, canteens, and residences-to over 120 countries. Established a decade and a half ago, it takes pride in crafting aesthetic, robust, secure, and enduring turnkey structures for local and international clientele. With an annual output of 9,600 portable cabins and prefabricated modular containers, Module-T also specializes in designing and outfitting standalone prefabricated homes, housing bungalows and vacation residences, aiming to reach a turnover of US$ 45 million by 2025.

Module-T's Regional Sales Executive Yigit Ozdemir commented on their new investment: "We export our products to more than 120 countries by sea and land. Our new warehouse in Southern France is the perfect location to help us deploy our preassembled portable cabin shipments to Europe by road."

Positioning ahead of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics

Preparations for the 2024 Summer Olympics have begun in Paris, preparing to host the Olympics again after 100 years. Offering a diverse array of cost-effective modular construction solutions, Module-T is set to contribute to the Olympic preparations, providing living quarters, WC-shower facilities, and office containers for worker accommodations. Furthermore, the Turkish company has its sights on the North American market, planning to offer distributorships by the close of 2023.

Module-T is a premier modular container supplier and turnkey portable modular buildings. With a track record of successful projects across global markets-particularly in Europe, Africa, and Caribbean countries -its reputation is anchored in its expertise in designing, manufacturing, and installing fully-equipped prefabricated and modular buildings. These are prominently utilized on the construction sites of firms engaged in public infrastructure development, mining, and oil and gas.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019853947/en/

Contacts:

Yigit Ozdemir

info@module-t.com
MADRID, SPAIN / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Construction Startup Competition 2023, the biggest startup competition in the construction industry, named its winners today. The competition's 7th edition - led by Cemex Ventures and its partners from Black & Veatch, Dysruptek by Haskell, Ferrovial, Hilti, VINCI Group's Leonard, NOVA by Saint-Gobain, Trimble, and Zacua Ventures - searches for the "Builders of the Future" who are creating a more sustainable, efficient, on time, and innovative construction industry today.

Eight startups were announced as this year's winners, each corresponding to one of the competition's four market-driven verticals. In the "Green Construction" vertical, the winners were Firstplanit (United Kingdom) and Vizcab (France). Frontline (Singapore), FYLD (United Kingdom), and RodRadar (Israel) were the winners of the "Enhanced Productivity" vertical, while Construex (Ecuador) won under the "Construction Supply Chain" vertical. In the "Future of Construction' vertical, the winners were Civ Robotics (United States) and sensmore (Germany).

The eight outstanding finalists will go on to compete for the gold, silver, and bronze medals at Pitch Day 2023, held at Trimble's Dimensions User Conference on Nov. 7, 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition to the competition's benefits - pitching to executive representatives, networking with industry leaders, access to capital investment and real-scale pilots - for the first time in the competition's history, the gold, silver, and bronze medalists will receive cash prizes at Pitch Day. The Construction Startup Competition winners will also benefit from the opportunity to attend Dimensions, which is one of the construction industry's biggest conferences, to connect with peer startup founders, innovators, and investors from across the industry.

This year, the Construction Startup Competition turns seven years old. Since its kickoff in 2017, the competition has received almost 3,000 applications from over 80 countries, and participating startups have gone on to create notable change in the construction industry. Hosted by Cemex Ventures and its partners, Construction Startup Competition challenges disruptors in the industry - from large multinationals to early-stage startups - to foster collaboration and inspire innovation. A traditionally slow-to-evolve industry, the construction sector is ripe for change. For more information about the competition, visit www.cemexventures.com/constructionstartupcompetition.

ABOUT CONSTRUCTION STARTUP COMPETITION

Since its first edition in 2017, startups from more than 80 countries have participated in the biggest challenge aimed at startups in the construction industry, the Construction Startup Competition. Many entrepreneurs have gone on to collaborate with the participating companies after applying to the competition. Given the global outreach of its partners, the competition seeks to identify the most innovative solutions from around the world to continue growing the Contech ecosystem and begin agile implementation of the innovative technologies and business models.

Contact Information

Mari Gherardi

Communication & Marketing

mari.gherardi@cemexventures.com

SOURCE: Cemex Ventures

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/793399/constructions-biggest-startup-competition-names-its-2023-winners
Val-d'Or, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Bonterra Resources Inc. (TSXV: BTR) (OTCQX: BONXF) (FSE: 9BR2) ("Bonterra" or the "Company") announces corporate changes to its Board of Directors (the "Board"). Effective immediately, Mr. Akiba Leisman has resigned as director of the Company. The Company would like to express its sincere gratitude to Mr. Leisman for his contributions and dedicated service during his tenure.

In addition, Bonterra is pleased to announce the appointment of Paul M. Jacobi as a Director of the Company, effective immediately. Mr. Jacobi joined Wexford Capital LP in 1996 and became a Partner in 2012. From 1995-96, Mr. Jacobi worked for Moody's Investors Services as an analyst covering the investment banking and asset management industries. From 1993-95, Mr. Jacobi was employed by Kidder Peabody & Co. as a senior financial analyst in the investment banking group. From 1988-93, Mr. Jacobi worked for KPMG Peat Marwick as an audit manager in the financial services practice. Mr. Jacobi holds a BS in accounting from Villanova University and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Marc-Andre Pelletier President and CEO of Bonterra commented: "On behalf of the Board I would like to thank Akiba for his contribution to Bonterra and wish him the best. Bonterra is pleased to welcome Paul as a new director and look forward to benefiting from his extensive financial experience."

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Marc-Andre Pelletier, President & CEO

ir@btrgold.com

2872 Sullivan Road, Suite 2, Val d'Or, Quebec J9P 0B9

819-825-8678 | Website: www.btrgold.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

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements or information. Forward-looking statements are frequently identified by such words as "may", "will", "plan", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend" and similar words referring to future events and results. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by management of the Company. Although management of 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 since no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of the Company relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such statements and information may not be appropriate for other purposes, such as making investment decisions. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks, including the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, fluctuating commodity prices, competitive risks and the availability of financing, as described in more detail in our recent securities filings available at www.sedarplus.ca. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184461
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Excellon Resources Inc. (TSX: EXN) (OTCQB: EXNRF) (FSE: E4X2) ("Excellon" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to its news release dated August 30, 2023, Excellon Idaho Gold Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Excellon, has closed the sale of Excellon's minority interest in the Oakley Project ("Oakley") to Centerra (U.S.) Inc. ("Centerra") for US$1 million in cash.

Shawn Howarth, President and CEO of Excellon, commented, "Securing this funding demonstrates a successful exit from a non-core asset and allows Excellon to advance on key strategic priorities including restructuring the balance sheet and the development of its core asset portfolio."

Immediately prior to the execution of the purchase agreement, Centerra had earned into a 70% interest in Oakley by spending US$7 million in exploration expenditures since 2020. As per the terms of the earn-in agreement with Centerra, Excellon would be required to fund future expenditures on a 70%/30% pro rata basis. If Excellon chose to waive its pro rata expenditures, the Company would be diluted to an effective 2% net smelter returns royalty on Oakley.

About Excellon

Excellon's vision is to realize opportunities through the acquisition of advanced development or producing assets with further potential to gain from an experienced management team for the benefit of our employees, communities and shareholders. The Company is advancing a portfolio of silver, base metals and precious metals assets including Kilgore, an advanced gold exploration project in Idaho; and Silver City, a high-grade epithermal silver district in Saxony, Germany with 750 years of mining history and no modern exploration.

Additional details on Excellon's properties are available at www.excellonresources.com.

For Further Information, Please Contact:

Excellon Resources Inc.

Shawn Howarth, President & Chief Executive Officer

info@excellonresources.com

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

All statements, other than statements of historical fact, contained, referenced or incorporated by reference in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" and "forward looking information" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as: "actively", "advance", "anticipated", "assess", "believe", "cause", "commence", "completion", "conditions", "consideration", "continues", "development", "due course", "expectation", "exploration", "extend", "extension", "flexibility", "focused", "forbearance", "forward", "further", "future", "if", "implement", "liquidity", "looking", "maturity", "may", "negotiations", "occur", "opportunities", "options", "outcome", "outstanding", "potential", "providing", "reach", "restructuring", "risk", "subject to", "to be", "update", "vision", "waive", "when", "will", and "would", or variations of such words, and similar such words, expressions or statements that certain actions, events or results can, could, may, should, to, will, would (or not) be achieved, occur, provide, result, complete or support in the future or which, by their nature, refer to future events. In some cases, forward-looking information may be stated in the present tense, such as in respect of current matters that may be continuing, or that may have a future impact or effect. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the ability to advance on strategic priorities such as restructuring the balance sheet; and Excellon's vision and development of its core asset portfolio; and any updates to the market regarding any of the foregoing. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct, and any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future actions, results or performance. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, estimates, expectations and opinions, which are considered reasonable and represent best judgment based on available facts, as of the date such statements are made. If such assumptions, estimates, expectations and opinions prove to be incorrect, actual and future results may be materially different than expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors which may cause the actual results or performance of the Company to be materially different from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors include, among others, the inability of the Company to restructure the balance sheet, the "Risk Factors" in the Company's annual information form dated March 31, 2023 (the "2023 AIF"), and the risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors identified in this news release, the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis, and accompanying financial statements, for the year ended December 31, 2022 and quarters already ended in 2023, and the Company's other applicable public disclosure (collectively, "Company Disclosure"). The foregoing list of risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors is not exhaustive; readers should consult the more complete discussion of the Company's business, financial condition and prospects that is provided in the 2023 AIF and the other Company Disclosure. The forward-looking statements referenced or contained in this news release are expressly qualified by these Cautionary Statements as well as the Cautionary Statements in the other Company Disclosure. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release (or as otherwise expressly specified) and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184517
Late breaking results from the CUPISCO study demonstrate how molecularly guided treatment using Foundation Medicine testing positively impacted survival in patients with cancer of unknown primary origin (CUP)

New research reinforces the unique capabilities of FoundationOneLiquid CDx's ctDNA tumor fraction algorithm to further validate confidence in liquid biopsy

Study reveals genetic differences between ancestries in patients with biliary tract cancer (BTC)

Foundation Medicine, Inc., today announced that the company will present 11 abstracts demonstrating the value of high-quality biomarker tests to inform cancer care at the 2023 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Annual Meeting from October 20-24 in Madrid, Spain.

Late Breaking Results from the CUPISCO Study

In a late-breaking abstract, Foundation Medicine and Roche share results from the randomized precision oncology study, CUPISCO, designed to prospectively assess the efficacy of molecularly guided therapy for patients with unfavorable subset cancer of unknown primary (CUP). In patients with CUP, the tumor of origin is unknown, which has historically made targeted treatment challenging. As a result, there has been little progress in improving the poor outcomes for these patients. The study demonstrates how genomic profiling using Foundation Medicine's FDA-approved FoundationOneCDx and FoundationOneLiquid CDx diagnostic tests positively impacted progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with CUP.

Primary analysis of efficacy and safety in CUPISCO: A randomised, global study of targeted therapy or cancer immunotherapy guided by genomic profiling vs platinum-based chemotherapy (CTX) in patients (pts) with treatment-naive, unfavourable carcinoma-of-unknown-primary-origin (CUP) (Proffered Paper Session 1, LBA16)

Highlighting Expanded Capabilities of ctDNA Tumor Fraction

Research continues to validate the power of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) tumor fraction, which is a measurement of the level of ctDNA within a liquid biopsy sample, to support the interpretation of liquid biopsy test results. Two new studies being presented by Foundation Medicine and its collaborators at ESMO highlight the differentiated ctDNA tumor fraction reporting capabilities of the company's FoundationOneLiquid CDx test. The research explores ctDNA tumor fraction's correlation with metabolic tumor volume on with a PET scan, and its prognostic use in bladder cancer, respectively.

Clinical and genomic correlates of plasma circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) tumor fraction (TF) in patients with advanced NSCLC (Presentation Number 2339P)

Relationship of Tumor Fraction in Circulating Tumor DNA (ctDNA) with Prognosis in Patients with Advanced Urothelial Cancer (Presentation Number 2396P)

Demonstrating Differences in Genetic Ancestry in Biliary Tract Cancer

Molecular differences between genetic ancestries in patients with biliary tract cancer (BTC) and the impact of those differences on prognosis and treatment response are largely unknown. In a study conducted with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, researchers looked at over 10,000 cases of BTC in patients of African and European descent and identified key clinical and genomic differences.

Molecular Profiling of Biliary Tract Cancer (BTCs) in Patients of African and European ancestries? (Presentation Number 113P)



"The research we are presenting at this year's ESMO reinforces the ever-expanding clinical utility across disease types of our high-quality tissue and blood-based tests," says Mia Levy, MD, PhD, chief medical officer at Foundation Medicine. "Alongside our collaborators, we're proud to share our continued progress in bringing more knowledge and cancer treatment options to the cancer community."

The following is a list of abstracts that will be presented at the meeting. To access all abstracts being presented at ESMO, please visit ESMO.org.

Follow Foundation Medicine on Twitter and LinkedIn for more updates from ESMO23 and visit us in person at Booths 727 and 728.

Abstract Title Collaborators Product Proffered Paper (Oral) LBA16 Saturday, October 21 10:35-10:45 a.m. Primary analysis of efficacy and safety in CUPISCO: A randomised, global study of targeted therapy or cancer immunotherapy guided by genomic profiling vs platinum-based chemotherapy (CTX) in patients (pts) with treatment-naive, unfavourable carcinoma-of-unknown-primary-origin (CUP) Oncologists from Europe, Asia and Oceania, Central lab at University Hospital of Zurich FoundationOneCDx FoundationOneLiquid CDx 1182O Sunday, October 22 9:20-9:30 a.m. Temozolomide treatment induces an MMR-dependent hypermutator phenotype in well differentiated pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors Hopital Saint-Louis AP-HP FoundationOneCDx Posters 2352P Sunday, October 22 Sex-Based Difference in Gene Alterations and Biomarkers in Anal Squamous Cell Carcinoma IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute FoundationOneCDx 771P Sunday, October 22 Genomic Characterization of Advanced Endometrial Carcinosarcoma: Identification of Potentially Actionable Targets IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori FoundationOneCDx 2339P Sunday, October 22 Clinical and genomic correlates of plasma circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) tumor fraction (TF) in patients with advanced NSCLC Institut Gustave Roussy FoundationOneLiquid CDx 113P Monday, October 23 Molecular Profiling of Biliary Tract Cancer (BTCs) in Patients of African and European ancestries MD Anderson FoundationOneCDx 738P Monday, October 23 Penile squamous cell carcinoma with high and very high tumor mutational burden: A genomic landscape and real-world clinical outcome study Upstate Medical University, University of Washington, Moffit Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, San Rafael University FoundationOneCDx 2396P Monday, October 23 Relationship of Tumor Fraction in Circulating Tumor DNA (ctDNA) with Prognosis in Patients with Advanced Urothelial Cancer Fox Chase Cancer Center, Temple University FoundationOneLiquid CDx 1946P Monday, October 23 Primary Sarcomas of the Urinary Bladder (BSar): A Genomic Landscape and Clinical Outcome Study Upstate Medical University, University of Washington, Moffit Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, San Rafael University FoundationOneCDx 2395P Monday, October 23 Micropapillary Histology (MPUC) and Extra-cellular Domain ERBB2 (ERBB2 ECD+) Mutations in Urothelial Bladder Cancer (UBC) Upstate Medical University, University of Washington, Moffit Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, San Rafael University FoundationOneCDx 2400P Monday, October 23 Frequency and Nature of Genomic Alterations (GA) in ERBB2-altered Urothelial Bladder Cancer (UBC) Upstate Medical University, University of Washington, Moffit Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, San Rafael University FoundationOneCDx

About Foundation Medicine: Your Essential Partner in Cancer Care

Foundation Medicine is a pioneer in molecular profiling for cancer, working to shape the future of clinical care and research. We collaborate with a broad range of partners across the cancer community and strive to set the standard for quality, scientific excellence, and regulatory leadership. Our deep understanding of cancer biology helps physicians make informed treatment decisions for their patients and empowers researchers to develop new medicines. Every day, we are driven to help our partners find answers and take action, enabling more people around the world to benefit from precision cancer care. For more information, please visit us on www.FoundationMedicine.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About FoundationOneCDx

FoundationOneCDx is a next-generation sequencing based in vitro diagnostic device for detection of substitutions, insertion and deletion alterations (indels), and copy number alterations (CNAs) in 324 genes and select gene rearrangements, as well as genomic signatures including microsatellite instability (MSI) and tumor mutational burden (TMB) using DNA isolated from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor tissue specimens. FoundationOne CDx is for prescription use only and is intended as a companion diagnostic to identify patients who may benefit from treatment with certain targeted therapies in accordance with their approved therapeutic product labeling. Additionally, FoundationOne CDx is intended to provide tumor mutation profiling to be used by qualified health care professionals in accordance with professional guidelines in oncology for patients with solid malignant neoplasms. Use of the test does not guarantee a patient will be matched to a treatment. A negative result does not rule out the presence of an alteration. Some patients may require a biopsy. For a full list of targeted therapies for which FoundationOne CDx is indicated as a companion diagnostic, please visit www.F1CDxLabel.com.

About FoundationOneLiquid CDx

FoundationOneLiquid CDx is a qualitative next generation sequencing based in vitro diagnostic test for prescription use only that uses targeted high throughput hybridization-based capture technology to analyze 324 genes utilizing circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) isolated from plasma derived from anti-coagulated peripheral whole blood of advanced cancer patients. The test is FDA-approved to report short variants in over 300 genes and is a companion diagnostic to identify patients who may benefit from treatment with specific therapies (listed in Table 1 of the Intended Use) in accordance with the approved therapeutic product labeling. Additional genomic findings may be reported and are not prescriptive or conclusive for labeled use of any specific therapeutic product. Use of the test does not guarantee a patient will be matched to a treatment. A negative result does not rule out the presence of an alteration. Patients who are negative for companion diagnostic mutations should be reflexed to tumor tissue testing and mutation status confirmed using an FDA-approved tumor tissue test, if feasible. For the complete label, including companion diagnostic indications and complete risk information, please visit www.F1LCDxLabel.com.

Foundation Medicine and FoundationOne are registered trademarks of Foundation Medicine, Inc.

Source: Foundation Medicine

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019586365/en/

Contacts:

Abigail Linehan, 781-534-3210

newsroom@foundationmedicine.com
- Frost RadarTM: Global Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) for the Life Sciences Industry 2023 Report benchmarked over 120 LIMS vendors and placed LabVantage in No. 1 spot for growth-

LabVantage Solutions, Inc., the leading provider of laboratory informatics solutions and services, including purpose-built LIMS solutions that allow labs to go live faster and at a lower total cost, today celebrated receiving global recognition as a top growth and innovation leader by Frost Sullivan in the firm's first-ever Frost RadarTM: Global Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) for the Life Sciences Industry 2023 Report. LabVantage earned the No. 1 ranking for growth on the Radar by securing high scores for its consistent growth trajectory, high market share, ability to capitalize on new growth opportunities, and commitment to continued innovation.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019604433/en/

LabVantage Solutions earned the top, outermost spot on the Frost Radar, an independent comparative analytical benchmarking system, for its combined growth potential and ability to drive innovation. (Graphic: Business Wire)

The Frost Radar, created by growth advisory and analytics firm Frost Sullivan, is an independent comparative analytical benchmarking tool that maps organizations and their LIMS solutions to identify top leaders in growth and innovation. Its growth index measures five parameters, including market share, revenue growth, growth pipeline, vision and strategy alignment, and sales and marketing effectiveness. The Radar's innovation index evaluates scalability, research and development, product portfolio, leverage of long-term opportunities and new business models, and customer alignment. Using these indices, Frost Sullivan benchmarked 120 LIMS solution vendors for the life sciences industry and represented the top 12 on the Radar as best-in-class solutions based on their features, capabilities, data integrity, interoperability, and informatics and analytics applications.

"Frost Radar Growth and Innovation leaders like LabVantage stand out because of their continuous innovation, comprehensive LIMS functionalities for life sciences companies, and regional commercial capabilities. They are instrumental in advancing the industry into the future," said Piyush Bansal, Global Program Leader, at Frost Sullivan. "The laboratory ecosystem is complex and requires tailored solutions for specific needs. LabVantage offers customers a best-in-class LIMS solution, reflected in its consistent growth and strong portfolio pipeline. Given its proven ability to scale continually, it has the potential to set an industry benchmark."

The Frost Sullivan report recognizes LabVantage's comprehensive product portfolio, the company's hybrid approach of leveraging internal R&D and external collaborations to access new technology, and significant investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to adeptly manage both scientific and unstructured data. The report marks LabVantage as a 'Company to Action' and a primary driver of competitive intensity in its growth environment, noting the company's significant future growth potential, best practices in the industry, and ability to amplify its customer value proposition. The report also honors LabVantage's partnership potential and reputation as a significant value provider to customers, investors, value chain partners and prospective talent.

"We pioneered the integration of LIMS, ELN, LES, and SDMS into a comprehensive platform for lab informatics, continuously improving it in collaboration with our customers to provide valuable business intelligence. We are delighted to have our approach validated by such a respected industry voice as Frost Sullivan," said Mikael Hagstroem, Chief Executive Officer at LabVantage Solutions. "The Frost Radar report reinforces the need in the life science industry for a platform that delivers an integrated approach to solving the challenges of managing critical scientific data end-to-end, from R&D to manufacturing to quality control."

LabVantage has strengthened its technological capabilities in the past year by acquiring Biomax Informatics and unveiling AILANI, a tool that synergizes semantic modeling, ontologies, linguistics, and AI algorithms and revolutionizes query-based research in various databases. Demonstrating commitment to leveraging growth prospects in emerging Latin America and increasing its footprint throughout the region, the company recently made two professional service acquisitions in Brazil and Colombia.

To see the Frost Sullivan summary report, click here. For more information on LabVantage and its LIMS solutions, visit www.labvantage.com or email info@labvantage.com.

About LabVantage Solutions

A recognized leader in enterprise laboratory software solutions, LabVantage Solutions dedicates itself to improving customer outcomes by transforming data into knowledge. The LabVantage informatics platform is highly configurable, integrated across a common architecture, and 100% browser-based to support hundreds of concurrent users. Deployed on-premise, via the cloud, or SaaS, it seamlessly interfaces with instruments and other enterprise systems enabling true digital transformation. The platform consists of the most modern laboratory information management system (LIMS) available, integrated electronic laboratory notebook (ELN), laboratory execution system (LES), scientific data management system (SDMS), and advanced analytics; and, for healthcare settings, a laboratory information system (LIS). We support more than 1500 global customer sites in the life sciences, pharmaceutical, medical device, biobank, food beverage, consumer packaged goods, oil gas, genetics/diagnostics, forensic, and healthcare industries. Headquartered in Somerset, NJ, with global offices, LabVantage has offered its comprehensive portfolio of products and services to enable customers to innovate faster in the R&D cycle, improve manufactured product quality, achieve accurate record-keeping, and comply with regulatory requirements for four decades. For more information, visit labvantage.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019604433/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact:

Charya Wickremasinghe, Ph.D.

Brandwidth Solutions

cwickremasinghe@brandwidthsolutions.com
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Los Andes Copper Ltd. (TSXV: LA) (OTCQX: LSANF) ("Los Andes" or the "Company"), is pleased to provide an industry update following London Metal Exchange ("LME") Week.

The annual gathering of the global metals community in London at LME Week included representatives from the breadth of the supply chain, with discussions centering around current trends in metals markets and outlooks for the year ahead.

ESG and the green transition was a principal focus at LME Week 2023. The London Metals Exchange stated at the beginning of the week that it is working with various organisations, including producers, to increase the sustainability credentials of the metals traded in its system.

However, it was copper that formed the basis of many sector discussions. At the LME Metals Seminar on Monday, copper was overwhelmingly the top bet for base metals in 2024. Following analyst presentations on the six base metals traded on the LME, attendees were asked to vote in a poll on which base metal is likely to have the most upside in 2024. Copper received 53% of the vote, with tin second receiving 23%.

Despite current price weakness across all base metals due to several factors, there remains a projected deficit in long term copper supply as it continues to be a key player in the green transition. Demand is projected to outstrip current production levels and expansion plans.

As a result, Citibank analyst, Max Layton, remarked that the LME copper price could jump from today's $8,100 to between $12,000 and $15,000 in 2025 in line with continued demand. Miners with defined copper resources and strong ESG credentials are vital in the push to meet net zero comittments.

Los Andes Copper fulfils this role, wholly owning one of the largest advanced copper deposits in the world. Los Andes' Tier One Vizcachitas project, which is being developed with sustainability initiatives at the forefront, can contribute to plugging the supply gap and help to deliver decarbonisation strategies.

Eduardo Covarrubias, Chairman of Los Andes, commented: "During LME Week, it was pleasing to see industry experts demonstrate their confidence in copper as a critical material. It is essential that we fill the supply gap in a sustainable manner if we are to meet net zero goals. The Vizcachitas Project is poised to be part of the solution as one of the largest development stage copper projects in the Americas utilising sustainable mining technologies in its mine design. This has resulted in a significant reduction in water and power useage as well as project footprint."

About Los Andes Copper Ltd.

Los Andes Copper Ltd. is a development company with an 100% interest in the Vizcachitas Project in Chile. The Company is focused on progressing Vizcachitas, which is located along one of Chile's most prolific copper belts. Vizcachitas is one of the largest copper deposits in the Americas not controlled by the majors and the Company believes it will be Chile's next major copper mine.

The Project is a copper-molybdenum porphyry deposit, located 150 kilometres north of Santiago, in an area of very good infrastructure. An independent technical report for the PFS, prepared in accordance with NI 43-101, is available on the Company's SEDAR profile.

Los Andes Copper Ltd. is listed on the TSX-V under the ticker: LA.

For more information please contact:

Santiago Montt, CEO

Santiago.montt@losandescopper.com

Tel: +56 2 2954 0450

Elizabeth Johnson, Investor Relations

Elizabeth.Johnson@losandescopper.com

E-Mail: info@losandescopper.com or visit our website at www.losandescopper.com

Follow us on X: @LosAndesCopper

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184541
Introduction of "nShift Insurance" supports the 57% of online shoppers who expect full refunds on damaged goods

LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Some 57% of online shoppers expect a full refund if their package arrives damaged.[1] With over half of consumers receiving damaged goods each year, online retailers risk significant revenue loss to replace and reship those items if accidents happen during the delivery process. [2]

nShift, the global leader in parcel and delivery management software, and Cover Genius, the insurtech for embedded protection, today introduced nShift Insurance, which can provide shipping insurance for one billion shipments from European merchants.

The embedded protection solution, enabled by Cover Genius' global distribution platform, XCover , allows nShift's online retailers, brands and webshops to replace items that are lost, stolen, or damaged in delivery. This will help them deliver better service to their customers, build loyalty, and encourage repeat purchasing.

Online retailers and carrier companies typically take great care to ensure that customers receive their items in great condition. But accidents happen.

nShift Insurance addresses this problem and is available starting with nShift Transsmart as of today. Through XCover, the insurance offers vendors and shippers:

Simplified, carrier-agnostic, global protection covering available carriers

covering available carriers Greater customer loyalty through a seamless claims process that has proven to reduce end-to-end claims finalization

through a seamless claims process that has proven to reduce end-to-end claims finalization Cost and time reductions - Cover Genius' streamlined approach to protection is up to 20% cheaper and up to 20 days faster than insurance from logistics carriers

- Cover Genius' streamlined approach to protection is up to 20% cheaper and up to 20 days faster than insurance from logistics carriers No minimum wait times - XCover has reduced claim times making it possible to start investigations without having to wait for carriers marking parcels as lost or damaged

- XCover has reduced claim times making it possible to start investigations without having to wait for carriers marking parcels as lost or damaged Instant payouts - XCover aims to complete 95% of claims within three days of claim filing

- XCover aims to complete 95% of claims within three days of claim filing Reimbursements equal to the full retail value of lost, stolen, or damaged goods

of lost, stolen, or damaged goods Tailored protection options that can be attached in-path or at an account level

options that can be attached in-path or at an account level Convenience - fully embedded into the merchant's working processes (such as booking and label printing)

Maarten Tops, Transsmart Product Director at nShift, said, "nShift Insurance will help our customers improve the experience they give their customers, build loyalty with shoppers, and grow their revenue.

"Partnering with Cover Genius enables us to offer efficient, end-to-end and scalable protection solutions in new markets around the world. It will help retailers and webshops protect themselves from inevitable accidents. It gives shoppers confidence in the delivery process and strengthens trust between vendor and consumer.

"In today's online shopping environment, giving both retailer and shopper confidence in the delivery process is essential to delivering ecommerce success."

Justin Turner, Vice President, Global Partnerships - Shipping, at Cover Genius, said, "We are proud to become nShift's exclusive global insurtech partner and look forward to serving their ecommerce companies across Europe. We have co-created protection solutions that will help their merchants reduce claims processing times and fees leading to a better shipping experience for them and their customers. The AI-backed solution makes it easier to offer total shipping protection customised to each merchant, each purchase and reduces shipping barriers for millions of shipments, wherever they want to go."

nShift is the global leader in parcel and delivery management software. Its range of solutions enables online retailers and webshops to build an end-to-end delivery experience from checkout to returns. nShift connects its customers to the world's largest carrier library, featuring over 1,000 ready-made carrier connections. nShift Insurance will be available on other nShift platforms in the coming months.

Cover Genius partners with the world's largest digital companies to distribute protection via its XCover platform, which enables companies to embed and offer any line of insurance or other type of protection solution directly to their global customers with a single API call.

https://nshift.com/solutions/transsmart

www.covergenius.com

Cost savings referenced in this press release are based on a comparison of all Cover Genius shipping protection versus published carrier rates for Fedex, UPS, DHL, USPs, UPS, Old Dominion, DHL, XPO Logistics, Estes Express Lines, YRC and TForce Freight as at June 27, 2022. Time savings are based on average resolution times (i.e. the duration from initial filing to completed payment) for all XCover shipping protection claims as at May 31, 2022 (sample size = 868) compared with the industry average time including payment settlement (min. 6 days) and period to acknowledge a filed claim.

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.

About Cover Genius

Cover Genius is the insurtech for embedded protection. Through XCover , our global distribution platform for any insurance or other type of protection, we protect the global customers of the world's largest digital companies, including Booking Holdings, Ryanair , Icelandair, Turkish Airlines , Ola, and SeatGeek. We're also available at Amazon , Flipkart , eBay , Wayfair, and SE Asia's largest company, Shopee .

Together with our partners, we co-create solutions to embed tailored, optimised protection that's licensed or authorised in over 60 countries and all 50 US States.

In addition, we provide customers with a seamless, end-to-end experience via XCover.com. XCover.com handles customers' needs - from the initial sale through to administration and claims, resulting in an industry-leading post-claims NPS of +65. Its award-winning service design has shown to reduce support tickets by 7x.

 The score includes any type of claim and claim outcome across our partner network except for those partners with less than 30 claims and those not assessed by Cover Genius. Inquiry statistics are derived from an internal analysis of 1,355 random XCover support inquiries from December 2022, of which 1,258 (93%) had not activated their XCover account and 97 (7%) had.

[1] https://www.amcor.com/insights/blogs/how-much-a-damaged-pack-can-really-cost-your-business

[2] https://nshift.com/blog/parcel-damage-what-it-means-and-how-to-prevent-it

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1782566/nShift_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/nshift-meets-online-shopper-expectations-in-new-partnership-with-cover-genius-301961978.html
Marti Technologies, Inc. ("Marti" or the "Company") (NYSE American: MRT), Turkiye's leading mobility super app, today announced a transition in its executive leadership team. After a period of dedicated service and contribution, Erdem Selim has decided to step down from his position as Chief Financial Officer ("CFO") of the Company, effective October 17, 2023. Cem Yasar Ozey has been appointed as the new CFO of the Company, effective October 18, 2023.

"We are grateful to Erdem Selim for his outstanding contributions during his tenure as CFO. He has played an instrumental role in guiding Marti through a period of significant growth and expansion. As he embarks on a new chapter in his career, we wish him success in his future endeavours," said Oguz Alper Oktem, Marti's CEO. "We welcome Cem in his new role in the Company. He is an accomplished finance executive with a proven track record of delivering results in dynamic, high-growth environments. We are excited about the extensive expertise and fresh perspectives he brings in our journey of innovation."

Erdem Selim said, "It has been a great pleasure to work for Marti Technologies, and I am proud of what we have achieved together. The successful IPO and the company's growth are significant milestones. I am confident in the team's capabilities and the strategic direction of the Company."

Cem Yasar Ozey has held CFO, COO, and Strategy positions at leading companies in Germany and Turkey for the past 19 years. Prior to joining Marti, since April 2021, Mr. Ozey held the position of Chief Financial Officer at Omsan Logistics, a company within the OYAK Group, where he was also responsible for strategic planning and digitalization. Prior to that, from July 2014 to March 2020, Mr. Ozey was Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of morhipo.com, a Boyner Group company. During this period, Mr. Ozey also served as Chief Financial Officer of Hopi, another Boyner Group company. Following the merger of Boyner Buyuk Magazacilik and morhipo.com in March 2020, Mr. Ozey assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer of Boyner Buyuk Magazacilik, where he served until April 2021. He is highly experienced in start-ups, restructuring business models, foreign direct investment, new markets, digitalization, and accelerated growth strategies with a focus on balancing change and values. Mr. Ozey completed his undergraduate studies in both Industrial Engineering and Food Engineering through a double major program at Istanbul Technical University (ITU). Additionally, he obtained his MBA degree from Yeditepe University.

About Marti Technologies, Inc.

Founded in 2018, Marti is Turkiye's leading mobility app, offering multiple transportation services to its riders. Marti operates a ride hailing service that matches riders with car and motorcycle drivers, and owns and operates a large fleet of e-mopeds, e-bikes, and e-scooters. All of Marti's offerings are serviced by proprietary software systems and IoT infrastructure. For more information visit www.marti.tech.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019961172/en/

Contacts:

Investor Contact

Marti Technologies, Inc.

Turgut Yilmaz

turgut.yilmaz@marti.tech


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) posted a third-quarter net loss of $545 million compared to net income of $483 million, last year. Loss per share was $0.83 compared to profit of $0.69. The company recognized $808 million of net special items in the third quarter after the effect of taxes, which principally included operating net special items of $983 million related to onetime charges resulting from the ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement with American's mainline pilots. Excluding net special items, American produced an operating margin of 5.4% and net income of $263 million in the third quarter. Adjusted profit per share was $0.38 compared to $0.69, prior year. On average, 16 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report profit per share of $0.25, for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.



Third-quarter revenues were approximately $13.48 billion, compared to $13.46 billion, previous year. Analysts on average had estimated $13.51 billion in revenue. American operated more than 515,000 flights in the third quarter with an average load factor of 84%.



American reduced total debt by $1.4 billion in the third quarter. The company noted that it is more than 70% of the way to its goal of reducing total debt by $15 billion by the end of 2025. As of Sept. 30, 2023, American had reduced its total debt by approximately $10.9 billion from peak levels in mid-2021. The company ended the quarter with approximately $13.5 billion of total available liquidity.



Looking forward, the company expects fourth-quarter adjusted operating margin to be 2% to 4%. Adjusted earnings per share is projected to be approximately breakeven. The company expects fourth-quarter capacity to be up approximately 4.5% to 6.5%.



American now expects 2023 adjusted operating margin to be approximately 7%. Adjusted earnings per share is anticipated in a range of approximately $2.25-$2.50. The company now expects full-year capacity to be up approximately 6.5% year over year. In July, the company anticipated full-year adjusted earnings per share to be between $3.00 and $3.75.



Shares of American Airlines are up 1% in pre-market trade on Thursday.



For more earnings news, earnings calendar, and earnings for stocks, visit rttnews.com.



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LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The ClearScore Group, a leading global financial services marketplaces group, announces today the appointment of Brian Cole as Group CFO, effective immediately. A hugely experienced CFO and financial services executive, Brian, joins The Group having held senior leadership roles at Capital One, Barclays and Visa.



Now in its ninth year and with 20m users around the world, The ClearScore Group has expanded to include several data-driven online marketplaces, retailing financial services products and serves people across four continents. Brian's appointment bolsters an already strong senior management team and his depth of experience in lending sets The Group up for continued diversification and growth on an international scale.

Justin Basini, Group CEO and Co-founder, said: "I am thrilled that Brian has decided to join us at this exciting time in our journey to becoming a globally-recognised, diversified, online marketplaces business helping people improve their financial well-being. He has a strong track record in international leadership, delivering robust financial results in scaled and scaling businesses where driving growth and operational leverage are critical. We welcome him to the team."

Brian Cole said: "I am very excited to be joining The ClearScore Group at a time when it has expanded globally as well as diversified into open banking services and adjacent verticals. I look forward to working with Justin and the team in delivering ClearScore's mission of making personal finance clearer, calmer and easier to understand at scale around the world."

While CFO of Capital One, Brian steered the business successfully through the Great Recession and as CEO brought it back to growth in the years thereafter. Later, Brian served as CEO of Barclaycard Consumer. At Barclays, Brian ran the credit card industry's market leader and most profitable business unit within Barclays Group, leading the organisation through a period of intensifying competition and consumer regulation. At Visa, Brian was Head of Product for its North America region, where he was responsible for core consumer payment products and spearheaded various key strategic initiatives in Visa's home and largest market.

About The ClearScore Group

The ClearScore Group began with the launch of the ClearScore app in the UK in July 2015 to help everyone, no matter their circumstances, achieve greater financial well-being. Since then, it has expanded to include a second online marketplace (DriveScore) and an open banking services business optimised for use in credit marketplaces (DOne). The Group combines beautifully designed apps, with powerful, consumer-controlled data, and a cutting-edge technology stack to deliver high-growth marketplaces that retail financial products. The Group has grown rapidly to serve over 20 million users across the UK, South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The Group now partners with over 150 financial institutions around the world to ensure that the right product gets to the right user at the right time.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e74c861e-ea7e-445e-89bc-c1cf923d4f17
The poem, "Snowflake Star," is written entirely in the poet's hand.

SILVER SPRING, MD / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / In its latest catalogue, Washington D.C.-based rare book firm Type Punch Matrix offers more than 70 historic books and documents from the 16th to the 21st century - including an incredibly rare manuscript poem by a teenage Sylvia Plath.

"Snowflake Star" by Sylvia Plath

Image of the poem "Snowflake Star" handwritten by a 14-year-old Sylvia Plath.

The poem, "Snowflake Star," is written entirely in the poet's hand. According to TPM co-founder Rebecca Romney, that makes it very unusual in the marketplace: "While typescripts of her poems do appear from time to time, practically all of her handwritten drafts remained with Plath's papers, which now reside almost entirely in institutions." And while the poem was written when the poet was just 14, Romney explains, "It is one of a small number of early poems in which Plath first began experimenting with images that would come to define her most famous work. We were excited to offer the poem when we first saw it because her voice was so clearly already present."

Other important highlights from the catalogue include:

An original program for Muhammad Ali's legendary rematch against Sonny Liston, signed as "Muhammad Ali" shortly before the bout, only a year after he took the name - and additionally signed by three other heavyweight champs present at Ali's training camp: Joe Louis, Jim Braddock, and Jersey Joe Walcott.

A previously unrecorded printing of one of Martin Luther King's most important speeches: his anti-war address at The Riverside Church, delivered exactly one year to the day before his assassination.

An original Yayoi Kusama's poster advertising the 1965 installation of her first ever mirror room - hand-addressed by the artist in 1965 to the Museum of Modern Art.

An extravagant (and extravagantly purple) deluxe signed book from Prince, documenting the musician's legendary 21-night 2007 residency at London's O2 arena - with forty minutes of exclusive footage on the original included iPod.

These items and others from the catalogue will be featured in TPM's booth (#326) at the upcoming Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair being held next week October 27th - 29th, 2023 at the Hynes Convention Center.

"We're proud to help steward items such as these to the next generation of collectors," said Brian Cassidy, Type Punch Matrix co-founder. "Book collecting is a conscious project to discover, preserve, and learn," Cassidy said. "It informs our modern thinking with the successes and failures of history, with stories that remind us why we work, why we want to create, and how we want to live."

Link to the catalogue (PDF):

https://typepunchmatrix.cdn.bibliopolis.com/images/upload/tpm-print-cat-5-online.pdf

About the company:

Type Punch Matrix is a rare book founded by Rebecca Romney and Brian Cassidy. Romney (a "cockeyed optimist of bibliophilia" according to Variety) is the rare book expert on the HISTORY Channel's show Pawn Stars and author of the book Printer's Error. Cassidy (described by the Village Voice as "an enthusiastic, soulful young dealer") is a specialist in the Beats, counterculture, 20th-century avant-garde and outsider works, and is an authority on modern duplicating technologies. The New York Times has praised TPM for its "edgy stock that pushes the boundaries of the rare books category." The company offers an eclectic mix of landmark books alongside quirky, off-beat material: everything from classic first editions of Jane Austen, Edgar Allen Poe, and Walt Whitman; to original Patti Smith flyers once stapled to telephone poles, and the first book (1881) to describe the Venn diagram.

Contact Information

Rebecca Romney

Co-founder

info@typepunchmatrix.com

301-589-0789

Related Files

tpm-print-cat-5-online.pdf

SOURCE: Type Punch Matrix

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794307/type-punch-matrix-offers-rare-sylvia-plath-manuscript
Agreements Will Support New Build Projects in Bulgaria and the Region

Westinghouse Electric Company today signed memorandums of understanding with key Bulgarian suppliers to support the upcoming AP1000 nuclear projects at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant site in northern Bulgaria, and other projects throughout the region.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019067098/en/

Participants in today's MOU signing ceremony in Sofia. (Photo: Business Wire)

The signed MOUs outline the potential for manufacturing of key components, including instrumentation and controls (I&C) systems, radiation monitoring systems, as well as providing various engineering, consulting and construction services. The suppliers include OSKAR-EL, Glavbolgarstroy, ENPRO Consult, EnergoService and EQE Bulgaria.

"I am proud that a U.S. company, Westinghouse, can partner with the Ministry of Energy and Parliament on this important project," said U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria Kenneth Merten. "This MOU signing paves the way for growth in the nuclear sector, economic growth in Bulgaria and clean no-carbon energy."

"We continue to make excellent progress on the front-end engineering and design study for up to two AP1000 reactors at the Kozloduy site," said David Durham, President of Energy Systems, Westinghouse. "The Bulgarian nuclear supply chain is deeply experienced and will be critical in supporting our successful delivery of the world's most advanced, proven AP1000 reactor for our customer."

"We are very glad hosting this event that is a significant milestone for the development of the AP1000 Project of Westinghouse in Bulgaria. Expanding the partnerships of the company with proven and well-qualified local suppliers is key for the sustainable development of the project here. AmCham Bulgaria is the most suitable platform that serves its members in a versatile way for joint success," said Ivan Mihaylov, AmCham Executive Director.

For more than a decade, the Westinghouse I&C Center of Excellence for the EMEA region located in Sofia, together with our mature ecosystem of local suppliers, has been providing superior engineering services and solutions for the Kozloduy NPP and many other nuclear plants.

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. Poland recently selected the AP1000 reactor for its first nuclear program. 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 in early-2024. Four AP1000 reactors are currently setting operational performance and availability records in China with six additional reactors under construction there and two more selected. The technology is also 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 Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019067098/en/

Contacts:

media@westinghouse.com
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Sabin Vaccine Institute has launched a Phase 2 clinical trial for its vaccine candidate against the lethal Marburg virus. Healthy volunteers received the single-dose vaccine at Makerere University Walter Reed Project (MUWRP) in Kampala, Uganda today.



There are currently no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat Marburg virus disease. Marburg is a filovirus, in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola. Like Ebola, Marburg virus disease spreads between people via direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of infected people, is highly virulent, and causes hemorrhagic fever. The disease has a fatality rate of up to 88%.

Based on the ChAd3 platform, Sabin's single-dose investigational Marburg vaccine was found to be promising in Phase 1 clinicaland non-clinical studies, with results showing it to be safe, while eliciting rapid and robust immune responses.

Dr. Betty Mwesigwa, deputy executive director of MUWRP, is the principal investigator for the Kampala portion of the Sabin-sponsored trial. Participants will also be enrolled a few weeks later at a second site at the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Siaya, Kenya, with Dr. Videlis Nduba as principal investigator. In all, 125 volunteers will participate in the trial.

"We have an extraordinary opportunity here to improve our preparedness to save lives and protect people from a deadly and unforgiving disease that typically strikes under-resourced countries first and most," says Amy Finan, Sabin's Chief Executive Officer. "Sabin's Phase 2 clinical trial builds on a solid safety and immunogenicity foundation and we are hoping it will generate the information needed to move the vaccine toward licensure."

The number of Marburg outbreaks in Africa has climbed steadily in recent years. Two outbreaks of Marburg virus disease have occurred already this year: Equatorial Guinea reported its first ever documented Marburg outbreak, which killed 12 people, followed by Tanzania, where six people succumbed to the virus. Communities in Uganda and Kenya are familiar with Marburg virus disease, having been ravaged by outbreaks over multiple years in the last few decades.

"Makerere University Walter Reed Project (MUWRP) is delighted to partner with the Sabin Vaccine Institute to launch the clinical testing for a preventive Marburg vaccine," says Dr. Mwesigwa. "Most Marburg virus disease outbreaks have originated in Africa. Uganda alone has registered 4 outbreaks of the disease. We urgently need a vaccine against Marburg because of its potential to cause epidemics with significant death rates. It is imperative for us to test candidate vaccines in Uganda, a country prone to these outbreaks. This work will contribute new knowledge to inform the scientific discovery for an effective vaccine against the deadly Marburg virus."

The Phase 2 clinical trialfor Sabin's Marburg vaccine will continue to evaluate safety and immunogenicity for the vaccine, this time among a larger group of individuals. This is a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study, meaning that neither the participants nor the researchers will know whether trial participants receive a vaccine dose or a placebo dose until after the trial is over, an approach used to help reduce experimental bias.

Participants in the clinical trial will be monitored for a full year and will include both younger (18-50 years) and older age groups (51-70 years). Interim results are expected next year. In addition to the current trial in Uganda and Kenya, Sabin plans to conduct a similar Phase 2 clinical trial for Marburg in the U.S.

The Marburg vaccine trials are supported by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under multi-year contracts between the organizations, including most recently a $36.4 million award for vaccine development and production.

Similarly, BARDA has invested in Sabin for advancing ChAd3 Sudan ebolavirus vaccine candidate, including awarding $28 million this August for Phase 2 clinical trials in the U.S.

To date, Sabin has received around $215 million in contract awards from BARDA for furthering vaccine research and development against Sudan ebolavirus and Marburg virus diseases.

BARDA and Sabin began working together in September 2019to develop the two monovalent vaccine candidates. Sabin's Sudan ebolavirus vaccine candidate was the first to arrive in Uganda last year during the disease outbreak that left 55 people dead. Sabin has also initiated plans for a Phase 2 Sudan ebolavirus vaccine clinical trial in Uganda and Kenya.

This project has been supported in whole or in part with federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), under contract numbers 75A50119C00055 and 75A50123C00010.

About the Sabin Vaccine Institute

The Sabin Vaccine Institute is a leading advocate for expanding vaccine access and uptake globally, advancing vaccine research and development, and amplifying vaccine knowledge and innovation. Unlocking the potential of vaccines through partnership, Sabin has built a robust ecosystem of funders, innovators, implementers, practitioners, policy makers and public stakeholders to advance its vision of a future free from preventable diseases. As a non-profit with three decades of experience, Sabin is committed to finding solutions that last and extending the full benefits of vaccines to all people, regardless of who they are or where they live. At Sabin, we believe in the power of vaccines to change the world. For more information, visit www.sabin.org and follow us on X, @SabinVaccine.About Sabin's Vaccine R&D Using the ChAd3 Platform.

About Sabin's Vaccine R&D Using the ChAd3 Platform

In August 2019, Sabin announced exclusive agreements with GSK for Sabin to advance the development of the prophylactic candidate vaccines against the deadly Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan and Marburg virus. The three candidate vaccines were initially developed collaboratively by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Okairos, which was acquired by GSK in 2013. The candidate vaccines, based on GSK's proprietary ChAd3 platform, were further developed by GSK, including the Phase II development for the Ebola Zaire vaccine. Under the agreements between GSK and Sabin, Sabin exclusively licensed the technology for all three candidate vaccines and acquired certain patent rights specific to these vaccines.

About the Makerere University Walter Reed Project

MUWRP is a non-profit biomedical research organization with a mission to mitigate disease threats through quality research, health care and disease surveillance. The project's scope includes among others; clinical research in infectious and non-infectious diseases such as HIV, Ebola, Marburg, COVID-19, Influenza and Influenza-like illnesses, and neglected tropical diseases such as Schistosomiasis, among others. A major part of the clinical research are clinical trials, where the MUWRP has conducted more than 12 phase I and II vaccine clinical trials including the first Ebola vaccine trial in Africa.

Media Contact:

Monika Guttman

Media Relations Specialist

Sabin Vaccine Institute

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Fortune honors Abbott for groundbreaking Freedom 2 Save program, promoting financial wellness for employees.

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Abbott / Fortune magazine announced its 2023 "Change the World" list, which recognizes companies that deliver shared value by making an important social or environmental impact through their core business strategies and operations. Fortune included Abbott on the list of leading companies for our Freedom 2 Save program, which enables Abbott employees to pay down their student loans while still saving for retirement.

Abbott has more than 35,000 employees in the U.S., many of whom are directly impacted by student loans. That's why in 2018 the company launched Freedom 2 Save, a unique program in which Abbott employees who put 2% of their eligible pay toward their student loans get a corporate match of 5% of their eligible pay into their 401(k)s.

Employees who enroll in the program no longer need to choose between paying down their student loans or saving for the future. What's more, employees don't have to contribute any money to their retirement fund to get this match.

Since Freedom 2 Save's inception, more than 2,500 employees have enrolled in the program. Abbott has contributed more than $5.5 million to the 401(k)s of these employees, including $1.7 million in 2022.

A Perfect Match

A key element of Abbott's 2030 Sustainability Plan is building the diverse, innovative workforce of tomorrow. To support the financial security of its employees by helping those with college debt save for retirement, Abbott has committed to provide $10 million in matching contributions to Freedom 2 Save participants' retirement accounts by 2030.

Freedom 2 Save was so innovative that Abbott needed to receive special permission from the IRS to even offer it. And starting in January 2024, enacting a Freedom 2 Save-like benefit will be easier for U.S. employers thanks to a provision in the SECURE 2.0 Act, which was signed into law in December 2022. This provision, which mirrors Freedom 2 Save and was championed by Abbott leaders, will allow employers to match employees' student loan payments with contributions to their 401(k)s.

This is the third time Fortune has recognized Abbott on its "Change the World" list. In 2020, Fortune highlighted our work in Rwanda to expand access to quality primary care and diagnostic testing, as well as advancing innovative testing to confront the COVID-19 pandemic. And in 2018, Abbott received this honor for our shared value program to help dairy farmers in India by providing them with training and resources to increase their incomes, which in turn strengthened our nutrition supply chain.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Abbott on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Abbott

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/abbott

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: Abbott

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794605/abbott-recognized-on-fortune-change-the-world-list
After a decade and a half of pioneering modular construction and establishing large-scale container sites, Module-T has launched a new depot in Southern France. While this strategic initiative facilitates direct monobloc land shipments across Europe, the company plans to offer US distributorships by the year's end.

New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Module-T, a leading prefabricated containers and portable cabins manufacturer that builds modular offices, accommodations, school containers, and large-scale prefabricated construction sites, has launched its first warehouse in southern France. The Istanbul-based enterprise aims to amplify its foothold in the French region and expedite monobloc road shipments throughout Europe through this venture.

Prefabricated Construction Manufacturer Module-T Provides Update: Warehouse Launch and US Distributorships by Year-End

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Having expanded its operations to countries including Germany, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Malta, Iceland, and Finland, Module-T exports its multipurpose portable cabins -ranging from prefabricated offices to residences, schools, hospitals, changing rooms, WCs, canteens-to over 120 countries. Established a decade and a half ago, the company takes pride in crafting aesthetic, robust, secure, and enduring turnkey prefabricated and modular structures for local and international clientele. With an annual output aims 12.000 thousand modular containers, Module-T also specializes in designing and outfitting standalone prefabricated homes, portable bungalows, and vacation residences., aiming to reach a turnover of US$ 45 million in 2025.

Exports to more than 120 countries by sea and land

Module-T's Regional Sales Executive Yigit Ozdemir, commented on their new investment: "We export our prefabricated buildings, manufactured in Turkey, to more than 120 countries by sea and land in demountable, flatpack and monobloc (preassembled) form. Our new warehouse in Southern France is the perfect location to help us deploy our preassembled shipments to Europe by road."

Positioning ahead of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics

Preparations for the 2024 Summer Olympics have begun in Paris, which is preparing to host the Olympics again after 100 years. Offering a diverse array of cost-effective modular construction solutions, Module-T is set to contribute to the Olympic preparations, providing living quarters, WC-shower facilities, and office containers for worker accommodations. Furthermore, the company has its sights on the North American market, planning to offer distributorships by the close of 2023.

Module-T is a premier supplier of prefabricated containers and turnkey portable buildings. With a track record of successful projects across global markets-particularly in Caribbean countries, the Europe, and Africa-its reputation is anchored in its expertise in designing, manufacturing, and installing fully-equipped modular buildings. These are prominently utilized on the construction sites of firms engaged in public infrastructure development, mining, and the oil and gas industry.

Modular buildings that meet global standards

Highlighting their expertise in crafting construction site accommodations and modern modular buildings, Ozdemir commented, "80% of our output is based around versatile containers and prefabricated buildings. We design spaces for offices, WCs, showers, and both temporary and permanent lodgings and meticulously oversee the assembly of these portable, globally standardized structures, configuring them side by side and in stacked arrangements to suit client needs."

Contact: Yigit Ozdemir, info@module-t.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184538
Learning and Performance Institute recognises NAE for the quality of its professional learning.

LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading international schools organisation Nord Anglia Education today announced it has been awarded formal accreditation for the fifth year running from the Learning and Performance Institute (LPI).



The accreditation from the LPI recognises the quality of Nord Anglia's professional development programme on Nord Anglia University (NAU), its leading digital learning platform.

Nord Anglia achieved a score of 92.5% overall, beating the group's previous record of 85% - measured against metrics tracking its professional learning strategy, continuous improvement, and commitment to quality learning.

Simon Kear, Assistant Director, Online Learning Platforms at Nord Anglia Education, said: "It's a brilliant accolade to be accredited by the LPI for the fifth year running, and is a huge vote of confidence in the investments we've made in developing our world-class professional learning offering. Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do at Nord Anglia and NAU really demonstrates this, and we're pleased we've received this recognition."

NAU contains thousands of resources and learning opportunities designed to support the professional development of over 15,000 teaching and non-teaching colleagues, connecting them with their peers across Nord Anglia's global family of 80+ schools.

As well as using artificial intelligence to personalise each user's learning experience, NAU encourages collaboration and the sharing of best practice in teaching, wellbeing, and career management.

Tasked with continuously raising standards of professionalism within the learning industry, the LPI is a leading authority on workplace Learning & Development. Their mission is to promote, empower and support best practice in workplace learning.

About Nord Anglia Education

As the world's leading premium international schools organisation, we're shaping a generation of creative and resilient global citizens who graduate from our schools with everything they need for success, whatever they choose to be or do in life.

Our strong academic foundations combine world-class teaching and curricula with cutting-edge technology and facilities, creating learning experiences like no other. Inside and outside of the classroom, we inspire our students to achieve more than they ever thought possible.



No two children learn the same way, which is why our 80+ schools in 33 countries around the world personalise learning to what works best for every student. Inspired by our high-quality teachers, our students achieve outstanding academic results and go on to study at the world's top universities.

To learn more or apply for a place for your child, go to nordangliaeducation.com.

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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / 3M /

Originally published on 3M News Center

Advances in connectivity and technology offer growth opportunities across industries - and on Oct. 6, National Manufacturing Day, 3M highlighted the people and processes that are driving its manufacturing capabilities forward.

There is a large volume and diversity of positions available for skilled workers. This demand offers flexibility in terms of both education and career path, while also allowing people to pair their passion with their profession. As a global manufacturer, 3M relies on a robust talent pipeline to drive its operations and those of its customers. The company is committed to supporting the growth of skilled talent and set a goal of creating five million unique STEM and Skilled Trades learning experiences for underrepresented individuals by the end of 2025.

To achieve its goal, encourage interest in trade careers and support workers in their journey, 3M offers multiple programs and platforms, including:

The 3M Manufacturing and Academic Partnerships (MAP) program connects students to careers in manufacturing through grants that support a robust mechatronics curriculum, while providing hands-on education for students and access to 3M employees as guest educators. The program began in communities surrounding 3M facilities in the U.S. and has since expanded internationally to Poland.

connects students to careers in manufacturing through grants that support a robust mechatronics curriculum, while providing hands-on education for students and access to 3M employees as guest educators. The program began in communities surrounding 3M facilities in the U.S. and has since expanded internationally to Poland. Through the 3M Institute and its Formare Program in Brazil, young people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are offered vocational education courses in the fields of science and technology, primarily in the communities in which 3M operates. The 3M Institute was created with the mission to contribute to the social transformation of future generations. Over the years, the 3M Institute has not only fulfilled its mission, but has exceeded expectations, thanks to the success of the Formare program.

young people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are offered vocational education courses in the fields of science and technology, primarily in the communities in which 3M operates. The 3M Institute was created with the mission to contribute to the social transformation of future generations. Over the years, the 3M Institute has not only fulfilled its mission, but has exceeded expectations, thanks to the success of the Formare program. 3M's " Skilled " docuseries celebrates the skilled trades and addresses misperceptions that may be preventing more people from pursuing these vital careers. By highlighting the journeys of four tradespeople, "Skilled" showcases the diversity and breadth of trade jobs, and how workers can find bother personal fulfillment and professional success. It debuted at an officially sanctioned event of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and continues to be screened at various international film festivals, including the Los Angeles International Film Festival, American Documentary and Animation Film Festival, and Twin Cities Film Festival.

celebrates the skilled trades and addresses misperceptions that may be preventing more people from pursuing these vital careers. By highlighting the journeys of four tradespeople, "Skilled" showcases the diversity and breadth of trade jobs, and how workers can find bother personal fulfillment and professional success. It debuted at an officially sanctioned event of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and continues to be screened at various international film festivals, including the Los Angeles International Film Festival, American Documentary and Animation Film Festival, and Twin Cities Film Festival. Since 2022, students from St. Paul Public Schools have been using a centralized hub at St. Paul College called the Saint Paul Public Schools 3M Advanced Learning Center. Here, students can take classes and earn college credit in multiple skilled trades disciplines through hands-on learning and state-of-the-art equipment. 3M partnered with Heart of America to help transform this hub into an inviting space conducive to learning. This hub, in addition to ongoing scholarship and support programs, will help local students pursue their dreams in STEM and skilled trades.

In addition to building a sustainable pipeline of skilled talent in manufacturing, 3M is focused on advancing sustainable practices within its facilities. In 2021, the company announced it would invest $1 billion over the next 20 years to accelerate its environmental goals, including a commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. 3M is proud to report that its greenhouse gas emissions are down 79% from 2002 levels, including a 38% decrease from levels in 2019.

One of the driving forces behind 3M's path to decarbonization is its accelerated transition toward renewable energy. The company is committed to using 100% renewable electricity to power its operations by 2050 and having reached 51.9% at the end of 2022, it is tracking well ahead-of-schedule.

Recent examples of 3M's collaborative efforts to advance renewable energy can be found at its facilities in New Ulm, Brookings, South Dakota, and Hutchinson, Minnesota. To transition these locations, 3M's energy sourcing team worked with the local utilities to find and enable access to wind- and solar-generated power. In addition to benefiting 3M, these customized programs created the opportunity for local businesses to make the renewable transition.

At locations that have not yet fully transitioned to renewable power, 3M is working to source alternative forms of energy. For example, it has invested in multiple on-site solar array installations to help power manufacturing facilities in California, Singapore, and Mexico.

The sustainability of 3M's operations and its workforce play a critical role in the company's ability to develop, manufacture and deliver global solutions at scale. By building a pipeline of skilled talent and reducing the environmental impact of its operation, 3M will create greater resiliency for its business and continue leading the way forward in modern manufacturing.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from 3M on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: 3M

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/3m

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: 3M

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794616/talent-and-sustainable-processes-power-modern-manufacturing-at-3m
MCE, the digital device lifecycle management specialist, has expanded its collection of technology application awards with two more accolades -"Best CX Innovation" and "Best Applied Technology" at CXA 23.

MCE Systems Ltd. and its partner, Vodafone UK, scooped two gold awards at the prestigious UK Customer Experience Awards 2023 ceremony at Wembley Stadium.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019939115/en/

Our Chief Commercial Officer, Eitan Linker, holds one of the two gold awards won by MCE Systems in partnership with Vodafone UK at the UK Customer Experience Awards 2023. These accolades reaffirm MCE's commitment to delivering unparalleled customer experiences through innovative technology. (Photo: MCE Systems)

The partners have taken home the winning titles in the "Best Customer Experience Innovation" and "Best Applied Technology" categories. This achievement marks another successful event for MCE, which has already won five gold awards this year including a Merit Award, 2 x Globee Awards, a Digital Transformation Award, and a Stevie Award.

The two new prizes recognize the success of Vodafone's omnichannel customer trade-in program. Thisservice, built by MCE and implemented by Vodafone into its MyVodafone app and retail operations, improves the experience for both customers and frontline staff.

In the past, the device trade-in process was time-consuming and confusing. To ensure fairness and accessibility for consumers, Vodafone's program uses MCE's AI-based remote device grading technology. This technology allows customers and staff to determine the price of a trade-in device in under three minutes via the MyVodafone app a capability which, until now, was exclusively available to warehouse employees.

The program has achieved notable success, delivering a substantial increase in trade-in volumes and customer satisfaction ratings. It has also encouraged customers to adopt a 'digital-first' approach, with 91% opting to start the trade-in process through the app and subsequently completing it either in-store or at home.

Max Taylor, Chief Commercial Officer, Vodafone UK, said: "Incorporating MCE into our mobile proposition, Vodafone EVO, has allowed us to differentiate our world-class trade-in proposition in the UK."

Eitan Linker, Chief Commercial Officer at MCE Systems, added: "Device trade-ins can be a lucrative market for mobile operators. Vodafone's omnichannel customer trade-in journey is a great example of this. It makes customers much happier and it showcases how to execute a circular economy initiative while delivering customer growth and operator profits. We are also working with Vodafone Global to further innovate and expand the solution."

In addition to receiving the award, Almog Ben-Harosh, CTO and Co-founder of MCE Systems, and Robert Hackl, Global President and CMO, delivered a keynote presentation titled "The Secret Power of DeviceAI for the Telco Industry and Beyond." This keynote explored the transformative potential of DeviceAI in telecommunications CX.

Get direct insights from Vodafone's Telesales and retail staff, as well as customers, about how MCE and Vodafone's trade-in program is helping to boost customer satisfaction: https://vimeo.com/874810147

For more information, please visit the UK Customer Experience Awards website: https://cxa.co.uk/winners-and-finalists-2023

About MCE Systems

MCE Systems is a pioneer in digital-first mobile device lifecycle management (dDLM) for operators and their partners since 2005. MCE's dDLM platform solutions mobilize operations, increase revenues, and decrease inefficiencies. Specific solutions range from device diagnostics and trade-in management with a price guarantee, to handling device returns. All are omnichannel-ready with world-class virtualization and provide fully integrated data management to anticipate customer needs around device-related customer issues (e.g., device health, upgrade timing, trade-in instead of repair). Over its more than 17 years of experience, MCE has become a trusted mobilizer of extraordinary customer experiences for Tier-1 operators and their partners. For more information, visit www.mce.systems

Follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/mce-systems

About Vodafone

Vodafone is the largest pan-European and African telecoms company. Its purpose is to connect for a better future by using technology to improve lives, digitalize critical sectors and enable inclusive and sustainable digital societies.

Vodafone provides mobile and fixed services to over 300 million customers in 17 countries, partners with mobile networks in 46 more, and is also a world leader in the Internet of Things (IoT), connecting over 160 million devices and platforms. With Vodacom Financial Services and M-Pesa, it has the largest financial technology platform in Africa, serving more than 56 million people across six countries.

For more information, please visit www.vodafone.com, follow Vodafone on Twitter at @VodafoneGroup or connect on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/vodafone.

About the CX awards

The UK Customer Experience Awards, presented by Awards International, celebrates the inspiring efforts of customer experience professionals, providing a distinctive platform for industry recognition of their outstanding achievements.

The awards aim to offer winners the acknowledgment they've earned, along with valuable learning and networking opportunities, all within a framework of safety, equity, and transparency.

For more information, visit https://cxa.co.uk

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019939115/en/

Contacts:

Izzy Laycock

isabel.l@mce-sys.com
According to Youth Talks, the largest global youth consultation ever conducted, young people worldwide aspire to a peaceful future while aware of global realities. Youth Talks uses state-of-the-art A.I. technology to analyze responses, enabling contributors to answer open-ended questions and distilling 1 million uncensored contributions into rich, comprehensible and actionable insights.

GENEVA, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Higher Education for Good Foundation unveils the results of the Youth Talks initiative, the largest global youth consultation ever conducted. Engaging over 45,000 young individuals aged 15-29 from 212 countries and territories, it seeks to empower youth with a global voice and link them to decision-makers to bring about positive societal change.

Youth Talks is in collaboration with the UN-supported initiative, Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), an initiative of the United Nation Global Impact, and the Club of Rome.

Key findings:

Peace is the top priority worldwide, followed by environmental concerns, particularly in regions like Africa and South America.

Youth emphasize values and virtues in education, urging educators to transform teaching methods. Traditional core disciplines still matter, but the urgency lies elsewhere for young people, with the exception of China. This should be a wake up call to educators, who the world's young people overwhelmingly think should be teaching much more about values and how we can live together better in society.

Young people across the globe, especially in Europe, recognize the climate emergency, but this concern is less prominent in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa.

A divide exists between Western youth and their counterparts in the rest of the world on material concerns, unfulfilled dreams, and financial worries.

Young people are ready for sacrifices, but disparities exist in how much and what they're willing to give up.

The Youth Talks consultation reveals a fascinating array of opinions and aspirations among young people, challenging preconceived notions about youth. Youth Talks strives to provide a global voice for the young and connect them with decision-makers for positive societal change, through partnerships with over 50 organizations worldwide, such as the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), as well as top universities, world youth organisations, and political institutions. The new Youth Talks Ambassadors Network includes 2,300 young people from every region of the world who actively support and promote the project in their communities.

"Young people's voices must be heard authentically and without any filters. By asking open-ended questions, we enable them to express themselves without limitations or pressure to conform to predetermined themes. The Youth Talks consultation embraces this approach, allowing young individuals to communicate their thoughts freely, uncovering fresh insights and showcasing the vast diversity of opinions within societies. Youth Talks serves as a groundbreaking global dialogue that connects the aspirations of young people with tangible societal transformation." explains Marine Hadengue, PhD and Director of Youth Talks.

The voice of the world's youth: an overriding desire for peace

Young people's top wish globally is world peace (32%), surpassing environmental concerns. They strongly desire peace while fearing war and conflict. Although optimistic about a peaceful future, they're aware of global realities. Peace is viewed as an essential aspect of well-being they hope never to relinquish.

Young people are unanimous on the urgent need to relearn how to live together and to build a society based on shared values, in a context where individualism and isolation often get the better of our humanity.

Redefining education: young people's quest for a values-centric education

Youth Talks highlights young people's emphasis on understanding, debating, and prioritizing values in education. They urge educators to transform teaching methods for harmonious living and interaction. Traditional disciplines still matter, but youth prioritize personal values (45%) and practical life skills, except in China. Schools therefore need to address 21st-century challenges and younger generations' aspirations while maintaining academic relevance.

The varying climate priority across regions: a burning reality

When imagining the future, nearly a third of young people express deep concerns about environmental problems, although it varies in importance depending on the region. Europe stands out for paying particular attention to the environment (33 %) and expressing their desire to live on a healthy planet, free from both the problems of climate change and pollution. This concern is less prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa, where it is mentioned in only 15% of contributions.

The West vs. the rest of the world

Youth Talks found a clear and significant divide on some key issues between young people in the West and their counterparts in the rest of the world. Western youth appear more anchored in material concerns, those elsewhere seem driven by fears of unfulfilled dreams and unmet aspirations. Their financial situation is the primary worry of young people in the West: around 1/3 of Western participants mentioned it as their priority, compared with only 1/10 of the participants elsewhere in the world. Western young people also seem less prepared to give up material comforts to enable broader social progress: 25% of them mentioned it as something they were not willing to abandon, compared with under 5% of participants elsewhere. Young people outside the West worry more about having to give up on their ambitions, their identity, or their family and loved ones.

Sacrifices for societal progress: how much is too much?

Youth show readiness to sacrifice lifestyles and possessions for a sustainable, fairer future. However, they refuse to compromise personal relationships, ambitions, and well-being. This highlights the difficult balance between present needs and sustainable futures. In Europe for instance, 40% of young people are willing to curtail material consumption, while 28% resist such sacrifices. These tensions within our society are important and cannot be ignored by decision-makers.

Global and regional results of the Youth Talks consultation are available https://youth-talks.org/results/

CONTACT: OgilvyYouthTalks@ogilvy.com

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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / GoDaddy



Originally published on Small Business Currents

By Emma Vaughn

Starting a small business is a big step that requires knowledge, preparation and courage. But for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, there are additional obstacles to success, such as potentially facing discrimination and finding sufficient support for their venture.

To gain a deeper understanding into the LGBTQIA+ entrepreneur experience, GoDaddy recently conducted a survey of 510 small business owners from all walks of life to gain insight into their perspectives on issues that impact the LGBTQIA+ community. The "Pride in Business" survey found key differences between businesses owned by members of the LGBTQIA+ community and those that are not.

Before delving into the survey findings and what can be learned from them, let's begin with a refresher of what Pride means.

Pride: A celebration of authenticity

Pride is about valuing diversity, fostering inclusion, promoting equity and creating a sense of belonging. It's an affirmation that love transcends all boundaries. Having grown up in a small town in Indiana, I know firsthand the challenges of acceptance and understanding. Now living in San Diego, I deeply appreciate the city's vibrant and supportive LGBTQIA+ community that reinforces these essential principles.

To me, Pride is a celebration of authenticity, love and the freedom to express oneself, even in light of judgement and discrimination. It's a powerful reminder of the struggles and triumphs of the LGBTQIA+ community and the courage of those who paved the way for the rights and acceptance we enjoy today. And while Pride is traditionally recognized during the month of June in the U.S., at GoDaddy we celebrate Pride year-round and encourage others to participate, whether as a community member or an ally.

Allyship in the workplace and beyond

When we talk about being an ally, we emphasize the importance of standing up for those who are marginalized, even if their experiences are not directly your own. Allyship is about understanding, empathy and actively listening to the experiences of those within the LGBTQIA+ community and advocating for their rights. Being an ally involves addressing biases, educating oneself, and promoting inclusivity and acceptance. It's about uplifting others and demonstrating support, respect and genuine care.

Challenges facing LGBTQIA+ Entrepreneurs

Now, let's address the unique challenges faced by LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs, as highlighted in GoDaddy's Pride in Business survey:

Facing Discrimination- Discrimination and harassment continue to be predominant issues for LGBTQIA+ small business owners. Nearly one in three (32%) of those surveyed report encountering issues with online harassment or discrimination directed toward their business due to their LGBTQIA+ identity. Meanwhile, fewer than 20% of non-LGBTQIA+ business owners report this. Supportive networks and mentors- While often difficult to find, having a strong support network is critical for any entrepreneur, and it is especially important for LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs to find mentors who understand their unique experiences and challenges. The survey reports that 71% of LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs agree having networks and communities of support is crucial to the success of their business. Using technology- LGBTQIA+-owned businesses are more likely to sell products using social media. In cases where businesses surveyed are not using paid marketing activities, LGBTQIA+ business owners are most likely to say they don't know where to start - 41% of LGBTQIA+ business owners compared with 16% of the general community.

Takeaways for LGBTQIA+ Small Business Owners

Our survey findings reveal LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs are more likely to use social media and execute paid online marketing campaigns, but often don't know where to start. Here are some tips I recommend when leveraging social media to grow your business:

Know your audience- Understand who your audience is and what they like. This helps create content that resonates.

Understand who your audience is and what they like. This helps create content that resonates. Engage with your followers- Social media is a platform for engagement. Respond to comments, answer questions and build a community around your brand.

Social media is a platform for engagement. Respond to comments, answer questions and build a community around your brand. Use visuals- Photos and videos perform better than text-only posts. Where able, use high-quality visuals to grab attention.

Photos and videos perform better than text-only posts. Where able, use high-quality visuals to grab attention. Experiment with generative AI- Save time by using new AI tools and chatbots to develop compelling videos, social media copy or branded content materials.

Save time by using to develop compelling videos, social media copy or branded content materials. Run contests and giveaways- Increase visibility and engage followers by offering them an incentive to engage with your brand.

Increase visibility and engage followers by offering them an incentive to engage with your brand. Use hashtags- Increase post visibility with relevant hashtags.

Increase post visibility with relevant hashtags. Develop paid ads- Consider using paid ads to reach a larger audience.

Consider using paid ads to reach a larger audience. Stay consistent- Keep posts consistent in frequency and branding to build a strong presence.

Keep posts consistent in frequency and branding to build a strong presence. Collaborate- Partner with influencers or other brands in your industry.

Partner with influencers or other brands in your industry. Track performance- Use analytics to understand what's working and adjust your strategy.

And lastly, remember that success on social media requires time, effort and experimentation.

Supporting LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs as a consumer

When it comes to LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs and business owners, 45% of survey respondents said community engagement was most critical to them. Here are four ways to support LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs as a consumer:

Seek and purchase from LGBTQIA+ businesses- Actively seek out and purchase from businesses owned and operated by LGBTQIA+ individuals, amplifying their visibility. Use social media and online platforms- Endorse these businesses and spread the word about their products or services through social media and online platforms. Support advocacy organizations- Join or support organizations that advocate for LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs, such as StartOut or the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce . Respect diverse identities- Understand that supporting these businesses means respecting and acknowledging the diverse identities of their owners and creating an environment of inclusion and belonging.

The path of entrepreneurship is filled with both challenges and opportunities. As we celebrate and honor the LGBTQIA+ community year-round, let's not only reflect on the progress made but also recognize the work that remains. By actively supporting LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs and fostering inclusion, we can make the world of small business more diverse, equitable and welcoming for all. Together, we can create a future where everyone can pursue their entrepreneurial dreams authentically and fearlessly.

Emma Vaughn is a Senior Marketing Manager at GoDaddy.

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CHICAGO, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The integration of cutting-edge technologies, real-time capabilities, expanded cross-platform compatibility, and industry-specific solutions will define the future of the Process Mining Market, making it a crucial tool for businesses looking to optimise processes and boost operational efficiency.



The Process Mining Market is set to experience rapid growth, projected to surge from USD 1.8 billion in 2023 to USD 12.1 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 45.6% during the forecast period of 2023-2028, according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. This remarkable expansion is driven by a confluence of factors. First and foremost, As businesses grow and expand, their processes become more complex and interconnected. This can make it difficult to understand and manage these processes effectively. Moreover, businesses are adopting digital transformation initiatives to improve their efficiency, agility, and customer experience. Additionally, businesses need to have visibility into and control over their processes in order to operate efficiently and effectively. Process mining can help businesses to gain real-time visibility into their processes, identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies, and take corrective action. In this dynamic landscape, process mining is poised to revolutionize the industry, providing agility, efficiency, and innovation on an unprecedented scale.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Process Mining Market"

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Scope of the Report

Report Metrics Details Market size available for years 2018-2028 Base year considered 2022 Forecast period 2023-2028 Forecast units USD (Billion) Segments covered Offering, Mining Algorithms, Data Source, Vertical, and Region Geographies covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America Companies covered IBM (US), ABBYY (US), Celonis (US), UiPath (US), Software AG (Germany), SAP Signavio (Germany), QPR Software (Finland), Microsoft (US), Appian (US), Pegasystems (US), Mehrwerk (Germany), Kofax (US), Soroco (US), iGrafx (US), Nintex (US), Automation Anywhere (US), Hyland Software (US), Fluxicon (Netherlands), Datapolis (Poland), Apromore (Australia), BusinessOptix (US), StereoLOGIC (Canada), Worksoft (US), Inverbis Analytics (Spain), Skan.ai (US), Mindzie (US), Cyclone Robotics (China), Upflux (Brazil), Puzzledata Inc. (South Korea), Kyp.ai (Germany), Workfellow (Finland).



By offering, continuous monitoring & analytics tools software segment to register the largest market share during the forecast period

Continuous monitoring tools offer real-time insights into business processes, allowing organizations to make immediate and informed decisions. These tools are driven by the need for enhanced operational efficiency and data-driven decision-making. Key trends include integration with robotic process automation (RPA) and organizations demanding transparency and interpretability in AI-driven insights, ensuring that decision-makers can understand and trust the recommendations provided by process mining tools.

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By mining algorithms, deep learning algorithms segment is poised for the fastest growth rate during the forecast period

Deep learning algorithms is a rapidly evolving segment within the Process Mining Market, addressing the need for handling complex and large data. It's driven by the need to handle large volumes of data from diverse sources, including unstructured data such as event logs. Moreover, trends like improved accuracy and prediction and integration with advanced technologies, are reshaping the process mining landscape. Deep learning algorithm's ability to model complex structures makes it well-suited for uncovering hidden insights and nuances in processes.

By region, North America to account for highest growth rate during forecast period

The North America Process Mining Market is witnessing remarkable growth, fueled by several key drivers and trends. The region's enterprises are keen on adopting technologies that enhance operational efficiency and agility, and process mining aligns well with these objectives. Moreover, the region's propensity for fostering strategic partnerships and collaborations between technology providers, consulting firms, and enterprises creates an ecosystem conducive to the growth of process mining.

Top Key Companies in Process Mining Market:

Some major players in the Process Mining Market include IBM (US), ABBYY (US), Celonis (US), UiPath (US), Software AG (Germany), SAP Signavio (Germany), Pegasystems (US), QPR Software (Finland), Microsoft (US), and Appian (US).

Recent Developments:

In July 2023, Microsoft announced the launch of Power Automate Process Mining, infused with next-generation AI which enables organizations to easily understand what is happening across their business, maximize process insights, use out-of-box recommendations to reduce the complexity of processes, transform operations, and drive continuous process improvement with automation and low-code apps.

In May 2023, Pegasystems announced the launch of Pega Process Mining, which will make it easier for Pega users of all skill levels to find and fix process inefficiencies hindering their business operations.

In May 2023, QPR Software announced a brand-new partnership with Paris-based Solution BI, known for their customer-centric end-to-end business intelligence solutions.

In March 2023, UiPath launched a new process mining tool called Communications Mining which brings new capabilities to understand and automate business communications. It uses state-of-the-art AI models to turn business messages-from emails to tickets-into actionable data.

In January 2023, Appian announced a strategic alliance with EY to support clients on digital transformation initiatives using the next wave of intelligent automation and process mining.

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Process Mining Market Advantages:

Process mining gives stakeholders a clear and in-depth perspective of an organization's processes, enabling them to comprehend how they operate and how they might be improved.

It makes use of data analysis to provide data-driven insights into the performance of processes, assisting organisations in making wise decisions.

By creating visual representations of processes, process mining tools make it simpler to spot bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and areas for improvement.

Organisations can increase compliance and lower mistakes by using it to discover process variances, deviations, and exceptions.

Organisations can utilise process mining to pinpoint the underlying causes of process issues and performance problems, enabling targeted solutions.

Predictive analytics capabilities are provided by some process mining technologies, enabling businesses to anticipate process outcomes and take preventative action.

Process mining reduces the amount of manual work needed to document processes by automatically producing thorough workflow documentation.

It makes process monitoring possible continuously, guaranteeing that businesses can react rapidly to shifting circumstances and shifting client needs.

To find opportunities for improvement, organisations can benchmark their procedures against best practises and industry standards.

Report Objectives

To define, describe, and predict the Process Mining Market by offering (software and services), mining algorithm, data source, vertical, and region

To provide detailed information related to major factors (drivers, restraints, opportunities, and industry-specific challenges) influencing the market growth

To analyze the micro markets with respect to individual growth trends, prospects, and their contribution to the total market

To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high-growth segments of the Process Mining Market

To analyze opportunities in the market and provide details of the competitive landscape for stakeholders and market leaders

To forecast the market size of segments for five main regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America

To profile key players and comprehensively analyze their market rankings and core competencies.

To analyze competitive developments, such as partnerships, new product launches, and mergers and acquisitions, in the Process Mining Market

To analyze the impact of recession across all the regions across the Process Mining Market

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DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- From October 16th to 20th, GITEX Global 2023 was grandly launched in Dubai. H3C debuted as an exhibitor at the event, and successfully held the H3C Tech Summit 2023 on October 18th. Over 200 business leaders and technical experts from the Middle East and global technology industries gathered to focus on the future of digital technology innovation and explore new paths in AI development. Wen Bing, Co-president of Tsinghua Unigroup, and Gary Huang, Co-president of H3C and President of International Business, were present at the event.

Tony Yu, President & CEO of H3C, kickstarted the event with a welcome speech as an AI-generated digital figure. Yu first reviewed the layout and planning of H3C's international market. He stated that at the NAVIGATE International Business Summit held this February, H3C shared three major visions for its international business: firmly believing in the power of digital economy development, adhering to the strategy of global development, and a long-term commitment to "Partner First" strategy. Under the guidance of these visions, H3C has continued to expand in the international market and have launched five scenario-based solutions: Synergy Working, Innovative Education, Smart Manufacturing, Efficient Healthcare and Reliable Public Services, ensuring timely and efficient provision of local sales and services to global customers and better meeting the global pursuit of a better digital life.

"Currently AI technology is changing the world, and the era of intelligence is just around the corner. Thanks to the forward-looking 'AI in ALL' strategy, H3C has launched a range of products and solutions in the field of AIGC including the LinSeer, an AI-powered private large-language model. We are committed to leveraging leading digital infrastructure and AI capabilities to better benefit the people. Looking towards the future, we have the confidence and capability to become the best global partner in the digital transformation of the intelligent new era," noted Yu.

In this rapidly changing era, the power of technology is everywhere, and the development of technology has made our lives more digital and intelligent. Wen Bing, Co-president of Tsinghua Unigroup, delivered a keynote speech titled "Better Life with Advanced Technology". He used the story of a young professional's life in Suzhou, China as an example to describe how digital technology deeply infiltrates every corner of our lives. He emphasized its profound and transformative impact.

He noted that Tsinghua Unigroup always insists on innovative development, empowers customers in all industries, and aims to improving the quality life and empowering the intelligent society. In the future, Tsinghua Unigroup and H3C will continue to adhere to internationalization and marketization, customer-oriented, and cooperate with more partners to build a digital world that is more intelligent, more open-minded, more fair, and more Splendour, letting the light of science and technology brighten human life.

Gary Huang, Co-president of H3C and President of International Business, addressed in his keynote speech that more and more enterprises have deeply realized that AI (artificial intelligence) will become a key technology leading human society into a new era. So, how to ensure that products can adapt well to the application of AI? For this, H3C launched AIGC Openness Strategy to further optimize the energy efficiency performance of the infrastructure, accelerate technology to empower green and sustainable development, and closely cooperate with customers and partners, work together to make AI applications and sustainable technologies create greater value, serve all mankind, and make all imaginations a reality.

From "AI in ALL" to "AI for ALL", Applying AI technology in all industries

At the conference, industry experts and corporate leaders from various countries shared their insights on the innovation and progress of cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology, showcasing application cases of digital technology in Innovative Education, Smart Manufacturing, Efficient Healthcare, Reliable Public Services, and other scenarios, bringing new values and thoughts to the attendees.

In the field of Innovative Education, Ashik Abdul Jaleel, Senior IT Infrastructure Manager of Alef Education, UAE, shared a case of Alef Education and H3C jointly assisting the digital transformation of K12 education in the UAE. In the process of network construction, H3C adopted the NFV network architecture, supporting the unified management of physical and virtual networks, meeting the networking needs of different application scenarios with flexible and elastic product combinations, and greatly reducing the complexity of operation and maintenance with a highly open and reliable management approach.

Charl Edward Harding, CEO of The Impact Catalyst, South Africa, also made an excellent speech, detailing the measures and achievements of the Limpopo, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga Provinces in South Africa in promoting socio-economic growth through government-enterprise cooperation. The Impact Catalyst is an initiative founded by Anglo American, the CSIR, Exxaro, World Vision South Africa, to create mechanisms that drive large-scale, socio-economic development initiatives through public-private partnerships. The initiatives will be designed to leverage collaboration across all sectors and will be selected for impact beyond the scale of individual participants. The project plans to implement Wi-Fi connectivity across rural communities in selected schools with the goal of achieving 1000 schools. So far, it has completed network access for 300 schools in collaboration with H3C. This not only provides opportunities for students, community members, and small businesses to access information and digital technologies, but also has a positive impact on the development of schools, communities, and even the entire South African nation.

In the field of Smart Manufacturing, Mohamed Elmetwaly, Director of Procurement at Mobco Group in Saudi Arabia, stated that before the cooperation on the Sindalah Island development project, H3C laid a solid foundation for the cooperation with its leading position in the ICT market, mature technical conditions, high-quality services, and rich cooperation experience. During the project advancement process, its secure and flexible digital architecture and high-quality, stable network experience provided reliable support for efficiency improvement and digital transformation.

In the field of Efficient Healthcare, Dr. Mustafa Hasan Qurban, the CIO of King Fahad Military Medical Complex (KMFFC), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, expressed his gratitude to H3C. He stated that with the help of H3C's smart hospital solution, KMFFC has completed the digital upgrade of the digital center, realizing data communication and sharing among four hospitals in the eastern region, significantly improving the work efficiency of medical staff, and enabling the medical center to provide better medical services for patients.

In the field of Reliable Public Services, Murat Celik, IT Systems Manager of the Court of Cassation (Yargitay) in The Republic of Turkiye, shared the strong connection with H3C in constructing a new campus. H3C's smart campus solution has revolutionized the traditional way of network configuration with switches, adopting a new architecture for digital innovation in campus management, operation, and digital platform construction. By using the advanced AD-Campus 6.0 SDN technology, the core value of improving quality and efficiency, and reducing costs in a smart campus has been unleashed.

Based on the new opportunities brought by AIGC, H3C actively practices the strategy from "AI in ALL" to "AI for ALL", integrates AI into all hardware and software products, covers all scenarios with technology, and helps all industries to upgrade intelligently.

Qiao Yan, Vice President of H3C International Business, GM of the Product Solution and Marketing, launched a series of new flagship products, including the AI server specially designed for large-scale model training, the 800G silicon photonic datacenter switches, and H3C AMPHA Computing Power Platform, which once again demonstrated H3C's resonance with market demand and its excellent practice of continuously promoting digital transformation in all industries.

Collaborating with Partners to Build an Open and Win-Win Ecology

During the MOU signing ceremony, Gary Huang, Co-president of H3C and President of International Business, signed strategic cooperation agreements with four customers and partners including Mobco Group, Riphah International University, The Impact Catalyst and China Mobile Pakistan (CMPak). Through the partnership, H3C and partners have officially established a close cooperation relationship, which laid a solid foundation for accelerating response speed and service capabilities to local customers and partners, promoting deep integration of products, solutions, and local technology ecology, and driving digital transformation in all industries in the region.

As one of H3C's global strategic eco-partners, Hans Chuang, VP, Sales, Marketing and Communications Group; GM, PRC Datacenter Sales; GM, PRC CoSP Business Consumption of Intel, delivered a keynote speech of "Bring AI Everywhere for a Smarter Digital Future", sharing Intel's innovation and development in the AI field and its cooperation prospects with H3C.

"The cooperation between Intel and new H3C has lasted for 7 years. Along the journey, Intel and H3C work closely on a full range of digital products and series of scenario-based solutions for vertical markets. Today we are applying our reach, scale, and resources to enable our customers to capitalize more fully on the power of digital technology. We hope to carry out more innovation corporations with H3C in the future and be together to do something wonderful for a better digital future."

Since officially going overseas in 2019, H3C has been continuously planning and laying out in overseas markets. Its overseas business, as the second curve of the corporate income growth, shows an accelerating growth trend. Currently, the group has 1,882 certified partners overseas, has established 40 overseas spare parts centers, and its services cover 176 countries and regions. Since this year, H3C has achieved landmark results in the government, education, and carrier industries in Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, Mexico, and other countries and regions in Central Asia. It has also actively carried out channel layout and cooperation in newly-expanded countries such as the UAE and KSA, achieving breakthrough outputs in many projects.

Looking to the future, H3C will adhere to the concept of "Dedication, For A Smarter Future", get involved in the new era of intelligence, study Cloud & AI-Native technology in-depth, and strive to build a solid foundation, provide resources, and promote a "sustainable, innovative, and win-win" development model through the paths of underlying infrastructure, technological innovation, talent training, and industry integration, helping governments and industries around the world find a digital transformation path that suits local reality.

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AURP's 2023 Awards of Excellence in Innovation held at its International Conference (Oct. 16-19) at the University of Delaware STAR Campus

TUCSON, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / The Nebraska Innovation Campus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has been named the 2023 "Outstanding Research Park" at the Association of University Research Parks' (AURP) 2023 International Conference (Oct. 16-19) at the University of Delaware's STAR Campus . AURP is the leading nonprofit organization representing research parks, innovation districts, tech hubs and all communities of innovation.

AURP's International Conference annually brings together 200+ research park and innovation district leaders from around the world for high-impact knowledge exchange and networking with the industry's premier experts and leaders.

"On behalf of our dynamic and growing AURP membership, I'm delighted to extend my sincere congratulations to our 2023 Awards of Excellence winners," said Erin Koshut, AURP President and Executive Director, Cummings Research Park . "Research parks, such as Nebraska Innovation Campus, exemplify our forward-looking global community of innovation, dedicated to research, collaboration and entrepreneurship for the common good."

AURP Awards Chair, Harry Brislin IV, Executive Director, USA Technology & Research Park , served as emcee and host of the evening's festivities.

The Outstanding Research Park Award recognizes research parks and innovation districts and their leadership for their achievements and encourages continuous evaluation and development of best practices for the research park community.

The AURP 2023 Outstanding Research Park Award recipient is Nebraska Innovation Campus (NIC). NIC, developed over the last ten years, is located on the former site of a cattle show ground and the state fairgrounds. NIC now has grown to over 570,000 square feet of office, hotel, conference center, makerspace, lab and greenhouse spaces, and is home to over 65 companies and university entities across the industry spectrum including food and agricultural technology. The NIC, over the last decade, has contributed nearly half a billion dollars in annual economic impact to the state, boasting over $100 million dollars in total cumulative employee compensation with roughly 2,000 jobs generated by NIC's investment projects and partnerships.

"Congratulations to all of our 2023 Awards of Excellence honorees, especially the Nebraska Innovation Campus," said Vickie Palmer, CEO of AURP. "Our 2023 awards recipients and their teams show timeless characteristics of perseverance, grit and integrity with a laser focus on fostering new discoveries. Their leadership and knowledge are absolutely vital to the work of building new communities, new places, where people can thrive personally and professionally - leveraging the power of research parks, innovation districts and tech hubs."

Additional awards categories and recipients are:

AURP's Leadership Award is given in recognition of a business, university or governmental leader who has made an outstanding contribution to the success and total community impact of a university research and technology park.

The AURP 2023 Leadership Award recipient is Randy Woodson, PhD, Chancellor, North Carolina State University: Since becoming NC State's 14th chancellor in 2010, Chancellor Woodson's leadership has resulted in significant advancements. NC State's Centennial Campus is now home to more than 70 industry and government organizations that work alongside an equal number of academic departments and centers. Over the last five years, these partners have hired more than 2,000 NC State students and invested $120 million in university research. Key recruitments during Woodson's tenure include Eastman Chemical Company, the National Security Agency and Under Armour.

AURP's Emerging Research Park Award recognizes research parks or innovation districts which have been operational for 10 or fewer years, creating an exceptional ecosystem which supports bringing technology from inception to market thereby positively impacting the sustainable growth of scalable businesses and high-wage job creation in their region.

The AURP 2023 Emerging Research Park Award recipient is Wichita State University Innovation Campus: Wichita State University Innovation Campus , in 2012, sought to re-envision an underutilized section neighboring their University campus and within five years transformed over 120 acres into a bustling Innovation Campus housing 50 companies aligned with the University's mission and vision statements. Since then, Wichita State University Innovation Campus has been named finalist for the UEDA Engaged University Award of Excellence in 2022 and later selected as a winner of the EDA Build Back Better Regional Challenge.

AURP's Career Achievement Award recognizes an individual who has made their research community a central focus of their career, who has achieved outstanding successes over a substantial period of time, and who has received peer recognition for advancing the concept of university research parks and innovation districts.

The AURP 2023 Career Achievement Award recipient is Jane Shaab, UM BioPark Executive Director, Associate Vice President, Economic Development: Shaab - a tireless advocate and ambassador for the city of Baltimore and also AURP in her previous role on the AURP Board of Directors - has dedicated herself to building the Baltimore region's life sciences, technology and research industries, encouraging their growth for decades into becoming the city's largest cluster of life sciences companies. In her leadership roles with UM BioPark, Shaab has helped revitalize 14 acres of years-vacant downtown commercial property in Baltimore, generating over $600 million dollars in capital investment to realize development of a 470,000 square foot world-class biomedical research center.

AURP's Innovation Award is given each year to the business or nonprofit institution located in a research park that has brought forward one or more proprietary products, processes or services which represent a substantial technology breakthrough or have potential for a significant positive impact on the economic, health or welfare status of a broad spectrum of humanity.

The AURP 2023 Innovation Award recipient is BULB - Building an Understanding of Lab Basics - at University City Science Center : BULB is a free five-week training program that connects Philadelphians to STEM training and jobs in Philadelphia's growing life sciences industry. Created in 2020, BULB helps to develop a workforce that fits the needs of the region's companies, strengthening the STEM talent pipeline while benefiting the overall community. As part of this, BULB gives Philadelphia area residents an education on basic lab safety and protocols, concepts of gene and cell therapy and financial literacy in a combined program, while helping participants obtain apprenticeships and new careers in the region's life sciences sector.

AURP's Vision Award recognizes an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the AURP network - and to the innovation ecosystem.

The AURP 2022 Vision Award recipient is Daisy Magnus-Aryitey, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Code the Dream at Research Triangle Park (NC): Magnus-Aryitey has worked to bring coding and technology to underserved communities in the RTP region. By exposing a diverse community to skills necessary to obtain sustainable employment in these fields through their free services and education, Magnus-Aryitey and Code the Dream are helping connect immigrants, low-income individuals, people of color and other marginalized communities to living wages by working with industry leaders to design and build curriculum that prepares students for software development positions at top companies.

AURP's Rising Star Award: A New Generation of Innovation Leadership recognizes an individual exhibiting significant contributions to the development and success of communities of innovation.

The AURP 2023 Rising Star Award recipient is Jonathan Hunt, Ecosystem Partnerships Manager with McMaster Innovation Park : Hunt has worked tirelessly to build bridges with other ecosystem leaders, government officials and strategic partners to unite the greater Toronto region around a common goal of making McMaster Innovation Park and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada a world leader in health and life science innovation. Hunt also was an instrumental leader in planning the AURP 2022 International Conference in Toronto, plus continues to serve as a driving force behind the Canadian park peer network.

About AURP:

AURP, a non-profit international organization with offices in the Washington, DC area at the University of Maryland Discovery District and in Tucson, AZ at the University of Arizona Tech Park, focuses on creating communities of innovation and education for research parks both operating and planned, plus innovation districts, incubators, accelerators and the businesses that support the research park industry. AURP and its global membership promote research, institute-industry relations and innovation districts to foster innovation and to facilitate the transfer of technology from such institutions to the private sector. Learn more: www.aurp.net

Media Contact:

Ken Berlack

AURP

kenberlack@aurp.net

SOURCE: AURP

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Colombo, Sri Lanka, Oct 19, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - StrategINK will host the Sri Lanka Edition of The Global Agility Summit, the leading DATA|AI|CLOUD conference, in Colombo on 3rd November 2023.The summit will bring together 40+ subject matters experts and consultants as speakers and 200+ executives from SAARC Countries representing various sectors of industry, technology professionals, and members of the investment community, including those in: Executive management, IT, marketing/business development, product management, strategy and planning, financial services, and more. The event will serve as a platform to explore the latest advancements, trends, and real-world applications in the fields of data analytics, artificial intelligence, and cloud technologies.The one-day conference will focus on how the trilogy of Data, AI and Cloud is enabling enterprise transformation.Eminent industry speakers will share insights and best practices on topics including:- Digital Transformation: The Heart of Business Evolution- Reimagining Cloud, Data & AI -Establishment of a Cyber-Resilient Enterprise- Data's Role in Shaping the Metaverse- Digital Twin: Providing Certainty in an Uncertain World- Sustainable Development with Data, AI & Cloud"In the heart of Sri Lanka, we are set to redefine the future with The Global Agility Summit, where Data, AI, and Cloud converge to shape the next era of innovation and transformation," said Vinod Singh, Managing Director, StrategINK Solutions. "Our goal is to catalyze impactful conversations and help organizations accelerate their digital transformation journeys."To register or learn more about TGAS' Sri Lanka, visit: https://shorturl.at/ilT46About StrategINK SolutionsA team of pragmatic and experienced Industry Experts, who passionately help Business Organizations (Buyers, Sellers, Business/Channel Partners) with a variety of services towards accelerating "Business Innovation & Go-to-Market" pursuits. With our core offerings of "Research based Business Insights", "Content driven Marketing Solutions", "Digital Transformation Consulting & Advisory", and "Learning, Enablement & Skill augmentation Services", we catalyze & accelerate business transformation, digital led innovation, sales acceleration, skill enhancement, and customer delight. With our rich, diverse & hybrid model of digital and physical tools, techniques and industry proven frameworks and best practices, we develop unique solutions to address the complex business challenges of our clients and create compelling value through sustainable innovation.For additional information, please contact:Manish SharmaChief Business Officermsharma@strategink.comSource: StrategINKCopyright 2023 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Informa Markets Fashion, organizer of industry leading wholesale fashion events MAGIC, COTERIE, PROJECT and SOURCING at MAGIC, releases the dates and locations for the 2024 calendar year.

MAGIC Miami launches January 8-9 for a two-day intimate experience highlighting immediate deliveries, allowing retailers to stock up at the top of the year's buying cycle, addressing the growing demand for regional presence as local retailers look to discover new brands and products. MAGIC Miami will take place in the Miami Convention Center creating a new opportunity for attendees to enjoy the destination location.

MAGIC Las Vegas, Informa Markets Fashion's keystone event, returns to Las Vegas February 13-15 at the Las Vegas Convention Center to showcase women's Fall/Winter 2024 styles, and again August 19-21, showcasing Spring/Summer 2024 brands and designers. MAGIC Las Vegas celebrates the fashion community through top educational programming and community experiences, including keynotes from industry icons, premium education tracks and both on and off-site experiences that MAGIC Las Vegas is known for.

MAGIC New York returns to the Javits Center February 20-22 and September 22-24 to showcase hundreds of new and emerging designers and the growing modern sportswear category. Thousands of retailers ranging from single specialty boutiques to big box department and chain stores attend MAGIC New York to connect and discover the latest collections for upcoming seasons.

MAGIC Nashville arrives at the Music City Center, April 3-4, showcasing a curated assortment of brands and products at price points from accessible to moderate. Over 400 brands showcase at MAGIC Nashville, filling the need for a regional event offering mid-year buying opportunities for immediates and upcoming collections. Retailers can discover southern-inspired apparel, footwear and accessories, and enjoy the Nashville lifestyle through food and music.

PROJECT Las Vegas, the contemporary marketplace representing what's new, now, and next in men's and women's apparel, footwear and accessories, returns February 13-15 and August 19-21, bringing together domestic and international buyers go to discover elevated brands, find products from culturally relevant designers and connect with likeminded industry thought leaders and fashion insiders. The bi-annual event brings together influential fashion experts, discussing current industry trends and successes in the fashion industry.

SOURCING at MAGIC Las Vegas, the premier event bringing together?over 1,000 manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers from apparel, accessories and footwear manufacturing, to textiles, materials, components, supply chain and technology solutions, returns to Las Vegas February 13-15 and again August 19-21 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Education, technology and fashion entrepreneurship remain key pillars of focus for the Las Vegas events, highlighting sustainability through strategic partnerships and on-site activations. After a successful first iteration, SOURCING at MAGIC New York will return to the Javits Center in New York City for the September edition, September 22-24.

COTERIE New York, the premier bi-annual event for women's contemporary and advanced contemporary apparel, footwear, accessories and beauty will deliver a three-day experience highlighting sustainability, technology and community at the Javits Center, February 20-22 to showcase Fall/Winter 2024 styles from over 1100+ domestic and international brands gathering designers from Turkey, Greece, South Korea, Italy and more together under one roof. The September edition will arrive September 22-24. COTERIE New York attracts a wide array of domestic and international retailers in the fashion capital, incorporating community conversations, sustainability activations and key brands in many categories including outerwear, denim, eveningwear and casual-lifestyle inspired apparel on the show floor.

Registration for the first half of 2024 is open. To register, please visit: www.findfashionevents.com .

ABOUT MAGIC:

MAGIC Las Vegas is a high-energy fashion experience and home to the largest selection of trend, young contemporary, modern sportswear, footwear and accessories brands in the industry. Fusing scale with curation to foster community, drive connectivity and deliver unique experiences, MAGIC Las Vegas joins a global audience of retail buyers - from big-box to boutique - together with influencers, media, and industry thought leaders. MAGIC Las Vegas is more than just an event: it's a deeply rooted community and a place brands and retailers call home. For more information, please visit: www.magicfashionevents.com and @magicfashionevents.

ABOUT PROJECT:

Representing what's new, now, and next in men's and women's contemporary apparel, footwear and accessories, PROJECT is where domestic and international buyers go to be inspired by higher-end brands, find products from relevant mid-market labels, and connect with like minded industry thought leaders and fashion insiders. Through a fusion of community, education, media, and experiences, PROJECT propels the next season's top trends, generates global awareness, and ultimately drives commerce. For more information, please visit: www.projectfashionevents.com .

Follow for more event updates and exclusive content at? @projectshow .

ABOUT SOURCING AT MAGIC:

SOURCING at MAGIC gives fashion businesses, brands and sourcing professionals the opportunity to connect and collaborate with a community of global manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers. With a strong presence among international exhibitors and attendees and deep domestic connections, SOURCING at MAGIC is a global community. With a forward-thinking approach and commitment to the evolution of the global apparel supply chain, SOURCING at MAGIC consistently provides access to emerging fashion technology, solutions, sustainable resources, educational content, networking, and extended visibility into the industry's most critical global issues. For more information, please visit: www.sourcingatmagic.com .

ABOUT COTERIE NEW YORK:

COTERIE is the premier women's contemporary to advanced contemporary apparel, footwear, and accessories platform. Connecting emerging and established brands and designers to an elite list of domestic and international retailers, influencers, and media, COTERIE's first-class events build exclusive experiences that fuel discovery, commerce, and connectivity, while inspiring upmarket trends. For more information, please visit: www.coteriefashionevents.com .

ABOUT INFORMA MARKETS FASHION:

Informa Markets Fashion, a division of Informa Markets, a subsidiary of Informa plc, (LON:INF), connects and inspires the global fashion community through online experiences, industry insights, and worldwide fashion trade events, including MAGIC, COTERIE, PROJECT, and SOURCING at MAGIC. From more effective manufacturing and supply chain opportunities to creative design inspiration and retail on the wholesale floor, Informa Markets Fashion's diverse portfolio supports the entire fashion ecosystem - fostering innovation and driving creativity year-round. For more information on upcoming events, please visit: www.findfashionevents.com.

Media Contact:

Informa Markets Fashion PR

IMFPR@informa.com

SOURCE: Informa Markets Fashion

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The UAE has established a Circular Economy Committee to promote investments in circularity and adopt circular economy practices

Quantum computer's calculation ability can transform multiple industries, from cybersecurity, telecommunications, and healthcare, to mobility, finance and defence

DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Last year, the UAE announced the "UAE Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative", a national drive to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, making the Emirates the first Middle East and North African nation to do so. At GITEX GLOBAL 2023, Faisal Ali Rashid, Senior Director, Energy Demand Side Management, UAE's Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, highlighted the successes in executing this mission.



Rashid said the UAE is transitioning from a linear to a circular economy. As part of this transition, the Emirates has established a Circular Economy Committee comprising public and private sector members to promote investments in circularity and accelerate the adoption of circular economy practices.

Reimagining Public Services in the Digital Age

GITEX GLOBAL facilitates the biggest public-private partnership projects, with 250 government entities looking to collaborate on e-government and digital government initiatives. The Smart Government market was estimated to be worth nearly $30 billion in 2022, with an anticipated value of $110 billion by 2029 at a 21 percent annual growth rate.

In a session titled "Reimagining government in the digital age: Transforming public services for the future", Lord McNicol, Member of the House of Lords, UK Parliament, was joined by other panellists, including Alby Bocanegra, Founder and Former CTO of NYC, The Urban Futurist, Kristina Ishmael, Deputy Director, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education and Mikko Rusama, Former Chief Digital Officer at the City of Helsinki.

They spoke on the role of digital technologies in transforming public services for the future and emphasized the need for a proactive, data-centric approach to public service provision. The panellists highlighted the benefits of Open Data policies which allow organisations to collect data, monitor it, and make well-informed decisions on the services they provide and how they work for the citizens.

Quantum Computing Heralds new Age of Productivity

Integrating AI and quantum computing into hybrid cloud workflows is heralding a new frontier in digital transformation. Headline exhibitors at GITEX GLOBAL 2023, including IBM, Dell Technologies, Microsoft, AWS, HPE and Canadian-based startup Xanadu, say quantum computing - an area of computer science that uses qubits (quantum bits) instead of classical computing bits, delivering huge leaps in processing power - can address the world's biggest problems.

While still in development, quantum computers' mind-boggling calculation ability can transform multiple industries, from cybersecurity, telecommunications, and healthcare, to mobility, finance and defence. Boston Consulting Group, a management consultancy, estimates quantum computers could improve operating income of their users by between $450 billion and $850 billion a year by 2050.

Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President at Dell Technologies for Central Eastern Europe, Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, said to fully capitalise on this transformative technology, businesses must invest in quantum computing and empower their data. "By piloting quantum computing and integrating it strategically into their operations, businesses can stay at the forefront of technological progress and seize the unparalleled opportunities it presents in propelling innovation and advancing processes," he added.

Peter Oganesean, the Managing Director of HP Middle East, said recent advances in quantum computing, along with its increased accessibility, will have significant implications in sectors such as cybersecurity, medicine, finance, and many more. "Representing the next breakthrough in IT, this technology holds the promise of finding answers to some of our most pressing scientific challenges, such as genome profiling and finding treatments for disease at incredible speeds," he added.

Xanadu Founder and CEO Christian Weedbrook Weedbrook said that the company is working with car brands such as BMW and Volkswagen on quantum chemistry to develop the next generation of EV batteries. He estimates quantum computing will be, in the next couple of years, where ChatGPT is today in investment and interest. "It really will change the world and I am looking forward to being part of that," he stated.

To demonstrate its technical capability, Xanadu's quantum computer Borealis went head-to-head last year with Japanese Fugaku, the world's fastest supercomputer, to solve a complex mathematical formula. It would have taken Fugaku 7 million years to solve this problem. Borealis cracked the same problem in two minutes.

The Connected Home of the Future at Your Fingertip

In collaboration with etisalat by e&, Samsung introduced the Family Hub Refrigerator on the fourth day of GITEX GLOBAL. Its "View Inside" internal camera lets users view the fridge's contents via smartphones, check food item expiration dates, and purchase groceries directly from the Etisalat Smile grocery platform. Additionally, it seamlessly connects and controls smart devices in users' homes, serving as a central hub.

At the launch, Burcin Arabul, Director of the Home Appliances Division at Samsung Gulf Electronics, highlighted how the smart fridge elevates the experience for UAE families. "We are excited to partner with Etisalat for GITEX GLOBAL and launch our Family Hub refrigerator at the event. Embracing GITEX's theme of 'Imagining AI in everything,' the Family Hub showcases the future of connected homes and heralds a new era of smart connectivity," she added.

The 43rd edition of GITEX GLOBAL takes place from October 16-20, 2023, the blockbuster tech showpiece once again reaching full capacity at the Dubai World Trade Centre as it hosts more than 6,000 exhibitors. GITEX GLOBAL and Expand North Star comprise a combined 41 halls spanning 2.7 million sq. ft of exhibition space, a 40% growth year-on-year with 1,800 startups across Expand North Star and GITEX GLOBAL. The events converge the best minds and most visionary companies to scrutinise, challenge, define, and empower the digital agendas of the world.

More information is available at www.gitex.com and www.expandnorthstar.com

On social media: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Youtube

Hashtag:



GITEXGLOBAL Expandnorthstar



About Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC):

A global business facilitator since 1979, Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) is home to region's leading purpose-built convention and exhibition centre. DWTC provides a platform for connecting people, products, innovation and ideas from around the world through a dynamic calendar of international trade exhibitions and its own roster of sector leading mega events. As a designated free zone, complemented by award-winning commercial real estate, DWTC plays an integral role in Dubai and the region's growth story with an estimated total economic output of AED 200 Billion, attracting over 30 Million business visitors to Dubai over the past four decades.

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AMSTERDAM, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Deloitte , the global leader in professional services and DPW (Digital Procurement World), the global orchestrator of the procurement innovation ecosystem, are proud to announce a strategic alliance formed to redefine the boundaries of innovation in procurement.

Founded in 2019, DPW stands as the global leader in the procurement innovation ecosystem and has gained prominence as the most impactful procurement technology community. DPW LABS, the consulting arm of DPW, empowers organizations to identify and seize collaborative innovation opportunities with DPW's roster of pioneering startups, scale-ups, and tech innovation experts.

Under the umbrella of this strategic partnership, DPW LABS and Deloitte will partner together to bring procurement innovation to organizations. From problem and strategy definition to proof of concept and deployment, using the DPW LABS innovation capabilities and digital ecosystem and Deloitte's global transformation capabilities, we deliver impact at scale.

Herman Knevel, co-founder, DPW LABS, co-CEO, DPW: "We are excited about this strategic partnership with Deloitte to join forces and make tech work. This partnership will enable us to expand and complement our impact at global scale.' Michiel Junge, partner of sourcing & procurement, Deloitte: "We are united in our mission to make procurement awesome, the partnership with DPW will enable our clients to tap into DPW's capabilities and ecosystem and define their procurement future."

About Deloitte

Deloitte provides industry-leading audit, consulting, tax and advisory services to many of the world's most admired brands, including nearly 90% of the Fortune 500. At Deloitte, we strive to live our purpose of making an impact that matters by creating trust and confidence in a more equitable society. We leverage our unique blend of business acumen, command of technology, and strategic technology alliances to advise our clients across industries as they build their future . Deloitte is proud to be part of the largest global professional services network serving our clients in the markets that are most important to them. Bringing more than 175 years of service, our network of member firms spans more than 150 countries and territories. Learn how Deloitte's approximately 415,000 people worldwide connect for impact at www.deloitte.com .

About DPW

DPW accelerates innovation by connecting startups, tech leaders, major corporations and investors. We believe in the power of technology to transform business and society, enabling leaders to respond to the most pressing challenges facing corporations today. Our annual flagship conference, DPW Amsterdam, is the most prominent event in procurement and supply chain for innovation leaders worldwide. Since launching DPW, we've grown into a global innovation ecosystem grounded in collaboration and community. Today, we deliver transformational events, programs, and experiences, all geared towards tangible actions and outcomes to unlock the true power of procurement through excellence in digital. For more information, please visit https://dpw.ai/.

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/deloitte-and-dpw-form-alliance-to-push-the-limits-of-innovation-in-procurement-301962235.html
NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION (IN WHOLE OR IN PART) IN, INTO OR FROM ANY JURISDICTION WHERE SUCH RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OF SUCH JURISDICTION.

Offer price in public delisting tender offer for the remaining shares of Aareal Bank AG is set to EUR 33.20 in cash per share

Shareholders have the opportunity to tender their remaining shares until midnight (CET) on 21 November 2023

Upon the delisting, Aareal Bank shareholders will no longer have access to a regulated market for Aareal Shares.

FRANKFURT, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Atlantic BidCo GmbH ("Atlantic BidCo" or the "Bidder") today published a public delisting tender offer (the "Delisting Offer") for all remaining outstanding shares of Aareal Bank AG ("Aareal Bank"). The offer price has been set to EUR 33.20 in cash per Aareal Bank share. The acceptance period for the Delisting Offer started today and will expire at midnight (CET) on 21 November 2023. During this time, Aareal Bank shareholders can accept the Delisting Offer and tender their shares to the Bidder. The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) approved the publication of the offer document today.

Upon the delisting, Aareal Bank shareholders will no longer have access to a regulated market for Aareal Shares. The application for delisting or the delisting may result in share price losses as well as limited liquidity and price availability for Aareal Bank shares in the future.

Atlantic BidCo and Aareal Bank have entered into a delisting agreement in which Aareal Bank has undertaken, subject to customary reservations, to support a delisting of Aareal Bank by applying for the revocation of the admission to trading of the Aareal Bank shares on the regulated market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange prior to the expiration of the acceptance period of the Delisting Offer. The Delisting Offer is not subject to any closing conditions, and the delisting of Aareal Bank from the regulated market will be independent of the tender rate under the Delisting Offer.

Atlantic BidCo is a non-controlled company indirectly held by funds which are respectively advised, managed or controlled by Advent International, L.P. ("Advent"), and Centerbridge Partners, L.P. ("Centerbridge") and CPP Investment Board Europe S.a r.l, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board ("CPP Investments"), as well as other minority shareholders. Following completion of the public takeover offer in June this year, Atlantic BidCo currently owns approximately 90 percent of the share capital and the voting rights of Aareal Bank.

In the Bidder's view, the delisting will support the strategic ambitions of Aareal Bank in a private setting to strengthen its position as a leading international provider of real estate and other property-based financings as well as software, digital solutions, and payment services in particular for the property sector and related industries.

The offer document for the Delisting Offer is now available on the following website: www.atlantic-offer.com .

Media Contacts of the Bidder

Olaf Zapke, FGS Global, Tel +49 170 764 1971, olaf.zapke@fgsglobal.com

Julia Caspers, FGS Global, Tel +49 151 16 23 15 45, julia.caspers@fgsglobal.com

Roland Klein, Kekst CNC, Tel +44 7776 162 997, roland.klein@kekstcnc.com

Isabel Henninger, Kekst CNC, Tel +49 174 940 9955, isabel.henninger@kekstcnc.com

Information about Shareholders of the Bidder

About Advent International

Founded in 1984, Advent International is one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors. The firm has invested in over 410 private equity investments across 42 countries, and as of March 31, 2023, had USD 95 billion in assets under management. With 15 offices in 12 countries, Advent has established a globally integrated team of over 290 private equity investment professionals across Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. The firm focuses on investments in five core sectors, including business and financial services; technology; health care; industrial; and retail, consumer and leisure. For over 35 years, Advent has been dedicated to international investing and remains committed to partnering with management teams to deliver sustained revenue and earnings growth for its portfolio companies.

Advent has a well-established track record in the European financial services sector with growth investments in leading payment companies like Nexi, Nets and Concardis Payment Group (both now part of Nexi), Worldpay, Planet and Addiko, an international banking group focusing on Southeastern Europe. The investment in Aareal Bank follows Advent's acquisition of a 30% stake in Aareon in 2020, the leading pan-European provider of innovative software solutions for the real estate sector, and a subsidiary of Aareal Bank. Advent's approach is to provide significant support to management teams by assisting with operating resources and expertise from its Portfolio Support Group and third-party Operating Partner program.

For more information, visit:

Website: http://www.adventinternational.com

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/advent-international

About Centerbridge

Centerbridge Partners, L.P. is a private investment management firm employing a flexible approach across investment disciplines - private equity, private credit and real estate - in an effort to develop the most attractive opportunities for investors. The Firm was founded in 2005 and as of June 30, 2023 has approximately USD 36 billion in capital under management with offices in New York and London. Centerbridge is dedicated to partnering with world-class management teams across targeted industry sectors and geographies.

Centerbridge has a strong track record investing in financial services and real estate in Europe, with investments including BFF Banking Group, which is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange; Williams & Glyn in partnership with RBS; auxmoney GmbH, the German digital credit platform; and Phoenix Holdings, listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, amongst others. Globally, Centerbridge has invested over USD 20 billion in financial services and over USD 9 billion in real estate.

For more information, please visit www.centerbridge.com

About CPP Investments

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) is a professional investment management organization that manages the Fund in the best interest of the more than 21 million contributors and beneficiaries of the Canada Pension Plan. In order to build diversified portfolios of assets, investments are made around the world in public equities, private equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, New York City, San Francisco, Sao Paulo and Sydney, CPP Investments is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm's length from governments. At June 30, 2023, the Fund totalled C$575 billion. For more information, please visit www.cppinvestments.com or follow us on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter .

Important Notice

This publication is for information purposes only and neither constitutes an invitation to sell, nor an offer to purchase, securities of Aareal Bank. The offer document published by Atlantic BidCo after approval by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority ( Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht ) is the sole binding document with regard to the terms and other provisions relating to the Delisting Offer. Investors and holders of securities of Aareal Bank are strongly recommended to read the offer document and all announcements in connection with the Delisting Offer as soon as they are published, since they contain or will contain important information.

The Delisting Offer will be made exclusively under the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, especially under the WpUG and the German Stock Exchange Act ( Borsengesetz - BorsG), and certain provisions of the securities laws of the United States of America applicable to cross-border tender offers. The Delisting Offer will not be executed according to the provisions of jurisdictions other than those of the Federal Republic of Germany or the United States of America (to the extent applicable). Thus, no other announcements, registrations, admissions or approvals of the Delisting Offer outside of the Federal Republic of Germany have been filed, arranged for or granted. Investors in, and holders of, securities in Aareal Bank cannot rely on having recourse to provisions for the protection of investors in any jurisdiction other than the provisions of the Federal Republic of Germany or the United States of America (to the extent applicable). Subject to the exceptions described in the offer document as well as any exemptions that may be granted by the relevant regulators, a public tender offer will not be made, neither directly nor indirectly, in jurisdictions where to do so would constitute a violation of the laws of such jurisdiction.

The Bidder reserves the right, to the extent legally permitted, to directly or indirectly acquire further shares outside the Delisting Offer on or off the stock exchange. If such further acquisitions take place, information about such acquisitions, stating the number of shares acquired or to be acquired and the consideration paid or agreed on, will be published without undue delay, if and to the extent required by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany or any other relevant jurisdiction.

To the extent any announcements in this document contain forward-looking statements, such statements do not represent facts and are characterized by the words "expect", "believe", "estimate", "intend", "aim", "assume" or similar expressions. Such statements express the intentions, opinions or current expectations and assumptions of the Bidder and the persons acting jointly with the Bidder. Such forward-looking statements are based on current plans, estimates and forecasts, which the Bidder and the persons acting jointly with the Bidder have made to the best of their knowledge, but which they do not claim to be correct in the future. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict and usually cannot be influenced by the Bidder or the persons acting jointly with the Bidder. These expectations and forward-looking statements can turn out to be incorrect, and the actual events or consequences may differ materially from those contained in or expressed by such forward-looking statements. The Bidder and the persons acting jointly with the Bidder do not assume an obligation to update the forward-looking statements with respect to the actual development or incidents, basic conditions, assumptions or other factors.

SOURCE: Atlantic BidCo GmbH

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794659/atlantic-bidco-launches-public-tender-offer-to-initiate-the-delisting-of-aareal-bank--shareholders-can-tender-remaining-shares-from-today
eMed Healthcare UK, will focus on democratising healthcare through:

Digital-first 24/7 primary care with leading direct-to-consumer private and public sector partners, including the NHS (GP at Hand);

Expanded services focusing on chronic care management; empowering people to proactively manage their own health across a wide range of chronic conditions;

A new clinician-led weight management programme which supports users on their journey to help reach their goals; with weekly check-ins and content focusing on a range of topics, including lifestyle and use of Wegovy (semaglutide).

LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- eMed Healthcare UK, Limited (an operating subsidiary of US digital healthcare company eMed) has acquired Babylon Healthcare Services Limited and certain assets belonging to Babylon Group Holdings Limited and Babylon Partners Limited ("Babylon"). eMed Healthcare UK will continue to provide Babylon's digital-first 24/7 primary care and expand services through eMed's remote chronic care management starting with a clinician-led weight management programme.

"This is a new era for the company and for digital-first primary care in the UK." said Dr Patrice Harris, co-founder and CEO of eMed. She added: "Our focus for eMed Healthcare UK will be clinical excellence, high quality care, customer service and redefining chronic care management. We are totally committed to all of our patients, NHS and private, and our vision will be powered by people and enabled by digital technology."

eMed Healthcare UK aims to be one of the leading digital-first primary care services in the UK, providing high quality, accessible care for all. It will combine the pioneering digital health tech platform and services of eMed, with the deep knowledge of patients and members gained through the millions of appointments booked via the Babylon app and other white-labelled products. The company currently employs around 1,100 employees with 700 clinicians, who delivered over?1.2 million?patient?appointments in the UK between August 2022 and August 2023.?

Tim Rideout, President of Global Clinical Services, said: "As eMed Healthcare UK we will be redefining what it means to provide digital-first primary care and chronic care management, with a relentless?focus on the quality of care and the user?experience. I look forward to continuing to work with both public and private partners to realise?our?ambition to be the go-to digital-first?primary care service in the UK?and beyond."

eMed UK's Managing Director, Charlie Howard said, "Our 'North Star' is to create best-in-class scalable, digital healthcare for everyone in the UK." He added: "We are excited to develop the eMed Healthcare UK offering into a world-leading digital health service. We are working fast to expand and improve existing services whilst introducing eMed's chronic healthcare management platform starting with clinician-led weight management."

eMed Healthcare UK

eMed

Notes to editors:

eMed is committed to democratising healthcare with digital point-of-care solutions to enable fast, easy and affordable healthcare testing and supervision in order to drive better and more cost-effective health outcomes. During the transition period, Babylon's services will be co-branded with eMed Healthcare UK and Babylon Healthcare Services Ltd remains registered with the Care Quality Commission for the provision of care. In due course and with the relevant regulatory approvals, the company will be branded eMed Healthcare UK for patients, members and clients.

The senior team for eMed Healthcare UK consists of:

Dr Patrice Harris: Co-Founder and CEO, eMed

Dr Patrice Harris is board-certified in psychiatry and has diverse experience as a private practising physician, public health director and patient advocate. In 2018, Dr Harris was elected as the 174th President of the American Medical Association, the first African American woman to ever hold the position.

Tim Rideout:President of Global Clinical Services, eMed Healthcare UK

Tim Rideout serves as eMed Healthcare President of Global Clinical Services, with responsibility for all of eMed's clinical operations. Previously Tim led Babylon's UK business. Prior to joining Babylon, Tim worked extensively as a healthcare leader across the UK, as an NHS chief executive, senior civil servant at the Department of Health and as a regional director for NHS England and NHS Improvement. He has also led a number of national NHS reviews.

Charlie Howard: Managing Director, eMed UK

Following a successful career in manufacturing spanning over 10-years, Charlie Howard entered the digital healthcare space establishing one of the UK's first successful pharmacy-led prescription delivery services. The service was able to support patients in receiving medicines for common conditions without waiting for a GP appointment on the NHS. The venture caught the eye of eMed, and Charlie was brought on to lead the company's expansion into the UK, starting with the acquisition of Babylon Health and its assets and now building up a salesforce and product range to amplify eMed's vision of direct-to-consumer private healthcare.

Dr Matt Noble, Medical Director, eMed UK

Dr Matt Noble is a GP of 20-years. He worked for Babylon since the very early days of the company and was instrumental in creating a large-scale clinical service able to operate safely and sustainably at scale. He brings a deep understanding of primary care and is passionate about high quality patient care that is also sustainable for clinicians to deliver.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/emed-healthcare-uk-promises-continuity-and-expansion-following-successful-acquisition-of-babylon---marking-a-new-era-for-digital-first-primary-care-in-the-uk-301962293.html
9 months revenue: 320.1m vs. 306.2m, up 4.5% at current exchange rates (+5.3% at constant exchange rates) with a still demanding comparison base

Stable retail sales at directly operated stores over 9 months (pro forma) (+0.3%)

Guidance confirmed

Payment of an interim dividend of 1 per share

Ambitious international expansion plan to continue

Overall score of 64/100 awarded by EthiFinance ESG ratings, Silver level, up 5 points compared to 2021

Paris, 19 October 2023

ROCHE BOBOIS SA (ISIN: FR0013344173 - Mnemonique: RBO), the global benchmark in the high-end furniture market and the epitome of French Art de Vivre, announces its 9months 2023 revenue.

Over the first nine months of 2023, the Group generated revenue of 320.1m, up 4.5% at current exchange rates and 5.3% at constant exchange rates. This included a slight decline in the third quarter of 2023, given demanding comparison with the year-earlier period and a less favourable exchange rate effect, but was in line with the Group's revenue targets for 2023.

Retail sales testified to the Group's resilience in a context of global economic downturn affecting the furniture sector. At end-September 2023, retail sales at the directly-operated stores remained very similar to the previous year's level (-2.7% on a current exchange rate basis, and -2.0% on constant exchange rates). On a pro-forma basis[1], retail sales at the directly operated stores were stable at 266.6m (+0.3%). Across all brands and including franchises, retail sales totalled 437.6m at end-September 2023 (-6.8% on current exchange rates and -5.4% on constant exchange rates).

With deliveries over coming months set to be driven by the order backlog of 143m at 30 September 2023, Roche Bobois confirms its full-year guidance for revenue of at least 425m (growth of around 5%) and a further increase in EBITDA compared with the record figure seen in 2022. The Group also confirms its dividend payment policy, with an interim dividend of 1 per share for the current financial year, as in 2022.

Revenue

(unaudited - m)[2] 2022 2023 Change at current

exchange rates (%) Change at constant exchange rates (%) H1 203.0 221.7 +9.2% +8.9% Q3 103.2 98.4 -4.7% -2.2% 9 months 306.2 320.1 +4.5% +5.3%

Reminder: Roche Bobois communicates both revenue (stemming from effective deliveries by its directly operated and owned stores and from royalties and commission fees) and retail sales (stemming from pre-tax order intake by the network of directly operated and owned stores and franchises for its two brands). The retail sales of directly-operated stores account for the lion's share of revenues with a delay of a few months depending on the country (3-4 months in Europe and 4-6 months in the United States). Change in retail sales in the directly-operated stores is therefore a means of anticipating future revenue growth.

Overall revenue of 320m at end-September 2023

Revenue for the third quarter of 2023 came to 98.4m, compared with 103.2m in the same period of 2022, a slight decline of 2.2% at constant exchange rates (down 4.7% at current exchange rates), due to demanding comparison with the year-earlier period and a less favourable exchange rate effect. This level was in line with the Group's overall estimates for the full-year 2023.

Over the first nine months of the year, Roche Bobois generated revenue of 90.6m in France, up 5.1% from 86m, and also benefited from the positive effects of the integration of the six franchised stores in Northern France and Brittany[3].

The United States/Canada region posted revenue of 110.6m at 30 September 2023, compared with 108.0m at end-September 2022, up 2.4% at current exchange rates, with a less favourable euro/dollar exchange rate. At constant exchange rates, growth was 4.7% compared with end-September 2022.

Revenue in the United Kingdom was solid, equivalent to last year's high level, at 17.0m to end September 2023, down 0.3% at constant exchange rates (down 3% at current exchange rates).

The Other Europe region generated revenue of 60.5m to end-September 2023, compared with 54.5m at end September-2022, representing double-digit growth of +11.1% at current exchange rates (+9.8% at constant exchange rates), with business remaining buoyant in Spain and Italy throughout the nine-month period.

Lastly, the Cuir Center brand posted revenue of 32.7m, up 6.6% from 30.7m, thanks to the positive effects of integrating the seven franchised stores in Northern France and the brand's return to growth.

In all, Roche Bobois SA revenue for the first nine months of the financial year came to 320.1m, up 4.5% at current exchange rates (5.3% at constant exchange rates).

Change in retail sales at end-September 2023

In a disadvantageous economic climate for the furniture sector, the Group demonstrated its resilience, posting still-solid Q3 2023 retail sales from directly-operated stores at 75.9m (-1.5%), thanks to the benefits of its expansion strategy through franchise acquisitions and organic growth. Retail sales of directly-operated Cuir Center stores rose by 34.4% in the third quarter alone, while retail sales at directly-operated Roche Bobois stores in France remained at last year's high level of 19.2m (down 0.7%).

Over the first nine months of 2023, retail sales from directly-operated stores came to 258.6m, down by just 2.7% (-2.0% at constant exchange rates). This included growth at Cuir Center (+4.8%) and Roche Bobois Other Europe (+1.7%). On a pro-forma basis, integrating order backlogs resulting from the acquisitions of franchisees from the Northern France and Rennes groups since 1 January 2023, retail sales of directly-operated stores would have risen 0.3% at end-September 2023 compared with the same period last year.

Lastly, overall retail sales across all franchises and brands remained in line with the previous quarter, at 126.5m in Q3 2023, down 6.5% due primarily to the continuing decline in revenue from franchisees in Asia and the Middle East. At the end of September 2023, total retail sales amounted to 437.6m, down 6.8% (-5.4% at constant exchange rates).

Ambitious store opening plan still underway

Roche Bobois continues to actively pursue its ambitious international expansion plan. After opening a directly-operated store in Denver in August 2023, Roche Bobois has just opened in Naples, Florida. Last June, the Group also opened directly-operated Roche Bobois stores in Palm Desert (California) and Short Hills (New Jersey). The brand is therefore substantially boosting its presence in the strategic United States/Canada region, where it now has 42 stores (37 of which are operated directly).

At the same time, Roche Bobois has just opened a directly-operated store in Basel (Switzerland) and transferred a directly-operated store in Hamburg to a more premium location.

In all, out of its global target to open 21 directly-operated stores in 2023 (including the 13 franchisee takeovers), three directly-operated stores remain to be opened by the end of the year (Roche Bobois Westlake-Thousand Oaks (California), Roche Bobois Nice Massena (France) and Cuir Center Nice Cap 3000 (France)).

Franchise activity also remains buoyant, with six new stores planned for the year, four of which have already opened (Sydney (Australia), Changzhou (China), Jinan (China) and Istanbul (Turkey)).

Confirmation of guidance for full-year revenue and EBITDA growth - Payment of an interim dividend of 1 per share

In view of the pace of deliveries expected over the coming months and the order backlog of 143m at 30 September 2023, Roche Bobois confirms its guidance for revenue of at least 425m (i.e. growth of around 5%) and a further increase in EBITDA compared with the record figure seen in 2022.

Like last year, the Company has decided to pay an interim dividend without waiting for the full-year results publication. In this respect, the Executive Board met on 18 October 2023 and approved the payment of an interim ordinary dividend of 1 per share for the 2023 financial year. This interim dividend will be detached on 14 November 2023 (ex-date) and paid on 16 November 2023.

Roche Bobois' commitment to sustainable development strengthened - EthiFinance score up 5 points

The Group recently announced that it was a finalist in the "Preservation of the Environment" category at the UN Sustainable Development Goals Awards, demonstrating its full commitment to the eco-design of its products[4].

In addition, following an audit campaign carried out by EthiFinance ESG Ratings on 2022 data collected during the summer of 2023, Roche Bobois is pleased to announce that it received an overall score of 64/100, corresponding to a "Silver" performance level on the ESG maturity scale.

In the major themes audited (governance, social, environment and external stakeholders), progress was particularly visible in "Social" aspects, where the company stood out with a score of 62/100 in 2022 (up 11 points) and "Environment" at 62/100 in 2022 (compared with 58/100 in 2021).

The overall score was 5 points higher than the rating obtained in 2021.

About Roche Bobois SA



Roche Bobois SA is a French family business founded in 1960. The Group operates in 54 countries and has a network of 333 owned stores and franchises (at 30 June 2023) marketing its two brands: Roche Bobois, a high-end furniture brand with a strong international presence, and Cuir Center, positioned in the mid-range market segment with an essentially French customer base. Through its Roche Bobois brand, the Group embodies the French Art de Vivre whose presence can now be felt on the world stage, with original and bold creations from talented designers (Bruno Moinard, Jean Nouvel, Ora Ito, Sacha Lakic, Christophe Delcourt, Stephen Burks, Kenzo Takada, Bina Baitel...) and partnerships with fashion and haute couture houses. Roche Bobois is also a committed partner in the world of culture and the arts. Including franchises, these two brands posted 202 retail sales of 652.5 million excluding VAT, to which Roche Bobois contributed 558.9 million and Cuir Center 93.6 million. Roche Bobois SA consolidated revenues came to 408.5 million in 2022.

For more information please visit www.finance-roche-bobois.com

CONTACT

Actus Finance - Anne-Pauline Petureaux

Investor relations

Tel.: +33 (0)1 53 67 36 72 / apetureaux@actus.fr@actus.fr

Actus Finance - Serena Boni

Press Relations

Tel.: +33 (0)4 72 18 04 92 / sboni@actus.fr

Forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements do not constitute guarantees regarding the future performance of ROCHE BOBOIS SA. This forward-looking information covers the future outlook, growth and commercial strategy of Roche Bobois SA and is based on the analysis of future result forecasts and estimates of amounts that cannot yet be determined. By nature, forward-looking information involves risks and uncertainties, as it relates to events and depends on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Roche Bobois SA draws your attention to the fact that forward-looking statements provide no guarantee of future performance and that its actual financial position, results and cash flow, as well as changes in the sector in which Roche Bobois operates, may differ significantly from those proposed or suggested by the forward-looking statements contained in this document. Moreover, even if Roche Bobois' financial position, results, cash flow and changes in the sector in which Roche Bobois SA operates were to be in accordance with the forward-looking information contained in this document, these results or changes may not be a reliable indicator of Roche Bobois SA's future results or developments. A description of events that could have a material adverse impact on Roche Bobois SA's business, financial position or results, or on its ability to achieve its targets, is included in Chapter 3

"Risk Factors" of the Universal Registration Document.

GLOSSARY

EBITDA: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. It designates the Group's pre-tax profit before interest, depreciation and amortisation of fixed assets (but after depreciation of stocks and receivables), store opening costs, expenses for payments in shares, including the associated social charges.

APPENDICES

Revenues per region and brand

(unaudited - in m) Q3

2022 Q3

2023 Current exchange rates

(%) Constant exchange rates (%) Roche Bobois France 26.3 26.4 +0.6% +0.6% Roche Bobois US/Canada 40.1 36.1 -10.0% -3.4% Roche Bobois UK 6.0 5.3 -11.5% -11.3% Roche Bobois Other Europe 17.8 17.7 -0.5% -1.1% Roche Bobois Overseas 2.0 1.7 -16.0% -15.7% Cuir Center 10.0 10.3 +2.9% +2.9% Corporate 1.0 0.9 -15.1% -15.1% TOTAL 103.2 98.4 -4.7% -2.2%

Revenues per region and brand

(unaudited - in m) 9 months

2022 9 months

2023 Current exchange rates

(%) Constant exchange rates (%) Roche Bobois France 86.0 90.6 +5.4% +5.4% Roche Bobois US/Canada 108.0 110.6 +2.4% +4.7% Roche Bobois UK 17.6 17.0 -3.0% -0.3% Roche Bobois Other Europe 54.5 60.5 +11.1% +9.8% Roche Bobois Overseas 6.2 5.5 -10.6% -10.6% Cuir Center 30.7 32.7 +6,.% +6,.% Corporate 3.4 3.1 -7.7% -7.7% TOTAL 306.2 320.1 +4.5% +5.3%

Reconciliation between Retail sales/Revenue (m)

9-months 2023 retail sales 437.6 Franchise sales volumes -179.0 Sales volumes of equity affiliates -0.8 Impact of the pace of orders and deliveries +29.2 Royalties +8.6 Other services +24.5 Consolidated 9-months 2023 revenue 320.1

[1] Comparison of overall revenue at end-September 2023 with overall revenue at end-September 2022, including retail sales at the 13 Roche Bobois and Cuir Center shops acquired in France as of the beginning of 2023, with the order backlogs having been taken over by the Group at the time of the acquisitions.

[2] Detailed information on revenue by region is available in the appendices

[3] See press release of 19 January 2023

[4] See press release of 16 October 2023

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This is a press release by RoodMicrotec N.V. in connection with the all-cash recommended public offer by Microtest S.p.A., an entity incorporated under Italian law, controlled by Seven Holding 3 S.a r.l., a wholly owned subsidiary of the private equity fund Xenon Private Equity VII SCA SICAV RAIF, for all the issued and outstanding ordinary shares in the capital of RoodMicrotec N.V..

This press release does not constitute an offer, or any solicitation of any offer, to buy or subscribe for any securities. Any offer will be made only by means of the offer memorandum dated 31 August 2023 and approved on such date by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (Autoriteit Financiele Markten). This press release is not for release, publication or distribution, in whole or in part, in or into, directly or indirectly, the United States, Canada and Japan or in any other jurisdiction in which such release, publication or distribution would be unlawful.

THE SHAREHOLDERS OF ROODMICROTEC ADOPT ALL RESOLUTIONS RELATED TO THE RECOMMENDED PUBLIC OFFER BY MICROTEST

Deventer, October 19, 2023 - Today, RoodMicrotec N.V. held its Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders in relation to the recommended public offer by Microtest S.p.A. for all the issued and outstanding ordinary shares in the capital of RoodMicrotec.

All proposed resolutions were adopted, being:

the Post-Settlement Restructuring Resolution;

the conditional appointment of Mr. Luca Civita as a member of the Board of Management, with effect as per the Settlement Date;

the conditional amendment to the articles of association of the Company as per Settlement; and

the conditional conversion and amendment to the articles of association of the Company as per Delisting.

The EGM presentation as well as the voting results can be found on RoodMicrotec's corporate website: www.roodmicrotec.com/en/investor-relations-en/annual-general-meeting

The Offer Period will expire on 27 October 2023 at 17:40 hours CEST (unless extended). Shareholders who wish to tender their Shares should contact their financial intermediary to obtain information about the deadline by which such Shareholder must send instructions to the financial intermediary to accept the Offer, as such deadline may be earlier than 27 October 2023.

More information with regard to the Offer can be found at in a subsection of RoodMicrotec's corporate website: www.roodmicrotec.com/en/investor-relations-en/information-about-the-public-offer-by-microtest-for-roodmicrotec-shares



About RoodMicrotec

RoodMicrotec is a leading independent company for semiconductor supply and quality services. With more than 50 years of experience in the semiconductor and electronics industry, RoodMicrotec is well-established as a highly valued partner for many companies worldwide. The Company provides full-turnkey ASIC services for complex microchips that are customized to handle specific applications for individual customers. In cooperation with strong partners, RoodMicrotec manages the entire development and production flow of ASICs in the target volume, ranging from low quantities up to multiple millions per year. The turnkey solution includes project management, wafer test, assembly, final test, qualification, failure analysis and logistics. All services comply with the industrial and quality requirements of the high reliability, aerospace, automotive, healthcare and industrial sectors. RoodMicrotec's headquarters are located in Deventer, Netherlands, with operational units in Nordlingen and Stuttgart, Germany

For more information visit https://www.roodmicrotec.com



Further information

Martin Sallenhag - CEO, Arvid Ladega - CFO

Telephone: +31 570 745623 Email: investor-relations@roodmicrotec.comWeb: www.roodmicrotec.com

This press release is published in English only. This communication contains information that qualifies as inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The company's managing director and CEO Martin Sallenhag, is responsible for arranging the release of this document on behalf of RoodMicrotec.

Anhang
Finsbury Growth & Income Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares

PR Newswire

LONDON, United Kingdom, October 19

For immediate release

19 October 2023

FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC

(the "Company")

MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES

The Company announces that it has today purchased 100,000 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 816.77 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 21,871,869; 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 203,119,434.

The figure of 203,119,434 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
DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- His Highness Sheikh Ammar bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, Crown Prince of Ajman, and His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Finance, and Her Excellency Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Government Development and the Future, visited the Sharjah Government Pavilion at GITEX Global 2023. They were received by Sheikh Saud bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Digital Office and Chairman of the Higher Committee of the Pavilion, who briefed them on the pavilion's innovative projects and the latest technologies the Sharjah Government is investing in as part of its comprehensive and sustainable digital transformation journey.

During the fourth day of the exhibition, other dignitaries, including Her Excellency Asma bin Taliah, Secretary General of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Sharjah, His Excellency Salem Ali Al Muhairi, Chairman of the Municipal Council of Sharjah; His Excellency Mohammed Hassan Khalaf, Director General of Sharjah Broadcasting Authority, His Excellency Omar Ali Al Shamsi, Director of the Sharjah Noble Quran and Sunnah Establishment; and His Excellency Khalid Al Ali, the Secretary General of the Sharjah Urban Planning Council, also visited the Sharjah Pavilion.

Cybersecurity

The fourth day of the exhibition featured the launch of the 'Sharjah Government URL-Shortening Platform' at the Sharjah Government Pavilion in Dubai World Trade Centre's Arena Hall. Developed by the Sharjah Cyber Security Center, with support from the e-Government Department, this platform leverages the official Sharjah government domain, shj.ae, to simplify the verification of official links. This initiative is designed to enhance security and combat potential fraud associated with shared links.

Additionally, as part of its commitment to advancing the emirate towards a digitally secure future, the Sharjah Cyber Security Center unveiled the 'Measuring Cyber Skills across Sharjah' project, comprising the launch of an awareness campaign inviting the participation of all the emirate's government entities. The main objective of this initiative is to gather essential data for evaluating existing cyber skills and fostering a skilled workforce, in line with Sharjah's vision of becoming one of the most digitally secure emirates in the region.

Waafi

Kalba City Municipality introduced the 'Waafi,' a customer service enhancement platform accessible through its website and the 'Smart Kalba' mobile app. Leveraging artificial intelligence, specifically ChatGPT, the platform serves as a comprehensive resource for general enquiries related to services offered on the Smart Kalba platform. It also incorporates an interactive virtual assistant powered by ChatGPT-4, simplifying users' access to free services on the Smart Kalba platform, promoting efficiency and convenience.

Workshops

During the exhibition, the pavilion hosted a series of informative workshops. Aisha Al Ali, a member of the Sharjah Youth Council, participated in a dialogue session titled 'Adapting to Technological Changes' alongside two other speakers to explore the impact of contemporary technological advancements and how to prepare for them.

Matthew Dixon, CEO, and Serhii Nikolaiev, Head of AI Development at EVAI, led a workshop titled 'Decentralised AI - The Awakening.' Dr Malek Alzewairi from PWC conducted the 'Cybersecurity in Governments and Smart Cities' workshop on the third day, emphasising essential considerations for governments in designing smart cities.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2252334/GITEX_2023.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/sharjah-government-pavilion-at-gitex--2023-continues-its-momentum-for-the-fourth-day-301962366.html
DURHAM, NC / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Pro-ficiency, a leading provider of simulation-based training solutions in life sciences, has appointed Brad Stefanovic to lead the organization's clinical trial innovation efforts. As a former Clinical Operations leader, Stefanovic brings a unique perspective on challenges facing clinical study operations, including how Pro-ficiency can address those issues. In addition, as a former advocate of Pro-ficiency solutions, he can convey the power of simulation-based training solutions from his real-world experience.



Brad Stefanovic Joins Pro-ficiency

"It's unique to find a team member that has not only talked about the need for change in our profession, but has been active in driving change for years," said Jenna Rouse, Chief Clinical Markets Officer. "His deep understanding of the challenges facing clinical study operations, combined with his passion for innovation, make him the ideal person to lead our efforts in helping clients to proactively manage risk and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their clinical trials."

Brad Stefanovic brings over 17 years of experience in the clinical research industry to Pro-ficiency. He has held senior leadership positions at several leading pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations (CROs), where he has overseen all aspects of clinical trial design, execution, and management. Stefanovic is also a recognized expert in the use of simulation and modeling to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical trials.

"We are delighted to welcome Brad to the Pro-ficiency team," said Michael Raymer, CEO of Pro-ficiency. "Brad's deep expertise spanning from clinical research through commercialization make him the ideal person to lead our efforts in bringing simulation-based training solutions to clients. We are confident that Brad will play a key role in driving client quality through his ability to bridge the gap between theory and practice."

Stefanovic holds a PhD in Physiology from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia and was Alumni of the year in 2022.

About Pro-ficiency

Pro-ficiency is a leading provider of simulation-based training and compliance solutions for clinical trials. The company provides a comprehensive suite of services, anchored by their innovation in customized, virtual training simulations, training and compliance monitoring tools, and real-time data & predictive analytics. Combined with protocol optimization, process visualization tools and professional production video capabilities, Pro-ficiency achieves improved intelligence for learners and critical risk intelligence for leaders. Learn more at pro-ficiency.com.

Contact Information:

Collin Brooks

Press Contact

collin.brooks@pro-ficiency.com

919-909-0420

SOURCE: Pro-ficiency

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794706/brad-stefanovic-clinical-operations-and-innovation-leader-joins-pro-ficiency
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Rayonier / One of the biggest threats to global forest resources is ongoing urbanization. While we conduct limited real estate development activities within a very select subset of our lands-such as our Wildlight development project north of Jacksonville, Florida, and our Heartwood development project south of Savannah, Georgia-our longstanding commitment to environmental stewardship does not change when we transition land to real estate development. The large scale and long-dated nature of our community development projects provides us the uncommon opportunity to responsibly plan and provide for conservation and other compatible land uses. We are very cognizant of the risk of environmental impact from our development activities and take specific measures to balance the advancement of local economies with the protection and preservation of the surrounding ecosystem.

Heartwood

In Heartwood, our team is collaborating with local leaders and stakeholders to embrace and preserve the area's unique low-country landscape with an emphasis on environmental stewardship. Specific sustainability policies and principles incorporated into the Heartwood community master plan include: natural system preservation, wetland and water conservation, habitat protection, and native landscape standards.

Additionally, we are committed to enhancing the civic infrastructure of the greater community with specific initiatives focused on education and health. Since 2010, we have donated roughly 308 acres to the Bryan County School District to allow for the construction of a fully integrated elementary, middle, and high school learning campus. The state-of-the-art K-12 campus is expected to be fully opened in 2025. Heartwood residents will enjoy the benefit of proximity to the campus including connected paths and trails allowing students and parents to safely walk or bike to school.

In 2022, we announced a strategic alliance with St. Joseph's/Candler Healthcare System with the objective of creating facilities and programs at Heartwood that promote better health across the region. The initiative, referred to as Be Health & Well-Being, blends access to a variety of medical services with healthy lifestyle choices and programs designed to prevent illness and improve quality of life for the entire family. As part of the initaitive, in early 2023 St. Joseph's/Candler started construction of a comprehensive health and medical campus at Heartwood that is planned to total 225,000 square feet when complete. Centrally located at the "front door" of the community, Heartwood families, employees, and students will be able to practice healthy habits just steps from their home, workplace, or school.

Also announced in 2022, Hyundai Mobis plans to invest over $900 million in an Electric Vehicle (EV) Power Electric system plant in Richmond Hill, supplying automotive manufacturers with complete cockpit and chassis modules, and bumper assemblies. At full production, the facility will have the ability to supply over 900,000 EV Power Electric systems and 450,000 Integrated Charging Control Units annually. Construction on the new facility began in early 2023, with production anticipated to commence in 2024.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HEARTWOOD.

"We aspire to build a community that promotes optimal health." -Chris Corr, Senior Vice President, Real Estate Development, and President of Raydient

Wildlight

Roughly half of our Wildlight development project north of Jacksonville, Florida, has been dedicated as a conservation habitat network (CHN). Wildlight's CHN was designed to preserve a mosaic of wetlands, surface waters, and uplands to provide for landscape connectivity and the perpetual protection of significant natural resources within the project area. The CHN contains large, connected wetland strands and approximately 80% of the project's mapped 100-year floodplain. The protection of these areas will provide a variety of habitats needed by indigenous wildlife, as well as connect major habitats allowing wildlife to move across the area with limited interference from development activity. The CHN also allows for a variety of passive and nature-oriented recreational uses that area residents can enjoy, including canoeing/kayaking, walking/hiking, and bicycle trails. We are in the process of expanding our Wildlight development, while keeping conservation as a cornerstone of the planning process. In 2022, Wildlight submitted roughly 15,000 acres for the second phase of development.

LEARN MORE ABOUT WILDLIGHT.

"Rayonier has been part of Nassau County for nearly 100 years. Our roots run very deep in this region. Our forestry mission has always been about enhancing and sustaining the region's natural resources, economic health, and quality of life. Our community development mission is the same." -Chris Corr, Senior Vice President, Real Estate Development, and President of Raydient

To learn more, view the full Rayonier 2022 Sustainability Report.

Heartwood development project south of Savannah, Georgia

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Rayonier on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Rayonier

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/rayonier

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: Rayonier

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794764/rayonier-2022-sustainability-report-real-estate
Regulatory News:

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019027084/en/

cloud.paris (Paris 2) SFL Clement Guillaume

SFL (Paris:FLY):

Robust business performance

"SFL's high-quality portfolio, 99% of which is located within Paris including 77% in the CBD, is a guarantee of resilience in a tight and highly selective market driven by demand, among companies and their employees, for centrally located, modern buildings meeting the highest environmental standards. The growth in our rental income and our robust operating ratios are proof of this."

Dimitri Boulte, Chief Executive Officer of SFL

Rental income up by a sharp 13.1% to 171.6 million

Consolidated revenue by business segment (000's) Rental income: 2023

(9 months) 2022

(9 months) Change Paris CBD 129,235 116,743 +10.7% Paris Other 40,056 32,825 +22.0% Western Crescent 2,335 2,163 +7.9% Total rental income 171,626 151,731 +13.1%

Consolidated rental income for the first nine months of 2023 totalled 171.6 million, up by a strong 19.9 million (up 13.1%) versus the year-earlier period:

On a like-for-like basis (excluding all changes in the portfolio affecting period-on-period comparisons), rental income was 10.8 million higher (up 8.3%), reflecting: application of rent escalation clauses (6.4 million impact); the gradual recovery in occupancy of the hotel located in the Edouard VII complex following the end of Covid-19 restrictions in February 2022 (1.2 million impact); the improved occupancy rate for the Group's revenue-generating units, thanks to the signature of new leases in 2022 and 2023 (with long-standing tenants or new clients such as Promontoria, Atalante and Fabrique de Styles); the effective rent uplifts negotiated for new leases, addenda or protocols on occupied space.



In particular, a significant increase in rental income was observed from the Edouard VII, cloud.paris, Louvre Saint-Honore, Washington Plaza and 103 Grenelle buildings.

Rental income from spaces being redeveloped rose by a net 4.3 million versus the first nine months of 2022, reflecting:

An increase of 13.3 million, due in particular to:

the contribution over the entire nine-month period of revenues from the Biome building (delivered in July 2022 following its complete restructuring and fully let to La Banque Postale and SFIL);

the delivery in July 2023 of the retail area of the Louvre Saint-Honore complex redeveloped for the Cartier Foundation, whose lease took effect immediately;

new leases signed on several floors renovated in 2022 and/or 2023, mainly in the Cezanne Saint-Honore building (Wendel, Lacourte Raquin Tatar, Lincoln International and Jouin Manku).

A decrease of 9.1 million, mainly due to:

part of the retail space in the Galerie des Champs-Elysees building (former H&M store) becoming vacant in 2022; following restructuring and delivery in August 2023, this space is now set to become the Paris flagship for its new tenant, Adidas;

the Scope building (formerly Rives de Seine) previously let to Natixis being vacated at the end of September 2022 in preparation for its redevelopment.

The acquisition of the Pasteur building in April 2022 generated a significant increase in rental income, partly offset by the impact of Pretty Simple's October 2022 departure from the 6 Hanovre building, which was sold in April 2023. Together, these movements had a positive net impact on rental income of 4.1 million.

Lastly, rental income for the first nine months was boosted by 0.7 million in penalties received from tenants for breaking their leases.

Sustained business volumes in an uncertain environment

Leases

In the first nine months of 2023, the Group signed leases on over 30,000 sq.m. of mainly office space.

The average nominal rent for the new office leases was significantly higher, at 845 per sq.m., corresponding to an effective rent of 695 per sq.m., for an average non-cancellable period of 8.5 years. These lease terms attest to the resilience of the Paris office property market and the attractiveness of the Group's properties.

The physical occupancy rate for revenue-generating properties at 30 September 2023 was a record 99.7% (compared with 99.5% at 31 December 2022). The EPRA vacancy rate was 0.3% (versus 0.6% at 31 December 2022).

Portfolio rotation

On 11 April 2023, SFL sold the 6 rue de Hanovre building in Paris (2nd arrondissement) to the GCI/Eternam joint venture for a net selling price of 58.3 million. The building's tenant moved out in October 2022 and the 4,600 sq.m. complex was sold untenanted in its condition on the transaction date.

No properties were purchased during the first nine months of 2023.

Financing: increased liquidity and sound debt ratios

SFL's consolidated net debt at 30 September 2023 amounted to 2,570 million, compared with 2,438 million at 31 December 2022, representing a loan-to-value ratio of 30.4% based on the portfolio's appraisal value (including transfer costs) at 30 June 2023. The average cost of debt after hedging was 2.0% and the average maturity was 3.8 years. At end-September 2023, the interest coverage ratio stood at 3.7x.

The Company's liquidity position at 30 September 2023 was excellent, with 1,600 million in undrawn confirmed lines of credit

About SFL

Leader in the prime segment of the Parisian commercial real estate market, Societe Fonciere Lyonnaise stands out for the quality of its property portfolio, which is valued at 7.9 billion and is focused on the Central Business District of Paris (cloud.paris, Edouard VII, Washington Plaza, etc.), and for the quality of its client portfolio, which is composed of prestigious companies. As France's oldest property company, SFL demonstrates year after year an unwavering commitment to its strategy focused on creating a high value in use for users and, ultimately, substantial appraisal values for its properties. With its sights firmly set on the future, SFL is committed to sustainable real estate with the aim of building the city of tomorrow and helping to reduce carbon emissions in its sector.

Stock market: Euronext Paris Compartment A Euronext Paris ISIN FR0000033409 Bloomberg: FLY FP Reuters: FLYP PA

S&P rating: BBB+ stable outlook

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019027084/en/

Contacts:

SFL Thomas Fareng T +33 (0)1 42 97 27 00 t.fareng@fonciere-lyonnaise.com

www.fonciere-lyonnaise.com
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - AIP Asset Management Inc. ("AIP") is pleased to announce that its flagship Fund, the AIP Convertible Private Debt Fund LP (formerly AIP Global Macro Fund LP) ("Fund"), was the recipient of the highest honour in Canada's hedge fund industry for the fifth year in a row.

Of the 264 Canadian hedge funds that participated in the 2023 Canadian Hedge Fund Awards program, AIP Convertible Private Debt Fund LP, which has a private debt focus, won Best 5 Year Return - 3rd Place in its category.

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.

Jay Bala, co-founder and President of AIP commented: "It is reassuring to know that we are recognized for providing value to our clients, be they institutional or retail investors. Our Fund has provided an average return of 25.62% per year since its inception in 2013.

Alex Kanayev, co-founder and Chairman of AIP further added: "We founded AIP with a strong belief in its innovative investment approach, product structuring and team building. We continue to be pleased that AIP has won again this year and also several awards in previous years. This is an honour for us and confirmation our innovative investment approach works well regardless of the market direction and black swan events like the global pandemic."

Please see Winners List 2023 CHFA Winners.pdf (aiq.s3.amazonaws.com)

About AIP

Founded in 2013, AIP has gained a reputation for its innovative approach to convertible private debt investing and strives to protect the principal investment while gaining upside market exposure to small cap companies. AIP is one of the top performing credit managers in North America with a focus on the sub $200M market cap segment of the North American Market. A Toronto-based firm of professionals with over 100 years of combined direct lending. private equity and capital markets experience.

For further information, visit https://aipconvertibleprivatedebtfund.com/

AIP Asset Management Inc.

Karim Mecklai, Director, Communications and Marketing

karim@aipassetmanagement.com

416-601-0808

Disclaimer: Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees, and expenses all may be associated with investments in investment funds. Please read the Offering Memorandum (OM) before investing. The indicated rates of return are the historical annual compounded total returns including changes in share value and reinvestment of all dividends and do not take into account sales, redemption, distribution, or optional charges or income taxes payable by any security holder that would have reduced returns. Investment funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated. For accredited investors only. Relationship Disclosure: Ninepoint Partners LP acts as an exempt market dealer and distributes Class A, Class F, and certain subseries of Class I Units of the AIP Convertible Private Debt Fund LP.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184562
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / DOW /

Originally published in Dow's 2022 Progress Report

Whether through the dedication of time, talent or expertise, volunteering promotes a positive employee experience, further supports Dow's global citizenship priorities and investments, and ultimately advances our ambition. Our global volunteer and ERG time-off policy grants 12 hours per year to participate in volunteer and ERG programs during normal working hours. In 2022, 52% of employees reported volunteering.

ADDRESSING GLOBAL CHALLENGES THROUGH EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Through purpose-driven employee engagement programs, Team Dow continues to give their time and talents to address societal challenges and contribute to our communities.

Our PullingOurWeight program continues to be a catalyst for engaging Team Dow to take action against waste in the environment. Through the program, 280,000 pounds of waste was removed from the environment in 2022 with the help of 9,000 volunteers, including Dow employees, family, friends and external stakeholders.

In the United States and Canada, our colleagues rallied together for United Way in uniquely designed campaigns to engage employees, embrace partnerships and address systemic issues in our communities. In total, employees across 24 site campaigns pledged $3.29 million to United Way, benefiting 585 organizations.

FIRST-EVER DOW SERVE-A-THON

In May 2022, Dow employees came together to celebrate Dow's 125th anniversary with the company's first-ever global volunteer serve-a-thon. In total, more than 3,500 Team Dow volunteers committed nearly 9,000 hours to support community partners across more than 150 projects in 24 countries worldwide to address community needs.

Read more

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from DOW on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: DOW

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/dow

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: DOW

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794806/engaging-dow-employees-for-impact
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Inogen Alliance

Disasters and emergencies, whether natural or man-made, typically have far-reaching impacts that transcend borders. Consider the recent Maui fires or flooding in Libya which have impacted so many people and businesses. EHS leaders who take a global approach to disaster preparedness will have the resources and expertise in place to meet emergencies with an effective response.

The following will help you understand the differences in emergency response programs, with insights and best practices for ensuring your global preparedness program is truly ready to serve each region where your organization has a presence.

Best practices for preparedness

Incorporating natural disaster preparedness into global emergency response planning is a necessity. Organizations that prioritize preparedness are better equipped to protect their people and assets, maintain operations during crises, and contribute to the overall resilience of the regions in which they operate.

These best practices can help your organization outline your preparedness plans.

Local regulations : Know your regulatory obligations. For example: In the UK, every tenant of a building is required to have their own Fire Risk Assessment which is related to your Emergency Response Plan. In Germany you are required to have fire wardens and first aiders. In Japan, fire extinguisher training is required.

: Know your regulatory obligations. For example: Risk assessment : Identify the specific natural hazards in each region of operation and assess their severity and frequency. Engage your local teams to evaluate the natural hazards that may affect that region.

: Identify the specific natural hazards in each region of operation and assess their severity and frequency. Engage your local teams to evaluate the natural hazards that may affect that region. Emergency response plans : Develop comprehensive plans outlining roles, responsibilities, and communication strategies during a disaster. Best practice is to develop an Emergency Response Plan template that contains all the information that may be required globally (e.g., list out individual natural disasters). You can tailor individual plans to each local site. Consider grouping responses into those that require initial shelter-in-place versus evacuation. This helps employees better understand the difference.

: Develop comprehensive plans outlining roles, responsibilities, and communication strategies during a disaster. Best practice is to develop an Emergency Response Plan template that contains all the information that may be required globally (e.g., list out individual natural disasters). You can tailor individual plans to each local site. Consider grouping responses into those that require initial shelter-in-place versus evacuation. This helps employees better understand the difference. Training and drills : Regularly train personnel and conduct drills to ensure everyone knows their role and how to respond in emergencies. With many companies now employing hybrid workforces, you may need to publicize drill events and offer incentives to be in the office, or build in multiple drill dates.

: Regularly train personnel and conduct drills to ensure everyone knows their role and how to respond in emergencies. With many companies now employing hybrid workforces, you may need to publicize drill events and offer incentives to be in the office, or build in multiple drill dates. Resource stockpiling: Maintain emergency supplies, including food, water, medical kits, and backup power sources. Companies may need to consider prioritizing supplies for certain sites. Those that are in earthquake zones typically don't have any warning, meaning employees could be trapped with no supplies. Also consider local events that may impact employee's ability to get out of the building, such as civil unrest, for short-term needs.

Cultural Considerations in Emergency Response

Understanding the influence of cultural factors on emergency response is vital for EHS professionals with global responsibilities. These factors include beliefs, values, traditions, and communication styles, all of which can significantly shape response planning. Varying cultural perspectives on risk can also affect how seriously individuals take emergency warnings and instructions, prompting the need for tailored communication strategies.

Key factors to be aware of include:

Language barriers : Language diversity within global organizations can create communication challenges during emergencies. Multilingual resources are essential to bridge language barriers and ensure effective communication during crisis situations. Providing training in the local language can ensure everyone is effectively prepared.

: Language diversity within global organizations can create communication challenges during emergencies. Multilingual resources are essential to bridge language barriers and ensure effective communication during crisis situations. Providing training in the local language can ensure everyone is effectively prepared. Cultural sensitivities : Cultural sensitivities may impact responses to emergency situations. When writing Emergency Response Plans, you may need to consider how people will respond. Engaging local support, such as the local safety committee, to provide input on the site Emergency Response Plan can help you make the correct adaptations.

: Cultural sensitivities may impact responses to emergency situations. When writing Emergency Response Plans, you may need to consider how people will respond. Engaging local support, such as the local safety committee, to provide input on the site Emergency Response Plan can help you make the correct adaptations. Local Resources: Utilize country-specific EHS/OH resources. Most countries have designated pages for emergency response, which could contain valuable resources in the local language. They also provide common responses and phrases that can help you tailor your plans (e.g., "Run, Hide, Fight" versus "Run, Hide, Flee").

Customizing emergency messages to fit the local language and culture is a strategic necessity for effective emergency response.

Incorporating Business Continuity into Emergency Response Plans

It may be beneficial to analyze risk and build in some elements of a business continuity plan right into your emergency response plan. Things to consider include:

Risk profiling : Categorize regions based on risk severity and frequency of potential disasters. Use the risk assessment you completed as a starting point.

: Categorize regions based on risk severity and frequency of potential disasters. Use the risk assessment you completed as a starting point. Resource needs assessment : Assess the specific resource needs for each region, considering population density, infrastructure, and local vulnerabilities. Think about the regions where your facilities are located: will employees rely on public transportation; will you be competing for service if a local disaster happens; will you have trouble getting supplies in and out?

: Assess the specific resource needs for each region, considering population density, infrastructure, and local vulnerabilities. Think about the regions where your facilities are located: will employees rely on public transportation; will you be competing for service if a local disaster happens; will you have trouble getting supplies in and out? Resource prepositioning : Strategically pre-position critical resources in regions prone to specific hazards. This includes stockpiling supplies and establishing local response teams. You may have evaluated this already but think about any local needs. This may also include items like generators or connections with a restoration company.

: Strategically pre-position critical resources in regions prone to specific hazards. This includes stockpiling supplies and establishing local response teams. You may have evaluated this already but think about any local needs. This may also include items like generators or connections with a restoration company. An Emergency Response Plan is not a Business Continuity Plan (BCP), every company should have some kind of BCP in place to make sure you can weather any storm.

Common natural disasters and their impact on planning

Each common natural disaster brings with it a unique set of considerations for preparedness and risk mitigation.

Hurricanes and typhoons : Coastal regions face the threat of hurricanes (Atlantic) or typhoons (Pacific), necessitating robust evacuation plans and building resilience against high winds and flooding.

: Coastal regions face the threat of hurricanes (Atlantic) or typhoons (Pacific), necessitating robust evacuation plans and building resilience against high winds and flooding. Earthquakes : Seismic activity is a concern in areas near tectonic plate boundaries. Preparedness includes seismic bracing and earthquake drills.

: Seismic activity is a concern in areas near tectonic plate boundaries. Preparedness includes seismic bracing and earthquake drills. Floods : Flood-prone regions require watching weather patterns and training employees on what to do during a flood event.

: Flood-prone regions require watching weather patterns and training employees on what to do during a flood event. Wildfires: Areas susceptible to wildfires need strategies for evacuation plans and may need to monitor air quality during wildfire events.

Learn more about how Inogen Alliance can help your global organization craft a comprehensive emergency response plan.

Inogen Alliance is a global network made up of dozens of independent local businesses and over 6,000 consultants around the world who can help make your project a success. Our Associates collaborate closely to serve multinational corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, and we share knowledge and industry experience to provide the highest quality service to our clients. If you want to learn more about how you can work with Inogen Alliance, you can explore our Associates or Contact Us. Watch for more News & Blog updates here and follow us on LinkedIn.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Inogen Alliance on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Inogen Alliance

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/inogen-alliance

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: Inogen Alliance

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794815/global-perspectives-understanding-the-differences-in-emergency-response-programs
SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Gifa, Inc., a Nevada corporation ("GIFA," the "Company," "we," "us," and "our") (OTC PINK:GIFX).

GIFA INC is pleased to announce that the Caveat Emptor has been removed by OTC Markets and the GIFA INC shares can now be tradable .

'Caveat Emptor symbol remaining on the company's trading symbol was a direct result of the conduct of the previous management of FireFish and associated with the period prior to the company's acquisition of FireFish in October 2017, ' said Mr Kisa. In addition to the removal of Caveat Emptor designation, he added that the corporation has achieved success as a result of a great endeavor.

"The company will continue to fulfill all the obligations required by OTC Market to achieve our goals. Our current intention is to take our company further and reward our shareholders who trusted and patiently supported us through this process, " stated Mr Kisa.

Mr Kisa also went on to say 'The real estate market is rapidly progressing in the country especially with foreign investors. Increasing demand for properties and lands had an impact on rising prices. Our company currently focused to the sector and continues to grow by making significant investments in real estates. Developments will be announced through our regular press releases in the future '.

ABOUT GIFA INC:

GIFA, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides financial services and consultancy, brokerage, business loans, project funding, crowdfunding advice, and consultancy to individual and corporate clients. It also offers personal and professional business development and investment advice to private clients airline representation, and corporate and leisure travel services. In addition, the company provides end-to-end supply and demand chain management services engaging in controlling and coordinating supply of materials to a range of entities that are involved in producing and delivering goods and services. Further, it engages in media business comprising newspaper and Webtv; provides consultancy, advice, assistance, and support for local businesses, as well as opportunity to access international finance; and offers local businesses and individuals small loans. The company also owns real estate and generates rent and sale income. The company was formerly known as Firefish, Inc. and changed its name to GIFA, Inc. in October 2017. GIFA, Inc. was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Lefkosa, Cyprus.

THIS PRESS RELEASE CONTAINS "FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS." FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS ARE STATEMENTS CONCERNING ESTIMATES, PLANS, OBJECTIVES, GOALS, STRATEGIES, EXPECTATIONS, INTENTIONS, PROJECTIONS, DEVELOPMENTS, FUTURE EVENTS, PERFORMANCE OR PRODUCTS, UNDERLYING (EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED) ASSUMPTIONS AND OTHER STATEMENTS THAT ARE OTHER THAN HISTORICAL FACTS. IN SOME CASES FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS CAN BE IDENTIFIED BY THE USE OF FORWARD-LOOKING WORDS SUCH AS "ESTIMATED," "BELIEVES," "EXPECTS," "MAY," "WILL," "SHOULD," OR "ANTICIPATES," OR THE NEGATIVE OF THESE WORDS OR OTHER VARIATIONS OF THESE WORDS OR COMPARABLE WORDS, OR BY DISCUSSIONS OF PLANS OR STRATEGY THAT INVOLVE RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES. MANAGEMENT WISHES TO CAUTION THE READER THAT THESE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, STATEMENTS REGARDING THE COMPANY AND ITS PLANS OR INTENTIONS, ESTIMATES, GOALS, COMPETITIVE TRENDS AND OTHER MATTERS THAT ARE NOT HISTORICAL FACTS ARE ONLY PREDICTIONS. NO ASSURANCES CAN BE GIVEN THAT SUCH PREDICTIONS WILL PROVE CORRECT OR THAT THE ANTICIPATED FUTURE RESULTS WILL BE ACHIEVED. ACTUAL EVENTS OR RESULTS MAY DIFFER MATERIALLY EITHER BECAUSE ONE OR MORE PREDICTIONS PROVE TO BE ERRONEOUS OR AS A RESULT OF OTHER RISKS FACING THE COMPANY. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS SHOULD BE READ IN LIGHT OF THE CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS SET FORTH HEREIN AND THOSE SET FORTH IN OUR MOST RECENT FORM 10-K, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO "THE FACTORS THAT MAY AFFECT FUTURE RESULTS" SHOWN AS ITEM 1A IN OUR FORM 10-K AND THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH AN EARLY-STAGE COMPANY THAT HAS LIMITED ASSETS AND OPERATIONS, THE COMPARATIVELY LIMITED FINANCIAL RESOURCES OF THE COMPANY, THE INTENSE COMPETITION THE COMPANY FACES FROM OTHER ESTABLISHED COMPETITORS, THE UNCERTAINTIES ARISING OUT OF THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC PARTICULARLY BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY IN THE TURKISH REPUBLIC OF NORTHERN CYPRUS AND THE LEGAL UNCERTAINTIES THAT DIRECTLY AND INDIRECTLY IMPACT DEVELOPMENT-STAGE COMPANIES. ANY ONE OR MORE OF THESE OR OTHER RISKS COULD CAUSE ACTUAL RESULTS TO DIFFER MATERIALLY FROM THE FUTURE RESULTS INDICATED, EXPRESSED, OR IMPLIED IN SUCH FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. WE UNDERTAKE NO OBLIGATION TO UPDATE OR REVISE ANY FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENT TO REFLECT EVENTS, CIRCUMSTANCES, OR NEW INFORMATION AFTER THE DATE OF THIS PRESS RELEASE OR TO REFLECT THE OCCURRENCE OF UNANTICIPATED OR OTHER SUBSEQUENT EVENTS.

Contacts:

Yusuf Kisa

Dr Fazil Kucuk Boulevard, Hamitkoy Juction

Hamitkoy, Nicosia

Mersin 10 Turkey

+903926116000

info@gifainc.net

SOURCE: GIFA INC

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/794812/gifa-inc-announces-removal-of-otc-caveat-emptor-designation
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Canadian Palladium Resources Inc. (CSE: BULL) (OTCQB: DCNNF) (FSE: DCR1) (the "Company") announces details of a proposed consolidation of its common shares. In accordance with the constating documents of the Company, the board of directors of the Company passed a resolution authorizing the consolidation of the issued and outstanding common shares of the Company on a 10:1 ratio (the "Consolidation").

The Company currently has 175,843,566 common shares issued and outstanding. Following the completion of the Consolidation and not taking into account any adjustments for rounding, the Company anticipates there will be approximately 17,584,357 common shares outstanding. Any fractional share will be rounded down to the nearest whole number. The Company does not intend to change its name or seek a new stock trading symbol from the CSE in connection with the Consolidation. The new CUSIP number will be 13646R509 and the new ISIN number will be CA13646R5096 for post Consolidation.

The Company will complete the necessary filings in order to give effect to the Consolidation as of October 25, 2023. Once completed, a letter of transmittal will be sent by mail to shareholders advising them that the Consolidation has taken effect and instructing them to surrender the certificates evidencing their common shares for replacement certificates representing the number of common shares to which they are entitled as a result of the Consolidation. Until surrendered, each certificate formerly representing common shares will be deemed for all purposes to represent the number of common shares to which the holder thereof is entitled as a result of the Consolidation.

The board of directors of the Company is of the view that the Consolidation will provide the Company with greater flexibility for future corporate activities, enhance the marketability of the common shares as an investment and lead to increased interest by a wider audience of potential investors, thereby increasing its ability to raise additional financing to fund operations in the near future.

The Company also announces the appointment of James Newall as President and CEO of the Company, replacing Wayne Tisdale who has resigned as President, CEO and director. In addition, Robert Meister has been appointed as a director of the Company, replacing Michelle Gahagan who has resigned as a director and Chair of the Board of Directors.

James Newall has been a director of the Company since 2019, and is an experienced senior executive director, having served as a director or executive officer of numerous publicly listed companies. He was Investment Director of Intrepid Financial, an incubator of natural resource companies for eight years, and was Voluntary CEO of Oracle Cancer Trust, the UK's largest head and neck cancer research charity. Mr. Newall is a graduate of Cambridge University and holds a Masters Degree in Law.

Robert Meister is an accomplished Capital Markets Executive known for his expertise in driving growth through strategic leadership, transformative M&A activities, and securing vital capital. His impressive track record includes playing a pivotal role in M&A activities, including the $189 million Alpha Minerals to Fission Uranium transaction. Mr. Meister has extensive executive experience, he has held leadership positions as CEO, COO, Secretary, and Director in both private and publicly traded firms listed on the TSX, CSE, and NEO exchanges.

The Company would like to thank Mr. Tisdale and Ms. Gahagan for their dedication and support over the years and wishes them success in their future endeavors.

Canadian Palladium Resources Inc.

James Newall, President and CEO

T: (604) 639-4472

Reader Advisory

This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. In particular, forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the proposed timing and completion of the private placement and the proposed use of proceeds from the private placement. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. We cannot guarantee future results, performance or achievements. Consequently, there is no representation that the actual results achieved will be the same, in whole or in part, as those set out in the forward-looking information.

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 and environmental 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; stock market volatility; liabilities inherent in water disposal facility operations; competition for, among other things, skilled personnel and supplies; incorrect assessments of the value of acquisitions; geological, technical, processing and transportation problems; changes in tax laws and incentive programs; failure to realize the anticipated benefits of acquisitions and dispositions; and the other factors. Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive.

The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. We undertake no duty to update any of the forward-looking information to conform such information to actual results or to changes in our expectations except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider 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/184572
OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Replica Analytics Ltd., an Aetion company, and the University of Ottawa, are set to co-host the third edition of the Synthetic Data Summit at the IET London: Savoy Place on November 30, 2023, in the United Kingdom. The event will offer unique insights into the world of synthetic data generation (SDG) and its transformative potential for healthcare.

SDG involves using generative AI to create synthetic data from real data while ensuring data privacy, security, and utility. Previously held virtually, the Synthetic Data Summit 2023 is an in-person gathering for chief data officers, privacy professionals, data scientists, and healthcare insights directors interested in how this technology is addressing critical issues in healthcare data, such as data privacy, diversity and data bias, enabling more equitable clinical research, and data augmentation.

"There have been important developments in SDG in recent years, including improved data generation for complex datasets, better evaluation frameworks for privacy and utility, and growing regulatory interest and acceptance worldwide," said Khaled El Emam, SVP and GM, Replica. Dr. El Emam holds the Canada Research Chair in Medical AI at the University of Ottawa and has been developing and deploying privacy enhancing technologies for two decades. "We are proud to offer this timely and pertinent event in collaboration with our Aetion colleagues and the University of Ottawa, so that we can showcase recent developments and applications by and within the healthcare community."

The one-day Summit has many distinguished speakers including European privacy regulators, large data custodians, representatives from health systems and life sciences companies, as well as researchers from academia. A number of life sciences companies will share their experiences using synthetic data in practice on real world data and clinical trial data. And Replica partner, Aridhia, will demo a new next-generation data sharing platform. Presentations will address not only privacy but also the role of SDG in augmenting data sets, as well as mitigating bias, in data sets.

Summit participants will gain valuable insights that can make a difference in successfully deploying SDG technology, extracting real business value from it, and implementing the best methodologies around its use.

For additional details, including the full program and registration information, visit: https://replica-analytics.com/news-events/conference-synthetic-data-summit-2023/

About Replica Analytics, an Aetion company

Replica Analytics Ltd. is the premier science-based synthetic data generation technology provider to the healthcare industry. The company is a pioneer in the development of unique technologies for generating privacy-protective synthetic data that maintain the statistical properties of real-world data (RWD). The company was acquired in late 2021 by Aetion, the leading regulatory-grade real-world evidence (RWE) technology provider. Replica Synthesis is the industry's trusted synthetic data generation software, and the latest in ensuring real-world data can go the distance. Replica Synthesis provides a full suite of synthetic data generation and evaluation capabilities that can solve multiple grand challenges facing the life sciences industry, and health research in general. For more information, visit: https://replica-analytics.com/

About Aetion

Aetion Inc. is a healthcare analytics company that delivers real-world evidence for the manufacturers, purchasers, and regulators of medical treatments and technologies. The Aetion Evidence Platform analyzes data from the real world to produce transparent, rapid, and scientifically validated answers on safety, effectiveness, and value. Founded by Harvard Medical School faculty members with decades of experience in epidemiology and health outcomes research, Aetion informs healthcare's most critical decisions-what works best, for whom, and when-to guide product development, commercialization, and payment innovation. Learn more at aetion.com and follow us at @aetioninc.

Media contact: Replica Analytics: media@replica-analytics.com

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Tower Resources Ltd. (TSXV: TWR) ("Tower" or the "Company") has approved, subject to acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange, the grant of 2,600,000 incentive stock options (the "Options") to acquire common shares in the capital of the Company (each a "Common Share"). 1,800,000 of the Options were granted to officers and directors and the remainder to employees and consultants of the Company. The Options are non-transferable and exercisable until October 19, 2028, at $0.12 per Option, subject to vesting provisions, with one-third vesting on the date of grant and one-third vesting ever anniversary thereafter.

About Tower Resources

Tower is a Canadian based mineral exploration company focused on the discovery and advancement of economic mineral projects in the Americas. The Company's key exploration assets, all in B.C., are the Rabbit North copper-gold porphyry project located between the New Afton copper-gold and Highland Valley copper mines in the Kamloops mining district, the Nechako porphyry-associated gold-silver project near Artemis' Blackwater project and the More Creek epithermal gold project on the critical "red line" structural zone connecting the mineral deposits of the Golden Triangle.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Tower Resources Ltd.

Joe Dhami, President and CEO

(778) 996-4730

www.towerresources.ca

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. The words "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, or its management, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 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, fluctuations in market prices, successes of the operations of the Company, continued 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 TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184602
KKR, a NYC-based global investment firm, closed KKR Next Generation Technology Growth Fund III, at approximately $3 billion.

The vehicle received support from a diverse group of both new and existing investors globally, including public pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, financial institutions, endowments, private wealth and fintech platforms, family offices and high-net-worth individual investors. KKR will be investing approximately $435m of capital alongside investors through the firms balance sheet, affiliates and employee commitments.

Led by Dave Welsh, Jake Heller, and Stephen Shanley, the fund is focused on investing in growth technology companies across North America, Europe and Israel, providing equity capital and access to the firms global capabilities and network.

KKR has executed several transactions as part of its tech growth strategy, including DarkTrace, KnowBe4, 09, Onestream, OutSystems, NetSPI and Restaurant365.

FinSMEs

19/10/2023
Overstory, an Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based climate tech startup, raised $14M in Series A funding.

The round was led by B Capital, with participation from The Nature Conservancy, among others.

The company intends to use the funds to accelerate development of its platform.

Led by CEO Indra den Bakker, Overstory is building technology that mitigates wildfires, protects biodiversity, and helps people make decisions about natural resources. The global vegetation intelligence platform provides insights about the location, size, health, and species of any tree on Earth. Overstorys initial focus is to provide electric utility companies with visibility, risk analysis, and optimization recommendations for vegetation management by applying artificial intelligence to satellite imagery. In over five years, the company has actively monitored about 2 million acres, and protected $6 Billion of utility assets.

Overstory counts three of the top five utilities in the US as customers, including PG&E in California, as well as top utilities in Canada, Brazil and Europe.

FinSMEs

19/10/2023
Petfolk, a Charlotte, NC-based modern veterinary care company providing services for pets, pet owners, and veterinarians, raised $40M in Series B funding.

The round was led by Movendo Capital, with participation from White Star Capital, Idea Farm Ventures, and other.

The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its business reach.

Led by Founder and CEO Dr. Audrey Wystrach, Petfolk specializes in pet care providing a community of knowledge and accessible solutions. The company offers 24/7 virtual and instant care, mobile pet care centers, technology for personalized and transparent care plans, a vet-minded employment model, and physical spaces. The Petfolk Partner Program provides veterinarians with the opportunity to advance their careers, progressing from Associate Veterinarians to Partner Veterinarians over time and giving them shared economics in their clinics and equity ownership in Petfolk. This allows veterinarians to have ownership without taking on the risks of starting their own practice, as no buy-in is required.

Since 2021, Petfolk has grown from a single location in Charlotte, North Carolina to 11 total locations expected by the end of 2023, with an additional 20 locations planned for 2024. Current locations are in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

FinSMEs

19/10/2023
Tia Lupita Foods, a San Francisco, CA-based Mexican inspired food brand, raised $2.6M in Seed funding.

The round was led by Santatera Capital and GBM Ventures.

The company intends to use the funds to grow the team, accelerate new product development, and expand into new markets.

Founded by Hector Saldivar, Tia Lupita Foods offers its signature hot sauces, and sustainable products like Grain-Free Cactus Tortilla Chips, Salsa Matcha and Cactus Tortillas. Tia Lupitas hot sauces and other products are available at Whole Foods Market, Publix, HEB, Sprouts Farmers Market, Target, Walmart, Albertsons, and other grocers from coast to coast.

Originating in Mexico, Saldivar is now based in San Francisco. Early this year, Tia Lupita first secured investment in Shark Tank from Kevin OLeary.

FinSMEs

19/10/2023
Ventricle Health, a Washington, DC-based provider of a virtual cardiology care network, raised $8M in Seed funding.

The round was led by RA Capital Management alongside Waterline Ventures and other investors.

The company intends to use the funds to finance the expansion of its heart failure management therapeutic model in collaboration with value-based care provider groups and payers.

Founded by Dr. Dan Bensimhon and led by Chief Executive Officer Sean ODonnell, Ventricle Health is a national, virtual cardiology clinic which connects members where they are with virtual, evidence-based therapy, remote patient monitoring and patient education and advocacy. The companys care model is anchored around established guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT) pathways. They provide patients access to cardiology care appointments from their home in as little as three days.

The company is operational and delivering virtual and home-based clinical services in support of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), primary care practices and their payer partners in the Mid-Atlantic, Texas, Ohio and Florida, with more markets to be announced in the near future.

FinSMEs

19/10/2023
Kriti Sanon is rapidly becoming one of the most bankable actresses of our time. Adding another feather to her cap, the diva recently bagged the National Award for Best Actress for her heart-melting performance in the film Mimi. She recently flew to the national capital for the facilitation ceremony.

During the event, Kriti Sanon opted for a cream saree with a tight bun, golden jewelry and light makeup. The actress also recently took to her official Instagram handle and dropped a video of behind the scene moments before the ceremony. She penned, When we are in a moment, its very rare that we know that its gonna be one of the best moments of our lives.. yesterday felt like that!

Kriti Sanon on winning the National Award

During a recent conversation with The Times of India, Kriti Sanon revealed that whenever she visits Delhi, it is like coming to her hometown. However, this time, she was in the national capital to receive the National Award. She added that it was an extremely proud feeling for her.

Check out the post below:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kriti (@kritisanon)

Opening up regarding manifesting the National Award, Kriti Sanon revealed that Mimi is her first award for Best Actress. She disclosed that despite the National Award being a distant dream, she wrote about it in her diary. The stunner also stated that bagging a National Award within just a decade of being in Bollywood is a monumental achievement. Kriti Sanon also stated that seeing the pride in her parents eyes as her name was announced made this achievement even more special. She was quoted as saying, The National Award validates your talent. I feel that also happened when Mimi released, it changed the kind of roles that were coming to me.

Kriti Sanon gave a powerful performance in Mimi as a surrogate mother Mimi Rathore, who ends up learning the true meaning of motherhood and unconditional love.

Whats next for Kriti Sanon?

Up next, Kriti Sanon will be seen sharing the screen with her Heropanti co-star Tiger Shroff in the action entertainer, Ganapath. With Amitabh Bachchan in a crucial role, the project will reach the cinema halls tomorrow, 20 October.

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Every move of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is observed very closely by everyone. Being an advocate of climate preservation, it seems little hypocritical that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex took a private flight to Atlanta just for themselves. These two were returning post a short vacay on the Caribbean island of Canouan. It must be noted here that private flights are believed to be the biggest culprits when it comes to releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

According to a report in The People, as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reached Georgia they opted for casual ensembles as they greeted their staff, along with US Customs and Border Patrol on the tarmac.

The Suits star donned a black maxi dress, paired with a shawl, pinned-back tresses, and her trademark sandals. On the other hand, Prince Harry was seen shelling breezy vibes in khaki pants, along with a polo shirt and a cap. The royal couple was also seen carrying backpacks and large bags.

Meanwhile, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were recently seen in commemorating the World Mental Health Day in New York. These two were a part panel of parents during the Archewell Foundations first in-person event. During the panel discussion, they shed light on their own role as parents to son Prince Archie and daughter Princess Lilibet. The former actress was quoted as saying, As parents, though our kids are really young, theyre two and a half and four and a half but social media is not going away. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have also been working with these parents behind the scenes.

In addition to this, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry also made a surprise visit to The Marcy Lab School in Brooklyn recently. During the visit, these two also posed for pictures with the students. They were seen hugging the little ones in the photographs.

Going by a report in The Royal Observer, Prince Harry has been removed from the list of the board of directors for his green travel initiative called Travalyst. After the move, the company revealed that despite moving in a new direction, they will continue to value their founders commitment to the goal of environmental sustainability.

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The Burial is a courtroom drama where Jamie Foxx stars as a flamboyant Black lawyer fighting a case for Tommy Lee Jones all-American underdog, against a crooked White tycoon played by a relatively less-known actor. Which means you know how the story will end long before it does even if you havent heard of the true incident the film is based on. The Maggie Betts directorial primarily banks on its lead cast to score as retro-style legal drama and as taut storytelling highlights big-business corruption to set up a David-versus-Goliath premise, the narrative creates scope for a subtext of racism, too.

Betts, in her second feature film as director, has taken a few storytelling liberties while setting up a narrative that is based on a lawsuit filed by attorney Willie E. Gary on behalf of his client Jeremiah OKeefe, against Canadian businessman Raymond Loewen and his deathcare company. The screenplay (Betts and Doug Wright) is loosely adapted from writer Jonathan Harrs article about the case that the New Yorker published in 1999.

The film is reminiscent of the way legal dramas were made around three decades ago, and the old-school filmmaking style perhaps reflects Betts effort to recreate the mid-nineties, when the incidents occurred. The nineties were the heydays of bestseller novelist John Grishams legal thrillers, and screen adaptations of many of his books including The Firm, The Pelican Brief and The Rainmaker would go on to set the template for the Hollywood courtroom drama. The Burial serves as a feel-good throwback attempt that should please lovers of that generic era, typified by slow burn suspense, entertaining courtroom interrogations and grand soliloquies by the protagonist.

Foxx as the lawyer Willie E. Gary would seem cut out for such grand moments of spotlight basking in the courtroom. Listed as one of the richest lawyers in the world today, the real-life Gary rose from humble beginnings to scale the sort of success that only matches the larger-than life charisma he exudes. Foxx takes up the job of being Gary with gusto right from the start of the story, when we find him addressing a Sunday church gathering. It is a scene meant to establish Gary as a man who loves playing to the gallery and, as Foxx goes about deftly establishing that notion over the first few minutes of the film, you know you are in for another magnificent performance from the Oscar-winning actor of Ray.

At the other end of the personality curve is Tommy Lee Jones Jeremiah OKeefe, a softspoken 75-year-old World War II veteran who once served as mayor of small-town Biloxi in Mississippi. Jerry, as he is known to family and acquaintances, runs a deathcare business that includes a few funeral homes. Faced with money problems, Jerry looks to strike a contract with the Canadian deathcare industry bigwig Raymond Loewen (Bill Camp).

The year is 1995 and Loewen believes the deathcare market in the United States is bound to grow, with the Baby Boomers generation likely to see an increase in number of deaths. He plans to expand business in the US aggressively. However, the deal sours, what with Loewen deliberately delaying the signing of contract. He is wasting time evidently, waiting for Jerrys small business to go bankrupt, in which case he would be able to buy out the enterprise cheap. Jerrys business lawyer (Alan Ruck) starts preparations to file a suit but the young attorney Hal Dockins (Mamoudou Athie), whos helping out in the case, feels the charismatic Gary with his slant at impressing juries would be the right person to fight for the septuagenarian.

The makers of The Burial have been accused of taking creative liberties to turn a simple money case into a tale of heightened drama for the screen. The film also makes a few obvious efforts to stay in sync with Hollywoods ongoing wave of inclusivity. Loewens lead lawyer, for instance, is a Black female attorney named Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett, in a rather half-baked role). In reality, Loewens primarily Black team of attorneys was led by a Black male lawyer named Richard Sinkfield. The reorganised casting of Smollett as Garys adversary in court promises fireworks, but somehow that never happens.

You gloss over such issues because this is mainstream cinema, and director Betts has ultimately managed to deliver a feel-good film about an underdogs victory over corporate evil. A lot of effort has understandably gone into setting up a screenplay that can cash in on the contrasting traits that Foxx and Jones bring alive as Gary and Jerry. The legal eagle Gary is as much a high-flying achiever with a knack for charming juries with his spectacular style in the courtroom as he is a devoted family man at home. Foxxs triumph lies in the fact that he gives his characters larger-than-life persona a lovable quality without ever striking a jarring note.

On the other hand, Tommy Lee Jones challenge in bringing alive Jeremiah OKeefe was all about moving out of comfort zone. The Oscar-winning supporting actor of The Fugitive is known to be a true-blue movie star with an innate ability to wow with on-screen swagger. Jones is among actors who are invariably expected to add that extra zing to their characters with distinct screen presence. Being Jerry required the veteran actor to shed glamour and become an everyman  the guy next door whose only dream is to set up a family business for posterity. Jones brings alive Jerrys mild-mannered traits with an understated ease.

The Burial could have been more significant as a courtroom drama with more in-depth writing and execution, though Betts does manage to set up a fairly entertaining film by putting together essential generic components in the right doses. She has done wisely to accord maximum space to her lead star, because the film ultimately clicks as the Jamie Foxx show.

Rating: 3 and half out of 5

The Burial is streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist and journalist who loves to write on popular culture.
Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varma have been shelling out couple goals ever since making their relationship public. The lovebirds first met on the sets of the Netflix anthology Lust Stories 2 and fell for each other.

On-screen or off the screen, whenever these two make an appearance together, fans go gaga over their electrifying chemistry. Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varma were recently seen together on the red carpet. As the camera captured the lovebirds, Vijay Varmas silver chain suddenly fell on the ground and Tamannaah Bhatia helped him pick it up.

Tamannah Bhatia and Vijay Varma on the red carpet

Vijay Varma looked all handsome in an all-black look. His stylish ensemble was tied up with black sunglasses, and black shoes. On the other hand, Tamannaah Bhatia was a sight for sore eyes in a gorgeous pink dress. She tied her long tresses in a high bun and completed the look with huge heart-shaped earrings.

Check out the video below:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani)

Internet reacts to Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varmas adorable video

As soon as the clip reached Instagram, several social media users reacted to the video. One of the Instagram users commented, Beautiful jodi. Another one penned, Aww Im such a shameless shipper because I love them. The third comment read, Both are glowing.

Vijay Varma on the paparazzi situation

Vijay Varma recently disclosed that ever since he started seeing Tamannaah Bhatia, the paparazzi situation has escalated. Speaking during the India Today Mumbai Conclave, he said, Thats where the paps lost their minds. I couldnt control it! And there were times they came right at my doorstep and nobody came to my building before that.

The Dahaad actor revealed that he lives in an isolated part of Andheri as he does not want anybody to know where he lives.

Whats next for Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varma?

After Jaane Jaan alongside Kareen Kapoor, Vijay Varma will next be seen leading Homi Adajanias Murder Mubarak.

In the meantime, Tammaannah Bhatia will next be seen in the horror drama Arnamanai 4. Additionally, she will also be seen in director Nikkhil Advanis Vedaa. She will be seen sharing screen space with John Abraham in her next.

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Israel formally declared war on 7 October after Hamas terrorists broke past the countrys protective border via land, sea, and air.

Leaders from over the world are coming to Israel to control the escalating tension.

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has also flown to Israel as part of diplomatic efforts to stop the crisis, his office said.

Sunaks visit comes after those of US president Joe Biden on 18 October and German chancellor Olaf Scolz on 17 October.

Rishi Sunaks trip to Israel

The British prime minister left London on Wednesday night for his two-day visit, and today he is set to meet with Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog.

Sunak will condemn Hamas horrific act of terror and offer condolences for the terrible loss of life in Israel and Gaza in the last two weeks as a result of Hamas brutal terrorist attacks, according to a statement provided by Downing Street ahead of his visit.

Sunak will also stress that any civilian death is a tragedy and tell fellow leaders that, as an international community, we must not let Hamas barbaric terrorism and disregard for human become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region.

In addition, the British leader is anticipated to insist that the Britons trapped in Gaza be allowed to leave and that the humanitarian aid that London recently announced will be boosted for the Palestinians be permitted to reach Gaza at a time when Israel has approved the entry of supplies from Egypt.

Sunak will reportedly travel to a number of other regional capitals, though Downing Street declined to provide specifics out of concern for security.

Ahead of his trip, Sunak said, Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many live have been lost following Hamass horrific act of terror.

The attack on al-Ahli hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict. I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort.

Although the British leader is not bringing any UK journalists with him, he is anticipated to speak to local reporters.

He will return to the UK on Friday in the afternoon.

Moreover, according to The Associated Press, James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, will travel to Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar to seek support for a peaceful resolution.

The foreign secretary will advocate for a deal that allows aid workers access to Gaza and calls for the release of British hostages held by Hamas.

On Wednesday, in response to an urgent query about the hospital explosion, Cleverly echoed Sunak and cautioned against jumping to conclusions, stating that doing so would only increase West Asian instability and put the UKs sense of community at jeopardy.

Defense Secretary Grant Shapps also met US counterpart Lloyd Austin in Washington to co-ordinate their approach.

Before Israel launches its highly anticipated ground offensive in Gaza, the government will be determined to deploy all available diplomatic tools as soon as possible.

Joe Bidens visit to Israel

Biden swept into wartime Israel for a 7.5-hour visit Wednesday that produced a heaping dose of vocal support, a deal to get limited humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt, and a plea for Israelis not to allow rage over the deadly attack to consume them.

The presidents visit came after hundreds of people were reported killed in an explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital.

I understand. Many Americans understand, Biden said as he wrapped up his stay in Tel Aviv, likening the 7 October Hamas assault to the attacks against the US on 11 September 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people. You cant look at what has happened here and not scream out for justice, he said, as per AP.

But I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it, he said. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

Biden urged Israel to step back from the brink, not just to ease growing tensions in the West Asia that threaten to spiral into a broader regional conflict, but also to reassure a world rattled by images of carnage and suffering, in Israel and Gaza alike.

Biden says the US will provide $100 million in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians affected by conflict in Gaza and the West Bank.

While speaking to reporters on Air Force One during a refuelling stop in Germany on his way back to the US, the American leader said he spoke with Egypt President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi after his visit to Israel, where leaders there agreed to allow the aid in.

Other world leaders rushing to the region

On Tuesday, German chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Tel Aviv and met with relatives of German hostages held by Hamas. He said that the German government would do whatever it can to secure the hostages release, according to Reuters.

He also spoke to Israeli PM Netanyahu about how to get humanitarian aid to civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip and would raise the topic with Egypts president as well.

Germany and Israel are united in being democratic states, acting in justice and law even in extreme situations I have spoken with the prime minister about ways to allow the people in Gaza to receive humanitarian aid as quickly as possible, Scholz said, speaking alongside Netanyahu in Israel.

We want to protect civilians and prevent civilian deaths, he added.

The region will also be visited by the French president Emmanuel Macron, he said, as soon as I consider that we have a useful agenda and very concrete actions to drive forward.

The intensifying conflict

The war that began 7 October has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured in the past 11 days.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, and at least 199 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

One million people have been displaced in roughly 10 days, according to the United Nations.

Hamas says militants are holding 250 hostages.

With inputs from agencies
In the midst of the Israel-Hamas conflict, a story of bravery and resilience has come to light as a 65-year-old Israeli woman became an unusual folk hero in the country.

According to Israeli media, Rachel Edri used conversation and food to keep the Hamas terrorists off-balance until the Israeli Defence Forces arrived and killed them.

As Hamas militants terrorised southern neighbourhoods, her quick thinking in the face of danger won her the nations admiration and served as a symbol of the spirit of regular Israelis put in dangerous situations.

Lets take a closer look.

A fateful encounter

After an early-morning air-raid siren, Edri returned from a bomb shelter in her hometown of Ofakim to find a band of Hamas militants in her living room. As gunfire raged outside, Edris home saw a 20-hour tete-a-tete between hospitality and brutality, according to The Associated Press.

One of the terrorists said to me, You remind me of my mother. I told him, I am really like your mother. I will help you, I will take care of you. What do you need? Edri told Ynet.

I knew that if they are hungry, they are angry, Edri told ABC News.

After one of the grenade-toting gunmen struck Edri across the face with the butt of his gun, Edri soothed him. I told him I had to inject insulin, trying to distract them from the fact I have children who are police officers  I offered them drinks: Coke Zero, water.

After they drank and ate, they became much calmer, Edri told Ynet, adding, I started having conversations, and at one point I even forgot for a moment that they were terrorists.

Further narrating how she joked around the captors, she said, Ill teach you Hebrew and youll teach me Arabic. I understood that it was a matter of life and death.

Another HEROINE OF ISRAEL  THE BRAVE COOKIE GRANDMA   Meet Rachel Edri: The Brave Grandma Who Outsmarted Terrorists with Cookies  When Hamas terrorists invaded Israel from Gaza and fear gripped the nation, one woman stood tall and unyielding, Rachels story is nothing pic.twitter.com/X89yN4rr6j  Rosy (@rose_k01) October 13, 2023

David, Edris husband who was also captive with her, mentioned that the terrorists did not beat them but rather told them that they would be martyrs in a report on Channel 12.

Edri said she bandaged the hand of one of the injured terrorists and tried to comfort him. She engaged in conversation with the others to keep them preoccupied.

I did it all to stay alive. I needed to stall until the cavalry came to the rescue, Edri said.

When the security forces stormed into their house, David said he jumped over his wife to protect her. He saved 40 years of marriage, said Edri.

The rescue

After 17 hours, a rescue team was able to rescue Edri and her husband with the help of their son, a local policeman himself, Eviatar.

The terrorists had a hand grenade over Rachels head when the security personnel came, but the pin had been taken out. As they bargained with the security personnel, they made death threats against the married couple.

In order to alert her son that there were five hostage-takers inside her house, Rachel splayed her five fingers across her face. According to the report, Eviatar was persuaded to flee by a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit, who then took over the rescue.

The Times of Israel said that the security forces initially considered bombing Edris house but were informed that the couple still lived there and that it belonged to the parents of another police officer.

As the forces were negotiating with the terrorists, Rachel kept them distracted.

With the house heavily damaged, Edri has been relocated to a hotel in central Israel, as per AP.

A group of civilians bearing pistols fought back Hamas militants armed with assault riots.

They fought like lions here, said Yoni Shalem, a man who lives down the street from Edri, describing the bravery of his neighbours. Not the policemen, not the army  they did nothing. The only reason were alive is because of other citizens who came to protect us.

Internet sensation

For plying the militants with snacks Edri has been touted online and in national media as the consummate Jewish mother, a play on the stereotype of a women who overfeeds guests. Israelis have also compared Edri to the biblical character of Yael, who slays an evil general by offering him food before killing him in his sleep.

Edris brother, Shimon Koram, said he was not surprised when he heard how Edri had managed to avoid near-certain death. Before the war, Edri was known for her hospitality and generosity, Koram said, working at a nearby military base cooking meals for soldiers.

The two were raised in a working class family in Ofakim with 12 siblings, he said, a childhood that taught them how to be scrappy.

We learned to survive and acquired the wisdom of life like street cats, Shimon said. You can see that in how she acted.

Meeting with Joe Biden

She was one of many Israelis who were invited to meet with President Joe Biden on Wednesday during his brief visit to Israel. As Biden congratulated her for defending the nation, she grinned and hugged him.

In response to the Hamas attack, Biden paid a visit to Israel on Wednesday. He expressed his support for Israel and sought to understand Israels military goals in order to prevent a regional conflict.

As it attempts to neutralise the threat posed by Hamas, he warned Israel to exercise caution. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice we also made mistakes, he said.

A bombing at the Ahli Arab hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night that left over 500 people dead and infuriated Arab nations, which blamed Israel for the bombing, prompted the US president to make his quick trip.

With inputs from agencies
The snooze button is often thought to be bad for both sleep and cognitive function.

But, that might not be the case anymore.

The process of getting up may be aided by snoozing, according to Swedish researchers who studied people who often snooze.

According to their research, people who struggle with morning drowsiness may benefit in several ways.

Lets take a closer look.

The first study

While for many, a reach for the snooze button on the alarm clock is how most days start, researchers at Stockholm University noted that little is still known about the habit, prompting them to conduct two studies, the results of which were published on Wednesday in the Journal of Sleep Research.

The first sought to identify who the snoozers actually were via the use of questionnaires collected from 1,732 respondents. Young adults and evening people are particularly prone to this habit.

In the first study we found that in general younger people were the ones snoozing and they were to a high degree night owls, Tina Sundelin, sleep researcher at Stockholm University, told AFP, noting that the initial finding was not too surprising.

Sundelin explained that the most common reason for snoozing was simply because they felt too tired to get up.

But in some cases respondents said they just enjoying the feeling of staying in bed for a while longer, describing it as a luxury.

The results show that those who snooze, on average, sleep slightly less and wake up more sleepy than people who never snooze.

IANS cited Sundelin as adding that snoozing had no negative effects on cortisol release, morning fatigue, mood, or the quality of sleep during the night.

The second study

The second study then examined how snoozing actually impacted performance. 31 regular snoozers joined them at their sleep lab for two nights in order to measure their sleep in more detail.

They then tested the difference between uninterrupted sleep and getting up immediately or first waking up a half-hour earlier and snoozing before getting up.

What was interesting is that they got less sleep when snoozing but the difference was on average only six minutes, Sundelin explained, adding that most of them managed to get a lot of sleep during that half hour even though it was disturbed.

Furthermore, no one had to wake up from deep sleep in the snooze condition, and the snoozers had slightly better cognitive results immediately after waking up.

The test subjects were then asked to perform a few cognitive tests, such as math and memory tests.

Despite having their sleep interrupted at the tail end, there wasnt much difference in how tired they felt, nor was their performance on the tests negatively affected.

In some of the tests, they even performed a little better after having snoozed, Sundelin said, adding that the clearest effect is that it isnt negative.

For Sundelin, the results mean that those who need to snooze a little to ease into the day shouldnt be too worried.

If youre snoozing and feel like its helping you, it seems like there isnt much reason to stop doing it, as long you are getting enough sleep before, Sundelin said.

But, Sundelin added, its of course important to remember that the study only included people who are regular snoozers and find it easy to go back to sleep after each alarm.

Snoozing is most likely not for everyone, she said, as per IANS.

With inputs from AFP
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set for the first test vehicle abort mission or TV-D1 as part of the Gaganyaan  Indias first human spaceflight programme. The flight test is slated for Saturday (21 October) at 8 am from Andhra Pradeshs Sriharikota.

The short-duration TV-D1 mission will demonstrate the effectiveness of the Crew Escape System, including various separation systems.

ISROs ambitious Gaganyaan mission aims to send humans to space for a three-day mission and safely mark their return to Earth, by landing in Indian sea waters. Indias astronaut candidates have been undergoing rigorous training for the Gaganyaan programme for the past few years.

Lets take a look in detail.

Training video

In early October, the Indian Air Force (IAF) shared a video ahead of the 91st Air Force Day, which showed a glimpse of its astronaut candidates training for the Gaganyaan mission.

An IAF spokesperson confirmed to Times of India (TOI) that the men seen in the video were those selected for the human spaceflight mission.

The short clip, without revealing the identity of the astronaut designates, showcased their rigorous training. The 11-minute video titled Air Power Beyond Boundary also displayed Indias fighter jets, transport aircraft, helicopters and missile capabilities.

According to TOI, ISRO is yet to decide on how many astronauts will be part of the crewed spaceflight. However, a November 2022 article on the Indian space agencys website says the Gaganyaan mission envisages sending a crew of three members to an orbit of 400 km.

Years-long training

Four astronauts selected for the Gaganyaan have been undergoing mission specific training at the Astronaut Training Facility in Bengaluru. As per The Hindu report, these astronauts completed the first semester of crew training in March this year. By then, they had also finished a total of 39 weeks of training activities, the report added.

According to TOI, these four participants were picked from among 60 IAF test pilots. Of these, 12 had cleared the Level-1 selection conducted by IAFs Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM). The final four candidates were shortlisted in 2019. The identity of these selected IAF pilots have so far been kept secret.

These astronauts have been taking theoretical courses, physical fitness training, simulator training and flight suit training.

The ISRO and Indian Institute of Science faculty have given the candidates over 200 lectures, while the likely crew members have also participated in 75 physical training sessions.

TV-D1 Flight Test:

The test is scheduled for October 21, 2023, at 0800 Hrs. IST from the First launchpad at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota. It will be a short-duration mission and the visibility from the Launch View Gallery (LVG) will be limited. Students and the Public can witness pic.twitter.com/MROzlmPjRa  ISRO (@isro) October 17, 2023

In 2020, they were sent to Russia where they finished generic space flight training at Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. After their return to India the following year, they kicked off their training here.

The mission specific training in India consists of theoretical courses in engineering disciplines and training on the Gaganyaan flight system, aero-medical training, recovery and survival training, and micro-gravity familiarisation through parabolic flights. As per ISRO, periodical flying practice and yoga are also part of the training curriculum.

The theoretical courses on engineering disciplines include understanding the basics of spaceflight, propulsion, aerodynamics, as well as courses on launch vehicles and spacecraft, reported The Hindu.

ALSO READ: What is Gaganyaan Mission? Why is its first flight test so significant?

Training by US

During Prime Minister Narendra Modis trip to Washington in June, India and the United States announced plans to enhance space cooperation, which included a joint ISRO-NASA effort to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024. The joint statement at the time had said NASA would provide advanced training to Indian astronauts at one of its facilities.

This proposed India-US mission for next year may see Gaganyaan astronauts travelling to the ISS. In July, ISRO chairman S Somanath told Indian Express, There was a statement on human spaceflight which was about India and the US working together for a combined human spaceflight to the ISS. This particular activity is something that the US wants and India also finds it beneficial for the Indian space programme because once an Indian prepares to go to the ISS they will undergo a training programme in the US and they are going to come back and discuss how the training and skills were imparted and this will help design our Gaganyaan better.

The US had offered to train the four Indian astronauts for the Gaganyaan mission, as per a Deccan Herald report in February.

While an unmanned spacecraft is likely to be scheduled for early next year, the crewed Gaganyaan mission could be launched by 2025.

With inputs from agencies
The deadly explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City that left hundreds dead has caused widespread outrage. Protests erupted in West Asia and spread to other parts of the world even as the blame game over the attack continues.

The Hamas-controlled authorities in Gaza have held Israel responsible, but Israel has denied it was involved. Jerusalem has said it has nothing to do with the explosion and has pointed fingers at the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The militant group has refuted the allegations.

The United States got involved. President Joe Biden, who was visiting Tel Aviv on Wednesday, backed Israels stance. In remarks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president said the evidence he had seen suggested it was the other team that was responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday night. According to the Gaza health ministry, 471 people were killed in the bombing.

As claims and counterclaims continue, we take a look at what we know about the attack and questions that remain unanswered.

What happened at the Al-Ahli hospital?

The blast hit the Gaza hospital around 19.00 local time. A 20-second video circulation on social media purportedly of the blast was among the first evidence to emerge of the incident. You can hear the sound of an incoming projectile, which is followed by an explosion and fire, according to a BBC report.

Live footage from the Al-Jazeera media network shows a bright light in the skies, which flashes twice before changing direction and then exploding, the report says.

A video that The Associated Press (AP) confirmed as being from the hospital showed an orange ball of fire and flames engulfing the building and grounds. It showed the outside of the hospital, where countless Palestinian families had been camping out. Torn bodies covered the grass, with slain children lying among dead adults.

According to the BBC, which studied visual evidence from the blast site, the explosion occurred in the courtyard, which is part of the hospital.

The head of orthopaedic surgery at Al-Ahli hospital, Fadel Naim, had just finished a procedure when he heard a huge explosion and his department filled with people screaming for help. People came running into the surgery department screaming help us, help us, there are people killed and wounded inside the hospital, he is quoted as saying by Reuters.

The hospital was full of dead and wounded, dismembered bodies. We tried to save whoever could be saved but the number was too great for the hospital team, he said.

How many people were killed in the blast?

According to Gazas health ministry, 471 people were killed. An AP report on Wednesday quoted the ministry as saying that at least 500 were dead in the attack.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said that this number has been inflated on purpose. However, it did not release a toll. The exact number is not known and it is difficult to independently confirm the number of casualties.

Photos from the blast site show bodies lying lifeless on the ground and injured women and children. Several children covered in dust are seen being treated for their wounds.

What has Israel said?

Israel has denied involvement and even provided evidence that supports that it wasnt an Israeli bomb that exploded at the hospital. It blamed Palestinian militants, saying that an outgoing Islamic Jihad rocket misfired.

To back their claims, Israel released a series of videos of the blast, one of which shows the hospital and surroundings after being hit by the rocket.

A failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City. IAF footage from the area around the hospital before and after the failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, IDF said and shared the video on X.

A failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City. IAF footage from the area around the hospital before and after the failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization: pic.twitter.com/AvCAkQULAf  Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 18, 2023

According to the Israeli military, their rockets have a very high impact and create craters. It said that there were no visible craters near the hospital and the building did not encounter severe damage.

When questioned about the size of the explosion, chief Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said it was consistent with unspent rocket fuel catching fire. Most of this damage would have been done due to the propellant, not just the warhead, he said.

The IDF also released an audio, which it claimed captured a conversation between two Hamas operatives. They spoke of a rocket launch from a cemetery near the hospital. According to an IDF, one of the alleged operatives says, They are saying that the shrapnel of the missile is local shrapnel and not like the Israeli shrapnel.

However, publications like BBC and CNN have not been able to verify the authenticity of the recordings.

What has US intelligence revealed

The US government and security experts have said that the early evidence shows that the explosion at the hospital was in all likelihood caused by a local militant group. US officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity told The New York Times (NYT), said they were basing their early analysis on multiple strands of intelligence indicating that the blast at Gaza hospital was caused by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The American intelligence, first mentioned by President Biden, includes satellite and other infrared data showing a launch of a rocket or missile from Palestinian fighter positions within Gaza. Video recordings by journalists and others show that the projectile did not come from the direction of Israeli military positions, officials told NYT.

According to Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, the US government assessment showed that Israel was not responsible for the explosion. Our assessment is based on available reporting, including intelligence, missile activity and open-source video and images of the incident, she said.

Initial evidence gathered by the US intel community suggests that the hospital strike came from a rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

What are other experts saying?

A crater outside the hospital has generated a lot of interest.

The Guardian reports that the exact location of the impact on the ground where the blast occurred shows a crater in the compound of the hospital that experts describe as fairly shallow.

You dont have a three-to-nine-meter  that's about a 10-to-30-foot  crater that I would normally expect from an Israeli JDAM, which is a Joint Direct Attack Munition, a GPS-guided bomb, which is typical for what the Israelis would use here, Marc Garlasco, a military adviser at PAX Protection of Civilians and a former US defence department analyst, told PBS News Hour.

Joint direct attack munition (JDAM) is a precision-guided air-to-surface weapon system that is part of the Israeli arsenal provided by the US.

You also see a lot of surface damage and fire damage and very little damage to any of the buildings. And these are some of the telltale signs that I would be looking for an airstrike, particularly from the types of weapons that Israel employs, he said.

Apart from this, no missile fragments have been found at the explosion site. Projectiles are often identifiable by the wreckage of their shell, and they can be used to determine the projectiles origin. But in this case, we have not seen that evidence, says the BBC in its report.

Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow for air power and military technology at RUSI in London, told The Guardian the extent of the damage revealed that an airstrike looks less likely than a rocket failure causing an explosion and fuel fire.

With inputs from agencies
As Israel prepares for a massive military operation against Hamas in Gaza, risks of an escalating regional conflict loom large. The most critical additional threat to Israel is from Hezbollah, the militant group and political party based across Israels northern border in Lebanon.

Hamas and Hezbollah are both backed by Iran and see weakening Israel as their primary raison detre. However, the two groups are not the same. Their differences will likely influence their actions  and Israels  in the days and weeks to come.

Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah has, to date, not gone to war purely for the Palestinian cause. That could change. Hezbollah has not yet fully entered the current conflict, but the group has exchanged fire with Israel, across the northern border with Lebanon. Meanwhile, Iran has said that an expansion of the war may be inevitable.

What is Hezbollah?

Named the party of God, Hezbollah bills itself as a Shia resistance movement. Its ideology is focused on expelling western powers from the Middle East and on rejecting Israels right to exist.

The group was founded in 1982  in the middle of the 15-year Lebanese civil war  after Israel invaded Lebanon in retaliation for attacks perpetrated by Lebanon-based Palestinian factions. It was quickly backed by Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which supplied funding, weapons and training in an effort to expand Iranian influence in Arab states.

Hezbollahs military force continued to develop after the Lebanese civil war came to an end in 1990, despite most other factions disarming. The group continued to focus on liberating Lebanon from Israel, and it engaged in years of guerrilla warfare against Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon until Israels withdrawal in 2000. Hezbollah then largely focused its operations on retaking the disputed border area of Shebaa Farms for Lebanon.

In 2006, Hezbollah engaged in a five-week war with Israel in an attempt to settle scores rather than with an aim to liberate Palestine. That conflict killed over 158 Israelis and over 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians.

From 2011, during the Syrian civil war, Hezbollahs power grew further as its forces assisted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran, against mostly Sunni rebels. In 2021, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group had 100,000 fighters (though other estimates range between 25,000 and 50,000). It boasts a sophisticated military arsenal equipped with precision rockets and drones.

The group has also functioned as a political party in Lebanon and holds significant influence, often described as a state within a state. Eight members were first elected to the Lebanese parliament in 1992, and in 2018, a Hezbollah-led coalition formed a government.

Hezbollah retained its 13 seats at the 2022 election but the coalition lost its majority and the country currently has no fully functioning government. Other Lebanese parties accuse Hezbollah of paralysing and undermining the state and of contributing to Lebanons persistent instability.

What is Hamas?

Hamas, which translates literally as zeal, is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic resistance movement. The group was founded in 1987, in Gaza, as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a prominent Sunni group based in Egypt.

Emerging during whats known as the first intifada or uprising of Palestinians against Israeli occupation, Hamas quickly adopted the principle of armed resistance and called for the annihilation of Israel.

Palestinian politics shifted significantly after 1993s Oslo accords, a series of agreements negotiated between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) with the aim of establishing a comprehensive peace agreement.

Opposed to the peace process, Hamass armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, established itself as the primary force of armed resistance against Israel. It launched a series of suicide bomb attacks that continued through the early years of the second intifada (2000-2005), before shifting to rockets as a primary tactic.

Like Hezbollah, Hamas operates as a political party. It won parliamentary elections in 2006, and in 2007, it gained control of the Gaza Strip in a bloody battle with rival party Fatah that left over 100 dead. Hamas has controlled Gaza ever since, showing little tolerance for political opposition. They have never held elections, and political opponents and critics are frequently arrested with reports of torture.

Over this time, Hamass armed wing has become increasingly sophisticated. Its arsenal now comprises thousands of rockets, including long-range missiles and drones.

Differences between Hamas and Hezbollah

Hamas has increasingly received funding, weapons and training from Iran, but it is not in Irans pocket to the same degree as Hezbollah, which is backed almost exclusively by Iran and takes its directives from the Islamic Republic.

Whats more, as a Sunni organisation, Hamas does not share the Shia religious link to Iran that characterises Hezbollah and most of Irans proxies. As a result, while Hamas no doubt benefits from Irans patronage, it tends to operate more independently than Hezbollah.

In contrast, Hamas has received support in the past from Turkey and Qatar, among others, and operates with relative autonomy. The group was also long at odds with Iran over their opposing stances in Syria.

Right now, this is very much a war between Israel and Hamas. Hezbollah remains, however, a threat to Israel. If activated by Iran, its full involvement would rapidly change the course of the conflict and likely open up a regional war.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Joe Biden had a whirlwind visit to Israel on Wednesday (18 October) during which he expressed solidarity with Benjamin Netanyahu in the fight against Hamas, and offered aid to suffering Palestinians being choked by the Israeli siege in the Gaza Strip.

His eight-hour visit, however, was overshadowed by catastrophe even before Air Force One touched down at Tel Avivs Ben Gurion airport. An explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing nearly 500, made his visit only that much trickier.

Experts note that his balancing act in Tel Aviv has now linked Biden to any fight that Israel may face in the near future.

From a risk perspective, Biden is now tied to whatever the Israelis decide to do in Gaza, said Jon B Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The US president is wagering that consoling, negotiating with and aiding Israel give him the most influence shaping their actions, he said.

His plans to quickly push billions of dollars more in aid for Israel through Congress is likely to fuel debates on US taxpayer funds. Meanwhile, the US veto of a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire has angered allies.

Biden said the US would provide $100 million in new funding for humanitarian aid in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The United States has urged Israel to allow humanitarian aid to help Palestinians.

Already, the White House acknowledges it needs to better explain Bidens Israel policy at home.

Biden will give a prime time White House address on Thursday, to discuss our response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine, the White House said on Wednesday.

After departing Tel Aviv, Biden gave his first on-the-record press cabin briefing on Air Force One as president to tell reporters he had worked with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to open the Rafah crossing for humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Maintaining credibility may only grow harder for Biden when a ground invasion increases civilian casualties, said Ezra Cohen, a fellow at the Hudson Institute and former US undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

You have ground troops on the ground, going house to house, battles in the street, with Hamas, with civilians still trapped there because Hamas wont let them leave, Cohen said.

He said Biden is going to have to be very concerned about explaining to the American people that Israel follows the law of armed conflict.

Several vocal critics assert that Israel is not.

Some 78 per cent of Americans, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, support US diplomatic efforts to allow Gaza residents fleeing the fighting to move to a safe country, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Less than half, 41 per cent, said they agreed with a statement that the US should support Israel in its conflict with Hamas; just 2 per cent said the US should support the Palestinians.

The situation threatens to unravel years of diplomatic work courting partners in the Arab and Muslim world from Turkey to Saudi Arabia and Egypt to Qatar amid hopes that deeper ties would make Israel safer, counter US foes from Tehran to Moscow and Beijing, and keep US gas prices in check.

Diplomacy to normalise ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel is now on ice as Biden tries to contain a spiralling crisis from engulfing West Asia and sparking a direct confrontation with Iran.

Being a president means making bets, and Biden has made one, Alterman said. Well see how this turns out.

With inputs from Reuters
On Wednesday, the world was angry. It was furious. There were protests across different nations to show their outrage in the aftermath of the deadly explosion at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.

While the Gaza health ministry blamed Israel for the incident, Jerusalem has blamed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group for the tragedy. The Israeli military produced evidence to show that the blast was the result of a rocket launched by the militant group Islamic Jihad misfiring. Even the United States stated that it believed that it wasnt Israel with Joe Biden saying that the hospital strike on Gaza seems to have been done by other team, in reference to Palestinian militants.

Also read: Israel or Palestinian Islamic Jihad? Who bombed the Gaza hospital?

But nothing seemed to appease people who were incensed. Spontaneous protests broke out not only in countries in the West Asia region but also as far as in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and more.
The Israel-Hamas war, now entering Day 13, has extracted a huge toll; over 2,500 people are dead, thousands of others are injured and millions have been displaced from their homes. With the Gaza hospital bombing on Wednesday, there are concerns that the conflict will escalate and plunge the area of West Asia into instability and violence.

However, amid the grief, the anguish and the fury, there seems to be a sector that is smiling. Their smiles are because the war is benefiting them.

Who are we talking about?

The defence sector  the military contractors whose stocks have seen a steady rise since Israel declared war against Hamas after the deadly and brazen attack on 7 October.

We take a closer look at how numerous defence manufacturing firms have seen a bump in their stock value and how the business of war benefits them each time a region is plunged into conflict.

Defence stocks on a high

Shares of contractors such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Britains BAE Systems have seen a jump of around 10 per cent since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Northrop Grummans shares are trading 16 per cent higher.

Arlington-based RTX, which has been hit by defects, also saw gains of five per cent. The stocks for Germanys Rheinmetall, the maker of the guns for Leopard 2 tanks, have jumped also jumped 17 per cent.

Incidentally, Lockheed Martin manufactures the F-35 fighter jets, which are used by the Israeli military. Similarly, Northrop Grumman manufactures combat vehicles, which are used by Israel.

On 16 October, a Reuters report stated that Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF attracted $48 million in net weekly inflows, its best showing since July 2022. In Europe, the recently launched Future of Defence ETF saw weekly inflows of $1.1 million.

The Anadolu Agency further reported that French-based Dassault and Thales shares were up 4.15 per cent and 4.26 per cent, while Turkiyes, Aselsan arms companys shares added 7.23 last Monday.

Speaking on the gains, Bernstein analysts led by Douglas Harned stated, War stocks typically notch immediate gains after geopolitical shocks, but history shows those increases generally stall and are not sustainable.

Other commentators have agreed with this analysis, but cautioned that any escalation in the war, such as if other West Asia states join in, could trigger more extreme market responses. This is a potential scenario, especially as Iran is reported to have helped plan the Hamas operation.

Defence on a war high

This isnt the first time that defence companies are seeing huge spikes in their share value. In 2022, as Russia and Ukraine went to war against one another, the defence industry supplying the weapons to both sides, saw gains and made substantial profits.

In the early days of the war, Lockheed Martins stock price rose by 2.79 per cent to $396.19. Similarly, aerospace specialist rival Northrop Grumman experienced a steep 4.53 per cent gain to $399.32, while shipbuilding giant Huntington Ingalls saw its stock price increase by 2.34 per cent to $183.87, and surveillance specialists L3Harris rose by 3.60 per cent to $222.97.

Prior to this, the same was seen during the start of the Gulf War in 1990, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Time of war and increased defence spending

Many analysts believe that in todays time of war and aggressive muscular posturing, defence companies experience the greatest windfalls.

What does this mean? A threat of war or conflict has seen nations up their defence budgets, which, in turn, is beneficial to defence companies.

According to a study by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military spending reached an all-time high of $2.24 trillion last year  eighth year in a row. The SIPRI study noted that Europe saw the steepest rise in at least 30 years in military spending  13 per cent up. SIPRI said most of that was linked to Russia and Ukraine, but other countries also stepped up military spending in response to perceived Russian threats.

The study also revealed that Russias military spending grew by an estimated 9.2 per cent to about $86.4 billion, equivalent to 4.1 per cent of the countrys GDP in 2022, up from 3.7 per cent in 2021.

And this rise in military spending isnt exclusive to European nations. Even Asian nations such as India, Japan and South Korea saw a boost in defence budgets on account of a more aggressive and muscular China.

For instance, India was the fourth largest defence spender, 6 per cent more than in 2021 and 47 per cent more than in 2013, a reflection of continuing border tensions with both China and Pakistan.

Additionally, Japan, who has been known to be a pacifist country, announced a boost to its defence budget for 2023 to a record 6.8 trillion yen ($55 billion) in the face of regional security concerns and threats posed by China and North Korea. The announcement had made big headlines the world over, as it was an historic change from Japans exclusively self-defence policy since the end of World War II.

Similarly, South Korea also proposed a $42.1 billion defence budget for 2023. It said the new expenditure is a 4.6 per cents increase over the allocation in 2022. The ruling government attributed the increase to South Koreas severe security situation  a reference to North Koreas escalating efforts to test and launch strategic missiles.

As Dr Nan Tian, a senior researcher with SIPRIs military expenditure and arms production programme, said: The continuous rise in global military expenditure in recent years is a sign that we are living in an increasingly insecure world.

And this insecure world isnt changing anytime soon, meaning defence budgets will keep rising, and arms manufacturers will continue to gain from death and destruction.

With inputs from agencies
POTUS is home. The president of the United States, Joe Biden, is back in Washington after his eight-hour visit to Israel during which he reaffirmed his countrys support to the conflict-ridden nation. In his meeting with Israels Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president expressed his solidarity with Jerusalem against their fight with Hamas and also batted for the two-state solution.

We are measured by the power of our example, and thats why as hard as it is, we must keep pursuing peace, he said after his meeting with Netanyahu.

We must keep pursuing a path so that Israel and the Palestinian people can both live safely and securely in dignity and in peace

For me, that means a two-state solution, the US president said.

In his remarks during which he also announced $100 million for humanitarian aid in the war-torn Gaza and the West Bank, Biden said that the recent attacks had made him even more determined in his efforts to push for a two-state solution.

We must keep working for Israels greater integration with its neighbours. These attacks have only strengthened my commitment and determination and my will to get that done, he added.

Biden is not alone in his push for the two-state solution. As the war continues to extract a heavy death toll, many leaders across the world have affirmed their support to the two-state solution.

But what exactly is this two-state solution? Will it help resolve the years-long conflict between Israel and Palestine? Who has expressed support for it?

What is the two-state solution?

The two-state solution is born out of the years-long conflict between Israel and Palestine, and at the most basic level it is about how or whether to divide territory between the two peoples  the Jews and the Arabs.

What the two-state solution proposes is establishing two states for two peoples: Israel for the Jewish people and Palestine for the Palestinian people. As the New York Times reports, this, in theory, would win Israel security and allow it to retain a Jewish demographic majority (letting the country remain Jewish and democratic) while granting the Palestinians a state.

According to The Print, the genesis of the modern two-state solution lies with the Camp David Accords, a treaty of peace signed between Egypt and Israel in 1978. It was in 1988 that the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) recognised the right of Israel to exist, which indicated its willingness to a two-state solution.

It was between 1993 and 1995 through the Oslo Accords I and II that Palestinians recognised the State of Israel and Israel recognised its historical enemy, the PLO, as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. A self-governing Palestinian Authority was set up.

However, in the subsequent years, negotiations failed and Hamas, who is in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007, rejected the two-state solution till at least 2017.

Why hasnt the two-state solution been implemented?

Though simplistic in nature, there have been demands from both sides that have made the implementation of the two-state solution nearly impossible. The first hurdle is the matter of borders. Israel has constructed barriers along and within the West Bank as well as built settlements in the West Bank. This makes it difficult to establish that land as part of an independent Palestine.

Another problem in the two-state solution is Jerusalem. Both sides claim the ancient city as their capital. This is because of its huge historical and religious significance for both Israelis and Palestinians and the fact it is home to several holy sites in Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

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Israel claims Jerusalem is their undivided capital, and it is the seat of the Israeli government and parliament (Knesset). However, the eastern part of Jerusalem is widely recognised as Palestinian territory.

Apart from the issue of demarcation of land, is the issue of refugees. Almost five million Palestinians who were forced from their homes in todays Israel wish to return. However, this is unacceptable by Israel, who argues that the demographics of the country would be affected by the influx of people.

Security concerns are also central to Israel as its constantly harassed by terrorist groups such as Hamas that controls Gaza Strip. Hamas and other Islamist groups in Gaza launch rockets into Israel time-to-time. Moreover, there are also concerns of Palestinian attacks inside Israel.

Who supports the two-state solution?

Even though Israel and Palestine both support this solution in theory, conditions laid down by them make it difficult for its implementation. For instance, Israel demands that the Palestinian side demilitarises  as it sees Hamas and other militant groups, as an existential threat.

Fatah and the governing Palestinian Authority in the West Bank support the solution, providing they are allowed to police themselves.

Other countries have also affirmed their support to the two-state solution. Joe Biden had last year also said that the two-state solution is the best way to achieve lasting negotiated peace between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people.

Apart from the US, countries such as China, Germany and other Western nations have also batted for the solution. India, too, expresses support for the two-state solution with Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi recent saying that India advocated the resumption of direct negotiations for a peaceful resolution between the two states.

On 12 October, the MEA statement had read: Our policy in this regard has been long-standing and consistent. India has always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent, and viable State of Palestine living within secure and recognized borders, side by side at peace with Israel.

And as Israel declared war on Hamas, the Arab nations also urged for talks on the two-state solution. On 11 October, at an emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo, Arab foreign ministers underlined the importance of resuming the peace process and starting serious negotiations between the PLO and Israel.

Notably, public sentiment among members of the public in both Israel and Palestinian-controlled areas has been moving away from the idea of creating a two-state solution for the region. Public surveys carried out in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank have revealed that only one in three people now see the feasibility of a political resolution to the issue.

According to the Pew Research Centers survey, a growing number of Israelis are beginning to doubt the feasibility of a two-state solution, with only 35 per cent of respondents believing that a peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine can be achieved. This is 15 per cent down from a decade ago and the lowest it has ever been.

If not two-state solution, is there another way?

But the two-state solution isnt the only option. However, these are more drastic with other governments considering the two-state solution unacceptable.

One version is to have one state in which all would be granted equal rights and the state would be neither Jewish nor Palestinian in character. However, many fear this would risk internal instability or even a return to war.

Another option, advocated by a few on the Israeli far right, is to establish one state but preserve Israels Jewish character by denying full rights to Palestinians. Under this version, Israel would no longer be a democratic state.

With inputs from agencies
Soumya Vishwanathan, a TV journalist, was shot dead in south Delhi on her way home from work in 2008. A Delhi court, on Wednesday, convicted the killers of Soumya Vishwanathan after a 15-year legal battle. As part of an organised crime syndicate, Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, and Ajay Kumar were convicted guilty of murder and other offences.

But how did the Delhi police track down the murderers? A hand tattoo, a stolen wi-fi set, and CCTV footage were the key elements in solving the case.

Years of mystery

The murder of journalist Soumya Vishwanthan made headlines and shocked all when it took place.

The Delhi Police remained confused for six months, believing it was a robbery investigation, until they discovered the first and most crucial lead when they detained two accused for being involved in the death of another woman.

A Delhi court Wednesday convicted four persons  Kapoor, Shukla, Malik and Ajay Kumar  of an organised crime syndicate for murder and other offences for the killing of Vishwanathan.

Officials stated on Wednesday that a hand tattoo, a wireless device stolen from a police officer, and CCTV evidence helped Delhi Police crack the case of IT professional Jigisha Ghoshs murder and eventually led investigators to the murders of TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan.

Also Read: Five convicted in journalist Soumya Vishwanathan case: A look back at the 2008 murder and its aftermath

Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, and Baljeet Malik, who were arrested in 2009 for the murder of Ghosh, eventually confessed to their involvement in the murder of Vishwanathan in 2008.

The court also convicted fifth accused Ajay Sethi under section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) and Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) provisions for conspiring to abet, aid or knowingly facilitate organised crime and for receiving the proceeds of organised crime.

Following the confessional statements of the trio, the Delhi Police arrested Ajay Kumar and Ajay Sethi and booked all five for killing Vishwanathan in the wee hours of 30 September in 2009 when she was returning home from work.

Clues from CCTV footage and tattoo

Ghosh was looted and murdered on 18 March, 2009.

The murder case of Jigisha was solved two-three days after her body was recovered from Suraj Kund area in Faridabad. We had got the first lead from a CCTV footage where we found one of the accused was having a tattoo on his hand, while shopping using Jigishas debit card. Another was carrying a wireless set and wearing a cap, Atul Kumar Verma who was the investigating officer of the case told PTI.

Then the officers worked meticulously on Delhi Polices human intelligence network and soon, the police team reached the residence of Malik in Masoodpur. Kapoor and Shukla were arrested subsequently.

Malik had his name inked on his hand while Kapoor used to a carry wireless set which he had snatched from a police officer.

They revealed that they kidnapped Jigisha from near her house in Vasant Vihar and later killed and dumped her body after looting her. They also did shopping using her debit cards, Verma said.

Verma was leading a team of officials from Vasant Vihar police station.

We were a bit shocked when Ravi Kapoor himself revealed that they had committed the murder of another girl at Nelson Mandela Marg, which was not very far from Vasant Vihar, said Verma. He also said two other associates  Ajay Kumar and Ajay Sethi  were involved in that murder.

Forensic evidence and confessions led to justice

The then Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), HGS Dhaliwal, immediately set up another team of officers and appointed then ACP Bhisham Singh to look into both the murder cases.

Singh told PTI, Since we had just confession of the accused for Soumya murder case, the major challenge before us was to collect forensic evidence as well.

Detailing the night when Vishwanathan was killed, police said Kapoor drove a Maruti Wagon R car and Shukla sat next to him. Malik and Kumar occupied the rear seat. All of them were drunk, the police said.

On 30 September, a car zoomed past their vehicle. It was a Maruti Zen which Soumya was driving back to her home in Vasant Kunj. She was returning from TV Todays office then located at Videocon Tower in Karol Bagh, another officer, O P Thakur, who was among the investigators, said.

On seeing a woman driver overtaking them and that she was alone, they raised the speed of their vehicle and came closer to her vehicle.

First, they tried to waylaid her, and when she did not stop her car, Kapoor opened fire at Vishwanathans vehicle. The bullet hit her in the temple leaving her dead on the spot.

Vishwanathans car stopped after ramming into a divider.

All the accused fled from the spot but 20 minutes later returned to see her condition. When they saw police personnel, they ran away, the officer said.

We are very satisfied today. The conviction has happened basically due to three reasons  weapon of offence which was recovered from the accused, the forensic sketch of the spot and the sequence of incident matched with the confession statement of the accused, Singh said.

With inputs from PTI
The US Treasury has sanctioned 10 Hamas members, operatives, and financial felicitators on Wednesday, including a top commander, as the battle rages in the aftermath of the terrorist groups surprise strike on Israel.

The latest sanctions target individuals in Gaza and elsewhere, including Sudan, Turkey, Algeria, and Qatar, according to a statement from the State Department.

Members who oversee a Hamas investment portfolio, a Qatar-based financial facilitator with deep ties to the Iranian government, a Hamas commander, and a Gaza-based virtual currency exchange are among those targeted for sanctions by the Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The United States is taking swift and decisive action to target Hamass financiers and facilitators following its brutal and unconscionable massacre of Israeli civilians, including children, said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

The US Treasury has a long history of effectively disrupting terror finance and we will not hesitate to use our tools against Hamas, she said in an emailed statement, as reported by AP.

The sanctions

The sanctions are financial penalties aimed at preventing access to funds held in the United States and preventing people and businesses from doing business with Americans.

The sanctions, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, are directed at Hamas terrorists and their support network, not Palestinians.

Hamas alone is responsible for the carnage its militants have inflicted on the people of Israel, and it should immediately release all hostages in its custody, Blinken said. The United States will not relent in using all the tools at our disposal to disrupt Hamas terrorist activity.

Hamas launched a surprise attack in Israel on 7 October, resulting in over 1,400 casualties, mainly civilians, and hostages taken to Gaza. Israel retaliated, causing nearly 3,500 deaths, mostly civilians, and over 12,000 injuries in Gaza.

The sanctions come as President Joe Biden visits Tel Aviv on Wednesday to show support for Israel and to hold meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the sanctioned parties helped enable Hamas to carry out acts like the vicious attack on Israel.

Todays actions are directed at Hamas terrorists and their support network, not Palestinians, he added, calling for a release of hostages in its custody.

Also Read: Hamas vs Hezbollah: Differences and similarities, explained

Yellen added that Washington will continue to take all steps necessary to deny Hamas the ability to raise funds for carrying out atrocities.

To date, the Treasury said it has taken aim at nearly 1,000 individuals and entities connected to terrorism and terrorist financing by the Iranian regime and proxies including Hamas and Hezbollah.

Investment portfolio

In addition to the funds Hamas receives from Iran, its global portfolio of investments generates vast sums of revenue through its assets, estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the Treasury said.

Among those designated on Wednesday are six people associated with a Hamas secret investment portfolio.

Also Read: Its Getting Grimmer in Gaza: How many days of water, food, power left?

They include Musa Muhammad Salim Dudin, a member of Hamass Political Bureau; as well as Abdelbasit Hamza Elhassan Mohamed Khair, a Sudan-based Hamas financier.

Two senior Hamas officials, were also targeted: Muhammad Ahmad Abd Al-Dayim Nasrallah based in Qatar and Ayman Nofal, who was allegedly killed in an airstrike on Tuesday, the Treasury said.

The department also took aim at a Gaza-based virtual currency exchange, alongside its operator, noting that Hamas has relied on donations including via virtual currency.

As a result of the sanctions, property of designated individuals in the US must be blocked and reported, alongside other restrictions.

Also Read: Amid the Israel-Hamas war, how Benjamin Netanyahu is losing the battle at home

Financial institutions engaging in certain transactions with sanctioned parties could also expose themselves to enforcement.

Were cutting them off from access to their money, said a Treasury official, adding that senior officials will also be traveling to coordinate with allies.

Will not tolerate any funds to Hamas

The White House has stated that it has yet to discover evidence that Iran, Hamas primary financial and military sponsor, was directly involved in the multi-pronged Hamas assault  the largest strike on Israel in decades. US officials have stated that their intelligence does not indicate a direct role by Iran and have not assigned blame to the country.

Wally Adeyemo, Treasury Deputy Secretary, told reporters on Wednesday that Treasury officials will travel to the region in the coming days to continue their sanctions work.

Also Read: Israel-Hamas war: A look at antisemitism, anti-Zionism amid rising hate crimes in West

Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Illicit Finance Brian Nelson said on Tuesday at a Deloitte anti-money laundering conference that the US is renewing its plans to pursue Hamas funding sources and urged American allies and the private sector to do the same or be prepared to suffer the consequences.

We cannot, and we will not, tolerate money flowing through the international system for Hamas terrorist activity, he said.

We want to partner with all willing countries and financial entities to stop Hamas financing, he went on to say, but to the extent that any institution or jurisdiction fails to take appropriate action, they should then be prepared to suffer the consequences.

With inputs from AP and AFP
Amid the backdrop of the war between Israel and Hamas, tensions are rising in the West Bank.

At least 64 Palestinians have been killed in protests in the West Bank during widespread protests against Israels bombing of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said.

This comes as Israel prepares a ground assault in the Gaza Strip in response to a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, on 7 October.

But what is the West Bank? And how are tensions rising?

Lets take a closer look:

What is the West Bank?

The West Bank is land to Israels east.

It lies on the West Bank of the River Jordan  hence its name  and is bordered by Israel to its north, west and south.

It borders Jerusalem  which houses sites sacred to Muslims, Christians and Jews and is a flashpoint for internecine violence.

Israel captured the West Bank, which measures 5,628 square kilometres, in what is known as the Six-Day War in 1967 when it fought and defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

It has since let Jewish people move on to the land which it considers of great importance.

As per Vox, the Jews consider the West Bank integral to the ancient Jewish state which has several ancient sites including Hebrons the Cave of the Patriarchs.

Obviously, this is a problem for Palestinians  many of whom continue to call their land home.

As per BBC, the West Bank is home to two to three million Palestinians and around half a million Jews.

The West Bank is home to the Palestinian Authority (PA)  based in Ramallah  which is dominated by Hamas rivals Fatah and 87-year-old Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

Ramallah serves as the de facto administrative capital of Palestine.

Israel also considers its presence in the West Bank strategically important to its self-defence.

West Bank under new Netanyahu government

Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  in its most right-wing government in history has made the construction of settlements in the West Bank a top priority.

Netanyahus office in June announced plans to build 1,000 new homes for the Eli settlement in West Bank.

Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whom he has given sweeping powers to construct settlements and thereby bypass measures that have been in place for decades, agreed to move ahead immediately with the planning the statement added.

Al Jazeera reported that the move was in the offing for some time and it allows Smotrich to effectively take over the entire illegal settlement-building process.

We will continue to develop the settlement project and strengthen Israeli control of the territory, Smotrich was quoted as saying.

The Palestinian foreign ministry at the time called the move a dangerous escalation to complete the annexation of the West Bank.

Al Jazeera reported that the move was in the offing for some time and it allows Smotrich to effectively take over the entire illegal settlement-building process.

We will continue to develop the settlement project and strengthen Israeli control of the territory, Smotrich was quoted as saying.

The Palestinian foreign ministry at the time called the move a dangerous escalation to complete the annexation of the West Bank.

The international community including the United Nations and the UK government regards Israels move as illegal and considers the land occupied.

Israel rejects this assertion  as did the United States under Donald Trump.

But United States has cautioned Israel against building new settlements.

The United States opposes such unilateral actions that make a two-state solution more difficult to achieve and are an obstacle to peace, state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at the time. We call on the Government of Israel to fulfill the commitments it made in Aqaba, Jordan and Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt and return to dialogue aimed at de-escalation.

How are tensions rising?

The West Bank has witnessed a sharp uptick in fatal clashes with the army and settlers.

Palestinians in the West Bank have been angered by Israeli forces bombardment of Gaza in response to the attack their fiercest bombing campaign ever  leaving more than 3,000 Palestinians and imposing a total siege on the blockaded enclave that Hamas controls.

As per NPR, dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the aftermath of the 7 October Hamas attack  seemingly in revenge killings.

Qusra Mayor Hani Awda Abu Aalaa told NPR three of his people were murdered trying to defend children in a home attacked by settlers. Then, soldiers entered the village and killed another person.

The attacks on Qusra are ongoing and are on a daily basis. As you can see in all these pictures, we have an attack on a mosque. We have attack on agricultural sites. Wherever you look here, its attacks by Israeli soldiers and settlers, the worst of which was the one we had a couple of days ago, Aalaa added.

Aalaa claimed to CNN that settlers, who are protected by the Israeli police, roam freely in the village.

Speaking to CNN, Palestinians in the West Bank their movements are being severely restricted  which has impacted their ability to travel for work, school, medical treatment and other essential activities.

Qusra saw an apartment building being attacked on 11 October by armed settlers.

Four people were shot dead  Musaab Abu Raidi, 19, Obaida Abu Srour, 18, Hassan Muhannad, 22, and Moath Odesa, 29  after neighbours arrived to help.

Meanwhile, Rabeea, 19, and her brother, Abdulrahman, 12, watched from inside the building with a mix of fear and dismay. They said they and their mother hid inside as settlers threw rocks and opened fire on the building.

I feel so bad. I want to cry but, what can we do? Rabeea, whose family is leaving for another village, said. I want to stay here but we cant do anything.

At a building a short drive away, Ibrahim and Ahmad are in mourning over the attack.

Thank God, we are strong. And God willing, we will continue to have strength and patience, Khitam Wadi, Ibrahims wife and Ahmads mother, told CNN.

My husband loved his land. He defended his land. And we will continue to do the same so long as we are alive, she added.

Two teens shot dead near Ramallah, protests in West Bank

Israeli forces on Wednesday shot dead two Palestinian teenagers near Ramallah.

A statement from the Palestinian Authoritys health ministry said Israeli forces shot a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old in the village of Shuqba west of Ramallah.

It did not elaborate.

Residents told Reuters the two boys were trying to set fire to tyres in protest against Israel when they were shot. Israels defence forces, asked for comment, said they were looking into the incident.

This came after hundreds of Palestinians marched in West Bank cities, a day after a deadly hospital explosion in Gaza.

Israel has denied blame and said the hospital was hit by an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired.

Waving Palestinian flags and chanting for Hamas, a rare show of support for the militant group that has a relatively small presence in the West Bank, some young Palestinians said they were ready to resort to violence to oppose Israels assault.

With our blood and spirit, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Gaza! a crowd in Ramallah chanted, later shouting we want the Qassam Brigades, a reference to Hamass military wing.

Hamas said separately that one of its members in the West Bank was killed trying to throw an explosive device at Israeli security forces near the northern city of Nablus on Wednesday.

Salah, a 20-year-old at the Ramallah protest who identified himself only by his first name, said he hoped more people would rally to the Palestinian cause.

Everyone must come and defend Gaza. Whoever has stones should come and throw them, whoever has guns should come and shoot them, he said.

Hamas said on Wednesday that an explosion at the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital in Gaza killed hundreds of people and blamed Israeli strikes. Israel says a failed rocket launch by militants in Gaza was the cause of the blast and accuses Hamas of inflating the death toll.

In Ramallah, Palestinian security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters throwing rocks and chanting against Abbas on Tuesday after the Gaza hospital attack.

The outbreak of West Bank protests also highlights long-simmering Palestinian anger against Abbas, whose forces have long faced criticism for coordinating with Israel on security in the territory.

The people want the fall of the president, demonstrators chanted in Ramallah.

Hundreds of protesters in Nablus, many draped in Palestinian flags and some holding Hamas banners, chanted slogans against Israel and its ally the United States.

Free, free Palestine, chanted the protesters.

Down, down with Abbas, they chanted.

An AFP correspondent in Nablus said Palestinian security forces fired tear gas at protesters as they marched out of the city centre.

After touching down in Tel Aviv Wednesday morning, US president Joe Biden threw his support behind Israels account of the strike, telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it appears as though it was done by the other team.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which both established ties with Israel under the US-brokered Abraham Accords of 2020, condemned what they called the Israeli attack.

Morocco, another country that recognised Israel in 2020, also blamed it for the strike, as did Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab country to normalise relations with Israel.

For 12 days now, Israel has carried out a withering bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for the killing of 1,400 people who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death in shock cross-border attacks launched by Hamas on 7 October.

Around 3,000 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli air strikes, according to health officials.

With inputs from agencies
Israel has responded to the 7 October attack by killing a number of top Hamas officials.

The Times of Israel quoted Hamas-affiliated media in Gaza as reporting that Jamila al-Shanti was killed in Israeli airstrikes.

Al-Shanti was the first woman in Hamas political bureau.

The news was posted on X:

    ( )         (    )  #_ pic.twitter.com/Gk9OTZpuC8      (@M_alrantisi1979) October 19, 2023

The post read: The martyrdom of my dear friend, Jamila Al-Shanti, a member of the political bureau of the Hamas movement in Gaza (To God we belong and to Him we shall return).

Information about the strike remains scarce with the reports only mentioning that it happened at dawn.

As per The Times of Israel, al-Shantis death takes the number of Hamas political bureau members killed in airstrikes since the 7 October attack to four.

But what do we know about al-Shanti? And which other top Hamas officials have been killed?

Lets take a closer look:

Who is al-Shanti?

Al-Shanti is the first woman elected to Hamas highest decision-making body.

She was the widow of Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi.

As per The Week, Rantisi died in an Israeli airstrike in 2004 during the Second Intifada.

As per Palestine Chronicle, al-Shanti was born in 1957.

She was a Palestinian refugee from Gazas Jabaliya Refugee Camp.

She had a Ph.D. in English and was among a slew of women elected in 2006 as part of the Hamas electoral list.

She did so after being elected a member of the Legislative Council for the Change and Reform bloc.

As per Jersualem Post, Shanti was a founder of Hamass womens movement

As per The Times of Israel, the 68-year al-Shanti was elected to Hamas political bureau in 2021.

This confirms the Hamas movements respect for Palestinian women, their struggle, heroism, and sacrifices, a senior Hamas official told Palestinian media outlet Dunya al-Watan in 2021.

As per The Week, al-Shanti told Palestines Al-Aqsa TV channel at the time that women in Hamas leadership would make priceless contributions to the future of the movement.

As a (Palestinian) womens movement, we havent been officially in the Hamas political bureau before, but we have participated in the organization and in decision-making during the preceding period, al-Shanti told the media organisation.

This means that Palestinian women have an identity and power (that can be expressed directly) on the Palestinian political scene, and their effective participation has made them worthy of being in any position, al-Shanti added.

Other top Hamas officials killed

Israel has systematically targeted top Hamas officials in response for the 7 October attacks.

As per The Times of Israel, Zakariya Abu Moammar, Jawad Abu Shamala and Osama Mazini are the other top Hamas officials killed by Israel in airstrikes.

Moammar was the head of the terror groups internal relations, while Shamala was in charge of the groups funds.

Moammar and Shamala were both killed on 10 October.

Mazini, a senior member of the political bureau, was killed on 16 October.

Mazini was a former head of Hamass Shura Council and a Hamas education minister.

As per The Times of India, Mazini was the head of the Shura Council of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

He was involved in the capture of prisoners and directed attacks against Israel.

Top Hamas commanders wiped out

Israel has also killed a number of Hamas top commanders.

According to News18, Ayman Nofal, a senior Hamas armed commander in Gaza, was killed earlier this week.

The news was confirmed by Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades  an armed wing of Hamas  on Tuesday.

Nofal was a member of the higher military council of Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades.

He was in charge of the Central Gaza area.

As per The Times of Israel, General Jihad Muheisen, chief of the Palestinian National Security Forces in the Gaza Strip was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.

As per Jerusalem Post, Muheisen died in the attack with his family.

The IDF is yet to confirm his death.

Rafat Abu Hilal, the head of the military wing of Gazas Popular Resistance Committees terror group, was also killed.

The group is the third-largest terror outfit on the Strip  after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as per The Times of Israel.

Khan Yunis, Hamas head of General Intelligence, was also killed on Monday, as per Jerusalem Post.

As per NDTV, top Hamas commander Billal Al Kedra was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday.

Al Kedra was a commander of the elite Nukhba force, a highly trained Hamas unit under the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Al Kedra, who was in charge of the Kibbutz Nirim massacre in Israel, was killed in Khan Yunis  a city in the south of Gaza Strip.

Nirim, a settlement near the Gaza border, was one of the targets attacked by Hamas.

The Israel Air Forces last week said that it killed Murad Abu Murad  the head of Hamass Air Force  in an overnight airstrike.

The strike targeted a headquarters from which Hamas managed its aerial activity in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Air Force said that Murad Abu Murad was largely responsible for directing terrorists during the massacre on Saturday.

In a post on X, the Israeli Air Force stated, Also, during the last day, fighter jets of the Air Force attacked the operational headquarters of the terrorist organization Hamas, from where the organizations aerial activities were managed. During the attack, Murad Abu Murad, the head of the air formation in Gaza City who took a large part and directed terrorists in the murderous attack on Saturday, was killed.

With inputs from agencies
In the midst of relentless Israeli bombardment, Palestinians in besieged Gaza are left in despair, seeking refuge. Many wonder why neighbouring Egypt and Jordan, with shared borders, dont take them in.

The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population.

On Wednesday, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his toughest remarks yet. He said, the current war was not just aimed at fighting Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to  migrate to Egypt. He warned this could wreck peace in the region.

Jordans King Abdullah II gave a similar message a day earlier, saying, No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.

Their refusal is rooted in fear that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries and nullify Palestinian demands for statehood. El-Sissi also said a mass exodus would risk bringing militants into Egypts Sinai Peninsula, from where they might launch attacks on Israel, endangering the two countries 40-year-old peace treaty.

Here is a look at what is motivating Egypts and Jordans stances.

A history of displacement

Displacement has been a major theme of Palestinian history. In the 1948 war around Israels creation, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from what is now Israel. Palestinians refer to the event as the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe.

Also Read: Israel-Hamas war: A look at antisemitism, anti-Zionism amid rising hate crimes in West

In the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 300,000 more Palestinians fled, mostly into Jordan.

The refugees and their descendants now number nearly six million, most living in camps and communities in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The diaspora has spread further, with many refugees building lives in Gulf Arab countries or the West.

After fighting stopped in the 1948 war, Israel refused to allow refugees to return to their homes. Since then, Israel has rejected Palestinian demands for a return of refugees as part of a peace deal, arguing that it would threaten the countrys Jewish majority.

Egypt fears history will repeat itself and a large Palestinian refugee population from Gaza will end up staying for good.

No guarantee of return

Thats in part because theres no clear scenario for how this war will end.

Also Read: Hamas vs Hezbollah: Differences and similarities, explained

Israel says it intends to destroy Hamas for its bloody rampage in its southern towns. But it has given no indication of what might happen afterward and who would govern Gaza. That has raised concerns that it will reoccupy the territory for a period, fuelling further conflict.

The Israeli military said Palestinians who followed its order to flee northern Gaza to the strips southern half would be allowed back to their homes after the war ends.

Egypt is not reassured.

El-Sissi said fighting could last for years if Israel argues it hasnt sufficiently crushed militants. He proposed that Israel house Palestinians in its Negev Desert, which neighbours the Gaza Strip, until it ends its military operations.

Israels lack of clarity regarding its intentions in Gaza and the evacuation of the population is in itself problematic, said Riccardo Fabiani, Crisis Group Internationals North Africa Project Director. This confusion fuels fears in the neighbourhood.

Egypt has pushed for Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and Israel said Wednesday that it would, though it didnt say when. According to United Nations, Egypt, which is dealing with a spiralling economic crisis, already hosts some nine million refugees and migrants, including roughly 300,000 Sudanese who arrived this year after fleeing their countrys war.

Also Read: Its Getting Grimmer in Gaza: How many days of water, food, power left?

But Arab countries and many Palestinians also suspect Israel might use this opportunity to force permanent demographic changes to wreck Palestinian demands for statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which was also captured by Israel in 1967.

El-Sissi repeated warnings Wednesday that an exodus from Gaza was intended to eliminate the Palestinian cause  the most important cause of our region. He argued that if a demilitarised Palestinian state had been created long ago in negotiations, there would not be war now.

All historical precedent points to the fact that when Palestinians are forced to leave Palestinian territory, they are not allowed to return back, said HA Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Egypt doesnt want to be complicit in ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Arab countries fears have only been stoked by the rise under Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of hard-right parties that talk in positive terms about removing Palestinians. Since the Hamas attack, the rhetoric has become less restrained, with some right-wing politicians and media commentators calling for the military to raze Gaza and drive out its inhabitants. One lawmaker said Israel should carry out a new Nakba on Gaza.

Worries over Hamas

At the same time, Egypt says a mass exodus from Gaza would bring Hamas or other Palestinian militants onto its soil. That might be destabilising in Sinai, where Egypts military fought for years against Islamic militants and at one point accused Hamas of backing them.

Egypt has backed Israels blockade of Gaza since Hamas took over in the territory in 2007, tightly controlling the entry of materials and the passage of civilians back and forth. It also destroyed the network of tunnels under the border that Hamas and other Palestinians used to smuggle goods into Gaza.

Also Read: Amid the Israel-Hamas war, how Benjamin Netanyahu is losing the battle at home

With the Sinai insurgency largely put down, Cairo does not want to have a new security problem on its hands in this problematic region, Fabiani said.

El-Sissi warned of an even more destabilising scenario: the wrecking of Egypt and Israels 1979 peace deal. He said that with the presence of Palestinian militants, Sinai would become a base for attacks on Israel. Israel would have the right to defend itself  and would strike Egyptian territory.

The peace which we have achieved would vanish from our hands, he said, all for the sake of the idea of eliminating the Palestinian cause.

With inputs from AP
In the United States, the Israel-Hamas war has already caused a bitter divide in colleges.

Students in Ivy League campuses are choosing sides  with Muslim students and their backers expressing sympathy for the loss of Palestinian lives, while the Jews and their allies empathise with Israel and defend the governments carpet-bombing of Gaza in response to the 7 October Hamas attack.

But now some college students are even losing job offers over their advocacy:

Lets take a closer look:

Controversy at Harvard, Columbia

The trouble at Harvard kicked off on Monday when a joint student group  cosigned by a few dozen other student organisations  labelled Israel as entirely responsible for the war with Hamas.

Todays events did not occur in a vacuum, the letter read as per The Independent. For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison.

The apartheid regime is the only one to blame, the letter added.

It called Israels response in Gaza colonial retaliation.

That led to some prominent alumni of Harvard slamming the statement.

Then, ex-Harvard president Lawrence Summers, who is Jewish, called out the school authorities on X for their at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel.

In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today, Summers wrote.

The university president later clarified that the groups did not represent the schools position.

Then, on Wednesday, the names and personal information of the students were put up online.

The Harvard Crimson, the university newspaper reported, that a billboard truck displaying all their names and faces was driven around campus.

The billboard truck described the students as Harvards leading anti-Semites.

The truck was the brainchild of conservative group Accuracy in Media.

Law firms withdraw offers

As per BBC, an elite law firm rescinded job offers for three Ivy League students at Harvard and Columbia who signed onto the statement blaming Israel and expressing support for the Palestinian people.

The firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell, stated that the views are in direct contravention of our firms value system.

The company added that student leaders who signed the statements are no longer welcome in our firm.

These statements are simply contrary to our firms values and we thus concluded that rescinding these offers was appropriate in upholding our responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive work environment for all Davis Polk employees, the email sent by managing partner Neil Barr, according to NBC.

The conservative group remains unapologetic.

Were merely amplifying the messages that the students have put out themselves. If they regret their messages they can apologise and we will take their pictures down, Accuracy in media president Adam Guillette told the BBC.

However, the firm seems to have left the door open on reversing course.

BBC reported that the firms Barr sent an email saying that it was in conversation with two students to ensure that any further colour being offered to us by these students is considered.

David Polk & Wardwell isnt alone.

The law firm Winston & Strawn also revoked a job offer to a New York University student.

As per The New York Times, Ryna Workman, the president of NYUs universitys Student Bar Association, on Tuesday wrote that Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.

This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary, Workman wrote in the Student Bar Association bulletin. I will not condemn Palestinian resistance.

The law firm responded later that evening.

Though it did not name Workman, Winston & Strawn said the remarks profoundly conflict with its values and that it had revoked its job offer.

BBC quoted Workman as responded in a statement, This attention on one students email to their fellow law students is entirely misplaced and a dangerous distraction.

The university dean Troy A McKenzie also repudiated Workmans remarks.

McKenzie was quoted as writing by the New York Times, This message was not from N.Y.U. School of Law as an institution and does not speak for the leadership of the law school.

Bill Ackman, a prominent hedge fund manager, called for the list of names of students who signed the petition to be made public.

Ackman wrote on X that some companies had even asked for a list of members of the student groups to ensure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.

Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman wrote that he would like to know which students signed the Harvard statement so I know never to hire these people.

Same, EasyHealth CEO David Duel replied on X.

Whither free speech?

These events have raised questions about the limits of free speech.

In a statement to The NYT, NYU law school said: For legal reasons, we cannot comment on the specifics of any current student who may be under investigation. Speaking generally, all complaints of bias and/or discriminatory behavior are investigated thoroughly and in accordance with federal, state, and local guidelines, and the appropriate disciplinary action follows the outcome of that process.

As per The New York Times, Summers on Wednesday, though continuing to condemn the letter, admitted that punishing those who signed the letter is problematic.

This is not a time for witch-hunting or persecuting, Summers was quoted as saying.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire) was quoted as saying that student free speech was at stake

From a legal perspective, corporations have the right to rescind job offers, private citizens can say they never hire anyone from Harvard. But Fire urges pause, Alex Morey, Fires director of campus rights advocacy, told BBC.

Do we want to live in a society where everybody has to have one orthodox view to get a job?

With inputs from agencies
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will address two rallies in Chhattisgarhs Bastar division on Thursday, where polling will be held on November 7. Ahead of the Assembly elections, this will be Shahs second visit to the state after the announcement of the election schedule for the 90-member Assembly.

Shah earlier addressed an election rally in Rajnandgaon on October 16.

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said that the union home minister will arrive at the Maa Danteshwari Airport in Jagdalpur shortly after noon.

Shah will attend a public meeting and nomination rally at Lalbagh Maidan in Jagdalpur after his arrival. He will later leave for Kondagaon, where he will attend an election meeting and nomination rally at the Police Ground complex.

In the first phase, polling will be held in 20 Assembly segments  Konta, Bijapur, Dantewada, Chitrakot, Jagdalpur, Bastar, Narayanpur, Kondagaon, Keshkal, Kanker, Bhanupratappur, Antagarh, Mohla-Manpur, Khujji, Dongargaon, Rajnandgaon, Dongargarh, Khairagarh, Kawardha, and Pandariya.

The remaining 70 seats will be covered in the second phase. The Congress party has declared candidates for 83 out of the 90 seats. The BJP has announced its candidates for 86 seats, including all 20 going to polls in the first phase.

In the 2018 elections, the Congress registered a landslide victory, winning 68 of the 90 seats. The BJP, which had ruled the state for 15 years (2003-2018), was reduced to five seats, while the JCC (J) and the BSP bagged five and two seats, respectively.

Voting in the state will be held in two phases on November 7 and 17.
Amid Israel-Hamas war, former Maharashtra minister and senior Congress leader Naseem Khan has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to stand with Palestine from a humanitarian point of view and demanded that India should immediately stop all bilateral trade with Israel.

With the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza (Palestine), I wrote a letter to our Hon. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji requesting India to stand with Palestine from a humanitarian point of view.

Ever since independence, India has always been against the injustice done to pic.twitter.com/oqvAtbg989  Arif Naseem khan (@naseemkhaninc) October 18, 2023

Deeply disturbed by the deaths of innocent citizens in the Gaza Strip, in a two-page letter, Khan said, Indian government should immediately condemn inhuman bombarding on Gaza (Plaestine) which is killing thousands of innocent people and making them homeless.

Right from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Dr Manmohan Singh, the Indian government has had very good relationship with the Palestinian leadership and people of Palestine and we have always stood with them in the hours of need on humanitarian ground, he added.

He further said that India should immediately stop all bilateral trade with Israel to support sentiments of peace loving people of India as a protest against the oppression done by Israel.

Until and unless the Israel government does not stop this inhuman and cruel act, the Government of India should immediately stop all bilateral trade with Israel to support the sentiments of peace loving people of India, he added.

Talking about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, he said that the United Nations too has expressed concern over the shortage of food, medicines and relief material in Gaza Strip. India needs to help them at this time of crisis considering our historic relationship, he said.

Khans letter comes a day after the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing in Palestine, which has left several hundred people dead.

Khan said that so far the Israel-Hamas war has claimed over 3,000 lives and left over 10,000 injured.
The Rouse Avenue court on Thursday directed counsels for accused persons to inspect un-relied documents in the Delhi Excise policy case at CBI Headquarters.

The Court adjourned the CBI case in Delhi excise policy till November 22. The court also extended the judicial custody of Manish Sisodia till the next date of hearing.

Special Judge, M K Nagpal has directed counsels to inspect the documents from 2 to 7 PM on every working day at the CBI office as per the schedule drawn according to the convenience of the counsels.

The court also directed the counsels to email requests to the Investigating officer. Thereafter, the IO shall make a schedule for the inspection of documents.

The court directed the CBI to supply the hard copies of the second supplementary charge sheet to one of the accused. It further directed the agency to supply the soft copy of the second charge sheet to some of the accused.

The court said that you (counsels) need not file an application. You may mail directly to the investigation officer (IO).

The court also noted that the IO is claiming that the copy of all the charge sheets and documents as well as deficient documents already supplied.

The counsel of one accused claimed that the soft copy of the supplementary charge sheet is yet to be supplied. Another counsel said that the hard copy of the second supplementary is also not yet supplied.

However, the IO submitted that the same will be supplied within a week. He also said that the list of un-relied documents has also been supplied to the counsel via emails.

The court also directed the CBI to supply the list of URD of supplementary charge sheets. One of the counsels returned the copies claiming that it is not paginated.

The court said that a list of un-relied documents (URD) list be sent by email to the counsel.

Counsels for the accused persons submitted that the Inspection of the URD is still going on. The counsel requested the court and seek permission to inspect the said documents.

Accused persons have the right to inspect the URD in terms of the judgement of the Delhi High Court, the counsel said.

The court said that the counsel shall send a written request to the IO by email within a week. IO shall chalk Out the schedule for inspection.
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that Googles initiative to manufacture its Pixel smartphone is a reflection of how the entire ecosystem in the country has now matured and people have developed trust.

Vaishnaws statement came hours after Google announced plans to make its Pixel smartphones in India, giving a big boost to the countrys ambitions of becoming a global manufacturing hub.

Vaishnaw told ANI Just about nine years back electronics manufacturing was negligible in the country. Mobile manufacturing was practically not there, almost 98 per cent of mobile phones that we used were imported. In a short time span of nine years, our PM Modis vision of Digital India, Make in India and Startup India this bouquet of programs has established India as a trusted value chain partner.

Expressing his happiness about Googles announcement, Vaishnaw said, Practically every big electronics manufacturer is setting up its design in India.He further emphasized that domestic manufacturers in the country are also scaling up.

This is a very big achievement because getting the big manufacturers to set up their base in India means the entire ecosystem has now matured. People have developed their trust. Our own domestic manufacturers are scaling up, Vaishnaw said.

I can share with you that one factory near Delhi, which is going to start soon, that factory will have 20,000 people working in a single factory, that is the kind of change that is happening today, the Electronics and Information Technology minister said.

Alphabet Inc announced at the concluding day today of the Google for India 2023, the ninth edition of its annual India-specific event it will begin manufacturing its Pixel smartphones in India.

The devices, starting with Pixel 8, are expected to begin rolling out in markets in 2014, Rick Osterloh, senior vice president of devices and services, Google, said at the event.

Vaishnaw emphasised that semiconductors have been a very important part of the strategy launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015.Well, semiconductor forms a very, very important part of the entire strategy that the Prime Minister launched in 2015.

The strategy has multiple components one of the components is making India which is where the electronics manufacturing, and designing, all these points take place. Tensorwhich is the heart and brain of Google Pixel phones has been designing in India, Vaishnaw said.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google today underlined Googles commitment to Indias digital growth and innovation. In a post on X shared during the Google for India 2023 event, Pichai said Google was committed to be a trusted partner in Indias digital growth.

With inputs from ANI.
Indias first Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) train will be known as Namo Bharat.

The RRTS train will be flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, October 20, 2023.

The Namo Bharat RRTS train will cover 17-km section of the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut between Sahibabad and Duhai Depot.

Once the train service gets operational, the travel time between Sahibabad and Duhai Depot will be just 12 minutes, which usually takes around 30-35 minutes by road.

The complete corridor will be functional by 2025.

The RRTS is developed by the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), a joint venture of the Government of India and governments of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

The Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Corridor is the first RRTS project being implemented in India, and will be closely followed by the Delhi-Gurugram-SNB-Alwar and Delhi-Panipat corridors.

The total length of the Delhi-Meerut corridor is 82 kilometres which will be covered in just an hour. It comprises 24 stations. The first phase covering 17 kilometres will cover five stations- Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Guldhar, Duhai and the Duhai Depot.

The project has been constructed at a cost of Rs 30,274 crore. The Asian Development Bank, New Development Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have also funded this project.

With inputs from agencies
Vice Admiral Dinesh Tripathi said Wednesday that the Indian Navy is monitoring the developments in West Asia and also keeping a sharp watch on the Chinese Navys activities in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) by the hour.

Tripathi, who heads the crucial Western Naval Command, said the Navy is fully aware of Chinese activities in the IOR or the possible ripple effects of happenings in West Asia.

There is constantly at this point of time there is someone in the naval headquarters or the command headquarters working on what could happen after whatever is happening in West Asia (a reference to the Hamas-Israel conflict), he said.

He was replying to a host of questions in a session at the Global Maritime India Summit 2023. His statement came in the context of the escalating Hamas-Israel conflict.

The vice admiral said as far as the Chinese are concerned, we are keeping a sharp watch on whatever they are doing in the South China Sea.

In the Indian Ocean, we are keeping a sharp watch as to where their research ship, spy ship, satellite tracking ship, warships (are) wherever they are by the hour, Vice Admiral Tripathi said while replying to questions.

Earlier speaking at the event, the senior naval commander also said that piracy has been one of the constant challenges in the last 10-15 years, It is largely contained through international cooperation and coordination, he added.

Nityanand Rai, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, said with Indias growing stature, its responsibility in the Indian Ocean is also increasing.

On the occasion, S Paramesh, Additional Director General, of the Indian Coast Guard, emphasised collectively increasing the sharing of information for better threat assessment and coordinated response.

Investments in technologies like satellite surveillance and unmanned drones will greatly enhance maritime security efforts, Mr Paramesh said.

Hostilities between Israel and Hamas began after armed Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack on Israel by land, air, and sea on October 7. Since the start of hostilities, as many as 2,778 Palestinians have been killed.

Media reports have cited official Israeli sources as saying that at least 1,400 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel.

With inputs from PTI.
As many as 1,200 Indians have been evacuated from war-hit Israel under Operation Ajay, Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Thursday.

Operation Ajay was launched on October 11 to facilitate the return from Israel of those Indians who wished to come back home as a series of brazen attacks on Israeli towns by Hamas terrorists.

In a media briefing in New Delhi Thursday, Bagchi said: 1200 Indians have come back in five flights under operation Ajay, including 18 Nepali nationals.

The first batch of Indians were brought back from Israel in a special flight on Friday (October 13).

After the announcement of Operation Ajay was made by External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar last week, the Indian embassy in Israel said it has e-mailed the first lot of registered Indian citizens for the special flight on Thursday (October 12).

The fifth flight that operated under Operation Ajay with 286 passengers, including 18 Nepalese citizens, returned in New Delhi on Tuesday (October 17).

Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs V Muraleedharan Tuesday said if required, more flights will be operated on the basis of the upcoming situation.

"As of new, 5 flights have come and if required we will operate more flights on the basis of the situation that emerges. During the last, almost 4-5 days, we have flown aircraft from Israel to India," Muraleedharan said.

The minister had also informed that with conflict erupted in Israel, the Indian Embassy had issued an advisory, requesting the Indian citizens there to be cautious and also to register their names in the Indian Embassy.

The Indian Embassy is taking the call on who all have to travel to India based on the requests of the people and their ground situation there," he added.

Last week, four chartered flights from Tel Aviv came with a total of 906 passengers, including children.

Meanwhile, at a media briefing last week, the MEA spokesperson had said as per estimates, around 18,000 Indians were residing in Israel.

With inputs from agencies
Vijayawadas ACB court on Thursday extended Chandrababu Naidus remand till November 1 in connection with the alleged skill development scam.

Currently, he is lodged in the Rajamahendravaram central prison in Andhra Pradesh.

The former Andhra chief minister is under judicial remand for allegedly misappropriating funds from the Skill Development Corporation, which resulted in a purported loss of over Rs 300 crore to the state exchequer.

Naidu was presented before the judge virtually as his judicial remand ended today.

The ACB judge enquired about Naidus health before extending the remand.

According to reports, Naidu expressed apprehension about the security provided to him in the jail.

The judge directed the jail authorities to submit timely reports about the health condition of the former CM to which they replied that a medical team was overseeing the health condition of the accused.

With inputs from agencies
In a hit-and-run case, a 57-year-old businessman ran over a woman and injured four other people who were strolling along the sidewalk. The incident captured in a street CCTV camera, occurred Wednesday afternoon in Gandhinagar area of Mangaluru city.

The accused was identified by the police as Kamalesh Baldev, son of H.M. Baldev who happens to be commission and real estate agent, of Shivam Apartments, Alake. The deceased woman was identified as 23-year-old Roopashree, a resident of Kaana, near Surathkal. The injured women and daughters, Swathi, 26, Hithnavi, 16, Krithika, 16, and Yathika, 12, were not in danger.

When the incident occurred, according to the police, the women were strolling along Kuloor Ferry Roads walkway from Kudroli toward Lady Hill Circle in front of S.L. Shet Jewellers in Gandhinagar. The defendant allegedly drove the automobile carelessly while traveling in the same way, ascended onto the sidewalk, and struck the women.

He drove off, leaving the area without stopping the vehicle. He went home and met his father at the Traffic West Police Station after leaving the automobile in front of a workshop, according to the police.

The women were struck by the car, according to CCTV evidence of the collision, and were then flung into the air, lying strewn across the sidewalk. They were reported to be on their way back from seeing the Dussehra celebrations at the Kudroli Temple. Even though Roopashri was brought to a hospital, she passed away from severe injuries.

In accordance with Section 304(A) and other pertinent provisions of the Indian Penal Code, police have filed cases involving reckless and careless acts that result in death. Police Commissioner Anupam Agarwal stated that if required, the police would add more sections and have him tested for drunk driving.
A video of students burning the Israeli flag has gone viral across social media platforms. People in the viral video can be seen protesting in support of Palestine and burning the Israeli flag.

According to some posts on X, formerly Twitter, the video is said to be from the Delhi University. Firstpost cannot confirm the authenticity of the video.

Watch:

Earlier, students in Uttar Pradeshs Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) took out a march in support of Hamas terrorists and shouted slogans in support of Palestine. The protest came within hours after the terrorist organisation made a surprise attack on Israel that claimed lives of over 700 people of the country.

In the viral video of AMU students protesting, some were seen holding placards in their their hands and marching on the streets of Aligarh.

We Stand with Palestine, This land is Palestine, not Israel, read the posters the AMU students were carrying as they raised slogans such as We stand for Palestine, AMU stands for Palestine along with other religious slogans.
Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, the Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi, on Thursday said that we have also expressed our concern at the civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation.

We have strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel. The international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. There was also the issue of Palestine and on that, we have reiterated our position in favour of direct negotiations for establishing a two-state solution.

#WATCH | Delhi: On the Israel-Palestine issue, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi says, You would have seen the comments, the tweets as well as statement from Prime MinisterWe have strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel. The international community must pic.twitter.com/CavDBELDAS  ANI (@ANI) October 19, 2023

On operation Ajay, Bagchi said, 1200 Indians have come back in five flights under operation Ajay, including 18 Nepali nationals

Bagchi also spoke about the G20 virtual Summit. He said, Invitations have been extendedThe countries know the date. There is a fixed date in November that we haveWe look forward to participation by as many leaders as they can. Its a virtual event. The participation is dependent on the invitee. But we do hope that there is a high degree of participation at this summit.

Speaking about the cooperation with the Maldives, Bagchi said, The assistance and platform that we have provided have contributed significantly in areas like peoples welfare, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and combating illegal maritime activities. Over the last five years, more than 500 medical evacuations have been carried outIndia has been the first responder for MaldivesWe look forward to constructively engaging with the incoming administration and discussing ways to enhance our relationship further

With inputs from agencies
Father of K Kiran Chandra, fourth-year student of electrical engineering at IIT Kharagpur, who was founding hanging in his hostel room, alleged his son was stressed due to a project.

Talking to reporters, Kiran father Kethavath Chandra, said, Why is there so much stress among students in IIT? He was stressed due to a project.

My son was good at studies. In the three years of his engineering course, he did not have any backlog. But he was depressed over this project. He had spoken to his professor, but was dismissed and asked to complete the project in time. I spoke to him last on October 16. He told me he was studying and would speak later. This is not about ragging, but they (IIT) could have helped him, Kirans father said.

The victims family members also alleged that he was depressed over a project and had confided in his professor, who had brushed aside his apprehensions and asked him to complete it on time.

The deadline for submitting the assignment was Tuesday, the day Kiran was found hanging in his hostel room.

Police said Kiran hailed from Chetla Thimmaipally in Telanganas Medak district and preliminary probe suggested that he allegedly died by suicide. A case has also been registered into the matter.

IIT statement on students alleged suicide

IIT Kharagpur issued a statement in connection with the incident and said the victim chose the path of self-harm.

Till about 7:30 pm the student was with two of his roommates in their hostel room. Later, the other two students left for academic activities. Subsequently around 8:30 pm, fellow boarders found his room locked from inside, the statement by the institute read.

Later, the door was forced open and his body was found, the statement added.

Security personnel and other students rushed the victim to the hospital where he was declared dead around 11:30 pm on Tuesday, police informed.

Kiran was allotted room number 513 in Lal Bahadur Shastri Hall along with two other fourth-year students.

West Midnapore police superintendent Dhritiman Sarkar said the post-mortem of the body was videographed and investigation was in progress.

The incident of Kirans unnatural death came exactly after a year when the partially decomposed remains of Faizan Ahmed, a third-year student at IIT Kharagpur from Assam, were discovered within his hostel room on October 14, 2022.

The authorities had to forcibly open the locked door to gain access.

Initially IIT Kharagpur said Faizan had taken his own life. However, on the orders of the Calcutta High Court, his body was exhumed, and a second post-mortem was conducted. The family claimed that their son was the victim of foul play and alleged that the institute was attempting to conceal the matter.

With inputs from agencies
As the horror of the Hamas attack unfolds and Delhi watches events closely, some disturbing aspects of the conflict needs close attention in terms of our own neighbourhood. That Israeli intelligence was apparently taken by surprise is one part of this, but what should interest us is the fact that the enemy took great pains to present itself as defeated and interested only in financial gains, while quietly preparing itself for the deadly assault. In recent years, Delhi has been quietly congratulating itself with justification for the huge drop in terrorist attacks in Kashmir and almost none at all in the rest of India with Manipur being a separate example altogether. But the enemies are there, some of these in close alliance with each other. Its time to wake and smell the coffee.

Early signs that Israel ignored

In the case of Israel, as now it appears that the warning signs were overwhelming. Reports spoke of open training with mock ups of Israeli settlements used for exercises, one just 720 metres from a heavily policed Israeli area. The Washington Post notes that Hassan Nasrallah held an online meeting in March with all elite strategists from Iran backed militias and asked them to prepare for war. That such a conference would not have been spied on or seen a good amount of cyber snooping seems improbable. CNN analysed training videos of Hamas over two years and found clear evidence of the plans being hatched. Most analysts ascribe the apparent failure as Israels hubris over its huge victories in the past. Also evident was a debilitating internal battle over reforms to curtain the powers of the judiciary sparked huge protests. In other words, the top leadership was more involved in power struggles than possible intel warnings. That these would not have emanated from somewhere within the system is highly unlikely. Moroever, it seems that Hamas also took an unprecedented intelligence tactic of presenting itself as defeated and war weary to the extent that it even accepted public condemnation from other groups like Fatah and taking no part in attacks by other Gaza based groups like Fatah.

The quiet terrorists

In the Indian context, there was a degree of overconfidence following the abrogation of Article 370 with some believing that the Kashmir issue had been largely resolved. This optimism was further fuelled by the fact that there had been no instances of infiltration into the valley throughout the year. That led in part to the casualties at Kokernag where the hunt for those who did the attack is still on. That attack was claimed as revenge for the killing of LeT commander Riyaz Ahmed, codenamed Qasim, who was shot dead inside the Al-Qudus mosque in the Rawalakot region of PoK on 8 September. This was the fourth such killing in Pakistan in recent days. Earlier Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed escaped a bomb blast near his home in Lahore June, 2021. His son narrowly escaped a blast in 2019 at a religious conference. That is nearly two years of targetted assassinations or attempts, which Pakistanis believe came from India. Yet, the group has remained extremely quiet. However, the 13th report of the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team observe that LeT earlier assessed as providing finance and training expertise to Taliban operations, reported LeT heads like Mawlawi Yousuf and Mawlawi Assadullah, met with Taliban Deputy Interior Minister Noor Jalil.

In January 2022, a Taliban delegation visited a training camp used by LeT in the Haska Mena district of Nangarhar. The report notes three camps in Kunar and Nangarhar. Interestingly, those LeT members who joined ISIS, like Aslam Farooqi and Ejaz Ahmad Ahangar have suffered. One was arrested and the other recently shot in Rawalkot. It may well be that there are other motivations to these killings. The UN Report also notes that Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) maintains eight training camps in Nangarhar, three of which are directly under Taliban control. That is worrying, especially as Jaish cadre Shahid Latif was also recently shot in Daska in Sialkot. In sum, the groups are training and very much in Pakistan, and operational, but quiet.

Not a far away Khalistan issue

The danger is even greater because all our attention is on the so called Khalistan issue, which in its entirety, is seen not as a threat, but as an insult to India, given the outrageous threats and actions by a group in a country far away. The standard line in the discourse here is that separatism has no place in Punjab anymore. This may be true, but the crowds that surrounded Amritpal Singh in his road show last year, seems to indicate some support, especially given the number of arrests of Waris de Punjab leaders. Though his arrest created no waves, it inevitably resulted in a spate of Khalistan protests simultaneously through four countries  UK, US, Australia and New Zealand. That shows considerable planning and funding. Thereafter the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar is widely being propagated as an Indian assassination, all of which is aimed at sowing dissent within the country. Backing this is the spate of narcotics seizures along the western borders in which the Khalistan Tiger Force has a strong hand. The Khalistan issue has both funding and possible local support to an extent. This grouping  which created protests in five countries  has shown a strong motivation to upset the Indian apple cart. Their activities are likely to rise strongly before elections in India.

Right internal climate

As of now, the whole government apparatus is tuned towards general elections next year. It is at this time that political rallies mean maximum and unavoidable exposure for politicians of all hues. It is true that Indian intelligence gathering would be at an all-time high during this period, especially where the prime minister and cabinet ministers are concerned. But even given the high capabilities of both internal and external agencies, there is only so much that can be covered, especially as traditional threats including the likelihood of open war needs to be evaluated, as well as a troubled neighbourhood. Any attack at this time against a reasonably high echelon of leadership and claimed by a terrorist group could lead to a massively destabilizing backlash against minority groups in particular. It could be argued that Pakistan is hardly likely to want to risk a devastating military retaliation at this point of time. But heres the thing. In the case of the Hamas attack, there is a view that the group may have overachieved to its own surprise. While Iran certainly provisioned Hamas, it is unlikely it would have sanctioned this level of attack. The Israeli military has yet to link Iran to the attack. In other words, a powerful enough group may go for a target of opportunity and thereby overreach its own objectives.

A melting pot of agendas

And on top of all this, remember that the Palestine movement is closely aligned with the Kashmir question, a point that has been made by experts with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that supports Palestine now including Kashmir in its website. Meanwhile protests have broken out in Budgam in Kashmir in support of the Palestinian cause. While the latter is part of the general support seen worldwide, the former is not. It involves such entities like the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan while the Kashmir fronts are in turn intertwined with the Khalistani organisations in the US and elsewhere. The whole has become a melting pot of agendas, making up an intelligence nightmare.

In sum, the possibility of a Lashkar or Jaish backed strike against India on a larger scale than before is a possibility. Operationally, it will be entirely unlike the Hamas attack, in concentrating on the Indian heartland  including Gujarat  and symbols of national importance. Given the precedence of the Mumbai attacks, casualties among civilians would be expected. The point is whether Pakistan will sanction such a strike. If it does, it would be on the back of an assurance from its iron brother on a protective shield. That at present, seems a little unlikely, but cant be ruled out. Besides this, are myriad other actors who may seek to bring down the present government by a peg or two. The field is actually wide open.

The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. She tweets @kartha_tara. 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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In a historic move reaffirming Bharats faith in womens leadership, Prime Minister Modis government has introduced the pioneering Womens Reservation Bill in Parliament. This revolutionary legislation mandates reserving 33 per cent seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women, opening the doors for transformative gender balance in Indias top legislative bodies.

Once implemented, the number of women MPs will rise exponentially from the current 82 to 181, significantly enhancing their perspective in national decision-making. The bill also reserves a third of Delhi Assembly seats for women, allowing for greater representation in the capitals governance.

In a smooth transition, the bill retains existing seat sharing arrangements between parties while effecting this major restructuring. Further, reservation will be implemented in a phased manner for 15 years through a planned rotation system, promoting diverse representation of women leaders from all backgrounds across Bharats regions.

The government has astutely decided that this monumental reform will only apply from 2027 elections onwards. This allows the Election Commission sufficient time to seamlessly undertake the mammoth exercise of delimitation of constituencies and designate reserved seats as per the 2026 census.

The Womens Reservation Bills passage in the Lok Sabha with 454 votes in favour and just two against demonstrates the Modi governments success in mobilising unprecedented consensus for womens empowerment across party lines. Leading women politicians have hailed it as historic, with PM Narendra Modi noting that it honours Indian womens wisdom and capabilities eulogised in scriptures.

Bharat has a rich heritage of revering the divine feminine or Shakti and female deities as embodiments of valour, knowledge, prosperity, righteousness and nurture. Scriptural texts extol goddesses like Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati and rituals like Sumangali pooja revere feminine divinity.

Our ancient scriptures have always emphasised the divine power of women. The Devi Purana glorifies the Devi or divine feminine energy as the all-powerful creatrix and moral exemplar for society. Verses in the Markandeya Purana (61.5) state that all women are manifestations of the Devi herself.

The Manusmriti (3.57) mandates worshipping and respecting women, saying where women are honoured, divinity resides but where they are disrespected, all good deeds become fruitless. Daily rituals like Devi pooja and Kanya Puja during Navratri worship the feminine aspects of divinity.

Historically, Bharat boasts of illustrious women rulers like Ahilya Bai Holkar and Rani Lakshmibai who steered their domains towards stability and growth. Their legacies prove womens ability to shoulder immense state responsibilities.

It is against this backdrop that PM Modis Womens Reservation Act marks a continuation of Bharats regard for feminine wisdom and power in governance. By enabling womens ascent in political leadership across party lines, this will activate the immense potential of Bharats Nari Shakti in guiding national progress.

The 7.8 crore women of the five poll-bound statesMadhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Mizoramwill appreciate PM Modi for this historic move, ensuring their greater political participation in the future.

When women are guaranteed participation in decision-making bodies in such substantial numbers, it significantly advances a democracys ethos of dignity and voice for all citizens. This historic legislation will stand out as one of PM Modis lasting legacies that will reposition Bharats women from homemakers to nation-builders.

The writer is the founder of an NGO, Ek Soch, and the VP of the women wing of BJP Surat city. 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 images of the horrifying terror attack by Hamas into Israel in the early hours on 7 October 2023 are still fresh and continue to haunt Israel and the whole world. Even nations and groups who have traditionally supported Hamas over the years in its fight against Israel were quick to condemn the terror attack which killed more than 1,300, including infants, women and elderly and marked the single bloodiest day in Israels history. Israeli forces, shocked and caught unaware, soon recovered and launched a ferocious air and artillery assault on Gaza targetting key military and command positions of Hamas. By the evening on the first day, ground forces had neutralised most of the Hamas operatives who had infiltrated into Israeli territory and regained control over the breached crossings.

Israel has vowed to wipe Hamas off face of the Earth. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged revenge stating, We will take mighty vengeance for this wicked day. Hamas launched a cruel and wicked war. We will win this war but the price is too heavy to bear. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, while briefing the NATO defence ministers in Brussels on 12 October said, Hamas is the ISIS of Gaza. The ISIS of Gaza will not exist, on our borders. The IDF will destroy Hamas. And we will hunt down every last man, with the blood of our children, on his hands. Israel has ordered massive mobilisation calling on over 4,00,000 of its reserves and is amassing armoured tanks, artillery and troops at the border with Gaza in preparation for a ground massive offensive.

Over the past ten days, Israeli Air Force has conducted retaliatory and punitive airstrikes against known and suspected Hamas locations in Gaza. Israel has released images and videos of their aircrafts targetting buildings in Gaza, reducing them to rubble, living up-to their pledge that Israel will flatten Gaza to the ground. Israel has cut off supply of electricity, water, food and medicines into Gaza as a punishment to the entire Gaza population. The images on the TV screen and newspaper reports are now filled with Israeli military targetting Gaza and the death and destruction being caused in Gaza. While the world continues to support Israel and its right to defence, concerns are mounting and questions are being asked over the legitimacy, scope and depth of punitive strikes of Israeli strikes into Gaza.

The changing narrative

In todays age of internet and social media, perceptions are built and destroyed sooner than can be managed. Many voices of support that condemned Hamas initially are rethinking their strategy as the war spreads. Saudi Arabia which had condemned the Hamas terror strike, in a cabinet meeting on 17 October, chaired by King Salman in Riyadh, renewed the Kingdoms categorical rejection of calls for the forced displacement of the Palestinian people and demanded an immediate ceasefire, lifting the siege on Gaza. Earlier, on 12 October, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman while speaking to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said that Saudi Arabia continued to stand by the Palestinian people to achieve their legitimate rights to a decent life, achieve their hopes and aspirations, and achieve just and lasting peace. UAE, which has established formal diplomatic relations with Israel and is a signatory of the Abraham Accords, initially condemned the Hamas terror attack. However, the continued strikes into Gaza causing death and destruction to common people is causing distress among UAE leadership too.

In a statement on 17 October, following a strike at a Gaza hospital which reportedly killed around 500 people, UAE along with foreign ministries of Egypt and Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar condemned Israel for the attack. UAE along with Russia also called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting over the attack. Jordan too cancelled the proposed Summit of the US President and Arab leaders in Amman on 19 October. Egypt has traditionally been the peace broker in most Israel-Gaza conflicts and has facilitated movement of Gaza residents and food and aid delivery through its crucial border crossing with Gaza, Rafah Crossing. It too initially called for exercising the utmost restraint and avoiding exposing civilians to further risks immediately after the Hamas attack, but it has refused to open its crucial Rafah border crossing and has condemned Israel of forcing almost 1.1 million people to leave their homes in North Gaza and move southwards.

In a joint statement with Turkey, during visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to Cairo on 14 October, they stated, We reject the policy of Palestinians being removed from their homes in Gaza and exiled into Egypt. We are fully against it and stand with Egypt. India has tried to maintain a fine balance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first world leaders to condemn the terror attack and extend support to its strategic ally, Israel. However, on 12 October, it reiterated its principled support for the establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine. There have been widespread support marches and demonstrations in support of Palestine all over the world including the US, Europe, Australia etc. The narrative is slowly but surely turning, at least in the region and Israel will have to incorporate it in its plans as it finalises its next step.

The humanitarian crisis

Following the Hamas attack, Israel declared a complete siege on the territory, saying electricity, food, fuel and water would be cut off. Israels defence minister Yoav Gallant said, We are fighting animals and are acting accordingly. The Israeli infrastructure minister added, saying: What was in the past will no longer be in the future. Later, Israel ordered people in North Gaza to evacuate and move to South Gaza as Israel prepared to target Gaza city. It gave 24 hours to 1.1 million people to be displaced. Such a vast displacement over such narrow geographical area, that too with Rafah Crossing still closed was an impossible and inhuman ask and widely condemned. To add to it, there were reports of Israeli aircrafts bombing places in South Gaza on 17 October, causing casualties and destruction, including to people who were moving southwards from North Gaza. As per reports more than 100 people were killed in the city of Khan Younis in South Gaza as well as a building at Rafah Crossing. With mass exodus of people and essential supplies cut off by Israel, the UN warned on 17 October that Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip are being packed into an ever-smaller area and life-saving essentials have essentially run out, appealing for a humanitarian truce to allow aid access. We cant move humanitarian trucks and convoys while active bombardment is ongoing, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The World Food Programme (WFP) too warned on 17 October that that shops have been unable to replenish supplies and will run out of available food stocks in less than a week. WHO and the UN have said that that thousands of Palestinians trapped in Gaza are likely to die in the coming days if they are denied access to urgently needed relief supplies, especially medicines. Media reports indicate that a number of hospitals, ambulances and even UN facilities have borne the brunt of Israeli airstrikes. At least 11 UN staff and personnel as well as 30 students at UN schools have already been killed in the Gaza Strip. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on 18 October condemned the intentional targeting of medical teams adding that targeting medical personnel is a grave breach to international humanitarian law and to humanity. The UN has said around 4,200 people have been killed since Hamas invaded Israel on 7 October. More than 2,800 of those deaths and nearly 11,000 injuries reportedly occurred in Gaza with another 1,400 deaths and more than 4,100 injuries in Israel.

As per Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) report, as of 18 October, at least 17 journalists have been killed in this war which includes 13 Palestinian, 3 Israeli, and 1 Lebanese, mostly while reporting in Gaza Strip. The latest setback however is the unfortunate strike on Al-Ahli al Arabi hospital in Gaza on 17 October which killed over 500 people. Although Israel tried to present proof that it was a misguided rocket from PIJ that had struck the hospital, there are very takers, especially in the region. With an accident of such mammoth proportions, emotions are likely to get inflamed soon in the region, slowly turning the tide against Israel.

The Hamas challenge

The military fight between Israel and Hamas is of two unequal forces. Israel has a well-organised, structured and equipped modern military, while the Hamas has fighters who have been mustered, indoctrinated, equipped and trained as any other terrorist organization in ground combat, guerilla warfare, suicide attacks etc. What is spectacular about Hamas is its cadre which is fully indoctrinated to its cause, is highly motivated and employs extremely innovative and unconventional means to fight wars. Hamas has laid an intricate structure of tunnels inside Gaza often called the Gaza Metro which is up-to 30 meters deep at some places and which often open up inside schools and hospitals. Hamas has claimed that the total network is almost 500 Km long, all within Gaza. It is used not only for movement but also to store weapons and rockets as well as cross into Israel underneath the fence. This was a challenge for Israeli army in the past and is likely to pose a huge problem this time around too. The densely populated area in the very thin Gaza strip is a nightmare for any conventional army fighting a guerrilla force and Hamas will pose a great challenge to the Israeli army.

The use of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles will be limited as there is very less space for maneuver in Gaza due to densely located buildings with narrow roads and alleys. In such a scenario, the advantage is always with a force like Hamas which is able to launch sneak attacks and bog down enemys armored columns. Added problem posed by Hamas is the support it is already getting from groups like Hezbollah which has opened a war front into Israel across Lebanon and Syria, PIJ which is mustering up cadre for taking on Israeli forces in the West Bank and the massive moral and financial support it gets from Iran. Hamas aims to draw in Israeli forces into a long drawn battle of attrition which will eventually force a ceasefire after Hamas and Gaza suffering huge losses. But then, that is a price that they are willing to pay in their fight against Israel.

Conclusion

For Israel, hard decisions loom ahead. First and foremost is the question, what would constitute a victory? Israel has stated that it aims to finish Hamas forever. Is it however possible? In the previous two ground invasions during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014 too, Israel had aimed to degrade Hamas to a point that it ceases to be threat. It didnt happen and Hamas regrouped every-time. If Israel tries to decimate Gaza and flatten it through a scorched earth policy, it will a humanitarian disaster of unparalleled proportions, something that even the US will not be able to support Israel on. Plus, it will draw in many more players into active war, which Israel, the US or the region can ill afford. Iran, principle benefactor of Hamas has already warned Israel of pre-emptive strikes if Israel tries to escalate the conflict. The US, its strongest and closet ally too has taken stock of the ferocity of Israeli attacks and in a statement on 16 October stated it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again

Israel also has to carry out introspection of its own actions over the past decades. It is the victim this time of a terror attack which cannot be condoned in any manner. But what about what its own actions? There is no denying the fact that Israel has been in occupation and control of most part of Palestine land all these years. Even when it withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it has not eased blockades and restrictions, especially after Hamas came to power in 2007. The West Bank continues to be completely under Israeli occupation. The number of settlements in West Bank are growing at an alarming rate leaving practically no space for a viable Palestine State to ever take shape. Its offensive actions against Palestinian worshippers at Al Aqsa Mosque cannot be justified by any means. Prime Minister Netanyahu purported statement to Knesset (Israeli parliament) committee members in a closed-door meeting stating on 1 July (reported by The Jerusalem Post) that Palestinian hopes of establishing a sovereign state must be eliminated, cannot be termed reconciliatory in any manner.

Once you take way hope, there is no more fear and therefore you have nothing to lose. In a manner therefore, the Hamas or the Palestinians fighting for a sovereign Palestine state could argue that they have been driven to the brink in the past few years with very little hope. For Israel however, coping with unimaginable brutality and tragedy, it is about revenge and rage. The challenge is to find a path which satisfies both, giving a flicker of hope to one while satisfying the rage within the other.

News trickling on 18 October indicates that the US has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for humanitarian pauses to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza. The visit of President Biden to Israel on the same day and this development indicate to a very dark phase of death and destruction in the region as Israel readies for a massive ground offensive. Tough decisions await Israel which are likely to have long lasting if not permanent imprint, on the future of Israel and Palestine.

The author is Assistant Director, MP-IDSA. 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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On 7 October, Hamas launched what most Twitter posts described as a PUBG-themed invasion, with these people seen descending with their motorised paraglider on unsuspecting people. According to The New York Times, this event has claimed more Israeli lives in a single day than any other conflict since Israels creation, and Donald Trump has interpreted it as a sign that the world is closer to World War III than ever before.

Exactly 50 years after the Yom Kippur War, a surprise planned and coordinated terrorist attack claimed many lives on both sides of the border, with many foreign nationalities also falling victim to such sporadic violence and social media platforms being flooded with graphic images with horrific details. The international casualties and hostages in this incident are a sobering reminder that terrorism has broader implications and should not be looked at as a problem or lens of just one state. The Middle East, already tense due to years of war and non-international armed conflict, now faces the risk of further destabilisation. Because of the Middle Easts fragile geopolitical landscape, the international community must act quickly and decisively. In this article, I wont be painting a blueprint for global accountability or drafting academic policies against terrorism. Instead, Ill weave my argument as a passionate student, advocating for my fellow students and shedding light on how student activism can sometimes turn sour on campuses worldwide.

The historical account of student activism is closely intertwined with the intricate tapestry of societal transformation and reform. The commendable and essential nature of their role lies in their ability to catalyse transformations and challenge the existing state of affairs, ultimately contributing to the evolution of a more just and equitable society.

Since its establishment in the early 17th century, Harvard College has witnessed instances of student activism, such as the protest against its president Nathaniel Eatons abusive leadership in 1639. This trend has continued to the present day, with student activism experiencing a notable resurgence on campuses in the United States. Alia Wong has appropriately characterised this phenomenon as a renaissance of student activism. The recent resurgence, specifically in the past ten years, has emphasised the lasting importance of student involvement in influencing public conversation and questioning established conventions, thereby promoting a fairer and more egalitarian society for us and future generations.

The realm of student activism has undergone notable transformations, resulting in substantial societal transformations, as evidenced by the impact of movements such as Black Lives Matter, the Velvet Revolution, and various others. Nevertheless, the current surge of demonstrations and widespread public outrage in favour of Hamas, which is linked to acts of terrorism, is unquestionably concerning and necessitates meticulous examination.

The current demonstrations and gatherings occurring on university campuses, which endorse acts of violence and terrorism, are undeniably disconcerting. The primary denouncement of violence, irrespective of its sources or justifications, ought to be prioritised in any conversation or academic exchange.

Hamas terror and brutality instil fear and shock, prompting an immediate and understandable human reaction. Attempts to contextualise, rationalise, and relativise such actions within a historical framework or past events have been attempted, which have the potential to dilute the gravity of the current situation. It is critical to distinguish between the tendency to justify or normalise violent acts. Recent incidents at Harvard and the University of California were concerning.

The act of expressing personal viewpoints and participating in constructive disagreement are integral aspects of a dynamic and democratic society, playing a crucial role in safeguarding the rights and liberties of individuals. Nonetheless, it is of utmost importance to establish a distinct boundary wherein the utilisation of these entitlements does not encroach upon the fundamental principles of tranquillity, reverence, and the safeguarding of human worth.

Acts that promote or support violence have a detrimental impact on the dignity of women and womanhood, pose a threat to the safety of children and childhood, and erode fundamental principles of humanity. Such acts should not be supported or justified under the pretext of freedom of speech and expression. When advocating for the right to express opinions, it is crucial to acknowledge the limitations that protect the welfare and dignity of all members of a given society.

I contend that the exercise of freedom of speech and expression ought to be governed by a robust ethical framework that prioritises the preservation of human life, acknowledges the rights of individuals, and fosters a climate of reciprocal comprehension and acceptance. As constituents of the broader societal framework, students are entitled to exercise their freedom of expression and participate in peaceful protests while adhering to legal parameters. Nevertheless, the perilous inclination to rationalise acts of terrorism or violence by establishing connections, whether valid or invalid, with previous incidents undermines the fundamental ethical principles that ought to govern any discussion concerning such delicate subjects.

The recent events at Columbia University, characterised by intense clashes between two opposing groups during pro-Palestine and pro-Israel demonstrations, evoked a strong sense of shock within me. In order to ensure safety, it was necessary to implement security measures on the campus, thereby limiting public access, which was done by the university administration. In the midst of heightened tension, individuals advocating for the Palestinian cause, some concealing their identities with masks, exhibited resolute messages proclaiming Free Palestine and To Exist is to Resist. In close proximity, students expressing support for Israel silently raised placards featuring images of Israeli hostages, serving as a poignant reminder of the high stakes at hand.

Following the event, a sense of trepidation reverberated within the Israeli supporters. David Hilary, a 20-year-old physics major student, expressed concern over the fear that is experienced by Israeli students. He made this statement while participating in a protest where he was adorned with an Israeli flag. Discussions with individuals affiliated with Columbia University have unveiled a prevailing sense of discomfort among the students, impeding their ability to engage in open discourse and critical analysis, which are fundamental components of cultivating sincere comprehension and advancement. In the absence of meaningful conversation, the emergence of a just and lasting solution becomes challenging. How can student activism effectively facilitate transformative change while deviating from the emphasis on non-violence and peace as the primary guiding principles in the pursuit of societal progress? The inquiry at hand necessitates collective reflection.

Moreover, the joint statement released by specific student organisations at Harvard University, which attributed full responsibility for the conflict to Israel, generated significant debate. The subsequent clarification provided by the university president, which served to create distance between the institution and the statement, underscored the intricate nature of the situation. I neither endorse nor try to oppose the assertion put forth by the student group; however, it is imperative to acknowledge that oversimplifying complex geopolitical matters through contextualisation and relativisation can have adverse effects on the overarching human narrative.

Given the aforementioned developments, it is imperative to critically examine the extent to which statements made by student groups affiliated with a highly regarded educational institution contribute to the cultivation of a secure and all-encompassing scholarly milieu. It is essential to ascertain whether these statements are employed as mechanisms to promote particular vested interests, thereby potentially subjecting students to the adverse consequences arising from ensuing controversies. This inquiry brings forth a pivotal concern: is it possible for specific entities to manipulate agendas, resulting in the jeopardisation of not only students professional and academic opportunities but also their mental well-being?

The recent activities undertaken by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group in American universities, in which they have proclaimed a day of resistance and organised demonstrations throughout North America, have intensified existing tensions and placed a considerable burden on academic settings. They characterised the recent incident on 7/10, perpetrated by Hamas, as a momentous victory for the resistance movement in Palestine. Nevertheless, comprehending how individuals could interpret mass killings, rapes, hostage-taking, and violence against children as a victory poses a considerable challenge. In contrast, these abhorrent actions signify a major defeat for the human race, violating the ethical principles that are upheld by civilised societies. This urges us to condemn any actions that undermine the dignity of human beings.

I think Palestinian and Israeli students have all the right to advocate for their issues and use the academic setup as a safe space to discuss their issues. Which is presently hijacked by certain individuals to push forth their agenda at the cost of student welfare. The utilisation of educational institutions as platforms for promoting violence and fostering hatred, as well as the normalisation, relativisation, and contextualisation of violent acts, poses detrimental consequences for the well-being of the human race.

The University of Arizonas decision to cancel the planned protest by the Tucson chapter of SJP, citing safety concerns, can be seen as a reflection of the universitys attempt to foster a secure and inclusive atmosphere. This decision was influenced by the university presidents strong opposition to the national groups endorsement of Hamas actions. In instances of this nature, the intricate equilibrium between the entitlement to freedom of speech and expression and the obligation to guarantee a secure campus environment assumes utmost significance.

It is crucial to recognise that although freedom of expression is a fundamental entitlement, it is subject to certain restrictions that are necessary for upholding harmony and fostering mutual respect. The action taken by Arizona University can be interpreted as a judicious measure within the established parameters. The primary responsibility of the university administration is to ensure the welfare and safety of all students, irrespective of their religious affiliations, nationalities, ethnic backgrounds, or racial identities. This commitment plays a fundamental role in cultivating an atmosphere that promotes open and civilised dialogue.

The march for Palestine was organised by the students affiliated with the University of California Los Angeles chapter of SJP. Every group or individual should possess the right to engage in the above-mentioned ways. Nevertheless, utilising this right as a means to diminish and normalise the behaviours of Hamas by a small faction of individuals should not be acceptable. This approach not only complicates the situation but also weakens the genuine problems experienced by the Palestinian community.

Given the aforementioned developments, it is imperative to critically examine whether these actions effectively promote the cultivation of a secure and all-encompassing academic environment or if they function as mechanisms to propel particular vested interests by utilising campuses as a platform to advocate for specific agendas. Consequently, this may potentially result in students bearing the brunt.

Given the distressing nature of these events, it is imperative to reassert our constant commitment to the principles of humanity and solidarity. All individuals, regardless of their national affiliations, are entitled to the fundamental right of freedom of expression, which includes the right to be heard and to express their opinions with reasonable restrictions. The collective human experiences that we share extend beyond geopolitical divisions, underscoring the imperative of empathy and compassion in our interactions. The cultivation of a shared commitment to the preservation of justice, peace, and the recognition of human dignity is essential in order to navigate towards a future characterised by equity, natural justice, and the rule of law within the international academic community.

The author is an Indian-origin student pursuing Masters in law at London of School of Economics (LSE). 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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In recent times, an interesting dynamic has emerged in the realm of social media, particularly concerning the Palestinian terror group Hamas and the popular messaging app Telegram. With Hamas using this medium there will be implications and the impact on the dissemination of information and misinformation during times of conflict.

Hamas and Telegram: An unconventional alliance

Hamas, considered a designated terrorist organisation in the United States and Europe, has long faced restrictions on mainstream social media platforms like Meta and Google. However, it has found a haven on Telegram. This messaging apps lax content moderation rules have allowed Hamas to maintain a presence through its military wings channel, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

Sharp increase in followers and engagement

The statistics speak for themselves. Before 7 October this year  thats the day of the ghastly attack on Israel  the Al-Qassam Brigades had around 200,000 followers on their Telegram channel. Since the terror attack, their follower count has tripled to approximately 600,000. The views on their posts have skyrocketed as well increasing more than tenfold. Before the massacre in Israel, a typical post on their channel was viewed around 25,000 times. Today, they regularly reach over 300,000 views. These numbers underline the channels increasing popularity among Telegram users.

Telegrams unique moderation rules

Telegrams popularity, in part, is attributable to its relatively lenient content moderation rules. Unlike other major social media platforms, it doesnt readily shut down accounts or channels for extremist content. Pavel Durov, Telegrams founder, expressed a nuanced perspective on the matter. He acknowledged that Hamas used Telegram to issue warnings to civilians in the conflict zone and he questioned whether shutting down their channel would help save lives or endanger more. While some view this approach as controversial, Durov believes that allowing this source of information to exist serves a purpose.

Earlier this week, Hamas used Telegram to warn civilians in Ashkelon to leave the area ahead of their missile strikes. Would shutting down their channel help save lives  or would it endanger more lives? While it would be easy for us to destroy this source of information, doing so risks exacerbating an already dire situation, says Durov.

Concerns surrounding Hamas narrative

The presence of Hamas on Telegram raises important questions. Hamas is a terror organisation that has engaged in violent actions including attacks on Israel, civilian casualties and hostage-taking. While they may argue that they use Telegram to present their side of the story, there are concerns about how this narrative aligns with their actions.

Affiliated groups and misinformation

Beyond the official Hamas channel, affiliated groups that support the organisations activities are also active on Telegram. While Telegram claims to moderate content, its important to note that this issue extends beyond Telegram. Social media platforms, in general, have seen an uptick in pro-Hamas content during times of conflict. Meta, for example, reported removing over 795,000 posts, and even Twitter (now X) has taken action against Hamas-affiliated accounts.

Proliferation of misinformation

The second aspect of this complex issue is the proliferation of misinformation and fake news during conflicts. As the Israel-Palestine conflict intensifies, there has been a surge in fake news, fabricated videos, testimonies and warnings. This avalanche of misinformation is a cause for concern as it can further exacerbate an already complex situation.

Accountability and the challenges ahead

The responsibility for addressing this complex issue does not rest solely on social media platforms. They maintain that they are attempting to combat misinformation, but the scale of the problem remains significant. In a world where more people turn to social media for news and information, the spread of misinformation clouds facts and judgment.

The presence of Hamas on Telegram and the broader issue of misinformation on social media during conflicts represent a multi-faceted challenge. As the conflict in the Middle East persists, this issue remains a critical one, both in terms of its immediate implications and its impact on the broader discourse surrounding social media and its responsibilities in the digital age.

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 world is closely watching the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. The responses from various nations have highlighted the complexity of the situation. As events unfold, it becomes evident that the international community is divided into distinct camps, each with its own perspective on the conflict.

Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It planned and executed the brutal attack on 7 October and then retreated into Gaza to use ordinary Palestinians as human shields. Gazans often find themselves in a challenging situation due to the actions of Hamas. This has led to protests by many Palestinian supporters. However, when considering the role of governments in this context it becomes a more complex issue.

Understanding the divisions

The conflict can be understood in three broad categories. Firstly, there is the Western camp, comprising nations such as America and Europe, which firmly support Israels right to defend itself. They are notably hesitant to criticise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aligning themselves closely with Israels stance.

In contrast, there is the camp of neutral nations, including India, which condemns the Hamas attack but also advocates for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution. These countries aim to strike a balance between acknowledging the security concerns of Israel and the aspirations of Palestinians for statehood.

Lastly, there are the countries that support Hamas, the militant organisation governing the Gaza Strip. This camp includes nations in West Asia, with Iran and Lebanons Hezbollah group being among the most vocal supporters. They consider themselves part of what they term the Axis of Resistance and may potentially become directly involved in the conflict.

The role of Qatar

One nation worth noting is Qatar, home to top Hamas leaders. In the aftermath of the Hamas attack, Qatar released a statement, placing the blame squarely on Israel and framing it as retaliation for Israeli violations of Palestinian rights. This response is hardly surprising given Qatars close relationship with Hamas.

The unwavering supporters

On the other side of the spectrum are countries like Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and numerous Muslim-majority nations. They have refused to condemn Hamas and instead concentrate on highlighting the plight of Palestinians in Gaza offering little sympathy for the Israelis who have lost their lives.

This division extends far beyond West Asia with nations in Southeast Asia including Malaysia also joining the chorus. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim took a firm stance rejecting Western pressure to condemn Hamas. He emphasised Malaysias ongoing relationship with Hamas asserting that they constitute a legitimate government.

However, Anwars statement does not address the fact that the last Palestinian elections won by Hamas were held in 2006 and Hamas has not allowed Gazans to vote since. There appears to be a notable disconnect between political realities and the narrative expressed by some nations.

The South African perspective

South Africa, historically a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, expressed condolences for both Israelis and Palestinians. However, the focus of their criticism is directed primarily towards Israel, not Hamas.

Colombias bold statements

Colombian President Gustavo Petro entered into a war of words with Israel. His strong statements began in response to the Hamas attack when he compared Israeli leadership to neo-Nazis and criticised the Israeli defence ministers comments about the people of Gaza.

The confrontation escalated as Petro continued to make controversial remarks. When Israels defence minister likened Gazans to animals, Petro equated this to Nazi hate speech and expressed concern that it could lead to another Holocaust. Israel, in response, summoned Colombias Ambassador and halted security exports to the country.

An escalating dispute

In an unexpected turn of events, Petro threatened to suspend relations with Israel. This diplomatic dispute appears far from resolved indicating that it may escalate further.

As this dispute unfolds, it underscores the complexity of the global response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The divide in perspectives reflects a broader issue  the polarisation of the world over the ongoing conflict. The situation remains fluid and it is crucial to monitor how these positions continue to evolve in the ever-changing landscape of international diplomacy.

This ongoing conflict serves as a stark reminder of the challenges and instability facing the world as it grapples with the complexities of the Israel-Hamas issue.

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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As the world cannot decide on whom to blame for the recent horrific strike on a Gaza hospital, in West Asia, there is no such confusion. They have all taken one stance: They are all blaming Israel.

Jordan has condemned the strikes, blaming Israel; King Abdullah has called it a war crime; and Jordan has also cancelled its summit with the United States. The same is the case with Egypt. They have condemned Israel. President Sisi called it a deliberate bombing, and a violation of international laws.

Then, there are the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco; these are the countries that have normalised ties with Israel in 2020; they too have blamed Israel for the hospital attack, and theyve dismissed all claims about an Islamic Jihad missile rocket misfire.

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Coming to Saudi Arabia, a country that was supposed to sign a peace deal with Israel, Riyadh has called it a heinous crime, a crime committed by Israeli forces.

So you see the pattern here: These are all countries that have normalised ties with Israel; Egypt did it first in 1980, Jordan did it in 1994, and then there were the Abrahamic Accords in 2020, where the UAE and Bahrain recognised Israel. They called it an era of peace in West Asia. Plus, this was supposed to be the year of Saudi-Israel normalisation of ties. Needless to say, its on pause now. The Arab world may have its issues, but when it comes to the Palestinian cause, their unity still seems to be solid.

And a lot of this has to do with public sentiment. The leaders of these countries may have gotten close to Israel, but their citizens are still fiercely pro-Palestine, and it shows in the protests across the Arab world. In Amman, Jordanians tried to storm the US embassy; they clashed with the police, and tear gas was fired at the protesters.

I am here to support Hamas and Gaza; to be honest, Hamas and Gaza are defending the whole nation, either an Islamic nation or an Arabic nation, and without exaggeration, it is defending the human nation, said a protester.

In Lebanon, the scenes were similar: Thousands drove to the US Embassy, protested outside the gates, and clashed with the police.

We are here to let the Arab people wake up. Free Palestine, f*** Israel! Its time to wake up, please, said a demonstrator.

The US has now issued a do not travel advisory for Lebanon, which shows how serious the situation is. And this is the sentiment across West Asia right now.

People are gathering everywhere; they are calling for a free Palestine; there were rallies in Yemen; there were demonstrations in Turkey; there were protests in Tunisia; and in Tehran, people chanted death to Israel.

The Palestinian people did not commit a crime. They dont want anything. That is their home. They dont want to leave, said a Palestine supporter.

So the Arab world is angry; its anger is spreading like wildfire, and there are reasons for this. For the Arab world, this did not start on 7 October; it started in 1948 with the Nakba; thats what they call the mass displacement of Palestinians. The Palestinian cause is like an open wound in the Arab conscience. If you go back just a few decades, Palestine was at the centre of Arab nationalism. Leaders used it to galvanise the Arab world; they even exploited it for their own gains.

Things may have changed in the 21st century; Arab leaders may have gotten closer to Israel; they may have signed peace deals; but this has not changed public sentiment. Support for the Abrahamic Accords has been dismal; only 27 per cent of Emiratis back it; in Bahrain, only 20 per cent of the population is in favour of it.

Given these numbers, their leaders have no choice but to back Palestine and hold Israel responsible for the casualties. The war has only revived the Palestinian cause for the Arab world.

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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As the Hamas chief meets the Iranian foreign minister in Gaza, Blinken meets Qatars prime minister in the same city. They are sworn enemies, just hours apart. This sums up the role of Qatar: They initiate and then try to resolve.

Qatar hosts the top leadership of Hamas, including their current chief; they have also hosted the Taliban and the Muslim Brotherhood. They have been accused of funding Al-Qaeda. Yet Qatar is a Western darling. Last year, the US declared them a major non-NATO ally.

Even Israel gives them a long rope, they permit Qatar to send aid to Gaza, the same aid that is often swindled by Hamas terrorists.

So whats the play here?

Why is Qatar handled with kid gloves?

The answer lies in history.

Watch:

In the 1990s, when the US and Saudi Arabia had shaky relations, the kingdom did not want American soldiers. So where did they go? Qatar.

The regime in Doha gave US soldiers a new home. They set up shop at the Al-Udeid military base. Even today, its the forward headquarters of the US Central Command.

The equation is quite simple. America keeps Qatars ruling family in power. In return, they help the Americans. Even after two decades, this hasnt changed. But Qatar has another side as well, an ambitious and power-hungry side.

We are talking about a very small country. Its total area is around 11 thousand square kilometres, about the size of Indias Tripura state, and its population is just about 2.7 million people, their GDP is just one-fourth of that of Saudi Arabia. So Qatar looked elsewhere for power.

One strategy was Al-Jazeera, the television channel based in Doha. On paper, it has editorial freedom from the Qatari regime. But accusations do emerge. Al-Jazeera is said to be soft on Islamist elements in West Asia, Hamas included.

The other strategy was to host and leverage Islamists. In 2013, the Muslim Brotherhood was expelled from Egypt.

And who welcomed them? Qatar. Same with the Taliban. Doha says it is keeping an eye on these radicals, making sure they are not up to any trouble. If so, how did Hamas plot such a massive attack?

How did the Taliban take over Afghanistan?

So Qatars intentions are suspected.

They have used terrorists to keep bigger Arab states in check. Its a policy that has left Qatar isolated.

In 2017, the Arab states cut off diplomatic ties with Doha. They imposed a financial blockade as well. The reason was this: Qatars support for terrorism. The blockade lasted for four years.

It was finally lifted in 2021, so it appears that in the long term, the strategy worked.

One reason for that is American support. Think of Qatar as Washingtons shady friend; they talk to people the Americans cannot, like the Taliban or Hamas. In 2021, they brokered the deal between the US and the Taliban. This month, they negotiated a deal between Ukraine and Russia.

Moscow agreed to release four Ukrainian children, and now they are mediating between Israel and Hamas, trying to get the hostages released.

So Qatar has become the go-to mediator. The only problem is that they actively support these same groups. Consider Hamas. Qatar gives them millions of dollars every year; most of it is disguised as aid money. They also allow Hamas leaders to stay in Doha.

Fun fact: Their hotels are just minutes away from the Al-Udeid base.

When Hamas attacked Israel, Qatar did not condemn the attack; in fact, they blamed Israel. Doha said Israel was solely responsible for the escalation. Yet, that same Doha is now mediating for Israel.

The state of Qatars diplomatic priorities and movements are to seek an immediate ceasefire, protect civilians, release prisoners, and work to limit the expansion of violence and conflict in the region, which will have serious consequences if it expands, said Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, prime minister of Qatar.

Its a neat strategy, but also a dangerous and cruel one. Qatar effectively uses terror sponsorship as state policy; it gives them a seat at the high table of diplomacy, and it has also made them a darling of the West, but weve seen how terror groups work. Its never long before they strike the hand feeding them.

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Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot once again shared an interesting anecdote on Thursday where a woman wished for his fourth term as CM.

Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, Gehlot said, She told me to continue as Chief Minister of State. I told her, that I respect your feelings, but many times I think that I should leave the Chief Ministerial post, but the Chief Ministerial post is not leaving me.

#WATCH | A woman once told me that god willingly you should become CM for the fourth time. So, I told her that I want to leave the CM post but this post is not leaving me, says Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot in Delhi pic.twitter.com/Nj4v3ZCxNq  ANI (@ANI) October 19, 2023

Gehlot had iterated the same incident while addressing a public meeting in August.

The Rajasthan CM also denied any rift with his party member Sachin Pilot as reports suggested that the delay in ticket distribution for the upcoming elections was due to internal differences within the Congress party. Gehlot made it clear that there were no disputes within the Rajasthan unit of the Congress and affirmed his commitment to Sachin Pilots supporters.

Gehlot stated, The pain of the opposition regarding the selection process is that why are there no differences in the Congress party. I am sure you are talking about Sachin Pilot. All the decisions are being made by everyones opinion. I am participating in the decisions of Sachin Pilots supporters, in their favour. Only the BJP is concerned with smooth decision-making.

He also addressed the ongoing power struggle with Pilot, emphasising unity within the party. Gehlot asserted, We are all united. Ive not opposed any single candidate (of Pilot side).

The chief ministerial position had been a major point of contention between Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot in 2018, which eventually led to the 2020 rebellion. This internal conflict resulted in Pilots removal from his posts of deputy chief minister and state Congress president.

The delay in ticket distribution for the elections is reportedly due to differences in the party over the denial of tickets to some ministers. Gehlot is keen on rewarding his supporters within the party and wishes to provide tickets to the six BSP MLAs who joined the Congress in 2019. However, the party leadership is concerned about the electoral viability of these candidates.

This delay reflects the complexities and intricacies involved in candidate selection for the upcoming elections in Rajasthan, as the Congress seeks to balance internal dynamics and maximize its chances of success at the polls.

Gehlot said,After Sonia Gandhi ji became (Congress) president, the first decision she took was to make me the chief minister. I was not the CM candidate but she selected me as the CMI want to leave the CM post but this post is not leaving me and it wont leave me also. In reply to which, BJP MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said, What does the Rajasthan government want to hide that it has not given permission to the CBI for an inquiry?

He also added that the Rajasthan government should take the initiative to conduct the investigation themselves. Numerous fraudulent activities are taking place in Rajasthan, whether its related to illegal paper dealings or mining operation and substantial sums of money and gold were discovered within the secretariat, added Rathore. The Rajasthan Congress government had the opportunity to carry out their investigation, but since they did not, the central government rightfully stepped in to address the matter.

#WATCH | Jaipur, Rajasthan: BJP MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore says, When Rajasthan and people of Rajasthan needed you and when you were given responsibility, there was tussle going on in your party For four and a half years, there was a tussle in Congress You cared for https://t.co/4wD6ASo6al pic.twitter.com/QCutsQrasb  ANI (@ANI) October 19, 2023

Earlier the Election Commission of India (ECI) had revised the polling date for Rajasthan assembly elections to November 25 from November 23, 2023.The schedule for the tallying of votes is set for December 3, 2023 and all election-related procedures will conclude by December 5, 2023.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday accused the Congress of encouraging Naxalism and said incidents of Naxal violence have come down by 52 per cent in the nine-year rule of the Narendra Modi government.

Addressing a rally in Jagdalpur in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, Shah urged people to bring the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in the state currently ruled by the Congress, promising that his party will make the entire state free of the Naxal menace.

He claimed that if the Congress comes back to power in Chhattisgarh, the money sent from the Centre for the states development will be diverted to Delhi through the ATM of Congress.

Polling for the 90 assembly seats in Chhattisgarh is scheduled to be held in two phases on November 7 and 17 and votes will be counted on December 3.

Shah said the people of Chhattisgarh will celebrate Diwali thrice  once on the day of the festival, second when the BJP will be elected to power on December 3, and third when the construction of Ram temple will be completed in January, as Chhattisgarh is the nanihal of Lord Ram (the place of Lord Rams maternal grandparents).

The rally was held in Jagdalpur, the headquarters of Bastar district, ahead of the filing of nominations of BJP candidates in three constituencies of Bastar.

The Bastar region was once considered as the worst affected by Naxalism and the menace still persists in some places. Elect the BJP to power in the state, we will free the entire state of the menace, Shah said.

In 9 years of the Modi government, incidents of (Naxal) violence declined by 52 per cent, deaths (in Maoist violence) came down by 70 per cent, civilian deaths deceased by 68 per cent, while the (number of) Naxal-affected districts declined by 62 per cent, the Union minister said.

(Prime Minister) Modi ji has done a lot of work in the interest of tribals across the country. Apart from protecting their jal (water), jungle, zameen (land), the Modi government has worked to provide security, respect and inclusive development to tribals, he said.

Urging people to vote for the BJP, Shah said, There are two options in front of you, one is the Congress which encourages Naxalism while on the other hand, there is the BJP which eliminates Naxalism.

The Congress which sent crores of rupees of corruption to Delhi Darbar, while the BJP which is providing gas cylinders, toilets, drinking water, health facilities, grains and houses to crores of poor people.
In bustling Indian metropolises like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Kolkata, traffic jams have long been a common woe for the public, causing significant inconvenience and environmental disruptions due to vehicle emissions. However, Google may have a solution in the works, and its already being tested in some major Indian cities.

According to a post by a user on X, Googles Project Green Light has introduced new traffic lights in Bangalore as part of its initiative to enhance traffic flow at various intersections, ultimately reducing emissions from vehicles. Sahu also shared a video from Google providing a comprehensive explanation of the project.



According to the video, Project Green Light will leverage Googles AI technology to curtail vehicle emissions in multiple cities. This will be accomplished by analyzing data from Google Maps to discern driving patterns in specific areas. Recommendations will then be formulated to optimize the coordination and timing of traffic lights accordingly.

Numerous users have commented on Sahus tweet, expressing curiosity about the new traffic lights in Bengaluru.

Googls Project Green Light

In an October 10 blog post, Google unveiled Project Green Light, which aims to enhance traffic flow and reduce overall emissions in cities.

Google Research teams have been exploring the use of AI and driving trends from Google Maps to model intersections and traffic flow. We built an AI-based model of each intersection, including its structure, traffic patterns (such as patterns of starting and stopping), light scheduling, and how traffic and the light schedules interact, and then we also build a model of the interaction between traffic lights.

Based on this model, we develop AI-based optimizations and then provide recommendations to city engineers via the Green Light interface. As an example, we might identify an opportunity to coordinate between intersections that are not yet synced and provide a recommendation around the timing of the traffic lights so that traffic flows more effectively along a stretch of road, the blog post explains.

Google has also announced that some cities are already participating in the Project Green Light, and others are welcome to join.
Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform X, is reportedly contemplating the removal of the service, formerly known as Twitter, from Europe due to new internet platform regulations in the region, according to a report by Insider on Wednesday.

As per an individual familiar with the company, the billionaire entrepreneur has explored the possibility of either making the app unavailable in the European region or implementing restrictions to block users in the European Union from accessing it. This move comes in response to the evolving regulatory landscape affecting online platforms in Europe.

The European Union in August adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA), which sets forth rules for preventing the spread of harmful content, banning or limiting certain user-targeting practices, and sharing some internal data with regulators and associated researchers, among other things.

Elon Musks decision to remove X comes after a study commissioned by the European Commission found that X, formerly known as Twitter, showed the highest proportion of disinformation among the six major social networks.

The study analyzed over 6,000 unique social media posts across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, and YouTube, focusing on content in three countries  Spain, Poland, and Slovakia  identified as particularly susceptible to disinformation due to elections or proximity to the war in Ukraine.

Vera Jourova, the EUs Values and Transparency Commissioner, issued a warning to X, stating, My message for X is, you have to comply with the hard law. Well be watching what youre doing.

She emphasized that X, along with other large tech platforms, would be subject to the EUs Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to regulate the conduct of these platforms. The voluntary code of practice on disinformation, which X and others signed up to in 2018, is set to be converted into a code of conduct under the DSA.

(With inputs from agencies)
A federal judge in New York handed Douglass Mackey, a social media influencer, a seven-month prison sentence and a two-year term of supervised probation. His crime? Making memes around the 2016 US election.

The case is regarded as a precedent-setting instance of election interference during the 2016 US presidential election. Notably, former President Donald Trump is concurrently facing charges under the same legal statute.

The prosecution contended that Mackey was involved in a conspiracy to disseminate messages aimed at provoking, misleading, and sometimes deceiving voters in the 2016 presidential election. This conspiracy included tweets encouraging Hillary Clintons supporters to vote by text, a method not permitted in the United States.

US Attorney Erik David Paulsen argued that Mackeys actions constituted fraud, targeting one of the fundamental pillars of democracy. He emphasized the necessity of a prison sentence to convey a message to the general public about the seriousness of such actions.

Judge Ann M. Donnelly described the alleged conspiracy as nothing less than an attack on the democratic process. Despite Mackey residing in Florida, the case was tried in the Eastern District of New York, where Hillary Clinton had her campaign headquarters during the 2016 election.

Operating under the X pseudonym Ricky Vaughn, named after a character portrayed by Charlie Sheen in the 1989 movie Major League, Mackey had approximately 58,000 followers on the social media platform. A week before the November 8 election, he posted a series of memes urging Democrats to vote for Clinton via text, an unconventional method not recognized in the United States.

Hillary Clinton eventually lost the election to Republican Donald Trump, and she attributed her defeat to various factors, including the FBI, Russia, Macedonian meme producers, fake news, and disinformation.

Mackeys arrest occurred in January 2021, just a week following Joe Bidens presidential inauguration. He was charged with conspiracy against rights. The New York Times characterized him as a white supremacist and considered this case the first of its kind, involving voter suppression through the propagation of disinformation on X.

Prosecutors asserted that around 4,900 individuals attempted to text the number Mackey had provided, although none of them could testify to having done so. The governments key witness was an FBI informant who couldnt be cross-examined in court. A jury found Mackey guilty in April of this year, and he faced a potential sentence of up to ten years.

Special counsel Jack Smith has brought charges against Trump under the same Conspiracy Against Rights statute regarding the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The former president, who is contesting Joe Biden in the 2024 election, has decried these charges as politically motivated interference in the electoral process.
Honda Motor has announced its plan to collaborate with General Motors and Cruise to launch a driverless ride service in Japan by early 2026. The companies are working towards establishing this joint venture in the first half of 2024, pending regulatory approvals. Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed, as stated by Honda in a recent statement.

Cruise, which is GMs robotaxi division, presently provides limited ride services in San Francisco. In the same vein, Alphabets Waymo, a competitor to Cruise, also operates ride services. Notably, Honda had previously disclosed its commitment to invest $2 billion in Cruise over a span of 12 years back in 2018.

This collaboration highlights the continued efforts of automakers and technology companies to bring autonomous driving technology to market and develop driverless ride services, indicating a significant stride in the development of self-driving vehicles and mobility solutions in Japan.

The companies hope to commercialise autonomous vehicles at scale in Japan with the joint venture, said Cruises chief executive, Kyle Vogt, adding the company was already operating commercially in four cities in the United States.

Vogt said it was hard to say whether offering a driverless ride service in Tokyo posed a unique or distinct challenge for the company.

I will say in San Francisco, we do see go-karts. We see people juggling. We see donkeys in the street in Austin where we test, and so the range of the situation that our AVs (autonomous vehicles) have encountered is quite broad, he said.

The Cruise Origin vehicle was jointly developed by GM, Cruise and Honda. The Japan service is planned to launch in central Tokyo, using dozens of Origins before expanding to a fleet of 500 vehicles, Honda said in its statement.

Honda Chief Executive Officer Toshihiro Mibe said the company will use Chevrolet Bolts in the run up to starting the service in the Japanese capital before deploying the Origins.

The companies plan to later broaden the service to areas beyond central Tokyo, Honda said.

Customers will use a smartphone application to hail rides and make payments, according to the statement.

US auto safety regulators earlier this week opened a probe into whether Cruise is taking sufficient precautions with its autonomous robotaxis to safeguard pedestrians.

Commenting on the probe, Vogt said safety was the companys top priority, adding that it would help regulators with the very difficult job of regulating emerging technologies like this.

Mechanisms like this, preliminary investigations, are one of the tools that regulators use to learn more about the technology and to understand its impact, he said.

(With input from agencies)
UKs public service broadcaster BBC has come under fire for partisan reporting once again. Israeli President Isaac Herzog, much to the embarrassment of Britain, directly complained to PM Rishi Sunak about the broadcasters lopsided reportage against Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas.

Atrocious, is how Herzog characterised BBCs coverage of the conflict.

Sunak is in Israel on a visit a day after American President Joe Biden departed after a high-profile stay in Tel Aviv where he met Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog complained about BBCs atrocious refusal to brand Hamas as a terrorist group.

We feel that the way the BBC characterises Hamas is a distortion of the facts, Herzog told Sunak who was in Israel to demonstrate solidarity with the West Asian country reeling from October 7 assault by Hamas terrorists.

The Israeli leader said he understood that in democracies political leaders dont intervene in media organisations but called for an outcry.

Because the BBC has a certain linkage and it is known as Britain as such all over the world, there has to be an outcry so that there will be a correction and Hamas will be defined as a terror organisation, Herzog said.

In an interview to DailyMail on Wednesday, Herzog said he feels the BBCs reporting on Israel-Hamas was atrocious.

The fact that it does not recognise Hamas as a terror organisation requires a complete legal battle and public battle. Its unbelievable. What other type of torture do they want before they decide it was a terrorist organisation? Herzog asked.

The Israeli President also said he has seen the booklet that each of those terrorists received. Each one is instructed to go into an innocent village and kibbutz or city and immediately torture whoever is abducted, immediately, he said.

I have seen scalps, I have seen horrific pictures, children being shot and incredible, painful stories of entire families wiped off the face off the earth. What else do they need in order for them to admit that we are dealing with the worst terrorist organisation in the world? Herzog said.

Herzog further said death toll of Israel in the ongoing war had been seven times worse than the 9/11 attacks, given the USs population is much larger.

It is a battle for civilisation, a battle for humanity, and we are at the forefront of it, and we are protecting the whole world, he said.

Reacting to the BBCs coverage on Israel-Hamas war, former CEO of Prasar Bharati said, From Israel to India  the BBC has consistently ended up on the wrong side of issues.

From Israel to India  the BBC has consistently ended up on the wrong side of issues https://t.co/MiAhwpQhug  Shashi Shekhar Vempati   (@shashidigital) October 19, 2023

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas deadly incursion on October 7. Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people are believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

With inputs from agencies
A State Department official who was involved in arming important American allies resigned from his position, citing the Biden administrations shortsighted decisions as a factor in his need to make an intolerable moral compromise.

The official, Josh Paul, stated in a post that he had made in order to justify his choice, In my 11 years I have made more moral compromises than I can recall, each heavily, but each with my promise to myself in mind, and intact. I am leaving today because I feel that I have fulfilled my end of the bargain in terms of our current course regarding the continued  in fact, expanded and expedited  provision of lethal arms to Israel.

In addition, he said, I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse, including sending additional weapons to one side of the conflict.

Pauls LinkedIn profile and his statement both indicate that he was employed by the State Departments Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. The office is in charge of overseeing arms shipments and managing defense ties with US partners. The revelation was first revealed earlier on Wednesday by The Huffington Post.

His choice coincides with the Biden administrations recent surge in arms and ammunition sales to Israel, a vital Middle East ally, in the wake of the Palestinian militant group Hamas unexpected attack on Israel earlier this month.

However, the war has also been met with passionate and occasionally venomous reactions from a public split over Americas support of Israel as an ally in the protracted conflict in the region. This split has been manifested in a variety of ways, from high-profile demonstrations to uncontrollable outbursts on college campuses.

President Joe Biden has been treading carefully when it comes to the situation; his Democratic Party has been showing more and more support for the Palestinian people. In addition to extending the backing of the entire government to the US governments old buddy, Israel has threatened to launch a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip; therefore, he has attempted to voice his worry that Israel behave humanely toward the region.

Paul said of the Administrations and most of Congresss response, This Administrations response is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia. In other words, it is incredibly disheartening and completely predictable.

On Wednesday, while visiting Israel, Biden declared that $100 million would be provided to Gaza and the West Bank, which is under Israeli occupation.

An inquiry for comment on Wednesday night was not immediately answered by Paul. The State Department will not provide a statement.
A tremendous explosion that reverberated throughout Melbournes north on Wednesday night is shrouded in mystery.

CCTV footage showing a flash of light and a bang-like sound was shared on social media by a Doreen resident who heard the sound at 9 oclock at night while getting out of his car.

Residents are looking for information on what has been described as a massive explosion on social media, with others believing that it was caused by a meteorite.

One Mernda-area user said, Ok, massive explosion wasnt how I expected tonight to go. What on earth was that?

Another user retorted, assuming that the roadworks were the source of the loud af sound.

It is unknown where this music and light originated.

Astronomer Dr. Brad Tucker of the Australian National University told 3AW that the flash associated with this boom suggests that a meteor is most likely the source.

According to Tucker, there was a possibility that an astroid broke off, traveled through space, and collided with Earths atmosphere.
In preparation for the delivery of some of the supplies stocked in Egypts Sinai Peninsula, machinery to repair roads has been transferred from Egypt through the Rafah border crossing into the Gaza Strip, according to two security sources on Thursday.

The sole gate out of Gaza that is not under Israeli control is Rafah, but it has been closed since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist party Hamas as a result of Israeli airstrikes on the Palestinian side of the border.

As the situation in Gaza deteriorates, the United States and Egypt have been pressing Israel to reach a deal to transfer aid, and the White House said on Wednesday that up to 20 trucks will be allowed to pass through.

The diplomatic activity surrounding the opening of the Rafah crossing has increased. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met with King Abdullah of Jordan and the top American general in charge of troops in the Middle East, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded in Cairo that aid be distributed widely and consistently.

Additionally, on Saturday, Egypt will host a meeting on the Gaza crisis and the future of the Palestinian issue, to which Guterres is anticipated to go.

Egypt seeks to bring in the humanitarian aid piled up in front of the Egyptian side, and for this entry to be continuous, permanent and without interruption, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, speaking alongside Guterres.

Before the current battle began on October 7, the majority of Gazas 2.3 million population relied on aid, and the UN estimates that roughly 100 trucks per day were bringing the enclave humanitarian aid.

Although it was anticipated that help would not enter until Friday, more than 100 trucks were parked near to the crossing on the Egyptian side on Thursday, according to Egyptian security sources. Nearly 45 kilometres (28 miles) from Rafah, in the Egyptian city of Al Arish, further supplies is being stored.

Large craters, cracked pavement, and damaged houses could be seen inside the crossing area in footage carried by Al Jazeera.

Foreign passport holders from Gaza are being evacuated by Western governments, but Egyptian officials have made this conditional on supplies entering the region. Details of potential evacuations are unclear.

Egyptian opposition to any major exodus of Palestinians from Gaza reflects Arab concerns that Palestinians may be forced to leave their homes permanently once more, as they were during the conflict that preceded Israels founding.

Cairo is particularly concerned about security in northeastern Sinai, where it once faced an escalating Islamist insurgency, as well as potential spillover from Hamas-run Gaza.

Following discussions with Vice President Joe Biden of the United States on Wednesday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would not obstruct humanitarian aid from Egypt reaching Gaza as long as it did not also reach Hamas.

It declared that it would maintain a ban on humanitarian aid entering Gaza from Israel until all hostages held by Hamas were freed.

Israels bombardment and siege of Gaza is in reaction for a disastrous assault by Hamas into Israel on October 7 that resulted in 1,400 casualties and the kidnapping of hostages.

Since Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007, Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade that closely restricts the movement of people and goods.

Palestinian health officials estimate that more than 3,500 people have died and more than 12,000 have been injured as a result of Israeli attacks on Gaza.

(With agency inputs)
Representatives of resettlement groups and a group of retired US diplomats urged Pakistan not to deport thousands of Afghans who are awaiting US visas as part of an American initiative that transfers vulnerable Afghan refugees escaping Taliban rule.

A week after Pakistan announced a crackdown on migrants living in the country illegally, including 1.7 million Afghans, the appeal was made in an open letter signed on Wednesday by 80 former US officials, dignitaries, and resettlement groups. The letter advised the migrants to return to their home countries by October 31 in order to avoid mass arrest and expulsion.

The United Nations warned this week that such forced deportations of Afghans may result in abuses of human rights, including the dissolution of families. Pakistan, on the other hand, disputes that it is targeting Afghans and claims that all individuals in the nation illegally are the main target.

Pakistani authorities warned illegal immigrants on Thursday that time was running out to return home before October 31 in order to avoid being detained and expelled.

Before their claims may be considered, applicants are required by U.S. law to relocate to a third nation. Resettlement assistance centers handle the cases, and the procedure can take up to 14 or 18 months.

For almost two years, thousands of Afghan candidates have been waiting in Pakistan for their visa applications to be processed by U.S. officials. Afghan applicants are now extremely vulnerable as they deal with economic hardship and limited access to health, education, and other facilities in Pakistan due to the delay in issuing the visas and relocation.

Numerous former U.S. officials and members of resettlement organizations wrote to Pakistans caretaker prime minister, Anwaarul Haq Kakar, requesting that Pakistan halt its deportation plan of Afghans who entered the nation after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in 2021.

We want Afghans to know that powerful people in the U.S. and Americans from across the nation stand with them, said Shawn VanDiver, president and founder of #AfghanEvac, a nonprofit organization.

We appreciate Pakistan for providing refuge to our allies following Americas withdrawal from Afghanistan, but this decision would only cause chaos and make a bad situation worse. We urge Pakistan to work with us to resettle qualifying individuals in the U.S., not send them back to Afghanistan where they face certain doom, the letter said.

It said Pakistans decision to deport Afghans would impact individuals, including former interpreters, journalists, women leaders and others who face significant risks if returned to Afghanistan.

These deportations would not be consistent with Pakistans humanitarian tradition, and if pursued, would certainly adversely impact Pakistans relationship with the United States and could cause lasting damage to Pakistans reputation among the international community, the letter added.

Further, it is simply inhumane to treat these vulnerable neighbors in such a manner, it said.

The letter also asks Pakistan to approve the International Organization for Migrations request to establish a Resettlement Support Center in Pakistan to assist Afghans and verify their eligibility for resettlement.

(With inputs from agencies)
According to his counsel, a Pakistani court on Thursday prevented authorities from detaining former three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif upon his scheduled return home from four years in self-exile on Saturday.

According to Sharifs lawyer, Azam Nazeer Tarar, Sharif has been granted protective bail, which means that police cannot arrest him until he appears in court on October 24.

In two cases in 2018, Sharif was convicted on corruption accusations, which he rejected. In 2019, a judge granted him permission to fly to London for medical treatment.

The experienced politician claims he was deposed as prime minister in 2017 by leaders of the strong military and judiciary after a disagreement with the generals.

The military, which has ruled Pakistan for extended periods since independence in 1947 and retains significant influence, even over civilian government, denies that.

Tarar said Sharif would follow up appeals against his convictions, which have been pending since he left, in the hope of overturning them and campaigning for a general election scheduled for early next year.

Nawaz Sharifs younger brother, Shehbaz Sharif, was prime minister from 2022 until this year, when his government was replaced by a caretaker administration upon the dissolution of parliament in advance of the general election.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday for bemoaning the plight of people in the Israel-Hamas conflict while his army is fighting in Ukraine.

It makes me more than furious to hear the Russian president repeatedly warning that there could be civilian casualties from an armed conflict, Scholz told the German parliament.

It doesnt get more cynical than that, he said.

Israel has been shelling Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 onslaught on Israel by Hamas terrorists, who murdered over 1,400 people, primarily civilians, and kidnapped around 200 more.

According to officials in the blockaded territory, Israeli air attacks have killed over 3,000 people in Gaza.

Israel has also gathered troops along the border in preparation for a ground attack.

Putin has warned that the upcoming ground battle will result in absolutely unacceptable civilian losses.

He also called earlier this weeks fatal hit on a Gaza hospital a tragedy.

This is a terrible event I really hope that this will be a signal that this conflict needs to end as soon as possible, he said.

Hamas said after the explosion on Tuesday that the cause was an Israeli air strike.

But Israel blamed it on the Islamic Jihad militant group and a misfired rocket.

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday backed Israels insistence it was not to blame, saying that the explosion was caused by an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.

The crisis in the Middle East has diverted international attention from Ukraine, which has battled to repel Russias invasion for more than 600 days.

More than 9,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Speaking to parliament ahead of an EU summit in Brussels, Scholz vowed that the bloc would continue to support Ukraine.

The meeting will address how we can ensure that the necessary things are done this winter as Kyiv prepares for fresh Russian assaults on its infrastructure, he said.
The body of 12-year-old Israeli girl with autism, who was initially believed to have been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, has been found.

Noya Dan and her 80-year-old grandmother were allegedly kidnapped by Hamas earlier this month. Both have now been killed by the Palestinian terror group.

They both went missing when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7.

The report of their death was confirmed by Noyas family on Facebook and later Israeli minister of foreign affairs also gave confirmation.

A report by DailyMail quoted Israeli news sources saying the bodies of Noya and her grandmother were found burned near the Israel-Gaza border fence by workers for ZAKA Search and Rescue.

There are also reports saying that three more members of Noyas family are said to be missing.

Noya was a fan of Harry Potter. Her disappearance prompted author of the fiction, JK Rowling condemn the Hamas attacks as well as kidnapping of children.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling Tuesday shared a picture on X, formerly Twitter, of Noya donning a Harry Potter costume with the caption: Kidnapping children is despicable and wholly unjustifiable. For obvious reasons, this picture has hit home with me. May Noya and all hostages taken by Hamas be returned soon, safely, to their families.

In the photograph shared by Rowling, Noya could be seen grinning, wearing clothes resembling the Hogwarts school uniform and the iconic red and yellow Gryffindor tie.

Kidnapping children is despicable and wholly unjustifiable. For obvious reasons, this picture has hit home with me. May Noya and all hostages taken by Hamas be returned soon, safely, to their families. https://t.co/YIbf3egib4  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 16, 2023

It appeared that she was dressed as one of the main characters - Hermione Granger - and was also holding a Hebrew copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the fifth book in the series. She could also been seen holding a wand.

On Sunday, Israel too shared Noya's picture on its on its X account, saying: "This beautiful 12 year old girl with autism was kidnapped from her home by Hamas terrorists and was taken to Gaza. Noya is sensitive, kind, funny and a massive Harry Potter fan."

The State of Israel's official X account also urged Rowling to share Noya's story in the hopes of "bringing her home"

According to Israeli authorities, the terrorists have kidnapped at least 203 others, including children, and took them into the Gaza Strip to be held as hostages.

Noya had been staying with her grandmother when they were taken prisoner in Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the several Israeli communities, that were attacked by Hamas 13 days ago.

With inputs from agencies
The humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip via Egypt may begin as soon as Friday, said US President Joe Biden.

Biden, told reporters on Air Force One, that he had spoken to Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who had agreed to reopen the Rafah crossing to allow 20 trucks with humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

The US president said the roads near the border would need repairs after they were damaged in Israeli strikes, but that aid could start reaching the territory by Friday.

Israel bombed the Gaza-Egypt crossing following the brutal terror attack on Israeli civilians and soldiers.

The statement was made by Biden following an agreement brokered with Sisi and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow assistance into the Palestinian enclave via the Rafah crossing.

He (Sisi) agreed to let up to 20 trucks through to begin with, Biden said from Air Force One while returning from Israel, where he was on a solidarity visit after the October 7 Hamas assault.

Biden further clarified that people will not be able to evacuate Gaza through Rafah. The statement appeared to assuage fears in Cairo that Egypt will be asked to take in refugees from Gaza.

Aid would end if

Biden warned that if Hamas confiscates it, doesnt let it get through  then its going to end.

According to the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed, there are more than 200 trucks and around 3,000 tons of aid positioned at or near the Rafah crossing.

When second tranche of aid to Gaza will arrive?

Biden said the UN would distribute the humanitarian aid on the other side, and that a second tranche was possible depending on how it goes.

Biden and Sisi were due to meet Wednesday at a four-way summit in Jordan, but it was canceled after a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital that claimed lives of 500 people and caused anger across the Arab world.

Meanwhile, speaking to Al-Arabiya TV, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said supplies will go in under supervision of the UN.

Asked whether foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, Shoukry said: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Decision for aid approved on Bidens request

Netanyahus office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden.

It further said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and dont go to Hamas terrorists. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

With inputs from agencies
According to the prosecutors office, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has dismissed charges against a former militia leader from the Central African Republic (CAR) because there was no chance of conviction.

Prosecutors previously stated that Maxime Mokom, a former national coordinator of so-called anti-balaka militias, had a crucial part in a 2013 and 2014 plan to violently attack the Muslim civilian population.

Having considered the totality of the evidence in the Mokom case and in light of changed circumstances regarding the availability of witnesses, there are no longer any reasonable prospects of conviction at trial even if the charges were confirmed, the prosecutors office said.

Mokom testified in August that he had no involvement in any of the violent attacks against Muslim people in 2013 and 2014 that prosecutors intended to prosecute him with.

He informed the court he was a refugee trapped in the adjacent Democratic Republic of the Congo for the most of the time period cited in the allegations, while prosecutors said he organised militia deployment and monitored attacks.

Since March 2013, a group of primarily northern and predominantly Muslim rebels called as Seleka, or Alliance in the Sango language, has seized control in CAR.

Their dominance gave rise to the opposing anti-balaka Christian militias. The ICC has been investigating the violence in CAR since May 2014. There are two ongoing trials before the court involving two other anti-balaka leaders and one Seleka leader.
The number of high-profile donors withdrawing their financial support to the University of Pennsylvania has been soaring. They argue that UPenns leadership didnt do much to condemn a multi-day Palestine Writes Literature Festival that took place on campus last month.

David Magerman, a UPenn graduate renowned for his work in building trading algorithms at Renaissance Technologies, expressed his discontent in a letter to UPenn leaders. He specifically criticised UPenn President Liz Magills decision to host the festival and her initial response to the terror attacks on Israel.

Magerman stated that he is ashamed of his association with UPenn and refuses to donate any more funds to the university.

Jews have played an extraordinary role in the history and legacy of the University of Pennsylvania. And Jews have benefitted from their affiliation with Penn. But regardless of the economic and social value of a Penn or Wharton degree, there is no place for self-respecting Jewish people at an institution that supports evil, he added.

NEW: Another major @Penn donor, David Magerman, has said he will no longer support the university: I am deeply ashamed of my association with the University of Pennsylvania. I refuse to donate another dollar to Penn. There is no action anyone at Penn can take to change that. pic.twitter.com/nGBfVqq4NQ  Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) October 17, 2023

Magerman is joined by other notable UPenn donors, including private-equity billionaire Marc Rowan, former US Ambassador Jon Huntsman, and more, who have pledged to withhold their financial support in protest.

President Elizabeth Magill responded to the criticisms by condemning the terrorist attacks by Hamas and expressing her horror at the violence in the region. She acknowledged the pain caused to the Jewish community by the presence of certain speakers on Penns campus.

Prior to David Magerman, the Huntsman family halted their donations to the university. Jon Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah and US ambassador, announced that the Huntsman Foundation would no longer contribute to the university.

Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global, criticized UPenn for not taking a stronger stance against anti-Semitism and called for leadership changes. He also urged alumni to Join me and many others who love UPenn by sending UPenn $1 in place of your normal, discretionary contribution so that no one misses the point.
The United States assessed that Israel was not responsible for the attack on a Gaza hospital a day earlier, the White House said on Wednesday.

The US government assesses that Israel was not responsible for an explosion that killed hundreds of civilians yesterday at the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip, White House National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

Our assessment is based on available reporting, including intelligence, missile activity, overhead imagery, and open source video and images of the incident, she said.

Citing intelligence reports, Watson said some Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip believed that the explosion was likely caused by an errant rocket or missile launch carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

As the President said earlier today, the explosion appears to be the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza  and we are continuing to work to corroborate whether it was a failed PIJ rocket, she said.

There were conflicting claims of who was behind the explosion on Tuesday night, but protests flared quickly in the region as many Arab leaders said Israel was responsible. Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

During his brief visit to Israel, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing US support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies. Upon his arrival, Biden embraced Netanyahu  and expressed concern for the suffering of Gazas civilians.

Biden said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israels fault, and he cautioned Israelis not to allow outrage over the deadly Hamas attack to consume them.

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed Wednesday after a 12-hour lull. Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, including on cities in the south that Israel had described as safe zones for civilians.
Syrian opposition groups claim that a drone strike has been carried out on an oil complex in eastern Syria that houses US personnel as well as a US base in the vicinity.

Requests for confirmation from the US military were not promptly answered, and there was no immediate information on casualties.

According to activist Omar Abu Layla, who runs the Deir Ezzor 24 media site from Europe, three explosive-equipped drones hit the Conoco gas field in the Iraqi border region of Deir el-Zour in the east.

Five explosions were reported at the Conoco gas field, according to Rami Abdurrahman, an opposition war monitor stationed in Britain with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The US base at Tanf, located in eastern Syria close to the borders of Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, was also hit by three drones, according to the Observatory. According to the report, three drones struck the base and caused minor material damage, while two were shot down before they could reach their targets.

According to Abu Layla and the Observatory, fighters stationed in Iran and stationed in eastern Syria and western Iraq appear to be responsible for the strike.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has agreed to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza to allow a first batch of around 20 humanitarian aid trucks through, US President Joe Biden said Wednesday.

He agreed to let up to 20 trucks through to begin with, Biden told reporters after calling Sisi from Air Force One while returning from a visit to Israel, where he was showing solidarity over the 7 October Hamas attacks.

The shipment would likely not cross until Friday, as the road at the crossing needed repairs, Biden said.

Theyre going to patch the road. They have to fill in potholes to get these trucks through. And thats going to occur  they expect itll take about eight hours tomorrow, he said.

The first 20 trucks will be a test of a system for distributing aid without allowing the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which controls Gaza, to benefit, the US president said.

The United Nations is set to distribute aid on the Gaza side of the border.

If Hamas confiscates it or doesnt let it get through or just confiscates it, then its going to end, because were not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas if theyre going to be confiscating it. Thats the commitment that Ive made, Biden said.

He added that the 20 trucks represented a first tranche, but 150 or something trucks are waiting in total. Whether the rest are allowed to cross will depend on how it goes.

Biden had been due to meet Sisi on Wednesday at a four-way summit in Jordan, but it was canceled after a deadly strike on a Gaza hospital that caused anger across the Arab world.

He said he had instead talked to Sisi from Air Force One for about half an hour.

The bottom line is that he (Sisi) deserves some real credit because he was very accommodating, the US president added.

Biden characterized his trip to the war zone as a success and said that while expressing US support for ally Israel, he was very blunt with the Israelis on the need to allow aid into Gaza.

If you have an opportunity to alleviate the pain, you should do it. Period. And if you dont, youre going to lose credibility worldwide. And I think everyone understands that, he said.

Asked by journalists about reports that his administration had told Israel that US forces would fight alongside Israeli troops in response to any attack by the powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah against Israel, Biden said this was not true.

However, he said that our military is talking with their military about what the alternatives are in the event of a Hezbollah attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the Middle East peace process was being thwarted by the Hamas onslaught on Israel on Thursday and urged British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to continue backing Israels counteroffensive in Gaza.

Sunak is the most recent representative of a Western country to travel to Jerusalem in an effort to support Israel, facilitate negotiations for the release of hostages held by Hamas, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gazans.

According to Sunaks spokesperson, the British prime minister will go to Saudi Arabia later on Thursday to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to sources, Saudi Arabia has suspended U.S.-supported initiatives to normalise relations with Israel.

Netanyahu claimed that a Palestinian strike from Gaza by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which killed 1,400 people in Israel, was aimed at derailing attempts to establish a wider peace in the region.

We were on the cusp of expanding that peace, and destroying that move was one of the reasons why this action was taken, Netanyahu told Sunak at their meeting in Jerusalem.

This is our darkest hour, he added. That means that this is a long war, and well need your continuous support.

Sunak spoke with Israeli President Isaac Herzog before meeting Netanyahu. He expressed his appreciation for the decision to permit aid to enter Gaza and stated that he was aware that Israel was taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas.

Prior to this, Sunak and Herzog emphasised the need to prevent an uptick in violence in the area, which has provoked protests in certain nations and led to an explosion at a hospital in Gaza that Palestinians accuse Israel of being responsible for.

President Joe Biden of the United States stated that American evidence backed up Israels claim that the event was brought on by a botched rocket launch by Palestinian fighters. Israel has denied carrying out the attack.

The British government, according to Sunaks spokeswoman, was still awaiting a security report before offering its opinion.

We will stand with you in solidarity with your people and your right to defend yourself, to bring security back to your country, to your people, to ensure the safe return of the hostages that have been taken, Sunak said in a televised part of the meeting with Herzog.

Palestinians are victims of what Hamas has done. Its important that we continue to provide humanitarian access.

According to Sunaks spokesperson, since the attack on Israel, at least nine British people have gone missing and at least seven have been dead. At least two of the missing individuals were kept captive in Gaza, she added.

As part of coordinated efforts with his foreign minister James Cleverly, who is currently in Egypt and will visit Turkey and Qatar over the next three days, Sunak is scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia.

Foreign ministers from Turkey and Qatar will also be welcomed by Cleverly, who visited Israel last week. According to Britain, these nations are vital to international efforts to uphold regional stability, free hostages, and allow humanitarian access to Gaza.

The flurry of diplomatic activity contrasts with what some analysts claim has been a decade of waning British influence in the Middle East, with London being perceived as a junior partner of the United States.

David Cameron, the most recent British prime minister, travelled to Israel and the West Bank in 2014. A ministerial position overseeing connections with the Middle East was secretly eliminated by the government in 2022, replacing it with one that included relations with North Africa, South Asia, and the UN.

(With agency inputs)
Israel President Isaac Herzog on Thursday met British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and thanked him for visiting Israel and standing firm with the Israeli people amid Israel-Hamas war.

Israel President Isaac Herzog tweets, During such difficult days, we see clearly who are the true friends of the State of Israel. Thank you Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak for coming to Israel and for your support and firm stand by the Israeli people. It is time pic.twitter.com/9wM93QGyvg  ANI (@ANI) October 19, 2023

Taking to X, Herzog said, During such difficult days, we see clearly who are the true friends of the State of Israel. Thank you Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak for coming to Israel and for your support and firm stand by the Israeli people.

Herzog said it is time to express a clear moral voice  this is a battle for the values of all humanity.

The world needs to understand that if we do not prevent Hamas and other terrorist organizations from carrying out murderous and criminal attacks  they will not stop with Israel, added Herzog.

Earlier, in a statement, Sunaks office said that the British PM and Israeli President stressed the need to avoid further escalation of violence in the region during their meeting.

The Prime Minister and President Herzog stressed the imperative need to avoid further escalation of violence in the region. They agreed to continue working together to that end, the statement added.

Sunak also told Israeli President that it was important to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

Palestinians are victims of what Hamas has done. Its important that we continue to provide humanitarian access, he said.

Sunak landed in Israel on Thursday, beginning a visit where he will also meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before traveling on to other regional capitals.

With inputs from agencies
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday held a private meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at his office in Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently holding a private meeting with British Prime Minister @RishiSunak at the Prime Ministers Office in Jerusalem. The leaders will also hold an expanded meeting, at the conclusion of which they will issue statements to the media, as per the Israeli Prime Ministers official handle on X.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently holding a private meeting with British Prime Minister @RishiSunak at the Prime Ministers Office in Jerusalem. The leaders will also hold an expanded meeting, at the conclusion of which they will issue statements to the media. pic.twitter.com/u8tJYpEoNH  Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 19, 2023

Amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, United Kingdom PM Sunak landed in Tel Aviv earlier on Thursday.

Sunak also visited the families of those who were killed or being held hostage by the Hamas militants. To have a child taken from you is a parents worst nightmare. This morning I heard from families going through this unbearable agony. Working with our partners, were determined to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists, he said in a post on X.
Japan announced on Thursday that it had extended an invitation to Australia to take part in two ongoing joint military drills with the United States.

During discussions with his counterpart from Canberra, Richard Marles, in Tokyo, Australias participation in the exercises was brought up, according to Minoru Kihara, Japans minister of defence.

Yama Sakura, the first exercise in November, will involve both the U.S. Army and the Self Defence Forces (SDF) of Japan. The SDF and the U.S. Marines will participate in the second exercise, Keen Edge, which is slated to take place in February.

We are expanding defence cooperation with Australia in all areas. Our goal is that in times of emergency we are able to work closely together, Kihara told reporters after the meeting.

The two nations also decided to work together on collaborative defence equipment development.

According to a transcript of his statements made public by the Canberra administration, Marles hailed Australias strengthening security relations with Japan.

There is no country in the world with whom we have a greater strategic alignment than Japan. Were both allies of the United States, we both have a complex relationship with our largest trading partner China, and we have a deep relationship with each other, Marles said.

Both Japan and Australia are worried about Chinas expanding military influence in the Indo-Pacific region and the possibility of a Chinese strike to seize control of Taiwan.

(With agency inputs)
The Japanese government said on Thursday that a businessman from its country who had been held in March on suspicion of espionage had been officially arrested by China. Tokyo urged Beijing to free its citizen to avoid the matter becoming yet another sore point in the bilateral relationship.

We have also strongly urged China for an immediate release at various levels and we will continue to do so, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said, adding that the man, aged in his 50s, had been formally arrested in mid-October.

The foreign ministry has not confirmed that the guy being detained is a worker of the pharmaceutical business Astellas Pharma (4503.T), but the news agency Kyodo claimed that he is. An Astellas spokeswoman claimed that the company was still obtaining information from the ministry.

In Chinas legal system, a suspects formal arrest causes prosecutors to conduct a more thorough investigation before filing charges.

According to Japanese media, the person detained has been employed in China for 20 years and was formerly a top official of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China.

The government of China recently carried out tougher anti-espionage legislation, which some nations fear may be used to punish routine business activities. The arrest may cause concern among foreign companies doing business in China.

A representative for Chinas foreign ministry responded to questions over the arrest by saying that such instances are handled legally and that peoples rights and interests are safeguarded.

Beijing introduced a new anti-espionage law in July in an effort to severely limit foreigners as part of President Xi Jinpings heightened focus on national security.

The arrest would further sour Japans relations with China, which is also its closest economic partner and a major import and export market for Japan. China is also a rival of Japan.

China recently retaliated against Japan after treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear facility was released into the ocean.

Japanese companies have spent years building extensive supply chains and manufacturing facilities in the worlds second-largest economy, which is also a key market for Japanese manufacturers, including automakers.

Imports from China totalled $198 billion last year, while exports to China were $145 billion, according to IMF trade data.

(With agency inputs)
In combating Londons most prolific shoplifters, the Metropolitan police in Britain employs facial recognition technology to compare CCTV images with mugshots.

Last month, the Metropolitan Police requested photos of the 30 most frequent unidentified offenders from the capitals 12 major retailers. Within days, they successfully identified 149 individuals. Some of these individuals have ties to significant crimes, although all had prior arrests for various offenses including drug sales, sexual offenses, burglaries, assault, and gun possession.

This initiative comes as a response to the increasing issue of shoplifting, driven by organized crime and rising living costs. Met Commissioner Mark Rowley referred to the results as game-changing.

Retailers are increasingly pressuring the government to address retail crime, which is estimated to cost the UK economy 1.9 billion annually in lost revenue.

Police Minister Chris Philp recently proposed adding passport photos to the police database to facilitate CCTV matching.

Police officers will collaborate with retailers to build cases against the suspects identified from 302 CCTV stills and locate them. The Mets facial recognition technology can match features against police mugshots in about a minute.

Mark stated, Were collaborating with stores throughout the capital to identify and apprehend offenders in a way weve never done before. Were pushing the boundaries and using innovation and technology to rapidly identify criminals. The outcomes thus far are revolutionary. This kind of facial recognition application has the potential to completely change how we look into and resolve crimes.

The Met reports that one out of every ten Londoners works in retail, with over 1,000 incidents of abuse and violence against employees reported annually.

According to Sir Mark, the majority of the suspects are career criminals engaged in serious crimes, highlighting the effectiveness of facial recognition technology in this regard.

The spread of facial recognition technology into other policing domains worries us as well, said Emmanuelle Andrews of the human rights organization Liberty. Lets be clear: we cannot rely on tech to solve deep societal problems. This is an unjustified expansion of state surveillance, and there are numerous alternatives.

While the retail pilot was initiated in late September, the Met had been using the software since August. The force claims that the facial recognition technology is 100% accurate when used retroactively, having undergone independent testing through the National Physical Laboratory.

Approximately 50,000 shoplifting instances were recorded by the Metropolitan Police Department (Met) in the previous year, representing 5% to 10% of actual offenses.
Israel pounded Gaza with more air strikes on Thursday and deployed tanks and soldiers along the border fence as a ground offensive of the besieged Gaza Strip loomed.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said four rockets of nine launched from Lebanese territory were intercepted, adding that several anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon towards Israeli forces.

The IDF added that in response to the attacks, Israeli forces targeted the site in Lebanon from where rockets were fired into Israel and also struck at Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure using tank fire.

Israel prepares to invade Gaza

The casualties reported so far indicate that 2,329 Palestinians, including 724 children, have lost their lives in Israeli air raids. On the Israeli side, the number of casualties resulting from Hamass military operation is reported as 1,300, including 286 soldiers.

The Israeli forces also claimed to have thwarted and dismantled a terrorist cell using a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) of the IDF. As Israel gears up for an all-out ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, one of the biggest challenges they face is Hamas extensive underground tunnel network in the area.

Several experts have warned that in the event of a ground offensive, Israel will lose the clear advantage it has over Hamas in terms of firepower, as it will have to fight the enemy on its terrain.

The Israeli military has been strengthening its grounds against Hamas and giving a strong fight after the Palestinian terror group began its assault in the West Asian nation on October 7.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Thursday released footages of attack its continued attack throughout the Gaza Strip.

The IDF further said, directed by the Shin Bet, it also destroyed hundreds of Hamas terrorist infrastructures, dozens of which were attacked in the Sageya neighbourhood.

The hundreds of terrorist infrastructures that were attacked include anti-tank missile launch sites, tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructures, operational headquarters and other headquarters, IDF said.

At the same time, dozens of mortar rocket launching positions were attacked, most of which were destroyed immediately after they were launched towards Israel, IDF said.

Israel PM blames Hamas for derailing peace process

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the Middle East peace process was being thwarted by the Hamas onslaught on Israel on Thursday and urged British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to continue backing Israels counteroffensive in Gaza.

Netanyahu claimed that a Palestinian strike from Gaza by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which killed 1,400 people in Israel, was aimed at derailing attempts to establish a wider peace in the region.

We were on the cusp of expanding that peace, and destroying that move was one of the reasons why this action was taken, Netanyahu told Sunak at their meeting in Jerusalem.

This is our darkest hour, he added. That means that this is a long war, and well need your continuous support.

British PM Rishi Sunak visits Israel

Sunak is the most recent representative of a Western country to travel to Jerusalem in an effort to support Israel, facilitate negotiations for the release of hostages held by Hamas, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gazans.

According to Sunaks spokesperson, the British prime minister will go to Saudi Arabia later on Thursday to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to sources, Saudi Arabia has suspended U.S.-supported initiatives to normalise relations with Israel.

According to Sunaks spokesperson, the British prime minister will go to Saudi Arabia later on Thursday to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to sources, Saudi Arabia has suspended U.S.-supported initiatives to normalise relations with Israel.

Sunak spoke with Israeli President Isaac Herzog before meeting Netanyahu. He expressed his appreciation for the decision to permit aid to enter Gaza and stated that he was aware that Israel was taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas.

Prior to this, Sunak and Herzog emphasised the need to prevent an uptick in violence in the area, which has provoked protests in certain nations and led to an explosion at a hospital in Gaza that Palestinians accuse Israel of being responsible for.

President Joe Biden of the United States stated that American evidence backed up Israels claim that the event was brought on by a botched rocket launch by Palestinian fighters. Israel has denied carrying out the attack.

The British government, according to Sunaks spokeswoman, was still awaiting a security report before offering its opinion.

We will stand with you in solidarity with your people and your right to defend yourself, to bring security back to your country, to your people, to ensure the safe return of the hostages that have been taken, Sunak said in a televised part of the meeting with Herzog.

Palestinians are victims of what Hamas has done. Its important that we continue to provide humanitarian access.

According to Sunaks spokesperson, since the attack on Israel, at least nine British people have gone missing and at least seven have been dead. At least two of the missing individuals were kept captive in Gaza, she added.

As part of coordinated efforts with his foreign minister James Cleverly, who is currently in Egypt and will visit Turkey and Qatar over the next three days, Sunak is scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia.

Foreign ministers from Turkey and Qatar will also be welcomed by Cleverly, who visited Israel last week. According to Britain, these nations are vital to international efforts to uphold regional stability, free hostages, and allow humanitarian access to Gaza.

The flurry of diplomatic activity contrasts with what some analysts claim has been a decade of waning British influence in the Middle East, with London being perceived as a junior partner of the United States.

David Cameron, the most recent British prime minister, travelled to Israel and the West Bank in 2014. A ministerial position overseeing connections with the Middle East was secretly eliminated by the government in 2022, replacing it with one that included relations with North Africa, South Asia, and the UN.

(With agency inputs)
On October 13, thousands of people demonstrated in favour of the Palestinians around the world, yet all such demonstrations were prohibited in Germany and France.

The two nations, which are home to the largest Jewish and Muslim populations in the European Union, have cracked down on pro-Palestinian organisations ever since Hamas militants crossed the border from Gaza on October 7 and killed more than 1,400 Israelis.

The governments claim that the limits are necessary to end public commotion and stop anti-Semitism.

However, pro-Palestinian activists claim they feel unable to publicly show their concern or support for those living in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas, without running the risk of being detained or having their employment or visa status jeopardised.

Since Israel began its campaign of retaliatory bombardment, more than 3,500 people have died in Gaza, and a blockade that limits the entry of food, fuel, and medical supplies has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.

We are scared, we are worried about being accused of justifying terrorism, when we just want to support a humanitarian cause, said Messika Medjoub a 20-year-old French-Algerian history student.

She was speaking last Thursday during an unlawful rally in Paris that police dispersed with tear gas and water cannon.

Last week, pro-Palestinian demonstrations were outlawed nationwide due to the potential for civil unrest, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. Since October 7th, nine have been forbidden in Paris.

The presence and circulation of people that present themselves as pro-Palestinian are prohibited, according to a statement from Paris police over the weekend. They have made 43 arrests and issued 752 fines since October 12.

Since the initial Hamas attacks, the Berlin police in Germany have granted permission for two pro-Palestine demonstrations, according to a police spokesperson. Both were suggested to be quiet vigils.

However, at least seven organisations, including Jewish Berliners Against Middle Eastern Violence and Youth Against Racism, received a refusal. At least 190 people have been arrested during demonstrations.

Since the attacks by Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU and numerous nations, antisemitic violence has increased, according to the French and German governments, who claim they must defend Jewish populations.

Due to the Nazis extermination of six million European Jews during the Holocaust, the problem is particularly acute in Germany.

Our history, our responsibility for the Holocaust makes it our duty in every moment to stand for the existence and security of Israel, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told legislators last week.

Darmanin said on Tuesday that 327 antisemitic acts had taken place in France since Oct. 7, with 183 arrests for antisemitism or apologising for terrorism.

Human rights groups say Jewish communities must be protected but they are are concerned legitimate protest is being repressed.

Human rights law doesnt allow the government to just broadly say there is a concern about violence and use that as a justification to ban protests, said Benjamin Ward, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch.

The question is whether its proportionate  and thats where I think there is a concern.

Hungary and Austria have also blocked pro-Palestine protests since Oct.7, while in the rest of Europe large rallies supporting Palestinians have been held with few restrictions.

(With agency inputs)
The head of Palestinian National Security Forces (NSF) in the Gaza Strip, Jihad Muheisen has been killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza city Thursday, reports in Palestinian media outlets said.

At the time of filing this report, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) did not comment on Muheisens reported death.

A report by Hamas stated: Major General Jihad Muheisen, the head of Hamas-led security forces, died in an airstrike. The bombing on his house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City, also killed his family.

According to a report by Quds News Network, Muheisen's family was also killed in the strike.

Major General Jihad Muheisen was the commander of the Palestinian NSF in the Gaza Strip which are the paramilitary security forces of the Palestinian National Authority.

Apart from Muheisen, two other senior officials in Gaza Strip terror groups were reportedly killed as Israel continues its intense bombing campaign of terror targets in the enclave amid its war with Hamas.

Earlier in the day, the IDF said an airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah had killed Rafat Abu Hilal, the head of the military wing of Gazas Popular Resistance Committees terror group, the third-largest terror faction in the Gaza Strip after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PJI).

Hamas-affiliated media in Gaza also reported that Jamila al-Shanti, the widow of Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, was killed in an Israeli strike.

With inputs from agencies
Calling for a mutually acceptable solution to the Israel-Palestine issue, PM Narendra Modi asserted on Thursday that India will continue to send humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people.

PM Modi also expressed his condolences for the civilian victims of the blast at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza.

Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue, PM Modi said in a statement on social media platform X.

Meanwhile, Israel pounded Gaza with more air strikes on Thursday and deployed tanks and soldiers along the border fence as a ground offensive of the besieged Gaza Strip loomed.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said four rockets of nine launched from Lebanese territory were intercepted, adding that several anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon towards Israeli forces.

The casualties reported so far indicate that 2,329 Palestinians, including 724 children, have lost their lives in Israeli air raids. On the Israeli side, the number of casualties resulting from Hamass military operation is reported as 1,300, including 286 soldiers.

(With agency inputs)
In an open letter to the people of Madhya Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised the numerous public welfare and development programmes of the states double-engine government and expressed confidence in their support for the party in the upcoming elections on November 17.

I have full confidence that you will extend your support to me in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections and this time we will form a double-engine government, PM Modi wrote in his letter.

He claimed that every time he travels to Madhya Pradesh, he experiences the enormous love and vigour of the locals.

The progress that Madhya Pradesh has made is a matter of great joy for us. In the last 20 years, Madhya Pradesh has transformed from a sick state to a strong, prosperous, and self-reliant one, PM Modi wrote.

PM Modi claimed that Madhya Pradesh has advanced significantly in all areas under the direction of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Who can forget the times before 2003 when the state lacked basic amenities? In these 20 years, under the leadership of Chief Minister Chouhan, significant developments have taken place, with the construction of over a lakh kilometres of roads, over 16% economic growth, water connections to more than a lakh homes, and the generation of 28,000 megawatts of energy, PM Modi stated further in his letter.

With an emphasis on the care of the underprivileged, womens empowerment, and holistic development, he continued, the development model of the state governed by the BJP has become a benchmark for the entire nation.

The BJP government has implemented schemes for every section of society, which have brought more than 1.36 crore people above the poverty line in Madhya Pradesh. We have worked towards the dedication of sisters and the realization of Lalit Lakshyam. The current well-being of Madhya Pradeshs farmers and youth is due to the proactive welfare schemes, and they are witnessing a brighter future, PM Modi added in his letter.

Prior to 2014, he claimed, Madhya Pradesh had a number of developmental obstacles to overcome because to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by the Congress holding power at the national level.

We have not only given a bright future to Madhya Pradesh but also preserved its glorious history. It is your tireless efforts and the double-engine government that have led Madhya Pradesh to become one of Indias top three economies, PM Modi said.

I have always had a special connection with Madhya Pradesh, and due to this, you showered boundless love on me and secured an unprecedented victory for the BJP in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. I am confident that in the upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, you will extend your unwavering support to me, and with your trust in the BJP, we will form a double-engine government once again. Wishing you a prosperous future, he added.

On December 3, the ballots for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly and four other states with upcoming elections will be counted.

(With agency inputs)
President Joe Biden swept into wartime Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that produced a heaping dose of vocal support, a deal to get limited humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt, likely by the end of the week, and a plea for Israelis not to allow rage over the deadly Hamas attack to consume them.

I understand. Many Americans understand, Biden said as he wrapped up his stay in Tel Aviv, likening the Oct. 7 Hamas assault to the attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people. You cant look at what has happened here  and not scream out for justice, he said.

But I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it, he said. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

Biden urged Israel to step back from the brink, not just to ease growing tensions in the Mideast that threaten to spiral into a broader regional conflict, but also to reassure a world rattled by images of carnage and suffering, in Israel and Gaza alike. One million people have been displaced in roughly 10 days, according to the United Nations.

Bidens mission was to display resolve for Israel and to diminish the likelihood of a wider war, while providing assurances that he was not overlooking the increasingly dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. Aboard the flight back to Washington Biden made progress when he spoke by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi who agreed to reopen his countrys sealed border crossing with Gaza and allow up to 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid supplies to cross.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Biden said roads near the crossing would first need hours of repairs, but that aid could begin rolling into the region by Friday. He suggested the aid could be distributed by international officials which could take a little time and added that, if Hamas confiscates it, its going to end. Were not going to send any aid to Hamas.

I wanted to make sure that there was a vehicle, a mechanism where this could happen quickly, Biden said during a refueling stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. He added that el-Sissi was very cooperative.

He stepped up. As did Bibi, the president said, referring to Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu. But Biden was also in a mood to celebrate his own accomplishment, saying: I came to get something done. I got it done.

Not many people thought I could get this done, Biden said. And not many people wanted me to be associated with failure.

In fact, the president said officials had a discussion of an hour or more on whether to go before the trip began. Had we gone and this failed, then the United States failed. The Biden presidency failed, et cetera, which would be a legitimate criticism, he said.

Aid moving into Gaza will accomplish a key objective for Biden, and the White House announced that the president will address the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday night to discuss our response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine.

Less clear is how far the trip would take the president in trying to tamp down volatile Mideast divisions, particularly after his plan collapsed to follow the Israel stop with an Arab leaders summit in Jordan.

His visit was full of signature Biden moments as he walked a careful diplomatic line. He doled out embraces to Netanyahu and to first responders, doctors and victims who witnessed nightmare moments. He spoke quietly of his own history with grief. He told the familiar anecdote about meeting every Israeli prime minister over more than five decades in elected office, starting with Golda Meir in 1973. He quoted an Irish poet.

I come to Israel with a single message: Youre not alone, Biden said. As long as the United States stands  and we will stand forever  we will not let you ever be alone.

His presence and comments to Israeli leaders held weight. Netanyahu said the presidents visit was deeply, deeply moving and said Biden had rightly drawn a clear line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism.

The civilized world must unite to defeat Hamas, the Israeli leader said.

Biden arrived in Israel as the nations across the Mideast shook with protests triggered by an explosion Monday at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds.

The blast undid plans for Jordans King Abdullah II to host Biden along with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and el-Sissi. Abbas withdrew in protest of the hospital explosion; the summit was subsequently canceled outright. Yet Bidens presence in Israel prompted fresh outrage.

In Amman, a sign hoisted by one protester labeled Biden and Netanyahu war criminals and called them Partner in Crime. At the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh in south Lebanon, protesters set fire to a cardboard cutout of Bidens head with a rope around his neck and blood painted over his mouth.

Ayman Safadi, Jordans foreign minister, told a state-run television network that the war is pushing the region to the brink.

Still, Biden emerged from the day trumpeting food, water and medicine poised to move into Gaza after lengthy deadlock. Israel cut off the flow of aid and fuel to the Gaza Strip after the attack that killed 1,400 civilians by Hamas, which controls the region.

The Biden adminstration plans to ask Congress for more than $2 billion in combined additional aid for Israel and Ukraine. Biden on Wednesday also announced $100 million in aid to Gaza and the West Bank.

The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas, Biden stressed. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.

The tone of the discussions between Biden and Netanyahu stood in stark contrast to their optimistic meeting just a month ago on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where Netanyahu marveled that a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia seemed within reach.

The possibility of improved relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors has dimmed considerably with the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hamas war. Israel has been preparing for a potential ground invasion of Gaza. There are also fears that a new front could erupt along Israels northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah operates. The Iran-backed organization has been skirmishing with Israeli forces.

Allowing aid into the region had been seen by US officials as a critical step toward the cooling of tensions in Arab nations after the blast at the hospital, which had been treating wounded Palestinians and sheltering many more who were seeking a refuge from the fighting.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible.

Officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a missile misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. The Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim. The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

Biden said data from his Defense Department showed that the explosion was not likely caused by an airstrike by the Israeli military. A White House National Security Council spokesperson followed up later with a post on social media that an analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information showed Israel was not behind the attack. But the US continues to collect evidence.

Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, Biden told Netanyahu.

The leaders of the US Senate Intelligence Committee in a joint statement said they felt confident the explosion was the result of a failed rocket launch by militants and not an Israeli airstrike.

Roughly 2,800 Palestinians have been reported killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. An additional 1,200 people are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said. Those numbers predate the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday.

Jordan declared three days of mourning, and Jordanian officials said the summit was canceled after speaking with all leaders. Foreign Minister Safadi said they had wanted the meeting to produce an end to the war, which seems unlikely now, and to give Palestinians the respect they deserve.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak extended support for Israel, saying that the country has the right to defend itself in line with international law and to go after Hamas to bring hostages back, deter further incursions and strengthen its security.

In a joint press briefing with Israels PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Sunak said: We absolutely support Israels right to defend themselves in line with international law and to go after Hamas to take back hostages, deter further incursions and to strengthen your security for the long term,.

I want to thank you for your solidarity, clear unwavering support from the day this war began. I think the fact that you came to Israel does this a lot, I said to President Biden yesterday that there is one thing more heartwarming than standing Israel is standing in Israel,.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Israeli President Isaac Herzog that the UK stood in solidarity with Israel as the two met there on Thursday, with Sunak adding that it was also important to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

Amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, United Kingdom PM Sunak landed in Tel Aviv earlier on Thursday.

Sunak visited the families of those who were killed or being held hostage by the Hamas militants. To have a child taken from you is a parents worst nightmare. This morning I heard from families going through this unbearable agony. Working with our partners, were determined to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists, he said in a post on X.
A Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) editor was held in Russia for failing to register as a foreign agent while travelling there for a family emergency, according to the station.

Since the commencement of the war in Ukraine, Russia has increased its control over the media, forcing the closure of renowned independent news organisations and labelling numerous journalists and publications as foreign agents.

Nearly all American journalists have fled Russia as a result of the war and the March arrest of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich on suspicion of spying. In order to escape Russia, the State Department has frequently urged American citizens.

A family issue necessitated Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Libertys Tatar-Bashkir Service, to go to Russia on May 20.

Kurmasheva was held and her passports were taken as she awaited her return aircraft at the end of that trip as she attempted to depart Russia. She received a fine for not registering her American passport with the Russian authorities.

RFE/RL reported that Kurmasheva, who is based in Prague, was accused with not registering as a foreign agent by Russian officials on October 18.

The phrase, which evokes Cold War espionage, is used in Russia to describe organisations journalists, activists and even pop stars and writers deemed to be engaging in political activity with foreign support.

Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children, said RFE/RL acting president Jeffrey Gedmin.

She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately.

In this undated handout photo, Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor with RFE/RLs Tatar-Bashkir Service, strikes a pose. Handout from Pangea Graphics (RFE/RL) via REUTERS Obtain Licence Rights

Kurmasheva failed to register as a foreign agent while gathering intelligence on Russias military action, according to the Russian news service Tatar-Inform. RFE/RL, which demanded her release, stated that she might spend up to five years in prison.

Regarding her detention, the Russian government is still silent.

Some journalists, thinkers, and opposition activists in Russia claim that the liberties gained with the fall of the Soviet Union have been squandered and that nationalistic propaganda dominates public discourse there.

Russian officials reject these allegations, claiming that Western media has for years failed to adequately portray Russia and has actively biassed their coverage of Russia and the conflict in the Ukraine in order to serve the interests of the West.

Its aim is to promote democratic values by providing accurate, uncensored news and open debate in countries where a free press is threatened and disinformation is pervasive, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has offices in Prague and Washington.

Through the US Agency for Global Media, a grant from the US Congress provides the funding.

The arrest of Kurmasheva prompted the Committee to Protect Journalists to express grave concern.

CPJ is deeply concerned by the detention of U.S-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva on spurious criminal charges and calls on Russian authorities to release her immediately and drop all charges against her, said Gulnoza Said, CPJs Europe and Central Asia program coordinator.

Journalism is not a crime and Kurmashevas detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting.

(With agency inputs)
Relations between Russia and North Korea have reached a qualitatively new, strategic level, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday in Pyongyang, according to Moscow state media.

Lavrov arrived Wednesday night for a two-day visit after accompanying President Vladimir Putin on a trip to Beijing.

The veteran envoys meetings in Pyongyang are expected to lay the groundwork for a future visit by Putin, who was invited by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month at a high-profile summit in Russias far east.

After the landmark summit  we can say confidently that (Russia-North Korea) relations have reached a qualitatively new, strategic level, Lavrov reportedly told North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui at a Thursday meeting.

The night before he touted North Koreas support for Russias ongoing war in Ukraine after his arrival in Pyongyang.

We highly value your principled, unambiguous support for Russias actions in connection with the special military operation in Ukraine, Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russias RIA news agency.

Kim travelled to Russia last month aboard a specially built bullet-proof train for a face-to-face meeting with Putin, declaring bilateral ties with Moscow his countrys number one priority.

The September meeting fanned Western fears Pyongyang might provide Moscow with weapons for its drawn-out war in Ukraine.

On Friday, the United States said arms shipments were already under way, with North Korea delivering more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia in recent weeks.

Pyongyang was seeking a range of military assistance in return, including advanced technologies, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Moscow this week denounced the allegations, insisting Washington has no proof that weapons are being shipped.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised the unprecedented energy cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, as the Kremlin seeks to strengthen its Asian partnerships to make up for the loss of the European market.

Russia has been hit by massive Western sanctions over its Ukraine offensive, with Europe trying to end its energy links with Moscow.

Putin wrapped up a two-day visit to China on Thursday, his first outside the former Soviet Union this year.

Relations in the overall partnership and strategic cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Chinese Peoples Republic have reached an unprecedented high level and continue to develop dynamically, Putin said in a statement addressing a Russian-Chinese energy forum in Beijing.

One of the key areas of this relationship is energy cooperation, which is becoming increasingly active, he added.

The head of Russian oil company Rosneft, Igor Sechin, told the forum that over 75 percent of Russias exports to neighbouring China are energy linked.

This year, Russian gas exports to China will reach a historic maximum  more than 30 billion cubic meters of gas will be delivered, the Putin ally added.

Sechin said that Russia was Chinas main oil supplier in 2023, overtaking Saudi Arabia.

Heavily sanctioned by the West  particularly in oil where the G7, the European Union and Australia have imposed a price ceiling on Russias exports  Moscow has for months tried to redirect deliveries to Asia, even if it means selling it at a discount.

Moscow hopes to start building the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline from Russia to China next year, a huge project to deliver more natural gas to Beijing.
Veteran State Department official Josh Paul, who handled arms transfers to foreign governments, resigned on Wednesday in protest against the Biden administrations handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, declaring he could not support further US military assistance to Israel.

In an interview to HuffPost, he said that he felt he had to resign because he knew he could not push for a more humane policy within the US government.

Paul spent more than 11 years at States bureau of political-military affairs, which handles weapons deals, and most recently served as the bureaus director of congressional and public affairs

I have had my fair share of debates and discussions and efforts to shift policy on controversial arms sales. It was clear that theres no arguing with this one. Given that I couldnt shift anything, I resigned, he was quoted as saying by HuffPost on Wednesday evening in his first media interview since he revealed his decision, which he also described in a LinkedIn post.

The department received a clear top-down guidance that we are moving forward with everything we can, Paul said.

Asked when he decided to quit, he said, I wouldnt say there was a single decision point  it was watching things unfold over the last 10 days.

In response to an 7 October attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Israel has been waging an increasingly aggressive campaign in Gaza, where Hamas is based and more than 2 million people live in already impoverished conditions.

Biden has repeatedly promised extensive support to Israel in its operation.

Multiple officials within the Biden administration who want the US to encourage Israeli restraint and concern for civilians as the country seeks to exact vengeance against Hamas have told HuffPost they are experiencing a chilling effect.

Pauls public announcement of his resignation sent shockwaves through the State Department on Wednesday.

He said he was struck by how colleagues across the government and in Congress received his internal message.

Ive been surprised by how many have said, We absolutely understand where youre coming from, we feel similarly and understand.

Paul said he had been on leave last week, adding, It was pretty fortunate because I think if I hadnt been I would have been fired rather than have the time to think it over and resign.

A State Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pauls decision.

In his LinkedIn message, Paul noted that he felt he had been able to use his role to make many differences  on pending administration decisions to transfer lethal weapons to countries that abuse human rights, to sculpting policies and practices that advance human rights, to working tirelessly to advance those policies and decisions that are good and just.

Various US presidents considered and approved billions of dollars in arms sales to controversial nations during his tenure  for instance, to Saudi Arabia in its ongoing war in Yemen.

When I came to this bureau  I knew it was not without its moral complexity and moral compromises, and I made myself a promise that I would stay for as long as I felt  the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do, Paul wrote on LinkedIn. In my 11 years I have made more moral compromises than I can recall, each heavily, but each with my promise to myself in mind, and intact. I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued  indeed, expanded and expedited  provision of lethal arms to Israel  I have reached the end of that bargain.

Paul described Hamas assault on Israel  which killed more than 1,400 people  as a monstrosity of monstrosities.

But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people, he continued.

He concluded his note by wishing fellow government officials continued success, strength and courage.

And I wish all of us  peace, Paul said.

With inputs from agencies
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will visit Saudi Arabia and Qatar from 21 October to 26 October to discuss commercial collaboration and security situations relating to the Israel-Palestinian issue, according to Yoons office.

South Korea is concerned about the significant spike in civilian casualties from the fighting and would send relief on solely humanitarian grounds, according to Yoons deputy national security advisor Kim Tae-hyo, who spoke at a press conference.

According to Kim, Yoon will also discuss collaboration with Saudi Arabia and Qatar aimed at bringing peace to the region and strengthening South Koreas national security.

Yoon will arrive in Riyadh on Saturday for his first state visit as South Korean leader, and will meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and attend a luncheon on Sunday, according to Kim.

The summit comes less than a year after the crown prince visited South Korea and discussed collaboration in energy, defence, and infrastructure projects, signing $30 billion in investment pacts with Korean corporations.

South Korea is competing with Saudi Arabia to host the World Expo in 2030, but its companies are also competing to participate in major projects such as Saudi Arabias NEOM smart city and to obtain defence contracts.

Yoon will attend events on bilateral investment and partnership on future technology that will highlight the growing significance of the two countries economic relationship. On Tuesday, he will address the Future Investment Initiative forum.

A delegation of business leaders will accompany Yoon on his Saudi trip, including Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee, Hyundai Motor Chairman E.S. Chung and the heads of Hanwha, GS, and HD Hyundai conglomerates, Yoons office said.

In Qatar, Yoon will hold a summit meeting with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani on Wednesday and later attend a business forum.
Citing lack of evidence, Sri Lankas anti-graft commission has dropped a case against former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa in which more than Rs 17 million was discovered by protesters from the Presidents House here in July 2022.

The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) on Wednesday reported to the Colombo Fort Magistrates Court that due to lack of evidence, no further action can be taken against the 74-year-old politician.

The Bribery Commission informed the court that further legal proceedings regarding this incident would not be taken owing to insufficient evidence to proceed with the matter, the Daily Mirror online reported on Thursday.

More than Rs 17 million in cash was found at the Presidents House in Fort Colombo after Rajapaksa fled the Presidents House on July 9 last year following the uprising against him.

Tens of thousands of protesters stormed the Presidents House in the capital in July last year demanding his resignation. The anti-government protesters discovered over Rs 17.85 million in cash and handed over the money to the Colombo Fort police.

Rajapaksa later applied to the court to return the cash to him. The Colombo Fort magistrates court rejected the plea. Earlier this year, he was also questioned by Sri Lanka police in the case. A three-hour-long statement was recorded at his private house as directed by the court, a police spokesman had said.

Rajapaksa has said that the money found at the Presidents Office belonged to him but he was unable to take care of it due to the prevailing security situation at that time.

He told the police that the money belonged to him and it was to be distributed among the people whose houses were destroyed by the protesters, the Daily Mirror portal reported.

The former president fled Sri Lanka on July 13 last year to the Maldives.

From there, he travelled to Singapore from where he sent in his resignation on July 14, paving the way for the incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe to take over the presidential reins.

Later, Rajapaksa flew to Thailand. He returned to Sri Lanka on September 2.

Rajapaksa and his family faced multiple accusations of wrongdoing between 2015 and 2019.

The powerful Rajapaksa family has dominated Sri Lankan politics for over two decades.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, the 77-year-old patriarch of the Rajapaksa family has been the countrys president and prime minister. He was also forced to resign as the prime minister amidst the anti-government protests in the country last year.
Three Palestinians, including two teenagers, were killed by Israeli forces in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank early on Thursday, Palestinian official news agency WAFA said.

Israeli forces stormed the village of Budrus, west of Ramallah, shooting dead a young man, Gebriel Awad, and wounding another.

In other incidents, a 14-year-old was killed by a bullet wound in the head in a refugee camp south of Bethlehem and a 16-year-old succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the town of Tulkarm, the news agency added.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the latest flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Israel is preparing a ground assault in the Gaza Strip in response to a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, on 7 October.

Israeli forces have carried out their fiercest bombardment of Gaza in response, killing more than 3,000 Palestinians and imposing a total siege on the blockaded enclave that Hamas controls, fuelling anger among Palestinians in the West Bank.

The West Bank is home to the Palestinian Authority (PA) which is dominated by Hamas rivals Fatah and 87-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

It borders Jerusalem, which houses sites sacred to Muslims, Christians and Jews and is a flashpoint for internecine violence. Hamas announced its Oct. 7 attack in part as revenge for Israeli attacks on Muslim worshippers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalems old city.
Amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, United Kingdom PM Rishi Sunak landed in Tel Aviv on Thursday, where he will meet Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.

According to his office, Sunak will share his condolences for the loss of life in Israel and Gaza as a result of the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, and warn against further escalation of conflict in the region.

Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas horrific act of terror, Sunak said in a statement ahead of his visit.

The UK PM will call for the opening up of a route to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible and to make it possible for British nationals trapped in Gaza to depart, reported Reuters.

At least seven British nationals have been killed and at least nine are missing since the attack on Israel, Sunaks spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Alongside Sunaks visit, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who visited Israel last week, will travel to Egypt, Turkey and Qatar over the next three days to discuss the conflict and seek a peaceful resolution, his office said.

Earlier, in a post on social media platform X, Sunak condemned the attack on Gaza hospital that killed hundreds.We are all shocked by the scenes at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Our intelligence services are rapidly analysing the evidence to independently establish the facts, he posted.

Thousands of people have been killed on both sides as the war continues to turn brutal with every passing day.

With inputs from agencies
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at a congressional building in Washington on Wednesday to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, resulting in an estimated 300 arrests and restricting access to Capitol Hill.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), US Capitol Police, A group of protesters are demonstrating inside the Cannon Rotunda. Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings.

Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings, the Capitol Police said after the arrests.

We warned the protestors to stop demonstrating and when they did not comply we began arresting them, the Capitol Police added.

A group of protesters are demonstrating inside the Cannon Rotunda. Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings. pic.twitter.com/pZHKqSpjoL  The U.S. Capitol Police (@CapitolPolice) October 18, 2023

The Israel-Hamas conflict entered the 13th day on Thursday, the Israel Air Force attacked military targets of the terrorist organisation Hezbollah in the border area with Lebanon. Among the targets, an observation post towards the sea was attacked from where anti-tank fire was launched at Rosh Hankara on Wednesday. The IDF said the attacks were carried out in response to the incidents of shooting at Israel.

With ANI inputs.
A Russian-American journalist working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been detained in Russia and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, her employer and a journalist watchdog group said Wednesday.

Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor with the US Congress-funded outlets Tatar-Bashkir service, needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately, RFE/RL acting President Jeffrey Gedmin said in a statement.

Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife and dedicated mother to two children, Gedmin said.

She is the second US journalist to be held by Russia in recent months. Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has been detained since March, accused of spying.

Kurmasheva was being held at a temporary detention center as of Wednesday evening, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement, citing state media Tatar-Inform.

A representative of Russian human-rights news website OVD-Info told CPJ that Kurmasheva would most likely be transferred to pre-trial detention shortly.

Kurmasheva lives in Prague, Czech Republic, but entered Russia on May 20 for a family emergency, the CPJ said.

She was temporarily detained at the Kazan airport on June 2 before her return flight, where both her US and Russian passports were confiscated and she was fined for failing to register her American passport with Russian authorities, according to RFE/RFL.

Citing Tatar-Inform, the CPJ said Kurmasheva is accused of having deliberately conducted a targeted collection of military information about Russian activities via the Internet in order to transmit information to foreign sources last year, and providing international authorities with alternative analytical materials as part of information campaigns discrediting Russia.

Kurmasheva has covered ethnic minorities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, RFE/RFL, said, especially on efforts to preserve the Tatar language, even as Russian authorities have exerted increased pressure on Tatars in recent years.

She was awaiting the return of her passports when the new charges were announced Wednesday, the CPJ said, adding that if found guilty she faces up to five years in jail.

The organization said it was deeply concerned by the charges.

Russian authorities must release her immediately and drop all charges against her, Gulnoza Said, CPJs Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said.

Journalism is not a crime and Kurmashevas detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting.

Gershkovichs arrest

Alsu was detained simply because she is an employee of Radio Liberty. In fact, now any independent journalist in Russia risks the same thing, CPJ cited a colleague of Kurmashevas as saying, on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

According to the CPJ, seven RFE/RL journalists had their homes searched by Tatarstan police last year.

Kurmashevas arrest comes seven months after the detention of Gershkovich, who became the first Western reporter to be jailed on spy charges in Russia since the Soviet era.

Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal and the US government have rejected the spying allegations.

Russia has not provided public evidence of the allegations it has made against Gershkovich.

A Moscow court earlier this month rejected his appeal of his detention, and ordered him held until the end of November.

The American, who previously worked for AFP, continued to report from Russia after the Kremlin launched its Ukraine offensive, despite many Western journalists leaving the country.
US authorities unveiled new sanctions Wednesday on individuals and entities that allegedly support Irans missile and drone programs, as UN-mandated restrictions on the countrys activities lapse.

The sanctions target actors based in Iran, Hong Kong, China and Venezuela, the US Treasury Department said.

Irans reckless choice to continue its proliferation of destructive UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and other weapons prolongs numerous conflicts in regions around the world, said Brian Nelson, Treasury under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a statement.

The announcement came as EU officials on Wednesday also said the bloc would maintain sanctions on Iran beyond the deadline of a landmark nuclear deal.

The deal agreed with world powers in 2015 was aimed at curbing Irans nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

The decision to keep the sanctions in place was originally announced by Britain, France, and Germany, all signatories to the pact, last month.

The Treasury Department said on Wednesday that it was sanctioning 11 individuals, eight entities and one vessel.

The people targeted have materially supported Iran in the production and proliferation of missiles and drones, the Treasury added.

The action was taken jointly with the State Department, which is designating eight individuals and entities.

Along with the landmark Iran nuclear deal, the UN Security Council passed a resolution in 2015 requiring certain international restrictions, but those expired on Wednesday.

The resolution was based on an assumption that Iran would move to restore confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.

This has not happened, said a joint statement by the United States and 46 other Proliferation Security Initiative-endorsing states.

In this context, it is imperative that all States continue to take steps to counter Irans destabilizing ballistic missile-related activities, the statement said.

Destabilizing impacts

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that Washington reaffirmed its commitment to utilize every tool at our disposal to counter Irans development, procurement, and proliferation of missiles, UAVs, and other dangerous weapons.

He added that the United States and its partners will continue raising concerns at the United Nations and demand that Iran be held accountable for the destabilizing impacts of its proliferation.

The latest round of Treasury sanctions targeted businesses like Iran-based Fanavaran Sanat Ertebatat Company, which makes jam-resistant guidance systems, its directors, as well as Saberin Kish Company for supporting Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Others who helped procure components, such as China-based Lin Jinghe and his Hong Kong-based company Nanxigu Technology Co, were also named.

Sarmad Electronic Sepahan Company, which made components identified in drones downed by Ukrainian forces, was designated too, alongside weapons proliferation networks led by Emily Liu and others.

The sanctions restrict US firms and individuals from certain transactions with blocked entities.
Two days after Kyiv confirmed using them for the first time, the countrys foreign minister announced on Thursday that Ukraine will regularly receive long-range ATACMS missiles from the United States.

On Tuesday, the White House claimed to have sent Kyiv ATACMS missiles, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy claimed that his countrys soldiers had really used such missiles.

Kyiv had repeatedly asked for the ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems), claiming they could change how the war against Russia played out.

Asked whether regular shipments and larger numbers of missiles were expected, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said: It means this.

And this is a direct result of the agreement between President Zelenskiy and President Biden, reached in Washington during a personal meeting in late September, he said in televised comments.

How many missiles have already been delivered is unknown. The New York Times said that the U.S. has already sent approximately 20 of them, citing two Western officials.

(With agency inputs)
The Israeli military has been strengthening its grounds against Hamas and giving a strong fight after the Palestinian terror group began its assault in the West Asian nation on October 7.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Thursday released footages of attack its continued attack throughout the Gaza Strip.

The IDF said its warplanes, directed by Shin Bet intelligence, killed the head of the military wing of Gazas terror group Popular Resistance Committees Rafat Harev Hossein Abu Halal in Rafah.

The Popular Resistance Committees is the third largest terror faction in the Gaza Strip after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

     ( )                               >>     (@idfonline) October 19, 2023

The Israeli military further said it targeted several terrorists of Hamas Najaba force, who led the October 7 onslaught.

They said, more than 10 Najaba force terrorists were killed in Israeli strikes.

"During the fighting, a number of operatives belonging to the Najaba force of Hamas, which led to the brutal raid on the settlements surrounding Gaza, were eliminated - and more than 10 terrorists were neutralised in a targeted attack by fighter jets, IDF said.

12 hour operational recap: Heres a summary of activity on our border with Lebanon:  9 launches crossed from Lebanon into Israel

 4 interceptions by the IDF Aerial Defense Array

 several anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon toward Israel Our forces responded to these  Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 19, 2023

The IDF further said, directed by the Shin Bet, it also destroyed hundreds of Hamas terrorist infrastructures, dozens of which were attacked in the Sageya neighbourhood.

"The hundreds of terrorist infrastructures that were attacked include anti-tank missile launch sites, tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructures, operational headquarters and other headquarters," IDF said.

"At the same time, dozens of mortar rocket launching positions were attacked, most of which were destroyed immediately after they were launched towards Israel," IDF said.
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, warned troops assembled at the Gaza border on Thursday that they will soon see the Palestinian territory from inside, raising the possibility that the anticipated ground invasion with the objective of destroying Hamas was drawing near.

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorists spree that claimed 1,400 Israeli lives, Israel continued to bombard Gaza with airstrikes as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and U.S. President Joe Biden visited to show support for the fight against Hamas militants.

In response to the bloodiest attack in its 75-year history, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, imposed a complete closure on the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip, and bombarded the enclave with strikes that have resulted in thousands of deaths and more than a million injuries.

Residents of the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza were shown in video footage acquired by Reuters digging with their bare hands inside a destroyed structure to release a young boy and girl trapped beneath masonry. Residents attempted to illuminate the scene with their cell phones as the body of a guy was hauled out.

While things continued to worsen, Egypt took efforts to open the door for relief, with the first delivery not anticipated until Friday.

You see Gaza now from a distance, you will soon see it from inside. The command will come, Gallant told soldiers. Troops were not expected to enter while foreign leaders were visiting.

The fight, according to Gallant, will be fierce and drawn out.

Following Gallants remarks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video of himself pledging victory alongside troops close to the border.

Israelis heard Sunak say: You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism, and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you. Sunak arrived in Tel Aviv hours after Biden did.

After an eight-hour visit, Biden took a flight back to the United States on Wednesday night. He had promised to support Israel but had had only sporadic success getting aid to Gaza.

In response to a blast at a Gaza hospital, which Palestinians claimed was an Israeli attack, the second half of his agenda, a scheduled meeting with Arab friends, was cancelled.

In the next days, 20 relief trucks will be able to travel from Egypt to Gaza, according to a deal reached by Biden. This number is still far below the 100 trucks per day that U.N. assistance head Martin Griffiths warned the Security Council were required.

According to two Egyptian security sources, equipment was delivered across the border on Thursday to fix the roads on the Gaza side so that supplies could pass. On the Egyptian side, there were more than 100 trucks waiting, but none were anticipated to cross before Friday.

Israel stated that it would permit some restricted aid from Egypt to reach Gaza, but only if none of it supported Hamas. It reaffirmed its stance that it will only open its checkpoints to allow in aid when all of the more than 200 hostages captured by the terrorists were set free.

The bombing and anticipated ground invasion has heightened fears of the conflict spreading. Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said it fired rockets at an Israeli position in the village of Manara on Thursday and drew an Israeli artillery barrage in response, in the latest exchange in the worst escalation in violence on the border in 17 years.

The Israeli military said at least 20 rockets and an anti-tank missile had been fired from Lebanon.

Eight Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian Red Crescent said on Thursday.

(With agency inputs)
On the evening of October 18, 2023, President Xi Jinping met at the Great Hall of the People with United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who is in China to attend the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Xi Jinping emphasized that at a time when the world is faced with many global threats and challenges, the international community must unite and cooperate and pay more attention to development issues. Xi noted that the purpose of his proposal to build a community with a shared future for mankind is to find the right path for countries to jointly address various global challenges, and the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative that he put forth are aimed at gathering and accumulating more positive energy, promoting the common development of all countries, and supporting the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to secure that no country is left behind.

Xi Jinping pointed out that over the past ten years since the Belt and Road Initiative was put forward, a lot of tangible results have been achieved, demonstrating the BRIs thriving vitality. Actions speak louder than words. The BRI has been widely recognized as a global public good and a platform of international cooperation. The United Nations is an important partner in jointly building the Belt and Road. China is ready to work closely with UN agencies to promote the high-quality development of the Belt and Road and contribute to global peace and development. China supports the work of the UN and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and is ready to enhance cooperation with UN agencies to promote multilateralism, build a multi-polar world, and make global governance more just and equitable.

Guterres said that developing countries are in a vulnerable and disadvantaged position when it comes to infrastructure development, investment and financing. The international financial system can no longer reflect the political and economic realities of the world today and is in urgent need of reform. The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping has provided a crucial and effective way to help developing countries achieve sustainable development and set a good example of South-South cooperation. The eight major steps announced by President Xi Jinping at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation are fully in line with the purposes and principles of the United Nations, and can help developing countries to accelerate development. The UN highly appreciates China's firm commitment to upholding multilateralism, supports the three major global initiatives proposed by President Xi Jinping, and is firmly committed to deepening cooperation with China.

Cai Qi and Wang Yi attended the meeting.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the live set, and you can tell its been a decade because theres like no one on the phone in their crowd and Sub Focus, real name Nicolaas Douwma, looks way different.
felicilin at 19-10-2023 08:44 AM (2 weeks ago) (f)

When Dr. Paul Ezikes video on the alleged plight of some Nigerians in the Ethiopias Kaliti Prisons, Addis Ababa, recently hit the social media space, it was a quick reminder of what Nigerians have been going through in several prisons outside Nigeria, particularly in the Asian countries, and Libya over the past couple of years.

When Dr. Paul Ezikes video on the alleged plight of some Nigerians in the Ethiopias Kaliti Prisons, Addis Ababa, recently hit the social media space, it was a quick reminder of what Nigerians have been going through in several prisons outside Nigeria, particularly in the Asian countries, and Libya over the past couple of years.

In the past, there have been disturbing stories about the inhuman treatments meted out to Nigerians in Guangdong Prisons in China. At one point, it was even alleged that some of them were being killed secretly and their essential organs harvested for business purposes.



The condition is, however, almost similar to Nigerians in other prisons across China, including the ones in Beijing. Meanwhile, the story is also not looking good for Nigerian prison inmates in other Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia.



Also, there have been sordid reports of what Nigerian migrants trying to escape to Europe through Libya go through in Libya prisons, where many of them have often ended up. So, when Dr. Ezikes video hit the internet, many people were particularly concerned because this time, it is a fellow African country that is involved.



Ezike had expressed fear in the video that over 250 Nigerians were at the verge of losing their lives if an urgent action was not taken by the Nigerian government or other intervention agencies.



He alleged that most of the inmates were innocent travellers, whose only offence was stopping over in Ethiopia airport, which is a transit hub.



The report out there is that most of those Nigerians did not commit any offence.



Their offence, according to the report, was just being a Nigerian. This was corroborated by Ezike in his video, when he said: Once you have a green passport, you are like a suspect. They will keep you aside, delay you and make you miss your flight. They try to get you angry and once you start agitating and arguing, they will tell you well, you need to pay $5,000 to get another flight back to your country.



When you talk too much, they will take you straight to the hospital and when they check and find nothing, they will take you straight to prison. And they serve you a paper that you will serve 18 to 20 years in prison without charging you to court.



Recall that earlier this year, two Nigerians, Ms Favour Chizoba and Mr. Joachim Uchenna Nwanneneme were reported to have died in questionable circumstances in the same Kaliti Prison. Many attributed their death to deliberate torture just because they were Nigerians.



Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dismissed the report as being over exaggerated, both chambers of the National Assembly are not taking it on its surface. They want to get to the root of the matter.



While the Senate has mandated its Committee on Diaspora and Foreign Affairs to look into the report and unravel the circumstances that led to the incarceration of over 250 Nigerians not only in Kaliti Prisons, but also in other prisons in Ethiopia, the House of Representatives has equally invited the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, and Chairman of Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, to throw more light on the ugly development.



A statement from the Foreign Affairs Ministry in reaction to the report said: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers Dr. Ezikes narration as exaggerated and blown out of proportion, while his assertion of inaction by the Nigerian Mission in Addis Ababa to the alleged plight of Nigerian inmates is unfair and misleading.



On Wednesday, October 4, the Senate directed its Committees on Diaspora and Foreign Affairs to investigate, and report back its findings within two weeks, the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of 250 Nigerians in Ethiopia.



This followed a motion moved by the Senate Minority Leader, Simon Mwadkwon, at the plenary on Wednesday.



Mwadkwon, like many other Nigerians, did not want to believe hook, line and sinker, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs denial of the report circulating on the internet that over 250 Nigerians were facing maltreatment in Ethiopia without committing any offence.



Even though the Ministry had dismissed the report as exaggerated and blown out of proportion, some Nigerians still took to social media, calling on the federal government to intervene and urgently do something about the alleged illegal incarceration of Nigerians by the Ethiopian government.



Presenting his motion during the plenary, Mwadkwon had described the report as disturbing because according to him, it has no legal basis in the provision of international courts, which Nigeria and Ethiopia are signatories to.



In the past, there have been disturbing stories about the inhuman treatments meted out to Nigerians in Guangdong Prisons in China. At one point, it was even alleged that some of them were being killed secretly and their essential organs harvested for business purposes.The condition is, however, almost similar to Nigerians in other prisons across China, including the ones in Beijing. Meanwhile, the story is also not looking good for Nigerian prison inmates in other Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia.Also, there have been sordid reports of what Nigerian migrants trying to escape to Europe through Libya go through in Libya prisons, where many of them have often ended up. So, when Dr. Ezikes video hit the internet, many people were particularly concerned because this time, it is a fellow African country that is involved.Ezike had expressed fear in the video that over 250 Nigerians were at the verge of losing their lives if an urgent action was not taken by the Nigerian government or other intervention agencies.He alleged that most of the inmates were innocent travellers, whose only offence was stopping over in Ethiopia airport, which is a transit hub.The report out there is that most of those Nigerians did not commit any offence.Their offence, according to the report, was just being a Nigerian. This was corroborated by Ezike in his video, when he said:Recall that earlier this year, two Nigerians, Ms Favour Chizoba and Mr. Joachim Uchenna Nwanneneme were reported to have died in questionable circumstances in the same Kaliti Prison. Many attributed their death to deliberate torture just because they were Nigerians.Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dismissed the report as being over exaggerated, both chambers of the National Assembly are not taking it on its surface. They want to get to the root of the matter.While the Senate has mandated its Committee on Diaspora and Foreign Affairs to look into the report and unravel the circumstances that led to the incarceration of over 250 Nigerians not only in Kaliti Prisons, but also in other prisons in Ethiopia, the House of Representatives has equally invited the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, and Chairman of Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, to throw more light on the ugly development.A statement from the Foreign Affairs Ministry in reaction to the report said:On Wednesday, October 4, the Senate directed its Committees on Diaspora and Foreign Affairs to investigate, and report back its findings within two weeks, the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of 250 Nigerians in Ethiopia.This followed a motion moved by the Senate Minority Leader, Simon Mwadkwon, at the plenary on Wednesday.Mwadkwon, like many other Nigerians, did not want to believe hook, line and sinker, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs denial of the report circulating on the internet that over 250 Nigerians were facing maltreatment in Ethiopia without committing any offence.Even though the Ministry had dismissed the report as exaggerated and blown out of proportion, some Nigerians still took to social media, calling on the federal government to intervene and urgently do something about the alleged illegal incarceration of Nigerians by the Ethiopian government.Presenting his motion during the plenary, Mwadkwon had described the report as disturbing because according to him, it has no legal basis in the provision of international courts, which Nigeria and Ethiopia are signatories to. Quote The video clip being circulated in the social media indicates that Nigerians are held captives in the maximum prison of Ethiopia and are in serious peril, which calls for an urgent intervention and thorough probe.



Based on the sovereignty of this country and the sanctity of lives and property of all Nigerians all over the world as captured in the Nigerian constitution, especially Sections 33, 34 and 35 of the 1999 constitution as amended, which have similar provisions in order international courts, instruments and convention that the Nigerian and the Ethiopian are signatories to, there is no justification whatsoever for taking away the dignity of any person, let alone taking away the life of a citizen.



It is pathetic that citizens of a nation as populous as Nigeria, the giant of Africa, are being held in captivity in the 21st century, where the call is for unity among nation-states, but Ethiopia has chosen the shallow path to maltreat and mistreat the citizens of Nigeria without any justification as shown in a video, he said.



Mohammed Mongunu (Borno North) who seconded the motion equally called on the government to rise up to the occasion because protecting lives and property of citizens is the major function of any government.



Our diplomatic cornerstone is supposed to be citizen-driven diplomacy. Nigerians, wherever they are, should be the centre-piece of our diplomatic relation. They should be citizen-centred because even our constitution gives primacy to the protection of lives and property, and that is the essence of government.



Any government that fails, or neglects to perform that primary duty of protecting the lives and interest of its citizens, should not last a minute longer than the action which is necessary, Mongunu said.



In his contribution, Titus Zam representing Benue Northwest, also called on the government to liaise with the Ethiopian embassy and find a way to secure the freedom of those Nigerians serving jail terms in the Ethiopian maximum prison.



It touches on the fundamental rights of Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora. Though we are not properly educated about the nature of the offences or crimes committed by Nigerians who are on the death list in Ethiopia, I think humanity requires us to seek to protect Nigerians wherever they are.



I support that urgent steps be taken in liaison with the Ethiopian embassy in Nigeria to find ways of resolving this matter without sacrificing any single Nigerian in spite of whatever the situation might be over there.

The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, in his remarks after directing the Senate committees to investigate the issue, also condemned discrimination of Nigerians in other countries. He urged the relevant authorities to take the issue of Nigerians in the Diaspora seriously.



The life of every Nigerian matters a lot and I also use this opportunity to urge the relevant authorities of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to take the lives of Nigerians very seriously both in Nigeria and in the Diaspora.



I am aware that many Nigerians are suffering discrimination in places like South Africa and some countries have even stopped receiving green passports, saying that they cannot use the green passports to enter their countries, and some of those countries are not even up to the size of Enugu State.



I think it is important that while looking at this issue, we should also take steps to re-establish the authorities of Nigeria; the largest black country in the world, Akpabio said.



In the same vein, the House of Representatives, in a similar move, summoned the foreign affairs minister, Tuggar and NIDCOM boss, Dabiri- Erewa over the development.



The move followed a motion by the Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda, and others on Thursday, October 5.



Chinda, who reiterated that 250 Nigerians are currently incarcerated in Ethiopia, noted that some of the detainees were arrested while using Ethiopia as a transit point, even as he confirmed that there was general victimisation and maltreatment of Nigerians in the East African country.



Some Nigerians are currently serving at the Chaota Maximum Security, and other prisons in Ethiopia. Most of them are travellers that use the Ethiopian airport as a transit point. About 250 Nigerians are currently serving various prison terms in Ethiopia, and as a result of frequent attacks, may die in prison if urgent steps are not taken to save them, he protested.



The House, therefore, resolved that Tuggar and Dabiri should appear before the committees on Foreign Affairs, Diaspora and Human Rights. Thereafter, the committees are expected to present their reports within two weeks.



However, while the legislative arm of the government in Nigeria has stepped into the matter, Nigerians are also calling on the government to deploy every diplomatic arsenal to ensure that those Nigerians in Ethiopian prisons are either set free unconditionally where they are found to be innocent or returned to serve their jail terms in Nigeria for those that actually committed one crime or the other.



Those who are pushing this argument are saying that except those Nigerians committed other offences outside immigration offences, they should not be allowed to remain in prison over there. They further argued that migration is not an offence, whether regular or irregular, as it is part of human existence.



Contributing to the discussion, a Migration Consultant, and founder of the Patriotic Citizens Initiative, Osita Osemene believes that there was nothing new about the development, because according to him, Nigerians are scattered in various prisons in different countries for different offences.



He noted that in some instances, Nigerians are actually found to have committed one offence or the other, but in some other cases, they are just being targeted because they are Nigerians and the belief out there is that most Nigerians are crooked and must be thoroughly dealt with even when nothing incriminating is found on them.



He noted that some Nigerians serving prison terms in foreign countries were known to have committed offences ranging from cult-related offences to drugs, financial fraud and even getting into foreign countries without appropriate documents.



The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, in his remarks after directing the Senate committees to investigate the issue, also condemned discrimination of Nigerians in other countries. He urged the relevant authorities to take the issue of Nigerians in the Diaspora seriously.Akpabio said.In the same vein, the House of Representatives, in a similar move, summoned the foreign affairs minister, Tuggar and NIDCOM boss, Dabiri- Erewa over the development.The move followed a motion by the Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda, and others on Thursday, October 5.Chinda, who reiterated that 250 Nigerians are currently incarcerated in Ethiopia, noted that some of the detainees were arrested while using Ethiopia as a transit point, even as he confirmed that there was general victimisation and maltreatment of Nigerians in the East African country.he protested.The House, therefore, resolved that Tuggar and Dabiri should appear before the committees on Foreign Affairs, Diaspora and Human Rights. Thereafter, the committees are expected to present their reports within two weeks.However, while the legislative arm of the government in Nigeria has stepped into the matter, Nigerians are also calling on the government to deploy every diplomatic arsenal to ensure that those Nigerians in Ethiopian prisons are either set free unconditionally where they are found to be innocent or returned to serve their jail terms in Nigeria for those that actually committed one crime or the other.Those who are pushing this argument are saying that except those Nigerians committed other offences outside immigration offences, they should not be allowed to remain in prison over there. They further argued that migration is not an offence, whether regular or irregular, as it is part of human existence.Contributing to the discussion, a Migration Consultant, and founder of the Patriotic Citizens Initiative, Osita Osemene believes that there was nothing new about the development, because according to him, Nigerians are scattered in various prisons in different countries for different offences.He noted that in some instances, Nigerians are actually found to have committed one offence or the other, but in some other cases, they are just being targeted because they are Nigerians and the belief out there is that most Nigerians are crooked and must be thoroughly dealt with even when nothing incriminating is found on them.He noted that some Nigerians serving prison terms in foreign countries were known to have committed offences ranging from cult-related offences to drugs, financial fraud and even getting into foreign countries without appropriate documents. Quote I was in Italy recently, and we even brought up a similar discussion and our Italian partners gave reasons a lot of Nigerians are in prison over there.



Some Nigerians are in prison in Italy because of cult-related activities ranging from Black Axe, to Vikings, Aiye, among others. So, in a situation where you have a large number of Nigerians in prison over there in Italy because of the above reason, what can you say? That is not to say that those in Ethiopia are guilty too. Many of them could be innocent.



That we all are encouraging migration does not mean that you will go to somebodys country and begin to commit atrocities and crime.



Even though you cannot rule out the fact that there are some people whose offence may not be that severe and needs to be looked into, a lot of Nigerians are committing atrocities in other countries.



And a lot of countries too, do not joke with issues of undocumented migrants; it is a crime against the state. When you come into a country without proper documentation or when you are smuggled into a country without any document, most countries do not joke with that at all.



So, what is happening is that Ethiopia and most of the Arab countries do not have laws that favour migrants. So, once you commit any little offence as a migrant, you can face the consequences in a very severe way and that is what is happening in Ethiopia now.



Most Nigerians commit one or two offences there and they face it severely. And some of them do not equally have documents, he told DAILY POST.



Osemene, who is also the National Secretary and Head of Programmes, Network Against Child Trafficking, Abuse and Labour in Nigeria, lamented that another problem is that most Nigerians assume the identity of other countries national just to get into a particular country, and only reveal their true identity when they run into problems.



He said: There is also the issue of most Nigerians not entering Ethiopia as Nigerians. They claim to be citizens of other countries. Some claim that they are from Ghana; others say they are from Mauritania and other countries like that.



But, when there is a problem, they will start saying that they are Nigerians. So, we will continue to create awareness among Nigerians because there is a lot of deception, and they always fall into problems.



On what the government should do, Osemene said: Well, I know that the Nigerian government has some level of relationship with all these countries.



In the areas where they have bilateral agreements with Ethiopia and treaties they have signed, they should activate it, look into it and see how they can help. The government can use treaty or bilateral agreement, so that those whose crimes are severe can come back to Nigeria to serve their prison terms.



And for those with minor offences, Nigeria should wade into their cases so that they should be pardoned, and they can come back to the country because what they are facing there is too much.



In other words, I am suggesting prison swaps if Ethiopia has that kind of arrangement with Nigeria. And if they have their persons also in Nigeria prison, yes, there can be prison swap.



For those whose offences are ordinary migration or migration-related offences, they should be set free because migration is not a crime. Migration, whether regular or irregular, is the right of everybody; the law protects every migrant as long as the person did not commit any other offence.

Also contributing, a former lawmaker in the Katsina State House of Assembly, Shehu Yusuf says that Also contributing, a former lawmaker in the Katsina State House of Assembly, Shehu Yusuf says that Quote any Nigerian who commits crime outside Nigeria should know that there are various laws guiding our country and other countries.



We are not supporting Nigerians who commit crimes outside the shores of Nigeria but at the same time, there are rules and regulations guiding a convict.



There are fundamental human rights that are supposed to be adhered to in whatever country that a Nigerian is convicted.



It is good that this is happening. The Nigeria embassy in Ethiopia should look into the matter and find out the real problem.



It is not that Nigeria is supporting those who commit crimes in other countries, but where those people are innocent of any crime, the government should intervene and see how they can be saved, using all available diplomatic channels. I advise that caution should be the watchword, he said. he said.

Post Reply Posted: at 19-10-2023 08:44 AM (2 weeks ago) | Addicted Hero
Google and Qualcomm Join Forces to Develop RISC-V Based Wear OS Chipsets News oi -Kabir Jain

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Google have unveiled their partnership to create RISC-V based Wear OS chipsets, paving the way for next-generation Wear OS solutions. This innovative venture holds significant potential to challenge the dominance of ARM architecture in the Android ecosystem.

A Challenge to ARM Dominance

Historically, Android devices have been built around various architectures, including ARM, x86, and MIPS. However, the current landscape has largely limited the choice to ARM, giving ARM architecture a pivotal role in the entire Android ecosystem. Qualcomm and Google's collaboration aims to change that by introducing RISC-V as an alternative architecture.

The Rise of RISC-V

RISC-V, pronounced "risk five," is an open-source instruction set architecture for CPUs that has been gaining traction recently. What sets it apart is its open-source nature, which means that chipset designers do not need to pay royalties as they do for ARM. Moreover, ARM imposes restrictions on who can create custom CPU cores, incurring additional costs.

Wearable Technology as a Starting Point

Google and Qualcomm are beginning their venture with RISC-V based Snapdragon Wear chipsets, which will power the next generation of Wear OS solutions. While Android has not yet officially embraced RISC-V, this initiative represents a stepping stone for the adoption of more powerful chipsets in smartphones and tablets in the future.

Why RISC-V Matters

The significance of RISC-V lies in its potential to disrupt the status quo. ARM charges companies, including major players like Qualcomm, Samsung, and MediaTek, for the use of their Cortex CPU designs. While some companies opt to design their CPUs in-house, doing so requires an expensive "architectural license."

With RISC-V being open source, Qualcomm will be able to design its own RISC-V based CPUs, leveraging its expertise to develop efficient and high-performance chips. This move will provide Google and the broader Android ecosystem with an alternative platform, offering a fallback and a bargaining chip when negotiating prices with ARM.

What's Next for Wear OS and Beyond

Qualcomm traditionally releases new Wear generations every few years, with the most recent being the W5 in 2022. While it is possible that a W6 could be on the horizon, the exact timeline remains undisclosed. The commercial product launch of RISC-V-based wearables will be announced at a later date.

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The compound that Grand Junction pediatrician Dr. Barbara Zind has been staying at in Gaza was running low on food and water, but a delivery of supplies on Tuesday has helped the situation.

Nigerian Mercy Corps delivered some food and water to them, Preston said. So, that took quite a bit of anxiety off from my standpoint.

Zind traveled to Gaza City on a medical mission with the Palestinian Childrens Relief Fund and arrived just hours before Hamas attack on Israel began on Oct. 7. What was meant to be a short three-day stop at the end of a mission that included Lebanon, Jordan and the West Bank, has now dragged on for nearly two weeks.

Zind was able to travel to the southern part of the city near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. However, that crossing is closed and there has not been an indication when it will be reopened. Preston said the lack of communication about the situation has been frustrating.

We havent heard anything from the State Department, Preston said. Zero from the State Department publicly or privately about the 500 or so Americans that are trapped at the border there.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said Egypts president agreed to open the border crossing into Gaza to allow in 20 trucks with humanitarian aid, according to reporting by The Associated Press.

Preston said he had not seen Bidens speech from Israel, but said he had heard that aid deliveries may be allowed in the coming days. He said he was hopeful that might mean the border crossing would reopen.

Preston said he hasnt been able to speak directly to his wife, but that she has enough access to wifi for them to exchange some text messages. He said shes still in good spirits despite the very difficult situation.

She knows that she has it easier than a lot of other people around there that dont have shelter, Preston said. She sleeps in a car with two other people every evening because there is not enough room in the compound.

The deaths of children have taken a toll on her though, he said.
October 18, 2023

Contracts

Contracts For Oct. 18, 2023

DEFENSE HEALTH AGENCY

Tyto Government Solutions Inc., Herndon, Virginia, is awarded a $65,790,815 firm-fixed-price contract (HT940224F0001) to provide support for the Defense Health Agency E-Commerce Operational Systems Support and includes tasks to maintain, operate, and provide engineering, and technical support to the entire enterprise information technology enterprise for the private-sector healthcare system. This was a competitive fair opportunity acquisition through the Alliant 2 General Services Administration Governmentwide Acquisition Contract program with four offers received. The period of performance is a base year starting Dec. 1, 2023, and four one-year option periods with a completion date of Nov. 30, 2028. Subject to the availability of funds, fiscal 2024 operations and maintenance funds and research and research, development, test and evaluation funds will be obligated. The place of performance is Aurora, Colorado. The Defense Health Agency Managed Care Contracting Division, Aurora, Colorado, is the contracting activity.

ARMY

Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, Andover, Maryland, was awarded a $30,621,464 fixed-price incentive contract for Radar Interface Unit lite. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Andover, Maryland; and Huntsville, Alabama, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2028. Fiscal 2024 Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $30,621,464 were obligated at the time of the award. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-24-C-0004).

NAVY

Raytheon Co., Largo, Florida, is awarded a $12,415,389 firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-fixed-fee modification (N00024-20-C-5203) to exercise options for planar array antenna assembly systems and associated engineering studies and analyses for the Cooperative Engagement Capability program. Work will be performed in Largo, Florida (59%); McKinney, Texas (35%); St. Petersburg, Florida (3%); and Andover, Massachusetts (3%), and is expected to be completed by October 2025. Fiscal 2024 other procurement (Navy) in the amount of $12,401,554 (99%) and fiscal 2023 other procurement (Navy) in the amount of $13,835 (1%) will be obligated at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.

*Small Business

https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/3561638/

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Increase in Failed Hamas/Islamic Jihad Rocket Launches Falling in Gaza

IDF Press Release

18.10.23

IDF

Increase in failed Hamas/PIJ rocket launches inside the Gaza Strip; The Hamas terrorist organization continues to use civilians in the Gaza Strip as human shields, and civilian compounds for military purposes



Since Hamas' initial attack on Israel, Hamas has continuously used civilians in the Gaza Strip as human shields.



Hamas launches barrages of rockets from areas adjacent to civilian buildings and compounds such as hospitals, UN schools, mosques, restaurants, diplomatic buildings, and hotels.



The Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations fire rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians. Rockets have been causing harm to Gazan civilians in addition to Israeli civilians. Yesterday (Tuesday), there was an increase seen in the number of rockets launched at Israel that fell short and landed in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is continuing to use the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields, and does not hesitate to risk the lives of Gazan civilians to in for the purpose of attacking Israelis.

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Al-Ahli (Al-Ma'amadani) Hospital: Initial IDF Aftermath Report

IDF Press Release

18.10.23

IDF

The IDF has concluded an After Action Review and can confirm that the Islamic Jihad was responsible for the strike on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on October 17th, 2023.

In this article

Incident Overview

Al-Ahli Incident Timeline

Initial IDF Response

Initial Video Response

IDF Investigation Process

Supporting Evidence of IDF Analysis

Preliminary Conclusion of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital Event

Incident Overview: Al-Ahli (Al-Ma'amadani) Hospital

On the evening of October 17th, 2023, eleven days after Hamas' barbaric attack on Israel, reports emerged of a large blast at the Al-Ahli (Al-Ma'amadani) Hospital in Gaza City was hit by a rocket. Hamas, an organization recognized as a terrorist organization by Australia, Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, Paraguay, the United Kingdom and the United States, immediately claimed that the hospital had been targeted by the Israeli Air Force (IAF). Hamas' Ministry of Health immediately declared over 500 deaths and many more wounded.

After a thorough aftermath review across the IAF, Israeli Navy, fire control centers, intelligence and electronic surveillance, the IDF was able to conclude that:

The IDF had not conducted any strikes - by air, navy or land - in the vicinity of the hospital at that time

The rocket was fired by Islamic Jihad terrorists as part of a broader barrage targeting Israel

The fire was likely the result of rocket fuel

Hamas reports of damage were significantly exaggerated

The IDF has concluded an After Action Review and can confirm that the Islamic Jihad was responsible for the strike on the Al-Ahli (Al-Ma'amadani) Hospital in Gaza.

Al-Ahli Incident Timeline

October 7, 2023

06:29: Communities and military positions across southern Israel came under attack by Hamas in a brutal massacre that would claim over 1,400 victims and see some 200 Israelis abducted into Gaza. The attack was accompanied by massive rocket fire on the Israeli homefront. This rocket fire, which would soon exceed 6,500 rockets, continues throughout the Israel - Hamas War.

October 17, 2023

18:15: Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at the Israeli homefront, triggering sirens in Southern Israel, including Asheklon and Rishon LeTzion.

Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at the Israeli homefront, triggering sirens in Southern Israel, including Asheklon and Rishon LeTzion. 18:59: The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fired a barrage of ten rockets at Israel from a cemetery near the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza. This triggered rocket sirens as far north as Ramat Gan, Bat Yam and Beni Brak.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fired a barrage of ten rockets at Israel from a cemetery near the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza. This triggered rocket sirens as far north as Ramat Gan, Bat Yam and Beni Brak. 18:59: Reports immediately emerged of an explosion at the hospital.

Reports immediately emerged of an explosion at the hospital. IDF intelligence would later reveal that at this point, Hamas already understood that the hospital was hit by errant rocket fire. Hamas intentionally decided to leverage the international media to launch a global media campaign based on an absolute falsehood. Hamas intentionally inflated the body count in order to further galvanize international support.

In an internal Hamas phone call, an operative admits that their rocket fire at Israeli civilians misfired (see below).

The IDF launches an immediate internal investigation into the incident.

00:39: Following careful examination, the IDF releases an official denial of any involvement in the explosion at the hospital:

Initial IDF Response to Al-Ahli (Al-Ma'amadani) Hospital Incident

Distributed on October 18, 2023, at 00:39

Following an additional review and cross-examination of the operational and intelligence systems, it is clear that the IDF did not strike the hospital in Gaza.



The hospital was hit as a result of a failed rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization.



The terrorist organizations within the Gaza Strip fire indiscriminately toward Israel. Since the beginning of the war, approximately 450 rockets launched toward Israel have fallen within Gaza, endangering and harming the lives of Gazan residents.



See the initial report here.

Initial video response from Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Chief IDF Spokesperson

(Oct. 18, 00:39)

IDF Investigation Process

Assessment of operational activity: The IDF began by ruling out any offensive activities in the immediate vicinity at the time of the explosion in the hospital. This included cross-referencing activity with the Israeli Air Force, the Israeli navy, land forces, and other relevant organizations. Review of operational systems: The investigation continued with careful review of electronic monitoring, specifically Israeli radar systems that track rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. It is clear from the trajectory analysis of the barrage of rockets fired at the time that rockets fired from Gaza at 18:59 were fired in close proximity to the hospital. This appears to be further confirmed by multiple independent video sources available online, in which it is clear that during the rocket salvo, one of the rockets landed within the Gaza Strip. Intelligence Analysis: Israeli Military Intelligence then carefully reviewed SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) sources to evaluate what the Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad knew. An intercepted phone call revealed that the terrorists were well-aware that a rocket had misfired and made specific reference to the Al-Ahli Hospital. This intercept was cross-referenced with other intelligence sources to confirm its accuracy. Information Distribution: Once - and only once - the IDF was able to confirm that this was the case, the update was distributed. The IDF continued with a media briefing conducted at 09:30 on October 18th and will continue to share expanded information with key partners

Supporting Evidence of the IDF Analysis

Aerial Surveillance of Impact Site

This picture compares aerial footage of the site of the hospital before (October 15, 2023) and after (October 17, 2023) the rocket impact. Based on these images, we cannot identify a direct hit on the hospital itself, Instead, it appears that the rocket landed in the parking lot. The primary point of impact is outside the hospital, in the parking lot, where signs of a fire are evident but no cratering or structural damage to nearby buildings is evident.



IDF Aerial Footage: Before and After IDF Aerial Footage: Before and After

Telltale signs of an aerial strike - namely cratering and structural damage to the building - is glaringly absent. The picture below shows, for comparison, what an aerial strike would have looked like.



Battle Analysis Comparison Battle Analysis Comparison

The indications of a fire are to be expected given the type of rockets fired by the Islamic Jihad rocket, with much of the rocket propellent still within the rocket due to the significantly shorter flight path of the rocket. The visual footage below shows infrared imagery of the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital's parking lot. The primary location of the fires is visible, as is debris on the rooftops. Again, no craters are visible and all the walls of the surrounding buildings are intact.

Radar Trajectory of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Rocket Salvo

Given the local production of many of the rockets, it is not uncommon for terrorist rockets - intended to be fired on Israeli civilians - to misfire and hit civilians in Gaza. This is yet another way in which the residents of Gaza pay a horrific price for Hamas and the Islamic Jihad's human shields. In the 2023 Hamas - Israel War alone, as of October 18, about 450 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip have misfired and landed in the Gaza Strip - about 5% of all rockets fired.

The following graphic shows the trajectory of the rockets fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad at 18:59, clearly displaying the proximity of the rockets' flight to the hospital.



IDF Radar Tracking of Launches IDF Radar Tracking of Launches

Intercepted Phone Call Between Hamas Operatives

This is the audio and transcript of a phone call intercepted by the IDF intelligence on October 17, 2023, indicating that the Hamas was well-aware of the origin of the rocket fire.

Hamas Operative #1

"I'm you telling this is the first time that we see a missile like this falling"

Hamas Operative #2

that's so that's why we are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic [Jihad]

Hamas Operative #1

What?

Hamas Operative #2

They are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic

Hamas Operative #1

It's from us?

Hamas Operative #2

It's looks like it.

Hamas Operative #1

Who says it?

Hamas Operative #2

They are saying that the shrapnel from the missile is local shrapnel and not like Israeli shrapnel

Hamas Operative #1

What are you saying, REDACTED?

Hamas Operative #2

But god bless, it couldn't have found another place to explode?

Hamas Operative #1

Nevermind, yes, REDACTED, they shot it from the cemetery behind the hospital

Hamas Operative #2

What?

Hamas Operative #1

They shot it coming from the cemetery behind the Al-Ma'amadani Hospital (Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital) and it misfired and fell on them

Hamas Operative #2

There's a cemetery behind it?

Hamas Operative #1

The Al-Ma'amadani Hospital is exactly in the compound

Hamas Operative #2

Where is it when you enter the compound?

Hamas Operative #1

You first enter the compound and don't go toward the city and it's on the right side of the Al-Ma'amadani Hospital

Hamas Operative #2

yes, I know it.



It's clear from this phone call that within a short time after the incident, Hamas was well aware of the source of the attack on the residents of Gaza - rocket fire from Gaza.

Preliminary Conclusion of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital Event

In stark contrast to Hamas, which extended its psychological operations, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the people of Gaza, the IDF launched an immediate examination, which was overseen at the very highest levels of command.

This professional review was conducted leveraging a broad range of information sources, including intelligence analysis, the use of operational military systems, and aerial footage. This information was all carefully cross-checked. It is absolutely impossible in the fog of war to provide accurate, reliable and credible analyses like that of the Hamas, in such a short time. This is yet another indication of the lies perpetuated by the terrorist organization.

The evidence, which the IDF made available despite currently being engaged in a war to protect the people of Israel, confirms with no room for doubt that the explosion at the Al-Ahlai Hospital in Gaza was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired.

The IDF will continue to act in accordance with international law. This incident shows how allegations  in this case, false and baseless allegations made by terrorists  against Israel can spread and inflame tensions in the region.

As Rear Admiral Hagari said a press statement on October 18:

We have to win this information war with evidence, not with forced, uncredible statements. We have to win it with evidence. We have no other way. We must stay moral, we must play according to international law. We have no other way. Otherwise, we won't be a democratic, liberal country. And this is what we are fighting. It's a democratic, liberal country fighting Hamas/ISIS-controlled Gaza area with innocent civilians that he's using as a human shieldwe cannot live next to our borders with Hamas/ISIS governance that will threaten our civilians and do massacres.

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Iran FM calls on Muslim regional officials to take action as Israel presses ahead with war on Gaza

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 6:02 PM

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has asked his regional counterparts to take more action to end the escalating situation in the small Palestinian territory of Gaza.

Amir-Abdollahian said in a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on Wednesday that the situation in the Middle East was at a precarious point as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression against Gaza.

He said in the meeting held in the Saudi city of Jeddah that the situation in Palestine could spiral out of control if Israel did not stop committing crimes in Gaza.

The top Iranian diplomat also appreciated Saudi Arabia's position on developments in Palestine while thanking the kingdom for proposing and hosting an emergency ministerial meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah to discuss the Israeli aggression in Gaza.

Iran has warned in recent days that anti-Israeli resistance groups in the region could start engaging Israel if the regime did not stop its brutal war against the people in Gaza.

Amir-Abdollahian reiterated in the meeting with Bin Farhan that time is of the essence in the developments surrounding the Palestinian conflict while calling for an immediate end to the conflict.

For his part, Bin Farhan expressed his regret about the dire situation of the people living in Gaza while saying that Riyadh would continue its efforts to protect the Palestinians against the Israeli regime by seeking an end to the conflict.

While in Jeddah to attend the OIC meeting on Wednesday, Amir-Abdollahian also met with Qatari State Minister for Foreign Affairs Soltan bin Saad al-Muraikhi.

During the meeting, the Iranian diplomat criticized the United States for its continued efforts to support the Zionist regime of Israel.

He said US President Joe Biden's visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, which came a day after a deadly attack on a hospital in Gaza that left 500 people dead, was a sign of Washington's unwavering support for the Israeli regime.

Muraikhi admitted in the meeting that West's support for Israel gave a green light to the regime to continue its criminal acts against the Palestinians.

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Iran FM calls for political, economic sanctions on Israel, trial of its leaders over Gaza strikes

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 5:20 PM

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states to impose political and economic sanctions on Israel and set up a tribunal to prosecute Israeli leaders for their war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The top Iranian diplomat made the appeal at a Wednesday emergency meeting of the Executive Committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Saudi city of Jeddah, where participants discussed the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict after an Israeli attack on the Anglican-run al-Ahli al-Arab Hospital, also known as the Baptist Hospital, in central Gaza that killed at least 500 people and wounded hundreds of others.

"The latest crime comes as the Zionist regime collapsed in the wake of Operation al-Aqsa Strom launched ... on October 7. America is trying to resuscitate the broken-down Zionist regime through aggression against civilians. The United States is responsible for recent atrocities," Amir-Abdollahian noted.

He went on to dismiss the Israeli military's allegations that the Islamic Jihad resistance movement was responsible for a strike on a packed hospital compound in central Gaza, saying that no one would believe that Islamic Jihad would use such a sophisticated bomb against its fellow compatriots.

He emphasized that the Iranian flag has been flown at half-staff at the country's embassies and diplomatic missions worldwide in reaction to the tragic incident, and Iranian officials have even declared a day of national mourning.

The Iranian foreign minister slammed as "inhumane" the killing and displacement of Palestinian people, the decision to cut off electricity and water supplies to Gaza as well as restrictions on entry of Palestinians into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied al-Quds, emphasizing that Christian rituals are not even spared from Israeli desecrations.

"The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has been founded on [supporting] the Palestinian cause and the issue of Palestine should continue to be the prime issue of the Muslim world," he continued.

Amir-Abdollahian emphasized, "There is no doubt that Operation al-Aqsa Storm proved that the Palestinian issue is still thriving. The status quo in Palestine will be different from what it used to be before and [what it will be] after the operation. This operation proved that Palestine belongs to all Palestinians."

The Iranian foreign minister noted that the Islamic Republic, in line with its policy of supporting practical measures to back Palestine, suggests that Muslim countries take coordinated measures to stop war crimes.

"Muslim countries should work towards opening up humanitarian corridors for the besieged residents of the Gaza Strip and their access to drinking water, food and medicine. The OIC member states should also urge the Security Council to issue resolutions in support of Palestine and in condemnation of Israel's settlement construction," he pointed out.

Amir-Abdollahian also demanded an emergency meeting of the Human Rights Council to deal with Israeli crimes, saying, "It is necessary to impose political and economic sanctions on the regime and members should also set up a tribunal to try Israeli leaders, pilots, army commanders and political figures."

"The Israeli crimes must stop immediately. Muslim countries should sever relations with the Zionist regime and put an embargo on Israeli goods. Influential religious and Christian figures are also expected to condemn the recent criminal acts," the top Iranian diplomat stressed.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group waged a surprise attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.

So far, 3,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids, including more than 1,000 children and 1,000 women.

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US votes UNSC resolution demanding humanitarian pause in Gaza

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 3:58 PM

The United States has blocked a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that would have established humanitarian pauses in the ongoing Israeli war on the blockaded Palestinian Gaza Strip.

The US on Wednesday vetoed the resolution that had been drafted by Brazil and had sought to broker aid access to Gaza amid the incessant Israeli airstrikes and shelling against people in the tiny strip of land.

Representatives of 12 countries in the 15-member UNSC voted in favor of the resolution while Britain and Russia abstained. A UNSC resolution needs the approval of all five veto-wielding members of the body, including the US, to pass. Besides, for the resolution to pass, no permanent member should cast a veto.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield justified her country's veto, saying "this resolution did not mention Israel's right of self-defense."

Washington's rejection of the resolution came a day after at least 500 people, many of them women and children, were killed in a bombing attack on a hospital in Gaza. The Palestinians have blamed the Israeli regime for the brazen attack while the regime has denied responsibility.

Nearly 3,500 people have been killed in more than 11 days of Israeli attacks on Gaza. The brutal campaign began after the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement launched attacks on Israeli settlers and military forces to retaliate months of violence against the Palestinians and their sanctities.

The US has always been a staunch supporter of Israel. Washington has been supporting the regime by blocking international efforts to hold the regime accountable for its acts.

The UNSC resolution vetoed by the US on Wednesday had called for the cancelation of an order for civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate to south of the coastal sliver in anticipation of major ground offensive by Israel.

More than a million have become homeless inside Gaza as a result of Israeli bombardment and shelling. The regime has also maintained a crippling siege on the small territory by cutting water, electricity and food supplies to more than 2.3 million people living there.

The action on the Brazilian-led draft resolution follows the failure on Monday of a Russian-drafted resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

The Russian-drafted resolution failed to get the minimum nine votes needed as the US and the UK voted against the draft resolution, while five, including China, Russia and the UAE, voted in favor and there were six abstentions.

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Islamic Jihad rejects Israel's 'downright lies' over Gaza hospital missile strike

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 3:01 PM

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement has roundly dismissed the Israeli military's allegations that the Gaza-based group was responsible for a strike on a packed hospital compound in central Gaza, rejecting the claims as "downright lies."

"The Zionist enemy is trying hard to evade its responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed by bombing the Anglican-run al-Ahli al-Arab Hospital, also known as the Baptist Hospital, in Gaza through fabrication of lies and pinning the blame on the Islamic Jihad movement," it said in a statement on Wednesday.

"We, therefore, affirm that the accusations put forward by the enemy are false and baseless," the resistance movement stressed.

According to the statement, the hospital had been ordered to evacuate by the Tel Aviv regime under threat of bombardment, and it was a bomb dropped by an Israeli warplane that caused the tragedy.

It said the hospital had "received public notice of evacuation under threat of bombing."

On Tuesday night, an Israeli air raid on Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza killed at least 500 people, according to Palestinians, in one of the worst attacks since the violence began on October 7.

Gaza's Health Ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qudra, said on Wednesday that hundreds were killed and rescue workers were still removing bodies from the rubble.

The bombardment of the hospital in Gaza triggered a wave of anger and protests across the Middle East, with protesters taking to the streets to condemn the deadly attack.

Pro-Palestinian protests were also staged at Israeli embassies in Jordan as well as Turkey and near the US embassy in Lebanon.

Hamas: Israel bears full responsibility for Gaza hospital carnage

Meanwhile, Hamas resistance movement said in a statement that the occupying Israeli regime bears complete responsibility for the strike on the Gaza hospital, and its blatant lies will fail to deceive people.

The movement said in a statement that the Tel Aviv regime is putting out a false front and pushing it with overt propaganda in an attempt to avoid responsibility for the massacre.

"Baptist Hospital and 22 other hospitals and medical facilities, housing medical staff, patients, and injured people, were all under threat from the fascist and occupying Israeli regime. Israel has bombed 23 ambulances and killed more than 25 doctors and members of their families so far," Hamas pointed out.

It continued, "They (Israeli forces) are the ones who killed more than 3,000 Palestinian civilians, 70% of whom were children and women, by destroying entire residential neighborhoods and 120,000 housing units."

"This horrible massacre was caused directly by the fascist Israeli regime, which provided multiple accounts of the events starting within the first hour of the carnage," Hamas concluded.

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Outrage over Gaza hospital attack: China 'shocked' as Russia calls it 'act of dehumanization'

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 2:28 PM

China and Russia have issued condemnations of a bombing that targeted a crowded hospital in the small blockaded Palestinian territory of Gaza, with Moscow challenging the Israeli regime to provide facts to prove its claims it was not involved in the attack.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that the attack on al-Ahli Arabi hospital in Gaza a day earlier was shocking and "an act of dehumanization."

Zakharova said, however, that Israel should prove its claims that it was not behind the attack that killed at least 500 people, mostly women and children, by providing unedited satellite images. She said the US could also provide such imagery.

"Regarding our assessment, we certainly qualify such an act as a crime, as an act of dehumanization," Zakharova said Wednesday on her Radio Sputnik program.

"We are now seeing a desire [from Israel] to absolve responsibility," she continued. "If there are serious intentions ... to prove it was not involved and is innocent, then it needs not only to comment in the media and on social networks, but to provide facts," she added.

The Israeli regime has denied responsibility for the hospital attack by saying that the huge explosion that destroyed the facility late on Tuesday was caused by a malfunctioning rocket launched by the Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad.

The Palestinians and almost all governments in the region have squarely blamed the Israeli regime for the attack.

Meanwhile, China said on Wednesday that it was "shocked by and strongly condemns" the attack on Gaza hospital.

"China calls for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the war," said the Chinese foreign ministry in a statement.

Russian authorities had previously criticized Israel and its main ally, the US, for fueling a decades-long crisis in Palestine that led to the bloody confrontations in the occupied territories and in Gaza this month.

Moscow has warned that Washington's decision to move warships to waters close to the Israeli-occupied territories would escalate the war.

Nearly 3,500 people have been killed in more than 10 days of Israeli airstrikes and shelling against Gaza, a small territory with a population of 2.3 million people on the Mediterranean Sea which is under a constant Israeli blockade.

The Israeli attacks on Gaza began on October 7 after the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement launched waves of attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories, killing 1,400 settlers and military forces.

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Every drop of Palestinian blood brings Israel closer to downfall: Iran president

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 2:24 PM

Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi says the Israeli regime is only accelerating its demise by killing innocent Palestinian women and children in besieged Gaza.

"Every drop of Palestinian blood brings the Zionists closer to downfall, and the Zionist regime cannot compensate for its defeats with these atrocities," the president declared on Wednesday while addressing a massive gathering of people in Tehran.

"Which human being accepts this heinous crime? Killing women and children, attacking hospitalsthis marks the beginning of the end for the Zionist regime," he added.

President Raeisi noted that in addition to a military defeat, the Israelis have recently suffered "security and intelligence setbacks" at the hands of the resistance front.

Raeisi also emphasized the rising global resentment towards the Israeli regime and its principal supporter, the United States.

"Look at the global public's hatred towards the Zionist regime and the Americans and how people worldwide have expressed their abhorrence for their crimes," he said.

"Today, all conscientious individuals detest these horrific crimes, and this is a defeat for the Zionist regime and America. Today, a global consensus has been formed, and the (global) society condemns the occupying regime, which has committed so many crimes against women and children."

The president pointed to international organizations and countries that merely sufficed to condemn the Israeli crimes, and asked, "Is condemning enough? Are nations satisfied with just condemnation? Is expressing outrage sufficient? Therefore, today, Muslim nations are waiting for effective actions."

Raeisi maintained that the international community should take concrete and meaningful actions to hold the Israeli regime accountable for its crimes against humanity.

Israel has been raining bombs on the Gaza Strip for the past 12 days since Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas launched Operation al-Aqsa Storm against Israel in response to the regime's campaign of aggression, violation and bloodshed against Palestinians.

The health ministry in Gaza now says a total of 3,478 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids while over 12,000 others have sustained injuries.

The indiscriminate bombing by Israel, particularly the attack on a hospital in the coastal region, has sparked outrage and widespread condemnation around the world.

On Tuesday, more than 500 people, including women and children, lost their lives in an Israeli airstrike on al-Ahli Baptist Hospital. Thousands of Palestinians were present at the hospital when the attack took place.

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Venezuelan government, opposition reach agreement to schedule 2024 presidential election

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 11:28 AM

Venezuela's government and the US-backed opposition forces have formally agreed to work together on terms for the 2024 presidential election, paving the way for possible relief from cruel economic sanctions imposed by Washington against the nation led by President Nicolas Maduro.

Representatives from the two sides met in Barbados on Tuesday and reached a broad consensus for the election scheduled to take place in the second half of next year with international observers - including from the European Union and United Nations - overseeing the vote.

Jorge Rodriguez, head of the Caracas delegation, alongside his counterpart in the opposition, Gerardo Blyde, signed the agreement.

Rodriguez said at a press conference after the signing that candidates from all political spectrums are allowed to participate in the election according to Venezuelan law, "as long as they meet the established requirements".

"This is the first step of a much broader agreement that is in full evolution, construction, and execution," he clarified. "If you received an administrative inhabilitation...from the controller general of the republic you cannot be a candidate, I want to clarify that."

Speaking before Rodriguez, Blyde had said that the banned candidates could "recover their rights" and said to be optimistic about a route to remove political bans that some opposition leaders have.

The opposition has said the bans, handed down by the controller general, are unlawful.

Prior to Tuesday's announcement, multiple sources said that the US was prepared to ease the sanctions slapped on the once oil-rich and currently cash-strapped OPEC country if Washington was satisfied Caracas had given the opposition a fair chance to take part in the election.

US President Joe Biden's administration had said it would lift some long-standing sanctions in exchange for democratic concessions from Caracas. However, following the Barbados agreement, it was yet unclear if the crippling US sanctions would be lifted.

"We welcome the Venezuelan-led political agreement reached today in Barbados," according to a joint statement from the US, EU, Britain, and Canada, calling it a necessary step toward the "restoration of democracy in Venezuela."

However, the statement also reiterated calls for the release of political prisoners, independence of the electoral process, freedom of expression, and respect for human rights, issues that were not covered in Tuesday's agreement.

In the meantime, Washington's maximum pressure campaign against Caracas has remained in place since the time of former President Donald Trump.

Over the past decade, the US economic sanction banning Caracas from using its oil reserves, which are the country's most valuable asset, has plunged the socialist-led South American country into a heavy crisis, forcing millions of Venezuelans to leave the country. Maduro, president since 2013, is expected to run for re-election but has not yet formalized his candidacy.

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Hezbollah hits another Merkava tank, causing casualties among Israeli soldiers

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 6:26 AM

Hezbollah fighters have hit an Israeli Merkava tank near the border area in southern Lebanon, according to a statement posted on the resistance movement's Telegram channel.

"Islamic resistance fighters attacked the armored vehicle near the barracks in Manara with a guided anti-tank missile," the statement said.

The crew is said to have wounded and dead among them. The Hezbollah Military Information Service pledged to post a video that captured the missile hitting the tank.

On October 15 and 16, Hezbollah fighters hit two more Merkava tanks in attacks on Israeli troops stationed in border areas. On October 10, a Zelda armored personnel carrier near the Jewish settlement of Avivim was destroyed and completely burned.

The Hezbollah attacks come amid Israel's deadly bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip, which followed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on October 7.

Hezbollah praised the Hamas operation, saying armed resistance is the only way to confront the Israeli "aggression".

'Hamas, Hezbollah coordinating war's next moves'

A senior Hamas representative in Lebanon said that the Gaza-based Palestinian group and Hezbollah are closely coordinating their next steps in fighting against Israel.

"We have very strong relations with Hezbollah. We were cooperating with Hezbollah before the attack on Israel and after and now we are in full cooperation," Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas' political bureau in Beirut, told the Politico news website.

He also noted that despite close cooperation with Hezbollah, the October 7 operation was all Hamas's work.

"This operation was organized by the al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas) and later other Palestinian organizations joined the operation. This was purely a Palestinian mission - its planning and execution. Not even our loyal allies knew what was coming," he explained.

Abdul-Hadi further said that Hezbollah is now "geared for a major war" against Israel in the north, while Hamas would burst Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "dream" of driving it out of Gaza.

He described a possible Israeli ground offensive against Gaza as one of the key triggers that could bring Hezbollah fully into the conflict.

"Hezbollah will pay no attention to threats from anyone against it entering the war; it will ignore warnings to stay out of it. The timing of when Hezbollah wants to enter the war or not will relate to Israeli escalation and incidents on the ground, and especially if Israel tries to enter Gaza on the ground," the Hamas official said.

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Senior Administration Officials on Venezuela

US Department of State

Special Briefing

Office of the Spokesperson

Via Teleconference

October 18, 2023

MODERATOR: Good evening, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us this evening for this background call on Venezuela. This evening's call is on background and attributable to senior administration officials, and it is embargoed until its conclusion. For your information only and not for reporting, we have with us on the line from the Department of State [Senior Administration Official One], and from the National Security Council [Senior Administration Official Two].

With that, I'd like to turn over the floor, please, to [Senior Administration Official One] for opening remarks. Over to you, sir.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Thanks very much. As I'm sure all of you have seen, the Unitary Platform of Venezuela and their representatives - Nicolas Maduro yesterday signed a partial roadmap to elections in Venezuela. We believe that this roadmap is the most viable path for the people of Venezuela to secure a durable agreement that leads to competitive elections, the restoration of democratic order, and the end to the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

In accordance with our longstanding policy, the United States - sorry, my phone was ringing; apologies, turn that off - in accordance with our longstanding policy, as a result of this agreement, the United States will provide limited sanctions relief, primarily in the oil and gas sector, in response to this important development. The power and integrity of United States sanctions derives not only from our ability to sanction bad actors, but also to delist them. Our ultimate goal with sanctions is to bring about positive change in behavior.

With regard to Venezuela, the United States has leveraged our sanctions to incentivize the parties to take concrete steps to restore democratic order in country. We are now issuing temporary and limited authorizations, primarily in the oil and gas sector, in response to the positive changes announced yesterday.

The administration has been clear that other sanctions and restrictions imposed by the United States on Venezuela remain in place. The United States Government retains the authority to amend or revoke all authorizations should Maduro and his representatives fail to follow through on their commitments. We're firmly committed to the Venezuelan people, and we will continue to work with the international community to support the strengthening and restoration of democracy and the rule of law so that Venezuelans can rebuild their lives and their country.

I'll stop there and be happy to get into greater detail as we move forward.

MODERATOR: Thanks. [Operator], would you mind please repeating the institutions for joining the question queue?

OPERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press 1 then 0 on your phone. Press 1 then 0 only one time, as pressing it a second time will remove you from the question-and-answer queue.

MODERATOR: Great. Can we please go to the line of Jennifer Hansler from CNN.

QUESTION: Hi, can you hear me?

OPERATOR: Yes.

QUESTION: Thank you. Thank you for doing this call. I'm wondering whether you have any insights on why this agreement was able to reach in this iteration of negotiations, given we've seen a number of times where there have been negotiations that fell apart. And then separately, do you see this as paving the way or setting any sort of ground for the potential release of the U.S. detainees in Venezuela? Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: So let me start and then maybe [Senior Administration Official Two] will want to make some comments as well. The effort to get the parties back to the negotiating table has involved a lot of hard work and support from the international community. In a statement released by the U.S., Canada, and the EU yesterday, sort of recognized the international community, in particular Norway for its role in facilitating these talks. The United States, with the assistance of Qatar, has worked to support and encourage this process as well and make sure that an incentive structure to make real changes exists. And there's still a significant amount of work that remains, but I think this is absolutely the best way forward for us.

With regard to the release of wrongfully detained Americans and political prisoners, for us that is a sine qua non for this agreement, and we have conveyed our expectation clearly that that will be a key part of the implementation of this process.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: And I'll add just briefly that the representatives of the Unitary Platform of the Venezuelan opposition, even before going to Barbados, had been engaged in regular conversations with the other side, and so the signature in Barbados was the culmination of a lot of work. I want to underscore as well that the United States coordinates very closely with the Unitary Platform and other democratic actors on the steps needed to move forward on a negotiated solution that leads to competitive elections and the restoration of democracy in Venezuela.

I think we've been very clear that our policy is to alleviate sanctions pressure on the basis of concrete steps that take the country toward competitive elections and improve the humanitarian situation in the country. And as the Unitary Platform was negotiating and getting to an agreement, our efforts were to support them, give them the incentives necessary to be able to get towards signature.

MODERATOR: Great. Thank you so much. Could we please go to the line of Carolina Alcalde from Voice of America?

OPERATOR: Your line is now open.

QUESTION: Yes, hi. I just want to know about the inhabilitations (inaudible). Is maybe United States speaking with the Maduro government in order to allowed, for example, Maria Corina Machado to run into the elections in 2024?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: So the partial agreement signed yesterday clearly states that the promotion of a way forward for all candidates to be able to run and be authorized is part of that process agreed to by the parties. I know that the unitary platform's lead negotiator, Gerardo Blyde, has specifically pressed this issue in the negotiations, and this is something that we consider vital to the process. And we also very clearly stated that this is essential for Venezuelans to be able to have a choice, a democratic choice, for all candidates to have a path toward being authorized and running.

QUESTION: I'm sorry, I'm asking that because Mr. Rodriguez yesterday said that it's not possible that, for example, Maria Corina Machado can run into that elections because she don't have - she's inhabilitated - inhabilitado, I'm sorry.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: So the agreement that he signed says that there will be a path to authorize all candidates, and the clear understanding and the context of the negotiations has been that the Maduro authorities will act expeditiously to authorize all candidates, and that's certainly our understanding of the way forward. The Maduro authorities don't have a role in the primary process that will take place on Sunday, so it's not required for that. But for the general election, obviously, all the candidates need to have a path to authorization and an expeditious one.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: If I could put a specific point on what [Senior Administration Official One] said, is we have conveyed our expectation directly to representatives of Nicolas Maduro that they will take these - those steps before the end of November. So to your question, define a specific timeline for the expedited reauthorization or rehabilitation of all candidates - underscore all, because fundamentally all who want to run for president should be allowed the opportunity so that Venezuelans are the ones who pick their political leadership.

And on the other, I can't underscore enough that the - we need to see the beginning of the release of all wrongfully detained U.S. nationals and Venezuelan political prisoners. So for us, in addition to the terms of the electoral roadmap, we are insisting on seeing progress in these two areas before the end of November or we're going to have to reconsider what has been, from our perspective, a fairly significant incentive for the parties to move forward with this electoral roadmap. Over.

MODERATOR: Great, thank you so much. Can we please go to the line of Eduard Ribas from EFE News?

QUESTION: Yes, hi, thank you. Thank you for doing this. I would like to know what concrete steps you want to see to consider the elections of Venezuela to be democratic, and also if the United States considers being an observer in these next elections. Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: So among the steps that the parties have agreed to and that we consider very important: updating the electoral registry; allowing international observers - the Carter Center, the European Union, in particular, have observed elections in Venezuela previously and have a track record of seriousness and impartiality; the promotion of a public discourse and a political and social climate favorable to carrying out a peaceful and participatory electoral process; the measures to guarantee the safety, security, and freedom of movement of all candidates throughout the country; transparent financing mechanisms to ensure people are able to compete in an equitable way; access to the media.

All of those things are vital to a competitive, transparent election that represents the will of the Venezuelan people, and the parties have agreed to them. And we believe that that sets the framework for an election that will return Venezuela to a democratic path. I'll pause there. My colleague may want to offer some additional thoughts.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Nope, nothing to add.

MODERATOR: Great, thank you so much. Can we please go to the line of Haik Gugarats from Argus Media?

OPERATOR: Your line is now open.

QUESTION: Yes, hi. It's not clear from your frequently answered questions: Does this affect U.S. Government position on CITGO trial or any other Venezuelan assets in the United States?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: This action does not affect the judicial process related to the CITGO bankruptcy trial, nor does it impact the frozen assets of Venezuela in the United States or other jurisdictions. With regard to the latter, I'd note that the United Nations has announced that a year after - almost a year after the signing of the humanitarian and social agreement in November of last year, it has taken steps to establish the UN humanitarian trust fund, and there could be certain assets that are transferred into that trust fund, though that process has not begun yet. But that is not related to the things that we've announced today.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: One thing I would add to what was said was - which [Senior Administration Official One], I think, alluded to - is that not only are frozen assets not going to be made available except for access for the - with the UN trust fund, but we have still in place a very robust sanctions program in Venezuela. Not only that, but the actions today will not impact the Iran-related sanctions or sanctions that we have in other areas as they impact or have implications for the Venezuelan oil and gas sector. Over.

MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Can we please go to Nick Pope from The Daily Caller?

QUESTION: Hello there. Can I - am I being heard?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yes, go ahead.

QUESTION: Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thanks for hosting the call; I appreciate it. I'm curious to know if there's any concern, either within the State Department or perhaps the administration more broadly, about alleged and sometimes reported connections between the Venezuelan Government and transnational criminal organizations, and whether or not those connections are factoring into the discussions here and this deal more broadly.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: So the sanctions relief that we're talking about now, as I think was touched upon in the last answer, this does not affect it - specific sanctions with regard to other criminal activity like narcotics trafficking or human rights violations. So anyone who's covered by those sanctions would continue to be covered still, and we continue to be concerned about any violations of law committed, and the international authorities and the U.S. authorities continue to look very closely at those matters, so that - this hasn't changed our position on those things.

MODERATOR: Great. Well, that concludes all of our questions. With that, the call has now concluded, and as a reminder, this evening's call was on background, attributable to senior administration officials. The embargo has now lifted. Thank you all for joining us.

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Concern over Increased Shelling and Civilian Casualties in Nyala and Omdurman

US Department of State

Press Statement

Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson

October 18, 2023

The United States is deeply concerned by credible reports that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has intensified its shelling in and around Nyala, South Darfur and Karari, Omdurman, deepening the suffering of the Sudanese people. The United States is aware of reports the RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are fighting within the city of Nyala and that the RSF may have encircled the city in preparation for an assault, potentially depriving civilians of the ability to flee to safety. We are also concerned by reports the RSF has shelled and blocked all access into the Hasahisa IDP camp in Central Darfur.

The United States calls on the RSF to immediately cease shelling of civilian neighborhoods and to protect civilians in Nyala, Omdurman, and throughout Sudan. This reckless war, which began more than six months ago, has resulted in civilian deaths, the displacement of millions, and immense suffering that will affect generations of Sudanese. Women and children are bearing the intolerable brunt of this conflict. There is no acceptable military solution to this conflict - "victory" by either side would exact an intolerable toll on the Sudanese people and their nation. The United States reiterates its call for the RSF and SAF to immediately stop the fighting and return to talks toward a negotiated exit from this conflict.

The United States reminds the RSF and SAF of their commitments under the May 11 Jeddah Declaration of Principles to Protect the Civilians of Sudan, including by allowing unhindered humanitarian access, protecting civilians and their human rights, and upholding international humanitarian law and international human rights law. It is time for this conflict and the suffering of the Sudanese people to end.

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Security Council meets over Israel-Gaza: 'Very real risk' of conflict expanding warns top envoy

18 October 2023 - UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland on Wednesday highlighted the need for an inquiry into the strike against a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds, including patients, staff and displaced people seeking shelter.

Mr. Wennesland told the Security Council that he "watched in horror and in real time" as reports of mass casualties emerged from Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday.

"The circumstances of this catastrophe and responsibility remains and still needs to be clarified. And we will need a fact-based, full investigation and broad investigation," he said, speaking from Doha.

Brink of an abyss

Mr. Wennesland, officially UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, updated the Council on his efforts to end the current hostilities, which he called one of the most difficult moments facing Israelis and Palestinians in 75 years.

He unequivocally condemned the Hamas militant group's deadly attacks on Israel on 7 October, and seizure of hostages, saying there is no justification for these acts.

"I fear that we are at the brink of a deep and dangerous abyss that could change the trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if not of the Middle East as a whole," he said.

After more than a century of conflict and over half-a-century of occupation, the international community had failed to bring the parties to a just, sustainable political resolution, he said. The recent events have served to re-ignite grievances and re-animate alliances across the region.

"The risk of an expansion of this conflict is real - very, very real - and extremely dangerous," he warned.

Diplomatic efforts

Mr. Wennesland has been working to avert this threat. He and the UN Secretary-General have been in constant communication with both the parties and regional and international actors "who have agency and influence".

For example, meetings and ongoing discussions with leaders in Egypt have focused both on facilitating access for humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah Crossing, the sole one into the enclave, and "our shared concerns and efforts to rein in further regional hostilities."

The envoy will return to Cairo on Thursday to join the Secretary-General in continuing these discussions, and he also welcomed the Egyptian President's swift convening of a summit of world leaders to discuss the crisis.

Eye on the prize

"With the parties on the ground in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ramallah, my message has remained steadfast, that we must not let the dynamic of the current conflict take our eyes off what I will call the day after," he continued. "The day after, we need to start working on now."

Mr. Wennesland stressed the need for time and space to achieve two urgent objectives, namely Hamas's immediate, unconditional release of all hostages, and unrestricted access of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

He further appealed for collective efforts to end the hostilities and prevent any further expansion of the conflict to the region. "Regarding West Bank and Lebanon, there should be no miscalculation, no provocation and no step that closes the door for our current efforts," he said.

The envoy also underlined the ultimate need to work towards a long-term political solution, in line with UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements.

Relief chief supports probe

UN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths supported the call for a fact-based inquiry into the deadly blast at Al-Ahli Hospital, noting it had also been hit last week.

"This tragedy is characteristic of the crushing impact this conflict has had on civilians andthe catastrophic consequences it will have if it continues to escalate, as we fear," he said, speaking from Cairo.

The UN relief chief detailed the damage the already beleaguered Gaza health system has sustained in the conflict. Since 7 October, 28 health workers have reportedly been killed and 23 injured.

Health services are overstretched and on the verge of collapse, meeting the needs of the rising number of wounded patients in the face of ever-deepening shortages of fuel, medicines and supplies.

Death, destruction, displacement

Overall, more than 3,000 people in Gaza have been killed, including 14 staff members from the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA. More than 12,000 people are injured and hundreds more are unaccounted for.

Mr. Griffiths reported that the death toll has already exceeded that of the 2017 hostilities which lasted more than seven weeks.

"The pace of death, of suffering, of destruction, of breaches of international law, cannot be exaggerated," he said.

Meanwhile, one million Palestinians have escaped their homes with nowhere to go, and as supplies of food, water, fuel and medical items dwindle. UNRWA has been forced to ration water to one litre per person per day, far less than the minimum standard of 1.5 litres.

'Suffering knows no borders'

The UN's top humanitarian official highlighted the critical need for aid to be delivered safely to civilians throughout Gaza, and for funding to support these operations. He said UNRWA, the Red Crescent, and other agencies have staff and many volunteers who are still on the ground and ready to assist.

"What we don't have - and it's a killer, and what we desperately need - is immediate safe humanitarian access. And that is the burden of our discussions with key parties," he added.

Mr. Griffiths reported that prior to "these terrible weeks", 100 trucks a day delivered aid throughout Gaza and "we need to get back to that level of ambition".

Like Mr. Wennesland, he also expressed concern over the situation in the West Bank, noting that last week was the deadliest for Palestinians there since the UN began reporting fatalities in 2005. Violent incidents involving Israeli settlers have also increased, showing that "suffering knows no borders".

Following the briefings, Council members weighed in with their contrasting views on the crisis, and the effectiveness of the chamber itself.

Russia

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said his delegation had initiated today's meeting, with China and the United Arab Emirates, due to the bombing of a Gazan hospital, which caused more than 800 deaths and injuries. In this regard, he called for an independent investigation that would bring perpetrators to justice.

"This is the price of inertia in the Council," he said. "We warned you about this on Monday."

As such, action must be taken promptly, he said. The Council could not prevent the tragedy in Gaza, he said, adding that "We have seen the terrible fruit of this."

All of this is happening with the inaction of the Council, paralyzed by the self-serving actions of some nations, he said, adding concerns about a possible spillover of the conflict.

China

China's Ambassador Zhang Jun said the protection of civilians in armed conflict is reflected in international humanitarian law, urging Israel to fulfill its obligations.

Citing the current dire situation on the ground in Gaza, he said "there's no time to lose to protect civilians," calling on Israel to stop the bombing and open humanitarian corridors.

"An immediate and comprehensive ceasefire must be a priority," he said. "Without a ceasefire, any humanitarian aid would be a drop in the bucket" and possibly trigger a catastrophe that would encompass the region.

China supports all efforts to de-escalate the conflict and work for the cessation of hostilities as soon as possible, he said, calling for opening a safe aid corridor and the return of Israeli hostages.

"The Security Council has no excuse to remain silent," he said.

Opening the floor to the wider UN membership, the Council heard from, among others, the representatives of Israel and the State of Palestine.

Israel

Referring to the 7 October attacks by Hamas militants, Israel's Ambassador Gilad Menashe Erdan said the "most barbaric and widespread terrorist attack" has been perpetrated, but "it appears this Council has forgotten."

Recalling the deliberate actions of "Hamas Nazis" against Israel, he said nothing can change their "genocidal ideology".

"There is only one solution to curing a cancer and it is the evisceration of the cancerous cells, as what was done with ISIS," he said.

"The Council has not condemned Hamas' terrorist attacks," he said. Instead, the Council "is fixed only on humanitarian corridors and aid."

"While noble causes, they are not a solution to prevent Hamas' next atrocities," he said, adding that "this Council is playing the exact role Hamas" wanted, including "weaponizing the UN".

"Calling for calm, restraint, and ceasefires is like putting a Band Aid on a bullet wound," he said.

"The al-Ahli Hospital was hit by a Palestinian rocket" and "the sole fault of Hamas", he said, highlighting Hamas' attack last week on a hospital in Ashkelon, Israel.

"Stop playing by Hamas' rules," he told Council members. "The time has come for this Council to hold Hamas fully and solely accountable for the war crimes committed. Israel's rescue mission can end very quickly if Hamas terrorists turn themselves in and release all of the hostages."

State of Palestine

Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, emphasised that there was no right provided under international law to commit massacres.

"Israel is committing massacres every single day. Over 10 days now, you have witnessed it, killing entire families, bombing shelters, schools, hospitals, residential buildings, and convoys," he told Ambassadors.

He said, it was "beyond belief" that some still speak of the right to self-defence of an occupying power, which itself made clear that it is seeking blind vengeance, forced transfer and annihilation of his people.

Mr. Mansour noted that while Security Council members call for protection of civilians, they have not been able to even call for a ceasefire.

"Those who cannot or will not call for an immediate ceasefire will lose any credibility, any authority, and share some of the responsibility for the devastation that is occurring now and what will occur next," he said.

He went on to note that had the Council called for a ceasefire by passing Monday's resolution, it would have saved hundreds of lives.

"We told this Council months ago, act to save lives  all lives. You did not hear us then, don't make the same mistake now," he urged, adding that an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding at the very moment.

"A political disaster is underway, and yet the Security Council is unable to say the only thing that matters  stop the bloodshed."

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Strike on Gaza Hospital Sparks Protests Across Mideast

By VOA News October 18, 2023

Protests erupted Wednesday throughout the Middle East against Israel and its key ally, the United States, after an explosion killed hundreds of Palestinians at a Gaza hospital in the single deadliest incident of the Israel-Hamas war.

Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teenagers near Ramallah in the West Bank during protests over Tuesday night's blast at the Gaza hospital, Palestinian officials said.

Lebanese broadcaster al-Jadeed showed security forces in Lebanon firing tear gas and water cannons at protesters who were throwing projectiles in a violent protest near the U.S. Embassy north of Beirut.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group called for a "day of rage" on Wednesday in condemnation of the strike on the hospital.

"America is the devil, the real devil, because it supported Israel, and then all the world is blind. You don't see what happened yesterday?" said Lebanese demonstrator Mohammed Taher.

Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli strike for the explosion at the hospital, while Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.

U.S. President Joe Biden, on a visit to Tel Aviv to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sided with the Israeli explanation for the explosion and vowed continued U.S. support for the Jewish state in its fight against Hamas militants.

Back in Washington, a group of at least 100 protesters gathered in a House of Representatives office building to call for a cease-fire. T-shirts worn by members of the group included the slogans "Jews say cease fire now" and "Not in our name."

State-sponsored marches were held across Iran, which has financially supported Hamas, with demonstrators carrying banners that read "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

"Every drop of blood of Palestinians killed in this war, brings the Zionist regime (Israel) closer to its downfall," Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a televised speech.

In Iraq, about 300 supporters of Iran-backed Shiite militia groups protested near a bridge that leads to the fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. Embassy and other foreign missions.

"Americans must know that their support to the terrorist Israel will bring them defeat and devastation," said militia member Said Ali Akbar, waving a Palestinian flag.

In Amman, Jordanian protesters planning to march on the heavily fortified Israeli Embassy were pushed back by riot police. Police said several officers were injured in clashes with protesters who set property afire near the embassy.

"No Zionist embassy on Arab land," demonstrators chanted after noon prayers.

In Tunis, protesters burned Israeli and American flags and demanded the expulsion of the U.S. and French ambassadors for what they said was their unconditional support for Israel.

Palestinians "have no food or water, and they are getting bombed. This is genocide, not war. This is a crime. We must find a solution," said Ines Laswed, a demonstrator.

The protesters shouted slogans backing Hamas, including "Revenge ... revenge ... Oh Hamas, bomb Tel Aviv."

In Yemen, thousands marched in the capital Sanaa. Mohammed Ali Al-Rammah of the ruling Houthi movement denounced what he called Israeli lies and hatred.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

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Taliban Leaders Conspicuously Silent on Israel-Hamas War in Gaza

By Akmal Dawi October 18, 2023

Amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, the Taliban's supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has been notably quiet on the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza  in sharp contrast to the fervent, daily anti-Israel comments from neighboring Iran.

While Akhundzada has no public-facing digital accounts, his edicts and statements often reverberate across the Taliban's online platforms via other channels.

Akhundzada's second in command, Mullah Mohammad Hassan, and his trio of deputies have also been reticent. The only senior Taliban official who has broken the silence so far is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting interior minister, who remains on the United States' most-wanted list with a $10 million reward offered for information leading to his arrest.

"We do not interfere in others' internal affairs," Haqqani said in terse remarks at an event last week, "but we have faith-based sympathy with Muslims."

'Comparable' messaging

Last week, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's chief spokesperson, issued a statement in condemnation of Israel's besieging of Gaza while calling on the international community to address the crisis.

"Official messaging from the Taliban has been comparable to what we've seen from other Muslim countries, with expressions of solidarity and support for the Palestinians," Michael Kugelman, an expert at the Wilson Center, told VOA.

According to Javid Ahmad, a former Afghan ambassador and a fellow at the Atlantic Council, the Taliban's public comments, while sparse, are calculated to show support for the Palestinians alone, as the group has no formal diplomatic ties with Hamas.

"Senior Taliban figures evidently expect neighboring Arab countries to step up and find a solution to end the violence, rather than relying on non-Arab states to intervene," Ahmad told VOA.

This measured approach from a regime that boasts divine support in defeating a superpower and its NATO allies may be surprising for some.

A day after Hamas attacked Israel, Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he had seen "indications that the Taliban want to come to 'liberate Jerusalem,' in their words, to "fight the Zionists."

The Taliban rejected the allegations.

Some Afghans have criticized the Taliban's largely muted response. Ata Mohammad Noor, a former Afghan governor and a known anti-Taliban militia leader, posted an audio file Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter, calling on the Taliban to speak out in defense of Gaza.

Titled "Message of a sister from Palestine to the people of Afghanistan," the audio clip runs Dari texts over the voice of a female speaking in Arabic begging for Afghans to help the Palestinians.

Mariam Solaimankhil, a former female member of the Afghan parliament, posted a statement on X calling the Taliban response "hollow." "Where is your action?" she commented under the post of a Taliban spokesperson.

Doha deal

The Taliban have committed to forbid any security threats to the United States and its allies from emerging in Afghanistan, according to a U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, in February 2020.

But experts say any Taliban rhetoric supporting Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, doesn't violate that agreement.

"The Doha agreement focuses on a very specific, narrowly defined stipulation: The Taliban cannot let its territory be used by terrorist groups that threaten the U.S. and its allies. Pro-Hamas protests, or any type of anti-Israel activism in Afghanistan, do not come close to violating that stipulation," said Kugelman.

Nearly a dozen other terrorist groups allegedly have sanctuaries in Afghanistan that could, if not prevented, pose regional and even global security threats.

So far, the response from such groups within Afghanistan to the war in Gaza remains "curiously muted and unusually restrained," according to Ahmad of the Atlantic Council.

Despite keeping a firm control over all Afghanistan for more than two years, the Taliban have seen the Islamic State Khorasan or IS-K, challenging their writ with terrorist attacks all over the country.

IS-K has not supported Hamas because of its ties to Iran, a majority-Shiite country the terrorist group considers to have deviated from Islam.

"There is the risk that IS-K, or any active terror group in Afghanistan, could react by trying to stage its own attacks in Afghanistan, either as a gesture of solidarity with Hamas or as a competitive tactic to one-up what Hamas did in Israel," said Kugelman.

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Readout of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Call with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt

October 18, 2023

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt. The two leaders discussed ongoing coordination to deliver humanitarian assistance to Gaza and mechanisms to ensure the aid is distributed for the benefit of the civilian population. The two leaders agreed to work together closely on encouraging an urgent and robust international response to the UN's humanitarian appeal. They agreed on the need to preserve stability in the Middle East, prevent escalation of the conflict, and set the circumstances for a durable, permanent peace in the region. The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the enduring, strategic partnership between the United States and Egypt.

###

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President Xi blasts 'bloc confrontation' as BRI forum begins in China

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 7:59 AM

Chinese President Xi Jinping has opened a forum of international delegates to the Belt and Road forum in Beijing, rejecting "economic coercion" and "bloc confrontation" in a dig at the West.

Beijing this week hosts representatives of 140 countries for a forum on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi's vast trade and infrastructure project.

"We oppose unilateral sanctions, economic coercion, decoupling, and delinking," Xi told the 20 heads of state and more than 1,000 delegates gathered in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Wednesday. European leaders were largely the forum's absentees.

At the top of the guest list is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who began holding talks with Xi on the sidelines of the forum, with the war raging between Israel and Hamas looming large.

Putin is on his first trip to a major global power since the Ukraine war began.

And with the multilateral summit overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas war, Xi opened the forum with a speech promising Beijing would not engage in "ideological confrontation, geopolitical games or bloc confrontation".

"Viewing the development of others as a threat and economic interdependence as a risk will not make one's own life any better or one's own development any faster," Xi said.

Xi lauded his grand plan launched 10 years ago of building global infrastructure and energy networks connecting Asia with Africa and Europe through overland and maritime routes.

"The BRI aims to enhance policy, infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity," he said.

"China is willing to deepen cooperation with Belt and Road partners... and work unremittingly to realize the modernization of every country in the world."

"Jointly building the Belt and Road originated in China, but its achievements and opportunities belong to the world," he said.

The Russian president then took to the stage, saying the BRI initiative was an unexpected "success story".

"Given the global dimensions of the initiative the Chinese leader launched a decade ago, frankly, one can hardly expect to make it work," Putin said in his address to delegates.

On the sidelines of the forum, Xi told Putin during a bilateral meeting that political mutual trust" between Beijing and Moscow has "continued to deepen".

Xi also called for joint efforts by China and Russia to "safeguard international fairness" and "justice", state news agency Xinhua said, hailing "close and effective strategic coordination" between their two countries.

Several other foreign leaders, including Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic, and Argentine President, Alberto Fernandez, are also attending the BRI, Chinese state media reported.

However, the attendance of Putin at the BRI, despite the fact that Russia has not officially signed up for the initiative, underscored the close relationship between the two countries.

The BRI, since its inception in 2013, has become the core of China's economic diplomacy, exerting a deep influence on international economic and political relations for the rest of the world and more specifically for the EU, as the latter is the ultimate destination of the vast network of land routes and sea-lanes starting from various Chinese provinces.

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Iran: UN Security Council sanctions on missile-related activities end

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 11:18 AM

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has announced that the Islamic Republic, as of October 18, will no longer be subject to any restriction with regard to its ballistic missile-related activities and transfers by the United Nations Security Council.

The Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the entire restrictions imposed on the Islamic Republic's ballistic missile-related activities and its associated services and technology have "unconditionally" ended.

The termination came into force on October 18, eight years after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with major world powers, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

"As of today, 18 October 2023, the last part of unjustly imposed restrictions by the United Nations Security Council on missile-related activities and its associated services and technology to/from Islamic Republic of Iran, including asset freeze and financial restrictions on certain Iranian individuals and entities, terminated unconditionally," the statement said.

"According to the provisions of 2231 UNSC Resolution, termination of these restrictions, does not require any resolution, statement or any other action in the context of the UNSC and occurred automatically," it added.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also said cooperation in all military and defense areas would be carried out, without any restriction, based on the needs and discretion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, within the framework of bilateral contracts with other countries.

Pointing to the provisions of UNSCR 2231, the statement noted, "In accordance with paragraph 3 of Annex B, Iran is no longer 'called upon' by the Security Council 'not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles."

The Foreign Ministry said the Islamic Republic, by recalling the provisions of the UN charter, in particular article 25 as well as provisions of UNSCR 2231, emphasizes the commitments of all member states to effectuate the termination of the above-mentioned restrictions at the national level.

"Iran expects all States to modify and revise, in the case of existence, any relevant restriction or sanction, according to their domestic legal system," it added.

The statement underlined that any measure, at the national or regional level, aiming at imposing sanctions or restrictions on defensive engagements and cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is in contradiction with the termination of restrictions of UNSCR 2231, and that Tehran reserves its right to take appropriate measures to secure its national interests.

"The defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran has always been on the basis of domestic capabilities and capacities, and deeply rooted in resistance and power of Iranian Nation. Unconventional arms and weapons of mass destruction has no place in the defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran," the statement said.

"Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to take necessary measures to strengthen its defense capabilities in order to protect its sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity against any aggression and to counter the menace of terrorism in the region," it added.

Stressing that the Iranian military capabilities, including ballistic missiles, are exclusively for self-defense, the statement said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to insist that all sanctions and restrictive measures introduced and applied against Iran, including those imposed under the pretext of its nuclear program, have been baseless, unjust and unlawful."

Last month, the three European signatories to the JCPOA -- the UK, Germany, and France -- said they plan not to terminate their anti-Iran sanctions, including ballistic missile bans, arguing that Iran has been in non-compliance with the deal since 2019.

Iran halted some of its JCPOA commitments in 2019, a year after the US unilaterally walked out of the deal and after the EU failed to offer any compensation for the US withdrawal.

Iran said at the time the reduction of its commitments was in accordance with the deal, which allows parties to dishonor commitments should other parties do the same.

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October 18, 2023

Release

Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Meeting With U.K. Secretary of State For Defence Grant Shapps

Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder provided the following readout:

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III welcomed UK Secretary of State for Defence Grant Shapps to the Pentagon today to discuss a range of bilateral defense issues. The two Secretaries discussed supporting Israel's self-defense and the importance of deterring hostile actors who may seek to escalate the conflict or take advantage of the situation.

The leaders reiterated commitments to deliver the training, equipment, and munitions Ukraine depends on for its self-defense. Finally, they discussed the importance of strengthening NATO and the generational opportunity of the AUKUS program to enhance stability and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.

Secretary Austin and Secretary Shapps pledged to continue cooperation aimed at deepening the U.S.-UK defense and security relationship.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3561784/

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October 18, 2023

Speech

ASD Space Policy Keynote Address for Brookings Panel on 2023 DoD Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Policy (As Prepared)

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Bob, for that generous introduction. I want to start by thanking everyone who put this event together. And a special thanks to the Brookings Institution for providing the platform to speak about our newly released 2023 Department of Defense Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, or CWMD. I am encouraged to know we have such a large audience today, both here and online. It goes to show how integral the CWMD issue has become to our national security.

ASD Space Role in CWMD & The Need for New Strategy

The last time the Department released a CWMD Strategy was in 2014anearly a decade ago. At the time, I was working at the National Security Council, alongside a certain future Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense named Richard Johnson, who you will hear from in just a few minutes. The defining WMD threats we faced then were drastically different than they are today. The primary focus was on violent extremist organizations (VEOs), as well as North Korea and Iran. The Department's 2014 CWMD Strategy reflected those threats accordingly.

Flash forward to todaya2023aand the world looks drastically different. China is the Department's pacing challenge. Russia is the acute threat. Those priorities are reflected in everything we do. In my role as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, my portfolio spans the Department's strategic capabilities for integrated deterrence.

That includes space, cyber, missile defense, nuclear weapons, and countering weapons of mass destruction . Across my entire portfolio, the challenges posed by China and Russia are front and center.

This new security environment demanded a new Strategy. To be clear, the Department has not lost focus on the WMD threats posed by North Korea, Iran, and VEOs. But we must now contend with a world shaped by renewed competition with two near-peers, both armed with a suite of WMD capabilities. The 2023 Strategy accounts for these changes and addresses them head on.

Let me take a couple minutes to expand on this new security environment we face.

China

China is aggressively pursuing a rapid expansion and modernization of its nuclear forces. The speed and scale has been nothing short of breathtaking. This effort includes the expansion of fissile material production, such as fast breeder reactors like the CFR-600, and the development of more and more diverse nuclear weapons systems. At its current pace, it could field an arsenal of about 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035.

The United States is also concerned with China's compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention. China regularly conducts research and activities with potential dual-use application for biothreats, such as its military's R&D for toxins.

Russia

And then there's Russia, which is expanding and modernizing its nuclear weapons program. It continues to build non-strategic nuclear weapons and develop new and novel delivery systems. Russia has also engaged in irresponsible and troubling nuclear saber-rattling throughout its unprovoked and indefensible invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has consistently violated both its Biological and Chemical Weapons Convention obligations. Its use of the Novichok (NOV-A-CHUCK) nerve agent in attempted assassinations against the Skripals (SKREE-POLS) in 2018 and Navalny in 2020 erased any doubt that Russia retains an undeclared chemical weapons program. We also know they maintain an offensive biological war program.

North Korea, Iran, and VEOs

Now, a renewed focus on near-peer competition does not mean that we can ignore the persistent threats of North Korea, Iran, or VEOs. In particular, North Korea and Iran continue to strengthen their WMD programs in complete disregard of international norms.

North Korea now has options for nuclear weapons use at any stage of conflict, in addition to its longstanding chemical and biological weapon capabilities. Earlier this year, U.S. defense officials highlighted that Iran likely has the capacity to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear device in less than two weeks. State Department reports also raise concerns with Iran's engagement in dual-use activities that could create chemical weapons, including the development of toxins and bioregulators.

And VEOs remain a very real and persistent WMD threat. We must continue to constrain VEO attempts to develop or acquire WMD through robust counterterrorism and crisis response activities.

Technology - A Double-Edge Sword

Now I wish I could tell you that our challenges stop there, but they don't. The rapid development of dual-use technologies is a double-edged sword. Emerging technologies can provide real benefits to humanity while simultaneously posing new challenges and increasing risks.

Developments in science and technology exacerbate the WMD threat landscape and add greater complexity to the threat because they lower the barrier to entry for new WMD actors. For instance, some of the same high-end technology that is used for fermenting large batches of beer and wine may also be used for some chemical and biological weapons activities.

We do not want to inhibit the legitimate advances these new technologies enable. And frankly, we cannot. But we must be prepared for the repercussions of their misuse. DoD is grappling with how to best harness these opportunities while simultaneously studying and preparing for how potential adversaries may use those technologies against us.

Our adversaries have also learned from and continue to adapt to traditional U.S. counterproliferation tools and approaches on a variety of fronts. For example, our adversaries are rapidly developing indigenous supply chains and procurement mechanisms to circumvent our efforts.

Strategic Priorities

To address all of these threats, the 2023 CWMD Strategy sets four key priorities for the Department. Because we have no time to waste, we've already begun implementing our efforts across the Department.

First, the Department's priority objective is to defend the Homeland. We are concerned that adversaries may perceive WMD threats or attacks on the U.S. Homeland as important methods to achieve their objectives.

That is why we are executing an integrated, layered defense so the United States can engage, contain, and respond to threats globally.

This includes improved protection of forward-deployed U.S. forces and the sustainment of specialized capabilities to support other lead federal agencies as part of a whole-of-government WMD prevention and response.

The second priority is deterring all forms of strategic attacks. Any nuclear attack, no matter the size or scale, is a strategic attack. But we are also concerned about high-consequence attacks that would have a strategic effect using non-nuclear means. This could include attacks with chemical or biological weapons. CWMD capabilities work in concert with our powerful conventional forces, our non-nuclear strategic capabilities, and our nuclear forces, in order to deter these high consequence attacks.

That is why the Department, in close coordination with our Allies and partners, will pursue credible integrated options to deter and defeat actors developing WMD capabilities and programs. A key element is to demonstrate the undesirable costs an actor will face should it use WMD against us.

For example, part of our deterrence efforts include the development and fielding of modern military platforms, like the F-35 and B-21, which are dual capable aircraft that fortify our ability to deter aggression. We also exercise key CWMD elements with Allies and partners to strengthen our joint capabilities to defeat a WMD-armed actor, as we did during the exercise FORTUNE GUARD last year in Hawaii.

Our third priority is to enable U.S. forces to prevail in a CBRN environment - that's chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear. It is essential that, along with Allied and partner forces, DoD can fight, win, and reconstitute in the face of WMD threats or attacks.

A resilient force that can operate through adversaries' use of WMD strengthens deterrence. Building and maintaining such a force requires investment and resources, and I am pleased to say that the Department is prioritizing this.

The Fiscal Year 2024 President's Budget adds approximately $812 million to Department-wide efforts to enhance biodefense. Funding for R&D, training, and exercises are all being increased. In the face of WMD threats, these activities serve to enhance the capabilities, capacity, and preparedness of both the United States and our Allies and partners. And we are maintaining an ironclad commitment to our nuclear modernization program as our ultimate backstop to deterrence.

The fourth and final priority is to prevent new WMD threats. For DoD, this requires preventing WMD proliferation and the emergence of potential new WMD actors. The CWMD enterprise must work with our Allies and partners to disrupt and degrade competitor's efforts to improve their indigenous WMD programs.

DoD addresses this challenge through prevention, threat reduction, and building partnership capacity. For example, our CTR program has been reoriented to focus on state actors and spends over $300 million annually to build partner capacity to reduce WMD threats. These activities have been used to train Ally and partner forces on what to look for to stop proliferation before it becomes a large-scale challenge. We also work with 106 other nations through the Proliferation Security Initiative to support global norms, share best practices and critical capabilities, and strengthen domestic laws to prevent or stop proliferation of WMDs.

Roles for Allies and Partners

The last point I want to make is that, in these remarks, I use the term Allies and partners frequently. That is not by accident. We cannot effectively counter WMD alone. This is a team effort, because in this and so many other ways, we are all in this together.

All integrated deterrence efforts are made stronger by planning with Allies and partners and by integrating their capabilities with our own. Our Allies and partners are an asymmetric advantage and force multiplier that China, Russia, North Korean, and Iran can never hope to match.

We will continue to work closely with them as we implement this Strategy.

CONCLUSION

The world looks a little different than it did a decade ago. The security environment does too. WMD threats have evolved significantly since the last time the Department rolled out a plan to counter them. But that evolution requires us to adapt, and I am proud of the work DoD is doing to tackle this challenge head on.

The end result is a strategy that makes it clear that countering the WMD threat is essential to integrated deterrence. And it is not just the responsibility of a niche community, but of the entire national security enterprise.

Now, writing a good strategy is hard. But implementation is hard too. It is critical that we get this right, and I am confident in our way ahead.

Thank you again to Brookings for this opportunity to speak. Thank you to everyone listening here or online for all the hard work you are doing on CWMD yourselves. I understand you are going to hear from a panel of experts next, and I am certain that it will be a great discussion.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/3561602/

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19 October 2023

PRESS RELEASE

Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 listing rules:



GAM Holding AG announces first steps in turnaround

Completion of the CHF 100 million financial support from anchor shareholder; appointments to strengthen Group Management Board; investment in client service and portfolio management and an update on investment performance and assets under management



Highlights

GAM has entered into a CHF 100 million agreement with Rock Investment SA (Rock) which secures financing and has assured long-term financial stability for the firm

Rock, together with the other NewGAMe investors, will control almost 30% of GAM shares once their tender offer is completed

Group Management Board (GMB) strengthened with new appointments focused on growing the business and a return to profitability

Immediate focus on investing in client service and portfolio management: Hiring additional senior sales and distribution team members focusing on Continental Europe and the UK Appointments of additional investment managers for the Luxury Brands and Credit Opportunities strategies

Investment performance continues to be strong with 82% of Assets under Management (AuM) in GAM funds outperforming their benchmarks over 3 years as of 30 September 2023 compared to 90% as of 30 June 2023

Total AuM CHF 64.9 billion as of 30 September 2023 compared to CHF 68.0 billion as of 30 June 2023. Investment Management AuM is CHF 20.2 billion as of 30 September 2023 compared to CHF 21.9 billion as of 30 June 2023

The sale of the third-party Fund Management Services (FMS) activities to Carne Group is progressing well







Rock is part of NJJ Holding SAS (NJJ), the investment holding company of Xavier Niel, which has a reputation as a committed, long-term and knowledgeable investor and a proven track record of turning around businesses.

The financing agreement entered into by GAM and Rock provides up to CHF 100 million in funding. The term of the loan is until 30 June 2025 with the option for it to be extended by an additional 12 months.

The appointments to the GMB reflect the deep bench of talent at GAM. All the newly appointed members have the relevant experience to lead the implementation of GAMs turnaround under the overall leadership of Elmar Zumbuehl and oversight of the Board of Directors. In addition to the internal appointments, Albert Saporta has been appointed to the GMB as Global Head of Investments and Products. Albert has deep knowledge and expertise in alternatives and played a leading part in ensuring that GAM remained an independent asset manager.

The GMB now consists of Elmar Zumbuehl (Group Chief Executive Officer), Rossen Djounov (Global Head of Sales and Distribution), Martin Jufer (Global Chief Operating Officer & GAM CH CEO), David Kemp (Global Head of Legal and Compliance & GAM UK CEO), Richard McNamara (Group Chief Financial Officer) and Albert Saporta (Global Head of Investments & Products). The GMB will focus on growing GAMs existing core strategies and exploring new opportunities including distribution partnerships, wealth management and specialised investment strategies such as alternatives.

GAMs depth of investment talent and continuing strong investment performance is reflected in the many awards that have been received by the investment teams during 2023. The recent double award for GAM from Citywire for investment performance complements a series of awards including the Private Shares strategy receiving Emerging Fund of the year in Australia from Financial News, the inclusion of the two managers for the UK equity income strategy in the Citywire elite investor list and two strategies  Cat bonds and commodities  recognised in the Fund Selector Asia awards in Singapore.

Elmar Zumbuehl, CEO GAM said: I am delighted to have been able to strengthen the Group Management Board with these appointments and together we will lead the turnaround of GAM. Our first priority is to focus on investing in our client service and portfolio management teams. The continuing strong investment performance and the support from our anchor shareholder Rock means that we can move forward with confidence and with a focus on growth and returning GAM to profitability.

Anthony Maarek, Managing Director of NJJ Holding of which Rock is a subsidiary said: GAM is an important long-term strategic investment for NJJ, and we are committed with management to restoring the company to a best-in-class global asset management firm. We view it as the first step in developing an investment pillar in financial services as part of NJJs long term strategy.

Assets under Management

As of 30 September 2023, Group AuM totalled CHF 64.9 billion compared to CHF 68.0 billion as of the end of June 2023.



Investment Management assets and flows

Assets under management movements (CHF bn)

Capability Opening AuM

1 July 2023 Net flows

Q3 2023 Market/FX

Q3 2023 Closing AuM

30 Sept 2023 Fixed income 9.5 (1.0) 0.2 8.7 Equity 5.0 (0.4) (0.2) 4.4 Alternatives 1.1 (0.1) - 1.0 Multi asset 6.3 (0.2) - 6.1 Total 21.9 (1.7) (-) 20.2

Fund Management Services assets and flows

Assets under management movements (CHF bn)

Fond domicile Opening AuM

1 July 2023 Net flows

Q3 2023 Market/FX

Q3 2023 Closing AuM

30 Sept 2023 Rest of Europe 38.4 (0.2) (0.7) 37.5 Switzerland 7.7 (0.5) - 7.2 Total 46.1 (0.7) (0.7) 44.7

Background on GMB members:

Elmar Zumbuehl, Group CEO



Prior to being appointed Group CEO, Elmar had been Global Chief Risk Officer and member of the Group Management Board since 2017. Elmar joined GAM in 2010 as senior legal counsel and risk manager and in 2011 became general counsel and corporate secretary of GAM Holding AG and director of a number of GAM subsidiaries. Prior to joining GAM, Elmar had worked at Julius Baer for ten years in a number of senior roles. Elmar was admitted to the bar in Switzerland in 2000, is a graduate of the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and holds masters degrees in business administration (lic. oec. HSG), specialising in finance and accounting as well as operations research, and law (lic. iur. HSG). Elmar is a Swiss citizen.

Rossen Djounov, Global Head of Distribution and Sales



Prior to being appointed Global Head of Distribution and Sales, Rossen was the Managing Director and Head of GAMs Asia Business based in Hong Kong where he was responsible for APAC distribution and for the business management of GAMs offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. Rossen joined GAM in 2008 in London to help build the Structured Investments business. From 2015 to 2017 he was GAMs Head of International Distribution leading the firms distribution activities in US offshore, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Prior to GAM, Rossen spent 12 years at Forsyth Partners in various roles in London and Dubai including Head of Investments and Head of Distribution. He holds an MBA in Financial Services from the University of Exeter. Rossen is a UK and Bulgarian citizen and is based in Hong Kong.

Martin Jufer, Global Chief Operating Officer and CEO Switzerland



Prior to being appointed Global COO, Martin was Global Head of Wealth Management. Until 2022 Martin was the region head of continental Europe and oversaw GAMs Fund Management Services Business. From 2013 to 2015, Martin had been responsible for GAMs continental European operations function. Before joining GAM, Martin had spent 17 years at Julius Baer in various roles including chief operating officer and head of products and services for Swiss & Global Asset Management and prior to that he had been responsible for fund administration, middle office and IT. Before joining Julius Baer, Martin was an auditor with Ernst & Young. Martin holds an MBA from the University of St. Gallen (HSG), and he is a certified European financial analyst (CEFA), US certified public accountant (CPA) and a certified ESG analyst (CESGA). Martin is a Swiss citizen.

David Kemp, Global Head of Legal and Compliance & GAM UK CEO



Prior to being appointed UK CEO and Global Head of Legal and Compliance, David was Global Head of Compliance. Prior to joining GAM in October 2018, David was General Counsel, Asset & Wealth Management at Schroders from 2012. He previously held a number of senior front office positions in investment banks including Head of Sales and Structuring. His experience includes credit, commodities, infrastructure, direct lending, non-performing loans, alternatives, quantitative strategies, supply chain finance and sharia compliant products dealing with institutions, corporate and high net worth clients across Asia, the Middle East Europe and North America. David began his career as a solicitor with a leading City law firm. David holds a post-graduate diploma in law and legal practice course from the College of Law, Guildford, a master's degree in Business Finance from Brunel University and a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from Kings College, University of London. He holds the FT NED Diploma. David is a UK citizen.

Richard McNamara, Group CFO



Richard McNamara was appointed group chief financial officer and became a member of GAM Holding AGs Group Management Board in 2015. After a short break in 2022, Richard returned in early 2023 in an interim position to help support the process of securing a strategic outcome for the firm. Richard has now re-joined GAM as group CFO and a member of the GMB. Before joining GAM Richard had been at Henderson Group since 2009 in various roles including managing director, finance. Prior to Henderson, Richard held senior finance roles at Western Asset Management, Legg Mason and Citigroup Asset Management. Richard is a chartered accountant and holds a BA (Hons) in finance and accounting from Brighton University. He started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers where he was a senior manager in the investment management industry group. Richard is a UK citizen.

Albert Saporta, Global Head of Investments & Products



Albert Saporta has 40 years experience in global financial markets, with over 30 years in the hedge fund industry focusing on special situations and arbitrage. Albert started his career at Paribas in Paris, where he managed the Japan/Asia mutual funds from 1984-85. He joined Merrill Lynch in London as Vice President of Japanese equity sales from 1985-88, covering major UK, European and US institutional accounts. In 1988, he joined UBS Securities in London where he headed quantitative research and hedge fund sales for Japanese equities until 1991. He then joined IFM, at the time the first London-based hedge fund of size and owned by Jacob Rothschilds St Jamess Place and AIG and where he set up and managed relative value global equity arbitrage strategies until early 1995. He then left to set up Geneva-based AIM&R, a hedge fund advisory and research firm, managing the top-performing SOG and SOGAsia funds (the latter in a strategic JV with UOB). In March 2006, Albert sold AIM&R s research and hedge fund businesses to ABN Amro Bank (London). As part of the transaction, he set-up the Special Opportunities Group (SOG) at ABN (based in London, Singapore and Sao Paulo), managing a balance sheet of over US$ 1bn in global arbitrage strategies and special situations. AIM&R was relaunched in 2011 under its current form as a research and trading advisory firm, and advising some of the largest global hedge funds, pension funds, prop trading firms and UHNW family offices. Albert has a masters in International Affairs from Columbia University (1984), an MBA (1983) and BSc in economics (1982) from New York University, and a Math/Physics degree from the University of Nice (1980). In his career, Albert has lived and worked in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Geneva, Tokyo, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Tel Aviv. He is fluent in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese. Albert is a French, Israeli and Spanish citizen.

For further information please contact:

Charles Naylor

Global Head of Communications and Investor Relations

T +44 7890 386 699

Media Relations

Ute Dehn Christen

T +41 58 426 31 36

Visit us: www.gam.com

Follow us: Twitter and LinkedIn

GAM

GAM is an independent investment manager that is listed in Switzerland. Total assets under management were CHF 64.9 billion as of 30 September 2023, with Investment Management at CHF 20.2 billion and Fund Management Services at CHF 44.7 billion. GAM has global distribution with offices in [14] countries and is geographically diverse with clients in almost every continent. Headquartered in Zurich, GAM Investments was founded in 1983 and its registered office is at Hardstrasse 201 Zurich, 8037 Switzerland.

Other Important Information

This release contains or may contain statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Words such as anticipate, believe, expect, "estimate", "aim", project, forecast, "risk", likely, intend, outlook, should, could, "would", may, might, "will", "continue", "plan", "probability", "indicative", "seek", target, plan and other similar expressions are intended to or may identify forward-looking statements.

Any such statements in this release speak only as of the date hereof and are based on assumptions and contingencies subject to change without notice, as are statements about market and industry trends, projections, guidance, and estimates. Any forward-looking statements in this release are not indications, guarantees, assurances or predictions of future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the person making such statements, its affiliates and its and their directors, officers, employees, agents and advisors and may involve significant elements of subjective judgement and assumptions as to future events which may or may not be correct and may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any such statements. You are strongly cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and no person accepts or assumes any liability in connection therewith.

This release is not a financial product or investment advice, a recommendation to acquire, exchange or dispose of securities or accounting, legal or tax advice. It has been prepared without taking into account the objectives, legal, financial or tax situation and needs of individuals. Before making an investment decision, individuals should consider the appropriateness of the information having regard to their own objectives, legal, financial and tax situation and needs and seek legal, tax and other advice as appropriate for their individual needs and jurisdiction.

Attachments
New compound added to Basileas clinical pipeline; upon successful completion of preclinical profiling, start of phase 2 study planned for H1 2025

Upfront payments of USD 2 million

Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR

Allschwil, Switzerland, October 19, 2023

Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd, Allschwil (SIX: BSLN), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to meeting the needs of patients with severe bacterial and fungal infections, announced today that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement with privately owned Gravitas Therapeutics Inc. for GR-2397, a clinical-stage antifungal compound with a novel mechanism of action, targeting invasive mold infections caused by Aspergillus species.

David Veitch, Chief Executive Officer of Basilea, stated: This is the first transaction in the implementation of our strategy to expand our clinical-stage anti-infectives pipeline and to complement our portfolio of marketed products, Cresemba and Zevtera. We are looking forward to developing this asset.

Dr. Marc Engelhardt, Chief Medical Officer of Basilea, added: With GR-2397, now referred to as BAL2062, we are adding an antifungal compound to our pipeline that has already completed a clinical phase 1 study. Based on its novel mechanism of action which results in rapid fungicidal activity in vitro, BAL2062 could become a valuable treatment option against difficult-to-treat invasive mold infections. To define the optimal positioning and the most efficient clinical development path, we will initiate a focused preclinical profiling program. Upon successful completion of the preclinical profiling, we are planning to move directly into phase 2 clinical development in the first half of 2025.

BAL2062 (formerly GR-2397) is a first-in-class antifungal, derived from a natural product, and has demonstrated fungicidal activity against clinically important molds such as Aspergillus spp., including azole-resistant strains.1 Safety and tolerability have been demonstrated in a previously completed phase 1 study with single and multiple ascending intravenous (i.v.) doses.2 The drug candidate has Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP), Orphan Drug and Fast Track designation from the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for invasive aspergillosis.

Basilea is paying USD 2 million in upfront payments. Under the asset purchase agreement with Gravitas, Basilea assumes the rights and obligations under a license agreement with Astellas Pharma Inc. who owns patents relating to BAL2062 (formerly GR-2397) and takes over an agreement with Fresh Tracks Therapeutics Inc., who previously owned the asset that was acquired by Gravitas. Upon achievement of defined milestones, Basilea will make total pre-approval milestone payments of up to USD 1.75 million and up to USD 67 million in total approval and commercialization milestone payments. In addition, Basilea will pay tiered royalties on sales starting in the low single-digit percentage range, going to the mid-single-digit percentage range.

About invasive aspergillosis

Invasive aspergillosis is a life-threatening mold infection that predominantly affects immunocompromised patients, such as patients with hematologic malignancies (blood cancer). The infection is associated with high morbidity and mortality.

About Basilea

Basilea is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company founded in 2000 and headquartered in Switzerland. We are committed to discovering, developing and commercializing innovative drugs to meet the needs of patients with severe bacterial and fungal infections. We have successfully launched two hospital brands, Cresemba for the treatment of invasive fungal infections and Zevtera for the treatment of bacterial infections. In addition, we have an R&D portfolio of anti-infective assets. Basilea is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (SIX: BSLN). Please visit basilea.com.

Disclaimer

This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements, such as "believe", "assume", "expect", "forecast", "project", "may", "could", "might", "will" or similar expressions concerning Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd, Allschwil and its business, including with respect to the progress, timing and completion of research, development and clinical studies for product candidates. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd, Allschwil to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd, Allschwil is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For further information, please contact:

Peer Nils Schroder, PhD



Head of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations

Basilea Pharmaceutica International Ltd, Allschwil

Hegenheimermattweg 167b

4123 Allschwil

Switzerland Phone +41 61 606 1102 E-mail media_relations@basilea.com

investor_relations@basilea.com

This ad hoc announcement can be downloaded from www.basilea.com.

References

K. J. Shaw. GR-2397: Review of the Novel Siderophore-like Antifungal Agent for the Treatment of Invasive Aspergillosis. Journal of Fungi (Basel) 2022 (8), 909 ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02956499: M. P. Mammen, D. Armas, F. H. Hughes et al. First-in-Human Phase 1 Study To Assess Safety, Tolerability, and Pharmacokinetics of a Novel Antifungal Drug, VL-2397, in Healthy Adults. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 2019 (63), e00969-19

Press release (PDF)
Coringa Ore Sorter Acquired

Serabi Gold (AIM:SRB, TSX:SBI), the Brazilian focused gold mining and development company, is pleased to announce that it has completed the purchase from the Comex Group of an ore sorter to be used for the Companys Coringa gold project.

HIGHLIGHTS

The ore sorter being prepared for shipment and is expected to arrive into Brazil before the end of 2023





Capacity is 40 tonnes per hour the same as at Palito and the machine has been designed to a very similar specification. Once operational it will lead to a significant increase in gold production rates with both mines feeding high grade sorted ore into the central Palito plant.





The Company is anticipating that the ore sorter could be operational early in the third quarter of 2024.





Mike Hodgson, CEO of Serabi, commented:

I have talked to the opportunity for Coringa to double Group production and the ore sorter is an important part in realising this objective. This machine had been set aside for Serabi by the manufacturer, Comex and with the encouragement we are receiving from all stakeholders in support of the project and our strong cash position, the Board has approved this purchase to ensure that we are in the best position to maximise our gold production during 2024.

We hope to see further progress on the licencing front before the end of the year and be in a position to start the civil works and acquisition of the crushing plant early in 2024. The purchase of the ore sorter is a further commitment by Serabi to invest in the Tapajos region of Brazil and when fully operational we expect Coringa to be a significant employer for the region. If things fall into place as we anticipate, the ore sorter could be operational early in the third quarter of 2024, allowing us to improve the grade of the ore being transported to the Palito Complex for processing and boosting gold production from Coringa in the second half of the year.

"The immediate cash outlay is about 630,000, and we are forecasting a further 250,000 to 300,000 for the importation costs and shipment from Poland to the Coringa site.

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 as it forms part of UK Domestic Law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

The person who arranged for the release of this announcement on behalf of the Company was Clive Line, Director.

Enquiries

SERABI GOLD plc

Michael Hodgson t +44 (0)20 7246 6830

Chief Executive m +44 (0)7799 473621

Clive Line t +44 (0)20 7246 6830

Finance Director m +44 (0)7710 151692

e contact@serabigold.com

www.serabigold.com

BEAUMONT CORNISH Limited

Nominated Adviser & Financial Adviser

Roland Cornish / Michael Cornish t +44 (0)20 7628 3396

PEEL HUNT LLP

Joint UK Broker

Ross Allister t +44 (0)20 7418 9000

TAMESIS PARTNERS LLP

Joint UK Broker

Charlie Bendon/ Richard Greenfield t +44 (0)20 3882 2868

CAMARCO

Financial PR

Gordon Poole / Emily Hall t +44 (0)20 3757 4980

Copies of this announcement are available from the Company's website at www.serabigold.com.

Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange, nor any other securities regulatory authority, has approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release.

Assay Results

Assay results reported within this release include those provided by the Company's own on-site laboratory facilities at Palito and have not yet been independently verified. Serabi closely monitors the performance of its own facility against results from independent laboratory analysis for quality control purpose. As a matter of normal practice, the Company sends duplicate samples derived from a variety of the Company's activities to accredited laboratory facilities for independent verification. Since mid-2019, over 10,000 exploration drill core samples have been assayed at both the Palito laboratory and certified external laboratory, in most cases the ALS laboratory in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. When comparing significant assays with grades exceeding 1 g/t gold, comparison between Palito versus external results record an average over-estimation by the Palito laboratory of 6.7% over this period. Based on the results of this work, the Company's management are satisfied that the Company's own facility shows sufficiently good correlation with independent laboratory facilities for exploration drill samples. The Company would expect that in the preparation of any future independent Reserve/Resource statement undertaken in compliance with a recognised standard, the independent authors of such a statement would not use Palito assay results without sufficient duplicates from an appropriately certificated laboratory.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements in this announcement are, or may be deemed to be, forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are identied by their use of terms and phrases such as believe, could, should envisage, estimate, intend, may, plan, will or the negative of those, variations or comparable expressions, including references to assumptions. These forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts but rather on the Directors current expectations and assumptions regarding the Companys future growth, results of operations, performance, future capital and other expenditures (including the amount, nature and sources of funding thereof), competitive advantages, business prospects and opportunities. Such forward looking statements reect the Directors current beliefs and assumptions and are based on information currently available to the Directors. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements including risks associated with vulnerability to general economic and business conditions, competition, environmental and other regulatory changes, actions by governmental authorities, the availability of capital markets, reliance on key personnel, uninsured and underinsured losses and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. Although any forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are based upon what the Directors believe to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with such forward looking statements.

Qualified Persons Statement

The scientific and technical information contained within this announcement has been reviewed and approved by Michael Hodgson, a Director of the Company. Mr Hodgson is an Economic Geologist by training with over 30 years' experience in the mining industry. He holds a BSc (Hons) Geology, University of London, a MSc Mining Geology, University of Leicester and is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and a Chartered Engineer of the Engineering Council of UK, recognizing him as both a Qualified Person for the purposes of Canadian National Instrument 43-101 and by the AIM Guidance Note on Mining and Oil & Gas Companies dated June 2009.

Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange, nor any other securities regulatory authority, has approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release

Attachment
Wilmington, Delaware, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- India Polyurea Market value is US$ 1,032 million in 2023 and is expected to grow at a significant CAGR of over 10.3% over the forecast period of 2023-2030, according to the latest market report by RationalStat





Market Definition, Market Scope, and Report Overview

Polyurea is a synthetic polymer created by reacting an isocyanate component with a resin mix component. Because of its outstanding durability, flexibility, and chemical resistance, it is often utilized as a protective covering for diverse surfaces.

Polyurea coatings are suitable for use on a variety of substrates, including concrete, metal, wood, and plastics. Because of their adaptability, they are appropriate for a wide range of applications, including roofing, flooring, tank linings, pipeline coatings, and containment systems. This versatility promotes demand in a variety of industries.

According to a deep-dive market assessment by RationalStat, the India Polyurea market has been analyzed on the basis of market segments, including type, chemical structure, product type, application, chemical structure, polyurea coating temperature applied and geography/regions (including North India, West & Central India, South India, East India) . The report also offers global and regional market sizing for the historical period of 2019-2022 and the forecast period of 2023-2030.

. The report also offers global and regional market sizing for the historical period of 2019-2022 and the forecast period of 2023-2030. Market intelligence for the India Polyurea market covers market sizes on the basis of market value (US$/EUR Million) and volume (Tons) by various products/services/equipment, demand assessment across the key regions, customer sentiments, price points, cost structures, margin analysis across the value chain, financial assessments, historical and forecast data, key developments across the industry, import-export data, trade overview, components market by leading companies, etc.

In addition, the long-term sector and products/services 10-year outlook and its implications on the India Polyurea market. It also includes the industry's current state  Production Levels, Capacity Utilization, Tech quotient, etc. Key information will be manufacturing capacity by country, installed base, import volumes, market size, key players, market size, dynamics, market data, insights, etc.

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India Polyurea Market: Segmental and Market Share Analysis

On the basis of chemical structure, in 2022, the aromatic category dominated the polyurea market, accounting for more than 67.0% of total market revenue. These raw materials have strong physical qualities and are simple to process.

Based on application, construction segment dominated the India polyurea market and accounted for more than 43.0% of the total market share, in terms of revenue, in 2022.

Report Synopsis

Report Metrics Details Base Year 2023 Forecast Period 2023-2030 Base Year Market Size US$ 1,032 million Market Size Forecast US$ 2,051.3 million Growth Rate 10.3% Dominant Segment Construction Dominant Region Asia Pacific Key Market Drivers Rising Awareness Associated with the Use of Protective Coatings

Rising Infrastructure Expenditure

Advancement in Technology Companies Profiled BASF SE

The Sherwin-Williams Company

PPG Industries, Inc.

Huntsman Corporation

Akzo Nobel N.V.

3M

Nukote Coating Systems International

Rhino Linings Corporation

Clever Shield

JV Polymers Co. Ltd.

ISOMAT SA

Castrol Limited

Shell Group of Companies

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Competition Analysis and Market Structure

Some prominent players adopt various strategies in order to reinforce their market share and gain a competitive edge over other competitors in the market. Mergers & acquisitions, partnerships and collaborations, and product launches are some of the strategies followed by industry players. Some of the key developments in the India Polyurea market include,

In February 2022, PPG Industries announced a US$10 million investment in a cutting-edge 82,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and class-A paint line at its Greenville, South Carolina coatings services unit.

Some of the prominent players and suppliers operating and contributing significantly to the India Polyurea market growth include BASF SE, The Sherwin-Williams Company, PPG Industries, Inc., Huntsman Corporation, Akzo Nobel N.V., 3M, Nukote Coating Systems International, Rhino Linings Corporation, Clever Shield, JV Polymers Co. Ltd., ISOMAT SA, Castrol Limited, and Shell Group of Companies, among others.

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RationalStat has segmented the India Polyurea market based on type, chemical structure, product type, application, chemical structure, polyurea coating temperature applied and region

India Polyurea Market Value (US$ Million), Volume (Tons), and Market Share (2019-2030) Analysis by Type Pure Polyurea Hybrid Polyurea

India Polyurea Market Value (US$ Million), Volume (Tons), and Market Share (2019-2030) Analysis by Polyurea Coating Temperature Applied Cold-Applied Hot-Applied

India Polyurea Market Value (US$ Million), Volume (Tons), and Market Share (2019-2030) Analysis by Chemical Structure Aliphatic Aromatic

India Polyurea Market Value (US$ Million), Volume (Tons), and Market Share (2019-2030) Analysis by Product Type Coating Grease Adhesive and Sealants Others

India Polyurea Market Value (US$ Million), Volume (Tons), and Market Share (2019-2030) Analysis by Application Construction Ballistic System Nuclear Power Plant Sewage Plants Automotive Pools Oil Tanks Waterproof Coating Others

India Polyurea Market Value (US$ Million), Volume (Tons), and Market Share (2019-2030) Analysis by Region North India West & Central India South India East India



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Key Questions Answered in the Polyurea Report:

What will be the market value of the India Polyurea market by 2030?

What is the market size of the India Polyurea market?

What are the market drivers of the India Polyurea market?

What are the key trends in the India Polyurea market?

Which is the leading region in the India Polyurea market?

What are the major companies operating in the India Polyurea market?

What are the market shares by key segments in the India Polyurea market?

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Research Methodology

RationalStat has developed a state-of-the-art research methodology to crunch numbers and provide the best possible real-time insights to clients. We combine a varied range of industry experience, data analytics, and experts viewpoint to create a research methodology for market sizing and forecasting.

RationalStat combines a mix of secondary sources as well as primary research to assess the market size and develop a forecast. Key steps involved in accurately deriving the market numbers are:

Defining the problem by understanding the type of market and data required by the client.

Data gathering and collection through relevant paid databases, publicly available sources, company reports, annual reports, surveys, and interviews.

Formulating a hypothesis to create market numbers, forecasts, influencing factors, and their relevance.

Evaluating and analyzing the data by referring to data sources utilized and leveraged.

Validating, interpreting, and finalizing the data by combining the details gathered from primary and secondary sources with the help of experienced analysts.

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RationalStat is an end-to-end global market intelligence and consulting company that provides comprehensive market research reports, customized strategy, and consulting studies. The company has sales offices in India, Mexico, and the US to support global and diversified businesses. The company has over 80 consultants and industry experts, developing more than 850 market research and industry reports for its report store annually.

RationalStat has strategic partnerships with leading data analytics and consumer research companies to cater to the clients needs. Additional services offered by the company include consumer research, country reports, risk reports, valuations and advisory, financial research, due diligence, procurement and supply chain research, data analytics, and analytical dashboards.

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Westford, USA, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to SkyQuest's latest global research of the Homeland Security And Emergency Management market , integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, adoption of cloud computing and big data analytics, use of drones and unmanned systems for surveillance and response, focus on interoperability and data sharing across agencies, emphasis on resilience and adaptive planning, increasing use of biometrics and identity management solutions, growing importance of social media and open-source intelligence, are the trends that aid in the market's growth.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Homeland Security And Emergency Management Market"

Pages - 157

Tables - 79

Figures - 74

Homeland security and emergency management is the field of study and practice that encompasses the prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery from natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters.

Get a sample copy of this report:

https://www.skyquestt.com/sample-request/homeland-security-and-emergency-management-market

Prominent Players in Homeland Security And Emergency Management Market

Lockheed Martin

Northrop Grumman

Thales Group

BAE Systems

Elbit Systems

Leidos

L3Harris Technologies

Raytheon Technologies

Honeywell

IBM

Motorola Solutions

Siemens

NEC

Hexagon

Collins Aerospace

Esri

LTIMindtree

Johnson Controls

Alert Technologies

Everbridge

The Response Group

Haystax Technology

MetricStream

Browse summary of the report and Complete Table of Contents (ToC):

https://www.skyquestt.com/report/homeland-security-and-emergency-management-market

Cybersecurity Solutions Demand to Grow Substantially in the Forecast Period

Cybersecurity solutions dominated the global market owing to its high number of cyber attacks. Cloud computing is a rapidly growing trend, and it is becoming increasingly popular for businesses of all sizes. However, cloud computing also introduces new security risks.

Government is the Leading End-use Segment

In terms of End-use, the government is the leading segment as they play a crucial role in ensuring national security, protecting citizens, and managing emergencies effectively. In addition, they allocate substantial budgets and resources to various security initiatives, emergency response systems, and infrastructure protection. This emphasis on security and emergency management creates a consistent demand for a wide range of solutions, including CBRNE detection and mitigation, border and maritime security, cybersecurity solutions, critical infrastructure protection, incident management and analysis, and more. Governments at different levels collaborate with industry stakeholders to implement comprehensive security measures, driving the growth of the market.

North America is the leading Market Due to the Technological Advancements

Region-wise, North America is one of the largest growing markets with a huge emphasis on technological advancements. The United States, in particular, has a significant defense budget and invests heavily in homeland security and emergency management initiatives. This substantial expenditure drives the growth of the market in North America.

A recent report thoroughly analyzes the major players operating within the Homeland Security And Emergency Management market. This comprehensive evaluation has considered several crucial factors, such as collaborations, mergers, innovative business policies, and strategies, providing invaluable insights into the key trends and breakthroughs in the market. Additionally, the report has carefully scrutinized the market share of the top segments and presented a detailed geographic analysis. Finally, the report has highlighted the major players in the industry and their ongoing endeavors to develop innovative solutions that cater to the ever-increasing demand for Homeland Security And Emergency Management.

Speak to Analyst for your custom requirements:

https://www.skyquestt.com/speak-with-analyst/homeland-security-and-emergency-management-market

Key Developments in Homeland Security And Emergency Management Market

General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc., a subsidiary of General Dynamics corporation, had a five-year contract worth USD 898 million with the U.S. Navys Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center. In this contract, the company will provide R&D and technical services for the U.S. Navys C5ISR centers. The contract enabled the company to strengthen its customer base and expand its geographic reach in the U.S.

Key Questions Answered in Homeland Security And Emergency Management Market Report

What specific growth drivers are projected to impact the market during the forecast period?

Can you list the top companies in the market and explain how they have achieved their positions of influence?

In what ways do regional trends and patterns differ within the global market, and how might these differences shape the market's future growth?

Related Reports in SkyQuests Library:



North America MV Switchgear Market



Global Cognitive Radio Market



Global Conversational Systems Market



Global Radio Access Network Market



Global 4K Set Top Box Market





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SkyQuest Technology is leading growth consulting firm providing market intelligence, commercialization and technology services. It has 450+ happy clients globally.

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Dublin, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Smart Weed Control Market - A Global and Regional Analysis: Focus on Application, Product, and Country-Wise Analysis - Analysis and Forecast, 2023-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global smart weed control market, valued at $842.7 million in 2022, is expected to reach $2,460.8 million by 2028, exhibiting a robust CAGR of 18.23% during 2023-2028

The global agricultural landscape is undergoing a transformation as the demand for food rises, and resources like water and arable land become scarcer. Coupled with the shortage of agricultural labor and the increasing cost of inputs, these factors are fueling the adoption of smart weed control technologies in the agricultural sector. These advanced solutions empower farmers to optimize resource allocation, boost crop yields, and enhance overall agricultural productivity.

The primary driver of this growth is the agricultural industry's quest for higher crop yields while minimizing input costs. Smart weed control technologies offer precise and targeted methods for weed management, optimizing herbicide application and ensuring effective weed control.

Regions such as Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific are expected to witness significant demand for smart weed control solutions. The consolidation of small farms and the resulting increase in average field sizes create favorable conditions for the adoption of these technologies.

Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, and China are witnessing a remarkable expansion in the utilization of smart weed control technologies. This growth is attributed to intensified research and development efforts and experimental field studies conducted by institutions and government bodies, all aimed at assessing the economic benefits of these technologies.

In South America, China, and the U.K., the proliferation of start-ups, along with the need for cost-effective weed management in food production, is driving the adoption of smart weed control solutions, further propelling market growth.

By enabling data-driven decision-making, enhancing operational efficiency, minimizing resource wastage, and reducing environmental impact, these technologies are poised to drive the global smart weed control market's growth in the coming years.

Utilizing plant characteristics and growth patterns, these systems precisely target weeds while minimizing the impact on desirable crops. This reduces the need for chemical herbicides and manual labor. Autonomous drones, sensors, and AI-powered machinery collaborate to apply treatments with precision, optimizing resource utilization and promoting sustainable agriculture. This innovative approach enhances yields, minimizes environmental harm, and revolutionizes weed management for modern farming, ensuring efficient and eco-friendly crop production.

Therefore, smart weed control is becoming increasingly indispensable in modern agriculture due to its potential to transform weed management practices and address critical challenges faced by farmers and land managers. It seeks to overcome the limitations of traditional weed control methods, such as indiscriminate herbicide application and manual weeding, with a focus on environmental sustainability. Smart weed control offers precise and targeted herbicide application, reducing chemical usage and the risk of environmental contamination.

Market Segmentation

Agriculture Applications to Dominate the Global Smart Weed Control Market (by Application)

During the projected timeframe (2023-2028), agriculture application is expected to occupy a significant market share in the global smart weed control market.

Regions such as North America, the U.K., Europe, and China are anticipated to experience substantial growth in smart weeding, which can be attributed to the increasing adoption of precision agriculture practices, rising demand for sustainable farming solutions, and the need to optimize resource utilization for enhanced crop management.

Another aspect of smart weed control is the integration of remote sensing technologies, such as aerial drones or satellite imagery. These technologies enable farmers to monitor and detect weed infestations across large areas of agricultural fields. By capturing high-resolution images and using advanced algorithms, farmers can identify weed hotspots and implement timely and targeted weed control measures.

Weed Sensing and Management Segment to Dominate the Global Smart Weed Control Market (by Type)

During the forecasted period, the weed sensing and management segment is expected to hold a significant market share in the global smart weed control market. Regions such as North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and China are expected to experience notable CAGR in this segment. These regions, characterized by vast geographical areas and diverse weed species, face challenges in achieving efficient weed control and yield enhancement.

Moreover, weed sensing provides real-time data on weed distribution and growth patterns, enabling farmers to make informed decisions regarding the most effective weed management strategies. By using data analytics and artificial intelligence, farmers can optimize herbicide dosage, improve timing for weed control interventions, and ultimately achieve more efficient and cost-effective weed management.

Key Market Players and Competition Synopsis

The companies that are profiled have been selected based on inputs gathered from primary experts and analyzing company coverage, product portfolio, applications, and market penetration. The global smart weed control market is a highly competitive and fragmented industry, with many players vying for market share.

The market is characterized by the presence of agricultural companies, technology-based firms, and start-ups. To survive competition in the fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) integrated agriculture market, companies have developed strong strategies in recent years. Among all the strategies, the most preferred one by key players has been partnerships, collaborations, joint ventures, and alliances with other firms.

Deere & Company is one of the largest players in the market, with a strong presence in smart sprayers. The company offers a range of advanced solutions for mobile scouting and spraying, including precision agriculture technology and digital tools. The company has also made strategic acquisitions to expand its capabilities in the market, such as the acquisition of Bear Flag Robotics in 2021, a start-up focused on autonomous driving technology for tractors.

Other major players in the market include Trimble Inc, Naio Technologies, Carbon Robotics, Ecorobotix SA, and WEED-IT. Carbon Robotics offers robots that identify weed and thin specialty vegetable crops precisely with the help of lasers.

Key Attributes:

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 214 Forecast Period 2023 - 2028 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $1065.4 Million Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2028 $2460.8 Million Compound Annual Growth Rate 18.2% Regions Covered Global

Industry Outlook

Ongoing Trends

5G: Future Communication Technologies for Smart Farming

Rise in Utilization of Ultraviolet (UV) Laser Weeding in Agriculture

Business Drivers

Growing Crop Losses Due to Weed Infestation

Need for Sustainable Agriculture Practices

Economic Aspects, Commercial Adaptation, and Ecological Benefits of Site-Specific Weed Management

Business Opportunities

Development of Innovative and Affordable Smart Weed Control Solutions

Development toward Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning-Based Weed Control Equipment

Market Strategy and Development

Business Strategies

Product Development and Innovation

Market Development

Corporate Strategies

Mergers and Acquisitions

Partnerships, Joint Ventures, Collaborations, and Alliances

Ecosystem/Ongoing Programs

Consortiums and Associations

Regulatory Bodies

Government Programs

Business Challenges

High Initial Cost of Smart Weed Control Technologies or Equipment

Rising Concern over Data Security with Increasing Cyber Attacks

Lack of Interoperability Hindering the Growth

Snapshot of Corporate Strategies Adopted by the Players in Global Smart Weed Control Market

Case Studies

Smart Weed Control Case Studies

Start-Up Landscape

Key Start-Ups in the Ecosystem

Funding Analysis

Total Investments and Number of Funding Deals

Top Funding Deals, 2022

Funding (by Technology)

Funding (by Year)

Key Companies Profiled:

Carbon Bee AgTech

Deere & Company

Trimble Inc.

One Smart Spray

WEED-IT

Ecorobotix SA

Naio Technologies

Latitudo 40

Greeneye Technology

XAG Co., Ltd.

Carbon Robotics

FarmWise

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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
Pune, India, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global microprocessor market size was valued at USD 50.55 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach USD 100.15 billion by 2030, exhibiting a CAGR of 10.3% during the forecast period. Fortune Business Insights has provided this information in its latest research report titled, Microprocessor Market Forecast, 2023-2030.

Microprocessors are Integrated Circuits (ICs) that act as the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of a computer system. They carry out arithmetic and logical operations and also execute complex instructions.





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https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/microprocessor-market-108504





Key Industry Developments

June 2023  Qualcomm launched Snapdragon 4 Gen 2, an entry-level smartphone processor fabricated using a 4nm process. It offered enhanced AI-related technologies, improved GPU and CPU performance, and better connectivity for streaming and gaming.





Key Takeaways

Rising Adoption of MPUs in 5G-ready Devices to Drive Market Growth

Rapid Innovations in ARM-based RISC Processors to Boost the Market

Industry 4.0, 5G Infrastructure, and Artificial Intelligence to Propel the Adoption of MPUs in the Industrial Segment

Increasing Implementation of Less than 10nm MPUs in Computers and Laptops to Enhance the Market Growth





Discover the Leading Players Featured in the Report:

Companies leading the microprocessor market are Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Taiwan), STMicroelectronics N.V. (Switzerland), NXP Semiconductors N.V. (Netherlands), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (U.S.), Intel Corporation (U.S.), Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (U.S.), Broadcom Inc. (U.S.), NVIDIA Corporation (U.S.), Micron Technology, Inc. (U.S.), Samsung Group (South Korea)





Report Scope & Segmentation

Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 2023 to 2030 Forecast Period 2023 to 2030 CAGR 10.3% 2030 Value Projection USD 100.15 billion Base Year 2022 Microprocessor Market Size in 2022 USD 50.55 billion Historical Data for 2019 to 2021 No. of Pages 190 Segments covered Architecture, Application, Size, Bit Size, Core Count, Geography





Browse Complete Report Details:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/microprocessor-market-108504





Drivers & Restraints:

Growing Adoption of MPUs in 5G-ready Devices to Propel the Market Growth

The introduction of the 5G network and infrastructure is progressively achieving momentum, with the growing demand for smartphone-based powerful MPUs to connect with the full potential of the millimeter wave technology. The incorporation of MPUs in 5G-ready mobile devices enables handling data throughput of 5G network, real-time communication, ultra-low-latency, and rapid data transfers. These factors are set to drive the microprocessor market growth.

Factors, such as heat dissipation, limitations in semiconductor materials, and power consumption, restrict the market growth.





Segmentation

By Architecture

RISC

CISC

Hybrid

Others

By Application

Computer

Mobile Devices and Tablets

Industrial

Consumer

Automotive

Government

By Size

Less than 10nm

10nm - 22nm

More than 28nm

By Bit Size

4, 8, 16 bits

32 bits

64 bits

By Core Count

Less than 4 Cores

8 Cores

16 Cores

More than 32 Cores





Regional Insights:

Asia Pacific to Dominate the Market Share Owing to the Presence of Key Manufacturers in the Region

Asia Pacific dominated the market share with the highest part in the microprocessor market. The region witnessed the expansion due to the presence of key manufacturers of microprocessors and their prominence in the market, owing to regular advancements and innovations in leading technologies such as AI-embedded MPUs, and 5nm, among others.

North America is driven by factors such as high-performance computing needs, digital technology adoption, IoT growth, and autonomous vehicles; hence, the regional market is highly competitive and technologically advanced.





Quick Buy - Microprocessor Market Research Report:

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Competitive Landscape

Expansion of Business through Regular Partnerships and Innovations with OEMs to Drive Market Growth

Enterprises gain various benefits by providing unique microprocessor applications. Prominent players in the market are focusing on collaborations with device manufacturers to develop innovative features and integrations to increase the demand for the product.





FAQs:

How big is the Microprocessor Market?

The global Microprocessor size was USD 50.55 billion in 2022

How fast is the Microprocessor Market growing?

The Microprocessor Market will exhibit a CAGR of 10.3% during the forecast period, 2023-2030





Related Reports:

Semiconductor Market Size, Trends, Growth 2029

Microcontroller Market Size, Share, Trends, Forecast 2028

Discrete Semiconductor Market Share, trends, Forecast 2028





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Dublin, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Water Soluble Film Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2023-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global water soluble film market, which achieved a size of US$ 375.0 million in 2022, is poised for significant expansion. Analysts project the market to reach US$ 517.1 million by 2028, exhibiting a steady Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.7% during the forecast period of 2023-2028.

Key Market Insights:

What is Water Soluble Film: Water soluble film, also known as polyvinyl alcohol (PVA/PVOH) film, is a synthetic polymer that readily dissolves in water. It is characterized by properties such as being colorless, odorless, biodegradable, non-toxic, and possessing high tear and tensile strength. Water soluble films offer a range of benefits, including smooth mechanical operations, enhanced productivity, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility in packaging. Additionally, they provide high solvent resistance, gas barrier performance, excellent heat-sealing properties, and printability, making them versatile in various applications.

Driving Factors:

Packaging Industry Growth: The burgeoning packaging industry is a significant driver as water soluble films find increasing use in packaging applications. Demand for Eco-Friendly Solutions: Growing concerns about eco-friendliness and sustainability are boosting the adoption of water soluble films as a packaging material. Ready-to-Eat (RTE) Foods: Hectic lifestyles and the demand for convenience are driving the use of water soluble films in packaging ready-to-eat (RTE) food items. Food Packaging: Water soluble films are used in food packaging, especially for candy, dried fruits, snacks, single-serve products like coffee and tea, and for preserving perishable foods like meat, poultry, and fish. Chemical Industry: Water soluble films are used to protect industrial workers from direct contact with hazardous materials, particularly in the chemical industry.

Market Segmentation:

Material: PVA/PVOH, Xylan PVA/PVOH is the dominant material, favored for its biodegradability and suitability in various packaging applications.

PVA/PVOH, Xylan Application: Detergent Packaging, Agrochemical Packaging, Water Treatment Chemical Packaging, Pharmaceutical Packaging, Others Detergent packaging is a leading application due to the demand for single-use packs that reduce wastage and overdosing.

Detergent Packaging, Agrochemical Packaging, Water Treatment Chemical Packaging, Pharmaceutical Packaging, Others End-Use Industry: Textile, Agriculture, Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Others Consumer goods drive significant demand as smaller unit dose packs gain popularity.

Textile, Agriculture, Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Others

Regional Insights:

Asia Pacific leads the market due to its growing packaging needs and eco-conscious consumer base.

Competitive Landscape:

The market is fragmented with several small and large players operating. Key companies include Kuraray Co. Ltd., Nippon Synthetic Chemical Industry Co. Ltd., Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd., Aicello Corporation, Arrow GreenTech Ltd., Cortec Corporation, Changzhou Kelin PVA Water Soluble Films Co., Ltd., Jiangmen Proudly Water-soluble Plastic Co., Ltd., AMC (UK) Ltd., 3M Company, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, DuPont de Nemours, Inc., Fujian Zhongsu Biodegradable Films Co., Ltd., Dezhou Huamao Textile Co. Ltd., and Neptun Technologies GmbH.

COVID-19 Impact: The pandemic disrupted supply chains and affected production, but the impact was mitigated as providers managed supply chains to adapt to challenges.

Key Questions Answered:

How has the global water soluble film market performed so far, and how will it perform in the coming years?

What are the drivers, restraints, and opportunities in the global water soluble film market?

What is the impact of each driver, restraint, and opportunity on the global water soluble film market?

What are the key regional markets?

What is the breakup of the market based on the material?

Which is the most attractive material in the water soluble film market?

What is the breakup of the market based on the application?

Which is the most attractive application in the water soluble film market?

What is the breakup of the market based on the end-use industry?

Which is the most attractive end-use industry in the water soluble film market?

What is the competitive structure of the global water soluble film market?

Who are the key players/companies in the global water soluble film market?

Key Attributes:

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 136 Forecast Period 2022 - 2028 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2022 $375 Million Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2028 $517.1 Million Compound Annual Growth Rate 5.5% Regions Covered Global

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/6pyks3

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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Dublin, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Global Data Center Transformation Market by Service Type (Consolidation Services, Optimization Services, Automation Services, Infrastructure Management Services), Tier Type, Data Center Type, Data Center Size, and Region - Forecast to 2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global Data Center Transformation market is projected to reach USD 18.9 billion by 2028 and is instrumental in supporting the ongoing surge in cloud adoption and hybridization, making it a pivotal force in the data-driven revolution.

The Growth Story

The global data center transformation market is set to grow from USD 11.5 billion in 2023 to USD 18.9 billion by 2028, with a CAGR of 10.5% during the forecast period. The remarkable increase in cloud adoption and hybridization is a key driver of this growth.

Tier 3 Data Centers Shine

Within the data center transformation market, tier 3 data centers play a prominent role. These data centers are known for their advanced functionalities and impressive uptime availability, making them the preferred choice for many large companies. Uptime Institute has classified tier 3 data centers as those guaranteeing 99.982% availability, experiencing just 1.56 hours of downtime per year. These data centers feature N+1 redundancy, ensuring at least one backup component in case of system failure. Moreover, they offer a minimum of 72-hour power outage protection, enhancing reliability.

Healthcare Vertical Leads

The healthcare vertical is on a rapid growth trajectory in the data center transformation market, boasting the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The healthcare industry is generating an exponential amount of biomedical data, requiring robust data center infrastructure to support this growth. The shift from paper-based medical records to electronic health records (EHRs) necessitates secure data storage and management. Data centers are vital for facilitating telemedicine and remote patient monitoring solutions, making healthcare more accessible and efficient. Healthcare organizations are increasingly using data analytics and big data for medical research, patient outcomes analysis, and population health management. Therefore, data center transformation is crucial to support these data-intensive activities.

Europe's Strong Presence

Europe is a significant player in the data center transformation market, holding the second-largest market share. The region's diverse business needs, stringent data privacy regulations, and robust IT scene contribute to its prominence. Europe's growing demand for hyperscale data center facilities and data center colocation, along with access to green power and favorable climatic conditions, is fueling its growth. The Netherlands, in particular, stands out as a hub for advanced hyperscale data center facilities, hosting the online services of major cloud providers.

Takeaways for Executives

Understanding the trajectory of the global data center transformation market is essential for businesses aiming to thrive in the evolving digital economy. This knowledge will serve as a catalyst for innovation and strategic success in an increasingly dynamic digital landscape.

Competitive landscape

The key technology vendors in the market include Dell (US), Microsoft (US), IBM (US), Schneider Electric (France), Cisco (US), NTT (Japan), HCLTech (India), Accenture (Ireland), Cognizant (India), Google (US), Wipro (India), Atos (France), TCS (India), Hitachi (Japan), NetApp (US), Mindteck (India), Bytes Technology Group (UK), General Datatech (US), Insight Enterprises (US), Tech Mahindra (India), NETSCOUT (US), Dyntek (US), Softchoice (Canada), InKnowTech (India), Rahi Systems (US), Blue Mantis (UK), GreenField Software (India), Hyperview (Canada), FlexiScale (UK), LiquidStack (US), RackBank Datacenters (India), and Vapor IO (US).

Most key players have adopted partnerships and product developments to cater to the demand for data center transformation.

Key Attributes:

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 338 Forecast Period 2023 - 2028 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $11.5 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2028 $18.9 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 10.5% Regions Covered Global

Premium Insights

Digital Transformation, Cloud Adoption, Need for Cost/Energy Efficiency, and Legacy Modernization to Boost Data Center Transformation Market Growth

Consolidation Services Segment to Account for Largest Market Share in 2023

Tier 4 Segment to Account for Largest Market Share in 2023

Enterprise Data Center Segment to Account for Largest Market Share in 2023

Large Data Centers Segment to Account for Largest Market Share in 2023

BFSI Vertical to Account for Largest Market Share in 2023

Asia-Pacific Expected to Emerge as Best Market for Investments in the Next Five Years

Market Dynamics

Drivers

Leveraging Digital Transformation to Drive Data Center Evolution

Increase in Cloud Adoption and Hybridization

Indispensable Requirements to Improve Data Center Uptime and Energy Efficiency

Proliferation of Data Center Colocation Facilities Globally

Data Explosion

Rise in Necessity to Tackle Significant Network Congestion Within Data Centers

Restraints

Data Security and Privacy Concerns

Complexity Related to Transformation

Opportunities

Rise in the Number of Data Center Facilities

Growing Demand for AI and Automation

Data Center Consolidation and Optimization

Challenges

Downtime and Disruption Challenge

Need to Partner with Other Vendors for Data Center Expertise

Case Study Analysis

Carhartt Delivered Cloud-First Strategy with IBM Turbonomic

Thai Government Used Schneider to Reduce Carbon Emission Footprints and Power Usage for Better Energy Efficiency

Animal Logic Selected Schneider's Prefabricated System for Enhancing Its Planning and Operational Performance

Seamless Cloud Migration Increased Scalability and Lowered Risk for Global Tech Provider GDT

Productivity and Customer Experience Enhanced with GDT's Data Center Solutions

Competitive Portfolio:

Accenture

Animal Logic

Atos

Blue Mantis

Bytes Technology Group

Carhartt

Cisco

Cognizant

Dell Technologies

Dyntek

FlexiScale

General Datatech (GDT)

Google

Greenfield Software

HCL Technologies

Hitachi

Hyperview

IBM

InKnowTech

Insight Enterprises

Liquidstack

Microsoft

Mindteck

NetApp

Netscout

NTT

Rackbank Datacenters

Rahi Systems

Schneider Electric

Softchoice

TCS

Tech Mahindra

Vapor IO

Wipro





For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/54m6vw

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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Dublin, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Neonatal Critical Care Equipment Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Type (Thermoregulation Equipment, Phototherapy Equipment, Neonatal Monitoring Devices, Respiratory Devices), By End-use, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2023 - 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global neonatal critical care equipment market is experiencing significant growth, driven by various factors and trends. Here are some key highlights from the market report:

1. Market Size and Growth: The global neonatal critical care equipment market is expected to reach USD 4.8 billion by 2030. It is projected to register a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.5% from 2023 to 2030. This growth is attributed to the significant number of neonatal deaths and preterm births, along with financial support for equipment research and procurement.

2. Advanced Monitoring and Sensing Devices: Breakthroughs in monitoring and sensing devices have revolutionized neonatal care. These advancements enable faster and more precise measurements of neonatal physiological parameters, leading to the development of modern devices such as ventilators, imaging systems, and advanced wireless monitoring systems. Technological progress is driving the transformation of neonatal critical care.

3. Impact of COVID-19: The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the market initially, causing supply chain disruptions and difficulties in procuring raw materials and medical device transportation. However, regulatory policies were relaxed during the pandemic, allowing access to advanced equipment in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs). A NICU survey showed a negligible prevalence of COVID-19 in NICU patients.

4. Market Segmentation:

Based on the type, the "other" segment, which includes soothing tools and the Bilicheck system for noninvasive risk assessment of neonatal jaundice, held the largest market share in 2022.

The thermoregulation equipment segment was significant in 2022, with devices that help keep neonates warm, improving their health.

Hospitals were the dominant end-users in 2022, offering superior care to patients. The presence of well-trained teams and well-equipped facilities supports the growth of neonatal care equipment implantation in hospitals.

The Asia Pacific region held the largest market share in 2022, driven by high demand for neonatal critical care equipment in clinics and hospitals due to the high neonatal mortality rate, especially in countries like India.





Market Dynamics

Market Driver Analysis

Increasing research for product innovation

Rising number of preterm and low-weight births

Rising technological advancements

Market Restraint Analysis

Product recalls

Stringent regulatory framework

Key Attributes:

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 168 Forecast Period 2022 - 2030 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2022 $2.7 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2030 $4.8 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 7.5% Regions Covered Global



Key Players Include:

Cardinal Health

Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA

Koninklijke Philips N.V.

GE Healthcare

Medtronic

Vyaire

BD

Utah Medical Products, Inc.

Natus Medical Incorporated

Ambu A/S

Inspiration Healthcare Group plc

Atom Medical Corp.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Limited

Masimo

Phoenix Medical Systems (P) Ltd.



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/f8uxjj

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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MCLEAN, Va., Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Two HII (NYSE: HII) partnerships recently celebrated important milestones that illustrate HIIs commitment to building and supporting the education and training of a future nuclear workforce.



The Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B) Nuclear Operator Apprenticeship Program (NOAP) in Los Alamos, New Mexico hosted graduation ceremonies for students. N3B is a joint venture owned by HII Nuclear, a business unit of HII, and BWX Technologies, and executes the Los Alamos Cleanup Contract for the Department of Energy (DOE).

In addition, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) began its twentieth apprenticeship program with the introduction of a new mechanical engineering discipline. SRNS, a Fluor and HII joint venture, is responsible for the management and operations of DOEs Savannah River Site, located near Aiken, South Carolina.

These apprenticeship programs illustrate HIIs significant investments in local communities to build the skilled and motivated workforce required to ensure nuclear programs protect the community and environment surrounding the nuclear site.





A photo accompanying this news release is available at https://hii.com/news/hii-partnerships-celebrate-workforce-development-milestones/

Investing in workforce development to safely and successfully support all aspects of nuclear projects is of vital importance to HII for multiple reasons, spanning from environmental stewardship, to economic growth to societal well-being, stated Michael Lempke, president, HII Nuclear. For nations and companies alike, sustainable growth is reliant on a constantly evolving workforce that can meet current demands and anticipate future challenges.

The N3B apprenticeship program began in 2020 and is offered in conjunction with the Northern New Mexico College (NNMC) and its applied science in nuclear operations associate degree program. N3B pays tuition and related education expenses for its apprentices who earn that degree.

NNMC developed its associate degree program in partnership with N3B and incorporated the curriculum into the apprenticeship program.

The two recent graduates of the NNMC program are full-time N3B employees who received full employment benefits during their on-the-job training. They will now monitor safety compliance, support daily operations, and manage inspections as part of the DOEs commitment to clean up legacy waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

The SRNS apprenticeship program and the new mechanical engineering discipline are part of an ongoing commitment to create innovative workforce development at SRS. The Mechanical Engineering Apprenticeship Program is designed for college students who are enrolled in an accredited engineering degree program. Students receive paid on-the-job experience while completing approximately 1,000 hours per year on competency-based and job-related training. Graduates from the apprenticeship program receive a nationally recognized credential from the U.S. Department of Labor and an opportunity of full-time employment with SRNS.

As the largest employer in many of the communities in which we operate, HII believes that businesses share in the responsibility of developing a skilled workforce. We prioritize attracting, training and retaining top talent to deliver on our critically important missions, Lempke stated.

Across the company HII invests more than $110 million a year in workforce development, education and training initiatives, including:

Apprentice schools at our Newport News and Ingalls Shipyards

Academic partnerships with two- and four-year colleges and universities

Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) investments in elementary, middle and high schools.



Information on the N3Bs Apprenticeship Program is available here: https://n3b-la.com/apprenticeship-program

Information on the Savanah River Site Apprenticeship School is available here: https://www.srs.gov/general/outreach/apprenticeship/apprenticeship_school.htm

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

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f9fb4358-5040-4d0f-a818-cd9a9096bad8
JCDecaux renews and extends its advertising concession with Madrid Metro for 10 years, with new iconic and innovative digital screens

Paris, October 19th, 2023  JCDecaux SE (Euronext Paris: DEC), the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, announces that following a competitive tender it has renewed and extended its advertising concession with Madrid Metro (5 million daily passengers on average), making it the most digitised JCDecaux-marketed metro in Europe and the first 100% data-driven advertising space in Spain. The digital transformation of the oldest Spanish metro network has started in August and will be completed by the end of the year.

The 10-year contract covers 3,100 traditional displays as well as more than 460 new, larger, sharper and more energy-efficient digital screens, extending their life cycle and making metro stations more efficient and sustainable. The new contract aims to deliver a high-quality media space and to modernise Spains capital metro with up to 2,000 sq m of screens. It includes innovative and high-impact displays such as large-format screens and columns with an anamorphic effect, twin curved screens as well as cinema formats, a new type of large-format screen created exclusively for platforms, 142 of which will be installed in 39 key stations. A brand-new network of digital screens will also be created with nearly 300 high-definition screens across 100 strategic locations, mostly within the M30 perimeter, ensuring maximum coverage and visibility.

Technological innovation and a data-driven approach also play an important role in shaping new, more digital and intelligent advertising in metro stations. It will include measurement tools, an unprecedented milestone that will make it possible to fine-tune the calculation of impressions in close to real time and offer much more precise performance metrics. This new contract will also enable JCDecaux to introduce programmatic buying opportunities into the metro environment for the first time, following its launch in street furniture and shopping centres.

By the end of the year, JCDecaux will operate a total of 2,750 digital faces in Spain.



Jean-Charles Decaux, Co-Chief Executive Officer of JCDecaux, said: "We are delighted to have been awarded this strategic contract to digitise Madrid Metro, continuing our long-term partnership which started in 2007. JCDecaux has rolled-out an in-depth media transformation plan, including the introduction of large and iconic digital media opportunities to create memorable brand experience while offering one of the major communications-platform for brands. It will participate to enhance the Madrid Metro environment, further raising engagement and ultimately generating revenue to invest in delivering an even better commuter experience. It is one of our most ambitious projects to date in Europe and we want it to become a benchmark in terms of digitisation and sustainability. Metro advertising (OOH and DOOH) is an ideal canvas to create impactful and memorable campaigns, leaving a lasting impression on commuters long after their journey has ended. As the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, our vision is to deliver innovative and sustainable media assets that enhance communication, benefiting partners, people, advertisers and their brands.

Key Figures for JCDecaux

2022 revenue: 3,317m (a)  H1 2023 revenue: 1,585m (a)

 H1 2023 revenue: 1,585m N1 Out-of-Home Media company worldwide

A daily audience of more than 850 million people in more than 80 countries

1,040,132 advertising panels worldwide

Present in 3,573 cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants

11,200 employees

JCDecaux is listed on the Eurolist of Euronext Paris and is part of the Euronext 100 and Euronext Family Business indexes

JCDecaux is recognised for its extra-financial performance in the FTSE4Good (3.4/5), CDP (A-), MSCI (AA) and has achieved Platinum Medal status from EcoVadis

1st Out-of-Home Media company to join the RE100

Leader in self-service bike rental scheme: pioneer in eco-friendly mobility

N1 worldwide in street furniture (604,536 advertising panels)

N1 worldwide in transport advertising with 153 airports and 205 contracts in metros, buses, trains and tramways (333,620 advertising panels)

N1 in Europe for billboards (101,976 advertising panels worldwide)

N1 in outdoor advertising in Europe (654,957 advertising panels)

N1 in outdoor advertising in Asia-Pacific (170,973 advertising panels)

N1 in outdoor advertising in Latin America (129,305 advertising panels

N1 in outdoor advertising in Africa (24,198 advertising panels)

N1 in outdoor advertising in the Middle East (19,371 advertising panels)

(a) Adjusted revenue

For more information about JCDecaux, please visit jcdecaux.com .

Join us on Twitter , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram and YouTube .

Communications Department: Albert Asseraf

+33 (0) 1 30 79 79 10  albert.asseraf@jcdecaux.com

Investor Relations: Remi Grisard

+33 (0) 1 30 79 79 93  remi.grisard@jcdecaux.com

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Westford, USA, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to SkyQuest, the rapid diagnostics market is set to benefit from the increasing demand for bedside diagnostic testing. There is a growing emphasis on delivering timely and on-the-spot diagnostic results, which expedites patient care and contributes to more efficient healthcare management as the healthcare landscape evolves. This convergence of accurate diagnostics, affordability, consumer education, and the demand for immediate results positions the market on a trajectory of significant expansion.

Browse in-depth TOC on the "Rapid Diagnostics Market

Pages - 157

Tables - 121

Figures  70

The prevalence of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular ailments, and various infectious conditions, has notably increased in the rapid diagnostics market. This rise in health challenges has significantly underscored the imperative for point-of-care diagnostics in the forecast period.



Get a sample copy of this report:

https://www.skyquestt.com/sample-request/rapid-diagnostics-market



Prominent Players in Rapid Diagnostics Market

Abbott Laboratories

Becton, Dickinson and Company

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.

F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.

ACON Laboratories, Inc.

Creative Diagnostics

Danaher Corporation

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

BioMerieux S.A.

Alfa Scientific Designs, Inc.

BTNX Inc.

Meridian Bioscience, Inc.

Trinity Biotech plc



Browse summary of the report and Complete Table of Contents (ToC):

https://www.skyquestt.com/report/rapid-diagnostics-market



Kits Segment is Expected to Grow the Market Due to their Frequent Utilization of Diagnostic Kits

Kits segment is projected to emerge as a dominant force, capturing the largest market share within the rapid diagnostics market. This preeminence can be attributed to factors that underscore the segment's significance. The high adoption rate and frequent utilization of diagnostic kits drive their substantial market presence.

The market in North America, having generated USD 14.48 billion in sales during 2022, is poised to maintain its market dominance throughout the forecast period. This projection is underpinned by compelling factors that collectively position the region at the forefront of the diagnostics landscape in the rapid diagnostics market.

Immunoassays Segment is Expected to Dominate the Market Due to the Escalating Elderly Population

Immunoassays are poised to assert their dominance within the rapid diagnostics market. This significant market presence can be attributed to a confluence of pivotal factors that collectively underscore their key role. The escalating elderly population, often characterized by a higher susceptibility to chronic diseases, is a primary driver behind the substantial proportion held by immunoassays.

Regional markets in Europe are projected to exhibit significant growth, commanding a substantial CAGR while securing a dominant global rapid diagnostics market share. This forecasted expansion can be attributed to several compelling factors that position the region as a pivotal player in diagnostics.

A comprehensive analysis of the major players in the rapid diagnostics market has been recently conducted in a report. The report encompasses various aspects, including collaborations, mergers, innovative business policies, and strategies, providing valuable insights into key trends and breakthroughs in the market. Furthermore, the report scrutinizes the market share of the top segments and presents a detailed geographic analysis. Lastly, the report highlights the major players in the industry and their endeavours to develop innovative solutions to cater to the growing demand.



Speak to Analyst for your custom requirements:

https://www.skyquestt.com/speak-with-analyst/rapid-diagnostics-market



Key Developments in the Rapid Diagnostics Market

Significant advancements were witnessed in diagnostic testing recently as leading companies unveiled innovative assay kits. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (U.S.) introduced the reliance on the SARS-CoV-2/FluA/FluB RT-PCR assay kit, a development that marked a crucial step in the ongoing battle against infectious diseases. This kit showcased a versatile approach by enabling the simultaneous detection of SARS-CoV-2 along with influenza A and influenza B viruses, thus streamlining the diagnostic process and offering a comprehensive insight into respiratory health.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (U.S.) launched the TaqPath COVID-19 RT-PCR Kit, representing a significant stride in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This kit played a pivotal role in the rapid and accurate detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, exemplifying the power of molecular diagnostics in disease detection and control.

Key Questions Answered in Rapid Diagnostics Market Report

What specific growth drivers are projected to impact the market during the forecast period?

List the top companies in the market and explain how they have achieved their positions of influence.

In what ways do regional trends and patterns differ within the market, and how these differences shape the market's future growth?

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NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of CS Disco, Inc. (Disco or the Company) (NYSE: LAW). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at newaction@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.



The investigation concerns whether Disco 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 September 11, 2023, Disco issued a press release announc[ing] that Kiwi Camara, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, has decided to step down from his roles as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors. Camaras resignation came just over one year after Disco shareholders approved a compensation package for Camara worth nearly $110 million.

On this news, Discos stock price fell $1.81 per share, or 19.09%, to close at $7.67 per share on September 12, 2023.

Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered billions of dollars in damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com .

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
MCLEAN, Va., Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HIIs (NYSE: HII) Mission Technologies division was awarded a $134 million contract to provide readiness and training software development support for the U.S. Navy.



The task order was awarded under the Naval Sea Systems Commands SeaPort Next Generation (SeaPort-NxG) contract to support the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division Dam Neck Activity (NSWCDD DNA). It has a one-year base period plus four one-year options.

Realistic training scenarios help prepare warfighters for any situation, said Glenn Goodman, president of Mission Technologies LVC Solutions business group. For more than 20 years, that has been the foundation of HIIs live, virtual and constructive training systems. We are proud to continue our support of the U.S. Navy, providing software development and engineering that contribute to combat readiness.





A photo accompanying this news release is available at https://hii.com/news/hii-to-provide-readiness-and-training-software-development-support-for-the-u-s-navy/

HII will provide requirements analysis, software engineering, development, integration and test support for the Advanced Training Domain (ATD), Battle Force Tactical Training (BFTT), BFTT Electronic Warfare Trainer (BEWT), Trainer Stimulator/Simulator Systems (TSSS) and the Combined Integrated Air and Missile Defense and Anti-Submarine Warfare Trainer (CIAT) platforms.

In addition to this contract, HII was recently awarded the NSWCDD $242 million shore-based training, engineering and development support (SBEDS) contract.

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

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/664baf4e-c146-4d18-99fe-f97ebec9725c
TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a province-wide vote conducted on October 18 and 19, Catholic teachers  the members of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA)  delivered an overwhelming strike mandate, with 97 per cent voting in favour of authorizing strike action, if necessary.

OECTA has issued the following statement from President Rene Jansen in de Wal:

Our overwhelming strike mandate sends a clear message to the Ford Conservative government and the representatives of Catholic school boards that Catholic teachers want to see meaningful progress and results at the bargaining table that address the lack of resources, supports, and time teachers need to best serve their students.

As we move forward with our next bargaining dates, the Ford Conservative government and Catholic trustee representatives need to understand that Catholic teachers  45,000-strong  are united in solidarity, and prepared to do whatever is necessary to reach an agreement that supports all students, families, and teachers  one that addresses the pressing issues faced in classrooms across the province.

Contrary to Minister of Education Stephen Lecces ongoing misinformation campaign, taking a strike vote and receiving a strong strike mandate does not necessarily mean that Catholic teachers will take job action. In fact, such a strong strike mandate may make job action less likely  but only if the Minister and Catholic school board representatives heed the message being sent. And it will enable the Association to proceed forward in negotiations with the full confidence of Catholic teachers. This is something the Minister would know if he was focused on reaching a fair deal, and not devoting his time and energy to yet another failed attempt to deceive and divide parents, students, teachers, and communities.

Our goal, as always, is to negotiate a fair collective agreement: one that recognizes Catholic teachers vital contributions to Ontarios society and economy, and makes the proper investment  in our students, in our schools, and in the future Ontario deserves.

- 30 -

OECTA represents the 45,000 passionate and qualified teachers in Ontarios publicly funded English Catholic schools, from Kindergarten to Grade 12.
New York, NY, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The New York Film Academy (NYFA) is conducting a series of in-person events in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia during the week of October 23rd, 2023.

The hands-on film, media, and performing arts school will conduct information sessions, workshops, auditions, and portfolio reviews for prospective students and applicants. These events are excellent for those interested in pursuing a career in film, acting, and other related fields by gaining an inside look into the world of cinematic arts and educational offerings at NYFA. The events will be led by NYFAs Admissions Director at the Miami campus and Latin American Regional Director, Gil Enrique Matos.

In addition to information sessions, auditions, and portfolio reviews, the school will conduct a filmmaking professional workshop (no cost associated) in both cities. The workshop, entitled "Crafting Cinema: A Film Director's Primer," will be instructed by NYFAs Dean of the Los Angeles campus and professional director/producer, Dan Mackler. This workshop offers a concise yet comprehensive session that places you in the heart of the filmmaking process. Whether you're a budding filmmaker or a dedicated film enthusiast, this workshop provides a front-row seat to the art of film direction, offering valuable insights.

The workshop will be held in Bogota, Colombia on Tuesday, October 24th, 6:30 p.m. CDT and in Medellin on Friday, October 27th, 6:30 p.m. CDT. In addition to these engaging workshops, NYFA is offering auditions and portfolio reviews for prospective students. The information session, auditions, portfolio reviews, and workshops are reservation only, so for those looking to reserve a spot, please RSVP at NYFA Colombia Events.

NYFA is committed to nurturing emerging talent in filmmaking and the arts. This event is a unique opportunity to learn from industry professionals, discover educational pathways, and explore the cinematic world.

For more information about the NYFA and upcoming events, please visit www.nyfa.edu/events and RSVP at NYFA Colombia Events.

About NYFA

New York Film Academy (NYFA) is a leading film, media, and performing arts college that offers intensive undergraduate and graduate degree programs, certificates, and workshops across a multitude of areas of study in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Gold Coast (Australia), Florence (Italy), Beijing (China), and more. NYFA also offers online programs to provide unparalleled "Hands-Online" education experiences that allow aspiring storytellers across the world to access valuable industry knowledge from anywhere.

For more information, visit nyfa.edu.
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Wiley or the Company) (NYSE: WLY). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at newaction@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.



The investigation concerns whether Wiley 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 March 9, 2023, Wiley announced its third quarter 2023 financial results, in which it disclosed issues at Hindawi, one of its subsidiaries. The Companys Chief Executive Officer (CEO) stated [o]ur third quarter results and revised full year outlook are clearly below our expectations and [w]hile our core business and markets are strong, weve been challenged this year by unpredictable market headwinds and an unplanned publishing pause at Hindawi. It was further announced that [r]esearch was down 4% as reported, or down 2% at constant currency and excluding acquisitions, primarily due to a pause in the Hindawi special issues publishing program. The program was suspended temporarily due to the presence in certain special issues of compromised articles. As a result, Hindawi revenue declined $9 million vs. prior year, offsetting growth in other open access publishing programs.

On this news, Wileys Class A stock price fell $7.55 per share, or 17.35%, to close at $35.96 per share on March 9, 2023.

Then, on October 10, 2023, Wiley announced that its CEO and President would be departing the Company, effective immediately.

On this news, Wiley's stock price fell $3.68, or 9.9%, to close at $30.95 per share on October 10, 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 .

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Anywhere Real Estate Inc. (Origin or the Company) (NYSE: HOUS). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at newaction@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.



The investigation concerns whether Anywhere 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 October 6, 2023, Anywhere issued a press release announc[ing] the terms of a settlement agreement the Company has entered into to settle all claims asserted against Anywhere in the Burnett and Moehrl antitrust class action litigation. Under the terms of the proposed nationwide settlement, which is subject to both preliminary and final court approval, Anywhere has agreed to provide monetary relief of $83.5 million, substantially in line with the Company's financial planning as well as injunctive relief.

On this news, Anywheres stock price fell $0.42 per share, or 7.33%, to close at $5.31 per share on October 6, 2023.

Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered billions of dollars in damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com .

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
Washington, D.C., Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the world turns its attention to the war in the Middle East, it is crucial to recognize those who fight to protect human rights and tolerance.

One such person is Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), a noted human rights advocate. Today, the Senator received the 2023 Anne Frank Award for Human Dignity and Tolerance at a Capitol Hill ceremony. The Senator was recognized for his commitment to fighting intolerance and antisemitism throughout his more than 30 years of public service as a member of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The Anne Frank Award is presented to an American who has demonstrated a commitment to confronting intolerance, antisemitism, racism, or discrimination while upholding freedom and equal rights to promote an open, pluralistic, and democratic society.

Upon receiving the Anne Frank Award, Senator Cardin stated, I am deeply grateful to the Kingdom of the Netherlands for presenting me with this Anne Frank Award. This award is truly humbling. I want to thank the people of the Netherlands for understanding that learning the truth of our history is key to fighting intolerance. We need to teach future generations these stories so they understand the violence that can be unleashed when hatred goes unchecked. We need to keep speaking up when we see antisemitism and hatred and bigotry. We need to keep hope alive that with patience and persistence, we can create a world that is safe and peaceful and prosperous.

Throughout his career, Senator Cardin has championed human rights in a number of capacities. As the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he works to strengthen the role of human rights in Americas international policy. Senator Cardin authored the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act in 2012. The Magnitsky Act allows the US to hold individuals in Russia accountable for human rights abuses by prohibiting Russian human rights violators from traveling to the US and from using the US financial system. In 2016, Senator Cardin helped expand the reach of the law, when he sponsored the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which gives the government the authority to deny human rights abusers and corrupt officials from any nation entry into the United States and access to American financial institutions.

The Senators dedication to human rights in the US is enhanced by his work in international forums. He serves as a commissioner to the US Helsinki Commission and is the Special Representative on Antisemitism, Racism, and Intolerance for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly. He also is a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

At the ceremony, Dutch Ambassador Birgitta Tazelaar said the impact of Anne Frank still resonates today. The Netherlands and the United States place a high importance on promoting human rights. Through the Anne Frank Award for Human Dignity and Tolerance, we reaffirm the legacy of Anne, and honor those who follow in her footsteps and continue the fight for human rights.

Several members of Congress participated in the ceremony. Co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on the Kingdom of the Netherlands Representatives Bill Huizenga (R, MI-4) and Derek Kilmer (D, WA-6) gave opening remarks. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) provided recorded remarks.

Senator Chris van Hollen (D-MD) attested to the dedication of his colleague and friend. Senator Cardin has not only made our nation a better place, he has made an impact well beyond our borders to make the world a better place. Thats because he has made fighting for human rights and dignity at home and abroad a central focus of his career in elected office, from major accomplishments like passing his Global Magnitsky Act to his tireless dedication to confronting antisemitism  and all forms of hate  wherever they arise. Senator Cardin has been a force for progress on these issues throughout his time in public service, and he has truly earned this award, said Senator Van Hollen.

Anne Frank Special Recognition Award

Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova introduced the award for Maksym Butkevych. Butkevych, a human rights activist and prisoner of war, was recognized with the 2023 Anne Frank Special Recognition Award for his work to uphold human rights and combat xenophobia and racism. A volunteer member of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, he is imprisoned in the Russian occupied region of Luhansk, Ukraine. Butkevychs father, Oleksandr, accepted the award on his behalf.

Oleksandr Butkevych explained the motivation that drove his son to fight for his country. Before his capture, Maksym stated, "War is a trauma, a tragedy, a misfortune, it makes people cruel. I hope it does not make us so cruel that we'll put human rights on the second or third agenda. We are waging a war precisely for this, to retain the opportunity to embody the values we stand for, which differentiate us from the aggressor."

Live music was incorporated in the event. Ukrainian-American soprano and musician Teryn Kuzma performed a Jewish hymn and Ukrainian folk music on the bandura (a Ukrainian string instrument) in honor of Senator Cardin and Mr. Butkevych.

The Anne Frank Award is a collaboration among the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Congressional Caucus on the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect USA, the Anne Frank House Amsterdam, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice. The award ceremony is part of the Embassys Holland on the Hill initiative to strengthen the economic, political and cultural ties between the Netherlands and the United States.

First presented in 2014, the Anne Frank Award for Human Dignity and Tolerance has been presented to the following recipients:

In 2020, former U.S. Representative Nita Lowey

In 2019, Benjamin Ferencz, a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials

In 2017, Father Leo O Donovan of the Jesuit Refugee Service/USA

In 2015, Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist

In 2014, Rabbi David Nathan Saperstein

Attachment
Sao Paulo, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Boyden, a premier global leadership and talent advisory firm, is delighted to welcome three new Partners in Brazil, as the firm celebrates 55 years serving Brazilian companies and multinationals across South America.

Giancarlo Alcalai, Francisco Cuesta and David Sion Turkie join Boyden in Sao Paulo, effective immediately.

Chad Hesters, President & CEO of Boyden, will be in Sao Paulo to mark the occasion with the team and meet distinguished clients. He comments, Boyden was the standard-bearer for our industry in Brazil. This is a big moment for our firm and the clients we have served as the century turned. Under the leadership of Euri Cruz and Alexandre Sabbag, the business is going from strength to strength, and this latest expansion of the partnership is testament to how highly Boyden is regarded in the business community.

Euri Cruz, Managing Partner of Boyden Brazil, adds, We are privileged to share this celebration with Chad Hesters, clients and colleagues around the world and I would like to thank them for their on-going collaboration and inspiration. We are delighted to welcome three impressive leaders to our industry; they join long-term colleagues who deliver exceptional results to clients in both executive search and leadership consulting.

Boyden was launched in Brazil in 1968, in a decade of significant global expansion for the firm. Todays team is distinctive in combining a boutique approach with global capabilities and partner-led engagements, providing clients with significant leadership and commercial expertise.

Cristina Piccolloto, Human Resources Director at Sherwin-Williams, a long-term client of Boyden Brazil, says, For more than a decade, Boyden has been a key partner in Executive Search for the Sherwin-Williams Company in Brazil. The Boyden team has supported the company in very important and critical organizational changes. They are focused, assertive, professional, and with high ethics. They have always been able to help us to find the right person to the right place, which definitely contributed to build a strong and effective leadership team in Brazil. Congratulations Boyden for the 55th Anniversary!.

Giancarlo Alcalai was previously Managing Director, Brazil and Argentina, at Amaszonas Airlines, following international leadership roles in strategic management, marketing, product management, sales and business development. He is a board member with Global Vision Access; AIESEC; Elettromec; and Sugar SRL Advertising and Marketing.

Francisco Cuesta was previously Vice President of HR, Latin America at Samsung Electronics, leading HR strategy implementation across 19 countries. He has held senior HR roles with companies such as Valeo, Telefonica and Companhia Siderurgica Nacional.

David Sion Turkie was previously Co-Founder of Scale Up Real Estate (SURE) and has held senior leadership roles with organisations including Fox-Warner, Fox Film do Brasil and Cinemark Brazil. In his early career, he was co-owner of a family textile business.

Giancarlo, Francisco and David join a diverse partnership with five different nationalities, serving clients in their native languages. The partners are known for their relentless focus on quality, in terms of cultural and skills alignment between candidates and clients, and in the very high retention rate of successful hires. The firm works with clients through the talent lifecycle, covering: succession planning, executive search, onboarding & integration, leadership assessment & development and executive team development.

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.

Attachment
Vancouver, BC, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vancouver's esteemed Zion Mission Choir is all set to grace the grand stage of the Orpheum Theatre on October 31 at 7pm as they present their 41st annual concert, "Sing Hallelujah 2023". In partnership with the Coram Deo Foundation, a division of Primacorp Ventures, and the Chung family, this year's event aims to raise awareness about the pressing issues of poverty, homelessness, and addiction plaguing Metro Vancouver. With the mission of offering restoration and hope to those in need, the Choir is dedicated to spreading the message of Jesus's illuminating grace and universal love.

Under the acclaimed guidance of Dr. Stephanie Chung, the event promises an evening of spiritual uplift and musical jubilation. This upcoming performance follows the success of their previous event at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in 2022, which aimed to support educational programs for the deaf-mute community in South Korea.

The Vancouver Zion Mission Choir, with a history of four decades, has consistently contributed to various charitable causes locally and globally. Dr. Stephanie Chung, the Choir's conductor, emphasized its dedication to praising God through their music, stating, "Vancouver Zion Mission Choir was started to offer the highest praise to the almighty God, giving our utmost efforts."

The Choir, consisting of approximately 200 dedicated members, aims to spread the message of hope and faith through their powerful performances.

Amidst the heartwarming notes, Dr. Mark's Husbands, Trinity Western University's president, shared, "It's so encouraging to see wonderful Christian churches and organizations working together." He further emphasized the unique essence of the event, highlighting the unity it fosters across diverse communities.

"This is one of those events that you will never forget. This event will bring a message to the audience that Jesus is light and can shine on the whole world," added Dr. Herbert Tsang, President of Church Music Ministry of Canada.

Expressing his enthusiasm, Phil Vanderveen, Pastor at Peace Portal Alliance Church, said, "What a privilege to join Stephanie in the Choir. This is a unique event for Vancouver, where we have the opportunity for many of us from different people groups and language groups to join together to support a mission dear to so many of our hearts, the Union Gospel Mission."

Tickets for the concert are free and can be booked online at the ticket store. Join the Vancouver Zion Mission Choir for an unforgettable evening of music, unity, and spiritual inspiration as they lead you "From Darkness into the Light" at the prestigious Orpheum Theatre.

About the Chung Family, Coram Deo, and the Vancouver Zion Mission Choir

Drs. Peter and Stephanie Chung, a prominent Vancouver family, care about providing for underserved communities through education and charity work. Through their registered Canadian charity organization, Coram Deo, they consistently offer humanitarian aid, education, and funding to make a positive and lasting impact in their communities.

With origins in South Korea, the Vancouver Zion Mission Choir has been singing for the past 40 years in support of many local and global charitable organizations, raising funds for pressing humanitarian needs.
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of The Boeing Company (Boeing or the Company) (NYSE: BA). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at newaction@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.



The investigation concerns whether Boeing 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 August 23, 2023, Spirit Aerosystems Holdings, Inc. (Spirit Aerosystems), a key supplier of components for Boeing aircraft, issued a press release acknowledging a quality issue involving elongated fastener holes on the aft pressure bulkhead on certain models of the 737 fuselage produced by Spirit AeroSystems. Spirit Aerosystems stated that it has implemented changes to its manufacturing process to address this issue and is working closely with [Boeing] to address any impacted units within the production system and address any needed rework.

On this news, Boeings stock price fell $11.27 per share, or 4.93% percent, to close at $217.31 on August 24, 2023.

Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered billions of dollars in damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com .

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

888-476-6529 ext. 7980




 Shareholders overwhelmingly vote in favour of Cybins acquisition of Small Pharma, supporting the combined companys vision to build an international clinical-stage leader in psychedelic-based therapeutics



LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Small Pharma Inc. (TSXV: DMT) (OTCQB: DMTTF) (the Company or Small Pharma), a biotechnology company focused on short-duration psychedelic-assisted therapies for mental health conditions today published its financial results for the fiscal second quarter ended August 31, 2023. A complete copy of the results and the corresponding managements discussion and analysis can be found under the Companys profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca . Unless otherwise indicated, all currency references are in Canadian dollars.

Financial Highlights (including post-period events):

Cash on hand as of August 31, 2023 was approximately $7.7 million.

Cash used in operating activities was $5.6 million for the three months ended August 31, 2023.

Operating expenses for the three months ended August 31, 2023 were $6.1 million.



Recent Business Highlights:

Shareholders Overwhelmingly Vote In Favour Of Cybins Acquisition of Small Pharma

On August 28, 2023 Small Pharma and Cybin Inc. (Cybin) entered into a definitive arrangement agreement pursuant to which Cybin has agreed to acquire all of Small Pharmas issued and outstanding securities in an all-share transaction pursuant to a plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) (the Arrangement). On October 12, 2023, holders (Small Pharma Shareholders) of common shares in the capital of Small Pharma (Small Pharma Shares) and holders of common shares in the capital of Cybin (Cybin Shareholders) each separately overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Arrangement. Under the terms of the Arrangement, Small Pharma Shareholders will receive 0.2409 of a common share in the capital of Cybin for each Small Pharma Share held.

On October 17, 2023, the Company obtained a final order from the British Columbia Supreme Court in connection with the Arrangement (the Final Order).

For additional information on the mechanics of the Arrangement, including the treatment of holders of options exercisable into Small Pharma Shares, please refer to the Companys management information circular dated September 13, 2023, as well as the Companys press releases dated August 28, 2023, October 12, 2023 and October 17, 2023. Subject to the satisfaction or waiver of other closing conditions, including the final acceptance of the TSXV, the effective date for the Arrangement is expected to occur on or about October 23, 2023.

The combined company will be led by Cybins Chief Executive Officer Doug Drysdale, who brings over 30 years of experience in the healthcare sector. Small Pharmas Chief Executive Officer, George Tziras will join the board of directors of Cybin. Certain members of Small Pharma senior management and staff will be integrated with the existing Cybin team to create a highly experienced and skilled team that is well-positioned to execute the strategy of the combined pipeline.

Together, the combination of Cybin and Small Pharma is expected to create:

An international, clinical-stage leader with two proprietary, advanced clinical-stage psychedelic programs in development, targeting mental health conditions with significant unmet need.

with two proprietary, advanced clinical-stage psychedelic programs in development, targeting mental health conditions with significant unmet need. The industrys most advanced, well-protected N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) program with the largest combined dataset of systematic research on native and modified DMT compounds, strengthening the combined companys ability to make data-driven decisions regarding the DMT programs development path.

with the largest combined dataset of systematic research on native and modified DMT compounds, strengthening the combined companys ability to make data-driven decisions regarding the DMT programs development path. A compelling intellectual property (IP) portfolio in the psychedelic drug development sector with a strong ability for the combined company to protect its next-generation novel compounds.

with a strong ability for the combined company to protect its next-generation novel compounds. Strong synergies through the combination of key assets, personnel, capabilities and IP, as well as access to world-leading scientific and clinical collaborators.

Research & Development

When appropriate following completion of the Arrangement, and in consultation with management of Cybin, the combined company will provide an update to the Cybin Shareholders, including the former Small Pharma Shareholders, on progress regarding the Companys clinical programs and assets in development.

George Tziras, CEO of Small Pharma, said: Over the past eight years, we have made exceptional progress, and I am incredibly proud of each team member who has worked so hard to achieve each pivotal milestone to date. We are excited to enter the next stage of the companys evolution, as we combine our efforts and journey with Cybin.

About Small Pharma

Small Pharma is a biotechnology company progressing a pipeline of short-duration psychedelic-assisted therapies for the treatment of mental health conditions. Small Pharma has a portfolio of clinical-stage DMT-based assets, SPL026 and SPL028. The Company was granted an Innovation Passport designation for SPL026 from the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA) and has a pipeline of proprietary preclinical assets.

Contact Information:

Small Pharma Inc.

George Tziras, Chief Executive Officer

Email: ir@smallpharma.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)7456 915 968

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements that constitute forward-looking information (forward-looking information) within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking information and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that discusses 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 information. Forward-looking statements in this news release include statements regarding completion of the Arrangement and the satisfaction or waiver of all closing conditions; the timing for completion of the Arrangement; the impact on, and expectations of, the combined company following completion of the Arrangement, including assessments regarding ongoing programs; the integration of certain members of Small Pharma senior management and staff within the combined company; and the Companys ability to provide short-duration psychedelic-assisted therapies for the treatment of mental health conditions.

In disclosing the forward-looking information contained in this press release, the Company has made certain assumptions. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking information are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations of any forward-looking information will prove to be correct. 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 information. Such factors include, but are not limited to: the ability of Small Pharma and Cybin to obtain all necessary regulatory approvals or satisfy conditions to the completion of the Arrangement; general business, compliance with extensive government regulations; domestic and foreign laws and regulations adversely affecting the Companys business and results of operations; the impact of pandemics or other future disruptions; and general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties, and other factors discussed in each of Small Pharmas and Cybins public filings, which are available on their respective profiles on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca . Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information contained in this press release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward-looking information or otherwise.

Small Pharma makes no medical, treatment or health benefit claims about its proposed products. The MHRA or other similar regulatory authorities have not evaluated claims regarding DMT-assisted therapies and other next generation psychoactive compounds. The efficacy of such therapies has not been confirmed by MHRA-approved research. There is no assurance that such DMT-assisted therapies and other psychoactive compounds can diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition. Vigorous scientific research and clinical trials are needed. Any references to quality, consistency, efficacy and safety of potential therapies do not imply that Small Pharma verified such in clinical trials or that Small Pharma will complete such trials. If Small Pharma cannot obtain the approvals or research necessary to commercialize its business, it may have a material adverse effect on Small Pharmas performance and operations.

The TSXV has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. 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.
TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW), along with all the WIZO (Womens International Zionist Organization) global federations and affiliates, call for the immediate release of Israelis and other foreign nationals held captive by the terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza.



The inhumane slaughtering and kidnapping of hundreds of babies, children, women, men, the disabled, and the elderly is not only a clear violation of international law, but a crime against humanity as well.

CHW is calling on their partners, affiliates, and supporters to contact local government leaders and anyone of influence in your community and country to call for the immediate release of hostages.

As we watch the horrific images on social media, news outlets, and hear stories from our Israeli friends and families, like us, Im sure youre feeling hopeless and frightened. We all pray for the safety of Israel, its citizens, and the safe and unharmed return of the hundreds of hostages being held in Gaza. CHW stands in solidarity with Israel now and always, said Lisa Colt-Kotler, CHW CEO.

We must take immediate action and do everything in our power to put an end to these atrocities. Everything changed on October 7, and now we are all heartbroken by all the news. We all know someone who has been murdered or who is missing or are watching family and friends stricken by grief, said Lynn Gillman, CHW National President.

Among those being held captive are women and young girls who have been sexually violated and others who have been injured, some of them critically, as well as babies and the elderly, who need urgent medical attention and lifesaving medicines.
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of FMC Corporation (FMC or the Company) (NYSE: FMC). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at newaction@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.



The investigation concerns whether FMC 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 10, 2023, before the market opened, FMC, despite raising its full-year revenue guidance in May 2023, announced that it was cutting its revenue for the second quarter and the 2023 fiscal year. FMC announced that the revised guidance is driven by substantially lower-than-expected volumes due to an abrupt and significant reduction in inventory by channel partners, which only became evident towards the end of May and continued through the remainder of the quarter[.]

On this news, FMCs stock price fell $11.62 per share, or 11.14%, to close at $92.63 per share on July 10, 2023.

Then, on September 7, 2023, Blue Orca published a short report on FMC, alleging that FMC has concealed from investors that it has suffered a recent string of stunning legal defeats around the globe that have enabled competitors to now launch competing generics at prices up to 80% below the price of FMCs flagship insecticide product and that [c]ontrary to the Companys claims, FMCs process patents to not protect its flagship product from generic competition.

On this news, FMCs stock price fell $6.09 per share, or 7.41%, to close at $76.10 on September 7, 2023.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris 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, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm 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.pomerantzlaw.com .

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

888-476-6529 ext. 7980
CALGARY, Alberta, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canacol Energy Ltd. ("Canacol" or the "Corporation") (TSX:CNE; OTCQX:CNNEF; BVC:CNEC) announces that the long term take or pay gas sales contract with Empresas Publicas de Medellin E.S.P. (EPM), previously scheduled to commence deliveries on December 1, 2024 (the Project) has been terminated by the Corporation. As of the time of termination the Project was still in the process of obtaining the environmental license required for the building of the pipeline to deliver contracted gas from the Corporations Jobo gas processing plant to the city of Medellin. This process was initially expected to have been completed by July of 2023. Although this delay was not by itself sufficient to jeopardize the timely execution of the Project or the gas sales contract, it has been part of a pattern of ever increasing legal, social, and security obstacles that have arisen in the past months that have led the Corporation to reevaluate the likely future and priority placed on this Project. Senior Management will hold a Conference Call to discuss the cancellation of the EPM contract and strategic entrance into Bolivia on Friday, October 20, 2023, at 6:30 a.m. MST / 8:30 a.m. EST.



As a result of careful review of 1) the legal, social and security circumstances, 2) dynamics within the Colombian gas market, and 3) the Corporations decision to invest in its natural gas exploration programs in the Middle Magdalena Basin and in Bolivia, the Corporation considers it prudent to cancel the Jobo to Medellin pipeline Project. As such the Corporation has advised EPM of its intention to terminate the contract with immediate effect. During 2023 the Corporation spent approximately $ 6 million on the Jobo to Medellin project. Cancellation of the BOOM contract with SETCO will not incur any penalty to Canacol.

As a result of the termination of the Project, the Corporation plans to 1) reduce capital spending in the Lower Magdalena Basin (LMV) starting in 2024 as volumes planned to be sent to Medellin starting in December 2024 for 12 years will no longer be necessary, 2) expend future capital in the LMV to target full use of existing transportation infrastructure, 3) drill the high impact Pola 1 gas exploration well in the Middle Magdalena Basin in the second quarter of 2024 on the Corporations 100% working interest operated VMM45 Exploration and Production (E&P) Contract which, if successful, could be commercialized into the interior market (Bogota, Medellin and Cali) via the existing Transportadora de Gas Internacional (TGI) gas pipeline located 10 kilometers to the east of the Pola location, and 4) use excess capital originating from a reduced LMV capital program to reduce debt.

Strategic Entrance into Bolivia

Charle Gamba, President and CEO of the Canacol, stated, The Corporation has made a strategic entrance into Bolivia with the execution of three Exploration and Production (E&P) contracts with Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), the Bolivian state oil and gas company. The Corporation has placed initial guarantees for a total of US$ 1.4 million. Were also in the process of seeking government approval for the award of a fourth E&P contract. Bolivias gas production has been declining over recent years, and these agreements, executed with the participation of YPFB, are part of the Bolivian governments efforts to attract investment to increase gas reserves and production. The four E&P contracts expose Canacol to both low-risk mature gas field redevelopments as well as significant gas exploration potential in the largest gas producing basin of Bolivia with a modest capital commitment over 5 years of approximately US$ 27 million of investment. Gas from these contracts can be rapidly commercialized given success as they are strategically located along the main gas pipeline routes with export to Brazil. We anticipate commencing investment and operations in Bolivia in 2024.

The conference call may be accessed by dial in or via webcast:

Pre-register for the Conference Call: https://dpregister.com/sreg/10183821/fadd872535

Dial In Toll Free: 1-844-784-1724

Participant International Dial In: 1-412-317-6716

Canada Toll Free: 1-866-450-4696

Colombia Toll Free: 01800-9-156803

UK Toll Free: 08082389064

Webcast link: https://event.choruscall.com/mediaframe/webcast.html?webcastid=sD356Te0

All remarks made during the conference call will be current at the time of the call and may not be updated to reflect subsequent material developments.

About Canacol

Canacol is a natural gas exploration and production company with operations focused in Colombia. The Corporation's common stock trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the OTCQX in the United States of America, and the Colombia Stock Exchange under ticker symbol CNE, CNNEF, and CNEC, respectively.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur, including without limitation statements relating to estimated production rates from the Corporation's properties and intended work programs and associated timelines. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. The Corporation cannot assure that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. They are made as of the date hereof and are subject to change and the Corporation assumes no obligation to revise or update them to reflect new circumstances, except as required by law. Prospective investors should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements. These factors include the inherent risks involved in the exploration for and development of crude oil and natural gas properties, the uncertainties involved in interpreting drilling results and other geological and geophysical data, fluctuating energy prices, the possibility of cost overruns or unanticipated costs or delays and other uncertainties associated with the oil and gas industry. Other risk factors could include risks associated with negotiating with foreign governments as well as country risk associated with conducting international activities, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Corporation.

Realized contractual gas sales is defined as gas produced and sold plus gas revenues received from nominated take or pay contracts.
TORONTO, Oct. 18, 2023 - BWR Exploration Inc. (TSX.V: BWR) ("BWR" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Jean-David Moore as an Advisor to the Company.



Mr. Jean-David ("JD") Moore has participated in many of BWR's private placements over the past six years, accruing a significant interest in shares of the Company. Over the past few decades, JD as a savvy investor, has developed a resource focused network in the exploration sector through his numerous investments. Mr. Moore is a director of Vanstar Mining Resources Inc., Fokus Mining Corporation and Green Canada Corporation, and is also an Advisor for Puma Exploration Inc. and DIOS Exploration Inc.

Mr. Moore earned an undergraduate degree in Forestry Engineering, followed by a Master's degree from Laval University in Quebec. He is a member of the Order of Forest Engineers of the Province of Quebec (OIFQ). As a forestry scientist, he has published more than 70 scientific publications in international journals. JD's field work as a forestry scientist introduced him to the mineral exploration industry, his research work delved into sensitive environments in the boreal zone in northern Quebec's Abitibi region. JD's knowledge of boreal zone biomes is very apropos to the environmental monitoring program that will be forming part of BWR's go forward plans for eco-friendly exploration at its projects.

Mr. Moore stated: "I'm very happy to join BWR's team as an advisor. Over the past several years, I have closely observed and supported BWR management as they progressed through a lengthy consultation and engagement process that was essential in order to move the Little Stull Lake gold exploration project forward."

BWR further announces that Robert Suttie has replaced Victor Hugo as its Chief Financial Officer.

Robert Suttie offers more than twenty-five years of experience, ten of which were in public accounting prior to his tenure with the financial reporting group, Marrelli Support Services Inc., where he currently serves as President. Mr. Suttie received his B.A. from the University of Western Ontario. Rob specializes in management advisory services; accounting and the financial disclosure needs of the Marrelli Group's publicly traded client base. Robert also serves as Chief Financial Officer to several junior mining companies listed on the TSX, TSX Venture exchanges, CSE, as well as non-listed companies. Robert leverages his skills and experience to become integral to reporting issuers in Canada.

Mr. Suttie succeeds Victor Hugo, who has served as the company's CFO since January 2019. "It has been a real pleasure to work with Vic over the last four years" said BWR's President Neil Novak. "Vic's guidance and support has been invaluable, we wish Vic all the best in his future endeavors, and I'd also like to welcome Robert Suttie to BWR's management team. Robert has many years of experience with public companies in a wide variety of industries. Robert, through Marrelli Support Services provides cost effective financial services that are ideal for BWR."

Grant of Stock Options

In addition, effective October 16, 2023, 2,050,000 incentive stock options were granted to the Officers, Directors, and Consultants of the Company at an exercise price of $0.05 per common share pursuant to the Company's stock option plan and any regulatory approval that may be required. The options are fully vested and expire five years from date of grant.

BWR Exploration Inc. is a public company focused on exploring for base and precious metals, with its flagship Little Stull Lake Gold Project in NE Manitoba along with other exploration projects in Northern Ontario, and Northern Quebec, Canada. Management of BWR includes an accomplished group of exploration/mining specialists with many decades of operational experience in the junior resource sector in Canada and abroad. There are 106,010,461 shares currently issued.

Neither the Toronto 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 about BWR please visit our website:

http://www.bwrexploration.com or call/email:

Neil Novak, P.Geo., President, CEO & Director, BWR Exploration Inc.

82 Richmond St. E Toronto, ON

M5C 1P1 Office: Office:416-848-6866

nnovak@bwrexploration.com

For additional information please contact:

Carl Desjardins, Paradox Investor Services Inc.

Office: 514-341-0408

carldesjardins@paradox-pr.ca
Toronto, October 18, 2023 - IAMGold Corp. (NYSE: IAG) (TSX: IMG) ("IAMGOLD" or the "Company") plans to release its third quarter 2023 operating and financial results after market hours on Thursday, November 9, 2023. Senior management will host a conference call to discuss the operating performance and financial results on Friday, November 10, 2023, at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Listeners may access the conference call via webcast or through the following options:

Pre-register via: Chorus Call IAMGOLD Q3 Registration

Toll free (North America): 1 (800) 319-4610

International: +1 (604) 638-5340

Webcast: www.iamgold.com

An online archive of the webcast will be available by accessing the Company's website at www.iamgold.com. A telephone replay will be available for one month following the call by dialing toll free 1 (800) 319-6413 within North America or +1 (604) 638-9010 from international locations and entering the passcode: 0518.

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

This entire news release may be accessed via fax, e-mail, IAMGOLD's website at www.iamgold.com and through Newsfile's website at www.newsfilecorp.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/184475
Vancouver, October 18, 2023 - Chakana Copper Corp. (TSXV: PERU) (FSE: 1ZX) (the "Company" or "Chakana") is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement of up to 55,000,000 units of the Company ("Units") at a price of C$0.04 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to C$2.2 million (the "Private Placement").

Each Unit will consist of one common share in the capital of the Company (each, a "Share") and one common share purchase warrant ("Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional Share at a price of $0.06 per Share for a period of two years from closing of the Private Placement. The Company may accelerate the expiry of the Warrants in the event that for any ten consecutive trading days the closing price of the Shares is greater than $0.09.

Pursuant to an agreement between the Company and Gold Fields Nazca Holdings Inc. ("Gold Fields"), a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Gold Fields Limited (see news release dated April 19, 2019), Gold Fields has informed the Company that it intends to participate in the financing. Gold Fields currently owns 17.4% of the outstanding shares in the Company and intends to move to 19.9% during the financing.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Private Placement for exploration drilling and development of the Company's high-grade copper-gold-silver discovery at the Soledad Project, located in the Ancash region of Peru, and for general working capital and administrative purposes. On June 28, 2023 the Company received final approval to drill numerous targets on the southern-half of the Soledad project (see news release dated July 5, 2023), including the Mega-Gold porphyry target, the La Joya high-sulfidation epithermal target, and additional high-grade outcropping tourmaline breccia pipes.

The Soledad project is an emerging copper-gold-silver discovery in the active Aija-Ticapampa mining district. An initial Inferred Resource (MRE) of 191,000 ounces of gold, 11.7 million ounces of silver, and 130 million pounds of copper hosted in tourmaline breccia pipes and open at depth was published in Q1 2022 (see news releases dated January 11 and February 23, 2022) contained within 4.8 million tonnes grading 0.72 g/t gold, 61 g/t silver and 0.97% copper assumed to be extractable by underground mining methods, plus an additional Inferred Resource of 1.9 million tonnes grading 1.29 g/t gold, 37.1 g/t silver and 0.65% copper assumed to be extractable by open pit mining methods. The currently-defined resource reflects only a small portion of the potential of the Soledad mineral system as the tourmaline breccias are just one of several mineralization styles related to a major intrusive center at Soledad that are subject to ongoing exploration.

Chakana may pay finder's fees on some portion of the gross proceeds of the Private Placement to certain arms-length parties who assist the Company in introducing subscribers to the Private Placement. The Private Placement is subject to all necessary regulatory approvals, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Members of the Company's management team may participate in the Private Placement including subscriptions from related parties of the Company as defined in Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The participation of management in the Private Placement is exempt from formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements pursuant to exemptions contained in sections 5.5(c) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

About Chakana Copper Corp

Chakana Copper Corp. is a Canadian-based minerals exploration company that is currently advancing the Soledad Project located in the Ancash region of Peru, a highly favorable mining jurisdiction with supportive communities. The Soledad Project is notable for the high-grade copper-gold-silver mineralization that is hosted in tourmaline breccia pipes and other intrusion-related styles of mineralization. An initial inferred resource estimate for seven breccia pipes was announced in January, 2022 (see news release dated February 23, 2022), with 6.73 Mt containing 191,000 ounces of gold, 11.7 million ounces of silver, and 130 million pounds of copper. In addition, extensive multidisciplinary exploration has defined 154 exploration targets, 28 of which have been tested to date (18%), confirming that Soledad is a large, well-endowed mineral system with strong exploration upside. Chakana's investors are uniquely positioned as the Soledad Project provides exposure to base and precious metals. For more information on the Soledad project, please visit the website at www.chakanacopper.com.

Qualified Person

David Kelley, an officer, and a director of Chakana, and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, reviewed and approved the technical information in this news release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

(signed) "David Kelley"

David Kelley

President and CEO

For further information contact:

Investor Relations: Info

Email: info@chakanacopper.com

Telephone: 720-233-2166

Neither 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 release.

Forward-looking Statement Advisory: This release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the use of proceeds and completion of the Private Placement. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of Chakana to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements or information relates to, among other things, the interpretation of the nature of the mineralization at the Soledad copper-gold-silver project (the "Project"), the potential to expand the mineralization, and to develop and grow a resource within the Project, the planning for further exploration work, the ability to de-risk the potential exploration targets, and our belief in the potential for mineralization within unexplored parts of the Project. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs but given the uncertainties, assumptions and risks, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements or information. The Company disclaims any obligation to update, or to publicly announce, any such statements, events or developments except as required by law.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS WIRE SERVICES

OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184484
TORONTO, Oct. 18, 2023 - Canadian North Resources Inc. ("the Company," TSXV: CNRI; OTCQX: CNRSF; FSE: EO0 (E-O-zero)) announces that the Company has engaged Outside The Box Capital Inc. ("OTB") to perform market awareness and marketing services for an initial term of six months. The nature of the services to be provided by OTB include, but are not limited to, marketing services to communicate to the financial community information about the Company.



In addition to a fee of $103,400, plus applicable taxes, the Company has granted OTB an option to purchase an aggregate total of 32,825 Common Shares of the Company at an exercise price of $3.15 per share, which option shall be for a period of a 12 months and shall vest and be exercisable in four equal tranches, quarterly over a twelve (12) month period. Except for the foregoing option, OTB is not related to the Company and has no interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company or its securities.

OTB is a marketing services firm headquartered in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, that has been in business for 3 years.

About Canadian North Resources

Canadian North Resources Inc. is an exploration and development company focusing on the critical metals for the clean-energy, electric vehicles, battery and high-tech industries. The company is advancing its 100% owned Ferguson Lake nickel, copper, cobalt, palladium, and platinum project that covers an area of 253.8 km2 of mining leases (96.9 km2) and surrounding exploration claims (156.9 km2) in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut, Canada.

The Ferguson Lake mining property contains substantial resources in compliance with NI43-101 standards, which include Indicated Mineral Resources of 24.3 million tonnes containing 455 million pounds (Mlb) copper at 0.85%, 321Mlb nickel at 0.60%, 37.5Mlb cobalt at 0.07%, 1.08 million ounces (Moz) palladium at 1.38gpt and 0.18Moz platinum at 0.23gpt; Inferred Mineral Resources of 47.2 million tonnes containing 947Mlb copper at 0.91%, 551.5Mlb nickel at 0.53%, 62.4Mlb cobalt at 0.06%, 2.12Moz palladium at 1.4gpt and 0.38Moz platinum at 0.25gpt. The resource model indicates significant potential for resource expansion along strike and at depth over the 15 km long mineralized belt. (Refer to "Independent Technical Report, Updated Mineral Resource Estimate, Ferguson Lake Project, Nunavut, Canada, Prepared by Ronacher McKenzie Geoscience Inc. and Francis Minerals Ltd " filed by the Company to Sedar.com on July 13, 2022). In addition, the Company has identified the pegmatites with lithium potential at the Ferguson Lake project.

Sophy Cesar, Corporate Development

Phone: 905-696-8288 (Canada) 1-888-688-8809 (Toll-Free)

Email: info@cnresources.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this news release, including statements which may contain words such as "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "estimates", or similar expressions, and statements related to matters which are not historical facts, are forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements, which reflect management's expectations regarding the Company's future growth, results of operations, performance, business prospects and opportunities, are based on certain factors and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this news release and the documents incorporated by reference herein are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct. In addition, although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company undertakes no obligation to release publicly any future revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this news or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as expressly required by law.
VANCOUVER, Oct. 18, 2023 - Western Copper and Gold Corp. ("Western" or the "Company") (TSX: WRN) (NYSE American: WRN) today announced the departure of Ken Engquist, Chief Operating Officer, effective October 18, 2023. His responsibilities will be assigned to other members of the management team.

"I would like to thank Ken for his contributions to the Company and wish him well in his future endeavors," said Paul West-Sells, President and CEO.

ABOUT WESTERN COPPER AND GOLD CORPORATION

Western Copper and Gold Corp. is developing the Casino Project, Canada's premier copper-gold mine in the Yukon Territory and one of the most economic greenfield copper-gold mining projects in the world.

The Company is committed to working collaboratively with our First Nations and local communities to progress the Casino project, using internationally recognized responsible mining technologies and practices.

For more information, visit www.westerncopperandgold.com

On behalf of the board,

"Paul West-Sells"

Dr. Paul West-Sells

President and CEO

Western Copper and Gold Corp.

Cautionary Disclaimer Regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Information

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements concerning anticipated developments in Western's operations in future periods. Statements that are not historical fact are "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and "forward-looking information" as that term is defined in National Instrument 51-102 ("NI 51-102") of the Canadian Securities Administrators (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). Certain forward-looking information should also be considered future-oriented financial information ("FOFI") as that term is defined in NI 51-102. The purpose of disclosing FOFI is to provide a general overview of management's expectations regarding the anticipated results of operations and capital expenditures and readers are cautioned that FOFI may not be appropriate for other purposes. 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. These forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements regarding: mineral resource and reserve estimation; mine plan and operations; internal rate of return; sensitivities; net present value; potential recoveries; design parameters; economic potential; processing mineralized material; the potential of robust economics at Casino; advancing the Project through additional engineering and towards the next step in permitting and submission of an environmental and socio-economic effects statement; key changes to the TMF design; increases to the gold recovery in the heap leach; potential economic returns from the Project; estimated initial capital investment costs; estimated operating costs; estimated mining costs; development of the airstrip and all weather access road; anticipated concentrate handling service charges; developing and operating the Project in a safe, ethical and socially-responsible manner; plans for further development and securing the required permits and licenses for further studies to consider operation; market price of precious and base metals; or other statements that are not statement of fact. The material factors or assumptions used to develop forward-looking statements include prevailing and projected market prices and foreign exchange rates, exploration estimates and results, continued availability of capital and financing, construction and operations, the Company not experiencing unforeseen delays, unexpected geological or other effects, equipment failures, permitting delays, and general economic, market or business conditions and as more specifically disclosed throughout this document, and in the AIF and Form 40-F.

Forward-looking statements are statements about the future and are inherently uncertain, and actual results, performance or achievements of Western and its subsidiaries may differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors. Such risks and other factors include, among others, risks involved in fluctuations in gold, copper and other commodity prices and currency exchange rates; uncertainties relating to interpretation of drill results and the geology, continuity and grade of mineral deposits; uncertainty of estimates of capital and operating costs, recovery rates, production estimates and estimated economic return; risks related to joint venture operations; risks related to cooperation of government agencies and First Nations in the development of the property and the issuance of required permits; risks related to the need to obtain additional financing to develop the property and uncertainty as to the availability and terms of future financing; the possibility of delay in construction projects and uncertainty of meeting anticipated program milestones; uncertainty as to timely availability of permits and other governmental approvals; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in Western's AIF and Form 40-F, and other information released by Western and filed with the applicable regulatory agencies.

Western's forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, expectations and opinions of management on the date the statements are made, and Western does not assume, and 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. For the reasons set forth above, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Western Copper and Gold Corp.
Vancouver, October 19, 2023 - Recharge Resources Ltd. ("Recharge" or the "Company") (RR:CSE) (RECHF:OTC) (SL50:Frankfurt) has completed an initial reconnaissance prospecting program at its 100% owned Georgia Lake North Lithium Project in the Thunder Bay Mining Division, Ontario. The work was completed as a follow-up to the airborne magnetic survey completed in Q4 2022.

The reconnaissance program was conducted in late August and September. The program consisted of ground truthing and prospecting of several areas that were selected from reviewing the airborne magnetic data, as well as a till sampling program to further evaluate the Project for its lithium potential. The company is currently awaiting the results from the samples collected during the visit.



Click Image To View Full Size

Figure 1. Imagery from reconnaissance site visit August 2023 (Georgia Lake North Property)

The 671.5 ha Project, comprised of the Georgia Lake West and Georgia Lake North Properties, is contiguous to Rock Tech Lithium Inc.'s (RCK-V) ("Rock Tech") Georgia Lake Lithium Property and located approximately 160 km northeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario, within the Thunder Bay Mining Division.



Click Image To View Full Size

Figure 2. Grab sample taken from quartz vein hosted in metasediments.

On October 20th, 2022, Mercedes-Benz (MBGn.DE) signed a supply agreement with Canadian-German Rock Tech to receive an average of 10,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium hydroxide per year. The deal, which comes shortly after the two groups said they would explore a strategic partnership, has a value over five years of 1.5 billion euros (US$1.47 billion) and will provide enough lithium hydroxide for 150,000 cars a year, the companies said.

CEO, David Greenway, stated, "We are making progress on all fronts across our portfolio of lithium projects including drilling and a resource estimate pending at the Pocitos 1 Lithium brine project in Argentina, and pending results from our first ground reconnaissance visit to the Georgia Lake lithium project," Greenway concluded.

Qualified Person

Joerg Kleinboeck, P.Geo (JMK Exploration Consulting) has reviewed the technical information that forms the basis for portions of this news release and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Kleinboeck is independent of the Company and is a qualified person as defined under National Instrument 43-101.

Georgia Lake North & West - Lithium Properties - Ontario

The Georgia Lake North and West Properties are located approximately 160 km northeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario, within the Thunder Bay Mining Division. Recharge's property is contiguous to the North and West boundaries of Rock Tech Lithium's Georgia Lake Lithium Property. The Georgia Lake West Property consists of a single multi-cell claim that covers an area of approximately 251.9 ha, and the Georgia Lake North Property consists of a single multi-cell claim that covers an area of approximately 419.6 ha.



Click Image To View Full Size

Figure 3. Area Map with Project Location

The Rock Tech Lithium Georgia Lake Project is host to several spodumene-bearing pegmatite dykes. Lithium mineralization was discovered in 1955 and subsequently explored by several historic owners. Rock Tech's property hosts an NI 43-101 Mineral Resource, as reported in Rock Tech's Preliminary Economic Assessment filed on Rock Tech's SEDAR profile, with an effective date of March 15, 2021. The Mineral Resource is summarized in the following table:





Recharge's management cautions that past results or discoveries on properties in proximity to Recharge may not necessarily be indicative of the presence of mineralization on the Company's properties.

About Recharge Resources

Recharge Resources is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on exploring and developing the production of high-value battery metals to create green, renewable energy to meet the demands of the advancing electric vehicle and fuel cell vehicle market.

All Stakeholders are encouraged to follow the Company on its social media profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors,

"David Greenway"

David Greenway, CEO

For further information, please contact:

Recharge Resources Ltd.

Joel Warawa

Phone: 778-588-5473

E-Mail: info@recharge-resources.com

Website: recharge-resources.com

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which reflect the expectations of management regarding Recharge's intention to continue to identify potential transactions and make certain corporate changes and applications. Forward looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the statements. No assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will occur or, if they do occur, what benefits Recharge will obtain from them. These forward-looking statements reflect managements' current views and are based on certain expectations, estimates and assumptions which may prove to be incorrect. A number of risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including Recharge's results of exploration or review of properties that Recharge does acquire. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and Recharge assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results differed from those projected in the forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Copyright (c) 2023 TheNewswire - All rights reserved.
VANCOUVER, Oct. 19, 2023 - United Lithium Corp. (CSE: ULTH; OTC: ULTHF; FWB: 0ULA) ("United" or the "Company") is pleased to announce results of drilling from the Kietyonmaki Project ("Kietyonmaki" or the "Project"), in Finland. The Company completed approximately 1,450 metres ("m") of diamond drilling targeting the lithium-mineralized Main Dyke. Drill-confirmed to be more than 200 m long, up to 25 m wide and extending to a depth of at least 160 m, the expansion of the Main Dyke remains open along strike to the southeast and at depth. The geology of the host rocks and pegmatite composition at Kietyonmaki are similar to that observed in the Kaustinen region of Finland, which hosts the Keliber Lithium Project, owned 85% by Sibanye-Stillwater Corp. The Keliber Project hosts 17 million tonnes at 1.02% Li 2 O according to its mineral resource estimate in its October 2022 Definitive Feasibility Study.1



Highlights

High-grade lithium oxide results include: 1.52% Li 2 O over 25.95 m from 33.70 m depth down hole in hole ULDH-3; and 1.45% Li 2 O over 29.50 m from 69.10 m depth down hole in ULDH-4.

This new drilling builds upon positive historical drill results from previous operators including: 1.53% Li 2 O over 23 m drilled by the Finnish Geological Survey ("GTK"); and 1.10% Li 2 O over 42 m by previous operator Sunstone Metals Ltd. ("Sunstone").

Drilling confirmed the extent of the Main Dyke to be greater than 200 m in length and extending to at least 160 m depth, while remaining open along strike to the southeast and open at depth;

Percussion drilling indicates that lithium-mineralized pegmatite is present as far as 230 m southeast of the Main Dyke outcrop;

Boulder sampling recovered lithium-bearing pegmatite samples ranging from 0.88% Li 2 O to 2.44% Li 2 O. Pegmatite intercepts from percussion drilling and these boulder samples are expected to be followed up in early 2024 exploration work to generate drill targets; and

O to 2.44% Li O. Pegmatite intercepts from percussion drilling and these boulder samples are expected to be followed up in early 2024 exploration work to generate drill targets; and Recently increased land package at Kietyonmaki to approximately 21,000 hectares ("ha").

Scott Eldridge, United's President, and CEO stated: "We are pleased to release United's maiden drill results in Finland. Previous operators had delivered encouraging results and we have now extended the known mineralized boundaries of the Main Dyke, which remains open. The Project has tremendous upside potential exhibited by high-grade lithium bearing boulders that are not yet explained. Of note, the Keliber Lithium Project was first discovered by identifying such boulders. The Kietyonmaki Project now has a district scale footprint with the recent addition of 20,000 hectares."

Drill Program Details

The 2022-2023 drilling program at Kietyonmaki comprised 13 diamond drill holes for a total of 1,449.40 m (refer to Table 1 for drill hole information), and the collection of 100 percussion drill hole samples completed between September 2022 and February 2023 (Figure 1). The diamond drilling aimed to complete both infill and expansion drilling on the Main Dyke, whereas the percussion drilling targeted discovery outside the Main Dyke. The drill program was successful in expanding the drill-confirmed length of the Main Dyke from 60 m to approximately 205 m and in confirming the depth of the body to at least 160 m depth below surface. Percussion drilling results highlight possible new pegmatites that warrant follow up drilling in 2024, with two occurrences located 100 m and 230 m southeast of the Main Dyke. The Main Dyke is spodumene and petalite bearing with some notable tin and tantalum mineralization with SnO 2 values up to 4,228 ppm and Ta 2 O 5 up to 691 ppm. Refer to Table 2 for diamond drilling results. Lithium-mineralization commonly continues beyond the margin of pegmatite intercepts into wall rock with values up to 0.59 % Li 2 O in host mica schists and metavolcanics. Please refer to Figure 2 for a three-dimensional view and a cross section view of diamond drilling and modeled pegmatite bodies. Select drill core photos are shown in Figure 3.

Prospecting and Further Work Plans

United contractors conducted field prospecting and sampling contemporaneously with, and post-drilling across the main Kietyonmaki tenure. A total of 44 surface samples were collected, and of these, 18 were outcrop pegmatite samples and 26 were boulder pegmatite samples (Figure 4). Three high-grade boulders samples returned values of 0.88% Li 2 O, 1.37% Li 2 O and 2.24% Li 2 O. Also, some notable tantalum and tin values were identified and all occurrences. These, combined with some historically identified pegmatites, warrant follow up in a potential spring 2024 exploration program. A potential 2024 program may involve geophysical surveying, further prospecting and a soil and till geochemical and indicator mineral sampling program. More details will be shared once program design is finalized.

Figure 1: Kietyonmaki Project location and location of drill holes completed to date.





Geology

The Kietyonmaki Project is situated within the Hame belt which comprises mainly amphibolites and mica schists intercalated with greywackes and metapelites of the Forssa Volcanic Suite (1.9-1.7 billion years old). The succession has been intruded by gabbros, diorites, granodiorites, tonalites and later by K-granites as well as pegmatites. Rocks in the region have been metamorphosed to lower amphibolite-facies conditions. The Kietyonmaki dyke swarm is composed of several near-vertical dipping spodumene (as spodumene-quartz intergrowths) and petalite-bearing pegmatite dykes, the largest being the Main Dyke. The Main Dyke has now been drill-defined to be up to 25 m wide and more than 200 m length and confirmed to extend to at least 160 m depth below surface. This dyke is hosted in an assemblage comprising mica schists, metavolcanics and amphibolite gneiss with rare feldspar porphyry intrusives. Mica schists are altered to chlorite and biotite and commonly contain altered (to chlorite) andalusite and more rarely garnet. There is variable till cover (up to 3 m) and boulder occurrences are present across the Project.

Kietyonmaki has similarities geologically to the Kaustinen region of Finland, which hosts the Keliber Lithium Project, owned 85% by Sibanye-Stillwater Corp. Keliber hosts an estimated 17 million tonnes at 1.02% Li 2 O in its mineral resource estimate, as disclosed in its October 2022 Definitive Feasibility Study.1 Keliber is currently under construction with a targeted 15,000 tonnes per annum battery grade LiOH production capacity.1

1Sibanye Stillwater corporate presentation on the Keliber Project, November 28, 2022.

Table 1: Kietyonmaki Project 2023 diamond drill hole summary





Table 2: Kietyonmaki Project 2023 diamond drill hole intercepts





Note: All intervals are core length and presented for all pegmatite intervals greater than 2 m. Some intercepts may include intervals of non-pegmatite (< 3m drilled width). Oxides are calculated from assayed results. All Li 2 O results are reported, and no lower cut-off grade has been used to report results.

For those intervals reported that are less than 2 m width, the significant tantalum or tin contents warranted reporting.

Figure 2: Oblique view and cross section of the Main Dyke with select drilling results









Figure 3: Kietyonmaki Project Diamond Drilling Core Photos





Drill hole ULDH-3 with pegmatite reporting 1.52% Li 2 O over 25.95 m from 33.70 m depth down hole.



Drill hole ULDH-4 with pegmatite reporting 1.45% Li 2 O over 29.50 m from 69.10 m depth down hole.

Figure 4: Kietyonmaki Project regional prospectivity showing the Main Dyke in relation to boulder and outcrop occurrences that are proposed to be followed up in 2024.





Work History

The Project was acquired in early 2022 (see news release dated February 14, 2022) via a transaction with a consortium to purchase 83.6% of the issued and outstanding share capital of the private entity Litiumloydos Oy, which holds a 100% interest in the licenses that comprise the Project. Following the completion of this transaction the Company expanded the Project by 535 ha (see news release dated September 14, 2022), increasing the total land package to 900 ha. In 2023, United acquired a claim reservation over a new parcel located 6.1 km to the southeast of Kietyonmaki, referred to as Salkola, covering 20,170 ha, bringing the total size of the Project to 21,070 ha.

The lithium-bearing pegmatites at Kietyonmaki were discovered in the mid-1980's by the GTK. Their work identified the pegmatite dyke swarm and provided an initial test of the largest body, (the Main Dyke) via 17 diamond drill holes (734 m), channel samples along nine profile lines and a ground magnetic survey. Diamond drilling was completed along three sections and was shallow, at no deeper than 70 m depth below surface. GTK drill-defined the Main Dyke to approximately 20 m width and approximately 50 m length, extending this to 120 m length with the addition of their channel sampling results. Some notable drilling results include 1.31% Li 2 O over 24.25 m from 58.75 m depth down hole (hole R310); 1.66% Li 2 O over 13 m from 86.00 m depth down hole (hole R316); and 1.53% Li 2 O over 23 m from 14.10 m depth down hole (hole R307).

In 2016, previous operator Sunstone Metals completed six diamond drill holes (1,172 m total) which further tested the Main Dyke along the same section lines that GTK had drilled (infill drilling). The most significant intersection was 1.10% Li 2 O over 42 m from 17.88 m depth down hole (hole KMDD001).

Quality Assurance and Quality Control

Core drilling was completed using a GM200 rig, drilling NQ-diameter core by Mitta Oy of Oulu, Finland. Diamond drilling samples were logged, photographed and samples selected for analyses were cut in half before being labeled and securely shipped to ALS Scandinavia AB ("ALS") in Pitea, Sweden for preparation. Once prepared, samples were securely shipped by ALS to their laboratory in Loughrea, Ireland for analysis. Samples were analysed by the ME-MS81 method (lithium borate fusion followed by ICP-MS) and ME-4ACD81 (base metals by four acid digestion). 28 of the samples were re-assayed by method ME-MS89L (super trace sodium peroxide fusion followed by ICP-MS) to ensure high values of lithium were captured, as ME-MS81 has an upper limit of 10,000 ppm for lithium. Standards and blanks were inserted into the sample stream at regular intervals (10 blanks, 13 standards out of 169 total assays). After preparation, 17 duplicate samples were sent by ALS to CRS Laboratories in Kempele, Finland for QAQC checking. Percussion drilling was completed using a GM1000 rig also by Mitta Oy. Samples were described and those that intersected pegmatite were sent for preparation to ALS in Pitea. Once prepared pulps were securely shipped by ALS to their laboratory in Loughrea, Ireland for analysis by the ME-MS89L method. Surface rock samples were described in detail after collection, site locations were recorded and samples were sent to ALS Scandinavia AB in Pitea, Sweden, with final pulps produced at ALS in Rosia Montana, Romania. Once prepared, pulps were securely shipped by ALS to their laboratory in Loughrea, Ireland for analysis by method ME-MS89L.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical data contained in this news release was reviewed and approved by Cathy Fitzgerald, M.Sc., P.Geo., United's Executive Vice President, Exploration and Director. Ms. Fitzgerald is a registered professional geologist in British Columbia and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Minerals Projects. Ms. Fitzgerald is not independent of the Company.

On Behalf of The Board of Directors

"Scott Eldridge"

President, Chief Executive Officer and Director

About United Lithium Corp.

United Lithium Corp. (CSE: ULTH) is an exploration & development company energized by the global demand for lithium. The Company is targeting lithium projects in politically safe jurisdictions with advanced infrastructure that allows for rapid and cost-effective exploration, development, and production opportunities.

The Company's consolidated financial statements and related management's discussion and analysis are available on the Company's website at https://unitedlithium.com/ or under its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements included in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements including, without limitation, statements with respect to the potential of the Kietyonmaki Project; the potential identification of new mineralization; timing and successful execution of future planned and unplanned drilling and exploration activities. Forward-looking statements include predictions, projections and forecasts and are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "potential", "target", "budget" and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may", "will", "should", "could" or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions and includes the negatives thereof.

Forward-looking statements are based on the reasonable assumptions, estimates, analysis, and opinions of the management of the Company made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management of the Company believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made. Forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions that have been made by the Company as at the date of such information and is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may have caused actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: risks associated with mineral exploration and development; metal and mineral prices; availability of capital; accuracy of the Company's projections and estimates; realization of mineral resource estimates, interest and exchange rates; competition; stock price fluctuations; availability of drilling equipment and access; actual results of current exploration activities; government regulation; political or economic developments; environmental risks; insurance risks; capital expenditures; operating or technical difficulties in connection with development activities; personnel relations; contests over title to properties; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The estimate of mineral resources may be materially affected by environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, sociopolitical, marketing, or other relevant issues. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable, including but not limited to the price of lithium and other metals and minerals; the demand for lithium and other metals and minerals; the ability to carry on exploration and development activities; the timely receipt of any required approvals; the ability to obtain qualified personnel, equipment and services in a timely and cost-efficient manner; the ability to operate in a safe, efficient and effective matter; and the regulatory framework regarding environmental matters, and such other assumptions and factors as set out herein. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results, and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward looking information contained herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. The forward-looking information contained herein is presented for the purpose of assisting investors in understanding the Company's expected financial and operational performance and the Company's plans and objectives and may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

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News Release, TheNewswire - GSP Resource Corp. (TSXV:GSPR) (the "Company" or "GSP") announces that a drilling company has been contracted and field crews have mobilized for the Fall 2023 exploration program at the Alwin Mine Project (the "Alwin Property"). The planned Fall 2023 exploration program (see the company's news release dated September 11, 2023) will include 5 to 6 diamond drill holes designed to target potential extensions of known high grade copper zones at the Alwin Property located in the Highland Valley Copper Camp of British Columbia. The exploration program will commence with a detailed ground magnetic survey to define mineralization host structures which will aid in further refining the drill targets.

During October 2022, GSP engaged APEX Geoscience Ltd. to review and compile geological data from drill logs of more than 450 historic surface and underground diamond drill holes from the 1960s - 1980s. The historic drilling along with more recent 2008, 2020 - 2021 drilling represents a final integrated geological dataset of drill holes covering an area over 500 m strike length, 100 m wide, to a depth of 300 m (see the Company's news releases dated March 14, 2023, April 17, 2023 and August 24, 2023).

Utilizing the 3D copper mineralization model developed through the integration of these assay results, that included a comprehensive visualization of the geometry of 5 high grade copper-gold zones that were the subject of historic development and mining activities of the late 1960's - early 1980's and mid 1990's, new drill targets were identified for the Fall 2023 campaign.

During Q2 and Q3 of 2023 GSP advanced exploration permitting by submitting its Multi-Year Area Based (MYAB) annual update and 2023 exploration plan for upcoming work for approval. Subsequently, the BC Ministry of Energy, Mines & Low Carbon Innovation (BC MEMLCI) completed two (2) site visits in May and August 2023 at the Alwin Mine project. The site visits resulted in the approval of the Company's 2023 drilling plans. In addition, the 2021 permit allows drilling at the Alwin Project until June 2026.

About the Alwin Mine Project: The Alwin Mine Copper-Silver-Gold property is approximately 575.72 hectares and is located on the semi-arid, interior plateau in south-central British Columbia. The historic underground mine was developed over 500 m long by 200 m wide by 300 m deep. Production took place between 1916 to 1981 from five major subvertical high-grade copper mineralization zones totaling 233,100 tonnes that milled 3,786 tonnes of copper, 2,729 kilograms of silver and 46.2 kilograms of gold. The average diluted head grade was 1.5% copper.

The Alwin Property is adjacent with the western boundary of Teck Corporation's Highland Valley Mine, the largest open-pit porphyry copper-molybdenum mine in western Canada. Alteration and mineralization of the Highland Valley hydrothermal system extends westward from the Highland Valley mine onto the Alwin property (see GSP's news release dated January 30, 2020).

Qualified Person: The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Kristopher J. Raffle, P.Geo. (B.C.), principal and consultant of APEX Geoscience Ltd. of Edmonton, AB, a consultant to the Company and a "qualified person" as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Raffle has verified the data disclosed, which includes a review of the sampling, analytical and test data underlying the information and opinions contained herein. Mineralization hosted on nearby properties is not necessarily indicative of mineralization that may be hosted on the Alwin property.

About GSP Resource Corp.: GSP Resource Corp. is a mineral exploration & development company focused on projects located in Southwestern British Columbia. The Company has an option to acquire a 100% interest and title to the Alwin Mine Copper-Gold-Silver Property in the Kamloops Mining Division, as well as an option to acquire 100% interest and title to the Olivine Mountain Property in the Similkameen Mining Division, of which it has granted an option to earn a 60% interest to a third party.

Contact Information - For more information, please contact:

Simon Dyakowski, Chief Executive Officer & Director

Tel: (604) 619-7469

Email: simon@gspresource.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 Information

This news release contains "forward?looking information or statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which may include, without limitation, prospective drill program (including the size of the intended drill program), magnetic survey and results and interpretations therefrom, potential drill targets and the objectives, drill results, future exploration work on the Company's projects, other statements relating to the technical, financial and business prospects of the Company, its projects and other matters. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the price of metals, the ability to achieve its goals, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including the risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of exploration results, risks related to the inherent uncertainty of exploration and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses, and those filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions, adverse weather and climate conditions, failure to maintain or obtain all necessary government permits, approvals and authorizations, failure to maintain or obtain community acceptance (including First Nations), decrease in the price of copper, gold, silver and other metals, increase in costs, litigation, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations. The Company does not undertake to update forward?looking statements or forward?looking information, except as required by law.

Copyright (c) 2023 TheNewswire - All rights reserved.
VANCOUVER, Oct. 19, 2023 - Galiano Gold Inc. ("Galiano" or the "Company") (TSX: GAU) (NYSE American: GAU) is pleased to announce it will release its Q3 2023 financial and operational results after the market close on November 14, 2023.

Conference Call Details Replay (available until November 21, 2023) Date: November 15, 2023 Local: 416-764-8677 Time: 10:00 AM ET (7:00 AM PT) Toll Free: 1-888-390-0541 Dial In: 416-764-8688 Access Code: 348996# Toll Free: 1-888-390-0546





The call will be webcast https://app.webinar.net/bDLWnL7kqY0 and can be accessed at Galiano's website: www.galianogold.com

About Galiano Gold Inc.

Galiano is focused on creating a sustainable business capable of value creation for all stakeholders through production, exploration and disciplined deployment of its financial resources. The Company operates and manages the Asanko Gold Mine, which is located in Ghana, West Africa, and jointly owned with Gold Fields. Galiano is committed to the highest standards for environmental management, social responsibility, and the health and safety of its employees and neighbouring communities. For more information, please visit www.galianogold.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/galiano-gold-provides-third-quarter-2023-details-301961853.html

SOURCE Galiano Gold Inc.
Hole WB23-125 returned 50.85 m of 1.05 g/t gold.



Gold mineralization extends over 90 m from surface in a series of stacked high-grade quartz veins.

All 11 holes intersected the targeted quartz veins, with assay results returning from anomalous gold (0.10 g/t) to 42.60 g/t.

Gold was intercepted at depth in areas never drilled before.

Results confirm the continuity of gold mineralization at the Lynx Gold Zone.

Assay results for 13 additional holes (2,200 m), including 47 samples containing VG are still pending

RIMOUSKI, Quebec, Oct. 19, 2023 -- Puma Exploration Inc. (TSX-V: PUMA, OTCQB: PUMXF) (the "Company" or "Puma") is pleased to announce the results for the first eleven (11) holes of its 2023 drilling program at its 100%-owned Williams Brook Gold Project in Northern New Brunswick. These holes were first reported on August 2, 2023, and are not part of the series that returned more than 100 specks of visible gold ("VG") on initial inspection. Notwithstanding, seven (7) of the 11 holes reported today returned significant gold, with four (4) holes intersecting multiple mineralized high-grade gold quartz veins (Table 1). Hole WB23-125 intersected fifteen (15) separate quartz veins and returned 90 m of 0.70 g/t gold from surface (at 2.90 m) with an impressive 50.85 m of 1.05 g/t gold starting at 42 m depth, including a 4.50 m interval of 6.46 g/t gold at 75 m depth.

All 11 holes intersected the targeted quartz veins, with assay results returning anomalous gold (0.1 g/t) to 42.60 g/t. Results indicate substantial continuity and depth extension of the gold mineralization at the Lynx Gold Zone. Also, broad mineralized zones in previously untested areas - 0.5 m of 16.1 g/t gold in WB23-128, 10.10 m of 3.30 g/t gold in WB23-129, 19.35 m of 0.54 g/t gold in WB23-131, 4.15 m of 3.18 g/t gold in WB23-132 indicate that additional gold chutes exist (Figure 1). Assay results for the remaining 13 holes of the 2023 drilling are pending and will be released when received.

Puma's President and CEO Marcel Robillard commented, "The first holes of our Phase 1 2023 campaign were drilled to map and test the newly identified veins discovered at surface at Lynx earlier this year and the depth continuity of the interpreted high-grade shoots at Lynx. Many holes hit multiple quartz veins downhole, often starting at surface. Hole 125 was drilled to 170 m depth, and we saw VG in 4 veins from 55 to 79 m depth. Those returned grades of 11.20 to 42.60 g/t gold over 0.35 to 0.80 m width.

What's most impressive is we intersected 15 veins, and they all contributed gold, regardless of whether they contained VG. That's significant because it highlights the continuity of mineralization at Lynx and the potential for a large mineable system that remains open along strike and depth. Assay results for the remaining holes drilled deeper that returned numerous VG specks should be in soon. We expect they will extend the width and depth of the gold chutes and continue to build volume at Lynx."

Figure 1: Cross-section of Lynx Gold Area with today's reported results





Phase 1 drilling focused on the Lynx and Moose areas of the LGZ (Figure 2). It was designed to 1) confirm and extend high-grade gold mineralization at depth and along strike; 2) target, along the favourable contact, specific veins previously mapped at the surface with different drilling orientations to better define the veins' geometry and update the Company's structural model. The program expanded from fifteen (15) to twenty-four (24) holes as Puma successfully intercepted the depth extensions of the high-grade shoots defined by previous drilling programs and intersected at depth along the newly identified orientation, the bonanza-grade quartz veins sampled at surface.

Most of the holes drilled show pervasive sericitization, but visible gold and associated potential bonanza-grade veins appear to be linked to the presence of carbonate alteration (dolomite) and Py-Cpy-Ga-Sp sulphide assemblages that occur as disseminated massive sulphides or as semi-massive veinlets within the quartz veins.

Figure 2: Drillhole location at the Lynx Gold Zone





Table 1. Assay results of 2023 drilling

DDH # From (m) To (m) Length (m) Au (g/t) WB23-123 7.60 8.00 0.40 1.03 WB23-125 2.90 93.55 90.65 0.70 Incl. 42.05 92.90 50.85 1.05 Incl. 66.25 92.90 26.65 1.70 Incl. 75.40 92.90 17.50 2.32 Incl. 78.65 92.90 14.25 2.67 and 75.40 79.90 4.50 6.46 Individual samples 2.90 3.95 1.05 4.60 11.00 11.30 0.30 9.87 37.30 37.60 0.30 4.30 42.05 42.40 0.35 2.85 55.50 55.90 0.40 16.60 66.25 66.60 0.35 13.30 75.40 75.80 0.40 4.45 76.05 76.25 0.20 1.71 78.65 79.50 0.85 11.20 79.50 79.90 0.40 42.60 87.15 87.45 0.30 3.67 88.00 88.40 0.40 11.05 90.45 90.80 0.35 2.44 91.75 92.35 0.60 5.32 92.35 92.90 0.55 1.46 WB23-127 85.90 86.40 0.50 1.50 WB23-128 95.15 95.65 0.50 16.10 WB23-129 42.90 53.00 10.10 3.30 Incl. 45.25 48.45 3.20 10.36 Incl. 48.07 48.42 0.35 29.20 WB23-131 46.25 65.60 19.35 0.54 Incl. 47.00 48.05 1.05 1.06 and 53.80 59.75 5.95 1.39 Incl. 57.60 58.10 0.50 12.35 WB23-132 85.50 89.65 4.15 3.18 Incl. 86.15 89.07 2.92 4.43 Incl. 86.15 86.70 0.55 15.70 and 87.64 88.56 0.92 4.04

*Interval widths reported; true widths of the system are not yet known.

Table 2. Coordinates of drill holes

DDH # Easting

(m)* Northing

(m)* Elevation

(m) Azimuth

() Dip

() Length

(m) WB23-122 660246 5259235 386 335 -45 107.0 WB23-123 660256 5259214 386 335 -65 83.0 WB23-124 660213 5259379 392 155 -80 122.0 WB23-125 660263 5259293 386 330 -45 170.0 WB23-126 660242 5259412 389 155 -65 80.0 WB23-127 660237 5259421 389 155 -75 134.0 WB23-128 660236 5259382 389 155 -85 116.0 WB23-129 660263 5259417 389 155 -65 65.0 WB23-130 660207 5259347 388 155 -80 113.2 WB23-131 660227 5259340 389 165 -65 89.0 WB23-132 660303 5259443 388 230 -45 196.0

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. NY

October 23-24. 2023

EMP New Brunswick. Fredericton. NB

Oct. 29 -31. 2023

Marcel Robillard will present on Oct. 30 at 3:30 p.m.

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.

Precious Metals Summit. Zurich. CH

Nov.13-15. 2023

Marcel Robillard will present on Nov. 14 at 12:15 p.m. Click here for details.

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 3. 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 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 / X / 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.

Figures accompanying this announcement are available at:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4bdf3ae9-540d-4b3c-8c14-a211ab34b6e0

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d59bdcea-36e1-4bd1-8698-2302f47d7b0d

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b402a095-94e7-41bc-9697-d091434523c7
KELOWNA, Oct. 19, 2023 - Cantex Mine Development Corp. (TSXV: CD) (OTCQB: CTXDF) (the "Company") announces that, further to its news release of September 20, 2023 announcing a private placement (the "Offering"), the Company closed the first tranche of the Offering ("the Tranche") on October 17, 2023 and has received $921,365 by the issuance of 1,424,550 flow through units (the "FT Units") and 1,900,000 non flow-through units (the "Units"). FT Units were issued at $0.30 per FT Unit and Units were issued at $0.26 per Unit; each FT Unit is comprised of a flow through share and one-half of a non-flow through warrant and each Unit is comprised of one non-flow through share and one-half of a warrant. Each whole warrant entitles the holder to acquire one common share of the Company at a price of $0.39 for a term of two years from closing.

Proceeds from the Tranche will be used to fund the Company's current drill program on the North Rackla Project in the Yukon and for general working capital. The Company is looking forward to closing an upcoming second tranche, which will include the participation of our strategic shareholder, Crescat Capital LLP ("Crescat"). Crescat has committed to investing up to $1,500,000 of the previously announced Offering.

The Company was charged $30,034 in finders fees in connection with the Tranche and issued 98,704 finders warrants; the finders warrants have the same terms and conditions as the warrants issued in the Offering.

The securities issued in the Offering, including the finder's warrants, are subject to a four month hold period, expiring on February 18, 2024.

Update on North Rackla Project

Cantex is pleased to announce that a drill crew has been mobilized to our North Rackla Project in the Yukon to commence drilling.

About Cantex Mine Development Corp.

Cantex is focused on its 100-per-cent-owned, 20,000-hectare North Rackla project located 150 kilometres northeast of the town of Mayo in Yukon, Canada, where significant massive sulphide mineralization has been discovered. Over 60,000 metres of drilling has defined high-grade silver-lead-zinc-germanium mineralization over 2.3 kilometres of strike length and 700 metres depth. The mineralization remains open along strike and to depth. The company is led by Dr. Fipke, the founder of Ekati, Canada's first diamond mine.

Signed,

Chad Ulansky

Chad Ulansky

President and CEO

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: Certain of the statements and information in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information", including statements regarding the expected use of proceeds of the private placement. Further, any statements or information that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "plans", "estimates", "intends", "targets", "goals", "forecasts", "objectives", "potential" or variations thereof or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements or information. The Company's forward-looking statements and information are based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management as of the date of this press release, and other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements and information if circumstances or management's assumptions, beliefs, expectations or opinions should change, or changes in any other events affecting such statements or information. For the reasons set forth above, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information.

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 Cantex Mine Development Corp.
TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 - Goliath Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: GOT) (OTCQB: GOTRF) (FSE: B4IF) (the "Company" or "Goliath") wishes to welcome Mr. Rein Turna to the Board of Directors. Mr. Jean Lafleur has resigned from the board due to personal and other significant work commitments. We would like to thank Mr. Lafleur for his insightful contributions and wish him well in all his endeavours.



Mr. Rein Turna, P.Geo. is a consulting geologist with over 40 years experience in mineral exploration in British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Yukon and Northwest Territories. He is a registered professional geologist with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia since 1993. Mr. Turna has held staff and consulting positions with mining companies including Placer Dome Inc., Falconbridge Ltd., UMEX Inc., Lac Minerals Ltd. and Osisko Hammond Reef Gold Ltd. He has managed exploration programs for porphyry, volcanogenic massive sulphide, epithermal and other deposit types. Mr. Turna has also researched and worked on Archean orogenic gold as well as sedex prospects.

The Company has granted a total of 1,254,750 options for a five year period to certain consultants, management and board members priced at $0.74.

About Goliath Resources Limited

Goliath Resources Ltd. is an explorer of precious metals projects in the prolific Golden Triangle of northwestern British Columbia and Abitibi Greenstone Belt of Quebec. All of its projects are in world class geological settings and geopolitical safe jurisdictions amenable to mining in Canada.

For more information please contact:

Goliath Resources Ltd.

Mr. Roger Rosmus

Founder and CEO

Tel: +1.416.488.2887

roger@goliathresources.com

www.goliathresourcesltd.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange), nor the OTCQB Venture Market accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "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 Goliath's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to, among other things, the ability of the Company to complete financings and its ability to build value for its shareholders as it develops its mining properties. Various assumptions or factors are typically applied in drawing conclusions or making the forecasts or projections set out in forward-looking information. Those assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to Goliath. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that the proposed transactions will occur, or that if the proposed transactions do occur, will be completed on the terms described above.

The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and Goliath is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein.

This announcement does not constitute an offer, invitation, or recommendation to subscribe for or purchase any securities and neither this announcement nor anything contained in it shall form the basis of any contract or commitment. In particular, this announcement does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, securities in the United States, or in any other jurisdiction in which such an offer would be illegal.

The securities referred to herein have not been and will not be will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to or for the account or benefit of a U.S. person (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER OF THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN.
/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/

VANCOUVER, Oct. 19, 2023 - Scottie Resources Corp. (TSXV: SCOT) (OTCQB: SCTSF) (FSE: SR8) ("Scottie" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to the Company's news releases dated September 8, October 4, 2023, and October 6, 2023, the Company has closed the third and final tranche (the "Third Tranche") of its non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement"). Under the Third Tranche, the Company issued 104,167 common shares (the "FT Shares") which qualify as "flow-through shares" within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Tax Act") at a price of $0.24 per FT Share and 1,000,000 flow-through units (the "Charity FT Units") at a price of $0.33 per Charity FT Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of $355,000.

Each Charity FT Unit is comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company (a "Common Share") that qualifies as a "flow-through share" within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Tax Act and one-half of one Common Share purchase warrant (each whole warrant a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one Common Share (a "Warrant Share") at an exercise price of $0.35 per Warrant Share for a period of two (2) years from the date of issuance.

Pursuant to the Private Placement, the Company issued an aggregate of: (i) 3,985,000 non-flow-through units (the "NFT Units") at a price of $0.23 per NFT Unit; (ii) 4,112,500 FT Shares at a price of $0.24 per FT Share; and (iii) 1,000,000 Charity FT Units at a price of $0.33 per Charity FT Unit, for aggregate gross proceeds of $2,233,550.

In connection with the Private Placement, the Company issued 236,100 finder's warrants (each a "Finder's Warrant") and paid cash commissions of $53,303 to certain finders. Each Finder's Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one Common Share of the Company at a price of $0.23 per Common Share for a period of two (2) years from the date of issuance.

The Company intends to use the gross proceeds raised from the Third Tranche for exploration and related programs on the Company's Scottie and Blueberry mineral properties which qualify as "Canadian Exploration Expenses" as such term is defined in paragraph (f) of the definition of "Canadian exploration expense" in subsection 66.1(6) of the Tax Act, and "flow through mining expenditures" as defined in subsection 127(9) of the Tax Act that will qualify as "flow-through mining expenditures", and "BC flow-through mining expenditures" as defined in subsection 4.721(1) of the Income Tax Act (British Columbia), which will be incurred on or before December 31, 2024 and renounced with an effective date no later than December 31, 2023, to the initial purchasers of Charity FT Units and FT Shares.

The securities offered in the Third Tranche are subject to a four month and a day transfer restriction from the date of issuance expiring on February 20, 2024, in addition to such other restrictions as may apply under applicable securities laws of jurisdictions outside Canada.

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 and Forward-Looking Statements

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration requirements is available.

This news 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: the 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 the Company will not use the proceed from the Private Placement as currently anticipated; recent market volatility; and the state of the financial markets for the Company's securities.

In making the forward looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that the Company will use the proceed from the Private Placement as currently 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 Scottie Resources Corp.
Less than five months after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut enacted comprehensive gun control legislation. At the same time, 1,300 miles south and an ideological world away, Mississippi lawmakers considered a bill that would explicitly prohibit state officials from enforcing any new federal gun regulations. That last measure proved unnecessary. After months of controversy and extensive debate, Congress did not muster the votes to pass any federal law at all.The same kind of split prevails on gay marriage. Last year, North Carolina joined more than 30 other states that have explicitly outlawed same-sex marriage. In just the past three months, Rhode Island, Delaware and Minnesota have legalized it, joining nine other states and the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court is currently deciding how far to wade into the gay marriage dispute -- or whether it should wade in at all.A third case: Voters in Colorado and Washington state chose to fully legalize marijuana in last Novembers election. On the same day, voters in Arkansas handily defeated a proposal to allow the drug even for medicinal purposes. The use of marijuana remains illegal under federal law; the Obama administration hasnt taken a position on last falls actions but has made it clear that federal regulations will not be enforced.This is more than just party polarization. It is part of a tectonic shift away from federal authority and toward power in the states. While the divided Congresses that have followed the 2010 Tea Party insurgency have been among the least productive in U.S. history, rife with partisan bickering and a chronic inability to compromise, robust action is common at the state level. Connecticuts quick and seamless movement from tragedy to statute is one of countless examples. In turn, ideologues and interest groups increasingly view states as the most promising venues for policymaking. Why waste your time in Washington -- where you might pass a watered-down, largely impotent bill if youre lucky -- when you can head to Austin or Sacramento and advance your agenda intact and with relative ease?And while states pass legislation with an almost industrial efficiency, America, as is often noted these days, is becoming a more and more splintered nation. Red states are redder; blue states are bluer.Take a look at a U.S. map colored by state party control. In the upper right-hand corner down to the Mid-Atlantic, its all blue. In the South and across the Great Plains, you see a blanket of red. That crimson sea begins to break at the Rocky Mountains until you reach a stretch of blue along the West Coast. In a way, we are returning to our roots as a loose confederation of culturally and geographically distinct governments.States led by Democrats are moving toward broader Medicaid coverage, stricter gun laws and a liberalized drug policy. Theyve legalized gay marriage, abolished the death penalty and extended new rights to undocumented immigrants. Republican strongholds are working quickly to remove government from the business sphere -- reducing taxes, pushing anti-union right-to-work laws and rebelling against the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Theyre also pressing forward on some of their most valued social issues, promoting pro-life abortion policies and protecting the rights of gun owners.The divisions generate fundamental questions about the nature of federalism. The sweeping national interventions of the New Deal and the comprehensive federal social legislation of the 1960s have been replaced by a more decentralized approach to governance. States are openly defying federal law and resurrecting the concept of nullification.These are not merely legal or rhetorical exercises. They are fostering real change and real consequences for average Americans. If one bill thats currently pending in the Mississippi legislature is upheld by higher courts, the state will have effectively outlawed abortion altogether. In New York, meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has introduced legislation that would make abortions easier for women in his state to obtain. Income taxes may go up this year in California and Massachusetts; several Republican governors say they want to abolish income taxes completely. Illinois will insure nearly 1 million additional people next year by expanding its Medicaid program under the federal health law, while Texas is expected to leave up to 2 million people without coverage because Gov. Rick Perry has steadfastly refused to do the same.Polarization has resulted in this changing relationship between the states and the federal government. Theres a clear connection, says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University. Its leading to gridlock at the federal level, which in turn is leading to many issues being decided at the state level because the federal government seems to be incapable of deciding anything.Thats the hydraulics of political power. Power always seeks an outlet, agrees Heather Gerken, a law professor at Yale University. When Congress is no longer doing anything, people are going to go to the states and localities.This rebalancing of the federalist system has permeated almost every corner of public policy, taking center stage in the most controversial debates of the last few years. Last summer, Chief Justice John Roberts made the unexpected decision to join with his liberal colleagues and uphold the bulk of Obamacare and its individual mandate to purchase health insurance. But on the less publicized question of the laws Medicaid expansion, which was supposed to require states to extend eligibility for the program to those earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, Roberts took a startling turn. He ruled, for the first time in the courts history, that the federal government had gone beyond its constitutional powers when it threatened to withhold all of a states federal Medicaid funding if it refused to comply with the expansion.The immediate implication was a dramatic reassertion of individual states sovereignty. In the year since the courts decision, a Southern wall of conservative states, which fought against the ACA in the first place and have been encouraged by national Republican leaders, have decided to take this new option that Roberts legitimized and have refused to expand Medicaid.On other issues, states have rebuffed federal policy or preempted it. The Real ID Act of 2005, mandating state adoption of what is effectively a national identification card, has been foiled in the last decade by states refusing to comply with its federal requirements. More than 40 states have agreed to adopt the Common Core State Standards for K-12 education, which involve new curricula and assessments developed by state policymakers, in part because they didnt want another federal education regime after the failure of No Child Left Behind. The distribution of medical marijuana in 17 states , paired with outright legalization in Colorado and Washington, is a clear flouting of the federal Controlled Substances Act.Such assertiveness or outright defiance by the states is a dramatic shift from the assumptions of federal preeminence that have prevailed during most of the years since the enactment of comprehensive social legislation during the 1960s, which included the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and Medicare. Some would place the beginning of the erosion of the federal model in the Reagan administration, which introduced the waiver concept to state-federal programs such as Medicaid.But it is also a reflection of changing public opinion: The Pew Research Center found this April that peoples trust in state and local government had settled comfortably above 50 percent. Trust in the federal government, meanwhile, sat at a dismal 28 percent in 2012. Thats a far cry from the early 1960s, when public confidence in Washington approached 80 percent.People had lost confidence that states were really up to the task of dealing with problems of modern society, so the federal government filled that vacuum, says Ernest Young, a constitutional law scholar at Duke University. Were living in a new era now where the opposite is true. People have more trust in their state and local governments than the federal government.Coinciding with this movement toward more state-centric governance has been the ideological polarization of the two political parties. Conservative Southern Democrats and moderate Northeast Republicans have slowly disappeared both from Congress and from state legislatures in the last generation. The Democratic Party is more uniformly liberal, and the Republican Party more uniformly conservative, than either has ever been. They therefore command certain regions of the country more consistently; the turnover of conservative Southerners to the Republican Party has turned the Deep South impenetrably red. Republicans have become a weak minority in much of the Northeast and West Coast.This natural political sorting has led to two very different outcomes. With the GOP controlling the U.S. House and the Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, productivity in Washington is at a historic low. Multiple analyses ranked the 112th Congress, which met in 2011 and 2012, at or near the bottom in terms of legislation passed and signed by the president. There was some optimism that the 113th Congress would see an uptick in action, due to the supposed mandates of the 2012 presidential election, but there is little to support that thesis so far.While Capitol Hill trudges through political molasses, the states are as prolific as they have ever been -- and the primary reason is the prevalence of single-party rule in the nations statehouses. One party or the other is in full charge of both chambers of the legislative branch in 43 states. This is the highest concentration of partisan power since the 1940s. Half the legislatures have veto-proof supermajorities.So when anti-abortion advocates want to roll back Roe v. Wade, they turn to conservative-controlled states. Arkansas and North Dakota are two of the most recent single-party legislatures to pass abortion restrictions, outlawing abortions after 12 and six weeks of pregnancy, respectively. Arkansas Republican senate and house passed this legislation over the veto of Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, one of only two Democratic governors left in the South.On the other end of the spectrum, California, tired of waiting for federal action on climate change, established its own cap-and-trade system last year; the nations largest and arguably most liberal state had little trouble charting its own course on legislation thats essentially been a pipe dream in Washington since the 2010 midterms.Individual states or coalitions of states can increasingly be viewed as proxies for what their ruling partys elites would like to accomplish at the national level, but currently cannot. Take Washington state as the liberal example. The Democratic legislature and governor have legalized gay marriage, taken an active role in implementing Obamacare and begun work this year to meet the goal of reducing the states greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.Conservative counterparts are plentiful: Texas has become the flagship opponent of the federal health law, leading a coalition that includes nearly every state below the Mason-Dixon Line. Its legislature voted to defund Planned Parenthood because of its ties to abortion providers. Kansas, Nebraska and Louisiana have weighed the elimination of their state income taxes this year. Republicans in Indiana and Michigan last year joined the anti-union right-to-work movement that conservatives have been promoting since the 1940s. At least 10 GOP-controlled states have passed laws this year loosening their gun regulations.As the parties become more distinct from each other, theyre generating a lot of ideas. Theyve become very programmatic parties, and theyve been doing a lot of policy implementation in the states, says Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver. If you want to change the ways things are, youre almost invariably going to be frustrated at the federal level. If youre going to get anything done, a unified state government is the place to do it.So where are we headed? Is this movement toward decentralization and polarization a momentary lapse in what once seemed an unavoidable march toward federal control? Or are we seeing a permanent revival of the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, under which most governmental power is reserved to the states and regional fracture is assumed to be the norm?There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that political polarization across states and regions will solidify. One argument is that people seem to be choosing, consciously or unconsciously, to live in communities that share their ideological beliefs. This is known in sociological circles as sorting. It offers a powerful explanation for the growing homogeneity within states and regions, and some statistical analysis backs the theory.In 1976, 26 percent of Americans lived in landslide counties, defined as those that voted for one presidential candidate by at least a 20-percentage-point margin over the other, according to an analysis by social commentator Bill Bishop and University of Texas sociologist Robert Cushing. By 2012, that number doubled to 52 percent. In the 1976 election, 20 states were decided by five percentage points or less in the race between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford; only four were that close in 2012 with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on the ballot.Some doubt the sorting thesis, both as a reason for polarization and as a predictor of future trends. They instead attribute the widening political gap to simple ideological reshuffling -- conservatives coalescing in the Republican Party, and liberals on the Democratic side. Gerrymandering is sometimes blamed for appearing to sort like-minded people into the same jurisdictions.Several variables could determine whether this movement persists in the coming years. In particular, the dispersion of Hispanics and other minority populations into new communities where they havent historically lived could upset the political balance in those places. The Democratic goal of turning Texas blue within the next two decades is the most noteworthy endorsement of this belief. Or perhaps the millennial generation wont remain as thoroughly liberal as it seems to be right now.But many prominent thinkers give credence to the sorting thesis, and if it does hold some truth, then ideological and geographic divisions should harden in the coming decades. New England would continue on its path toward liberalized social democracy; the South would move further toward laissez-faire or libertarian capitalism.If the sorting rule bears out, and states and regions continue to drift further and further apart on public policy, people might increasingly decide where to live based on these differences. That would create a self-perpetuating cycle that would continue to decentralize political power and destabilize our concept of a national identity.The trouble is within these places, theres less diversity where you live, but theres more diversity from place to place. As a result, theres less of a sense of a country as a whole, says social commentator Bishop, who drew national attention to the idea in his 2008 book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. So you have this phenomenon where like-minded people get together and they become more extreme in the way theyre like-minded.In this future as a sectarian nation, which some say has already arrived, states emerge as the best forum for meaningful policymaking. The federal government will always have a dominant role on some subjects -- foreign relations and international trade being the most obvious -- but as long as Washington is politically divided, the number of issues on which it can effectively act is likely to shrink.When states become very homogeneous inside, and more heterogeneous across state lines, says Michael Greve, a law professor at George Mason University and director of the Federalism Project at the American Enterprise Institute, it becomes much, much harder to write federal legislation that wraps all of them under one federal cartel.The Affordable Care Act, which might stand as the last significant legislative achievement of a single-party Congress and White House for the foreseeable future, has become a testament to how difficult it is to institute national initiatives when some states actively resist federal prescriptions.The refusal of conservative states to expand Medicaid has undercut the laws ability to insure low-income Americans. More than 30 states have refused to set up health-care marketplaces, which has left the Obama administration scrambling to pick up the slack. Questions are mounting about what will happen in these conservative states in 2014, when the laws major changes are supposed to take effect. On the other hand, the liberal states that have embraced the laws policies will fundamentally overhaul their insurance markets next year, as was originally intended. But the laws goal of universal health coverage will be stifled by the dissenting states.Supporters of a revised immigration law remain hopeful for federal action during the 113th Congress. But the resulting legislation, if it passes, will likely be an undesirable compromise for both parties, a vanilla law that really pleases no one. If you want ideological purity, look a few miles away to Democratic Maryland, where Gov. Martin OMalley and his legislature have in the past year legalized gay marriage, cracked down on guns, passed a DREAM Act that eases access to education for undocumented immigrants and eliminated the death penalty. Or go to Republican Mississippi, where the Second Amendment is sacrosanct, abortion is being made extremely difficult and residents have one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation. Its still possible to achieve philosophical cohesion within a single-party state, and there are more of them than ever. If you want to change policy, look to the states. Thats where the action is these days.


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Red Bull Ring calm over FIA president warning

Organisers of the Austrian GP seem calm about FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem's warning that the race at the Red Bull Ring could be axed.

Max Verstappen, Austrian GP 2022

 Red Bull

The 'track limits' situation and festival of often-delayed rulings about deleted laps was nothing short of farcical at this year's Austrian GP, but Ben Sulayem lost his cool after more issues recently in Qatar.

The solution is to improve the tracks, the FIA boss said. "We had the same issue in Austria - it was 1200 (violations) there.

I know some are resistant to it, but quite honestly, if they don't (improve), there is no race. It's as simple as that. We can't afford this.

Many F1 team bosses support Ben Sulayem's stance over the farcical track limits situation, raising the real spectre of axed circuits deemed inappropriate for the sport.

A spokesman for the Red Bull Ring in Austria is quoted by Speed Week: We are in constructive communication with the FIA and (MotoGP's) FIM and are constantly working to meet all requirements.

At the same time, the FIA has upped its game since Austria, with Auto Motor und Sport reporting that the number of personnel monitoring live track limits in Geneva was doubled.

New software was also implemented to better monitor problem corners and kerbs, meaning driver infractions were added to the FIA system without delay.
Rana Motors unveil first locally assembled phoenix trucks

Timothy Ngnenbe Business News Oct - 19 - 2023 , 04:51

The first ever Phoenix Ashok Leyland brand of vehicles fully assembled in the country by Ghanaian engineers have been launched.

The 30 vehicles were assembled at Rana Motors at its vehicle assembling plant located at Amasaman in the Ga West Municipality.

The two-tonne light commercial trucks come with a five-year warranty and have a relatively cheaper fuel consumption.

The launch of the Phoenix trucks brings to eight the range of cars assembled in the country by Rana Motors.

The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Michael Okyere Baafi, who launched the trucks described the feat by Rana Motors as a key milestone in the countrys automotive industry.

He said it was particularly inspiring that the Phoenix Ashok Leyland vehicles were wholly assembled by local engineers.

Component assembly policy

Mr Baafi said the launch of the Phoenix Ashok Leyland vehicles bore ample testimony that the Ghana Automotive Development policy which was developed by the government to promote the development of the automotive industry was making a positive impact.

He said the assembly of Ashok Leyland brands of vehicles under the GADP had brought to 11 the brands of vehicles assembled under the programme.

The deputy minister added that as a measure to promote the development of an integrated automotive industry, the government was finalising processes on the development of a Component Manufacturing policy.

"This policy is meant to attract investments from component manufacturers to feed into the local automotive industry while supplying aftermarket components across the sub-region," he said.

He said the policy would further enhance the availability of certified parts and assmly components to drive the export of made-in-Ghana vehicles under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) rules.

New dawn

The Chief Operation Officer of Rana Motors, Kassem M. Odaymat, commended the government for developing the GADP as it had paved the way for the establishment of vehicle assembly plants in the country.

He said the launch of the phoenix truck was the results of stringer partnership between Rana Motors and Ashok Leyland stressed that the success of any venture was underpinned by such collaborations.

The Phoenix truck we have launched today is more than a vehicle; it is a reflection of our passion for progress and our unwavering commitment to providing solutions that meet the ever evolving needs of customers, he said.

Mr Odaymat said what set the phoenix truck apart was its tailor-made features that addressed the diverse needs of customers.

For instance, he said the trucks had fuel-efficient engines, spacious interior, multi-angled adjustable seats and superior mileage.

Commercial relationships

The Acting High Commissioner at the Indian High Commission, Chinpau Ngaihte, said the launch of the vehicle would further strengthen the commercial relationship between India and Ghana.

The locally assembled Ashok Phoenix trucks showcases Ghanas dedication to innovation, growth and self-reliance, boosting the local economy and paving the way for a brighter industrial future, he added.

He urged the automobile companies to continue to operate within the laws of the country and take advantage of the GADP to expand their businesses to create more employment opportunities in the country.

For his part, the head of International Operations of Ashok Leyland, Rajesh R., said the unveiling of the phoenix vehicles was a momentous occasion that signified that partnerships between credible brands could unleash enormous growth potential.

With Rana Motors and Ashok Leyland, supported by enabling government policies and customers in Ghana, I want to emphasise that no dream is too far, he said.
Kingsley Ofosu Deadly Voyage sole survivor arrested for alleged 120k fraud

Graphic Showbiz Showbiz News Oct - 19 - 2023 , 10:16

Kinsley Ofosu, the sole survivor of the famous Deadly Voyage stowaway story in 1992, has been arrested for an alleged involvement in a 120,000 scam.

Kinsley Ofosu made international headlines in 1992 with his miraculous survival from a stowaway trip.

Ofosu is said to have been arrested from a hideout at Prampram in the Greater Accra after almost two-and-a-half decades of relentless efforts, the police said.

Ofosu was arrested on Saturday, October 14 and subsequently arraigned before the Takoradi Circuit Court B.

Prosecuting, Inspector Robert Yawson told the court presided over by Henrietta Charway that the suspect has been on the police wanted list since 1998.

After almost two-and-a-half decades of relentless efforts, the police arrested Ofosu on Saturday, October 14. He added that all efforts to have him arrested have not been successful.

The prosecution prayed the court to remand the suspect to enable the police to conclude their investigations.

According to prosecution, the suspect has vacated his residence in Tanokrom, a surburb of Takoradi, to an unknown location, making it difficult for the police to trace him.

He argued that the suspect might interfere in the investigations if he should be granted bail and, therefore, prayed for a remand.

Counsel for the accused, Victor Owusus plea for his client to be granted bail was not granted.

Kingsley Ofosu has, therefore, been remanded into police custody to reappear on Monday, October 30, 2023.

The complainant, Charles Ohemeng, who is based in Germany claims he met the accused in Germany in 1997 after he made international headlines following his miraculous escape from MC Ruby Cargo Ship.

According to the complainant he decided to ship some vehicles and printing machines through Kingsley Ofosu to Ghana and Ofosu agreed.

He claims he bought Mercedes Benz, a tanker, a Nissan, double axle vehicle, Opel, printing machines, and many others amounting to about 240,000 deutschmark (an equivalent of 120,000 Euros) at the time.

The vehicles and the items he said were shipped to Ofosu in Ghana and that was the end of everything. He said he did not hear from him again until his arrest on Saturday.

How Kingsley Ofosu became famous internationally

In 1992, Kingsley Ofosu made international headlines after he survived the slaughter of a group of African stowaways by the crew of a Bahamian-flagged Ukrainian-crewed cargo ship, MC Rugby.

Ofosu lost his half-brother, Albert Cudjoe who was shot when they tried escaping as the only two survivors.

When the trial of the crew members made international headlines, multiple film companies approached Ofosu to purchase the rights to his story. He eventually struck a deal with Union Pictures and Viva Films. The Union Pictures/Viva Films production was to be distributed to and financed by HBO and the BBC.

The screenplay for Deadly Voyage was written by Stuart Urban, who used interviews with Ofosu as his primary source material. The movie was filmed in England and in Ghana.

The cast of Deadly Voyage were Omar Epps as Kingsley Ofosu, Joss Ackland as the ship's captain, Sean Pertwee as Ion Plesin, David Suchet as Andreas Vlachos, Ghanas David Dontoh, Oscar Provencal and Juliet Asante.
Access to justice

George Bernard Shaw Opinion Oct - 19 - 2023 , 08:42

One of the main prerequisites fundamental for the full enjoyment of rights by citizens is an unencumbered access to justice, ready and available to the citizens of any democratic country to the ever-growing unmet legal need.

However, and regrettably, access to justice for a great number of people has remained elusive or non-existent.

The problem is further exacerbated by the high cost of litigation in Ghana.

It cost a whopping GH1,000 in consultation fees for senior counsel, a category I fall in.

Also, hourly rates as authorised by the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) can go up to as much as GH1000 for senior counsel.

Relative to average earnings in the country, the figure is well above most ordinary people.

Human rights litigation, which most poor people need to access to seek redress for the countless human rights abuses they encounter on a daily basis, does not come cheap: It ranges between GH6,000 to GH30,000.

It is even more expensive to litigate in other areas of the law.

The situation is more acute in the criminal sphere as many offenders that become embroiled in the criminal justice system are ordinary people with low wages or in most cases, without a wage at all.

Invariably, this dire situation leads to a situation where many accused persons appear in court without legal representation.

This unfortunate but regrettable state of affairs has no doubt contributed to the high number of accused persons on remand and languishing in Ghanaian Prisons.

According to Statista.Com, as of February 2023, there were 1,862 remand prisoners in Ghana.

This figure is respectable juxtaposed against previous years as for example in 2005, the figure was as high as 3.6 thousand.

A programme, championed by the Judiciary, called Justice for All, has been very effective and has significantly contributed to the low numbers of remand prisoners in Ghana currently.

The Legal Aid Commission was created to address the seemingly intractable problem of access to justice. Laudable as it was, the Legal Aid Commission is bedevilled with many problems that frustrate the commission to deliver on its goals.

The commission is confronted with massive challenges  human resource, inadequate infrastructure and logistical support  that militate against its work.

In terms of human resources, there is a near catastrophic lack of lawyers employed by the Legal Aid Commission to deal with the high numbers of cases it receives weekly.

According to a Policy Brief on Legal Aid (No.2, August 2022)  In the year 2020, the commission received, 9,133 cases under its Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and resolved 5,535 of them, with 3,598 pending.

Similarly, the Commission received 2,456 cases and managed to resolve 1,115 with 1,341 pending.

In a Joy News report on November 2, 2020, the Executive Director of the Commission lamented the paucity of lawyers working for the commission.

He said the commission only had 33 lawyers on its books with Accra only having seven, in a country with over 30 million citizens.

Infrastructure wise, the situation is nothing to write home about.

In the said bulletin, the Executive Director is heard saying there were five staff officers to a single room.

The problem is compounded in the regions.

Legal Aid Officers are not in all the districts of Ghana, further preventing the commission from delivering on its mandate.

Way forward

It is clear from the foregoing that the Legal Aid Commission is heavily constrained in terms of human and infrastructure resources, which militates against its proper and efficient operation.

The following suggestions might go a long way in solving some of the problems.

There should be a massive drive to increase the pool of lawyers working for the Commission.

The catch phrase of this policy must necessarily be a sophisticated scheme to attract and more importantly retain lawyers.

Obviously, to achieve this, the salaries and working conditions of the lawyers at the Legal Aid Commission must be made competitive.

Additionally, the government must endeavour to establish offices in almost all Districts of Ghana.

Such offices should be decent and adequately resourced.

Another area worthy of a closer look is to revitalise the pro-bono system at the bar with a sustained campaign by the members to cultivate a habit of offering free legal representation to indigent members of the society.

The writer is a lawyer.
Lydia Seyram Alhassan, MP Ayawaso West Wuogon

Graphic.com.gh Personality Profiles Oct - 16 - 2023 , 17:11

Lydia Seyram Alhassan born January 1, 1970, is a politician and the Member of Parliament to represent the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency in the Greater Accra Region on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

She is a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, Parliament House of Ghana and a board member of Minerals Commission.

She holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of Ghana Business School, Legon and a Bachelor of Administration degree from Ghana the Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

Before she became a Member of Parliament, she was the Vice Chairperson of the Pharmaceutical Importers and Wholesalers Association of Ghana, an executive member of the Chamber of Pharmacy Ghana, and was also President of Accra Premier Lions Club from 2005 to 2016.

She is the owner of Lymens Medical Supplies Limited, a wholesale pharmaceutical company in Ghana. A company she established at age 24.

In January 2019, Alhassan contested the parliamentary seat for the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency, running to replace her late husband. She won the election with 68.80 percent of the valid votes cast. The other candidates, Kwasi Delali Brempong of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) polled 30.52 percent, William Kofi Dowokpor of the Progressive People's Party (PPP) polled 0.58 percent, and Clement Boadi of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) polled 0.10 percent.

She successfully contested in the 2020 Ghanaian general election under the ticket of the New Patriotic Party and won against Ghanaian celebrity and NDC candidate John Dumelo, polling 9,851 of the valid votes cast.

She was married to the late politician Emmanuel Boakye Agyarko until his death in 2018.
AfCFTA implementation must align with human rights  Vice-President Bawumia

Augustina Tawiah Oct - 19 - 2023 , 07:11

The Vice-President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has said the African Continental Free Trade and Area (AfCFTA) must be implemented using a human rights-based approach.

He has, to this end, asked that as the continent vigorously pursued the AfCFTA agenda, it must be mindful of its businesses and human rights obligations.

"Human rights due diligence must be at the centre of the business pursuit and where human rights are likely to be violated, we must put pragmatic and workable mitigative measures in place to address them," he said.

Dr Bawumia said this at the opening of the 14th Biennial Conference of the Network of African National Human Rights Institutions (NANHRI) in Accra yesterday.

About NANHRI

NANHRI is the national human rights institutions in Africa with 46 members currently.

The conference, held biennially, is pursuant to Article 56 of the NANHRI constitution,

It is a converging point for all the NANHRI member states and was attended by key stakeholders and partners in the protection and promotion of human rights in Africa.

Ghana is hosting this years conference scheduled for October 18 to 20, on the theme: Nurturing responsible business conduct and respect for human rights in Africa.

The opening ceremony attracted a host of dignitaries, with remarks from the Chairperson of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), Maryam Abdullah Al Attyah; the African Union Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Bankole Adeoye and the High Commissioner, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), United Nations, Volker Turk.

Realisation of AfCFTA Vision

While acknowledging the fact that exercising rights to development was one way of doing business, Dr Bawumia asked that businesses are done in a manner that they do not destroy the collective future and the future of generations to come, hence the need to nurture responsible business conduct, which must have as its fulcrum, the respect for human rights.

He said African countries must do everything possible to ensure the realisation of the vision and objective of AfCFTA as the worlds largest trade area.

Quoting a World Bank projection, the Vice-Present said AfCFTA would lift 13 million people out of extreme poverty and significantly increase the income of some 68 million people who were slightly above the poverty line.

The International Monetary Fund also projects that AfCFTA will increase Africas overall rank on the global competitiveness index as its goods and labour markets will be quickly expanded.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa has also predicted that by the year 2040, the implementation of the AfCFTA will raise intra Africa trade from 15 to 25 per cent.

These are very significant and laudable projections and we must all play our respective roles to bring it to fruition, he said.

Monitoring

As national human rights institutions, NANHRI was entreated by the Vice-President to continue to monitor business operations and investigate allegations of abuses and also ensure that victims got the needed remedies.

He said for violations that did not get reported but came to their attention through their monitoring and engagement, they must take all the necessary steps available to address them legally and in line with the Paris Principle to see to it that they were addressed.

Renewable energy

Dr Bawumia also called on governments in Africa to invest more in renewable energy and for corporations to increase their business activities in that area.

Additionally, he called for attention to be paid to issues of sustainable agriculture and forest management, pointing out that the use of natural resources, stopping massive deforestation as well as making agriculture greener and more efficient must be better encouraged.

Ghanas action plan

The Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Joseph Whittal, disclosed that Ghana would soon join Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria in having a National Action Plan on business and human rights to deal with all issues in the business and human rights environment.

Business and human rights are major issues making headlines globally and on the African continent; they have become even more pressing.

As national human rights institutions, we have little choice but to undertake our core responsibility of ensuring that states protect human rights, businesses respect human rights and there are accessible mechanisms and institutions in ensuring that victims of business and human rights violations get justice.

This is our avowed responsibility under the Paris Principle for ensuring that this happens, Mr Whittal, who is also the incoming Chairperson of NANHRI, said.

Human rights key

The outgoing Chairperson of NANHRI, Dr Hilarious Mugwadi, said human rights were key to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and added that, not only were they for those in positions of influence, but for every member of society since human rights were for all.
Apathy towards official corruption worrying  GBA

Justice Agbenorsi Oct - 19 - 2023 , 07:00

The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has called for the swift passage of the Conduct of Public Officers Bill to ensure the culture of accountability and integrity among public officers.

It said that move would help address the perceived apathy towards reported corruption-related incidents involving public officers and appointees under the current administration.

At a post-conference to brief journalists on diverse issues adopted as part of this years Bar Conference, the President of the Association, Yaw Acheampong Boafo, said the GBA was particularly concerned about the countrys ranking on the Transparency International Corruption Index and the Index of Public Integrity, as well as the issues raised in the Auditor Generals Report.

Solutions

The GBA therefore proposed that basic cultural and social norms, values of honest labour, decency and integrity must be imbibed in children.

We must stop defending and covering up for persons, especially those in the public service, who suddenly become rich and acquire properties without questioning how they came by them, Mr Boafo said.

Following his election as the 5th President of the country, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in December 2016 sent a caution to potential public office holders that, If your goal in coming into government is to enrich yourself, then dont come; go to the private sector. Public service is doing exactly that; public service.

The GBA President said the undertaking by the President gave hope to Ghanaians of the emergence of a new dawn of politics.

However, it is our respectful view that the several reported corruption-related incidents involving some of the appointees and also among some public officers under the current administration and the largely lethargic manner with which they are dealt with and even defended and protected leaves much to be desired, Mr Boafo said.

On the issue of galamsey, Mr Boafo noted that despite the efforts and assurances of the government to deal with the menace, there appeared to be a general consensus that the government had not done much to effectively and roundly deal with it.

He called on the government, political leadership and key stakeholders to show more political will and integrity in decisively dealing with the galamsey menace.

Education

In the area of education, the GBA commended the government for the implementation of the Free Senior High School (SHS) Policy but called for investment to address the infrastructure deficit in the sector.

The GBA President further condemned the recent partisan attacks on the legal profession and the judiciary, saying the GBA would resist any attempt to foment disaffection against the Judiciary and the legal profession.

He also called for the use of decent language in the media space, while condemning the recent attacks on journalists.

If any citizen is unhappy with the programming work or news angle of any media house or journalist, there are a number of remedies from the right of rejoinder, through National Media Commission (NMC) to the court, he said.

Spillage

On the spillage from the Akosombo Dam which has affected hundreds of persons, the GBA appealed to the public to support rescue efforts to help resettle the affected persons.

Accordingly, we will be making a direct appeal to all our members to donate in cash and in kind to assist the relief efforts, he added.
Ato Forson trial: Payment for ambulance contract was in error - Seth Terpker

Justice Agbenorsi Oct - 19 - 2023 , 16:39

A former Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper, has testified that payment for the ambulance deal for which former Deputy Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson and two others have been accused of allegedly causing 2.37 million financial loss to the state, was made in error.

Under the cross-examination of the the Attorney-General in court on Thursday (Oct 19, 2023), Mr Terkper admitted that although the payment was made in error, it was so because the ministry at the time was under the impression that the Stanbic Bank letters of credit was still valid under the agreement approved by Parliament.

However, he said it was only after the Debt Management Unit of the Ministry of Finance had drawn his attention that the Stanbic Banks letters of credit were no longer valid that the Finance Ministry decided to charge the Ministry of Health budget, contrary to what parliament had approved.

He further told the court, presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, a Court of Appeal judge sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court judge that, he authorised Dr Cassiel Aro Forson to set up the letters of credit against the budget allocation of the Ministry of Health.

The letter to the Bank of Ghana requesting the setting up of the LC [letters of credit] emanated from the Ministry of Finance and had my full authorization, he said.

The move, Mr Tekper said was to avoid potential liability for the government in line with the then Attorney-Generals advice.

On the face of it, it may look contrary to what parliament approved but it is important to understand the principle that all loans including letters of credit are ultimately charged to the capital budget of the ministry he said.

Ato Forson pleads not guilty in ambulance trial

The other accused persons in the case are Richard Jakpa, a private businessmanester Anemana, a former Chief Director of the Ministry of Health.

The three have pleaded not guilty to counts of willfully causing financial loss to the state, abetment to willfully causing financial loss to the state, contravention of the Public Procurement Act and intentionally misapplying public property.

Prosecutions facts

Per the A-Gs facts accompanying the charge sheet, in 2009, while delivering the State of the Nation Address, the then President, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, indicated that new ambulances would be purchased to expand the operations of the National Ambulance Service.

Jakpa, who is a local representative of Big Sea General Trading Limited, a company based in Dubai, subsequently approached the Ministry of Health with a proposal that he had arranged for finance from Stanbic Bank for the supply of 200 ambulances to the government.

Parliament approved the financing agreement between the government and Stanbic Bank.

According to the facts, on November 19, 2012, Dr Anemana wrote to the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) seeking approval to engage Big Sea through single sourcing for the supply of the 200 ambulances.

They added that on August 7, 2014, Dr Forson wrote to the Bank of Ghana for letters of credit covering 3.95 million for the supply of 50 ambulances in favour of Big Sea.

The letters of credit were accordingly released to Big Sea.

The facts said 30 ambulances were purchased at a sum of 2.37 million, but all were found not to have met the ambulance specifications and not fit for purpose.
Best Point organises free breast cancer screening

Emelia Ennin Abbey Oct - 19 - 2023 , 05:56

Best Point Savings and Loans Limited has organised a free breast cancer screening exercise for its staff and customers, aimed at reducing the incidence of breast cancer in the country.

The day-long exercise benefited clients and employees of the bank, as well as residents of Dome and its environs.

Stemming breast cancer scourge

The Banks Corporate Communications Manager, Joseph Impraim, reiterated the Banks unwavering commitment to support efforts aimed at stemming the breast cancer scourge among Ghanaians, especially women.

He said increased awareness, screening, advocacy and support would go a long way to reduce the incidence of breast cancer in the country.

The screening exercise, which was part of the company's corporate social responsibility, also formed part of activities to mark the Customer Service Week celebration, as well as a commemoration of the 2023 Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

We have screened several women, including female staff of the bank through this initiative.

We are also using this initiative to show appreciation to our customers for their loyalty and to let them know that Best Point Savings and Loans Limited is not just interested in profit but that we care about our customers and staff," he said.

The initiative, he pointed out, was important since most of the client base of the company were women.

A medical officer from Midway Hospital, Dr Naana Ocean, who was part of the team that screened the beneficiaries, advised women to make it a habit to check their breasts regularly to detect unusual changes in their breasts.

"We want them to check their breast to know if everything is okay, and if it is not, we will encourage them to seek early treatment so that their health does not decline," she said.
Court dismisses contempt case against K.T. Hammond in Gyake Quayson case

Justice Agbenorsi Oct - 19 - 2023 , 11:42

The High Court in Accra has thrown out a contempt case filed against the Minister of Trade and Industry, K.T. Hammond who was accused of proclaiming that James Gyakye Quayson, will go to prison in a perjury case which is yet to be determined.

In a ruling Thursday (Oct 19), the court presided over by Justice Mary Maame Ekue Yanzuh, said lawyers for the applicant, failed to provide evidence to buttress their allegation.

It said the full compliment of what K.T. Hammond was reported to have said was not produced adding: It was incumbent on the applicant to exhibit the full interview."

KT Hammond's "Gyakye Quayson will go to prison contempt; Court to determine case Oct 19

Without the full complement of the interview, the court is deprived of the opportunity to know exactly what was said."

The court cannot rely on the manifestly incomplete publication to rule on a man who denies the content of the publication, Justice Yanzuh said.

Gyakye Quayson charges

Mr Quayson who is the Member of Parliament for Assin North is facing charges of forgery and perjury in relation to certain alleged offences in the run up to the 2020 Assin North parliamentary election.

He has pleaded not guilty to five counts of forgery of passport or travel certificate, knowingly making a false statutory declaration, perjury and false declaration for office.

He is currently facing the court presided over by Justice Mary Maame Ekue Yanzuh.

Contempt against K.T. Hammond

Mr Quayson filed a writ at the High Court citing K.T. Hammond for contempt.

That was after the applicant had claimed that K.T. Hammond in an interview with a Kumasi-based television station proclaimed that Gyakye Quayson will go to prison.

Lawyers of Mr Gyakye Quayson believed that the comments made by K.T. Hammond were highly prejudicial and violate Mr Gyakye Quaysons right to a fair trial.

But that has been dismissed by the court for lack of evidence to warrant the court to commit K.T. Hammond to prison on contempt charges.
4 Local authorities to benefit from Japanese grant

Justice Agbenorsi Oct - 19 - 2023 , 08:05

The Japanese government has signed a grant agreement with four local government authorities to construct school blocks and community-based health planning and services (CHPS) compounds worth $289,410 in the beneficiary areas.

They are the Offinso Municipal Assembly in the Ashanti Region, the Pru West District Assembly in the Bono East Region, the Wassa Amenfi Central District Assembly in the Western Region, and the education directorate of the Techiman North District Assembly in the Bono East Region.

As part of the agreement, Offinso and Pru West will get a CHPS compound each, while Wassa Amenfi Central and Techiman North will get a school block each.

The CHPS compounds would include nurses quarters, boreholes and sets of medical equipment and furniture, while the classroom block would have toilet facilities, urinals, borehole and furniture.

The Japanese Ambassador, Mochizuki Hisanobu, signed the agreement with representatives of the beneficiary assemblies at his residence in Accra yesterday.

The project forms part of the Japanese governments Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Project, a programme that provides non-refundable financial assistance to NGOs, hospitals, research institutes and other non-profit associations.

Commitment

Mr Hisanobu explained that the support was a confirmation of Japan's commitment to addressing critical human security concerns.

Over the past 30 years, the GGHSP has provided support to various sectors towards sustaining basic human needs and improving quality of life for all, he added.

The ambassador said that the construction of the CHPS compound would help reduce some of the challenges pregnant women went through by travelling long distances on foot and motorcycles to access health care.

It is expected that cases of maternal mortality will reduce significantly and some common diseases like malaria, typhoid and diarrhoea will be properly treated at the CHPS facility, he said.

The ambassador added that the construction of the school blocks would also help to improve the quality of teaching and learning.

It will also mean that children would no longer walk long distances to school, and this will help increase school attendance and enrolment, he said.

Mr Hisanobu urged all stakeholders to work together to ensure the successful implementation of the project to help improve the well-being of the people.

Gratitude

The District Director of Education at the Techiman North District Assembly, Theresa Kpebu, expressed gratitude to the Japanese government for its intervention, especially in the area of education, which she said would help beneficiary children realise their potential.

The director stressed the need for every child to access quality education and entreated other stakeholders to also extend support to the sector to realise that goal.
6 Envoys present letters of credence to President Akufo-Addo

Chris Nunoo Oct - 19 - 2023 , 07:59

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has received the letters of credence of six envoys at the Jubilee House in Accra.

They were the Ambassadors of Burkina Faso, David Kabre; Peru, Rose Liliana Gomez Cardenas De Weston, and the High Commissioner of Zambia, Daniel Mahongo.

The others were the Ambassador of Thailand, Kittisak Klomchit; the High Commissioner of The Bahamas, Andrew Augustus Wilson, and the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic, Julio Amaury Justo Duarte.

Burkina Faso

The first to present his credential was Mr Kabre, who stressed the need for stronger partnership to help address challenges in their respective countries.

He pledged to build on the achievements of his predecessor by holding regular joint cooperation committee meetings.

Mr Kabre also expressed his commitment to continue negotiations on a railway interconnection and the Bolga-Po pipeline projects between the two countries and ensure their completion.

He further promised to promote the free movement of people and goods, and to strengthen military and security cooperation between the two countries in line with the fight against terrorism.

President Akufo-Addo said: You are our northern neighbour with cultural, economic and ethnic ties.

He said the relations between the two countries were of strategic importance, adding that we have also the economic and social relations that we need to develop and intensify.

The President also underscored the need to fight against terrorism, saying Mr Kabres presence in Ghana would reinforce the cooperation and dynamism in the terrorism fight.

Peru



Rose Liliana Gomez Cardenas De Westonn, Ambassador of Peru to Ghana, proposing a toast to President Akufo-Addo (right)

Mrs Cardenas de Weston said she would work to further deepen the existing cordial relations between Peru and Ghana in areas of mutual interests at the bilateral and multilateral levels.

She said the two countries were already working together in the cocoa sector, adding that her country was also interested in exploring other trade opportunities as provided by AfCTA to boost economic cooperation with Ghana and other member countries.

Responding, President Akufo-Addo congratulated her as the first ambassador of Peru to Ghana.

We are in a world where we are all forging alliances and partnerships and it will be good to work on issues of common interests.

I look forward to deepening relations between our two countries, he added.

Zambia



David Mahongo (left), Zambian Ambassador to Ghana, with President Akufo-Addo

The Zambian High Commissioner to Ghana traced the history of the two countries back to the days of Presidents Kwame Nkrumah and Kenneth Kaunda, and said they had continued to build on the relationship underpinned by their shared values and interests at the bilateral, continental and multilateral levels.

He pledged to work towards strengthening and expanding the cooperation between the two countries.

President Akufo-Addo shared similar views with Mr Mahongo and said there was the need to deepen their relationship for their mutual benefits.

Thailand



President Akufo-Addo (right), proposing a toast to Kittisak Klomchit, Thailand Ambassador to Ghana. Pictures: SAMUEL TEI ADANO

Mr Klomchit gave an assurance that he would do his best to promote trade and investment, especially rice cultivation.

President Akufo-Addo expressed concern about the huge amount of money spent on the importation of rice into the country and expressed hope that Ghanas association with Thailand would yield positive results.

Bahamas



President Akufo-Addo (right) interacting with Andrew Wilson, High Commissioner of The Bahamas to Ghana

Mr Wilson said relations between the two countries ran deep and transcended geographical distance.

We share a vibrant and diverse cultural heritage as expressed in our music, art, food and traditions, he said.

Mr Wilson pledged to work towards cultural exchange programmes such as Beyond the Return for citizens of both countries to experience and appreciate the rich tapestry of each others culture.

President Akufo-Addo in response, explained that the launch of the Beyond the Return initiative in 2019, was to commemorate 400 years of the arrival of the first slaves and to reconnect with the people.

Dominican Republic



Julio Amaury Justo Duarte, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to Ghana, with President Akufo-Addo (right)

For his part, the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic also said he would work with the government to strengthen the bilateral relations between the two countries.

He commended Ghana for sustaining its democracy over the years which the ambassador said had made the country an example of political stability where respect for human rights thrived in Africa.

President Akufo-Addo called for more cooperation between the two countries.

He expressed hope that during his tenure as ambassador in Ghana, Mr Duarte will work to deepen the existing ties between the two countries.
Leaders must exhibit integrity, respect for others  Prof. Naana Opoku-Agyemang

Beatrice Laryea Oct - 19 - 2023 , 07:38

A former Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has said integrity, respect and sensitivity should be the hallmark of leaders who steer the affairs of any institution or organisation.

Qualities that run through successful leadership and outcomes must include integrity, respect for, and sensitivity to those who bring them to such positions and not to behave towards them as though we are lords to those down the line.

She maintained that the fact that one had been put in a leadership position did not mean that others were subordinates, less sensible and not worthy of intelligence as those placed in such position.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said this at the Girls Leadership Boot Camp under the She Leads Project organised for about 150 young women drawn from the Northern, Eastern, Ashanti, Upper West and Central regions by Plan International Ghana, an organisation that focuses on Childrens Rights and Women Empowerment in Accra.

Running mate

The 2020 Running Mate of former President, John Dramani Mahama, was of the view that true leaders must have the maturity and virtue to engage, consult, recognise the talent of others and create the opportunity and space for their development.

She said as young women who aspired to the positions of leadership, they must aim high, work towards excellence in whatever field, and not be afraid to try, accept responsibility and learn from their mishaps.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang disclosed that in spite of gender role differentiation, there was hardly any profession in which women did not or could not participate, including areas of medical and health sciences, food processing and preservation, architecture, military, astronomy, weaving, hunting and human sciences.

She encouraged the young ladies to study the history of the African continent, country, community and family in order to discover those who served without greed, arrogance, hypocrisy and to know leaders who put the nation, society and others first.

She expressed her appreciation to the Ghana Office of Plan International for its laudable objective of nurturing young women for leadership roles and empowerment.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang was accompanied to the programme by current and former Women Organisers of the NDC, including Ms Anita de Sosoo.
OSP wants Supreme Court to overturn ruling on Cecilia Dapaah

Justice Agbenorsi Oct - 19 - 2023 , 06:45

The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has filed a certiorari at the Supreme Court seeking to overturn a High Court decision which approved an expedited hearing of the seizure and freezing of the bank accounts of a former Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah.

A certiorari is an order of a superior court directing that a record of proceedings in a lower court be sent up for review.

As a result, it has filed an application at the High Court to stay the proceedings until the final determination of the application at the Supreme Court.

Dr Isidore Tuffuor, who represented the OSP in court yesterday, notified the court about the latest application.

Petition

The High Court, presided over by Justice Edward Twum, was on October 12 expected to take the plea of Ms Dapaah in a case in which the OSP had accused her of failing to declare her assets during her time as minister.

Aside from that, a second attempt by the OSP to freeze the assets and accounts of Ms Dapaah was also expected to be heard by the same court that day.

However, the OSP petitioned the Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo, to remove Justice Twum from all its cases, including that of the former minister.

U-turn

When the case was called yesterday, Justice Twum confirmed to Victoria Barth, lawyer for Ms Dapaah, that he had been notified that the OSP had withdrawn the petition.

A few minutes later, Justice Twum retired to his chamber.

He later announced that he had been informed that the petition was still pending.

Plan

Lawyers for the former minister were of the view that the introduction of the latest applications by the OSP was an orchestrated plan to flee from the hearing of the OSPs own application.

It is important to note the clearly orchestrated plan by the applicant to delay or flee the hearing of his own application, which is causing injury to the respondent and infringing upon the first respondents economic right, Lawyer Barth said.

But in a sharp rebuttal, Dr Tuffuor described the comments by the former ministers lawyer as an attack on the integrity and person of the Special Prosecutor.

Justice Twum adjourned the case to October 25, this year, for the motion for stay of proceedings to be heard.

Freezing motion

On August 31, Justice Twum dismissed a motion by the OSP seeking to continue to freeze the accounts of Ms Dapaah.

It was the considered view of the court that the OSP could not provide any legal basis to continue to seize the accounts.

He held that the OSP was in doubt about the true ownership of the alleged tainted property found in Ms Dapaahs house and also failed to convince the court that the alleged tainted property was used in connection with a crime.

If he (OSP) is unsure as to ownership, how did he reach the conclusion that the property is tainted? the presiding judge queried.

Last week, Justice Twum granted an application for abridgment of time filed by Ms Dapaah for the fresh motion by the OSP to freeze her accounts earlier than the expected date.

The application by the OSP was expected to be heard on October 18, but the court decided to hear it earlier on October 12, 2023, after it upheld the application for abridgment of time filed by Ms Dapaah.

In a ruling, Justice Twum held that Ms Dapaah would suffer greater hardship if the application was not heard earlier.

Justice Twum said pursuant to a ruling by the court on August 31 dismissing a first freezing application, the OSP released Ms Dapaahs funds to her on September 5, but seized them again on the same day.

The OSP, the court said, then filed an application for another freezing order on September 11 and served Ms Dapaah on September 20, with a return date for hearing on October 18.

It was the considered view of the court that the long period for the application to be determined would be inimical to Ms Dapaah and cause greater hardship for her as she would be disadvantaged, not knowing her fate regarding her bank accounts.

In the interest of fairness, justice and expeditious trial, the court grants the application for abridgment of time, Justice Twum held.

It is this ruling that the OSP is currently asking the apex court to quash.

Background

The OSP commenced investigation on Ms Dapaah for corruption and corruption-related offences in July following the revelation that she was keeping more than $1 million in her house.

That was after police prosecutors had arraigned two househelps of Ms Dapaah and her husband, Daniel Osei Kuffour, for allegedly stealing money and items worth millions of Ghana cedis from the couple's residence at Abelemkpe in Accra.
Science, technology fair held at Abakoase for pupils

Haruna Yussif Wunpini Oct - 19 - 2023 , 06:53

A science and technology fair to enable pupils and students to develop more interest in the subject has been organised for over 20 rural basic schools in the Atiwa East District in the Eastern Region.

Some of the schools are Awuronsua JHS A & B, New Aiden Preparatory School, Kibi School for the Deaf, Future Leaders Academy Mighty Vision Educational Complex, Abakoase R/C JHS, Lina Unique Preparatory School, Nanapa D/A JHS, Brilliant Child Academy and Abakoase Presby JHS.

The fair, which is the second in a series, was initiated by the Nana Adjei Kyerema Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the welfare of children and the vulnerable in society.

It was on the theme: "Novel Science and Technology Fair; Bringing Technology to the Rural Child".

Items displayed

On display were miniature bridges, dustbins, houses, vehicles, arms, drones, microscope viewing of micro-organisms and live cells, laboratory experiments, hydroponics (the science of planting without soil) and aeroplanes, all in robotic form.

Students from the Opoku Ware Senior High School and the St Louis Senior High School Robotic teams in Kumasi, as well as Afua Kobi Ampem Girls SHS were at the fair to take the pupils through the work and operation of the robots.

Other scientific things displayed were drones, manufacturing control and display units and service drones prototype such as zipline among others.

The aim of the fair was to provide schoolchildren in remote areas such as Abakoase with basic scientific knowledge, to enable the children to be at par with colleagues in the urban areas and cities.

Familiarisation

Speaking at the fair at Akyem Abakoase near Akyem Sekyere last Monday, the Founder of the foundation, Nana Adjei Kyerema, said its main objective was to make the pupils familiarise themselves with scientific gadgets because most of them had not seen them before.

He said that would also bridge the scientific knowledge gap between pupils in remote areas and those in the urban centres and cities.

Nana Kyerema, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of the foundation, said: "This will generate the interest of the children as they grow to manufacture their own scientific items."

Smart children

Nana Kyerema said although the government was doing very well in equipping students with knowledge in technology, especially Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), more needed to be done.

He indicated that the fair was also part of activities to mark the one-year anniversary celebration of the Chief of Abakoase, Barima Appiah Akroma Acheampong, since his enstoolment.

A Lecturer at the Computer Science Department of the University of Ghana, Matilda Acheampong Wilson, said since the country had a lot of technological issues, the foundation thought it wise to teach pupils how to use robots to solve technological problems.

Interest

The Chief of Abakoase, Barima Appiah Akroma Acheampong III, who chaired the function, advised parents to take keen interest in their children's education, especially science and technology.

He commended the Nana Adjei Kyerema Foundation for organising the event with its own resources for the benefit of society.

One of the pupils from the Anyinam Presby JHS, Rose Boateng, told the Daily Graphic that the fair had enlightened her to many things emanating from science and technology.

She said it was her first time attending a science technology fair, which also improved her knowledge on exactly what she wanted to become in future.

Later the pupils were taken through an eye screening exercise and the operations of the Ghana Ambulance and Fire services.
VP Bawumia donates GH160,000 to displaced victims of Dam spillage

GraphicOnline Oct - 19 - 2023 , 08:01

Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has donated GH160,000 of his personal funds to victims of the Akosombo Dam spillage.

Several communities in eight districts, mostly in the Volta Region, as well as the Eastern and Greater Accra Regions, have been displaced by the dam spillage. Dr. Bawumia made the donation during his visit to some affected communities in the Volta Region on Wednesday, October 17, 2023.

So far, the government has responded by evacuating affected people to 20 holding centres and providing emergency relief items through the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and an inter-ministerial committee set up to manage the disaster.

Dr. Bawumia's personal donation is intended to complement the support the government has so far offered to the displaced victims.

While expressing his sympathies, the Vice President assured victims that the government is committed to providing both emergency solutions and relief to restore the livelihoods of those affected.

"When I look into the eyes of our mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers who are seated here, I see so much sadness. Their lives have been turned upside down as a result of what has happened," Dr. Bawumia said.

"These are people who were going about their normal duties every day to take care of themselves, but now they have to really depend on others for livelihood, and I am saddened by that.

"I want to assure that the government will do everything possible to assist the affected people to provide relief and also restore the livelihood of those affected.

"We are not only looking at temporary relief, we are also looking at a more sustained support through the Inter-Ministerial Committee, so that those affected can restore their livelihoods."

Among the communities the Vice President visited were New Bakpa in the Central Tongu District, as well as Sogakope and Sokpoe, both in the South Tongu District.

The Vice President was accompanied by the Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery; Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah; Volta Regional Minister, Archibald Letsa; and officials of NADMO and the Volta River Authority (VRA).
A-G refutes NDC galamsey protection claims

Emmanuel Ebo Hawkson Politics Oct - 19 - 2023 , 06:21

The Attorney General (A-G) and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has refuted claims by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) accusing him of shielding some bigwigs allegedly involved in illegal mining aka galamsey.

Mr Dame described the claims by the NDC as untrue, hollow and offensive and as part of a series of unjustified attacks against him in the discharge of his functions which the NDC finds to be inimical to its interest.

At a press conference last Monday, the NDC called for the immediate resignation of Mr Dame, accusing him of deliberately refusing to prosecute some bigwigs in government and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) accused by a former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, of being complicit in illegal mining and frustrating the efforts of the President to combat the menace.

No evidence

Responding to the NDCs press conference in a statement yesterday, the A-G said the NDC failed to provide any shred of evidence to support the allegations made by Prof. Frimpong- Boateng or to substantiate its claim that the he (A-G) was protecting illegal miners.

In spite of a multitude of allegations and invectives spewed on me by the communications officer of the NDC, not a single piece of evidence was furnished by the NDC in proof of any allegation made by Prof. Frimpong-Boateng against any person named in his report.

The entire NDCs press conference was, in point of fact, vitiated by a fraudulent attempt at explaining their orchestrated lies and abuses against me, as they are wont to do, the A-G said.

Legal advice

The press conference by the NDC followed legal advice by the Office of the A-G, signed by a Chief State Attorney, Evelyn Keelson, which stated that Prof. Frimpong-Boateng failed to provide evidence to substantiate accusations against 12 of the 15 persons he accused of engaging or supporting illegal mining.

Mr Dame said the allegation by the NDC was a direct attack on state attorneys, who, in the presence of numerous risks, provided legal services including legal advice on dockets from the police as happened with the docket on the allegations by Prof. Frimpong-Boateng.

He said the legal advice on the report by Prof. FrimpongBoateng was not different from the other numerous legal advice given by state attorneys which were all done in an impartial manner and faithful manner.

It is most antithetical to national development and progress, and extremely dangerous to subject opinions given by State Attorneys, who operate under extreme pressure, to political commentary by parties seeking to score political goals, simply on account of a failure of the content of the relevant advice to feed a particular narrative desired by a political party, Mr Dame said.

Galamsey prosecutions

The principal legal advisor said claims that the government and his outfit had been weak on illegal mining could not be true.

He said under the administration of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the Minerals and Mining Act (Amendment) Act, 2019 (Act 995) was enacted which enhanced the punishment for engaging in illegal mining from three years to 15 years for a Ghanaian and 20 years for a non-Ghanaian.

Again, he said due to prosecution by his outfit, 33 persons, including 11 foreigners, were convicted for illegal mining between August 2021 and September 2022 and are currently serving jail terms ranging from 15 to 20 years

On August 31, 2023, the Circuit Court, Tarkwa, sentenced 25 people to various terms in prison ranging between 15 and 20 years each together with various hefty fines, following a successful prosecution by the Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice, he added.
Caution supporters against violence on media - PRINPAG to politicians

Dickson Worlanyo Dotse Politics Oct - 19 - 2023 , 06:26

The Private Newspapers and Online News Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG) has advised all politicians to caution their supporters and members to avoid violence, especially against the media.

That, it said, was because no democracy can be effective without the active participation and involvement of the media.

The advice comes on the back of the associations condemnation of an attack on Citi FM's Akosua Otchere during the National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary aspirants vetting in the Odododiodio Constituency last Friday,

Press freedom

A statement issued by the association said the act did not only undermine the fundamental principles of press freedom, but it also raised serious concerns about the safety and security of journalists who were committed to providing unbiased and objective news coverage.

This is coming barely a week after some political thugs affiliated with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) barged in a live programme in the studios of United Television (UTV) in Accra with sticks, stones and machetes, scaring panellists, presenters and producers.

That attack was widely condemned by several stakeholders, and we thought we had witnessed the last of such incidents, it stressed.

It added that the attack was a clear violation of the journalists rights to carry out her duties without fear of reprisal and urged the NDC to live up to its words by identifying those criminal elements to bring them to justice.

The statement said it could not be overemphasised that journalist played a critical role in society and democratic governance, ensuring that citizens were informed and empowered to make well-informed decisions.

PRINPAG, therefore, called on all political parties and all media stakeholders in the country to create an environment that fostered freedom of the press by prioritising the safety of journalists.
Dam spillage floods: I will demand full compensation for all constituents - Ablakwa

Dickson Worlanyo Dotse Politics Oct - 19 - 2023 , 11:23

The Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has stated that after the dust settles with floods following the Akosombo Dam spillage, he would demand full compensation for all the flood victims.

Speaking on Thursday (Oct 19) in a television interview on TV3s NewDay morning programme from Mepe, one of the affected communities, Ablakwa said the Volta River Authority (VRA) would not be allowed to go free given the havoc their actions had visited on the people situated within the Lower Volta Basin.

VRA must know that we will not let them get away with this because you cant make people lose their homes and livelihoods and expect them to cope with it. We will insist on full compensation and nothing else, Mr Ablakwa, who has many constituents affected by the floods said.

The North Tongu MP said if the authority fails to rightfully and fully compensate affected persons, he would personally lead a class action against the VRA.

Okudzeto Ablakwa noted that the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) has already counted about 28,000 displaced people adding that his outfit was also putting together data on the value of property, farms and fishing ponds that have been lost in North Tongu constituency.

We are putting all this together so that when the time comes, they (VRA) cant have an excuse that they didnt have the data. So full compensation must be presented to our people, we are not going to compromise on that at all, he stressed.

Spillage

From last week, October 9, 2023, tracts of land and communities downstream the Akosombo and Kpong dams have been flooded.

This follows the second-stage spillage of the two dams used to generate about a third of Ghanas electricity supply.

The Volta River Authority (VRA) started the controlled spillage at the Akosombo and Kpong dams, both in the Eastern Region, from September 15, 2023 following excess water in both reservoirs due to appreciable levels of rainfall.

The spillage has affected almost all the communities along the lower Volta Basin, resulting in widespread power cuts in the affected communities.

The GRIDCo sub-station in Fievie, Sogakope, in the Volta Region, has been inundated with floods, leading to the shutting down of the station.

With the absence of electricity, public installations, including hospitals in Sogakope and Adidome, are bearing the brunt of the flooding, leaving the lives of patients in danger.

High water levels in Akosombo dam

The maximum level of water in the Akosombo Dam should be 276 feet.

As of Thursday (Oct 12, 2023), the water level in the dam was 276.92 feet or 84.405 metres.
"I am saddened by the pains I see in the eyes of our mothers." - Bawumia after visiting flood victims

GraphicOnline Politics Oct - 19 - 2023 , 10:56

The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has expressed profound sympathy for the victims of the Akosombo Dam spillage, which has displaced numerous households and disrupted livelihoods in the Volta Region, as well as parts of the Eastern and Greater Accra Regions.

The spillage displaced several communities across eight districts. On Wednesday, September 18, 2022, the Vice President toured some of the affected areas in the Volta Region, including holding centres providing temporary shelter for the victims.

Addressing Chiefs, community members, and some of those evacuated, Dr. Bawumia couldn't help but express his deep sadness at the situation.

"When I look into the eyes of our mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers who are seated here, I see so much sadness and pain. Their lives have been turned upside down by what has happened," Dr. Bawumia said.

"These are people who were going about their normal routines every day, taking care of themselves. Now they have to rely on others for their livelihoods, and that saddens me."

Despite the grim situation, Dr. Bawumia urged the victims to find solace in the Holy Book and to thank God for the gift of life.

"We are told in the Good Book that in all things, we should give thanks to God. Why are we thanking God in this situation? Because He has saved the lives of all those here. So far, we have not heard of any loss of life, and life is more important."

"We thank God for their lives. In many situations, such disasters are accompanied by loss of life, and we thank God that everybody here is safe. With life, we can restore what we have lost."

The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and other government agencies, through the Inter-Ministerial Committee set up by the government, have swiftly responded to the disaster by evacuating affected people to about 20 holding centers and providing emergency relief items.

Dr. Bawumia assured that the Government is not only committed to providing temporary solutions but is also dedicated to offering relief to restore the livelihoods of those affected.

"I want to assure you that the Government will do everything possible to assist the affected people by providing relief and also restoring their livelihoods."

"We are not only looking at temporary relief, but we are also considering more sustained support through the Inter-Ministerial Committee so that those affected can rebuild their livelihoods."

Flood victims

The Vice President commended NADMO for their proactiveness, which he said helped avert what could have been an even bigger disaster.

"I want to thank NADMO for their proactiveness. Without their foresight, we could have had a major disaster on our hands, especially considering their simulation exercise conducted last year when they didn't even anticipate this event."

"I also want to express gratitude to the army, the navy, VRA, and all stakeholders for their collective efforts so far."

The communities the Vice President visited include New Bakpa in Central Tongu District, as well as Sogakope and Sokpoe, both in South Tongu District.

The Vice President was accompanied by the Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Volta Regional Minister, Archibald Letsa, and officials from NADMO and the VRA.
Sweetwater County is using existing partnerships and looking to create new partnerships to continue protecting and promoting the best interests of the county and its resources.

During the Sweetwater County Board of County Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, the commissioners spoke with Danielle Bettencourt from the Coalition of Local Governments (CLG) about making comments on the Bureau of Land Managements Rock Springs Field Office Resource Management Plan draft and spoke to Consultant Jessica Western about the possibility of establishing a collaborative with the Ashley National Forest....
Recently, EU officials wrote to Elon Musk to remind him of his company's legal obligations regarding the European Commission's Digital Service Act. However, a person close to Elon Musk said that he would rather block X to the whole region and make the X app unavailable for Europeans than comply with the rules.

The latest debacle stems from the recent events in Israel where people would often see a series of posts with disinformation, which goes unchallenged on the social network. Video game footage passed off as breaking news, old videos from Syria are being recycled and attributed to this or that attack.

Journalists and researchers say that X is borderline useless as a news source because it contains so much disinformation. In some cases, antisemitic hate speech and posts glorifying terrorism go by unnoticed. Moreover, Musk himself has repeatedly shared posts from accounts spreading racist content and conspiracy theories.

People familiar with the matter believe that if Musk blocks Europe, the website's traffic will fall by around 9%, which would further add to the X's troubles in this regard. The social network's daily usage is reportedly already 40% down in some regions for the past couple of months.

Source
Oppo is finally unveiling its foldable flagship device for 2023 - the Find N3. The new handset will be announced globally at 6:30 AM UTC on October 19. The Find N3 Flip, which was already announced in China and India will also tag along as it heads to more international markets.

The Find N3 is rumored to arrive with the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, a 7.8-inch internal screen, 6.31-inch cover screen and a set of three cameras with different focal lengths. Rumors so far suggest that the handset will be identical to OnePlus Open, which is also going official later today.

Stay tuned for the Oppo Find N3 unveiling to find out about pricing and which countries will get it.
Xiaomi 14 flagships are scheduled to arrive this month, the company confirmed on Weibo. The announcement also revealed the Leica branding will adorn the series, and the photo company will provide the best in the field Summilux lens for mobile phones.

The Xiaomi 14 lineup will also bring a new image sensor, but we are yet to learn which phone will have it and what will be its purpose.

The Xiaomi 14 devices are expected to have a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which Qualcomm will unveil on Tuesday, October 24. Lei Jun traditionally appears on stage at the Summit in Hawaii, speaking about the strong relationship between Xiaomi and Qualcomm, and more often than not, he confirms the imminent arrival of the next Xiaomi flagships.

We expect at least two phones - Xiaomi 14 and Xiaomi 14 Pro. However, they are likely to launch first in China with their new HyperOS, while a global release is most likely to happen in the first weeks of 2024.

November 11 is Singles Day (11.11) and is one of the biggest shopping holidays in China. Xiaomi might be looking to the increased demand around it.

Source (in Chinese) | Via
(Editor's note: This story has been updated to include California Judge Johnny C. Gogo's comment and a new photo.)

President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated a Guam son, California Judge Johnny Cepeda Gogo, to serve as U.S. Attorney for the District of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the White House and Adelup announced.

The nomination requires Senate confirmation.

"I am honored and humbled to be nominated by President Biden to be the United States Attorney for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands and I look forward to the confirmation process," Gogo said in an email response to the Pacific Daily News.

Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero recommended Gogos appointment in February 2021.

We thank President Biden for nominating Judge Johnny Gogo to serve the people of Guam and the CNMI. Judge Gogo is a son of Guam with family from Sinajana, acting Gov. Joshua Tenorio said in a statement Wednesday evening.

Gogo is a judge with the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, in San Jose, where he has served since 2019, according to the White House.

Previously, Gogo served as a deputy district attorney with the Santa Clara County District Attorneys Office from 2001 to 2019 and from 1999 to 2000.

During his time as a deputy district attorney for two decades, according to Adelup, Gogo prosecuted numerous felony cases, including major narcotics cases.

Judge Gogos extensive litigation experience will be a valuable asset in Guams continuing fight against illegal drugs, the governors office said.

When Leon Guerrero recommended Gogo in 2021, the governor wrote that in California, Gogo promoted youth advancement, secured justice for undocumented immigrants, and addressed drug and gang violence.

Gogo began his legal career as an assistant attorney general in the prosecution division of the Guam Office of the Attorney General, from 1997 to 1999.

He joined the Calvo & Clark Law Firm as an associate from 2000 to 2001. The governor earlier said that Gogo is a member of the Guam Bar Association.

After leaving Guam, Gogo moved to California and began working as deputy district attorney in Santa Clara.

In 2019, in recognition of his work as a deputy district attorney in Santa Clara, California, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Judge Gogo to the Superior Court. Judge Gogo has continued to serve the people of California in that position, Adelup said.

The governor also earlier wrote that Gogo stayed involved in the Santa Clara County high school mock trial competition for 20 years, and the Santa Clara County Bar Association created the Johnny Gogo Award, given to volunteers who help the program.

Gogo received his law degree, cum laude, from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in 1996 and his bachelors degree from the University of California, San Diego in 1991, the White House said.

In a 2021 interview with the PDN, Gogo said he was born in an Army hospital in Germany as the middle child of five to Jesus Crisostomo Gogo of Sinajana and Remedious Dydasco Cepeda of Barrigada. He attended C.L. Taitano Elementary School in Sinajana. After high school, he joined the military.

He had said his father was an Army Green Beret and the family moved every three years from base to base, in Europe, Asia, Alaska and across the continental United States.

Gogo is among the latest nominees from the Biden White House. Biden also nominated two district court judges for Northern Districts of Oklahoma; a U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts; U.S. Marshals for the Districts of Maryland and the Southern District of West Virginia; and two to serve as commissioners on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

These are officials who will be indispensable to upholding the rule of law as top federal law enforcement officials, the White House said of the presidents nominations for U.S. Attorney and U.S. Marshal. These individuals were chosen for their devotion to enforcing the law, their professionalism, their experience and credentials, their dedication to pursuing equal justice for all, and their commitment to the independence of the Department of Justice.
Debate on how to deal with offenders who commit a crime after being let out on the streetand how big an issue that really is for Guamtook center stage at the Legislature.

Officials on Tuesday heard two bills, proposed by Attorney General Douglas Moylan, that would make changes to the justice system. One would require risk assessments for each defendant prior to granting pretrial release. The other would give the victims, in any case, the opportunity to demand that their case be brought to trial within 60 days.

Though opinions on both differed, much of the discussion turned to what Moylan has dubbed Guams catch, release, and re-offend problema problem thats been disputed by Public Defender Service Corp. Director Stephen Hattori.

Latest numbers compiled by the Judiciary of Guam note that between January and September, about 8% of the 345 defendants that were allowed to walk free while they awaited trial were arrested for another crime.

Of the 27 who were arrested, six were arrested for a violent crime.

In 55 cases, a warrant was put out on the defendant for failing to show up for a court mandated check-in.

Its unclear whether those statistics factored into the AGs increased push for pretrial confinement. The population at the Department of Corrections is facing a historic high number because of pretrial detainee numbers exploding since the start of Moylans term in January, the PDN reported.

Sen. Chris Barnett, chairman of the public safety committee, said that based on media reports and his own discussions with police officers, the re-offense problem seems to be occurring regularly.

Sometimes theyre committing a felony while on pretrial release for committing a felony while on pretrial release. And Im not even making this up, Barnett said.

He said officers have informed him of one instance where a person was arrested three times within the same 24-hour span.

Written testimony from the Judiciary of Guam defended the pretrial release decisions made by judges, pointing to the re-offense statistics compiled by the court.

These figures underscore that, while there is still room for improvement, Guams arrest-free rate  is on par with other jurisdictions often cited as models for pretrial reform, the Judiciary said in its testimony.

Keeping the re-offense rate low will also require the justice system to address the root causes that bring individuals into the justice system in the first place, such as limited access to behavioral health treatment, education, violence prevention and youth programs, and transportation, the Judiciary said.

But the attorney general disagreed with the idea that the percentages were small.

Its not a small percentage if you become one of those victims, Moylan said.

He argued that those who were recorded in the judiciarys stats were only those that were caught, and that the number of those who failed to appear in court, though not always criminal, indicated more serious offenses.

Moylan said it was also clear from the records his office was keeping that one magistrate judge was confining defendants more often than the other, though he did not name the judges.

Moylans proposed solution was to take away personal recognizance bonds, where a defendant doesnt have to pay bail upfront.

Even $50 to a poor person gives that person more reason not to violate the courts order, Moylan said.

Cash bail also frequently forced defendants to borrow money from family members, giving those around a defendant a stake in seeing them remaining on the right side of the law.

Attorney Pete Santos of the Alternate Public Defender, meanwhile, said he agreed that there was a catch and release problem, but pointed the finger at Moylan, and not the courts.

Santos said it was the duty of prosecution to prove that a defendant deserved to be charged and confined, and the law by default called for them to be released.

Yes, there is a lot of catch, release and reoffend because the prosecution is failing to do their job. Likewise, aside from clients being released, theres a whole bunch of dismissals. Because, again, theyre not meeting the very low standard of probable cause, said Santos, a write-in candidate for attorney general in a race that Moylan won last year.

Moylan objected, pointed to the overcrowding at DOC as proof.

The defense attorney, when questioned by Sen. Tom Fisherwho is also a lawyersaid the prosecutions failure would sometimes upset him.

In full candor, sometimes I wish my client wouldnt get released. Because I think its better for the client to be held, and its better for society. In certain cases, Santos said, noting judges could be very familiar with some defendants.

Santos has expressed his desire to run for attorney general in the 2026 election.

John Morrison, deputy director for the Public Defender Service Corp., said the nine defendants charged with another crime in September was serious, but added, I think we would have to look at these numbers in a lot of detail and figure out exactly what they mean.

On the broader issue of pretrial release violations which dont lead to charges, he said, we sort of have to ask ourselves what those violations were.

Someone has a drug problem so advanced that theyre getting in trouble with law. They have a family life that has been compromised, maybe by their addiction, by other things, theyre suffering with poverty, homelessness, and we let them out of jail and tell them to report three times a week to probation, theres going to be some violations for not reporting three times a week.

On the matter of trying to reduce the number of violations, he suggested that a better public transit system would help.

So somebody who lives in (Hagat) can actually make it to the Capitol three times a week to check in, where now thats virtually impossible, unless they have a lot of means, and most of my clients do not, Morrison said.

Barnett said he understood arguments from both side of the issue, but one heinous crime committed while a defendant was on release is one crime too many.

He said he was glad that officials could agree that there was an issue to address.

I just hope that we can put our heads together and find a meaningful way to address this, Barnett added.

Mayors, during several meetings of the Mayors Council of Guam, have also expressed frustration with what they perceive as frequent catch-and-release cases, resulting in more crimes committed in their villages.
Members of the Guam Medical Association on Wednesday night met with one goal in mind: Get a new hospital built in Tamuning.

Lawmakers in coming weeks and months are set to vote on legislation that could decide the fate of a new Guam Memorial Hospitals location.

Huddled in a room above the American Medical Center in upper Tumon, doctors, nurses and various members of the healthcare community set to work, planning to lobby senators for the construction of a new hospital in Tamuning.

A letter opposing the administrations plans to build a new hospital and medical campus in the Barrigada and Mangilao area is already making the rounds through various clinics, based on discussion. Doctors and nurses are also being asked show up at the Guam Legislature for upcoming hearings to voice their opinions.

But members also have to speak to senators one on one, said Dr. Tom Shieh, president of the medical association.

We got to talk to individual senators and get at least 10 votes, Shieh said.

Support from 10 senators will be needed to get any mandate that the hospital be built in Tamuning past an expected veto from Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero.

That hurdle may not be a huge one to clear for GMA members, based on positions lawmakers have taken on the hospital location in the past.

The Legislatures six-member Republican caucus, since the beginning of this legislative term, has been skeptical of Adelups plans to build a hospital and medical campus outside of Tamuning.

Democrat Sen. Chris Barnett has introduced legislation to require the hospital be built in Tamuning, while Speaker Therese Terlaje has also questioned plans to build a new hospital far from the current one. If that support holds, only two more Democrats would have to support Ypao Point in Tamuning as the location to make the bill veto-proof.

Medical consultant and Consolidated Commission on Utilities member Francis Santos on Wednesday compared the push for a Tamuning location to the efforts the medical community made in opposing reforms to medical malpractice during the previous legislative term.

Its no different, its the same fight, he said.

Doctors and nurses flooded the Guam Congress building across seven separate hearings last term, to voice opposition to Bill 112-36, which would have made it less costly to sue over medical malpractice.

Despite having 10 cosponsors, just four senators voted for Bill 112 to even be entertained during a legislative session last December, while seven did not even appear for the vote, PDN files show.

GMA asserts it is the largest medical organization on Guam.

Members came to three main arguments for Ypao Point as the preferred site during Wednesday nights meeting:

Tamuning is more accessible for more patients, and saves lives.

Most of the medical infrastructures on Guam, and medical equipment, are in Tamuning.

Building the hospital in Barrigada would take longer due to infrastructure and archeological concerns.

The general idea of having a medical campus, which would include outpatient services such as public health facilities, also came under fire.

Dr. Erika Alford, an endocrinologist, at one point said GMH was an emergency care center, "it's not for primary care," and that public health and patient clinics were better situated out in the villages, anyways.

Representatives from Guam Surgicenter, Seventh Day Adventist Clinic, American Medical Center, Dr. Shiehs Clinic, and more were present at the meeting, though individual doctors and clinics varied in how ready they were to publicly back the Ypao point site.

Eric Plinske, vice president of corporate affairs for the Guam Regional Medical City, was also present and contributed to the discussion, but told the Pacific Daily News that the private hospital remains neutral on the issue of GMH. Plinske did note, when asked by other members, that at least financially, it was in GRMCs interest to have GMH built as far away as possible.
In a step toward further ensuring equal access and opportunities for all citizens, Sen. William A. Parkinson has introduced Bill 191-37, which aims to make all government leased office spaces in Guam fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The ADA, passed in 1990, has been a cornerstone of federal legislation promoting equal opportunity for people with disabilities. However, not all government of Guam offices meet these requirements, the senator said.

Under the bill, all government leased offices will be required to adhere to the ADA guidelines, ensuring that people with disabilities have equal access to public services, facilities, and employment opportunities.

By making these spaces ADA compliant, Parkinson aims to foster a more inclusive environment, where individuals with disabilities can participate fully in civic life.

This legislation is a crucial step forward in our commitment to creating an inclusive society where everyone, regardless of their abilities, can engage fully and enjoy the same opportunities as their fellow citizens, Parkinson said in a statement on Thursday.

Parkinson noted that it is essential for the government to set an example in adhering to the highest standards of accessibility. Under the proposed legislation, all government offices leased by GovGuam would be required to meet ADA compliance standards within 180 days.

Ensuring accessibility in government offices is not just a legal requirement but a moral imperative, Parkinson said. If someone needs to talk to a senator, get their passport renewed, or do anything that requires them to step foot into a GovGuam agency, then there should be no physical barriers that would prevent them from doing so.

Bill 191-37 is now the second piece of legislation that Parkinson has proposed regarding ADA compliance, following his Bill 98-37, which seeks to make all Guam Department of Education schools ADA compliant.

After hearing testimony on Bill 98, I was angry, disappointed, and devastated, Parkinson said. I realized that the issue of ADA compliance goes far beyond a few of our public schools not having ramps for students in wheelchairs. The issue of ADA compliance centers around two things: inclusivity and fairness. We saw a lot of support for Bill 98. We saw a lot of support to help our disabled kids.

The senator said the obstacles they face go beyond just their classroom, and many adults with disabilities still struggle with their day to day activities due to ADA non-compliance.

Our government must set an example, and this legislation underscores our dedication to creating a more inclusive society where everyone can participate fully in the civic life of Guam, Parkinson added.
(Editors note: This is part of a series of stories from an Oct. 14 to 18 Guam media familiarization tour of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia, hosted by the Yap Visitors Bureau and the government of Yap.)

There are no tourists, just new friends to be discovered.

This is a common belief among Yap residents, according to the Yap Visitors Bureau.

Yap has one of the worlds most preserved cultures, some of the friendliest people of Micronesia, and a surplus of diving locations within their water kingdom, so global visitors are in for a positive and laid-back experience upon visiting Yap, the bureau said.

The islands of Yap, a state of the Federated States of Micronesia with 11,577 people as of 2020, have resumed the journey to advocate for more tourists after being completely closed off from the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yaps tourism bureau and the government of Yap, with some assistance from United Airlines, sponsored a familiarization tour of Yap for some Guam media representatives. Yap is about 530 miles southwest of Guam.

The tour brought the team to Yaps famed attractions, starting with its traditional currency: the stone money.

Stone Money

Yap is known for its stone money, large doughnut-shaped stone disks that can weigh over 2,000 pounds each. They are unique in the world and remain to be Yaps key attraction. They can be found around public offices and tourist spots.

Stone money gains its value from the hardships encountered within acquiring the stones, the bureau said.

The original valuable stones were mined by hand-powered chisels and other local tools in Palau and had to ride on multiple rafts just to cover the 276-mile trip to Yap. Some of the stones are named after certain individuals because of their unfortunate deaths while carrying the heavy load.

Some stones were later mined with power tools but were not valued as much by the locals due to a lack of hardships.

A couple of the largest and most valuable stones on Rumung Island are at least over 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide.

The Rumung site is usually closed to the public, but visitors can now arrange tours with the YVB, which then contacts other government agencies such as their local legislature and the traditional village chiefs, for their consent.

Yap and the rest of the FSM use the U.S. dollar as their main form of currency for goods and services, but stone money is still occasionally used today for exchanges of land, boats or possibly collateral for a cash loan.

The water

Yaps waters are globally recognized for their marine life, including nearly-daily sightings of manta rays and common appearances of sharks and dolphins.

Mahimahi, tuna, wahoo and blue marlins are also some of the most common big fish surrounding Yap, according to the visitors bureau.

Serious fishers should consider bringing their personal gear due to limited selections of rental diving equipment.

Water tours can be arranged with help from the bureau or other living accommodations as beaches are not public and must be arranged with landowners.

Locally owned land

Its estimated that the government of Yap owns only 10% of the states total area within the reefs. The rest is all privately owned by the local residents on the island, including beaches and the water extending up to the reef.

One Yapese custom is to hold a leaf or branch while entering private property in villages to traditionally indicate your hands are compromised, but it is now more commonly seen simply as an intention of peace and respect.

Tourists and other visitors are expected to follow the same custom when visiting the peaceful stone paths.

Other common customs include kindly greeting residents along the way, walking in single file and keeping noise levels down as much as possible.
Michael Lujan Bevacqua is an author, artist, activist and the curator for The Guam Museum.
Robert Underwood is the former president of the University of Guam and Guams former delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives.
While Chick-fil-A is known for long drive-thru lines, fried chicken sandwiches and anti-LGBTQ+ donations, a class-action lawsuit accused the chain of deceptive pricing for orders made via its app. The suit claimed Chick-fil-A promoted free or low-cost delivery while hiding higher prices for delivered items, with upcharges of 25% to 30%, according to TheTakeOut.com.

Plaintiffs allege that by omitting, concealing, and misrepresenting material facts about CFAs (Chick-fil-A) delivery service, CFA deceives consumers into making online food purchases they otherwise would not make, the settlement says, per a report on TopClassActions.com.

Chick-fil-A settled the lawsuit without admitting guilt and will allow affected customers to choose between cash or gift card payments of $29.95. In total, Chick-fil-A agreed to a $1.45 million cash fund and a $2.95 million gift card fund. If claims surpass the $4.4 million fund, payments will be adjusted proportionally.

In addition to the $4.4 million in cash and gift card funds, Chick-fil-A will add language to its app and website to alert customers of the higher costs.

A website and direct email notice system will be set up to inform potential class members of the Chick-fil-A settlement. Chick-fil-A will provide email addresses to the settlement administrator so that likely eligible customers can be notified.

Once the claim form is available, impacted customers will only need to provide their name, email address, phone number and claim confirmation to collect. There currently is no launch date scheduled for the claim form.

The class-action suit is the latest in Chick-fil-As legal challenges this year. Earlier this year, a data breach exposed over 70,000 customer accounts, allowing threat actors to use stored rewards balances and access personal information.

Chick-fil-A, founded in 1967, has grown into one of the largest fast-food chains in the U.S. It is headquartered in College Park, Georgia, and has faced both praise for its customer service and criticism for its past charitable donations. The chain has 479 stores in Texas and nearly 3,000 in the U.S.
In what might be the most unique way to view a solar eclipse, Southwest Airlines has announced scheduled flights that will operate within the direct and partial paths of the celestial event on Monday, April 8, 2024.

Ticketed passengers on those flights can get a literal birds-eye view as the path of totality passes over several U.S. states where Southwest operates, including Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Texas.

David Dillahunt, chief meteorologist at Southwest Airlines, called the annular solar eclipse that occurred on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, an exciting sneak-peak of the total solar eclipse occurring next year.

With our flight schedule, were able to offer hundreds of seats in the sky to view the eclipse, and we look forward to showcasing our hospitality on this day while celebrating with our customers, Dillahunt said in a statement.

This graphic from Southwest Airlines shows what flights will operate directly in the path of the total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024.Courtesy Southwest Airlines

He said the companys meteorology and network planning teams have identified the best opportunities for a potential view of the breathtaking sight.

The airlines network and schedule planners modeled the operational day against projections of the umbra and penumbra, or the shadows cast by the moons eclipse of the sun. According to Southwest, these flights have the greatest likelihood of offering passengers onboard the best of this moment:

Southwest Flight No. 1252: departs Dallas (Love Field) at 12:45 p.m. CDT for Pittsburgh

Southwest Flight No. 1721: departs Austin at 12:50 p.m. CDT for Indianapolis

Southwest Flight No. 1910: departs St. Louis at 1:20 p.m. CDT for Houston (Hobby)

This graphic from Southwest Airlines shows the flights that will operate mostly in the path of the total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024.Courtesy Southwest Airlines

These flights may also cross the path of totality during their scheduled operating time:

Southwest Flight No. 955: departs Dallas (Love Field) at 12:50 p.m. CDT for Chicago (Midway)

Southwest Flight No. 506: departs Milwaukee at 1:05 p.m. CDT for Dallas (Love Field)

Southwest Flight No. 1734: departs Houston (Hobby) at 1:35 p.m. CDT for Indianapolis

Southwest Flight No. 1682: departs Chicago (Midway) at 1:30 p.m. CDT for Austin

Southwest Flight No. 3108: departs Nashville at 1:40 p.m. CDT for Dallas (Love Field)

The airline cautions that looking directly at the sun is never recommended, but one can safely observe an eclipse with specialty-rated solar filters.

This graphic from Southwest Airlines shows the flights that will operate mostly in the path of the total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024.Courtesy Southwest Airlines

Its never too early to start planning how youll view the solar eclipse. The easiest way is to purchase or secure a pair of eclipse glasses that meet the ISO 12312-2 international safety standard. Glasses can be purchased from several online retailers or at select locations of Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart and H-E-B. Many libraries across the nation will be handing out glasses for free.

A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the sun. The sky will darken as if it were dawn or dusk, and viewers should get a rare glimpse of the suns corona, the suns outer atmosphere, which isnt usually visible.

To book an open seat on one of the flights operating on April 8, 2024, the airline says customers can visit its website or use its app like usual.

Otherwise, if youd prefer to keep your feet firmly planted on the ground, there will be plenty of spectacular vantage points across Texas since the state is squarely in the path of totality.
Over 60 countries confirm participation in CIIE's Country Exhibition

Xinhua) 08:21, October 19, 2023

This aerial photo taken on Nov. 2, 2021 shows a view of the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) in east China's Shanghai. (Xinhua)

SHANGHAI, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Over 60 countries have confirmed their participation in the Country Exhibition at the sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE), which is scheduled to take place from Nov. 5 to Nov. 10, according to local authorities.

The Country Exhibition is an important part of the CIIE and will showcase each participating nation's technological innovations, strong industries and investment climate, said Zhang Weimin, who works at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai).

This year's national pavilions will include countries in various development stages, from the least developed to developed, Zhang added.

The China Pavilion, with an area of 2,500 square meters, will be the largest it has ever been in the history of the CIIE. It will focus on demonstrating China's latest achievements in high-level opening-up and high-quality development.

The Business Exhibition of the sixth CIIE will feature six main exhibition areas. So far, over 3,000 companies from more than 120 countries have confirmed their participation, and the exhibition area will exceed 360,000 square meters.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)




Haiti - FLASH : The Secretary General of the HCT kidnapped





Wednesday October 18, 2023 in the afternoon, heavily armed men were kidnapped under threat, in Debussy (haut Turgeau), Anthony Virginy St-Pierre, the Secretary General of the High Council of the Transition (HCT).



Mirlande Manigat, President of the HCT, confirmed the kidnapping.



According to our information, 2 million dollars in ransom would be demanded by the kidnappers of the Secretary General of the HCT who would be sequestered in Village de Dieu (location unconfirmed).



The family and friends of the Secretary General appeal to the kidnappers for his unconditional release.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Canada/CARICOM Summit : PM Henry spoke with Justin Trudeau





Wednesday October 18, 2023, on the sidelines of the first Canada-Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Summit, the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, who was accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Melanie Joly, spoke with the Prime Minister a.i. of Haiti, Ariel Henry.



Prime Minister Trudeau expressed his concern over the ongoing humanitarian, security, and political crises in Haiti. He reiterated the critical importance of reaching an inclusive political consensus to create the conditions for free and fair elections and the restoration of democratic order in Haiti.



The two leaders agreed that the best way forward in this regard is to utilize the CARICOM political dialogue to discuss an agreement on a transition process, with the aim of a next meeting of stakeholders to be held in late October.



Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister Henry agreed to remain in regular contact.



Furthermore, Justin Trudeau during the summit, reiterated the determination of his Government to continue working with the Caribbean community to help Haiti emerge from the serious crisis it is going through, and announced Wednesday the granting of an envelope of 3 .4 million dollars in equipment to fight violence in Haiti [] We will allocate $3.4 million to provide equipment and assistance to fight violence linked to firearms [...]"



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Agriculture : Making national agricultural production a reality





The Lorquet Foundation for a New Haiti (FOLONHA), congratulates the Haitian people for the new momentum demonstrated to make national agricultural production a reality. It supports firstly the inhabitants of Ouanaminthe for their initiative to irrigate and strengthen agriculture in the North-East region, particularly the Maribaroux plain.



The Foundation also applauds the compatriots of other localities of the country who have decided to follow this example with a view to a return to agriculture, in particular the population of Port-Margot, that of the South department and that of Maury, 3rd rural section of Desarmes in the commune of Verrettes who, since October 14, have been inspired by the initiative of the inhabitants of Ouanaminthe to rehabilitate a 50-year-old canal. The construction of this irrigation system began under the government of President Dumarsais Estime but was never completed. This canal must be supplied with water from the Artibonite River passing through the town of Maury to Marin located approximately 30 kilometers away.



Like the members of the diaspora, natives of Desarmes, and the organization "Tet Ansanm pou yon Dezam Miyo" (TAPYDEM), FOLONHA encourages farmers from the 571 communal sections of the country to follow this good example with a view to rehabilitate all the canals dating from the colonial era and which had made Haiti an essentially agricultural country to the point of feeding a good part of the countries of Europe.



"May Haiti become prosperous again !"



HL/ HaitiFree






















Haiti - FLASH : Final investigation report on Haiti from the UN Sanctions Committee





This Thursday, October 19, 2023, the Security Council is expected to vote on a draft resolution renewing for one year the sanctions regime in Haiti, which includes an arms embargo and targeted asset freeze and travel ban measures.



The Security Council Group of Experts, established by resolution 2653 (2022), has just published its final investigation report (S/2023/674) which was transmitted to the Security Council Committee concerning Haiti, which examined last September, informed the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH.



An edifying report which after 1 year of investigation puts the spotlight on the hands hidden in this crisis and those who profit from this crisis.



Without answering all the questions, this report will provide grist for the mill of those who want to know beyond the rumors and see the truth come to light...



Contents :

[...]



Political, security and economic context

A. Political transition



B. Security situation

1. Security context

2. Law enforcement

3. Justice system

4. Regional impact



C. Unilateral sanctions and measures



D. Economic situation



III. Information relevant to the potential designation of individuals or entities who may have engaged in, directly or indirectly, actions that threaten the peace, security or stability of Haiti



A. Gangs in Haiti



1. Gang distribution

2. Gang dynamics during the reporting period

2.1 Fighting between G9 and G-Pep

2.2 Bwa Kale and the strengthening of self-defence groups

2.3 Dynamics in G-Pep alliance

3. Financing of gangs

3.1 Links between political and economic actors and gangs

3.2 Sources of revenue



B. Transnational crime dynamics



1. Weak border controls and corrupt practices: key factors to criminal activities

2. Weapons and ammunition trafficking and diversions

2.1 Typology of illicit firearms in Haiti

2.2 Trafficking routes

2.2.1 Trafficking from the United States

2.2.2 Trafficking from the Dominican Republic

2.2.3 Trafficking from Haiti

2.3 Diversions of weapons and ammunition within Haiti

2.3.1 Diversion from national stockpiles

2.3.2 Civilian ownership

2.3.3 Private security companies



3. Drug trafficking



4. Trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants



C. Acts that violate international human rights law or acts that constitute human rights abuses



1. Sexual and gender-based violence

2. Recruitment of children

3. Weaponization of hunger and violations to the right to food

4. Indiscriminate attacks against the population

5. Obstructions of humanitarian access and assistance



Attacks against United Nations agencies



6. Violations by the police



IV. Illicit financial flows

1. Diversion of Petrocaribe funds

2. Diversion of Customs revenues

3. Diversion of bilateral aid



V. Implementation of the measures adopted in paragraphs 3, 6 and 11 of UNSCR 2653



Recommendations



Annexes



Download the final report S/2023/674 English PDF 156 pages : https://www.haitilibre.com/docs/N2324629.pdf



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Recent data from THL's School Health Survey indicates a troubling increase in violence directed at children by guardians or responsible adults in Helsinki. Disturbingly, approximately one in five fourth and fifth-grade boys have experienced physical violence within the last year. Close to half of the girls in the eighth and ninth grades have suffered emotional abuse from their caregivers.

Moreover, in 2022, over 8% of Helsinki residents aged 20-64 experienced domestic violence, and this figure rises to over 4% for those aged 65 and above, with women being more frequently victimized than men.

Domestic violence refers to violence perpetrated by someone with whom the victim has, or had, an intimate relationship. It isn't confined merely to physical violence; it can also manifest as emotional, sexual, or financial abuse. The ramifications of such violence are severe and enduring.

In response to this pressing issue, Helsinki has initiated a campaign to combat domestic violence and to communicate avenues for assistance for both victims and perpetrators. The campaign aims to help individuals recognize different forms of domestic violence, advocate everyone's right to personal inviolability and a safe life, and inform about the available help options.

Targeted at children and young adults, the campaign conveys five key messages based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Drawing inspiration from the social media "put a finger down" trend, the campaign encourages youngsters to speak out if they or someone they know has been a victim of violence. This campaign is a continuation of a previous effort launched in 2022 and has been expanded this year to also address adults, enabling them to introspect on their behaviors and understand the thresholds of violent conduct. A core message of the campaign is that shame should never be a barrier to seeking help, and support is available for both victims and perpetrators.

The campaign will be visible on social media, outdoor advertising, and also within Helsinki's education, cultural, leisure, social, and health services facilities.

Produced by the City of Helsinki in close collaboration with sector organizations and stakeholders, several associations and services are participating, including the Shelter and Safety Home Union's Online Safe House, OnksOK service, Foraldrachatten, Helsinki Church Family Counseling, Loisto settlement ry, and many more.

Titled "Even a Loved One Can Hurt," the campaign will officially launch on 23rd October 2023.

For guidance on seeking help regarding domestic violence, residents can visit: hel.fi/viisisormea.

HT
For generations , the hiking trail from Hetta to Pallas in the Pallas-Yllastunturi National Park has remained a favored destination. Now, with the launch of a fresh trekking guide accompanied by a waterproof outdoor map, newcomers and experienced trekkers alike have a comprehensive tool to make their journey more enriching.

Well-marked, the trail is dotted with several wilderness huts, offering shelter for travelers.

Published this October by Tapio Karttakeskus, the guidebook delves into the region's natural beauty, rich history, and diverse fauna. Not only does it provide detailed guidance for planning a trek, but it also offers tangible tips, including essential gear checklists, especially beneficial for those setting out on their maiden voyage. Beyond the primary trail, the guide highlights various attractions and day-trip destinations in the Hetta and Pallas regions. Some of these are marked routes, while others are personal recommendations from the author.

Laura Hakulinen, the book's author, moved to the vicinity of Pallas-Yllastunturi National Park from the south four years ago. Since then, she's been endlessly captivated by Lapland's wilderness. "The vast expanse of the tundra, contrasted with its intricate details, renders it uniquely fascinating," shares Hakulinen. She further adds, "Each of the eight seasons in Tunturi-Lapland brings its distinctive charm. The HettaPallas trail and the majestic mountain ranges look profoundly different with each season."

She describes the present moment as the onset of the early winter snows. "The mountains fall silent, and frost delicately adorns twigs and branches, just before the snow blankets the ground."

Bundled with the guidebook is a separately folded outdoor map. This waterproof map not only marks the HettaPallas trail but also other trekking routes and points of interest detailed in the book.

Guidebook Features:

Detailed trail descriptions

Services and attractions for trekkers

Tips and photographs

Outdoor Map Features:

Waterproof

Trails and points of interest

Comprehensive area map at a 1:50,000 scale and detailed maps of Hetta and Pallas at a 1:25,000 scale

HT
Finland , known for its rich musical heritage, has witnessed a significant shift in its acceptance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in music over the past few years. According to a recent study titled "Listening to music in Finland 2023", conducted by Teosto and Music Producers  IFPI Finland ry, the once skeptical Finnish audience seems to have warmed up to AI's role in music creation and presentation.

A few years back, AI's encroachment into the musical realm met resistance from Finns. However, the 2023 study reveals a softer stance, likely owing to AI's rapid progression in various sectors of daily life. But while technology may be making inroads, the human touch remains irreplaceable for many. Kari Tervonen from Omnicom Media Group, who led the study, remarked, "Even though AI has made strides, our findings show that Finns still champion the human factor in music."

Interestingly, the nation stands divided on the future of AI-driven music. While 37% don't foresee a surge in AI's role, almost a third believe its involvement will only grow. Most notably, 64% of all respondents and 46% of those aged between 13-25 opine that genuine music is exclusively human-made and performed. Over half voiced concerns regarding the livelihood of human artists in an AI-dominated industry. Yet, for those who play musical instruments, a significant 40% expressed interest in harnessing AI to reshape music.

The trend of AI reimagining songs is not just theoretical. Early in 2023, TikTok saw a wave where AI remodeled renowned tracks using vocals imitating other famous artists. This AI imitation trend became a staple, with Finnish content creators eagerly jumping onboard. When quizzed about their dream AI-music mashups, Finns' suggestions were both hilarious and intriguing. Some wanted a blend of local legend Irwin Goodman with the iconic British band Genesis, while others sought more intuitive combos like "Jimi Hendrix's rendition of 'Layla'."

Despite AI's growing prevalence, its interpretations remain somewhat basic in nuances, leaving the future of this trend a matter of speculation. "Determining the extent of AI's future impact remains a challenge," concludes Tervonen. As the world of AI and music intertwines in Finland, it will be fascinating to see how this harmonious relationship evolves.

HT
Orthodox feminist activist Alice Shalvi, right and author Elana Sztokman in 2017, attending the ordination ceremony for Israeli rabbis at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem.

(JTA) - I first met Alice Shalvi, the mother of religious feminism in Israel, in the mid-1990s during a meeting of ICAR, the International Coalition of Agunah Rights, a coalition that she founded to advocate for women denied a religious divorce by their husbands. She was in her early 70s at the time and had been fighting for agunah rights for 20 years.

I was in my mid-20s, and new to the cause. I was there as co-chair of Mavoi Satum, which a group of us founded in 1995. This coalition was meant to be advancing systemic solutions to this awful problem. But, of course, we were stuck. As stuc...
Most people pay into Medicare through their payroll for their employment years, thinking that once they turn 65, the coverage will be free. Medicare has several expenses. High-income earners pay more in terms of copays, deductibles, and premiums.

Eye Examination and Optician-Original Medicare covers ophthalmologic costs like cataract surgery, but doesnt cover contact lenses and glasses or routine eye checkups. Some people may opt to purchase a vision insurance policy, which costs several hundred dollars annually.

Hearing Aids-Medicare covers any ear-related condition but not hearing aids...
(JNS)  In January, Gilad Erdan, Israels ambassador to the United Nations, said during an International Holocaust Remembrance Day event that the international body was founded upon the ashes of the Holocaust. It was established to ensure such darkness would never be felt by humanity again, but when it comes to fighting antisemitism, sadly, the U.N. ignores its purpose.

Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, was present at the time, and the U.N. point man on antisemitism, Miguel Moratinos, later told JNS that Israel and the Jewish people are integrate...
(JTA)  Argentina is launching an airlift to evacuate its citizens from Israel, four days after Hamas attacked Israel, killing and wounding thousands of people and spurring a war that could be long-lasting.

The Foreign Ministry opened a hotline on Saturday, the day of the attack, for Argentinian citizens to request repatriation. Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero said on Tuesday that more than 713 requests had been received.

Now, the Safe Return program will allow up to 625 people to leave the country. A military Hercules airplane and a Boeing jet will be deployed first to Cyprus and...
(JTA)  The Biden Administrations new point person for combating book bans at school districts and public libraries across the country is a gay, Jewish progressive activist who has served as a government liaison to the Jewish and LGBTQ communities.

The appointment of Matt Nosanchuk comes as the thousands of book challenges nationwide have focused on books with LGBTQ as well as Jewish themes, in addition to works about race. Nosanchuk was named a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Educations civil rights office earlier this month. In that role, he will lead training sess...
(JTA)  On a visit to Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged American support for the country as it ramps up its war on Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza.

Israel is reportedly preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, its first in nearly a decade, five days after hundreds of Hamas terrorists stormed Israeli towns and killed more than 1,300 people, wounding thousands and taking more than 100 captive. Israel has formed an emergency unity government to carry out the war, which will be led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Gallant...
(JNS)  The Israeli Defence Forces launched a study this week to analyze the security implications of a normalization deal between Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study is being administered by a number of IDF branches, including intelligence, strategic planning, the Iran department and the air force. It seeks to clearly outline the advantages of the deal, including possible opportunities for partnership, along with the security risks of potential concessions that may be required of Israel to secure such an agreement. The findings will be presented to IDF Chief of Staff Herz...
(JNS)  Rhea Law, president of the University of South Florida in Tampa, received a letter from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) warning about potential chaos prior to an anti-Zionist event on campus at the end of the month.

The Tampa Bay BDS Conference is scheduled for Oct. 27, organized by Students for Socialism and Students for Justice in Palestine. It is being billed as an inaugural event.

I was proud to lead an effort as governor to implement Floridas anti-BDS law, which prohibits public entities from entering into contracts with companies that boycott Israel to show the world t...
Then-Minister of Defense Benny Gantz at the welcoming ceremony for U.S. President Joe Biden in Tel Aviv, July 13, 2022.

(JNS) - Israel's National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz paid a visit to Washington, D.C., this week for meetings with top Biden administration officials, the opposition politician revealed on Thursday.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Gantz confirmed he met with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Wednesday, while Hebrew press reported that he also sat down with other senior officials.

"In the meeting [with Sullivan], we discussed advancing the vital security interests of the State of Israel, the broadening of Israel's integration into the region, and confronting threats pos...
(JNS)  After more than 3,000 Jewish pilgrims visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the first days of the week-long Sukkot holiday, one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus key ultra-Orthodox coalition partners on Wednesday demanded that the holy site be closed to Jews.

The ascension to Temple Mount involves a severe prohibition of karet, tweeted United Torah Judaism Party MK Moshe Gafni, using the Hebrew religious term for divinely-inflicted premature death.

It pains my heart that 3,000 Jews violated this severe prohibition and went up to Temple Mount, sa...
WASHINGTON (JTA)  President Joe Biden said he is designating experts to help in the effort to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas. The announcement came following U.S. confirmation that there are Americans among the more than 100 captives the terror group took back to the Gaza Strip in its invasion of Israel.

Were working on every aspect of the hostage crisis in Israel including deploying experts to advise on assist and recovery, Biden told a round table of Jewish leaders invited Wednesday to the White House for a briefing on what his administration was doing to assist...
Signs outside a pro-Israel rally outside the New York City consulate at Second Avenue and 42nd Street on Oct. 9, 2023.

(JNS) - It was partly a celebration of life and partly an outpouring of anger.

Several hundred Israel supporters-religious and secular, Israeli and American born-joined together in tight, barricaded quarters at the corner of Second Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan on Monday afternoon, countering an ugly pro-Hamas rally across the intersection outside the Israeli consulate.

A rally supporting the terror group's massacre of Israelis and foreign nationals turned violent in Times Square on Sunday, as Hamas supporters were confronted by Israel backers, mirroring similar scenes around the Uni...
(JNS)  The leaders of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus coalition government endorsed the establishment of an emergency national government during a meeting of the party heads on Tuesday.

Every head of the coalition parties, without exception, supported the establishment of an emergency national government and authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to act to create it, a spokesperson for the ruling Likud Party announced.

Local media reported that an agreement for Benny Gantzs National Unity Party to join the coalition is still being negotiated, but is ex...
(JTA)  Hours after Saturdays deadly surprise attack on Israel by Hamas, the Israeli protest group Achim leNeshek (Brothers and Sisters in Arms) was helping arrange transportation for army reservists being called to the front.

Brothers and Sisters in Arms call on everyone who is required to stand up for the defense of Israel without hesitation and immediately, the group tweeted early Saturday. Right now the most important thing is the safety of the countrys citizens.

It was an abrupt turnabout by a group of military veterans and reservists who previously threatened...
There was singing and dancing, Israeli and American flags flying and messages from the rabbis of four Chabad Centers at the Walt Disney amphitheater at Lake Eola on Sunday, Oct. 15, as hundreds of people from the Jewish and non-Jewish communities gathered in unity to show their love and support for Israel.

Rabbi Sholom Dubov of the Chabad of Greater Orlando encouraged the Jewish community to stay strong during an emotionally taxing time.

"There's a fundamental core [at] the very heart of what we consider humanity," said Rabbi Dubov. "And we have to address the negativity that's going on in...
Bonnie Azoulay Puja Malhotra, center, is the Isolation to Connection specialist at the Mid-Island Y JCC who helped Nora Leeds (l) and Saralee Baim (r) find services to ease the social isolation increasingly common among adults over age 65.

PLAINVIEW, N.Y. - Nora Leeds had lived alone for many years in her Long Island home, but it wasn't until the pandemic that she started to feel isolated.

She was used to working in a large office with coworkers, but then her work went fully remote. For four months, Leeds, now 69, could not see her daughter. She became increasingly depressed.

"I felt like my whole world was falling apart, like I no longer had the skills to interact with people because we were told to stay at home," Leeds said.

Leeds hardly represents a unique case. While the pandemic exacerbated the social isolation of older...
(JTA)  Political leaders from around the globe have condemned Hamas sweeping attack on Israel and pledged their support for Israel.

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following earlier conversations between National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi.

The United States unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians, National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement. There is never any justification for terrorism. We st...
Dear Editor:

As an associate professor of Judaic Studies, I cannot speak officially on behalf of my university, but as a private citizen I can express my deepest solidarity with the State of Israel (where I resided for several years) during this perilous time of unprovoked atrocities against its civilian population. Mere words seem insignificant in the face of such brutality, enacted by the terrorist organization called Hamas. However, there is little doubt that every thought, every sentiment, every prayer offered on behalf of the people of Israel in this hour lends vital encouragement, and...
"The 27 million passengers initially expected to be hosted will reach 40 million annually, and the stations will prevent us from having any problem in meeting the growing demand linked to passenger and airplane traffic," he indicated during the installation of the first passenger boarding bridge as part of the new airport expansion project.

The Cabinet member said this work will help grant a very important boost to tourism activity, which was highly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Cabinet member said progress stands at 60%. Thus, it is within the planned period and will be at 75% by the end of 2023.

"This way, we will have the new Jorge Chavez Airport operating properly in January 2025," he reaffirmed.

Peru expects to have a first-class airport in the region, which will position the country in a very important manner in terms of tourism. It will allow for the development of a series of activities, from the hotel business and gastronomy sectors, to the tourist attractions that this country has to offer.

Lastly, he said it has been important to rely on the second runway, because this will prevent flights from being diverted to other airports in the event of possible problems on the first runway.

El titular del #MTC senalo que esta megaobra representa una importante mejora en el acceso al @LAPJorgeChavez, lo que permitira que nuestro pais tenga un mejor posicionamiento en la region, atrayendo mas turistas, generando un impacto en la actividad economica. pic.twitter.com/3UEo4DYlce
In the summer of 2014, my 17-year-old daughter knocked on my bedroom door late one night shortly after my wife and I had gone to sleep. She asked us not to come downstairs, saying that she had just brought two guys home. This was not an announcement I ever expected, except she didnt use the word guys. She said soldiers. Israel was embroiled in what became known as Operation Protective Edge which began a few weeks after the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, one of whom was our neighbors nephew.

The seven-week-long battle saw the Islamist terror organization Hamas fire thou...
(JNS)  Originally published on July 31, 2015.

The flagbearer of Jihad to liberate Jerusalem.

This is how the blurb of Palestine, published by Islamic Revolution Editions last week in Tehran, identifies the books author.

The author is Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Husseini Khamenei, the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a man whose fatwa has been recognized by former U.S. President Barack Obama as having the force of law.

Edited by Saeed Solh-Mirzai, the 416-page book has received approval from Khameneis office and is thus the most authoritative...
(JNS)  President Joe Bidens address yesterday on Israels war was almost everything you could have hoped for. It was tough. By naming Hamas as the enemy of civilization and condemning their acts of evil, it was unambiguous. It pledged unconditional support for Israel. In retrospect, it seemed like the most pro-Israel speech that an American president has ever delivered.

Yet these incredibly strong and supportive words were uttered by the same man who, despite Israels vehement protestations, did his best to restart the Iranian nuclear talks, authorized the transfer of $6 billion...
Taurus  (20th April to 20th May) Daily Horoscope Prediction says, stay cool today Settle troubles within the love life with care. Professionally you deliver good results today. Though money is there, handle it carefully on essential needs. Taurus Daily Horoscope, October 20, 2023: Troubleshoot love-related problems to stay happy in life

Troubleshoot love-related problems to stay happy in life. New assignments will come to you and ensure you handle them proficiently. There will be no financial woes today and health is normal.

Taurus Love Horoscope Today

You may comfortably settle the love-related issues. Your partner will shower affection and will also accept it back. Keep egos out of the relationship and do not impose your concepts on the partner. Handle issues with a mature mind and do not lose your temper today. Value the person and consider the opinions in life. Stay calm even while have differences in opinions. Articulate your feelings accurately.

Taurus Career Horoscope Today

Today is good to launch a new project at the office. Those who are team leaders or managers will see success in dealing with clients. Your communication will work out at the negotiation table. Bankers and financial managers should pay special attention to figures, especially in the first half of the day. Be disciplined at team meetings and your ideas will have takers today.

Taurus Money Horoscope Today

Handle wealth with care. Despite a good income, it is good to stay away from the massive buying of luxury items. Save for the rainy day. However, you can consider investing in mutual funds and fixed deposits. Entrepreneurs will receive additional funds from even foreign locations which will augment their financial condition. Some Taurus natives will receive financial help from the family of their spouse. You may also resolve a financial dispute with a friend or sibling.

Taurus Health Horoscope Today

Handle the health carefully. Females and children may complain about digestion issues and throat pain today. Some seniors will have sleep-related issues. Avoid food rich in oil and instead, go for a menu packed with fruits and veggies. Pregnant women must be cautious while taking part in adventure sports. Be positive in attitude and stay in the company of people you love.

Taurus Sign Attributes

Strength - Passionate, Practical, Meticulous, Patient, Artsy, Compassionate

Weakness Intolerant, Reliant, stubborn

Symbol Bull

Element Earth

Body Part Neck & Throat

Sign Ruler Venus

Lucky Day Friday

Lucky Color Pink

Lucky Number 6

Lucky Stone Opal

Taurus Sign Compatibility Chart

Natural affinity: Cancer, Virgo, Capricorn, Pisces

Good compatibility: Taurus, Scorpio

Fair compatibility: Aries, Gemini, Libra, Sagittarius

Less compatibility: Leo, Aquarius

By: Dr. J. N. Pandey

Vedic Astrology & Vastu Expert

Website: https://www.cyberastro.com

E-mail: caresponse@cyberastro.com

Phone: 9717199568, 9958780857

Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" "Exciting news! Hindustan Times is now on WhatsApp ChannelsSubscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!

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Cinco pueblos peruanos son reconocidos como Mejores Pueblos Turisticos del Mundo! ????



Nuestra tradicion, orgullo y cultura, se llevan las miradas del mundo. El Peru esta de fiesta! ?????? #UNTWO



?? Conoce mas aqui ?? https://t.co/mLK4EP1dXw. pic.twitter.com/KL0DAVjQRz
The Washington quarter series underwent a major transition in 1965, as the United States Mint introduced clad coinage and discontinued traditional 90% silver issues. This important changeover makes 1965 a pivotal date for quarter collectors and those interested in these coins for their silver content. In this guide, we'll examine the unique circumstances surrounding 1965 quarters, identify what to look for when coin roll hunting, and provide an overview of values for coins in different conditions.

Understanding the minting differences, composition, and relative scarcity provides the knowledge to spot valuable 1965 Washington quarters. Whether building a collection or searching circulation for profit, this reference will help you identify top specimens of this transitional date.

The Switch to Clad Coinage

Up until 1965, circulating quarters contained 90% silver alongside 10% copper. But with the rising price of silver bullion, the intrinsic value of these coins exceeded their face value. To remedy this, the U.S. Mint introduced new modern "clad" coinage in 1965 that substituted silver for a copper and nickel alloy.

The composition changed to:

 Outer Layers: 75% copper, 25% nickel

 Inner Core: 100% copper

This clad composition brought the intrinsic value of coins back down below face value. The transition began in 1965, which featured a mix of old and new quarter types:

 90% silver quarters - January 1 to July 23, 1965

 Copper-nickel clad quarters - July 23, 1965 onward

Clad versions can be easily identified by their light golden edges, versus the solid silver appearance of pre-1965 quarters. Approximately 438 million quarters were minted in 1965 both before and after the compositional changeover.

1965 Quarter Identifying

Since silver quarters were only made for part of the year, the key to finding valuable 1965 examples in circulation is spotting the 90% silver issues struck before the switch to clad. Here are the tell-tale signs of a silver 1965 quarter:

 Date - Must read 1965

 Edges - Will show solid silver color on the outer edge. Clad quarters have a brownish-golden hue.

 Toning - May show blotchy blue, violet, or rainbow toning colors. Clad coins rarely tone.

 Weight - Silver quarters have slightly more heft at ~6.25 grams vs. 5.67 grams for clad versions.

 Sound - A higher-pitched "ring" when silver coins are dropped, vs a dull "clunk" for base metal.

 Maker's Mark - A small "FS" appears on the obverse below Washington's neck for proof silver quarters.

Carefully inspecting and weighing suspect 1965 quarters is the best way to judge if you've found a valuable silver specimen. Quarters that "clink" and show all-silver edges are almost certainly 90% silver and worth much more than face value, and you can check the list of most valuable quarters worth money on CoinValueChecker.

Grading Silver 1965 Quarter

For most vintage coins, condition plays a major role in determining value. However, common date circulated silver coinage like 1965 quarters is primarily valued based on precious metal content. This means that condition is less of a factor, but is still useful to characterize coins properly:

 About Uncirculated (AU) - Light friction but most luster remains, only slight wear on highest points.

 Extremely Fine (EF/XF) - Minor-moderate wear on design high points but most details sharp.

 Very Fine (VF) - Wear is more apparent on designs, lettering, and high points.

 Fine (F) - Major designs are outlined but smoothing is noticeable.

 Good (G) - Outlines of designs visible but smoothing is more pronounced.

 About Good (AG) - Designs faint but can make out an approximate silhouette. Heavy wear.

Circulated silver coins like common date Washington quarters are primarily bought and sold based on their metal content and weight rather than exact grade. However, Mint State examples with full original luster are scarcer and command higher premiums.

Value of 1965 Quarter

Currently, 90% silver quarters have a melt value (intrinsic silver value) of roughly $3.50 each based on market silver prices. That provides a baseline for the value of common, circulated examples. However, there are a few other factors to consider as well when assessing value:

Base Silver Value:

 Circulated 90% quarters - $3.50 melt value

 Uncirculated examples - $4-6 over melt

Impact of Grade/Condition

 Heavily worn or damaged - melt value only

 AU/BU examples - $1-2 premium over melt

 Proof coins - large premium over uncirculated value

Impact of Mint Marks

 Philadelphia (no mint mark): most common, basic melt value

 Denver (D) - Slightly more scarce, but small premium

 San Francisco (S) - Lowest mintage, commands higher premiums

The following recent sales give an idea of real-world values based on type and grade:

 Raw AU 1958 Washington Quarter - Sold for $5 on eBay

 NGC MS65 1965-S Washington Quarter - Realized $50 at auction

 ANACS F15 1965-D Washington Quarter - Bought for $3.60 by dealer

Uncirculated and proof specimens are worth significantly more than typical circulated examples. Clad 1965 quarters should only be worth face value regardless of condition.

Finding Silver 1965 Quarters in Change

While most 1965 quarters in circulation are now clad examples worth merely face value, silver quarters from earlier in the year can still occasionally be found by coin roll hunting. Here are some useful tips:

 Inspect all 1965 quarters closely. Even clad ones are worth saving for your collection.

 Search through quarters from bank rolls, old collections, and family jars.

 Checks quarters offered in deals or bulk lots before rejecting them.

 Focus your searches on rolls from banks located in older urban areas.

 Ask tellers if they have any leftover wrapped rolls from before the mid-1960s.

 Talk to collectors and dealers to learn what coins are turning up locally.

It takes patience and effort, but silver 1965-dated quarters do surface from time to time. Always inspect them closely against the signs above to verify if you've found a silver treasure.

Other Factors Affecting 1965 Quarter Value

While silver content is the main value driver, there are some other details worth mentioning that can impact price:

 Minting errors/varieties - Any 1965 quarter with a major mint error like off-metal strikes or dramatic die breaks would be very scarce and trade for a premium. Minor repunched mint mark varieties also have a little extra value.

 Toning - Colorfully toned silver coins are preferred by some collectors, although toning won't increase melt value.

 Special label/holder - Coin stores and dealers sometimes market "end of year" 1965 silver quarters in special display cards/holders at a large premium. The coin itself is still only worth melt value.

 Condition rarity - Gem quality 1965 proof or DCAM quarters certified MS67 or higher are very scarce and sell for well above melt value.

 Historic significance - As the last year of silver quarters, some buyers are willing to pay a small premium for the historic importance of 1965.

In most cases though, circulated silver 1965 quarters trade right at their silver bullion melt value, which varies slightly day-to-day based on silver spot prices.

Long Term Value Outlook

Silver quarters and dimes dated 1964 and earlier are avidly sought after for their precious metal content. For now, enough 1965 silver quarters remain in circulation to meet demand. This may change years down the road if new generations begin "mining" coins from circulation.

Greater scarcity could make choice uncirculated examples and rare proof coins more desirable for collectors. However, as long as silver trades around $20 per ounce, the base melt value will drive the market. Hoarding of silver coins could also potentially lead to government confiscation as in past decades.

For these reasons, common date silver quarters are wise investments strictly for their intrinsic metal value. Rare dates, mint marks, and condition specimens may offer better upside potential.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes 1965 quarters valuable?

Having the partial silver composition from earlier in 1965 gives the coins precious metal value over face value. This makes 90% silver 1965 quarters worth saving.

How can you tell if a 1965 quarter is silver?

Check the outer edge of 1965 quarters. Solid gray color indicates 90% silver composition. Clad versions have a copper-nickel brown edge.

What is the difference between proof and business strike quarters?

Proof quarters were specially produced for collectors with mirrored fields and frosted designs. Business strikes are intended for circulation.

What about 1965 quarters in mint sets or proof sets?

Proof and mint set 1965 quarters would only contain the clad composition as sets were made later in year. A 90% silver proof 1965 quarter would be a rare and very valuable error.

Why did the U.S. Mint change coin compositions in 1965?

The rising price of silver bullion meant silver coinage had intrinsic value exceeding face value. Minting clad coins brought the material value back below quarter dollar face value.

Conclusion

The partial year of 90% silver coinage production makes 1965 an important transitional date in the Washington quarter series. While clad versions are extremely common, silver 1965 quarters with all-gray outer edges are worth examining closely. Circulated examples in collectible shape trade for a bullion value typically around $3.50 based on silver spot prices. Mint State coins fetch a higher premium from collectors, especially for the scarcer San Francisco issue. With careful searching, sharp-eyed collectors can still cherrypick valuable silver 1965 quarters from circulation.

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India, October 19, 2023 - In a groundbreaking initiative, Water Woman Shipra Pathak, the visionary founder of the Panchatatva Foundation, undertook an extraordinary 1001-kilometer journey on foot from Peelibheet in Uttar Pradesh to the spiritual city of Kashi Varanasi. This incredible pilgrimage, completed over 31 days, stands as a pioneering milestone in the realm of environmental and cultural conservation, as it was India's first-ever Gomti river pilgrimage.

Water woman's journey was not just an ordinary trek; it was a profound pilgrimage undertaken entirely through alms. Her mission was clearto understand the condition of the riverbank, to witness the challenges faced by the sacred River Gomati, and to work towards its restoration and preservation.

Commencing on March 1st of the year, Shipra Pathak's path traversed through 15 districts like Pilibhit, Shajahanpur, Hardoi, Sitapur, Lucknow, Sultanpur, Amethi, Pratapgadh, Ayodhya, Jaunpur and Varanasi where she engaged in daily interactions with the local inhabitants. Each day involved walking distances of 30 to 35 kilometers along the riverbank, which allowed her to experience the diverse landscapes and communities along the way.

The primary objective of this pioneering river pilgrimage was to assess the state of the river's banks, which had faced encroachments and neglect over the years. Shipra was determined to bring about positive change and raise awareness about the vital importance of preserving our rivers.

Upon the completion of her journey, Shipra Pathak wasted no time in launching a campaign to free the River Gomati from encroachments. She collaborated with local authorities and mobilized the support of communities she had encountered during her pilgrimage. The campaign aimed to restore the river's natural flow and ensure that it could once again flourish as a lifeline for the people of the region.

What sets Shipra's pilgrimage apart is not just the physical feat of walking 1001 kilometers but also the profound impact it has had on the Panchatatva Foundation and the communities involved. Over a hundred thousand individuals have joined the foundation as a direct result of Shipra's journey. These individuals are now actively engaged in initiatives to plant trees and vegetation along the banks of the River Gomati, contributing to its rejuvenation.

Water woman's dedication to environmental conservation and river restoration did not begin with the Gomati Yatra. Prior to this epic journey, she embarked on a 3600-kilometer pilgrimage to the sacred Kailash Mansarovar and undertook a mission to protect the Narmada River. Her commitment to safeguarding India's precious water bodies and raising awareness about their ecological significance has been unwavering.

The Gomati Yatra led by Water woman Shipra serves as an inspiring example of how one individual's determination can spark a movement. It showcases the power of grassroots efforts to address critical environmental issues and instill a sense of responsibility in communities along the riverbanks.

The significance of such river pilgrimages extends beyond the immediate impact on a single river. They serve as a catalyst for nationwide conversations about the need to preserve and protect our water bodies. India, a country with a rich cultural heritage deeply intertwined with its rivers, stands to benefit immensely from initiatives like the Gomati Yatra.

The success of Water woman Shipra's journey lies not only in the physical and logistical challenges she overcame but also in the emotional and cultural connections she formed with the people she met along the way. Her story reminds us that when individuals unite for a common cause, transformative change becomes possible.

In conclusion, Water woman Shipra's 1001-kilometer river pilgrimage from Peelibheet to Kashi Varanasi represents a monumental step towards environmental conservation and river restoration in India. Her dedication, along with the support of thousands of individuals who have joined the cause, serves as a beacon of hope for the protection of our rivers. As we celebrate her historic achievement, we are reminded of the importance of safeguarding these natural treasures that have been integral to India's identity for millennia. Shipra Pathak's journey is a testament to the power of one person's vision to inspire change on a grand scale.

For more information, please visit - https://www.facebook.com/5tatvfoundation?mibextid=LQQJ4d

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Tech giant Google has laid off several workers in its news division, a report by CNBC has said. An illuminated Google logo is seen inside an office building in Zurich,(Reuters)

According to an Alphabet Workers Union spokesperson, an estimated 40 to 45 workers in Google News have lost their jobs. The spokesperson, however, added that they were unaware of the exact number.

A spokesperson of Google confirmed the development, but did not provide the figures of how many people have been laid off.

We are deeply committed to a vibrant information ecosystem, and news is a part of that long-term investment, the spokesperson said.

We have made some internal changes to streamline our organization. A small number of employees were impacted. Were supporting everyone with a transition period, outplacement services and severance as they look for new opportunities at Google and beyond.

A Google employee on LinkedIn described those laid off as some of the best and brightest people.

These are some of the best and brightest people I've ever worked with, and frankly, I don't expect the calculus behind this decision will ever make sense to me. We're definitely worse off without them, he wrote.

The layoffs at Google News come amid a war between Israel and the Palestinian militant organisation, Hamas. Israel is preparing a ground assault in the Gaza Strip in response to a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, on October 7. Over 2,500 people have died in Palestine during Israel's retaliatory strikes.

The was has also led to a barrage of misinformation on social media platforms. Several prominent persons have urged social media networks such as X (previously Twitter), Facebook and Instagram to take strict steps to contain false news.

Google has maintained that the layoffs will not affect the quality of work of its news division. These internal changes have no impact on our misinformation and information quality work in News, the spokesperson said.

In January, Googled had announced it was cutting 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce. Last month also, the company eliminated hundreds of positions from its recruiting organisation, according to CNBC.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR HT News Desk Follow the latest breaking news and developments from India and around the world with Hindustan Times' newsdesk. From politics and policies to the economy and the environment, from local issues to national events and global affairs, we've got you covered. ...view detail
In a bizarre incident, a Bengaluru-bound flight returned to Singapore shortly after take-off over a baggage error on Tuesday morning. The incident happened an hour or so after take-off, when the IndiGo plane turned around and touched back down at Changi airport as it was revealed that the baggage of the previous passengers had not been offloaded, leading to a massive mix-up. Passengers bound for the Karnataka capital experienced a delay of several hours over the mishap. (AFP File Photo)

Passengers bound for the Karnataka capital experienced a delay of several hours over the mishap, news agency PTI reported.

"We acknowledge the baggage error on the part of our service partner at Singapore airport with respect to flight 6E 1006 operating from Singapore to Bengaluru, due to which the flight returned to origin. The passengers were kept informed of the delay and served refreshments," the airline said in a statement.

ALSO READ | 'World's most punctual': Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport tops global ranking for on-time performance

Several passengers took to social media to narrate the ordeal, with one user writing, "Congratulations on achieving the impossible... Singapore Bengaluru flight at 5 40 am made to turn back coz you guys forgot to offload luggage from incoming flight".

ALSO READ | Star Air to start flight services to Goa, Tirupati and Hyderabad from Karnataka's Shivamogga

"@IndiGo6E horrible mismanagement at Singapore airport! 6E1006 was in the air for 1.5 hours, from SIN to BLR, landed back in Singapore bec you all mixed up baggages of various flights!!!...," another wrote.

ALSO READ | IndiGo to launch direct flights connecting Salem to Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad in Oct end

This is now close to 3 hours of delay! What is going on??? No response from your crew in flight, no clue when it will take off, pilots are strolling about !! Is this a bus station? What kind of an airline is this??!!?? the user continued in separate posts.

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The Karnataka cabinet has given its consent to declare 21 more taluks as drought hit, taking the total number of such taluks to 216. As such, it has claimed a total relief of 5,326.87 crore from the Centre, the state's Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs H K Patil said on Thursday. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah (CMO Karnataka )

Also Read - Karnataka HC rejects D K Shivakumars petition challenging CBI FIR

Karnataka has a total of 236 taluks in 31 districts. "The cabinet today gave its approval to declare 21 more taluks as drought hit. These are in addition to 195 already declared as drought affected. Out of 21 taluks, 10 are facing severe drought," Patil said. Briefing reporters about the cabinet decisions, he said that the total agricultural and horticultural crop loss in the state due to drought is estimated to be about 33,770 crore, and the state has claimed relief of 4,414 from the Centre for this, as per norms. "Also, 355 crore has been sought for the loss of livestock, and drinking water relief of 554 crore. So the total relief claimed is 5,326.87 crore," he said.

The minister said the cabinet had also expressed concern over central ministers delaying appointments for state ministers seeking to make requests for relief in person. The chief minister has tasked the revenue minister with visiting Delhi to speed things up, he added. With an aim at ensuring the delivery of justice at the doorstep of citizens in rural areas, the cabinet has given in-principle clearance to establish 100 rural courts across the state. The minister said that the village courts would be set up for panchayats or a cluster of panchayats and they will be of the same level as courts of the Judicial Magistrate of First Class. The Central government will provide a one-time grant of 18 lakh per court and 3.5 lakh as recurring expenditure, he said. A proposal granting 100 crore for this has been cleared by the cabinet. "As per initial estimates, it will cost 25-30 crore crore per year for 100 courts," he added.

The law department and high court will work out the implementation of the system, as judges have to be appointed by them, the minister said, adding that details of where and when these courts will start would be shared at the earliest. In other decisions, the cabinet has given administrative approval for a 20 crore programme to strengthen and equip 11 police training schools in the state. In a move aimed at providing Piped Natural Gas (PNG) for domestic, commercial and industrial customers, and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for vehicles, the cabinet has given approval to the 'State Policy for the Development of City Gas Distribution Network'.

Sharing the highlights of the policy, Patil said it would promote the adoption of natural gas by the state as a green and clean fuel and ensure faster implementation of City Gas Distribution (CGD) infrastructure. It would also help city gas distribution entities undertake safe operations and provide reliable uninterrupted supply of natural gas by maintaining the asset. Permissions and clearances for the city gas distribution entity would also be given in a time-bound manner by providing policy framework and necessary support, as per the policy. Moreover, it would encourage the use of natural gas for industrial and household purposes as well as commercial transport, which would help India fulfil its commitment to the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to reduce carbon emissions. The policy would also encourage city gas distribution entities to develop compressed biogas plants in collaboration with the local bodies in the respective geographical areas, and promote the government's initiative under the Swachh Bharath Abhiyan -- "this will address the issue of waste disposal in the district," he added.

The cabinet has also given post-facto clearance for extending the Gruha Lakshmi scheme, which grants 2,000 monthly assistance to the woman head of every family, to sexual minorities as well. It has also been decided to continue with the existing system, by providing cash in lieu of the additional five kg of rice to beneficiaries, under the Anna Bhagya scheme. The cabinet has authorised the Chief Minister to decide on the schedule for calling the legislature session in Belagavi, the minister said. It has also has given its approval for bringing in an ordinance that will tweak the law on compulsory rural service for doctors.

Till now, everyone who cleared medical exams had to do compulsory rural service. "Now it will be relaxed to the extent of posts available or to the extent of what the government decides...it will now not be mandatory, but the government will select doctors for rural service on merit basis," the minister said, adding that this has been done keeping in mind the unnecessary wastage of human resources.

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The Karnataka High Court on Thursday dismissed Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar's plea to quash the CBI's disproportionate assets case against him. The High Court was scheduled to pronounce its verdict on the DCM's plea today. The CBI had registered a corruption case against Shivakumar in October 2020. (ANI)

ALSO READ | SC refuses to vacate interim stay on CBI probe against Karnataka Dy CM in DA case

The plea was rejected by Justice K Natarajan, who was hearing the case. The High Court vacated the interim stay on the CBI probe and directed the agency to complete its investigation and file a final report within three months.

ALSO READ | Karnataka lokayukta arrests supervisor for 4.39-cr disproportionate assets

The Supreme Court on Monday had refused to vacate the interim stay on the CBI's investigation into the disproportionate assets case against the senior Congress leader.

A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela M Trivedi issued notice to Shivakumar on a plea of the CBI challenging the June 12 order of the Karnataka High Court and sought his response by November 7, according to news agency PTI.

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The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday rejected the petition by Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress chief D K Shivakumar challenging the Central Bureau of Investigations FIR against him in the disproportionate assets case. Justice K Natarajan, who concluded the hearing and reserved the judgment earlier, announced the verdict on Thursday. The HC also directed the CBI to conclude the investigation and file the report within three months. Karnatak deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar (File Photo)

Also Read - BJP unable to get funds as their loss in 5 state elections is almost certain: CM Siddaramaiah

Justice Natarajan reasoned that since the CBI has concluded most of the investigation, the court would not interfere in it at this juncture. The CBI is at the stage of filing a charge sheet after completing gathering statements from the accused. While the operative portion of the judgment rejecting Shivakumar's petition was dictated, the complete judgment copy is awaited. The CBI has alleged that Shivakumar amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income between 2013 and 2018. He was a minister in the previous Congress government during this period. The FIR was filed by the CBI on September 3, 2020. Shivakumar challenged the FIR in the high court in 2021.

The Income Tax Department had conducted a search and seizure operation in the offices and residence of Shivakumar in 2017, based on which the Enforcement Directorate (ED) started its own probe against him. Based on the ED investigation, the CBI sought sanction from the state government to file an FIR against him.

The sanction was granted by the state government on September 25, 2019 and the FIR was filed a year later. Shivakumar had challenged the sanction granted by the state in a separate petition which was dismissed by the high court earlier.

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Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Thursday reacted to the Karnataka High Court's rejection of his petition to quash the FIR in a disproportionate assets case against him, saying he has faith in the court and would fight the case and respond to allegations, within the framework of the law. Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar (ANI)

Also Read - Karnataka HC rejects D K Shivakumars petition challenging CBI FIR

The court on Thursday rejected his petition seeking quashing of the FIR filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the case. Alleging a conspiracy by the BJP, while also targeting JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy's statement about sending him to Tihar jail, the state Congress President said that he would not run away but respond to everything. "I had filed an appeal before the court stating that the FIR is not right. During the Yediyurappa (BJP) government, because of political motives they had given sanction to CBI. They (CBI) have said (told court) that they have completed 90 per cent of the investigation, but till now I have not been called even once to inquire about my assets," Shivakumar said.

Speaking to reporters here, he said, "Inquiry has to be done about assets belonging to me and my wife, but they have not inquired with us about it till now. I'm unable to understand how they have completed 90 per cent." "I have faith in court, I will fight, I will answer. Whatever might be their (political opponents/BJP) efforts, I have faith. I'm within the framework of law and will respond from within that framework. Whatever may be BJP's conspiracy, there is court and I will respond with my list (of facts/documents)," he added.

Justice K Natarajan, who concluded the hearing and had reserved the judgment earlier, announced the verdict on Thursday, rejecting Sivakumar's petition. The HC also directed the CBI to conclude the investigation and file the report within three months. Justice Natarajan reasoned that since the CBI has concluded most of the investigation, the court would not interfere in it at this juncture. To a question about this development at the time when the Lok Sabha elections are around the corner, Shivakumar pointed out that Kumaraswamy and state BJP President Nalin Kumar Kateel have already said that they will send him to Tihar jail in Delhi.

"They are speaking about keeping me there (TIhar jail) permanently or for a period of six months or a year or till elections... Whether it is pre-planned or not, I don't know. I'm repeating what came out of their mouths," he added. Asked if he would file an appeal in the Supreme Court, Shivakumar said, "Let's see, I just got to know about it over the phone. Court is said to have asked for investigation to be completed in three months. Let's see; they (CBI) may give me notice, call me, seek my response. Let's see what they will do."

Responding to a reported statement of BJP leader K S Eshwarappa that the time has come for Shivakumar to go to jail, the KPCC chief said, "Very much happy, let him not delay (sending me to jail). Let him also become the judge, like Kumaraswamy has become IT department's spokesperson." To a question on whether he was a victim of the central government's alleged hate politics, he said, "Let it be, that is part of politics." Regarding the next course of legal action, Shivakumar's brother and Bangalore Rural MP D K Suresh said that a decision would be taken in consultation with lawyers. "Whether it is ED or IT or CBI, we have always cooperated with the probe. We will continue to do so," he said.

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The Samajwadi Party (SP) has announced its second list of 22 candidates for the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh amid strained ties with its INDIA grouping ally Congress over the formation of alliance in the state. The SP announced its second list late on Wednesday night. It has, thus, announced 31 candidates for the November 17 elections to the 230-member assembly of the BJP-ruled state. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav (HT file)(HT_PRINT)

The Congress released its first list of 144 candidates on Sunday and is likely to declare nominees for remaining seats on Friday, sources said. Among others, the SP has nominated Shivangi Yadav from Prithvipur constituency in Niwari district. Its first list featured her mother and former MLA Meera Yadav who has been fielded from the Niwari constituency in the district. Shamshul Hasan was nominated from Narela, Shama Tanveer from Bhopal Central and Rahul Maran (Rawat) from Huzur. All three seats are in Bhopal district. The process of filing of nomination papers will start from October 21.

On Thursday, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said his party leaders would not have answered calls from the Congress for a meeting in Madhya Pradesh had he known that the INDIA alliance was confined to the national level. "....the manner in which the Samajwadi Party was treated, they (Congress) will get to see the same treatment here (in Uttar Pradesh), he said.

In the 2018 Madhya Pradesh elections, the SP had won one seat (Bijawar in Bundelkhand region) and finished second on five, securing 1.3 per cent votes in alliance with the tribal Gondwana Gantantra Party.

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At least two BSF jawans were injured in an unprovoked firing by Pakistani Rangers at a forward post along the Indo-Pak international border in Arnia sector of Jammu district late on Tuesday. Border Security Force (BSF) personnel stand guard near India-Pakistan border in the Arnia sector, on the outskirts of Jammu, on Wednesday. (PTI)

They were identified as constable Alok Saha, 44, and constable Surjeet Vishwas, 35, both residents of West Bengal.

Both the jawans were posted with 120 battalion of the BSF.

The incident occurred around 8.30 pm on Tuesday.

Soon after the incident, BSF evacuated the injured men to government medical college and hospital in Jammu.

The firing incident took place at Vikram post in Arnia sector.

It may be stated here that after pummelled by Indian forces, Pakistan had raised a white flag and renewed the mutually brokered truce deal in February 2021.

The truce deal by and large remains in place since then, barring few incidents of sporadic fire by Pakistan.

Meanwhile, BSF issued a statement on Wednesday morning calling it an act of unprovoked firing by Pakistan.

On Tuesday at about 2015 hrs (8.15 pm), the Pak Rangers resorted to unprovoked firing towards BSF troops which was befittingly retaliated by alert BSF troops in Arnia sector. Two BSF personnel received bullet injuries, who were immediately provided medical assistance, read the statement.

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11:21 | Birmingham (U.S.), Oct. 19.









(END) AFP/MVB

A Dutchman who was the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of a United States woman vacationing in Aruba has confessed to her murder, prosecutors and the victim's family said.Published: 10/19/2023
In a joint operation, the special task force (STF) of Uttarakhand Police and J&K (Jammu and Kashmir) Police arrested two persons involved in a narco-terror module which was busted in Ramban last month, officials said. The police arrested two people and recovered fake documents and seals from their possession. (HT Photo)

The police arrested two people and recovered fake documents and seals from their possession.

The accused were identified as Krishan Pal (27), Deep Chand (28), both residents of Paipura village in Uttar Pradeshs Rampur.

According to officials, J&K Police had busted a narco terror module and arrested two alleged smugglers in Ramban after recovering 30kg cocaine from a Punjab-bound vehicle.

Also Read: Gurdaspur police nab 5 from Baramulla, 11 lakh drug money, pistol recovered

The cocaine was being brought from North Kashmir to Punjab.

Senior superintendent of police (STF) Ayush Agarwal said, During initial investigations, J&K Police came to know that cocaine was being brought from across the border and the arrested smugglers had used fake documents and number plates to avoid checking at the check posts. 38 fake number plates, several fake registration certificates, fake passports, cash worth 5.30 crore and one illegal revolver were recovered from the Punjab-located house of the smuggler arrested by J&K Police. The arrested persons confessed that these fake documents and number plates were made in Udham Singh Nagar district.

The J&K Police shared the input with us. I instructed our Kumaon unit to investigate it thoroughly, search for the criminals and take immediate action. Two members of the narco terror module were identified during the course of 20 days. In a joint operation with Jammu and Kashmir Police, our team conducted raids at possible locations of the suspects for two straight days and finally arrested the two accused from Rudrapur in Udham Singh Nagar.

We recovered a printer, cancelled passport, hard disk, a registration certificate (restricted), 10 cheque books, insurance certificate (restricted), a passport cover, four driving licenses, 11 Aadhaar cards, stamp paper, a Dell laptop, five school certificate, two PAN cards, Police Samachar service card, digital stamp maker, mobile phone, stamp pad, 12 passbooks, three pen drives from their possession, he said.

Agarwal said the accused revealed in the interrogation that they were in touch for a long time with the smugglers arrested from Jammu and Kashmir.

We have been thoroughly investigating where the fake documents made by them were used illegally. Both the accused were handed over to J&K Police last night, he said.

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Turn on to Nelson Mandela Marg from the Outer Ring Road, and the difference can be astonishing. From a busy, bustling road where drivers are short on temper, you suddenly find yourself on a wide, tree-lined boulevard, which at night is poorly lit, and deserted. A dark patch on Nelson Mandela Marg on Wednesday. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

The area is covered by multiple police stations, but the four-kilometre stretch, which connects Vasant Vihar and Vasant Kunj, is notorious for some of the Capitals most high-profile accidents. It is also on this stretch that television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan was murdered on September 30, 2008, when she was on her way home from work.

Fifteen years on, patches of Nelson Mandela Marg have undergone a transformation  three popular malls have come up along one carriageway, while multiple interventions in the form of speed cameras and streetscaping have added to a sense of security.

However, parts of the road still remain isolated, and poorly lit. During a spot check on Wednesday, HT found that several of the street lights on this stretch were not operational.

Snehlata Rathi, RWA president of the D6 locality in Vasant Kunj, who has been living in the area for the last 21 years, said the arterial route has witnessed massive changes over the last two decades. When we moved here, the area was so deserted that we would not take this route after 8pm. But then, the malls came up, and the footfall around this region started growing around 2012-14. Due to the addition of security cameras and police station, the security situation has improved somewhat, Rathi said.

She, however, cautioned that while the carriageway from Vasant Kunj to Munikra is now illuminated, the opposite side still has large dark patch. This stretch, which comes after crossing JNU, needs to be illuminated well, she added.

When HT reached out to the Delhi Police about Nelson Mandela Marg, Suman Nalwa, deputy commissioner of police (public relations), said, A number of steps have been taken over a period of time for the safety of women in Delhi in tune with the changing dynamics of the city life. Some of the steps include an increase in the percentage of women personnel in Delhi Police, and an increased presence round-the-clock in all police stations, all-women PCRs, special helpline numbers, and treating crime against women as highest priority while responding to calls

Rajesh Panwar, who heads the Federation of Vasant Kunj RWAs and has been a resident of the area since 2005, said the stretch has seen multiple rounds of development work over the last 15 years. There was a large wooded area in the central verge in front of the malls, which has been landscaped. The biggest improvement in footfall came due to malls, he said.

Gurpreet Bindra, president of Vasant Vihar RWA, said the security situation has improved on this key access route but it should be mostly attributed to increase in habitation, and the rise in footfall due to the malls. In the early 2000s, this stretch was more of a jungle. Now, however, several development works have taken place, including the development of the Vasant Vihar DDA park, which earlier used to be a shabbily maintained swamp. Now residents can use this park to go right up to Munirka, he said.

AK Jain, former commissioner (planning), Delhi Development Authority, said the Vasant Kunj region was identified (along with Rohini and Narela) for residential development in 1980. Vasant Kunj was planned as a residential township and its development started in 1987-88, but the overall plan was implemented in phases, which led to some portions remaining secluded in the initial phase. We see it as a general feature in the urban development projects like in Rohini and Vasant Kunj that the initial occupancy is low but once the area gets populated, schools and commercial hubs come up, it becomes bustling as Vasant Kunj has become. The sheer demand (of property) and high value indicates the success, he said.

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NEW DELHI: A 52-year-old man in south Delhis Madangir locality killed his wife and sought to attribute her injuries to a fall in the bathroom on Wednesday but was arrested by the police after his son implicated him in her murder, police said. Sushila, 50, was killed in her sleep by her husband Ved Prakash (rght) (Sourced)

Police said they received information about the incident from the hospital where the woman, identified as Sushila, 50, was brought by her husband, Ved Prakash.

She was brought to the hospital in an unresponsive and unconscious state. There were swellings on her right eyebrow, and the left side of the forehead, bruises on her right clavicle, forehead, and neck. The body had signs of strangulation and nail marks, deputy commissioner of police (south) Chandan Chowdhary said.

The couples 28-year-old son, Aakash Kundra, told the police that his father didnt trust his mother and would pick fights when she stepped out of the house for work - she ironed clothes for a living - or when she visited a nearby church for prayers. Kundra told the police that she had filed a domestic violence case against his father, an out-of-work tailor after he allegedly stabbed her with a pair of scissors in 2021.

But Aakash Kundra said he persuaded her to withdraw the case after his father made it a condition for agreeing to his wedding in March this year.

On Tuesday evening, Ved Prakash and Sushila, who had an inter-faith marriage 30 years ago, fought again over her going out for work. Aakash and his wife pacified the two sides and the issue appeared to have been resolved. Aakash and his wife, who lived on the first floor of the same building, went to their room on the first floor.

Aakash said his father called him up at around 6am on Wednesday and asked him to come down to the ground floor. When Aakash reached there, he saw his father dragging his mothers body from the bathroom.

I asked him if he had killed my mother. He threatened me with dire consequences if I told anybody about it. I was in shock and did not know what to do next. I asked him to bring an auto rickshaw. My first priority was to save my mothers life. We rushed her to the hospital but she was declared brought dead. My father is a cruel person whom I have seen troubling my mother and fighting with her for years. I want him to be hanged for his crime, Aakash Kundra told HT.

He added that his father confessed that he strangled his wife, who had gone to sleep, with a bedsheet at about 2am and then. hit her head against the sofas leg and shifted her to the bathroom. He tried to pass it off as a case of death due to falling inside the bathroom and suffering a head injury, Aakash said.

Chowdhary said the Ambedkar Nagar police received a call from Hakeem Abdul Hameed Centenary (HAHC) hospital at 8:41am on Wednesday about Sushila, who was brought dead. A police team reached the hospital and started investigating the case.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Karn Pratap Singh Karn Pratap Singh has been writing on crime, policing, and issues of safety in Delhi for almost a decade. He covers high-intensity spot news, including terror strikes, serial blasts and security threats in the national capital. ...view detail
Uttar Pradesh has received over a dozen proposals for six medical colleges that would run in the public-private-partnership (PPP) mode. For representation only (HT File Photo)

The colleges for which tender was floated on August 23 are to be started in Bagpat, Hathras, Mainpuri, Kasganj, Hamirpur and Mahoba. These colleges are being started as part of the state governments policy focused on developing medical facilities in aspirational districts.

Fifteen proposals have come to us, for the six colleges, said a senior official of the directorate of medical education and training where the tenders would be processed.

Work has already begun in Shamli, Mau, Maharajganj, and Sambhal where proposals from bidders have been finalised.

For Baghpat, Mainpuri, Kasganj, Mahoba, Hamirpur, and Hathras, the approval has been received from the Union government under the viability gap funding (VGF).

The chief minister in his review meeting on Wednesday had directed officials to speed up work for the new medical colleges. The construction of medical colleges currently underway must be completed within a specified time frame while maintaining high quality standards, the chief minister directed officials.

For the six colleges, a maximum of four proposals have been received for two colleges each and a minimum of two proposals for one college. The medical education department will now prepare a final draft for approval from the state government after which the tender will be finalised, according to the guidelines by the state government.

At present, the state has 65 institutes offering MBBS seats that includes 35 in government sector and 30 in the private sector. The state government plans to start one medical college in each district. Four colleges in the PPP mode are underway after finalisation of MoU and 10 more will be started in different districts. The focus is more upon unserved districts. U.P. currently has over 8,000 MBBS seats in different colleges.

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Two women have been arrested in connection with the serial murder of five members of a family, who died of poisoning within a span of three weeks, in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, a senior police officer said on Wednesday. HT Image

Police identified the accused as Sanghamitra Kumbhare and Rosa Ramteke, both distant relatives, and said the two have confessed to their crime during questioning.

Between September 26 and October 15, Shankar P Kumbhare, a resident of Mahagaon village under Aheri tehsil, along with four members of his family died after falling ill with similar symptoms, raising suspicion that the incidents were linked, Gadchiroli superintendent of police (SP) Neelotpal said. The pattern was similar  the family members suddenly fell ill, their condition became critical and though they were rushed to hospitals in Nagpur and other places for treatment, they died during treatment, the SP said. The deceased have been identified as Shankar Kumbhare, his wife Vijaya, their son Roshan Kumbhare and daughter Komal Dahagaonkar  who were residing in Gadaheri  and another daughter Varsha Urade, who was living nearby to her parents, police said.

On September 20, Shankar and his wife Vijaya were rushed to a hospital in Aheri after they experienced a sudden deterioration in their health. They were later shifted to a bigger hospital in Nagpur, where Shankar died during treatment on September 26 and his wife the following day, the SP said. Within days, Komal, Roshan and Varsha were also hospitalised in different medical facilities after suddenly falling ill.

Their conditions gradually deteriorated. Komal died on October 8, Varsha the next day and Roshan Kumbhare on October 15, the SP added. The senior police officer said that the manner in which all five died in hospitals during treatment raised suspicion following which four teams were formed to probe the matter. All of them had similar symptoms such as tingling in limbs, severe pain in the lower back and head, blackened lips and a heavy tongue, the SP said, adding prima facie the medical officer declared the deaths due to poisoning.

The exact nature of the poison could not be ascertained in the preliminary examination.

During probe, it came to light that accused Sanghamitra had married Roshan Kumhare against her familys wishes. She told the police that she was being harassed by her in-laws, the SP said.

Rosa Ramteke, the wife of a brother-in-law of Shankar Kumbhare, had a dispute with Vijaya over an ancestral property. The accused said they travelled to Telangana last month to obtain a certain type of poison, Neelotpal said. They have been booked under section 320 (murder) among others of IPC.

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LUCKNOW The Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) has specified that it will not withdraw the property tax notices issued to the Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC). Ambi Bisht, the chief tax fixation officer of LMC, made this announcement on Thursday, emphasising that the LMC is fully entitled to collect taxes from UPMRC for the services it provides. Lucknow Municipal Corporation (HT File)

Bisht pointed out that commercial establishments, such as pizza places and eateries, operate at several metro stations, profiting from their presence. However, these establishments have been reluctant to pay taxes, despite the fact that LMC is responsible for managing the waste generated by metro stations and their commercial enterprises.

With 21 metro stations under their purview, LMC has served a notice to recover 7.57 crore in taxes from UPMRC, an amount that LMC believes is a reasonable contribution given the services provided. Additionally, LMC is preparing to issue another notice to UPMRC, this time regarding the taxation of advertisements displayed on poles without LMCs consent. Bisht asserted that the revenue from advertising within the city should rightfully belong to LMC.

Notably, its not just UPMRC thats in LMCs crosshairs. The Indian Railways has also received a property tax recovery notice amounting to 73 crore. Both UPMRC and the railways have been given a one-month ultimatum to settle their dues; otherwise, LMC will take more stringent actions against them.

Municipal commissioner Inderjeet Singh echoed LMCs stance, emphasizing that the metro must pay property tax since there are no directives from the state government for tax exemptions in the case of the metro.

In response, an official from UPMRC argued that they are entitled to exemptions from state and local taxes, citing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) dated March 16, 2016, signed between the state, the Centre, and UPMRC. The MoU explicitly commits to exempting UPMRC from state and local taxes, duties, and levies, if any.

The UPMRC official mentioned that they have presented their case to higher state government authorities, firmly believing that, with government support in accordance with the MoUs provisions, they can ensure the profitability and long-term sustainability of the metro rail network in Uttar Pradesh, which remains an essential lifeline for the states urban population.

Furthermore, the outstanding loan of 450 million Euros from the European Investment Bank (EIB) underscores the critical importance of adhering to the MoU provisions for the financial well-being of UPMRC.

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A leader of the Naga Peoples Front (NPF) allegedly shot and killed one of his workers on Tuesday in Nagalands Mokokchung following an altercation, people familiar with the matter said. (Representative Photo)

According to the people, NPF Mokokchung division president Moasangba Jamir shot and killed a 54-year-old man who worked at the Metsuben Farm Resort owned by Jamir in Chuchuyimpang village and later surrendered himself to the police.

After learning of the incident, Mokokchung police reached the spot and found a dead body near a fishery with an injury to his left chest, suspected to be a gunshot.

Police said that one .22 rifle and four live rounds along with three empty cases were seized from the accused at the scene.

On further inquiry, it was discovered that the man had an altercation with Jamirs nephew under the influence of alcohol two days prior, the police said.

According to the eyewitnesses, on Tuesday, the worker approached Jamirs house with a machete, and the duo engaged in a verbal argument. Jamir then brought out his rifle and fired three rounds, one of which hit the victims chest, resulting in his demise.

Police said that Jamir was then taken into custody along with the seizure of his arm and ammunition.

After a post-mortem examination of the deceased, his body was handed over to family members on Wednesday, said police.

A suo moto first information report was lodged and a regular case was registered at Mokokchung police station for further investigation, police added.

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LUCKNOW State finance minister, Suresh Khanna, emphasised the need to embrace Japans work ethic during a seminar in Lucknow on Wednesday. The minister also expressed the governments determination to elevate the states economy to a trillion dollars by 2027. Suresh Khanna (Sourced)

Speaking at the event organised by the Uttar Pradesh Finance and Accounts Service Association and SBI, Khanna stressed the importance of having a clear roadmap, focusing on critical areas, and effectively addressing challenges.

Do not delay todays work until tomorrow. We should learn from Japan how they carry out their work with honesty and sincerity. If we do the same, no goal will be too big to achieve. Today, we are advancing with technology. It is the marvel of technology that all government schemes, including the Kisan Samman Nidhi, are being delivered to people with just one click, said Khanna.

The seminars discussions, outlined in a press release, centred around the opportunities, obstacles, and the essential roles of the Finance Department and SBI in realising the ambitious vision of a one trillion-dollar economy. Khanna underscored the significance of cultivating a positive and technologically-inclined approach among banking and finance officers, believing that such an attitude would be instrumental in achieving this monumental goal.

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Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) in collaboration with Assam Police on Thursday, arrested two Mizoram-based drug peddlers from Silchar Airport and seized 4kg of Methamphetamine worth Rs.20 crore from them. The arrested persons have been identified as Joseph Lalnunmawia (22) and F Lalhmangaihzuala (30) (HT Photo/Sourced)

Additional superintendent of police (ASP), Cachar, Subrata Sen on Thursday evening, told HT that the arrested persons travelled from Mizoram capital Aizwal with the consignment and successfully managed to board a Kolkata-bound flight.

CISF received the information about the consignment from a source, and they initially detained them. They informed us, and a team of police reached the airport. The packets were found in their hand luggage, said Sen.

The arrested persons have been identified as Joseph Lalnunmawia (22) and F Lalhmangaihzuala (30). Lalnunmawia is a resident of Aizawl, while Lalhmangaihzuala is from the Champhai district of Mizoram, according to the police.

Sen said that in the initial investigation, it has been found that these two suspected drug peddlers were attempting to transport the narcotics to a neighbouring state.

They travelled from Mizoram by road and had flight tickets up to Kolkata. It is suspected that they wanted to take the consignment somewhere in mainland India. We are interrogating them to get more details, he said.

According to the police, a case has been registered against the arrested accused under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, and they will be produced before the court on Friday.

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma shared the information on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday evening and praised the Assam Police and the CISF for their successful operation.

Acting on a tip-off, Cachar Police along with the CISF conducted an operation against drug peddlers at Kumbhirgram Airport, Silchar and recovered 4 packets containing 4kg of Methamphetamine. Two persons were arrested in the incident. Great job Assam Police & CISF, Sarma wrote on X.

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The Bombay High Court (HC) has rejected a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the riverfront development project and empowering the municipal commissioner to allow tree cutting. The petitioner had challenged this and demanded not to allow Pune municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar to take any decision on allowing tree cuttings for the riverfront project. (Representative Photo)

Nisha Chavan, head, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) legal department, said, Last week, the high court rejected the PIL for governments amendment.

For the ambitious project, the PMC would need to cut several trees. Previously, the Maharashtra State Tree Authority had the authority to allow the cutting of more trees, but the state recently amended the law and empowered the concerned municipal commissioners to make the decision on tree cutting at the local level tree authority meeting.

The petitioner had challenged this and demanded not to allow Pune municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar to take any decision on allowing tree cuttings for the riverfront project.

In recent times, some petitions were also filed with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) against the riverfront development project, but all the cases went in favour of PMC.

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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Gnel Sanosyan participated in the Global Maritime India Summit 2023 in Mumbai. He delivered a speech during a roundtable discussion as part of the event.

Sanosyan said that as a landlocked country, with the borders from the East and West in land blockade since the last three decades, Armenia is a staunch advocate of promoting inclusive and equitable regional and cross-border connectivity.

Below is the transcript of Minister Sanosyans speech.

It is my great honor to participate and lead the delegation of Armenia at the Global Maritime Summit, organized by the Indian Government. This event indicates both the growing role of India in regional and global connectivity and the importance of discussing and outlining the options we can develop for our cooperation, economies and welfare.

Historically, Armenia has always been at the crossroads connecting the North to the South and the West to the East, with all the political, economic and cultural features arising from this. Today as well, based on its geographical location, Armenia is ready to serve as a connecting hub for such interactions.

As a landlocked country with the borders from the East and West in land blockade since the last three decades, Armenia is a staunch advocate of promoting inclusive and equitable regional and cross-border connectivity.

In this regard, we are confident that the road network of Armenia holds a serious potential to contribute to this end. The Armenian government channels efforts towards reviving and modernizing the relevant infrastructures of the country by implementing the North-South Road Corridor Investment Program, which will upgrade Armenias capacities and enable it to fully participate in the International NorthSouth Transport Corridor and other connectivity related initiatives.

The Project is implemented by multi-tranche financing. It is subdivided into Tranches and separate loan agreements are signed in the framework of each Tranche. We invite Indian companies and banks to consider involvement in these investment projects.

The implementation of the North-South Road Corridor Investment Program, in terms of capacity building, will enable Armenia to fully participate in the International NorthSouth Transport Corridor. The construction of this highly important strategic road will ensure easier traffic from the Southern border of Armenia to the Georgian border and up to Black Sea ports and will allow more passenger and cargo transportation in accordance with international standards.

During the last few years, the reconstruction of roads and necessary infrastructure in Armenia through state budgetary means have increased considerably. Only in 2021, at the expense of the state budget, the construction highways with a total length of about 388 km were carried out, whilst the same works were carried out for over 530 km of roads in 2022.

Within the framework of the construction and development of new border infrastructures, in August of 2022 the 160-meter "Armenian-Georgian Friendship Bridge" was opened in the area of the Bagratashen-Sadakhlo border crossing between Armenia and Georgia, allowing doubling the transit capacity at the border. The Meghri checkpoint at the Armenia-Iran border will be modernized - worth 18.4 million Euros - with the support of the European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development- construction works will be completed in 2026, as a result of which it is planned to have a modern checkpoint.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The disruption of global supply chains triggered by the COVID19 pandemic, accompanied by armed conflicts in several parts of the world and other challenges and complexities in the present-day international politics, as well as the increasing volume of cargo passing through the Suez Canal has brought up the necessity for states to look for alternative transport routes to conduct trade and other economic activities. Thus, nowadays, combining multiple communication projects in order to augment the economic benefits of each is crucial.

Armenia is very much interested in advancing dialogue and cooperation within the framework of the International North South Transport Corridor project, the Chabahar port development project, as well as the Persian Gulf - Black Sea International Transport and Transit Corridor that can be successfully incorporated into the INSTC. In these initiatives great importance is attached to the development of the Chabahar Port Project, where Armenia has explicitly expressed its interest in getting involved. Moreover, we have established an inter-agency working group that will engage in direct discussions with partners on Armenias involvement in the Chabahar Port Project.

Indias increasing trade with European and Asian countries, its involvement in the development of the Chabahar port fits well into the logic of creating a viable alternative route to Europe. The Persian Gulf-Black Sea International Transport and Transit Corridor can serve as an alternative route connecting Asia with Europe, that can boost connectivity and trade among the participating sides, by connecting India, through the Bandar Abbas and Chabahar ports in Iran, to Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and further. India's potential and prospective role in these projects is quite significant and once India is on board the Persian Gulf - Black Sea International Transport and Transit Corridor, it can make use of an economically more beneficial and competitive 2-week route to both Russia and Europe. The successful implementation of cooperation in bringing the Persian Gulf-Black Sea International Transport and Transit Corridor to life can prompt other partners in Asia to as well link to the project.

Moreover, with Iran having a Free Trade Zone agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and India negotiating a similar instrument, Armenia, as a member of the EAEU can serve as a direct bridge between India, Iran and the bloc, to which end the Persian GulfBlack Sea International Transport and Transit Corridor creates an additional impetus for further enhancing trade and connectivity.

Honorable Guests,

Armenia, following its historical legacy, today as well can successfully promote the economic exchanges between South Asia and Europe. With this, realizing the crucial importance of the opening of all trade and transport communications in South Caucasus, Armenia has engaged constructively in dialogue and discussions, with the aim of ensuring prosperity and stability in the region, and introduced a new concept of the Armenian Crossroads, prompted by the discussions on the opening of communications in the South Caucasus, which in turn has a huge potential of bringing about a serious change in international logistic chains, and restoring the regions significance in terms of international cargo transportation.

Armenia is interested in the unblocking of regional economic and transport connections with full respect for state sovereignty, territorial integrity and principles of equality and reciprocity and stands ready to implement this as soon as possible to boost international and regional passenger and cargo transportation, which will in turn further ensure security and stability in the region.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to announce that the Government of Armenia together with United Nations Office of the High Representative for Least Developed States, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS) intends to organize a high-level thematic event to the Third Conference on the LLDCs. Invitations to all LLDCs, some transit countries and international partners will be sent out shortly, following the finalization of the detailed programme.

In conclusion, let me reiterate that Armenia remains fully committed to work with all partners to jointly shape the way for more enhanced cooperation and coordination between international partners and other stakeholders to make meaningful progress on promotion of better regional and global connectivity. Thank you.
Former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Dass appointment as the Odisha governor late on Wednesday may help settle the leadership issue in the Jharkhand unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), party leaders said on Thursday. Raghubar Dass appointment as the Odisha governor may help settle the leadership issue in the Jharkhand unit of BJP (ANI)

Das, the only non-tribal chief minister in a state with over 26% tribal population, was a surprise pick for the top post in 2014. He led the BJP in the 2019 Jharkhand elections, but the party couldnt secure a majority.

Subsequently, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)s Hemant Soren became the chief minister, and Raghubar Das -- who, for the first time since 1995, lost the Jamshedpur East assembly seat -- reverted as the national vice president in the BJP, a position he held before his elevation as chief minister in 2014.

However, Das continued to have a say in the Jharkhand BJP, run by Babulal Marandi, the state unit chief.

Another prominent player in state politics, Arjun Munda, a former chief minister, had already been inducted into the Union council of ministers as the tribal affairs minister in May 2019.

That Marandi would play an important role in the BJP was clear when he returned to the party just after the 2019 elections. He was made the legislature party leader, explained a BJP leader.

In July this year, the BJP named Marandi to lead the state unit and prepare the ground for the BJPs return to power in the state in 2024.

However, the BJP leader cited above said Das had been reluctant to take a step back. With this new appointment, the central leadership has settled the leadership issue in the state for now, a senior BJP leader said.

A second BJP leader underlined that Das played a crucial role in the appointment of former minister Amar Bauri, who also led the BJPs scheduled caste wing in the state, as the new BJP legislature party leader earlier this week.

It was on account of the former chief ministers intervention several party legislators backed Bauri during the consultations held by central observer Ashwani Chowbey in July.

It was also Raghubar Ji who brought Bauri from Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) to BJP in 2014 and inducted him into his cabinet. He is considered one of his loyalists, the second leader added.

Meanwhile, against this backdrop, the ruling parties JMM and the Congress took a swipe at the BJP.

Jharkhand Congress spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan Prasad said it was an irony that Dass tenure as chief minister was once hailed by the BJP.

Its an internal matter of the BJP. But the same BJP, which kept bragging about the so-called achievements of their double-engine government, seems to have now finally realised the truth.

Senior JMM leader and drinking water & sanitation minister Mithilesh Thakur wondered if Das had been promoted or had been edged out.

A full stop has been put in the political journey of the only acceptable OBC face of the BJP in the state. Whether this is a promotion or a demotion, it is hard to fathom, said Thakur in a social media post.

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The explosion at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza city that is believed to have killed an indeterminate number of people (from scores to hundreds, depending on the source of information) is an incident that could send the situation in West Asia spiralling out of control. There is a groundswell of anger on the streets of the Arab world. In a polarised environment, what caused the deaths in the Anglican-run hospital will be contested for a long time, and the incident proves the axiom that truth is often the first casualty of war. Hamas has blamed the deaths on an Israeli airstrike while authorities in Tel Aviv said the explosion was caused by the misfire of a rocket launched from Gaza. While the continuing anger in Israel over the brazen terrorist attacks by Hamas is understandable, the support offered by the West for Tel Avivs right to self-defence cannot be carte blanche for an unrelenting campaign of bombardment and air strikes that only results in more civilian deaths. Already the toll on both sides is far too high  1,400 in Israel and almost 3,500 in Gaza. The time has come for all parties to pull back to ensure there is no further escalation that can lead to the war spilling over to Lebanon while simultaneously bringing Iran into the fray. PREMIUM Palestinians flee on foot from Gaza City to southern Gaza after being told to leave their homes in the north by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip on October 13.(Bloomberg)

US President Joe Biden, while backing Israels narrative on the hospital blast, has warned it against an occupation of Gaza. Biden, who was never an ardent advocate of the US war on terror in Afghanistan, has spoken of the danger of being consumed by rage while citing the American response to the 9/11 terror attacks. He should also heed the anger within his Democratic Party oversteps that have been perceived as ignoring the Palestinian cause.

The conflict is no longer framed in the language of the Cold War era, when many countries, including India, saw it as a vestige of anti-colonial and national liberation struggles. In a reflection of the changed dynamics in West Asia, traditional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia have adopted a similar line on the situation. The hostilities are increasingly acquiring a religious dimension, which has the potential to spread beyond West Asia, even fan Islamophobia in the US and Europe. A sensible option for India is to convince its new strategic partner, Israel, and its traditional friends in the Arab world to come to the negotiating table without any further delay.
TS SET 2023 Hall Tickets Live Updates: Osmania University, Hyderabad has released TS SET 2023 Hall Tickets today, October 20, 2023. Candidates who want to appear for Telangana State Eligibility Test can download the admit card through the official website of TS SET at telanganaset.org. TS SET hall ticket live updates: Telangana TSSET admit cards released (telanganaset.org, screenshot of the admit card download page)

Direct link to download TS SET hall ticket 2023

The TSSET examination will be conducted on October 28, 29 and 30, 2023 at various exam centres across the state. The Test will consist of two papers. Both the papers will consist of only objective type questions and will be held in 3 Hours of duration in one session. Paper I will consist of 50 objective type questions carrying 2 marks each and Paper 2 shall consist of 100 objective type compulsory questions each carrying 2 marks each.

TS SET is a state-level exam to determine the eligibility for Professor and Lecturer posts in Telangana universities and colleges. The exam will be conducted for general studies and 29 subjects in computer based mode in eight cities. Follow the blog for latest updates on hall tickets, download link and other details.
Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission will release UPSSSC PET Admit Card 2023 on October 19, 2023. Candidates who want to appear for the written examination for Preliminary Eligibility Test can download the admit card through the official notice on the official website of UPSSSC at upsssc.gov.in. UPSSSC PET Admit Card 2023 released at upsssc.gov.in, download link here

UPSSSC PET exam will be conducted on October 28 and 29, 2023. The preliminary exam will be conducted in 35 districts of the state.

The examination will be conducted in two shifts on both days- first shift from 10 am to 12 noon and second shift from 3 pm to 5 pm. The PET exam will comprise of 100 marks question.

To download the admit card, all appearing candidates will have to follow the simple steps given below.

UPSSSC PET Admit Card 2023: How to download

Visit the official website of UPSSSC at upsssc.gov.in.

Click on UPSSSC PET Admit Card 2023 link available on the home page.

Enter the required details and click on submit.

Your admit card will be displayed on the screen.

Check the admit card and download the page.

Keep a hard copy of the same for further need.

For more related details candidates can check the official website of UPSSSC.

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XLRI - Xavier School of Management achieved 100% summer internship placements for the batch of 2023-25 for its flagship two-year programmes - Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resource Management and Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management. The batch comprising 591 students across the Jamshedpur and Delhi-NCR campus participated and secured 604 offers during the process from 139 firms.(Handout)

According to a press release by XLRI, the batch comprising 591 students across the Jamshedpur and Delhi-NCR campus participated and secured 604 offers during the process from 139 firms, including 63 new recruiters, across Consulting, Finance, Sales & Marketing, General Management, Product Management, Operations, Analytics and Human Resources, among other roles.

XLRI achieved an average and median stipend of 1.41 lakhs per month and 1.5 lakhs per month respectively. The highest stipend stood at 3.5 lakhs per month from the BFSI sector, informed XLRI.

'The summer placement season for our Platinum Jubilee year has been a resounding success, even in the face of challenging global economic conditions. The achievements this season, especially for the largest-ever batch across both campuses, reflect the unwavering commitment and talent of our students. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all our esteemed recruiters for their continued faith in the XLRI institutional brand," said Fr S George S.J, Director XLRI.

The top domains based on the roles offered were FMCG, Management & Advisory Consulting and BFSI. Accenture Strategy, Amazon, Asian Paints, Bajaj Auto, Boston Consulting Group, HDFC Bank, HUL, ICICI Bank, Ola Cabs, Procter & Gamble and Tata Steel made the highest number of offers among the recruiters. The highest offer (domestic) at 3.5 lakhs per month by JPMC from the BFSI sector, stated the press release.

'This year's spectacular placements testify to the exceptional diversity and quality of talent within XLRI. An impressive number of first-time recruiters participated, delivering outstanding results. We are profoundly grateful to all our recruiting partners for their unwavering support and trust in XLRI and our students," said Prof A Kanagaraj, Chair of Placement Affairs XLRI.

New recruiters to the SIP process included BMW, Castrol, CK Birla, Deutsche Bank, Diageo, Daimler, HDFC Bank, JM Financial, L'oreal, Myntra, NIIF, NK Securities, Ola Cabs, Pharmarack, Pine Labs, Redseer Consulting, Shell, Texas Instruments, Vector Consulting, Yes Bank and Zomato among others, mentioned the press release.

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Despite the announcement of results by the BPSC in the single largest recruitment exercise, the quest for qualified teachers for Bihar schools will continue. Finding qualified teachers remains difficult in Bihar despite vacancies

Despite the announcement of results by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) in the single largest recruitment exercise, the quest for qualified teachers for Bihar schools will continue, as it has been for over a decade.

With just 122324 candidates qualifying against 1.70-lakh vacancies, the results have once again underlined the problems in finding qualified teachers, especially in the secondary and higher secondary schools, which has been continuing for years.

In higher secondary, 23701 candidates qualified against 57602 vacancies, while in secondary 26204 cleared against 32916 vacancies. In primary, which had the highest vacancy, 72419 candidates could qualify against 79943 vacancies after omitting B.Ed degree holders as per the Supreme Court directive.

Overall pass percentage was 72%, leaving 48137 seats still vacant, which would be merged with the next round of recruitment. The number of applicants for higher secondary was inadequate at around 37000, which is also matter of concern in a state that is producing thousands of graduates and post-graduates every year despite huge unemployment.

However, the matter of concern is lack of qualified teachers interested in higher secondary, in which just 41% of the seats could be filled despite low cut-offs. The results also have huge variation. While English is considered the Achilles heel for Bihar students, a maximum of 66% vacancies could be filled in it, while in Hindi it was just 17%. In key science subjects like Physics and Chemistry, just 22% seats could be filled. Most subjects have got just around 30% of the required teachers or even less.

The last teachers eligibility test (TET) for secondary teachers conducted in 2011 had also laid bare the quality of teacher aspirants in Bihar. In physics, which is taught in class 9-12, just three trained teachers could qualify in 2011, besides five untrained. In chemistry, math, botany, English and other subjects, the pass percentage of trained teachers was just a small fraction, not enough to meet the requirement of even 5% of teachers posts in around 6900 schools.

The problem has worsened in the secondary schools upgraded to higher secondary level. Though the government upgraded secondary schools having own buildings to higher secondary in 2013 itself to make one in each panchayat available, the crisis of qualified teachers remained unresolved, though a large number of students kept getting enrolled and passing each year.

The matter first drew serious attention in 2017 only following the abysmal Bihar board results. The then Chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh had also admitted that in English, mathematics and science subjects, finding qualified teachers was proving difficult. The difficulty continues till date.

The quality got exposed yet again in August 2022 when Barely 3.22% teachers could qualify the first-ever exam for the post of headmasters (HMs) in the government schools, conducted by the BPSC, reflecting the quality of education in the state once again. Against 6421 vacancies released for the post of HMs, only 421 could qualify, leaving 97% posts vacant.

This was so when the minimum score in the merit list for general category and economically backward upper castes was 40%, while it was 36.5% for backward classs, 34% for extremely backward classes and 32% for SC/ST, women and physically challenged.

Patna University registrar and former principal of Patna Training College Khagendra Kumar said it should be a wake up call for the government, as things would only deteriorate further no matter how many types of exams are planned, as the trend clearly indicates good talents are no more interested in teaching.

Bihar is perhaps the only state where the original cadre of teachers was declared a dying cadre and the result has been frequent agitations for hikes and government employee status every few years. If the candidates are not qualifying and vacancies remain vacant despite low cut offs, it raises a question mark over the entire education system, which is producing so many graduates and so many private B.Ed colleges are distributing certificates, he added.

Maintaining that the trend was dangerous and could have a bearing on all other streams of employment in coming years, he said it was a clear indication that teaching job no more attracted youth, who consider becoming a sub-inspector or even clerical government job a better option. Bihar has no dearth of talented students. The only problem is good ones are not interested. It is high time the original teaching cadre is revived and faith in the system is restored. Else, exam after exam will yield no positive result.

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New Delhi [India], October 18 (ANI): The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on Wednesday emphasized the upgradation of training set-up, a more focused approach, a combination of new skills and tactics, and upgradation of technology in tune with advancements in its annual operational preparedness conference here in the national capital. HT Image

The annual operational conference aimed at bolstering the operational readiness of the CRPF-- an armed police force under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs which is responsible for the internal security of the country as well as deployed especially in Jammu and Kashmir and naxal affected states.

Chairing the conference, CRPF Director General Sujoy Lal Thaosen underscored the significance of such events in discussing and comprehending the dynamics of ever-evolving security challenges.

The CRPF Director General emphasized that "21st-century security challenges require a more focused approach, combination of new skills and tactics and upgradation of technology in tune with advancements."

The CRPF chief also exhorted all the field commanders to work diligently to ensure peaceful conduct of the upcoming Assembly Elections in five states.

During discussions, it was agreed upon to get the bottlenecks involved in operational execution in various theatres, identified and removed. It was also emphasized that there is a need to evolve newer strategies to deal with them.

The DG CRPF further observed that the primary objective of such a deliberation should be to enhance the operational efficiency of the force.

The challenge posed by newer and deadlier IED threats was also discussed in the light of changing tactics being employed by the Naxals.

In this context, the upgradation of a training set-up was emphasised alongwith encompassing of the latest technologies to enhance the detection capabilities.

The conference carried out a holistic review of the operational performance of CRPF across all the theatres to address the challenges, such as the menace of Naxalism in LWE-affected areas, terrorism in J&K, insurgency in North Eastern states, law and order-related issues and VIP security to bring about enhancement of the operational effectiveness of the CRPF.

The senior Commanders handling J&K and Left-wing extremism on the ground spoke about the specific theatre-based challenges that the ground forces are facing during their operational duties.

The conference also dealt with the emerging aerial threats of the force and VIP and strategies to meet those challenges.

The evolving law and order situation in the country in the light of challenges being faced in Manipur and the need for modernizing the RAF to meet those challenges was also discussed.

DG CRPF underlined the need for persistent endeavor in modernizing weaponry and logistical facilities.

In his concluding remark, the DG commended the officers and troops of CRPF for their unwavering commitment to duties in the toughest conditions and for successfully performing their critical role in maintaining the internal security of the country.

This formal Operational Conference brought together senior officials, including ADG (Operations) and IG (Operations), as well as senior officers from across all the theatres, in the backdrop of dynamic internal security challenges to discuss and analyze the operational preparedness and performance and identify emerging challenges.

The conference provided a platform to the field commanders for a thorough and fruitful deliberation on a wide range of issues covering operations in all theatres in which CRPF is deployed. (ANI)

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Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray has moved the Bombay High Court seeking to be heard before any order is passed in a public interest litigation demanding a CBI probe in connection with the deaths of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and his former manager Disha Salian. Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput's sister responds as actor's fan says she's not doing enough to seek justice Sushant Singh Rajput's death is being investigated by CBI.

Aditya Thackeray moves Bombay High Court

Thackeray in his application filed on October 13 through advocate Rahul Arote said the PIL was not maintainable as a probe in the matter was already on by state machinery.

The PIL, filed by the Supreme Court & High Court Litigants Association of India through its president, Rashid Khan Pathan, in September this year demanded the immediate arrest and custodial interrogation of Thackeray in connection with the mysterious deaths of Disha Salian and Sushant Singh Rajput.

The PIL has not yet been taken up for hearing by HC.

We have filed an intervention application saying we should be heard before any order is passed. We have said the PIL is not maintainable as the investigation in Sushant Singh Rajput matter is already on by CBI, Arote said.

How can any order be passed in a PIL when a state machinery is already seized of the probe, he added.

The PIL sought a direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe Thackeray, a former Maharashtra minister, and for a comprehensive probe report to be submitted.

Sushant Singh Rajput death

Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his apartment in suburban Bandra on June 14, 2020.

While the Mumbai police registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR) case and started a probe, the actors father in July lodged a complaint with the Bihar police alleging that Rajputs girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family members had abetted his suicide.

The case was later transferred to the CBI which is presently carrying out a probe in the city. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is probing allegations of money laundering against Rhea and her family, while the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is looking into claims that Rhea used to consume drugs and had also given the same to Rajput.

Disha Salian

Disha Salian, a former manager of Rajput, died on June 8, 2020, after falling off the 14th floor of a residential building in suburban Malad. The city police had registered an ADR case.

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Legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, known for his iconic collaborations with actors like Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, surprised the world with his latest muse announcement. In a lighthearted TikTok video shared by his daughter Francesca Scorsese, the acclaimed director introduced his newest star: a small schnauzer dog named Oscar. US film director Martin Scorsese arrives for Apple Original Films' "Killers of the Flower Moon" Los Angeles premiere at the Dolby theatre in Hollywood, California, October 16, 2023.(AFP)

In the video, the 80-year-old Scorsese reflects on his remarkable career spanning nearly 50 years and his enduring partnerships with actors such as De Niro and DiCaprio. He humorously declares his need for change and embarks on an unconventional audition process for his next muse, focusing his attention on Oscar. With instructions like "show me fear," "show me sadness," and "show me love," Scorsese playfully tests the dog's acting skills. Ultimately, Scorsese is captivated by Oscar's stoic composure, proclaiming, "You've got the role."

This surprising announcement comes ahead of the release of Scorsese's highly anticipated film, Killers of the Flower Moon. The movie, set in 1920s Oklahoma, delves into a series of murders surrounding the Osage Native American tribe. Starring DiCaprio, De Niro, and Lily Gladstone, the film offers a profound exploration of history, shedding light on the dark chapters of America's past.

Killers of the Flower Moon has already received critical acclaim, with reviewers praising Scorsese's approach to storytelling. The film not only showcases the talents of Hollywood's finest but also emphasizes the perspective of the Osage Nation, whose involvement in the production as consultants, craftsmen, and actors adds depth to the narrative. The movie, described as a "quietly apocalyptic retelling of history," forces viewers to confront the harsh realities of the past, underscoring the destructive nature of greed and prejudice.

As Scorsese embraces this new chapter in his career with Oscar by his side, fans eagerly anticipate the cinematic magic this unexpected duo will bring to the screen. With his timeless creativity and newfound canine companion, Scorsese continues to captivate audiences, proving that inspiration can come from the most unexpected places.

Killers of the Flower Moon is set to hit UK cinemas on October 20, promising viewers an unforgettable cinematic experience that challenges perceptions and leaves a lasting impact on the audience.
In a powerful and emotional statement during her Celebration tour at London's O2 Arena, pop icon Madonna addressed the devastating Israel-Hamas conflict, expressing her heartbreak and deep concern for the innocent lives affected. With tears in her eyes, Madonna passionately spoke out against the atrocities, lamenting the horrifying incidents of violence involving children. Madonna performs during the opening night of The Celebration Tour at The O2 Arena in London, Britain October 14, 2023.(via REUTERS)

What's happening right now between Israel and Palestine is heartbreaking, Madonna declared, her voice filled with anguish. I turn on social media and I want to vomit. I see children being kidnapped, pulled off motorcycles; babies being decapitated, children at peace raves being shot and killed. How can human beings be so cruel to one another? It frightens me.

Madonna, drawing inspiration from renowned writer James Baldwin, emphasized that the children of the world belong to everyone, regardless of their background or beliefs. She stressed the shared responsibility humanity holds for these innocent lives. Referring to a recent tragic incident in Chicago where a six-year-old boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, was brutally stabbed due to his religion, Madonna labeled it as a hate crime, urging people to retain their humanity even amidst such darkness.

More on the Israel-Hamas war:

In a call to action, Madonna encouraged her fans, stating, We are all candles; we can bring light to the world. If we turn enough light on, the collective consciousness of generosity and unity will change. No politicians, no laws, no sanctions, no land given or taken. We, with our consciousness, can change the world.

The pop sensation's heartfelt plea resonated deeply with her audience, who responded with overwhelming support, lighting up the arena to symbolize their solidarity. Madonnas message emphasized the power of individual actions, urging everyone to contribute to the collective effort in bringing about positive change.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS. Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan Pan-Armenian Union, an organization comprised of representatives of Armenians of the historical Gardman, Shirvan and Nakhijevan, has appealed to Pope Francis to make Azerbaijan embrace religious tolerance.

In a statement, the organization commended the Popes October 15 statement regarding Nagorno-Karabakh. Speaking after Sunday's Angelus, Pope Francis recalled the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh and the serious humanitarian conditions affecting the displaced. He also appealed for the protection of the monasteries and places of worship, expressions of faith and signs of fraternity.

The Popes special call for the protection of monasteries and places of worship reports to the whole world that the entire Armenian Christian culture of Nagorno-Karabakh, the monasteries, churches and cemeteries are under the most real danger of destruction and desecration. This concern perhaps wouldnt be this real and imminent if not for the bitter historic experience of the not-too-distant past, Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan Pan-Armenian Union said.

It said that over the course of 100 years, the Armenian ethnic element and Armenian cultural presence in Gardman, Shirvan and Nakhijevan was subjected to ethnic cleansing for at least three times through massacres, pogroms, forced displacement and cultural genocide.

The organization cited the massacre of 30,000 Armenians in Baku in 1918, the forced displacement and genocidal manifestations against Armenians in Baku, Sumgait and Kirovabad and other Armenian-populated settlements in 1988-1992, the destruction of the Armenian cemetery in Julfa, as well as the vandalism committed in Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan took control both after the 2020 war, as well as after September 2023 in the entire territory of NK.

These crimes are aimed not only against the Armenian element, but the entire Christian World, because in this era of tolerance and mutual understanding, the religious and racial discrimination and hate should be unacceptable. We, as representatives of the Armenians of the historical Gardman, Shirvan and Nakhijevan, as those struggling for the restoration of our violated rights, are asking the Pope to use his good will and opportunities to force Azerbaijan to embrace the perceptions of religious tolerance and supreme legal and human values, because only that way it is possible to ensure interreligious dialogue and mutual respect in the civilized world," the union said.
Actor Vijay starrer Leo is releasing today (October 19) and fans are celebrating it like a festival. Not only in Tamil Nadu, but all over the world. (Also read: Leo movie review and release live updates: Vijay gets praise but film isn't Lokesh Kangaraj's best) Leo fans decided to celebrate their big day with Vijay.

Meanwhile, an interesting incident took place in one of the theaters in Pudukottai which was screening the movie Leo. Venkatesh, who is a big fan of Vijay, and Manjula decided to get engaged in the theatre.

The couple, dressed in wedding finery at the theatre, exchanged garlands and rings and those around them cheered happily. People chanted with joy as the bride laughed at their antics.

Speaking about this, Venkatesh said, I have neither mother nor father. Vijay is everything to me. That's why I got engaged in his presence.

I have been waiting for this for 8 months. Tomorrow our marriage is going to take place in Perumal temple, the groom-to-be said.

The film released amid much anticipation and is getting mixed reviews from the fans. Many places down South even witnessed a sea of fans thronging cinema halls with full "band baaja". Have a look at this clip where fans can be seen celebrating the release of Leo outside the Sree Padmanabha Theatre in Thiruvananthapuram.

Helmed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, 'Leo' also features Sanjay Dutt, Trisha Krishnan and Arjun Sarja. 'Leo' marks a reunion between Vijay and Kanagaraj after the 2021 blockbuster 'Master'.

Recently, superstar Rajinikanth also talked about Thalapathi Vijay and Sanjay Dutt's film 'Leo' and said, "I pray to God, that movie should become a huge hit."

In order to make a grand movie-watching experience for fans, Seven Screen Studios Production filed a petition before the Madras High Court requesting to allow the film to be screened at 4 am on the first day of the film's release in Tamil Nadu.

However, on Tuesday, Justice Anita Sumanth, refrained from passing orders regarding the request for 4 am shows. The court also directed

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR HT Entertainment Desk Dedicated professionals who write about cinema and television in all their vibrancy. Expect views, reviews and news. ...view detail
Commodity trading is the process of buying, selling and trading primary economic sector commodities on exchange platforms. These products, including agricultural goods, metals, energy sources, etc., form the backbone of the global economy. The prices of the major commodities are driven by economic growth, geopolitics, monetary policies, currency, weather and financial investments. In the past few years, the seventh pillar  technology  has significantly contributed to the growth of the global commodities trade. The convergence of commodities and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has resulted in reshaping the global economic landscape as it becomes the driver of efficiency and profitability for traders. Trading

The Indian commodity market has been around for over a hundred years, but it became officially recognised through a legal trading system in 2003. Currently, the total worth of India's commodity market is an impressive 92.23 lakh crore. However, for a long time, Indians have refrained from actively participating in trading due to the risk factor arising from market volatility. In the past few years, with technological advancements, Indian traders have become more confident about their decision-making in trading. In fact, three million new Demat accounts were opened in July 2023, taking the total number to a whopping 123.50 million, indicating a sharp increase in the number of retail investors in the country.

As more people enter the trading and investment landscape, traders expect trading platforms to provide advanced tools and services that amplify their decision-making skills, especially in the commodities market. Commodities markets are the playground for volatility, with price fluctuations which affect trades by the second. This can be overwhelming for the lesser experienced traders who need to make split-second decisions to keep their risk-return fundamentals in place. This is where technological advancements in commodities trading take centre stage. AI-powered advanced tools like predictive analytics enable investors to assess risk and predict future movements based on historical data. A recent example is the vegetable price hike, wherein the markets were extremely volatile, where investors could leverage smart tools to trade in the market.

With the fusion of AI and predictive analytics, traders get lucrative opportunities to overcome the challenges in trading commodities.

The advancements in AI have led to the creation of innovative solutions that address the challenges and complexities of the commodities market. Leveraging natural language processing and machine learning, AI is revolutionising how people approach commodities trading. It has proven instrumental in building risk management models that undertake a variety of factors. Traders can leverage these models to optimise their portfolios and manage their strategies according to the changes in the market. Furthermore, AI-powered algorithms also enable traders to execute trades at lightning-fast speed, as required in the market while trading. It increases the scope of lapping up opportunities with a minimal chance of making an error.

Predictive analytics are driven by AI and have emerged as a powerful tool for forecasting commodity prices. It enables market participants to make informed decisions driven by data-based insights. In predictive analytics, vast amounts of historical data are analysed to identify patterns. Further, machine learning uses the same to predict the movement in future prices.

The nature of commodity markets is such that it experiences significant price fluctuations due to global events, weather patterns and geopolitical tensions. But using pre-deal analytics, traders can assess potential trades before implementing them. It involves creating virtual models of various situations and using intelligent estimates of future movements to understand how a trade might affect profitability. Predictive AI enables traders to simulate different scenarios, providing a detailed forecast for each trade's possible outcome.

AI can identify irregularities and trends in new trades during the trade validation stage by comparing them to historical trading patterns. This effectively uses AI's ability to recognise patterns and analyse large amounts of data to identify anomalies. With AI, trade irregularities can be recognised either right after a trade is initiated or during the confirmation period. Importantly, this offers the chance to reverse such trades if necessary.

The amalgamation of AI and predictive analytics had led to the enhancement of the predictive capabilities in the commodity market, like enhanced accuracy and precision in predictions. AI has raised the potential of predictive analytics, where traders leverage the same to maximise returns. AI also mitigates the risk that arises due to human bias or error. This technology has paved the way for faster decision-making by keeping traders updated with the latest information.

The future of AI and predictive analytics promises advanced applications in commodities trading. Even though it is hard to predict the exact market movements, the fusion of AI and predictive analytics would offer enhanced risk management techniques and efficient market predictions by using sophisticated trading algorithms. The progress would disrupt the human-centric approaches in trading. As we anticipate the opening up of more precise trading strategies, it wouldnt be wrong to say that AI and predictive analytics would become essential tools for commodities trading.

This article is authored by Sarvjeet Virk, co-founder and managing director, Finvasia.

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In the recent Leaders Summit organised under Indias presidency, the G20 unanimously acknowledged that cryptoassets are a relatively new subject for social order, as well as for monetary & financial stability. As such, there is an imminent need for global standards to regulate them. Member countries called for the swift implementation of the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) and amendments to the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) to ensure transparency and the rapid exchange of information across national boundaries. The current lack of a well-established and enabling policy framework for cryptoassets in most countries, coupled with high price volatility, security breaches and platform bankruptcies, has led to situations where consumers have found themselves deprived of proper assistance when they need it. These circumstances underscore the pressing need for nations to develop a robust consumer protection framework in the domain of Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs). Digital assets (Bloomberg)

As the adoption of cryptoassets continues to grow, it has become evident that ensuring and promoting consumer protection when transacting in VDAs is not merely a policy obligation for regulators. A strong consumer protection framework is a pivotal step that will help the VDA sector in gaining broader acceptance across the world, which, in turn, will contribute significantly to unlocking the sectors transformative potential. Establishing trust and instilling confidence among consumers and investors will serve as the foundational pillar for responsible innovation and robust market competition within the sector.

The government, known for its consumer-centric approach, must step up to ensure comprehensive protection for citizens venturing into VDAs. The department of consumer affairs (DoCA) has, time and again, demonstrated its commitment to safeguarding consumer rights. The recent brainstorming session on VDAs, organised by the DoCA, was a much-needed effort in this direction. However, such workshops and sessions cannot be a standalone effort. To yield significant results, it is imperative that the government collaborates closely with relevant stakeholders to outline a consumer protection framework, tailored specifically for the VDA sector. Such intervention by the government should focus on an ex-ante approach, addressing potential risks before they escalate.

A strong consumer protection framework should focus on identification of systemic risks and guidelines aimed at safeguarding consumers from unfair trade practices such as unauthorised access, theft, security breaches and hacking, to name a few. Endeavours directed towards enhancing consumer awareness will help provide insights into potential threats associated with VDAs along with measures and best practices to guard against the same. Additionally, the existence of a robust consumer protection mechanism will also provide legal recourse in the event of a dispute, fraud and other issues, ensuring consumers rights are upheld. Such collective efforts will empower consumers to make well-informed choices and contribute towards nurturing an environment of security and accountability.

The European Union, Japan, South Korea and Canada have recognised the significance of safeguarding consumer rights and are resolute in their efforts to prevent unlawful activities linked to VDAs. They have drafted guidelines and issued notices and regulations to address issues such as exposure to volatile VDA prices, platform bankruptcies leading to frozen customer accounts, inadequate customer service and grievance resolution mechanisms, limited consumer understanding of investment risks and suitability, transaction-related problems during VDA buying, selling, or withdrawal, as well as occurrences of fraudulent transactions, theft, account breaches, and scams.

India must now follow suit. For this, the government should promptly identify major consumer protection issues that arise from the use of VDAs and proactively contain them through compulsory disclosures, governance and risk management practices and a robust grievance redressal procedure, which will collectively help in prioritising consumer welfare. To accomplish this, India can release a model advisory for consumer protection that delineates the role of all ecosystem participants, including platforms, exchanges, consumers and the government. This model advisory can draw from measures proposed by international institutions such as the IMF, FSB and BIS which ensure consumer protection.

Industry stakeholders and consumer advocacy groups can collaborate with the government in this endeavour. The industry can contribute by sharing best practices and offering technical expertise to address areas of concern to improve consumer well-being. Likewise, consumer groups can take the lead in launching comprehensive awareness campaigns and initiatives designed to protect consumers from potential risks.

By aligning with the rest of the G20 countries, India can harmonise its regulatory standards and work to collaboratively enhance consumer protection measures, in step with the rapidly evolving VDA landscape. Through consumer education and awareness on security measures, dispute resolution mechanisms, and vigilant monitoring, India can establish itself as a leader in responsible and consumer focused VDA governance.

This article is authored by Ashim Sanyal, CEO & secretary, Consumer VOICE and Kaushal Mahan, vice president, Chase India.

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Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri came to Delhi to receive the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration category for The Kashmir Files, and he says it is always a great feeling to attend the national award cereony. Vivek Agnihotri on winning national award for The Kashmir Files

However, the filmmaker felt very different this time as he says, "This award is a tribute to all the victims of genocide and persecution in the world. Especially the kind of times we are living in, looking at the wars happening all over the world and the barbaric killings, so I think this is a message and tribute for all the victims of religious terrorism in the world, especially the Kashmiri Pandit community who were silenced for 32 years. With this film, their voice can be heard and lessons can be learnt by the world that what happens when humanity is absent in a society.

The 49-year-old shares that the moments realisation happens later on. Feeling happens later, because when you are going, it is more technical and you have to maintain protocol in front of the president. But when you come down, you realise the gravity of the award and you figure out the kind of people who have received the award before you, it is like you are a part of this great legend group of filmmaking, he tells us.

Sharing the best moments at the ceremony yesterday, an excited Agnihotri states, Some great moments were when I met Waheeda Rehman ji and the President Of India Droupadi Murmu sat with us for a cup of tea and talked about her experiences with films. The greatest moment for me was when she especially mentioned The Kashmir Files in her speech. From Alia to Karan to Ranbir, everyone complimented my film. I was almost sitting with Allu Arjun, we also had a great time chatting together.

The filmmaker also mentions that his film now holds more importance due to the ongoing war situation. This film has become really important suddenly. After the Palestine-Israel conflict, thsi film has become so relevant as Israeli journalists are quoting it and American politicians are talking about this film, because it has drawn a parallel that whenever it happens in the world, it happens in a similar fashion. It means that religious terrorism has a handbookor or a template on which they do everywhere in the world, and this film cautions everyone that if they remain silent, and no one comes for your support, this will keep happening,

Actor Pallavi Joshi, who also won the supporting actress award for the film, says, It was very well organised and I am very impressed, it happened quite quickly. It always feels wonderful to win a national award. Both Vivek and I won national awards together for Tashkent Files as well last time, and now this time round again, so it is kind of a record for us husband and wife. It is a great moment of joy for me. It is an important film of our time. Its the most amazing feeling and the only thought I had in mind was the Kashmiri Pandits who told us their stories and we made it come alive on screen, so this huge success is a poetic justice. Everyone was congratulating each other and appreciating the work. National Film Award is a big honour and there was a considerable amount of ethusiasm in the air.

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Not being a chief ministerial candidate in Congress is relatively better than those who are nominated for the position, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said in a jesting manner at a press conference. Gehlot recalled how Sonia Gandhi made him the Rajasthan's CM after she became the party's president, adding that he wants to quit the CM post but bemoaned his inability to do so. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot(Hindustan Times)

I was not the CM candidate but she (Sonia Gandhi) selected meI want to leave the CM post but this post is not leaving me and probably will not leave me in the future either, he said, adding that there must be something in me because of which the party's high command had opted him to lead the state thrice.

CM Gehlot made the comments against the backdrop of the bitter factionalism with the party's Rajasthan unit. The state's senior leadership took a hit after former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot found himself uninvited at the Congress Working Committee meeting in Delhi. Murmurs of discontent erupted within the party over the grant of tickets ahead of the Rajasthan assembly elections.

However, Gehlot has dismissed reports of the delay in ticket distribution due to his rift with Sachin Pilot, dispersing speculations of differences within the Rajasthan unit of the Congress.

"The pain of the opposition regarding the selection process is that why are there no differences in the Congress party. I am sure you are talking about Sachin Pilot. All the decisions are being made by everyone's opinion. I am participating in the decisions of Sachin Pilot's supporters, in their favour. Only the BJP is concerned with smooth decision-making," he said.

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The Gujarat high court on Thursday sentenced four policemen to 14-day imprisonment for publicly flogging three Muslim men after tying them to a pole at Undhela in the Kheda district in October last year. On October 4, the court framed charges against the four for violating the Supreme Court guidelines. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A bench of Justices AS Supehia and Gita Gopi rejected inspector AV Parmar, sub-Inspector DB Kumavat, head constable KL Dabhi, and constable Raju Dabhis plea against the imprisonment. They instead offered to compensate the three.

The policemen on October 11 told the court that hitting people on their buttocks with a stick should not constitute custodial torture. They pleaded a guilty verdict and the subsequent punishment would adversely affect their professional records and offered unconditional apologies.

Senior Advocate Prakash Jani, who represented the four, on October 16 told the bench that his clients met the Muslim men and their lawyer. He added the victims chose not to accept any compromise or compensation following discussions with their community members.

Police superintendent Rajesh Kumar Gadhiya last year told the court that the three were allegedly part of a conspiracy to disrupt a Garba event to create fear among the Hindu community. He claimed the four policemen resorted to force to maintain peace.

The court directed a magistrate to review the video footage and images of the flogging that went viral on social media. The magistrates report said the videos and photos were unclear and only four of the policemen accused of assaulting the three could be identified.

On October 4, the court framed charges against the four for violating the Supreme Court guidelines on police conduct during arrests and detentions.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has gone to absolute rot, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday, as it proceeded to issue show-cause notice of contempt to a presiding judge and a technical member of the appellate body for reportedly breaching the orders of the top court and rendering false explanations. The court order on October 13 came on a petition filed by Prakash Chhabria led Orbit Electricals, which is a promoter entity in Finolex Cables (HT Photo)

Corporate India should know that if you want to subvert a judicial process, there is the Supreme Court watching, remarked a bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, as it set aside the impugned order of NCLAT and ordered the personal presence of the NCLAT members in court on October 30.

The NCLAT order had paved the way for Deepak Chhabria, who is at loggerheads with his cousin Prakash Chhabria over the management control of the company, to continue as chairman of Finolex Cables.

The court took strong exception to the manner in which a NCLAT bench, comprising Rakesh Kumar (judicial member) and Alok Srivastava (technical member), went ahead and delivered its ruling relating to the management control of Finolex on October 13 despite the court order to do so only after getting the scrutinisers report on AGM results.

On October 13, the bench, also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, directed NCLAT to proceed only after scrutinisers disclosed the results of the vote on the resolution during the AGM. The resolution was for the reappointment of Deepak Chhabria as a whole-time director designated as executive chairman. The court also allowed the parties to inform the NLCAT bench about it so that they stayed their hands till the scrutinisers report.

The Supreme Court order was uploaded on its website at 1.55 pm and the counsel for the parties informed the development to the NCLAT bench, which was scheduled to deliver the judgment at 2 pm. However, the two-member bench went ahead and pronounced the order, while the scrutinisers report was uploaded at 2.40 pm on October 13. Both Kumar and Srivastava defended their action by saying that the practice of NCLAT was to first deliver the judgment and then hear any mentioning by lawyers. On October 16, the NCLAT bench suspended its order permitting Deepak Chhabria to continue as the chairman of Finolex Cables on the premise that it was apprised of the court order only at 5.35 pm on October 13.

Directing Kumar and Srivastava to remain present before the court on October 30, the bench said that the explanations rendered by the two NCLAT members reeked of falsehood and that they also have failed to disclose full facts to the NCLAT chairman, justice Ashok Bhushan, who was earlier asked by the court to undertake an inquiry into the conduct of the members.

NCLAT and NCLT have gone down to an absolute rot. And this case is an abject illustration of the rot, an anguished bench, remarked, noting that the NCLAT members also tried to incorrectly create records subsequently to suggest that they were not made aware of the Supreme Court order. It clarified that the strictures of the court were confined to the two members and that the NCLAT chairperson, a former top court judge, was one of the most dignified and disciplined judges.

The manner in which the judgment was passed by NCLAT on October 13 is unbecoming of a judicial tribunal. NCLAT, which is subject to the jurisdiction of this court, was duty bound to comply with the orders of this court, the bench recorded in its order, issuing contempt notices to Kumar and Srivastava.

Noticing the objectionable manner in which the NCLAT bench passed its order on October 13 despite the courts caveat, the bench also set aside the order, stating it was constrained to pass such an order in extraordinary circumstances. The bench clarified that the matter will be heard afresh by a bench, led by the NCLAT chairperson.

Ultimately there is a gut inside a judge when a matter has been decided honestly or not. We have serious doubts about the honesty in this case, observed the bench.

It also issued a show-cause notice of contempt to scrutinisers, noting they were under the order of the Supreme Court to declare the result of the AGM but they delayed the result and sought an opinion from a retired judge despite a categorical direction by the court.

The court order on October 13 came on a petition filed by Prakash Chhabria led Orbit Electricals, which is a promoter entity in Finolex Cables. He sought disclosure of the outcome of voting in the AGM, pertaining to the reappointment of Deepak Chhabria as executive chairman. Orbit Electricals and Finolex Industries, controlled by Prakash Chhabria, had voted against the reappointment of his cousin, Deepak Chhabria, as the executive chairman of Finolex Cables.

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Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said the Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) was only at the national level days after asking the Congress to clarify whether the tie-up was also at the state level. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. (HT PHOTO)

Now we have the information that the alliance is only at the [national] level of Delhi. Fine, we will talk about Delhi when the time comes. Now that we have accepted that the alliance does not apply to state elections, we went ahead and began declaring candidates for those [Madhya Pradesh] elections, he told reporters weeks before five states are due to go to the polls next month.

He said had he known that there would be no INDIA alliance at the state level, SP representatives would not have gone to Congress with a list for seat sharing.

Yadav, who attended an SP event related to the national polls in Sitapur, on Tuesday said his party would contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 national elections.

The SP has named 31 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh polls. Vyasji Gond, the partys Madhya Pradesh poll in charge, said they would try to field candidates on all 230 seats.

The SP has been looking to expand outside Uttar Pradesh to become a national party. It has since its inception in 1992 been a regional party. The SP registered its biggest success outside Uttar Pradesh in Madhya Pradesh in 2003 when it won seven of the 161 seats it contested. In the 2018 assembly elections, it contested 52 seats and won one seat. The lone lawmaker has since defected to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai on Tuesday asked SP to fully support the Congress in Madhya Pradesh as it has no support base there. The SP is believed to have demanded 12 seats.

INDIA constituents in September resolved to contest the 2024 elections together as far as possible and said seat-sharing arrangements in states will be initiated immediately and concluded at the earliest in a collaborative spirit of give-and-take.

Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and Mizoram will go to the polls between November 7 and 30 while the results will be declared on December 3. This will be the last major electoral exercise ahead of the 2024 elections. The assembly polls are also the first since 26 Opposition parties formed the INDIA bloc in July to take on the BJP in these elections.

The Congress wrested power from the BJP in the Hindi-speaking heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh months before the 2019 general elections. But it managed to win only three of the 65 Lok Sabha seats in the three states five months later as BJP returned to power with a bigger majority at the Centre.

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The Union ministry of external affairs on Thursday said the situation in Gaza Strip is not conducive for evacuation of four Indians who are stranded in the war-torn region, adding that the government will bring them back at the first opportunity. One Indian national is in the West Bank region, MEA spokeperson Arindam Bagchi said. MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi (ANI)(HT_PRINT)

"The situation in Gaza is difficult for any evacuation but if we get a chance, we will get them out," the MEA spokesperson said during a press conference.

MEA also said that it is firm in its position in favour of a two-state solution amid the conflict over Palestine issue, however, condemned the horrific attack on Israel by Hamas, a declared militant group that administers the Gaza Strip situated in the east of Mediterranean Sea. Bagchi said India is concerned over civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, urging the international community to stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms.

Responding to the attack on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, which claimed around 470 lives, the spokesperson urged for a strict observance of international humanitarian law.

Bagchi also said that India has been supporting Palestine and its refugees through significant contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. A total of $29.53 million has been contributed between 2002-2023. The Indian annual contribution has also increased from $1.25 million to $5 million in 2018. We have pledged this annual contribution of $5 million for the next two years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier expressed shock at the loss of lives in the attack on the Gaza hospital and that those involved in civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict should be held responsible.

"Deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured," Modi said on X, adding that, "Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible."

Updating on the Operation Ajay, a government initiative to bring Indians from war-torn Israel, Bagchi said at least 1,200 people, including 18 Nepalis, have been evacuated in five flights. However, he refrained from speculating if anyone was brought back from Gaza Strip or West Bank regions.

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Unconventional and asymmetric warfare will be a part of conventional wars as seen during recent global conflicts, and the armed forces should factor this into their planning, said defence minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday while addressing the armys top commanders, days after Hamas launched an assault against Israel and a war rages between the two sides. Defence minister Rajnath Singh exchanges greetings with the Army Commanders during the Army Commanders' Conference, in New Delhi on Wednesday (ANI)

We must keep learning from the incidents to include the global ones...Expect the unexpected and plan, strategise and prepare, Singh said during his address at the Army Commanders Conference. The five-day conference, chaired by army chief General Manoj Pande, began on October 16.

Singh said the complex and ambiguous global situation affected all.

War preparedness should be a continuous phenomenon and we should always be ready for unpredictables, the uncertainties that may crop up. We should always be strengthening our fighting skills and weapons technologies to act effectively wherever called upon, he said.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict was discussed at the top conference, officials aware of the matter said, requesting anonymity. The Indian armed forces are tracking global conflicts closely, including the Russia-Ukraine war, for lessons.

Singh also touched upon the military standoff with China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. He expressed confidence in the army to deal with any contingency, while stressing that talks for peaceful resolution will continue.

Indian and Chinese senior military commanders recently concluded another round of talks on the standoff by agreeing to continue their dialogue and to maintain peace. A statement by the external affairs ministry after the 20th round of talks on October 9-10 didnt point to any breakthrough.
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday refuted reports attributing the delay in ticket distribution to his rift with Sachin Pilot. He said there were no differences within the Rajasthan unit of the Congress. He claimed he had not opposed the candidature of even one candidate (of the Pilot camp) and was taking decisions in favour of Sachin Pilot's supporters. Senior Congress leader and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot addresses the media. (PTI)

"The pain of the opposition regarding the selection process is that why are there no differences in the Congress party. I am sure you are talking about Sachin Pilot. All the decisions are being made by everyone's opinion. I am participating in the decisions of Sachin Pilot's supporters, in their favour. Only the BJP is concerned with smooth decision-making," he said on Thursday. Asked about the ongoing power tussle with Pilot, he said, "We are all united. I've not opposed any single candidate (of Pilot side)".

Hinting at his contention for the chief ministerial post, he said," After Sonia Gandhi became (Congress) president, the first decision she took was to make me the chief minister. I was not the CM candidate but she selected me as the CM...I want to leave the CM post but this post is not leaving me and it won't leave me also".

The chief ministerial post was the main bone of contention between Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot in 2018. The tussle over the post and its fallout precipitated the unsuccessful 2020 rebellion, which ended with Pilot losing his posts of deputy chief minister and state Congress president.

The Congress on Wednesday held lengthy meetings to finalise the first list of candidates for the November 25 elections.

An Indian Express report said the delay was the consequence of differences in the party over denial of tickets to some ministers. Gehlot is reportedly keen on rewarding his ministers for supporting him during the rebellion. He also wants to give tickets to the six BSP MLAs who joined the Congress in 2019. The party leadership, however, wishes to snub those who have small chances of winning the polls.

The report, quoting anonymous sources, claimed Gehlot was against denying tickets to MLAs and ministers due to corruption charges. He argued if they had been corrupt, they would have accepted money to topple his government.

The Gehlot camp, according to the report, is also against giving tickets to MLAs who rebelled against his government. The Pilot camp argues the same yardstick should be applied to those who defied the party high command's direction to attend the CLP meeting last year.

With inputs from ANI

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Almost a week after Income-Tax raid in the state, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said on Wednesday that the I-T department itself has clarified that the raid has nothing to do with any leader of the Congress party and attempts are being made to repeatedly target his party and leaders out of jealousy. HT Image

"The Income Tax Department itself has clarified that the IT raid has nothing to do with any leader of the Congress party. Attempts are being made to repeatedly target our party and leaders politically out of jealousy that they did not get power in Karnataka. The recent IT raid is one of them. The IT department has given an answer to the leaders who accused us for no reason. At least let them reduce such hit-and-run allegations," posted the Kannada Deputy CM on X.

The Ministry of Finance in its official release on October 16 made no mention of the Congress party or its leaders in the Income Tax Department searches.

"Income Tax Department conducted a search and seizure action in the case of some Government contractors, Real estate developers and their associates on October 12, 2023. About 55 premises were covered during the search action in the State of Karnataka, AP, Telangana and New Delhi," read the official release.

Earlier, BJP leader CT Ravi alleged that the recovered money was part of Congress' illegal fund collection meant for upcoming polls.

The BJP leader also demanded a CBI enquiry into the matter and said that the truth would prevail after a proper investigation.

The working president of Bharat Rashtra Samithi KT Rama Rao also accused Congress of pumping huge amounts of money into Telangana.

Rama Rao, in a message on 'X', asked people to say "No to Scamgress" in the state.

Speaking on the raids, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ashwath Narayan on Tuesday also took a dig at the Congress party and said "It is an ATM Sarkar and is completely exposed."

The BJP staged a protest in Bengaluru over the alleged corruption in the state. As a way to protest, the protestors carried a fake ATM model on which Karnataka Congress--ATM Sarkar was written with money withdrawn out of it.

DK Shivakumar on Tuesday refuted the allegations made by the BJP that the money recovered in the raids conducted by the Income Tax department belongs to the Congress government.

Income Tax officials in a raid on the residence linked to a former corporator in Bengaluru city on October 13 unearthed an amount of 42 crore stashed in 23 cartons.

According to officials privy to the investigation, the cash was packed in cartons and stashed under the bed of a flat owned by the corporator. The IT sleuths raided five locations linked to the former corporator.

The raids sparked off a heated debate with BJP alleging that the money was part of Congress's illegal fund, meant for campaigning in assembly polls in Telangana and four other states to be held in November. (ANI)
The Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to project an OBC (other backward class) leader as the chief ministerial candidate of the party in the assembly elections to be held in Telangana, even as the partys central screening committee is all set to finalise the first list of candidates, party leaders familiar with the matter said. Telangana BJP president G Kishan Reddy along with partys parliamentary board member and MP K Laxman left for New Delhi on Wednesday evening with the list of around 40 names of the candidates to seek the approval from the central screening committee. (Mohammad Aleemuddin)

Union tourism minister and Telangana BJP president G Kishan Reddy along with partys parliamentary board member and MP K Laxman left for New Delhi on Wednesday evening with the list of around 40 names of the candidates to seek the approval from the central screening committee.

BJP national general secretary Bandi Sanjay also got a call from the central leadership to join the committee meeting. In all probability, the list of candidates will be released in a day or two, a senior BJP leader familiar with the development said.

According to him, the BJP central leadership is contemplating announcing an OBC leader as the chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming elections to have an edge over the Congress party. The state leaders have received such an indication today, but it is not immediately known whether the central BJP will announce any name or just say that an OBC leader will be made the CM, if the party comes to power, he said.

Prominent among the OBC leaders of Telangana BJP are: Laxman, who also heads the BJP national OBC Morcha, former state BJP president Bandi Sanjay and Huzurabad MLA Eatala Rajender.

The party is said to be of the view that announcing an OBC leader as the CM candidate of the party will fetch huge mileage for the party, as there is none from these sections had ever become the chief minister of either combined Andhra Pradesh or Telangana, the leader quoted above said, adding that the party already announced that 35% of the candidates would be from the OBCs.

Among those whose names are being talked about in the state party as the probable candidates in the first list include: Kishan Reddy from Amberpet, Bandi Sanjay from Karimnagar, Eatala Rajender from Huzurabad and Gajwel, Vijayashanti from Kamareddy, D K Aruna from Gadwal, A P Jitender Reddy from Mahabubnagar, Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy from Munugode or L B Nagar, M Raghunandan Rao from Dubbak, A Maheshwar Reddy from Nirmal, Babu Mohan from Andhole, Sankineni Venkateshwar Rao from Suryapet, Arepalli Mohan from Manakondur, N V S S Prabhakar from Uppal, Ramesh Rathod from Khanapur, Errabelli Pradeep Rao from Warangal (west) and Kuna Srisailam Goud (Quthbullapur).

Meanwhile, the state BJP leaders, including Kishan Reddy and Laxman, on Wednesday held talks with Jana Sena Party chief and popular actor Pawan Kalyan in Hyderabad and sought his partys support to the BJP in Telangana.

Both the parties have an alliance in Andhra Pradesh at present. The Jana Sena already announced candidates to contest from 32 seats in Telangana.

We shall discuss within our party and take a decision on extending support to the BJP, a statement from Jana Sena Party quoting Pawan Kalyan said.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday released a list of 40 campainers who will do the groundwork for the Chhattisgarh assembly election and ensure the saffron party makes a comeback in the state. The campainers' list has been released for the first phase of the election, which has the names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union defence minster Rajnath Singh and Union home minister Amit Shah among other senior party leaders. PM Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah(Bloomberg)

The announcement set the stage for an intense poll battle in Chhattisgarh which holds a strong political significance. The state will witness elections in two phases  November 7 and 17. The election results will be announced on December 3.

Apart from Modi, Shah and Rajnath Singh, the formidable line-up of campaigners feature party stalwarts from the state, which reflects its determination to secure a strong foothold in the state.

Meanwhile, the Congress has turned to social media platforms, artificial intelligence and other similar modes to highlight the state government's performance. The War Room of Congress is using up the influence of Instagram reels, content writers, video editors as well as telecallers, considering the BJP is likely to enter the battleground with a power-packed IT cell.

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The Congress on Wednesday denied tickets to 10 sitting lawmakers in its second list of 53 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, in an apparent bid to blunt anti-incumbency against local leaders and retain power in the heartland state. The Congress is looking to retain power in the two-phase elections in Chhattisgarh scheduled for November 7 and 17. (ANI)

With this, the states ruling party has announced candidates for 83 of the 90 assembly seats and dropped 18 incumbent legislators in all.

The Congress is looking to retain power in the two-phase elections scheduled for November 7 and 17. HT had reported on October 5 that the Congress is likely to deny tickets to 18-20 sitting MLAs, citing their poor performance in internal surveys.

In a statement, state Congress chief Deepak Baij said all the candidates who were given the ticket in this list are capable of winning the elections. The candidates list is well balanced and with this list, we are winning 75 seats out of 90, he said.

Prominent among those dropped were Premsai Singh Tekam, Vinay Jaiswal and Rekhchand Jain.

Of the 53 seats, 14 are reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) and six for Scheduled Caste (SC) categories. Ten women were part of the second list of the party, which released its first list of 30 candidates on October 15.

Out of the 33 general seats where candidates were declared on Wednesday, the party nominated 17 leaders from the Other Backward Classes (OBC), taking the total number of picks from the backward communities to 27. In 2018, the Congress gave tickets to a total of 28 OBCs.

Chhattisgarh is one of only four states where the Congress is in power on its own. The party ended 15 years of Bharatiya Janata Party rule in 2018 with a landslide victory of 68 seats.

Till now, the party has named 28 tribal candidates, including three from general seats  Khel Sai Singh (Prem Nagar), Purushottam Kawar (Katghora) and Devendra Bahadur Singh (Basana). Nine SC candidates have also been named so far.

In Manendragarh, the Congress denied a ticket to one-time MLA Vinay Jaiswal and fielded Ramesh Singh instead. In ST-reserved Pratappur, former state minister and five-time lawmaker Premsai Singh Tekam was dropped in favour of Rajkumari Marawi.

In another tribal-dominated seat, Ramanujganj, controversial MLA Brihaspat Singh considered close to chief minister Bhupesh Baghel was denied a ticket.

In July 2021, deputy chief minister TS Singhdeo had walked out of the assembly, in the presence of Baghel, over allegations that the former was involved in an attack on Brihaspat Singh. Singh alleged his convoy was attacked in Surguja district at the behest of Singhdeo.

The party fielded Ambikapur mayor Ajay Tirkey against one of the BJPs tallest tribal faces, former MP Ramvichar Netam.

Veteran Congress leader and sitting lawmaker from Raipur Gramin, Satyanarayan Sharmas son Pankaj Sharma, got the ticket from the same seat.

The party dropped Chandradev Rai, the incumbent from Bilaigarh, and preferred Kavita Pran Lahre. Rai was raided by Enforcement Directorate (ED) February in an alleged coal levy scam.

The second list of Congress shows that camp war within the party has affected decisions on many seats. However, the party has also tried to balance it by focusing on the winnability factor and survey inputs, said a Congress leader on the condition of anonymity.

He further said that Singhdeo played a pivotal role in ticket distribution in some seats.

The denial of ticket to Brihaspat Singh who openly spoke against deputy CM TS Singhdeo clearly shows that the will of Singhdeo has prevailed in decision making on tickets. Singhdeo had publicly revealed his anger against SinghFurther denial of tickets to sitting MLA Vinay Jaiswal of Manendragarh and Chintamani Maharaj also shows that Singhdeo camp played an important role in ticket distribution, the Congress leader quoted above said.

Political commentators said the Congress tried to balance its second list.

The party tried to balance their list with eight castes of OBC who were given tickets in this list. On ST seats also, seven different tribal communities are being fielded by the party. On SC seats, both Satnami and Suryvanshi have been accommodated, said political commentator Sudiep Shrivastva.

The BJP has released the candidates for 86 seats so far.

BJP spokesperson Sacchinand Upasane said the Congresss list reflected the infighting in the ruling party. The BJP is winning the elections and now the list makes it more clear that we are forming the government, he said.

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Janata Dal (Secular) Karnataka unit president CM Ibrahim has been removed from the post, party's national president and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda announced Thursday. JD(S) Supremo H.D Deve Gowda with former CM H D Kumaraswamy and party state president CM Ibrahim at party leaders. (ANI Photo)

Gowda also dissolved the state working committee and appointed his son and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy as the ad-hoc president of the party's state unit.

"To strengthen the party, our national president today took the decision to dissolve the old unit and announced the ad-hoc committee in my leadership... Naturally, it will be communicated to him (CM Ibrahim)...My responsibility is to strengthen the party...My concentration is to develop my party, " Kumaraswamy told news agency ANI.

The development comes days after Ibrahim vehemently opposed the BJP-JDS alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Ibrahim had held a meeting with 'like-minded' people in JD(S) on Monday and announced that the party led by him was the original one. He also announced the formation of a core committee that would submit a memorandum to the party supremo that the JD(S) should not go with the BJP.

Earlier on Tuesday, Kumaraswamy hit out at Ibrahim for raising a banner of revolt against the party for aligning with BJP and indicated that stringent action will be taken against him.

"If his (Ibrahim's) party is original then let him put up a board that he is the original one. Who has stopped him? Let him do whatever he wants. He is free to do it. It is left to him," Kumaraswamy had said.

Ibrahim, a former union minister, had hinted at a possible split while asserting that his faction represents the true essence of the JD(S) as a 'secular' party. "Those who want to come with us can come, those who want to leave can do so. We will see how many MLAs are with which side," he had said.

The JD(S) in September announced an alliance with the BJP and joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the party was committed to implementing its six guarantees given to the people of Telangana for the upcoming assembly elections in the state, as it did in all the states where it had come to power. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra during a pubic rally in Mulug district on Wednesday. (HT Photo)

Addressing a public rally at the tribal hamlet of Ramanujapuram in Mulug district, Rahul Gandhi said the Congress had never gone back on its promises made to the people in any state where it was voted to power.

Telangana is going to vote on November 30 and results will be announced on December 3 with that of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.

In Rajasthan, the Congress government has been providing free treatment to the poor through its health scheme, as promised before the last elections. In Chhattisgarh, our government was procuring paddy at much higher rate than minimum support price, as promised to the farmers before the 2018 elections. In Karnataka, the Congress had given five guarantees to the people during the elections and soon after coming to power, it has been implementing them, he pointed out.

Stating that the Congress had always stood by its word given to the people, the Congress MP said the party was certain to come to power in Telangana along with four other states going to polls and would definitely implement all the promises it had made.

In fact, it is the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) which has cheated the people by not implementing its promises made to the people like distribution of three acres of land among the Dalits and waiver of crop loans on time, he said.

Apart from implementing the six guarantees given to the people, Rahul Gandhi said, the Congress, if voted to power, would do justice to the tribals by distributing title deeds for all the Podu lands (where tribals do shifting cultivation) and assigned lands of Dalits.

He also assured that if the Congress-led coalition comes to power at the Centre, it would declare the Sammakka-Saralamma tribal fair as a national festival.

Speaking at the rally, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi said she had noticed that no section of the Telangana society was happy with the BRS government. The Congress granted statehood to Telangana, after acknowledging the sacrifices made by several people and understanding their aspirations. The party had to pay a heavy political price for granting Telangana state; it always gave importance to the aspirations of the people, she said.

She regretted that even after the formation of separate Telangana, there had been no social justice in the state. In the last nine years, the state had only witnessed suicides, atrocities on women and domination of the upper castes, she said.

PCC president A Revanth Reddy and Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and others spoke.

Earlier, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka visited the famous Ramappa temple, a Unesco heritage site, and offered prayers to Lord Shiva. They placed a brochure of the partys six guarantees at the feet of the Lord and sought blessings.

Reacting to the visit of Rahul Gandhi to Telangana, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) lawmaker and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Raos daughter Kalvakuntla Kavita described him as only Election Gandhi not Rahul Gandhi.

She alleged that the Congress leaders had turned blind to see the development in Telangana in the last nine years. Today, Hyderabad is on the global map with top companies like Google and Amazon having their offices here. If this is not development and empowerment, then Rahul Ji, please tell me what is empowerment? she asked.

She pointed out that the BJP government at the Centre had not given even a single IIT or IIM or any institute of national status to Telangana, but Rahul had never questioned it. If you did not speak about Telanganas loss in last 10 years, why are you even coming to campaign in Telangana? she asked.

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Mulugu (Telangana) [India], October 18 (ANI): Hitting out a Bharat Rashtriya Samithi (BRS) MLC K Kavitha's "Rahul Gandhi is election Gandhi" remarks, Congress leader Manikrao Thakre on Wednesday said that her words show that her party is scared of the Congress. HT Image

Thakre, AICC-in-charge of Telangana, said the Gandhi family played an important role in the formation of Telangana.

"K Kavitha and her party are scared and therefore she has made such a statement. Sonia Gandhi, or the Gandhi family, played an important role in the formation of Telangana. People do not trust K Kavitha. Her name is mentioned in the liquor scam... Gandhi family has worked a lot for the state...The people have understood that you (BRS) just make false promises," Thakre told ANI.

Kavitha took a swipe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi calling him 'Election Gandhi' saying he visits the state only during elections.

"I will call Rahul Gandhi 'Election Gandhi' because he visits the state only during elections. When it comes to the rights of Telangana, he never stands with the state. This has been noticed seriously by the people of Telangana so people do not believe what he says during the election times," Kavitha had said.

Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi offered prayers at Ramappa Temple here as part of their Vijayabheri Yatra.

Rahul Gandhi is set to address a series of public meetings in the state and connect with labourers, farmers, and party members.

Telangana will go to the polls on November 30 and the counting of votes will be done on December 3.

The state will witness a triangular contest between the BJP, the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and the Congress.

In the previous Assembly election held in 2018, BRS won 88 seats out of 119 seats with a vote share of 47.4 per cent. Congress came in a distant second with 19 seats. (ANI)

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With this, the Congress has declared all but one candidate for elections to the 230-member assembly in Madhya Pradesh, where polling will be held on November 17. HT Image

The Congress had on Sunday released its first list of 144 candidates for the state.

The Congress replaced its candidate for the Datia assembly constituency, fielding Rajendra Bharti in place of Avadesh Nayak. He will contest against BJP candidate and Home Minister Narottam Mishra. Bharti, a former MLA, had defeated Mishra in the past but lost the last election by a slender margin.

The party also fielded Ravinder Singh Tomar from the Dimani assembly seat and he will contest against Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

From the Gwalior assembly seat, considered the bastion of Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Congress has fielded Sunil Sharma, who had unsuccessfully contested in a bypoll against sitting MLA and minister Pradhuman Singh Tomar, a known Scindia loyalist. Pradhuman Singh Tomar had switched over to the BJP along with Scindia after the last assembly polls.

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A Delhi court on Wednesday convicted four people for killing journalist Soumya Vishwanathan 15 years ago, bringing the curtain down on a gruesome saga that sent shock waves through the Capital and cemented Delhis unsavoury reputation as a city unsafe for women. HT Image

A fifth person  Ajay Sethi  was convicted for dishonestly receiving stolen property and conspiring to abet, aid or knowingly facilitate organised crime.

The 25-year-old television journalist was driving back home on September 30, 2008 in her car when she was shot dead on a desolate stretch on Nelson Mandela Marg near Vasant Kunj around 3.30am. The murder stoked outrage and protests across the Capital, which was struggling to grapple with a string of cases of crimes against women at the time.

Additional sessions judge (ASJ) Ravindra Kumar Pandey held four of the five accused  Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik  guilty of murdering Vishwanathan and convicted them under sections 302 (murder) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and also section 3(1)(i) of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crimes Act (MCOCA) as well. The maximum sentence they may face is a death penalty.

The court is of the considered view that prosecution has duly proved beyond all reasonable doubt that accused Ravi Kapoor and his other associates, co-accused Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik had committed the murder of the deceased or victim Saumya Vishwanathan with the intention to rob her on September 30, 2008, in between 3.25am and 3.55am at Nelson Mandela Marg, the court said in a 261-page judgment.

The court also held that the fifth accused  Ajay Sethi  retained the offending vehicle, abetted or knowingly facilitated the commission of an organised crime, and held the property derived from the proceeds of the crime. The court convicted him under Section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) of IPC and under sections 3(2) and 3(5) of MCOCA.

The prosecution has also duly proved beyond all reasonable doubt that accused Ajay Sethi retained knowingly and intentionally the offending vehicle and he is accordingly held guilty and convicted for charge of offence punishable U/s 411 IPC, the court held.

The five men will be sentenced on October 26.

This decision will act as a deterrent; we are expecting life imprisonment, said her mother Madhavi Vishwanathan.

Justice has been done, said her father MK Vishwanathan.

The trial in the case began in 2009 and spanned 300 hearings, comprising 97 witnesses.

The evidence in the case initially pointed towards an accident  that Vishwanathan rammed her Maruti Zen into a divider while returning home to Vasant Kunj from her office at Jhandewalan and died in the crash. But the autopsy report showed a bullet in her right temple.

Over the next six months, the police rounded up dozens of suspects but failed to make a breakthrough. Then on March 18, 2009, another woman, call centre employee Jigisha Ghosh, 27, was found strangled to death. It was during questioning in this case that one of the accused confessed to a past murder, reviving what had till then seemed like a cold case.

In its investigation, the Delhi police found that the men  Malik, Kumar and Shukla  were involved in a string of crimes beginning 2002 involving violence or threats and were members of an organised crime syndicate led by Kapoor. On September 30, 2008, the four men waited near PVR Priya in Vasant Vihar inside a stolen car for a target they could rob. After making a failed attempt to stop Vishwanathans car, they began following her, said the police. Vishwanathan was listening to music and perhaps did not notice the accused. They repeatedly honked in a bid to make her halt. They shot her either to frighten her or force her to stop. Kapoor fired at her car, said Bhisham Singh, the investigating officer..

The prosecution has duly proved its case through scientific evidence and through the testimony of PW-7 and PW-11 and through the confessional statement of the accused Ravi Kapoor that accused Ravi Kapoor and his other associates namely Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ajay Kumar had committed murder of the deceased/victim Saumya Vishwanathan on 30.09.2008 by firing bullet upon her by the accused Ravi Kapoor the court held.

It also noted that prosecution also proved that the men were dependent for their livelihood on the proceeds of the crime.

It is duly proved by the prosecution that the accused persons were dependent for their livelihood on the proceeds of the organized crime as committed by their organized crime syndicate and they did not led any evidence that they were having any other pecuniary source for their livelihood, said the order.

Malik, Kapoor and Shukla were convicted by the trial court in the Jigisha Ghosh case in August 2016. The court sentenced Kapoor and Shukla to death, and Malik to life imprisonment. In January 2018, the Delhi high court commuted the death sentence of Kapoor and Shukla to life imprisonment, while upholding Maliks sentence.

Special commissioner of police HGS Dhaliwal, who was involved in the investigation, said that verdict was a big day for the police. These accused have already been convicted in the Jigisha Ghosh murder case and we are happy that they have again been convicted in this case, he said.

The Delhi Police filed its first charge sheet in the Vishwanathan case in June 2009 under sections 302 and 34. Later, the police filed a supplementary charge sheet in October 2009 before the court for offence under Section 3 of MCOCA.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS. During the meeting with the Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte held in Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, stressed the importance of a road map for establishing peace and regulating relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, essentially formed during the meetings between the President of Azerbaijan and himself through the mediation of Charles Michel, the President of the European Council.

''I emphasized that during the meetings between the President of Azerbaijan and myself in Brussels, through the mediation of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, a roadmap for peace and normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia has been essentially formed, which has been expressed in quadripartite statement of Granada, as well.

The commitment of the parties to that road map will ensure a breakthrough in the peace process," said Nikol Pashinyan after the meeting with the Prime Minister of Lithuania.

PM Pashinyan assured that Armenia confirms and reaffirms its loyalty to the above-mentioned principles.
Two days before a scheduled hearing in the Supreme Court on delay by the Union government in processing collegiums recommendations, the Centre on Wednesday notified transfer of 16 high court judges and appointment of 17 new judges in various high courts. Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal announced the development on platform X (formerly Twitter). (ANI)

Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal announced the development on platform X (formerly Twitter). This is perhaps the highest number of notifications issued by the Centre on transfer and appointment of judges on a single day.

Those shifted to other high courts included judges from the list of 26 recommendations made by the collegium in the first week of August, apart from justice MV Muralidaran, the acting chief justice of Manipur high court. His transfer was recommended by the collegium on October 10 following rejection of the judges request to either let him continue in the same high court or shift him to his parent high court at Madras.

A judicial order issued by a single-judge bench of justice Muralidaran on March 23 had become the trigger point for the ethnic clashes between the Meiteis and the Kukis in the northeastern state. Justice Muralidaran passed the controversial order for the Manipur government to consider including the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) list.

Among 17 new judges appointed in different high courts, six are lawyers while the remaining are judicial officers. As of October 1, 347 posts of high court judges were lying vacant in the 25 high courts across the country against the total strength of 1,114. The vacancy translates to more than 31% of the total strength.

A Supreme Court bench, led by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, will on October 20 take up a contempt plea, complaining against inordinate delay by the Centre in processing collegiums recommendations. 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.

On September 26, the Supreme Court had decided to monitor the steps taken by the Centre in acting on collegiums recommendations for appointing and transferring judges, expressing its anguish at the delays.

When the matter was taken up next on October 9, the court observed that collegiums recommendations cannot remain in limbo, emphasising that instead of sitting on them indefinitely, the government must either notify those appointments or send them back citing specific objections. Attorney general R Venkataramani, appearing for the Centre, assured the court that of the 26 cases of transfer of judges from one high court to another, 14 files will be cleared soon.

The delay in notifying the transfers of judges was viewed seriously by the Supreme Court during its proceedings in January and February as well. 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.

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Amid the ongoing political slugfest over Sharad Pawar's comments over the Israel-Hamas war, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took a jibe at the Nationalist Congress Party chief on Wednesday, saying it seems like he will send his daughter Supriya Sule to Gaza to fight for the militant group. Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.(PTI)

"I think Sharad Pawar will send Supriya (Sule) madam to Gaza to fight for Hamas," Sarma said to news agency ANI when asked to comment on Pawar's take on the ongoing war.

A political furore has erupted after the NCP chief criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for showing solidarity with Israel, saying that it's unfortunate that the PM neglected the real issue as former prime ministers of India also stood firmly with Palestine.

"The entire land is of Palestine and Israel encroached on their land. That place, land and houses, everything was of Palestine and later Israel took over it. Israel is an outsider and the land is originally of Palestine," Pawar had said while addressing a gathering of party workers in Mumbai.

Union minister Piyush Goyal, expressing his dismay at Pawar's remarks, emphasised the need to condemn terrorism worldwide. Goyal pointed out that Pawar had held prominent positions in the government during critical security incidents.

"It is very disturbing when a senior leader like Sharad Pawar makes preposterous statements on India's stand on a terror attack in Israel. The menace of terrorism has to be condemned in all forms, in any part of the world. It is a pity that a person who has been India's defence minister as well as a chief minister many times has such a casual view of issues relating to terror," he posted on X.

"Pawar ji was a part of the same Government that shed tears on the Batla House encounter and slept while there were terror attacks on Indian soil. This rotten mindset has to stop. I hope Pawar ji at least now, thinks of the nation first," he further said.

Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis also condemned the NCP chief's remarks and said that the country has never changed its position on this issue but has "always strongly opposed terrorism".

"India has never changed its position on the Israel-Palestine dispute. However, at the same time, India has been consistently against and has always strongly opposed terrorism in any form and against anyone," he said in a post on 'X'.

Modi on October 7 had expressed solidarity with Israel after it was shelled by the rocket strikes launched by Hamas militants saying that India's thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families.

The war between Israel and the Hamas militants entered its 13th day on Thursday. Tel Aviv has stationed its forces along the Gaza border, carrying out drills for a possible ground invasion to pursue Hamas militants. The war has claimed over 4,000 lives since it began on October 7 including around 1,400 Israelis and 2,750 Palestinians.
Responding to Rahul Gandhi's charge that BRS was the 'B-team' of BJP in Telangana, KT Rama Rao said the Congress was what he called "C team" of the country. Rahul Gandhi said we are the B team of BJP. We are not the BJP's B team, you are othe C team of the country. C team means chor (thief) team, he said in Hyderabad. BRS leader KT Rama Rao meets former Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief and former Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah last week, (PTI)

KTR accused the Congress of being involved in several scams when it was in power at the Centre.

You have done A to Z scams. A means Adarsh scam, B means Bofors scam, C mean Commonwealth scam and if we continue to say, it will go on till Z, he added.

He said the Congress had looted everyone -- from the sky to underground.

"They have not left out anything starting from Agusta Helicopter in the skies to the coal in the underground. Your central ministers have gone to jail. Finally, there is an ED investigation which is happening even on Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi in connection with the National Herald case," he added.

He also launched a scathing attack at the party's Telangana chief, Revanth Reddy. He said if 10-12 Congress candidates win in the upcoming assembly polls, Reddy would make them join the BJP.

"He is BJP's agent in Congress... You (Rahul Gandhi) might not have knowledge about this thing, but those who are next to you, know about it... He will swallow the entire party tomorrow and later he will be sold to BJP. In this country, you, your Congress party is the Chor team," he added.

He called Reddy the biggest thief in the country. "Dawood Ibrahim and Charles Sobhraj are small when compared to Revanth Reddy," he said.

"Rahul Gandhi talks when such a person (Revanth Reddy) is sitting beside him. You make a 420 (cheat) sit beside you and say that KCR is a thief... Your PCC chief was caught while distributing money. Who will believe you, when you make him (Revanth) sit beside you," he added.

Gandhi on Wednesday claimed the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) were working together in Telangana, where election will be held on November 30.

In Telangana, there is an electoral contest between Congress and the BRS. We have defeated the BJP here. But remember, BJP wants BRS to win in Telangana. Both of them are working together. Even the AIMIM is hand in gloves with them", Gandhi said at a poll rally in Telangana's Mulugu.

With inputs from ANI

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New Delhi: India on Thursday called for strict observance of international humanitarian law in the context of the Israel-Hamas conflict even as it expressed concern over civilian casualties following the blast at a hospital in Gaza that killed hundreds of people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in February, 2018. (AP file photo)

At the same time, India reiterated its position that the world community must stand together in combating all forms of terrorism in the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi continued his outreach to leaders in West Asia on Thursday by speaking to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and conveying his condolences at the loss of civilian lives at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. Modi had earlier spoken to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu.

We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue, Modi posted on X after his conversation with Abbas.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told a regular media briefing that India has strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel and that the international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all forms and manifestations. There can be no equivocation on this, he said.

Bagchi added: We would urge the strict observance of international humanitarian law. In this context, he recalled Modis post on social media to convey condolences to the families of victims of the blast at the Gaza hospital on Tuesday. He also reiterated Modis remarks that civilian casualties are a matter of serious and continuing concern and those involved should be held responsible.

Israel and Hamas have traded charges on the explosion at the hospital, run by the Anglican church, which is believed to have killed up to 500 people. Palestinian authorities blamed an Israeli airstrike for the explosion at the hospital, while Israel said it was caused by a misfired rocket launched from Gaza by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Bagchi reiterated Indias concerns at the humanitarian situation in Gaza and emphasised that New Delhi favours direct negotiations for establishing a two-state solution.

Also Read: A tightrope walk: Indias position vis-a-vis Israel and Palestine

Giving details about the humanitarian aid provided by India, Bagchi said the country has been supporting Palestine and Palestinian refugees through significant contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). India has contributed a total of $29.53 million to the agency between 2002 and 2023.

Indias annual contribution to UNRWA increased from $1.25 million to $5 million in 2018, and New Delhi has pledged this annual amount for the next two years, he said.

After India initially denounced the Hamas assault as terrorist attacks and told Israeli that the country stands in solidarity with it, New Delhi has sought to balance its position in the wake of growing outrage across the Arab world over the mounting casualties among Palestinian civilians.

The latest conflict was triggered by the multi-pronged attacks on southern Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza on October 7. Israel then launched a massive offensive in Gaza to avenge the attacks. About 1,400 Israelis and nearly 3,500 Palestinians have died in the violence so far. Around 200 Israelis were taken hostage by Hamas.

A total of 1,200 people, including 18 Nepalese citizens, have been brought back to India by five flights operated under Operation Ajay, the mission launched by New Delhi to facilitate the return of citizens wishing to come back to India from Israel.

We are monitoring the situation and will plan more flights according to the need, Bagchi said. About 18,000 Indian nationals, including some 900 students, were in Israel when the conflict began.

About four Indian citizens are believed to be in Gaza, which is difficult to leave, while at least 13 more are in the West Bank. An Indian national who was injured has received medical care and her condition is now stable, Bagchi said. India has not issued any advisory so far for Lebanon, he added.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rezaul H Laskar Rezaul H Laskar is the Foreign Affairs Editor at Hindustan Times. His interests include movies and music. ...view detail
NEW DELHI: India on Thursday reiterated its opposition to Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) against the backdrop of Maldives president-elect Mohamed Muizzu highlighting the role of Beijings flagship infrastructure programme in the development of participating countries. MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that unlike in the past, India had not been invited by China to this years Belt and Road Forum this year (ANI File)

The Indian sides cooperation with the Maldives is based on jointly addressing shared challenges and priorities, external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told a regular media briefing, referring to security and development assistance provided to the Indian Ocean archipelago by New Delhi.

Indias position on BRI, including the programmes lack of respect for our sovereignty and territorial integrity are well known and consistent, Bagchi said while responding to several questions on the Belt and Road Forum hosted by China and Muizzus comments endorsing the BRI.

Also Read: India-China power play gets new life in Maldives

Bagchi said that unlike in the past, India had not been invited by China to this years Belt and Road Forum. I dont think we received an invitation this year, he said.

India opted to stay out of the BRI since a key section of the massive infrastructure project  the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) - runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and because New Delhi believes the programme does not offer a level playing field to non-Chinese companies.

Bagchi pointed to a statement issued by India in May 2017, when the first Belt and Road Forum was held, to oppose the BRI and said the countrys concerns still stand today. Parts of CPEC pass through territories that are in illegal occupation of Pakistan and this amounts to a violation of Indias sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said.

This years Belt and Road Forum marks the 10th anniversary of BRI and the event in Beijing was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin just weeks after he skipped the G20 Summit hosted by India. Bagchi said India is loathe to link G20 participation with other things and noted that India had invited all G20 members to the summit in New Delhi.

Also Read: India to continue disaster relief even after Muizzu takes over Male

He said that countries have different decision-making perspectives when deciding on participation in such events. All G20 members have also been invited to a virtual summit to be hosted by India in November, and New Delhi looks forward to participation by as many leaders as possible, he added.

Responding to questions about the Maldives president-elect endorsing the BRI and pledging to remove Indian military personnel from the archipelago, Bagchi said: The assistance and platforms that we have provided have contributed significantly in areas like peoples welfare, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and combating illegal maritime activities.

India has provided two military helicopters and a maritime surveillance aircraft to the Maldives and has a small contingent of security personnel deployed in the country. Over the past five years, more than 500 medical evacuations were carried out by Indian personnel, saving 523 Maldivian lives, Bagchi said.

Of these, 131 evacuations were carried out in 2023, 140 in 2022, and 109 in 2021. During the same period, more than 450 multifaceted missions were carried out to safeguard the maritime security of the Maldives, including 122 missions in 2022, 152 in 2021, and 124 in 2020.

We look forward to continuing our cooperation and partnership with the Maldives, which is multifaceted, which covers areas of benefit to the Maldivian people, particularly humanitarian assistance, welfare [and] disaster relief, Bagchi said.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rezaul H Laskar Rezaul H Laskar is the Foreign Affairs Editor at Hindustan Times. His interests include movies and music. ...view detail
After holding three strategy sessions in past four months, the INDIA group of 27 parties is unlikely to hold further strategy meetings any time soon. Instead, the parties are gearing up for joint rallies across India  something they had announced but did not happen. Opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) leaders Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray during a press conference after the bloc leaders meeting, in Mumbai(ANI)

Now the elections are round the corner and Congress, the biggest constituent of the INDIA group, is busy fighting polls in all five states. Similarly, Samajwadi Party, NCP and some other parties would be fighting in some of these states. We cant hold any meeting at this moment, said a senior non-Congress leader.

The election starts with polling in Mizoram on November 7 and ends with voting in Telangana on November 30. The results will be out on December 3.

After the results come out, we have to see if the winter session of Parliament takes place or not. If the session is held, then we would have limited time to hold the next round of meetings, said another Opposition leader.

The INDIA group had planned to hold joint public rallies by all constituents starting with Bhopal in October. In January, our campaign can start with those proposed rallies in key states, said a leader, who is part of the planning process of the Opposition bloc.

READ | INDIA bloc to begin seat parleys, hold joint rallies

We have had enough indoor meetings. Now we have to take the alliance to the people, said another senior leader.

The urgency is palpable as the BJP, too, is expected to hit the campaign road early. The PM has asked all secretaries to meet the targets of all ongoing welfare programmes by January 26.

Now 27 party-strong, the group first gathered in Patna on June 23 and christened itself as the INDIA alliance in Bengaluru the next month. On September 1, the Opposition bloc announced immediate talks on seat-sharing arrangements, formed five panels, including a 14-member coordination and election strategy committee, and decided to campaign across states on peoples issues.

READ | INDIA bloc to focus on local issues in key cities, election-bound states

At the end of the most productive meeting of the alliance so far, leaders reminded each other of the need to pick maximum common candidates, remain alert to threats to their unity and show flexibility as seat pacts and smooth coordination are decisive factors for the group.

We were not together earlier. we could not put common candidates in each seat and (Prime Minister) Modi took advantage We have arrived at a conclusion and an organisation has been formed. We will start seat-sharing arrangements by accommodating everyone. There will be no hurdle, former Bihar CM and a key INDIA leader Lalu Prasad said after the meeting.

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As the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists entered its 13th day, Israel's ambassador to India, Naor Gilon on Wednesday said the country welcomes any sort of help from India for the release of over 200 people held hostage by Hamas. A woman looks at posters showing the pictures of Israeli hostages held by militants (AFP)

The Israeli envoy said that they were moved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's gesture of expressing solidarity with Israel after the war-triggering attacks by Hamas that have claimed over 1,400 lives. "PM Modi again expressed solidarity after speaking to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few days later. Not just the Indian PM, we have got a show of support from all levels here  officials, ministers, civil society, and even people on social media," he told The Indian Express.

Gilon said that if there is a way to get the global powers to put pressure on Hamas and if India is able to speak to the leaders who have influence on Hamas for release of over 200 Israeli hostages, including several foreign nationals, "we would welcome that".

"Hamas commanders are living a life of luxury in places like Istanbul and Qatar. We understand that India has a special place in the world. Many countries are trying to put pressure on Hamas to secure the release of the innocent civilians. If India is able to speak to people who have influence over them, we would welcome that," he said.

Meanwhile, Israel has agreed to deliver limited humanitarian aid to Gaza, a deal announced by US President Joe Biden during his visit to the nation. After face-to-face talks in Israel and intense telephone diplomacy with Egypt, Biden said a limited number of trucks would be allowed to cross the shuttered Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza from Friday.

It would be the first international relief to enter Gaza since October 7, when Hamas launched shock raids into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 200 hostages.

However, Israel fears that aid deliveries could be used as cover to bring in weapons, while Egypt controlling the border fears throwing open the gates would bring tens of thousands of refugees to its territory.

Earlier, Gilon claimed that Hamas was afraid of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and was putting pressure on them to prevent any further action on the militants. He further claimed that the explosion at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, which killed over 500 people, was hit by a rocket of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

A massive blast rocked a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter which killed over 500 people. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike while Israel and the US said the cause was a failed rocket launch by Islamist militants in Gaza who denied responsibility.

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In a setback to deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar, the Karnataka high court on Thursday dismissed his petition challenging a disproportionate assets case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against him. Karnatak deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar (File Photo)

Pronouncing the order, justice K Natarajan lifted the interim stay on a CBI probe and ordered the central agency to conclude the investigation and submit the final report within three months.

The court noted that the petition had been filed after a long delay and that most of the CBIs investigation had already been completed.

In 2017, the Income Tax Department conducted a raid on premises belonging to Shivakumar and subsequently, a case was registered against him in the special court for economic offences. It is claimed that Rs.41 lakh was recovered from his premises. Based on this, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) started its probe and filed a case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Following the ED investigation, the CBI sought sanction from the state government to register a case against Shivakumar. The sanction for investigation was granted on September 25, 2019, and Shivakumar was booked by the central agency on October 3, 2020.

According to the CBI, between April 1, 2013 and April 30, 2018, Shivakumar and his family members were found in possession of disproportionate assets worth around Rs.74.8 crore which he has failed to explain with proper documents.

The CBI stated in its appeal to the Supreme Court that the total value of all his acquisitions marked a rise from 128 crore to 162 crore, showing a jump of nearly 45%.

On April 20 this year, the high court rejected Shivakumars plea against the state governments decision to grant sanction for a CBI probe in the case.

This order was challenged by Shivakumar before a high court division bench of chief justice PB Varale and justice MGS Kamal, who ordered an interim stay on the CBI probe.

The verdict by the single-judge bench of the high court comes after the Supreme Court on Monday refused to vacate the interim stay on the CBIs investigation into the case against Shivakumar.

A bench of justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela M Trivedi issued notice and posted the matter for further hearing on November 7

With the high court order, the stay on the CBI investigation has been lifted.

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The directions were issued in a review meeting held here under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. HT Image

At the meeting, the progress of the duties assigned to each department was evaluated, a statement issued by the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said.

All the departments and the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) decided in the meeting that the work assigned to them and the preparations for the pilgrimage would be completed in time, the CMO statement said.

The CM, in the meeting, directed to monitor drinking water is ensured for the devotees who come for the annual Mandalam-Makaravilakku pilgrimage and that Sabarimala and adjoining areas are kept clean.

He also said that steps will be taken to remove the control of the Treasury department over the activities related to Sabarimala.

Vijayan also said training should be given to police personnel and TDB employees on running the virtual queue system at Sabarimala, the statement said.

During the meeting, the TDB said it intended to implement the Tirupati model at Sabarimala with regard to the 18 queue complexes.

Additionally, a big screen will also be installed there, the TDB informed during the meeting, the statement said.

The various departments and TDB also gave details of the other measures taken to make the pilgrimage easier for devotees.

The Railways said that 250 special train services are expected to be operated this year for pilgrims, while the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) said it will deploy 350 buses to ferry devotees to Sabarimala.

The PWD said it will ensure the roads up to Pampa were passable and the forest department said four rapid response teams have been constituted to prevent wildlife attacks, the statement said.

The Health department said it will ensure that those running shops at Sabarimala have health cards.

The Fire and Rescue Department said it has deputed 1,852 people for duty and besides that there would be scuba divers and rubber boats to avoid any deal with any avoid danger in Pampa.

The Food Safety Department will conduct inspections at regular intervals in the restaurants there, the statement said.

The other measures included constructing 168 modern urinals. removing tree tops and vines that may fall on the path to the shrine, and setting up 3 teams of 10 persons to take the injured to health centres on stretchers, the statement said.

People's representatives, including MLAs, who were part of the meeting highlighted the need for more doctors in the hospitals on the Sabarimala road and increasing the number of cardiac care ambulances.

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The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday announced its 22 more candidates for the next months assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh  where its INDIA bloc ally the Congress is in direct contest against the ruling Bharaitya Janata Party (BJP)  amid rumours of strain within the opposition alliance. HT Image

The SP has so far announced 31 candidates, including nine declared earlier, to contest the 230-member MP assembly polls scheduled for November 17, with senior party leaders saying more could be named by Thursday.

Roughly 50 candidates could be declared by tomorrow (Thursday). We might even declare candidates on all the 230 seats. Thats our effort. There is lot of time as nomination filing will close on October 30, partys Madhya Pradesh poll in-charge and national executive member Vyasji Gaund said.

The Congress and the SP are the two major partners of the INDIA bloc in Uttar Pradesh that sends 80 MPs to Lok Sabha.

The Samajwadi Party wanted an electoral understanding with the Congress on some (five to six) seats in MP. But the Congress has not even given the lone seat that the SP had won in the assembly elections earlier, senior SP leader Rajendra Chaudhary said.

The SPs announcement came a day after party chief Akhilesh Yadav had asserted that his party would contest all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.

Though there was no immediate response from the Congress, however, the partys UP unit chief Ajay Rai on Tuesday said the SP has no support base in Madhya Pradesh. He even pointed out that the only SP legislator in the poll-bound state had joined the BJP. An electoral understanding will be reached once discussions are held between the two parties at the national level, Rai had said on Tuesday.

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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS.

Lithuania reaffirms its support to Armenia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte announced about this after the meeting with the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held in Yerevan.

"Our nations have had friendly ties for a long time. We are united by similar historical experience: the experience of repression, the struggle for independence, the choice of democracy and commitment to it said the Prime Minister of Lithuania.

Simonyte emphasized that she is proud of the fact that Lithuania was the first country to recognize Armenia's independence in 1991.

'I am glad to be here today and reaffirm Lithuania's support to Armenia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as your governments commitment to continue building a democratic and reformed Armenia, said the Lithuanian Prime Minister.
The Madras high court on Thursday rejected the bail plea of Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case. Senthil Balaji(ANI)

On Monday, the court had reserved orders on the petition filed by the DMK, seeking bail. Justice G Jayachandran reserved the order without specifying any date, after hearing elaborate arguments from senior counsel NR Elango, appearing for Balaji and additional solicitor general ARL Sundaresan, appearing for the ED.

Counsel Elango submitted that Balaji was yet to recover fully even after the bypass surgery and hence he took treatment at Stanley Hospital on October 9. Hence, he may be enlarged on bail for taking further treatment. Citing the medical report of Stanley hospital, Elango submitted that the doctors have opined that there were symptoms of another attack. The court may appoint any doctor to examine the health condition of Balaji, he added.

He said Balaji has filed his income tax returns for the last 10 years. From this, it was clear that he was innocent. He was sent to jail with an ulterior motive, he added.

Senior counsel Sundaresan submitted that from the pen drive, which was seized from Balaji's office, the ED came to know that he received 67.75 crore from the innocent public after promising them to get jobs in the state transport corporation. The accused may be granted bail only when there were no proper or particular facilities in prison or government hospital. But, this was not the situation. Already, the principal sessions judge had denied bail on medical ground, he added.

Balaji was arrested on June 14 by the ED in connection with a money laundering case linked to cash-for-jobs scam when he was the transport minister during the previous AIADMK regime.

Soon after his arrest, he underwent a bypass surgery at a private hospital. After a full-fledged treatment, the ED took him into its custody for interrogation and on completion of interrogation, he was sent to judicial custody by principal sessions judge S Alli and till now, he continues to be in judicial custody. Meanwhile, the ED had filed a charge-sheet against Balaji. His earlier bail applications were dismissed twice by PSJ Alli.

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Guwahati:The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday arrested a second suspect in connection with a bomb blast that took place in violence-hit Manipur in July. Personnel from the National Investigative Agency. (Representative image.)

The central agency arrested Md. Islauddin Khan, in coordination with Manipur Police, in the case of the bomb blast, which took place at Kwakta in Bishnupur district in a Scorpio vehicle on June 21. The case was initially registered by Manipur Police at Moirang in Bishnupur and later re-registered by NIA on June 23 in Imphal.

NIA Investigations revealed the involvement of Md. Islauddin in the bomb blast that took place on June 21 in an IED-laden Scorpio vehicle parked over a bridge located the area of Phougakchao Ikhai Awang Leikai and Kwakta along Tiddim road in Bishnupur district a press release by the agency stated.

Also Read: Stripping, parading of Manipur women: Six charged with gang rape and murder

Three persons were injured and the bridge, along with nearby houses, were damaged because of the impact of the blast. After his arrest,Islauddin was produced before the jurisdictional court in Imphal where he was remanded to NIA custody for a week.

On Monday, NIA in a joint operation with Assam Police had arrested the prime accused of the blast case. The person identified as Mohammad Noor Hussain was arrested from Assams Cachar district.
Principal secretary to the Prime Minister PK Mishra chaired a high-level meeting on Wednesday to review the progress made in implementation of the G20 New Delhi Leaders Declaration. During the meeting, preparations for the G20 Virtual Summit and the Voice of Global South Summit 2.0 were also reviewed, officials familiar with the matter said. Discussing the upcoming G20 Virtual Summit, PK Mishra highlighted the need for prompt dissemination of information to all member-states and guest countries (PTI)

Mishra said a high-level monitoring mechanism will be set up to regularly oversee the implementation of the Declaration, according to a government official aware of the development.

As part of the ongoing efforts, a series of seven webinars have been proposed to be organised with the respective ministries taking the lead and involving all relevant departments, said the government statement.

Seven webinars covering major themes are proposed to be organised for dissemination and effective implementation and a seminar to engage various think-tanks from across the country in a bid to gather insights from area experts on the effective implementation of the New Delhi Leaders Declaration is also being chalked out, the government official quoted above said after the meeting.

Principal secretary said that a high-level monitoring mechanism will be set up to regularly oversee the implementation of the Declaration, the official added.

Discussing the upcoming G20 Virtual Summit, Mishra highlighted the need for prompt dissemination of information to all member-states and guest countries. Foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra briefed Mishra on the preparations for the second Voice of Global South Summit, which is scheduled to be held in November 2023.

The meeting was attended by Niti Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery, G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant, G20 chief coordinator Harsh Vardhan Shringla, senior officers from external affairs ministry and the department of economic affairs among others.

The New Delhi Leaders Declaration was unanimously adopted during the 18th G20 Leaders Summit on 9-10 September 2023 and it addressed diverse global issues.
Budhni: Conversations in Budhni are incomplete without a reference to the constituencys special status. Identified as chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhans pocket borough, Budhni in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh is one of the most watched constituencies in the state that goes to polls on November 17. And while some residents say the CMs constituency for 25 years, Budhni, is hardly a template for replication -- lack of employment avenues, particularly white-collar jobs, uneven implementation of social schemes are some of the issues they raise -- there is no anger on the ground. Nor are his die-hard supporters overly bothered by speculation that Chouhan will not be the partys chief ministerial candidate in the upcoming polls. People here are not ruffled easily, laughed an employee of the postal department. He said news of the CM being sidelined or not considered for the post is fodder for chatter, but there is no indication on the ground of large-scale protests by his supporters. Budhni in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh is considered as chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhans pocket borough. (HT Archive)

Some residents acknowledged that the constituency has reasonably good arterial roads, a couple of big industries, and a good crop yield --being positioned on the banks of the mighty Narmada, a revered river in the state--but added that the absence of big-ticket infrastructure projects or employment avenues prevent Budhni from being an investment destination.

READ | "It's not manifesto of Congress, but letter of lies": Madhya Pradesh CM Chouhan

You can say people here are comfortable, but there is nothing extraordinary given that it is a CMs seat and a special constituency..., said a resident and a government employee, who asked not to be named.

The big industries here offer jobs on the manufacturing floor that someone with basic literacy can do. Those with a degree (higher education) will not want to take these up unless they have no option or family constraints, this person added.

The Congresss promise of reverting to the old pension scheme does have some resonance on the ground. Government employees outside a panchayat office point out that the state government has not filled vacancies for years and has opted to employ people on daily wages. When the Congress government came in 2018, they said all daily wagers would be recruited afresh and will be paid for 26 days a month. This government continued with that, and if we dont work all seven days, we lose out on money. Such working conditions are demoralising... said Gulab Chand, a resident who is employed on a daily wage basis in one of the government departments.

The CM who was elected from Budhni for the first time in 1990 will face his sixth electoral battle here, and although anti-incumbency is a factor, there is no sense of panic.

READ | On lack of confidence in Shivraj Chouhan jibe, CM says Congress is perturbed

In Budhni it is always Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He belongs here, no bahari (outsider) contestant can displace him, said Nasir Khan, a shop owner in Shahganj.

The vote against Shivraj, he added, is not an indication of anger against the CM, but his immediate circle. He has people here who should be monitoring and following up, which doesnt happen. Schemes benefit those who are well entrenched with the local powers that be. And that anger is what makes people vote for his opponent, he said.

Khan cited the example of how the PM Awas Yojna that provides subsidised housing for the poor in the rural areas has been poorly implemented. He said there are families that have been waiting for years to get a pucca house sanctioned. For the past three months, even the pension for the senior citizens has been stopped. We were told that the funds have not been released.

In village Paraswada, residents credit Chouhan for improving the quality of life with piped water and round-the-clock electricity, although there complaints about pathcy coverage.

There has been no work allocated under MNREGA for the past two years, and the awas yojna too has been poorly implemented. Something as basic as the construction of a drain in the village takes multiple trips to the panchayat and tehsil office. But people show restraint even when expressing their anger, said one resident.

In the previous election Chouhan, an OBC face of the BJP and its longest serving CM in the state, won with a margin of 58,999 votes defeating Congresss Arun Yadav. The margin dipped from 84,805 votes in 2013, and was read an indication of a dip in his popularity.

There was a wave in support of the Congress and thats how his margin came down. People are not averse to him per se, said Saurav Patel in Paraswada.

Most residents brush off the Congress candidate this time, Vikram Mastal, an actor, as a featherweight in contrast. His on-screen image of Hindu God Hanuman has piqued interest, but not enough for people to see it as a battle of equals.

Arun Yadav was a OBC leader with his own support base. He (Mastal) is seen as an outsider and a compromise candidate that partys put up when they dont want a tough battle, said Akhilesh Prajapati, who runs an eatery in Shahganj.

There is a pattern here, the CM comes to the constituency before filing nomination, meets people as part of the ashirwad yatra and then comes back only to thank them post results. He does not campaign, this shows his confidence of retaining his turf. His supporters feel Mama (as the CM prefers being known) will swing the decision in his favour, the postal department employee said.

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Supreme Court seeks response of Delhi Police on petitions filed by NewsClick founder and editor Prabir Purkayastha and HR head Amit Chakravarty challenging their arrest in the UAPA case. NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha (L) and HR Head Amit Chakravarty being brought to the Lodhi Road Special Cell office, in New Delhi October 3. (PTI)

A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Prashant Kumar Mishra issued notice to the Delhi Police and sought its response by October 30 after senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Devadatt Kamat, appearing for Purkayastha and Chakravarty, respectively, said they are in jail and the pleas be heard early.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court said it would hear on October 19 two separate pleas of Purkayastha and Chakravarty against their arrest under anti-terror law UAPA, after the Delhi high court refused to grant them any relief.

"We need to go through the files. We will take both the matters tomorrow," Justice Gavai said.

On October 16, the top court agreed to list the matter urgently after Sibal mentioned it before the bench headed by chief justice DY Chandrachud.

The CJI had asked Sibal to circulate the case papers and said he would take a call on an urgent listing of the matter.

On October 13, the Delhi high court had rejected their pleas against arrest and subsequent police remand in the case. Both were arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on October 3.

They subsequently moved the high court challenging the arrest as well as the seven-day police custody, and sought immediate release as interim relief. The court, however, refused to grant them relief, saying there was no procedural infirmity or violation of the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in arresting them.

The trial court had on October 10 sent them to judicial custody for 10 days.

The city police has lodged cases against the two under anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for allegedly receiving money to spread pro-China propaganda.

Allegations against NewsClick

According to the FIR, a large amount of funds to NewsClick allegedly came from China to "disrupt the sovereignty of India" and cause disaffection against the country.

It also alleged that Purkayastha conspired with a group -- People's Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) -- to sabotage the electoral process during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

(With inputs from agencies)

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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has issued notices to four individuals from Thirthahalli in connection with the Shivamogga trial blast case that occurred at Tungabadra river bed in Shivamogga, officials familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. HT Image

NIA has summoned Shamsuddin, Rizwan, Najeeb Wulla, and Tamim, all residents of Thirthahalli, to appear for questioning.

These individuals have been directed to report to the NIA office in Bengaluru before noon on October 19, as per a communication from the agency.

The Thirthahalli case came to light after Shivamogga police on September 23, 2022 arrested two men, identified as Maaz Muneer Ahmed and Syed Yasin, who had links to the Islamic State and recovered explosive materials from them.

The men were arrested in connection with the stabbing incident during communal clash over the poster of Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in Shivamogga on August 15, 2023.

During the investigation, Ahmed revealed to the police that he had conducted trial bomb blasts along the banks of the Tungabhadra river. He stated that, along with his associates Mohammad Shariq and Syed Yasin, they had detonated a bomb they had made at a location locally known as Kemmangundi, on the riverbanks in Shivamogga district, and the experimental blast was successful.

The investigation also revealed that they had been radicalised by Shariq and had acquired knowledge of bomb-making techniques through videos and other materials sent to them by Shariq. Shariq manged to escape the arrest at that time.

However, he was apprehended following an unsuccessful bomb blast attempt in Mangaluru.

On November 19, 2022, an explosion occurred in an auto-rickshaw in Mangaluru, resulting in injuries to both the driver and the passenger. The following day, the state police chief, Praveen Sood, declared the incident an act of terror with the intention to cause serious harm.

A case was registered under section 120 (b) and 307 of the Indian Penal Code, along with the Explosive Substances Act, at the Kankanady town police station.

The recent notices from the NIA have been issued after an investigation revealed suspicions that the terror module behind the Mangaluru blast and Thirthahalli blast could have planned to target other significant locations within the city. These revelations have come to light following the arrest of Arafat Ali, the conspirator in the Mangaluru blast, by the NIA in September. Arafat Ali was apprehended upon his arrival at Delhi, said state intelligence official.

According to intelligence officials, Arafat Ali informed NIA authorities that Shariq had intentions to execute further attacks at public places across the city.

They had planned more attacks if their intended target, the Kadri Manjunatha Temple, had been successfully targeted. Shariq was in the process of planting a pressure cooker bomb at the temple when an improvised explosive device accidentally detonated in an auto-rickshaw, resulting in his injury, the officer added.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Arun Dev Arun Dev is an Assistant Editor with the Karnataka bureau of Hindustan Times. A journalist for over 10 years, he has written extensively on crime and politics. ...view detail
Bihar chief minister on Thursday attempted to what could be considered as dallying with his ex-ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while addressing a gathering at an event. Referring to BJP leaders, who were also invited to attend the event, the Bihar CM said the friendship and relationship will remain for as long as I am alive  a rare praise for a party which he left twice citing political differences. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar(ANI)

All the people we have here are our friends. We are different, you are different. Does it mean our friendship will end? You will remain connected to me as long as I live. We will all work together, Kumar said at the convocation ceremony of the Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Bihar's Motihari.

The remarks were made in the presence of President Droupadi Murmu, Governor Rajendra Vishwanath and BJP MP Radha Mohan Singh. The BJP, however, refrained from responding to the JD(D) chief's statement.

"Nitish Kumar has left, we have asked him to leave. BJP clearly believes that we are together in development but there is a fight on principles. Amit Shah has said that he has no connection with Nitish Kumar," Bihar BJP chief Saket Choudhary told news agency ANI.

CM Kumar's ally, the RJD, also played down his comments and said that the Bihar chief minister was speaking of his personal relationships.

"Radha Mohan Singh (of BJP) was sitting in front, so he spoke about his personal relationship. There is no mention of any party. People interpreted him incorrectly," RJD's Shakti Yadav told ANI.

Notably, it was Nitish Kumar who spearheaded the opposition campaign to take on the Narendra Modi government in the next Lok Sabha election, which eventually turned into a coalition of Opposition parties and named INDIA.

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Deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar on Wednesday rejected rumours of internal rift in the Congress, while taking a dig at the Janata Dal (Secular) and its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar (ANI)

Their [JD(S)] frustration and disillusionment had led them to believe that only a major overhaul could rescue them, he claimed.

Clarifying that there are no internal problems within the party and that all party legislators are together, the senior Congress leader said there was no need to harbour suspicions.

Shivakumars comments come days after Congress leader and MLC Jagdish Shettar met BJP leader Ramesh Jarkiholi at his residence on Monday. Shettars meeting with Jarkiholi sparked rumours of internal disputes among Congress MLAs. However, Shivakumar while dismissing the rumours said that Shettars loyalties or abilities cannot be questioned because of a mere meeting.

He acknowledged Shettars capabilities and downplayed the significance of the meet while responding to media queries near his Sadashivanagar residence on Wednesday. We cannot doubt everything like that. Jagdish Shettar has shown what his strength is. I will not talk more about this, he said.

However, Shivakumar also stated that he was well-informed about the BJPs efforts to destabilise the Congress government. I know who has met which of our party leaders and also the details of their offers. The legislators concerned have furnished details of the meetings and offers have been made by the BJP leaders to me as well as the chief minister, he claimed.

Later, at Belagavi airport, Shivakumar assured that there was no internal dissension within the Congress party, emphasising that all 136 MLAs were unified. He dismissed concerns about the absence of Congress party leaders to receive him at the airport, stating that they had maintained contact with him.

Former Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar confirmed his meeting with Jarkiholi and called it a courtesy call.

Speaking to reporters at his residence on Monday, Shettar explained that he had met various individuals in recent times, including Jarkiholi. He met me on different occasions in last two months. I cant say no to those who come. When I go to other places, I meet him because I have an old relationship with him. I have not discussed politics with him, he has not made that effort either. This is just a natural meeting, he had claimed.

Furthermore, Shettar made it clear that he had no intentions of joining the BJP, stating his commitment to the Congress party. When I joined the Congress party, I came with the determination not to go back to the BJP. Nobody asked me to quit Congress and join BJP.

Shettar, a former BJP leader, left the party after being denied a ticket and subsequently joined the Congress ahead of the 2023 state assembly elections. The meeting comes as Jagdish Shettar is yet to be assigned a cabinet post or a chairmanship of one of the corporations run by the government.

Senior Congress minister and party spokesperson Priyank Kharge however gave a spin to the controversy over Shettars meeting saying that BJP leaders are in touch with the Congress. Clearly it shows that several BJP leaders are in touch with us, but we have 136 MLAs and we are in a strong position, he said.

In the context of the meeting, Laxman Savadi, another BJP leader who had joined Congress ahead of the 2023 Assembly elections, said that he doesnt have any intention of going back to BJP.I moved parties not because of power but self-respect. I am getting that respect in Congress, so there is no chance of me moving to other parties, he said.

In response to claims by BJP leaders that the rift within the Congress would originate in Belagavi, Shivakumar mentioned about his ongoing communication with Satish Jarkiholi and indicated that they would work together during his tours to the region.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai on Wednesday announced that she is donating $3,00,000 (around 2.5 crore) to three charities helping the Palestinians. Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.(Reuters)

Yousafzai said she was horrified to see the bombing of a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday in which nearly 500 people were killed and added that collective punishment was not the answer. Follow Israel-Palestine war LIVE updates here.

"I'm horrified to see the bombing of al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza and unequivocally condemn it," Yousafzai said in a video message. I urge the Israeli government to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and reiterate the call for a ceasefire. I am directing $300K to three charities helping Palestinian people under attack.

At least 500 people were killed in a strike on Gazas al-Ahli Arab Hospital, often called the Baptist Hospital, on Tuesday night. Palestinian officials blamed the explosion on one of the many Israeli bombs dropped on Gaza since it announced war against Hamas.

Israel denied any role behind the strike and claimed that the blast was caused by a misfired rocket shot by Islamic Jihad towards their country. The United States has also backed Israel's claim saying that intelligence shows that Tel Aviv was not to blame for the strike.

"The Zionist enemy is trying hard to evade its responsibility for the brutal massacre he committed by bombing the Baptist Arab National Hospital in Gaza through his usual fabrication of lies, and through pointing the finger of blame at the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine," it said in a statement on Wednesday.

Islamic Jihad is the second-largest armed group in Gaza. It was founded in the 1980s in the Gaza Strip to fight the Israeli occupation. Islamic Jihad sometimes operates independently of Hamas. However, according to media reports, both allegedly receive funding and weapons from Iran.

Israel has put the Gaza Strip under a total blockade and has pounded it with air strikes since Hamas attacked its border towns in an unprecedented surprise attack on October 7, killing around 1400 people.

Over 2,500 Palestinians have died in the retaliatory action by Tel Aviv. Israel has put the Gaza Strip under a total blockade and has warned all those in the region to evacuate before an expected ground offensive. Concerns have been mounting globally about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip and fears that the war could metastasize into a broader regional conflict.

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The recent death of a fourth year student of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, once again raised concerns over students facing academic pressure at premium institutes in the country. IIT Kharagpur(Sourced)

K Kiran Chandra was a student of IIT Kharagpur in the electrical engineering department who allegedly died by suicide on Wednesday. Thee institute said in a statement that the victime chose the path of self-harm, while mourning the sudden demise.

The student's father claimed that Chandra was in a lot of pressure. Why is there so much stress? Why is our kid being made to suffer so much at IIT? he asked, rulling out ragging as a possible reason of his son's death.

"Till about 7:30 pm the student was with two of his roommates in their hostel room. Later, the other two students left for academic activities. Subsequently around 8:30 pm, fellow boarders found his room locked from inside, the statement said.

The student lived at the Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Hall of Residence. A police investigation has been initiated after a registering a case.

As of now, we have not received any complaint from the victims family alleging foul play. An unnatural death case has been registered under the Indian Penal Code. We are waiting for the autopsy report, a police official said.

Earlier in 2022, a third-year mechanical engineering student from Assam, was found dead in his hostel room. The 23-year-old victims parents had moved the Calcutta high court alleging that he was murdered. The high court had later set up a special investigation team (SIT), to probe the death and allowed a narco-analysis test of the witnesses.

(If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist. Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918, Roshni Foundation (Secundrabad) Contact Nos: 040-66202001, 040-66202000, ONE LIFE: Contact No: 78930 78930, SEVA: Contact No: 09441778290

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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS. After the meeting with the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held in Yerevan, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte stated that Lithuania intends to support the deepening of EU-Armenia relations. I have confirmed my sincere desire to see an increase in the presence of the European Union in Armenia. I confirmed that Lithuania intends to support the deepening of EU-Armenia relations, Simonyte said. After the meeting with the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held in Yerevan, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte stated that Lithuania intends to support the deepening of EU-Armenia relations.



Lithuanian PM noted that the European Union remains Armenia's main partner in the reform process.

''Lithuania is ready to provide expert support for the implementation of the European Union-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement, as well as the overall process of reforms taking place in Armenia.

'An independent, sovereign, safe and prosperous democratic Armenia, as well as peace and stability in the South Caucasus are our common goals. Lithuania is committed to working together to achieve them," said the Lithuanian Prime Minister.
The CBI has conducted searches at 76 locations across the country under Operation Chakra-2 after registering five separate cases of cyber-enabled financial fraud, including a 100-crore crypto scam, officials said on Thursday. The officials said that the case was registered based on "critical inputs" provided by the Financial Intelligence Unit. (File)

One of the cases pertains to a racket siphoning off 100 crore of Indian citizens through a cryptocurrency fraud, they said.

"This audacious scheme, under the guise of a fake crypto mining operation, targeted unsuspecting Indian citizens, resulting in a staggering loss of over 100 crore to Indian victims," the CBI spokesperson said.

The officials said that the case was registered based on "critical inputs" provided by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

They said two cases were registered on a complaint from Amazon and Microsoft that the accused ran call centres and posed as technical support of the companies to target foreign nationals.

The officials added that nine call centres were searched by the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) under the operation.

"In these cases, the accused impersonated a global IT major and a multinational corporation with an online technology-driven trading platform. The accused...operating across five states/UTs, systematically preyed on foreign nationals, masquerading as technical support representatives," the spokesperson said.

The agency did not share the details of two other cases because of the ongoing operation.

The CBI is working closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States, the Cyber Crime Directorate and IFCACC of the INTERPOL, the National Crime Agency (NCA) in the United Kingdom, the Singapore Police Force and the BKA of Germany to notify further leads.

The officials said the searches were conducted at locations in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Delhi and West Bengal.

"In the wake of Operation Chakra-II, 32 mobile phones, 48 laptops/hard disks, images of two servers, 33 SIM cards, and pen drives were confiscated and numerous bank accounts were frozen. The CBI also seized a dump of 15 email accounts, illuminating the intricate web of deceit spun by the accused," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said international law enforcement agencies are being notified of details of identified victims, shell companies, identified money mules, identified proceeds of crime, and details of co-accused and support elements for comprehensive action to dismantle these criminal networks.

Chakra-1 was conducted nearly a year ago by the CBI in coordination with the Interpol, the FBI and police forces of multiple countries. The agency had conducted searches at 115 locations with police forces in various states, the officials said.

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The ethics committee of the Lok Sabha has asked Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Nishikant Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai to depose before it in connection with their allegations that Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mohua Moitra was involved in cash for query in Parliament. Parliament panel asks BJP MP, Supreme Court advocate to depose before it over their allegations on TMC MP Mahua Moitra. (PTI)

Oral evidence of Dr Nishikant Dubey, MP, in respect of complaint dated 15 October, 2023 given by him against Smt Mahua Moitra, MP for alleged direct involvement in cash for query in Parliament, the Lok Sabha secretariat said in a communication of the meeting to the BJP MP.

It sent a similar letter for oral evidence of Dehadrai as well.

the Committee on Ethics has decided to hear you in the above matter, in person, on Thursday, 26 October, 2023..., the letter sent by the secretariat said.

According to a parliament functionary, The ethics committee will record the statement of the two.

The panels findings, officials pointed out, will be applicable to the current Lok Sabha.

READ | BJP MP says Mahua Moitra took bribes to ask questions in House

On Monday, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had initiated the process of referring Dubeys complaint, in which the BJP MP mentioned Dehadrai, to the ethics branch. In his letter to the speaker on October 15, Dubey accused Moitra of taking bribes from real estate tycoon Darshan Hiranandani in the form of cash and gifts to ask questions in Parliament. He also wrote to IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, urging him to investigate the IP addresses of her login credentials for Parliament.

Dubey claimed that Dehadrai had shared irrefutable evidence of bribes exchanged between her and Hiranandani.

The Hiranandani Group has denied the allegations.

Parliament officials said after Dubey and Dehadrais deposition, Moitra will get an opportunity to record her statement.

On October 15, Moitra said she welcomes any move against her after the Lok Sabha Speaker is finished dealing with pending charges against him (Dubey). The TMC MP also urged the speaker to Finish the enquiries against him (Dubey) for false affidavits and then set up my enquiry committee.

READ | Bribe for questions' row: Mahua Moitra sues BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, SC lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai for defamation

The Adani Group, the target of many of Moitras comments and speeches inside and outside Parliament, in a statement mentioned that a Supreme Court lawyer Mr. Jai Anant Dehadrai, filed a complaint with the CBI in the form of a sworn affidavit bringing on record the commission of an elaborate criminal conspiracy by Honble MP Ms. Mahua Moitra and Mr. Darshan Hiranandani, CEO of Hiranandani Group, for specifically targeting, inter alia, Mr. Gautam Adani and his group of companies through parliamentary questions.

The Hiranandani Group is a conglomerate with interests in several industries including real estate, IT, and energy.

Moitra, who had earlier demanded probe into the Adani Group, launched an attack on Mr A and A Company on X, formerly Twitter.

3 questions jittery A Company need to answer in next press statement: 1- Where is the national interest when you used a Chinese national and a UAE national and 3 offshore companies to over invoice 13,000 crores of coal? she posted.

Where is the national interest in you manipulating IOCL and GAIL in Dhamra LNG contract of 46,500 crores without a tender? What is your national interest in getting coal mines in Rajasthan without a tender? Where is the national interest in SEBI letting your benami FPI holdings manipulate lakhs of crores in the market, Moitra posted.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday spoke to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and conveyed condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. Assuring that India will send humanitarian assistance to the people of Palestine, PM Modi said he reiterated India's long-standing principles position on the Israel-Palestine issue. "Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated India's long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue," PM Modi tweeted. PM Modi speaks to Palestine prez: 'Reiterated India's long-standing position'(PTI)

This is the first time PM Modi spoke to the Palestine authorities after the Israel-Hamas war broke out following Hamas's unexpected offensive into Israel on October 7.

PM Modi expressed solidarity with Israel and spoke to Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu earlier. On Wednesday, PM Modi expressed shock and concern over the civilian casualties of the ongoing conflict after thousands were reportedly killed in an attack on a hospital in Gaza. No one took responsibility of the attack though the Israeli Defense Forces cited an analysis report to prove that the attack was a result of a misfired rocket of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group branded as terrorist by Israel and the US.

What is India's long-standing position in Israel-Palestine?

After PM Modi posted a message that India stands with Israel, a debate started over India's official position on the Israel-Palestine issue. India has strategic diplomatic ties with Israel. PM Modi is the first Indian Prime minister to visit Israel and Palestine. In 2017, India voted against the US and Israel for declaring all of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

The ministry of external affairs earlier said India believes in long-standing support for the establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine. "India always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent, and viable state of Palestine, living within secure and recognised borders, side by side at peace with Israel. I think that position remains the same," MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.

India, however, stands firmly against terrorism and condemned the Hamas attack on Israel.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Poulomi Ghosh Poulomi Ghosh is a journalist with Hindustan Times, New Delhi. ...view detail
New Delhi: A court in Qatar is expected to give its judgement later this month in the case of eight former Indian Navy personnel who have been held on unspecified charges since August 2022, external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said on Thursday. External affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi. (ANI file photo.)

The eight men, including decorated officers who have commanded major Indian warships, were working for Dahra Global Technologies and Consultancy Services, a private firm that provided training and related services to Qatars armed forces. Their bail pleas were rejected numerous times and their detention extended by Qatari authorities.

The seventh hearing in the case of the eight men was held on October 3, and India is closely following the proceedings in the court of first instance, Bagchi told a regular news briefing.

We understand that a judgement is expected later this month, he said, without giving details. Asked by HT if Qatari authorities had presented the hitherto unspecified charges against the men in court, Bagchi replied: Yes, the charges were presented as part of the hearings, but I wouldnt like to get into the legal part of it.

Indias ambassador in Qatar and his deputy met the men in prison on October 1 after being granted consular access. Indian authorities are also in regular touch with their families and rendering all possible assistance.

They have legal representation in court...we are now looking forward to what the court judgement is and we hope that they are able to return back to India, Bagchi said.

Also Read: Case of 8 former naval personnel detained since Aug comes up in Qatar court: MEA

People familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity that the eight men have been charged with espionage. Qatari and Indian authorities have never provided details of the charges against the men, who were held in solitary confinement for long spells.

The people further said an Indian journalist and his spouse were recently ordered by Qatari authorities to leave the country for reporting on the case of the eight men.

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who is currently on the party's campaign trail in Telangana for the November 30 Assembly polls will address two rallies in Pedapalli and Karimnagar on Thursday. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. (ANI)(HT_PRINT)

According to the Telangana Congress' message on 'X', Rahul will participate in the ongoing three-day "Vijay Bheri Yatra", organised by the party and which began on Wednesday.

Rahul will also undertake a 'Padayatra' (foot march) from Housing Board Circle to Rajiv Chowk in Karimnagar where he will address a public meeting this evening.

Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday participated in a poll rally in Mulugu, attacking the ruling BRS and the BJP, alleging that both have a "tacit understanding."

Rahul Gandhi had also charged that the BJP wants the BRS to win the Telangana polls and that the saffron party, the BRS and the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM are working together in trying to defeat the Congress.

Reacting to the Congress leader's comments, Owaisi last night said as predicted Rahul Gandhi's "B-Team campaign began and asked why he "gifted" his Amethi Lok Sabha seat to the BJP.

"As predicted Rahul babas "B-Team" rona has begun. Why did he gift his Amethi seat to BJP? And why is BJP so weak in Telangana if it has B-Teams here? Why did Baba have to go to Wayanad to find a "safe seat?"

"My Royal Enfield has more seats than what BJP-CongRSS combine will have in Telangana Assembly," Owaisi said last night in a post on 'X'.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Thursday issued an official statement on the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas -- for the first time. In a balancing act condemning violence, Rahul Gandhi said the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza and cutting off their food, water, electricity are crimes against humanity. "Hamas' killing of innocent Israelis and taking of hostages is a crime and must also be condemned," Rahul Gandhi said adding that the cycle of violence between Israel and Palestine must be brought to an end. Rahul Gandhi condemned the killing of innocent Israelis and the cutting of the electricity of innocent civilians in Gaza.

The statement comes at a time when Congress has been caught in a controversy over its long-standing support for Palestine.

In a statement on Thursday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge once again reiterated the Congress's support for the rights of the Palestinian people and said the aspirations of the Palestinians for a life of dignity, self-respect and equality in a sovereign state are legitimate. "The Indian National Congress repeats its call for an immediate cease-fire and for humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered people of Gaza. It calls upon all sides to abandon the path of senseless violence and war and begin the process of negotiations and diplomacy so that the aspirations of the Palestinian people are fulfilled and the security concerns of Israel are also ensured," the statement issued after the Gaza hospital attack said.

"The indiscriminate bombing on the hospital in Gaza and residential areas resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives of innocent men, women and children is both unjustifiable and a grave humanitarian tragedy for which the perpetrators must be held accountable. On October 8th 2023, the Indian National Congress had condemned the brutal attacks by Hamas on the people of Israel. Also unacceptable are the indiscriminate actions by Israels military forces in civilian areas, that includes a siege of the Gaza Strip and bombings in it," Kharge's statement read.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Poulomi Ghosh Poulomi Ghosh is a journalist with Hindustan Times, New Delhi. ...view detail
The Union government has allowed the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust to receive funds from abroad for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, people familiar with the development said on Wednesday. The foreigners division of the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has granted the trust permission under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010 to accept voluntary contribution (ANI)

The foreigners division of the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has granted the trust permission under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010 to accept voluntary contribution.

FCRA section of the MHA has registered the trust Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra to accept the voluntary contribution from the foreign sources, the trust posted on X, formerly known as twitter.

Such contributions can be sent to only designated bank account. No such contribution shall be accepted in any branch or any other bank account of the trust, it added.

According to the FCRA rules, non-government organisations or trusts are required to open their bank account in the State Bank of India, Sansad Marg branch, Delhi to receive foreign funds.

Constituted in 2020, the trust, overseeing the construction of the grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya, had applied for FCRA licence in June this year.

The trust has been collecting funds through contribution from pilgrims and individuals from across the country, but was not able to get funds from Indians settled abroad so far.

The trust till date has received 3,200 crore from citizens and different organisations from the country, its treasurer Govind Dev Giri had said on August 7. The trust has also informed that it has spent 900 crore on the construction of the Ram Temple between February 5, 2020 and March 31, 2023.

The construction of the ground floor of the Ram temple will be completed by December, and the inaugural ceremony, including consecration of the deity, is set to take place on January 22 next year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the chief guest for the ceremony.

The foundation stone of temple was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 5, 2020, months after a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court led by then chief justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on November 9, 2019 unanimously delivered its verdict that the land in Ayodhya where Babri Masjid once stood, belongs to Ram Lalla.
A controversy over the transfer of personnel has led to discord between ministers Satish Jarkiholi and Lakshmi Hebbalkar, both representing Belagavi district, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. This growing division could potentially harm the prospects of the Congress party in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, where the party is expected to secure at least 6 to 8 seats in North Karnataka. Satish Jarkiholi

The rift was triggered after the Urban Development Department didnt accept the recommendations by Public Works Department (PWD) minister Jarkiholi for an appointment to the Belagavi City Corporation. Instead, a candidate suggested by the minister for Women and Child Welfare Hebbalkar was considered.

Jarkiholi faced another setback as his recommendations for the presidential posts of the Belagavi Urban Development Authority (BUDA) and the Catchment Area Development Authority (CADA) for the Malaprabha and Ghataprabha river projects, which included two of his party supporters from the district Congress, were temporarily halted.

We, the supporters of Jarkiholi, feel its an insult to our leader, who has the capacity to get 30 to 40 legislators elected from North Karnataka. He remained silent over the suggestion of chief minister Siddaramaiah, said Manjunath Patil, Congress leader and supporter of from Gokak town.

Leaders close to Jarkiholi disclosed to HT that even chief minister Siddaramaiah had initially given his consent to Jarkiholis preferred candidate for the position. A group of Jarkiholis supporters, led by Manjunath Patil, expressed disappointment that Jarkiholi didnt speak out against chief minister Siddaramaiahs apparent change of stance.

Moreover, in response to the alleged involvement of Deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar in the transfers, nine out of the 11 MLAs didnt go to welcome Shivakumar at the Belagavi airport on Wednesday as he arrived in the district for a tour. Only Lakshmi Hebbalkar and Bailhongal MLA Mahantesh Koujalagi welcomed the deputy chief minister at the airport.

A Congress legislator familiar to the matter asserted that the collective absence of legislators during Shivakumars tour was an indirect protest against his interference in district politics. However, reacting to the matter, Shivakumar said that most of the legislators had informed him about their non-availability on Wednesday much before his tour programme was scheduled. No political issues behind the matter. All the 136 legislators are together. Nothing other should be inferred from it, Shivakumar said.

Earlier, Satish Jarkiholi had organised a Mysuru tour program to celebrate the Dasara festival. Twenty Congress legislators from the northern regions of Kattur and Kalyan Karnataka had confirmed their participation in this tour. However, suspicions of the visit by being a political show of strength led Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who had previously considered Jarkiholis supporters, to engage with him and subsequently cancel the tour, said leaders in the know of the development.

Describing the cancelled Mysuru Dasara tour as non-political and not a display of his power, Jarkiholi said, Despite my candidate not being considered for a position in the city corporation, as the state working president of the party, it is my duty to address such minor issues to prevent harm to the party.

Meanwhile, Hebbalkar clarified that she recommended a candidate only after obtaining the consent of Jarkiholi. She appealed to the people, particularly her party workers, not to take the matter seriously. Jarkiholi is my political guru. I never go against him. The party is like a family, and we never allow issues to escalate into public debates, she stated.

The ongoing power struggle between the Jarkiholi family, based in Gokak, and the then first-time legislator Hebbalkar, regarding control over district politics, played a pivotal role in the fall of the previous Janata Dal(Secular) and Congress coalition government led by Kumaraswamy in 2019.

The Jarkiholi family, comprising three MLAs and an MLC, wields substantial political influence. Their rivalry became apparent when their candidates contested for the presidential posts of the Belagavi Taluk Cooperative Credit Bank against Lakshmis candidates in 2019.

Ramesh Jarkiholi, representing the assembly for the seventh term, suspected DK Shivakumars support behind Lakshmis candidates in the banks matter in 2019 and later joined the BJP, paving the way for the collapse of the alliance.

On Wednesday Ramesh Jarkiholi emphasised that despite political differences within the Jarkiholi family, they always unite to preserve their familys political reputation. He asserted that despite his statements, Shivakumar continues to interfere in the political affairs of Belagavi district. I removed the Kumaraswamy government due to the influence of a woman supported by Shivakumar, he said.

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Darshan Hiranandani, the businessman named in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Nishikant Dubeys complaint to the Lok Sabha speaker on Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra allegedly receiving money and gifts for posing certain questions in Parliament, gave a signed affidavit on Thursday that corroborated Dubeys claims. In a statement, TMC MP Mahua Moitra denied Darshan Hiranandanis charges against her. (ANI)

Hiranandani -- who confirmed over WhatsApp that he released the statement -- admitted that he gave Moitra information on the basis of which she could pose questions attacking the Adani Group; that she received information from others too on this; that he gifted her expensive luxury items and underwrote the renovation of her official bungalow; and that she provided him with her Parliament login and password so that he could post the questions directly on her behalf.

READ | Who is this jilted ex that Mahua Moitra of TMC refers to?

All of these are charges mentioned, in part or full, in Dubeys letter, which described the charges as cash for query, and which was based on a letter written by a lawyer and former friend of Moitra, Jai Anant Dehadrai to him (Dubey). Dehadrai also wrote to the Central Bureau of Investigation in this regard.

The ethics committee of Parliament is already looking into Dubeys complaint, and Hiranandanis letter puts Moitra in a spot. If found guilty, she could be expelled from Parliament.

In a statement released on Thursday night, Moitra denied the charges.

The affidavit is on white paper and not on official letterhead or notarised. Why would one of Indias most respected/ educated businessman sign a letter like this on white paper unless a gun was put to his head to do it? Why has Darshan not done a press conference and read this out or tweeted it himself or his company put it out? If indeed he has confessed to this why is he not releasing it officially rather than through back channel leaks? Every effort is being made to malign me and isolate and scare those near and dear to me. My closest have been threatened with ED and CBI raids... Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor are both people the government targets relentlessly. Sucheta Dalal is an investigative journalist who is always exposing the government, she said.

Dubeys letter to speaker Om Birla last Sunday provoked an angry response from Moitra who has sued him, Dehadrai, and several media organisations (including Hindustan Times) for carrying a news report based on the BJP lawmakers complaint.

READ | Bribe for questions' row: Mahua Moitra sues BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, SC lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai for defamation

The Adani Group, too, responded to those charges and said in a statement on October 16 that it proved that some groups were working overtime to harm our name, goodwill and market standing.

The Hiranandani Group, with interests in real estate, IT, and energy, initially denied its role.

To be sure, Hiranandanis statement puts the entire onus on Moitra.

 she thought the only way to attack Sh. Modi is by attacking Sh Gautam Adani and his group as both were contemporaries and they belong to the same state of Gujarat. She was helped by the fact that the rise of Sh. Gautam Adani had created jealousy and detractors among some sections of businesses, politics and media, both within and outside the country.

While he admits, at least twice, that he sent her information, he also adds that Moitra received unverified details from several sources, including some claiming to be former Adani Group employees. This information was shared with him, he adds, and he continued to draft and post questions using her Parliamentary login whenever needed.

Hiranandani says in the statement that Moitra received help from other people like (journalist) Sucheta Dalal and (lawyers) Shardul Shroff and Pallavi Shroff who were feeding her with all kinds of unverified information relating to Sh Gautam Adani and his companies.

Dalal refuted the allegations. This is completely stupefying -- I do not know Mahua Moitra personally at all - I may have retweeted some of her stuff. I dont know Pallavi Shroff and I used to know Shardul Shroff long ago. I dare anyone to find any links between me and them. Requesting IT minister @Rajeev_GoI to help me get to the bottom of it @AshwiniVaishnaw also please help, she posted on X.

Hiranandani says Moitra had interactions with several Congress leaders including Sh Rahul Gandhi on matters related to Adani companies and that she was in frequent touch with international journalists from Financial Times, the New York Times, BBC and with several Indian publications.

FT broke two stories regarding the Adani Group  one on the trail between the group and an individual who ran a company that bought shares of Adani companies and another on the group inflating the price of imported coal  both of which have been cited by Gandhi. The group has denied both reports.

The Congress declined to comment.

Importantly, she also made frequent demands of me and kept asking me for various favours, which I had to fulfil in order to remain in close proximity with her and get her support. The demands that were made and the favours that were asked included, gifting her expensive luxury items, providing support on renovation of her officially allotted bungalow in Delhi, travel expenses, holidays etc, apart from providing secretariat and logistical help for her travels within India and to different parts of the world

Hiranandani says he went along because he believed he could benefit from support in other states ruled by the Opposition because Moitra bonded extremely well with leaders of the Opposition like Sh Gandhi, Sh Shashi Tharoor and Sh Pinaki Mishra.

There was no response from Tharoor and Pinaki.

Hiranandani also says in his statement that he could ill-afford to displease her and that many a times I felt that she was taking undue advantage of me and pressurizing me to do things I didnt want to, but I had no choice.

Dubey and Dehadrai are scheduled to testify before the parliamentary ethics committee on October 26. In recent years, members submit their questions and notices online on Parliaments portal.

The last cash for query scandal had erupted in 2005. A sting operation by online news site Cobrapost that aired on a private TV channel on December 12, 2005, showed the 11 MPs accepting cash in exchange for raising questions in the Parliament.

On December 24, 2005, Parliament voted to expel the 11 MPs in a historic vote. Pranab Mukherjee, the leader of the Lok Sabha at the time, introduced a resolution asking for expulsion of the members while then PM Manmohan Singh did the same in the Rajya Sabha.

Moitra's response

In a detailed response to Hiranandani's affidavit, Moitra expressed scepticism about the document's legitimacy due to the lack of official letterhead and notarization, suggesting that a prominent businessman like him would not typically sign such an important statement on plain white paper without potential external pressure.

The affidavit is on white paper and not on official letterhead or notarised. Why would one of India's most respected/ educated businessman sign a letter like this on white paper unless a gun was put to his head to do it? the Lok Sabha member said.

Further calling the content of the letter a joke, Moitra said that the affidavit was drafted by some half-wit in the PMO who doubles up as a creative writer in the BJP's IT cell as it contained effusive praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani while implicating various political opponents and investigative journalists in her alleged corruption.

Moitra said the leaked affidavit is part of a broader strategy by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to discredit her and divert attention from pressing concerns related to the Adani Group. She alleged that the government is attempting to intimidate those close to her, including threats of investigations by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The PMO held a proverbial gun to Darshan and his father's heads and gave them 20 minutes to sign this letter sent to them. They were threatened with a total shutdown of all their businesses, she wrote.
CM Ibrahim, who was sacked as the chief of JDS's Karnataka unit on Thursday, warned the party's leadership that its fate will be similar to that of Duryodhan in Mahabharat. The action came days after he revolted against the JDS leadership over its decision to form an alliance with ideologically opposite BJP. JD(S) chief H.D Deve Gowda with former CM H D Kumaraswamy and former party state president CM Ibrahim. (ANI)

"It's not possible to remove me as president. They don't have the right. According to the JD(S) Constitution, one-third of them must give me notice, call a meeting and pass a no-confidence motion in a meeting against me. That's the procedure," he said.

"Don't trigger me. Wait and watch what will unfold from now. We will go to the Election Commission, high court and take a stay. Kerala and Tamil Nadu workers will also join hands. Deve Gowda is a father figure to me. Is this what you do to your son? I left my MLC post for you. How many houses do you want to ruin? Yesterday, you made Thippeswamy call me to discuss the alliance decision. What happened to Duryodhan in Mahabharat will happen to JD(S) in Karnataka," he added.

Also read: CM Ibrahim removed as Karnataka JD(S) chief days after criticising BJP alliance

Former PM Deve Gowda dissolved the party's state unit and appointed his son HD Kumaraswamy as interim president.

Addressing a press conference, Gowda said, "Ibrahim has been removed as per the party constitution. I have removed him, and the new president H D Kumaraswamy has been appointed."

Ibrahim had revolted against the party's leadership for partnering with the BJP for the 2024 general elections.

He held a meeting with like-minded people within the party on October 16 and said his faction was the real JDS.

Gowda said all the state units of the party had consented to the party's alliance with the BJP.

"In Kerala we are part of the government and our MLA is a minister there. These units understood the situation that made us go with the BJP and supported our move. Our minister in the Left party's government (K Krishnankutty) in Kerala has given consent to us," he said.

He said many Muslim leaders were also in support of his decision.

With inputs from PTI, ANI

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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS. On October 19, Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia Ms. Anahit Manasyan received the delegation of Melissa Hooper, a lawyer and rule of law expert of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Welcoming the guests, Anahit Manasyan presented the issues related to the protection of the rights of people of Nagorno- Karabakh forcibly displaced as a result of the Azerbaijani aggression, which were recorded as a result of the fact-finding activities.

"The Defender specifically referred to the policy of ethnic cleansing carried out against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as other cases of torture, mutilation, and ill-treatment by the Azerbaijani forces prohibited by the international law.

The Defender also presented the results of the fact-finding work carried out by her and her staff, emphasizing the need to guarantee the rights of forcibly displaced persons continuously.

In this context, the reports submitted by the Defender, through which the results of the monitoring are documented, were emphasized," the message reads.

Within the framework of the meeting, Anahit Manasyan referred to the problems of human rights protection caused by the border security of the Republic of Armenia, noting that the presence of the Azerbaijani armed forces in the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia is very worrying from the point of view of the protection and guarantee of human rights.

Possible directions for expanding cooperation between the US Agency for International Development and the Institute of the Human Rights Defender were also discussed.
Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], October 19 (ANI): Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today condemned the summary arrests of rice sheller owners at Mansa, saying chief minister Bhagwant Mann should take up their case for resolution with the centre instead of suppressing their protests. HT Image

He also asked the SAD cadre to reach grain markets across the State to force the State government to ensure lifting of paddy and restart of procurement. "I will also visit the mandis in solidarity with farmers. They cannot be made victims for the failue of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in resolving the grievances of rice millers".

In a statement, the SAD president said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government was directly responsible for clogging grain markets and creating obstacles in the way of smooth procurement of paddy.

"The suppression & arrests of rice sheller owners at Mansa & Maur today is highly condemnable. This "puppet" CM Bhagwant Mann has failed to resolve the grievances of millers & is now using high handed means against them. Farmers are also suffering due to the clogging of Mandis & stop on paddy procurement for the past 10 days. I urge Akali Dal leadership to reach grain markets to force the AAP govt to lift paddy & restart procurement. I will also visit Mandis in solidarity with the farmers", he said in a post on X.

"It has been more than one week that rice sheller owners have struck work because of the AAP government's failure to arrive at a resolution on the use of micronutrients used to fortify rice. Rice millers have made it clear that they are purchasing the micronutrient which is used to fortify rice from approved sources"

He said it was unfortunate that despite huge penalties being imposed on rice shellers, the government was yet to wake up to the seriousness of the issue.

Meanwhile Mr Badal also stressed that the State government should take up the issue of relaxation in moisture content in paddy with the centre immediately. He said rains during the last two days have resulted in an increase in moisture content in paddy and that farmers should not be penalized for the same. Earlier, The SAD president also said that the AAP government had turned a blind eye to the suffering of farmers when their paddy crop was damaged due to heavy rains and floods.

"The farmers are yet to be paid compensation for the same. Now the crop they have brought to the mandis is being spoilt due to exposure to rain. They are also being harassed with procurement not taking place for more than one week now", he said. (ANI)
The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the Delhi Polices response to pleas of NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and the portals human resources head Amit Chakravarty, challenging their arrest in the case against them under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). It listed the matter for the next hearing on October 30 when the court reopens after the Dusshera holidays. The Supreme Court. (HT PHOTO)

The two moved the top court saying their arrest was illegal as they were not provided written grounds for it on October 3.

A bench of justices BR Gavai and PK Mishra initially sought to post the matter three weeks later but senior advocate Kapil Sibal requested an early hearing. The petitioner [Purkayastha] is inside. He is 72.

The Delhi high court on October 13 dismissed Purkayastha and Chakravartys pleas against their arrest. The two are accused of receiving foreign funds through Chinese firms. They cited the Supreme Courts order in the Pankaj Bansal versus Union of India case on October 3 setting aside an arrest under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The court made it mandatory for the Enforcement Directorate to provide grounds of arrest in writing.

The high court said such a requirement was applicable under PMLA and not UAPA, where the requirement is merely to inform. The two challenged this saying the principle laid down will be applicable to arrest under any law citing Article 22(1) of the Constitution. The article says, No person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for such arrest nor shall he be denied the right to consult, and be defended by, a legal practitioner of his choice.

The two have sought a declaration of their arrest and subsequent police custody to be illegal. The high court pulled up the police for not providing the grounds for arrest. But it refused to set aside the arrest over this terming it a procedural infirmity.

The police claimed the news portal received 75 crore from a person in China for compromising the countrys integrity. The first information report in the case alleged the accused conspired with a group called Peoples Alliance for Democracy and Secularism to sabotage the 2019 general elections.

Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the police in the high court, said Chinese firms Xiaomi and Vivo routed money into the portal via shell companies.

The Central Bureau of Investigation raided NewsClicks premises over alleged violations of foreign funding.
A scrutiny of the money laundering law is in national interest, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday as it set the ball rolling for the reconsideration of its July 2022 verdict that upheld contentious provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), brushing aside objections by the Centre. The July 27, 2022 order, also by a three-judge bench, upheld the EDs powers relating to arrest, attachment of property involved in money laundering, and search and seizure under the PMLA (HT Photo)

A three-judge bench headed by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul set the matter for hearing on November 22, indicating that if the petitions before it make out a case to reconsider its past verdict in the Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary case, it will not hesitate to refer the matter to a larger bench.

The July 27, 2022 order, also by a three-judge bench, upheld the EDs powers relating to arrest, attachment of property involved in money laundering, and search and seizure under the PMLA.

More than 200 petitions were listed before the court challenging Sections 50 and 63 of the PMLA that deal with the power of the agency to summon witnesses and requiring them to give true information since providing false information attracts punishment under Section 63.

READ | Be transparent, not vindictive in probes: SC to ED

The Centre and Enforcement Directorate (ED), represented by solicitor general Tushar Mehta and additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju, argued that a judgment of the top court can be reconsidered only in a review petition or curative petition and not in this manner, where a writ petition is entertained at the instance of a citizen seeking a judgment reconsidered. The government claimed reconsidering the past order could have significant repercussions nationwide.

The bench, also comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M Trivedi, said, Prima facie, we feel if there is a lacuna (in the judgment) it can be revisited. This court will show circumspection while looking at its own judgment but there cannot be a bar. Nothing is written on stone that a decision of this court cannot be looked into.

Mehta said the hearing in these petitions coincided with a mutual assessment review by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), whose team comprising representatives of seven-member countries will arrive on November 4 to test Indias preparedness to tackle money laundering and terror financing. It may be in national interest to await the review, SG said, adding, The team will arrive on November 4 and putting question mark on the PMLA law has serious repercussions for the country.

He submitted that such matters must cause alarm and alert as the court is not called upon in these petitions to undertake any academic exercise.

The bench said, Everything is in national interest. Even scrutiny of this law is in national interest, and responded to Mehta saying, We are certainly alert but not alarmed. This is not the language to be used for the court.

The court said judges are not infallible while referring to instances of how the curative petition was admitted at the instance of Centre seeking enhanced compensation claim or the recent decision by a five-judge bench to refer a Constitution bench decision on validity of unstamped arbitration agreements to a bench of seven judges for reconsideration.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal who represented one of the petitioners told the court that his petition filed by Congress leader Govind Singh, who is the Leader of Opposition in Madhya Pradesh will be the lead petition and along with it, he will rely on three other petitions to highlight the broad canvas of challenge against the July 2022 decision.

The court recorded the objections of the Centre that the current proceedings amount to misuse and abuse of the process of law as a review petition against the 2022 judgment is pending before the court filed by Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram and others. The court told Mehta to raise this preliminary objection as part of its submissions on the next date.
A fourth-year student of Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in West Bengal was found dead in a hostel room, in a suspected case of suicide, on Tuesday night, police said on Wednesday. A senior police officer from Kharagpur (town) police station said that the post-mortem examination of the body has been conducted (Representative photo)

The victim, who was a student of electrical engineering department, belonged to Telangana, said a police officer familiar with the matter. Police after preliminary probe said that the student allegedly died by suicide and a case has been registered into the matter.

The institute issued a statement in connection with the incident and said that the victim chose the path of self-harm. The statement, seen by HT, mourned the sudden demise of the student.

According to the statement: Till about 7:30 pm the student was with two of his roommates in their hostel room. Later, the other two students left for academic activities. Subsequently around 8:30 pm, fellow boarders found his room locked from inside. The door was forced open and his body was found, said the statement. Security personnel and other students rushed the victim to the hospital where he was declared dead around 11:30 pm on Tuesday, said the police.

With a sense of utter shock, the students, staff and faculty members of IIT Kharagpur deeply mourn the sudden demise of a fourth-year dual degree student in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He chose the path of self-harm on the night of 17th October, 2023, the statement said.

Meanwhile, a senior police officer from Kharagpur (town) police station said that the post-mortem examination of the body has been conducted andvictims family has been informedabout the incident.

As of now, we have not received any complaint from the victims family alleging foul play. An unnatural death case has been registered under the Indian Penal Code. We are waiting for the autopsy report, said the senior officer, requesting anonymity.

Earlier in 2022, a third-year mechanical engineering student from Assam, was found dead in his hostel room. The 23-year-old victims parents had moved the Calcutta high court alleging that he was murdered. The high court had later set up a special investigation team (SIT), to probe the death and allowed a narco-analysis test of the witnesses.
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to take up the bail petition filed by Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji on October 30, hours after the Madras high court dismissed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leaders plea. The Supreme Court of India. (PTI File Photo)

A bench headed by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul passed the order after Balajis counsel, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, requested an urgent mentioning of the matter. The leader is facing a probe in the cash-for-jobs scam which allegedly took place during his tenure as the transport minister in the AIADMK-led government from 2011-15.

Rohatgi said Balaji was denied bail in the morning by a single judge bench of the Madras HC, which refused to let him out on medical grounds. He informed the apex court that an appeal against the order had already been filed.

The bench, also comprising justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Manoj Misra, directed the matter to be listed on October 30 before the appropriate bench. This is how technology comes to your assistance.

Balaji is a minister without any portfolio in the current Tamil Nadu government led by chief minister MK Stalin. He was arrested in June in connection with the money laundering case probed by the Enforcement Directorate.

He had undergone bypass surgery soon after his arrest and recently complained of post-operative symptoms of numbness in legs and back. He sought bail on this ground from the Madras HC as he apprehended health complications owing to his heart ailment.

High court justice G Jayachandran rejected the bail as he found that the medical condition of the minister did not appear to be such that required to be taken care only by releasing him on bail as it could be treated while in custody. The minister claimed that he required continuous physiotherapy for his condition.

The HC also considered other factors such as his powerful position being a minister, his brother Ashok Kumar still absconding in the case, along with related facts involving attack on income tax officials to deny bail.

All (factors) cumulatively lead to an irresistible conclusion that appellant (Balaji) will directly and indirectly influence or cause deterrence to witnesses, if released on bail, the HC said.

The top court had on August 8 allowed the ED to have custody of the minister while rejecting his petition on grounds that the period of police custody was no longer available to the federal agency.
Reacting to Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's controversial remark against NCP chief Sharad Pawar and her over their stand on Palestine, Supriya Sule on Thursday said she was surprised to see a "change" in the leader since he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. NCP MPs Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule(PTI)

Referring to Sarma's remark in which he asked her father Sharad Pawar to send her to Palestine to fight for Hamas, she accused the BJP of being disrespectful to women and claimed the party was "rubbing off" on him.

Sharad Pawar had questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's stance on Palestine, pointing out that India always stood in support of the Palestinian cause. He also claimed Israel had encroached on Palestine's land. Reacting sharply to Pawar's remarks, Sarma said, "I think Sharad Pawar will send Supriya (Sule) to Gaza to fight for Hamas."

Himanta Biswa Sarma was a Congress stalwart in northeastern states till he joined the BJP in 2015. He is often credited with bolstering the BJP in the seven north-eastern states.

Sule said she was surprised with the remark as she and Sarma shared the same Congress DNA. She said she knew the BJP was disrespectful to women but she had hopes from Sarma.

"I am surprised because Himanta Biswa Sarma has the same DNA as me, he is originally from Congress. He and I share the same Congress DNA...You know how the BJP is disrespectful towards women. But I had hopes from Himanta Biswa Sarma," she was quoted as saying by ANI.

She claimed the change in his approach towards women took place as a result of BJP rubbing off on him.

"I am surprised how this change has happened towards women and the approach, probably going into BJP is a little rubbing off on him...BJP IT cell needs to understand and hear carefully what Sharad Pawar has said. Hear his entire statement," she added.

NCP leader Jitendra Awhad said people don't take Himanta Biswa Sarma seriously.

"Because Palestine is connected to Muslims and Muslim hatred should be brought to India; it is the only plan they have in their minds. This war is being used as a polarisation tool in India," he added.

Addressing NCP workers on Sunday, Pawar said the entire land was of Palestine and Israel encroached. "That place, land and houses, everything was of Palestine and later Israel took over it. Israel is an outsider and the land is originally of Palestine," he added.

He was reacting to PM Modi's post on X expressing solidarity with Israel, which faced its worst terror attack on October 7.

On Wednesday, union minister Piyush Goyal called Pawar's remarks disturbing and preposterous.

"It is very disturbing when a senior leader like Sharad Pawar makes preposterous statements on India's stand on a terror attack in Israel. The menace of terrorism has to be condemned in all forms, in any part of the world. It is a pity that a person who has been India's defence minister as well as a chief minister many times has such a casual view of issues relating to terror," he posted on X.

Over 1400 people, including women, children and foreigners, were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists who stormed an Israel city on October 7. Over 2500 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed so far in retaliatory bombardment by Israel.

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Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], October 19 (ANI): The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday denied permission to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to hold rallies in Madurai, Ramanathapuram and Sivangai districts of Tamil Nadu on October 22. HT Image

However, RSS was granted permission to conduct processions on October 22 in 11 districts.

A petition was filed in the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court seeking permission to hold RSS rallies at 20 places in 14 southern districts, including Madurai.

In the petition, it was requested to grant permission to hold rallies in 14 districts including Madurai, Thanjavur, Trichy, Dindigul, Theni, Pudukottai, Karur, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Tenkasi, Virudhunagar, Sivagangai, Ramanathapuram, Kanyakumari. (ANI)
Kolkata: A 30-year-old man, a teacher at school in Kolkata , was arrested on charges of murdering his wife on Tuesday after they quarrelled over buying a car. Police said Suryakat Tiwari first murdered his wife and then set the body on fire while trying to pass it off as a suicide. (Representative photo.)

Police said that the accused Suryakant Tiwari, first murdered his wife and then set the body on fire while trying to pass it off as a suicide. He was arrested on Thursday after the autopsy report busted his false narrative.

The autopsy report stated that the victim was first hit with a blunt object on the back of her head, which killed her. After her death the body was set on fire, said a police officer.

A preliminary probe by the police revealed that the couple hailed from Uttar Pradesh and married only four months ago. They were living in a second-floor flat on 24 Jadunath Dey Road in central Kolkatas Bowbazarrea.

On October 17, the police were alerted that smoke was coming out of the flat. When the cops reached the spot, Tiwari said that his wife Dipti Shukla, 24, committed suicide.

Also Read: Ghaziabad: Woman allegedly murders 11-yr-old stepson, dumps body in septic tank

Tiwari claimed that his wife committed suicide by setting herself on fire. But there were some inconsistencies in his statements. The body was sent for post mortem and the accused was also questioned, said the officer.

Police said even though they were yet to receive the final autopsy report, the preliminary one suggested murder. The suspect was arrested on Thursday.

The autopsy report indicated murder and that it was not a case of suicide. The accused was grilled and he broke down. During questioning he stated that there was some quarrel between him and his wife over buying a car. We are verifying his statements, said the officer.

Neighbours said that though the couple lived in a flat in the building they hardly interacted. Neighbours, however, could, at times, hear the couple quarrelling.

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The death toll in the fire incident at a cracker shop in Attibele near Bengaluru rose to 17 after another victim succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday, officials said. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar at the site where a firecracker shop-cum-godown caught fire on Saturday, at Attibele in Bengaluru district on October 8. (PTI)

The deceased have been identified as Rajesh (19), an employee of the firecracker godown, who was undergoing treatment at St Johns Hospital in the city. He had suffered 30-40% burn injuries and was admitted in the intensive care unit since October 7.

According to hospital authorities, the victim died after developing infection that led to multi-organ failure. He had suffered significant inhalational burns and was on the ventilator support.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka government has ordered a magisterial probe to look into the fire mishap. Bengaluru Regional Commissioner Amlan Aditya Biswas will conduct the inquiry into the matter and submit a report in three months, a government order issued on Tuesday said.

A magisterial probe will provide the sequence of events that led to the tragedy and those who need to be held accountable. It will ascertain whether the incident was accidental or caused by negligence and whether or not there were lapses in issuance of licence to Sri Balaji Traders.

The order stated that a spot inspection should also be conducted to check if the fireworks store had obtained a licence in accordance with the rules under section 6B of the Explosives Act, of 1884.

The fire took place at the firecracker shop-cum-godown in at Attibele on October 7 when crackers were being unloaded from a vehicle into the godown, police officers said, adding that the firecrackers were transported from Sivakasi, fireworks hub of Tamil Nadu, ahead of Deepavali.

The police have arrested three people in connection with the fire including V Ramaswamy Reddy, the licensee, Anil Reddy, the owner of the land where the godown was built, and Ramaswamy Reddys son, Naveen Reddy, who has been hospitalised after suffering burns injuries.

Naveen is undergoing treatment at St Johns Medical College Hospital after suffering between 17-20% burn injuries to parts of his face, upper body, back, and is said to be stable. He is expected to be discharged soon, according to hospital authorities.

Chief minister Siddaramaiah had also ordered the suspension of a tahsildar, a police inspector and a regional fire officer in connection with the incident.
Mumbai: Manoj Jarange Patil has become the new face of the Maratha reservation movement, which was faceless for several years. His rally in Jalna on Saturday is believed to be unprecedented with several lakh people attending it; his sharp political rise has posed a new challenge to the government. Jarange Patil says he is determined on the inclusion of Maratha community in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category for reservation and is demanding a law for the same. He has set October 24 as deadline for the government to take decision on the same. Excerpts from an exclusive interview with the Hindustan Times: PREMIUM Maratha activist Manoj Jarange-Patil in Lower Parel area of Mumbai on Wednesday. (HT photo /Bhushan Koyande)

Q. What would be the course of action as the 40-day deadline set by you for the government ends on October 24?

Ans  The course of action would be decided on October 22 as the 40-day deadline ends on October 24. There will be no further extension given to the government as enough time has been given so far. First, we gave three months to the Kareer committee appointed to decide on modalities to issue Kunbi certificates (to Marathas), then they sought one month for the committees report. We have given them 40 days. Enacting a law does not take that much of time. It is not any type of international decision that they have to take. So, there will be no compromise on the deadline. Marathas will put up such a show, in a peaceful manner, that the government will not be able to tackle it.

Q. What type of law do you expect?

Ans  70% of the Marathas have already been included in the OBC quota (as Kunbis, a sub-caste of Marathas), and to accommodate the remaining 30% , we want a law along the lines of the one passed in 2001 (to accommodate SC, ST, OBCs, VJNTs and special backward classes in government jobs). The government wanted it to be given by ascertaining a documentary base to do so. For it, they have appointed a committee and have sought time. Now they should frame a law to incorporate 30% of us, by issuing Kunbi certificates, in the OBC quota.

Q. Maratha outfits are divided on it. Some of the outfits are pressing for separate reservations as was given 12 and 13% in education and jobs in 2018, while you are pressing for the inclusion in OBCs

Ans  We are not for the reservation which is not on the lines of 2001 Act, because we want the reservation that would stand the legal scrutiny. Anything over 50% would not stand in court and it has been proven twice. I dont mind getting a separate quota for Marathas, but it should be under the cap of 50% with separate sub-quota for us like they gave one to VJNT. Or else, they are free to put us in OBC and increase our share in it.

Q.OBCs are opposing inclusion of all Marathas in their category. Wont it become a problem?

Ans  Because OBCs are getting much more than they actually deserve. They are just 37% of the population, which has been said by Banthia Commission appointed (to calculate) the empirical data for political reservation in 2022. It has been accepted by the government and the Supreme Court too. If the population is 37%, their quota should not be more than 18%. They have been enjoying 32% reservation, which is much more than they are entitled to and it is cheating us who deserve the quota on the basis of backwardness. Most of the castes incorporated in the OBC quota have been put in the list in 1990 after Mandal commission recommendations without ascertaining their backwardness. So, we are firm on our demand of the inclusion in OBC. Some Maratha outfits are demanding for the separate reservation, but it is not going help. The OBCs are not opposing our inclusion; the opposition is from a handful leaders only. The OBCs are our brothers and they do not oppose our inclusion.

Also Read: Maratha quota: Jarange-Patil warns state govt to act on assurance before deadline ends on October 24

Q. The committee appointed to collect the documents have found only 5000 records from 10 million documents scanned

Ans  That many documents are sufficient to make a law and once it is done, the inclusion of other Marathas, across the state, will be facilitated. We do not want any excuse from the government now. The government should now show its willpower to fulfil our demand.

Q. But the government appears to be divided on the demand. Ruling alliance leaders have assured OBCs that their quota wont be affected.

Ans  The government will have to admit our demand, it cannot afford to defy us. It is battle which is (being fought) in a completely peaceful manner. We do not understand why there is a grudge against us. We do not have any complaint against (deputy CM Devendra) Fadnavis, we spoke against him whenever he was wrong. Thats it. There was no need of the lathi charge by police (on protest on September 1) as it was done in a peaceful manner and democratic way. Innocent people suffered for no fault of theirs.

Q. There was speculations that political parties have made offers to you. Are you going to join politics in the coming days?

Ans  I am not going to bow before the government or anybody else. I am fighting the battle for my community and they have given me a lot and I wont betray them until my last breath. I have no political aspirations and not going to be an MLA or MP. I am happy with the love of the people from the community.
More than 1400 dairy plant workers will strike for a second day on Thursday. Picture: Facebook

Reports have emerged of grocers across Victoria being forced to impose purchase limits on dairy products as supply chains begin to feel the impact of the dairy workers strike.

Milk tank drivers began striking against dairy giant Saputo on Tuesday, while more than 1400 plant workers walked off the job across 14 sites on Wednesday.

The United Workers Union called the industrial action the biggest dairy strike in living memory as workers push for better pay and working conditions.

Workers are striking against Saputo, Fonterra, Lactalis and Peters ice cream who they say are refusing to share booming profits. Workers are demanding a 5 per cent pay rise.

Premier Jacinta Allan said there was no need for panic buying of milk despite the curbs being put in place by some stores.

The Premier stressed the need for workers and employers to work together to end the standoff.

Id urge as we do in any dispute for the parties to come to the table and negotiate, she told a press conference on Thursday. I believe there has been movement overnight.



More than 1400 dairy plant workers will strike for a second day on Thursday. Picture: Facebook

One IGA store in Melbournes southeast, which sources milk from Lactalis, has been forced to limit purchases of the product to two per customer.

IGA Murrumbeena owner Jackson Meredith said the purchase limits, which were imposed on Wednesday afternoon, would be in place for the foreseeable future.

We just got word that there would be shortages and we noticed a little upsell in milk where it started selling out pretty quick, he said.

Mr Meredith said he was contacted by Lactalis on Wednesday and the dairy giant was on-board with the proposed purchase limits.

A few people were upset about it, but were trying to make it fair for everyone, he said.

We just hope it all gets resolved and everyone gets what they want.

IGA Murrumbeena was forced to impose purchase limits of two milk products per customer on Wednesday afternoon. Picture: Facebook

Woolworths confirmed on Thursday that it was working to minimise the impact of the disruption to its milk supply and availability of home-brand milk could be affected.

While the supermarket giant is not affected by the milk tank driver strike, as it does not source milk from Saputo, it is supplied by Fonterra, one of the processors affected by the ongoing plant worker strike.

Story continues

Were in close contact with our Victorian milk supplier and were working on contingency plans to minimise any potential disruption to our customers, a spokesperson said.

Woolworths said while there could be a reduced supply of Woolworths brand milk, there were no purchase limits in place.

Its also not expected that supply of other dairy products, such as cheese and butter, will be impacted.

A Coles spokesperson also confirmed on Thursday morning that the supermarket giant was not experiencing any issues with supply and did not have any purchase limits in place.

We are continuing to work closely with our suppliers to help ensure milk is available to our customers, they said.

Aldi also confirmed that it does not currently have any purchase limits in place.

Victorians could see a shortage of Woolworths brand milk amid the ongoing strike. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Some farmers across the state have been forced to dump thousands of litres of milk after milk tank drivers, supported by the Transport Workers Union, went on strike across Gippsland.

Plant workers have continued their 48-hour strike on Thursday.

Dairy workers showed good faith and loyalty during the pandemic, accepting a wage freeze to help see companies through tough times, UWU said in a statement posted to social media.

Since then, cost of living has soared, as has dairy company profits.

On top of this, workers loads have also drastically increased, as consumers across the country devour much-loved dairy products like Maxibons, Drumsticks and Cheer cheese.

One UWU member said in an emotional video posted to Facebook that some dairy workers still received Centrelink payments despite working five days a week.

The strikes will end at 6-7am tomorrow when first shifts begin across the Victorian sites.

UWU national secretary Tim Kennedy called for the dairy companies to make a fair offer to workers.

Dairy workers have had enough of the disrespectful way these companies have been treating them, after workers agreed to low wages to help the companies out during the pandemic, he said in a statement released on Thursday afternoon.

After more than six months of negotiations the offers of these companies still fall far below cost of living increases.

There will now be talks with the major dairy processors to see if they are finally willing to pay dairy workers what they need to keep up with the cost of living in their regional centres.

Mr Kennedy warned that UWU members had already voted for 24-hour rolling stoppages should the dispute continue.

From what we have seen from 1400 dairy workers walking off the job on this strike, they will not take it lying down if the bosses try to short-change them.


By her own admission, Kirti Kulhari, 38, was a hypersensitive child. I would sulk in a corner if someone said something mean. My relatives would pass comments about how I keep crying. I grew up believing that my dad was the only one who cared about me. During the week of her 35th birthday in 2020, Kirti Kulhari ran a series on her Instagram, posting what she loves about herself. Looking back, that was the moment I realised I was falling in love with myself. Make-up by: Anuradha Raman; Make-up assisted by: Madhura Deokute; Styled by: Shivangi Shrivastav (Mrinmai Parab)

Kulhari with her fur baby, Hope. (INSTAGRAM/@IAmKirtiKulhari)

Kulharis acting career spans 13-odd years. She made her debut in the comedy Khichdi: The Movie (2010), playing Pammi, a much-jilted bride who finally gets hitched. Shes best known for playing Anjana in Four More Shots Please! (2019-), who walks out of a bad marriage and faces life as single mom. In the courtroom drama, Pink (2011), shes Falak, a young Faridabad professional who pays the price after her roommate attacks a sexual assaulter. In the black comedy Blackmail (2018), shes the woman cheating on her husband, prompting him to plot revenge. Letting go is accompanied by sadness and pain  emotions that sit stubbornly in all of us and keep building unless we consciously clear them out. Kulhari believes the only way out of pain, is through it. Make-up by: Anuradha Raman; Make-up assisted by: Madhura Deokute; Styled by: Shivangi Shrivastav (Mrinmai Parab)

I am the character. I live every moment they do on screen, Kulhari says. But it doesnt mean that I need to feel that pain myself to portray it on screen. That distance is something I have created. Kirti Kulharis career spans 13 years. Shes best known for her role in Four More Shots Please! (2019-), among others.

She hit rock bottom and was diagnosed with depression at the end of 2009. Her partner at the time suggested she visit a psychiatrist. I remember saying, Im not mad, why should I?, Kulhari says. It ended their relationship, but it made her aware of her lack of sleep and appetite. This wasnt who she wanted to be. Kulhari made her debut with Shaitan in 2011.

ACT TWO

Life, meanwhile, continued to present twists and turns. Kulhari married actor Saahil Sehgal in 2016, but separated from him in 2021. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I f**d up and it was over. Letting go is crucial, Kulhari has found. Its usually accompanied by sadness and pain  emotions that sit stubbornly in all of us and keep building unless we consciously clear them out. And the only way out of pain, is through it. Anything else is just suppression and brushing your emotions to the side. Kulhari in Criminal Justice.

Kulhari is looking forward to working as a producer on the upcoming Khichdi 2 and starring in Hisaab Barabar with R Madhavan. Some milestones, she knows, will be more challenging than others. Kulhari fears living in a world without her 15-month-old dog, Hope. I know its inevitable, but I end up crying when I think about it. But I know that no matter what, grief wont leave me unable to function. That comes with a lot of hard work.

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A standard for managers and politicians, donning ties on special occasions reflects a wearer's good manners. But, when loosened or removed, it could reveal a different person. More than 2,000 years ago, men already draped scarves or shawls around their necks. One forerunner of the modern-day tie can be seen on the soldiers of the famous Terracotta Army in China. Many of the 8,000 clay warriors who guarded the tomb of the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huang, draped dressy scarves around their necks. Managers and politicians wear ties, and on special occasions they reflect good manners.(Unsplash/Tim Mossholder)

Men's scarves were also trendy in Antiquity, for example among the Romans. Trajan's Column in Rome from 113 A.D. bears witness to this: On the 40-meter-high column, decorated with numerous reliefs, legionnaires can be seen wearing a knotted scarf around their necks.

During the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), Croatian mercenaries wore scarves around their necks  which legend says, piqued the interest of the French king Louis XIV. He is said to have been so struck by the Croatian soldiers' silk scarves that he later introduced them into courtly fashion. They were tied to form an elaborate collar ornament, sometimes even decorated with lace.

The present French name for the necktie is said to have originated from that time. The knotted fabric was referred to as "a la cravate," which derived from "in the Croatian style."

An air of authority

The necktie as we know it today first came into fashion in the 19th century. Initially worn as a short and wide length of fabric, it became longer and narrower over time. Today, the tie is sometimes long and narrow, sometimes wider, sometimes shorter, colorfully patterned or plain  depending on taste or men's fashion trends.

Whether worn as a fashion accessory or as a status symbol, a tie gives its wearer an air of authority and maturity. In certain professions, it is often mandatory for men to wear a tie: as a manager, banker, newscaster, representative and politician. It's hard to imagine, for example, customers sitting across a flip-flop-and-T-shirt wearing banker during a loan discussion.

Forgoing ties also has symbolic power

But the symbolic power of a tie does not necessarily end when it is loosened or taken off. For example, when former US President Barack Obama watched live in 2011 as a US special forces unit tracked down and shot the most wanted terrorist of the time, Osama bin Laden. The photo from the "Situation Room" went around the world.

Seated amongst his staff, Obama, who is usually neatly dressed, was pictured in a polo shirt and a jacket raptly watching the events unfold on the screen. No presidential posturing: In this politically important moment, he is at eye level with the others, a team player.

Many male politicians like to take off their ties to be "one of us." This also inspires trust and makes people's representatives more approachable and human.

Snipping the tie off

In the mid-20th century, the tie became the symbol of the bourgeois establishment. It was predominant among the conservative middle class and bureaucrats, while men's fashion otherwise became more colorful and casual. Hippies were setting the trends, and the 1968 movement declared a war on the tie.

In Germany, women take the most radical action against the tie annually on Weiberfastnacht or Women's carnival night. Celebrated on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, which marks the solemn period of Lent, women cut off men's ties, thus symbolically depriving them of their power. This custom dates back to the time when women began to fight for their equal rights.

The hard-working washerwomen from the district of Beuel in the western German city of Bonn are said to have stormed Bonn's city hall for the first time in 1824 and cut off the ties of the  all-male  authorities. To this day, the storming of the town hall is a famous carnival custom and cutting ties is part of the tradition in the German cities where carnival is widely celebrated.

A sign of respect

Wearing a tie to weddings, funerals or job interviews is still a seen as a sign of good manners and respect today. If no other dress code is specified for a wedding, a man should wear a tie. The same applies to funerals. A neat appearance is also an advantage when applying for a job, and those who work in the financial sector should have an assortment of ties in their wardrobe anyway. While men are subject to the tie obligation in certain situations, women are completely exempt from it.

However, women also enjoy wearing ties. According to the fashion blog "krawatten-ties.com," ("Krawatte" is the German word for tie) women's ties are extremely coveted. They are narrow and short or even  as in the style of the 1970s  particularly wide and trimmed with colorful, usually floral patterns, are tied loosely and do not sit at the top of the collar.

Whether forced or not, the tie has long since become a fashion accessory. Although the most commonly worn tie color is dark blue  and you can't go wrong with that  those who want to make fashion statements choose bright colors and patterns, even animal motifs.

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Kriti Sanon is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to proving her fashion prowess. After receiving the National Award donning a beautiful ivory saree, the actress is now busy promoting her upcoming film 'Ganpat'. Her promotional looks in back-to-back head-turning outfits are nothing but a visual treat for all fashion lovers. Kriti proves that apart from her incredible acting skills, the actress is no less when it comes to style and fashion. Whether it's a traditional saree or a chic pantsuit, Kriti knows how to pull off any look to perfection. Her latest looks in two glamorous outfits are no exception and are sure to inspire your wardrobes. Scroll down to take some fashion notes. (Also read: Kriti Sanon for Ganpat trailer launch puts sultry twist on denim on denim trend in bustier, jeans and thigh-high boots ) Kriti Sanon shines bright in chic all-white look and Navratri-ready saree attire.(Instagram/@sukritigrover)

Decoding Kriti's Stunning All-White Look

On Wednesday, Kriti gave her fans a mid-week treat as the actress took to Instagram and uploaded a series of glam shots accompanied by the caption, "Been feeling WHITE since yesterday". For her stunning look, Kriti picked up a white dress from the shelves of clothing brand Shweta Kapur. Her all-white look features a mini bodycon dress, which she paired with an oversized matching half jacket.

With the help of fashion stylist Sukriti Grover, Kriti accessorised her look with thigh-high white boots, a silver choker necklace, a diamond ring adorning her finger and pierced earrings. Assisted by make-up artist Adrian Jacobs, Kriti got decked up in nude eyeshadow, mascaraed lashes, smudged eyeliner, darkened eyebrows, rosy cheeks and a shade of nude lipstick. With the assistance of hairstylist Aasif Ahmed, Kriti styled her lush locks into messy waves, combed them back and left them open at the sides.

Kriti's Vibrant Navratri Saree look decoded

Recently, Kriti's stylist Sukriti Grover took to Instagram and surprised the actress' followers with Kriti's gorgeous Navratri saree look. Her saree is from Label Nitya Bajaj and comes in a stunning royal blue colour. It features a beautiful combination of bandhani with ajrakh block print all over, enhanced with heavy intricate sequin embroidery in contrasting shades of red and light blue on the borders. She draped it in a traditional way and paired it with a sleeveless red blouse.

For accessories, Kriti opted for her trendy Indian jewellery, including oxidised stacked bangles that adorned her wrists, a blue choker necklace and a pair of matching stud earrings. For her glam make-up look, she wore nude eyeshadow, smudged eyeliner, kohl eyes, mascaraed lashes, darkened brows, luminous highlighter and a shade of nude lipstick. With her hair tied into a low ponytail in the middle partition, she completed her Navratri-ready look and left her fans swooning.

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Navratri is an annual Hindu festival observed in honour of the goddess Durga and in the aspect of Adi Parakshakti, the supreme goddess. This year the auspicious occasion is being celebrated with great keenness and liveliness across India from October 15 to October 28. This is one of the best times to celebrate the special nine days with your family and friends. If you are a dog person, then you must be aware of how much your Fuzzy Pals love to play, and what could be a better idea to celebrate it with your furry friend during Navratri? After all, its a time of celebrations. (Also read: Shardiya Navratri 2023: 6 decor ideas to give your home a stunning festive makeover ) Celebrating Navratri with your canine companion can be a unique and heartwarming experience.

Ways to celebrate Navratri with pets

Sushen Roy, Business Head, Zigly, shares a few fun activities that you can do with your pets to keep them more active and entertained during Navratri.

1. Dandiya with dogs

Dandiya is one of the popular dance forms performed during Navratri. You can simply try this form with your dog by tying a colourful ribbon to the end of the stick and encouraging your dog to play and enjoy with it while entertaining us with their cute dance moves. With the help of this, you can also teach your dog to jump and spin while you are dancing.

2. Drum jjam with dandiya

Dogs are very fond of music beats and the same rhythmic beats of dandiya drums can excite them. Setting up a mini dandiya drum circle on your lawn can be more joyful and allow your dog to explore and join the jam by tapping their forepaw on the drum. This experience will keep them entertained.

3. Fetch

It is a classic dog game, that brings immense joy to your dogs life. To play fetch with your dog, simply throw a Frisbee and let your dog chase it. Once the dog has retrieved the ball, give them a treat or some praise. You can also make it more challenging by throwing the ball into the water.

4. Garba with fellow paws

Invite your friends who own a dog for Garba with your pets and organize dandiya night in your background. Fellow dogs can be a part of the dance by weaving in and out of the circle. Just be sure to maintain enough distance between the dog and the sticks.

5. Navratri art with paws

You can dip your dogs paw in different dog-safe paints and create a paw print on paper, making colourful art. This activity can be a lot of fun and result in a unique memorial with your dogs this Navratri.

Additional tips, before involving your dogs in these activities:

Make sure they are well-hydrated

Play with them in a shock-free area or where your dog is not likely to get hurt

Give plenty of water to them in between

Make sure, they are properly vaccinated, to avoid any kind of physical suffering

Remember to prioritize your dogs comfort while participating in these activities. Not all dogs have the same energy or interest level, so choose activities that suit your pets physical abilities. With the right approach, you can make the most of your celebrations together.

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Thousands of Buddhists took to boats on Myanmar's famed Inle Lake on Thursday to celebrate the return of one of the nation's biggest festivals, but the devotees' joy was laced with the sorrow of war. Devotees row the golden barge carrying the four sacred Buddha images during the festival of Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda in Inle Lake, Myanmar's Shan State, on October 19, 2023. Thousands of Buddhist devotees joined a waterborne procession on Myanmar's Inle lake as one of the country's biggest festivals returned to joy and sorrow as conflict between the military and its opponents rages on. (Photo by SAI AUNG MAIN / AFP)

The seventeen-day Phaung Daw Oo pagoda festival sees four sacred Buddha images placed on a golden barge and rowed through villages that dot the shores of the tourist hotspot in eastern Shan state.

The coronavirus pandemic and then the military's 2021 coup cancelled the three previous editions of the festival, denying locals the chance to worship the images and gain merit.

On Thursday morning, the golden barge zipped through the cool water, towed by sleek wooden longboats crewed by men rowing in the local fashion -- a leg wrapped around their oar to gain more push.

Dozens of boats filled with worshippers followed as the sun rose, the sounds of drums and cymbals accompanying the flotilla.

"We are enjoying here but on the other side (outside of Inle Lake) the situation is not good," student Phuu Pyae Thwe told AFP on the water.

"We feel sad because of their situation... We are also worrying what could happen on the way," the student added, such as possible armed clashes.

"We want to apologise to you all. We haven't held [the festival] for three years already. We are sorry about the fighting in other places."

As they drew alongside the golden barge decked out with Buddhist flags, devotees prayed to the four images inside.

A fifth Buddha image remains in the Phaung Daw Oo pagoda during the festivities -- the legacy of an accident several decades ago when it was dropped into the lake from the boat carrying it.

- Tourist no-go -

Foreign travellers flocked to Inle's waters and brooding hills after the then-junta transitioned to semi-civilian rule in 2011 and opened up the Southeast Asian nation.

But arrivals have dried up since the 2021 coup, which has battered the economy and put many areas of the country off-limits.

One worker in the nearby town of Nyaungshwe told AFP his hotel had shed 80 percent of its staff.

"Many hotels are closed because there are no local or foreign guests," they said, asking for anonymity.

Shan state has been spared the worst of the military's crackdown that a local monitoring group says has killed more than 4,100 people and seen tens of thousands arrested.

But in March around 30 people sheltering from fighting at a monastery just hours from Inle were killed, with the junta and anti-coup fighters trading blame over the massacre.

The military says more than 6,000 people have been killed by anti-coup fighters.

"We've been preparing since we heard the festival was going to happen," Than Nyunt, 75, told AFP.

"We are also doing good deeds for those people in Myanmar who are suffering as well," she said.

"We are praying for them. We are wishing for them to be happy and peaceful again quickly like here."

On the shore, Htway Yi said she was "very happy" for the festival's return.

"We were sad as we hadn't seen (the Buddha statues) for three years," she told AFP.

We are happy now... I want the lake to be crowded like before.

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A week is a long time in war and politics. The horrific October 7 terror attack on Israeli civilians by the Palestinian militant outfit, Hamas has sparked off global outrage but also impacted domestic politics. A Congress Working Committee (CWC) resolution mysteriously omitted mentioning Hamas terror while focusing on Palestinian rights. With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing the grand old party of being terror apologists, the Congress hastily clarified that it unequivocally condemned the loss of all civilian lives. Now, a week later, the blast at a Gaza hospital site in which hundreds have died, has led Opposition leaders to ask questions of the BJP: Will Indias ruling party speak up for the long-suffering Palestinian people? PREMIUM Israel-Hamas War: A Palestinian boy sits on the rubble of the building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Bureij refugee camp Gaza Strip.(AP)

Historically, terror acts have seen Indian political parties speak mostly in one voice. The ascent of Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and his politics of muscular nationalism changed the ground rules. When, during the 2019 general elections campaign, Modi referred to the Balakot airstrikes and boasted, ghar mein ghuskar maara (we entered their home and attacked them), he positioned the war against Pakistan-based terror at the centre of his re-election pitch. More specifically, he contrasted the retaliatory strikes with the Manmohan Singh governments more cautious approach in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.

During last years Gujarat assembly elections campaign, the PM was even more direct when he asked the electorate to be alert about the Congress and like-minded parties which he said kept mum on big terrorist attacks to not offend their vote bank. An uncorroborated claim by Congress leader Salman Khurshid that Sonia Gandhi was moved to tears by pictures of Indian Mujahideen terrorists shot dead during the 2008 Batla House encounter was used to amplify the argument that the Congress was guilty of minority appeasement and soft on terror. A series of terror blasts during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) years, especially between 2005 and 2008, have been highlighted to push the Congress onto the defensive.

Where this terror politics takes an uglier turn is when it resorts to constant dog-whistling to draw a link between global Islamic terror groups and co-religionists in the neighbourhood. Indian Muslims may express solidarity with the Palestinian cause but why should they bear any collective guilt for a dastardly attack by Hamas in Israel or indeed for the nefarious cross-border activities of a Pakistan-based Lashkar or Jaish terrorists or Afghan Taliban militia. Recall how when the Taliban recaptured power in Afghanistan in 2021, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath at an election rally warned that those with a Talibani mindset within the country would be dealt with sternly. If the Congress stands accused of minority pandering, then the BJP can be faulted for seeking to consolidate a Hindu vote bank by playing politics with terror. It is the starkly polarised nature of vote bank politics, which uses religion to divide and rule, that has drawn domestic politics within the crosshairs of a terror attack in another country.

Moreover, the ever-widening influence of social media and instant messaging tools on mobile phones has created ominous real-time narratives that are craftily exploited as weapons of mass division (WMDs). Take, for example, the toxic WMD that not every Muslim is a terrorist but every terrorist is a Muslim that is repeatedly and deliberately echoed across WhatsApp groups to spread fear and prejudice about an entire community. Right-wing internet warriors in particular have been quick to use incendiary social media content in the war on terror to demonise all Muslims. A report by Boom, a fact-checking website, found that a number of Indian X users were helming a concerted Islamophobic disinformation campaign to showcase Palestinians as fundamentally inhuman. This includes a fake video claiming to show dozens of young girls taken as sex slaves by a Palestinian fighter.

The shrill propagandists may seek to create a neat black and white universe of villains and heroes but Indias approach to the Israel-Hamas war stems from a complicated history. In the Nehruvian non-aligned era, India was seen to firmly hitch itself to the Free Palestine bandwagon. By contrast, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leadership was always a staunch supporter of the Israeli State even when New Delhi kept its distance from Tel Aviv. In 1992, RSS leaders backed the Narasimha Rao governments decision to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel.

In more recent times, the Indo-Israeli equation has acquired strategic depth with PM Modi striking a strong personal bond with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu. At the same time, Modi has consciously and successfully cultivated business-friendly Gulf States such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. While New Delhi has rightly expressed sympathy with Israel over the unprecedented terror attack, the Modi government cannot afford to antagonise its newfound friends across the Arab world with any harsh one-sided remarks. How can the Indian political establishment stereotype Palestinian Muslims as villains and Israeli Jews as victims when the reality is a tortured and prolonged conflict in which basic human rights are at stake? Realpolitik demands a diplomatic tightrope walk shorn of high-decibel rhetoric or moral grandstanding.

Which is why Indian politicians across the divide need to be more circumspect before jumping the gun to seek any potential electoral benefit. The horrors of Hamas need to be condemned but not without reference to the numerous atrocities faced by the Palestinian people for decades. There are no winners and losers in this cycle of hate and violence, revenge and collective retribution, only thousands of dead bodies.

Post-script: Clearly discomfited by the CWC resolution faux pas, a young Congress leader has an interesting explanation for the partys dilemma over Israel and Palestine. Some of our leaders were reared in a period when Indira Gandhi was wooed by Yasser Arafat and Israel was pitched as an enemy State. These leaders live in past nostalgia and not present realities, he admits. Touche!

Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author. The views expressed are personal
The ninth edition of the Google for India will begin at 11 am on Thursday, and the in-person event will feature a host of announcements from the Sundar Pichai-led tech giant for the country of his birth. This is the 9th edition of Google for India (Image courtesy: Google)

We will be sharing our vision for the next chapter of India's internet journey; from access to the internet to success on the internet with the help of AI, according to Google.

Where to watch live?

You can watch the event on Google India's official YouTube channel. Alternatively, the live broadcast can also be watched via the player embedded below.

Additionally, the company will provide live updates on its handle on X (formerly Twitter).

What to expect?

There will be as many as nine speakers. Also, Google's preview for the event featured an image (see lead picture) of Chandrayaan-3 mission's Vikram lander and Pragyaan rover. An announcement, therefore, could be on the successful mission, or the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the national space agency.

Announcements related to artificial intelligence (AI) will also be made.

What was announced at 2022 edition?

At the 2022 edition, held on December 19 last year, the Mountain View, California-headquartered firm introduced features such as Multisearch with Lens, Bilingual search results, Improved speed recognition for Hinglish, Project Relate, partnership with NeGD (National eGovernance Division), enhanced Google Pay features, and more.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR HT News Desk Follow the latest breaking news and developments from India and around the world with Hindustan Times' newsdesk. From politics and policies to the economy and the environment, from local issues to national events and global affairs, we've got you covered. ...view detail
At the Google for India 2023 event that took place in New Delhi on Thursday, the Cupertino-giant announced many new features, AI-powered tools and showcased its strategies for the country. Google dominates with approximately 99 per cent of the search engine market share in India. Google for India 2023 event held in New Delhi on Thursday.(Google)

ALSO READ: Google announces DigiKavach to prevent financial frauds in India

New launches at Google for India 2023 event

Search Enhancements: Google at the event said it is enriching the search experience by incorporating images and videos into search results. For instance, when users seek guidance on topics like "ways to drape a saree," they can access visual and user-friendly AI-powered overviews with images and instructional videos.

Visual Skin Condition Search: A new capability, unveiled at the Google event, on Google Lens allows users to visually search for skin conditions similar to what they observe on their skin. By capturing or uploading photos of the condition through Lens, users can find visual matches to better understand their situation.

Pixel 8 Production in India: At Google for India 2023 event Alphabet Inc. revealed plans to begin manufacturing its Pixel 8 smartphones in India, with sales set to commence in 2024.

YouTube's 'Watch Page' for News: Google-owned YouTube is set to introduce a 'Watch Page' dedicated to credible news sources in India. This page will recommend videos from trustworthy news outlets and will be rolled out in the coming months.

Merchant Offerings: Google Pay is partnering with ePayLater to provide a credit line for merchants.

Google Pay also introduces sachet loans in collaboration with DMI Finance, starting at 15,000, with convenient repayment options.

Expanding Merchant Loans: Google Pay is expanding its portfolio of merchant loans in partnership with ICICI Bank, offering repeat loans powered by Indifi.

Consumer Offerings: Google India said that Google Pay has expanded its portfolio of personal loans by adding Axis Bank's personal loans to the platform.

Also, users can now avail credit from banks on UPI and make payments via Google Pay.

Enhanced Security: At Google for India 2023 event, the tech giant said it is enhancing its security measures with Google Play Protect. Users will receive real-time app scan recommendations to check at the code level when installing apps that haven't been previously scanned.

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HP has introduced a refurbished laptop programme in India, with the aim being to enable easy access to affordable laptops. The HP Dragonfly G4 laptop. (Official handout image.)

In a statement, Gurpreet Singh Brar, Vice President, HP India, described the initiative as a 'significant step in our ongoing mission to bring affordable technology to everyone."

It (the scheme) is a game-changer for those facing financial constraints. It underlines our dedication to serve the needs of a growing market, particularly in regions where access to PCs has been a challenge, said Brar.

HP's refurbished PC scheme

(1.) India is the first market where HP has launched this initiative, with the plan being to expand in other regions in 2024. Initially, the focus will be on notebooks; offerings will be expanded and diversified in the near future.

(2.) The US tech giant will operate the scheme in the form of a subscription model; this, as per the company, will allow businesses to access the latest technology for 6, 12, or 24 months.

(3.) While HP will refurbish the devices, these will be sold by its certified partner to retail businesses and other customers. The partner will also provide comprehensive post-sales support, including warranty.

(4.) According to the Palo Alto, California-headquartered firm, the programme is a testament to its goal of achieving 75% circularity for products and packaging by 2030 .

(5.) Also, the refurbishment scheme stems from the company's pilot initiatives from the past, such as the redeployment of close to 20,000 devices per year for the workforce internally.

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OnePlus Open Launch Highlights: On Thursday, OnePlus officially entered the foldable smartphone market, with the global launch of OnePlus Open, its maiden foldable handset in the launch event titled Open for Everything. OnePlus Open Launch(YouTube)

What to expect from our OnePlus Open Live Blog?

 Get insights from tech analysts and discover what to anticipate at the OnePlus Open Launch event.

 Dive deep into the rumoured features of the OnePlus Open foldable smartphones

 As the event approaches, we'll provide real-time updates with visuals directly from the event venue in Mumbai, offering a taste of the event's atmosphere.

 Stay tuned during the event for the latest and most comprehensive information on the OnePlus Open launch, including its features and prices in India.
An innocent-looking photo of a man and a young child spending quality time together fishing in an Aussie river has sparked a bitter debate online, with many criticising the adults bloody stupid decision.

The image taken by a passerby shows the man standing in ankle-deep water in the Johnstone River in Innisfail, Far North Queensland, holding a fishing rod as what appears to be a young child sits on an esky next to him. The kid also has a rod in their hands and feet in the tidal water  which sits in prime crocodile country.

While some argued the fisherman and the child were just 'bonding', others said it was 'stupid' to stand in a river known for its crocodile population. Source: Facebook

Why do people get attacked by crocodiles? a local captioned the picture in a Facebook post on Tuesday, immediately igniting an argument between fans of the reptiles.

The man went on to argue that saltwater crocodiles known to live in the river can sneak up without being seen, no matter how much one watches the water and could have easily caught one of the fishers.

Locals hit back over crocodile outrage

Many were horrified by the dads behaviour, however just as many hit back at the Facebook user, telling him to mind his own business.

The father needs some common sense, one person said, while others commented that he was probably a local who was familiar with the wildlife.

Please dont judge! The dad is trying to bond with his son, and Im sure is watching the water also, another wrote. Judge all you like. We live around them. The actual locals here, know their surroundings, someone else agreed.

I know this spot well. There is a sandbank that extends well beyond where they are fishing. Clear sight in front of them, really no big deal, another fisherman chimed in.

In August, a man has been filmed fishing in Far North Queensland, just metres from a large male crocodile. Source: Tez Blackmore

'Complacent' locals at risk

The person who posted the photo said they did so to remind people to be croc wise. It demonstrates that in croc country common sense is needed, he said. If they see it it may shock them into being wiser. I hope they do.

Story continues

One Aussie said they had visited the same river earlier this year and saw the biggest crocodile of their life.

No one is at more risk than complacent locals, someone else said. Another social media commenter detailed a fight with a friend who didnt behave appropriately in croc country.

Theres no crocodiles in there!! I cant see one??!! Seriously I had a big blue with an ex mate at the Daly River Crossing, he said. He walked across and back. Then told me I was stupid as he didnt see a croc. I nearly left him there.

Tips to reduce your risk while fishing

Stay at least 5 metres from the waters edge where crocodiles like to hunt

Dispose of your food and fish scraps in a bin or at home

Keep pets on a lead and away from the waters edge

Avoid using small vessels like kayaks and paddle boards

Stay away from crocodile traps

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

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You may never have to read another news story in your life, if you have artificial intelligence that can digest all the webs information and serve up a summary on demand. Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) uses AI to create summaries in response to some search queries.(REUTERS)

Thats the stuff of nightmares for media barons as Google and others experiment with what's called generative AI, which creates new content drawing from past data.

ALSO READ- Google for India 2023: YouTube to suggest credible news source, GPay loans | Key highlights

Since May, Google has begun rolling out a new form of search powered by generative AI, after industry observers questioned the tech giant's future prominence in providing consumers with information following the rise of OpenAI's query-answering chatbot, ChatGPT.

The product, called Search Generative Experience (SGE), uses AI to create summaries in response to some search queries, triggered by whether Googles system determines the format would be helpful. Those summaries appear on the top of the Google search homepage, with links to dig deeper, according to Googles overview of SGE.

If publishers want to prevent their content from being used by Googles AI to help generate those summaries, they must use the same tool that would also prevent them from appearing in Google search results, rendering them virtually invisible on the web.

Searching for Who is Jon Fosse  the recent Nobel Prize in Literature winner  for instance, generates three paragraphs on the writer and his work. Drop-down buttons provide links to Fosse content on Wikipedia, NPR, The New York Times and other websites; additional links appear to the right of the summary.

Google says that the AI-generated overviews are synthesized from multiple web pages and that the links are designed to be a jumping off point to learn more. It describes SGE as an opt-in experiment for users, to help it evolve and improve the product, while it incorporates feedback from news publishers and others.

To publishers, the new search tool is the latest red flag in a decades-long relationship in which they have both struggled to compete against Google for online advertising, and relied on the tech giant for search traffic.

The still-evolving product  now available in the United States, India and Japan  has raised concerns among publishers as they try to figure out their place in a world where AI could dominate how users find and pay for information, according to four major publishers who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity to avoid complicating ongoing negotiations with Google.

Those concerns relate to web traffic, whether publishers will be credited as the source of information that appears in the SGE summaries, and the accuracy of those summaries, those publishers say. Most significantly, publishers want to be compensated for the content on which Google and other AI companies train their AI tools  a major sticking point around AI.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement: As we bring generative AI into Search, were continuing to prioritize approaches that send valuable traffic to a wide range of creators, including news publishers, to support a healthy, open web.

On compensation, Google says it is working to develop a better understanding of the business model of generative AI applications and get input from publishers and others.

In late September Google announced a new tool, called Google-Extended, that gives publishers the option to block their content from being used by Google to train its AI models.

Giving publishers the option to opt out of being crawled for AI is a good faith gesture, said Danielle Coffey, president and chief executive of the News Media Alliance, an industry trade group that has been lobbying Congress over these issues. Whether payments will follow is a question mark, and to what extent there is openness to having a healthier value exchange.

The new tool doesnt allow publishers to block their content from being crawled for SGE, either the summaries or the links that appear with them, without disappearing from traditional Google search.

Publishers want clicks to secure advertisers, and showing up in Google search is key to their business. The design for SGE has pushed the links that appear in traditional search further down the page, with potential to reduce traffic to those links by as much as 40%, according to an executive at one of the publishers.

More alarming is the possibility that web surfers will avoid clicking any of the links if the SGE passage fulfills the users need for information  satisfied, for example, to learn the best time of year to go to Paris, without having to click on a travel publications website.

SGE is definitely going to decrease publishers organic traffic and theyre going to have to think about a different way to measure the value of that content, if not click through rate, said Forrester Research Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai. Even so, he believes publishers reputations will remain strong as a result of their links appearing in SGE.

Google says that it designed SGE to highlight web content. Any estimates about specific traffic impacts are speculative and not representative, as what you see today in SGE may look quite different from what ultimately launches more broadly in Search, a company spokesperson said in a statement.

While publishers and other industries have spent decades adjusting their websites to show up prominently in traditional Google search, they dont have enough information to do the same for the new SGE summaries, these publishers say.

The new AI section is a black box for us, said an executive at one publisher. We dont know how to make sure were a part of it or the algorithm behind it.

Google said publishers do not need to do anything different than what they have been doing to appear in search.

Publishers have long allowed Google to crawl their content for the purposes of appearing in search results  using a bot, or piece of software, to automatically scan and index it. Crawling is how Google indexes the web to make content show up in search.

ALSO READ- Google for India 2023 Event: 20 lakh videos removed for policy violations in Q2 2023

Publishers concerns with SGE boil down to a key point: They say that Google is crawling their content, for free, to create summaries that users may read instead of clicking on their links, and that Google hasnt been clear about how they can block content from being crawled for SGE.

Googles new search tool, said one publisher, is even more threatening to us and our business than a crawler that is crawling our business illegally.

Google did not comment on that assessment.

When given the option, websites are blocking their content from being used for AI if doing so doesnt impact search, according to exclusive data from AI content detector Originality.ai. Since its Aug. 7 release, 27.4% of top websites are blocking ChatGPTs bot  including The New York Times and Washington Post. Thats compared to 6% that are blocking Google-Extended since its Sept. 28 release.

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An easyJet flight which was set to take off from the Spanish island of Tenerife to London Gatwick was delayed by several hours after a passenger defecated on the toilet floor of the plane. Yes, you read that right. Many passengers were agitated due to the incident.

As per Fox News, the pilot announced the delay to passengers and flight crew. A video of the pilot shows him saying, Someone found it rather exciting to defecate the front toilet so we're now staying the night here, we're now going to get everyone off and organise hotels, then we'll fly back tomorrow morning.

Passenger Aaran Gedhu told CNN Travel that there were issues with the flight even before it was about to start. The original plane was switched out for a smaller aircraft, due to which several passengers were turned away at the boarding gate. Those who managed to get on board, two hours after the scheduled time were forced to wait on the ground while their baggage was offloaded since the aircraft was overweight.

Post this delay, the defecation incident happened that left passengers onboard agitated.

"It was just a very uncomfortable experience. Obviously, the plane was in an unsanitary state. So they had to get external cleaners out from the airport to clean it. So thats when the stairs reconnected, and the cleaners came on to deep clean the flooring," Gedhu told CNN.

While the passengers were forced to stay the night Spanish island of Tenerife many people complained that easyJet was unable to find them hotels due to high demand in the area.

As per New York Post, a statement from easyJet said, "Due to extremely high demand, unfortunately, were unable to find hotel rooms in the area. If you need a hotel room and are able to make your own arrangements, well refund the cost of a reasonably priced room, meals, and travel costs to and from your hotel. In this case, we ask that you look for accommodations that are three stars or equivalent.

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The protesters, who came from places as diverse as Guam, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and beyond, led the demonstration before the independent Human Rights Committee as US Ambassador Michele Taylor wrapped up a two-day hearing on the United States. HT Image

It was part of a regular human rights review for all UN member countries by the committee.

Six other countries including Haiti, Iran and Venezuela also were undergoing public sessions this autumn in Geneva to see how well countries are adhering to their commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights  one of only a handful of international human rights treaties that the United States has ratified.

The protest came as Taylor said the US commitment to the treaty was a moral imperative at the very heart of our democracy and her country leads by example through our transparency, our openness and our humble approach to our own human rights challenges.

You have heard over the past two days about many of the concrete ways we are meeting our obligations under the convention, and you have also heard our pledge to do more, said Taylor, who is US ambassador to the Human Rights Council. I recognize that the topics raised are often painful for all of us to discuss.

Jamil Dakwar, director of the human rights program at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the US delegation decided to stick to scripted, general, and often meaningless responses to questions from the committee.

"At times it seemed that AI generated responses would have been more qualitative," he said.

Andrea Guerrero, executive director of community group Alliance San Diego, said the US responses were deeply disappointing and consisted of a simple reiteration, defense and justification of use-of-force standards by US police.

For that reason, we walked out of the US consultations (with civil society) two days ago, and we protested today, said Guerrero, whose group began a Start With Dignity campaign in southwestern states to decry law enforcement abuse, discrimination and impunity.

Some 140 activists from an array of groups travelled to Geneva for the first such review of US compliance to the covenant in nine years.

Ki'I Kaho'ohanohano, a traditional midwife from Hawaii, said she came to speak to the maternal health care crisis in Hawaii and beyond, and faulted US officials for having deflected the committee's repeat questions.

Stonewall -- as usual, she said, Again we don't have any responses, and it's very infuriating.(AP)

RUP RUP
As the Israel-Hamas war intensifies, the United States Thursday launched a visa waiver program allowing Israelis wishing to visit the United States for 90 days or less to come without applying for a visa. A woman holds her boarding pass in her passport after checking in for her flight.(AP)

The U.S. announced Sept. 27 that it was admitting Israel into the visa waiver program, adding the country to a select group of 40 mostly European and Asian countries whose citizens can travel to the U.S. for three months without visas.

At the time, the U.S. said Israelis could start traveling to America without visas as of November 30. In a news release, the Department of Homeland Security said the program was operational as of Thursday.

Officials gave no reason for the changed timeline in a news release Thursday. But just days after Israel's admittance to the visa waiver program, Hamas launched attacks against numerous locations in southern Israel. Since then the Israeli military has relentlessly attacked locations in the Gaza Strip as it prepares for a ground invasion.

READ | US Navy ship shoots down missiles fired from Yemen 'potentially' at Israel, says Pentagon

Under the waiver program, Israelis first register with the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. That's an automated system that helps determine whether the person is eligible to travel, Homeland Security said in the news release. The process can take up to 72 hours. Then they can travel to the U.S.

To be eligible, Israelis must have a biometrically enabled passport. Those who don't have such a passport still must apply for a U.S. visa, the department said.

READ | Deciphering Biden's risky wartime visit to Israel and the unspoken messages it conveyed

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.

Many critics said that despite American assertions, Palestinian Americans were still facing discrimination when traveling to Israel.

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US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday the US stands with Israel, Americans are grieving at Hamass slaughter of over 1300 people, and indicated it was the other team, not Israel, that was responsible for the bombing of a hospital in Gaza that killed hundreds of civilians, even as he announced Israel had agreed to allow humanitarian assistance to move into Gaza from Egypt. U.S. President Joe Biden, left, pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. (AP)

During a visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, a day after an attack on the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, which Palestinian officials claimed was a result of an Israeli strike and Israel claimed was a result of a failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad, Biden told Israels PM Benjamin Netanyahu, I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I have seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But theres a lot of people out there who are not sure. So, we got to overcome a lot of things.

Biden travelled to Tel Aviv on a rapid visit to offer staunch U.S. support in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack on Israeli villages and military bases by Gaza-based Palestinian Hamas gunmen who killed close to 1,400 people and took about 200 hostages.

Later, speaking at an event, Biden said: I caution this while you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice we also made mistakes, Biden said on a visit to Tel Aviv.

But as concerns mount about Israels retaliatory strikes in Gaza extracting an enormous humanitarian cost, Biden added that Hamas did not represent the Palestinian people, encouraged lifesaving capacity to ensure that innocent Palestinians were caught in the middle, and warned Netanyahu that the world was watching.

Its just not the example of our power, its the power of our example thats almost as important. The world is looking. We  Israel has a value set like the United States does and other democracies  and they are looking to see what we are going to do, Biden said.

He also announced subsequently that Israels cabinet had agreed to allow humanitarian access from Egypt to Gaza, based on the understanding that there will be inspections and the aid will go to civilians and not Hamas. Biden said the US will provide $100 million in humanitarian assistance to Gaza and West Bank, which will help support over a million displaced and conflict-affected Palestinians and meet emergency needs in Gaza.

In a readout of the meetings with Netanyahu and the war cabinet, the White House said that Biden had reiterated American support for Israel, reaffirmed USs determination to provide Israel with what it needs, and discussed efforts to rescue hostages and American efforts to facilitate provision of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.

After Bidens comments, the National Security Council said, citing overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information, that the US government currently believes that Israel is not responsible for the blast at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday.

Bidens visit is aimed at conveying both this public solidarity and cautionary message to Israel. But Tuesdays attack threatened to derail his visit as Arab capitals rose up in fury against the attack which, in the region, was quickly attributed to Israel. Biden was meant to go to Jordan for a summit with regional leaders but the summit was cancelled, with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas deciding to be in West Bank during a three-day period of mourning, even as the Presidents entourage was about to depart Washington DC.

On Air Force One, John Kirby, the national security council spokesperson for strategic communication, told reporters that Biden was looking forward to going to Amman and meeting leaders. The main reason that Abbas pulled out of the meeting in Jordan was because of three days of mourning, which is of course completely culturally understandable. I mean, he absolutely had to go home, and we understand that. And without him there, certainly that made it more difficult to have the kind of discussions that we wanted to have in Amman, Kirby said, adding that Biden had spoken to Jordans King Abdullah and would speak to him and other regional leaders on the way back to DC again.

Kirby added that in his conversation with Netanyahu, Biden was aiming to get a sense from the Israelis about the situation on the ground and, more critically, their objectives, their plans, their intentions in the days and weeks ahead. And he will be asking some tough questions. He will be asking them as a friend  as a true friend of Israel. But he will be asking some questions of them. He is also going to make it clear that we continue to want to see this conflict not widen, not expand, not deepen. At the same time, Kirby said that Biden will ask Israel what it needs from the security assistance point of view and express USs willingness to do everything to meet those needs.

Netanyahu, in his opening remarks during the meeting with Biden, thanked the President for coming to Israel and his unequivocal support. I have seen your support every day in the depth and breadth of cooperation that we have had since the beginning of this war, a level of cooperation that is truly unprecedented in the history of the great alliance between our two nations, the PM said.

Netanyahu said that Hamas had killed 1400 Israelis, which given Israels population, was akin to killing 50,000 Americans on a single day. Thats 15 9/11s. That is why October 7th is another day that will live in infamy. Mr. President, you rightly said that Hamas is worse than ISIS. The German Chancellor, who visited here yesterday, said that Hamas were the new Nazis. You are both right.

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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
United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday arrived in Israel to discuss the country's war with Hamas. His visit comes a day after US President Joe Biden met Israel's top leadership in Tel Aviv. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrives at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP)

I am in Israel, a nation in grief, Sunak wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism. Today, and always. Follow Israel-Hamas war LIVE updates here.

Ahead of his visit, Sunak's office said that the prime minister will share his condolences for the loss of life in Israel and in Palestine and warn against further escalation.

He will also urge the opening up of a route to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt as soon as possible and to ensure that British nationals there are able to leave.

Sunak had said that the attack on the hospital in Gaza was a watershed a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict".

At least 500 people were killed in a strike on Gazas al-Ahli Arab Hospital, often called the Baptist Hospital, on Tuesday night. Palestinian officials blamed the explosion on one of the many Israeli bombs dropped on Gaza since it announced war against Hamas.

On its part, Israel denied any role behind the strike and claimed that the blast was caused by a misfired rocket shot by Hamas militants towards their country. The United States has also backed Israel's claim saying that intelligence shows that Tel Aviv was not to blame for the strike.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR HT News Desk Follow the latest breaking news and developments from India and around the world with Hindustan Times' newsdesk. From politics and policies to the economy and the environment, from local issues to national events and global affairs, we've got you covered. ...view detail
Chinese President Xi Jinping told Egypt's prime minister on Thursday that Beijing hoped to work with his country to bring "more stability" to the Middle East, state media reported, as the Israel-Hamas conflict cast a shadow over the region. Chinese President Xi Jinping(AP)

"China is willing to enhance cooperation with Egypt... and inject more certainty and stability into the region and the world," Xi told Mostafa Madbouli at a meeting in Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

"China and Egypt are good friends who share the same goals and trust each other, and good partners who work hand-in-hand for development and common prosperity", CCTV reported Xi as saying.

"At present, the international and regional situation is undergoing profound and complex changes, and the world is experiencing rapid changes not seen for a century," Xi added.

Beijing was also willing to work with Cairo to "jointly safeguard international fairness and justice as well as the common interests of developing countries", he said.

Since the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas this month, Egypt has mostly kept closed its border with the Gaza Strip, where the humanitarian situation has become increasingly desperate.

But Cairo said Thursday it would allow the "sustainable" passage of humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing.

Relations between China and Egypt have strengthened in recent months, with Cairo set to become an official member of the BRICS group of emerging economies from next year.

"China congratulates Egypt on joining the BRICS cooperation mechanism and believes that this will inject new impetus into BRICS cooperation," Xi told Madbouli, according to CCTV.

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Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, is considering removing the service formerly called Twitter from Europe in response to a new internet platform regulation in the region, news site Insider reported on Wednesday. Elon Musk and the new Twitter logo rebranded as X.(AFP)

The billionaire has discussed removing the app's availability in the region, or blocking users in the European Union from accessing it, a person familiar with the company told the publication.

The European Union in August adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA), which sets forth rules for preventing the spread of harmful content, banning or limiting certain user-targeting practices, and sharing some internal data with regulators and associated researchers, among other things.

X did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Imran Khan's ex-wife Jemima Goldsmith commented on the Israel versus Palestine debate and said she had been on both sides of the narrative as her children faced antisemitism in Pakistan and Islamophobia in the UK. Referring to the assassination bid on former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2022, Jemima said Imran Khan was targeted because of his proximity to the Jews. Jemima was of Jewish descent and converted to Islam after her marriage with Imran Khan. Imran Khan's ex-wife Jemima Goldsmith said her experience makes her understand both the Israel and the Palestine side of the narrative amid the ongoing war. (Reuters File Photo)

"I have lived in a Muslim country for ten years and have been to Gaza & The West Bank and I also have a historic family connection to Israel. I have personally had (and continue to receive) countless death threats on account of my Jewishness & faced decades of antisemitic abuse. The father of my children was shot, according to his would-be -assassin, because of his proximity to the Jews  ie. me. Meanwhile, my children have faced Islamophobia in the UK (& antisemitism in Pakistan!)," Jemima posted amid her public spat over Israel versus Palestine with her brothers Zac Goldsmith and Ben Goldsmith. On this issue, Jemima presented a 'both-side' take while Zac and Ben extended support to Israel.

"I realise that Twitter spats dont help anyone. I have found it hard to disengage - I have Jewish and Muslim family members & friends, whom I deeply love," Jemima wrote.

Hamas fired rockets into Israel on October 7 triggering the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. A hospital in Gaza came under attack on October 17 killing hundreds, including children. Israel pinned the blame on Palestinian Islamic Jihad while Hamas claimed the attack was launched by the Israeli Defense Forces. Israel cited analysis reports claiming that it was a misfired rocket shot from the vicinity of the hospital in Gaza itself.

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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday embarked on her second trip to Israel since the deadly Hamas attacks to express "unwavering solidarity" and help ensure Palestinian access to aid. Germany's Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock. (AFP)

The trip, due to last until Saturday according to her ministry, will also take in Jordan and Lebanon, where German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius was making a surprise visit on Thursday.

Before her departure, Baerbock insisted on Israel's "right to defend itself against Hamas terror" and accused the militant group of using the civilian population of the Gaza Strip as "human shields" in its conflict with Israel.

Hamas gunmen broke through Israel's heavily fortified Gaza border on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and taking at least 199 people hostage, according to Israel.

Israel has responded to the attacks with relentless air strikes on Gaza that have killed more than 3,470 people, mainly civilians, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, and imposed a crippling siege on the Palestinian enclave that has left its inhabitants with dwindling supplies of food, water and fuel.

"It is important to me to make clear to Palestinians that we also recognise their suffering," Baerbock said, describing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as "catastrophic".

Baerbock, who already visited Israel and Egypt last week followed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, said Berlin was working closely with the G7, European Union and regional partners to ensure aid could flow into Gaza.

She said she would also "use the trip to speak with all those who have channels to Hamas" to discuss how to secure the release of hostages held by the group.

Pistorius's ministry said his visit to Lebanon "at short notice" was to thank German soldiers serving with UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force deployed in a buffer zone between northern Israel and southern Lebanon.

It posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the minister also intended to "get informed about the impact of the conflict in Israel and Gaza on the (German) contingent in the region".

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Darko Churlinov

Vincent Kompany has revealed the extend of Burnley's concern for North Macedonia winger Darko Churlinov who has recovered from suspected blood poisoning.

Churlinov joined the Clarets in the summer of 2022 and made 12 appearances in all competitions last season, but is yet to feature this season after being hospitalised with suspected blood poisoning whilst in Serbia in June.

However, he returned to action over the international break, featuring from the bench for North Macedonia in a friendly against Armenia.

"His story was quite scary to be honest," Kompany said.

"We feared for him, he got poorly, he got ill, he lost weight and muscle. At some stage we feared he might have to take a season out, but he had the mindset and the help of treatments luck to recover really really quickly.

"To have him back on the pitch now I think for all of us it's a feeling of relief.

"I spoke to the captains because I felt they should know and get in touch. It happened in a period where the group wasn't really together so it was a different group at the time.

"There was a big period of fear but when pre-season started we became quite confident that he could recover and that was a turning point for us where we just focused on reintegration."
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was charged by the UK Police with a public order offence after she was arrested with other activists during a protest outside a London hotel out an event dubbed as 'Oscars of Oil'. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is arrested outside the InterContinental London Park Lane during the "Oily Money Out" demonstration organised by Fossil Free London and Greenpeace. (AFP)

Thunberg, 20, was charged along with 28 other protesters in relation to Tuesday's protest, the Guardian reported.

Becoming the face of young climate activists, Thunberg began holding weekly protests outside the Swedish Parliament in 2018.

Why did Thunberg face police action in London?

Thunberg was protesting to stop delegates from entering a conference of oil and gas industry leaders hosted by the Energy Intelligence Forum at the InterContinental London Park Lane in Mayfair.

Videos showed Thunberg being taken away in a police van as she joined protests with the crowd blocking the entrance of the hotel and chanting oily money out. Several police officers had to shove protesters aside to create a way for delegates to enter.

The UK police, as per Reuters, said that Thunberg and other protesters failed to comply with conditions and the charges were imposed in order to prevent serious disruption to the community, hotel and guests.

Police said she was charged with failing to comply with a condition imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act. Police had demanded for the protesters to move from the road towards the pavement.

Even after her arrest, the protests against the Energy Intelligence Forum continued as protesters occupied offices of insurers and demanded ruling out insuring the proposed West Cumbria coalmine and the East Africa crude oil pipeline.

Thunberg's charges came as cofounders of the Just Stop Oil campaign  Indigo Rumbelow and Roger Hallam  were arrested by the British police on Wednesday after raids at their homes.

A spokesperson said, We will not be intimidated by our criminal government Not content with cheering on war crimes in Gaza, by maxing out our oil and gas reserves they are complicit in the greatest crime in human history  no one has ever voted for this, there has never been a democratic mandate to destroy the habitable world.

Thunberg has been released on bail and was asked to appear in court on November 15.

What is the oil protest?

Fossil Free London organised a protest for the first day of the three-day-long Energy Intelligence Forum  which was initially called the Oil and Money Conference  where oil companies Shell and Total were set to speak. ,

Fossil Free London Director Robin Wells said that such events were an opportunity for the oil industry to gather politicians and ensure that they continue to corrupt political processes.

Speaking at the rally, Thunberg said, Behind these closed doors at the Oil and Money conference, spineless politicians are making deals and compromises with lobbyists from destructive industries - the fossil fuel industry. People all over the world are suffering and dying from the consequences of the climate crisis caused by these industries who we allow to meet with our politicians and have privileged access to.

Thunberg added, That is why we have to take direct action to stop this and to kick oily money out of politics.

Greenpeace UK's Maja Darlington said to BBC that oil companies were toasting each other in luxury hotels and were planning to make bigger profits as millions of people struggled to rebuild after an extreme summer.

Big oil is profiting from humanity's loss and those who have done the least to cause climate change are being forced to pay the price.

Main speakers of the conference included  Chief executives of Saudi Arabia's Oil Group Aramco and Norway's energy company Equinor, the German ambassador to the UK and Britain's energy security and net zero minister Graham Stuart.

Stuart has reportedly said earlier that allowing oil and gas companies to continue to drill for oil at the North Sea for various resources was essential for energy security.

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A man has taken to Facebook to plead for the release of his sister, Liraz Assulin, 38, who was abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7. She is now being held hostage in Gaza. An aerial view shows the burnt cars of festival-goers at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas gunmen from Gaza, near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, October 12, 2023 (REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg)

Tamir Assulin shared a reel on Facebook, where his sister is seen enjoying life in some happy moments caught on camera. On the reel, Tamir wrote, in part, Her only crime was going out to a party on the morning of October 7th.

She is wounded. She is a gorgeous woman, beloved and pure. full of life, has a heart of gold, loves everyone. She loves traveling, seeing the world, and celebrating life. She is always surrounded by friends and family, and cares for everyone and helps everyone. She is the Amazing Aunt Liraz.She loves to host, to laugh. She is the familys pillar of strength, a family, now lacking its center, that is unable to function and digest the shocking,inhuman news it must face, Tamir wrote in the caption.

Tamir said that Liraz went to the festival with her friends following a family dinner. She sent a message to her family when the missiles started being launched by Hamas.

She whispered that they are under fire and that she loves us

She wrote that they were down on the ground, waiting to the right time to get back to their cars. About ten minutes later she sent a voicemail. She sounded terrified. She whispered that they are under fire and that she loves us and that were her family.Liraz is a CPA. She holds a first degree in accountancy and a second degree in business administration and finance.On Sunday 8 October 2023, a video was sent from Gaza, where her CPA certificate was displayed. For four days she was defined missing, without a clue to her wellbeing or whereabouts, Tamir wrote.

The party descended into chaos when the terrorists attacked the site, killing at least 260 people and abducting many more. Thousands of people attended the party, near Kibbutz Re'im close to Gaza. Palestinian gunmen attacked the site and shot people down as they tried to escape.

Help us bring Liraz home

On Wednesday, October 11, we were officially notified that Liraz had been kidnapped and is being held in Gaza. We dont know whether shes received needed medical treatment.We call out to anyone who can offer whatever help possible to provide Liraz with medical treatment and release her, and all the other captured civilians who wanted to celebrate life in a peace festival said Tamir.

He added, Please! anyone who can help, pray, mobilize people. Anything. Help us bring all the captured home. Help us bring Liraz home, safe and healthy !Help us bring Liraz and all the captured home NOW !

(Tamir Assulin/Facebook)

(Tamir Assulin/Facebook)

(Tamir Assulin/Facebook)

Over 200 people are being held hostages by Hamas. About 50 more victims who were kidnapped are being held by other resistance factions and in other places, Hamas military officials said, according to New York Post.
Iranian state television has warned about attacks on Israel from multiple fronts on its borders if the ongoing crackdown on terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza strip region by IDF continues. The three-and-a-half-minute TV broadcast was narrated by Iranian reporter Younis Shadlou. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (wearing brown)(via REUTERS)

The television broadcast featured footage of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said that if the war continued nobody could stop the forces of the resistance. Khamenei was referring to a strong network of militant groups supported by Iran, across the region bordering Israel.

The TV report highlighted how a vicious attack on Israel would unfold from multiple fronts. It highlighted that Houthis in Yemen from the south, Syrian and Iraqi militias in Syria from the east, and Hezbollah in Lebanon from the north would launch coordinated attack on Israel with missiles and drones. The coordinated attack would lead to a siege of Israel from every side.

The report claimed that Houthis in Yemen possessed missiles with a range of more than 1200 miles. It also claimed that Hezbollah in Lebanon had stock of advanced missiles which could target Israeli warships in the Mediterranean Sea as well as Israel's important city of Tel Aviv.

In the report, Shadlou signed off by saying that the vicious attack might happen in the next few days if Khamenei's ultimatum to cease offensive by Israel in Gaza, isn't implemented.

ALSO READ| US Embassy in Beirut issues travel advisory for its citizens in Lebanon, it says

Meanwhile, tensions between Israel and Hamas have reached peak levels after a misfired rocket hit a hospital and reportedly killed nearly 300 Palestinians. There is no official evidence about who fired the rocket. The incident has sparked outrage among anti-Israel voices around the world.

Amid the ongoing war, Israel is also facing retaliatory attack in its territory. On Thursday, missiles were fired towards Israel's Tel Aviv region. Meanwhile, Israel has killed several leaders of Hamas in its ongoing offensive.

On the other side, in last few days, US President Joe Biden and United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have visited Israel to take stock of the situation. The world community is concerned that the ongoing war may spiral out of control involving multiple countries.
Israel-Hamas war news Highlights: The Russian foreign minister on Thursday said that they have sent 27 tons of humanitarian aid for civilians in the Gaza Strip to be transported from Egypt. An Israeli army soldier adjusts the tip to a 155mm artillery shell near a self-propelled howitzer deployed at a position near the border with Lebanon. (AFP)

United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday arrived in Israel to discuss the country's war with Hamas. Sunak's visit comes a day after Biden visited Tel Aviv.

During his visit, Biden underscored the United States unwavering support for Israel in the face of Hamass terrorism. Biden also underlined that vast majority of Palestinians do not support Hamas and that the militant organisation was not their representative. He also announced a $100 million aid for humanitarian assistance in Gaza and the West Bank. The US president also announced that Egypt has agreed to open up the Rafah crossing to allow in up to 20 trucks of aid into Gaza. The development was confirmed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in a statement.

The US president traveled to Tel Aviv on a rapid visit to offer his country's support in the aftermath of the October 7 attack on Israeli villages and military bases by Hamas gunmen who killed close to 1,400 people and took about 200 hostages.

Meanwhile, Israel has strongly denied any involvement in the blast at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, which killed over 500 people. The Israel Defense Forces said the blast was caused by a misfired Palestinian militant rocket. The White House has also backed Israel's claim saying that US intelligence shows that Tel Aviv was not to blame for the strike.

Here are some key points about the Israel- Hamas war:
An Israeli airstrike on Thursday killed Jehad Mheisen, the head of Hamas-led national security forces in Palestine. A Palestine-affiliated news organisation Jerusalem News Network reported that the attack was levelled in Gaza's Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood. (AP)

Mheisen was killed along with several other family members at his house, Reuters reported quoting a Hamas-affiliated news agency.

A Palestine-affiliated news organisation Jerusalem News Network reported that the attack was levelled in Gaza's Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.

The organisation said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, Major General Jehad Mheisen, Commander of the Palestinian National Security Forces in the Gaza Strip, and his family were killed by the bombing of his house inside the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.

The war, which has entered day 13, has displaced over 1 million Palestinians, which is nearly half of Gaza's population. Nearly 5,000 people have died on both sides and thousands have been injured.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza after a request from United States President Joe Biden.

On October 7, Hamas militants entered Israel using motor gliders, boats and trucks and killing civilians and Israeli soldiers. Hamas has taken over 300 people hostages since the war began. Israel vowed to destroy the militant groups and has levelled severe attacks on the group.

Biden said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has agreed to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza to allow a first batch of around 20 humanitarian aid trucks through.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have denied their involvement in a devastating explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip which killed at least 500 people.

This explosion has triggered a wave of outrage and accusations against Israel, causing tensions to flare across the region.

According to reports, the hospital in question, Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, was struck by a powerful blast that resulted in a significant loss of life. Palestinians and numerous countries in the Arab world were quick to point fingers at Israel, accusing them of targeting the medical facility and causing over 500 casualties. Notably, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and others swiftly condemned Jerusalem for the alleged attack.

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Israel Defence Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Thursday that the families of 203 hostages have been informed that their loved ones are being held in the Gaza Strip. The IDF also announced that 306 soldiers have been killed since the start of the war on October 7. Israel-Hamas War: A Palestinian boy sits on the rubble of the building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Bureij refugee camp Gaza Strip.(AP)

Hagari, however, said the number is not final, as the IDF was constantly investigating new information on Israelis who have been missing since the October 7 onslaught, The Times of Israel reported.

He added that in some of the cases, the families were notified that the military suspects with high confidence that they were being held by Hamas. But in other cases, he said, the military has moderate-to-low confidence that they are hostages.

The war after Hamas militants stormed into Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy the militant group has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured in the past 11 days.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, the Israeli military spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, residents and doctors in this southern Gaza town said an airstrike slammed into a home, killing seven small children, news agency AP reported.

The news spread quickly on social media, as grisly images of dead and bloodied toddlers lined up side by side on a hospital stretcher stirred outrage in Gaza and the West Bank.

Bandaged and caked in dust, the bodies were brought to the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis along with three other dead members of the Bakri family. Photographers swarmed the operation room as women covered their eyes and doctors wept.

This is a massacre, hospital director Dr. Yousef Al-Akkad said, his voice choking with emotion. Let the world see, these are just children.

Local medics also confirmed that the children were killed in a strike and said the Bakri family was just one of many such cases Wednesday.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Three Palestinians, including two teenagers, were killed by Israeli forces in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank early on Thursday, Palestinian official news agency WAFA said, while the military said it attacked Hezbollah targets in the border area with Lebanon. Thousands of pro-Palestinian and Palestinian Americans march towards the Israeli Consulate during a protest in Chicago on October 18, (AP)

Protesters staged anti-Israel rallies around the Middle East on Wednesday, some of them turning violent, to voice rage at an explosion that killed hundreds of Palestinians at a hospital in the deadliest incident inside Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.

US President Joe Biden said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has agreed to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza to allow a first batch of around 20 humanitarian aid trucks through.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will travel to Israel on Thursday before heading to other countries in the region in an effort to deescalate the Israel-Gaza conflict, his office has said.

Follow Live Updates on Israel Hamas war

Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for Tuesday's explosion at a hospital in northern Gaza. Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the latest flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Israel is preparing a ground assault in the Gaza Strip in response to a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, on October 7.

US Capitol Police arrested scores of demonstrators inside the building who had gathered on the National Mall urging the Biden administration to call for a "ceasefire now" amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli forces have carried out their fiercest bombardment of Gaza in response, killing more than 3,000 Palestinians and imposing a total siege on the blockaded enclave that Hamas controls, fuelling anger among Palestinians in the West Bank.

Israel-Hamas war: Latest updates on October 19

Among the targets on Hezbollah was a military observation post from which a guided anti-tank missile was fired toward the northern town of Rosh Hanikra on Wednesday, the Israel military said. The Israel Defence Forces added that the strikes were carried out in response to shooting incidents in Israel over the past day.

Israeli forces stormed the village of Budrus, west of Ramallah, shooting dead a young man, Gebriel Awad, and wounding another, WAFA said. In other incidents, a 14-year-old was killed by a bullet wound in the head in a refugee camp south of Bethlehem and a 16-year-old succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the town of Tulkarm, the news agency added. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Residents and doctors in southern Gaza said an airstrike slammed into a home, killing seven children. The news spread quickly on social media, as grisly images of dead and bloodied toddlers lined up side by side on a hospital stretcher stirred outrage in Gaza and the West Bank. Bandaged and caked in dust, the bodies were brought to the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis along with three other dead members of the Bakri family.

The first 20 trucks will be a test of a system for distributing aid without allowing the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas, which controls Gaza, to benefit, Biden said. The United Nations is set to distribute aid on the Gaza side of the border. "If Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through or just confiscates it, then it's going to end, because we're not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas if they're going to be confiscating it. That's the commitment that I've made," Biden said. He added that the 20 trucks represented a "first tranche," but "150 or something" trucks are waiting in total. Whether the rest are allowed to cross will depend on how it goes.

In Lebanon, security forces fired tear gas and water canon at protesters who were throwing projectiles as a protest near the US Embassy north of Beirut turned violent, footage by Lebanese broadcaster al-Jadeed showed. "America is the devil, the real devil, because it supported Israel, and then all the world is blind. You don't see what happened yesterday?" said Lebanese demonstrator Mohammed Taher.

On his visit to Israel, Sunak will stress the international community must "not let Hamas' barbaric terrorism and disregard for human life become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region", a statement said. Expected in Israel early on Thursday morning, Sunak is due to meet his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

Public access to the US Capitol complex has been restricted after a sizable number of demonstrators calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas disrupted one of the House office buildings, news agency ANI reported.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Labelling Hamas as a terror organisation like 'no other,' Israel's permanent representative to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, has said that the attack carried out was "barbaric and a widescale terror attack in decades, even bigger than 9/11." Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan(AFP)

He slammed the Security Council for not designating Hamas as a terrorist group for political reasons during today's session.

"...The most barbaric and widescale terror attack in decades, bigger than 9/11, was perpetrated 11 days ago and it seems like this Council has already forgotten. The pictures and footage from the October 7 pogrom are seared into my brain, in every Israeli's brain, forever...Thousands of barbaric Hamas Nazis invaded Israel and brutally murdered 1,400 innocent Israelis... Some were raped, others beheaded, and some were burned alive," the Israeli envoy said.

READ | Joe Biden's 9/11 warning to Israel: Don't repeat US 'mistakes' in 'rage'

"Many were children...Mothers watched as their babies were slaughtered...This was planned and carried out deliberately by the terrorists that rule Gaza. Not by accident, not by mistake, but deliberately...There are some here that choose not to designate Hamas as a terror organization for political reasons, it still doesn't change the facts," he stressed.

Erdan stated that Hamas has deliberately targeted civilians, and "this makes Hamas a terror organization no different than ISIS..."

"Up until today, you have not even done the most basic thing. You have not condemned as a council Hamas's brutal terror attack. It is really unfathomable. You cannot unite even on that basic thing. You are not focused on what needs to be done to free Gaza from Hamas and ensure that the oppression of the Gazan people by their tyrants ends. Instead, the Council is fixated only on humanitarian corridors and aid. These are important and noble causes, but they are certainly not a solution to prevent Hamas'next atrocious massacre," the envoy said, as he lambasted the council.

READ | US accomplice in Israel 'crimes': Iran's president at Down with America rally

"Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza 18 years ago. Hamas was then elected. Elected by the people of Gaza. I hear a lot that they do not represent them. Elected. And after murdering the Palestinian Authority officials by throwing them off rooftops, Hamas proceeded to convert every inch of the Gaza Strip to a war machine," he said.

Painting a scene of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the envoy said that Sirens are blaring all across Israel, and civilians are running for their lives.

He said, "Millions in Israel are running to find shelters. Hamas does this so that once Israel strikes back, they can parade the bodies of the civilians in Gaza that they hid behind. Their strategy is to exploit their civilian casualties as propaganda, to leverage the international community to tie Israel's hands," he said.

"Their goal is to increase civilian casualties in Gaza. This is part of their script. They know that they cannot beat Israel on the battlefield. Of course, they know it. So they want to terrorize our citizens deliberately, only citizens, and then weaponize the UN to prevent Israel from obliterating them so they can rebuild, rearm, and continue terrorizing Israelis. They have a lot of patience while working towards annihilating Israel. A lot of patience. This is Hamas'script. This is their playbook. And shockingly, even after the recent slaughter, it's still working for them," he added, noting that every piece of information that comes out of Gaza cannot be trusted.

"Hamas runs Gaza. Hamas runs all of Gaza's institutions. So whatever comes out of the Strip is not the truth. It is what Hamas wants you to hear," he underlined.

US President Joe Biden, who was on a solidarity visit to Israel at the invitation of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Wednesday, too compared the Hamas attack to "fifteen 9/11s" for a nation the size of Israel while retreating that America stood with Israelis and their demand for justice.

"My message to any State or any other hostile actor thinking about attacking Israel remains the same as it was a week ago - Don't. Don't. Don't. Since this terrorist attack, we have seen it described as Israel's 9/11. But for the nations the size of Israel, it was like fifteen 9/11s," the US President said at a press conference in Tel Aviv.

He said Israel was born to be a safe place for the Jewish people of the world. That's why it was born. "Long said, if Israel didn't exist we would have to invent it. While it may not feel that way today, Israel must again be a safe place for the Jewish people. I promise you, we will do everything in our power to make sure that it will be," Biden said.

He said scores of innocents from infants to elderly grandparents, Israelis and Americans have been taken hostage.

"Children slaughtered, babies slaughtered, entire families massacred, raped, beheaded, bodies burned alive. Mass committed atrocities, that recall the worst ravages of ISIS unleashing pure unadulterated evil upon the world. There's no rationalizing it. No excusing it..."

The US President further said, "Terrorists believe they could bring you down, bend your will, break your resolve but they never did and they never will. Instead, we saw incredible stories of heroism, courage, Israelis taking care of one another..."

Biden on Wednesday reassured Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the United States' unwavering support for Israel. He emphasized the commitment to stand by Israel as it defends its citizens, particularly in the face of recent terrorist attacks by Hamas.

"In the wake of Hamas appalling terror assaults, brutal, inhuman...I want you to know you are not alone," Biden emphasized.

"We will continue to have Israel's back as you work to defend your people," he added.

Upon his arrival, Biden was received by PM Netanyahu and President Issac Herzog on the tarmac. The usual formalities for such a visit, such as a greeting by the full Israeli cabinet and religious leaders, etc were not observed.
An effort by Republican Jim Jordan to buy more time for his struggling campaign to become US House speaker foundered on Thursday, moving the Trump loyalist to consider a third floor vote for his bid for the vacant leadership post. Jim Jordan leaves a meeting with House leadership at the Rayburn House Office Building on October 19, 2023 in Washington, DC.(AFP)

Jordan had sought to delay a new vote on his own speaker bid by expanding caretaker speaker Patrick McHenrys powers so that the House could could resume business with the North Carolina Republican as an interim leader, possibly until early next year.

That would have allowed Jordan months to muster support from GOP lawmakers who have voted against him on two ballots this week.

But the idea provoked a fierce backlash from a number of conservative Republicans and several lawmakers emerged from a closed-door meeting of the partys House members saying the proposal lacked support.

READ | Who is Jim Jordan? The 59-year-old Republican close to becoming the next US House Speaker

Over half the Republicans in the room wont vote for it, Jim Banks of Indiana, a conservative who is running for a Senate seat, said. Its a historic mistake.

The mood of the room is clear. Opposed, Representative Pat Fallon of Texas said as he left a closed-door Republican meeting.

Representative Tom Emmer, a member of the GOP leadership team, and other Republicans said Jordan was now considering moving to another ballot on Thursday.

Jordan told colleagues in the tense meeting he would now call all the GOP opponents and decide how to move forward. Several other lawmakers said they expected the House to work into the weekend on the speaker issue.

Jordan fell far short of the votes needed to become speaker in two rounds of balloting this week amid objections to his hardball tactics and deep divisions within the party.

Florida Republican Mario Diaz-Balart signaled his approval for an interim speaker, saying he would support a proposal to get the conservative Republican agenda back on track.

Its unclear how long the interim period would last. One proposal would make McHenry temporary speaker through Jan. 3 and another contemplates a shorter period, running through Nov. 30. And the date could be revised as negotiations proceed.

Democrats have also been noncommittal about empowering McHenry and their votes could be needed if more than four Republicans vote against the resolution. Several party moderates held out hope they could force a vote on the proposal with Democratic help.

If were going to be a lifeline, I think theres going to be conditions, said Democrat Raul Grijalva of Arizona.

The speakers office has been vacant for more than two weeks, leaving the House paralyzed. Lawmakers have been unable to address aid for Israel in its war with Hamas or consider funding measures to avoid an impending mid-November US government shutdown.

The caretaker position was established after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and has been largely interpreted as limited to presiding over the choice of a new speaker. McHenry was among those whove agreed with that interpretation.

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United Kingdom (UK) Member of Parliament Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi on Wednesday voiced concern over the missile attack on a Gaza hospital and the war between Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel. British MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi.(X)

"After all the decades of suffering, injustice and occupation endured by the Palestinian people, yet more terrorism and scenes of bloodshed at Al-Ahli hospital are truly heart-wrenching," Dhesi said.

We desperately need peace and humanitarian aid in blockaded Gaza," he added.

At least 500 people were killed in a strike on Gazas al-Ahli Arab Hospital, often called the Baptist Hospital, on Tuesday night. Palestinian officials blamed the explosion on one of the many Israeli bombs dropped on Gaza since it announced war against Hamas.

On its part, Israel denied any role behind the strike and claimed that the blast was caused by a misfired rocket shot by Hamas militants towards their country. The United States has also backed Israel's claim saying that intelligence shows that Tel Aviv was not to blame for the strike.

On Wednesday, Dhesi said that those responsible behind the attack on the hospital must be held accountable.

"International law must be adhered to. There should be no collective punishment of the Palestinian people."

He also sought to know from UK Secretary of State James Cleverly how the peace can be attained and what the British government is doing to supply humanitarian aid to people in Gaza.

Cleverly said that the UK is working relentlessly with countries neighbouring Israel and Gaza.

"I will be travelling to Egypt to try and work with them to facilitate humanitarian support," he said. "And we will work with those countries who will be able to influence the leadership in Gaza. We will not rest."

On the question of achieving peace, he added: I think a good starting point would be terrorists not firing rockets from densely populated areas into Israel.

Israel-Hamas war

Israel has put the Gaza Strip under a total blockade and has pounded it with air strikes since Hamas attacked its border towns in an unprecedented surprise attack on October 7, killing around 1400 people.

Over 2,500 Palestinians have died in the retaliatory action by Tel Aviv. Israel has put the Gaza Strip under a total blockade and has warned all those in the region to evacuate before an expected ground offensive. Concerns have been mounting globally about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip and fears that the war could metastasize into a broader regional conflict.

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An Aussie woman has slammed a hostel for offering the rental of a single bed in a communal bunk for $350 per week  claiming its the epitome of Australia's current rental crisis. Yet others think it's a good solution to the problem.

While searching on flatmates.com.au for "somewhere to live" in the Gold Coast, the disgruntled prospective renter came across the hostel's listing and was "disgusted" the accommodation was being offered as a long-term option.

"I'm on flatmates.com, I'm not on booking.com  I'm not looking for a holiday," she said online. "This is where people advertise their spare rooms and for people to move in to live permanently... That is just taking advantage of people that are in need."

The TikToker was unimpressed the hostel in the Gold Coast was offering to rent a single bed for $350 per week. Source: TikTok and flatmates.com.au

The hostel reportedly has a 100-person sleeping capacity with a communal kitchen and bathrooms shared onsite, with images showing at least ten single beds packed together in the one area.

"I would rather not sleep in a 100-bed dorm that you're sharing with other people... The rental crisis is so real," she said.

The single beds in the hostel are in close proximity with one another, separated into individual pods.

Aussies divided over 'insane' accommodation option

Despite the TikToker standing firm on her opinion, many believed the hostel accommodation and price was fair given the current lack of vacant rental properties in the country.

"Not bad for the Gold Coast though, and decent amenities," one wrote, pointing out two daily meals and bills were included in the price.

Another Aussie share they stayed in a hostel for "a month and a half" while struggling to find a more permanent home and said "it's cheaper than renting."

Despite some choosing to reside in hostels short-term or travellers staying in one if they remain in the one spot for a period of time, hostels are commonly advertised as an inexpensive accommodation option for those passing through an area  with the TikToker frustrated by other people largely being unfazed by the listing.

Story continues

However some agreed with her. "It's not normal to have a hostel on flatmates.com.au," one person said, while others called it "insane" and "definitely not worth it" given the conditions are usually "gross" with so many people residing in the one place. One previous backpacker said the hostel in question did not look like the promotional images in the listing.

Yahoo has reached out to the hostel, as well as flatmates.com.au to determine what listings are allowed on their site.

Rental vacancies drop again nationwide

The country continues to grapple with a rental crisis as the imbalance of supply versus demand across Australia is expected to once again result in the market tightening as vacancies drop.

There are fears there will once again by long queues outside rental property viewings and an increase in weekly rent prices, with the 'mini-reprieve' experienced over the last few months expected to come to an end. Given the long-term solution will be to create more housing around the country.

Recent data released from SQM research suggests the rental vacancy rate has dropped to 1.1 per cent, meaning there are now only 32,660 properties vacant compared to over 35,000 in August.

"The national rental market continues to tighten and going forward, based on falls in rental listings for October to date, we could see a record low in rental vacancy rates for this present month," Managing Director of SQM Research Louis Christopher said.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

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Israels defense minister told ground troops to be ready to enter the Gaza Strip, though he didn't say when the invasion will start. Israeli troops patrol at an undisclosed location along the border with the Gaza Strip(AFP)

In a meeting with Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border Thursday, Yoav Gallant urged the forces to get organized, be ready for an order to move in.

Whoever sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the inside, he said. I promise you.

Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border following a bloody Oct. 7 cross-border massacre by Hamas militants.

Israeli airstrikes pounded locations across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including parts of the south that Israel had declared as safe zones, heightening fears among more than 2 million Palestinians trapped in the territory that nowhere was safe.

With authorities still working out logistics for a delivery of aid into Gaza from Egypt, overwhelmed hospitals tried to stretch out ebbing medical supplies and fuel for diesel generators to keep the equipment running. Doctors in darkened wards stitched wounds by mobile phone light. A doctor at the largest hospital said staff were using vinegar from the corner store to treat infected wounds.

The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for a devastating Hamas rampage in southern Israel almost two weeks ago. Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north of Gaza and take refuge in the south, strikes extended across the territory and Palestinian militants continued firing rockets into Israel.

Israels consent for Egypt to let in food, water and medicine provided the first possibility for an opening in its sealing off of the territory. Many among Gazas 2.3 million residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.

Israel did not list fuel as a permitted item, but a senior Egyptian security official said Egypt was negotiating for the entry of fuel for hospitals. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

With the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah still closed, the already dire conditions at Gazas second-largest hospital deteriorated further, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel of Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis. Power was shut off in most departments to save it for intensive care and other vital functions, and staff members were using mobile phones for light.

At least 80 wounded civilians and 12 dead flooded into the hospital Thursday morning after witnesses said a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis. Doctors had no choice but to leave two of the incoming to die because there were no ventilators left, Qandeel said.

We cant save more lives if this keeps happening, meaning more children ... more women will die, he said.

The Gaza Health Ministry pleaded with gas stations to give whatever fuel they had left to hospitals. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, gave some of its little remaining fuel stores to hospitals, according to spokesperson Juliette Touma.

The agency's donation to Gaza Citys Shifa Hospital, the territorys largest, would keep us going for another few hours, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia told The Associated Press.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas deadly incursion on Oct. 7. Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory since Israel told them to evacuate. Most have crowded into U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters or the homes of relatives.

The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territorys only connection to Egypt, remained fragile. Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians in southern Gaza and that it would thrwart any diversions by Hamas. U.S. President Joe Biden said the deliveries will end if Hamas takes any aid.

Egypt must still repair the road across the border, which Israeli airstrikes cratered in a no-mans land and on the Gaza side. No equipment had arrived to start the repair work as of Thursday afternoon, the Hamas spokesman for the crossing, Wael Abu Omar, said.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, according to Khalid Zayed. the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai.

U.S. officials said the first deliveries would likely take place Friday at the earliest, with an initial group of 20 trucks. The Egyptian security official also said the first trucks were expected to go in Friday.

Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let out of Gaza, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Israel had previously said it would let nothing into Gaza until Hamas freed the hostages taken from Israel. Relatives of some of the captives reacted with fury to the aid announcement.

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.

The Israeli military reported Thursday that it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including militant tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centers. It said it also hit dozens of mortar-launching posts, most of them immediately after they were used to fire shells at Israel. Palestinians have launched barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.

Israel has said it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they may be in Gaza. It has accused the groups leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population, leaving Palestinians feeling in constant danger.

After Thursday's strikes in Khan Younis, sirens wailed as emergency crews rushed to rescue survivors from the crushed apartment building. Many residents were believed trapped under twisted bed frames, broken furniture and cement chunks. A small, soot-covered child, dangling in the arms of a rescue worker, was taken out of a damaged building.

Gazas Hamas-led government said several bakeries in the territory were hit in the overnight strikes, making it even harder for residents to get food.

Days ago, the Musa family fled from the north to the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah and took shelter in a cousins three-story home near the local hospital. But at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, a series of explosions, believed to be airstrikes, rocked the building, turning the family home into a mountain of rubble that they said buried some 20 women and children.

The dead body of Hiam Musa, the sister-in-law of Associated Press photojournalist Adel Hana, was recovered from the wreckage Wednesday evening, the family said. They dont know who else was under the rubble.

It doesnt make sense, Hana said. We went to Deir al-Balah because its quiet. We thought we would be safe.

The Israeli military said it was investigating.

In northern areas that Israel warned to evacuate, airstrikes also hit three residential towers in al-Zahra, the Hamas-led Interior Ministry in Gaza said, as well as homes along the border with Israel. Israel has massed troops in the area and is expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

In the West Bank, 74 Palestinians have been killed since the war started, included nine by Israeli forces and one by a settler in the last two days, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Overnight, Israeli forces carried out a major raid in the West Bank, arresting 80 Palestinians, bringing the total arrested since the wars start to more than 500, the military said.

Violence between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has also flared in recent days amid fears the Hamas-Israel conflict could spread across the region. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing several missiles at Israel from southern Lebanon on Thursday, including one which struck an Israeli kibbutz.

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A video clip of Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef countering British TV talk show host Piers Morgan in an interview for allegedly comparing Israel to the terror group Islamic State or ISIS on Tuesday has gone viral on social media. British TV talk show host Piers Morgan and Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef.

During his show Piers Morgan Uncensored on Monday evening, Morgan claimed it would be difficult to eradicate Hamas, as Israeli authorities have vowed to do, without massive, colossal damage that results in mass deaths among the innocent civilian population of Gaza.

Youssef replied, So if I can understand this correctly, basically Israel is doing this to pressure the Palestinian community in Gaza to turn against Hamas, is that right? This is exactly what terrorist organisations do.

Youssef added, Terrorist organisations would have no chance beating a whole nation in battle. So, they terrorise and kill the civilians in order to spread fear and terror so (that) they (the civilians) can turn against their government to change their policy or to resign.

You have just compared Israel with ISIS, he told Morgan.

Morgan, however, rejected the suggestion that his words could be interpreted as making such a comparison. Youssef replied, saying that the big headline in newspapers the following day would be: Piers Morgan: Israel is ISIS.

Youssef subsequently shared an edited extract of the interview on X, to which Morgan replied in which he asked, Why did you cut off the end of this where I say the correct comparison is between Hamas and ISIS?

On the show, Youssef also referenced his Palestinian wife and Gazan in-laws when asked to give his opinion on the brutal Hamas terror attacks.

Oh, it was terrible, of course, Youssef replied. I mean, we get all our news secondhand because my wifes family lives in Gaza. They have cousins and uncles there and their house also was bombed. We haven't been able to communicate with them in the past three days. Communication has been lost so we don't know how they are doing, but we are used to that!

Those Palestinians, they are very dramatic. Ah, Israel is killing us', but they never die, he said.

I mean, they always come back. They are very difficult to kill, very difficult people to kill. I know, because I am married to one. I tried many times. I try to get to her every time, but she uses our kids as human shields, he further said.

When Morgan said he understood it was a dark humour by Youssef on the issue, Youssef replied, No, its not dark humour. I really try to get her every time but she uses our kids as human shields!

Youssef also took a dig at US columnist Ben Shapiro for his public stance on Israel defending themselves, questioning how an occupier can be defending themselves.

Shapiro had earlier on the show had said, "The only solution to the Israel-Gaza war is that Israel should annex Gaza and kill as many people so that what is happening does not happen again."

Youssef said, "More than 3,500 people have so far been killed. How many more people do we need to kill so that Ben Shapiro is happy?"

Youssef then went on to mock the Israeli Defence Forces or IDF and said, "I applaud Israel for doing something no military force in the world does. It warns civilians before bombing them, that is so cute."

"I asked my wife's family if Hamas forced them to stay home so that they could be bombed and can be used as human shields and she denied it," he told Morgan.

Youssef agreed that Hamas fighters should be eradicated, but asked why people were being killed in the West Bank where there is no Hamas presence.

"What is there excuse to kill people there?" Youssef said.

On being asked if he was Israeli and had this happened to him, Youssef said, "I would kill as many people as I can because the world is letting me do it."

Hamas is the source for all evil. Let's imagine a world without Hamas. Let's name this world the 'West Bank'. Thirty-seven Palestinian kids were killed - no music festival, no paragliding, no Hamas," he added.

Later on Wednesday, Youssef took to social media platform X and wrote, "I am posting this video again with the disclaimer that it was cut in the end . @piersmorgan @PiersUncensored said right after the end : the comparison is between Hamas and ISIS I am not posting this to score points over Piers . I disagree with Piers about a lot of things . But I do respect him bringing people with opposing views and giving them space to talk despite the heated conversations and interruptions (I am guilty of that too) . Piers : I dont like your opinion but I do respect you. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Invite me to London for an in studio interview . I fly first class. Who wants to see this ?

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The press freedom group said it is now working to quickly reunite Mortaza Behboudi with his wife, Alexandra, in Paris. HT Image

It is the end of a painful ordeal," said Christophe Deloire, the group's secretary general.

Behboudi was arrested on January 7, two days after he arrived in Afghanistan as part of a reporting assignment.

Behboudi was awarded the Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents last year for a series of reports about life in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime.(AP) RUP RUP

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Russia "highly values" North Korea's support for its Ukraine campaign, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Pyongyang on Wednesday, with Western concerns mounting over the historic allies' deepening military ties. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.(AFP)

Lavrov's comments came as he began a two-day visit to Pyongyang that is expected to lay the groundwork for a trip by President Vladimir Putin.

"We highly value your principled, unambiguous support for Russia's actions in connection with the special military operation in Ukraine," Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russia's RIA news agency.

The foreign minister's trip comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un travelled to Russia to meet Putin last month, his first trip abroad since the pandemic began.

Lavrov arrived in Pyongyang from Beijing, where Putin hailed Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday as an "old friend" during a rare trip abroad.

Putin, guest of honour at a summit celebrating Xi's vast Belt and Road investments project, told reporters the two had met alone "eye-to-eye" and that mounting global conflicts "strengthen" their countries' relations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov takes part in a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival in Pyongyang, North Korea on October 18.(Reuters)

Kim had travelled to Russia aboard a specially built bullet-proof train for his face-to-face meeting with Putin, declaring bilateral ties with Moscow were his country's "number one priority".

The high-profile summit fanned Western fears Pyongyang might provide Moscow with weapons for its drawn-out war in Ukraine.

On Friday, the United States said arms shipments were already under way, with North Korea delivering more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia in recent weeks.

Pyongyang was seeking a range of military assistance in return, including advanced technologies, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Weapons transfers

According to a graphic provided by the White House, a load of containers was shipped by sea from North Korea to Russia between September 1 and October 1.

They were then delivered by rail to an ammunition depot about 290 kilometres (180 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

But the Kremlin said Tuesday the United States had no evidence that weapons were being shipped.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov takes part in a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival in Pyongyang.(Reuters)

"They report this all the time, without providing any proof," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies when asked about the reported arms shipments.

Washington-based analysts Beyond Parallel last week separately released satellite images showing what they termed an "unprecedented" build-up of train traffic along Russia's border with North Korea.

The flurry of activity "likely indicates North Korea's supply of arms and munitions to Russia", the group said in its report.

While Russia has ramped up production of shells this year to a forecast 2.5 million, analysts have suggested that could fall short of its needs on the battlefield.

North Korea is a mass producer of conventional weaponry and known to be sitting on large stocks of Soviet-era war material -- albeit in unknown condition.

Top priority



Russia and North Korea are both under a raft of international sanctions -- Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, and Pyongyang for its testing of nuclear weapons.

The tightening of their alliance comes as relations between the two Koreas are at a historic low, with the North conducting a record-breaking series of weapons tests this year and recently enshrining its status as a nuclear state in its constitution.

South Korea has in turn moved to strengthen its security relationship with traditional ally the United States while entering a new trilateral arrangement that also includes Japan.

A US B-52 bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons landed Tuesday at Cheongju Airport, about 100 kilometres south of Seoul, Yonhap news agency reported.

Its arrival came less than a week after the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan docked in the southern port city of Busan, provoking anger from Pyongyang.

While B-52s have previously taken part in joint exercises over the peninsula, it marked the first time one has landed in the country since at least 2000, when such record-keeping began.
Russia on Thursday sent 27 tonnes of humanitarian aid for civilians in the Gaza Strip to be transported from Egypt, Moscow's emergency situations ministry said. Russian President Vladimir Putin (via REUTERS)

"A special plane has taken off from the airport at Ramenskoye near Moscow for El-Arish in Egypt. The Russian humanitarian aid will be handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent to be sent to the Gaza Strip," deputy minister Ilya Denisov said in a statement.

Denisov said the aid comprised "wheat, sugar, rice (and) pasta".

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled a deal to allow desperately-needed humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, where one million people have fled their homes amid withering Israeli air strikes.

After face-to-face talks in Israel and intense telephone diplomacy with Egypt, Biden said a limited number of trucks would be allowed to cross the shuttered Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza from Friday.

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Afghanistan's acting commerce minister Haji Nooruddin Azizi has said the Taliban administration wants to join China's Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. It will send a technical team to China for talks, he added. Taliban's acting commerce minister Haji Nooruddin Azizi. (REUTERS)

Since 2021, no governments in the world have recognised the Taliban government after it grabbed power with force. China, however, has been attempting to engage with the administration. Last month, it became the first country to appoint an ambassador to Kabul.

Azizi told Reuters that they had requested China to allow Afghanistan to be a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Belt and Road Initiative. He also said the two sides were holding technical discussions.

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is the flagship section of the Belt and Road Initiative.

In order to better understand the issues against Afghanistan's joining the initiative, the Taliban administration will send a technical team to China, he added.

Afghanistan, which had been reeling with successive wars over decades, has seen relative peace since Taliban took over. However, the Taliban has been accused of human rights violations, especially against women.

While Afghanistan can offer China untapped mineral wealth, the communist regime can offer them infrastructural development and technical support, along with loans that can help kickstart the country's stalled economy.

He added China must invest in Afghanistan. He said the country was ready for investment.

"China, which invests all over the world, should also invest in Afghanistan... we have everything they need, such as lithium, copper and iron," Azizi added.

Responding to security concerns emanating from ISIS, he said security was the top priority for the Taliban-run government.

"It is now possible to travel to provinces where there is industry, agriculture and mines that one previously could not visit... security can be guaranteed," Azizi added.

Afghanistan and 34 other countries agreed to work together on the digital economy and green development on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum on Wednesday.

With inputs from Reuters

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR HT News Desk Follow the latest breaking news and developments from India and around the world with Hindustan Times' newsdesk. From politics and policies to the economy and the environment, from local issues to national events and global affairs, we've got you covered. ...view detail
Political parties and their leaders may have different opinions in Kerala about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas over Gaza. Israel police officials.(Rep image)

But a group of people in a nondescript town in north Kerala have been diligently "working" for Israel before and after the deadly attack targeting civilians in that country by Hamas on October 7.

Hundreds of tailors from a local apparel unit in Kannur have been working tirelessly to get the uniform shirts ready for the Israel police force for the past eight years.

The politically volatile Kannur is also known for its glorious tradition of handloom making and textile export.

The tailors and employees at Maryan Apparel Pvt Limited in the district are behind the elegant light blue, long-sleeve uniform shirts of the Israel police force.

Not just the double-pocket shirts, but the unit also designs and attaches the trademark emblems to its sleeves.

Thomas Olickal, a Kerala businessman based in Mumbai, is the owner of the apparel unit, which currently employs over 1,500 trained staff.

Thomas, hailing from Thodupuzha in Idukki district, said the Israel police contacted the company even after the war began and placed additional orders for more uniforms.

He said they placed an order for a new product from this year and the first shipment would be made by December.

"They have ordered for the cargo pants and shirt uniform set for their police training. Fabric production is going on and we are planning to start stitching by November-end or the beginning of December," he told PTI.

"We have been supplying one lakh uniform shirts annually to the Israel police for the past eight years. It is really a matter of pride for us that we are supplying uniform shirts for a top-class police force like that of Israel," Olickal told a Malayalam news channel.

Launched at the state-run Kinfra Park here in 2006, the company specialises in the uniforms of army men, police personnel, security officers and health service workers from various countries across the globe.

It also supplies school uniforms, dresses for supermarket staff, doctors' coats, coveralls, corporate wear and so on.

The apparel unit was set up in Kannur with the objective of providing employment to local people who had become jobless due to the decline of the traditional beedi sector there.

Thomas said the Israel police had approached his company after coming to know they were specialising in uniform making.

"Their representatives came to Mumbai and discussed the deal. Later, they visited the factory here with their top officials, designers, and quality controller. They were here for nearly 10 days," he said.

Thomas Olickal said Israeli officials were very particular about perfection, and they would accept the stock only if it was perfectly fit and the quality was up to par.

He wanted the ongoing war to end at the earliest and peace to return in the region.

The war that began on October 7 has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,778 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded.

Another 1,200 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead.

More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed, and at least 199 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israel.

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A day after US President Joe Biden pledged solidarity with Israel, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday said the United Kingdom absolutely defends Israel's right to defend themselves in line with international law and to go after Hamas to take back hostages, deter further incursions and to strengthen Israel's security for long term. At the joint press conference, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Rishi Sunak for 'clear, unwavering support' since the day the war began. "I think the fact that you came to Israel does mean a lot. I said this to President Biden yesterday that there is one thing more heartwarming than standing by Israel and that is standing in Israel," Netanyahu said. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing a joint press meet on Thursday.

Calling Hamas the new Nazis, the new ISIS, Netanyahu said the fight is now not only Israel's but the world's fight against the 'Nazis'. "Hamas are the new Nazis, they are the new ISIS and we have to fight them together, just as the world, the civilised world united to fight the Nazis. This is not merely our battle, but the battle of the entire civilised world," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu held a private meeting with Sunal at his office in Jerusalem as Sunak reached Israel amid the ongoing conflict between the Israeli forces and Hamas that started on October 7. "I am in Israel, a nation in grief. I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism. Today, and always," Sunak said. Netanyahu told Sunak that the aim of the October 7 attack by Hamas was to destroy Israel's regional peace moves. Rishi Sunak welcomed Israel's decision to allow aid in Gaza.

Israel-Hamas war: UK PM Sunak visits Israel a day after Biden | 10 points

1. UK extended its support to Israel after Hamas launched an offensive on Israel on October 7.

2. Rishi Sunak's visit comes soon after a hospital in Gaza came under attack killing hundreds. The hospital was packed with patients when a rocket hit the hospital. While Hamas blamed Israel for the attack, Israel denied the charge and said it would never attack a hospital.

3. US President Joe Biden visited Israel on Wednesday and supported Israel's claim that they were not behind the Gaza hospital attack.

4. Netanyahu told Sunak that the war against Hamas will be a long one and Israel will need the UK's continuous support.

5. "We want you to win," Rishi Sunak told Netanyahu.

6. I am proud to stand here with you in Israel's darkest hour as your friend, Sunak said. The UK absolutely defends Israel's right to defend themselves in line with international law and to go after Hamas to take back hostages, Sunak said.

7. Netanyahu said the fight now is not only Israel's but the entire world's as the Hamas are the new Nazis, ISIS.

"We were on the cusp of expanding that peace, and destroying that move was one of the reasons why this action was taken," Netanyahu told Sunak about Hamas attack on October 7.

9. "Palesti8.nians are victims of what Hamas has done. It's important that we continue to provide humanitarian access," Sunak said.

10. Rishi Sunak will fly to Saudi Arabia on Thursday night and will hold talks with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak landed in Israel on Thursday, a Reuters witness said, beginning a visit in which he will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog before travelling on to other regional capitals. British Prime Minister at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, Near Tel Aviv(REUTERS)

Sunak will share his condolences for the loss of life in Israel and Gaza as a result of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Gaza-based Palestinian Hamas gunmen, his office said, and warn against further escalation of conflict in the region.

"Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas horrific act of terror," Sunak said in a statement ahead of his visit.

He said a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday which killed hundreds of Palestinians should be "a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict", pledging Britain would be at "the forefront of this effort".

Sunak will also urge the opening up of a route to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt as soon as possible, and to enable British nationals trapped in Gaza to leave.

At least seven British nationals have been killed and at least nine are missing since the attack on Israel, Sunak's spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Alongside Sunak's visit, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who visited Israel last week, will travel to Egypt, Turkey and Qatar over the next three days to discuss the conflict and seek a peaceful resolution, his office said.

Britain said the three countries were "vital to international efforts to uphold regional stability, free hostages and allow humanitarian access to Gaza".

Cleverly will meet with senior leaders there to discuss efforts to prevent the conflict spreading, the urgent need to open the Rafah crossing with Egypt to let aid reach those who need it and for Hamas to release hostages, Britain said.

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UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday arrived in Israel to show solidarity and support with Israel reeling from an October 7 rampage by Hamas militants. Sunak landed in Tel Aviv a day after US President Joe Biden met Israel's top leadership in the war-shed country. Rishi Sunak meets of family members of hostages being held by Hamas.(X/ @RishiSunak)

Sunak visited the families of those who were killed or being held hostage by the Hamas militants. "To have a child taken from you is a parents worst nightmare. This morning I heard from families going through this unbearable agony. Working with our partners, were determined to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists, he said in a post on X.

After landing at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, Sunak said, "Above all, I'm here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you."

According to his office, Sunak will meet with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel President Isaac Herzog and will share his condolences for the loss of life in Israel and Gaza as a result of the October 7 attack on Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel said it would allow limited aid to reach Gaza from Egypt provided none of it benefited Hamas. But it repeated its position that it will open its own checkpoints to let in aid only when all of the more than 200 hostages captured by the militants were set free.

The war between Israel and the Hamas militants entered its 13th day on Thursday. Tel Aviv has stationed its forces along the Gaza border, carrying out drills for a possible ground invasion to pursue Hamas militants. The war has claimed over 4,000 lives since it began on October 7 including around 1,400 Israelis and 2,750 Palestinians.
Two candidates are going head-to-head for the Cayuga County Legislature District 4 seat.

Republican incumbent Robert Shea and Democrat James Moore are running to represent the district, which is made up of Aurelius, Fleming and Springport.

Moore, who lives in Fleming, talked to The Citizen about issues facing the county and his top priorities if elected. He first shared what he believes would be the best use of county funds to support economic development agencies, such as the Cayuga Economic Development Agency and the Cayuga County Industrial Development Agency, amid recent concerns about CEDA's future.

As a recent graduate of the Leadership Cayuga program, Moore said he gained an understanding of CEDA and the IDA. He has spoken with business owners who received assistance from CEDA, and said they spoke highly of the organization. Moore said he is nervous about losing the branding of CEDA, and ultimately would want to talk to legislators and learn more before drawing a conclusion about what should be done with CEDA's $375,000 a year in county funding.

Moore next addressed how Cayuga County could benefit from Micron's promised $100 billion investment in central New York by building a chip plant in Clay. He said he wants to "figure out how we can promote filling the educational gaps that may exist" for ancillary jobs that may be created by the company's arrival in the area, adding that he believes Cayuga Community College could help do so. A graduate of the college, Moore called it "an underused resource." He also feels it is important to make sure there is enough housing for the people who may potentially move to the area due to Micron.

If elected, one of Moore's priorities would be making sure the county is being fiscally responsible and efficient with taxpayer dollars. Another would be honoring business practices and promoting economic growth. He also said it is important to make local drinking water is clean. Moore sees the benefits of working with local farmers, noting that he has seen concentrated feeding operations work with the county on water quality issues in the past. Farmers and the community must collaborate when combating these issues, Moore said.

"It's not just up to the big guys, everybody has to do their part. They may have a little bit more of an effect, but everyone still has to work together," he said. "I think it's important to take care of our unique natural resources and to utilize best farming practices."

Shea, who is retired, did not respond to multiple interview requests from The Citizen. He won his first Legislature race in 2021.
Israel-Hamas War Updates: US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi agreed to allow an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid into Gaza by Friday amid the ongoing war between Israel forces and Hamas militants. However, if Hamas militants confiscate the aid, it will end, Biden said. US President Joe Biden speaks to the press onboard of Air Force One en route from Israel, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, October 18. (REUTERS)

He (Sisi) agreed that he would open the gate to let up to 20 trucks through to begin with...They expect it will take about eight hours, probably until Friday... This has been a very blunt negotiation I've had, and so we want to get as many of the trucks out as possible. I guess, 150 or something... The commitment is if they cross the border, the UN is going to be on the other side and then distribute it, which is going to take a little time to set up, probably. But the point is that if Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through, then it's going to end because we are not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas, which is going to be confiscated. That's the commitment that I have made, Biden told reporters on board Air Force One.

Getting humanitarian relief supplies to Gaza was one of Biden's top goals in his trip to the Middle East. But the effort suffered a setback when Arab leaders, including Sisi, cancelled a planned meeting with Biden in Jordan following a deadly hospital blast in Gaza, which Arab nations blamed on Israel. The blast at Gaza City's al-Ahli Hospital killed around 500 people and put immense strain on the already-struggling medical system.

Follow Live Updates on Israel-Hamas war

Israel too said on Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came even as the fury over the blast spread across the Middle East.

Later, Biden wrote on social media X that he spoke to Sisi to deepen coordination on urgently delivering humanitarian assistance.

Earlier, I spoke with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt to deepen our coordination on urgently delivering humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza. Together, we'll work to preserve stability in the region, prevent escalation, and set circumstances for durable peace, Biden wrote.

There were contradicting claims of who was behind the blast on Tuesday night, but protests flared quickly in the region as many Arab leaders said Israel was responsible. Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

HT could not independently verify any of the claims or evidence.

Israel stopped all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on October 7. Israel has also carried out mass airstrikes on Gaza in response, killing thousands of Palestinians, and is preparing for a possible ground invasion.

As supplies run out, many families in Gaza have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water, news agency AP reported.

Roads are damaged on Gaza-Egypt border

Red Crescent for North Sinai Khalid Zayed told AP that Egypt must still repair the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes. Over 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the Rafah crossing, Gaza's only connection to Egypt.

Supplies will go in under the supervision of the UN, Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said, As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don't go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals," said a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed on Wednesday after a 12-hour lull. Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, including on cities in the south that Israel had described as safe zones for civilians.

(With inputs from agencies)

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US lawmaker Rashida Tlaib has accused the Joe Biden administration of funding a "genocide" against Palestinians and put the onus on Israeli military for bombing a hospital in Gaza, Fox News reported. Rep. Rashida Tlaib speaks during a demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza near the Capitol in Washington on October 18.(AP)

Rep Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American in the US Congress while addressing a pro-Parlestine rally on Capitol Hill on Wednesday broke down into tears and called for a ceasefire in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Follow Israel-Hamas war LIVE updates here.

"That's what's been really painful -- just continue to watch people think it's okay to bomb a hospital where children. You know, what's so hard sometimes is watching those videos and the people telling the kids, 'Don't cry.' But like, let them cry! And they're shaking, and somebody -- you know this -- they keep telling them not to cry in Arabic. They can cry, I can cry, we all can cry. If we're not crying, something is wrong," Tlaib said.

"I'm telling you right now President Biden, not all America is with you on this one. And you need to wake up and understand that," she added. "We are literally watching people commit genocide and killing a vast majority... and we still stand by and say nothing. We will remember this."

Still intermittently crying, she went on to tell protesters they were "on the right side of history."Tlaib first repeated Hamas' claim that Israel bombed the hospital in a Tuesday post on X after news of the explosion broke. Hamas continues to push the narrative despite video evidence and an assessment from the US National Security Council that a terrorist group's own rockets caused the reported damage and deaths, Fox News reported.

Palestinians gather around the debris of a house destroyed in an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 19.(Reuters)

"Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that," Tlaib tweeted on X platform.

Rep Ilhan Omar also called for a ceasefire in a tweet on Tuesday and stated that "the IDF reportedly blowing up" the hospital is "horrific."

She subsequently called for a "fully independent investigation to determine conclusively who is responsible for this war crime."

The remarks by Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have shown the "continuing fault lines within the Democratic Party on Israel, with the two representatives standing out in criticizing Israel's government as other Democrats have said they do not believe Israel was responsible for the explosion," ABC News said.

Republican lawmakers have also called on the two lawmakers to apologize and retract their tweets.

Rep. Mike Lawler on Wednesday that Tlaib and others should apologize for their remarks about the hospital explosion.

"It is appalling and unacceptable that Democrats in Congress partook in Hamas' misinformation campaign. ... Rep. Tlaib and her radical colleagues helped spread this insidious lie far and wide, without remorse, and as of this morning have yet to take down their posts, issue an apology, or place blame on the actual perpetrators with the same conviction," Lawler wrote as cited by ABC News.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, on Wednesday morning called for strong GOP House leadership to push back on what he said was Tlaib's "bias."

Democratic lawmakers have also "criticized those who fault Israel for the blast without more information."

Rep. Ritchie Torres without naming anybody slammed "critics" of Israel for jumping to conclusions on the hospital blast.

"Erroneous reports and some Members of Congress took the word of Hamas terrorists as truth following the horrific Al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing. They should remove their posts, update their headlines, and remember not to trust terrorists who brutally murdered innocent civilians," tweeted Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer.

United States President Joe Biden who arrived on Wednesday on an official visit to Tel Aviv backed Israel's claim that the explosion on the Gaza hospital seemed to have been carried out by the "other team" in reference to Palestine terror group Hamas.

He also asserted that the US will make sure that Israel would get what it requires to defend itself from Hamas attacks.

Addressing a joint media briefing with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said, "We have to also bear in mind that Hamas does not represent all the Palestinian people and it has brought them only suffering."

On Tuesday's attack on the Al-Ahli hospital, Biden said he was "deeply saddened" and "outraged" and emphasised that the preliminary data says that the explosion was done by Hamas.

The Biden administration's "current assessment," US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson in a tweet said "is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday." (ANI)
The United States encouraged India to take steps to offer equal legal protection to same-sex couples and was "closely monitoring follow-up steps" from the Indian government after the country's Supreme Court declined to legalise same-sex marriage, the US State Department said on Thursday. An activist holds a rainbow flag, a symbol of LGBT pride and LGBT social movements, in the courtyard of India's Supreme Court in New Delhi. (AFP)

India's top court on Tuesday declined to legalise same-sex marriage and left it to parliament to decide, agreeing with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government that the legislature is the right forum to rule on the issue.

The unanimous order by a five-judge bench came as a huge disappointment to the large LGBTQ community in the world's most populous country, five years after the court scrapped a colonial-era ban on gay sex.

"The United States supports marriage equality globally," a US State Department spokesperson said. "We are closely monitoring follow-up steps from the government and reactions from civil society on this issue following the court's ruling."

Modi's nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) administration had opposed petitions to the court on the issue, saying same-sex marriage is not "comparable with the Indian family unit concept of a husband, a wife and children."

"We will continue to voice our support for marriage equality and protections for LGBTQI persons against discrimination and encourage the Indian government to take the necessary steps to offer equal legal protection to same-sex couples," the State Department spokesperson said.

Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, said on Tuesday the Supreme Court "cannot make law. It can only interpret it and give effect to it."

Asia, a continent where conservative values still dominate society in many nations, largely lags behind the West in accepting same-sex marriage.

The US State Department said it regularly engages with the Indian government on human rights concerns, including over LGBT rights.

State Department reports have previously raised concerns over treatment of religious minorities, journalists and dissidents in India. New Delhi denies that such discrimination exists.
A US Navy ship on Thursday shot down missiles and drones that had been fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen, possibly at Israel, the Pentagon said. A ship of the US Navy(AFP)

Three "land-attack cruise missiles and several drones" were intercepted by a destroyer, a spokesman told reporters. The attack had been conducted from Yemen and "potentially toward targets in Israel."

The ship, USS Carney, was patrolling in the Red Sea as part of a heavily reinforced US military presence ordered by President Joe Biden to maintain stability in the wake of war between Israel and the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip.

The spokesman said that missiles were fired from Yemen where the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are at war with a government backed by a Saudi-led coalition.

According to the spokesman, there were no US casualties and "we cannot say for certain what these missiles were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen, heading north along the Red Sea."

READ | What does two US aircraft carriers in the Middle East mean amid Israel-Hamas War?

"Our defensive response was one we would have taken for any similar threat in the region," he said.

"We have the capability to defend our broader interests in the region and to deter regional escalation and broader expansion of the conflict that began with Hamas' attack on Israeli civilians."

Biden has ordered increased air and naval assets -- including dispatching two aircraft carriers -- to the Middle East to guard against the Israel-Hamas war spilling over in the tinderbox region.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon also ordered 2,000 personnel on standby for potential deployment.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the deployment would allow the United States "to respond more quickly" to the crisis, while the White House stressed it did not intend to put US combat forces on the ground.

US media reported the troops being readied for deployment would cover support roles, such as medical assistance and handling explosives.

Biden flew to Israel in a dramatic show of US support this week and was due to speak from the White House later Thursday in a speech urging Congress to fund military backing for Israel and another embattled US ally -- Ukraine.

Asked by journalists late Wednesday about reports that his administration had told Israel that US forces would fight alongside Israeli troops in response to any attack by the powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah against Israel, Biden said this was "not true."

However, he said that "our military is talking with their military about what the alternatives are" in the event of a Hezbollah attack.
Student loan borrowers in the US, numbering more than 300,000 have been given wrong repayment information, the Education Department informed on Thursday. Notably, borrowers have started making federal student loan payments in October after it was paused for more than three years because of the pandemic. Borrowers have started making federal student loan payments in October after it was paused for more than three years because of the pandemic.(AP)

According to a report by CBS News, the Education Department has ordered servicers to inform the affected borrowers. Meanwhile, the correct payment amount will be calculated in the case of those affected. The report says that wrong information has been provided to less than 1% of the 28 million borrowers who are reentering repayment this month.

"Because of the Department's stringent oversight efforts and ability to quickly catch these errors, servicers are being held accountable and borrowers will not have payments due until these mistakes are fixed," said the Education Department.

Notably, student loan payments have resumed in the US under the new income-driven repayment plan called the SAVE plan. The full form of SAVE is Saving on a Valuable Education. It was believed that under SAVE, some monthly payments may come out to be as small as $0.

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Student loan borrowers have also been facing customer service issues with their loan servicers. They are having to deal with dropped calls and long wait times while looking for answers and resolution from their servicers. The wrong repayment information issue adds to their plight.

Braxton Brewington of the Debt Collective, an advocacy group for people with student debt, highlighted the problems being faced by the borrowers.

"We've seen a lot of confusion and a lot of huge gaps from the servicers and the Department of Education. People are getting billed the wrong amounts, so when they have the problems they aren't able to reach their servicer," said Brewington.

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The world has been divided in its support in the wake of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. While majority have condemned the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas on Israel that triggered the war, some people have surprisingly sided with Hamas and Palestine. Mika Tosca(X(formerly Twitter)/@StopAntisemites)

Some people have tried to create an anti-Israel narrative on social media. In one such matter, an associate professor for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Dr. Mika Tosca recently made an anti-Israel post on Instagram.

Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement. The propaganda has been downright evil. After the past week, if your eyes arent open to the crimes against humanity that Israel is committing and has committed for decades, and will continue to commit, then I suggest you open them. Its disgusting and grotesque. May they all rot in hell, wrote Tosca.

Tosca has received widespread condemnation for her anti-Israel rant. Nonprofit group Stop Antisemitism tagged her employer on X(formerly Twitter) and called her a "hate filled instructor".

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Netizens on X(formerly Twitter) called her out and trolled the professor for her hate filled post. Some users demanded the institute to remove Tosca from the job.

"Wow. More revelations of character. And it's only been one week," wrote one user.

"Good Lord how can someone have so much hate. A teacher who knows about the holocaust and still continue to spew hatred like this. Vile," posted another person.

"This is full of so much hate and stereotyping from a Doctor and Associate Professor that should know better. In whose interest madam," commented a third person.

"She must be fired immediately. Such a narrow-minded fanatic antisemite must not be allowed to teach in any school nor near schools," tweeted a fourth user.

Meanwhile, in the last few days, US President Joe Biden and United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have visited Israel to take stock of the situation amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The world community is deeply worried that the ongoing war may spiral out of control leading to the involvement of multiple countries.

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President Biden is facing his worst approval ratings ever as he seeks a second term in office at the age of 80, a new poll shows. President Joe Biden talks to reporters aboard Air Force One during a refueling stop in at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, as he travels back from Israel to Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)(AP)

A CNBC survey released Wednesday revealed that 58% of Americans disapprove of how Biden is running the country. He got especially low scores for his economy  32% approve  and foreign policy  31% approve.

His own party is also losing faith in him.

Only 66% of Democrats support his foreign policy, and 74% approve of his economic policies. These numbers are much lower than his overall approval rating of 81% among Democrats.

These are distressing numbers for a president facing reelection, Republican pollster Micah Roberts told CNBC.

You dont get sub-40 approval ratings without losing large chunks of your base. And thats whats happening here.

Democratic pollster Jay Campbell told the outlet that Bidens ratings among young voters, blacks and Latinos are very troubling.

Its starting to show through in their decreasing regard for the president, Campbell said.

You start to think that maybe theyve run out of patience.

The poll also found that the President would lose to former President Donald Trump by 4 points if they ran against each other.

Trump would get 46% of the votes, while Biden would get 42%.

The poll was conducted after Israel declared war on Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. It showed that most Americans  74%  think that the US government should provide military aid to Israel.

However, only 39% said that US policy should favor Israel, while 6% said it should favor the Palestinians and 36% said it should be neutral.

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Another poll by Quinnipiac released Tuesday showed similar results. Only 42% of registered voters agree with Bidens response to the Hamas attack on Israel. According to the poll, an equal percentage supports US policy toward Israel.

Quinnipiac's findings also indicated that 56% of registered voters disapprove of Biden's performance.

During his visit to Israel on Wednesday, President Biden revealed a $100 million humanitarian aid package for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, alongside a commitment to request an "unprecedented" military aid package for Israel from Congress.

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After several Wall Street CEOs and founders announced their intent to deny jobs to Harvard and Columbia students who had openly supported Palestine and blamed Israel after the October 7 Hamas attacks, three of them are now facing repercussions. A demonstrator takes part in the "We Wont Back Down: All Out for Palestine" protest in support of Palestinians, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., October 16, 2023. REUTERS/Brian Snyder(REUTERS)

An elite law firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell, has rescinded job offers given to three Ivy League students associated with Palestine support letter.

Track Latest Updates on Hamas-Israel Conflict

Davis Polk's managing partner Neil Barr has confirmed the reports in an email stating, views expressed in the letter "are simply contrary to our firms values" and added that the firm is remaining in dialogue with two of the students.

It added that student leaders who signed onto the statements are "no longer welcome in our firm".

What did Harvard Columbia letters say

The students had signed the letter titled Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine condemned Israel in the wake of the violence. It went on to claim that Hamas attack, 'did not happen in a vacuum' and the Israeli government has forced Palestinians to live in 'an open-air prison for over two decades.'

A similar letter, signed by more than 20 student groups at Columbia stated, "The weight of responsibility for the war and casualties undeniably lies with the Israeli extremist government and other Western governments."

The students who have been denied jobs at the prestigious law firm attended Harvard and Columbia. Their names have not been revealed.

NYU Student lost job offer last week

Last week, another law firm, Winston & Strawn revoked a job offer to former New York University Student Bar Association president Ryna Workman, after Workman wrote that "Israel bears full responsibility" for Hamas deadly attack in Israel.

However, a BBC report says that an email sent by the managing partner, Neil Barr also indicates that a door has potentially been left open for a reversal of the decision. The law firm is reportedly talking to two of the students "to ensure that any further color being offered to us by these students is considered".

Harvard response to Hamas-Israel Conflict

The move comes a day after prominent Harvard alumni denounced a statement from a coalition of 34 university students organizations that said "the apartheid regime is the only one to blame" for the violence, referring to Israel. After a growing backlash against the university Harvard President Claudine Gay and senior leadership including 15 deans issued a statement on Monday that said they were "heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel this weekend."

"The silence from Harvard's leadership ... has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel," Summers wrote on social media platform X. I am sickened.

The decision on Tuesday by the firm - which employs around 1,000 attorneys and has annual revenues of $1.7bn (1.4bn) - comes as the views taken by US university students about the conflict in the Middle East continue to cause controversy on and off college campuses.

Harvard has been battling severe backlash after the letter went public, several student groups and leaders named as signatories later distanced themselves, some saying they were unaware of its full contents before it was published.

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In a bold move, President Biden recently journeyed to Israel, a nation embroiled in conflict, to express solidarity. However, before Air Force One even touched down at Ben Gurion Airport, several Arab allies signaled their disapproval by declining to meet him. Though Biden managed to secure a nod from Israel to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza, there was a conspicuous absence of assurance that Israel would handle the Hamas terror attack with measured caution, as opposed to unchecked fury. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden, left, pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. Miriam Alster/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo(via REUTERS)

To further complicate matters, aggressive missile fire resumed from both Gaza and Lebanon mere hours after Biden's departure.

But was the trip a waste? Not according to New York Times columnist David Firestone. For him, the visit was justifiable not just because of the objectives achieved, but also for the unspoken messages it conveyed. Firestone believes that Biden's choice to venture into an active conflict zone, amidst the palpable anger, destruction, and smoky aftermaths of blasts, was a powerful statement of America's continued global relevance in resolving international disputes and championing democracies.

This is especially poignant against the backdrop of the chaos unraveling in Washington during Biden's Israel trip. Firestone criticizes the Republicans in the House for their apparent inactivity, evidenced by their failure to appoint a speaker, pass vital spending bills, or prove that the legislative arm of the U.S. government can maintain coherence.

While Biden was interacting with Israeli emergency responders and Hamas attack victims' families, the Senate faced its own drama. A single Republican, inflamed by the abortion debate, is stalling the promotions of hundreds of military officers. Additionally, Jack Lew, an ardent Israel supporter nominated as its ambassador, encountered stiff opposition from Republican senators, primarily due to his involvement in the Obama-era Iran deal.

Firestone draws a stark contrast between an isolationist GOP, seemingly disengaged from international affairs and lingering on past ideological disputes, and Biden's proactive approach. The writer points out the party's tepid stance on protecting Ukraine against Russian advances, and its contrasting perspective, with Donald Trump praising Hezbollah and lauding Putin. The internal discord within the GOP might jeopardize critical military aid for Ukraine and Israel. Firestone also notes the immediate backlash from Republicans, including Senator Rick Scott, who proposed a bill to block aid to Gaza until the release of hostages by Hamas.

Invoking Robert Gates' description of the U.S. as the "dysfunctional superpower," Firestone references the growing belief, especially in China and Russia, of America's irreversible decline characterized by rising isolationism, intense political division, and domestic turmoil.

President Biden's commitment to an alternate vision for America's global role was evident during his Israel trip, something that baffled many, including Dennis Wilder, a former national security assistant to George W. Bush. However, Biden's unwavering belief in a proactive foreign policy, especially against aggression, terror, and violence, was evident.

However, the Arab world's strong conviction, fueled by claims made by Hamas about Israel's alleged hospital bombing, will likely complicate diplomatic endeavors for Biden and Antony Blinken, his Secretary of State.

In conclusion, Firestone emphasizes Israel's likely appreciation for Biden's on-ground support. He also speculates that Biden's campaign might use the president's assertive stance to counter claims of his declining capabilities. But more significantly, Biden's move might have assuaged the doubts of other nations about America's reliability, especially after Trump's erratic tenure.

According to Firestone, Biden's willingness to place himself in jeopardy to illustrate a better path forward, amid the mounting challenges, is commendable. However, the president might have to brace himself for even choppier journeys in the future.

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New York City's skyline is changing. A city often known for its towering luxury apartments has a less visible transformation occurring behind its iconic facades. A new report by The New York Times unravels how apartment combinations and the conversion of multi-unit buildings into single-family homes have resulted in the loss of over 100,000 apartments since 1950. A report on shrinking of housing facilities in the city of New York

Interestingly, apartment combinations has spiked since the 1990s, primarily in affluent areas like the Upper East Side, West Village, and Park Slope and are precisely the neighborhoods that, given their proximity to transit and jobs, should be welcoming new homes. However, despite the overall growth in apartment numbers over the decades, new construction hasn't matched the surge in population and housing demand.

Adam Brodheim, the researcher behind this analysis, emphasizes that his intention isn't to criticize those seeking more extensive living spaces. Instead, he wishes to highlight the ripple effect of such actions on the city's housing crisis. As per Brodheim, many buildings, constructed over a century ago as single-family homes and later divided into multiple units, have reverted to their original state. For instance, the rowhouses on West 88th Street have seen a significant decline in units over the past few decades.

The New York Times quotes Shields, who underscored the general desire for larger homes with a neighborhood feel, even if the building originally housed multiple families. Similarly, another narrative surrounds 12 East 72nd Street. Two decades ago, it comprised 23 apartments. However, after its purchase by Steve Croman in 2002, the entire building was transformed into a single-family residence.

Such trends contribute to the shortage of new housing in several neighborhoods, aggravating the housing affordability issue. Data indicates that while the Upper East Side added 3,000 housing units between 2010 and 2021, it lost around 3,000 due to apartment consolidations and demolitions.

Despite these challenges, Brodheim believes that the real issue lies in the city's policies. If adequate new housing was being constructed, apartment combinations wouldn't pose such a significant problem.

Concluding on a different note, while the city's affluence grows, it remains uncertain if merging apartments will always yield good returns. Some real estate experts argue that such renovations only make economic sense if the resulting homes can fetch a high price.

(Disclaimer: Several parts of the text in this article were generated with the help of an AI tool.)

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The Red Creek teen who led police on a chase that ended in downtown Auburn in August pleaded guilty on Thursday to attempting to injure officers with the car he was driving.

Kevin Allen Huntington Jr., 19, pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted aggravated assault upon a police officer with a deadly weapon, a class C felony, and several other charges before Judge Thomas Leone in Cayuga County Court. Pending cooperation with a presentence agreement, he will be sentenced to seven years in prison and five years of post-release supervision on Feb. 1.

Huntington, and a minor, stole a vehicle in Auburn that was spotted by New York State Police in the town of Victory on Aug. 11. Troopers pursued the vehicle back into the city, and along the way were joined by the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office and Auburn Police Department. Huntington and the minor were apprehended on foot after spike strips were used on the vehicle near McMaster Street.

Along with attempted aggravated assault upon a police officer, Huntington was charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property (a class E felony), second-degree unauthorized use of a motor vehicle (a class E felony), third-degree unlawful fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle (a class A misdemeanor) and reckless driving (an unclassified misdemeanor) as a result of the chase. Before it began in Victory he initiated physical contact against someone who had an order of protection against him, prompting an additional charge of first-degree criminal contempt.

Huntington was also charged in August with second-degree assault (a class D violent felony) for attacking a victim at 110 Owasco St. two days before the chase. Questioned during his guilty plea by Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher Valdina in court Thursday, Huntington said he used brass knuckles in the attack, which sent the victim to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse for stitches.

Prompted by Valdina, Huntington also admitted that he swerved at police officers during the chase with the intention of causing serious physical injury to them.

Before pleading guilty to all charges, Huntington faced up to 15 years in prison for each of the three class C felony counts. His sentence of seven years for each would satisfy his other charges and run concurrently. The sentence would also run concurrently with a sentence of two to six years he is currently serving at Elmira Correctional Facility for first-degree reckless endangerment in Wayne County.

Also in court Thursday morning

 Matthew J. Grzasko, 42, was sentenced to five years of probation with felony drug court for a charge of first-degree criminal contempt: weapon, a class E felony.

 Joshua Perreault, 37, was sentenced to one to three years in prison for two counts of fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, a class E felony.

 Jamar A. Robinson, 39, was sentenced to three years in prison and three years of post-release supervision for second-degree strangulation, a class D felony.

 James B. Yon Jr., 54, was sentenced to one to three years in prison each for third-degree criminal possession of a weapon (a class D felony), third-degree burglary (a class D felony) and aggravated family offense (a class E felony), and 364 days in prison each for second-degree menacing (a class A misdemeanor) and petit larceny (a class A misdemeanor). All sentences will run concurrently.

Gallery: Two apprehended after high-speed chase through Auburn
Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, US State Department has issued worldwide caution in the interest of its citizens. Taking to the website travel.state.gov on October 19, 2023, the US State Department also gave guidelines and instructions in the wake of rising security risks around the world. Representational Picture(Getty Images)

"Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution," reads the travel advisory.

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Here are the guidelines and instructions that the US State Department has given

Stay alert in locations frequented by tourists.

Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive information and alerts and make it easier to locate you in an emergency overseas.

Follow the Department of State on Facebook and Twitter.

US travel advisory for Lebanon

Notably, just one day ago, the US Embassy in Lebanon had updated the travel advisory to Level 4: Do Not Travel.

"Due to the unpredictable security situation in Lebanon, the Department of State has authorized the voluntary departure of family members of U.S. government personnel and some non-emergency personnel on a case-by-case basis from U.S. Embassy Beirut," read the advisory as per the official website of the US Embassy in Lebanon.

Situation in Israel

Meanwhile, tensions between Israel and Hamas have reached peak levels after a misfired rocket hit a hospital and reportedly killed nearly 300 Palestinians. However, there is no official evidence about who fired the rocket. The incident has sparked outrage among anti-Israel voices around the world, leading to violent protests as well.

Amid the ongoing war, Israel is also facing retaliatory attack in its territory. On Thursday, missiles were fired towards Israel's Tel Aviv region. Meanwhile, Israel has killed several leaders of Hamas in its ongoing offensive.

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The prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway has admitted that he bludgeoned her to death. Joran van der Sloot appeared in an Alabama court, where prosecutors said that he confessed that he killed Natalee for refusing his sexual advances. Natalee Holloway disappeared from the Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005 (Natalee Holloway Resource Center/Facebook)

Natalee disappeared from the Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005. She was 18 at the time. She went missing during a trip with school friends, and was reportedly last seen with a Dutch citizen. Despite Jorans confession, US District Judge Anna M. Manasco has said that Natalees remains will never be found.

Why will Natalee Holloways remains never be found?

The judge said that Natalees remains will never be found because Joran placed them in the ocean after murdering her. Joran confessed that Natalee kneed him in the crotch after he tried feeling her up, and he, in retaliation, kicked her in the face and bludgeoned her with the cinder block. According to an interview transcript, Joran then decided to push her off into the ocean.

Since Natalees murder, her body has never been found. An Alabama judge signed an order and declared her legally dead back in 2012.

I have no doubt she would have made all her dreams come true

Jorans confession is part of a plea deal in which the 36-year-old suspect pleaded guilty to trying to extort $250,000 from Natalees family in exchange for information on her death. He claimed that her death has haunted him for years.

In Birmingham, Alabama, Judge Manasco sentenced Joran to 20 years in federal prison on Wednesday, October 18  a sentence that will continue to run concurrently with his 28-year sentence for murdering Stephany Flores in Peru.

Natalees mother, Beth, addressed Joran directly during the sentencing, saying, according to the Daily Mail, You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005. You didn't get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her.

I paid my daughter's killer money. That's shocking. I don't think anyone can really wrap their mind around what that means... I have no doubt she would have made all her dreams come true. She really would have, she added. By the way you look like hell, Joran. I do not see how you're gonna make it ... You are a killer and I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams.

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Maiquetia (Venezuela), Oct 19 (AP) Deportation flights of Venezuelans from the US resumed Wednesday with a first plane of more than a hundred migrants landing back in their economically troubled country under the Biden administration's latest efforts to deal with swelling numbers of asylum-seekers. HT Image

This is the first time in years that US immigration authorities are deporting people to the South American nation, marking a significant concession by the government of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro to a longtime adversary.

The first plane, a Boeing 737 jet, took off from the Texas border city of Harlingen and touched down in Miami before arriving hours later outside Caracas, Venezuela's capital. The roughly 130 passengers were Venezuelan women and men who were shuttled to the plane on buses, and wore wrist and ankle restraints. As they boarded, US immigration officers patted them down.

This flight to Venezuela is the first I've seen in my career of an entire charter flight of Venezuelans going back to their country. And we plan on having several more of these in the coming days and weeks, said Corey Price, an acting executive associate director for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Price said those who were prioritized for the flights include recent arrivals as well as migrants who have committed crimes in the US Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens said the passengers had illegally entered the US between ports of entry.

The Biden administration said it plans to have multiple deportation flights a week to Venezuela, according to a US Transportation Department waiver on travel restrictions, which would place Venezuela among the top international destinations for US immigration authorities. The government employs a fleet of charter carriers known collectively as ICE Air.

The deportees will find a homeland that is still in the midst of complex social, political and economic crises.

The situation has evolved since a global drop in the price of oil  Venezuela's most valuable resource  a decade ago and mismanagement by the self-proclaimed socialist government pushed the country into a downward spiral. People are grappling with constant food-price hikes and business closures, and workers try to meet their needs with a monthly minimum wage of USD 3.70 that's barely enough to buy a gallon of water.

Using charter airlines though, these flights, which typically carry 135 migrants, will fly to Venezuela from unspecified airports in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security. They will be for Venezuelans who have received final removal orders, which are issued after losing an asylum bid or to those who weren't able to seek humanitarian protection.

The flights are in response to "an increase in migration from Venezuela that is straining immigration systems throughout the hemisphere  including in the United States, the Transportation Department said in its waiver.

The US has struggled for years to deport people to countries with which it has strained diplomatic relations, including Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. After a hiatus of more than two years, Cuba allowed for the resumption of US deportations in April, with deportation flights there operating only about once a month.

The restarted flights to Venezuela come after the country's government and opposition agreed to work on electoral conditions that are expected to trigger relief from US energy sanctions on the Maduro government.

The US government hopes the threat of deportation will be enough to make Venezuelans reconsider trying to enter the United States illegally  and opt instead for the online appointment system to make asylum claims or attempt other legal paths. But it has not deterred many people from continuing to migrate.

Venezuelan migration to the U.S. tapered off a year ago when the Biden administration agreed to allow Venezuelans to enter the country if they applied online with a financial sponsor who also arrived at the airport. More than 61,000 Venezuelans came on that route since last October.

The restart of the deportation flights takes places just weeks after the Biden administration announced that it is granting temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans that have arrived in the US by July 31.

The temporary status makes it easier for them to get work authorization and stop deportation orders.

Experts and immigration attorneys are urging Venezuelans to apply to TPS to prevent their repatriation.

Venezuelans who have not applied for TPS and have deportation orders could be affected, said Rachel Leon, an immigration attorney in Florida. Those who are eligible for TPS should apply as soon as possible to avoid facing deportation.

At the same time, Mexico agreed to let in some Venezuelans who were deported from the U.S. after crossing the border illegally, recognizing that Venezuela wouldn't.

The lull was short-lived. In August, Venezuelans were arrested more than 22,000 times on charges of crossing the border illegally, fourth behind people migrating from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. Many head to New York, Chicago and other major US cities, overwhelming shelters and temporary housing there. (AP) RPA

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As desperate Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza try to find refuge under Israels relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 attack, some ask why neighboring Egypt and Jordan dont take them in. Palestinians flee on foot from Gaza City to southern Gaza after being told to leave their homes in the north by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip on October 13.(Bloomberg)

The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population. Follow Israel-Hamas war LIVE updates.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his toughest remarks yet on Wednesday, saying the current war was not just aimed at fighting Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to ... migrate to Egypt. He warned this could wreck peace in the region.

Jordans King Abdullah II gave a similar message a day earlier, saying, No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.

Their refusal is rooted in fear that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries and nullify Palestinian demands for statehood. El-Sissi also said a mass exodus would risk bringing militants into Egypts Sinai Peninsula, from where they might launch attacks on Israel, endangering the two countries 40-year-old peace treaty.

Here is a look at what is motivating Egypts and Jordans stances.

A HISTORY OF DISPLACEMENT



Displacement has been a major theme of Palestinian history. In the 1948 war around Israels creation, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from what is now Israel. Palestinians refer to the event as the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe.

In the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 300,000 more Palestinians fled, mostly into Jordan.

The refugees and their descendants now number nearly 6 million, most living in camps and communities in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The diaspora has spread further, with many refugees building lives in Gulf Arab countries or the West.

In this June 22, 1967 file photo, Palestinian refugees carry their belongings as they prepare to cross the wrecked Allenby Bridge over the Jordan River from the Israeli-occupied section of Jordan.(AP)

After fighting stopped in the 1948 war, Israel refused to allow refugees to return to their homes. Since then, Israel has rejected Palestinian demands for a return of refugees as part of a peace deal, arguing that it would threaten the countrys Jewish majority.

Egypt fears history will repeat itself and a large Palestinian refugee population from Gaza will end up staying for good.

NO GUARANTEE OF RETURN

Thats in part because theres no clear scenario for how this war will end.

Israel says it intends to destroy Hamas for its bloody rampage in its southern towns. But it has given no indication of what might happen afterward and who would govern Gaza. That has raised concerns that it will reoccupy the territory for a period, fueling further conflict.

The Israeli military said Palestinians who followed its order to flee northern Gaza to the strips southern half would be allowed back to their homes after the war ends.

Egypt is not reassured.

Palestinians flee from northern Gaza to the south after the Israeli army issued an unprecedented evacuation warning on Oct. 13, 2023.(AP)

El-Sissi said fighting could last for years if Israel argues it hasnt sufficiently crushed militants. He proposed that Israel house Palestinians in its Negev Desert, which neighbors the Gaza Strip, until it ends its military operations.

Israels lack of clarity regarding its intentions in Gaza and the evacuation of the population is in itself problematic, said Riccardo Fabiani, Crisis Group Internationals North Africa Project Director. This confusion fuels fears in the neighborhood.

Egypt has pushed for Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and Israel said Wednesday that it would, though it didn't say when. According to United Nations, Egypt, which is dealing with a spiraling economic crisis, already hosts some 9 million refugees and migrants, including roughly 300,000 Sudanese who arrived this year after fleeing their countrys war.

But Arab countries and many Palestinians also suspect Israel might use this opportunity to force permanent demographic changes to wreck Palestinian demands for statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which was also captured by Israel in 1967.

El-Sissi repeated warnings Wednesday that an exodus from Gaza was intended to eliminate the Palestinian cause  the most important cause of our region. He argued that if a demilitarized Palestinian state had been created long ago in negotiations, there would not be war now.

All historical precedent points to the fact that when Palestinians are forced to leave Palestinian territory, they are not allowed to return back, said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Egypt doesnt want to be complicit in ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Arab countries fears have only been stoked by the rise under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of hard-right parties that talk in positive terms about removing Palestinians. Since the Hamas attack, the rhetoric has become less restrained, with some right-wing politicians and media commentators calling for the military to raze Gaza and drive out its inhabitants. One lawmaker said Israel should carry out a new Nakba on Gaza.

WORRIES OVER HAMAS

At the same time, Egypt says a mass exodus from Gaza would bring Hamas or other Palestinian militants onto its soil. That might be destabilizing in Sinai, where Egypt's military fought for years against Islamic militants and at one point accused Hamas of backing them.

Egypt has backed Israels blockade of Gaza since Hamas took over in the territory in 2007, tightly controlling the entry of materials and the passage of civilians back and forth. It also destroyed the network of tunnels under the border that Hamas and other Palestinians used to smuggle goods into Gaza.

With the Sinai insurgency largely put down, Cairo does not want to have a new security problem on its hands in this problematic region, Fabiani said.

El-Sissi warned of an even more destabilizing scenario: the wrecking of Egypt and Israels 1979 peace deal. He said that with the presence of Palestinian militants, Sinai would become a base for attacks on Israel. Israel would have the right to defend itself ... and would strike Egyptian territory.

The peace which we have achieved would vanish from our hands, he said, all for the sake of the idea of eliminating the Palestinian cause.

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Ana Maria Salhuana, deputy country director of the World Food Programme in Afghanistan, said it was helping survivors but it urgently needed more funding because "we are having to take this food from an already severely underfunded programme". HT Image

The group said it is working to provide emergency food assistance to 100,000 people in the region.

Disasters like these earthquakes pound communities who are already barely able to feed themselves back into utter destitution," the WFP said.

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck part of western Afghanistan on Sunday, after thousands of people died and entire villages were flattened by major quakes a week earlier. It was the fourth quake the US Geological Survey has measured at 6.3 magnitude in the same area in just over a week.

The initial earthquakes on October 7 flattened whole villages in Herat province and were among the most destructive quakes in the country's recent history.

The WFP said staffers responded within hours of the first earthquakes, distributing fortified biscuits, pulses and other food items to affected families in destroyed villages.

An estimated 25,000 buildings have been destroyed," the group said a statement. The survivors are currently sleeping in tents next to the rubble of their homes, desperate and afraid of further earthquakes and aftershocks.

The latest quake was centered about 30 kilometres (19 miles) outside the city of Herat, the capital of Herat province, and was 6 kilometres (4 miles) below the surface, the US Geological Survey said.

More than 90 per cent of the people killed were women and children, UN officials said. The quakes struck during the daytime, when many of the men in the region were working outdoors.

Taliban officials said the earlier quakes killed more than 2,000 people across the province. The epicenter was in Zenda Jan district, where the majority of casualties and damage occurred.

The WFP said affected families will need help for months with winter just weeks away. It said that if there is funding, the emergency response will be complemented by longer-term resilience programs so vulnerable communities are able to rebuild their livelihoods.

The UN body was forced earlier this year to reduce the amount of food families receive and to cut 10 million people in Afghanistan from life-saving food assistance due to a massive funding shortfall.

In addition to the earthquake response, the WFP also urgently needs USD 400 million to prepare food before winter, when communities are cut off due to snow and landslides. In Afghanistan, these include communities of women who are being increasingly pushed out of public life.

The initial quake, numerous aftershocks and a third 6.3-magnitude quake on Wednesday flattened villages, destroying hundreds of mud-brick homes that could not withstand such force. Schools, health clinics and other village facilities also collapsed.

Besides rubble and funerals after that devastation, there was little left of the villages in the region's dusty hills. Survivors are struggling to come to terms with the loss of multiple family members and in many places, living residents are outnumbered by volunteers who came to search the debris and dig mass graves.

Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, where there are a number of fault lines and frequent movement among three nearby tectonic plates. (AP) RPA
The following is a readout of US President Joe Biden's concluding speech of his one-day visit to Israel since it declared a state of war against Hamas.

I come to Israel with a single message: You are not alone. You are not alone.

As long as the United States stands - and we will stand forever - we will not let you ever be alone.

Most importantly, I know the recent terrorist assault on the people of this nation has left a deep, deep wound.

More than 1,300 innocent Israelis killed, including at least 31 American citizens, by the terrorist group Hamas.

Hundreds of young people at a music festival for peace - for peace - gunned down as they ran for their lives.

Scores of innocents - from infants to elderly grandparents, Israelis and Americans - taken hostage.

Children slaughtered. Babies slaughtered. Entire families massacred.

Rape, beheadings, bodies burned alive.

Hamas committed atrocities that recall the worst ravages of ISIS, unleashing pure unadulterated evil upon the world.

There is no rationalizing it, no excusing it. Period.

The brutality we saw would have cut deep anywhere in the world, but it cuts deeper here in Israel.

October 7th, which was a sacred Jewish holiday, became the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. It has brought to the surface painful memories and scars left by a millennia of antisemitism and the genocide of the Jewish people.

The world watched then, it knew, and the world did nothing. We will not stand by and do nothing again. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

To those who are living in limbo waiting desperately to learn the fate of loved ones, especially to families of the hostages: You're not alone.

We're working with partners throughout the region, pursuing every avenue to bring home those who are being held captive by Hamas.

I can't speak publicly about all the details, but let me assure you: For me as the American president, there is no higher priority than the release and safe return of all these hostages.

To those who are grieving a child, a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend, I know you feel like there's that black hole in the middle of your chest. You feel like you're being sucked into it.

The survivor's remorse, the anger, the questions of faith in your soul.

Starting at that empty chair, sitting Shiva. The first Sabbath without them.

They are the everyday things - the small things that you miss the most.

The scent when you open the closet door. The morning coffee you shared together.

The bend in his smile, the perfect pitch of her laugh, the giggle of your little boy - the baby.

For those who have lost loved ones, this is what I know: They'll never be truly gone. There's something that's never fully lost: your love for them and their love for you.

And I promise you, you'll be walking along some days and say, "What would she or he want me to do?" You'll smile when you pass a place that reminds you of them. That's when you know - when a smile comes to your lips before a tear to your eye - that's when you know you're going to fully make it.

That's what will give you the fortitude to find light in the darkest hours when terrorists believe they could bring you down, bend your will, break your resolve. But they never did, and they never will.

Instead, we saw incredible stories of heroism and courage of Israelis taking care of one another.

Neighbors forming watch groups to protect their kibbutz, opening their homes to shelter survivors.

Retired soldiers running into danger once again.

Civilian medics flying rescue missions. And off-duty medics at the musical festival caring for the wounded before becoming a victim themselves.

Volunteers retrieving bodies of the dead so families could bury their loved ones in accordance with Jewish tradition.

Reservists leaving behind their families, their honeymoons, their studies abroad without hesitation.

And so much more.

The State of Israel was born to be a safe place for the Jewish people of the world. That's why it was born. I have long said: If Israel didn't exist, we would have to invent it.

And while it may not feel that way today, Israel must again be a safe place for the Jewish people. And I promise you: We're going to do everything in our power to make sure that it will be.

Seventy-five years ago, just 11 minutes after its founding, President Harry S. Truman and the United States of America became the first nation to recognize Israel. We have stood by your side ever since, and we're going to stand by your side now.

My administration has been in close touch with your leadership from the first moments of this attack, and we are going to make sure you have what you need to protect your people, to defend your nation.

For decades, we've ensured Israel's qualitative military edge. And later this week, I'm going to ask the United States Congress for an unprecedented support package for Israel's defense.

We are going to keep Iron Dome fully supplied so it can continue standing sentinel over Israeli skies, saving Israeli lives.

We have moved US military assets to the region, including positioning the USS Ford carrier strike group in the Eastern Mediterranean, with the USS Eisenhower on the way, to deter - to defer further aggression against Israel and to prevent this conflict from spreading.

The world will know that Israel is stronger than ever.

And my message to any state or any other hostile actor thinking about attacking Israel remains the same as it was a week ago: Don't. Don't. Don't.

Since this terrorist attack took place, we have seen it described as Israel's 9/11. But for a nation the size of Israel, it was like 15 9/11s. The scale may be different, but I'm sure those horrors have tapped into some kind of primal feeling in Israel, just like it did and felt in the United States.

Shock, pain, rage - an all-consuming rage. I understand, and many Americans understand.

You can't look at what has happened here to your mothers, your fathers, your grandparents, sons, daughters, children - even babies - and not scream out for justice. Justice must be done.

But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it.

After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

I'm the first U.S. president to visit Israel in time of war.

I've made wartime decisions. I know the choices are never clear or easy for the leadership. There's always costs.

But it requires being deliberate. It requires asking very hard questions. It requires clarity about the objectives and an honest assessment about whether the path you are on will achieve those objectives.

The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.

Hamas uses innocent families in Gaza as human shields, putting their command centers, their weapons, their communications tunnels in residential areas.

The Palestinian people are suffering greatly as well. We mourn the loss of innocent Palestinian lives. Like the entire world, I was outraged and saddened by the enormous loss of life yesterday in the hospital in Gaza.

Based on the information we've seen to date, it appears the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.

The United States unequivocally stands for the protection of civilian life during conflict, and I grieve - I truly grieve for the families who were killed or wounded by this tragedy.

The people of Gaza need food, water, medicine, shelter.

Today, I asked the Israeli cabinet - who I met with for some time this morning - to agree to the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. Based on the understanding that there will be inspections and that the aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas, Israel agreed that humanitarian assistance can begin to move from Egypt to Gaza.

Read Also: Israel Allows Egypt to Deliver Humanitarian Goods into Gaza

Let me be clear: If Hamas diverts or steals the assistance, they will have demonstrated once again that they have no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people and it will end. As a practical matter, it will stop the international community from being able to provide this aid.

We're working in close cooperation with the government of Egypt; the United Nations and its agencies, like the World Food Program; and other partners in the region to get trucks moving across the border as soon as possible.

Separately, I asked Israel that the global community demand that the International Red Cross be able to visit hostages, a just demand that the United States fully supports.

Today, I'm also announcing $100 million in new US funding for humanitarian assistance in both Gaza and the West Bank. This money will support more than 1 million displaced and conflict-affected Palestinians, including emergency needs in Gaza.

You are a Jewish state, but you're also a democracy. And like the United States, you don't live by the rules of terrorists. You live by the rule of law. And when conflicts flare, you live by the law of wars.

What sets us apart from the terrorists is we believe in the fundamental dignity of every human life - Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, Jew, Muslim, Christian - everyone.

You can't give up what makes you who you are. If you give that up, then the terrorists win. And we can never let them win.

You know, Israel is a miracle - a triumph of faith and resolve and resilience over impossible pain and loss.

Think about October 7th - the Jewish holiday where you read about the death of Moses. A tragic story of a profound loss to an entire nation. A death that could have left hopelessness in the hearts of an entire nation.

But though Moses died, his memory, his message, his lessons have lived on for generations of the Jewish people as well as many others - and just as the memory of your loved ones will live on as well.

After reading the story of Moses's death, those who observe the holiday begin reading the Torah from the very beginning. The story of creation reminds us of two things. First, when we get knocked down, we get back up again and we begin anew. And second, when we are faced with tragedy and loss, we must go back to the beginning and remember who we are.

We are all human beings created in the image of God with dignity, humanity, and purpose. In the darkness, to be the light unto the world is what we're about.

You inspire hope and light for so many around the world. That's what the terrorists seek to destroy. That's what they seek to destroy because they live in darkness - but not you, not Israel.

Nations of conscience like the United States and Israel are not measured solely by the example of their power. We're measured by the power of our example.

That's why, as hard as it is, we must keep pursuing peace. We must keep pursuing a path so that Israel and the Palestinian people can both live safely, in security, in dignity, and in peace.

For me, that means a two-state solution.

We must keep working for Israel's greater integration with its neighbors. These attacks have only strengthened my commitment and determination and my will to get that done.

I'm here to tell you that terrorists will not win. Freedom will win.

So, let me end where I began. Israel, you are not alone. The United States stands with you.

I told the story before and I'll tell it again of my first meeting with an Israeli prime minister 50 years ago as a young senator. I was sitting across from Golda Meir at her desk in her office. And she had a guy who later became prime minister sitting next to me, just before the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

And she flipped the maps up and down, telling me how bad things were and how terrible they were. All of the sudden, she looked at me, and she said, "Would you like a photograph?"

And I looked at her - she got up from her desk and walked out into that hallway - I think it's marble flooring - and walked out in the hallway.

We walked out, and there were a bunch of photographers standing in front of us. We were standing shoulder to shoulder.

Without her looking at me, she said to me, knowing I'd hear her, "Why do you look so worried, Senator Biden?"

And I said, "Worried?" Like, "Of course, I'm worried."

And she said, "Don't worry, Senator, we Israelis have a secret weapon: We have nowhere else to go."

Well, today, I say to all of Israel: The United States isn't going anywhere either. We're going to stand with you. We'll walk beside you in those dark days, and we'll walk beside you in the good days to come. And they will come.

As you say in Hebrew - which I'm not going to attempt to do because I'm such a terrible linguist - I'll say it in English: "The people of Israel live."

Israel will be a safe, secure, Jewish, and Democratic state today, tomorrow, and forever.

May God protect all those who work for peace. God save those who are still in harm's way.

Related Article: Biden Arrives In Israel, Tells PM Netanyahu Hospital Blast Done by 'Other Team'

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(Photo : Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Law enforcement personnel arrested hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters who swarmed Capitol Hill while demanding for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Law enforcement authorities arrested roughly 300 pro-Palestine protesters who swarmed Capitol Hill demanding a ceasefire in Gaza amid the brutal attacks on the region.

The Wednesday demonstrations could be seen in video footage from inside the Cannon Office Building. They showed a large group of people chanting "Ceasefire Now!" and called on Congress to demand a stop to the fighting in Israel. The protesters were also seen wearing black T-shirts that read, "Jews Say Ceasefire Now!"

Capitol Hill Protest

The Jewish Voice for Peace group posted a message on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying that more than 350 demonstrators were inside the large rotunda. These included two dozen rabbis as thousands of others were outside protesting.

The U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) released a statement saying that demonstrations were not allowed inside congressional buildings. They also conducted efforts to clear the crowd in the area while warning protesters to stop demonstrating. When the demonstrators did not comply with the orders, police arrested them, as per Fox News.

USCP later said that about 300 protesters were taken into custody following the demonstration on Capitol Hill. These included at least three individuals who were charged with assault on a police officer during the protests.

Additionally, law enforcement authorities said that demonstrators who were inside the Cannon Rotunda will be charged with illegally protesting inside a House office building. Authorities said that at 6:00 p.m. the rotunda was clear of illegal demonstrators and that USCP was processing the arrests.

Law enforcement officials also noted that more demonstrators were walking in the roadway around the House side of the Capitol Complex and opted to temporarily roll out road closures for safety.

Capitol Police said that initially, the protesters entered the building legally and properly through visitor security checkpoints. However, they added that the demonstrators later failed to follow police warnings, according to CBS News.

Read Also: GOP Lawmakers Urge To Ban Palestinian Refugees From Entering US

Israel-Hamas Conflict

Before this protest, hundreds of individuals gathered on the National Mall near the Capitol and called on United States President Joe Biden's administration to call for a ceasefire. A Vermont resident, 32-year-old Hannah Lawrence, said that the Democratic president is the only one who has the power to pressure Israel right now.

She argued that Biden needs to do so right now and make use of his power to save innocent lives who were caught up in the conflict. A 71-year-old rabbi from Philadelphia, Linda Holtzman, demanded an immediate ceasefire and urged the president to "open your eyes."

The Capitol Hill protests followed the widespread condemnation of the destruction of a hospital in Gaza that was later revealed to have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and medical workers. Palestinian and Israeli officials have traded blame for the incident despite the latter initially claiming credit for the attack.

Since the Hamas militant group's attack on Israel on Oct. 7, President Biden has expressed his support for the U.S.' Middle Eastern ally. At the time, gunmen from the terrorist group that controlled Gaza broke through Israel's border and killed more than 1,400 people, said the Washington Post.

Related Article: Readout of Biden's Remarks on Hamas's Sabbath Attack, Resilience of Israel

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A secretary for a judge in Queens, Jenny Hannigan, was arrested and banned in New York Court after yelling at Former President Donald Trump while seated in the courtroom during his civil trial in the Manhattan Supreme Court.

According to the New York State Unified Court System spokesman, Hannigan interrupted the legal proceedings by standing up, walking toward the front of the courtroom, and yelling out to Trump.

NY Court Employee Disrupted Trump Fraud Trial

Per ABC News, Hannigan said that she intended to assist Trump. Office of Court Administration spokesman Lucian Chalfen said the court officers stopped Hannigan before she got near Trump and other attorneys or litigants at the defense table.

The officers accompanied Hannigan out of the courtroom and courthouse. She was charged with second-degree contempt of court for disrupting a court proceeding. Hannigan has been placed on immediate administrative leave and was banned from entering any court building.

She asked a reporter to hold a door for her when she was trying to rush downstairs. Two court officers chased her down and put her into custody. Chalfen confirmed that none of the parties were in any danger. Trump did not notice Hannigan causing a commotion.

"Who got arrested? We didn't know anything about it," he asked.

According to the NY Post, Hannigan was placed in the courtroom's gallery and faced a media-packed hallway. She told the reporters she was scared as the officers surrounded her, telling her to lower her voice.

However, after escorting Hannigan downstairs, she screamed, "Help me!" "Save me!" several times.

Read Also: Woman Burned Alive in Austin Neighborhood; Perpetrator Remains at Large

Trump's Civil Fraud Trial

Trump has an ongoing trial in New York in a $250 million lawsuit. He returned to court on Tuesday and Wednesday after not appearing for a few days last week.

New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Trump's sons, Eric and Don Jr., and Trump Organization executives of inflating Trump's wealth and assets for more financial benefits.

According to Yahoo! News, the trial began on its third week on Tuesday, hearing testimony from former Trump Organization executives and accountants, real estate appraisers, and others who worked jointly with the former president's chief executives on years of financial statements central to the case.

As reported in the Independent, the judge warned Trump for his social posts and courthouse statements that publicize false claims towards New York Superior Court Judge Arthur Engoron. An appellate court judge turned down the former president's attempt to cease the trial while he appealed Judge Engoron's order against his business empire from last month.

Michael Cohen, a star witness for James' team, will testify this week, claiming Trump's appearance was intended as an in-person face-off between the former president and his former attorney. The frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination has specified the case, as well as the four criminal cases and an upcoming defamation trial against him, as a Democratic scheme to keep him out of office.

Related Article: Donald Trump Files Appeal of Gag Order Related to 2020 Election Subversion Case





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India is the world's third largest car market in the world, behind China and the United States. And while there are dozens of brands competing for your attention and looking to have a sizeable chunk of the market space, not every company has had it easy here. Some have even packed up and left while many others never entered in the first place.

Among some very renowned car brands the world over, many are now defunct and do not exist. And many of these were never had any India presence at all. But that may not necessarily mean that Indians don't remember them fondly. Or at least this is what is revealed in a study conducted by car leasing company Hippo Leasing which analysed Google search volumes for discontinued car manufacturers. The total monthly search volume was calculated by combining the search volumes from the 10 countries with the largest economies in the world.

The most-searched discontinued car manufacturer in the world is Saab while Pontiac was next on the list. Oldsmobile, Trabant and Holden complete the top-five list. In India too, and very interestingly, it is Saab that was most searched for among now extinct car brands. Pontiac and Holden were next most searched. Saab was also the most searched extinct car brand in countries like Japan, the UK, France and South Korea. But the Swedish manufacturer was not always present in all of these countries. It never was in India.

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Saab

The Saab Sonett was a popular model from the brand. Seen here is the Saab Sonett III which was manufactured in the early 1970s.

Saab was a Swedish car manufacturer that traces its roots to 1945 while its first-ever car - Saab 92 - was rolled out in 1949. While it functioned indepdentedly through the next few decades, General Motors bought a 50 per cent stake in the early 1990s. While some of its models became favourites among a certain section of buyers in Europe, the company never really managed to create a solid mark in markets where it competed in. The company would eventually come go through multiple ownership changes but by 2016, owner National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) announced the brand name won't be used any longer for future models. This effectively drew the curtains on the brand that had been plagued with issues of bankruptcy as well.

Pontiac

This is an image of a Pontiac 1965 LeMans. The 1965 GTO is considered one of the most iconic models of its times and still commands a hefty value in auctions for vintage vehicles.

Founded in 1926, Pontiac is a well-known American automotive brand that was under GM. Pontiac vehicles were primarily sold in the US, Canada and Mexico, and fared reasonably well for most of its existence. But the turn of the century had started throwing up new set of challenges with rival brands surging forward in popularity and with more compelling models. By 2009, GM announced that it would eliminate Pontiac brand along with two other brands it owned - Hummer and Saturn.

Oldsmobile

As may be evident from its name, Oldsmobile was founded as Olds Motor Vehicle Company in 1897 by Ransom E. Olds. It would eventually be the best-selling car brand in the US in the early parts of the 1900s. The first mass-produced car from the brand was the Oldsmobile Model R "Curved Dash which was manufactured between 1902 and 1907. It would come under GM in 1908. The subsequent decades would see a number of mid-size models, compact sedans as well as muscle cars from the brand. The highest point, in terms of sales, was in the 1970s and 1980s when it was a name to be truly reckoned with. But by the early part of the 1990s, the good years were behind. Sales plummeted from over a million each year to a shade over 400,000 in 1993. There were still some models that fared rather well but profitability became a big issue. By December of 2000, GM announced it would pull the plug on the brand.

First Published Date:
(Photo : John Moore/Getty Images)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued orders for the National Guard to install concertina wire along the New Mexico Border with El Paso to deter immigrants.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the National Guard to install concertina wire along the United States border with New Mexico in an attempt to deter illegal immigrants from crossing.

Officials noted that guard members have been working to place razor wires in an area close to Sunland Park, New Mexico, which shares a border with El Paso, Texas. Video footage showed that some of the fencing ran along the Rio Grande River.

Texas Installs Concertina Wire To Deter Immigrants

The Texas Republican said that the new barrier was meant to keep migrants from crossing from Mexico into New Mexico before going to El Paso. In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, Abbott said that the state installed the concertina wire because the barriers around El Paso forced immigrants into New Mexico.

He said that the installation of the new concertina wire was to put an end to the route that immigrants were taking. The Texas Military Department (TMD) also said that the Texas National Guard was "fortifying" the border between the two regions, as per ABC News.

The TMD also said that the National Guard heavily fortified the border in El Paso with 18 miles of concertina wire. They noted that they were now working on fortifying the border between Texas and New Mexico to stop migrants from entering New Mexico and going into Texas.

Officials said that the efforts conducted in El Paso were bolstered by the recent deployment of the Texas Tactical Border Force to the region. The National Guard was also focused on operations to prevent, deter, and interdict transnational criminal activity and illegal immigration along the border.

A New Mexico Rep. Gabe Vasquez spokesperson noted that state officials were not warned about Gov. Abbott's plans to install the concertina wire. Vasquez's office released a statement that said that the barrier was unconstitutional.

The installation of the concertina wire comes after Abbott made a statement last month revealing that his state planned to install a barrier along the border between the New Mexico-Texas border, according to the Texas Tribune.

Read Also: Biden Administration Reaches Settlement With Migrant Families Separated at Border

Addressing the Migrant Crisis

The new barrier consists of two rows of wire that were strung between metal poles running through an urban area west of Interstate 10, near Mount Cristo Rey, which is a local landmark that has a statue of Jesus atop a mountain peak.

The Texas governor's order to deploy members of the National Guard to El Paso was part of the state's Operation Lone Star. This was Abbott's border security initiative that was launched in early 2021 that allowed officials to arrest migrants who crossed the border illegally and charged them with a misdemeanor for trespassing.

A professor at the University of New Mexico, Joshua Kastenberg said that like every other governor, Abbott has something that is known as "police power." This is the authority to enforce the laws that are unique to the states to safeguard the health and security of their people.

However, even if the Republican has police power, that authority ends when it begins to impact one of two areas; federal functions or commerce in other states, said KOB4.

Related Article: Maura Healey Says Shelters No Longer Guaranteed as Migrant Surge Pushes Capacity to Limit

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Florida Republican representative Matt Gaetz released an apology statement over a fundraising email criticizing Republicans.

The email gathered criticism from the New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler, one of the 22 Republicans who voted against Jim Jordan on Wednesday.

Gaetz Apologizes to Lawler

Gaetz posted his apology statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, clearing that a vendor sent the email without his team's approval.

The content of the email said, "Michael - It's Matt Gaetz. We are inches from electing Speaker Jim Jordan. But RINOs are working with RADICAL DEMOCRATS like AOC, ILHAN OMAR, and RASHIDA TLAIB to BLOCK JIM JORDAN FROM BECOMING SPEAKER!!!"

He said that it should not have been sent. Gaetz also sincerely apologized to Lawler and anyone targeted by the ill-conceived email.

According to The Guardian, he reassured Lawler that he would make changes and an incident like this would not happen again. Gaetz said he intended to heed Jordan's call not to attack fellow Republicans.

Read Also: Six-Year-Old Palestinian-American Boy Stabbed 26 Times, Says Goodbye to His Mother

Lawler, McCarthy Respond to Gaetz's Email

Lawler responded to the screenshot of the "ill-conceived" email, which criticized "Republicans in name only" for working at the progressive Democrats. According to CNN, Lawler said that Gaetz is a vile person. He also added that he is unwilling to work as a team and lies directly to people.

Lawler has been critical of Gaetz more than once. Gaetz led a movement to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) following his cooperation with Democrats on a bipartisan bill to prevent a federal government termination earlier this month.

Other eight House Republicans voted to oust McCarthy. The Republican lawmakers cited that national debt or broken promises he made to the House GOP were some of the reasons for McCarthy's removal, as reported by The Hill.

McCarthy said in the wake of his ouster that the ousting was personal and was never about the spending. He claimed that the movement led by Gaetz was just a way to get everyone's attention. McCarthy also responded to Gaetz's email with the former House speaker telling Raju shortly before Wednesday's second round of votes.

He said that they wanted to elect Jim Jordan, and if Jim's number dropped, it was due to Gaetz's email that he sent out last night. McCarthy was infuriated about the fundraising email that Gaetz put out, accusing Republicans of working with certain Democrats when Gaetz had worked with every Democrat and the eight House Republicans, whom he called "crazy."

Related Article: Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan Runs for House Speaker, Boasts Accomplishments-Will He Really Be Different From McCarthy?





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Hollywood actress and Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow said she will completely disappear from public life after retiring to focus on her family.

Hollywood star and Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow plans to completely disappear from public life after her retirement in the acting and business industries.

During an interview, the "Iron Man" star detailed what she wants her life to look like after exiting the high life in the industry. The 51-year-old said that after she retires, no one will ever see her again.

Gwyneth Paltrow's Future Plans

Paltrow is planning to sell Goop, her wellness company that was founded in 2008, as she hopes to retire from her business in a "few more years" in order to focus on her family. She has been married to producer Brad Falchuk since 2018 and is the stepmother to his two children, 19-year-old daughter Isabella and 17-year-old son Brody.

The actress and her ex-husband, Chris Martin, are parents to two children, 19-year-old daughter Apple and 17-year-old son Moses. In a statement, Paltrow said that she loves "creating, collaborating, being struck with new ideas, innovating, thinking ahead, strategy, vision, that kind of thing," as per the New York Post.

A report previously valued Paltrow's Goop company at a massive $250 million in 2018. Despite the actress' successful on-screen career, she has not picked up many film and TV projects in the last decade. Her last appearance in the cinemas was in 2019's "Avengers: Endgame" where she played Pepper Potts.

On top of not appearing in that many shows or series, Paltrow has trouble recollecting some of her appearances in the Marvel franchise. In 2019, the actress completely forgot that she played Pepper Potts in 2017's "Spider-Man: Homecoming."

She made an appearance on "Iron Man" director Jon Favreau's and chef Roy Choi's Netflix cooking Series "The Chef Show." There, Paltrow said that they were not in the Spider-Man franchise. However, Favreau replied by confirming that she was indeed part of the franchise.

But for now, Paltrow said that she plans on running Goop, adding that she is not motivated by wealth despite her accomplishments as an entrepreneur. The actress noted that she could never get attracted to the "really rich guy," according to US Magazine.

Read Also: Britney Spears Reveals She Was Pregnant with Justin Timberlake's Baby Before Aborting It

Focusing on her Family

Paltrow has spent roughly three decades of her life in Hollywood but noted that her paycheck was never her priority. She said that she has always done independent films and that money was never her driver in her career.

The Oscar winner is now focused on helping Moses and Brody complete their senior years in high school and apply to colleges. She said that the effort is a full-time job. Paltrow added that her daughter Apple has to cope with the judgment that exists surrounding kids of famous people.

During an interview in 2020, the Hollywood star discussed the point that she stepped away from the acting industry. She noted that it was like hitting the bullseye and started to question what she was driving towards.

Paltrow continued to say that she felt that part of the shine of acting just wore off and she felt like she was being criticized for everything that she was doing, saying, and wearing, said the Daily Mail.

Related Article: Sophia Bush, Ashlyn Harris Reportedly Dating Despite Recent Respective Divorce Filings

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United Airlines revealed details of its plans to process passengers with window seats first to cut down on boarding time.

United Airlines detailed plans to cut down on boarding time by processing passengers in economy class who have window seats first.

The company announced in an internal memo that it would implement the plan starting on Oct. 26. The proposal, known as WILMA for window, middle, and aisle, was tested at four domestic locations. United said that it could cut down to two minutes of boarding time.

United Airlines' New Boarding Process

The proposed change will begin with passengers in Group 4 and officials will allow people with window seats to board first, followed by those with middle and aisle seats. The company added that multiple customers on the same economy reservation, such as families, will be allowed to board their flight together regardless.

United Airlines will implement the new plan on domestic flights as well as on some international flights. On the other hand, passengers in first class and business class will experience no change to their boarding experience with the airlines, as per NowThisNews.

Additionally, no changes will be made for the pre-boarding group that includes travelers with disabilities, unaccompanied minors, active-duty military, and families traveling with two or younger children.

The company also reported on Tuesday that it had earned $1.14 billion in the vacation-heavy third quarter. However, the airline also forecast weaker profit for the rest of the year due to the surging jet fuel price and the suspension of flights to Tel Aviv amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.

United Airlines said its fourth-quarter adjusted profit would be between $1.50 and $1.80 per share, just short of Wall Street's expectations of $2.09 per share. The upper end of the company's forecast assumes that the airline will resume Tel Aviv flights next month. On the other hand, the lower end assumes no more flights this year.

Read Also: New, Unverified X Users Now Need to Pay $1

Cutting Down on Boarding Time

Before the latest announcement of the new boarding process, the company already used it before 2017. However, when the airline introduced its carry-on restricted Basic Economy product six years ago, it was limited to a five-boarding group structure. This means that it was forced to condense people with middle and aisle seats into Group 4, according to Fox Business.

United Airlines said it could now implement the proposal because it has more technical flexibility to add another boarding group. The announcement comes as U.S. airlines are consistently tinkering with the boarding process to see how to make it smoother and more profitable.

JetBlue was previously known for boarding passengers with a quicker back-to-front method. It was a system briefly revived during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce the time passengers spent standing in the aisles.

Southwest also has its open-seating boarding system where passengers board by group but are still free to choose the first available seat they want. Yahoo Life said the process is about 47% faster than traditional boarding.

Related Article: British Museum to Make Collection More Accessible and Secure with Digitization

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Billionaire Ron Lauder threatens to cut off contributions to the University of Pennsylvania following the "Palestine Writes Literature Festival" that he called included people who had histories of antisemitism.

Billionaire Ron Lauder threatened to cut off contributions to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) after an antisemitism issue at the school.

The announcement was made following UPenn's allowing people with histories of "outright antisemitism" to speak at an event on campus despite Lauder's pleas. On Monday, a letter that the billionaire sent UPenn President Liz Magill criticized the Ivy League institution for hosting the controversial "Palestine Writes Literature Festival" last September.

UPenn Donors Cut Contributions

In his letter, Lauder said that he previously told the school that the people it invited had a history of strong anti-Israel bias and outright antisemitism. He argued that the university was already quite aware of that fact.

Lauder is the president of the World Jewish Congress and said that the timing of the alleged antisemitism event could not have been worse. His remarks reference the terrorist attacks that the Hamas militant group launched on Israel earlier this month, as per Fox Business.

The billionaire added that he did not want any of the students at The Lauder Institute, who are the best and brightest at the school, to be taught by any instructors involved or supported the event. He added that they were putting bias against Israel ahead of academic honesty.

The university's decision to host the "Palestine Writes" festival was widely condemned last month by many prominent Jewish groups, alumni, trustees, and current Penn students. They also urged the school's president and faculty to take immediate steps to ban the event on campus due to the slate of speakers that included people who have repeatedly called for "death to Israel" and referred to the Jewish state as a "tumor."

While Lauder has not yet ruled out future donations to UPenn, several other donors have already cut such contributions because of the terrorist attack on Israel. These include former Utah Gov. John Huntsman.

Read Also: Readout of Biden's Remarks on Hamas's Sabbath Attack, Resilience of Israel

Palestine Writes Event

Another major donor, venture capitalist David Magerman, became the latest to cut off financial support to the university. He called for all "self-respecting" Jews to do the same as he did by breaking away from the school, according to CNN.

Cliff Asness, a hedge fund billionaire, was also cutting off donations to UPenn as several other high-profile donors have pulled contributions to the university. They argued that the school did not do enough to condemn the "Palestine Writes" event.

Asness is the founder of AQR Capital Management and has an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion. In his letter to Magill, he said he was 100% in support of free speech but argued that the Ivy League School's actions were asymmetrical.

The 57-year-old revealed that he just recently finished a large five-year pledge to the university and will not consider making another unless meaningful change is evident. Asness said that he did not like making the entire issue just about money.

Magill responded to widespread criticism in a co-authored letter with other university heads. After the event's conclusion, she said UPenn stood empathetically against the terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel, according to the New York Post.

Related Article: Capitol Police Arrest Pro-Palestine Protesters Demanding for Gaza Ceasefire

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CENTRAL ISLIP, NEW YORK - AUGUST 1: Rex A. Heuermann appears before Judge Timothy P. Mazzei in Suffolk County Court on August 1, 2023 in Central Islip, New York. Heuermann's arrest comes more than a decade after the disappearance of four women whose bodies were found within a quarter mile of each other wrapped in hunting camouflage burlap along remote Gilgo Beach on Long Island's South Shore. Beside the three women Heuermann is charged with killing, he is a suspect in the fourth, according to public reports citing the Suffolk County district attorney's office.



The Suffolk County police are currently investigating new witness accounts that have emerged, connecting Rex Heuermann, the accused Gilgo Beach serial killer, to the unsolved deaths of two sex workers, Shannan Gilbert and Karen Vergata.

Attorney John Ray, accompanied by Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison, held a press conference on Wednesday to discuss their decision to come ahead after Heuermann's arrest for the murder of three sex workers in July, as per New York Post.

Gilgo Beach Killer's Victims

The case began with the discovery of Shannan Gilbert's disappearance, which ultimately led to a chilling revelation. Though police initially believed Gilbert's death was accidental, her vanishing act unraveled a string of grim discoveries, unveiling a total of ten sets of human remains.

Four sets were found at Gilgo Beach in December 2010, while six more, including Karen Vergata's, were recovered along Ocean Parkway the following spring. In July, police arrested Rex Heuermann, a disgraced architect, in Manhattan, suspecting him in the 2009 and 2010 murders of three women at Gilgo Beach: Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Megan Waterman, 22; and Amber Lynn Costello, 27.

Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to these charges and is also the prime suspect in the death of 25-year-old Maureen Brainard-Barnes, though he has not been charged in connection with her death. The new evidence is linked to two other women, Karen Vergata and Shannan Gilbert, whose remains were discovered across Long Island.

The first witness is described as a 'swinger' in the New York City sex club scene. In her chilling testimony, she recalls a night in February 1996 when she visited Heuermann's house for a swingers party, accompanied by her police partner.

She claims to have had an uneasy feeling about leaving a frightened woman, identified as Karen Vergata, behind at Heuermann's home that night. Vergata's remains were identified as the seventh victim in the Gilgo Beach murders in August 2023.

The second witness, a single mother and female banker who worked as a taxi driver at night, recounted a disturbing encounter with a young woman, later identified as Shannan Gilbert, who had escaped from a motel where Heuermann was involved in her exploitation, according to Crime Online.

Read Also: Germany: Molotov Cocktails Thrown at Berlin Synagogue

New Witnesses Shed Light on the Long Island Serial Killer Case

The witness remembered Gilbert's unusual eye droop, and her testimony may provide crucial insights into the circumstances leading up to Gilbert's disappearance. The third witness, a former street walker from Oklahoma, shared her harrowing experience with Heuermann, who allegedly assaulted her before releasing her.

Her account suggests Heuermann's propensity for violence and exploitation of sex workers. The fourth witness, also a sex worker, claimed to have serviced Heuermann numerous times during the period when the killings occurred. Her statements indicate that Heuermann was a frequent user of sex workers, even bringing them to his home while his wife was upstairs.

These new witnesses and their sworn statements add significant weight to the ongoing investigation, providing fresh perspectives and potentially crucial leads for law enforcement. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison will attend an upcoming press conference to shed further light on the new evidence.

The Long Island serial killer case has perplexed investigators for years, and while these new developments are promising, it remains uncertain whether they will lead to a breakthrough. District Attorney John Ray acknowledged the challenges faced by law enforcement and the difficulty of predicting when the case will be solved.

The press conference also served as a reminder for potential witnesses to come forward and speak to the police, rather than reaching out to private attorneys with an interest in the case's outcome. Rex Heuermann, who has been charged with the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello, is at the center of this ongoing investigation.

With the new evidence and witnesses coming forward, there is renewed hope that the elusive Long Island serial killer may finally be brought to justice, bringing closure to the families of the victims and the community that has been haunted by these unsolved murders for years, Mail Online reported.

Related Article: Danelo Cavalcante Case: Pennsylvania Prison Officers Warned of 'Escape Risk' Before Convicted Killer's Breakout

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Law enforcement personnel take a closer look at the destruction of an SUV involved in critically injuring nearly two dozen deputy recruits in a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department training academy class in Whittier, California on November 16, 2022. - At last five trainee sheriff's deputies were badly hurt when a car rammed into a group of cadets jogging in Los Angeles, US media reported Wednesday. (not the actual photo)

The Pepperdine University community in Malibu mourns as four students lost their lives in a tragic car accident on Tuesday night.

The incident occurred on the Pacific Coast Highway, leaving the campus community in shock and mourning the loss of these young lives, as per Fox11.

Malibu Car Crash Kills 4 Students

As the investigation continues, the circumstances surrounding the accident remain a mystery as the community reels from the loss of four promising young lives. The incident unfolded on a Tuesday night around 8:30 p.m. in the 21500 block of PCH when a devastating collision occurred.

Fraser Bohm, the 22-year-old driver, lost control of his vehicle, which struck at least three parked cars before plowing into a group of pedestrians, ultimately resulting in the tragic deaths of four female students. The authorities swiftly arrested Bohm on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, but he was later released from custody.

Sheriff's officials have emphasized that the investigation is still ongoing, leaving many questions unanswered. Pepperdine University, an institution celebrated for its picturesque campus nestled along the Malibu coastline, mourned the loss of Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir, and Deslyn Williams, all of whom were seniors at the university's Seaver College of Liberal Arts.

Their untimely deaths have left a void in the hearts of the university's faculty, staff, and students. In a statement, Pepperdine University President Jim Gash expressed his sorrow, describing the students as those who "brought joy and light to our campus."

In the aftermath of the tragic accident, reports emerged of a fraternity party being held near the crash site. While it is unclear whether the victims were heading to the party, authorities disclosed that the four women were planning to "meet up with people."

Speculation regarding street racing as a possible cause of the crash arose, but Traffic Detective Roger Schultz stated that there was no evidence of another vehicle involved in a "speed contest," according to ABC7.

Read Also: Security Council Rejects Russian Resolution on Gaza Calling for Ceasefire

Speeding Woes on Pacific Coast Highway

The ongoing investigation will shed light on the true cause of this heart-wrenching incident. The Pacific Coast Highway, a road celebrated for its scenic beauty, has long been plagued by speeding issues. Malibu residents have reported a significant increase in reckless driving along this stretch of road, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Joan Zoloth, a local resident, highlighted the persistent problem, saying, "Since COVID, there has been an increase of incredible racing up and down this highway, all night long."

The tragedy, while shocking, did not come as a complete surprise to the local community. The crash's aftermath was a scene of devastation. Multiple vehicles were severely damaged, and the Los Angeles County Fire Department reported that speed likely played a significant role in the accident.

The victims' families and the local community now demand answers and accountability for the tragic incident. As the investigation into this heartbreaking incident continues, the community, both near and far, grieves for the loss of these four young lives.

Pepperdine University has canceled classes in memory of the victims, organizing a prayer service to bring comfort and healing to those affected by the tragedy. This tragic event serves as a stark reminder of the need for improved safety measures and stricter enforcement of speed limits on the Pacific Coast Highway.

The lives of Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir, and Deslyn Williams serve as a poignant call to action, demanding that authorities take the necessary steps to prevent such devastating accidents in the future, Mail Online reported.

Related Article: Honoree Fleming Case: Former Vermont University Dean Shot Dead Near Campus; Who's the Suspected Killer?

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NASHUA, NEW HAMPSHIRE - OCTOBER 13: Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during the 2023 First in the Nation Leadership Summit on October 13, 2023 in Nashua, New Hampshire. The two day event, hosted by the New Hampshire Republican Party, will feature Republican Presidential candidates, elected officials, and Republican leaders from across the nation to discuss conservative solutions to todays issues. Former President Donald Trump, who is leading the other GOP contenders by a wide margin in polls in New Hampshire, has elected not to attend the event.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has emphasized his involvement in arranging Israel escape flights.

Evidently, DeSantis aims to showcase his leadership as a state official within an ongoing international dispute, as per ABC News.

DeSantis Touts Effort Over Israel Escape Flights

Recently, their tireless efforts have focused on evacuating Americans from Israel in the wake of a surprise attack by Hamas. The state of Florida also played a significant role in these rescue missions, providing critical support to ensure the safe return of its citizens.

Project Dynamo, founded in 2021, initially gained recognition for its mission to help rescue people from Afghanistan after the withdrawal of American troops from the country. Since then, the organization has conducted missions in various global hotspots, from Ukraine to Sudan.

Their 602nd evacuation mission was a flight to Tampa, Florida, which took place in the midst of a tumultuous situation in Israel. Bryan Stern, the CEO and founder of Project Dynamo, spoke about their rescue missions during a news conference, emphasizing the organization's unwavering commitment to bringing people home safely.

When discussing the fundraising efforts to pay for the Tampa flight, Stern revealed that Florida's government stepped in to offer assistance. This was a historic moment, marking the first time a government agency had funded one of Project Dynamo's evacuation efforts.

Stern made it clear that they would have found a way to bring people back, with or without government support, as they had successfully completed 601 missions before. In response to the escalating crisis, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency and directed the Florida Division of Emergency Management to coordinate evacuation efforts.

DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, personally welcomed evacuees from Israel at the Tampa airport. The flight included 269 Americans, with approximately 70 of them being Floridians.

This marked a significant moment, as Stern mentioned that it was the first time an American politician had ever met them at home. The evacuation flight to Tampa was a complex operation, involving the gathering of people from over 12 different areas across Israel.

Among the evacuees were Ron and Linda Neumann, who were attempting to become dual citizens of Israel and the United States, according to USA Today.

Read Also: China's Stance on the Israeli-Hamas Conflict Upsets Jerusalem Government

Turning Uncertainty into Hope with Florida's Israel Evacuation

Their journey was marred by canceled commercial flights, leaving them in a state of uncertainty. However, they found a lifeline through Project Dynamo and successfully boarded the flight to Tampa.

While the exact cost of the recent flight remains undisclosed, Stern explained that the average cost to charter a plane from Tampa to Israel is approximately $2 million. The governor's office and the Florida Division of Emergency Management did not disclose the costs associated with the evacuation efforts.

Nevertheless, Florida's financial support and involvement in the evacuation operation provided much-needed relief and support to Project Dynamo's mission. This evacuation effort comes at a time when the Biden administration is also chartering flights from Israel to European destinations to facilitate the return of Americans.

Governor DeSantis criticized these actions, accusing the White House of being slow to act and "dumping people in Europe." He emphasized that people want to get home, not be left stranded in a foreign continent.

It's worth noting that the evacuation efforts coincide with the airing of a 60 Minutes segment critical of Governor DeSantis's actions in 2022, involving the relocation of asylum-seekers. This episode highlights the complexity and challenges faced by political figures in managing immigration and responding to crises.

In the end, those evacuated from Israel expressed their gratitude and relief, with Linda Neumann stating, "To think that people risked their lives to come get us and our fellow Jews out of a war zone. I thank God for getting us out."

Project Dynamo's unwavering commitment to saving lives, combined with the support of the state of Florida, demonstrates the power of collective action in times of crisis. While the situation in Israel remains a matter of concern, the successful evacuation missions serve as a beacon of hope and solidarity for those affected by the conflict, CBS News reported.

Related Article: GOP Lawmakers Urge To Ban Palestinian Refugees From Entering US

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Lebanese security forces man a position as they clash with protesters outside the US Embassy in Awkar east of Beirut, during a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, on October 18, 2023. Thousands rallied across the Arab and Muslim world on October 18 to protest the deaths of hundreds of people in a strike on a Gaza hospital that they blame on Israel, despite its denials.

Lebanon's Hezbollah announced that it had carried out a series of attacks on Israeli targets using guided missiles.

In a recent statement, the Shiite militant group has claimed responsibility for launching missiles at three Israeli sites.

Conflict and Protests Surround Gaza Hospital Explosion

These targeted locations include a center for Israeli soldiers and a surveillance and reconnaissance system situated south of Al-Manara in northern Israel. The group asserts that their attack has resulted in several casualties.

The Middle East has once again become the center of global attention due to the recent events unfolding in Lebanon. The protest in the Aukar neighborhood of Beirut on a Wednesday was just one chapter in a larger narrative of conflict, suspicion, and discord in the region.

The backdrop of this protest was US President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, where he made a show of solidarity with the nation.This visit coincided with the aftermath of an explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital that claimed hundreds of lives and sparked mass protests.

US President Joe Biden offered his assessment that the explosion was not the result of a strike by the Israeli military. However, conflicting narratives surround the incident.

The Palestinian group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, along with several Arab countries, accuses Israel of striking the hospital. In contrast, the Israeli military contends that it was a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group in Gaza.

The ensuing protests in Lebanon were a manifestation of the regional tensions generated by these conflicting accounts. Demonstrators in Beirut, holding Palestinian flags alongside the flags of various Palestinian factions, targeted the US Embassy outside the city.

They took down a security wall and cut through a barbed wire barrier. The response from riot police was swift, as they deployed tear gas canisters and water cannons to disperse the protesters. Several individuals were injured in the ensuing clashes.

Across the city, in a southern suburb, Hezbollah, a key ally of Hamas, organized its own rally. Thousands of Hezbollah supporters and Palestinians joined the demonstration, waving Palestinian flags and expressing their outrage over the Gaza hospital explosion.

Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine conveyed a powerful message during his speech, calling for regional solidarity against what he referred to as "American tyranny."

The protesters chanted "death to America" and burned an American flag to show their solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. The ongoing violence in Gaza, which has resulted in more than 3,000 deaths since the surprise attack by Hamas militants on Israel in early October, is a source of deep anguish and anger for many in the region, according to Business Standard.

Read Also: Biden Admin Reportedly Working On $100 Billion Foreign Aid Plan; Funds for Israel, Ukraine Also Included?

Hezbollah-Israel Tensions Escalate, Prompt Evacuations

Meanwhile, tensions between Hezbollah and Israel have flared along the Lebanon-Israel border. While skirmishes have remained localized to a few border towns, both sides have issued threats of escalating aggression.

Israel has warned of a robust response should Hezbollah intensify its actions, while Hezbollah has vowed to reciprocate if Israel launches a ground incursion into Gaza. As the clashes persist, Saudi Arabia has joined the list of countries urging their citizens to leave Lebanon.

The US State Department has similarly advised its citizens not to visit Lebanon and urged those already there to make suitable exit arrangements. The Lebanese Red Cross collected the bodies and remains of four deceased Hezbollah militants on Wednesday morning, raising concerns about the delay in retrieving them.

It was revealed that a total of eleven militants from Hezbollah have lost their lives since the conflict commenced. These deaths were reported the day prior. The situation further escalated with reports of two Lebanese farmers being injured in the southern village of Aitaroun due to Israeli gunfire.

Lebanese military sources revealed that the Israeli army expanded its artillery shelling in southern Lebanon, causing damage to 14 houses in areas around Aitaroun. In response, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retaliated with artillery fire, although no IDF casualties were reported.

It has been revealed that the current escalation, which has gripped the region, can be traced back to a significant event that occurred on October 8. According to reports, Hezbollah, a prominent militant group, launched a barrage of rockets towards Israeli military sites.

This action was purportedly carried out in support of a Hamas attack against Israel. Israeli forces unleashed a barrage of heavy artillery, strategically aiming at multiple locations in southeast Lebanon on the very same day.

Amid these tensions, peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) have dispelled reports of an evacuation from the border region, Global Times reported.

Related Article: Hospital Strike in Gaza Kills Hundreds; Records Highest Death Toll

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(Photo: by David McNew/Getty Images) GOLETA, CALIFORNIA - MAY 20: An oil-covered lobster lies dead on the beach after an oil spill near Refugio State Beach on May 20, 2015 north of Goleta, California. About 21,000 gallons spilled from an abandoned pipeline on the land near Refugio State Beach, spreading over about four miles of beach within hours. The largest oil spill ever in U.S. waters at the time occurred in the same section of the coast where numerous offshore oil platforms can be seen, giving birth to the modern American environmental movement.

Officials reported on Wednesday that the number of juvenile lobsters has decreased by about 40 percent in some of the most important fishing areas off New England, leading to new regulations for the fishermen who catch the priceless crustaceans.

In the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank regions for 2020-22 compared to 2016-18, studies have shown a 39 percent drop in juvenile lobsters, according to officials with the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. These locations are some of the most significant lobster fishing grounds in the entire globe, according to The Associated Press.

According to the commission's senior fisheries management plan coordinator Caitlin Starks, the decline in lobster recruitment is a continuation of a recent trend in New England.

Only a few months after passing new regulations meant to better safeguard the animals from exploitation, the commission made an announcement about the decline in juvenile lobsters. The new regulations indicate that when the young lobsters exhibit a fall of 35 percent or more, fishermen must abide by harsher size restrictions on the lobsters they can collect.

Read also: Australia Buys 'Powerful' Explosive Sea Mines Amidst China Threats

Tighter Limits

The tighter limits were supposed to go into effect on June 1, 2024, according to the original timeframe of the new regulations, but Commissioner Patrick Keliher of the Maine Department of Marine Resources successfully pushed implementation back to January 1, 2025.

According to Keliher, the drop must be taken seriously, but if the U.S. lobster fishery adopted the new size restrictions too soon, there would be unfairness to Canadian fishermen.

It's difficult to predict how much the new regulations would affect the supply or cost of lobsters for American consumers. Both American and Canadian fishermen catch lobsters that end up in the U.S. food supply. Consumers of seafood in New England have recently had easy access to live lobsters, despite the fact that retail costs have been somewhat high.

The Maine-based American lobster industry has shown success recently, with yearly hauls often exceeding 100 million pounds (45.4 million kilograms), after previously barely surpassing that mark. Scientists are worried that the lobster business, which supplies some of the nation's most popular seafood, maybe in danger due to rising waters.

Over $510 million was paid at the ports for American lobster last year. Maine contributed over $390 million of that total. Despite being historically high, it was the year with the lowest value since 2013.

Related article: Believe It or Not! A Fish With Eerie Human-Like Teeth Was Caught in Malaysia

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Transgender activist Henry Tse speaks to the media outside the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong on February 6, 2023. - Hong Kong's top court ruled on February 6 that transgender people can change the sex marker on their identification cards without undertaking surgery, a landmark victory for LGBTQ equality in Asia.

An attempt by the government to deny same-sex married couples the ability to rent and own public housing was rejected by a Hong Kong court on Tuesday, citing the move's "discriminatory in nature" and total rejection of such couples' rights.

The Court of Appeal's decision in Hong Kong is the most recent in a string of victories for homosexual rights in the world's financial center this year, according to NBC News.

The city's housing authority's decision to bar same-sex couples who wed overseas from public housing was deemed "unconstitutional and unlawful" by the High Court twice, and the government had appealed both decisions.

Due to current regulations, same-sex couples must apply for public housing separately, which calls for a lengthier waiting period. Additionally, they are not permitted to add tenants or join as joint tenants in HOS units without paying a surcharge.

A Series of Denials

Two cases were included in the appeal; in one, a permanent resident's application to rent a public apartment with his spouse was denied by the authority because their marriage in Canada was not recognized in Hong Kong.

In the other, a same-sex couple was refused permission to co-own a government-funded apartment by the authorities because their marriage in Britain was not recognized in Hong Kong.

In a written decision, Justices Thomas Au, Aarif Barma, and Jeremy Poon of the Court of Appeal said that the authority's treatment of homosexual married couples was "discriminatory in nature" and that they should be given equal treatment.

Henry Li, one of the individuals engaged in the second case, expressed his satisfaction with the decision in a Facebook post.

The verdict was praised by the civil rights organization Hong Kong Marriage Equality, which stated that it had demonstrated "that discrimination and unequal treatment on the basis of sexual orientation has no place in public policy decisions."

Read also: Church Youth Concert in South Korea Cancels LGBTQ Festival

Making an Impact

In a ruling rejecting same-sex marriage in September, Hong Kong's top court agreed that same-sex couples needed "access to an alternative legal framework in order to meet basic social requirements."

Two years were provided to the government to develop the framework.

A married lesbian couple who contended that both women should have parental rights over their child conceived through reciprocal IVF won the case in September in a Hong Kong court.

Asia-wide reform efforts are being closely watched by activists in the hopes that Hong Kong's court decisions would have an impact abroad.

On Tuesday night, the Housing Authority stated that it was reviewing the judgment and will take further action if needed.

It stated that it has received two requests from same-sex spouses-one for public rental accommodation and the second asking to include their partner as a family member in a subsidized selling property.

Related article: Hong Kong Court Calls for More Legal Protections for Same-Sex Unions

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 22: A view of Bloomingdale's holiday windows unveiling at Bloomingdale's 59th Street Store on November 22, 2019 in New York City.

A guy is charged for impersonating a mannequin in a Warsaw store display in order to take jewelry after business hours.

In a store window, the 22-year-old was seen carrying a bag while remaining still. The police have not released the name of the business.

According to police, the suspect went "hunting" in a number of departments after business hours before choosing a jewelry counter.

The individual is also charged with stealing merchandise from a different mall. He faces up to 10 years in jail on burglary and theft charges.

The man stood in the window and mixed in with a number of mannequins, according to Warsaw Police, so neither employees nor customers noticed anything out of the ordinary.

According to the police, he waited until "he felt it was safe" before moving through several departments after business hours and stealing jewelry. Security personnel ultimately caught sight of him.

The individual is charged with two further offenses. In the first, according to police, he ate dinner after it closed had a restaurant located in a different retail center.

He afterwards "exchanged his clothes for new ones" in a clothing store, according to the police, before going back to the restaurant for more food. He was seen on camera ducking under the partially open shutters of the clothes store.

According to Robert Szumiata, a police spokesperson, the guy "took money from several cash registers and tried to steal other items" in the third incident at a different location after waiting until it was beyond closing time.

Pictures of the suspect's ultimate arrest have been made public by the police. The guy is also suspected of robbing a another retail center, where police claim he tried to take more things after it closed and grabbed money from the cash registers.

According to Warsaw prosecutors, the individual has been remanded in detention for three months.

Read also: Nordstrom Robbery: Mob-Style Stealing at California Store Caught on Cam

Rising Theft in Warsaw

Mall theft cases in Warsaw, Poland have been a growing concern in recent years. As one of the largest and most bustling cities in the country, Warsaw attracts a significant number of shoppers and tourists, making its shopping centers prime targets for theft and shoplifting incidents.

Efforts to combat mall theft cases in Warsaw continue to evolve as mall authorities, retailers, and law enforcement agencies work together to minimize these incidents. Mall authorities in Warsaw have taken steps to combat theft. They employ security personnel, surveillance cameras, and electronic surveillance systems to deter potential thieves. However, shoplifters often adapt and become more sophisticated in their methods.

Public awareness, effective security measures, and legal consequences all play a vital role in deterring theft and maintaining a safe and secure shopping environment in the city.

Related article: Apple Store Thieves Cut a Hole in a Wall, Stealing Over 400 iPhones Worth $500,000

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Joran van der Sloot has confessed to the murder of teen girl Natalee Holloway and to trying to extort $250,000 from the victim's mother, Beth, nearly 20 years ago.

As a senior trip to Aruba came to a close in May 2005, Holloway, then 18 years old, went missing. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot.

Chilling Details Revealed

According to Fox News, a transcript of his confession shows that van der Sloot described the teen's gruesome death. When she rejected his advances, he revealed that he smashed her skull with a cinderblock and carried her to the water on an Aruba beach.

On October 3, he gave an interview in which he detailed how he had been so frustrated by her defiance that he had smashed her skull in with the block, saying, "I smash her head in with it completely."

He added, "Her face basically, you know, collapses in. Even though it's dark, I can see her face is collapsed in."

After that, he claimed to have pulled her into the water until it was up to his knees and then pushed her into the ocean. He then went back to his house, he said.

After apologizing to Holloway's family in court, van der Sloot promised to cooperate with authorities and family members in their investigation of her disappearance and to take a polygraph.

See Also: [Timeline] Natalee Holloway's Disappearance, Joran Van Der Sloot's Extradition

'Joran Van Der Sloot Is the Killer'

Judge Anna Manasco addressed van der Sloot in court, "You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents, years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances." Manasco was referring to a murder that was unconnected to the current case.

Manasco referred to the extortion and fraud allegations as "heinous" since the murderer was obviously trying to earn money off of false information. She did, however, claim that federal prosecutors had promised not to utilize his confession in any future proceedings.

Natalee Holloway's mother told reporters outside the courtroom after the hearing that her daughter's case has finally been solved after 18 years. "Joran van der Sloot is the killer," she expressed, Fox News reported.

A few minutes earlier, Holloway's mother had delivered a passionate victim impact statement in which she slammed into van der Sloot, alleging that he had ridiculed her family and inflicted unfathomable suffering.

In 2010, 36-year-old Dutch citizen van der Sloot was arrested in the United States on charges of extortion and wire fraud for allegedly attempting to sell the mother information about her daughter's remains.

After arriving in US custody in June, Van der Sloot was given a 20-year jail term, with credit for time already served. The court has agreed to let his present sentence and the one he will serve in Peru run together. On June 9, 2043, he will likely be released from prison.

See Also: Gilgo Beach Murders: Rex Heuermann Tied to More Sex Workers' Death; New Witnesses Come Forward

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Russia has reportedly pledged to send 27 tons of humanitarian aid for the civilians in Gaza via the Rafah Crossing in Egypt, a day after the US brokered a limited 20-truck aid convoy agreement between it and Israel.

Russian state news agency TASS reported that the humanitarian flight was green-lit by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was in Beijing this week for the Belt and Road Conference at the behest of his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

Read Also: Autistic Girl, Grandmother Taken Hostage by Hamas Killed, Israeli Officials Say

Kremlin Says Supplies Composed of Food

"A special plane has taken off from the airport at Ramenskoye near Moscow for El-Arish in Egypt," Russian emergencies minister Ilya Denisov said in a statement on Thursday (October 19).

AFP reported that the Russian humanitarian aid would be handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent to be sent to Gaza.

The Kremlin official added that the aid would be composed of "wheat, sugar, rice, (and) pasta."

Washington's announcement that Israel would allow a limited humanitarian aid run after US President Joe Biden went to Israel for a seven-hour visit.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has also welcomed Israel's decision to not block essential humanitarian supplies.

Related Article: US Surprises Russia by Sending Long-Range Missiles to Ukraine; Russian Envoy Retaliates

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Ex-Trump attorney Sidney Powell pleads guilty in the Georgia election interference case. She decided to do this just one day before her trial.

Powell is among the 19 co-defendants who are being accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election loss of former U.S. President Donald Trump in Georgia.

But, what does her guilty plea mean for Trump and other remaining defendants? Here are the latest details you must know.

Ex-Trump Attorney Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty

According to CNN Politics, the last-second guilty plea made by Sidney Powell surprised many officials as it drastically changed the trial, which was supposed to begin on Friday, Oct. 20.

In her guilty plea, Powell admitted that she played a role in the January 2021 breach of election systems in rural County Coffee, Georgia.

This means that she says yes to allegations claiming that she was involved in a scheme of unlawfully breaching election equipment; and tampering with voting machines.

Sidney Powell is the second person to plead guilty in the ongoing Georgia election interference case. The first one who did this was bail bondsman Scott Hall.

Fulton County prosecutors are already recommending a sentence of six years probation against the former campaign attorney of Donald Trump. She will be required to testify as the Georgia election fraud case continues.

Aside from this, she needs to write an apology letter to residents in the U.S. state, pay almost $9,000 in restitution and fines, as well as turn over documents.

Read Also: 'No Place in the United States': GOP Senator Calls for DHS to Kick Pro-Hamas Supporters Out of US

Sidney Powell Faces Other Legal Challenges

Although Sidney Powell already pleaded guilty, she will still face other legal challenges beyond the Georgia case. These include the massive defamation lawsuits she's facing from two voting tech firms.

These companies sued her for falsely accusing them of rigging the recent U.S. election against Trump. As of press time, the lawsuits filed by Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems are still in the pre-trial discovery phase.

Another problem she has to deal with is being an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal election subversion case that special counsel Jack Smith filed against ex-POTUS.

What This Means for Trump

CNBC reported that the latest plea guilty made by Sidney Powell could drastically affect Donald Trump and the remaining 17 co-defendants in the ongoing election interference case in Georgia.

Since Powell and Scott Hall already admitted their crimes, there's a chance that other defendants could also be pressured to do the same.

If the majority of them plead guilty in this case, it would certainly be bad news for Donald Trump.

Related Article: Donald Trump Files Appeal of Gag Order Related to 2020 Election Subversion Case

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Since the World Health Organization's (WHO) own medication storage in the Gaza Strip is now fully empty, it has been cautioned that patients are undergoing operations without anesthetic due to a lack of supplies.

Medical supplies are running low as Israel tightens its blockade, forcing doctors to make difficult decisions.

WHO predicts that essentials like morphine, saline solution, and surgical supplies would run out in a matter of days due to the siege and ongoing Israeli bombardment of the enclave.

According to the agency, blood banks barely have two weeks' worth of supplies available, while local and general anesthetics are almost depleted throughout the strip. Drugs for treating high blood pressure, diabetes, and seizures, as well as those used in dialysis and for heart disease, are all dangerously low.

Lack of General Anesthesia

A horrific hit on a hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday night, October 17, is reported to have killed hundreds of people, including displaced children. The warnings of failing supplies came amid fears for those injured in the attack.

Top doctors in Gaza told The Independent they had to treat patients on the ground. Some footage shows medics assisting patients who had collapsed in pools of blood.

Medical staff are so overburdened by the casualties, especially in the wake of Tuesday night's bombardment of the al-Ahli hospital. Dr. Medhat Abbas, director of al-Shifa, the biggest hospital in Gaza, said some wounded patients are left to succumb to their wounds.

"Surgeries are being performed in the corridors without anesthetics. Hundreds are in the corridors of the hospitals in front of the operations rooms and in the emergency rooms on the ground. The majority are children," he stated.

Emergency physician Mohamed Ghanem of al-Shifa said that the high number of victims had filled all available operating rooms. He also confirmed that surgeons were attempting operations without anesthesia in the hallways.

Anesthesia drugs were provided by the WHO team in Gaza, but only enough for 50 procedures needing general anesthesia since they were purchased on the local market.

WHO delegate Dr. Richard Peeperkorn said hospitals are on their final supplies, and health staff are forced to make hard decisions, including operating without anesthesia. "The health system is on its knees, and collapse is imminent unless aid is allowed in. I plead for water, food, fuel, and medical supplies to be allowed into Gaza. The time to ring the alarm bells has run out. Gaza is crumbling right before our eyes."

See Also: Autistic Girl, Grandmother Taken Hostage by Hamas Killed, Israeli Officials Say

Long-Awaited Humanitarian Aid

Just recently, Israel has allowed the Egyptian government to send aid to the Gaza Strip. However, there was no confirmation of when the supply run would commence or what the maximum number would be.

After cutting off all supplies to the strip prior to its siege, the decision by Israel to allow the restricted supply of humanitarian commodities was a much-needed respite for Gazans.

See Also: Lebanon Protesters Decry Gaza Hospital Blast; Hezbollah Launches Missiles on Israel

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Google's Pixel smartphones will soon be assembled in India, according to a business official. This move makes Google the latest tech firm to place a manufacturing bet on the South Asian market.

Google's Senior VP of Devices and Services, Rick Osterloh, said during the company's annual India event on Thursday, October 19, that local manufacture of the current range (including the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro) will begin in India, with shipments of the India-made batch expected to begin in 2024.

The Indian Market

India is an important international market for Google since the country has more users than any other in the globe for a number of Google products. On Thursday, the company announced it will spend over $10 billion in India over the next few years, including a partnership with HP to produce Chromebook computers there, as reported by TechCrunch.

Osterloh stated, without naming those involved, "We are partnering with international and domestic partners to produce Pixel smartphones locally. It's an early step towards expanding our production here to meet the local demands for Pixel devices and even more importantly it's a huge step forward in Google's commitment to India."

Google has said that the Indian market for Pixel smartphones is an important one, and the firm is working hard to enhance the quality of customer support it provides to the nation's residents. According to Osterloh, Google's partner F1 Info Solutions has helped the company open service locations in 27 different cities around India.

"From the very onset of our hardware business, we committed to building and investing for the long run. This is an early step in a long journey of expanding our device production capacity and helping meet the country's growing demand for Pixel smartphones," he stated.

Also Read: Google Announces New 10-Year Update Policy for Chromebook, Adding Support for Older Devices

Shift From China to India

It is the latest achievement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration that Google has committed to producing its smartphones domestically in India. Modi's government has been courting several large firms to develop their operations in the country.

Google is the latest major company to declare India its manufacturing center of the future. Apple's local assembly of iPhones started a few years ago when it partnered with local factories to produce the device there.

To entice multinational corporations to set up shop in India, the government (led by New Delhi) is providing billions of dollars in subsidies. The incentives are timed well, since many companies, Apple included, are aiming to reduce their dependence on China as a manufacturing hub.

Also Read: Google Moves To Make Passkeys Default To Replace Passwords, Touting More Secure Technology

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An unspecified group of migrants have returned to the Bibby Stockholm, an accommodation barge that was infected with Legionnaires' disease two months ago.

The BBC reported that a bus carrying the migrants arrived at the port of Portland in Dorset on Thursday afternoon (October 19).

The Home Office said the barge, which has a capacity for up to 500 men awaiting the outcome of their asylum applications, was now "safe and secure" after Legionella bacteria was found in the water supply.

Legionella bacteria can cause Legionnaires disease - a type of pneumonia.

The British government said that, like what other European countries were already doing, using vessels as alternative accommodation would be of "better value for British taxpayers and more manageable for communities than costly hotels."

Read Also: British Prime Minister Visits Israel After Promising To Keep Jewish People Safe Amid Conflict

Protesters Against Barge, But Welcomes Refugees

About 30 people gathered at the port gates to protest the relocation of asylum seekers back into the barge.

Stand Up To Racism Dorset's Candy Udwin said she had been in contact with some asylum seekers who had been staying in the Bibby Stockholm.

"They hate it, they say it feels like a prison," she said, "some hate being on the sea, they find it very difficult to leave and they are completely separated from the community."

A letter was also sent to asylum seekers confirming their re-embarkation and reiterated that all asylum accommodation continued to be offered on a "no-choice basis."

The move came after local councilor Carralyn Parkes lost a High Court fight with Home Secretary Suella Braverman over the lawfulness of housing asylum seekers on the ship.

Asylum Seekers Hate Being on the Bibby Stockholm

Meanwhile, an asylum speaker told the BBC on the condition of anonymity that asylum application had been a "difficult" process as he had not seen his family for nine months, but said being in a hotel had felt "free."

"It feels scary," he said. "We have been living happily in the community."

The asylum seeker also said that he was also worried that, if the barge was crowded to full capacity, there would be a high chance of everyone aboard getting sick very quickly.

"I lived there for five days and have experience on the barge and that's why I am not happy to go back," he added. "In the hotel, we are free to come and go at any time, we are free, and [on the barge] we are bound to something - it's like a prison. It is difficult for all of us and many have said they don't want to go back."

Related Article: Migrants Evacuated at UK's Bibby Stockholm Immigration Barge After Reports of Legionnaires' Disease Outbreak

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The Met Police rammed a 13-year-old Black boy after mistaking his water pistol for the real thing. This incident traumatized the innocent kid, giving him nightmares for three months.

Although the Metropolitan Police issued a public apology regarding the mistake, the law enforcement agency is still facing heavy criticism, especially from the victim's mother.

Black Boy Traumatized by London Police After Mistaking His Water Pistol for Real Gun

According to The Guardian's latest report, the incident happened on July 19 while the Black kid was playing in a street near his house at around 4:00 p.m.

The victim, who was playing with a blue-and-white water pistol, was having a fun moment with her sister, who also had a similar pink-and-white toy gun.

But, these innocent kids weren't expecting that their innocent bonding would become a nightmare, especially for the brother.

While they were playing, a Met police officer passed by. After seeing the 13-year-old's water pistol, he thought it was a real gun being brandished.

Because of this, the cop decided to call another armed police officer. BBC News UK reported that a police van even rammed the black child off his bicycle.

This traumatizing action made by the police authorities knocked the Black kid to the ground. After that, armed cops surrounded the victim; some of them even pointed their "real guns" at the 13-year-old kid.

The victim was incorrectly arrested due to suspicion of being in possession of a real firearm. However, the Metropolitan Police discovered that what the kid was carrying was only a water pistol toy.

Read Also: New Mexico Sheriff Defies 'Unconstitutional' Gun Ban Despite Governor's Emergency Order

Black Boy's Mother Felt Betrayed by Met Police

The Black kid's trauma counselor said that the victim is still suffering from nightmares three months after the traumatizing mistake of the Metropolitan Police.

The victim's mother said that she felt broken and betrayed by the Met Police. She shared that cops only released her son after she intervened in the arrest.

The mother was devastated when she arrived at the scene and saw her beloved son placed in handcuffs.

"The attitude of the police to him - and to me - is shown up in the words of the senior officer at the scene when I protested to him about the conduct of his officers: he told me I was lucky that they had not arrested my son," said the parent.

"For what? For playing with a brightly colored plastic water gun with his younger sibling on the streets behind our home? For being a black boy on the streets of Hackney?" asked the mother.

She explained that if her son had been a 13-year-old white boy, the Met police wouldn't have acted the way they did. The mother further stated that if they were not Black, they would not have been treated that way; the police wouldn't described her as an aggressive mother.

Related Article: Ohio: Police Says Toy Guns Could Endanger Teens-Sheriff Issues Warning to Parents

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The New York attorney general filed a lawsuit against three prominent participants in the digital asset business on Thursday, October 19, continuing her attack on cryptocurrency firms.

The exchange owned by the Winklevoss brothers, Gemini Trust, as well as its financial backer, Genesis Capital, and their parent business, Digital Currency Group, are all named in the lawsuit. The complaint alleges that the defendants defrauded investors of $1 billion by lying to them and covering up their losses, as reported by the New York Times.

Risky and Unstable

In the lawsuit, Attorney General Letitia James alleges that Gemini misled customers about the risks associated with Gemini Earn, a joint venture between Gemini and Genesis that offered customers a high return of up to 8% by basically lending their crypto to the firms.

After the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX crypto exchange in November 2022, Genesis faced difficulties. It locked accounts as the value of digital assets plummeted, making it impossible for Earn investors to retrieve hundreds of millions of US dollars' worth of cryptocurrencies.

James claims in her complaint that Gemini's internal papers demonstrate that the risk analysis teams at the business regarded Genesis as exceedingly unstable, being heavily leveraged and having little liquidity. This was only a few months after Earn was founded in 2021.

While Mr. Bankman-Fried is on trial for criminal fraud, Gemini was also aware that Genesis loans had been invested in his failed crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research.

However, Gemini allegedly did not warn its investors, leaving at least 29,000 New Yorkers and hundreds of thousands more around the nation unaware of the risks to their investments, as indicated by James.

Genesis and Digital Currency Group are being sued for allegedly seeking to hide Genesis' financial losses from Gemini Earn's investors and the general public.

According to the lawsuit, Genesis and Digital Currency conspired to conceal their financial difficulties by having Genesis enter into a $1.1 billion, 10-year promissory note with Digital Currency last year. The note was intended to give the appearance that Genesis was on a more solid financial foundation and to encourage investors to continue participating in the Earn program.

In James' remark, she said: "This fraud is yet another example of bad actors causing harm throughout the under-regulated cryptocurrency industry. My office will continue our efforts to stop deceptive cryptocurrency companies, and to push for stronger regulations to protect all investors."

See Also: Sam Bankman-Fried's Top Engineer Received Multi-Million Dollar Loan, Reveals FTX Exec's 'Flashy' Spending

Blaming the 'Victim'

Following the lawsuit, Gemini replied on X (previously Twitter) with a post that expressed mixed feelings about the legal action. The petition "confirms what we've been saying all along - that Gemini Earn users and other creditors were the victims of a massive fraud and systematically 'lied to' by these parties about 'Genesis's financial condition," it stated.

Moreover, it strongly disagreed with the decision to include Gemini in the lawsuit, arguing that it is illogical to hold the victim responsible for the fraud and deceit they experienced.

See Also: OneCoin Crypto Co-Founder Karl Greenwood Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison Over Involvement in $4 Billion Ponzi Scheme

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Biden Admin is now urged by hundreds of U.S. lawmakers to crack down on the use of cryptocurrencies by Hamas terrorists.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers claims that this terrorist organization might have used digital assets to fund its recent deadly attack on Oct. 7.

These lawmakers are currently being led by U.S. Senators Roger Marshall, and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Representative Sean Casten.

Biden Admin Urged to Crack Down Hamas Crypto Usage

According to Reuters' latest report, 105 U.S. lawmakers signed a letter, which was sent to the U.S. Treasury Department and the White House on Tuesday, Oct. 17.

These officials expressed their grave concerns regarding the use of digital assets by the Hamas military group, as well as the affiliated organization called "Palestinian Islamic Jihad."

They warned the U.S. government that these Palestinian terrorists could be relying on cryptocurrencies to fund their inhumane operations in Israel, as well as evade recently announced U.S. sanctions.

"Congress and this administration must take strong action to thoroughly address crypto illicit finance risks before it can be used to finance another tragedy," the new letter explained.

Euronews explained that the deadly October 7 Hamas attack is a sign that the terrorist group's resources are drastically increasing.

The operations of Hamas are very expensive, especially since they are using cyberattacks, drones, and an estimated 2,500 to 5,000 rockets in a single day.

In 2014, the Palestinian militant organization was even named among the richest terrorist groups across the globe.

There's a high chance that the increasing funds of Hamas could be happening because they are using digital currencies, which are not officially regulated as of writing.

Read Also: Hospital Strike in Gaza Kills Hundreds; Records Highest Death Toll

How Hamas Increases Its Funds

Aside from cryptocurrencies, the Hamas group and other Iran-linked terrorist organizations are receiving funds from different sources.

Of course, the most common source they rely on is Iran. Experts said that Israel's nemesis is allegedly donating over $100 million to Hamas terrorists every year.

Other countries, such as Turkey and Qatar, are also being accused of providing financial assistance to the Hamas terrorist group.

Another funding source that Hamas relies on is the taxes they impose on goods coming from Egypt. Most of the products they tax are fuel, construction materials, and cigarettes.

You can click this link to learn more about how Hamas increased its resources to continue its inhumane operations.

Related Article: US Vetoes UN Resolution Calling for Pause in Israel-Hamas Conflict To Allow Humanitarian Aid

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
As the Israel-Hamas war worsens, many are asking if the U.S. and Israel are planning to conduct a full Gaza invasion to completely stop this terrorist group.

When U.S. President Joe Biden returned to Washington after his controversial Israel visit, he was asked if the hundreds of thousands of Israeli troops would be used for a large-scale ground assault.

Based on his statements, the U.S. government and Israel are trying to avoid a widescale Gaza invasion.

Will the US and Israel Conduct a Full Gaza Invasion?

The Guardian reported that the U.S. and Israel are focusing on invasion alternatives as of press time.

"We had a long talk about that and what alternatives there are. Our military is talking with their military about what the alternatives are," said Joe Biden.

The statements POTUS shared came after IDF (Israel Defense Forces) spokesperson, Lt. Co. Richard Hecht, clarified that they haven't confirmed what steps the Middle Eastern country will take as the war progresses.

"We are preparing for the next stages of war. We haven't said what it will be. Everyone is talking about a ground offensive but maybe it will be something different," he explained.

After Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,400 Israelis and took over 200 hostages, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would "demolish Hamas."

However, his promised ground assault didn't happen since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel.

Blinken and other American officials, such as Central Command Head Gen Michael Kurilla and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, all shared the same message, which is about what the U.S. did after the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Read Also: Biden Admin Reportedly Working On $100 Billion Foreign Aid Plan; Funds for Israel, Ukraine Also Included?

Ex-US Ambassador Talks About Israel's Ground Offensive

Via CNBC, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel said that the expected ground offensive of Israel into the Gaza Strip may not be a full invasion.

Daniel Kurtzer, the U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005, explained that Israeli soldiers could invade Gaza in stages rather than in one, full sweep.

However, this technique has lots of consequences. For example, Kurtzer warned that sending small groups of Israeli troops one at a time could put them at risk of ambushes.

He explained that Hamas terrorists could conduct surprise attacks using their tunnels. Right now, it is still unclear how will Israel handle these Palestinian terrorists.

Related Article: Biden Admin Announces Hamas Sanctions-Hezbollah, Other Middle East-Based Terrorist Groups Included

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
With ME Guangzhou set to open in 2027, becoming a benchmark hotel for modernity and avant-garde luxury in China.

Melia Hotels International, the largest hotel group in Spain and a global leader in the hospitality industry, is thrilled to announce the signing of a ground-breaking agreement with Guangzhou Aocheng Investment Company Ltd. This collaboration will mark a significant milestone for Melia's iconic ME by Melia brand as it makes its highly anticipated debut in the Asia Pacific region. Set to open its doors in 2027, ME Guangzhou will undoubtedly become the ultimate destination for discerning travellers seeking an extraordinary experience in the vibrant city of Guangzhou.

ME by Melia, renowned for its exceptional design and unparalleled lifestyle offerings, represents the epitome of contemporary European culture. With its distinctive collection of design hotels, ME by Melia invites guests to embark on a journey of creative exploration and cultural immersion. From captivating art exhibitions to tantalizing signature cocktails, the ME brand redefines the concept of luxury hospitality, allowing guests to forge a deep connection with their chosen destination in the most extraordinary and imaginative ways.

Located at Guangzhou Macau Place, within the Guangzhou International Financial City-Huangpu Bay Business Circle, ME Guangzhou boasts a prime location that is poised to become the second central business district (CBD) of Guangzhou. The region is currently experiencing rapid progress with the commencement of the construction of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Express Rail Link next year, which aims to strengthen the connection between key cities in southern China including Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. In addition, the forthcoming Yuzhu Tunnel will augment this endeavour by connecting Pazhou Economic Development Zone and Yuzhu Port, contributing to the development of the business circle to a world-class landmark. Furthermore, the hotel offers breath-taking views of the Pearl River while also offering proximity to Guangzhou's iconic landmarks, such as the Dan Jia Watery Region and Former Site of Huangpu Military Academy. By perfectly blending the city's rich heritage and contemporary charm, ME Guangzhou will become the definitive address for sophisticated travellers seeking an authentic and unforgettable experience.

Envisioned as a sanctuary of indulgence and refinement, ME Guangzhou will feature 120 exquisitely appointed rooms and suites, each meticulously designed to offer a luxurious haven for guests. Impeccable personalized services will ensure that every aspect of a guest's stay is tailored to their desires, guaranteeing an unparalleled level of comfort and satisfaction. Moreover, the hotel will boast a diverse array of dining options, including an all-day dining restaurant, specialty venues showcasing culinary excellence, a Mediterranean-style bistro, and an iconic rooftop bar. These exceptional culinary experiences will tantalize the senses and further enrich the overall guest journey. The property will also feature state-of-the-art facilities to cater to the needs of both business and leisure travellers. The hotel's versatile event spaces, including ballrooms and meeting rooms, will offer the perfect setting for special occasions and corporate gatherings. A rejuvenating spa and a well-equipped fitness centre will provide guests with the opportunity to unwind and rejuvenate. Beyond being merely a hotel, as a testament to its commitment to contemporary culture, ME Guangzhou will also curate a sensory feast of cultural and artistic experiences. By intertwining avant-garde art, design, fashion and music, the hotel allows guests to explore the boundaries of creativity and indulge in a world of artistic discovery.

ME by Melia has taken the world by storm with its rapid expansion and exceptional luxury offerings. Currently, the brand boasts a remarkable presence across the globe, captivating travellers in some of the most prestigious destinations like London, Barcelona, Madrid, Ibiza, Dubai, etc.

Revisiting the history of its iconic building designed entirely by Foster and Partners, ME London celebrated this year its 10th anniversary commemorating a decade of bringing creativity and innovation into London's cultural epicentre.

In addition to the ME Guangzhou, the ME by Melia brand will open at least three more hotels in 2023 and 2024 in Malaga (Spain), Malta, and Guadalajara (Mexico), extending the footprint of a collection of designer hotels. From vibrant city centres to exotic beachfront retreats, the brand's properties offer guests unrivalled access to the best each destination has to offer.

Hotel website
Indian Hotels Company (IHCL), India's largest hospitality company, today announced the signing of its first SeleQtions branded hotel in Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh. This is a Brownfield property, slated to open in 2024.

The 42-key hotel, spread over six acres offers panoramic views of the Shivalik range. It is located at a convenient driving distance from Chandigarh. It will house an all-day diner, a bar as well as an outdoor cafe. Other recreation facilities will include a spa, swimming pool, and fitness centre.

With its natural beauty, cultural heritage, and spiritual aura, Sirmaur offers many attractions for the tourists.

With the addition of this hotel, IHCL will have five hotels across Taj, SeleQtions and Vivanta in Himachal Pradesh including two under development.

Hotel website
Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita, a beloved five-star resort nestled along Mexico's Pacific coast, announces the appointment of Michael Rodriguez as new food and beverage director. With a dynamic career spanning more than a decade in the luxury hospitality industry, Rodriguez brings a wealth of experience, coming off back-to-back new hotel openings and a renovation. Known for his relentless pursuit of excellence and exceptional leadership skills, Rodriguez is eager to push the culinary team at Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita to new heights.

Rodriguez began his hospitality career at Westin La Cantera Resort in San Antonio, before joining the Four Seasons at the former Dallas Las Colinas property as a food and beverage management trainee. Over the years, his dedication propelled him towards leadership roles, ultimately joining Four Seasons Resort Orlando opening team as the general manager of their signature restaurant, the now Michelin Guide recognized Ravello. His next venture began at the Fairmont Hotel Austin, where he served as the assistant director of food and beverage, overseeing the development of more than eight dining outlets.

Returning to the Four Seasons family in 2021, Rodriguez took on the role Director of Food and Beverage in Houston. During his tenure, he successfully managed the renovation and launch of Toro Toro as well as the speakeasy Bandista, which was nominated for the Spirited Award for Best New Cocktail Bar. Under his direction, these outlets became the go-to destinations for Houstonians, achieving a record GOP percentage in 2022.

As a drummer and pianist, Rodriguez has life-long passion for music, which he explored at the University of North Texas where he studied both music and hospitality. In his free time, Rodriguez is also an avid recreational runner and photographer, eager to draw inspiration from Punta Mita's breathtaking vistas. He also loves to spend time with his wife Kassandra and their two young daughters, Alessandra and Audrey.
Leading One&Only Mandarina as General Manager is Nicolas Cejas, who began his journey with Kerzner International in 2021, when he joined One&Only Palmilla in Mexico, as Hotel Manager. In the new role, Nicolas is responsible for the overall operation of the award-winning all-villa beach resort set in Mexico's most awe-inspiring coastal rainforest in Riviera Nayarit, while developing and leading the team and introducing unforgettable guest experiences. Nicolas began his career in international hospitality in 2001 with Starwood Hotels & Resorts / Marriott International, working his way up from a bellman to opening Latin America's first St. Regis in Punta Mita, Mexico in 2013. His career spans various departments and key positions, including Front Office Manager, Director of Rooms, Hotel Manager, and Executive Assistant Manager of Rooms, working with notable brands including St. Regis and Ritz-Carlton. Nicolas will continue to build on the successful accomplishments and long-lasting impressions One&Only Mandarina has left on the hospitality industry in Mexico.
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, a global leader in luxury hospitality, is delighted to announce the appointment of Nils-Arne Schroeder as the Senior Vice President of Operations for the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions.

Schroeder joins Fairmont Hotels & Resorts with a wealth of experience in luxury hospitality. His impressive career, which spans over three decades, has seen him take on complex leadership roles in Commercial, Hotel Operations and Luxury Brand Management across five countries in three continents including United Arab Emirates, South Korea, China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Notably, Schroeder's extensive experience in Asia Pacific, where he was based for over 20 years, has built his business acumen for the region, placing him in good stead to harness its diversity for the growth of the Fairmont brand.

Most recently, Schroeder held the role of Vice President, Luxury Brands at Hilton, Asia Pacific where he was responsible for spearheading brand initiatives for the company's three luxury brands in the region: Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts; Conrad Hotels & Resorts; and LXR Hotels & Resorts. During that time, he oversaw the openings of several landmark luxury hotels including the first LXR hotel in the region in Kyoto, Japan; and first Conrad hotel in Shanghai, China. For almost two years, Schroeder also concurrently held the position of Global Brand Head for Conrad Hotels & Resorts, overseeing the then global portfolio of 40 trading Conrad hotels and 20 hotels in the pipeline, successfully redefining and elevating the brand's positioning and leading its strategic growth on a global scale.

In his current role with Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, Schroeder is fully responsible for the operational performance of 18 hotels across Asia Pacific and the Middle East. He will also oversee more than 10 openings in the region which will see the regional portfolio expand by over 50 percent. Over the coming years, guests and customers can look forward to experiencing Fairmont's extraordinary brand of luxury hospitality in new city and resort destinations including Japan, Thailand and Vietnam with the openings of Fairmont Tokyo, Fairmont Bangkok and Fairmont Hanoi. In addition, Schroeder will lead the expansion of the Fairmont portfolio across gateway cities with the debut of hotels such as Fairmont Dubai Skyline, Fairmont Shimla Fagu, Fairmont Udaipur, Fairmont Mumbai Sahar and Fairmont Agra.

Schroeder's appointment marks an exciting new chapter for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts as the brand continues to enhance its offerings and establish new benchmarks for excellence in the hospitality industry.
The General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization has met for the 25th time in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. As its own data indicates that global tourism is on track to reach up to 95% of pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year, the Assembly brought sector leaders together to advance a clear vision for the long-term transformation of the sector around clear priorities.

Reflecting the broad diversity of the sector, delegations from 117 countries, including 70 Ministerial level representatives, came together for the meeting of the supreme organ of the UN specialized agency for tourism for development. Ahead of the opening plenary, UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili had been formally welcomed to Samarkand by President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and commended his leadership in boosting levels of investment in the country's tourism sector and his focus on education and supporting jobs.

A"key moment for tourism"

Opening the General Assembly, Mr Pololikashvili said: This General Assembly represents a key moment for us as an Organization and for tourism as a sector. We weathered the storm of the pandemic, and now have the opportunity to achieve the long-term transformation of the sector and leave a real legacy for global tourism."

On the eve of the Assembly, the Secretary-General had published his wide-landmark goal for the sector. "The Journey to 2030: A Vision for a Sector Transformed" sets out clear priorities for the sector in the year ahead and action plans for achieving them.

Also opening the General Assembly, H.E. Aziz Abdukhakimov is Minister of Ecology, Environmental Protection and Climate Change of the Republic of Uzbekistan, underscored his Government's commitment to bolstering tourism as a pillar of national development and for the preservation of cultural heritage.

Members Applaud Progress

A key part of the First Plenary Session was the Report of the Secretary-General to Members, setting out the Organization's achievements since the previous General Assembly, held in Madrid, Spain (December, 2021). The report focused on his five core priorities for the sector, both over the last two years and for the two years to come:

Scale up innovation and digital transformation

Invest in People with a focus on Human Capital, Education and Jobs

Boost investments, financing and entrepreneurship

Foster sustainable and green transition across tourism

Enhance competitiveness and resilience, through statistics, market intelligence, and product development.

The report to Members also highlighted UNWTO's heightened relevance and visibility, including as part of the wider United Nations system. During the opening day, Member States were greeted by video messages from key UN leaders, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Director-General of the World Health Organization Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Juan Carlos Salazar, Secretary-General of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), as well as European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas. They all commended UNWTO's central role in guiding tourism through the pandemic and setting the sector on course for a sustainable and resilient recovery.

Strong, Growing Membership

For the third consecutive General Assembly, UNWTO celebrated its growing size. In Samarkand, Belize was welcomed as the Organization's newest Member State, taking the total to 160. The Assembly was given an overview of advanced plans to further expand Membership, including to welcome several countries it has been in long-term talks with.

RELATED LINKS

About The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations specialized agency fostering tourism as a vehicle for equal, inclusive and sustainable development. Working with its Member States, international organizations and the private sector, UNWTO promotes safe and seamless travel for all. UNWTO also works to make tourism the foundation of trust and international cooperation and a central pillar of recovery. As part of the wider UN system, UNWTO is at the forefront of global efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including through its ability to create decent jobs, promote equality and preserve natural and cultural heritage.

Follow UNWTO on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin.

UNWTO Communications Department

+34 91 567 8100

UNWTO
LOS ANGELES - Today, Angelenos Protecting Hospitality (APH) officially launched. APH is the lead group that will work with Los Angeles voters and stakeholders to defeat a ballot initiative that would force all hotels in the city to house homeless people next to paying guests.

Los Angeles residents are set to vote in March 2024 on whether to require all local hotels to house homeless people next to paying guests as part of a measure proposed by Unite Here, a labor union that represents LA-area hotel workers. If the initiative passes, LA would become the first city in American history to force hotels to house homeless people next to paying guests.

APH will work with community groups to educate LA voters about the harmful effects of Unite Heres ballot initiative.

Opponents of the homeless in hotels ballot initiative include the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), the California Hotel & Lodging Association, the Hotel Association of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Business Federation, the Greater Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Northeast Los Angeles Hotel Owners Association, the LAX Coastal Chamber of Commerce, and other stakeholders.

LA has seen many failed attempts to solve the homelessness crisis, and this ballot measure is not a realistic solution. Using taxpayer dollars to house homeless individuals alongside paying guests in hotels for one night does nothing to solve the homelessness crisis facing LA. It would only endanger LA hotel employees, devastate tourism in the city, and ultimately destroy LAs hotel industry.

APH is launching a six-figure paid advertising campaign to educate LA voters about the dangerous measure. The ad campaign warns that putting homeless people in hotels next to paying guests is nothing more than an expensive, taxpayer-funded band-aid that hurts tourism and puts hotel workers and guests at risk, while failing to provide homeless people the specialized care they need.

Housing homeless people in hotels: Expensive. Dangerous. Wrong, the ad says.

A Public Opinion Strategies poll commissioned by AHLA this year found that large majorities of LA residents say housing homeless people in hotels next to paying guests would unfairly burden hotel staff (81%), devastate the citys tourism industry (70%), and create an unsafe workspace for hotel staff (69%).

According to the City of Los Angeles Initiative, Referendum & Recall Petition Handbook (page 7), Unite Here can withdraw the ballot initiative as long as it does so 88 days before the election, or Dec. 8.

LAs homeless population needs long-term solutions and specialized care that only social and health care workers can provide. Its dangerous to force untrained hotel employees and guests to shoulder these responsibilities. Angelenos Protecting Hospitality will lead the effort defeat this terrible ballot initiative so we can protect hotel employees and guests, preserve LAs vital tourism industry, and keep policymakers focused on finding serious solutions to LAs homelessness problem. APH President and AHLA President & CEO Chip Rogers

About Angelenos Protecting Hospitality

Angelenos Protecting Hospitality is the official committee in opposition to the March 2024 ballot initiative that would force all Los Angeles hotels to house homeless people next to paying guests. Help protect LA hotel workers, guests, and tourism by joining us at angelenosprotectinghospitality.com.

Disclaimer: Paid for by Angelenos Protecting Hospitality Inc Committee Against Ballot Initiative for Land Use and Replacement Housing Requirements for Hotel Developers; Program to Utilize Vacant Hotel Rooms for Unhoused Individuals, Police Permit Requirements for Hotels. Committee Top Funder: American Hotel & Lodging Association.

Additional information is available at ethics.lacity.org.

About the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA)

The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) is the sole national association representing all segments of the U.S. lodging industry. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AHLA focuses on strategic advocacy, communications support and workforce development programs to move the industry forward. Learn more at www.ahla.com.
Asia Pacific  Institutional investors are attracted to prime hotel assets in tier 1 markets across Asia Pacific, even though tourist arrivals in key destinations are only reaching 70-80% of pre-pandemic levels, according to the latest CBRE research.

With limited supply of high-quality assets, we anticipate intense competition among investors for the best hotel properties across Asia Pacific. Despite the regions uneven tourism recovery, core assets in Japan, Singapore, Australia and Korea, as well as resort markets continue to generate strong interest. Dr. Henry Chin, Global Head of Investor Thought Leadership & Head of Research, Asia Pacific

As of Q3 2023 Asia Pacific hotel investment volume was down 29% year-over-year to US$8.44bn, with Japan accounting for approximately one-third of investment activity. While overall investment activity remains cautious, well-located, high-quality hotel assets in key markets remain attractive.

The slower return of travelers, particularly from mainland China, has not deterred real estate investors who recognize the long-term potential of top-tier hotel properties in Asia Pacific. CBRE expects a full recovery of Chinese travel may not transpire until the end of 2024. Some destinations like Japan, Korea and Hong Kong SAR have already seen a rebound in travelers from mainland China.

Asia Pacific hotel assets have performed well over the past year, making them highly coveted investments. We anticipate a repricing of Asia Pacific hotel assets to be more moderate than in many other parts of the world, as the rebound in international arrivals and higher hotel revenue helps to offset headwinds from the capital markets environment. Steve Carroll, Head of Hotels & Hospitality, Capital Markets, Asia Pacific for CBRE

To read the full report, click here.

About CBRE Group, Inc.

CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Dallas, is the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2021 revenue). The company has more than 105,000 employees (excluding Turner & Townsend employees) serving clients in more than 100 countries. CBRE serves a diverse range of clients with an integrated suite of services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at www.cbre.com.

Katherine Yu

CBRE Hotels
PRAGUE - Mews , the industry-leading hospitality cloud, is celebrating 10 years since the very first hotel went live on its platform. The Emblem Prague Hotel was the first to embrace the new generation of hospitality and remains a Mews customer to this day.

It's amazing how much Mews has changed in the decade since we onboarded with them. The platform is now even more sophisticated, with more features that save us time and prioritize the guest experience. But what's also notable are the things that haven't changed: a true passion for hospitality and a commitment to continuous development. Helena Valtrova, General and Sales Manager at The Emblem Prague Hotel

Mews now powers over 3,500 hotels, hostels, apartment groups and more across 85 countries around the world. Its growth in recent years has been rapid, securing a Series C investment of $185 million last year, and acquiring seven hospitality companies to date. 2023 has seen the team grow by 25%, and the number of Mews customers has increased by a third in the last nine months.

Beyond rooms and overnight stays, Mews has helped more than 800 customers diversify their revenue streams, increase profit and optimize their properties by utilizing every square meter to offer guests a well-rounded stay. The biggest increase in revenue has come from selling parking spaces and meeting rooms, which guests can upgrade during booking or check-in: currently, almost 2,900 parking spaces in 189 hotels are managed with Mews, and there have been 9,796 reservations. Additionally, 1,200 meeting rooms across 312 hotels are managed with Mews PMS, allowing hotel staff to track digital bookings and manage dynamic pricing all within one platform. Hotels can also sell these spaces to non-guests traveling for work or living locally.

Reflecting on our journey, I can't believe Helena trusted us to build her a PMS to run a jewel of a hotel in the center of Prague. I'm so proud of how far Mews has come since then. It's thanks to the talent and ambition of our team, and the ongoing support of our customers, that we've been able to continue pursuing our vision of remarkable, guest-centric hospitality. I can't wait to see what the next ten years will bring. Richard Valtr, Mews Founder

The tech company has also seen plenty of industry acclaim. In 2023, Mews was named 'World's Best Hotel PMS Solutions Provider' and 'World's Best Independent Hotel PMS Solutions Provider' at the World Travel Tech Awards. Hotel Tech Report named Mews Best Place to Work in Hotel Tech for two years running in 2021 and 2022.

When The Emblem Prague Hotel onboarded, Mews had no more than a dozen employees. Now, the company employs almost 850 people, with dozens of open roles currently available. Career opportunities can be found here.

About Mews

Mews is the leading platform for the new era of hospitality. Powering over 3,500 properties across more than 85 countries, Mews Hospitality Cloud is designed to streamline operations for modern hoteliers, transform the guest experience and create more profitable businesses. Customers include Accor, Generator-Freehand, The Strawberry Group, The Social Hub, Life House and Airelles. Mews has been named the World's Best Independent Hotel PMS Provider by World Travel Tech Awards (2022) and Best Place to Work in Hotel Tech (2021, 2022) by Hotel Tech Report. The company has offices in Europe, the United States and Australia.

www.mews.com/en

Katie Halfhead

Senior Communications Manager
NEWTON, MA  Sonesta International Hotels Corporation (Sonesta) today announced the grand openings of four new Sonesta Simply Suites locations this week:

Sonesta Simply Suites Lafayette, a 104-room hotel located in Louisiana.

Sonesta Simply Suites Memphis, a 72-room hotel located in Tennessee.

Sonesta Simply Suites Stafford, an 82-room hotel located in Texas.

Sonesta Simply Suites Lansing, a 122-room hotel located in Illinois.

The addition of four new Sonesta Simply Suites hotels in four new destinations underscores the demand for extended stay hotel options. With these hotels, Sonesta has opened over 20 hotels this year. These four conversions demonstrate how our fast, friendly and flexible approach to franchise and development continues to resonate with owners. Keith Pierce, EVP and President Franchise & Development, Sonesta

The four new Sonesta Simply Suites are opening at time when the extended stay category is growing faster than the broader hospitality market. According to a mid-year 2023 report by hospitality industry consulting firm The Highland Group, extended stay hotels saw a 3.2% increase in RevPAR in Q2 year over year compared to a 2.7% increase in RevPAR for the overall industry. Extended stay occupancy rates stand 11% above a comparison to all hotels for the same time period according to Smith Travel Research (STR).

Sonesta Simply Suites offers travelers simplicity, which is thoughtfully curated through each detail for a seamless and carefree stay. Simply Suites is a place guests can depend on for everything they need, and nothing they dont. Sonesta now offers over 65 locations to experience Sonesta Simply Suites and its uncomplicated approach to extended stay. Guests of these locations can earn or redeem points in the award-winning Sonesta Travel Pass loyalty program.

About Sonesta

Sonesta is the 8th largest hotel company according to Smith Travel Research (STR) with approximately 1,200 properties totaling 100,000 guest rooms across 17 brands in eight countries. Sonesta owns, manages and/or franchises under The Royal Sonesta; The James, Classico  a Sonesta Collection, Sonesta Hotels & Resorts; Mod  A Sonesta Collection, Sonesta Select; Sonesta Essential, Sonesta ES (Extended Stay) Suites, Sonesta Simply Suites and Sonesta Cruise Collection operating in Egypt, also; Sonesta Posadas del Inca; Red Lion Hotels; Red Lion Inn & Suites; Signature Inn; GuestHouse Extended Stay; Knight's Inn; Americas Best Value Inn and Canadas Best Value Inn. For more information about Sonesta and its locations, visit franchise.sonesta.com or email [email protected].

Lorie Juliano

Sonesta International Hotels Corporation

+1 617 421 5429

Sonesta
The Tourism/Visitor industry is one of the worlds great industries. Large industries also mean that great deals of money can be involved. The tourism industry spends a great deal of money on promotions and marketing campaigns. Because many people assume that large tourism businesses also have deep pockets, in litigious societies such as the United States, there are also multiple lawsuits and/or other legal problems. Often local convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs) or tourism offices are unaware of their own nations laws and obligations. This ignorance of the law can be very costly. It is for this reason that Tourism Tidbits raises the following issues.

Please note that Tourism Tidbits does not give legal advice. For specific legal advice please consult a lawyer who is licensed in your state, province, or nation. The information found below is merely meant to help tourism/travel professionals to remember to seek legal advice, to ask questions, and with a lawyers guidance to know how to avoid legal problems.

Make sure that you have a legal team and meet with them on a regular basis. It is essential that you have a legal team that knows you well and understands your business. Having a legal team or a lawyer on a retainer permits you to ask questions and get advice that may save you a great deal of money and help you avoid problems. Meeting with your lawyer or legal team on a regular basis also helps to immunize you in an ever more litigious world.

Take the time to ask you legal team to develop a series of questions about tourism law? What questions are you not asking? In what areas of the law are you ignorant or ought you to have more information? Have you done a review of those tourism laws that apply to your business, product, and employees? With what laws are you failing to comply? What are the consequences of a compliance failure?

Review with your legal staff your obligations and duties? How do these responsibilities different according to different types of law such as: maritime law, international law, airline codes, local property law, contract law or statutory law? Then make sure that you understand legal subtleties. For example, you should know if there are differences between a local person as a guest in your hotel or an out-of-towner as a guest? Do you know your rights and obligations with a trespasser? Are there legal requirements to treat a VIP differently from other guests and is there a clear definition of who is and who is not a VIP?

Update the legal requirements and laws concerning your part of the tourism industry on a regular basis with qualified legal experts. Often tourism bureaus hire lawyers and legal experts who have never studied how tourism law impacts their part of the industry. As tourism and terrorism become more intertwined it is essential to know your citys, states, or nations legal requirements. For example, there is a section of the US PATRIOT act and published in the Federal Registry of Friday May 9 th ,2003 (Vol.68, Number 90m p.25092) which specifies casinos legal duties in anti-terrorism. Casinos that chose to ignore this act may be faced with a very difficult situation.

,2003 (Vol.68, Number 90m p.25092) which specifies casinos legal duties in anti-terrorism. Casinos that chose to ignore this act may be faced with a very difficult situation. Make sure that your legal staff stays up-to-date. Tourism law is both international and national in scope. As such it is complicated and changes quickly. It is essential that your legal staff stay up-to-date on how the tourism law changes around the world. There is no one stop legal shopping. Instead develop with other local professionals a listing of who is an expert in various aspects of tourism law.

Develop tourism law exchanges. Remember that a legal mistake in any one part of the tourism industry can impact the entire industry. Do not forget to include the local police departments in these seminars and work with allied industries so that those industries do not act (or fail to act) due to legal confusion.

Know what help can you expect from your government regarding damages? In some nations, but not all nations, tourism is considered a critical asset and governments have special agencies to help with recovery. For example, in the U.S. Homeland Security and FEMA may be able to provide funding which will aid you in avoiding a costly lawsuit. The smart tourism or travel professional takes the time to meet, along with a member of the legal staff, with government agencies to learn of all of their services and what legal help these agencies can provide.

Know what types of damages can you be accountable for and for which types of damages can you hold another accountable? Tourism is different from other types of laws in that the victimizer and the victim may not be in the same community or even country. What are your rights and obligations if you are sued from a different locale? How can you protect your community from someone who comes into it, victimizes it and then leaves? Are there different laws dealing with how locale interacts with physical damages or financial damages, or emotional damages caused by a ruined vacation?

Know what your assets are. Many tourism assets are non-tangible assets. For example, is your locales reputation an asset? How much reputational damage can come from someone seeking to do harm? What is the asset damage multiplier effect? If your business goes under how much are other tourism related businesses impacted by your error or having suffered an attack?

Be aware of what is happening in the world and how that can impact your part of the tourism industry. A lesson from the international Covid-19 pandemic is that tourism threats and risks come in many forms. All too often tourism/travel professionals are stuck in the old paradigm that stated that tourists were afraid of security and the less security is mentioned the better. The post-Covid world is different. It is essential that your visitors understand that your locale worries about all aspects of their security, from food safety to heath regulations, from acts of terrorism to crime on the streets. The best way to avoid or win a lawsuit is to take the time to do good risk management and know what your obligations are.

Make sure that you understand the differences between a criminal act and a terrorist act. These two negative events have very specific definitions in different nations laws and the legal consequences are determined by how the courts may define the event. It is essential that you review with your legal team these differences and understand what your rights and responsibilities are should either of these two events occur.

Please note: Tourism & More is not providing in anything written above that is legal advice. Please consult a legal expert and licensed lawyer for specifics pertaining to your business or role in the tourism industry.

Peter Tarlow

President Tourism and More

+1 979 764 8402

Tourism and More
As this ground-breaking program enters its seventh year running, weve invited three of its distinguished directors to share their insights into the inner workings of the curriculum. Here, we have the answers from Dr. Ki-Joon Back from the University of Houston, Nicole Hinrichs from the EHL Hospitality Business School, and Catherine Cheung from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

What is unique about the program's structure and defining characteristics?

Dr. Ki-Joon Back: Our program delves deeper than the usual hotel and restaurant management syllabi. It journeys through the vast world of hospitality, concentrating on cultural understanding and effective communication with various stakeholders. Each partnering institution brings its individual expertise, offering students a mix of different skills and worldviews. This eclectic approach furnishes them with a well-rounded understanding of the sector, priming them for leadership and enabling them to tackle the intricacies of the global scenario.

Dr. Nicole Hinrichs: Echoing Dr. Back, the tri-semester, tri-continent format stands out. It's not merely academic instruction; its about living the experience. Students encounter different cultural subtleties, comprehend distinct hospitality markets, and create worldwide networks. This interaction, merged with our academic business venture, ensures they develop pragmatic skills in devising hospitality strategies. This mix of theoretical and experiential learning guarantees our graduates are both enlightened and prepared for the real world.

Dr. Catherine Cheung: Transitioning from one continent to another, students don't just get a taste of hospitality variations but also come to understand its broader shades. Their learning encompasses Europes historical hospitality legacy, Asias fast-paced market, and Americas expansive hospitality domain, endowing them with an extensive toolkit for leadership and innovation in this ever-adaptive industry.

How does the three-semester span across Europe, Asia, and the USA enhance the student's learning experience?

Dr. Nicole Hinrichs: This three-continent immersion deepens their understanding of global hospitality. Europe offers a rich history, emphasizing luxury hospitality. Asia, with its diverse markets, focuses on innovation and service quality. And the USA provides an in-depth look into resort and hotel management, ensuring a rounded experience.

Dr. Catherine Cheung: And this immersive approach sharpens their adaptability  a crucial skill in today's ever-evolving hospitality landscape.

Dr. Ki-Joon Back: It's all about perspective. Each continent brings a unique flavor to the table. Experiencing these differences firsthand allows our students to develop a holistic view of the hospitality industry, truly understanding its nuances.

What type of student is best suited for this program?

Dr. Nicole Hinrichs: We look for students with a blend of hospitality-related experience and a global mindset. It's beneficial if they have a background in business, hospitality, or tourism. Essential qualities include adaptability, leadership potential, and a genuine desire to engage in hands-on learning.

Dr. Ki-Joon Back: Cultural sensitivity is a must. This program thrives on collaboration, and students should be eager to engage in diverse group settings, learning from various global viewpoints.

Dr. Catherine Cheung: It's about being open to learn, adapt, and innovate. These are the students who truly excel in our program.

This program includes an Academic Business Project. How does that work?

Dr. Ki-Joon Back: The business project is pivotal as it gives students the opportunity to work with global hospitality companies. Some work on strategizing forays into budding markets. Others are synergizing with nascent hospitality tech firms to improve customer experience solutions. These aren't mere academic endeavors; they address pressing industry challenges and often lay the groundwork for industry revolution.

Dr. Catherine Cheung: And it's not just about immediate outcomes. These projects instill an entrepreneurial mindset in our students. They learn to identify opportunities, innovate, and craft actionable solutions. Regardless of the project's scale, they gain invaluable hands-on experience, positioning them as valuable players in the hospitality sector.

Dr. Nicole Hinrichs: These business projects with real industry partners not only offer students deep industry insights but also an opportunity to make a tangible impact. Such initiatives provide students with hands-on experience, networking opportunities, and a chance to apply their classroom knowledge to solve practical industry problems, making them well-prepared for future leadership roles in the field.

What advantages do graduates gain from this three-university degree?

This program leads to an internationally accredited degree (Master of Science HES-SO in Hospitality Management) and alumni membership with all three prestigious institutions: University of Houston, in Texas, USA; EHL Hospitality Business School, in Switzerland; and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. How does this benefit the students?

Dr. Nicole Hinrichs: As students automatically become a part of the alumni network for all three universities, its not just about institutional prestige but also about the expanded opportunities and support they receive. Access to such a vast and diverse alumni network across three continents means a wider reach for mentorship, guidance, and potential job opportunities.

Dr. Catherine Cheung: Indeed, being part of three distinct alumni networks means students have a more comprehensive web of contacts in the hospitality industry worldwide. This positions them with an unparalleled advantage when it comes to global exposure and opportunities, something not available in conventional programs.

Dr. Ki-Joon Back: Its not just about the academic experience but the lifelong connections they form. These trifold alumni networks become their support system, guiding them through their careers, opening doors, and ensuring that they truly have a global reach and perspective in the world of hospitality.

What advice would you offer prospective students?

Dr. Ki-Joon Back: Embrace global immersion. Absorb as much as you can from the cultural differences, participate actively, and nurture connections. These experiences will shape your international hospitality journey.

Dr. Nicole Hinrichs: Remain curious and adaptable. I envision our graduates shaping the future of global hospitality with their insights, innovation, and leadership.

Dr. Catherine Cheung: And always remember, in hospitality, the world is your oyster. The impact you can make is boundless. Seize the opportunities and lead with passion.

Future leaders on their way

The Master of Science in Global Hospitality Management program is undeniably paving the way for future leaders in the industry. With three semesters on three continents, the program develops a holistic mastery of global hospitality business concepts. It centers on experiential and social learning, cultural immersion, and expert industry insights. It includes the added value of field trips, professional certifications, and an applied business project with real global industry partners. All these special qualities make for a truly unique learning experience that opens the doors for a global hospitality career.

Moreover, the program has been awarded several times in educational rankings: Masters Ranking in Hospitality

Management (for EHLs MGH), Eduniversal, worldwide, #2 in 2022, #2 in 2021, #2 in 2019

Master in Global Hospitality Business, Ranked #2 in Switzerland, QS Business Masters in Management Rankings 2023

Master of Science in Global Hospitality Business (MGH), McCool Breakthrough Award, I-CHRIE, 2020

For other inside perspectives from this program, check out our interview with a graduate of the MGH program or watch this video interview with an MGH alumnus.

EHL Hospitality Business School

Communications Department

+41 21 785 1354

EHL

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Imagine a guest arriving at your hotel only to find their room isnt ready, the restaurant is closed, and theres nowhere to store their luggage while they wait.

They wont be too happy, right?

Now imagine a different scenario. Your arriving guests are greeted by name. They head to their upgraded room with a glorious city view and deposit their bags before enjoying a pre-dinner cocktail.

Thats so much better.

Guest satisfaction is a hot topic within the hotel industry. Simply put, its a measurement of how happy your guests are with your hotels hospitality, service, and amenities. And you can gauge guest satisfaction levels by looking at your hotels reviews and ratings.

Lets take a closer look at why maintaining a high guest satisfaction level matters  plus some tips you can implement to improve it.

Why guest satisfaction matters

Guest satisfaction matters because it impacts reviews, which directly affect your bottom line.

The fact is, people trust recommendations from other people more than they trust your hotel advertising. When choosing a hotel destination, 50% of travelers rely on advice from family and friends. And 49% turn to social media.

Moreover, a mere 1-point increase (on a 5-point scale) in a propertys review scores can support an 11% higher daily room rate.

When your property delivers memorable guest experiences, youre rewarded with repeat business and loyal brand advocates who share their great experiences far and wide. This ultimately drives your future growth.

9 easy ways to improve guest satisfaction in hotels

Now that you know the what and the why behind the importance of high guest satisfaction, lets look at the how. To improve hotel guest satisfaction  and quickly  consider these 9 proven strategies.

Find out how the right email marketing solution helps you provide personalized communications with guests at every stage. Book a demo to see whats possible.

1. Simplify the booking process

You can improve your relationship with guests by making it fast and easy for them to complete a reservation. Start by recognizing that 30% to 40% of online travel sales happen on mobile devices. So, make certain your website design is mobile first.

In addition, your guests get inspired by images and posts on places like Instagram and Facebook. Use a platform that makes it easy to monitor and connect with guests over social media. And reduce steps by linking your social media accounts directly to your booking engine.

One final tip: Include a prominent click-to-call (CTA) button for seamless access to your call center.

2. Use guests preferred communication channels

Your guests may initially contact you through email, move to text or live chat, and then finish up with a phone call. Throughout it all, 86% of them expect it to be a seamless conversation across channels.

To keep your guests happy, you need a flexible marketing solution that works on all channels your guests like to use. It should also collect and organize guest data into one place thats easily accessible by all guest-facing team members.

Interested in a guest feedback solution that lets you manage reviews and feedback all in one place? Schedule a demo to see how it works.

3. Create personalized experiences

Your guests want to feel unique and known by name, with nearly 9 out of 10 travelers looking for personalized experiences during their stays.

Luckily, advanced technology can give hotel staff instant access to rich guest profiles that allow them to tailor guest experiences. For instance, if you know a couple is celebrating an anniversary, you can surprise and delight them by offering to have chilled champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries waiting when they arrive.

4. Anticipate guest needs to boost guest satisfaction

Create even more valuable experiences when you take personalization a step further  into the realm of predictive personalization. Using a feature like Revinate Marketings Guest Preferences, you can capture guest preference data from past visits and use it to anticipate future needs.

For example, you can delight your art-loving guests by letting them know about the new exhibit at the local museum. Or, thrill the tired family that just trudged through your front door by letting them know the baby crib they were going to request is already set up in their room.

5. Address concerns 24/7

Delays in responding to guest issues or complaints can be detrimental to your guest satisfaction level. On the flip side, resolving problems quickly can be quite beneficial.

According to a Deloitte survey, hotel guests are 40% more likely to promote a positive experience at your hotel when their issue is fixed in a timely manner. An AI-powered text messaging solution, such as Revinate Ivy, can take care of routine guest questions no matter what time of day or night they occur.

6. Collect and act on feedback

Another great way to ensure your guests are happy is to simply ask them. With reputation management software, you can send guests mid-stay and post-stay surveys. The feedback you receive lets you see exactly what youre doing right and where you can improve.

The right solution helps you quickly correct any issues, preventing negative reviews before they occur. It also makes it easy for guests to turn positive feedback into positive reviews. Consider that customers who use Revinates survey feature see a 51% increase in review volume.

7. Respond to reviews

According to a Tripadvisor study, 4 out of 5 travelers (81%) read reviews before booking their hotel. This is easier when you leverage a solution that consolidates them all in one place and makes it easy for you to respond quickly.

And your personalized, polite, and fast response is important for maintaining high guest satisfaction, particularly for negative reviews. It turns out that promptly and courteously responding to negative reviews matters to travelers.

8. Stay in touch

The guest experience doesnt end when your guests check out. The right technology lets you send regular email newsletters and promotions to further build those relationships.

The best email marketing tools automate this process and allow for segmentation. This is crucial, with research from Hubspot showing that subscriber segmentation is the most effective strategy for email marketing campaigns.

With segmentation, you can customize offers and news based on guest data. For instance, you can send information and promotions about kid-friendly activities to your guests that travel with their families.

9. Reward loyal guests

According to Kalibri Labs, Ioyalty-related bookings account for more than half of total hotel bookings in the US. With the right technology platform, you can easily see which of your guests visit most often and/or spend the most on property.

You can build greater customer loyalty by recognizing and rewarding these high-value guests with special perks that speak to their preferences. As a result, theyll feel valued and are more likely to become brand evangelists, spreading the word and further boosting guest satisfaction.

Boost guest satisfaction with the right tech

Hoteliers are not in the room-filling business. Theyre in the people business. Your guests love it when you show you know them, appreciate them, and want to connect with them. Having the right technology in place is a vital tool for accomplishing these goals.

The right solutions automate time-consuming processes that directly impact your guest satisfaction levels, especially if youre able to leverage personalized upsells that truly appeal to your guests.

To learn more about how to drive incremental revenue and delight guests with personalized offers, download our guide, The ultimate guide to upselling techniques for hotels.

About Revinate

Revinate empowers hoteliers to directly connect with their guests.

Our Guest Data Platform and communication solutions unlock revenue for hoteliers and put them in control of the full guest experience  initial research, booking, check-in, throughout the stay, and even after check out  all via the communication channels that guests prefer, whether it's voice, text, email, or web.

More than 12,000 hotels globally bank on Revinate to drive direct revenue and deliver delightful guest experiences.

Ask us how we do it. Visit our website to get a demo.

Sanjana Chappalli

VP of Brand Marketing and Communications

Revinate, Inc.

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China Hotel Performance Jumped During Eight-day-long Golden Week

A later Mid-Autumn Festival created a longer holiday period than last year, combining with National Day festivities to provide impressive improvement in Chinas hotel performance.

Growth across the country

As usual, China created another long national holiday by adjusting working days, leading to a holiday period of 30 September through 7 October before a return to work on the weekend of 8-9 October.

Mainland China hotel occupancy over the eight-day holiday period averaged 65.1% and peaked on 2 October (83.1%). Most of the growth came from outside the Tier 1 markets (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen), as millions of people departed large cities and headed home to stay with family around the country. Tier 1 market occupancy in aggregate peaked on 1 October at a softer 74.8%. The New 1st Tier or Tier 1.5 markets, however, saw the highest occupancy levels on 2 October (85.6%), as some of the busiest markets were Suzhou (94.1%), Chongqing (92.9%), and Chengdu (91.7%).

The countrys hotel performance was driven by exceptionally high average daily rate (ADR) in leisure-driven markets, where high demand pushed room rates to double of what was recorded weeks prior to the holiday  including a peak of CNY1,073.13 on 2 October.

Boosted occupancy and ADR resulted in China posting overall good revenue per available room (RevPAR) at a national level, especially in smaller-tier and leisure-driven markets, which posted the highest RevPAR on 2 October (CNY682.52). Meanwhile, Tier 1 markets retained momentum as softer corporate business was countered by enough tourist demand to enjoy large and popular attractions, leading to that groups highest RevPAR on 1 October (CNY585.87).

RevPAR is already ahead of 2019

As 2022 was still a year of lockdowns and challenges for China, year-over-year comparisons are inevitably going to be favorable this year. For example, this years Golden Week occupancy surpassed last year by 35.0%. However, what stands out is the comparison to 2019, where RevPAR surpassed the pre-pandemic comparable by 12.3%. Even if RevPAR growth was driven predominantly by higher rates, occupancy levels were close to historic peaks as well.

Holiday rates increased 25.5% year over year at a national level, with leisure-driven markets surpassing last years ADR by an impressive 40.8%. Both leisure and business-driven markets pushed ADR levels past the 2019 Golden Week by 42.6%.

Considering the difference in higher indices when comparing the peak holiday with the week prior, it would suggest that these 10 business markets not only relied on higher rates but also brought in more leisure travelers during the holiday, at least when compared with 2019.

Tier 1 markets performed differently

Chinas biggest four markets  Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen  followed a moderately different trend than the rest of the mainland. These massive markets reported strong year-over-year growth during the two adjusted working days, as they were more heavily affected by the restrictions in 2022. However, the markets recovery rates are getting stronger by each quarter, and they are expected to end the year at good levels with less volatility. This was already reflected in this holiday season as the Tier 1 markets reached 2019 levels.

In Summary

After several years of limited Golden Week celebrations, the 2023 rendition of the holiday proved to be a resounding success for the hotel industry  but it should be noted that the May Day holidays earlier this year saw higher performance levels. Golden Week is also the last public holiday of the year, meaning all eyes now look to conferences and corporate travel to continue driving industry recovery in 2023.

While the topline results shown above shouldnt come as a great surprise, they continue to show the importance of major holiday periods in China, but also the broad recovery scenario in place, showing much more historically normal patterns.

This article originally appeared on STR.
ME Guangzhou Hotel to Open in 2027 in China

Melia Hotels International announced the signing of a ground-breaking agreement with Guangzhou Aocheng Investment Company Ltd. This collaboration will mark a significant milestone for Melia's iconic ME by Melia brand as it makes its debut in the Asia Pacific region. Set to open its doors in 2027, ME Guangzhou will undoubtedly become the ultimate destination for discerning travellers seeking an extraordinary experience in the vibrant city of Guangzhou.

ME by Melia, renowned for its exceptional design and unparalleled lifestyle offerings, represents the epitome of contemporary European culture. With its distinctive collection of design hotels, ME by Melia invites guests to embark on a journey of creative exploration and cultural immersion. From captivating art exhibitions to tantalizing signature cocktails, the ME brand redefines the concept of luxury hospitality, allowing guests to forge a deep connection with their chosen destination in the most extraordinary and imaginative ways.

Located at Guangzhou Macau Place, within the Guangzhou International Financial City-Huangpu Bay Business Circle, ME Guangzhou boasts a prime location that is poised to become the second central business district (CBD) of Guangzhou. The region is currently experiencing rapid progress with the commencement of the construction of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Express Rail Link next year, which aims to strengthen the connection between key cities in southern China including Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. In addition, the forthcoming Yuzhu Tunnel will augment this endeavour by connecting Pazhou Economic Development Zone and Yuzhu Port, contributing to the development of the business circle to a world-class landmark. Furthermore, the hotel offers breath-taking views of the Pearl River while also offering proximity to Guangzhou's iconic landmarks, such as the Dan Jia Watery Region and Former Site of Huangpu Military Academy. By perfectly blending the city's rich heritage and contemporary charm, ME Guangzhou will become the definitive address for sophisticated travellers seeking an authentic and unforgettable experience.

Envisioned as a sanctuary of indulgence and refinement, ME Guangzhou will feature 120 exquisitely appointed rooms and suites, each meticulously designed to offer a luxurious haven for guests. Impeccable personalized services will ensure that every aspect of a guest's stay is tailored to their desires, guaranteeing an unparalleled level of comfort and satisfaction. Moreover, the hotel will boast a diverse array of dining options, including an all-day dining restaurant, specialty venues showcasing culinary excellence, a Mediterranean-style bistro, and an iconic rooftop bar. These exceptional culinary experiences will tantalize the senses and further enrich the overall guest journey. The property will also feature state-of-the-art facilities to cater to the needs of both business and leisure travellers. The hotel's versatile event spaces, including ballrooms and meeting rooms, will offer the perfect setting for special occasions and corporate gatherings. A rejuvenating spa and a well-equipped fitness centre will provide guests with the opportunity to unwind and rejuvenate. Beyond being merely a hotel, as a testament to its commitment to contemporary culture, ME Guangzhou will also curate a sensory feast of cultural and artistic experiences. By intertwining avant-garde art, design, fashion and music, the hotel allows guests to explore the boundaries of creativity and indulge in a world of artistic discovery.

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Ignacio Martin, Managing Director Asia Pacific at Melia Hotels International, expressed his enthusiasm about the arrival of ME by Melia in the Asia Pacific region, stating, "The signing of ME Guangzhou represents a glorious chapter for our brand. As we continue to expand our footprint in China, it is our utmost pleasure to introduce the ME concept to the Chinese market, where we believe it will revolutionize the hospitality industry. We look forward to working closely with Guangzhou Aocheng Investment Company Ltd. to curate exceptional products and services that cater to the diversified needs of modern luxury travellers in China".

"The agreement with Melia Hotels International represents a significant step towards elevating the Guangzhou International Financial City-Huangpu Bay Business Circle to a world-class landmark business district. The business circle is expected to attract more foreign investments, augment its international commercial and trading functions, and establish itself as an integrated gateway", said He Jinglin, the Managing Director of Guangzhou Aocheng Investment Company Ltd. "The emergence of this business circle is a clear indication of the Macau Centre's capability to undertake international cooperation and comply with global standards".

In addition to the ME Guangzhou, the ME by Melia brand will open at least three more hotels in 2023 and 2024 in Malaga (Spain), Malta, and Guadalajara (Mexico), extending the footprint of a collection of designer hotels. From vibrant city centres to exotic beachfront retreats, the brand's properties offer guests unrivalled access to the best each destination has to offer.
Grand Hotel Gardone Lake Garda

Hilton launches its LXR luxury brand in Italy with the Grand Hotel Gardone Lake Garda, opening in 2026

Hilton (NYSE: HLT) has announced plans to open Italys first LXR Hotels & Resorts property, following a franchise agreement with Paval Holding and Apex Alliance. With a stunning lakeside location, Grand Hotel Gardone Lake Garda, LXR Hotels & Resorts is set to open in 2026 following a multimillion Euro renovation, elevating the hotels interiors while preserving the grand facade. The hotel is owned by the Lithuanian group Apex Alliance and Romanian Paval Holding and will be managed by Apex Alliance Hotel Management.

Patrick Fitzgibbon, senior vice president, development, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Hilton said, LXR Hotels & Resorts are found in prestigious global destinations from London to Kyoto, and Lake Garda will be a very welcome addition to the portfolio. With breathtaking natural surroundings, a temperate climate, rich history and thriving local food scene, Grand Hotel Gardone Lake Garda is set to be an incredible new offering when it welcomes guests in 2026 and were proud to partner with Apex Alliance to bring this exciting luxury brand to Italy.

Guests at Grand Hotel Gardone Lake Garda, LXR Hotels & Resorts, will enjoy a glamorous Italian lakefront experience, marked by bespoke, personalised service and authentic culinary and wellness offerings. The property will be located on the banks of Northern Italys Lake Garda, famed for its crystal-clear waters, and will offer guests panoramic views of the picturesque lake and surrounding mountains.

The LXR portfolio continues to grow in the most sought-out destinations, said, Feisal Jaffer, global head, LXR Hotels & Resorts. With upcoming properties in Bali, Abu Dhabi, and more, were thrilled to introduce the brands unique approach to hospitality in Italy, a perennially favoured destination for sophisticated global travelers.

Upon the completion of an ambitious renovation, a majority of the hotels high-ceilinged guest rooms will offer resplendent lake views which can be enjoyed from private balconies. Alongside 160 guest rooms, the hotel will offer two signature restaurants, two bars and a world-class spa featuring indoor and outdoor pools and comprehensive fitness facilities. Additionally, the hotel will feature 825 square metres of meeting space, including a majestic ballroom with an expansive terrace overlooking the lake.

"We are excited for the next chapter in Grand Hotel Gardone's celebrated history, as it becomes part of Hilton's carefully curated collection of luxury properties - LXR Hotels & Resorts, said Karina Paval, vice president, Paval Holding. This partnership aligns perfectly with our vision to reposition the landmark property into Lake Garda's first five-star branded luxury destination. We are confident that by blending the property's historic charm and scenic location with LXR's exceptional service, luxurious amenities and tailored experiences, we will create the perfect setting for guests to explore the wonders of Lake Garda.

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Its an honour to partner with Hilton to develop Grand Hotel Gardone Lake Garda, LXR Hotels & Resorts, said Vytautas Drumelis, partner, Apex Alliance. The reconstruction and conversion of the Grand Hotel into the prestigious luxury LXR brand will transform it into the first internationally branded flagship hotel in the region. The arrival of the branded property will address growing demand in the area, will contribute to the region's development, stimulate tourism, and attract new future investments. The LXR brand hotel with renovated shoreline will offer guests luxury accommodation and premium experiences in one of Italys most beautiful settings, and we look forward to welcoming guests through the doors in 2026.

The traditional town of Gardone, located on the western bank of Lake Garda, sits against a backdrop of scenic mountains. Red clay roof tiles adorn the buildings throughout the town, including Grand Hotel Gardone Lake Garda, which is one of the most prestigious addresses along the Gardone Riviera. The hotel has been a key landmark on the lakefront since 1884, welcoming many cultural icons throughout its history. Gardone and nearby Salo offer guests cultural attractions including a number of charming local restaurants, bars and shops, as well as a ferry port for guests to take boat rides across the lake. Verona Airport and Milan Bergamo airport are both situated within an hours drive from the hotel.

Grand Hotel Gardone Lake Garda will be located at Corso Giuseppe Zanardelli, 2/4, 25083 Gardone Riviera BS. Hilton currently has more than 40 trading and pipeline hotels in Italy. Recent openings include Hilton Rome EUR La Lama and Ambasciatori Hotel Venice Mestre, Tapestry Collection by Hilton.
Neeraj Soni, Managing Director, Dolphin Terra Firma Pvt. Ltd with Suma Venkatesh, Executive Vice President - Real Estate & Development, IHCL

Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) today announced the signing of its first SeleQtions branded hotel in Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh. This is a Brownfield property, slated to open in 2024.

Commenting on the signing, Ms. Suma Venkatesh, Executive Vice President - Real Estate & Development, IHCL said, "The signing of this SeleQtions hotel at Sirmaur in Himachal Pradesh is another step in IHCLs pioneering efforts to put new destinations on the countrys tourist map. It will open a new circuit of Chandigarh - Sirmaur, as also augment our pilgrim offerings being in proximity to the historic Gurudwara Paonta Sahib. We are delighted to partner with Dolphin Terra Firma Pvt. Ltd. for this hotel.

The 42-key hotel, spread over six acres offers panoramic views of the Shivalik range. It is located at a convenient driving distance from Chandigarh. It will house an all-day diner, a bar as well as an outdoor cafe. Other recreation facilities will include a spa, swimming pool, and fitness centre.

Mr. Neeraj Soni, Managing Director, Dolphin Terra Firma Pvt. Ltd. said, We are thrilled to partner with IHCL to bring the SeleQtions brand to Sirmaur. We believe this partnership will help attract more visitors to this undiscovered part of Himachal Pradesh.

With its natural beauty, cultural heritage, and spiritual aura, Sirmaur offers many attractions for the tourists.

With the addition of this hotel, IHCL will have five hotels across Taj, SeleQtions and Vivanta in Himachal Pradesh including two under development.
Booking.com Shares Its Seven Predictions for Travel in 2024

The digital travel platforms most extensive travel predictions research to date foresees travel as the primal pulse of life in the year ahead

As 2023 enters its final months and 2024 optimistically appears on the horizon, numbness and detachment loom as a result of the perma-crisis, including increased cost-of-living and climate change concerns. People around the world have emotionally checked out of the news agenda and events at home in order to take a much-needed breather.

Where in years past travel has been a means to escape life, Booking.com is releasing research that shows that travel is life in 2024 with more than three quarters (78%) revealing that they feel more alive than ever when they are on vacation, and 68% wanting to be more like their vacation self in their day-to-day life back home. Thats because 68% also think they are the best version of themselves while on vacation. And with AI set to transform 2024, travelers are increasingly plugging into tech to do the grunt work, freeing them up to stretch their imagination, tune into their intuition and spark more soul-stirring experiences.

To explore how travel will transport people out of autopilot and into unleashing their best life, Booking.com commissioned research among more than 27,000 travelers across 33 countries and territories, combining it with its insights as a leading digital travel platform to reveal seven predictions for travel in 2024.

1. (Alter) Ego Enthusiasts

In 2024, travelers will feel more alive by creating their very own epic alter egos on vacation, with more than a third (37%) making up stories about their real life to people they meet on their travels. These alter ego enthusiasts love the thrill of embodying a 2.0 version of themselves, and go to great lengths to reimagine their best self, with more than three in five (62%) enjoying the anonymity of travel and the chance to recreate themselves.

Fueling the idea that people take on different personas when traveling to feel more alive, over two thirds (68%) feel they are the best version of themselves on vacation, able to shed inhibitions and embrace new aspects of their personalities, while 42% would even pay to rent a nicer car than they drive at home to live their finest lives with confidence. Whats more, well over half (57%) of travelers feel main character energy on their travels, with these performers empowered to be the stars of their own life.

Aliases and avatars abound, both IRL and through VR and AR. Those digital alter egos with a desire for wanderlust can go anywhere and do anything in the metaverse, and in 2024 the people behind them will bring their digital fantasies to life in real-world destinations.

2. Cool-cationers

Heat has officially had its vacay heyday, with scorching temperatures pushing the mercury to record-breaking levels and causing heat waves around the world. Sweltering conditions are accelerating a rise in travelers chasing cooler climes to revive and refresh themselves. The majority (51%) report that climate change will impact the way they plan their vacation in 2024, while over half (56%) say that as temperatures soar close to home, they will use their vacation to cool down elsewhere.

This effect taps into the expected rise of water-centric travel that takes the edge off the heat, and helps people wash away their worries. Three quarters (75%) agree that being close to water instantly makes them feel more relaxed, with over a third (36%) interested in water-centric vacations in 2024. As people dive headfirst into aquatic escapes, mindful water immersion will quickly become the next mainstream version of meditation, where the wild-swimming craze meets the ice-therapy movement (thanks, Wim Hof). This fresh form of feel-alive wellness travel will see floating yoga, water sound baths and snow meditation surge, as well as a boom in ice therapy retreats, underwater hotels and mermania, with water no longer the backdrop but the main event.

3. Surrender Seekers

In 2024, just bring yourself. Travelers increasingly want to surrender themselves to the element of surprise, explore the unknown and venture into uncharted territory on vacation, with over half (52 %) keen to book a surprise trip where everything down to the destination is unknown until arrival. Averse to the sameness of everyday life and actively avoiding cookie-cutter experiences, the intuitively adventurous traveler of 2024 wants to step outside of the homogenized vacation, with 56% preferring to venture off the beaten path and a third (34%) seeking to travel with strangers.

Shifting from rigorous planning to chance encounters and experiences with a roll of the dice, these surrender seekers are relinquishing control for the art of letting go  with carpe diem their life motto. The majority (55%) would like to have no plans set in stone prior to traveling in 2024 so they can go where the wind takes them, while over two thirds (69%) prefer to travel with loose plans so they can change direction based on what feels good in the moment.

The travel industry is already responding fast with tech-enabled flexible services, giving travelers the option to cancel, change plans, and buy now, pay later at the press of a button. The explosion of AI, which has already seen the launch of Booking.coms AI Trip planner, is going mainstream in 2024: 48% would trust AI to plan a trip for them, with a third of baby boomers (30%) and one in five (20%) of the silent generation finally surrendering to AI in order to assist their travels plans in the year ahead.

4. Culinary Excavators

The food archeologists of 2024 will dig deep into the roots of food on vacation to unearth new culinary treasures, with nearly two thirds (61%) more interested in learning about the origins of a destinations must-eat delicacies than they were in the past. Culinary excavators are bucking next-gen food trends in favor of preserving the true craftsmanship of traditional dishes; leaning on gastro-tourism to embrace the unique history, geography and produce that makes for one-of-a-kind cuisine that will awaken the senses.

Four in five (81%) want to try indigenous cuisines in 2024, and heritage flavors are in the spotlight with travelers putting power in the hands of the under-represented, unlocking the secrets of cultures which may have been lost or forgotten in other parts of the world. Expect an increase in indigenous experiences that take travelers on trails that tell the story behind the food they serve, bringing pride and income to communities around the globe.

Foodie travelers in 2024 will be experientialists who fluctuate between digital and physical realities to transform every discovery into a heightened multisensory extravaganza, with nearly half (46%) wanting an immersive phygital food experience enhanced by VR or AR. Think mood altering lighting, paired fragrances and sensual soundscapes that enhance the traces of foodways past.

5. Reboot Retreaters

When things are falling apart back home amid global instability and an ever-hectic world, disheveled travelers are booking one-track trips rooted in self-improvement to bring themselves back to the life they truly want again. The new era of sleep tourism, for example, welcomes sleep concierges and cutting-edge tech to serve the 58% who want to travel in 2024 to solely focus on uninterrupted shut-eye.

For those who are used to sleeping solo, over a third (39%) of travelers would carve out time for a matchmaking holiday to find a spark with a new partner or lover, while more than a third (35%) would focus on a heartbreak holiday to get over an ex. On the contrary, for those still rocking their relationships, a quarter (24%) want to deepen that human connection with their partner as their main priority for traveling in 2024. On the flip side, for those increasingly frazzled parents, they are surprisingly seeking solace on completely solo holidays, with the majority (58%) planning to travel alone in 2024, dropping the kids and their partners to prioritize their vitality.

Taking the impetus to reinvent their real life even further, half of all travelers (51%) revealed that the stripped-back lifestyle of agrarian and indigenous communities, where self-sufficiency is a way of life, would appeal to them in 2024. Beyond just back to basics, the focus is on a better balance with nature and the elements to reset their day-to-day back home.

6. A La Carte Affluencers

Fueled by the cost of living crisis alongside the mainstream stealth wealth trends of 2023, travelers in 2024 will employ money saving hacks to cut costs, yet level up vacations with a la carte luxuries, scoring a rush from traveling like the rich  even if just for a moment in time. These a la carte affluencers want to appear wealthy, sweeping away the reality of having to make financial sacrifices, but behind the scenes are obsessed with see-through spending and curating budget-friendly travel itineraries with the help of their travel partner in crime, AI. In fact, more than half (56%) of travelers will want insights and tips from AI when on vacation to upgrade experiences with suggested ancillaries and deals, all with a flick of their finger.

Additionally, half (50%) of travelers plan to pick destinations in 2024 where the cost of living is less expensive than their hometown, while traveling closer to home is also a draw for some who will be searching for luxe-for-less copycat vacations to reduce costs in 2024 (43%). Many (51%) travelers will be willing to pay for day passes to use the amenities in a five star hotel rather than actually staying there, with a similar number of parents (47%) planning to take their children out of school to travel outside of peak season to make their money stretch further in 2024.

7. Mindful Aesthetes

Once upon a time, the words sustainable and stylish were not necessarily synonymous, with the words eco-travel conjuring up visions of primitive campsites. Make way for the intersection of design and mindfulness to influence travel in 2024, opening up new and inspiring doors for travelers who have a desire to make more conscious and responsible choices, not just for a short getaway, but as a way of life.

Gone are the days when comfort and exceptional design were solely associated with excess and extravagance, with a growing movement of hotels and other unique places to stay presenting inventive, yet aesthetically pleasing responses to significant environmental and social challenges. These discerning travelers will hunt down jaw-dropping architecture that has environmental features at its heart, with over half (53%) looking for accommodation that has wow-factor sustainability innovation. Three in five (60%) want to see sustainability in action, while nearly two thirds (65%) want to see the outside brought indoors with green spaces and plants in accommodations on vacation.

In 2024, in exchange for contributing to conservation efforts, sustainable itineraries will give travelers exclusive access to the places that they are helping preserve, in the most mindful and responsible way. A large number are interested in sustainable travel apps where they can unlock rewards (60%), such as experiences with locals in off-the-beaten-path areas (47%) or visiting remote locations that tourists otherwise have limited access to (44%). The mindful aesthetes are a reminder that its possible to bring home all the vacay feels, but also that bold sense of purpose to feel more deeply connected to the environment and surrounding communities when back at home as well.

Arjan Dijk, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Booking.com comments:

"Our 2024 travel predictions reflect the idea that travel is not a means to escape life, but instead a catalyst to live our best lives. From thrilling adventures in a new destination to feeling the pulse of a new culture and every experience in between, travel allows us to become the best version of ourselves. At Booking.com, it's our mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world and we believe in the power of travel to inspire, transform and enrich lives and we are committed to empowering extraordinary experiences that resonate with the heartbeat of each and every traveler in 2024 and beyond.

For more information about Booking.coms 2024 Travel Predictions, please visit here.

Travel Predictions 2024 research commissioned by Booking.com and conducted among a sample of adults who plan to travel for business or leisure in the next 12-24 months. In total, 27,730 respondents across 33 countries and territories were polled (including 1008 from Argentina, 1012 from Australia, 505 from Austria, 1001 from Belgium, 1002 from Brazil, 1009 from Canada, 1009 from China, 1002 from Colombia, 508 from Croatia, 504 from Denmark, 1011 from France, 1011 from Germany, 1016 from Hong Kong, 1004 from India, 510 from Ireland, 504 from Israel, 1014 from Italy, 1004 from Japan, 1009 from Mexico, 1014 from The Netherlands, 1015 from New Zealand, 500 from Portugal, 502 from Singapore, 1010 from South Korea, 1009 from Spain, 502 from Sweden, 507 from Switzerland, 504 from Taiwan, 1003 from Thailand, 502 from the UAE, 1007 from the UK, 1005 from the US and 1007 from Vietnam). Respondents completed an online survey in July 2023.
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SAN FRANCISCONakedSword Originals has announced its new international travel series, Global Entry. On a mission to see the sights and discover everything about gay culture across the globe, NakedSword is heading everywhere from Portugal to Sicily to Scotland with the help of each countrys "hottest men and other internationally revered models." In the series' first movie, premiering Nov. 8, 2023 on NakedSword.com, award-winning director Marc MacNamara flies to South Africa to meet up with local performers Sir Charlie and Danny Steele along with Dean Young and Diego Sans. The trailer for Global Entry: South Africa is out now on YouTube. Fans can watch the XXX-rated version of the trailer at NakedSword.com/free.



In Global Entry: South Africa, Falcon|NakedSword exclusive Dean Young and Diego Sans fly to the Rainbow Nation for the very first time to enjoy the sightsand some rooftop rimming. South African resident Danny Steele has always wanted to be a porn star, and now hes getting his chance as he takes on Apolo Adrii for the camera. International traveler Sonny Blonde is the next to arrive for a meet-up with local Sir Charlie to get off in an empty alleyway. Horny for more, Sir Charlie and Danny Steele return for a three-way with tourist Tony X.

NakedSword Originals Global Entry series will take viewers across the entire world to experience the hottest guys making some very special international connections, said Tim Valenti, president and CEO of Falcon|NakedSword. The first movie, Global Entry: South Africa, finds our superstar exclusive Dean Young and the legendary Diego Sans sampling the men and culture of one of the worlds most fascinating continents.



"My favorite hobby is traveling the globe and experiencing unique cultures and exploring what gay life is like in each country. Most of the gay men across the map have one common interest: united we fuck! said director MacNamara. I'm excited to take viewers 'around the world in 90 dicks' and experience 'planet girth' like never before. In each country, well showcase local men and tourists so viewers can voyeuristically enjoy the splendors through their eyes and holes. South Africa is my favorite country in the world, so thats where we will kick off this year-long journey of exploring gay life, sex and culture across the continents.



Contact Cameron Greer at [email protected] for any inquiries.
QUICK HITS: BMG, UMG form alliance  Moises adds AI Voice Studio  Dice enters Canada  Patreon acquires Moment  Tixr CEO honored

BMG and Universal Music Group (UMG) have announced an alliance to explore a range of collaborative initiatives to expand opportunities for BMG-signed artists globally.

The first project under this alliance will be moving the distribution of physical formats of BMGs music  including vinyl and CD for thousands of BMG-signed artists  to UMGs Commercial Services division, which has operations in 60 countries covering more than 200 markets.

Further collaborations between BMG and UMG are already under discussion, from exploring shared positions on industry matters to joining forces in adjacent business lines.

 Moises has launched the AI Voice Studio which allows vocalist to license their own voices and sell their models to producers and content creators.

It launched with 11 top-quality professional voices.

Producers pitching songs to labels, artists, or others can tap into voices ranging in tone, timbre, and pitchto better convey their creative vision for their tracks to potential collaborators. Video and audio production companies with limited time to create demos for clients can create and turn around content quickly, saving the vocal talent hiring process for later.

 Independent music ticketing platform Dice has launched in Toronto, marking its debut in Canada. Early users include Collective Concerts, Transmit Presents, The Garrison, Baby G, Not Dead Yet, Soluna and Prepare the Ground.

Dice has hired Dave Lock as director of venue and promoter partnerships in Canada.

 Patreon has acquired the ticketed live-streamed events platform Moment.

Moment, formerly known as Moment House offers special, ticketed experiences for their fans including streamed podcasts, documentary premieres, and intimate concerts. Details of the deal were not announced, but according to CrunchBase, Moment had raised $13.5 million in funding.

 Goldman Sachs recognized Tixr CEO & Co-Founder Robert Davari as one of the Most Exceptional Entrepreneurs of 2023 at its Builders and Innovators Summit in Healdsburg, California. Goldman Sachs selected Davari from multiple industries to be honored at the two-day event.

Bruce Houghton

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Q&A: Muslim Journalist Seeks to Build Understanding in Saturday Talk



Robert Azzi WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  Robert Azzi does not expect anyone to walk out of one of his talks agreeing with everything he says.

He does hope they will be open to appreciating different perspectives.

The photojournalist and columnist from New Hampshire's Seacoast Region, will be at the Milne Public Library on Saturday to present a program he has titled "Ask a Muslim Anything."

It is a talk he has delivered hundreds of times but not usually against a backdrop of war being raised between Israel and the largely Muslim region of Gaza.

Azzi recognizes that current events may color the conversation. But his talks are not about politics or even, necessarily, the theology of Islam.

Rather, they're about people: building understanding of others and bridging differences.

As Azzi puts it on his website, TheOtherAzzi.wordpress.com, "I speak not as a scholar or academic but as neighbor, fellow citizen, person of faith."

He will be speaking at the Milne from 1 to 2:30 on Saturday. Before his trip to the Berkshires, he spoke with iBerkshires about the genesis of "Ask a Muslim Anything," what the program has brought to others and what it has taught him.

Question: How long have you been doing this program?

Azzi: It's been about five years, but it was really slow for the two years of the pandemic. I don't like doing it on Zoom. I tried it. But it's really important to be in the presence of people asking sensitive questions. You can talk to people but you don't feel safe with them in the same way.

Q: Did you have experience public speaking before you started doing it?

Azzi: No. I just started doing it because I got asked to do it, and it sort of went from there.

Q: How many times have you done it?

Azzi: I have done it in 10 different states, as far as Wyoming and probably about 120 or 130 times.

Q: Have you done a program like this close to this area before?

Azzi: I've been to Western Massachusetts. I haven't been up in your corner. New Marlborough, Longmeadow/East Longmeadow, that area. By coming to Williamstown, I've now done the upper and lower corners of Western Massachusetts.

Q: Is it your practice to do an introductory talk first and then start taking questions or is the format straight Q&A right from the top?

Azzi: I generally introduce myself. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to tell my story and why I do this. Then it depends on the questions. The program takes the shape of the interest of the people in the room. If they're interested in religious theology or lifestyles or politics or whatever. What I think they should know isn't necessarily what they want to know.

Q: What's the most common theme of those three that you mention?

Azzi: I think it's lifestyles and culture  whether it's someone shopping in a supermarket or working in the workplace with them or what they've seen on television. They're not as deeply interested in historic theology. Most interested in the way diverse people come together in a society like the United States.

Q: Have any of the questions you get from audience members surprised you?

Azzi: Yes. Just don't ask me for an example. My promise to myself is I'll stop doing it when I stop being surprised. I want questions that are challenging. I want questions I haven't thought of before.

Q: Have you been challenged to the point of being stumped?

Azzi: I don't know that I've been stumped. Sometimes I'm surprised by the way someone looks at something and it takes time to reweave the threads so we're looking at the same thing.  Once we unravel it we're usually talking about the same thing.

Q: Do people ever get argumentative?

Azzi: Oh yeah, of course. That's part of the not wanting to preach to the choir. There are people for whom any discussion of Islam or Muslims is verboten. It's not an issue, and we shouldn't discuss it. Occasionally there is a Muslim who thinks I'm not conservative enough or someone who doesn't think I'm liberal enough. I sort of end up in the middle, which is good.

I want to make clear, the program is not just the library patrons. I understand you have some good high schools, and it's not just adult talk. If there are high school students or kids at the Buxton school interested, they should come.

Q: Have you ever had follow-up with attendees  either going back to the same venue or hearing from people who have attended after the fact?

Azzi: I encourage people to email me if something wasn't covered or they think of something later that they forgot to ask or something. I always make sure they have my website and my email so they can follow up on it.

Occasionally I'll get another invitation from the same area. Either there will be a follow-up a few months later from the institution ... or someone will ask me to speak at their church and then later in the town hall or school library or something the next day. I've spoken in churches and synagogues, mosques, town halls, Rotary Clubs, wherever people want to discuss these issues that are fundamental to what we are as a country.

I always tell people the talk is grounded in three major parts, and if they go away thinking of those points, the talk was a success. I won't tell you what they are because I want people to come.

Q: I just heard about your appearance in Williamstown this weekend in a weekly email from the library, but I'm assuming the program was set up some time ago?

Azzi: Yes. In Massachusetts, for example, there's a library listserv, so if someone appears at a library and they think it's successful and they want people to know about it, it's passed along from one library to another.

Q: Obviously, the elephant in the room could be the recent events in Gaza and who knows how that situation could change between now and Saturday  Have you had an experience like that, maybe not something that has grabbed the attention of American audiences so thoroughly, where you're appearing someplace against a backdrop of a major incident in the world?

Azzi: Nothing comes to mind right now, although occasionally the appearances will be against the backdrop of a holiday  Thanksgiving, Christmas or a Muslim holiday, and people will want to know if I'm fasting during Ramadan or something like that.

The last time there was a major battle in Gaza was during the pandemic in 2021, and it didn't get people's attention, but actually more people died in that war up until about four days ago than happened in the last week.

Q: Do you think recent events might affect the kind of conversation you have on Saturday?

Azzi: It depends on the audience. If they want to make it political, they'll make it political, and I'll do my best to answer them. Wrote what I thought was a pretty fair evaluation of what's going on on my website.

Might want to put a link to that. People who might want to ask questions about that might want to read it first and not start from scratch

Q: Has the experience of having these dialogues made you more or less optimistic about people and their capacity to learn and accept 'the other?'

Azzi: I've learned a couple of things.

I've learned that public libraries are essential to our nature and survival as a country. There aren't many places in the country where the kind of conversations I have can take place as civilly and cautiously as the conversations I've had in libraries.

These days, the library is our public square.

Secondly, the numbers aren't always great. We're not doing SNL kind of things here. But I do have a weekly newsletter I send out, and a lot of the people on the newsletter these days are people who initially came to one of my talks. It's just a way of them learning about another part of the world and another faith tradition they may not have considered.

This isn't about proselytizing. It's about: We share the same space and the same borders, and this is what we need to know about each other.

If you can introduce people to something they don't know in a way that's not threatening to them there's always the potential they can pass that on to their children or friends or lovers.
State Director of Rural Affairs Anne Gobi tells Berkshire select board members and planners that her role is to listen to rural communities and help address their needs to the state. Thomas Matuszko, director of the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, speaks about the work done by the commission this past year. Christine Hoyt of Adams, president of the Berkshire County Selectmen, welcomes the gathering. Second to the right is Andrew Hogeland of Williamstown, president of the Massachusetts Selectmen's Association. The annual gathering, the first time in person since 2019, was held at the Berkshire Hills Country Club. PreviousNext

Berkshire Selectmen's Association Hosts Annual Meeting In Person



Ilana Steinhauer, director of the Berkshire chapter of Volunteers in Medicine, was presented the Charles Kusik Award for her efforts in making the Berkshires a better place to live. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The state's new director of rural affairs says she wants to hear from the residents of Western Massachusetts.

"I need you to be honest with me," Anne Gobi told the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and Berkshire County Selectmen's Association at their recent annual meeting. "If I screw up, you tell me."

Massachusetts has more than 180 rural communities with fewer than 7,000 people, or less than five people per square mile. Gobi emphasized the importance of hearing what these communities need from the state in order to better themselves.

Gobi was a state senator representing communities in Worcester and Hampshire counties until she was tapped earlier this year by Gov. Maura Healey to fill the position created in the Office of Economic Development to recognize and address the needs of rural communities.

Thomas Matuszko, director of the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, pointed out that the statewide rural policy advisory commission, of which he is a member, has been advocating for someone at the state level to pay attention to rural communities.

"Depending on the metric there is somewhere between 170 and 180 rural communities in Massachusetts," he said. "And most of the time we feel like we've been left behind by a lot of the powers that are concentrated in the eastern part of the state."

Gobi explained that gateway cities get a good amount of funding for that designation and her department is working with rural leaders to come up with a designation for them. She said the planners need to find a way to designate which communities really need help and that the government has to be flexible enough to deliver the aid.

She put together an email blast to town leaders to facilitate regular virtual meetings so that rural communities can talk to the administration and each other about issues such as population and enrollment decline, aging populations, economic development, and infrastructure.

As a legislator, she remembers getting the calls about everyday quality-of-life issues that cities don't see as often.

"I want to know really what we can do because I'm not a person to listen and not do something," Gobi said. "That's not my nature."

The gathering at the Berkshire Hills Country Club was the first in-person annual meeting since the pandemic.

"It's really nice to see everybody in person," President Christine Hoyt said during the reception

The BCSA aims to improve local government through advocacy and sharing best practices. It regularly awards scholarships to high school students and over $100 was raised for the effort during the event.

BRPC has worked on more than 140 projects this year in areas such as economic development, public health, energy conservation, and transportation.

"It's been a full year," Matuszko said, highlighting some of BRPC's efforts that ranged from digital security and climate initiatives to outdoor recreation and public health.

He pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic brought attention to the poor condition of local public health and the need for standards and proper training for professionals in the field.

The community health improvement plan for Berkshire County was wrapped up this year and BRPC provided public health inspector services and public health nursing services to a number of communities.

"We are very much involved in opioid addiction issues," Matuszko reported.

"We really expanded that program a lot this last year working with a lot of key partners to try to implement some recognized standards that can deal with the folks that have those issues and those problems."

BRPC also created the Berkshire Funding Focus, which is a one-stop shop for the various grant programs that are available from the federal and state governments.

During the reception, Volunteers in Medicine Executive Director Ilana Steinhauer was presented the Charles Kusik Award for making outstanding contributions to planning in Berkshire County.

VIM provides free, comprehensive health care that is fully integrated with collaborative social support to residents who are ineligible for insurance.

"We thought that the work that Volunteers in Medicine does, working with people who need help the most, is a very deserving and important task that gets accomplished and a lot of it has to do with Ilana's work and her leadership and her just enthusiasm and energy to kind of keep this moving forward," Matuszko explained.

"She really has been responsible for a lot of success. Most recently, Volunteers in Medicine has established a presence in Pittsfield and have been working really with the immigrant population, which is another group that really needs help in these types of things."

Steinhauer was honored to accept the award for VIM's 160 volunteers, staff and 1,700 patients.

She said she wakes up most mornings with the feeling of being one of the luckiest people in Berkshire County because she gets to lead an organization that understands health is achieved by a human-to-human relationship between clinicians and patients.

When it is seen this way, providers can integrate patients' social and economic needs with healthcare.

"We understand really listening to all of our patients with humility, curiosity, and love is what makes health care work," Steinhauer said.

"With the growing immigrant community, we are excited to continue to meet our mission and partnership with all of you as we expand into Pittsfield this coming winter. Together as a community, we are making the Berkshires the kind of place where anyone who wants to build a life for themselves and their family can thrive."
Lanesborough Police Implementing Body Cameras with State Grant

LANESBOROUGH, Mass.  The town's police will join several other Berkshire communities using body cameras.



On Monday, Police Chief Robert Derksen told the Select Board that the department received a nearly $40,000 grant for the initial purchase and implementation of the surveillance devices.



"The money we were awarded will cover the program but obviously moving forward next budget year and beyond, there is going to be software and storage fees, things like that," he said.



The town will be looking at roughly $3,500 yearly for software storage, though estimates are still being collected. The grant covers the initial purchase and first year of body cameras.

To answer calls for law enforcement accountability and transparency, other county communities such as Dalton, Great Barrington, North Adams and Pittsfield have implemented body-worn camera programs and Adams is preparing to. Police chiefs have said the cameras also aid the officers when working with the public.

The $39,700 award was a part of the Healey-Driscoll administration's $3.6 million package to 52 local police departments for body-worn camera programs. The Adams Police Department received more than $110,400 in this round, the Hinsdale Police Department over $52,600, and the North Adams Police Department over $21,000.

The Law Enforcement Body-Worn Camera Program is in its third year and awarded $3.6 million to municipal police agencies during fiscal 2024.



The grant requires the Select Board to engage the police union to determine if there will be any additional compensation or conditions for the body camera program.



Selectman Timothy Sorrell, former police chief, commented that this will hopefully save money on civil lawsuits and asked if there are any grant opportunities to pay for storage costs. Derksen did apply for a federal grant through the Department of Justice, though he hasn't received an answer on it.


BUW CEO Presents at Climate Conference



Thomas Bernard speaks at the Climate Beacon Project. BOSTON  Berkshire United Way's President and CEO Thomas Bernard spoke at the Climate Beacon Project last week.

The project held its inaugural conference at the New England Aquarium over Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 10-11, as an opportunity to share ideas across sectors, establish a shared knowledge base, and celebrate proven, scalable solutions at home and around the world.

Bernard took part in the "Building More Resilient Communities: Voices Across the Commonwealth" session.

The discussion included experts from across the commonwealth who shared some of the most innovative work happening in towns and cities throughout Massachusetts. Bernard, who previously served as mayor of the city of North Adams, presented on the past, present and possible future of the Hoosic River and the city's flood control infrastructure.

The 70-year-old concrete chutes have been deteriorating for years, raising concerns about how the city will manage flooding in the light of frequent and more intense rainstorms. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has embarked on a three-year feasibility study in partnership with the city and the Hoosic River Revival to envision a safe and more ecologically friendly solution.

"It was a true privilege to be part of this powerful group of experts who highlighted public health, the built environment, transit

access, and environmental justice, among other topics," said Bernard. "I was inspired by how central discussions of equity were in every conference session because equity  including regional equity  is something that is a core commitment and focus of our work at Berkshire United Way.

"The need and the challenge moving forward is to focus the innovation and resilience that is the hallmark of people in

North Adams and the Berkshires toward updating our infrastructure with the dual goal to protect the lives, property, and the well-being of the community as well as to ensure the creative, adaptive, and equitable renovation and restoration of our built environment."
Power outage briefly shuts down NAU

Harris' speech at Northern Arizona University was nearly impacted by a power outage Tuesday.

A large swath of the City of Flagstaff, including NAU, lost power at about 11:30 a.m., putting the vice presidents event at risk. But by 12:15 p.m. power had been restored.

Arizona Public Service spokesperson Ann Porter told the Arizona Daily Sun that they were investigating what caused the outage. Porter said it appeared to have been related to downed power lines south of Interstate 40.

Porter said it took APS crews about 30 minutes to reroute power through other lines and alleviate the outage. The quick restoration of power was in part because APS had crews on standby specifically because of the vice presidents visit to Flagstaff, she said.

The outage centered along Milton Road and Northern Arizona University with about 1,600 customers impacted.

The outage came shortly before Harris landed at the Flagstaff Pulliam Airport.
Youve interacted with scammers or visited a phishing site. What steps should you take to avoid being hacked?

We often write about how to prevent cybersecurity hazards and have given advice on more than one occasion about what to do if your account is hacked or your mobile phone is stolen. Today, lets tackle a more complex situation: someone is trying to hack or deceive you, but youre unsure about the extent of the problem. For example:

You clicked a website link in an email or ad, but then had second thoughts and became suspicious about said link.

Someone claiming to be from Microsoft called to remove a virus from your computer.

You received an erroneous bill, called customer support, and they sent you a helpful link to solve the problem and avoid overpayment.

What should you do to prevent hacking?

"We've seen it happen time and again how hacking can cause havoc in real life. It's utterly stressful and costly for the victim. Hackers are tenacious---they use a variety of techniques just to get access to your data or devices all for monetary gain," said Adrian Hia, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky.

If you suspect becoming a victim yourself, the key is to set aside your emotions and respond with the goal of minimizing the damage as quickly as possible. The following tips below will help you be able to recover your data and money and regain control of your account," he said.

Dont give any more information

This is the first and most fundamental rule that you can apply without hesitation. If you get bad vibes from a website asking for your name, email, phone or bank card information  close it immediately.

If youre talking to someone on the phone  even if they claim to be from your bank or tech support  and the conversation seems even just a little strange, hang up immediately and dont answer if they call back. Scammers often employ elaborate schemes; they might call from a different number or contact you through an instant messenger  perhaps pretending to be someone else or from a different organization. Ignore them.

If youre communicating through video conferencing tools like Zoom, end the meeting and close the application.

Disconnect your device from the internet

This is an essential point if youve installed any applications at someones request, or someones done something on your computer using remote control tools  including Zoom, Skype, MS Teams, or Google Meet. If this is the case, theres a high probability that malware has been installed on your computer or smartphone. To prevent the criminals from controlling your device remotely, immediately disconnect your computer/phone from the internet by turning off Wi-Fi and cellular data. The simplest and fastest way to do this is to activate Airplane Mode on your phone, or unplug the Ethernet cable if your computer is connected to the net via one.

Think about what the hackers might have learned

If youve visited a suspicious website or talked on the phone, try to remember any information you entered on the site or shared with the caller. Address and name? Phone number? Bank card number? Password?

If you only shared your name, address, and phone number, no further action is required, but stay on your guard  most likely the scammers will try to attack again based on your data, possibly using a different scam.

The situation is worse if youve shared more sensitive information, such as passwords, photos of personal documents, or banking information: in this case, follow the advice in the next two sections.

Change your passwords

Quickly log in to all services where the compromised password was used and change it to a new one  unique for each service. If you disconnected your device from the internet, use another device rather than plugging in the potentially infected one. Dont hesitate to ask your neighbors or co-workers for help if you dont have another device. Time is of the essence here  every minute counts. When accessing any services, enter the site address manually or open it through your browser bookmarks rather than clicking on links in recent emails.

If the password you entered was for an online banking platform, a payment system, or any account containing money, simply changing the password is not enough  take the following steps to save your funds.

Contact your bank, credit bureau, or service provider

If you provided bank card numbers or other financial information, contact the bank immediately. You can usually block cards through a dedicated hotline, as well as through the mobile application and your personal account on the website. For other types of data, such as bank account details, consult with specialists from the bank or online service about protective measures to take. Dont wait for a call from the bank  they could be scammers; call the number listed on the banks website or mobile application yourself.

If youve shared extensive personal information or photographs of documents, malicious actors may use this data fraudulently, such as to apply for loans. To prevent this from happening, contact the credit bureau and inquire about available protective measures you can take. These measures vary from country to country  see these examples for the U.S.A., Germany, and Russia  but typically include setting up notifications for any inquiries about your credit history (checking your credit history is the first step in applying for a loan), blocking new inquiries, or self-banning credit issuance  making it impossible to obtain a loan in your name.

Check your computer

If you followed our advice and disconnected your computer from the internet due to potential infection, thoroughly check it for malware or potentially unsafe software before reconnecting to the network. If you already have a comprehensive protection system installed, such as Kaspersky Premium, ensure that the protection databases have been updated recently and all protection and scanning technologies are enabled, and then run a full scan. Its crucial to run the deepest possible scan, applying settings that can detect not only malware but also potentially dangerous software such as remote control tools. Remove any detected malware according to the instructions of the security application.

What should you do if your computer lacks protection or if the protection databases are outdated? Use another computer to download protection from the manufacturers official website, then transfer the installation files across using a USB flash drive.

Check for any suspicious activity

After taking all the steps described above, make sure that the attackers havent managed to do anything harmful with the potentially compromised accounts. If these are online stores or bank accounts, check your recent purchases. If you see any purchases you didnt make, try to cancel them by contacting the online store/bank.

On social networks, check recent posts, new friends, photo album content, and so on. In messaging apps, check your recent chats to make sure no fraudulent messages were sent from your account.

For all accounts, verify your contact information, name, profile picture, address, and payment information. If you notice any changes, it means the account has been compromised; change your password and, if possible, secure the account with two-factor authentication.

Be sure to check the information about which devices are linked to your accounts with online services, social networks, and messaging apps. Having hacked an account, attackers try to maintain access to it  for example, by linking their device to it. Depending on the service, this connection might persist even after you change your password. Therefore, its crucial to ensure that you recognize all devices and active sessions listed in the Security section (this section might be called Devices, Connected devices, Recent sessions, and so on, depending on the specific service). Next to the name of the connected device, theres usually a button to Disconnect device or End session, allowing you to kick out any strangers. If you cannot identify any devices and/or sessions listed, disconnect them after making sure you remember your updated password. Youll have to re-log-in to your accounts with the new password (you changed the password, didnt you?)  but now the attackers wont have access.

The hardest thing to deal with is the consequences of an email hack. Firstly, besides all the above, youll have to check the mail forwarding rules. Make sure that neither your mailbox settings nor your message processing rules have forwarding of your emails to third-party addresses enabled. Secondly, if any other service accounts are linked to your email, attackers can hack into most of them. If you find any signs that your email has been tampered with, youll need to check for suspicious activity and change the password on all services linked to that email address.

Prevention is better than cure

Following the advice above requires a significant amount of time, effort, and patience. To minimize the risks of fraud as much as possible, its best to take precautionary measures in advance.
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Jada Pinkett Smith has reacted to the recent arrest of Tupac Shakurs alleged murderer, Duane Davis, saying that for justice to feel complete, she needs to know who called the hit.

Nearly three decades after the rappers fatal killing in a drive-by shooting in 1996, Las Vegas Metro police arrested and indicted Davis on 29 September. Prosecutors claim that while he wasnt the gunman, he was the ringleader who ordered Shakurs death.

Nevada law states that you can be charged with a crime  including murder  if you aid in committing the crime.

Follow The Independents live blog of Daviss arraignment here.

In a recent Q&A with InStyle magazine to promote her new memoir, Worthy, Pinkett Smith, 52, said she wouldnt feel complete justice had been served unless she knew who called the hit on her childhood friend.

My biggest question is: Who called the hit? And so I know that someones been arrested, but I need that answered for me to really feel like justice in its completeness is being served. Who called the hit?

When the interviewer noted that the arrest was hopefully a step in the right direction, Pinkett Smith agreed: Thats what I was happy about.

Hopefully well get the answers that can bring us some closure and thats what Im really hoping for. Well see.

Davis, who investigators have long identified as one of the four suspects in Shakurs death, was arrested and charged with murder with use of a deadly weapon in the killing of the renowned rapper on the Las Vegas strip.

Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur (Getty Images)

Prosecutors then appeared in court where they described Davis as the on-ground, on-site commander who ordered the death of Shakur.

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In an interview with RollingOut last week, Pinkett Smith called Shakur her soulmate, revealing that he had proposed to her from prison.

The Changes rapper served eight months in prison in 1995 on sexual abuse charges, but was released pending an appeal of his conviction. He was bailed out by Suge Knight, the co-founder of Death Row Records.

Pinkett Smith said she used to visit him throughout his prison sentence and that during one of her visits, he asked her to marry him.

When he asked me to get married, I knew at that time that he needed somebody to do time with him  which I was going to do anyway. You aint have to marry me to do time, Im here, Pinkett Smith said.

She said she viewed the proposal as Shakur looking for a support system, and not because he loved her or wanted to get married. I think that for him, he just felt like: OK, if I can tether myself, itll keep me on a trajectory, she said, noting that the marriage proposal wouldnt have amounted to anything at the end of the day.

Because of our friendship and because of everything we have been through together, he just wanted to feel that solidified foundation, you know? Pinkett Smith explained. Because I promise you, he would have married and divorced me as soon as his a** left jail.

Worthy is out now.
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Country artist Jason Aldean has hit back against criticism of his controversial hit, Try That in a Small Town.

Originally released in May, the song ignited furore among listeners after Aldean, 46, dropped the accompanying music video on 14 July, which featured images of protestors fighting with police officers.

After being accused of promoting violence, the video was quickly pulled from rotation on Country Music Television, though the broadcaster did not provide a reason for its decision.

Critics have also called the song racist and a lynching anthem after learning that the music video was filmed outside the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, where 18-year-old Black teenager Henry Choate was lynched in 1927.

Appearing on the Coops Rockin Country Saturday Night podcast on Wednesday (18 October), Aldean said was not saying anything thats not true in the song.

Country music is blue-collar music, man, its for the everyman. Ive got eyes, I can see whats going on, Aldean said. I dont care which side of the political fence you want to stand on.

The musician said critics had made the song and the video into something that its not, adding: If youve got common sense, you can look at the video and see, Im not sayin anything thats not true.

Jason Aldean (Getty Images)

Of those who had supported the track, he said: To see the response and the way people rallied around that song and video was pretty amazing, actually.

Despite the fallout, the song debuted at No 2 on Billboards Hot 100 chart (a record high for Aldean) and No 1 on the Hot Cuntry Songs chart.

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The track has also been criticised for its allusion to gun ownership and use. Aldean was a performer at Route 91 Festival in Las Vegas in 2017, where a shooter killed 60 people and injured 400. The incident is the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in American history.

The lyrics to Try That in a Small Town, which Aldean did not write, include: Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk / Carjack an old lady at a red light / Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store.

Well, try that in a small town / See how far ya make it down the road / Around here, we take care of our own.

Aldean responded to the backlash he received shortly after the video was shared, writing on X/Twitter: In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM [Black Lives Matter] protests.

These references are not only meritless, but dangerous. There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it  and there isnt a single video clip that isnt real news footage  and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music  this one goes too far.

Try That In A Small Town, for me, refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up, where we took care of our neighbours, regardless of differences of background or belief.
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At least 14 people died in explosions at two fireworks factories in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu as businesses geared up for the Diwali festival next month.

All the fatalities included people who were working inside the factories when the explosions occurred on Tuesday.

Tamil Nadu has recorded 27 deaths from accidents in the firecracker units alone this month, raising concerns and questions over the enforcement of safety regulations within such hazardous industries by civic authorities.

The two separate incidents occurred in the Sivakasi district of the state, which is known for producing approximately 90 per cent of Indias fireworks.

The majority of 13 people were killed and two others were injured in a firecracker factory at the Rengapalayam village near Srivilliputhur at 2.30pm. Around 15 people were working at the unit at the time of the accident.

The owner was arrested and the license of the factory suspended, officials said.

According to a preliminary investigation, the owner had a license from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization but didnt have permission to store and pack in the same place, according to the Hindustan Times newspaper.

Seven charred bodies were recovered from the sudden blast at the fireworks unit in Rangapalayam, and their identities are yet to be established, a senior police official told PTI.

The second explosion took place 178km away in Kitchanaickenpatti town of Tamil Nadu. One of the workers died while mixing chemicals at the factory which was a licensed unit.

The 35-year-old man was identified with his first name Vembu.

Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin announced a compensation of Rs 300,000 (3000) to the next of kin of each victim and Rs 100,000 (990) to those injured.

An investigation has been ordered into the two incidents and districts revenue officials have been directed to submit a report.

Fatalities linked to explosions in firecracker factories are common in India where a number of units operate without proper licensing and due to lax safety regulations.

Several such units operate at high production levels, often in overcrowded and confined spaces due to the high demand for fireworks during the festive season and often business owners compromise on safety precautions amid the rush to meet orders.

Dr V Sriram, a fire safety expert, told NDTV, that the majority of the mishaps happen due to a lack of adequate training of workers.

Ninety-nine per cent of accidents at fireworks units are due to human error. New recruits in particular are inducted straight into work with no training. There is no mechanism to ensure all workers are trained, Dr Sriram said.
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An Indian TV anchor who was reportedly wearing her grandmothers heirloom green and red saree was told by her Israeli guest during a broadcast to save it for another occasion.

The guest, identified as Israeli Intel Special Forces member Frederic Landau, suggested that executive editor of Mirror Now, Shreya Dhoundial, was wearing some of the Palestinian flag colours of green and red.

Blue and white will always prevail, he said. Blue and white are the colours of the Israeli flag, while the Palestinian flag has green, white, red, and black.

Dhoundial responded: Lets not divide colours on the basis of religion, Frederic. It sometimes happens in my country as well. The garment I am wearing is a saree. And it is my grandmothers.

She continued that the saree did not signify any support for any side.

The exchange comes as Israels president accused the BBC of atrocious coverage of the Hamas-Israel conflict following the corporations decision not to refer to Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Isaac Herzog said Israeli families had been wiped off the face off the earth and asked what else the BBC needed in order for them to admit that we are dealing with the worst terrorist organisation in the world?

Dhoundial continued: What I am wearing right now is simply my grandmothers saree, the TV host said. If she would have been alive, she would have been 105 years old today. She didnt know what the Israel  Hamas conflict was.

The guest, who was invited to the show to talk about the Isreal-Hamas conflict, told the anchor to save it (the garment she was wearing) for another occasion. To this, Dhoundial responded: No Frederic, I will not let you choose what I wear. And I will not let you choose what I say.

On her social media, the journalist posted a clip from the show and wrote: My dear departed grandmothers saree upset my guest from #Israel this evening. For once, I was at a loss of words.

Meanwhile, US president Joe Biden backed Israels account of the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital that killed at least 500 people, saying that the other team were behind the explosion as he visited Tel Aviv. He later backed his claims saying they were based on data from my Defence Department.

A massive blast rocked a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter on Tuesday, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants.

Before the al-Alhi Hospital deaths, Israeli strikes on Gaza killed at least 2,778 people and wounded 9,700 and nearly two-thirds of those killed were children. Another 1,200 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians who were slain in Hamass 7 October attack. The assault also resulted in some 200 being taken captive into Gaza.

(With additional inputs from agencies)
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The Islamabad High Court on Thursday granted Pakistans former prime minister Nawaz Sharif protection from arrest days ahead of his return to the country from self-exile.

His lawyer Azam Nazeer Tarar told the media that Sharif had been granted protective bail, which meant that authorities would not be able to arrest him now until he himself appeared before the court on 24 October.

Sharif was convicted on corruption charges in 2018.

According to the petition, Sharif was seeking protective bail in order to surrender before the court and submit to due process of justice and avail remedies permissible under the law.

The judge fixed the hearing for 24 October and suspended warrants until then. However, the judge warned that the arrest warrants against the former PM shall be restored if he failed to appear.

The 73-year-old, leader found guilty in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia trials and proclaimed a fugitive in the ongoing Toshakhana vehicle case, remains under the scrutiny of an accountability court in Islamabad. Sharif had been granted bail in these cases when he departed for the United Kingdom in 2019 for medical care.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz [PML-N] leader is scheduled to return to Pakistan on 21 October, ending his four-year-long self-imposed exile in the UK.

The petition for temporary bail mentioned that Sharif had not fully recovered and was not in an ideal state of health, but he was returning when the country was facing the worst-ever crises of the economy and other fronts.

Sharif stepped down from his position as Pakistans prime minister in 2017 when the Supreme Court disqualified him from ever holding public office due to his failure to declare a receivable salary. Since 2019, he has resided in London, having received a four-week permit from the Lahore High Court, allowing him to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Before his departure to London, Sharif was serving a seven-year prison sentence at Lahores Kot Lakhpat jail in connection with the Al-Azizia Mills case, and he was granted leave to travel to London on the basis of medical grounds.

Last month, PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif officially announced that his older brother Nawaz Sharif would be making his way back to Pakistan on 21 October to lead the partys campaign for the upcoming general election.

Shehbaz Sharif was prime minister from 2022 until this year, when his government was replaced by a caretaker administration upon the dissolution of parliament in advance of a general election due early next year.

Additional reporting by agencies
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An investigation has been launched into Welsh Water after the company admitted illegally spilling untreated sewage.

Natural Resources Wales said it was examining the severity and frequency of permit breaches by the water company.

Welsh Water said between 40 and 50 of its wastewater treatment plants are currently operating in breach of their permits after being shown data by an environmental campaigner.

We are aware of significant compliance issues at the Cardigan wastewater treatment works, and we have used our regulatory powers to enforce the improvements required at the site over the years Ann Weedy, operations manager at Natural Resources Wales

Analysis by Professor Peter Hammond, from campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, showed the worst offender is the Cardigan plant in west Wales, which spilled untreated sewage on 1,146 days from the start of 2018 to the end of May 2023.

The plant discharges into the River Teifi, which flows into Cardigan Bay  the home of Europes largest population of bottlenose dolphins.

Prof Hammonds analysis of data over a five-year period showed there were 2,274 days when untreated sewage was released in breach of a permit.

Water treatment works are allowed to discharge untreated sewage in order to ensure it does not become overwhelmed during heavy rain, but this overflow level is regulated by permit.

Welsh Water said it plans to build a new 20 million water treatment works for Cardigan as part of a 40 million package in the county.

We have a longstanding record of being open and transparent in relation to our environmental performance Welsh Water spokeswoman

Ann Weedy, operations manager at Natural Resources Wales, said: We are aware of significant compliance issues at the Cardigan wastewater treatment works, and we have used our regulatory powers to enforce the improvements required at the site over the years.

The issue is now unresolvable without significant investment and upgrading of infrastructure by Welsh Water. But this is the kind of investment that we and the public expect.

The enforcement action we are taking at this site requires Welsh Water to commit to this programme of work during their next investment period and we will work with them to drive the improvements at this site that we all want to see.

We are currently investigating the severity and frequencies of the permit breaches at the site and this investigation is ongoing.

A Welsh Water spokeswoman said: We have a longstanding record of being open and transparent in relation to our environmental performance.

We have applied this approach to compliance with our treatment works permits and have always raised any areas of non-compliance with our regulator, Natural Resources Wales, as soon as they are identified.

We have extensive monitoring arrangements, amongst the most extensive in the sector, which we use to monitor our sites.

Each site presents its own and sometimes very complex challenges, with NRW reviewing the information we provide, agreeing appropriate timescales for resolving the issues, and taking enforcement action where appropriate.

We always aim to resolve any issues as quickly as possible, to limit any impact for both the environment and our customers.

An Ofwat spokeswoman said: We are currently investigating all 11 water and wastewater companies, including Welsh Water, for potential failures at sewage treatment works that may have led to sewage discharges into the environment.

We have contacted Welsh Water to provide more information which will feed into our existing investigation. We are also liaising with Natural Resources Wales on this issue.

For this to be described as the worst sewage works in terms of illegal discharges shows how Labour has dropped the ball on sewage in Wales Janet Finch-Saunders, the Welsh Conservative shadow climate change minister

Politicians are calling for a review of Welsh Water and called for tougher action against sewage dumping.

Janet Finch-Saunders, the Welsh Conservative shadow climate change minister, said: For this to be described as the worst sewage works in terms of illegal discharges shows how Labour has dropped the ball on sewage in Wales.

Welsh Water has broken the law and must face the consequences.

At a time when Welsh Water are planning to increase bills, even though their customers experience the second highest average bill in Wales and England, is completely unacceptable when they have been misleading the public for years and dumping harmful sewage into our waterways.

The Labour Government need to follow the lead of the UK Government and start holding this disgraceful dumping to account by fining and start prosecuting Welsh Water, their inaction is harming our environment and waterways.

This is a shocking admission and the Welsh Government can no longer dodge the issue Jane Dodds, a Liberal Democrat MS

Jane Dodds, a Liberal Democrat MS, added: This is a shocking admission and the Welsh Government can no longer dodge the issue, she said.

We have the second highest bills across the whole of England and Wales, company bosses have been awarded thousands in bonuses and at the same time have been illegally dumping sewage into our rivers.

I have repeatedly led calls in the Senedd for tougher action on sewage dumping and for a full review of Dwr Cymru and its operation.

The Welsh Labour Government must take those calls seriously or risk the future of our rivers.
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The European Union is after microplastics  and glitter is on their hit list.

In an effort to restrict the sale of plastics less than five millimetres small, the EU has enacted a ban against the shimmery powder, including the kind often used in makeup products. As of 18 October, no resident will be able to buy or sell glitter across the 27 European countries in the EU.

However, the EU isnt prohibiting all types of glitter, as any environmentally-friendly alternative is still allowed.

According to the European Commission, biodegradable glitter is perfectly OK. The purpose is not to ban all glitter but replace plastic glitter with more environmentally-friendly glitter that does not pollute our oceans, the statement read. Only glitter made of non-biodegradable, insoluble plastic is concerned.

More specifically, any glitter made from soluble, natural or inorganic material can be bought and sold in the EU.

The glitter ban comes as a result of the EUs goal to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, as stated in their European Green Deal. There are three pillars of the deal: No net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, economic growth decoupled from resource use, and no person and no place left behind.

The ban doesnt extend to the United Kingdom, as the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020.

Before the official start date of the ban, the EU saw a noticeable increase in consumers purchasing the glittery additive and stocking up before they no longer can get the real thing, per BBCs report. According to a study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, even what the EU would consider to be safe glitter may still utilise plastic materials in the process of making environmentally-safe alternative.

With the ban in full effect, the EU is still allowing retailers to sell out their remaining supply of glitter and products containing the material until they have none left. Microplastics, including plastic glitter, that are used on their own or in products for uses for which a specific transitional period is set, the European Commission said.

The commission also noted that, from 17 October 2031 until 16 October 2035, makeup products and nail polish must include a label indicating whether they contain microplastics in order to continue to be sold.

Aside from the EU, other governments have been working to prohibit the use of microplastics for some time now. In 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration banned the use of microplastic beads in the manufacturing of exfoliators, cleansers, and toothpaste to prevent further water pollution.
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Rapper Kanye West tried to get his ex-girlfriend Julia Fox to sign an NDA after they broke up, the actor alleged in her new memoir.

Fox, 33, had a brief relationship with West, 46, in 2022 after he split from his reality TV star wife, Kim Kardashian.

Not much is known about the brief fling, which lasted just one month, and the Uncut Gems star previously said West would not feature much in her new memoir, Down the Drain. But the 33-year-old opened up about some details of her short-lived fling with the controversial rapper.

She detailed the apparent frustration she began to feel while in the relationship with West and what she claimed was the indirect influence of Kardashian on their relationship.

According to Fox, she was simply a pawn in Wests grand master plan to get back at his ex-wife. And Fox considered that a really sh***y position to be in.

She also detailed the time her estranged ex-boyfriends assistants delivered a non-disclosure agreement to her, to which she responded with a blunt text.

West allegedly reached out to Fox with a text that read: I cant be friends with you if you dont sign it. The actor said she responded with a text reading: Ill live.

In her memoir, the Italian-American model also claimed dating West was like having a second baby.

Julia Fox and Kanye West attended a number of Paris Mens Fashion Week shows together (Getty Images For Kenzo)

Fox, who is already the mother of a two-year-old, revealed she quickly knew they would not last as a couple because she was not able to fit a really big personality into her jam-packed life.

Ultimately I cannot put anybody else first, she said. My son has to be first. It just became too much. I didnt sign up to have two babies. I couldnt do it. It felt like two babies.

Her memoir also revealed West offered to get her a boob job. Although she wrote that she turned down the rappers offer, his comment still hurt her, she said.

His words stick to me like a piece of lint on my clothes. I cant shake off the uncomfortable feeling, she wrote.

She also reflected on the brief romance itself, noting that she first viewed the relationship with West as one that had potential and could be something real.

I really understood him on a visceral level, Fox said, adding that she thought ultimately Id be helping a precarious situation when it came to his dynamic with his ex, Kardashian. But I learned very quickly that I was being weaponised, she continued. I just felt like his little puppet.

Fox revealed she met West after they received each others numbers through mutual friends. According to Fox, the relationship began with long conversations on the phone before they met in person on New Years Eve in 2021 and had dinner together the next day, which is when he asked her to make the relationship official.

The couple then split up just one month later on Valentines Day 2022.
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King Charles has issued a passionate plea for understanding in an address at Mansion House, as he warned against the dangers of heated online debate.

In the address, which was delivered to the lord mayor of London and the City of London Corporation on Wednesday (18 October), the monarch urged the country to resist the temptation of turning ourselves into a shouty society.

The King, who wore a suit adorned with various honours and medals, told dignitaries from the city that he believes the country stands at a watershed moment in which people either come together or risk giving way to bitter online debate on social media.

There is in our land a kind of muscle memory that it does not have to be like this, the King told dignitaries. That the temptation to turn ourselves into a shouty, recriminating society must be resisted, or at least heavily mitigated whenever possible. Especially in the digital sphere where civilised debate too often gives way to rancour and acrimony.

Hinting at the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the King asked Britain to draw from its deep wells of shared values as he called for understanding both at home and overseas. He said it has never [been] more vital than at times of international turmoil and heartbreaking loss of life.

He added: Our willingness to put others first and treat them as we would wish them to treat us. To listen to their views and, if we do not agree, to remind ourselves to engage in a way which is passionate, but not pugnacious. This includes the practice of our religious faiths, in freedom and mutual understanding.

The King added that above all, genuine togetherness that will see us through good times and bad.

Charles also emphasised the importance of maintaining a sense of humour during bad times, poking fun at himself as he referenced a video that went viral in the first days of his reign last year.

King Charles addresses lord mayor of London and the City of London Corporation at Mansion House (Getty Images)

In the video, the new King said, I cant bear this bloody thing, and grew visibly frustrated with a leaky fountain pen he was using to sign documents.

He said: Our ability to laugh at ourselves is one of our great national characteristics. Just as well, you may say, given some of the vicissitudes I have faced with frustratingly failing fountain pens this past year!

A large portion of the speech was spent warning the audience about the threat of climate change, a cause that Charles campaigned on during his time as the Prince of Wales.

The King said: After decades of debate, our television screens  or, increasingly, mobile phone screens  confront us each day with the stark realities of climate change.

But are devastating scenes of communities scarred by fire and flood  not to mention the migration of people fleeing those terrifying phenomena  enough to persuade us to take the action that is needed  to make the sacrifices needed to secure our planet for generations yet unborn?

I believe so. Because at such a juncture in our national life, there are special strengths which we can summon to help us  deep wells on which we can draw, filled not just with our shared histories and experiences, but with literally countless individual stories too; a mix of memories past and ambitions future, to help give ourselves a sense of perspective.
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Will Smith has spoken out about his tumultuous relationship with his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, while speaking to a crowd of fans in Baltimore, Maryland.

The 55-year-old actor took the stage at the Enoch Pratt Free Library on 18 October, as he made an appearance at a press event for his wifes book, Worthy, alongside their two children  Jaden, 25, and Willow, 22. His recent comments come after Jada made major revelations about their marriage in her memoir, including how she and Will have been separated for seven years.

During the event in Baltimore, Will began by speaking to the crowd about his love and admiration for his partner, who he married in 1997. I just really wanted to come out and just be here and hold it down for you the way you have held it down for me, he said during the event, as reported by The Baltimore Sun.

The King Richard star went on to describe the challenges and achievements hes had throughout his marriage, adding: We have had a very, very long and tumultuous [relationship]. We call it brutiful. It was brutal and beautiful at the same time."

At another point during the event, Will referred to his union with Jada as a sloppy public experiment in unconditional love, according to the Baltimore Banner. He went on to explain that hes happier than [hes] ever been in [his] entire life and praised Jada for continuing to be by his side.

I have achieved every single thing I have ever wanted in my entire life. There is not one thing left that I desire in this world - all of the awards, all of the money, the family - everything Ive ever dreamed, he said. And those dreams were largely built on the foundation of Jadas sacrifices. There were many times when Jada put her career aside so I could follow the dreams of mine.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star thanked his wife for putting him before herself and for maintaining a good relationship with his ex-wife Sheree Zampino. Will and Zampino share a 30-year-old son, Trey Smith, who was also present for the book event at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Speaking to the crowd, Will said that Jadas positive relationship with Zampino allowed all three of his children the chance to grow up together.

Can you show up and love somebody for the rest of your life, even when you dont agree with them? he asked. Jada is the best friend I have ever had on this planet and I am going to show up for her and support her for the rest of my life.

This isnt the first time that Will has opened up about his relationship, as its continued to make headlines. Earlier this week, he appeared to mock the publicity storm surrounding him and Jada in a video titled Official statement shared on Instagram. So, heres the thing. My opinion is... uh the actor said, before sneezing into the crook of his arm. As he sneezed, the video comically zoomed out to show several different landscapes including lakes and mountains.

Prior to sharing the video, Smith showed his support for his partner and her success in a statement toThe New York Times. During the interview, the outlet noted that Smith said his wifes memoir kind of woke him up and that he has now realised she is more resilient, clever and compassionate than hed understood.

When youve been with someone for more than half of your life, a sort of emotional blindness sets in, and you can all too easily lose your sensitivity to their hidden nuances and subtle beauties, he added.

In an interview with People published on 10 October, Jada first revealed that she and her husband were living separately. Weve been doing some really heavy-duty work together, she said. We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.

However, during an appearance on the Today show on 16 October, Jada clarified to Hoda Kotb that she and the Suicide Squad actor are working hard and are concentrating on healing to get their relationship to a better place.

Theres no finding another great love, and I think thats the point, she said. Its like we are in a place now that we are in a deep, healing space. And we are really concentrating on healing the relationship between us.

The Girls Trip star continued: Theres no divorce on paper. We really have been working hard. Thats the whole thing. We are working very hard at bringing our relationship together. Back to a life partnership.
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Germany's state-owned railway operator, Deutsche Bahn, said Thursday that it has agreed to sell its European public transport subsidiary, Arriva, to U.S.-based infrastructure investor I Squared Capital.

Deutsche Bahn didn't disclose the value of the planned sale. It said the transaction should be completed next year. The company is selling Arriva to enable additional growth in rail transport in Germany and allow it to focus its resources on its core business.

Arriva has about 35,500 employees and operates in 10 European countries. It has bus and train units in the U.K. and also has operations in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

Deutsche Bahn acquired the British-based company in 2010. Arriva businesses in non-core markets," including Sweden and Portugal, already have been sold.

Deutsche Bahn Chief Financial Officer Levin Holle said in a statement that Arriva has good prospects for sustainable growth as market liberalization in Europe progresses.

I Squared Capital, headquartered in Miami, was described in Thursday's statement as an independent global infrastructure manager with over $37 billion in assets under management. Arriva Group CEO Mike Cooper said that it has an established track record of supporting companies which provide essential services, and of investing in the energy transition.
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Mingling of early Europeans with some of the first farmers from the ancient Middle East likely led to them not carrying as much Neanderthal DNA as carried by todays East Asians, a new study suggests.

Previous research has established that about 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals, who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years in the western part of the Eurasian continent, gave way to the modern human species Homo sapiens, who arrived from Africa.

Scientists have also found that for a few millennia the two species coexisted, resulting in the integration of Neanderthal DNA into the genome of Sapiens.

Some studies estimate that there is still about 2 per cent of DNA of Neanderthal origin in present-day Eurasians.

This percentage, however, varies between people across different regions of Eurasia with the Neanderthal DNA more abundant in the genomes of Asian populations than in those of European populations.

But the reasons for this variation has not remained completely clear, with scientists hypothesising that these could be explained by migratory flows.

The new study, published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, tested this theory by assessing over 4,000 genomes from individuals who have lived in Eurasia over the past 40 millennia.

Analysis revealed that in the period following the dispersal of Homo sapiens from Africa  at least 40,000 years ago  the genomes of the early hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe contained a slightly higher proportion of Neanderthal DNA than the genomes of those who lived in Asia.

Then during the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the farmer lifestyle  about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago  the study shows a decline in the proportion of Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of European populations  a slightly lower percentage than that of Asian populations.

Scientists say this decrease coincided with another wave of migration  one where the first farmers arrived in Europe from the Aegean area and Anatolia  Turkeys western peninsula  who themselves carried a lower proportion of Neanderthal DNA than the inhabitants of Europe at the same time.

By mixing with the populations of Europe, the genomes of farmers from Anatolia diluted Neanderthal DNA a little more, researchers said in a statement.

However, the hunter-gatherers who moved and settled in East Asia by around 60,000 to 70,000 years ago likely did not undergo this dilution from the early farmers, scientists say.

Scientists say they are beginning to have enough data to describe more precisely the percentage of DNA of Neanderthal origin in the genome of Sapiens at different periods of prehistory.
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Security minister Tom Tugendhat said it was disgraceful that a stage was erected near to the Cenotaph at a pro-Palestine march.

Images and videos posted on social media show a stage standing close to the 103-year-old war memorial on Whitehall during demonstrations at the weekend expressing support for the Palestinian people in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

The memorial in central London is dedicated to those who died in the two world wars and in every conflict afterwards. It is a focal point during Britains Remembrance Sunday service in November.

Mr Tugendhat, who was formerly an officer in the British Army reserves, told Sky News: It is disgraceful. To many of us the Cenotaph is sacred ground.

There is a reason it matters so much to our national consciousness.

It is not just a memory of wars past, where many of our grandparents  fought in the First and Second World Wars.

For many of us it is a very living memory to our friends we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan or indeed in other conflicts around the world.

So frankly, the fact that there is a stage there is absolutely outrageous.

Im told the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign didnt even ask Westminster Council for permission to put it up and Ill be doing everything I can in making sure it is not allowed to happen again.

Veterans minister Johnny Mercer tweeted on Wednesday that he recognised the hurt that the placement of the platform had caused in the veteran community.

The Conservative politician said he had spoken to Home Secretary Suella Braverman and the Metropolitan Police about the stages location.

The Met and Westminster City Council each suggested the other would have been responsible for approving where such a stage was positioned.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said police asked for the demonstration to end where it did on Whitehall.

A spokesman for Westminster City Council said: The council did not provide permission for a stage to be built next to the Cenotaph.

Protests and marches are managed by the police.

The council told protest organisers that the Metropolitan Police is the agency responsible for determining whether a structure is appropriate in a given location, and permissions lie with them.

We do not support staging at the Cenotaph during future protests, however, that is a matter for the police.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: We recognise the huge significance and sensitivity about the Cenotaph and have seen the concerns raised about the positioning of stands as part of the protests on Saturday.

We see hundreds of protests every year passing through or finishing at Whitehall and it is important to explain that police do not authorise, nor are responsible for, deciding or giving permission on where stands are positioned on public highways.

Organisers need to apply to local authorities to be given permission for placing any item or structure on their roads. In this instance, that permission would be for consideration by Westminster City Council.

Met traffic officers would only be involved if the presence of the item is likely to cause danger to other road users, overhanging the carriageway, incorrect signage or if noise/public order issues are occurring.

We have fed the concerns raised into Westminster Council so that they can take this into consideration for any future protests or events.

A PSC spokesman said: Before every major demonstration, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its organising partners liaise with the police to agree our logistical planning and ensure public safety.

The same process we follow on every other demonstration was followed last Saturday, when over 100,000 people attended.

PSC requested that our demonstration end at Downing Street, to send our message to the Government that we call for a ceasefire, an end to the siege of Gaza and full humanitarian aid be sent in immediately.

The police asked us to end our demonstration further up Whitehall and that is why the stage was located where it was.

There was also some criticism expressed on social media that Met Police officers had placed their helmets on the memorial while they were monitoring protests on Saturday.

Replying to a tweet on Sunday which included a photo of police riot gear laid on the stone steps of the Cenotaph, the Met said: We apologise if it has caused any offence.

Officers worked hard yesterday to protect people and buildings but we will feed this into future policing plans.
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A husky stranded on a thin window ledge in London has been safely rescued by firefighters armed with dog treats.

Worried neighbours alerted the fire service after they noticed the young puppy named Coco on the first floor of a building on Siward Road, Tottenham, last Friday.

It is believed the husky had pushed through a window that was left ajar before climbing onto the ledge.

The dog was whimpering and we were worried it was going to fall because the ledge was so narrow Dan Poullais, leading firefighter

Firefighters used a 32-metre turntable ladder, which has a small platform, to bring Coco safely back to the ground.

Leading firefighter Dan Poullais said: When we arrived at the house, we initially requested the support of the RSPCA and a Metropolitan Police dog handler but we could see the dog was whimpering and we were worried it was going to fall because the ledge was so narrow and it couldnt turn around to get back inside.

Rather than using one of our standard ladders, we thought the safest option would be to get our 32-metre turntable ladder to the scene so that we could bring the dog safely inside the ladders cage.

Mr Poullais added that his colleague and dog lover Nick Michael climbed the ladder with dog treats, provided by neighbours, to help bring the husky down.

Mr Poullais said: (Mr Michael) managed to get a collar and lead onto the dog and safely brought it down to the ground, where it began to calm down.

Neighbours said they think the window was only slightly ajar and that the husky had managed to push the sash window up itself before climbing out.

We were glad to help and the dog was safely returned to its owner when they returned home.

The incident happened at around 10.20pm on Friday October 13 and was dealt with by firefighters from Tottenham Fire Station by 11.12pm.

A London Fire Brigade spokesperson said: Firefighters love animals and we are ready, willing and able to assist distressed or injured animals  the last thing we want is for people to put themselves at risk rescuing an animal themselves  but we do encourage people to call the RSPCA in the first instance and we will assist if our specialist equipment is required, as in this case.
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Acid attacks have soared by 69 per cent in an alarming reversal of declining rates with more women than men affected for the first time, a charity has warned.

Data from police forces showed 710 violent acid attacks were recorded in 2022 in England and Wales  up from 421 the previous year, Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTI) found.

The charity, which tracks annual acid attacks via Freedom of Information laws, fears the real total could be even higher after four forces failed to respond to their request.

It also found the number of female victims exceeds male victims for the first time in a worrying trend of increased acid attacks on women.

Some 339 women were targeted versus 317 men in 2022, while the victims gender was not recorded in 48 cases. This is up from 172 women the year before, when 227 men were targeted.

Television presenter and model Katie Piper appeared in a documentary to raise awareness about the impact of acid attacks after she was targeted by her ex-boyfriend and an accomplice in 2008. She went on to start a foundation in her name to support survivors.

ITV recently tackled the topic in Coronation Street, after it detailed an attempted acid attack on character Daisy Midgeley, which saw another character Ryan Connor step in the way to take the brunt of the attack.

ASTI, which is launching a prevention initiative targeting high-risk young people, estimates that acid attacks cost Britain 44million in 2022, with a single attack costing 63,000 on average  including medical and psychosocial support, in addition to the costs to the police, judicial and penal systems.

Katie Piper was an awarded an OBE for her services to charity supporting burns and acid attack survivors (PA Wire)

Although the surge in attacks has not exceeded the previous peak of 941 recorded attacks in 2017, it comes after cases had been steadily declining for several years.

This has been partly attributed to tougher laws introduced in the Offensive Weapons Bill, which was granted Royal Assent in 2019, which made it an offence to possess a corrosive substance in a public place and put stricter controls on the sale of acids and other corrosive substances.

However, experts are calling for increased awareness among retailers and at all levels of the supply chain.

ASTI executive director Jaf Shah told The Independent: We have introduced tighter controls around the purchasing of particularly severe corrosive substances, yet evidently perpetrators are still managing to get access to them.

That raises questions over how sufficiently robust are the sales controls or access to dangerous chemicals. We need to look at what can be further improved to restrict accessibility.

I think we need to be having discussions with retailers and manufacturers. Are these perpetrators obtaining access from shops online? Where are they sourcing these substances from?

He warned retailers and manufacturers that corrosives have dangerous implications when deployed as a weapon, adding: They need to review their internal systems to ensure any dangerous substance is in a controlled environment.

Mr Shah also noted attacks had increased most in areas of economic deprivation, with the biggest rise in the northwest of England.

He called for Government investment in tackling the root causes of crime, amid fears low-level offending can lead to escalating violence and increased acid attacks.

Coronation Street character Ryan (Ben Thompson) in the aftermath of his acid attack (ITV)

The charity has launched Project Irreversible, which will be delivered in workshops with the help of a digital graphic novel, to educate young people about the devastating impact of acid-based crime, which can render survivors blind, disabled and severely scarred, while perpetrators face lengthy custodial sentences.

Its not unusual for a survivor to undergo 50, 70 or even 100 procedures over five or seven years, Mr Shah told The Independent.

That is not even taking into account the trauma  with ongoing issues around depression and severe cases of social isolation because severe facial scarring for many survivors.

Changes of appearance in a very severe and very sudden way elicits a strong psychological response.

Mr Shah added: The UK has the highest number of recorded attacks in the world, and the need for prevention is greater than ever. We know that the best way to end acid violence is to prevent it from happening in the first place, by addressing its root causes.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alexis Boon QPM, National Police Chiefs Council lead for corrosive substances, said: The use of corrosive substances to commit crime devastates lives, often inflicting serious injuries and causing psychological trauma to survivors that will last a lifetime.

Through education, we need to make sure people understand the appalling consequences of such crimes, to those subject to such attacks, their families, and the perpetrator themselves, in order to prevent these crimes happening in the first place.

A Home Office spokesman added: The government has strengthened the law on corrosives through the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 including prohibiting the sale and delivery of corrosive products to under 18s and making it an offence to possess corrosive substances in a public place.

We are also working closely with partners to tackle the use of acids and other corrosives in violent attacks including with the police on the enforcement response to prevent and deter attacks and also with retailers to restrict access to acids and other harmful corrosive products.
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The partner of a woman who was shot in an alleged feud has been totally uncooperative with police, a court has heard.

Environmental health worker Ashley Dale, 28, was shot with a Skorpion machine pistol at home in Old Swan, Liverpool, in the early hours of August 21 last year by gunman James Witham, who admits manslaughter.

Witham, 41, and four other defendants, Niall Barry, 26, Sean Zeisz, 28, Ian Fitzgibbon, 28, and Joseph Peers, 29, deny her murder, which is alleged to have happened following a feud with her partner Lee Harrison.

Police staff investigator David Rawsthorne told Liverpool Crown Court he and officers had been to see Mr Harrison on a number of occasions since Miss Dales death, but he did not want to engage.

He described him as totally uncooperative.

He said Mr Harrison, who had been in a relationship with Miss Dale for five years, told police he was out with friends on the night of her shooting and had drunk alcohol and taken cocaine.

Mr Rawsthorne said Mr Harrison had seen the police cordon, at the end of Leinster Road, on his way back from a nightclub to a flat in the early hours of the morning.

The court heard he said he had no idea why he or Ashley would be targeted and vehemently denied he was under threat.

Mr Rawsthorne said Mr Harrison did not give his phone to police and said he had lost it in the city centre on the night of his partners death, although police found evidence he was still using the phone after that.

The jury was told Mr Harrison said he could not believe Barry, who he referred to as Branch, would be capable of killing Miss Dale and said they had fallen out but it was three years before.

He described Witham as an old mate, the court heard.

The court heard in September that Mr Harrison was told Zeisz, Barry, Witham and Peers had been charged with conspiracy to murder him.

He told police he did not believe they were capable or responsible as he was fine with them, except one of them  who he refused to name, Mr Rawsthorne confirmed.

Mr Rawsthorne said since the killing Mr Harrison had been in Dubai on several occasions.

On Thursday, the court also heard Barry had a conviction for supplying a sub-machine gun.

Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, said Barry, using the handle Bettertrunk, had sent a message to someone on messaging service Encrochat in 2020 which appeared to refer to firearms and a skorp, slang for a Skorpion machine gun.

He also received a message which appeared to list weapons including a skorp, AK47 and Uzi sub-machine gun.

He responded asking the sender to get us prices, the court heard.

Other messages showed an Encrochat user asking Barry if he could sort a strap, which the court heard was slang for a firearm, for someone who wanted to buy a sprayer.

Mr Greaney told the jury: On June 8 this year, based upon the messages, Niall Barry was convicted of conspiracy to sell or transfer a prohibited weapon, namely a sub-machine gun.

The court heard no firearms had been recovered from Barry or addresses associated with him.

Witham, of Huyton; Fitzgibbon, of St Helens; Zeisz, of Huyton; Barry, of Tuebrook; and Peers, of Roby  all Merseyside  deny conspiracy to murder Mr Harrison and conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon, a Skorpion sub-machine gun, and ammunition, as well as the murder of Miss Dale.

Kallum Radford, 26, of no fixed address, denies assisting an offender.
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Police have issued photos of a masked man they want to identify after more than ten women were sexually assaulted on buses across west London.

Scotland Yard said a suspect targets women choosing to sit next to them on the bus before launching into the sex attack. Police say he never says a word to the victim before or after the sexual assault.

In two images released on Thursday the masked man looks directly into the camera with police hoping the public will recognise his face or clothing.

The spree of attacks came between February 2022 and September this year occurring largely in the afternoons and evenings on the bus network around Ealing, Hammersmith, Westminster and Hounslow areas.

A masked man is seen walking along the bus on CCTV (Met Police)

For many of the offences, the suspect or the victim have boarded the bus at Westfield Shepherds Bush, Ealing Broadway, or Acton High Street.

Det Sgt Matthew Brown, said: We are aware of social media posts regarding this individual and appreciate the concern that these incidents will cause. We would like to assure the community that we are doing all that we can to identify and locate the suspect.

A man looks (Met Police)

While his face is covered in the images, we are hoping that anyone who knows him will recognise him or his clothing and get in touch.

Similarly, if you believe that you may have been targeted by this man, but have not yet spoken with police, please do get in touch  at the very least so that we can know that you are okay and are being supported.

(Met Police)

Anyone with information can contact police on 101 or post via X @MetCC quoting reference CAD 8412/21Sep.

To remain 100% anonymous call the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

There have been no arrests; enquiries continue.
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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urged Saudi Arabia to support stability in the Middle East as Israel geared up for a long war with Hamas.

Mr Sunak visited Tel Aviv on Thursday  where he said he wanted Israel to win the war  before heading to Saudi Arabia for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of an effort to prevent the Israel-Hamas confrontation spiraling into a wider conflict.

The Prime Minister said: As an international community, we must not let Hamass terror attack become a catalyst for a terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We will work together to ensure regional stability and prevent a dangerous escalation.

In a statement following the meeting with the crown prince, No 10 said the pair agreed that the loss of innocent lives in Israel and Gaza over the last two weeks has been horrific and underscored the need to avoid any further escalation in the region.

Mr Sunak encouraged the crown prince to use Saudis leadership in the region to support stability, both now and in the long-term, No 10 said.

The Prime Minister earlier had meetings with Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog.

Mr Netanyahu told Mr Sunak that he hoped for the UKs continuous support in his countrys long war as it fought back against Hamas following the Palestinian militant groups deadly and unprecedented assault on Israel on October 7.

The Israeli premier said his forces were fighting against the worst monsters on the planet during the worlds darkest hour as he warned there would be ups and downs during the war.

Mr Sunak, speaking at a joint press conference after discussions with his counterpart lasting about two hours, said he was proud to stand with Israel and that the UK Government wants you to win.

Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant has told ground troops on the Gaza border to be ready to enter the Occupied Palestinian Territory, but he did not say when the invasion would start.

Asked what Mr Sunak made of Mr Netanyahus assessment that Israel was facing a long war, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said: It is not for us to comment on the detail of the Israeli approach.

We can now confirm that at least nine British nationals were tragically killed in last weeks terrorist attacks. And a further seven British nationals are missing, some of whom are feared to be among the dead or kidnapped Spokeswoman for the Prime Minister

The latest figures from No 10 confirmed that at least nine British nationals were killed in the Hamas raids on Israel.

A further seven British nationals are missing some of whom are feared to be among the dead or kidnapped, Downing Street said.

The PA news agency understands that one of the Britons was Yonatan Rapoport, who was killed when Hamas gunmen rampaged through a kibbutz.

Mr Rapoport, known as Yoni, was reportedly one of those murdered in the attack on Kibbutz Beeri.

He had two children, Yosefi and Aluma, and, as a Manchester United fan, had planned to take his son to Old Trafford next month for his first game, the BBC reported.

The UK Government has not confirmed how many Britons are among the hostages held by Hamas, although at least two are known to be being kept captive, with Mr Sunak meeting with their families while in Tel Aviv.

The British leader thanked the Israeli government for its efforts in helping to secure the release of UK citizens being held hostage. About 200 people in total are said to have been snatched in the Hamas raids.

Mr Sunak welcomed Mr Netanyahus decision, after lobbying by US president Joe Biden, for Israel to start letting aid into the Gaza Strip.

It marks a potential break in a punishing and highly controversial siege on the territory after Israels retaliation on Hamas saw it block access for water, food, electricity and other essential supplies to the 25-mile strip, while also carrying out strikes.

The Prime Minister said the UK would seek to get more support to people as quickly as we can as he reiterated that Palestinians living under Hamas rule in Gaza were also victims.

Israel continued to pound locations across Gaza on the day of Mr Sunaks visit to Tel Aviv, including firing on parts of the southern strip that had been declared safe zones.

Many among Gazas 2.3 million residents have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water amid dwindling supplies.

Scotlands First Minister, Humza Yousaf has called on Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who is on his own diplomatic blitz across Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, to press for a resolution that could help those UK citizens trapped in Gaza.

Mr Yousaf, whose mother and father-in-law are stuck in the territory, said the lack of focus on those unable to escape the bombardment in the 25-mile strip was shameful.

Katy Chakrabortty, Oxfams head of advocacy, said Mr Sunak should be pushing for a ceasefire: Wanting Israel to win is not a helpful statement. Nobody wins when the scale of human suffering, devastation and pain is so vast and relentless.

We need all parties to commit to a ceasefire and for full, unfettered humanitarian access to Gaza now.

Mr Sunak is expected to stay overnight in Saudi Arabi following talks with the Crown Prince. No 10 is yet to confirm whether he will visit another Middle East capital before wrapping up his two-day trip on Friday.
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Intensive diplomatic efforts are continuing to prevent the Israel-Hamas war spiralling into a wider regional conflict.

Rishi Sunak was in Saudi Arabia following talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, where the two leaders discussed how to avoid any further escalation in the Middle East.

In a sign of the potential for the conflict to spill over, the United States said one of its warships had intercepted cruise missiles and drones launched from Yemen potentially towards targets in Israel.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel.

Attacks against Israel have also been launched from Lebanon, where the Hezbollah group is backed by Iran, drawing retaliation from Tel Aviv.

On Thursday, the Prime Minister visited Tel Aviv  where he said he wanted Israel to win the war with Hamas  before heading to Saudi Arabia for talks with the crown prince.

The Prime Minister said: We agreed on co-ordinated action to prevent further escalation in the region, provide vital humanitarian aid in Gaza and support stability, both now and in the long-term.

Downing Street said the pair agreed that the loss of innocent lives in Israel and Gaza over the last two weeks has been horrific and underscored the need to avoid any further escalation in the region.

Mr Sunak encouraged the crown prince to use Saudis leadership in the region to support stability, both now and in the long-term, No 10 said.

In the first leg of his trip on Thursday, the Prime Minister had meetings with Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog.

Mr Netanyahu told Mr Sunak that he hoped for the UKs continuous support in his countrys long war as it fought back against Hamas following the Palestinian militant groups deadly and unprecedented assault on Israel on October 7.

Mr Sunak, speaking at a joint press conference after discussions with his counterpart lasting about two hours, said he was proud to stand with Israel and that the UK Government wants you to win.

No 10 is yet to confirm whether Mr Sunak will visit another Middle East capital before wrapping up his two-day trip on Friday.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly was also in the region, visiting Egypt, Qatar and Turkey with a mission to secure the release of British hostages, stop the violence spreading to the region (and) ensure emergency aid can get into Gaza.

The latest figures from No 10 confirmed that at least nine British nationals were killed in the Hamas raids on October 7.

A further seven British nationals are missing some of whom are feared to be among the dead or kidnapped, Downing Street said.

The PA news agency understands that one of the Britons was Yonatan Rapoport, who was killed when Hamas gunmen rampaged through a kibbutz.

Mr Rapoport, known as Yoni, was reportedly one of those murdered in the attack on Kibbutz Beeri.

He had two children, Yosefi and Aluma, and, as a Manchester United fan, had planned to take his son to Old Trafford next month for his first game, the BBC reported.

The UK Government has not confirmed how many Britons are among the hostages held by Hamas, although at least two are known to be being kept captive, with Mr Sunak meeting with their families while in Tel Aviv.

Following international pressure, Israel has agreed to let aid flow into Gaza from Egypt.

It marks a potential break in a punishing and highly controversial siege on the territory after Israels retaliation on Hamas saw it block access for water, food, electricity and other essential supplies to the 25-mile strip, while also carrying out strikes.

The Prime Minister said the UK would seek to get more support to people as quickly as we can as he reiterated that Palestinians living under Hamas rule in Gaza were also victims.

But Israel has continued to pound locations across Gaza and is preparing to launch a ground invasion which could increase the bloodshed on both sides.
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The mother of a Black 13-year-old who was rammed off his bike and held at gunpoint by officers after his water pistol was mistaken for a real gun says she feels betrayed by police, insisting the incident was sparked by racism.

The boy, referred to only as Child X, was knocked to the ground, handcuffed and arrested on suspicion of having a firearm after being confronted by marksmen with submachine guns while having a water fight with his younger sister.

The mother said she and her family had been left broken by the trauma, with her son having regular nightmares about the incident. She said his race led to his treatment by armed officers, who she also accused of treating her with contempt.

I feel very angry about the way in which my 13-year-old son was treated by the police. It has been a deeply traumatic experience for him, for me, and for our family as a whole, she said in a statement released through campaign group, the Alliance for Police Accountability (APA).

I know  and the police know  that they would not have treated my son in the way they did if he had been a white 13 year old boy. I know that they would not have treated me with the contempt shown towards me or described me as aggressive if I was not Black.

She added that the family were still in shock.

How do I explain to (my son and siblings) what happened? How do I help them cope with the fact that the police present at the scene seemed unable or unwilling to apologise, explain or answer for what they had done?

And after what has happened, how can I ever tell them that they can turn to the police for help?

The incident took place on July 19 in Hackney, east London, when a police officer on patrol reported a potential firearms incident. One of the water guns was blue and white, and one was pink and white, the APA said.

Detective Chief Superintendent James Conway, in charge of policing for Hackney and Tower Hamlets, said he had apologised to the family.

He said: This incident was understandably extremely distressing for the boy involved as well as the rest of his family. We know it may cause public concern and we want to help the public understand why we responded in the way we did.

A supplied image of the water pistol (Supplied)

This does not in any way detract from our recognition of the trauma caused to the boy, for which I apologised soon afterwards to his family.

He added: I am sorry for the trauma caused to the child and I am happy to meet with the family again if they feel that would help.

An internal investigation by the Metropolitan Police found no misconduct had been committed by the officers involved. A further complaint accusing them of racial bias is still being investigated by the forces standards department.

The mother added: I feel let down and betrayed, not only by the police, but also by the IOPC, and by the whole system that is supposed to look after our children, black or white.

Lee Jasper, chair of APA, described the incident as appalling adding: The case terrifies me as a parent. Our blood runs cold at the context and scenario. He claimed the child was inches from death.

He called on the Mayor of London, Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley and the Home Secretary to investigate. He wants the mayors newly-launched policing board to encourage the Met Police to start collecting data on violent interactions between its officers and Black children.

CEO of Black Equity Organisation Wanda Wyporska (The Independent)

Courtney Brown, CEO of Father 2 Father Hackney, has been supporting the family and the people who witnessed the incident.

Child X is having nightmares and trying to get on with his life. Hes trying to manage that and were supporting him, he told the press conference. Witnesses described feeling anxious, fearful, confused and angry. One girl said when she now hears sirens, this changes her whole behaviour.

Speaking at the press conference, Leroy Logan, retired Met Police superintendent, warned similar incidents will keep on happening until theres a total culture change in policing. He called for the police officers involved in the incident to be taken off-duty.

And Dr Wanda Wyporska, CEO of Black Equity Organisation, said the charity is calling for reform of policing and root and branch investigation.

This is an example of institutional racism, she continued. There are many other cases of families who have experienced the same thing; this is not just a one-off. This is a recurring pattern within our communities.

Mr Conway said: Our officers are dealing with fast-moving situations, based on the limited information provided to them at the time.

Such is the nature of the threat from firearms that the College of Policing is clear that officers should treat all firearms as real and loaded until proven otherwise.

The police have a positive legal obligation under human rights legislation to protect life, which shapes our approach to responding to suspected firearms.

A City of London Police spokesperson said: As common practice, a firearms unit from the City of London Police attended in support of Metropolitan Police firearms units at an incident on July 19 2023.
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Ireland has announced 13m (11m) in additional funding for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians, as the countrys leaders called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The Irish deputy premier Micheal Martin reiterated a call from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for a pause in hostilities to establish humanitarian corridors.

Mr Martin said on Wednesday: The government has also made clear that we support an immediate humanitarian pause, or humanitarian ceasefire, to give space to establish humanitarian corridors to meet the immediate needs of all civilians in Gaza.

He was speaking during a session dedicated to discussing the conflict in the Dail parliament.

The speaker of the house, Sean O Fearghail said there was unprecedented interest in the issue: I have never received as many communications, in respect of anything.

Meanwhile, as politicians debated the matter, hundreds of people staged a protest outside the Leinster House complex in Dublin.

Gathering in the pouring rain, the demonstrators blocked the roadway outside the parliamentary buildings as speakers made demands for a ceasefire, a condemnation of Israels instruction for Gazans to move to south Gaza, and calls for the resignation of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

Mr Martin, who is also Minister for Foreign Affairs, said the Irish government unequivocally condemns the Hamas attack on Israel and that he had expressed Irelands condolences to the Israeli people.

The indiscriminate killing of civilians going about their daily life, the targeting of young party-goers at a music festival, the seizing of hostages, including children and elderly people. These are reprehensible actions.

I have been absolutely clear that all hostages, Israeli and international, must be released unconditionally. I have underlined that there is no justification  none  for such terror.

However, Mr Martin also told the Dail that Israels right to defend itself against attack must be done within the parameters of international humanitarian law.

Water, electricity and fuel supplies into Gaza have been seriously disrupted. Hospitals are running out of power. People are running out of essential supplies.

Over one million people were given an order to evacuate the north of Gaza by the Israeli military  that is simply unworkable. Civilian deaths are increasing.

We watched in horror the appalling strike on the al Ahli hospital in Gaza last night; hundreds of civilians  patients, staff and those seeking shelter from aerial attacks by Israel  have died.While we do not yet know who was responsible for that strike, have seen all too clearly the anguish and pain that it has caused.

Let us be unambiguous. As the UN secretary-general has underlined, even wars have rules. International humanitarian law applies in all conflicts, in all circumstances, to state and non-state actors alike. It is not optional. It is obligatory. The protection of civilians is at its core.

The funding announced by the Irish government on Wednesday amounts to 10 million euro in additional core funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides essential services to 5.7 million Palestine refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and an additional three million euro to the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) Occupied Palestinian Territories Humanitarian Fund.

It brings Irelands financial support to the people of Palestine in 2023 to 29 million euro.

Mr Varadkar had earlier branded Tuesdays bombing of the al Ahli hospital in Gaza as an atrocity but said an independent investigation was needed to establish who was responsible, while Mr Martin said the International Criminal Court would have a role in determining whether it was a war crime.

Hamas has blamed an Israeli air strike for the blast that claimed almost 500 lives.

However, Israel claims the devastation was caused by a misfiring rocket launched by Hamas militants and released imagery and communications intercepts it claims support that case.

During the Dail session, opposition politicians also called for a ceasefire.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said the world was witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

Ms McDonald said: Israel has unleashed the weight of its military might upon a beleaguered refugee population. They rain their arsenal of missiles down upon two million impoverished people hemmed into an area half the size of Co Louth.

She said Israel was imposing an apartheid regime in Gaza.

Our hearts break for the loss of Israeli lives on that fateful night of October 7, but be very clear that the Israeli offences against Palestine predate that night of horrific loss which has been roundly and fully condemned.

That condemnation stands in stark contrast to the refusal and failure of our own government in Dublin and in governments across the European Union and the world to condemn Israeli violations of international law.

Ms McDonald said the increased funding to Palestinians did not relieve the Irish government of its primary responsibility to hold Israel accountable.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik said the world had been shocked and horrified to see the unfolding violence in Gaza and Israel.

Ms Back added: Since then, weve seen the horrific escalation of violence and an increasing civilian death toll in Gaza.

Israel has engaged in clear and egregious breaches of international law which have brought about thousands of civilian deaths  again of women and children  in Gaza.

She said Israel must be called to account for war crimes.

Ms Bacik added: Ireland can play a significant role in seeking, crucially, that immediate ceasefire.

The parliament later overwhelmingly voted in favour of a government motion which called for an immediate ceasefire, stressed the universal applicability of international law and reaffirmed a commitment to a two-state solution.

The vote followed the defeat of several opposition amendments.
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Naga Munchetty was allegedly told by NHS doctors to suck it up after she experienced extreme menstrual problems, the BBC presenter revealed to a committee of MPs.

She was giving evidence, along with TV personalityVicky Pattison, to the Women and Equalities Committee as part of an inquiry into womens reproductive health.

Munchetty had revealed earlier this year that she was diagnosed with adenomyosis. She had called the process of being diagnosed so frustrating.

On Wednesday, she told the committee that she experienced debilitating symptoms, including excruciating pain and heavy menstrual bleeding. She said that the attitude of the GPs had been: Those are your [treatment] options  and if they dont work for you, then suck it up.

She said she had been told since she was a teenager that youre normal and everyone goes through this. She said there was a constant, Youre fine, everyone else is putting up with this, why cant you?

Munchetty acknowledged that she is fortunate enough to be able to have private healthcare, and that it was the only time I felt I could sit there and take time and force an issue, force understanding, force explanations from my gynaecologist and not feel bad that I was taking up more than 10 minutes of my GPs time because there was a queue of people in the waiting room.

Ms Pattison, who was diagnosed with pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder [PMDD], told the committee: GPs, anyone within the NHS, any medical professionals at all, they just need to start to take women seriously when they say somethings wrong.

I know loads of brilliant women and I dont feel like were the weaker sex at all. I feel like were brilliant. I feel like were strong and powerful and we put up with a lot more than blokes do most of the time.

If we have got ourselves up and gone into a doctors, a hospital, whatever, to say somethings wrong, I feel like the least people can do is listen to her and believe that there is something wrong.

She said there needs to be better knowledge, better understanding about health issues affecting women.

Munchetty added: No woman says shes in pain unless she is in real pain. No woman says she is anxious unless she is really anxious. No woman wants to appear weak or appear incapable until she really is, until she cant cope anymore. And it shouldnt be that way.

She added that theres not enough training, theres not enough focus in the medical profession on women.

The chair of the committee, Caroline Nokes, promised it would issue guidance to NHS and schools to tackle woeful misunderstood, ignorance, stigma and shame surrounding womens health, the Guardian reported.
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Some residents have been asked to evacuate their homes as Storm Babet swept across the UK and Ireland on Thursday.

The Met Office issued a rare red weather warning for parts of Scotland and said some communities could be cut off for several days by severe flooding.

In Ireland, the army and civil defence units were called in to provide support and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who visited those affected in Midleton, Co Cork, said a financial package will be offered to homes and businesses damaged in floods.
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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the second leg of his Middle East tour that included a visit to Israel, where he was told to brace for a long war with Hamas.

Mr Sunak is set to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday evening as he urges leaders in the region not to allow the Israeli-Hamas battle escalate into a wider conflict.

The Prime Minister tweeted: As an international community, we must not let Hamass terror attack become a catalyst for a terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We will work together to ensure regional stability and prevent a dangerous escalation.

He travelled from Tel Aviv after meetings with Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog.

Mr Netanyahu told Mr Sunak that he hoped for the UKs continuous support in his countrys long war as it fought back against Hamas following the Palestinian militant groups deadly and unprecedented assault on Israel on October 7.

The Israeli premier said his forces were fighting against the worst monsters on the planet during the worlds darkest hour as he warned there would be ups and downs during the war.

Mr Sunak, speaking at a joint press conference after discussions with his counterpart lasting about two hours, said he was proud to stand with Israel and that the UK Government wants you to win.

Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant has told ground troops on the Gaza border to be ready to enter the Occupied Palestinian Territory, but he did not say when the invasion would start.

Whoever sees Gaza from afar now will see it from the inside, he told Israeli infantry soldiers.

Asked what Mr Sunak made of Mr Netanyahus assessment that Israel was facing a long war, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said: It is not for us to comment on the detail of the Israeli approach.

We can now confirm that at least nine British nationals were tragically killed in last weeks terrorist attacks. And a further seven British nationals are missing, some of whom are feared to be among the dead or kidnapped Spokeswoman for the Prime Minister

Downing Street has updated the number of Britons killed in Hamass assault on Israel since the Prime Ministers arrival in Saudi.

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said: We can now confirm that at least nine British nationals were tragically killed in last weeks terrorist attacks.

And a further seven British nationals are missing, some of whom are feared to be among the dead or kidnapped.

In a statement to the Commons on Monday, the Prime Minister said six British nationals had died, with a further 10 missing.

The PA news agency understands that Yonatan Rapoport was killed during the Hamas ambush which left hundreds of Israelis dead.

Mr Rapoport, known as Yoni, was reportedly one of those murdered in the attack on Kibbutz Beeri.

He had two children, Yosefi and Aluma, and, as a Manchester United fan, had planned to take his son to Old Trafford next month for his first game, the BBC reported.

The UK Government has not confirmed how many Britons are among the hostages held by Hamas, although at least two are known to be being kept captive, with Mr Sunak meeting with their families while in Tel Aviv.

The British leader thanked the Israeli government for its efforts in helping to secure the release of UK citizens being held hostage. About 200 people in total are said to have been snatched in the Hamas raids.

Mr Sunak has welcomed Mr Netanyahus decision, after lobbying by US president Joe Biden, for Israel to start letting aid into Gaza.

It marks a potential break in a punishing siege on the territory after Israels retaliation on Hamas saw it block access for water, food, electricity and other essential supplies to the 25-mile strip, while also carrying out strikes.

The Prime Minister said the UK would seek to get more support to people as quickly as we can as he reiterated that Palestinians living under Hamas rule in Gaza were also victims.

Israel continued to pound locations across Gaza on the day of Mr Sunaks visit to Tel Aviv, including firing on parts of the southern strip that had been declared safe zones.

A residential building in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter, was among the places hit.

Medical personnel said they had received at least 12 dead and 40 wounded. Thousands in Gaza have died since retaliatory Israeli strikes started in the aftermath of Hamass incursion.

Many among Gazas 2.3 million residents have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water amid dwindling supplies.

The UK Government is being urged to lobby for a ceasefire by both British political leaders and charities working in the region.

Scotlands First Minister, Humza Yousaf has called on Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who is on his own diplomatic blitz across Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, to press for a resolution that could help those UK citizens trapped in Gaza.

Mr Yousaf, whose mother and father-in-law are stuck in the territory, said the lack of focus on those unable to escape the bombardment in the 25-mile strip was shameful.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the SNP leader said: Theyre trapped in a war zone and need you, Foreign Secretary, to demand a ceasefire, and the Rafah crossing opened to let them out.

Katy Chakrabortty, Oxfams head of advocacy, said: The Prime Minister is right to call for the safe return of all hostages in Gaza but his failure to call for a ceasefire is wrong.

Wanting Israel to win is not a helpful statement. Nobody wins when the scale of human suffering, devastation and pain is so vast and relentless. We need all parties to commit to a ceasefire and for full, unfettered humanitarian access to Gaza now.

Mr Sunak is expected to stay overnight in Saudi Arabi following talks with the Crown Prince. No 10 is yet to confirm whether he will visit another Middle East capital before wrapping up his two-day trip on Friday.
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Oxfam has marked one of the largest public demonstrations in British history by reuniting a group of protesters from the 1983 march for peace in Londons Hyde Park.

The original demonstration, which took place on October 22 1983, saw 300,000 people gather in Hyde Park to protest against the presence of nuclear missiles in London.

Oxfam worked with the original demonstrators to recreate images on the eve of the 40-year anniversary of the march.

The protesters included Kate Hudson, general secretary of CND, and Dave Wainwright, one of the original organisers of the march.

While this march happened 40 years ago, we still believe in the power of protest and the impact it can have on driving social change Johnty Gray, Oxfam

Oxfam also surveyed 2,000 adults of different ages on attitudes towards the modern-day fight for equality.

The findings showed that just over half of 18-34 year olds said they take inspiration from the protesters of the past.

Johnty Gray, individual engagement director at Oxfam said: While this march happened 40 years ago, we still believe in the power of protest and the impact it can have on driving social change.

Our research shows that different generations have much in common when it comes to fighting for issues like climate change and that the younger generations are inspired by their parents and grandparents.

Its clear that young people believe their success in changing the world for the better will be significantly boosted if the older generation do what they can to stay in the fight.

Kate Hudson said: One of the amazing things about that demonstration that I remember so clearly was the intergenerational nature of it.

There were people literally of every age group, tiny kids in buggies, people of my mums generation, and then people  really senior people  within our society and our organisation.

The peace movement has always been like that, embracing all walks of life, every background, every community and every age. thats how we are now and going forward. Everyone has a role to play.

Those kids have been able to grow up, and are still part of the movement today, and hopefully their kids will be onside now.

Were facing terrible dangers, nuclear dangers today, but the peace movement, the anti-nuclear movement, progressive people everywhere, we are standing together and standing firm to say we want a world of peace.

Dave Wainwright said: At the time I was working for CND and I was one of the co-ordinators of the march, which without all the social media that we have today was a very different sort of process than nowadays.

I recognise the world is a more complicated place than perhaps I imagined when I was younger and the arguments are perhaps more complicated. But fundamentally, war is bad, nuclear weapons are bad, children are good.

Thats pretty much all there is to it.
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The extra 10 million in humanitarian aid to Palestinians announced by Rishi Sunak is pitiful, MPs have said.

The Prime Minister said the UK was increasing its support by a third when he confirmed the sum on Monday.

But the cross-party International Development Committee (IDC) said it falls far short and called for a wider approach.

The committee has previously recommended a global strategy to support countries hosting long-term refugees, and said the crisis in the Middle East underscores the need for this.

The additional 10 million in humanitarian aid the UK is offering for civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is pitiful, it falls far short of such support the UK provided a few years ago Sarah Champion

In a report in May, the committee said: The strategy should set out how the international community will support host countries to move from the initial humanitarian response to a long-term development approach that incorporates access to education, healthcare, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, social security, and essential infrastructure.

But it was the only recommendation the Government did not fully accept as it argued existing frameworks for responsibility-sharing, like the Global Refugee Compact, offer the best strategy.

Chairwoman of the committee Sarah Champion MP said: The incomprehensible horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza highlights the absolute necessity that the UK Government rethink its position on the one recommendation in our report on long-term refugees that it did not fully accept: that the UK should advocate for the creation of a new global strategy to provide support for countries that host refugees, with so many countries hosting refugees for decades.

The additional 10 million in humanitarian aid the UK is offering for civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is pitiful, it falls far short of such support the UK provided a few years ago.

Furthermore, the Foreign Secretary has said the only credible crossing out of Gaza is at Rafah: even if that crossing were to open, the idea that Egypt can take, accommodate and provide for potentially in excess of one million desperate, displaced people as they stream into the Sinai desert is simply not credible.

Without a global consensus on how to provide consistent and reliable support to countries hosting displaced people, those people will have no safe refuge. The situation is simply untenable, and the world must dig deep to respond with the humanity this desperate situation deserves.

A UK Government spokesperson said: The UKs pledge of 10m for Palestinians is giving essential, lifesaving assistance, including food, water, health support and shelter, to some of the worlds most vulnerable people.

We are a longstanding and significant donor of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, last year contributing 13m to UN agency UNRWA, who in 2022 reached 1.1 million people in Gaza and 58 thousand people in West Bank with emergency food.
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Humza Yousafs mother-in-law has said she cant take another night in Gaza, an SNP MP has said.

Elizabeth El-Nakla has been stuck in Gaza with her husband, Maged, since the escalation in hostilities last weekend.

According to SNP MP Chris Law, speaking in the Commons during Prime Ministers Questions, Ms El-Nakla made her final goodbyes in a call with the first minister and her daughter, Nadia, this morning.

The Dundee West MP said: Members of her family were hit yesterday by a rocket from a drone, and Nadias mother was saying her final goodbyes this morning, adding, last night was the end for me, better if my heart stops and then I will be at peace, I cant take another night.

With military action intensifying and the death toll rapidly rising, the Prime Ministers first responsibility must be to bring British citizens home.

Mr Law asked the prime minister to give his assurances every single step is being taken to open the Rafah border crossing in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Responding, the prime minister said: Of course, the thoughts of everyone in this House will be with those families affected by what is happening in Israel and in Gaza, and I can give the honourable gentleman that assurance that we are doing everything in our power to ensure the safety of British nationals that are caught up in all of this, including my calls with leaders across the region, particularly around opening the Rafah border crossing.

He added: We continue to have dialogue both with the Israelis and the Egyptians about the Rafah crossing.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Wednesday, the first minister said he had just spoken with his mother-in-law, who had told him they were safe.

We are just torn apart with worry as you can imagine, because their supplies are low, he said.

An Israeli missile struck a house across the road from where the El-Nakla family and 100 other people are staying, smashing all the windows and mirrors in the house on Tuesday.

It is understood that Mr Yousaf received a call about the attack 45 minutes after his speech to the SNP conference on Tuesday.

He added: So, my mother-in-law told me she just didnt sleep a wink last night with worry.

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn also joined the first minister in calling for a ceasefire in the region, pressuring the Prime Minister on the issue and the creation of a refugee resettlement scheme in the UK.

My ask for a ceasefire was done with all sincerity, sincerity to protect civilians, but also to ensure that we have the safe creation of humanitarian corridors  humanitarian corridors which will allow for food, for water and for vital medicines to get into Gaza, but also for innocent civilians caught up in this terrible conflict to flee, Mr Flynn said.

Rishi Sunak did not address calls for a resettlement scheme, but did say the UK was one of the most significant contributors to the United Nations efforts to support Palestinian refugees.

He added: With regard to humanitarian aid, as I said before we are already working through pre-emptively moving aid and relief teams into the region, but critically the most important thing is to open up access for that aid to get into Gaza, which is why our conversations with the Egyptians and others are so critical.

Earlier on Wednesday, the first minister said an honest broker in the Middle East would be needed to resolve the root cause of hostilities.

Frankly, if we look at this issue, stepping back from the current crisis, the only way were going to stop that perpetual cycle of violence that we see flare up year after year after year, is by addressing the root cause, he said.

The root cause continues to be that, while we have an Israeli state, that was a promise that was made, we dont have the Palestinian state yet as per the 1967 borders.

So that two-state solution that many of us have talked about for decades has just never materialised.

Until there is a concerted effort, until  frankly  there is an honest broker that is able to help to broker that solution, we are going to unfortunately, I fear, see those perpetual cycles of violence continue for many years to come.

I dont know if Gaza will exist any more Nadia El-Nakla

The first minister also pushed for an independent investigation of the explosion at the al Ahli Arab Hospital, which Hamas blamed on Israel but the Israeli government claimed was as a result of a rocket misfired by the group Islamic Jihad.

He described the explosion, which it is feared killed hundreds, was a complete and utter human tragedy.

Writing in the Guardian, Nadia El-Nakla told of her fears that Gaza may not exist, and Palestinian identity could be lost forever as her family in Gaza face trying to survive off salt water.

She recalled how as a child she would cry when it was time to go back to the UK due to the vibrancy and warmth of the Gazan community, and said Palestinian nationality has been conflated with the idea that were barbaric.

And she told how her optimism has diminished as no ceasefire has yet been declared and her fears that her eight-week-old nephew and 93-year-old grandmother could not survive the journey north.

Ms El-Nakla recalled how she was raised by her Palestinian father to believe that Jewish people were the cousins of Islam, rather than this narrative that the current conflict is Muslims against Jews, or Palestinian families against Israeli families.

Ms El-Nakla wrote: My fear is that our identity could be lost for ever, that Palestinians are being eradicated from history, first under the blockade that has been going on for 17 years and now the bombardment. I dont know if Gaza will exist any more.

The future feels bleak, and I find it hard to think past the immediate safety of people living there now. At first I was optimistic that my parents would get out and aid would get in but sadly, slowly, my hope is waning.

Im trying to hold on to hope and trust in human beings to do what is right. And what is right is to give human beings what they need to survive, but also to follow international law.

We have international law for a reason, and you cant condemn one group for not following it and then allow another one to have complete disregard for it.

Sometimes, world leaders can make it really complicated, but to me it feels simple: have a ceasefire, and allow the aid in and people out.
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The number of British people killed in the Hamas terror attack on Israel has risen to nine, Downing Street has confirmed.

Another seven Britons in Israel remain missing following the attack which saw more than 1,400 killed, with some of those feared to be among the dead.

Rishi Sunak, who was in Israel on Thursday to tell PM Benjamin Netanyahu he has a right to go fater Hamas, said earlier this week that said seven British nationals had been killed with nine missing.

We can now confirm that at least nine British nationals were tragically killed, the PMs spokesperson said. A further seven British nationals are missing, some of whom are feared to be among the dead or kidnapped.

British-Israeli citizen Yonatan Rapoport, known as Yoni, is understood to be one of those killed in the attack on Kibbutz Beeri on 7 October.

He had two children, Yosefi and Aluma, and, as a Manchester United fan, had planned to take his son to Old Trafford next month for his first game, the corporation reported.

Some of those missing are feared to be already dead, while others could be among the hostages taken back to the Gaza Strip by Hamas.

On Tuesday, British teenager Yahel Sharabi, 13, was confirmed as one of those murdered during Hamass attack. She died along with her mother, Lianne, while her elder sister, Noiya, 16, and father, Eli, are still missing.

Also among those known to have died is Nathanel Young, 20, who was serving in the Israeli army when he was killed during Hamass attack.

Bernard Cowan, who grew up around Glasgow, was also killed the attack, his family has confirmed. The family said they were grieving the loss of our son and brother who was horrifically murdered on Saturday during the surprise terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas.

Jake Marlowe, 26, who went to the same London school as Mr Young, was originally recorded as missing but later confirmed dead by the Israeli embassy in London.

He was providing security at the Supernova music festival in the desert near Kibbutz Reim when the area was invaded by Hamas gunmen.

Photographer Dan Darlington is also feared to be dead. A post from Mr Darlingtons sister, Shelley, on social media said he was murdered at Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel. But his death has not been officially confirmed.

Mr Sunak said Israel has both a right and duty to go after Hamas after he arrived in Tel Aviv for a two-day visit to the Middle East. The PM called the terrorist group pure evil and offered strong support for Israeli military action.

In rhetoric recalling Winston Churchill, the PM said he was proud to stand here with you in Israels darkest hour as your friend. He added: We will stand with you in solidarity  And we also want you to win.

Despite offering strong backing for military action, Mr Sunak also said the response should be in line with international law, as well as pushing the Israeli leaders for further progress in allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Appearing alongside Mr Netanyahu, Mr Sunak said: I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas.
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Labour has played down its chances of winning the super-safe Tory seats of Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire as voters head to the polls in two by-election tests for Rishi Sunak.

Sir Keir Starmers spokesman the moonshot chances would require Labour to overturn results larger than those seen in Selby, north Yorkshire.

Winning either of these seats would be a moonshot for us so its worth keeping a sense of perspective around just how safe these Tory seats are  neither of them are on our target list, he said.

But as the expectation management game continued, Tory party chairman Greg Hands also dismissed his partys chances. Governments dont win by-elections, he told The Times.

But both Conservative and Labour officials now believe Mr Sunaks party has a decent chance of hanging on to Nadine Dorries Mid Bedfordshire seat despite a big slump in the Tory voter.

The Tories have held Mid Bedfordshire since 1931 and Ms Dorries held on to it in 2019 by 24,000 votes over second-placed Labour.

Polling guru Sir John Curtice said: We cant discount the possibility that the Tories hang on to both of them  but said a 20-point vote swing away from the party would mean they are in trouble.

We may discover its a 19 percent swing and the Tories just hang on. That would not indicate any particular rescue for the Tories, he told Politico. A Lib Dem activist said there was a really good chance that the Tories come through the middle and hang on.

Labour and Lib Dems expected to split anti-Tory vote in three-way contest in Mid Bedfordshire (PA)

A leaked Tory memo revealed that the party expects to lose half their vote share at two by-elections. The Tories expect their vote share to be cut from 59 per cent to 29 per cent in Mid Bedfordshire.

But pollsters believe it may be enough to cling on to the blue wall seat because of Labour and the Lib Dems splitting the vote. Prof Curtice told The Independent that it may be that Labour wont pick it up because of the split vote.

The two-way Labour-Tory contest in Tamworth appears on a knife-edge. The leaked Conservative memo also predicts the Tories would win between 28 per cent and 33 per cent of the vote in Tamworth.

Mr Sunaks party is defending a 19,600 majority in the Midlands seat  vacated by Chris Pincher, the former deputy chief whip found to have groped two men.

The Tory candidate for Tamworth Andrew Cooper has apologised for suggesting some parents using food banks could f*** off. He told Channel 5 News he was sorry if anyone was offended by the flowchart he shared back in 2020.

Obviously it is not something I would share now in todays world, said Mr Cooper. We obviously mature and have different opinions than we do three years ago.

Tory Tamworth candidate Andrew Cooper has apologised for food bank comments (Conservative Party)

Sir Keirs spokesman said: If we were to win Tamworth and had that swing at a general election, it would mean that the Tories will be down to fewer than 60 seats at the next general election.

Then PMs press secretary told reporters that mid-term by-elections are extremely tough for incumbent governments but said the Tories were fighting for every vote.

Polls in both constituencies will open at 7am on Thursday, with the results likely to be known in the early hours of Friday.

Sir Keirs party hold at least a double-digit lead over the Tories in the polls. That gap was borne out in a huge by-election win in Selby in July when Labour overturned a blue 20,000 majority on a 21 per cent swing.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir received another boost when the boss of BlackRock, one of the worlds leading financiers, gave his backing  arguing that the Labour leader offers a measurement of hope to British politics.

Larry Fink, chairman and chief executive of the major asset manager, told the Wall Street Journal that Sir Keir had shown real strength in bringing Labour back to the centre ground.
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Rishi Sunak has called for a calm and cool response to the blast at a Gaza hospital as the government committed to publish an assessment of who was behind the blast.

The prime minister urged MPs not to rush to judgment on Wednesday as Israel and Hamas issued rival claims about the atrocity feared to have killed at least 500 at al Ahli.

Visiting Tel Aviv, US president Joe Biden sided with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu by telling him it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.

But Mr Sunak  who held talks with the national security adviser and the chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee on Wednesday morning  said he would not rush to judgment before we have all the facts on this awful situation.

At Prime Ministers Questions in the Commons, he said: Our intelligence services have been rapidly analysing the evidence to independently establish the facts. We are not in a position at this point to say more than that.

During a visit to Essex on Wednesday afternoon, the prime minister said the very heightened, sensitive situation demanded calm heads.

This is obviously a complicated situation on the ground but it is right that we approach it with a calm and cool manner, dont rush to premature judgments, take the time to understands whats happened, thats what were doing. 

Foreign secretary James Cleverly told the Commons: We take note of what President Biden has said, but we will come to our own judgment, we will work on that quickly, and we will ensure that our assessment is put in the public domain as soon as we are confident of the details.

Defence secretary Grant Shapps stressed that misattributing responsibility for the blast could make things worse as he was questioned over the difference in position between the UK and Mr Biden.

Mr Shapps said we dont yet know who was behind the blast, adding: I think its really important that we give them the opportunity to gather those facts so we dont jump to conclusions.

Mr Sunak declined to back calls from more than 40 MPs for a ceasefire so that the release of hostages could be secured, international law could be upheld and medical supplies, food, fuel, electricity and water could be given to the Palestinian people.

Instead, he said that Israel had a right to defend itself, to protect its people and to act against terrorism and ensure that the awful attack weve seen from Hamas cannot happen again.

Mr Sunak said the UK was continuing to press to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and was working around the clock to free British hostages taken by Hamas.

Following the session of Prime Ministers Questions he met the family of one of those captured.

At least seven British nationals, including 13-year-old Yahel Sharabi, were killed in the Hamas raids on Israel on October 7.

Downing Street said that nine UK nationals remain missing, with some of those feared dead, while others could be among the hostages taken back to the Gaza Strip.

Hamas said an Israeli air strike led to the devastation at the al Ahli hospital.

Gazas Hamas-run health ministry said at least 500 people were killed.

But the Israeli military blamed a misfiring rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group and released imagery and communications intercepts aimed at supporting their case.

Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf said the blast was a complete and utter human tragedy and called for an independent investigation into who bears responsibility.

I think everybody has a responsibility to condemn it and condemn it in the strongest possible way, he told BBC Breakfast.

Its a complete breach of international law  the targeting of a hospital.

Irish Tanaiste and foreign affairs minister Micheal Martin called for a ceasefire and reiterated a call for humanitarian aid corridors to be opened into the Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of Palestinians have taken refuge at al Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City in the past few days, hoping to be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.

The hospital was run by the Anglican church  and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said he was in profound mourning after the atrocious strike.

The hospital deaths have sparked protests across the Middle East, including angry scenes in the Lebanese capital Beirut where hundreds of demonstrators clashed with security forces near the US embassy.

The Hezbollah group, a key ally of Hamas, held its own rally on Wednesday in the city.

The Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to leave now while commercial options remain available.

The situation has potential to deteriorate quickly and with no warning, the department said.

Before the hospital blast, Mr Sunak was understood to be keen on travelling to Israel  following trips by Germanys Olaf Scholz and Mr Biden  with reports suggesting he could go as soon as Thursday.

Asked about the potential trip, Mr Sunak said: Obviously I wouldnt comment on any future travel plans on my part.
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Rishi Sunak is expected to bring in a long-promised ban on conversion therapy after a backlash from Conservative MPs.

The PM is finally set to include a draft bill in the Kings Speech to prohibit attempts to change someones sexuality, amid growing anger over delays and uncertainty.

The bill will also protect transgender people from efforts to change anyones gender identity, according to The Times  a crucial inclusion that LGBT+ campaigners had been demanding.

Mr Sunak was thought to be considering ditching the bill over fears in some quarters that teachers, parents and therapists could be penalised for trying to offer guidance to young people.

One source close to government told the Telegraph only last month that the ban appeared to be dead in the water, while another said the government was stuck in a loop amid disagreements on the wording of the ban.

But No 10 is now set to introduce legislation for the ban  first promised under Thresa May in 2018  in Novembers Kings Speech, after Tory MPs made clear their frustration.

The chief whip Simon Hart warned the PM that the government could face a rebellion if it failed to introduce the bill, according to The Times. Simon has been brilliant on this  He gets it, said one MP.

The Tory government first pledged in 2018 that it would end abhorrent conversion practices  sometimes called gay cures  promoted by some religious groups.

Mr Sunaks ministers has promised a draft bill to ban religious groups from trying to change someones sexuality would be set out by the end of the parliamentary session.

Cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch has expressed concerns about criminalising parents (PA Wire)

However, amid reports they bill could be watered down, equalities minister Kemi Badenoch expressed concerns about the risks of criminalising parents earlier this year.

Then-culture secretary Michelle Donelan said in January that the bill will protect everyone, including those targeted on the basis of their sexuality or being transgender.

Jayne Ozanne, the former government adviser who now leads the Ban Conversion Therapy coalition, said she was extremely angry that the Tories had consistently delivered only obfuscation and delay in recent years.

Ms Ozanne welcomed the intended ban  but told The Independent she was extremely concerned that making victims prove coercion will mean this a bill in name only. The campaigner said she was worried there wasnt enough time to scrutinise the bill properly before the next election.

She added: All conversion therapy is coercive, but proving it puts the onus on the victim and lets perpetrators walk free  Im left feeling this is a cynical move to avoid haemorrhaging votes, rather than a genuine attempt to protect LGBT+ peoples lives.

No 10 would not comment on the likelihood of the bill being in the Kings speech. But Mr Sunaks official spokesman added: Youve heard us talk before about the abhorrent nature of so-called conversion therapy [and] that no one should be harmed or harassed for who they are.

The government faced growing pressure from some backbench Tories after home secretary Suella Braverman sparked outrage with her speech claiming that some asylum seekers were pretending to be gay to win refugee status.

While few MPs spoke out in public, many are believed to have made their unease clear to the chief whip. Andrew Boff  a leading Tory London Assembly member who is patron of the LGBT+ Conservatives group  was kicked out of Ms Bravermans conference speech dog whistle politics to appeal to the right.
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Rishi Sunak has said Israel has both a right and duty to go after Hamas to restore its security at the start of a two-day visit to the region.

The prime minister called the terrorist group pure evil and, at a joint press conference, told Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu we want you to win.

In rhetoric recalling Winston Churchill, Mr Sunak added that he was proud to stand here with you in Israels darkest hour as your friend.

He also met with two families whose loved ones have been held hostage by Hamas following the attacks on 7 October, which saw more than 1,400 killed.

In a bid to prevent the conflict from spreading across the region, Mr Sunak flew to Saudi Arabia where he and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman agreed to coordinate action in a bid to avoid further escalation.

Mr Sunak also encouraged the crown prince to use his countrys leadership in the region, where it is a key player, to support stability, both in the coming days and in the long term.

It came as:

Netanyahu said he was preparing the country for a long war against worst monsters on the planet

UK and US advised their citizens to leave Lebanon now as tensions rise between Hezbollah and Israel

Eight Britons killed and seven missing in Hamas attacks as total number of hostages reaches 203

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant tells troops on Gaza border that they could see the enclave from inside soon

Hundreds of lorries with vital supplies still waiting to enter Gaza after President Biden secured aid agreement

The Archbishop of Canterbury arrived in Jerusalem to show solidarity to those impacted by the conflict

While in the Middle East, the prime minister is expected to work on efforts to try to secure the release of the hostages and prevent the conflict from spreading across the region.

There is increasing concern that it will, starting with Lebanon. The UK, the US and Germany have issued travel warnings urging their citizens to immediately leave the country.

Israel also said it had bolstered its northern defences and was ready to respond to any attack from its northern neighbours. Major Marcus Sheff, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, told The Independent: I think Lebanon needs to ask whether it wants to risk its future for the Hamas terror organisation. He added: "We will deal with Hezbollah as necessary. The [Israeli military] is ready, ready to respond to any attack.

Jordan has called for an immediate ceasefire and warned a continued bombardment of Gaza will only see the conflict ripple past their borders.

On Thursday Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant told infantry troops gathered at the border that they will soon see Gaza from the inside, suggesting a ground invasion could be approaching.

There has been growing regional fury at the worsening humanitarian crisis for the two million people in Gaza, who are running out of food, water, fuel and power under a crippling Israeli siege.

The US brokered a deal where 20 trucks of aid would be allowed in via Egypt. But rights groups say this is only a scratch on the surface of whats needed.

While in Israel, Mr Sunak offered support for military action in response to the Hamas attack, which saw more than 1,400 killed, during talks with Mr Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog.

Appearing alongside Mr Netanyahu, he said Israel has the right to go after Hamas, take back hostages and strengthen your security for the long term.

He also told Mr Herzog that Britain stood in solidarity with your right to defend yourself, adding: You have not just a right to do that, I think you have a duty to do that, to restore that security to your country.

But as he walked a diplomatic tightrope, Mr Sunak again stressed that Israels response should be in line with international law at the same time as offering strong backing for action.

He also pushed Israeli leaders for progress in allowing aid into Gaza, amid warnings of a humanitarian disaster.

Rishi Sunak meets with Israeli president Isaac Herzog (EPA)

Mr Netanyahu said Hamas were the new Nazis and the worst monsters on the planet, telling the British PM: You fought the Nazis 80 years resolutely and the entire world supported your action.

Mr Herzog said he was extremely grateful to Mr Sunak for visiting during Israels darkest hour and said the country was determined to turn it into their finest hour  using the language of Churchills most famous wartime address.

In Israel Mr Sunak also met with two families whose loved ones have been held hostage by Hamas following the attacks on 7 October.

In a post on X, the PM was pictured hugging one mother: To have a child taken from you is a parents worst nightmare, he said  repeating his determination to see hostages released.

Mr Sunak also called Hamas pure evil and said he had been chilled by videos showing those killed and kidnapped. The PM said: They are horrific. They chill you  they have certainly done that to me  and everyone can see that [Hamas] represent pure evil.

But Mr Sunaks language was condemned by Oxfam, who said it was wrong that he had not called for a ceasefire and added nobody wins when the scale of human suffering, devastation and pain is so vast and relentless.

Sunak tells Netanyahu he supports military action to restore security (EPA)

His visit to Israel comes after US president Joe Biden helped secure a deal which saw the first aid getting over the Egyptian border. Mr Biden also backed Israel by saying that the other team were behind the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital.

Mr Biden said his claim that the explosion was the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group was based on data from the US defense department. Mr Sunak said on Thursday that it was important not to jump to conclusions and that UK intelligence agencies were still reviewing the facts available.

Before his meeting with Mr Sunak, Mr Herzog attacked the BBC for its refusal to call Hamas a terrorist group  accusing them of a distortion of the facts. Asked about the Israeli presidents remarks on the BBC, No 10 said the broadcaster should reflect very carefully and learn lessons from the initial coverage of the hospital blast.

The PMs arrival in Israel came as his security minister Tom Tugendhat said that the destruction of the terrorist organisation Hamas would be a blessing.

Calling Hamas barbarous murderers, the Tory minister offered backing for Israels planned military action in Gaza: The destruction of Hamas would be a blessing not just for the Israeli people but for the Palestinian people ... I would love to see a world without Hamas in it.

Mr Tugendhat said Hamas had stolen aid from civilians and used the Palestinian people as their slaves to build tunnel complexes. He also accused Iran of pouring money into Hamas to kill Jews.

Foreign secretary James Cleverly, who is also in the region on a three-day trip which will see him visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, said he would push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages.

The Archbishop of Canterbury also arrived in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, saying it was a crucial time to show solidarity and care to those impacted by the war, and is set to meet other Christian leaders in the region.

During his visit, Lambeth Palace said Justin Welby will renew an appeal for the release of hostages held by Hamas, as well as offering sympathy and condolences for Israeli victims since the conflict broke out.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office has since updated its travel guidance to Lebanon, which shares a border with Israel, advising against all travel to the country and encouraging British nationals currently there to leave now while commercial options remain available.

In a speech at Mansion House on Wednesday night, King Charles III praised the tolerance of people in the UK as he urged the world to be more understanding of difference amid such heart-breaking loss of life in Israel and Gaza.

But Robin Simcox, the commissioner for countering extremism, said the rise of antisemitism was a sign that Britain was very sick indeed and should be a wake-up call.

In an article for The Times, he suggested the normalisation of anti-Israel extremism and antisemitism was because of a failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism.
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President Joe Biden has fathered four children from two marriages  though only two of his children are still alive today.

Mr Biden had three children with his first wife, Neilia Biden, whom he married in 1966. In order of birth, they were Joseph Robinette III, known as Beau; Robert Hunter; and Naomi Christina, known as Amy.

On 18 December 1972, Neilia was driving with the three children to buy a Christmas tree when their car was hit by a tractor-trailer. Both Neilia and Naomi Biden were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Naomi was just over a year old at the time.

The two boys survived but with serious injuries. Less than a month later, Mr Biden was sworn into the Senate on 3 January 1973 at the hospital where his sons were recovering.

Senator Biden met future First Lady Jill Tracy Jacobs on a blind date in 1975 and the pair were married in 1977. They had a daughter, Ashley Blazer, a few years later.

Here is everything to know about Mr Bidens children.

Beau Biden

Beau Biden was born on 3 February 1969 in Wilmington, Delaware. He suffered multiple broken bones in the car accident and was hospitalised for several months afterward.

Beau attended college at the University of Pennslyvania and then Syracuse University College of Law before clerking for Judge Steven McAuliffe of the United States District Court of New Hampshire.

Between 1995 and 2004 he worked for the Department of Justice in Philadelphia, eventually becoming a federal prosecutor in the US Attorneys Office.

He married Hallie Olivere in 2002 and they had a daughter, Natalie, in 2004, and a son, Robert, in 2006. Just like his uncle, Robert is known as Hunter.

Beau Biden in 2012 (EPA)

In 2003 Beau joined the Delaware Army National Guard. He was deployed to Iraq in late 2008.

Beau ran for Attorney General of Delaware in 2006 and won, also winning re-election in 2010. He served in the role even while being deployed in Iraq.

Memorably, in 2008, he spoke at the Democratic National Convention after his father was nominated to be vice president. During his speech, he recalled the tragic car accident and his fathers commitment to parenting.

However, Beau suffered from several medical issues in the 2010s.

Before winning his attorney general re-election, Beau was hospitalised with a mild stroke. Then in 2013 he was diagnosed with brain cancer after experiencing disorientation and weakness. He underwent surgery to remove a lesion and proceeded to have radiation and chemotherapy.

After that, his cancer went into remission for a short period of time.

In 2016, Beau announced his intention to run for Governor of Delaware but on 20 May 2015, he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. His cancer had returned.

Just 10 days later Beau died at the age of 46.

He is buried at St Josephs on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware alongside his mother and sister. His father attends services at the church and often speaks of him with great affection at official events.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who knew Beau well, also spoke fondly of him, referring to him as my dear friend in a speech.

Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden was born on 4 February 1970. In the car crash he sustained injuries to his skull and, like his brother, received months of treatment to recover.

He attended Georgetown University and graduated with a degree in history in 1992. After, he served as a Jesuit volunteer at a church in Portland, Oregon where he met Kathleen Buhle, whom he married in 1993.

Returning to higher education, Hunter went to Georgetown University Law Centre for a year, before transferring to Yale Law School from which he graduated in 1996.

Hunter had three children with Kathleen: Naomi, named after his late sister, Finnegan, named after his grandmother Jean Finnegan, and Maisy, who went to school with Sasha Obama.

Hunter and Joe Biden (REUTERS)

Kathleen and Hunter separated in 2015 and divorced in 2017. For a time in 2016, Hunter dated his late brothers wife, Hallie.

In 2018, his fourth child was born to Lunden Alexis Roberts in Arkansas, with a judge signing an order declaring Hunters paternity in early 2020.

He married South African filmmaker Melissa Cohen in May 2019 and had his fifth child, a son, with her in March 2020.

Professionally, Hunter worked for MBNA America after graduation and then the Department of Commerce, focusing on e-commerce policy from 1998 to 2001.

In 2001 he co-founded the lobbying firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, and in 2006 he and his uncle, James Biden, bought the international hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors. He served as CEO for five years.

Also in 2006 he was appointed to the board of directors of Amtrak by President George W Bush, but left in 2009 when his father became vice president.

Since 2009, Hunter has been an investor and lobbyist with a focus on natural resource extraction and technology. He has also held the position of counsel at a law firm and was on the board of directors of the charity World Food Program USA.

Hunter has battled alcohol and drug addiction for many years, and a positive test for cocaine in 2013 saw a new career in the US Navy Reserve cut short after just a month.

His career as an investor has made him the focus of conspiracy theories regarding his fathers political career  specifically concerning his business activities in Ukraine with the firm Burisma, and in China regarding the companies BHR Partners, Ye Jianming and CEFC energy.

In 2019 Donald Trump was impeached by the Democrat-run Congress after it emerged he had pressured the Ukrainian president to try to dig up dirt on Hunter and his father in exchange for continued military support and a visit to the White House. Mr Trump was acquitted by Republican allies in the Senate.

Hunter announced that he was under federal criminal investigation for his tax affairs shortly before his father became president.

Three weeks before the 2020 election, a laptop belonging to Hunter that had been abandoned at a repair shop resurfaced. Initial reports from The New York Post suggested that Hunter provided an opportunity for a Burisma advisor to meet with his father. Conservative media jumped on the report, speculating  even to this day  that Hunters laptop ties his father to corruption in Ukraine. Based on the available evidence it is unclear if Hunter did anything wrong.

In an interview with Piers Morgan, Mr Trump said the story made a 17-point difference, appearing to claim it as evidence of his baseless narrative that the results of the 2020 presidential election were stolen from him.

Hunters conduct has continued to be a point of consternation for Republicans during Mr Bidens presidency and a focal point of the Twitter files  internal Twitter documents released by the companys new owner Elon Musk detailing how the platform first moved to block a New York Post story about Hunters laptop before reversing course.

On 14 September 2023, Hunter was indicted on federal gun charges. On 3 October he pled not guilty.

Ashley Biden

Ashley Biden was born on 8 June 1981 and is the only child from Joes marriage to Jill Biden.

A graduate of cultural anthropology from Tulane University, she pursued a career in social work, obtaining a masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010.

She spent 15 years as a social worker at the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families. In 2012, Ashley became an associate director of the Delaware Centre for Justice, focusing on criminal justice reform in the state, eventually becoming executive director of the centre until 2019.

Ashley Biden (DNCC via Getty Images)

In 2012 she married Howard Krein, a plastic surgeon, introduced to her by her brother Beau, and in 2017 she launched an ethical fashion brand to raise funds to combat income and racial inequality in the US.

Ashley joined Hunter to introduce their father at the 2020 Democratic National Convention before he accepted the presidential nomination.
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President Joe Biden is scheduled to address the nation on Thursday evening in a formal speech from the Oval Office.

Hours after returning from a solidarity trip in Israel, the White House announced the president will speak to Americans and address the USs response to the Hamas attack in Israel as well as the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Typically, Oval Office addresses are reserved for special moments when the president wants to speak directly to citizens and sway public opinion by addressing concerns.

This is only the second time Mr Biden has made remarks from the Oval Office.

Heres everything to know ahead of Mr Bidens address.

Why is Biden giving an Oval Office address?

Mr Bidens address is intended to inform Americans about the USs response to two international conflicts  Russias aggression against Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas.

The president visited Israel earlier this week to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as victims of Hamass attack. Upon leaving, he pledged to support the country, as well as innocent civilians in Palestine.

However, the USs involvement in the Hamas-Israel conflict has led to questions about whether the country can sustain supporting two separate wars  though Mr Biden assured people it can.

President Joe Biden meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP)

As part of his speech, Mr Biden will try to explain to citizens why the USs involvement is crucial to national security, a senior White House official told The New York Times.

The timing of the formal address is poignant as Mr Biden is also reportedly expected to ask Congress for billions in aid for Israel and Ukraine.

Providing funding to Ukraine in its effort to fight off Russian soldiers has become a point of contention among lawmakers. Some Republicans have opposed funding, believing the money would be better spent within the United States.

Now with another war between Hamas and Israel, Mr Biden will likely ask Congress for additional funding to help Israel defend itself against Hamass attacks, which could stir similar debates about using US funding abroad.

What time is Bidens Oval Office address?

Mr Bidens address is expected to begin at 8pm ET / 5pm PT.

It will air directly from the Oval Office.

Biden made a high-stakes trip to Israel yesterday and will be asking Congress to support both Israel and Ukraine in conflicts (via REUTERS)

How to watch Bidens Oval Office address

Recommended

Most cable news networks will carry live footage of Mr Bidens Oval Office address so you can watch it either on television or you can stream it on a device by logging in with your TV provider.

The White House will also stream Mr Bidens address live on its YouTube channel.
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An explosion on a cruise ship docked in Maine has left one crew member burned and led to the evacuation of more than 200 people onboard.

Firefighters responded to a call just before 7.30am on Wednesday to the Ocean Navigator, a five-deck cruise ship owned by American Queen Voyages, after reports of smoke coming from the engine room, a spokesperson for the city of Portland said in a press release.

Additional crews were simultaneously able to stabilise the engine room issue and remained on scene to assist with extensive ventilation efforts and complete overhaul to prevent any further issues," the city of Portland said.

The ship was docked at a pier in Portland, Maine, where the citys fire department received reports that a possible explosion broke out inside an engine room, suggesting it could be linked to a generator on the ship.

A crew member onboard the Ocean Navigator had been burned, potentially by the generator fire, and was taken to a nearby hospital.

Officials said the crew member was seriously injured, but their injuries were not life-threatening.

The crew member is currently thought to be the only person injured in the fire, according to Portland officials and the US Coast Guard, CBS reports.

The ship evacuated all 128 passengers and 82 crew members off the ship, who are all currently housed at a local hotel.

By 7.44am, the fire was back under control, but the crew was in the process of ventilating and cleaning all the smoke from the cruise so officials could conduct an investigation, the city of Portland said.

Coast Guard Leuitenant Commander Ryan Koroknay spoke to The Sun Journal and said the explosion and fire had damaged equipment in the engine room.

(WMTW)

We dont know whats operational. A determination still has to be made on how and when the ship will be able to leave. Its hard to tell, Mr Koroknay said.

The US Coast Guard is now trying to figure out if the ship is seaworthy enough to continue its cruise by conducting an investigation, which will also try to source why the generator exploded, according to the outlet.

Passengers and crew could be seen waiting in a nearby terminal and have now been transported to hotels while they wait to hear what will happen to the ship, WMTW reported.

According to CruiseMapper, the ship embarked on its journey on 10 October from Montreal in Canada and cruised around the Canadian coast before it reached Portland in Maine.

The ship was due to arrive in Boston on Thursday, said the website.

In a statement to The Independent, an American Queen Voyages spokesperson also confirmed that their crew member sustained injuries and is currently being treated in hospital.

However, they also stated that they have cancelled the remainder of the trip on the Ocean Navigator.

American Queen Voyages has made the difficult decision to cancel our Oct. 19 sailing from Portland to St. John due to a combination of the recent mechanical issues caused by the generator fire from the previous sailing as well as the adverse weather conditions forecasted for the upcoming weekend, the spokesperson said.

We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our passengers, and we want to emphasize that this decision was not made lightly. The safety and security of our guests and dedicated crew is our top priority, and after careful consideration and evaluation of various factors by our Captain, it has been determined that it is unsafe for us to embark on this journey. We remain dedicated in continuing to provide safe, enjoyable and memorable experiences for our guests as well as our Crew.

The Independent has contacted US Coast Guard for comment.
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A Florida preacher has been accused of running an organised crime ring centred on selling stolen Home Depot items online.

Robert Dell, from Pinellas County near Tampa, faces charges including racketeering and dealing in stolen property.

Mr Dell allegedly used his roles as a pastor at The Rock Church and director of a halfway house for recovering drug addicts to force people to steal for him.

The operation resulted in the pastor and four co-conspirators stealing merchandise worth more than $1.4 million from stores in several counties.

Co-conspirators, Daniel Mace and Jessica Wild, stole the majority of the merchandise and, on average, victimized stores five to six times a day, according to a statement from Floridas Attorney General office.

The co-conspirators then delivered the merchandise to Pastor Dells house to be sold under the eBay store name: Anointed Liquidator.

Pastor Dell has allegedly sold $3m in stolen items online since 2016.

He demanded the crimes be carried out by threatening abuse and used his positions to manipulate vulnerable people into the scheme, according to the investigation.

Home Depot suspects he operated this scheme for more than 10 years, resulting in the loss of more than $5m.

The stores vice president of asset protection Scott Glenn told The Wall Street Journal on Saturday that the number of thefts in Tampa had dropped since Mr Dell was charged.

Somebody else will rise up and probably start doing this in the absence of this group that was busted, he said.

Dells wife Jaclyn and mother Karen have also been named as alleged co-conspirators, assisting in the collection, shipment and payment of the stolen goods.

Jaclyn Dell faces a charge of conspiracy and Karen Dell has been charged with dealing in stolen property.
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Fox News host Greg Gutfeld has criticised Jewish protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing they dont have a say because they arent affected by the war.

On WednesdaysThe Five, Mr Gutfeld said there are not two sides with equal merit and equal dishonour in the conflict between Gaza and Israel.

Its terrorists versus Israel, he said.

He then criticised calls for a ceasefire. Enough with the ceasefire talk, he said. We had a ceasefire. It was on October 6th. You know, you cant break a ceasefire, wage war, and then call a ceasefire.

The era of the free punch is over, Israel has decided, we have decided. So, its not your choice anymore, protesters.

His remarks came after hundreds of people associated with the organisation Jewish Voice for Peace gathered inside the US Capitol on Wednesday protesting against the ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

Some protestors were seen wearing t-shirts that read Jews say ceasefire now and Not in our name. Others held up banners saying Ceasefire and Let Gaza Live.

Mr Gutfeld equated Jewish protesters calling for a ceasefire with the typical leftist pleading not to arrest their mugger because he had a bad childhood.

Its not going to work, he insisted. You dont have a say over the justice that will be enacted because you werent the one affected by it.

At least 300 protestors were arrested at the Capitol on Wednesday, according to authorities.

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld criticised Jewish protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza (Fox News)

In a statement, Capitol Police said: We warned the protestors to stop demonstrating and when they did not comply we began arresting them.

Palestinian authorities say that over 3,785 Palestinians have died in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza while Israeli officials say more than 1,400 people have died in Hamas attacks on Israel.

The war began on 7 October when Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a state of war and promised mighty vengeance.

Two days later, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered the complete siege of Gaza as authorities cut off electricity and blocked the entry of food and fuel.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) then ordered all Gaza civilians to leave the area and head southward  a command that the United Nations said was impossible to carry out.

On Tuesday, hundreds are believed to have been killed in an explosion at the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza.

Officials in Gaza said an Israeli airstrike struck the al-Ahli hospital, but the Israeli military said its intelligence shows the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group is responsible, blaming an alleged faulty launch of a rocket intended to hit Israel. PIJ denies responsibility.

The complete siege on Gaza, combined with the continued strikes on the 42km-long enclave, has triggered critical shortages of basic resources including water, fuel and surgical supplies, meaning many of the injured are left without medical supplies.

There is also concern over how the wounded will be moved from hospitals after the evacuation order, with the WHO documenting 57 attacks on healthcare facilities.

Meanwhile, the UN has warned that clean water has run out across the strip, which is home to more than 2 million people, half of them children.

Fuel for generators powering hospitals is also set to run out in days, and food stocks are diminishing, prompting fears that civilians will die from thirst, water-borne diseases and hunger as well as the ongoing strikes.
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Joe Bidens personal tragedies have shaped his career, from policy to politicking, learning to mourn as a public figure and relying on his history of loss to reach out to voters, including during his successful 2020 campaign for president.

In December 1972, the former vice president  then a 30-year-old senator-elect from Delaware, weeks away from being sworn into office  lost his first wife Neilia and 13-month-old daughter Naomi in a car accident.

Joseph Beau Biden III, an Iraq War veteran and Delaware attorney general, died following a brain cancer diagnosis in 2015. He was 46.

In a statement following his death, his father wrote: Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known.

Beau experienced a stroke in 2010, but three years later he was treated at MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, Texas, where doctors removed a lesion from his brain.

His cancer returned two years later when he received aggressive treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre in Bethesda, Maryland.

He is survived by his wife Hallie and his two children Natalie and Hunter.

Beau was only 3 years old when his mother was killed in the crash that also took the life of his little sister. Beau and his brother Hunter, then 2, were also in the car. Their father was sworn into the US Senate at their hospital beds.

During his 2012 speech at the Democratic National Convention, he moved his father to tears while nominating him for vice president.

One of my earliest memories was being in that hospital, dad always at our side. ... He decided not to take the oath of office. He said, Delaware can get another senator, but my boys cant get another father. However, great men like Ted Kennedy, Mike Mansfield, Hubert Humphrey  men who had been tested themselves  convinced him to serve. So he was sworn in, in the hospital, at my bedside, Beau said.

Beau Biden and Joe Biden are pictured together at the 2008 DNC (AFP/Getty Images)

In 1977, Joe Biden married Jill Jacobs, who became the boys stepmother and helped rebuild the family, Beau later said in 2012. I have two moms now.

Beau studied at the University of Pennsylvania and attended law school at Syracuse University, where his father also attended.

He served as a prosecutor in the US attorneys office in Philadelphia before running for attorney general in 2006. He won by 13,000 votes. In his reelection in 2010, he won by more than 149,000 votes.

In 2008, as a captain in the Delaware Army National Guard, Beau was deployed to Iraq during a war effort that then-senator Mr Biden had previously voted to support. Beau briefly returned to the US for his fathers vice-presidential swearing-in ceremony in January 2009, then was shipped out to complete his yearlong service.

As Delawares chief law enforcement official, Beau didnt seek a third term, as he planned to run for governor in 2016, before his health began to rapidly decline.

In a statement following his death, then-president Barack Obama cited a poem by William Butler Yeats, adding: Beau Biden believed the best of us all ... For him, and for his family, we swing our lanterns higher.

President Barack Obama hugs Vice President Joe Biden during funeral services for Biden's son, Beau Biden, June 6, 2015

During an appearance on MSNBCs Morning Joe in the lead-up to the 2020 election, then-candidate Mr Biden said, Beau should be the one running for president, not me.

Mr Biden recalled Beaus support on previous campaign trails when his son told him: Look at me, dad. Remember: home base. Just remember who you are.

Hed grab me by the lapel, Mr Biden said. He still grabs me by the lapel.

Mr Biden said: Every morning I get up, Joe, not a joke, I think to myself, Is he proud of me? Because hes the one who wanted me to stay engaged ... He walks with me. I know that sounds to some people kind of silly, but he really, honest to God, does. I know hes in me.

Beau was laid to rest at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Wilmington, Delaware, where Mr Bidens late wife Neilia and daughter Naomi are also buried.

This was initially published in 2020

Ariana Baio contributed to this report
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A Red Deer Catholic School trustee revealed that she was guided by the Holy Spirit to post a controversial meme in which she compared Pride to Nazis on her social media.

In August, Monique LaGrange shared a meme on her personal Facebook page featuring two juxtaposed images. One showed a historical photograph depicting young Nazi supporters, while the other showed young individuals holding a rainbow Pride flag. Beneath these images, she wrote the words brainwashing is brainwashing.

Ms LaGrange defended the post by asserting that it wasnt aimed at the LGBTQ+ community but was instead a critique of indoctrination. She emphasised that her intention was not to draw a direct comparison between these two groups but rather to highlight concerns about a questionable ideology and the need to protect children.

It is about the agenda of the United Nations and Planned Parenthood, which is an attempt to sabotage our youths identities and destinies and hijack the LGBTQs original mandate, she wrote.

The trustee was sanctioned over the controversial post and was asked to apologise.

Now, the local Catholic school board released a 15-page document as was requested by Ms LaGranges attorney. The document provided insights into the closed-door discussions that occurred on 25 September and 26 September this year, during which the school board deliberated with her and her lawyer regarding how to address the public backlash against her actions.

The trustee told the board the Holy Spirit had told her to post the meme, according to the documents. Ms LaGrange added the Holy Spirit told her, Go for it.

Although she and her lawyer, James Kitchen, contended that her actions were consistent with Catholic beliefs and protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights, the Board rejected these assertions.

Mr Kitchen said: We asked the Board to release the reasons, to which they agreed, as we felt it was in the public interest and would foster transparency and accountability and would permit public scrutiny, which is desirable.

The Catholic school board also didnt accept that the meme was unrelated to Nazism, stating a reasonable person viewing the two photographs could reasonably conclude that a negative comparison was made.

The board describes its mission as being committed to supporting inclusive communities that foster care and compassion of students, families and staff. The complaint to the board argued that Ms LaGranges meme undermined the boards commitment to inclusion.
Christ Church Episcopal officials will be hosting a special program on Sunday afternoon to celebrate the church's 150th Anniversary.

The program will feature a celebration with speakers on history of the church and music.

Stephanie Perkins and Carolyn Hovendick have been working on a book of history from when the church was formed to current noteworthy events and people.

We have so much history in this church, Perkins said.

In 1869 the Methodist and the Presbyterian were the only two church organizations in existence in Beatrice. The first Episcopal service in Beatrice was held in the spring with three communicants attending.

Members attended services at the courthouse for a short time.

In 1873 the first church building was erected at Fifth and Lincoln for $375 for the site. Approximately $2,154.50 was raised for the building fund and was completed by Neff and Miller. Reverend Joseph S. Colton was appointed be the bishop to officiate in Beatrice.

Bishop Robert Harper Clarkson was an integral part of the church.

The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in November 1999.

Laureen Reidesel will be talking at the program on the history of the church bell. The first bell was purchased from Eugene Mack from his hotel for $15.

Hovendick said the bell was rung specifically at different times.

It was rang during the war and during pandemics, she said. One of the ministers rang it for services during the Spanish-American Flu. They were not supposed to meet, but he held services and the bell told people when he was offering the service.

Sue McLain is talking during the program about the role of women in the church.

Harry Tompkin with Palace Glass has been working with the church for over 20 years with the stained-glass windows.

Hovendick said Tompkin had knowledge of the process.

Hes phenomenal, she said.

The Jane McKee Coffin Memorial Window is located in the vestibule. This window was given in Janes memory by her husband, Leigh F. Coffin and her son, Leigh McKee Coffin. It was dedicated in 1977. The bronze plaque explains that Jane came to love her adopted State of Nebraska and describes in detail the various landmarks depicting what she loved about Beatrice and Nebraska.

There are three Kilpatrick Memorial Windows. In 1927, the three small windows located on the west wall of the church were given by Mr. and Mrs. R.J. Kilpatrick in memory of their infant son. The windows were from J&R Lamb, New York, which is sufficient documentation for them to be Tiffany windows.

The church had started Warrens Community Dinner Table over 20 years ago. Sharyl Schaepe will be talking about where the idea started.

Perkins said the first night in January 2001 the church prepared food for 100 people but only three came to the dinner.

We had food for 100, but only a mom and her two children came to the church that first night, she said.

Hovendick noted that one of the children had a birthday.

It was one of the childrens birthday and because the mom was able to get a meal at the church for her family, she was able to get a gift for the child, she said.

Area churches now assist by providing meals and serving weekly on Tuesday evenings. Approximately 120 people are served each week. Volunteers are always needed. Contact Barb Smethers-Brenden at 402-806-1667.

The 150th Anniversary books are available for purchase. Contact Linda Hovendick at linda@ghchapel.com.

The public is invited to the 90-minute non-worship event on Sunday, Oct. 22. It will begin at 3 p.m. at the Christ Church Episcopal at 524 N. Fifth St. The program will also be streamed on YouTube @Christ Church Episcopal Beatrice.

On Nov. 19, the church will the annual soup drive thru event from 4:30-6:30 p.m. in conjunction with the Courthouse Light Ceremony.

Window repair at Kountze Memorial Lutheran Church took 2 years
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Hundreds of UFO sightings have been reported in the US in recent months, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon office established to investigate potential UFO sightings, told CNN that his office received approximately 800 reports of unidentified objects as of this past April, up from 650 reports in August 2022.

He said nearly all of the reports relate to objects seen in the air, with only one being a maritime sighting.

Mr Kirkpatrick said there is potential for hundreds, if not thousands more reports in the future.

While about half of the objects sighted are determined to be mundane things such as balloons or drones, Mr Kirkpatrick warned that some may be the result of Americas adversaries trying to spy on the nation.

There are some indicators that are concerning that may be attributed to foreign activity, and we are investigating those very hard, he said.

He added that between two and four per cent of reports are truly anomalous and require further investigation. Meanwhile, a very small percentage of reports have interesting signatures, such as high-speed travel or unknown morphologie, he said.

His revelations come after the Pentagon released a report on unidentified aerial phenomena which found that most sightings are reported close to restricted military airspace  likely a result of additional sensors and radars around the facilities.

The report concluded that such object sightings may pose a safety issue for flights.

An unidentified aerial phenomena, commonly referred to as a UFO, is shown on a TV monitor during a House hearing (EPA)

However, the report also found the increase in sightings can be accounted for by the Federal Aviation Administration, which monitors airspace around US airports, beginning to provide information to the Pentagon.

Nonetheless, the uptick in sightings is still somewhat a cause for concern for Mr Kirkpatricks office. Although none of these UAP reports have been positively attributed to foreign activities, these cases continue to be investigated, he said.

There are ways to hide in our noise that always concern me, he added, referring to the extraneous readings picked up by US radars and other sensors. I am worried from a national security perspective.

His concerns come after a Chinese spy balloon was shot down in February off the coast of South Carolina.

The balloon caused concern after it flew into US airspace, where it remained for a week.

The Pentagon later found the balloon did not collect any intelligence information. However, the Pentagon said the balloon had intelligence collection capabilities.

A Chinese spy balloon was shot down in February off the coast of South Carolina (Chad Fish)

The report also comes at a time when public interest in UFOs is growing rapidly. A July hearing in Congress on the matter drew significant attention from the public after veteran and former member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency David Grusch testified during a congressional hearing that the US government is in possession of intact craft of non-human origin from UAP crash sites.

But Mr Kirkpatrick dismissed these claims, telling CNN Mr Grusch has no evidence that suggests anything extraterrestrial in nature.

If anybody thinks that they know where those things are, they should be coming to talk to us, he added. Thats why we have set up this entire architecture for people to securely come in and talk to us.

Meanwhile, public interest in UFOs was stirred up again in September when self-described UFO expert Jaime Maussan testified in front of the Mexican Congress that he had discovered two non-human corpses that are not part of our terrestrial evolution.

Mr Maussans claims have not been proven and he has previously been associated with claims of discoveries that have later been debunked.

Remains of an allegedly non-human being is seen on display in a box during a briefing on unidentified flying objects (REUTERS)

A formal office to investigate reports of UAPs, which Mr Kirkpatrick heads up, was established under the Biden administration.

As the office continues to grow, the Pentagon is preparing for a flood of new reports as it readies two new portals for members of the public to report sightings.

Current or former government employees and contractors will also soon be able to report historical sightings, while members of the public will be able to report new sightings.

The portal for historical sightings is set to open sometime in the next month or so, Mr Kirkpatrick told CNN, while the portal for new sightings is still several months away.
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Ukrainian special forces reported on Tuesday that they had struck two Russian military airfields, following the first-time deployment of long-range ballistic missiles supplied by the US.

The details of the weapons delivery has been shrouded in secrecy  unlike previous aid provided to Ukraine from the Biden Administration.

The missiles  which Ukraine has reportedly been petitioning the US to deliver for months  may prove key to helping Ukrainian forces in the months of conflict ahead.

Heres what we know.

What are ATACMS and why does Ukraine need them?

The Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) is a long-range guided missile that gives operational commanders the immediate firepower to win the deep battle.

Produced by US global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin, the missiles carry a 500lb (227kg) class blast fragmentation warhead.

The weapons are fitted with a specialised GPS system and have a maximum range of 300km (around 190 miles)  though the ones supplied to Ukraine have a shorter range and carry cluster munitions.

When fired, the clusters open in the air, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a single warhead.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky (AP)

Ukraine says the missiles will help fuel their counteroffensive as it heads into the muddy and colder winter months, enabling troops to strike behind Russian lines while staying out of firing range.

The ATACMS have been key in Ukraines ability to hit an airfield in Berdyansk since it is within striking distance of the shorter-range version of the missile, and the cluster munitions would be effective in hitting multiple targets.

The closest Ukrainian troop positions on the western bank of the Dnieper River are just about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Berdyansk.

What have they been used for?

On Tuesday, president Zelensky confirmed the ATACMS had been used on the battlefield against Russia and "executed very accurately during an offensive known as Operation Dragonfly.

Ukraines Special Operations Forces claimed that a nighttime attack on targets in eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed nine Russian helicopters and other military equipment and personnel at two airfields in Russia-occupied regions  including the one at Berdyansk.

The missiles also struck an airfield in Luhansk, an occupied city in eastern Ukraine. The special forces also managed to successfully damage airfield runways, Ukraine said.

The ammunition depot in Berdyansk detonated until 4am. The detonation in Luhansk continued until 11am, Ukrainian Special Operations Forces said in a statement.

Losses in the enemys manpower amount to dozens of dead and wounded. Bodies are still being pulled from the rubble.

How many ATACMS has the US provided?

After many months of dragging its feet, the Biden administration greenlit the delivery of a small number of the missiles last month, following continued pressure from Ukraine.

The delivery of the missiles was made quietly and US officials have refused to discuss it publicly. The expectation was that the first public acknowledgment would come when the missiles were used on the battlefield.

An official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said the missiles got into Ukraine within the last few days.

The US has refused to provide any details on how many missiles have been delivered, although officials had suggested that the plan was indeed to send a small number  roughly two dozen.

During his Tuesday address, Mr Zelensky said: "Today I express special gratitude to the United States," adding that the missiles "have proven themselves."

Biden insists US can back two wars at the same time in Israel and Ukraine

Why the secrecy?

That intense secrecy is a marked change from previous US weapons sent by the Biden administration. In nearly all other cases, the US has publicly announced its decision prior to the weapons and equipment being shipped overseas.

The hesitancy may be, in part, to do with the range of the missiles, with concerns that Kyiv could use the weapons to hit deep into Russian territory, enraging Moscow and escalating the conflict.

Lingering US concerns about escalating tensions with Russia are reportedly the reason that the ATACMS version that went to Ukraine has a shorter range than the maximum distance the missiles can have.

Recommended

The small number of missiles sent also underscores the US reluctance to send the powerful weapons.

Sending the cluster munition version will mark the second time the Democratic administration has moved to send that type of weapon.
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A former trustee has called for the University of Pennsylvanias president to resign from her role as tensions over the Israel-Hamas war continue to boil over in college campuses across the US.

Vahan Gureghianm told CNN that negligent UPenn President Elizabeth Magill needs to step down from her role as he warned that the backlash from powerful donors is likely to grow.

She is negligent and not really up to the job of being the president of one of the eight or so most elite universities in the world, Mr Gureghian said.

The call for Ms Magills resignation comes after Mr Gureghian stepped down from UPenns board of trustees late last week.

As a trustee, Mr Gureghian was one of the people responsible for choosing Ms Magill to be the universitys president. But he has now said: Maybe we picked the wrong person.

It comes after Jon Huntsman Jr  former governor of Utah and US ambassador to China, Russia, and Singapore, and member of the influential Huntsman family  sent a letter to Ms Magill earlier this week announcing that the Huntsman Foundation is halting donations to the university over what he described as antisemitism.

The Universitys silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel (when the only response should be outright condemnation) is a new low. Silence is antisemitism, and antisemitism is hate, the very thing higher ed was built to obviate, Mr Huntsman Jr wrote in the letter, which was published in the student newspaper.

Venture capitalist David Magerman and hedge fund billionaire Cliff Asness have also vowed to close their checkbooks.

Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan also announced last week he would donate $1  rather than his typical annual contribution  unless Ms Magill and the chairman of its board of trustees, Scott Bok, stepped down from their roles.

Mr Rowan called for the ousters after his alma mater hosted the Palestine Writes Literary Festival last month.

The event, which was not sponsored by the university, featured over 100 speakers and artists from Palestine and its diaspora dedicated, according to its organisers, to the belief that art challenges repression and creates bonds between Palestine and the rest of the world.

Former University of Pennsylvania trustee Vahan Gureghian has called for the Universitys president to resign (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The festival sparked controversy after polarising figures such as Professor Marc Lamont Hill were invited to the event. Mr Hill was ousted from CNN in 2018 after calling for an end to what he said was Israels ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and supporting a free Palestine from the river to the sea.

Further pressure was mounted on Ms Magill to resign last week when billionaire Ronald Lauder revealed in a letter, first reported by CNN, that he made a special visit to Philadelphia to try to persuade Ms Magill to cancel the Palestine Writes Festival, as well as two subsequent phone calls.

I told you that those invited to the event had a history of not just strong anti-Israel bias, but outright antisemitism. You were already aware of much of this, he wrote.

Mr Gureghian said this was a tipping point for him and that Ms Magill should have gone to the board of trustees at that point to seek their advice on whether to hold the Palestine Writes Festival.

Organisers of the festival have denied that it embraced antisemitism, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported.

Following the event, more than 4,000 people, including Mr Rowan, signed an open letter to Ms Magill, saying that platforming of outright antisemitism without denunciation from the university is unacceptable.

At the time, the university disavowed the event, but supported its right for it to be held on campus, saying in a statement that we unequivocally  and emphatically  condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values.

The statement continued: As a university, 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.

But in the wake of Hamas attack on Israel, which saw more than 1,400 Israelis killed and 3,785 Palestinians killed in retaliatory air strikes, Mr Rowan argued that the universitys response was not enough and urged fellow UPenn alumni to close their checkbooks until the institutions leadership resigned.

In a new message on Wednesday, Ms Magill addressed the backlash, and condemned the attacks by Hamas on Israel, according to Insider.

I want to leave no doubt about where I stand, she wrote. I, and this University, are horrified by and condemn Hamass terrorist assault on Israel and their violent atrocities against civilians.

She added: Hateful speech has no place at Penn. No place. I categorically condemn hateful speech that denigrates others as contrary to our values.

In this tragic moment, we must respect the pain of our classmates and colleagues and recognize that our speech and actions have the power to both harm and heal our community. We must choose healing, resisting those who would divide us and instead respect and care for one another.

The dispute follows similar issues at Harvard University after a group of 33 student organisations, led by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, released a now-deleted statement on social media arguing that Israels apartheid regime had created the impetus for the war.

The letter prompted furious backlash, with Harvard professors and alumni calling on the universitys leadership to condemn the letter as well as Hamas.

Harvards President Claudine Gay issued a statement three days after the letter was published condemning the attacks and distancing the universitys leadership from the letter.

More than 1,400 Israelis and 3,785 Palestinians have been killed since fighting broke out on 7 October when Hamas terrorists stormed across the Gaza border into Israel, killing hundreds of people and taking dozens captive.

At least 31 American citizens are among the dead, the White House confirmed.
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A US Naval Destroyer operating in the Red Sea has shot down three land-cruise missiles fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Pentagon has said.

The Pentagon said it was uncertain where the missiles were headed but could potentially have been aimed at targets in Israel. The incident, involving the guided-missile destroyer the USS Carney, occurred on Thursday.

Several drones were also shot down, according to Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder.

This action was a demonstration of the integrated air and missile defense architecture that we have built in the Middle East and that we are prepared to utilise whenever necessary to protect our partners and our interests in this important region, Mr Ryder told a press conference.

There were no casualties to US forces and none that we know of to any civilians on the ground.

Mr Ryder said information about the incident was still being processed, but that the response was one that would have been taken for any similar threat in the region.

This attack may be ongoing so if we have more information to share, we will, he said.

A US official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, that it is not believed the missiles were aimed at the ship.

It comes amid ongoing concerns over the entry of Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah into the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas  which has seen the death of thousands of people on both sides thus far.

The Houthi rebels are part of a collective network of allied millitant groups opposed to Israel, coordinated by the Islamic Republic, known as the resistance.

Pentagon Ryder (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Mr Ryder continued: As the Secretary [of Defence] has made clear, we have the capability to defend our broader interests in the region and to deter regional escalation and broader expansion of the conflict that began with Hamas is attack on Israeli civilians on October 7.

The crew of the Carney did just that and across the force, we will remain vigilant to any other potential threats.

The Houthi rebels have previously expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Last week, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the groups leader, warned the US against intervening in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, threatening that his forces would retaliate by firing drones and missiles.

When approached by The Associated Press on Thursday, two Houthi officials declined to comment on the incident. One said he was unaware of the incident, while the second said he did not have the authority to speak about it.
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Australias intelligence chief has supported Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeaus accusations against India over Hardeep Singh Nijjars murder.

Last month, Mr Trudeau said there were credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the Indian government and the murder of Nijjar.

Now, Mike Burgess, director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation [ASIO], said he has no reason to dispute Canadas claims.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a gathering of Five Eyes intelligence partners in California.

Mr Burgess was quoted as saying by ABC News that there was no reason to dispute what the Canadian government has said in this matter.

Theres no doubt any allegation of any country being accused of carrying out an execution of a citizen in that country, its a serious allegation, and something that we dont do and something that nations should not do.

Three months after Nijjars killing, Mr Trudeau said: Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.

India rejected Canadas absurd and motivated allegations while accusing the Trudeau government of allowing the Khalistan movement to thrive. The Sikh secessionist movement calls for a separate homeland for the Sikh religious community to be carved out of Indias Punjab state.

In India, Nijjar was listed as a wanted terrorist and the subject of a Rs 1m (9,710) bounty for information leading to his arrest. A supporter of Sikh separatist causes, Nijjar was accused of leading a proscribed militant organisation called the Khalistan Tiger Force.

Several Sikh leaders in Australia have expressed their support for Canadas allegations and voiced concerns that Nijjars death has instilled fear of potential violence within their communities. Responding to this, Mr Burgess said: Whether or not it will happen here, I wouldnt publicly speculate, I dont think thats appropriate.

He continued: I can assure you that when we find governments interfering in our country, or planning to interfere in our country, we will deal with them effectively.

Mr Burgess pointed out there is a difference between community tensions, such as those that have arisen from events like the vote related to the Khalistan movement, and foreign interference by the Indian government.

For us, that plays out in society, you see protests, counter-protests, and sometimes theres communal violence or spontaneous violence," he said.

"Thats not a nation-state seeking to interfere and covertly or deceptively harm and intimidate people.

Of course, if we see that we will act.

The killing of 45-year-old Nijjar torpedoed relations between India and Canada, leading to the firing of diplomats and derailment of trade talks.

Nijjar was president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia, and was killed on 18 June on the gurudwaras premises.
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Watch as Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, attend the funeral for French teacher Dominique Bernard, who was killed in a knife attack in a high school.

The ceremony is held at the Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Vaast Cathedral in Arras, northern France, on Thursday 19 October.

Mr Bernard was killed in the attack in Arras last Friday at around 11am, which left two other members of staff in critical condition.

France is on heightened alert against feared terror threats following the stabbing incident.

The Louvre Museum in Paris and Versailles Palace evacuated visitors and staff over the weekend after receiving bomb threats.

Hours after the stabbing attack last Friday, Mr Macron visited the school, describing it as the result of barbaric Islamist terrorism, before praising Mr Bernard.

The teacher who was killed had come forward to protect others and had without doubt saved many lives, he said.

All French schools held a moment of silence on Monday afternoon in homage to Mr Bernard.
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Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in police custody in Iran last year, sparking worldwide protests against the countrys conservative Islamic theocracy, was awarded the European Unions top human rights prize on Thursday.

The EU award, named for Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honor individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sakharov, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died in 1989.

Other finalists this year included Vilma Nunez de Escorcia and Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Alvarez  two emblematic figures in the fight for the defense of human rights in Nicaragua  and a trio of women from Poland, El Salvador and the United States leading a fight for free, safe and legal abortion.

Amini died on Sept. 16, 2022, after she was arrested for allegedly violating Irans mandatory headscarf law. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said that day will live in infamy, adding that her brutal murder" marked a turning point.

It has triggered a women-led movement that is making history, she said as she announced the awarding of the prize to Amini and the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran.

The world has heard the chants of Women, Life, Liberty.' Three words that have become a rallying cry for all those standing up for equality, for dignity and for freedom in Iran," Metsola said.

Amini died three days after she was arrested by Irans morality police. While authorities said she suffered a heart attack, Aminis supporters said she was beaten by police and died as a result of her injuries.

Her death triggered protests that spread across the country and rapidly escalated into calls for the overthrow of Irans four-decade-old Islamic theocracy.

Authorities responded with a violent crackdown in which more than 500 people were killed and over 22,000 others were detained, according to rights groups. The demonstrations largely died down early this year, but there are still widespread signs of discontent. For several months, women could be seen openly flaunting the headscarf rule in Tehran and other cities, prompting a renewed crackdown over the summer.

The award ceremony will take place on Dec. 13.

Last year's prize was awarded to the people of Ukraine and their representatives for their resistance to Russias invasion and defiance during the ongoing war.

___

This story corrects the spelling of the winner's name to Mahsa instead of Masha.
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The Ukraine war may remain a stalemate throughout 2024, military experts have told The Independent, as hopes fade for a major breakthrough in this years counteroffensive against Russia.

Delays in Western military aid handed Moscow time to build heavily fortified defences which have largely held up against months of intense assaults  and constraints in ammunition and weaponry now mean both armies may struggle to sustain the current pace of the war, some analysts believe.

With the prospect of a Middle East conflict likely to further stretch Washington  Ukraines largest backer  ahead of a US presidential election in November 2024, Vladimir Putins strategy may now be to preserve the current state of the front line and wait it out, Western experts say.

Servicemen load a NSV machine gun during training manoeuvres in Kyiv (EPA/Oleg Petrasyuk)

With just weeks likely left before seasonal weather changes dampen offensive efforts in Ukraine, Dr Patrick Bury of the University of Bath said: There hasnt been a breakthrough, theres been tactical gains, low-level operational gains  but not strategic.

What this summer has shown is that [Ukraine] can fight at company level [of around 100 soldiers] but when you go the next level up to the battalion, they just dont really have the coordinated experience to fight with all the moving parts, said Dr Bury, a former Nato analyst and British Army captain.

While the US is due to start providing F-16 fighter jets next year, the sophistication of the Russian air force means Ukraine will still struggle to achieve air superiority, and you need air superiority really to be able to free up the chance of large-scale manoeuvre, he added.

Therefore unless theres significant widespread packages of training, new weapons and equipment, Dr Bury said, its looking like 2024 is a bit of a stalemate  with any significant shifts instead likely to take place off the battlefield.

Agreeing that were [already] seeing a stalemate now, Dr Frank Ledwidge  a former military intelligence officer, now at the University of Portsmouth  questioned whether any tactics would have worked against defenders who [Ukraine] didnt outnumber three to one.

A Ukrainian soldier in his position in Avdiivka, Donetsk (AP Photo/Libkos)

In the most basic military algorithms, you need an attack ratio of three [troops] to one, and the Ukrainians dont have anything like that, he said. So barring any significant change in that force ratio theres no reason really now to assume that future operations will be any different.

Warning that there are no game changers, including F-16s, Dr Ledwidge likened the situation to the Western Front in 1917, adding: Breakthroughs were made eventually in the First World War, but only when the Americans came in with two million soldiers.

He added: Unless somebody has the moral courage to say, Ukraine is highly unlikely to retake all its land, then this will go on.

James Nixey, director of the Chatham House think tanks Russia and Eurasia programme, said: It does seem as though were heading towards a battle for Crimea.

While noting that Russia is going all-in by putting its economy and society on a near at total war footing, which may help address ammunition shortages, Mr Nixey said he agreed that significant changes to the situation in Ukraine will now likely happen off-field.

Putin is banking almost everything on a Trump return, he said, adding that the conflict emerging in Gaza and Israel  and threatening to become a wider Middle East conflict drawing in Hezbollah and Iran  means that attention, resources and funding will be diverted now from Ukraine.

Putin is banking almost everything on a Trump return (Getty)

While its true that the US army prepares for two simultaneous separate wars, the reality is that the pie is likely to be smaller  even if Ukraine funding is tagged onto an Israel assistance bid, said Mr Nixey.

US president Joe Biden, who recently suffered a setback in securing Congresss approval for Ukraine aid, rejected that prospect this week, telling CBS News: Were the United States of America, for Gods sake. The most powerful nation in the history of the world.

We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defence. We have the capacity to do this and we have an obligation  If we dont, who does?

But agreeing that a second conflict has certainly got the potential for stretching the US, Dr Bury and Dr Ledwidge both believe a military stalemate in Ukraine is therefore very satisfactory to the Russian president.

Israel is preparing to mount a ground offensive in Gaza after Hamas militants broke through the border and massacred hundreds of Israelis (Ariel Schalit/AP)

Putins strategy is just to wait it out, said Dr Bury. Putins played a masterstroke here  hes basically used a nuclear threat to slow down and salami-slice the aid to Ukraine. Thats the effect its had.

Those threats were enough to make the Biden administration and the Germans very wary of supplying F-16s, tanks and long-range weaponry, he noted, adding: We got there in the end, but it took time.

And that, it turned out, gave Russia time to build very good defensive lines and make their problem easier and the Ukrainians much harder.
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Two Russian fighter jets were scrambled on Thursday to prevent three British warplanes from entering Russian airspace over the Black Sea, the Russian defence ministry has claimed.

The Su-27 fighter jets were sent to intercept three air targets near the border, with Russia claiming to have identified them as a British RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft and two Typhoon fighter planes.

As the Russian fighters approached, the foreign military aircraft turned away from the state border of the Russian Federation, the statement claimed. It was not clear how close the planes came to each other.

The Black Sea has become an increasingly important theatre in the war between Russia and Ukraine, now nearing the end of its 20th month.

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he had ordered Russian planes armed with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to patrol over the Black Sea.

Two Russian Su-27 jets were scrambled to intercept three British warplanes, Russia claims

Russia has previously reported a number of incidents in which its fighter jets were scrambled to intercept military planes from Norway, another NATO member, over the Barents Sea.

In September last year, a Russian pilot fired two missiles towards an RAF surveillance plane after mistakenly believing he had permission to fire.

Russia claimed it had been caused by a technical malfunction with the UKs Ministry of Defence publicly accepting their explanation.

After firing, the first missile missed the RAF plane while the second failed to launch successfully. If it had reached its target, it could potentially have drawn a Nato member into a military confrontation with Russia.

The two Russian SU-27 fighter jets had encountered the RAF plane, which was carrying a crew of up to 30 people, as it was flying a surveillance mission over the Black Sea in international airspace on 29 September 2022.

The Ministry of Defence has been approached for comment.
 Close Aftermath of Russian missile strike on Ukraine mail depot that killed six

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Russian drones hit civilian targets and triggered a fire near Ukraines second-largest city of Kharkiv, officials have said.

The attacks came as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Moscow was losing control of the Black Sea.

Russia launched overnight drone attacks today in Kharkiv, with multiple explosions heard, hitting a civilian site, said Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov.

Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said the fire was being brought under control but did not confirm whether there were any casualties.

In his address, Mr Zelensky said: Russia is gradually losing control of the Black Sea and retreating to the eastern part of the waters.

I am confident that Ukraine will definitely win. Be confident in yourselves, he said.

Vladimir Putins troops bombarded 118 Ukrainian towns and villages over the course of 24 hours on Thursday, the most intense day of shelling this year, Kyiv said.

Ukraine is trying to build up a new shipping lane without Russian approval to revive its vital seaborne exports. But Russia said it would consider any vessel a potential military target after it quit a UN-brokered deal allowing Ukrainian goods to pass through.
Gov. Jim Pillen, at right, is facing national criticism for comments dismissing reporting by Yanqi Xu of the Flatwater Free Press into nitrate levels at Pillen Family Farms. (Photos by Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner and courtesy of Joseph Saaid for Flatwater Free Press)

LINCOLN  Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen is facing national criticism after he dismissed a nonprofit newsrooms investigative reporter in September based on her country of origin.

In September, 1110 KFAB radios Gary Sadlemyer asked Pillen if he had any comment on a Flatwater Free Press investigation by reporter Yanqi Xu into Pillen Family Farms  owned by the governors family  that detailed how 16 Pillen hog farms recorded nitrate levels more than five times higher than what is considered safe to drink.

Number one, I didnt read it. And I wont, Pillen told Sadlemyer. Number two, all you got to do is look at the author. The author is from communist China. What more do you need to know?

Matt Wynn, executive director of the Nebraska Journalism Trust that launched and funds Flatwater, fired back at Pillen in a Tuesday column. He called Pillens comments infuriating and dead wrong and that yes, there is much more to know than where Xu is from.

Wynn described taking time to respond to Pillen, in part because the U.S. government recently awarded Xu a visa reserved for those with extraordinary ability. Those in the news media are used to criticism, he added, and they often question their own reporting, biases, facts and sources.

Had Governor Pillen spoken to the facts Yanqi found, I wouldnt be writing this now, Wynn wrote. Elected officials deserve the chance to respond to findings. We offered every opportunity for him to do so before we ran the story. He declined them all.

Radio silence from Pillen

Pillen and his office have not responded to multiple requests for comment from Flatwater or other local and national media, including the Nebraska Examiner.

Pillen Family Farms, in a September statement to Flatwater, said they work daily to ensure their environmental practices exceed industry standards and are committed to the well-being of their pigs, team members and communities. The company and Sarah Pillen, a co-CEO and one of Pillens children, did not respond to a Wednesday request for comment.

KFAB host Jim Rose on Wednesday addressed the situation as a three-way collision between business, government and journalism. He pointed to a fear of Chinese spies supporting the Chinese Community Party  particularly in agriculture  as justification for Pillens comments.

Clearly, Pillen is predisposed to believe that Xu may not be just a reporter, Rose said.

Shes remarkable, period

Xu grew up in Guangzhou, China, and left for Beijing to study English and international journalism. She came to the United States in 2017 for a masters degree, and she has reported in four states and Washington, D.C. This includes North Carolina Policy Watch (now NC Newsline), which is part of the States Newsroom network of nonprofit news outlets, which include the Nebraska Examiner.

In Xus two years with Flatwater, she has reported on attendance rates of the Nebraska Board of Parole and has written award-winning work investigating the states nitrate levels.

Shes whip smart. Shes pit bull stubborn. Shes a courageous reporter, a remarkable reporter, Wynn said. Shes remarkable, period.

Pillens comments are the first time anyone has written Xu off based on her nationality, Wynn said.

As an employer, that infuriates me. As a believer in democracy and a free press, it saddens me, Wynn wrote. As a Nebraskan, it embarrasses me.

If I dont do it, who would?

The Asian American Journalists Association Board of Directors also defended Xu, an association member, with unwavering support in a Wednesday statement.

The directors said their communities have seen a troubling trend in anti-Asian discrimination, xenophobia and violence. AAJA continues to encourage newsrooms to support AAPI journalists as they cover such incidents or experience discrimination themselves.

Journalists play an indispensable role in holding power to account and informing the public, the AAJA board said. Having an independent and diverse press corps is essential to democracy, and Xu, an investigative reporter who grew up in China, deserves to do her job without being judged because of her nationality.

NBC News reported that Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif. and chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, condemned Pillens remarks as a baseless xenophobic attack and called on him to apologize.

Failing to do so only contributes to more hostility and suspicion of people from China and Asian Americans broadly, Chu said.

Xu told NBC News that its important to speak up and can be hard at first because it makes someone the center of the story.

Especially as a woman of color, if the other person who made such a comment about you is the most powerful person in the state, how do you respond? Xu told NBC. But I think for me, I found myself coming back to this point of: If I dont do it, who would?
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Ukrainian defence forces have made use of US-made long-range ATACMS missiles in operations against Russia, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Mr Zelensky said Tuesday that the long-range weapon, formally known as the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, was recently used on the battlefield against Russia and executed very accurately.

The US-built missile system, which is manufactured by Lockheed Martin, can be fired from the M-142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers which have been in use by Ukrainian forces for some time. But unlike other missiles, the ATACMS can be used to strike targets as far away as 180 miles, which would allow Ukrainian defence forces to strike command and control and supply locations well behind Russias front lines.

Mr Zelensky and his government had been pressing American officials for the ATACMS system for months, citing the inability of the weapons in their possession to strike targets deep inside Russian-held territory within Ukraines borders.

After months of urging, US President Joe Biden told Mr Zelensky that the US would provision Ukrainian forces with a small number of the advanced missiles last month when the two met at the White House.

The ATACMS system is also used by South Korea, Romania, Greece, Turkey and Poland, and according to a US Army website, it is designed for deep attack of enemy second-echelon forces such as command and control centres, air defences and logistics sites well behind the front lines in a given conflict.

Separately, a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the missiles had indeed been turned over to Ukrainian forces and were being used on the battlefield.

With additional reporting by agencies
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At least 10 civilians in Ukraine were killed on Wednesday in Russian attacks as Ukrainian military officials confirmed battlefield gains in counteroffensive operations in the south of the warzone.

The death toll rose to five from four after a missile struck a residential building in southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, president Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address.

A 31-year-old woman was killed in a separate attack in central Ukraines Dnipropetrovsk. Officials said she was a resident of the Obukhivka village. Another Russian attack claimed the lives of a man and woman in Kherson, officials said.

Two bodies were pulled out from under the rubble of a food shop hit by a Russian missile near the southern city of Mykolaiv on Wednesday evening, the Ukrainian interior ministry said.

Russian forces also tried to target an infrastructure site which was hit in a drone attack in Sumy region, which has seen intense shelling since the start of war, local officials said but shared no further details.

Mr Zelensky said: The evil state continues to use terror and wage war on civilians. Russian terror must be defeated.

Russia has repeatedly claimed that it only targets military sites and infrastructures, not civilians, but dozens of indiscriminate missile and drone strikes into Ukraine have claimed more than 26,000 civilian lives since the start of Russias full-scale invasion last year.

This comes as the Ukrainian general Oleksandr Tarnavskyi in the southern region has said his troops were proceeding with their planned advance towards the Sea of Azov.

Troops from the Tavria, or southern group of forces, "are continuing their offensive. They have had partial success to the south of Robotyne," General Tarnavskyi wrote on Telegram.

Robotyne is one of a group of villages in the south that Ukraine wants to secure as part of the advance  aimed at severing a land bridge linking Russian positions in the south and east.

Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesperson for southern troops, also reported progress near Robotyne.

He said shelling had eased around the town of Avdiivka, the focus of fierce Russian attacks in the past week west of the Russian-held town of Donetsk. But troops in the sector were preparing for a variety of scenarios.

Ukrainian troops are also trying to recapture land in eastern regions.

The troops have repelled Russian attacks in several areas of the 1000 km (620-mile) frontline, the General Staff of the Ukraines Armed Forces said. It added that 15 attacks were repelled around the long-contested town of Maryinka in Donetsk region and 10 further north near another heavily besieged town Kupiansk.

Russias account of the fighting said a depot of Ukrainian aviation equipment had been destroyed in the central Dnipropetrovsk region.
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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov thanked North Korea for aiding Moscows war efforts in Ukraine as he landed in Pyongyang for a two-day visit on Wednesday.

Mr Lavrov is in North Korea for meetings viewed as preparatory efforts ahead of Russian president Vladimir Putins visit as Moscow and Pyongyang slide closer in diplomatic cooperation against Ukraine and the West.

Moscow deeply valued Pyongyangs unwavering and principled support for Russia in the war, Mr Lavrov said, speaking at a reception hosted by North Korean officials on Wednesday.

Mr Lavrovs visit to Pyongyang happened in the backdrop of Russias threat to the US for its decision to send long-range missiles to Ukraine for the first time. Russia claimed the move increased the risks of a direct conflict between Nato and Moscow.

Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on Tuesday that the Ukrainian military used the US-supplied ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) for the first time this week and struck two Russian military airfields.

Amid the growing friendship between North Korea and Russia, there was tangible activity of likely military support being sent to Moscow as a US think-tank on Tuesday shared satellite images showing continued activity around a North Korean port near Russia. It captured at least six trips by sea between North Koreas port of Rajin and Russias Dunai port since late August.

These shipments were possibly related to the transfer of North Korean munitions to Russia, the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said.

Likewise, the Russian Federation extends its complete support and solidarity with the aspirations of the DPRK, Mr Lavrov said, referring to North Korea by its official name Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. North Korea, he said, has remained unfazed by any pressure of the US and the West.

This weeks visit will offer a "valuable opportunity" to review and outline practical steps for the implementation of the agreements reached between the two leaders, Mr Lavrov said.

North Koreas foreign minister Choe Son Hui said the bilateral ties between North Korea and Russia are now developing into an unbreakable comradely relationship under the leadership of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

North Korean state media said that the Russian foreign ministers visit comes at a time when the ties between the two nations have reached a strategic high and will mark a significant occasion in further consolidating relations between the countries.

Photos of Mr Lavrovs visit shared by North Korea showed he was welcomed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-uns foreign minister as people holding flowers and flags of both nations dotted the way.

Mr Lavrov started his visit a month after Russia hosted the North Korean leader Mr Kim in a grand ceremony to mark his rare visit after the pandemic.

During the six-day visit, the North Korean leader extended an invitation to Mr Putin to Pyongyang as the two discussed military cooperation in the backdrop of Russias war in Ukraine and tensions in the Korean peninsula.

The Russian foreign minister may also brief North Koreans on the results on Mr Putins anticipated visit to China, Russias TASS news agency reported.

In a separate incident, a North Korean cargo-passenger ferry that had carried foreign tourists from Japan or South Korea was seen at a drydock at the same port. This could be most likely for maintenance, the CSIS said.

It is not immediately clear if the vessel was used to supplement trade activity between Russia and North Korea.

However, North Korea has recently shared a shipment of weapons with Russia last week, the White House said last week, terming it a troubling development.

The allegations were refused by the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
 Close IDF strike Hamas targets in Gaza

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Israel has reportedly warned the al-Quds hospital in Gaza to evacuate immediately, an order which the head of the World Health Organisation called "deeply concerning".

The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday it received the warning from Israeli authorities as raids have been taking place 50 yards away from the hospital since this morning.

We reiterate - its impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives. Under International Humanitarian Law, healthcare must always be protected, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of WHO, posted on X.

It comes after Palestinian officials reported the death toll since the war broke out hit 8,000, as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the next stage of war had begun. The Gaza death toll includes over 3,000 children, according to the health ministry.

After Israels three-week blockade of food, water, electricity and fuel into Gaza, thousands of civilians broke into aid warehouses overnight, taking wheat flour and other basic survival items like hygiene supplies.

The UNRWA has warned this is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down.
 Close Brit in Gaza describes desperate scene at Rafah crossing

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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a temporary halt to his countrys attacks on Gaza unless hostages held by Hamas militants are freed, despite pleas by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to do so to allow aid to enter the Palestinian enclave.

Israel refuses a temporary ceasefire that does not include the return of our hostages, he said during a televised address.

At the same time, the leader of Lebanons Hezbollah warned the US that preventing a regional conflict depended on stopping the Israeli bombardments of Gaza, and raised the spectre of fighting on the Lebanese front turning into a full-fledged war.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in his first speech since the Israel-Hamas war erupted nearly four weeks ago, also hinted his Iran-backed group was ready to confront US warships in the Mediterranean.

You, the Americans, can stop the aggression against Gaza because it is your aggression. Whoever wants to prevent a regional war, and I am talking to the Americans, must quickly halt the aggression on Gaza, Nasrallah said.

The Israeli military has released footage of a bombing campaign on the Hamas tunnel network as generals said forces were now engaged in a complex urban fight.
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The modern state of Israel was founded in May 1948 in the aftermath of the Holocaust and Second World War but the conflict that has raged between Israelis and Palestinians since can be traced back much further.

Historians and commentators offer differing opinions as to when this chapter of history begins. In her series Al Nakba (2008) on Al Jazeera, documentary maker Rawan Damen begins her story with Napoleon Bonaparte, who proposed a Jewish homeland in Palestine as long ago as 1799 in the wake of the siege of Acre during his war against the Ottoman Empire.

Pre-1900

The French commander was ultimately defeated in that conquest but his attempt to establish a European stronghold in the Middle East was revived by the British 41 years on, when foreign secretary Lord Palmerston wrote to his ambassador in Istanbul, urging him to press the Sultan to open up Palestine to Jewish immigrants as a means of countering the considerable influence of Egyptian governor Mohammed Ali.

While there were only around 3,000 Jews living in Palestine at that time, wealthy benefactors such as French aristocrat Baron Edmond de Rothschild began to sponsor others from Europe to join them and establish settlements, the most notable being Rishon Le Zion, founded in 1882.

Austrian writer Nathan Birnbaum coined the term Zionism in 1885 as Jews, particularly from eastern Europe, continued to arrive in Palestine.

Austro-Hungarian journalist Dr Theodor Herzls book The Jewish State appeared a decade later, envisioning the establishment of such an entity with the coming of the 20th century. According to Al Nakba, two rabbis were sent by Herzls friend Max Nordau to Palestine to investigate the feasibility of the prospect and reported back: The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man, although the authenticity of this exchange is contested.

Birnbaum, Herzl and Nordau organised the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897 to discuss their dream of an independent Jewish nation and plans to lobby European powers for its realisation.

By 1907, Britain was considering the need for a buffer state in the Middle East to bolster its dominance. British Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, a biochemist, would arrive in Jerusalem at this time to establish a company engaged in buying up land near Jaffa. Within three years, about 10,000 dunums, an old land measurement equivalent to acres, had been acquired in the Marj Bin Amer region of northern Palestine, forcing out 60,000 local farmers to accommodate Jewish arrivals from Europe and Yemen.

As a Jewish militia, Hashomer, was established to protect the growing number of settlements, Palestinian pharmacist Najib Nassar set up a newspaper, Al-Karmel, to warn against what he considered to be a colonising force.

The First World War  1914 - 1918

The outbreak of the First World War prompted a Britain distrustful of Mohammedans to intensify its interest in developing an allied presence in Palestine, not least to strengthen its grasp on the Suez Canal.

In January 1915, Liberal Party politician Herbert Samuel drafted his secret memo The Future of Palestine, which was circulated among the Cabinet and in which he backed annexation and the country gradually becoming an autonomous Jewish state under the protectorship of the British Empire.

Samuels recommendations were discussed privately by diplomats Sir Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot the following year, architects of the Sykes-Picot Agreement that demarcated British and French spheres of influence in the event of the collapse of Ottoman rule.

Austro-Hungarian journalist Dr Theodor Herzl who wrote The Jewish State advocating a nation in Palestine (Getty)

The Balfour Declaration  1917

The British governments Balfour Declaration followed on 9 November 1917, formally declaring support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine in a letter between David Lloyd Georges foreign secretary Arthur Balfour and Jewish community leader Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, effectively assuming ownership over a land that many would argue it had no legal right to give away.

Rothschild, Samuel, Sykes and Weizmann addressed a celebratory meeting in London a month later before, on 11 December 1917, General Edmund Allenby captured the holy city of Jerusalem.

Following the Kaisers defeat and the Great Wars end, US president Woodrow Wilson commissioned a report into the non-Turkish regions of the fallen Ottoman Empire conducted by academic Dr Henry King and orientalist Charles Crane, who found that the almost 90 per cent non-Jewish population of Palestine were emphatically against the Zionist project. The authors warned of the intensity of feeling and argued that Jewish immigration should be limited in the greater interests of peace but were roundly ignored by the international community, their conclusions suppressed until 1922.

At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, lieutenant-colonel TE Lawrence (much-mythologised as Lawrence of Arabia) mediated the signing of an agreement between Weizmann, now leader of the Zionist delegation, and his Arab counterpart Prince Faisal bin Hussein, agreeing in principle the founding of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an independent Arab nation in the Middle East.

In 1922, the League of Nations recognised the British Mandate to rule Palestine under the jurisdiction of Samuel, now high commissioner, who was instrumental in enacting at least 100 legal initiatives to establish a Jewish presence, including recognising Hebrew as an official language and permitting a separate Jewish educational system and Jewish army. The Hebrew University and Histadrut, a labour union, were in place by 1925.

As the decade progressed, mass protests began to erupt opposing Jewish immigration as the Palestinian movement tried in vain to counter and resist what its members considered a usurpation backed by the military and diplomatic muscle of imperial Britain.

Black flags were raised by Palestinians when Balfour visited Jerusalem and almost 250 Jews and Arabs were killed and many more wounded in August 1929 at the Wailing Wall in a tragedy that became known as the Buraq Revolt. Three Muslim men were put to death by Samuels successor, Sir John Chancellor, for their part in the unrest, an act of brutality intended as a deterrent.

Foreign secretary Arthur Balfour, right, formally declared British support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people (Getty)

But the protests continued, reaching fever pitch in 1933, as more Jewish immigrants arrived to make a home for themselves, the influx accelerating from 4,000 in 1931 to 62,000 in 1935. That same year, Muslim revolutionary leader Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam was shot dead by British soldiers in the hills above Jenin.

In 1936, the intensity of opposition to British colonial rule imposing the Balfour Declaration on a people who deplored it resulted in a six-month-long general strike, an impressive feat of organisation that nevertheless resulted in a backlash in which Palestinian homes were destroyed.

The Second World War  1939 - 1945

The wider world would once more be plunged into war in 1939 in the fightback against Adolf Hitlers Nazi Germany, whose Third Reich would ultimately be found responsible for executing six million Jews in extermination camps, and concentration camps.

Not long after the US entrance into the conflict, American-Zionist relations would be cemented with a 1942 conference at the Biltmore Hotel in New York. This occurred against a backdrop of several years activity by an armed Zionist paramilitary force known as Irgun, that had been attacking local Arab groups in Palestine.

Irgun would become notorious for the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946, in which 91 people died, and the Deir Yassin Massacre on 9 April 1948, carried out in collaboration with another organisation, Lehi (or the Stern Gang), in which 107 were killed.

That summer, Lehi would assassinate Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat dispatched by the United Nations to mediate the dispute.

Following the Allied victories in Europe and the Pacific in 1945, world powers turned their attention towards ending the violence in Palestine.

UN Partition Plan (or two-state solution)  1947

A two-state solution to the disputed territory almost came into being in 1947, when the UN General Assembly volunteered Resolution 181, which proposed carving a new state from Palestine west of the River Jordan: one housing Jews, the other Arabs.

The resolution was adopted after a vote, allegedly as a result of diplomatic pressure from the US, but rejected by the Palestinians, who argued that Jewish residents owned no more than 5.5 per cent of the land at the time and so had no right to receive 56 per cent, in addition to the accompanying international legitimacy. Jewish jubilation met with Arab hostility and a civil war duly erupted.

The first Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion officially proclaims the state of Israel in Tel Aviv in 1948 (AFP/Getty)

The Arab-Israeli War and Nakba  1948

The state of Israel was nevertheless founded under prime minister David Ben-Gurion on 14 May 1948 with the end of the British Mandate, winning immediate recognition from the US and Soviet Union but prompting the outbreak of the bloody Arab-Israeli War, which saw 3,000 resistance fighters rise up against the new nation and forced 700,000 Palestinian people to flee the fighting, seeking refuge in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, often without citizenship being granted.

The displacement of the Palestinian people on that date is still marked every year on Nakba Day, named for an Arabic word for catastrophe and on which Palestinians give speeches, hold rallies and brandish the keys to the homes they were forced to leave behind and still hope to return to.

In December of 1948, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194, recognising that Palestinian people who want to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbours should be given the right to do so as soon as possible. Israel though rejected the notion as a threat to the exclusively Jewish nature of the new state. A year later, the chamber would establish the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to further support those displaced.

In the interim between those two events, Israel had signed armistice agreements with its neighbours in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

Six-Day War  1967

Jordan assumed administrative control of the West Bank in 1950 and Egypt would hold Gaza, an arrangement that would last until the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israeli forces conquered those territories.

Prior to that, the violence continued sporadically. Notable massacres took place in the villages of Qalqilya, Kufr Qasim and Khan Yunis in 1956 and in as-Samu in 1966.

The Palestinian Liberation Organisation was founded in Cairo in 1964, dedicated to fighting for the liberation of Palestine through armed revolution rather than dwelling on rights issues, a stance the PLO would not abandon until 1993 and which would see it labelled a terrorist organisation by both Israel and the US. It would be recognised as the sole representative of the Palestinian people by the Arab League in 1974.

Israels military advance on the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Golan Heights and Egyptian Sinai in 1967 sparked fresh bloodshed and saw the UN Security Council pass Resolution 242 ordering it to withdraw from territories it considered occupied. The council was ignored.

Following the Yom Kippur War, the Security Council would pass another resolution, 338, calling for a ceasefire and again demanding Israel retreat from its 1967 incursions. Again, Israel refused.

On 30 March 1976, Israeli land confiscations were met with uprisings, strikes and further violent reprisals in towns from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev, a date commemorated by Palestinians ever after as Land Day.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was befriended by Donald Trump (AP)

An apparent breakthrough for peace in the Middle East occurred on 17 September 1978 when Israeli PM Menachem Begin met Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the Camp David Accords at the Maryland retreat of president Jimmy Carter. One of the framework agreements clinched harmonious relations between their two nations and won the signatories the Nobel Peace Prize but the other, concerning the future of the disputed territories Palestine, would be condemned by the UN for being agreed without a Palestinian delegations involvement.

The First Intifada and Oslo Accords  1987 - 1993

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 while the first Intifada in Palestinian territories would erupt protesting occupation at the decades end. However, further incremental steps towards peace did occur when the PLO accepted UN Resolutions 242 and 338, formally recognising the state of Israel. Talks stalled again in 1991 and 1992, with no resolution in sight.

Then, in summer 1993, the Oslo I Accord was signed by Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, providing for the creation of a Palestinian interim self-government, the Palestinian National Authority, and the withdrawal of Israeli Defence Forces from zones still widely considered occupied. A second agreement, Oslo II, followed in 1995 and granted Palestinian autonomy in certain parts of the West Bank and Gaza but, again, did not offer statehood.

The Second Intifada and Gaza wars  2002 - 2021

An uneasy truce held until a second Intifada saw Israel reoccupy West Bank cities in 2002, a destabilising event that would be worsened by the death of Arafat in 2004, a great blow to the Palestinian cause.

Since that time, violence has returned, with Israel declaring war on Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 and launching repeated assaults on Hamas in Gaza, including Operation Cast Lead (2008), Operation Pillar of Defence (2012) and Operation Protective Edge (2014). Further violence blew up on Nakba Day in both 2017 and 2018, the latter severe enough to merit a UN war crimes investigation.

The election of Donald Trump as US president further shook up the situation, with the former reality television star befriending Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as a gesture of recognition that the city is its capital before designating the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, in defiance of the broad international consensus that the region was illegally annexed.

Mr Trump also cut US funding to the UNRWA and absurdly tasked his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with developing a plan to bring peace to the Middle East, something the junior property developer was confident he could achieve without bias having read no fewer than 25 books on the subject.

The tensions have subsequently erupted again, after Hamas sent fighters across the border and fired thousands of rockets at Israel in what it said was a new operation on Saturday. Israel has responded by saying the country is "at war" and fired at targets in Gaza in response.

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Merkava tanks are lined up in the desert. Low-flying Apache and Cobra helicopter gunships swirl up plumes of sand and dust that settle on turrets pointed squarely at the border. Troops are also settled in a pattern of briefings and combat drills  all while patiently waiting for that paramount order.

Almost two weeks after the Hamas carnage which resulted in 1,400 deaths and 200 hostages being seized, Israels declaration that the war will be taken to Gaza  by land, air and sea  remains just that. The question privately asked among soldiers and officers: If not now, when?

Grim reminders persist of what happened when Hamas carried out its lethal attack, catching the Israeli military off-guard in its biggest intelligence failure since the Yom Kippur War a half-century ago.

Two bodies were found on Thursday during searches in the Baeri Kibbutz, one of first places to be hit during the raid. They were of a young boy and a woman. Identification will take some time such was the state of their charred bodies. At least 108 people were slaughtered in the kibbutz, around 10 per cent of the population.

Bereaved families want justice and for many this means their countrys forces going into Gaza, hunting down the killers and destroying their bases.

Siblings Maya Regev, 21, and Itay Regev, 18, were taken hostage at the Supernova music festival (AP)

Yosef Mizrachi, whose 22-year-old nephew Daniel was among the 260 who died at the Supernova music festival near Reim Kibbutz, has no doubt about what needs to be done.

Daniel was a son to me, we helped bring him up. His parents, my brother and sister-in-law, died when he was young. How do you think I feel about the people who murdered him and all the others?

Will Hamas give them up to stand trial here or in an international court? No, of course not, theyll have to be found in Gaza in the tunnels they are hiding in and dealt with.

Yosefs wife Nora added: We have had rocket attacks from Gaza over many years. Now we have this massacre  people beheaded, burned. This cannot happen again. It is time to end this once and for all. And the only way would be for our soldiers to go to Gaza.

Ilan (left) and Mirit Regev say diplomacy offers the best hope of getting their children back alive (Ilan and Mirit Regev)

But then there are also the views of those whose relations and friends were abducted. They fear a full-scale military assault would lead to these helpless captives being used as human shields who will die in the crossfire.

Many of them are bitter about the failures by Benjamin Netanyahus government which led to the attacks. They remain deeply worried that there are politicians who may be prepared to sacrifice the hostages when military action takes place.

These exhausted families and their friends gather outside the military headquarters waving the national flag and chanting, bring them home.

Siblings Maya and Itay Regev are among those missing after also going to the Supernova festival. The last time their father Ilan heard his daughters voice was in a phone call. They shot us, we are going to be dead, they shot us, she screamed down the line, her voice consumed with fear.

Later in the day, a Hamas video surfaced on social media showing the brother and sister tied up on the back of a pickup truck.

It was very distressing to see them like that, really bad. But at least theyre alive. That is the main thing, Ilan said.

Ilan and his wife Mirat believe every possible means must be explored before the military option is taken. There must be a diplomatic solution. We need to get the help of the diplomatic community, our neighbouring countries, said Mirit. We are talking about risks to many, many lives here.

There are foreign nationals being held hostage  including American and British  along with Israelis. Mr Netanyahus government is facing strong pressure from these countries to continue with talks to get them out. The issue was raised by President Biden when he was here on Wednesday and was again raised by Rishi Sunak during his visit today.

One possible avenue is a deal wrapped into a wider agreement on aid getting into Gaza. The Qataris are believed to be the interlocutors in this.

Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building in Gaza City after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike (AP)

But the hostages are just one of the factors the Israeli government must consider before sending in the tanks. This is going to be a massive and complicated operation. Hamas has around 40,000 well-armed fighters in its military wing  the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Another 80,000 in the civic administration could also be called to arms.

Those of us who covered the 2014 Gaza war from inside Gaza know that Israeli infantry suffered serious losses from booby traps, anti-tank mines and snipers. One reason Israel demanded the evacuation of the civilian population of the northern half of Gaza is to sweep the area. This, however, is believed to be going slower than expected.

The Israeli forces also have to cope with hundreds of miles of tunnels in Gaza. Many of the hostages, it is believed, are being kept there. Clearing these passageways is essential to achieving tactical success.

Much of the fighting will take place in this subterranean arena. And, after the monumental intelligence failure on the Hamas attack, security chiefs want to be certain that they have all the information necessary on the layout of the sprawling underground network.

There are also serious logistical difficulties being faced with 360,000 reservists to be assimilated into the ranks. This would be a big task for any country, but especially so for Israel, which has a relatively small standing military.

An Israeli soldier adjusts his rifle as he stands on a tank near Israel's border with Lebanon (Reuters/Lisi Niesner)

Robert Emerson, a British security expert, who has analysed the previous Gaza Wars, said: People forget that the longest one, 2014, wasnt easy for the Israelis and this time Hamas is much better prepared and have been planning this for a while, the corollary is that Israel wasnt prepared for what happened.

International opinion will not allow Israel to fight a long war with mounting civilian deaths. They must get this right, do it as fast as possible, not get bogged down in months of kinetic action.

It is not just the Gaza front where focus is needed. Iran has been loudly denouncing Israel and warning of an axis of resistance on multiple fronts for the Jewish state if it invades Gaza.

As well as backing Hamas, Tehran supports Hezbollah in Lebanon. There have been incursions by gunmen into Israel from Lebanon. Troops are being sent there and defences bolstered. Israel cannot rule out fighting a war on two fronts, one of them with a formidable enemy in Hezbollah with its huge stocks of missiles and rock-solid supply lines from Iran.

Netanyahu holds private meeting with Sunak in Jerusalem

There are also the geopolitical factors. US officials are said to have been surprised by the scale of protests in Arab countries against America for its support for Israeli air strikes. Chants of Death to America have been heard at marches and protests across the Middle East, including Bahrain a close ally of the US.

There is no evidence the US is opposing a ground war in Gaza, although President Biden has warned that any Israeli return to an occupation of Gaza would be a big mistake.

American officials have asked the Israeli military to review some of their plans to try to ensure civilian casualties are limited where they can be. US officers who took part in bloody urban combat in Fallujah in 2004 during the Iraq War are said to have arrived to brief their Israeli counterparts on lessons learned.

Israeli commanders privately say that they have had to see off attempts by some members of the Netanyahu cabinet to invade Gaza in the days after the Hamas massacre. There was no need for this, they say. Hamas has been boxed in with the draconian siege being enforced. Through this, Israel has the space to fight at a time of its choosing.

The military want to point out that they have not been inactive. Hamas weapon caches and defensive fortifications are being hit in air and missile strikes and commando raids. The groups leadership is being denuded in targeted killings. The latest to die was Jehad Mheisen, the chief of its national security force, on Thursday.

Some of the Israeli soldiers at their battle stations in the south, most of them fresh young reservists, say they find the lingering wait before the advance unnerving. Older heads counsel patience and point out that better preparations will ensure more of them get to come home from this brutal war.
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The Israeli military has bolstered its northern defences as tension with the militant group Hezbollah grow on the Lebanese border, with mounting concerns of a wider war in the Middle East.

Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been locked in an increasingly fierce exchange of fire on the Lebanese border since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza after Hamas bloody attack nearly two weeks ago.

Both Iran and Hezbollah have warned of pre-emptive action if Israel pushes ahead with a ground invasion, which is the anticipated next step.

Rishi Sunak and US president Joe Biden have travelled to the Middle East in the last few days, mounting a frantic effort to rein in a widening conflict.

But as the violence continued, the UK, the US and Germany issued travel warnings urging their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately.

Now, Israel says it has shored up its northern defences and is ready to respond to any attack from its neighbours.

[Israel] has zero tolerance for Iran-backed organisations trying us at this time, Major Marcus Sheff, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, told The Independent.

I think Lebanon needs to ask whether it wants to risk its future for the Hamas terror organisation. We will deal with Hezbollah as necessary. The [Israeli military] is ready, ready to respond to any attack.

Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border earlier this week (AFP)

Jordan, which has been a historic broker of peace, called for an immediate ceasefire and warned that continued bombardment of Gaza would only see the conflict widen.

The growing perception on the street, as they see the unequivocal iron clad support for Israel in this war, is that this is a Western-Arab Muslim war, said foreign minister Ayman Safadi.

Unless we are able to stop this catastrophe [in Gaza] that anger is going to mount. All of us will pay a price.

There has been growing fury at the worsening humanitarian crisis for the 2 million people in the Strip, which is running out of food, water, fuel and power under a crippling Israeli siege. Gazas health ministry has begged petrol stations and citizens to donate diesel supplies for hospital generators.

Medhat Abbas, the director of Gazas largest hospital al-Shifa, told The Independent his teams were desperately searching for fuel across Gaza as their generators would shut at any moment, meaning ventilators and incubators could be switched off.

They are searching in all gas stations to find any amount at all, he said.

The US brokered a deal between Israel and Egypt where 20 trucks of aid would be allowed into the south of the tiny strip. But rights groups say this is only a scratch on the surface of the needs on the ground.

Hospitals are collapsing, lacking even basic supplies like painkillers and bandages. Disease outbreaks are inevitable in overflowing and unsanitary shelters. People are drinking seawater to try to stay alive, said Melanie Ward, head of Medical Aid to Palestine that runs clinics in Gaza.

ActionAid said that insufficient aid could lead to more innocent deaths in Gaza and that the lack of fuel in particular meant that hospitals could stop operating at any hour.

Protesters wave Palestinian, Lebanese and Hezbollah flags in Beirut (EPA)

Many fear a ground invasion of Gaza will be the final touchpaper in the conflict.

Israel has repeatedly signalled an invasion was imminent but has backtracked in recent days amid growing concerns it could trigger a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon on a second front.

The Israeli military would not confirm or deny to The Independent whether they had shelved the plans.

However, on Thursday Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant told infantry troops gathered at Gazas border that they will soon see Gaza from the inside, suggesting a ground invasion could be nearing.

You see Gaza now from a distance, you will soon see it from inside. The command will come.
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The US has warned Americans not to travel to Lebanon after part of the Beirut embassy complex was set on fire.

Family members of US government personnel and non-essential embassy staff were allowed to leave Lebanon after the embassy in Beirut was targeted by protestors who started a fire at the complex.

Footage from the ground showed heavy protesting, with those gathered reportedly denouncing US support for Israeli bombardment of innocent Palestinians  per ABC News.

The fire was started behind the security gates of the compound, with one protestor also scaling a barbed-wire fence surrounding the building in order to plant a Palestinian flag on the embassys flagpole. Tear gas was used by Embassy security officials to disperse protesters.

Hours after the demonstrations began, the State Department issued a do not travel advisory due to the unpredictable security situation related to rocket, missile, and artillery exchanges between Israel and Hizballah or other armed militant factions, according to the advisory.

On October 17, 2023, the Department authorized the voluntary, temporary departure of family members of US government personnel and some non-emergency personnel from US Embassy Beirut due to the unpredictable security situation in Lebanon, the announcement stated.

The advisory noted that large demonstrations have erupted in the wake of recent violence in Israel and Gaza.

It continued: US citizens should avoid demonstrations and exercise caution if in the vicinity of any large gatherings or protests as some of these have turned violent.

Protesters have blocked major roads, including thoroughfares between downtown Beirut and the area where the US Embassy is located, and between Beirut and Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport.

It warned that: US citizens who choose to travel to Lebanon should be aware that consular officers from the US Embassy are not always able to travel to assist them.

Lebanese people gather in front of the United States Embassy to stage a protest against Israeli airstrike on Gazas Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital (Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Department of State considers the threat to US government personnel in Beirut sufficiently serious to require them to live and work under strict security. The internal security policies of the US Embassy may be adjusted at any time and without advance notice.

The protests came after a blast at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday was believed to have killed hundreds of people.

Hundreds of protestors gathered outside the US embassy in Beirut, waving Palestinian flags, just hours before President Joe Bidens visit to neighboring Israel.

Rioters threw what appeared to be Molotov cocktails, according to reports, causing a fire to start inside the embassy compound.

Protestors also blocked roads near the embassy and leading to Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, the State Department said.

A Lebanese protester flashes the V for victory sign on October 18 as a fire rages behind the security gate of the US embassy (AFP via Getty Images)

Protesters lift Palestinian flags and a portrait of Mohammed Deif chief of Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, during rally at the entrance of the French embassy complex in Beirut (AFP via Getty Images)

Protests also broke out at the French embassy in Beirut, where protestors were seen waving Palestinian flags and a portrait of Mohammed Deif chief of Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas military wing.

Protests broke out across the Middle East on Tuesday night after at least 500 people were killed at the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza by an explosion, according to Palestinian authorities.

Officials in Gaza said an Israeli airstrike struck the al-Ahli hospital, but the Israeli military said its intelligence shows the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group is responsible, blaming the alleged faulty launch of a rocket intended to hit Israel.

Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah called for a day of unprecedented anger in Beirut in response to the explosion at the hospital.

The strike marks the deadliest single incident during the Israel-Hamas war, which broke out on 7 October when Hamas terrorists stormed across the Gaza border into Israel, killing hundreds of people and taking dozens captive.

More than 1,400 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians have been killed since fighting broke out.
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Hundreds of Palestinians are feared to have been killed in a missile strike on the Anglican Al-Ahli Arabi Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday evening as the Israel-Gaza conflict continues to intensify.

Officials in the Hamas-run territory initially blamed Israel for the attack but the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) quickly denied any responsibility, instead linking the atrocity to a paramilitary group known as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

An analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said in a statement.

Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza.

PIJ was founded in 1981 by Palestinian students Fathi Shaqaqi and Abd al-Aziz Awda, who had been members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and were inspired by the events of the Iranian Revolution to form a splinter group known as Islamic Jihad-Shaqaqi Faction in 1979.

When they were expelled from Egypt two years later following the assassination of the countrys president, Anwar Sadat, they relocated to Gaza and the PIJ, as it is known today, was created.

A hardline Sunni Islamist organisation, PIJ advocates armed resistance against Israel in pursuit of a Palestinian state, rejecting the Oslo Accords and the possibility of a two-state solution.

It is opposed to the Palestinian Authority, does not participate in the political process or diplomatic channels with Israel and has a history of violent engagements beginning in 1984, including organising suicide bombings and participating in the Gaza wars of 2008-09, 2012 and 2014.

The group is primarily based in the Gaza Strip and is an ally of Hamas, although occasional tensions have been known to erupt between the two organisations, according to The New York Times.

PIJ also has ties to Syria and Lebanon and has expressed solidarity with other Islamist causes in the Middle East, including those of Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Both PIJ and Hamas are understood to receive training, weapons and funding from Iran, according to The NYT, and both have been designated terrorist groups by the United States, European Union and United Kingdom.

PIJs arsenal includes small arms, mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles, Al Jazeera reports.

Islamic Jihad is known to oppose the peace process and the negotiation approach with Israel. It adopts an armed struggle against the Israeli occupation like Hamas. Islamic Jihad is a very close ally with Iran, Ibrahim Fraihat of the Doha Institute told the same outlet in May this year after three PIJ leaders were killed in Israeli air raids, one of whom was Ali Ghali, commander of its rocket-launch unit.

Other high-profile PIJ leaders killed in the fighting with Israel include Khaled Mansour and Taysir al-Jabari in 2022 and Bahaa Abu al-Ata in 2019. Shaqaqi, the groups co-founder, was assassinated in Malta in 1995.

PIJs current secretary-general is Ziad al-Nakhalah, who was elected as its leader in 2018.
A man who was shot multiple times by Omaha Police Department officers earlier this month after he allegedly approached officers with a gun in hand appeared in court for the first time Tuesday after he was charged with possessing a firearm as a felon.

Patrick Wright, 39, appeared in jail court in front of Douglas County Court Judge Stephanie Hansen on Tuesday morning. He was arrested on Saturday after spending nearly two weeks in the hospital receiving treatment for multiple gunshot wounds, though the extent of his injuries has not been made public. Wright was in a wheelchair during his court appearance.

Wright is barred from gun ownership after a 2009 conviction for accessory to burglary. He was ordered to be held on 10% of $250,000 bail, meaning he would have to pay $25,000 to be released from jail.

According to previous statements from police and in-court statements from prosecutors, police were called to the area of 21st and Pinkney Streets at about 7:20 p.m. Oct. 3 to reports of a man, identified by the 911 caller as Wright, pointing a gun at them. The caller provided a description of the vehicle, a red SUV, and a partial license plate.

Police located the SUV and surveilled it for approximately 10 minutes before three unmarked cars tried to pull Wright over near 61st and Jaynes Streets. According to police, Wright exited his vehicle with a handgun in his right hand while "faced directly towards the officers."

Four officers with OPD's gang unit discharged their service weapons at Wright. He was struck multiple times and was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center. A loaded Taurus 9 mm handgun was found on the ground near Wright, police said.

The four officers who fired at Wright were identified as Jacob Chong, Andrew Ramsay, Kyle Graber and Nicholas Molek. Each is assigned to the Criminal Investigations Bureau.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Tuesday that prosecutors are in the process of determining if additional charges will be brought against Wright.

Wright will appear in court for a preliminary hearing on the gun charge in mid-November. If convicted, he faces up to 50 years in prison.
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Rishi Sunak is setting off for a visit to Israel as part of a two-day mission to try to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from spiralling into a larger crisis.

The prime ministers diplomatic efforts in the Middle East follow those of US president Joe Biden, who in a trip to the country on Wednesday warned citizens not to be consumed by hate over the Hamas assault that killed more than 1,400 people 11 days ago.

When he meets the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and president Isaac Herzog, Mr Sunak will press for the route into Gaza to be opened as soon as possible to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and the exit of those trapped in the territory, No 10 said.

Israeli soldiers carry a coffin during the funeral of the head of the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council, Ofir Lipstein, who was killed by Hamas militants (AP)

Israel, which is laying siege to the territory, says it will not allow humanitarian aid in from its side so long as its citizens are still being held captive, but that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of aid.

The PMs visit will be part of a trip to the wider region during which he will also travel to other capitals to meet counterparts.

Israel-Hamas latest: Follow our live coverage here

Recommended Patients operated on without anaesthetic in Gaza as WHO runs out of medicine

In parallel with Mr Sunaks trip, foreign secretary James Cleverly will visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in the coming days to underscore the UKs message.

The prime minister said: Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamass horrific act of terror.

The attack on al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict. I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort.

Mr Cleverly said: It is in no ones interests  neither Israeli, Palestinian nor the wider Middle East  for others to be drawn into this conflict.

President Joe Biden is greeted by Mr Netanyahu (AP)

I am meeting counterparts from influential states in the region to push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages.

Palestinians are reeling from a huge blast at a Gaza City hospital, with hundreds feared dead.

Hamas officials blamed the blast on an Israeli air strike but Israel denied involvement, saying it was instead down to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed the claim.

During a speech in Tel Aviv, Mr Biden likened the Hamas attacks to the Holocaust, and urged both sides not to make mistakes similar to those that the US and its allies made after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.
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What happened?

At roughly 7pm local time on Tuesday night, a blast was reported in a hospital in Gaza City.

The Hamas-run health ministry initially claimed that between 200 and 300 people had been killed in what they said was an Israeli airstrike. They added that hundreds are still buried under the rubble.

An official later told Al Jazeera that the death toll was closer to 500.

Israel responded by saying they were investigating the incident. They subsequently denied involvement, suggesting the explosion was caused by a misfired rocket by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), who also denied their involvement.

US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday during a meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu that he believed the explosion had been caused by the other side.

Rishi Sunak, speaking in the House of Commons, said the UK intelligence services are working at pace to work out who is responsible for the blast at the hospital.

Western leaders, including German chancellor Olaf Scholz and European commission president Ursula von der Leyen, have called for an investigation.

Palestinians inspect the damage at al Ahli hospital, in Gaza City, on Wednesday (Abed Khaled/AP) (AP)

Have videos been posted of the explosion?

Footage of what appears to be an explosion at the hospital emerged from Al Jazeera Mubasher later on in the evening. A second video from an Al Jazeera live feed showed the same incident.

That was geolocated , which involves comparing the background in the video with satellite images to corroborate the location, by GeoConfirmed, an outfit that works alongside the Centre for Information Resilience and Bellingcat.

The location was around the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. The exact location of the fire was zeroed down to the southeast side of Palestine Square.

It was also timestamped by the live feed.

What caused the explosion?

Both that and another Al Jazeera live feed showed a rocket being fired in the air and appearing to break up into two pieces, after which it hit what the geolocators believe is the Ahli Arab hospital.

A statement from GeoConfirmed read: The above footage is showing a rocket fail and breaking up in two pieces, one falling on the hospital.

At 11.28pm local time, the military correspondent for The Times of Israel posted a third video of a salvo of missiles being fired.

He said the shot was from surveillance camera footage from Netiv Haasara, north of the Erez Crossing on the Gaza/Israel border.

That camera angle was also geolocated . You can see the Israeli-erected border fence in front of the camera.

Wounded Palestinians sit in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, central Gaza Strip, after arriving from al-Ahli hospital (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

In the video, a salvo of missiles can be seen fired from what appears to be a position in western Gaza towards the east. One rocket is seen splitting into two. A large explosion is then seen in the middle of the camera angle. It took 20 seconds from the missile launch to explosion, roughly.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have since published what they claim is an intercepted call between two Hamas officials discussing the strike.

In the audio , one official says to the other that PIJ fired a salvo of rockets earlier that failed. They added: They shot it coming from the cemetery behind the al-Maamadani hospital.

This hospital appears to be west of the Al-Ahli hospital. The legitimacy of the audio, however, has not been confirmed.

Is there footage of the aftermath of the explosion?

Early this morning, the Israeli Air Force posted a video using drone footage of the aftermath of the explosion at the hospital.

It appeared to show that the explosion had taken place in the car park outside the hospital. It also indicated that there had been little to no structural damage to the actual hospital.

A photo taken in Gaza shows the aftermath of a fire in the car park of the Ahli Arab hospital (Mohamed Al-Masri )

It was followed by images uploaded by Palestinian photographers in Gaza of the car park.

One photo, taken by Mohammed al Masri, whose photos have been used by Reuters, showed at least 18 cars surrounding a black spot where the fire appears to have originated.

OSINT experts subsequently compared the photos with the official Israeli drone footage. They concluded that the two images showed the same scene.

What could have caused the explosion?

Further analysis of the two scenes, supplemented by on the ground footage posted by Mr al Masri to Instagram, showed that only 3 cars show any clear sign of kinnetic/structural damage.

They added that cars within 10 metres of the damaged cars are relatively undamaged, leading that same analyst to conclude that the photos of the scene are, to me, not consistent with an airstrike.

Another analysis suggests that the explosion looks to have been caused by a rocket motor failure, adding that a plum can be seen coming off the rocket before the explosion.

They wrote: After the rocket motor failure, the rocket disintegrates. One part lands first causing a small blast, likely part of the motor. The warhead then lands on the hospital causing the larger blast.

All this information is openly-available intelligence. It does not constitute conclusive proof that the explosion in a hospital in Gaza City was caused by a misfired rocket.

The original article referred to Bellingcat as an investigative outlet that itself works with international espionage agencies, we are happy to correct the record and state the organisation has no history of working with such agencies.
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Scientists say theyve identified a missing law of evolution, which could have the potential to change our understanding of everything in the universe.

While laws of physics, such as motion and gravity, are a staple of understanding in the scientific world, a group of scientists and philosophers from some of Americas top institutions believe that Charles Darwins survival of the fittest theory could also help us understand how nonliving phenomena work.

The group published a PNAS research article claiming that they have found out that evolution and natural selection also apply to complex phenomena.

Darwins theory of evolution describes that natural selection produces the survival of the fittest - where traits are selected and passed down between living elements to adapt to changing environments.

The researchers now claim that something similar - what they call "the law of increasing functional information" - applies to complex systems that are nonliving, such as atoms, stars, hurricanes and minerals, to name a few.

We see Darwinian evolution as a specific case of a more general process that applies to nonliving systems as well, said Dr Michael Wong, the first author of the research, based at the Carnegie Institution for Science, according to The Guardian.

The paper identified universal concepts of selection, which drive systems to evolve through the exchange of information between the environment and the system.

In other words, these systems adapt themselves and evolve like a plant, for example, would do in the living world by selecting traits.

This new report proposes that nonliving elements evolve similar to plants and animals (Flikr/Wikimedia Commons)

While laws do not answer the meaning of life, they do give a basis for understanding how things work without necessarily comprehending why?

For example, Dr Wong said that understanding these complex systems through this law could help study environmental change and its impact on Earth.

After all, Earths biosphere is the most complex evolving system we know of so far. We ought to ask ourselves: what functions are we promoting (or damaging) in our own evolving biosphere? What features of our present-day society are conducive to not only long-term persistence but long-term thriving, and what aspects require changing? he said.

This new proposed law has been met with mixed views from the scientific world.

Medical doctor and theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman called the report a "superb, bold, broad, and transformational article, in a statement on the publication.

Similarly, Andrew Roli said that this contribution has also the merit of speaking to different scientific communities that might find a common ground for open and fruitful discussions on complexity and evolution.

Yet some scientists are not so convinced.

Astronomy Professor Martin Rees believes that their law does not fit into the world of the nonliving systems, according to The Guardian.

I dont see that this need be a manifestation of any new underlying principle analogous to the role of Darwinian selection via inheritance in the biological world.
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Britains biggest police force is using game-changing facial recognition technology to catch prolific shoplifters.

The Metropolitan Police asked 12 retailers to provide images of 30 of the worst offenders who steal from their shops in a pilot of the new software.

They were compared against the forces custody shots, and of 302 images submitted, 149 came up as positive matches.

Those matches are now being investigated further with a view to building criminal cases.

The software uses biometric measures of a persons face and works even if part of their face is covered. It takes around 60 seconds to find a match.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said: Were working with shops across the capital to target and track down criminals in a way we never have before.

Were pushing the boundaries and using innovation and technology to rapidly identify criminals.

The results weve seen so far are game-changing. The use of facial recognition in this way could revolutionise how we investigate and solve crime.

He claimed that most of the prolific offenders were involved in other, more serious criminal activity.

Whats most powerful is what weve learned about those involved in this offending so far. Its clear the majority are career criminals involved in serious crime, Sir Mark said.

This data and information helps us focus our efforts in an even more precise way than we originally anticipated.

Through this tactic were not only improving how we protect shops and support the business community, were stepping further forward in identifying and tracking down serious criminals and protecting all of Londons communities.

The scale of business crime in London is huge. To be successful we have to be precise in our approach and this is a really promising step forward.

Met police last year." data-source="">

Chief executive of the Association of Convenience stores James Lowman said while the technology could save police time, there is still a challenge in getting offenders off the street.

He said: Using artificial intelligence to identify prolific offenders can be an effective way of drastically reducing the amount of police time it takes to make links between crimes committed against different businesses locally.

Whether its artificial intelligence or local intelligence that leads to criminals being identified, the real challenge remains apprehending these offenders and getting them off the streets.

The Met started using the software in August and began the retail pilot in late September.

The new system can use images from CCTV, dashcams, doorbell cameras or phones.

It uses the same algorithm as the Mets live facial recognition technology, about which there have been well-publicised concerns over potential bias.

Lindsey Chiswick, director of intelligence for the Met and national policing lead on facial recognition, said the algorithm has been independently tested by the National Physical Laboratory.

She said: Facial recognition technology, which is able to match faces after the event, has actually been around for quite a few years.

Whats changed and what is improving all the time, and in the last few years with real speed, is the accuracy of the algorithm. And thats the real game changer here.

With this technology, its an algorithm that weve independently tested through the National Physical Laboratory so we have assurance its 100% accurate when it comes to retrospective usage, and we understand how it works.

Around 50,000 shoplifting incidents were reported to the Met last year, estimated to be between 5% and 10% of the offences that are actually committed.

Emmanuelle Andrews, from human rights charity Liberty that has campaigned against the use of facial recognition, said: Facial recognition has no place on our streets, in our shops  or in any other areas of our lives.

This technology threatens our privacy and stifles free speech  and we should all be worried about moves to expand its reach.

Were also concerned about the creep of facial recognition technology into other areas of policing.

Lets be clear: we cannot rely on tech to solve deep societal problems, this is an unjustified expansion of state surveillance and there are numerous alternatives.
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Furious easyJet passengers were forced to spend an additional night in Tenerife after their flight to London Gatwick was postponed due to someone defecating on the toilet floor.

A video shared to X, formerly known as Twitter, shows the pilot making the announcement that the flight has been cancelled.

The clip starts with the pilot saying that someone found it rather entertaining...to defecate on the front toilet, so were now staying the night here.

Were now going to get everyone off... and organise hotels then well fly back tomorrow morning, he says as passengers groan in unison.

Flight EZ8054 had been scheduled to depart at 8.05pm on Sunday 15 October, arriving into the UK at 12.20am, but had been subject to several delays even before the toilet incident occurred.

Passengers were originally moved from one aeroplane to another before being offered 500 vouchers if they volunteered to leave the flight as the second plane was too small to accommodate all travellers, reports the Daily Mail.

One passenger, who wished to remain anonymous, added that easyJet had to remove 10 people from the plane, which caused lots of arguing, and that literally took two hours.

Once they got those 10 people off, the plane was heavy because we were at full capacity. So then they were randomly putting our luggage on other peoples flights to Gatwick, and that took hours again.

Following the ordeal, easyJet was reportedly unable to provide hotel rooms for all passengers. A statement on the airlines website regarding the flight tracking allegedly said: Due to extremely high demand, unfortunately were unable to find hotel rooms in the area.

If you need a hotel room and are able to make your own arrangements, well refund the cost of a reasonably priced room, meals and travel costs to and from your hotel.

In this case we ask that you look for accommodation which is about three stars or equivalent.

A spokesperson for easyJet told The Independent: EasyJet can confirm that flight EZY8054 from Tenerife to London Gatwick on 15 October was initially delayed while some bags were offloaded to be carried on the next available flight for safety reasons, due to the aircraft being overweight.

The flight was subsequently delayed overnight due to the aircraft requiring additional cleaning. We provided hotel accommodation for all customers however as there was limited nearby hotel availability in the area we also advised any customers who booked their own that they will be reimbursed.

The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is easyJets highest priority and while this was outside of our control we would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused.
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After Hamas attacks in southern Israel swiftly escalated and culminated in war, concerns over the safety of travel to Israel and countries in the surrounding region haven risen.

Jordan, a popular winter sun destination for tourists, shares its northern border with both Israel and Syria, and travellers with trips booked may be questioning the wisdom of holidaying there amid the conflict.

Heres the latest travel advice for Jordan, plus all the key questions and answers.

What does the Foreign Office say?

On Tuesday the Foreign Office (FCDO) strengthened its stance on travel to Jordan updating its guidance to read: The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to within 3km of Jordans border with Syria.

Crossings from Jordan to Israel may also be closed at short notice as a result of the conflict in southern Israel close to the border with Gaza.

The Foreign Office says the situation in Syria is fragile and security threats in the form of instability or terrorist activity could arise with little or no notice, advising against all travel to the country.

What do the Jordan authorities say?

The Jordan Tourism Board said in a statement: In light of the recent developments in Gaza, we want to emphasise that Jordan continues to be a safe and welcoming destination for tourists from around the world.

Our commitment to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of all visitors remains unwavering. We want to reassure everyone that Jordans borders are open to tourists, and we are eager to share our extraordinary experiences with the world.

We understand that tensions around the world can raise concerns, but we believe in the power of travel to foster understanding and build bridges between nations.

As always, the Jordan Tourism Board is here to assist and support tourists in making the most of their visit.

Jordans deputy Prime Minister and minister of foreign affairs, Ayman Al-Safadi, stressed the need to stop the dangerous escalation in Gaza and its surroundings and highlighted the ongoing Jordanian effort to launch immediate international action to stop the escalation, the necessity of protecting civilians and respecting international humanitarian laws.

Al-Safadi said that the need to protect civilians, whose killings are condemned by international laws, fuelled Jordanian efforts to stop the escalation and end the war on Gaza, in order to avoid their repercussions on the entire region.

Are Jordan flights continuing?

Yes. Queen Alia International Airport, south of Amman remains operational  as does King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, Jordans southernmost point.

The main airlines that fly from the UK to Jordan include British Airways, easyJet, Tui, Royal Jordanian and Wizz Air out of London Heathrow, London Gatwick and London Luton.

In 2021, Jordan and Israel reached a historic agreement to open up the Jordan-Israel air corridor and allow flights that previously flew around Israel to cross over into each countrys airspace, cutting flight times from the west.

An international aviation group, OpsGroup warns: Lessons learned regarding civil operations in conflict zones over the last nine years since MH17 need to be applied. The risk of a passenger aircraft becoming a casualty of this war is high.

What if I have booked a package holiday to Jordan?

Travellers who have booked package holidays to Jordans new no go zone as advised by the FCDO can cancel without penalty for a full refund, although the main tourist spots are a fair distance from here anyway.

Outside of the 3km radius between Jordans northern border and Syria, the conditions for cancelling your trip will be dependent on your holiday provider, so its best to contact them if youre looking to postpone. There is no obligation for companies to refund you if you want to cancel and you will not be able to claim on travel insurance due to safety concerns unless FCDO advice changes.
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Manchester airport, one of the three busiest in the UK, halted flights on Tuesday evening while police investigated a bomb threat made towards an Emirates flight from Dubai.

The airlines Airbus A380 SuperJumbo touched down a few minutes late at 7.21 pm after a normal flight from the UAE hub.

At the same time, Greater Manchester Police were made aware of an email claiming there was a suspicious package on the aircraft.

A police spokesperson said: The aircraft had landed at Manchester airport and was held for further assessment.

While the plane was held on the apron, airfield activities stopped  with three incoming flights diverted to nearby airports.

A British Airways arrival from London Heathrow and an easyJet flight from Palma de Mallorca both diverted to Liverpool.

Jet2s arrival from Paphos in Cyprus diverted to Leeds Bradford, the airlines main base.

The closure lasted 34 minutes. The Greater Manchester Police spokesperson later said: Searches and security checks have been completed, and no suspicious items have so far been found.

Passengers have now disembarked the aircraft with extra officers on hand to answer any questions and offer visible reassurance.

No arrests have been made at this stage.

Dur to the incident the return flight to Dubai, EK20, left two-and-a-half hours behind schedule  with some of the estimated 500 passengers on board expected to miss connections at the Emirates hub as a result.

An Emirates spokesperson said the incoming flight, EK19, was subjected to additional security checks upon arrival.

The statement continued: Emirates crew and ground teams co-operated fully with the authorities. After the local authorities cleared the aircraft, it proceeded to the gate where passengers disembarked as normal.

Last Thursday, 12 October, a Kenya Airways jet flying from Nairobi to London Heathrow was diverted to Stansted airport, escorted by RAF Typhoon fighter aircraft, after a bomb threat was made to the airlines headquarters. Nothing suspicious was found.
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Following the outbreak of war in Israel, anxieties in bordering countries have been rising amid fears the fighting will spread to neighbouring territories.

Lebanon shares a border with Israel to the south, and the historic tensions between the two are threatening to flare up again, with Hezbollah  a Lebanese militant group  an important component in the potential escalation of the conflict.

On 18 October, AP reported that militants were killed on the Israeli-Lebanese border, while the US later warned citizens not to travel to Lebanon after the US embassy in Beirut was set on fire by protesters in the wake of President Bidens visit to Israel.

Here is the latest information on whether the country remains safe for foreign travellers.

Where is Lebanon?

open image in gallery Lebanon sits on the Mediterranean Sea, sharing the border with Israel to the south (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Lebanon sits to the north of Israel, bordering Syria to the north and the east. The capital, Beirut, sits along the Mediterranean Sea, and was a target of Israeli bombings during the Lebanon War in 2006.

Skirmishes between Israel and militant groups have so far been limited to areas around the border in the south, with an anti-tank missile shot from Lebanon landing in the northern Israeli town of Metula on the morning of 17 October.

What does the Foreign Office say?

The latest update from the Foreign Office (FCDO), dated 18 October, states that You are advised against all travel to the whole of Lebanon. If you are currently in Lebanon, we encourage you to leave now while commercial options remain available.

British nationals in Lebanon should register their presence with the FCDO through the link in Travel Advice. The website also states that if your passport contains an Israeli stamp, you may be refused entry to Lebanon even if you hold a valid Lebanese visa.

If you are a British national currently in Lebanon, the FCDO urges you to register your presence in the country in order to provide updates.

As recently as 18 October, the official advice had been to avoid all but essential travel to much of the country, but this has changed in the wake of intensifying clashes and unrest. The FCDO states that events in Lebanon are fast moving. The situation has potential to deteriorate quickly and with no warning.

Commercial routes out of Lebanon could be severely disrupted or cancelled at short notice and roads across the country could be closed.

Regarding the conflict in Israel specifically, it says: [The] FCDO advises against all travel to Lebanon due to risks associated with the conflict between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. There are ongoing mortar, artillery exchanges and airstrikes in South Lebanon, on the border with Israel. Tensions are high and events could escalate with little warning, which could affect or limit exit routes out of Lebanon.

There is also a risk of civil unrest. There have been large protests outside embassies, including outside the US and French embassies on 17 October. Further protests are expected. British Nationals should exercise caution and avoid areas where demonstrations may be held.

Additional security risks are present in Lebanon due to the threat of terrorism and kidnapping, with groups mainly operating in Tripoli, areas close to the Syrian border (such as around Hermel and Aarsal), Palestinian refugee camps and the southern suburbs of Beirut. The FCDO states that terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Lebanon, adding that violence may occur between security forces, protesters and supporters of political groups.

What about flights to and from Lebanon?

Flights from the UK to Lebanon are currently operating as normal.

Will my insurance be invalid if I travel to Lebanon?

Anyone who chooses to travel to Lebanon will immediately have their travel insurance invalidated unless they have a specialist policy, as the FCDO advises against all travel to the country.

The conditions for cancelling your trip will be dependent on your provider, though if you have a trip already booked to Lebanon, you should be able to cancel and make an insurance claim as the Foreign Office is now advising against all travel there.

If already in Lebanon, contact your airline and insurance provider to find out the conditions of travelling home early.
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United Airlines says that it will start boarding passengers in economy class with window seats first starting next week, a move that will speed up boarding times for flights.

The airline said in an internal memo that it will implement the plan on 26 October. The plan, known as WILMA, for window, middle and aisle, was tested at four domestic locations and one hub.

United said that its shown to save up to two minutes of boarding time.

The change will begin with passengers in Group 4. Those with window seats will board first, followed by those with middle seats and then those with aisle seats.

United said that multiple customers on the same economy reservation, such as families, will be allowed to board their flight together.

The plan will be implemented on domestic flights and some international flights.

Individuals in first class and business class will see no change in their boarding process. There's also no change for the pre-boarding group that includes travelers with disabilities, unaccompanied minors, active-duty military and families traveling with children that are 2 years old or younger.

On Tuesday United reported that it it earned $1.14bn in the vacation-heavy third quarter, but the airline forecast weaker profit the rest of the year due to surging jet fuel prices and the suspension of flights to Tel Aviv during the Israel-Hamas war.

United said its fourth-quarter adjusted profit would be between $1.50 and $1.80 per share, short of Wall Street's expectations for $2.09 per share.

The high end of the United forecast assumes that the airline will resume Tel Aviv flights next month, while the low end assumes no more flights this year. United and many other airlines halted the flights shortly after Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October.

Shares of United Airlines Holdings Inc. fell more than 5% before the market open on Wednesday.
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It was late afternoon in the South African bush and before us lay a moment of exquisite possibilities. From our vantage point on the open safari vehicle, we could see a giraffe grazing on an acacia tree, unaware of the danger lurking. Five lions  a huge male and four females  lay downwind in the long grass, snoozing in the setting sun. We waited. They flicked their tales and rolled over.

But night was coming  and with it the possibility of the hunt. I felt awed, expectant. One lioness sniffed the air, then she was up. The others rose silently and began to follow. By now the giraffe had melted away but Doc Themba, our game ranger, nursed our vehicle along, keeping us in the front row of this unscripted drama. Suddenly, not three metres from the lead lion, a rabbit hiding in the grass leapt up. The lion lurched forward to kill it but then decided it was too much effort for too little reward.

Thats the magic of the bush  you never know where the drama will come from. We trailed the lions for 45 thrilling minutes, then reluctantly headed back to camp, where preparations for dinner were underway.

Spotted: Cheetahs during a game drive (David Cohen)

My wife and I had booked in that afternoon to Little Bush Camp, one of four exclusive lodges owned by Sabi Sabi, situated in the Sabi Sand Private Game Reserve, which shares an unfenced border with the Kruger National Park. Our lodge was intimate, with just six rooms, each embedded into the bush and furnished with an understated yet luxurious design and an outdoor hot tub on a balcony that overlooked a dry river bed.

Read more on safari travel:

These days, high-end private lodges with their eye-watering prices attract mostly international visitors who want to see the Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo) and enjoy a superbly curated experience with sumptuous rooms, exquisite cuisine and every need anticipated.

Its a competitive market and, to differentiate themselves, lodges often make claims to give them an edge with tour operators  about community support or environmental sustainability  that can be hard to verify. In Sabi Sabis case, it was their chef mentorship programme and financial support of three villages just outside the reserve that attracted my attention.

Game ranger Doc Themba guides guests to the best animal sightings (David Cohen)

Group executive chef Wilfred Mtshali oversees all 45 chefs employed by Sabi Sabi, but eight years ago, he went to the owners with a proposition. Wilfred, 53, had been dismayed by the rampant unemployment he saw in Huntington, a village of 14,000 people where 60 per cent of residents were out of work.

I saw a lot of youths doing nothing, some with alcohol in hand, Wilfred said. I remembered my grandmother who woke me every day at 5am to cook sour porridge before school and every day after school she would teach me new dishes. I looked at these youths who looked lost and remembered how hard it had been for me even with such an inspirational grandmother and I thought, can I help them start a career?

That was the beginning of the Sabi Sabi one-year chef mentorship programme which now takes 10 trainees annually and has so far had 75 graduates. Trainees get free food, accommodation, chef outfits, training, mentoring and free travel to Johannesburg where they attend a South African Chefs Association course on the basics of cooking. The vast majority have gone on to get jobs as chefs or in hospitality at Sabi Sabi, other high-end game lodges or at big city hotels.

I looked at these youths who looked lost and remembered how hard it had been for me even with such an inspirational grandmother and I thought, can I help them start a career? Wilfred Mtshali, Sabi Sabi executive chef

Dzunisani Lubisi, 25, trainee chef at Little Bush Camp, said she joined after working in a local mortuary and being desperate to leave. I love to cook and am always googling recipes so I applied, she said. I have learned to cook different soups, risotto, chocolate fondant and malva pudding. This is a big opportunity for me. One day I want to open my own restaurant.

Freedom Masinga, 33, a 2016 trainee who is now chef de partie at Little Bush Camp, said the scheme changed his life. I have been fully employed both here and at other lodges since I trained here, he said.

Wilfred said Dzunisani was passionate and earmarked to become a top chef and that Freedom was the coolest guy and very focused. But what I am most proud of, he added, is that for each of these trainees who now has a career, they are supporting up to 10 family members, so our programme is lifting the whole community.

Guests track lions on their evening hunt (David Cohen)

The food, international-style cuisine with a South African twist, is inventive and delicious, especially when eaten around a fire under the stars. Particularly memorable was the tasty barramundi (Asian sea bass), cooked with rice, pea puree, garlic, coriander and Romesco sauce, and the morish watermelon conserve which accompanied the cheese and biscuits before the afternoon game drive.

Over two days we saw the magnificent Big Five and more. Rangers are in touch with each other by radio and can go off-road, which you cant do in Kruger, so visitors are more likely to get close to big cats. A highlight was when we tracked down a herd of buffalo; suddenly our tracker, Patrick Nyalungu, heard impala alarm-calling, the signal that they had spotted a predator. We headed off in hot pursuit and came upon a cheetah catching its breath. A rare sighting and one that had Doc punching the air, exclaiming to Patrick, Still the A team!, before radioing in the sighting.

For a change of pace, we did a morning walking safari where Doc showed us some medicinal and alternative uses of local flora, such as Devils Claw, which lavers like soap when you add water and rub it softly into your hands.

This is a big opportunity for me. One day I want to open my own restaurant Dzunisani Lubisi, trainee chef

We also took the community tour along dirt roads to Huntington village and saw the difference the Sabi Sabi Foundation has made, donating, they said, around 200,000 to help fund a digital learning centre for schoolchildren and a project supporting HIV orphans, as well as 65,000 to build a well last year that has provided clean water to every street in Huntington. A village elder told us: The government gave us electricity but until last year we had never had clean water. Its been a game changer.

The bush is all-encompassing  you leave the outside world behind and enter its simple rhythm of game drives, eating, waking early, sleeping early. Its intensely relaxing and gut-wrenchingly exciting. Just walking to your room at night, escorted by a guide with a gun, is an adventure.

Group executive chef Wilfred Mtshali set up the mentorship programme (David Cohen)

Theres a resident leopard born under room one that was recently seen strolling through reception, our guide said. We had seen a leopard on our game drive that morning, but in the middle of the night, I found myself on the deck, sweeping the river bed with my torch beams, expectant. I wanted to see that leopard. I never did; but the hope was reward enough.

Travel essentials

Getting there

To get there: Fly 11 hours to Johannesburg (BA from 630), then Airlink 55 minutes to Skukuza (250) followed by a one-hour transfer (31pp) through the Kruger National Park in an open vehicle. Alternatively, hire a car from Johannesburg and drive for six hours.

Staying there

Little Bush Camp costs 800 per person per night sharing, including a morning and evening game drive, an environmental awareness walking safari and three meals a day including alcohol. A tour of a nearby village can be arranged for 80pp. Children under four stay free and children under 13 pay up to 350 each.

Read our best Cape Town hotel reviews
A rural North Platte man pleaded guilty Monday in Lincoln County District Court to two counts of felony abandonment or cruel neglect of livestock.

Matthew J. Mikoloyck, 42, will be sentenced in December. In exchange for his plea, eight other counts of animal cruelty were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled.

Earlier this month, Larry Mikoloyck, 75, the father of Matthew Mikoloyck, pleaded guilty to five counts of misdemeanor attempted abandonment or cruel neglect of livestock. As part of that plea deal, five other animal abuse charges were dropped.

Larry Mikoloyck was sentenced to 18 months probation. He was also ordered not to have any non-domesticated animals in his custody.

According to an affidavit filed in Lincoln County, deputies searched the mens property at 4908 N. Homestead Road in February and found over 150 dead cattle.

Deceased cattle were found in the same pastures where live cattle were housed and fed, according to the affidavit. So many dead cattle were piled up in one area that they were too numerous to count.

Authorities seized more than 1,000 bulls, cows and calves from the farmstead. The animals were taken to the North Platte Sale Barn for inspection by a veterinarian. Residents in Lincoln and Logan Counties assisted with the effort.

Numerous cattle had to be put down on scene as they were very sick, injured and dying, according to a statement from the Lincoln County Sheriffs Office.

Deputies noted there was little food and not enough water to sustain most of the herd, according to the Lincoln County Sheriffs Office, which had been investigating the Mikoloycks for several weeks with the assistance of the Nebraska Brand Committee and the Nebraska State Patrol. The Logan and Thomas County Sheriffs Offices also assisted in the investigation.

Top Journal Star photos for October 2023
Robert Irwin fought back tears as he revealed he had achieved an incredible conservation milestone that his late father contributed to.

The conservationist, 19, was filmed releasing a baby Elseya Irwini turtle into its new enclosure at the Irwin Zoo on the Sunshine Coast, Australia.

His late father Steve Irwin first discovered the freshwater turtle species in the late 90s and it was named in his honour.

Robert said: This is the first-ever Elseya Irwini turtle ever hatched for any zoological facility anywhere in the world.

Dad originally discovered this species in the wild and, for the first time, we have a little baby and hes going to get his first swim in a brand new pond.

The wildlife enthusiast then releases the newborn reptile into the water where it happily swims away.

Dad would be stoked, we did it, Robert adds.
A California man was arrested after he allegedly detonated an explosive inside a teddy bear in front of a business in San Bernardino, leading authorities to discover weapons and drugs at his home.

The San Bernardino Police Department shared CCTV footage of the explosion on social media on Tuesday 17 October.

In the video, a man can be seen placing the teddy bear in a car park, before getting back into his vehicle as it explodes.

After the incident, detectives executed a search warrant at the suspects home and he was arrested on multiple felony counts.

Police recovered a ghost gun, ammunition, more than 1kg of methamphetamine, illegal fireworks, a ballistic vest and cash.
Staff at a Gaza hospital ran for shelter when "huge bombardments" of rocket fire struck nearby on Wednesday 18 October.

Footage obtained from the Palestine Red Crescent shows a nearby building to Al-Quds hospital being struck.

According to the Red Crescent, a building only 100 metres from the hospital located in Gaza City.

The strike occurred one day after another hospital was hit by a projectile, an incident in which "hundreds" of people were killed according to the Gaza health ministry.

Israel denied involvement in that attack, blaming an "errant rocket" from militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Rishi Sunak has pledged aid to Israel as he mourns the loss of civilians of every faith killed in the Middle East conflict.

Speaking at a press conference in Israel on Thursday, Mr Sunak said: We have seen the scenes over the past day that have shocked all of us, particularly at the hospital and we mourn the loss of every innocent life  civilians of every faith, every nationality who have been killed.

And we also recognise that the Palestinian people are victims of Hamas too.

And that is why I welcome your decision yesterday that you took to ensure that routes into Gaza will be opened for humanitarian aid to enter.
A Catholic nun tackled a climate activist to the ground during a protest in a French town on Monday, 16 October.

Protesters gathered in Saint-Pierre-de-Colombier, a village in the Bourges Valley village, to voice their opposition to plans to build a pilgrim centre.

Environmental activists have clashed with the Famille Missionnaire de Notre-Dame (Missionary Family of Our Lady) in the dispute.

Footage shows a nun running at a protester who was holding pipes before pushing him to the ground.

The incident came after nuns from the group formed a human chain around a digger to stop protesters from chaining themselves to the machinery.
Police investigating a possible break-in at a restaurant in Oklahoma found a squatter who had been sleeping in the ceiling.

Bodycam footage from Normal Police shows officers attending the scene at Braum's near Porter and Robinson just after 6am on 9 September.

"Man, I dont know how hes laying up there like that," an officer remarks.

Workers told police they arrived to open the premises when they saw ceiling tiles broken and lying on the floor.

Firefighters used a ladder to access the ceiling before the man was eventually brought down.
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A rare red weather alert warning of a risk to life has been issued for parts of Britain as Storm Babet sweeps in from the Atlantic with strong winds and torrential rain.

The Met Office has issued an amber weather warning for parts of eastern Scotland on Thursday, while yellow warnings for rain cover eastern England and the rest of Scotland on Friday.

The red warning states there is danger to life from fast flowing or deep floodwater in Aberdeenshire and Angus, with extensive flooding and road closures also expected.

It is the first red warning for rain issued in Britain since Storm Dennis in February 2020, and covers from just north of Dundee up towards Aberdeen, and inland towards Balmoral. It begins at 6pm on Thursday and is active until midday on Friday.

Storm Babet will last until Saturday, the Met Office said, and is expected to cause flooding, power cuts and travel disruption.

It has already caused flooding on roads in Ireland. Rain warnings for every county in the Republic of Ireland were in place overnight.

Chief meteorologist Jason Kelly said: "Confidence has increased in the chances of considerable impacts from rainfall in parts of the east of Scotland from Storm Babet, which has resulted in the escalation to the red warning.

One hundred to 150mm of rain is expected to fall quite widely within the warning period, with some locations likely to see 200-250mm, which is expected to cause considerable impacts, with flooding likely.

He continued: Storm Babet will track gradually northwards in the coming days, and although the most significant impacts are expected within the red and amber warning areas, there will still be wider impacts for much of the UK from this wind and rain.

David Morgan, flood duty manager for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, urged people in the affected areas to check for flood updates in the coming days.

He said: Impacts from surface water and rivers are likely, and with catchments saturated from recent heavy rain and flooding, were urging people to be prepared for potential flooding.

Scotrail has already announced the cancellation of train services, and police have warned drivers not to travel.
Bar Eile on the corner of Baggot Street Upper and Mespil Road in Dublin 4

Two southside Dublin pubs have come to the market in recent days through estate agent Lisney.

The most valuable of them is Bar Eile on the corner of Baggot Street Upper and Mespil Road in Dublin 4, which has a price guide in excess of 2m.

Formerly known as The Wellington, in 2021 it was bought for about 2.3m by investment group Dunmore which also owns Walters pub in Dun Laoghaire and is believed to be refocusing its business.

The property extends to over 320 sqm and has bars at ground, basement and first floor levels. With the benefit of Dublins prime office market, the Aviva Stadium and the RDS on its doorstep, the area boasts a cluster of hospitality businesses.

Further south, Ryans Arbour House in Dundrum has a 1.75m-plus guide price. It stands on a 0.37-acre site with neighbourhood centre zoning and also looks set to benefit from its proximity to the Central Mental Hospital where the Land Development Agency has permission to develop 977 residential units. It is also close to Windy Arbour Luas stop. It is being sold by the Ryan family who also own Ryans pub in Dundrum village.

Ryans Arbour House in Dundrum, Dublin

The property is currently laid out with public bar and lounge bar to ground floor level, former residence to first floor and stores to basement level complemented by on-site car parking.

While a feasibility study indicates potential for an 18-unit residential scheme on the site, the agent says it may have capacity for a much higher density.

Lisney has set deadlines for full and final offers for Bar Eile on November 9 and Ryans on November 10, 2023.
The deal is the latest in a series of major investments in UK renewables

The ESB has agreed a deal with French energy giant EDF to develop a major 36 turbine wind farm in Scotland.

Once completed, the 200 megawatt Stornoway wind farm will be able to supply enough power for 115,000 homes, equivalent to a small city.

The ESB will have a 50:50 share in the project with EDF Renewables, a wholly-owned subsidiary of EDF.

The two firms will co-own Lewis Wind Power, the body which has been established for the Stornoway wind farm project.

The Irish organisation acquired the 50pc stake from Wood, the British engineering giant, which had been involved in the development of the project.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The onshore wind project will be located to the west of Stornoway, the main town on the Isle of Lewis, the largest of Scotlands Western Isles.

Planning permission for the 36 turbine project was granted in 2022. A timeline is not yet in place for when the project could be operational.

The deal comes as the ESB looks to expand its operations in the UK. In May, the Irish organisation took a 24.5pc stake in two offshore wind farms being developed by Canadas Northland Power.

The two developments, also located off the coast of Scotland, are expected to generate a combined 2.4GW of power when they become operational some time around the end of the decade.

The ESB has also partnered with EDF previously, with the two organisations the joint developers behind the Neart Na Gaoithe offshore wind farm.

A planning application for the 450MW development, which is located off the eastern Scottish coast, was first submitted by EDF in 2012. However, development was delayed for several years following an appeal by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

This appeal was dismissed in 2017. The project is currently under construction and is due to be completed in 2024.

In a statement, the ESB said: Over the next 12 to 24 months, bird surveys will begin to be carried out as Lewis Wind Power progresses towards preparing the [Stornoway] site for construction.

David Farrell, the head of onshore development at ESB, said the support of local communities was a key influence in its decision to partner with EDF on the project.

Scotland is very progressive in its policies to address climate change and ESB is delighted to continue to invest in renewable energy in Scotland through this acquisition, he said.

Darren Cuming, the head of onshore development for EDF Renewables, said the two companies are eager to press ahead with the Stornoway wind farm.

The local community will start to see activity ramping up over the next few years as we progress to the construction phase of the wind farm, he said.

The companies said once the wind farm is operational, nearly 1m (1.15m) will be available annually for local community projects through a dedicated benefit fund.

The ESB is also investing significantly in Irish wind energy projects. The firm has partnered with state forestry body Coillte to deliver 1GW of onshore wind by 2030. It is also working with Danish energy giant rsted to deliver 5GW of offshore wind by the end of the decade.
Revenues at the firm that operates the former Regency hotel in Dublin last year almost doubled to 14.3m as the re-branded Bonnington hotel recovered from the business impact of Covid-19.

Notoriously, the Regency hotel in Dublins Whitehall area was the scene of the gangland murder of David Byrne in February 2016 that sparked a murderous feud between the Kinahan and Hutch organised crime groups.

The hotel subsequently received a net insurance pay-out of 150,000 as a result of the gangland shooting and its impact on the hotel business.

Owners of the hotel, the McGettigan family, rebranded the hotel as the Bonnington and now, new accounts filed by the family-owned Liffeyfield Ltd show the business recorded pre-tax profits of 740,161 last year.

This followed a pre-tax loss of 696,049 in 2021  a positive swing of 1.43m. Revenues increased by 84pc from 7.78m to 14.3m.

Liffeyfield last year recorded operating profits of 2.25m  a 226pc increase on the operating profit of 690,937 in 2021.

The revenues for Liffeyfield also include the revenues of a Centra convenience store outlet. A breakdown of revenues show that accommodation and room hire at the Bonnington last year almost tripled from 3m to 8.3m while food sales doubled from 995,012 to 1.84m. Beverage sales increased from 808,937 to 1m. Leisure membership increased from 253,767 to 485,561.

Revenues at the Centra and gallery outlet increased from 2.2m to 2.4m. The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of 1.46m and interest payments of 1.5m.

Numbers employed last year decreased from 49 to 47 and staff costs increased sharply from 1.05m to 3.33m. Shareholder funds totalled 1.33m and cash funds increased from 512,722 to 1.64m. The directors of the company are listed as James McGettigan, Dennis McGettigan and James J McGettigan, while Brian McGettigan resigned from the board last October.

Pay to directors last year increased to 164,652 which was made up of remuneration of 95,750 and pension contributions of 68,902.

The firms insurance costs increased from 180,566 to 268,516 while the hotel and retail firms rates bill increased sharply from 27,717 to 143,232.

The companys legal and professional costs increased from 148,308 to 363,633.
A board member on the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District is suing her colleagues in federal court for leveling sanctions against her after she criticized the behavior of another director earlier this year.

Melissa Temple, who won election to represent eastern Norfolk on the 15-member board in 2022, was removed from her subcommittee assignments and barred from being reimbursed for travel expenses by a majority of the board in August.

On Tuesday, Temple sued the board in U.S. District Court in Lincoln for violating her First Amendment right to free speech, claiming that the resolution adopted by the board prevents her from doing her duties as a duly-elected board member.

I cant fully do my job or advocate for the public good or protect my constituents if my free speech is sanctioned, Temple said in a phone interview.

The lawsuit, the first filed by the Nebraska College of Laws First Amendment Clinic, also seeks a preliminary injunction to suspend the punishments against Temple until the case is resolved.

According to the complaint, Temple said she witnessed another member of the Board of Directors  Scott Clausen  interrupt and make condescending comments to a local business executive during the public comment portion of the boards meeting.

Clausens comments were allegedly made after an email from the boards chairman asked directors to listen respectfully when the public is able to address the board.

The lawsuit also accuses Clausen of making derogatory remarks about Temple in the presence of other directors and staff during a public board meeting, including saying she was not smart enough to be on a proposed committee.

Clausen also allegedly asked why the board was concerned about nitrates in drinking water  a growing public health concern in Nebraska and other agricultural states  if it was just affecting women and children.

Temple filed a formal complaint against Clausen with the board chairman in line with the NRDs bylaws, and later spoke to reporters who had obtained a copy of the document through a public records request.

An investigation into the complaint by the boards executive committee ended inconclusively, and a short time later, Clausen filed his own complaint against Temple claiming her allegations against him were false and part of an effort to defame him, the lawsuit states.

While Clausens complaint was being investigated, Temple told local media outlets she believed the process was biased and unfair and would result in a loss of accountability for the board.

In July, the executive committee ended its investigation with a finding that Temple had violated the code of decorum by failing to serve as a model of leadership and civility by sharing details of the investigation, including accusations of misogyny against other directors.

After the investigation, the board later scheduled a vote on four proposed sanctions  public reprimand, removal from all subcommittees for a year, suspension of the right to make motions for a year, and barring reimbursement for NRD-related travel  for a special meeting in August when Temple was going to be absent.

More than 60 people spoke during the special meeting in support of Temple, asking directors not to censure her. Following a closed session, the board approved a resolution with three of the four sanctions. The penalty that would have prevented Temple from making motions for a year was removed.

The punishments leveled at Temple prevent her from participating in much of the boards work, according to the lawsuit, which states a significant amount of Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District business takes place at the subcommittee level.

Temples attorneys cite a 2022 case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court that found a member of a community college board had his First Amendment rights violated when a majority of the board adopted a resolution to censure him.

Justices found the sanctions imposed by the board violated the members First Amendment rights by preventing him from doing his job and denying him any privilege of office.

The complaint also says that stripping Temple of her ability to seek NRD-related travel expenses ran counter to state law, which says board members shall be reimbursed for any costs incurred through their duties.

Temple said that action has prevented her from obtaining reimbursement to the Nebraska Natural Resource Districts annual conference in September, and will prevent her from attending conferences and trainings on behalf of her constituents and the district.

The lawsuit accuses the Lower Norfolk Natural Resources District of retaliating against Temple for engaging in protected speech, both in trying to address her concerns internally as well as in speaking about them publicly.

Like all elected officials, Temple has a right to speak freely on issues of governmental policy and concern, and her decision to speak with the Norfolk Daily News is therefore protected activity under the First Amendment, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the NRDs actions violated Temples First Amendment rights, as well as her rights to due process and equal protection under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

It also seeks a declaration that the actions taken at the special board meeting in August are void, an injunction against the sanctions from being enforced, as well as damages and attorney's fees.

I would like my rights as an elected official to be restored, Temple said. I want to be a fully functional board member, I want the voice of my constituents to be represented fully.

Sydney Hayes, assistant director of the First Amendment Clinic at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the case was a good candidate to become the student-run law firms first effort.

The right to criticize public officials is so woven into the fabric of democracy and the First Amendment, and the fact that Director Temple was sanctioned for criticizing one of her colleagues  that really is the only reason she was sanctioned  is why we wanted to pursue this case, Hayes said.

Daniel Gutman, the director of the clinic, said that although the clinic filed the lawsuit and represents Temple, students wont join the law clinic until January. At that time, the third-year students will pick up and argue the case.

This is a core First Amendment issue and were a First Amendment Clinic, Gutman said. When this case came to us, it was important that we advocate for it.

Top Journal Star photos for October 2023
The crypto-trading firm, which employs about 100 people from its Dublin office, said Ireland won out over other EU countries because of sophisticated regulation

Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal said the company has been encouraged by discussions in Europe on investment. Photo: Ting Shen/Bloomberg 

Coinbase, the cryptocurrency-trading firm, says Ireland will be its new regulatory and operational hub for Europe.

The company, which employs around 100 people here, will use its Dublin office to run much of its affairs following Europes introduction of the new Markets In Crypto Assets (Mica) legislation which establishes rules in handling cryptocurrencies.

At present, the Irish office passports services around Europe, where Coinbase has a number of other offices.

Speaking to the Irish Independent, Coinbases chief legal officer Paul Grewal said Ireland was chosen for its stable political environment for technology innovation and its respected regulators.

We ran a very thorough process, looking at many different options across the 27 member states, and Ireland came out on top, he said.

It was important for us to be in a jurisdiction that is quite familiar and comfortable with both financial services and technology because crypto lies at that intersection.

He said the move should lead to an uplift in the Irish offices employment over time.

You're going to see further investment here in Ireland, he said. We have strong teams here that focus on trust, safety and technology and so I fully expect that we're going to continue to see further investments as we go forward.

Coinbase shed almost half of its Irish employees during the recent tech layoffs, but remains the largest crypto-trading company operating in the country.

Earlier this week, it announced that Germany would become a regional talent hub. The company is also set to make announcements in Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

Conditions for crypto-sector firms remain difficult. The price of big crypto coins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum is still significantly lower than highs earlier this year.

Coinbase also faces a potentially damaging court case taken by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which charged Coinbase with operating its crypto asset trading platform as an unregistered national securities exchange, broker and clearing agency.

Coinbase says it is confident of winning the case and accused the SEC of misinterpreting US law and embarking on a campaign against the crypto industry.

Mr Grewal said the SECs approach could lead to investment in crypto products and services leaving the US, with Ireland and the EU a likely beneficiary.

He said the migration of Web3 companies in cryptography away from the US to areas such as Europe was very real because of regulatory barriers put up in the US.

We're now seeing as many jobs coming online outside the United States as inside the US, he said.

Part of that is, of course, organic native growth here in Europe. But part of it is developers in the United States looking at this regulatory uncertainty and this hostility that we're facing in many parts of our [US] government and then deciding to go to a place where consumers and investors will be protected and where there's a healthy appreciation for what innovators can bring to the economy.

Mr Grewal said the Dublin office would now focus on its Mica application to the Central Bank of Ireland.
X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, began testing a $1-per-year subscription fee for new accounts on the web that want to post or interact with other users, saying the measure has the potential to reduce spam, automated bot accounts and manipulation of its service.

The test, called Not a Bot, rolled out in New Zealand and the Philippines, X said in a blog post on Tuesday.

New users who dont pay the fee wont be able to take certain actions on the site, including writing posts, liking, replying or bookmarking.

This will evaluate a potentially powerful measure to help us combat bots and spammers on X, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount, according to the blog post.

Within this test, existing users are not affected.

The San Francisco-based company has been on the hunt for new revenue sources since billionaire Elon Musks chaotic takeover last year, which saddled it with $13bn (12bn) in debt and drove away advertisers concerned about loosening content-safety rules.

X owes about $1.2bn in interest payments per year on its acquisition-related debt, Bloomberg earlier estimated. Analysts say advertising has fallen.

To reinvigorate growth, X plans to test three tiers of its premium service, and will launch additional features that could generate revenue such as shopping and payments, chief executive officer Linda Yaccarino told bankers earlier this month.

Xs premium plan, which currently costs $7.99 a month, would be split into tiers that would let the company charge customers different amounts depending on how many ads theyre shown.

New X users in the two test markets will have to subscribe to either what the company calls its Not a Bot programme or an X Premium tier, known for giving paying customers blue check marks, in order to write and interact with posts.

Social media sites have previously cited the Philippines as a hot spot for fake accounts.

Read for free, but $1/year to write, Mr Musk posted on X following the announcement.

Its the only way to fight bots without blocking real users.
Absolute tomfoolery: the colourful story of Britains last witch trial

How a chain-smoking Scottish mother of six was prosecuted as a threat to national security during World War II

Helen Duncan, nicknamed 'Hellish Nell'

Andrew Lynch Thu 19 Oct 2023 at 03:30







Winston Churchill was not amused to learn that some Britons thought the outcome of World War II could be influenced by a witch. On April 5, 1944, the prime minister read about a recent criminal trial at Londons Old Bailey and wrote a personal memo to home secretary Herbert Morrison.
In cinemas; Cert 15A

How much Scorsese is too much Scorsese? It depends, but Killers of the Flower Moon, the directors 27th narrative feature, works hard to find an answer. A masterful, monumental achievement in big-screen storytelling, this colossal, complex drama arms itself with the best cast money can buy.

Leonardo DiCaprio  completing his sixth Marty joint  leads the charge. Robert De Niro, signing off on his 10th Scorsese show, lends extraordinary support. Lily Gladstone, the tremendous, thoughtful soul of this enormous display, will almost certainly dominate next years awards season. A phenomenal line-up, but the big talking point here is that extravagant runtime.

At a backside-numbing three hours and 26 minutes, Killers of the Flower Moon is a bit of an endurance test. It doesnt always hit the back of the net. Scorseses film, brilliant though it may be, lacks the discipline and structure of his earlier works.

Killers Of The Flower Moon | Final Trailer

Taking its cue from David Granns non-fiction best-seller, Killers of the Flower Moon concerns a chilling, complicated chapter in American history. Sometimes, it moves like a Western; most of the time, it whistles the unmistakable tune of a classic Martin Scorsese gangster feature. Whatever the flavour, however it proceeds, contemporary cinemas finest storyteller delivers an experience like no other.

Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio) returns from World War I, dazed, distracted, a tad wobbly on his feet. His hometown looks different, and so his esteemed uncle, William King Hale (De Niro), fills in the blanks.

While Burkhart was away, the Osage people of Oklahoma discovered oil beneath their land. The money came pouring in, and by the late 1910s the Osage Nation has become one of the wealthiest in America and the area now attracts one too many white troublemakers  some of whom will do anything for a slice of the pie.

Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Killers of the Flower Moon'. Photo: Apple Studios

Hale is an important figure, admired and respected by everyone he encounters. He is a friend to the Native Americans, and so the last thing they might suspect him of doing is secretly orchestrating a vicious, violent campaign to erase the Osage bloodline. 

Across the county, Osage men and women are showing up dead. None of these deaths are being investigated  those who arent shot or beaten are said to have perished from a mysterious wasting disease. Clearly, something is amiss, and Hale is almost certainly the one pulling the strings.

Ernest isnt the sharpest tool in the box, and so his conniving uncle orders our frazzled protagonist to keep his nose clean. Eventually Ernest, working as a driver, crosses paths with an Osage woman named Mollie (Gladstone). Our boy is smitten  the feeling is mutual, and Hale encourages their inevitable union. You can see where this is going.

It takes about two hours for a watchful federal agent (Jesse Plemonss Tom White) to show up and begin his investigation into the murders. A long wait but, like Goodfellas or The Irishman, Scorseses film knows what its at. We dont need the good guys to tell us who the bad guys are. This isnt about the chase, or the catch.

Lily Gladstone and Martin Scorsese in 'Killers of the Flower Moon'. Photo: Apple Original Films

We are certain that someone, at some point, will slip up and that these wicked, wretched hoodlums will get whats coming to them. Its all about the busy lead-up  this is how the master operates and, with Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese opts for the epic scenic route.

Some patience is required, but the view alone is worth the admission price. Its a beautiful looking film, fabulously staged, crisply edited. A tad sluggish, perhaps, but slow Scorsese is better than no Scorsese, and Robbie Robertsons bluesy, percussive score keeps us on our toes.

Save for the odd misstep (see Brendan Fraser, dialling it up to 11 as a shouty southern lawyer), the performances are steady, controlled, exactly what this story requires. De Niro is especially good as a sneaky menace with a hollow conscience.

Members of the Native American tribe Osage Nation join Martin Scorsese's film premiere for 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

DiCaprio plays Ernest like a mopey child, all angry scowls and moody outbursts. Scorseses film, co-written with Eric Roth, isnt interested in making us laugh but sometimes, Ernest has other plans. Hes an unusual character, and Leo does what he can with the tools provided.

Gladstone is superb  as is Plemons, who damn-near steals the show as a quiet crime-solver who knows exactly whats going on. Oh, and the ending is something special. A ginormous film  but youll be glad you watched it.

Four stars
Action movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme has been confirmed as a guest on this Fridays Late Late Show.

The Universal Soldier actor will star on this weeks show as he is in Ireland launching his own Irish whiskey brand Old Oak with Derry native Kevin Carson.

Van Damme touched down in Belfast earlier this week to launch the drink, whose name is a tribute to County Derry.

It was also the perfect opportunity to combine two things with which I feel a close affinity, whiskey and its rich heritage and the charisma and warmth of Ireland and its people, Van Damme told The Irish News.

Patrick Kielty shows off martial arts skill as he reveals legendary Late Late Show guest

RTE announced the news with an online clip of Patrick Kielty doing his best martial artist impression before revealing an homage to the actor on the inside of his locker.

Van Damme, 63, known as the muscles from Brussels, is the first named guest of the Late Late Show since Patrick Kielty took over the reins of the long-running chat show from Ryan Tubridy this September.

Previously, RTE had named their guests in advance, but then elected to keep them a surprise until the show went live on air. Van Dammes announcement marks a departure from the move.

The Late Late Show is live on RTE One from 9:35pm.
Netflixs eight-part miniseries is a tough one to figure out  but is certainly worth sticking with

DS Hasan (Amaka Okafor) is one of the cops investigating the same case in different timelines. Photo: Netflix

Among the police officers trying to keep the peace is DS Hasan (Amaka Okafor), whos a Muslim woman of colour. She notices an Asian youth hiding behind a bin.

He has a gun and looks intent on shooting somebody. As she calls for back-up, he flees. Hasan gives chase and follows him up an alleyway, where she finds him standing over a dead body.

Its a man. Hes completely naked, has a strange tattoo on his arm and has been shot through the left eye. The kid with the gun escapes, but its obvious to Hasan that hes not the killer. He was terrified and plainly unused to handling guns.

And why is the dead man not wearing any clothes? Its almost as if he just dropped from the sky. At the moment, thats not a possibility Im ruling out.

Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Detective Charlie Whiteman in Bodies. (Photo: Cr. Matt Towers/Netflix  2023)

For any other thriller, all this would be a weird enough mystery to be going on with. Its not weird enough for eight-part miniseries Bodies (Netflix, from Thursday). Nowhere near weird enough, in fact.

Bodies, based on a graphic novel by the late Si Spencer, delivers a real gobsmacker of a twist in the opening episode.

The exact same body turns up in the exact same spot in the exact same London alley in 1890. And again in 1941. And again in 2053.

So, what we have is the same murder being investigated by four different detectives, none of whom knows about the others doing the same thing in different timelines  although this is likely to change.

The appearance in the 2023 scenes of a photograph from the 1890 timeline suggests the four strands will eventually link up.

But after the two episodes Ive watched, its impossible to say how or when this might happen, or indeed exactly what is going on.

Theres certainly a lot going on, though, and a lot to get your head around. In 1890, the cop on the case is DI Hillinghead (Kyle Soller), who may not be the strait-laced, happily married type he seems.

Bodies - Netflix series trailer

His contact with an inquisitive photojournalist called Henry Ashe (George Parker), whos part of the citys gay underground scene and has his own interest in the case, threatens to unsettle Hillingheads own buried sexuality  which would be dangerous for a copper in Victorian England.

There are also dangers for the 1941 protagonist, the dashing, super-confident DS Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd). Hes Jewish in a force rife with anti-Semitism.

That said, Whiteman is hardly beyond reproach himself. Hes on the take from mysterious paymasters, represented by a woman who calls him up with an instruction to pick up a body (yes, that body) and transport it somewhere in the boot of his car. The pick-up is interrupted by a German air raid.

This is fortuitous for Whiteman, in that it kills a hated colleague who knew he was corrupt and had been tailing him, and enables him to shift the blame onto the dead man.

He also has no compunction about cold-bloodedly murdering an associate in order to further cover up his tracks.

In 2053, the investigating detective is DC Maplewood (Shira Haas), whos saddled with the worst futuristic haircut since Gary Oldmans in The Fifth Element. Like the other detectives, Maplewood faces personal challenges.

She was born paraplegic due to a mysterious illness, but an electronic device attached to her spine enables her to walk. The price to be paid for this technology, however, is total obedience to the Executive, the oppressive group that rules this sterile and rather sinister future version of London.

There are echoes of Cloud Atlas in the way motifs, words and names recur in Bodies. Maplewoods implant is shaped like the dead mans tattoo. The expression Know you are loved turns up repeatedly.

The strongest connective tissue is Stephen Graham. In 2053, hes the Executives founder Elias Mannix, which is also the name of a troubled teen who features in the 2023 strand. In one of Ashes crime scene photos from 1890, Grahams/Eliass face is reflected in a window.

Theres a chance you might break your brain trying to figure the whole thing out. But its intriguing enough to make the risk worth taking.
Oscar winner George Clooney and other top Hollywood stars have offered $150 million (140m) to the SAG-AFTRA actors union as part of a proposal to end the actors' strike as it nears its 100th day.

Their offer, confirmed by Clooney's spokesperson on Thursday, would provide the union an extra $150 million over three years and could help fund improved health benefits.

Clooney also said top stars would only collect residuals once lower-paid actors received theirs.

"A lot of the top earners want to be part of the solution," Clooney told Hollywood publication Deadline, which first reported the news. "We think it's fair for us to pay more into the union."

A SAG-AFTRA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Members of SAG-AFTRA have been on strike since July. Talks between the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) broke down last week, dashing hopes for a quick resolution.

The strike, which will mark its 100th day on Saturday, has disrupted film and television production, leaving thousands of crew members without work as well as the actors.

Hollywood's film and television writers ratified a new, three-year contract earlier this month, ending their 148-day work stoppage.
It follows controversy over comments made by founder Paddy Cosgrave about Israel-Gaza crisis

Gillian Anderson had been due to talk about her business, G Spot

Actress Gillian Anderson has withdrawn from her role as a speaker at this years Web Summit in Portugal.

Tech giants Intel and Siemens have also confirmed to the Irish Independent that they have withdrawn from this year's event which is scheduled to take place next month.

It comes after Israel withdrew from the technology conference over an accusation by the events CEO, Paddy Cosgrave, that the country was engaging in war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this month, Web Summit bosses had announced on social media that the X-Files star would appear on stage to discuss her new business G Spot, which produces soft drinks.

Ms Anderson had been due to appear with the companys CEO Rebekah Hall to discuss G Spots journey.

Web Summit had promoted Gillian Anderson's appearance

But both the social media post and an image of Ms Anderson have been removed from Web Summits website and social platforms.

Asked why Ms Anderson and Ms Hall were no longer on the list of speakers, a spokesperson for G Spot said: We made the decision to withdraw because we recognise that the brands values do not align.

US chipmaker Intel, which employs several thousand people in Ireland, confirmed on Thursday that it was "withdrawing from Web Summit." A representative for the Santa Clara, California-based company, which has longstanding operations in Israel, declined to comment further.

Siemens, the German engineering and manufacturing company, is listed as one of the top sponsors of the summit scheduled for next month in Lisbon. But after having "reviewed the situation," the company will no longer be a partner or attend the event this year, a representative said.

Mr Cosgrave has since apologised for the remarks that also led a number of technology executives to withdraw from the conference, including key Silicon Valley figures such as Garry Tan, of start-up backer Y-Combinator, and Ravi Gupta of the Sequoia venture capital firm.

In his apology this week, Mr Cosgrave said: I understand that what I said, the timing of what I said, and the way it has been presented has caused profound hurt to many. To anyone who was hurt by my words, I apologise deeply.

What is needed at this time is compassion, and I did not convey that. My aim is and always has been to strive for peace.

The names of a number of other celebrities have also disappeared from the events line-up.

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, rapper LL Cool J and entrepreneur Steven Bartlett are no longer listed on the Web Summits online speakers page.

Asked whether the speakers were still participating at the event next month, a Web Summit spokesperson said they were unable to comment due to privacy and confidentiality purposes.

We are in discussion with a few speakers and companies about their presence at Web Summit, the spokesperson said.

We are excited to welcome 70,000 attendees from around the world with a full programme this November.

Speakers due to appear at the summit in Lisbon from November 13 to 16 include the comedian Amy Poehler, who is the headline guest for the event, and film director Neil Jordan.

Before issuing his apology, Mr Cosgrave had earlier characterised responses to his original remarks as an overreaction and he had insisted he would not relent.

But in the apology, Mr Cosgrave said: I unequivocally support Israels right to exist and to defend itself.

To reiterate what I said last week: I unreservedly condemn Hamas evil, disgusting and monstrous October 7 attack. I also call for the unconditional release of all hostages.

Mr Cosgrave said he still believed there was concern over Israel potentially committing war crimes.
Almost half of injured drivers involved in serious or fatal collisions were not tested for intoxicants in hospitals this year.

The statistic emerged as road safety campaign group Parc called for mandatory testing of all drivers involved in serious and fatal collisions for both alcohol and drugs.

Parc founder Susan Gray said it was alarming that so many drivers involved in serious collisions were not being tested.

The campaign group said it was deeply concerned that some drivers may be feigning injury at the scene of serious accidents in a bid to avoid being tested for alcohol and drug use by attending gardai.

Regulations were introduced under the Road Traffic Act 2011 for the mandatory testing of drivers involved in collisions involving either a motorist or pedestrian being injured. However, such roadside tests apply only to uninjured drivers.

In cases where drivers claim to be injured, tests are usually conducted not at the roadside but, due to medical care being prioritised, at the hospital where the motorist is admitted.

Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy has now obtained figures revealing that, for undisclosed reasons, testing of all drivers involved in serious collisions is not being conducted at hospitals.

Statistics revealed that, to date in 2023 (January to September), 16 of 31 injured drivers taken to hospital for treatment after serious traffic collisions were not tested for drugs or alcohol use.

This means just 48pc of the drivers involved in serious collisions had been tested.

The percentage for non-tests was 38pc in 2022 (17 drivers untested out of 45 hospital admissions).

The highest non-testing rate was in 2021, when 72pc of injured drivers were not assessed for alcohol and drug use after serious collisions (26 out of 36 drivers).

In 2020, 51pc of drivers were not tested in hospital (18 out of 35 admissions).

Parc warned that the Government needed to act urgently to mirror the successful testing rates in Northern Ireland.

We are deeply concerned, as the current law for testing drivers for drugs in hospitals is not working in many cases and research needs to be carried out to see where the weaknesses lie and to successfully address them, Ms Gray said.

Parc noted that, under regulations added to the Road Traffic Act in 2014, gardai have the power to direct a doctor or nurse to take a blood specimen from an injured driver involved in a serious collision who is incapacitated in hospital.

This sample can subsequently be subjected to testing for the presence of intoxicants, either drugs or alcohol.

Parc also noted that there was no indication why so many tests were not conducted on drivers in hospitals.

The road safety campaign group was told the Gardas computer system, Pulse, does not record the specific reasons why such hospital-based tests for intoxicants were not carried out.

Road deaths have spiralled in Ireland this year and are now more than 30pc higher than for the same period in 2022. A total of 152 people have died on Irish roads this year  35 more than for the same period last year.
Developers of new data centres, which consume large amounts of electricity, have built gas-fuelled generators to power facilities - but these increase carbon emissions, the Climate Change Advisory Council has pointed out. Photo: Getty Images

The countrys climate watchdog has urged curbs on data centres by prohibiting gas connections for new facilities.

New data centres are restricted in where they set up because they cant get electricity connections where the power system is strained, so they try to get around that by building their own gas-fuelled generators.

The Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) says that must not happen because their huge power needs would send gas usage and carbon emissions soaring.

In a letter, the CCAC says the energy regulator must instruct Gas Networks Ireland to refuse data centre requests for connections.

CRU [the energy regulator] should direct GNI [Gas Networks Ireland] not to sign any more contracts to connect data centres to the gas network where the data centre would be powered mainly by on-site fossil fuel generation, the letter says.

It says that if the law prevents such action being taken, it should be changed.

If there is a legislative barrier, the Government should take immediate action to revise the Gas Act.

The letter was signed on behalf of the CCAC by its chairperson, Marie Donnelly, and sent to the all-party Oireachtas Committee on the Environment and Climate Action.

The committee has held numerous discussions around the runaway growth of data centres.

If the recommendations were followed through, it would mean the effective end of new data centres until there was enough energy from wind and solar farms to power them.

Data centres place the national grid under severe pressure  using 18pc of all electricity generated in the country.

Under connection agreements signed before restrictions were announced, that figure is forecast to reach 30pc by 2030.

Under restrictions introduced in 2021, new data centres can only be located where there is ample electricity supply and must have back-up generators.

But most still want to locate in the east where electricity is under most pressure and around a dozen have applied for permission to become islanded.

That means they produce their own electricity from on-site gas-powered generators and do not need connection to the electricity grid.

A government policy statement issued last year said islanded data centres would not be in line with national policy.

These would run counter to emissions reduction objectives and would not serve the wider efficiency and decarbonisation of our energy system, it said.

Climate Change Advisory Council chairperson Marie Donnelly.

The statement added that allowing data centres to run on gas could merely swap the strain on electricity supply for a strain on gas supply.

However, the CCAC letter says that when Environment Minister Eamon Ryan subsequently advised GNI not to sign any more contracts with data centres, GNI replied that it was mandated by law to provide connections.

Ms Donnelly said the issue must be revisited. Connecting new data centres before we have the renewable capacity to accommodate them makes it significantly more difficult to remain within the legislated carbon budgets, she wrote.

In addition, the recent growth in islanded data centres is of particular concern due to their potential to increase gas demand and associated carbon emissions.
Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder will testify before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce during a hearing on "combatting graphic, explicit content in school libraries," the Wyoming Department of Education announced Wednesday.

Degenfelder received an invitation to speak at the hearing earlier this week from North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, the chairwoman of the committee, said Linda Finnerty, a spokesperson for the Department of Education.

She will testify before the panel's Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education on Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m.

Additional details on the hearing are thin, but the event positions to be polarizing amid a national uproar from conservative parents and lawmakers over library books and other learning materials. In a press release, Florida Republican Rep. Aaron Bean, the chair of the subcommittee, said parents were concerned about the content their children can access in schools.

Its time that we have a conversation thats grounded in reality and focused on how to create an environment that is in the best interest of childrens educational development, he said in a statement. Its parents, not the Biden administration or the Left, who should have a say in this matter. This hearing is focused on empowering parents to enact the change they want to see at the state and local level.

Though she was less vocal than other candidates in last year's race for Wyoming's top education job, Degenfelder has increasingly taken on library books and other controversial issues, championing conservative positions and leaning into the subjects that have consumed right-wing national politics in recent years. During a June speech at the Western Conservative Summit, Degenfelder criticized the Left while warning against transgender athletes and "graphic sexual depictions" in school library books.

"If you object to any of this, then you will be met with slurs and protests. You will be intimidated and you will be silenced," she said during the summit. "I will not be silenced."

While Dengenfelder has leaned more into polarizing topics as of late, she maintained throughout her campaign and first few months in office that she is committed to local control. As part of her educational reform plan, Degenfelder announced the Department of Education would build model policies around library book access for Wyoming's K-12 students. However, she said any decisions would ultimately be left to local school districts.

"I see the role of the state agency as putting together that model policy around appropriate library books, around parental access to health records," she told the Star-Tribune earlier this year. "And then sharing that out with every single school board in the state and helping them to be able to implement that within their own district and making that their own."

You can watch the hearing on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce's YouTube page.

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.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee has warned that companies have a part to play in combatting the radicalisation of minors arguing that they must stop them from being exploited on their platforms.

Minister McEntee said Ireland should be at the forefront of combatting child sexual abuse, online and offline at a meeting of Home Affairs Ministers held in Luxembourg this Thursday.

At the talks, ministers discussed regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse, the external dimension of asylum and migration, the pact on asylum and migration and preventing online radicalisation of minors.

Minister McEntee said: Companies have a major role to play in combatting the radicalisation of minors. They provide the platforms through which our children are being exploited and they have a responsibility to safeguard them.

The Justice Minister stressed to her European colleagues that companies need to educate their users on understanding extremist tactics.

She also noted that they need to help promote digital literacy and educate users on what defines a trustworthy source when dealing with the online world.

EU Home Affairs Ministers also exchanged views on the external dimension of asylum and migration throughout the continent and the world, in addition to holding a working lunch on the worsening crisis in the Israel-Hamas war.

Minister McEntee said Ireland agrees that the EU should use all resources at its disposal to address the causes of irregular migration and deter people from undertaking perilous journeys.

It is imperative that we break the business model of smugglers and undermine their illegal activities as a matter of priority.

Investment into legal pathways of migration is a priority for Ireland. The development of more legal pathways as an alternative to irregular migration is a vital aspect of the external dimension," she added.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is expected to visit flood-hit communities in Cork todayMidleton resident describes it as worst flooding the town has ever seenWeather warning for Kerry in place today

Severe floods in the south of the country as a result of Storm Babet

TRADERS in flood-hit Cork towns admitted they are in a race against time to save their Christmas season after a devastating Storm Babet deluge which inflicted millions of Euro worth of damage.

Business premises, residential properties and utilities were being inspected today to assess the cost of the worst floods in east and west Cork in living memory.

A business on Main St in Midleton, Co Cork has been left destroyed by flooding caused by Storm Babet.

Laurie ODonnell of HS2 Salon in Midleton told The Irish Independent the building will have to be gutted because of the damage.

Storm Babet causes destruction to Cork business

Were here now and the front window is gone, its busted out. The roof where the window was holding is gone. Theres not much we can save inside there. Unfortunately the whole place has to be gutted.

Its the whole place from the front, the windows gone. Everything that was at the front, all our stock is gone. All our sections are destroyed.

At the back the water came right up above the sinks which are close to chest level. Its just blown everything, its like a hurricane came into the shop and everything that was at the front is at the back, she said.

Car stranded after road collapses in Co Cork during Storm Babet

Ms ODonnell said the business had been doing very well and had exciting times coming in the next few weeks.

Its a shame because we were at the peak. As a business we were peaking and we have big award ceremonies coming up in November. Its sickening.

You dont even know where to start now. Just standing here looking at it, I dont know where you go from here.

The HS2 team had met with the Council yesterday and asked if they would need sandbags. Ms ODonnell said they were told everything was OK and they werent on high alert.

Within half an hour of that conversation, water entered the shop through the front door.

HS2 Salon in Midleton, Co Cork

We barricaded ourselves in but the water came up to the handle of the door and I suppose the sheer pressure of it we all had to just get out the back. We had to make sure the customers were safe and get everybody out, she said.

We were waist deep in what felt like river water. It was a very strong current, Ive never experienced anything like it."

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is expected to visit flood-hit communities in Cork today to assure traders and residents that support funding will be provided by the Government.

A Yellow weather warning is in place for counties Kerry, Cork and Limerick, valid from 11pm on Thursday until 9am on Friday.

Heavy bursts of rain are expected overnight and Friday morning coupled with waterlogged soils and high river levels. Met Eireann has also warned of further localised flooding and dangerous driving conditions.

Some roads are expected to remain closed for at least another 24 hours as safety inspections are conducted after the floods caused landslides, undermined roads and damaged utilities.

Midleton is now demanding priority action on a flood defence plan after being hit for a second time in a decade by heavy flooding.

Storm Babet dumped over a month's worth of rain in less than 24 hours - swamping drainage systems.

A Cork woman was horrified to find the entire contents of her living room  including the couch  floating around at shoulder height yesterday, after the worst flooding the town has ever seen.

Midleton resident Maria Murphy spent all of yesterday taking refuge with her family on the third floor of the B&B townhouse she operates  after the bottom floor of both her business and her home were submerged in muddy water following the devastating flooding.

The view from Maria Murphy's house in Midleton, Co Cork, which was flooded during Storm Babet

Storm Babet caused chaos in parts of Cork, Kerry and Waterford and flooded hundreds of homes and businesses, causing millions of Euros worth of damage.

The entire avenue outside is a river. I have never seen anything like it and I am here in the town for 40 years now, she said on RTE Radio 1s Liveline.

She said that the water in her home was up to the top of the windows and that she had to quickly pack a bag and escape out the window, having been unable to save any of her homes contents.

I switched off the electricity and the mains  and whatever was in there was just floating, the couches and everything.

This is like what you see on television in other countries, she said.

Shocking images from the town showed the ground floor of Midleton Hospital flooded, while boats, tractors and emergency personnel worked tirelessly to transport residents from the worst affected areas in the town to the outskirts.

An assessment will be made today on whether patients in Midleton Community Hospital need to be transferred.

Cars across the town were almost fully submerged by the waters, while toddlers at one preschool were trapped for a time, as were a group of workers behind the Bank of Ireland.

Tim Herlihy, who lives in the town, said that his elderly mothers home in Mogely, a few kilometres from Midleton, sustained horrendous damage after the storm waters rose all the way up to the stairs.

Maria Murphy's house in Midleton, Co Cork, which was flooded during Storm Babet

Mr Herlihy said that his mother Sheila, who is in her 70s, had to be transported via tractor to his brothers house. He spoke of the shock she got when the water first began to flood through her doors of her home.

We werent expecting anything like this, they only gave us an Orange Status warning. Weve had floods in the town before but the main street has been like a rapids all day, he told the Irish Independent.

All of the businesses on the main street are completely destroyed. And people are angry.

Members of the Defence Forces and the Civil Defence were deployed to the town on Wednesday afternoon to assist with the extreme flooding.

Parts of the south received over 100m of rainfall in less than 36 hours - with fields, streams and rivers already sodden from recent heavy rainfall unable to handle the deluge.

GAA pitches were utilised as emergency flood zones as council crews worked throughout the night to protect properties and save lives.

It is estimated that over 100 properties were flooded in Midleton alone.

In one case, a man risked chest high flood waters to save his pet dog.

Pavel Ciechomovicz rescues his labrador Nanij from flooding on Main Street, Midelton, Co Cork. Photo: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

Cork city witnessed heavy flooding in low-lying parts of the city centre including South Terrace, North Quays and other areas.

Serious flooding was also witnessed in Glanmire, Riverstown, Whitegate, Rathcormac, Glandore, Ringaskiddy, Carrigaline, Rosscarbery, Clonakilty, Raffeen, Halfway and Castletownbere.

Met Eireann warned that further rainfall is likely over the coming days with local authorities convening emergency meetings of Severe Weather Assessment teams to determine the threat over the coming days.

It was the greatest level of flood-related property damage seen in Cork since 2009 when the River Lee broke its banks and caused over 100 million worth of damage including forcing the evacuation of a city hospital and closing one of the city's main water treatment centres.

Army deployed as more than 100 properties flooded in Co Cork town

Outbreaks of rain are expected to clear northwards this morning, bringing more localised flooding in some areas. By noon rain will become confined to north Connacht and Ulster.

Bright spells and showers will come from the south later in the day, some showers turning heavy. Highest temperature today of 13C to 17C in light to moderate southeast breezes.

Cork Co Mayor Councillor Frank O'Flynn said it was further proof of the challenges posed by climate change.

"I am especially conscious of the advanced preparations that were undertaken by Cork County Council in mitigating the effects of this event and how, despite every effort, homes, businesses and road users have been impacted."

"Areas where flood defence schemes have been completed fared far better than others in the face of this deluge. I know from speaking with Council staff that some of the issues they are dealing with are unprecedented, with roads which have never flooded now under water."

"The results of this weather event will be long felt as we move toward a clean up phase but can I please reiterate the importance of staying safe and together we will come through this weather event."

Cork Co Council stressed that it was assessing the evolving threat - and the scale of the repairs involved over the coming days.

Damage has been caused to walls, roads, properties, drains and even utilities.

The flooding in Midleton developed rapidly (@realLiamMac/PA)

Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys said that the Humanitarian Assistance Scheme is now open to provide support to those living in properties in Cork and Waterford that have been affected by the storm.

The scheme provides income-tested financial support to people whose homes are damaged by flooding or severe weather events.

Roads and properties in other towns in the region  including in Glanmire, Whitegate, Rathcormac, Glandore, Ringaskiddy, Carrigaline, Raffeen, Halfway, Youghal and Casteltownbere  were also flooded, with many roads impassable.

Meanwhile, Sarsfields GAA club in Riverstown, Glanmire, acted quickly to help prevent further flooding and damage to houses and businesses in the area, sacrificing its GAA pitch by opening it as a temporary flood relief plain.

We won a county, lost a pitch but hopefully saved a part of the Glanmire community, they said.

Tanaiste Micheal Martin said he was deeply concerned by the images of Midleton devastated by flooding from Storm Babet.

My thoughts are with those affected by the floods across Cork and Waterford. The Humanitarian Assistance Scheme is available to provide support to those whose homes are damaged from the flooding, he added.
The allegations against a well known entertainer accused of sexual activity with an underage schoolgirl are a case of one persons word against the other, a judge has said.

Judge Pauline Codd told the jury in the celebrity's trial that they "only have the word of the complainant" that the sexual acts happened, as there was no corroborating evidence.
Company fined 50,000 over worker left with fractured skull and cognitive difficulties in fall from forklift

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Ludovic Tanfin (58) had been standing on an improvised platform on a forklift, trying to fix a shutter door, when he fell over two metres to the concrete floor below

Stock image

Jessica Magee Thu 19 Oct 2023 at 17:42







A water filtration company in Dublin has been fined 50,000 over a workplace accident which left a former employee with a fractured skull and ongoing cognitive difficulties.
Pte Jordan Nolan, Sgt Chris Taylor and Pte Josh Moore fire a Javelin missile at a tank over 1km away during a pre-deployment exercise in the Glen of Imaal. Photo: Colin Keegan / Collins

Soldiers carrying a Javelin missile system during a Deployment Mission Readiness Exercise for the 123rd Infantry Battalion at Coolmooney Camp in Glen of Imaal, Co Wicklow. 334 soldiers from the Irish Defence Forces, along with nine Armed Forces of Malta soldiers - who together make up the 123rd Infantry Battalion - are entering the final phase of training in preparation for their forthcoming deployment to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), beginning in south Lebanon in November. Picture date: Thursday October 19, 2023. PA Photo. The Mission Readiness Exercise puts commanders and soldiers through a seriez of scenarios indicative of the current situation in the Middle East, and based on potential threats they may encounter. See PA story POLITICS Israel Ireland. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Pte Jordan Nolan, Sgt Chris Taylor and Pte Josh Moore with a FGM-148 Javelin weapon system during a Deployment Mission Readiness Exercise for the 123rd Infantry Battalion at Glen of Imaal, Co Wicklow. Photo: PA

Pte Jordan Nolan, Sgt Chris Taylor and Pte Josh Moore fire a Javelin missile at a tank over 1km away during a pre-deployment exercise in the Glen of Imaal. Photo: Colin Keegan / Collins

Irish troops about to be deployed to a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon have said they are not afraid as they prepare to travel to a region of high tensions.

Violence between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has flared in recent days as fears grow that the fighting between Israel and Hamas could disrupt other areas across the Middle East.

The 123rd battalion will see 334 Irish personnel and nine people from Malta deployed to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) next month.

At the Glen of Imaal in Co Wicklow on Thursday, Defence Forces soldiers carried out a military training exercise which included the testing of heat-seeking Javelin missiles.

The commanding officer of the 123rd battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Mac Eoin, said his colleagues in Lebanon have described the current conditions as tense, but said the soldiers were ready to go and do their job.

Irish soldiers prepare for deployment to Lebanon

There are exchanges of fire, both north and south across the blue line, but the soldiers are responding well to it, he said.

They would have been through exactly the same training and process that were going through today. And that training is designed actually to prepare the soldiers for just that type of scenario.

So the troops are responding well, theyre in good shape, and as far as were concerned, theres no change to the plan, were ploughing on and were deploying as planned.

Lt Col Mac Eoin, who has served in Kosovo, Chad, Congo and Lebanon, said it was understandable that some of the soldiers family members are concerned.

He said the soldiers had been given a live update on the situation and were also helped to counter some of the misinformation and disinformation that is spreading around.

He described the tasks the soldiers will have, as mandated by the United Nations: to monitor, to observe, to report and to protect civilians once deployed to the blue line.

So when our troops are over, we familiarise ourselves with the area of operations, he said.

Well take over from the guys and girls who are there at the moment and essentially will occupy those posts and we continue to do what were doing. So our operations are essentially to support the government of Lebanon by patrolling alongside the Lebanese Armed Forces. And sometimes without the Lebanese Armed Forces, we call those framework operations.

In the scenario whereby we do have exchanges of fire, our troops are trained to respond to get into very well-protected positions.

This will be the first mission for Kilkenny brothers Tiarnan and Caolan OReilly, aged 24 and 22.

Asked how they were feeling, they both said they were looking forward to it and were not afraid.Tiarnan OReilly said he has been following developments a little bit, but his brother Caolan said they are well trained for it.

Matt Kinnaird, who turned 20 on October 7, is the youngest member of the battalion.

In the job, you do grow up very quickly, he said, adding that he tries to listen to his senior officers and take all their advice on board.

I do my best to stay updated with as much as possible. No, Im not too much worried, he said.

We cover all kinds of aspects here in our training, so were prepared for anything.

He said his parents had a little bit of nerves from what they are seeing on social media.

Ive reassured them of the training were doing up here, he added.Lieutenant Essie OConnell, 25, who joined in 2016, said she is not very nervous because weve done a lot of training.

Its been very robust training. Its exact same every year, were trained for every event.

She said the relationship between the group was very important.

Its a very long six months so everyone needs good cohesion, and for everyone to have good morale and everyone is looking forward to going over, she said.

Theres not anyone too nervous. There will be people nervous but everyone is there for each other and looking out for each other and when we complete the mission everyone is working together.

Asked about whether the group is discussing the tense situation, she said: If people do bring it up, were just say to just concentrate on the training at the moment, that when we get out there, well find out.
Rebecca Muldrew passed away just 10 days after her father William Irwin

A young family has been left devastated after the passing of a young mother-of-two just 10 days after her father died.

Rebecca Joy Muldrew, from Portadown, Co Armagh died at home on Monday.

She was described as the much loved mummy of Irwin (7) and Faith (5), and daughter to Joy and the late William Irwin.

Rebecca would have celebrated 10 years of marriage to her dearly loved husband Gary in March.

She will also be lovingly remembered by her sisters Ruth and Naomi, and the wider family circle.

A death notice read: Very deeply regretted by her sorrowing husband, son, daughter and all the family circle.

Christian organisation The Centre in Armagh paid tribute to the much-loved mum.

Our beautiful friend Rebecca has gone to be with her Saviour in glory, but words cant begin to express how heartbroken we are, said the organisation.

Rebecca has been a big part of The Centre team from the very beginning, always willing to help and loved a good clean up!

She was always in the middle of the chat, craic, a good game and loved a laugh. Praying much for Gary, Irwin, Faith and the entire family circle.

Politicians in the area also paid tribute to Rebecca, who was a former student at Craigavon Senior High School and Queens University in Belfast where she studied nursing.

Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart described Rebecca as such a beautiful young woman who had so much to live for.

"This is just devastating for Rebeccas family so soon after her daddys death, said the DUP MP.

Ms Lockhart added: Just so sad for her wee kids, husband, mummy and siblings. May they know Gods presence and comfort as they mourn the loss of Rebecca.

DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley also expressed his condolences.

My thoughts and prayers are with the Muldrew and Irwin family. Only last week Rebeccas father William was laid to rest, he said.

Please pray for the family and friends at this difficult time.

Speaking in her testimony at Armagh Elim Church in 2020, she told the congregation about her childhood, meeting her future husband, her family, faith and her battle with cancer.

"I couldnt comprehend it and I didnt want to believe it, she reflected when being told of her cancer diagnosis.

Rebecca continued: "Feeling numb, we arrived home to break the news gently. It will forever be etched in my heart how Gary and dad reacted that day and the emotions that were shown.

"My heart ached for them and I couldnt help but feel apologetic for the distress and misery I was about to put them through.

"I was very conscious of my new born and family at home, and desperately wanted to make life as normal as possible and to cherish the time we had together  those new born smells and cuddles and watching wee Irwin take to his baby sister. We were so proud.

Rebecca said she praised God for keeping her family sheltered from the illness.

"The Lord gave me such a great peace and a promise to bring me through this if I put all my trust in Him, she added.

"I was always such a worrier and fretted about most things but for the first time in my life, it felt like the easiest thing to do  to let go of all my fears and worries and put faith in Him.

Rebeccas funeral service will take place on Thursday at 3pm in Thomas Street Methodist Church in Portadown, followed by a private interment.

Donations in lieu of flowers, if desired, can be made out to Marie Curie, via George McNabb & Co, 106 Bridge Street, Portadown.
Maverick cleric Monsignor Hugh OFlaherty gave Jewish people false documents and smuggled them out of Nazi Germany, sometimes wearing a disguise to evade the GestapoPresident said he discussed with the Pope the role of women in the church and the Pontiffs position on same sex unions

President Michael D Higgins today paid tribute to a Kerry priest who saved over 6,000 Jewish people from Nazi persecution during World War II.

A memorial plaque to Monsignor Hugh OFlaherty lies in a small cemetery beside St Peters Basilica, on the border between Rome and the Vatican City.

In German and English, it remembers him as the founder of the Rome Escape Line and a tireless defender of the weak and oppressed.

Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty

He lived in the Teutonic Pontifical College there between 1938 and 1947, where he saved thousands of Jews fleeing Germany through his network of safehouses in Rome.

The maverick cleric gave them false documents and smuggled them out of Nazi Germany, sometimes wearing a disguise to evade the Gestapo.

Monsignor OFlaherty  nicknamed The Pimpernel of the Vatican  was born in 1898 and died, aged 65. He is buried in Cahirsiveen, Co Kerry  just miles from where he grew up in Killarney.

President Higgins laid a wreath below the plaque this morning, calling the moment a privilege.

He said Monsignor OFlaherty is deeply loved in his native Kerry and this year marks the 60th anniversary of his death.

Earlier this morning, the Swiss Guard assembled in the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace to welcome President Higgins and his wife Sabina, where an Irish flag was raised.

They were greeted by the Gentlemen of the Papal Household before Mr Higgins and Pope Francis met in the Pontiffs Library and continued  the conversation of their previous four meetings.

We discussed the role of women [in the Church], we discussed also his recent announcement about welcoming the capacity or the space that would be given to the blessing of civil unions and to the position of the LGBT community, the President later told reporters in Rome.

He said previously the two had discussed the issue, adding: I dont give instructions to the Pope, but the Pope knows where I stand myself in relation to respecting the expressions of the human body.

President Michael D Higgins meets Pope Francis in The Vatican. Photo: Maxwells/PA

President Higgins said the Pope has no difficulty about that but said that, such as with matters of ecology, the Pontiff faces grave difficulties within the institution.

"I think I get a sense of that nearly every time I meet him, but his heart is in the right place, President Higgins said.

He said the Pope accepts that of course there are issues that are there and said there is sometimes a huge dissonance within the Church.

"Women should be participating fully as equals at every level, at every policy decision in relation to the Church and its administration. Thats a journey, a tough journey  even for him," the President said.

He said the involvement of women at every level in the Catholic Church is necessary, but added it is a tough journey even for Pope Francis to embark on.

Addressing matters of climate change, migration and South America, President Higgins said he even used his own Spanish during their meeting, when he also gifted the Pontiff a statue by John Behan.

He will soon send one of his own poems The Prophets are Weeping  translated into Italian  to Pope Francis, whom he described as having an open heart that is in the right place.

Mr Higgins said he does not discuss theology with the Pope, but said he is committed to issues of inclusion, adding: I wish that he would proceed as well. There have been people who have been excluded from the discourse that should have been long, long back and people that have been deeply wounded by this but that is his business, I am simply President of Ireland.

Later in the day, the President said not being able to feed its people is one of the great disgraces of the human species.

Speaking at an opening of the exhibition Ireland and the Birth of Europe at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome on Thursday night, he said many remain hungry despite there being enough food in the world.

It is one of the great disgraces of the human species that it has not been able to feed its people even though there is enough food in the world, because at the same time that there are great shortages, there are disgraceful wastages, Mr Higgins said.

The President will tomorrow end his trip to Rome at the World Food Forum, delivering the keynote speech at the closing ceremony.
Palestinians are still reeling from a massive blast at a Gaza City hospital that killed hundreds, with Hamas and Israel blaming each otherIsraeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said the decision was approved after a request from visiting US President Joe Biden

A protester is detained by Capitol Hill in Washington, US, police after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict occupied the rotunda of the Cannon House office building. Photo: Reuters

A view shows the site of Israeli strikes on houses in the central Gaza Strip October 18, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa

Tanaiste Micheal Martin has announced a 13m aid package for Palestine in the wake of the war in Gaza.

Speaking in the Dail, Mr Martin, who is also Minister for Foreign Affairs, said the risk of an escalation of violence in the Middle East is deeply concerning following Israels declaration of war against Hamas after they killed 1,300 Israelis in a cross-border attack 11 days ago.

He said it is his sincere hope that war could act as a catalyst for renewed engagement on achieving a lasting and sustainable peace.

Ireland is doing  and will do - everything possible to contribute to this. I can give this House my personal assurance that I will working tirelessly to exert every possible influence, within the EU, with regional partners and at the UN, to bring this about, he added.

Mr Martin said Ireland has an aid programme for Palestinians for more than two decades and will be giving the region an additional 13m on top of the 16m already provided this year.

The programme of support to the Palestinian people focuses on four key areas: supporting state-building efforts; provision of humanitarian relief; the protection and promotion of human rights; and, support for Palestine refugees, he said.

The Fianna Fail leader noted that Iran has warned of the opening of an additional military front on Israels borders with both Syria and Lebanon.

Israeli villages in the border region are being evacuated and additional Israeli forces have been mobilised. Exchanges of rocket fire between militant groups in Lebanon and Syria and the Israeli Defence Forces have already claimed lives, including that of Reuters journalist, Issam Abdallah, he added.

Mr Martin also told the Dail about a civil society organisation which promotes dialogue between Jewish and Arab communities in Israel called the Abraham Initiatives who he met on his recent State visit to the region.

I learned with absolute horror this week that one of its co-Directors, Thabet Abu Rass, who hosted my visit, lost eight family members last week following a strike on North Gaza. His aunt, who is 83 years old, is among those ordered to evacuate North Gaza. She does not have the capacity to do so, he said.

Yet, against this harrowing backdrop, the Abraham Initiatives also continues to promote its message of peaceful co-existence, he added.

He also said Irelands Ambassador to Israel Sonya McGuinness spoke at a joint march and rally of 4,000 Israeli and Palestinian women.

It was organised jointly by an Israeli movement called Women Wage Peace and their Palestinian counterpart, Women of the Sun. These movements were formed in the aftermath of the war in Gaza in 2014 to promote reconciliation between the two sides, he said.

It comes as Israel has said it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the first crack in a 10-day siege on the territory.

Palestinians are still reeling from a massive blast at a Gaza City hospital that killed hundreds the day before and grew increasingly desperate as food and water supplies ran out.

A protester is detained by Capitol Hill in Washington, US, police after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict occupied the rotunda of the Cannon House office building. Photo: Reuters

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said the decision was approved after a request from visiting US President Joe Biden.

It said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and do not go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of badly needed fuel.

It was not clear when the aid would start flowing.

At the Rafah crossing, Gazas only connection to Egypt, truckloads of aid have been waiting for days to enter. But the facility has only a limited capacity, and Egypt says it has been damaged by Israeli air strikes.

Israels announcement came as rage over Tuesday nights blast at the al Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and just as Mr Biden began his visit to Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

A view shows the site of Israeli strikes on houses in the central Gaza Strip October 18, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa

The war started when Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on October 7.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the explosion. Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli air strike, saying nearly 500 were killed.

Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

Upon his arrival, Mr Biden embraced Mr Netanyahu  and expressed concern for the suffering of Gazas civilians. He later said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israels fault.

Mr Biden said data from his defence department showed it was not likely a strike by the Israeli military.

And a National Security Council spokesperson later posted on social media that an analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information showed that Israel was not behind the attack. But the US continued to collect evidence.

Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, Mr Biden told Mr Netanyahu in remarks in front of the media.

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed shortly before Mr Bidens arrival, after a 12-hour lull.

Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on Wednesday, including on cities in south Gaza that Israel had described as safe zones for Palestinian civilians.

After the hospital blast, Jordan cancelled a meeting between Mr Biden, Jordans King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Mr Biden was now visiting only Israel.

The war between Israel and Hamas was pushing the region to the brink, Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi told state-run television.

The Israeli military held a briefing on Wednesday morning laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at the al Ahli Hospital.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said it was not firing in the area when the blast occurred.

And, he said, Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage was fired by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery at the time of the blast, around 6.59pm Independent video showed one of the rockets in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said.

The misfired rocket hit the car park outside the hospital, he said. Were it an air strike, there would have been a crater there, instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rockets warhead and its unspent propellant, he added.

The Israeli military also released a recording they said was between two Hamas militants discussing the blast, during which the speakers say it was believed to be an Islamic Jihad misfire.

Rear Adm Hagari said Israelis intelligence would be shared with US and British officials. He also questioned the death toll provided by Gazas Hamas-led Health Ministry.

Since the war began, roughly 450 rockets fired at Israel by militant groups had landed in Gaza, the Israeli military said.

Hamas called Tuesdays hospital blast a horrific massacre, saying it was caused by an Israeli strike. Islamic Jihad dismissed Israels claims, accusing Israel of trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.

The group pointed to Israels order that al Ahli be evacuated and reports of a previous strike at the hospital as proof that the hospital was an Israeli target. It also said the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bombs fall and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israel.

The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, said the hospital, run by the Episcopal Church, had received at least three Israeli military orders to evacuate in the days before the blast.

It was hit by Israeli shelling on Sunday, wounding four staffers, he said. Israel had ordered all 22 hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate last week.

He declined to cast blame on either party for the blast, saying: As people of the cloth, we are not military experts. We just want to let people see what is happening on the ground and hope that people will come to the conclusion that weve had enough of this war.

The blast left gruesome scenes. Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.

On Wednesday morning, the blast scene was littered with charred cars and the ground was blackened by debris.

Video after the blast showed the hospital grounds strewn with bodies, many of them young children.

Some 350 casualties from the al Ahli blast were rushed to Gaza Citys main hospital, al Shifa, which was already overwhelmed with wounded from other strikes, said its director, Mohammed Abu Selmia. He said doctors were performing surgery on patients lying on floors.

We need equipment, we need medicine, we need beds we need everything, Mr Abu Selmia said. He warned that fuel for the hospitals generators would run out within hours.

The death toll was in dispute, even among those in Gaza. The Health Ministry initially said 500 had died, but revised that number to 471 on Wednesday, without giving details of the dead. Al Ahli officials said only that the toll was in the hundreds. Mr Abu Selmia said he thought the toll was closer to 250.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 12,000 wounded, with most of the casualties women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians killed during Hamass deadly incursion, which resulted in some 200 hostages being taken into Gaza. Militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since towards cities across Israel.

With troops massed along the border, Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

A strike on a three-storey building in Gaza City on Wednesday killed 40 people and another on a bakery in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed four bakers, according to witnesses.

The Israeli military says it is targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centres and accuses the militants of hiding among civilians.

Its not just that people are going hungry. People are at the risk of starvation, said Alia Zaki, a spokesperson for the World Food Programme.

More than one million Palestinians have fled their homes  roughly half of Gazas population  and 60pc are now in the approximately eight-mile long area south of the evacuation zone, the UN said.
"The reality is our clients are chronically addicted. They are sick. They're unwell" - Eddie Mullins

Middle-class Ireland is sustaining the countrys booming drug trade, the new chief executive of Merchants Quay Ireland has said.

Eddie Mullins said that the country does not like to discuss the fact that there are people in politics, media and An Garda Siochana who are habitual drug users  laying the blame instead on poorer people suffering with addiction.

Mr Mullins was speaking ahead of the launch of Merchants Quays annual report today, which found a 10pc increase in the number of people using the services of the homelessness and drugs charity.

Last year, 12,764 people engaged with the charity including 3,808 people who were helped by MQIs harm reduction team.

There were 114 people admitted to detox and rehabilitation services.

Mr Mullins said that the conversation around drugs needs to change in Ireland. He credited the work of a recent citizens assembly which examined the issue of decriminalisation.

What I have noticed in in recent times is that theres a realisation that when we look at the size of the recent drug seizures, and we talk about the value of the drugs market, its very clear that a market that size relies on, as the Taoiseach would say, people who get up in the morning and go to work, it relies on those people to sustain it because the people that we work with in MQI are usually embroiled in poverty, he said.

They dont have the means to support drug habits.

So theyre not the primary focus for the big drug dealers.

"The primary focus for big drug dealers are people with money, who can buy cocaine at the weekend, and get up on Monday morning and go to work and then do the same again next weekend and treat it as a recreational drug.

Thats where the biggest explosion in drug use is, theres no question about it. And its the one that people are less willing to talk about.

If you look at all our large sectors like public sector, the guards, the media, all of those sectors are obviously affected by people in those sectors using drugs. We dont like to have that conversation.

We let people who are obviously embroiled in addiction and present in such a way that its very obvious they have addiction issues. We always focus on them as the group that sustain the drugs trade.

But they in no way sustain the drugs trade. Its sustained by middle-class people, people who work, people who earn, people who can afford to buy the drugs.

Last month, gardai warned that drug gangs were actively trying to import fentanyl into Ireland.

The opioid  which is more potent than heroin and morphine  has been blamed for a major overdosing crisis in the US.

Mr Mullins said he believes that the drug will likely arrive at some point, but that frontline services will be prepared to deal with it. The strength and the potency of fentanyl is a serious concern for all people working in the sector. But the treatments that are available and greater awareness of the challenges that fentanyl has brought, should give us greater confidence to deal with the eventual arrival of it.

I dont think anybody doubts that it will come at some stage. But I do think there is a lot more information that gives us an opportunity to be ready to deal with clients who may have consumed fentanyl.

Eddie Mullins CEO of Merchants Quay Ireland says conversation around drugs needs to change. Photo: Mark Condren

Mr Mullins and MQI are currently calling for the swift introduction of a safe injecting centre in Dublins city centre, after planning was finally approved late last year.

He said that over the course of the last six weeks in his new role he has sensed a strong desire from both the HSE and the Government to press ahead with the project.

Mr Mullins said that a safe injection centre may help to make the city centre safer and ease some ongoing concerns about public safety in the area.

According to its annual report, MQI provided more than 40,000 meals to people who were homeless and hungry last year.

In 2022, the organisation saw the number of people presenting as homeless for the first time more than double when compared with the year before.

While it is mainly based in Dublin, over 1,300 people outside of the capital were aided by MQI through its work in Cavan, Monaghan, Wicklow, Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath.

There were also 63 women supported by a new service, Janes Place, which is the only female-only centre in the country that supports women for a range of issues including sexual violence, homelessness and substance abuse issues.
President Michael D Higgins delivers a speech in Rome this week as part of the World Food Forum. Photo: Baris Seckin/Anadolu via Getty Images.

President Michael D Higgins will hold a private meeting with Pope Francis in his library in the Vatican this Thursday morning to discuss a number of key issues.

It is expected that President Higgins will discuss the interlinked global challenges of climate change, migration, global poverty, food security, the rights of indigenous people and global peace.

President Higgins, who is 12 years in office, has praised the contribution Pope Francis has made to the vital debate on these issues.

The meeting will be the fourth such engagement between the pair, following previous meetings in the Vatican in 2017 and 2021 and at Aras an Uachtarain in 2018.

President Higgins also met with Pope Francis at the Papal Inauguration in 2013.

When the President met Pope Francis in September 2021, he presented His Holiness with a special Fishermans Stick made on Inis Mor.

The stick, made by artist Lochlainn Cullen is made of blackthorn wood, grown and crafted on the island, and adorned with cotton knots. The knots are arranged in a spiral called St. Mary's Hitch, consisting of three strands which are interwoven into one, representing the divine trinity.

At this Thursdays meeting, President Higgins will present Pope Francis with a sculpture entitled The Expelled by renowned Irish sculptor John Behan.

John Behan is one of Irelands best-known living sculptors, who has focused on the displacement of people and emigration, particularly the experiences of refugees around the world.

The President decided to present this piece to Pope Francis in recognition of the vital work that the leader of the Catholic Church has carried out in drawing public attention to the plight of refugees and migrants across the world.

Following their discussion, President Higgins will hold a bilateral meeting with the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin.

He will then travel to Campo Santo in the Teutonic Pontifical College, where he will lay a wreath in honour of the late Monsignor Hugh OFlaherty, whose dedicated and courageous work during the Nazi occupation of Rome during World War II saved the lives of thousands of people.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Monsignor OFlaherty.

In the evening, President Higgins will view the exhibition Ireland and the Birth of Europe at the Irish Pontifical College.

This exhibition tells the story of the role played by Irish scholars and missionaries, including Saint Columbanus and his followers, in the shaping of a shared European identity.

The events take place as part of a five-day programme which President Higgins is undertaking in Rome to coincide with his participation in the World Food Forum.

President Higgins delivered addresses at the Opening Session of the Forum and at the annual observance of World Food Day at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation on Monday.

On Friday, the President will provide the keynote address at the Closing Session of the Forum.
U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale still insists hes the best Republican to defeat Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, despite an anemic third quarter in fundraising.

Finance reports show Rosendale, still unannounced for U.S. Senate, raising $334,724 from July through September, while declared candidate Tim Sheehy raised $2.8 million and incumbent Tester reported $5 million for the same period.

The two-term representative does lead in name recognition and is racking up endorsements from Republican state legislators as he casts political newcomer Sheehy as the pick of Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and the DC Cartel.

Once again, Rep. Rosendale shows that he is the strongest candidate to beat Jon Tester, said Aaska Varma, spokeswoman for Rosendales campaign and congressional office. Despite Mitch McConnell and the D.C. Cartel going out of their way to raise money for Mr. Sheehy, he was still forced to loan his campaign $600k so he could have a little over a million dollars on hand. Meanwhile, Rep. Rosendale has over $1.7 million on hand and leads the primary and general fields without even being an announced candidate.

There is a $500,000 self-loan on Sheehys books, but the aviation business executive also raised more money in three months than Rosendale has in the last nine. Sheehy reported $1.1 million cash on hand after his first quarter as a candidate.

The Montana U.S. Senate race will be one of the most watched in the country as Republicans attempt to regain the Senate majority. Tester is the last statewide-elected Democrat in Montana, a state that hasnt elected more than one Democrat to statewide office per cycle since 2012. Republicans swept the state in 2020.

The race will also be one of the most expensive in state history, if Testers past three elections are any indication. The incumbent has won more than 50% of the vote just once, with third-party candidates making up the difference. Final spending reports for the 2018 Senate race showed $70 million spent by outside groups and the candidates, Rosendale being the Republican challenger.

Rosendale is very recognizable among voters. Hes been a candidate for U.S. House three previous times. Hes been a U.S. Senate candidate, won the state auditors race, and been on the ballot in some capacity every election since 2010. Because recognition matters, its Sheehy who is playing catchup, not Rosendale, said Jeremy Johnson, professor of political science at Carroll College.

He has a history of being well financed, Rosendale does. I suspect he can tap into substantial donations even at a later time, Johnson said. He was able to outspend other Republicans in previous primaries. He sat on the money from his last House race, probably for the Senate race, and hes well known.

So really, its Sheehy who has to raise money early and spend it to get name recognition. Objectively, I think Rosendale has more luxury to wait longer to raise big money than say, Sheehy.

Rosendale is, so far, missing two big pieces of his 2018 Senate campaign. President Donald Trump, who staged four Montana rallies for Rosendale five years ago, hasn't made a Montana endorsement this time around. The other piece is Club for Growth, a major financier of Rosendale's 2018 challenge to Tester. "The Club," as the organization is known, told The Hill in July that it was reconsidering an earlier commitment to Rosendale and was curious about Sheehy.

A major influencer in Senate races nationally, Montana's Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, is not only giving his support to Sheehy, but also the resources of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which he chairs.

Media mentions

Media appearances for Rosendale are also easier. For an incumbent, the appearances come with the job. For example, in September, Sheehy got eight mentions on FOX, or Fox Business Channel. Most are appearances or repeats of appearances. Most of his time on Montana screens is in campaign ads. The data comes from the non-profit Internet Archive, a media aggregator.

With a government shutdown brewing as Congress ends the federal fiscal year without creating a budget, Rosendales appearances, or mentions, on cable news number more than 30 in 19 days. The news isnt all positive for Rosendale as hes discussed on more than five networks. He gets to explain his position on not supporting stopgap bills to keep the government open, as well his calls for budgeting only through the 12 budget bills to come out of the Appropriations Committee. He appeared for interviews on Fox, C-Span and Newsmax.

But as the shutdown approaches, the Rosendale mentions turn negative. Pundits question the logic of shutting down the government. Word gets out that Rosendale prayed against Republicans winning a big House majority in the 2022 election, which would make it more difficult for him and a core group of hardliners to effect change.

The weeks that the potential shutdown occupied the House and cable news also happen to be Rosendales best fundraising days of the quarter. He raises 62% of his $185,782 in total contributions from individuals for the quarter in those 19 days.

On radio during those September weeks, Rosendale gets 48 mentions in program transcripts for stations across the country. Theyre not all positive, Republicans are critical of Rosendale for not agreeing with House Republican plans to keep the government open after Sept. 30. His prayers against big Republican wins in 2022, something he said during a fundraising interview with former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon, isnt well received.

But Rosendale isnt paying for any of this attention, not the more than 30 mentions on cable or the 48 on radio, as tallied by Internet Archive.

Endorsement yes, money no

The Rosendale endorsements from Montana Republican legislators and other lower tier elected officials keep appearing on editorial pages, even getting headlines occasionally. However, Rosendales finance records also show that hardly any of the politicians endorsing him are backing their words with actual donations.

Of the 37 state legislators to endorse Rosendale in August, only three have donated to his campaign since the beginning of the year. The news of the endorsements, reported from the lawmakers strongly worded letter, doesnt disclose the absence of actual campaign donations.
Streets of Valladolid came to a standstill for what is becoming an annual event

A Spanish city last week came to a standstill in honour of Irish historical hero Red Hugh ODonnell, who died more than 420 years ago.

For the second year in a row, an Irish-Spanish commemorative group undertook a poignant reenactment of Red Hughs funeral through the streets of Valladolid.

Thousands of people lined the city streets as the procession on horseback passed through  led by a band of bagpipers and lit by blazing torches.

Red Hugh ODonnell  who from his base in Co Donegal masterminded the Nine Years War against the English government in Dublin from 1593 to 1603  died in Spain in 1602, while trying to secure the support of the Spanish for a further invasion of Ireland against their shared enemy, England.

Along with his father-in-law Hugh ONeill, Earl of Tyrone, Red Hugh led one of Irelands most notable rebellions against the English in history.

After suffering defeat during the Siege of Kinsale, he travelled to Spain to seek further support from King Philip III.

While there, aged just 29, he either contracted an infection  or, according to others, was poisoned by British spy James Blake, a merchant sailor from Galway.

The ceremony in Valladolid

As a mark of respect, King Philip III honoured Red Hughs dying wish, which was to be buried in the Chapel of Wonders at a Franciscan monastery in Valladolid in north-west Spain.

He received a heros burial in a plot generally reserved for noblemen, earls and bishops. Over the centuries the chapel disappeared and was replaced ultimately with a branch of Santander bank.

However, the fascination about his adventurous life, death and final resting place remained alive and in 2020, Spanish archaeologists undertook a major excavation in Valladolid, between the bank and a ladies clothes shop in the city centre.

ODonnells skeletal remains  which should have been easily identifiable because he had lost his two big toes to frostbite during a daring escape from Dublin Castle  were not among the 20 bodies discovered.

The Spanish media were captivated by the search for the chieftains remains and he was fondly described as the El Cid or William Wallace of Ireland.

Last week, Valladolid once again paid homage to Red Hugh with another ceremony in Spain. An empty coffin representing the mortal remains of Red Hugh was paraded through the city in a horse-drawn carriage.

Torchbearers in period costume accompanied the cortege as it wound its way through the citys streets.

Carlos Burgos is the president of the Hispano-Irish Association which has been at the forefront of a campaign to commemorate Red Hugh and his links to Spain. He said the Irish chieftain was someone who has been taken into the hearts of the people of Valladolid.

He was very important, someone who was a hero, and someone who should be respected by us, said Mr Burgos.

Remains found in Valladolid in 2020 were not those of Red Hugh's

This year was a wonderful success. The streets were absolutely packed and we could count 2,000 people on the street where we have a plaque honouring Red Hugh.

Our commemoration was on a Monday which is a very busy day for people but we still had so many people come out to pay respects. If it happened on a Saturday or Sunday, we would have had double or more the amount of people.

Valladolid people have taken Red Hugh into their hearts. The royal funeral procession was designed 400 years ago by the king to honour Red Hugh. It was very special for the time. And we wanted to do the same thing again.

Our people saw an Irish soldier walking in the streets ahead of a coffin and the flags were flying high. It was a wonderful sight.

We had a troop of bagpipers which the people on the streets loved. Irish Ambassador Frank Smyth was very moved by the respect shown by everyone.

It was an incredible day and I am very proud. And I think Irish people should be very proud of Red Hugh.

This has been our second year of honouring him in this way and we will do it again. I was a little worried about this year because we have a new local government but they were very supportive. Everything worked out well.

I couldnt have imagined so many people. It was fantastic. The respect and the solemnity of the people made it feel like Red Hugh was really there.

The parade in Valladolid

We would love Irish people to come and experience Valladolid and see how we honour your Irish hero. It is very easy to come here, as we are just one hour from Madrid on the fast train.

The people here are very interested to receive Irish people and be the best hosts we can be for our Irish visitors.

In this world of wars and sadness, we want to promote the brothership between our two countries.

Here in Ireland, the people of Donegal will celebrate Red Hughs birthday on Saturday, October 28, with a full programme of events, beginning in his native Lifford at 1pm at the old courthouse with a talk on the history of the town.
That is a breach of international law  President Michael D Higgins comments on Gaza conflict as he meets Pope Francis in Rome

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says Palestinians theyve been horribly treated now for 75 years and denied self-determination and denied their own state

President Michael D Higgins meets Pope Francis in Vatican

Maeve McTaggart Thu 19 Oct 2023 at 15:40







President Michael D Higgins has said a belief in international humanitarian law cannot be invoked when it suits after a meeting with Pope Francis in Rome.
Ultimately, sympathy for one group should not come at the expense of sympathy for others, writes Ksenia Samotiy (21) from Lviv, who moved to Ireland last year

Quite often, I sit down to write this column intending to say something relatively cheerful or light-hearted. Something like: Am I a bad person for ordering a glass of New Zealand wine the day after the quarter-final? But life continues to throw up so much bad news that it feels inappropriate to avoid it.

And so I find myself writing about Israel and Palestine. A highly emotive subject, about which I dont claim to have any particular expertise. But its one that has nevertheless consumed my thoughts. I guess all I can do is give my own perspective on it, as a Ukrainian refugee for whom conflict and death no longer feels like something that happens only to other people in faraway places.

So lets start with the one thing I know for sure. Which is that any attack on civilians  whether its the terror of armed men swarming into a music festival, or the terror of being caught in the middle of retaliatory strikes  is horrific. That the vast majority of civilians of any nationality are the same: they are just trying to live their lives as best they can, within the confines of the environment they find themselves in, and they feel trapped by forces that are much bigger than them. That they just want their children to be safe. And that they are dying just because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law exist for a very good reason, and to see these being trampled over, anywhere in the world, hurts me deeply.

Beyond thatWell, its difficult to admit, but for Ukrainians, theres an uncomfortable extra element to this. For the last 18 months, weve been used to being the headline. Were used to being the most important international issue, the centre of attention, the pivot around which the future will be decided. And then, suddenly, theres an even bigger crisis. Combined with the slow progress made by the counter-offensive, you can feel peoples attention shifting away from Ukraine.

It provokes all sorts of difficult reactions. On one hand, the rational part of my brain knows that this always happens. That the world is constantly moving on, peoples attention spans are not endless, and that when things seem to be bogged down, its inevitable other things will rise up the agenda. That the glaciers are melting, budgets are being set, elections are happening, violence is flaring up in other places.

On the other hand, it does worry us, seeing Ukraine slip down the agenda. Where will this leave us? Will we still get the same support? Have we perhaps not sounded grateful enough for all the support that we have so far received, both to stop Russia from occupying more of our land and to allow us to somehow carrying on living our lives, wherever we are across Europe? Will we end up in the same category as refugees from other seemingly endless conflicts, like Syria and indeed Palestine, where we are just a problem that nobody really knows how to deal with any more, ignored until the next time things become so horrific that people have to pay attention? Being in the headlines allowed us to believe that we had agency; what happens if we no longer have the same voice?

Ultimately, though, sympathy for one group should not come at the expense of sympathy for others. Ive spent the last 18 months reading reports of rocket strikes on hospitals, train stations, shopping centres and peaceful city streets. Im so incredibly thankful to Ireland for giving me the chance to continue living a reasonably normal life. And I just hope that we all have enough empathy to support the civilians who are caught up in such violence, regardless of their nationality, religion or any other marker of identity.
The number of people contacting the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) increased by almost a third last year, marking what the sexual violence service described as a vast need for support.

There has also been a substantial increase in calls out from the helpline, largely care calls to people on the therapy waiting list, which is up 63pc to over 3,000 people.

According to its annual report, 18,400 people contacted the DRCCs National Rape Crisis Helpline in 2022.

The DRCC said this represented a 31pc increase over the previous year and the highest level ever reached on the line - a sign of the vast need for support for those affected by sexual violence across the country.

The vast majority of people contacting the freephone helpline were female, with women making up over 84pc of the calls. Of the rest of the calls, 15.7pc came from men and 0.3pc of callers were categorised as other.

People between the ages of 18 and 23 were responsible for over a fifth of calls to the phone line.

DRCC said that the increase in calls was matched by a substantial increase in calls to those on DRCCs therapy waiting list, up 63pc on 2021 to 3,009, which the centre says was accounted for by a significant difficulty in recruiting sufficient therapists in 2022.

The report also recorded a 30pc increase in court accompaniment services offered by DRCC, with 331 people being supported

2022 was a year that started with the terrible killing of Ashling Murphy, which affected so many people, and ended with cruel stories of child abuse in schools sparked by the Blackrock Boys documentary. In 2022, people were resuming normal life after the restrictions due to Covid-19. Our report shows people - many of whom faced serious mental health, economic and other challenges - were able to seek support on the National Helpline, Noeline Blackwell, the outgoing chief executive of the DRCC, said.

"Others found the time and courage to consider reporting sexual violence or seeking justice in courts or other fora.

Despite our limitations including difficulties in recruiting therapists, this report shows we in DRCC  staff and volunteers - were privileged to be there for them offering support and healing, Ms Blackwell said.

Equality minister Roderic OGorman, who will launch the report this morning, said he commended DRCC for its vital work in 2022.

Their Annual Report clearly sets out the breadth of that work, and how it provides such strong support to people who experienced sexual abuse and sexual violence, he said.
The Legal Eagle restaurant review: The roasts are substantial, the plates piled high with vegetables beyond reproach, and service is brilliant

Our critic cant wait to return to this recently reopened gastropub beside the Four Courts

The Legal Eagle. Picture: Dave Sweeney

Katy McGuinness Thu 19 Oct 2023 at 03:30

The Sunday roast. Whether you love it or loathe it probably depends upon which end of the cooking or receiving continuum you tend to be.
United Airlines says boarding in this way saves precious time during our boarding process

It's a puzzling test of whether passengers can squeeze their knees in, crouch into their seats armadillo-style, or maybe even invent an awkward new way to sit before ultimately resorting to standing up from their seats to give space.

For travellers who dread these situations, or just wish they could get on the plane a little earlier, United Airlines has some good news.

Starting from October 26, the US carrier will implement a boarding process that puts window-seat passengers in economy class on the plane ahead of their peers in the middle and the aisle, according to an internal memo obtained by The Washington Post.

Through this new process, United will assign passengers to seven boarding groups. It will still use a preboarding system for certain customers, such as those with disabilities, unaccompanied minors and active duty military. First-class and business-class passengers will follow. Then window, exit row seats and non-revenue passengers will board, followed by middle and aisle seats.

The last boarding group is reserved for basic economy on domestic flights, as well as those who don't have a boarding group on their pass, according to the memo.

Officials wrote in the memo that the process would save the airline up to two minutes of boarding time. Industry airline experts say that could be an opportunity for airlines to save their coin, lessen the chances of delays or potentially add flights to their schedule.

"It is one of those situations where what's good for the airline would probably also be good for travellers," said Scott Keyes, the founder of Going, a travel membership that helps people find flight and travel deals. "That's not always the case many times, it's more of a zero-sum thing - but I think systems that allow airlines to board more efficiently is a win-win."

United first unveiled the WILMA (which stands for window-middle-aisle) boarding system in 2017 upon launching basic economy seating for passengers, according to Christine Salamone, a spokesperson for the airline.

At that time, the carrier limited boarding to five groups instead of seven. United did not disclose when the WILMA system was paused, but the airline said it has been able to resume the system and expand its boarding groups due to added technology.

"We're excited to bring WILMA back to provide a smoother boarding process flow that helps get passengers in their seats even faster and saves precious time during our boarding process," Salamone wrote in an email.

Changes to the airline's boarding system are taking place after the pandemic drastically changed business and leisure travel trends. Although the number of air travellers is exceeding pre-pandemic numbers, according to the US Transportation Security Administration, business travel has also taken a sharp decline.

Keyes said airlines have been prioritising economy passengers as a result.

Other airlines have also been tweaking their boarding protocols. In August, Southwest began limiting the number of EarlyBird check-in spots that passengers are able to purchase on select flights, which the airline said is part of a slew of initiatives designed to modernise their customer experience and strengthen their customer base.

Keyes said a rise in less-experienced travellers boarding flights could lead to more passengers taking extra time to load their carry-on or get settled into their seats.

"We're all newbies at something but that takes a little bit more time," he said. "I think airlines are viewing this as more pressing than what might have been average, 30 minutes of turnaround time pre-pandemic versus maybe 30-35 minutes now with less-experienced travellers."

While Keyes noted passengers likely won't feel a huge difference because it's only shaving off a few minutes of boarding time, it's a chance for United to spend less time on the ground. And, in turn, help passengers avoid the ballroom dance that is figuring out how to shimmy into your seat.
US president Joe Biden and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN in New York last month. Photo: Reuters

President Joe Biden has had a lifetime schooled in international affairs, so its unlikely his decision to fly into a cauldron of danger is solely to hold Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahus jacket, as the latter rolls up his sleeves for a hard-hitting ground offensive in Gaza.

America will always show its support for an ally under attack. Yet sources in Washington are saying that humanitarian dimensions will also be discussed.

It is understood Mr Biden will wish to press home the need to draw a clear distinction between civilians and combatants.

This is ever more critical when a war is to be carried out in densely populated urban zones.

The fact that Hamas is holding almost 200 hostages, including Americans, adds to the nightmare for all concerned. Mr Biden will also visit Jordan, where he plans to meet with King Abdullah II and Egyptian president Abdel Fatah El-Sisi to discuss the deepening humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas last night cancelled his pplan to also meet with Mr Biden there.

Anyone with influence in the region has a deep obligation to do all they can to help.

Washington is adamant it does not intend to dictate terms or directions to Israel. But Mr Biden will be expressing his hope of avoiding an escalation. As always with flashpoints in the region, the approach seems to be hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

For even before Mr Bidens arrival, a task force of thousands of US sailors and Marines was steaming towards Israel, where they will be positioned aboard warships in case the conflict with Hamas does expand.

The terror of the innocents trapped under the bombardment from both sides can scarcely be imagined.

Doctors in Gaza are giving harrowing accounts of hospitals, packed to capacity with both the living and the dead, breaking down.

Thousands of people trying to escape are gathered in Rafah, the territorys only border crossing to Egypt.

Mediators are pleading for an agreement to let aid in and refugees out, but there is deadlock.

One can empathise with the view that to even speak of dialogue, or diplomacy  after the Hamas outrages  seems almost disrespectful.

However, there is a measure of truth in Abraham Maslows observation that: If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Or to put it another: It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake sale to buy a bomber, as US writer Robert Fulghum, said.

The poison of hate, prejudice and bigotry spills from every conflict, to be weaponised to create more.

There are plenty ready to exploit the situation.

What we know for sure is that war is always horrible and peace is always good.

If there is any space for tilting things towards the latter, it should be explored.
Leaders the world over lecture citizens about recycling and switching to clean energy, but a three-year-old child could tell them that their continuing choice to deal with conflicts using war  which devours fossil fuels and rare earth minerals, kills living beings, and poisons land, air and water  is doing infinitely more damage.

Caroline Hurley, Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary

Michael D Higgins has once again captured the pulse of the nation

Once again President Michael D Higgins captured the pulse of the nation and offered guidance, this time to an unelected EU Commission president and the Taoiseach, both of whom should know better.

Long may he continue to offer free moral guidance to national and world leaders in these dangerous times of increased terror, warmongering, militarisation and threats to Irelands neutrality.

Jim Roche, Anti-War Movement, Dublin 1

President should heed his own words and stay within his constitutional remit

I wish to express my disgust at President Higgins intemperate, rude, and unprofessional comments about Ursula von der Leyen.

It was totally correct and appropriate for the European president, who is also German, to personally visit Israel to express unqualified support for Israel in the aftermath of Hamas unprovoked terrorist attacks.

Not for the first time President Higgins has stepped outside of his constitutional remit to meddle and interfere in policy areas which he lacks the authority and information to meddle in.

To use his own words: I dont know where the legitimation for it was and I dont know where the authority for it is and I dont think it was helpful.

It may not have been meant to have malevolent consequences but certainly we need a better performance.

President Higgins was not speaking for Ireland.

He has spoken his own truth. He would be well advised to reflect on his conduct.

Jason Fitzharris, Swords, Co Dublin

This conflict could well escalate into war across the whole Middle East

From a strategic perspective, the recent genocidal Hamas attack on the Jewish community in southern Israel seems designed by Hamas to draw the Israelis into a military occupation of Gaza.

The thirst for revenge for this extremely provocative Hamas offensive is understandable, but an Israeli invasion could prove to be disastrous.

Gaza is a very densely populated area with a large civilian population. A military operation within the small, narrow strip  which has an equivalent area to the Ards Peninsula  will inevitably lead to the death of many innocent civilians as collateral damage.

Recruits for Hamas will increase dramatically and Israel will lose international sympathy and support.

Hamas is physically well dug in to this area with a series of underground tunnels and is embedded within the local population, which it seems willing to use as a human shield against attacks by Israel.

It is said that Hamas uses people to protect its missiles rather than missiles to protect its people.

Driven by a fanatical death-cult theocracy, Hamas seems more interested in warfare than the welfare of its community.

Furthermore, it is a poor general that allows his enemy to choose the battlefield. This urban battleground is totally inappropriate for the use of Israeli tanks and other sophisticated weaponry. That neutralises its military advantage when faced with Hamas guerrilla fighters.

This will dramatically increase casualties and make the question of how Israel will extract itself from this quagmire more problematic. How will it determine when it is mission accomplished.

There is also the danger of the conflict seriously escalating into a conflagration across the whole Middle East region.

Iran sponsors a number of proxies within the region, of which Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are the most important. It also has a burning desire to destroy the state of Israel and may have played a leading role in the Hamas pogrom.

Most troubling of all is the looming humanitarian crisis emanating from the proposed exodus of the civilian population from northern Gaza.

George Workman, Donabate, Co Dublin

Nothing justifies shocking attack on hospital and its many vulnerable patients

Mass killing of civilians is sickening and must be condemned in all possible terms. Horrific violence has been wreaked over the last 12 days.

Thousands of men, women and children have been killed in Israel. Thousands of men, women and children have been killed in Palestine.

The situation today in Gaza is catastrophic. Hospitals and clinics that are operating are overwhelmed and are barely functioning. They are running out of electricity and medical supplies. Surgeons in Al-Shifa hospital are now operating without painkillers.

Hospitals and clinics have been attacked. Others receive orders to evacuate  with just a couple of hours notice  with impossible decisions to make. Patients  including those in critical condition  risk their lives either by moving, or by staying behind, in both cases perhaps to die without treatment.

The bombing right now in Gaza is relentless. People have been killed while forced to move, looking for safety.

People are trapped, unable to escape, with absolutely nowhere safe to go. Theyre deprived of essential needs such as water, food, protected shelter, medicines.

Nothing justifies the shocking attack on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City and its many patients and health workers, as well as the people who sought shelter there.

Isabel Simpson, Executive Director of Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders Ireland

Time for rugby fans to dust themselves off, the Boys in Green will bounce back

The Irish Rugby team has accepted defeat in trying to scale the black mountain that is New Zealand.

Let us not, however, give up hope, but stand erect, dust ourselves off, and start all over again.

If at first you dont succeed...

Leo Gormley, Dundalk, Co Louth
Josef Puska (inset) has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Offaly schoolteacher Ashling Murphy

A garda and a colleague attempted CPR and chest compressions to Ashling Murphy for ten to 15 minutes after they arrived at the Grand Canal in Tullamore, a jury has heard.

Garda Tom Dunne said that he noticed the girl had a necklace with "Ashling" on it around her neck, and that there was "so much blood".

In his evidence, Garda Dunne told the Central Criminal Court he was in the public office of Tullamore Garda Station when he received a phone call from a man who sounded very distressed.

Garda Dunne said the man told him there was a body in the ditch between Boland's Lock and Digby Bridge.

Fionnan Sheahan is joined on the Indo Daily podcast by special correspondent with the Irish Independent, live from the Central Criminal Court to recap on todays evidence in the Ashling Murphy murder trial.
This story has been updated to add a comment from former commissioner Pat Byorth.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks has admitted to violating the constitutional rights of a wolf advocacy group by not fulfilling its request for documents.

The agency also admitted it failed to properly notice and conduct a public meeting when four commissioners convened an illegal quorum, deliberating the outcome of issues via email prior to the meeting.

The admissions are part of a consent decree negotiated by Wolves of the Rockies with the agency on Oct. 11. In addition to admitting wrongdoing, the agency will pay roughly $6,000 for the groups attorney fees and paid for the cost of mediation.

Transparency is important to us, so in figuring out how to move forward with the case we brought forth the bulk of the ideas for the settlement to enhance the transparency of the commission process, said Greg Lemon, FWPs information chief. The main thing I want to make clear is these are ideas we brought forward so the public can be confident in how the commission conducts its business.

In one of the 2022 filings in the lawsuit, FWP denied a public meeting took place and argued the email discussion prior to a vote on the wolf hunting regulations was not illegal and didnt deprive Wolves of the Rockies of a chance to participate.

Marc Cooke, president of the Wolves of the Rockies, said his group has been trying for years to receive treatment equal to what the Fish and Wildlife Commission has given to hunting, fishing and trapping groups. He is hopeful the consent decree may help.

The thing we wanted most was for them to say they did us wrong, Cooke said.

Lawsuit

The consent decree is the result of a lawsuit, filed by Wolves of the Rockies in 2022, accusing the Fish and Wildlife Commission of conducting an illegal meeting in 2021 via email before considering regulations on two controversial issues: elk shoulder season hunts and wolf hunting and trapping.

Six separate requests for copies of the emails were ignored until some of the information was provided last May, a settlement brochure noted.

Additionally, the documents that were produced revealed that a quorum of members of the Commission participated in an email chain prior to the August 10 meeting, the document continued. In this email chain, the Commissioners discussed various suggested changes and proposals to the 2021-2022 Wolf Plan and elk shoulder season. All but one commissioner was copied on each email. At the August 10 Meeting, the Commissioners denied having discussed the proposed motion with more than one other person. The plans discussed in the chain were ultimately adopted at this meeting.

A 2022 Montana State News Bureau story noted that when specifically questioned at the meeting, vice chair Pat Tabor denied he had discussed the issue with a quorum of commissioners.

"I have never had a conversation (with) more than one ... commissioner at any given time on this entire topic or for that matter, any topic related to the commission business because I'm very clear on what the public process is," Tabor said.

Commission

The four commissioners involved in the discussions were identified as chair Lesley Robinson of Dodson, Tabor of Whitefish, Brian Cebull of Billings and KC Walsh of Martinsdale. Excluded from the conversation was then-commissioner Pat Byorth of Bozeman. His term expired at the end of 2022.

At the time, Byorth was the only holdover from the previous governors administration, Democrat Steve Bullock. With Byorths appointment expiring, the Republican Gianforte administration has now nominated all of the commission members. At the time of the illegal meeting, there were only five commissioners. The body has since been expanded to seven.

The sad thing about it is, the guiding light of principle and integrity of the process was commissioner Byorth, Cooke said. And they just pushed him out of the way.

In one text message between Walsh and Tabor, Tabor writes, Whatever you do, please dont second Byorths motion on wolves in case he gets out ahead.

"FWP had a proud history of public participation and open decision-making that was instrumental in decades of remarkable fish and wildlife restoration," Byorth wrote in an email. "This settlement is a step forward to restoring the trust Montanans require from FWP leadership."

Commissioners Tabor, Robinson and Cebull did not return requests for comment in time for this story. The governor's office also did not respond to a request for comment.

In a 2023 interview with the Billings Gazette, Byorth said his fellow Gianforte-appointed commissioners arrived with an attitude that they didnt have to listen to the public on controversial issues.

He singled out Tabor for criticism saying, He had his agenda, and by golly he was going to ramrod it through, Byorth said. Just the way he presented motions at the 11th hour, had arranged those motions with his majority up front, he wasnt about to consult me or a couple of other commissioners. It was his show, and he was going to do it his way.

Latest issue

Under the consent agreement, the commissioners will now be required to consider Wolves of the Rockies comments or the lawsuit could be revived.

Were not anti-hunting, but we need a level playing field, Cooke said.

Lemon said FWP is taking steps to improve its internal processes to ensure requests for public records are promptly processed. In the case of Wolves of the Rockies, some requests werent processed for 90 days, others took 11 months.

Ive been doing this for about 13 years, we always took our lumps, Cooke said. Its under this administration that things changed radically.

The only reason the group filed a lawsuit, he added, was because they had no other option.

More terms

The agreement requires the Fish and Wildlife Commission to provide an additional hour of public comment time to the group at its June 2024 meeting. Thats when the commission will consider the hunting and trapping season regulations for wolves.

Other terms of the agreement include:

 FWP will fulfill Wolves of the Rockies' public records requests at no charge for one year.

 For one year, any non-privileged commissioner-written emails regarding wolves or trapping will be forwarded to the group no less than two days before each commission meeting.

 Two days before a meeting, the commission will post all non-privileged emails and text messages written by the commissioners since the last posting.

 Prior to the end of this year, the commissioners will undergo training on open meeting and open record compliance, which the public may attend. Training will also be required of any new commission appointee.

 The commission must make reasonable efforts to post the Wolves of the Rockies public comments when they are submitted.

 The commissioners must use public-issued email and telephones when conducting government business.

 Commissioners must disclose when they have any meeting with an individual from an organized interest group.

Struggles

The consent decree is the latest headline for FWP in recent months.

In June, director Hank Worsech  a Gianforte appointee  stepped down.

Last month, a report by the Legislative Audit Division found low morale and fear of retribution within FWPs Enforcement Division. In 2022, the chief of the division retired with a payout and two of his deputies were reassigned.

The report also found fault with FWPs Human Resources division, prompting the Legislative Audit Committee to request an audit of that arm of the agency.

Most recently, FWPs chief of operations has taken administrative leave with pay following a citation for hunting without permission.
Ejiro Ogbevoen and Bill Osh share their experiences as part of Black History Month

Ejiro Ogbevoen started Black Therapists Ireland after the death of George Floyd in the US

Being black in Ireland can be tough at times due to exclusion and racism, according to members of the black and Irish community here.

Bill Osh, a content creator for Ryanair, and Ejiro Ogbevoen, founder of Black Therapists Ireland, spoke about what its like to be a black person in Ireland as part of Black History Month.

Ejiro started Black Therapists Ireland after the death of George Floyd. Its an organisation that black therapists can join to offer some extra support to those in their community.

Currently, there are 30 people involved. Everyone has their own private practice, but its a place where everyone can come together to support the community.

A lot of people were looking for mental health support from the black community. It was there, but it wasnt easy for them to find, so I decided to bring all of us together, Ejiro said.

Things like George Nkenchos death definitely triggered people. It happened in the same year as George Floyd. I had a South African woman who came in, people were so distressed.

Mothers were scared for their children. This is a space where they can talk about it and be supported around the challenges they are having.

Awareness is there, but the system isnt helping us. I want to take action and to help work and school environments make constructive changes.

Those extra steps you need to take. Black people can be followed in shops, accused of something they havent done, and sometimes the gardai or people in authority dont help with situations like this, she added.

Bill has been in Ireland since he was about four years old. He started content creating on TikTok just over two years ago and has posted Irish-themed skits about Caca Milis and Alive-O. After some time, Ryanair reached out to him and gave him a job.

Bill, who is originally from Nigeria, has highlighted the experiences hes had and how he grew up as a black and Irish person. He told the Irish Independent about how hes had to deal with these extra steps when growing up in Dublin.

Bill Osh, a TikToker from Dublin, works for Ryanair

My dad sat me down when I was growing up. He told me to always present myself in the best way possible because we dont have the same privileges everyone else does, he said.

Being black, it doesnt give you the same freedoms. If youre a black person, you have to go about a certain way otherwise youre viewed as aggressive or youre not being proper. Injustice does happen, its unfortunate weve to go about things a different way.

It was absolutely tough at times, there was a lot of exclusion and a lot of incidents where racist stuff would happen. I was suspended from my secondary school 12 times because of my haircut.

The school had a policy where you couldnt have lower than a three or a four. Because my hair is naturally short, pretty much anytime I got a haircut, I got suspended.

Being black in a predominately white school, we were the only black family there. Weve had a few instances with the police as well, my older brothers had a sportscar back then. It mightnt have been common to see black people thriving in certain neighbourhoods.

There was always an eye on us, weirdly enough. One time my brothers picked me up from school and a garda car followed us all the way back to our gate.

He stepped out and asked us where we were going. We said were going home right in front of our house. He asked for information to prove it, so my brother got the buzzer for the electric gate and pressed it open.

Ejiro said that black people are still struggling in society today, one of the big factors being the workplace.

Getting a job as a black person can be difficult, some people take up an English name to get access to an interview, its a challenge for some people. Its sad.

Its little things that are impacting people, it makes you doubt yourself and what youre able to do. A lot of people are in the minority in some places, for example, therell be one black person in the workforce.

There can be problems there, we can be seen as an angry, black person. We explore that so people can navigate themselves in work.

I think its different in every area, while we say its more accessible in Dublin. I wouldnt say its easier in Dublin, there are more people of colour here, but the challenges are still here in a lot of ways.

Some people have welcoming experiences when they first come here but others have intrusive experiences where people are ignored.

Dublin seems to be the easiest place, but it still has its own challenges. Theres black people who dont get promoted because of their colour. Its painful. It can be tough, Ejiro added.
Thursday is now the most popular day for employees in Dublin to attend the office. Photo: Getty

Thursday has been declared as the busiest day in Dublin offices as the workplace return continues to surge.

Over half (55pc) of office employees are now spending between two and three days at the workplace each week, according to Dublin Chambers latest Quarterly Business Outlook Survey.

The report, compiled in collaboration with Savills, analyses hybrid and remote working trends and found an increasing number of employers are implementing core hours and days-in-the-office policies.

One in four firms (27pc) said their employees work in the office three days a week, an increase from 21pc nine months ago. Overall, Thursday has overtaken Wednesday as the day of the week typically recording the highest use of office space.

Thursdays have experienced a considerable surge, with the number of companies reporting over 71pc occupancy on this day rising from 28pc to 35pc in just nine months, Andrew Cunningham, Director of Offices at Savills Ireland, said.

The midweek days remain the office anchors, but theres been a distinct increase in onsite presence recorded on these days. This upward trend in office occupancy has been influenced by a multitude of factors, perhaps not least by the growing concern of productivity.

While just over a third of Dublin firms report it as a concern, productivity is a growing factor being associated with hybrid and remote working, up from 30pc in 2022 to 35pc in 2023.

This year, they found that only a third of companies (33pc), out of the 320 surveyed, now offer complete flexibility to their staff regarding core hours/days, a steep drop from 45pc in 2022.

Theres been a steady increase in those reporting higher levels of office use on the traditional core days of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Office usage remains at its lowest on Mondays and Fridays.

We must recognise there is an increase in the number of employees returning to the office. However, with less than one in ten businesses (8pc) reporting five-day office attendance from staff, the future of hybrid working is clear, Mary Rose Burke, Dublin Chamber CEO, said.

The rationale behind this will be different for every employer but what we have found is that cultivating a positive work culture (74pc), onboarding new staff members (64pc), and the needs of the business model (55pc), are the primary concerns for businesses around hybrid and remote working.

Offering hybrid and remote working as a recruitment and retention tactic remains the largest motivator for companies, with almost three in four (73pc) using it as a tool to address the current skills gap crisis.

The journey back to the office is unique and nuanced for each firm. SMEs appear to lean more towards remote work, whereas larger firms with over 50 staff are inclined to increase office days.

A one-size-fits-all mindset won't work, and this must be reflected within the Code of Practice being designed by the Workplace Relations Committee to govern the right to request remote work, she added.
The new stamp issued by An Post celebrating the role played by Dundalk engineer Peter Rice in the design of the Sydney Opera House

Kieran Rice, Isabella Rice, Rosie Keane pictured at the launch of a stamp marking the contribution of Dundalk engineer to the building of the Sydney Opera House

The acclaimed Dundalk engineer Peter Rice is being celebrated as An Post has issued a stamp marking the 50th anniversary of Sydney Opera House.

The stamp was unveiled onsite at Sydney Opera House by Consul General of Ireland Sydney, Rosie Keane; Kieran Rice, son of the late Irish Structural Engineer who made possible the buildings iconic white sails roof, Isabella Rice and Kerryn Coker, Co-Chair of Arup Australasia, the original design company.

Peter Rice, who lived in Castle Road, Dundalk played a central role in creating the revolutionary modern structure using his mathematical expertise and artistic intuition to convert concrete, steel and glass into a world-renowned building, famous for its iconic, white sails roof structure. He worked closely with leading architects including Richard Rogers, I. M. Pei, and Renzo Piano.

Other notable projects which he worked on included the Pompidou Centre and the Pyramid at the Louvre in Paris and the Lloyds building in London.

He was the first Irish engineer to be awarded the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1999.

He died aged in 1991, aged 57, having been diagnosed with a brain tumour the previous year.

Speaking at the launch of the new stamp, his son Kieran said: We, Peter Rices family, are all really touched that his contribution to the Sydney Opera House design is being recognised with this wonderful First Day Cover of the commemorative stamp on 50th anniversary of the completion of the Sydney Opera House.

The stamp is a lovely artwork in itself and Peters quote on the First Day Cover is very well-chosen and is often used in our family to motivate his grandchildren.

He recalled that his father was a proud Irishman, who worked across the globe on many iconic projects, but the Sydney Opera House was where it all started.

The new stamp issued by An Post celebrating the role played by Dundalk engineer Peter Rice in the design of the Sydney Opera House

Peter moved to Sydney in 1963 for three years with his wife, Sylvia, and two young daughters Julia and Heidi.. Kieran was born there, and Sylvia still visits friends every year who were made at that time.

Peter was very proud of his involvement with the Sydney Opera House design and construction especially his work on programming the setting out of the sails. He would have been humbled to be recognised in this way in his native Ireland.

Consul General of Ireland Sydney, Rosie Keane said: 50 years on from its construction, the Sydney Opera House is still one of the most loved and recognised landmarks in the world Consul General of Ireland Sydney, Rosie Keane said. As the Irish Consul General in Sydney I feel enormous pride that the Irish engineer Peter Rice played a significant part in the creation of this unique and graceful design. I was delighted to join with Kieran and Isabella Rice and Kerryn Coker from Arup at the Sydney launch of this An Post stamp, commemorating the great Peter Rice and his historic legacy in this city.

An Post CEO David McRedmond commented: Ireland has been slow to recognise its contribution to Modernism,  An Post CEO David McRedmond said. The 50th anniversary of Sydney Opera House is the perfect time to celebrate the role of Irish people, and of engineer Peter Rice in particular, to the great canon of world-class architecture and engineering.

An Posts stamp shows a striking illustration of Sydney Opera House by renowned Irish artist David Rooney capturing the organic nature and acoustics of the building, while also referencing art created by First Nations Australians. The W rate international stamp 2.20 covers postage anywhere in the world and is available online at anpost.com/shop (with free delivery) and from the GPO and selected post offices nationwide.

The renowned engineers visionary career is also celebrated with a limited edition First Day Cover envelope featuring the new stamp alongside an illustration of Peter Rice and a quote from his writings: The courage you need is the courage to start. Once launched, then each step can be evolved naturally.
Louth country house with sea views on the market for 950,000

For anyone who fancies an escape to the country in a period house with views across Dundalk Bay yet offering easy access to the M1 motorway, then Ballygassan House, Farm Road, Annagassan might be the ideal address.

The impressive Victorian residence stands on 2.5 acres of mature grounds, including an orchard and a greenhouse, and has the added benefit of a stone barn which has been converted to provide additional self-contained accommodation.

A stone barn has been converted to provide separate accommodation

The house, which dates back to the late 19th century, combines the elegance of a bygone era with the convenience of contemporary living as it has been modernised throughout.

The dining room has views of the surrounding countryside and the sea

The 475sq m of accommodation includes four spacious reception rooms with tall windows giving views of the surrounding countryside, a traditional country kitchen opening into a large dining area, and five generous bedrooms.

The large reception rooms have attractive wooden floors and period features

According to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, it was built as a hunting lodge for the Plunkett family of Louth Hall and replaced an earlier house known as Thompson's Farm. It has been enlarged and expanded over the decades.

One of the four reception rooms

The building was badly damaged by fire when it was set alight by anti-Treaty supporters in February 1923 during the Civil War. At the time, it was the residence of John J Russell, a sub-sheriff of the county, and was one of a number of houses in Co Louth that were burned during the War of Independence and Civil War.

In his book County Louth and the Irish Revolution 1912-1923 historian Donal Hall writes that Ballygassan was a two-storey house on a farm owned by Russell, who had resided there since 1881.

In a letter two days after the attack on February 3 1923, Russell told the Minstry of Home Affairs that the reason alledged (sic) is, as a reprisal for the shooting of irregulars and when I pointed out that I had nothing to do with that, they said I was a government official and sympathizer.

One of the five bedrooms

Russell, his wife, their two daughters and servants were given only ten minutes to leave the house and lost most of their possessions as a result.

The house was subsequently rebuilt and was last on the market in 2015 when it sold for 762,500.

It is situated less than a mile from Annagassan village, home to the popular Glyde Inn bar and restaurant, and the nearby beach with views across Dundalk Bay to the Cooley and Mourne Mountains.

The mature grounds include an orchard and greenhouse

Estate agent Property Partners Laurence Gunne, who are handling the sale, say that it has been superbly maintained and is in excellent condition throughout.

With a guide price of 950,000, the house is already attracting considerable interest.
Dundalk & North

Senator John McGahon urges businesses hit by flooding to apply for support as scheme extended to Louth

Fine Gael Senator John McGahon saw the devastation caused by the floods in north Louth as he joined local councillor John Reilly in delivering sandbags on Wednesday.
ATU Galway student Sean Doyle (centre) from Coolaney, Co Sligo, winner of the WorldSkills Ireland 2023 Digital Infrastructure Design Award, pictured with Tommy Coyne (left) Chief Examiner and Ray O`Mahony, sponsor  Symetri.

Atlantic Technological University (ATU) won six categories at the recent Worldskills National Final in Dublin in categories such as Electrical Installations, Carpentry, Joinery, Toolmaking, Digital Infrastructure and Cabinetmaking.

ATU Galway engineering student Sean Doyle from Coolaney, Co Sligo, won the Digital Infrastructure Design award for his creation of a data rich linear infrastructure model and ATU Galway Connemara student Keith Roberts from Ballyconneely, Connemara, Co Galway, won the Cabinetmaking category.

ATU Sligo apprentice Sean McLoughlin from Naas, Co Kildare, won the Electrical Installations category and Roscommon native Daniel Connolly from Castlerea claimed victory in the Carpentry category.

ATU Sligo student Joe Kelly from Ballinasloe, Co Galway, won the Joinery category while Co Clare native Max Boland from Shannon was the winner of the Toolmaking category. These ATU students fought off challenging competitors to take home these victories.

ATU students competed against over 160 finalists in the 2023 Worldskills Ireland (WSI) event which took place in the RDS Simmonscourt, Dublin, from 20 to 22 September. Attended by over 30,000 visitors, the competition inspires the next generation of skilled young people to follow their passions, interests, and talents for the securement of their futures.

ATU President Dr Orla Flynn congratulated the apprentices and students on their achievements in the final, saying: Atlantic TU has been doing significant work to evolve apprenticeship and skilled-based learning programmes with academic partners and enterprise and these awards are a testament to this. I want to congratulate all the participants and acknowledge the commitment and dedication of our students and the supporting staff who have made this possible.

These students will progress to skills-based careers in their chosen field with expertise that has been enhanced by these learning environments, for industries with skills shortages. I would like to wish all the apprentices and students well on the next steps of their journey.
A FORMER FCJ Bunclody student has been awarded scholarship worth 24,000 by the Naughton Foundation at a ceremony in the Trinity Business School in Dublin.

Mary Byrne was presented with an award and cheque by founding patrons of the Naughton Foundation, Dr. Martin Naughton, his wife Carmel and former Taoiseach Mr. Enda Kenny at the special ceremony on October 14.

Each year 36 students are awarded Naughton Scholarships. There is at least one winner from each County in the Republic of Ireland. The scholarship is intended as a reward and encouragement to exceptional students who would like to study in the STEM field (science, technology, engineering and maths) at University. The school of each winning student also receives a prize for the schools science labs.

Supporting academic and innovative excellence in Irish students, the Naughton Foundation Scholarship Awards are an investment in the future of Ireland's reputation as a country with outstanding graduates promoting the study of engineering, science, and technology at third level.

The County Wexford winner, Mary Byrne, a former student of FCJ Bunclody, Wexford, has accepted a place studying Science and Physics at University College Dublin.

Since its establishment in 2008, scholarships worth over 6 million have been awarded to over 350students. The scheme started in three counties and has continued to expand annually to become a nationwide scheme in 2016. There is one guaranteed scholarship (24,000) for each participating county, with some counties awarded more than one scholarship and each scholarship is worth6,000 per annum for each year of a students three- or four-year undergraduate degree.

Mary joins other exceptional Irish students who were awarded third level scholarships towards their studies in the areas of engineering, science, technology, and maths. The prize winners former secondary school, FCJ Bunclody, Wexford, was awarded a prize of 1,000 towards their schools science facilities, for their support of their winning student. More than 250 schools have also benefited from this prize to date with some schools receiving it on more than one occasion.

Speaking about the growth and development of the programme over the past fourteen years, Dr. Martin Naughton has said, We are delighted to have been able to help and contribute in some small way to support undergraduate studies in the STEM fields in Ireland since 2008.

"We are very conscious of the pressures on students to finance their full time studies and with the increased costs they face and are therefore increasing our annual Scholarship awards to 6,000 per annum for all of our new and existing Naughton Scholars 24,000 for their four-year degree. When we meet these young engineers, researchers, and mathematicians I am very happy knowing that we have invested in Irelands wealth creators and leaders of the future, he added.
To mark its tenth anniversary, SK Fitness, led by owner Sharon Martin, will host a Big Pink Breakfast event to support breast cancer awareness on Sunday, October 22. Beginning at 10 a.m. in SK Fitnesss premises in Drinagh Retail Park, the event will include a short walk followed by tea, coffee and lots of snacks in the gym.

"I always dreamed of owning my own gym, and it's a dream come true to celebrate ten years of helping people lead healthier lives, said Sharon. This Big Pink Breakfast is a small way for us to give back to the community that has supported us throughout this incredible journey. We have chosen the Irish Cancer Society as our charity partner as unfortunately too many of us have had family, friends or personal experiences with cancer, so I think we can all say it is something that has effected so many.

It is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month so we want to highlight this as best we can. All donations are very much appreciated and go 100 per cent directly to the Irish Cancer Society.

Sharon wished to express her gratitude to the staff members who have delivering the SK Fitness philosophy over the past decade, with their enthusiasm and dedication helping the business to grow and helping clients reach their full potential.

To donate to the Big Pink Breakfast visit justgiving.com and search SK Fitness Big Pink Breakfast.
Bray resident Jody ONeill joined Derry Girls writer Lisa McGee on the winners list for the Zebbie Awards, which celebrate the best in Irish writing for stage, screen and radio.

The 16th Writers Guild of Ireland Zebbie Awards were hosted by actress Tara Flynn at The Sugar Club, Dublin, on Tuesday, October 17, and while Jody was not able to attend in person, she received an honour in the Best Animation Script category for Fia's Fairies (The Little Lost Grainneogaward).

Born in Cobh and living in Bray, Jody has worked as an actor and writer for over 20 years and aside from her recent work on Little Moon Animation's show Fia's Fairies, which she said was a beautiful show to write for, was previously involved in researching and developing work that promotes autism acceptance.

The resulting play, based on her own diagnosis, What I (Don't) Know About Autism, was a co-production with the Abbey Theatre in partnership with The Everyman and Mermaid County Wicklow Arts Centre, and ran at the Bray venue in February 2020.

Meanwhile, Lisa McGee received a Best Television Drama Script Zebbie for an episode of her smash hit comedy Derry Girls, beating off competition from Sharon Horgan, for Bad Sisters, and Mark OHalloran, for Conversations with Friends.

An Cailin Ciuin, which had the distinction earlier this year of becoming the first Irish language film to be nominated for an Academy Award, secured a Zebbie for Colm Bairead for Best Feature Film Script.

Ciara Elizabeth Smyth won the Zebbie for Best Theatre Script for Lie Low; Joanne Ryan won Best Radio Drama Script for Eggsistentialism; Carmel Callan won Best Continuing Drama Script for Fair City (Series 33, Ep 106); and Katie McNeice won Best Short Film Script for Lambing.

The Zebbie Awards celebrate the best of Irish writing in Theatre, Television Drama, Continuing Drama, Short Film, Feature Film, Radio and Animation. Only WGI members can vote for the winners from the nominated scripts.

The awards are named in honour of OZ Zebby Whitehead, a Broadway and Hollywood actor who was a great supporter of theatre and writing in Ireland after he moved to Dublin in 1963.
Daniel Webb, who paid Garda Holly Hayden in cocaine to download info off Pulse. Photo: Paddy Cummins

Photos have been revealed of the 33-year-old Wicklow man, who was jailed for corruption after he admitted exchanging cocaine for information taken directly from the Garda Pulse system.

Images from the Sunday World show Daniel Webb, who attended court wearing a pair of 695 Balenciaga designer trainers, standing outside the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin ahead of his sentencing hearing.

The court heard how Webb who is now in Mountjoy Prison after he was handed a two-year jail term  entered into an illicit coke for info relationship with former civilian garda employee Holly Hayden.

Webb (33), of Charlesland, Greystones, pleaded guilty to two counts of active and passive corruption at unknown locations on September 6 and 9, 2019.

At a previous hearing, Detective Sergeant James King recalled how, in January 2020, gardai received confidential information that a civilian employee of An Garda Siochana, Holly Hayden (27), who was working at the Dun Laoghaire District Office, was relaying confidential information from the Garda Pulse system to third parties outside the station.

An investigation took place and her work area and home were searched. A mobile phone was seized during the search and a forensic download was carried out.

Messages from Hayden to Webb were found on both the WhatsApp and Telegram apps.

The court heard that Webb was then identified and messages showed Hayden sent him a document containing information from the Pulse system about another individual on September 6, 2019.

On September 9, 2019, she provided a synopsis of information from the Pulse system, which she had been instructed to download via the messaging app Telegram.

She received cocaine in exchange for providing information on both of these occasions.

The court heard that in total 17 lines of intelligence were sent, which related to Webb and people associated with him.

Screenshots of the Pulse system were also sent to Webb.

The court heard that Hayden also sent information to another third party and gave details about the location of garda checkpoints.

Judge Orla Crowe asked if copies of the information taken from the Pulse system were available, and these were handed into the court.

Det Sgt King said a search warrant was issued for Webbs home and car.

Webb arrived home during the search and cooperated fully with gardai. His mobile phone was also seized.

James Dwyer SC, defending, said his client met Hayden in his local pub after she approached him.

They first began to communicate on WhatsApp in May 2019.

He said Hayden sent information to his client about him and his associates and sent details to a third party relating to garda movement and checkpoints.

Det Sgt King agreed with counsel that messages from his clients phone show that at one point he encouraged Hayden not to look up more information.

Mr Dwyer handed in character references for his client from his GP, a member of the Bar of Ireland, neighbours, a woman for whom his mother worked, and family members.

His parents were also in court to support him.

The letter from his parents described Webb as warm, generous and loving and said he is adored by his siblings.

Counsel said seven urine analyses had also returned clean.

He said a probation report is available, indicating when this offence occurred Webb was at the peak of his drug use, spending up to 200 a night on cocaine and Xanax.

The reports put him at a low risk of re-offending and noted he is in stable employment.

He said this was a crime of the utmost seriousness where the Pulse system has been compromised but asked the court to consider the clean urine reports, the lack of previous convictions, and his early guilty plea when sentencing.

The court heard Webb has no previous convictions.

Passing sentence, Judge Orla Crowe said the offending involved interfering with an intelligence resource of An Garda Siochana.

Judge Crowe sentenced him to two years in prison on each count to run concurrently, with the final 12 months suspended for two years.

The judge had previously adjourned the case facing Webbs co-accused Holly Hayden until November 6 for finalisation.

Hayden (27) of Bayview Terrace, Bray, pleaded guilty to one count of disclosing confidential information from the Pulse system obtained in the course of her employment on October 29, 2019.

She further pleaded to two counts of accessing confidential information from the Pulse system for the purpose of corruptly obtaining a gift, consideration or advantage for herself at Dun Laoghaire Garda Station on September 9, 2019, and on dates between April 28, 2020 and May 11, 2020.
North Dakotas retirement board on Thursday did not reach a consensus on whether to actively oppose the latest iteration of a portion of a wide-spanning budget bill that was voided by the state Supreme Court and prompted Gov. Doug Burgum to reconvene the state Legislature for a special session next week.

The Public Employees Retirement System Board of Trustees was unable to carry a motion directing the system to testify against the proposed legislation, which seeks to increase the boards number of legislative members from two to four, in a special meeting Thursday ahead of the special session. The board has sued over the change, arguing a violation of the separation of powers, with the case making its way to the high court and ultimately setting the stage for a return of lawmakers to Bismarck.

A motion for the system to remain neutral and be available for testimony also failed.

The change to the board's makeup was initially shot down twice in the 2023 session before passing in Senate Bill 2015, the broad-spanning budget bill for the Office of Management and Budget that has also often served as a catch-all at the end of a legislative session.

The Supreme Court ruled in late September that the bill was in violation of a state Constitution provision that requires all legislation be limited to one subject. That decision left lawmakers scrambling to chart a path forward for the $322 million in funding for the 2023-25 cycle that was suddenly in limbo. A second ruling that denied a request for more time to address the issue meant the Legislature is pressed for time to minimize its impact.

Legislators beginning Monday are set to consider 14 new bills that divide up the overturned bill. The interim Legislative Management Committee is hoping to limit the scope of the special session to bills that can't wait until the Legislature reconvenes in 2025, though legislative leaders have indicated they are open to considering bills on energy, tax relief and infrastructure after negotiations with Burgum.

Legislative Management on Friday will assess legislation that lawmakers are proposing for consideration during the session and offer further direction on bills for which there is only a concept.

Burgum called the special session on Tuesday, indicating that part of his reasoning is based on the fact that bills in a governor-called session take effect immediately. Lawmakers could have also used some or all of the remaining five legislative days they have preserved, having used 75 of the 80 days they are allocated every two years for the 2023 session, but that would mean any bills that pass would not take effect for 90 days unless the Legislature gets two-thirds of its members to approve the use of an emergency clause.

The 14 bills that are seeking to replace SB 2015 impact a range of state agencies and include items such as funding transfers from the state government, K-12 education funding provisions, and transition details as the state's public employee pension plan shifts to a 401(k)-style plan.

Though SB 2015 was ruled unconstitutional, the Supreme Court did not rule on the board's primary complaint, which centered on legislative influence on the board and will now be up for consideration again in a bill that also includes two other clauses that impact the retirement system. Board members opted not to speak during Thursday's meeting about the potential for further litigation if the change becomes law again.
A young and talented artist from Wicklow has been announced as the overall winner of the fourth Hereford 2024 Charity Photo and Calendar Competition.

With less than one month to go until the Hereford 2024 Charity Calendar goes on sale, the people have spoken and this years featured artists have been chosen.

The judging process for this photo competition was twofold, involving a public vote and independent judging panel. Entries were showcased on the Irish Hereford Breed Society's Facebook page, with the four category winners being chosen by public vote. Once the category winners were selected, it was then over to the judges to crown an overall winner.

15-year-old Hannah ONeill of Knockananna showcased her potential as a true budding artist with her beautiful drawing of a Hereford calf entitled Cute as a Button. The winning piece of art was entered by Hannah into the Creative Calves category; a new category for 2023 which was open to children and teenagers aged 16 and under who were encouraged to tap into their artistic abilities by putting forward a drawing, painting or sketch inspired by Hereford calves.

After first being shortlisted by the public, Hannahs drawing was then selected by the panel of judges as the standout image of the competition. Aside from scooping an impressive 500 prize, the Wicklow teen will also see her winning portrait featured in the 2024 Hereford charity calendar.

The calendar  which will this year raise vital funds for the Childrens Health Foundation Ireland at Crumlin  will also feature winning submissions from the other three competition categories that were open to promising photographers of all ages and at any skill level.

Commenting on the tough selection process for the overall winner, Tennyson Egar, Operations and Account Manager at Irish Hereford Prime said: What made this years competition so hard on our judges was the sheer number of brilliant entries we had to choose from! They were spoilt for choice and completely blown away by some of the images. However, despite all of the fantastic category winners Hannahs drawing was extra special. It has a sprinkle of magic that made you feel as if her little Hereford calf is about to come to life off the page.

During the judging process we were amazed and touched to see how people can use their creativity in such a powerful way; to help those that need it most. We have no doubt that all of the children and their families that benefit from the wonderful work carried out by Childrens Health Ireland at Crumlin will be so grateful by the skilled efforts of all involved.
Embracing the natural look is bang on trend, from makeup-free faces to lighter roots

'Be sure to research your colourist  not everyone will be familiar with this process and you want to get it done right.' Picture: @and.bloom

Well, Ive got some great news. None of us could have predicted it, but ageing is cool now! All it took was Pamela Anderson going without makeup at Paris Fashion Week and a couple of (stunning) grey-haired models on the runway for the media to make the announcement. Do you feel relieved? No, me neither, probably because we know that while ageing is having a moment, it will pass soon. There is far too much to gain from us all feeling bad about ageing for us to actually move beyond it. Plus, it takes more than a good week for us all to unlearn what weve been taught about beauty standards.

As a beauty writer, Ive given my own role in beauty messaging a lot of thought. Its tricky to write about anti-ageing creams without co-signing the message that ageing is bad. However, the reality is that most of us do want to work against the natural signs of ageing, and I have a responsibility in this role to share with you the information I believe you want help finding, and I am as much a victim of societys beauty standards as anyone else. Still, I hope in reading this column the message that you dont owe anyone a particular look or face comes through.

It is my belief that beauty is an entirely individual idea, and engaging with products and trends should be something you enjoy, and that you do for yourself. I hope I never make you feel like there is any product or procedure you simply have to have in order to look acceptable to the world. You are enough, just as you are. And yes, it was beautiful to see Anderson spreading that message to the world over the last couple of weeks. Speaking to Vogue, she said, Im not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room. I feel like its just freedom. Its like a relief.

If that relief is something youre craving, you may wish to join the thousands of women stepping off the work-heavy hair-colouring train by transitioning to their natural grey. Its not something that can be done overnight, but with a professionals help, the change can be relatively painless. Essentially, the process involves lightening the hair to a shade close to your natural grey root (yes, youll have to let a little root grow first) and then blending the light colour into said root. If youve never had your hair lightened before, you may be shocked to learn that the process can be costly and time-consuming (when I was fully platinum, my hair appointments could take up to six or seven hours), but once youve taken the first step, the upkeep will be virtually non-existent. Be sure to research your colourist  not everyone will be familiar with this process and you want to get it done right. Go for a consultation and dont be afraid to ask them if theyre experienced in this area.

Once youve gotten to your own shade of grey, dont be afraid of a bold haircut. Some of the chicest women Ive ever seen had grey hair cut really well, which looks really bold and contemporary. For inspiration, check out Denise Boomkenss Instagram account @and.bloom. She is a photographer and the author of The Art of Aging Unapologetically  her account is full of beautiful examples of grey hair.

Buying Irish

Pestle & Mortar Spot Dots

Pestle & Mortar is one of my favourite skincare brands, and it doesnt launch a new product every five minutes, so when it does, I pay attention. Spot Dots (12 via pestleandmortar.com) are spot treatment stickers infused with salicylic acid and tea tree oil to quickly absorb pus and impurities from spots and, in my opinion, make it less tempting to pop them. These guys will get rid of any unsightly heads, shorten the spots life span and prevent needless damage. They come in a pack of 48, and I never want to be without them again.

Something old

Tom Ford Neroli Portofino

Tom Ford launched his fragrance line 17 years ago and, since then, I have not had a moments relief from the desire to buy one. Each time I get the one Ive been craving, another one becomes my obsession. The line started with a single scent, Black Orchid (from 122 per 50ml via brownthomas.com), which was originally positioned for women but became very popular with men. These days, most of us appreciate that fragrance is not gendered, and all of Tom Fords fragrances are worn by people of all genders. One super popular choice is Neroli Portofino (from 255 via brownthomas.com), inspired by the cool breezes, sparkling clear water and lush foliage of the Italian Riviera. Expect to smell Italian bergamot, Tunisian neroli, Sicilian lemon and notes of rosemary and amber.

... Something new

Victoria Beckham Portofino 97

The Victoria Beckham Beauty line is filled with gorgeous products which feel luxurious, are easy to use and perform well. The brands latest foray is into fragrance via a collection of three scents (from 200 per 50ml via victoriabeckhambeauty.com)  Portofino 97 (named after her first romantic break with her husband), Suite 302 (named after a trip to Paris) and San Ysidro Drive (a tribute to their time in California). The collection is luxe with bold-coloured enamel flacons detailed in gold, and the scents are rich. Portofino 97 includes notes of Calabrian bergamot, black pepper, amber, patchouli and vetiver.
Countryfile presenter Ellie Harrison has announced that she is leaving the programme (Steve Parsons/PA)

Countryfile star Ellie Harrison will be celebrated in a special show on the BBC following news of her departure from the long-running TV programme.

The 45-year-old presenter joined the TV series exploring rural British life in 2009 and is a columnist in the Countryfile Magazine, where she announced her exit from the show.

She wrote in the magazine: After 13 years, my final column is a fond farewell to Countryfile  Ill miss the people, places and stories.

Speaking on her decision to leave, a BBC spokesperson said: Ellie is a much-loved and valued member of the Countryfile family and will be missed.

Ellie Harrison arrives for the world premiere screening of the BBCs Blue Planet II (Jonathan Brady/PA)

We would like to thank her for her commitment to the programme and for sharing her passion for wildlife and the great outdoors.

We will be celebrating her contribution in a special show on December 3 and wish her all the best.

Early on in her presenting career, the TV star turned down an offer to present Channel 5s childrens show Milkshake! but later ended up stepping in for presenter Michaela Strachan while she was on maternity leave, to front Michaelas Wild Challenge.

Harrison, who grew up in the Cotswolds and is president of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, has also co-presented on BBCs Secret Britain.

Countryfile is a long-running British TV programme which first broadcast on the BBC in 1988.

Current presenters include John Craven, Adam Henson, Tom Heap and Matt Baker.
Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

New Delhi/UNI: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice to the Delhi Police and sought its response after hearing the pleas of NewsClick's founder and EIC, Prabir Purkayastha, and HR Head, Amit Chakraborty.

The accused duo, Purkayastha and Chakraborty, had moved the Supreme Court to challenge their arrest and detention under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) over alleged Chinese funding to promote anti-national propaganda.

The two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice B R Gavai and also comprising Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, issued notice to Delhi Police and fixed the matter for further hearing next to October 30.

"Issue notice (to Delhi Police). Returnable on October 30, 2023," Justice Gavai said.

Kapil Sibal, the senior lawyer appearing for the accused, Purkayastha, pleaded with the Apex Court judges that the man (Purkayastha) is inside and he is 72-year old. Please consider it.

Justice Gavai, however, said it cannot be taken up tomorrow. It is the only working day. List it on October 30, the next Monday.

Newsclick founder and Editor-in-Chief Prabir Purkayastha and website's human resources head Amit Chakraborty had recently moved the Apex Court, challenging their arrest and detention under UAPA over alleged Chinese funding to promote anti-national propaganda.

They had challenged the Delhi High Courts order upholding the trial court order remanding them to police custody. They have since been remanded to judicial custody.

They were arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on October 3 after it searched 30 locations connected with the online news portal and its journalists in a case filed under the UAPA following allegations that it received money for pro-China propaganda.

The accused duoPurkayastha and Chakravartysubsequently moved to the High Court, challenging the arrest as well as the seven-day police custody and seeking immediate release as interim relief.

According to the FIR (First Information Report) a large amount of funding for the news portal allegedly came from China to "disrupt the sovereignty of India" and cause disaffection against the country.

The probe agency also alleged that Purkayastha conspired with a group called the People's Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS) - to sabotage the electoral process during the 2019 Lok Sabha poll.

The Delhi High Court last week rejected their pleas and said it is of the view that "the fact is that there are serious offences affecting stability, integrity, sovereignty, and national security have been alleged against the petitioner, and this Court is not inclined to pass any favourable orders."


Stakeholders will get more time to comment on the future of the wild horse herd in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

The National Park Service has agreed to extend the comment deadline on an environmental assessment by a month, to Nov. 24. U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., announced the decision Thursday morning, and the Park Service soon after updated the timeline on its website.

The extension was granted after Hoeven sent a letter to the Park Service requesting that there be more time for the public to comment. Numerous horse advocacy groups and the Medora City Council had made a similar request earlier.

The assessment discusses three avenues the Park Service could take -- no action, a phased-out removal of the horses and also longhorn cattle which would last 10 years or longer, or an expedited removal of the animals which would take around two years. Six other options were considered for the assessment but ultimately dismissed by the Park Service.

The western North Dakota park has an estimated 200 wild horses in its South Unit. Under current management practices, the Park Service has a herd size objective of 35-60 horses and up to 12 cattle.

Park Superintendent Angie Richman has said the park has no law or requirement for the horses to be in the park. 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 supports maintaining the herd, as do many other state leaders.

Wild horses at Theodore Roosevelt National Park have existed in the park for decades, consistent with the historic scene during Theodore Roosevelts time in North Dakota. Given the significant interest in maintaining wild horses at the park, members of the public should have ample opportunity to fully review the draft EA and provide meaningful input on any proposed changes to the management plan, he said.

For more information go to bit.ly/463N7eg.
Photo courtesy: Facebook/Eknath Shinde

Mumbai/UNI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde directed officials to conduct a thorough review of land allotments to victims of the Koyna project in seven districts.

The discussion centered on addressing the pending demands of these project victims, with a particular focus on resolving civic facility issues for 22 villages that have undergone rehabilitation in Raigad district.

CM Shinde informed attendees about a recent Bombay High Court order related to land allotments for Koyna project victims.

According to the order, a high-powered committee, chaired by the principal secretary of Relief and Rehabilitation, has been established.

This committee includes divisional commissioners from Konkan and Pune, along with collectors from Satara, Raigad, Pune, Thane, and Solapur.

Shinde emphasized the importance of verifying the eligibility criteria for project victims to ensure that land is allocated to those who have not yet received their allotments.

He also expressed concern about instances where the 7/12 extract has been closed for land that is not in use by project victims and urged a process to determine their return.

22 villages of Koyna project victims have been resettled in Khopoli taluka of Raigad district, but they continue to lack essential civic facilities. In response, the Chief Minister instructed the district collectors to submit a proposal to the Relief & Rehabilitation Department.
Image Credit: Video grab

New Delhi: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot reacted to speculation of a renewed conflict with Sachin Pilot ahead of the state elections. In a somewhat indirect comment, Gehlot said he wanted to step down from the chief minister's position, but it seemed like the position was persistently attached to him.

This remark, made during a press conference, was met with laughter and coincided with queries regarding the Congress' delay in naming its chief ministerial nominee for the state.

The remarks, seemingly made in a lighter vein, carry weight given the ongoing infighting within the Rajasthan Congress, with competing factions led by Gehlot and his former deputy, Pilot.

LIVE: Congress party briefing by Shri @ashokgehlot51 at AICC HQ. https://t.co/mp4E4DonSN  Congress (@INCIndia) October 19, 2023

A rebellion led by Pilot nearly toppled the Congress government in 2020 before the party leadership managed to resolve the situation.

Reiterating his jest about Pilot, Gehlot suggested that there must be something special about him, as the party high command has chosen him thrice to lead the state.

However, he emphasised that any decision made by the high command would be accepted by all.

As the crucial November 25 election approaches, both factions have attempted to present a united front, but occasional jabs still surface.

When asked about the delay in the Congress announcing its list of candidates, Gehlot commented that only the opposition BJP seemed to be bothered by it.

According India Today report, shutting down talk of differences within the party on ticket distribution, Gehlot asserted, "I've not opposed any single candidate (from Pilot camp)."

The Congress Election Committee, led by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, convened to discuss potential candidates for the upcoming Rajasthan assembly polls.

The meeting was attended by key figures including former Congress presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, AICC representative for the state Sukhjinder Randhawa, state Congress chief Govind Dotasra, General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal, and the party's Rajasthan screening committee chief Gaurav Gogoi, in addition to Kharge and Gehlot.

Kharge expressed confidence that the Congress would maintain its position in Rajasthan, attributing this to the effective governance under the leadership of the Ashok Gehlot administration over the past five years.
From L-R: PM Modi (courtesy: PIB) & Continuous missile attacks on Gaza (Courtesy: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a conversation with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and offered his condolences for the loss of lives following the bombing of Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza.

The Monday bombing, for which both Israel and Palestine are blaming each other, left more than 500 people dead, sparking protests across the Arab world.

"Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences for the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern about the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated India's long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue," PM Modi posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism,  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 19, 2023

In a social media post on Wednesday, PM Modi had said he was "deeply shocked" by the loss of lives in the attack and conveyed his condolences to the families of those killed. He also said, those involved should be held responsible.

Algeria along with the Arab world on Wednesday called the deadly hospital strike in Gaza as a "deliberate" act by Israel, which has denied its involvement in the bombing and instead blamed an Islamic group's misfiring for the tragedy.

The denunciations were in parallel with demonstrations across the Middle East on Wednesday, following calls for a day of rage across the region, reported AFP.

Stepping up its defence against the allegations of bombing, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that its intel has revealed that the bombing incident was the result of a misfire by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group.

Information warfare is dangerous as is, even more so in the hands of terrorist organizations. This is how Hamas lies and why: pic.twitter.com/JYqi1YO1yZ  Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 18, 2023

U.S. President Joe Biden, who arrived in Israel on October 18, affirmed Israel's assertion that the explosion at a Gaza hospital resulted from a misfired rocket by Palestinian militants, despite conflicting claims from Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, who attribute it to an Israeli airstrike.

Based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting. But Biden said there were a lot of people out there who weren't sure what caused the blast.
Image Credit: Facebook/Akhilesh Yadav

New Delhi/IBNS: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav seemed to put the Congress on notice Thursday, accusing the grand old party of "fooling" others and hinting that had they known the alliance doesn't work on the state level, they would not have been so open to the INDIA bloc.

"Will think about alliance for the Lok Sabha polls," Akhilesh said, whose party has so far been on board with the united opposition idea.

The Congress and Samajwadi Party, both members of the INDIA front, have fielded candidates against each other on 18 seats in Madhya Pradesh.

The development is expected to divide the anti-BJP votes and play into the hands of the state's ruling party in the coming assembly election.

"We spoke to ex-chief minister of Madhya Pradesh (Kamal Nath, who now heads the party's state unit)," Akhilesh told reporters.

"We told them where our MLAs have previously won... told them where we have been on number 2 earlier," he said.

"They assured us that they would think about us for six seats. When they announced candidates there was nothing for SP. If I knew there was no alliance on state, then we wouldn't have met. We wouldn't have spoken to Congress," the SP leader said.

The Congress had released the first list of 144 candidates on the first day of Navratri. Eight hours later, the Samajwadi Party released the names of its nine candidates, where there was an overlap on five seats.

On Wednesday evening, the SP announced another 22 candidates, of whom 13 were pitted against the Congress from various seats.

The matter worsened after the Congress's Uttar Pradesh chief Ajai Rai made some strong comments. The SP, he had said, does not have any ground support in Madhya Pradesh and should not contest elections there.

He also mentioned that the Congress is preparing to contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh polls.

The comment left Akhilesh, a former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, fuming.

"I want to tell Congress that their chirkut neta (small-time leaders) should not speak about SP... These Congress people are with the BJP... Had I known that there is no alliance on state level, I would not have send SP leaders to Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh," he said.

Kamal Nath Wednesday said talks are still on with the SP regarding the state-level alliance. There were also "practical glitches", he said.

"Our candidates aren't ready to fight on the SP poll symbol, even if the SP says it is ready to field our candidates on its symbol. In such a situation, what shall we do? These are practical aspects on the ground," he said.
In image trail of destruction in Gaza/ courtesy: UNI

New Delhi/IBNS: There are four Indians stuck in war-hit Gaza and the situation is not conducive for an evacuation at the moment, the Ministry of External Affairs said Thursday, adding that they will be repatriated at the first opportunity.

"The situation in Gaza is difficult for any evacuation but if we get a chance, we will get them out," MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.

"One of them is in the West Bank," he said.

Bagchi said there is no report of any Indian being killed or injured in Gaza.

One Indian, a caregiver in south Israel's Ashkelon, was injured in the war between Israel and Hamas. She was on a video call with her husband when a barrage of Hamas rockets pounded Israel on October 7.

India has expressed concerns over civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Bachi said, referring to the horrific airstrike on a hospital premises that has killed over 500.

"You have seen the Prime Minister's tweet. The PM has expressed his concern over the death of civilians and extended his condolences to the families. India condemns all forms of violence," he said, adding, "On the Palestine issue, we have reiterated our position in favour of direct negotiations for a two-state solution."

The MEA spokesperson urged the international community to come together to combat terrorism in all its forms.

Airstrikes on a hospital compound in the Gaza Strip late Monday night killed at least 500 people, officials in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said.

While Gaza blamed Israel for the strike, sparking widespread condemnation and fury, Israel denied any involvement, calling it a "misfire" by Hamas.

Israel also released a host of satellite pics and "before-after" footage of the hospital bombing to support its claim.

Meanwhile, India has repatriated 1,200 people from Israel, including 18 Nepali citizens, in five flights under Operation Ajay. Delhi has also provided nearly $30 million in aid to Palestine between 2000 and 2023.
Arab world condemns Israel's hospital strike in Gaza. Photo Courtesy/UNI/Xinhua

Algeria along with the Arab world on Wednesday called the deadly hospital strike in Gaza as a "deliberate" act by Israel, which has denied its involvement in the bombing and instead blamed an Islamic group's misfiring for the tragedy.

The denunciations were in parallel with demonstrations across the Middle East on Wednesday, following calls for a day of rage across the region, reported AFP.

Demonstrations were held in a number of countries, including Lebanon, Jordan, and the West Bank, as well as in other Arab countries such as Turkey, Morocco, and Iran.

"Algeria condemns, in the strongest terms, the deliberate strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip by the occupying forces, causing hundreds of casualties and multiple injuries among Palestinian children," it said in a statement.

In response to this attack, Algeria "calls on the international community, humanitarian organizations and global conscience to immediately intervene to stop these barbaric acts that violate international humanitarian law and the most basic human values," it said.

The attacked Al Ahli Arab Hospital was operational, with patients, health and caregivers, and internally displaced people sheltering there, according to the World Health Organization.

The UAE and Bahrain, both of which established relations with Israel pursuant to the 2020 Abraham Accords, strongly denounced the alleged "Israeli" attack, which occurred in the context of Israel's closure of the Gaza Strip, AFP reports.

The Gaza-based health ministry said the airstrikes were carried out by Israel, while the Israeli military said the Islamic Jihad organization is responsible for the "failed shooting" that targeted Israel.

(With UNI/Xinhua inputs)
Photo courtesy: UNI

Tehran/UNI: Iran confirmed on Wednesday the "unconditional" end of the restrictions imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on its missile-related activities, while the United States imposed new sanctions on the same day on Tehran's missile and drone programs.

In a statement published on its website, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said, "Today, the last part of the anti-Iran restrictions, including assets freeze and financial restrictions on certain Iranian individuals and entities, imposed for years by the UNSC in the areas related to missile activities and exchange of relevant services and technologies, were terminated unconditionally."

The statement warned that any action aiming to impose sanctions or restrictions on Iran's defense interactions and cooperation is now in contradiction with the termination of the restrictions under UNSC Resolution 2231, stressing Iran's right to implement the necessary measures to safeguard its national interests.

However, on the same day, the U.S. took a series of measures to imply that Iran's missile program would remain sanctioned even after the expiration of the UNSC restrictions.

Washington on Wednesday announced new sanctions on a group of people and firms over alleged links to Iran's ballistic missile and drone programs.

Furthermore, in a statement published on its website on Tuesday, the European Council said it "decided to take the necessary steps to maintain the restrictive measures under the EU non-proliferation regime on Iran."

"The council evaluated that there are valid reasons to refrain from lifting these restrictions on Transition Day (Oct. 18, 2023), as originally foreseen under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)," it added.

On the same day, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani denounced the European Council's decision as "unilateral, illegal and politically unjustifiable."

Iran signed a nuclear deal, formally known as JCPOA, with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to put some curbs on its nuclear program in return for the removal of sanctions on the country. The U.S., however, pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its nuclear commitments under the deal.

The talks on the revival of the JCPOA began in April 2021 in Vienna, Austria. Despite several rounds of talks, no significant breakthrough has been achieved since the end of the last round in August 2022.
Photo Courtesy: Shiva Kachhi X Pagevideo grab

A Hindu girl was recently abducted and forcefully married to her kidnappers in the Mirpurkhas area of Pakistan, media reports said.

The victim was identified as Rajita Kolhi.

Despite her statement in the court, expressing her desire to be with her family, the additional session judge decided to send her to Darul Aman, the so-called safe house, reported ANI.

"Mirpurkhas Sindh A Hindu girl, Rajita Kolhi, was forcibly sent to Dar al-Aman The Hindu girl, who was a victim of marriage after abduction, gave a tatement to the court to go with her heirs, but the additional session judge sent the girl to Darul Aman. With the Hindu community, the law may be different," wrote Shiva Kachhi, Co-Chairman and founder of Minority Rights Organisation, on X platform.

In another post, he wrote: "A Hindu girl Rajeeta Kolhi who was abducted and married after conversion says that she was abducted by Ashiq Ahmadani and his accomplices from my house in Badin district of New Dambalu. I want to go with my parents, I must be protected, my life is in danger. I could be kidnapped or killed again."

Mirpurkhas Sindh

A Hindu girl, Rajita Kolhi, was forcibly sent to Dar al-Aman

The Hindu girl, who was a victim of marriage after abduction, gave a statement to the court to go with her heirs, but the additional session judge sent the girl to Darul Aman.

With the Hindu https://t.co/N6da7HXmrZ pic.twitter.com/SNhV4DKttk  Shiva Kachhi () (@FaqirShiva) October 17, 2023

Reacting to the incident, an activist Amar Sindhu said: "The terrorist court. A Hindu girl abducted by Aashiq Ahmedani, he produced his nikahnama in court whereas girl said she was kidnapped. She clearly said she wants to go with parents but court sent her to Safe house. She is crying on decision and didn't want to go safe house."

The terrorist court.

A Hindu girl abducted by Aashiq Ahmedani, he produced his nikahnama in court whereas girl said she was kidnapped. She clearly said she wants to go with parents but court sent her to Safe house

She is crying on decision and didn't want to go safe house. pic.twitter.com/meSKL4bAB5  amar sindhu (@amarsindhu) October 18, 2023

Lakhu Luhana, general secretary of World Sindhi Congress told ANI, The Chair of the World Sindhi Congress has expressed our deep trauma upon witnessing the heart-wrenching videos of Rajita Kolhi. She was forcibly abducted and, when presented in court, expressed her desire to return to her parents. Despite her cries and pleas, the judge sent her to a so-called safe house.

This represents the brutal reality of forced conversions of Sindhi Hindu girls in Pakistan. We earnestly request the international community to assist us in rescuing the daughters of Sindh, he said.
Photo Courtesy: Unsplash

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) continues to struggle to operate the flight service amid restrictions on fuel supply owing to non-payment of dues as well as certain operational issues.

The loss-making state-owned entity was recently forced to cancel 24 domestic and international flights and delay 12 others.

Among the 24 cancelled flights, 11 were international and 13 were domestic. The PIA also cancelled over two dozen flights  16 international and eight domestic flights  for Wednesday (today) as well while some flights are expected to be delayed, reports Dawn News.

A PIA spokesman told Dawn News that due to a limited fuel supply for PIA aircrafts on a daily basis and for operational reasons, the flights were cancelled while the departure of some flights had been rescheduled.

He said that 13 domestic flights and 11 international flights were cancelled on Tuesday due to the non-availability of fuel, while 12 flights were delayed.

PIA claimed that the passengers of the cancelled flights were accommodated on alternative flights.
Episode 112: If youre not already familiar with the term surge pricing, its likely youll hear a lot more about it soon. Simply put, its when businesses identify times when there is a high demand for their products or services  whether an Uber ride or a pint of beer  and raise prices.

Anyone who has taken am introductory economics course learns that when supply of something is scarce and demand is high, prices will go up. Whats new is that technology lets those changes happen quickly and with little warning to those affected.

Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss whether there are any ethical pitfalls around this new way of doing business.

Links to stories discussed during the podcast:

Uber, Lyft ripped for surging NYC prices during storm, flooding, by Emily Crane, New York Post

The rise of surge pricing: 'It will eventually be everywhere,' by Oliver Barnes, Philip Georgiadis and Laura Onita, Financial Times

Giulianis drinking, long a fraught subject, has Trump prosecutors attention, by Matt Flegenheimer and Maggie Haberman, The New York Times

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.
Harvard students created an artificial intelligence (AI) bot modelled on the university's president. Hours after its release, the chatbot was taken down owing to allegations it was built on a racist stereotype.

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Why is the AI problematic?

According to The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, the university's Computer Society AI Group released ClaudineGPT and another version called "Slightly Sassier ClaudineGPT" on September 29. This was the same day as Harvard President Claudine Gay's inauguration.

The same night, both the chatbots were quietly taken down by their creators. The models' "problematic" builds were discovered by AISST, a group of Harvard students who research the risks of AI. The team found that ClaudineGPT's instructions asked it to respond in an "extremely angry and sassy" tone.

Also read: AI Experts Issue Dire Warning, Say Artificial Intelligence Poses 'Risk Of Extinction'

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"Releasing these models seems to only contribute to the trend of AI products that denigrate or harm women and people of colour," a team member reportedly wrote. According to the AI group behind ClaudineGPT, the chatbot was always designed "to be a satire and joke" and that they had taken it down.

How was the problem discovered?

The racist stereotypes were discovered by AISST, a group of Harvard students who research the risks of AI. On behalf of AISST, communications director Chinmay M. Deshpande 24 cited concerns, stating that the AI model was "problematic" and ran the risk of perpetuating racist tropes, requesting it to be taken down.

Also read: Explained: ChatGPT's Italy Ban Exposes Privacy Dangers Of Artificial Intelligence



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In response, HCS AI Group wrote that ClaudineGPT was not meant to be a "serious representation of Claudine Gay" and that they "by no means intended offense to anyone."

What do you think about the dangers of AI and how it might perpetrate stereotypes? Let us know in the comments below. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.
At a time when it's still debatable whether AI (artificial intelligence) is a boon or bane to the world, it seems that our government is set to focus on the technology's advantages and use it for the betterment of the nation. It has recently come out with a report mentioning recommendations that can help boost the Indian economy by leveraging AI.

What Is The Report Released By Govt?

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The Indian government is aiming to harness the potential of AI, which it believes has the potential to add $967 billion to the economy over the next decade. But it faces a tightrope walk in drafting legislation for a rapidly evolving domain. It is trying to set the guardrails for the sector in a forthcoming bill.

Earlier this year, the government created seven committees of experts to come up with a comprehensive roadmap for a policy push towards AI. Last week, the panel came out with a 180-page 'IndiaAI' report, according to Moneycontrol.

Mentioned in that detailed report are 10 key recommendations that must be understood:

How Is The Govt Planning To Utilise AI?

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1.Three AI centres of excellence

Also Read: Elon Musk Launches His New AI Company Named xAI

Earlier this year in the 2023 Budget, India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the government will establish 3 centres of excellence on AI. Now one of the AI working groups has recommended that these centres focus on critical sectors such as governance, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing and more. Their objectives include conducting foundational research, technology development, promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, and AI skill development. The working group has given special attention to how startups can leverage these CoEs by making applications commercially viable, developing products, organising innovation challenges and so on.



2.India Datasets Platform to have open-source architecture

The central government is set to bring in the India Datasets Platform, "one of the largest publicly assembled and anonymised datasets in the world". The datasets will contain non-personal data and it can be used by various stakeholders such as startups, academia and so on. One of the working groups has suggested that the platform be built on an open-source architecture and codebase. The use of open-source codebase promotes accessibility, allowing developers to contribute, customise and enhance the platform, the report said. The working group has also suggested that the platform feature data and an API catalogue so that users can discover such resources.

3.Monetising non-personal data

The working committee has recommended that the India Dataset Platform be monetised. Data providers can set pricing models, such as one-time purchases, subscriptions, or licensing fees, based on the value and uniqueness of their datasets, the report read. It is important to note that the idea of monetising the sharing of non-personal data was dropped by the Indian government after it received criticism over it. The government last year issued a draft policy on the India Datasets Platform which had withdrawn the monetising plans, as per Moneycontrol report.

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Also Read: TCS Confirms Plan To Build Its Own ChatGPT Like AI Tool

4.Non-personal data regulator in 2 months

The National Data Management Office (NDMO), the nodal body which will be responsible for the India Datasets Platform should be established within 2 months, one of the AI working groups recommended. The timeline suggested by the working group also says that the government should start hiring data management units  officials within ministries/departments who will improve the quality of data and its usage  within 2 months. The working group also suggested that the IDP be launched within 6 months. Long-term goals include publishing data anonymisation guidelines within 1.5 years, and publishing standards for fair and ethical use of data after 1.5 years.

5.Rs 3,000 crore funding for 725 AI startups

In the report, one of the working groups said that MeitY Startup Hub has envisaged a Future Design IndiaAI scheme with a budget of Rs 945 crore and matching funding of Rs 3,000 crore for 5 years to foster AI startups. The program envisages impacting and consolidating 725 tech startups over the course of 5 years to pave the road for an inclusive AI startup ecosystem the working group said.

6.Unlocking early-stage funding potential for AI startups

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As part of the IndiaAI, the working group has proposed an AI Ignition Grant Program to support 500 AI/deep tech startups at the product development stage with a grant of Rs 30 lakh each. At the commercialisation stage, the working group has proposed 3 challenges of Rs 3 crore each across various sectors such as agriculture, health, cybersecurity, weather forecasting and so on. "In 5 years, 15 challenges with a total budget of Rs 45 crore," the working group said.



7.National AI compute grid

The experts have recommended that the Indian government create a computing infrastructure of 24,500 graphics processing units (GPU) at 17 centres to enable innovation in the emerging tech area in the country by startups and academia. Under the proposal, about 14,500 GPUs have been recommended for training AI models and high-performance storage, while the rest 10,000 are for AI inferencing. A GPU centre is a group of computers with GPUs on each node to train neural networks for image and video processing.

8.Support for AI chips

Because of their unique features, AI chips are tens or even thousands of times faster and more efficient than central processing units (CPUs) for training and inference of AI algorithms. State-of-the-art AI chips are also dramatically more cost-effective than state-of-the-art CPUs as a result of their greater efficiency for AI algorithms. AI chips include three classes: graphics processing units (GPUs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

The report has suggested that the government should support the development of these AI chips through a public-private partnership (PPP) model.

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Also Read: This 16YO Indian Child Prodigy Is Already Running A Rs 100 Crore AI Startup

9.Marketplaces and Open-source AI

To enhance AI accessibility, AI Marketplaces will be leveraged to build service models for AI as a Service (AIaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS), offering pre-trained models to users. Open-source AI frameworks and libraries, supported by diverse vendors and communities, will be utilised to promote vendor-agnostic AI development, fostering innovation and collaboration.

10.Broad-based AI education

The report suggests funding for 1,000 AI research fellowships annually or for 100 institutions to get research grants in the field. For schools, colleges and vocational institutes, a model curriculum has been provided in the report that covers the fundamentals of AI, mathematics and statistics, machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision and AI ethics.

When Will The Indian Economy Get Boosted By AI?



According to the 'IndiaAI report' report, AI will be the kinetic enabler of Indias digital economy and make governance smarter and more data-led. AI is expected to add USD 967 billion to the Indian economy by 2035 and USD 450500 billion to Indias GDP by 2025, accounting for 10% of the countrys USD 5 trillion GDP target. AI has become a top priority on policy agendas worldwide, as it has the power to foster innovation, generate employment opportunities, and contribute to the growth of the country.

For the latest and more interesting financial news, keep reading Indiatimes Worth. Click here.
The SYRIZA political secretariat meeting had everything: Kasselakis revealed his upcoming nuptials, Tsakalotos and the Umbrella faction took to arms and Nikos Pappas stepped in to shield the new president
Anti-riotclashed with protesters as they approached the Embassy of Israel in Athens on Wednesday
The SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance Congress should be held on February 23-25, 2024 party leader Stefanosproposed during a meeting of the Political Secretariat on Wednesday party sources said.
A Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos State, on Wednesday, sentenced a 25-year-old man, identified as Babatunde Shittu, to one year in jail for engaging in and benefitting from $5,000 cryptocurrency fraud.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Shittu had claimed to be an investor in cryptocurrency, and produced fraudulent documents in that regard in order to defraud members of the public.

Justice Olubunmi Abike-Fadipe convicted and sentenced him after he pleaded guilty to a count charge of cryptocurrency fraud preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Abike-Fadipe said, Upon the defendants guilty plea and admission of the facts, he is hereby convicted of the one-count charge.

He is hereby sentenced to one year imprisonment with an option to pay N500,000 fine and embark on 40 hours of community service.

READ ALSO: Tinubu Asks Senate To Confirm Olukoyede As EFCC Chair

The judge also ordered the convict to forfeit to the Federal Government, his iPhone 12 Pro Max and a MacBook computer, which were recovered from him as proceeds of the crime.

She held that the convict was a first-time offender, who promised to be of good behaviour and make restitution, hence, the liberal sentence.

Shittu had, after pleading guilty, prayed to the court for leniency.

I am really sorry, I have realised my mistake, and I am ready to live a better life and become a better person, he said.

His counsel, Ms Biola Adeyemi, in her plea for mercy, said that Shittu was genuinely remorseful.

My Lord, he is indeed very sorry for his actions and he has promised to exhibit good behaviour.

We humbly pray Your Lordship to temper justice with mercy, she prayed.

EFCC counsel, Mr Abdullahi Gambuwa, had, however, urged the court to convict Shittu and sentence him accordingly.

While reviewing the facts of the case, Gambuwa said that Shittu was arrested by EFCC following an intelligence report.

He said, He was arrested and he gave a voluntary statement after being interviewed.

The counsel told the court that Shittu admitted to have benefitted from the $5,000 fraud.

We also recovered an iPhone 12 Pro Max and a MacBook laptop from him.

He claimed to be an investor in cryptocurrency, thereby misinforming the public, the prosecution counsel said.

According to EFCC, the offence contravenes Section 1 of the Advance Fee Fraud Act of 2006.
Babachir Lawal, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), has again lampooned President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the economic and political happenings in the nation.

The one time ally of Tinubu said the ruling party had taken a different turn, unlike when it was founded in 2013/2014.

He made the submission in Wednesday statement after the APC spokesman, Felix Morka, tackled him on his Tuesdays statement that Peter Obi won the 2023 presidential election.

According to him, he posited that asides from APC becoming an Islamic party, Nigerians are deprived of their freedom of speech.

He also faulted the Nigerian Broadcasting Commissions (NBC) threats to journalists under Tinubus watch, saying it was unbecoming and unacceptable.

Lawal also slammed Tinubu for the continuous detention of the suspended Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa and former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.

While adjudging that no Nigerian is happy with the current issues regarding the unending revelations about who President Tinubu is and the current insecurity in the country, he said, When we founded APC way back in 2013/2014, we envisaged it would be a national party that would carry along all the different socio-political and religious tendencies of the nation.

In those days, we were careful not to sideline any of the religions or tribes of the country in the composition of the membership and leadership of the party.

READ ALSO: Nigerians Getting Poorer, Hungrier Under Tinubus Govt  Atikus Aide

We wanted a party that will embrace all Nigerians. It was this that informed the principle that both the National Chairman and Secretary will not be of the same religion, tribe or region.

Sadly, APC has now transitioned into an Islamic Party of Nigeria. All the members of the National Working Committee (NWC) from the North and some from the South are Muslims.

All that is now left for the party is a change of name, but even this may not take long since it already has Kadmul Islam as its national Chairman and a Muslim as its national secretary.

We want a Nigeria that works for all. We want a Nigeria that even sycophants can relate to and in which everyone is free to pursue their ambitions in peace in pursuit of prosperity and the good life.

We want a Nigeria that guarantees freedom of speech for its citizens, just as you and I are doing right now. If Bola Tinubu claims he fought Abacha on the side of democracy and free speech, it is unbecoming and unacceptable that NBC should threaten journalists under his watch.

It is indefensible to keep the EFCC Chairman and the CBN governor under arrest for extended periods of time without or before trial, just as it is also unacceptable that political parties are used to intimidate and harass citizens exercising their opinions in the public domain.

I am sure that no Nigerian is enjoying the national shame and embarrassment we are going through as a result of these unending revelations as to who or what our president actually is; or that most Nigerians cannot be sure of at least one meal a day anymore; or that we can no longer attend wedding ceremonies in Imo or Zamfara States due to insecurity.
The wife and two children of the lawmaker representing Ipaiye/Malete/Olooru of Moro Local Government in the Kwara State House of Assembly, Hon. Soliu Ayanshola, who were abducted, have regained freedom.

Recall that INFORMATION NIGERIA had earlier reported that the family of the lawmaker were taken away on Monday when some yet to be identified gunmen invaded his residence around 1 a.m.

According to a source, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to Vanguard, said that the victims regained their freedom late Wednesday, about 8 p.m., following discreet efforts of the security agencies and the Kwara State Government.

READ MORE: Unknown Gunmen Abduct Wife, Children Of Kwara Lawmaker

The source added that: At least five members of the gang that abducted them have also been arrested following discreet intelligence and surveillance works by all the teams involved.

Confirming the arrest if the culprits, the Kwara State Police Command, said that it has arrested five persons in connection with the reported abduction of the wife and two children of Hon. Ayansola.
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has said that there is no big deal in cooking his food because he enjoys it.

Recall that a viral video of the former Governor of Rivers State, spotted cooking for the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, and former Senate President Bukola Saraki at his residence in Abuja, surfaced online weeks ago.

Speaking on Thursday during a chat with journalists in his office in Abuja, Wike said that he feels proud that he can cook and he is very happy when he eats his food and he is satisfied.

He said: I feel proud that I can cook and Im happy when I eat it. Im satisfied. What is the big deal in cooking? So, I should call the Chef to come and prepare the food that I will eat. Its a waste of time when I can cook.

READ MORE: Tinubu Removes FCT From Treasury Single Account  Wike

Some of us were brought up in a home where if your mother is cooking, you are meant to stay in the kitchen. You make sure they prepare the pepper, you help to pound the okra.

Some people may see it as a waste of time, but for me, its very interesting. My wife had her first child in the United States, the day she came back with my first son, I welcomed my Wife with Okro and Okazi soup.

Not to go and eat what you dont know the magnitude of Maggi or you dont know this and then because they want to make a profit or you want to make a profit. I dont do that, he said.
Reality, however, has not spared the economy in recent years. Just as it was recovering its strength from two crises  the financial one of 2008 and the subsequent euro area crisis  and was beginning to slowly recover, it was hit by further powerful blows. The first was the COVID-19 pandemic, when, with lockdowns to counter the spread of the epidemic, economies around the world froze and had to contend with the collapse of supply chains. The second blow was the economic fallout from Russias invasion of Ukraine, including the energy and economic crisis and the effects of escalating sanctions.

This turbulence naturally did not, and could not, bypass Poland. And yet it has come through these difficult times almost unscathed, avoiding major company bankruptcies and rising unemployment. This is due, in part, to the fact that our financial system is robust and the economy has been able to rely on continuous financing even in the face of the most trying external conditions.

No Shocks

Narodowy Bank Polski, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority and the Bank Guarantee Fund have managed to safeguard the financial system against shocks and preserve trust, an essential ingredient for its smooth operation. Companies have been able to count on financing and bank customers have always been assured that their savings will not be threatened.

Despite the extremely unfavourable macroeconomic environment, unchecked bank failures have been avoided. In the four cases recorded in recent years, the problems were ended by the smooth operation of the Bank Guarantee Fund. In the first half of 2020, Bank Spodzielczy in Przemkow came under the wings of SGB-Bank and Podkarpacki Bank Spodzielczy in Sanok was restructured with a bridging bank.

Idea Bank and Getin Noble Bank have disappeared from the Polish banking sector, but their troubles were caused less by external factors and more by the policy of the main shareholder. Resolution processes (introduced at EU level after the 2008 financial crisis), resulted in one bank being taken over by Bank Pekao, another by the Bank Guarantee Fund and a consortium of eight commercial banks to be transformed into VeloBank. Confidence in the financial system was maintained.

No Shortage of Cash

In a special edition of the Financial System Stability Report on the impact of the coronavirus outbreak (Financial System Stability Report. Special issue: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic), NBP showed how Poles reactedat the start of the pandemic there was a surge in demand for cash with people withdrawing their savings from banks and investment funds. It was at its worst in mid-March 2020, then the situation stabilised from week to week, the mood calmed down and, from about mid-May onwards, everything returned to normal. The behaviour of Poles presented in the report in the face of pandemic-induced uncertainty and the monetary authorities reactions to the figures were impressive. From the beginning of March to the end of May, PLN 54 billion in cash came into circulation. In March, we found a huge increase in market participants demand for cash. We had a run on ATMs and at bank windows. Demand for tangible money increased by 24 per cent. We met this demand, Professor Adam Glapinski, Governor of NBP, told the Polish parliament presenting the report on the activities of the central bank. His remarks made clear that the central bank had responded flexibly to the crisis. In particular, there was demand for PLN 100 and PLN 200 notes. Due to their temporary shortage, we started to introduce the 500 zloty note, Professor Glapinski added.

Although the banking sector experienced a temporary decrease in liquidity, NBP determined that this did not pose a threat to the stability of the system or any individual institutions. Some bank branches and ATMs experienced temporary operational problems due to delays in the delivery of cash from the banks logistics centres and cash handling companies. The situation stabilised after a few days and withdrawal amounts decreased, but still remained at higher levels, NBP communicated.

NBP noted that it foresaw the problem and promptly took measures to keep ATM services running smoothly. The banks themselves increased appropriate amounts held in accounts with NBP. This brought the situation under control.

A similar phenomenon occurred two years later, when on 24 February 2022 Russian troops entered Ukraine. The war just across the eastern border once again prompted Poles to withdraw cash. Although initially concerning, this time around the worry was not as severe and subsided after a shorter period of time. On 28 February 2022, banks drew a record PLN 12.5 billion from NBP, more than double that on 13 March 2020, a few days after the first case of COVID-19 occurred in Poland, which was the peak of cash demand to date.

Due to the increased demand for cash, NBP informs that it has stocks fully able to cover the cash requirements of bank customers. All bank orders are executed without value limits, in the full denomination structure, throughout the country, NBP reassured.

And these were not idle declarations. There was again no shortage of money at ATMs, although in February and March the value of cash in circulation (not including bank counters) increased by almost PLN 34 billion. Poles maintained their confidence that their savings were unthreatened and would always be available to them.

Multiple Instruments

The central bank also monitored the situation of banks on an ongoing basis, realising that the troubles of one institution could result in the undermining of confidence in the entire system, which, in an extreme case, could lead to panic and a run on the banks, a phenomenon that even the strongest financial system might not survive.

During the pandemic period, in order to mitigate the risk of a reduction in bank liquidity, NBP reinstated repo operations to supply banks with money, reduced the reserve requirement rate by 300 basis points, from 3.5 per cent to 0.5 per cent, and bought Treasury bonds and debt securities guaranteed by the Treasury from banks on the secondary market as part of structural open market operations.

It made it possible for banks that would not have had excess liquidity to raise funds in the form of promissory note loans for business lending purposes. The goal was to improve these banks ability to generate working capital credit and to help them secure funding with a longer maturity than what was currently available on the market. Ultimately, the idea was to ensure that during such a difficult and uncertain period as the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses had access to bank financing for their day-to-day operations.

As it turned out, this was a bit of a belt and braces measure, which is not a reproach, for it is better to be cautious with reserves than to be reckless, because as it turned out at the end of 2020 only one commercial bank used a bill of exchange loan.

The stability of the financial system during the crises was not the result of extraordinary measures, but the earlier many years of daily concern for the stability of the system. Polish financial institutions entered the crisis with strong foundations built up over the years, which is why they came through the turbulence without major problems.

Analyses and Decisions

After the financial crisis in 2008, a global trend of assigning central banks a greater role in ensuring the stability of the financial system has emerged. NBP Act passed in December 2008 was amended to add the task of acting to promote the stability of the financial system. NBP publishes reports on the stability of the financial system, in which it presents analyses and assessments of risks and recommendations for risk mitigation measures.

The central bank, economists agree, has the best analytical capabilities in Poland. This is crucial because correct preemptive action depends on an accurate assessment of the situation. Therefore, NBPs analytical activity is a crucial part of its overall mission to safeguard the financial system.

In Poland, the competent authority for macro-prudential supervision is the Financial Stability Committee. It is made up of four institutions: The Ministry of Finance, NBP, the Polish Financial Supervision Commission and the Bank Guarantee Fund. A special role has been assigned to the central bank, which provides analysis and research as well as legal and organisational support. Since 2015, the Financial Stability Committee has been operating in two formulas: as a macroprudential body (KSF-M) and as a body responsible for crisis management in the financial system (KSF-K). In the macroprudential area, the Committee is chaired by the Governor of NBP, while crisis management is chaired by the Minister of Finance.

The analyses carried out by NBP for the Financial Stability Committee cover the entire process  from identifying sources of risk, through measuring and assessing, to proposing measures to reduce or eliminate it. Because of this, the central bank has a lot of leeway in shaping macro-prudential policy, but the KSF-M is a collegial body, and as part of its strategy it aims to make decisions through consensus. The coordinated action of these institutions has maintained confidence in the Polish financial sector and protected its stability. Already in March 2020, that is, at the very beginning of the pandemic, the Committee recommended the immediate repeal of the requirement for banks to maintain a systemic risk buffer, which had previously amounted to 3 per cent. Following the decision of the Ministry of Finance in response to this recommendation, banks could use previously frozen capital. The freed up funds of approximately PLN 30 billion could be used by banks for lending or to cover potential losses expected as a result of the pandemic.

Of course, problems are identified in the bi-annual financial system stability reports. The latest one, from June, like the others for several years now, identifies the financial and legal consequences resulting from banks exposure to foreign currency housing loans as the main risk factor, independent of national supervisory institutions. Banks have had to make multi-billion zloty provisions against these risks. However, this did not threaten the stability of the entire system, due to the staggering of the process over time, the high level of capital of the banks and the rational financial policy of systematically retaining profits in financial institutions and not paying dividends). In line with the recommendations of the Financial Supervision Commission, the Financial Stability Committee and NBP itself, banks are also offering settlements to customers in an effort to finally resolve the issue. Thus, we observe that despite the high costs of the legal risk that comes from foreign currency loans, the banking system is coping with this problem. Albeit, this may have some negative effects in the future, related, for example, to a reduction in the sectors ability to finance the economy. But this does not threaten its development. And this is, after all, what is at stake if we think about stability and a sense of security.
The 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has asked the Supreme Court to grant his application seeking to tender fresh evidence against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Abubakar also asked the court to ignore technicalities to allow him to present the evidence in the interest of justice.

The former Vice-President and his party are challenging Tinubus victory at the presidential poll and the verdict of the election tribunal upholding the outcome of the February 25 poll.

He had alleged that Tinubus academic records were fraught with discrepancies and forgeries.

The PDP candidate is now seeking to introduce these records at the apex court.

Recall that, in a counter affidavit and written address filed through his team of lawyers, led by Wole Olanipekun, Tinubu gave several reasons why his academic records cannot be considered by the Supreme Court.

Responding, Abubakar said the issue before the court has grave consequences and should be considered in its merit.

The supreme court, as the apex court and indeed the policy court, has intervened time and again to do substantial justice in such matters of great constitutional importance, as it did in the case of AMAECHI vs. INEC (2008) 5 NWLR (Pt. 1080) 227 and OBI vs. INEC (2007) 11 NWLR (Pt. 1046) 565.

READ ALSO: EFCC Arraigns Man For Posing As U.S. Actor, Defrauding American National In Kaduna

The supreme court applied the principle of ubi jus ibi remedium to ensure substantial justice is done in such novel scenarios.

The need to rebuff, eschew and reject technicality and the duty of court to ensure substantial justice is very germane in this matter, given the gravity of the constitutional issue involved in deciding whether a candidate for the highest office in the land, the office of president of the country, presented a forged certificate or not.

Presenting forged documents by any candidate, especially by a candidate for the highest office in the land, is a very grave constitutional issue that must not be encouraged, he said.

Meanwhile, in a 20-paragraph affidavit deposed to in support of the application, Abubakar argued that if the apex court grants the application, there would be no need for any further argument other than the written address in support of same showing that the second respondent is in violation of the provisions of section 137 (1) (j) of the constitution by presenting a certificate disclaimed by the institution from where he purportedly procured same.

The PDP candidate told the court that he is not contending whether or not Tinubu attended the Chicago State University but that the President submitted a forged certificate to the electoral body.

That the case is not whether the 2nd respondent attended Chicago State University but whether he presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), he said.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio on Wednesday posited that members of the upper legislative chamber will often disagree over issues but will not engage in physical combat.

Information Nigeria reports that Akpabios comment stems from the disagreement between him and Ali Ndume, Chief Whip of the Senate, on Tuesday.

Ndume who was dissatisfied with the manner the Senate President had been presiding over the affairs of the red chamber, raised a point of order citing a section in the rule book of the upper assembly.

However, Akpabio ruled Ndume out of order, making him walk out of the Senate chamber in protest.

Speaking with reporters after a meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the presidential villa, Akpabio said as politicians there is no hatred between them.

His words: In the parliament, sometimes you disagree. We are all working in one accord. There is no problem at all.

Even if some people disagree on some of the happenings in the Senate, still, it is only the majority decision that is going to prevail and the parliament is like that.

We will never get to the point of throwing chairs. We will never get to that point. The Senate is too mature, full of mature people, so, if we have a disagreement, we immediately go into a closed session, resolve it and come out smiling.

We are politicians, no permanent hatred but permanent interest.

Akpabio said supporting Tinubus government to deliver on its promises is the only paramount interest.

READ ALSO: Hes Surrounded By Enemies From Within- Akeredolus Aide Knocks Critics Over His Absence In Office

Meanwhile, in an interview with British Broadcasting Corporation Hausa, Ndume explained his reason for leaving when the matter related to the closing of Nigerias borders was being debated.

He explained that the situation originated when Senator Kawu Sumaila proposed a motion which he said was urgent on closing the border between Nigeria and Niger.

At first, it was argued that the motion was not urgent, but the president of the Senate let him finish what he wanted to say.

After hearing the motion, it was agreed that since it is related to security, it should be suspended.

According to him, it was at that point he wanted to explain the importance of the motion to the chamber, but the Senate President denied him the opportunity to speak.

I would like to clarify that the motion, although impactful, falls outside the jurisdiction of the Nigerian Senate.

The closure of the border was not initiated by the President of Nigeria, but rather during his tenure as President of ECOWAS. As such, he has the authority to advocate on our behalf.

In order to address this matter, it is imperative to involve the President of our nation, but I was not afforded the opportunity to convey this message.

While this was happening, it coincided with the time of prayer, prompting my departure. Consequently, my colleagues misconstrued my exit, and the journalists changed the meaning of my exit, Ndume said.

He said he told his deputy that he was going to pray, and then he left.
Reno Omokri, has taunted the Labour Partys (LP) 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, over the ailment of Nollywood actor, John Okafor, popularly known as Mr. Ibu.

Mr Ibu recently cried out for prayers following his battle with an unnamed illness, which may lead to the amputation of his legs.

The ailing actor cried out hours after a video of his 63rd birthday in an undisclosed hospital in Lagos emerged on social media.

He revealed further that he doesnt want to lose his legs as he has nowhere to go.

Reacting to the news of the comic actor making the rounds online, Reno Omokri, in a post via X, pointed out that Mr Ibu was a staunch supporter of Peter Obi and the LP flagbearer should support the medical bill of the thespian.

READ ALSO: Were Suffering Because Of Bad Leadership  Gov. Obaseki

He wrote: I sympathise with John Ikechukwu Okafor, AKA Mr. Ibu, over his ailment, and I urge all #RenosNuggeteers to donate to the account number he put out.

Please do not ignore his cries for help. I also urge members of the public to donate. However, this is a man who publicly endorsed Peter Obi. He and his daughter danced for Peter Obi and broke the Internet.

They went out on the streets campaigning for Obi. The same Peter Obi who boasted that he is richer than President Biden of the US, who at the time of Peters boast was worth $8.2 million.

After all that John Okafor did for him, perhaps Mr. Peter Obi can support him by paying Mr. Ibus medical bills. I am even surprised that Peter Obi did not remember to post about Mr. Ibu on his birthday yesterday. Even at that, Peter Obi should help him in his time of need.
The Ondo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has firmly stated that the people of the state have a legitimate right to inquire of the whereabouts of their Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu.

According to the Party, such an inquiry should not be dismissed as absurd.

The Governors aide, Doyin Odebowale, had characterized those questioning Akeredolus whereabouts as mischief makers, adding that the PDP cannot compel the Governor to return to the State.

In response, protesters from the opposition party issued a 24-hour ultimatum to Akeredolu, demanding that he addresses them and return to his office in Akure within three days, or resign from his position due to his continued absence.

Note that since his return from a medical trip abroad, Governor Akeredolu has been administrating the state from Ibadan, Oyo State, which has raised serious concerns among opposition groups within the State.

READ ALSO: All Thats Left For APC To Do Is Change Name To Islamic Party Of Nigeria; They Now Threaten Journalists, Citizens  Babachir Lawal

In a statement released Wednesday, Kennedy Peretei, the PDP State Publicity Secretary, criticized Odebowales argument as illogical.

Peretei stated, On a good day, it would have been unnecessary to react to Doyin Odebowales illogical argument about why Governor Rotimi Akeredolu has not been seen in Ondo State because he who drums for a madman is himself insane.

However, to claim that PDP has no business demanding Mr. Governors whereabouts is a measure of his ignorance of what is expected of a governor who has been missing in action for more than six months.

The PDPs stance underscores its commitment to holding public officials accountable and ensuring transparency in governance for the benefit of the people of Ondo State.
In obeyance to President Bola Ahmed Tinubus approval, six of the 14 new institutions founded during ex-President Muhammadu Buharis tenure will now start lectures.

Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, revealed this on Wednesday during a meeting with Tinubu behind closed doors at the State House in Abuja.

According to Mamman, the first stage will see the opening of two universities specialising in agriculture, two colleges of education, and two medical schools.

There are very many, probably about a dozen of them, if not more than a dozen or 14, thats the number and you know tertiary institutions are highly capital-intensive, they need a lot of money, especially at that take-off stage, for infrastructure, staff recruitment and all other needs.

By the time you want to start about 12, 14 institutions at once, it is a very heavy burden on the finances of government, he said.

The minister affirmed that these institutions are strategically aligned with the key mandates and priorities of the Presidents administration.

READ ALSO: Address Nigerians On Disputes Surrounding Your Certificate, Obi Tells Tinubu

Mamman added: Ordinarily, we would have said well review whether we should go ahead with that, but most of them are specialised institutions; colleges of education, agriculture and medicine; they are institutions that will support some of the mandates, the priority areas of this government.

We will need trained teachers, which colleges of education will provide; the same thing with agriculture. Thats why the government has not stepped down that approval; instead, the President, in his wisdom, said we should stagger their implementation on the ground of funds. Were starting with about six, two each of agriculture, colleges of education and medicine.

Some of the universities established during the said period are David Nweze Umahi Federal University of Medical Sciences, Uburu; Federal University of Transport Daura, Katsina; Shehu Shagari University of Education, Sokoto; and Admiralty University Ibusa, Delta State.

The minister mentioned that the President also approved the completion of the National Library which has been projected to be completed in 21 months as the nations depository.

On the National Library, a national monument, I briefed the President about the need to get it completed. He is happy with the proposition, he affirmed.
The Federal Government has pledged to encourage the practice of responsible journalism and not gag the press in the country.

Muhammad Idris, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Malam made the pledge on Wednesday in Abuja while briefing State House reporters.

The Ministers assurance is coming on the heels of allegations leveled on the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led government hindering freedom of speech for its citizens, and threatening journalists via the National Broadcasting Commission .

According to Idris, a free and vibrant media practice and social media is significant to the success of the administration and the promotion of nationalism and patriotism.

Mr President and all of us in that sector are committed to ensuring that theres press freedom. That freedom, like I said, comes with responsibility. A lot of things that some of these people on social media are doing are also not very patriotic.

Sometimes you say news that is not factual. But I dont want a situation where it will be seen that the government is trying to gag the press. I want that to be underscored.

There is no attempt by the government to gag the press. Were going to do whatever it takes that is responsible and accountable. Responsible journalism is the way to go.

The president values the freedom of the press and will continue to engage it at all times, he said.

He furthered that the administration would engage in national reorientation of citizens in order to achieve its objectives of value reorientation and inclusiveness.

Mr President has given me a matching order to see that Nigerians believe in this country once again. Were coming up with a national discourse on orientation or reorientation. So that Nigerians can believe in their country.

READ ALSO: Anti-Graft War Should Start From National Assembly  EFCC Chair

You know that people dont even believe in leaders that they elected. Flags are not flying anymore. You go to government offices overseas, you dont even see the symbol of our collective existence, flying even in public buildings, Idris said.

On the welfare of the media practitioners in the country, Idris said that there were ongoing consultations on improving the standard of living of journalists, adding that the president has been supportive in this direction.

Idris added, It is in the works. I have discussed that with Mr President. He wants to see me come up with a roadmap for that. We are going to work on that and in due course, you will get definite answers.

The welfare of journalists will continue to be on the front burner because we believe in the freedom of the press and anything that will promote this freedom will be given priority.

The Minister said the government would also take a look at suggestions to sanitise the press in the country without impeding them in any way.

Well, that is being looked at. You know that Mr President believes in press freedom. He believes in the freedom of expression, and hes not going to gag the press in any way, shape or form.

He is going to work assiduously to ensure that the Nigerian press that has been free is even freer.

But like I have been saying all the time, this freedom also comes with enormous responsibility.

You cant just say what is not right, because youre enjoying press freedom, he posited.
A Senator representing Kogi West in the National Assembly, Smart Adeyemi said that President Bola Tinubu will terminate the appointment of any minister who fail to perform in six months.

It was gathered that Adeyemi made this known during an interview with Arise Television on Wednesday.

He said: What Nigerians should know about President Bola Tinubu today, including those who are ministers, is that from his track record, once you dont perform in six months, he shows you the way out.

Thats what hes going to do. The man (Tinubu) is in a hurry to make a difference. Asiwaju wants to make a name. He wants to reposition Nigeria. He wants to recover lost grounds to the nation.

Hes telling us that he understands were going through some pains. Hes coming with a track record of performance. Those who are being nominated or given appointments, I celebrate you but if you dont perform this man will show them (the way) out. Its not a question of leaving them for eight years or four years. Asiwaju doesnt have that kind of track record.

Adeyemi, who was also an All Progressives Congress (APC) aspirant in the Kogi governorship election noted that, once somebody has been in the Senate, that person cannot afford to fail.

He stated that: This is the first time we are having field politicians controlling the executive arm of government.

President Bola Tinubu, a former senator; Vice-President Kashim Shettima, a former senator, and even the First Lady, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu is a senator.

If you look at the states that are governed by former senators you will see outstanding performance; like Hope Uzodimma of Imo State.
The National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Yabagi Sani, has disclosed that Nigerians must hold the judicial system to account while discharging its responsibilities.

This is coming barely few weeks after the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal gave verdicts over the outcome of 2023 general election.

Recall that Independence National Electoral Commission, (INEC) declared President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of All Progressive Congress as the winner of the presidential poll.

However, the opposition parties and their candidates, expressed displeasure over the outcome of the election by filling allegations against the ruling party, APC.

READ MORE: Tribunal Dismisses PDPs Iron Cast Petition, Affirms APCs Idris As Kebbi Governor

The IPAC boss, during a live interview on Thursdays edition of Channels Televisions Sunrise Daily, said that the judiciary, which has jurisdiction over disputes in Federal Government, and states needs to stand up and show that it fully supports democracy.

The judiciary has to sit up to be counted as those who really have this country at heart, as those who want it to work. The judiciary must stand up  that yes, they are really for democracy. What I am seeing today is that democracy is not supporting democracy at all.

With the kind of judgements, decisions, and orders they are giving, it doesnt reflect people that have an interest in the survival of democracy and for a good reason, for the judiciary, whether its the military or the government, they dont lose, he said.

Nigerians must stand up, not to attack or burn down anybodys property or kill anybody, but to hold these people to account.

Everything has to be referred to the law Like the Electoral Act we have today, why should you say Its up to INEC to do what they want and then later you say, Well, if they change, its okay? he queried.
Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has averred that the current socio-economic challenges afflicting the nation to the poor leadership decisions made by Nigerias leaders.

While speaking with journalists in Benin City, the Edo State capital, Obaseki highlighted that, in his capacity as an investment banker, he had foreseen the hardships and sounded the alarm about the need for corrective measures, but unfortunately, his warnings were disregarded.

Obaseki who acknowledged the tough and challenging times that Nigerians are enduring, encouraged Nigerians to remain resilient and not lose hope.

I know as a Governor that we are all going through suffering in the land. I understand how the economy works and saw this ahead of time.

I have been shouting since I became Governor that the way we are going and the kind of decision many of us politicians were making will bring about hardship, Obaseki said.

READ ALSO: Ignore Technicalities, Its Grave Issue For The President To Forge Records  Atiku To SCourt

He further noted that Nigeria was never like this before. God in his mercy endowed Nigeria like no other country in the World.

How many countries in Africa have 100 million people not to talk about 200 million? God designed us as the biggest market in Africa. God gave us all and the problem we are facing as a nation is the one created by us, particularly our leaders.

If you are a leader and you are not ready to sacrifice yourself, then you are not ready for leadership.

Leadership is not how much you can get for yourself. Nigerians are suffering today due to bad leadership. Nigeria is rich in terms of resources and has no business with poverty and suffering. We can grow and produce all we need to consume in Nigeria, so why are we not doing it?
Abdallah Shawesh, the Palestinian Ambassador to Nigeria, has posited that Israel intends to deport Palestinians to Egypt.

He made the claim during a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday, a day after a rocket attack killed at least 500 Palestinians at the Christian-run Ahli Arab Hospital in downtown Gaza City.

Protests have erupted across the Arab world and Muslim countries in response to the incident, although the Israeli military and Palestinian militant organizations have traded blames for the strike.

Yesterday, immediately after this horrific attack, the designated digital spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, Hanania Naftali, published a tweet admitting that Israel had bombed the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, Shawesh said Naftali later deleted his tweet.

He however expressed outrage that Western politicians were assisting Israel in carrying out its objectives to drive Palestinians from their homes.

The double standards, hypocrisy, and full support and sponsorship of many Western countries encourage Israel to carry out its old plans of expelling Palestinians from Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, in a clear attempt to repeat the ethnic cleansing Palestinians faced in 1948.

READ ALSO: Gunmen Machete Medical Doctor To Death In Nasarawa

International law, particularly international humanitarian law and human rights law, must be respected. Israel should be subject to no exceptions or impunity, and it should not be above the law.

It is time for the international community to stand firm and united in support of the international law, he told reporters.

The envoy stated that his country is willing to sit down with Israel to work out their disagreements, adding that Palestine has always supported discussion that would culminate in a two-state solution.

We are prepared to sit at the negotiating table. Israel is the one who is unwilling to engage in dialogue, Shawesh stated.

When asked if Palestine is willing to give up Hamas in order to resume negotiations with Israel, he stated, Resistance is a natural behavior in all people.

The Palestinian people as a whole are fighting the Israeli occupation. It has nothing to do with Hamas. Even if Hamas is not there, we will continue to oppose Israels occupation. Our opposition is legal.

He advocated for a two-state solution, stating that the Palestinian people own the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza.
Polish exports of goods and services year to date reached an all-time high of over EUR 430 billion at the end of Q2 2023. Their value grew by 52 per cent compared to 2019, which was equally attributable to higher sales of goods and service revenue.. The year 2019 is an important benchmark as the following years saw three significant events that negatively affected international trade: the UK left the European Union at the beginning of 2020; the economy was then paralysed for several months by the coronavirus pandemic; and Russia launched its aggression against Ukraine in early 2022.

Brexit and the war in Ukraine affected countries that were among the top ten markets for Polish exports. As a result of the UKs exit from the EU, the importance of the UK for Polish exports declined slightly. Six per cent of exported goods went to the UK in 2019, making it Polands third largest export market.

This year, France joined the top three countries, taking over some of the UKs share. However, exports to the UK by value in the first seven months of 2023 were more than 20 per cent higher than in the same period of 2019. Germany, for which the UK is also one of the top export markets, now sells goods in the UK at a lower value than four years ago.

As another example of Polands success as an exporter, sales to Germany have been rising. In recent years, Poland has overtaken France in terms of the value of goods sold in Germany, even though trade between these two most important euro area countries has a much longer tradition, and they both share the same currency. According to the German statistical office, imports from Poland amounted to EUR 77.4 billion in 2022. Germany only buys more from China, the Netherlands, and the United States.

One important driver of the success of Polands exports is their diversity. The United Nations agency UNCTAD annually calculates concentration indices which track the distribution of a countrys exports by group of goods. Poland has in recent years been regularly ranked at the top of the list and came first globally in 2022. This means that domestic exports are not significantly dependent on any single group of goods. For comparison, at the bottom of the list of European countries is Slovakia, which mainly exports cars and car parts. Norway is Europes worst performer in terms of export diversification as it predominantly sells oil and gas.

Domestic exports have been growing in recent years, not only in nominal terms, but also in terms of their increasing importance to the domestic economy as measured by the ratio of exports to GDP. Exports accounted for 53 per cent of all goods and services produced in Poland at the end of 2019. In just over three years, the ratio has risen to an all-time high of over 60 per cent based on data for 12 consecutive months.
The Inmarsat Maritime Safety team design and develop services to support SAR operations, such as the recently launched RescueNET, which delivers fast, reliable, and approved SAR communications from ship to shore, from shore to ship, and between maritime rescue coordination centres (MRCCs).



To help users take full advantage of the capabilities offered by RescueNET and other Inmarsat safety services, the team provide training to SAR authorities worldwide and have created free online training packages for organisations to learn and test their capabilities using satellite services. They also participate in global SAR exercises to offer recommendations for change and provide support in capacity building and training within established and developing MRCCs.

Peter Broadhurst, Vice President, Safety & Regulatory, Inmarsat Maritime, said: It is a great honour to accept the IMRF Award for Innovation and Technology in Maritime Search and Rescue. I would like to thank my colleagues on the Inmarsat Maritime Safety team and the Network Operations team for offering their expertise and unwavering commitment to such a critical cause. From its foundation in 1979, Inmarsat has been supporting the global SAR community with every means available to us. While significant progress has been made in recent decades, safety at sea can never be taken for granted.

The Inmarsat Maritime Safety team are on call around the clock to assist in SAR efforts  even those not initiated by Inmarsat equipment  and have developed relationships and procedures between Inmarsat and SAR organisations to enhance tracking and communication during operations. In addition, they have created an SAR API to streamline SAR communications and their integration into operational systems. Emphasising their commitment to maritime safety, they have achieved all of the above with no cost to the SAR community.
BalletX is 18, and its going to college, artistic director Christine Cox joked Wednesday night before the curtain went up on the fall series at the Wilma Theater.

Like a freshly minted adult, it looks more mature. There are more dancers  15, including two dance fellows; each piece now has two casts, so everyone can have a chance. Among the new faces, there is a familiar one: Peter Weil has moved over from Philadelphia Ballet, where he was a soloist.

The three pieces on this seasons program seemed lush with movement.

This was especially true in Jamar Roberts Eros & Psyche, a co-commission with the Vail Dance Festival, where the piece had its world premiere in August. A string quartet and a pianist played Philip Glass music on a very full stage with the dancers.

Here we get the first glimpse of Francesca Forcella, who has been with BalletX for 10 years, and Jerard Palazo (along with Ashley Simpson and a few others) moving into the most prominent roles. Palazo was new last season and hadnt gotten his moment. But here he and Forcella looked ready to take on whatever BalletXs many guest choreographers throw at them.

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 READ MORE: Our critic picks dance shows in Philadelphia you shouldnt miss this fall

Wearing leotards that look like stained glass (designed by Christine Darch) and set against a blue-lit stage (lighting by Michael Korsch), they danced a controlled, sleek, and stunning duet that showed off their rippling muscles.

When the whole group came on stage, the dancers moved as if through water, pushing their arms, sliding into positions, giving an illusion of deeper movement, even on a stage that was quite crowded.

If Roberts beautiful piece was a blue ballet, BalletX cofounder Matthew Neenan presented a red one in his world premiere, Siete.

He, too, used live music, a series of guitar pieces composed and played on stage by Michael Poll. The costumes were again by Darch: flamenco pants with a stripe down the side and a sheer red matador-type top with fringe on one arm.

As the name suggests, its a suite of Spanish-style dances for seven dancers. In formations, often with their backs to the audience, they danced in simple but effective stomping and lunging steps, pulsating to the guitar, calling to mind Balanchines famous quote, see the music, hear the dance.

All the dancers got their moments, but my favorite was Savannah Green, with her quick arched-back jumps, nearly kicking her head.

Philadelphia doesnt get as many new Neenan ballets as it used to. He cofounded BalletX with Cox and for many years was choreographer in residence at Philadelphia Ballet. Now he is in high demand with companies around the United States. So it was interesting to see how his work matured. Most of his trademark movements that had become a trope are gone and his work is far more varied and sophisticated.

The program also includes Jennifer Archibalds Exalt, which BalletX premiered in 2022 at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts. Back then, in the larger theater, on a dark night, it had been hard to see the details, but in the more intimate Wilma, it shone. Set to a soundscape of house music by a variety of artists, it was the one piece of the night in pointe shoes.

Here, the men wore skirts, the women wore pleather and the movement was a party.

Its also a great reminder that ballet is a style that works as well with modern music (and dancers from diverse backgrounds) as it does with the European masters. For all the resistance to change from the ballet community, the art form is easily adaptable.

BalletX fall series. Through Oct. 29, 2023. Wilma Theater, 265 S Broad St., Phila. balletx.org
Gralin Hughes Jr. (from left), Sami Hughes, and Sara Zia Ebrahimi Hughes celebrate cutting the ribbon to their new bookstore, Multiverse, in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. Read more

On one of their first dates, Wyndmoor couple Gralin Hughes Jr. and Sara Zia Ebrahimi Hughes watched a Star Wars film with a live orchestra soundtrack.

On Oct. 13, the 10th anniversary of their marriage, the couple (along with their 9-year-old child, Sami) had their hands wrapped around large golden scissors, cutting a ceremonious ribbon for the opening of their new bookstore that celebrates their love for comics and speculative fiction.

Enter Chestnut Hills Multiverse, a portal Gralin and Sara described as a curated nerd space. Popular DC and Marvel titles grace the stores hardwood shelves, along with works by acclaimed comic, fantasy, and science fiction authors Essa Hansen, Kat Leyh, Rachel Smythe, Aiden Thomas, and others. Then there are boxed puzzle sets, games, and prized collectibles for speculative fiction fans of all ages.

We really wanted to create a space that was welcoming for everybody from different backgrounds and different world experiences, Gralin said. And this is a multiverse, a place where everything can exist together in one space.

After six years of manifestation, the couple was able to land the Chestnut Hill storefront, located on the lower hill at 8026 Germantown Ave. Gralin said they were initially looking at Germantown, where he grew up, but the move to Chestnut Hill just felt right.

Growing up in central Florida as an Iranian immigrant, Sara said the thought of walking into a comic book store was intimidating.

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I felt like I had to pretend I already knew everything, she said. It never felt like a space where I could come in and be like, I read this one excellent story, what else would you recommend? In the pre-internet days, there wasnt a way to research this stuff or find out about it. You were forced to rely on other peoples knowledge.

Instead of walking into a shop herself, Sara would borrow books from her friends, or pretend to have read certain titles to fit in. Gralin, too, said a comic book store was sometimes a scary place while growing up.

There was a lot of gatekeeping, he said. I always wanted people to teach it and explain it to me, make me feel welcome  It was like if you didnt know about this thing, then you dont really belong here. It was tough.

The name Multiverse, Sara said, is a nod to the multiple possibilities that exist in popular comic stories, but it also points to her and Gralins vision to welcome all levels of fandom, but especially readers of color who have longed for that sense of togetherness.

While online book stores and forums connect fans from around the world, comic book fan and Multiverse visitor Kiersten Adams said having a physical space is an empowering move that invokes community, especially among the citys Black nerds.

With online stores, theres an overwhelm of choice, Sara said. We really want to provide that curated experience, instead of an algorithm deciding whats the next step in your journey. For her, establishing Multiverse is a way for lovers of speculative fiction to get a guide in their search for their next read.

Theres something really beautiful about being in a physical space, Adams said. Im really excited for the future of this place. Its welcoming, and [Gralin and Sara] encourage people to come in, be in the space with us, and explore.

While excited for the stores opening, Gralin said there was nervousness going into the process of ownership. He didnt know how a BIPOC-owned book shop would be perceived, but they were surprised to see how many minority-owned businesses already exist in the area.

Sara said witnessing pioneers like Ariell R. Johnson, who opened Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, the first Black woman-owned comic shop on the East Coast, inspired them to fully pursue the opening of their independent book store. We credit her bravery for taking that next step to open [Multiverse], Sara said, and it was one of things that was like, OK, this could be real for us.

Courtney ONeill, executive director of the Chestnut Hill Business District, said Multiverse is a welcome addition to the lower hill and the couples presence is shifting peoples minds when it comes to traditional comic book stores.

I love [Gralin and Saras] story, how they found each other, and realized there are more people like them, ONeill said. We have a very diverse business population, and I love that they are on board and bringing something you dont traditionally see or think of from people of color.

Im embarrassed that I had a stereotype in my head, ONeill added, referring to the fact that a majority of comic bookstores are white-owned, but Im glad that they corrected it.

Reader and first-day Multiverse customer Daniel Farmer said he never envisioned a Black- and brown-owned comic bookstore in the area, but hes excited to see the face of Chestnut Hill continue to change.

I think its really special that this is on the Hill, and its really going to represent a new kind of openness and availability for more people to come up and enjoy, he said. Its a special neighborhood, and a lot of valuable and interesting things are happening up here.

Multiverse, 8026 Germantown Ave., Phila., 10 a.m.  5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; Sunday and Monday closed. www.multiversephilly.com.
After two off-duty police officers were shot at the airport, one fatally, fellow officers came to pay their respects to fallen Officer Richard Mendez in a motorcycle procession that led the ambulance his body to the Medical Examiner's Office on Thursday. Read more

Two of the three men arrested this week in the fatal shooting of a Philadelphia police officer and the wounding of another officer during an attempted car theft at the airport last week have been arraigned on charges including murder.

Alexander Batista-Polanco, 21, and Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez, 18, were denied bail and jailed after being arraigned overnight, according to court records. A third man, Hendrick Pena-Fernandez, was awaiting extradition to the city after he was apprehended this week in New Jersey, officials said.

The three men are accused of participating in the killing of Officer Richard Mendez and the wounding of Officer Raul Ortiz last Thursday around 11 p.m. Police have said Mendez and Ortiz were about to start their shift at Philadelphia International Airport when they heard glass breaking at the Terminal D parking lot and tried to intervene in what they believed to be a car theft.

When they responded, police said, they encountered the three defendants and a fourth man trying to break into a car, and at least one of the men began shooting at Mendez and Ortiz from behind. Police have not yet said who they believe pulled the trigger.

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Mendez was struck four times, police said, while Ortiz was shot in the arm. Both were taken to area hospitals, where Mendez was pronounced dead.

One of the men trying to steal the car  Jesus Herman Madera Duran, 18, of Camden  was also shot, police said. Authorities believe he was struck by the same person who shot Mendez and Ortiz. Duran was then picked up by his coconspirators and driven to Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia,where he was dropped off and later pronounced dead, police said.

Batista-Polanco, Martinez-Fernandez, and Pena-Fernandez then drove away in a stolen Dodge Durango, police said. The car was found the next day burned beside a road in South Brunswick, N.J.

A manhunt for the suspects lasted two days.

Martinez Fernandez, 18, was taken into custody early Monday morning in Cherry Hill, police said.

Batista-Polanco was arrested in New Jersey on Tuesday, then taken by police to two different jurisdictions where he was facing warrants, including Scranton, where he was charged for his role in an April burglary, according to court documents.

Pena-Fernandez, 21, of Pennsauken, was arrested early Wednesday morning in Bellmawr, Camden County, police said. It was not immediately clear when he might be extradited to Philadelphia.

It also was not immediately clear whether Batista-Polanco or Martinez-Fernandez had attorneys. Neither had a lawyer listed in court documents on Thursday.
Noelle Oliver, a junior working on perimeters math with sixth graders Robert Jackson and Roshan Barnes (right) during study hall. Noelle is participating in the Career and Technical Education Teaching program (CTE) at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber. This is a new program to encourage students to become teachers in Philadelphia. Read more

Across the country, theres a teacher shortage so acute that in some towns, classes can go an entire year without permanent educators. Districts are offering signing bonuses, building housing just for teachers, and turning to remote staff to instruct students.

But Noelle Oliver, 16, thinks one answer to the teaching crisis can be found in Philadelphia  at her school, Science Leadership Academy at Beeber.

SLA Beeber just launched a career and technical education (CTE) program aimed at building the teacher pipeline, where high school students learn about educational theory, enroll in college courses, and even instruct younger peers in classes and small groups.

Oliver, an SLA Beeber junior, thought she wanted to become an interior designer. But after just a month spent as a teaching assistant, shes now contemplating becoming a middle school math teacher.

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I love it so much, Oliver said of teaching. The students she works with can be wild, but theyre so funny.

Teaching in general has a recruitment challenge

In 2020, it fell to SLA Beeber assistant principal Gabe Kuriloff to take a student assistant teaching program the school inherited from SLA Center City and make it its own.

A conversation with Juliet Curci, a Temple University education professor who focuses on college access and persistence, got Kuriloff thinking.

She said, Were having a really hard time getting students; teaching in general has a recruitment challenge, Kuriloff recalls.

The moment was right: There was growing awareness across the country, and in Pennsylvania, an acknowledgment about the shortage of Black teachers specifically. People working on the problem were thinking about where and how to plant grow-your-own teaching programs.

SLA Beeber was an obvious choice.

This is a wonderful place to be doing this work  a progressive school, a project-based learning environment where you have highly capable, motivated students that are very diverse in their academic experience. We are just a really fertile ground for doing this work, said Kuriloff.

At first, there were Temple dual-enrollment courses, pilot classes taught by Kuriloff and history teacher Mary Connaghan  foundations of education, and the history of sociology and education. Through a partnership with the Center for Black Educator Development, the focus was an education for liberation curriculum, teaching students to think critically and work against injustice.

Kuriloff and others interested in the idea went to anyone in the city who would talk to us and saying, were going to build a teaching program, a real [career and technical education] program. The idea was to create a full, formal program in K-12 education, which would require students to complete 1,080 hours of coursework and related experience, to possibly start them on the path to becoming teachers while still in high school.

By last spring, changes to the school code made by the Pennsylvania legislature created the possibility for such a program. A handful are now in place, with SLA Beebers the only such program in Philadelphia.

They want to make the school a better place

Inside a second-floor classroom at SLA Beeber, teacher Njemele Tamala Anderson circulated among a class of 24 11th graders delving into education theory. The class is the citys first cohort of K-12 education CTE students, juggling high school and dual-enrollment college classes plus practical experience, and working directly with the schools lower-school students at lunch periods, in classes, study halls, and small-group tutoring sessions.

As Andersons students dissected scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings work, she encouraged them to think critically, to see how their future work might affect young people like them, how culturally relevant curriculum can help bridge gaps.

Its important as future teachers that you see their future as being bright, even if they cant see it for themselves, Anderson said.

Frankly, Kuriloff and Connaghan were slightly nervous at the start of this school year, when the juniors met the sometimes-messy reality of working with students not much younger than they are.

They didnt need to worry  after one lunch period, they bombarded Kuriloff with ideas: Can you get us chalk and art supplies so we can make recess more meaningful? Can we do a Google Form to encourage students to sign up for study groups?

Its student initiative, just because they want to make the school a better place, said Connaghan.

Building a Philly teaching movement

Not everyone in the program wants to become a teacher; thats not the only point, organizers say.

Were not just selling teaching itself, were selling being part of a change community, said Kuriloff. You may not become a teacher, but you will go out into the world with this consciousness and this mindset  and you will be powerful.

Jayden Latimer isnt planning on majoring in education, for instance, but he is relishing thinking about what gets taught, about encouraging the students he works with to learn meaningful lessons in ways that reflect their lived experiences.

I just feel like the system needs more truth to the youth, Latimer said.

SLA Beeber is a majority-Black school in Overbrook, and the idea of developing a culture of teachers of color is exciting, said Oliver.

Philadelphias seen a lot of darkness recently; this could be some light that we need, she said. With this program, I could see so many more Black teachers being in the Philadelphia School District, in every school district around the world.

Though SLA Beeber has Philadelphias first CTE K-12 education program, the plan is for it to become a model, spreading to other schools. Olney High is interested; charter schools may join, as well.

Ansharaye Hines works closely with Kuriloff and SLA Beeber students as the Center for Black Educator Developments assistant director of high school programming. Watching the schools teaching program take off has been humbling, exciting, overwhelming, she said.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Hines said, she had a revelation when she attended Central High and her teachers believed in her and her classmates. They held her to a high bar.

The thing that I felt when they expected me to be excellent was different than I felt in other schools, Hines said. Thats what she and the SLA Beeber staff want to build for all students, here and in the wider world.

I imagine a universe where Philly is a hotbed of teacher development and growth, Kuriloff said. Imagine Philly as a community where people come to teach.
Medical school applicants are now urged to take psychology and sociology, plus the usual sciences. Read more

Anushka Ghosh rattled off the long list of classes she was urged to take to get into medical school.

Two-and-a-half years of chemistry. One year each of biology and physics. Courses in statistics, the humanities, and social sciences.

Ghosh, now in her second year of medical school at Thomas Jefferson University, took them all. She even took calculus, though that old standby is no longer required by most medical schools, and minored in studio art.

You come in thinking I want to do everything, she said. You slowly realize that you might not have the capacity.

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A rigorous, well-rounded course load is what medical schools want these days in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Renaissance scholars are in demand, who are adept not only in the traditional hard sciences, but also are empathetic humanists  good communicators with an understanding of sociocultural factors that play a vital role in human health.

The latest twist? In addition to recommending extra courses in soft subject areas, admissions officers are now trying to measure the related skills with standardized tests.

The Association of American Medical Colleges added a psychology-sociology section to its MCAT standardized admissions exam in 2015. And last year, the organization rolled out an optional multiple-choice situational judgment test, posing ethical conundrums such as how to deal with a classmate who violates patient privacy on social media.

Whether the added coursework and new assessments are yielding better physicians remains to be seen. The revised MCAT exam may be a better predictor of student performance in the third and fourth years of medical school, when they start to interact with real patients, a University of Minnesota study suggests.

Whats clear is that medical educators are placing renewed emphasis on the old idea that medicine is as much an art as it is a science, said Jacob W. Ufberg, associate dean of admissions at Temple Universitys Katz School of Medicine.

The newer requirements and tests seek to capture some of the same qualities that are identified through essays and interviews, he said.

Its a recognition that just being good at physics doesnt make you a good doctor, he said.

 READ MORE: Try these sample questions from the AAMC's test of ethics and situational judgment

Finding time for psych-sosh

Psychology, sociology, and other social sciences  psych-sosh in the hurried lingo of overscheduled premedical students, spoken all in one breath  are not the only additions to the undergraduate course load. More medical schools are now recommending an extra hard science, biochemistry, prompted by the addition of MCAT questions on that subject.

The course list can seem intimidating at first, said Ghosh, the second-year student at Jeffersons Sidney Kimmel Medical College. She worked as a peer adviser while an undergraduate at Brandeis University, reassuring younger premed students as they tried to plan their schedules.

Theres a lot of anxiety about getting through everything, she said.

But she found it manageable, in part by taking courses that piqued her interest. Instead of sociology and psychology, Ghosh opted for several classes in anthropology, which some schools accept as an alternative. One favorite course explored the role of medicine in different world cultures.

It definitely changed a lot of my opinions on what a physicians role is, she said.

Anticipating more interest in psychology from its undergraduate premedical students, Temple has created a clinical and health psychology minor, said Cynthia Gooch, a professor in the department of psychology and neuroscience.

One traditional requirement for premeds, meanwhile, has largely fallen by the wayside. Just one-third of medical schools still recommend that applicants take calculus. Most urge statistics instead. None of the Philly-area medical schools recommend calculus, though Penn State College of Medicine still does.

That shift, which took place more than a decade ago, was a reflection that statistics is more relevant to the day-to-day practice of medicine, Temples Ufberg said.

Whens the last time that I, as a physician, used calculus? he asked. I cant remember.

Covering the bases

The differing recommendations from school to school can be a challenge, said Gigi Simeone, who advises Swarthmore College students and alumni seeking to enter the health professions.

Thats because getting into medical school is so competitive that people often apply to at least 20 schools.

If Harvard has a particular thing, and Penn has another particular thing, it becomes hard for them to meet the requirements for a whole bunch of schools, she said. We encourage them to do the coursework as broadly as possible, so that when it comes time to apply, theyll be eligible to apply wherever they want.

Some students dont complete the recommended coursework until after they graduate from college, perhaps taking night classes while working in a lab during a gap year, she said.

Other students decide that covering all the bases isnt possible.

Jake Heilizer, a classmate of Ghoshs at Jefferson, said he took the bare minimum of recommended premed courses when he was an undergraduate at Tulane University. He already had his hands full earning dual undergraduate degrees in math and public health.

So he decided not to take psychology at Tulane, especially since he had taken an advanced-placement course in the subject during high school. To get ready for the MCAT, he simply studied psych by himself, and he did just fine.

I was like, Ive got my plate full. I trust myself to handle that on my own, he said. I got the Kaplan review books, read through them, and did the flash cards and all that.

Not soft skills

To those who wonder how medical-school applicants can fit in all the courses, Harvard professor Richard M. Schwartzstein said that concern is misguided.

He was on the AAMC committee that recommended adding the psychology-sociology section to the MCAT test a decade ago, and he also wanted to add yet another subject  economics  but was voted down.

There is plenty of time for students to take all the recommended preparatory classes, said Schwartzstein, a professor of medicine and medical education. But its not important that they remember every last fact from each of those courses, just that they learn how to think and solve problems.

Schwartzstein said the revised MCAT reflects that reality, with more questions requiring that test takers use analytical skills rather than simply memorizing material. That approach makes more sense in an era when so much raw knowledge is available on a smartphone.

Finding facts is not a challenge these days, he said. What education is supposed to be about is how we apply it, how we reason, how we contemplate and solve problems.

That includes a good understanding of the economic, cultural, and behavioral factors that can affect patients health and their ability to follow their physicians advice, he said.

If that all sounds like a lot to predict with a standardized test, stay tuned, said Claudio Violato, a professor and assistant dean at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Its too soon to say for sure, but preliminary evidence suggests that the revised MCAT may be better than its predecessor at identifying students with the best interpersonal skills, he said.

They used to be called soft skills, and it turns out theyre actually a really important part of the whole thing, he said. Of course, you also have to have the technical knowledge. But so much of that is now done by computers.
Robin Sipe and her new kitten, Earlene, at home in Grottoes, Va. MUST CREDIT: Bob Grebe Read more

As Robin Sipe of Grottoes, Va., reviewed her doctors notes following a routine checkup, something stood out.

Instructions from her longtime doctor  pulmonologist Earl D. King  advised her when to get her annual flu shot and updated COVID-19 vaccine. But it also prescribed something you cant typically pick up at Rite Aid: a new fur baby.

During her appointment last month, Sipe, 67, mentioned to King that she was going through a tough time since her cat died over the summer. She recalled crying in the appointment as she explained what was wrong.

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King, 63,  who works at Sentara RMH Medical Center in Harrisonburg, Va., but has previously worked, lived, and attended school in the Philadelphia area  wrote down his advice for Sipe.

Get a cat.

Now, their story is spreading after Sipe acted on that advice and shared the good news with her local broadcast station.

Meet Earlene, the three-legged kitten

In an interview with WHSV3, Sipe held her 7-week-old kitten  a black and white baby with bright green eyes and three legs.

She didnt expect to follow Kings orders so quickly; it just happened.

After leaving Kings office, Sipe visited her local farm to pick up produce. Thats when she saw the kitten, one of a litter of five and missing most of a front paw after suffering an injury after birth.

Sipe described their connection as instant and could be seen snuggling and playing with the kitten in WHSV3s interview.

I asked if I could take the kitty home and told them I could guarantee that shed be safe and happy inside, Sipe told the Washington Post. I bought three ears of corn and a cantaloupe that came to $2.99, and they agreed that an extra penny should cover the cost of taking the kitty.

Sipe told WHSV3 that she hopes to pay it forward and take her kitten on visits to facilities working with veterans or people dealing with limb loss.

She also picked a special name for her new pal: Earlene, after the doctor she says has saved her life multiple times.

He went the extra mile for me, Sipe said. And I hope that everyone can have a doctor in their life just like Dr. King.

He treated my heart

Sipe told the Washington Post shes been seeing King for 15 years. Hes treated her for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a condition that can block airflow and make it hard to breathe. Sipe said King has saved her life at least three times.

Now, she credits King with treating her heart.

Everything changed for the better when I found Earlene, she told the Post.

King  who graduated from Pennsylvania State University and did his residency at Temple University Hospital  says thats a common phenomenon for pet owners.

Cats and dogs are important for patients for comfort or touch or well-being of their cardiovascular health, lung health, he told WHSV3. Studies show that pets can positively impact mental health and can help older adults dealing with loneliness and isolation.

Robin was down in the dumps, crying about the loss of her cat, and I felt that a new cat was the best remedy for her, King told the Post.

Growing up on a dairy farm in Chester County, with herds of cats and dogs, hed seen pets positive impact firsthand, he said.

One winter, it snowed so bad the milk truck couldnt get to the farm, and we had to run 600 gallons of milk down the drain, he told the Post. The cats drank as much as they could hold, and they were very happy. Having them around was a wonderful experience.

Still, why bother reiterating get a cat on Sipes checkup summary paperwork?

Well, he told the Post, King has been in the field long enough to know that people sometimes dont follow your instructions.
Prospect Medical Holdings Inc. had been sued over the closure last year of Delaware County Memorial Hospital. Read more

Prospect Medical Holdings Inc., which owns Crozer Health, and the Foundation for Delaware County agreed this week to a nine-month pause in their legal fights to give Prospect a chance to sell the cash-strapped health system.

The Foundation sued Prospect over the closure last year of Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill, alleging that the closure violated Prospects 2016 purchase agreement. The Foundation is the legal successor to the nonprofit that previously owned the former Crozer-Keystone Health System.

The Foundation is hopeful that a high quality, nonprofit system or consortium of systems will come forward to acquire a health care system that so many Delaware County residents need and deserve, the foundations statement said.

Crozer said in a statement that it was pleased with the agreement: We will continue to work to make sure our community receives excellent patient care.

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The temporary legal cease-fire had the support of Gov. Josh Shapiros office, the Pennsylvania attorney general, and Delaware County leaders, Crozer and state officials said.

The administration will continue operating in good faith throughout this process to achieve the best outcome that both ensures adequate health care and services remain available for Delaware County residents, while also protecting current Prospect employees, Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said in an email.

Financial trouble

Financial woes at Crozer  which operates Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, and numerous outpatient facilities  have mounted in recent months. At least seven vendors have filed lawsuits since August over unpaid bills totaling more than $900,000.

Upper Darby Township, home to Delaware County Memorial Hospital, filed a lawsuit in August alleging that it was owed $202,552 in back taxes and interest.

Prospect, based in Los Angeles, acquired Crozer in 2016 in a deal valued at $300 million. In 2019, Prospect sold the real estate at 14 hospitals and two psychiatric facilities to Medical Properties Trust, a real estate investment firm, for $1.55 billion. MPT then leased the buildings back to Prospect.

Money from the sale was used in part to fund a $457 million dividend to a former private equity owner and current owners.

MPT valued Crozers properties at $420 million in that deal, but has since reduced their value to $155 million  about a third of what it paid.

In Connecticut, Prospects planned sale of three hospitals to Yale New Haven Health for $435 million has hit some road blocks, CT Mirror reported Monday. Yale New Haven is seeking a price cut and wants the state to kick in $16 million a year for five years to help support the three struggling hospitals.
Rothman Orthopaedic Institute named Christopher T. Olivia as its CEO in April 2021. Rothman fired him in March 2023. Earlier this month, he filed a lawsuit against Rothman, saying they fired him after he blew the whistle on financial mismanagement. Read more

The former chief executive officer of Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, Christopher T. Olivia, is suing the Philadelphia-based physicians practice, saying he was wrongfully ousted after he blew the whistle on financial mismanagement.

The civil lawsuit alleges that shortly after Olivia became CEO in April 2021, he uncovered many financial improprieties at Rothman, which describes itself as the nations largest orthopedics group.

Olivia also contends Rothmans leadership deceived its young doctors, who invested millions in the practice, in order to further enrich senior shareholders.

Olivia says he received a terse email firing him and building security perp-walked him out of the Center City headquarters in March  just hours after he requested a truthful financial report from the practices accounting department to give to Rothmans board of directors. He then warned board members about what he viewed as an urgent financial crisis and the need to cease the fraudulent practices, according to the suit.

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Rothmans reputation for orthopedic excellence is second to none, the suit states. But underlying this sprawling orthopedic empire is a decayed and  in many instances  corrupt financial management infrastructure.

Olivia says Rothman violated New Jerseys Conscientious Employee Protection Act and Pennsylvanias wage payment and collection law. He is seeking unspecified financial damages for breach of contract and other legal complaints.

Rothman spokesperson Alexandria Hammond and Philip G. Kircher, a lawyer for Rothman, declined comment on Thursday. Olivias lawyer, George Bochetto, also declined to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed Oct. 9 in Philadelphias Court of Common Pleas. It was first reported by legal news site Law360.

The lawsuit follows another high-profile court case this year revealing concerns about how Rothman runs its practice. The Inquirer reported in May on dueling lawsuits filed by John Abraham, a former Rothman surgeon, and Jessica Phillips, a former medical resident in orthopedic surgery. Abraham and Phillips accused each other of sexual misconduct and each faulted Rothmans handling of their concerns, a May 2023 Inquirer investigation found.

Financial questions at Rothman

Olivia says he was hired by Rothman to take the practice to the next level after years of financial mismanagement. It quickly became apparent to Olivia that leadership had failed to invest in the Philadelphia practice for years, including in MRI machines that regularly broke down, the lawsuit says.

Rothmans expansion in New York, announced in 2017, struggled to turn the profits it had anticipated. Olivia says the New York practice had lost about $5 million a year, but he helped it near breakeven in 2022, according to the suit.

Olivias lawsuit names multiple Rothman entities as defendants, including its parent company, Reconstructive Orthopaedic Associates, which runs more than 50 orthopedic practices with roughly 1,800 employees, in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Florida. The suit also names prominent Rothman board members.

Because Rothman is privately owned, little is known about its ownership and finances. Olivias complaint says the company has about $400 million in annual revenue from its core operations and is owned by 90 physicians.

Olivia, an ophthalmologist who lives in South Jersey, was Rothmans CEO from April 2021 to March 2023. In the suit, he credited himself with overseeing an increase in the average payout to physician shareholders from $817,000 in 2021 to $977,000 in 2022.

But Olivias lawsuit against Rothman paints a picture of a company with weak financial controls that was heading toward a financial crisis at the end of last year. Olivia says he warned the board that shareholders should expect a significant reduction in fiscal 2023 payments.

He says the board refused to address looming financial troubles, such as unfunded obligations to retired doctors, heavily indebted real estate holdings, and a serious decline in Rothmans recruitment of new physician shareholders.

Rather than tackling the problems, the board blamed rising overhead, despite the fact that Rothmans overhead was well below the industry average, according to the complaint. In 2022, the board went against Olivias advice and shifted the burden of overhead costs to lower-earning, mostly younger doctors, according to the suit.

Olivia alleges that the boards actions cost him more than $10 million. That figure is likely based in part on Olivias claims to an ownership interest in a holding company that Rothman created for the companys national expansion, including businesses in New Jersey, New York, and Florida.

The lawsuit says that at the time Olivia was fired, a Florida hospital was offering $150 million to $200 million to help pay for Rothmans expansion.

Olivia, whose annual salary was scheduled to rise to $3.8 million after three years, says in the suit that he was entitled to a multimillion-dollar payout if Rothman were sold.
A bell forged in 1909 was stolen recently from the Pleasantville, Atlantic County, fire station. It can be seen on the far right, suspended about 10 feet above the ground, on a tower. Read more

A beloved copper and tin bell was forged in Ohio in 1909, then hung outside a Jersey Shore fire department for over a century. Now, its missing.

Firefighters in Pleasantville, Atlantic County, had recently commissioned a new stand and memorial for the bell to preserve the departments history. Then, earlier this week, they realized the bell, weighing an estimated several hundred pounds, was gone, and theyre hoping some thieves will have a change of heart.

We just want our history back, Battalion Chief Eric Moran told The Inquirer Wednesday. You can drop it off at our doorstep or tell us where to go find it. Its disheartening. Were one of the oldest departments in South Jersey, but we dont have a lot of history.

A Facebook post the fire department made about the missing bell has been shared nearly 7,000 times, and Moran has been scouring eBay to make sure it doesnt pop up there. He said the bell had to be moved with a front-end loader when it was placed behind the fire department for storage and whoever took it likely had help.

Police have been notified, he said, but hed rather have the bell returned with no questions asked.

Again, we just want our history back, he said.

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Evidence from the scene led him to believe the culprits used a pallet jack to move the bell before loading it onto a truck or van. There were no surveillance cameras nearby.

Were thinking this happened in the last four or five days, he said.

Most commenters on Facebook suggested the department reach out to local scrap yards and Moran has. Hes hoping scrap yard owners, or even antique dealers, would pause when approached with an item like the bell.

Many on Facebook wondered why the bell was being stored outside, and Moran said there simply wasnt room for it.

Its not like you can move a pair of boots and put the bell there, he said.
In all likelihood, the need to protect the climate and reduce human impact on the natural environment is indubitable. Yet rather natural debatesregarding the tempo of pro-ecological action have been sparked. How does one go about handling the cost, its social aspect in particular, in order to avoid it exceeding the benefits and the fear factor blocking the entire process?

European Union member states have been facing progressively ambitious goals laid out by the Unions successive versions of its climate policy. The scale of the challenge is particularly enormous for Poland, the countrys energy sector historically coal-based. The hard coal share in the energy mix is high, the resource having always been available and relatively cheap to secure. In contrast to Scandinavian countries, we lack the natural conditions required to develop hydropower, the Big Brother having habitually frowned upon nuclear energy unit construction in socialist times. Today, that road lies wide open. While having chosen solar and wind power as well, we are still at the toddler stage in terms of the zero-emission energy path. Following it will require enormous investment outlays.

The Law of Large Numbers

The Polish Road to Energy Transformation report co-authored by the Polish Electricity Association and EY accounting & consulting firm suggests that Poland has met the European Union 2020 goals, having reduced overall greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent in comparison with the year 1990. The Renewable Energy Sources (RES) share in final energy consumption has grown to approximately 16.1 per cent, surpassing the EUs 15 per cent target.

Pursuant to government assumptions, Poland is to abandon coal mining altogether by 2049. A major financial challenge, it will also require profound and costly socio-economic changes in leading mining regions.

According to BloombergNEF estimates, Polish energy mix transition-related investments may well reach EUR 100120 billion by 2030. Similar calculations have been quoted by EY analysts who believe that energy sector transformation spending, protective measures included, may reach EUR 135 billion (or approximately PLN 600 billion) by the same year.

Long-term, the scale of investment and challenges for the Polish energy sector aspiring to zero-emission status will be even greater  the EY report claims it may well total EUR 200 billion (over PLN 900 billion) by the year 2050. In the original version of Polands Energy Policy until 2040 (PEP 2040), the cost of the energy sector transition for the years 20212040 was estimated at around PLN 1.6 billion. Yet the PEP 2040 is currently undergoing a comprehensive update.

Polands energy policy assumes, among other things, that by 2030, the RES share in final energy consumption (gross) will have reached a minimum of 23 per cent: at least 32 per cent in electricity generation (wind farms and photovoltaics the main players), 28 per cent in district heating, and 14 per cent in the transport industry (electromobility a major contributing factor). In offshore wind power, installed capacity is expected to reach around 5.9 GW and up to around 11 GW by 2030 and 2040, respectively; in photovoltaics, around 57 GW and 1016 GW along the same timeline.

Nuclear power will be particularly significant to the transition process. The Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe (Polish Nuclear Power Plants) company entered into an agreement with US firms: Westinghouse and Bechtel on 27 September for the design of Polands first nuclear power station to be developed at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino location. Poland is opening a new chapter in nuclear power history today. Just as the 20th century was the age of coal and oil, the 21st century is the age of the atom, Polands prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki remarked on the occasion. We cannot risk the stability of the energy system or that of our entire economy by basing them on unstable energy sources. Nuclear energy is the only clean, stable, and safety-tested energy source, Morawiecki said.

The power plants first unit (approximate capacity: 11.6 GW) is expected to come online in 2033, successive units to become operational at 23-year intervals, the entire nuclear programme including the development of six units with a total capacity of 69 GW.

Where Will the Money Come From?

According to estimates laid out in the aforementioned Polish Electricity Association and EYs report, the investment potential of the four largest energy groups (Polish Energy Group (PGE), Enea, Tauron and Energa)  accounting for their secure yet already considerable level of debt  comes to just under EUR 29 billion for the years 20212030. These valuations are based on economic standing updates for all four organisations, analyses of their investment plans, and additional related cash flows. This means that even should all other market players (not least Orlen with its huge potential) make substantial contributions to energy sector modernisation, a major investment gap will have to be filled.

European funding could bring something of a relief. As pointed out by the Polish Economic Institute, under the European Union Multiannual Financial Framework 20212027, climate goal-related funds were allocated with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Cohesion Fund, and Just Transition Fund (JST). Poland would receive a total of EUR 26.6 billion for energy transformation purposes from said sources over the years 20212027, making us the largest beneficiary in the member state community as a recipient of nearly 25 per cent of all EU money earmarked for the purpose.

The scale of challenges is sufficiently enormous for the domestic banking sector to potentially face financing issues: stigmatised with the legal risk issue associated with Swiss franc-denominated loans and resulting in the need to establish provisions to the tune of billions, developments over recent years have restricted the banks capacity for equity rebalancing, and thus their ability to sufficiently cover the economys financial needs.

The Polish banking sectors relative power is insufficient. The banks equity is too low, their assets short. This is partly due to Polish companies success in recent years. The economy was developing at speed, banking sector capitalisation and asset-building processes incapable of keeping up, said Jerzy Kwiecinski, deputy CEO of the PeKaO S.A. Bank during the 32nd Economic Forum in Karpacz.

He emphasised that Poland is facing the immense challenge of ESG funding, energy transition a particularly notable component therein. Jerzy Kwiecinski added that of all European Union member states, Poland  with her coal-based economy  will be facing the greatest challenge. He claimed that the banking sector would come up two to three times short if attempting to cover all process-related requirements.

CEO of the same Bank Leszek Skiba is of a similar mind. Given current capital surplus volumes, the Polish banking sector will in all probability find itself unable to fund such challenges as the Polish economys energy transformation  and Polish firms joining Ukraine recovery efforts  simultaneously and in full amounts required, Skiba declared during the 25th Banking Forum & 21st Insurance Forum. Let us consider the eight largest banks in Poland. Their capital surplus over strategic equity amounts to around PLN 20 billion, which translates into the potential to generate PLN 150 billion in credit lines. Yet everything today seems to suggest that the scale of funding demand will skyrocket over the coming years, he added.

Narodowy Bank Polski to Lend a Helping Hand

Narodowy Bank Polski has declared its backing for the key component of the process: nuclear energy. Reducing the hard coal share and carbon dioxide emissions in the Polish economy  while preserving energy security  will require a large and stable energy source, nuclear power plants being the only choice. While nuclear energy investment will certainly be a major financial challenge for Poland, I am certain we will rise to the challenge, the Governor of NBP Adam Glapinski wrote in the opinion piece periodical Wszystko co Najwazniejsze in 2021. The head of the central bank declared that NBP would obviously back the process as well, using in-house instruments and taking action within its remit.

Assistance will also be provided by governmental agencies. MS Galleon GmbH owned by Micha Soowow, for example, will receive EUR 500 million (over PLN billion 2.2) in Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego funding, the money to be spent on developing Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and new production lines of the Barlinek Group companies. Amounts due to BGK will be repayable over 10 years.

BGK will be supporting MS Galleon projects spanning investments in zero-emission energy sources, Orlen Synthos Green Energy (OSGE) operations in particular. OSGE is a joint venture between Micha Soowow and the Orlen Group, designed to back the process of decarbonising the Polish energy sector by building BWRX-300 Small Modular Reactors.

A Structural Opening

Targeting the isolation of coal assets from energy sector corporations and incorporating them into the National Energy Security Agency (albeit the respective act of law is to be passed during the upcoming parliamentary term) is intended to secure greater foreign investor involvement. The move is significant in that the vast majority of European banks have bowed out of funding coal-based investments  and of providing corporations with any coal assets in their portfolios with funding. Relieving Polish energy corporations of their coal baggage will make it easier for them to secure energy transition funds.

According to Fitch rating agency analysts, National Energy Security Agency project progress is a positive contributing factor to the energy companies creditworthiness profile. Coal asset divestment will reduce their business risk, improve their capacity for indebtedness, and solidify their ESG profile.

Having already entered the road leading to a low-emission economy, Poland will continue walking it consistently  at her own speed  over the coming decades. The capacity to fund the process, which should be seen as an investment rather than cost, will rise in direct proportion with economic growth, corporate wealth advancement, and private Polish wealth progression.
Former Temple Police Officer Justin Busam (left) greets Kamille Young on the Temple campus in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Busam helped to deliver Kamilles baby, Aamanee, in a Cadillac on North Broad Street in 2013. Read more

When Kamille Young prepared for the arrival of her baby in 2013, a car was the last place she imagined as the delivery room. Little did she know that her 6-pound, 8-ounce baby girl, Aamanee Young, would be born in the back of a red Cadillac on Broad Street in North Philadelphia.

Former Temple University Police Officer Justin Busam and current Temple Officer Christopher DeRose still remember that Aug. 20 day. Derrick Reid, Aamanees father, ran in front of their parked patrol car. My girlfriend is having a baby, Busam recalls him saying. They initially pointed him to the closest hospital, Temple, before realizing the immediacy of the situation: The baby was coming right then and there.

Busam, a former paramedic, sent DeRose for towels and together they helped little Aamanee come into the world at 2:22 p.m.

Although Busam, now a captain with the Milmont Fire Company in Delaware County, and Kamille Young kept in touch with each other through Facebook over the years, Aamanee had never met the officers. That changed on Wednesday.

You are so grown, Busam told 10-year-old Aamanee during a meeting on Temples campus. Aamanee held on to two balloons, each tied to a letter of thanks she wrote to each officer.

Today Aamanee delivered Thank You cards to each of the officers  pic.twitter.com/0a21HCtoly  Temple Public Safety (@TU_Police) October 18, 2023

As the grown-ups reminisced, Aamanee had one message for the officers. If you werent there I dont know what would happen, but since you were there it was a miracle, she said.

Busam and DeRose have kept every newspaper clipping about their unusual duty that day. For DeRose, having assisted Young with the birth is a reminder that there are blessings in everything that we do despite the hardships.

Today, Aamanee, one of Kamille Youngs four children, is a happy child living in West Philadelphia with a passion for running track, math, and helping people. And, judging from her birth, perhaps a bit of a dramatic flair.

She is the middle kid, but Aamanee knows how to make her presence felt, her mother said.
Christina Sorenson with her dog, Rex, at her Philadelphia home on Tuesday morning Oct. 17, 2023. A lawyer who spent time in foster care as a child, Sorensen now fights for the rights of kids in the system. She's lived in this house for six years, the longest she's ever lived anywhere before. Read more

On a frigid Chicago winter night over 10 years ago, a young man approached me outside a bar. He had already asked a few other folks for money to help him pay for a warm bed or meal. While he came closer, I mentally prepared to explain that I didnt have any cash. As he began to speak, he looked at me closely, then asked, Were you my foster sister?

That simple question changed my life.

I had spent years carefully crafting a so-called normal existence, with a family, college degree, friends, and a job. But in that moment, he saw me for the identity I had spent my life trying to outrun: a former foster kid.

 READ MORE: Philly doesnt have too few foster homes. It has too many foster kids. | Opinion

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I was placed in foster care when I was 5 years old. Over nine years, I lived with at least 15 different families and attended as many different schools. Above all, I just wanted to be normal, to belong, which to me meant escaping the foster kid label, with its preconceived judgments and systemic limitations. At some point, I decided that my first step to normal was college. But when I dared to share my dream of going to college with the adults around me, I was written off by judges, social workers, and foster parents alike.

My biological sister first taught me about having rights  that even though we were kids at the mercy of the system, we could demand safety and other rights under the law. My sister and I were separated when I was 10, and she, age 13, was placed in a series of institutional placements, each one more restrictive than the one before. After she and I were separated, knowing my rights helped me to ask my lawyer to enforce my right to a weekly $3 allowance, then a monthly clothing stipend. Knowing my rights and having them recognized gave me the sense that what I did and said made a difference. This created a foundation for resilience and provided the validation necessary to imagine more.

My sisters experience was different. As strong as her voice was for me, once behind institutional walls, it failed to protect her from abuse and education deprivation. After she was discharged at age 18, she became homeless. Today, she awaits prosecution on several federal drug charges and faces at least 20 years in prison.

A better future

Adopted by the Sorenson family at 15, in Hanlontown, Iowa, I hoped for the bare minimum but received a foundation of love, support, opportunity, and safety beyond my wildest imagining. In an effort to shed my past, with its trauma and limitations, I aimed to become the poster child of normal by embracing my privileges and donning a myriad of masks. In high school, I was a cheerleader and a band majorette. In college, I joined a sorority and earned my liberal arts degree before moving to Chicago to work as an accountant.

The normal I had created was enough for me  until that winter night on the street corner, when my divergent identities collided, brought together by that simple question: Were you my foster sister? The young man and I began listing the placements we could remember without finding one in common. Neither of us could remember all of our foster siblings names. He walked away. He never asked me for money.

Even though we couldnt pin down our specific connection, every person who has moved through foster care becomes family through our shared trauma.

This young man, my sister, and every single child are as worthy of opportunity, support, safety, and love as I was. But for the vast majority of foster youth, that reality never materializes.

In Pennsylvania, approximately 15,000 kids are living in foster care. Being separated from parents is significantly harmful to children, and kids in foster care have rates of PTSD that are almost double that among U.S. veterans. A child who has spent time in foster care is more likely to experience a range of problems later in life, including depression and anxiety, addiction, homelessness, and involvement with the criminal justice system.

This injustice moved me to action. I could no longer live out my normal, knowing that so many others never have that chance. When I was in foster care, my words only held power if my lawyer said them. So I decided I needed to be a lawyer.

In 2012, I enrolled in law school. Three years later, I graduated with honors.

The fight continues

In 2019, I was awarded a fellowship to study the rights of youth living in institutional placements, both for kids in foster care and the juvenile justice system. My sisters experiences in institutional placements inspired my desire to start there.

My research has found that we are failing to protect youth from abuses when they are placed in state facilities, both here in Pennsylvania and nationally.

We are failing to protect youth from abuses.

Pennsylvania aside, it matters how other states care for their youth, since many kids are placed in institutions out of state. Abuse in these facilities is endemic. Between 2017 and 2020, there were news reports of abuses in at least 55 U.S. facilities, both private and state-run, across 44 different states. And the reports keep coming.

Today, Pennsylvania faces an overcrowding crisis, but rather than imagining a different solution, or investing in legislation to ensure the safety of our youth currently placed, there are calls to build new facilities.

One way to empower kids in institutions  for both foster care and juvenile detention  is via effective grievance protection, through which they have the opportunity to speak about abuses and try for justice.

I researched and analyzed grievance protections for youth in institutional placements in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Only Nevada provides an affirmative right to grievance protection for kids in both types of institutions: foster care and juvenile justice. Although Pennsylvania (along with 35 other states) provides some ability for kids in institutions to disclose abuse, mistreatment, and rights violations, the facility often receives and evaluates grievances against itself. This is not effective oversight, and as a result, maltreatment often persists, sometimes for decades. For example, in Pennsylvanias Glen Mills Schools (a facility not unlike the one in which my sister was placed), violence was an open secret for decades until the school was closed in 2019 following an Inquirer report.

Before youth can begin to imagine creating their normal, they need the power to say no to the abuses and rights violations they experience daily. That starts with listening to the young people who are most affected.

Between 2020 and 2021, in testimony to City Council and the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, youth advocates in Philadelphia bravely shared the abuses they endured at institutions, with the hopes that others would not experience the same harm. Listening to these brave advocates led to the creation of the citys first Office of the Youth Ombudsperson in 2022, designed to hear and protect Philadelphia children in institutions.

Still, reports of harm and rights violations persist, and one city youth ombudspersons office cannot begin to offer protection to all of our children.

Every person reading this must join me in holding our child systems accountable. A part of that accountability is to create space for child and family voices and experiences. This includes listening to the young folks in Pittsburgh and Delaware County decrying building new incarceration facilities; demanding our legislators pass House Bill 1381, which includes many of the bipartisan agreements supported by the Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice Task Force; and supporting our representatives in Washington who reintroduced the Juveniles for Justice Act, which will allow our children to seek help from federal courts to enforce their rights.

We have to listen to young people when they tell us what they need. And then we have to act.

Christina Sorenson is a lawyer specializing in child welfare and the author of Screaming Into the Void: Youth Voice In Institutional Placements.
A conference room at The Hive, a Microsoft Corp. test center, in Redmond, Wash., in 2022. Microsoft Corp. has begun calling employees back to its headquarters in recent weeks, but its return-to-office strategy hinges on hybrid work. Read more

There is an old GIF where a baboon whips a computer off a desk in what looks like a mix of contempt and disgust.

I thought of it when a friend forwarded a story about un-retirement, a term used to describe older workers happily rejoining the workforce to embrace a new career.

If I wasnt on my work computer, I might have considered going full baboon, because just how many more terms are we going to invent to sanitize our wrecked workforce? (And that includes all the tales about older workers grinding well into their golden years, but framed as feel-good stories.)

Remember quiet quitting? It was broadly defined as employees putting in the minimum amount of effort to keep their jobs. More accurately, it was workers who had been turned into hollowed-out husks by unhealthy work environments finally setting some boundaries. How about the Great Resignation, which sounded revolutionary but was really the much-delayed realization that too many of us were being worked into early graves? (Oh, dont mind Marge, she just quietly quit breathing ...)

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Burned out, beaten down, depressed, and demoralized were all better characterizations (and sometimes used). But none of those words quite have the playful tone of these happy capitalist euphemisms, do they?

And now, instead of really addressing how people who reenter or never leave the workforce cant afford to retire, were softening a very hard reality that a lot of American workers are drowning in despair.

Although the terms are not the real sin here, are they? They, in fact, point to ongoing issues even after the supposed workplace revolution thats quickly turning into the workplace submission.

Comrades, we caught a glimpse of the sun, and now were being walked back into the shadows and told its for the best.

There was this moment during the earlier days of the pandemic when essential workers who literally kept the world going finally had an upper hand, when office workers realized that the very same technology that keeps us on a tight leash also made ice-cold offices (usually set to the metabolic rates of men, of course!) and soul-crushing commutes unnecessary.

But then employers found themselves sitting in empty offices in cities full of empty buildings, and now its back to wanting business as usual. To borrow the headline from a recent Wall Street Journal story: It is not our responsibility to save the office economy!

There is definitely an increasing push and pull between employers and employees, Kathy Kacher, founder of Career/Life Alliance Services, said when we talked this week. Just this past summer, some Amazon workers staged a walkout to protest the companys back-to-work office policies, and Farmers Insurance employees threatened to unionize or quit when the companys CEO walked back its remote work policy.

Workers are losing some ground, too, warned Kacher, a workforce transformation expert, with just as many local and national examples of employees being forced to adhere to increasingly rigid policies on returning to the office.

Never mind that data continue to point to remote work being productive and that studies show that a majority of people of color prefer hybrid work to better manage those micro- and macroaggressions. (And yes, I know there are just as many studies claiming the wondrous benefits of sitting in a sterile office 40 hours a week, but convince me those arent planted by Big Management.)

A Microsoft study, which tracked more than 60,000 employees over the first half of 2020, found that remote work increased weekly hours by 10%. A Stanford University study found that remote workers were 5% more productive than in-office workers in the summer of 2020. Productivity increased by 9% by the summer of 2022 as companies leaned into remote work with remote-friendly cultures and technology. Study after study shows that flexibility yields the most productivity, with some experts finding that employees spending about 25% of their work time with other colleagues is the most productive hybrid model.

And can we please just temper the whole in-person collaboration and connection rah-rah argument when, even in the office, most of our communication is still done electronically while we all stare into our individual screens? Water cooler banter isnt a business strategy.

Ive been lucky in my career to mostly work from wherever I am: My job is on the streets, in neighborhoods, almost anywhere but an office. Ive filed stories from my home, my car, and various neighborhood street curbs. And while I understand its a privilege, and not replicable in many other fields, the last few years should have shown us that workers everywhere deserve equal access to their own versions of workplace flexibility.

There is at least one fad on the horizon I can get behind  if not necessarily its sanitized term.

As we talked about how employees could keep from losing more ground, Kacher dreamed up another term: quiet noncompliance, which I take to mean adhering to workplace policies no more than necessary to do your job and do it well, while never again losing sight that productivity and quality of life should not be mutually exclusive.

Im hoping it catches on. Until then, solidarity forever, my fellow workers.
The actions of Judges David C. Shuter and Anne Marie Coyle have shown they do not belong on the bench, writes the Editorial Board. Read more

Recently, the Delaware County Democratic Party surprised many by recommending a new political strategy at the polls: bringing partisan politics into judicial retention races.

According to the Delco Dems, having been elected to the bench as a Republican is evidence enough of someones unfitness for office.

There is some justifiable frustration with the Republican Party  after all, the House GOP has allowed a right-wing minority to throw Congress into chaos, and the partys likely presidential nominee is facing multiple indictments, to name but two examples.

However, judges should be evaluated on their judicial performance  their legal acumen, temperament, and rulings  not on the party affiliation letter next to their names.

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Most judges serve honorably and deserve retention. But in the November election, Philadelphia voters can deny their approval to Judges David C. Shuter and Anne Marie Coyle. Their actions have shown they do not belong on the bench.

Judge Shuter is married to Marisa Shuter, the citys landlord-tenant officer who is paid to carry out evictions. Despite this, Shuter has presided over eviction cases as a Municipal Court judge. Ethics experts have said this is a clear conflict of interest, yet Judge Shuter remains unmoved.

 READ MORE: Philadelphias for-profit eviction system is a dangerous travesty | Editorial

This conflict is only part of the travesty that is the citys landlord-tenant officer, which has been in the spotlight recently after a series of shootings involving the private security contractors who enforce evictions. A no vote for Shuter would send a message to the next mayor, City Council, and the courts that it is time to find a better solution for evictions in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Anne Marie Coyle has brought questionable reasoning to whatever sector of law shes been assigned.

While handling election law, Coyles decision-making was heavy-handed. During the 2022 election, she insisted that the city engage in something called poll book reconciliation, a time-intensive procedure meant to catch double votes, and a practice no other county in the commonwealth performs. Seth Bluestein, the citys Republican city commissioner, called it a targeted effort to undermine the citys count.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the virus quickly spread behind bars, the District Attorneys Office, city officials, defense attorneys, and judicial leadership crafted a relief plan designed to ensure those at the lowest risk of offending could seek release. Judge Coyle refused to consider a single petition. Local attorneys called the move shocking.

A 2019 Inquirer analysis found that she imposed the harshest sentences for probation violations of any judge in the city, sending around half to state prison. By comparison, Judge Rayford Means, who was also profiled by The Inquirer as a particularly tough judge, only sent 3% of offenders to state prison.

 READ MORE: Judges Rule | When it comes to probation, Pennsylvania leaves judges unchecked to impose wildly different versions of justice

While Coyle has claimed this is a result of the kind of cases she adjudicates, the details dont bear this out. Aaron Lucky, initially convicted of stealing body wash, failed a drug test while on probation and missed an appointment because of a work conflict. Coyle recommended a seven-year sentence and urged against issuing parole in the future. State appeals courts called the move improper and questioned whether personal animus clouded her decision.

There was also a bizarre attempt to assign her own prosecutor to a case and threats to protesters who challenged her rulings.

Even the relatively dry world of zoning law wasnt safe from Coyles controversial rulings. After historic preservation advocates and a developer worked out a deal to save the Painted Bride Art Centers signature 7,000-square-foot tile mosaic, created by famed artist Isaiah Zagar, Coyle torpedoed the plan. The mosaic is set to be demolished next month.

Judges should stand  and if need be, fall  on their record, not their political ties. Judges Coyle and Shuter have given voters reason to deny them retention in November.
Even before the blood had dried from one of the worst days in the countrys history, a professor at a top national university tried to make sense of what had gone wrong, less than a year after a right-wing populist backed by religious fundamentalists and facing criminal charges had been returned to power.

That man, the academic wrote, was a public-relations genius but an incompetent [leader]. He has repeatedly preferred his personal interests over the national interest and has built his career on dividing the nation against itself. He has appointed people to key positions based on loyalty more than qualifications, took credit for every success while never taking responsibility for failures, and seemed to give little importance to either telling or hearing the truth.

These are the kind of words that I dread will be written here in the United States at some point after January 2025 if Donald Trump, the 45th president and overwhelming frontrunner for the GOPs 2024 nomination, returns to the White House. But in this case, the writer, Yuval Noah Harari, a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was describing the disastrous, populist regime of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that citizens like Harari say left their homeland unprepared for Hamas Oct. 7 terror attack.

The widespread dissatisfaction and even rage in Israel toward Netanyahu hasnt received nearly enough attention in American media, which has been more focused on the shocking visuals and the horror stories of war and the role of President Joe Biden in marshaling support for Israel after the Hamas attack. In the moment  with the petty, truculent Trump lashing out at his former close ally Netanyahu over something as small as a congratulatory post-2020 election call to Biden  its easy to forget what amazingly similar stories these two men tell. And what a dire warning those tales are  not just for Israel, but for the United States and the entire world.

Netanyahu, the 1967 Cheltenham High School grad who became Israels longest-serving prime minister over three stints, has been under constant criminal investigation since 2016, and returned to power last year, even as he continues to face trial on three separate indictments that accuse him of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. Just like Trump, now currently indicted on 91 felony counts in four separate state and federal cases, the Israeli leaders legal strategy has been to delay, delay, delay. Just like Team Trump, Netanyahu and his allies claim the charges are merely their political enemies out to get them. As with Trump, there are serious concerns about Netanyahu using the levers of political power to ultimately quash the charges or blunt their impact.

No wonder both Trump and Netanyahu have placed such an emphasis on remaking the judiciary  for U.S. Republicans, that meant political power-plays to install new judges, including three on the U.S. Supreme Court, while for the Israeli prime minister, it has been legislation aimed at blocking the power of a more liberal highest court, which has brought tens of thousands of protesters out in the streets of Tel Aviv and elsewhere.

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Seeking a return to office while under indictment has also meant, for both men, an embrace of the far-right that is heavily seasoned with religious fundamentalism  more so than earlier in their careers. After several years of partisan stalemate and divided government, Netanyahus successful push back to power meant an embrace of fringe figures like his national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist whom the Washington Post has described as inextricably linked to the violent vigilante settler movement and an anti-Arab provocateur.

A Trump restoration here in America would be little different. Indeed, his backers at the right-wing Heritage Foundation have been drafting a blueprint called Project 2025; its centerpiece is a plan to fire thousands of skilled civil servants from the federal government and replace them with fanatical followers of Trumps MAGA movement. The pervasive cross-pollination of antidemocratic concepts between Team Trump and Team Netanyahu has grown stronger, an invasive weed of authoritarianism.

What could possibly go wrong?

A constant refrain over the last two weeks has been that the Oct. 7 assault was Israels 9/11, and the worrisome parallels are obvious, from calls for restrictions on free speech to the high-level rejections of advocating any moderation or de-escalating the tense situation. But in one critical way, the current crisis in Israel is nothing like what happened here in the United States in 2001. Everyday Israelis are not rallying behind their leader. They are furious  both over the botched, slow response to the attacks, but also Netanyahus policies that made war more likely than peace.

Last weekend, a rally in Tel Aviv expressing solidarity with more than 200 hostages believed to be held by Hamas turned into an anti-Netanyahu affair, with signs like Bibi, you have blood on your hands, and diatribes like that of 62-year-old Monica Levy, who lost a loved one in the assault and said, I want Benjamin Netanyahu and all his people to go home because theyve abandoned residents of the south and theyre not interested in the lives of residents there and instead theyre obsessed with small politics.

This is hardly a minority viewpoint. One post-attack poll of Israeli citizens found that two-thirds would now prefer anyone else as prime minister instead of Netanyahu  reflecting the viewpoint that his government was too distracted and thus blindsided by the Hamas attack.

 READ MORE: War brings new threat to free speech | Will Bunch Newsletter

The headline on a scathing analysis published in Israels liberal-leaning newspaper Haaretz while the gunfire of Oct. 7 was still echoing read: Another Concept Implodes: Israel Cant Be Managed by a Criminal Defendant. Author Gidi Weitz blamed Israels inadequate response on Netanyahus distractions, including his indictments, and on how his far-right agenda had triggered ice-cold relations with his own generals. (Again, does this not remind you of Trumps feud with his Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Mark Milley?) Weitz wrote that Netanyahu prioritized ensuring his personal survival and to the integrity of his coalition at the price of capitulating to insane, messianic racists. To this end, he turned his domestic rivals into enemies and systematically destroyed the connective tissue that, with great difficulty, held Israel society together.

Gee, why does that sound familiar?

Israel has a two-year start on the possible worst-case scenario for America: a Trump 47 presidency. That buys us a little time to consider the grim parallels. One of the most worrisome is that Netanyahus long-term strategy of propping up the violent Hamas bogeyman as an excuse for anti-Arabism and expanding settlements rather than seeking a peace deal with more moderate Palestinian factions is the demonize The Other strategy shared by all right-wing strongmen. Thus, it echoes in a likely Trump 47 crackdown on Central American migrants, tent cities for the unhoused, or sending troops to Democratic-led big cities. From the West Bank to West Texas, dictators thrive on division.

Meanwhile, the world has gradually become a much scarier place  in Ukraine, Gaza, perhaps down the road in Taiwan, and elsewhere. In a Trump restoration, the president would either once again be at war with his generals over his civil rights and constitutional abuses  yet again, shades of Netanyahu  or would use the vast pool of Pentagon vacancies created by his dimwitted ally Sen. Tommy Tuberville to fill the U.S. Defense Department with extremists and conspiracy theorists who know nothing of the nuances of geopolitics. Could a demoralized U.S. military get caught off guard, just like Israels on Oct. 7?

We need to start asking these questions because world history has already shown us once, in the years from 1933 to 1945, how the domestic grievances that give rise to autocratic strongmen lead inevitably to war. Monsters need to keep creating enemies, foreign or domestic, in order to survive.

Its not unreasonable to wonder whether a President Trump 47s efforts to stay out of jail could snowball toward World War III. Whats the worst that could happen in reelecting a criminally indicted leader and his extremist pals? Netanyahu and his posse of right-wingers just showed us from the other side of the world  if were able and willing to pay attention.

 READ MORE: SIGN UP: The Will Bunch Newsletter
Attorney and Republican ward leader Matthew Wolfe (left) walks alongside Vince Fenerty, chair of the Philadelphia Republican Party, in City Hall in August. Both are leaders of the city GOP, which is facing an existential test this November. Read more

No one in Philadelphia political circles has been under any illusion that a Republican could win a citywide election over an average Democrat for more than a decade. GOP mayoral candidates, including this years nominee, admit their pursuit in deep-blue Philly is more than uphill  its akin to scaling a cliff.

But now, the citys GOP is grappling with the prospect that it may not be able to hang on to City Council seats that are set aside for the opposition party.

The Nov. 7 general election presents something of an existential test for Philadelphias Republican Party, which has for decades watched its power and influence atrophy as the demographics of Americas urban centers became decidedly more favorable to Democrats.

A major setback came four years ago when Kendra Brooks of the progressive Working Families Party became the first third-party candidate to win a seat on Council in generations, ousting a Republican from an at-large seat effectively reserved for a non-Democrat. The head of the GOP resigned and called the election cycle preposterous.

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This year, the Working Families Party is trying to take both set-aside Council seats. At the same time, Northeast Philadelphia Republican Brian ONeill, who has been a member of Council since 1980, is facing one of the most well-funded general election challenges of his career.

And if all three GOP candidates fall, the 115,000 registered Republicans in the city would for the first time in modern history have no representative on Council. The only remaining Republican in City Hall would be City Commissioner Seth Bluestein.

Its facing losing its presence in Philadelphia, said Sam Katz, a three-time mayoral candidate and ex-Republican.

Party leaders are projecting confidence. Vince Fenerty, who took over as chair of the Philly GOP last year, said its Council candidates have moderate sensibilities that appeal to a general election audience.

Still, Fenerty said the party is facing a polarized national political environment that makes it challenging to win in a city where Democrats hold a 7-1 voter registration advantage. He said former President Donald Trumps grip on the Republican party has made it difficult for the Philly GOP to win over Democrats and independents.

A lot of people hate us, and I dont think its fair, Fenerty said. For people to just dislike Republicans because of Donald Trump and some of his far right-wing followers is unfair to working Republicans.

A new strategy to keep its presence on Council

Members of the citys Republican party leadership admit that they underestimated the Working Families Party in 2019. That year, five Republican nominees were on the ballot and  as they had in the past  were largely competing with one another for two seats instead of with the third-party candidates.

This year will be different.

The party nominated five Republicans in the primary, and then three candidates promptly dropped out, leaving civic leader Drew Murray and small business owner Jim Hasher as the only two Republicans on the ticket. That makes for a head-to-head matchup with the Working Families Party.

Bill Heeney, a Republican ward leader who was one of the five GOP nominees in 2019, said ward endorsements were scrambled that year, making for a disorganized approach.

Now its all solid, he said. Two guys, and were backing them both. Lets make this happen.

Matthew Wolfe, a lawyer and Republican ward leader, said making it a two-on-two race is a big advantage for us. He also said that Republicans frustrated with crime are motivated to vote, and that the competitive district Council race in the Northeast could juice turnout for the GOP.

But he admits that the Working Families Party is well funded. The groups national party is organizing a door-knocking operation, and candidates Brooks and Nicolas ORourke have set fundraising records.

The Working Families Party is better organized than they were four years ago, Wolfe said. We have our eyes wide open as to the challenges facing us.

 READ MORE: Progressive third-party candidates outraised Republicans in Philly City Council race

The political environment now may be more favorable to Republican candidates than in 2019, said Josh Novotney, a Republican strategist and a ward leader. Amid widespread concerns about crime, he said there are clear contrasts between how the Republican and Working Families Party candidates would handle public safety.

Thats where people are going to have to decide what kind of direction they want the city to go in, he said.

The future of the Philly GOP

To win in the at-large race, Republicans may need to perform outside the GOP strongholds in Northeast Philadelphia and parts of South Philly where working class white voters tend to cluster. Even parts of those traditional bastions of the Republican party have become more diverse over the last decade.

In national races, Republicans showed strength elsewhere. For example, in 2020, Trump outperformed other Republicans in majority-Latino precincts in parts of North and South Philadelphia.

The national Republican party made an effort to appeal to North Philadelphia Latino voters in 2022 as it tried to boost U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz. Fenerty said the effort did not work, and said there may be a barrier for some voters who have had negative experiences with the criminal justice system.

I think some of it is because of the distrust of the police, he said. Our association has always been with law and order.

But Sam Oropeza  a Republican City Council candidate who lost in the primary to the party-backed candidates  said the Philly GOP has not made enough of an effort to make inroads in majority-Latino neighborhoods and other communities where Republicans lose.

Philadelphia is a majority Black and brown city, and its a stupid strategy to stay away from these communities, said Oropeza, who campaigned frequently in North Philadelphia and Kensington. People will give you a chance if you are willing to show up, talk to them, listen to them, and have empathy to their situation.

 READ MORE: Philly Republicans, fighting a potential City Council shut-out, are also battling each other

To grow GOP registration, Fenerty said hes largely focused on recruiting Republican committeepeople, the foot soldiers who register voters and build the party apparatus.

In Philadelphia, there are about 600 Republican committeepeople. The Democratic party has more than 3,000.

The mayors race and the Republican brand

Republican nominees for mayor have not found much success in recent Philadelphia history.

In 2011, former Democrat Karen Brown ran against incumbent Mayor Michael Nutter and barely eclipsed 20%. In 2015, the GOP nominee was Melissa Murray Bailey, another ex-Democrat whod lived in the city for only three years and garnered less than 15% of the vote.

In 2019, Mayor Jim Kenney ran for reelection and hardly campaigned ahead of the general election. He still topped Republican nominee Billy Ciangalini with more than 80% of the vote.

Republicans think theyve fielded a stronger candidate this time around: David Oh, a former City Council member who has won citywide elections. And although Democrat Cherelle Parker has vastly out-raised Oh, he has still brought in a respectable sum of money for a Republican candidate.

Oh has a diverse coalition of supporters, and thinks he can appeal to enough Democrats to pull off an upset.

The last Republican to truly compete for mayor was Katz, who lost to Democrat John F. Street in 2003. He said that year his campaign estimated that in order to win, hed need to convince more than 35% of the citys Democrats to vote for him.

Given that there are fewer registered Republicans today, that number is likely higher, Katz said, and not reasonable.

Youd have to have an unpalatable Democratic candidate, he said.

 READ MORE: David Oh isnt a typical Republican. He likes it that way.

Fenerty said that if the Republican party wants to succeed in the future, it needs to rebrand into a party that can attract more moderates and swing voters. Its why he is publicly supporting former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary election, despite Trump holding a commanding lead in polls.

My first loyalty is to Philadelphia and to Pennsylvania, he said. I would hope Trump is not at the top of the ticket, because that spells disaster for the southeastern counties.

As for how the Philly GOP can convince city voters that its candidates arent Trump? Fenerty was honest.

I havent accomplished totally how to do that yet, he said.

Inquirer data reporter Aseem Shukla contributed to this article.
Demonstrators gathered outside City Hall and packed City Council chambers to oppose a resolution condemning Hamas and calling for peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Read more

Philadelphia City Council voted Thursday to condemn the Hamas attacks against Israel and call for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict  an action that drew scores of people to City Hall, where they packed Council chambers, gave passionate testimony, and briefly disrupted proceedings on several occasions.

Most of those in attendance were opposed to the resolution, which stated that Council was condemning the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and calling for a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

It passed in a unanimous voice vote, but not before a lengthy and heated showdown during public comment. After one disruption, Council President Darrell L. Clarke cut off the comment period and asked those who could not speak to submit written testimony.

 READ MORE: Thousands rally for Israel, denounce Hamas attacks in march through Center City

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Resolutions are symbolic statements of Councils stances on important issues. Thursdays measure, authored by Councilmembers Kenyatta Johnson and Mike Driscoll, was co-sponsored by the 13 other members of Council.

Council President Darrell L. Clarke began the meeting by noting that an unprecedented number of people had signed up for public comment. He limited each speaker to 90 seconds instead of the usual three minutes and said both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian voices were represented on the list of speakers.

As people in the crowd shouted over speakers, Clarke tried to maintain order.

 READ MORE: Palestinian students and supporters walk out of classes as donors accuse Penn of antisemitism and close their checkbooks

If youre not going to be civil in here as it relates to allowing people to speak, then youre going to be out of here, Clarke said.

Minutes later, he had security remove several people from the chambers. One woman who was being removed appeared to have collapsed as she exited the chambers, pausing the meeting for several minutes. She eventually got to her feet and walked off under her own power.

Clarke cut off the comment period when the meeting resumed. He said after the meeting that it was the first time he ever had to cut off public comment in his 12 years as Council president.

What did they say?

Speakers opposed to the resolution said Israel was a colonial state killing innocent Palestinians.

Genocide will not be endorsed in my name, Nour Qutyan said. Israel is an apartheid state committing real crimes against a stateless people.

Several leaders in Philadelphias Jewish community thanked Council for taking up the measure.

Hamas attack was not just an act of terror committed against the state of Israel, but an act of terror committed against all Jewish people, said Jonathan Goldman, chair of the Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition.

After public comment, Johnson gave a speech emphasizing that the 353-word resolution specifically acknowledges Palestinians suffering and loss and calls for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who is Muslim, said he read the resolution three times before agreeing to support it. Condemning Hamas for kidnapping and murdering innocent people, he said, is not antithetical to supporting justice for oppressed people.

But he also said that the resolution does not go deep enough to understand the hundreds of years of history in that land and compared Israels response to the attacks to heavy-handing policing tactics that target entire neighborhoods while looking for a handful of criminals.

You cant blow up the projects looking for a few, he said. That is not fair. That is not just.

What else happened?

Once again, not much. For most of the fall, Council has been doing little else aside from considering symbolic resolutions.

This week, lawmakers took up three resolutions on final passage. In addition to the Israel-Palestine statement, lawmakers approved a measure calling on the administration to develop grant programs for businesses and restaurants suffering from retail theft and crime and another renaming a street Sid Booker Way to honor the famous North Philly fried shrimp purveyor.

The slow pace of legislation will change soon. Numerous bills are making their way through the process, including 25 measures that passed out of the Streets and Services Committee this week.

Quote of the week
Jeff Brown, left, finished fifth in the Democratic primary for mayor. Cherelle Parker, right, won the nomination and faces Republican David Oh in the general election. Read more

The Philadelphia Board of Ethics is appealing a recent court ruling that dismissed its high-profile lawsuit against the super PAC that backed Jeff Browns unsuccessful campaign for mayor.

The ethics board in April sent shockwaves through the mayors race when it sued For A Better Philadelphia, the political action committee that spent millions to boost Brown as he sought the Democratic nomination earlier this year.

Super PACs are not subject to the citys limits on the size of political contributions, allowing them to raise large amounts of money quickly, but they are prohibited from coordinating with candidates or their campaigns.

The board accused the super PAC of illegally coordinating with Brown because he raised money for the group in the months leading up to the launch of his campaign in November 2022.

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For A Better Philadelphia sought to have the case dismissed, and Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Joshua Roberts agreed in September, ruling that Browns involvement with the PAC was not prohibited because he had not yet launched his campaign.

 READ MORE: A judge ruled against the Philly ethics board in its case against super PAC that supported mayoral candidate Jeff Brown

The board appealed that ruling to the state Commonwealth Court on Oct. 10, and announced its decision at a board meeting Wednesday.

Brown is not a party to the ethics boards litigation, but he called Roberts ruling a vindication of his actions during the mayoral campaign.

A well-known grocery store operator who had never run for office, Brown had been an early frontrunner in the race. News of the ethics boards investigation, along with a series of unrelated missteps, spelled the end of his hopes of winning the mayors office as the ultimate political outsider.

He ended up finishing fifth in the May 16 primary, which was won by former City Councilmember Cherelle Parker.

Parker faces Republican David Oh in the Nov. 7 general election and is widely expected to win thanks to Democrats overwhelming advantage in the city.

The next mayor will replace Jim Kenney, who is not allowed to run for a third consecutive term, in January.
Andrew Taylor from the Coal Action Network also commented on the occupation and said: West Cumbria Mining Ltd wants to dig coal here right up until 2049 - when were supposed to have reached net zero by 2050. Theyre not looking at the impact of how burning it would damage the climate and nature. The UK government talks about us having energy security but the truth is, if the mine goes ahead, 85% of the coal would be exported.
Hansen has more than 15 years of employee benefits experience, she specializes in executive consultation that drives workforce performance and process improvement, Alliant said in a news release. Prior to joining Alliant, Hansen served as an associate at an executive search firm. Prior to that, she had extensive experience as a senior employee benefits consultant. Hansen holds a bachelors degree in business management and leadership from the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. She is licensed in Life, Accident, and Health Basics.
Since Russias invasion of Ukraine, hardly a month goes by without the minister of defence announcing more purchases or contracts for Polish manufacturers, all intended to boost the Polish militarys defence potential. Albeit intensive rearmament had begun before, shifts in the geopolitical situation arising from the aggression have imposed even more purchases. Modern aircraft, attack helicopters, missile weapons, tanks, combat vehicles  each respective contract is worth billions of dollars.

On the one hand, increased purchases are the direct outcome of conclusions drawn from the course of the war in Ukraine, and the need to buttress our military and adapt to the requirements of contemporary war (actual, rather than forecasted in peacetime strategic games) that we have been watching evolve beyond our eastern border. On the other hand, we have been faced with the necessity to replenish our military equipment, since considerable volumes of Polish armaments have gone to the Ukrainian army in military aid: over 300 tanks (including 14 Leopards), Krab gun-howitzers, MiG-29 fighter aircraft, and Grot assault rifles. Poland donated anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine as well: Piorun portable air defence systems and 9K33 Osa and S-125 Newa missile launchers, not to mention assorted other military equipment used, among other things, to organise battlefield priority supplies.

Missiles From the US and Korea

In March 2018, Poland signed a contract for the purchase of a Raytheon-manufactured MIM-104 Patriot system for the Wisa medium-range air defence programme. Under the first of the two planned programme phases, Poland bought two Patriot 16-launcher batteries, sector radar included, and 208 PAC-3 MSE missiles from Lockheed Martin, for USD 4.75 billion; the arrays are ultimately to be integrated with Northrop Grummans new IBCS battlefield management system.

We further purchased 20 HIMARS  high mobility rocket artillery arrays (with 18 combat and two practice launchers)  for USD 414 million in 2019.

Successive procurement was a direct derivative of the importance of air and missile defence systems, as proven by the war in Ukraine. We have already expressed interest in purchasing more launchers (nearly 500, the volume surpassing US armed forces orders to date); in light of the US and other countries requirements  and current delivery times  Poland ordered 218 K239 Chunmoo multiple-launch rocket systems from South Korea last year. In February this year, the US government issued a constructive response to Polish queries, agreeing to a potential sale of 484 launchers, including 18 mounted on US vehicles, the remaining units to be mounted on Polish lorries. A cap of USD 10 billion has been set for the potential purchase.

In June 2023, the State Department issued a positive response to a query submitted by Polands Ministry of National Defence, approving the sale of 96 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters to Poland for a maximum amount of USD 12 billion. The Americans have also agreed to sell a further six Patriot anti-aircraft and anti-missile system batteries (comprising 48 M903 launchers in total) to Poland, alongside 644 PAC-3 MSE missiles and 12 radars. The US has estimated that the cost of the purchase should not exceed USD 15 billion.

Airplanes and Tanks

Back in January 2020, the head of Polands Ministry of National Defence Mariusz Baszczak signed a contract worth USD 4.6 billion for the purchase of 32 fifth-generation F-35A fighter jets, eight simulators and a logistics and training support package.

In April 2022, 250 Abrams tanks (latest M1A2 SEPv3 version) were purchased for USD 4.74 billion, with accompanying appliances, logistics support and training package, and ammunition stock included. Moreover, a contract for 116 used M1A1 Abrams with accompanying appliances was signed in January this year, appliance sets including joint assault bridges, and technical backup and command vehicles. The net worth of the contract is USD 1.4 billion, nearly USD 200 million of which is covered by the American army under aid measures approved for Poland.

We are buying tanks from South Korea as well. One hundred and eighty K2 Black Panthers have been ordered, first deliveries for the army completed. The purchase of a further 820 tanks is in the pipeline. The total cost of 1,366 new and used tanks may exceed PLN 135 billion.

The first of the K9 thunder gun-howitzers ordered have reached Poland already (the purchase order exceeding 200). Other procurement projects include 48 FA-50GF and 36 FA-50PL aircraft, and 218 K239 Chunmoo multiple-launch rocket systems.

This section lists major contracts only. Smaller purchases should also be added, such as the Javelin man-portable anti-tank systems recently made famous in Ukraine, ammunition, and drones (UAVs).

Domestic Procurement

The Polish defence industry will make billions as well. During the recent International Defence Industry Exhibition event in Kielce, Minister of National Defence Mariusz Baszczak approved contracts potentially worth up to PLN 100 billion. They are to support phase two of the Wisa medium-range air defence programme, Narew system purchases, the delivery of two Naval Missile Launcher Units, command stations for the Pilica+ system, and FlyEye drone (UAV) purchase.

Earlier  in February 2023  the Ministry of National Defence entered into a framework agreement with the Stalowa Wola Steelworks for the delivery of nearly 1,400 new vehicles for the military, including just under a thousand tracked infantry combat Borsuk vehicles (IFVs) and accompanying vehicles. While the exact contract value has not been specified, it is ostensibly to reach several dozen billion zlotys. In March, the Ministry of National Defence ordered 200,000 Grot assault rifles from the Radom Weapons Manufacturing Plant for a total of PLN 2.1 billion.

The Armaments Agency signed a contract for the purchase of 32 multi-purpose AW149 helicopters for over PLN 8 billion back in 2022. Deliveries are to be completed by 2029, the majority of craft built by PZL-Swidnik, a member of the Italian Leonardo group.

Billions and Billions

While military spending is worth dozens to hundreds of billions of zlotys, payments are spread over time, given the staggered contract delivery dates. Central resource plan data of the Armaments Agency showcases rapidly growing contract values and volumes. Agency expenditures totalled approximately PLN 27.9 billion in 2022. For the sake of comparison, the amount had been less than PLN 13 billion, PLN 14.6 billion and PLN 9.2 billion in 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Efforts to boost our army have been noticed by the West. According to NATOs Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (20142023) study, we are the Alliances 2023 leader in terms of military spending expressed as a percentage of GDP. According to estimates, 3.9 per cent of Polands GDP will be spent on the military. The US is the runner-up, with an expenditure of 3.49 per cent of its GDP.

According to the German think tank Ifo, we are doing even better than that: they have assessed Polish 2023 military spending at 4.3 per cent of GDP. It is notable that back in 2014, NATO member states undertook to spend 2 per cent of their GDP on defence, with numerous countries still not meeting that level.

Analysts of the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) have listed Polands 2022 defence spending at an amount exceeding USD 16 billion, placing us 18th in the global ranking. It has further been emphasised that over the years 20132022, Polish military spending has grown by nearly 95 per cent.

Central Bank Money

Rendered essential by the situation beyond Polands eastern border, increased defence funding will be a challenge in the coming years. Yet bespoke instruments have been set up with the intent to secure funding for the purpose. Passed in 2022, the Homeland Defence Law established the Armed Forces Support Fund operated by Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK, Polish Development Bank). To mark the Armed Forces Support Fund going live in mid-2022, minister Mariusz Baszczak announced that his ministrys budget would total PLN 20 billion and PLN 49 billion in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

Premises for establishing the Fund included securing new funding sources for modernising the Polish army, such as revenue from Treasury stock, BGK-issued and State Treasury-guaranteed bonds, the state budget, and Narodowy Bank Polski profit contributions. The Fund will also hold monies received for assistance provided to foreign armed forces, e.g. granting access to Polish military testing grounds and/or providing specialist military services (e.g. in military engineering, training, and/or military equipment repairs) and military asset sales.

Pursuant to the newly presented Homeland Defence Law, NBP profit, save 5 per cent remaining with the Bank, shall be used for military effort and new armaments purchase purposes. I hope this is exactly how it shall be, and am glad we can make a contribution, said the Governor of NBP, Professor Adam Glapinski, last year, prior to the passing of the Law.

NBP-generated profit is a substantial source of state income  the Bank contributed over PLN 10.425 billion and PLN 8.7 billion to the state budget in 2022 and 2021, respectively. According to NBP Law, 95 per cent of the central banks profit is transferred to the state budget. Pursuant to Articles 62 and 69 of the Law, NBP profit is distributed between NBP profit contributions to the state budget (95 per cent), and NBP provision fund (5 per cent of annual profit).
Meadowbrook Insurance Agencys strong relationships across Michigan will enhance our strategic capabilities in the region and deepen our market expertise in public entity, manufacturing and real estate, said J. Patrick Gallagher Jr., chairman, president and CEO of Gallagher. I am very pleased to welcome the Meadowbrook Insurance Agency team to Gallagher.
"By allowing us to select and price risk through digital distribution channels more efficiently and effectively than any of our competitors. I think that will give us a long-term advantage in the next five to 10 years when the vast majority of small commercial specialty is traded through platforms."
Berkshires big bet on Florida is an early sign that at least the market hasnt abandoned the state. In fact, the industry will gladly stick around for the long haul, but only at the right price  and that in and of itself will be a hard pill to swallow for the average homeowner, said Levin.
But now we're seeing that hackers are getting much more creative about how they target their victims. Theyre studying what kind of language you use, who you email most frequently, who has authorization to wire money, who your money manager or attorney are, even what kind of emojis you send out.
A Benedictine monk has been suspended from ministry after the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore recently became aware of a payment he made several years ago to settle sexual harassment allegations.

Last week, Father Paschal Morlino was dismissed from his position as pastor of St. Benedict Church in southwest Baltimore, where he served for nearly 40 years and became known for his longstanding efforts to help residents of poor neighborhoods surrounding the church.

The archdiocese learned about the settlement Thursday when reporters for The Baltimore Banner inquired about it, officials said in a statement Sunday. They said they immediately opened an internal investigation and decided to dismiss Morlino.

He is no longer permitted to celebrate Mass or engage in public ministry in the Archdiocese, the statement said.

Morlino, 85, has returned to Saint Vincent Archabbey in Pennsylvania, the oldest Benedictine monastery in the country, after both the Baltimore archdiocese and the Order of Saint Benedict made a joint decision to suspend his priestly faculties, officials said. The investigation is ongoing.

Kim Metzgar, communications director for Saint Vincent Archabbey, said she was unable to comment because of the ongoing investigation.

The archdiocese will appoint a new administrator to oversee Saint Benedict Church, which is owned and operated by the Benedictines, according to their statement.

Church officials disclosed few details about the 2018 complaint against Morlino, saying only that it focused on alleged sexual harassment of an adult man who had died before the complaint was filed. Officials said they were unable to corroborate the third-party allegations as a result.

In an interview last week with The Banner, Morlino confirmed the $200,000 settlement payment, denied any wrongdoing and said he had nothing to hide.

I just wanted to keep him quiet, to be rid of him, because he was just stirring up trouble, he told The Banner, referring to the complainant, who died in 2020.

Joanne Suder, an attorney who represented the man, said she couldnt comment because of a confidentiality agreement. Suder represents a number of victims of clergy sexual abuse in Baltimore.

Morlino arrived at St. Benedict in 1984, a time of declining membership and waning interest in the church. In the years that followed, he led efforts to update and improve church buildings and strengthen the parishs mission, according to their website.

Before coming to Baltimore, Morlino founded Adelphoi Village, a nonprofit child care agency that works with at-risk youth in Pennsylvania.

Copyright 2023 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A driver who suffers a sudden medical emergency and crashes into another vehicle may be held liable for the accident even if never diagnosed with the condition or never advised not to drive.

If the driver knew or should have known about the medical risk, liability could still follow, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has found in overturning a lower court summary judgment that let a driver who lost consciousness due to sleep apnea off the hook.

The appeals court returned the case to the lower court to determine whether Edward Laidleys loss of consciousness was reasonably foreseeable and, thus, whether Laidley was negligent in driving on the day he crashed into a bus driven by Shauntoo Cottrell.

Although there was no dispute that Laidleys untreated sleep apnea caused him to lose consciousness, the court concluded there was a genuine fact question as to whether Laidley was aware of prior onsets of sleepiness or had experienced drowsiness in the hours leading up to the accident and thus was negligent in deciding to drive.

At the same time, the court upheld the part of the lower court summary judgment that relieved Laidleys employer from vicarious or direct liability for the accident.

Laidley, 55 years old, drove a parts truck for Colonial, a car dealer. On a January 3, 2018, the plaintiff Cottrell was driving his usual bus route for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) when Laidley, who was traveling behind the plaintiff, rear-ended the bus. Cotrell alleged that he sustained serious injuries to his neck, back, legs, head, shoulders, and other parts of his body.

The bus driver sued for medical expenses and pain and suffering, alleging that Laidley negligently rear-ended him, and that Colonial was vicariously liable for Laidleys negligence and directly liable for negligent hiring and negligent supervision.

The defense asserted that the accident was the result of a sudden medical emergency and therefore Laidley and Colonial were not liable.

The case required the courts to examine the doctrine of a sudden medical emergency negating negligence. To prevail on a negligence claim, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of reasonable care, that the defendant committed a breach of this duty, that damage resulted, and that there was a causal relation between the breach of the duty and the damage. Under the sudden medical emergency doctrine, however, a sudden and unforeseeable physical seizure rendering an operator unable to control his motor vehicle cannot be termed negligence.

No one observed Laidleys physical appearance in the moments before the accident. After the accident, Laidley was placed in a medically induced coma for approximately one month. When Laidley woke up, he had no recollection of the accident and no recollection of the two to three weeks leading up to the accident. After the accident, Laidley was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

Laidley testified that he was never informed by a doctor that the conditions that he was diagnosed with after the accident were a result of longstanding medical issues. In addition, he attested that prior to the accident he was never told by a doctor that it was unsafe to drive and he had never experienced a loss of consciousness. Laidley further attested that before the accident he had never experienced any medical issues while he was driving that led him to believe that driving was unsafe.

Laidley did not dispute that sleep apnea was the cause of the accident but his medical expert testified that there were no pre-accident medical records where Laidley was told not to drive nor was Laidley experiencing any symptoms that would have indicated that he should not have been driving. Similarly, she said that, although Laidley had a history of snoring, snoring, without symptoms of excessive fatigue, is not an indication that one should not be driving. She also recounted that Laidley did not recall daytime somnolence, nor was that noted in any of his records. Ultimately, this doctor concluded that there was nothing to indicate to Laidley that he should not have been driving.

A doctor put forth by Cottrell agreed with the evidence that Laidleys untreated sleep apnea ultimately caused the accident. But unlike the defendants experts, this doctor opined that Laidley knew or should have known that his excessive sleepiness made it dangerous for him to operate a vehicle. Thats because Laidley had experienced prior sudden onsets of sleepiness and because his symptomology (obesity and snoring) was significant. He explained that untreated sleep apnea is associated with excessive daytime sleepiness. He determined that to a reasonable degree of medical probability, Laidley would have felt very drowsy while driving the vehicle on the date of the subject incident and that the drowsiness should have compelled him not to drive further.

After testimony, the district court judge allowed Laidleys motion for summary judgment and dismissed the plaintiffs complaint. The judge found that there was no genuine dispute of material fact that Laidley suffered a sudden, unforeseeable medical emergency when he rear-ended the plaintiff and that, because Laidley was not liable, Colonial could not be held vicariously liable. As to the plaintiffs direct liability claims against Colonial, the judge determined that the summary judgment record did not raise a triable issue of negligent hiring or negligent supervision on the part of Colonial

But the Massachusetts Appeals Court said the lower court overlooked issues of fact surrounding whether Laidley knew or should have known about his condition, issues a jury needs to resolve in order to determine if Laidley was negligent.

The appeals court acknowledged that Laidleys defense presented considerable evidence that his loss of consciousness was not foreseeable including Laidleys testimony that prior to the accident he never had difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, chest pains, or trouble sleeping, and he had never been told by a doctor that it was unsafe to drive.

However, the court noted, Laidleys medical expert did not review the treatment records of the sleep specialist who testified or Laidleys other treatment records after the initial hospitalization. Indeed, she seemed to be unaware that Laidley suffered from severe sleep apnea. Moreover, she ignored the fact that Laidley had no recall of his symptomology or, indeed, anything in the weeks leading up to the accident.

The court also noted that Laidleys experts opinion was contested by a doctor who testified that Laidley had the main symptoms of sleep apnea  obesity, and snoring  for decades prior to the crash.

The court said that a competent medical expert can determine from a post-accident diagnosis what symptoms a patient must have been experiencing prior to the accident. The court said that the contrary medical report, if credited by a jury, suggests that it was not possible or at least highly unlikely that Laidley was not lethargic before the accident, as untreated sleep apnea is associated with excessive daytime sleepiness. This opinion was supported by the post-accident medical records that were not reviewed by Laidleys doctor.

Although Laidley was not diagnosed with sleep apnea until after the accident, the defense medical testimony indicates that, on the day of the accident, Laidley would have felt very drowsy while driving the vehicle and that Laidley knew or should have known that his excessive sleepiness made it dangerous for him to operate a vehicle.

As Laidley had no memory of the weeks leading up to the accident and the defendants presented no medical expert testimony to the contrary, the high court said a jury could credit this opinion. Even if Laidley did not know why he was experiencing excessive sleepiness, a jury could determine that he was negligent in driving. Accordingly, the court concluded, a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Laidleys loss of consciousness was reasonably foreseeable and, thus, whether Laidley was negligent in driving that day.

As for the liability of the employer, Colonial, the court agreed with the district court that it could not be held liable. While Colonial required only that each parts driver have a clean driving record, there is no evidence to suggest that a more thorough employment screening process would have revealed that Laidley was unfit to drive.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated the ruling was by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial court. That is incorrect. It was by the Massachusetts Appeals Court. We regret the error.

Topics Personal Auto Massachusetts
Thomas Nuernberger is preparing for tougher times.

For the past seven years, the 55-year-old has run the Chinese unit of fan and motor maker ebm-papst, and business has been good.

But, as tensions simmer between Berlin and Beijing, ebm-papst is one of many medium-sized German companies starting to address their reliance on China, concerned at how possible Western sanctions or a future conflict over Taiwan might disrupt trade.

Last year, ebm-papst launched a program called Decoupling China to ensure its Chinese division  which has around 1,900 staff  can operate if cut off from the rest of the company. Now its planning a new plant in India, at a cost of up to 30 million euros ($31.7 million), to supply clients in the rest of Asia and to help reduce the flow of goods to and from China.

Not putting all our eggs in one basket is always at the back of our minds, said Nuernberger, who also serves as ebm-papsts chief sales officer.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholzs coalition unveiled in July a strategy toward derisking Germanys economic relationship with China, calling Beijing a partner, competitor and systemic rival. The 61-page document urged German firms to reduce their dependence on China  the countrys most important trade partner  but was light on any binding targets and requirements.

Some of Germanys biggest blue chips have continued to bet heavily on China, raising doubts over how serious Germany is about derisking.

Reuters interviewed more than a dozen executives and business leaders in the Mittelstand  the medium-sized companies that account for almost one-third of Germanys corporate sales  who said that their businesses have started reducing their reliance on China in a variety of ways.

Some larger firms, like ebm-papst, are pursuing a localisation strategy, where each business region becomes self-sustainable in sourcing and production.

Indeed, Ebm-papst still regards China as a key market: it may greenlight another 25-million-euro investment soon to expand its presence there, Nuernberger said.

Volker Treier, chief of foreign trade at the German chamber of Commerce and Industry, said Mittelstand companies dont have the resources to respond in real time to geopolitical shocks, so they need to prepare carefully in advance.

Munk, a German family-owned maker of ladders, scaffoldings and rescue equipment, started to cut reliance on China after a supply chain problem halted its production five years ago. Since 2021, it has been fully independent of China, sourcing components from within Europe instead.

For managing director Ferdinand Munk, the governments push comes too late: You cant rely on the government. They are always five years behind.

Germanys economy ministry said it wants to support companies to diversify their markets.

The aim is to intensify Germanys bilateral relations with countries like India, Vietnam, South Korea and Indonesia, the ministry said in a statement.

More Cautious

China became Germanys single biggest trade partner in 2016, and bilateral trade stands at nearly 300 billion euros. Its a core market for some of Germanys largest companies, including carmakers Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, as well as chemicals company BASF.

Since taking office in late 2021, however, Social Democrat Scholz has taken a harder line on China, distancing himself from his predecessor Angela Merkels embrace of Beijing.

Concern has also grown in other Western capitals about Chinas increasingly assertive attitude toward Taiwan and in the South China seas, as well as its tightening grip over its domestic economy.

Chinas foreign ministry said in a statement that Berlin and Beijing should encourage bilateral trade, which was beneficial for both sides. Politicizing economic and trade issues will only harm others and not benefit ourselves, and will not contribute to world economic growth, it said.

In the first half of the year, German investment in China increased as a share of overall investments, reaching 10.3 billion euros, according to official data analyzed by the IW Institute, as some companies invested more to ringfence their China operations.

Big German corporates like BASF, meanwhile, regularly point out the relevance of the Chinese market, indicating there is no substitute for its massive potential. A BASF spokesperson referred to recent comments by CEO Martin Brudermueller, who said most growth in the chemicals market will come from China  not Europe or the Americas  until 2030.

Its a lazy argument because 20, 30 years ago there was also no China, said Max Zenglein, chief economist at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, a leading European think tank on China.

Were at the very beginning of this diversification: its going to be up to the governments to steer.

As part of its derisking plan, Germanys economy ministry, which uses tools like trade and investment guarantees to promote trade, has introduced caps on the size that can be given to investors in a single country.

Only 51.9 million euros ($56.26 million) in investment guarantees for China were issued by the government in the first eight months of this year, less than a tenth of the 745.9 million euros issued over the whole of 2022.

And Scholzs administration is sponsoring fewer trade fairs in China than before  just 30 in 2024 compared to 44 in 2023.

These tools have more of an impact on small- and medium-sized companies than on big corporates which have better access to private insurance services and greater capacity to analyze market opportunities, said Juergen Matthes at the IW Economic Institute, an economic think tank.

There are signs that some firms are diversifying. German investment in Asia excluding China is rising as a share of overall investment.

Horn Group, a maker of precision tools that makes around 5% of its sales in China, opened a sales company in Thailand earlier this year that will be gradually scaled up, managing director Markus Horn said.

Mittelstand companies are often more risk-averse than large corporations, economists say. Many are still family run, and their owners want to safeguard the business from generation to generation, rather than bet big on short-term profit.

The Mittelstand has a high need for security which plays a big role in a country like China where such a lot can change in such a short period of time, said Matthias Bianchi of the German Association of the Mittelstand, which represents some 25,000 firms with more than 500,000 employees.

Alternative Markets

The United States is one country seen as a growth opportunity by German companies due to green subsidies enacted under President Joe Biden, as is Mexico, thanks to a trend of near-shoring by the worlds largest economy, said Wolfgang Niedermark of Germanys key industry association BDI.

So is Asia, ex-China. There was already a first wave of diversification towards Vietnam, a location close to China that offers low labor costs, said Jan Roennfeld, of the German-Indonesian Chamber of Commerce, as some companies pursued a so-called China plus One strategy to mitigate risks.

Vietnam had close ties with Eastern Germany and there are still German speakers there, Roennfeld said, adding there was now a second wave of diversification in other South Asian countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

No company is going to say that it will leave China, said Sandra Ebner, senior economist at Union Investment, Germanys second-largest fund manager. But what companies are increasingly doing is to produce in China for China and to position themselves around China for the remaining Asian or global market.

BDIs Niedermark said many companies had wanted to do business in the past with India  estimated to have overtaken China as the worlds most populous country this year  but had found it too complex. Now, business conditions were improving, he said.

In July, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck traveled to India with a delegation of executives to discuss opportunities for German companies. German trade with India hit a record high of 30 billion euros last year  up by 73% from its levels of 2015  albeit still only a tenth of German-China trade, according to statistics office data.

Direct investment in India by German corporations, too, rose to 1.52 billion euros in 2022, from 1.13 billion euros in 2019, according to statistics from the Bundesbank.

Nuernberger said that ebm-papsts Indian business was still in part being supplied out of China and Germany, something the new plant will change.

Its much better if it comes from within India.

($1 = 0.9455 euros)

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt and Sarah Marsh and Maria Martinez in Berlin; additional reporting by Aditya Kalra and Sarita Chaganti Singh in New Delhi, Xinghui Kok in Singapore, Orathai Sriring in Bangkok and Brenda Goh in Shanghai)

Topics China Germany
This edition of International People Moves details appointments at Lockton in London and Markel Australia.

A summary of these new hires follows here.

Lockton Taps Aon Veteran Guffanti as Head of Continental Europe

Lockton, the worlds largest independent insurance broker, announces the appointment of Andrea Guffanti as head of Continental Europe, based in London.

He takes up the newly created role with immediate effect. His responsibilities will be to work alongside Lockton Global Partners Operations Team, led by Michael Goudime, as well as the companys Market Specialty Teams and its owned operations in Europe to develop a dynamic engagement between all the constituencies.

Guffanti brings over 25 years worth of experience to the role and joins after 17 years at Aon, where, most recently, he held the role of EMEA chief commercial officer (2018-2023). Prior to this, he served as Aon Austrias chief executive officer (2014-2018), Aon Iberia and Middle Easts chief commercial cfficer (2011-2014) and managing director of the Southern European and Latin American Team (2006-2011).

Prior to Aon, Guffanti spent nine years as executive director of Global Financial Executive Risk (FINEX) at Willis Towers Watson between 1997 and 2006.

***

Markel Australia Appoints Rogers From AXA XL as Head of Queensland

Markel, the insurance operation within Markel Group Inc., announced the appointment of Stephen Rogers as head of Queensland, furthering its mission to serve the Australian market with a high-quality local presence.

Rogers joins Markel Australia from AXA XL, where he served as casualty manager and led the liability construction practice. Bringing with him more than two decades of experience in the Australian insurance sector, Rogers casualty expertise aligns with Markel Australias strategic focus on liability insurance and empowered underwriting. He has a successful track record for finding longer term liability insurance solutions for clients in industries, such as construction and resources, that are facing higher risk and reduced available capital due to market conditions.

Based in Brisbane, Rogers is Markels second appointment in Australia, and will report to Melbourne-based Managing Director Rory Morison. Markels offices in Melbourne and Brisbane are now open under their leadership, with the Sydney office to open later this month.

Markels Australian expansion continues Markels decade-long investment in international markets, with the establishment of successful onshore operations in Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Topics Europe Australia Aon AXA XL
National multi-line program administrator Atlas General Insurance Services, an RPS Company, announced the addition of a new workers compensation insurance program with Sompo International.

This new platform includes the addition of over 400 workers compensation classes, including contractors, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, transportation, and other industry classes. Atlas will provide service standards, online rating capabilities, loss control services and exceptional claims handling. California is the first state where the program is available, and Atlas is actively working with Sompo International to expand this coverage into other states.

By combining Atlas extensive underwriting and marketing capabilities with Sompo Internationals deep underwriting expertise and exemplary services, we are confident that this new association will provide the highest quality workers compensation product options to our customer base, said Mike Mathews, area president of Atlas

Atlas is now accepting submissions for these risks.

Topics Workers' Compensation New Markets
Johnson & Johnson said it is weighing a third attempt to use bankruptcy for an $8.9 billion settlement of tens of thousands of lawsuits that allege tainted talc in the companys baby powder caused cancer.

Erik Haas, J&Js lawyer in charge of litigation, said during the companys earnings call Tuesday that the worlds largest maker of health-care products is working with law firms representing the vast majority of talc victims to settle all current and future cases that could potentially cost J&J billions of dollars in damages if they go to jury trials.

Were pursuing a consensual resolution of the talc claims through another bankruptcy, Haas said. He added that J&J also will continue to vigorously defend itself in talc cases that come to trial while it explores the bankruptcy option once again.

Courts have twice rejected J&Js attempts to use the bankruptcy courts to force a talc settlement by setting up a trust to pay victims. Chapter 11 rules let corporations put money into trusts that decide how much claimants should be paid, instead of allowing juries to decide damages. Many J&J claimants have vocally opposed relying on a trust.

In July, a judge in New Jersey rejected J&Js second bankruptcy attempt, in which the company sought to resolve at least 40,000 suits for about $8.9 billion. The judge said J&J didnt meet the test for financial distress imposed by a federal appeals court. The company has vowed to appeal that ruling to the US Supreme Court. In the meantime, J&J faces at least at half dozen trials over the next six month in which talc users will ask jurors to find the companys baby powder caused their cancers.

Clare Boyle, a J&J spokesperson, declined to comment further on the companys plans.

Attorneys for some plaintiffs opposed the idea of a return to bankruptcy court.

Its unbelievable that J&J would even think about trying to once again use the bankruptcy courts to cram down an unfair settlement on talc victims after being told twice before they are misusing the Chapter 11 system, Andy Birchfield, an Alabama-based lawyer who represents thousands of women suing over cancers they blame on baby powder use, said Tuesday in an interview. We are not interested in allowing a wealthy corporation to try to force us into a paltry resolution of these cases.

J&Js lawyers already know theyll be on thin ice trying to use bankruptcy courts again to deal with the companys talc exposure, so the strategy is more about delaying trials, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond professor who teaches about mass-tort law.

J&J could face court sanctions if they take this blatant step of defying the appellate courts and having a unit file for bankruptcy once again, Tobias said. Its a head-scratching move.

The first time J&J put a unit into bankruptcy to resolve the baby-powder suits, an appeals court ordered the case dismissed, finding the company didnt face imminent financial distress. J&J is one of the most profitable companies in the world, with a credit rating higher than the US government.

The first attempt was a creative gambit, at best, said Elizabeth Burch, a University of Georgia professor who specializes in the law governing consolidated mass-tort cases. The second attempt was ethically dubious. And a third attempt to use bankruptcy to rope in plaintiffs who dont want to settle seems nothing short of bad faith.

51,000 Lawsuits

J&J now faces at least 51,000 lawsuits claiming talc used in baby power and similar products caused cancer, which have been consolidated before a federal judge in New Jersey for pre-trial information exchanges. During its second bankruptcy, lawyers said the company may eventually face about 100,000 claims.

Consumers allege in those cases that J&J executives knew since the early 1970s its talc-based powders contained trace amounts of asbestos, but failed to alert consumers or regulators. J&J contends its talc-based products dont cause cancer and the company has marketed baby powder appropriately for more than 100 years.

The New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company pulled its talc-based powders off the market in the US and Canada in 2020, citing slipping sales, and replaced talcum with a cornstarch-based version. J&J vowed to remove all its baby powders containing talcum powder worldwide by the end of this year.

Holly Froum and Negisa Balluku, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts, said last month that J&J may wind up paying as much as $10 billion to resolve its talc liability after the bankruptcys dismissal. Earlier this year, Chris Schott, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst, estimated J&Js total talc liability at $8 billion to $10 billion.

A poll of talc plaintiffs will be organized in the next six months to gauge potential support for a settlement, Haas said. Even if a third bankruptcy survived a challenge, the company would still need to win the backing of at least 75% of claimants to create a trust to settle cases. Lawyers for victims opposing the settlement say they have the votes to block J&Js bankruptcy gambit.

Mikal Watts, a lawyer for talc victims interested in J&Js offer, said Tuesday its unclear whether third times the charm for J&Js efforts to resolve the talc liability via Chapter 11. Everybody is working hard to see if we can achieve a settlement this time.

The consolidated case is In Re Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, 16-md-2738, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (Trenton).

Copyright 2023 Bloomberg.

Topics Lawsuits New Jersey
A gentleman in California was arrested after he inexplicably drove into the parking lot of a dollar store not to shop or even steal, but to release an exploding teddy bear.

Security footage shows the 58-year-old San Bernardino man getting out of his SUV, placing the large plushy on the ground two parking spots away, and then getting back into his car to watch as white smoke spews from the bear before it explodes into flying debris. It wasn't a strong enough explosion to hurt the man or anything else around it (fortunately the parking lot was nearly empty), but the bizarre and dangerous stunt was enough to concern at least one witness who called the police.

It turns out, the teddy bear was the least of the suspect's problems, after police tracked him down and found firearms, more than 200 rounds of ammunition, over a kilo of meth, illegal fireworks, metal pipes used to make explosive devices, and a ballistic vest at his home, according to the San Bernardino Police Department, who posted footage here. So much for staying under the radar.

The suspect was arrested on several charges, including "possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of a controlled substance for sale," reported NBC News.

Front page thumbnail image: Ja Crispy / shutterstock.com
Ahead of its third quarter earnings announcement early next month, The Hanover Insurance Group released a preliminary estimate of catastrophe losses of nearly $196 million primarily from multiple convective storms in the Midwest.

Severe weather represented a formidable challenge in the third quarter for us and the industry, generating significant catastrophe losses and adversely impacting bottom line results, said John C. Roche, president and chief executive officer at The Hanover, in a statement.

The Hanover said hail and wind damage  mostly to the personal lines segment  accounted for the majority of Q3s $195.8 million in catastrophe losses.

The CEO of the Worcester, Massachusetts-based insurer said it has taken decisive action across its personal and commercial books of business including strengthening terms and conditions, increasing all-peril deductibles, introducing wind and hail deductibles in additional states, applying aged roof amortization schedules in certain geographies, and reinforcing our emphasis on risk prevention measures.

Roche said Hanover is implementing double-digit price increases and executing underwriting actions in property lines.

Hanover said it expects to report a Q3 combined ratio of 104.4, with 13.7 points added from the catastrophe losses.

Topics Catastrophe Profit Loss
American consumers may remember the news about certain Chinese-made dehumidifiers, more than 1.5 million of which were recalled due to their tendency to overheat and catch fire. The manufacturer, Gree USA, in 2021 agreed to pay $91 million in penalties, plus compensation to fire victims.

In the last several years, after the dehumidifiers reportedly caused hundreds of fires, property insurers across the country have filed subrogation actions against the manufacturer, seeking reimbursement for millions of dollars in claims payouts. In one of the latest subrogation claims, Cozen OConnor, a national law firm that has specialized in insurance subrogation actions, last week filed a complaint in federal court in North Carolina on behalf of Bankers Standard Insurance Co., a Chubb company.

The suit seeks compensation for a 2020 fire at the Glenville, North Carolina, home of John Lupoli. The fire that resulted in a $900,000 claim, paid by Bankers Standard.

Having paid its customers for the damages to its customers property, Plaintiff is equitably subrogated to Mr. Lupolis rights to bring this action against those responsible for those damages, reads the complaint, filed Oct. 13 in U.S. District Court in the Western District of North Carolina.

Gree USA is a subsidiary of Gree Electric Appliances of Zhuhai, China, one of the largest manufacturers of dehumidifiers, air conditioners and other appliances, sold widely under brand names at Home Depot, Sears, Lowes and other stores. The suit also names MJC America Ltd., which partnered with Gree to sell the SoleusAir dehumidifiers, the complaint notes.

Although the Gree dehumidifiers have been the subject of news reports and of bulletins posted by the U.S. Department of Justice in the last two years, the Bankers Standard suit spells out new allegations about how the company may have known about the defects but failed to correct them.

Since 2008, Gree has made similar dehumidifiers for General Electric, the complaint notes. In 2010, GE, after seeing overheating and fires from the appliances, instructed Gree to change the design and use a heat and fire-resistant type of plastic. Gree did that for the GE-branded dehumidifiers, but not for those sold under other brands to Gree USA and MJC, the lawsuit charges.

Gree China did not make the GE-mandated design changes despite actual knowledge that the design and materials defects identified by GE were causing Gree Chinas dehumidifiers to fail, overheat, and catch on fire, the complaint argues.

Gree went so far as to make false representations to Underwriters Laboratories about the safety of the plastics used, so that UL would certify the devices as safe, Bankers Standard said. Gree China and Gree Hong Kong made these false and misleading representations knowing that the materials and plastics used to manufacture and construct its dehumidifiers were not compliant with UL 94s burn and flame rate requirements, the insurer contends.

The UL stamp is crucial because most U.S. retailers will not sell non-UL-listed electric products, the lawsuit notes. The manufacturer also tried to suppress information that it was required to report to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the suit charges.

In all, Gree China manufactured and sold more than 1.8 million of the dehumidifiers, throughout the United States.

One homeowner who purchased a faulty dehumidifier was Lupoli, whose sprawling home was in picturesque western North Carolina. The November 2020 fire, which resulted from an overheating device, caused extensive smoke, fire and water damage to the home. Bankers paid the claim.

By then, Gree and the Consumer Product Safety Commission had agreed to a recall of more than 2.2 million dehumidifiers, starting in 2013. Its unclear if Lupoli was aware of the recall, or why he did not comply. The recall was expanded in 2014 and another major recall was issued this year for 1.5 million similar Gree dehumidifiers.

Altogether, Gree has received reports of more than 2,000 incidents involving its devices, including 450 fires and more than $19 million in property damage, the court documents note.

Lupolis homeowners insurance company, Bankers Standard, is asking for more than $900,000 in damages, plus interest.

The number of similar subro lawsuits around the country was not reported in the legal claim. At least one class-action lawsuit was filed in 2017 in California by Cozen OConnor attorneys and others on behalf of 15 insurance companies, including Homesite Insurance Co. of the Midwest, American Strategic Insurance, Safeco Insurance and Liberty Mutual. That case was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2018. Other suits are pending.

Cozen OConnor attorney Angela Mason could not be reached for comment about the Bankers Standard North Carolina suit. But other insurance defense attorneys have said that subrogation actions due to manufacturing and construction defects are on the rise across the country  and are worth the effort.

Grees mistakes have cost American homeowners and property insurance companies well over $30 million. These translate into subrogation opportunities which should not be ignored, attorney Richard Schuster, with the Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer law firm, wrote in a 2018 blog post.

Gree dehumidifiers have unique designs that can help experts identify the manufacturer, even if the device is heavily damaged in a fire, Cozen OConnor attorneys wrote in a JDSupra article in August.

Thus, only rarely should a subrogation file be closed because the insured cannot identify the dehumidifier.

Gree and MJC have not yet filed an answer to the Bankers Standard subrogation complaint. Representatives with Gree USA could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Topics North Carolina
Ameris Bank, an Atlanta-based corporation with operations in seven Southeastern states, has agreed to invest $9 million in minority neighborhoods in Jacksonville, part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over alleged redlining practices.

As todays case makes clear, redlining is not just a relic of the past, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Thursday morning.

The Justice Department in 2021 launched a nationwide Combating Redlining Initiative, and has secured more than $107 million from lenders that were charged of discriminating against communities of color. The Ameris Bank settlement is the latest and came after the DOJ accused the bank of avoiding lending in predominantly black and hispanic neighborhoods in Jacksonville from 2016 to 2021.

Although Ameris operates 18 branches in Jacksonville, the bank has never had a branch in a majority-black and Hispanic neighborhood in the city, the DOJ said. Before a merger, in 2019, the bank closed two branches, including one in the downtown urban core, the department said in its complaint, filed in federal court. Zero loans were originated in that area.

The bank disputed the DOJs assertions.

We strongly disagree with any suggestion that we have engaged in discriminatory conduct and are confident in our efforts to provide equal access to affordable mortgage products in the Jacksonville community and all the markets we serve, Palmer Proctor, CEO of Ameris, said in a statement sent to Insurance Journal. We cooperated fully with the Departments inquiry and have entered into this settlement to avoid the distraction of litigation and because we share the Departments goal of expanding access to homeownership in underserved areas.

Proctor said the bank condemns discrimination and is committed to helping people in underserved communities gain equal opportunity to achieve homeownership, as well as access to banking services.

The settlement does not include any civil monetary penalties against Ameris, but bank officials agreed to expand lending to underserved communities. Its efforts will include:

Investing $7.5 million in a loan subsidy fund for minority neighborhoods.

Spending $900,000 on advertising and outreach targeted to those neighborhoods.

Investing $600,000 to develop community partnerships to help increase access to residential mortgages.

Opening a new branch in a minority neighborhood in Jacksonville.

Hiring at least three loan officers dedicated to serving black and hispanic neighborhoods, and establishing a director of community lending position to expand loan programs in Jacksonville.

The consent order and investent plan could potentially result in more homeowner insurance policies sold in Jacksonville. Data from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation gives an idea of the market there: Property insurers that reveal their data said they had almost 113,000 residential policies in Duval County, home of Jacksonville, as of the second quarter of this year. Thats in a county with a total population of 1 million, 43% of which are black or Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census.

Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the largest carrier in Florida, held more than 24,480 residential policies in Duval county in Q2.

On the other hand, increased lending efforts by banks could be complicated by escalating insurance premiums in Florida. Recent news reports have indicated that some Floridians have decided to avoid homeownership or to move out of state.

Ameris said it operates 164 financial centers in the Southeast. The publicly traded Ameris Bancorp holding company had $25.8 billion in assets at the end of Q2 2023.

Related: Rhode Island Bank to Pay $9M to Resolve Discriminatory Lending Allegations

Topics Florida
Okmulgee, OK - October 19, 2023 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Okmin Resources, Inc. ("Okmin or the "Company") (OTCQB: OKMN) a company engaged in the business of acquiring, exploring and developing natural resource assets, today announced that it has established an Advisory Board to include seasoned professionals and industry experts to assist in the development of the Company and that it has appointed Dr. John N. O'Brien as its Senior Advisory Board Member.

Dr. John N. O'Brien brings over forty-five years of experience in the energy business as an energy industry thought leader and an expert in the analysis of economics, regulation and technology in important and emerging energy issues. Dr. O'Brien is a former Commissioner on the Florida Energy Commission and Chair of its Climate Change Subcommittee. Dr. O'Brien previously served for 10 years as a Full Scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in its Department of Nuclear Energy after that and was CEO of several significant energy firms. Currently the President and CEO of Vista Consulting Group, Dr. O'Brien's areas of expertise include: the regulation and functioning of the electric and natural gas markets and related infrastructure; renewable energy technologies and investment; financial analysis and project finance in the energy sector; applications for small modular nuclear reactors; and other emerging energy technologies. Dr. O'Brien is also a Professor of Public Administration at Flagler College.

"We are excited to welcome the esteemed addition of Dr. John N. O'Brien to our newly established Board of Advisors.", said Okmin's CEO, Jonathan Herzog. Mr. Herzog continued, "Dr. O'Brien brings extensive knowledge in the broader energy sector, and we look forward to his new Advisory Board role with the Company."

Okmin's Chairman, Tom Lapinski, continued, "We believe Dr. John N. O'Brien will be a valuable resource for the Company in furthering our current business objectives and in the future should we potentially seek to broaden our activities beyond the development of conventional oil and gas projects."

About Okmin Resources Inc.:

Okmin Resources, Inc. ("Okmin" and the "Company") (OTCQB: OKMN) is a development stage company that is acquiring, exploring and developing natural resource assets. The Company has predominantly been focused on the acquisition and development of domestic oil and gas fields. Okmin's projects are located in Oklahoma and Kansas. The Company's lease holdings are all within the Cherokee Platform, a geological feature covering an area of northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas in the mid-continent region of the United States. The Cherokee Platform has been an established oil producing region for the last century. For more information about Okmin, please visit the Company's website: www.okminresources.com.

Okmin is subject to the information and reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), and, in accordance with the Exchange Act, the Company files periodic reports, documents, and other information with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "Commission") relating to our business, financial statements, and other matters. These filings are available to the public on the Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov.

Safe Harbor Provision

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, that are intended to be covered by the safe harbor created thereby. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "will," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "estimates," "anticipates," or "believes" or the negative thereof or any variation thereon or similar terminology or expressions. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from results proposed in such statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can provide no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include, but are not limited to, those factors set forth in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2023 and its other filings and submissions with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. This press release includes forward-looking statements concerning the future performance of our business, its operations and its financial performance and condition, and also includes selected operating results presented without the context of accompanying financial results. These forward-looking statements include, among others, statements with respect to our objectives and strategies to achieve those objectives, as well as statements with respect to our beliefs, plans, expectations, anticipations, estimates or intentions. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations. We caution that all forward-looking information is inherently uncertain and actual results may differ materially from the assumptions, estimates or expectations reflected or contained in the forward-looking information, and that actual future performance will be affected by a number of factors, including economic conditions, technological change, regulatory change and competitive factors, many of which are beyond our control. Therefore, future events and results may vary significantly from what we currently foresee. We are under no obligation (and we expressly disclaim any such obligation) to update or alter the forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Investor & Media Contacts:

Jonathan Herzog, President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel: +1 (818) 201-3727

info@okminresources.com

Investor Relations:

Jessica Abaian, Manager

Tel: +1 (818) 201-3727

jessica@okminresources.com

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Source: Stephane Foucaud

October 19, 2023 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Warrants have been exercised for shares of this energy co. These transactions should improve the cash resources of the Canadian oil and gas company and eliminate related overhang on its share price, noted an Auctus Advisors report.

Arrow Exploration Corp. (AXL:TSX.V; AXL:LSE) just saw its two largest shareholders and management increase their stake in the company, reported Auctus Advisors analyst Stephane Foucaud in an October 18 research note.

"We view the exercise of warrants and the resulting increase in interests in Arrow as a positive," Foucaud wrote.

205% Return Implied

Following the news, Auctus reiterated its 0.55 per share target price on the Canadian oil and gas company.

"We had already assumed the exercise of all the warrants," noted Foucaud, referring to its financial estimates on Arrow.

In comparison, Arrow is currently trading at about 0.18 per share. From this share price, the return to target reflects a potential return for investors that is significant: 205%.

Upside to Transactions

Foucaud presented the two major benefits of the warrants being exercised. It increased Arrow's cash resources. Also, it dealt with the existing overhang on the company's stock.

"The concern of investors having to sell shares to exercise their warrants had created an overhang on the share price that should dissipate with this announcement," the analyst wrote.

New Shareholder Structure

Foucaud provided the details of the 34.3 million (34.3M) warrants exercised in exchange for common shares in the energy exploration firm.

Of these warrants, Arrow's largest shareholder, Canacol Energy, was behind exercising 18.4M of them and now holds 60.1M shares in Arrow. This represents 21.2% of Arrow's issued share capital.

Similarly, Tim Leslie exercised warrants, 10.2M of them. This more than doubled his number of Arrow shares to 17.8M from 7.6M and took his portion of issued share capital to 6.4%.

Together, members of Arrow's management exercised 5.7M warrants and now hold about 6% of the company's issued share capital.

"Management has taken aggregate loans of CA$675,000 with Arrow that we understand is to fund the exercise of the warrants," Foucaud wrote.

New Well-Spudded Early

In other news, Arrow just spudded the Rio Cravo Este (RCE)-6 well in Colombia, earlier than expected.

Plans call for two more wells to be drilled at RCE.

More Info:

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Cryptocurrency firm Gemini is being sued by New Yorks top law enforcement officer, along with another firm called Genesis Global, for allegedly defrauding customers of $1.1bn (1bn).

The lawsuit was filed New York attorney general Letitia James. She is accusing the two companies of failing to disclose to investors the risks of a crypto-lending programme they started in 2021.

The ventures assets collapsed last year amid several bankruptcies in the sector, including the collapse of Sam Bankman-Frieds FTX.

In May this year, Gemini, in a move supported by IDA Ireland, announced that it would be making Dublin the centre for its European operations, where it planned to launch its crypto platform across 12 markets including Ireland.

Gemini was founded by twins Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss who famously sued Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he stole the idea for Facebook from them. The parties eventually settled.

In the announcement, the Winklevoss twins thanked IDA Ireland and the Irish Government for their support.

Risky loans

The New York lawsuit accuses Gemini of lying to customers about how risky loans were in its venture with Genesis and failing to disclose that at one point, almost 60% of its third-party loans were to Mr Bankman-Frieds crypto trading firm Alameda Research.

Mr Bankman-Fried is currently on trial accused of moving billions of dollars in customer funds from FTX to Alameda Research.

Genesis, and its parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG), were accused in the suit of trying to conceal spiralling losses.

The alleged fraud by the companies is yet another example of bad actors causing harm throughout the under-regulated cryptocurrency industry, Ms James said in a statement.

My office will continue our efforts to stop deceptive cryptocurrency companies, and to push for stronger regulations to protect all investors, said the attorney general.

The state said it wants to ban Gemini, Genesis, and DCG from the financial investment industry in New York. James is also seeking restitution for investors and disgorgement of the companies allegedly ill-gotten gains.

Representatives for Gemini, Genesis, and DCG did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a statement, IDA Ireland said it is a legal matter for Gemini and as such it would not be appropriate to comment.

Bloomberg
A new chainsaw safety video has been designed to educate farmers on the skills necessary to operate chainsaws effectively and safely.

Up to 80,000 chainsaws are used on Irish farms and these machines vary in safety standards associated with their age and state of repair.

Up to 4% of farm workplace deaths and an estimated 6.5% of injuries are associated with chainsaw and timber-related work.

The video, produced by Teagasc with support from FBD Insurance and the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), provides information for farmers on chainsaw use and associated timber work.

Speaking at the launch of the video, Minister of State Martin Heydon said: "Chainsaws are common tools found across many farms, but when used incorrectly they can prove deadly.

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"I urge every farmer who uses a chainsaw to view this video to review the safety standards of their chainsaw, its maintenance, and the use of personal protective equipment for chainsawing before any timber-related task is undertaken.

"Most importantly, consider your skill and competence with timber work and seek training if necessary."

Confidence

Teagasc director Frank OMara added that this video "not only educates but empowers chainsaw users to tackle their tasks with confidence, knowing they have the knowledge and skills to operate their chainsaws safely".

The video is presented by Arthur Kierans, machinery training technician at Teagasc Ballyhaise Agricultural College, Co Cavan, who stated that safe chainsawing and timber work is a combination of having adequate knowledge and skill, having a modern chainsaw with up-to-date safety devices, wearing chainsaw PPE, and using safe techniques.

The video is available to view on the Teagasc website.
President Michael D Higgins and Pope Francis are to meet in the pontiff's library in the Vatican on Thursday.

At the meeting, it is expected that President Higgins and the Pope will discuss a number of global issues, including climate change, migration, global poverty, food security, the rights of indigenous people, and global peace.

It will be the fourth time they have met each other. The pair met previously in the Vatican in 2017 and 2021, and at Aras an Uachtarain in 2018. President Higgins also met with Pope Francis at his Papal Inauguration in 2013.

At the meeting, President Higgins plans to present Pope Francis with a sculpture entitled The Expelled by renowned Irish sculptor John Behan RHA.

A spokesperson for President Higgins said that he chose to present the sculpture to Pope Francis "in recognition of the vital work which the Pope has carried out in drawing public attention to the plight of refugees and migrants across the world."

Following the meeting with the Pope, President Higgins will also hold a bilateral discussion with the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin.

Thereafter, President Higgins will then travel to Campo Santo in the Teutonic Pontifical College, where he will lay a wreath in honour of Monsignor Hugh OFlaherty, whose work saved thousands of lives during the Nazi occupation of Rome in World War II.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Monsignor OFlaherty, who was born in Cork.

Later, President Higgins will attend the exhibition Ireland and the Birth of Europe at the Irish Pontifical College, which tells the story of the role played by Irish scholars and missionaries in helping shape a shared European identity.

The events take place as part of a five-day programme that President Higgins is undertaking in Rome to coincide with his participation in the World Food Forum.

The President delivered addresses at the Opening Session of the Forum and at the annual observance of World Food Day at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation on Monday.

On Friday, he will provide the keynote address at the Forum's closing session. He also met with Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinale Palace in Rome on Tuesday.
Consumers contacted the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) helpline more than 18,000 times in the first six months of 2023 with most queries about Eir, Ryanair and Vodafone.

In total, 18,860 consumers contacted the CCPC's helpline in the first half of the year, the watchdog's Consumer Contacts Report has found. It details the queries and complaints received by the CCPC helpline from consumers across Ireland.

Faulty goods and services were top of the list of reasons people got in touch, with almost 4,000 consumers were referred to the Small Claims Court for redress.

Vehicles, transport, and telecommunications topped the list of sectors the CCPC was contacted about, with 2,218 contacts.

Telecommunications (1,230), home building (1,077), holidays and travel (945), and clothing and footwear (919) rounded out the top five.

The vast majority (88%) of consumer contacts were related to Irish-based businesses, with in-store shopping complaints continuing to rise against online shopping.

The top ten traders named by consumers while contacting the CCPC were:

Eir (299)

Ryanair (247)

Vodafone (235)

Harvey Norma (213)

Bord Gais (204)

Currys (202)

Sky (177)

DID Electrical (121)

Aer Lingus (115)

Electric Ireland (108)

Contacts relating to these 10 traders make up almost a fifth of the total number of named trader contacts.

Some 3,716 consumers were referred to the Small Claims Court, with electronics and audiovisual (412), and home building and improvements (411) topping the list of sectors referred to the court.

The number of referrals to the Irish Aviation Authority increased by 97% year-on-year.

The report also reveals that the CCPC's online Money Tools were used over 447,182 times in the first half of the year, an increase of 42% from last year.

Mortgages topped the list of personal finance calls to the helpline, with motor insurance in second place and current accounts in third.

The CCPC is the statutory body responsible for promoting compliance with, and enforcing, competition and consumer protection law in Ireland.

It provides information to consumers about their rights, personal finance and product safety, through a consumer helpline, a dedicated website, public awareness campaigns and through various financial education initiatives

In September, it was awarded new powers by the EU to issue civil fines of up to 10m, or 10% of a companys annual worldwide turnover, for breaches of Irish and EU competition law.
A nice person to talk to was caught getting off the train from Dublin to Cork with a stash of heroin on his person.

Robert Murphy pleaded guilty to charges of possession of alprazolam tablets, and also having diamorphine (heroin) and being in possession of that drug for the purpose of sale or supply to others.

Pat Horan, solicitor, stressed the supply element of the offence consisted of sharing the drug with friends.

Sergeant John Kelleher said the suspect was arrested on January 6, 2022, at Kent Station. Robert Murphy had just gotten off the Dublin train.

He was given an initial search and nothing was found. The defendant was then arrested and taken to Mayfield Garda Station for a follow-up search.

Some 840 worth of heroin was found on him as well as the alprazolam tablets.

He made certain admissions to supply by sharing with friends, the sergeant said.

The accused had 11 convictions for having drugs for his own use and six counts for possession for supply.

Mr Horan, solicitor, said: It is an extensive record. He has had a lot of issues in the past with drugs. He came down from Dublin with some drugs.

He was easily detected. He would have been in the throes of heroin addiction. His mother said she has had her heart broken with Robert over the years.

He took it on himself to get in contact with St Francis Farm [rehabilitation centre in Carlow]. He finally got a place in June  a residential place. It was something he pushed for himself and he needed it.

He is quite an accomplished musician. Notwithstanding his bad record, he is quite a nice person to talk to.

Judge Joanne Carroll said: I am going to ask for a probation report. His record is terrible but there is a very positive report from St Francis Farm. I want a probation report to see he really has changed direction.

There is a very serious sale or supply situation  albeit sharing. His future is in his own hands. But if there is any issue with the guards in the meantime the courts hands will be tied.

The case against 31-year-old Robert Murphy of 5 Quarry Vale, Youghal, Co Cork, was adjourned until January 15 at Cork District Court.
Derrick Guerrero, 33, was arrested and charged with manslaughter after shooting and killing a man was was allegedly shoplifting from the store. WDBO reports that the man was unarmed and had not confronted Guerrero.

As the man walked toward the door of the store, Guerrero pulled a gun from his waistband and fired one shot, striking the man in the torso, police say. The man died after being rushed to a nearby hospital. Investigators say they decided to file the manslaughter charge after they determined the shoplifter didn't have a weapon and hadn't threatened Guerrero in any way.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports that the victim "had grabbed several boxes of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Ultra-Premium Collection trading cards from behind the register" and made for the exit, and was shot in the back.
A fresh rain warning has been issued for Cork, as clean-up crews continue to assess the damage done by severe flooding in the county on Wednesday.

A status yellow rainfall warning will come into effect for Cork, Kerry, and Limerick from 11pm on Thursday. It will remain in place until 9am on Friday morning.

During this time, Met Eireann is warning of "heavy bursts of rain or showers" coupled with "waterlogged soils and high river levels".

This is likely to lead to further localised flooding in affected areas and hazardous driving conditions, the forecaster said.

Locals being rescued in from the flooding in Midleton. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

It comes as six residents of the Owenacurra mental health facility in Midleton had to be evacuated to the Midleton Park Hotel on Wednesday night as a result of flooding in the town.

There had also been a plan to evacuate Midleton Community Hospital's 30 or so patients, but flooding within the building and in the wider area was so heavy that ambulances could not reach it.

Hospital management then took the decision to relocate the patients to an adjoining facility, where they stayed overnight. It is understood that a decision on whether to evacuate the patients on Thursday will be made later this morning.

Flooding at Midleton Community Hospital on Wednesday, October 18. Picture: Twitter

Chief officer for the Cork Kerry Community Health Care, Tess ODonovan, said Wednesday was a difficult day for the hospital and for Midleton.

"We had back-up generators in place and we had power and heat, but obviously a very difficult time for the residents and for their families that are worried about them," she said.

Speaking on RTE Radio's Morning Ireland, she commended the efforts of the members of the team at the hospital, as well as all of the other people who came to their assistance.

She said that assessment of the flood damage done to both Midleton Community Hospital and Owenacurra will also get underway this morning.

"The flood damage is significant. We need to assess that further. But we will be assessing this morning to see if we can move the patients," she said.

"If we can't, we will look at an alternative arrangement for a period of time to help assess the damage and to hopefully restore them back as soon as we can to where they were.

"Alternative arrangements will have to be made for daycare centres in the area which will not be able to open today."

'The town hasnt seen anything like this in 400 years'

Flooding in the northern end of Midleton yesterday. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Midleton Fire station officer Mark Sinclair has said that Wednesday's floods had devastated the town.

"I'm born and bred in the town, I've seen many a flood, but none of this capacity. We helped as much as we could and tried to get as many people to safety as possible."

He said station crews were still going around the town checking on people to see if they need help.

"A lot of the shops have no insurance because its a flood zone, the town hasnt seen anything like this in 400 years," he said.

Mr Sinclair explained that heavy rain had led to saturated ground, which coincided with a high tide and further torrential rain, causing the river to burst its banks.

"Numerous calls came in during the day [Wednesday]. I think it was 11 o'clock that the river burst its banks, then by 2pm there was pure devastation," he told the same programme.

Flooding on the main street in Midleton on Wednesday. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

"The main street was like a river."

Met Eireann's extreme weather categories

Also on Morning Ireland, Met Eireann meteorologist Eoin Sherlock said that the methods by which the forecaster categorises extreme weather situations will have to change because of the impact of climate change.

Mr Sherlock explained that the current coloured alert categoriesyellow, orange, and redwere based on the last round of climate averages which dates from 1991 to 2020.

What we do every 30 years, we look at the climate every 10 years, we look at the climate averages. And what that means is we look at what's happened over the last 30 years. So that's 1991 to 2020."

However, Mr Sherlock said that the evidence was unequivocal that the climate had changed.

We've got warmer, you've got this and the temperatures increased by point seven degrees since the last round of climate averages in the last 10 years, we can expect more extreme rainfall because the temperature has increased.

So what we're doing now is we're looking at the kind of the threshold that we have for the warnings, we are going to change them as a reflection of what's happening in the climate," he said.

Mr Sherlock gave the example that yellow wind warnings of 50 kilometres would change to 55 kilometres per hour. He pointed out Met Eireann had warned about flooding and difficult driving conditions which was a trend in the meteorological world.

Basically its trying to inform the public about what the weather will do rather thanbecause maybe people don't understandwhat an 80 kilometres per hour wind can do. But if we can inform people that there's going to be flooding, they can take the necessary steps."

People attempt to clear up flood damage in Rathcormac on Wednesday. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

He explained that there was only "one or two millimetres difference between an orange rainfall warning and a red."

So I think maybe as an education piece for Met Eireann ourselves, we have to be a little bit better in this area.

Mr Sherlock said Met Eireann currently issued warnings based on best guidance from two models, one Irish, and one European drawn from international collaborations.

He also said that future weather warnings would be about what the weather will do rather than what the weather will be.

Some Cork roads still impassable as clean-up continues

As clean-up operations continued across Cork on Thursday morning, a number of roads remained impassable around the county.

Surface water is still present around Glanmire, which was badly impacted by Wednesday's floods. The Lower Glanmire Road approaching the Cork City suburb is still closed to traffic.

The R630 road from East Ferry to Ballinacurra is also closed, while floodwater is still present on the Banduff Road.

The road from Two Mile Inn to Mogeely is also still flooded, while Mogeely village is also impassable.

The N25 at Castlemartyr is now flowing via a Stop/Go system, and motorists have been advised to take care on approach.

Cork County Council has urged motorists to be aware of standing water and damage to roads around Cork. Drivers have been urged to be especially conscious of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.

The flooded town park in Glanmire. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Closer to Cork City, the R579 and the Lee Road, which had been closed, have reopened.

The Centre Park Road, which was impassable for much of the day on Wednesday, has partially re-opened to traffic.

Rail services between Kent Station and Midleton have resumed on Thursday afternoon. Services from Kent to Cobh have also resumed.

In a statement, Iarnrod Eireann said the line has re-opened between Cork/Carrigtwohill. However, bus connections remain in place between Midleton-Carrigtwohill until further notice.

Meanwhile, a number of customers have seen interruptions to their water supply in Midleton, Kilbehenny village and parts of North Michelstown due to the shutdown of water treatment plants in those areas due to Storm Babet.

Water service engineers from Uisce Eireann are currently at the scene of Midleton Water Treatment and Michelstown Water Treatment to get the plants back into operation as soon as possible.

Customers in the area may experience low pressure and/or interruptions to their water supply.
Tanaiste Micheal Martin has said that while flood relief schemes for Cork City and county are in train, challenges and objections are slowing progress.

The comments come as Cork towns including Midleton and Glanmire saw severe flooding due to the rain brought by Storm Babet.

Speaking in Dail, Mr Martin said: There is an issue about continuing objections, I think, that lack balance and perspective in the process that is delaying many flood relief schemes across the country, Mr Martin said.

That needs to be faced up to, not just by Government but the entire house. We need balance and perspective on all these matters.

Mr Martin said that the immediate thoughts of the Government were with the households and businesses impacted by the floods caused by the storm.

The actions of Sorensen in Glanmire during the flooding helped prevent major flooding in the town. The engineering company are currently working on the Glashaboy Flood Relief Scheme in the town and were able to divert flood water away from Hazelwood Shopping Centre. Picture: Larry Cummins

it has been distressing for many, many people. Were deeply concerned about what has transpired, Mr Martin said, thanking all those who acted yesterday to deal with the flooding.

In particular, Mr Martin praised Sarsfields GAA club in Glamire for allowing the floodwaters to flow onto their pitch, rather than allowing the water to damage houses in the surrounding area.

They opened up their pitch to save a housing estate from flooding and we will make sure that we work with the club to help in any way possible, because thats the kind of intervention that makes a huge difference to a community.

Its a quick decision and we applaud that action.

Earlier, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar  who is in East Cork to see the devastation caused  said humanitarian schemes would be made available to assist families and businesses impacted by the flooding.

It does seem like these are very serious floods and real devastation in Midleton, in a number of towns, it hit Cork City as well as Dungarvan, East Waterford, Mr Varadkar said.

It's very evident that there's a lot of damage to the roads and a lot of damage to things like walls, for example, he told RTEs Today with Claire Byrne.

We'll need to assess the damage, put a costing on the repair of it and make a special allocation so that the repairs are done.

The Taoiseach said flood relief schemes have been built, but that some proposed schemes get stuck in planning and the courts due to environmental concerns.

I dont know how many flood schemes [are] in the pipeline around the country. Some are built, some are being built and others are stuck in the planning process for one reason or another, Mr Varadkar said.

Mr Varadkar said there can be a lot of opposition to flood relief schemes, citing the environmental impact on wildlife habitats.

Mr Varadkar said he was due to receive a report on the warnings issued by Met Eireann in advance of Storm Babet.

He said the status orange warning issued by Met Eireann had been a pretty high-level warning, but added maybe it should have been a red warning.

The clean up in Midleton, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

Im not the person making those calls but of course well have to look back on what was done and what could have been done better. But thats not for today, today is about the clean-up, Mr Varadkar said.

The Taoiseach said it had been a named storm and he did not want to blame anyone, saying he was not an expert.

Today is about the clean-up and making sure that we protect people and property, and then also assuring people in the areas affected that there will be help, financial help, for homes, businesses, sports clubs, any infrastructure that has been damaged will be repaired.
If you're reading this in Cork, I hope youve dried out at this stage.

Or just got home safely, come to that.

Wednesday was a testing day for people living in the path of Storm Babet, which disrupted quite a few areas. Cork got a particularly bad lash from the storm, as readers are no doubt aware.

If your smartphone was working yesterday, you probably saw the footage which was being uploaded from all over Cork. That footage showed scenes which custom dictates we describe as unprecedented and shocking, but they were also frightening, to be honest.

Streets were flooded in and around Cork, with people reporting areas which had never been flooded before being inundated. There was traffic gridlock in many parts of the city during the day and it was clear that some cars had simply been abandoned in rising waters.

People who had commuted to work couldnt get back home, or got back home hours later than usual; both rail and bus services in Cork were seriously affected by the weather.

The litany of black spots is depressing, and in some cases depressingly familiar: Blackpool flooded, for instance, but so did Glanmire village and roads were impassable in Ballyvolane, Rochestown, Blarney, Tower, and elsewhere. The Straight Rd flooded when the Lee itself burst its banks.

East Cork suffered severely. The Defence Forces were called in to help people in Midleton, which was simply impassable, its main street under several feet of water and dozens of premises flooded. Killeagh was flooded a few miles further east, while the Ladysbridge-Cloyne road was a no-go zone, damaged by floodwater.

Sever flooding in Midleton caused by Storm Babet. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

At the border of Cork and Waterford, the walls were collapsing along one stretch of the N25 by the sea outside Youghal.

This morning, apres le deluge, the questions arise, naturally enough.

For instance, Met Eireann issued an orange warning for Cork (given before expected weather conditions that could significantly impact people, property, and activity in an area, according to met.ie).

Should that have been a red warning (rarely issued but when it is, people in the areas expected to be affected should take action to protect themselves and/or their properties)?

On the basis of their own definitions, a red warning should have been issued for Cork. As reported here, Met Eireann will be issuing fewer Status Yellow weather warnings in future, with the forecaster set to re-evaluate the thresholds for such warnings as it acknowledged concerns about warning fatigue from the public.

Unfortunately, that was a little late for Cork this week.

A red warning yesterday morning would have closed schools and immediately cut the number of journeys being made; as it turned out, some schools made the decision to close early anyway, but that meant parents had to make the journey to collect children at the height of the rainstorm.

Its also clear that people commuted to work in the belief that an orange warning heralded testing but not dangerous weather  only to find conditions far more perilous later in the day.

Another question: Is it acceptable that a 21st-century city should be so seriously affected by heavy rainfall?

One of the traditional replies on Leeside to such queries is to point out that for hundreds of years the low-slung city of Cork, central marshy island and all, has been susceptible to riverine flooding at high tides, a victim of its own geography.

Yet the obvious retort is that if this has been common knowledge for hundreds of years, surely it is past time for a solution. Instead, there have been years of uncertainty and dispute about a proposed flood defence scheme, with no sign of progress while the city is literally inundated.

It should be acknowledged that the amount of rain which fell yesterday was calamitous  by some measures a months rainfall fell in approximately 24 hours. That amount of rain would test the best-prepared drainage systems.

Can we say that yesterday was exceptional as well as calamitous, however? Climate change is likely to produce more such events, not fewer.

And if those future events occur on the same scale, as is widely expected, then a different response will be needed.

Multi-agency approach

A co-ordinated, multi-agency approach involving municipal and State agencies will be necessary if lives are not going to be lost in future extreme weather events.

Are we going to need a Cork rain tsar, a single figure who will take temporary control of the city when it is in danger of being flooded to pull the various agencies together?

Wouldnt that be better than what we experienced yesterday?

Looking into the future means seeing where other headaches are likely to occur down the line. We have seen in recent years, for instance, that there are ambitious plans for developing and expanding Cork  to create an entirely new suburb, more or less, down on the Docklands-Marina area.

But how meaningful can those plans be if the area itself or adjacent arteries such as the Centre Park and Monahan Roads are likely to flood, as happened yesterday? Or if the entire city can be paralysed by heavy rain?

Ambitions of Cork acting as some kind of regional counterbalance to the concentration of population and resources in Dublin are laudable. However, based on this week, it looks like they wont survive their first encounter with prolonged rainfall.

Credit must be given to those who defied the elements yesterday to help others. The people who helped neighbours and friends stranded in cars by rising waters. Those who were invited into bars and restaurants for shelter and food, particularly in the Midleton area.

A pedestrian makes his way through flood waters on Rutland Street, Cork City during Storm Babet Yesterday. Picture: Larry Cummins

Sarsfields Hurling Club in Glanmire opened the gates to its main playing field to let flood water run off which would otherwise have flooded local homes and businesses.

The club, which won the Cork senior hurling title just last Sunday, explained their motivation in a statement: As a result, our main pitch essentially became a flood plain in order to relieve the flooding to the immediate Riverstown area, Orchard Manor, and surrounding businesses. We won a county, lost a pitch, but hopefully saved a part of the Glanmire community.

Those are the gestures which show what a community really is.

Sars actions were proactive and decisive, qualities much in demand yesterday  and not on show everywhere they were needed  but the city as a whole cannot rely on the spontaneous generosity of voluntary organisations. This weeks events must be seen as the turning point.

Cork needs that specific plan with a local focus, preferably managed by an individual with the authority and power to co-ordinate the various bodies involved when the floods threaten again. And to overrule central assumptions on the basis of local evidence, if need be.

If not, then the city can be expected to grind to a halt again when the next rainstorm hits. Or squelch to a halt, to be more accurate.

A co-ordinated multi-agency approach involving municipal and State agencies will be necessary if lives are not going to be lost in future
Squeezed between the two channels of Frances biggest container port is a warren of narrow alleyways, blowsy 1950s' bungalows and  along a windblown high road  a disheartening parade of shuttered shops.

Les Neiges is Le Havres dockers district. At the end of each side street stands a 3m steel-and-concrete fence topped with razor wire; beyond that, dipping and swivelling, the cranes and gantries that process more than three million containers a year.

Hidden away in those shipping containers, stashed among the bananas, frozen prawns, cane sugar and canned fruit, is an ever-increasing quantity of cocaine. Of the record 27 tonnes of the drug seized in France last year, more than a third was intercepted in the Normandy port.

What were actually seeing, said Laurent Laniel of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), is a concerted, ongoing attempt to flood Europe with cocaine. Its an expanding market, and it shows no sign of slowing.

Each year since 2017, EU police and customs officers have seized more of the drug than the last, Laniel said.

In 2021, the most recent year for which full data is available, it was 303 tonnes  five times more than a decade ago. And thats just what we intercepted, he said. Right now, it doesnt seem like a battle were winning.

Spiralling corruption

The consequences, within and beyond the continents key north-western gateways of Antwerp, Rotterdam and Le Havre, are spiralling corruption as the drug cartels bid to co-opt port logistics firms, local union officials and politicians, even the judicial system  and a dramatic increase in violent crime.

As South American traffickers link up with European organised crime gangs to share the spoils of a 10bn market, the Netherlands, Belgium and France have witnessed drug-related contract killings, torture, bombings, shootouts and deaths. Credible plans have been uncovered to kidnap senior government ministers.

In Les Neiges, unsurprisingly, it is not something people much want to talk about. Seriously? asked one longtime resident, standing foursquare on her doorstep and declining to give her name.

You dont seriously expect to find anyone round here wholl be happy to tell you about that?

With reason. Last year, a few hundred metres from here, police opened fire on a group of men unloading cellophane-wrapped bricks of cocaine from a container. In another incident reminiscent of Mexico or Colombia, heavily armed criminals stormed a high-security warehouse to liberate their stash.

This February, six local men, all of whom grew up in or operated out of Les Neiges  including Louis Bellahcene, alias Doudou or the King of the Port  were handed prison sentences totalling more than 100 years for helping to smuggle 1.3 tonnes of South American cocaine out of the terminal.

Le Havre: Of the record 27 tonnes of the drug seized in France last year, more than a third was intercepted in the Normandy port.

Unable to resist the temptation  as one said at his trial  of earning a years salary in a couple of hours, dozens of Le Havres 2,200 dockers, as well as port agents, truck drivers and other port workers, have been arrested over the past five years.

For those who hesitate, the cocaine cartels have other, more forceful methods. More than 30 port workers have been kidnapped or held hostage since 2017. In 2020, one  a 40-year-old union leader and father of four  was beaten to death and dumped behind a local school; two years earlier, another was found alive but horribly tortured, his calves repeatedly stabbed with a screwdriver.

Some give way to the coercion

Some give way to the coercion. Guys will come up to them at the school gates, or in a cafe, and show them smartphone photos of their wife and kids, says Valerie Giard, a lawyer who has defended several. They say: do what we say, or they get it.

Many, though, need little encouragement: according to a list of tariffs found by police, the going rate for helping to extract a container from the port is 75,000. Moving it out of CCTV range or closer to a fence will earn you 50,000, while a loan of your security badge is worth 10,000. Recruiters can earn 100,000 per operation.

The sums are tiny compared with the drug gangs staggering profits: a kilo of cocaine bought for $1,000 in Colombia is worth more than 35,000 in Europe and, once smuggled out of port and cut  or diluted with other substances  can be sold on the street (or, more likely, ordered by WhatsApp or Signal) for 50 to 70 a gram.

Cultivation of coca leaves in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru has been rising since 2014, according to a report this year by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and surged by 35% from 2020 to 2021. Meanwhile, global cocaine manufacture has surpassed 2,000 tonnes, double the 2014 figure. The drug is also 40% purer now than in 2010.

In Europe the drug sells at up to twice the price in the US, where the market is now saturated. With an estimated 3.5 million Europeans using cocaine in 2021, four times more than 20 years ago, Europol puts the total street-level value of the European cocaine market at somewhere between 7.6bn and 10.5bn.

With those kinds of sums involved, the logistics chain has become very efficient, Laniel said. It uses mostly containers, but also yachts, fishing boats, private jets, now manned semi-submersibles or submarine drones. And once it gets here, theres a veritable European army to distribute it  we estimate at least 100,000 people.

Mexican mafia gangs

The business is largely controlled by Mexican mafia gangs, police say, who once served as middlemen for the Colombian Cali and Medellin cartels but are now in command of much of the chain, from financing production to organising the smuggling into Europe.

Shipments are separated to reduce cost and risk, and sold to pan-European crime syndicates including the Moroccan Mocro maffia active in Belgium and the Netherlands, Serb, Albanian and Kosovan gangs, and Calabrias Ndrangheta.

The main entry point remains Antwerp, about 450km north-east of Le Havre, where police and customs officials  who, as in most ports, have the resources to check only between 1% and 2% of all containers  intercepted more than 43 tonnes of cocaine in the first half of this year alone, after 110 tonnes in 2022.

The tsunami, said the Belgian ports customs chief, Kristian Vanderwaeren, just keeps coming.

Brussels chief public prosecutor, Johan Delmulle, this year warned that with molotov cocktails, car bombings and gun battles regularly rocking the streets of Antwerp, the country could soon come to be seen as a narco state.

In July 2021, the investigative TV journalist Peter R de Vries was gunned down in a car park in Amsterdam and died nine days later. PictureL AP/Peter Dejong

Antwerp has witnessed more than 200 drug-related violent incidents over the last five years, including 81 last year alone. In January, an 11-year-old girl  the niece of two of Belgiums top accused drug smugglers, the El Ballouti brothers  died after five bullets from a Kalashnikov assault rifle were fired into the family kitchen.

A retired Belgian police officer, who asked not to be named because he still advises government agencies, said the hidden share of the drug business in Antwerp, Europes second busiest port, was just huge.

About 100km further up the coast, in Europes largest port of Rotterdam, a reinforced customs operation  including the full automisation of the ports cargo terminals  has made things significantly more difficult for the smugglers and helped reduce seizures from 70 to 47 tonnes last year, according to a senior customs official, Ger Scheringa.

Drug-related violence

But drug-related violence has reached unimagined heights in the Netherlands. In July 2021, the investigative TV journalist Peter R de Vries was gunned down in a car park in Amsterdam and died nine days later. A crime specialist, one of his sources was the key state witness against alleged drug baron Ridouan Taghi, arrested in Dubai in 2019.

A lawyer involved in the same case, Derk Wiersum, was also shot dead in 2019, prompting  along with incidents such as the discovery of a shipping container transformed into a torture chamber  the mayors of Amsterdam and Rotterdam to warn of a culture of crime and violence  taking on Italian traits.

Everywhere, police and customs investigations are being heavily ramped up. Le Havre brought in 25 new officers this year, while Antwerp has a new drug commissioner and aims to ensure all containers coming from South America are automatically scanned within the next five years.

Police have made breakthroughs: in 2021, Sky ECC, a messaging service seen as uncrackable by its users, was broken, leading to thousands of new drug cases. But the overall impact on Europes ballooning cocaine trade was minimal. You take one out, another just replaces him, said a French investigator.

Increasingly, too, the traffickers are spreading their bets. As seizures in Rotterdam have shrunk, those in nearby Vlissingen have doubled. Smaller, less well-guarded ports are being targeted: fishing harbours in Spain and Portugal, minor Swedish ports. Last year, for the first time, 600kg of cocaine was seized in Montoir-de-Bretagne, a small roll-on, roll-off dock in the Loire estuary.

Equally alarmingly, instead of making cocaine in South America and shipping the finished product to Europe, the gangs are also setting up sophisticated factories on the continent to extract cocaine paste hidden in maritime cargos ranging from plastic polymers to asphalt products, and then transform it into powder, Laniel said.

More than 30 such labs were dismantled on the continent in 2021, according to the EMCDDA. In May, a police raid on a remote cottage in Galicia, north-west Spain, allegedly found eight cooks working around the clock. Once fully operational, the new production line could have turned out 200kg of cocaine a day, Spanish police said.

Cocaine kills people slowly, Laniel said. It also brings with it unprecedented violence, and corruption. A lot of bad people are making huge amounts of money. Its being taken seriously now. But its a massive challenge.

 Guardian
Thousands of acres of rice fields have been destroyed by flooding since the beginning of October and thousands of more acres remain submerged as the post-monsoon harvest is about to begin in Kayah and southern Shan states, as well as Bago Region.

In one township of Bago RegionKyaukkyimore than 7,000 acres of rice fields remain inundated and another 2,000 acres were destroyed just weeks before harvest, residents say.

Nearly 5,000 people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance as houses, roads and farms in 18 villages of the township remain submerged by flooding, the Karen National Union (KNU), which controls the area, said on Tuesday.

International aid groups, however, have no access to the township as the junta directs their aid to benefit areas under its control.

The KNU said on October 13 that about 1,000 people from nine villages in Bago Regions Mone Township were hit by severe flooding caused by unrelenting downpours. The area is controlled by Karen National Liberation Armys Brigade 3, an armed wing of the KNU.

Prolonged flooding continues to wreak havoc in Kayah and southern Shan states, destroying large swathes of rice fields just before harvest, local residents and resistance forces told The Irrawaddy on Thursday.

Around 1,000 acres of rice fields in southern Shan States Moebye Township have been inundated by flooding, a village resident who fled to Moebye Town said.

A farmer from the township said rice fields had been flooded for more than a week, adding: If flooding continues, we will lose our paddy fields  it will also be difficult to find labor for harvesting even if the flood recedes because so many people have fled to other areas for safety.

Flooding has turned about 1,000 villagers into internally displaced people (IDPs) in Moebye Township, members of the Moebye Peoples Defense Force (PDF) and volunteers said.

Most IDPs fled to Moebye Town  We dont want them to move there because the town is not safe due to the presence of junta infantry battalions and frequent shelling over residential areas, a representative of Moebye PDF said. About 500 IDPs who returned to Moebye are taking shelter in three of the towns wards, sources said.

Farmland in Kayah States Demoso and Loikaw townships has also been flooded, residents and volunteers reported. Unrelenting rainfall and a massive discharge of water from Moebye Dam are the two causes of recent flooding in Kayah and southern Shan State, aid groups in both states say.

Since the beginning of October, heavy rainfall triggered by a tropical depression in the Bay of Bengal, caused widespread flooding in Bago, Mandalay and Yangon regions, displacing thousands of residents, destroying crops and disrupting transport.
China has arrested a deputy military chief from one of Myanmars most powerful ethnic armed organizations, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), for alleged involvement in cyber scams.

Bao Junfengthe nephew of UWSA leader Bao Youxiangwas detained by Kunming police in neighboring Yunnan province in the first week of October, according to sources close to the armed group.

Chinese online media say Bao was arrested in connection with online scams.

He was arrested on October 2 [and] The UWSA has already chosen [his] replacement, a source told The Irrawaddy.

Bao, also known as Ai Chen, was appointed deputy commander-in-chief of the UWSA in August of last year. He attended a military academy in Kunming and is fluent in Chinese and Burmese.

When asked about Baos detention by The Irrawaddy, UWSA liaison officer Nyi Rang said he was on a trip and knew nothing about the arrest.

On October 12, Chinese police issued warrants for the arrests of two senior officials of the UWSAChen Yanban and Xiao Yanquanand offered a reward of 100,000 to 500,000 renminbi (US$13,700 to $71,200) for information and cooperation leading to their arrests.

Chen is the minister for construction in the Wa Self-Administered Division and a former head of UWSA Brigade 468. Xiao was identified, in his arrest warrant, as the mayor of Monglin District in the autonomous region. Xiao is a former son-in-law of Bao Youxiang.

The United Wa State Party has dismissed the duo from all official duties in response to the arrest warrants, but has not released information about their whereabouts.

China 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 and 377 Chinese allegedly involved in telecom fraud were transferred back to China in September.

In the first week of September, the UWSA handed over 1,000 Chinese citizens allegedly involved in cyber scams to Chinese police.

According to an October 16 statement from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, Myanmar has so far handed over 4,666 Chinese citizens allegedly involved in cyber-scam syndicates operating along the border.
German prosecutors are probing leading exporter ND SatCom for supplying communications equipment to Myanmars junta after sanctions were imposed.

ND SatCom GmbH manufactures satellite-based broadband VSAT moderns and broadcast, government and defense communication networks.

The criminal investigation follows a complaint filed by Germany Solidarity with Myanmar Democracy with the attorney Holger Rothbauer, based on Justice For Myanmar (JFM) research.

ND SatCom has allegedly provided significant support for the militarys satellite communications since 2016, including 5G satellite hardware and software for use in the militarys Meikhtila system, including battlefield networks.

JFM provided evidence to German publications ZDF Frontal and Der Spiegel of more than 40 deliveries, including satellite modems and software, which apparently avoided sanctions.

The corporations satellite modems were sent to the militarys Directorate of Procurement from Vietnam in October 2021 after the coup in February.

Terabit Wave Company Limited in Myanmar brokered the equipment in partnership with the Vietnamese firm, OSB Investment and Technology.

U Tay Za Tun and Daw Thuzar Khin are the directors of Terabit Wave, a subsidiary of the military-linked A1 Group of Companies.

OSB claims to be a leader in defense communications with a research and development program.

They both operate a joint venture in Myanmar, Com and Com Company Limited, which provides military and civilian satellite services, including the maintenance of ND SatCom equipment for the military.

ND SatCom appointed Terabit Wave as its dealer to sell satellite communications equipment in Myanmar and to negotiate and sign contracts. The authorization was part of a 2019 contract between Terabit Wave and the directorate involving Com and Com, which was leaked to JFM.

The rights group welcomed the investigation by the state prosecutors office in Ravensburg in southern Germany and called for the authorities to block junta access to German equipment and technology.

It said satellite communications are essential for junta command and control, supporting indiscriminate killing, torture, rape, the razing of villages, destruction of food and forced displacement.

Ma Yadanar Maung of JFM said: Germany must show that breaches of the law will not be tolerated and we call on other EU member states whose companies have illegally transferred arms, equipment and technology to investigate and hold them accountable.

She added that both Germany and the EU have laws to prevent the arms and dual-use goods being exported to Myanmars junta but governments have repeatedly failed to enforce the rules.

Equipment and technology support war crimes and crimes against humanity, she said.

ND SatCom equipment has been supplied to the junta via the Singapore companies Bright Sky Pte Ltd and Interspace Engineering Services Pte Ltd.

Bright Sky Group is an A1 subsidiary which faced sanctions this year after JFM named it as an arms broker.

Interspace Engineering is owned by Nguyen Hong Son who is the co-founder, chair and chief executive of OSB and a Com and Com director.

JFM said Vietnam and Singapore are both ASEAN members who voted in favour of a UN General Assembly resolution calling on all member states to prevent the flow of arms to Myanmar.

It called on Singapore to investigate Bright Sky and Interspace for supplying dual-use goods to Myanmar through the city-state.
Combined forces of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Peoples Defense Force (PDF) seized a military communications camp in Shwegu Township, Kachin State on Wednesday.

Resistance fighters from KIA Battalion 12 and Shwegu PDF launched an early-morning attack on the camp of around 60 soldiers, near Nga Bat Gyi village on the Shwegu-Bhamo road. The resistance force retrieved the body of a junta soldier killed in the clash, along with weapons, ammunition and rations, Shwegu PDF reported.

The camp was built by soldiers from Light Infantry Battalions 602 and 56. We shelled the target before launching the ground attack, so there were heavy casualties among junta troops, a Shwegu PDF spokesperson told The Irrawaddy.

No resistance fighters were killed in the attack, with a few suffering only light injuries, he added. The camp was torched by the resistance force after junta soldiers retreated.

We saw the soldiers flee, dragging their injured comrades with them, said the spokesperson.

Nga Bat Gyi camp is located one kilometre from Shwegu Town, which serves as a staging post for junta troop reinforcements deployed via the Ayeyarwady River.

Soldiers at the camp were manning checkpoints to extort money from civilians travelling on the Shwegu-Bhamo road, according to the KIA.

It said the resistance force withdrew from the camp when the junta launched an airstrike in the area.

The junta base in Shwegu Town also shelled Nga Bat Gyi, but Myo Hla PDF reportedly retaliated by launching a drone attack on the base.

Peoples Defense Forces in Kachin State are collaborating with the KIA to attack junta troops both on land and river routes. Fierce fighting has been reported in Kachin State over the past few days.
As the juntas State Administration Council (SAC) marked the eighth anniversary of Myanmars 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), is it worth reflecting on the obvious failures of the peace process over the past 12 years? Not really, and not when the gathering of current and former generals, some regional diplomats, and several leaders of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) was a farcical mockery of anything resembling peace, especially as the Sit-Tat continues its campaign of terror against civilians.

Yet it is important to reflect on what may have worked and how possible lessons can be incorporated into revolutionary mobilization moving forward. There is so much written about the peace process in English, but it is of mixed quality. One of the best analyses is the Institute of Strategy and Policy (ISP) report on International Actors in the Myanmar Peace Process by Aung Thu Nyein in late 2020, which should be at the core of any canon on future peace lessons. And a major retrospective report on the NCA was produced earlier in 2023 by the always reliable Transnational Institute (TNI), one of the few international groups who have maintained a clear moral compass during the past decade.

The entire international engagement with transitional Myanmar was a scramble from 2011 onwards, with multiple economic, governance, election, developmental, and peace processes, overlaid with the crisis in Rakhine State in 2012 that resulted in the 2016-2017 campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Armed conflict continued in multiple areas, the countryside was riven with heavily armed insurgent groups, and the Myanmar military was brazenly unrepentant: and yet terms such as post-conflict were used with casual flippancy. The main layers of NCA failure have been outlined, perhaps not as exhaustively as they should be, but sufficient for a new generation of diplomats and donors in 2023 to ignore all the problems and use it as a vehicle to animate a new peace process.

The central canard of the NCA was that it was a homegrown process. This is hogwash. With over US$250 million in funding from the multi-donor Joint Peace Fund (JPF) and Japan and sundry others, China selling weapons to multiple belligerents, and, according to the Lowy Institute Southeast Asia Aid Map, $17.2 billion in aid projects between 2015 to 2021, it was a wonder any progress was achieved on peace at all.

Unfortunately, many Western donors thought they could program their way out of systematic social cleavages by imposing what were evidently misplaced methods. As filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola said about the production of his Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now, We were in the jungle. There were too many of us. We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane. Simply replace jungle with Naypyitaw and its not too far from the NCA situation.

But two important realities shouldnt be shortchanged. The first is that there was an overwhelming desire for peace, stability, development, and legal and economic justice. That was as evident in Sittwe as it was in Sanchaung, or Hpa-an and Hlaing Thayar. There was a widespread belief in the dedication of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to achieving peace and development, but this faith was not uniformly shared, nor did the actions of her National League for Democracy (NLD) seek to consolidate alliances with multiple political and social forces. Nevertheless, the NLD won a second term in 2020, driven as much by support for Suu Kyi as opposition to the military returning. Yet by then, hope in peace had waned, and trust in the NCA had all but collapsed.

Secondly, there were significant advances in social development on multiple fronts, including freedom of speech, organized labor and local peacebuilders seeking to challenge armed groups of all kinds. The majority of credit for these gains goes to Myanmar individuals and organizations. But it must also be acknowledged that foreign support enabled a fair share of this progress, from multi-donor development to humanitarian organizations and partnerships on everything from agriculture to education. Criticism of foreign peace support shouldnt tar the good work achieved, or the contributions of foreign taxpayers. This shouldnt let bad-faith actors off the hook, but it is necessary to discern what worked and what failed.

Any lesson learned processes that have a chance of being useful must adopt a future perspective, not a retrospective, angst-ridden cover-up for failure. The anti-SAC resistance, including EAOs, the NUG, civil society, intellectuals, and activists can learn a great deal from the failures of the past, but predominantly to design a viable future. Below are eight (and a half) very general ideas.

Lesson 1: Understand Underlying Grievances

There was not much deep reflection on what kept people in open resistance to the central state, or drove start-up insurgencies such as the Arakan Army (AA) and the Ta-ang National Liberation Army (TNLA). Western jargon would call them conflict drivers, but a more honest articulation is why people continued to struggle even amidst a peace process and greater openness. Many people in ethnic areas distrusted the military as an abusive institution. Intense militarization was thwarting development and driving emigration. Landmines, forced labor and predatory checkpoints didnt much look like peace.

Longer-term grievances also included a wide range of long-term factors related to natural resource governance, land grabs and displacement, environmental degradation and agribusiness projects, Chinese investments, gold mining, and deforestation. The stark reality of climate-change effects was injected into the peace process late: it must now be a central feature of future processes.

The current resistance and revolutionary action, from the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) to armed revolt, illustrated strongly in 2021 and since that intersectional struggles can coexist and work to strengthen each other. It is not about simply removing the military from political power, but establishing a new and more just society. The NCA process was molded by elite interests and old-man thinking and not considerate of a generational change. This revolution is all about a new Myanmar.

Lesson 2: Embrace Plural Perspectives

People in cities cared less about peace in ethnic conflict zones than people in Kachin State or Kayin State did during the NCA. This is understandable if you havent been touched by war. But all of Myanmar can be termed conflict affected now, and there are multiple lived experiences that must be factored into any peace discussion, without exclusion. Narrow discussion designs merely privilege special interests and create silos of enmity. There are multiple perspectives now to be considered and included in a meaningful way, and innovation for future federalism to be considered.

Gender inclusion was one of the most glaring deficiencies. Consider the Women Contributing to Peace exercise in 2019 that found that over 670 women from 383 organizations were working on the peace process, but that actual high-level formal representation was low. Look at the manels phenomenon, subject of a unique and powerful Womens League of Burma (WLB) exhibition in Bangkok in October, that shows male dominance of debate and narrative still thrives, and must be challenged.

Lesson 3: Military Reform Matters

Think of the lesson of the scorpion and the frog crossing the stream. The Myanmar military was always a violent institution that would do anything against its own interests and that of the entire country. The failure to bring it under full civilian control will go down as the NLDs greatest shortcoming and the one significant core failure of the NCA. The NLD was less a gullible frog than a haughty sloth that simply didnt perceive the residual menace of the military. The future challenge is daunting: how to end the Sit-Tats stranglehold on the body politic once and for all, but also approach how to end multi-generational insurgencies? There needs to be more practical research and modeling pursued in reducing militarization in Myanmar, especially given the explosion of armed actors since the coup: the new generation of think tanks and intellectuals must be adequately supported to pursue this new thinking.

Lesson 4: Foster Multiple Processes, Reject Rigid Timeframes

One of the canards of the NCA was that the process was a train leaving the station; you didnt want to miss your chance at a seat. But I always thought, What if its the Yangon Circuit Line? You can jump on any time. The peace architects who created convoluted flow charts and processes have a measure of the responsibility for the dead-end process. But the reality demands that flexibility for multiple approaches, uneven timeframes, and deviations from rigid clauses are essential in Myanmars future reality. One of the major gripes amongst NCA signatories in late 2019 and up to the coup was how smaller EAOs were holding back larger EAOs. It was blatantly obvious then as now that a rigid NCA approach comes with restraints. This led to constant slowdowns in negotiations, and EAOs being rewarded for continuing to talk with the military or NLD despite the damage to long-term trust these forced engagements often resulted in.

Lesson 5: Size Matters

Peace processes can be a slave to inclusion, losing sight of reality. It was manifestly ridiculous to see micro-EAOs sit at a table on an equal footing with larger groups who had several thousand soldiers, access to conflict commodity chains, and entertained broader if by no means perfect (at times brutally repressive), social representation. It permitted questionably representative ethnic leaders to take an oversized seat at peace talk tables. Many articulate Chin leaders colonized NCA discussions, but their actual security threat to the central state was almost non-existent.

Powerful northern EAO groups in Kachin and Shan State, which before the coup had the highest troop numbers, were often aloof to formal proceedings beyond strained affairs in Naypyitaw, because of the crucially constraining China factor, but also because they disdained and distrusted Western peace entrepreneurs, almost as much as they did the Myanmar army and the NLD.

Given the proliferation of armed groups post-coup, a great deal of thinking needs to go into planning for layers of negotiation and inclusion: geographic, thematic, armed group size, political organizational type. There isnt a table large enough to include every armed group in the country now: if a peace conference was convened tomorrow it would be riotous. How much are political and armed actors strategizing into the near future of what a multi-sided peace process will look like that involves large and small PDFs, urban and rural cells, large and small EAOs and those who took the SACs side and lost? If there is a perception that the armed conflict is deadlocked, political positions for negotiations are hurtling away from each other, and the economy and social stability are crumbling underfoot, what contingency planning is being formulated?

Lesson 6: Justice and Accountability is Crucial

It may seem impossible to people in Myanmar now that any future political solution would not involve a process of justice and accountability for the SACs crimes and those of the resistance forces. Yet this is precisely what happened in 2011: all military sins were swept under the rug of impunity, and the Western liberal conscience was the key enabler. Your friends in Washington, Brussels, and London will happily do it again, and your enemies in Beijing, Tokyo and Canberra will do the same, regardless of how many atrocity crimes are documented. Senior political leaders in the NUG would comply, especially if financial support for reconstruction was pledged.

Yet by now it should be clear how damaging the failure to reckon with war crimes and crimes against humanity is, both for the victims of atrocities and for the strength of political transitions and ensuring armed groups of all kinds are firmly under civilian control and genuinely rights-respecting. From the Sit-Tat to repressive EAOs, the NCA process absolved them all. That should not be allowed in the future.

There is a current trend to laud rebel governance and bottom-up federalism as effective anti-SAC initiatives. These are undoubtedly important developments. But they are not all new. There is also a tendency to assume that all residents of an insurgent liberated area are comfortable with the mode of governance. The NUGs foot-dragging on actual justice for murder, rape and ill-treatment in revolutionary spaces does not auger well for future transitional justice initiatives. That is why civil society must be strengthened to openly challenge political and military elites to ensure accountability: those in power and their advisors cannot be trusted, on this issue at least. Some voices will argue that uncovering resistance abuses is destabilizing, but there is clearly a social demand for it now.

Lesson 7: Assemble Accurate Context and Conflict Analysis

A Western colleague recently observed that much of the conflict analysis in Myanmar was simply not that: it has been largely context analysis. There was literally a misplaced approach to understanding the patterns of armed conflict, and how they intersected with forms of social conflict. There was a missed decade of understanding the military as an institution, its ideals, internal tensions, cohesion, training, weaknesses and above all its actual behavior in warfighting. In retrospect, the study of military members of parliament voting patterns by academics and research outfits was interesting, but also an indulgence and ultimately a distraction. Numerous repurposed peace and governance INGOs who celebrated the NCA are now ingratiating themselves with various sectors of the anti-SAC resistance as the new buzzwords of governance and cross-border aid turn Bangkok-based opportunists into instant experts on the Myanmar military. There must be a cleansing of all of this blatantly erroneous analysis that fits a Western donor model, replaced with the hard-nosed realities of a long war and the necessity for the development of future negotiation models.

Lesson 7.5: Study Myanmar, Not South Africa

A new generation of peacebuilders must look within, not outwards. Just stop with the study tours and pointless workshops and bringing opportunists to waste peoples time. Its a revolution, not a nursing home for peace profiteers.

Lesson 8: Liberal Peace Building Models Are Ill-Suited to Myanmar

The international peace industrial complex utterly failed Myanmar, but it was not due to neglect, but misplaced over-enthusiasm. It would fill a large crater to name the international peace outfits who flocked to the Myanmar programming frenzy, many of whom were a mystery to foreigners, let alone a newly installed NLD member of parliament who had spent 20 years in prison, or a senior military officer who was a psychotic warfighter. Its not useful to name these organizations here, but all future peace processes should question their utility, and perhaps invest in some retrospective analysis on what some of them actually could achieve in the future in partnership with Myanmar organizations. The NUG and EAOs need to purge themselves of any reliance on foreign advisors, especially those Western mercenaries who did so much damage to the peace process over the past decade.

The future for Myanmar is uncertain, but its prospects for peace should depend on the right mixture of historical clarity and future innovation and emancipation: all the qualities absent in Naypyitaw on Sunday.

David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict, humanitarian and human rights issues on Myanmar.
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen dismissed a news article that criticized his nitrate-heavy hog farm because the "the author is from Communist China."

"Number one, I didn't read it. And I won't," said the xenophobic simpleton who tried but failed to ban critical race theory from college classrooms in 2021 when he was part of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. "Number 2, all you got to do is look at the author. The author is from Communist China. What more do you need to know?"

The author he is referring to, 27-year-old Yanqi Xu, is an immigrant from China who moved to the United States in 2017 and works as a journalist for Nebraska's Flatwater Free Press. She said she's "still trying to wrap my head around this Especially as a woman of color, if the other person who made such a comment about you is the most powerful person in the state, how do you respond?"

From NBC News:

Pillen, a Republican, had made the remarks on Omaha radio station KFAB in September, after he was asked to respond to her article that found high levels of nitrate on his hog farms.  This week  with Xu's blessing and after consulting with immigration lawyers to ensure her visa status wouldn't be compromised  Matt Wynn, executive director of the Nebraska Journalism Trust, which launched the Flatwater Free Press, published a column in her defense. Xu, who said she was grateful that her employer stood with her, added that Pillen's words potentially fit into a narrative of "othering people of Chinese descent."  The Asian American Journalists Association also released a statement on Wednesday, supporting Xu. "The Asian American Journalists Association stands with Yanqi Xu, the Flatwater Free Press journalist who was the target of remarks that attempted to dismiss her reporting because of her country of origin," the statement read. "Having an independent and diverse press corps is essential to democracy, and Xu, an investigative reporter who grew up in China, deserves to do her job without being judged because of her nationality."

Naturally, the cowering governor did not respond when asked by NBC for a comment.
Thursday, Oct 19th, 2023 (11:33 am) - Score 1,248

Eutelsat OneWeb has announced that its global constellation of ultrafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has, via a demonstration that was set up in Surrey (England), successfully connected to a 5G mobile network as part of a pilot. But the technical details of this test remain unclear.

The operator has already launched 634 of their small (c.150kg) first generation (GEN1) Low Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband satellites into space  orbiting at an altitude of 1,200km above the Earth (588 of them for coverage and the rest for redundancy). The network was technically completed in March 2023 (here) and promises both ultrafast speeds and fast latency times. But some work (e.g. ground stations) still needs to be completed before full global coverage goes live by the end of 2023.

NOTE: UK ISP UK ISP BT are currently working with OneWeb on a rural broadband trial ( here and here ).

However, its long been the plan that the network could also be used to help spread 5G mobile coverage. The development of just such a 5G connectivity project, which would involve the 5G/6G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey (5G/6GIC), was announced last year (here) and were now seeing the outcome of that pilot.

According to the blurb, the University of Surrey tested a 5G mobile network by connecting Surreys 5G core to a cell site through the LEO constellation. Just to be clear, this isnt the same approach as Starlink or AST Space Mobile are using, where the satellites can directly connect to existing Smartphones. The picture below makes clear that OneWebs approach is more about providing the backhaul (capacity) for 5G cells, which is still useful.

The researchers tested video conferencing calls, video streaming, gaming, virtual and augmented reality content, and simple web browsing. The tests also highlighted a seamless, smooth handover between the LEO network and terrestrial networks, delivering a smooth 5G connectivity experience to users.

Eutelsat OneWeb, part of Eutelsat Group, which includes the UK Government as one of its strategic shareholders, recently signed a deal with Telstra in Australia to backhaul their 4G and 5G networks. We may well see other deals like this in the future.

Barry Evans, Professor of Satellite Communications at the 6G/5GIC, said: It was thrilling to see no degradation when using the 5G connection made possible by the LEO constellation. This is a step closer to increasing internet access for more people around the world  a privilege that many of us take for granted. The work performed in the 5G pilot tests has demonstrated the feasibility of 5G backhaul over LEO satellites.

Sadly, no technical details of the tests performance or setup were revealed, although past tests have shown that a single connection can reach download speeds of 195Mbps, with uploads of 32Mbps and latency times of down to 70ms (milliseconds). Quite how this will translate when serving backhaul for a 5G mobile network, which is likely to have many users, is as yet unclear.
Thursday, Oct 19th, 2023 (12:01 am) - Score 912

A new Opinium survey of 500 UK adults who have moved house in the last 2 years (renters or owners), which was commissioned by Uswitch, has found that broadband is still one of the biggest causes of frustration when moving home  with movers being left offline for an average of 7.2 days.

Moving home, particularly if you have a larger pad with a lot of stuff to shift, can be a stressful experience. One area of known disruption is in how the change impacts our home broadband connections and speeds, since it often takes time to get a new internet (and or phone) service setup or migrated.

The survey, which was conducted between 26th and 29th August 2023, found that 45% of movers stayed with their existing broadband ISP when moving, but were still forced offline for an average of 6.5 days. More than one in ten (11%) movers who stayed with the same ISP were left offline for two weeks or more.

Suffice to say that its no real surprise to find that 70% of home movers felt being without [the] internet was a top bugbear, ahead of more traditional frustrations including packing and unpacking (67%), delays to completion dates (64%) and dealing with estate agents (54%).

However, a lot of people today do have mobile broadband (4G and 5G) via their Smartphone, which is how 48% of movers said they got online during the process. Some 22% bought extra data on top of their normal allowance to stay online, with 10% using over 50GB (GigaBytes) while waiting to be connected. Just for context, Ofcom reports that the average monthly data volume per household on fixed broadband connections is 482GB.

Additional Survey Findings  The research shows that time spent offline varied across the country, with the regions waiting the longest including Scotland (12.6 days), the East of England (10.3 days) and the West Midlands (9 days). In contrast, the fastest switchovers were in the North East (4.9 days), London (5.1 days) and the South West (5.5 days).  Movers give their broadband providers 13.5 days notice on average ahead of a move in date, slightly less than the absolute minimum required by providers, with many asking for two, three or even four weeks. One in five (18%) left their switch to the last minute, only giving providers one week of notice, and one in ten (9%) waited until after they moved  Giving more notice to your ISP didnt always appear to pay off, as even those who gave 2+ weeks of notice spent an average of 7.1 days disconnected, while those who waited until after moving in were stuck offline for 10.3 days.  21% of respondents said their ability to work from home was disrupted by the move (obviously), while 15% found themselves unable to manage life admin tasks such as paying bills.  Home movers were also inconvenienced by an inability to stream TV or films (40%), not being able to check emails (30%) or social media (27%), and not being able to stay in touch with friends and family (20%).

Moving house tends to be one of lifes most expensive and stressful experiences, although theres often a limit to how fast you can get a new broadband connection setup in your new home  this will vary due to lots of different factors.

Some of those issues will take longer to resolve than others, such as if youre moving into a new build property and find the new address isnt yet recognised by your broadband ISP. Such issues can take months to resolve naturally, but often a call to your chosen provider and the Royal Mail (here) will help to sort things out more quickly.

Delays may also creep in if the previous owner is still in the process of cancelling their existing service when you move in, while those migrating between ISPs on the same platform may similarly have to allow a week or so for the switching process to run its course. Some of this is by design and gives people a chance to stop SLAMMING, which occurs when a service is migrated without the owners consent (due either to error or fraudulently).

Not to mention that if you need a new line installed on a new network, then it can take extra time to sort all of that out. So, if you need to move quickly, then as a general rule its wise to have a backup ready to help tide you over until the new service goes live. Most of the time a good unlimited 4G or 5G based mobile broadband connection will do an adequate job, assuming thats an option (check the coverage of each operator beforehand).

All the big ISPs are familiar with home movers by now, and its worth remembering that most of those will also be subject Ofcoms automatic compensation scheme, which pays out if there are any delays to a new service going live. Suffice to say, those providers wont want to keep you waiting too long, as its in their interest to get you online as quickly as possible.

However, in a lot of cases and provided you plan it well enough, then many people are often still able to get online on more or less the day they move in.
Insider's Mattathias Schwartz reports that billionaire passport collector Peter Theil is an FBI informant; Thiel started snitching on his milieu in 2021.

In the summer of 2021, Insider has learned, Thiel began providing information as a "confidential human source," or CHS, to Johnathan Buma, a Los Angeles-based FBI agent who specializes in investigating political corruption and foreign-influence campaigns. Charles Johnson, a longtime associate of Thiel's and a notorious figure in the far-right movement that Thiel has subsidized for a decade, told Insider in a statement that he helped recruit the billionaire as an informant by introducing him to Buma.  Many of the politicians that Thiel has bankrolled  including Trump, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, and Blake Masters, a former Arizona senatorial candidate  have repeatedly attacked the bureau and its leadership in public. In 2022, Vance, whose campaign and affiliated PACs received a total of $15 million from Thiel, falsely claimed that the FBI had illegally wiretapped Trump's phone. Vance accused the bureau of "harassing faithful Christians" and pledged to block all of President Joe Biden's Department of Justice nominees in retaliation for the Trump prosecutions. (Most but not all of Thiel's donations occurred in early 2021, before the launch of Vance's campaign and the many false claims he made over the course of the race.)

There's something very funny about this. The far-right guys hanging around with Thiel, founder of $37bn government surveillance giant Palantir and various other deep statey startups, and he's smiling and encouraging and listening intently as they talk about revolution. That said, the story specifies that Johnson "believes that Thiel's reporting to the FBI was largely limited to foreign contacts and attempts by foreign governments to penetrate Silicon Valley." Notwithstanding Insider's other sources, Johnson is a notorious liar and holocaust denier who has repeatedly falsely accused people of things in the past.
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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.
Lying on Twitter is free speech, right? If you're lying about how to vote as part of a voter suppression scheme, it's a federal crime that may well land you in jail. A right-wing commentator, Douglass "Ricky Vaughn" Mackey, is headed to prison for 7 months after posting falsely that one can vote by text message.

For example, they said, Mackey tweeted a photo of a woman standing in front of an "African Americans for Hillary" sign. "Avoid the Line. Vote from Home," the tweet said. "Text 'Hillary' to 59925." U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement that Mackey "weaponized disinformation in a dangerous scheme to stop targeted groups, including black and brown people and women, from participating in our democracy." Mackey's attorney, Andrew Frisch, asked in a memorandum to the judge that his client be spared prison. Frisch said that Mackey started psychotherapy in 2018 in an effort to change his life and "is not Ricky Vaughn of seven years ago."

The New York Times has more on where the frozen peaches ended and the hot sauce began: Man Who Spread Misinformation on Trump's Behalf Sentenced to 7 Months.

During a trial last spring, prosecutors presented evidence that the man, Douglass Mackey, had joined private Twitter groups where participants reveled in using lies and deceit on behalf of Donald J. Trump, carrying out what one participant termed "the deep psyops of meme war." Much of that activity was protected by the First Amendment, prosecutors said. But they argued that Mr. Mackey committed a crime days before the election when, using the name Ricky Vaughn, he posted images targeting Black and Latino voters that claimed it was possible to vote by text message. The idea, prosecutors said, was to suppress votes for Mrs. Clinton.

Mackey's post is above. At first glance, I thought that the vote suppression is secondary to signaling racism as part of the social media performance/grift/addiction loop, but that's why we have trials.

I'm always struck by how these guys never have their mugshots released unless you FOIA the damned things. But here he is in a low-quality social media posting the New York Daily News posted, without indicating the source.
Canada removes 41 diplomats from India after New Delhi threatens to revoke their immunity

Canada's foreign minister says the country has recalled 41 of its diplomats from India after the Indian government said it would revoke their diplomatic immunity, escalating a spat over the slaying of a Sikh separatist in Canada
Russian orthodox priests complained about a new 1,000 ruble note because the church dome illustrated on the bill doesn't feature a cross. Thing is, the real 17th century church doesn't have a cross either. It did, but in 1917 the Bolsheviks removed it from the building which is now a museum. The other religious site featured on the bill is an minaret featuring an Islamic crescent moon, just like the actual building. Both structures are located in the Kazan Kremlin in Western Russia. The Russian bank responded to the controversy by halting circulation of the new note.

From The Guardian:

Pavel Ostrovsky, a priest, said on Telegram that the bill was either the result of "the stupidity of the designers" or a "deliberate provocation" by the "followers of Islam" in Tatarstan.

The celebrity priest, who has 174,000 followers on the app, said "there was no difference what the building looks like in real life" as most Russians do not know its history.

"Currently a decision was taken to stop the production of the notes," the central bank said in a rare U-turn on Wednesday.
A 22-year-old man was arrested in Warsaw, Poland, after he posed as a store mannequin and waited until closing time to steal merchandise.

In photos released by the Warsaw police, the unnamed suspect is seen standing behind the storefront window, holding a bag.

From BBC:

Police said the accused went "hunting" in various departments after closing, before settling on a jewellery stand. The man is also accused of stealing items from a second mall. Warsaw Police said that staff and shoppers failed to notice anything unusual as the man stood in the window, and blended in with several mannequins. Police said that he stood still until "he felt it was safe", then walked through various departments after closing time before taking jewellery.

The police say he has been held in jail for three months and faces up to ten years in prison.
In the official Star Wars novel Aftermath, author Chuck Wendig has a delightfully clever chapter written by from the perspective of Admiral Ackbar, recontextualizing the Mon Calarami military leader's most infamous moment: gurgling "It's a trap!" in his fishy voice during the space battle in Return of the Jedi. In Wendig's telling, Ackbar is indeed a military genius, whose strategic mind borders on paranoid as he tries to work out every possible angle the enemy might take. "It's a trap!" is framed as Ackbar's near-constant internal monologue  and his greatest asset.

But custom toy maker Dan Doris of Death By Toys had a different idea about what Admiral Ackbar's greatest asset might actually be: his squid dick.

It's not a trap, it's just this lovely squid-like appendage from one of the rebellion's most celebrated admirals. This is a repurposed plastic squid floating loose inside a plastic bubble. The card is 6" x 9" like classic SW figs. Because I assemble each one of these by hand, minor imperfections will occur. Comes with an official Death Certificate of Authenticity.

The Admiral Ackbar's Dick action figure costs $40, but unfortunately, the small custom run has already sold out. If that disappoint you, because you were really hoping to get your mitts on some hand-crafted Mon Calamari genitals, then you might consider itself to be a trap.

Admiral Ackbar's Dick [Death By Toys]
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Ann Arbor (Informed Comment)  Our eyes are naturally drawn to bombings and air strikes and statistics on the dead. This principle is exemplified by the furor over the bombing of al-Ahli Hospital, the responsibility for which it is difficult to fix amid the fog of war. It should be remembered, however, that Israel has threatened many other hospitals, demanding that they be evacuated, however unrealistic that demand might be. But the threat of total war on Gaza civilians comes from a different policy, which is endangering their lives on a much grander scale if in less garish ways.

The government Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu began its counter-attack on the Palestinians of Gaza with an announcement that water, electricity, and the provision of goods would be cut off. Gazas water plant and public water networks were deactivated by the Israelis. The goods being interdicted include food imports. Netanyahu also ordered Palestinians living in the north of Gaza to leave for the south, displacing half of the 2.2 million inhabitants of the Strip. Such population transfers are illegal in international law. Israel has also announced that it is striking hospitals where 2,000 of the Strips 3,500 hospital beds are located. No evidence has been presented that the Gaza hospitals are being used for military purposes.

The 1964 Guy Hamilton film,  Goldfinger, with a screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn, was based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel about gold smuggling. At one point Auric Goldfinger captures Bond and ties him to a golden table with his legs apart, and then starts a laser beam toward 007.

Netanyahu has a laser beam of water denial aimed at the civilian population of Gaza.

His policies are a death sentence on the women, children and other noncombatants of the Gaza Strip. He has created the most severe humanitarian crisis in the world. This is a war crime of immense proportions, but is being too little attended to by observers of the conflict.

I just got back from a trip to Sarajevo in Bosnia, which was besieged by fascist Bosnian Serb forces for 4 years in the 1990s, who also tried to cut off water to the inhabitants of the city. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was found guilty of war crimes for the siege, among other atrocities. The Clinton administration and European allies, outraged, forcefully intervened to stop the attempted massacre. Yet nowadays the United States is cheering on the thirsting to death of women and children in Gaza and was the only member of the 15-nation UN Security Council to veto Brazils resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. There is something horribly wrong with the Biden administration in this regard, as it hugs the contemporary extremist Israeli government instead of helping send its members to the Hague for trial.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) notes, Starvation as a method of warfare is explicitly prohibited regardless of the nature of the conflict, and the concept of objects essential for the survival of the civilian population includes drinking-water installations and supplies and irrigation works. Immunity for indispensable objects is waived only when these are used solely for the armed forces or in direct support of military action. Even then, the adversaries must refrain from any action which could reduce the population to starvation or deprive it of essential water.

The pipelines Israel cut off bring in potable water. UNRWA explains, Three water desalination plants, previously producing 21 million liters of drinking water per day, have halted operations.

Netanyahus primary purpose may be to destroy the Hamas terrorist organization in revenge for its monstrous atrocities of October 7 and after, which have resulted in some 1400 Israeli deaths and 4,229 wounded, while others continue to be held as hostages (a war crime by Hamas among many war crimes). That Netanyahu should target Hamas for destruction is understandable and perfectly legal. He is making it clear, however, that he also wants to inflict maximum damage on ordinary Palestinians who are not connected to that party-militia (as most are not). Half the population is under 18 and few ever voted for Hamas.

Because of Israels 16-year-long blockade, the Palestinians of Gaza depend heavily on aid for their survival. That aid has been cut off. The Netanyahu government is now saying it will allow a few Egyptian aid trucks in, but this is a mere band aid on a gargantuan social problem.

OCHA says that as of Wednesday, The complete siege of Gaza continues. The Rafah Crossing has remained closed, preventing the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid, including food, water and medicines awaiting on the Egyptian side. The Erez and Kerem Shalom crossings with Israel also remain closed.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported Wednesday that The cumulative fatality toll in the Gaza Strip is 3,478 as of 17:00 (18 October), including at least 853 children (as of 17 October), according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Hundreds of additional fatalities are believed to be trapped under the rubble. The number of IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons] in Gaza is estimated at about one million. Over 500,000 of these are staying in UNRWA schools in central and southern Gaza alone, in increasingly dire conditions.

UNRWA says that it cannot provide those internal refugees with needed food, water, hygiene or psychological support.

About 100 IDPs taking shelter at UNRWA facilities in Gaza have been killed by Israeli bombing.

The flow of drinking water is essential because Gazas own aquifer has been polluted with sewage and industrial waste and has seen an influx of sea water, i.e. of salt water, partially because of rising seas caused by climate change. Drinking sea water causes frequent urination and leads to dehydration and death in a matter of days. Only 4% of water inside Gaza is drinkable. Without electricity or fuel, people cannot boil the water to kill bacteria. Even that wouldnt solve the salt water problem.

UNRWA wrote earlier this week, People across Gaza have severely limited access to clean drinking water. As a last resort, people are consuming brackish water from agricultural wells, triggering serious concerns over the spread of waterborne diseases. For the fifth consecutive day, Gaza has had no electricity, pushing vital services, including health, water and sanitation to the brink of collapse, and worsening food insecurity.

NOAA says, Human kidneys can only make urine that is less salty than salt water. Therefore, to get rid of all the excess salt taken in by drinking seawater, you have to urinate more water than you drank. Eventually, you die of dehydration even as you become thirstier.

That fate is befalling the Palestinians of Gaza as we speak.

UNRWA updated its report on the situation on Wednesday, writing, The water crisis continues due to the inability to bring in much needed fuel, which is needed to operate water pumps and desalination plants. It is further compounded by the very limited supply of water on the market. Many UNRWA shelters have no water supplies. Health-related risks due to the lack of water and poor sanitation are growing, including water-borne and other diseases.

Article continues after bonus IC video

Al Jazeera English: Israeli decision to renew water supply a publicity stunt, say Gaza Palestinians

OCHA noted on Wednesday, The average water consumption for all needs (drinking, cooking and hygiene) is currently estimated at three litres per day per person in Gaza. People consume more and more water from unsafe sources, risking death and placing the population at risk of infectious disease outbreak.

Although the Israeli government said it had turned back on the water for south Gaza, this announcement appears to have been mere propaganda. The Gaza Ministry of Public Health says no water is being received. Palestinians pointed out on social media that without electricity the water cannot be pumped. Electricity remains off. Moreover, many of the water pipelines were broken by Israeli aerial bombardment.

Israel admits it continues to block water to north Gaza.

Infants are at special risk of dying from inadequate water or from impure or salt water. Infant mortality has almost certainly already spiked in Gaza, and unless the heartless Israeli policies are reversed, we will see much bigger piles of dead babies than the bombings have ever produced.

As the laser advanced toward Bond, Goldfinger turned to leave. Maibaum and Dehn have Bond ask, perhaps as a delaying tactic, Do you expect me to talk?

Goldfinger laughs. No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.

Article continues after bonus IC video

Goldfinger Movie CLIP  I Expect you To Die (1964) HD

Netanyahu is saying the same thing to pregnant mothers, toddlers, and other civilian collateral damage of his total war on Gaza.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Moneta Gold Inc. (TSX: ME) (OTCQX: MEAUF) (FSE: MOPA) ("Moneta" or the "Company") is pleased to announce a project update and assay results from twenty-five (25) drill holes for a total of 5,534.0 metres ("m") on the Windjammer South deposit at the Tower Gold project (the "Project"), located in the Timmins Gold Camp, Ontario. The drilling was conducted as part of a 140,000 m drilling program, started in 2022, designed for resource upgrade and infill of the 4.5 million ("M") ounces ("oz") indicated gold ("Au") and 8.3 Moz inferred Au mineral resource estimate (see September 07, 2022 press release).

Project Update:

115,000 m, in 426 drill holes, of 140,000 m infill drill program completed, with remaining drill holes to be executed during the winter season

Thirteen (13) drill holes completed, totaling 3,665 m, for open pit geomechanical and hydrogeological testing, including packer testing. Two drill holes remain and are planned for the winter season. Downhole televiewer surveys are planned for December

Overburden geotechnical drilling is 50% complete and is ongoing

Metallurgical drilling and sample collection are ongoing. Lab analysis, including communition and variability test work, starting in Q4 2023

Windjammer South Drilling Highlights:

MGH23-463 intersected 0.95 grams per tonne "g/t" Au over 105.87 m, including 2.20 g/t Au over 14.15 m

MGH23-463 intersected 1.49 g/t Au over 81.70 m, including 2.90 g/t Au over 18.00 m

MGH23-441 intersected 0.91 g/t Au over 124.00 m, including 1.43 g/t Au over 10.00 m, and 1.45 g/t Au over 22.00 m

MGH23-458 intersected 0.87 g/t Au over 120.00 m, including 1.39 g/t Au over 24.65 m

MGH23-435 intersected 2.47 g/t Au over 20.00 m, including 5.25 g/t Au over 8.00 m, including 11.55 g/t Au over 2.00 m

Josef Vejvoda, Moneta's Chairman and interim President and Chief Executive Officer commented, "I am very pleased with the team's progress as we advance towards a pre-feasibility study. These most recent assay results continue to confirm the continuity of gold mineralization at the Tower Gold project, while the completed open pit geomechanical and hydrogeological testing, with the data currently being analysed, has the potential to increase resources by steepening the open-pit wall slope angle, presently designed at a conservative 46 degrees in the September 2022 PEA."

Drilling is being conducted on 50 m centres as step-outs and infill of previous drill holes. Additional assays from 2023 drilling are pending and will be released upon receipt of assays.

Figure 1: Tower Gold Project - General Location Map

Table 1: Windjammer Drill Intercepts (above 10 g/t x m Au)

Hole From To Length Au (gram metres) (#) (m) (m) (m) (g/t) (g/t x m) MGH23-430 101.45 130.60 29.15 1.27 37.2 includes 111.00 117.00 6.00 3.13 18.8 includes 116.00 117.00 1.00 9.98 10.0 MGH23-435 144.00 164.00 20.00 2.47 49.4 includes 146.00 154.00 8.00 5.25 42.0 includes 146.00 148.00 2.00 11.55 23.1 MGH23-435 206.00 226.00 20.00 0.60 12.0 includes 208.00 214.00 6.00 1.13 6.8 MGH23-437 87.00 106.00 19.00 1.31 25.0 includes 95.00 100.00 5.00 3.54 17.7 includes 95.00 96.90 1.90 6.48 12.3 MGH23-440 225.85 255.00 29.15 0.56 16.4 MGH23-441 63.00 187.00 124.00 0.91 112.6 includes 122.00 132.00 10.00 1.43 14.3 and 151.00 173.00 22.00 1.45 32.0 MGH23-443 207.30 242.80 35.50 0.59 21.0 includes 224.80 234.80 10.00 0.96 9.6 MGH23-443 266.80 286.40 19.60 1.07 21.0 includes 276.55 286.40 9.85 1.64 16.1 MGH23-446 141.00 149.00 8.00 2.66 21.3 includes 145.00 149.00 4.00 4.36 17.4 MGH23-450 68.00 159.00 91.00 0.62 56.8 MGH23-454 69.00 109.20 40.20 0.73 29.5 includes 93.00 100.50 7.50 1.69 12.7 MGH23-454 123.20 138.20 15.00 1.47 22.1 includes 136.20 138.20 2.00 5.45 10.9 MGH23-458 174.00 294.00 120.00 0.87 104.9 includes 258.35 283.00 24.65 1.39 34.4 MGH23-463 134.00 239.87 105.87 0.95 101.1 includes 220.50 234.65 14.15 2.20 31.1 MGH23-463 245.80 327.50 81.70 1.49 121.7 includes 257.00 275.00 18.00 2.90 52.2 MGH23-469 101.00 117.00 16.00 1.48 23.6 includes 109.00 115.24 6.24 3.30 20.6 includes 112.80 114.00 1.20 13.20 15.8 MGH23-473 124.00 166.00 42.00 0.52 21.7 MGH23-476 105.50 123.00 17.50 0.64 11.2 MGH23-479 102.00 119.00 17.00 0.61 10.3 MGH23-480 89.00 98.50 9.50 1.10 10.4 includes 91.00 93.00 2.00 3.62 7.2 MGH23-482 117.00 129.00 12.00 1.22 14.6 MGH23-482 213.00 242.75 29.75 1.14 34.0 includes 219.00 229.00 10.00 1.89 18.9 MGH23-482 248.00 253.60 5.60 5.45 30.5 includes 248.00 251.00 3.00 9.46 28.4 MGH23-485 110.00 115.00 5.00 2.27 11.3

Note: All intercepts are calculated using a 0.30 g/t Au cut-off, a maximum of 5m internal dilution and no top cap applied. Drill intercepts are not true widths, are reported as drill widths, and are estimated to be 75% to 95% of true width.

Discussion of Drill Results

The Windjammer South deposit currently hosts an open pit indicated resource of 42.05 million tonnes ("Mt") @ 0.78 g/t Au containing 1.06 Moz gold and an inferred resource of 34.46 Mt @ 0.97 g/t Au containing 1.07 Moz gold (see September 07, 2022 press release). The drill holes in this release focused on infill and extensions of the mineral resource within the current open pit PEA mine shells from surface to vertical depths of up to 300 m below surface. Mineralization at Windjammer South is associated with extensional and stockwork-type quartz veining within Timiskaming age meta-sediments, located between 2 major splays of the Destor-Porcupine Fault Zone ("DPFZ") in the Golden Highway area of the Project.

Windjammer

The drill results in section A-B targeted the continuity and extensions of mineralization along the southern boundary of the banded iron formations separating Windjammer Central and Windjammer South. Drillholes MGH23-463, MGH23-458, and MGH23-441 confirmed continuity in the central area of the deposit, whereas mineralization extensions were constrained to the west as seen in drillhole MGH23-482.

The drill results in the southern region of Windjammer South (section C-D) confirmed continuity in the central area as seen in drill holes MGH23-430 and MGH23-435. While drill holes targeting extensions in the southern region of the deposit constrained mineralization, as seen in drill holes MGH23-485 and MGH23-469.

Seven (7) of twenty-five (25) drill holes did not intersect mineralization above 10 "g/t Au x m", however, gold mineralization was intersected above a 0.3 g/t Au economic cut-off in all of the holes.

Figure 2: Windjammer - Tower Gold: Infill Drill Location Map

Figure 3: Windjammer - Tower Gold: Infill Drilling Cross Section "A-B"

Note: Intercepts are shown and calculated using a 0.30 g/t Au cut-off, a maximum of 5m internal dilution and no top cap applied.

Figure 4: Windjammer - Tower Gold: Infill Drilling Cross Section "C-D"

Note: Intercepts are shown and calculated using a 0.30 g/t Au cut-off, a maximum of 5m internal dilution and no top cap applied.

Table 2: Tower Gold: Resource Infill Drill Hole Details

Target Hole Easting Northing Elevation Azimuth Inclination Depth (Name) (#) (mE) (mN) (masl) () () (m) Windjammer MGH23-429 572077.52 5370483.40 329.40 80.10 -57.12 285.00 Windjammer MGH23-430 572179.82 5370159.06 329.39 80.12 -56.07 198.00 Windjammer MGH23-434 572215.00 5370452.15 330.52 75.00 -57.92 261.00 Windjammer MGH23-435 572163.89 5370203.51 329.52 80.00 -57.20 237.00 Windjammer MGH23-437 572248.32 5370473.43 332.05 80.03 -51.12 237.00 Windjammer MGH23-440 572001.36 5370277.73 330.33 80.09 -55.98 255.00 Windjammer MGH23-441 572324.12 5370466.03 333.90 79.98 -57.08 246.00 Windjammer MGH23-443 572075.45 5370292.57 329.56 80.17 -57.03 396.00 Windjammer MGH23-446 572380.15 5370507.54 336.56 79.96 -56.03 185.00 Windjammer MGH23-450 572401.76 5370494.53 337.23 80.24 -56.20 177.00 Windjammer MGH23-454 572439.52 5370509.03 340.05 79.86 -55.99 162.00 Windjammer MGH23-455 572459.15 5370529.71 342.07 83.12 -56.16 141.00 Windjammer MGH23-456 572159.93 5370284.83 329.46 80.00 -56.98 291.00 Windjammer MGH23-458 572159.90 5370413.39 330.16 79.96 -58.01 321.00 Windjammer MGH23-463 572125.66 5370343.35 330.77 80.03 -57.04 345.00 Windjammer MGH23-469 572351.81 5370330.80 333.78 80.08 -56.06 189.00 Windjammer MGH23-470 572312.97 5370183.76 331.12 79.99 -56.01 141.00 Windjammer MGH23-472 572069.32 5370357.79 329.57 80.22 -55.92 150.00 Windjammer MGH23-473 572329.30 5370339.24 333.35 260.24 -56.94 168.00 Windjammer MGH23-475 572241.00 5370286.51 330.18 80.02 -57.10 249.00 Windjammer MGH23-476 572363.12 5370253.87 331.88 80.40 -56.18 174.00 Windjammer MGH23-479 572395.64 5370257.42 333.39 79.98 -55.04 159.00 Windjammer MGH23-480 572471.52 5370271.68 337.51 80.06 -56.73 129.00 Windjammer MGH23-482 571938.86 5370350.56 328.85 81.97 -57.02 288.00 Windjammer MGH23-485 571978.29 5370222.25 328.62 80.04 -56.19 150.00

Quality Control Procedures

NQ drill core is oriented and cut with half sent to ALS Laboratories Inc. (ALS) for drying and crushing to -2 mm, with a 1.00 kg split pulverized to -75 m (200#). ALS is an ISO 17025 accredited laboratory. A 50 g charge is Fire Assayed and analyzed using an AAS finish for Gold. Samples above 10.00 g/t Au are analyzed by Fire Assay with a gravimetric finish and selected samples with visible gold or high-grade mineralization are assayed by Metallic Screen Fire Assay on a 1.00 kg sample. Moneta inserts independent certified reference material and blanks with the samples and assays routine pulp repeats and coarse reject sample duplicates, as well as completing routine third-party check assays at Bureau Veritas Commodities Ltd.

Qualified Person

Jason Dankowski (APEGM #35155), Vice President Technical Services for Moneta, who is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this press release.

About Moneta Gold

Moneta is a Canadian-based gold exploration company whose primary focus is on advancing its 100% wholly owned Tower Gold project, located in the Timmins region of Northeastern Ontario, Canada's most prolific gold producing camp. The September 2022, PEA study outlined a combined open pit and underground mining and a 7.0 million tonne per annum conventional leach operation over a 24-year mine life, with 4.6 Moz of recovered gold, generating an after-tax NPV5% of $1,066M, IRR of 31.7%, and a 2.6-year payback at a gold price US$1,600/oz. Tower Gold hosts an estimated gold mineral resource of 4.5 Moz indicated and 8.3 Moz inferred. Moneta is committed to creating shareholder value through the strategic allocation of capital and a focus on the current resource upgrade drilling program, while conducting all business activities in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Ardem Keshishian, VP Corporate Development & Investor Relations

416-471-5463

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Company's public documents may be accessed at www.sedarplus.com. For further information on the Company, please visit our website at www.monetagold.com or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Certain statements in this press release including certain information about Moneta's business outlook, objectives, strategies, plans, strategic priorities and results of operations, as well as other statements which are not current statements or historical facts, constitute "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. 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 (without limitation, statements regarding exploration programs, potential mineralization, future plans and objectives of the Company, updated to the mineral resources, and the timing and results thereof) are forward-looking statements. Sentences and phrases containing words such as "believe", "estimate", "anticipate", "plan", "will", "intend", "predict", "outlook", "goal", "target", "forecast", "project", "scheduled", "proposed", "expect", "potential", "strategy", and the negative of any of these words, or variations of them, or comparable terminology that does not relate strictly to current or historical facts, are all indicative of 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 inherent risks and uncertainties, and are based on several assumptions, both general and specific, which give rise to the possibility that actual results or events could differ materially from Moneta's expectations expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements and that Moneta's business outlook, objectives, plans and strategic priorities may not be achieved. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or events, and Moneta cautions you against relying on any of these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are provided in this press release for the purpose of assisting investors and others in understanding Moneta's objectives, strategic priorities and business outlook, and in obtaining a better understanding of Moneta's anticipated operating environment. Readers are cautioned that such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. Examples of forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to: information with respect to the future performance of the business, its operations and financial performance and condition; statements relating to Moneta's plans for the Project; the Company's drilling program and the timing and results thereof; the timing and scope and focus of the Company's pre-feasibility study ("PFS"); statements regarding the environmental impact assessment and community engagement activities; and the Company's financing initiatives.

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. Important risk factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, but are not limited to: uncertainties inherent in the business of mineral exploration and extraction; uncertainty with respect to the Company's liquidity and ability to secure additional financing; uncertainty of mineral resources; security threats to the Company's information technology systems; the current global financial condition; the market price of securities and substantial volatility in the market price of commodities; fluctuations of commodity prices; the Company's history of net losses; possible loss of interests in mineral properties; title risks; uncertainty relating to surface rights; environmental risks; risks associated with joint venture agreements; risks relating to statutory and regulatory requirements; uncertainty relating to the Company's competition with other gold exploration and development companies for materials and supplies; the Company's dependence on key management and employees; uncertainty arising from international conflict and other geopolitical tensions and events, including but to limited to Russia's invasion of Ukraine; uncertainty in respect of COVID-19 and any resurgence of same; uncertainty in respect of procuring licences and permits from various governmental authorities; the term and extension of concession contracts; uninsurable risks; obligations under option and joint venture agreements; uncertainty as to whether mergers and amalgamations will be completed successfully; the Company's relationships with the communities in which it operates; internal conflicts of interest; infrastructure risks; the Company's lack of a dividend policy; and the fact that the outstanding common shares of the Company could be subject to dilution. See also the risks disclosed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's AIF. Readers are cautioned that the risks referred to above are not the only ones that could affect Moneta. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to Moneta or that Moneta currently deems to be immaterial may also have a material adverse effect on Moneta's financial position, financial performance, cash flows, business or reputation.

Forward-looking statements made in this press release are based on a number of assumptions that Moneta believed were reasonable at the time it made each forward-looking statement. The assumptions, although considered reasonable by Moneta on the day it made the forward-looking statements, may prove to be inaccurate. Accordingly, our actual results could differ materially from our expectations. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. 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 guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.
Proceeds to fund the 2024 exploration program and Maiden Resource for La Romana Copper-Tin discovery in Spain

VANCOUVER, BC , Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - Pan Global Resources Inc. ("Pan Global" or the "Company") (TSXV: PGZ) (OTCQX: PGZFF) announces today that due to strong demand the previously announced non-brokered private placement financing has been increased from $2 million to $6 million. (All dollar amounts in this media release refer to Canadian dollars.)

"The exceptional support from key existing and new investors places us in a strong position to advance exploration and resource delineation at our flagship Escacena Project in Southern Spain. The proceeds from this financing are expected to fund the 2024 exploration program at the multi-target Escacena project and the La Romana Maiden Resource," said Tim Moody, Pan Global President and CEO. "Drilling continues at La Romana to test the western extension of the near-surface copper-tin mineralization, with additional drill results anticipated in the coming weeks."

The Company announced on October 4, 2023, that it had arranged a non-brokered private placement financing of up to 10,000,000 units (the "Units") of securities at a price of $0.20 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $2 million (the "Offering"). Following the upsizing, the Company will now be issuing up to 30,000,000 Units for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $6 million. Each Unit will be comprised of one (1) common share and one (1) non-transferable common share purchase warrant, with each whole warrant entitling the holder to purchase one additional common share at a price of $0.30 for a period of three (3) years from closing of the Offering, subject to acceleration of the expiry date of the term. The Offering is expected to close on or about October 31, 2023 and in all other respects, the terms of the Offering are as announced on October 4, 2023.

Completion of the Placement is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The securities issued pursuant to this private placement will be subject to a four-month hold period in Canada and will be subject to U.S. resale restrictions under U.S. securities laws.

The securities to be sold in the private placement have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended ("U.S. Securities Act"), or any state or other applicable jurisdiction's securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state or other jurisdictions' securities laws. This media release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any offer, solicitation, or sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About the Escacena Project

The Escacena Project comprises a large, contiguous, 5,760-hectare land package controlled 100% by Pan Global in the east of the Iberian Pyrite Belt. Escacena is located near operating mines at Las Cruces and Riotinto and is immediately adjacent to the former Aznalcollar and Los Frailes mines where Minera Los Frailes/Grupo Mexico is in the final permitting stage with construction anticipated to start in 2024. The Escacena Project hosts the La Romana copper-tin-silver discovery and a number of other prospective targets, including Canada Honda, Bravo, Barbacena, El Pozo, Romana Norte, San Pablo, Zarcita, Hornitos, La Jarosa, and Romana Deep.

About Pan Global Resources

Pan Global Resources Inc. is actively targeting copper-rich mineral deposits, given copper's compelling supply-demand fundamentals and outlook for strong long-term prices as a critical metal for global electrification and energy transition. The Company's flagship Escacena Project is located in the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt in southern Spain, where infrastructure, mining and professional expertise, and support for copper as a Strategic Raw Material by the European Commission collectively define a tier-one jurisdiction for mining investment. The Pan Global team comprises proven talent in exploration, development, and mine operations - all of which are committed to operating safely and with utmost respect for the environment and our partnered communities.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

www.panglobalresources.com

Forward-looking statements

Statements which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. It is important to note that actual outcomes and the Company's actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information included in this media release are reasonable but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, economic, competitive, governmental, environmental, and technological factors that may affect the Company's operations, markets, products, and prices. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include the ability to complete the private placement, receipt of regulatory approvals and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis of its audited financial statements filed with the British Columbia Securities Commission. Copies of the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis of its audited financial statements may be obtained at no charge by visiting our Investors website at www.panglobalresources.com or at www.sedar.com.

The forward-looking information contained in this media release is based on information available to the Company as of the date of this media release. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update this forward-looking information.

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.
ECC gets big boost from federal, state grants for student support

SUNY Erie Community College made a big effort to go after state and federal grants this year, and it paid off with nearly $6 million in grants awarded for workforce development and student support initiatives.

Much of the credit goes to Kathy Callesto, ECCs associate vice provost of institutional research assessment, accreditation and planning, whose team worked hundreds of hours amassing data and making a case for ECC to win some competitive grants, ECC trustees said at a recent board meeting.

The grants include $2.2 million over five years from the U.S. Department of Educations Title III Strengthening Institutions Program, $1.67 million in state funding from Gov. Kathy Hochuls new SUNY Transformation Fund, $1 million in federal funding to support career and technical education programs, and $1.2 million from the New York Power Authority for a new ECC automotive technician program at Northland Workforce Training Center.

ECCs increased focus on student success is part of a two-year strategic plan to set the stage for its next president during and after a search thats expected to end with an appointment later this year.

In all, six grants support the plans goal of economic development and upward mobility for students by giving them a range of support services to ensure they stay in school and complete their degree programs.

Here's a rundown of the grants:

$2.2. million Title III grant  The federal grant provides about $450,000 a year for five years to schools for supporting low-income students and improving their retention and graduation rates.

ECC was approved for its Improving Students Ability to Start Here and Go Anywhere program, which will strengthen new student orientation, completion of gatekeeper English and math courses, mentoring and retention of first-time, full-time degree-seeking students.

Daemen University and Villa Maria College were also approved for the Title III grants this year to support programs for first-time students.

Its a very competitive grant, with about 100 pages of instruction to apply, Callesto said. Im excited that Daemen and Villa also received it as that will be a huge boost to the economy here. Only about 30 schools a year receive this grant, so the fact that we have three in our region is really impressive.

$1.67 million SUNY Transformation Grant  This grant comes out of the $75 million SUNY Transformation Fund that Hochul included in this year's state budget to improve student success, support innovation and help meet workforce needs.

The fund will bring a pilot program tested and proven at City University of New York schools to 25 SUNY campuses across the state, 13 community colleges and 12 four-year schools. Three of the 25 are in Western New York: ECC, Buffalo State University and University at Buffalo.

Each school will receive funding to support inaugural cohorts of 150 students each. Under the CUNY model begun in 2007, the students will be able to get tuition waivers, funding to offset transportation and textbook expenses, academic assistance, personalized advisement and career development activities, said SUNY Chancellor John King.

Callesto said the grant will allow ECC to implement the program over the next several years.

This program has shown to have an 85% retention rate for first-time, first-year college students who continue on the next year, she said, while ECCs retention rate is under 20% for those students.

$1.03 million Perkins V Grant  This money comes from the federal Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act to expand opportunities for youths and adults to follow career and technical education programs and earn credentials of value in the workforce. Callesto said ECC has received this grant previously, but this year it was increased from $60,000 to over $1 million thanks to refinements in our federal reports that identified more students with needs.

$1.17 million New York State Power Authority Grant  The Power Authority allocated this funding, which comes from the sale of unused hydropower from the Niagara Hydroelectric Power Plant, to expand ECCs successful auto tech training programs to Northland Workforce Training Center.

Automotive repair technicians are in high demand, and ECCs existing auto tech programs include partnerships with West Herr Automotive Group and Northtown Automotive Cos. that employ dozens of ECC students while they earn associate degrees in automotive technology. The grant will allow ECC to partner with Northland to install the equipment needed to launch an auto tech program there in fall 2024.

Two other SUNY grants will provide $150,000 for ECCs in-demand construction and building trades program and $36,500 to promote ECCs microcredentials programs.

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 BuffaloNews.com.

THE LATEST

Why UB physicians in training are struggling to negotiate a union contract

PUSH Buffalo is building a worker training center that focuses on green jobs.

M&T Bank's earnings topped analyst forecasts.

Some Milk-Bone workers are on strike.

A troubled Buffalo nursing home is a candidate for a program targeting the nation's poorest-performing facilities.

Affordable housing developers are collaborating on a $25 million revamp project of Playter Street.

Deadline to apply for pot licenses extended by two weeks, while enforcement of illegal sales expands.

The five 43North winners have high hopes for their time in Buffalo.

UB is getting a big donation to help build its new engineering building.

MacKenzie Scott is coming through for Neighborhood Health.

A developer wants tax breaks for a "luxury" apartment project in North Tonawanda.

Steve Case says cities need to step up their efforts to help startups.

A controversial Lockport plastics plant gets tax breaks from IDA.

The 43North semifinalists were focused on Buffalo.

What can Buffalo Sabres fans expect at the concession stand this season?

The developer of a big Amherst apartment complex wants more than $2.1 million in tax breaks.

The developer of a closed Buffalo nursing home says it needs tax breaks for the project to proceed.

The owner of the Buffalo Grand Hotel is facing a big fine from Ontario securities regulators.

A big apartment project on Transit Road is starting to open.

The fallout from the UAW strike is spreading to GM's plant in Lockport.

Robert E. Rich Jr. is the highest ranking local person on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans.

Spectrum is offering set top boxes to turn 'dumb' TVs into smart ones  for a price.

It won't cost nearly as much to turn up the thermostat this winter.

The state is making big changes to the struggling legal pot market.

The new Niagara County hospital opened last week.

ICYMI

Five reads from Buffalo Next:

1. As the United Auto Workers' strike against the Detroit Three automakers enters its second month, local autoworkers are waiting to see if they will be directed to walk out.

2. How Western New York colleges are adapting to a shrinking student population.

3. How Mighty Taco grew into a Buffalo food icon.

4. In 'tipping point,' Buffalo's tourism market emerges from Niagara Falls' shadow.

5. Kaleida wants to build a new hospital in Fredonia, but getting money for it has been difficult.

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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Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 18, 2023) - Baselode Energy Corp. (TSXV: FIND) (OTCQB: BSENF) ("Baselode" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the closing of its previously announced best efforts private placement for aggregate gross proceeds of C$10,000,018 (the "Brokered Offering"), which includes the full exercise of the Agent's Option. Under the Brokered Offering, the Company sold the following:

3,703,749 units of the Company (each, a " Unit ") at a price of C$0.405 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to C$1,500,018 from the sale of Units;

") at a price of C$0.405 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to C$1,500,018 from the sale of Units; 5,208,333 flow-through units of the Company (each, a " FT Unit ") at a price of C$0.48 per FT Unit for gross proceeds of C$2,500,000 from the sale of FT Units; and

") at a price of C$0.48 per FT Unit for gross proceeds of C$2,500,000 from the sale of FT Units; and 10,000,000 FT Units sold to charitable purchasers (each, a "Charity FT Unit", and together with the Units and FT Units, the "Offered Securities") at a price of C$0.60 per Charity FT Unit for gross proceeds of C$6,000,000 from the sale of Charity FT Units.

Red Cloud Securities Inc. acted as lead agent and sole bookrunner on behalf of a syndicate of agents that included Research Capital Corporation (collectively, the "Agents").

Concurrent with the closing of the Brokered Offering, the Company has completed a non-brokered private placement (the "Non-Brokered Offering", and together with the Brokered Offering, the "Offerings") for additional proceeds of C$665,368 from the sale of an additional 1,386,183 FT Units at a price of C$0.48 per FT Unit. Aggregate gross proceeds from the Offerings were C$10,665,386.

Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company (each, a "Unit Share") and one half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each FT Unit and Charity FT Unit consists of one common share of the Company to be issued as a "flow-through share" within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (each, a "FT Share") and one half of one Warrant. Each whole Warrant shall entitle the holder to purchase one common share of the Company (each, a "Warrant Share") at a price of C$0.60 at any time on or before October 18, 2025.

Proceeds from the sale of FT Shares will be used to incur "Canadian exploration expenses" as defined in subsection 66.1(6) of the Income Tax Act and "flow through mining expenditures" as defined in subsection 127(9) of the Income Tax Act. Such proceeds will be renounced to the subscribers with an effective date not later than December 31, 2023, in the aggregate amount of not less than the total amount of gross proceeds raised from the issue of FT Shares.

In accordance with National Instrument 45-106 - Prospectus Exemptions ("NI 45-106"), 3,333,332 Charity FT Units (the "LIFE Units") were sold to purchasers resident in Canada pursuant to the listed issuer financing exemption under Part 5A of NI 45-106 (the "Listed Issuer Financing Exemption"). The common shares of the Company issuable from these LIFE Units are immediately freely tradeable under applicable Canadian securities legislation. All Offered Securities excluding the LIFE Units were offered by way of the "accredited investor" and "minimum amount investment" exemptions under NI 45-106 in all of the provinces of Canada or on a private placement basis to purchasers resident outside of Canada. The common shares of the Company issuable from the sale of these Offered Securities are subject to a four-month restricted period ending on February 19, 2024.

In connection with the Brokered Offering, the Company paid to the Agents an aggregate cash commission of C$510,000, equal to 6.0% of the gross proceeds raised under the FT Units and Charity FT Units. The Company also issued to the Agents a total of 912,499 warrants of the Company (the "Broker Warrants"), equal to 6.0% of the number FT Units and Charity FT Units. Each Broker Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of C$0.405 at any time on or before October 18, 2025.

In connection with the Non-Brokered Offering, the Company paid a cash finder's fees of C$39,922 and issued 83,170 finder's warrants (the "Finder's Warrants"). Each Finder's Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of C$0.48 at any time on or before October 18, 2025.

The Company intends to use the proceeds raised from the Offerings for exploration of the Company's projects in the Athabasca Basin and for general working capital purposes.

About Baselode Energy Corp.

Baselode controls 100% of approximately 264,172 hectares for exploration in the Athabasca Basin area, northern Saskatchewan, Canada. The land package is free of any option agreements or underlying royalties.

The Company discovered the ACKIO near-surface, high-grade uranium deposit in September 2021. ACKIO measures greater than 375 m along strike, greater than 150 m wide, comprised of at least 11 separate zones, with mineralization starting as shallow as 28 m beneath the surface and down to approximately 300 m depth beneath the surface with the bulk of mineralization occurring in the upper 120 m. ACKIO remains open to the west, north, south, and along the Athabasca sandstone unconformity to the east and south.

Baselode's Athabasca 2.0 exploration thesis focuses on discovering near-surface, basement-hosted, high-grade uranium orebodies outside the Athabasca Basin. The exploration thesis is further complemented by the Company's preferred use of innovative and well-understood geophysical methods to map deep structural controls to identify shallow targets for diamond drilling.

Baselode Energy Corp.

FIND on the TSXV

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.baselode.com

James Sykes, CEO, President and Director

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

306-221-8717

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the TSX Venture Exchange policies) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release contains certain forward-looking information. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking information and such information involves various risks and uncertainties. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking information in relation to: the Offering, the potential use of proceeds of the Offerings, including potential exploration and development of the Company's properties and potential future acquisitions. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. This forward-looking information reflects Baselode's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to Baselode and on assumptions Baselode believes are reasonable. These assumptions include, but are not limited to: the current share price of Baselode's common shares; TSX Venture Exchange acceptance and market acceptance of the Offering; Baselode's current and initial understanding and analysis of its projects; Baselode's general and administrative costs remaining constant; market acceptance of Baselode's business model, goals and approach; and the feasibility and reasonableness of conducting exploration on and developing any of Baselode's projects. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Baselode to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors may include, but are not limited to: there is no certainty that the ongoing work programs will result in significant or successful exploration and development of Baselode's properties; uncertainty as to the actual results of exploration and development or operational activities; uncertainty as to the availability and terms of future financing on acceptable terms; uncertainty as to timely availability of permits and other governmental approvals; general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; capital market conditions and market prices for securities, junior market securities and mining exploration company securities; commodity prices; the actual results of current exploration and development or operational activities; competition; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; accidents and other risks inherent in the mining industry; lack of insurance; delay or failure to receive board or regulatory approvals; changes in legislation, including environmental legislation or income tax legislation, affecting Baselode; conclusions of economic evaluations; and lack of qualified, skilled labour or loss of key individuals. A description of additional risk factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking information can be found in Baselode's disclosure documents on the SEDAR website at www.sedarplus.ca. Although Baselode 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. Baselode does not undertake to update any forward-looking information except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws, unless an exemption from such registration is available.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 18, 2023 / Core Assets Corp., ("Core Assets" or the "Company") (CSE:CC)(FSE:5RJ)(OTCQB:CCOOF) is pleased to announce that it intends to undertake a non-brokered private placement of securities (the "Offering") to raise aggregate gross proceeds of up to $3,000,000.

"We have proven the vast scale and high grades of silver, zinc, lead and copper that the Silver Lime CRD-Skarn-Porphyry system can produce." said CEO Nick Rodway. "Crescat has been incredibly supportive of the project and team from the start. We are thrilled to have them continue to back us with this vote of confidence as we continue to have success with the drill bit."

The Offering will consist of up to 8,333,334 units (each, a "Unit") at a price of $0.12 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $1,000,000 and up to 14,285,715 flow-through units (each, a "FT Unit") at a price of $0.14 per FT Unit for gross proceeds of up to $2,000,000.

Each Unit will be comprised of one common share (each, a "Share") in the capital of the Company and one half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant shall entitle the holder to acquire one common share in the capital of the Company (each, a "Warrant Share") at a price of $0.22 per Warrant Share for a period of two (2) years from the date of issuance of the Warrants. Each FT Unit shall be comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company to be issued as a "flow-through share" within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (each, a "FT Share") and one half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "FT Warrant") issued on a non-flow-through basis. Each FT Warrant shall entitle the holder to acquire one common share in the capital of the Company (each, a "FT Warrant Share"), issued on a non-flow-through basis, at a price of $0.22 per FT Warrant Share for a period of two (2) years from the date of issuance of the FT Warrants.

All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be issued pursuant to one or more prospectus exemptions available to the Company, and will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day from the date of issuance as required under applicable securities laws. The Offering is expected to close on or about November 15, 2023, or such other earlier or later date as may be determined by the Company. Closing of the Offering will be subject to customary closing conditions including applicable CSE approval.

The Company intends to use the proceeds from the sale of Units for general working capital and exploration expenses. The gross proceeds from the sale of the FT Units will be used by the Company to incur eligible "Canadian exploration expenses" that will qualify as "flow-through mining expenditures" as such terms are defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Qualifying Expenditures") related to the Company's Blue Property located in British Columbia, Canada on or before December 31, 2024. All Qualifying Expenditures will be renounced in favour of the subscribers effective December 31, 2023.

None of the securities sold in connection with the Offering will be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and no such securities may be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

The company may pay finder's fees in connection with the offering in accordance with the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange. Red Cloud Securities Inc. will be acting as one of the finders in connection with the offering.

About Core Assets Corp.

Core Assets Corp. is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of mineral projects in British Columbia, Canada. The Company currently holds 100% ownership in the Blue Property, which covers a land area of111,747.96 ha (~1,117 km). The Blue Property lies within the Atlin Mining District, a well-known gold mining camp located in the unceded territory of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation and the Carcross/Tagish First Nation. The Blue Property hosts a major structural feature known as The Llewellyn Fault Zone ("LFZ"). This structure is approximately 140km in length and runs from the Tally-Ho Shear Zone in the Yukon, south through the Blue Property to the Alaskan Panhandle Juneau Ice Sheet in the United States. Core Assets believes that the south Atlin Lake area and the LFZ has been neglected since the last major exploration campaigns in the 1980's. The LFZ plays an important role in mineralization of near surface metal occurrences across the Blue Property. The past 50 years have seen substantial advancements in the understanding of porphyry, skarn, and carbonate replacement type deposits both globally and in BC's Golden Triangle. The Company has leveraged this information at the Blue Property to tailor an already proven exploration model and believes this could facilitate a major discovery. Core Assets is excited to become one of Atlin Mining District's premier explorers where its team believes there are substantial opportunities for new discoveries and development in the area.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

CORE ASSETS CORP.

"Nicholas Rodway"

President & CEO

Tel: 604.681.1568

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements in this document which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. Forward looking statements in this news release include statements regarding the Offering, the use of proceeds of the Offering, the anticipated closing date of the Offering, the expectation that the Company will incur "Canadian exploration expenses" that will qualify as "flow-through mining expenditures" and renounce all Qualifying Expenditures; , that the Company's exploration model could facilitate a major discovery at the Blue Property; that the Company anticipates it can become one of the Atlin Mining District's premier explorers and that there are substantial opportunities for new discoveries and development in this area. It is important to note that the Company's actual business outcomes and exploration results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties include that the Company may not complete the Offering on the terms set out herein, or at all; that the Company may not receive regulatory approval for the Offering, that the Company may be unable to incur the Qualifying Expenditures that the Company's exploration model may fail to facilitate any commercial discovery of minerals at the Blue Property; that the Company may not become one of Atlin Mining District's premier explorers or that the area may be found to lack opportunities for new discoveries and development, as anticipated; that further permits may not be granted in a timely manner, or at all; that the mineral claims may prove to be unworthy of further expenditure; there may not be an economic mineral resource; that certain exploration methods, including the Company's proposed exploration model for the Blue Property, may be ineffective or inadequate in the circumstances; that economic, competitive, governmental, geopolitical, environmental and technological factors may affect the Company's operations, markets, products and prices; our specific plans and timing drilling, field work and other plans may change; we may not have access to or be able to develop any minerals because of cost factors, type of terrain, or availability of equipment and technology; and we may also not raise sufficient funds to carry out or complete our plans. 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 the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Except as required by law, the Company will not update or revise these forward-looking statements after the date of this document or to revise them to reflect the occurrence of future unanticipated events.
Perth, Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 18, 2023) - Golden Horse Minerals Limited (TSXV: GHML) ("Golden Horse" or the "Company") wishes to advise that the Company has further bolstered its board of directors (the "Board") with the appointment of highly experienced Director and Executive, Mr. Paul Andre Huet to the position of Non-Executive Director effective October 18, 2023.

Mr. Huet embarked on his mining career over 35 years ago and throughout that time has built a reputation in developing world class mining companies. In his current role as Executive Chairman and CEO of Karora Resources, a TSX listed gold company (TSX: KRR), he oversaw a 10-fold growth in market cap, to over A$1 billion within a three-and-a-half-year period (current market cap of ~A$860 million). Mr. Huet is an expert in corporate and operational affairs and has a strong understanding of capital markets.

Mr. Huet's previous roles include President, CEO and Director of North American gold miner Klondex Mines from 2012-2018 until its acquisition by Hecla Mining Company (NYSE: HL), Chief Operating Officer of Premier Gold Mines Limited, General Manager at the Hollister mine (while owned by Great Basin Gold) and Mine Manager at the Midas Mine (while owned by Newmont and Franco-Nevada). Mr. Huet earned an Honors degree in Mining Engineering Technology from the Haileybury School of Mines in Ontario, and an Executive MBA from the Stanford University School of Business and has served on several non-profit and publicly traded company corporate boards.

Commenting on the appointment, Golden Horse Chairman and Interim CEO Graeme Sloan said:

"Paul brings to Golden Horse an extensive portfolio of corporate, operational and capital markets expertise, acquired from many years of professional work in the gold industry. His background is marked by a successful track record of developing gold deposits and efficiently steering projects into full production. Paul's strong global network will provide valuable assistance in the growth of the Company and will be a huge windfall for Golden Horse shareholders.

Paul's appointment comes at an important period in the Company's re-structure and growth, especially with the Company's plans for a TSXV and ASX dual listing later this year, early next year. Paul's appointment along with the recently announced appointment of Jonathan Lea as a Non-Executive Director, adds incredible depth to the Golden Horse Board. I look forward to working with Paul, Jonathan and the other Board members as we continue to fast track our exploration and development activities in the highly prospective Southern Cross region of Western Australia.

On behalf of the Board and shareholders, I would like to welcome Paul to the Golden Horse team."

On behalf of Golden Horse Minerals Limited

For more information contact:

Graeme Sloan

Director / Interim CEO

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

+61 9322 1788

Josh Conner

Chief Operating Officer

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+61 9322 1788

Media

David Tasker

Chapter One Advisors

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+61 433 112 936

Investors

Adam Davey

Canaccord Genuity Financial Limited

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+61 8 9225 2811

Mason Brown

Canaccord Genuity Financial Limited

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+61 8 9225 2862

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information

This release contains "forwardlooking information" or "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws, which may include, but are not limited to statements relating to the Company's planned dual listing on the ASX and the Company's exploration and development opportunities. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ from those in the forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to exploration and development, the ability of the Company to obtain additional financing, the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations, fluctuations in the prices of gold and other commodities, operating hazards and risks inherent in the resource industry, competition and other risks and uncertainties, including those described in the Company's financial statements and/or management discussion and analysis available on www.sedarplus.ca. The Company does not undertake to update forwardlooking statements or forward-looking information, except as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Labrador Gold Corp. (TSX.V:LAB | OTCQX:NKOSF | FNR: 2N6) (LabGold or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has received all permits required for drilling two target areas along the prospective Appleton Fault Zone at its 100% owned Kingsway Project.

LabGold has received permits to drill The Gap, located between Big Vein and Pristine and the area between Big Vein and the southern property boundary (Kingsway South).

The Gap extends approximately 700 metres along the Appleton Fault Zone between Big Vein and Pristine, two occurrences where LabGold discovered high grade near surface gold. Both occurrences remain open to the northeast and southwest and the aim of drilling The Gap is to extend Pristine to the Southwest and Big Vein to the northeast and possibly connect the two. Should this be achieved, the total strike length would be approximately 1.7 kilometres. Drilling from Big Vein will step out along the Black Shale North Fault, a NNE trending splay off the Appleton Fault, that is associated with gold at Big Vein. Likewise, drilling from Pristine will step out to the southwest along the Disco Fault.

The Kingsway South area includes the recently discovered Knobby occurrence, located 1.1 kilometres southwest of Big Vein, and from which grab samples returned gold values from below detection (<5ppb) to 30.58 g/t including samples grading 2.7g/t and 29.19 g/t Au (See news release dated August 14, 2023). Knobby consists of three parallel quartz veins that have been traced along strike for approximately 200 metres. Stibnite mineralization was observed in the quartz veins.

We have been waiting to drill targets at The Gap and Kingsway South along the Appleton Fault Zone and are pleased to have the permits in place to be able to do so. Knobby is a priority target since the east-west strike crosscuts the regional northeast trend like structures known to host high-grade gold in quartz veins elsewhere in the district. This trend differs from those at Big Vein, Pristine and Dropkick which are closer to the stratigraphic trend and represents a new target at Kingsway, one that we are excited to begin testing, said Roger Moss, President and CEO of LabGold.

Figure 1. LabGold discoveries along the Appleton Fault Zone.

Figure 2. Plan map of The Gap with structure and geochemical anomalies.

Abbreviations: AFZ Appleton Fault Zone; BSNF Black Shale North Fault; DF Disco Fault

Figure 3. Geochemical anomalies along the Appleton Fault Zone at Kingsway South.

Qualified Person

Roger Moss, PhD., P.Geo., President and CEO of LabGold, a Qualified Person in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements as set out in NI 43-101, has read and approved the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for the disclosure contained in this release.

The Company gratefully acknowledges the Newfoundland and Labrador Ministry of Natural Resources Junior Exploration Assistance (JEA) Program for its financial support for exploration of the Kingsway property.

About Labrador Gold

Labrador Gold is a Canadian based mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and exploration of prospective gold projects in Eastern Canada.

Labrador Golds flagship property is the 100% owned Kingsway project in the Gander area of Newfoundland. The three licenses comprising the Kingsway project cover approximately 12km of the Appleton Fault Zone which is associated with numerous gold occurrences in the region. Infrastructure in the area is excellent located just 18km from the town of Gander with road access to the project, nearby electricity and abundant local water. LabGold is drilling a projected 100,000 metres targeting high-grade epizonal gold mineralization along the Appleton Fault Zone with encouraging results. The Company has approximately $10 million in working capital and is well funded to carry out the planned program.

The Hopedale property covers much of the Florence Lake greenstone belt that stretches over 60 km. The belt is typical of greenstone belts around the world but has been underexplored by comparison. Work to date by Labrador Gold show gold anomalies in rocks, soils and lake sediments over a 3 kilometre section of the northern portion of the Florence Lake greenstone belt in the vicinity of the known Thurber Dog gold showing where grab samples assayed up to 7.8g/t gold. In addition, anomalous gold in soil and lake sediment samples occur over approximately 40 km along the southern section of the greenstone belt. Labrador Gold now controls approximately 40km strike length of the Florence Lake Greenstone Belt.

The Company has 170,009,979 common shares issued and outstanding and trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol LAB.

For more information please contact:

Roger Moss, President and CEO Tel: 416-704-8291

Or visit our website at: www.labradorgold.com

Twitter: @LabGoldCorp

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.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. When used in this document, the words may, would, could, will, intend, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, expect and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause our actual results to differ materially from the statements made, including those factors discussed in filings made by us with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Should one or more of these risks and uncertainties, such as actual results of current exploration programs, the general risks associated with the mining industry, the price of gold and other metals, currency and interest rate fluctuations, increased competition and general economic and market factors, occur or should assumptions underlying the forward looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, or expected. We do not intend and do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Shareholders are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Excellon Resources Inc. (TSX: EXN) (OTCQB: EXNRF) (FSE: E4X2) ("Excellon" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to its news release dated August 30, 2023, Excellon Idaho Gold Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Excellon, has closed the sale of Excellon's minority interest in the Oakley Project ("Oakley") to Centerra (U.S.) Inc. ("Centerra") for US$1 million in cash.

Shawn Howarth, President and CEO of Excellon, commented, "Securing this funding demonstrates a successful exit from a non-core asset and allows Excellon to advance on key strategic priorities including restructuring the balance sheet and the development of its core asset portfolio."

Immediately prior to the execution of the purchase agreement, Centerra had earned into a 70% interest in Oakley by spending US$7 million in exploration expenditures since 2020. As per the terms of the earn-in agreement with Centerra, Excellon would be required to fund future expenditures on a 70%/30% pro rata basis. If Excellon chose to waive its pro rata expenditures, the Company would be diluted to an effective 2% net smelter returns royalty on Oakley.

About Excellon

Excellon's vision is to realize opportunities through the acquisition of advanced development or producing assets with further potential to gain from an experienced management team for the benefit of our employees, communities and shareholders. The Company is advancing a portfolio of silver, base metals and precious metals assets including Kilgore, an advanced gold exploration project in Idaho; and Silver City, a high-grade epithermal silver district in Saxony, Germany with 750 years of mining history and no modern exploration.

Additional details on Excellon's properties are available at www.excellonresources.com.

For Further Information, Please Contact:

Excellon Resources Inc.

Shawn Howarth, President & Chief Executive Officer

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

All statements, other than statements of historical fact, contained, referenced or incorporated by reference in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" and "forward looking information" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as: "actively", "advance", "anticipated", "assess", "believe", "cause", "commence", "completion", "conditions", "consideration", "continues", "development", "due course", "expectation", "exploration", "extend", "extension", "flexibility", "focused", "forbearance", "forward", "further", "future", "if", "implement", "liquidity", "looking", "maturity", "may", "negotiations", "occur", "opportunities", "options", "outcome", "outstanding", "potential", "providing", "reach", "restructuring", "risk", "subject to", "to be", "update", "vision", "waive", "when", "will", and "would", or variations of such words, and similar such words, expressions or statements that certain actions, events or results can, could, may, should, to, will, would (or not) be achieved, occur, provide, result, complete or support in the future or which, by their nature, refer to future events. In some cases, forward-looking information may be stated in the present tense, such as in respect of current matters that may be continuing, or that may have a future impact or effect. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the ability to advance on strategic priorities such as restructuring the balance sheet; and Excellon's vision and development of its core asset portfolio; and any updates to the market regarding any of the foregoing. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct, and any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future actions, results or performance. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, estimates, expectations and opinions, which are considered reasonable and represent best judgment based on available facts, as of the date such statements are made. If such assumptions, estimates, expectations and opinions prove to be incorrect, actual and future results may be materially different than expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors which may cause the actual results or performance of the Company to be materially different from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors include, among others, the inability of the Company to restructure the balance sheet, the "Risk Factors" in the Company's annual information form dated March 31, 2023 (the "2023 AIF"), and the risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors identified in this news release, the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis, and accompanying financial statements, for the year ended December 31, 2022 and quarters already ended in 2023, and the Company's other applicable public disclosure (collectively, "Company Disclosure"). The foregoing list of risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors is not exhaustive; readers should consult the more complete discussion of the Company's business, financial condition and prospects that is provided in the 2023 AIF and the other Company Disclosure. The forward-looking statements referenced or contained in this news release are expressly qualified by these Cautionary Statements as well as the Cautionary Statements in the other Company Disclosure. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release (or as otherwise expressly specified) and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 19, 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 definitive agreement with Nolan Holdings, Inc. (the Seller) to acquire a 100% interest in 175 federal unpatented uranium mining claims (Claims), located in San Juan and Grand Counties in Utah.

Corey Dias, Anfields CEO commented: We are pleased to acquire these uranium claims as we believe that they are complementary to our existing portfolio holdings in Utah. They are in close proximity to Anfield Energys Shootaring Canyon mill, which makes them ideally suited for future exploration and production. When combined with a favorable regulatory environment and low transportation costs, these claims are an ideal addition to Anfields portfolio.

We will continue to seek out prospective assets which fit into our two-fold strategy of acquiring both near term and longer-term uranium and vanadium assets which will fit into our overall production plan. The near-term strategy centers on our advanced Utah and Colorado uranium and vanadium projects  Velvet Wood, West Slope and Slick Rock  underpinned by our wholly-owned Shootaring Canyon mill, one of only 3 licensed conventional mills in the U.S. The longer-term production strategy includes the acquisition of complementary assets with potential to feed additional uranium and vanadium resource to our Shootaring Canyon mill. We believe that these claims will both complement our existing portfolio of assets and serve as part of our longer-term uranium production strategy.

As consideration for the Claims and associated data, the Seller will receive US$85,000 in cash and 15,000,000 common shares (the Consideration Shares) of Anfield. Completion of the acquisition of the Claims, and the issuance of the Consideration Shares, remains subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. Following issuance, the Consideration Shares will be subject to statutory restrictions on resale for a period of four-months-and-one-day. No finders fees or commissions are owing by the Company in connection with the acquisition of the Claims.

Qualified Persons

Douglas L. Beahm, P.E., P.G., principal engineer at BRS Inc., is a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release.

About San Juan County, Utah

Use of uranium ore in southeastern Utah has a long and well documented history going back centuries to its use by Native Americans as pigment. In the early 1900s there was some localized vanadium mining that resulted in the identification of large amounts of uranium and vanadium bearing ore. In the late 1940s the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission funded an expansive exploration program. This funding fueled substantial production from approximately 1948 through the mid 1960s. During that time tens of thousands of tons of ore were mined in San Juan County. The average grade over the entire period of production was approximately 0.3% uranium and 0.65% vanadium. While mining ultimately slowed due to economic factors, the abundance of uranium and vanadium in the area remains unchanged.

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 Frank M Uranium Project, the West Slope Project, as well as the Findlay Tank breccia pipe. A NI 43-101 PEA has been completed for the Velvet-Wood Project. 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.

Technical Disclosure

Table 1. Anfields existing conventional uranium-vanadium project portfolio resources.

Project Location Classification Tons (kt) Uranium

Grade

(% U 3 O 8 ) Contained

Uranium

(Mlbs U 3 O 8 ) Vanadium

Grade

(% V 2 O 5 ) Contained

Vanadium

(Mlbs V 2 O 5 ) Velvet-Wood Utah M & I 811 0.29 % 4.6 - - Inferred 87 0.32 % 0.6 0.404 % 7.3 West Slope Colorado Indicated 1,367 0.197 % 5.4 - - Inferred 1,367 - - 0.984 % 26.9 Historic* 630 0.31 % 3.9 1.59 % 20.0 Slick Rock Colorado Inferred 1,760 0.224 % 7.9 1.35 % 47.1 Frank M Utah Historic* 1,137 0.101 % 2.3 - - Findlay Tank Arizona Historic* 211 0.226 % 1.0 - - Date Creek/Artillery Peak Arizona Historic* 2,602 0.054 % 2.8 Marquez-Juan Tafoya New Mexico Historic* 7,100 0.127 % 18.1

* The Companys Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to classify these historic estimates as current mineral resources and Anfield is not treating such historical resources as current mineral resources.

Velvet-Wood: The PEA for Velvet-Wood/Slick Rock was authored by Douglas L. Beahm, P.E., P.G. Principal Engineer, of BRS Inc., Harold H. Hutson, P.E., P.G., Carl D. Warren, P.E., P.G., and Terence P. (Terry) McNulty, P.E., D. Sc., of T.P. McNulty and Associates Inc. (May 6, 2023). Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability in accordance with CIM standards. GT cut-off varies by locality from 0.25%-0.50%.

West Slope: NI 43-101 resource estimate for the JD-6, JD-7, JD-8 and JD-9 properties, completed by BRS Inc. (effective March 2022); Historic resource estimate for the SR-11, SR-13A, SM-18 N, SM-18 S, LP-21 and CM-25 properties, completed by Behre Dolbear for Cotter Corporation (August 2007). Indicated and Inferred resources using GT cut-off of 0.1 ft% eU 3 O 8 ; historic resources using cut-off of 0.05% U 3 O 8 .

Slick Rock: The PEA for Velvet-Wood/Slick Rock was authored by Douglas L. Beahm, P.E., P.G. Principal Engineer, of BRS Inc., Harold H. Hutson, P.E., P.G., Carl D. Warren, P.E., P.G., and Terence P. (Terry) McNulty, P.E., D. Sc., of T.P. McNulty and Associates Inc. (May 6, 2023). Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability in accordance with CIM standards. GT cut-off varies by locality from 0.25%-0.50%.

Frank M: Historic Technical Report for Frank M, prepared for Uranium One Americas, was authored by Douglas L. Beahm, P.E., P.G. Principal Engineer of BRS Inc., and Andrew C. Anderson, P.E., P.G. Senior Engineer/Geologist of BRS Inc., dated June 10, 2008. Frank M historic resource used a GT cut-off of 0.25%.

Findlay Tank: Historic Technical Report for Findlay Tank, prepared for Uranium One Americas, was authored by Douglas L. Beahm, P.E., P.G. Principal Engineer of BRS Inc., dated October 2, 2008. Findlay Tank historic resource used a grade cut-off of 0.05% eU 3 O 8 .

Artillery Peak: Artillery Peak Exploration Project, Mohave County, Arizona, 43-101 Technical Report, authored by Dr. Karen Wenrich, October 12, 2010. GT cut-off varies by locality from 0.01%-0.05%.

Marquez-Juan Tafoya: The Historical Technical Report, Preliminary Economic Assessment, for Marquez-Juan Tafoya, prepared for Uranium Energy Corporation, was authored by Douglas L. Beahm, P.E., P.G., Principal Engineer of BRS Inc., and Terence P. McNulty, P.E., PhD, McNulty & Associates, dated June 9, 2021. The mineral resources are reported at a 0.60 GT cut-off..

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 THE 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, 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 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.

THIS NEWS RELEASE HAS BEEN PREPARED BY MANAGEMENT OF THE COMPANY WHO TAKES FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS CONTENTS.
A strike on a Gaza hospital compound which health officials there said killed at least 471 people, has provoked outrage and condemnation from around the world, with protests on the streets of Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which runs the territory, accused Israel of being behind the explosion. The Israeli army blamed it on a misfired rocket attack by Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, which has described the accusations as "lies".

Here are some of the major reactions:

- UN -

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "horrified by the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in a strike on a hospital in Gaza".

Guterres "strongly condemned" the strike but without attributing responsibility.

- African Union -

The African Union chief Moussa Faki Mahamat accused Israel of a "war crime" following the deadly strike.

"There are no words to fully express our condemnation of Israel's bombing of a #Gaza hospital today, killing hundreds of people," Faki said on X, formerly Twitter.

- Arab League -

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said "the West must stop this tragedy immediately".

"Our Arab mechanisms document war crimes, and their perpetrators will not be able to escape justice," he warned. The organisation's flags have been lowered for three days.

- Brazil -

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called the strike an "unjustifiable tragedy" without attributing blame.

Lula, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, reiterated his appeal for urgent international action to protect children and civilians in the Israel-Gaza war, in a message posted on X.

- China -

China's foreign ministry said it is "shocked by and strongly condemns" the strike, calling for an "immediate ceasefire".

- Egypt -

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi condemned in the strongest terms "the Israeli bombing" of the Ahli hospital, which led to "the deaths of hundreds of innocent victims" among the Palestinians in Gaza.

He called the "deliberate bombing" a "clear violation of international law".

- EU -

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers "there is no excuse for hitting a hospital full of civilians" and that "facts need to be established" and "all those responsible must be held accountable".

- France -

French President Emmanuel Macron said "nothing can justify targeting civilians" and that "humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip must be opened without delay".

- Germany -

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was "horrified" by the strike and wrote on X that "a thorough investigation of the incident is imperative".

- Hezbollah -

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, an ally of Hamas, called for a "day of rage" to condemn the strike, blaming Israel for what it called a "massacre".

- ICRC -

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) condemned the strike, saying "hospitals should be sanctuaries to preserve human life, not scenes of death and destruction".

- Indonesia -

Indonesia said the strike "clearly violates international humanitarian law".

"Indonesia also urges the international community, especially the UN Security Council, to immediately take concrete steps to stop attacks and acts of violence in Gaza," the foreign ministry said.

- Iran -

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi declared a day of "public mourning" on Wednesday and said the strike at the hospital would turn against Israel and its US ally.

"The flames of the US-Israeli bombs, dropped this evening on the Palestinian victims injured at the... hospital in Gaza, will soon consume the Zionists," Raisi said, according to the IRNA agency.

- Iraq -

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani called in a statement for an "immediate and urgent resolution" from the UN Security Council to put an end to the "aggression".

The government has declared three days of mourning for the victims.

- Jordan -

Israel bears "responsibility for this grave incident," a Jordanian foreign ministry statement said, "strongly condemning" the strike.

Amman subsequently announced the cancellation of a summit on brokering peace in the region due to the involvement of US President Joe Biden, who postponed his trip to Amman in response.

- MSF -

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was "horrified by the recent bombing of the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City, which was treating patients and hosting displaced Gazans".

- The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation -

The 57-member bloc of Muslim-majority countries blamed Israel for the rocket strike and denounced Israel's backers for granting the country "impunity" in its war in Gaza.

- Qatar -

Qatar's foreign ministry called the strike "a brutal massacre" and "a heinous crime against defenceless civilians".

In a statement, the Gulf state called the explosion a "blatant violation of the provisions of international law" and a "dangerous escalation in the course of the confrontations".

- Russia -

President Vladimir Putin said the strike was a "tragedy" and showed the need to bring the conflict between Israel and Hamas to an end.

- Saudi Arabia -

Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia condemned the strike as "a flagrant violation of all international laws and norms", denouncing Israel's "continuous attacks against civilians".

- Spain -

Spain's foreign ministry condemned "the terrible massacre... All our solidarity with the innocent civilian victims."

- South Africa -

South Africa said there were "no words to fully express" its condemnation of "Israel's bombing" of the hospital, describing it as a war crime and "the most blatant violation" of international humanitarian law.

Accusing Israel of waging a "genocidal campaign against the Palestinians", the country's foreign ministry called for an immediate ceasefire.

- Turkey -

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the strike as "the latest example of Israeli attacks devoid of the most basic human values".

"I invite all humanity to take action to stop this unprecedented brutality in Gaza," Erdogan wrote on X.

Dozens of people, including police officers, were injured during anti-Israel protests in Istanbul. Turkey will declare three days' mourning, an official said.

- United Arab Emirates -

The United Arab Emirates, which established ties with Israel in the Abraham Accords of 2020, condemned the "Israeli" attack.

- United States -

President Biden said he was "outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion" and "the terrible loss of life that resulted".

He said "data" from the US defence department shows Israel is not behind the strike.

- WHO -

The chief of the World Health Organization warned that "The situation in #Gaza is spiralling out of control".

"We need violence on all sides to stop," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X. "Every second we wait to get medical aid in, we lose lives."

"We call... at a minimum to stop any attacks on healthcare facilities," the head of the WHO's European branch, Hans Kluge, told AFP in an interview.

burs-gw-jmy/cw/gw

X
A Gaza hospital strike that killed at least 200 people has unleashed a torrent of condemnation across the Arab world, with even allies blaming Israel for the attack, despite its denials.

The denunciations coincided with angry rallies in Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco, Iran and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with more planned on Wednesday following calls for a "day of rage" across the region.

Israel and Palestinian militants have traded blame for the hospital strike on Tuesday night, with the Israeli army saying on Wednesday it had "evidence" that militants were responsible.

But the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which both established ties with Israel in the Abraham Accords of 2020, condemned the "Israeli" attack which came as Israel lays siege to Gaza.

"The United Arab Emirates strongly condemns the Israeli attack... resulting in the death and injury of hundreds of people," the UAE's official WAM news agency said early on Wednesday.

Bahrain's foreign ministry "expressed the Kingdom of Bahrain's condemnation and strong denunciation of the Israeli bombing", the Bahrain News Agency said.

Morocco, another country that recognised Israel in 2020, also blamed it for the strike, as did Egypt, which became the first Arab country to normalise relations in 1979.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi condemned in the strongest terms "the Israeli bombing" of the Ahli Arab hospital, which led to "the deaths of hundreds of innocent victims" among the Palestinian citizens in Gaza.

He called the "deliberate bombing" a "clear violation of international law".

Saudi Arabia, which has ended talks on potential ties with Israel since violence flared, called the blast a "heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces".

- 'War crime' -

During a press conference in Beirut on Wednesday, Palestinian Islamist group Hamas called for attacks against Israeli forces in the West Bank and other territories in response to the hospital strike.

"We call on our people in the West Bank and our people in Palestine...to rise up against the Zionist enemy and clash with its forces in all cities, villages and camps," Hamas official Osama Hamdan told reporters.

Hamdan called for region-wide protests on Friday and Saturday, demanding the "expulsion of the ambassadors of the Zionist entity in all Arab and Islamic capitals."

Jordan said Israel "bears responsibility for this grave incident" while Qatar, which has close ties to Hamas, slammed the "brutal massacre".

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, also blaming Israel, called it "a war crime, a crime against humanity, and organised state terrorism".

Gulf Cooperation Council secretary general Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi said it was "glaring evidence of the serious violations by the Israeli occupation forces".

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on Tuesday for leaders to "stop this tragedy immediately".

"What diabolical mind intentionally bombards a hospital and its defenceless inhabitants?" he wrote on X, previously Twitter.

The strike came during a wave of deadly Israeli air strikes on Gaza following an attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed 1,400 people.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement called for a "day of rage" against Israel following the attack as hundreds rallied at the US and French embassies overnight, where they scuffled with security forces.

More protests are planned for Wednesday, with Lebanon joining other Arab states in declaring a day of national mourning.

In Tunisia, thousands gathered outside the French embassy demanding the expulsion of the French and US ambassadors in protest at their governments' support for Israel.

Iraq, which also blamed Israeli authorities, demanded an "immediate and urgent resolution" from the UN Security Council to stop Israel's Gaza onslaught, as hundreds protested in the capital Baghdad, brandishing Palestinian flags.

Algeria condemned the strike as a "barbaric act" carried out by "occupation forces."

Libya's Tripoli-based internationally recognised government called the hospital strike a "despicable crime" as several hundred people protested in Tripoli and other Libyan cities.

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Thousands rallied across the Arab and Muslim world on Wednesday to protest the deaths of hundreds of people in a strike on a Gaza hospital that they blame on Israel, despite its denials.

Condemnation was widespread across the region and angry crowds gathered after calls from Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Palestinian factions for mass mobilisation.

"Death to America, death to Israel," hundreds of Hezbollah supporters chanted at a rally in Beirut's southern suburbs.

"The Israelis will try to target more hospitals, rescue workers, civil defence volunteers and Gaza's residents without flinching, in order to push Gaza's people out," senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine told the demonstrators.

Protesters took to the streets of the West Bank city of Ramallah and Nablus, shouting "Free, free Palestine".

Israel and Palestinian militants have traded blame for the hospital strike late Tuesday, with the Israeli army saying later it had "evidence" that militants were responsible.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which both established ties with Israel in the Abraham Accords of 2020, criticised Israel for being behind the strike, as it hits back at Hamas militants over a deadly attack on October 7.

"The United Arab Emirates strongly condemns the Israeli attack... resulting in the death and injury of hundreds of people," the UAE's official WAM news agency said early on Wednesday.

In Bahrain, which also normalised ties with Israel in 2020, dozens of protesters marched towards the Israeli embassy in Manama before being dispersed by police, witnesses told AFP.

Saudi Arabia, which has halted talks on potential ties with Israel since violence flared, called the blast a "heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces".

Qatar, one of Hamas's main backers, slammed the "brutal massacre".

Morocco, another country that recognised Israel in 2020, also blamed it for the strike, as did Egypt, which became the first Arab country to normalise relations with Israel in 1979.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi condemned in the strongest terms "the Israeli bombing" of the Ahli Arab hospital, which led to "the deaths of hundreds of innocent victims" among the Palestinian citizens in Gaza.

- 'War crime' -

Turkey saw its second day of protests Wednesday with thousands gathering outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, demanding its closure.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meanwhile declared a three-day mourning period over the deadly hospital strike, saying on X, formerly Twitter, "We, Turkey, feel in our hearts the deep pain felt by our Palestinian brothers."

In war-torn Yemen, demonstrators took part in a massive pro-Palestinian protest in the capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

Hundreds also took part in protests in government-held Taez and Marib.

Algeria condemned the strike as a "barbaric act" carried out by "occupation forces" while in Tunisia, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the French embassy, condemning Western support for Israel.

Some waved Palestinian flags while others demanded the ambassador be expelled, accusing France of being among the Western "allies of the Zionists", AFP journalists reported.

Libya's Tripoli-based internationally recognised government called the hospital strike a "despicable crime" as several hundred people protested in Tripoli and other Libyan cities.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan also called for region-wide protests on Friday and Saturday, demanding the "expulsion of the ambassadors of the Zionist entity in all Arab and Islamic capitals".

Jordan said Israel "bears responsibility for this grave incident".

Some 10,000 Jordanians gathered outside the Israeli embassy, demanding the expulsion of Israel's diplomatic mission.

Security forces blocked off roads leading to the embassy but the size of the demonstration swelled due to the anger in Jordan, which is home to many Palestinian refugees.

"No Zionist embassy on Jordanian land," protesters chanted, brandishing Palestinian flags.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, also blaming Israel, called it "a war crime, a crime against humanity, and organised state terrorism".

Gulf Cooperation Council secretary general Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi said it was "glaring evidence of the serious violations by the Israeli occupation forces".

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on Tuesday for leaders to "stop this tragedy immediately".

Iraq, which also blamed Israeli authorities, demanded an "immediate and urgent resolution" from the UN Security Council to stop Israel's Gaza onslaught, as around 200 protested in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

In the Syrian capital Damascus, hundreds of people with Palestinian flags gathered near parliament, many wearing T-shirts bearing the image of President Bashar al-Assad.

"Martyrdom or victory," one banner read.

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The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Wednesday denounced Israel's backers for granting the country "impunity" in its war in Gaza, as US President Joe Biden conducted a solidarity visit.

The 57-member bloc of Muslim-majority countries "deplores the international positions that back the brutal aggression against the Palestinian people, and grant Israel impunity, taking advantage of the double standards that provide cover for the occupying power", said an OIC statement published after an emergency meeting of foreign ministers.

The same statement blamed Israel for a rocket strike on Gaza's Christian-run Ahli Arab Hospital that killed 471 people according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled health ministry.

Arab countries have also individually blamed Israel for the incident that has inflamed anger across the Middle East.

But Biden, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Wednesday voiced support for Israel's position that a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket caused the deadly carnage at the hospital, citing "data I was shown by my defence department".

The strike came as Israel continued to rain bombs on Gaza in response to the bloody October 7 attack by Hamas.

The OIC, based in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah, called on the international community "to hold the Israeli occupation accountable for these heinous war crimes against the Palestinian people".

It also condemned the United Nations Security Council for failing to stop the violence.

"Everyone who gave Israel carte blanche to wage this deadly war, provided it with weapons, and even sent military reinforcements to support it in committing this heinous crime, colluded with this crime," Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki said in his remarks.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Israel was acting "with the full support of the United States and some Western countries".

Earlier, he told reporters in Jeddah that Islamic countries with diplomatic ties with Israel should expel its ambassadors and "stop exporting oil to this regime", though the OIC statement did not mention such steps.
More than 800 resident doctors and fellows at the University at Buffalo unionized earlier this year, hoping to improve the working conditions that physicians-in-training have long encountered.

But so far, the pace of negotiations has been creepingly slow, said Rob Boreanaz, a labor attorney and chief negotiator for the union.

Its typical for newly formed unions to face long and difficult negotiations  often spanning more than a year  to reach a first contract.

But the talks involving the residents and fellows have been complicated because they dont technically work for the University at Buffalo or any of the hospitals they staff across Western New York. Instead, they are employed by a lesser-known entity called University Medical Resident Services.

That means the union is bargaining with University Medical Resident Services-hired attorneys rather than representatives from UB or from the area hospitals.

We have been at the bargaining table four times, and we are at the bargaining table with what I would call a shell corporation, Boreanaz said. And what has been absent from the bargaining table is the real folks that have been utilizing and in some cases, misusing, these residents and underpaying these residents.

In particular, the union says, its been difficult to advance any proposals surrounding working conditions because University Medical Resident Services does not own or operate any of the health care facilities where the residents work.

This group of 800-plus residents are super reasonable, super professional, Boreanaz said. And so these health care institutions need not be afraid to come and talk and respect us.

In a statement Wednesday, UB said the fact of the matter is University Medical Resident Services was identified as the employer and negotiator of record by the National Labor Relations Board.

Accordingly, UB and its hospital partners are not parties to the negotiations, UB said in the statement. UMRS has retained outside legal counsel to assist in the negotiations. While UB is not party to the negotiations, we have provided input to address concerns raised by the residents. The university remains hopeful that negotiations will continue to progress, and an agreement can soon be reached.

But an agreement is a long way away right now in this high-stakes battle, one that is being closely watched across the country as more unionization efforts are pursued by resident doctors.

How it started

The UB residents and fellows publicly launched their union campaign in February, seeking to overhaul working conditions, culture and compensation.

It fit into a nationwide movement, with residents and fellows at Loma Linda University Health in California and at the University of Pennsylvania Health System also announcing plans that same month to organize.

'Overworked and underpaid': University at Buffalo resident doctors and fellows launch union campaign The group, which includes 810 residents, fellows and interns at UB, announced their intent to organize with the Union of American Physicians and Dentists.

In many ways, the fight to improve medical residency conditions had been building for a long time  residents work grueling schedules of up to 80 hours a week, providing direct care to patients under the supervision and mentorship of more-experienced physicians.

But momentum significantly picked up in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, which only heightened the pressure on a burned-out health care workforce.

In May, UB resident doctors and fellows won their union election, voting in favor of unionizing with the Union of American Physicians & Dentists.

Among the key issues in this effort, the residents say: Boosting comparatively low pay and improving working conditions, which will ultimately result in better patient care.

University at Buffalo resident doctors, fellows win union election Dr. Armin Tadayyon, a second-year anesthesiology resident, called it a "great day for the future of medicine and patient-centered care."

The residents and fellows have consistently pointed out they make less than colleagues in similar cost-of-living cities, such as Rochester, Syracuse and Albany.

According to information on the UB Office of Graduate Medical Educations website, the annual salary for medical residents, as of July 1, ranges from $59,216 for postgraduate year one to $67,019 for postgraduate year seven. And that salary doesnt change whether a resident works a 40-hour workweek or up to the maximum 80 hours a week.

Negotiations with University Medical Resident Services started on Aug. 16, and the fifth bargaining session is scheduled for Oct. 25.

At the table

So far in negotiations, the residents say pushing proposals forward on working conditions has been difficult, partly because of who is sitting across the table.

Dr. Armin Tadayyon, a third-year anesthesiology resident, said thats included something as simple as guaranteeing access to lactation rooms for nursing mothers.

In negotiations, Tadayyon said University Medical Resident Services attorneys have said they cant guarantee that because they dont own the hospitals where the residents work. But when the residents ask for hospital representatives, who have the power to control working conditions at their facilities, at the bargaining table, University Medical Resident Services counters by saying that they  and not the hospitals  are the employer.

They hide behind this thing where, Oh, were not responsible for that because were not at the hospital. But oh, you know, Kaleida, ECMC, they cant come to the table because theyre not the employer, Tadayyon said.

Boreanaz, the unions chief negotiator and a senior partner at Buffalo law firm Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria, said University Medical Resident Services wanted to create a condition where the health care institutions would come to the table if the union agreed to confidentiality.

This group could never live with that, he said, because the community needs to understand whats going on, and all of our 800-plus members need to understand whats going on at the bargaining table. We wont negotiate in secret.

UBs statement did not address this claim of confidentiality, though The Buffalo News asked that specific question.

Dr. Amy Beattie, a fourth-year psychiatry resident, said the union is looking for UB and the health care institutions where the residents work to come to the table  and theyre hoping that will eventually happen.

Theyre showing us consistently that they dont want to talk to us, she said. And were asking them to sit at the table across from us.

An earlier sign

An early sign of how complicated this could become may have arrived earlier this year, when UB resident doctors and fellows finally were able to tap into the states health care worker bonus program born out of the pandemic.

Medical residents and fellows were deemed eligible in 2022 for up to $3,000 in health care worker bonuses from the state, which was part of a larger statewide strategy to recruit and retain front-line staff.

But for several months, UB residents and fellows werent sure if they would get the bonus payments.

At long last, UB resident doctors, fellows in line to get state's health care worker bonus To do so, UB said Friday, it took a "collaborative effort" that included Gov. Kathy Hochul's office, the state Health Department, the SUNY system and leadership at UB and the Jacobs School.

Thats because University Medical Resident Services and University Dental Resident Services were not initially considered eligible employers under the state legislation, according to internal emails from UBs Office of Graduate Medical Education previously reviewed by The News.

Per the legislation, a qualified employer had to employ at least one eligible employee, be a Medicaid-enrolled provider and bill for Medicaid services.

It wasnt until early this year that UB was able to secure an approved pathway to submit bonus claims for the residents and fellows  and to do so, it needed the help of Gov. Kathy Hochuls office, the state Health Department, the SUNY system, leadership at UB and the Jacobs School as well as the schools hospital partners in Western New York.

Jon Harris can be reached at 716-849-3482 or jharris@buffnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByJonHarris.
Steven Ratner of the US, one of the three members of the UN International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia that has been working for the past two years, says all the commission members are disappointed by the non-renewal of their mandate. In our report and our oral statement to the [Human Rights] Council we made it clear that it was their responsibility, as an organ created to prevent human rights abuses and respond to them, to ensure continued international oversight, he told Justice Info. Our report is not just a record of past events but an account of ongoing concerns, and frankly a prediction of more atrocities to come.

In this session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva (September 11 to October 13) the Ethiopia commission presented two reports: the first report documents ongoing grave and systematic violations of international law and crimes committed in Tigray, as well as Amhara, Afar and Oromia regions, including mass killings and rape, while the second report uses UN criteria to signal an acute risk of further atrocity crimes in Ethiopia.

Kjetil Tronvoll, professor of peace and conflict studies at Oslo New University College and an expert on Ethiopia, says the ending of the commissions mandate is of grave concern. Its deeply worrying and troubling and serious, because this was the only mechanism which could provide an objective analysis of the situation with regard to human rights violations and mass atrocities in Ethiopia, he said. It is obvious that the regime itself would not manage or is not willing to provide a balanced review of the atrocities which were taking place and which are taking place as we speak. Neither the European Union (EU) nor the United States (US) wanted to table a resolution to prolong the mandate, and that sends a clear signal that working against impunity and human rights abuse is not a number one priority.

Ongoing violence

The commission was set up amidst the brutal war between Ethiopias federal government of Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray region in the countrys north, led by the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF). Up to 600,000 people are estimated to have been killed in two years, with thousands displaced or pushed into exile. A government blockade on Tigray deprived its people of food and essential services, leaving much of the population in need of humanitarian aid. There were allegations of rape, torture and other atrocities on both sides of the conflict, which the UN Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A peace deal was signed on November 2, 2022 between the Ethiopian federal government and the TPLF, under the auspices of the African Union, although Tronvoll says the US and Kenya were the main drivers of the negotiations. China, a major economic investor in Ethiopia, was an observer. The accord came into force the next day. While fighting between these two parties has stopped, the UN commissions report of September 14, 2023 says that the conflict in Tigray has not ended, with Eritrean troops and Amhara militias engaging in ongoing violations. There is also violence in other parts of the country, including Oromia, where the conflict between the federal government and the separatist Oromo Liberation Army has escalated.

In addition, says UN commission member Ratner, the Ethiopian government has not ensured the withdrawal of foreign forces from Tigray or full access to humanitarian aid as it is supposed to do under the peace agreement. The key players in the ongoing violence are the Eritrean forces. They have not withdrawn from the country, despite the requirement for territorial integrity in the COHA [peace accord], and continue to conduct operations with the acquiescence of the Ethiopian government -- with all the violations that we talked about in our report, he said. These are confirmed by NGOs such as Amnesty International, which cites rape, sexual slavery, extrajudicial executions and looting by Eritrean forces in Tigray, constituting war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

And the government has not restored full humanitarian aid to civilians in Tigray. Theres virtually no care for the victims. There are a whole lot of ways in which, even if the government is not actively involved in killing Tigrayans, it is still failing in its responsibilities, says Ratner.

Representatives of the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigrayan rebellion signed a peace agreement in November 2022, but its transitional justice component has remained a dead letter.  Phill Magakoe / AFP

Evading international scrutiny

The peace agreement also says that the government of Ethiopia shall implement a comprehensive national transitional justice policy aimed at accountability, ascertaining the truth, redress for victims, reconciliation, and healing, consistent with the Constitution of FDRE [Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia] and the African Union Transitional Justice Policy Framework. In January this year, the government published a draft document on policy options for transitional justice. This was followed by a series of consultations held across the country as of March. However, the UN experts say the transitional justice process is flawed, and that Ethiopia has sought to evade international scrutiny through the creation of domestic mechanisms ostensibly to fight impunity.

The public consultations are the most visible part of the process so far, and the one put forward by the government to try and show it is serious, says Ratner. That process does not meet international standards, because it is not victim-centred, its not inclusive, theyre not really creating an environment where all groups can speak freely about what they want, he told Justice Info. Its a controlled environment, maybe even a coerced environment.

The transitional justice policy options paper, on which the consultations are based, is also flawed, he continued. It doesnt talk about how certain things have to be off the table, like amnesties for war crimes, and other things have to be on the table, like prosecutions.

Its an impunity process

Tronvoll agrees that the process does not look very credible. The process of transitional justice suggested by the government is actually not focusing on Tigray, not focusing on Amhara, but on the period from 1995 to 2018. That is the period of TPLF-EPRDF [a coalition of parties including the TPLF] in power, he said. They do include the later period [after TPLF left the coalition in 2019] but that is very much downplayed. There is very little juridical accountability  but alluding to the fact that it should be the TPLF made accountable for what they did when they were in power. The position paper cannot be taken as credible and balanced in addressing the atrocities that have happened since 2020 in the war on Tigray and the war in Amhara.

He says the policy options paper is more about reconciliation and restorative justice than accountability. In a pure pragmatic, political way thats OK, but say it like that then, dont say its an accountability process because it is not. Its an impunity process.

The Ethiopian government has not cooperated with the UN commission, says Ratner, apart from receiving it once in the early days of the mandate in Addis Ababa to try to set conditions for its work. These were unacceptable to the three UN human rights experts. The government has slammed the commissions reports as inflammatory and biased, and has lobbied hard to get the UN mandate ended. This time it succeeded.

Strategic interests above human rights

Ethiopia has lobbied actively to discontinue the mandate and managed to get the Africa representatives with them. They have also, obviously, been in close discussions with the EU and US partners, says Tronvoll. I think its a signal the neither the EU nor the US wanted to table a resolution to prolong the mandate. That sends a clear signal that we have other priorities, and strengthening accountability for human rights abuse and fighting impunity is not the number one priority.

He says the EU, which tabled the original resolution that created the commission, was split this time, and it was particularly Germany and France that lobbied against extending the mandate. I think they were afraid that, if they pushed for a renewal of the mandate and for proper juridical accountability for the atrocities that have taken place, Ethiopia would lock the door to Western countries and align itself more closely with the East, says Tronvoll. The Horn of Africa is a new geopolitical hotbed. There is intense competition between alliances, with China, Russia, Saudi, Qatar, the Emirates, EU, US all kind of trying to get the attention of Abiy Ahmed and the regime. He says the West was afraid it might lose Ethiopia as a strategic ally.

No end of violence in sight

The other factor, Tronvoll continues, is aid cooperation, as Ethiopia is one of the biggest recipients of Western aid. Coinciding with the non-renewal of the UN Ethiopia commissions mandate, the EU signed off on a 650-million-euro development deal during a visit to Addis Ababa by a top EU official, aimed at improving ties after the end of the war in Tigray. It is time to gradually normalise relations and rebuild a mutual reinforcing partnership with your country [Ethiopia]," AFP reported European Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen saying as she signed the deal on October 3.

Ratner says this does not need to be the end of international scrutiny of Ethiopias human rights and transitional justice record. He says the task could now be taken up by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk of Austria, and Western countries, if they really make their aid and cooperation conditional on these concerns as they promise.

But Tronvoll is less optimistic. Ethiopia has relapsed into conflicts more or less every decade, he says. Its ingrained into the political culture of Ethiopia that violence is an acceptable means. I think to stop that constant cycle of violence, you need to have a real accountability process for the atrocities taking place. And the only mechanism that can provide that is an international jurisdiction. But I also understand that will not happen, Ethiopia is a sovereign country. And we will continue to see mass atrocities happening in Ethiopia.
The International Criminal Court prosecutor said on Thursday it was dropping all war crimes charges against Maxime Mokom, a former militia leader in the troubled Central African Republic (CAR).

Prosecutor Karim Khan said his office had concluded there were "no longer any reasonable prospects of conviction at trial even if the charges were confirmed".

Mokom had faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over alleged atrocities committed against Muslim civilians in the CAR, a former French colony, by his self-proclaimed self-defence militias in 2013 and 2014.

One of the poorest countries in the world, the CAR was plunged into bloody sectarian conflict after Seleka rebels, a coalition of armed groups mainly composed of Muslims, ousted president Francois Bozize in early 2013.

Mokom's militias, which called themselves "anti-Balaka" -- meaning "anti-machete" -- formed in reaction to the takeover of the capital, Bangui, by the Seleka.

He had denied involvement in the bloodshed, telling ICC judges in August that he was "dedicated to the search for peace".

Mokom said he returned to the CAR in February 2014 during the height of the violence after fleeing to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

The charges Mokom had faced included directing attacks against the civilian population, murder, rape and pillage.

Prosecutor Khan said the decision to drop those charges was taken after considering all the evidence and "changed circumstances regarding the availability of witnesses".

"I am very conscious that this news may be unwelcome to many survivors and their families," he said.

- Sporadic attacks -

"I hope many will understand my legal and ethical responsibilities to be guided by the law and the evidence."

Khan said his office reserved the right to issue a new arrest warrant if more evidence came to light.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mokom in 2018 and he was finally handed over by Chadian authorities last year.

Set up in 2002, the ICC is the world's only independent tribunal capable of prosecuting those accused of the world's worst crimes.

Anti-Balaka attacks continued on Muslim civilians even after Seleka forces retreated from Bangui, until at least December 2014.

Peace agreements signed in 2017 and 2019 have not been respected on the ground in CAR.

Many armed groups, rebels and assailants continue a guerrilla campaign of sporadic attacks against the Central African army, which is supported by mercenaries from the Russian private security company Wagner.

Both sides are regularly accused of crimes and abuses against civilians by international NGOs and experts mandated by the United Nations.

Two former anti-Balaka leaders, Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona and Alfred Yekatom, are already on trial at the ICC.

Last year Seleka commander Mahamat Said Abdel Kani denied war crimes and crimes against humanity charges before the court.
"Twinkling Watermelon" stars Ryeoun and Choi Hyun Wook get real about their friendship, bromance and highly loved drama in an interview with Elle Korea.

The young actors also talked about the difficulties in immersing with their respective characters whilst flaunting their top-notch charisma and appeal. Read to know more.

Ryeoun & Choi Hyun Wook Grace Elle Korea With Matinee Charms

On October 19, a set of photos of "Twinkling Watermelon" stars Ryeoun and Choi Hyun Wook was released by Elle Korea.

The two young stars graced the cover of the editorial magazine with their boyhood charms and freshness.

In the exclusive pictorial, Ryeoun and Choi Hyun Wook looked dapper as they wore matching bold-colored suit jackets, giving off a mature vibe.

It was balanced with their cider-like charisma as they rocked button down shirts with eccentric prints, totally showcasing their three-dimensional characters.

Ryeoun and Choi Hyun Wook flaunted their mature yet despicable auras which were deeply loved by the public. Catch their pictorial in the November 2023 issue of Elle Korea.

Ryeoun & Choi Hyun Wook On Starring In 'Twinkling Watermelon'

After the photoshoot, Ryeoun and Choi Hyun Wook sat down with Elle Korea for a brief interview.

The two got candid about their honest feelings for "Twinkling Watermelon," which tells romantic stories about youth, friendship, dreams and more.

READ MORE: Ryeoun Fashion: 3 Style Must-Haves To Elevate Style Like 'Twinkling Watermelon' Heartthrob

Ryeoun confessed that while filming the drama was fun, he still felt immense pressure in fulfilling the lead role. He shared that he shed tears after every scene.

Meanwhile, Choi Hyun Wook shared that despite being in a lot of dramas, he remained humble to perfect his role and acting scenes with his co-stars.

"We really loved working on set," the two actors shared, giving spotlight to their bromance and chemistry. "Despite the pressure, seeing [each other] made filming very much enjoyable."

Ryeoun & Choi Hyun Wook On Preparing For Acting Roles

Since Ryeoun plays a CODA (child of deaf adult), he learned the basic sign languages before filming.

He visited houses of deaf people to familiarize himself with their daily lives, and even grew closer to them. Ryeoun said, "I learned a new way of communicating with my heart."

As for Choi Hyun Wook, learning sign language moved him, showing his immersion in the work. He said, "It tells stories and expresses emotions without words."

When asked about what to expect from the show, Ryeoun and Choi Hyun Wook introduced the points to watch, saying that viewers must anticipate their characters' development arcs.

Catch "Twinkling Watermelon" as it enters its second half this Monday, October 23 at 8:50 p.m. KST on tvN.

ALSO READ: Choi Hyun Wook Fashion: 3 Styling Must-Haves As Seen On 'Twinkling Watermelon' Star

KDramaStars owns this article.

Written by Elijah Mully.
Wegmans second NYC store now open in Manhattan

Wegmans has made its Broadway debut  opening in a former department store there Wednesday.

At 87,500 square feet, its about half the size of its average Western New York store, but its still big by Manhattan standards.

The grocery has an extensive selection of hot and prepared meals, as well as giant wheels of cheese and fish flown in from a Japanese market three times per week.

Next year, it will add a dining room, featuring a sushi bar and champagne oyster bar.It is Wegmans second store in the Big Apple, after opening a store in Brooklyn in 2019.

- Samantha Christmann
The prosecutor has found more evidence regarding the ongoing controversy involving Yoo Ah In, prompting them to formally indict the actor.

In a report cited by a local media outlet, the "Seoul Vibe" star will continue to face trial after the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office formally indicted the 37-year-old star, whose real name is Uhm Hong Sik.

Yoo Ah In Drug Controversy Update

Yoo Ah In will face five different charges involving claims of habitual use of illegal drugs.

According to the report, he is indicted without detention for habitual use of propofol and other drugs, marijuana smoking, instigation, and destruction of evidence.

Moreover, his accomplice, a 32-year-old named Mr. Choi, was also brought to trial.

Based on the reports filed against Yoo Ah In, he was administered propofol under "cosmetic procedures" 181 times at a hospital in Seoul.

In addition, the investigation also says that the award-winning star has abused different types of illegal drugs, including propofol, ketamine, midazolam, and remimazolam, stating that it was for "medicinal use," which is all from September 2020 to March 2022.

Meanwhile, from May 2021 to August 2022, the "Hellbound" star was prescribed two different types of sleeping pills. This was used on 44 occasions and was used under a different person's name.

READ MORE: Yoo Ah In Update: Female Citizen Hits Actor With Bundle of Money: 'Use it to pay bail'

As of January 2023, the investigation found out that Yoo Ah In used marijuana illegally in the United States along with his accomplice, Mr. Choi.

The said accomplice was also indicted for illegal drug use, attempted flight, and threatening witnesses.

Due to the update regarding Yoo Ah In's probe, the prosecutor said that the actor will remain to face trial on charges for violating the Narcotics Control Act.

What Happened to Yoo Ah In's Arrest Warrant?

At the height of Yoo Ah In's investigation, the court dismissed the first arrest warrant filed by the prosecution against the actor.

Per report, the Seoul court rejected the request for the issuance of a warrant in May 2023, noting that the other party failed to provide concrete and substantial evidence to prove claims that Yoo Ah In has tampered with the evidence.

"It is difficult to conclude that there is concern about destroying evidence or fleeing," the court says, as obtained by the outlet, adding that Yoo Ah In "has admitted to a large part of the basic facts" involving him to use of illegal drugs such as cocaine and marijuana.

Back in September, the prosecution filed a second request for a warrant of arrest, stating that Yoo Ah In has "habitually taken illegal narcotics and acquired such substances," which they referred to as "medical shopping," and used illegal means, particularly other patients.

For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news, keep your tabs open here at KDramaStars.

KDramaStars owns this article

Written by Geca Wills
The film series "Believer" is coming to screen with its second installment and new cast member Han Hyo Joo captivated the public with her new look in the movie.

Keep on reading to learn more about the actress and her upcoming project.

'Believer 2' Introduces Stellar Cast Han Hyo Joo, Cho Jin Woong, Cha Seung Won, More

Netflix introduced its forthcoming movie "Believer 2," helmed by Baek Jong Yul, the production thrilled viewers by dropping character stills ahead of the film's release.

Serving as the sequel to the 2018 film of the same title, the new installment will take the viewers back to the chaotic and cruel underworld.

It will follow the battle between Detective Won Ho, who is still chasing after Mr. Lee with Rak, Brian, and Big Knife, who returns to Korea from China to deal with the situation after the brutal fight at Yongsan Station.

The production team gifted viewers various still cuts showing the main actors' characters. Cho Jin Woong is Won Ho, in the photos, he is entangled in different situations, from spying to holding a gun in the chase of Mr. Lee, struggling in dangerous moments, depicting a dynamic story.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Jo Jin Woong Fails to Recognize Han Hyo Joo on the Set of 'Believer 2'

Cha Seung Won takes the role of Brian, who was arrested by Won Ho but successfully escaped from prison and returns to his job with new opportunities knocking on his door.

Han Hyo Joo Undergoes Massive Transformation for Her Role Big Knife

Han Hyo Joo, who is a new character in the film will have a drastic transformation as she takes the role of Big Knife, Mr. Lee's right-hand woman. The actress showcased her tanned skin and fierce aura, giving excitement to viewers on her upcoming performance.

With just a cold gaze, she conveys an overwhelming presence. She becomes merciless in her plan to win Mr. Lee's undivided attention.

According to Director Baek, he changed the original male character of Big Knife to a female, especially for Han Hyo Joo, who went the extra mile with intense physical training, wearing glasses, and dentures, the award-winning actress also roughening up her skin to fully immerse in her character.

Oh Seung Hoon returns to the screen and plays the role of Rak. His new look stimulates viewers' curiosity about his new portrayal of the said character.

Adding to the talented cast are Kim Dong Young and Lee Joo Young who will work together again as farmers Manko and Rona.

Furthermore, "Believer 2" will finally meet viewers beginning November 17 on Netflix.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Byeon Woo Seok, Han Hyo Joo, Song Joong Ki Return to Screen as Villains This 2023

What do you anticipate from Han Hyo Joo's Netflix film "Believer 2"? Share your thoughts/replies in the comments!

For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news and updates, keep your tabs open here at Kdramastars.

Kdramastars owns this article.

Shai Collins wrote this.
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In 1985, Mr. Charles McCrory was on trial. Charles had found his wife dead, and her family was convinced that he was responsible, despite the fact that Charles denied any involvement and just wanted to grieve in peace. There was no real evidence against him, but the state had an ace up its sleeve in the form of Dr. Richard Souviron.

Dr. Souviron was a forensic odontologist, which is a dentist who has studied criminal acts involving teeth. Usually confined to identifying human remains, Dr. Souviron and several other dentists had found a lucrative side career: identifying bite marks on victims of homicide and matching these to the teeth of suspects. For this, they were paid handsomely.

Bite mark evidence goes back a long way. In 1692, in Salem, the Reverend George Burroughs was accused of witchcraft and of biting his victims during the hexing. His bite marks were compared to supposed marks on the victims and were found to match. This was enough evidence for the jury, and he was hanged.

Almost two hundred years later, Dr. Souviron would testify to a jury that bite marks he had found on the victim matched Charles McCrorys teeth. Hairs found clenched in her fist did not in any way match Mr. McCrory. But the bite mark testimony was so convincing that it was enough, and Charles was sent to prison. His son grew up without him, believing that his father was a murderer.

Since then, bite mark evidence has been thoroughly proven to be junk science by overwhelming empirical evidence obtained through objective testing. Dr. Souviron has withdrawn his conclusions and recanted his testimony. In 2021, two other forensic dentists agreed with the recantation and testified that it had been proven impossible, by empirical testing, for dental experts to match teeth to bite marks accurately. In fact, many of the bite marks had been proven to be common bruises or even dyschromia. But none of this helped Mr. McCrory.

The court agreed with the prosecutor that jurors are capable of identifying bite marks and matching them to a defendants teeth on their own. Something science has proven not even experienced dentists can do accurately.

A red bandana found at the scene happened to match one worn by Alton Ainsworth. Ainsworth would go on to rape and murder another woman five weeks after the first murder. This bandana could have been tested for DNA, but the prosecutor destroyed it after the trial. Later, that same prosecutor was convicted of solicitation to murder and is himself in prison on a 35-year sentence. That also does not help Charles. There is no law saying that you can only be convicted by an honest and noncriminal prosecutor. The Daubert standard requires that an expert conclusion must be the product of scientific methodology with falsifiable hypotheses accepted by the scientific community, subject to peer review and publication, but that rule is not enforced in our courts.

And that brings us to physicians. Dr. William Bauer was an 81-year-old neurologist in Sandusky, Ohio. He is now 85-year-old prisoner number 66903-060. Dr. Bauer was convicted by the U.S. federal government using expert witness testimony that would not survive scrutiny by any legitimate medical or scientific review board. These experts have made a nice career for themselves. Not by healing the sick and easing the suffering of their patients. But by being a willing gunslinger to aid the prosecution of any other physician targeted by the authorities.

They come from a group of medical doctors with extreme opinions regarding opiate medications and the treatment of chronic pain, who the DEA uses to dictate the practice of medicine to all the rest. How extreme are some of these opinions? One doctor said that no female who had suffered abuse as a child should be prescribed an opiate medication. That would sentence about twenty-five million human beings to live in agony for the crime of having been harmed. It would also violate several federal laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex (he said nothing about men) and the Americans with Disabilities Act, precluding effective medical treatment to an entire sector of the population based on the unscientifically supported opinion of one single little man, paid hundreds or even millions of dollars by the state to convince a jury of medically naive people that his singular opinion is the national practice of medicine. Something that simply does not exist.

There is a standard of care exemplified in our textbooks, which contain the accumulated knowledge of thousands of experts in the field. Not in the expert opinion of any one physician. Physicians must have the right to evaluate and treat patients as the incredibly distinct and unique individuals that they are. I have seen a medical expert opine that a silent paging system used to protect the privacy of patients by not screaming out their names was not the usual practice of medicine.

And that brings up another point. Every physician who travels and learns a new technique and brings it back to their area is, by definition, not engaging in the usual practice of medicine for that area. This is, instead, the exceptional practice of medicine. It is how we improve. Something the courts and juries do not seem to understand.

Medicine is also quite different from state to state. In Oregon, it is legal for a physician to prescribe a controlled medication for the express purpose of ending someones life. In Arkansas, the Chronic Intractable Pain Act says that a physician can use dangerous medications in dangerous combinations to treat pain, even if that patient dies, as long as it was not the doctors intent to kill the patient. Euthanasia, legal in Oregon is the one thing that the Arkansas Medical Practices Act says a physician can never do. But experts are willing to take the stand, often never having practiced medicine in the state where they are testifying and are willing to say that whatever the accused doctor did was not the national standard or the usual practice and, therefore, there was no legitimate reason to treat the patient with that medication.

How does the state find these medical gunslingers willing to back up even the most scientifically unsound opinions of the prosecutors? These outliers are plucked from obscurity anywhere in the nation where they can be found and promulgated to a jury as one of the best pain management doctors in America. The jury, knowing no better, assumes this to be true. If the governments goal is to put truth ahead of conviction rate, they have failed miserably. If it is their goal to prove that they have the power to dictate the practice of medicine to physicians regardless of the science, they have succeeded masterfully.

This national standard shifts from trial to trial, with no two experts saying the same thing. How could physicians in one state know that the national standard of medical practice is embodied in the opinion of a hitherto unknown physician practicing in another state who has never been seen in the textbooks or hundreds of hours of CME? The answer is they cannot. All scientists and doctors in this country must stand up with one voice. Otherwise, we have no hope.

Mr. McCory is still in prison. And so is Dr. Bauer. So, for that matter, is Dr. Ruan. Physicians are being sent to prison for practicing medicine according to their education, training, experience, and humanity. And prison is not benign. Its like being interred in a glass coffin where you can watch life go on for others. But not for you. The family comes to the graveside from time to time to pay their respects to the person they used to know, watching, day by day, as the feelings of bitterness and betrayal twist that person into an unrecognizable husk of a human being. Until finally, one day perhaps, they dig you up and release you back out into the world where, if you dare to rebuild, they do it all over again.

L. Joseph Parker is a distinguished professional with a diverse and accomplished career spanning the fields of science, military service, and medical practice. He currently serves as the chief science officer and operations officer, Advanced Research Concepts LLC, a pioneering company dedicated to propelling humanity into the realms of space exploration. At Advanced Research Concepts LLC, Dr. Parker leads a team of experts committed to developing innovative solutions for the complex challenges of space travel, including space transportation, energy storage, radiation shielding, artificial gravity, and space-related medical issues.

He can be reached on LinkedIn and YouTube.
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On October 7, Hamas, a terrorist group, launched an unprecedented assault against Israeli civilians. Thousands have been confirmed killed, while hundreds have been taken hostage. Israel has retaliated by pounding Gaza with rockets, killing thousands more Palestinian civilians. This is the most severe escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades. The death toll continues to rise, with civilians dying every day and Gaza under siege.

In 2023, multiple crises have already deluged American medicine. Climate change has led to major natural disasters in the United States, and once again, mass shootings and gun violence have led to increased mental trauma for providers. Burnout is the rule, rather than the exception. We almost simultaneously see war atrocities, health inequities, and offensive statements within a minute of scrolling down a news website or social media newsfeed.

So why should we also care about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Arent we tired enough?

The conflict is already sensitive, as it spans religious, cultural, and national divisions. Despite the diversity of individuals in Israel and Palestine, very few things can divide the world like this conflict. There have been multiple attempts to assuage both sides, but the best that could be accomplished was a tenuous peace, which has fallen apart in the last two weeks.

When I visited Israel and Palestine this summer, I noticed that Palestinians and Israelis, regardless of religion, were treated differently. Israelis had more freedom of movement and enjoyed fewer security checks. Palestinians had access to fewer resources, had constant security checks and questioning, and seemed to live in a state of constant conflict. In a Palestinian refugee camp I visited, children and other civilians were under watch and in danger of being injured when protests occurred. Health inequities are ever-present, with hospitals, especially in Gaza, under-resourced and underserved.

I give this context as this past weekend, the Israeli army prepared to invade the Gaza Strip. This will displace 1 million Palestinians and put them directly in harms way of two warring sides. Gazan hospitals are currently under siege, and the whole strip is without power and adequate supplies in a situation that is becoming worse by the day. The Egyptian border crossing is shut down, leading to a massive humanitarian crisis. Civilian hostages from Israel are still within the Gaza Strip, with no word on their health or status since their capture. An attack of disputed etiology has taken place in a Gazan hospital, killing over 500 civilians. (Editors update: Heres the New York Times analysis.) There are thousands more lives at stake, both Israeli and Palestinian.

It is easy to jump into our medical work and forget about anything from the outside world. In theory, it may be why many of us join medicine as an escape from daily life. However, the real world is out there and requires us to speak out against injustices and provide our expertise on how to improve these inequities. Medical professionals have a significant voice in advocating for their patients and populations, both locally and abroad. Our testimony is often used to justify environmental protections, health care guarantees, and public health measures.

We all have family, friends, and acquaintances who have connections to Israel and Palestine. They might have had families displaced during the creation of the state of Israel. They might be Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, all of whom regard the land as one of the holiest in the world. They might be our patients who have these same roots in this conflict as billions do. Our role as medical providers is to speak against attacks on these individuals. As a pediatrics resident, the conflict hits even harder as I see innocent children hurt and killed.

In this conflict, no matter where you might stand, you do have a duty to stand for vulnerable populations. Ask your congressperson to stop the siege on Gaza and ask for the safe return of hostages to Israel. Donate to charities assisting in medical care, emphasizing the need to protect civilians. Speak against Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia that are rearing their heads in the conflicts wake, notably taking the life of a 6-year-old Muslim child in Illinois. We should look for a solution that guarantees rights for all individuals in the conflict and rejects the status quo of different rights for different individuals.

Adithya Sivakumar is a pediatrics resident.
A judge from Washington County who pointed a loaded gun at a Black litigant in his courtroom who posed no threat to anyone was properly removed from office, the state Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday.

The state Judicial Conduct Commission acted properly when it investigated Judge Robert J. Putorti and removed him from office, a panel of appeals judges ruled.

Putorti, a judge in Whitehall Town Court and Whitehall Village Court, appealed the decision issued by the Judicial Conduct Commission in September 2022 that he should be removed from both of those positions.

Putorti denied the 2015 incident had any racial overtones and said he acted out of fear for his own safety when he pointed the gun at the man.

According to the Judicial Conduct Commission, Putorti allegedly boasted about the incident to other judges, repeatedly referring to the litigant as a big Black man.

The unarmed Black litigant, who had been arrested by police months earlier for allegedly threatening his wife and a man she knew with a knife, had come to Putortis court to say he could not afford to pay a fine that had been assessed against him, court records indicate.

According to the appeals court ruling, Putorti has a license to legally carry a firearm and kept the gun under his courtroom bench during proceedings.

The appeals court panel found his actions to be an extreme breach in judicial decorum and added that the record of the case amply supports removal of the judge.

Whitehall is about 27 miles northeast of the town of Lake George.
By Alex Ashaba

Fears of renewed armed conflict have gripped Kasese as the Rwenzuru Kingdom prepares to mark their King Charles Mumberes 57th coronation anniversary.

This follows a rise in attacks by suspected members of the Islamist Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) terror group, the latest being one that claimed the lives of two foreign tourists and their Ugandan guide on Tuesday night.

According to President Museveni, the ADF elements are finding their way back into Uganda through Kasese after coming under intense pressure from the UPDFs joint counter-terror operation Shujaa in Eastern DR Congo.

The fears have been voiced by some of the local residents and leaders as Kasese today prepares to host the 57th coronation anniversary of Omusinga Charles Mumbere, the Rwenzururu cultural leader whose restive kingdom stretches from Kasese to parts of eastern DR Congo.
An asylum-seeker who was arrested after an incident at an Amherst hotel two months ago was arraigned Wednesday on three charges in Amherst Town Court, Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn announced.

Daniel A. Narvaez-Velasqu, 35, of Venezuela, is charged with second-degree attempted assault, a Class E felony; and two Class A misdemeanors, second-degree menacing and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

Prosecutors said that Narvaez-Velasqu was arrested after Amherst police responded to a fight about 6:25 p.m. Aug. 27 at a hotel on Flint Road, where he was staying. He reportedly threatened another person with a nail during an argument.

Amherst Town Justice Kara Buscaglia issued an order of protection on behalf of the victim, but turned down a request by prosecutors to set bail at $10,000. Narvaez-Velasqu was released on his own recognizance pending a felony hearing Nov. 15.

Flynn noted that Narvaez-Velasqu is the 13th asylum-seeker to be arrested in Erie County and the first to be charged in Amherst.

- Dale Anderson
Media owners have been urged to invest in in-depth and niche-based training for their journalists to improve their ability to report on particular societal issues.

According toCarol , journalists who cover sensitive topics, especially those relating to marginalized groups should take their time to better understand the people they are reporting for and about, and know how to deal with them.

She also emphasises the need for editors to undergo extensive refresher training to increase their wealth of knowledge on how to report and disseminate information that may be deemed sensitive.

More should be done in newsrooms for people to understand what exactly it means and how they can go about it. I think, however, if you do not know what gender-sensitive reporting/inclusive language is, then you wont know what to expect from your reporter or you wont know how to guide them if you feel they are not doing that, Beyanga said.

Beyanga was speaking on the sidelines of a Gender-Responsive Reporting and Communication training in Kampala.

The training for media practitioners and journalists from select media houses is facilitated by the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA-Uganda), which is a Membership-based feminist organization.
Security analysts are calling for mass sensitization of the public amid what the national army calls isolated terror attacks by the Islamist Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group.

The call comes a day after suspected terrorists killed two foreign tourists and their Ugandan tour guide at the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese District.

Earlier, on October 13th, suspected ADF rebels ambushed and burnt a box body truck Registration number UBM 624 L Benz at Katholhu village of Nyakiyumbu sub-county in Kasese district about 10 kilometers from Mpondwe-Congo borderline and shot dead its driver and a passenger before setting it ablaze.

Now speaking to KFM Professor Solomon Asiimwe, an international relations and security studies scholar said along with mass sensitization on how people can be vigilant, the government should address the root causes of terrorism which includes political intolerance.

I think the state must go down to the root causes of terrorism. Without handling the root causes of terrorism which according to me are political systems and decision-making systems, you may not root out terrorism, Asiimqw said.
Two key suspects in the murder of social worker Maria Nagirinya and her driver Ronald Kitayimbwa have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Court has ordered former shoe hawker Mr Kasolo Coporiyamu alias Arsenal and Lubega Johnson alias Manomano to spend the rest of their lives in prison in connection to the murder of Nagirinya.

The Judge ruled that the duo was the master planners of the kidnap and double murder of Nagirinya and Kitayimbwa and that they have not been remorseful through out the trial.

Three other boda boda riders; Hassan Kiseeka, Mpanga Sharif and Kalyango Nasif were each ordered to spend 30 years in prison on grounds that they did not actively participate in the double murder.

The five are all self-confessed members of a notorious gang B-13 that terrorized and snatched womens bags at Nateete traffic lights.

Justice Isaac Muwata has today ruled that the evidence of 23 prosecution witnesses led by state attorneys; Jonathan Muwaganya and Timothy Amerit has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the five with malice afore thought on August 29, 2019 at Nabisasiro Zone in Lungujja- Kampala kidnapped Nagirinya and Kitayimbwa, murdered them and dumped thier bodies at Nakitutuli Swamp in Mukono district.
The police and other security agencies have made several arrests across the country over alleged malpractice during the ongoing Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations.

The spokesperson of the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB), MsJennifer Kalule says in Nagalama, the police arrested the head teacher of Paul Mukasa Secondary School in Kalagi for electronically sharing information, purported to be a UNEB examination paper.

The said head teacher is accused of sharing the material from his phone and extorting money from unsuspecting members of the public.

Relatedly, police in Mitooma arrested a Swahili teacher of Kanyabwanga Secondary School, who allegedly shared information purported to be examination material for a UNEB Biology practical paper. .

Elsewhere, in Kwania District, the head teacher of Inomo Secondary School was arrested by police for allegedly tampering with examination material/envelope containing mathematics Paper 1 examination papers.

Kalule says the suspect reportedly received a sealed envelope from the station, in the presence of other examination officials including the UNEB Chief scout, area supervisor, as well as security officers.

However, It is suspected that the contents of the envelope were tampered with, prompting a police investigation.

In Kampala, police in Kabalagala, Makindye Division arrested the chief invigilator at African Parl Secondary School on suspicion of providing external assistance to the second shift of Chemistry students on Tuesday.

Today, candidates will sit for Biology practicals in the morning and Commerce in the afternoon.
The UK government has warned its citizens to avoid traveling to the Queen Elizabeth National Park where two foreign tourists, and their local guide were killed in an attack blamed on Allied Democratic Forces, a notorious militia group.

According to security reports, the trio was targeted on Tuesday by gunmen as they were on safari in the park and their vehicle set on fire.

Britains Foreign Office has now advised its nationals against all but essential travels to the park.

If you are able to do so safely, you should consider leaving the area, the warning reads in part.

Queen Elizabeth Park shares a border with DRC and its renowned Virunga National Park, a habitat for rare mountain gorillas, and where armed groups are believed to operate.

In 2019, a US tourist and her safari guide were kidnapped by four gunmen during an evening game drive through the Ugandan park who were later recovered unharmed after a ransom was paid.
The leader of Uganda Peoples Congress faction, Peter Walubiri has asked the partys President, Jimmy Akena to vacant office peacefully or force will be applied.

This is after last weeks Supreme Court ruling indicating that Akena is occupying the position of UPC presidency illegally.

However, earlier on this week, Akena told jpurnalists that he is not bothered by the court ruling, vowing to continue carrying on his duties as the UPC party president saying the movers of the case are against the existence of his late father Milton Obotes party.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, counsel Walubiri noted that following the court ruling, Akena has no legal basis to retain the position. He added that the legitimate leaders of the party will continue to expose the illegality of Akenas actions.

Now that the last attempt by Mr. Akena to abuse the court process to claim illegal leadership of the party has failed, the legitimate leaders of the party shall hence force double efforts to complete the ongoing census of all party members and leaders and mobilise all party members to focus on rebuilding the party now that this problem is behind us, Walubiri said.

Walubiri vowed to take all lawful actions to have Akena evicted from Uganda House and have him account for all party funds and resources abused since 2015.
A Buffalo man who attempted to hide a gun during a traffic stop two years ago has been found guilty by a jury of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, according to the Erie County District Attorney's Office.

The jury rendered its verdict against Terrance Boyd, 32, after about two hours of deliberation following a four-day trial, prosecutors said. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 27 before State Supreme Court Justice Paul B. Wojtaszek.

Boyd was a passenger in a vehicle Buffalo police officers pulled over in the 1300 block of East Ferry Street about 1:05 a.m. on Aug. 16, 2021, because it did not have a front license plate. As officers approached the vehicle, they saw Boyd, who was in a front seat, hand a bag to another passenger in the back seat. Officers seized the bag from underneath the front passenger seat and recovered a loaded, illegal handgun. Boyd was subsequently linked to the weapon through DNA analysis.

- Harold McNeil

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Samantha N. King of the Felony Trials Bureau and Chief John P. Gerken Jr. of the Narcotics/Intelligence Unit.
Planned works to clear the eye of the bridge in Callan have been held up by high water levels, following one of the wettest Septembers on record.

Local councillors were told why the work had not yet taken place at the October meeting of Callan Thomastown Municipal District representatives. The work was originally due to be carried out in September.

Area Engineer, Declan Murphy explained the water levels were too high to work on the eye clearing, but trees were removed from the silt islands in the river. Mr Murphy said that if the works are not completed by the end of October they will have to be deferred.



Cllr Joe Lyon said he knew the weather was against them, but asked if special permission could be obtained to continue the work into November. After the postponement of the main Bridge Street active travel scheme it would be terrible to lose the chance to get the work done on the eye of the bridge.



Mr Murphy said they had looked for a derogation order until the end of October but he would talk to the county council engineer with responsibility for bridges to see what could be done.

Consultation had to take place with Inland Fisheries Ireland, on environmental considerations, before permission was given for work to be carried out in August or September. That was then extended into October when the weather prevented work being done.
Students across Kilkenny celebrated receiving their Junior Cycle examination results on Wednesday, October 18.



One school in particular was Abbey Community College in Ferrybank, where one student received the ultimate national accolade of ten distinctions in her junior cycle examination results.



Abbey Community College wishes to congratulate our Junior Cycle class of 2023 on their outstanding Junior Cycle examination results, said School Principal, Michelle Jefford.



She added that this is an important milestone for the students and their families and the primary schools from which they come, who have all been so supportive throughout their time in Abbey Community College so far and have been vital members of the successful school community.



We would like to thank all the staff of Abbey Community College, teaching and non-teaching for their dedication and support to the Junior Cycle class of 2023.



This year, Abbey Community College has noted a considerable increase in the percentage of students who have received distinctions, the highest award available at Junior Cycle.



We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our student Caoimhe Barry who excelled and received the ultimate accolade of achieving ten distinctions. Not only is this an achievement at local level for Caoimhe and Abbey Community College but also at national level, said Michelle Jefford.



Reflecting on these Junior Cycle examination results, we are so very proud of our school community who continue to excel academically with enthusiasm and commitment as we all work Together Towards Excellence.



The examination results will be combined with outcomes of Classroom Based Assessments, short courses and other areas of learning to create the Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement award for each student.



A 5% increase from 2022 saw a total of 70,727 students sit the junior cycle examinations this year.



It is the first time that the number of candidates sitting the Junior Cycle exams or any of its predecessors has exceeded 70,000 students.



It is also the second year that all students sat exams under the new Junior Cycle curriculum.
US medtech giant Abbott are to invest 440 million in a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in the IDA Business & Technology Park in Kilkenny City, which will create upwards of 800 new jobs.

Abbott are a well established US multinational medical devices and health care company with existing plants in a number of locations across Ireland.

The proposed facility in Kilkenny will focus on the manufacture of the company's Freestyle Libre 3 product - a cutting edge product to continuously monitor glucose levels for diabetic care.

Cathaoirleach of Kilkenny County Council, Cllr Pat Fitzpatrick commenting on the announcement said:

I whole heartedly welcome the announcement by Abbott today. This multi-million euro investment is fantastic news for local economy of Kilkenny and the whole south east region. I am thrilled and I know the people of Kilkenny will be delighted, in particular with the hundreds of job opportunities that will come on stream in the next couple of years. The decision is a huge vote of confidence by Abbott that Kilkenny has the infrastructure, the skills and is a quality location in which to invest. I want to congratulate and thank Abbott for choosing Kilkenny. I look forward to meeting the management team of Abbott in Kilkenny in the near future. I wish them every success with the project and I am confident this will be a mutually beneficial relationship."

Acting CEO of Kilkenny County Council, Sean Mc Keown said that the Councils executives will now proactively engage with Abbott to expedite this exciting development.

Deputy John McGuinness also welcomed the announcement.

This is a fantastic announcement for Kilkenny with 1,000 jobs split between Kilkenny and Donegal and a multi million Euro investment.

"I want to commend the IDA for their efforts and thank Abbott for their substantial commitment to Kilkenny. This will come as a significant boost to our local economy while also providing quality jobs in Kilkenny, concluded Deputy McGuinness.

Speaking about todays announcement Mayor of Kilkenny, Cllr David FitzGerald said, The news today of Abbotts investment of the new manufacturing facility is fantastic for Kilkenny and indeed the South East Region. This will significantly boost our local economy and create many high tech jobs. I would like to welcome the Abbott team to Kilkenny and wish them every success on their new venture.

The new 250,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, which will be located on the IDA Business and Technology Park in Loughboy, Kilkenny, subject to planning permission.

The project is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.
The New York State Police is looking for new troopers.

Applications for the state trooper entrance exam will open Monday and will be accepted through March 4, 2024.

Exams can be taken as early as Nov. 6.

During the last recruitment period, the State Police changed some of the requirements to apply to take the exam, including raising the maximum age from 29 to 34 and up to 42 for those who have served in the military. Nearly 3,000 individuals between the ages of 29 and 34 applied during the last period. A total of 12,691 applied.

Also, the State Police has relaxed its rules related to tattoos. Tattoos on the chest, back or arms must be covered by wearing a uniform shirt or business attire with no portion of the tattoo showing. If it would be visible while wearing a short-sleeved summer uniform, the trooper would have to wear the long-sleeve with a tie.

State Police said theyre also committed to creating a more diverse pool of candidates and have pledged to increase the percentage of women recruits to 30% by 2030.

The computer-based exams are offered at 60 testing sites across the state and in locations across the U.S. and military locations.

Other qualifications include a high school diploma or equivalent. Applicants must be U.S. citizens.

Starting salary upon appointment to the academy is $59,612. Minimum total compensation after one year is $98,300.

For more information, go to JoinStatePolice.ny.gov.
Thousands of people across Kilkenny will have their noses buried in books this November, as part of the annual MS Readathon fundraiser.

The MS Readathon is Irelands biggest sponsored reading initiative, which invites children, adults and teachers to get sponsored to read as many books as they can throughout the month.

All funds raised from the MS Readathon go towards supporting people living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and their families. MS is the most common debilitating neurological condition affecting young adults in Ireland. It affects more than 9,000 people in Ireland.

MS Ireland is calling on people  from small kids and older teenagers to community groups, businesses, and books clubs  to get involved.

Ava Battles, MS Ireland CEO said: "There is still time for bookworms of all ages to set themselves a reading challenge this November and get involved in the MS Readathon. Its not too late for people to read along with their kids at night-time or set a group challenge as part of a book club. The Readathon is the perfect opportunity to keep little minds entertained."

Children, teachers, and adults can get involved in this years MS Readathon by registering online at www.msreadathon.ie/home and a host of fundraising ideas, resources and reading suggestions are also available on MS Readathons website.
Irish soldiers about to be deployed to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon have said they are not afraid as they prepare to travel to a region of high tensions.

Violence between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has flared in recent days as fears grow that the fighting between Israel and Hamas could disrupt other areas across the Middle East.

The 123rd battalion will see 334 Irish personnel and nine people from Malta deployed to the United Nation Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) next month.

At the Glen of Imaal in Co Wicklow on Thursday, Defence Forces soldiers carried out a military training exercise which included the testing of heat-seeking Javelin missiles.

The commanding officer of the 123rd battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Mac Eoin, said his colleagues in Lebanon have described the current conditions as tense, but said the soldiers were ready to go and do their job.

There are exchanges of fire, both north and south across the blue line, but the soldiers are responding well to it.

They would have been through exactly the same training and process that were going through today. And that training is designed actually to prepare the soldiers for just that type of scenario.

So the troops are responding well, theyre in good shape, and as far as were concerned, theres no change to the plan, were ploughing on and were deploying as planned.

Mr Mac Eoin, who has served in Kosovo, Chad, Congo and Lebanon, said it was understandable that some of the soldiers family members are concerned.

He said the soldiers had been given a live update on the situation and were also helped to counter some of the misinformation and disinformation that is spreading around.

He described the tasks the soldiers will have, as mandated by the United Nations  to monitor, to observe, to report, and to protect civilians once deployed to the blue line.

So when our troops are over, we familiarise ourselves with the area of operations, well take over from the guys and girls who are there at the moment, and essentially will occupy those posts, and we continue to do what were doing.

So our operations are essentially to support the government of Lebanon by patrolling alongside the Lebanese Armed Forces. And sometimes without the Lebanese Armed Forces, we call those framework operations.

And in the scenario whereby we do have exchanges of fire, our troops are trained to respond to get into very well-protected positions.

This will be the first mission for Kilkenny brothers Tiarnan and Caolan OReilly, aged 24 and 22.

Asked how they were feeling, they both said they were looking forward to it and were not afraid.

Tiarnan OReilly said he has been following developments a little bit, but his brother Caolan said they are well trained for it.

Matt Kinnaird, who turned 20 on October 7, is the youngest member of the battalion.

In the job, you do grow up very quickly, he said, adding that he tries to listen to his senior officers and take all their advice on board.

I do my best to stay updated with as much as possible. No, Im not too much worried.

We cover all kinds of aspects here in our training, so were prepared for anything.

He said his parents had a little bit of nerves from what they are seeing on social media.

Ive reassured them of the training were doing up here, he added.

Lieutenant Essie OConnell, 25, who joined in 2016, said she is not very nervous because weve done a lot of training.

Its been very robust training. Its exact same every year, were trained for every event.

She said the relationship between the group was very important.

Its a very long six months so everyone needs good cohesion, and for everyone to have good morale and everyone is looking forward to going over.

Theres not anyone too nervous. There will be people nervous but everyone is there for each other and looking out for each other and when we complete the mission everyone is working together.

Asked about whether the group is discussing the tense situation, she said: If people do bring it up, were just say to just concentrate on the training at the moment, that when we get out there, well find out.
Tension between Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and Republican challenger Chrissy Casilio burst into the open Thursday at a debate hosted by St. Josephs Collegiate Institute, with both candidates claiming their opponent is unfit for the countys highest office.

Casilio nailed Poloncarz with several one-line insults that drew immediate reaction from the more than 600 students in attendance. The Clarence businesswoman appeared more confident than in her previous public appearances and had Poloncarz on the defensive at multiple points.

I am the opposite of Mr. Mark Poloncarz in nearly every way, Casilio said. Im a mother, I own a business and I have seen firsthand what the residents of Erie County are going through right now. And theyre suffering.

Poloncarz sought to portray Casilio as an unprepared first-time candidate, describing himself as the leader Erie County needed during the Covid-19 pandemic and after the May 14, 2022, mass shooting in Buffalo.

My record as county executive is one of leading this community through the worst crisis this community has ever seen, Poloncarz said. Im looking forward to serving one more term to complete the work that we have done.

Poloncarz touted recent economic development gains like the redevelopment of parts of the former Bethlehem Steel campus into industrial parks. He said he inherited a county that was nearly driven into the ground, near bankruptcy, by the former leaders of our community.

Government is not a business and it should not be run like one, because it provides services to everyone in our community, including those youd never make a profit from, he said.

Casilio said Poloncarz should be cutting taxes at a steeper rate because of sales tax money that has given the county an unexpected surplus. His proposed $1.9 billion budget calls for cutting the total taxes collected and the county tax rate, but increasing spending for libraries, law enforcement, tourism and disaster planning.

They are taking more money out of your pocket than they ever have, she said. We do not need to be spending that much money. We dont need to be cutting services, we simply need to spend money more wisely.

Poloncarz responded that Casilios plan to cut taxes 10% while still maintaining services was unworkable.

Youd have to cut libraries, parks, other services the public wants, he said. There is no money tree you can just go out to pay for services.

Poloncarzs recent personal controversies spilled into view, as well. On the question of whether Poloncarz had a conflict of interest when a county grant was awarded to an organization run by a woman he had dated, Poloncarz said, There was no financial benefit for me. There is no benefit that I could have ever derived from it.

Casilio fired back at Poloncarz: But you seem to leave out the sexual benefits that you get by giving out money to people you are having relationships with.

On the countys response to the December 2022 blizzard that killed 47 people, Casilio said, The response from the storm was so bad, Im surprised that my opponent decided to run for re-election.

Poloncarz said the county has been working to ensure a better plan of action going forward. Im disappointed that my opponent is basically blaming me for every death. How can I be blamed for a death that came from a power outage at a substation?

Casilio dealt with questions about controversial social media posts she made before she was a candidate.

Her posts included comments and replies to other Twitter users about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and whether the 2020 presidential election was rigged. She has said she also regretted spreading conspiracy theories about Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin.

Casilio said she was six months pregnant with two small children at home during the Jan. 6 attack. She accused Poloncarz of misleading people by suggesting that something she wrote in November  a tweet saying I truly wish I could go!  referred to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

I obviously do not support, nor did I think it was going to get to that level of violence at the Capitol, she said. I condemn that violence and no, I do not wish I was there.

The Erie County executive draws up a budget of more than $1 billion for a county of more than 900,000 people, supervises thousands of employees and is responsible for important services focused on public health, emergency services and the protection of children, among other things.

Casilio is a political newcomer who gained the Republican nomination after more-established politicians like former Rep. Chris Jacobs and County Clerk Michael Kearns passed on the offer to challenge Poloncarz. She does have politics in her blood, though. Her father, also a Republican, is the Clarence town supervisor and has been involved in town government for years.

Her candidacy overcame an early controversy about her social media posts and has seized on early stumbles by Poloncarz, who is seeking to become the first Erie County executive to win four terms in office. He and Dennis Gorski are the only executives to have won three terms.

His welcoming of asylum-seekers from the southern U.S. border who were bused from New York City to Erie County came back to bite him politically when two asylees were accused of sexual assaults at Cheektowaga hotels.

Then Poloncarz was accused in a Buffalo police domestic incident report of grabbing and restraining a 53-year-old woman he had dated. Poloncarz, who was not charged by police, denied grabbing or restraining the woman in any way, and he said he did nothing to merit a police report being filed.

But that controversy also begat an allegation that he steered county funds to a nonprofit organization run by a woman he was dating. Records show the county did provide the group with funds, but Poloncarz denied any impropriety.

In addition to the traditional advantages of incumbency  name recognition, a bully pulpit and regular chances to reach potential voters through government events and community functions  Poloncarz also has a significant fundraising advantage.

Since Jan. 1, Poloncarz, a Democrat, has raised $534,153, according to campaign finance reports. Casilio, a Republican, has raised $154,278, the reports show.

Recently, the fundraising gap between the two candidates has grown wider, with Poloncarz raking in donations at a 4-to-1 pace over Casilio, a Clarence business owner, since the previous filing deadline in July.
OTTAWA, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Canada needs to promote greater competition among businesses by modernizing its laws, the country's antitrust regulator said on Thursday, citing a study of data from 2000 to 2020.

The study found that competitive intensity, a measure of how hard businesses feel they need to work to gain advantage over competitors, had fallen.

"The result of this decline in competitive intensity is that both consumers and businesses have seen fewer of the benefits that a more competitive economy has to offer, such as lower prices, greater choice and more innovation," Competition Bureau Canada said in a statement.

Canada's weak competition laws have been long blamed for allowing a few players dominate industries ranging from banks to telecoms and groceries. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to amend the Competition Act to help reduce prices.

The Competition Bureau said its study found that profits and price mark-ups both rose during the 20-year period, and the increases were generally greater for firms already earning high profits and mark-ups.

Concentration - which indicates to what extent a few companies dominate an industry - rose in the most concentrated industries and the number of highly concentrated industries increased.

The largest firms in industries are being less challenged by their smaller competitors over time and fewer firms have entered industries overall, the bureau said.

"Our findings further highlight the need to modernize Canada's competition laws and adopt a whole-of-government approach to promote competition," Competition Commissioner Matthew Boswell said.

"Taking action to increase competition will drive lower prices and make life more affordable for Canadians," Boswell said.
Oct 19 (Reuters) - Swiss elevator maker Schindler (SCHP.S) on Thursday raised its 2023 guidance slightly after reporting a 23% increase in third quarter profit driven by growth in maintenance and other services.

Europe and the United States were the strongest regions while growth in China stalled, reflecting a slowing economy, although Schindler's Chief Executive Silvio Napoli was still confident about the Chinese market.

Schindler's shares were up 4.4% as of 1030 GMT after the company reported a net profit of 228 million Swiss francs ($254.10 million) for July-September, beating analyst estimates of 214 million francs, according to a company-provided poll.

Schindler said the global housing deficit would drive residential demand and fuel future new installations, offsetting China's current housing oversupply.

"I don't see China implosion happening," CEO Napoli told Reuters, adding that being able to compete in the country is a must.

Schindler is well-placed among competitors as its China exposure is lower than that of peers and most of its earnings come from the services business, which maintains elevators, escalators and moving walks, rather than new installations.

China has struggled this year with a deepening crisis in the property sector, which makes up a quarter of the world's second-largest economy. Its real estate sector is the biggest credit event risk, according to Bank of America's September fund manager survey.

"The growth reduced and the risk profile changed in China, but we need to be prepared to tackle that to be a global company, a leader in the sector there," Napoli said.

The Chinese market makes up around 15% of Schindler's sales, while Finnish rival Kone (KNEBV.HE) generates about a third of its sales in the country.

Schindler said it now expects full-year net profit to reach 880 million to 910 million Swiss francs and revenue to grow 6% to 8% in local currencies. It previously aimed for revenue growth of 5% to 8% and net profit of 860 million to 900 million francs.

Schindler shares are up more than 6% since the start of this year.

($1 = 0.8973 Swiss francs)
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(Kitco News) - The U.S. government is moving to address the threat posed by cryptocurrency-funded terrorism as the Treasury Department announced on Thursday that it has now designated international cryptocurrency mixers, which are exchanges that provide customers with a high level of anonymity, as money-laundering hubs that threaten national security.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, this designation serves as a form of sanction and will require special reporting for any financial transactions. Sanctions are one of the Treasury Departments most effective tools to combat illicit finance.

Todays action underscores Treasurys commitment to combating the exploitation of Convertible Virtual Currency (CVC) mixing by a broad range of illicit actors, including state-affiliated cyber actors, cybercriminals, and terrorist groups, said Wally Adeyemo, deputy secretary of the Treasury. More broadly, the Treasury Department is aggressively combating illicit use of all aspects of the CVC ecosystem by terrorist groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The new sanctions come the day after Senator Elizabeth Warren and more than 100 U.S. lawmakers sent a letter to the Treasury asking how they intended to address the threat of crypto-funded terrorism.

While Hamas crypto fundraising activities have been widely covered by news outlets, on-chain analysis firm Chainalysis has released a new report titled Correcting the Record: Inaccurate Methodologies for Estimating Cryptocurrencys Role in Terrorism Financing, which sought to clarify the role that cryptocurrencies play in funding terrorism.

In recent days following the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel, we have received many questions about how terrorist groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are leveraging cryptocurrency, Chainalysis said. Our priority is to support our customers in Israel and around the world who are working to disrupt, freeze, and seize assets that may be used to fund their activities. But we have also seen overstated metrics and flawed analyses of these terrorist groups use of cryptocurrency, and feel compelled to address some misconceptions.

Chainalysis confirmed that Although terrorism financing is a very small portion of the already very small portion of cryptocurrency transaction volume that is illicit, some terrorist organizations do use digital assets to raise, store, and transfer funds. Terrorist organizations have historically used and will likely continue to use traditional, fiat-based methods such as financial institutions, hawalas, and shell companies as their primary financing vehicles, they said.

The firm noted that the unique transparency inherent in blockchain technology makes cryptocurrency particularly traceable and thus less suitable for illicit activities, including financing terrorism.

Indeed, government agencies and private sector organizations armed with the right blockchain analysis solutions can collaborate to identify and disrupt the flow of funds  a feat not easily achievable with traditional forms of value transfer, they said. But there are some common pitfalls that come along with analyzing terrorist flows on the blockchain, specifically related to identifying and tracing through service providers.

The two key components to analyzing the volume and flow of terrorism-related funds are quantifying the funds directly in the hands of a terrorist organization, and identifying the service providers that facilitate the movement of funds tied to terror financing, the report said.

Chainalysis said that service providers are often involved in known instances of terrorism financing. They cited the recently sanctioned Gaza-based company Buy Cash, which provides money transfer and virtual currency exchange services.

These service providers process volumes of funds greater than a typical individual and less than a typical exchange, they said. Some may be more akin to over-the-counter (OTC) brokers while others may be more similar to street-level money businesses like hawala.

A survey of the counterparties to a wallet known to be affiliated with terror financing found at least 20 suspected service providers.

Each of these suspected service providers have received between $8.4 million and $1.1 billion in cryptocurrency in total from all of their counterparties, Chainalysis said. This address processed over 1,300 deposits and 1,200 withdrawals in 7.5 months. Of the roughly $82 million in cryptocurrency received by this address, about $450,000 worth of funds were transferred from the known terror-affiliated wallet.

This activity suggests that the person or group of people controlling the address are likely not the same person that controls the terror-affiliated wallet, but is rather a service provider that knowingly or unknowingly facilitated the terror financing activity, they said. Not all funds received by service providers are terrorist funds, but disrupting these facilitators is a priority.

Chainalysis said that for untrained observers, it might appear that $82 million worth of cryptocurrency was raised for terror financing, but in reality, it is much more likely that a small portion of these funds were intended for terrorist activity and a majority of the funds processed through the suspected service provider were unrelated.

The firm said many of the recent reports covering the crypto-funding for Hamas appear to include all flows to certain service providers that received some funds associated with terrorism financing, and called it a flawed analysis.

Of course, these service providers are supporting terrorism by acting as facilitators, and cutting off terrorist access to them through sanctions or other offensive operations is an important component to disrupting terrorist finance, they said. But it would be incorrect to assume all of the transaction activity conducted by those service providers is related to terrorism.

The difficulty in teasing out which funds are used for terrorism revolves around how service providers store funds that are sent to them.

When a user sends cryptocurrency to any kind of service, the service pools and co-mingles it with the funds of other users, they said. It therefore is often not productive to continue following funds once theyve been deposited at a service, as the owner of the funds isnt usually the one moving them after that point. Only the service provider knows which deposits and withdrawals are associated with specific customers, and that information is kept in their order books, which arent visible on blockchains or in investigative solutions.

To overcome this, Chainalysis conducts a detailed investigation into the activity of counterparties involved in the transactions conducted by a service provider.

Given blockchain technologys inherent transparency and the often public nature of terrorism financing campaigns, cryptocurrency is not an effective solution to finance terrorism at scale, they said. In fact, its possible that no one understands the challenges of using cryptocurrency for fundraising better than Hamas.

The report noted that in April, Al-Qassam Brigades (AQB), the military wing of Hamas, announced the shutdown of their longstanding cryptocurrency donation program, citing concerns for the safety of their donors given the prosecution of those who donate through cryptocurrency.

Chainalysis said that law enforcement and intelligence agencies can leverage blockchain analysis to investigate donors, facilitators, and cash-out points and partner with private sector organizations to shut down activity. This kind of work has led to seizures of funds related to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups. These successes demonstrate that it is possible to understand and disrupt the financial networks that support terrorism.

But even with additional analysis, it can still be difficult to determine the level of funds received due to most organizations employing a variety of fundraising methods.

Given terrorist organizations use of service providers across both traditional finance and the blockchain, it is very difficult to provide precise estimates for funds going directly to terrorist organizations, absent information validated by law enforcement through seizures or other enforcement actions, they said. Even then, a careful look at the activity of counterparties should be considered. Exchanges in particular offer the on- and off-ramps from cryptocurrency to fiat. Conducting Know Your Customer (KYC) due diligence, as well as monitoring transactions for money laundering and sanctions risks using blockchain analysis solutions are crucial to preventing terrorists and other bad actors from using cryptocurrency.
ALBANY  Gov. Kathy Hochuls father, John Jack Courtney, died of a brain hemorrhage Wednesday night in Florida. He was 87 years old.

Hochul learned of his passing while on a three-day solidarity mission to Israel, and in a handwritten note she left on the Western Wall on Thursday, wrote: I pray for my father, who cherished his visit to this Holy Land, and who passed during the night.

Courtney had been a longtime resident of the Buffalo area.

A few months before Hochul was born, in 1958, her family had lived in a trailer near the Bethlehem Steel plant, where Courtney did clerical work at night and attended college during the day. A father of six children, Courtney later moved the family to a working-class home in Woodlawn. The family was known for service-minded, charitable endeavors, and Courtney raised Hochul in a devoutly Catholic household.

Courtney was hired by the digital company Computer Task Group (CTG) in 1968 as a senior technical consultant.

By 1984, he had risen to become president and chief operating officer. Upon his retirement in 1993, annual revenues had increased from $83 million at the beginning of his tenure to $303 million, according to the company.

Hochul, the second-oldest of the six children, frequently mentions her working-class upbringing during speeches, in particular her fathers ascent on the economic ladder, beginning in a Rust Belt factory. In a speech last month, Hochul said that college education had lifted her father and family.

Next thing we know, our lives are changed forever, she said. I want that available to everybody.

During her inaugural address in January, following her election as governor, Hochul also attributed her political toughness to that background.

I got steel running through my veins, Hochul said. My daddy was a steelworker. My grandpa was a steelworker. My uncles were steelworkers. So I can handle this.

In a call with reporters on Thursday, Hochul recalled going on college visits with her father when she was 17. Hochuls father remarked that while several schools seemed like the place you would go to learn to maybe be the wife a congressman, one school, Syracuse University, was where you go to be a congressman.

Hochul attended Syracuse, and the night she was elected to Congress in 2011, told the story of how she had drawn belief to make that achievement from her father.

Hochuls mother, Patricia Ann Courtney, a homemaker and longtime active member of the Hamburg community, died in 2014.
JERUSALEM (AP)  The New York governor's father died overnight while she was visiting wartime Israel, with the governor slipping a note grieving her loss into Jerusalems Western Wall holy site on Thursday.

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul learned of her 87-year-old father John Courtney's sudden death from a brain hemorrhage in Florida as she embarked on the second day of a trip to show support for Israel during its war with Hamas.

At the Western Wall, Hochul appeared to wipe away a tear before placing a handwritten note with prayers for Israel and for her father into a crack in the limestone wall.

Hochul told reporters she spoke to her father from the airport just before she departed for Israel earlier this week, a small smile peeking through as she recalled how he still talked in his gruff Irish way.

He said, Im proud of you, Dolly, but keep your goddamn head down, Hochul said.

The governors sojourn comes as the Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for a bloody cross-border massacre by Hamas militants in southern Israel almost two weeks ago.

Gaza's Health Ministry said Thursday that 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded since the outbreak of the war.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed and roughly 200 others were abducted and taken into Gaza by Hamas.

Hochul met with Israeli families displaced by the conflict, and heard painful stories from families of American citizens taken hostage by Hamas and from Israelis who have been wounded during the fighting. She also held meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israels ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, reiterating New York's solidarity with Israel.

As the state with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, New York and Israel share a bond that will never be broken, Hochul posted on X, formally Twitter.

A nonprofit organization is funding travel costs for Hochul and her staff, and the state is covering the costs for her security detail, according to the governors office.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, flew to Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that offered support for the Israeli people and urged the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israeli airstrikes have pounded locations across the besieged Gaza Strip, including parts of the south that Israel had declared as safe zones. The attacks on Thursday have heightened fears among more than 2 million Palestinians trapped in the territory that nowhere was safe. More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory.
The dream of publicly funded campaigns in New York was briefly dangled before voters when serious campaign finance reform was passed in 2019, to become effective after the 2022 elections.

But in its June 2023 final session, the New York Legislature passed another bill effectively gutting the most important provisions of the 2019 reforms.

The question before Gov. Kathy Hochul: Why hasn't this regressive legislation been vetoed yet?

The damage it would do is significant:

 Instead of limiting matching funds to donations of up to $250, thus spurring $2,300 in additional taxpayer matching funds, the revision would raise the limit to more than $250. In other words, a provision meant to encourage more and smaller donations, which widens donor participation in the process, is rendered ineffective. Instead of expanding their outreach to more donors, as they would have to do with the $250 limit, candidates can safely depend on the usual suspects: big-money donors.

 Other provisions change whats required to qualify for matching funds, increasing the number in-district donors needed to 145 from 75 while also raising the total donation figure to $10,000 from $6,000. This makes races more difficult for challengers and easier for incumbents.

Its no surprise that these changes were passed quickly, a few days before the end of the legislative session, with almost no public debate or explanation. The reasons for this backpedaling on long-overdue reforms are disgracefully obvious and would have looked even shabbier under prolonged public scrutiny. Well-entrenched incumbents dont want primary challenges from energetic candidates willing to do the outreach to bring in the multiple small donations needed to make their races viable. They want to coast to re-election, not work for it.

The 2019 campaign finance reforms promised a breath of fresh air through the crooked corridors of Albany, with the vision of enabling new candidates and new thinking.

That dream is still possible. Gov. Kathy Hochul can make it happen by vetoing a bill meant to undercut these badly needed reforms.

She should do so without delay.

Whats your opinion? Send it to us at lettertoeditor@buffnews.com. Letters should be a maximum of 300 words and must convey an opinion. The column does not print poetry, announcements of community events or thank you letters. A writer or household may appear only once every 30 days. All letters are subject to fact-checking and editing.
Rep. Jim Jordan talks with Rep. Kevin McCarthy and others at the Capitol in Washington on October 18.
CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund (NYSE:IGR  Get Free Report) declared a dividend on Wednesday, October 18th, investing.com reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 20th will be given a dividend of 0.06 per share by the closed-end fund on Tuesday, October 31st. This represents a dividend yield of 16.22%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 19th. This is a positive change from CBRE Global Real Estate Income Funds previous dividend of $0.05.

CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund has increased its dividend payment by an average of 5.3% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 1 years.

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CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:IGR traded down $0.11 on Wednesday, hitting $4.33. The company had a trading volume of 430,062 shares, compared to its average volume of 569,681. CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund has a 1-year low of $4.17 and a 1-year high of $7.21. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $4.86 and a 200 day moving average price of $5.16.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

About CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in IGR. Equitable Holdings Inc. raised its holdings in CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund by 6.2% in the 4th quarter. Equitable Holdings Inc. now owns 26,055 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $149,000 after buying an additional 1,530 shares during the last quarter. Fiduciary Group LLC raised its holdings in CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund by 20.0% in the 1st quarter. Fiduciary Group LLC now owns 12,180 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $65,000 after buying an additional 2,030 shares during the last quarter. Creative Planning raised its holdings in CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund by 18.9% in the 4th quarter. Creative Planning now owns 13,824 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $79,000 after buying an additional 2,197 shares during the last quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC raised its holdings in CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund by 9.6% in the 2nd quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 44,600 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $233,000 after buying an additional 3,907 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in CBRE Global Real Estate Income Fund by 2.4% in the 1st quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 186,200 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $1,683,000 after buying an additional 4,444 shares during the last quarter.

(Get Free Report)

CBRE Clarion Global Real Estate Income Fund specializes in investments in various property types, including office, retail, diversified, apartments, industrials, hotels, healthcare, and storage. It invests in the public equity markets across the developed markets of North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

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Banco Santander (Brasil) S.A. (NYSE:BSBR  Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, October 11th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, October 23rd will be paid a dividend of 0.0202 per share by the bank on Monday, November 20th. This represents a $0.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.55%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 20th.

Banco Santander (Brasil) has a dividend payout ratio of 10.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Banco Santander (Brasil) to earn $0.75 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 10.7%.

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Banco Santander (Brasil) Stock Down 1.7 %

NYSE:BSBR opened at $5.21 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.02, a current ratio of 0.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Banco Santander has a fifty-two week low of $4.76 and a fifty-two week high of $6.64. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $5.35 and its 200-day simple moving average is $5.71.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Banco Santander (Brasil)

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Atlas Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Banco Santander (Brasil) in the 2nd quarter valued at about $26,000. Wells Fargo & Company MN acquired a new stake in Banco Santander (Brasil) in the 2nd quarter valued at about $39,000. Royal Bank of Canada grew its stake in Banco Santander (Brasil) by 12,833.3% in the 3rd quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 7,760 shares of the banks stock valued at $43,000 after acquiring an additional 7,700 shares during the last quarter. Insigneo Advisory Services LLC acquired a new stake in Banco Santander (Brasil) in the 2nd quarter valued at about $69,000. Finally, BNP Paribas Arbitrage SNC grew its stake in Banco Santander (Brasil) by 1,389.7% in the 2nd quarter. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SNC now owns 11,843 shares of the banks stock valued at $75,000 after acquiring an additional 11,048 shares during the last quarter. 14.56% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on shares of Banco Santander (Brasil) in a research note on Monday. They set a hold rating and a $5.70 price target on the stock. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Banco Santander (Brasil) from $5.00 to $5.50 and gave the stock an underweight rating in a research note on Thursday, July 27th. Finally, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Banco Santander (Brasil) in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and two have issued a hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Reduce and a consensus target price of $5.40.

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Banco Santander (Brasil) Company Profile

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Banco Santander (Brasil) SA, together with its subsidiaries, provides various banking products and services to individuals, small and medium enterprises, and corporate customers in Brazil and internationally. The company operates through, Commercial Banking and Global Wholesale Banking segments. It offers deposits and other bank funding instruments; debit and credit cards; digital prepaid solutions; payment platform; loyalty programs; employee benefit vouchers; payroll loans; digital lending and online debt renegotiation platform; mortgages; home equity financing products; consumer credit; and local loans, commercial and trade finance, guarantees, structured loans, and cash management and funding solutions, as well as on-lending transfer services.

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ALLISTON, Ont.  Japanese automaker Honda says it will start producing the Civic Hybrid next year at its plant in Alliston, Ont.

The company says the Ontario plant will produce the sedan version of the car.

The hatchback version of the Civic Hybrid will be manufactured at a plant in Indiana, according to the automaker.

Honda already produces the hybrid version of its CR-V sport utility vehicle in Alliston and at the plant in Indiana.

The company says the Civic Hybrid is a key step in its electrification strategy, which includes equipping its core models with hybrid-electric systems.

It says it expects Civic Hybrid sales to represent more than 40 per cent of Civic sales in North America.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2023.

The Canadian Press
Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund (NYSE:ETJ  Get Free Report) declared a monthly dividend on Monday, October 2nd, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Monday, October 23rd will be paid a dividend of 0.058 per share on Tuesday, October 31st. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a yield of 8.89%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 20th. This is an increase from Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Funds previous monthly dividend of $0.06.

Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund has decreased its dividend by an average of 1.3% per year over the last three years.

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Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund Stock Performance

Shares of ETJ opened at $7.83 on Thursday. Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund has a 12-month low of $7.37 and a 12-month high of $8.50. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $7.85 and its 200 day moving average price is $7.98.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund

About Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC grew its stake in shares of Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 97,040 shares of the companys stock valued at $802,000 after purchasing an additional 1,270 shares during the period. Centaurus Financial Inc. grew its position in Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund by 3.3% during the 1st quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 62,962 shares of the companys stock worth $501,000 after acquiring an additional 2,010 shares during the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC grew its position in Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund by 7.1% during the 2nd quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 42,172 shares of the companys stock worth $353,000 after acquiring an additional 2,800 shares during the last quarter. Retirement Group LLC grew its position in Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund by 60.5% during the 4th quarter. Retirement Group LLC now owns 11,365 shares of the companys stock worth $85,000 after acquiring an additional 4,285 shares during the last quarter. Finally, B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. grew its position in Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund by 25.5% during the 4th quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 27,287 shares of the companys stock worth $205,000 after acquiring an additional 5,537 shares during the last quarter.

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Eaton Vance Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund is a closed ended equity mutual fund launched and managed by Eaton Vance Management. The fund invests in the public equity markets of the United States. It primarily invests in common stocks and purchases out-of-the-money, short-dated S&P 500 index put options and sells out-of-the-money S&P 500 Index call options of the same term as the put options with roll dates that are staggered across the options portfolio.

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Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund (NYSE:EVT  Get Free Report) declared a monthly dividend on Monday, October 2nd, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Monday, October 23rd will be given a dividend of 0.149 per share by the closed-end fund on Tuesday, October 31st. This represents a $1.79 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 8.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 20th. This is an increase from Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Funds previous monthly dividend of $0.15.

Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund has increased its dividend payment by an average of 3.4% per year over the last three years.

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Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund Stock Performance

EVT opened at $20.55 on Thursday. Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund has a twelve month low of $20.41 and a twelve month high of $25.21. The firms 50-day moving average price is $21.78 and its 200 day moving average price is $22.27.

Insider Buying and Selling

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund

In other news, Portfolio Manager Derek Digregorio bought 2,859 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, August 14th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $23.00 per share, for a total transaction of $65,757.00. Following the acquisition, the portfolio manager now directly owns 2,859 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $65,757. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of EVT. Osaic Holdings Inc. raised its holdings in Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 320,628 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $7,295,000 after buying an additional 13,095 shares during the period. Imprint Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $2,302,000. Wells Fargo & Company MN raised its stake in shares of Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund by 7.0% in the 2nd quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 523,407 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $11,908,000 after acquiring an additional 34,143 shares during the period. Royal Bank of Canada raised its stake in shares of Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 299,191 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $6,807,000 after acquiring an additional 12,090 shares during the period. Finally, Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. raised its stake in shares of Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund by 43.7% in the 2nd quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 89,266 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $2,031,000 after acquiring an additional 27,145 shares during the period.

About Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund

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Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund is a closed-ended equity mutual fund launched and managed by Eaton Vance Management. The fund invests in public equity markets across the globe. It seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating across the diversified sectors. The fund primarily invests in dividend paying value stocks of companies that qualify for favorable federal income tax treatment.

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Farmers & Merchants Bancorp (OTCMKTS:FMCB  Get Free Report)s stock price hit a new 52-week low on Thursday . The stock traded as low as $932.00 and last traded at $951.01, with a volume of 61 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $980.00.

Farmers & Merchants Bancorp Stock Performance

The stock has a fifty day moving average of $960.63 and a 200 day moving average of $970.95. The company has a current ratio of 0.85, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02.

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Farmers & Merchants Bancorp (OTCMKTS:FMCB  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 19th. The bank reported $28.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $57.87 million during the quarter.

Farmers & Merchants Bancorp Company Profile

Farmers & Merchants Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Farmers & Merchants Bank of Central California that provides various banking services to businesses and individuals. The company accepts various deposit products, including checking, savings, money market, time certificates of deposit, and individual retirement accounts.

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Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes (NYSE:GOL  Get Free Report) issued an update on its third quarter 2023 earnings guidance on Tuesday morning. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of -$0.28$0.28 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of $0.07. The company issued revenue guidance of -.

Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes Price Performance

Shares of NYSE GOL opened at $2.90 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $724.44 million, a P/E ratio of -48.24, a P/E/G ratio of 0.36 and a beta of 1.36. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $2.92 and a 200-day simple moving average of $3.40. Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes has a 1 year low of $2.00 and a 1 year high of $5.59.

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Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes (NYSE:GOL  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The transportation company reported ($0.41) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.11) by ($0.30). The business had revenue of $837.71 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $842.72 million. As a group, research analysts expect that Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes will post 0.16 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

GOL has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group cut shares of Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes from a buy rating to a neutral rating and upped their target price for the company from $4.80 to $5.65 in a research report on Monday, July 10th. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes from $3.50 to $5.50 in a research report on Monday, July 10th. StockNews.com started coverage on Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. Finally, Citigroup lowered Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $4.20 price target for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, August 15th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $5.09.

Check Out Our Latest Research Report on GOL

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Creative Planning acquired a new stake in shares of Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes during the 4th quarter worth about $33,000. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new stake in Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes during the 4th quarter worth $50,000. Squarepoint Ops LLC purchased a new stake in Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes in the first quarter valued at $85,000. American Century Companies Inc. acquired a new position in Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes in the first quarter valued at $87,000. Finally, Two Sigma Securities LLC purchased a new position in shares of Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes during the second quarter worth about $91,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 0.29% of the companys stock.

Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes Company Profile

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GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA provides scheduled and non-scheduled air transportation services for passengers and cargo; and maintenance services for aircrafts and components in Brazil and internationally. The company offers Smiles, a frequent-flyer programs to approximately 20.5 million members, allowing clients to accumulate and redeem miles.

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HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS  Get Free Report) had its target price reduced by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $604.00 to $568.00 in a research note issued on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an overweight rating on the software makers stock. Morgan Stanleys price objective would suggest a potential upside of 26.22% from the companys current price.

Several other research firms also recently issued reports on HUBS. Mizuho upped their price objective on HubSpot from $550.00 to $600.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, September 7th. Argus lifted their price objective on HubSpot from $550.00 to $604.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 16th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of HubSpot in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Bank of America lifted their price target on shares of HubSpot from $635.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, September 7th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC increased their price objective on shares of HubSpot from $570.00 to $630.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, September 7th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-three have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $539.44.

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HubSpot Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:HUBS traded up $4.60 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $450.00. The companys stock had a trading volume of 77,227 shares, compared to its average volume of 600,088. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $501.92 and its 200-day simple moving average is $493.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42, a current ratio of 2.25 and a quick ratio of 2.25. HubSpot has a fifty-two week low of $249.99 and a fifty-two week high of $581.40. The company has a market capitalization of $22.50 billion, a P/E ratio of -108.70 and a beta of 1.59.

HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 2nd. The software maker reported ($1.17) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.90) by ($0.27). HubSpot had a negative net margin of 10.51% and a negative return on equity of 11.28%. The company had revenue of $529.14 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $504.45 million. As a group, equities research analysts expect that HubSpot will post -1.42 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at HubSpot

In other HubSpot news, CFO Kathryn Bueker sold 179 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $500.00, for a total transaction of $89,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 35,038 shares in the company, valued at approximately $17,519,000. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, insider Brian Halligan sold 8,500 shares of HubSpot stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $507.76, for a total value of $4,315,960.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 578,376 shares in the company, valued at $293,676,197.76. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Kathryn Bueker sold 179 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $500.00, for a total transaction of $89,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 35,038 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $17,519,000. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 47,967 shares of company stock valued at $23,913,211 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 4.90% of the companys stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On HubSpot

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of HubSpot by 49.2% during the 1st quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 704 shares of the software makers stock worth $333,000 after purchasing an additional 232 shares in the last quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in HubSpot in the first quarter valued at $1,385,000. Raymond James Trust N.A. lifted its stake in HubSpot by 12.3% in the first quarter. Raymond James Trust N.A. now owns 776 shares of the software makers stock valued at $368,000 after acquiring an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. bought a new position in shares of HubSpot in the 1st quarter valued at about $206,000. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of HubSpot by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 64,334 shares of the software makers stock worth $30,562,000 after purchasing an additional 253 shares during the last quarter. 87.06% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

HubSpot Company Profile

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HubSpot, Inc provides a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform for businesses in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company's CRM platform includes marketing, sales, service, and content management systems, as well as integrated applications, such as search engine optimization, blogging, website content management, messaging, chatbots, social media, marketing automation, email, predictive lead scoring, sales productivity, knowledge base, commerce, conversation routing, video hosting, ticketing and helpdesk tools, customer NPS surveys, analytics, and reporting.

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Kenmare Resources plc (OTCMKTS:KMRPF  Get Free Report) shares shot up 7.1% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $5.25 and last traded at $5.25. 250 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 92% from the average session volume of 2,945 shares. The stock had previously closed at $4.90.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Berenberg Bank cut Kenmare Resources from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Monday, July 17th.

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Kenmare Resources Stock Performance

Kenmare Resources Company Profile

The businesss 50-day simple moving average is $5.28 and its 200 day simple moving average is $4.79.

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Kenmare Resources plc, together with its subsidiaries, produces and sells mineral sand products in China, the rest of Asia, Europe, the United States, and internationally. It operates the Moma Titanium Minerals Mine located on the northeast coast of Mozambique. The company's products include ilmenite, rutile, and zircon; and concentrates, including secondary zircon and mineral sand concentrates.

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P&S Credit Management L.P. decreased its holdings in shares of Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL  Free Report) by 30.0% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 70,000 shares of the transportation companys stock after selling 30,000 shares during the period. Delta Air Lines accounts for approximately 2.4% of P&S Credit Management L.P.s portfolio, making the stock its 2nd biggest position. P&S Credit Management L.P.s holdings in Delta Air Lines were worth $3,328,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in DAL. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd increased its holdings in Delta Air Lines by 6.3% during the first quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 15,283 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $534,000 after buying an additional 901 shares during the last quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Delta Air Lines by 8.2% in the first quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 962,574 shares of the transportation companys stock valued at $29,966,000 after purchasing an additional 73,291 shares during the last quarter. PFG Investments LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Delta Air Lines during the 1st quarter worth about $431,000. Independent Advisor Alliance boosted its holdings in shares of Delta Air Lines by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Independent Advisor Alliance now owns 58,420 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $2,777,000 after buying an additional 394 shares during the period. Finally, Empirical Finance LLC raised its holdings in Delta Air Lines by 11.9% in the 2nd quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 19,586 shares of the transportation companys stock valued at $931,000 after acquiring an additional 2,076 shares during the period. 71.29% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Delta Air Lines Price Performance

Shares of NYSE DAL traded up $0.15 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $33.29. 7,902,015 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 10,205,336. The company has a market cap of $21.42 billion, a PE ratio of 6.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.18 and a beta of 1.32. Delta Air Lines, Inc. has a twelve month low of $30.98 and a twelve month high of $49.81. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.90, a current ratio of 0.44 and a quick ratio of 0.39. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $39.46 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $39.76.

Delta Air Lines Announces Dividend

Delta Air Lines ( NYSE:DAL Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 12th. The transportation company reported $2.03 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.95 by $0.08. Delta Air Lines had a return on equity of 54.95% and a net margin of 5.94%. The firm had revenue of $15.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $14.55 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.51 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Delta Air Lines, Inc. will post 6.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, November 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 12th will be given a $0.10 dividend. This represents a $0.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.20%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, October 11th. Delta Air Liness dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 7.58%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Citigroup decreased their target price on Delta Air Lines from $64.00 to $56.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on Delta Air Lines from $71.00 to $68.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 13th. Bank of America lowered their price target on shares of Delta Air Lines from $50.00 to $40.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 3rd. Sanford C. Bernstein dropped their price objective on shares of Delta Air Lines from $62.00 to $61.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 26th. Finally, Wolfe Research increased their target price on shares of Delta Air Lines from $51.00 to $54.00 in a research report on Friday, July 14th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of $54.40.

Get Our Latest Analysis on DAL

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Steven M. Sear sold 12,129 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.52, for a total value of $552,112.08. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 85,708 shares in the company, valued at $3,901,428.16. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, EVP Peter W. Carter sold 17,944 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.00, for a total transaction of $807,480.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 166,192 shares in the company, valued at $7,478,640. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Steven M. Sear sold 12,129 shares of Delta Air Lines stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.52, for a total value of $552,112.08. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 85,708 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,901,428.16. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 37,129 shares of company stock valued at $1,677,112. Insiders own 0.89% of the companys stock.

Delta Air Lines Profile

(Free Report)

Delta Air Lines, Inc provides scheduled air transportation for passengers and cargo in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Airline and Refinery. Its domestic network centered on core hubs in Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit, and Salt Lake City, as well as coastal hub positions in Boston, Los Angeles, New York-LaGuardia, New York-JFK, and Seattle; and international network centered on hubs and market presence in Amsterdam, Mexico City, London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, and Seoul-Incheon.

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Renasant Bank lessened its position in Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY  Free Report) by 35.5% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 1,716 shares of the companys stock after selling 946 shares during the quarter. Renasant Banks holdings in Eli Lilly and Company were worth $805,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Silicon Valley Capital Partners purchased a new position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Bogart Wealth LLC lifted its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 193.3% in the 1st quarter. Bogart Wealth LLC now owns 88 shares of the companys stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the period. Laffer Tengler Investments purchased a new position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 156.4% in the 1st quarter. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. now owns 100 shares of the companys stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares during the period. Finally, Activest Wealth Management purchased a new position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.38% of the companys stock.

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Insider Activity at Eli Lilly and Company

In related news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 37,660 shares of Eli Lilly and Company stock in a transaction on Monday, August 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $546,751.75, for a total transaction of $20,590,670,905.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 100,275,279 shares in the company, valued at $54,825,684,274,988.30. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, CAO Donald A. Zakrowski sold 600 shares of Eli Lilly and Company stock in a transaction on Monday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $546.51, for a total transaction of $327,906.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 5,378 shares in the company, valued at $2,939,130.78. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 37,660 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $546,751.75, for a total value of $20,590,670,905.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 100,275,279 shares in the company, valued at $54,825,684,274,988.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 908,246 shares of company stock worth $21,078,990,577. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

LLY has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Citigroup raised their price objective on Eli Lilly and Company from $360.00 to $525.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 26th. 22nd Century Group reaffirmed a maintains rating on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a research report on Tuesday, June 27th. Argus raised their price objective on Eli Lilly and Company from $470.00 to $620.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on Eli Lilly and Company from $385.00 to $470.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 9th. Finally, Bank of America raised their price objective on Eli Lilly and Company from $600.00 to $700.00 in a research report on Friday, October 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and nineteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $540.09.

Read Our Latest Analysis on LLY

Eli Lilly and Company Stock Performance

Shares of LLY traded down $15.11 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $592.13. The stock had a trading volume of 2,403,604 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,033,323. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.63, a current ratio of 1.13 and a quick ratio of 0.87. Eli Lilly and Company has a 12 month low of $309.20 and a 12 month high of $629.97. The firm has a market capitalization of $562.10 billion, a PE ratio of 84.46, a PEG ratio of 3.29 and a beta of 0.33. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $562.91 and a 200 day moving average price of $477.16.

Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 8th. The company reported $2.11 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.98 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $8.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.58 billion. Eli Lilly and Company had a return on equity of 65.00% and a net margin of 22.01%. Eli Lilly and Companys revenue was up 28.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.25 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Eli Lilly and Company will post 7.26 EPS for the current year.

About Eli Lilly and Company

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Eli Lilly and Company discovers, develops, and markets human pharmaceuticals worldwide. It offers Basaglar, Humalog, Humalog Mix 75/25, Humalog U-100, Humalog U-200, Humalog Mix 50/50, insulin lispro, insulin lispro protamine, insulin lispro mix 75/25, Humulin, Humulin 70/30, Humulin N, Humulin R, and Humulin U-500 for diabetes; and Jardiance, Trajenta, and Trulicity for type 2 diabetes.

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Renasant Bank trimmed its stake in shares of Northrop Grumman Co. (NYSE:NOC  Free Report) by 1.7% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 2,312 shares of the aerospace companys stock after selling 40 shares during the quarter. Renasant Banks holdings in Northrop Grumman were worth $1,054,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Fort Sheridan Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Northrop Grumman by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. Fort Sheridan Advisors LLC now owns 1,547 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $705,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement System grew its position in Northrop Grumman by 3.4% during the second quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 41,300 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $18,825,000 after buying an additional 1,376 shares in the last quarter. Fiduciary Trust Co. grew its position in Northrop Grumman by 14.7% during the second quarter. Fiduciary Trust Co. now owns 8,862 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $4,039,000 after buying an additional 1,135 shares in the last quarter. LPL Financial LLC grew its position in Northrop Grumman by 2.6% during the second quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 185,968 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $84,764,000 after buying an additional 4,725 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. grew its position in Northrop Grumman by 6.9% during the second quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 2,349 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $1,056,000 after buying an additional 152 shares in the last quarter. 82.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Insider Buying and Selling at Northrop Grumman

In other Northrop Grumman news, VP Roshan S. Roeder sold 1,007 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $465.00, for a total transaction of $468,255.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 913 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $424,545. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, VP Mark A. Caylor sold 1,670 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $437.87, for a total value of $731,242.90. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 14,570 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $6,379,765.90. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, VP Roshan S. Roeder sold 1,007 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $465.00, for a total value of $468,255.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 913 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $424,545. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.26% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently commented on the company. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their target price on Northrop Grumman from $485.00 to $435.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Monday, September 18th. Bank of America cut their price objective on Northrop Grumman from $655.00 to $615.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 28th. UBS Group started coverage on Northrop Grumman in a report on Tuesday, October 10th. They issued a buy rating and a $555.00 price objective for the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft started coverage on Northrop Grumman in a report on Wednesday, September 27th. They issued a buy rating and a $502.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $500.00 price objective on shares of Northrop Grumman in a report on Thursday, August 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $502.38.

View Our Latest Stock Report on Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman Trading Down 0.1 %

NOC stock traded down $0.32 during trading on Thursday, hitting $490.44. 302,670 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 856,588. The firm has a market capitalization of $74.20 billion, a PE ratio of 16.26, a P/E/G ratio of 5.82 and a beta of 0.50. Northrop Grumman Co. has a 1 year low of $414.56 and a 1 year high of $556.27. The company has a 50-day moving average of $439.10 and a 200-day moving average of $447.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.89, a quick ratio of 1.09 and a current ratio of 1.20.

Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The aerospace company reported $5.34 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.31 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $9.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $9.32 billion. Northrop Grumman had a return on equity of 24.90% and a net margin of 12.27%. Analysts predict that Northrop Grumman Co. will post 22.68 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Northrop Grumman Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 28th were given a dividend of $1.87 per share. This represents a $7.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 25th. Northrop Grummans payout ratio is 24.78%.

About Northrop Grumman

(Free Report)

Northrop Grumman Corporation operates as an aerospace and defense company worldwide. The company's Aeronautics Systems segment designs, develops, manufactures, integrates, and sustains aircraft systems in the United States and internationally. This segment also offers unmanned autonomous aircraft systems, including high-altitude long-endurance strategic ISR systems and vertical take-off and landing tactical ISR systems; and strategic long-range strike aircraft, tactical fighter and air dominance aircraft, and airborne battle management and command and control systems.

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The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (NYSE:IPG  Get Free Report) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in the month of September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 12,220,000 shares, a growth of 10.0% from the September 15th total of 11,110,000 shares. Approximately 3.2% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 4,370,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.8 days.

Interpublic Group of Companies Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:IPG traded down $1.06 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $29.03. The company had a trading volume of 5,525,685 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,209,527. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.78, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 1.03. The company has a market cap of $11.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.05, a PEG ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 1.13. Interpublic Group of Companies has a 12-month low of $26.75 and a 12-month high of $40.95. The company has a fifty day moving average of $30.82 and a two-hundred day moving average of $35.00.

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Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE:IPG  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 21st. The business services provider reported $0.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.61 by $0.13. Interpublic Group of Companies had a return on equity of 29.72% and a net margin of 8.70%. The business had revenue of $2.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.39 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.63 EPS. Interpublic Group of Companiess revenue for the quarter was up 12.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts expect that Interpublic Group of Companies will post 3.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Interpublic Group of Companies Dividend Announcement

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 1st were given a dividend of $0.31 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 31st. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.27%. Interpublic Group of Companiess payout ratio is 51.45%.

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Citigroup reduced their price target on Interpublic Group of Companies from $45.00 to $43.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Monday, July 24th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered Interpublic Group of Companies from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $43.00 to $33.00 in a research note on Monday, July 24th. StockNews.com lowered Interpublic Group of Companies from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note on Monday. Macquarie dropped their price objective on Interpublic Group of Companies from $36.00 to $30.00 in a research note on Tuesday, October 10th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on Interpublic Group of Companies from $38.00 to $35.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Monday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Interpublic Group of Companies presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $37.22.

View Our Latest Research Report on IPG

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Interpublic Group of Companies by 14.5% in the 1st quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 23,035 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $817,000 after acquiring an additional 2,915 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Advisor Networks LLC bought a new position in shares of Interpublic Group of Companies in the 1st quarter valued at about $243,000. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund bought a new position in shares of Interpublic Group of Companies in the 1st quarter valued at about $133,000. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS lifted its holdings in shares of Interpublic Group of Companies by 6.6% in the 1st quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 52,667 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $1,867,000 after acquiring an additional 3,244 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Yousif Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Interpublic Group of Companies by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 63,184 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $2,240,000 after acquiring an additional 595 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.43% of the companys stock.

Interpublic Group of Companies Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc provides advertising and marketing services worldwide. It operates in three segments: Media, Data & Engagement Solutions, Integrated Advertising & Creativity Led Solutions, and Specialized Communications & Experiential Solutions. The Media, Data & Engagement Solutions segment provides media and communications services, digital services and products, advertising and marketing technology, e-commerce services, data management and analytics, strategic consulting, and digital brand experience under the IPG Mediabrands, UM, Initiative, Kinesso, Acxiom, Huge, MRM, and R/GA brand names.

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Its never too late to do better.

Lexington is in the middle of some important conversations about its shameful history of housing segregation. That it happened in nearly every city in America makes it no less shameful; it only lays bare exactly how determined white people were to keep Black people in subservient roles in every aspect of our society.

From racially restricted house deeds created by the developers of neighborhoods such as Kenwick and Meadowthorpe at the turn of the century to the redlining of neighborhoods by federal housing agencies to urban renewal in the 1970s, the odds were stacked against Black people owning homes.

That, in turn, stacked the odds against the creation of generational wealth, a gap that exists to this day. Gentrification of Black neighborhoods further compounds these problems.

Lexington is lucky, however, to have some people and organizations who are willing to squarely face these past wrongs. First off, two senior citizens have created a website titled Segregated Lexington, which goes deep into the historical records to explain the birth of our divided lines.

Right now, the Lexington Public Library- Central Branch features the exhibit Undesign the Red Line, which explores redlining in Lexington and across the country.

And on Tuesday, the Blue Grass Community Foundation will present Richard Rothstein and his daughter, Leah Rothstein in a talk at the University of Kentucky. Richard Rothstein is the author of The Color of Law, the seminal text on federal redlining efforts across the country, which has been our most recent community read.

And together with Leah Rothstein, they produced a follow-up titled Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law, which examines ways in which communities can fix the problems these policies caused. KETs Renee Shaw will hold a conversation with Leah Rothstein and Richard Rothstein (via satellite) followed by a brief Q&A session.

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The event is free and open to the public, but you must reserve a ticket.

This follows the 2022 event sponsored by the foundation featuring Heather McGhee, the author of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.

The Rothstein event seemed like a natural fit in Lexingtons evolving sense of its past, Adkins said.

At Blue Grass Community Foundation, we want a community where everyone can thrive, she said. Racial segregation in Lexington, and across the country, was intentionally structured and institutionalized. By understanding our history, we can make the choice as individuals, and as a community, to use this same intention to work towards undoing the legacy of segregation in Lexington.

Last year, the Herald-Leader asked community members to reflect on The Sum of Us in a themed Opinion section. This time around, scholars, activists and others have written about their perspectives on The Color of Law and its many overlapping issues.

For example, Anastasia Curwood, a UK history professor and director of the Commonwealth Institute on Black Studies, writes about how white supremacy underpinned the legal manuevers that deprived Black people of home ownership and thus, generational wealth.

Realtor Kristen LaRue Bond reflects on how her profession contributed to the kind of race-based steering that kept Black families out of white neighborhoods, and what they are doing to change that.

Council member James Brown has focused on how a ban on source of income discrimination could change the affordable housing policies that still harm too many poor and minority residents. Rona Roberts and Barbara Sutherland  the creators of the Segregated Lexington website  explore some other possible solutions presented in Just Action, such as how zoning reforms could make neighborhoods more accessible and equitable.

These issues are difficult to unravel, but as Roberts and Sutherland write: African American wealth-building boosts families and the entire community. It is our hope that when we as a community recognize how intentional segregation kept Black families from building wealth, many of us will choose to work together to repair that injustice.

Lexingtons segregation sits on a historical scaffold of white supremacy | Opinion

The Color of Law unveiled truths that Black Americans have always known | Opinion

Weve ripped the scab off Lexingtons hidden housing injustice. What comes next? | Opinion

Lexingtons intentional segregation took years to create. It will be hard to unravel. | Opinion
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The details for the upcoming Melon Music Awards 2023 have been announced.

Read more to know further information.

Mark Your Calendars: Melon Music Awards 2023 to be Held on THIS Date

The highly anticipated awards show finally made its first announcement!

On October 19, a Korean news outlet reported that the Melon Music Awards (MMA) 2023 would be held at the INSPIRE Arena in Yeongjongdo, Incheon, on December 2.

YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN: Melon Music Awards (MMA) 2022 Winners- See Full List Here

It also included a message from the event organizers, who addressed the lack of seats in the venue since INSPIRE Arena is scheduled for opening and lacks domestic concert infrastructure.

Moreover, the INSPIRE Arena would have a capacity of 15,000 seats and is the first-ever exclusive venue dedicated for K-pop. To compensate, Melon shared that the organization would deliver a quality viewing experience at the large-scale venue.

Read their full announcement below:

"For the music fans who were disappointed with the venue's lack of domestic performance infrastructure, we will provide an exhilarating first viewing in a large arena exclusive for K-pop."

It also disclosed that MMA 2023's slogan for this year is "K-pop Changes the World." The slogan defines the meaning of becoming one with music's strength, which will unite the world at the awarding ceremony.

The awards show will also be livestreamed, and audiences can watch the program on the Melon app, website, Wavve, and ABEMA TV in Japan.

Melon Music Awards 2022 Winners Announced: Which Artists Won Grand Prizes?

In other news, the Melon Music Awards 2022 was held on November 26, 2022, at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea.

See the full list of winners below:

Artist of the Year (Daesang): Lim Young Woong

Best Song of the Year (Daesang): "LOVE DIVE" by IVE

Album of the Year (Daesang): "IM HERO" by Lim Young Woong

Record of the Year (Daesang): "Proof" by BTS

Stage of the Year: "The Golden Hour: Under the Orange Sun" concert by IU

Melon Top 10 Artists (Bonsang):

IVE

Lim Young Woong

MeloMance

(G)I-DLE

NewJeans

BE'O

BTS

IU

SEVENTEEN

NCT Dream

New Artist of the Year

IVE

NewJeans

Hot Trend: LE SSERAFIM

KakaoBank Everyone's Star: BTS

Best Performance (Male): TXT

Best Performance (Female): LE SSERAFIM

Best Female Group: IVE

Best Male Group: BTS

Best Solo (Female): IU

Best Solo (Male): Lim Young Woong

Best Music Video: (G)I-DLE's "TOMBOY"

Best OST: "Love, Maybe" (from "Business Proposal") by MeloMance

Best Collaboration: BIG Naughty & 10cm ("Just 10 centimeters")

Global Rising Artist: STAYC

Global Artist: MONSTA X

Netizen Popularity Award: Lim Young Woong

1theK Global Icon Award: ENHYPEN

Best Music Style: Big Naughty

Best Songwriter: (G)I-DLE Jeon Soyeon

Best Pop Artist: Charlie Puth

Best Session:

Choi In Seong

Lee Shin Woo

Project Music: WSG Wannabe

Are you excited for this year's upcoming MMAs? Are you already rooting for a group? Let us know in the comments below!

Read KpopStarz for more K-pop news.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The Fact Music Awards 2023 Winners Announced: NewJeans, SEVENTEEN, Lim Young Woong, More Take Home Trophies

KpopStarz owns this article

Written by Riely Miller
Shannon O'Connor, 49 has been charged with 39 criminal counts, including felony child abuse, sexual assault and providing alcohol to minors

Santa clara district attorney

The California woman who police allege hosted alcohol-fueled sex parties for her son and his friends is accused of searching online for good books with young sex, hot 16 (year) old teenage girls and other content that sexualized teens, court documents show.

Shannon OConnor, 49, of Los Gatos, was arrested in Oct. 2021 and charged with a slew of offenses including sexual assault and providing alcohol to minors for allegedly hosting the parties, which authorities claim she attempted to keep secret, according to the criminal complaint filed with the Santa Clara County Superior Court.

O'Connor allegedly encouraged sex acts among the teens  who ranged in age from 13 and 16 years old  and sometimes watched as well, prosecutors claim.

The parties took place between June of 2020 and Feb. 2021, according to the criminal complaint.

She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Prosecutors with the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office filed motions with new information about the case ahead of an upcoming preliminary hearing on Nov. 6, KRON4 first reported.

Court documents first obtained by KRON4, which the DAs office confirmed to PEOPLE, show that Google searches including good books with young sex, hot 16 (year) old teenage girls and prettiest 16 year old girl were found on her phone.

The documents state that her phone also had multiple videos that appeared to have been downloaded from TikTok and other social media applications. The videos show young girls who appear to be underage, the documents state.

Related: Mom Accused of Hosting Alcohol-Fueled Sex Parties for Teens 'Tore My Life Apart,' Alleged Victim Says

The girls in the videos were dressed in revealing clothing and made statements to the camera, the documents state.

There is no evidence that the girls in these videos were personally known to defendant, the documents also state.

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Related: Calif. Mom Accused of Throwing Secret Alcohol-Filled Parties for Teens and Watching Them Have Sex

Later in 2021, O'Connor moved to Idaho. When O'Connor was arrested there in October 2021, she had allegedly hosted a sleepover for 12 underaged teens.

Her attorney did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment.

Teens Allegedly Lured to Secret Parties

During a hearing in April, some of OConnors alleged teen victims and their parents claimed in court that O'Connor allegedly lured them to her home for wild parties through social media and her two teenaged sons, KRON4 reported.

O'Connor allegedly allowed her teenage party guests to drink and have sex for her own sexual gratification, prosecutors said.

She allegedly asked the teens to keep quiet about the parties and even lie to their parents about them, prosecutors said.

O'Connor "bought vodka and Fireball whiskey, provided condoms and discouraged the teens from telling their parents about the parties or calling for help when one of them passed out in their own vomit, the statement of facts state," District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a previous news release.

In some cases, O'Connor "would Snapchat or text teens to leave their homes in the middle of the night and drink at her home," the DA further alleged.

When OConnor moved, she "continued these parties in Idaho," an alleged victim's mother told the judge in April, KRON4 reports. "She's a very sick individual and a sexual predator. She taught our daughter how to drink like a rock star. She was only 14, had never had alcohol and never had a boyfriend. It's disgusting to me."

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.

On multiple occasions, O'Connor allegedly urged intoxicated minors into sexual situations, even watching and laughing as "a drunk teen sexually battered a young girl in bed" during a New Year's Eve party, Rosen said in the release.

In another case, O'Connor allegedly brought an intoxicated male teen into a bedroom where a drunk 14-year-old girl was lying in bed. After her alleged assault, authorities say the girl asked O'Connor, "Why did you leave me in there with him? Like why did you like do that? Like you knew like what he was going to do me," the DA said in the release.

O'Connor allegedly threw the parties without the knowledge of her now-estranged husband, who has since filed for divorce, The Mercury News reports.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 connected to a certified crisis counselor.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
Following her comeback, THIS female idol, known as K-pop's OG "It Girl," spared discussions for her "weakening effect" among music fans.

OG 'It Girl' Lee Hyori Returns in Music and Advertisement Industries After Long Hiatus

The "Nation's Fairy" and "It Girl" Lee Hyori finally returned as a soloist after six years. Since the icon released her studio album, "BLACK," in 2017, Hyori didn't make a solo comeback aside from seasonal music projects.

On October 12, the former Fin. K.L member dropped her new single, "HOODIE E BANBAJI," a song introduced as an "easy listening" music. The hook of the song are the lyrics "Hoodie e banbaji," repeatedly mentioned throughout the song.

ALSO READ: 5 One-Top Female Idols in Each Generation: Lee Hyori, IVE Jang Wonyoung, More!

Following her comeback, Hyori also returned to the advertisement scene after 11 years for the internet shopping platform, "Lotte On."

Despite her influence and popularity, the icon surprised netizens with the seemingly cold public opinion, raising doubts about what happened to the so-called "Lee Hyori effect" who can sell out any item in a flash during her heyday.

Starting to her comeback, Lee's song as of the 18th can't be found on the MelOn Top 100 daily chart, and even on the weekly charts. The idol's MV is reaching 1M views, but compared to IVE's "Baddie" released on the same day, which gained 11.71M views in five days, it is incomparable.

Regarding her return to the commercial industry, Hyori also failed to claim the "CF Queen" title. Negative feedback from consumers is pouring in, such as:

"There is no reason to buy more because of Hyori. Be price competitive with expensive advertising models."

"I didn't even watch it."

"If you have money to spend on advertising, you should lower the price of your items."

Analysts say that she is only giving the impression of falling behind while trying to follow the changes of the times.

Regarding "Lotte On," which announced Lee Hyori's return to commercial advertising, some say that it has caused marketing adverse effects.

K-Media Points Out Reasons for Negative Reactions to Lee Hyori's Comeback in Music and Ad World

According to the media outlet Ten Asia, there are significant reasons Lee Hyori failed to maintain her image as an icon in both the music and advertisement industries.

Firstly, listeners criticized her comeback song and described it as a track with no "one shot," and "too plain," continuously talking negatively about Hyori's vocals.

In the past, Lee Hyori would have ranked at the top of the music charts upon release, but now she has to go around the top 100 and seek "reverse driving." It also means that the music market has changed.

In terms of her commercial advertisement, the advertising industry points out that no matter how famous a star is, an image contact between the star and the brand is needed. "Lotte On" is a latecomer among shopping platforms. They chose Lee Hyori as an advertising model because they needed to promote the brand.

However, as the image contact between Lee Hyori and Lotte On has not been created, it is recognized as Lee Hyori's return to advertising rather than the platform's advertising.

The star has also built an easy-going image rather than enjoying shopping, thus, it is difficult for consumers to form a consensus if she suddenly advertises for a shopping platform.

Ten Asia added:

"The icon of the times changes. Lee Hyori's popularity is not as high as before. In the era of "Jennie," will "Hyori" protect her territory?"

READ MORE: K-pop Artists Who Are 'Idol of Idols': SNSD Taeyeon, BIGBANG G-Dragon, MORE!

For more K-Pop news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KpopStarz.

KpopStarz owns this article.

Written by Eunice Dawson.
State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley on Wednesday outlined how the state plans to respond to the drop in math, English, social studies and science test scores. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Advocate)
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Australian brand Up There is joining cross-continental forces with Japanese footwear label ASICS, co-creating the GEL-LYTE III.

The brown and blue sneaker is inspired by the Kookaburra, a bird native to both Australia and New Guinea, which is distinguished by its loud laugh. The shoe's upper is comprised of mesh and suede, moving between an off-white and shaggy chocolate brown, using a speckled pattern to bridge the gap between the two contrasting shades. Lateral ASICS branding welcomes a bright sea blue, making another appearance on the rubber outsole. Meanwhile, the outsole bears a true white interrupted by a cream hue in the middle.

The collaborative design will be initially released through a raffle on Up There's website from now until October 27 with the shoe priced at $150 USD. A global release follows the raffle, dropping the sneaker via ASICS and select retailers on November 4.

Take a look at the Up There x ASICS GEL-LYTE III in the gallery above.
OTTAWA  Refugees are being left behind by Canada's oversized immigration backlogs, and people from some countries are worse off than others, the auditor general found in her investigation of immigration applications.

A report from auditor general Karen Hogan released on Thursday suggests that while processing times improved for most permanent residency programs in 2022, they remained long for refugee and humanitarian programs.

Some applicants had waited almost three years for a decision,and as of the end of last year, 99,000 refugee applications were still waiting to be processed.

"Many applicants will wait years for a decision in the current processing environment," Hogan said in her report.

Since the audit period ended last year, the Immigration Department has posted up-to-date information about how backlogs have evolved for several immigration streams, but refugee application backlogs are not included.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the auditor's report traces a portrait of a department with a lot of challenges, and he's very concerned about the processing times that are still lagging.

The government has set record-high immigration targets over the last few years, and hopes to welcome as many as 505,000 new permanent residents in 2023.

Hogan found that some of the delays are a result of higher workloads in offices with lower staff levels.

For example, almost half of the backlogged refugee applications were being handled by offices in Kenya and Tanzania. The auditor found the Nairobi office in Kenya had about half the staff as the office in Turkey but almost double the assigned workload.

The office in Tanzania's workload was five times greater than the Italian office in Rome, even though the offices had a comparable number of staff.

The government had committed in 2016 to assign applications based on which offices had capacity, but Hogan said that hasn't happened.

"As a result, regional backlogs continued to accumulate in the overseas family and refugee classes in some offices with limited capacity," Hogan said in her report.

Story continues

That means that people from specific countries were facing bigger, longer backlogs for most of the permanent residency programs she looked at. More than half of the applications submitted by citizens of Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo were backlogged.

Despite promises made in the department's anti-racism strategy to identify discriminatory imbalances in processing times, the auditor found the department hasn't collected race-based and ethnocultural information that would allow it to do so.

"Furthermore, the department had no plans or timelines in place to do so," Hogan said in the report, despite the strategy's claim that differential outcomes will be monitored by the end of March next year.

"The first step is to be aware, and then it's to take action," Hogan said at a press conference Thursday. "I hope that they will do that going forward."

Miller said systemic racism exists in all government departments, and he will have questions for the public servants in his department about these findings.

"In sub-Saharan Africa, we have a lack of resources, notably," Miller said in French at a press conference Thursday.

"When I look at a report like this and I see that there's an allocation of resources that seems biased, I ask questions."

In the case of refugees, the department told the auditor that delays can also be caused by unique conditions in some countries, such as remote or dangerous locations that can make it difficult to conduct interviews.

Hogan said refugees would benefit from a secure online application process that was recently introduced for other immigration streams, and is calling for it to be created "without further delay."

As it stands, potential refugees must email their application to the department, where the information is manually entered into the system.

The government had already planned to make online applications available to refugee claimants, and hopes to introduce the feature by the end of the month for privately sponsored refugees and in November for government-assisted refugees.

Miller said the new application portal for refugees should help speed things up.

"Obviously the proof will be in the pudding," he said.

The report on immigration backlogs was released alongside four other audits that delved into the inclusion of racialized employees in the public service, antimicrobial resistance, benefits delivery and technology modernization.

The common thread among all the reports was a lack of data-gathering or tracking, the auditor said.

"Ultimately, these blind spots identified in all of our reports reduce the public service's ability to deliver programs and services that meet people's needs," she said at a press conference Thursday.

The auditor general found that efforts to combat racism and discrimination within federal public-safety and justice bodies, including the RCMP, is severely lacking.

Leaders are failing to adequately track whether the work lives of racialized employees are improving, Hogan found, and accountability for behavioural and cultural change was "limited and not effectively measured."

The auditor found that progress on modernizing IT systems has been slow, with two-thirds of the 7,500 applications used by departments and agencies assessed as being in poor health.

Meanwhile, the federal government's Benefits Delivery Modernization Programme has experienced significant delays, rising costs and staffing challenges. The program was launched in 2017 and aims to modernize the systems used to deliver the Canada Pension Plan, old age security and employment insurance benefits.

When it comes to combating the growing public-health threat of resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs, the auditor also found the government's efforts wanting. The Health Department released an action plan in June, but Hogan found it to be incomplete, as it didn't include any measurable goals or timelines.

"There is a risk that action among federal, provincial and territorial governments to tackle antimicrobial resistance will be delayed, poorly co-ordinated and not comprehensive," she said in her report.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2023.

 With files from Nojoud Al Mallees and Alessia Passafiume.

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press
On 18 October residents from Tila municipality, in Mexicos southern state of Chiapas, called for the intervention of federal and state authorities in response to rising violence from organised criminal groups.

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On 18 October the joint committee of inquiry (CPMI) in Brazils congress investigating the 8 January riots, when protesters stormed the seats of government in Brasilia, approved its final report by 20 votes in favour to 11 against.

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Jim Jordan lost his bid to be US House Speaker during his second try and this time, he lost even more votes than previously. His latest defeat comes even after an endorsement by Donald Trump, which casts further doubt into the former president's "kingmaker" abilities.

This latest loss comes as 22 Republicans voted against Jordan in the House while every single Democrat voted for Hakeem Jeffries. Previously, only 20 House Republicans voted against Jordan, but that number has now grown. With a narrow 221-212 majority, Jordan needs only 4 defections to reach the speakership, which needs a 217 majority for him to be victorious.

However, only 199 Republicans voted for Jim Jordan this time around, leaving no candidate without a clear majority. This means that the House still has no speaker at a time when the US sorely needs the House to function.

One of those who flipped is Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, saying that he thinks it is now time to "move on" from Jordan as the Trump-backed Republican struggles to secure enough votes, according to the Associated Press.

For now, a bipartisan group is seeking to empower the temporary speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, and give him more powers so that laws can be passed as Republicans continue their bickering. This could give McHenry temporary powers first created after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and this would ensure that the government continues functioning.

This concept of the interim speaker getting a boosted role is now gaining favor with some former Republican House Speakers, such as Newt Gingrich and John Boehner.

Meanwhile, Jeffries may go with that option to keep the government going, too.

"The Republicans are unable to function right now," the Democratic leader said. "All options are on the table to end the Republican civil war."

READ MORE: House Speaker Battle Chaos Continues as Republican Nominee Steve Scalise Drops Out

Jim Jordan Continues To Struggle To Get House Speaker Votes

During the second House Speaker vote, Jim Jordan actually had two of the holdouts flip and vote for him. However, while he got two flips, four more House Republicans flipped against him.

According to Politico, Doug LaMalfa of California and Victoria Spatz managed to flip for Jordan. However, Florida's Vern Buchanan, Drew Ferguson of Georgia, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, and Pete Stauber of Minnesota flipped against him. This failure to secure more votes showed how much Jordan is struggling to get votes.

When Will the Next US House Speaker Vote Be?

The House remains at a standstill without a speaker, though a third vote is scheduled to happen on Thursday, according to The Hill.

Despite his struggles, however, Jim Jordan remained defiant.

"We picked up some today, a couple dropped off, but they voted for me before. I think they can come back again. So we'll keep talking to members. Keep working on it," he told reporters after the vote.

READ MORE: Trump Organization Convicted of 17 Felonies, Gets Maximum Punishment

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WATCH: Jim Jordan gets fewer votes in second vote for speaker than first - CNN
Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, has admitted to beating the young Alabama woman to death on an Aruban beach, AP reports.

Van der Sloot's admission came as he pleaded guilty to extorting Holloway's mother, thereby resolving a case that has held public attention for nearly two decades.

While he is not charged in Holloway's death, van der Sloot's attempt to extort a quarter of a million dollars from Natalee's mother in exchange for information about her daughter's whereabouts provided investigators with a critical link to the 2005 killing.

Following this development and after seeing van der Sloot in a U.S. courtroom, the Holloway family announced that they were moving on from years of doubt and uncertainty.

"Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter's murder. He is the killer," said Beth Holloway, Natalee's mother.

READ NEXT: Suspect in Natalee Holloway Case, Set to Appear in Federal Court

Joran van der Sloots Speaks

Van der Sloot, now 36, admitted to killing Natalee Holloway with a cinder block on an Aruban beach after she rejected his sexual advances, CNN noted.

According to a transcript of an interview with his attorney, Holloway had kneed him in the crotch after he made unwelcome advances, leading him to respond by kicking her in the face and striking her with the cinder block. Subsequently, he decided to push her into the ocean.

Natalee Holloway's body has never been found, and in 2012, an Alabama judge declared her legally deceased.

The deaths of Holloway in 2005 and Stephany Flores, a Peruvian woman, in 2010, for which van der Sloot had previously admitted guilt, led to a 20-year federal sentence on the extortion and wire fraud charges.

Judge Anna Manasco, acknowledging van der Sloot's confession to the brutal murder of Natalee Holloway, condemned his acts, stating that he had brutally murdered two women who had refused his sexual advances in separate incidents years apart.

The judge also stated that Holloway's body would never be found.

Van der Sloot had been arrested multiple times in connection with Holloway's disappearance in the past but was released by Aruban authorities due to a lack of direct evidence.

Currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of Flores, he was convicted of trafficking cocaine into his prison in 2021 and sentenced to an additional 18 years.

According to court documents, under Peruvian law, his prison sentences cannot exceed a total of 35 years, making his scheduled release from prison in Peru around June 10, 2045, 35 years after his original arrest in Peru.

Van der Sloot was temporarily released to the U.S. in June 2021 to face extortion and wire fraud charges.

According to the plea agreement, his 20-year U.S. federal sentence will be served concurrently with his sentence in Peru, making it unlikely that he will return to the U.S. to serve prison time.

Natalee Holloway Case

Natalee Holloway disappeared on a high school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, who, at the time, was 17 years old, according to PEOPLE.

Despite being arrested several times in connection to her disappearance, van der Sloot was never charged.

The Holloway family has relentlessly sought answers about the disappearance, and van der Sloot has provided inconsistent accounts over the years, including false claims about where Holloway's remains were located.

Five years after the killing, an FBI sting operation recorded the extortion attempt in which van der Sloot asked Beth Holloway to pay him $250,000 in exchange for information about her daughter's body.

He agreed to accept $25,000 upfront and requested the remaining $225,000 once the remains were found.

READ MORE: 4-Year-Old Kid Finds Gun in Van Shoots 2-Year-Old Sibling

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WATCH: Audio: Joran Van Der Sloot confesses to murdering Natalee Holloway - From AL.com
Police said they were hunting suspected ADF members as they posted a picture of a burning Jeep-style vehicle (Sax Rohmer Ltd)

A British tourist is among the three killed in a suspected attack by Islamic State-linked terrorists in Uganda.

The tourist, who has not been named, was touring the Queen Elizabeth National Park alongside a South African national and a Ugandan when the group were attacked.

Police in Uganda say they believe all three were attacked by Islamist insurgents, the Allied Democratic Forces, which pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2016.

Police spokesperson Fred Enanga said: We have registered a cowardly terrorist attack on two foreign tourists and a Ugandan in Queen Elizabeth National Park. The three were killed, and their safari vehicle burnt.

Bashir Hangi, spokesperson of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, said the attack took place on Tuesday evening.

Police said they were hunting suspected ADF members as they posted a picture of a burning Jeep-style vehicle.

The ADF began as an uprising in Uganda but has been based in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the late 1990, and has been accused of killing thousands in raids and attacks over the past decade.

Police did not give a precise location for the attack but the national park is close to the shore of Lake Edward, which separates Uganda from Congo.

Rebels from ADF have previously carried out attacks in the area and across the border in Congo, where they have bases.

The Standard has contacted the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for comment.

It comes a day after Ugandan officials said they foiled a plot to bomb churches in central Butambala district, which ADF are accused of carrying out.

Two bombs were linked to public address systems and sent to pastors, disguised as gifts, said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

Members of the public became suspicious of the devices and told the police, he added on X, formerly Twitter.

The ADF has yet to claim responsibility.
Donald Trump's fraud trial entered what may be its most explosive day yet as an animated former president was talking loudly as a witness was testifying against him. This resulted in a judge scolding him and telling him to keep quiet.

The incident happened when Trump's defense attorneys cross-examined witness Doug Larson, who was named in various Trump filings as having valued his assets at a high number. However, despite being named in those Trump Organization filings, Larson testified that he had no idea that the company was using his name to pad the value of Trump's assets.

As CBS News reported, Trump appeared frustrated during the proceedings and was seen shaking his head while throwing his hands in the air and whispering to those around him. As Larson continued his testimony, his whispers soon became loud rasps and prosecutors took notice and took this up with the judge. Trump even hit the table with his hands.

"OK, I'll ask everyone to be quiet while the witness is testifying," said the judge, adding, "particularly if it was meant to influence the testimony." After this, however, things got heated even more, as Trump's attorneys continued to press Larson.

Donald Trump Attorneys Shout at Witness, Accusing Him of Lying During New York Fraud Trial

Attorney Lazaro Fields, who represents the former president, asked Larson if he lied. However, before Larson could even answer, lead Trump attorney Christopher Kise interrupted him, telling him he should consult his attorney. This happened after the other Trump attorney was shouting at the real estate appraiser and accusing him of lying.

READ MORE: Donald Trump Fraud Trial: Witness Reveals What's Wrong About Trump's Net Worth

Wallace argued that all the shouting from the Trump attorneys, as well as Trump's own audible reactions, constituted witness intimidation. "This is some kind of performance, I take it for the press," said the prosecutor.

After some even more back and forth between the two sides, Judge Engoron seemingly had had enough and stated, "My role here is to get witnesses to testify." He added, "Perjury or no perjury, I just want them to testify, and the fewer disruptions, the better." The witness was soon led back as things cooled down.

Court Staffer Arrested After Approaching the Well During Donald Trump New York Fraud Trial

That was not the only piece of drama that happened on that day as a courtroom staffer was arrested. According to the Daily Beast, she "walked up to the front of the [public] gallery, approaching 'the well' where Trump was seated." She was then confronted by officers before getting arrested.

The New York State Courts released a statement regarding the woman and confirmed that she is indeed a court employee. She has now been placed on administrative leave after "yelling out to Mr. Trump indicating she wanted to assist him."

A New York Courts spokesperson nobody was in danger when the incident happened, though others in the press noted that the employee could be heard "screaming" in the courthouse lobby while officers were escorting her out. She was charged with Contempt of the Court in the 2nd degree.

READ MORE: Trump Organization Convicted of 17 Felonies, Gets Maximum Punishment

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WATCH: Trump scolded by judge for speaking during witness testimony - Fox 32 Chicago
Deportation flights of Venezuelan citizens from the United States resumed on Wednesday as part of the Joe Biden administration's efforts to manage the increasing number of asylum-seekers, AP reports.

This marks the first time in years that US immigration authorities are deporting individuals to Venezuela, a significant shift in the relationship between the US and the government of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro.

The first deportation flight, a Boeing 737 jet, departed from the Texas border city of Harlingen and landed in Miami before continuing to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.

Onboard the US migrant deportation flight were around 130 Venezuelan men and women who had been transported to the plane via buses and were wearing wrist and ankle restraints.

They underwent security checks conducted by US immigration officers.

The Joe Biden administration has indicated its intention to conduct "multiple" deportation flights to Venezuela each week, per a waiver issued by the US Transportation Department, effectively making Venezuela one of the top international destinations for US immigration authorities.

READ NEXT: Joe Biden Grants Legal Status To 450,000 Venezuela Migrants

US Migrant Deportation to Venezuela

This resumption of deportations follows the recent decision by the Joe Biden administration to grant deportation relief, and work permits to nearly half a million Venezuelans who arrived in the United States on or before July 31.

This was attributed to the increased instability and safety concerns in Venezuela, according to Reuters.

The direct deportations to Venezuela, which had been stalled for several years due to diplomatic tensions between the two countries, are now being revived.

US Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens emphasized the importance of using legal channels to enter the US or scheduling appointments at legal border crossings rather than crossing the border unlawfully.

Corey Price, a senior ICE official, indicated that the agency plans to conduct multiple deportation flights to Venezuela on a weekly basis. These flights are part of the ICE Air charter carrier program, typically carrying 135 migrants.

They will transport individuals who have received final removal orders, either after losing an asylum bid or due to the inability to secure humanitarian protection.

The decision to resume deportations to Venezuela comes in response to a surge in migration from the country, which has strained immigration systems in the hemisphere, including those in the United States, according to the Transportation Department.

This move has faced criticism from immigration advocates, with concerns that it may be perilous for deportees.

Jennifer Piper, a program director with the American Friends Service Committee, called the decision "deeply cruel and deadly" and urged the Biden administration to halt deportations to hazardous destinations.

Why Are Venezuelans Leaving Their Country?

The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has prompted a mass exodus of more than 7 million people in recent years, as reported by the United Nations, per Miami Herald.

The Venezuelan population faces dire circumstances, including severe food shortages, inadequate healthcare, and a deteriorating infrastructure.

Additionally, human rights organizations have extensively documented a range of concerning issues, such as extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and the suppression of political opposition and journalism.

The US government's assessment from the previous year highlighted that the Maduro regime in Venezuela had failed to take meaningful action in identifying, investigating, prosecuting, or penalizing officials responsible for human rights violations and corruption.

The root causes of this dire situation can be traced back to a global drop in the price of oil, Venezuela's most critical export, nearly a decade ago.

Mismanagement by the self-proclaimed socialist government exacerbated the country's downward spiral.

Venezuela is grappling with ever-increasing food prices and business closures, making it incredibly challenging for workers to meet their basic needs, given the monthly minimum wage of just $3.70, hardly enough to buy a gallon of water.

READ MORE: Colombia Launches Peace Talks with Largest Group of Ex-FARC Rebels

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WATCH: US resumes deportation flights to Venezuela with more than 100 migrants on board - From WGN News
House Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa is crying foul after receiving death threats for not voting for Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan as House Speaker, further complicating the Republican infighting as Jordan's Republican opponents accuse the Donald Trump-backed House Speaker candidate of using intimidation tactics to get votes.

On Wednesday, the Republican representative from Iowa stated that she received "credible death threats" after pulling her support from Jordan. She previously voted for Jordan during the first vote but then voted against him during the second vote by casting her ballot for Rep. Kay Granger of Texas.

"Since my vote in support of Chairwoman Granger, I have received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls," said Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in a statement. "The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully."

For the second vote in a row, Jim Jordan lost, only getting 199 votes while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York had 212, which was every single Democratic member of the House. Unlike the first vote, however, Jordan lost more votes than he gained, with four flipping to vote against him, including Miller-Meeks.

The Demoine Register reported that the Iowa Republican admitted she voted for Jordan in the first vote "for the greater good of the House Republican Party."

During the second vote, she flipped and stated, "However, after one round of votes, with my support, he was not able to secure enough votes for the speaker nomination, and my initial concerns about threatening tactics of Jim Jordan's supporters, including from members of Congress, increased despite assurances."

Miller-Meeks also noted that her fellow Republicans have stooped to using intimidation tactics to get more votes and called out the other members of her own party, calling them "bullies."

"One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully," she stated. "Someone who threatens another with bodily harm or tries to suppress differing opinions undermines opportunity for unity and regard for freedom of speech."

Other House Republicans Speaking Out Against Intimidation Tactics Being Used by Jim Jordan Allies

Ideologically, House Republicans are said to be divided among the moderates and the MAGA Republicans. Moderates have accused the MAGA faction of orchestrating the chaos while the MAGA faction accuses them of being "Republicans In Name Only" or RINOs.

READ MORE: Jim Jordan's House Speaker Bid Gets Dimmer Amid Latest Failure To Win Votes

Now, the moderates are seemingly pushing back as the MAGA faction tries to use intimidation tactics to get some votes, according to the Washinton Post. One of these moderates, Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas, decried the intimidation and threats his staffers have been receiving, noting that they have been "cussed out, they've been threatened. It's been nonstop. Most of them are out-of-state calls."

Another anti-Jordan holdout, Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, posted on social media that "Intimidation and threats will not change my position."

Meanwhile, Rep. Jen A. Kiggans of Virginia and Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez of Florida also vowed not to give in to the MAGA wing's intimidation tactics.

Jim Jordan Allies' Intimidation Tactics Backfired as Moderate House Republicans Stand Firm

While the intimidation tactics seem to have worked with two of the holdouts, it more or less backfired on the pro-Jordan Republicans as four flipped. As Jim Jordan struggled to get more votes, one of his staunchest Republican opponents explained why.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska spoke with the Huffington Post and admitted that his wife received anonymous and vaguely threatening text messages urging him to vote for Jim Jordan. However, Bacon is not backing down.

"They're messing with the wrong guy. I'm not going to be cowed by this stuff," he told the outlet. "I spent 30 years in the Air Force, four deployments. You think a bunch of threats and weird Twitter comments get under my skin?"

Instead of the threats resulting in more votes for Jordan, it instead caused more flips, and experts believe more House Republicans might change sides should this continue.

READ MORE: Donald Trump Fraud Trial: Judge Tells Ex-POTUS To Keep Quiet

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WATCH: Iowa Rep. Miller-Meeks has death threats after voting against Jordan for Speaker - Local 4 News WHBF
Tony Daniel Klein, the former prison nurse at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Oregon, has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for sexually assaulting multiple female inmates, including those with chronic medical conditions.

Federal prosecutors revealed that Klein preyed upon these vulnerable women, exploiting his position as a healthcare provider within the prison, according to The Sacramento Bee.

The former Oregon prison nurse, 39, had worked at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility since 2010, where he abused his authority and the trust placed in him by the inmates.

He resigned from his position in January 2018, just two months after the first inmate reported his misconduct to authorities.

Klein was sentenced on charges related to the sexual assault of nine female inmates, a case that was announced by the US Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon on October 17.

READ NEXT: Oregon: Small Plane Crashes Through Home's Roof

Oregon Prison Nurse Sexual Assault

Prosecutors emphasized that the former Oregon prison nurse used his role to interact with female inmates seeking medical treatment or working as orderlies in the prison's medical unit, per Statesman Journal.

He engaged in non-consensual sexual conduct and sexual assault, taking advantage of his power over these women.

In court documents, one victim described the abuse as "traumatic and traumatizing."

Some women who had been assaulted by Klein experienced such emotional distress that they relapsed on drugs, and others avoided seeking medical treatment, both within the prison and after their release, due to their inability to trust a medical provider following their experiences.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division stressed the importance of ensuring the safety and dignity of incarcerated women, stating, "Women detained inside jails and prisons should be able to turn to medical providers for care and not be subjected to exploitation by those bent on abusing their power and position."

She assured that the Justice Department would thoroughly investigate credible allegations of sexual assault.

Former Oregon Prison Nurse Denies Allegations

Klein, however, continues to deny all allegations of sexual assault. His legal team, composed of Amanda Alvarez Thibeault and Matthew McHenry, plans to appeal the sentence, ABC News noted.

During the trial, they suggested that the accusations against Klein were part of a plot by incarcerated women to obtain financial settlements from the state.

The jury unanimously reached a verdict in July, finding Klein guilty of sexual assault. Prosecutors underlined that his actions not only abused his position but also violated the trust of the public.

US Attorney for the District of Oregon, Natalie Wight, acknowledged the bravery of the women who came forward and the dedication of the FBI and Civil Rights Division in bringing Klein to justice.

Numerous women have filed lawsuits against the state Department of Corrections and Klein, alleging sexual abuse since 2019.

The state has settled at least 11 of these cases, paying a total of $1.87 million, while maintaining its position of no wrongdoing.

Klein's 30-year prison sentence will be followed by five years of supervised release.

READ MORE: Natalee Holloway Case: Suspect Admits To 2005 Murder

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WATCH: Prison Nurse Sentenced to 30 Yrs - From KOBI-TV NBC5
A reported bomb threat targeting an Allentown synagogue drew authorities just as a funeral was letting out Thursday morning.

The threat to Congregation Keneseth Israel came from out of state and is not believed to be credible, nor does it appear connected to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, according to a statement from the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley.

This is not the first synagogue to have been targeted by a bomb threat. This just happened to be at a very unfortunate time, Aaron Gorodzinsky, the federations director of campaign and security planning, told lehighvalleylive.com.

Allentown police posted a brief statement to social media saying they responded at 11:38 a.m., that the threat was unfounded and the investigation was ongoing with FBI involvement.

An FBI spokesperson said this was an isolated incident but it fits with a broader pattern. We have seen a significant increase in threats to the Jewish, Arab (and) Muslim communities in recent weeks and we take it seriously.  I think its consistent with the uptick that weve seen given recent events, Special Agent Ned Conway said, adding that although the threat was not credible investigators will pursue it vigorously.

The threat was not made directly to the synagogue. According to Gorodzinsky, the caller made a threat specifying the synagogues address to a suicide hotline, which in turn alerted Allentown police. Officers and the city fire department responded as the funeral congregation was leaving for the burial. The timing appears coincidental, Gorodzinsky said.

Gorodzinsky said two sweeps of the empty synagogue and premises by investigators and bomb-sniffing dogs turned up nothing. The street was blocked during the investigation but no evacuations or lockdowns were required, he said. The post-funeral meal was moved to nearby Muhlenberg College as a precaution.

The family took it the best they could. But this is causing significant pain to the Jewish community, Gorodzinsky said. This just adds one more thing for the Jewish community to think about and concern themselves about during a very difficult time for us.

The Anti-Defamation League has been tracking worldwide incidents of antisemitism since this latest Israel-Hamas conflict began with a terrorist attack Oct. 7. It also publishes an annual database of domestic incidents. Last year in Pennsylvania, there were 114 reports of antisemitic incidents, up 65% from the previous year. Nine were reported in the Lehigh Valley and Warren County.

This is the Lehigh Valley Jewish communitys second bomb threat since September. Another hoax was emailed to the Jewish Community Center in Allentown over the Sept. 16-17 weekend, during which time the local federation said 17 similar threats were received at Jewish sites across North America.

In a statement, the FBI said its field offices are communicating with law enforcement, faith organizations and the private sector about how to keep communities safe. Anyone who sees anything that seems suspicious should contact their local law enforcement agency.

Countering terrorism remains the FBIs number one priority, and we will not tolerate violence motivated by hate and extremism, the bureaus statement said. We will continue to do everything in our power to protect the American people and pursue justice for the victims and their families.

 MORE: Lehigh Valley residents gather on both sides of Israel-Palestine clash

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com.
Editors Note: This story first appeared on Armchair Lehigh Valley and is being published on lehighvalleylive.com as part of a partnership with the website, which aims to give voters factual information in a nonpartisan way to help them make informed decisions at the polls. Armchair Lehigh Valley is run by Katherine Reinhard and Robert H. Orenstein, two longtime local journalists who formerly worked at The Morning Call in Allentown. Learn more about Armchair Lehigh Valley and subscribe here.

Republican John Cusick and Democrat Tara Zrinski, colleagues on Northampton County Council, will face off in the Nov. 7 election for county controller.

Cusick was unopposed in the May GOP primary, but Zrinski overcame a challenge from political newcomer Nadeem Qayyum of Easton, winning the Democratic nomination with 60% of the vote.

Whoever wins the election will begin the job in January, when a higher salary  $85,000 a year, an increase of $10,000  kicks in. County council unanimously voted Sept. 15, 2022, to raise the controller salary.

The position carries a four-year term, which traditionally has been an unlimited number of terms. But that could change for the new controller, depending what voters decide in next months election.

The ballot includes three questions to set limits for county offices: executive and controller (two consecutive four-year terms) and council (three consecutive four-year terms). If approved, term limits for the controller and council would begin in 2024 while the executives would take effect in 2026.

Zrinski abstained from voting on the controller question because she was a candidate for the office, even though she was advised voting on the issue would not be a conflict of interest; Cusick voted to place all three questions on the ballot.

Zrinski opposed placing the other two questions on the ballot, saying turnout is significantly lower in such off-year elections; she said the questions should be on a ballot when turnout is higher, typically when federal and statewide positions are in play. (Council this year also approved a fourth question  restricting the district attorney to four four-year terms  but that will appear on the 2024 primary ballot.)

Electing a new controller should also bring continuity to the office, which has seen a series of people in the job since 2018. Thats when Stephen Barron, who had served 14 years, resigned midway through his fourth term to become county director of fiscal affairs in Executive Lamont McClures administration.

To fill the remainder of Barrons term, council appointed Richard Bucky Szulborski, who held the job until Tony Bassil was elected and then began his term in 2020. However, Bassil died in September 2021, and council again looked to Szulborski to complete a term, but he passed away in June 2023. Council appointed Scott Parsons in July to serve until Cusick or Zrinski is sworn in January.

The controllers office acts as the countys fiscal watchdog, reviewing county programs and offices to examine how revenue and expenses are handled. The controller oversees an office staff that includes seven auditors and a solicitor, according to its website.

John Cusick

Cusick, 57, lives in Williams Township. He has served nearly 16 years on county council, first as an at-large member from 2006-14 and then as the District 3 commissioner since 2016. He did not seek reelection to county council this year, choosing instead to run for controller.

He received a bachelors degree from Lehigh University in 1989 with a double major in mathematics and history, a masters in education degree from East Stroudsburg University in secondary education mathematics in 1997, and a certification in educational supervision from Centenary University. He taught secondary school math for 28 years, with most of that at Hunterdon Central High School in Flemington, N.J., before retiring earlier this year.

Cusicks first elected office was as a Williams Township supervisor, winning a seat for a six-year term in 2001 and joining the board in 2002. In 2004, he ran for state representative from the 136th District, losing to Democratic incumbent Robert Freeman. He ran for county council in 2005 and joined the board in 2006. In between his two stints on council, he was elected as a township auditor.

While on county council, he served as president for five years and also chaired councils finance, personnel, and open space committees. He was a member of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania board of directors and chaired its committee on assessment and taxation. He said serving on councils Finance Committee gave him knowledge of and experience with county audits.

As controller, he would:

Submit the annual audit for county finances within the required 120 days after the end of the fiscal year, something that has not routinely occurred.

Insist that county contracts be open for competitive bid.

Continue oversight of how county offices and agencies handle their money to ensure every dollar is properly allocated where it legally belongs.

Closely examine county hotel tax revenue to ensure that the county received the correct amount.

The controller must be independent whether the county administration is run by either a Democrat or Republican, he said in response to questions via email. While the current Northampton County executive is a Democrat, that could change during the four-year term of the controller. Balance sheets, numbers and accounting standards arent partisan.

Tara Zrinski

Zrinksi, 48, of Hanover Township, has served as an at-large member of county council for nearly six years, elected in 2017 and reelected to a second term in 2021.

She graduated from Drew University in Madison, N.J., in 1997, where she majored in philosophy and English, and received masters degrees in theological studies and pastoral counseling from Moravian University in 2007.

She previously served as director of life-span faith development at Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley and has served as an adjunct professor of philosophy at DeSales University and Northampton Community College. She has worked for SunPulse Solar, based in Bloomsburg, Columbia County, as a project manager and consultant. In 2015, she wrote, illustrated and self-published a childrens book, All Ducks Are Birds (But, Not All Birds Are Ducks).

While a member of council, she twice ran unsuccessfully for state legislative offices.

In 2020, she lost the election for state representative from the 138th District to Republican Ann Flood, who received 56% of the vote in the contest to succeed state Rep. Marcia Hahn, who declined to seek reelection to a sixth term. Last year, Zrinski lost the Democratic primary to Nick Miller in the new state Senate District 14 by 48 votes, according to certified results.

On county council, she serves as chair of the Energy, Environment and Land Use Committee and is a member of the Economic Development Committee. She sits on the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority board and is the county council representative on the Wildlands Conservancy board. She is also a member of the Energy, Environment and Land Use Committee of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

On her campaign website, she outlined her priorities as controller:

Improve financial accountability and transparency.

Strengthen the countys budget process.

Enhance public services while controlling costs.

Encourage economic development and job creation.

Foster collaboration between county departments.

The office of county controller is a fiscal watchdog that is meant to increase transparency and accountability, she said in an email response to questions. As a county commissioner I have been someone who has looked out for the taxpayers to ensure that tax dollars are spent where it benefits the most people.

As examples, she cited efforts to oppose the proposed 116-mile PennEast Pipeline, which would have transported Marcellus shale gas from northeastern Pensylvania through the county and into New Jersey (the company abandoned the plan in 2021 after widespread opposition); protect the environmentally troubled Bushkill Creek; and advocate for residents of the Oliver C. Border apartment building in Nazareth that is home to people with disabilities and those who are at least 62.

These are just three examples but when the people of the community reach out to me, I am there for them and I prioritize their needs. I will do the same when I am county controller but the focus will be on finance, performance and procedure within the county departments, she said.

She noted the controllers job is mostly an administrative one that requires leadership.

I have managed people before and know how to motivate individuals. There are a number of audits that are required by the state that are part of the annual workload. I would work with the current auditors in the office to prioritize additional services/projects that would bring efficiency and transparency to the departments within the county.

As controller, she would consider the effect of county programs on people.

Behind the line items on a budget or in any audit, there is a person that is impacted by that number. We cant just slash a budget willfully without understanding [how] the decision will have a real impact on people.  I vow to keep Gracedale county owned and operated, to look into the HUD [Housing and Urban Development] program and see where it can be more efficient, and to build strong relationships with county departments and agencies to understand how we can work together to make services more accessible and efficient. I am a taxpayer too and I want to know that my tax dollars are being spent wisely so, you can rest assured, I wont let the taxpayers down.

Campaign issues

Cusick questioned how Zrinski could be an independent controller because county Executive McClure contributed $1,000 to her primary campaign. (Campaign finance reports for the general election wont be available until Oct. 27.)

While my opponent has been a staunch ally of and advocate for this administration, during my four terms on county council, I have a clear record of questioning spending and budget proposals from both Republican and Democratic administrations, he said in an email. It strains the bounds of credibility to claim you will act independently when you take a large campaign contribution from the county executive. I have pledged not to accept campaign contributions from county employees, unions, vendors, grant recipients, or anyone with county business.

In response, Zrinski said, Just because I received a donation from the county executive does not mean that I am beholden to him. The office of county controller is separate and independent from the administration, and the county executive has no power to dictate what the office of controller does or how it is run. In short, I would not be an employee of Mr. McClure and that is why it is an elected position. I just happen to have Mr. McClures support as a fellow Democrat.

Cusick also criticized Zrinskis frequent campaigns for other offices.

Unlike my opponent, I have not run for a different political office each of the last four years, he said. The county controllers office should not be a consolation prize or parking space on the way to Harrisburg. I believe my four terms on council, 16 years on the Finance Committee, serving as a township supervisor and auditor, demonstrate my dedication to county and local government. If elected, I will not be running for another office.

Zrinski said Cusicks complaint about her multiple candidacies is baseless, noting that he has also sought election to different offices.

I see no problem in running again, she said. I deliberated over this because running is not easy after losing such a close race [in the state Senate primary last year]. If anything, it shows my commitment to public service and my desire to want to be in service to my community. My heart is in public service, and it is where I want to be. So even though I wasnt successful in the past, I believe that running a grassroots campaign to build recognition is the only way a person like me  a single, middle-class mom  can get into office.
UPDATE: Suspect accused of escaping from Macungie police is caught after 12 days

The domestic violence suspect still on the lam from Macungie removed a handcuff and fled out a police station window after brutally attacking a female victim, a borough police official told lehighvalleylive.com Thursday.

Javien A. Sabater, 22, whose last known address was in the 1100 block of Garfield Street in Bethlehem, has been at large since he escaped a holding cell at the Macungie police station, 21 Locust St., on Monday, police said. Police believe Sabaters whereabouts to still be in Lehigh County, specifically Allentown or the surrounding areas.

Police described Sabater as standing 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing about 150 pounds. Sabater had long hair when he escaped, but investigators believe he could have dramatically altered his appearance by now, such as completely shaving his head, according to police.

Sabater is not considered a threat to the general public, but is targeting the victim hes tied to in the domestic violence incident, Macungie police Sgt. Travis Kocher told lehighvalleylive.com in an interview Thursday.

Sabater has strong ties to the Allentown area, Kocher said; and while he doesnt have a current known physical address, Sabater is connected to various residences of friends and family members. Kocher was unaware of Sabater having any known survivalist skills in the wild, but there are connections to help him flee, he said.

Hes inner city born and raised, Kocher said.

How Sabater escaped comes down to some failings that are currently being remedied at the police station, Kocher said.

Routine protocol for suspects being placed into holding cells include two points of contact for restraint, such as shackles and handcuffs, according to borough police. Sabater, however, was only placed into a single handcuff due to a mitigating circumstance, which included a medical reason, Kocher said.

Court records state Sabater was able to slip his left wrist from a single handcuff that was attached to the holding cells bench. He then climbed out a station window, before running north toward Hay Street, court records say.

He manipulated the restraint, that was the cause of the error, Kocher said. Were fixing it moving forward.

Kocher said human error additionally played a role in Sabaters escape. Discussions also are taking place with the officer assigned to oversee Sabater in the holding cell, Kocher said.

I can say this, the officers actions are being examined, he said.

In his over two decade career in law enforcement and with the Macungie Police Department, Kocher said he has never experienced anything like this escape. Modifications underway to police headquarters and its security aim to remedy any potential future mishaps, he said.

The initial domestic incident unfolded shortly after 10 a.m. Monday when borough police were dispatched for a reported assault at a home in the 200 block of West Chestnut Street. Sabater was detained and taken into custody by officers at Cedar and Race streets, court records state.

A female victim reported Sabater stayed at her home the night before, police said. The victim in the morning was then attacked by Sabater while a 2-year-old child looked on, court records state.

At one point, the woman was able to flee to the office of an apartment manager, leaving the child behind at the home, according to court records. The apartment manager attempted to dial 911 before Sabater entered the office and took the phone out of her hand, according to court records.

The victim was taken to an area hospital for treatment of injuries that included a broken nose, police said.

Following Sabaters alleged escape, residents of the Macungie Village Apartments, along West Chestnut Street, were told by authorities to shelter in place during the incident, WFMZ-69 News reported. A heavy police presence in the neighborhood reportedly spanned Monday afternoon into the evening hours.

The search by various law enforcement, including Pennsylvania State Police at Fogelsville, a Medical Emergency Response Team and a K-9 Unit from the Allentown Police Department couldnt locate the suspect.

Sabater is facing a slew of charges in both incidents. He is being charged with felony counts of aggravated assault and misdemeanor counts of simple assault and child endangerment, as well as summary harassment, in the domestic violence incident. Added to the list in the latest incident are felony counts of escape, theft and evading arrest, as well as misdemeanor obstructing emergency services.

Sabater has an extensive past criminal record, that includes violent activity as a juvenile, Kocher said.

Those with information about Sabaters whereabouts are urged not to approach him but to instead dial 911 or call the Macungie Police Department at 610-966-2222. Anonymous tips may be submitted online via macungiepd.org.

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Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com.
The former caregiver of an 8-year-old girl who died in 2015 was sentenced Wednesday to eight to 16 years in prison for causing the girls death, authorities said.

Delilah Reader, 39, pleaded no contest to third-degree murder on Aug. 15 before Judge Robert L. Steinberg. Readers attorney could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Reader was the sole caregiver of Angelina Tomas on Dec. 6, 2007, in Allentown, when Angelina was 10 months old, according to a news release from Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martins office.

That morning, Reader caused Angelina to suffer a traumatic brain injury, Martins office said: That injury resulted in developmental delays, cognitive and learning impairments, physical disabilities and a seizure disorder, the latter of which caused Angelina Tomass death in 2015.

Angelina, at the time of her death, was a student in a special needs integrated program at High Bridge Elementary School in Hunterdon County, according to her obituary.

Following the injury, Her parents were told that she would never walk or talk, the obituary stated: Angelina had strong will and determination and defied the doctors by learning to walk. She loved listening to music. She loved her big brother Gabriel the most in life.

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Glenn Epps can be reached at gepps@lehighvalleylive.com or glenn_epps_on Twitter.
New details emerged Thursday about at least one of the South Jersey men accused of killing a Philadelphia police officer during a car break-in, with court records showing he was suspected of being part of an auto-theft gang that stole cars in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Alexander A. Batista-Polanco is among three Camden County men charged with murdering Officer Richard Mendez in the Oct. 12 shooting at a parking garage at Philadelphia International Airport where another officer was wounded.

Batista-Polanco, 21, of Camden, is accused of the killing along with Hendrick Pena-Fernandez, 21, of Pennsauken, and Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez, 18, of Camden. They were arrested in the days following the shooting, which occurred after officers confronted them as they tried to swipe a car, authorities said.

In court records, police recently described Batista-Polanco as a criminal gang member known to the Camden County Police Department as someone in a gang that is suspected of specializing in auto theft-related crimes.

Those allegations are contained in an arrest affidavit filed by police in Scranton, Pennsylvania, about 125 miles north of Philadelphia, where Batista-Polanco was wanted on burglary, theft and conspiracy charges.

In that case, police said he and at least six others ransacked a car dealership on April 6, stealing six vehicles and a safe with about $70,000 inside.

During the probe, Scranton police spoke with auto theft investigators from Camden County Police and the New Jersey State Police, who reported they had investigated Batista-Polanco in connection with other cases, the affidavit said. A trooper from the State Police said he was investigating Polanco-Batista and his gang for several burglaries of car dealerships, the affidavit indicated.

Police said that in the Scranton case, at about 1 a.m., the men cut power to Churilla Auto Sales and broke into the building, taking the safe and stealing the keys to the vehicles  including a used Corvette and several SUVs  before driving away in them. The vehicles were valued at about $180,000, police said.

Police said they could identify Batista-Polanco and three other suspects in the burglary because one of the cars had a GPS tracking device inside it. Surveillance video from a Plymouth Township, Pennsylvania, gas station where the vehicle stopped captured Batista-Polanco, who was recognized by a Camden County detective, the affidavit said.

Batista-Polanco is being held without bail following an arraignment in Philadelphia early Thursday on murder and attempted murder charges. Online court records did not list an attorney.

Pena-Fernandez and Martinez-Fernandez  the others charged in the killing  were not implicated in the Scranton affidavit, which named four of the seven men police suspected in the car dealership heist. The affidavit also did not implicate Jesus Herman Madera Duran, 18, who died of gunshot wounds following the police shooting.

A lawyer for Martinez-Fernandez, Lauren Wimmer, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Attorney information for Pena-Fernandez was not available.

Dan Keashen, a spokesman for Camden County police, declined comment, citing the ongoing investigation in Philadelphia. A spokesman for the New Jersey State Police also declined comment.

In the Scranton case, police said they recovered two stolen vehicles at an apartment building in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where the cars had stopped. Police said the suspects were believed to have traveled from the Philadelphia-Camden area for the burglary, and then returned after it.

Last year, authorities in New Jersey announced a crackdown on auto thefts, saying they were increasingly being linked to organized rings, gang violence and fatal shootings. In July, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a package of laws that targeted car trafficking.

Mendez, the slain officer, was 50 years old and had been on the force for more than two decades. Authorities said he was hit four times by gunshots that came from behind him. Another veteran officer, Raul Ortiz, 60, was shot once in his arm and released from the hospital two days later.

Funeral services for Mendez will be held Monday from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at John Givnish Life Celebration Home on Academy Road in Philadelphia and Tuesday starting at 8 a.m. at Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul at Logan Square in Philadelphia, the local Fraternal Order of Police announced Thursday.

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Riley Yates may be reached at ryates@njadvancemedia.com.

Staff reporter Deion Johnson contributed to this report.
A Pennsylvania state House member plans to introduce a bill to allow nurse practitioners to practice independently, a move supporters say would replace an outdated law and prevent loss of nurse practitioners to states that grant more freedom.

With a shortage of physicians and in the midst of a mental health crisis, we need to support legislation that would make more health care providers available for quality treatment, said Rep. Nancy Guenst, D-Montgomery County.

She said her bill is similar to a Senate bill introduced previously and which has bipartisan support. An identical bill must pass both the House and the Senate before it moves on to the governor, who can veto it or sign it into law.

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses who have advanced training which qualifies them to perform many tasks routinely done by doctors, such as diagnosing and treating illnesses, ordering tests, writing prescriptions and referring patients to specialists.

Although they commonly do those tasks in Pennsylvania, they must maintain a signed collaborative agreement with two physicians, which sometimes requires the nurse practitioner to pay a fee.

About half the other states and Washington, D.C. allow nurse practitioners to operate independently.

Many doctors and groups including the Pennsylvania Medical Society oppose granting so-called full practice authority, saying the collaborative agreement with physicians ensures patients have fast access to a physician should they have a condition thats beyond the expertise of the nurse practitioner.

Nurse practitioners contend they only want to be able to use the full range of their skills, and when they encounter a condition thats outside their expertise, they refer patients to the appropriate physician or specialist, just as physicians do.

Pennsylvania has about 12,000 nurse practitioners, with many specializing in a specific area such as family medicine or mental health care. As it stands, they typically work within medical practices and hospitals.

Guenst was joined at an event Tuesday by state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, a western Pennsylvania Republican and a sponsor of the Senate bill.

Under SB 25, nurse practitioners would have to work under a physician for 3,600 hours before becoming independent.

Supporters say the change is needed to help offset a growing shortage of physicians thats expected to worsen due to factors including aging baby boomers needing more medical care. Otherwise, Pennsylvania will be at a disadvantage in attracting and retaining a valuable category of health care worker.

They stress that the bordering states of Maryland, New York and Delaware give full practice authority to nurse practitioners, making them more attractive places for nurse practitioners to live and work.

READ MORE FROM PENNLIVE:

In Pa., nurse practitioners must work under doctors. But is it what patients want?

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Two Lehigh County firefighters who died in the line of duty and responders to a fiery crash in Palmer Township were among those recognized for their bravery this week in the Lehigh Valley.

The nonprofit Burn Prevention Network on Tuesday night at DeSales University presented its annual Valley Preferred Spirit of Courage awards, recognizing 24 individuals for risking their lives to save someone from a fire.

The awards have been presented for 18 years, with the 2023 edition moved for the first time to DeSales in Upper Saucon Township from the campus of Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg in Bethlehem.

The presentation was emceed by Mark Shepperd, a volunteer firefighter in Montgomery County and radio personality with 101.1 MORE-FM, and WFMZ-TV 69 anchor and reporter Karin Mallett.

With the help of generous donors and sponsors, Burn Prevention Network is proud to provide the Valley Preferred Spirit of Courage Awards along with burn prevention and support services, Corissa Rolon, CEO and executive director of Burn Prevention Network, said in a statement. We are grateful to be able to celebrate each and every individual at this event and are privileged to share this years honorees inspirational stories.

Recipients of this years Spirit of Courage awards included, posthumously, fallen firefighter Marvin L. Gruber and Assistant Fire Chief Zachary T.A. Paris from the New Tripoli Fire Co. Gruber, 59, and 36-year-old Paris died after becoming trapped in a house fire last Dec. 7 on Clamtown Road in West Penn Township, Schuylkill County. Gruber and Paris were laid to rest in an emotional public service, with both remembered as dedicated fathers and public servants. Gruber also had three grandchildren.

Numerous first responders and an emergency room physician were recognized Tuesday for their roles in coming to the aid of drivers involved in a fiery crash that resulted from street racing May 21, 2022, on Main Street near Van Buren Road in Palmer Township.

These Spirit of Courage award recipients were:

From the Palmer Municipal Fire Department, Jim Alercia, retired deputy chief; and Ken Sobieski, battalion chief

From the Palmer Township Police Department, officers John Billiard, Maurice Burton, Evan Goldstein and Kyle Kromer

From Suburban EMS, Christopher Finan Jr., EMT; and Jeremy Slack, paramedic

A passerby, Dr. Thomas Stauffer, who is an emergency room physician at Reading Hospital

Both drivers were injured, with one unconscious and trapped in a vehicle that caught fire. A police officer and firefighter were injured fighting the flames and taken to a local hospital, treated and released, police had said immediately following the crash. Three township police officers and one firefighter were treated at the crash scene for inhalation of smoke and a fire extinguisher agent.

Burn Prevention Network organizers of Tuesday nights awards released a video about the Palmer Township crash responders.

The response to the crash also was featured earlier this year on Season 5, Episode 5 of ABCs Hearts of Heroes series.

Additional 2023 Spirit of Courage Awards recipients are as follows:

Pottsville Bureau of Police Officer Michael Hrebik

Reading Department of Fire and Rescue Services Lt. Joshua Green and firefighter/EMT Garry Clarke

Reading Department of Fire and Rescue Services firefighters/EMTs Kevin Ayers, Kieran Dolan and Ronald Frey

Scranton Fire Department Capt. Matthew McDonald, Lt. Joseph Chesek and firefighters Nick Azzarelli and Kyle Saldonis

ELEOS AWARD (presented posthumously): Jennifer Nagle, a beloved nurse who worked at the Lehigh Valley Health Network Regional Burn Center and Camp Susquehanna and who died suddenly earlier this year

PHOENIX AWARD: Leah John, a doctoral student from Coopersburg who was badly injured in a fiery crash in May 2016 in Upper Saucon Township, and whose caregivers included Nagle

PARTNERS IN PREVENTION AWARD: James Misstishin, chief, Pottsville Bureau of Fire

Pottsville Bureau of Fire Chief James Misstishin receives a Valley Preferred Spirit of Courage award Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, at DeSales University for saving an 11-year-old girl trapped in the second-floor bedroom in a house fire. The girl had followed the instructions Misstishin had previously given at her elementary school about what to do in the event of fire. The instructions saved her life, award presenters with the nonprofit Burn Prevention Network said.Courtesy Lynn Shupp | For lehighvalleylive.com

CHAIRMANS AWARD: Organizations that responded to the March 24 explosion at the R.M. Palmer Co. in West Reading that killed seven people:

Fire

Adamstown Fire Company

Berks County EMC

Bernville Fire Company

Boyertown Area Fire & Rescue Services

Brecknock Fire Company

Cumru Township Fire Department

Denver Fire Company

Eastern Berks Fire Department

Exeter Township Volunteer Fire Company

Fleetwood Fire Company

Gilbertsville Fire Company

Greenfields Fire Company

Kenhorst Fire Company

Mohnton Fire Company

Monarch Fire Company

Muhlenberg Township Fire & Rescue

Norco Fire Company

Pennsylvania State Police Fire Marshal

Pottstown Fire Department

Reading Fire Department

Salvation Army Canteen of Boyertown

Sanatoga Fire Company

Shillington Fire Company

Spring Township Fire Company

Twin Valley Fire Company

Virginville Fire Company

Walnuttown Fire Company

Western Berks Fire Company

West Reading Fire Company

Wyomissing Fire Department

Police

Berks County Coroners Office

Berks County District Attorneys Office

Berks County Sheriffs Department

Bern Township Police Department

Birdsboro Borough Police Department

Cumru Township Police Department

Exeter Township Police Department

Hamburg Borough Police Department

PennDOT Freeway Service Patrol

Penn State University Police Department

Reading Bureau of Police

Spring Township Police Department

West Reading Borough Police Department

Wyomissing Borough Police Department

EMS

Lower Alsace Ambulance

Montgomery County Urban Search and Rescue

Muhlenberg Ambulance

Northern Berks EMS

Penn State Health Life Lion EMS

Reading Ambulance

Pennsylvania Task Force One

TowerDIRECT EMS

Western Berks Ambulance

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
In the first six days of New Jerseys controversial bear hunting season, 330 bears were killed, more than triple the total for last years shortened season, officials said.

During eight full days of hunting in December 2022, 113 bears were killed, with an additional bear killed during a shortened day, for a total of 114. Last years hunt, the first one to occur in New Jersey since 2020, was the shortest in a decade and there was no October session.

This years hunt is broken up into two segments.

The first segment was from Monday, Oct. 16 to Saturday, Oct. 22, with hunting hours running from a half hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset.

Segment B of the bear hunting season will be Dec. 4 through Dec. 9. This segment will only permit shotguns and muzzleloaders. Archery was permitted on designated days in the October hunt.

The bear hunt was reinstated last year after a multi-fold increase in bear incidents over the past year, in an attempt to control the population and reduce incidents.

With the hunt reinstated, New Jersey Fish and Wildlife biologists said they will again be able to produce current population estimates for the northwestern part of the state to better understand changes in bear populations, official said.

A lack of concrete estimate for population size was the subject of a failed lawsuit to stop the hunt filed by anti-hunt activists.

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Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com.
An Independent TD and former serving member of the Irish Defence Forces has spoken about his views on pay for the Army Ranger Wing (ARW).

Dr Cathal Berry, who previously served as a Commandant in the ARW, also took time to sit down with the Leinster Leader to discuss the recent escalation in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Commenting on the increase in pay for the ARW (which is a 280 a week allowance), Dr Berry TD said: "It is great to see some progress... it is important for people to see the optics bearing fruit.

"The news has gone down well in The Curragh Camp."

He continued: "The injustices faced by the Army are a lightning rod for discontent, so seeing this news is definitely helpful for the morale of members, but we still have a long way to go (for other issues)."

Dr Berry TD also told the Leader that a 'high-level action plan' in relation to the Defence Forces is due to take place by the end of the month.

He elaborated: "It is going to be something that will be forensically scrutinised, in order to make sure that the delivery happes in the short-term, and that it isn't just kicked down the line."

Commenting on the escalation in the Israel-Palestine conflict, Dr Berry TD, who has previously served with the Defence Forces on peacekeeping missions in Israel, Syria and Lebanon, had this to say: "It is very concerning, and it is very unusual for (US) president Joe Biden to touch down in Israel, so whatever discussions that he and the Israeli government have had must have been very important."

"Unfortunately, I think that the situation will get worse before it gets better."

However, he added that he was 'not surprised' at the recent escalation, and said that when he was in Israel as a soldier, he likened the tense situation as 'a powder keg waiting to go off.'

Dr Berry TD explained: "There have been flare-ups before, but this recent development is significant. I feel that the next 24 to 48 hours in particular will be very telling."

He also condemned the deaths of civilians on both sides of the conflict: Dr Berry criticised the Israeli army's aggression against the Palestinian people, while also condemning the Muslim militant group Hamas for locating weapons in civilian areas.

"Civilians should absolutely not be a target in war," he added.

Lastly, when asked about his views on how most Irish people view the conflict, Dr Berry TD said: "There is sympathy with Palestine. Most people just want peace in Palestine.

"Ultimately, it's up to Israel and Palestine to organise the peace process amongst themselves."

"The priority should be a ceasefire, and the exchanging of hostages," he concluded.
The well known Hanged Man's Pub and Restaurant in Milltown has been put up for sale.

Coonan Property said this fully licenced bar and restaurant that is currently trading with a fantastic reputation in the village of

Milltown. The building itself is steeped in local history, having been built in the early 18th century to facilitate the development of The Grand Canal. The property was first used as a depot for the canal. Later it became an RIC barracks, but in more recent times it has settled comfortably into its role as a magnificent bar and eatery.

"The current owners have cultivated a thriving Irish pub/restaurant, and it is renowned for great drinks, food, and atmosphere, with locals and those travelling far and wide to visit the establishment," said Coonan Property.

"This attractive property can be found resting in a stunning, picturesque location on the banks of the Grand Canal on approximately 2.5 acres (1ha). It proudly sits in a prominent roadside location with ample customer parking. This business has an excellent reputation with substantial annual trade presenting a unique opportunity to acquire a traditional bar and restaurant in the heart of County Kildare.

"The property also has the benefit of a two bedroom apartment at first floor level and adjoining the property is an additional two bedroom stone cut apartment with two bathrooms, sitting room and dining room. The Hanged Mans is the proud winner of the Black and White Pub of the Year twice in a row and is also the only pub to win the East Regional Pub of the Year

Awards twice in succession. It was also listed by Barfly Irish Times as one of the top ten pubs in Ireland."

The business is ideally located adjacent to the Curragh Racecourse and is a mere ten minutes drive from Newbridge. The towns of Naas and Kildare are in close proximity and access to the M7 motorway nearby meaning Dublin City Centre is less than an hour away.

The property comprises a two storey over basement building which has been divided to provide restaurant and bar facilities for over 100 patrons with additional function rooms at ground and first floor level. The property benefits from a fully fitted kitchen which serves all restaurant and functions rooms. The interior has a traditional Irish feel throughout, with a mixture of flagstone and wooden floors, stone fire surrounds, wood burning stoves, open fires, and wood panelled walls.

This property comes with the benefit of full planning permission for a 20 bedroom boutique hotel and all associated works. This provides superb potential for expansion of the existing business for the disconcerting buyer. Details of planning can be found under Kildare County Council Planning Reference 21/1263.

The guide price for this property is 1,100,000 and the sole agents are inviting best bids by November 30. For more information, please contact Will Coonan or Philip Byrne on 01 628 6128 or by email at info@coonan.com
Nestle-Results ( KEYSTONE / LAURENT GILLIERON)

Food giant Nestle announced that it will close its baby milk plant in Ireland by 2026 due to a decline in demand for infant formula in China.

The multinational food corporation cited declining demand for infant formula in China  attributable to decreased birth rates  as a contributing factor to its decision.

We will now consult with all employees and their representative unions, a statement by Nestle said.

Regrettably, todays announcement means approximately 542 colleagues will be placed at risk of redundancy.

The Wyeth Nutrition infant formula factory in Askeaton, Co Limerick  which was acquired from Pfizer Nutrition by Nestle in 2012  will leave more than 540 workers facing redundancy.

The company said that it would move the plants operations to Suzhou in mainland China and Konolfingen in Switzerland.

It was proposed that R&D work at Askeaton would be absorbed into Konolfingen, where 365 colleagues work on research and product development across several disciplines, and a satellite R&D centre in Shanghai would be strengthened.

Nestles statement said that the number of newborn babies in China has declined sharply from some 18 million per year in 2016 to fewer than 9 million projected in 2023.

The market, which had previously been reliant on imported infant formula products, is also seeing rapid growth in locally-produced products.

Blaming drop in demand from China but yetmoving the production from Ireland to China..??  @Nestle @NestleUKI https://t.co/qMGkM2Cc1I  Robin McNamara Poet   (@thewindingroad1) October 18, 2023

It added: These proposals have been carefully considered and are no reflection on the excellent contribution made by our employees in Askeaton over many years.

Story continues

Siptu trade union representatives urgently requested a meeting with Nestle Wyeth Nutritionals management, imploring them to reconsider their horrendous decision.

We are also calling for immediate intervention from the government to save these jobs that are so vital to the midwest region, Siptu sector organiser Neil McGowan was quoted as saying by Irish Times.

Over 540 jobs are set to be lost at the Wyeth Nutrition infant formula factory in Askeaton, Co Limerick.



Owner Nestle say theyll close the plant in early 2026.



Local TD @RichardODonoghu says this will have a huge impact locally as many small businesses rely on Wyeth Nutrition pic.twitter.com/7xGpPptxKn  Barry Whyte (@BarryWhyte85) October 18, 2023

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Simon Coveney, said the full range of state support will be made available to the employees, and we will examine each and every option to ensure that the best possible outcome is reached for all concerned.

He also noted that the factory had provided fantastic employment in Limerick and made a huge contribution to Irelands economy.
FOOD producer Nestle has confirmed that more than 500 jobs are under threat as it plans to close a major manufacturing facility in County Limerick.

The company has announced it intends to cease operations at its Wyeth Nutrition infant formula manufacturing facility in Askeaton, around 33 kilmoetres outside Limerick city.

Currently, 491 people are employed at the plant which is earmarked to close by March 2026.

Additionally, the co-located research and development center, which opened in 2019 after a 25m expansion, and employs 51 people, is also proposed to be closed cease operations by the first quarter of 2025.

The company, known for high-quality infant nutrition products, released a statement this Wednesday evening confirming it is proposing to transfer the production from Askeaton to two existing factories in Suzhou, Mainland China and Konolfingen, Switzerland.

"Regrettably, todays announcement means approximately 542 colleagues will be placed at risk of redundancy," read the statement.

The facilities were part of Nestles acquisition of Pfizer Nutrition in 2012. Operating as Wyeth Nutritionals Ireland Ltd (WNIL), the factory manufactures infant formula products exclusively for export to markets in Greater China and Asia.

Local councillor Kieran O'Hanlon, who worked at Wyeth as an electrical engineer for more than 30 years, said staff were called into a meeting at 4pm and informed of the bad news.

They were given a schedule of how operations in west Limerick will run down concluding in 2026.

"It's a terrible day for West Limerick. I know so many young families work in that plant and I don't imagine they ever thought these jobs would end," he said.

"The difficult thing is there is very little other industry in West Limerick. Staff were just devastated, it's the worst kind of news to get," he added.

Reacting to the announcement, Councillor Adam Teskey said: "My initial reaction is one of complete shock and dismay - it's a huge unexpected financial and economic blow to the area.

"My thoughts, firstly, are with all the workers and staff that are based there but this will have a ripple effect into west Limerick and even the greater Mid-West region."

He continued: "The Minister for Job Creation plus the Minister for Employment and the Taoiseach will have to engage to see if there is any way that we can retrieve these jobs or bring it back from the brink at this stage - this is obviously a cost base problem when they are moving production to different sites so obviously our costs here have become a major burden to the company."

A spokesperson for Nestle added that the company regrets the uncertainty that the announcement will cause their colleagues and their families, but added: "We will make sure they are supported fully throughout this process."
Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet Welcomes New Executive Director, Elena Tupyseva





WINNIPEG, MB, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - The board of directors for Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) is pleased to announce the appointment of Elena Tupyseva (she/her) as the new Executive Director, effective November 6, 2023. Ms. Tupyseva brings extensive experience in leadership, strategic planning, programming, education, networking, audience dynamics, and partnerships to the organization. Her academic record is equally impressive, including a Master's Degree in Law (1998) and a Master's Degree in Performing Arts Management (2005) from Moscow, Russia. She also earned a Graduate Certificate in Leadership and Management, at Royal Roads University (2022) in Victoria, B.C.

Since 2017 the RWB maintained a single leadership model in which Andre Lewis served as Artistic Director & CEO. With Lewis' pending retirement by May 2025 the board of directors decided to split the two executive positions. Following an extensive recruitment process, conducted by a board committee and MNP Consulting, Tupyseva was selected by unanimous recommendation and vote of the board.

"We are thrilled Elena is becoming part of the RWB community," said John Osler, chair of the board of directors. "She is a great fit for us. Elena brings more than two decades of experience leading other performing arts organizations , where her skills and energy were instrumental in the growth and success of the organizations. Her expertise in creating efficient operations and engaging audiences makes her the ideal person to co-lead the RWB ? with its world-class artistic excellence, strong board, and seasoned staff?into its exciting next chapter."

In her new role with the RWB, Tupyseva will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of operations?including fundraising, marketing, finance, and administration?and will work closely with Artistic Director Andre Lewis to continue to push the boundaries of performance and dance education.

By way of background, Tupyseva was selected by the Moscow Department of Culture in 2012 for the position of CEO & Artistic Director of the City Theatre Ballet Moscow - to build a new operating and artistic profile for the company and find new ways of sustainable development. Under her direction, the organization commissioned new ballets and built an award-winning company. Tupyseva held this position until February 2022 when she resigned because of the political climate in Russia and the opportunity to move to Canada. Since her move she has been working as an executive and providing management and production services with Dance Umbrella Ontario, based in Toronto. A full biography is attached.

For several years now, Tupyseva has been exploring the world of Canadian cultural and performing arts. Because of vast professional connections and involvement in the international ballet scene, she is familiar with the RWB and believes its history, achievements and values are second to none.

"What the Royal Winnipeg Ballet has created and accomplished over the past 83 years is extraordinary. Around the globe, the Company and the RWB School are reputed for exceptional artistry, versatility, and a captivating style. As an organization, I am privileged to have the opportunity to work with the board, Andre Lewis, and staff, as we join forces to deliver to communities near and far all that the RWB represents. I could not be more excited to come on board the organization at such a pivotal time", said Tupyseva.

In addition to getting to know the team and the day-to-day operations, Tupyseva believes that one of her most important tasks is to reach out and lead a conversation in the communities about redefining performing arts and ballet as an art form. She plans to immerse herself in finding new ways and spaces for production and presentation, as well as redefining and expanding the meaning of partnership and exchange. Tupyseva also intends to encourage fruitful dialogue between dance professionals, their audiences, and various stakeholders.

With a new board chair at the helm, a new executive director, and a newly launched strategic plan, coupled with an artistic leadership transition over the next couple of years, the RWB is poised for an exciting future with limitless possibilities!

Quotes About Elena Tupyseva

Sheri Somerville, Executive Director Ballet Edmonton

"Elena has such a depth of understanding of how ballet exists in many corners of the world. Her experience, education, and understanding of art in the context of place will position the RWB to move into the next decade with a sense of excitement and confidence. Congratulations Winnipeg!"

Ihsan Rustem

Freelance Choreographer /Artistic Director Cie. La Ronde Switzerland

"I am thrilled to learn of the appointment of Elena Tupyseva as the new Executive Director of the esteemed Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Elena is a people person - and at the same time a person people truly wish to work for! Elena's remarkable ability to connect with people is matched only by her leadership qualities, making her someone everyone aspires to work with. Her unwavering compassion, respect, and a unique blend of clarity, vision, and determination exemplify her as a true visionary and trailblazer in the arts world. Her global recognition is a testament to her genuine dedication, outstanding work ethic, and remarkable achievements. RWB has undoubtedly secured a valuable asset, and I eagerly anticipate the promising future that lies ahead with Ms. Tupyseva on their team."

About Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) enriches the human experience by teaching, creating and performing outstanding dance. The remarkable story of Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally founding the RWB on the Canadian prairies in 1939 embodies boldness, tenacity, versatility, and grit. The RWB holds the double distinction of being Canada's premier ballet company and the longest continuously operating ballet company in North America. The RWB received its 'Royal' designation from Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, the first Royal Charter granted during her reign.

Today, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet is a leader known the world over for pushing the boundaries of classical ballet and redefining the future of dance. The RWB inspires artists, moves audiences, and builds connections locally and globally, uniting people through the universal language of dance. By building on our strengths, challenging conventions, and igniting passion, the RWB will leave an indelible mark on the global stage.

The RWB's superlative standards keep the Company in demand across North America and beyond. In addition to the company, the RWB is home to the RWB School, consisting of both the Professional Division, our internationally renowned dance education and training centre for aspiring professional dancers and dance teachers, and the Recreational Division, one of Winnipeg's largest dance schools for all ages, levels, and interests.

www.rwb.org

Elena Tupyseva Biography and Photo

For further media information and to arrange interviews, please contact:

Jo Magnifico, Public Relations & Communications Specialist

P. 204.957.3456, C. 204.509.8023, [email protected]

SOURCE Royal Winnipeg Ballet

19 october 2023 at 01:00

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Ardian strengthens its North American footprint with the opening of its office in Montreal, Canada





Expansion underscores company's long-standing commitment to Canadian clients.

MONTREAL, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - Ardian, a world-leading private investment house today announced the opening of a new office in Montreal, Canada. The office, Ardian's 17th location, underscores Ardian's long-standing commitment to Canadian clients and expands the firm's global footprint.

The firm has been working with Canada's most respected pension plans, insurance companies, financial institutions, endowments and family offices for over two decades, with client commitments in the region representing US$9.3 bn of Ardian's AUM. With more than 50 long-standing clients in the region, Ardian's on-the-ground Canadian presence will allow the firm to strengthen client relationships, build closer ties to the business and financial community, and capitalize on significant opportunities that align with Ardian's most innovative and sustainable investment strategies.

Frederick Castonguay, will lead Ardian's team in Montreal. Mark Benedetti and Vladimir Colas, Members of the Executive Committee and Co-Heads of Ardian in the USA, will oversee the region. The Montreal office is Ardian's third base in North America. The firm has offices in New York and San Francisco.

The team will also leverage Ardian's wider platform for its Canadian clients. Ardian sees continued investor demand in the region, with particular interest from LPs looking to diversify their holdings into key investing strategies including secondaries, primaries, infrastructure, co-investments, and private credit. Additionally, Ardian sees growing appetite from Canadian LPs and GPs seeking to take advantage of liquidity offered by the secondary market.

"This latest expansion is a testament to the historic importance of the Canadian market for Ardian. Our firm began activities in the province of Quebec back in 1997, and through the years, we have nurtured relationships with over 50 regional clients. Our newly-established Montreal team is thrilled to continue building on this journey."

? DOMINIQUE SENEQUIER ? CEO AND FOUNDER OF ARDIAN

"Canada is instrumental to Ardian's global business strategy and having a physical presence in Montreal will allow us to focus on building closer relationships with our LPs and other institutional investors in the region. From our perspective, the Canadian market is also at the forefront of sustainable investments, and having a local team on the ground will enhance investing opportunities to the benefit of our current and future clients."

? MARK BENEDETTI ? MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND CO-HEAD OF ARDIAN US

"We are excited to put down roots in Canada. Our teams across Montreal, New York and San Francisco will work together to identify synergies while attending to the specific needs of our Canadian clients and portfolio companies."

? FREDERICK CASTONGUAY ? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ARDIAN

ABOUT ARDIAN

Ardian is a world-leading private investment house, managing or advising $156bn of assets on behalf of more than 1,470 clients globally. Our broad expertise, spanning Private Equity, Real Assets and Credit, enables us to offer a wide range of investment opportunities and respond flexibly to our clients' differing needs. Through Ardian Customized Solutions we create bespoke portfolios that allow institutional clients to specify the precise mix of assets they require and to gain access to funds managed by leading third-party sponsors. Private Wealth Solutions offers dedicated services and access solutions for private banks, family offices and private institutional investors worldwide. Ardian's main shareholding group is its employees and we place great emphasis on developing its people and fostering a collaborative culture based on collective intelligence. Our 1,050+ employees, spread across 17 offices in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Middle East are strongly committed to the principles of Responsible Investment and are determined to make finance a force for good in society. Our goal is to deliver excellent investment performance combined with high ethical standards and social responsibility.

At Ardian we invest all of ourselves in building companies that last.

ardian.com

SOURCE Ardian

19 october 2023 at 06:00

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Mployer Advisor Announces 2023 Winners of Third Annual 'Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards' in Massachusetts





Mployer Advisor has named more than 500 winners in over 50 regions as part of its third annual 2023 awards. The class of 2023 winners account for less than 5% of all brokerages nationwide.

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Mployer Advisor, the leading independent platform for employers to research, review, and evaluate insurance brokers has named over 500 winners across more than 50 regions as part of its third annual "Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards" for 2023. Mployer Advisor's Top Employee Benefits Consultant Award Program evaluates brokers based on breadth and depth of experience across employer industries, sizes, insurance products, and employer reviews. We recognize esteemed brokers that demonstrate market-leading competencies and a proven track record of success among employers, insurance providers, and peers.

Our team is proud to recognize this group of 2023 top-rated insurance advisors as part of our third annual Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards,"?said Brian Freeman, the Founder and CEO of Mployer Advisor. "Employer-sponsored healthcare and benefits cover over 150M Americans. Who an employer selects as their benefits advisor has more impact on employee cost and satisfaction with their healthcare than who an employer chooses as the insurance carrier. We have rated these brokerages utilizing sophisticated, industry-first algorithms, and we applaud the winners' demonstrated commitment to service, quality, and positive employer feedback."

Mployer Advisor determined the winners of the third annual "Top Employee Benefits Consultant Award" by analyzing each brokerage based on historical data, online reviews, their M Score rating, and demonstrated business experience.

The Massachusetts job market is competitive in the New England Area, employing over 3.7 million people. Offering competitive employee benefits is a critical factor in hiring top talent for the region's employers. Finding and partnering with a highly rated insurance consultant is imperative to retaining talent in any market.

The recipients of the 2023 "Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards" for Massachusetts are as follows:

The above winners are a snapshot of Mployer Advisor's matrices and proprietary M Score on June 15, 2023. To view a full list of consultants in Massachusetts, visit MployerAdvisor.com.

About Mployer Advisor:

Mployer Advisor is changing the way employers search, evaluate, and select insurance advisors. The intuitive platform connects employers and employees to great benefits and insurance plans by providing employers with actionable data to easily evaluate and select the best advisor for a company's specific needs. Most brokerages have a profile on Mployer Advisor, which provides independent ratings of insurance advisors to support employers. Insurance brokers cannot pay to influence their Mployer Advisor rating. Only highly rated brokerages are allowed to advertise on the platform. To learn more about Mployer Advisor, visit https://mployeradvisor.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

Disclaimer: Rankings are dynamic, and this report may not reflect the rankings currently listed on Mployer Advisor's website. Because Mployer Advisor's research is ongoing, interested companies that want to join next year's list are encouraged to claim their free profile on Mployer Advisor.

Media Contact

Anthony Waters, Mployer Advisor, 1 (844) 743-6456, [email protected], mployeradvisor.com

SOURCE Mployer Advisor

19 october 2023 at 06:27

News published onand distributed by:
Mployer Advisor Announces 2023 Winners of Third Annual 'Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards' in Connecticut





Mployer Advisor has named more than 500 winners in over 50 regions as part of its third annual 2023 awards. The class of 2023 winners account for less than 5% of all brokerages nationwide.

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Mployer Advisor, the leading independent platform for employers to research, review, and evaluate insurance brokers has named over 500 winners across more than 50 regions as part of its third annual "Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards" for 2023. Mployer Advisor's Top Employee Benefits Consultant Award Program evaluates brokers based on breadth and depth of experience across employer industries, sizes, insurance products, and employer reviews. We recognize esteemed brokers that demonstrate market-leading competencies and a proven track record of success among employers, insurance providers, and peers.

Our team is proud to recognize this group of 2023 top-rated insurance advisors as part of our third annual Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards,"?said Brian Freeman, the Founder and CEO of Mployer Advisor. "Employer-sponsored healthcare and benefits cover over 150M Americans. Who an employer selects as their benefits advisor has more impact on employee cost and satisfaction with their healthcare than who an employer chooses as the insurance carrier. We have rated these brokerages utilizing sophisticated, industry-first algorithms, and we applaud the winners' demonstrated commitment to service, quality, and positive employer feedback."

Mployer Advisor determined the winners of the third annual "Top Employee Benefits Consultant Award" by analyzing each brokerage based on historical data, online reviews, their M Score rating, and demonstrated business experience.

The Connecticut market is one of the most competitive in the New England area, employing close to 1.7 million people. Offering competitive employee benefits is a critical factor in hiring top talent for the region's employers. Finding and partnering with a highly rated insurance consultant is imperative to retaining talent in any market.

The recipients of the 2023 "Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards" for Connecticut are as follows:

The above winners are a snapshot of Mployer Advisor's matrices and proprietary M Score on June 15, 2023. To view a full list of consultants in Connecticut, visit MployerAdvisor.com.

About Mployer Advisor:

Mployer Advisor is changing the way employers search, evaluate, and select insurance advisors. The intuitive platform connects employers and employees to great benefits and insurance plans by providing employers with actionable data to easily evaluate and select the best advisor for a company's specific needs. Most brokerages have a profile on Mployer Advisor, which provides independent ratings of insurance advisors to support employers. Insurance brokers cannot pay to influence their Mployer Advisor rating. Only highly rated brokerages are allowed to advertise on the platform. To learn more about Mployer Advisor, visit https://mployeradvisor.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

Disclaimer: Rankings are dynamic, and this report may not reflect the rankings currently listed on Mployer Advisor's website. Because Mployer Advisor's research is ongoing, interested companies that want to join next year's list are encouraged to claim their free profile on Mployer Advisor.

Media Contact

Anthony Waters, Mployer Advisor, 1 (844) 743-6456, [email protected], mployeradvisor.com

SOURCE Mployer Advisor

19 october 2023 at 06:23

News published onand distributed by:
Lithium Ionic Announces PEA and Expanded Mineral Resource Estimate for Bandeira; Post-tax NPV8% US$1.6 Billion & IRR of 121%





TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lithium Ionic Corp. (TSXV: LTH; OTCQX: LTHCF; FSE: H3N) ("Lithium Ionic" or the "Company") is pleased to report the results of the Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") and the updated Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") for its wholly owned Bandeira project ("Bandeira" or the "Project") located in Minas Gerais, Brazil.



The PEA was completed by independent Brazilian consultancy, GE21 Consultoria Mineral Ltda ("GE21"), with support of SNC Lavalin, and indicates that Bandeira has the potential to be a viable and highly economic mining project and a substantial and long-life producer of low-cost spodumene concentrate.

Bandeira PEA - Production & Economic Highlights ($USD unless otherwise stated):

Post-tax Net Present Value ("NPV") 8 % of $1.6 billion (approximately C$2.2 billion)

of $1.6 billion (approximately C$2.2 billion) Post-tax Internal Rate of Return ("IRR") of 121%

Underground mine scenario processing 1.3Mtpa of ore over a 20-year mine life

After-tax payback of 14 months

Avg. LOM annual production of 217,700t of high-quality spodumene concentrate at 5.5% Li2O ("SC5.5") equivalent (187,230 tpa SC5.5, in addition to 56,860 tpa of spodumene tails concentrate at 3% Li2O, or "SC3")

Total capital expenditure ("CAPEX") of $233 million (including a 25% contingency)

Pre-tax annual average free cash flow of $243 million

All-in LOM operating costs ("OPEX") of $349/t of spodumene concentrate SC5.5



Bandeira Updated MRE Highlights:

Measured & Indicated: 13.72Mt at 1.40% Li20 (474,892t LCE) representing a 196% increase in tonnes compared to the June 2023 MRE for Bandeira of 4.63Mt at 1.35% Li20 (154,198t LCE)

Inferred: 15.79Mt at 1.34% Li20 (523,118t LCE)

Commenting on the PEA, Blake Hylands, P.Geo, CEO of Lithium Ionic, "We congratulate our team on advancing the Project to this stage in a short time span. As a Company, we are focused on being the next significant Brazilian lithium producer and this is reflected in the approach we have taken. Commencing with a highly attractive underground project will result in significantly less surface disturbance and the experience of CBL on the adjacent mine site provides a proven production model for developing the mining operation. The Company has a highly experienced team in Brazil that has taken numerous projects through the permitting and development process and as such the Project is well advanced in this regard. We believe the deliverables in this PEA are achievable."

Blake Hylands, P.Geo., continued, "The robust results of our PEA marks a major de-risking milestone towards our goal of becoming a near-term supplier of high-quality spodumene concentrate to the global lithium and electric vehicle supply chains. The Bandeira deposit has demonstrated its technical simplicity and remarkable economic viability, placing it among the lowest-cost spodumene concentrate producers globally. Furthermore, this PEA showcases an impressive 20-year mine life from just one of our deposits. The Bandeira project will serve as a solid foundation for further growth as we continue to expand both the mineral resources and potential production scale through ongoing drilling and exploration in the region. We are rapidly advancing Bandeira through the next phases of development, with a Definitive Feasibility and Environmental Impact Assessment expected by the end of 2023, paving the way for the initiation of the environmental permitting process. As a proposed underground operation, Bandeira benefits from a minimal environmental footprint and an expected accelerated permitting timeline."

Helio Diniz, President of Lithium Ionic, stated, "We believe that the best approach for all of our stakeholders is to develop a significant producing operation in the shortest possible time frame. We will continue to expand the resources and develop our other targets, which will represent future expansions to support what we believe will be a multi-generational production center."

Bandeira Project PEA Overview

The Bandeira Project covers 175 hectares within Lithium Ionic's large land package of 14,182 hectares and is located between the towns of Aracuai and Itinga within Brazil's "Lithium Valley" - a hard rock lithium district that is quickly emerging as an important global lithium producer (see Figure 1).

Table 1. Bandeira Project PEA Highlights ($USD unless otherwise stated)

Project Economics Post - Tax NPV 8 $1.6 billion Post - Tax IRR 121% Pre - Tax NPV 8 $2.3 billion Pre - Tax IRR 163% Annual Revenue ? Average $337 million Annual Free Cash Flow $243 million Payback 14 months Economic Assumptions & Parameters SPO 5.5% Li2O Price, CIF China $1,859/t SPO 3.0% Li2O Price, CIF China $865/t Exchange rate US$5.00 /R$ Discount Rate 8% Production Profile Total Project Life (LOM) 20 years Total LOM production (ore mined) 22.9 Mt Nominal Plant Capacity 1.3 Mtpa Average plant throughput 1.26 Mtpa Run-of-Mine grade, Li2O (ore diluted) 1.23% Run-of-Mine underground mine dilution 16.8% Waste generation Average 439 ktpa SPO Annual Production @ 5,5% Li2O 187 ktpa SPO Annual Production @ 3,0% Li2O 56 ktpa SPO Annual Production @ 5.5% Li2O Equivalent 218 ktpa SPO 5,5% Li2O metallurgical recovery 67.0% SPO 3,0% Li2O metallurgical recovery 10.7% SPO 5,5% Li2O mass recovery 15.2% SPO 3,0% Li2O mass recovery 4.5% Project Capital Costs Mine (Development + Equipment's + Pre-Production) $72.5 million Plant $80.5 million Environmental $2.9 million Engineering Services $20.0 million General Infrastructure & Others $10.3 million Contingency (25%) $46.6 million Total Capital Cost Estimate $232.8 million SUDENE Incentive tax benefit over first 10 years 75% Operating Costs (OPEX) Operating costs (based on ore processed) $61/t ore Mining $45/ t ore Processing + Tailings handling $12/ t ore SG&A $4/t ore Operating costs (based on SPO 5.5 concentrate produced) $349/t SPO 5.5E Mining $258/t SPO 5.5E Processing + Tailings handling $68/t SPO 5.5E SG&A $23/t SPO 5.5E Transportation costs to customer destination

(Mine in Itinga - Aracuai to Shanghai Port, China) $120/t SPO







Figure 1. Bandeira Project Location

View Figure 1 here: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/716584f0-30f6-4a40-810d-27d71375a06b





Figure 2. Post-Tax NPV8% Price Sensitivity Analysis

View Figure 2 here: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f23b883c-4887-47e2-a21f-cd3a2c644ff6



Mining

The Bandeira project engineering design contemplates dual underground mining operations. The primary orebodies, accounting for approximately 90% of the deposit, are proposed to be extracted using a bottom-up "sublevel stoping" method (Bandeira Sublevel Mine, "BSL mine"). Simultaneously, the secondary southeast orebody, comprising approximately 1.5 million tonnes, is expected to be mined using "room-and-pillar" technique (Bandeira Room and Pillar, "BRP mine").

The BSL mine has been planned with two declines, extending along a NE/SW mineralized trend spanning 1.0 km. It is divided into 12 panels, each measuring 55 meters, and consists of two sublevels (see Figure 3).

The BRP mine features a single panel with approximate dimensions of 380 meters in length, 330 meters in width, and 10 meters in height. Access to the ore chamber will be provided through five crosscuts originating from the southern decline. Once fully operational, the BSL and BRP mines are expected to achieve a combined production of approximately 1.3 million tonnes per annum. Figure 4 shows the annual plant feed along with Li 2 O grade.









Figure 3. Proposed Project Layout and Infrastructure

View Figure 3 here:https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f635ab5d-4f33-424e-a922-ce1a6d518b1e





Figure 4. PEA Mine Plan and Schedule with Li2O, %

View Figure 4 here: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5100c94e-45dd-4f2c-98f6-ba78c4f43245

Mineral Processing

The mineral processing flowsheet is structured around a two-stage crushing circuit (comprising a Jaw crusher and Gyratory Cone crusher), ore size classification, the implementation of an ore sorter for coarse and medium materials, and the utilization of DMS (Dense Media Separation) for coarse and medium materials. Additionally, fines are subjected to gravity concentration with spirals. For a visual representation of the process, please refer to Figure 5, while Table 1 provides the specific design criteria for mineral processing.

The underground mine is anticipated to yield ore with an average Li 2 O grade of 1.23% over the Life of Mine (LOM), accounting for dilution at 16.8%. The ore sorting process will effectively purify the ore by removing undesirable dilution and non-lithium-bearing minerals like albite, feldspar, and quartz. This enrichment process will improve the lithium oxide grade to approximately 1.50%, ensuring a higher feed for the DMS I and II units. Based on the preliminary testwork program, Li 2 O recovery is projected to reach 67%, with an additional 10.7% achieved through gravity concentration in the fines fraction.





Figure 5. Block diagram for the Bandeira Process Flowsheet

View Figure 5 here: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5f4172b2-d997-4e96-a6ff-d2b323faa68d



Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for Bandeira

The PEA is based on an updated MRE for the Bandeira project summarized in Table 2. The Bandeira MRE contains Measured and Indicated ("M&I") resources of 13.72Mt grading 1.40% Li2O, containing 474,892 tonnes of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent ("LCE"), the benchmark equivalent raw material used in the lithium industry, in addition to Inferred resources of 15.79Mt grading 1.34% Li2O, or 523,118 tonnes of LCE.

The updated MRE for Bandeira is based on 204 diamond drill holes conducted on the Bandeira property until August 30, 2023. This compares to drill data from 120 holes in the previous MRE for Bandeira announced on June 27, 2023. This additional drilling significantly expanded the MRE, with the tonnes in the Indicated category increasing by 196% compared to the previous estimate.

Table 2. Bandeira Mineral Resource Estimates (base case cut-off grade of 0.5 % Li2O)

Category Resource (tonnes) Grade

(% Li2O) Contained LCE (t) Measured 2,000,000 1.40 69,226 Indicated 11,720,000 1.40 405,666 Measured + Indicated 13,720,000 1.40 474,892 Inferred 15,790,000 1.34 523,118

Notes related to the Mineral Resource Estimate:

The spodumene pegmatite domains were modeled using composites with Li2O grades greater than 0.3% The mineral resource estimates were prepared in accordance with the CIM Standards, and the CIM Guidelines, using geostatistical and/or classical methods, plus economic and mining parameters appropriate to the deposit. Mineral Resources are not ore reserves and are not demonstrably economically recoverable. Grades reported using dry density. The effective date of the MRE was October 11, 2023. The MRE numbers provided have been rounded to the estimate relative precision. Values cannot be added due to rounding. The MRE is delimited by Lithium Ionic Bandeira Target Claims (ANM). The MRE was estimated using ordinary kriging in 12m x 12m x 4m blocks. The MRE report table was produced in Leapfrog Geo software. The reported MRE only contains fresh rock domains. The MRE was restricted by grade shell using 0.5% Li2O cut-off.



The complete NI 43-101 technical report associated with the PEA and updated MRE (the "Technical Report") will be available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca under the Company's issuer profile, as well as the Company's website at www.lithiumionic.com within 45 calendar days.

The Preliminary Economic Assessment is considered preliminary in nature and includes Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered too speculative, geologically, to have the economic considerations applied that would enable classification as Mineral Reserves. There is no certainty that the conclusions within the PEA will be realized. The PEA is based on the material assumptions outlined in this document. These include assumptions about the availability of funding. While the Company considers all of the material assumptions to be based on reasonable grounds, there is no certainty that they will prove to be correct or that the range of outcomes indicated by the PEA can be achieved.

No mineral reserves have been estimated for the Project. Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.

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 CBL's 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.

Qualified Persons

The Technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Independent Qualified Persons as defined in NI 43-101, Carlos Jose Evangelista Silva (MAIG Membership Number 7868) for the MRE, and Guilherme Gomides Ferreira (MAIG Membership Number: 7586) for the PEA, both from GE21.

Investor and Media Inquiries:

+1 647.316.2500

[email protected]

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 Company's 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 Project, the economic viability of the Project, the mineralization and development of the Project, the Company's exploration program and other mining projects and prospects thereof, the Company's ability to complete a feasibility study, the Company's ability to complete an environmental impact assessment and obtain the requisite permitting and approvals and the Company's 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 management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

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.

19 october 2023 at 07:00

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Pandemic sees hospital staffing challenges grow and rates of unintentional harm increase





TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital staffing challenges such as sick time, overtime and the use of agency workers grew dramatically, while at the same time rates of potentially preventable harm to patients increased, according to a report released today by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). The report,Hospital staffing and hospital harm trends throughout the pandemic,uses costing and administrative data to compare pandemic trends with pre?COVID-19 times.

Overtime and sick time use among hospital staff in Canada increased significantly in 2021?2022 compared with the previous year. Staff working on inpatient units in Canada's hospitals logged more than 14 million hours of overtime, which equates to about 7,300 full-time positions . More than 12 million hours of sick time were also logged, which translates to a shortfall of about 6,500 full-time positions. In addition to staffing challenges, other factors that can influence hospital harms were also present during the pandemic, such as caring for sicker and more medically complex patients and adapting to infection control precautions. In 2022?2023, the pan-Canadian rate of unintentional hospital harm was 6%, the third year in a row there was an increase compared with pre-pandemic numbers. Prior to 2020, the rate had been stable at 5.4% since 2014.

"We know that the pandemic put a tremendous amount of pressure on front-line staff, and we can now start to quantify that. Nurses and other health care providers on hospital inpatient units logged a 17% increase in reported sick time and a 50% increase in overtime hours," explains Deborah Cohen, CIHI's director of Health Human Resources. "While there are many things that impact hospital harm rates, we know there is a link between staff well-being and patient safety."

The data shows increases in harms that are generally associated with care provided by health professionals who work on inpatient units. These harms include where patients developed conditions such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), pressure ulcers and pneumonia.

"The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the forefront conditions that made staff retention in hospitals a challenge," explains Canadian Nurses Association president Sylvain Brousseau. "Nurses working in the hospital sector have increasingly reported feeling moral distress when they believe they can't care for their patients to the best of their abilities, resulting in high levels of burnout and a desire to leave the profession."

These health workforce challenges were seen not only in hospitals but across care sectors. In 2022, Statistics Canada reported 95,800 vacant nursing, personal support worker and health care worker jobs ? a record high for the industry. In the same year, the number of registered nurses (RNs) who were self-employed or working for private nursing agencies increased by 6% (867 more RNs).

"While life-threatening harm in hospitals is rare, more than 1 in 17 patients have their stay extended or treatment plans changed due to unintended harm," explains Melanie Josee Davidson, director of Health System Performance at CIHI. "The data released by CIHI provides a high-level picture of patient safety in Canadian acute care hospitals. It is meant to complement information ? like staffing data ? to help organizations find ways to further reduce potentially preventable harm by implementing evidence-based practices."

About CIHI

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) is an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing essential health information to all Canadians.

CIHI works closely with federal, provincial and territorial partners and stakeholders throughout Canada to gather, package and disseminate information to inform policy, management, care and research, leading to better and more equitable health outcomes for all Canadians.

Health information has become one of society's most valuable public goods. For more than 25 years, CIHI has set the pace on data privacy, security, accessibility and innovation to improve Canada's health systems.

CIHI: Better data. Better decisions. Healthier Canadians.

SOURCE Canadian Institute for Health Information

19 october 2023 at 07:33

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Freeport-McMoRan Third-Quarter 2023 Financial and Operating Results Release Available on Its Website





Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE: FCX) today announced that it has posted its third-quarter 2023 financial and operating results press release on the Investor Relations page of its website at https://investors.fcx.com/investors/news-releases.

As previously indicated on its website, FCX will host a conference call today with securities analysts at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss quarterly results. The conference call will be webcast on the Internet along with slides. Interested parties may listen to the conference call live and view the slides on the Investor Relations page of FCX's website at https://investors.fcx.com/investors/presentations. A replay of the webcast will be available through Friday, November 17, 2023.

FREEPORT: Foremost in Copper

FCX is a leading international mining company with headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona. FCX operates large, long-lived, geographically diverse assets with significant proven and probable reserves of copper, gold and molybdenum. FCX is one of the world's largest publicly traded copper producers.

FCX's portfolio of assets includes the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia, one of the world's largest copper and gold deposits; and significant mining operations in North America and South America, including the large-scale Morenci minerals district in Arizona and the Cerro Verde operation in Peru.

By supplying responsibly produced copper, FCX is proud to be a positive contributor to the world well beyond its operational boundaries. Additional information about FCX is available on FCX's website at fcx.com.

19 october 2023 at 08:10

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Chesapeake Utilities Corporation Announces $80 Million Investment to Support Growing Energy Demand on the Delmarva Peninsula





DOVER, Del., Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Chesapeake Utilities Corporation (NYSE: CPK) today announced that its subsidiary, Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company (ESNG), plans to invest $80 million in the Worcester Resiliency Upgrade project, a planned liquefied natural gas storage facility in Bishopville, Maryland. The proposed peaking storage facility will include five low-profile 100,000-gallon horizontal storage tanks on a 135-acre parcel adjacent to an existing industrial facility in Worcester County. The project also includes additional infrastructure in Sussex County, Delaware, and Wicomico County, Maryland, as well as upgrades to existing meter and regulator stations in Sussex County, Delaware; Worcester County, Maryland; and Somerset County, Maryland. ESNG will construct, own and operate all proposed facilities. The project will enable ESNG to provide critical energy service to customers during the peak winter heating season.

The $80 million capital investment is a result of the increased capacity requirements of three affiliated local distribution companies (LDCs), each of which will enter into 30-year service agreements upon completion of the project. The project also aligns with the Company's sustainability strategy, focusing on the safety and sustainability of local communities and the environment.

"Demand for natural gas continues to increase in our Delmarva service territories, where our customer additions are above national averages," said Jeff Householder, chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Strategic infrastructure investments like this one allow us to enhance service for our existing customers, meet growing demand and support future growth opportunities in our expanding areas of operation. We believe we are well positioned to serve existing and future customers."

"Chesapeake Utilities Corporation continues to expand its operations to meet the growing demand for natural gas. While doing so, the Company is committed to meeting and surpassing the expectations of its stakeholders, including investors," said Beth Cooper, executive vice president, chief financial officer, treasurer and assistant corporate secretary. "This project supports our recent capital guidance increase, which builds on our long track record of identifying and executing on strategic growth initiatives that drive future earnings growth."

The Worcester Resiliency Upgrade will enhance the natural gas supply system on the lower eastern shore of Maryland and in southern Delaware. The project will provide an alternative supply source and enhance the system's flexibility during critical peak months, reducing the risk of supply interruption and improving reliability. These improvements will help protect customers from weather-related disruptions, keeping energy prices affordable.

Over the past several years, the Company has executed significant projects to meet continuing customer growth and demand for energy in underserved regions on the Delmarva Peninsula, including infrastructure expansion on the lower eastern shore of Maryland and in southern Delaware. These projects have facilitated the availability of natural gas in Somerset County, one of three counties in Maryland previously without access to natural gas. As a result, two large energy consumers were able to transition from less sustainable heating sources to natural gas, improving their environmental emissions profiles. Most recently, to meet the ongoing demand, ESNG completed its Southern Expansion project, which included the addition of another natural gas-fired compressor unit in Sussex County at its Bridgeville, Delaware, compressor facility.

An application for the Worcester Resiliency Upgrade was filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Docket No. CP23-536-000. The project is expected to be operational before the winter heating season of 2025, pending receipt of regulatory approvals.

For more information, visit WorcesterResiliencyUpgrade.com.

About Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company (ESNG)

Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company owns and operates a 516-mile Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulated interstate transmission pipeline system that transports natural gas from four upstream pipeline interconnection points in Pennsylvania and Delaware to customers along the Delmarva Peninsula, including Chesapeake Utilities' distribution systems. For more information, visit www.esng.com.

About Chesapeake Utilities Corporation

Chesapeake Utilities Corporation is a diversified energy delivery company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Chesapeake Utilities Corporation offers sustainable energy solutions through its natural gas transmission and distribution, electricity generation and distribution, propane gas distribution, mobile compressed natural gas utility services and solutions and other businesses. For more information, visit www.chpk.com.

Please note that Chesapeake Utilities Corporation is not affiliated with Chesapeake Energy, an oil and natural gas exploration company headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

For more information, contact:

Investors

Beth W. Cooper, Chesapeake Utilities Corporation

Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Assistant Corporate Secretary

302-734-6022

Michael Galtman, Chesapeake Utilities Corporation

Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer

302-217-7036

Media

Brianna Patterson, Chesapeake Utilities Corporation

Manager, Public Relations and Strategic Communications

419-314-1233

[email protected]

SOURCE Chesapeake Utilities Corporation

19 october 2023 at 08:46

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Switch Health Revolutionizes Sexual Health with At-Home STI Testing in Ontario





TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - Switch Health, a pioneering leader in innovative healthcare solutions, is proud to announce the launch of its at-home STI test Kit in Ontario. This initiative will provide Ontario residents with easy, confidential, and accurate access to sexual health screening, empowering individuals to take charge of their well-being from the comfort and privacy of their homes.

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remain a significant public health concern, affecting millions of people worldwide. In Canada, rates of STIs have been on the rise, emphasizing the need for convenient and accessible testing options. For example, rates of reported cases of gonorrhea have risen more than 81% percent over the past ten years, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)1. If left untreated, it could lead to many risks including issues of infertility.

Switch Health's at-home STI test kit aims to bridge this gap by offering a discreet, user-friendly, and reliable solution for early detection of STIs.

Key Features of Switch Health's At-Home STI Test Kit:

Single Test Panel: The at-home test kit covers very common STIs such as Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Trichomoniasis through a urine collection process. Simple and Discreet Process: It is as easy as visiting the Switch Health website and selecting the STI test kit. Users then complete an intake form to assess OHIP eligibility to determine if test processing fees are waived. The kit will then be delivered to the customer's doorstep, where they will then self administer the collection process before the kit is picked-up from their home, or placed in the nearest Purolator drop box, eliminating the need for in-person visits. User-Friendly Instructions: Switch Health's test kits come with clear, step-by-step instructions that make the collection process quick and straightforward. Customers can collect their samples with ease and confidence with results ready in Switch Health's secure patient portal within 10 days after being received by the laboratory.

"Sexual health testing should be simple, convenient, and without judgment," said Dr. Gregory Taylor, Switch Health's Chief Medical Officer. "Our at-home STI Test Kit is designed to empower individuals to take control of their health by providing a reliable and accessible solution. By enabling more options for early detection and treatment, we can make a positive impact in the overall sexual health landscape."

At Switch Health, we are committed to supporting our customers in their healthcare journey. If an individual receives a positive result but lacks a family doctor, Switch Health will assist in facilitating access to a follow-up consult through our network of healthcare partners.

With the launch of its at-home STI test kit in Ontario, Switch Health continues to drive innovation in the healthcare industry.

Switch Health CEO & Co-Founder Marc Thomson is available for interviews upon request.

About Switch Health:

Switch Health is a health technology company on a mission to make health diagnostics accessible to all Canadians. This mission drives the company's decentralized testing model and discreet home self-collection kits, covering various aspects of general health, wellness, and specific disease areas. Switch Health specializes in the intersection of diagnostics and logistics, utilizing state-of-the-art lab diagnostics through their laboratory partnership network, including Canada's leading laboratories and their own ISO-certified laboratory, Bio-Test Laboratory.

SOURCE Switch Health

19 october 2023 at 09:00

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Alex Guarnaschelli and Gabriele Bertaccini - Mike Coppola/Getty Images

The New York City Wine & Food Festival (NYCWFF) kicked off on October 12. And, on opening night, Alex Guarnaschelli, acclaimed chef and television personality, hosted an event alongside her "Ciao House" television co-host, chef Gabriele Bertaccini, to pay homage to the cuisine of Italy and the unique flavors and dishes that are created in New York City. The event, "Peroni's Taste of Italy presented by Stella Italian Cheese," highlighted the very best Italian-American cooking in New York -- cooking with roots in Little Italy that have now blossomed throughout the city.

In an exclusive interview with Tasting Table, Guarnaschelli shared her passion for all things Italian-American cooking as well as her favorite restaurants at this year's NYCWFF. "I love Di Fara Pizza here. Nonna Dora's Pasta Bar is wonderful, Cucina Alba is one of my favorites."

There was no shortage of mouthwatering Italian-American comfort food at the "Peroni's Taste of Italy" opening night event. Pier 86 was lined with booths from famed New York City restaurants serving a sampling of their acclaimed orecchiette, focaccia, cannoli, meatballs, and ravioli. And while every restaurant brought a unique and flavorful dish to the NYCWFF, Guarnaschelli was most excited about celebrating dishes from the New York City Italian-American restaurants that are closest to her heart.

Read more: Restaurant Foods That Always Taste Better Than What You Make At Home

Pasta, Pizza, And Italian Grandmothers

Nonna Dora cutting pasta - Cindy Ord/Getty Images

Nonna Dora's Pasta Bar, located in Kips Bay, recently graced Tasting Table's list of 25 Best Pasta Dishes in NYC. At the NYCWFF, not only was Nonna Dora's Pasta Bar serving sumptuous orecchiette in a flavorful rabbit ragu, but after waiting in line for a taste, festival-goers were treated to Nonna Dora herself preparing individual pieces of pasta.

Brooklyn's Di Fara Pizza opened in 1965 and was famously one of Anthony Bourdain's favorite pizza spots in all of New York. Di Fara's square Sicilian pizzas are a true New York wonder.

Story continues

Cucina Alba, the newest addition to Guarnaschelli's list, joined the New York City dining scene in 2022 with a restaurant along the High Line. Cucina Alba, helmed by Adam Leonti, has many notable dishes, including a delectable lasagna verdi.

Missing the festival? Not a problem. You can sample all of these wondrous dishes at Guarnaschelli's favorite restaurants throughout New York.

Read the original article on Tasting Table.
PeekMed expands into the US with a new subsidiary and a new product





WARSAW, Ind., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- PeekMed, a provider of orthopedic technology solutions, announced the establishment of PeekMed LLC, its formal subsidiary in Warsaw, Indiana, United States. This expansion aligns perfectly with the upcoming launch of PeekMed Web, currently undergoing beta testing, and set soon to hit the market in the US.

The decision to form PeekMed LLC is driven by a desire to strengthen presence in the world's largest and most influential healthcare market. This expansion will enable PeekMed to offer versatile solutions and provide timely support to its growing customer base in the US. Furthermore, it allows for forging strategic partnerships and collaborations with other orthopedic industry players, leading healthcare institutions, researchers, and orthopedic professionals in the region.

Joao Pedro Ribeiro, Co-Founder & CEO of PeekMed, expressed his enthusiasm, stating, "The establishment of PeekMed LLC in the US signifies a pivotal moment in our journey. It's been in our plans for a while, and this move represents a new era of growth, collaboration, and opportunities. Opening in Warsaw, IN, has a special feeling since it is ground zero for Orthopedics. Most of the largest players in the world of orthopedics, either started here or have a major presence here. We are committed to leveraging our presence in the United States to foster innovation, drive research, and contribute to the advancement of orthopedics. All of this, together with this great community here in Warsaw."

Todd Davis, Independent Board Member of PeekMed, also said "Opening the US office for PeekMed is a significant step for our company, and choosing Warsaw, Indiana seemed fitting given its status as the "Orthopedic Capital of the World". I am excited with the opportunities this will present for PeekMed in terms of the talent available in Warsaw, the collaboration potential with the OEM's in the area, and being able to bring the best in class planning software to US surgeons."

PeekMed LLC is accompanied by exciting news regarding PeekMed Web. Currently undergoing beta testing, this new solution is powered by artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies, and it can automatically segment CT scans and X-rays, detect landmarks, and create a surgical plan in under a minute. PeekMed Web is gearing up for its much-anticipated launch in the USA, after getting the 510(k) clearance from FDA.

Surgeons across the globe rely on PeekMed to enhance surgical accuracy, reduce complications, and improve patient satisfaction. With the launch of PeekMed LLC in the United States, the company aims to empower even more healthcare professionals with these invaluable tools.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2249683/PeekMed.jpg

SOURCE PeekMed

19 october 2023 at 09:00

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Canada and Greenland join forces for the conservation of the Pikialasorsuaq Arctic polynya





OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - Located in the waters of Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark with regard to Greenland, the Pikialasorsuaq or North Water Polynya, is a dynamic area of open sea that remains ice-free throughout the winter. It is one of the most biologically productive regions north of the Arctic Circle.

The Pikialasorsuaq is of great value to the surrounding Inuit communities: it provides a food source through harvesting, through its cultural and spiritual significance, and acts as a travel route connecting Inuit. The Pikialasorsuaq marine ecosystem is recognized as a vital habitat for many migratory species upon which Inuit depend, but is now under threat from climate change and increased human activity.

Today, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, the Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, and her Greenlandic counterpart, the Minister of Agriculture, Self-Sufficiency, Energy and Environment, Kalistat Lund, signed the Letter of Intent for Cooperation on the Pikialasorsuaq which took place on the margins of the Arctic Circle Assembly, in Reykjavik, Iceland. The signing was witnessed by Qikiqtani Inuit Association (QIA) President Olayuk Akesuk, in recognition of QIA's role as the Inuit partner to the Government of Canada in the discussions with Greenland, and in representation of Inuit in Canada living on the Pikialasorsuaq.

The Letter of Intent will allow for the implementation of a joint steering committee across Canada and Greenland, with representation from Inuit and national governments on both sides. The committee will share Indigenous knowledge and scientific information, work towards common conservation goals, and advance ecosystem-based management for the future of the Pikialasorsuaq.

Quotes

"The responsible management of the Pikialasorsuaq is crucial to the health of the species who inhabit it, but also to the health and well-being of the Inuit communities that this polynya supports directly. I am proud to sign this Letter of Intent , alongside counterparts in Greenland and in the presence of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association. This is a milestone for closer collaboration with our international partners and Inuit communities, and is an important step towards ensuring this critical body of water remains healthy and supports the needs of Inuit for years to come."

The Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard

"The Government of Canada is working with Northerners and Indigenous partners, and globally to chart a new course for the future of the Arctic, shaped by new approaches and sustainable solutions designed by the North, for the North. The signing of the Letter of Intent for Cooperation on the Pikialasorsuaq was made possible by years of advocacy, dialogue, and hard work for the co-management of our ocean and marine resources. It represents what can be achieved when we combine international cooperation and strong collaboration with local communities and Inuit partners to strengthen Inuit-led marine management practices."

The Honourable Dan Vandal, Minister of Northern Affairs

"There is no doubt that Pikialasorsuaq is changing. Citizens in the area feel the changes in nature and in the behavior of animals as a consequence of increased activity and climate change. Dealing with these changes is a common challenge across national borders, and it is gratifying that we are now entering into closer cooperation with Canada on this matter."

Kalistat Lund, Minister for Agriculture, Self-sufficiency, Energy and Environment

"The signing of the Letter of Intent and implementation of shared priorities on conserving Pikialasorsuaq underscores the importance of collaborative solutions for Inuit-led conservation in the Arctic. Our shared efforts are not only culturally significant but also indispensable in maintaining ocean health and addressing the challenges of climate change. Implementation of the key recommendations from the 2017 Commission's Report are critical to Inuit on both sides of the North Water Polynya. Qikiqtani Inuit are actively engaged in conserving the living resources within and adjacent to Pikialasorsuaq therein securing related health and wellbeing for Qikiqtani communities."

Olayuk Akesuk, President of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association

"Working in partnership with the Governments of Canada, Kalaallit Nunaat and Denmark, and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, ICC will continue to support and develop a path forward for advancing Inuit-led marine conservation and management of the Pikialasorsuaq region, and to facilitate mobility for Inuit across these regions."

Sara Olsviq, Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council

Quick Facts

Following the release of a 2017 report by the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), which included recommendations for action on the Pikialasorsuaq, the Government of Canada began discussions with the governments of Greenland and Denmark with a goal of supporting Inuit-led conservation and management of the region.





began discussions with the governments of and with a goal of supporting Inuit-led conservation and management of the region. In 2019, through the Inuit Crown Partnership Committee (ICPC), the Right Honorable Prime Minister Trudeau and Inuit leaders issued a Pikialasorsuaq Joint Leaders Statement.

Pikialasorsuaq is the Greenlandic name for the North Water Polynya, meaning "great upwelling" in the Kalaallisut dialect and is also known as the "Sarvarjuaq" in Nunavut, Canada .





. A polynya is an area of open water surrounded by sea ice found in the Arctic and Antarctic regions and can be habitat for species such as seals, belugas, narwhals and can serve as a migratory route for marine mammals.





The Pikialasorsuaq is the largest polynya in the Arctic and the most biologically productive region north of the Arctic Circle.





The Government of Canada , led by Fisheries and Oceans Canada , is working with the QIA to advance protection of the Canadian portion of the Pikialasorsuaq.

Associated Links

Stay Connected

Follow Fisheries and Oceans Canada on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Follow the Canadian Coast Guard on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

SOURCE Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Canada

19 october 2023 at 09:30

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TEAMSTERS ENDORSE DAVE ELDRIDGE FOR SHELTON MAYOR, APPLAUD LABOR BOARD DECISION





Endorsement Comes After Years of Union Busting by Current Mayor Mark Lauretti

SHELTON, Conn., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Teamsters Local 145 and Teamsters Local 1150 have endorsed Dave Eldridge for mayor of the City of Shelton. Eldridge is a member of Teamsters Local 1150 who works for Sikorsky Aircraft.

"Local 145 is proud to endorse a 40-year veteran of the Shelton Police Department and fellow Teamster for mayor," said Dennis Novak, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 145. "The City of Shelton Mayor's Office needs a change of attitude and new leadership for the future success of the city's taxpayers and municipal workers. Dave Eldridge has the right attitude and leadership capabilities to serve all of the city's residents and workforce."

"Dave Eldridge is fully committed to public service, community engagement, and workers' rights," said Rocco Calo, Teamsters Eastern Region International Vice President and Secretary-Treasurer of Local 1150. "It's been an honor to represent him as a Teamster member, and I can promise wholeheartedly that he will be a great mayor."

The endorsement of Eldridge comes on the heels of a ruling from the Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations that found that the City of Shelton and Mayor Mark Lauretti violated the Municipal Employee Relations Act. In March 2022, Local 145 filed a complaint against the city for attempting to intimidate highway department workers from joining the union. The ruling requires that the city offer the workers their former jobs and reimburse them for back pay retroactive to May 4, 2022. Current Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti has said he plans to appeal the ruling, a cost that will be borne by the city's taxpayers.

"We are thrilled to have received a favorable ruling from the state that grants justice for these workers," Novak said. "However, intimidating the highway department workers is just one of several instances that Mayor Lauretti engaged in anti-union actions toward city employees. The City of Shelton and its workers deserve better."

Teamsters Local 145 and Teamsters Local 1150 serve workers in a wide variety of crafts throughout Southwestern Connecticut. For more information, go to teamsters145.org or teamsters1150.org.

Contact:

Matt McQuaid, (202) 624-6877

[email protected]

SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters

19 october 2023 at 13:45

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Ministerial Statement in Response to the Auditor General's Report on Inclusion in the Workplace for Racialized Employees





OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - The Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, today issued the following statement in response to the Auditor General's report on Inclusion in the Workplace for Racialized Employees:

"Every public servant deserves to work in an inclusive, respectful environment free of discrimination. This is a priority for me, my colleagues and the Government of Canada.

The Government of Canada continues to work on several fronts to create a federal public service that upholds Canada's incredible diversity as a strength and fosters a deep sense of belonging among all public servants.

In line with the Clerk's Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service, considerable work has been undertaken throughout the Government of Canada to address racism and discrimination in the workplace. This includes:

developing strategic frameworks for equity, diversity and inclusion through employee engagement and consultation;

establishing Anti-Racism and Diversity and Inclusion Secretariats that work closely with stakeholders to lead the coordination and implementation of strategies and frameworks;

continuing the Mentorship Plus Program to support the professional growth and development of employees from employment equity and equity seeking groups;

promoting and using recruitment and staffing options to increase diversity and hire beyond representation gaps; and

supporting mechanisms to encourage employees to share lived experiences, discuss issues, and obtain support.

The Auditor General's report outlines that while many actions have been taken to correct the conditions of disadvantage in employment experienced by racialized employees in the public service, more needs to be done to:

make sufficient use of data to guide efforts and track progress;

address the fear of reprisal disproportionately perceived by racialized employees when raising complaints of racism; and

strengthen accountability for behavioural and cultural change among leadership through organizations.

Collectively, we welcome the recommendations from the Auditor General and will continue to work with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and other partners to ensure processes and measurements are in place to support workplace equity and inclusion for all public servants.

Ensuring that employees feel safe to raise complaints of racism to senior leaders without fear of reprisal, and fostering a culture of leadership within the public service that supports measured progress against equity and inclusion outcomes, will guide the work ahead.

To that end, the Government of Canada has committed to:

establish and implement performance measurement frameworks to assess and report on equity and inclusion outcomes in the federal public service;

undertake data-informed analysis to understand how racialized employees experience the workplace in comparison to others to take actions to correct situations of employment disadvantage;

examine existing complaints resolution processes and ensure that complaints are received and managed by trained and experienced professionals;

collect and analyze information gathered through complaints resolution processes for racialized employees in comparison to others to contribute to preventing and resolving racism in the workplace.; and

establish expected behaviours needed for an inclusive work environment and against which performance will be assessed for employees.

The Office of the Auditor General's Report is an important reminder of the efforts that need to continue within Canada's public service. The Government of Canada remains steadfast in our commitment to fostering a respectful workplace that is equitable and inclusive for all public servants."

Associated Links

SOURCE Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada

19 october 2023 at 14:20

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Acting House Speaker Patrick McHenry (North Carolina, on left) and Speaker candidate Jim Jordan (Ohio) before the House vote in Washington, DC, October 18, 2023. WIN MCNAMEE / AFP

There has been no speaker of the House for over two weeks and resentment has replaced cohesion in Republican ranks. There is no solution or providential figure in sight for the time being. Even by the standards of a Republican Party that has been drifting over many years, the political crisis shaking the House of Representatives is beyond comprehension. On Wednesday, October 18, for the second time in 24 hours, Ohio Representative Jim Jordan failed to win the nomination for speaker due to opposition in his own party, even losing ground on his initial attempt.

Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes US Republicans expose deep internal divisions with Kevin McCarthy ousting

Backed by Donald Trump, the far-right candidate received only 199 votes, compared with 212 for Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic candidate. A new vote is scheduled for Thursday. Jordan thus fell 22 votes short in the Republican ranks for succeeding Kevin McCarthy, the speaker removed from office on October 3 following a motion of no confidence tabled by Matt Gaetz (Florida). This internal parliamentary coup for the Grand Old Party has plunged the House into an unprecedented crisis at a crucial time. The possibility of a shutdown of non-essential government activities due to lack of funding in mid-November is looming ever closer. Without a speaker, government business will remain at a standstill even as Ukraine and Israel wait for Congress to adopt massive new military aid packages.

Secret talks and mutual accusations have continued between Republicans. A temporary solution would involve a vote to grant full powers to Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, who is serving his tenth term and knows the institution inside out. This unprecedented move would allow the speaker to exercise full authority over the agenda and the conduct of sessions. But Jordans supporters know that the promotion of this veteran of the institution could permanently compromise their campaign for victory.

An 'honorable man'

The hardliner's result was already astounding, with 200 Republican Representatives voting in the first round for Jordan, who was considered a marginal far-right politician only a few years ago. The hardliners motives are a mix of conviction, calculation, promises to their districts that must be fulfilled, or simply weariness at the psychodrama overwhelming the party. Less than three years after Trump followers stormed the Capitol, a supporter of the former president and of the insurrectionist movement found himself in a position to claim the speakers gavel. The situation is indicative of the immobility of the Republican Party, of the centrality of Trumpism, and of the continued push by an illiberal current ready to bend institutions to its will.

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Military vehicles of US soldiers are seen at the al-Asad air base in Anbar province, Iraq, January 13, 2020. JOHN DAVISON / REUTERS

Coalition forces were slightly injured in Iraq in a spate of drone attacks over the last 24 hours at US bases in Iraq as regional tensions flare following the deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza.

Two drones targeted the al Asad airbase in western Iraq used by US forces and one drone targeted a base in northern Iraq, a US official told the Associated Press. US forces intercepted all three, destroying two but only damaging the third, which led to minor injuries among coalition forces at the western base, according to a statement Wednesday, October 18, by US Central Command.

The US official was not authorized to speak publicly on the attacks and spoke on the condition of anonymity. "In this moment of heightened alert, we are vigilantly monitoring the situation in Iraq and the region. US forces will defend US and coalition forces against any threat," Central Command said in the release.

Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Third French soldier killed in Iraq amidst renewed military cooperation

Also on Wednesday, Iran-allied groups in Iraq announced that they had formed a joint operations room to help Hamas in its war effort. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have threatened to attack US facilities there because of American support for Israel.

Tashkil al-Waritheen, one of the Iranian-backed militias making up the larger group, claimed responsibility in a statement for a second drone attack, which it said had targeted the al-Harir airbase in northern Iraq. U.S. officials did not immediately comment on the claim of a second attack.

Two officials with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, confirmed the attacks on the two bases Wednesday. They said the armed groups were on alert and prepared to join the wider battle against Israel, but that Iran had not yet given approval for them to open a new front. Leaders from some of the factions are now in Lebanon and Syria in case they get orders to proceed, one of the officials said.

Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes 'The Shiite crescent of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq is at risk of crumbling'
A MOTION for the banning of glyphosate, an active and possible carcinogenic found in certain weed killers has been rejected by members of Limerick City and County Council.

The motion came before the most-recent meeting of the Climate Action, Biodiversity and Environment (CABE) Strategic Policy Committee (SPC).

Green Party Cllr Sean Hartigan put forward the motion in the hopes it would be seconded by a member of the SPC to be brought forward to a full council meeting of Limerick City and County Council.

Glyphosate has been subject to two recent high-profile court cases in the United States and according to the World Health Organisation is probably carcinogenic to humans.

Bayer, the manufacturer of the common weedkiller Roundup, has agreed to settle a number of lawsuits over the potential carcinogenic effects of the herbicide.

Cllr Hartigan addressed the members of the SPC on Tuesday, October 10.

In reply to my question on glyphosate usage at last months metropolitan meeting, I was told that weed spraying is not carried out in the councils various parks in the city and county, reports Im getting from the public contradict this.

Cllr Hartigan called on members of the SPC to support his motion and follow the lead of Louth, Cork, Dublin City and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown local authorities to ban all use of glyphosate except in exceptional circumstances such as the control of alien invasive species to protect both biodiversity and human health.

Cllr Hartigan's motion was not seconded by any of the members of the CABE SPC and won't be brought to full council.
THE new state-of-the-art female prison in Limerick city has been fitted out with independent living, apartment-style units for those who are being detained there.

The 56-capacity Limerick Female Prison was officially opened this Wednesday by the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee.

The new prison includes units that are being referred to as rooms rather than cells. 48 of the rooms are regular single-bedroom units with ensuites while a further eight are apartment-style rooms for independent living. This is an increase from 28 units in the former prison which was built in 1822.

The independent living units offer prisoners a bedroom area with an ensuite, a sitting area and a kitchen area and is there to help long-term prisoners to readjust to caring for themselves rather than having meals provided for them on a 24/7 basis.

Speaking at the official opening, Chief Officer at Limerick Prison Shane Kelly said the rehabilitation of female prisoners at the new wing is of utmost importance and that the new facilities being provided at the wing are key to achieving that.

The Limerick Female Prison aims to offer a range of educational, vocational, and therapeutic programs to equip inmates with the necessary tools for a law-abiding life after their release.

These initiatives include educational courses, vocational training, mental health support, addiction counselling, and access to healthcare services.



The accommodation comprises a mixture of bedroom units, some apartment-style units and a mother and baby unit, all with individual en-suites.

Speaking at Limerick Prison, Ms McEntee commented: The opening of Limerick Female Prison marks an important step forward in increasing capacity across the prison estate and helping us build stronger, safer communities.

"These additional spaces are necessary to ensure that we have the sufficient space and facilities to support those committed to serve a custodial sentence in an environment that is safe and has the space and capacity to focus on rehabilitation."

There are currently 51 prisoners serving time at Limerick Female Prison.

Since female prisoners have been living in the new Limerick Female Prison, the quality of life of the prisoners has increased and according to Mr Kelly, there has been a noticeable drop in bad behaviour, instances of frustration and self-harm.

The standard living units in Limerick Female Prison could be a lot more than some of these women have ever had in their lives. It is the best some of them have ever had, Mr Kelly said emphasising the need for rehabilitation rather than punishment.

Its all about reset, help them get better and help them build better skills for when they are released, he added.
ENTERPRISE Minister Simon Coveney is to visit the Wyeth plant in Askeaton in the next week after the firm outlined plans to cut almost 550 jobs.

In news which has rocked the local economy, its parent company Nestle confirmed its decision to wind down production at the west Limerick site across the next two years.

The company announced on Wednesday this will place 542 positions at risk of redundancy, as it shifts production of its infant formula to China and Switzerland.

In the wake of this, the Minister of State for the Office of Public Works, and local TD Patrick O'Donovan made contact with Mr Coveney and An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

"This afternoon after hearing the news about Wyeth in Askeaton, I spoke to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Enterprise. Minister Coveney has assured me of his and his department's and agencies support for Askeaton and the wider Limerick area. I asked him to visit Askeaton to meet the management and employee representatives as soon as possible and he has confirmed he will do so next week," Mr O'Donovan stated in a post on Instagram.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Patrick O'Donovan (@patrickodonovan_td)

Speaking to Limerick Live, he added: "I think there is an element of shock in the area to be honest. This came out of the blue and there was no advance notice or feeling that anything was likely."

The company has confirmed it is planning to close its infant formula production facility in the first part of 2026, and its research centre during the opening months of 2025.

There are 491 production staff and 51 working in the research facility.

The company pledged to support staff fully through this process.

Siptu, which represents the majority of workers in the plant wants an urgent meeting with the firm's bosses over its proposals.

Union organiser Ciara McMahon-Flavin expressed deep concern over the situation, calling the announcement "horrendous".

She continued: "We are calling for an urgent meeting with management to ensure that a future is maintained for this longstanding and successful site."

Stressing the plant's significant role in the region's employment landscape, Siptu sector organiser Neil McGowan echoed Ms McMahon-Flavin's sentiment, saying: "The plant has provided good employment in the area for decades," he said. "It is vital that the decision to close is reversed, and as many jobs as possible can be maintained on the site.

The union has also confirmed it will seek immediate intervention from government to save the jobs.

Greg Ennis, Siptu divisional organiser, also announced plans to engage at an international level to address the situation as he attends a European Federation of Food, Agriculture, and Tourism executive committee meeting this Thursday in Brussels, the capital of Belgium.
REDUCING the number of vehicles passing through a key area of the city centre could form part of major plans to revitalise the area.

Councillors have been briefed on the emerging Arthurs Quay Framework Plan which is currently being drawn up.

Members of the Economic Development, Enterprise and Planning Strategic Policy Committee were told the vision is to revitalise the urban space by mirroring European coastal cities.

During her presentation, Denise Murray, an architect with Metropolitan Workshop, highlighted the patchwork nature of the various properties and landowners in-and-around Arthurs Quay.

Notable landmarks, she said, include the Hunt Museum, Arthurs Quay shopping centre and the former Dunnes Stores building, which is now owned by the University of Limerick.

Ms Murray told members around a third of the Arthurs Quay area is currently used as a thoroughfare and concerns were raised that it is too car-centric.

The fragmented nature of the roads and infrastructure was also highlighted as being an issue as it hinders accessibility and the riverfront potential of the area.

Also suggested was the need for a more balanced approach between pedestrians and vehicles.

In their vision, planners want to utilise the areas assets, directing public spaces towards scenic views, rather than building fronts.

The presentation drew inspiration from urban transformations in other cities.

Copenhagen's floating lido and small riverfront kiosks served as examples of how to create engaging and user-friendly urban areas.

Cllr Stephen Keary highlighted an issue which he said is impacting Limerick  the absence of a central shopping destination or focal point.

He proposed the demolition of the Arthurs Quay shopping centre and the Revenue building, to be replaced with an open plaza and buildings that harmonise with the environment while Cllr Joe Pond raised concerns about traffic flow and how to divert the traffic from the area.

Cllr John Egan echoed these concerns, highlighting the need for convenient parking facilities.

Clrr Sasa Novak Ui Chonchuir drew comparisons to Nerja, a Spanish coastal town, suggesting the quay could become a bustling destination akin to Balcon de Europa.

Extensive engagement and collaboration is continuing.
AN APPEAL has been lodged against plans to raise the height of a railway bridge in Adare - on behalf of an environmental company from West Cork.

Irish Rails plans to increase the height of a crossing over the River Maigue to protect against flooding face further scrutiny with An Bord Pleanala set to decide.

The bridge lies along the Limerick to Foynes rail line which is set to re-open to freight traffic, and potentially passenger services in time for the 2027 Ryder Cup.

Its already been removed for restoration with a view to reinstating the rail link.

After planners in Limerick approved the project to raise its height, Peter Sweetman, who has an address in Bantry, County Cork and who made a submission to Limerick City and County Council, exercised his right to appeal the decision to An Bord Pleanala.

Documents provided to the national appeals body claim he is acting on behalf of a company called Wild Ireland Defence which is based in North Allihies at Beara in west Cork.

The company describes its principal activity as education, advocacy, and activism of all types in the protection, conservation, preservation and defence of the natural and built environment.

In the objection to a development which is geographically almost 170km away from Allihies, Mr Sweetman lists a number of sets of legal functions that Limericks planning authority has when deciding on an application.

One of these is taking into account the Habitats Directive, an EU law designed to protect species including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, plants and other habitat types.

Citing previous cases, Mr Sweetman wrote the Habitats Directive is a strict standard and the planning authority does not have legal jurisdiction to give permission if it is not met.

As part of further information in his appeal, Mr Sweetman states: The fence is in the curtilage of a protected structure. It is awful.

He also referenced the Natura Impact Statement, a report arising from an assessment under the Habitats Directive.

The Natura Impact Statement does not address all the possible effects, he wrote.

There was one other appeal against the Irish Rail proposals from two people living close to the site.
IT WAS HER playground growing up and, this Saturday, Limericks Muireann OConnell will return to the Crescent Shopping Centre to help celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Spread across late October and early November, events in the Crescent 50 (1973  2023) Series include a fashion and style event, a carnival, a Paw Patrol event, radio roadshows and a customer appreciation evening to cater for all.

The Crescent was my playground, I am from Dooradoyle and we would always end up there on a Saturday, explains Muireann as she prepares for the launch of the celebrations this Saturday, October 21, when she will take part in a style and lifestyle event curated by Vogue Williams and involving another Limerick woman, fashion icon, Celia Holman Lee.

It was the place you go to and it was part of my life and where I grew up. I go every time I come home. It is a place for everything, meeting up for a coffee, shopping, there is something for everyone, continues Muireann who is a presenter with Ireland AM on Virgin Media television.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Crescent Shopping Centre (@crescentshoppingcentre)

Taking place on the main concourse from 1pm, the style and lifestyle event will see Vogue Williams discussing personal style with Muireann, delving into her go-to style staples, trends she follows, her work-out routine and balancing home and career.

On her own personal style, Muireann says: I have not got a notion of what my style is. Women who know what their style is, fair play! Double denim is all I know.

 I am sure Celia will rip the clothes off me happily and dress me and I am looking forward to it, she laughs.

In relation to getting into the media industry, Muireann says that she sort of fell into it.

When I moved home from Australia I started driving cars for Live95 and then Spin South West opened up and I got a job there. My dad wanted me to go into teaching and I didnt know what to do and there was a part-time job to drive and I love driving so that is where it started for me.

Meanwhile, the launch day this Saturday will also include a curated-style showcase with Vogues hand-picked looks from the Crescent Shopping Centres fashion retailers, modelled by the Holman Lee Model Agency with commentary by Celia.

The series will continue on the bank holiday weekend with a medley of family fun spread over two days, concluding on Thursday, November 2 with a customer appreciation day where customers can avail of discounts and giveaways.

Launching the Crescent 50 Series, centre manager John Davitt said: Life has changed so much in the 50 years , not just in terms of the way we live, but in how we shop and dress.

We thought it would be good to look back at some of these trends in our style and lifestyle events and to also give back to the customers and the community we have built up in the past 50 years.
AN POST, the Irish Postal Service, issued a stamp marking the 50th anniversary of Sydney Opera House.

The stamp was unveiled onsite at Sydney Opera House by Consul General of Ireland Sydney, Rosie Keane; Kieran Rice, son of Peter Rice, the late Irish Structural Engineer who made possible the buildings infamous white sails roof, Isabella Rice and Kerryn Coker, Co-Chair of Arup Australia, the original design company.

Irishman and Structural Engineer Peter Rice (1935-1992) played a central role in creating the revolutionary modern structure using his mathematical expertise and artistic intuition to convert concrete, steel and glass into a world-renowned building, famous for its iconic, white sails roof structure.

His son Kieran Rice responded to the stamp issue, saying; We, Peter Rices family, are all really touched that his contribution to the Sydney Opera House design is being recognised with this wonderful First Day Cover of the commemorative stamp on 50th anniversary of the completion of the Sydney Opera House.The stamp is a lovely artwork in itself and Peters quote on the FDC is very well-chosen and is often used in our family to motivate his grandchildren. Peter was a proud Irishman, who worked across the globe on many iconic projects, but the Sydney Opera House was where it all started. He moved to Sydney in 1963 for three years with his wife, Sylvia, and two young daughters Julia and Heidi. Our time in Sydney had a huge impact on our family  Kieran was born there, and Sylvia still visits friends every year who were made at that time. Peter was very proud of his involvement with the Sydney Opera House design and construction especially his work on programming the setting out of the sails. He would have been humbled to be recognised in this way in his native Ireland.

Consul General of Ireland Sydney, Rosie Keane said; 50 years on from its construction, the Sydney Opera House is still one of the most loved and recognised landmarks in the world. As the Irish Consul General in Sydney I feel enormous pride that the Irish engineer Peter Rice played a significant part in the creation of this unique and graceful design. I was delighted to join with Kieran and Isabella Rice and Kerryn Coker from Arup at the Sydney launch of this An Post stamp, commemorating the great Peter Rice and his historic legacy in this city.

An Post CEO David McRedmond commented; Ireland has been slow to recognise its contribution to Modernism. The 50th anniversary of Sydney Opera House is the perfect time to celebrate the role of Irish people, and of engineer Peter Rice in particular, to the great canon of world-class architecture and engineering.

An Posts stamp shows a striking illustration of Sydney Opera House by renowned Irish artist David Rooney capturing the organic nature and acoustics of the building, while also referencing art created by First Nations Australians.

The W rate international stamp 2.20 covers postage anywhere in the world and is available online here (with free delivery) and from the GPO and selected post offices nationwide.

The renowned engineers visionary career is also celebrated with a limited edition First Day Cover envelope featuring the new stamp alongside an illustration of Peter Rice and a quote from his writings; The courage you need is the courage to start. Once launched, then each step can be evolved naturally.
There is not a snowballs chance that the new national childrens hospital in Dublin will be completed next year, it has been claimed.

The facility has been beset with delays and spiralling costs since it was first announced almost a decade ago.

The latest estimate on the project is that work on the building at the St Jamess site will be completed by October 29, 2024.

A commissioning programme is likely to take another six months, indicating the doors could open to patients in April 2025.

The Public Accounts Committee also heard that the spend on the project to date is 1.36 billion euro, and is set to rise further.

A budget of 1.43 billion euro had been approved.

Childrens Health Ireland is set to bring a memo to Government at the end of this month regarding the final cost of the hospital.

David Gunning, chief executive of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, told the committee that work on the hospital was 92% complete by the end of September 2023.

However, he said in a building of such size and scale the last 10% is the slowest to complete, as it includes all the finishes, system integration and commissioning.

He said the board is in constant engagement with constructors BAM to ensure that the October 2024 substantial completion is achieved.

All our efforts are focused on getting certainty on this date, he said.

In terms of costs, Mr Gunning said by September 30, 2023, the total amount spent was 1.36 billion euro, leaving 71 million euro from the overall budget of 1.43 billion euro.

Eilish Hardiman, chief executive of Childrens Health Ireland, said the operational commissioning phase is likely to take around six months.

However, Labour TD Alan Kelly contended: There is not a snowballs chance in hell the hospital will be completed by October 2024.

He also challenged those giving evidence to contradict him if they did not believe the final cost of the project wouldnt be substantially over two billion euro. There was no response.

I dont think there is a snowballs chance of the October deadline being met next year, he said.

I just dont think that the handover positioning is going to be the stage that will allow this to happen so that we will not have this six months after that.

Id be even surprised if this is up and fully operational in 2025 at all based on the evidence that you have given us here.

The fact is this project is going well north of over two billion euro, I would expect possibly even close to 2.5 billion euro. I dont think anyone is disagreeing with that.
In its annual report, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has revealed it supported 18,400 people on the National Rape Crisis Helpline in 2022, a 31% increase over the previous year and the highest level ever reached on the line - a sign of the vast need for support for those affected by sexual violence across the country.

This figure and other data are detailed within the report which will be launched in Dublin today (Thursday, October 19) by Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic OGorman TD.

The report shows most contacts with the freephone National Helpline in 2022 were female at 84%, while 15.7% were male and 0.3% other.

The largest age cohort was 18 to 23-year-olds who formed just over a fifth of contacts to the line, followed by people in their forties at just under a fifth.

The 31% increase in calls included a substantial increase in calls to those on DRCCs therapy waiting list, up 63% on 2021 to 3,009, which the Centre says was accounted for by a significant difficulty in recruiting sufficient therapists in 2022.

Among DRCC therapy clients, over 93% of whom were female in 2022, some 62.2% had experienced sexual violence as an adult, while 37.8% had been abused as children.

Rape was the most common form of sexual violence experienced as adults for DRCC therapy clients at 38.4% (along with marital rape at 6.93%), followed by sexual assault and sexual harassment.

There was a substantial increase in DRCCs accompaniment support work in 2022, organisation supporting 331 people in justice settings, up almost 30% over 2021, while it provided emotional support to 291 survivors seeking forensic /medical treatment at the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit in Dublin  an increase of 153% over 2021 - along with 233 of their family and friends.

DRCCs Chief Executive Noeline Blackwell, who steps down as DRCCs CEO at the end of October, said the report was a testament to DRCCs breadth of work last year.

"2022 was a year that started with the terrible killing of Aisling Murphy, which affected so many people, and ended with cruel stories of child abuse in schools sparked by the Blackrock Boys documentary.

"In 2022 people were resuming normal life after the restrictions of COVID.

"Our report shows people - many of whom faced serious mental health, economic and other challenges - were able to seek support on the National Helpline.

"Others found the time and courage to consider reporting sexual violence or seeking justice in courts or other fora. Despite our limitations including difficulties in recruiting therapists, this report shows we in DRCC  staff and volunteers - were privileged to be there for them offering support and healing.

Speaking ahead of his launch of the report, Minister Roderic OGorman said:

"I commend Dublin Rape Crisis Centre for their vital work throughout 2022.

"Their Annual Report clearly sets out the breadth of that work, and how it provides such strong support to people who experienced sexual abuse and sexual violence.

"For our part, the Government has placed a focus on combatting domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, through the new Third National Strategy, the establishment of a dedicated Agency for domestic and sexual violence, and the introduction of paid leave for victims of domestic violence.

"I look forward to continue working closely with DRCC as we prioritise these actions.

DRCC Chairperson Ann Marie Gill noted:

"In 2022, DRCC worked on large-scale initiatives to prevent sexual violence, including building We-Consent, a long-term national campaign to engage with people on the meaning and practice of consent launched in spring of this year.

"We were pleased to see that the Governments launch of its current national Strategy to end tolerance of sexual violence includes a vision of a society where consent in sexual activity and behaviour is understood and practised.

"We have been pleased to partner with the Department of Justice in advancing that vision and we look forward to the day when sexual violence is reduced or eliminated because our society fully understands consent in this context."

She added: "This is especially vital given our modern society where the capacity for abuse is amplified by technology to perpetrate intimate image abuses including deepfake abuse."

DRCC trained 630 people across 57 courses & events in 2022 on issues around sexual violence.

It provided policy analysis on a wide range of topics from state compensation for crime victims and Garda responses to abuse, to workplace harassment, and to the Council of Europe on Irelands international obligations to combat sexual violence.

The report will be available to download from DRCCs website at drcc.ie from 5pm on Thursday.

Anyone affected by sexual violence can contact the 24-hour National Helpline for free, non-judgmental and confidential support at 1800 778888.

Comprehensive information on options for survivors is also available online at drcc.ie/fyw
New Delhi: The government may issue a follow-up directive clarifying whether Go First lessors can reclaim their planes and engines following the recent changes in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) by the ministry of corporate affairs, the governments counsel told the Delhi High Court on Thursday.

During court proceedings, additional solicitor general Chetan Sharma said they have asked the government to pass an executive direction as the legal opinions received on the issue are being accompanied by various disclaimers and do not provide a clear resolution.

The resolution professional (RP) tasked with overseeing Go First argued that changes in the IBC are merely a notification and not an amendment. The RP also contended that the Delhi High Court is not the appropriate forum for lessors to address these changes. Instead, they should approach the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to inquire whether the moratorium order issued on 10 May still applies following the new notification. The lessors have again said they can take back their aircraft from Go First as the new notification replaces the moratorium.

According to the new rules announced on 3 October, Section 14(1) of the IBCthat imposes a moratorium on insolvency proceedingsno longer applies to transactions, arrangements, or agreements concerning aircraft, aircraft engines, airframes, and helicopters. Go Firsts lessors are leveraging this amendment to their advantage in tribunals and courts to repossess their assets from the airline. Nevertheless, delays may occur due to changes in the composition of the NCLT bench handling the case.

In a related matter, the same single bench of the High Court, on 12 October, directed the airlines Resolution Professional to provide essential aircraft documents to its lessors within seven days. These documents include records of engine parts removal, airframe details, storage information, historical data, online records, and any documents pertinent to the airworthiness of the aircraft.

The court in the same order has also allowed lessors to keep 24-hour security services to protect their aircraft but at their own expense as court finds evidence of cannibalisation" of the aircraft.

In an interim order issued in July, a single-judge bench of the High Court allowed lessors to inspect the grounded planes.

This order was subsequently upheld by a division bench of the High Court and later by the Supreme Court.

Jindal Power, owned by billionaire Naveen Jindal, had submitted an expression of interest for Go First, but as earlier reported by Mint the bid is only to explore the potential of the company and the industry, but may not result in a bid for acquiring the grounded airline.

Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world  Click here to know more.
IHCL Q2: Tata Group hospitality firm, Indian Hotels Company is set to announce its September quarter result on October 27, said the company in its stock filing on Thursday.

ITC Q2 FY23 result LIVE Updates

The company is set to announce the September quarter result soon after its board of directors meeting scheduled on October 27.

A Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company will be held on October 27, 2023 to consider inter-alia, the Un-Audited (Reviewed) Standalone and Consolidated Financial Results along with the Limited Review Report thereon for the quarter / half year ended September 30, 2023," the company said in its stock filing.

Also Read: PVR Inox Q2 Results: Multiplex reports net profit of 166 crore; revenue jumps 53% QoQ

The company shares were trading 0.42% higher at 414.50 per share on BSE at 2:49 pm. Its share value has increased by 30.67 % YTD and by 29.31 in last one year.

The company will announce its financial results for September quarter of FY23 to its investors at the IHCL Global Conference Call scheduled at 7:00 pm on October 27.

Also Read: Nestle India Q3 Results: Net profit rises 37% YoY; board approves 140 dividend; 1:10 stock split

The company owns a range of hotel brands like Taj, SeleQtions, Vivanta, Ginger, and ama Stays & Trails, etc. The company owns an impressive portfolio of hotels, resorts, jungle safaris, palaces, spas, etc. IHCL was founded in 1902 by Jamsetji Tata.

The company registered 31 per cent YoY growth in consolidated net profit to 222 crore in the first quarter of FY24. The company's profit grew on the back of a rise in occupancy and room rates.

Company's EBITDA grew by 13 per cent to 459 crore. Along with this, its revenue grew by 17 per cent to 1,516 crore in the same period. In its Q2 FY24 announcement, the company also announced a decision to sign a lease agreement for the operation of a hotel in Frankfurt (Germany) for up to 30 years. IHCL also announced its acquisition of luxury hotel in Lusaka (Zambia) from a Tata-group entity for $15 million.

Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world  Click here to know more.
NEW DELHI : Jindal Stainless Ltd does not see the Israel-Hamas conflict impacting its exports to Europe, US, and other geographies much and says that global demand is set to improve from the fourth quarter of the current fiscal.

The company, which exports about 20% of its total produce to Europe and America, also expects the domestic demand for stainless steel to remain robust despite the elections. For this, the company is working on expansion plans to meet the rising demand, Abhyuday Jindal, managing director of JSL, said in an interview.

I dont think that should impact because its not like the Russia-Ukraine war, which is very close to Europe. So, I dont see too much impact because of this," Jindal said.

Exports to Europe and US were impacted due to the Russia-Ukraine war that slowed growth in the European market, which was expected to pick up after the pandemic.

Domestic sales continue to stay robust for the company. Our domestic sales are up by 15% YoY, buoyed by the governments push for stainless steel in strategic sectors...and dont expect any dip due to the elections because all our major sectors are clear focus sectors for the government, and we see very good demand coming from there. And so, from Q4 again, we feel that exports should pick up," he said after their second quarter results were announced on Thursday.

JSL on Thursday announced its second quarter results for the current fiscal, and reported a 120% YoY rise in its consolidated profit after tax (PAT) to 764 crore. It reported a 12% YoY increase in consolidated net revenue at 9,797 crore in July-September from 8,751 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.

The stainless steel manufacturers earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) was 1,231 crore. Its net debt was 2,149 crore. JSL announced a dividend for its shareholders.

The steel manufacturer is liquidating its equity stake in its Indonesian subsidiary. The subsidiary incurred 28 crore loss in the last quarter. Jindal said JSLs Indian operations will easily incorporate the 12,000 tonnes, the Indonesia plant was producing.

The decision was taken in the wake of unfavorable market conditions in Indonesia due to the lack of a level playing field and competition with Chinese products. Most of the Indonesian market is dominated by Chinese players. Therefore, major markets such as US and EU have levied severe trade protection measures on exports of stainless steel products from Indonesia," the company said.

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Mumbai: Chennai-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) Northern Arc Capital Ltd has appointed ICICI Securities for its 2,000 crore initial public offering, according to two people aware of its plans.

It is also likely to appoint Citi and Axis Capital as managers for the issue," one of the two people said, seeking anonymity. The company had filed its draft prospectus with Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in July 2021, but subsequently shelved its plans citing market conditions.

Back then, it had appointed IIFL Securities, Axis Capital, SBI Capital Markets and Credit Suisse Securities for the fresh issue of 300 crore and offer for sale of up to 36,520,585 equity shares. The company may file revised draft prospectus with Sebi by November-end and is targeting a public listing by end of the current financial year," he added.

Last year, it raised $50 million via a bond issuance from FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank. The company is backed by equity investors, including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (fourteenth among largest global banks), LeapFrog, Accion, Augusta Investments (Affirma Capital), IIFL, Dvara Trust, and Eight Roads (the proprietary arm of Fidelity).

Queries emailed to spokespersons of Northern Arc, Axis Capital, Citi, and ICICI Securities did not elicit any response.

Northern Arc offers loans to micro, small and medium business, households, financial institutions, self-employed, entrepreneurs, and emerging businesses. Using technology and data, it provides diverse solutions to meet credit the requirements of emerging segments as well as small businesses.

Along with its asset management arm, which manages seven alternative investment funds, it has assets of over 9,000 crore under management. The company posted 33% year-on-year growth in consolidated net profit in FY23 to 242 crore against 182 crore in FY22. Its total income from operations, on a consolidated basis, grew 44% annually to 1,305 crore from to 909 crore in FY22.

In 2023, many NBFCs have got listed and many more are looking to launch IPOs. For instance, SBFC Finance Pvt. Ltd got listed at a 44% premium. Fusion microfinance and Five Star business, however, saw muted response.
The worlds second largest economy has a deflating property bubble, local governments struggling to pay their debts and a banking system heavily exposed to both.

Anywhere else these factors would be seen as precursors of a financial crisis. But not in China, conventional wisdom goes, because its debts are owed to domestic rather than foreign investors, the government already stands behind much of the financial system and capable technocrats are on top of things.

Conventional wisdom might be dangerously out of date.

True, an imminent meltdown like the global panic that followed Lehman Brothers failure in 2008, is highly unlikely.

Yet Chinas fiscal and financial imbalances are so large that they have taken the countryand, because of its size, the worldinto uncharted territory. We simply dont know how well the Chinese economy, and a leadership now concentrated in the hands of President Xi Jinping, can navigate these strains.

The scale of the problem emerges from a series of reports issued last week by the International Monetary Fund.

First, while China reported a stronger than expected economic growth of 4.9% in the year through the third quarter, its medium-term outlook has plainly deteriorated. The IMF sees the countrys growth averaging just 4% over the next four years, down from its projection of 4.6% a year ago. This makes it far harder to grow out of its debts than when growth was 10%, over a decade ago.

Second, the IMF has also boosted projections of Chinese government deficits, which they now see swelling from 7.1% of gross domestic product this year to 7.8% in 2028. Among major economies only the U.S. comes close, which isnt exactly reassuring.

The problem isnt with the central government but local governments that borrowed heavily via off balance-sheet financing vehicles to fund urban development projects. Their liabilities now equal 45% of GDP and including them in Chinas government debt would vault the total to 149% of GDP by 2027, above Italys at 141%.

Local Chinese governments have struggled to service their debts as land sales, a primary source of revenue, have dried up. Indeed, the IMF estimates 30% of local government financing vehicles are non viable without government support."

This is a big problem for Chinas banks, who hold roughly 80% of that debt. Just half the cost of restructuring that debt would saddle them with impairment charges of $465 billionchopping 1.7 percentage points off the ratio of loss-absorbing capital to assets, the IMF estimates.

Chinese banks, relative to their global peers, arent that well capitalized to start with. And a recession would deplete that capital significantly, as stress tests the IMF conducted on banks around the world illustrate. For China, the IMF simulated an adverse scenario in which growth averages 1% instead of 5% for three years and property values decline. The result: Chinese banks capital ratios would plummet from 11% last year to 7.1% in 2025, the worst of any region under the stress tests.

Theres also the potential for feedback loops: As loan losses mount, banks lend less. Local governments, unable to borrow, slash investment and social services. Economic growth and property values weaken further.

How likely is any of this? Financial crises in Latin America in the 1980s, southeast Asia in the 1990s and the euro area in the 2000s were greatly amplified by the exodus of foreign capital. By contrast, China is a net lender to the world and tightly controls inflows and outflows of capital. Its debts are owed to itself.

Chinese banks are also mostly owned or controlled by the central or local governments that would presumably not let them fail, precluding bank runs and panics. In Chinas last bout of banking trouble 20 years ago, bad loans were transferred at par value to state asset-management companies.

But sometimes financial crises occur because local, not foreign, investors flee. Nor are they always fast and violent, like the global financial crisis from 2007 to 2009. Some unfold over years as occurred in Spain in the 1970s, the U.S. (with its savings-and-loan institutions) in the 1980s, and Sweden and Japan in the 1990s.

The origins of Chinas big debts are in many ways a textbook case of moral hazard. Developers and local governments were able to borrow so much because lenders assumed Beijing would bail them out. But that assumption is based on implicit, not explicit guarantees, and that ambiguity is potentially destabilizing.

Logan Wright, director of China research at Rhodium Group, a research firm, said a financial crisis in China wouldnt originate with an external shock or sudden revaluation of assets to reflect lower market prices. Instead it would happen when investors who assumed the government stood behind their assets learn that it doesnt. Financial markets then need to reprice these risks rapidly," he said.

For example, The property sector was previously considered too big to fail, until Beijings own policy priorities were suddenly perceived differently. Then credit risks emerged very quickly as more and more developers finances were viewed more skeptically."

As the governments implicit backing is withdrawn from peripheral assets, investors might assume it no longer applies to core assets such as small banks, mortgage loans and then local governments, Wright said. Thats the potential path to crisis." he said.

Chinese officials are well aware of these risks and have taken tentative steps to restructure local government debts and prod troubled developers to finish projects.

But the debts are too large and growth too slow for China to sweep bad loans under the rug as it did 20 years ago, said Martin Chorzempa, a China expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He also worries that under Xi, the quality of governance has deteriorated.

Im concerned about an exodus of talent, a reduction in economic indicators being published, a reduction in space in China for economic debate. Those things all make me concerned they might not be getting the full picture."

What does this mean for the rest of the world? A multiyear financial quagmire that depresses Chinese consumer confidence would sap demand for imports while swelling exports, pressuring foreign producers.

And while contagion is circumscribed by the limited connections between Chinas financial system and the rest of the worlds, that system is still, in absolute terms, gigantic. Should it start to flail, the shock waves seem certain to be felt, somehow, abroad.

Write to Greg Ip at greg.ip@wsj.com
The upcoming film of Shilpa Shetty's husband Raj Kundra, UT69 will hit the theatres on November 3. The trailer for UT69 was out on Wednesday. The film features Raj Kundra in the lead role, based on his life.

In the trailer, the viewers get a glimpse of entrepreneur Raj's experience in Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail when imprisoned in a pornographic content case. Breaking News, the trailer shows Raj's arrest in 2021. Raj finds it difficult to adjust to the continual jeering by other inmates and police officers inside the jail because he is no longer only known as Shilpa Shetty's husband or a "Bigg Boss" participant, the trailer shows. At one point, Raj, who makes his acting debut in the movie, encounters a situation resembling a stampede. The teaser also depicts the surprising friendships Raj makes while he is imprisoned.

Raj Kundra was arrested in July 2021 on suspicion of making pornographic recordings, and in September of that same year, he was given bail. He was charged with violating pertinent provisions of the Information Technology Act, the Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention Act), and the Indian Penal Code.

Since it was posted, netizens posted numerous reactions in the comment box on the UT69 trailer.

One user said, Try to regain the lost respect and image by@TheShilpaShetty and #RajKundra."

Why isnt he wearing that mask in the movie," another user commented, while the third wrote, Looks very promising, didn't expect this good acting too. What a nice way to tell your side of the story to the public."

Another user said, Very inspiring story it inspired everyone to make porn movies and go to the jail."

He must be trying hard to show by this, that bechara innocent hai ..yeh Sahi hai inka, saare ghatiya kaam karo phir sharafat ka mask pehen kar ghoomo... Ab movie bana dali.. vo kaand bhi batao jo jo isne kiye..," a X user said.

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We strongly condemn Hamass attack on Israel that has killed more than 1,400 people, including at least 30 Americans. Investigations of this terrorist organization and its funding reveal that Hamas uses cryptocurrency to bankroll its operations.

Last week the Journal reported that crypto wallets linked to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad collectively received more than $130 million in digital assets in the two years before the attack, including millions in the months leading up to it. Crypto has become a crucial pipeline for financing terrorist organizations, and researchers agree that the publicly reported numbers are likely a small percentage of the actual total.

This revenue stream demonstrates the dangerous gaps in our oversight of international money flows. Terrorists, rogue nations, drug traffickers and other criminals are using cryptocurrency to endanger our allies and U.S. national security. Its past time to apply the same anti-money-laundering rules to crypto that already apply to banks, brokers, check cashers and even precious-metal dealers before these loopholes allow terrorists to finance more attacks.

Terrorist supporters can send crypto from anywhere in the world, and terrorist organizations arent subtle in seeking donations. Hamas openly solicits crypto funds, posting on Telegram, The reality of jihad is the expenditure of effort and energy, and money is the backbone of war." Hamas is not alone. Iran generates an estimated $1 billion in crypto assets a year. Hezbollah and Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also recently had nearly $2 million in crypto seized by Israel. In short, the crypto industry is profiting from financing terrorism and rogue nations.

But its not only crypto-financed terrorism that poses a danger to America and our allies. The Biden administration has estimated that roughly half of North Koreas missile program has been funded by crypto crime. Producers behind 90% of the fentanyl made in China use crypto to do business with drug cartels, selling enough illicit precursor chemicals to cause billions of deadly overdoses.

Crypto crime has many faces: Hamas terrorists, Chinese fentanyl distributors, the ayatollahs of Iran and other bad actors. Panicked that terrorists embrace of crypto may lead to tighter rules, the crypto industry has raced to protect its earnings. It has hired lobbyists to argue that crypto shouldnt be subject to the anti-money-laundering guardrails that help keep traditional payment systems safe and to claim that regulating crypto would push more transactions offshore. The crypto industry says it will police itself. We know that wont work.

The use of crypto funds by Hamas shows that patchwork and voluntary anti-money-laundering rules dont prevent crypto crime. Last year saw more than $20 billion in illicit crypto transactionsthat we know of.

Every bank in America is required to engage in basic compliance activities to ensure it isnt aiding criminals. The same is true for credit unions, stockbrokers, credit-card issuers, gold traders and others moving money around the world. There is no reason billion-dollar Bitcoin mining companies, wallet providers and others in so-called decentralized finance shouldnt do the same. A few crypto actors already conduct some of these checks, demonstrating a capacity to comply and an understanding of the need to do so.

But it isnt enough to close only a few of the anti-money-laundering loopholes bad actors use crypto to slip through. This unequal application of the rules will let terrorists, rogue nations and international criminals use crypto.

We have introduced a common-sense bipartisan bill, the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, to ensure that the same rules to protect traditional payment systems from abuse are extended to crypto. Cutting off Hamas and other terrorist groups from vital financing requires that Congress pass this legislation.

Ms. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Mr. Marshall, a Kansas Republican, are U.S. senators.
Blue Jet Healthcare IPO opens for subscription on Wednesday, October 25, and closes on Friday, October 27. The allocation to anchor investors for Blue Jet Healthcare IPO is scheduled to take place on Monday, October 23. Blue Jet Healthcare IPO price band has been fixed in the range of 329 to 346 per equity share of face value of 2. The price to earnings ratio of the company is 37.49 at the upper band.

Blue Jet Healthcare IPO floor price is 164.50 times the face value of the equity shares and the cap price is 173 times the face value of the equity shares. The price to earning ratio based on diluted earnings per share (EPS) for fisal 2023 at the floor price is 35.64 times at the cap price is 37.49 times. Blue Jet Healthcare IPO lot size is 43 equity shares and in multiples of 43 equity shares thereafter.

Blue Jet Healthcare IPO has reserved not more than 50% of the shares in the public issue for Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB), not less than 15% for Non Institutional Investors (NII), and not less than 35% of the offer is reserved for Retail Investors.

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Blue Jet Healthcare IPO details

Blue Jet Healthcare IPO is completely a offer for sale (OFS) of 24,285,160 equity share; there is no fresh issue component, according to Red Herring Prospectus (RHP). Blue Jet Healthcare IPO size is 840.27 crore.

The company's promoters are Shiven Akshay Arora, Akshay Bansarilal Arora, and Archana & Akshay Arora.

Shiven Akshay Arora will sell up to 5,918,849 equity shares, while Akshay Bansarilal Arora will sell up to 18,366,311 equity shares.

There are no listed companies in India that engage in a business similar to that of Blue Jet Healthcare, said the company in its RHP.

The book running lead managers for the Blue Jet Healthcare IPO are Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited, ICICI Securities Limited, and J.P. Morgan India Private Limited. The registrar for the offering is Link Intime India Private Ltd.

Blue Jet Healthcare is an intermediary company that provides pharmaceutical and healthcare ingredients. In India, Blue Jet Healthcare was the pioneer in producing saccharin and its derivatives, or artificial sweeteners.

Also Read: IRM Energy IPO: Issue fully booked on day 2, check GMP, should you subscribe?

Blue Jet Healthcare branched out into contrast medium intermediates, which are utilised in MRI and CT examinations. The company primarily sells products in three categories: active pharmaceutical components and pharma intermediates, high-intensity sweeteners, and contrast media intermediates.

Between March 31, 2022, and March 31, 2023, Blue Jet Healthcare Limited's profit after tax (PAT) decreased by 11.88% while its revenue climbed by 5.98%, as per reports.

Also Read: Rajgor Castor Derivatives IPO : Check GMP, subscription status on day 3, other key details

Blue Jet Healthcare IPO GMP today

Blue Jet Healthcare IPO GMP or grey market premium is +85. This indicates Blue Jet Healthcare share price were trading at a premium of 85 in the grey market on Thursday, according to investorgain.com.

Considering the upper end of the IPO price band and the current premium in the grey market, the estimated listing price of Blue Jet Healthcare share price was indicated at 431 apiece, which is 24.57% higher than the IPO price of 346.

'Grey market premium' indicates investors' readiness to pay more than the issue price.

Also Read: Arvind and Company Shipping Agencies IPO allotment today: Latest GMP, here's how to check allotment status

Disclaimer: The views and recommendations given in this article are those of individual analysts. These do not represent the views of Mint. We advise investors to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

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Nifty 50 today: Domestic market benchmarks the Sensex and the Nifty 50 closed in the negative territory for the second consecutive session on Thursday, October 19 amid weak global cues.

Top Asian peers, including Japan's Nikkei, China's Shanghai Composite Index and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell about two per cent each while in Europe, the UK's FTSE, Germany's DAX and France's CAC fell up to a per cent during the trade as investors remained worried over the prospects of an escalation of the Israel-Hamas war into a bigger regional crisis.

The Israel-Hamas war is keeping investors nervous, particularly after an explosion at Gaza's Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital on Tuesday. As reported by Reuters, "Palestinian officials said the explosion killed 471 people and blamed on what they said was an Israeli air strike. Israel and the US said the cause was a failed rocket launch by Islamist militants in Gaza who denied responsibility."

Moreover, a sharp spike in the US 10-year Treasury yields ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's remarks also dealt a blow to equities.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will share his views on the economy before the Economic Club of New York, later today.

The prospect of no rate cuts any time soon from the Fed has driven 10-year Treasury yields to almost 5%, the most in 16 years, while undermining stocks," reported Reuters.

Prices for US Treasuries, meanwhile, fell for a fourth day, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year note up another 6 basis points to 4.962%, putting it on track for a weekly rise of 34 bps, the biggest one-week increase since April 2022." the Reuters report added.

Nifty 50 closed the day at 19,624.70, down 46 points, or 0.24 per cent while the Sensex fell 248 points, or 0.38 per cent, to end at 65,629.24.

Mid and smallcaps outperformed the benchmark Sensex. The BSE Midcap index ended 0.08 per cent lower while the Smallcap index ended with a gain of 0.07 per cent.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices fell about 2 per cent as the US eased sanctions on Venezuela. Brent Crude traded nearly 2 per cent lower near $90 per barrel around 3:50 pm.

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Top Nifty 50 gainers today

Shares of Bajaj Auto (up 6.55 per cent), LTIMindtree (up 5.97 per cent) and Hero MotoCorp (up 3.74 per cent) ended as the top gainers in the Nifty 50 index.

Top Nifty 50 losers today

Shares of Wipro (down 3.04 per cent), Tech Mahindra (down 1.52 per cent) and Sun Pharma (down 1.46 per cent) ended as the top losers in the Nifty 50 pack.

As many as 33 stocks ended with losses today while the remaining 17 ended higher.

Sectoral indices today

A majority of indices ended with losses today, with Nifty Metal (down 0.88 per cent), Oil & Gas (down 0.53 per cent) and Financial Services (down 0.39 per cent) ending as top losers. Nifty Bank fell 0.31 per cent.

Nifty Auto (up 0.50 per cent), Consumer Durables (up 0.20 per cent), FMCG (up 0.14 per cent), Media (up 0.14 per cent) and PSU Bank (up 0.03 per cent) closed with gains.

Experts' views on markets

Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Research (Retail) at Kotak Securities observed a sharp fall in several benchmark Asian and European indices dented the local market sentiment as the ongoing Middle East war continued to force investors to cut their exposure to equities.

Chouhan said the key concern is that if the war continues for long, investors would move to safe-haven assets to safeguard their interests.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said amid increasing global political strain, the US treasury yield, and underwhelming IT earnings, the domestic market continued to trade with a minor cut.

However, some optimism was evident in the equity market given global efforts to stabilise the West Asia conflict, which de-escalated the crude price trend. Auto sector stocks outperformed, driven by Q2 results outcome. Investors are closely monitoring the Q2 earnings season, US Fed chair speech and West Asia developments, said Nair.

Technical views on Nifty 50

Jatin Gedia, Technical Research Analyst at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas observed that on the daily charts, the Nifty has taken support at the 19,530  19,500 zone where support in the form of the 61.82 per cent Fibonacci retracement level of the previous rise from 19,333  19,850 is placed.

"We expect the Nifty to stage a pullback after the recent sharp correction over the past couple of days. We believe that todays low of 19,512 shall act as a crucial support and until that is not breached on the downside we can expect the Nifty to witness a pullback towards 19,730  19,800 from a short-term perspective," said Gedia.

Chouhan said the Nifty is trading near the 50-day SMA (simple moving average).

"For the traders now, the 50-day SMA or 19,625 would act as a trend decider level. Above the same, we could see a technical bounce back to 19,700-19,735 levels. On the flip side, below 19,625, the index could retest the level of 19,520-19,480," said Chouhan.

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Realty stocks have been witnessing healthy gains this year so far thanks to strong demand and encouraging second-quarter business updates from companies. The index hit its new peak earlier this month. The index has surged over 40 percent this year so far as against an 8.5 percent rise in benchmark Nifty. Most realty stocks have also hit new highs this month, including Sunteck Realty .

The stock hit its 52-week high of 485.95 earlier this week on October 16. Currently trading at 474.50, it has already advanced 75 percent from its 52-week low of 271.25, hit on June 23, 2023.

The stock has risen over 43 percent this year, giving positive returns in 6 of the 10 months so far. It has added 5 percent in October so far, following a 25 percent jump in September. It has surged the most in July, up 29 percent and shed the most in February, down 18 percent.

However, it has underperformed its benchmark in the last 1 year. The stock has gained around 24 percent in the last one year versus an almost 42 percent rally in the Nifty Realty index.

Earnings

Sunteck Realty reported a consolidated net loss of 6.73 crore during the quarter ended June 30, 2023. Meanwhile, its consolidated total income fell over 40 percent to 88.41 crore in Q1FY24 from 148.71 crore last year.

The company said that during the quarter, pre-sales grew by 16 percent year-on-year (YoY) to 387 crore, while collections remained strong at 288 crore. Its core earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) margin stood at 43 percent.

The company's net debt reached 264 crore, while the net debt-equity ratio stood at 0.09 times.

Sales

In the September quarter, Sunteck Realty announced that its pre-sales grew 17.2 percent YoY to around 395 crore as demand momentum continued in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) market. Meanwhile, for the first half of FY24, pre-sales witnessed a 16.7 percent YoY growth to 782 crore.

However, collections during the quarter were down 35 percent YoY and 26 percent QoQ to 210 crore. H1FY24 collections also dipped 19 percent YoY 500 crore.

Meanwhile, the company also signed a pact with IFC (International Finance Corporation) to create a joint platform with a total investment of up to 750 crore for the development of close to 12,000 high-quality housing units across four to six green housing projects within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

LiveMint collated views of brokerage firms and technical analysts to understand whether the stock is a buy at this juncture or not. Let's take a look:

Fundamental View

Nuvama: The brokerage has a buy call on the stock and raised its target price to 578, indicating an upside of 22 percent.

We expect a higher sales trajectory for SRL with the housing cycle turning, sustained expansion of project portfolio (25.5msf addition post-covid), and release of inventory in existing projects. For SRL, investor focus has shifted towards launches from project additions. We factor in the upcoming launches in Kalyan and Nepean Sea Road, resulting in a revised TP of 578 ( 438 earlier)," said Nuvama.

"RERA-driven consolidation is uncovering growth opportunities for organised players such as SRL. We like SRLs diversified presence in the MMR and robust execution capability. Revival in housing demand (refer to Real Estate  Leadership matters), SRLs focus on cash flows and a low gearing should hold it in good stead. With housing sales going strong across the board for listed developers, investor focus regarding SRL has shifted towards launches from new project additions," it said.

Jefferies: The brokerage maintained a 'buy' call on Sunteck Realty and raised its target price to 555 apiece from 415 apiece. The new target indicates an upside of 17 percent.

The brokerage is bullish on the company's improved growth and governance prospects. In its note, Jefferies said that Sunteck Realty's tie up with IFC, a member of the World Bank, to create an affordable and mid-income housing platform is a booster as 75 percent of the portfolio is geared to the affordable and mid-income housing segment. The growth will accelerate a reintroduction of the interest subsidy component of the popular 'Housing for All' (urban) scheme of the government. It seems that the government is likely to give green signal to the reintroduction very soon, the brokerage added.

Technical View

Om Mehra, Technical Analyst, SAMCO Securities

View Full Image Source: SAMCO

In the weekly time frame, the primary trend remains bullish for Sunteck Realty. On a daily scale, the stock displays several bullish patterns, including a double bottom formation and the transformation of prior resistance into a support level, implying a favorable outlook for continued price appreciation. Notably, the stock stands above key moving averages, including the 20 and 50-day DMA, indicating its strength.

Over the past month, Sunteck has yielded an impressive 9.93 percent return, while the BSE 500 has experienced a 1.58 percent drawdown. The RSI currently stands at 68, reflecting a positive bias.

Existing investors could hold their positions, potentially sidestepping minor corrections. Fresh investors might find an opportune entry point around the 450 zone.

Moreover, the outperformance of the realty sector can serve as a catalyst, potentially propelling the stock's upward trajectory. Investors should keep an eye on this sector, as it could further bolster the stock's rally.

Pravesh Gour, Senior Technical Analyst, Swastika Investmart

The counter is in a strong uptrend where it was broken out of a flag formation. It created a strong base around its breakout level at 420; however, 500 is an immediate resistance where it may see some pause, but above this, it is likely to head towards 550 levels.

On the downside, 420 is major support at any correction, while 400 is the next critical demand level. The structure of the counter looks good as it is trading above all its important moving averages. Notably, the RSI (relative strength index) momentum indicator is favorably positioned, while the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) reinforces the current market strength.

Rajesh Palviya, SVP - Technical & Derivatives Research, Axis Securities

The stock is trending higher on the daily and weekly timeframe, forming a series of higher tops and bottoms, indicating positive bias. In addition, the stock is also well placed above its 20, 50, 100 and 200-day SMA, which reconfirms a bullish trend. On the monthly chart, the stock is making an "inverse head & Shoulder formation" with a neckline value of 550; hence, any decisive monthly close above these levels may trigger upside momentum. The past four months' rising volumes signify increased participation. The overall sentiment remains bullish; hence, any short-term decline towards 440-420 levels remains an accumulation opportunity. On the upside, the stock may scale towards 550-650 levels. The weekly, monthly and quarterly strength indicator in bullish terrain signals rising strength.

Gaurav Bissa, VP, InCred Equities

Sunteck Realty has moved in line with the Nifty Realty index. The stock has been trading a large range since 2017 with supports placed at 250 and major resistances seen at 540 levels. RSI and MACD have formed a double bottom on the monthly charts with MACD witnessing a bullish crossover, implying the trend is expected to remain strong. Investors are advised to hold the stock for an upside to 540 levels. A monthly close above 540 can catapult the stock towards 700-800 levels. Fresh buying is not advised due to the stock being in a consolidation.

Aditya Gaggar, Director of Progressive Shares

In the monthly chart, Sunteck Realty Ltd has given a breakout from the Falling Channel (Lower Top Lower Bottom) formation with a considerable volume. A 5-year-old trendline breakout in the leading oscillator RSI also confirms the change in the trend. Trend-following indicators such as MACD have given a positive crossover while ADX is pointing toward the beginning of a trend. All the above readings indicate a continuation of the current uptrend and as per the pattern, the target is 630.

Disclaimer: The views and recommendations made above are those of individual analysts or broking companies, and not of MintGenie. We advise investors to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

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After a long time, the Indian Railways are executing projects better than ever.

India has the fourth-largest railway system in the world due to its extensive network of rail tracks that almost encircle the whole country.

More than 1.4 million (m) people are employed along its 67,850 km of travel. As a result, the railway industry is India's largest employer.

As we have watched railway stocks surge 100% or more, most investors have been wondering what would happen next.

To put things into context, railway stocks have seen a historic rise in their stock prices in the past two years. Some had gone from less than 20 to as high as 100 during the bull market.

Due to its scale and extensive network of connections to many industries, the railway industry is expected to see a massive growth in demand for its services.

Not only does this demand bode well for just railway stocks, but also to the businesses that produce railway components.

In this article, well take a look at the top railway stocks below 200 that still have enough headroom to grow.

#1 IRFC

First on this list is IRFC.

The company is the financing arm of the Indian Railways. Its a government of India enterprise, under the ministry of railways (MoR).

IRFC's principal business is to borrow funds from the financial markets to finance the acquisition/creation of assets which are then leased out to the Indian Railways.

The Indian Railways' is reportedly planning to roll out a substantial 250 billion (bn) tender. Its objective is to secure a fleet of 60,000 wagons during the upcoming July to September 2023 quarter.

This is a major procurement order, expected to boost the revenue and profit of IRFC, which finances the purchase of railway assets.

The railway ministry is also aiming to manufacture trains to export to markets in Europe, South America, and East Asia by 2025-26.

As per the railway ministry, by FY26, India plans to export standard-gauge Vande Bharat trains. The plan, if realised, will place India on par with eight countries that have the capability to manufacture trains with speeds of 180 kmph or more.

IRFC's strong balance sheet size with nil gross NPA, low overheads, and the Indian Railways' huge capex needs, bode well for the company's growth prospects over the long term.

The company is also planning to diversify its financing portfolio. This evolution will encompass new dimensions of railway projects, notably dedicated freight corridors, high-speed rail initiatives, and the development of smart railways.

Recently at the G20 summit, India, US, and Saudi Arabia announced plans to build an economic corridor that would link South Asia with Europe via the Middle East.

This announcement suggests a strong railway and shipping connectivity network among the countries as it integrates railway routes.

Projects like these take decades to fully implement, so it can add a lot of value over the coming years for stocks involved.

#2 Texmaco Rail

Next on this list is Texmaco Rail.

The company is the largest supplier of wagons to the Indian Railways, with strong in-house capabilities for designing special purpose wagons for core sectors such as cement, coal, alumina, chemicals fertilisers, thermal power projects, and more.

It also manufactures sugar mill machinery, industrial boilers, cryogenic and pressure vessels, chemical plant equipment, and agro-machinery such as power tillers.

Railway ancillary stocks have seen a massive spike in their stock prices as theyve been rewarded with massive orders which has given a big boost to their future earnings visibility. Texmaco Rail is no exception as the companys stock price is at an all-time high.

A good way to analyse whether the companys growth prospects look stronger than ever is to compare its order book with the current marketcap.

A large order book relative to a smaller marketcap may indicate undervaluation and strong future earnings, while the opposite scenario could signal overvaluation or operational inefficiencies.

In its latest concall, the company's management said that their order books are full and the company is now looking for new orders.

Texmaco has an order book of around 80 bn. This is almost twice the size of its current marketcap of 44 bn. This could indicate the company has strong revenue prospects, provided it can efficiently fulfil its orders, particularly the 54 bn in rolling stock.

The company is currently producing around 500 wagons per month for Indian Railways and aiming to consistently exceed 500.

Texmaco recently posted its Q2 results where the company's consolidated revenue from operations saw a robust growth of 66% YoY, amounting to 8 bn.

The company reported a 70% YoY rise in net profit to 200 million (m) in the quarter.

Looking at the first half of FY24, the company achieved a remarkable revenue of 14.6 bn, marking an impressive 86% surge compared to 7.8 bn in the same period last year.

Going forward, the company is poised for a 25-30% production increase. Further, it is also exploring opportunities in related domains such as the 'Modern Train Communication System' and 'Kavach'.

#3 IRCON International

Third on this list is IRCON International.

IRCON is a railway construction company. It's a sectoral leader in transportation infrastructure among the public sector construction companies in India. It specialises in railway projects on a turnkey basis.

It caters to both, domestic as well as international markets and receives orders on a tender basis. Earlier, the company used to be nominated by the MoR for various railway projects, which shifted to competitive bidding in FY21.

In the month of August 2023, Ircon International shares saw a spike after the company posted good numbers for the first quarter of FY24 and on the back of a growing order book.

The company recently executed a contract agreement with the Sri Lanka Railways, worth 1.2 bn. This project is expected to be completed in the next two years.

This is in line with the company's efforts to increase its order book and secure orders worth 100-120 bn in FY24. According to the management, it could close FY24 with an order book totalling 350 bn.

As of June 2023, the company's total order book stood at 325 bn with railways segment contributing to majority of the chunk ( 236 bn). This is more than twice the size of its current marketcap ( 148 bn).

Going forward, the company plans to enhance its portfolio with projects in the international markets to achieve healthy profit margins offered by these projects.

Its also exploring new emerging areas for business diversification. As part of its diversification strategy, the company has entered the renewable power sector to establish a 500 MWH solar power plant with a joint venture partner.

The company's goal is to move ahead from being a construction company to a diversified company having a portfolio of BOT, DBFOT, EPC, and other contracts as well as project development and operation through subsidiaries and JVs.

#4 Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd

Last on this list is Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd.

The company is engaged in the business of implementing various types of rail infrastructure projects assigned by the ministry of railways. The company actively bids for rail and metro rail projects in India.

Apart from India, the railway company is currently in the process of expanding presence in global markets. During the financial year 2023, it entered overseas markets and signed an MoU with Kyrgyzstan for an order worth approximately 180 bn.

Its planning to expand its overseas presence and take up projects in several other countries.

Currently, RVNL has a strong order book of over 650 bn, focusing on railway, metro, and overseas projects. This is almost 1.8x the size of its current marketcap ( 349 bn).

The company is confident in its ability to execute projects and maintain positive growth, targeting an order book of 750 bn to 1 trillion (tn).

In recent weeks, the company has secured two major orders. The first order is from the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation for the design and construction of an elevated metro viaduct. The project cost is 3.9 bn and will be completed in the next 30 months.

RVNL also secured some more projects with Maharashtra Metro Rail worth 2.6 bn.

Meanwhile, the second order is worth 11 bn from the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board. The order is to be executed within 24 months.

Going forward, the company's margins could improve as the huge order book gets executed.

Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only. It is not a stock recommendation and should not be treated as such.

This article is syndicated from Equitymaster.com
After registering an increase of 19.84 percent in one years time, assets managed by the Indian mutual fund industry spiked from 39.88 trillion in September 2022 to 47.79 trillion in Sept 2023.

Out of this, assets held by individual investors rose from 22.75 lakh crore in Sept 2022 to 28.10 lakh crore, registering an increase of 23.51 percent, shows industry trends data revealed by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI).

At the same time, the value of institutional assets increased from 17.13 lakh crore in Sept 2022 to 19.69 lakh crore in Sept 2023, an increase of 14.96 percent.

Surge of equity assets

The overall share of equity mutual funds witnessed a marginal increase as it touched 54.1 percent of the industry assets in Sept 2023, slightly higher than 51.2 percent in Sept 2022.

Conversely, the proportionate share of debt-oriented schemes fell from 19.9 percent in Sept 2022 to 18.8 percent in Sept 2023, revealed AMFIs industry trends.

The ETF market share rose from 12.5 percent in Sept 2022 to 12.7 percent in Sept 2023.

Retail vs institutional investors

The share of individual investors has been growing rapidly year after year. Sample this: individual investors now hold a relatively higher share of industry assets, i.e., 58.8 percent in Sept 2023 as compared with 57.1 percent in Sept 2022.

Institutional investors, at the same time, account for 41.2 percent of the assets, of which corporates are 96 percent. The remaining are Indian and foreign institutions and banks.

View Full Image Individual investors in Sept 2023 held 58.8 percent of total assets, while institutions held 41.2 percent.

The dominance of individual investors in equity schemes can further be underscored by the fact that the equity-oriented schemes derive a whopping 89 percent of their assets from individual investors in Sept 2023, exactly similar to the data one year ago.

Individual investors include retail as well as high network individuals (HNIs).

On the other hand, debt schemes derive most of their assets from institutional investors. Liquid and money market schemes drew 87% of their assets, debt-oriented schemes got 60%, and ETFs & FOFs received 90% of their assets from institutional investors.

AMFI's industry trends for Sept 2023 also revealed that 82 percent of individual investor assets are held in equity-oriented schemes.

Additionally, 57 percent of institutional assets are held in liquid/ money market schemes and debt-oriented schemes.

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BEIJINGWith one war raging in Ukraine and another unfolding in the Middle East, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is promoting his signature foreign-policy project as a force for unity, cooperation and prosperity around the globe.

At a summit convened here to celebrate the Belt and Road Initiative, the picture looked more fractured.

During a keynote speech inside Beijings Great Hall of the People on Wednesday, Xi positioned China as a leader of a new, more inclusive global order and promised that his countrys rise would benefit any that wanted to participate.

We dont do ideological confrontation, we dont do geopolitical rivalry and we dont do bloc politics," he said, taking aim at unilateral sanctions, economic decoupling and other tools that Beijing accuses the U.S. of exploiting to contain its rivals. What has been achieved in the past 10 years demonstrates that Belt and Road cooperation is on the right side of history."

Invited to speak directly after Xi, Russian leader Vladimir Putin praised what he said were the trillion-dollar infrastructure programs efforts to build a fairer, multipolar world and system of international relations," according to a translation by Chinese state broadcaster CGTN.

The prominence given to Putin, and the near absence of Western representation among the roughly two-dozen world leaders who attended the forum, reflects how the Belt and Road Initiative has become increasingly fractured along geopolitical lines since Xi first proposed the idea a decade agotensions that have been worsened by Russias invasion of Ukraine and most recently the attack on Israel by Hamas.

Originally envisaged as a way to promote infrastructure development to better link China to Central Asia and beyond, the initiative has faced sustained criticism from Western governments for piling what they say are unsustainable debt loads on some participant countries.

Xi didnt directly address the debt criticism in his speech on Wednesday. Instead, he spoke in broad terms about how Chinas rise benefits other countries.

When China does well, the world will do even better," Xi said. Through Belt and Road cooperation, China is opening its doors even wider to the world."

Amid the war in Ukraine and an outstanding arrest warrant against him by the International Criminal Court, Putins attendance at this years forum reinforced Chinas economic and diplomatic support for the Russian leader even as he has become a pariah in the West.

In response to Western sanctions against Russia following Putins invasion of Ukraine, trade ties between Russia and China have surged, as Russia has increasingly turned to China to source technologies and machinery it struggles to get elsewhere.

In a meeting between Xi and Putin on Wednesday, their 42nd since 2013, the Chinese leader praised what he said was a good working relationship and a deep friendship" with Putin, according to a readout by Chinese state media.

Political mutual trust between the two countries has continuously deepened, strategic collaboration has been close and effective, and bilateral trade has reached a record high," Xi told Putin, according to the Chinese state media report, which didnt mention the Ukraine war.

Under the difficult current circumstances, China and Russia should closely coordinate their foreign policies, Putin told Xi, according to Russian state media.

Russia has previously praised Chinas official position on the Ukraine war, with Beijing taking the view that the security interests of all parties must be taken into consideration in seeking a resolution to the conflict. That position, according to Western analysts, lends weight to the Russian stance that external security threats meant it had no choice but to invade Ukraine.

There was no immediate word of a breakthrough on long-running negotiations for a new natural gas pipeline linking Russia and China, dubbed the Power of Siberia 2. The pipeline would traverse Mongolia and bolster Russian gas sales to China, further reorienting Russias energy industry toward Asia and away from its traditional reliance on Europe.

In a meeting with Mongolias president in Beijing on Tuesday, Putin said he thinks the project will move forward with good momentum, according to Russian state media.

With Putin and other foreign leaders in town, security in Beijing has been exceedingly tight for several days leading up to the forum, with Chinese soldiers and scores of police and plain-clothed security agents deployed to keep guard in parts of the capital. Amid the fighting in the Middle East, an employee of Israels embassy was stabbed in Beijing last week.

In the buildup to this years forum, China has implicitly linked the Belt and Road Initiative to its growing rivalry with the U.S. and other Western countries. A white paper by Chinas government earlier this month took aim at U.S. efforts to limit certain technology sales to China, a strategy the Biden administration calls de-risking."

Certain countries overstretch the concept of national security and seek decoupling in the name of de-risking," it said. Their actions raise obstacles to the long-term development of humanity."

The U.S. Commerce Department said Tuesday that it was further tightening restrictions on Chinas ability to buy advanced chips that could fuel breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. U.S. limits on technology exports to China have emerged as one of the most contentious points of disagreement between the countries. China complains that the restrictions are unfair and designed to contain it.

In his speech Wednesday, Xi said Chinas economy was open to foreign investment, despite a souring of international business sentiment amid an unpredictable domestic regulatory environment and an intensifying national-security clampdown. Xi said that China would scrap all restrictions on foreign investment in the manufacturing sectorlong a sore spot for foreign companies seeking to make products in the countrywithout providing details.

For Belt and Road projects, many of which are built outside Chinas borders, Xi said the state-owned China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China would each make an additional 350 billion yuan, equivalent to $47.9 billion, of financing available, while 80 billion yuan would be injected into Chinas state-run Silk Road Fund.

Despite the new commitments, there is evidence that, in some ways, enthusiasm for the Belt and Road Initiative is waning. This year, roughly two-dozen heads of state or government have attended the summit, compared with the 37 who participated in the last such forum in 2019.

Noticeably absent from this years forum is almost all representation from the European Union, Hungarys Prime Minister Viktor Orban was the only head of an EU member state to attend this years gathering. Leaders from Greece, Italy and Portugal previously attended the 2019 meeting.

And while the Belt and Road Initiative was once focused on China helping to finance and build large-scale infrastructure, it now appears to be shifting toward smaller, more commercially-oriented projects, as well as giving priority to clean development and bolstering digital connectivity among its members, analysts who follow the initiative say.

But the change doesnt mean the initiative is going away. Instead, Xi announced plans to create a secretariat for the forum, a move that would institutionalize the initiative going forward, said Rick Waters, the managing director for China at the political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group.

So long as Xi is around, this project is here to stay," Waters said.

Write to Brian Spegele at Brian.Spegele@wsj.com and Wenxin Fan at wenxin.fan@wsj.com

View Full Image Chinas Xi Doubles Down on Belt and Road as Path to New World Order
Beijing played host to the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on October 18. The meeting, which attracted leaders and officials from 23 countries in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and South America, took place in the wake of trouble for China President Xi Jinpings flagship infrastructure initiative. Mint explains why the outcome of the meeting may be good news for India.

What is the Belt and Road Initiative?

It's a highly ambitious project aimed at building infrastructure and connectivity across Asia, Europe and Africa in an effort to reconstruct 21st century versions of a terrestrial and maritime silk road. Many observers saw the project as an effort by China to export its surplus capacity in construction and other fields to foreign nations while also linking their markets to Chinas economy.

Chinas overall ambition for the BRI is staggering. To date, 147 countriesaccounting for two-thirds of the worlds population and 40% of global GDPhave signed on to projects or indicated an interest in doing so," wrote the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank.

The forum began in 2017 as a meeting of major leaders who had signed on to Beijings scheme, and was intended to showcase the achievements of the BRI. The presence of high-level leaders also provided China with favourable optics.

Has it gained or declined in popularity since?

In 2017 around 27 world leaders visited Beijing for the first edition of the forum. In 2019 that number stood at 37. However, only 23 world leaders participated in the third forum on 18 October.

What does this trend suggest?

Experts say that the drop in attendance at the third forum points to the declining popularity of the BRI. High-profile failures, allegations of debt-trap diplomacy and Chinas increasingly negative international reputation may have scared some leaders away.

This is especially true in Europe, where a number of Eastern European countries were once seen as enthusiastic participants in the BRI. Italy, a member of the G7, is also expected to leave the BRI. Hungary, an EU member state, attended the summit. Other high profile attendees included Vladimir Putin of Russia, Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed, and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

What can India take away from this?

For India, declining attendance at the BRI Forum may be a sign that Chinas flagship infrastructure initiative is faltering. This comes after many initiatives under the BRI, particularly the development of Gwadar Port in Pakistan, stalled.

India has refused to attend all three editions of the forum so far. It has also opposed key BRI projects such as the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as it involves territories in Kashmir that India claims.
NEW DELHI : Russia continued to be the largest oil supplier to India in August with imports worth $4.15 billion, according to data from the commerce ministry.

It was 23.15% higher than imports in July and on a year-on-year basis, the Russian imports more than doubled from $1.93 billion in August 2022.

Indias total oil import bill during the month rose 28.27% to $11.49 billion from $8.96 billion in July. Higher imports from Iraq and Saudi Arabia supported the overall rise in supplies.

Imports from Iraq and Saudi Arabia were valued at $2.33 billion and $2.07 billion, higher by 32% and 47% respectively compared to July. However, compared to August 2022, supplies from the two countries were around 40% lower.

View Full Image Graphic: Mint

The increase in imports comes amid a rise in discounts offered by Russia, analysts said.

In terms of quantity, Russian oils share in the Indian crude oil basket stood at 39%, accounting for 7.63 million tonnes out of the 19.54 million tonnes imported by India in August.

Russia has emerged the largest supplier of oil to India in the past 20 months with offers of discounted oil amid sanctions from the West in reprisal for its invasion of Ukraine.

In FY22, Russian oil accounted for only 2% of Indias total oil imports; in FY23, it made up around one-fourth of the 235.52 million tonnes of crude oil imported by India. It now stands at 39%.

Imports increased despite output cuts announced by Russia in a bid to lift prices. Oil prices which have declined from the multi-year highs reached last year, increased again in August and September amid extended supply cuts by the OPEC+ and its key members Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The Indian crude oil basket which averaged $80.37 per barrel in July surged to $93.54 in September. On 17 October, the basket price was $91.03 a barrel. At the time of writing, the December contract of Brent on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) was trading at $91.43 per barrel, higher by 1.70% from its previous close.

A recent report by Moodys Investors Services said that a rise in feedstock cost and stagnant retail fuel prices could weaken the profitability of oil marketing companies.

The OMCs marketing margins, the difference between their net realized prices and international prices, have already weakened significantly from the high levels seen in the quarter ended 30 June 2023, the report said.

Marketing margins on diesel have turned negative since August while petrol margins have narrowed considerably over the same period as international prices increased.

The oil market has turned volatile in the past one week post the attack by Hamas in Israel and the subsequent attacks by Israeli defence forces on the Gaza strip.

The Israel-Hamas conflict and possibilities of further instability in West Asia, a major source of oil for the world, has raised concerns in the oil market.

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Pope Francis appealed for peace amid ongoing Israel-Hamas war. He expressed his concerns about the dire situation in Gaza and appealed to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Pope Francis in a social media post on X(formerly twitter) said, The situation in Gaza is desperate. Please let everything possible be done to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. The possible widening of the conflict is disturbing. Let the weapons be silenced; let the cry for peace be heard from the poor, from the people, from the children!" Also read: Israel-Hamas War LIVE Updates: Israel will let Egypt deliver some aid to Gaza; UK PM Rishi Sunak to visit Israel today In response a user said that the was has turned into a binary game He added, Everyone is forgetting that hundreds and thousands of innocents, including children, are dying in this conflict. It's time we stood up for humanity!" Another user said, "This is there fault for starting what they can't finish, let them reap what they sow since that's the law of karma." A third user tweeted, Peace is what needed most in the region," conforming with Pope's message. Pope Francis further reiterated that war does not solve any problem and gives way only to death and destruction.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is planning to send around 20 truckloads of aid into the Gaza Strip. Israeli government allowed humanitarian aid into southern Gaza from Egypt only as long as none of it will be diverted to Hamas militant group.

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The United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution regarding the conflict, a resolution that was originally submitted by Brazil. In the vote, the United Kingdom and Russia abstained, while the remaining 12 members of the Security Council approved the resolution.

The proposal aimed to establish "humanitarian pauses" to facilitate the delivery of aid to Gaza. It also condemned the attacks by Hamas and categorising the group as "terrorists." The resolution called for the immediate release of civilian hostages, as outlined by Brazilian officials, reported HT.

The US has imposed sanctions on several individuals connected to Hamas' investment holdings and two high-ranking members of the organisation's leadership, to restrict their capacity to generate funds.

According to a statement issued by the US Treasury Department on October 18. Six of the individuals facing sanctions are alleged to manage an investment portfolio valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, involving companies located in Turkey, Algeria, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and other nations. The network uses front companies to conceal its financial activities and generate revenue that supports senior Hamas officials, reported HT.

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A fire broke out at 11.45 am on October 18 in Bengaluru's Koramangala area in a rooftop cafe and bar where a man jumped from off the fourth floor to escape the flames. The individual survived and is currently receiving medical treatment. The fire was triggered by a cylinder explosion on the rooftop of a commercial building that housed a hookah bar and the Mudpipe Cafe, reported India TV. According to ADGP H Harishekaran of Fire and Rescue Service, the restaurant had kept filled cylinders on the fourth floor and one of the cylinders leaked after which a fire broke out. Also read: Israel-Hamas War LIVE Updates: Israel will let Egypt deliver some aid to Gaza; UK PM Rishi Sunak to visit Israel today

The fire spread rapidly through out the building following explosions in multiple cylinders kept in the kitchen of restaurant and bar. The first explosion occurred when gas leaked from one of the cylinders and broke into a fire after which it intensified and set ablaze other three to four cylinders. Firefighters arrived at the scene with at least six fire brigade vehicles that brought fire under control.

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The police initiated legal action against the owner of Mudpipe Cafe in connection with the incident.

Although the cafe suffered extensive damage and was gutted by the fire, there were no casualties reported aside from two individuals who sustained minor injuries reported police. Their was a gym named Cult Fit operating on the third floor that also suffered extensive damage. Furthermore, vehicles and bikes parked on the ground floor suffered damage as pieces of the cylinder few down following explosion, reported India TV.

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UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is going to land in the early morning of October 19 in Israel for two days to hold meetings with Israeli PM Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. He will later head to a number of other regional capitals," reported HT .

Sunak's visit follows those of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on October 17 and US President Joe Biden on October 18. French President Emmanuel Macron said he will also travel to the region as soon as I consider that we have a useful agenda and very concrete actions to drive forward."

Sunak's visit is part of a procession of foreign leaders who have made an initiative to prevent Israel-Hamas war from widening. Sunak's office didnt reveal what other countries would be on his itinerary.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is planning to send around 20 truckloads of aid into the Gaza Strip said Biden. Israeli government allowed humanitarian aid into southern Gaza from Egypt only as long as none of it will be diverted to Hamas militant group.

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During a refuelling stop in Germany on October 18 while aboard Air Force One, Biden said Sisi had assured him on a phone conversation following his visit to Israel. Earlier, Biden announced $100 million in US humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza and the West Bank. He also said he would urge Congress for unprecedented support" for Israel as it prepares to crush Hamas, Evidence by the Pentagon suggested Israel was not responsible for the blast at a Gaza City hospital on the night of October 17, Biden informed.

According to White House statement on October 18, Biden will deliver a speech from the Oval Office on the night of October 19 to discuss our response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel. He would also address Russias ongoing war against Ukraine,"

In order to normalise ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia Bidens nominee for ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew informed a Senate panel October 19 that he would advance pre-war negotiations.

Biden said he was planning to undertake a supplemental request to Congress of about $100 billion which would include defence assistance for Israel and Ukraine alongside border security funding and aid to nations in the Indo-Pacific including Taiwan, according to sources, when he was returning to Washington following his visit to Israel.

The United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution regarding the conflict, a resolution that was originally submitted by Brazil. In the vote, the United Kingdom and Russia abstained, while the remaining 12 members of the Security Council approved the resolution.

The proposal aimed to establish "humanitarian pauses" to facilitate the delivery of aid to Gaza. It also condemned the attacks by Hamas and categorising the group as "terrorists." The resolution called for the immediate release of civilian hostages, as outlined by Brazilian officials, reported HT.

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A significant explosion shook al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, where numerous injured individuals and other Palestinians were seeking refuge on Tuesday. Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City targeted the residence of Ismail Haniyeh, the senior political figure of Hamas, resulting in the reported deaths of at least 14 individuals.

Israel-Hamas War: What we know so far

1) Coalition forces were slightly injured in Iraq in a spate of drone attacks over the last 24 hours at US bases in Iraq as regional tensions flare following the deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza.

2) Two drones targeted the al Asad airbase in western Iraq used by US forces and one drone targeted a base in northern Iraq, a US official told The Associated Press.

3) This came after Iranian-backed militias in Iraq threatened to attack U.S. facilities there because of American support for Israel.

4) US President Joe Biden on Wednesday visited Israel on an urgent mission to keep the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a broader regional conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that limited humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza from Egypt following a request from Biden.

5) Biden announced that the United States will provide $100 million in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians affected by conflict in Gaza and the West Bank.

6) Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on October 7. As supplies run out, many families in Gaza have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water.

7) UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that the deadly destruction of a hospital has heaped further pressure on Gazas crumbling health system, depriving the territory of a facility that cared for 45,000 patients every year.

8) Several pro-Palestinian groups held an 'emergency protest' in Chicago on Wednesday amid the ongoing conflict with Israel, according to Reuters reports.

9) The protests have been taking place all across the US with crowds divided on the recent situation around the Israel-Hamas war that has killed thousands of people on both sides, including women, children, men, and the elderly.

10) Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Joe Biden has a temper. He vents it sometimes on aides when he is unhappy with their work, and occasionally even on voters who have the nerve to criticise him. But when it comes to building relationships to achieve his goals over the long term, whether with a wayward legislator or an oppositional foreign leader, Mr Biden has long demonstrated unusual patience and forbearance.

So it was in 2010 when, as Barack Obamas vice-president, he landed in Israel only to be blindsided by an announcement from the government of Binyamin Netanyahu that, contrary to the wishes of the Americans, it intended to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. This seemed a deliberate humiliation, and some of President Obamas aides thought Mr Biden should turn around and head home in protest. But Mr Biden had begun developing a relationship with Mr Netanyahu in the 1980s, when he arrived in Washington to serve at the Israeli embassy, and the vice-president had his own ideas of how to manage matters.

Mr Biden issued a statement criticising the move, then put together a joint working group with Mr Netanyahu to contain the fallout. Then he and his wife Jill went to dinner with the Netanyahus. According to Mr Netanyahus own grateful account, Mr Biden spoke that night about deeply personal matters, about how hard it had been to overcome the deaths of his first wife and their daughter in a car crash. Mr Biden later gave the prime minister a photograph, scrawling a message on it that might serve as an epigram for much of the US-Israel relationship: Bibi, I dont agree with a damn thing you say, but I love ya."

Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, Americans have got the steady leadership most of them voted for in 2020, and they have been reminded of the pettiness and volatility they rejected. Donald Trump, who has not forgiven Mr Netanyahu for congratulating Mr Biden on winning in 2020, lashed out at the prime minister, while Republicans in the House struggled to show they could govern themselves, let alone a country. As Republicans bickered over who would be speaker, their foreign-policy message became increasingly muddled, if not contradictorycritical of Mr Biden for endangering America by not helping Israel stand up to the menace of Iran, yet also critical of Mr Biden for endangering America by helping Europe stand up to the menace of Russia.

Mr Biden has followed his own playbook. In May 2021, when Hamas barraged Israel with rockets from Gaza, he did not call for restraint or a ceasefire, as past presidents probably would have. Rather than try to box in Mr Netanyahu publicly, a step that could backfire, he voiced support for Israeli air strikes, while in phone calls over eleven days he questioned the prime minister about his strategy, to show him he had no clear endgame, according to The Last Politician", a new book on the Biden presidency by Franklin Foer. On the fourth call, as Mr Netanyahu continued insisting the Israeli operation was not done, the president told him time was up. Hey man, were out of runway here," Mr Biden said, according to Mr Foer. Its over." Mr Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire.

Michael Oren, who as Israels ambassador in Washington during most of the Obama years relied on Vice-President Biden to be his point of contact, says Mr Bidens connection with Mr Netanyahu is less about chemistry than historytheir own shared past, and Israels. Mr Biden remembers the six-day war, he remembers the 73 war," Mr Oren says. Theres a saying, He has Israel in his heart. Its very personal with him."

That is less and less true generally of Democrats, who have their own divisions over foreign policy. Some on the partys benighted leftist fringe celebrated the massacre of Israeli civilians, and members of the growing anti-Israel faction of House Democrats began almost immediately calling for a ceasefire. Mr Biden recognised this would be not just a political impossibility for Israel, but a strategic and moral one.

Yet while Mr Biden has been forthright that Israel has not just a right but a duty" to defend itself, he has also been deft in urging restraint. In a speech three days after the Hamas assault, he said he and Mr Netanyahu had discussed how democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law." The American president had not demanded anything, in other words; the two leaders had instead recommitted themselves to a shared value.

Palestinians have politics, too

Now comes the hard part, of course. Gazans are already suffering and dying under Israeli siege and bombardment, and a ground invasion will cause far more agony, as Hamas hopes. (Gazan civilians may be prisoners of Israel, but they are also hostages of Hamas.) And an invasion will increase the chance of a wider war. Mr Bidens judgment and ability to influence Mr Netanyahu are in for a severe test.

And just as, once this crisis eases, Mr Netanyahu will face a reckoning for Israels failures of intelligence and operations, Mr Bidens Middle East policy deserves scrutiny. His decision to ease pressure on Iran and his attempt at a benign neglect of the Israel-Palestine conflict have ended in violence, albeit violence that has been a long time coming.

One can draw a line to this war in Gaza from the moment in 2006 when Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, glanced up at the television news from her elliptical trainer and learned, to her shock, that Hamas had won elections in Gaza that she had been promoting as spreading democracy in the Middle East. I thought, Well, thats not right," Ms Rice later told a biographer, Elisabeth Bumiller. Four successive American administrations have paid too little attention to the miseries of Palestinian life and the realities of Palestinian politics. They have failed to buttress Palestinian institutions and reform-minded Palestinian leaders. A true friend of Israel would not make that mistake again.
Amazon, the e-commerce giant is planning to introduce prescription drug deliveries via drones, becoming the latest company to explore the use of drone technology for the distribution of medications, reported AP .

In a post on youtube on October 18, Amazon revealed that residents of College Station, Texas can opt for drone-based prescription deliveries, with a promised delivery time of one hour from the moment they place their order.

Also read: Amazon steps on the pedal for a brisk Diwali with faster deliveries

A drone will be dispatched from a secure pharmacy delivery centre to customer's designated address. The drone will descend to a height of around 13 feet and release a padded package containing the prescription at its destination.

Amazon's drone deliveries will cover over 500 medications, covering a range of common treatments like flu and pneumonia. Controlled substances won't be part of the offerings.

Amazon's Prime Air division initiated testing of drone deliveries for everyday household items in December last year starting with College Station and Lockeford, California. An Amazon spokesperson Jessica Bardoulas said the company executed thousands of deliveries since the launch of this service. The expansion to prescription drug deliveries comes in response to customer requests.

Amazon also revealed plans to extend its drone delivery services to a third location in the United States as well as several cities in Italy and the United Kingdom by the end of the following year.

Amazon Prime already offers medication deliveries from the company's pharmacy within two days. However, the new drone delivery service will cater to patients with acute illnesses, such as the flu. What were trying to do is figure out how can we bend the curve on speed," Vice President John Love said.

"Exciting news! Mint is now on WhatsApp Channels  Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest financial insights!" Click here!

Chief Medical Officer of Amazon Pharmacy, Dr. Vin Gupta said that the healthcare system in the United States typically encounters challenges in diagnosing and treating acute illnesses quickly, a situation that became particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reducing the time between diagnosis and treatment can enhance the effectiveness of many treatments.

(With inputs from AP)

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Travelling in Namibia several years ago, I climbed an enormous dune. Stepped across a deep canyon that was only a few inches wide on the surface. Camped in Etosha National Park and saw lions, giraffes, rhinos, and elephants, sometimes up close. All memorable, but Ive recently learned about something else Namibian that I wish I had heard of then.

For many years, examples were only known to exist in the Namib Desert. How Id have liked to see these beauties when I was in the country!

I refer to fairy circles": round formations in barren ground, devoid of vegetation inside the circle but with sparse shrubs outside. In the Namib Desert, they are scattered over an area measuring more than 2,500 sq. km, resembling a polka-dot pattern when seen from the air (take a look: https://t.ly/K_pgF). The stark contrast between inside and outside the circle strongly suggests that they are man-made. Maybe some prankster sweeps the inside clean? But they are too numerous, and the circles actually too irregular, for that to be true.

So scientists have wondered, for years, about the origin of fairy circles. One suggestion was that there once were certain poisonous plants in these spaces, and when they died they left behind chemicals that prevented other plants from growing there. A scientist found evidence of recent occupancy by gerbils", underlined by how the circles correspond closely in size to active or recently active gerbil colonies", There are more theories, too.

But none of them seemed satisfactory or conclusive. In 2021, a German researcher called Stephan Getzin published a paper about fairy circles in which, based on careful research in the Namib Desert, he spelled out three characteristics they all have:

* These are empty gaps" in grassland, without a central insect nest structure.

* They form surprisingly ordered patterns

* They require arid climates.

(Definition of fairy circles and how they differ from other common vegetation gaps and plant rings, Stephan Getzin et. al, Journal of Vegetation Science, 19 November 2021).

A year earlier, Getzin had published another paper that offered a fascinating explanation for these circles. He suggested that they are formed by a mechanism that the great mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing described in 1952.

In his paper, The Chemical Basis of Morphology, Turing suggested how patterns in naturesuch as a leopards spots or stripes in the sand on a seashoremight arise. This is the reaction-diffusion" mechanism, also called the activator-inhibitor" principle. It features two chemicals, one an activator" and one an inhibitor". As they diffuse through a medium (foetus, desert, whatever), they also react to each other, and that produces patterns. (See my All Kinds of Patterns, https://t.ly/qhY66).

Getzins hypothesis was that the fairy circle patterns are created by the reaction-diffusion, or Turing mechanism...rooted in physics and pattern-formation theory".

The idea here is that theres only so much water to go around in these desert conditions. Plants seek to maximize their access to water. So, these circles form a certain spatial order that maximizes each circles access to water. That is, plantsdesert grasses, mostlyon the perimeter of the circles have evolved to have the best possible access to water.

Getzin and colleagues spent three years looking for evidence for this hypothesis. They set sensors into the soil about 20cm deep, to record how much water the plants absorbed from the soil.

Following a dry 2020 and 2021, 2022 saw plentiful rainfall. As Getzin remarked, this allowed the team to really follow how the growth of the new grasses was redistributing the soil water". Something intriguing was happening with the circles. Water within them was getting used up fast, even though there were no plants to actually use it. The grasses on the perimeter and outside, on the other hand, were healthy and certainly not lacking for water.

Apparently those plants had evolved to create a vacuum of sorts around their roots, which drew water from inside towards themselves. In contrast, any grasses within the circle could not find enough water to survive. And, we get a circle because of an old geometric truth: Its the shape that encloses the greatest area for a given circumference. If each individual plant is seekinglike the othersto get the maximum water, a circle is the most logical shape for a collection of such plants.

Getzin called this process an example of ecohydrological feedback". The dry circles effectively become water tanks for plants on their circumference, though by inhibiting the growth of plants within. In a real sense, the plants on the circumference have self-organized" to collectively battle dry conditions.

For me, all this is a lot towellabsorb and comprehend. But never mind. As with pretty much every scientific theory ever proposed, this one has been challengedin Australia, at any rateand in a way thats fascinating in its own right.

In 2016, fairy circles were also found in Western Australia. Are they also a result of Getzins self-organization" process? Well, a team of Australian researchers have other ideas. They make the case that these regularly spaced, bare and hard circles in grasslands are pavement nests occupied by Drepanotermes harvester termites. These circles [are] called linyji [in an aboriginal language]." (First Peoples knowledge leads scientists to reveal fairy circles and termite linyji are linked in Australia, Fiona Walsh et. al, Nature, 3 April 2023, https://t.ly/1HI2t).

Drawing on Aboriginal (First People) art and customs, the paper makes a compelling case for this pavement (meaning close to the surface) termite-nest theory.

For one, there is plenty of Aboriginal art that shows regularly spaced termite nests, and the paper actually puts some of it side-by-side with images of the circles, for comparison.

For another, termites were and remain crucial to Aboriginal lives. They are an important food source, they are revered, and Aborigines used pavement nests as surfaces to thresh seed and process other materials".

Aborigines are clear that the bare circles are occupied by termites". Besides, the soil under the circles is denser than the surrounds. This means that after any rain, water tends to stay on the surface longer in a fairy circle than outsideand so these circles become water sources.

Theres much more. I doubt we have heard the final word on fairy circles. For now, Im just delighted that efforts to understand them have drawn on termites, Aboriginal art and Alan Turing.

Once a computer scientist, Dilip DSouza now lives in Mumbai and writes for his dinners. His Twitter handle is @DeathEndsFun.

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WASHINGTONPresident Biden reiterated his staunch support for Israel in the wake of attacks by Hamas militants during a visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

But back in the U.S., hes faced criticism from progressives, Muslims and Arab-Americans, who say his sympathy for lost Palestinian lives and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is too little too late.

Ill vote for him. But Ive spent 45 years of my life building credibility with my community, and I cant go to them and ask them, at this point, to support him," said James Zogby, the founder of the Arab American Institute and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee.

While in Israel, Biden said the U.S. would back its longtime ally in its war with Hamas amid attacks that have killed more than 1,400 Israelis. Biden also mourned the loss of Palestinian lives and announced $100 million in U.S. humanitarian aid to Gazaafter making references to Palestinians in prior speeches that mostly drew a distinction between civilians and Hamas amid the conflict.

By the time of Bidens visit, more than 3,000 people, including at least 700 children, had already been killed in Gaza. A total siege by Israel, which cut off supplies of water, fuel and food to the enclave, had triggered a humanitarian crisis that the United Nations and other aid groups said had pushed Gaza to the brink of collapse. About 600,000 people had fled northern Gaza for the south, but still lacked critical supplies.

A deadly blast at a Gaza hospital has heightened tensions, sparking protests in cities across the Middle East. Israel, the U.S. government and independent security experts have cast doubt on Palestinian claims that an Israeli airstrike was responsible for it, saying early evidence pointed to a local militant group.

Biden has urged Israel to uphold the rules of war" and aides say the president and other U.S. officials have encouraged their counterparts in private to show restraint. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to several countries in the region to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which Biden identified as a priority last week. In a televised interview Sunday, Bidens national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, called for safe places for civilians that will not be subject to military bombardment" and where there would be access to food, water, medicine and shelter.

In Tel Aviv, Biden went a step further and publicly cautioned Israel against making the same mistakes the U.S. did after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by allowing itself to be consumed" by rage.

But Biden, a longtime supporter of Israel, has broadly placed the blame for Palestinian casualties on Hamas for embedding its fighters and facilities among civilians and declined to criticize any of Israels tactics. Some international aid groups have rejected the Israeli governments claim that it is taking steps to minimize civilian casualties, citing airstrikes that have leveled apartment complexes and shelling that struck a U.N. school serving as a shelter.

Progressive Democrats have criticized Bidens response and implored his administration to do more, while a group of progressive lawmakers on Monday drafted a resolution calling for a cease-fire and participated in a rally at the national mall Wednesday.

It would be a serious mistake for the president and this administration to think that the Arab-American and Muslim communitys support will be unlimited if he decides to make the cornerstone of his Middle East policy a giant green light for Israel to do what it may to the people of Gaza who are suffering under immense inhumanity," Abbas Alawieh, a progressive Democratic strategist who is originally from Dearborn, Mich., home to a large Muslim population.

Although several recent polls show strong support for Israel overall, Democratic sympathies in the Middle East have been shifting to Palestinians over the years. In a Gallup poll released earlier this year, before the Hamas attacks, 49% of Democrats said they were more sympathetic to Palestiniansthe highest point in more than two decades. The same survey found a generational divide, with millennials much more supportive of Palestine than older generations.

Young voters played a key role in Bidens winning the presidency in 2020 and in Democrats better-than-expected performance in the midterms. Zogbys group estimates that Arab-Americans can make up 5% of the votes in Michigan and roughly 2% in Pennsylvaniatwo swing states where presidential elections are often decided by a narrow margin.

Polls conducted in recent days show Democrats and younger Americans continue to be more sympathetic toward Palestinians. A CNN poll released Sunday found a gap between the 49% of Democrats who have a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian people and the 26% of Republicans who say the same. Republicans and older Americans were also much likelier than younger ones to say Israels military response was fully justified.

Vice President Kamala Harris faced some frustration from college students on the administrations handling of the Middle East conflict during a visit to Northern Arizona University on Tuesday. A student characterized the policy as inhumane" toward Palestinians in Gaza to loud cheers and another shouted, Stop making bombs."

Harris said she was deeply affected" by the loss of life and violence in the region and urged people not to conflate Palestinian civilians with Hamas.

Following more yelling from the students, Harris added: Im not here to tell these young voters what they want. Im here to listen. And that is why I appreciate a candid dialogue."

The fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy in Illinois, which authorities say was a hate crime motivated by the childs Muslim faith and fueled by the Israel-Hamas war, further angered groups in the U.S. who fear a spike in anti-Muslim violence.

White House spokeswoman Robyn Patterson said the president has made clear that standing up against Islamophobia is essential to who we are as a country."

President Biden and Vice President Harris have been unequivocal: There is no place for hate in Americanot against Muslims, not against Arab-Americans, not against Jewsnot against anyone," Patterson said.

Biden condemned the killing in a written statement that denounced Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred," but some felt those words were insufficient and overdue.

Dilawar Syed, the highest-ranking Muslim official in the Biden administration, was booed when he conveyed Bidens message at a vigil for the boy in Plainfield, Ill.

Im hearing from a lot of folks in the community who did not feel like the president began any kind of substantive rhetoric that turns the temperature down, rhetoric that addresses the very real violence that comes from Islamophobia," Alawieh said.

Write to Sabrina Siddiqui at sabrina.siddiqui@wsj.com and Tarini Parti at tarini.parti@wsj.com
On Tuesday, the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal put out alerts saying a blast at a Gaza hospital was caused by an Israeli airstrike, killing more than 500 people, citing Palestinian officials.

It soon became clear the story wasnt going to end there. Israel denied it was responsible. Over the hours, headlines were tweaked, new alerts went out, and by Wednesday, both news organizations were reporting that Israel and the U.S. government said evidence suggested the blast was caused by a Palestinian group.

Reporting during wartime is always challengingfrom managing physical-safety risks to sorting through disinformation. The confusion in newsrooms over the blast at the Gaza hospital, which journalists couldnt access, was a prime example of the challengeas a sensitive story line took dramatic turns with new facts coming to light.

During any breaking news event, we report what we know as we learn it," a Times spokesman said. And as the facts on the ground become more clear, we continue reporting. Our extensive and continued reporting on the hospital in Gaza makes explicit the murkiness surrounding the events there."

A spokeswoman for the Journal had no comment on the Gaza hospital blast coverage.

Other major news organizations also attributed the blast to an Israeli airstrike in their initial reporting, citing Palestinian officials. It is difficult for news organizations to verify information in a war zone, including claims made by combatants about the damage theyve suffered or inflicted.

Washington Post International Editor Douglas Jehl said the Post has been cautious regarding assertions from sources on either side of the war, due in part to the extraordinary velocity of the story.

We take steps to remind our reporters that the first reports in a war are often wrong, and we need to take a pause to make sure were not jumping to conclusions," he said.

Jehl also said the ease with which misinformation can be spread on social media and the rise of artificial intelligence that can create realistic-looking footage have made fact-checking even more challenging.

The Post is leaning heavily on a visual forensics team to validate videos and other information, Jehl said. Were very aware of disinformation and manipulated images from AI."

Bill Grueskin, a professor at Columbia Journalism School and a former Journal editor, said one challenge that news organizations face is the lack of resources on the ground in Gaza, where the hospital was hit.

Imagine if someone was on the ground an hour after the blast, shooting live video, someone from a credible news source," he said. That would have had a lot of power."

Grueskin said explainers and so-called how we know what we know" sidebars can be used to explain the reporting process to readers and build trust.

Getting the facts straight isnt the only challenge. News organizations are paying close attention to their language in describing the conflict and the parties involved, mindful that many readers and viewers are sensitive about how the war is portrayed.

At the New York Times, internal guidelines created parameters for language like terrorists," a term that often should be used when referring to the attackers who stormed into Israel to kill and kidnap civilians," according to a staff memo sent by International Managing Editor Gregory Winter on Oct. 11. Other descriptors like gunmen" can also be used at times, while language such as militants" and fighters" should be avoided, according to the memo.

Militants" is confusing for many readers, the memo said. Is it stand-in for terrorist or is [it] an attempt at a more neutral word that takes on some additional meaning beyond terrorist?"

Also on Oct. 11, the Post told staff it was now calling the conflict the Israel-Gaza war" rather than the Israel-Hamas war, according to a message reviewed by the Journal.

Hamass initial coordinated cross-border attack on Israeli civilians can be described as terrorism," according to the Post guidelines. But the Post advised that terrorism" or terrorist" should come with attribution.

In any conflict, its a time thats important to remind people of standards and usage," said Jehl. Its particularly important in this case because its such a polarized conflict in which the words are so hotly debated."

Hamas in particular is a complicated organization to describe, according to senior news employees. A CNN employee said it is complex to find the right words to describe Hamas, and many other aspects of the conflict.

The Journal doesnt refer to Hamas as a terrorist group in its own voice, but says the U.S. characterizes the organization that way. A note to senior editors clarified that and other aspects of war coverage.

The Journal spokeswoman said the Journal refers to the Oct. 7 attacks on the kibbutzim and the rave as terrorist attacks in its reporting.

Some journalists are frustrated about how their outlets have covered the war.

After the Washington Post published a story about the Gaza hospital blast titled Hundreds feared killed in strike on Gaza hospital, Palestinian authorities say," Laura Wagner, who covers media for the Post, wrote the following post on X: There is no good reason for a headline to say hundreds feared dead in strike on hospital instead of Israeli strike on hospital kills hundreds. This selective passive voice is not only weirdly stilted, it obscures the reality of whats happening."

The post has since been deleted. The Washington Post referred comment to Wagner.

My original intention was to call out headlines across coverage, and I ultimately deleted my tweets so they wouldnt be interpreted as direct reference to our own coverage, which they were not intended to be," Wagner said in a statement. I respect the diligent work of my colleagues across the newsroom."

At the onset of the war, several staffers at the New York Times complained internally about the framing of some of the coverage of the conflict in Israel and Gaza, according to a person familiar with the matter. Some employees were particularly wary of language that in their view aligns the Palestinian people with Hamas, such as Palestinian gunmen," the person said.

At the Journal, some staffers objected to the newsrooms use of the word militant" instead of terrorist" to describe Hamas, according to employees.

Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com
The Ministry of Home Affairs granted permission to Ayodhya Ram temple to receive foreign donations. Criticising the decision, the Indian National Congress hit out at the BJP and accused the party of being hypocrite".

Hypocrisy at its best! Remember, when Kerala went through deadly floods and wanted funds for reconstruction, Modi govt denied us permission to receive foreign funds! The govt did the same to NGOs that work on humanitarian causes," wrote Kerala Congress on X.

The Kerala division of the party also targeted the PM for blatantly giving FCRA permission to a temple."

No sense of pride or atmanirbhar for Ram temple? Why, Modiji?," said the party in its X post.

The accusations by the Kerala division of the Congress party came after the Ministry of Home affairs (MHA) paved way for people from across the world to send donations for the construction of Ayodhya Ram temple. The ministry approved Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra to receive contributions from foreign sources for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, its general secretary Champat Rai said on Wednesday.

"The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra has been approved by the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, to receive voluntary contributions under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act 2010," he said in a post on X.
The scenes looped on news channels all night: ambulances, bodies, an explosion lighting the night sky. Hamas blamed Israel for the blast at Gazas al-Ahli hospital on October 17th, which killed hundreds of people. Israel later denied that it was carrying out air strikes in the area; the explosion, it said, was caused by a misfired rocket launched by Islamic Jihad, another militant group in Gaza . By the time Israel issued its denial, though, details had ceased to matter. The catastrophe had sparked protests in the West Bank and Jordan, and as far away as Tunisia. That was the maelstrom into which Joe Biden flew when he arrived in Israel on October 18th for a quick visit.

It is hard to generalise about the Arab world", a collection of 450m people spread across thousands of kilometres and nearly two dozen countries. But it is safe to say that most Arabs still sympathise with the Palestinian cause. Their dispossession remains a totemic political issue across the Middle East, able to mobilise popular anger and protest like little else.

The war between Israel and Hamas, now in its 12th day, has been no different. Covered around the clock on television, discussed endlessly on social media, it has sparked an outpouring of support for Palestinians. Still, compared with past conflicts, like the 50-day war in Gaza in 2014, a few things look different.

One is geopolitics. Since 2020 four Arab statesBahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)have established relations with Israel, which previously had ties with just two (Egypt and Jordan). Saudi Arabia has been in talks to do the same. That has changed the way some Arab media outlets cover the conflict.

Al Jazeera, the Qatari broadcaster, has given ample time to Hamas, which is supported by Qatar. Meanwhile, channels run by Saudi Arabia and the UAE have tried to walk a tightrope. Though they cover scenes of devastation in Gaza, they do not book Hamas officials for interviews (Arabic-speaking Israeli Jews are frequent guests, though). There have been heated debates in newsrooms over language: where once they might have used the phrase jaish al-ihtilal (occupation army"), for example, today they just refer to it as the Israeli army.

A second difference is fear of a broader conflict. The 2014 war was limited to the holy land. It may not stay there this timeand that has complicated the discussion, at least in those countries close to Israel. Take Egypt. America and several Arab countries are urging it to open Rafah, the sole border crossing with Gaza not controlled by Israel, to allow civilians to escape the fighting.

But a broad swath of Egyptian society is adamant that their country should resist such pressure. Why did you impose this war on me?" asked Ibrahim Eissa, a pro-government talk-show host, in a message directed at Hamas. You want me to risk 100m Egyptians for your sake?" Other pundits have made similar remarks. One could dismiss them as mere mouthpieces for the regimebut their words have been widely echoed by the public.

The discourse is similar in Lebanon, which is four years into one of the worst economic crises in modern history. Many Lebanese are worried that Hizbullah, the powerful Shia militia and political party, will open a second front against Israel, thus dragging their country into another ruinous war like the one in 2006. Dont enter us into this hell," wrote Dima Sadek, a well-known journalist who is both deeply supportive of the Palestinians and deeply critical of Hizbullah.

That points to a third shift: the region is more polarised today. Many Syrians, in particular, are appalled by the scenes in Gaza, where Israels siege warfare reminds them of the tactics deployed by Bashar al-Assad. But they are simultaneously loth to cheer for Hamas, a group backed by Iran, which did so much to destroy their country. And they fume at commentators across the Arab world who abhor Israeli atrocities but cheered Mr Assads. In Lebanon, too, some people are focused on the wider politics: whatever their views of Israel, they hope Iran (and thus Hizbullah) will emerge weakened.

In off-the-record conversations over the past 12 days, some Arab officials have spoken about Hamas and Gaza in the sort of language one would expect to hear from right-wing Israelis. They harbour no sympathy for an Islamist group backed by Iran. But they dare not repeat such remarks in public.

The disconnect between palace and public helps explain why Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, received a frosty reception on his recent round of shuttle diplomacy. First it was Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, who kept Mr Blinken and his entourage waiting hours for a planned Saturday-night meeting (the prince did not receive them until the next morning).

It is not unusual for Prince Muhammad, a night owl with an erratic schedule, to leave guests to cool their heels. That he did it to such a high-profile visitor, though, was seen as a pointed message. Then, after landing in Cairo, Mr Blinken was subjected to an unusual public lecture by Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian president, who lamented the plight of the Palestinians.

Mr Biden will not even receive that chilly welcome. He had been scheduled to fly to Jordan after Israel, where he was to meet King Abdullah; Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president; and Mr Sisi. But Mr Abbas backed out shortly after the hospital blast, and then Jordan announced that the whole summit was off. Whatever Mr Biden had hoped to say to Arab leaders, they are in no mood to hear it.

Yet behind the public posturing lies deep unease. Since October 7th many analysts have drawn parallels with the Yom Kippur war, the last time Israel experienced such a calamitous intelligence failure. But there is also a profound contrast with that moment.

In 1973 Arab states were able to launch a war that seemed, to Israel, an existential threat. Historians have argued ever since about whether that was true. But it felt that way at the timeenough so that Moshe Dayan, the defence minister, is said to have mooted the use of nuclear weapons. Half a century later, Israel was dragged to war by a militant group, and the region now faces the prospect of a broader conflict waged by other non-state actors supported by non-Arab Iran.

As for Arab states, they are nervous onlookers. Najib Mikati, the Lebanese prime minister, was blunt about the possibility of war in Lebanon: These decisions are not in my hands," he told al-Jadeed, a local television network. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan fear fallout from the war will destabilise their own brittle regimes. Gulf states are nervous about antagonising Iran, lest its proxies lash out at Riyadh or Abu Dhabi. This is not an existential moment for Israelbut some Arab rulers fear it might be for them.
Don Pemberton digs them just a bit quicker.

Instead of using hands and shovels, he climbs into a souped-up, hot-rodded, 850-horsepower machine that digs trenches at 100 feet a minute, five times as fast as a normal machine used by utilities and excavators.

The 67-year-old is the sole operator of the Super Witch, a one-of-a-kind trenching machine that looks and sounds like a large chain saw on wheels. Equipment maker Ditch Witch uses it as a marketing and promotional tool to sell more-practical versions of the machine.

The Super Witch makes appearances at industry trade shows, dealership openings, parades and factory tours. When it roars, spectators come running with their phones out to see it do wheelies and rip-up dirt.

It would deafen you if you dont have hearing protection on," said Pemberton.

Pemberton is getting ready to hand over the controls. His coming retirement is causing a lot of stress for Ditch Witch executives. They are having a hard time solving a big hiring problem: how to replace its most famous ditch digger.

Will the Wienermobile of trenching equipment have to be mothballed?

The saga of the retiring Super Witch operator is just one example of the millions of jobs that will need to be filled as baby boomers retire in the years ahead. The median age of a manufacturing worker is 44 and more than a quarter of their workforce is 55 and older.

Ed Malzahn developed the original Ditch Witch trencher in the 1940s at his familys machine shop in Perry, Okla., to help construction workers lay water, electric, gas and sewer lines to single-family homes.

The company boomed as Americas suburbs were developed. In 2019, it was purchased by Toro, the maker of lawn mowers and construction equipment, for around $700 million. More than 1,300 workers make the Ditch Witch and other products at the factory in Perry, which has a population of around 4,500.

The Super Witch was developed by rogue employees during their off hours, according to company lore. The original made its debut in the late 1970s and has been upgraded multiple times, with the Super Witch VII starting service in 2013.

Pemberton himself started at the company in 1978, and has been driving the Super Witch for nearly 40 years. His day job is maintaining the companys fleet of trucks and cars that are used for delivering products and visiting customers. But its the Super Witch gig that has made him a trenching celebrityand a face of the companys brand. Pemberton accompanies the Super Witch wherever it goes and people call him directly to schedule shows.

He has missed many family gatherings, especially in the busy spring and fall seasons. My wife always enjoys it," he joked. One year, Pemberton arrived at a location about 20 hours away from home, only to discover that his sons high school graduation was imminent. He ditched the Witch and hopped onto a plane, making it back about 30 minutes before the ceremony.

Executives are trying to figure out how to formalize a job that grew over the decades based on the experience and tendencies of one star employee. Is it a full-time job or just 20% of someones time? Should there be two operators? Who can take a few weeks off to perform at trade shows and dealership openings around the country?

Potential candidates have taken the Super Witch for test rides around the companys Perry campus. Many have struggled to learn how to run the oversize machine, which can be dangerous to spectators if the operator loses control.

It was like a bucking bronco," said Jeff Smith, a 51-year-old contender for the job.

Dons own 36-year-old son, who was being groomed for the role, turned down the position.

I had planned on him taking over," said Pemberton. Hes not going to do it. Id have to babysit and run his cows."

In addition to its succession planning, Ditch Witch is trying to come up with more ways of spreading Super Witch lore beyond Perry, where kids have been known to dress up as Super Witch operators for Halloween and a model-toy version made years ago has become a collectors item.

One possibility is to have a colorful trailer that both transports the Super Witch and then converts into a storefront with swag, just like at Nascar races. Everyone within 50 miles of this place knows about this," said Sean Hubbard, the marketing communications manager. We are trying to get it on a bigger scale, think Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade."

The company launched a virtual-reality game this year to attract the next generation of operators. Players put on headsets and try to drive the hard-to-control Super Witch through floating company logos. 20 points gets you a T-shirt.

At the Utility Expo in Louisville, which drew more than 20,000 construction and utility workers, Pemberton climbed into the 30-year-old Super Witch IV, brought out of retirement to commemorate his last few rides. As the crowd started to gather, he turned it on and revved up the engine. But something sounded off. He canceled the show.

If you hit a rock, you can throw it 30, 40 feet. We try to make sure we arent going to hit a customer standing around," said Pemberton. Ive been on it so long it becomes like riding a bicycle your whole life. You probably take chances you shouldnt take. Itll probably take some time to get comfortable around a crowd in a small area."

It turned out there was rust in the engine that had come loose during transit. The afternoon show was canceled.

After cleaning the gas tank and replacing the filter, he was able to get the machine running again.

Pemberton climbed in the tractor-looking piece of equipment, buckled his seat belt and revved the engine. Heads turned and the crowd swelled. He backed down the dirt embankment it was parked on and started doing wheelies across the fenced-off show grounds, stopping before he hit fences and spectators. After a few minutes, he pulled back into the dirt pile and turned on the trencher.

It ran pretty good. We did pretty good wheelies with it," he said.

Pemberton was wistful about turning over the keys to somebody else, admitting, Its just hard to let go."

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

View Full Image The Worlds Coolest Ditch-Digging Job Is Up for Grabs
A consumer-rights group in the Netherlands sued Amazon on Wednesday over its alleged practice of tracking website visitors online activity, using recently expanded legal provisions allowing class actions.

The lawsuit, filed in a Dutch court by the Stichting Data Bescherming Nederland, or SDBN, said Amazon is violating the European Unions privacy law by monitoring visitors to popular websites through cookies, the pieces of code that identify individual browsers to create targeted advertisements, without their permission.

An EU law that took effect in June requires the blocs 27 member nations to introduce legislation that will make it easier for consumer groups to bring class-action cases against companies. Corporate lawyers are bracing for a wave of similar complaints representing large groups of consumers.

SDBN said the class-action lawsuit represents around five million Amazon account holders residing in the Netherlands. The organization is seeking damages for consumers and a court order to put a stop to Amazons data tracking. The lawsuit partly mirrors a 2021 regulatory penalty that Amazon was issued by Luxembourgs privacy regulator, which fined the company $887 million over its use of personal data for advertising. Amazon is appealing that penalty.

We hope by adding to the pressure, Amazon will at some point realize its too costly to keep doing what its doing," said Anouk Ruhaak, chair of SDBN.

Last month, SDBN sued X, formerly known as Twitter, in a Dutch court. The class-action lawsuit also focuses on consumer data collected to create targeted ads.

An Amazon spokesperson said, We disagree with these claims, and we will defend ourselves through the legal process. Maintaining the privacy and security of our customers information is a top priority and Amazon follows all legal requirements in the countries and regions where we operate."

Ruhaak said the lawsuit is a way to seek redress for consumers because Amazon hasnt changed its practices to correct the violations identified by Luxembourgs privacy regulator two years ago.

Many large companies appeal European privacy fines, which can stretch to sums totaling up to 4% of global revenue, or 20 million, equivalent to around $21.1 millionwhichever is higher. On Tuesday, U.S. software company Clearview AI won an appeal against a $9.1 million fine from Britains privacy watchdog. The regulator issued the fine last year and ordered Clearview AI to delete image data that it collected on U.K. residents and stop scraping data from the internet.

European consumer groups and privacy advocates have raised concerns about the long process of concluding regulatory cases. When a business appeals a regulators penalty, companies can delay making any changes that regulators might demand to improve privacy.

There is a trend toward individuals suing over potential privacy violations, sometimes coming on top of fines from regulators and piling pressure onto companies, said Carlo Piltz, partner at the Berlin-based law firm Piltz Legal.

I strongly expect that we will see more lawsuits by consumer protection groups regarding data protection law violations," he said.

The lawsuit against Amazon alleges the tech giant collects personal data from cookies tracking consumers behavior across different websites as well as on its own platforms. It then sends that information back to the company, which helps it to sell advertising space targeted to individuals.

We want Amazon to stop collecting data in this way and using data in this way. What that means is, basically, dont follow me around," said Ruhaak.European privacy regulators have focused on how large companies use consumers data to create targeted online ads. Irelands data protection regulator fined Meta more than $400 million in January and said it cant use online contracts to justify sending consumers ads tailored to their online activity. Meta is appealing the lawsuit and recently proposed a plan to regulators that would introduce paid subscriptions to Instagram and Facebook for users who dont agree to provide their personal data for ad purposes.

Write to Catherine Stupp at catherine.stupp@wsj.com

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During the 9th edition of the Google for India event, Google unveiled several advancements in its use of AI throughout its products and services. These innovations encompass improving internet experiences, enhancing merchant outreach to customers, collaborating with local partners to enhance people's lives through increased access to credit and many others. Here are the key highlights and updates from the Google for India 2023 event.

More visual and local generative AI Search experience for India

Google introduced its Search Generative Experience (SGE) experiment in India, which offers AI-powered information overviews with features like language toggling and text-to-speech. Now, SGE is enhancing the user experience by incorporating images and videos for visual understanding. This includes visual guides on topics like future plans to aid in exploring local places and activities within cities.

The American tech giant is set to enhance its generative AI experience in Search for users in India by providing easy access to information about over 100 government schemes in English and Hindi. The company is also introducing a new feature on Google Lens that allows users to search for skin conditions visually by uploading a photo, expanding the application of AI-driven search technologies.

Digital credit

Google Pay is contributing to India's digital payment ecosystem. As per Google, By digitizing credit with privacy safeguards, the platform intends to expand the reach of formal credit, catering to a broader audience with lower incomes." They have introduced merchant offerings, including a credit line for merchants in partnership with ePayLater and sachet loans with DMI Finance. On the consumer side, Google Pay is expanding its personal loans portfolio with Axis Bank and enabling credit lines from banks on UPI in collaboration with ICICI Bank. These offerings prioritize data privacy, security, consent, and control.

New tools for small businesses

Google is enhancing the shopping experience on Search to empower small businesses and customers. Users searching for products will now see a more visual feed with filters, product details, prices, and the option to set price drop alerts. Business Messages in shopping on Search will allow users to ask questions about products, while nearby stores with highlighted listings will appear for physical inspection. The new Google Merchant Center Next uses AI to assist small businesses by populating their online feeds with information from their websites, offering insights on top-selling products. These features aim to improve the shopping experience for both buyers and sellers.

AI powered enhanced security

This year Google is emphasizing on online safety and security through innovative measures. Google Play Protect, a built-in security feature, is now enhancing its capabilities, starting with India. It will introduce real-time scanning at the code-level to combat novel malicious apps that may employ AI to evade detection. When users install apps that have not been previously scanned, Google Play Protect will recommend a real-time app scan to detect emerging threats. As per the tech giant, Google remains dedicated to fostering digital security and is committed to protecting users from evolving scams, malware, and fraud."

Google to manufacture Pixel phones in India

Google also announced that it will manufacture Pixel phones in India, beginning with Pixel 8 which will be available in the market in 2024, said Rick Osterloh, head of devices, adding that the company will partner with global manufacturers in India to set up manufacturing.

"It's an early step towards expanding our production here to meet the local demand for pixel devices. And even more importantly, it's a huge step forward in Google's commitment to Make in India," Osterloh said.

He made the announcement in the presence of Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

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The ninth edition of Google for India is scheduled to commence at 11 AM on Thursday. This in-person event will showcase a series of announcements from the tech giant led by Sundar Pichai, specifically tailored for his home country.

Google has stated that they will be unveiling their vision for the upcoming phase of India's internet development. This vision encompasses everything from internet accessibility to achieving success on the internet, all with the support of artificial intelligence.

Where and how to watch live?

The event can be watched on Google India's official YouTube channel, and you can also watch the live broadcast using the embedded player below. Furthermore, the company will offer real-time updates on its X (formerly Twitter) handle.

What to expect?

As per a report by Hindustan Times,a total of nine speakers will be present at the event. Google's event preview showcased an image (refer to the featured picture) of the Chandrayaan-3 mission's Vikram lander and Pragyaan rover. This suggests that there might be an announcement regarding the successful mission or the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the national space agency. Additionally, there will be announcements pertaining to artificial intelligence (AI).

To recall,Google unveiled a couple of innovative features at the 2022 edition of its event, which took place on December 19th of the previous year. The company, headquartered in California, introduced a range of enhancements, including Multi Search with Lens, Bilingual search results, Improved speech recognition for 'Hinglish,' Project Relate, a strategic partnership with the National eGovernance Division (NeGD), upgraded Google Pay features, and much more.

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Foxconn, the worlds largest electronics manufacturer, and Nvidia, a leading chipmaker, have teamed up to build AI factories. These factories will use Nvidias chips and software to develop and produce AI-powered products, such as self-driving cars and smart robots.

The AI factories will be located in multiple countries around the world, including the United States, China, and Taiwan. Foxconn and Nvidia say that they plan to invest billions of dollars in the project.

The construction of the AI factories is a sign of the growing importance of AI in the global economy. AI is already being used in a wide range of industries, from healthcare to manufacturing to transportation. As AI becomes more sophisticated and widely adopted, the demand for AI-powered products is expected to grow significantly.

The AI factories will also create new jobs and opportunities in the countries where they are located. Foxconn and Nvidia say that they plan to hire thousands of employees to work in the factories.

Why are Foxconn and Nvidia building AI factories?

Foxconn and Nvidia are building AI factories for a number of reasons, including:

To meet the growing demand for AI-powered products

To accelerate the development of AI technologies

To create new jobs and opportunities

The AI factories are a sign of the growing importance of AI in the global economy. Various industries, from healthcare to manufacturing to transportation, are already actively using AI. As AI becomes more sophisticated and widely adopted, the demand for AI-powered products is expected to grow significantly.

What does this mean for the future of AI?

The construction of the AI factories is a positive development for the future of AI. It shows that there is a strong commitment to investing in AI technologies. The AI factories will also help to accelerate the development of AI and make AI-powered products more affordable and accessible.

Conclusion

The partnership between Foxconn and Nvidia to build AI factories is a significant development for the global AI industry. The AI factories will help to meet the growing demand for AI-powered products, accelerate the development of AI technologies, and create new jobs and opportunities.
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On Thursday October 19, Pat The Baker celebrates a remarkable milestone.

Baking excellence for 70 years and providing Irish households with delicious, fresh, tasty bread. The well-known tagline So fresh its famous simply speaks for itself.

Pat The Baker started out as a small bakery in 1953, founded by Pat Higgins in Granard. Through the years, the company has grown steadily to become one of Ireland's most respected household brands.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the company expanded its operations, moving to a larger facility in 1977 as well as widening its presence across Ireland, Depots in Dublin and other regions followed.

In 1987, the Granard bakery was modernized, and in 1996, the company relocated to a new purpose built facility in Granard, now the modern corporate headquarters.

The company has earned professional acclaim within the bread industry. For sixteen consecutive years, Pat The Baker was voted Irelands Best Bread by the Master Bakers of Ireland.

Pat The Baker has won numerous prestigious awards, including Irish Association of Master Bakers highest accolade, the Perpetual Challenge Cup for overall success in the associations bi-annual bakery competition and the Londis Retailing Excellence Award for Central Billing Supplier of the Year in 2012.

New product development and Innovation is key to Pat The Bakers success. Innovation remains a critical part of the drive, to support brand development.

The latest product launch in the confectionery line was Milk Chocolate Chip Pancakes. There are more product launches planned in the upcoming New Year.

A significant event in the companys growth occurred in 2015, when Pat The Baker acquired Irish Pride. The combined operations are currently thriving, and this year Irish Pride was ranked no. 17 in the top 20 brands within the FMCG space in Ireland. (Checkout Top 100 Brands 2023)

Pat The Baker places a strong emphasis on community engagement, and takes great pride in the role as committed sponsors of St. Marys GAA Club in Granard. This reflects the ongoing commitment to supporting the local community, which is very important to the brand.

Pat The Baker acknowledges with sincere gratitude its dedicated staff and valued customers for their loyal and committed support throughout the past seven decades.

This support has been instrumental in shaping the brand it is today.

Heres to the next 70 years.

*Sponsored Content
Local News

By Chris Boyle Published: October 19 2023

HIA-LI, Suffolk County IDA, and Workforce Development Institute Release Comprehensive Workforce Blueprint.

A new report spells out a five-part, workforce development strategy that aims to enhance the long-term competitiveness and vibrancy of the Long Island economy. The report was released Friday at an HIA-LI Workforce Development Conference and Scholarship Awards event held at Farmingdale State College.

HIA-LI, one of the recognized voices for Long Island business, joined with the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency and the Workforce Development Institute to commission the publication of Innovating the Talent Pipeline: Strategies for Workforce Development in the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge.

The action strategies contained in the report are designed to help the private sector, government, and educational institutions sharpen their focus on training-related investments that will go furthest in generating sustained returns for Long Island businesses.

The 54-page report includes a strategic analysis of the areas long-term workforce needs as well as an action plan for attracting and retaining a properly skilled workforce within the business park and across the region.

The Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge is the largest industrial park in the Northeast with more than 55,000 employees, 1,300 companies, and an economic output of more than $13 billion. HIA-LI serves as a steward for the park.

The report was written by James Lima Planning + Development, a New York City-based planning, real estate, and economic advisory firm. The company conducted online surveys of 34 Long Island employers between July and September of this year. Survey questions focused on the businesses skill and talent attraction/retention needs. Eighty-eight percent of respondents employ 50 or more people. Three-fifths of the respondents were located in the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge.

Much of the report presents findings specific to the Innovation Park in respect to skill gaps, training resources, and strategies for the attraction and retention of talent. The analysis also aims to align local and regional workforce development efforts with technological market and societal changes.

In addition to evaluating strategies best suited for workforce retention and attraction, the study analyzed three categories of employee skills: technical skills, software skills, and interpersonal skills.

Now more than ever, businesses are recognizing the importance of investing in the skills, knowledge, and adaptability of their workforce, said Terri Alessi-Miceli, President and CEO of HIA-LI. This visionary study spells out a workforce development strategy that can underpin the long-term resilience of the Long Island business sector.

The Suffolk County IDA's role of attracting and retaining new businesses hinges on the ability of our region to produce a workforce that is ready to meet the skill sets required by todays growing industries," said Kelly Murphy, Acting Executive Director of the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency and a member of the HIA-LI board. This survey is extremely impactful as it helps to determine where some of the knowledge and skills gaps exist so they can be addressed. A diverse and talented workforce is what sets our region apart and this study will bolster our position into the future.

Long Islands academic institutions have a critical role to play in nurturing and sustaining the health of our areas businesses, said Dr. Edward Bonahue, President of Suffolk County Community College and a member of the HIA-LI board. Suffolk County Community College is already collaborating with HIA-LI in the area of workforce development, and this report will help all stakeholders magnify our success in this critical area.

This analysis provides valuable insights into the present state of skill training and the challenges related to attracting and retaining workers both at the Innovation Park and across the region, said Carol A. Allen, President and CEO of Peoples Alliance Federal Credit Union and Chairperson of the HIA-LI board. When we maximize the impact of our workforce development initiatives, its a win-win for both employer and employees.

This report reminds us that we can propel sustainable economic growth for Long Island by prioritizing workforce development and by fostering innovations in the way we attract and retain talent, said Rich Humann, President and CEO of H2M architects + engineers and a member of the HIA-LI board. We call upon businesses, government, and academic institutions to look closely at the report's recommendations  and take prompt action to implement them.

Innovating the Talent Pipeline enumerates five recommendations for enhancing Long Islands strategic approach to workforce development:

The reports first recommendation is to mount an island-wide Access and Awareness campaign to engage local employers, training and resource providers, and local community-based organizations. The campaign would promote such programs as adult English classes at local libraries, Suffolk County Labor Department career support, and Farmingdale State Colleges job fairs.

The second recommendation is to strengthen industry-academia partnerships. This initiative would be undertaken by trade associations, employers, schools, and training providers. The program would focus on project-based learning, digital and AI tools, emerging industry processes and materials, and manufacturing sector best practices.

The third recommendation is to make the business case for intra- and cross-sector collaborations. This initiative would be led by business groups, employers, regional interest groups, government agencies, and nonprofit intermediaries. These partners can promote programs involving manufacturing sector best practices, foreign language support, and software training.

The fourth action step is to foster a pathway and culture for learning and advancement. This strategy would promote such programs as mentee/mentor initiatives as well as such branded learning programs as Pryor Business Training, Relias Academy, and KnowledgeWave.
Local News

By Chris Boyle Published: October 18 2023

Legislation Sends Surcharges to Local STOP-DWI Programs to Ensure Communities Have the Resources They Need to Prevent Impaired Driving and Keep NY Roads Safe.

Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation S.2712B/A.4755B to support local STOP-DWI programs by directing two of the mandatory surcharges currently assessed against those committing impaired driving offenses to fund local prevention programs. This law will provide essential resources to support county-level, community led interventions to protect New Yorkers.

As a former County Clerk, I know how critical our local STOP-DWI programs are to protecting our families across the state from impaired driving, Governor Hochul said. Community led interventions are the most effective methods we have, and I am proud to sign this legislation to provide them direct support.

New York State is a nationally recognized leader in traffic safety and combatting impaired driving, establishing the first Special Traffic Options Program for Driving While Impaired (STOP-DWI) program in the nation. Since 1981, STOP-DWI has provided thousands of training and intervention programs in schools and community centers, employing a general deterrence model focused on prevention, incapacitation, reform and changing behavior.

This new law will direct two surcharges assessed as part of impaired driving convictions to the relevant countys STOP-DWI program. Since their inception, STOP-DWI programs have been funded by fines included in sentencing for impaired driving offenses. In recent years, as mandatory surcharges and other fees have been imposed on impaired driving convictions in addition to the base fine, funding for STOP-DWI has gone down by as much as 50 percent in certain counties, imperiling the financial stability of critical programs.

State Senator Tim Kennedy said, "New Yorks STOP-DWI Program has long been the backbone of the States efforts to reduce the incidence of impaired driving, and its success in doing so has been notable. It is imperative that the fiscal integrity of the program be restored and maintained, and this bill, which I was proud to sponsor alongside Assemblymember Lupardo, would ensure that its efforts are prioritized in perpetuity. I thank Governor Hochul for signing this important legislation, and ensuring that this critical program receives the support needed to save lives and continue keeping our roads and communities safe."

Assemblymember Donna Lupardo said, Local STOP-DWI programs are crucial to safe roads and safe communities. Over the years, funding has been diverted from these programs, putting essential services like sobriety checkpoints and driver rehabilitation programs at risk. At the same time, our state faces new challenges, including the opioid crisis and designer drug use. Id like to thank Governor Hochul for signing our legislation into law and for restoring the funding our STOP-DWI programs from across the state need.

Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner and Chair of the Governors Traffic Safety Committee Mark J F. Schroeder said, Raising awareness about the dangers of impaired driving starts at the local level, and the STOP-DWI programs are the boots on the ground in that effort. These programs are taking the message to schools and the community, and bringing those whose lives have been forever changed by impaired driving in front of those charged and convicted of it to show the consequences of their bad actions. I commend Governor Hochul for taking action to give these programs the funding they need to continue this important work.

New York State Association of Counties Executive Director Stephen J. Acquario said, Our members applaud Governor Hochul for signing this law that will direct mandatory surcharges for alcohol and other drug-related traffic offenses to county-administered STOP-DWI Programs. This new law will go a long way to improve the integrity of our STOP-DWI programs, with an expected $6.825 million being redirected from the state general fund to the county efforts to combat and curtail incidents of impaired driving as a result of alcohol and drug use. That was the original purpose of these surcharges.

Erie County District Attorney and District Attorneys Association of the State of New York President John J. Flynn said, New York's STOP-DWI program was the first of its kind in the nation and has served as a model for similar programs across the country. It is widely credited as a significant contributor to New York's success in reducing DWI injuries and fatalities. Thank you to Governor Hochul for signing this legislation that is a logical solution to helping fund this valuable program. Thank you to the bill's sponsors, Senator Tim Kennedy and Assemblymember Donna Lupardo, for prioritizing this issue. Our state is facing increasing challenges related to impaired drivers and the STOP-DWI program needs to be adequately funded to continue its mission in helping to combat alcohol- and drug-related injuries.

President of the New York State Sheriffs Association and Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said, County STOP-DWI programs have prevented many needless deaths and ruined lives, through effective DWI prevention strategies. These programs deserve to be adequately funded, and the Governors action today assures that they will have the resources to continue well into the future. We congratulate the Governor and the sponsors of this legislation upon this important measure being signed into law.
Arts & Culture

By Lon Cohen Published: October 19 2023

We dug into the archives to find this old photo.

In a historic visit to the Sperry Gyroscope facility at Lake Success, Senator Robert Kennedy, accompanied by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, arrived by helicopter.

The eminent guests were warmly welcomed by Nassau County Executive Eugene Nickerson on their arrival. Accompanying the distinguished trio were various prominent figures, with an unidentified news correspondent to the left. U.S. Representative Lester Wolff stood resolutely behind them, flanked by Suffolk County Executive H. Lee Dennison on his right, showcasing the significance of this momentous event.

Creator: Long Island Daily Press from October 13, 1965. See original here.
Crime

By Chris Boyle Published: October 19 2023

Willie Hart Faces 25 Years to Life in Prison if Convicted.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced the indictment of Willie Hart, 59, of Yaphank, accused of Murder in the Second Degree for allegedly murdering his girlfriend Candace Woodruff, 37, of Texas.

The alleged actions of this defendant were not only cowardly, but they were also callous and reprehensible, said District Attorney Tierney. We will pursue this case vigorously to ensure the defendant is held responsible for his actions and, hopefully, the victim and her family receives a small measure of justice.

According to the investigation, on May 29, 2023, at approximately 2:25 a.m., Hart, a long-haul trucker, called police and claimed that he had discovered his girlfriend, Candace Woodruff, unresponsive on the floor of his tractor cab, which was parked near the Shore Motor Inn in Patchogue. When police arrived at the scene, they saw Woodruff on the ground in front of the tractor cab, and not breathing. Police observed and photographed multiple injuries to the defendants face, which at the time, were actively bleeding.

Police and medical staff then observed injuries to Woodruffs body including facial and neck abrasions, neck soft tissue hemorrhage, head and neck contusions, and minor contusions and abrasions to her extremities. Woodruff was transported to Long Island Community Hospital, where she was pronounced deceased.

The Suffolk County Medical Examiner determined Woodruffs cause of death was asphyxia by neck compression. The investigation revealed that when Woodruff left the motel room and headed to the tractor cab, she did not have visible injuries.

A witness account revealed that Woodruff left her motel room at approximately 1:25 a.m., crying, after an alleged argument with Hart. Woodruff was seen leaving her motel room at 1:25 a.m., with several bags, and entering the tractor cab parked in the vicinity of the motel. Hart was allegedly seen watching Woodruff heading in the direction of the trailer cab. Approximately nine minutes later, Hart is seen leaving the motel room to the trailer cab and entering it. Hart allegedly remained in the trailer with Woodruff for approximately 37 minutes during which time what appears to be a struggle between the two is captured on video surveillance.

After exiting the cab, Hart allegedly sat outside the trailer, and casually walked back to the motel room, where he retrieved a bag, placed the bag in a car, and returned to the trailer cab, all before calling 911. Evidence processing of the trailer cab revealed evidence of an alleged struggle. The cabin was covered front to back with Ramen noodles, which were also recovered from Woodruffs mouth, and jewelry consistent with that worn by Woodruff and Hart was recovered from the floor of the cab. Hart was also allegedly seen returning from the cab, after the struggle, in a disheveled state, with blood on his face.

On October 16, 2023, Hart was arraigned on the indictment by Supreme Court Justice, the Honorable Richard Ambro, for one count of Murder in the Second Degree, a Class A violent felony. Justice Ambro remanded Hart into custody during the pendency of the case. He is due back in court on November 15, 2023, and faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted of the top charge. Hart is being represented by Christopher Brocato, Esq.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Sheetal Shetty of the Homicide Bureau, with investigative assistance from Detective Richard Jones of the Homicide Squad.
Crime

By Chris Boyle Published: October 19 2023

Ramon Lyons is Expected to Be Sentenced to 12 Years to Life in Prison.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced that Ramon Lyons, 16, of Huntington Station pleaded guilty to Murder in the Second Degree for fatally shooting 21-year-old Luis Cameron Rimmer-Hernandez in 2021.

Unfortunately, the unintended effect of New Yorks 2018 Raise the Age law is an increase in shootings and violent crimes committed by young offenders, such as this defendant, who was only 14 years old when he took the victims life, said District Attorney Tierney. Gangs are increasingly using younger members to carry weapons and commit shootings because they know that these offenders will face lesser consequences. The murder of Cam was a direct consequence of this misguided Raise the Age law. My heart goes out to him and his family.

According to court documents and the defendants statements during his plea allocution, on August 9, 2021, Luis Cameron Rimmer-Hernandez drove up to a location on Lowndes Avenue in Huntington Station to meet up with some friends. As Rimmer-Hernandez stood there, Lyons, then 14, ran up to him and fired approximately seven shots from a 9 mm handgun. Rimmer-Hernandez was struck multiple times in the chest and arm. Lyons was then observed fleeing the location and ultimately running back into his apartment, less than half a mile away. The defendant was tracked through surveillance video and made admissions to the homicide on social media.

On October 18, 2023, Lyons pleaded guilty to Murder in the Second Degree, a Class A violent felony before Acting Supreme Court Justice, the Honorable Karen Kerr. Lyons is expected to be sentenced to 12 years to life in prison. He is due back in court for sentencing on November 13, 2023. He is being represented by Matt Tuohy, Esq.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Frank Schroeder and Sheetal Shetty of the Homicide Bureau with investigative assistance from Detective Michael Ronca of the Suffolk County Police Departments Homicide Squad.
A missile explodes in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike on October 8, 2023. (Getty Images)

The Hamas terrorist group shocked Israel by carrying out a coordinated assault unlike anything the world has seen since Lashkar-e-Taibas terror assault on Mumbai in 2007 or al-Qaedas attack on 9/11. How Israel missed the signs of this attack will be illuminated in the months ahead. But what is missing in this discussion is something more elemental. An attack of this magnitude would not have been possible if Hamas was not afforded a safe haven.

Israel has actually granted the terrorist group a haven in the Gaza Strip for more than 16 years. Indeed, Hamas came to power by force in the 2007 Palestinian civil war during which the group ousted the Palestinian Authority from the coastal enclave. Since then, the organization has been granted the time and space to prepare for multiple rounds of conflict with Israel (2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021). It has been able to build its arsenal thanks to support from state sponsors of terror such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, not to mention Turkey and Qatar. But the key to the groups ability to plan, train its forces, and execute the 10/7 attack with precision was its safe haven.

The importance of safe havens for terrorist groups is by now well documented. It was the subject of much analysis during the war on terror. After al-Qaedas devastating attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, the 9/11 Commission was tasked to determine how al-Qaeda was able to execute such a deadly attack. Safe haven was identified as one of the key factors in the terror groups success. In fact, in April of 2001, just six months after the USS Cole bombing, the CIA warned that al-Qaedas leadership, experience, resources, safe haven in Afghanistan, [and] focus on attacking [the] U.S would lead to more attacks. Four months later, al-Qaeda launched the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil in history.

The 9/11 Commission concluded in its final report published in 2004 that Terrorists should no longer find safe haven where their organizations can grow and flourish.

Yet in 2005, one year after the warnings of the 9/11 Commission, Israel took a fateful step in the wrong direction. Under duress from the George W. Bush administration, Israel agreed to withdraw Israeli forces unilaterally out of the Gaza Strip. This left a vacuum in Gaza for the better part of two years. The Palestinian Authority was able to cling to power for a while.

But after the elections of 2006, also imposed upon the region by the Bush administration, Gaza became a tinderbox. Hamas had won the elections, and the group was angered by the efforts mounted to deny their right to forge a government. Of course, there was no way that Israel, the United States, or even the Palestinian Authority would be willing to let the group designated by the U.S. government in 1997 as a Foreign Terrorist Organization take over. But this logic mattered little to Hamas. Within a year, it overran the Gaza Strip by force in a brutal internecine conflict.

In the four wars that followed against Israel, Hamas demonstrated repeatedly the importance of its safe haven. Hamas fired rockets that it was able to build or stockpile during periods of calm. It dug tunnels that enabled the group to both attack Israelis and smuggle money, goods, and weapons. It developed drone capabilities. It trained frogmen. And more.

When war erupted, Israel responded with judicious force, careful not to impact the 2.2 million people suffering under Hamas rule. Nonetheless, the Israelis were excoriated by their critics for responding at all. For this reason and others, Israel elected, time and again, to end each round of conflict with Hamas still firmly in power.

However, each successive war with the Hamas terrorists became more costly. Every rocket Israel shot out of the sky cost the Israelis $50,000. The Iron Dome defense system stopped more than 90% of them at great cost. And rockets occasionally slipped through, causing damage and fear. But the efficacy of Iron Dome gave Israel a false sense of security, and it also gave Israelis a sense that it did not need to respond with the full force of its militaries.

Reinforcing this notion was the government of the United States, which repeatedly told the Israelis to restrain themselves against Hamas. Erroneous criticism rang out across the American media, college campuses, and in the halls of Congress that Israel was wielding disproportionate force in the response it mounted against a weaker non-state actor. Special attention was also given to the population that suffered as a result of these sporadic battles.

The cost of allowing Hamas to operate inside its safe haven for years has finally come due. Israel paid a horrible price, with more than 1,300 slaughtered. Its now clear that a war is on the horizon. This will be a war waged by Israel to dislodge and dismantle Hamas. It could be painful, but it is one that the United States must support. Its time to stand aside and let our ally neutralize the safe haven on its border that should have been taken care of years ago.

Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Bill Roggio is a senior fellow and the editor of FDDs 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.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recovered Iranian-produced weapons used by Hamas inside Israel during the Oct. 7 terror attack. While many of the weapons used in the attack were manufactured in Gaza, the recovery of Iranian-made AZ111 mortar round fuses and M112 demolition charges provides evidence that weapons produced in Iran were also used by Hamas to attack Israeli civilians.

The IDF seized 60mm mortar rounds with AZ111-A2 fuses that were brought by Hamas fighters into Israel during the Oct. 7 attack, which along with the subsequent attacks has claimed the lives of at least 1,400 Israelis. Mortars are a short-range indirect fire weapon that could be used to attack a wide range of targets, from border outposts to civilian homes.

Source: Israel Defense Forces

The AZ111 fuse, including both the A1 and A2 variants, is produced by Iran. The AZ111 is a close copy of the German DM-111. Following the October 7 attack, the IDF displayed an AZ111 fuse to a CNN reporting team, along with many other seized weapons from the attack. A May 2011 United Nations (UN) Panel of Experts report states that the AZ111-A2 fuse is in the catalogue of the Defense Industries Organization, an Iranian weapons manufacturer that is affiliated with the Iranian Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics. Additionally, AZ111 fuses appear to have been displayed at an Iranian weapons exposition in 2019. AZ111 fuses have been found in maritime seizures of vessels smuggling Iranian weapons to its terror proxies, including the 2009 MV Francop and 2011 Victoria interdictions.

Source: Israel Defense Forces

The IDF also seized M112 demolition charges used by Hamas during the October 7 terror attack. These charges create explosions to penetrate fortifications and buildings. The M112 charges recovered can be formed into any shape or size, making the explosive highly versatile. It is likely that Hamas terrorists used these demolition charges on Oct. 7 to penetrate Israeli homes and bomb shelters with the goal of killing the civilians inside.

The explosives recovered are identical to the Iranian-manufactured M112 charges intercepted during multiple U.S.-Yemen and U.S.-Bahrain Coast Guard counter-smuggling operations conducted between 2013 and 2018. A major interdiction connecting M112 charges to Iran was the Jihan 1 Dhow in 2013, which was headed from Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen.

A 2013 UN Panel of Experts report determined that all available information places the Islamic Republic of Iran at the centre of the Jihan operation and [the panel] identified similarities among some of the arms, as well as their packaging, with previously reported cases of arms shipments inspected by the Panel and found to have originated in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since the Jihan interdiction, several seizures of M112 blocks have been connected to Iranian manufacturing and smuggling operations to Irans terror proxies in Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Gaza.

Admittedly, Hamas use of the Iranian-produced mortar fuses and demolition charges on Oct. 7 does not prove that Iran smuggled them to Hamas, as weapons often change hands many times before they are used. The pattern of Iranian weapons smuggling, however, suggests that it is highly likely Iran smuggled the fuses and demolition charges to Gaza in addition to producing them.

Indeed, Iran smuggles weapons to Gaza through tunnels in the Sinai Peninsula and by sea. Egyptian and Israeli forces have only been able to partially stem the flow of weapons to Hamas. In fact, Hamas thanked Iran for supplying military support during the terror groups war with Israel in May 2021. Iran also arms Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a host of other Iranian terror proxies on Israels borders.

Hamas has received funding, weapons, and training from Iran, according to the Department of States Country Reports on Terrorism 2021. Hamas use of Iranian-produced AZ111-A2 60mm mortar fuses and M112 demolition charges in the Oct. 7 attack provides additional evidence that terror groups such as Hamas continue to use Iranian weapons to attack Israelis.

Ryan Brobst is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP), where Bradley Bowman serves as senior director. Mike Daum is a research analyst at CMPP.

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.
Iran-backed Shia militias have targeted two U.S. bases in Iraq as the war between Israel and Hamas escalates. The attacks took place as Hezbollah Brigades, a dangerous Iranian proxy, threatened U.S. forces in Iraq with the fire of Hell if America did not withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Both attack on U.S. forces in Iraq took place on Oct. 17. The U.S. military said it repelled both attacks and no casualties were reported, according to Reuters.

An obscure Shia militia known as Tashkil al-Waritheen claimed credit for a failed drone attack on the Harir Airbase in Erbil Province in northern Iraq.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups backed by Iran and affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claimed credit for the other failed drone attack at the Ain Al Asad Airbase in Anbar Province in western Iraq, according to Rudaw. The Islamic Resistance is a euphemism used by Iranian-backed groups to refer to each other, including groups outside of Iraq, such as Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas.

Over the past several years, Iran-backed Shia terror groups have launched sporadic attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria. However, the threat level has increased since Hamas brutal attack on southern Israel that killed more than 1,300 Israelis and foreigners.

Several Shia militias have issued direct threats to U.S. interests in Iraq and across the Middle East since Oct. 7. The Badr Organization, Hezbollah Brigades, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, are not only powerful and influential militias that are backed by Iran, they make up the backbone of Iraqs Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). Other groups such as Asaib Ahl al Haq, Saraya Khorasani, Harakat al Nujaba, and Kataib Imam Ali, have yet to weigh in.

Hezbollah Brigades issued a new threat against U.S. forces in Iraq on Oct. 17. The group blamed the fighting in Gaza on American-backed criminal Zionism and warned that these evil people [Americans] must leave the country. Otherwise, they will taste the fire of Hell in this world before the afterlife.

Indeed, We have prepared for the wrongdoers a fire, the statement concluded.

Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) established the PMUs to be analogs to Lebanese Hezbollah. One PMU leader wishes to model the organization after the IRGC. Akram al Kaabi, the leader of the powerful Harakat al Nujaba, has sworn to follow the orders of Irans supreme leader and said he would overthrow the Iraqi government if instructed to do so.

The Iraqi Shia terror groups have a long history of attacking U.S. forces with great affect. More 600 American troops were killed by Iran and Hezbollah-backed and trained Shia militias in ambushes, IED and EFP attacks. The Shia militias were then recruited by the Iraqi government to fight the Islamic State as it rampaged across Iraq. The Iraqi Shia militias also fought against the Islamic State and anti-Assad regime forces in Syria.

It remains to be seen if these Iraqi militias militias will enter the fray against Israel in southern Syria and Lebanon. This battle-hardened force can serve as a force multiplier and strategic reserve for the so-called Islamic Resistance.

Joe Truzman is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal focused primarily on Palestinian militant groups and Hezbollah. 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.
A U.S. warship intercepted three missiles over the Red Sea that were fired from Yemen by the Iran-Backed Houthis today. The Houthis have threatened to attack both the U.S. and Israel as the latter retaliates against Hamas for its deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.

The USS Carney, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer that is patrolling the Red Sea, intercepted three missiles fired from Yemen, Pentagon Spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said.

They were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel, Ryder stated. The missiles were not fired at the USS Carney, but at Israel, Ryder concluded.

The U.S. military has intercepted missiles fired by the Houthis in the recent past. In January 2022, the Houthis fired several missiles at the United Arab Emirates. The missles were intercepted over Abu Dhabi by U.S. Patriot missile batteries. More than 2,000 U.S. troops are stationed at the Al-Dhafra Air Base.

The Houthis have threatened to attack Israel and the U.S.

Just days after Hamas assault on Israel, the Houthis threatened to target both Israel and the U.S. Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemens Houthi movement, which controls large swathes of the country, said Hamas attack is a Palestinian decision that has full legitimacy, and the enemy and its allies were surprised by it.

The Yemeni people are thus ready to do everything they can to perform the sacred duty of standing with the Palestinian people, al-Houthi continued Our people are ready to move in the hundreds of thousands to join the Palestinian people and confront the enemy.

Al-Houthi also said that he is maintaining a red-line for this conflict. One such red line would be if the Americans intervene directly and militarily, then we are ready to participate even with missiles and drones.

Iran supports a number of Shia militias in the region, including the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and a host of Iraqi and Syrian militias such as Asaib Ahl al Haq, Hezbollah Brigades, the Badr Brigades, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Harakat al Nujaba, and others. The Iraqi and Syrian Militias number in the hundreds of thousands and can serve as a strategic reserve as the war on Israels northern border heats up. These militias are battle-hardened by years of fighting the U.S. in Iraq as well as against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Iraqi and Syrian militias have targeted U.S. bases in both countries over the past several days, primarily with drone strikes. Today, the U.S. base at al-Tanf was targeted in what appears to be a complex drone attack. Several U.S. troops are reported to have been wounded.

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.
The U.S.-provided Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, has already demonstrated significant value for Ukraine, which employed the system for the first time on Tuesday. But unless Kyiv receives more of these missiles, it will likely soon run out.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces struck two Russian helicopter bases in the occupied cities of Berdyansk and Luhansk, located in southern and eastern Ukraine, respectively. Ukraines General Staff initially said Ukrainian missile troops had destroyed two Russian helicopters and an ammunition depot. But Ukraines Special Operations Forces later claimed the strikes destroyed a total of nine helicopters along with an ammunition depot, an anti-aircraft missile launcher, and other equipment.

Video footage and satellite imagery confirmed that both airfields were hit. While it is unclear exactly how many helicopters were damaged or destroyed, nine is more than plausible. After the strikes, Russian Telegram channels shared pictures showing the remains of M39 Block I missiles and the M74 anti-personnel/anti-materiel bomblets they carry.

The M39 is the oldest ATACMS variant. It has a maximum range of 165 kilometers, uses inertial guidance, and delivers a warhead containing almost a thousand M74 submunitions. By contrast, modern ATACMS variants have a 300-kilometer range, employ both inertial and GPS guidance, and carry unitary warheads.

The M39s cluster warhead is well suited for destroying soft-skinned targets, as Tuesdays strikes demonstrated, although it is ineffective against targets like bridges and hardened command posts. As a ground-launched ballistic missile system, ATACMS is highly survivable and responsive. Ukraine can use it to attack fleeting targets, provided its targeting cycle can move quickly enough.

American officials said the United States had delivered the missiles in recent days. Although the Biden administration sent them in secret to avoid tipping off Moscow, the Russians had weeks to prepare thanks to prior press leaks. Nevertheless, Russia failed to adapt proactively, much like with its belated response to Ukraines receipt of Western rocket artillery systems in summer 2022.

At Berdyansk, the Russians did space out their helicopters and build revetments for equipment. This mitigated against potential strikes by Ukraines Western-provided air-launched cruise missiles, which have unitary warheads. But Russia failed to build hardened shelters or relocate its helicopters in preparation for the M39s cluster warhead.

Kyivs strikes at the Berdyansk and Luhansk airfields could facilitate its offensive operations in southern Ukraine and around Bakhmut, respectively. Particularly in the south, Russian Ka-52 attack helicopters have helped thwart Ukrainian armored and mechanized attacks. As the spokesman for Ukraines Air Force noted, ATACMS could render Russian close air support less effective by forcing Moscow to move its helicopters farther from the front line.

After Berdyansk, Yeysk Air Base in Krasnodar Krai is probably Russias next-best option for supporting its troops south of Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia Oblast  the main axis of Ukraines counteroffensive. Yeysk lies within the M39s range but is off-limits for ATACMS strikes, as Kyiv has promised not to use the system on Russian territory. Yeysk is about twice as far from the front line as Berdyansk.

Indeed, the White House decided to send Ukraine ATACMS precisely to help Kyivs struggling counteroffensive, according to U.S. officials. Yet although the National Security Council reportedly began reviewing this issue back in July, the administration reportedly took two months to approve the missile transfer. Kyiv now has precious little time before the fall muddy season inhibits vehicle movement. Many Ukrainian units rely on Western-donated wheeled vehicles, ill-suited for the mud.

But perhaps the more immediate problem for Ukraine is the small size of its ATACMS arsenal. According to The New York Times, two Western officials said the United States gave Kyiv just 20 or so missiles. Officials told the Associated Press that Ukraine had received fewer than a dozen within the last few days. Ukrainian forces appear to have expended at least 11 during Tuesdays strikes alone.

On Wednesday, Ukraines foreign minister said Washington had committed to send more. But it remains unclear how many the United States will provide and when it will deliver them.

In addition to providing more M39s, Washington could replenish Kyivs arsenal by sending the M39A1 Block IA. Like the M39, the M39A1 has a cluster warhead. But it has a range of 300 kilometers rather than 165. The Pentagon reportedly signed off on sending Ukraine the M39 because it is not written into U.S. war plans, as the missiles warhead is inconsistent with the departments cluster munitions policy. Presumably, the same goes for the M39A1. As of August 2023, the U.S. military reportedly possessed a total of 364 ATACMS with cluster warheads.

The M39 has given Ukraine a valuable capability to complement its other Western-supplied missiles. But to retain this capability, Kyiv will need a steady supply of missiles. Whether Washington will deliver remains to be seen.

John Hardie is the deputy director of FDDs Russia Program and a contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.

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(Alliance News) - Vast Resources PLC on Thursday reported progress on its activities in Tajikistan.

The mining and resource development company with interests in Romania, Tajikistan and Zimbabwe said the loading of the first shipment of 136 dry metric tonnes of lead and zinc concentrate has started and will be delivered to its off-taker Trafigura.

The company views the shipment as a "significant milestone" and anticipates regular shipments in the future.

Further, Vast Resources on behalf of Bay Square Pacific Ltd signed a memorandum of understanding with Central Asian Minerals & Resources. Under the MoU, Bay Square will buy the entire share of Gulf International Minerals Ltd, a company incorporated in the UK. The acquisition does not need any governmental approval in Tajikistan, Vast Resources said.

Chief Executive Officer Andrew Prelea said: "Our success in country and our collaborative approach to operating the Takob processing facility was key in securing the MoU with CAMR and demonstrates the board's ability to increase our earnings and enhance shareholder value, whilst establishing ourselves further in Tajikistan."

Vast Resources shares were 2.3% lower at 0.20 pence each on Thursday afternoon in London.

By Tom Budszus, Alliance News reporter

Comments and questions to newsroom@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Sophie Mousel is Oona, a character with minimalist voice but momentous force as she seeks to fulfil her singular mission in Loic Tanson's 'Laif a Seil'

Sophie Mousel is Oona, a character with minimalist voice but momentous force as she seeks to fulfil her singular mission in Loic Tanson's 'Laif a Seil'  Photo credit: Samsa Film

Sophie Mousel is Oona, a character with minimalist voice but momentous force as she seeks to fulfil her singular mission in Loic Tanson's 'Laif a Seil'  Photo credit: Samsa Film

Billed as Luxembourg's first western, Loic Tanson's Laif a Seil - billed as The Last Ashes in English - is a classic revenge tale with a feminist bent, in so far as its protagonist is a young woman played by an impressively charismatic Sophie Mousel.

Tanson and fellow scriptwriter Frederic Zeimet include plenty of western tropes. The climax to the opening pre-credits sequence, neatly filmed in black and white 16mm film, calls to mind the tortuous hanging scene in Once Upon A Time In the West.

Mousel's character, as an adult, is introduced as a mysterious lone masked rider. An unevenly matched showdown pits the heroine against a successive array of supposedly superior combatants while defending helpless innocents.

The setting, however, is not Flagstone or Tombstone, but a fortified village in the forests of 19th century northern Luxembourg. This remote part of the country has held out against progress and successive occupiers but has also been ravaged by famine and disease.

The fortress is run by the Graff family, whose patriarch - an almost unrecognisable Jules Werner - rules with an iron fist and displays the sort of cruelty that would not be amiss in the most sadistic of Game of Thrones despots. Graff sees himself as the pious protector of his people, even though that apparent piety allows him to abuse young girls to ensure the family line is maintained.

Circumstances lead the young Helene (played as a child by Giusi Carenza) to attempt to help a girl of her own age from outside the village escape Graff's clutches. But when she and her accomplice, Graff's youngest son Jon (Jamie Baillie), are discovered, the patriarch banishes Helene's family and metes out violent retribution on Jon.

Fast forward 15 years and construction of the first railway line is approaching the region - another common feature of westerns - and the Graff family is preparing to defend its territory against this industrial intrusion.

A troop of soldiers has been sent to protect the railway project. At this juncture, Oona (Mousel), a tattooed lone rider, appears and is taken in by the family. Oona is, of course, none other than Helene, out for revenge and determined to kill the patriarch and anyone who stands in her way.

The photogenic Mousel shows star quality in her portrayal of Oona, a character with minimalist voice but momentous force as she seeks to fulfil her singular mission. She is matched on screen by the ever-excellent Werner, whose corpulent Graff is a monster who believes he has God-given authority to lead his people. Familiar faces Luc Schiltz, Tommy Schlesser, Marie Jung and Jeanne Werner ably lead the support cast, while Jean-Paul Maes and Denis Jouselin clearly relish their diabolical roles.

Authentic epic

Picked to represent Luxembourg in the Best International Feature Film category at the 2024 Academy Awards, Laif a Seil is an ambitious film with a strong if conventional storyline that reeks of authenticity.

Also read:

Luxembourg selects pick for Oscars race

Full credit to Tanson and Zeimet for researching old Luxembourgish to create dialogue with accents and vocabulary that may have been used in the 1880s, and to production designer Christina Schaffer for creating a suitably grim ambience. The costumes by Magdalena Labuz are also meticulous and the appropriately haunting music comes from contemporary electro duo When Airy Met Fairy (Thorunn Egilsdottir and Mike Koster).

Tanson, with the help of cinematographer Nikos Welter, handles with the aplomb of an old hand the action scenes, sequences packed with extras and luscious wide shots of the castle and forests.

The film could do with a judicious trim - maybe allowing a first-time director to do his own editing is not the best idea - and some of the straight cuts between scenes in the first third are jarring and might create confusion in the audience as Tanson propels the story at speed.

Nevertheless, Laif a Seil is a well-executed epic of the kind all too rarely made in Luxembourg. It is a gripping and gritty story - there are scenes of violence that will cause more sensitive viewers to reel in horror - that delves into a period of Luxembourg history also seldom explored.

Laif a Seil is in cinemas from 25 October, with English subtitles.
Manchester, VT (05254)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 39F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 39F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.
The Philippines with its sound and stable banking system is positioning itself as a viable investment destination for Islamic banks.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) considers the country ready for Islamic banking investments for three main reasons: enabling regulatory environment, a large untapped consumer market, and a growing economy that has substantial demand for financing.

Enabling regulatory environment

In August 2019, Republic Act No. 11439 or the landmark Islamic banking law was enacted. Providing a sound legal framework for the establishment and operation of Islamic banks, the legislation put in place an enabling environment for the growth of Islamic banking in the country.

Complementing the law are the circulars issued by the BSP to provide regulatory clarity on the new regime. Circular No. 1069, which the BSP issued in December 2019, contains the implementing guidelines on the establishment of Islamic banks (IBs) and Islamic banking units (IBUs). Circular No. 1070, also issued in December 2019, provides the Shariah Governance Framework, which ensures that Islamic finance institutions observe Islamic principles in the conduct of their businesses.

Circular No. 1116, which the BSP released in May 2021, provides guidelines on the management of liquidity risk by IBs and IBUs. Meanwhile, Circular No. 1139 issued in March 2022 provides the reporting guidelines for Islamic banking and finance transactions and arrangements.

We have liberalized the banking system. The Islamic banking law was built to provide flexibility in promoting and developing Islamic finance in the country, said BSP Assistant Governor Arifa A. Ala, BSP ambassador for Islamic banking and finance and chair of the Islamic Finance Coordination Forum.

Assistant Governor Ala also noted the tax neutrality in the country, with which Islamic banks are taxed the same way as conventional banks.

According to the Assistant Governor, a single regulatory approach helps establish a level playing field for the growth of Islamic and conventional banks.

To further develop the Islamic banking and finance industry in the country, the BSP issued Circular No. 1173 dated April 19, 2023 on modified minimum capitalization requirement for conventional banks with Islamic banking unit (IBU). This Circular provides more flexibility in licensing of an IBU of qualified conventional banks.

Huge untapped consumer market

With a large untapped market, the Philippines presents various Islamic banking opportunities for domestic and foreign investors alike.

According to BSP data as of end-2021, 44 percent of the countrys adult population still do not own a formal financial account.

Given the large number of Filipinos without bank accounts, Islamic banks may find it worthwhile to do business in the Philippines to help fill the financial inclusion gap.

In geographical terms, unbanked cities and municipalities across the country totaled 481 as of end-2022.2 This is more prevalent in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, where 93.2 percent of cities and municipalities were recorded as unbanked.

Further, latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that there are 6.98 million Muslim Filipinos, consisting of 6.4 percent3 of the countrys population. Given their specific needs for financial services, Islamic banks may find it worthwhile to do business in the Philippines and cater to this underserved segment.

The BSP underscores that Islamic banking caters to both Muslims and non-Muslims. For Muslims, Islamic banks will help onboard them to the formal financial system. For non-Muslims, Islamic banks may serve as alternative sources of financial services, including investments.

Other Southeast Asian countries have advanced their Islamic finance system, where even non-Muslims patronize Islamic banking and finance simply because of the business model of profit-sharing, Assistant Governor Ala explained.

Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Deputy Director General Aleem Siddiqui M. Guiapal said they are looking at much better numbers in terms of value of the Islamic finance industry.

Currently, the market for Islamic finance and halal industry across the world is about US$7.2 trillion. In 2028, it is expected to grow to US$11.2 trillion, Deputy Director Guiapal said.

The presence of foreign Islamic banks will help increase investments in Philippine economic zones, which in turn will translate to job creation, he added.

Deputy Director Guiapal said PEZA is keen to position itself as a preferred destination for Islamic investors.

The digitalization trend in the countrys financial sector should also be encouraging for Islamic banking players as more Filipinos open digital financial accounts.

Under its Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap 2020 to 2023, the BSP aims to increase the share of digital transactions to the total volume of financial transactions in the Philippines to at least 50 percent and to onboard at least 70 percent of Filipino adults in the formal financial system by the end of this year. Given recent trends, the BSP is confident that these goals will be met, if not exceeded.

A growing economy

The Philippine economy has strongly rebounded from the recession in 2020 driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. It grew by 5.7 percent in 2021 and accelerated to a growth of 7.6 percent in 2022 and 6.4 percent in the first quarter of 2023.

Along with the economic rebound came the improvement in the countrys employment situation. After peaking at 17.6 percent in April 2020, the unemployment rate had consistently dropped to settle at 4.7 percent in March 2023.

These indicators signal a growing demand for credit and other financial services to fund economic activities.

The Philippines is ripe for Islamic banking investments. We look forward to a future where Islamic banking is a thriving industry in the country, Assistant Governor Ala said.
Thirteen city-owned parcels of land in Dorchester will soon be the sites of 63 new affordable homeownership units, Mayor Michelle Wu announced Thursday.

The new homes will be built by four local developers as part of the citys Welcome Home, Boston program announced earlier this year. The goal of the initiative is to create new housing on vacant land throughout the city.

Housing costs that are out of reach for our families have made it more and more challenging for people to stay and afford to live and thrive here in Boston, Wu said at a Thursday morning press conference.

We saw an opportunity to not only create new homes for Boston residents and families, but to create new wealth-building opportunities for the development teams who could take these unused parcels of land and turn them into high-quality, affordable, beneficial homes for the neighborhoods, Wu said.

The 13 parcels, which represent the first phase of Welcome Home, Boston, are made up of a total of 52,677 square feet of land that has been owned by the city for an average of 34 years, but was identified as underutilized in a citywide audit conducted last year.

The new homes will be built on Erie Street, Geneva Avenue, Glenway Street, Harvard Street and Norwell Street in Dorchester.

The 63 units will be affordable for and available to residents making below 80% or 100% of the area median income. They will be full electric, and mostly two- or three-bedroom units in multifamily condominiums.

The overall homeownership rate in Boston is 35%, compared to the statewide rate of 62%, according to the city.

The rate differs by race and ethnicity, with 44% of white households owning their homes, the highest rate, compared to 31% of Black households, 30% of Asian or Pacific Islander households and 17% of Hispanic or Latino households.

State Rep. Russell Holmes, D-Suffolk, said he was happy to see housing aimed at new homeowners coming to an area with a high percentage of renters. He said he was glad to see any type of housing being built, but that the state has largely been focused on building rental housing.

Read more: Boston Council candidates face off on housing issues

This is an opportunity really to take renters who are in these homes today, literally across the street, and make them homeowners, he said. It is time to hand money to Black developers, Black architects, Hispanic architects, women, and sell it to people in our neighborhood.

The four development teams selected for the projects are African Community Economic Development Organization of New England (ACEDONE), Boston Communities, Dorchester Design Collaborative, and Norfolk Design and Construction, who will work with the Mayors Office of Housing to design and plan the new homes. All four are minority-, women- or veteran-owned.

City Councilor Brian Worrell, who represents the district, said the outreach done in preparation for the announcement, including listening sessions, focus groups and discussions with local community groups, was crucial for the success of the projects.

Too often in the past, youll see a big construction project of this nature that did not include people from the community in the development, construction, ownership or engagement. That pattern has left Black and brown residents often feeling cynical about the housing density our neighborhoods desperately need, Worrell said. We are redefining what residents should expect from the development process.

Read more: Cambridge approves controversial zoning change to promote affordable housing

Construction is expected to begin in 2024.

In addition to the 13 parcels in Dorchester, the city released a request for proposals earlier this month for the second phase of the project, which includes 26 parcels in Dorchester and Mattapan. RFPs for the remaining parcels are expected to be released over the next 12 months.
A taste of Philly is headed for Massachusetts.

On Thursday, a Philadelphia hoagie based chain, PrimoHoagies, announced the signing of 20 new franchise agreements in the country, including the brands first-ever agreements signed in Massachusetts.

According to the company, PrimoHoagies is in the works to open three locations in the Springfield area. The first of the three locations is projected to open by May 2024.

While the exact location of the three PrimoHoagies is unknown, the PrimoHoagies team is working with the franchisee to find optimal locations in and around Springfield.

PrimoHoagies is on a mission to redefine the sandwich experience across the United States, said Nicholas Papanier Jr., owner and CEO of PrimoHoagies. As we venture into new markets and deepen our roots in existing ones, were not just offering sandwiches; were inviting passionate entrepreneurs to join us in this exciting journey. Together, well continue to raise the bar and set new standards.

Read More: First Massachusetts location of Duck Donuts opens

Recently, the chain was named Americas best sandwich shop by USA Todays 10Best list.

If Italian specialty sandwiches are your jam, PrimoHoagies is definitely the place for you. Their menu has 10 sandwich categories to choose from, including Italian Classics (like their Sharp Italian), Philly Cheesesteaks (including a Pizza Steak), Schwartzies (think corned beef and roast beef), and even Meatless (like the Nonnas Veggies with eggplant and broccoli rabe), 10Best said about their top pick.
The secret ingredient is still secret.

Thats what James R. Wainwright said with a laugh when asked  yet again  what the secret ingredient is that makes the French-Canadian meat pies so popular when they go on sale as a fundraiser for St. Elizabeth Parish in Ludlow.

Though there are recipes online for what is traditionally called tourtiere, none of them are the same as parishioners have been using since sisters Noella Noel, Eva Langevin and Dora Dumais began making the meat pies for the church in Noels home using a recipe their mother, Emma Couture, brought from Canada.

Tourtiere is usually made with pork, veal and/or beef. Depending on the recipe, spices include ground cloves, ground allspice, ground cinnamon and/or grated nutmeg.

The meat pie project began in 1987, and since then there have been only two years  during the COVID-19 pandemic  that it was put on hiatus.

This year Wainwright, co-chair of St. Elizabeth Meat Pies, is overseeing the making of about 50,000 of the 5-inch personal size meat pies.

The meat pies are fully cooked, freeze well and are easily reheated. They make a quick, easy dinner, said Wainwright, who buys 40 to 50 each year to have throughout the year until the next meat pie fundraiser. He takes them from the freezer, puts them in the oven for about 35 minutes, and when the internal temperature in 165 degrees, they are ready to serve.

He likes to serve them with pickled beets and a white sauce, but definitely no ketchup, he said, though that is how many people like to eat meat pie.

Filling is added to meat pies as the annual fundraising meat pie project gets underway at St. Elizabeth Parish in Ludlow. (Don Treeger / The Republican)

Tourtiere is a traditional part of the French-Canadian Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas or New Years Eve celebrations.

Some customers buy just one meat pie to eat right away while others buy in bulk. One man purchases 325 to serve for special dinners during the year.

When orders were first accepted this year in September, 8,000 meat pies were sold in the first three days.

Meat pies  handmade by a corps of volunteers at St. John the Baptist Pastoral Center  will be available through Nov. 3. Orders can be picked up on the St. Elizabeth Parish Campus at the pastoral center, 201 Hubbard St., Ludlow, between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. or 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. (Orders of 50 or more pies require a designated afternoon time slot.)

Each individual-size pie is $5.

Place orders by visiting the Parish website or by calling the Rectory Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 413-583-3467.

Pay in full at the time of pickup with cash or a check made out to St. Elizabeth Parish.
Derrick Laufenberg decided in 2020 that he wanted to help Chippewa Valley families who needed beds for their kids. Three years later, the Chippewa Valleys Sleep in Heavenly Peace chapter president said the group has built and delivered more than 800 beds to Chippewa Valley families.

The goal is to ensure no children are forced to sleep on floors or couches or share cramped beds with other family members, said Laufenberg. Sleep in Heavenly Peace is a national nonprofit whose mission is to end child bedlessness. Communities gather to build beds from scratch. The beds are then delivered to families with children 17 and under who are in need.

In 2020, Laufenberg started the Chippewa Valley chapter, which is one of 355 chapters in the U.S, after a training session with Sleep in Heavenly Peace founder Luke Mickelson in Twin Falls, Idaho. Laufenberg returned ready to start a program serving western Wisconsin.

Three years ago, I had no idea there was such a need for something as simple as a bed, Laufenberg said. It was myself and a few others that went to training and said, Hey, there's a need here. Do we want to try to create a chapter up in this area? And we all thought, 'Let's do it.'

At the time the chapter began, Laufenberg said Chippewa Valley had the second highest poverty rate in the state of Wisconsin. According to the U.S. census, in 2022 nearly 10% of Chippewa County residents lived below the poverty rate.

The reason we decided to start one here is because I was looking around at poverty rates and thought there must be a need here. So we started building beds, he said.

Laufenberg said once local organizations decide to get involved with Sleep in Heavenly Peace, they work closely with him as the chapter president to determine how best they can support the outreach. Local organizations contribute time, money and labor to the philanthropy.

Some companies sponsor a delivery day, where they help supply the funds that it takes to buy the mattresses and the sheets and the pillows and some snacks, and then we line up a bunch of deliveries on that day, Laufenberg said. Other groups get involved with the builds. The cost per bed is $250. And that's the lumber, hardware, everything. We get 20 beds built typically per build, so it's $5,000 to sponsor a build. And it takes about 30 to 40 volunteers for that build.

On Sunday, congregants of Central Lutheran Church in Chippewa Falls spent the afternoon building beds. The church has gathered bedding  including pillows, sheets and comforters  so families who receive one of the 20 beds the church members built have all the amenities to make the delivery special.

Central Lutheran Church manager Pam Moran said dozens of members at the church participated in the build a bed project, which took about 3 hours.

This is the third year we've done a bed build with them as a part of our mission of being out in our community, Moran said.

Moran said church members have a great time building the beds.

Its always a fun day in community. Its a worthy program, and were glad to be able to give back, she said. They cut the lumber. They drill the holes. They sand it and they do the headboard and then stain the pieces that need to be stained.

Once the beds are built, they are stored at Liberty Christian School.

Of the 800 beds the Chippewa Valley chapter has built since it began, 207 were delivered in 2023.

Then as the requests come in, we deliver them, he said. "So this year we're planning on hitting 300 deliveries before the end of the year, which I know it sounds like we're behind the ball, but holiday season is a huge rush of requests."

Moran said with rising costs of living a lot of families need beds and bedding.

Its crazy to think about kids sleeping on floors and families not being able to afford furniture for their children. It's amazing that there's so many kids in our area that need a bed to sleep on, Moran said.

To learn more, to request a bed or to contribute to Sleep in Heavenly Peace, go to www.shpbeds.org.
Two children were criminally charged on Wednesday after a Hampden County Grand Jury returned indictments in connection with a June incident at Bliss Park in Longmeadow where acid was poured down several slides, injuring four children, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gullunis office announced Thursday.

The two children were both charged with assault and battery on a child with injury (four counts), assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (four counts) and vandalism, Gullunis office said in a statement.

Authorities were called on Sunday at 9:40 a.m. after the children were hurt using the slide at the playground, resulting in burn-like injuries, the fire department said in a news release. Firefighters quickly found the hazardous substance on three slides and determined it to be an acid.

Muriatic acid stolen from a nearby pool building was poured on the slides at the playground, according to the Longmeadow Fire Department. The acid is typically used as a cleaning product. Investigators found that a pump room in the basement of a pool building nearby had been broken into. Two fences were climbed and a cover to the ventilation shaft was torn off to enter the pool room, which housed the muriatic acid.

A 1-year-old boy was one of the children burned by the slides. Ashley Thielen told MassLive that her son normally doesnt cry. I couldnt get him to stop, and his bottom was all wet. Both of Thielens children suffered burns.

After Thielens she came to her crying, she noticed the sleeve of her shirt, which her child was sitting on, was sticky. When she tugged on the sleeve, it tore wide open because the chemical burned right through it. It was then her 2-year-old daughter started crying and saying Mommy, it hurts while pointing to the back of her leg.

Ashley Thielen's 2-year-old daughter's muriatic burn. (Photo courtesy of Ashley Thielen)

At the time, Thielen and emergency services were unsure of what the substance was, so a thorough physical evaluation of the kids and an electrocardiogram (EKG) was done, along with a quick pH test, which came back very acidic according to Thielen.

After a few days of healing, Thielen said her daughters wound looks like a big abrasion [and] its healing like its supposed to.

Read more: Connecticut woman sentenced to 2 years in federal prison for hiding what she knew about 2020 murder of Chicopee man

Longmeadow police and fire officials, along with Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to Gullunis office, investigated this shocking and terrible incident, Gulluni said in a statement.

Our collective effort to charge those we believe are responsible should make clear that protecting this communitys children is among our highest priorities, Gulluni said. Whether the threat and harm caused were intended as pranks or malicious acts, it will not be tolerated.
A box with four possible pipe bombs was found under a home construction site in Newburyport on Thursday, police and fire officials announced in a joint statement.

At around 2:03 p.m., Newburyport police and firefighters went to a construction site on Purchase Street, where contractors found the box with what appeared to be four pipe bombs inside, according to the statement from City Marshal Mark Murray and Fire Chief Stephen Bradbury.

Still under construction, no one resides at the home. The property owner said they were not aware of the box until contractors brought it up, Murray and Bradbury said.

Massachusetts State Police Bomb Squad was called in to X-ray the possible bombs, but were unable to tell for sure whether they are actually bombs or props, Murray and Bradbury said.

Read more: Judge sentences Cara Rintala 12 to 14 years for killing of wife in 2010

The Bomb Squad removed the items from the home, taking them to a secluded area off Colby Farm Road to safely destroy the items, officials said.

Murray and Bradbury said there is no threat to the public.
A Fall River man was arrested by Massachusetts State Police on Thursday in connection with the shooting death of Jovanni Perez over the weekend, Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn IIIs office announced.

Antwyne Robinson, 17, was held without bail at his arraignment Thursday afternoon in Fall River District Court and charged with murder, Quinns office said in a statement.

On Saturday at around 12:18 p.m., Fall River police were sent to 253 Locust St. after receiving a report of a man who was shot. They arrived to find 18-year-old Perez, who was then rushed to Charlton Memorial Hospital. He died over an hour later.

Robinson was arrested Thursday morning, Quinns office said.

State police detectives, along with Fall River police continue to investigate Perezs death.
CHICOPEE  City councilors approved a slew of traffic rules Tuesday night in hopes of protecting pedestrians and lowering the number of fatal car accidents in the city.

Over the last two years, there have been a number of fatal accidents that have taken place on Chicopee Street.

Thats the stretch of road way where former residents Gary Turcotte and William Matteson died last year. Turcotte, 62, was a pedestrian killed on Nov. 30 in a hit-and-run, and Matteson, 68, was a pedestrian killed by a car Nov. 28, just a little over a mile down the road from where Turcotte was hit.

And, more recently, a 49-year-old woman died in a two-car collision along the 600 block of Chicopee Street in the beginning of October.

These roadway deaths ranked Chicopee as having the third-most pedestrian fatalities in the state in 2022, according to a report from Walkboston.

Lowered speed limit

The council also approved an order to have the citys Department of Public Works petition the state to lower the speed limit to 25 mph on a section of Chicopee Street, specifically from the Holyoke line to the area of 319 Chicopee St. north and southbound.

Councilor William Courchesne said, as of now, the stretch of Chicopee Street has two different speeds, and for 41 years, the street also has had the speed limit go up and down. According to files from the state, the limit went from 30 mph to 35 mph, and back again to 30 mph in the 1980s.

Delmarina Lopez, the Ward 3 councilor, said lowering the speed limit to 25 mph should not be an issue, since there is a lot of pedestrian activity taking place in the area. Her constituency and Courchesnes both cover parts of Chicopee Street.

Its obvious that the higher the speed, the higher the impact, and theres more possibilities of it leading to a fatality, she said. Weve seen it happen on the street. I dont want to see it happen anymore.

Elizabette Batista, DPW superintendent, supports lowering the speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph on a section of Chicopee Street, also known as Massachusetts Route 116.

More speed mitigation

Councilors also approved an order to have the DPW install 25 mph and sharp curve signs, heading east between 306 and 316 Irene St. and west of 358 Irene St. before the guard rail on the north side of the road.

Luckily, nobodys drove into any of the homes over there, Courchesne said. Were trying to get proactive and stay ahead of this, and hopefully we can avert anything from happening.

An order for the DPW to petition the state to install a traffic light at Grattan and Chicopee streets was also approved.

More info sought from PD chief

To get a better picture of the dangerousness of the road, the council on Tuesday OKd an order for Police Chief Patrick Major to meet with its Public Safety Committee to share the departments findings on the causes of fatal and other vehicle accidents on Chicopee Street.

Its hard to look at ways to improve safety, when we dont know the root cause of the incidents, Courchesne said.

A request for comment from Major was unsuccessful, as the chief is away this week for a conference, the department said.
LUDLOW  Attorneys for a landowner and a state-created company that helps municipalities buy electricity told a judge last week they are working toward a settlement over their dispute surrounding the land thats home to the states second-largest inland wind farm.

The Berkshire Wind Power Project spins along the ridgeline of Brodie Mountain in Hancock. It helps provide wind-generated electricity to several communities, including Chicopee, Holyoke and South Hadley, through the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co., which is headquartered in Ludlow.

The lawsuit centers around the price that the municipal electric company paid a landowner in 2018, when it took 35 acres for the project.

In April 2021, Feronia Holdings filed suit in Berkshire County Superior Court, saying the price that the electric company paid for the property that holds six of the wind farms 12 turbines was grossly unfair and totally inadequate, and the eminent domain action devalued the rest of its property.

The electric company, for its part, denied the allegations and said Feronia Holdings lacked standing to bring a suit, because it was Feronia Forests that was the subject of the order that took the property.

Recently, however, during a conference held remotely on Oct. 11, the attorneys told Judge John Agostini that they were working on a settlement.

The update comes after both sides held a mediation session in mid-September. Ahead of that September meeting, electric company attorney Nicholas Scobbo Jr. was optimistic that the out-of-court discussions could lead to a settlement.

Powers equivalent of 7,800 homes

The wind farm began operation in 2011 and can generate enough electricity for about 7,800 homes, according to the projects fact sheet.

Chicopee uses electricity from the wind farm, said James Lisowski, general manager of Chicopee Electric Light.

Lisowski clarified that none of the energy collected is provided to any specific customer and different forms of energy, including wind power and solar energy, are brought to the city as a blob of power.

A recent report states that the wind farm provided 900,000 kilowatt-hours through September, Lisowski said.

It fluctuates depending on wind conditions and mechanical issues; wind units can be temperamental, he said.

In a typical year, Chicopee consumes about 450 million kilowatt-hours, according to Lisowski.

From this site, we are budgeted for about 2 million kilowatt hours for 2023. Through the first nine months, its come in at about two-thirds of our projections, he said.

Lisowski said he cannot speak on the land dispute and the effects that the suit might have for a city like Chicopee.

An attorney representing the municipal electric company did not immediately return a request for comment.
Federal regulators have approved the expansion of a natural gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest over the protest of environmental groups and top officials in West Coast states.

The project, known as GTN Xpress, aims to expand the capacity of the Gas Transmission Northwest pipeline, which runs through Idaho, Washington and Oregon, by about 150 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave it the green light in a vote on Thursday.

The pipeline belongs to TC Energy of Calgary, Canada  the same company behind the now-abandoned Keystone XL crude oil pipeline.

Read more: What you need to know about a controversial Eversource gas pipeline proposal

TC Energy plans to modify three compressor stations along the pipeline  in Kootenai County, Idaho; Walla Walla County, Washington; and Sherman County, Oregon. Compressor stations help maintain the pressure and flow of gas over long distances in a pipeline.

The company says the project is necessary to meet consumer demand.

The 1,377-mile pipeline runs from the Canadian border through a corner of Idaho and into Washington state and Oregon, connecting with a pipeline going into California.

Officials from Washington, Oregon and California called on federal regulators to reject the project, saying it would undermine their states efforts to reduce emissions to combat the effects of climate change.

The attorneys general of the three states, citing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissions draft environmental impact statement for the project, said it would result in more than 3.47 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year for at least the next three decades. The agencys final environmental assessment revised that number downward by roughly half in calculations contested by environmental groups.

The agencys chairman, Willie Phillips, reiterated its stance after Thursdays vote.

Read more: Indigenous tribes urge federal officials to deny loan request for Lake Superior natural gas plant

There was no evidence presented that this project would significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions, he told reporters. The commission determined that this project was needed and therefore we support its approval.

In a joint letter to the federal agency the day before its vote, Democratic U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington described the project as incompatible with our climate laws.

GTN Xpress represents a significant expansion of methane gas infrastructure at a time when California, Oregon, and Washington are moving away from fossil fuels, the senators said.

The senators also expressed concern about TC Energys safety record. Its Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline exploded in Strasburg, Virginia, in July and its existing Keystone pipeline spilled nearly 600,000 gallons of bitumen oil in Kansas last December.

Environmental groups criticized the decision of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC.

FERC failed to listen to Senators, Governors, State Attorneys General, Tribes, and the public in its rubber stamp of unnecessary fracked gas in the Northwest, said Audrey Leonard, staff attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper, an environmental nonprofit, in a statement.

Leonard said potential spills and explosions on the pipeline, which was built in the 1960s, would not only harm the environment but also present a heightened wildfire risk in the arid regions it passes through.

An explosion of that level in eastern Washington or eastern Oregon would be catastrophic, said Audrey Leonard, staff attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper, an environmental nonprofit.

Leonard said Columbia Riverkeeper will appeal the federal regulators decision and submit a petition for a rehearing.

In its final environmental impact statement for the project issued last November, the federal agency said the compressor stations were in non-forested areas with low to moderate fire hazard. It concluded the project would result in limited adverse impacts on the environment.

Most adverse environmental impacts would be temporary or short-term, the federal agency said.

The agency recommended certain steps, such as requiring the company to train its personnel and contractors on environmental mitigation measures before any construction begins.

But environmental groups say the assessment didnt adequately address the harm caused by the project, including by fracking to obtain the natural gas that flows through the pipeline.

Fracking is a technique used by the energy industry to extract oil and gas from rock by injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals. It has been criticized by climate and environment groups for increasing emissions of methane, an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas.

___

Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
SPRINGFIELD  When Judge Mark D. Mason first arrived in the region aboard a bus in the 1980s, the native New Yorker marveled at the lush landscape of the Pioneer Valley.

I came out here with no personal relationships and no money, Mason said during his retirement luncheon at the Roderick Ireland courthouse on Thursday. But, since he put down roots here so long ago, he feels hes earned the title of Western Massachusetts resident.
SPRINGFIELD  Investigators probing the fire that killed an 18-year-old woman and left two other residents seriously injured are asking the publics help to identify a person of interest in the fire.

They are asking residents who live near 118 Grover St., where the fatal fire took place, to check any camera footage that was recorded between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. on Monday, the day of the fire, to see if any passerby was recorded, said James Leydon, spokesman for Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni.

The Springfield Police Detective Bureau is seeking to speak with a person of interest seen in the area around the time of the fatal structure fire, he said.

Jake Wark, spokesman for the State Fire Marshals Office and Springfield Fire Capt. Drew Piemonte did not release any information about the cause of the fire nor did they confirm it as a suspected arson on Thursday.

The fire was reported at about 5:15 a.m. in the three-story home in the East Springfield neighborhood. Janayrah Rivera, a recent graduate of Roger L. Putnam Technical High School, died in the fire, which started in the porch of her grandmothers home.

A man and a woman were also seriously injured and remain hospitalized. The man was rescued by firefighters, revived and taken to Baystate Medical Center. He was later flown to a Boston hospital for treatment of his injuries, Leydon said.

The house was destroyed in the blaze. Three dogs were also killed.

Investigators released a photograph of the possible suspect, but the photograph was taken from the back, and the person was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with no facial features showing.

The cause is being investigated by the Springfield Police Departments Detective Bureau, Gullunis office, the Fire Marshals Office and the Springfield Arson and Bomb Squad. People with any information about the fire or the person of interest should call the Detective Bureau at 413-787-6355.
A New Hampshire man has died after he mistakenly drove his SUV down a boat ramp and into Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire Wednesday night, WMUR reported.

Firefighters were called to Windward Way in Moultonborough for a report of a vehicle in the water with someone trapped inside at 8:35 p.m. on Oct. 18, the Moultonborough Fire Department said on Facebook.

Upon arrival, crews learned that a retired firefighter from Carlisle, Massachusetts went into the water, pulled an unresponsive person from the vehicle and brought them to shore, according to the department. The rescuer was identified as Thomas Bishop, who was also the drivers neighbor, according to WMUR.

First responders performed CPR on the driver, later identified as 77-year-old Barry Haight, of Moultonborough, according to the news outlet.

Family and neighbors were looking for Haight after he never came home from a trip to the community dumpster, WMUR said, citing Moultonborough police. Authorities believe Haight was trapped in his SUV for about an hour and a half before he was found, the outlet said.

Crews entered the water to search for other people, but confirmed that Haight was the only person in the vehicle, Moultonborough firefighters said. The 77-year-old was brought to Concord Hospital-Laconia where he was officially pronounced dead.

The SUV was later pulled from the water and towed from the scene. Moultonborough Police are investigating the cause of the incident, according to the fire department.
A man who Boston police found in Mattapan on Thursday with stab wounds has died, with an investigation into his death underway.

Officers heard a radio call at around 11 a.m. about a man with life-threatening injuries at 18 Rugby Road, Boston police said in a statement. He was taken to the hospital, where he died.

Read more: Judge sentences Cara Rintala 12 to 14 years for killing of wife in 2010

No arrests have been made, though Boston police said that they believe the man and the suspect may have known each other. Beyond that, the investigation continues.

Police urged that if anyone knows anything about the incident, they should call the Boston Police Homicide Unit at 617-343-4470.

Anyone who wants to help with the investigation anonymously was asked by police to call the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS or by texting the word TIP to CRIME.
A Columbus man who was found guilty on Aug. 24 of election falsification in Colfax County District Court was sentenced on Wednesday, Oct. 11, to a $10,000 fine.

Colfax County District Court Judge Christina M. Marroquin sentenced Larry L. Divis on Wednesday, opting to not sentence him to any prison time.

Divis, of Columbus, had pleaded not guilty to the charge of election falsification and went through a two-day jury trial in late August. Divis was found guilty by the jury after only 58 minutes of deliberations.

According to officials at the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office, two of Divis relatives - his son Jason Divis and his daughter-in-law Carina Divis  were also accused of election falsification.

According to a press release, Carina Divis was sentenced to one year of probation following a one-day bench trial in July during which she was found guilty. Jason Divis also received a one year of probation sentence after he plead no contest to the charge.

This case stemmed from an investigation conducted by the Nebraska State Patrol into three individuals who registered to vote and did vote in Colfax County, Nebraska, while residing in Platte County, Nebraska, during the 2020 General Election, stated Suzanne Gage, a spokesperson for the Attorney Generals Office.

Larry L. Divis was accused of illegally registering to vote and voting in the Village of Richland in the 2020 general election despite really living in Columbus. He had registered to vote by mail in the May 2020 primary election using a home residence in Columbus.

State prosecutors presented a case over one and a half days of proceedings against Divis, who was charged with one count of election falsification, a Class IV felony. Divis could have been sentenced to a possible prison term of up to two years, 12 months of post-release supervision in addition to the $10,000 fine.

After the jurys verdict was read before, Divis muttered several undecipherable words to his attorney before leaving the courtroom. He declined to comment on the verdict to the Telegram.

A computer programmer by trade, Divis was accused of officially residing at a home on 30th Avenue in Columbus and registering to vote in Platte County in the May 2020 primary election. Prosecutors alleged Divis then falsely claimed he resided in the Village of Richland, where in October 2020, he registered to vote in Colfax County and then voted in the Nov. 3, 2020, general election pretending to be a Richland resident.

The reason for his alleged election ruse, the two prosecutors for the state  Nebraska Assistant Attorney Generals Zach Blackman and Mary Marcum  told jurors was that Divis was angry at the five members of the Richland Village Board.

Those board members  one of whom testified against Divis  had approved in 2018 several changes to village nuisance property ordinances pertaining to piled up junk on local properties and a plan to tear down the historic, but dilapidated Richland Town Hall.

Originally from Richland, Divis inherited in 1999 a total of 10 parcels of land in the small village, which is east of Columbus, but located in a different county  Colfax. In Richland, Divis owned a home that his now-deceased brother had resided in as well as several mechanic shops. He also owns a home in Columbus, which he said he purchased to house his 30-year girlfriend.

Divis defense attorney, Jerod Trouba, told jurors that Divis was not guilty of the charge for the simple reason that Divis did actually live at property he legally owned in the Village of Richmond as of the date he registered to vote in Colfax County, on Oct. 19, 2020.

During the trial, several residents and officials from the Village of Richland testified that Divis did not reside in the small village, while also claiming he was disgruntled over the changes to the junk ordinance. Election officials from both Platte and Colfax counties also testified about Divis two voter registrations in 2020.

Divis took the stand during the trial, explaining to the jury that the Columbus home he had registered to vote from in the May 2020 primary election was his girlfriends residences and he had his business mail sent there. Divis repeatedly claimed he resided in a living quarters inside a workshop on property he owned in Richland.
BOSTON  Court officers, state representatives, lawyers and more than a dozen judges: They all want Tracy E. Duncan to serve on the Western Massachusetts bench.

Seven members of the Governors Council took testimony Wednesday from colleagues of Duncan, a Springfield native and criminal defense attorney, in support of her recent judicial nomination to Superior Court in a hearing at the Massachusetts Statehouse.

By the end of the hearing, six of the councilors told Duncan that they would be voting in her favor during next weeks election.

The hearing was in a small chamber room, packed with Duncans closest circle of family and friends, as well as her professional peers, including Hampden County state Rep. Bud Williams, retired Hampden County Superior Court Associate Judge Constance Sweeney, and retired Superior Court Associate Justice Tina Page.

Williams and Sweeney were two of four of Duncans colleagues who spoke of her abilities that would translate well to an associate judgeship.

There is no one more qualified for this role, said Williams, who is a former probation officer in the Hampden County courts and has worked closely with Duncan in the past.

She is fair and balanced, and she fights for what she believes in, he said.

Williams spoke about their time working together on probation matters, in the Trial Court, at pretrial hearings and with six-person juries.

She is the definition of calm, cool and collected, he said. She never loses her cool.

Retired Judge Sweeney testified that, when she worked in the criminal courts, she observed Duncan in action on a regular basis.

She treats every person with dignity and respect, the judge said.

After Sweeneys testimony, three council members  Terrence Kennedy, Christopher Iannella and Joseph Ferreira  expressed their shock at Duncans choice in Sweeney to speak on her behalf, because of a negative opinion Sweeney gave of Duncan following a 2018 Springfield parking lot rage trial.

In the result of the case, a jury acquitted the defendant, Chris Graham, of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, but convicted him on counts of carrying a firearm without a license and possession of a loaded gun.

In her written opinion on the case, Sweeney detailed Duncans work as the defense attorney.

Ineffective assistance of counsel, Sweeney wrote. It was her opinion that Duncan did not properly investigate the case, nor did she present the case accurately in court at the time.

You wrote a scathing, harsh review of her, Kennedy said.

Iannella and Ferreira voiced their concerns, as well.

Its poor judgement on the nominee, because if I were you, I never wouldve had you here, Iannella told Sweeney.

The retired judge responded: Im here today to speak about Tracys broad body of work, where I have seen her sophistication and integrity.

James Goodhines, longtime prosecutor turned criminal defense attorney in Springfield, said hes known Duncan for 29 years.

She is one of the finest lawyers Ive met, he said.

We are both emotional people, but she doesnt let her emotions affect her actions, he continued.

Goodhines added that Duncan is well-known in Springfield for her poise, grace and talent.

People in the community know her as Ms. Tracy or Ms. Duncan, and she truly represents them, he said.

Also testifying to Duncans fitness for the judges robes was Carla Tucker Kynard, a probation officer for the Hampden County courts for almost 37 years. She and Duncan worked closely to reduce recidivism rates of her clients.

Tracy is a fighter, Tucker Kynard said. Hampden County is a busy, if not the busiest, court in the state. Tracy shows exceptional professionalism, she negotiates for her clients, and she is always honest.

If elected by the council, Duncan will be only the second Black woman appointed to serve as a Superior Court judge in the states 300-plus year history. The first, Page, retired in 2018.

Tina broke the glass ceiling, Tucker Kynard said. She was and is a trailblazer and a mentor.

None of the people present spoke in opposition of Duncans nomination.

Councilors also asked Duncan hypothetical questions about how she would approach her judgeship, if elected.

Councilor Paul DePalo, who has worked closely on the trauma-to-prison pipeline with regard to juveniles who find themselves in court, asked Duncan how she would approach cases where defense attorneys do not present all the facts about a defendant to the court.

As a lawyer, it has been very important to me to get all of the facts before making a decision on a case, Duncan said. I would suggest the defendants see a psychologist or other experts to properly background them before making a decision.

DePalo opined that Duncans presence in the court would be an inspiration to many.

If you are elected, I think it would really help young adults of color who find themselves in court to see someone who looks like them in the courtroom at the highest position, he said.

When Duncan was given the opportunity to speak, she thanked Gov. Maura Healey and her administration for the nomination, and then went on to thank her family.

This has been the the highlight of my life, Duncan said. I grew up in a middle-class family, where both of my parents worked very hard and emphasized the importance of having an education.

Duncans mother, Betty Davis, was a registered nurse. She was in attendance at the hearing. Duncans late father, David Duncan, was a mechanical engineer for Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Co.

I am a zealous advocate, but I am realistic, she said of her 30-plus year career as an attorney. I applied to be a judge because of the lack of diversity on the bench. If elected, I would be the first Black woman to be of and from Springfield to serve, the second Black woman to be appointed, and the third Black person elected to serve overall.

On Monday, Councilor Tara Jacobs, who serves the eighth district of Western Massachusetts, hosted a public hearing for Springfield residents to voice their opinions on Duncans nomination.

Tracy had seven witnesses and six members of the public who spoke on her behalf, Jacobs said. She has earned respect from both the legal community and the Greater Springfield community.

Jacobs said 12 judges  both sitting and retired  wrote letters in support of Duncans nomination.

If we vote yes, the decision would be historic, she said.
A Worcester man charged with raping a woman who thought he was her Uber driver in Boston is being held on $10,000 bail, Suffolk Country District Attorney Kevin Haydens office announced Wednesday.

Qabel Najeeb, 29, was charged with one count of rape and ordered to wear a GPS bracelet and observe a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew if he posts bail, Haydens office said.

On Saturday, Oct. 14, at around 4:47 a.m., Boston police spoke with a woman, 32, who said she ordered an Uber after leaving a nightclub downtown several hours earlier.

The original requested Uber was canceled and she entered another car she thought was an Uber. The driver drove past Boston Common, pulled over among some buildings near Storrow Drive and raped the unidentified woman, Haydens office said. The driver then dropped her off on Border Street.

Video surveillance and descriptions provided by the woman to investigators led to an identification of the car, a blue Toyota Corolla and Najeebs arrest on Sunday.

This is a terrifying incident involving a woman who entered a vehicle with the full understanding that she was going to be delivered home in safety and a driver who took advantage of the victim and the situation. This is the beginning of the process of seeking justice, and we will stay beside this victim during and after this difficult time, Hayden said in a statement.

Najeeb is scheduled to return to Boston Municipal Court Central Division on Nov. 15 for his probable cause hearing.
Embattled Springfield police officer Gregg Bigda will appear Thursday at a hearing in Boston to appeal the revocation of his law enforcement certification by Massachusetts police oversight board.

The police watchdog, the Peace Office Standards and Training (POST) Commission, took initial steps earlier this year to revoke Bigdas policing license after Springfield Police Superintendent Cheryl C. Clapprood declined to vouch for his good moral character  a required sign-off for the license to be recertified.
SPRINGFIELD  After a verdict Wednesday cleared two Springfield officers of covering up a bar brawl involving off-duty cops in 2015, the head of the department said she will welcome the duo back to the force.

Officers Shavonne Lewis and Derrick Gentry-Mitchell breathed sighs of relief after Hampden Superior Court Judge Edward McDonough Jr. cleared them of charges of perjury, filing false police reports and misleading investigators.
A Medway father trapped in Gaza with his family had one word to describe an explosion that went off early Thursday morning near where the family is taking shelter: terrifying.

Abood Okal, his wife and their 1-year-old son had been visiting family in Gaza when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. They havent been able to leave the country since, despite making multiple attempts to cross into Egypt.

Our son, Yousef, was taking a nap under a window and when the explosion happened he woke up scared of how loud it was, Abood Okal told MassLive using the texting app WhatsApp on Thursday.

Okals wife, Wafaa Abuzayda, jumped and picked him up away from the window, Okal said.

The explosion was so loud the walls of the house cracked and the doors popped out of place, Okal continued. All the kids where we are staying were screaming from fear and adults were in shock, too.

An explosion near Rafah, where Massachusetts family Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda and their 1 year old son are sheltering. (Abood Okal photo)

Yousef had earlier this week experienced a fever and an ear infection. Okal said he is doing better with recently acquired antibiotics and is hopeful he will continue to improve.

What he is losing hope over is the continued lack of information on how he or any other American citizens can escape the country.

The latest information from the U.S. State Department does not provide any options.

The military conflict between Israel and Hamas is ongoing, making identifying departure options for U.S. citizens complex, a statement on the State Department website reads. We are working on potential options for departure from Gaza for U.S. citizens. We have U.S. government officials working 24/7 to try to assist.

For Okal, who has been to the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt three times based on information from the State Department, he is discouraged that President Joe Bidens visit to Israel on Wednesday did not do more to help the situation of citizens trapped in Gaza.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent declaration of war by Israel in response, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have died.

We feel abandoned to fight on our own for our safety and the safety of our son, especially that President Biden didnt seem to even acknowledge our presence in Gaza and the need to get us to safety, Okal wrote.

Abood Okal with son Yousef. (Image courtesy Sammy Nabulsi)

Among the biggest issues beyond the threat of airstrikes is getting drinking water. Okal said that while the family has been able to secure food, drinking water is scarce.

We manage to find drinking supply to last us a day or two, but in constant struggle to secure it, he said.

Friends and neighbors rally support

Friend of the family Sammy Nabulsi of Boston, who has been zealously reaching out to federal officials and representatives on the familys behalf, is in touch with the family daily. He has arranged for the Medway police to check on their house.

We feel very supported by our friends throughout the U.S. as everyone has been reaching out and checking on us, Okal said.

Nabulsi said Thursday he remains frustrated and upset about the lack of movement on getting American citizens out of Gaza. He said there are hundreds of citizens in the same situation as Okal and his family.

I cannot wrap my head around the President going all the way to Israel, developing an agreement for humanitarian aid, and pledging up to an additional $40 billion of aid for this war, without having done anything to get American citizens home safely first.

Wafaa Abuzayda holds 1-year-old Yousef Okal. Both remained in Gaza on Sunday, more than a week after the start of the Hamas-Israel conflict. (Image courtesy Sammy Nabulsi)

Nabulsi added that he has asked federal officials to push for a safe zone or protection area for the town of Rafah where the crossing into Egypt is located, but he has not heard back. He was part of an effort to circulate a petition demanding that everything be done to bring Okal and his family home. As of 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, the petition had reached more than 12,000 signatures.

This family is going to die if we do not get them out, Nabulsi said.

Friend Josh Dohan has been taking care of the familys dog, Lili. Dohan has kept up with the news and has been in touch with Nabulsi, aware that theres not enough food and water to sustain everyone.

Theres bombs going off and they were just there to visit family, he said to MassLive. They just want to come home. Its frightening and frustrating that theyre sitting there at the border and they cant get out.

Dohan has been a public defender in Massachusetts since 1988 with a long list of advocacy and volunteer work in the Commonwealth, including as an international fellow in the West Bank for the International Legal Foundation.

Through his international work, he met Abuzaydas brother and, in turn, put him in touch with the couple. They became friends, and that friendship carried overseas back in Massachusetts. But almost two weeks since the start of the current conflict, Dohan said its a complicated situation.

We hope to take good care of their dog, he said. We feel helpless, but its very frustrating.... We are worried about all the civilians over there in Israel and Palestine. Its a tense time for everybody.

Dohan is hopeful with the news of humanitarian aid from Egypt entering Gaza. For now, hes been keeping a watchful eye on Lili while her family is still trapped.

Shes got a lot of personality and is used to getting a lot of attention, he said. I dont think we do as good a job as Wafaa and Abood do. What can you do?
The daughter of Cara Rintala, the former Granby woman found guilty of her wifes killing, gave an emotional testimony on Thursday at her mothers sentencing in an attempt to persuade a Hampshire County judge for leniency.

Im asking you to release my mom immediately, Brianna Rintala, 16, said. We need to be together. Im going to need my mom.

Judge Francis E. Flannery sentenced Cara Rintala to 12 to 14 years in state prison on Thursday after a unanimous jury verdict two weeks ago that found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter. She was charged with one count of murder in connection with the strangulation death of her wife, Annamarie, 37, on March 29, 2010.

The nearly two-hour sentencing hearing saw a packed courtroom of family relatives of both Rintala and her deceased wife, Annamarie Cochrane Rintala, who was found dead in the basement of their Granby home and covered in paint on March 29, 2010.

Brianna said she did not have memories of Annamarie and said she has suffered greatly over the past 13 years seeing Cara go in and out of jail. The only mother I have ever remembered is Cara, she said.

Rintala was sentenced with seven-and-a-half years of time served after being held during past trials. The fourth trial of Rintala, 57, began on Sept. 13 and lasted two weeks.

Every time I was separated in this way from my mom I felt the same heartbreak all over again, Brianna said.

Rintala and her wife Cochrane Rintala were both paramedics and had a daughter. Prosecutors argued Rintala strangled her wife to death amid a rough patch in their relationship.

Rintalas first two trials in 2013 and 2014 resulted in hung juries. Her third trial, in 2016, resulted in a first-degree murder conviction and a life sentence. But the states Supreme Judicial Court reversed that conviction in 2021, ruling the trial judge should have barred an expert witness called by the prosecution from testifying.

Rintala was released on $50,000 cash bail in November 2021 and given permission to live with her parents and teenage daughter in Rhode Island.

For the majority of my life, and in the short time my mom and I have been able to be together, weve had an unbreakable bond, Brianna said. Not being able to live with her breaks my heart.
As the Republican-controlled U.S. House lurched from one leadership crisis to another on Thursday, a cri de coeur from one Massachusetts lawmaker may have encapsulated the frustration the chambers Democrats are feeling as the chamber enters its third week without a speaker.

People are done with this extreme MAGA BSthey WANT us working together and they want a bipartisan path forward, U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-2nd District, posted to X, formerly Twitter on Thursday afternoon, as it became clear that a plan to expand the powers of acting Speaker Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., had collapsed.

The specific target of McGoverns ire was a post by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, R-Ga., who told her supporters that shed vote against empowering McHenry, an ally of ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

The lack of a permanent presiding officer has brought on a partisan logjam that has paralyzed one side of Capitol Hill, blocking the path of any potential U.S. aid to Israel as it prosecutes an increasingly bloody war with the terrorist group Hamas  or for the ongoing war in Ukraine, or to extend the November deadline to keep the government running.

The Biden administration is reportedly drafting a $100 billion foreign aid package that includes help for Israel, as well as other security priorities, ABC News reported.

I will vote NO on a resolution to empower a short-term Speaker.



Im not sharing our power with Democrats, after our voters gave us the majority.



Republicans working with Democrats is how we got here.



Our conference must unite and elect a full-term Republican Speaker.



Im  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) October 19, 2023

Im not sharing our power with Democrats, after our voters gave us the majority. Republicans working with Democrats is how we got here, Greene posted to X. Our conference must unite and elect a full-term Republican Speaker. Im voting for Jim Jordan.

McGovern, a prominent progressive, returned fire, noting with disbelief that, Really?? Imagine thinking the biggest problem right now is Republicans and Democrats working together??

Republicans working with Democrats is how we got here.



Really?? Imagine thinking the biggest problem right now is Republicans and Democrats working together??



People are done with this extreme MAGA BSthey WANT us working together and they want a bipartisan path forward!! pic.twitter.com/LpL9DDikeJ  Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) October 19, 2023

As Thursday opened, it appeared that Jordan, R-Ohio, a conservative firebrand and a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, had opted against a third try for the gavel, after being dealt back-to-back defeats earlier in the week.

By Thursday afternoon, however, the path forward had, as the Washington Post reported, became increasingly unclear.

After backing an expansion of McHenrys authority, Jordan later suggested to reporters that plan was on ice, and said that he would seek a third ballot for speaker  though the timing of such a move was unclear, the newspaper reported.

Democrats, who lined up behind U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. for Speaker, fumed openly.

Two-hundred House Republicans voted for a speaker who wants to ban abortion nationwide  without exception for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. Theyve chosen MAGA extremism over the freedom of the American people, U.S. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-5th District, posted to X on Thursday morning.

Yesterday 212. Today 212. @HouseDemocrats are united on behalf of bipartisanship and against extremism.  Katherine Clark (@WhipKClark) October 18, 2023

Jeffries, the Democratic floor leader, held 212 Democratic votes during the two rounds of balloting, prompting Clark to observe on Wednesday that @HouseDemocrats are united on behalf of bipartisanship and against extremism.

Echoing McGovern, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-6th District, said hed been fielding questions asking why Democrats cant help with this mess. This is why. Republicans are saying out loud that they would rather not govern at all than govern alongside Democrats.

Moulton shared a post from U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who reasserted her support for Jordan.

We must work to unify Republicans as the last line of defense to save America, Stefanik, who, like Jordan, is an ally of former President Donald Trump, said.

The people across #NY21 and America can rest assured that I strongly oppose any attempt to create a Democrat backed coalition government.



I will vote to support Jim Jordan for Speaker on the House Floor.



We must work to unify Republicans as the last line of defense to save  Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) October 19, 2023

U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-4th District, whod earlier said that a vote for Jordan was a vote against the Constitution, took to X to back Bidens plan for aid to Israel and Ukraine.

The Newton lawmaker, who is Jewish and a former Marine, has been among the most outspoken supporters of Israel on Capitol Hill since fighting first flared there nearly three weeks ago.

Tonight, President Biden will ask Congress to defend democracy, Auchincloss wrote. I strongly support his objectives: to arm Ukraine against Russia; to strengthen our Indo-Pacific allies against China; and to defend Israel against terrorists.

Tonight, President Biden will ask Congress to defend democracy.



I strongly support his objectives: to arm Ukraine against Russia; to strengthen our Indo-Pacific allies against China; and to defend Israel against terrorists. pic.twitter.com/RMjnr0roKc  Rep. Jake Auchincloss  (@RepAuchincloss) October 19, 2023

Taking to X after Wednesdays balloting, U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, D-3rd District, mused aloud on Republican strategy.

Another Speaker vote, another embarrassing GOP defeat. How many more times are the moderate House Republicans going to fail to elect an extreme candidate before they wake up? Trahan wrote. @HouseDemocrats are ready to find a bipartisan deal to reopen the House and get back to work.

But well into Thursday afternoon, a path toward a bipartisan compromise  or any compromise  appeared increasingly remote. Republicans openly warned against bringing any plan to the floor unless it had the votes behind it, Politico reported.

Were currently sitting on a tinderbox. So to do that, it would set off the fuse that would certainly end in civil war within the GOP, and I dont believe that anybody wants to do that, U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said of the scuttled-for-now plan to empower McHenry.

Also looming: A continuing resolution that has funded the government expires on Nov. 17. If Congress fails to renew it, or cannot reach a permanent deal on how the government will pay its bills, it could prompt a government shutdown  with potentially disastrous consequences.

The last time a shutdown loomed, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, dismissed it as a cynical ploy by House Republican hardliners.

But at least that time the Republicans had someone to lead them. This time out, it appears far from assured.
For people suffering a gunshot wound, getting to a hospital in time can mean holding on to life.

At Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, the trauma bay overseen in part by Dr. Kristina Kramer helps keep people alive in a city that has seen a shockingly high number of homicides this year.

The care doesnt end when people are wheeled out of the trauma bay in the Emergency Department. A program instituted last year by Kramer, the first of its kind in western Massachusetts, sends a social worker to speak with patients injured due to violence. Yes, social workers routinely tend to issues arising from hospital stays. But the stakes are higher with this program, Better Tomorrow: It works to reduce the likelihood of further violence.Of further injury. And more deaths.

Up to 45% of those treated after incidents of violence are reinjured within five years, according to a 2013 study in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. In the last few decades, hospitals have emerged as places where future violence is prevented. Thats done by approaching patients at a moment when they can be encouraged to rethink how they behave.

As reporter Greta Jochem explained in a recent story, the Baystate program, funded by a $1 million Department of Justice grant, works to head off retaliation by the patient against the person who shot them.

Devonne Cumba, a Better Tomorrow social worker affiliated with the nonprofit Roca, encourages patients to slow down and think things through  and do more than prepare to get even.

Kramer says that after saving lives, hospitals can serve as neutral ground, as places where people enmeshed in violence can rethink the costs and consequences of their actions. Kramers project has been attuned, in particular, to crime prevention goals in the citys Brightwood, Forest Park, South End, Metro Center, Memorial Square, Six Corners, Old Hill and McKnight neighborhoods, according to Baystate.

Experts in the field say hospitalization offers a teachable moment. Another study, using early data from this field of violence intervention, found that people who receive the kind of outreach provided by Better Tomorrow engage in significantly less later violence and criminal activity.

In 2020, 124 people on average died every day in the U.S. due to gun violence. As Springfield and other cities look for ways to cut those dismal numbers and make neighborhoods safer, Better Tomorrow is already making a difference.
Chandler Jones was arrested Tuesday for the second time in less than a month, according to records obtained by David Ferrara of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The 33-year-old allegedly violated a domestic violence temporary protection order.

The former Patriots defensive end was also arrested Sept. 29 and charged with two violations of a domestic temporary restraining order. He was released after posting bond.

Jones, who was in the second year of his three-year deal with the Las Vegas Raiders, was cut by the team the day after his first arrest  which came after a slew of concerning social media posts. The former Patriot blasted the Raiders on Instagram and claimed he was unable to get into the team gym.

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After voicing public support for Jones, the Raiders released him and said they were hopeful hed get the necessary care needed.

The Raiders are hopeful that Chandler Jones receives the care that he needs, the Raiders said in a statement Sept. 29. He, his family, and all those involved are in our thoughts. As this is now a legal matter, we will not be providing further comment.

Jones confirmed his arrest on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, but called the details of why he was arrested insane.

lol the details are insane! Theres no way I shouldve been arrested, one post read. The Lord knows.

He claims he was on his way to Spring Mountain Treatment Center in Las Vegas to donate Chanel bags and a 2 million dollar check in hand when he was arrested. Jones posted he never violated anything that the records indicated.

A four-time Pro Bowl select, Jones signed a three-year, $51 million with Las Vegas in March 2022. In his first season with the Raiders, he tallied 38 tackles, 4.5 sacks and three fumble recoveries in 15 games. Jones didnt appear in a game for the Silver and Black this year.
Embattled Springfield Police Officer Gregg Bigda appeared Thursday at a hearing in Boston to appeal the revocation of his policing license as he faces the possibility of losing the state-issued certification to work in law enforcement.

Bigda, 54, a nearly 30-year veteran of the Springfield police force, has been subject to years of public scrutiny following federal charges that he brutalized a pair of Latino boys who stole an undercover police car in 2016.
Officials with the Columbus Police Department have identified three suspects who were arrested on Oct. 17 in relation to an alleged robbery incident.

Columbus police Capt. Doug Molczyk stated in a press release that John M. Olsan, 59; Jazmaine M. McManigal, 33; and Dylan M. White, 22, were all arrested on Oct. 17 and booked into the Platte County Jail.

According to the press release, the trio were charged with the following alleged crimes:

Olsan was charged with suspicion of robbery; suspicion of use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony; suspicion of possession of an exceptionally hazardous controlled substance; suspicion of possession of marijuana more than 1 ounce but less than 1 pound; and suspicion of possession of drug paraphernalia.

McManigal was charged with suspicion of robbery and suspicion of use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony.

White was charged with suspicion of conspiracy to commit robbery.

Molczyk described the incident for which the trio were arrested, writing in the press release that at about 11:22 a.m., Tuesday, Oct. 17, Columbus police officers were dispatched to a residential property within the city for reports of a break-in by suspects allegedly armed with knives and the alleged theft of a firearm.

Once law enforcement officials arrived at the home in the 2600 block of Seventh Avenue, both McManigal and White were detained and then arrested. However, officials alleged Olsan remained inside the home and refused to come out.

After a search warrant was obtained and both a CPD K-9 dog officer and a second Nebraska State Patrol K-9 dog officer arrived on the scene, officials entered the residence and then arrested Olsan.
Gov. Maura Healey wants Massachusetts to win and win big, she said Thursday during an unveiling of a proposed bill and an executive order she hopes will help get the state more federal money.

Thats why Healeys after $17.5 billion in federal money her office estimates is available to the commonwealth. The combined applications to secure the money would cost $3 billion in state matching funds. Currently, the Bay State has a little more than $2 billion for those purposes, the governor said.

Nearly a year into office, Healey has secured millions of dollars in federal support, including $108 million toward developments for the East-West rail.

Healey announced that her newly proposed bill would create a state PayGo fund that would unlock an estimated $800 million in resources for the commonwealth to use to pursue federal funding opportunities over the next three years.

The bill will leverage interest from the Commonwealths $8 billion rainy-day fund, which is expected to generate up to $250 million per year, state Secretary of Administration and Finance Matthew J. Gorzkowic said.

This legislation will help separate Massachusetts from the rest of the nation by putting substantial dedicated resources on the table, Gorzkowicz said. It will also send a clear message to Washington that we are serious and ready to move on these projects.

The fund also includes $50 million in municipal matching grants and local infrastructure banks.

This is a resource that our cities and towns can use to finance infrastructure projects that we know are so needed, and we want to help and be there for our cities and towns, she said.

Another $12 million will be set aside for local government technical assistance work, Healey said.

Not every state has the fiscal health and the resources to do this is capital investment in debt reduction fund, she said. Well give Massachusetts a competitive edge in pursuing this historic federal funding grant opportunity.

Healey plans to use money left over from the states pursuit of federal cash toward state assets, a move which she said would take the pressure off capital programs and the states debt portfolio.

Look, this is smart, Healey said. Its fiscally responsible. Its what we need to do.

The bill now waits to be taken up by the Legislature.

Massachusetts Federal Funds and Infrastructure Office

The governor also signed an executive order that created the Federal Funds and Infrastructure Office. The office, which will be led by Director Quentin Palfrey, was technically developed months ago. But the executive order makes the development formal.

The office will work on identifying key opportunities for Massachusetts for federal funding.

The tools outlined in this executive order will enable the Commonwealth to capitalize on President [Joe] Bidens historic investments of federal money and maximize its impact for Massachusetts, Palfrey said in a statement.
In an open letter to their bosses, Muslim and Jewish Capitol Hill staffers pleaded with representatives and senators to call a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Politico reported Thursday.

Anonymously signed by a contingent of 411 staffers, according to HuffPost, the letter warns legislators that millions of lives hang in the balance...

Our families, histories and faith traditions are deeply rooted in Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine, the letter reads. As the children of survivors of slavery, the Holocaust, colonialism, war and oppression, we feel compelled to raise our voices in this moment.

Staffers said they signed the letter anonymously out of concern for our personal safety, risk of violence and the impact on our professional credibility on Capitol Hill.

Almost two weeks have passed since a surprise Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent declaration of war by Israel on Hamas. Al Jazeera reports that 3,478 have been killed in Gaza, 69 deaths reported in the West Bank and 1,400 Israelis killed since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

The letter implored legislators to call for a ceasefire, something especially urgent with antisemitism, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian sentiment on the rise nationwide, which instigated the brutal murder of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American child, Wadea Al-Fayoume.

Al-Fayoume, of Chicago, was stabbed 26 times by his landlord in Chicago on Saturday, Oct. 14, the AP reported. The boys mother fought the landlord off before hiding in a bathroom before police arrived. The landlord, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba, was charged with attempted murder and a hate crime.

The letter also emphasized appreciation for legislators who expressed solidarity with Israel following the Hamas attack, but staffers were profoundly disturbed that such shows of humanity have barely been extended to the Palestinian people. Only a fraction have called for a ceasefire or at least a cessation of hostilities.

We believe that Palestinian civilians deserve to be remembered, mourned and defended with the same rigor that Jewish Israelis deserve from the U.S. Congress, the letter continued.

The next paragraph highlights that as Muslims and Jews, we are tired of reliving generational fears of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and tired of leaders pushing us to blame each other, exploiting our pain and our histories to rationalize political agendas and justify violence.

Only once this immediate hemorrhage ends can we turn our efforts to end the status quo of occupation, violence and find pathways for lasting, sustainable peace for both Israelis and Palestinians, the letter concluded.

Massachusetts Rep. James McGovern, D-2nd District, called for a ceasefire on Wednesday, along with fellow Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal; Greg Casar, Joaquin Castro and Veronica Escobar, of Texas; Barbara Lee of California and Jesus G. Chuy Garcia of Illinois.

Let us be clear: our call for a ceasefire should not be mistaken as a lack of support for the protection of the people of Israel. To the contrary, it is because of our dedication to the safety of both Israelis and Palestinians that we seek a path forward without further escalating the toll of civilian dead and injured, lawmakers said in their statement.

Garcia was also a co-sponsor, along with Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District, on a ceasefire resolution in the House of Representatives urging President Joe Biden to facilitate a ceasefire and de-escalate the war. Other co-sponsors included Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan; Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velazquez of New York; Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey; Ilhan Omar of Minnesota; and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois.

On the Monday after the attack, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey was booed during a pro-Israel rally on the Boston Common after he called for de-escalation of violence. He emphasized, echoing Biden, that the United States will support Israel, but added ...the United States and the international community must keep pushing for diplomacy and the ending of civilian casualties on all sides.

I have been to Israel many times and we condemned the heinous attack this weekend on Israel that saw the targeting and vicious murder by Hamas of innocent civilians, of children and of seniors, Markey said. The continued civilian casualties and the taking of innocent hostages is reprehensible.

The letters publication comes one day after 300 Jewish and Muslim demonstrators and their allies, including members of the progressive Jewish group IfNotNow, were arrested after a massive sit-in on Capitol Hill, the New York Times reported. The demonstration was estimated to have 5,000-10,000 participants.
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FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2019, file photo, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry speaks in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. The Biden administrations suspension of new oil and gas leases on federal land and water was blocked Tuesday, June 15, 2021, by a federal judge in Louisiana. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty's ruling came in a lawsuit filed in March by Louisianas Republican attorney general, Jeff Landry and officials in 12 other states. Doughty's ruling granting a preliminary injunction to those states said his order applies nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)AP

As you may have heard, Louisianas Attorney General, Jeff Landry, will be the states next GOP governor after a landslide victory Oct. 14.

Landry, who has downplayed the significance of human-driven climate change and is a major supporter of increasing the states energy production, has consistently used his power as the states top lawyer to block attempts to rein in fossil fuel companies in Louisiana and throughout the country.

For example, AG Landry was among the state attorneys general who challenged the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan, which aimed to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. He supported the Keystone XL Pipeline and opposed actions hindering its completion.

And has taken legal actions to defend and support oil and gas leasing in federal waters, especially given the importance of the industry to Louisianas economy.

Hes not expected to change his ways when he ascends to the states top political position Jan. 8.

Here are some of the most recent federal environmental cases in which Landry has been involved on behalf of Louisiana.

Iowa v. EPA

Clean Air Act Waiver: California Advanced Clean Trucks Regulation

In March 2022, the EPA reinstated Californias ability under the Clean Air Act to implement its greenhouse gas emission standards and zero-emission vehicle sales mandates. Subsequently, in April 2023, the California Air Resources Board approved a regulation mandating diesel medium- and heavy-duty on-road vehicles to be gradually replaced by zero-emission vehicles. The AGs challenged the EPAs approval of this regulation, claiming that Californias regulation would force other states to abide by Californias standards and raise costs nationwide.

West Virginia v. EPA

Waters of the United States Rule

Landry joined other states in challenging a new Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule decades in the making. It sought to clarify the scope of federal jurisdiction over various water bodies, including streams, wetlands, and other water bodies under the Clean Water Act. Critics argue the rule is federal overreach, while the government said the rule was crucial because of how flooding can, for example, allow farm cesspools to overflow and join other nearby bodies that are already federally regulated.

The district court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the policy in April 2023. The injunction is now being appealed to the Eighth Circuit.

Louisiana vs. Federal Emergency Management Agency (DHS)

National Flood Insurance Risk Programs

In October 2021, FEMA revised the methodology to determine rates under the National Flood Insurance Program. This new Risk Rating 2.0 addresses rating disparities with more flood risk variables. The idea was that the ratepayers would be charged premiums more equitably. Previously, a person living in a $20,000 trailer would be charged the same as someone in a $3 million home. That new rate would charge the owner of the more expensive home since it would cost far more to fix damage or rebuild. The owner of the cheaper home would pay less. Ten states challenged the new system, arguing that While the agency (Federal Emergency Management Agency) paints a picture of nuanced calculations using massive data repositories that reveal a propertys individualized risks, the reality is much simpler: Flood insurance is going to be much more expensive for pretty much everybody, according to the lawsuit. The case is pending.

Texas v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Fuel Economy Standards for Vehicles

The AG coalition filed a petition for review challenging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations (NHTSA) corporate average fuel economy standards (CAFE) for specific cars and light trucks. The AGs contend that the NHTSA violated the express statutory prohibition on mandating electric vehicles in setting the CAFE standards.

The case is pending.

Texas v. EPA

Greenhouse Gas Regulations for Vehicles

This lawsuit challenges a Biden Administration EPA rule about greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. According to the plaintiffs, the regulations will impose significant economic harm on the states by stressing their electric grids and decreasing the need for gasoline by billions of gallons. The rules far exceed EPAs authority and violate the U.S. Constitutions separation-of-powers principles, according to the plaintiff states.

The case is pending.

Arizona v. EPA

Lead and Copper in Drinking Water

This Trump-era rule was expected to quicken the speed at which cities need to notify people who may have been exposed to lead but give utilities a longer timeline to replace lead-tainted service lines. When Biden came into office, his EPA delayed the ruling from taking effect, known as the Delay Rule. The AGs argue that the Biden Administrations cost-benefit analysis further reveals that the Delay Rule is a bad policy and will result in adverse health effects that exceed the reduced costs on water system operators. In August 2023, the D.C. Circuit dismissed the case due to a lack of state standing.

Louisiana v. Biden

Executive Order on Social Costs of Greenhouse Gases

The AG coalition filed suit to block President Bidens executive order requiring agencies to calculate the social cost of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide when enacting regulations. The states argue that the sweeping executive action covers topics as diverse as vending machines, dishwashers, dehumidifiers, microwave ovens, residential water heaters, residential refrigerators and freezers, fluorescent lamps, residential clothes dryers, room air conditioners, residential furnaces, residential air conditioners, and battery chargers, just to name a few.

The district court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the policy on 2/11/22. The federal defendants appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which reversed the district court and dismissed the case due to a lack of state standing.
Another rainy weekend is on deck for Massachusetts residents as weather officials have strong reason to believe that a noreaster could develop, bringing soaking rain and heavy winds.

Thursday is expected to be beautiful with sunny skies, light winds and temperatures in the 60s, the National Weather Service said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

However, a low pressure system that will develop over the mid-Atlantic region will bring widespread showers to Massachusetts Friday through Sunday, with Saturday being the wettest of the weekend days, forecasters said.

This system has the potential to become a full-fledged noreaster, according to AccuWeather.

As the energy from the system moves to New England, a storm will form along the Carolina coast, AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said.

The storm will strengthen significantly as it travels northward on Saturday night and Sunday and may even curl northwestward over the interior of New England, Rayno said. The storm is likely to evolve into a potent noreaster and produce a zone of heavy rain, strong winds and building seas.

Forecasters believe the storm will have a stronger impact on areas north of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, AccuWeather said. New York City and southern New England will have the most rain as well.

As of Thursday morning, the National Weather Service Even does not expect more than an inch of rain in Massachusetts.

Read More: Snow falls on Mount Washington as first of winter arrives

So far only the northern portion of the state is under a limited risk for excessive rainfall on Saturday, according to a hazardous weather outlook map. There is also the potential for wind gusts up to 40 mph on Saturday.

The storm will bring dry and chilly weather after it passes, with a potential for widespread frost Tuesday morning, forecasters continued. More mild weather is expected during the middle of next week.
Superbo, a leading provider of advanced AI solutions, has just unveiled an exciting new partnership with tech giant Microsoft, signaling a pivotal collaboration set to amplify Azure OpenAI deployments across the African continent.

This significant stride underlines Superbos commitment to expanding its global footprint while playing a critical role in steering technological advancement throughout Africa.

Superbos inclusion in the Microsoft Partner Network in Africa is a testament to its cutting-edge AI technologies and extensive expertise in crafting intelligent solutions. The alliance is poised to accelerate the rollout of Microsoft Azure OpenAI technologies, a move of paramount importance in tackling unique challenges and harnessing opportunities in Africas rapidly evolving digital landscape.

With a focus on delivering key AI-driven solutions, Superbo will play a central role in Microsofts ambitious quest to drive digital and AI transformation across Africa. The fusion of Superbos AI and machine learning capabilities with Microsofts robust cloud platform is poised to herald a new era of innovative, accessible, and impactful technology solutions.

An integral part of Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Generative AI holds tremendous potential to revolutionize customer engagement, content creation, and a multitude of other domains. Leveraging natural language generation and understanding, Generative AI empowers businesses to connect with their audiences in a personalized, efficient, and insightful manner. This not only fosters enriched user experiences but also opens pathways for businesses to achieve new heights in operational efficiency.

Superbos CEO, Demetri Papazissis, emphasized the significance of the collaboration, stating,  The relationship with Microsoft marks a significant milestone for Superbo. By combining our AI expertise with Microsofts extensive resources, we are on the cusp of delivering groundbreaking Azure OpenAI solutions that are poised to drive digital innovation while significantly improving the lives and businesses of individuals in Africa. 

Ravi Bhat, Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Africa, highlighted the role of companies like Superbo in the AI ecosystem, stating,  AI is the defining technology of our time and will have a lasting impact on people, industries, and society for years to come. Companies like Superbo are an integral part of the AI ecosystem and add value by integrating their solutions with Microsoft Azure Open AI. 

Expressing a shared vision of unlocking the power of AI to unlock fresh opportunities, improve digital service access, and contribute to socio-economic progress in Africa, this partnership embodies Superbos impressive capabilities and its passionate dedication to promoting widespread adoption of AI technology.
A GROUP from Lahardane who are campaigning to retain GP services in the village say they are hopeful that the matter can be resolved when a meeting with the HSE takes place tomorrow.

The HSE has invited one member of the community in Lahardane, the GP who wishes to take up the vacant GP position in the village, and Leader of The Rural Ireland Organisation, local man - Gerry Loftus to attend tomorrows meeting

Mr Loftus told Mid West Radio news today it is hoped an agreement can be put in place as to how the position for a GP in Lahardane can be filled.

The north Mayo community have been left without a GP service since October 1 after Dr Enda Loftus who was the GP since 2020 left to take up a vacant GP position in Crossmolina.

However, a doctor has indicated that he is willing to take over the practice in Lahardane. Mr Loftus had said that this doctor is still 100 percent committed to coming on board if an arrangement can be made with the HSE.
CLOSE your eyes,

Have no fear...,

Beautiful boy.

Mourners wept at the funeral of their beautiful boy - Joe Drennan - as John Lennons lyrics accompanied his ivory coloured-coffin being wheeled into St Fergals Church, Camross, County Laois this Wednesday afternoon.

The 21-year-old fourth-year UL Journalism student was tragically killed in a hit-and-run on Friday night as he waited for a bus after finishing work in Castletroy. A number of buses carrying students and staff left the university this Wednesday morning to pay their respects at his funeral.

Fr Brian Griffin, who said the Mass with Fr Joe Brophy and UL chaplain Fr John Campion, said none of us want to be here this afternoon.

In fact, we'd rather be anywhere else in the world but we must be here because Joe has died. Joe didnt have to die, he shouldnt have died, his death was caused by the reckless behaviour of somebody else.

It is heartbreaking, horrible, and really, really awful. We are still trying to come to terms with that, we struggle to find the words. As one mother wrote on Joes condolences page on RIP.ie, A lovely, decent, hard-working son wasn't safe standing at the bus stop. It says a lot about our country, said Fr Griffin.

The Mass commenced with eulogies from Joes family and Dr Kathryn Hayes (pictured above), course director of BA Journalism and Digital Communication, who read out both.

Ms Hayes said it was an honour to be asked to read out the eulogy written by Mr Drennans aunt, Julie Bennett.

Joes story began in Knocknagad with his beloved parents Mags and Tim, his beautiful sisters Marie, Ava and Sally and his big brothers Richard, John and Ciaran. If there is one central element to Joe's story - it's love. Joe was loved and adored by so many and in turn he showed and gave so much love. No matter how big he got - our Joe was always going to be a hugger.

It was with the knowledge that he was loved, that at only 15 he felt confident enough to come out to his parents. Not many 15-year-olds could do that but the one thing Joe could never doubt was how much he was loved.

The congregation heard that he was an entrepreneur from a young age - from selling Christmas wreaths from the back of his fathers van to setting up his own tuck shop in school.

So successful his little enterprise became he had to acquire a second locker just for his stock- all bought with his mammys vouchers. Joe was a hard worker and showed real drive and ambition - he was going to be a star. He never said no to any opportunity when it presented himself. Popping in to buy a coffee in La Cucina Italian restaurant he walked out with two coffees and a job!

Rural life and especially farming just wasnt for Joe but he loved coming home especially for nannies dinner. Joe adored his nanny, Vera.

It wasnt until Limerick that Joe really blossomed and in Berlin he became whole.

Berlin opened his eyes to so much, he had so many adventures and friends; and it was there he found real joy and love. Santiago brought out the best in Joe, inspiring him to be a better writer and showing him what true love was.

Joe, was unique and so special. His life was cut short but what a life he had - wonderful friends, a family who adored him and he knew real love and not everyone gets that. In his own words, Im living my best life and Im on top of the world, read Ms Hayes.

In her own tribute, the lecturer said despite only turning 21 a fortnight ago, Joe was a critical thinker and deeply committed to these principles that underpin best journalistic practice.

Joe wanted to change the world. His desire for change can be seen in the work he was doing as a journalist with Gay Community News and the plans he had for his role as editor-in-chief of Limerick Voice digital news project in the University of Limerick. Joes pitch for the job as editor, just a few short weeks ago, epitomised his wider vision to effect change through his journalism work.

He spoke about bridging divides and fostering a deeper understanding of marginalised communities, through dynamic storytelling techniques. He wanted to give a voice to members of the Latin American, Ukrainian, LGBTQ+, and homeless communities, whom he believed were often misrepresented in Irish media.

He was determined that Limerick Voice would aim to counteract these narratives and he urged reporters to find a voice that they themselves had not heard before, said Ms Hayes.

Joes life has been cruelly cut short, she said, but he leaves an enormous legacy that will continue to inspire and to uplift all those whose lives he touched.

We know his story is one that will never be forgotten, said Ms Hayes.

Symbols brought to the altar represented his lifes story. They included a Pride flag to show his dedication to the LGBTQ+ community, to never be afraid to be yourself and stand up for what you believe in.

Sunglasses to show his style and confidence. A notebook reflected his passion for journalism and a family photo represented the love for his nearest and dearest.

The funeral Mass concluded with Adeles Make You Feel My Love and the lyrics:

"When the rain is blowing in your face,

And the whole world is on your case,

I could offer you a warm embrace,

To make you feel my love."

Everybody lucky enough to have met Joe felt that love.

May he rest in peace.
The schools will use grants ranging from $210 to $850 to help fund college visits and related activities to get students on the path to college. Since the programs inception in 2011, EducationQuest has awarded 647 grants totaling more than $380,000 to Nebraska schools.
Nebraska, we have a problem: childcare. The lack of sufficient childcare has become an urgent challenge in the state of Nebraska that impacts everyone. This is the reason organizations, such as First Five Nebraska, are increasingly more important.

In partnership with Columbus Area United Way and Community & Family Partnership, First Five Nebraska is bringing this information to its local communities in Columbus and Schuyler on Nov. 1, 2023.

First Five Nebraska was created in 2011 as the first organization in the state focused on advancing early childhood care and learning opportunities through policy change, strategic partnerships, and public education. Their strategic impact includes elevating early childhood, strengthening services for infants and toddlers, improving quality and accountability in childcare, and facilitating supportive relationships between local businesses and early childhood programs.

According to their website at firstfivenebraska.org, about 80% of Nebraska counties lack sufficient childcare to meet local workforce needs. This discrepancy not only impacts the families of those with young children but has an impact on the economy in the state, which also impacts local business.

Hope Freshour, executive director of the Columbus Area United Way, stresses the impact of childcare on economic development.

To have a thriving, vibrant, and economically sound community, early childhood is an integral component of a successful community. Access to quality early childhood care is essentially a workforce infrastructure issue. If families do not have options for their children to be cared for in a quality and safe manner, it impacts recruitment, retention, and productivity of the communitys workforce and economic success, Freshour said.

There are two opportunities on Nov. 1 to become a part of this conversation. One will be held at the Cobblestone Inn Meeting Room, located at 2210 Colfax St. in Schuyler at 7:30 a.m., where a light breakfast will be served. The second will be held at the Columbus Community Room, located at 2500 14th Street in Columbus from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., where lunch will be served. RSVP to Hope Freshour at hfreshour@columbusunitedway.com by Oct. 27, 2023.
In 2022, the Global Genomics Personalized Health Market size was US$ 14.9 billion. The global market is estimated to generate a market revenue of US$ 44.4 billion by 2031, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.6% during the forecast period from 2023 to 2031.

The global genomics personalized health market has brought about a significant transformation in the healthcare sector and is expected to experience substantial growth in the coming years. This growth can be due to the increasing need for personalized healthcare, advancements in genomics technology, and a growing understanding of genetic diseases. Additionally, the market is benefiting from the decreasing costs associated with genomic sequencing technologies, which is a significant driving factor for its expansion.

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Personalized health presents a promising prospect for the market to enhance the future of customized healthcare for everyone, offering great potential for disease prevention and treatment. A recent study by Abbott found that 72 percent of patients expressed a preference for personalized healthcare experiences. This shift in patient expectations arises from the belief that personalized care, which includes tailored prevention-focused information and regular monitoring, can lead to better health outcomes.

The growth of the genomic personalized health market heavily relies on the increasing awareness surrounding genetic diseases. These diseases are prevalent worldwide, with a rate of 20.40 birth defects per 1,000 babies born in sub-Saharan Africa. A survey conducted by BMC Public Health revealed that 97.1% of respondents displayed a high level of acceptance and willingness to utilize genetic testing and counseling. Additionally, 98.2% expressed a desire for genetic services to be integrated into general healthcare systems. This highlights the need to enhance genetic interventions in terms of screening, diagnosis, and management of genetic diseases to reduce and prevent associated health risks. Thus, this factor can significantly increase the revenue share of the genomic personalized healthcare market.

Genomic Sequencing Technology Costs Plummet: Market Expansion on the Horizon

Another significant driver of market growth is the decreasing cost of genomic sequencing technologies. For instance, the original Human Genome Project finished in 2003, took 13 years, and had a price tag of around US$ 3 billion. Today, the same process can be accomplished in a matter of days and at a much lower cost of less than US$ 1,000 per genome.

Consequently, the reduced cost of DNA sequencing has made genomics more attainable, enabling healthcare providers to deliver personalized treatments at an affordable price. As a result, there has been a surge in the adoption of genomics personalized health in diverse healthcare environments.

In line with this, the cost of DNA sequencing has been greatly reduced due to rapid technological advancements. The development of new sequencing platforms and techniques has facilitated faster and more economical sequencing processes. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have revolutionized the field by enabling high-throughput sequencing at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional Sanger sequencing methods. The introduction of innovative sequencing platforms like Illumina and SOLiD has played a significant role in driving down the cost of sequencing.

Oncology Testing Generated 35% of Revenue Share of the Market

The oncology testing segment demonstrated its potential by generating a significant revenue of US$ 6.0 billion in 2022. The market is expected to sustain a strong growth rate, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% throughout the forecast period. Oncology testing plays a crucial role in cancer screening, early detection, and monitoring treatment effectiveness. As a result, the increasing burden of cancer is a driving factor for market expansion.

Cancer remains a significant global health concern, with a high mortality rate. In 2022, the number of cancer-related deaths reached approximately 10 million worldwide, highlighting the urgent need for effective personalized healthcare solutions. The total expenditure on cancer treatment has been rapidly increasing, surpassing $150 billion in 2022, which reflects the substantial burden on healthcare systems.

Nevertheless, the adoption of personalized genomics in healthcare has the potential to greatly decrease treatment expenses. Research has indicated that incorporating personalized genomics into cancer care can result in cost reductions of up to 30%.

North America Contributed a Whopping Share of 38% to the Market Revenue

In 2022, North America generated revenue exceeding US$ 5,519 million in the genomics personalized health market. It is projected to maintain a strong compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.2% throughout the forecast period. Notably, North America holds a dominant position in the market, contributing approximately 38% of the total global revenue. This dominance is further reinforced by significant investments in research and development (R&D), highlighting the regions commitment to driving innovation and advancements in genomics and personalized healthcare.

The genomics personalized health market in North America benefits from a supportive regulatory environment that promotes research, protects patient privacy, ensures data security, and facilitates the adoption of personalized healthcare solutions. Notably, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plays a significant role in regulating genomic personalized health technologies and tests. The FDA evaluates and approves genetic tests and genomic technologies to ensure their accuracy, reliability, and clinical validity. This regulatory framework, along with substantial investments in research and development (R&D), reflects North Americas commitment to driving innovation and advancements in genomics and personalized healthcare.

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The strong healthcare system in the area, which includes state-of-the-art hospitals, research institutions, and medical facilities, forms a strong basis for the adoption and incorporation of genomics and personalized health solutions. For instance, in 2022, the United States had the highest healthcare expenses per person among OECD countries, with an estimated spending of US$ 12,555 per individual.

List of Prominent Players

F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG

Interleukin Genetics Inc.

Biome Inc.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

QIAGEN

INVITAE Corporation

XCode Life Sciences Private Limited

Genetic Technologies Limited

Eastern Biotech and Life Sciences

Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.

Illumina Inc.

Lonza Group

DNA Genotek Inc.

Other Prominent Players

Segmentation Outline

The global genomic personalized health market segmentation focuses on Technology, Test Type, End Users, and Region.

By Technology

NGS platforms

RT-PCR

Microarray

Genetic Analyzers

By Test Type

Oncology Testing

Infectious Disease Testing

Genetic Disease Testing

Autoimmune Disease Testing

Others

By End Users

Research

Diagnostic centers

Academics

Others

By Region

North America The U.S. Canada Mexico

Europe Western Europe The UK Germany France Italy Spain Rest of Western Europe Eastern Europe Poland Russia Rest of Eastern Europe

Asia Pacific China India Japan South Korea Australia & New Zealand ASEAN Rest of Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa UAE Saudi Arabia South Africa Rest of MEA

South America Argentina Brazil Rest of South America



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Astute Analytica is a global analytics and advisory company that has built a solid reputation in a short period, thanks to the tangible outcomes we have delivered to our clients. We pride ourselves in generating unparalleled, in-depth and uncannily accurate estimates and projections for our very demanding clients spread across different verticals. We have a long list of satisfied and repeat clients from a wide spectrum including technology, healthcare, chemicals, semiconductors, FMCG, and many more. These happy customers come to us from all across the Globe. They are able to make well-calibrated decisions and leverage highly lucrative opportunities while surmounting the fierce challenges all because we analyze for them the complex business environment, segment-wise existing and emerging possibilities, technology formations, growth estimates, and even the strategic choices available. In short, a complete package. All this is possible because we have a highly qualified, competent, and experienced team of professionals comprising of business analysts, economists, consultants, and technology experts. In our list of priorities, you-our patron come at the top. You can be sure of best cost-effective, value-added package from us, should you decide to engage with us.

    

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The legal marijuana market is estimated to be valued at US$ 15.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 13.0% over the forecast period of 2023 and 2030, as highlighted in a new report published by Coherent Market Insights.

The legal marijuana market refers to the cultivation, processing, and sale of cannabis for medical and recreational purposes, under the regulations set by the respective governing bodies. The market includes various products such as marijuana flowers, concentrates, edibles, and topical treatments. The use cases of legal marijuana products include pain management, alleviating symptoms of chronic ailments, reducing anxiety and depression, and improving overall well-being.

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Top Companies Associated With The Legal Marijuana Market Report Are: Tilray, Aphria, Inc., Wayland Group Corp., Aurora Cannabis, Canopy Growth Corporation, and GW Pharmaceuticals, Plc.

Market Dynamics:

The legal marijuana market is driven by the increasing demand for medicinal cannabis. With growing awareness about the therapeutic properties of cannabis, there has been a significant rise in the number of patients seeking alternative treatments for various medical conditions. Moreover, the legalization of medical marijuana in several countries and states has further boosted the market growth. Favorable regulations, such as the decriminalization of cannabis and the introduction of comprehensive regulatory frameworks, have also contributed to the expansion of the legal marijuana market.

Additionally, the market presents significant opportunities for various stakeholders, including pharmaceutical companies, cannabis cultivators, and retailers. The increasing acceptance of cannabis for medicinal purposes, coupled with the potential for revenue generation, has attracted investments from both established players and new entrants in the industry. This has led to the emergence of innovative products and technologies, further driving the market growth.

In conclusion, the legal marijuana market is poised for high growth due to the increasing demand for medicinal cannabis and favorable regulations. The market presents ample opportunities for stakeholders to capitalize on the growing acceptance of cannabis for various medical conditions.

Global Legal Marijuana Market: Detailed Segmentation:

By Application: Medical Chronic Pain Mental Disorders Cancer Others Recreational

By Product Type: Buds Oils



Market drivers:

Growing acceptance of marijuana for medical and recreational use

The legal marijuana market is being driven by the increasing acceptance of marijuana for both medical and recreational use. As more research is conducted on the potential therapeutic benefits of marijuana, the perception of the drug is evolving. Medical marijuana is now legal in many states, and its use is being embraced as a way to alleviate symptoms of various medical conditions, such as chronic pain, epilepsy, and multiple sclerosis.

In addition to medical use, the legalization of recreational marijuana is gaining traction. Several states in the United States have already legalized the recreational use of marijuana, including Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. With the success of these markets, other states are considering following suit. The growing acceptance and legalization of marijuana for both medical and recreational use is creating a significant market opportunity for legal marijuana.

Economic benefits for governments and businesses

The legal marijuana market is also being driven by the economic benefits it presents for governments and businesses. Legalization allows governments to regulate and tax the production and sale of marijuana, which can generate substantial revenue. This additional income can be used to fund public services and infrastructure developments.

Furthermore, the legal marijuana industry creates job opportunities and stimulates economic growth. From cultivation to distribution, there are various roles within the legal marijuana market that require employees. This industry has the potential to create thousands of jobs, especially in regions where the market is booming. In addition, ancillary businesses, such as packaging, marketing, and security, also benefit from the growing legal marijuana market.

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Market restraints:

Regulatory challenges and inconsistencies

One of the major restraints for the legal marijuana market is the regulatory challenges and inconsistencies across different jurisdictions. While some states have legalized marijuana for medical and recreational use, others still have strict laws against it. This patchwork of regulations creates difficulties for businesses looking to operate in multiple markets and hampers the growth and potential of the industry.

In addition to inconsistencies among states, there are also challenges at the federal level. Despite individual state laws, marijuana remains illegal under federal law in the United States. This presents obstacles for businesses, such as limited access to banking services and the inability to fully utilize the interstate commerce system. These regulatory challenges and inconsistencies hinder the development and expansion of the legal marijuana market.

Lack of comprehensive research and scientific evidence

Another restrain for the legal marijuana market is the lack of comprehensive research and scientific evidence surrounding the drugs long-term effects and potential risks. While marijuana has been used for centuries for various purposes, including medicinal and recreational, there is still a lack of scientific data on its efficacy and safety.

This lack of research makes it difficult for medical professionals to fully understand the implications of marijuana use and prescribe it as a treatment option. It also hampers the acceptance and adoption of marijuana in mainstream medicine. Additionally, the lack of scientific evidence poses challenges for policymakers when developing regulations and determining appropriate dosage guidelines. To further legitimize the legal marijuana market, comprehensive research and scientific evidence are needed to support its benefits and address potential risks.

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Why Choose Coherent Market Insights?

 Identified business opportunities  Our market research report can be used to analyze potential markets and new products. It can give information about customer needs, preferences, and attitudes. Also, it compare products and services.

 A clear understanding of your customers  A market report gives companys marketing department an in-depth picture about customers needs and wants. This knowledge can be used to improve products, prices, and advertising.

 Clear data-driven insights  Our Market research encompasses a wide range of activities, from determining market size and segment to forecasting demand, and from identifying competitors to monitoring pricing. All of these are quantified and measurable which means that gives you a clear path for building unique decisions based on numbers.

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Job Title: Director of Administration and Finance Job level 9 (Senior Executive staff) Duration of Contract 1 year, renewable Reports to Country Director Supervises Administrative & Finance teams Location: Lubumbashi, DRC

POSITION SUMMARY

ICAP, a program of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York City, is supporting the Ministry of Health of DR Congo to rapidly expand comprehensive HIV/AIDS services and reduce HIV/AIDS related morbidity and mortality in DR Congo, via provision of technical support. Be part of ICAP in DRC team in order to support the Ministry of Health and fight against AIDS in the implementation of its activities extensions program of people living with HIV/AIDS support.

Reporting directly to the Country Director and Chief Financial Officer, the Director of Administration and Finance will oversee all finance and administration functions of ICAP in DR Congo, including budget development and tracking, financial management and reporting, subcontracts, procurement, and office management. S/he will build and supervise a strong administration and finance team.

This position is grant-funded. The ideal candidate would be based in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSABILITIES

Develop, manage and regularly review ICAP finance and administration procedures to ensure efficiency and compliance to Columbia University/funder rules and regulations; serve as the primary custodian of all financial transactions; establish and manage financial systems to ensure transparency, accountability and accuracy of all financial data; establish and maintain financial procedures, ensuring adequate segregation of duties are maintained;

Develop and monitor budgets across multiple grants, in accordance with pre-established ICAP, Columbia University and donor guidelines; prepare forecasts of programmatic and operational costs, ensuring the availability of funds to meet financial needs; ensure that advances are reconciled in accordance with procedures and required deadlines ;

Establish and maintain solid professional relationships with vendors, ensuring that all payments are made timely and that products and services are delivered in accordance with established standards; ensure that ICAP meets donor financial and administrative requirements, and apply fiscal controls and compliance procedures;

Conduct periodic pipeline and burn rate analyses, audits of actual expenses and budget-to actual comparisons; present relevant reports to internal and external audiences to facilitate financial and programmatic planning and monitoring;

Perform periodic training for staff and partners in financial systems and policies ;

Ensure that Advances are reconciled in accordance with procedures and required deadlines;

Serve as lead Finance liaison to ICAP headquarters in New York, to ensure that all administrative and financial obligations of the program are routinely met; serve as lead liaison with national tax authorities to ensure that ICAP in-country adheres to taxation requirements and receives taxation relief;

Establish/maintain banking relationships, ensuring transactions are processed timely, accurately, and adequate balances are maintained; ensure timely financial reporting ;

Supervise sub agreement development and management process, including negotiation of contracts, development of budgets and provision of technical assistance to sub grantees, in close coordination with the ICAP-New York sub award team, to ensure effective management of funds and financial reporting;

Oversee procurement of office and program-related equipment, ensuring adherence to all donor, Columbia University and national regulations; maintain appropriate inventory of supplies and equipment, taking special care to ensure that all items are adequately documented and costs are appropriately chronicled; ensure that bid analysis is done and filed as part of the supporting documents for all purchases;

Ensure effective and smooth office operations, including security and transportation management of a fleet of vehicles; review the logs of vehicles maintenance; fuel usage logs; review the property log at least once a quarter; ensure that insurance policies are updated when new items are bought;

In consultation with the Country Director, liaise with in-country legal counsel and coordinate legal matters with ICAP-New York;

Ensure that monthly payroll reconciliations are done, approved and filed and

Performs other related duties as directed.

EDUCATION :

Bachelors degree in business administration, finance, accounting or related field required; Masters Degree preferred.

MINIMUM EXPERIENCE, SKILLS & PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS :



10 years of relevant work experience with a minimum of 5 years work experience at an international NGO;

Demonstrated experience analyzing and interpreting financial data.

Sound knowledge of accounting principles and techniques required; experience with accounting software, such as QuickBooks, is a plus.

Experience working with international donors required and experience specifically with US government donor agencies and familiarity with USG rules and regulations strongly preferred.

Strong supervisory and management skills and demonstrated experience in the supervision of finance and administrative staff

Demonstrated experience working independently with minimal supervision, reliably establishing priorities and meeting deadlines

Advanced ability to use Word and PowerPoint to develop presentations and Excel to develop moderately complex spreadsheets

Capacity to analyze financial data and program situations and develop innovative approaches as needed

French fluency and English proficiency required

Ability and commitment to adhere to strict professional and HIV/AIDS confidentiality regulations. Travel Requirement

TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS

Frequent travel to field sites, and possible international travel, is required

To apply to this position before end of Friday, November 03rd, 2023, candidates are requested to click on the link:

https://www.sri-executive.com/opportunities/director-administration-and-finance/

Done in Lubumbashi, October 19th, 2023

Office of Human Resources and Administration/ICAP DRC
by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, October 19, 2023

A specially designed Hyundai Ioniq 5 was introduced on Dancing With the Stars Tuesday to help celebrate Disneys 100th anniversary and sell cars.

The car played a starring role on par with the dance pros and their celebrity partners. In the photo above, it literally appeared onstage.

Working with Disney, the car was conceived by Hyundai to commemorate Disneys yearlong promotion and marketing campaign for its centennial. The company was founded by Walt Disney and Roy Disney in 1923.

The car played a prominent part throughout the two-hour DWTS, which was devoted to celebrating the 100-year milestone of ABCs sprawling corporate parent.

advertisement advertisement

The sponsorship details, taken from Hyundais press release, included the opening scene, which showcased the IONIQ 5 Disney100 Platinum Edition driven by some of the DWTS dance pros through a magical world of Disneys most iconic characters and then entering the studio for the shows opening group performance number.

Indeed, the opening scene starring the Ioniq 5 looked so much like a commercial that a viewer watching at home was unsure at first whether the show was underway. As it turned out, the scene was part of the show.

The car was also featured in some of the pre-taped rehearsal footage that is a part of every episode of DWTS. Ioniq 5 logos and graphic elements were seen throughout the show.

Brand-exclusivity of advertisement spots during the first hour of the show and advertisements on Disney+ during Dancing with the Stars  were also part of Hyundais partnership with Disney, the car company said.

"Disney100" is the brand name the company has devised for all its anniversary content and promotion, and Tuesday's "DWTS" episode was titled "Disney100 Night."

The in-show participation of the Hyundai brand was a first for ABC. As part of Disney100 Night, Hyundai created a special IONIQ 5 Disney100 Platinum Edition, featuring unique Disney-inspired design elements and wheels, ABC said.

This commemorative vehicle is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between an auto manufacturer and Walt Disney Imagineering, the network said.

The Ioniq 5 is an electric SUV that Hyundai says is built on a dedicated battery electric vehicle platform that enables faster charging, increased driving range, more interior space and better handling.

Its Disney design elements include the Disney100 logo embossed on the front seat headrests and center console and Disney100 logos on the floor mats.

The car even greets its driver with Disney pixie dust. When the car is turned on, the interior screen  features iconic Disney music, the Disney100 logo and pixie dust, Hyundai said in a press release.

We are thrilled to be unveiling the IONIQ 5 Disney100 Platinum Edition during Dancing with the Stars, said Angela Zepeda, chief marketing officer for Hyundai Motor America.

Disney100 night is the perfect opportunity to showcase this first-of-its-kind collaboration between Disney Imagineering and an auto manufacturer. We couldnt think of a better way to extend our Disney100 partnership.

In Tuesdays show, the 11 remaining couples danced to iconic music from some of Disneys best-known animated movies -- including Lady and the Tramp, Aladdin, The Lion King and more.

The couple eliminated from the competition at the end of the show were NFL-er Adrian Peterson and dance pro Britt Stewart.
by Colin Kirkland , October 19, 2023

For advertisers looking to expand their roster of creators, Snapchat is introducing Creator Collab Campaigns, a suite of new ad products the company hopes will help streamline new relationships between brands and its community of creators.

Snap wants to provide advertising partners with more transparency around its creator community via the platforms Creator Discovery API, which allows brands to plug in to Snaps entire creator roster, and then view relevant stats about individual creators, including name, username, bio, follower count and age breakdown.

Creators will also have the option to share additional metrics with advertisers around their public Stories, saved Stories, Spotlights, and audience insights. Snap says that its working with API partners to integrate the creator data into their platform, including Captiv8, CreatorIQ, Influential, Pearpop, Tagger, and Whalar.

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The social-media company is also pushing branded content within the app, inviting advertisers to place branded content within creators Stories for the first time. And, according to the company, this could result in a boost in reach, with data showing that total time users spend watching Stories from US-based creators in Snaps revenue share program has doubled year-over-year.

Snap is also launching a Paid Partnership Tag, which will make branded content more obvious to users. Now, verified creators can mark their paid promotions in-app, and in the next few weeks, theyll also have the option to target brands by searching for and tagging official businesses when posting their Spotlight, Snap Map, and Public Story Snaps.

Brands can choose to respond to the request, approving partnerships within Ads Manager, then allowing creators to view analytics and use any relevant media as an ad.

These new tools could prove especially beneficial for brands trying to reach a younger user demographic. According to Snaps internal data, the platform currently reaches over 90% of 13 to 24-year-olds and over 75% of 13- to -4-year-olds in over 20 countries, with around 5 billion snaps being created each day.
by Ray Schultz , October 19, 2023

The Washington Post subscribers are being offered being offered the ability connect their subscription with Apple Podcasts, the Post announced in a story on Wednesday.

Now subscribers to The Washington Post can listen to our original podcasts ad-free, says Renita Jablonski, director of audio at The Washington Post. We also look forward to offering listeners exclusive series and other premium audio benefits on Apple Podcasts."

One perk for subscribers will be early access to the Posts first international investigative podcast, The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop, hosted by Martine Powers, co-host of Post Reports. The series features new reporting on the involvement of the U.S. in a 40 year-old Cold War mystery on the island of Grenada.

In addition, subscribers will have access to the Posts audio library.



Subscribers to via the App Store will have their subscriptions automatically connected when they open Apple Podcasts.
Nov. 17 is the deadline for producers in the Central Platte and Upper Big Blue Natural Resources Districts (NRDs) to apply for the current round of funding through the Nebraska Soil Carbon Project.

This project provides financial incentives to producers who utilize key conservation practices in central Nebraska. Farmers can adopt soil health practices, including cover crops, no-till, and diverse crop rotations, that store carbon in the soil. Private companies hope to utilize the stored carbon and water quality benefits to help reach their goals around sustainability.

The goal is to have about 100 producers installing these soil health practices on 100,000 acres over the duration of the five-year project. With three enrollment periods completed, 59 farmers have committed over 70,325 treated acres to implement conservation practices between 2021 and 2028. Applications must be submitted by Friday, Nov. 17, 2023, to be evaluated for the next round of funding.

The Nebraska Soil Carbon Project is a collaboration between the two NRDs, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), The Nature Conservancy, Ecosystem Services Market Consortium, Cargill, Target, and McDonalds. The Nature Conservancy manages this program and is investing $8 million for farmers to implement these practices over the next few years.

Increasing cropland soil carbon has multiple benefits for the producer and the environment, including more stable yields, improved nutrient availability and water holding capacity, and climate stabilization. Private companies are looking for ways to decrease their carbon footprint partnering with Nebraskas growers can provide these benefits by improving farming operations and implementing soil health practices. Markets linking these soil carbon buyers and suppliers allow companies to meet part of their greenhouse gas reduction goals while supporting farmers in implementing new conservation practices.

The payments producers receive through this soil carbon pilot project are tied to the practices implemented on the acres, not the carbon outcomes, to reduce producers risk. The goal of this pilot project is to provide participating farmers with the opportunity to evaluate the potential to leverage these programs on their operation.

Beyond the financial incentives and soil health benefits, participating producers will have the opportunity to:

Share conservation stories with a larger audience via field days, media spots, and short videos relating to the project.

Attend training events with local and national leaders in soil health, agronomy, and related topics.

Receive a report on the new practices soil carbon and water quality outcomes. Those interested in going deeper may also opt in for a detailed report on the practices financial return on investment.

Producers receive year-round assistance from the NRDs, NRCS, and The Nature Conservancy staff, who provide support for paperwork/application processes and soil health practice management. There is no gross income or acre enrollment cap for NRCS payments. Still, producers are encouraged to enroll a reasonable number of acres given their operation size and soil health experience. More acres can be submitted for enrollment in subsequent years of the program. Payments are for new soil health acres only. However, a measurable improvement of an existing practice could count (such as moving from strip-till to no-till or switching from a single-species cover crop to multi-species) if it aligns with the NRCSs standards.

To learn more visit https://www.cpnrd.org/land management/soil health, or contact Courtney Widup at 308-395-7605 or widup@cpnrd.org.
For the Rev. Aaron Hannemann, pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Schuyler and director of GracePoint Institute for Relational Health in Columbus, counseling is more than just the family business, it's part of his calling as a pastor.

"I really want to meet people where they're at. As a pastor, I was doing outreach, evangelism in the past and it's tough to get people interested in God," Hannemann said. "There's many reasons but I heard from my brother who has a waitlist 10 months long of people from all walks of life that he gets to share God's love with them. I'm like 'that's where people are and where I need to be.'"

Hannemann joined Trinity over the summer and has since been the head pastor there. He hopes to bring some of that faith-based experience to his counseling service at GracePoint. In either area of his expertise, counseling and being a pastor, he said, he hears the most difficult parts of people's lives and it can be hard to find people who understand what that's like.

"People are like 'oh, you're a shrink, you're going to psychoanalyze me,' or 'you're a pastor, I better watch what I say' but having my dad and brother who I have a great relationship with and who understand confidentiality, it can be lonely but I have family and really great people that get it, it's nice to have that support."

Guy Loop, one of the other counselors at GracePoint said that faith is a key part of how GracePoint makes an impact with their clients. From trauma to addiction to general counseling, he said, they put their faith to work with their education to help people the best they can.

"We're affiliated with GracePoint because we believe in GracePoint's mission of offering help healing through the ministry of Christ. Obviously, we're educated therapists and with those together, we want to help others in the community," Loop said.

Hannemann's father and brother started GracePoint around 11 years ago, he said. Being pastors in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and mental health practitioners, they decided to merge those areas of expertise in Omaha, Hannemann said, before expanding to Lincoln and now Columbus.

"They did a survey in 2022 of how many clients were traveling from the Columbus area to Lincoln or Omaha for counseling services and they figured out the count here was about 50 people making the hour-plus drive to Lincoln or Omaha for counseling," Hannemann said.

That's where he came in. Having a bachelor's degree in psych and having considered counseling, Hannemann pursued seminary after college because he felt a calling. With COVID-19 affording him some introspection, he thought about things and asked where he was supposed to go next, he said. He felt his next calling was the Schuyler area and doing counseling in Columbus.

"I had some time asking God what's next for me, how I can improve myself and care for people and that's when I felt led to run the counseling program when I did. My brother kept talking to me about joining," Hannemann said. "I said if an offer came I'd prayerfully consider it, I had this partnership and opening this office in Columbus for GracePoint, it just worked out."

The timing, Hannemann said, was good too, as there is a definite need for counseling in rural Nebraska.

"There's just a need for mental health counseling period, not just in rural areas but everywhere. Especially in rural areas though, access is not as good as a metro area like Lincoln or Omaha," Hannemann said.

Those at GracePoint have specialties of a sort, Hannemann said. Loop is licensed especially for drug and alcohol counseling, though he works with those struggling with any addiction. Loop's reason for getting involved in counseling, he said, is very close to home.

"Gracepoint was there when I was in need. I went back to school when I was 50 because of some struggles I had. I lost my brother, my best friend to alcoholism. I had a different calling to go help others and went back to school to become a drug and alcohol counselor," Loop said.

Jana Longacre, the second counselor at GracePoint, specializes in trauma and trauma recovery and employs a technology called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to help those with trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder with recovery.

Lastly, Hannemann is an all-around counselor, he said. His area of expertise is broad and tied strongly to his ministry. While the service is faith-based, Hannemann said, they won't turn away those who may not share their beliefs.

"I'm more of a generalist, I can meet with young and old, couples, families. My specialty is that I have eight years of pastor experience and can provide that care as well," Hannemann said.

GracePoint currently operates out of the Immanuel Lutheran Church Family Life Center at 1470 23rd Ave. in Columbus. They have someone on staff from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday and can schedule appointments in that time. To get their name out and celebrate being open and operational, they will hold a grand opening celebration on Nov. 9 from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Family Life Center with refreshments, live music and a short program starting at 7:45 p.m.
Arkansas Residents Outcry Over Rising Crypto Mining Nuisance, Senator Seeks Governors Response

Source: Pixabay

A senator from the US state of Arkansas is seeking answers from the governors office as there is an increase in the outcry over unwanted cryptocurrency mines in small towns across the state.

Residents of Mountain Pine have complained over freaking loud noise from a new crypto-mining facility in Garland County, according to a local news outlet Katv.

Its just freaking loud. High-pitched fans, thats what you hear, said Gary Muston, a resident who lives across the road from the mining facility. Some residents complained that the noise can be heard as far as four or five miles away.

As a result, Arkansas lawmaker Sen. Bryan King is reportedly seeking a response to the outcries of the residents. King has requested records related to crypto mines in the locality from a governors office staffer, Legislative Director Jamie Barker.

According to another recent report from Katv, a law was passed early this year, welcoming crypto-mining businesses in the state and largely preventing local government from regulating crypto-mines.

The law, dubbed Act 851, notes that crypto mining activities can operate in this state if it complies with the state law concerning business guidelines and tax policies, ordinance concerning operations safety and state employment laws.

King Requested Repeal of Act 851

Last month, King had requested to repeal the law during Septembers special session, citing locals concerns. However, his motion was turned down.

King noted that the governments office denied his request which argued that his request is exempted from Arkansas Freedom of Information Act law. He also added that Jamie Barker did not invite him to a meeting with other county peers, which discussed crypto mining matters in the state.

Hes one of them that had a meeting [with county officials] here recently that I was not invited to. You know, he seems to be the one that I think needs to be the one answering questions.

The September special session did not discuss the issue of the states crypto-mining issue, King criticized the governor.

We need to have answers about why they are being obstructions to trying to get this repealed and give cities and counties a right to be able to decide what they want.

Following his questions, the governors communication director, Alexa Henning responded in a statement that the office places the safety and security of Arkansans on top.

This is exactly why the governor signed multiple bills into law, during her first legislative session, to protect the state from nefarious foreign influence, Henning added.
ISLAMABAD  A group of former U.S. diplomats and representatives of resettlement organizations asked Pakistan not to deport thousands of Afghans who have been waiting for U.S. visas under an American program that relocates at-risk Afghan refugees fleeing Taliban rule.

The appeal in an open letter on Wednesday signed by 80 former U.S. officials, dignitaries and resettlement groups came weeks after Pakistan announced a crackdown on migrants living in the country illegally, including 1.7 million Afghans, telling them to return to their home countries by Oct. 31 to avoid mass arrest and expulsion.

Last week, the United Nations said such forced deportations of Afghans could lead to human rights violations, including the separation of families. However, Pakistan denies targeting Afghans and says the focus is on people who are in the country illegally, regardless of their nationality.

On Thursday, authorities in Pakistan said time was running out for migrants who are living in the country illegally and they must return to their countries before the end of the month.

Authorities in Pakistan insist that some of the Afghan citizens have been involved in militant attacks in the country in recent months. Pakistan has experienced a surge in attacks on security forces and public places in recent years, prompting authorities to carry out operations against insurgents.

Four soldiers and six militants were killed in two separate overnight shootouts in northwest Pakistan, the military said Thursday, It said in a statement that search operations were underway to eliminate any terrorists found in the area of the North and South Waziristan districts near the Afghan border.

Under U.S. rules, applicants must first relocate to a third country for their cases to be processed. The process can take up to 14 to 18 months and cases are processed through resettlement support centers.

Thousands of Afghan applicants have been waiting in Pakistan for more than two years for U.S. officials to process their visa applications. The delay in approving the visas and resettlement has left Afghan applicants in a highly vulnerable position as they contend with economic hardship and lack of access to health, education and other services in Pakistan.

In the letter sent to Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar, dozens of former U.S. officials and representatives of resettlement organizations asked Pakistan to stop its plan to deport Afghans who entered the country following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021.

We want Afghans to know that powerful people in the U.S. and Americans from across the nation stand with them, said Shawn VanDiver, president and founder of #AfghanEvac, a nonprofit organization.

We appreciate Pakistan for providing refuge to our allies following Americas withdrawal from Afghanistan, but this decision would only cause chaos and make a bad situation worse. We urge Pakistan to work with us to resettle qualifying individuals in the U.S., not send them back to Afghanistan where they face certain doom, the letter said.

It said Pakistan's decision to deport Afghans would impact individuals, including former interpreters, journalists, women leaders and others who face significant risks if returned to Afghanistan.

These deportations would not be consistent with Pakistans humanitarian tradition, and if pursued, would certainly adversely impact Pakistans relationship with the United States and could cause lasting damage to Pakistans reputation among the international community, the letter added.

"Further, it is simply inhumane to treat these vulnerable neighbors in such a manner, it said.

The letter also asks Pakistan to approve the International Organization for Migrations request to establish a Resettlement Support Center in Pakistan to assist Afghans and verify their eligibility for resettlement.
Veterans on the Gulf Coast as of this week will now have access to same-day outpatient surgical care at a new Department of Veterans Affairs clinic located inside the Naval Air Station Pensacola hospital, according to the VA.

The VA and Defense Department came together to launch the clinic, which will serve an estimated 37,000 people. The collaboration comes as the VA says it continues to search for ways to accommodate an increasing number of veterans, while also trying to tackle its own aging health care facilities and cost-cutting efforts.

"Partnering with the local DoD hospital increases veteran access to VA care, helping us meet the needs of the growing number of veterans in our area who entrust VA with their health care," Stephanie Repasky, director of the Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System, said in a press release.

Read Next: The Army Needs a Lot of Money for Barracks, But It's Fighting for Pocket Change

The VA said in August it enrolled 113,719 veterans in its health care during the first year of the landmark PACT Act, which expands care for illnesses related to burn pits, Agent Orange and exposure to other toxic substances.

Meanwhile, the department requested a record $4.1 billion earlier this year for construction to update aging hospitals, some more than 100 years old.

Until now, veterans on the Gulf Coast who needed surgery either saw community providers or had to travel to Mississippi's Biloxi VA Medical Center, a two-hour drive for patients based in Pensacola.

The VA has already begun scheduling surgical procedures for patients in Pensacola. Surgical care at the facility will include orthopedics; podiatry; ophthalmology; urology; and ear, nose and throat.

"This partnership will help VA provide more care, more quickly, to more Gulf Coast veterans -- as close to their homes as possible," VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal said in the release. "Establishing partnerships like this is an efficient and often cost-effective method for VA to increase veteran access to care, while helping to modernize the veteran health care experience."

Patients won't have to reschedule their appointments, but their scheduled surgical procedures will automatically be rescheduled at the new location, according to the VA's press release. Patients can ensure their contact information is up to date for schedule changes on the VA's appointment management website.

A similar collaboration was recently announced in Oklahoma, where the Cherokee Nation and Eastern Oklahoma VA system agreed to provide a VA clinic inside the Cherokee-run Vinita Health Center.

The Vinita outpatient clinic, which is expected to open around the new year, won't include surgery, but Native and non-Native veterans will have access to primary health care.

Under the PACT Act, which expanded public-private partnerships, the VA also reached agreements this year with Stanford University for a new cancer research center, and Penn Medicine to modernize Pennsylvania's VA infrastructure and improve clinical partnerships.

-- Kelsey Baker is a graduate student at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, and a former active-duty Marine. Reach her on X at @KelsBBaker or bakerkelsey@protonmail.com.

Related: VA Asks for Historic $4.1 Billion for Construction as Agency Weighs Closing Some Aging Medical Facilities
A Navy warship shot down missiles Thursday that were fired from Yemen in the direction of Israel in the latest in a series of escalations and attacks on U.S. forces in the region since the start of the bloody Israel-Hamas conflict.

"The crew of the guided missile destroyer USS Carney, operating in the northern Red Sea earlier today, shot down three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces in Yemen," Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Thursday.

Ryder said the Pentagon wasn't certain what the missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched north along the Red Sea, potentially toward targets in Israel. The Carney shot down the missiles over water, but Ryder wouldn't offer more details about the downing of the drones.

Read Next: The Army Needs a Lot of Money for Barracks, But It's Fighting for Pocket Change

U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria were also targeted by drones Wednesday, the Pentagon said. The news comes a day after U.S. Central Command announced that it destroyed drones in two different parts of the country Tuesday.

Ryder said that the garrison in Syria was targeted by two drones, and U.S. and coalition forces destroyed one "while the other drone impacted the base, resulting in minor injuries to coalition forces."

"Also the same morning, in Iraq, early warning systems indicated a possible threat approaching the air base at al Asad, and base personnel sheltered in place as a protective measure," he said.

There was no attack, but Ryder said a U.S. civilian contractor suffered a heart attack while sheltering and died shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon provided no additional information about why the Carney shot down the trio of missiles and whether they posed a threat to the ship or potential targets elsewhere.

"The decision was made that it posed a potential threat based on its flight profile so the decision was made to take it down," Ryder said. When asked whether the threat was to Israel or the ship, he said that "this is something we're still assessing."

It was also unclear Thursday whether Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin authorized the intercepts, which were the most assertive action U.S. forces have taken in the region so far. Ryder declined to answer who authorized the Carney to take action.

As Israel's war against Hamas turns tensions in the region white hot, the U.S. has deployed an increasing amount of military hardware with the stated goal of deterring any other parties -- namely Hezbollah and Iran -- from entering the conflict.

The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and the other five ships in its strike group were deployed to the region Oct. 8 -- a day after Hamas, the group that rules Gaza, launched a terrorist attack into Israel that targeted civilians and killed at least 1,200.

The Pentagon has since ordered the USS Eisenhower strike group, as well as two Navy ships carrying the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, fighter jets and A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft, into the region.

The command-and-control ship USS Mount Whitney was also deployed to the region Wednesday, carrying the three-star admiral who is the Navy fleet commander in Europe.

Amid the buildup, defense and White House officials have also made clear that the U.S. military assets off the coast of Israel and in the nearby area are not conducting offensive operations against Hamas or the Gaza Strip.

Ryder claimed the presence has so far been successful in containing the conflict, despite the attacks in Syria and the missiles launched from Yemen.

"These small-scale attacks are clearly concerning and dangerous," he said. "We're going to do everything we can to ensure deterrence in the region, so that this does not become a broader regional conflict."

Meanwhile, the State Department announced that it was encouraging U.S. citizens to leave Lebanon -- a country that has seen a spike in protests and violence over the last several days.

The Associated Press reported that the recent bombing of a Gaza hospital, which has further inflamed tensions in the area, has led to protests and clashes with security forces near the U.S. Embassy there.

-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on X at @ktoropin.

Related: Navy Presence Off Israel Grows as USS Mount Whitney Deploys to Region with Senior Admiral Aboard
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Bank of Finland Initiates Development of Finnish Instant Payment Solution Aligned with European Standards

Source:AdobeStock0

The Bank of Finland (BOF) has taken the lead in spearheading the development of a Finnish instant payment solution that aligns with European standards.

During this years fifth Euro and economy publication event on October 19, Tuomas Valimaki, a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) and a board member of the Bank of Finland, addressed the active role that the Bank of Finland is playing in fostering the development of innovative payment methods.

Avasin asken medialle sita, miten pyrimme monipuolistamaan vahittaismaksamista Suomessa. Eurojarjestelman puitteissa valmistelemme digitaalista euroa ja maksuneuvoston alla kotimaista pikamaksamisen ratkaisua. Puheeni linkin takana. @SuomenPankki https://t.co/7KRSZH67vI  Tuomas Valimaki (@TuomasValimaki) October 19, 2023

Valimaki acknowledged the diminishing use of cash for transactions in both Finland and Europe, despite the increased circulation of physical cash. In Finland, cash accounts for only a marginal fraction of daily transactions, with less than ten percent of the population considering it as their primary payment mode.

While recognizing that the digital euro is being planned as an alternative payment method, Valimaki highlighted that it stands as one of the most significant ongoing projects in European payment systems.

However, he also emphasized the importance of ensuring continued access and convenience for those who still rely on cash for their day-to-day financial activities. Valimaki pointed out the European Commissions initiative, supported by the ECB, to safeguard the role of cash, underscoring the commitment to preserving the option of using euro banknotes and coins.

Valimaki stressed that while this commitment is vital, it does not negate the need for national regulations that guarantee cash availability and deposit options.

Bank of Finland Highlights the Vital Role of Digital Euro for Europes Payment Landscape

During the event, Valimaki stressed the overarching significance of the digital euro for all European countries, explaining,

The core objectives of the digital euro align with the Eurosystems responsibility to uphold the reliability and efficiency of payment and settlement systems in an increasingly digitalized landscape, particularly as cash usage diminishes.

He underscored that the digital euro would not only reinforce Europes strategic autonomy but also stimulate competition within the eurozone. Valimaki emphasized the pressing need for diversified payment infrastructure, especially in light of recent developments in the Baltic Sea region.

The domination of a small number of non-European card companies in the daily payment market is seen as less than ideal in terms of resilience. The introduction of the digital euro could enhance operational security and give merchants better negotiation leverage in payment service pricing. This has the potential to significantly improve competitive conditions in Europe as cash usage continues to decline.

Moreover, Valimaki clarified that the digital euro is intended primarily as a medium of exchange, not an investment vehicle. The BOFs aim is not to shift household deposits from commercial banks to the Eurosystems balance sheet. As a central bank, its commitment is to ensure that the potential issuance of digital euros does not jeopardize financial stability. To achieve this, the usage of digital euros may be subject to restrictions, including maximum limits, such as an upper cap on digital euro account balances.

Bank of Finland Urges Advancement of Alternative Payment Options, Citing Digital Euro Development

Valimaki emphasized the urgency of advancing alternative payment options in Finland, especially given the digital euros current planning phase. He pointed out that across the rest of Europe, mobile phone-based instant payment methods have become commonplace across all banks, underscoring the need for a similar system in Finland.

To drive the adoption of instant payments in the country, the Payment Council established a working group last year, led by the Bank of Finland in collaboration with banks and trade operators. The projects objective is to formulate a European-compatible express payment solution framework, complete with a rulebook that outlines the operational procedures each participant in the express payment solution commits to.

This rulebook will encompass participation criteria, customer identification principles, essential features for a uniform user experience, and a model for implementing a centralized user register. Additionally, it will delineate the Finnish express payment management model, detailing how each entity will maintain adherence to the rulebook. Individual account-holding banks will determine the implementation of quick payments in their respective systems, both independently and through jointly procured services.

The ultimate aim of the instant payment project is to establish a new real-time payment method that offers a uniform experience for customers across all banks. This initiative is anticipated to boost competition and reliability within the payment sector. In an ideal scenario, the service would also support the digital euro, should its issuance be decided. The Payment Council will provide regular updates on the progress of the express payment project as it continues to develop.
The Nationals have taken a trio of players off the 40-man roster. Infielder Michael Chavis, outfielder Blake Rutherford and reliever Hobie Harris all cleared outright waivers, according to Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com (X link). Rutherford and Chavis have elected minor league free agency, as is their right as players who have been outrighted multiple times in their careers.

Chavis signed a minor league pact with the Nats last offseason. He made the Opening Day roster and ultimately in 48 games as a depth infielder. Over 96 plate appearances, the former highly-regarded Red Sox prospect hit .242/.281/.341 with a pair of home runs. He struck out at a 34.4% clip.

The 28-year-old has appeared in parts of five seasons at the highest level. He logged 129 games with the Pirates a year ago, his heaviest workload to date. Chavis is a career .238/.283/.401 hitter in a little under 1200 trips to the dish. He can play any of first, second or third base. He would have been eligible for arbitration had the Nats kept him on the roster. Now that hes back on the open market, he could find minor league interest this winter.

Rutherford is a former Yankees first-round draftee who reached the big leagues this past season. The lefty-swinging outfielder had hit .336/.393/.571 in 74 games between Washingtons top two affiliates after singing an offseason minor league deal. The 26-year-old was selected to the majors for the first time in early August. He got into 16 games, hitting .171/.194/.171 across 36 plate appearances.

Harris is also a one-time Yankee draft choice who debuted with Washington in 2023. The 30-year-old righty pitched in 16 games, allowing 12 runs (11 earned) through 19 1/3 innings. He walked 13 while striking out nine. Harris had a 5.57 ERA while striking out 15.2% of batters faced across 32 1/3 frames at Triple-A Rochester. This is his first career outright, but he has sufficient minor league service time to become a free agent at the start of the offseason.

Washington needed to clear three 40-man spots within five days of the end of the World Series to clear space for players returning from the 60-day injured list. Theyll go into the winter with the roster at capacity.
CHARLEVOIX, MICH. -- A bright orange unmanned vessel has just wrapped up its mission to quietly gather data about fish populations in the Great Lakes.

The Saildrone Explorer, a 23-foot autonomous watercraft powered entirely by wind and sunshine, had launched from Charlevoix in late July and sailed around parts of Lakes Michigan and Huron before being brought back onto land this week, according to UpNorthLive.

The vehicle was equipped with environmental sensors both under and above the water, including an instrument that uses sound to detect fish, much like a fish-finder on a fishing boat, according to Saildrone, Inc., the California-based company that manufactures and operates saildrone vessels.

A key benefit to using these drones to study fish is that they operate with virtually no noise, allowing them to collect data on fish populations without scaring the fish away.

The vessel was deployed by the U.S. Geological Survey as part of a multi-year collaborative research effort with Saildrone, Inc. This study included several partners in both the U.S. and Canada, including the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

This most recent mission was the first time the U.S.G.S. was able to access previously unmapped parts of Lake Huron, including the North Channel and Ontarios Georgian Bay.

Similar missions were conducted on Lake Superior in 2022 and Lake Michigan in 2021. Another saildrone survey took place concurrently this summer on Lake Erie.

According to a statement by Dr. Peter Esselman, USGS Fishery Biologist, these surveys help to more accurately monitor the abundance of certain types of fish in the Great Lakes, which in turn gives states and tribes data to help drive fisheries management.
ALPENA COUNTY, MI -- A 36-year-old Alpena woman is charged with one count of assault with a dangerous weapon after she allegedly cut a man numerous times with a knife. According to the Michigan State Police, Jaimie Morey was arraigned on the charge in 88th District Court on Tuesday in connection with an incident that took place Sunday.

Troopers with the MSP Alpena post were dispatched to a home on King Settlement Road in Wilson Township around 5:05 p.m. for a report of an assault. While troopers were speaking with the alleged victim, he told them Morey had been throwing household items at the wall before grabbing a knife and attacking him.

Police noticed several lacerations on his arms, hands, face, neck, and knees during the interview. The man said once he was able to get away from the struggle, he called 911.

Morey claimed the alleged victim had hit her and she was defending herself in the incident which also resulted in her suffering a laceration on her leg. Police eventually placed Morey under arrest and transported her to a nearby hospital for treatment before she was lodged at the Alpena County Jail. The alleged victim was able to drive himself to the hospital for treatment.

Moreys bond was set at $2,500 with 10 percent allowed. She is due back in court on Nov. 2.
DETROIT  A Michigan man is accused of fatally shooting his mother in the back of the head, officials said.

Malik Asante Smith, 27, of Detroit, is charged with first-degree murder related to the death of Lorraine Smith, 54, of Detroit. She was his mother.

Detroit Police officers were dispatched around 11:16 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 14, to a residence in the 15000 block of Bringard Drive for a reported shooting.

Upon arrival, officers discovered the victim in a bedroom suffering for a gunshot wound to the back of the head. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

It is alleged that an argument between the suspect and victim escalated and the defendant produced and fired a handgun multiple times, fatally wounding his mother.

Malik Asante Smith is charged with first-degree murder and felony firearm.

He was arraigned and remanded to jail on Tuesday by 36th District Court Judge Jeffrey Kleparek. Hes due back in court on Tuesday, Oct. 31.
BitPanda Secures Virtual Asset Service Provider License in Norway, Pioneering European Exchange

Source: AdobeStock / Ralf

Bitpanda, the largest European cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it has secured a license to offer virtual asset services (VASP) in Norway, expanding its regulatory approvals.

Hei Pa Deg Norway!

Were very excited to announce that weve become the first non-local firm to be granted a VASP licence in Norway. This latest licence further solidifies our position as Europes most regulated broker and will allow us to bring safe and secure digital assets pic.twitter.com/jIVAMd1QxB  Bitpanda (@Bitpanda_global) October 19, 2023

On October 19, the Vienna-based cryptocurrency exchange, Bitpanda, announced the latest milestone on the companys official X account, that it has now become one of the first foreign cryptocurrency exchanges to receive a VASP license in Norway.

The VASP license is a requirement for all businesses that offer cryptocurrency exchange, custody, or trading services in Norway. With VASP, BitPanda now has the legal permission to provide a wide range of crypto-related services to Norwegian customers, including trading, custody, and exchange.

Bitpanda has obtained licenses for cryptocurrency trading and payment services in other European regions such as Austria, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, and Sweden.

To obtain the VASP license in Norway, BitPanda had to demonstrate that it has robust security measures in place to protect its users funds and that it complies with all applicable laws and regulations. This latest license further solidifies our position as Europes most regulated broker and will allow us to bring safe and secure digital asset trading to millions of new customers.

The deputy CEO of Bitpanda, Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad, said:

It is obvious that we in Europe need an investment platform that we can trust. At Bitpanda, we have set out to be that platform. Over the last 12 months, we have been the only European provider to receive licenses in Germany, Sweden, and Norway. We now have more than 4 million users and enable Europes leading financial institutions and neobanks to offer digital assets.

Norway Introduces Licensing for Cryptocurrency Firms Amid Global Push for Regulatory Clarity

The license comes at a time when Norway is taking a more proactive approach to regulating the cryptocurrency industry.

In May, the central bank called for lawmakers to leverage existing regulations that address systemic risk and enforcement actions, emphasizing the necessity for tailored crypto-specific regulations.

The move comes as countries worldwide closely examine the European Unions impending Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation, poised to become operational.

While MiCA holds the potential to extend its influence within the broader European Economic Area, the central bank noted the importance of not stopping there. They also stated the need for the continued development of dedicated regulations specific to the cryptocurrency industry.

This call for crypto-dedicated regulation reflects a growing international focus on cryptocurrencies and the need to establish clear and effective regulatory frameworks.

It is important to note that there needs to be a specific license for companies dealing with virtual assets.

Instead, these companies must register with the FSAN (Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway) and get the necessary permission to operate. This registration is compulsory for any organization offering virtual asset services.

Meanwhile, several major cryptocurrency exchanges are facing challenges with European regulators.

In September, Gemini, a New York-based exchange, opted to withdraw from the Netherlands due to its inability to meet the regulators demands.

Its not just a European Union issue; even the United Kingdoms financial markets regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, has recently added 143 new entities to its warning list of unregistered asset providers.
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI -- A man charged with sexually assaulting and robbing a woman in Ypsilanti in June is competent to stand trial, a judge ruled on Thursday.

Andrew Najib Jimenes Vasquez, 18, is able to understand court proceedings and stand trial, 14-A1 District Court Judge J. Cedric Simpson ruled Oct. 19.

Jimenes Vasquez, of Ann Arbor, was arraigned in the 14A District Court on Tuesday, July 4, on charges of criminal sexual assault, unarmed robbery, larceny, surveilling an unclothed person and aggravated incident exposure. Simpson ordered on Aug. 17 that he undergo a competency exam.

Read more: Man charged in Ypsilanti sexual assault to undergo competency exam

A criminal responsibility exam in this case has not yet been finalized, said Raymond Burkett, a Livonia-based attorney representing Jimenes Vasquez during the hearing. The exam will clarify if he was competent during the alleged incident but is only applicable once the case is bound over to circuit court, Simpson said during the hearing.

Jimenes Vasquez reportedly followed a woman, sexually assaulted her and robbed her on Sunday, June 25, in the 1100 block of Washtenaw Avenue, according to the Ypsilanti Police Department.

Ypsilanti police previously asked for the publics help in locating Jimenes Vasquez before arresting him on Monday, July 3.

Read more: Police ask for help finding Ann Arbor man who allegedly sexually assaulted, robbed woman

Jimenes Vasquez currently is being held in the Washtenaw County Jail on a $50,000 bond. He is next set to appear in court on Thursday, Nov. 9.

Want more Ann Arbor-area news? Bookmark the local Ann Arbor news page, the Ypsilanti-area news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Ann Arbor daily newsletter.

Read more from The Ann Arbor News:

Man charged with fatal Ypsilanti stabbing ruled competent to stand trial

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Detroit-area hairstylist identified as woman killed in Washtenaw County crash
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI -- Police have identified the woman who died in a single-vehicle crash Sunday morning in Scio Township.

Riley Ann Leich, 23, of Royal Oak, was pronounced dead at the scene of the Oct. 15 crash at Huron River Drive and Pineview Drive, according to Derrick Jackson, Washtenaw County Sheriffs Office spokesperson.

Read more: 1 killed, another critically injured in Washtenaw County crash

Leich, a hairstylist for Figo Salon, which has locations in Birmingham and Rochester, was a passenger in the vehicle that was going east on Huron River Drive when it went out control and left the roadway, officials said.

She was a beautiful soul with the most infectious smile, the salon wrote in a post on social media. To know her was to love her, and to be swept away with her bubbly personality.

The driver of the vehicle, a 33-year-old man from Birmingham, was cut from the car and taken to the University of Michigan Hospital in critical condition. Police have not provided an update to his condition.

Crews from the Scio Township and Dexter Area fire departments were called to the scene around 7:30 a.m. Sunday and found the vehicle crashed into a tree, according to Capt. Eric Holzer with the Scio Township Fire Department.

The car was heavily damaged in the crash, Holzer said. The cause of the crash has not yet been determined, police 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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Former Ann Arbor-area charter school teacher faces charges for sexually assaulting student

$10M investment will help Chelsea Hospital expand its inpatient rehab unit

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LANSING, MI  Michigans highest court this week declined to hear the latest appeal of a Flint man previously convicted of robbing and killing a store clerk in 2008.

In a Wednesday, Oct. 18, order, the Michigan Supreme Court denied an application for leave to appeal a March ruling made by the Michigan Court of Appeals in which the court denied Geoffrey Lamar Lawsons appeal of the trial courts prior decision to deny him relief from judgment.
OTTAWA COUNTY, MI  A massage parlor is under investigation for alleged prostitution and complaints of sexual assault that was reportedly happening within the business.

Ottawa County sheriffs deputies have been investigating Rong Massage, at 671 Douglas Ave. in Holland Township, since July after receiving reports of inappropriate sexual contact that happened during a massage.

No arrests have been made as of Thursday, Oct. 19, police said.

A message left with Rong Massage seeking comment was not immediately returned to MLive/The Grand Rapids Press.

Police said some of the alleged acts in question were in exchange for money while other alleged acts happened to unsuspecting customers during a massage.

Investigators searched the business on Wednesday, Oct. 18, to seize evidence. Police did not say what, if any, evidence was seized. Detectives are also working with the Internal Revenue Service as a part of the investigation.

Once the investigation is complete, the case will be turned over to the Ottawa County Prosecutors Office for review and potential charges.

The investigation remains open, and police ask anyone with information to call the Ottawa County Sheriffs Office at 616-738-4000 or Silent Observer at 877-887-4536.

Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter.

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2 compete for seat on Holland City Council

Diamond in the rough: $4.2 million restoration of historic Grand Rapids baseball field begins

Shoreline Drive road diet experiment ends in Muskegon
KENT COUNTY, MI  If youre tired of bumper-to-bumper traffic along a portion of I-196 southwest of downtown Grand Rapids, dont worry, its coming to an end soon.

This week, drivers may have noticed at least a mile-long stretch  if not more  of stop-and-go traffic on westbound I-196 over Chicago Drive.

For those traveling east on I-196, the delays typically start near the Jenison area and the flow of traffic doesnt resume to a somewhat normal pace until you reach Market Avenue.

Traffic delays should only last a few more days, John Richard, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Transportation, told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press on Thursday, Oct. 19. Drivers should notice less delays by the end of this week.

The backed-up traffic is connected to bridge work that MDOT is tackling as part of an $8.5 million project to build an interchange connection lane on westbound I-196 from the Chicago Drive exit to M-11.

Overall, work is expected to be fully completed by mid-November.

Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter.

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Grand Rapids area road widening project delayed to 2026, MDOT says

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Man detained trying to access Whitmers Mackinac Island residence, state police say
KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MI -- A white male Kalamazoo County commissioner said he would respond to a county survey by saying he is a Black female, and encouraged county road commission employees to either do the same or not respond.

Republican Commissioner John Gislers comments came during the Tuesday, Oct. 17, board meeting. They came before the board approved a motion to ask employees to voluntarily disclose their sex, race, and ethnicity to the county, which is part of the countys Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy.
BRIDGEPORT TWP, MI  Acquitted by a jury of sexually assaulting a child, a Saginaw man has filed a federal lawsuit alleging law enforcement violated his constitutional rights.

Jonathan O. Nettles, 51, in March 2022 filed his lawsuit against then-Bridgeport Township Police Chief David Duffett, Sgt. Erik Skabardis, three assistant Saginaw County prosecutors, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services-Child Protective Services, a CPS supervisor, and a CPS investigator. Nettles alleged his 4th and 14th Amendment rights were violated and that he was subjected to false arrests, excessive force, and malicious prosecution as a result of his ex-wife falsely accusing him of sexually abusing her minor daughter.
A Northern Michigan congressman seeks the U.S. Speaker of the House seat amid multiple failed attempts by his Republican colleagues to secure enough votes, his spokesman told MLive.

Colleagues have spoken with U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, about throwing his hat in the ring for the speaker seat vacated by Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, Bergmans spokesman James Hogge wrote in an email to MLive.
JACKSON, MI  Consumers Energy said it will spend a major federal grant to bolster its electrical grid and reduce the number and length of power outages.

The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday, Oct. 18, announced $3.5 billion in power grid investment nationwide, including more than $122 million coming to Michigan. Consumers Energy will get $100 million and DTE Energy will receive nearly $23 million.

The federal dollars come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Officials at Consumers Energy said they would use the influx of federal cash on the companys reliability roadmap. Plans include installing more poles and equipment and adding new technology to detect power outages more quickly in disadvantaged communities.

Related: Consumers Energy aims for smaller power outages, no longer than 24 hours in new reliability plan

The project is meant to upgrade Consumers Energys circuit systems and increase capacity at local substations. That should improve redundancy and reliability.

Building a stronger grid to withstand Michigans fiercest weather is our top priority, said Tonya Berry, Consumers senior vice president of transformation and engineering, in a statement.

The utility said in its recently unveiled five-year plan that it intends no customer be without power for more than 24 hours, and no outage affect more than 100,000 customers. More power lines are expected to be buried in areas with heavy tree cover.

Consumers Energy has made a commitment that all communities will experience the benefits of our work to better serve Michigan and participate in the clean energy transformation, Berry said.

Related: DTE aims to improve grid reliability 60% over 5 years

Also on Wednesday, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced another $22.9 million grant that will come to Michigan as part of the billions in grid improvement funding nationwide. Granholm is a former Michigan governor.

DTE Energy received the smaller federal grant to build adaptive microgrids meant to improve grid flexibility and reliability in Detroit and the surrounding area. The microgrids will use grid-sensing devices to enhance reliability and reduce the number and duration of power outages.

The federal grants come amid heightened attention to Michigans failure-prone power grid, as the frequency and strength of damaging storms both increased in recent years as climate change continues.

State utility regulators have increased oversight of Michigans largest two utilities  Consumers and DTE  through independent audits and technical conference consultations. The Michigan Public Service Commission is even considering a proposal to financially penalize the companies for repetitive and lengthy power outages by connecting earnings to how quickly electricity is restored after major storms.
Ghanaian musician Okyeame Kwame has raised an interesting debate on the concept of infidelity, challenging the conventional notion that sleeping with someone outside of ones relationship should be labeled as cheating.

In a viral Bro Code podcast, the musician expressed his bewilderment at the choice of words used to describe such situations and questioned the societal mindset surrounding this topic.

He remarked, As strange as it may sound, our society has cultivated a certain perception that deems it as cheating when your partner engages with someone else intimately. How can I be cheating on you when Im not using your body?

His comments, widely circulated online, have sparked controversy and led to discussions on social media, with some expressing disagreement with the veteran rappers perspective.
A Harrisburg-based social services agency plans to develop a senior affordable housing project on 3.4 acres at Cleversburg and Baltimore roads in Southampton Township in Cumberland County.

Called Shippensburg Villas and Apartments, the $14 million project will consist of 42 housing units, said George Fernandez, chief executive officer of the Latino Connection Foundation.

Eighteen units will be villas of roughly 1,200 to 1,300 square feet each, he told the county commissioners during a meeting last week. The project also includes a three-story apartment building with 24 one- or two-bedroom units ranging from about 755 to 949 square feet.

There will also be a maintenance building, an emergency access road and about 100 parking spaces.

The commissioners agreed last week to add the project to a plan the county submitted in the spring to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said Heather Tidwell, county community development grants manager.

The plan details how Cumberland County intends to use federal money to support initiatives and projects that build up local communities, Tidwell said. The foundation asked that about $500,000 in Home Investment Partnership Program funds be applied toward Shippensburg Villas and Apartments, she said.

The Home program is designed to create affordable housing for low-income households.

The foundation wants to start the project as soon as possible and complete construction by late 2024, according to Tidwell.

The intent is to apply for tax credits in this cycle year, Fernandez said. Later, the foundation plans to ask the county commissioners for a letter in support of that application, he said.

There is a dire need for these 42 units, Fernandez said. Affordable housing is becoming a crisis in many townships and counties across Pennsylvania.

Last November, the foundation conducted a feasibility study that found the Harrisburg-Carlisle metro area had a gap of about 1,800 one-bedroom units, he told the commissioners.

Latinos have made up 50% of the population growth in Pennsylvania over the past two decades, according to Fernandez. They represent roughly 9% of the current Cumberland County population, he said.

In Cumberland County, they are moving into areas like Carlisle and Shippensburg, he said.
The Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL) expects the 2024 Budget to be devoted to job creation in both the private and public sectors and reiterates the need for the government to take pragmatic steps to shore up the economy.

It called for the implementation of sound economic policies that will ensure revenue mobilisation, job creation, and private sector development, while appealing to the government to ensure a reduction in the cost of living and remove taxes that undermine the growth of small, medium, and large companies.

In a paper to the Minister of Finance titled GFL inputs towards the preparation of the 2024 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government, it was stated that unemployment remains a national security threat to any country, and Ghana over the years has seen a rise in unemployment, particularly among the youth.

The paper, jointly signed by Mr. Caleb Nartey and Mr. Abraham Koomson, GFL President and Secretary General, respectively, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Tema, said the local textile manufacturing industry used to employ over 25,000 workers.

The GFL paper said the industry had virtually collapsed, leaving less than 2,000 workers in employment now, stressing that the challenges had been unfair competition with imported pirated and smuggled printed cloth.

The Federation said the Finance Ministry granted zero VAT to the sector to help revive the local manufacturing companies, but unfortunately, the VAT exemption would be terminated by December 2023.

The recovery of the sector is gradual and yet to overcome the debilitating challenges to improving employment capacity.

The GFL submits that an extension of the zero VAT regime for seven years is critical to saving the ailing industry from collapse. The industry currently provides jobs for over 3,000 Ghanaians.

The GFL also proposed a review of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006, particularly Section 25, which provides for an increase in royalty from 6 percent to about 15 percent.

According to GFL, the review must equally apply to the current tax regimes on mining concessions to ensure an increase in government revenue.

It is the GFL's honest position that a proper fiscal assessment of the natural resource sector will offer better insight into what opportunities exist for the government to leverage to mobilise the required revenue to prosecute government business.

The government must be committed to the review of its flagship programmes, such as the Free SHS, Planting for Food and Jobs, One-District, One-Factory, Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme, Ghana School Feeding Programme, Railways Development, Agenda 111, and Coastal Fish Landing Sites.

Is it the firm position of the Federation that a critical assessment is conducted to determine the viability of these projects with respect to the size of the resources invested and the corresponding short-term benefit to the state?

Further, the outcome of such a comprehensive assessment should offer some suggestions on protecting the vulnerable in society, creating jobs, and promoting a sound economic and fiscal outlook.

As part of the preparation for the presentation of the 2024 budget and in line with Section 21(1) of the Public Financial Act 2016 (Act 921), the Ministry of Finance requested that labour unions and identifiable groups submit inputs for consideration in the 2024 Budget and Economic Policy.

GNA
Dr Edward Omane Boamah, the Director of Elections and Information Technology Communications (ICT) of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has criticised the Electoral Commission (EC) for self-congratulatory remarks regarding the recent limited registration exercise.

He expressed his disbelief at the EC's satisfaction with their performance in the exercise and asserted that they had not done a commendable job.

Dr Boamah revealed that many young peoples were disenfranchised due to the EC's centralised approach to the limited registration exercise.

"When we suggested to the EC to have an electoral area-based registration to enable capture of many registrants, it refused to heed," he said.

He highlighted the significant gap between the EC's initial target of registering approximately 1.3 million voters and the meagre 9,000 registrations achieved, emphasising that this was a clear indication of the EC's failure to include a substantial number of young voters.

He contended that the EC's initial projection was underestimated, primarily because they had not conducted voter registration in 2021 and 2022.

Dr Boamah accused the EC of failing to keep pace with the country's population growth, resulting in inadequate registration opportunities for young citizens.

Dr Boamah emphasised his party's concern for the disenfranchised youth and their inability to participate in upcoming District Level Elections(DLE) due to the EC's actions.

He assured the EC commissioners of the NDC's preparedness to help address these issues leading up to the 2024 general elections.

These statements were made in response to the EC's claim that they had met their registration targets in the recent limited registration exercise.

Dr Boamah shared these perspectives during an interview with Accra-based Neat FM on Wednesday, October 18, 2023.

-Classfmonline
The Founder of Agona West-based ChrisCares Foundation, Mr. Chris Arthur has encouraged Ghanaians especially those with the financial capability to support government in its quest to make healthcare delivery affordable and accessible, especially for the vulnerable people in society.

To him, government was doing everything possible to make healthcare delivery system affordable and accessible especially for women and children mostly considered vulnerable in society.

Mr. Chris Arthur said this during a free health screening exercise organized by ChrisCares Foundation in collaboration with MAO Medical Center, Home Care and Outreach Services at Agona Nyakrom in the Agona West Municipality of the Central Region last Saturday.

According to him, the exercise was to offer an opportunity for residents of Agona Nyakrom and people in the nearby communities to know their health status.

"Even though health facilities are dotted around the country, sometimes the ability to pay for the health services becomes a headache for many people compelling them to resort to self-medication and quack doctors to worsen their case.

"Chriscares Foundation has acquired enough National Health Insurance cards for many people, the sick and the aged ought to be supported by sending healthcare services to their Doorstep due to financial constraints.

"It is the social responsibility of Chriscares Foundation to provide quality services to people in its catchment area in the areas of Education, Health and Youth Employment.

"We received calls from people who are down with health complications but if you ask them to go for medical treatment, most of them say they don't have the money to go and seek medical attention even though they have NHIS membership cards. So we took it upon ourselves to organize free health screening for such people at various locations in the Agona West Municipality.

"This exercise is benefiting people who never thought of getting such assistance because nobody was keeping an eye on them mostly family members and sometimes their own children. It explains why am making a passionate appeal to philanthropists and individuals who have the financial capability to support government to secure better health care for the citizenry.

"ChrisCares Foundation exist to cater for the well-being of the people in its catchment area in line with government's pro-poor policies of improving the lives of the people," he stated.

Mr. Chris Arthur who is also the Director of Technical Services of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) admonished Ghanaians against self-medication adding that it has health implications which could lead to death.

"People should visit health facilities on a regular basis for diagnoses and treatment whenever they feel uneasy in their bodies. They should not wait till things get out of hand before they are rushed to the hospital.

"We started this free health screening exercise with MAO Medical Center, Home Care and Outreach Services to reach out to people with quality healthcare services. The first exercise was at Agona Abodom in in which thousands of people were diagnosed with various hidden diseases most of which were known to the patients. So far so good ChrisCares Foundation will continue to offer humanitarian services to the masses.

"Health is very important. I believe and always say health should be the number one priority in every individual's life so whatever they do, they should make sure that their health status is stabilized. Let's take our health concern very seriously and also ensure regular health checks and screening," Mr. Chris Arthur stressed.

Administrator of MAO Medical Center, Home Care and Outreach Services, Mr. Samuel Okai in an interview with newsmen disclosed that his outfit decided to partner ChrisCares Foundation to reach out to people who need medical treatment but for one reason or another have resorted to self-medication and other herbs which could affect them negatively.

He noted that people were screened for vital science, which is physical examination, diabetics screening and treatment, malaria screening and treatment as well as typhoid screening and treatment.

Others include Blood Pressure (BP) screening and treatment, Ear and Throat (E & T) screening and treatment, dental screening and treatment and eye screening and treatment among other things such as general consultation with the Medical Doctors for free prescriptions according to individual cases.

Mr. Samuel Okai disclosed that the medical team were made up of 38 health personnel with an additional 12 health personnel as a backup.

"It is worthy to note that at every point, we have a Specialist to diagnose each case. We even have Specialists for nutrition as well. Am encouraged by the huge turnout, Kudos to ChriCases Foundation for the well-attended exercise. We are expected to cater for over 3,500 by the close of the day," the Administrator noted.

Okomfo Oforiwaa of Agona Nyakrom, a beneficiary of the exercise, expressed her appreciation for Mr. Chris Arthur and ChrisCares Foundation for relieving her of financial burden.

"I never thought this God-sent exercise reach those of us in this area. I always watch it on television. Am grateful, I went through the exercise without stress and have gotten free medicine for every case I reported to the Doctors," she stated.
In a conversation with a friend who had visited home and returned, she was expressed the distress and hardships that Ghanaians are going through while foreign businesses have taken over and are booming beyond imaginations.

She like many others and everyone especially those living the democracy fairytales and the opposition blame governments gross corruption and mismanagement of the economy.

She asked where the chines and all these foreign people get the money from to invest and I told her it was simple....Do you remember since six years I have asked every Ghanaian I know, every Africa I know and asked that we came together to raise funds to start businesses here in Germany and expand home? Yes she answered. But we are selfish, everyone of us want to go and build a house and ride a big care, hold the newest and extremely expensive gadgets and Show off that we are from abroad.

Exactly, so the answer is simple. The Chinese and all these foreign people come up with ideas, then they build business networks and raise funds, they go into it as full-time workers or some invest as business angels into these businesses and they work to build an empire not huts.

Business networks are common among many Diaspora communities especially those of India, Turkish, Chinese etc origins. Some are well established, acting as long-standing ethnic Chambers of Commerce within a single country of settlement, while others are new and truly transnational. I have found it to my surprise that blacks are not welcomed into certain spaces of the business community because of Stereotype. Blacks are at the Rock bottom of the economic and business ladder.

Many businesses are using information technology to create and maintain ties among participants. Africans mostly would steal the idea, run with it and try to do it alone on scales that are insignificant.

Of late, I am beginning to give up on the dream of getting us Ghanaians and Africans together to business network or form consortiums to concentrate on like minded people irrespective of where they come from.

Greed, greed and again greed and short sightedness is the fortitude the African especially those of West African origins who are Christians build their foundations and walls with.

The Lebanese Business Network, as an example, is a non-profit business development vehicle with an online marketplace and business matching database. Let's narrow it to Ghana. We know of family business or business dynasties that have been build by these people.

With the business networks their goal is to create links between Lebanese entrepreneurs, expatriates and international businesses, by identifying business opportunities and potential areas of partnership.

Indians before I left Ghana ten years ago had started flooding Ghana mainly investing in beverage production businesses as well as importation of calico for production of batik and tie and dye, colours and chemicals for the industry just to mention a few areas.

Today, they have advanced in information technology (IT) entrepreneurship and professionals have established a number of business networks all over the world especially in Canada and the UK if we come to the Diaspora. One of the most powerful is TIE (The IndUS Entrepreneur), which has grown from its core in North America and India to 25 chapters, including Singapore, Switzerland and the UK. It matches experienced entrepreneurs and start-up managers in a mentoring relationship and backs up promising enterprises (in the United States and India) with venture capital from a core membership of investors. Devesh Kapur points out that the benefits of the network go beyond profitable investment and start-up finance: It has boosted Indias confidence as well as the confidence of overseas investors about Indias potential despite Indias numerous problems.

Companies like Yahoo, Hewlett Packard and General Electric have opened R&D centers in India largely because of the confidence engendered by the presence of many Indians working in their US operations.

This points to the cognitive effects arising from the projection of a coherent, appealing, and progressive identity on the part of the diaspora which signals an image of prosperity and progress to potential investors and consumers.

Unlike africans who are so much individualistic and are unable to see beyond themselves and so thrive on a low-level scale of struggling and working many jobs just to get by and save to build a house at home and or at best remit families.

While researching for this write up, I came across many innovative initiatives similar to those I have tried without success to get our people to put reason to.

Lets take a look at the World Bank. There are many interesting new initiatives and one of them is the African Diaspora Summit, which was organized in December 2003 by the Dutch-African Diaspora organization AfroNeth. Representatives of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands African Business Council and the European Centre for Conflict Prevention took part in the conference.

In an interview, the organizer of the African Diaspora Summit noted that the creation of AfroNeth and other similar Diaspora organizations was strongly influenced by the creation of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and its focus on Africas self-reliance. The participants were acutely aware of the need for skills and resources in

Africa to accomplish self-reliant development and the ability of Africans in the Diaspora to provide such skills and resources, and the unsatisfactory nature of western development policies in African countries. Combining interests in business and conflict resolution, the Summit initiators looked to Diaspora as a new source of development creativity: Africans rooted in both African and Western culture could provide the ingredients for a new approach to development cooperation and economic development

Narrowing it further, we see a similar endeavour was the GhanaExpo, which took place in London in October 2003.

Sponsored by ExpoAfrica Net, which has headquarters both in London and Accra, GhanaExpo was an exhibition fair promoted as an opportunity for Africans in the Diaspora to connect with businesses, goods and services in Africa. More than twenty sectors were represented, included were agriculture and raw materials, handicrafts and other retail good, automotive, electronics, travel and tourism. The Expo was heavily promoted and even attended by the Ghanaian President and the Ashanti King. This was the first event of its kind, though the goal is to extend the idea to other African countries. The Expo also included a strong cultural component, including traditional drum and dance performances, etc., and took place during Black History Month in the UK.

Have you ever wished for an opportunity to see what life is really like back home? Do you have professional skills that you can share with professional colleagues in developing countries? Are you interested in giving back to those less fortunate than yourself?

Significant investment in the country of origin by Diaspora investors can be a push factor for market reforms and/or strengthening institutions in country of origin.

Germany has so much to offer. Because of disunity and lack of interest to learn the language, Africans especially Ghanaians are unable to harness the wealth Germany has to offer. Worse is their inability to collaborate to forster business networks that would become support base for themselves and the continent as a whole.

This is my call, that Africans take another look at the many years spent in individualism that has made little difference to move to business networking in order to build start-ups that can be sustainable beyond gestation.

Africans living in the Diaspora should raise funds and partner on business ideas and build businesses back home instead of having to spend in foreign currency that doesn't help the economy.
Beijing will inject over $100 billion of new funding into its Belt and Road initiative (BRI), China's President Xi Jinping said Wednesday at a summit marking the vast infrastructure project's tenth anniversary.

The Belt and Road strategy is a central pillar of Xi's bid to expand China's clout overseas, with Beijing saying it has now inked over two trillion dollars in contracts around the world.

Proponents hail it for bringing resources and economic growth to the Global South.

Unpaid loans

This week's summit celebrates the tenth anniversary of the project, which has been stalling due to the increasing incapability of receiving countries to pay back loans used for individual construction ventures.

Xi's initiative has built power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world and deepened China's ties with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Mideast.

But the massive loans backing the projects have burdened poorer countries with heavy debts, in some cases leading to China taking control of those assets.

Chinese money

At the forum's opening ceremony at the ornate and cavernous Great Hall of the People, Xi promised that two Chinese-backed development banks  the China Development Bank and the ExportImport Bank of China  will each set up 350 billion yuan (45,3 billion) financing windows.

An additional 80 billion yuan (10 billion) will be invested in Beijing's Silk Road Fund to support BRI projects.

China's BRI

XI launched the BRI in 2013 during a visit to Kazakhstan.

The stated goal was to grow trade and the economy by improving China's connections with the rest of the world in a 21st-century version of the Silk Road trading routes from China to the Middle East and onto Europe.

In the following years, a total of 152 countries have signed a BRI agreement with China, though Italy, the only G7 country to do so, is expected to drop out when it comes time to renew in March of next year.

Italy suffered a net loss," said Alessia Amighini, an analyst at the Italian think tank ISPI, as the trade deficit with China more than doubled since Italy joined in 2019.

China became a major financer of development projects under BRI, on par with the World Bank. The Chinese government says the initiative has launched more than 3,000 projects and galvanized nearly 1 trillion in investment.

China filled a gap left as other lenders shifted to areas such as health and education and away from infrastructure after coming under criticism for the impact major building projects can have on the environment and local communities, said Kevin Gallagher, the director of the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.

Chinese-financed projects have faced similar criticism, from displacing populations to adding tons of climate-changing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

The US, India and others say that China is engaging in debt trap diplomacy which consists of offering loans they knew governments would default on, allowing Chinese interests to take control of the assets.

The BRI also triggered similar initiatives by China's rivals, such as Japan's Free and Open Indo Pacific initiative, the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, a joint project by India and Japan, Washington's Build Back Better World partnership and the EU's Global Gateway. But none of these projects have yet reached the massive volume of the BRI, and it is not sure if they ever will.

XiP - Putin aside

While the Chinese press is boasting the meeting as a "massive diplomatic event" that "attracts global attention," it was largely overshadowed by the unprecedented 7 October terror attacks by Hamas on Israel and Jerusalem's response to them.

But Xi used the forum to meet with many of his allies, notably Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

China is a key customer for Russian oil and gas, providing Moscow with an economic lifeline in the face of punishing Western sanctions imposed over its campaign against Ukraine.

Just weeks before Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February, Putin met with Xi in Beijing and the sides signed an agreement pledging a no-limits relationship. Beijing's attempts to present itself as a neutral peace broker in Russia's war on Ukraine have been widely dismissed by the international community.

Orban is eager too

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban used the forum to meet with Vladimir Putin in a rare in-person meeting for the Russian president with a leader of a European Union country. Their talks focused on Hungary's access to Russian energy.

EU and other Western leaders have largely eschewed contact with Putin over Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began in February. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer met with Putin in person in April 2022.

Hungary never wanted to confront Russia. Hungary always has been eager to expand contacts, Orban told Putin, according to a Russian translation of his remarks broadcast on Russian state television.

(With newswires)
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs ) and individual Ghanaians are not happy with the Member of Parliament for Abuakwa South Atta Kyea who is the chairman of the parliamentary committee charged to investigate the IGP leaked tape.

They are urging parliamentary Leadership to act fast to stop him from tarnishing the image of the house.

In a meeting with the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin some Civil Society groups expressed concerns over the conduct of Atta Akyea at committee hearings on the matter relating to the leaked tape plotting to oust the IGP.

They told Mr Alban Bagbin about his alleged bias as chairman of the special parliamentary committee.

They reminded the speaker of the terms of reference for the committee which Mr. Atta Akyea has ignored to the displeasure of some committee members and concerned Ghanaians.

Present for the engagement were Imani Ghana, Center for Democratic Development (CDD) and other civil society organizations.

In an interview with Citi FM, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe highlighted the impact of the committee chairmans actions on the morale within the Ghana Police Service, stating, We wanted to find out from the Speaker what the original terms of reference for the Committee were. Because we realized that the Committee chairman seems to be setting his own questions and answering them."

The Speaker was categorical that, well, I gave the Chairman of the Committee specific terms of reference. To authenticate the tape, essentially, the comments that were made, and the individuals responsible for those comments, Mr. Cudjoe continued.

He added, To the extent that those who have been largely accused have admitted their voices and all. We believe that the matter should be concluded. So, we were very alarmed at the way the Committee chairman was handling the issues. I want to make it clear that Im not mentioning the entire committee, as the Committee Chairman directs the affairs. Even ranking members have walked away from proceedings at certain points."

IGP legal team banter

The legal team of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) have also expressed concern about the chairman of the committee, Mr. Atta Akyea's alleged bias against their client, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare.

Kofi Bentil, a member of the legal team, stated, Based on his actions, we believe he is biased, and we have stated this. Many others agree with us, and indeed we think that this matter has been sufficiently addressed. We dont see the need to engage with him as he expects us to do in the committee room.

Weve never backtracked, and this issue should not dominate the substantive matters. We stand by what weve said, and his actions indicate bias."
French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah has returned to France, her university said Wednesday, after having been held for nearly five years in Iran in a case that added to tensions between Paris and Tehran.

Adelkhah, who was arrested in June 2019 and convicted on national security charges, had been released from prison in February but had been unable to leave Iran.

She landed back in Paris on Tuesday, according to Sciences Po University, where she worked as a researcher, and which had set up a support group to win her release.

Roland Marchal, Adelkhah partner and collegue, who was detained with her in 2019, was released in March 2020.

In May 2023, two other French citizens had been freed from their prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad: French-Irish Bernard Phelan, who had been held since October, and Benjamin Briere, whose ordeal in Iran lasted two years.

Currently, French citizens Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, who were accused of spying in 2022 are still in an Iranian jail, as well as the 35-year old consultant Louis Arnaud, who was jailed in September 2022.

A petition calling for his release collected more than 100,000 signatures in two weeks in February.

A fourth French citizen, whose name was not released by France's foreign ministry, is in jail as well.

(With newswires)
The Lagos State Police Command has identified the individual seen firing an AK-47 assault rifle in celebration of the reopening of Ladipo Market as one of its own officers.

In a statement, police spokesperson SP Benjamin Hundeyin said the man in the viral video is Inspector Istifanus Kwanchi, who serves in a squadron of the Mobile Police (MOPOL) in Lagos.

The Lagos State Police Command has identified the person in a viral video shown shooting an AK47 rifle in Ladipo Market as Inspector Istifanus Kwanchi, serving in a Lagos squadron of the Mobile Police (MOPOL), he revealed.

Hundeyin added that the Commissioner of Police, CP Idowu Owohunwa, has ordered the immediate commencement of disciplinary proceedings against Inspector Kwanchi for his "unprofessional, unethical and dangerous behavior."

The Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, CP Idowu Owohunwa, has ordered the immediate commencement of disciplinary proceedings against the officer for his unprofessional, unethical and dangerous behavior, the statement said.

He said members of the public should be assured that the command "will not tolerate any form of deviant behavior from its officers and men, while those found culpable will be dealt with in accordance with laid down rules."

The statement came after videos emerged on social media showing celebrations at the reopening of Ladipo Market, with a man seen shooting into the sky with an AK-47 rifle as onlookers cheered.

Discharging firearms in public endangers safety and is a criminal offence under Nigerian law.

The police spokesperson stressed that promoting reckless gun use also undermines efforts to curb illegal weapons.

Inspector Kwanchi's actions have raised serious questions about police conduct and discipline.
Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has made a disturbing disclosure, detecting people with signs of diarrhea living in the emergency shelters created for people affected by the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong Dams.

Acting General Secretary of the GMA, Dr. Richard Selormey, disclosed this during an interview on Eyewitness News on Citi FM.

Dr. Selormey said that a team was dispatched by the Association to help with rescue efforts in the affected areas and came across a number of people with diarrhea and bilharzia.

We mobilized a team of about twenty-two people, collaborating with the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association and a clinical psychologist who also volunteered from the 37 Military Hospital. They went on the ground on Tuesday and divided themselves into six different teams at the six different shelters. They are offering health education, screening, and treatment of the people, said Dr. Selormey.

We have noted that the most common thing being found is people having malaria as well as skin diseases and respiratory conditions because most of the centres are holding a lot of people at a go and people are in close contact. We have also noticed that there are a few people beginning to show signs of diarrhea diseases and about two people are also showing signs of bilharzia, he added.

Dr. Selormey further warned of an outbreak of waterborne diseases and urged the people to observe safety protocols while waiting for relief items.

Our concern is the breakout of diarrheal diseases. That can be a big problem because it can quickly spread. And then also because of the crowding, respiratory tract infections. So key is the protocols we highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic which has to do with handwashing practices and advising the people not to touch things and making sure that there is good water available, said Dr. Selormey.

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The Member of Parliament for Bosome Freho constituency, Hon Akwasi Darko Boateng has offered free startup support to 71 petty traders in his constituency.

The 71 traders received not less than GHS1,000 each through the AD Boateng Fund set up by the MP to support students and the vulnerable in the constituency.

Presenting the financial support to the traders at Asiwa on Tuesday October 17, 2023, Hon. Akwasi Darko Boateng said the move is part of efforts to address challenges traders in the constituency face when it comes to capital to start small businesses.

He added that, "the money was to help traders especially women who needed small financial push to start or expand their businesses but could not enter the traditional financial institution for that needed support."

Scholarship for 69 tertiary students

The AD Boateng Fund also offered scholarships to needy but brilliant tertiary students in the constituency for the 2023/2024 academic year.

The 69 beneficiary students were offered the scholarship to among others pursue medicine, pharmacy, engineering, and nursing at the public universities and colleges of education.

The initiative according to the Hon Akwasi Darko Boateng , is to cushion the students to attain their academic goals.

In all, a total of 140 individuals comprising 71 traders and 69 students received financial support from the AD Boateng Fund.

Commitment to Constituents

The MP pledged his commitment to improve the living standard of people in the constituency.

He disclosed that, he was working on major projects and policies that will help elevate people in the area.

He however called on his constituents to support him in his quest to make the area a better place for all.
An elderly man traveling from Texas to the Charlottesville area has been reported "critically missing." His health and safety may be in danger, police said Wednesday.

Don Gehr Benson Jr., 83, was last seen in Texas at around 5:30 a.m., according to Virginia State Police.

While Benson was said to be headed to Batesville in Albemarle County west of Charlottesville, the last ping from his mobile phone came at 6:13 p.m. from Chesterfield, police said. That's nearly 100 miles east of his final destination.

Benson was described as being 6 feet tall, weighing 170 pounds with hazel eyes and gray hair.

"There is no description of clothing they were last seen wearing," state police said in a Wednesday statement.

Benson was possibly driving a white 2016 Toyota Tacoma pickup displaying Texas plates reading, "HJL-9815."

"If located, approach with caution," Virginia State Police said in their Wednesday statement. "This disappearance poses a credible threat to their health and safety as determined by the investigating agency."

That agency is the Albemarle County Police Department.

Anyone with any information on Benson or his whereabouts is encouraged to contact the Albemarle police at (434) 977-9041.
Director of Conflict Resolution of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Abraham Amaliba, has criticized the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) for chiding lawyers allegedly denigrating the judicial service.

Amaliba described the GBA as shameful and urged it to ditch its assumed mouthpiece role of the judicial service and take up a humanitarian position.

He told Umaru Sanda Amadu on Eyewitness News on Citi FM that the GBA should channel its energy toward ensuring the proper functioning of courts across the country, such as restoring water supply to the Adentan Court, which has had its supply cut by the Ghana Water Company.

What needs to be stopped is the Ghana Bar Association turning itself into the mouthpiece of the judiciary. It is not done anywhere in the world, and it is only in Ghana that the BAR forms a cursory relationship with the judiciary and performs the role of a PRO for the judiciary. The BAR must bow its head in shame for shirking its role as the mouthpiece for the voiceless, the oppressed, and the marginalized. If they have found their voices now, what they should do is channel that into taking care of the welfare needs of its members.

When you go to the Adentan Court premises, which houses the district, circuit, and high courts, the washrooms are not available because the Ghana Water Company has cut water to the building. This should concern the BAR.

President of the Ghana Bar Association, Yaw Acheampong Boafo, at a press conference on Wednesday, October 18, called on members of the Association who belong to political parties to desist from making utterances that tend to denigrate the judicial service.

Amaliba, in his interview, however, fumed that they are more political than those of us who have come out openly to identify with a political party. When we talk about partisanship, they are more partisan than those of us who openly come out to identify with a political party.

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19.10.2023 LISTEN

The Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA), in a bid to foster informed discussions on the rapidly evolving landscape of Ghana's shipping and logistics industry, has hosted its 8th Media Seminar.

The Media Seminar, themed Contemporary Trends and Developments in Ghana's Shipping and Logistics Industry." aimed to highlight the sector's rapid evolution and operational efficiency metrics that impact shipping.

Speaking at the seminar on Wednesday in Accra, the Chief Executive Officer of the GSA, Ms. Benonita Bismarck, emphasized the indispensable role of the media in Ghana's shipping sector.

She stated that the GSA recognises the media as a key stakeholder in protecting and promoting shippers' interests.

"To aptly disseminate critical shipping information requires the media's professional services. We appreciate your role in keeping shippers informed about the industry," she added.

She outlined how the GSA's departments like Shipper Services, Freight & Logistics and Research & Monitoring keep shippers updated on historic and emerging industry trends.

That, according to her, saves the Authority time, money and legal issues, as stakeholders become abreast with the rights and wrongs in the sector.

Ms Bismarck noted that the partnership between the GSA and the media would help showcase the industry's boundless potential while drawing attention to the Authoritys role in enabling operational efficiency, regulatory compliance and cost savings for the benefit of shippers and stakeholders nationwide.

"We trust that we can count on your unwavering partnership into the future as we relentlessly pursue our primary objective to protect and promote the interest of shippers in Ghana.

She expressed confidence that the seminar would equip media practitioners to report on positive developments and the GSA's role in facilitating the sector's viability.

On his part, the President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Albert Kwabena Dwumfour, emphasized the critical role of the media in promoting transparency, accountability and informed public discourse within the shipping and logistics sector.

He commended the Ghana Shippers Authority for fostering a constructive partnership with the media and pledged the GJA's commitment to furthering dialogue on the industry's development.

Appreciating the GSA CEO's statements underscoring the media's importance and value to the shipping industry, Mr Dwumfour affirmed that such gestures motivate the media to strengthen its collaboration with institutions like GSA to keep the public informed and educated on matters of national interest,"

He reiterated the readiness of journalists to disseminate insights from platforms such as the GSA Media Seminar to wider audiences across the nation.

The GJA President also highlighted the duty of media practitioners to pose probing questions to industry experts and resource persons at such interactions.

"This allows us to enrich public discourse for the benefit of all citizens, he stated.

Facilitators from the GSA, the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) and the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers (ICS) presented insights on critical subjects on freight rates in the shipping and logistics industry, the significance of certificate of origin in the implementation of AfCFTA and payment of the marine cargo insurance locally benefits to the shipper and the Ghanaian economy.
Paris (AFP)  French-Afghan journalist Mortaza Behboudi, held in detention since January in Afghanistan, was freed after charges against him were dropped, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Wednesday.

"The Taliban judiciary have ordered the release of journalist Mortaza Behboudi. The decision has just come through after 284 days of imprisonment," RSF said in a statement to AFP.

All charges, including espionage and illegal support for foreigners, were thrown out at a criminal court hearing in Kabul, the press freedom NGO said.

He was due to return to France by the end of the week.

"With the liberation of Mortaza, light has returned to my world and life can start again," said his wife, Aleksandra Mostovaja, in the RSF statement.

Refugee

Originally from Afghanistan, Behboudi, 29, became a refugee in Iran with his parents before returning to his home country to work as a photojournalist with multiple French outlets.

He became a refugee in France in 2015 where he set up a news site, Guiti News, with other exiles from Afghanistan.

He returned to the country on a journalistic assignment on January 5 only to be arrested two days later while waiting for his press accreditation.

It was not his first trip since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in 2021  he had won awards for a reportage for Mediapart carried out the following year.

In July, a Taliban spokesman told France Televisions that he had been arrested "not as a journalist ... but because he had direct links with opponents of our regime."

His wife said Wednesday that he had been "relatively well treated compared to other prisoners", allowed to read and exercise.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Taliban authorities.
The funeral of murdered French teacher Dominique Bernard was being held on Thursday under heightened security in the northern town of Arras. President Emmanuel Macron attended the emotional ceremony paying tribute to Bernard, who was stabbed to death six days ago by a radicalised former student claiming allegiance to the Islamic State armed group.

The funeral mass was taking place at the cathedral in Arras, where Bernard lived and taught French at the Gambetta-Carnot high school, where he was stabbed to death on 13 October.

His wife and three adult children were attending the ceremony, lead by Arras bishop Olivier Leborgne who gave a message of truth, compassion and hope.

"There is no peace possible without justice and without truth, Leborgne told RTL radio on Thursday morning.

Macron and First Lady, Brigitte Macron, met with the family before the ceremony. Also in attendance was Education Minister Gabriel Attal.

Bernard was awarded the legion of honour in a decree published earlier Thursday.

Public encouraged to attend

Classes at the Gambetta-Carnot school were suspended Thursday morning, so that staff and students could attend.

The 1,000 seat cathedral was full of Bernard's family and friends, as well as public officials and teachers at the school.

The general public was not allowed in, but at the request of Bernard's family, the ceremony was being broadcast live on large screens in the plaza outside, at the base of the bell tower.

After the mass, Bernard was to be buried in a private ceremony at the local cemetery in Berneville.

Islamic State

The attacker, Mohammed Mogouchkov, is a former student who was under surveillance by France's DGSI intelligence agency.

Prosecutors say the 20-year-old, who claimed to be part of the Islamic State armed group, has been indicted for murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, and has been in jail since Tuesday.

His younger brother has been charged with complicity and a teenaged cousin has been charged with voluntary failure to prevent a crime.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Security, Disaster and Emergency Studies, Dr Ishmael Norman has opined that it is unlikely for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to declare a state of emergency following the devastation caused trough flooding as a result of the spillage from the Akosombo and Kpong dams.

Since the controlled spillage by the Volta River Authority, there has been calls for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to declared a state of emergency to commit resources to protect and save lives.

Speaking to TV3 on such calls, Dr. Ishmael Normal said although there is no need for a national state of emergency since the flooding is isolated he believes a regional state of emergency in the affected regions will be a wisest thing to do.

In this situation with spillage and flooding he is not going to declare a state of emergency, not even a regional state of emergency, he will come out with an executive instrument that will allow him to perform without reporting to Parliament because the modalities for the state of emergency are very technical, and our president doesnt like to control by the laws too much.

If you declare a state of emergency it allows the government to allocate a lot of resources to confront and tackle the emergency, so if the government is dedicated to solving this problem then the wisest thing to do will be a declaration of a regional state of emergency because it has not become a national yet, Dr. Ishmael Norman argued.

He continued, The spillage and flooding subsequent, have not become overwhelming that the country cannot handle or the region cant handle it, this is an isolated case, maybe 9 districts or even 12 affected, but that is still not overwhelming but in order to declare a regional state of emergency the president will have to go to parliament, report to the parliament of what has happened and follow the modalities as listed under Article 31.

Since the spillage, several communities in the Volta, Eastern, and Greater Regions have been affected with over 10,000 people displaced from their homes.

Following a visit to the affected arrears by President Akufo-Addo, he assured of governments readiness to support the affected communities and people.
Ghanaian activist Oliver Barker has criticized the General Legal Council's decision to reject Ama Governor from being called to the Bar the second time.

He argued that the action of GLC only seeks to keep law students and lawyers controlled so they cannot attack the system.

Barker Vormawor questioned whether he would have been allowed to be called to the bar if he was not already, given his activism.

In a tweet on Thursday, October 19, the vocal activist said "What the GLC has done is really about it's role in enforcing a culture of silence and observience that protects this system and culture of exploitation...That is what has made many law students and lawyers cockholds; and disempowered many of them as agents of change."

The rejection has sparked debate about freedom of expression and the transparency of the GLC's process for approving candidates to the legal profession in Ghana.

It may be recalled that Ama Governor was first not called to the Bar despite completing all the necessary requirements in 2022.

This was after the GLC said it had received a complaint alleging that Ama Governor had engaged in "conduct unbecoming of an applicant".

The decision resulted in widespread condemnation both online and offline, with many questioning the basis for the denial. However, others supported the GLC's decision.

Ama Governor who denied any inappropriate behavior or communications, stated that she was not informed of any specific misconduct.

However, in September 2023, a GLC report at its 2022/2023 conference indicated the complaint was reviewed by a committee. It allowed Ama Governor to begin applying to be called to the Bar for the October/November 2023 sessions.
On the eve of the first anniversary of the bloody repression of a protest against military rule in Chad, the opposition still faces arrest, intimidation and threats, despite a looming referendum on reform.

The young and at the time three-star general Mahamat Idriss Deby was proclaimed president by the army two and a half years ago after the death of his father, who led the semi-desert state for more than 30 years.

Now, a referendum on a new constitution is scheduled in two months' time and is due to set the stage for "free" elections and a return to civilian rule.

Deby had said elections would be held within 18 months of his takeover. But last October 20, he pushed that back two more years.

Chadians poured out onto the streets in protest.

Many of the thousands who demonstrated set off from the headquarters of The Transformers, the leading opposition party, in N'Djamena's Abena district.

The junta has admitted that about 50 protesters died in the capital, while the opposition and NGOs say the true figure from police and army gunfire was far higher.

Hundreds of youth and opposition figures were arrested, although some managed to flee abroad, including Transformers' leader Succes Masra.

'Fear in our hearts'

On October 8 this year, 72 young activists were arrested at the party headquarters and were since detained at a secret location.

"We, the demonstrators from October 20, we are living with the fear in our hearts of being arrested or kidnapped," said Djimrangar Ngueto, who runs an association for the victims of "Black Thursday".

Map of Chad with the capital N'Djamena. By (AFP)

He is one of very few people still prepared to talk to the media, in the hope that his status as a spokesman will protect him.

He told AFP by telephone that he, too, had been arrested on October 20 and released six months later after President Deby spoke of "holding out a hand".

"Nothing has changed for a year, the rulers have even clenched the hand they claimed to be holding out," he said.

Any rally or demonstration has been systematically banned.

"All that is done in the expectation of trouble before, during and after the referendum," said Evariste Ngarlem Tolde, a political scientist at the University of N'Djamena.

"The army is divided, with one part (of it) in the opposition."

The all-powerful presidential guard "will not hesitate to open fire and there is a risk that a part of the army confronts it if there are a lot dead," he said.

Dozens disappeared

After Black Thursday, the regime said 621 youths, including 83 minors were detained at an infamous desert jail at Koro Toro, 600 kilometres (370 miles) from the capital.

Six weeks later, they were tried in a closed court without legal representation. Many were sentenced to jail.

Local and international NGOs as well as UN-mandated experts estimate that 1,000-2,000 were arrested. Dozens if not hundreds of them have since disappeared.

"We are still asking for their bodies that are hidden in the desert," said Djimrangar Ngueto.

The October 8 arrest of 72 opposition supporters is an attempt to limit political dissent in the country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

The New-York based organisation also said an arrest warrant for Transformers' Masra was posted on social media by authorities on October 5.

The warrant, issued in June, appeared after Masra said he intended to return to N'Djamena on October 18. He has since delayed to November.

Masra is wanted for a variety of alleged crimes, from an attempted attack on constitutional order to incitement to hatred and insurrectional uprising.

"Threatening an opposition leader with arrest and detaining his supporters makes clear that fundamental freedoms are still very much at risk," said Lewis Mudge, HRW's Central Africa director.

A government spokesman did not respond to an AFP request for comment on the allegations.

The main reason for the latest arrests "is that Succes Masra ... frightens President Deby and other actors in the transition who have their sights on the next presidential" elections, said Kelma Manatouma, a political science researcher at Paris Nanterre University.
The Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Clement Apaak has blasted persons defending President Akufo-Addos remarks at Mepe on the voting pattern of Voltarians.

President Akufo-Addo on Monday, October 16, toured a number of communities in the Volta Region affected by the flooding caused by the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong dams by the Volta River Authority.

Speaking to the Chiefs and people of Mepe, the President argued that if it was down to who votes and who does not votes for him he wouldnt have visited the community to commiserate with them since he is aware they do not vote for him.

When these things happen and government acts, politics does not come into the matter at all. When I took the Oath of Office as President, I took the oath as president for every single individual in Ghana, all people in Ghana, all districts and whether they voted for me or not, once I have taken the oath, I am the President of all the people so Togbe, I want the people here, beginning with you, and the elders to understand that when something like this happens and Government acts, Government is acting for Ghanaians, all Ghanaians.

I came here because Ghanaians are having difficulties and are suffering, and it is my responsibility to try and help. Because, if it is a question of counting who votes for me and who doesn't vote for me, then I shouldn't be here, because you don't vote for me. But that is not my concern. And, in any event, one day you will vote for me and my party, President Akufo-Addo said.

The comments instantly became a subject of discussion as many criticized the president, insisting that in times of the suffering of the people this was not necessary.

For others, the president said no wrong and was only making a joke.

Replying to people that hold such a view, Dr. Clement Apaak has noted that they should be ashamed of themselves.

According to him, President Akufo-Addo was not attending a comedy programme and ought not to have made such statements.

A joke! Those seeking to excuse the grossly insensitive comments by NADAA when he finally visited victims of the floods must bow their heads in shame. He was joking? Was he attending a comedy show or a festival? A leader joking when thousands of citizens are distraught?, Dr. Clement Apaak shared in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
President Akufo-Addo has been urged to call the Health Minister, the Board Chairman of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and the CEO to order.

In a press statement signed by the National President of the Health Accountants Staff Association of Ghana (HASAG), Emmanuel Dennis Kofi Amoah dated 16th October 2023, the Association is questioning the rationale behind the re-assignment of five of its members without prior notification.

The Association is of the view the move by the CEO and the Ministry to move local union leaders from their current post is an orchestrated attempt to gag them and clip their wings from fighting for members of the Association.

The statement is, however, calling for the decision to be suspended within seven working days or will proceed on strike to protest for the rights of the affected members.

See the statement below:


Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, MP for South Dayi, has accused Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia of caring little about the victims of the Akosombo Dam spillage.

He claims Bawumia donated more money to Sierra Leone flood victims in 2017 than the flood victims in Ghana's Volta Region.

In a tweet, Dafeamekpor said Bawumia gave $1 million in cash and items to Sierra Leone victims in 2017, but only GH160,000 to Volta Region victims during his visit this year.

"In August 2017, Dr Bawumia Donated $1m (Ghc12m) in cash & items to flood victims in Sierra Leone. However, in October 2023, he comes to visit Flood Victims in the Volta Region & gives us Ghc160k ($13k) in cash & items. When we talk of deliberate discrimination, they say No," the MP stated.

However, an NPP communicator, Krobea Asante defended Bawumia, saying the $1 million donation in 2017 was as not from his pocket but the recent GH160,000 was his personal donation.

He responded: "Dr. Bawumia in August 2017, didn't donate $1m to Sierra Leone from his pocket, he led a government delegation and represented the state to do that. But in yesterday's case Dr. Bawumia did a personal donation of GHs 160,000."
China flays new US curbs on chip exports

08:31, October 19, 2023 By Ma Si, Wang Keju and Lia Zhu ( China Daily

China expressed strong dissatisfaction over, and opposition to, the latest US chip export control measures, with officials and experts saying on Wednesday that such curbs would further disrupt the global semiconductor industry chain and harm the interests of multinational corporations in the industry.

On Tuesday, the US government intensified restrictions on chip exports to China, a move that the US semiconductor industry has been strongly lobbying against due to fears of market uncertainty.

The Semiconductor Industry Association, which represents 99 percent of the US semiconductor industry by revenue, criticized the rules in a statement on the same day.

"Overly broad, unilateral controls risk harming the US semiconductor ecosystem without advancing national security as they encourage overseas customers to look elsewhere," the group said.

A spokesperson of China's Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday the United States constantly overstretches the concept of national security, abuses export control measures and resorts to unilateral bullying acts, which China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly objects to.

The US should remove its controls on semiconductor exports to China without delay and create a fair, just and predictable business environment for enterprises of all countries, including Chinese enterprises, the spokesperson said.

Washington's latest rules are an update to the export controls imposed by the US Commerce Department a year ago to stop China from acquiring advanced computer chips and related equipment to manufacture them.

Tuesday's rules broaden the controls by including slightly less powerful chips than those covered under the previous rules and expand the previous list of manufacturing equipment.

The US Commerce Department included more Chinese chip companies, including Beijing Biren Technology Development Co Ltd and Moore Thread Intelligent Technology (Beijing) Co Ltd, on a trade blacklist.

Biren said in a statement it strongly opposes the move and will actively appeal to relevant US government departments. It urged the US government to reexamine the move. Moore Thread also said in a statement it strongly opposes the decision, and is actively communicating with all the parties concerned and evaluating the impact of the move.

Bai Ming, deputy director of international market research at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said despite Washington's shift in rhetoric from "decoupling" to "de-risking" in key supply chains, the US government continues to tighten its controls over chip exports to China.

The US has already adopted a string of measures to contain Chinese technology companies. Apart from levying additional tariffs on a large number of Chinese products, it has included many Chinese market entities on its export control list, and imposed sanctions on Chinese enterprises.

Such moves, in fact, run against the interests of the US semiconductor enterprises that have suffered huge losses; meanwhile, semiconductor enterprises in other countries have also been affected, Bai said.

The new rules on Tuesday came even as US chip companies and their trade group continue to push the US government to "refrain from further restrictions". In July, media reports had said the US administration was considering tightening export controls on China.

The CEOs of major US chip companies such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and Intel visited Washington in July to voice their concerns over the export controls, as China is not just the world's largest chip market but also a key link in US chip companies' supply chains.

Following Tuesday's announcement of the new rules, shares of leading chip companies such as Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel all declined.

Dutch chip manufacturing equipment provider ASML Holding NV said the latest US regulations will be applicable to a limited number of factories on the Chinese mainland engaged in advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

"These export control measures will likely have an impact on the regional split of our systems sales in the medium to long term," ASML said.

Cheng Yu contributed to this story.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- A plenary meeting of the Belt and Road Studies Network (BRSN) was held in Beijing on Tuesday. The meeting was attended by more than 300 former political leaders, representatives of think tanks and renowned scholars from over 40 countries and regions. Attendees of the meeting said that think tanks should develop the Belt and Road into a platform that exemplifies the practice of true multilateralism, so as to provide a potent impetus for the progress of humanity. They also vowed to continue pooling wisdom to facilitate win-win Belt and Road cooperation. "I think international think tanks are very valuable organizations, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) needs the cooperation and input of international think tanks, which can promote the development of East Asian countries, including my own country," said Chhem Kieth Rethy, Senior Minister, Chairman of Economic, Social and Cultural Council of Cambodia. Sudheendra Kulkarni, who represents the Forum for a New South Asia, said that one of the BRI achievements that impressed him the most is that the initiative has helped less developed countries and underdeveloped countries to speed up their development. John Ross, a scholar with Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China, said that the BRI is the most important development initiative in the world, whether measured by the number of countries participating, by the proportion of the world's population involved, or from the perspective of the rapidity of growth of the countries involved. Leading officials of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Xinhua News Agency attended and addressed the meeting. The BRSN, co-initiated by Xinhua Institute, the think tank of Xinhua News Agency, together with 15 other think tanks, was inaugurated in April 2019.
WASHINGTON  At a time when Americans are deeply divided along party lines, a new poll shows considerable agreement on at least one issue: The United States' two-decade-long war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting.

The poll from the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research comes two years after the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan in August 2021 and the Taliban returned to power. The war was started to go after the masterminds of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Taliban who allowed them to use Afghan territory. It ended in frantic scenes of Afghans and Americans desperately trying to get on one of the last flights out of Kabul.

Polls suggest the withdrawal, seen by many as chaotic and ill-planned, may have been a turning point for President Joe Bidens approval ratings, which started a downward slide around that time and have not recovered since.

Two-thirds of Americans say the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting; 65% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans agree on that evaluation. Many have doubts about how successful the U.S. was at accomplishing more specific goals such as eliminating the threat from extremists or improving opportunities for women.

It was unwinnable from the beginning, said Martin Stefen, a 78-year-old Republican who lives in Carson City, Nevada. He said the U.S. should have paid closer attention to what happened to the Soviet Union, which waged a decadelong war in Afghanistan during the 1980s only to pull out in defeat in 1989. And, he said, the U.S. should have had a more specific end goal for how it wanted the war in Afghanistan to go and a better understanding of the country's tribal politics.

That thought was echoed by Justin Campbell, a 28-year-old Democrat from Brookhaven, Mississippi. He said it was clear after the U.S. was entrenched in Afghanistan that it didn't have very deep support. Campbell said he's not pleased that the Taliban is back in control.

But I dont think it was worth us staying over there," he said.

Maliha Chishti, a lecturer and research associate at the Pearson Institute, said she was struck by the fact that after 20 years of war, so many American and Afghan lives lost and billions spent, the vast majority said they felt Afghanistan was not friendly to the U.S. or was an outright enemy. She said the responses demonstrate a frustration on the part of Americans and the need to ask questions about what went wrong with America's attempts to intervene in Afghanistan.

We invested all of this money to really build a state from scratch and when we left, that state completely collapsed, she said.

Many Americans also say the United States was not successful with many of its key objectives in Afghanistan.

Eliminating the threat from Islamic extremists in Afghanistan during the war is still seen as an important goal by many across party lines: 46% of Democrats and 44% of Republicans called that highly important. But only about one-quarter in each group said this successfully happened during the war.

Slightly fewer than half  46%  say the U.S. and its allies were successful at the goal of apprehending or killing the individuals in Afghanistan who were responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, compared with 25% who think the U.S. was unsuccessful in achieving that goal.

Only about one in five Americans say the U.S. successfully improved opportunities for women and girls in Afghanistan, with 43% saying such efforts were unsuccessful. But many said advancing the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan was important to them. About three-quarters said that goal was extremely, very or somewhat important to them. Those figures are similar to the level of support for the goal of eliminating the threat of Islamic extremists sheltering in Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban's return to power, they have restricted women's rights to education and work and even barred them from public parks.

Women were more likely than men across party lines to call advancing the rights of women in Afghanistan an important goal. Toni Dewey, a 75-year-old Democrat from Wilmington, North Carolina, said she wasn't sure how much the U.S. could do at this point to improve the rights of women in Afghanistan but she did feel their educational opportunities were greater while America was there.

I think any population that doesnt respect their population, theyre missing out because women do contribute to the benefit of everyone, she said.

Even as Democrats and Republicans have similar views on policy goals for Afghanistan, they differ on whether the U.S. should take a more active role in solving the worlds problems: 55% of Republicans say the U.S. should take a less active role, compared with 15% of Democrats. The responses also demonstrate the ongoing shift in the Republican Party, which has traditionally been more hawkish and interventionist.

Nola Sayne, a 59-year-old Republican from Loganville, Georgia, said she is wary of the United States being the worlds police. Up until quite recently she had been supportive of policies limiting American involvement abroad  like the war in Ukraine  to instead focus American attention and funding at home. But the Hamas attack on Israel, which took place after the poll was conducted, is making her rethink that position.

They are our friends, our allies. We cant let this heinous act go unanswered," she said.

Photos: A new view of life under the Taliban emerges
19.10.2023 LISTEN

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has raised an alarm over the health conditions of individuals seeking shelter in emergency accommodations following the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong Dams.

Among the recorded health issues are diarrhea, bilharzia, malaria, skin diseases, and respiratory conditions, according to Dr. Richard Selormey, the Acting General Secretary of the GMA.

He made these revelations during an interview on Eyewitness News on Citi FM monitored by ModernGhana News.

Dr. Selormey explained that in reaction to the ongoing crisis, the GMA organized a team comprising twenty-two medical professionals, in collaboration with the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association and a clinical psychologist who volunteered from the 37 Military Hospital.

The team was dispatched to the affected areas to provide essential healthcare services to those residing in the emergency shelters.

During the interview, Dr. Selormey shared the team's findings. "We have noted that the most common issues among the affected individuals are cases of malaria, skin diseases, and respiratory conditions.

This is primarily due to the overcrowding in the shelters, where many people are in close contact with each other.

Additionally, we have observed a concerning number of individuals exhibiting signs of diarrhea diseases, and approximately two individuals are showing signs of bilharzia."

Dr. Selormey expressed worry over a potential outbreak of waterborne diseases and urged the affected people to strictly adhere to safety protocols while awaiting relief items.

He stated, Our concern is the outbreak of diarrheal diseases. That can be a big problem because it can quickly spread."

And then also because of the crowding, respiratory tract infections. So key is the protocols we highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic which has to do with handwashing practices and advising the people not to touch things and making sure that there is good water available, Dr. Selormey added.
Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has indicated more long-term assistance for communities affected by the recent Akosombo Dam spillage.

Thousands were displaced across eight districts in the Volta and Greater Accra regions following the release of excess water from the dam.

During a visit to evacuation centres on Wednesday, October 18, a visibly sad Dr Bawumia said "I see so much sadness and pains. Their lives have been turned upside down as a result of what has happened."

In a bid to boost morale, the Vice President urged victims to "find solace in the Holy Book and thank God for the gift of life."

He assured more support is in the offing. "I want to assure that Government will do everything possible to assist the affected people to provide relief and also restore the livelihoods of those affected," Dr Bawumia quoted.

"We are not only looking at temporary relief, we are also looking at a more sustained support through the Inter- Ministerial Committee, so that those affected can restore their livelihoods," he added.
The International Criminal Court said Thursday it had released Maxime Mokom, a former militia leader in the Central African Republic (CAR), shelving its war crimes case against him after the prosecutor dropped all charges.

Prosecutor Karim Khan said his office had concluded there were "no longer any reasonable prospects of conviction at trial even if the charges were confirmed".

Mokom was released from custody on Tuesday, the ICC said later in a statement.

He had faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over alleged atrocities committed against Muslim civilians in the CAR, a former French colony, by his self-proclaimed self-defence militias in 2013 and 2014.

One of the world's poorest countries, the CAR was plunged into bloody sectarian conflict after Seleka rebels, a coalition of armed groups mainly composed of Muslims, ousted president Francois Bozize in early 2013.

Mokom's militias, which called themselves "anti-Balaka" -- meaning "anti-machete" -- formed in reaction to the takeover of the capital, Bangui, by the Seleka.

He had denied involvement in the bloodshed, telling ICC judges in August he was "dedicated to the search for peace".

Mokom said he returned to the CAR in February 2014 during the height of the violence after fleeing to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

The charges Mokom had faced included directing attacks against the civilian population, murder, rape and pillage.

Prosecutor Khan said the decision to drop those charges was taken after considering all the evidence and "changed circumstances regarding the availability of witnesses".

It had become clear that "several critical witnesses" were unavailable to testify and that the ongoing investigation was "unlikely to result in new evidence," the prosecutor said in his submission to the court.

Prosecutors said they had been unable to interview potential witnesses, including "insider witnesses" in recent weeks.

"It is also not anticipated that further witnesses with similar evidence will be identified or come forward in the near future," they added.

'Unwelcome news'

Khan said his office reserved the right to request a new arrest warrant if more evidence came to light and addressed those affected by the atrocities in the country.

"I am very conscious that this news may be unwelcome to many survivors and their families," he said. "I hope many will understand my legal and ethical responsibilities to be guided by the law and the evidence."

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mokom in 2018 and he was finally handed over by Chadian authorities last year.

Set up in 2002, the ICC is the world's only independent tribunal capable of prosecuting those accused of the world's worst crimes.

Anti-Balaka attacks continued on Muslim civilians even after Seleka forces retreated from Bangui, until at least December 2014.

The CAR remains troubled and peace agreements signed in 2017 and 2019 have not been respected on the ground.

Many armed groups, rebels and assailants continue a guerrilla campaign of sporadic attacks against the Central African army, which is supported by mercenaries from the Russian private security company Wagner.

International NGOs and experts mandated by the United Nations regularly accuse both sides of crimes and abuses against civilians.

Two other former anti-Balaka leaders, Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona and Alfred Yekatom, are already on trial at the ICC.

Last year, Seleka commander Mahamat Said Abdel Kani denied war crimes and crimes against humanity charges before the court.
19.10.2023 LISTEN

Professor Dzodzi Tsikata, a researcher in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and the author of "Living in the Shadows of the Large Dams," has placed the blame squarely on the Volta River Authority (VRA) for the damage caused by the spillage of the Akosombo Dam.

Professor Tsikata argues that the VRA cannot absolve itself of any blame for the destruction caused by the spillage, which has wreaked havoc in the Lower Volta Basin.

The VRA conducted the controlled water spillage from the Akosombo and Kpong Dams on September 15, 2023 due to the overflow levels of the Akosombo Dam.

Many homes in South Tongu, North Tongu, Central Tongu, Asuogyaman, and other areas have been submerged in water with many displaced.

"Even if people were able to relocate to higher ground, they cannot move immovable property. Therefore, the VRA must bear responsibility for all the buildings that have been destroyed because it is unreasonable to expect people to relocate immovable properties to higher ground.

If our own state agencies grant permits for construction in these locations, it will be exceedingly challenging for the VRA and the government to evade legal responsibility for the damage that people have endured," Professor Tsikata asserted during an interview with Bernard Avle on "The Point of View" on Citi TV monitored by ModernGhana News.

Professor Tsikata further emphasized that "dam builders and managers are legally responsible for all the consequences of their actions and inactions within the river basin, and the VRA is a state agency, placing the government under legal responsibility as well."

It is vital not to make a false choice between safeguarding a national resource and safeguarding lives and property. One cannot be chosen over the other. The legal standpoint is that you are accountable for the lives and property affected by your efforts to protect a national asset located in a particular neighborhood. This must be clearly understood," she emphasised.
The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has admonished government to boldly intensify its fight against illegal mining (galamsey) to put a stop to the unending destruction of the environment.

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, October 18, the President of the Ghana Bar Association, Yaw Acheampong Boafo said if the fight against galamsey is lost, the the greed of the people involved will destroy the country.

He argued that illegal mining is thriving in the country because it is being controlled and funded by corrupt public officials, politicians, and rich businessmen, among others.

Galamsey can only thrive if powerful and influential persons of society actively fund such menace. The reasonable and irresistible conclusion is that it is controlled and funded by a network of corrupt public officials, politicians, traditional rulers and wealthy and powerful business interests.

Indeed, we will be playing the ostrich with our future if we pretend as we are doing at the moment," GBA President Yaw Acheampong Boafo told the media.

He further stressed, If we refuse to act, the frivolous gluttony of our elite will completely destroy us as a nation.

Bemoaning the harm galamsey is doing through the destruction of Ghana, forests, lands, and water bodies and its associated health risks, the Ghana Bar Association believes the time to act to turn things around is now.
A High Court in Accra has thrown out the contempt case against the Adansi Asokwa Member of Parliament Kobina Tahir Hammond.

The Trades and Industry Minister was dragged to court by lawyers of Assin North Member of Parliament James Gyakye Quayson.

K.T Hammond as he is affectionately called was accused of making comments in a media interview that were deemed prejudicial to the criminal case against Quayson, who is facing charges of dual citizenship.

However, the court dismissed the case on Thursday, October 19, 2023, with the judge noting that enough evidence was not provided to secure a conviction.

The judge also ruled that Hammonds comments were not intended to interfere with the criminal case against Quayson.

-citinewsroom
Next year promises to be an exciting electioneering period even as we await the outcome of the NPP showdown congress on November 4, 2023.

In the meantime, Mr. John Mahama and his NDC are putting together their Cabinet even before next years general election. Already, some of the leading members of the NDC have begun calling themselves incoming Minister of Finance, Food and Agriculture, Foreign Affairs, National Security and Interior as well as Chief of Staff.

Some of the younger ones have assigned deputy ministerial portfolios to themselves. To the NDC, the 2024 general election is a forgone conclusion because the NPP government has failed to deliver on its promises.

For this reason and to date, many months after being elected flagbearer, Mr. Mahama is yet to outline one policy intervention that he would roll out to take Ghana out of the present economic difficulties.

They have been blindfolded by their false expectation to such an extent that the NDC no longer think humility and respect.

They prefer statements such as what nonsense in reference to a remark by President Akufo-Addo last Monday.

Ghanaians, despite the hardships, are too discerning to hand over power to the NDC again to disrespect them and top it up with their incompetence resulting in five years of dumsor.

In the military and police today, there are distinguished professionals serving Ghana locally and abroad and who as legal practitioners Sammy Gyamfi cannot lace their shoes.

We remind Sammy Gyamfi that humility pays and he must learn to respect Ghanaians even if he thinks he is more brilliant than everybody else.

Today, he has directed his acerbic wit to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame.

Not ready to learn anything from his disgraceful comment on the security officers, he has launched another tirade on the Attorney General.

At a press conference last Monday, Sammy Gyamfi said the Attorney General is engaged in a sinister move to cover up for government officials accused of engaging in illegal small scale mining (galamsey), in his opinion on the report issued by the former Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng.

Addressing the journalists, he said having meticulously analysed the content of the Attorney Generals legal opinion, we have come to the irresistible conclusion that the said advice is nothing but a poor attempt to cover up the complicity of officials of the Akufo-Addos/Bawumia government and the ruling NPP in the illicit galamsey trade. We are alarmed by the serious allegations levelled at the personalities in the government for their alleged involvement in the galamsey business. Mr. Sammy Gyamfi is master of all professions except for the one he paid for to study, Law. If that were not the case, Sammy Gyamfi would not have gone fishing at the backyard of the Attorney General to appreciate the most basic ethos of rule of law that he who alleges must prove.

In other words, Sammy Gyamfi must be told that one cannot hang the destiny of one's case on what one's opponent might or might not do in court. Simply put, if one goes to court alleging that something has or has not happened, the burden is on the person to provide the evidence.

Source: Daily Guide
We live in a world of contradictions, but these contradictions keep the world going . Kwame Nkrumah, January 1966

This may not be the time to re-examine the history or the longer story of the construction of the Akosombo Dam which was conceptualized in 1950, and finally constructed in 1965.

It may not be the time to fantasize the story of Akosombo over Ajena for the siting of the dam; not to embellish the story of the urge for how much electricity to work on bauxite. This may certainly not be the time to romanticise the construction of the Saint Barbara Catholic Church to memorialize the death of 12 VRA workers by explosion in 1964.

Or the total cost of $258 funded by the World Bank, the United Kingdom and the United States but being the largest single investment in the economic development plans of Ghana.

There will be a time to reflect on the journey Dr. Kwame Nkrumah took to the U.S. to negotiate with the U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961 for the construction of the dam. A time will come when the proper story of the electricity generated by the Akosombo Dam sold to Togo and Benin (that lulled Togo to sleep on the Adjarala Dam on Togo's Mono River).

The Dam's construction began in 1961 and was inaugurated in 1965, feeding the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) Tema for producing aluminium from alumina, itself from bauxite.

This is the time to respond to the destruction of the over 738, villages and over 28,000 people. The simple thing to say is that the spillage of the water in the dam was an act of man  an engineering necessity to save the integrity of the dam.

If you are not living along the banks of the river and, therefore, not affected by the flooding, you will think it is a simple thing just telling the inhabitants there to move to safe havens  up there.

You will think it is a simple exercise of people moving from their residences leaving their hard-earned property, farm-lands and ancestral remains behind. You will come to grips with the Noah story (in Genesis chapter 6) where the heavens opened for forty days.

The biblical story is similar to Uthapishtim's story of Gilgamesh in which there were seven days of continuous rain, which destroyed Gilgamesh, leaving the boat and the people on a mountainous area, a story written over 2000 years before Christ was born.

In the Noah's story, you will ask: why did Lot's wife (named Idith) turn into a pillar of salt after turning to look at the destruction? The Sodom and Gomorrah story is not the same as the spillage of the Akosombo Dam. The latter is man-made: and, therefore, more scientific and plain than the biblical one and the flood swallowed up a whole world.

The boisterousness and vivacity of Mepe are lost. Life in this town of North Tongu District of Volta Region inhabited by Ewes, Akwamus, Akyems has ground to a halt.

Mamagah Adzo Tsreku the queen mother of Mepe alleges that the Volta Regional Minister Dr. Archibald Yao Letsa denied the inhabitants the opportunity to present a petition to President Akufo-Addo when the President visited the area on Tuesday to ascertain the situation on the ground after the spillage. She says: The situation is very terrible, but people come on TV and radio to paint the picture that all is well when it is not. The Regional Minister told us the content of the petition was harsh so he took it and said he would present it himself.

The government has set up an interim  Ministerial Committee, headed by the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare. It consists of Ministers for National Security, Interior, Defence, Sanitation, Energy, Finance, Lands and Natural Resources, Local Government, Works and Housing, Roads and Highways, Environment and Information.

The Committee is to work collaboratively to assess the situation, identify the most pressing needs and implement measures to mitigate the impact of the flooding on affected residents. People are asking why the Minister of Health is not included in the list because the area is disease ridden  with snake bites, bilharzia, reportedly common place.

Okudzeto  Ablakwa who is the Member of Parliament for North Tongu has been working as far as humanly possible to assist the affected people of the area. He rescued some people trapped by the floods.

He noted: I commend all my courageous constituents for the outstanding show of solidarity, compassion, and community spirit in helping each other survive this unprecedented disaster  I wish to render special praise to the youth who volunteered night and day to rescue the vulnerable and salvage properties  You are true heroes During my tour, I distributed free life jackets, made relocation, transportation arrangements and established a fund with seed money of GH30,000 to assist victims in need of further emergency support

Looking at the picture, Mepe appears to be in an area fit to be described as an ox-bow region, with the river meandering around the town.

Offers of assistance or shall we call them relief items of food and water keep pouring in for the victims; but at the end of it all, the victims will need shelter. We believe the committee will be up to the task to sort the people out. Some are talking about Sagliemi Housing Project will all the controversies surrounding it. Fortunately, the Project is not too far from the area inundated with the spillage.

Of course, the Volta River Authority will have to answer some questions. Why were the affected people not informed in good time? What alternative arrangements were made to contain the situation?

Year in year out, people along the Volta River in the Northern part of Ghana suffer some of these episodes especially when the Burkina Faso authorities open the Bagri Dam. People get displaced; property get lost and destroyed, and life appears to come to an end for some people.

There are various reports of certain countries suffering from floods. Last month, Western Cape in South Africa suffered heavy flooding. In Cameroon floods and landslides left over 30 people dead in Mabankolo District in Yaounde, the capital city. In Guatemala, 19 people were feared missing after flash floods in Guatemala city. And in Brazil, flood waters wreaked havoc in Santa Catarina. A total of 15,000 people have been affected by the Brazil floods in other places. In the case of Santa Catarina, the government Jorginho Mello had ordered the gradual and controlled opening of the floodgates of the Ituporanga and Talo Dams. A state of emergency has been declared in all these affected places, and the world is watching how the events are settled.

We in Ghana are still praying for greater reliefs, pray for the technology that Holland has to construct dykes that save the citizens from the towns even though they are way down below sea level.

[email protected]

By Africanus Owusu-Ansah
Abraham Amaliba, the Director of Conflict Resolution of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has taken a strong stance against the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) for its recent criticism of lawyers allegedly disparaging the judicial service.

Amaliba urged the GBA to stop arrogating to itself the mouthpiece of the judiciary and focus on more pressing issues on the welfare of its members.

During an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Eyewitness News on Citi FM monitored by ModernGhana news, Amaliba expressed his discontent with the GBA, describing its actions as "shameful."

He called on the association to redirect its efforts towards ensuring the efficient operation of courts throughout the country, highlighting specific issues, such as the water supply to the Adentan Court, which has been disrupted by the Ghana Water Company.

"What needs to be stopped is the Ghana Bar Association turning itself into the mouthpiece of the judiciary. It is not done anywhere in the world, and it is only in Ghana that the BAR forms a cursory relationship with the judiciary and performs the role of a PRO for the judiciary.

The BAR must bow its head in shame for shirking its role as the mouthpiece for the voiceless, the oppressed, and the marginalised. If they have found their voices now, what they should do is channel that into taking care of the welfare needs of its members," Amaliba declared.

He added, When you go to the Adentan Court premises, which houses the district, circuit, and high courts, the washrooms are not available because the Ghana Water Company has cut water to the building. This should concern the BAR.

The President of the Ghana Bar Association, Yaw Acheampong Boafo, had earlier called on GBA members affiliated with political parties to refrain from making statements that might demean the judicial service during a press conference on Wednesday, October 18.
Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has expressed his heartfelt sympathy to the victims of the Akosombo Dam spillage, which has led to the displacement of many in the Volta Region, as well as parts of the Eastern and Greater Accra Regions.

Dr. Bawumia, on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, visited some of the affected communities in the Volta Region and temporary shelters set up to provide relief to the victims.

Speaking to a gathering of community leaders and residents, Dr. Bawumia acknowledged the suffering and disruption that the victims have had to endure due to the spillage.

He empathised with them, stating, "When I look into the eyes of our mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers who are seated here, I see so much sadness and pain. Their lives have been turned upside down as a result of what has happened."

"These are people who were going about their normal duties every day to take care of themselves, but now they have to really depend on others for livelihood, and I am saddened by that," he added.

Dr. Bawumia urged the affected individuals to take solace in their faith and give thanks to God for the gift of life.

He stated, "We are told in the good Book that in all things, we should give thanks to God. Why are we thanking God in this situation? Because He has saved the lives of all those here. So far, we have not heard of the loss of life, and life is more important."

"We thank God for their lives. In many situations, such disasters are accompanied by loss of lives, and we thank God that everybody here is safe. With life, we can restore what we have lost."

Dr. Bawumia made a commitment on behalf of the government to assist the affected people by providing relief and support to help them restore their livelihoods.

He emphasised that the government's response goes beyond temporary relief which includes a more sustained support system through the Inter-Ministerial Committee.

He stated, "I want to assure that the Government will do everything possible to assist the affected people to provide relief and also restore the livelihoods of those affected.

He added, We are not only looking at temporary relief, we are also looking at more sustained support through the Inter-Ministerial Committee so that those affected can restore their livelihoods.

The Vice President commended NADMO for its proactive efforts in managing the crisis and preventing a potentially larger disaster.

He also extended his appreciation to the army, the navy, the Volta River Authority (VRA), and all stakeholders for their collective efforts in rescuing victims.

"I want to thank the NADMO for their proactiveness. We could have had a major disaster in our hands without the proactiveness of NADMO, through the simulation exercise they conducted last year, when they did not even know this would happen.

"I also want to thank the army, the navy, VRA and all stakeholders for their collective efforts so far," he said.

In reaction to the disaster, the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) and other government agencies, as part of the Inter-Ministerial Committee set up by the government, have swiftly evacuated the affected people to 20 holding centres and provided them with essential relief items.
I recently read Sen. Creigh Deeds column, A razor-thin majority in Richmond is keeping LGBTQ+ lives safe and was deeply disturbed by it.

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I was insulted by his misrepresentation of Gov. Glenn Youngkins positions for cheap political gain. His attempt to paint Gov. Youngkin as an enemy of the LGBTQ+ community is ridiculous. In fact, he could not be further from the truth.

The idea the greater involvement of parents in the lives of their children is an anti-LGBTQ+ position is absurd and deeply harmful to members of our community. Unlike Virginia progressives, LGBTQ+ Virginians do not want their children being shown inappropriate materials at their schools.

These, along with Gov. Youngkins proposals to address the rising cost of living, lower taxes on hard working Virginia families, raise education standards to restore excellence at Virginia schools and make our communities safer through his Operation Bold Blue Line initiative are policies that benefit all Virginians, including those of us in the LGBTQ+ community.

During Pride Month, I attended a reception hosted by Gov. Youngkin where he highlighted the positive impacts these policies are having on everyday Virginians.

Sen. Deeds should take his own advice and stop using the LGBTQ+ community as political pawns to push through a radical and harmful left-wing agenda.
The Vice President of the Republic, H.E Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia commiserated with Ghanaians affected by the flooding caused by the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong Dams on Wednesday, October 18, when he toured some of the affected communities.

Over 80 communities in the Volta, Eastern, and Greater Accra Regions suffered greatly following the controlled spillage by the Volta River Authority (VRA).

The devastation caused by the flooding of the communities has resulted in over 10,000 people being displaced from their homes.

Speaking to the people after his visit, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia expressed sadness but thanked God that no lives lost.

When I look into the eyes of our mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers who are seated here, I see so much sadness and pains. Their lives have been turned upside down as a result of what has happened.

We thank God for their lives. In many situations, such disasters are accompanied by loss of lives and we thank God that everybody here is safe. With life, we can restore what we have lost, the Vice President said.

During the engagement, Dr. Bawumia assured the affected people that government will go beyond providing immediate relief to ensure the people receive the necessary support to restore their livelihoods.

I want to assure that Government will do everything possible to assist the affected people to provide relief and also restore the livelihoods of those affected.

We are not only looking at temporary relief, we are also looking at a more sustained support through the Inter- Ministerial Committee, so that those affected can restore their livelihoods," Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia said.
Sierra Leone's main opposition party has struck a deal to end its boycott of government in exchange for the release of political detainees and an end to politically motivated legal cases.

The two sides on Wednesday evening concluded talks mediated by the Commonwealth, the African Union and the regional bloc ECOWAS following tense elections in June, which the opposition All People's Congress (APC) party disputed.

In the aftermath of the presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections, the party refused to participate in any level of government.

President Julius Maada Bio will make a national address on unity and cohesion, according to the agreement signed Wednesday evening by his chief minister David Sengeh and APC leader Samura Kamara.

Kamara is currently on trial accused of embezzling public funds while he was foreign minister, a case he has told AFP is politically motivated.

During the three-day dialogue, the two sides also agreed to set up a cross-party committee to review the June election together with development partners.

They also committed to help resettle any party supporters internally or externally displaced by political intimidation or violence.

Bio was re-elected for a second term in the first round of voting on June 24, with 56.17 percent of the ballots, according to results released by the electoral commission -- just above the 55 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off.

'Mathematical improbabilities'

But international observers condemned a "lack of transparency" in the ballot count following the vote.

A national observation group noted significant discrepancies between voter results for presidential, parliamentary and local council elections.

In its final report, released last week, the European Union's observation mission highlighted "statistical inconsistencies and mathematical improbabilities", intimidation and political violence.

It recommended a string of measures to boost transparency, safety and freedom of expression in future elections.

At the state opening of parliament in early August, Bio called for "unity" and "dialogue", admitting to "logistical limitations" during the general elections.

President Bio is due to give a national address on unity, cohesion and peace. By OLIVIER DOULIERY (AFP)

He said a committee comprising members of civil society and development partners would be set up to review the vote.

The opposition boycotted the opening.

Then-US ambassador David Reimer in mid-August said Washington would review its government-to-government programmes in Sierra Leone, including a Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact grant worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

On August 31, the US State Department announced visa restrictions on people "believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy in Sierra Leone", including through vote rigging or intimidation of observers.

The names of those targeted were not made public, and visa decisions are confidential under US law.

In September, Bio accused the United States of pressuring him to interfere in the election count, speaking during an event in Washington.
The government of Ghana is set to create 200,000 agricultural sector jobs for the youth under its new Youth in Agric program, according to the National Communications Director of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah.

In a tweet on Thursday, October 19, Mr. Ahiagbah said the economy is getting ready to create these opportunities for young people interested in agriculture.

"The economy is getting ready to create 200,000 gainful youth jobs in the agricultural sector under the Youth in Agric program," Ahiagbah stated, calling on "Interested persons to apply now at yea.gov.gh."

"You will be happy you did because nothing beats being paid to farm...It is a win-win proposition, don't wait until tomorrow, apply now!" Mr. Ahiagbah added.

The Youth in Agric initiative aims to empower Ghanaian youth and provide them with stable incomes and livelihoods through agriculture.

It is part of the broader agenda of the government to create more jobs, especially for young people.

Under the program, participants will receive training in modern agricultural practices and have access to inputs, technologies and financing needed to establish their own farms.

The government hopes to boost the production of key crops such as maize, rice, sorghum, cassava, yam, cocoyam, soybean and vegetables.
The Accra High Court trying the current nine persons accused of planning to overthrow the Government, is set to give its judgement soon.

The three-member Court presided over by Justice Mrs Afia Serwaa Asare-Botwe has therefore directed the prosecution and defense to file their written legal documents on or before Friday, November 17, 2023.

This was when hearing was ended by Warrant Officer Class Two (WOII) Esther Saan Dekuwine after giving her cross examination and evidence in Chief.

The Court has therefore adjourned trial to November 22, 2023, for direction on the judgement.

WOII Esther was arrested together with nine others: Dr Frederick Mac-Palm, now deceased, Donya Kafui, Bright Alan Debrah, Johannes Zikpi, Colonel Samuel Kojo Gameli, Lance Airforce Corporal (LAC) Ali Solomon, LAC Seidu Abubakar, Corporal Sylvester Akankpewon and Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Dr Benjamin Kwasi Agordzo were arrested in 2019.

They were then on March 3, 2020, committed by the Kaneshie District Court for trial at the High Court.

The nine are facing charges, ranging from conspiracy to commit high treason, treason, abetment, conspiracy to possess explosives, arms and ammunition without lawful authority, which they have denied.

All ten are on varied bail terms and sums of money such as a self-recognisance bail of GHC500,000.00 for ACP Dr Agordzo, GHC10 million with two sureties each for six persons which was later varied to six million cedis with three sureties, among others.

ACP Dr Agordzo was the first to be granted bail by Justice Charles Ekow Baiden, then the others at various occasions.

The trial was handled by Justice Samuel K. Asiedu, a Supreme Court Judge, then the Court of Appeal Judge with additional responsibility as a High Judge.

Later, it was tried by the three-member Court, including Justices Stephen Oppong and Hafisata Amaleboba, all Court of Appeal judges sitting as High Court judges.

Dr Mac-Palm was the Chief Executive officer of Citadel Hospital, Kafui, a blacksmith, Debrah, a freight forwarder, ACP Dr Agordzo, a police officer. The rest are officers of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).

Prosecution said they were members of Take Action Ghana (TAG), a non-governmental organisation incorporated by the late Mac-Palm in 2018.

Prosecution alleges that the group planned to demonstrate against the Government as well as overtake it.

This, led to Mac-Palm, contracting Kafui from Alavanyo to produce Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), arms and he obliged.

They also held meetings held meetings to facilitate the process and drew sketches, covering the Jubilee House, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, 37 Military Hospital, Burma Camp to facilitate their movements.

Facts earlier given to the Court said Colonel Samuel Kojo Gameli was said to have promised to give his support before, during and after the planned event.

When Kafui brought the 22 IEDs, six pistols, three grenades and five ammunitions, Mac-Palm accommodated him, all taking place from June 2018 to September 2019.

Prosecution said Mac-Palm also provided quantity of substance which when inhaled, would make one sleep for an hour but upon a tip-off he was arrested on September 19, 2019.The rest were arrested later.

GNA
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has backed calls to declare a state of emergency in areas affected by the Akosombo Dam spillage.

It said the situation passed for a state of emergency since it was not only threatening the existence of the people but also depriving them of the essentials of life.

A statement copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), signed by Mr Thomas T. Musah, the General Secretary of GNAT, said the declaration of the emergency would secure public safety, maintain order and guarantee the supply of essential goods and services required by the communities.

He urged teachers in the region to remain calm, assuring them of the Associations commitment to carrying out its duties.

Learners were also not left out in GNATs quest to provide assistance to ensure that their education was neither disrupted nor thwarted.

Footage from the region was indeed catastrophic, with the whole place inundated with water, were buildings, farmlands and personal belongings had submerged, the statement said.

It is indeed a pitiful sight to behold, and our hearts go out to them. The situation is quite tragic, more so when it is man-made.

The Association wondered whether the people lower stream were warned of the fate that awaited them, arising out of the spillage, it said, and if the victims were educated on steps to take to ensure their safety.

If this was not done, then this is unfortunate, and we wonder how fellow compatriots would overcome it in this era of austerity and economic malaise.

The statement called on the Government, international bodies and agencies to go to the immediate aid of the affected communities and save them from the unexpected calamity.

The situation at hand should not be a time for political statements but pragmatic steps to ease the pain and suffering of the people, it said.

Let's ensure that at the end of it all, the Volta Region would emerge more cohesive, focused and strong, with the people still prepared to contribute to the forward march of Ghana.

GNA
19.10.2023 LISTEN

The controversy surrounding the construction of the National Cathedral in Ghana has elicited commentary from Professor Smart Sarpong, a Senior Research Fellow at the Kumasi Technical Institute.

Prof. Sarpong highlighted what he perceived as a fundamental misconception on the part of the government.

The National Cathedral project, initiated as a fulfillment of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's pre-2016 election promise, has been marred by various challenges and controversies.

Early in the year, several prominent members of the Board of Trustees for the Cathedral, including Dr. Mensa Otabil and Bishop Dag Heward-Mills, expressed concerns and stepped down from their roles.

The latest to join were Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams and Rev. Eastwood Anaba who have also resigned from their positions on the Board of Trustees, citing issues related to the independent audit of the project funds.

Commenting on the National Cathedral project, Professor Smart Sarpong described it as a "wrong assumption."

He explained that the government may have assumed that due to Ghana's status as a predominantly Christian country, the project would proceed without the need for probity, accountability, due diligence, or public scrutiny.

Speaking on Peace FMs Kokrokoo morning show, he said, "It was a wrong assumption because the majority of Ghana is a Christian country, so I think the assumption was that when you want to build a Cathedral in Ghana, it is going to go without probing.

It was going to go without accountability. It was going to go without due diligence, and then very important, it was going to go without public scrutiny. I think this is where the challenge is."
Members of the New Ghana Social Justice Forum, a civil society group, stormed the premises of the Bulk Oil Storage Transport (BOST) in Accra to demand the resignation and prosecution of top officials of the company, following the purchase of 18 iPhones for BOST's corporate executives for GH285,412.16 and several financial losses captured in the 2022 Auditor General's Report.

Addressing the media at the protest, Yahaya Alhassan, President of the Ghana Social Justice Forum, called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to dissolve the Board of Directors of BOST immediately to protect the public purse.

Ghana is berserk with corruption, the Energy Ministry is an industry of corruption, Alhassan said. We are calling on all to join this campaign for the prosecution of all BOST top officials and for the dissolution of BOST Board members. Had this been in the advanced countries, the Board chairman of BOST should have been imprisoned by now. We are calling on President Akufo-Addo, but what is clear is that the BOST Board members are not in existence. Even though they are here, Ghanaians dont want them, they should be prosecuted as soon as possible.

BOST was accused of purchasing 18 iPhone 13 Pro Max phones for its corporate executives, amounting to GH28 million.

BOST in a statement acknowledged the acquisition of the phones for its corporate executives in May 2022 but debunked the GH28 million figure making rounds on social media.

The Corporate Communications and External Affairs Department of the Company said the total cost of the phones was GH234,000.00, including taxes.

The total cost of the phones stood at Two Hundred and Thirty-Four Thousand Ghana Cedis (234,000.00) grossed up for taxes at Two Hundred and Eighty-Five Thousand, Four Hundred and Twelve Ghana Cedis, Sixteen Pesewas (GHS285,412.16).
French President Emmanuel Macron has held talks with Chad's transitional President Mahamat Idriss Deby over the withdrawal of French forces from Niger and regional crises in the Sahel.

Presidents Macron and Deby reportedly discussed "all regional issues, including Sudan, Libya and Niger, as well as the return of our military resources to France," during a meeting at the Elysee Palace on Wednesday.

The French president's office added that the meeting "also enabled the two presidents to discuss the continuation of the political transition in Chad."

This comes as the French army is due to evacuate 1,400 troops and their equipment  for the most part via Chad  after being forced to leave Niger after last July's coup d'etat.

French soldiers will fly to France from N'djamena, while convoys of heavy equipment will reach the port of Douala in Cameroon, passing through areas harbouring jihadist groups.

At the end of September, President Macron said that French troops would leave Niger "by the end of the year," however experts believe a period of around six months will be required due to logistical challenges involved, with the equivalent of 2,000 containers to be repatriated.

The first French soldiers left Niger on Tuesday in an overland convoy under local escort, heading for Chad.

French operations had been deployed in Niger to fight jihadists alongside the Nigerien army, including around 1,000 in the capital Niamey and 400 at two forward bases in the west of the country, at the heart of the so-called "three borders" zone with Mali and Burkina Faso.

Regional crises

Also on the agenda of Wednesday's meeting was the conflict in Sudan and ongoing political crisis in Libya.

On 15 April, hostilities broke out between the Sudanese army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the Rapid Support Forces led by General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of refugees have sought sanctuary in Chad which is already struggling to contain its own, internal humanitarian and food security crises.

Meanwhile, Chad's northern neighbour Libya has been in the grip of a major political crisis since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011, undermined by divisions between East and West and by foreign interference.

General Mahamat Idriss Deby was declared interim president of Chad by a junta of 15 generals on 20 April 2021, immediately after the announcement of the death of his father  President Idriss Deby Itno  who was killed by rebels at the front after 30 years of ruling the country with an iron fist.

The transitional period was meant to last for only 18 months before elections, but Mahamat Idriss extended the term by two years in October 2022, citing the decision of a National Reconciliation Dialogue that boycotted by the vast majority of the opposition and the most powerful armed rebel groups.
Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh

19.10.2023 LISTEN

The award to be conferred on Dr. Mattew Opoku Prempeh by the Education and Management Training Foundation (EDMAT Foundation) on November 4, 2023 is in recognition of his outstanding performance and leadership in the two Ministries he has been in charge of under the current government.

In a statement signed by the Executive Director of the Foundation, Dr. Robert Okyne, the foundation acknowledged the brilliant performance of the Minister, leading the implementation of the novel Free Senior High School policy.

Indeed, we saw your massive transformation of the education sector with robust revitalization of education policies, among others, the statement noted.

The statement continued In your current position as Energy Minister, we have followed closely the successes being chalked by Dr. Prempeh. We are sure the President and in fact, Ghanaians are seeing you as the most dynamic Minister. You are the bulldozer and Mender.

Dr, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, it may be recalled, was also in July this year honoured by the University of Cape Coast with the conferment of a Doctor of Educational Leadership Degree on him for his outstanding performance during his time as Minister for Education. This was after UEW and UPSA conferred similar ones on him.

He was also named as the Best Minister in 2019 and 2022 and also honoured by the Civil Service for his outstanding leadership.
19.10.2023 LISTEN

Nii Tettey Ofro Osro I, the La Leshie Mantse, has registered his displeasure over the alleged release of acres of land under litigation at the Supreme Court of Ghana to the La Traditional Council by the government.

According to him, the lands that are said to be released to the Council have been under litigation for several years, adding that the superior court of the land is yet to deliver judgment on the said released lands.

He revealed that the Ga State, which La falls under, is made up of families and not kingdom, and therefore, he questioned who the beneficiaries or the true owners of the said released lands are.

Nii Tettey Ofro Osro I called on his fellow chiefs to desist from the indiscriminate sale of lands and reserve it for the next generation.

He advised that some of the land in the Ga-Dangbe area should be given out for farming purposes, which will serve as a means of preservation for the next generation.

Accra High Court documents sighted revealed that one Mike Nii Odoi Laryea, in a suit number LD/0688/2018, filed a suit as the Head and Lawful Representatives of the Nii Odoitso Odoi Kwao Family of Accra vs. 1) Ben T. Quaye (Applicant), 2) The Trustee, East Dadekotopon Development Trust (2nd Defendant), 3) Lands Commission (3rd Defendant), 4) Mr. Harry Baiden (4th Defendant), 5) Adolph Tetteh Adjei (5th Defendant).

The case then proceeded to the Supreme Court between the Republic of Ghana vs. the High Court Accra with Mike Nii Odoi Laryea, ex-parte under the suit number (J8/181/2023).

This has brought to the surprise of many within the La township as to when the court made its final determination of the case for which those lands were released.

Ghana Armed Forces

In a press release issued by the Ghana Armed Forces on September 26, 2023, it stated that a media report sighted claimed that the government had released 114 acres of Burma Camp Lands to the La Traditional Council for development.

The statement said a ceremony was held by the La Traditional Council and some rites were performed to signify the reclamation of the said land.

The La Lashie Mantse wishes to call the governments attention to a letter from the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs, dated 24th August 2021, an excerpt of which reads, The Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs has thirteen (13) Paramountcies and the Paramountcies are Ga, Ngleshie, Alata, Osu, Nungua, Teshie, La, Kpone, Tema, Prampram, Shai, Ningo, Osudoku and Ada. All these Paramountcies have their Traditional Councils with the exception of Teshie and La which do not have Traditional Councils and members respectively per the Chieftaincy Act 759 of 2008 "

The La Lashie Mantse continued, This is indicative of the fact that there is currently no substantive La Traditional Council and therefore it begs the question as to who these lands have allegedly been released to.

"It therefore behoves on the government to ensure the appropriate channels and protocols are observed with respect to land issues in order not to go against the constitution and the rule of law.

"The Military High Command in its statement acknowledged 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 issue.

"The Ghana Armed Forces stated that it has not received any directives from the Ministry of Defence, which is the supervising Ministry, directing that the lands should be released to the La Traditional Council, neither has any government agency directed the Ghana Armed Forces to release any land to any traditional authority, adding that those lands remain a critical need of the Ghana Armed Forces for the preservation of state security.

"Whereas the Ghana Armed Forces looks forward to a peaceful resolution of the matter through the Committee's work by government, it takes exception to the premature announcement made by the La Traditional Council as it has the potency of breaching the existing cordial relations between the Ghana Armed Forces and the La Traditional Council.

"The Military High Command assured all personnel of Ghana Armed Forces of its desire and resolve to protect the interest of the Ghana Armed Forces at all times."
Several Philomath-based artists and their guests will open the doors to their studios yet again for the Philomath Open Studios Tour, now in its 18th year.

Between noon and 5 p.m. the last two Saturdays and Sundays of October, visitors can begin anywhere on the 11-stop tour, visiting art studios, viewing art and speaking with artists about their creative processes. One of the studios will be located at Lumos Winery.

For the tour, artists from out of town partner up with local artists in their studios and together they welcome art lovers and enthusiasts who come from around Philomath.

This year, more than 24 artists, including students from West Albany and Philomath high schools, will be part of the event.

Debby Sundbaum-Sommers said people were really glad to be back seeing art and being outdoors last year, after the studio tour returned following a coronavirus pandemic-induced hiatus.

Sundbaum-Sommers is one of a community of artists who put on the tours every year. Raised on the Oregon Coast, she moved to Corvallis in the early 1970s to attend Oregon State University, where she graduated with a degree in printmaking.

Her work involves the monotype printmaking process, and the themes she explores are often inspired by nature.

Sundbaum-Sommers will host the Corvallis-based ceramics artist Rebecca Arthur in her home studio. For her, the interactions with guests remain a highlight of the event.

"I really enjoy explaining what I do with my printmaking," Sundbaum-Sommers said on a call.

While many art lovers are familiar with paintings and ceramics, a lot of people dont understand the different kinds of printmaking, she said.

She doesnt demonstrate the printmaking process on the tours  it can be messy with the oil-based inks involved. But she loves to share what the process entails, and answer questions posed by guests who visit the studio about her raw materials, equipment and process.

She's also curious about the guests who come, and loves to enquire about why they come to the event.

These kinds of interactions, she said, are what she enjoys the most about the event.

"To me thats a real fun part of the process," she said.

Participating artists show work in very diverse media. Visitors will visit studios and see various kinds of painting, pottery, textile making, photography, pencil drawing, jewelry, mosaic, glass and woodwork, among other media.

The artist lineup for this year includes Rebecca Arthur, Phil Coleman, Jennifer Deily, Dale Donovan, Brian Egan, Gale Everett, Debi Friedlander, Mark Gillespie, Anthony Gordon, Babette Grunwald, Jeff Gunn, Kristin Hager, Linda Herd, Carol Houk, Mack Howard, Ann Lahr, Jean Lawrence, Julia Lont, Emma Marliave, Kate McGee, Kris Mitchell, Lyn Radosevich, Debby Sundbaum-Sommers, Leslie Tejada, Steve Terhune and Justin Wolford.

Guests can find a map of the studio locations and artist information by visiting the event website.

On ground, distinctive yellow signs with the "POST" hand symbol will also keep guests on track throughout the route.

"The POST tour is an opportunity to take a break from the busy-ness of life and immerse yourself in beauty and innovation," Sundbaum-Sommers said.

If you go:

WHAT: Philomath Open Studios Tour.

WHEN: Noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Oct. 21-22 and 28-29

WHERE: Twelve studios including Lumos Winery. Map can be found on www.philomathopenstudios.com Entry is free; artwork will be for sale at various studios.

Editor's note: This article has been edited to correct a quote attribution.
World Vision Ghana last Monday joined the rest of the world to celebrate World Food Day.

The day instituted by the United Nations brings together development practitioners, communities, families and individuals to reflect on the current food and nutrition security status of countries around the world and also raise awareness about child hunger and malnutrition as wars, conflicts, economic hardships, climate vulnerabilities, biodiversity loss and poverty further deepens the vulnerability of households thereby affecting their ability to provide adequately for their families.

To mark the day, World Vision Ghana held a mini launch of its ENOUGH campaign in six of its Area Programmes namely; Garu and Bawku West in the Upper East region, Fanteakwa and Affram Plains North in the Eastern region, Krachi West in the Oti region and Kadjebi in the Volta region by distributing 911 chickens among 394 children from vulnerable households.

The support forms part of World Vision Koreas Financial Year 2023 livestock campaign aimed at eradicating hunger, malnutrition and promoting easy access to safe and nutritious food for everyone.

Speaking during the event at Zeibilla, Mr. Maxwell Amedi, Food Security & Resilience Technical Programme Officer of World Vision Ghana said the support has come at the right time as it contributes towards Ghanas food systems transformation.

The Bawku West Cluster Manager, Mr Robert Pwazaga said, the ENOUGH campaign is a clear demonstration of World Vision Ghanas commitment towards improving the wellbeing of the most vulnerable children, their families and communities.

The Sponsorship Manager of Krachi West Cluster of World Vision Ghana, Mabel Akuyo Adorbor who witnessed the event described the food as a basic human right of every child and therefore crucial in building a sustainable future.

The Cluster Manager of Krachi West, Mr Irvine Aboagye urged the recipients to take good care of the birds so as to reap the expected benefits from them.

Beneficiaries who were visibly elated by the gesture expressed their appreciation to World Vision Korea and their Ghana counterparts for their continuous support towards the well-being of their families.
A group of chiefs and queen mothers from the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Area in the Eastern Region, led by the Okyenhene, Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin visited the former President John Agyekum Kufuor on Monday to offer their condolences on the demise of Mrs. Theresa Kufuor.

One of Okyenhenes qualities is his prodigious acts of affectionate and overpowering surprise visits, which usually happen at dusk.

This visit really touched and soothed the former President.

Theresa Aba Kufuor, the former First Lady, will be laid to rest at the State House on November 16, 2023, according to the funeral arrangements.

On November 18, Kumasi will host the funeral services, and on November 19, 2023, the deceased will be laid to rest.

On Tuesday, October 10, 2023, while paying a visit to the Jubilee House in Accra, Papa Kofi Mensah, the familys spokesperson, made the announcement.

The visits objective was to officially inform President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the late First Ladys demise.

Throughout their 61-year marriage, the late Theresa Aba Kufuor was a dedicated partner to the former president.

She was a former nurse and midwife who came from a well-known family from Odumase in the Bono Region.

Theresa Aba Kufuor, 88, who was born on October 25, 1935, passed away on Sunday, October 1, 2023.

After completing her education at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and Paddington General Hospital in London, she spent the majority of her working life there.

With a certificate in preterm nursing, she met the requirements to become a state-certified midwife. Her parents final child was her.
The Private Newspapers and Online News Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG) has issued a press release to extend its deepest sympathies to all individuals and communities affected by the recent Akosombo Dam spillage.

In the release, the association said it recognises the vital role private newspapers and online news publishers play in amplifying the voices of those affected by the unfortunate incident.

The association in an assurance said it will use various media platforms of its members to raise awareness on the plight of victims of the dam spillage to ensure they received the needed support.

PRINPAG stands in solidarity with the victims of the spillage and wants to assure all those affected that, its members are committed to raising awareness through our various news outlets about their plight to ensure that their concerns reach the appropriate authorities, part of the PRINPAG release signed by Acting Executive Secretary Jeorge Wilson Kingson said.

To facilitate its efforts, PRINPAG has dedicated a hotline to enable victims to express their concerns and share their personal experiences related to the spillage.

Affected persons are urged to call the hotlines on; 0549576688 (Prosper Agbenyega) and 0202882423 (Simon Agbovi).

Find more in the PRINPAG release below:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

18th October, 2023

Attn: All Editor

PRINPAG SYMPATHIZES WITH VICTIMS OF AKOSOMBO/KPONG DAM SPILLAGE; MAKES HOTLINE AVAILABLE TO RECEIVE SOS MESSAGES FOR PUBLICATION AND PROMPT ACTION BY OFFICIALDOM

The Private Newspapers and Online News Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG) extends its deepest sympathies to all individuals and communities affected by the recent Akosombo Dam spillage. Our hearts go out to those who have experienced losses, damages, and displacement as a result of this unfortunate incident.

PRINPAG stands in solidarity with the victims of the spillage and wants to assure all those affected that, its members are committed to raising awareness through our various news outlets about their plight to ensure that their concerns reach the appropriate authorities.

As an Association representing private newspapers and online news publishers in Ghana, we recognize the vital role we play in amplifying the voices of those affected by this unfortunate development.

With the vast reach and influence of our member publications, we at PRINPAG are pledging to utilize all available mediums of our members to bring attention to the challenges faced by the victims. Through our online news platforms and print publications, our members are ready to disseminate comprehensive reports, concerns and updates surrounding the Akosombo Dam spillage for the purposes of attracting the needed attention and support from all quarters. It is our hope that by doing this, we would be contributing to raising more awareness and effectively engaging the attention of officialdom to the situation on the ground.

To facilitate our efforts, PRINPAG is giving out a dedicated hotline to enable victims express their concerns and to also share their personal experiences related to the spillage. Our members are on-standby and we encourage affected individuals, community leaders, and concerned citizens to reach out to us through the provided hotline to volunteer information to make this exercise a success. By doing so, the affected victims can be assured that their voices will be heard by the right persons, a move the Association believes, will go a long way to contribute to the overall understanding of the situation: we believe this will bring help to them quickly.

Hotline

 0549576688 - Prosper Agbenyega

- 0202882423 - Simon Agbovi

PRINPAG is united in its commitment to support the victims of the Akosombo Dam spillage through our extensive networks of news outlets. We call on individuals throughout the country to join us in raising awareness, advocating for appropriate actions, and mobilizing resources to aid those affected.

Together, we can bring attention to the challenges faced by the victims and encourage officialdom to prioritize their needs.

For further inquiries, please contact:

Jeorge Wilson Kingson

Ag. Executive Secretary

0244822034

[email protected]

Andrew Edwin Arthur

President

0244980088

[email protected]
Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the National Chairman of the main opposition Democratic Congress (NDC), has advised the party's leadership in the Bono Region to guide and mentor the Progressive People's Party (PPP) supporters who have defected to the NDC in the region.

He emphasised the importance of helping these former PPP supporters transition into full-fledged NDC members, likening defection as challenging process, much like a divorce.

He added that divorce can be bitter and sweet at the same time.

Mr Asiedu Nketia acknowledged that the decision to defect is a significant one in the realm of politics and called on the defectors to adhere to and uphold the NDC's party guidelines.

He made this call during a ceremony held to welcome approximately 1,000 PPP supporters from the Bono Region into the NDC's ranks.

The former PPP Chairman, Mr Sanfa Lucious, explained that they initially joined the PPP in 2012 with the intention of working towards national development.

However, their efforts within the PPP seemed to yield limited results.

As members of the PPP, they became increasingly drawn to the NDC's ideals, prompting their decision to join the NDC, he argued.

Mr Kojo Nyametse, the Bono Regional Chairman of the NDC speaking on Accra 100.5 FM's morning show on Thursday October 19, 2023 appealed to smaller political parties to unite with the NDC to collectively challenge the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

He expressed confidence that the NDC would secure a resounding victory in the upcoming elections and emphasised the need to address the perceived issues with the NPP's governance.

Nyametse stated, "We are tired of the NPP's bad governance and noted that Ghanaians are determined to bring about a change in the December 7, 2024, elections, which the Electoral Commission will declare with unwavering accuracy."

-Classfmonline
The Commander of the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners Task Force, Patrick Don-Chebe has escaped death by the whiskers after surviving gunshots by galamsey operators during their routine patrol activities to clamp down on illegal miners.

The incident occurred at Ankaase, a community in the Fanteakwa South District of the Eastern Region, on Wednesday morning.

The victim who is battling for his life at the 37 Military Hospital was on his daily routine, inspecting the mining community when he chanced on the illegal miners busily digging some pits and raising alarm.

He was shot in his abdomen instantly when the illegal miners who were armed at the concession site spotted him.

He reported the gunshot wounds in his left abdomen and was rushed by his team to the Kyebi Government Hospital for treatment.

But his condition became worse and was referred to the 37 Military Hospital in Accra on Wednesday evening.

The illegal miners after committing the heinous crime reportedly fled from the scene leaving their tools behind.

Meanwhile, Patrick Don-Chebe is currently receiving treatment as the matter has since been reported to the Kyebi Police Command to commence an investigation into it.

-DGN online
About 26,000 people have so far had their homes and livelihoods swept away by floodwater, gusting out of the spillways of the Akosombo and the Kpong dams in the Eastern region.

The Volta River Authority (VRA) started the controlled spillage at both dams from September 15, 2023, following rising water levels in both reservoirs.

As of 17th October 2023, many persons had been displaced as a result of the spillage. This is the highest magnitude of displacement and volume since the building of the Akosombo Dam, a reservoir on the Volta River, which six tributaries take their sources in the Sahel.

This is not the first time VRA is spilling water from the Akosombo Dam. Spilling was done in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1991 and more recently 2010.

The main causes

Data from the Ghana Meteorology Agency (GMet) shows that the Sahelian countries are receiving above normal rainfall.

This means if the area normally receives two liters of rain, it is now getting, two and half, three liters or more flowing through to the Akosombo Dam. Mrs Francisca Martey, Deputy Director and Head Research and Applied Meteorology at GMet told the Ghana News Agency.

The other event contributing to the high volume of inflow of water is the above normal rainfall that occurred in the North Eastern part of the country, the basin of the White Volta.

For GMet, our role is provision of data and advisory service, and we did that accordingly, Mrs Martey says.

Why the impact downstream is huge

Mr Edward Ekow Obeng-Kenzo, Deputy Chief Executive of the VRA in charge of Engineering and Operations says the VRA is complying with its Emergency Preparedness Plan (EPP), which is in three phases.

Under phase-one, spillage is unusually very low and must not exceed 5,000 m3.

Phase-two falls between 5,000 to 10,000 m3 and phase-three is any volume above that.

However, engineers had to increase the volume of water being spilt due to the excessive inflows.

According to officials of the Volta River Authority, the inflow to the reservoir at a point was pegged at 400,000 cubic feet of water per second. Engineers were spilling about 183,000 cubic feet of water.

They attributed the high levels downstream, submerging homes partly due to the siltation of the channels at lower basin of River Volta.

Dr Henry Kwabena Kokofu, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, says the impact had been great partly due to encroachment of buffer areas.

Nature will always take its course if humans refuse to check themselves. This should be a lesson to all of us, he says.

Relief Effort

The VRA, National Disaster Management Organisation and the Ghana Navy are working together to rescue more people.

The affected persons which include children and women are being housed at temporal tents set up, schools building and church premises on high ground.

Relief items items such as mattresses, blankets, various food items, clothes, and toiletries are being supplied to the affected person.

Visits

An inter-ministerial Committee was set up to help address the havoc caused downstream by the Akosombo Dam spillage and to help bring relief to those affected.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo visited the areas and assured them of government's continuous support to the people during and after the events.

Former President John Dramani Mahama visited parts of Sogakope and Sokpoe to meet with some of the affected communities and facilities. VRA says it is monitoring the inflow situation and making the necessary adjustments to the spill levels to protect the integrity of the dam and also protect lives and properties.

Brief of Akosombo dam

Akosombo Dam, rock-fill dam on the Volta River, near Akosombo, Ghana, completed in 1965 as part of the Volta River Project.

Its construction was jointly financed by the government of Ghana, the World Bank, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

The dam rises 440 feet (134 m) above ground level and has a crest2,201 feet (671 m) wide and a volume of 10,451,000 cubic yards (7,991,000 cubic m).

The dam impounds Lake Volta; this huge reservoir has a capacity of 124,000,000 acre-feet (153,000,000,000 cubic m) and is used for commercial fishing, navigation and recreation.

Although the large electric-power-generating capacity (912 megawatts) of the Akosombo Dam used to meet Ghana's needs and provided a surplus for sale to neighbouring countries, it remains refuge in the past and hope for years to come.

GNA
In a significant development for the people of Manso Nkwanta No.2 in Wassa Amenfi Central District of the Western Region, the District Chief Executive, Hon. Patrick Hockson Amponteng has successfully secured a grant of US$71,954.00 from the Japanese Government under the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGHSP).

This funding will be utilized for the construction of a 6-unit classroom block, staff common room, water closet toilet facility, 120 dual desks, furnished computer library, mechanised borehole, and teachers tables and chairs. This edifice will enhance teaching and learning, and further improve the academic performance of the pupils within the area. The project is expected to be completed within 12 calendar months.

The DCE, along with local officials and community leaders, worked diligently to secure this crucial funding from the Japanese Government.

The DCE was accompanied by Emmanuel Boateng (DCD), Michael Baidoo (DPO), Prince Addison (works Engineer) and Eric Anim (DFO) for the grant contract signing.

This initiative aligns with the GGHSP's objective of promoting human security at the grassroots level by addressing various developmental challenges faced by marginalized communities. By investing in education, the project aims to uplift the overall quality of life for residents in Manso Nkwanta No.2 and the District at large.

The sod cutting for the physical commencement of the project is expected within 2weeks. The Hon. DCE expresses his gratitude to the People of Japan for their generous contribution towards improving education in the district. He also reiterates that the project will be beneficial especially for the future of the pupils, the community, and Amenfi Central District as a whole.

With this significant development, Manso Nkwanta No.2 can look forward to a brighter future, where education becomes a catalyst for progress and empowerment. The DCE and the community eagerly await the commencement of construction, which will mark a major step towards transforming the educational landscape in the district.

It is important to note that the GGHSP program is designed to support small-scale and community-driven projects that aim to improve the livelihoods of marginalized communities. The program prioritizes projects that address issues such as education, health, and social welfare.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a deeply divisive and long-lasting issue in the Middle East, captivating the world's attention for decades. However, it is essential to recognize that the African perspective on this ongoing struggle is often overlooked. As an African, we have a unique lens through which we view and understand this conflict, shaped by our own experiences of colonialism, liberation struggles, and fragile peace processes. This article seeks to delve into the Israeli-Palestine conflict from an African perspective, shedding light on the origin of the conflict, complexities and implications for the continent.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict originated in the late 19th century with the rise of Zionist nationalism and the push for a Jewish homeland. The Zionist movement sought to establish a national homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, which was then under Ottoman rule. This sparked tension with the Arab population, who saw this as a threat to their own aspirations for self-determination. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Britain took control of Palestine under a League of Nations mandate. In the following decades, Jewish immigration increased due to the persecution of Jews in Europe, further fuelling Arab resentment. The United Nations resolution 181 in 1947 to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states prompted violence and war. The creation of Israel in 1948 led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and subsequent wars further deepened the conflict. The dispute over land, borders, refugees, and security remains at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to this day.

Africa has a long history of colonialism, where European powers imposed artificial borders, fragmented societies, and exploited resources. Much like in the Israeli-Hamas conflict, this era of colonization bred deep-seated anger, mistrust, and resentment that reverberates to this day. Recognizing this, Africans can empathize with both the Israelis and the Palestinians, understanding the legacy of pain inherited from historical injustices.

Our experience of liberation struggles and the fight for self-determination also informs our perception of the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Throughout Africa's struggle against colonial powers, people fought for their right to govern themselves and break free from oppressive external control. Similarly, Palestinians, under the Hamas leadership, assert their right to self-governance and challenge Israeli domination. Though, Africans can relate to the quest for sovereignty and the yearning for freedom from external Israeli domination, the actions of Hamas on the 7th of October in Israel were abhorrent to say the least.

The Israeli-Palestine conflict also serves as a cautionary tale for African nations navigating their own peace processes. Countless African countries have been ravaged by internal conflicts, with deep-rooted divisions often exacerbated by external forces. The Israeli-Palestinian struggle exemplifies how religious bigotry, external interventions, historical grievances, and a lack of trust can hinder peaceful resolutions. African nations, grappling with their own internal conflicts, must learn from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to prioritize dialogue, mediation, and reconciliation over prolonged violence and military interventions.

Moreover, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has implications for Africa's diplomacy and foreign policy. Like many African states, Israel and Palestine have long sought support from the continent in their pursuit of political recognition and economic cooperation. African countries have consistently and understandably backed the Palestinian cause, affirming their solidarity with the Palestinian people's plight. However, some African nations, in recent years, have improved diplomatic ties with Israel, aiming to benefit from Israel's technological advancements, innovation, and security expertise. This balancing act demonstrates the complexity of Africa's engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, driven by both principles and pragmatic considerations.

Furthermore, the conflict has become a source of inspiration and radicalization for extremist groups operating in some parts of Africa. The narratives emerging from the conflict feed into existing grievances and provide a platform for recruiting individuals who perceive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a religious or ideological lens. This poses a significant security challenge for African nations and reinforces the need for concerted efforts to address the root causes of radicalization, such as political marginalization, economic disparities, and social unrest.

Beyond security concerns, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has broader economic implications for Africa. The Middle East has historically been an important trading partner for African nations, with countless economic and investment opportunities. However, the persistent instability resulting from the Israeli-Hamas conflict has hindered regional integration efforts and limited trade prospects. African countries, eager to tap into the potential of the Middle East, are hampered by the prevailing hostilities, making it crucial to find sustainable solutions for lasting peace.

Lastly, the African Union (AU) has a significant role to play in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As the main continental body tasked with ensuring peace, stability, and development in Africa, the AU should advocate for dialogue, negotiations, and a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The AU's experience in mediating conflicts on the continent can provide valuable insights for the international community and contribute to efforts aimed at de-escalating tensions and achieving a lasting and just peace in the region.

In conclusion, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has implications far beyond the Middle East, affecting individuals, countries, and regions across the globe. Africans, with our own unique historical, social, and political context, offer a valuable perspective on this complex issue. Our own experiences with colonialism, liberation struggles, and ongoing peace processes shape our understanding and empathy for those impacted by this protracted conflict. As Africa continues to endeavour for unity, peace, and development, it is imperative that this conflict be resolved through an impartial approach.
To achieve clean water and sanitation for all by the year 2030, Africa will need to nearly triple its current investment and mobilize an additional $30 billion annually. That may seem like a hefty sum, but its less than two per cent of the continents current GDP. Its also far less than the estimated $170 billion lost annually from water scarcity, poor sanitation, and disease in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

Historically, finance ministers have been apathetic about allocating funds to water and sanitation because these services are viewed as a drain on public budgets. Ive heard that providing access is: Too expensive and Less pressing than tackling climate change, a pandemic or a humanitarian emergency.

Unfortunately, many decision-makers are often tempted to pursue one goal at the exclusion of others. We cannot achieve climate goals if countries are facing water scarcity. We cannot improve healthcare when more children under five are dying from contaminated water than bullets in war.

But there are ways to pay for water and sanitation that can simultaneously help leaders achieve their development goals. So how do we triple investment?

First, we need to start with political prioritization. Who increases or decreases budgets? Who decides on ambitious goals to increase access to water and sanitation? These are political decisions, and I believe that when political will is mobilized to prioritize water and sanitation, the financing follows.

For example, earlier this year, nine African governments announced they are working on Presidential Compacts on Water and Sanitation. These initiatives include increased budget allocations, innovative sources of financing, and plans to construct new infrastructure. We hope to see other countries across the continent  and beyond  follow suit.

Second, we need to convince finance ministers that water and sanitation yields high economic and financial returns. Every dollar invested in climate-resilient water and sanitation in Africa returns at least $7.

Next, governments and their partners can more effectively use the financial resources they already have including domestic water tariffs, taxes, and micro and macro loans.

For example, government officials might think they are making water and sanitation more affordable for poorer households by instituting low tariffs for all customers. However, this often creates a lack of revenue to cover the basic operational costs of water companies, which then need additional financial support from the government to survive. It can also unintentionally subsidize wealthier households and businesses who can afford to pay more.

Alternatively, Burkina Faso, has instituted higher tariffs on commerce and industry to offset the costs of providing household connections and public standpipes within poorer communities.

Earmarked tax dollars are yet another way to pay for water and sanitation. Europe and North America have historically used property taxes to fund capital investments in these services, while South Korea has used tax money from alcohol sales.

The foundation of a healthy investment climate also demands stronger sector regulation: well-documented standards with targets for performance, clear lines of accountability, incentives and penalties. For example, Kenya has teamed up with the World Bank to evaluate the creditworthiness of their water utilities to attract domestic and international finance.

Finally, the international community needs to build relationships with finance ministers, bringing the right examples of policies that can achieve development goals. Thats the objective of our upcoming Africa Finance Ministers Meeting which will be hosted on 31 October by Sanitation and Water for All, UNICEF and the African Ministers Council on Water.

This is a unique opportunity for our sector to position itself not as a drain on national resources, but rather as an investment in human and economic development. Additionally, many finance ministers are already taking positive steps to finance water and sanitation in their countries, and we are excited for them to share their expertise.

There are very few opportunities where a single investment can improve public health and quality of life, spur economic growth, and reduce inequalities, but investing in water does all of these things and more.

Its time we reap the rewards.

By Catarina de Albuquerque, CEO of the UNICEF-hosted Sanitation and Water for All global partnership and first UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
19.10.2023 LISTEN

Like supporters of the National Cathedral in Ghana praise the respective President of the nation during whose time in office the specific intervention was thought of and made real for eyes to see.

Unlike in Germany plaques with the names of the Presidents or Ministers are placed on the structures of they get praised for the intervention to the effect they are seen as heroes and like God worshipped beyond belief.

The state as such has no money but collects money from the taxpayers in various forms. Governments elected, decided, or by inheritance (Kings) make the decision of how to distribute this money on which project. The decision of which project should be initiated is often not a genuine idea of a president or minister but submitted in the public debate to him and named after him when he sees the idea fit for purpose.

The money paid for the intervention comes from the taxpayers only not from the private purse of the president. Therefore the taxpayers need to be reflected on the plaques, not any President's name. In the end, such plaques are a waste of money and time that could pay for one sack of rice to feed the hungry.

Poor and highly indebted Ghana sees the launching of projects like hospitals, cross-over interchanges, parks, housing estates, etc. connected to a massive presence of people from far and near. While eating from the buffet in numbers for hours the calculation of how much the launching day cost in direct expenditure for food, drinks, chairs, tables, and canopies to shield people from direct sunlight as well as petrol of the SUVs, drivers, and indirect cost like a waste of productivity absence from work dies under the chairs and makes Ghana soil cry once more.

As long as politics in Ghana is seen as a do-or-die affair instead of service to the nation the cycle of confusion spins round and round. Democracy never matures overnight but people in power stay the same hungry for fame and money disconnected from political progress.
The gun used to kill a 22-year-old man at Albanys Timber Linn Memorial Park in October 2021 was what some have dubbed a "ghost gun."

Ghost guns, or privately made firearms, are controversial because theyre difficult to regulate and trace. They lack serial numbers and dont have manufacturer licensing requirements  unlike commercially produced weapons.

A Place to Sleep - episode 3: Corvallis Do unhoused people know where to go in Corvallis? Well, the city has outlined where they shouldn't be: near creeks, rivers, wetlands, sidewalks or within 20 feet of trees.

Following a September trial, a Linn County jury found Elijah Matthew Crump, 22, and Abel Sanchez-Anaya, 20, guilty of second-degree murder for the death of Joshua Thomas Johnston-Partain. All three lived in Albany.

Judge Rachel Kittson-MaQatish sentenced Crump and Sanchez-Anaya to life in prison Oct. 4. They must serve a minimum of 25 years and would be on post-prison supervision for 99 years if released.

Crump was also sentenced to 364 days in jail for misdemeanor menacing stemming from an armed confrontation with Johnston-Partain that occurred prior to the shooting.

A 9mm pistol belonging to Sanchez-Anaya, found in his home with his DNA and fingerprints, was determined to be the murder weapon.

Crime lab analysis categorized the pistol as a Polymer80 lower, Deputy District Attorney Julia Baker said. Lower refers to the frame or grip, to which the slide mechanism is attached on semiautomatic pistols. Polymer80 is a manufacturer that sells gun parts, including so-called unfinished lowers for privately crafting firearms.

One of our detectives explained that you can order the different pieces through the mail, and they never have to be serialized and registered together, Baker said. There was no serial number to run through the (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) database at all.

Through crime lab test-firing of Sanchez-Anayas weapon, however, authorities matched markings left on ammunition casings to those found at the scene of the city park shooting.

An ambush-style execution

Trial testimony revealed that a personal dispute between former friends Crump and Johnston-Partain led to the shooting.

During trial, Crump testified that he and the victim went to Timber Linn to fight after an earlier confrontation in which Crump had pulled out a .45 Glock pistol and fired a warning shot into the air. He said when they got to the park, they ended up talking it out and squashing the beef.

However, Sanchez-Anaya  who accompanied Crump  was unhappy with the outcome, Crump said on the stand. He shot the victim from behind as they left the area of the park where the men had agreed to fight.

Crump said after Johnston-Partain went down, Sanchez-Anaya ran up and shot him twice more.

Linn County Circuit Court prosecutor Richard Wijers called the murder an ambush-style execution. Johnston-Partain was shot in the head, torso and elsewhere.

Sanchez-Anaya did not testify, but his attorney questioned whether investigators did enough to tie him to the murder weapon.

Five 9mm shell casings matching the weapon were recovered from the crime scene, but the presence of seven wounds on Johnston-Partain led to speculation that Crump could have fired his pistol as well, although no evidence of that was presented in court.

Meanwhile, Crumps attorney moved for acquittal on the basis that Crump didnt shoot at Johnston-Partain and they had resolved their conflict. Kittson-MaQatish denied the motion.

Possible motive

Court documents indicate Sanchez-Anaya may have been motivated by a desire to earn a gang tattoo that signifies having killed. The documents indicate there was no evidence he was part of a gang or connected to one, but prosecutors believed he wanted to be a gang member.

Shortly before the murder, Crump and Sanchez-Anaya posed for a photo next to graffiti at Sunrise Park in Albany  specifically a huelga bird on a red background, a symbol associated with the Nortenos gang that grew out of Northern California. The bird also represents the United Farm Workers of America.

Both men are holding pistols in the photo. Crumps weapon is wrapped in a red bandana, and Sanchez-Anaya is covering his face with a red bandana. Red is the color used by Nortenos gang members to signal their affiliation.

An October 2022 search of Sanchez-Anayas home reportedly yielded writings, drawings, clothing and photos associated with Northern California gang culture, along with the murder weapon, court documents state, noting that among the evidence was a portion of the 14 bonds and 10 principles of the Nortenos gang.

A Facebook post purportedly made by Sanchez-Anaya 10 days after the killing implied he had killed others, according to court documents, which state he wrote F--k it here it goes 3 bodies later I dont want this life I signed up for

The judge ruled evidence of the possible gang connection inadmissible.

Status of ghost guns in the U.S.

In August, the Associated Press reported the Supreme Court reinstated a regulation aimed at reining in the proliferation of ghost guns, which have been turning up at crime scenes across the nation.

The high court voted 5-4 to put on hold a ruling from a federal judge in Texas invalidating the Biden administrations regulation of ghost gun kits. As such, the regulation will be in effect while the administration appeals the ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and potentially the Supreme Court.

The Justice Department had told the court that local law enforcement agencies seized more than 19,000 ghost guns at crime scenes in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years, according to the Associated Press.

The new rule was issued last year and changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the lower frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, so they can be tracked more easily. Those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers.

Stay up to date on mid-Willamette Valley news, wherever you go Easily access the latest Albany and Linn County news in an app that lets you select the topics that matter most to you.

Manufacturers must also run background checks before a sale  as they do with other commercially made firearms. The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts or kits or by 3D printers.

The rule does not prohibit people from purchasing a kit or any type of firearm.

A handful of states have passed laws restricting privately made firearms, but most states allow unfinished lowers to be sold without requiring background checks.

Oregon legislators passed a ghost gun ban in June under House Bill 2005, which expands the definition of a firearm to include unfinished lowers.

The bill initially let cities and counties prohibit firearms on their property and brought the minimum firearm purchase age up from 18 to 21. However, the additional provisions were stripped in a deal to bring boycotting Senate Republicans back to the Legislature.

The law makes owning or selling an non-serialized frame, lower receiver or firearm a violation punishable by a fine. Making or selling an untraceable firearm is a felony; owning one is a misdemeanor. The law took effect immediately after it was signed in July, but enforcement is delayed until Sept. 1, 2024.

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Founder and Senior Pastor of the Believers House Of Worship, Apostle Abraham Lamptey has appealed to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to withdraw his controversial 'you don't vote for me' comments to people of the Volta Region.

The President since Monday has come under criticism after he visited communities in the Volta Region affected by the controlled spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong dams by the Volta River Authority.

Speaking to chiefs and people of Mepe during that visit, President Akufo-Addo said if it was down to who voted and who didnt vote for him then he should have visited the people to commiserate with them in their time of need.

I came here because Ghanaians are having difficulties and are suffering, and it is my responsibility to try and help. Because, if it is a question of counting who votes for me and who doesn't vote for me, then I shouldn't be here, because you don't vote for me. But that is not my concern. And, in any event, one day you will vote for me and my party, President Akufo-Addo said.

Commenting on these remarks by the President during a service at his church, Apostle Abraham Lamptey said it is not something a president should say.

The Apostle argued, Your Excellency, with all humility who voted for you and who did not vote for you, does not matter once you sit on that chair. You are not a president of NPP.

Speaking to the congregation, Apostle Abraham Lamptey expressed surprise at how President Akufo-Addo is still holding on to how some people voted for him and others didnt vote for him when he has already been made president since 2020.

So from 2020 you still remember that they [the people of Volta region] didnt vote for you and you have been taking taxes from 2020. You couldnt let go after being the president you still have to stay it? This is a statement for the people to even know that whatever you will bring is not what you should have brought, he shared.
The Tafo Divisional Police Command in the Old Tafo Municipality of the Ashanti Region have arrested two persons following communal clashes between Pankrono and Adabraka youth that left one stabbed to death.

The arrests followed an unpleasant incident which happened on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, evening at the public toilet of Pankrono which claimed the life of one Kwame Owusu, a resident of Pankrono.

The suspects were reportedly arrested by the Tafo Divisional Police Command on Thursday, October 19, 2023, following the mysterious death of one Kwame Owusu, an electrician in the area.

The suspects, name withheld, are said to have allegedly injected a substance suspected to be poisonous into the deceased leading to his death.

Some residents in the area in an interview with this reporter revealed that the deceased was a victim of an old rift between the youth at Pankrono and Adabraka.

They revealed that the two youth groups had clashed some months ago causing a rift between the two communities.

They added that some youth from Adabraka however attacked the deceased and injected him with suspected poison on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, months after the initial clash.

According to reports, some youth from Adabraka attacked Kwame Owusu, 27 years old, after he used the toilet facility and was heading back home and killed him.

Nana Osei Agyemang Prempeh, an opinion leader and member of the national security emphatically stated that the police have arrested two individuals who are allegedly in connection with the murder to help with investigation.

The mother of the deceased, Madam Ama Afrah revealed that her son, Kwame Owusu had returned from Qatar few days ago and was preparing to leave for Dubai on October 19, 2023 a day after his death.

"I heard about my son being attacked by a group and so I rushed to the scene and met my son lying lifeless battling for his life, but he was already cold in nature, she added.

Madam Afrah appealed to the police service to ensure justice is served.

The angry youth of Pankrono have vowed to retaliate.
National House of Chiefs is calling on relevant authorities to quickly implement intervention measures to help the thousands of residents in the Volta Region who have been severely impacted by the recent flooding triggered by the Akosombo dam spillage.

During a National House of Chiefs Meeting held in Kumasi, Vice President Naa Puowelle Karbo III emphasized the need for quick action.

He urged authorities to resettle people affected by the flooding.

Several citizens of Ghana are being displaced by the release of water from the Akosombo dam and the torrential rains that occurred. We want to say, on behalf of Nananom, the National House of Chiefs, that we commiserate with our many citizens who have been affected. We urge all agencies responsible for ensuring proper resettlement and bringing relief to these citizens and take action to ease their suffering.

We, therefore, commiserate with all our citizens affected in the Volta Region, Greater Accra, the Oti Region, and other parts of the country. We pray all the agencies will take the necessary actions and bring relief, he appealed.
Two women alleged to be prostitutes wept uncontrollably when the Tarkwa Circuit Court sentenced them to 17 years in prison in hard labour, for trafficking four girls and forcing them into sex trade.

Precious Emmanuel, 30, was handed 10 years for trafficking three of the victims, and Success John, 28, will serve seven years for trafficking one girl.

The two, charged with human trafficking and use of trafficked persons, pleaded guilty and prayed the court, presided over by Mrs Hathia Ama Manu, for forgiveness and repatriation to Nigeria.

The court, before passing judgment, advised officers of the Ghana Police Service to strengthen security within the Wassa Akropong jurisdiction, as robbery and prostitution by young girls were on the rise.

Chief Inspector Veronica Tibson, prosecuting, told the court that the victims; Oluwasenu Princess Ebije Treasure Emmanuel, 15, Confidence Wisdom, 12, Latifa Sumaila, 22, and Favor Kingsley, 17, together with the accused persons were all Nigerians.

She said about six months ago, one Blessing and Cynthia, who were co-workers of the accused persons and currently on the run, transported the victims from Nigeria to Ghana.

They were brought under the pretence of being salesgirls in a boutique and to attend school, but they ended up with the accused persons to engage in prostitution.

Chief Inspector Tibson said when the victims arrived in the accused persons' brothel, they took their hair samples and hair around their genitals, as well as their nails, to scare them that they would go mad if they attempted to escape.

The prosecutor said the victims had no option than to start providing sexual services for money and within a day about 10 to 20 men slept with them and paid between GH30 to GH50, which ended up in the hands of the accused persons.

On August 23, 2023, the victims could not bear the suffering anymore and reported the case to the police, who were on patrol duties at Wassa Japa, in the Wassa Amenfi East Municipality.

The patrol team arrested and brought Oluwasenu and Success to the Wassa Akropong Police Station where they lodged a complaint.

GNA
Mr Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng, Executive Director of Meena Breast Cancer Foundation (MBCF), has appealed to the government to include the cost of biopsy and pathology under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) for breast cancer treatment.

He also urged the government to make the cost of surgery and chemotherapy also free for breast cancer patients.

Mr Kwarteng made the appeal at a press conference to discuss key issues affecting breast cancer patients in Ghana.

The Foundation is an initiative birthed on the vision of the late Mrs. Amina Oppong Kwarteng, who died on June 18, 2022, of breast cancer.

She was the wife of Mr Ibrahim, the Executive Director of Crime Check Foundation and Ambassador Extraordinaire of Ghana Prisons.

While, she was on her sickbed, Mrs Kwarteng vowed to fight relentlessly against breast cancer through advocacy and giving financial support to poor patients.

Mr Kwarteng said the inability of patients to afford the basic laboratories every three weeks during treatment was forcing them to stay home and die.

He said according to the Global Cancer Observatory in 2020, there were 4,482 breast cancer cases recorded in Ghana with 2,055 deaths.

He said the figure was obviously more because many of those affected by the disease are largely unaccounted for.

The Executive Director said over 4000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer annually and almost half of them die, adding that 70 per cent of women in Ghana have advanced stage cancer by the time it was identified.

Mr Kwarteng said education should be championed by the National Commission on Civic Education, indicating that this would go a long way to deal with the myths and misconceptions associated with the disease.

We have realized that many young girls and women do not know about the deadly nature of the disease and this can be attributed to the failure to regularly educate them on breast cancer and breast care, he added.

He said, those from remote communities do not have the means to pay for Mammogram, Biopsy and Pathology which we all know is expensive and not captured by NHIS.

Mr Kwarteng said inadequate facilities at the hospitals have a significant negative effect on the treatment of breast cancer with lack of enough diagnostic and treatment machines usually delaying treatment, causing patient's condition to worsen.

Apart from Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Cape Coast Teaching Hospital and some few private hospitals that have oncology units, there are no oncology units even at the district level polyclinics, he said.

He said the mere fact that some patients would have to travel far to access healthcare forces them to be reluctant and resort to herbal medicines and treatments near them.

Mr Kwarteng said there was the need for adequate counselling for breast cancer patients on lifestyles during and after treatment, saying lack of counselling on such sensitive issues results in patients listening to all sorts of advice from people, who knew less about breast cancer and they end up mixing herbal medicines with orthodox medicines.

We will plead with the oncology departments at the various hospitals to create a counseling team and desk to engage breast cancer patients, he said.

He noted that early detection and early reporting with effective treatment would help and save more lives.

The Executive Director encourage women to quickly report to the hospital as soon as they detect anything odd about their breast.

He, therefore, called on all CSO's, health advocacy groups and all other Cancer Support Groups, to add their voices for the government to come to the aid of struggling patients living on borrowed lives.

Mrs Abena Kumiwa Osae, Programmes Officer, Ministry of Health, encouraged women to seek regular screening, adding that early detection saves lives.

She said education and awareness creation was critical in fighting cancer, hence her outfit would collaborate with health facilities to spread the message of early detention.

Ms Raissa Sambou, a Breast Cancer survivor and a journalist, appealed to the government to make the treatment of breast cancer in Ghana very easy.

GNA
Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, 2020 NDC running mate to John Dramani Mahama has donated assorted food and non-food items to victims of flooding in the three Tongu Constituencies following the Akosombo dam spillage.

The items include quantities of tubers of yam, plantain, wheat bread, bags of Cassava and Corn dough.

Others were bags of rice and gari, bottled and sachet water and soft drinks and mosquito nets.

Prof Opoku-Agyemang made the donation during her visit to have first-hand information on the devastation, a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Thursday said.

This natural disaster had plunged the lives of residents in the North, Central, and South Tongu Constituencies as their homes got submerged in water, thereby threatening their livelihoods.

She and her entourage crossed on a boat to other affected communities.

At the North Tongu Constituency, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang and her delegation consoled the victims at Mepe RC Primary and Junior High School where some of the victims were temporarily housed.

She also engaged traditional authorities including Torgbe Maklalo Nego VI, Acting Chief of Mepe, Mama Adzo Sreku IV, Queen mother of the Mepe traditional area, and Lt. Col. Agbeko Rtd, Moderator of the EP Church of Ghana.

Prof. Jane expressed her sympathies over the havoc wreaked by the floods in the area.

The Queen Mother of Mepe who receive the items on behalf of the victims extended heartfelt gratitude to Opoku-Agyemang.

Prof Opoku-Agyemang also visited Agokuenu, near Sogakope in the South Tongu constituency.

She was accompanied by Wisdom Kobena Woyome and Joycelyn Tetteh, MPs for South Tongu and North Dayi respectively.

Prof. Jane addressed a group of residents at one of the camps, reassuring and encouraging them to stand united and support each other in the trying times and urged the MPs to ensure that distribution of the items was given to all victims and their families.

A spokesperson for the affected residents conveyed their profound gratitude to Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, wishing her well in her endeavours.

In Central Tongu, she visited a group of families affected by the spillage, expressing her unwavering support and encouraging them to remain resilient during these challenging times.

She reiterated her commitment to providing her support and urged authorities to ensure the essentials reached all victims, especially the children.

GNA
Civil Society Organisations including Community Focus Foundation, Ghana (CFF-Ghana), Democratic Credentials Network (DCN), and Coalition of Ghanaians without Ghana Card (CGWGC) have raised concern about the actions of the Electoral Commission (EC) ahead of the 2024 General Election.

Addressing a joint press conference on Thursday, October 19, the Executive Director of CFF-Ghana, Richard Kasu said the Commissions current posture does not denote one as an electoral referee.

He argued that if the troubling issues and concerns raised by Ghanaians are left unaddressed, they may throw Ghana into political turmoil in 2024.

Richard Kasu told the press that work done by CFF-Ghana, DCN, and CGWGC has identified voter suppression allegations against the EC by some social commentators, pro-democracy activists, and political parties such as the NDC, Convention People's Party (CPP), All People's Congress (APC); Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG); and the Great Consolidated People's Party (GCPP) as a key issue that must be tackled.

He disclosed that ECs decision to proceed with the limited voter registration exercise despite being served with two injunction applications from the courts is an assault on the law.

Raising many other issues, Richard Kasu said the three CSOs recommend that ECOWAS intervene to especially look into the alleged voter suppression agenda by the EC before the 2024 General Election.

That ECOWAS intervention over alleged voter suppression agenda by Ghanas Electoral Commission is critically needed. In the spirit of ECOWAS protocol on elections, it will be right it oversee the actions of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) to ensure compliance in order to prevent any potential electoral skirmishes, he said.

In addition, CFF-Ghana, Democratic Credentials Network, and Coalition of Ghanaians without Ghana Card are urging the EC to take a keen interest in its low public confidence and intentionally work to repair same for public trust so far as the 2024 election is concerned.

Below is a copy of the speech read by Richard Kasu:

JOINT CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS (CSOs) PRESS CONFERENCE ADDRESSED BY RICHARD KASU, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CFF-GHANA ON THE ILLS WITHIN THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION (EC) OF GHANA AT 37 OFFICERS MESS CONFERENCE ROOM ON THURSDAY, 19TH OCTOBER, 2023.

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press!

Let me welcome you on behalf of the organizers of this press conference which includes leading Civil Society Organizations such as CFF-Ghana, Democratic Credentials Network (DCN) and Coalition of Ghanaians without Ghana Card (CGWGC) and to also thank you for coming on such a short notice.

Friends of the Media, as you may be aware, Ghana is heading to presidential polls next year.

From all indications, the elections would be hotly contested between key political parties including the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the major opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Without doubt, the Electoral Commission (EC) is the constitutionally mandated body to lead processes related to the general election including voter registration, and supervision of the electoral process among others. Thus far, the Commissions posture does not denote one as an electoral referee. Some of its actions have become a cause of great concern for the Ghanaian people. These troubling issues if left unaddressed may throw Ghana into political turmoil in 2024.

It is against the above background that this joint CSOs press briefing is being held under our participatory governance initiative christened #safeguarding Our Democracy#.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press, this media engagement is premised on a comprehensive assessment conducted on the EC. The research set out to investigate activities of the EC at every stage of the electoral process which has the potential of negatively impacting democratic values of civic participation and participatory political engagement. We also assessed the conduct of EC Commissioners and some government officials which cast a shadow of doubt on the ECs neutrality as by law established.

For the purposes of this press conference, excerpts of the findings would be highlighted to enable us engage in constructive conversations to addressing the ills within the EC aimed at repairing its near damaged image.

The issues in no particular order of importance are as follows;

ECs entrenched position to make Ghana Card sole document for voter registration:

Having thoroughly assessed the reforms being contemplated by the EC, We have taken note of the ongoing efforts by the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana to review the existing Constitutional Instrument (CI) particularly portions pertaining to registration of voters. As you may recall, Parliament on Friday, 31st March 2023, has by unanimous decision, rejected the Electoral Commissions (EC) Constitutional Instrument (CI), that sought to make the Ghana card sole registration document for voting.

As if the rejection by August House is not enough, the Commission is hell bent in using Ghana Card as sole document for voter registration.

According to the EC guarantor system had the highest patronage during the just ended limited registration exercise with 563,919 users representing 61.9% followed by Ghana card users which stood at 37.8% and passport users at 0.3% respectively.

From the above data, we contend that, if the C.I. is passed in its current form or shape, it will completely disenfranchise millions of prospective voters who for no fault of theirs are unable to obtain the Ghana card issued by the National Identification Authority (NIA) contravening the right provided for Ghanaians under Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution.

The reason(s) for this unpopular decision by the EC is yet to be told.

Electoral Commissions decision to restrict centers for the Limited Voter Registration exercise to their District Offices:

Our assessment revealed that ECs decision to use only district offices for the just ended limited registration exercise instead of the electoral areas or polling stations was unlawful, unreasonable and defeats the purpose for which the exercise was organized.

Though we commend the EC of exceeding their set target of 700,000, yet the 910,996 citizens captured on the voter roll is still not enough in our view taking into account the high number of Ghanaians below 18 years (estimated at 14.2 million out of which 3.8 million are teenagers) as indicated in the 2021 population and housing census report.

The findings clearly showed that the long distances that many eligible voters would have to travel with guarantors, accommodation in some cases, feeding and the exorbitant fares they would have to pay to transport themselves and guarantors to district offices of the EC resulting in some people abstaining from the exercise even if reluctantly.

The question begging for answer is what becomes of those who were excluded from the registration exercise due to proximity of the centers?

Voter suppression allegations against the EC:

We have also identified voter suppression allegations against the EC by some social commentators, pro-democracy activists, and political parties such as the NDC, Convention People's Party (CPP), All People's Congress (APC); Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG); and the Great Consolidated People's Party (GCPP). There is high public perception about how the EC is deliberately working in connivance with the NIA to rig the upcoming election in favor of the governing NPP.

Key factors resulting in these allegations are indicated below;

Insistence of EC to use only Ghana Card as sole source document for voter registration;

Commission's decision to restrict the registration exercise to its district offices;

Deployment of defective registration machines to opposition strongholds;

Unpopular registration modalities being put in place by the EC unilaterally;

EC breaking laws with Impunity:

Our investigations revealed how Ghanaians are troubled by the posture of the EC as if it is a law unto itself. The EC seemed to be flouting laws especially electoral laws with impunity. ECs decision to proceed with the limited voter registration exercise despite being served with two injunction applications from the courts is one of the many examples cited as ways EC assault the law and goes escort free.

Unguarded public statements by some commissioners of the EC:

The assessment pointed out that some Commissioners of the EC have gained notoriety in making unguarded public statements making people to doubt their neutrality as referees in the electoral process. Dr. Bossman Asare, Deputy Chairman of the Commission in charge of Corporate Services during 2023 the limited registration said voting is not by force angering many Ghanaians.

IPAC no more consensus building mechanism but abusive platform for unpopular decisions-making by the EC:

The assessment indicated that the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) which hitherto was used as consensus building mechanism among political stakeholders has now become abusive platform being used by the EC to stifle political stakeholders with unpopular decisions.

EC packed with NPP activists to rig 2024 elections:

Contributors to our assessment which included governance experts, political watchers, security experts, students and CSOs leaders expressed their displeasure towards President Akuffo-Addo for appointing known New Patriotic Party activists including Dr. Peter Appiahene and Salima Ahmed Tijani to the Electoral Commission.

There are public opinions that the duo has been strategically appointed to help other commissioners to rig the 2024 election for the NPP.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, in our collective quest to promoting the integrity of Ghanas election, we recommend the following;

1.That having taken cognizance of the numerous challenges regarding the acquisition of the Ghana Card, it must not be made as the sole source document for the voter registration card in 2024;

2. That IPAC is strengthened within a legal framework to help in the consensus building process for democratic consolidation;

3.That appointment of politically exposed individuals breeds mistrust which is the potential trigger electoral violence. As such, we are calling on the President to reassign the duo and appoint more neutral persons to the EC;

4. That ECOWAS intervention over alleged voter suppression agenda by Ghanas Electoral Commission is critically needed. In the spirit of ECOWAS protocol on elections, it will be right it oversee the actions of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) to ensure compliance in order to prevent any potential electoral skirmishes;

5.That EC takes keen interest in its low public confidence and intentionally works to repairing same for public trust so far as 2024 election is concerned;

Thank you for coming!

Long live Ghana!!

For interviews call us on: 0248640364/0558374179
A former General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, Reverend Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, has expressed concerns about the waning enthusiasm for the National Cathedral project.

Following the resignation of Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams and Rev. Eastwood Anaba from the Board of Trustees overseeing the construction of the National Cathedral, Rev. Opuni-Frimpong said the initial fervour surrounding the project has dwindled significantly.

In an interview with Selorm Adonoo on Eyewitness News, Rev. Opuni-Frimpong explained that the initial intention behind the project was for it to be spearheaded and constructed by the church. However, over time, it became apparent that the government was taking on a more prominent role in the project.

I was in the Office as General Secretary at the very beginning of the National Cathedral. At the time, the former presiding bishop of the Methodist Church, Reverend Samuel Asante Antwi, was the chairman of the Board of the National Cathedral. He explained to us that we, the churches in Ghana, were going to build the Cathedral, not the government. The government was only going to facilitate the process and provide seed money. We were happy about this idea.

We thought we were having an opportunity to work together as Christians to achieve something, Rev. Opuni-Frimpong continued. However, when Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa started a series of disclosures, it became very clear that it was the government that was building the Cathedral.

Rev. Opuni-Frimpong expressed concern that the governments involvement in the project has diminished the sense of ownership and enthusiasm among Christians in Ghana. He urged the government to allow the churches to take a leading role in the project.

My plea is that the government must allow the churches to build the Cathedral. We should not offer to God a Cathedral that cost us nothing.

Archbishop Nicholas Duncan Williams and Rev. Eastwood Anaba, announced their resignation in a letter to the president, dated October 12, 2023, over concerns that their call for an audit into the activities of the National Cathedral project, went unheeded since January 2023.

They noted that the deafening silence on the call for an audit runs contrary to their conscience and belief.

But in a sharp rebuttal, National Cathedral Secretariat described the claim that no information whatsoever on the audit process was conveyed to them, as false.

In a statement, the Executive Director of the National Cathedral Project, Dr Paul Opoku-Mensah narrated that following this, the engagement letter for Deloitte to officially begin the audit was drafted and signed by Deloitte on March 27, 2023, and set up on their system on May 17, 2023. The expectation was that the first part of the audit was to be completed in July 2023. The audit process, so far, can be confirmed with the auditors, Deloitte.

The Board was constantly updated on the process through the Chairman and the Steering Committee, as well as the Executive Director's reports to the meetings of the Board.

Although Archbishop Duncan Williams and Rev. Eastwood Anaba were not present at both the June 2023 and September 2023 meetings, they and all the other Board members who were not physically present at the meeting were sent copies of all the documents for the Board meeting, including the Executive Director's report. The claim that they have received no information, whatsoever, on the audit process is therefore false.

-citinewsroom
Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT  Get Free Report) updated its FY23 earnings guidance on Wednesday. The company provided earnings per share guidance of $4.42-4.46 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of $4.40. Abbott Laboratories also updated its FY 2023 guidance to $4.42-$4.46 EPS.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently issued reports on ABT shares. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on Abbott Laboratories from $120.00 to $112.00 in a research note on Monday, October 2nd. StockNews.com started coverage on Abbott Laboratories in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. Morgan Stanley reiterated an equal weight rating and issued a $112.00 price objective on shares of Abbott Laboratories in a research note on Friday, July 21st. Mizuho increased their price objective on Abbott Laboratories from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Friday, July 21st. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on Abbott Laboratories from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, July 24th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $120.47.

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Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on ABT

Abbott Laboratories Stock Performance

Shares of ABT stock opened at $95.56 on Thursday. The stocks 50-day moving average is $100.06 and its two-hundred day moving average is $104.74. The firm has a market cap of $165.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.61, a PEG ratio of 4.11 and a beta of 0.69. Abbott Laboratories has a 1 year low of $89.67 and a 1 year high of $115.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a current ratio of 1.64.

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 18th. The healthcare product maker reported $1.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.10 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $10.14 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.82 billion. Abbott Laboratories had a return on equity of 20.50% and a net margin of 12.83%. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.15 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Abbott Laboratories will post 4.4 earnings per share for the current year.

Abbott Laboratories Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.51 per share. This represents a $2.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.13%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 12th. Abbott Laboratoriess payout ratio is 69.62%.

Insider Transactions at Abbott Laboratories

In other news, Director Daniel J. Starks sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.76, for a total transaction of $5,688,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 6,775,316 shares in the company, valued at $770,759,948.16. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other news, Director Daniel J. Starks sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.76, for a total transaction of $5,688,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 6,775,316 shares in the company, valued at $770,759,948.16. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Andrea F. Wainer sold 10,400 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.03, for a total transaction of $1,092,312.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 65,027 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $6,829,785.81. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 1.10% of the companys stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Abbott Laboratories

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Imprint Wealth LLC lifted its position in Abbott Laboratories by 8.5% in the second quarter. Imprint Wealth LLC now owns 10,761 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $1,169,000 after purchasing an additional 844 shares during the period. Wambolt & Associates LLC acquired a new stake in Abbott Laboratories in the second quarter valued at about $202,000. Alliancebernstein L.P. lifted its position in Abbott Laboratories by 9.9% in the second quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 10,162,763 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $1,107,944,000 after purchasing an additional 911,942 shares during the period. Equitable Holdings Inc. lifted its position in Abbott Laboratories by 12.2% in the second quarter. Equitable Holdings Inc. now owns 18,291 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $1,994,000 after purchasing an additional 1,987 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Abbott Laboratories during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $1,002,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.70% of the companys stock.

Abbott Laboratories Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Abbott Laboratories, together with its subsidiaries, discovers, develops, manufactures, and sells health care products worldwide. It operates in four segments: Established Pharmaceutical Products, Diagnostic Products, Nutritional Products, and Medical Devices. The Established Pharmaceutical Products segment provides generic pharmaceuticals for the treatment of pancreatic exocrine insufficiency, irritable bowel syndrome or biliary spasm, intrahepatic cholestasis or depressive symptoms, gynecological disorder, hormone replacement therapy, dyslipidemia, hypertension, hypothyroidism, Meniere's disease and vestibular vertigo, pain, fever, inflammation, and migraine, as well as provides anti-infective clarithromycin, influenza vaccine, and products to regulate physiological rhythm of the colon.

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Adams Diversified Equity Fund Inc. acquired a new position in Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO  Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor acquired 316,400 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $14,333,000.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P purchased a new position in Altria Group in the 1st quarter worth approximately $25,000. Northwest Bank & Trust Co acquired a new position in shares of Altria Group during the second quarter worth $27,000. Ellevest Inc. grew its holdings in Altria Group by 346.7% during the 1st quarter. Ellevest Inc. now owns 670 shares of the companys stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 520 shares in the last quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC increased its stake in Altria Group by 153.8% during the 1st quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 731 shares of the companys stock worth $33,000 after buying an additional 443 shares during the period. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in Altria Group in the 4th quarter worth $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 58.94% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on Altria Group from $55.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Friday, October 13th. Citigroup cut their target price on Altria Group from $46.50 to $45.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Bank of America decreased their price target on shares of Altria Group from $49.00 to $47.00 in a research report on Monday, October 9th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Altria Group in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. Finally, UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of Altria Group from $40.40 to $39.20 and set a sell rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 6th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $47.46.

Altria Group Trading Down 0.7 %

Altria Group stock traded down $0.29 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $42.83. The companys stock had a trading volume of 2,573,609 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,730,680. Altria Group, Inc. has a twelve month low of $40.91 and a twelve month high of $51.57. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $43.11 and a 200-day moving average price of $44.51. The firm has a market cap of $76.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.31, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.59.

Altria Group (NYSE:MO  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The company reported $1.31 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $1.31. The business had revenue of $5.44 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.43 billion. Altria Group had a net margin of 27.40% and a negative return on equity of 225.61%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 1.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.26 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Altria Group, Inc. will post 4.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Altria Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 10th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 15th were given a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.15%. This is a boost from Altria Groups previous quarterly dividend of $0.94. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. Altria Groups dividend payout ratio is presently 102.89%.

Altria Group Company Profile

(Free Report)

Altria Group, Inc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company provides cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; cigars and pipe tobacco principally under the Black & Mild brand; moist smokeless tobacco products and snus products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands; and on! oral nicotine pouches.

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Adams Natural Resources Fund Inc. grew its stake in shares of Hess Co. (NYSE:HES  Free Report) by 10.4% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 125,089 shares of the oil and gas producers stock after acquiring an additional 11,800 shares during the quarter. Hess comprises about 2.8% of Adams Natural Resources Fund Inc.s holdings, making the stock its 9th largest position. Adams Natural Resources Fund Inc.s holdings in Hess were worth $17,006,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of HES. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Hess by 2.2% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 30,928,530 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $3,310,590,000 after purchasing an additional 667,979 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Hess by 1.7% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,728,515 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $756,386,000 after acquiring an additional 93,731 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Hess by 13.6% during the 1st quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 5,690,159 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $753,036,000 after acquiring an additional 682,052 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in Hess by 3.2% in the 1st quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,827,003 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $638,806,000 after purchasing an additional 150,931 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fayez Sarofim & Co lifted its stake in shares of Hess by 5.6% during the first quarter. Fayez Sarofim & Co now owns 4,359,523 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $576,939,000 after purchasing an additional 231,403 shares in the last quarter. 81.72% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Insider Activity at Hess

In related news, SVP Barbara J. Lowery-Yilmaz sold 24,319 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $156.91, for a total transaction of $3,815,894.29. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 113,670 shares of the companys stock, valued at $17,835,959.70. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Hess news, COO Gregory P. Hill sold 33,414 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $151.33, for a total transaction of $5,056,540.62. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 82,932 shares of the companys stock, valued at $12,550,099.56. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Barbara J. Lowery-Yilmaz sold 24,319 shares of Hess stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $156.91, for a total transaction of $3,815,894.29. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 113,670 shares in the company, valued at $17,835,959.70. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 9.93% of the companys stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on HES. Mizuho boosted their price target on Hess from $175.00 to $178.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, September 18th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of Hess from $161.00 to $169.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 27th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Hess in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a sell rating for the company. UBS Group lifted their target price on Hess from $206.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 4th. Finally, Evercore ISI lowered their price objective on Hess from $155.00 to $153.00 in a research note on Monday, July 10th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $173.29.

Read Our Latest Report on HES

Hess Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE HES traded up $2.31 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $167.28. The company had a trading volume of 811,580 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,711,038. Hess Co. has a 12 month low of $113.82 and a 12 month high of $167.57. The stock has a market cap of $51.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.75 and a beta of 1.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 1.54 and a quick ratio of 1.43. The firms 50 day simple moving average is $155.35 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $144.56.

Hess (NYSE:HES  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The oil and gas producer reported $0.65 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $2.32 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.32 billion. Hess had a net margin of 14.60% and a return on equity of 19.56%. Hesss quarterly revenue was down 22.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.15 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Hess Co. will post 5.07 earnings per share for the current year.

Hess Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 29th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 18th were issued a $0.4375 dividend. This represents a $1.75 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.05%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 15th. Hesss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 33.52%.

About Hess

(Free Report)

Hess Corporation, an exploration and production company, explores, develops, produces, purchases, transports, and sells crude oil, natural gas liquids (NGLs), and natural gas. The company operates in two segments, Exploration and Production, and Midstream. It conducts production operations primarily in the United States, Guyana, the Malaysia/Thailand Joint Development Area, and Malaysia; and exploration activities principally offshore Guyana, the U.S.

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Arizona State Retirement System boosted its holdings in The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS  Free Report) by 3.2% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 95,414 shares of the investment management companys stock after purchasing an additional 2,952 shares during the quarter. Arizona State Retirement Systems holdings in The Goldman Sachs Group were worth $30,775,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group by 0.4% in the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,070,182 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $1,981,052,000 after purchasing an additional 22,635 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley increased its holdings in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group by 40.0% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 5,936,351 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $2,038,425,000 after buying an additional 1,696,350 shares during the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC raised its position in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group by 2.9% during the 1st quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 5,044,608 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $1,650,142,000 after buying an additional 144,177 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its position in The Goldman Sachs Group by 1.1% in the third quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,764,509 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $1,396,236,000 after acquiring an additional 52,016 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its position in The Goldman Sachs Group by 608.2% in the first quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,390,752 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $114,359,000 after acquiring an additional 2,053,162 shares in the last quarter. 69.06% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Insider Activity at The Goldman Sachs Group

In other news, CEO David M. Solomon sold 4,200 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $356.28, for a total transaction of $1,496,376.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 124,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $44,457,330.96. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on GS shares. Oppenheimer cut their target price on The Goldman Sachs Group from $450.00 to $447.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from $400.00 to $380.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, September 21st. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on The Goldman Sachs Group from $347.00 to $329.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, October 3rd. HSBC began coverage on The Goldman Sachs Group in a report on Thursday, September 7th. They set a buy rating and a $403.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Credit Suisse Group reiterated an outperform rating and set a $410.00 target price on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group in a research report on Thursday, July 20th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, The Goldman Sachs Group has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $392.60.

Read Our Latest Research Report on GS

The Goldman Sachs Group Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:GS traded up $1.49 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $303.45. The companys stock had a trading volume of 1,436,990 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,384,533. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $324.39 and a 200 day moving average of $329.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $100.04 billion, a PE ratio of 14.69, a P/E/G ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 1.38. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. has a twelve month low of $301.48 and a twelve month high of $389.58. The company has a quick ratio of 0.81, a current ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.91.

The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 17th. The investment management company reported $5.47 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.42 by $0.05. The Goldman Sachs Group had a return on equity of 7.19% and a net margin of 7.77%. The firm had revenue of $11.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.15 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $8.25 earnings per share. The Goldman Sachs Groups revenue for the quarter was down 1.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. will post 23.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The Goldman Sachs Group Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 28th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 30th will be paid a $2.75 dividend. This represents a $11.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.62%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 29th. The Goldman Sachs Groups dividend payout ratio is currently 53.24%.

About The Goldman Sachs Group

(Free Report)

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, a financial institution, provides a range of financial services for corporations, financial institutions, governments, and individuals worldwide. It operates through Global Banking & Markets, Asset & Wealth Management, and Platform Solutions segments. The Global Banking & Markets segment provides financial advisory services, including strategic advisory assignments related to mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense activities, restructurings, and spin-offs; and relationship lending, and acquisition financing, as well as secured lending, through structured credit and asset-backed lending and involved in resale agreements.

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Arizona State Retirement System lifted its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM  Free Report) by 4.8% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 443,675 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 20,404 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement Systems holdings in Philip Morris International were worth $43,312,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of PM. Stone House Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Philip Morris International in the first quarter valued at $29,000. BOK Financial Private Wealth Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Philip Morris International in the 1st quarter valued at about $32,000. Barrett & Company Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Philip Morris International in the first quarter valued at approximately $32,000. FSC Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Philip Morris International by 75.0% during the 1st quarter. FSC Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 350 shares of the companys stock worth $34,000 after acquiring an additional 150 shares during the period. Finally, NewSquare Capital LLC increased its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International by 127.0% during the 1st quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 370 shares of the companys stock worth $36,000 after acquiring an additional 207 shares during the last quarter. 79.70% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Philip Morris International from $118.00 to $113.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Monday, October 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $114.00 target price on shares of Philip Morris International in a report on Monday, October 2nd. 22nd Century Group reissued a reiterates rating on shares of Philip Morris International in a report on Tuesday, June 27th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on Philip Morris International from $111.00 to $105.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 13th. Finally, UBS Group decreased their target price on Philip Morris International from $116.00 to $112.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $109.42.

Philip Morris International Trading Down 2.0 %

Philip Morris International stock traded down $1.84 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $91.37. The companys stock had a trading volume of 3,440,571 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,228,519. The stock has a market cap of $141.84 billion, a PE ratio of 18.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.71. Philip Morris International Inc. has a 52 week low of $84.44 and a 52 week high of $105.62. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $94.18 and a 200-day moving average price of $95.57.

Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 19th. The company reported $1.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.62 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $9.14 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $9.21 billion. Philip Morris International had a net margin of 11.63% and a negative return on equity of 127.84%. The firms quarterly revenue was up 13.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.53 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Philip Morris International Inc. will post 6.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Philip Morris International Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 12th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 27th were paid a dividend of $1.30 per share. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.69%. This is a positive change from Philip Morris Internationals previous quarterly dividend of $1.27. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 26th. Philip Morris Internationals dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 100.58%.

About Philip Morris International

(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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Arizona State Retirement System raised its holdings in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC  Free Report) by 4.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 141,511 shares of the financial services providers stock after acquiring an additional 6,079 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement Systems holdings in Marsh & McLennan Companies were worth $26,615,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in MMC. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich raised its stake in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies by 103,259.3% during the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 74,945,836 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $14,095,813,000 after buying an additional 74,873,326 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. lifted its holdings in Marsh & McLennan Companies by 0.7% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 43,450,484 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $7,236,678,000 after acquiring an additional 310,250 shares during the period. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in Marsh & McLennan Companies by 105,777.7% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 9,772,516 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,617,156,000 after purchasing an additional 9,763,286 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies by 4.8% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 9,632,763 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,604,338,000 after purchasing an additional 444,685 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in Marsh & McLennan Companies by 6.9% during the first quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 8,138,055 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,355,352,000 after buying an additional 525,596 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.64% of the companys stock.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have weighed in on MMC shares. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on Marsh & McLennan Companies from $196.00 to $209.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a report on Friday, October 6th. Citigroup increased their target price on Marsh & McLennan Companies from $197.00 to $201.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, July 24th. Bank of America raised shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $189.00 to $210.00 in a report on Friday, July 21st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies from $200.00 to $208.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, July 21st. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Marsh & McLennan Companies currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $198.36.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Marsh & McLennan Companies news, Director Oscar Fanjul sold 3,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $194.90, for a total transaction of $584,700.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 63,012 shares in the company, valued at $12,281,038.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Marsh & McLennan Companies news, Director Oscar Fanjul sold 3,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $194.90, for a total transaction of $584,700.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 63,012 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,281,038.80. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Dean Michael Klisura sold 12,976 shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $192.20, for a total transaction of $2,493,987.20. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,935 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,023,707. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.30% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Marsh & McLennan Companies Trading Up 0.8 %

MMC traded up $1.59 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $191.24. The companys stock had a trading volume of 1,209,111 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,585,778. Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $150.78 and a fifty-two week high of $199.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 1.05. The stock has a market cap of $94.46 billion, a PE ratio of 28.95, a P/E/G ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 0.93. The businesss 50-day moving average is $193.24 and its 200-day moving average is $185.10.

Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE:MMC  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 19th. The financial services provider reported $1.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.39 by $0.18. Marsh & McLennan Companies had a net margin of 15.20% and a return on equity of 33.69%. The firm had revenue of $5.38 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.22 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.18 EPS. Marsh & McLennan Companiess revenue was up 12.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. will post 7.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Marsh & McLennan Companies Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 6th will be given a dividend of $0.71 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 5th. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.49%. Marsh & McLennan Companiess dividend payout ratio is currently 43.36%.

Marsh & McLennan Companies 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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Arizona State Retirement System grew its holdings in shares of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK  Free Report) by 4.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 42,848 shares of the asset managers stock after purchasing an additional 1,838 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement Systems holdings in BlackRock were worth $29,614,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. raised its position in shares of BlackRock by 4.5% in the 2nd quarter. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. now owns 460 shares of the asset managers stock worth $318,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. First National Trust Co grew its holdings in shares of BlackRock by 206.5% during the second quarter. First National Trust Co now owns 9,890 shares of the asset managers stock valued at $6,835,000 after buying an additional 6,663 shares during the last quarter. Heritage Investors Management Corp increased its position in shares of BlackRock by 1.9% during the second quarter. Heritage Investors Management Corp now owns 36,956 shares of the asset managers stock valued at $25,541,000 after acquiring an additional 696 shares in the last quarter. Abbrea Capital LLC raised its holdings in BlackRock by 1.9% in the 2nd quarter. Abbrea Capital LLC now owns 1,533 shares of the asset managers stock worth $1,060,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ninepoint Partners LP bought a new position in BlackRock in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $624,000. 77.01% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Laurence Fink sold 20,200 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $742.04, for a total value of $14,989,208.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 464,125 shares of the companys stock, valued at $344,399,315. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.96% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

BlackRock Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:BLK traded up $10.47 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $627.16. 531,961 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 635,169. BlackRock, Inc. has a 52 week low of $569.28 and a 52 week high of $785.65. The firm has a market cap of $93.63 billion, a PE ratio of 17.49, a PEG ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 1.29. The companys 50 day moving average price is $669.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $680.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 4.21 and a quick ratio of 4.21.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, October 13th. The asset manager reported $10.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $8.34 by $2.57. BlackRock had a net margin of 30.66% and a return on equity of 14.72%. The firm had revenue of $4.52 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.52 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $9.55 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that BlackRock, Inc. will post 35.91 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on BlackRock from $836.00 to $897.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of BlackRock from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and raised their price target for the company from $770.00 to $835.00 in a report on Monday, July 10th. Bank of America decreased their price objective on shares of BlackRock from $921.00 to $868.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 4th. StockNews.com started coverage on shares of BlackRock in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered their price target on BlackRock from $814.00 to $800.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 11th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, BlackRock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $764.75.

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About BlackRock

(Free Report)

BlackRock, Inc is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks.

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AutoZone, Inc. (NYSE:AZO  Get Free Report) VP Domingo Hurtado sold 2,950 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $2,640.84, for a total transaction of $7,790,478.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 156 shares in the company, valued at $411,971.04. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.

Domingo Hurtado also recently made the following trade(s):

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On Thursday, September 21st, Domingo Hurtado sold 120 shares of AutoZone stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $2,548.03, for a total transaction of $305,763.60.

AutoZone Stock Down 5.1 %

NYSE:AZO traded down $134.74 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $2,494.66. 182,959 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 157,071. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $2,532.74 and its 200 day moving average price is $2,531.77. The company has a market cap of $45.30 billion, a PE ratio of 18.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.41 and a beta of 0.66. AutoZone, Inc. has a 12-month low of $2,249.36 and a 12-month high of $2,750.00.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AutoZone ( NYSE:AZO Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, September 19th. The company reported $46.46 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $44.51 by $1.95. The company had revenue of $5.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.62 billion. AutoZone had a net margin of 14.48% and a negative return on equity of 60.66%. The firms quarterly revenue was up 6.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $40.51 EPS. Analysts anticipate that AutoZone, Inc. will post 147.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AZO has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. 92 Resources reissued a reiterates rating on shares of AutoZone in a report on Tuesday, June 27th. Northcoast Research started coverage on shares of AutoZone in a research report on Wednesday, June 28th. They issued a neutral rating on the stock. StockNews.com downgraded shares of AutoZone from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Monday. Wedbush reaffirmed an outperform rating and set a $2,750.00 price objective on shares of AutoZone in a research note on Wednesday, September 20th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on shares of AutoZone from $2,721.00 to $2,742.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, September 20th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $2,793.95.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on AutoZone

Institutional Investors Weigh In On AutoZone

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Handelsbanken Fonder AB increased its stake in AutoZone by 1.1% during the 3rd quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 6,978 shares of the companys stock valued at $17,724,000 after purchasing an additional 78 shares in the last quarter. WS Portfolio Advisory LLC bought a new stake in shares of AutoZone in the third quarter worth approximately $10,295,000. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of AutoZone in the third quarter worth approximately $201,000. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of AutoZone by 0.5% in the third quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 7,958 shares of the companys stock worth $20,213,000 after acquiring an additional 40 shares during the period. Finally, Czech National Bank grew its stake in shares of AutoZone by 45.7% in the third quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 3,174 shares of the companys stock worth $8,062,000 after acquiring an additional 996 shares during the period. 90.34% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About AutoZone

(Get Free Report)

AutoZone, Inc retails and distributes automotive replacement parts and accessories. The company offers various products for cars, sport utility vehicles, vans, and light trucks, including new and remanufactured automotive hard parts, maintenance items, accessories, and non-automotive products. Its products include A/C compressors, batteries and accessories, bearings, belts and hoses, calipers, chassis, clutches, CV axles, engines, fuel pumps, fuses, ignition and lighting products, mufflers, radiators, starters and alternators, thermostats, and water pumps, as well as tire repairs.

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First National Trust Co lessened its stake in shares of Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC) by 3.5% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 231,523 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 8,320 shares during the period. First National Trust Cos holdings in Bank of America were worth $6,642,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Old North State Trust LLC grew its stake in shares of Bank of America by 1.8% in the 1st quarter. Old North State Trust LLC now owns 23,584 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $675,000 after buying an additional 420 shares during the period. Arkfeld Wealth Strategies L.L.C. boosted its position in Bank of America by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. Arkfeld Wealth Strategies L.L.C. now owns 25,847 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $759,000 after buying an additional 446 shares during the period. Parnassus Investments LLC raised its holdings in shares of Bank of America by 9.5% in the 2nd quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 37,656,022 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,080,351,000 after purchasing an additional 3,278,515 shares in the last quarter. Lavaca Capital LLC raised its holdings in shares of Bank of America by 7.3% in the 1st quarter. Lavaca Capital LLC now owns 12,216 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $373,000 after purchasing an additional 828 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Independence Bank of Kentucky raised its holdings in shares of Bank of America by 14.2% in the 2nd quarter. Independence Bank of Kentucky now owns 16,685 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $479,000 after purchasing an additional 2,075 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 68.06% of the companys stock.

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Insider Transactions at Bank of America

In other news, insider James P. Demare sold 75,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $31.53, for a total transaction of $2,364,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 185,108 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,836,455.24. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.27% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Bank of America Stock Up 0.9 %

NYSE BAC traded up $0.25 on Thursday, reaching $27.56. The company had a trading volume of 21,624,968 shares, compared to its average volume of 48,922,750. The stock has a market capitalization of $219.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.72, a P/E/G ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.36. The companys fifty day moving average is $28.21 and its 200 day moving average is $28.83. Bank of America Co. has a 52-week low of $25.47 and a 52-week high of $38.60. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 17th. The financial services provider reported $0.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.83 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $25.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $25.13 billion. Bank of America had a return on equity of 12.08% and a net margin of 18.69%. The businesss revenue was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.81 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Bank of America Co. will post 3.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bank of America Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.24 per share. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.48%. Bank of Americas payout ratio is 26.89%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

BAC has been the topic of several research reports. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on shares of Bank of America from $48.00 to $49.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Bank of America from $43.00 to $40.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 23rd. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price target on shares of Bank of America from $31.00 to $28.00 in a research note on Tuesday, October 10th. Evercore ISI dropped their price objective on shares of Bank of America from $35.00 to $33.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an outperform rating and set a $35.00 price target on shares of Bank of America in a report on Tuesday, September 12th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $35.37.

View Our Latest Report on Bank of America

Bank of America Profile

(Free Report)

Bank of America Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides banking and financial products and services for individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments worldwide. Its Consumer Banking segment offers traditional and money market savings accounts, certificates of deposit and IRAs, noninterest-and interest-bearing checking accounts, and investment accounts and products; and credit and debit cards, residential mortgages, and home equity loans, as well as direct and indirect loans, such as automotive, recreational vehicle, and consumer personal loans.

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BAC? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC  Free Report).

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Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC) issued its earnings results on Tuesday. The financial services provider reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.83 by $0.07, MarketWatch Earnings reports. The company had revenue of $25.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $25.13 billion. Bank of America had a net margin of 18.69% and a return on equity of 12.08%. The firms revenue was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.81 earnings per share.

Bank of America Stock Down 1.1 %

Bank of America stock opened at $27.31 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $216.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.65, a PEG ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.36. The company has a current ratio of 0.83, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12. The companys 50-day moving average price is $28.21 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $28.83. Bank of America Co. has a 52 week low of $25.47 and a 52 week high of $38.60.

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Bank of America Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.24 per share. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.52%. Bank of Americas payout ratio is 26.89%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

BAC has been the topic of a number of research reports. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on shares of Bank of America from $31.00 to $28.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 10th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Bank of America from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a market perform rating in a report on Wednesday. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an outperform rating and issued a $35.00 price objective on shares of Bank of America in a report on Tuesday, September 12th. Evercore ISI dropped their price objective on shares of Bank of America from $35.00 to $33.00 in a report on Thursday, October 5th. Finally, StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Bank of America in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $35.37.

Check Out Our Latest Analysis on Bank of America

Insider Buying and Selling at Bank of America

In other news, insider James P. Demare sold 75,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $31.53, for a total transaction of $2,364,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 185,108 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,836,455.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.27% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Bank of America

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Bank of America by 108,111.3% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 193,168,025 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $6,397,725,000 after purchasing an additional 192,989,515 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Bank of America during the 4th quarter valued at about $3,436,543,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Bank of America by 1.7% during the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 36,940,776 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,522,699,000 after purchasing an additional 603,512 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC boosted its position in shares of Bank of America by 36.9% during the 2nd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 20,928,399 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $600,437,000 after purchasing an additional 5,638,608 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Snider Financial Group boosted its position in shares of Bank of America by 9,477.3% during the 1st quarter. Snider Financial Group now owns 14,448,357 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $5,956,000 after purchasing an additional 14,297,496 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 68.06% of the companys stock.

Bank of America Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Bank of America Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides banking and financial products and services for individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments worldwide. Its Consumer Banking segment offers traditional and money market savings accounts, certificates of deposit and IRAs, noninterest-and interest-bearing checking accounts, and investment accounts and products; and credit and debit cards, residential mortgages, and home equity loans, as well as direct and indirect loans, such as automotive, recreational vehicle, and consumer personal loans.

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BankUnited (NYSE:BKU  Get Free Report) announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The financial services provider reported $0.63 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.71 by ($0.08), MarketWatch Earnings reports. BankUnited had a net margin of 15.26% and a return on equity of 10.60%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.12 EPS.

BankUnited Trading Up 3.4 %

BankUnited stock traded up $0.75 during trading on Thursday, hitting $22.93. The company had a trading volume of 613,940 shares, compared to its average volume of 999,212. The stock has a market cap of $1.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.91 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a current ratio of 0.93, a quick ratio of 0.93 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.37. BankUnited has a 1-year low of $15.83 and a 1-year high of $40.22. The companys 50 day simple moving average is $24.30 and its 200-day simple moving average is $23.01.

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BankUnited Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 13th will be issued a $0.27 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 12th. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.71%. BankUniteds dividend payout ratio is currently 31.58%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BankUnited

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky lifted its position in shares of BankUnited by 5.7% during the second quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 25,304 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $545,000 after purchasing an additional 1,369 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in BankUnited by 44.7% during the 2nd quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 319,688 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $6,889,000 after buying an additional 98,775 shares in the last quarter. Resources Management Corp CT ADV boosted its position in BankUnited by 418.3% in the 2nd quarter. Resources Management Corp CT ADV now owns 18,450 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $398,000 after buying an additional 14,890 shares during the period. Wells Fargo & Company MN grew its stake in shares of BankUnited by 38.2% in the second quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 238,525 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $5,140,000 after acquiring an additional 65,934 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio increased its position in shares of BankUnited by 1.1% during the second quarter. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio now owns 48,210 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,039,000 after acquiring an additional 512 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.70% of the companys stock.

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on BankUnited from $32.00 to $28.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 5th. StockNews.com cut BankUnited from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on BankUnited from $33.00 to $23.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 4th. Compass Point boosted their price target on shares of BankUnited from $30.00 to $33.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 26th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on shares of BankUnited from $29.00 to $26.00 in a research report on Tuesday, October 10th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $26.67.

View Our Latest Stock Report on BKU

BankUnited Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

BankUnited, Inc operates as the bank holding company for BankUnited, a national banking association that provides a range of banking services in the United States. The company offers deposit products, such as checking, money market deposit, and savings accounts; certificates of deposit; and treasury, commercial payment, and cash management services.

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Bar Harbor Bankshares (NYSEAMERICAN:BHB  Get Free Report) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, October 17th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 16th will be paid a dividend of 0.28 per share by the financial services provider on Friday, December 15th. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.71%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 15th.

Bar Harbor Bankshares has raised its dividend payment by an average of 5.9% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 3 consecutive years. Bar Harbor Bankshares has a payout ratio of 40.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Bar Harbor Bankshares to earn $2.87 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 39.0%.

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Bar Harbor Bankshares Stock Down 3.6 %

Shares of NYSEAMERICAN BHB traded down $0.88 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $23.77. 21,954 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 32,821. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12. The stock has a market capitalization of $360.35 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.79 and a beta of 0.83. Bar Harbor Bankshares has a 1 year low of $19.55 and a 1 year high of $33.11.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Bar Harbor Bankshares ( NYSEAMERICAN:BHB Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 17th. The financial services provider reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.71 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $53.95 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $37.00 million. Bar Harbor Bankshares had a net margin of 23.51% and a return on equity of 11.71%. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Bar Harbor Bankshares will post 2.88 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Separately, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Bar Harbor Bankshares

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Bar Harbor Bankshares

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Credit Suisse AG grew its stake in Bar Harbor Bankshares by 3.0% in the 4th quarter. Credit Suisse AG now owns 11,188 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $358,000 after acquiring an additional 325 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its position in shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares by 6.4% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,469 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $175,000 after purchasing an additional 330 shares during the period. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can lifted its position in shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares by 65.5% in the 1st quarter. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can now owns 998 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 395 shares during the period. MetLife Investment Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 8,070 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $259,000 after purchasing an additional 489 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares by 1.5% in the 2nd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 40,055 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $987,000 after purchasing an additional 596 shares during the period. 53.62% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Bar Harbor Bankshares

(Get Free Report)

Bar Harbor Bankshares operates as the holding company for Bar Harbor Bank & Trust that provides banking and nonbanking products and services primarily to consumers and businesses. It accepts various deposit products, including interest-bearing and non-interest-bearing demand accounts, savings accounts, time deposits, and money market deposit accounts, as well as certificates of deposit.

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Bar Harbor Bankshares (NYSEAMERICAN:BHB  Get Free Report) issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday. The financial services provider reported $0.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.71 by $0.02, MarketWatch Earnings reports. The company had revenue of $53.95 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $37.00 million. Bar Harbor Bankshares had a net margin of 23.51% and a return on equity of 11.71%.

Bar Harbor Bankshares Stock Up 1.3 %

BHB opened at $24.65 on Thursday. Bar Harbor Bankshares has a fifty-two week low of $19.55 and a fifty-two week high of $33.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.01 and a quick ratio of 1.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $373.69 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.77 and a beta of 0.83.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Swiss National Bank increased its stake in shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares by 7.9% during the first quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 35,500 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,016,000 after purchasing an additional 2,600 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can purchased a new stake in shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares during the first quarter worth about $972,000. MetLife Investment Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares by 43.5% during the first quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 7,595 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $217,000 after purchasing an additional 2,303 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. increased its stake in shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares by 0.3% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 1,120,430 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $32,068,000 after purchasing an additional 3,221 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Great West Life Assurance Co. Can increased its stake in shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares by 65.5% during the first quarter. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can now owns 998 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 395 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 53.62% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company.

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About Bar Harbor Bankshares

(Get Free Report)

Bar Harbor Bankshares operates as the holding company for Bar Harbor Bank & Trust that provides banking and nonbanking products and services primarily to consumers and businesses. It accepts various deposit products, including interest-bearing and non-interest-bearing demand accounts, savings accounts, time deposits, and money market deposit accounts, as well as certificates of deposit.

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Bright Mountain Media, Inc. (OTCMKTS:BMTM  Get Free Report)s stock price passed above its fifty day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a fifty day moving average of $0.10 and traded as high as $0.10. Bright Mountain Media shares last traded at $0.10, with a volume of 5,000 shares traded.

Bright Mountain Media Price Performance

The business has a fifty day moving average of $0.10 and a 200 day moving average of $0.09.

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Bright Mountain Media (OTCMKTS:BMTM  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Monday, August 14th. The company reported ($0.04) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The business had revenue of $12.62 million during the quarter.

About Bright Mountain Media

Bright Mountain Media, Inc operates as a digital media company, focuses on digital publishing and advertising technology in the United States and Israel. It engages in content creation and advertising technology development that helps customers connect with targeted audiences. The company owns and operates websites, which provides products, information, and news, to military and public safety sectors.

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Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli AG (OTCMKTS:LDSVF  Get Free Report)s share price passed below its 50 day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a 50 day moving average of $11,515.76 and traded as low as $10,700.00. Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli shares last traded at $10,700.00, with a volume of 14 shares.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded shares of Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 15th.

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Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli Price Performance

Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli Company Profile

The companys fifty day simple moving average is $11,493.76 and its 200-day simple moving average is $11,950.47.

(Get Free Report)

Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli AG, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of chocolate products worldwide. The company sells its products under the Lindt, Ghirardelli, Russell Stover, Whitman's, Caffarel, Hofbauer, Kufferle, and Pangburn's brands. It serves customers through a network of distributors, as well as through own shops.

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Confluence Wealth Services Inc. grew its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY  Free Report) by 7.7% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 7,331 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 527 shares during the quarter. Eli Lilly and Company accounts for about 0.7% of Confluence Wealth Services Inc.s portfolio, making the stock its 26th largest position. Confluence Wealth Services Inc.s holdings in Eli Lilly and Company were worth $3,438,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Guyasuta Investment Advisors Inc. grew its stake in Eli Lilly and Company by 4.6% during the second quarter. Guyasuta Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 3,024 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,418,000 after acquiring an additional 132 shares in the last quarter. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. raised its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 4.8% in the first quarter. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. now owns 82,966 shares of the companys stock worth $28,449,000 after buying an additional 3,768 shares in the last quarter. Martin Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company during the second quarter worth about $234,000. Physicians Financial Services Inc. increased its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 1.9% in the second quarter. Physicians Financial Services Inc. now owns 2,718 shares of the companys stock worth $1,275,000 after purchasing an additional 50 shares during the last quarter. Finally, HF Advisory Group LLC raised its stake in Eli Lilly and Company by 4.9% in the second quarter. HF Advisory Group LLC now owns 3,629 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,702,000 after purchasing an additional 170 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 81.38% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

LLY has been the subject of several recent research reports. StockNews.com downgraded Eli Lilly and Company from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $640.00 to $673.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, October 11th. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $500.00 to $590.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, August 9th. HSBC assumed coverage on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a report on Friday, July 14th. They issued a buy rating and a $560.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price target on Eli Lilly and Company from $360.00 to $525.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $540.09.

Insider Activity

In other news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 591 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, July 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $466.62, for a total transaction of $275,772.42. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 101,028,219 shares of the companys stock, valued at $47,141,787,549.78. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, EVP Alonzo Weems sold 1,148 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $590.98, for a total transaction of $678,445.04. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 7,760 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,586,004.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 591 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $466.62, for a total value of $275,772.42. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 101,028,219 shares in the company, valued at approximately $47,141,787,549.78. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 908,246 shares of company stock valued at $21,078,990,577. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Eli Lilly and Company Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:LLY traded down $15.34 on Thursday, reaching $591.90. The companys stock had a trading volume of 2,116,864 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,031,758. Eli Lilly and Company has a 52-week low of $309.20 and a 52-week high of $629.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $561.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 84.46, a PEG ratio of 3.29 and a beta of 0.33. The stocks 50-day moving average is $562.91 and its two-hundred day moving average is $477.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.63, a current ratio of 1.13 and a quick ratio of 0.87.

Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 8th. The company reported $2.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.98 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $8.31 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.58 billion. Eli Lilly and Company had a return on equity of 65.00% and a net margin of 22.01%. The businesss revenue was up 28.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.25 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Eli Lilly and Company will post 7.26 EPS for the current year.

Eli Lilly and Company Profile

(Free Report)

Eli Lilly and Company discovers, develops, and markets human pharmaceuticals worldwide. It offers Basaglar, Humalog, Humalog Mix 75/25, Humalog U-100, Humalog U-200, Humalog Mix 50/50, insulin lispro, insulin lispro protamine, insulin lispro mix 75/25, Humulin, Humulin 70/30, Humulin N, Humulin R, and Humulin U-500 for diabetes; and Jardiance, Trajenta, and Trulicity for type 2 diabetes.

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Cross Staff Investments Inc reduced its position in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR  Free Report) by 9.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 5,677 shares of the conglomerates stock after selling 598 shares during the quarter. Danaher comprises about 1.3% of Cross Staff Investments Incs investment portfolio, making the stock its 17th biggest position. Cross Staff Investments Incs holdings in Danaher were worth $1,362,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Danaher in the 1st quarter worth $25,000. Silicon Valley Capital Partners acquired a new stake in Danaher in the 1st quarter valued at $29,000. Stone House Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in Danaher in the 1st quarter valued at $32,000. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in Danaher by 68.9% in the 1st quarter. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. now owns 125 shares of the conglomerates stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 51 shares in the last quarter. Finally, America First Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Danaher in the 1st quarter valued at $34,000. 76.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Insider Activity at Danaher

In related news, SVP Daniel Raskas sold 11,213 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.65, for a total transaction of $2,922,668.45. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 38,288 shares in the company, valued at $9,979,767.20. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Danaher news, SVP Jose-Carlos Gutierrez-Ramos sold 590 shares of Danaher stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $250.54, for a total value of $147,818.60. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 6,939 shares in the company, valued at $1,738,497.06. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Daniel Raskas sold 11,213 shares of Danaher stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.65, for a total transaction of $2,922,668.45. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 38,288 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,979,767.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 47,922 shares of company stock worth $12,552,233 over the last quarter. 11.10% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Danaher Stock Performance

NYSE DHR traded up $3.80 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $208.60. The companys stock had a trading volume of 1,498,387 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,873,638. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $243.92 and a 200 day simple moving average of $242.36. The stock has a market cap of $154.02 billion, a PE ratio of 24.04, a PEG ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 0.81. The company has a current ratio of 2.08, a quick ratio of 1.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. Danaher Co. has a 52 week low of $204.73 and a 52 week high of $281.54.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 25th. The conglomerate reported $2.05 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.01 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $7.16 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $7.12 billion. Danaher had a return on equity of 15.03% and a net margin of 20.95%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.76 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Danaher Co. will post 8.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 27th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 12th will be issued a dividend of $0.27 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 11th. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.52%. Danahers dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 12.68%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts recently issued reports on the company. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on Danaher from $250.00 to $240.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 26th. Barclays increased their price target on Danaher from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, July 25th. StockNews.com started coverage on Danaher in a research note on Friday, October 6th. They set a buy rating for the company. KeyCorp lowered their target price on Danaher from $325.00 to $300.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, September 27th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Danaher from $260.00 to $292.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 26th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $281.60.

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Danaher Company Profile

(Free Report)

Danaher Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services worldwide. The Biotechnology segments offers bioprocess technologies, consumables, and services; lab filtration, separation, and purification; lab-scale protein purification and analytical tools; reagents, membranes and services; and healthcare filtration solutions.

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Cross Staff Investments Inc trimmed its position in Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY  Free Report) by 1.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,560 shares of the companys stock after selling 40 shares during the quarter. Eli Lilly and Company comprises approximately 1.1% of Cross Staff Investments Incs holdings, making the stock its 22nd biggest position. Cross Staff Investments Incs holdings in Eli Lilly and Company were worth $1,201,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in LLY. Towerpoint Wealth LLC grew its holdings in Eli Lilly and Company by 0.5% during the 2nd quarter. Towerpoint Wealth LLC now owns 4,239 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,988,000 after buying an additional 22 shares in the last quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC grew its holdings in Eli Lilly and Company by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC now owns 1,591 shares of the companys stock valued at $746,000 after buying an additional 22 shares in the last quarter. Oxler Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in Eli Lilly and Company by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Oxler Private Wealth LLC now owns 6,050 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,078,000 after buying an additional 24 shares in the last quarter. Missouri Trust & Investment Co grew its holdings in Eli Lilly and Company by 3.2% during the 1st quarter. Missouri Trust & Investment Co now owns 774 shares of the companys stock valued at $266,000 after buying an additional 24 shares in the last quarter. Finally, IFG Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Eli Lilly and Company by 3.8% during the 2nd quarter. IFG Advisors LLC now owns 654 shares of the companys stock valued at $307,000 after buying an additional 24 shares in the last quarter. 81.38% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Eli Lilly and Company Stock Down 2.2 %

LLY traded down $13.18 on Thursday, hitting $594.06. The company had a trading volume of 1,905,987 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,030,555. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $562.91 and a 200-day moving average price of $477.16. Eli Lilly and Company has a 12-month low of $309.20 and a 12-month high of $629.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.63, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 1.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $563.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 84.46, a P/E/G ratio of 3.29 and a beta of 0.33.

Insider Transactions at Eli Lilly and Company

Eli Lilly and Company ( NYSE:LLY Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 8th. The company reported $2.11 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.98 by $0.13. Eli Lilly and Company had a return on equity of 65.00% and a net margin of 22.01%. The business had revenue of $8.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.58 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.25 earnings per share. The companys revenue was up 28.1% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Eli Lilly and Company will post 7.26 EPS for the current fiscal year.

In other news, EVP Alonzo Weems sold 1,148 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $590.98, for a total transaction of $678,445.04. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 7,760 shares in the company, valued at $4,586,004.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 215,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $605.44, for a total transaction of $130,169,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 99,768,810 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $60,404,028,326.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Alonzo Weems sold 1,148 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $590.98, for a total value of $678,445.04. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 7,760 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,586,004.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 908,246 shares of company stock worth $21,078,990,577. Insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an overweight rating and set a $630.00 price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a report on Monday, October 9th. Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $525.00 to $600.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, August 9th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on Eli Lilly and Company from $640.00 to $673.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 11th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on Eli Lilly and Company from $490.00 to $580.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 8th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Eli Lilly and Company from $615.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Monday, October 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Eli Lilly and Company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $540.09.

Check Out Our Latest Report on Eli Lilly and Company

Eli Lilly and Company Company Profile

(Free Report)

Eli Lilly and Company discovers, develops, and markets human pharmaceuticals worldwide. It offers Basaglar, Humalog, Humalog Mix 75/25, Humalog U-100, Humalog U-200, Humalog Mix 50/50, insulin lispro, insulin lispro protamine, insulin lispro mix 75/25, Humulin, Humulin 70/30, Humulin N, Humulin R, and Humulin U-500 for diabetes; and Jardiance, Trajenta, and Trulicity for type 2 diabetes.

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Dunelm Group (LON:DNLM  Get Free Report)s stock had its hold rating restated by research analysts at Shore Capital in a research note issued on Thursday, LSE.Co.UK reports.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on the stock. Berenberg Bank restated a buy rating and set a GBX 1,340 ($16.37) price target on shares of Dunelm Group in a report on Wednesday, September 13th. Royal Bank of Canada cut shares of Dunelm Group to an underperform rating and reduced their target price for the company from GBX 1,300 ($15.88) to GBX 1,000 ($12.21) in a research note on Tuesday, July 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of GBX 1,228 ($15.00).

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Dunelm Group Stock Performance

About Dunelm Group

DNLM stock traded down GBX 7.87 ($0.10) during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching GBX 1,029.13 ($12.57). 296,067 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 296,116. The company has a quick ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 242.98. Dunelm Group has a 52 week low of GBX 765 ($9.34) and a 52 week high of GBX 1,335.54 ($16.31). The business has a 50-day moving average of GBX 1,095.18 and a two-hundred day moving average of GBX 1,113.88. The firm has a market capitalization of 2.08 billion, a PE ratio of 1,354.12, a P/E/G ratio of -10.32 and a beta of 1.20.

(Get Free Report)

Dunelm Group plc retails homewares in the United Kingdom. The company offers furniture and beds products, which include bedroom, living room, dining room, and other furniture, as well as bed and mattresses, and sofas and chairs; bedding products comprising bed linen, dorma, baby and kid's bedding, and duvets, pillows and protectors; curtains and rugs; and venetian, roller, roman, vertical, and made to measure blinds.

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Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW  Get Free Report) is scheduled to be posting its quarterly earnings results after the market closes on Wednesday, October 25th. Analysts expect Edwards Lifesciences to post earnings of $0.59 per share for the quarter.

Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 26th. The medical research company reported $0.66 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.65 by $0.01. Edwards Lifesciences had a return on equity of 25.43% and a net margin of 24.56%. The company had revenue of $1.53 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.51 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.63 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect Edwards Lifesciences to post $3 EPS for the current fiscal year and $3 EPS for the next fiscal year.

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Edwards Lifesciences Stock Down 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE EW traded down $0.26 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $69.45. 442,941 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,230,218. Edwards Lifesciences has a 52-week low of $67.13 and a 52-week high of $94.87. The stock has a market capitalization of $42.22 billion, a PE ratio of 30.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 2.30 and a current ratio of 3.15. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $73.88 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $82.53.

Insider Activity

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Edwards Lifesciences

In other news, CFO Scott B. Ullem sold 7,255 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.35, for a total transaction of $611,959.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 19,248 shares in the company, valued at $1,623,568.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link . In other news, Director Michael A. Mussallem sold 29,350 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.87, for a total transaction of $2,344,184.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 54,252 shares in the company, valued at $4,333,107.24. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link . Also, CFO Scott B. Ullem sold 7,255 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.35, for a total value of $611,959.25. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 19,248 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,623,568.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 184,359 shares of company stock valued at $13,817,172. 1.29% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in EW. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 11.4% in the first quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 9,181 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,081,000 after buying an additional 941 shares in the last quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. raised its stake in Edwards Lifesciences by 34.7% during the 1st quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. now owns 1,738 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $204,000 after purchasing an additional 448 shares during the period. Covestor Ltd raised its stake in Edwards Lifesciences by 18.2% during the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 1,223 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $144,000 after purchasing an additional 188 shares during the period. Mather Group LLC. raised its stake in Edwards Lifesciences by 53.5% during the 1st quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 7,182 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $846,000 after purchasing an additional 2,503 shares during the period. Finally, Mackenzie Financial Corp raised its stake in Edwards Lifesciences by 3.1% during the 1st quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 655,567 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $77,173,000 after purchasing an additional 19,798 shares during the period. 79.25% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

EW has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an outperform rating and set a $96.00 target price on shares of Edwards Lifesciences in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. Robert W. Baird initiated coverage on Edwards Lifesciences in a research report on Tuesday, July 18th. They set an outperform rating and a $107.00 target price on the stock. Oppenheimer raised Edwards Lifesciences from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $90.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 26th. SVB Leerink began coverage on Edwards Lifesciences in a research report on Monday. They set a market perform rating and a $75.00 target price on the stock. Finally, StockNews.com lowered Edwards Lifesciences from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $90.71.

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Edwards Lifesciences Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

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.

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F.N.B. (NYSE:FNB  Get Free Report) released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday. The bank reported $0.40 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.04, Briefing.com reports. F.N.B. had a return on equity of 10.52% and a net margin of 28.28%. The business had revenue of $408.10 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $402.76 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.39 earnings per share. The companys quarterly revenue was up 7.5% compared to the same quarter last year.

F.N.B. Price Performance

Shares of FNB stock traded up $0.29 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $11.32. 562,935 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,368,569. The firms 50 day simple moving average is $11.23 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $11.48. The firm has a market cap of $4.06 billion, a PE ratio of 7.24 and a beta of 1.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a current ratio of 0.90 and a quick ratio of 0.90. F.N.B. has a 1-year low of $10.09 and a 1-year high of $14.71.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. DA Davidson upped their price objective on shares of F.N.B. from $16.00 to $17.00 in a research report on Friday, July 21st. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price target on shares of F.N.B. from $12.00 to $11.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 10th. Stephens reiterated an overweight rating and set a $15.00 target price on shares of F.N.B. in a research report on Thursday, July 20th. Finally, StockNews.com cut F.N.B. from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Wednesday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $15.00.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F.N.B.

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of FNB. Advisory Services Network LLC grew its holdings in F.N.B. by 5.7% in the first quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 16,676 shares of the banks stock valued at $193,000 after purchasing an additional 899 shares during the last quarter. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio increased its stake in shares of F.N.B. by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio now owns 192,830 shares of the banks stock worth $2,237,000 after purchasing an additional 1,104 shares in the last quarter. Utah Retirement Systems raised its holdings in shares of F.N.B. by 7.8% in the first quarter. Utah Retirement Systems now owns 17,976 shares of the banks stock worth $224,000 after acquiring an additional 1,300 shares during the last quarter. Vista Investment Management boosted its stake in shares of F.N.B. by 5.5% during the second quarter. Vista Investment Management now owns 27,787 shares of the banks stock valued at $318,000 after acquiring an additional 1,460 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Private Advisor Group LLC increased its position in F.N.B. by 10.7% during the 1st quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 15,696 shares of the banks stock worth $195,000 after purchasing an additional 1,515 shares in the last quarter. 76.94% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About F.N.B.

(Get Free Report)

F.N.B. Corporation, a bank and financial holding company, provides a range of financial products and services primarily to consumers, corporations, governments, and small- to medium-sized businesses in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Community Banking, Wealth Management, and Insurance.

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Fiduciary Trust Co. grew its holdings in Stryker Co. (NYSE:SYK  Free Report) by 8.4% during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 28,812 shares of the medical technology companys stock after purchasing an additional 2,224 shares during the period. Fiduciary Trust Co.s holdings in Stryker were worth $8,790,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vinva Investment Management Ltd acquired a new position in Stryker in the first quarter worth approximately $3,257,000. Stifel Financial Corp raised its stake in shares of Stryker by 0.7% in the first quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 400,767 shares of the medical technology companys stock valued at $114,412,000 after purchasing an additional 2,868 shares in the last quarter. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System raised its stake in shares of Stryker by 0.6% in the first quarter. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System now owns 27,814 shares of the medical technology companys stock valued at $7,940,000 after purchasing an additional 164 shares in the last quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. raised its stake in Stryker by 28.6% during the first quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 4,451 shares of the medical technology companys stock worth $1,271,000 after acquiring an additional 990 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Canandaigua National Bank & Trust Co. raised its stake in Stryker by 1.4% during the second quarter. Canandaigua National Bank & Trust Co. now owns 7,497 shares of the medical technology companys stock worth $2,287,000 after acquiring an additional 104 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.24% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Barclays raised their target price on Stryker from $321.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, August 7th. Bank of America raised Stryker from a neutral rating to a buy rating and lifted their target price for the company from $310.00 to $315.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 5th. BTIG Research boosted their price target on Stryker from $313.00 to $331.00 in a research report on Monday, July 17th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Stryker from $295.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Monday, August 7th. Finally, Truist Financial upped their target price on Stryker from $300.00 to $310.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 19th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $309.77.

Stryker Stock Performance

Stryker stock traded up $1.17 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $271.35. 245,717 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,324,819. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $279.21 and its 200 day simple moving average is $285.75. The firm has a market capitalization of $103.05 billion, a PE ratio of 38.16, a P/E/G ratio of 2.60 and a beta of 0.95. Stryker Co. has a one year low of $205.43 and a one year high of $306.93. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 1.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64.

Stryker (NYSE:SYK  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 3rd. The medical technology company reported $2.54 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.38 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $5 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.83 billion. Stryker had a return on equity of 22.31% and a net margin of 13.92%. The businesss revenue was up 11.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.25 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Stryker Co. will post 10.37 earnings per share for the current year.

Stryker Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 31st. Investors of record on Friday, September 29th will be paid a dividend of $0.75 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 28th. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.11%. Strykers payout ratio is 42.37%.

Insider Activity at Stryker

In related news, insider Viju Menon sold 5,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $289.00, for a total transaction of $1,445,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 6,994 shares in the company, valued at $2,021,266. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. 5.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Stryker Company Profile

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Stryker Corporation operates as a medical technology company. The company operates through two segments, MedSurg and Neurotechnology, and Orthopaedics and Spine. The Orthopaedics and Spine segment provides implants for use in hip and knee joint replacements, and trauma and extremities surgeries. This segment also offers spinal implant products comprising cervical, thoracolumbar, and interbody systems that are used in spinal injury, deformity, and degenerative therapies.

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The Colorado Economic Development Commission approved an incentive package worth up to $23.1 million aimed at recruiting a wind turbine company looking at multiple states, including Pueblo in Colorado, for the site of its next production hub. It could mean more than 2,300 new jobs to the area.

Commissioners voted unanimously on Thursday to offer the company up to $18.5 million in Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits and $4.6 million from its strategic fund  which offers cash incentives to companies weighing Colorado against other states.

Were just excited about this project, said Jeff Shaw, CEO of the Pueblo Economic Development Corporation, at the Commission's meeting Thursday.

The Pueblo Economic Development Corporation, the city of Pueblo, Pueblo County and the Pueblo Urban Enterprise Zone are expected to provide at least $16.5 million in local incentives, abatements and grants, according to an EDC memo. Shaw clarified local incentives would likely exceed $20 million because the estimate provided to the EDC was based on a lower job creation estimate.

The company is a global leader in wind turbine blade production, according to the Commission's summary. It specializes in blade development, manufacturing, service and logistics. It operates production facilities near major wind energy markets, more than 10 production facilities and several technology hubs on four continents. As is routine for incentive projects, the EDC is tight-lipped about providing further details that could identify the company.

Incentive packages approved by the EDC, part of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, are meant to attract companies considering Colorado among other states as future sites for operation. The company discussed on Thursday is also eyeing Texas and North Dakota.

The company would operate a blade manufacturing facility in Pueblo for an anticipated 20 years, if not longer.

The new plant would bring an estimated 2,308 new jobs to the area with an average annual wage of $59,601. That is 117% of the average annual wage in Pueblo County, according to the EDC. None of the companys 610 employees currently work in Colorado.

The company  using the code name Project Danish  would build a warehouse, an administrative building, two workshops used in blade production and a training facility for employees. The project would also involve construction of a waste management system for waste produced at the plant.

The tax credit incentives would be contingent on the creation of 2,308 new jobs offering a minimum wage of $50,921, the average annual wage in Pueblo County, or the average wage of whichever county the company chose if it moved somewhere in Colorado other than Pueblo.

The Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit program provides tax credits to businesses considering multi-state expansion or relocation projects to expand, or locate, in Colorado. If a company does not create the number of jobs or the level of wages agreed on in the incentive package, it does not receive the credit.

The strategic fund incentives would be contingent on the creation of 1,154 new full-time positions with an annual wage of $56,013, which is 110% of the countys annual wage. The cash incentive equates to $4,000 for each job created over a five-year period.

Commissioners praised the project as an impressive opportunity for Pueblo before unanimously approving the incentive deal.
Genco Shipping & Trading Limited (NYSE:GNK  Get Free Report) saw a large increase in short interest in September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 2,060,000 shares, an increase of 6.7% from the September 15th total of 1,930,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 644,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.2 days. Currently, 5.2% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Genco Shipping & Trading

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new position in Genco Shipping & Trading in the 3rd quarter worth $137,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Genco Shipping & Trading by 13.7% in the third quarter. Register Financial Advisors LLC now owns 12,162 shares of the shipping companys stock worth $170,000 after purchasing an additional 1,462 shares during the period. SummerHaven Investment Management LLC raised its stake in Genco Shipping & Trading by 26.0% during the 3rd quarter. SummerHaven Investment Management LLC now owns 52,365 shares of the shipping companys stock valued at $733,000 after purchasing an additional 10,790 shares during the last quarter. Koss Olinger Consulting LLC boosted its holdings in Genco Shipping & Trading by 27.1% in the 3rd quarter. Koss Olinger Consulting LLC now owns 18,796 shares of the shipping companys stock valued at $263,000 after purchasing an additional 4,003 shares during the period. Finally, Householder Group Estate & Retirement Specialist LLC acquired a new stake in Genco Shipping & Trading in the 3rd quarter worth $34,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 52.75% of the companys stock.

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Genco Shipping & Trading Stock Down 1.3 %

Shares of Genco Shipping & Trading stock traded down $0.18 on Wednesday, hitting $14.43. 360,206 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 812,845. Genco Shipping & Trading has a 12-month low of $12.39 and a 12-month high of $19.84. The company has a quick ratio of 3.00, a current ratio of 3.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The company has a market cap of $613.50 million, a PE ratio of 7.40 and a beta of 1.09. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $13.89 and a 200 day moving average price of $14.10.

Genco Shipping & Trading Dividend Announcement

Genco Shipping & Trading ( NYSE:GNK Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Friday, August 4th. The shipping company reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $90.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $61.69 million. Genco Shipping & Trading had a return on equity of 8.90% and a net margin of 18.69%. The businesss revenue was down 34.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.10 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Genco Shipping & Trading will post 0.63 earnings per share for the current year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, August 23rd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, August 16th were issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 15th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.16%. Genco Shipping & Tradings dividend payout ratio is currently 30.77%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. StockNews.com started coverage on Genco Shipping & Trading in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. TheStreet upgraded shares of Genco Shipping & Trading from a c+ rating to a b- rating in a report on Friday, June 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on shares of Genco Shipping & Trading from $24.00 to $23.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 19th. Finally, BTIG Research cut their target price on shares of Genco Shipping & Trading from $22.00 to $20.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, July 21st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $22.50.

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Genco Shipping & Trading Company Profile

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Genco Shipping & Trading Limited, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the ocean transportation of dry bulk cargoes worldwide. The company owns and operates dry bulk carrier vessels to transports iron ore, grains, coal, steel products, and other dry-bulk cargoes. It charters its vessels primarily to trading houses, including commodities traders; producers; and government-owned entities.

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Getty Realty Corp. (NYSE:GTY  Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week low during trading on Thursday after JMP Securities lowered their price target on the stock from $39.00 to $33.00. JMP Securities currently has a market outperform rating on the stock. Getty Realty traded as low as $26.52 and last traded at $26.53, with a volume of 383152 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $27.49.

Separately, StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Getty Realty in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $32.75.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Getty Realty Price Performance

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. BlackRock Inc. boosted its position in shares of Getty Realty by 13.9% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 8,302,756 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $280,799,000 after purchasing an additional 1,010,932 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Getty Realty by 1.2% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,768,864 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $182,014,000 after purchasing an additional 81,104 shares during the period. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Getty Realty by 34.4% during the first quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 3,718,000 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $133,960,000 after purchasing an additional 951,649 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Getty Realty by 0.5% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,440,388 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $117,779,000 after buying an additional 16,238 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP grew its stake in shares of Getty Realty by 145.1% in the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,033,521 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $73,268,000 after buying an additional 1,203,892 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.55% of the companys stock.

The company has a fifty day moving average of $29.18 and a 200-day moving average of $32.10. The company has a current ratio of 3.39, a quick ratio of 3.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.78. The stock has a market cap of $1.34 billion, a PE ratio of 19.80, a P/E/G ratio of 8.20 and a beta of 0.88.

Getty Realty (NYSE:GTY  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.26 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.56 by ($0.30). The firm had revenue of $43.66 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $43.09 million. Getty Realty had a net margin of 39.48% and a return on equity of 8.51%. Sell-side analysts expect that Getty Realty Corp. will post 2.26 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Getty Realty Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 12th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 28th were paid a $0.43 dividend. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.49%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, September 27th. Getty Realtys payout ratio is currently 124.64%.

Getty Realty Company Profile

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Global Medical REIT Inc. (NYSE:GMRE  Get Free Report) saw a significant growth in short interest in the month of September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 1,300,000 shares, a growth of 11.1% from the September 15th total of 1,170,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 296,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.4 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Global Medical REIT by 0.9% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,336,216 shares of the companys stock worth $53,984,000 after acquiring an additional 56,735 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. lifted its stake in Global Medical REIT by 5.9% in the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 5,214,812 shares of the companys stock worth $47,611,000 after purchasing an additional 290,697 shares in the last quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Global Medical REIT by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 2,363,472 shares of the companys stock valued at $38,572,000 after purchasing an additional 8,080 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Global Medical REIT by 3.2% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,933,065 shares of the companys stock valued at $18,010,000 after purchasing an additional 59,720 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP bought a new stake in shares of Global Medical REIT in the first quarter worth about $24,828,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 56.46% of the companys stock.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

GMRE has been the subject of several research reports. StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Global Medical REIT in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. Compass Point upped their target price on shares of Global Medical REIT from $11.00 to $12.50 in a report on Friday, August 4th.

Global Medical REIT Stock Performance

GMRE traded down $0.27 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $8.80. The company had a trading volume of 138,583 shares, compared to its average volume of 378,203. The business has a 50-day moving average of $9.27 and a two-hundred day moving average of $9.27. The company has a quick ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 0.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.01. Global Medical REIT has a 1 year low of $7.60 and a 1 year high of $11.79. The company has a market cap of $576.97 million, a P/E ratio of 27.50 and a beta of 1.07.

Global Medical REIT Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 10th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 22nd were paid a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 21st. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.55%. Global Medical REITs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 262.50%.

Global Medical REIT Company Profile

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Global Medical REIT Inc (GMRE) is a net-lease medical office real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns and acquires healthcare facilities and leases those facilities to physician groups and regional and national healthcare systems.

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Gran Tierra Energy Inc. (TSE:GTE  Get Free Report) (NYSEMKT:GTE) shares crossed above its fifty day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a fifty day moving average of C$8.82 and traded as high as C$9.27. Gran Tierra Energy shares last traded at C$9.15, with a volume of 28,508 shares traded.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of Gran Tierra Energy from C$10.00 to C$12.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd.

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Gran Tierra Energy Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 153.22, a current ratio of 0.46 and a quick ratio of 0.58. The companys 50-day simple moving average is C$8.82 and its 200-day simple moving average is C$8.74. The stock has a market capitalization of C$307.60 million, a P/E ratio of 4.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.13 and a beta of 1.68.

Gran Tierra Energy (TSE:GTE  Get Free Report) (NYSEMKT:GTE) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The company reported C($0.44) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Gran Tierra Energy had a return on equity of 13.55% and a net margin of 8.12%. The firm had revenue of C$212.11 million for the quarter. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Gran Tierra Energy Inc. will post 1.0858824 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Gran Tierra Energy Company Profile

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Gran Tierra Energy Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the exploration and production of oil and gas properties in Colombia and Ecuador. The company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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Graphic Packaging Holding (NYSE:GPK  Get Free Report) shares reached a new 52-week low on Thursday after Wells Fargo & Company downgraded the stock from an overweight rating to an underweight rating. Wells Fargo & Company now has a $19.00 price target on the stock, down from their previous price target of $26.00. Graphic Packaging traded as low as $20.35 and last traded at $21.05, with a volume of 1142090 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $21.40.

Other equities analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Bank of America downgraded shares of Graphic Packaging from a buy rating to a neutral rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $35.00 to $29.00 in a report on Monday, July 10th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on Graphic Packaging from $26.00 to $24.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Graphic Packaging from $29.00 to $26.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 10th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut shares of Graphic Packaging from a buy rating to a hold rating and decreased their target price for the company from $30.00 to $26.00 in a research report on Thursday, June 29th. Finally, StockNews.com began coverage on Graphic Packaging in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Graphic Packaging has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $28.00.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Graphic Packaging Trading Down 2.1 %

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of GPK. Private Advisor Group LLC purchased a new position in Graphic Packaging in the 1st quarter worth about $519,000. MetLife Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Graphic Packaging during the first quarter valued at approximately $184,000. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Graphic Packaging by 2.6% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 15,105,236 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $302,709,000 after purchasing an additional 377,055 shares during the period. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can grew its stake in Graphic Packaging by 3.2% in the first quarter. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can now owns 25,660 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $547,000 after purchasing an additional 792 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Yousif Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Graphic Packaging by 9.0% during the 1st quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 11,619 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $233,000 after purchasing an additional 955 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 99.67% of the companys stock.

The company has a current ratio of 1.36, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.06. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $22.09 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $23.80. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.31 and a beta of 0.96.

Graphic Packaging (NYSE:GPK  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 1st. The industrial products company reported $0.66 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.73 by ($0.07). The business had revenue of $2.39 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.49 billion. Graphic Packaging had a return on equity of 37.35% and a net margin of 7.30%. The firms revenue was up 1.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.60 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Graphic Packaging Holding will post 2.84 earnings per share for the current year.

Graphic Packaging Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 5th. Investors of record on Friday, September 15th were issued a dividend of $0.10 per share. This represents a $0.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.91%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. Graphic Packagings payout ratio is 17.54%.

About Graphic Packaging

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Graphic Packaging Holding Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides fiber-based packaging solutions to food, beverage, foodservice, and other consumer products companies. It operates through three segments: Paperboard Mills, Americas Paperboard Packaging, and Europe Paperboard Packaging. The company offers coated unbleached kraft (CUK), coated recycled paperboard (CRB), and solid bleached sulfate paperboard (SBS) to various paperboard packaging converters and brokers; and paperboard packaging products, such as folding cartons, cups, lids, and food containers primarily to consumer packaged goods, quick-service restaurants, and foodservice companies; and barrier packaging products that protect against moisture, hot and cold temperature, grease, oil, oxygen, sunlight, insects, and other potential product-damaging factors.

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Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. lifted its stake in shares of American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE:AWK  Free Report) by 28.6% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,601 shares of the utilities providers stock after purchasing an additional 578 shares during the period. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc.s holdings in American Water Works were worth $373,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in American Water Works by 5.1% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 623,854 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $103,268,000 after purchasing an additional 30,316 shares in the last quarter. Aviva PLC boosted its position in American Water Works by 33.1% during the first quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 78,509 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $12,996,000 after acquiring an additional 19,512 shares during the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC boosted its position in American Water Works by 53.1% during the first quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 2,079 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $344,000 after acquiring an additional 721 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in American Water Works by 2.0% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 21,960,717 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $3,635,157,000 after acquiring an additional 434,737 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. raised its holdings in American Water Works by 21.9% in the 1st quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 2,186 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $362,000 after acquiring an additional 392 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.99% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Guggenheim dropped their price target on American Water Works from $147.00 to $126.00 in a research report on Monday, October 9th. Bank of America cut their target price on American Water Works from $140.00 to $139.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 6th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of American Water Works in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a sell rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada restated an outperform rating and set a $169.00 price objective on shares of American Water Works in a research report on Thursday, September 14th. Finally, Mizuho began coverage on shares of American Water Works in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. They issued a buy rating and a $134.00 target price on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $148.00.

American Water Works Trading Up 0.1 %

NYSE AWK traded up $0.06 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $118.20. The company had a trading volume of 669,886 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,049,787. The company has a current ratio of 1.13, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.20. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.06 and a beta of 0.60. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $132.38 and a 200 day moving average of $141.39. American Water Works Company, Inc. has a 1-year low of $115.39 and a 1-year high of $162.59.

American Water Works (NYSE:AWK  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 27th. The utilities provider reported $1.44 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.27 by $0.17. American Water Works had a net margin of 22.08% and a return on equity of 10.31%. The firm had revenue of $1.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.01 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.20 EPS. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 17.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts anticipate that American Water Works Company, Inc. will post 4.8 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

American Water Works Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 8th were paid a $0.7075 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 7th. This represents a $2.83 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.39%. American Water Workss payout ratio is presently 59.08%.

American Water Works Company Profile

(Free Report)

American Water Works Company, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides water and wastewater services in the United States. It offers water and wastewater services to approximately 1,600 communities in 14 states serving approximately 3.4 million active customers. The company serves residential customers; commercial customers, including food and beverage providers, commercial property developers and proprietors, and energy suppliers; fire service and private fire customers; industrial customers, such as large-scale manufacturers, mining, and production operations; public authorities comprising government buildings and other public sector facilities, such as schools and universities; and other utilities and community water and wastewater systems.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE  Get Free Report) updated its FY23 earnings guidance on Thursday. The company provided earnings per share guidance of $2.11-$2.15 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of $2.14. Hewlett Packard Enterprise also updated its FY24 guidance to $1.82-$2.02 EPS.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently commented on HPE. Bank of America upped their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $18.00 to $19.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 30th. Citigroup started coverage on Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a report on Thursday, June 29th. They set a neutral rating and a $18.00 price objective on the stock. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock an underweight rating in a report on Wednesday, August 30th. Credit Suisse Group dropped their price objective on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, August 30th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $21.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, August 30th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $17.33.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise Price Performance

Shares of HPE traded down $0.38 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $16.30. 11,228,329 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 12,245,899. The company has a quick ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.91 billion, a PE ratio of 20.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.22. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a fifty-two week low of $12.74 and a fifty-two week high of $18.14. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $17.12 and a 200 day simple moving average of $16.33.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 29th. The technology company reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $7 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.99 billion. Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a return on equity of 5.32% and a net margin of 3.64%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up .7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.31 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that Hewlett Packard Enterprise will post 1.43 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 14th were given a dividend of $0.12 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, September 13th. This represents a $0.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.94%. Hewlett Packard Enterprises dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 58.54%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP Jeremy Cox sold 21,131 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $17.66, for a total transaction of $373,173.46. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 615 shares in the company, valued at $10,860.90. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other news, CEO Antonio F. Neri sold 434,884 shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $17.48, for a total value of $7,601,772.32. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,370,291 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $23,952,686.68. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, SVP Jeremy Cox sold 21,131 shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $17.66, for a total value of $373,173.46. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 615 shares in the company, valued at $10,860.90. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 799,031 shares of company stock worth $13,970,865. 0.53% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Aspire Private Capital LLC lifted its stake in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 169.2% in the 4th quarter. Aspire Private Capital LLC now owns 1,217 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $19,423,320,000 after purchasing an additional 765 shares in the last quarter. First Manhattan Co. lifted its position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 89.4% during the 1st quarter. First Manhattan Co. now owns 2,413 shares of the technology companys stock worth $40,000 after acquiring an additional 1,139 shares in the last quarter. Pacific Center for Financial Services acquired a new position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise during the 1st quarter worth approximately $44,000. Coppell Advisory Solutions Corp. acquired a new position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise during the 4th quarter worth approximately $59,000. Finally, IFP Advisors Inc lifted its position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 16.0% during the 2nd quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 4,241 shares of the technology companys stock worth $71,000 after acquiring an additional 584 shares in the last quarter. 81.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. It operates in six segments: Compute, HPC & AI, Storage, Intelligent Edge, Financial Services, and Corporate Investments and Other.

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MariaDB (NYSE:MRDB  Get Free Report) and hopTo (OTCMKTS:HPTO  Get Free Report) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares MariaDB and hopTos net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

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Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets MariaDB N/A N/A -50.71% hopTo -2.55% -2.59% -1.70%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares MariaDB and hopTos revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio MariaDB N/A N/A $5.20 million N/A N/A hopTo $3.91 million 1.69 $120,000.00 N/A N/A

Volatility and Risk

MariaDB has higher earnings, but lower revenue than hopTo.

MariaDB has a beta of 0.39, meaning that its stock price is 61% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, hopTo has a beta of 1.16, meaning that its stock price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for MariaDB and hopTo, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score MariaDB 0 0 0 0 N/A hopTo 0 0 0 0 N/A

Institutional and Insider Ownership

24.2% of MariaDB shares are owned by institutional investors. 26.1% of MariaDB shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 46.0% of hopTo shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

About MariaDB

(Get Free Report)

MariaDB plc operates as a cloud database company in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It offers database solutions, including MariaDB Enterprise Server, a premium version of community server; MariaDB Xpand, a distributed structured query language (SQL) database for transactional workloads; MariaDB ColumnStore for data warehousing; MariaDB MaxScale for availability and load balancing; and MariaDB SkySQL, a database-as-a-service for its products on public clouds. The company also provides consulting, training, remote database administration, and engineering architecture services. It serves financial services, government, technology, retail, telecommunications, and transportation industries. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

About hopTo

(Get Free Report)

hopTo Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops and sells application publishing software in the United States, Brazil, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, and internationally. The company's application publishing software includes application virtualization and cloud computing software for a range of computer operating systems, including Windows, UNIX, and various Linux-based variants. It provides its application publishing software solutions under the GO-Global brand name. The company offers GO-Global, an application access solution that provides cross-platform remote access and Web-enabled access to existing software applications, as well as the deployment of secure and private cloud environments for use and/or resale by independent software vendors, corporate enterprises, governmental and educational institutions, and others. Its GO-Global software products comprise GO-Global for Windows that allows access to Windows-based applications from remote locations and Internet connections; GO-Global for UNIX, which allows access to UNIX and Linux-based applications from remote locations, and Internet and connections; and GO-Global Client that allows remote application access from various local, remote, and mobile platforms, including Windows, Linux, UNIX, Apple OS X and iOS, and Google Android. The company sells its products through resellers, such as original equipment manufacturers, system integrators, value-added resellers, and distributors. It serves small to medium-sized companies, departments within large corporations, governmental and educational institutions, and independent software vendors. The company was formerly known as GraphOn Corporation and changed its name to hopTo Inc. in September 2013. hopTo Inc. was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Concord, New Hampshire.

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Howard Wealth Management LLC trimmed its position in Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF (NYSEARCA:PCY  Free Report) by 15.0% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 12,624 shares of the companys stock after selling 2,225 shares during the period. Howard Wealth Management LLCs holdings in Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF were worth $246,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. LPL Financial LLC raised its holdings in Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF by 14.8% in the second quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 532,743 shares of the companys stock worth $10,383,000 after buying an additional 68,816 shares during the last quarter. Ausdal Financial Partners Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF by 9.6% during the second quarter. Ausdal Financial Partners Inc. now owns 11,592 shares of the companys stock valued at $226,000 after purchasing an additional 1,014 shares in the last quarter. Mutual Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF during the second quarter valued at $204,000. BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF by 5.7% during the second quarter. BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc. now owns 11,312 shares of the companys stock valued at $223,000 after buying an additional 615 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sharper & Granite LLC increased its holdings in Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF by 3.9% in the 2nd quarter. Sharper & Granite LLC now owns 76,785 shares of the companys stock worth $1,497,000 after buying an additional 2,893 shares in the last quarter.

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Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF Price Performance

PCY traded down $0.07 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $17.53. 380,715 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 903,583. The companys 50-day moving average is $18.65 and its 200 day moving average is $19.02. Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF has a 52 week low of $16.20 and a 52 week high of $20.31.

Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF Company Profile

The Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF (PCY) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in broad credit fixed income. The fund tracks a tier-weighted index of US-dollar-denominated sovereign debt in emerging markets with at least 3 years to maturity. PCY was launched on Oct 11, 2007 and is managed by Invesco.

Further Reading

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PCY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF (NYSEARCA:PCY  Free Report).

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Howard Wealth Management LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF (BATS:FLOT  Free Report) by 24.6% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 7,583 shares of the companys stock after selling 2,475 shares during the period. Howard Wealth Management LLCs holdings in iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF were worth $385,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in FLOT. Jane Street Group LLC increased its position in shares of iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF by 17,845.3% during the first quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 13,189,239 shares of the companys stock worth $664,606,000 after purchasing an additional 13,115,742 shares in the last quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich lifted its position in shares of iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF by 98,060.3% during the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 7,484,721 shares of the companys stock valued at $380,224,000 after acquiring an additional 7,477,096 shares during the period. Providence Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF during the 1st quarter worth approximately $39,542,000. Assetmark Inc. increased its stake in iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF by 515.9% in the 1st quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 1,220,994 shares of the companys stock valued at $61,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,022,762 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp acquired a new position in iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF during the second quarter worth $488,000.

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iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF Stock Performance

BATS:FLOT remained flat at $50.73 during mid-day trading on Thursday. 918,661 shares of the companys stock traded hands. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $50.75 and a 200 day simple moving average of $50.64. iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF has a 52-week low of $50.76 and a 52-week high of $51.10.

iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF Increases Dividend

About iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF

The company also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 6th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, October 3rd were issued a $0.247 dividend. This is a positive change from iShares Floating Rate Bond ETFs previous dividend of $0.23. The ex-dividend date was Monday, October 2nd.

(Free Report)

The iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF (FLOT) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in investment grade fixed income. The fund tracks a market value-weighted index of USD-denominated, investment-grade floating rate notes with maturities of 0-5 years. FLOT was launched on Jun 14, 2011 and is managed by BlackRock.

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Whats cooler than a spacecraft that can collect samples of mysterious asteroids? When it comes to things made in Colorado, not much.

Thats according to the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, which on Thursday announced the 2023 winner of its annual Coolest Thing Made in Colorado contest is Lockheed Martin Space.

The contest collects nominations from across the state and aims to spotlight Colorados manufacturing industry. Products must be made in Colorado through a manufacturing process to qualify. Lockheed edged out nine other finalists for the win and was chosen by an independent panel of judges.

The company developed and constructed the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which was recently used by NASA to collect samples from the asteroid Bennu. OSIRIS-Rex stands for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer.

To do something that no one has ever done before in our history has been an incredible experience, systems engineer Sierra Gonzales said in a video announcing Lockheed as winners.

The spacecraft launched in 2016 and surveyed the asteroid while in orbit for two years. OSIRIS-Rex made waves in September when it successfully collected a sample from the asteroid and brought it back earthside. The retrieval was significant because it was the first time a U.S. mission has collected an asteroid sample. Scientists hope it can provide revelations about the origins of life on Earth and the formation of the solar system.

Lockheed wasnt the only winner. This years runner-up was Ocutrx Vision Technologies, Inc., which created the OcuLenz. The product is a headset created specifically for people with advanced macular degeneration. The headset relies on a software that analyzes a persons eyesight and then adjusts a visual of the world around them that is tailored to their individual vision needs.

Patients have been able to read within just a few minutes after not having been able to read for 11 or more years, CEO Michael Freeman said in a video.

The Peoples Choice Award, which is decided through online voting as opposed to the independent panel, went to DNA Vibe, LLC for its DNA Vibe Jazz Band Live. The product helps physical injuries heal faster.

Whats made here changes the world, and were so proud to honor Lockheed Martins OSIRIS-Rex mission as our 2023 winner. I also want to recognize all of our finalists this year  together, they represent the innovation, diversity, and drive of our manufacturing industry, Colorado Chamber CEO Loren Furman said in a news release.
International Personal Finance plc (LON:IPF  Get Free Report)s stock price crossed above its two hundred day moving average during trading on Tuesday . The stock has a two hundred day moving average of GBX 114.45 ($1.40) and traded as high as GBX 126.85 ($1.55). International Personal Finance shares last traded at GBX 126.50 ($1.55), with a volume of 37,682 shares traded.

International Personal Finance Price Performance

The company has a 50 day moving average price of GBX 123.77 and a 200 day moving average price of GBX 114.56. The firm has a market cap of 280.37 million, a PE ratio of 671.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.32 and a beta of 1.43. The company has a current ratio of 3.24, a quick ratio of 3.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 117.61.

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International Personal Finance Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 29th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 31st were issued a dividend of GBX 3.10 ($0.04) per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 31st. This represents a yield of 2.67%. International Personal Finances dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 5,263.16%.

Insider Buying and Selling at International Personal Finance

International Personal Finance Company Profile

In other International Personal Finance news, insider Deborah Davis bought 15,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 13th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of GBX 123 ($1.50) per share, for a total transaction of 18,450 ($22,535.73). 8.52% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

(Get Free Report)

International Personal Finance plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides consumer credit in Europe and Mexico. The company offers credit products, such as online payment transaction; revolving credit line; microbusiness loans; digital installment loans; credit card; hybrid loans; and home credit installment loans, as well as medical and life insurances.

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Confluence Wealth Services Inc. raised its position in shares of iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF (NYSEARCA:IWO  Free Report) by 13.3% in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,264 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after buying an additional 500 shares during the quarter. Confluence Wealth Services Inc.s holdings in iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF were worth $1,035,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. ICA Group Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF by 200.0% in the 1st quarter. ICA Group Wealth Management LLC now owns 150 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. Gleason Group Inc. purchased a new position in shares of iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF in the second quarter worth $37,000. RE Dickinson Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF by 204.7% during the 1st quarter. RE Dickinson Investment Advisors LLC now owns 195 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $44,000 after purchasing an additional 131 shares during the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI increased its stake in iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF by 30.3% in the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 215 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $49,000 after buying an additional 50 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Guardian Wealth Advisors LLC NC boosted its position in shares of iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF by 707.4% during the 1st quarter. Guardian Wealth Advisors LLC NC now owns 218 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $49,000 after acquiring an additional 191 shares during the last quarter.

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iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF Price Performance

NYSEARCA IWO traded down $1.09 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $215.32. 95,803 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 449,640. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $229.99 and its 200-day simple moving average is $233.00. The company has a market cap of $8.97 billion, a PE ratio of 17.55 and a beta of 1.15. iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF has a 52 week low of $207.82 and a 52 week high of $255.10.

iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF Profile

iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF (the Fund) is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the Russell 2000 Growth Index (the Index). The Index measures the performance of the small-capitalization growth sector of the United States equity market.

Further Reading

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding IWO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF (NYSEARCA:IWO  Free Report).

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JPMorgan Brazil Investment Trust (LON:JPB  Get Free Report)s stock price crossed below its 50 day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a 50 day moving average of GBX 66.50 ($0.81) and traded as low as GBX 66.50 ($0.81). JPMorgan Brazil Investment Trust shares last traded at GBX 66.50 ($0.81), with a volume of 31,267 shares trading hands.

JPMorgan Brazil Investment Trust Trading Down 0.4 %

The companys fifty day simple moving average is GBX 66.50 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is GBX 66.50.

JPMorgan Brazil Investment Trust Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

JPMorgan Brazil Investment Trust plc is a close-ended equity mutual fund launched and managed by JPMorgan Funds Limited. It invests in the public equity markets of Brazil. The fund seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating across diversified sectors. It invests in stocks of companies across all market capitalizations.

Further Reading

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Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS  Get Free Report)s stock price gapped up prior to trading on Thursday after Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on the stock from $69.00 to $70.00. The stock had previously closed at $44.60, but opened at $46.13. Stifel Nicolaus currently has a buy rating on the stock. Las Vegas Sands shares last traded at $46.28, with a volume of 1,657,016 shares traded.

LVS has been the subject of several other research reports. Barclays decreased their price target on Las Vegas Sands from $70.00 to $69.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 20th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Las Vegas Sands from $68.00 to $64.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Friday, October 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on shares of Las Vegas Sands from $71.00 to $64.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 26th. Argus decreased their price objective on shares of Las Vegas Sands from $72.00 to $68.00 in a report on Friday, July 21st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on shares of Las Vegas Sands from $71.00 to $69.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 20th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Las Vegas Sands presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $69.12.

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Institutional Investors Weigh In On Las Vegas Sands

Las Vegas Sands Trading Up 2.8 %

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Spire Wealth Management lifted its position in shares of Las Vegas Sands by 197.4% in the 2nd quarter. Spire Wealth Management now owns 452 shares of the casino operators stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares during the period. ZRC Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Las Vegas Sands in the first quarter valued at $29,000. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new position in Las Vegas Sands in the second quarter worth $29,000. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC boosted its stake in Las Vegas Sands by 434.7% during the second quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC now owns 524 shares of the casino operators stock worth $30,000 after buying an additional 426 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Group LLC bought a new stake in Las Vegas Sands in the 4th quarter valued at $31,000. 39.16% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.57, a quick ratio of 2.75 and a current ratio of 2.76. The businesss 50 day moving average price is $49.63 and its 200-day moving average price is $55.58. The company has a market cap of $35.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 653.86, a PEG ratio of 4.98 and a beta of 1.22.

Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 18th. The casino operator reported $0.55 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.55. The firm had revenue of $2.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.72 billion. Las Vegas Sands had a net margin of 0.75% and a return on equity of 5.73%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 178.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted ($0.27) earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Las Vegas Sands Corp. will post 1.87 EPS for the current year.

About Las Vegas Sands

(Get Free Report)

Las Vegas Sands Corp., together with its subsidiaries, develops, owns, and operates integrated resorts in Macao and Singapore. It owns and operates The Venetian Macao Resort Hotel, the Londoner Macao, The Parisian Macao, The Plaza Macao and Four Seasons Hotel Macao, Cotai Strip, and the Sands Macao in Macao, the People's Republic of China; and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

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Fort Sheridan Advisors LLC raised its stake in Lear Co. (NYSE:LEA  Free Report) by 3.5% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,864 shares of the auto parts companys stock after purchasing an additional 166 shares during the quarter. Fort Sheridan Advisors LLCs holdings in Lear were worth $698,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Lear by 4.0% during the 1st quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 10,192 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $1,454,000 after acquiring an additional 390 shares in the last quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Lear in the 1st quarter worth about $657,000. Bank of Montreal Can grew its position in shares of Lear by 81.0% during the 1st quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 19,834 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $2,890,000 after buying an additional 8,878 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Trust N.A. grew its position in shares of Lear by 47.8% during the 1st quarter. Raymond James Trust N.A. now owns 1,948 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $277,000 after buying an additional 630 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Aviva PLC grew its position in shares of Lear by 62.8% during the 1st quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 39,256 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $5,598,000 after buying an additional 15,137 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.04% of the companys stock.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Frank C. Orsini sold 12,332 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.40, for a total transaction of $1,916,392.80. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 7,809 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,213,518.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CFO Jason M. Cardew sold 2,750 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $151.57, for a total value of $416,817.50. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 13,493 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,045,134.01. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Frank C. Orsini sold 12,332 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.40, for a total transaction of $1,916,392.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 7,809 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,213,518.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 25,392 shares of company stock worth $3,931,260 in the last quarter. 0.75% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Argus boosted their target price on shares of Lear from $150.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 2nd. Citigroup cut their price target on shares of Lear from $158.00 to $152.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 11th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on shares of Lear from $164.00 to $142.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. UBS Group dropped their price objective on shares of Lear from $150.00 to $145.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, October 10th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Lear from $169.00 to $179.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, July 20th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $159.55.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on LEA

Lear Price Performance

Shares of LEA stock traded down $1.23 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $131.00. The companys stock had a trading volume of 148,530 shares, compared to its average volume of 580,062. Lear Co. has a 1-year low of $117.79 and a 1-year high of $157.90. The company has a market cap of $7.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.05, a PEG ratio of 0.35 and a beta of 1.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a current ratio of 1.36. The firms 50-day moving average is $138.74 and its two-hundred day moving average is $138.05.

Lear (NYSE:LEA  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 1st. The auto parts company reported $3.33 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $3.21 by $0.12. Lear had a net margin of 2.32% and a return on equity of 13.84%. The company had revenue of $6 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $5.89 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.79 EPS. The businesss revenue was up 18.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts predict that Lear Co. will post 11.83 earnings per share for the current year.

Lear Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 19th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 31st were given a dividend of $0.77 per share. This represents a $3.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.35%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, August 30th. Lears dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 35.16%.

About Lear

(Free Report)

Lear Corporation designs, develops, engineers, manufactures, assembles, and supplies automotive seating, and electrical distribution systems and related components for automotive original equipment manufacturers in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. Its Seating segment offers seat systems, seat subsystems, keyseat components, seat trim covers, seat mechanisms, seat foams, and headrests, as well as surface materials, such as leather and fabric for automobiles and light trucks, compact cars, pick-up trucks, and sport utility vehicles.

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Nevsun Resources (TSE:NSU  Get Free Report) (NYSEAMERICAN:NSU) shares passed above its two hundred day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a two hundred day moving average of C$0.00 and traded as high as C$6.00. Nevsun Resources shares last traded at C$6.00, with a volume of 12,608 shares trading hands.

Nevsun Resources Stock Performance

The businesss 50 day moving average price is C$6.00. The company has a market cap of C$1.82 billion and a P/E ratio of -50.00.

Nevsun Resources Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Nevsun Resources Ltd. engages in the mining and development of mineral properties in Europe, Africa, and North America. It explores for gold, copper, zinc, and silver deposits. The company's principal assets include Timok project, a copper-gold development project in Serbia; and Bisha copper- zinc mine in Eritrea.

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Ninepoint Partners LP bought a new stake in shares of The Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD  Free Report) (TSE:TD) during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 10,167 shares of the banks stock, valued at approximately $320,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC raised its stake in Toronto-Dominion Bank by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC now owns 60,867 shares of the banks stock worth $3,774,000 after buying an additional 670 shares during the period. LPL Financial LLC raised its stake in Toronto-Dominion Bank by 17.1% during the 2nd quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 208,401 shares of the banks stock worth $12,923,000 after buying an additional 30,486 shares during the period. Brown Advisory Inc. raised its stake in Toronto-Dominion Bank by 11.1% during the 2nd quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 8,539 shares of the banks stock worth $530,000 after buying an additional 853 shares during the period. Valley National Advisers Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank by 6.4% in the second quarter. Valley National Advisers Inc. now owns 19,418 shares of the banks stock valued at $1,205,000 after buying an additional 1,175 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tobam lifted its stake in shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank by 2.5% in the second quarter. Tobam now owns 45,453 shares of the banks stock valued at $2,820,000 after buying an additional 1,091 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 51.52% of the companys stock.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have weighed in on TD shares. Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from $84.00 to $82.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 25th. StockNews.com began coverage on Toronto-Dominion Bank in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a sell rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their target price on Toronto-Dominion Bank from $96.00 to $94.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 25th. Finally, Credit Suisse Group dropped their price target on shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from $93.00 to $92.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 25th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Toronto-Dominion Bank has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $97.71.

Toronto-Dominion Bank Stock Performance

TD stock traded up $0.15 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $58.77. The company had a trading volume of 260,763 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,364,933. The firm has a market cap of $105.91 billion, a PE ratio of 10.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.02 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a current ratio of 1.00. The Toronto-Dominion Bank has a 12 month low of $55.43 and a 12 month high of $70.67. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $60.58 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $61.01.

Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD  Get Free Report) (TSE:TD) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 24th. The bank reported $1.48 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.52 by ($0.04). The company had revenue of $9.51 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9 billion. Toronto-Dominion Bank had a return on equity of 15.17% and a net margin of 15.25%. On average, analysts forecast that The Toronto-Dominion Bank will post 6.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toronto-Dominion Bank Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 6th will be issued a dividend of $0.725 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 5th. This is an increase from Toronto-Dominion Banks previous quarterly dividend of $0.71. This represents a $2.90 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.93%. Toronto-Dominion Banks dividend payout ratio is 49.05%.

About Toronto-Dominion Bank

(Free Report)

The Toronto-Dominion Bank, together with its subsidiaries, provides various financial products and services in Canada, the United States, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Canadian Retail, U.S. Retail, and Wholesale Banking. The company offers personal deposits, such as chequing, savings, and investment products; financing, investment, cash management, international trade, and day-to-day banking services to businesses; and financing options to customers at point of sale for automotive and recreational vehicle purchases.

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Pan African Resources PLC (LON:PAF  Get Free Report) passed below its 200-day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a 200-day moving average of GBX 14.96 ($0.18) and traded as low as GBX 14.94 ($0.18). Pan African Resources shares last traded at GBX 15.74 ($0.19), with a volume of 2,471,824 shares.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Berenberg Bank reissued a buy rating and set a GBX 25 ($0.31) target price on shares of Pan African Resources in a research note on Wednesday, September 13th.

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Pan African Resources Stock Performance

Pan African Resources Cuts Dividend

The firm has a market capitalization of 309.50 million, a P/E ratio of 534.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.95 and a beta of 0.79. The companys 50 day moving average is GBX 14.24 and its 200-day moving average is GBX 14.95. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 19.29.

The firm also recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 30th will be paid a GBX 0.75 ($0.01) dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 5.35%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 30th. Pan African Resourcess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 3,333.33%.

Pan African Resources Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Pan African Resources PLC engages in the mining, extraction, production, and sale of gold in South Africa. The company's flagship projects include the Barberton Mines that consists of three underground mines, including Fairview, Sheba, and Consort located in the Barberton Greenstone Belt; and Elikhulu tailings retreatment plant in Southern Africa.

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Renasant Bank trimmed its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN  Free Report) by 12.3% during the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 1,885 shares of the information technology services providers stock after selling 264 shares during the quarter. Renasant Banks holdings in Accenture were worth $582,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. First National Bank of Hutchinson boosted its holdings in Accenture by 2.9% in the second quarter. First National Bank of Hutchinson now owns 1,132 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $349,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares in the last quarter. Aries Wealth Management boosted its holdings in Accenture by 0.8% in the second quarter. Aries Wealth Management now owns 4,288 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $1,323,000 after acquiring an additional 33 shares in the last quarter. Mitchell Sinkler & Starr PA boosted its holdings in Accenture by 0.6% in the second quarter. Mitchell Sinkler & Starr PA now owns 5,172 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $1,596,000 after acquiring an additional 33 shares in the last quarter. Cadence Bank boosted its holdings in Accenture by 0.7% in the first quarter. Cadence Bank now owns 4,999 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $1,686,000 after acquiring an additional 36 shares in the last quarter. Finally, jvl associates llc lifted its position in Accenture by 1.0% during the second quarter. jvl associates llc now owns 3,682 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $1,136,000 after buying an additional 36 shares during the period. 70.42% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the subject of several recent research reports. Citigroup reissued a buy rating and set a $358.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Monday, September 18th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $340.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 29th. Robert W. Baird lowered their price objective on Accenture from $332.00 to $322.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 29th. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Friday, September 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Accenture from $314.00 to $341.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 22nd. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $333.24.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, October 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $302.04, for a total transaction of $1,887,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 161,622 shares in the company, valued at approximately $48,816,308.88. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other Accenture news, CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, October 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $302.04, for a total transaction of $1,887,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 161,622 shares in the company, valued at approximately $48,816,308.88. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,250 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $315.00, for a total value of $1,653,750.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 21,958 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,916,770. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 21,500 shares of company stock valued at $6,720,260. 0.08% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Trading Down 0.0 %

NYSE:ACN traded down $0.04 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $303.73. The companys stock had a trading volume of 704,150 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,275,699. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $242.80 and a 12-month high of $330.43. The firms fifty day moving average price is $313.80 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $303.62. The stock has a market cap of $201.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.20, a PEG ratio of 2.68 and a beta of 1.22.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, September 28th. The information technology services provider reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $2.65 by $0.06. Accenture had a return on equity of 29.74% and a net margin of 10.72%. The business had revenue of $15.99 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.07 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.60 EPS. Accentures revenue was up 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.1 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 12th will be given a $1.29 dividend. This is a positive change from Accentures previous quarterly dividend of $1.12. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, October 11th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. Accentures payout ratio is 47.91%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Thursday, September 28th that permits the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the information technology services provider to purchase up to 2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally a sign that the companys board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Accenture Profile

(Free Report)

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.

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Renasant Bank lowered its stake in shares of AvalonBay Communities, Inc. (NYSE:AVB  Free Report) by 12.7% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 1,547 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after selling 225 shares during the quarter. Renasant Banks holdings in AvalonBay Communities were worth $293,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. BOS Asset Management LLC grew its position in AvalonBay Communities by 4.6% during the first quarter. BOS Asset Management LLC now owns 1,346 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $226,000 after buying an additional 59 shares during the period. Advisor Resource Council grew its position in AvalonBay Communities by 5.0% during the second quarter. Advisor Resource Council now owns 1,250 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $237,000 after buying an additional 60 shares during the period. Carmel Capital Partners LLC grew its position in AvalonBay Communities by 7.1% during the second quarter. Carmel Capital Partners LLC now owns 941 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $178,000 after buying an additional 62 shares during the period. Kentucky Retirement Systems lifted its holdings in AvalonBay Communities by 0.6% during the first quarter. Kentucky Retirement Systems now owns 11,061 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $1,859,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS lifted its holdings in shares of AvalonBay Communities by 0.3% in the first quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 23,716 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $3,986,000 after buying an additional 69 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 88.71% of the companys stock.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Joanne M. Lockridge sold 3,331 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, August 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $186.25, for a total value of $620,398.75. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 21,558 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,015,177.50. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.42% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Evercore ISI lowered their price target on shares of AvalonBay Communities from $202.00 to $192.00 in a report on Monday, October 9th. Barclays lowered their price target on shares of AvalonBay Communities from $195.00 to $194.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 22nd. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of AvalonBay Communities in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. KeyCorp increased their price target on shares of AvalonBay Communities from $193.00 to $205.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 12th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of AvalonBay Communities from $188.00 to $201.00 and gave the stock an underweight rating in a research report on Monday, August 21st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $195.44.

Get Our Latest Report on AVB

AvalonBay Communities Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of AvalonBay Communities stock traded down $0.60 on Thursday, hitting $174.85. The stock had a trading volume of 239,780 shares, compared to its average volume of 747,887. The company has a quick ratio of 2.49, a current ratio of 2.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. AvalonBay Communities, Inc. has a one year low of $153.07 and a one year high of $198.65. The stock has a market cap of $24.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.74, a PEG ratio of 2.86 and a beta of 0.93. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $178.52 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $180.95.

AvalonBay Communities (NYSE:AVB  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The real estate investment trust reported $2.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.60 by ($0.01). AvalonBay Communities had a return on equity of 11.01% and a net margin of 46.32%. The firm had revenue of $690.86 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $675.67 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.43 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that AvalonBay Communities, Inc. will post 10.59 EPS for the current year.

AvalonBay Communities Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, October 16th. Investors of record on Friday, September 29th were paid a $1.65 dividend. This represents a $6.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 28th. AvalonBay Communitiess payout ratio is 74.24%.

About AvalonBay Communities

(Free Report)

As of June 30, 2023, the Company owned or held a direct or indirect ownership interest in 294 apartment communities containing 88,659 apartment homes in 12 states and the District of Columbia, of which 18 communities were under development and one community was under redevelopment. The Company is an equity REIT in the business of developing, redeveloping, acquiring and managing apartment communities in leading metropolitan areas in New England, the New York/New Jersey Metro area, the Mid-Atlantic, the Pacific Northwest, and Northern and Southern California, as well as in the Company's expansion regions of Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte, North Carolina, Southeast Florida, Dallas and Austin, Texas, and Denver, Colorado.

Further Reading

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According to a recent study by RentCafe Storage, Denver has secured a spot in the top 5 best cities across the nation for geek culture.

By analyzing 27 different metrics including interest in geek and popular culture based on online searches, career opportunities in 'geeky' fields (tech, science, finance, media, film, gaming), highest earnings in 'geeky' fields and number of geek-related stores and events.

Denver comes in at No. 5 in large part to Star Wars fandom. Google Trends data puts interest at a high 74 points out of 100 for Star Wars-related searches for Denver, according to RentCafe Storage. The popular interest in "Game of Thrones" also boosted the Colorado capital's standing.

Other factors that placed Denver in the fifth spot include a good job market for careers in tech and media with decent earnings, a high volume of online searches for bookstores, and the number of comic con events held in the Mile High city.

Following Denver, Austin comes in at No. 4. With tremendous growth in tech career earnings as well as popular video game stores like "I Luv Video," the Texas capital shapes up to be pretty geeky.

In third is Salt Lake City, largely due to its gaming culture. According to RentCafe Storage, about 4.6% of the local workforce is employed in gaming. Salt Lake City residents also tend to be big fans of "Stranger Things," "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter."

The second geekiest city proves to be Seattle, where there is a high concentration of gaming developer companies. The Emerald City is home to what has been said is the oldest comic bookstore in the world as well as the Museum of Pop Culture.

Coming in at No. 1 overall is Orlando. With their theme parks; high amount of gaming, finance and media jobs; and comic book fandom, this Florida city comes on top for geekiness.
Safestay plc (LON:SSTY  Get Free Report) shares passed above its 50-day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a 50-day moving average of GBX 24.43 ($0.30) and traded as high as GBX 25 ($0.31). Safestay shares last traded at GBX 25 ($0.31), with a volume of 60,867 shares trading hands.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Liberum Capital reissued a buy rating and set a GBX 40 ($0.49) price objective on shares of Safestay in a research report on Tuesday, September 26th.

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Safestay Stock Performance

About Safestay

The company has a quick ratio of 1.27, a current ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 201.66. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of GBX 24.44 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of GBX 25.39. The firm has a market cap of 15.59 million, a PE ratio of -2,400.00 and a beta of 1.50.

(Get Free Report)

Safestay plc operates and develops traveller accommodation under the Safestay brand in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and rest of Europe. The company provides overnight hostel accommodation services and owns properties, as well as owns and operates hotels. It also provides ancillary goods and services, such as food and beverage, and merchandise.

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM  Get Free Report) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Thursday. Stock investors bought 77,551 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 27% compared to the typical volume of 60,927 call options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on TSM. Needham & Company LLC lowered their price target on shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing from $118.00 to $115.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 21st. StockNews.com cut Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Thursday, October 12th. Finally, Susquehanna cut their price target on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing from $135.00 to $130.00 in a research note on Monday, October 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $106.67.

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Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on TSM

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Trading Up 4.6 %

Shares of NYSE:TSM traded up $4.09 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $93.69. 9,028,016 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 11,026,027. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a quick ratio of 2.13 and a current ratio of 2.42. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing has a twelve month low of $59.43 and a twelve month high of $110.69. The firm has a market capitalization of $485.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.57, a PEG ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 1.07. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $90.40 and its 200-day moving average price is $93.60.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results 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. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing had a return on equity of 32.08% and a net margin of 43.31%. The business had revenue of $15.68 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.52 billion. On average, research analysts predict that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing will post 4.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Cuts Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 11th. Investors of record on Friday, December 15th will be paid a $0.4724 dividend. This represents a $1.89 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.02%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 14th. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturings dividend payout ratio is currently 24.26%.

Institutional Trading of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Nemes Rush Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing in the 2nd quarter valued at $26,000. Baystate Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 1,333.3% during the second quarter. Baystate Wealth Management LLC now owns 258 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 240 shares during the last quarter. Carolinas Wealth Consulting LLC lifted its holdings in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 334.8% in the second quarter. Carolinas Wealth Consulting LLC now owns 287 shares of the semiconductor companys stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 221 shares during the period. PCA Investment Advisory Services Inc. bought a new stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing during the second quarter valued at $29,000. Finally, Armstrong Advisory Group Inc. acquired a new stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing during the 2nd quarter worth about $31,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 16.51% of the companys stock.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

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.

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Tevis Investment Management grew its holdings in Equity Commonwealth (NYSE:EQC  Free Report) by 2.2% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 73,036 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after buying an additional 1,593 shares during the period. Equity Commonwealth makes up 1.4% of Tevis Investment Managements portfolio, making the stock its 22nd largest holding. Tevis Investment Management owned approximately 0.07% of Equity Commonwealth worth $1,480,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Castleview Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Equity Commonwealth by 18.2% in the 1st quarter. Castleview Partners LLC now owns 3,392 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $70,000 after acquiring an additional 522 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Equity Commonwealth by 1.7% in the 2nd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 33,384 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $676,000 after acquiring an additional 549 shares during the last quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Equity Commonwealth by 30.3% in the 1st quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 2,483 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $51,000 after acquiring an additional 577 shares during the last quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. lifted its holdings in shares of Equity Commonwealth by 36.5% in the 4th quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 2,404 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $59,000 after acquiring an additional 643 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Synovus Financial Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Equity Commonwealth by 3.2% in the 1st quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 23,458 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $486,000 after acquiring an additional 736 shares during the last quarter. 95.20% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Insider Activity at Equity Commonwealth

In related news, EVP Orrin S. Shifrin sold 50,000 shares of Equity Commonwealth stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.26, for a total transaction of $963,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 158,466 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,052,055.16. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 2.80% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Equity Commonwealth in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company.

View Our Latest Report on Equity Commonwealth

Equity Commonwealth Stock Down 0.2 %

EQC traded down $0.04 on Thursday, reaching $18.49. 202,841 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,042,616. Equity Commonwealth has a one year low of $18.09 and a one year high of $27.39. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $18.79 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $19.92. The company has a market cap of $2.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 0.30.

Equity Commonwealth Profile

(Free Report)

Equity Commonwealth (NYSE: EQC) is a Chicago based, internally managed and self-advised real estate investment trust (REIT) with commercial office properties in the United States. EQC's portfolio is comprised of four properties totaling 1.5 million square feet.

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Fort Sheridan Advisors LLC raised its stake in Texas Pacific Land Co. (NYSE:TPL  Free Report) by 133.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 565 shares of the financial services providers stock after buying an additional 323 shares during the period. Fort Sheridan Advisors LLCs holdings in Texas Pacific Land were worth $744,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of TPL. Kalos Management Inc. purchased a new position in Texas Pacific Land during the 1st quarter worth approximately $26,000. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S grew its position in Texas Pacific Land by 250.0% during the 1st quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 21 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 15 shares in the last quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC purchased a new position in Texas Pacific Land during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $41,000. CVA Family Office LLC purchased a new position in Texas Pacific Land during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $42,000. Finally, Point72 Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in Texas Pacific Land during the 4th quarter worth approximately $42,000. Institutional investors own 60.40% of the companys stock.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have weighed in on TPL shares. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on shares of Texas Pacific Land from $1,371.00 to $1,622.00 in a research report on Friday, August 11th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Texas Pacific Land in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock.

Texas Pacific Land Stock Down 0.5 %

Shares of Texas Pacific Land stock traded down $8.98 on Thursday, hitting $1,969.34. 21,033 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 37,312. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $1,853.57 and a 200 day moving average price of $1,594.51. Texas Pacific Land Co. has a 12-month low of $1,266.21 and a 12-month high of $2,739.00. The company has a market cap of $15.12 billion, a PE ratio of 36.60 and a beta of 1.76.

Texas Pacific Land (NYSE:TPL  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 2nd. The financial services provider reported $13.05 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $11.11 by $1.94. The business had revenue of $160.61 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $143.24 million. Texas Pacific Land had a net margin of 64.00% and a return on equity of 51.89%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Texas Pacific Land Co. will post 51.87 EPS for the current year.

Texas Pacific Land Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 15th. Investors of record on Friday, September 1st were issued a $3.25 dividend. This represents a $13.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 31st. Texas Pacific Lands dividend payout ratio is presently 24.05%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, VP Micheal W. Dobbs sold 100 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Friday, September 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $1,851.77, for a total value of $185,177.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 268 shares in the company, valued at $496,274.36. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Over the last three months, insiders acquired 104 shares of company stock worth $184,726. Corporate insiders own 6.60% of the companys stock.

Texas Pacific Land Company Profile

(Free Report)

Texas Pacific Land Corporation engages in the land and resource management, and water services and operations businesses. The company's Land and Resource Management segment manages surface acres of land. This segment also holds own a 1/128th nonparticipating perpetual oil and gas royalty interest (NPRI) under approximately 85,000 acres of land; a 1/16th NPRI under approximately 371,000 acres of land; and approximately 4,000 additional net royalty acres located in the western part of Texas.

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The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS  Get Free Report) posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday. The investment management company reported $5.47 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.42 by $0.05, MarketWatch Earnings reports. The company had revenue of $11.82 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.15 billion. The Goldman Sachs Group had a net margin of 7.77% and a return on equity of 7.19%. The firms revenue was down 1.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $8.25 EPS.

The Goldman Sachs Group Price Performance

NYSE:GS opened at $303.04 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.91, a current ratio of 1.13 and a quick ratio of 0.81. The firm has a market cap of $99.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 1.38. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $324.39 and a 200-day moving average price of $329.51. The Goldman Sachs Group has a 1-year low of $301.48 and a 1-year high of $389.58.

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The Goldman Sachs Group Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 28th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 30th will be issued a dividend of $2.75 per share. This represents a $11.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.63%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 29th. The Goldman Sachs Groups dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 53.24%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

GS has been the topic of a number of research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from $415.00 to $398.00 in a research report on Friday, July 7th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from $407.00 to $411.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, July 20th. Societe Generale downgraded shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Monday, July 10th. Atlantic Securities raised shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from an underweight rating to a neutral rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $330.00 to $351.00 in a research report on Tuesday, August 1st. Finally, Credit Suisse Group reaffirmed an outperform rating and issued a $410.00 price objective on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group in a research report on Thursday, July 20th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $392.60.

Read Our Latest Report on The Goldman Sachs Group

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO David M. Solomon sold 4,200 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $356.28, for a total transaction of $1,496,376.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 124,782 shares of the companys stock, valued at $44,457,330.96. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Insiders own 0.54% of the companys stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Fairfield Bush & CO. acquired a new stake in The Goldman Sachs Group in the first quarter valued at approximately $66,000. Candriam Luxembourg S.C.A. boosted its position in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group by 1,505.1% during the 1st quarter. Candriam Luxembourg S.C.A. now owns 41,300 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $13,633,000 after purchasing an additional 38,727 shares in the last quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group by 18.5% during the 1st quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 118,609 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $39,153,000 after purchasing an additional 18,540 shares in the last quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. raised its stake in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group by 79.4% during the 1st quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. now owns 827 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $273,000 after buying an additional 366 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Covestor Ltd raised its stake in The Goldman Sachs Group by 118.3% in the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 310 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $102,000 after purchasing an additional 168 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.06% of the companys stock.

The Goldman Sachs Group Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, a financial institution, provides a range of financial services for corporations, financial institutions, governments, and individuals worldwide. It operates through Global Banking & Markets, Asset & Wealth Management, and Platform Solutions segments. The Global Banking & Markets segment provides financial advisory services, including strategic advisory assignments related to mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense activities, restructurings, and spin-offs; and relationship lending, and acquisition financing, as well as secured lending, through structured credit and asset-backed lending and involved in resale agreements.

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Todd Asset Management LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Robert Half Inc. (NYSE:RHI  Free Report) by 2.9% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 257,641 shares of the business services providers stock after selling 7,732 shares during the quarter. Todd Asset Management LLC owned 0.24% of Robert Half worth $19,380,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich grew its stake in Robert Half by 107,547.9% during the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 56,186,845 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $4,226,375,000 after purchasing an additional 56,134,650 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Robert Half by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,674,644 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $1,561,370,000 after purchasing an additional 42,681 shares during the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC grew its stake in Robert Half by 116,277.2% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 7,941,582 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $586,327,000 after purchasing an additional 7,934,758 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors purchased a new stake in Robert Half during the 1st quarter valued at about $636,060,000. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. grew its stake in Robert Half by 46.5% during the 4th quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 2,808,208 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $207,330,000 after purchasing an additional 891,202 shares during the last quarter. 91.63% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Robert Half Price Performance

NYSE RHI traded down $0.13 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $75.42. The companys stock had a trading volume of 271,429 shares, compared to its average volume of 953,912. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.99 and a beta of 1.30. Robert Half Inc. has a 1-year low of $64.65 and a 1-year high of $89.78. The companys 50-day moving average is $74.49 and its two-hundred day moving average is $73.77.

Robert Half Announces Dividend

Robert Half ( NYSE:RHI Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 25th. The business services provider reported $1.00 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.13 by ($0.13). The business had revenue of $1.64 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.69 billion. Robert Half had a return on equity of 34.51% and a net margin of 7.84%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.60 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Robert Half Inc. will post 3.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 15th. Investors of record on Friday, August 25th were issued a $0.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 24th. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.55%. Robert Halfs payout ratio is 38.10%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have weighed in on RHI. UBS Group boosted their price target on Robert Half from $80.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, October 12th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on Robert Half from $88.00 to $82.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 26th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on Robert Half from $84.00 to $76.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 27th. Credit Suisse Group lowered their target price on Robert Half from $63.00 to $57.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 26th. Finally, William Blair restated a market perform rating on shares of Robert Half in a research note on Wednesday, July 26th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Robert Half presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $72.11.

Check Out Our Latest Analysis on Robert Half

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Robert W. Glass sold 14,751 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.15, for a total value of $1,108,537.65. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 209,927 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $15,776,014.05. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Robert Half news, EVP Robert W. Glass sold 14,751 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.15, for a total transaction of $1,108,537.65. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 209,927 shares of the companys stock, valued at $15,776,014.05. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Dirk A. Kempthorne sold 2,050 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.15, for a total value of $152,007.50. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 12,934 shares of the companys stock, valued at $959,056.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 2.70% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Robert Half Profile

(Free Report)

Robert Half Inc provides talent solutions and business consulting services in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The company operates through three segments: Contract Talent Solutions, Permanent Placement Talent Solutions, and Protiviti. The Contract Talent Solutions segment provides contract engagement professionals in the fields of finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal and administrative, and customer support.

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Toromont Industries Ltd. (TSE:TIH  Get Free Report) shares crossed above its 200-day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a 200-day moving average of C$109.12 and traded as high as C$111.25. Toromont Industries shares last traded at C$109.85, with a volume of 80,484 shares trading hands.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have issued reports on TIH. Raymond James upped their target price on shares of Toromont Industries from C$125.00 to C$130.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, July 28th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Toromont Industries from C$133.00 to C$131.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 31st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of C$125.86.

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View Our Latest Research Report on Toromont Industries

Toromont Industries Stock Down 2.4 %

The companys fifty day moving average is C$111.26 and its 200-day moving average is C$109.11. The company has a market capitalization of C$8.79 billion, a PE ratio of 17.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.72 and a beta of 0.75. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 27.07, a quick ratio of 1.38 and a current ratio of 2.68.

Toromont Industries (TSE:TIH  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 26th. The company reported C$1.61 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of C$1.35 by C$0.26. Toromont Industries had a net margin of 11.38% and a return on equity of 22.59%. The business had revenue of C$1.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of C$1.16 billion. As a group, analysts predict that Toromont Industries Ltd. will post 5.933942 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toromont Industries Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 4th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 4th were issued a dividend of $0.43 per share. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.61%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 7th. Toromont Industriess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 27.88%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Toromont Industries

In other Toromont Industries news, Director Benjamin David Cherniavsky bought 500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 15th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of C$112.30 per share, with a total value of C$56,150.00. Insiders own 0.32% of the companys stock.

Toromont Industries Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Toromont Industries Ltd. provides specialized capital equipment in Canada, the United States, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Equipment Group and CIMCO. The Equipment Group segment engages in the sale, rental, and service of mobile equipment for Caterpillar and other manufacturers; sale, rental, and service of engines used in various applications, including industrial, commercial, marine, on-highway trucks, and power generation; and sale of complementary and related products, parts, and services.

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Troy Asset Management Ltd grew its stake in Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM  Free Report) by 1.4% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 708,476 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 9,567 shares during the quarter. Philip Morris International makes up approximately 2.0% of Troy Asset Management Ltds portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest position. Troy Asset Management Ltds holdings in Philip Morris International were worth $69,161,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Morgan Stanley raised its holdings 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 valued at $4,403,883,000 after buying an additional 411,358 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in shares of Philip Morris International by 3.3% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 34,959,139 shares of the companys stock worth $3,399,777,000 after acquiring an additional 1,106,408 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International by 5.4% in 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 during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted 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 last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its stake in shares of Philip Morris International by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 16,050,540 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,332,355,000 after purchasing an additional 260,832 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.70% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently commented on PM. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a buy rating and issued a $114.00 target price on shares of Philip Morris International in a research report on Monday, October 2nd. Barclays lowered their target price on Philip Morris International from $115.00 to $110.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 21st. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Philip Morris International in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on Philip Morris International from $111.00 to $105.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Friday, October 13th. Finally, Bank of America cut their target price on shares of Philip Morris International from $118.00 to $111.00 in a report on Friday, September 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Philip Morris International presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $109.42.

Philip Morris International Price Performance

Philip Morris International stock traded down $2.06 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $91.15. 2,220,640 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,221,611. Philip Morris International Inc. has a 52-week low of $84.44 and a 52-week high of $105.62. The firm has a market capitalization of $141.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.03, a P/E/G ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.71. The firms 50 day moving average price is $94.18 and its 200 day moving average price is $95.57.

Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 19th. The company reported $1.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.62 by $0.05. Philip Morris International had a net margin of 11.63% and a negative return on equity of 127.84%. The company had revenue of $9.14 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $9.21 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.53 earnings per share. Philip Morris Internationals quarterly revenue was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Philip Morris International Inc. will post 6.04 EPS for the current year.

Philip Morris International Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 12th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 27th were paid a $1.30 dividend. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.70%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 26th. This is a boost from Philip Morris Internationals previous quarterly dividend of $1.27. Philip Morris Internationals dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 100.58%.

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.

Further Reading

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM  Free Report).

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Arizona State Retirement System increased its position in Union Pacific Co. (NYSE:UNP  Free Report) by 3.9% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 174,438 shares of the railroad operators stock after purchasing an additional 6,571 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement Systems holdings in Union Pacific were worth $35,694,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of UNP. Vise Technologies Inc. lifted its position in Union Pacific by 14.3% during the 1st quarter. Vise Technologies Inc. now owns 4,388 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $883,000 after acquiring an additional 548 shares during the period. Capital Asset Advisory Services LLC increased its stake in Union Pacific by 25.6% in the 1st quarter. Capital Asset Advisory Services LLC now owns 5,046 shares of the railroad operators stock valued at $1,016,000 after buying an additional 1,028 shares during the period. Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its stake in shares of Union Pacific by 1.1% in the 1st quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 1,933,582 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $389,153,000 after acquiring an additional 21,361 shares during the period. First Hawaiian Bank boosted its holdings in shares of Union Pacific by 6.9% in the second quarter. First Hawaiian Bank now owns 12,535 shares of the railroad operators stock valued at $2,565,000 after acquiring an additional 806 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nichols & Pratt Advisers LLP MA increased its stake in shares of Union Pacific by 282.1% during the first quarter. Nichols & Pratt Advisers LLP MA now owns 5,350 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $1,077,000 after acquiring an additional 3,950 shares during the period. 77.36% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Kenyatta G. Rocker sold 8,700 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $222.43, for a total value of $1,935,141.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 42,061 shares of the companys stock, valued at $9,355,628.23. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, CFO Jennifer L. Hamann sold 1,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $222.83, for a total value of $222,830.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 99,378 shares in the company, valued at approximately $22,144,399.74. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Kenyatta G. Rocker sold 8,700 shares of Union Pacific stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $222.43, for a total value of $1,935,141.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 42,061 shares in the company, valued at $9,355,628.23. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.28% of the companys stock.

Union Pacific Trading Up 3.7 %

NYSE UNP traded up $7.60 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $213.52. 3,707,336 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,867,621. The stock has a market capitalization of $130.13 billion, a PE ratio of 18.79, a PEG ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39, a quick ratio of 0.57 and a current ratio of 0.71. Union Pacific Co. has a 1-year low of $183.69 and a 1-year high of $240.48. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $214.29 and its 200 day simple moving average is $208.00.

Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 19th. The railroad operator reported $2.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.65 by ($0.14). The business had revenue of $5.94 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.96 billion. Union Pacific had a return on equity of 55.03% and a net margin of 27.18%. Union Pacifics revenue for the quarter was down 9.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.19 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Union Pacific Co. will post 10.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Union Pacific Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 29th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 31st were issued a $1.30 dividend. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.44%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, August 30th. Union Pacifics dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 47.45%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on UNP shares. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price objective on Union Pacific from $233.00 to $232.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on Union Pacific from $254.00 to $236.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 11th. Benchmark boosted their target price on shares of Union Pacific from $230.00 to $264.00 in a research report on Thursday, July 27th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Union Pacific in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Finally, Bank of America reduced their price objective on shares of Union Pacific from $265.00 to $257.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Monday, September 25th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $233.62.

Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Union Pacific

Union Pacific Profile

(Free Report)

Union Pacific Corporation, through its subsidiary, Union Pacific Railroad Company, operates in the railroad business in the United States. The company offers transportation services for grain and grain products, fertilizers, food and refrigerated products, and coal and renewables to grain processors, animal feeders, ethanol producers, and other agricultural users; petroleum, and liquid petroleum gases; and construction products, industrial chemicals, plastics, forest products, specialized products, metals and ores, soda ash, and sand, as well as finished automobiles, automotive parts, and merchandise in intermodal containers.

See Also

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Shares of Victoria PLC (LON:VCP  Get Free Report) crossed below its two hundred day moving average during trading on Tuesday . The stock has a two hundred day moving average of GBX 563.32 ($6.88) and traded as low as GBX 326.32 ($3.99). Victoria shares last traded at GBX 351 ($4.29), with a volume of 518,339 shares traded.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Berenberg Bank restated a buy rating and set a GBX 880 ($10.75) price objective on shares of Victoria in a research note on Monday, October 2nd.

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View Our Latest Stock Analysis on VCP

Victoria Stock Down 15.1 %

Victoria Company Profile

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1,029.24, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 1.56. The stock has a market capitalization of 372.60 million, a PE ratio of -384.09 and a beta of 0.88. The business has a 50 day moving average of GBX 548.50 and a two-hundred day moving average of GBX 562.05.

(Get Free Report)

Victoria PLC, together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and distributes flooring products primarily in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, the United States, and Australia. The company operates through four segments: UK & Europe Soft Flooring, UK & Europe Ceramic Tiles, Australia, and North America.

Further Reading

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Amitabh Tiwari Is a former corporate and investment banker-turned political strategist and commentator. Twitter: @politicalbaaba. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication
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The Africa-focused GSMA event MWC Kigali 2023 is well under way and is proving a useful platform for some major service providers to comment on government policy across the continent  notably on taxation.

In fact six CEOs, representing some of the continents biggest operators, have published a communique at the show urging governments to establish new policies to support the positive and inclusive impacts of mobile technology, in order to address investment and usage gaps.

The group included Segun Ogunsanya, Airtel Africa Group; Hassanein Hiridjee, Axian Group; Frehiwot Tamru, Ethio Telecommunications; Ralph Mupita, MTN Group; Jerome Henique, Orange Middle East and Africa; and Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group.

The communique says: Reforming fiscal policy will improve affordability for consumers and incentivise investments by operators given that taxes and fees account for 30% of industry revenues according to the GSMA Mobile Tax Policy and Digital Development report.

It calls for tax rationalisation and targeted fiscal policy reforms that support economic growth and digital development, notably the removal of tax on low-cost smartphones and sector-specific tax.

It also calls for regulatory support to implement the recommendations of the UN Broadband Commissions 21st Century Financing Models for Bridging Broadband Connectivity Gaps and also climate action policies to improve access to renewable electricity for corporate buyers.

Of course taxation, like power supply, is an ongoing issue and, while some governments are acknowledging the role of mobile operators in boosting development, many, at local, regional and national levels, are still imposing what is, arguably, a high overall tax burden on some operators.

As the CEOs note, the industry currently contributes US$170 billion (8.1%) to GDP across the sub-Saharan region and is committed to spend another US$75 billion, which will yield an expected US$210 billion to sub-Saharan Africas GDP by 2030.

But, the CEOs add, further political support, across the continent, is essential to register meaningful progress.

This, they say, includes facilitating the right market structures and conditions to avoid unnecessary fragmentation and policies that support the investment environment needed for success.
Nokia has announced that it will cut between 9000 and 14,000 jobs by the end of 2026 to reduce its costs.

The Finnish vendor recently registered a 69% drop in net profit during Q3, with a 20% drop in sales between July and September this year. Nokia is aiming to save between 800 million and 1.2 billion by end-2026, targeting a saving of 400 million in 2024 and 300 million the following year. To achieve this, it will reduce its 86,000-strong workforce by as much as 16%.

Nokias Chief Executive Pekka Lundmark said: given the uncertain timing of the market recovery, we are now taking decisive action, adding that despite ongoing uncertainty Nokia expects an improvement in our network businesses in this quarter. He noted that significant investments in networks that have vastly improved capabilities would be required to keep up with advancements in cloud and AI.

Nokia cited reduced demand for 5G equipment  particularly in North America  as a major factor in the need for downsizing. Rival Ericsson also saw massive layoffs earlier this year, with some of their core markets such as the US and EU beginning to wind down their 5G network deployments. Both vendors have gained ground in India by taking advantage of the countrys ban on Chinese-made network equipment, but 5G deployments are slowing in this market as well.

India of course was not the only market to ban Chinese network equipment, with the US, UK and many developed markets opting to avoid vendors such as Huawei and ZTE over security concerns. This pushed the Chinese vendors towards emerging markets, where 5G deployments are building steam rather than winding down.

Nokia and Ericsson were almost inarguably beneficiaries of the western ban on Chinese equipment, as it allowed them to continue selling in more lucrative markets  but this was arguably a short-term boon for them given that 5G deployments were already well underway. As they begin to decline, the foothold that Chinese vendors now have in emerging markets may not see the Scandinavian vendors frozen out of these growth markets, but will certainly put them on the back foot.
The market witnessed a pullback after opening the gap down and closed well off the day's low by taking support at the 19,500 area on October 19. Hence, if the said levels of 19,600-19,500 get hold in the coming days, then further pullback towards 19,700-19,800 is most likely, experts said, adding in case the index breaks the support zone, then the correction may be seen towards the 19,300 mark.

The BSE Sensex dropped 248 points to 65,629 while the Nifty50 declined 46 points to 19,625 and formed a bullish candlestick pattern with an upper shadow on the daily charts.

"On the daily charts, the Nifty has taken support at 19,53019,500 zones where support in the form of the 61.82 percent Fibonacci retracement level of the previous rise form 19,33319,850 is placed," Jatin Gedia, technical research analyst at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas said.

He believes that Thursday's low of 19,512 shall act as a crucial support and until that is not breached on the downside, one can expect the Nifty to witness a pullback towards 19,730-19,800 from a short-term perspective.

The broader markets have a mixed trend with the Nifty Midcap 100 index falling 0.1 percent and Smallcap 100 index rising 0.15 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 19,542 followed by 19,502 and 19,437. On the higher side, 19,671 can be an immediate resistance followed by 19,711 and 19,776.

Nifty Bank

On October 19, the Bank Nifty also narrowed its losses to end down by 134 points at 43,755 and formed a bullish candlestick pattern with a long upper shadow on the daily charts, which resembles an Inverted Hammer kind of pattern. This is a bullish reversal pattern formed at the downtrend, increasing the significance of likely bounce back in the coming session.

"The index currently faces immediate resistance at the 44,000 level, while the support is situated at 43,500. A decisive breakout in either direction from this range is expected to lead to significant trending moves," Kunal Shah, senior technical & derivative analyst at LKP Securities said.

He feels the prevailing sentiment for the Bank Nifty remains tilted toward a "sell on rise" approach, implying that traders are more inclined to sell the index during price rallies.

Strong resistance is observed at 44,500, and a closing price above this level would indicate a resumption of the uptrend, Kunal said.

As per the pivot point calculator, the banking index is expected to take support at 43,599 followed by 43,481 and 43,290. On the upside, the initial resistance is at 43,982 then at 44,100 and at 44,291.

Call options data

As per monthly options data, the maximum Call open interest (OI) remained at 19,800 strike with 72.6 lakh contracts, which can act as a key resistance for the Nifty. It was followed by the 20,000 strike, which had 64.41 lakh contracts, while the 19,700 strike had 57.22 lakh contracts.

Meaningful Call writing was seen at 19,600 strike, which added 31.1 lakh contracts followed by 20,200 and 20,100 strikes, which added 26.55 lakh and 23.11 lakh contracts.

Maximum Call unwinding was visible at 19,000 strike, which shed 46,450 contracts followed by 19,100 and 18,500 strikes, which shed 22,650 and 22,400 contracts.

Put option data

On the Put side, the maximum open interest was seen at 19,500 strike with 73.22 lakh contracts, which can act as immediate support for the Nifty50 in coming sessions.

It was followed by 19,000 strike comprising 72.4 lakh contracts and 19,600 strike with 56.17 lakh contracts.

The meaningful Put writing was at 19,600 strike, which added 21.08 lakh contracts followed by 19,500 strike and 19,000 strike, which added 20.31 lakh and 18.89 lakh contracts.

Put unwinding was at 19,800 strike, which shed 5.39 lakh contracts followed by 19,700 strike and 19,900 strike, which shed 3.52 lakh and 1.52 lakh contracts.

Stocks with high delivery percentage

A high delivery percentage suggests that investors are showing interest in the stock. InterGlobe Aviation, Infosys, Cholamandalam Investment & Finance, Container Corporation of India and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company saw the highest delivery among the F&O stocks.

41 stocks see a long build-up

A long build-up was seen in 41 stocks including Bajaj Auto, Nestle India, UltraTech Cement, M&M Financial Services and L&T Technology Services. An increase in open interest (OI) and price indicates a build-up of long positions.

43 stocks see long unwinding

Based on the OI percentage, a total of 43 stocks, including Coromandel International, SBI Life Insurance Company, Deepak Nitrite, State Bank of India and Alkem Laboratories saw a long unwinding. A decline in OI and price indicates long unwinding.

71 stocks see a short build-up

A short build-up was seen in 71 stocks, including Astral, Indraprastha Gas, Dr Lal PathLabs, Ipca Laboratories and Oracle Financial. An increase in OI along with a fall in price points to a build-up of short positions.

32 stocks see short-covering

Based on the OI percentage, 32 stocks were on the short-covering list. These included Persistent Systems, Coforge, JK Cement, Indian Energy Exchange and Havells India. A decrease in OI along with a price increase is an indication of short-covering.

Bulk deals

For more bulk deals, click here

Results on October 20 and October 21

Stocks in the news

Hindustan Unilever: The FMCG major recorded a 3.9 percent on-year growth in standalone profit at Rs 2,717 crore for the quarter ended September FY24, beating analysts' estimates with better-than-expected operating margin performance and lower input cost. Standalone revenue from operations grew by 3.6 percent YoY to Rs 15,276 crore for the quarter. The board has approved an interim dividend of Rs 18 per share for the year.

Zomato: SoftBank-owned Svf Growth (Singapore) Pte Ltd is likely to sell a stake worth around Rs 1,000 crore in Zomato, the food delivery giant, sources told Moneycontrol. SoftBank is planning to sell a 1.1 percent stake via block deals. Svf Growth holds a 2.22 percent stake in Zomato as of September 2023, which is valued at Rs 2,090 crore at the closing price of Rs 111.7 per share on October 19.

Natco Pharma: The United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has conducted an inspection of the company's pharma division in Kothur, Hyderabad, during October 9-18. At the end of the inspection, the said facility received eight observations. The company is working with USFDA to close them at the earliest.

Indoco Remedies: The United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has conducted a pre-approval inspection at the company's solid oral formulation facility in Goa during October 12-18. The pre-approval inspection was conducted for two drug product applications (ANDAs) filed from this facility. The USFDA has issued four observations in Form 483 at the end of the pre-approval inspection.

Tata Motors: The Tata Group company has entered into a share purchase agreement and other agreements to acquire a 26.79 percent stake in logistics solutions company Freight Commerce Solutions (Freight Tiger) for Rs 150 crore. The agreement also includes a provision enabling Tata Motors to further invest Rs 100 crore over the next two years.

Jindal Stainless: The stainless steel company has recorded a 74 percent on-year growth in standalone profit at Rs 609 crore for the quarter ended September FY24, with revenue growing 14 percent to Rs 9,720 crore and EBITDA increasing 54 percent to Rs 1,070 crore during the same period. The standalone sales volume for the second quarter of FY24 stood at 5,43,619 metric tonnes (MT), up by nearly 26 percent YoY due to robust domestic demand.

Havells India: The electrical equipment company has registered a 33 percent year-on-year growth in profit at Rs 249 crore for the quarter ended September FY24, driven by healthy operating numbers. Revenue from operations for the quarter increased by 6 percent to Rs 3,891 crore during the same period led by switchgears and cable segments.

Fund Flow (Rs Crore)

FII and DII data

Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 1,093.47 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) purchased Rs 736.15 crore worth of stocks on October 19, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) showed.

Stocks under F&O ban on NSE

The NSE has retained Balrampur Chini Mills, Delta Corp, GNFC, Indiabulls Housing Finance, India Cements, Manappuram Finance, and MCX India to its F&O ban list for October 20. Hindustan Copper and SAIL have been 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.
Marc Champion writes editorials on international affairs. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.
Dinesh C Sharma is a science journalist and author based in New Delhi. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.
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In this edition of Moneycontrol Pro Panorama: Merging fintech with banks wont solve problems, challenges for investors during e...

The massive fraud at Bank of Baroda (BoB), meticulously investigated and reported by The Reporters Collective (TRC) and Al Jazeera, is cause for serious alarm. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has since banned the bank from using its World mobile app to onboard new clients. But what happened at BoB deserves more severe censure since it is an assault on the trust that customers have in a bank, the very foundation of the business. Earlier this week The Financial Times reported that Citibank...

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October 19, 2023 / 10:21 PM IST

As violence between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups entered its 12th day, people in Khan Younis combed through the debris of demolished structures with their bare hands.

An suspected Israeli airstrike attacked a refugee camp in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, and destroyed many improvised homes. Neighbourhoods in other sections of the city could be seen being flattened in video
The airline has abandoned its plans to fully acquire charter operator Alliance Aviation after the competition watchdog opposed the bid earlier this year.

Australian carrier Qantas [ASX:QAN] has taken another blow today, finally bowing to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and ditching its attempts at acquiring Alliance Aviation Services [ASX:AQZ].

This decision comes after more than six months of deliberation following the rejection of the proposal by the ACCC.

Despite the termination, Qantas is not wholly severing its ties with Alliance, retaining its significant shareholding of almost 20% in the Australian-based fly in, fly out (FIFO) charter operator.

The deals termination looks like a step back for Qantas, which has been struggling to find momentum this year as it hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The scandals eventually led to the early retirement of its ex-CEO Alan Joyce and the planned retirement of long-time Chairman Richard Goyder.

Shares in both companies are headed in opposite directions today, with Qantas down by -2.68%, trading at $4.73 per share, while Alliance is up by 0.64%, trading at $3.17 per share.

For Qantas, it has been its worst year since the pandemic lockdowns, with the company down -21% in the past 12 months, making it the worst-performing mid-cap stock in its sector.

Source: TradingView (Qantas: Red, Alliance: Blue)

Partnership remains with Alliance

For the ACCC, the move to block the deal was rooted in concern about the lack of competition with the FIFO space. The watchdog noted the importance of the resource industry to Australia and held concerns about the impact on workers in remote areas.

After delaying the decision four times, the final deliberation in April this year by the ACCC noted:

Qantas and Alliance currently strongly compete with each other in markets where there are few effective alternatives. The proposed acquisition would combine two of the largest suppliers of charter services in Western Australia and Queensland.

Flying workers in the resource industry to and from their worksites is an essential service for this important part of the Australian economy, so it is critical that competition in this market is protected, ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.

Despite the setback today, Qantas has emphasised its intention to continue serving the resources sector FIFO operations through its existing charters.

With a substantial 27% market share, Qantas is a dominant player in the charter industry.

The airline giant also announced its plans to exercise options for four additional aircraft under its agreement with Alliance.

This move will bring the total number of E190s operated by Alliance for the Qantas Group to 26, with four additional options remaining. These new aircraft are expected to join Qantas fleet starting from April 2024.

Qantas Group Executive of Associated Airlines and Services John Gissing said:

Alliance is an important partner for the Qantas Group and the E190s have helped us open new routes across Australia. These four new aircraft will provide additional capacity and connectivity in the domestic market.

Similarly, Alliance Managing Director Scott McMillan tried to remain optimistic about the failure today and remarked that:

Despite the outcome of the transaction, we look forward to continuing our long-standing and productive relationship with Qantas.

So with the deal now scrapped, whats next for these airlines?

Outlook for Qantas and FIFO

While the termination of the takeover deal might seem like a step back for Qantas, the airline is determined to navigate the situation strategically.

By maintaining its nearly 20% share in Alliance, Qantas retains a significant stake in the charter operator. This decision aligns with Qantas long-term vision and commitment to the Australian FIFO market.

Furthermore, the decision to retain its partnership with Alliance allows Qantas to maintain a diversified portfolio, mitigating risks associated with overdependence on any single venture.

For Alliance, the company remains a preferred operator for many resource companies due to its customer-centric approach but will still undoubtedly remain closely tied to Qantas.

According to ex-CEO Alan Joyce, over 50% of Alliances revenue comes from business with Qantas after expansions of wet-lease deals, where Alliance offers planes and crew to operate as Qantas flights.

For the partnership, it seemed prudent to abandon the takeover bid, considering the ACCCs dogged position.

Virgin Australias long-standing cooperative agreement with Alliance was also axed due to similar concerns. The ACCC had allowed the pair to cooperate, coordinate and jointly bid for FIFO contracts since 2017 but rejected a five-year extension to the deal.

In that decision, the ACCC said:

The airlines have not demonstrated sufficient public benefit to outweigh the likely detriment from this proposed co-ordination to satisfy us that the conduct should be authorised.

From then on, the competition watchdog has had a close eye on FIFO operations and would have made any appeal a drawn-out one for any merger.

While its another loss for Qantas, the decision could serve as a long-term win for Alliance as the airline continues investing in aviation infrastructure and projects strong earnings growth into the future.

Strong earning potential favoured

As we move into the third quarter earnings reports for many companies, its clear investors are favouring revenue growth in their investments.

But with geo-political risks rising and end-cycle market signals ringing have you considered other opportunities?

Right now, gold is surging as investors look at high government and public debt and fears of a wider Middle East war.

Gold is up 6.33% this quarter and has spiked in recent weeks with a strong uptrend.

Source: TradingView

But this could be more than just a short-term fear-based move. Our market watcher and Editorial Director Greg Canavan, thinks this is where the financial insiders are moving.

He calls it the Great Gold Lockup and sees it as an engineered parabolic rise in gold demand.

If you want to learn more on how you can position yourself and how to access your Ultimate Australian Gold Gameplan, then,

Click here before gold goes any higher.

Regards,

Charlie Ormond

For Money Morning
OCT. 19

The Dothan/Houston County Education Retirees will meet on Thursday, Oct. 19, at the Golden Corral Restaurant at 11 a.m. Plan to arrive early. Guest speaker will be Anita Gibson, NEA-Retired President. Price of the buffet will remain the same at $9.95 plus drink. All members are encouraged to attend and asked to bring a food donation for a local charity.

OCT. 19

The Houston County Republican Women will meet Thursday, Oct. 19, at Wiregrass Rehabilitation Center, 795 Ross Clark Circle. October meetings are always the third Thursday, with meet-and-greet beginning at 11 a.m.; lunch at 11:30 a.m.; and the meeting at noon. Please RSVP by Friday, Oct. 13, to hcrwdothan@gmail.com.

The speaker will be Houston County Sheriff Donald Valenza.

OCT. 19

Disabled American Veterans, a nonprofit charity that provides a lifetime of support for veterans of all generations and their families, helping more than 1 million veterans in positive, life-changing ways each year, will hold an Information Seminar program Thursday, Oct. 19 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at DAV Chapter #87, 301 W. Lafayette St., in Dothan. Staffed by DAV national service officers, our 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 and our many services available to veterans, please visit DAV.org.

OCT. 24

Understanding Pharmacogenomics, part of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology education series, will be held Tuesday, Oct. 24, in the morning and evening. The event will be held in Dothan at 10 a.m. at the Wiregrass Foundation, 1532 Whatley Dr., and in Ozark at 5:30 p.m. at the Dale County Government Office Building, 202 S. Highway 123. Residents will learn about pharmacogenomics, a rapidly growing field that deals with how genetic changes affect the way a person responds to certain medications. They will learn how genetic changes are part of the explanation for why a medicine may work spectacularly in one person, not at all for another, and produce harmful side effects in a third. Understanding Pharmacogenomics will dig into this emerging field and what it can, and cannot, tell you about your health. The events are free and open to the public. Pre-registration is required, as space is limited. Register now at this link: https://www.hudsonalpha.org/u/wiregrass/#upcoming-events

OCT. 26

The DAV Wiregrass Chapter 99 (New Brockton) October 2023 meeting will be Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023, at 6:30 p.m. The meeting will take place in the New Brockton Senior Center, New Brockton, AL. Also, Chapter 99 maintains a help desk located at the New Brockton Town Hall. Hours of operation are 9 to 11 a.m. every Wednesda. This is a free service to anyone desiring help with a VA claim. For further information contact Charles Lobdell at 334-718-5707 or Mike Doran at 334-406-6700.

OCT. 26

A Consumer Awareness luncheon sponsored by the Wiregrass Chapter of the National Active and Retired Federal Employee Association is Oct. 26 at 11 a.m. at the Enterprise Country Club, 3000 Ozark Highway in Enterprise. Guest speaker is Jazmyn Frazier, Executive Director of Kelley Place and Madison Heights Memory Care in Enterprise. For more information please contact Frank Zerbinos at (334)447-8092.

OCT 27 & 28

Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe of Alabama invites everyone to the Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe of Alabama Pow Wow Oct. 27 and 28 which will be held for the first time on our tribal land located at 2950 County Road 377, Elba. The event runs from time 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. The entrance fee is $1 for everyone. Please bring your lawn chair and dress comfortable. There will be demonstrators, vendors from various tribes throughout southeast United States. Come out and enjoy Indian Fry bread, arts, and crafts. For additional information contact Chief James Wright at the following machiscreeks@outlook.com or call (334) 897-3207, or (334) 449-0607.

OCT. 28

The Southeast Alabama Coalition for the Homeless (SEACH) will sponsor a Homeless Connect & Point-In-Time Count event in Dothan on Saturday, Oct. 25, from 9 a.m. to noon at the OCHEC Building, 1001 Montana St., in Dothan. Those who are homeless or at-risk for homelessness can attend for resources for food and clothing, housing, legal assistance, healthcare, mental health resources, job placement and more. Lunch will be provided.

APRIL 9, 2024

The Harlem Globetrotters bring the 2024 world tour to the Dothan Civic Center on Tuesday, April 9. Harlem Globetrotters fans can score the best seats at https://www.tixr.com/groups/dcc/globetrotters beginning Oct. 16, 2023, at 10 a.m. Presale tickets are available beginning Oct. 9 at 10:00 a.m. with code LoveDothan at https://www.tixr.com/groups/dcc/globetrotters.

ONGOING

The Gen. William C. Oates Chapter No. 1342 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy meets the second Thursday from September through May. Women ages 18 and older who have ancestors who fought in the Civil War are eligible for membership, and help will be provided to prove your first Confederate ancestors lineage. For meeting locations and information, call Ceya Minder at 334-794-7480 or email ceya.minder@gmail.com.

Sons of Confederate Veterans, General William C. Oates Chapter meets on the third Monday of the month at 6:30 p.m. Anyone who is interested in Confederate history is invited to attend. Genealogy help will be provided to connect you with your Confederate ancestor. For more information contact Joe Rich, 334-791-2450, or email SCVDOTHAN3@GMAIL.COM

The Ray of Hope Grief Support Group meets the first Saturday of each month at 10 a.m. at Parks Chapel A.M.E. Church, located at 1053 E. Selma St., Dothan. The purpose of the group is to assist those struggling with issues of grief and loss, including but not limited to, death of a loved one, loss of relationships, etc. The meeting is free and open to the public. For more information, call 334-794-4811 or 850-692-1618.

ONGOING

The Greater Dothan Area Lions Club meets the first Tuesday of the month at noon at the Old Mill Restaurant on Murphy Mill Road in Dothan. For more information, contact Lori Perkins at 334-803-0319.

Concerned Citizens of the Wiregrass will meet the second Saturday of each month at 2 p.m. at Shoneys on the Ross Clark Circle in Dothan. Grievances and problems within the county will be addressed and information on how to make improvements via county officials, etc. Bring your friends and as many as possible.

The South Alabama Liberty Foundation will meet at 6:30 p.m. every first Tuesday of the month at Wiregrass Outdoors, located at 818 N. Ouida St. in Enterprise. The nonpartisan group advocates that liberty  along with peace, justice, and freedom  belongs to every American to appreciate and enjoy as written in the U.S. Constitution, and that this is possible only with an honest, fair, and well-regulated government that respects its citizens. No reservations necessary, and admission is free. Email SA-Liberty@proton.me for more information.

Land of Cotton Smocking Guild meets the second Thursday of each month at 10 a.m. at Piney Grove Assembly of God Church, 206 County Road 9 in Wicksburg. The guild is involved in a Wee Care Project, creating preemie gowns, garments for infants in NICU, and bereavement pouches. For more information, contact Carol Ann Pileggi at 850-516-9960 or Joann Carpenter at 334- 790-8328.

Enterprise Military Support Group will not meet in June and July. If anyone needs to talk, call Dr. Granger at 334-447-2252 or John Logsdon at 334-806-2636.

The Kiwanis Club of Dothan meets every Wednesday from noon to 1 p.m. at the Dothan Country Club, located at 200 S. Cherokee Ave. in Dothan. Anyone may attend as a guest of the Kiwanis. If you plan to attend, contact the club via kiwanisdothan.com or call 334-355-6877.

The Columbia Historical Society meets every third Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Train Depot on Highway 52. All guests are welcome.

The Columbia Historical Museum will be open the second Saturday monthly from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 105 S. Main St. in Columbia.

The Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary Dothan Unit #87 will meet every third Thursday of the month at 6 p.m. at Harvest Church, located at 2727 Fortner St. in Dothan. The group will meet in the Main Cafe located in the churchs Building A. Call 334-596-9610 for more information.

Dothan Newcomers Club, a social organization, meets the first Thursday of the month in the fellowship hall of First Christian Church, 1401 N. Cherokee Ave. Social time begins at 9:30 a.m., followed by the business meeting at 10 a.m. The club is open to individuals who have moved into the Dothan or Wiregrass area within the past five years or who have faced a change in status (retirement, death of a spouse, divorce) within the past five years. For more information, visit www.dothannewcomers.com, or Facebook @DothanNewcomers, or contact Elaine Brackin, president, via email at dncpresident3@gmail.com.

Alcoholics Anonymous holds regular meetings in the Wiregrass including Ashford, Dothan, Eufaula, and Headland under the organizations District 10 (www.aadothan.org) meeting locations and Andalusia, Daleville, Enterprise, Level Plains, Opp, Ozark, and Troy under the organizations District 11 (www.district11aa.com) meeting locations. Visit www.aaarea1.org for a complete list of districts for Alabama and Northwest Florida.

A Disabled American Veterans chapter service officer will be located at the New Brockton Town Hall every Wednesday from 9 to 11 a.m. Any veteran needing help with a VA claim is welcome. This is on a walk-in basis; no appointment is needed. For more information, contact Mike Doran at 334-406-6700.

The DAV van service for local veterans will make runs to Montgomery and Tuskegee on Mondays and Fridays. The van will leave from the Hardees restaurant on Rucker Boulevard in Enterprise at 5 a.m. and from the Dothan Civic Center at 5:30 a.m. Due to COVID restrictions, there is only space for four riders each trip. Veterans who need rides to VA hospitals in Montgomery or Tuskegee can call 334-308-2480 to reserve a seat on the Enterprise van or 334-446-0866 for the Dothan van.

Square Dancing will be held every Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Enterprise YMCA, located on Highway 27 across from Hobby Lobby in Enterprise. Singles and couples welcomed. Never danced? Theyll teach you. For more information, call 334-237-0466 or 334-347-4513.

The Landmark Dulcimer Club has a jam and practice session every first Saturday of the month at 1 p.m. You do not have to know how to read music. We prefer you bring your own Mountain Dulcimer but we do have a few practice dulcimers you can borrow if you want to give it a try. The event is free with paid gate admission. Show your instrument and get in for free. Meets in the Interpretive Center Auditorium.

Landmark Park hosts a Reptile Feeding every first Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in the Interpretive Center Lobby. The event is free with paid gate admission. Meet our snakes and turtles and learn why these animals are so important to the environment.

The Wiregrass Woodturners host a club meeting and woodturning demo every second Saturday of the month at 9:30 a.m. in the Interpretive Center Classroom at Landmark Park. The public is invited to visit and learn how to make beautiful wooden items turned on a lathe. The event is free with paid gate admission. Wiregrass Woodturner members get in free.

The Evening Star Quilt Guild gathers from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. every second Saturday for an informal sewing circle with your textile-based crafts at the Landmark Park Sit and Sew in the Interpretive Center Auditorium. The event is free with paid gate admission. The circle is free for Quilt Guild members. Space is limited, first come first served.

Pickin in the Park takes place every second Saturday of the month at 10 a.m. Join musicians at Landmark Park in Dothan for a bluegrass, country and gospel jam session. Visitors are welcome to listen or participate. The event is free with paid gate admission. Show your instrument at the gate to receive free admission. All ages and skill levels are welcome.

The Landmark Park Antique Tractor Club will meet on the third Saturday of each month at 9:30 a.m. in the Interpretive Center Library at Landmark Park. This club has been established as a way for tractor enthusiasts to come together to share pictures of tractors, share interesting articles, trade/sell and enjoy the fellowship. The club participates in several tractor shows and tractor pulls during the year. To become a member, visit the meeting or email David Jay, david@landmarkparkdothan.com. The event is free with paid gate admission. Mention this meeting at the gate to receive free park admission.

Landmark Park admission will be waived every fifth Saturday of the month.
In todays fast-paced digital business landscape, start-ups are on the rise, driven by innovative ideas and ambitious entrepreneurs.

However, while innovation is crucial, the often-overlooked aspect of tech integrations can make or break a start-ups journey to success.

Understanding Tech Integrations for Start-ups

Tech integrations, in the context of a start-up, refer to the seamless connection between different software systems and tools that a business uses. Imagine your business as a well-oiled machine, where each part communicates effortlessly with the other. This is what tech integrations achieve.

Start-ups are increasingly shifting from traditional, on-premises systems, to cloud-based solutions, reducing upfront CAPEX costs and allowing for flexibility. However, a common challenge arises when different software lack integration capabilities. For instance, creating a sales order in your CRM may not automatically generate a project in your Project Management tool.

These gaps are often filled by manual processes, which may suffice initially, but hinder growth as your start-up scales. Manual data handling through spreadsheets introduces the risk of errors and key-person dependencies.

Done correctly, tech integrations automate data transfer, notifying downstream departments promptly. This leads to accurate, timely, and comprehensive data, resulting in faster responses, improved customer service, and an increased focus on growth.

Common Pitfalls and Challenges in Tech Integrations

When start-ups mishandle tech integrations, several pitfalls emerge. Smaller organisations may focus on the basics but overlook crucial considerations, leading to integration breakdowns. Here are some key factors that are often neglected:

Frequency of Data Movement: Start-ups must determine how often data needs to transfer between systems. Is it a one-time transfer, regular updates, or instantaneous synchronisation? Neglecting this can lead to data lag and operational inefficiencies.

Start-ups must determine how often data needs to transfer between systems. Is it a one-time transfer, regular updates, or instantaneous synchronisation? Neglecting this can lead to data lag and operational inefficiencies. Volume of Data: Its essential to understand the scale of data movement. Is the start-up dealing with large datasets that require special handling to ensure a smooth transfer? Ignoring data volume can lead to performance issues.

Its essential to understand the scale of data movement. Is the start-up dealing with large datasets that require special handling to ensure a smooth transfer? Ignoring data volume can lead to performance issues. Target System Compatibility: Start-ups should assess whether the destination system can effectively handle incoming data. This involves ensuring that the data format and structure match what the system expects. Incompatibility can result in data corruption or loss.

Start-ups should assess whether the destination system can effectively handle incoming data. This involves ensuring that the data format and structure match what the system expects. Incompatibility can result in data corruption or loss. Downstream Dependencies: Consider the domino effect of data. Are other systems or processes reliant on this data? Neglecting downstream dependencies can disrupt critical workflows and impact business operations.

Consider the domino effect of data. Are other systems or processes reliant on this data? Neglecting downstream dependencies can disrupt critical workflows and impact business operations. Fallback Plan for Integration Breaks: Its crucial to have a backup plan in case the integration fails, and think about the steps to take if something goes wrong with a data transfer or similar. Having a well-defined fallback plan is essential to minimise downtime.

Its crucial to have a backup plan in case the integration fails, and think about the steps to take if something goes wrong with a data transfer or similar. Having a well-defined fallback plan is essential to minimise downtime. Resilience to Failure: Start-ups should assess whether the integration can recover from errors gracefully. This means designing integration processes that can handle hiccups without causing system-wide failures.

Start-ups should assess whether the integration can recover from errors gracefully. This means designing integration processes that can handle hiccups without causing system-wide failures. Data Security: Protecting data during transfer and storage is paramount.

Encryption, strong passwords, and access controls to safeguard sensitive information from unauthorised access is critical.

Protecting data during transfer and storage is paramount. Encryption, strong passwords, and access controls to safeguard sensitive information from unauthorised access is critical. Logging and Monitoring: Maintaining records of integration processes is like keeping a diary for your data. It helps in troubleshooting issues and ensures that everything is running smoothly. Regular monitoring ensures early detection of problems.

Neglecting these factors can have severe consequences, especially when software vendors introduce new features or change agreements. Start-ups that fail to address these challenges may experience integration breakdowns that impact revenues, data security, goodwill, and reputation.

The Impact of Poor Tech Integrations on Growth and Valuation

Inefficient tech integrations can significantly impede a start-ups growth trajectory. Legacy systems, manual processes, and subpar integrations introduce various challenges that accumulate over time. Heres a closer look at the long-term impact:

Increased Costs: Poorly integrated systems often lead to increased operational costs. Manual data handling, duplicate efforts, and the need for additional staff to manage the inefficiencies can drive up expenses.

Poorly integrated systems often lead to increased operational costs. Manual data handling, duplicate efforts, and the need for additional staff to manage the inefficiencies can drive up expenses. Decreased Competitiveness: Start-ups with inefficient tech integrations find it challenging to compete effectively. They may lag behind competitors who have streamlined processes and can offer better services or products at a lower cost.

Start-ups with inefficient tech integrations find it challenging to compete effectively. They may lag behind competitors who have streamlined processes and can offer better services or products at a lower cost. Strategic Risks: Relying on outdated or unreliable integrations poses strategic risks. These risks include data breaches, compliance violations, and disruptions in critical business processes.

Over time, these issues compound, causing start-ups to fall behind competitors and reduce their overall market worth. The inability to adapt to evolving technological landscapes can result in missed opportunities and hinder the realisation of a start-ups full potential.

Inefficient tech integrations can significantly slow down a start-ups growth. Legacy systems, manual processes, and poor integrations lead to increased costs, decreased competitiveness, and strategic risks. Over time, these issues compound, causing companies to fall behind competitors and reduce overall market worth.

Future Challenges and Opportunities for Australian Start-ups

As companies move to cloud-hosted applications, the flexibility and resilience of tech integrations become paramount. Dependencies on vendor agreements can pose risks. Therefore, Australian SMEs looking to automate and digitise their processes must focus on building a technology environment with flexible and resilient integrations.

While innovation is essential for Australian start-ups, Scalability planning is an essential component to getting things right when looking at the future growth of the business  to support increased data load and expanded functionality. Automating data flow, considering all factors, and embracing flexibility are key steps towards achieving growth and competitiveness in todays business landscape.

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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.
Aerial view of the Truong Vinh Tunnel on the Nghi Son-Dien Chau expressway in central Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Anh Duy

Two expressways through the north central provinces of Thanh Hoa and Nghe An officially opened to the public on Wednesday, following two months of temporary suspension.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha has thanked 6,300 families who donated their land, and 652 families who donated both their land and their houses for the two projects: National Expressway 45-Nghi Son and Nghi Son-Dien Chau.

The projects opened for traffic September 1.

He said the two recently completed expressways would connect the North-South expressway all the way from the northern Huu Nghi border gate to Nghe An, contributing to the economic development of localities along the expressway.

Ha requested localities to implement policies to drive economic development in Thanh Hoa and Nghe An in order for the expressways to be utilized to their utmost potential.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment is considering plans to connect these major roads with other traffic conduits to utilize all road projects harmoniously. The ministry has been instructed by the state government to maintain the projects and build rest stations and other infrastructures to serve the people.

Le Dinh Tho, deputy transport minister, said the two projects encountered difficulties during the construction process due to impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, making it impossible to deploy personnel and machines to the construction sites during social distancing. The projects also run through areas with complex geological characteristics, weak foundations, and construction was done when the prices of fuel and materials were high, the deputy minister added.

Nguyen Huu Ngoc, general director of the Truong Son Construction company, said the contractor has invested in hundreds of pieces of modern equipment, and workers had been working multiple shifts to keep the projects on time.

The National Expressway 45-Nghi Son expressway section spans 43 km and runs through Thanh Hoas Nong Cong District and Nghi Son Town. The total investment cost was over VND5.5 trillion ($223.83 million). The project still has around 30 km worth of roads unfinished, which are expected to be completed in November.

The Nghi Son-Dien Chau expressway section spans 50 km and runs through both Thanh Hoa and Nghe An. The total investment cost of the project was around VND7.293 trillion. Contractors are constructing 58 km more roads, and construction is expected to be finished this month.

After their completion, the two expressways will create a continuous express route from Hanoi to Nghe An, spanning a total of 251 km. For now, the expressways will not be collecting fees.

In the first phase, the two expressways will have four lanes without emergency stopping lanes. Their designed speed capacity is 80 kph. Following their completion, the expressways will have six lanes, with a designed speed capacity of 100-120 kph, according to planners.

The two expressways could cut travel time between Thanh Hoa and Nghe An from three hours to 1.5 hours. They could also cut travel time from Hanoi to Nghe An from five hours to 3.5 hours.
The U.S. Coast Guard and the Republic of Palau are working closely to advance maritime partnership and promote regional stability.
Tony Fernandes, the CEO of Malaysian budget airline operator AirAsia, has been suffering from criticisms over having a shirtless massage session while he was holding a conference call.

AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes reacts during an interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Oct. 8, 2020. Photo by Reuters

"I dont think the women in your company would feel comfortable or safe in this context," commented Rebecca Nadillo, an executive who has worked for Meta and advertising agency BBDO, under Fernandes post. "And given youre the boss, they likely wont challenge you or say anything."

In the now-deleted photo uploaded to his LinkedIn profile, the Malaysian entrepreneur is seen receiving a topless massage while sitting in front of an iPad for a virtual meeting, reported The Guardian.

Tony Fernandes receives a topless massage while sitting in front of an iPad for a virtual meeting. Photo from Tony Fernandes' LinkedIn

Though he justified in the accompanying caption that he was having a "stressful week", and the massage was suggested to him by a colleague, Fernandes has since been criticized for his attitude, according to CNBC.

Several users on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, also called Fernandes out for being "unprofessional" and "disrespectful."

Graduating from one of Britains top private schools Epsom College, Fernandes, 59, bought AirAsia from the Malaysian government for less than $1 in 2001.

Forbes estimates his net worth at around $335 million.
Slovakia president rejects nomination of opponent of climate change policy as environment minister View Photo

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP)  Slovakias president announced Thursday that she is postponing the appointment of a new Cabinet following last months parliamentary election because she cannot accept the nomination of a person who doesnt believe in the threat of climate change as environment minister.

Liberal President Zuzana Caputova said Rudolf Huliak, who was nominated by the ultranationalist and pro-Russian Slovak National Party, could not ensure the proper functioning of the ministry because he opposes the governments long-term environmental policies and Slovakias international obligations.

A candidate who has not recognized the scientific consensus on climate change and asserts no real climate crisis exists cannot be in charge and represent a ministry whose main role is the protection of nature, landscape and the Earths climate system, Caputova said in a statement.

She also mentioned Huliaks advocacy of violence against environmentalists as a reason not to swear him in. Huliak, the mayor of the town of Ocova in central Slovakia, has also attacked LGBT+ people, the European Union and expressed pro-Russian views.

The Slovak National Party said Thursday it was not ready to accept the presidents request that it nominate someone else.

Huliak is the most controversial of the Cabinet candidates presented to the president by former populist Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose leftist Smer, or Direction, party won the most seats in the Sept. 30 parliamentary election.

Ficos party won 42 seats in the 150-seat Parliament after campaigning on a pro-Russian and anti-American platform. He has vowed to withdraw Slovakias military support for Ukraine.

He needed coalition partners to form a parliamentary majority and signed a deal with the leftist Hlas, or Voice, party and the Slovak National Party to govern together.

The deal gives Smer the post of the prime minister and six other Cabinet ministers, opening the way for Fico to serve as Slovakias head of government for the fourth time.

Hlas will get seven Cabinet ministers, while the Slovak National Party will have three.

Caputova has been president since winning a 2019 election.
Hundreds in Scotland told to evacuate as northern Europe braces for gale-force winds and floods

Hundreds in Scotland told to evacuate as northern Europe braces for gale-force winds and floods View Photo

LONDON (AP)  Hundreds of people were being evacuated from their homes and schools closed in parts of Scotland on Thursday, as much of northern Europe braced for stormy weather, heavy rain and gale-force winds from the east.

The U.K.s weather forecaster, the Met Office, issued a rare red alert  the highest level of weather warning  for parts of Scotland, predicting exceptional rainfall Thursday and Friday that is expected to cause extensive flooding and danger to life from fast-flowing or deep floodwater. The last red alert in the U.K. was issued in 2020.

Forecasters say the storm, named Babet by U.K. officials, could bring more than a months worth of rain in the worst-affected regions in Scotland.

Babet already brought floods and swollen rivers that swamped several towns and villages in Ireland, with some areas remaining under water and without power Thursday. Soldiers helped with evacuation measures in the town of Midleton in County Cork, where more than 100 properties were flooded. Cork County Council said mor

In the town of Brechin, near Scotlands eastern coast, officials told residents of about 400 houses to evacuate to local rest centers. Schools, recreation centers and vaccination hubs in the area were closed and will remain shut on Friday.

In Denmark, residents scrambled to place sandbags along exposed areas. In Assens on the central island of Funen, emergency services deployed huge rubber tubes in the harbor to counter rising water levels, broadcaster TV2 reported. Southern Denmark police urged people along the east coast to leave exposed areas if the weather predictions remain, saying cottages, harbors and other places could be flooded.

TV2 reported that the region would likely see the worst flooding in 110 years, and the Danish Meteorological Institute said waves could reach 4 meters (13 feet) along east-facing coasts.

The southeastern Danish town of Koege wrote on its Facebook page that emergency workers were busy filling sandbags and urged citizens to avoid unnecessary baths, dishes, laundry and other water-intensive activities, saying the municipalitys treatment plant was at risk of being overloaded.

Police in the area warned that roads may be blocked, urged people to secure valuables and advised against sleeping on their boats in the harbors, saying that if something happens, emergency services cannot get to them, police spokesperson Brian Bang-Rasmussen said.

Copenhagens airport and the Danish national rail company warned of cancellations and delays Friday because of bad weather.

Several ferry lines between Danish islands were suspended, as were ferries to Rostock in northern Germany and to Oslo.

Swedish meteorologists also issued a warning for the south coast from Friday evening and Saturday. They said that the water level in southern parts of Sweden may reach its highest level since the 1990s.

In Germany, authorities warned of high water in bays in Schleswig-Holstein, south of the Denmark border, until Saturday.

Authorities also warned of high water in the next two days on the Baltic Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germanys northernmost state, with water levels of up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) above average possible in the inlet where the city of Flensburg is located. Some ferries to the North Sea islands of Foehr and Amrum were delayed or canceled, German news agency dpa reported.

Norwegian meteorologists said a strong low-pressure area over Great Britain combined with high pressure over northern Scandinavia was creating strong winds, with very strong gusts expected to hit southern Norway from the east.

Parts of southern Europe were also affected by heavy rains.

Stormy weather battered much of Spain, leading to ferry cancelations from the southwestern ports of Algeciras and Tarifa to Tangier in Morocco and the closure of public parks in several cities, including Madrid.

The stormy weather, expected to worsen Friday in several regions, comes after the hottest and driest first two weeks of October on record. Spain had been experiencing a severe drought for nearly two years.

Liam Quaide, a local politician in Cork, Ireland, said authorities need to focus more resources on preparing for climate change.

The scenes of devastation in Midleton (are) an ominous sign of what is ahead of us as a nation if we dont double down on climate mitigation and adaptation, he said.

___

Olsen reported from Copenhagen, Denmark.

___

This story corrects that the town of Koege is in southeastern, not southwestern, Denmark.

___

Follow APs climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

By SYLVIA HUI and JAN M. OLSEN

Associated Press
Joran van der Sloots confession in Natalee Holloway case provides long-sought answers, mother says View Photo

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP)  Beth Holloway was after one thing for 18 years: answers about what happened to her missing daughter.

She said she got them Wednesday when Joran van der Sloot, long considered the chief suspect in her daughters 2005 disappearance in Aruba, admitted in submitted court filings to bludgeoning Natalee Holloway to death on a beach and dragging her body out to sea.

Van der Sloot, 36, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to federal charges of attempting to extort money from Beth Holloway in 2010 in exchange for information about the location of her daughters body. The plea agreement included an unusual provision for van der Sloot to provide all information and evidence about what happened to Natalee Holloway and to let her family hear him in real time give his account to federal investigators.

Beth Holloway said in an interview with The Associated Press that the family made the decision to allow the plea agreement to finally get the answers weve been searching for for all these years.

Natalee Holloway, 18, went missing during a high school graduation trip to Aruba with classmates. She was last seen May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen and student at an international school on the Caribbean island where he grew up.

Natalee Holloways disappearance quickly became an international sensation, filling evening newscasts with live reports from the island and photos of her smiling face. Her disappearance also spawned countless books, podcasts and movies.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Natalee Holloways parents listened and watched several weeks ago as van der Sloot, under questioning from his own attorney, described what happened on the beach. Prosecutors filed excerpts of the conversation with the court.

He said Natalee Holloway was physically fighting his sexual advances and that he kicked her extremely hard in the face while she was still lying down. Van der Sloot said the teen was already unconscious, or even dead, when he picked up a nearby cinderblock and brought it down on her face.

I smash her head in with it completely, van der Sloot said, according to an Oct. 3 transcript of the meeting.

He then said he dragged her body until he was knee-deep in the waves and pushed her out to sea.

Its just blistering to your soul, and it hurts so deeply, Beth Holloway said of hearing the details. But you know that youre there in a functionality role because this is the moment where Ive been searching for for 18 years. Even as hard as it is to hear, it still not as torturous as the not knowing. It was time for me to know.

Dave Holloway, Natalees father, called van der Sloot evil personified in a statement issued after the sentencing hearing

He said that after witnessing the confession he believes van der Sloot killed his daughter but questioned his story of acting alone to dispose of her body and conceal the crime.

While I am satisfied that the defendant murdered Natalee alone, I have no doubt others provided him with aid and assistance in preventing us from being able to return Natalee home, Dave Holloway said.

Natalee Holloways body was never found during land and sea searches along the beach.

Beth Holloway said she recognized her feisty daughter in van der Sloots description of her kneeing him between legs when he refused to stop his sexual advances.

Yes, I said, Thats her, Beth Holloway recalled with a brief smile. She fought like hell. I think she fought like hell with her killer. She stood her ground.

Beth Holloway flew to Aruba in 2005, quickly piecing together that van der Sloot left the bar with her daughter, tracking him down and questioning him about what happened. What followed was 18 years of lies and taunts, but she believes they finally have obtained the truth, she said.

At the hearing Wednesday, Beth Holloway again stood in front of van der Sloot.

You are a killer, she told him. I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams.

Shackled and wearing an orange jail uniform, van der Sloot told the crowded courtroom he hopes his statement provides some closure.

I would like the chance to apologize to the Holloway family, to my own family, he said, later adding, I am no longer the person I was back then.

Mark White, an attorney for Dave Holloway, said he understands from law enforcement authorities that van der Sloot cannot be prosecuted in Aruba  even with his confession  because the statute of limitations has expired. The Aruba public prosecutors office said it was not immediately clear whether van der Sloot could face murder charges on the island. The investigation into Natalee Holloways disappearance is still open, and authorities will follow up on any serious leads, said Ann Angela, a prosecutors office spokesperson.

Peru agreed to temporarily extradite van der Sloot to the U.S. to face proceedings on the extortion charge. He is expected to be returned to Peru in the coming days after the settlement of the U.S. criminal case.

His 20-year sentence for extortion will run concurrently with prison time hes serving for another killing in Peru.

Van der Sloots guilty plea in a crowded courtroom, a few miles from where Natalee Holloway attended high school, came three days before what would have been her 37th birthday. She had planned to go to medical school, her mother said.

I fully believe now, today, she would be a doctor, married, children, Beth Holloway said.

She said she is undecided how she will spend her daughters birthday but that she feels like now the never-ending nightmare is over.

Weve been searching so desperately for those answers, Beth Holloway said. Its hard to hear what he did, but its very victorious to finally be at the end of this nightmare.

By KIM CHANDLER

Associated Press
Woman says she was raped after getting into a car she thought she had booked

BOSTON (AP)  A man has been charged with raping a woman who thought he was the driver she requested after leaving a Boston nightclub.

The woman told police she left the nightclub early Saturday and got into the car, believing it to be an Uber she had requested for the ride home. But after she got in, the driver drove behind some buildings, put a T-shirt over the rear window and then raped her, police said in a report.

This is a terrifying incident involving a woman who entered a vehicle with the full understanding that she was going to be delivered home in safety and a driver who took advantage of the victim and the situation, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a news release Wednesday.

Afterward, the driver drove the woman around before dropping her off near her house, police said.

Investigators said they used video surveillance and descriptions provided by the woman to identify the car.

The driver, identified as Qabel Najeeb, 29, of Worcester, was arrested Sunday and charged with rape. He pleaded not guilty in municipal court on Monday, and his bail was set at $10,000. He was scheduled to return to court on Nov. 15.

The Associated Press sent an email to his attorney seeking comment. A phone number for Najeeb could not be found.

Uber told The Boston Globe that Najeeb is not a driver for the ride-booking service.
Sidney Powell pleads guilty over efforts to overturn Trumps loss in Georgia and agrees to cooperate

Sidney Powell pleads guilty over efforts to overturn Trumps loss in Georgia and agrees to cooperate View Photo

ATLANTA (AP)  Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Donald Trumps loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors.

Powell, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the states anti-racketeering law, entered the plea just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.

As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also recorded a statement for prosecutors and agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

Powell was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Prosecutors say she also participated in an unauthorized breach of elections equipment in a rural Georgia county elections office.

The plea deal makes Powell the most prominent known person to be working with prosecutors investigating Trumps efforts to overturn the election. Her cooperation in the case and participation in strategy talks threaten to expose the former president and offer insight on what he was saying and doing in the critical period after the election.

Above all, the guilty plea is a remarkable about-face for a lawyer who, perhaps more than anyone else, strenuously pushed baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen election in the face of extensive evidence to the contrary. She also has important knowledge about high-profile events, including a news conference she participated in on behalf of Trump and his campaign shortly after the election and on a White House meeting she attended in mid-December of 2020 in which prosecutors say ways to influence the outcome of the election were discussed.

Powells only comments in court came in response to routine questions from prosecutor Daysha Young and the judge.

There was a moment of levity when Young asked, How old are you, maam?

Oh gosh, Powell said with a chuckle. Sixty-eight, despite my astonishingly youthful countenance.

But Powell was solemn and succinct when Young asked, How do you plead to the six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties?

Guilty, Powell said, her hands folded in front of her on the defense table.

John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, called Powells plea a significant win for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

This is somebody who was at ground zero of these allegations and a lawyer who is pleading guilty, he said. This is very significant.

Fishwick also said Powells plea is helpful to Jack Smith, the Justice Departments special counsel.

Powell is referenced, though not by name, as one of six unindicted co-conspirators in Smiths federal case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the election. That indictment notes how Trump had privately acknowledged to others that Powells unfounded claims of election fraud were crazy, yet nonetheless he promoted and embraced a lawsuit that Powell filed against the state of Georgia that included what prosecutors said were far-fetched and baseless assertions.

Barry Coburn, a Washington-based lawyer for Powell, declined to comment Thursday.

Powell gained notoriety for threatening in a Fox Business interview in November 2020 to release the Kraken, invoking a mythical sea monster when talking about a lawsuit she planned to file to challenge the results of the presidential election. Similar suits she filed in several states were promptly dismissed.

She was about to go on trial with lawyer Kenneth Chesebro after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. Jury selection was still set to begin Friday for Chesebro to go on trial by himself, though prosecutors said earlier that they also planned to look into the possibility of offering him a plea deal.

Jury selection was set to start Friday. Chesebros attorneys didnt immediately respond to messages seeking comment Thursday on whether he would also accept a plea deal.

A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, last month pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.

Steve Sadow, the lead attorney for Trump in the Georgia case, expressed confidence that Powells plea wouldnt hurt his own clients case.

Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy, he said.

Prosecutors allege that Powell conspired with Hall and others to access election equipment without authorization and hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to Coffee County, in south Georgia, to copy software and data from voting machines and computers there. The indictment says a person who is not named sent an email to a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County to an unidentified lawyer associated with Powell and the Trump campaign.

Trial dates have not been set for the 16 remaining defendants, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a Trump lawyer, and Mark Meadows, who was the Trump White Houses chief of staff.

Willis has faced some criticism over her wide-ranging indictment and use of the states anti-racketeering law to charge so many defendants. Some people had speculated that, if her case did not go well, it could undermine Smiths case, Fishwick said.

This certainly shows that at least, as of today, its not undermining it. In fact, its strengthening his case, Fishwick said.

___

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta contributed to this report.

By KATE BRUMBACK

Associated Press
Fewer Californians are moving to Texas, but more are going to Florida and Arizona

Fewer Californians are moving to Texas, but more are going to Florida and Arizona View Photo

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)  The number of former Californians who became Texans dropped slightly last year, but some of that slack was picked up by Arizona and Florida, which saw their tallies of ex-Californians grow, according to new state-to-state migration figures released Thursday.

The flow of Californians to Texas has marked the largest state-to-state movement in the U.S. for the past two years, but it decreased from more than 107,000 people in 2021 to more than 102,000 residents in 2022, as real estate in Texas largest cities has grown more expensive. In Florida, meanwhile, the number of former Californians went from more than 37,000 people in 2021 to more than 50,000 people in 2022, and in Arizona, it went from more than 69,000 people to 74,000 people during that same time period.

California had a net loss of more than 113,000 residents last year, a number that would have been much higher if not for people moving to the state from other countries and a natural increase from more births than deaths. More than 343,000 people left California for another state last year, the highest number of any U.S. state.

Housing costs are driving decisions to move out of California, which with 39 million residents is the most populous U.S. state, according to Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

We are losing younger folks, and I think we will see people continuing to migrate where housing costs are lower, Pastor said. There are good jobs in California, but housing is incredibly expensive. It hurts young families, and it hurts immigrant families.

Nevada also was a top destination for former Californians, but its gains dropped from more than 62,000 people in 2021 to more than 48,000 people in 2022.

The second-largest state-to-state movement in the U.S., from New York to Florida, remained almost unchanged from 2021 to 2022, at around 92,000 movers, according to the migration figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, which are based on American Community Survey one-year estimates.

There was a decrease last year in the outflow of former New Yorkers to New Jersey, dropping from more than 91,000 people in 2021 to more than 75,000 people in 2022. Year-over-year increases in former New Yorkers moving to Connecticut, Texas and Georgia made up for some of that cross-state drop.

Georgia was the most popular destination for residents leaving Florida last year and that outflow jumped from more than 49,000 residents in 2021 to more than 51,000 people in 2022.

Overall, more people living in one U.S. state moved to a different state last year in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic than they did in the previous year, though international migration was the primary driver of growth last year. In 2022, more than 8.2 million U.S. residents lived in a different state than they had in the previous year, compared to 7.8 million U.S. residents in 2021.

Among them were Evan Wu and Todd Brown, who moved from Corvallis, Oregon, to Honolulu in January 2022 for Wus job as an oncologist and cancer researcher, then at the start of this year to Southern California. Moving has been a constant for them in the past three years. In addition to Oregon, Hawaii and Southern California, they have lived in Baltimore and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Along the way, they added three daughters under the ages of 2 to their family.

They are now in the process of moving from Southern California back to Hawaii, and once that is done, they will have storage units in five cities with possessions they had to leave behind.

I love moving, but Todd hates it, Wu said. I love the change of scenery. It keeps you on your toes and keeps you sharp.

___

Follow Mike Schneider on X, formerly known as Twitter: @MikeSchneiderAP.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER

Associated Press
Italian lawmakers approve 10 million euros for long-delayed Holocaust Museum in Rome View Photo

MILAN (AP)  Italian lawmakers voted unanimously Wednesday to back a long-delayed project to build a Holocaust Museum in Rome, underlining the urgency of the undertaking following the killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas fighters in what have been deemed the deadliest attacks on Jews since the Holocaust.

The measure includes 10 million euros ($10.5 million) in funding over three years for construction of the exhibits, and 50,000 euros in annual operational funding to establish the museum, a project that was first envisioned nearly 20 years ago.

Recalling the execution of an Israeli Holocaust survivor during the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, lawmaker Paolo Formentini from the right-wing League party told the chamber, We thought that events of this kind were only a tragic memory. Instead, it is an ancient problem that is reappearing like a nightmare.

The Holocaust Museum project was revived last spring by Premier Giorgia Melonis far-right-led government. It languished for years due to bureaucratic hurdles but also what many see as a reluctance to examine the role of Italys fascist regime as a perpetrator of the Holocaust.

The president of the 16-year-old foundation charged with overseeing the project, Mario Venezia, said Italys role in the Holocaust, including the fascist regimes racial laws excluding Jews from public life, must be central to the new museum. The racial laws of 1938 are viewed as critical to laying the groundwork for the Nazi Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were murdered.

Of Italys 44,500 Jews, 7,680 were killed in the Holocaust, according to the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem. Many were rounded up by the German SS using information provided by Italys fascist regime and, according to historians, even ordinary Italians.

Denial has always been part of the history of World War II, taking various insidious forms, from complicit silence to the denial of facts, said Nicola Zingaretti, a Democratic Party lawmaker whose Jewish mother escaped the Oct. 16, 1943 roundup of Roman Jews; his maternal great-grandmother did not and perished in a Nazi death camp.

The Rome museum will therefore be important as an authoritative and vigilant of protector of memory, Zingaretti told the chamber before the vote.

The city of Rome has identified part of Villa Torlonia, which was the residence of Italys fascist dictator Benito Mussolini from 1925-43, as the site for the museum, but details were still being finalized, Venezia said.

By COLLEEN BARRY

Associated Press
The United States has been flying in international airspace over the East and South China Seas to help protect freedom of flight and navigation for decades, and it will continue to do. However, recent dangerous behavior by Chinese pilots have shown a determination by the PRC to coerce a change in lawful U.S. operational activity, said Ely Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs.

Assistant Secretary Ratner said the risky and coercive incidents by the Peoples Liberation Army, known as the PLA, constitute a disturbing trend.

Since the fall of 2021, we have seen more than 180 such incidents, more in the past two years than in the decade before that. Thats nearly 200 cases where PLA operators have performed reckless maneuvers or discharged chaff or shot off flares or approached too rapidly or too close to U.S. aircraft, all as part of trying to interfere with the ability of U.S. forces to operate safely in places where we and every country in the world have every right to be under international law, he said.

On October 17, the Defense Department released declassified photos and footage of some of the intercepts.

These images and videos speak for themselves, said Assistant Secretary Ratner. The skill and professionalism of American service members should not be the only thing standing between PLA fighter pilots and a dangerous, even fatal accident, and yet time after time, that is exactly what has prevented a disaster in the East and South China Seas.

The allies and partners of the United States welcome the American presence in the region, Secretary Ratner said, because it advances our shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.  By contrast the PLAs coercive and risky behavior  seeks to intimidate and coerce members of the international community into giving up their rights under international law.

Assistant Secretary Ratner noted the United States has tried to re-establish high-level military-to-military communication with the PRC to prevent competition from inadvertently veering into conflict, and that the U.S. would keep up those efforts.

He emphasized, however, the United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate safely and responsibly, wherever international law allows. Our forces have helped sustain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific for decades, and we will continue to do so every day.
The opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has announced its intention to initiate nationwide protests starting Monday in response to the recall of its Members of Parliament (MPs) and councillors.

The recalls were carried out by Sengezo Tshabangu, who claims to be the interim secretary-general of CCC. Tshabangu cited the MPs and councillors alleged departure from the opposition movement as the reason for their recall.

The CCC alleges that Tshabangu is being backed by the ruling party Zanu PF, with the aim of triggering by-elections that would potentially give Zanu PF a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly and allow for further amendments to the national Constitution. In the August elections, Zanu PF fell short of securing a two-thirds majority, obtaining 176 seats against CCCs 103.

CCCs interim spokesperson, Promise Mkwananzi, stated that the party feels compelled to take to the streets, starting with Bulawayo, where most of their recalled MPs were based. Mkwananzi emphasized that peaceful protests would be the chosen course of action. He urged President Emmerson Mnangagwa to engage with the CCC, warning that more substantial protests could follow if their concerns are not addressed.

CCC leader Nelson Chamisa previously wrote to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Jacob Mudenda, demanding the reinstatement of their legislators. Chamisa also announced a partial withdrawal of CCC MPs and councillors from their positions as a form of protest against the recalls. The opposition party has given the government a 14-day ultimatum to reinstate their officials.

The CCC alleges that its members have been unjustly targeted and removed from their positions. They have taken their case to the High Court, seeking to challenge the recalls. The hearing, scheduled for November 2, will address the CCCs request to reverse Mudendas announcement. The court has instructed the respondents to file their opposing affidavit by today, with the applicants required to respond by Monday.

The protests, organized under the banner Together We Rise, aim to highlight the broader issue of contested elections and give voice to Zimbabweans across the country who believe their rights have been disregarded. The CCC accuses Zanu PF of engaging in tactics to undermine them, particularly due to their absence from the opening of Parliament. The party has also chosen to protest by disengaging from all parliamentary and council business.

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ZANU PF calls for police action against individual impersonating party official

ZANU PF has urged the police to investigate and apprehend Tafadzwa Manyika, who allegedly wrote a letter to the Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Mudenda, recalling 70 ruling party MPs.

Manyika signed the letter as the ZANU PF interim Secretary General, claiming that the MPs were no longer members of the party.

In an interview with NewZimbabwe, Farai Marapira, ZANU PF Information Director, expressed concern over the potential consequences of such fraudulent actions. Marapira described the oppositions behaviour as immature and emphasized the need to address the dissemination of false information. He urged the police to locate and hold accountable the individuals responsible for spreading the fake letters, emphasizing the importance of maintaining stability and preventing alarm and despondency.

The letter bears similarities to another instance involving the self-imposed interim secretary general of the CCC party, Sengezo Tshabangu, which led to the recall of 15 CCC MPs from the National Assembly. Marapira highlighted the distinction between ZANU PF and CCC, noting that ZANU PF operates within known structures, unlike CCC.

Meanwhile, CCC held a press briefing on Wednesday reaffirming that they had not recalled any of their members from Parliament, the Senate, or local authorities. They dismissed the existence of the office of Secretary General claimed by Tshabangu, emphasizing that nobody could write on their behalf. CCC accused ZANU PF of orchestrating the recalls to secure a required two-thirds majority.

As the situation unfolds, ZANU PF continues to seek legal action against those responsible for spreading misinformation, while CCC maintains their stance, denying any recall of their members and challenging the legitimacy of Tshabangus claimed position.

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Yves here. To quote one of my friends in real estate, How many sexual favors were exchanged for this to happen? This reckless move by the EPA smacks of bribery American style, such as revolving door promises.

This post effectively argues that the precautionary principle should apply but thats not the standard being applied. But separate from that, its not even clear that this pesticide is even effective.

By Shannon Kelleher. Originally published at The New Lede

Colorado potato beetle. Photo by   on Unsplash

US regulators are fast-tracking a novel, gene-altering insecticide in an unusual move that would greenlight the product for three years of commercial use before a standard testing period is completed.

Calantha, a product of the company GreenLight Biosciences, contains the active ingredient ledprona, which uses a mechanism called RNA interference (RNAi) to kill the Colorado potato beetle, a notorious pest, by turning off genes it needs to survive. Calantha would be the first pesticide spray using RNAi, though the technology has been genetically engineered into some corn plants to protect them from the corn rootworms, and RNAi has a history of use in medical therapeutics and vaccines.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just granted GreenLight Biosciences an Experimental Use Permit (EUP) in May, giving the company two years to gather and assess data from use of the new product in limited test plots. But now the new pesticide could be widely sprayed on potato crops around the country as early as this spring.

Critics fear that the new pesticide is being rushed to market without sufficient data to demonstrate that it is safe for human health and the environment. They also question whether it will be effective.

Its a huge precedent-setter, said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumer Reports. This is a new form of pesticide which has never been on the market before. When this is a new class [of pesticide], you shouldnt be cutting corners.

The EPA said Friday that it is extending the public comment period for ledprona following a request from the environmental group Friends of the Earth. The deadline for the comment period, which was scheduled to end October 13, has been moved to October 30.

Unintended Consequences

Agrichemical companies applaud gene-silencing pesticides as a promising solution to the problem of pest resistance and an answer to consumers call for pesticide residue-free products.

In 2021, the US Department of Agriculture wrote a letter to the EPA strongly encouraging the agency to authorize ledprona for experimental use, writing that it could displace some broad-spectrum insecticide usage and could help potato growers manage the invasive insect.

Multiple studies have confirmed that the product has no harmful effect on people, pollinators, birds, fish or other non-target organisms, said a spokesperson for GreenLight Biosciences. Additionally, unlike the commercial chemical pesticides commonly used to control Colorado Potato Beetle, Calantha leaves no detectable residues on food, soil, water or in the atmosphere, the spokesperson said.

Still, opponents fear embracing this biotech alternative to chemical pesticides without carefully assessing risks could simply create new problems. Gene-silencing pesticides, which large companies including Bayer, BASF, and Syngenta are also developing, could potentially harm off-target species and jeopardize farmers health, critics argue.

We cant assume that because a technology is biological and not chemical that it is necessarily going to be safe, said Kendra Klein, deputy director for science at Friends of the Earth and an author of a 2020 report that calls gene-silencing pesticides a vast, open-air genetic experiment. We are considering releasing a material into the environment that will genetically engineer organisms in real time. We have such a long history of unintended consequences of technologies in agriculture  it would be foolish to not assume that there will be unintended consequences to this technology.

The gene-silencing mechanism used by such pesticides can be triggered whenever they encounter a matching or similar genetic sequence, noted Klein.

Were talking about potentially thousands of other species that would have related genetic sequences, she said.

The EPA said in a press release that EUP experimental testing will continue during the initial commercial registration period and data from it may be used in a future application for this product to amend its directions for use.

But critics said that is not sufficient. The EPA should know, for instance, how spraying the pesticide might affect species other than the intended target, including endangered beetles and the birds and amphibians that prey on the potato pest, said Jaydee Hanson, the policy director at the Center for Food Safety.

The EPA had done a pretty good job leading up to their abrupt notice that they wanted to approve this as a pesticide, said Hanson. Its not a bad job for the start of a field trial. But its a grossly incomplete job for turning this into an approval of the pesticide.

Immune Response and Efficacy Concerns

Consumer Reports Hansen said he commends the EPA for having the company consider effects on endangered species and for looking at both the active ingredient and the formulated product when conducting tests. Those are big steps forward, he said.

However, Hansen remains concerned about the possibility that the new pesticide could trigger an immune system response in humans. An analysis by GreenLight Biosciences previously identified two human transcripts that could potentially be affected by ledprona, although the final EPA human health risk assessment states that there is a reasonable expectation that ledprona is unlikely to affect these genes in vivo.

But they dont present enough data for us to see whether thats true, said Hansen.

The EPA notes in the assessment that double-stranded RNA molecules that are on the longer side, such as ledprona, are generally considered candidates to induce innate immune responses. As a result, the agency concludes that farmers and others working with the pesticide should wear respirators to avoid any risks from inhaling the pesticide.

However, the agency is not requiring any kind of verification that everyones going to be wearing [personal protective equipment] or even monitoring any of those folks to see if anything is happening, Hansen said. It seems to me almost like a dont look, dont find strategy.

Hansen also wonders about the pesticides efficacy  and the efficacy of RNAi pesticides more generally. A 2021 Scientific Reports study assessed a similar double-stranded RNA, which was being developed for a spray to combat the same potato pest. It found that within nine generations, 11,100 times the original quantity of pesticide was needed to get the same effect  an extremely high level of resistance, according to the study itself.

I would want to see the same thing on this product [ledprona] before it was ever approved, because if it does select for resistance very rapidly, thats not useful, said Hansen. With most chemical pesticides you dont see something like that, he added. That caused me to wonder if this whole field will just collapse.
Yves here. This post on the backstory of how the then British empire rather ineptly dialed up then tried to cool hostilities between Jewish immigrants promised a homeland and the Palestine incumbents is oddly superficial. For instance, it omits one of the original sins, recounted short form in a detailed account of T.E. Lawrence in Smithsonian Magazine:

But Faisals [third son and battlefield commander of Emir Hussein, ruler of the Hejaz region of central Arabia] young liaison officer also harbored a guilty secret. From his time in Cairo, Lawrence was aware of the extravagant promises the British government had made to Hussein in order to raise the Arab Revolt: full independence for virtually the entire Arab world. What Lawrence also knew was that just months after cementing that deal with Hussein, Britain had entered into a secret compact with its chief ally in the war, France. Under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the future independent Arab nation was to be relegated to the wastelands of Arabia, while all the regions of valueIraq, greater Syriawere to be allocated to the imperial spheres of Britain and France. As Lawrence recruited ever more tribes to the cause of future Arab independence, he became increasingly conscience-stricken by the dead letter promises he was making, and finally reached a breaking point. His first act of seditionand by most any standards, a treasonous onewas to inform Faisal of the existence of Sykes-Picot. With the war in Europe drawing to a close, he hurried to London to begin lining up support for the Arab cause at the upcoming Paris Peace Conference. Acting as Faisals personal agent, he frantically lobbied prime ministers and presidents to uphold the promises made to the Arabs and to prevent a peace imposed along the lines laid out in Sykes-Picot. By that scheme, Greater Syria was to be divided into four political entitiesPalestine, Transjordan, Lebanon and Syriawith the British taking the first two, the French the latter. As for Iraq, Britain had planned to annex only the oil-rich southern section, but with more oil discovered in the north, they now wanted the whole thing. Lawrence sought allies wherever he could find them. Surely the most remarkable was Chaim Weizmann, head of the English Zionist Federation. In January 1919, on the eve of the peace conference, Lawrence had engineered an agreement between Faisal and Weizmann. In return for Zionist support of a Faisal-led Syria, Faisal would support increased Jewish emigration into Palestine, tacitly recognizing a future Jewish state in the region. The pact was soon scuttled by the French. But the most poignant what-might-have-been involved the Americans. Suspicious of the imperialist schemes of his European partners in Paris, President Woodrow Wilson sent a fact-finding commission to the Middle East. For three months, the King-Crane Commission toured Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, and what they heard was unequivocal: The vast majority of every ethnic and religious group wanted independence or, barring that, American administration. Wilson, however, had far more interest in telling other nations how they should behave than in adding to American responsibilities. When the commission returned to Paris with its inconvenient finding, the report was simply locked away in a vault. Lawrences efforts produced a cruel irony. At the same time that he was becoming a matinee idol in Britain, courtesy of a fanciful lecture show of his exploits delivered by American journalist Lowell Thomas, he was increasingly regarded by senior British officials as the enemy within, the malcontent who stood in the way of victorious Britain and France dividing the spoils of war. In the end, the obstreperous lieutenant colonel was effectively barred from the peace conference and prevented any further contact with Faisal. That accomplished, the path to imperial concordand betrayalwas clear. The repercussions were swift in coming. Within the year, most all of the Middle East was aflame as the Arab world, enraged at seeing their Ottoman masters replaced by European ones, rebelled. Lawrence was particularly prescient about Iraq. In 1919, he had predicted full-scale revolt against British rule there by March 1920If we dont mend our ways. The result of the uprising in May 1920 was some 10,000 dead, including 1,000 British soldiers and administrators. Tasked to clean up the debacle was the new British Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, who turned for help to the man whose warnings had been spurned: T.E. Lawrence. At the Cairo Conference in 1921, Lawrence helped to redress some of the wrongs. In the near future, Faisal, deposed by the French in Syria, would be placed on a new throne in British-controlled Iraq. Out of the British buffer state of Transjordan, the nation of Jordan would be created, with Faisals brother, Abdullah, at its head. Gone forever, though, was the notion of a unified Arab nation. Vanished also was Lawrences spirit for the fight, or desire for leadership.

And the Stern Gang, where Jews settling in Israel formed an explicitly terrorist group to turn on their British overlords and Palestinians. From Wikipedia:

It was initially called the National Military Organization in Israel, upon being founded in August 1940, but was renamed Lehi one month later. The group referred to its members as terrorists and admitted to having carried out terrorist attacks. Lehi split from the Irgun militant group in 1940 in order to continue fighting the British during World War II. It initially sought an alliance with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Believing that Nazi Germany was a lesser enemy of the Jews than Britain, Lehi twice attempted to form an alliance with the Nazis, proposing a Jewish state based on nationalist and totalitarian principles, and linked to the German Reich by an alliance. After Sterns death in 1942, the new leadership of Lehi began to move towards support for Joseph Stalins Soviet Union and the ideology of National Bolshevism, which was considered an amalgam of both right and left. Regarding themselves as revolutionary Socialists, the new Lehi developed a highly original ideology combining an almost mystical belief in Greater Israel with support for the Arab liberation struggle. This sophisticated ideology failed to gain public support and Lehi fared poorly in the first Israeli elections. In April of 1948, Lehi and the Irgun were jointly responsible for the massacre in Deir Yassin of at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children. Lehi assassinated Lord Moyne, British Minister Resident in the Middle East, and made many other attacks on the British in Palestine. On 29 May 1948, the government of Israel, having inducted its activist members into the Israel Defense Forces, formally disbanded Lehi, though some of its members carried out one more terrorist act, the assassination of Folke Bernadotte some months later, an act condemned by Bernadottes replacement as mediator, Ralph Bunche. After the assassination, the new Israeli government declared Lehi a terrorist organization, arresting some 200 members and convicting some of the leaders. Just before the first Israeli elections in January 1949, a general amnesty to Lehi members was granted by the government. In 1980, Israel instituted a military decoration, an award for activity in the struggle for the establishment of Israel, the Lehi ribbon.[30] Former Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir became Prime Minister of Israel in 1983.

I am sure readers can fill in more important details.

By Saurav Sarkar, a freelance movement writer, editor, and activist living in Long Island, New York. They have also lived in New York City, New Delhi, London, and Washington, D.C. Follow them on Twitter @sauravthewriter and at sauravsarkar.com. Produced by Globetrotter

Israeli flags are flying over all government buildings in the United Kingdom currently, but this isnt the first time the former imperial hegemon has put its weight behind Zionism. In 1917, the British government issued the infamous Balfour Declaration.

This brief document67 wordswas a turning point in modern Palestinian history. It committed Great Britain to establishing a national home for Jewish people in Palestine. (The initial language promised a Jewish state, but was changed later.) The Balfour Declaration contained language that was meant to safeguard Palestinians, but we have seen how that has played out in the ensuing century.

From World War I to 1948, the British ruled Palestine, the bulk of that time under a mandate issued by the League of Nations. The population of Jewish settlers in Palestine increased over these decadesparticularly the 1930sas the British government fostered their immigration. In 1922, only 11 percent of the population in the region was Jewish. By 1931, the figure was up to about 17 percent. By 1939, it was almost 30 percent.

At that point, the British government sought to limit any further expansion of the Jewish population in order to ensure stability in the region. But by then, it was too latethe facts on the ground had changed. What had been a region that was almost 90 percent Palestinian had become a contested land between two demographically numerous groups. Moreover, the British had confiscated land from Palestinians to hand it over to Jewish people and engaged in violent repression of incipient Palestinian nationalism. And in the 1930s, a British government commission recommended that Palestine be partitioned, laying the groundwork for the failed two-state solution.

In other words, this conflict is the product of specific imperial policies that were practiced in the first half of the 20th century to foster a colonial project. The Jewish questionEuropes longstanding inability to adequately address its own antisemitismwas made into Palestinians Zionist problem by the British Empire.

One of the key features of British rule was to play different groups against each other. One of the key methods adopted by them over the course of centuries and a global collection of provinces was to study the social history of their subjects to manage the politics and play different groups against each other.

The support for Jewish migration to Palestine triggered resentment and mobilization by Indigenous Palestinians, eventually leading to the Great Revolt of 1936-1939. The revolt, which included a general strike and peasant uprising, was violently repressed by the British government in collaboration with Zionist paramilitaries. However, after the revolt, the British began to limit further Jewish immigration to the region, turning against the group they had supported in order to protect their imperial interests. This led to violent attacks by Zionists in Palestine.

Palestine is not alone in this fate. In region after region, the British used strategies of divide and rule to pit one people against another for the benefit of the empire. In British India, they pushed the Hindu-Muslim divide, sometimes favoring one population, sometimes the other. In Cyprus, they pitted the Greeks against the Turks. In Sri Lanka, it was the Tamils against the Sinhalese. In Ireland, it was the Catholics against the Protestants. The list goes on.

In all of these places, the supposedly ancient politics of intergroup conflict have persisted beyond when the sun set on the British Empire. There have been territorial divides based on ethnicity and/or religion. British India became India and Pakistan. Pakistan was then further subdivided into Pakistan and Bangladesh. Ireland was split up into the Republic of Ireland and the UKs Northern Ireland. Cyprus is divided in two, and its legal status is still unresolved. In Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka, a 30-year civil war waged to establish a Tamil state, which ended in 2009 in a similar fashion to what we are witnessing in Gaza today. And in 1948, Palestine was formally partitioned, establishing a Zionist state and what was meant to be a Palestinian one, with the blessing of the former British rulers who oversaw the beginning of the Nakba.

Each of these places has been marked with violent conflict based on ancient hatreds that can be traced to the last one or two centuries. It is this commonality that firmly establishes that the British Empire policies are the root cause of the violence in these regions; there are simply too many instances of these conflicts being traced back to the empire to imagine a coincidence.

While the proximate causes of Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide clearly lie squarely at the feet of Israel and its chief sponsor the United States, the United Kingdom has a special responsibility to make right its historical sins in Palestineand everywhere else. A minimal first step would be to work to stop the current genocide instead of waving an Israeli flag. But thislet alone reparationsdoes not seem to be on the table.
A friend once told Brian Regli that "we, Pennsylvanians" prefer to get our energy from the ground, not the sky.

Mr. Regli, now the executive director of critical investments with Gov. Josh Shapiro's office, recently considered where that leaves us: a state rich in natural resources, peppered with holes in the ground, home to a skilled oil and gas industry in the middle of an energy transition.

"Boy, if we could figure out how to make geothermal work in Pennsylvania ..." he said.

Geothermal energy, which uses heat from the earth to make electricity or warm buildings, has not been a hot topic in Appalachia in past years. It may not qualify as hot today either although interest in repurposing abandoned oil and gas wells, or even drilling and fracking new wells to produce carbon-free energy, is certainly simmering.

"There is a global understanding that, Hey, we got a lot of holes in the ground. Can we create revenue"' from something that would otherwise be a liability, Mr. Regli said.

He'd like to see a pilot project in Pennsylvania in the next few years. As would Arash Dahi Taleghani, professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering at Pennsylvania State University, who has written of "a symbiotic benefit" of reclaiming gas wells for geothermal development: "The oil and gas companies avoid the cost of abandonment, and the geothermal companies avoid the cost of drilling new wells."

So far, the efforts to develop this industry in Pennsylvania have been mostly verbal.

But in recent months, a non-profit organization called Project InnerSpace has been reaching out to public officials, academics, and oil and gas interests in Pennsylvania, pitching a transition from fossil fuel extraction to geothermal energy using the same workers and, potentially, the same infrastructure.

In May, Trent McFadyen, director of strategic initiatives with Project InnerSpace, spoke to the state's crude development advisory council, which is composed of conventional i.e. not shale gas operators.

CNX Resources Corp., a Canonsburg-based shale developer, has indicated it is looking at geothermal energy in some capacity, but declined to provide details.

Mr. Taleghani said he's trying to get a project going at Penn State.

Until then, West Virginia University may be Appalachia's proving ground for turning the geology and the tools of shale gas into geothermal potential.

Hot, dry rocks

Sam Taylor, director of WVU's Institute for Sustainability and Energy Research, said he's had geothermal in the back of his mind since he saw a subsurface heatmap of the U.S. in 2011. The map had several Western states drenched in red, while the Eastern U.S. wore mostly cool colors. Except for some yellow and orange blotches under the WVU campus near Morgantown.

"Maybe there's something there," he thought.

Coincidental proof of high temperatures came from a gas well at WVU's Marcellus Shale Energy and Environmental Laboratory project, a working well site where researchers monitor various aspects of geology and gas production.

Click here to read the full article by Anya Litvak in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announces another $200 million in military aid for Ukraine

The Pentagon recently announced a new batch of weaponry and other materiel for Ukraine's efforts to ward off Russia. The $200 million package was announced by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Oct. 11 ahead of a meeting with allies.

However, longer-term decisions over military support for Ukraine have been postponed in Washington, where the House is without a speaker and Republicans are still divided over extending the funding.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's counterattack is making slow progress in its efforts to divide the Russian forces that occupy nearly one-fifth of the country. Ukraine is going all out with its assault as time runs out before rains and cold weather make fighting more difficult.

On Oct. 11, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise visit to a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense ministers in Brussels to request continued support for his countrys efforts to push back Russian forces.

Zelensky also briefly mentioned the attack on Israel by Hamas in comments at the start of the meeting, after which he asked for more funds to execute the war "without any pauses."

His comments seemed to reference the worries that political dysfunction in Washington might temporarily suspend American support.

"We have to put even more pressure so that the aggressor weakens faster and does not have time to adapt to our pressure and we need to make sure that Russia is heading for defeat and does not even attempt to claim anything else," said Zelensky.

Zelensky asks for more air defenses

Zelensky also requested more air defenses to help Ukrainian forces protect their cities and troops against Russian missile attacks.

The Pentagon's new tranche of weaponry for Ukraine adds to more than $40 billion that it has already committed. It includes more artillery, additional ammunition for the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), and precision aerial munitions.

Ukrainian soldiers have been operating HIMARS since June. They are augmenting lightweight and precise weaponry that includes drones, Javelin antitank rockets and Stinger antiaircraft missiles, powered by GPS guidance and advanced microelectronics.

Ukraines 16 HIMARS can pick off Russian military bases, ammunition depots and infrastructure far from the front lines and it helped its troops fight off a bloody Russian advance this summer.

Since September, Ukrainians have seized back large areas of territory in the countrys east while also forcing back Russian troops in the south. Washington has also recently pledged to deliver another 18 HIMARS.

Within Kyivs arsenal, HIMARS offers Ukrainian forces a unique combination of range, precision and mobility that allows them to do the job that traditionally required dozens of launchers firing thousands of shells.

The weaponry also includes anti-armor systems, electronic-warfare equipment, missiles, small arms and more than 16 million rounds of small-arms ammunition. (Related: WW3 GUARANTEED: NATO summit unveils plan to accelerate Ukraine membership.)

Other allies have also made recent pledges. For example, Germany committed to new air defense systems and other equipment in a package worth more than $1 billion.

The U.K. also promised that it would send more than $100 million, along with mine-clearing equipment and air-defense capabilities.

The Pentagon has an estimated $5.2 billion left in an account for Ukraine. However, Biden administration officials shared that they only have about two more months of funding for Ukraine left as part of their plea to Congress to pass a new Ukraine funding bill.

In a statement accompanying the latest package of weaponry, the Pentagon announced that security assistance for Ukraine is a smart investment in America's national security.

"It helps to prevent a larger conflict in the region and deter potential aggression elsewhere while strengthening our defense industrial base and creating highly skilled jobs for the American people," continued the statement.

The U.S. has also pledged weaponry and other support for Israel as it struggled with the sudden attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas.

U.S. officials also claimed that they could support Israel while also assisting and monitoring the events in Ukraine. Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, said officials "firmly reject the notion that the United States of America cannot at once support the freedom-loving people of Ukraine and support the state of Israel."

Visit WWIII.news for more reports about the Russia-Ukraine war.

Watch the full video below of Judging Freedom" with host judge Andrew Napolitano and guest Colonel Doug Macgregor as they discuss the current situation in Ukraine and America's decline.

This video is from the What is happening channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

RIGGED: Lobbying group with deep ties to military-industrial complex behind articles demanding MORE TAXPAYER MONEY for Ukraine.

Britains arsenal is now depleted after giving Ukraine most of its weapons.

Putin says it is Russias mission to create a new world free from American hegemony.

Sources include:

WSJ.com 1

WSJ.com 2

Brighteon.com
British PM Rishi Sunak under fire for telling the TRUTH  that there are only 2 GENDERS

British Prime Minister (PM) Rishi Sunak is under fire for simply telling the truth that "a man is a man and a woman is a woman."

Sunak touched on various topics during his speech at the Conservative Party Conference (CPC) held in the city of Manchester  including the issue of sex and gender. "Patients should know when hospitals are talking about men or women," he told his fellow Tories during an Oct. 4 conference.

"We shouldn't get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. That's just common sense."

Aside from this, the PM also committed to passing legislation that would ensure "sexual and sadistic" killers spend their lives in prison. Sunak also expressed his belief that it shouldn't be controversial for parents to be informed about what their children are being taught in school regarding relationships.

The comments by the Tory leader came shortly after the country's National Health Service (NHS) decided to limit medical treatments for transgender children. Back in June, it announced a temporary ban on puberty blocker prescriptions to children under 18 seeking gender-affirming care at gender identity clinics. It plans to launch a clinical study examining the impact of puberty blockers on children come 2024. (Related: Transgender drugs and surgeries are atrocities, not 'care.')

Not the first time Sunak triggered the woke mob

This is not the first time the incumbent British PM has made such statements regarding gender identity. In April, he also made headlines when he agreed with the statement of the Tory-supporting website Conservative Home that all women "haven't got a penis."

"As a general operating principle for me, biological sex is vitally, fundamentally important in these questions," added Sunak. "We can't forget that."

Sunak stressed the importance of compassion, understanding and tolerance for those questioning their gender. However, he asserted that the issue of biological sex was fundamentally important to women's rights and women's spaces.

In June, LGBT news outlet PinkNews accused Sunak of mocking trans women following the leak of a secretly recorded clip. In the footage, a man purported to be the British PM can be heard making jokes dehumanizing and marginalizing trans women.

"It shows his spectacular misjudgment and why he's completely unfit to lead our country," the outlet said. The British politician then made comments about Member of Parliament (MP) Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats and the concept of "women having penises," using the latter as a butt of his jokes. This drew raucous laughter from the Tory MPs present.

The video has sparked outrage among activists and lawmakers alike.

"The veneer of freedom of speech publicly is one thing. But to make jokes in private, it's another thing altogether," said an anonymous source who shared the video footage. "You wouldn't make jokes about other marginalized people the way he did about trans people,"

"It is profoundly depressing  this whole 'othering' of minorities  pretty much any minority," an unnamed senior Tory MP remarked. "Without stopping to think we have equalities legislation for a reason, to stop discrimination against anyone with a protected characteristic  we should be trying to understand and support, not belittle and demonize."

A spokesperson for Sunak defended the PM's comments, stating that it was "a joke aimed at a political opponent rather than a specific group."

Head over to IdentityPolitics.news for more stories like this.

Watch this video of a middle school student discriminated against for defending the truth that there are only two genders.

This video is from the Red Voice Media channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Experts question long-term effects of breast mutilation surgery on quality of life of transgender youth.

Transgender surgery is rooted in the idea that doctors can cure mental illness by permanently maiming patients.

TRANS MILITANTS STRIKE AGAIN: Police believe vandalism at state senators home was retaliation for sponsoring bill banning transgender surgery for minors.

Campus insanity  Students in UK schools allowed to identify as ANIMALS.

Transgender activists attack biological females at pro-woman event in Washington state.

Sources include:

TheGatewayPundit.com

TheNational.scot

APNews.com

Independent.co.uk

ThePinkNews.com

Brighteon.com
Colombia threatening to cut diplomatic ties with Israel over neo-Nazi GENOCIDE in Gaza

Colombian President Gustavo Petro is threatening to cut all ties with the government of Israel amid an escalating diplomatic row over Tel Aviv's war against Palestinian militants in Gaza.

The diplomatic spat started a day after Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israel after Petro used his official Twitter account to denounce what he called the "neo-Nazi" efforts by Israel to destroy the Palestinian people, their freedom and their culture as he condemned the genocide of Palestinian civilians. (Related: Israel DELAYS Gaza ground offensive as it orders 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Strip to EVACUATE.)

He doubled down on these comments a day later when he reacted to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant claiming that the Israel Defense Forces are fighting "human animals" in Gaza.

"This is what the Nazis said about the Jews," said Petro. "All this hate speech will do, if it continues, is lead to a Holocaust."

As president, Petro has demanded that Israel adhere to international law, that the international community protect healthcare workers in Gaza and that the systematic attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure must be stopped to prevent a genocide. He has also announced that Colombia would be sending humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

"I've been to the Auschwitz concentration camp and now I see it being copied in Gaza," said Petro. More recently, he has threatened to "suspend foreign relations with Israel."

"If we have to  we will suspend them," said Petro. "We don't support genocides."

Petro has asked other Latin American governments to join him in standing in solidarity with the civilians in Palestine and has also called on the people of Israel to support a ceasefire and a lasting peace.

Israel reprimands Colombian ambassador, suspends security exports to country

Israel responded to Petro's statement comparing the Israeli government to the Nazis by summoning Colombian Ambassador to Israel Margarita Manjarrez for an official reprimand.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat called Petro's statements "hostile and antisemitic," and told Manjarrez that "her president's statements were received in Israel with shock."

He added that Israel would be halting security exports to Colombia. The Colombian state-owned military weapons manufacturer INDUMIL has a long relationship with its Israeli counterpart, the state-owned IMI Systems. Israel regularly exports unassembled firearms to INDUMIL, including the Galil, the standard-issue rifle of the Colombian military.

Petro has also been exchanging words with the Israeli Ambassador to Colombia Gali Dagan, who offered to take Petro to the kibbutzim in southern Israel that Hamas attacked to show him the carnage the terrorist organization wrought upon Israeli civilians, urging him to condemn Hamas.

In response, Petro said: "Terrorism is to kill innocent children, whether it be in Colombia or in Palestine."

Dagan's tone in speaking with Petro over social media has received condemnation from the Colombian Foreign Ministry and its head, Alvaro Leyva Duran, who pointed out that treating presidents with respect and "sensibly chosen words" was compulsory for any diplomat.

"No sensible person can applaud the scorched earth policy, no matter where it comes from," added Leyva. "It violates human dignity. It kills innocent people."

Watch this Oct. 17 episode of "Brighteon Broadcast News" as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, talks about how Gaza is the world's largest open-air prison thanks to the Israeli military blockade and occupation.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Israel calls Palestinians "human animals" before cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to Gaza, an open air prison enslaving millions.

Anti-war Code Pink group calls Israel an occupying force  "U.S.-backed Israeli apartheid regime inflicts daily settler violence and terror on Palestinians."

Thousands flee Gaza as Israel moves full-steam ahead with military invasion that will slaughter innocent women, children and civilians.

Israel refusing to allow HUMANITARIAN AID to reach the 2 million civilians trapped in Gaza.

GENOCIDAL: Israeli lawmaker demands deployment of "Doomsday" weapons to annihilate Gaza.

Sources include:

ColombiaReports.com

TheGuardian.com

MiddleEastMonitor.com

Brighteon.com
STUDY: Cross-sex hormones increase heart disease risk in transvestites by 93%

Over the last fifteen years, a new industry has emerged, one that preys on the psychology of young adults and children, one that destabilizes, deforms and castrates people, with no regard for medical ethics. A new study finds that cross-sex hormones increase ones risk of heart disease by 93% . These cross-sex hormones are the one-size-fits-all treatment for young adults and children who are confused about their gender identity.

Transgender clinics are harming patients for life, in more ways than one

In 2007, the United States first transgender youth clinic opened up in Boston, Massachusetts. Since then, at least forty other transgender youth clinics have opened up across the United States. These clinics see patients who are confused, lonely, autistic and/or struggling with mental and emotional difficulties. These clinics see patients who are seeking a sense of belonging, identity and validation for their feelings and urges.

However, these clinics do not properly counsel and guide children to their innate gender. The counselors and doctors are not trained to deal with the underlying endocrine disruption and its hormonal impact during puberty. The providers spend very little time with patients and do not address the psychology behind sexual desires, and how these urges affect ones expression, appearance and view of self. These clinics do not address the external influences, the belonging factor, or the social contagion that often drives kids to make such dire conclusions about their body and identity.

Instead, these clinics are designed to automatically validate the feelings of young adults and children and go along with their desires for permanent hormonal castration and/or genital mutilation. If a patient is unhappy about their body, their image, or their identity, the counselors and doctors work together to affirm the gender of the patients choosing. The protocol to achieve these goals includes cross-sex hormones that validate the dysphoria and further the hormonal disruption in the body.

To make matters worse, the gender-affirming care that is prescribed so liberally today cannot be challenged, even when it causes further harm to the patient. Second opinions are not allowed and are often outlawed. Doctors who dissent to gender affirming care are routinely ostracized, even when they see the abuses of the transgender industry firsthand.

Cross-sex hormone therapies cause heart disease and Type-2 diabetes

These cross-sex hormone therapies are causing serious physical issues within the patients body. One of the greatest risks is heart disease. Males who take feminizing hormones are 93 percent more likely to suffer from heart disease than other men who do not take the drugs. Likewise, female transvestites who take testosterone are 63 percent more likely to suffer heart disease than other women who do not take the drugs. These are the results of a new study published in the European Journal of Endocrinology, which were also presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Male transvestites who take estrogen see increased fat mass and lower lean body mass. This increase in estrogen is associated with an increased risk of autoimmune disease, inflammation and Type-2 diabetes. The research builds upon a 2021 study that found a risk of myocardial infarction and stroke for men trying to transition to women.

Lead author Dr. Dorte Glintborg from Denmarks Odense University Hospital wrote that epidemiological studies in transgender women reported increased risk of acute myocardial infarction and stroke during feminizing treatment, whereas long-term, controlled studies regarding feminizing treatment and risk of arterial CVD are lacking." Glintborgs team tracked the health of 2,671 transvestites from Denmark over a five-year period. A total of 1,270 women and 1,402 men were studied, with the average age of 26 and 22, respectively. The transvestites were compared to a control group of 26,700 people and monitored for heart disease.

"Cardiovascular and metabolic outcomes were more prevalent in transgender persons compared to controls. Gender-affirming hormone therapy exposure could contribute to the elevated cardiovascular risk in transgender men, assigned female at birth," the researchers concluded. "Future studies will be able to bring further knowledge regarding mechanisms for higher cardiovascular risk in transgender men and women." This study is frightening, considering the young age of the participants in this study and the prevalence of heart disease.

Sources include:

TheBlaze.com

NaturalNews.com

TandFOnline.com

NaturalNews.com

Academic.oup.com

FindResearcher.sdu.dk [PDF]
Ecuadorians elect Noboa as new president, REJECTING SOCIALISM of past leaders

Conservative businessman Daniel Noboa, 35, has been proclaimed as the new president of Ecuador after winning the country's Oct. 15 runoff elections.

Noboa, son of a banana magnate and five-time failed presidential candidate, was declared the winner of the runoff election with 94.03 percent of votes tallied. He received 52.3 percent of the national vote while his rival, socialist lawyer Luisa Gonzalez, received 47.7 percent. In August, Gonzalez took the No. 1 spot in the first round of elections while Noboa landed second.

Gonzalez landing on the top spot during the first round of voting on Aug. 20 did not put her in the Carondelet Palace. Under Ecuadorian election law, presidential candidates running in the first round must get over 40 percent of the votes and be 10 points ahead of the nearest rival. Given that none of the first-round candidates met this threshold, both Gonzalez and Noboa faced off during the second round. (Related: Socialist lawyer, conservative businessman head to second round of runoff elections to determine Ecuador's next president.)

Noboa, who will turn 36 in November, is the youngest president in the South American nation's history. While he has described himself as "center-left" in the past, he campaigned as a centrist and emphasized the need to unite Ecuadorians from both sides of the political spectrum. This has led political experts in the country to describe his policy platform as vague, though they acknowledged the "technocratic" skills he brings to the table.

The president-elect joined the newly formed National Democracy Alliance, promising to decentralize the federal government's powers and invest government funds heavily in expanding agriculture. Noboa also pivoted toward female voters  with his promise to implement a $60 government bonus for pregnant women so they can buy healthier food. He also promised to expand both access to medical care and job opportunities for mothers.

Following his victory, Noboa issued a brief statement thanking his supporters. He also promised to "work for a country that has been hit by corruption, violence and hate."

Gonzales accepts defeat, pledges support for Noboa

Gonzales, meanwhile, graciously accepted her loss to Noboa and pledged her support for the new president. "We have never called for a city to be set on fire, nor have we ever gone out shouting fraud," Gonzalez told her followers.

Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa blamed the "treason" of his successor, former Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno, for the loss of Gonzalez. Correa is currently in exile in Belgium after Moreno issued a warrant for his arrest in 2018, based on corruption and abuse of power charges. Correa served as the country's leader from 2007 to 2017.

"They even murdered a candidate to prevent our victory," Correa wrote on social media, referencing the Aug. 9 murder of Fernando Villavicencio. According to Correa, conservative powers had the journalist-turned-politician killed to smear the socialist. Villavicencio had been ordered jailed by Correa during his term as president.

Ecuadorian law enforcement arrested six Colombian nationals right after the killing, with a seventh suspect later taken into custody. Police later confirmed that the seven were killed in prison.

But Moreno, who stayed in Carondelet from 2017 until 2021, lauded Noboa's victory as a strong national rejection of Correa.

"Because of the grave damage they did to Ecuador, Correism will never again take power," Moreno wrote on social media. "They need to understand this once and for all. Ecuador wants peace, democracy, freedom, strong institutions, separation of powers, freedom of expression, transparency [and] moderation in public debt."

Moreno concluded his post by congratulating the Ecuadorian people "for an election of peace and democracy."

Head over to AbolishSocialism.com for more similar stories.

Watch this clip that captures the last moments of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio before his murder.

This video is from the Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Anti-crime, anti-China presidential candidate in Ecuador ASSASSINATED.

Food and fuel shortages, price spikes continue to get worse in protest-hit Ecuador.

Ecuador declares 60-day state of emergency following ASSASSINATION of presidential candidate.

Frontrunner in Argentinas presidential elections calls China an assassin, points to the countrys LACK OF FREEDOM.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

ElectionGuide.org

TheGuardian.com

Brighteon.com
Hamas thanks Iran for providing weapons, money and other equipment to attack Israel

Abu Obaidah, the official spokesman of the Izzudin Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas operating in the Gaza Strip, is thanking Iran for all the "weapons, money and other equipment" used to attack Israel.

"[They] gave us missiles to destroy Zionist fortresses, and helped us with standard anti-tank missiles," Obaidah further said, crediting the Islamic Republic of Iran for these procurements.

The claim is that all that "aid" money the United States sent to Iran under Barack Hussein Obama and Joe Biden  all in all, there is said to be $16 billion worth of it  was ultimately used by Hamas via Iran to launch this most recent attack on Israel.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller denies all this, having written on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday that none of the aid money the U.S. sent to Iran was used to fund these acts of terrorism.

"Let's be clear: the deal to bring U.S. citizens home from Iran has nothing to do with the horrific attack on Israel," Miller claims.

"Not a penny has been spent, and when it is, it can only go for humanitarian needs like food and medicine. Anything to the contrary is false."

(Related: Last fall, Iran announced plans to sell hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones to Russia.)

Have Hamas terrorists entered the U.S. via the southern border with plans to attack Americans?

Almost nobody is buying Miller's claims, though many also wonder how Hamas was able to outsmart Israel's highly intelligent military and defense apparatus, which is said to be the best in the world.

Perhaps it really is that the weapons Hamas used in the attack were too calculated and advanced for the Israel Defence Force (IDF) to thwart. Or perhaps there is much more to the story that we are not privy to learning.

The claim is that Hamas is abducting innocent Israeli children, women and grandmothers and locking them in cages in Gaza while filming it for the world to see.

Children have been locked in cells. Hamas militants have published a video that shows them holding Israeli children hostage. Here, we are gathering all the facts: https://t.co/5uIgUDSlTO #Israel #Hamas pic.twitter.com/Up6UACZQgt  Voice of Europe ? (@V_of_Europe) October 8, 2023

"This could happen in the U.S. if we keep these borders open and encourage these people to come here," one independent media outlet suggests. "It might be too late now."

There are certainly major concerns arising about the untold millions of invaders who have poured across America's southern border in recent years under both Democrats and Republicans. Are some of them Hamas terrorists planning to unleash terror here as well?

Time will tell. One thing we do know is that the America many knew and loved is pretty much gone, and chaos theory now seems to rule the day.

We are told that Hamas terrorists were able to overcome Israel's top-of-the-line defense infrastructure by dropping "drone bombs on the border." These drone bombs supposedly came from every direction, including land, air and sea.

"Obama gave the Palestinians $355 million in 2015," one commenter wrote about the situation. "On his last day in office, he gave them $221 million more but Trump blocked it."

Another wrote that Iran is probably thanking the U.S. for funding and planning the billions that were freed up on 9/11.

"Wasn't this expressing solidarity with Iran?" this person further asked. "On Oct. 4, 2018, an entity known by one letter, not X, said that a certain Middle East country's intelligence apparatus would stand down, in five years. Low and behold, five years was the day of the American EBS test."

The latest news about the escalating conflict in the Middle East can be found at Chaos.news.

Sources for this article include:

IndependentSentinel.com

Newstarget.com
OUTRAGE: Israel told Gaza residents to flee to Egypt for safety, then appears to have BOMBED the lone border crossing for their escape

Reports have emerged to suggest that immediately after telling the two million-plus Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip to flee to Egypt, Israel appears to have proceeded to bomb Rafah , the only border crossing that exists between the two territories.

The Times of Israel reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck an underground tunnel that it claims was being used for "smuggling weapons and equipment in the Rafah area, on the Egypt-Gaza border," though the IDF did not officially confirm that it hit the crossing itself. Reports on the ground, though, say that Rafah is now completely impassable, which means the millions of Gaza residents who were told to flee before Israel's planned ground invasion are now stuck like sitting ducks.

The Israeli military issued the warning just minutes before the bombing, meaning nobody even had time to react to it, let alone make plans to flee for their own safety. This is why many are now realizing that this is a planned genocide and ethnic cleansing operation that Israel is launching against Gaza that goes far beyond just Hamas.

(Related: Did you know that the Israeli Knesset, a far-right political member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government coalition, is trying to ban Christianity and the preaching of Jesus Christ within the country's borders?)

Israel isn't just after Hamas: It wants the whole Gaza Strip, meaning the "human animals"  Israel's words, not ours  have to GO

Keep in mind that while the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza has not yet occurred  though it is in the works, according to Israeli officials  there have been hundreds of ongoing airstrikes taking place that are killing innocent men, women and children in Gaza who have nothing to do with Hamas.

"[T]he Gaza Strip is just over twice the size of Washington, D.C., but has triple the population," one media report explains about how serious this is due to the sheer number of people currently occupying that tiny sliver of land that Israel desperately wants to annex and reclaim as its own after being driven out of the land thousands of years ago by God Himself.

The IDF insists that while it has been instructing the population inside Gaza to "distance themselves from designated areas" that Israel claims it is targeting in exclusivity, there were never any official calls for these people to exit to Egypt.

Where are they supposed to go, then? Will they all get shipped to Europe and the United States as migrants, or will they just die at the hands of the Israeli military? Time will tell, but this is clearly escalating into a very serious humanitarian crisis, the likes of which will more than likely shock the world once it all really starts to take shape.

NetBlocks shared a metrics update showing that internet connectivity in Gaza following the Israeli airstrikes has left the region in a total blackout situation.

"Rhetoric out of Israeli officials has continued to dehumanize all Palestinians in the strip in an attempt to provide cover for the mass bombing campaign of militants and civilians alike," one media outlet warns about the dire situation.

"Netanyahu has long harbored plans to annex the Gaza Strip and move Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt," one commenter noted about the matter, citing an audio recording of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who spoke about a conversation he had with Netanyahu.

"Netanyahu once said ... that there is a map showing the Gaza Strip and the territory near our borders, and began to consult if the population of the Gaza Strip moved to the Sinai Peninsula," Mubarak said, adding that he refused Netanyahu's offer.

"Forget it," Mubarak told Netanyahu. "I, nor the one who comes after me, will be able to give up our territory."

The latest news about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East can be found at WWIII.news.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

Newstarget.com
Rep. Jim Jordan fails to win speakership in first round of voting after 20 Republicans refused to vote for him

Rep. Jim Jordan's bid to become the new Speaker of the House of Representatives failed on the first vote after 20 Republican holdouts refused to vote for him

In the first vote for the new House speaker on Tuesday, Oct. 17, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries won 212 votes. Jordan received 200 votes, with 20 Republican holdouts voting for other candidates  six votes for former speaker Kevin McCarthy, seven votes for McCarthy ally and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three votes for former New York GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin. Four other holdouts voted for Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Rep. Mike Garcia of California and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

Before the vote, in an interview with Steve Bannon on Real America's Voice, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of Jordan's staunchest supporters and allies in the House, noted that the conservative wing of the Republican Party had made a lot of progress in winning over the holdouts over Jordan's nomination. (Related: Rep. Jim Jordan chosen as House Republican nominee for speaker.)

"The wind is at the back of Speaker-designate Jim Jordan," Gaetz said at the time while noting that this is still not a certainty. "I think we go into this with a good dose of realism and sobriety, but the wind is at our back."

Notably, Gaetz spoke about how Jordan was able to convince notable holdout Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama and many southern Republicans to come over and support Jordan's nomination. He noted that Rogers' eventual endorsement of Jordan's nomination is "a message" to those who disagree with Jordan's nomination that "holding out against Jordan is ultimately a fool's errand."

"It is not going to be productive. The 'Jordan Train' is coming. You need to get on board or you can be run over," said Gaetz.

Jordan needs to convince three blocs of GOP reps to vote for him

Among the 20 representatives who did not vote for Jordan, three clear blocs have indicated why they did not support the conservative ally of former President Donald Trump's bid for the speakership.

Among the most notable are seven Republicans whose districts are considered "purple" districts, meaning that they represent districts either won by President Joe Biden in the 2020 election or are at risk of being lost to Biden in 2024. They are worried that their support for Jordan could hurt their chances at reelection.

These are Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Lori Chavez DeRemer of Oregon, Jen Kiggans of Virginia and the four New York Republicans whom Jordan notably did his best to win over in the days leading up to the first vote on Tuesday. They are Reps. Andrew Garbarino, Anthony D'Esposito, Nick Lalota and Mike Lawler.

The next group is seven Republicans, all of whom serve in the House Appropriations Committee, which controls federal spending. These members expressed concern about Jordan's speakership as they believe he would be demanding supposedly extreme across-the-board funding cuts, including to the military.

This bloc includes Reps. Kay Granger of Texas, the chairwoman of the committee, Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, Jake Ellzey of Texas, Tony Gonzales of Texas, John Rutherford of Florida, Mike Simpson of Idaho and Steve Womack of Arkansas.

The last group is a bloc of six Republicans who are known as moderates or McCarthy loyalists. They are Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Carlos Gimenez of Florida, Doug LaMalfa of California, John James of Michigan, Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania and Victoria Spartz of Indiana.

Jordan and his allies in the House have a long road ahead of them to convince these three clear blocs to support his speakership. Of these, only LaMalfa has indicated his willingness to come over to Jordan's side and vote for him on the second ballot.

"We're going to keep working," said Jordan after the vote fell through, adding that he was not surprised so many held off on voting for him and that he expected to do better in the next round. "We feel confident."

Find more stories like this at BigGovernment.news.

Watch this episode of the "War Room" on Real America's Voice as host Steve Bannon interviews Rep. Matt Gaetz about Jordan's looming House speakership.

This video is from the GalacticStorm channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Ivan Raiklin and Ann Vandersteel discuss the possibility of Trump becoming the next House speaker  Brighteon.TV.

Republican-controlled House of Representatives CUTS FUNDING to GLOBALIST institutions and the climate hoax.

Government once again at risk of shutdown following Republican infighting over who will be the next House speaker.

House Speaker McCarthy warns of GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN if Biden doesn't agree to protect the border.

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan wants government budget deal to include ban on federal funding of censorship activities.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

APNews.com

Edition.CNN.com

NYTimes.com
Paris erupts in RIOTS: Macron bans pro-Palestinian rallies, imposes AUTOMATIC DEPORTATION on arrested foreigner-protesters

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced on October 12 that the French government is banning "pro-Palestinian" gatherings , protests, speeches, writings, or even flags as they may create public disorder." Just hours later, the French went to the streets of Paris to protest and riots erupted there after.

President Emmanuel Macron has urged his people to remain calm and united and refrain from bringing the Israel-Hamas conflict home, but his government even formulated a new decree indicating that the country would automatically deport foreign nationals seen or caught publicly "supporting" the Arab ethnonational group.

"Pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be prohibited because they are likely to generate disturbances to the public order," Darmanin said, adding that any organization of such protests will lead to arrests. He also called on the police to protect all locations visited by French Jews such as synagogues and schools, and said any foreigner committing acts of anti-Semitism on French soil would be "immediately expelled."

Demonstrators in Paris rally in support of Palestine against the Israeli aggression despite the government complete ban on all pro-Palestine protests French police currently warning marchers to end the protest and leave the scene pic.twitter.com/3HzBbX0E89  Hussein (@EyesOnSouth1) October 12, 2023

Macron has condemned the deadly attack by the Palestinian militant Hamas group and voiced solidarity with Israel. "This event is an earthquake for Israel, the Middle East, and beyond," Macron said in a TV address shortly after the announcement of the ban. "Let's not pursue at-home ideological adventures by imitating or projecting. Let's not add, through illusions or calculations, domestic divides to international divides. The shield of unity will protect us from hatred and excesses."

The several hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators ignored the prohibitions and gathered in the historic Place de la Republique on Thursday in the French capital in separate groups. The demonstrators whistled, clapped, and also sang slogans in French including "We are all Palestinian" and "Palestine will live, Palestine will prevail." They were also chanting "Israel murderer" and "Macron accomplice."

The ban on pro-Palestinian rallies is "not normal under the rule of law," one attendee named Ryan told Reuters. "In France, the great country that they say France is, you cannot demonstrate as is your right, freely. Unfortunately, freedom is no longer here, and we are forced to defy French law, as one would say, and demonstrate to show the truth."

"We live in a country of civil law, a country where we have the right to take a stand and to demonstrate. [It is unfair] to forbid for one side and to authorize for the other," said 29-year-old Charlotte Vautier, an employee at a non-profit who took part in the rally. The cops used teargas and water cannons to break up the banned rallies, which enraged the rioters even more. (Related: Student groups call for the targeting of Israeli CIVILIANS in pro-Palestine "Day of Resistance" protests.)

BREAKING: Police fire tear gas at pro-Palestine protesters in Paris after France orders ban on all pro-Palestinian protestspic.twitter.com/8xowi5D446  Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) October 12, 2023

France is home to Europe's largest Muslim and Jewish communities. The Middle East conflict has often stoked domestic tensions in the past. Since the Hamas cross-border attack from Gaza on Saturday October 7th, the cops have arrested more than 20 people in dozens of antisemitic acts, including harassment of Jewish children by fellow pupils at school, the government said on Wednesday.

France to "ensure" funds are not funneled to Hamas

Macron's government is not for completely suspending the European Union's aid for Palestine amid the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel. "We are not in favor of suspending aid that directly benefits the Palestinian people," the French president told the reporters after a joint French-German Cabinet meeting in Hamburg. According to him, a review was already underway to ensure that their humanitarian assistance was not used to finance Hamas' activities. "The aid is used for providing water, health services, food, and education for the civilian population," he claimed.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his confidence that their financial assistance is not going to Hamas. However, due to the recent developments in the region, they will take a closer look at these aid programs for the Palestinians. "We are talking about humanitarian assistance, provided also in areas far away from the recent incidents so that people can have water and food," he said, pointing out that humanitarian projects were carried out not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank and in some neighboring countries. He also vowed to make sure that through these assistance programs, no structure is supported that has anything to do with terrorism. "We are confident that this is not the case, but we must look at these again after these developments," he added.

The militant group Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel early last Saturday. It fired a barrage of rockets that infiltrated Israel by land, air, and sea. The group claimed that the attack was in response to the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and increased settler violence against Palestinians. In retaliation, the Israeli military launched "Operation Swords of Iron" against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. More than 1,000 Israelis have been killed and over 2,600 others wounded in the fighting, according to the Israeli Health Ministry.

Bookmark WWIII.news for more news related to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine and its effect on other nations.

Sources for this article include:

Edition.CNN.com

HalTurnerRadioShow.com

Reuters.com

AA.com.tr
Nicor Gas is celebrating Careers in Energy Week' this week - a nationwide event highlighting career opportunities in the natural gas industry. Illinois' growing economy increases demand for skilled trades workers in manufacturing, construction, and utility industries and the energy industry offers a variety of exciting options for students and work-ready adults.

Nicor Gas is committed to offering career opportunities to more than 2,000 talented and dedicated employees in a variety of technical, administrative and professional fields, as well as helping the next generation discover a career in the energy industry.

"At Nicor Gas, we design, construct, operate and maintain the company's more than 34,000 miles of underground pipeline and are proud to employ individuals in a variety of technical, administrative and professional roles," said Wendell Dallas, president and CEO of Nicor Gas. "As the largest natural gas provider in Illinois, we are committed to seeking skilled talent to fill key roles and preparing the next generation for opportunities in the industry through career fairs, in-classroom activities and community engagement programs."

Nicor Gas Career Academy

Since 2018, Nicor Gas and IBEW Local 19, in partnership with NPL Construction Co. and the Quad County Urban League, have offered Career Academy, a free, six-week job-readiness program designed to prepare participants for entry-level work in the utility industry, focusing on natural gas.

Nicor Gas with the Quad County Urban League recently welcomed the ninth cohort of students to the program to address the growing need for a qualified, skilled and diverse pool of candidates within Nicor Gas and its construction partners, including but not limited to IBEW Local 19, NPL Construction Co., INTREN, KS Energy Services and Pipe Strong.

To date, nearly 200 students have graduated from the program's curriculum focused on natural gas operations training that integrates core math concepts, safety, technology, employability skills, and personal and professional development. Participants also job shadow the Nicor Gas Call Center to understand the customer experience.

To learn more about Nicor Gas' Career Academy, visit NicorGas.com/CareerAcademy.

Nicor Gas Market Development Initiative

The Nicor Gas Energy Efficiency Program is fostering career growth in the energy efficiency industry through its new Market Development Initiative. The initiative is designed to help diverse contractors expand their business and underemployed individuals increase their skillset.

Through the Trade Ally Development (TAD) program, diverse contractors can grow their businesses in the energy efficiency field. Through certifications, growth plan development and mentorship, they are equipped with tools to support their expansion.

The Workforce Training and Employment (WTE) program gives individuals who are new to the energy efficiency industry the opportunity to elevate their skills. Those who are currently in the field can also increase their earning potential by gaining key professional credentials, as well as hands-on and classroom training.

Resources for Students and Teachers

Nicor Gas has held a long-term partnership with the Center for Energy and Workforce Development (CEWD) to highlight exciting career opportunities and education in the natural gas industry. For videos, one pagers and more activities and information to share with students of all ages, visit CEDW.org.

About Nicor Gas

Nicor Gas is one of four natural gas distribution companies of Southern Company Gas, a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO). Nicor Gas serves more than 2.3 million customers in a service territory that encompasses most of the northern third of Illinois, excluding the city of Chicago. For more information, visit nicorgas.com.

About Southern Company Gas

Southern Company Gas is a wholly owned subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE:SO), America's premier energy company. Southern Company Gas serves approximately 4.3 million natural gas customers through its regulated distribution companies in four states with approximately 600,000 retail customers through its companies that market natural gas. Other businesses include investments in interstate pipelines and ownership and operation of natural gas storage facilities. For more information, visit southerncompanygas.com.

Media Contact:

Allison Gregoire

470.733.2076

aegregoi@southernco.com
South Africa CULLS 7.5M chickens to contain BIRD FLU outbreaks, triggering shortages of poultry and eggs

South Africa has had to cull about 7.5 million chickens to contain dozens of outbreaks caused by two different strains of avian influenza. This resulted in the scarcity and price increase of eggs and poultry meat, which are some of the go-to staples and a more affordable source of protein.

The South African Poultry Association (SAPA) reported the first bird flu cases in commercial poultry farms in April. SAPA General Manager Izaak Breitenbach said roughly 205,000 chickens have died from two different bird flu strains  the infamous H5N1 and a new strain identified as H7N6  in at least 60 separate outbreaks across the country

More than half of those outbreaks occurred in Gauteng province, which includes the city of Johannesburg and the executive capital Pretoria. H7N6 was spreading through the northeastern provinces of Mpumalanga and Gauteng at an "alarming rate."

Producer Quantum Foods said because of the fowl plague, it had lost almost two million chickens  worth a total of more than 100 million African rand (roughly $5.18 million).

"They're dying like flies. This year's bird flu outbreaks are the worst that South Africa has witnessed and has already caused shortages of table eggs and poultry meat in the market," leading poultry producer Astral Food said in a trading update.

Additionally, the supply of these poultry products into the value chain could be affected negatively in the months to come. "Not only will these be limited, they will also be a bit pricey for low-income households already overburdened in the consumer market," Astral added.

Some grocery stores in Johannesburg are already limiting the number of eggs customers are allowed to buy  one carton of eggs in some shops.

The government announced that 2.5 million chickens bred for their meat had been culled. Breitenback said another five million egg-laying chickens had also been culled  adding that the nearly 7.5 million birds culled represented about 20 to 30 percent of South Africas total chicken stock.

According to SAPA, the number of avian flu cases in South Africa this year was higher than in any year since the first outbreaks of fowl plague were reported in commercial farms in 2017. (Related: Mass chicken culling based on avian influenza outbreaks just another malicious attack on the FOOD SUPPLY.)

Neighboring Namibia has banned chicken meat and egg imports from South Africa, one of the continent's major poultry producers.

To ensure sufficient supplies for consumers, South African Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza said the government has accelerated approval of new import permits to bring in eggs from other countries. Didiza added that her ministry is also considering a vaccination program to curb the avian flu outbreaks.

Breitenbach said the outbreaks are "by far the worst," costing industry losses of at least $25 million and badly hitting an industry already struggling from an electricity crisis, which led to unprecedented levels of nationwide power blackouts to save energy.

In January, South African farmers said they had been forced to cull nearly 10 million young chicks as the country experienced record blackouts at the start of the year.

"As many as 8.5 million egg-laying chickens could be affected and more than 10 million birds overall, which is going to be catastrophic to the industry," said Wilhelm Mare, chairman of the poultry group in the South African Veterinary Association. "It tells me were going to have problems for quite a while."

Avian influenza (fowl plague) in South Africa

In poultry, low pathogenicity strains in avian influenza can cause subclinical infection, sometimes called a pre-infection or inapparent infection with few or no signs of infection in the host. Some strains typically cause respiratory signs or decreased egg production. Highly pathogenic ones, such as the H5N1 strain, could cause widespread organ failure and sudden deaths  often with high mortality rates.

The H7N6 strain, which is new to South Africa, appears to be far more contagious than the H5N1 virus spreading in the rest of the world, veterinarian Dr. Shahn Bisschop, who heads Avimune, a poultry veterinary service in South Africa, told media outlets.

"Animal health officials aren't sure if the onset of warmer weather during the Southern Hemisphere's summer season will slow the spread of the virus and discussions are underway about emergency use of a vaccine to help the poultry industry recover," he added.

Visit Influenza.news for more stories about bird flu and its impact on the food supply.

Watch this video about South Africa culling 7.5 million chickens to contain bird flu.

This video is from the Daily Videos channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Timeline: World history of viral pandemics: 412BC to 2009.

New bird flu passes to mammals and causes "zombie-like" behavior - infected animals have no fear of humans.

Bird flu and food inflation push turkey prices 73% higher than last year.

Bird flu outbreak strikes bird population in Britain.

Sources include:

SHTFPlan.com

MSN.com

News24.com

APNews.com

MSDVetManual.com

CIDRAP.UMN.edu

Brighteon.com
Texas installs RAZOR WIRE along New Mexico border to block ILLEGAL ALIENS from crossing

The state of Texas has installed razor wire along its border with New Mexico to block illegal aliens from crossing.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently deployed the Texas National Guard to install the razor wire barrier along the bank of the Rio Grande near Sunland Park, New Mexico. Located in Dona Ana County, Sunland Park is situated west of El Paso in Texas and directly above the city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico's Chihuahua state. Abbott confirmed the move, part of the Lone Star State's effort to secure the southern border, in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

"Our barriers around El Paso forced the migrants crossing illegally to enter into New Mexico. They then entered El Paso from there," the governor explained. "To end that, we are building a barrier on the New Mexico border."

Local news outlet KFOX 14 posted an image on X that showed Texas guard members placing the wire along the border. It added that the razor wire barrier is being reinforced with concertina wire, a type of wire that features razor blades at regular intervals.

According to the Epoch Times, the latest barrier erected in Sunland Park is part of Texas' Operation Lone Star initiative to address the influx of illegal aliens crossing unlawfully through the southern border. The state has allocated billions for border security  installing razor wire, constructing its own border wall and placing a floating barrier along a section of the Rio Grande. (Related: Texas to place FLOATING BARRIERS along Rio Grande River to block border crossers.)

Earlier in October, Abbott posted a video on X that showed a section of the border wall already erected in Webb County  which borders the Mexican states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. "Webb County border wall construction is ongoing," the governor wrote. "We're the first and only state to build our own border wall."

New Mexico officials rebuke Abbott's move as "political stunt"

Several lawmakers from the Land of Enchantment held a virtual roundtable on Oct. 13, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. They discussed problems at the southern border, specifically Sunland Park where Texas troops erected razor wire two days later on Oct. 15.

Caroline Sweeney, a spokeswoman for New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, called Abbott's plan to install the barrier  a plan the Texas chief executive pushed through with  as nothing more than a "political stunt."

"We encourage Abbott to turn his attention away from a never-ending stream of political stunts," Sweeney said. The spokeswoman also urged the Texas governor to work "in earnest for the people of the state he was elected to represent." Meanwhile, Lujan Grisham did not respond to a request for comment sent by the Epoch Times.

Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM), an attendee at the virtual roundtable, said Texas and New Mexico need to work with each other on the issue. "There needs to be better cooperation," the congressman remarked.

While Sunland Park is not in Texas, it falls under the purview of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) El Paso Sector. "The El Paso Sector actually monitors and operates across the entire 180 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border across my entire district," continued Vasquez. "So from the federal level, theres coordination between Texas and New Mexico."

But this isn't the case at the state level, according to the congressman and former councilman for the city of Las Cruces in New Mexico. He said: "At the state level, we have seen that some of Abbott's actions that he has taken have been without consultation  both without federal stakeholders  [and] without New Mexico stakeholders."

Vasquez, who is up for re-election in 2024, acknowledged that many federal agencies in charge of border security are in dire straits.

"Right now, many of our federal agencies are underfunded [and] understaffed. [They] lack the resources needed to effectively help control what's happening at our [southern] border and keep our communities safe," he said. "I'm committed to addressing these issues."

Visit BorderSecurity.news for more stories about Texas' efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

Watch this video of treacherous U.S. Border Patrol agents destroying a wire fence in Texas to allow illegal aliens through.

This video is from the HALOROCK channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Texas developing plan to protect, defend its own border from migrant invasion, drug-smuggling after Biden refuses to act.

Biden admin orders border agents to cut down barbed wire fences in TX so illegal immigrants can enter from Mexico.

Biden's federal border patrol agents sabotage Texas Gov. Abbott's efforts to keep illegal migrants out.

BORDER DEFENSE: America protects US-Mexico border with barbed wire and verbal warnings.

Operation Lone Star fails to curb ILLEGAL CROSSINGS despite $9.5B funding.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

Brighteon.com
Who blew up the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza? Israel initially took credit, then denied all responsibility

Nobody is fessing up to bombing the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza this week as both "sides" blame each other for this very serious war crime.

Initially, Israel took credit for the attack, claiming that the medical facility in question was a "Hamas target." Then the story changed and suddenly it was the fault of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group, according to Israel.

Some reports are even claiming that there was no bombing at all, or that just the parking lot of the hospital was destroyed. As is usually the case, it has become a blame game combined with propaganda and unverifiable claims.

If it is really true that 500 people died at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, and that Israel did the bombing  this seems to be the most probable version of events based on available evidence  then this makes Israel and its leaders war criminals, based on international humanitarian law (IHL).

"According to the Geneva Conventions, the sick and the wounded, as well as medical staff, hospitals and mobile medical facilities are protected at times of war," explains Al Jazeera. "Under no circumstances can they be the object of attack, and targeting such would be considered as a war crime."

"Furthermore, wounded military personnel or combatants, who are being treated in hospitals and medical facilities are also protected, as well as medical workers, who are armed to defend their lives and those of their patients."

(Related: Was the Gaza Strip created to be an open-air prison pilot program for the globalist enslavement and extermination of humanity at large? Watch the Brighteon Broadcast News report below to learn more.)

International humanitarian law stipulates that bombing hospitals is a WAR CRIME

Article 18 of the Geneva Conventions No IV also states that attacking civilian hospitals during war is a serious offense, with Article 19 adding that even if sick or wounded members of the armed forces are nursed in said hospitals, it is still not okay to bomb them.

"Civilian hospital organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict," reads Article 18.

"The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded," Article 19 further explains.

"The fact that sick or wounded members of the armed forces are nursed in these hospitals, or the presence of small arms and ammunition taken from such combatants and not yet handed to the proper service, shall not be considered to be acts harmful to the enemy."

While we recognize that the nature of a conflict like this is certain to produce lies and propaganda, possibly from both "sides," the fact remains that civilians in Gaza are being harmed by someone amid all this exchange of fire.

"Now, even a hospital is not a safe place anymore," commented Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, a representative from the World Health Organization (WHO) for the West Bank and Gaza.

It should also be noted that, according to WHO, Israel has thus far attacked Gaza hospitals 51 times since the start of the conflict on October 7. These attacks resulted in 15 healthcare workers being killed and another 27 getting injured.

The latest news about the escalating conflict in the Middle East can be found at Terrorism.news.

Sources for this article include:

AlJazeera.com

AlJazeera.com

Brighteon.com
Day of Rage proclamation by former Hamas leader triggers fear, anxiety among Jewish communities in NYC

The "Day of Rage" proclamation issued by a former leader of the Hamas terrorist group has sent waves of fear and anxiety among Jews living in New York City (NYC).

Khaled Meshaal, who helmed the group from 1996 to 2017, made the call to action on Yemeni television. He exhorted Muslims in the Middle East and across the globe to stand in solidarity with Palestinians on the designated "Day of Rage" last Oct. 13.

"We should take to the streets and the city squares in Arab and Islamic cities, as well as in cities everywhere where there are communities," Meshaal said, adding that the move is in support of the ongoing struggle against Israel. He also lauded the Oct. 7 Hamas attack during a music festival in Israel that killed 1,200  including women, children and babies in Israel. (Related: Hostages held by Hamas in Gaza will be almost impossible to rescue, warns counterterrorism expert.)

Because of this, many Jews took extra precautions ahead of Oct. 13, with some even avoiding work and daily routines for fear of being targeted. NYC medical student Deena Albert, who is Jewish, stayed alert as much as possible.

"Everything's different because we have to be on extra alert today," she said. "My aunt in Israel texted me that she feels like she's being hunted down, and that's very much what we feel like here now."

A 32-year-old Jewish lawyer who chose to remain anonymous, revealed that this is the first time he has felt unsafe in the Big Apple. He mentioned looking over his shoulder more frequently in the last few days than ever before.

For some Jewish parents, the threat has disrupted their daily lives. One mother shared that her son's school was canceled due to safety concerns, and she planned to "avoid leaving the house."

But despite the fear and uncertainty, one religious Jew in NYC remains determined to express his identity.

"I feel unsafe, and I'm very worried that something's gonna happen to me either on the subway or out on the street when I'm at work. But I'm wearing my kippah (yarmulke) proudly because not wearing it would mean that their day of hate has won."

"Day of Rage" puts Israel, other nations on HIGH ALERT

Irina Tsukerman, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the Arabian Peninsula Institute, put in her two cents on Mashal's proclamation. She warned that his call to action, combined with other factors, could foreshadow potential attacks on global Jewish communities.

"Hamas' [former] leader just came out in public calling for more attacks against Jewish and other targets in the West around the world on Oct. 13," Tsukerman said. "We could see both the rise of more direct lone wolf incidents inspired by these comments and eventually more efforts at mass casualty-oriented attacks, which will be better planned but will probably take more time to plan and will materialize weeks or months later."

Tsukerman also pointed out that Al-Azhar University, a premier Egyptian Sunni Islamic Institution, has urged Palestinians to die as martyrs while fighting against Israel.

In response to the threat, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Security Council issued a joint statement. The two offices urged Israelis abroad to take extra precautions, stay vigilant, avoid protests and seek updates from local security forces. The U.S. also ramped up its security measures for possible attacks in major cities, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) monitoring and addressing any concerns related to the "Day of Rage."

Meanwhile, France issued a prohibition on protests in support of Palestine. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin justified the ban by saying: "Pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be prohibited because they are likely to generate disturbances to the public order."

The minister also warned that organizing such protests would result in arrests. In turn, French police have been directed to ensure the security of locations frequently visited by French Jews, including synagogues and schools.

Visit Chaos.news for more stories about the Israel-Palestine war and protests for and against it.

Watch this video of pro-Israel demonstrators in New York City calling for genocide against all Palestinians.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.

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Heavy bombing by Israeli forces threatens to turn Gaza Strip into a TENT CITY.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio appears to call for OPEN GENOCIDE against all Palestinian women, men and children  "they have to be eradicated."

Israel WEAPONIZES food, water and electricity against 2+ million civilians in Gaza in retribution for Hamas terror attacks.

Netanyahu promises to turn Gaza into rubble following Hamas attack  they will pay "unprecedented price."

Sources include:

The-Express.com 1

The-Express.com 2

Brighteon.com
Turkeys Erdogan warns of spiral of violence in phone call with Israels Herzog

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned of a "spiral of violence" if Israel attacks Palestinians in the Gaza Strip collectively and indiscriminately.

He issued this warning during an Oct. 9 phone call with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The Turkish leader's call came two days after Hamas terrorists attacked a music festival in Israel on Oct. 7, killing hundreds. Following the attack, Israel declared a state of war and proceeded to launch military offensives against Palestine.

"Any step that could harm the people of Gaza collectively and indiscriminately will further increase the suffering and spiral of violence in the region," Erdogan said in a statement about his phone call with Herzog. He also stressed that it was crucial to act with common sense, and called for the swift restoration of peace as doing so is of great significant for the entire region's welfare. (Related: Turkish president calls for Muslim world to UNITE against Israel.)

According to Erdogan, the Israel-Palestine war is subject to a moral and ethical code that both sides "are obliged to comply with." He also called on Jerusalem to stop bombing Palestinian areas and appealed to Palestinians to end their harassment of civilian settlements in Israel. Erdogan continued: "As we always say, 'There are no losers in a just peace.'"

"The destruction of Gaza by air and ground attacks, the bombing of mosques and the deaths of innocent children, women, elderly and civilians are never acceptable."

Erdogan had also reached out to Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, telling him that Ankara had been making every attempt to end the conflicts and assure peace in the region. Aside from Herzog and Abbas, the Turkish president had also talked with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar.

Turkey willing to MEDIATE in Israel-Hamas conflict

Erdogan stressed Turkey would continue its efforts to end the war and guarantee lasting peace in the region. He also offered to mediate in the Israel-Hamas conflict, stating that Turkey continues to step up its diplomatic efforts.

"I would like to state that Turkey is ready for any kind of mediation, including prisoner exchanges if the parties request it. We continue to step up our diplomatic contacts, which we have been maintaining for a while and have intensified even more in the last three days."

Turkey is making essential preparations to provide humanitarian aid materials that the Gaza Strip will need amid Israel's counter-offensive against Hamas.

According to Erdogan, Turkey's stance concerning the issue has been clear from the very beginning and noted that Turkey recognized Israel in 1949. Erdogan also mentioned that the two countries continue to have diplomatic ties, based on a report by the state-run Anadolu Agency.

"We believe that there will be no peace in the region without the establishment of an independent sovereign state of Palestine with geographical integrity, within the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital," he said.

The Turkish leader also emphasized that problems in the region cannot be decided by "constantly harassing the Palestinian people, disregarding the safety of their life and property, seizing their homes and lands, destroying their infrastructure and preventing their development."

Follow Chaos.news for more news about the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Watch the video below to learn more about Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip.

This video is from the High Hopes channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Henry Gruver: "When Israel sends troops into Gaza, it will be a sign the Middle East war has started."

Netanyahu promises to turn Gaza into "rubble" following Hamas attack  they will pay "unprecedented price."

At least 1000 killed, 1,590 injured so far in Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

Sources include:

China.org.cn

TimesOfIsrael.com

Business-Standard.com

Brighteon.com
Gen. Michael Flynn says Americans are waging a SPIRITUAL WAR  Brighteon.TV

The American people are waging a spiritual war . Retired Gen. Michael Flynn made this remark during an appearance on the Oct. 12 episode of "Thrive Time Show" on Brighteon.TV , hosted by Amanda Grace and Clay Clark.

Flynn mentioned the latter's ReAwaken America Tour as having a pivotal role in this war. According to the retired officer, the tour isn't just an event but a movement of people waking up America and realizing the need to think about humanity, faith, family, friends, communities and other things they are involved in presently.

Flynn, the chairman of America's Future, recounted the tour's origins as the Health and Freedom event in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This eventually turned into the ReAwaken America movement when everyone realized that God is moving through it and uniting everyone into a family. This family isn't just patrons who attend the tour stops, but also includes the millions of Americans and people around the world who represent different nations.

The general said he met and talked with a lot of people during those tours, including a veteran who became a pastor. Both men discussed the Book of Revelation, with the veteran-turned-pastor summing up the Book of Revelation in three short phrases: "It's hard, it's going to get harder, but God wins." Flynn agreed with the take, urging Americans to believe in God as He is going to win in the end.

"We have a role, we have a responsibility, we have a reason for being where we are alive in this moment of history  not only for America, but for the planet."

Flynn advises Americans on how to WIN this spiritual war

The erstwhile official from the administration of former President Donald Trump also gave advice to Americans on how to win this different type of war.

He told Clark and Grace: "I think what we have to do is we have to continue to pray. Not just pray, but stand up, step up, speak out, raise our voices, expand our voices and let people know how we feel. We have to continue to use our God given skills, talents and resources to be able to commit to this fight against evil."

"It is clearly a good versus evil battle that we are waging. It's a spiritual war."

Flynn also expressed his belief in the power of silent meditation at times, and remarked that many people are a product of the power of prayer. Aside from prayer and silent meditation, people can also be moved by listening to the powerful testimony of a person. (Related: General Flynn urges pastors to defend the Constitution from the pulpit  Brighteon.TV.)

According to the retired military officer, the Spirit of God moves across a country that has a strong desire to return to their faith-based values as a nation. He also lauded the many veterans around the country which include a lot of first responders, particularly the police who are now retired but are returning to serve America once more.

Flynn added that seeing people that really, truly and deeply understand the concept of service to nation is something he loves. "These people are starting to see that they still have responsibilities, such as constitutional responsibilities, to do for the country," he said.

Follow Awakening.news for more news about the "awakening" happening in America.

Watch the Oct. 12 episode of the "Thrive Time Show" below. The "Thrive Time Show" airs Mondays to Fridays at 3:30-4 p.m. on Brighteon.TV.

More related stories:

Pastor Todd Coconato tells Doug Billings: The Great Awakening is happening RIGHT NOW in America  Brighteon.TV.

The Health Ranger talks about humanitys awakening with Pastor Leon Benjamin  Brighteon.TV.

Dr. John Diamond and Holly Adams discuss why the Churchs involvement in politics is so important  Brighteon.TV.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

GeneralFlynn.com
People receiving draconian prison terms for online speech more proof the internet has never been less free as globalist despots use A.I. to censor, control & carry out atrocities

Globally, internet freedom has never been lower, and the number of countries that have blocked websites for political, social, and religious speech has never been higher. Also, the number of countries that arrested people for online expression reached a record high, according to a report released last week by human rights advocacy group Freedom House

(Article by Rhoda Wilson republished from AllNewsPipeline.com)

Additionally, the report shows that governments in 16 countries are using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to manipulate conversations and automatically censor whats online. Governments in Pakistan, Nigeria and the United States have used generative AI over the past year to exert increased control over the internet.

Further reading: How to fight for internet freedom, MIT Technology Review

Freedom on the Net 2023 Scores

You can view a list of scores given to each of the 70 countries included in Freedom Houses report HERE.

While internet freedom may be primarily affected by state behavior, Freedom House states, actions by nonstate actors, including technology companies  are also considered. Thus, the index ratings generally reflect the interplay of a variety of actors, both governmental and non-governmental.

Scores are allocated according to obstacles to access, limits to content and violations of users rights. Scores between 100-70 are denoted as Free, scores between 69-40 are Partly Free and scores between 39-0 are denoted as Not Free.

Sadly, the bar for free is not very high. For example, the UK is rated as free as it scored 79 despite the censorship, vilification, spying and intelligence gathering of citizens that oppose the official narrative by both state and non-state actors. Although to be fair, the UK only just sneaked into the free category. That the UK scored 79 perhaps indicates how bad freedom of the internet is in other countries.

Interestingly, Canada scored 88 attaining the third-highest score after Estonia and Iceland. The recent despotic censorship in Canada possibly falls outside the period Freedom House reviewed, which appears to largely include developments for the year June 2022 to 31 May 2023. While a recent law raised concerns that the [Canadian] government could seek to significantly expand its regulatory authority over online content, such concerns did not materialize during the coverage period, Freedom House noted.

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. Below he gives his thoughts on the despotic new censorship law in Canada using articles published by Michael Geist on the Canadian C-11 Bill.

(Please note: In the 1st video below, Greenwald uses the word Liberals to describe people on the political left. Liberal describes a set of values rather than a political term, irrespective of what words political parties use in their name or to describe themselves. Liberal roughly equates to free and are values that the majority of people on both the political left and political right possess. The proponents of Canadas C-11 Bill are not portraying liberal values, they are portraying anti-liberal values.)

If the video below is removed from YouTube, you can watch it on Rumble HERE. You can find the full episodes of Greenwalds podcasts via THIS link. The full episode from which the above clip was taken can be watched on Rumble HERE.

Freedom on the Net 2023 Report: Key Findings

In its key findings, Freedom House noted:

Global internet freedom declined for the 13th consecutive year.

Digital repression intensified in Iran, home to this years worst decline, as authorities shut down internet service, blocked WhatsApp and Instagram, and increased surveillance in a bid to quell anti-government protests.

Myanmar came close to dislodging China as the worlds worst environment for internet freedom, a title the latter country retained for the ninth consecutive year.

Conditions worsened in the Philippines as outgoing president Rodrigo Duterte used an anti-terrorism law to block news sites that had been critical of his administration.

Costa Ricas status as a champion of internet freedom has been imperiled after the election of a president whose campaign manager hired online trolls to harass several of the countrys largest media outlets.

Read more at: AllNewsPipeline.com
Israel: Hamas SLAUGHTERED 40 children and babies in one town, with whole families burned alive or shot dead

Israel has reported that Hamas terrorists murdered at least 40 infants and children in a terrifying attack in one town

Israeli soldiers stumbled upon horrifying scenes in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz located just three miles to the east of the Gaza border that was captured by Hamas militants for two days at the beginning of the conflict.

Using guns, grenades and knives, Hamas terrorists indiscriminately beheaded men, women, children and babies in their beds early on Oct. 7 after they crossed the border, Israel authorities said.

Nicole Zedek, an i24News reporter speaking from the scene of the gruesome attack, said a soldier told her that they found women and babies "with their heads cut off." No photographic evidence of beheaded babies has been produced, however.

Reports revealed that at least 40 infants and children were slaughtered. Entire families were also burned alive in their homes or shot dead.

According to economics minister Nir Barkat, officials in Israel have already heard of the shocking reports of children who were burnt alive, beheaded or "shot in the head." Barkat also warned that Israel will "wipe out" all the militants, infrastructure and people supporting Hamas.

"We're coming in to kill the militants, and any civilians [should] move aside. If you do not move aside and you're giving cover to the Hamas militants, you're risking your life. We do not want to hurt innocent people," cautioned Barkat. (Related: Rick Wiles of TruNews: Hamas attack on Israel was WELL-PLANNED and CHOREOGRAPHED.)

Egyptian intelligence allegedly warned Israel about the Hamas attack

Barkat's warning comes as local media reports suggest that Israel had been warned about the Hamas attack by Egyptian intelligence. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office denied having any prior knowledge of the attack, which has been called a "complete intelligence failure."

Visibly shaken by the horrible actions of the Hamas, Zedek said no one could have predicted the horrific reports from Israeli soldiers.

Zedek said at least 40 babies were taken out on gurneys, with soldiers "going house to house still taking out dead bodies." She added that many cots and buggies were abandoned in the streets as scared families tried to run from the terrorists.

Hamas militants stormed the village in "waves" every 20 minutes for at least 48 excruciating hours.

Disturbing images show blood-soaked baby seats strewn between the burned-out houses, where Hamas militants seemed to have indiscriminately opened fire on vehicles.

Major General Itai Veruv described appalling scenes of brutal violence, with some families murdered in their homes.

While talking to reporters, Veruv said soldiers have seen babies, mothers and fathers slain by terrorists. "It's something I've never seen in my life. It's something we used to imagine from our grandfathers, grandmothers in the pogrom in Europe and other places," added Veruv.

Reporters who were allowed into the village on Oct. 10 were met with the horrifying "smell of death."

Even Israeli soldiers were visibly shaken by the brutality as they discovered several streets with corpses after Hamas terrorists went door-to-door gunning down families. Graphic images showed families murdered in their bedrooms and living rooms as the walls of their homes were full of bullet holes.

Because the bodies of victims are still being recovered in the decimated village, the total death toll remains unknown. One soldier said the scene reminded him of "the pogroms and of the Nazis."

More than 100 bodies have also been discovered in the kibbutz Be'eri, which was one of the first places targeted by Hamas militants.

Volunteers wearing yellow vests and face masks carried the dead out of the destroyed homes on stretchers.

Watch the video below to learn how BLM supporters and the Marxist left support Hamas.

This video is from the Worldview Report channel on Brighteon.com.

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Sources include:

The-Sun.com

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Israeli military confirms Hamas has at least 155 hostages hidden in Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has officially confirmed that Hamas has at least 155 hostages taken from their homes in Israeli border communities or seized from a music festival Hamas attacked near the border.

Among the captives is an 83-year-old veteran Israeli journalist, known for his commitment to peace and advocating for Palestinian rights, who was abducted from his home in the Nir Oz kibbutz. The unidentified journalist wrote for the left-wing newspaper Al HaMishmar and was also instrumental in defending the Arab Bedouin residents of the Rafah basin during their expulsion from Sinai in 1972.

Moreover, he was one of the first reporters to arrive at Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982, to cover the tragic massacre that happened in Palestinian refugee camps. The journalist volunteered for a group that transported Palestinian patients to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

The German government has also confirmed that eight Germans have been taken hostage in Gaza, including 22-year-old Shani Louk, who was recognized by her mother in an online video lying unconscious and barely clothed in the back of a pickup truck filled with armed men. (Related: State Department: At least 22 American citizens KILLED (so far) in Israel-Hamas conflict.)

Meanwhile, Israeli-American Abbey Onn, who had recently moved to Tel Aviv, reported that five family members of the Dan-Kalderon family, namely Carmela Dan, Ofer Kalderon, Sahar Kalderon, Erez Kalderon and Noya Dan, had been taken hostage in the kibbutz of Nir Oz, which was targeted by rocket fire. The family is believed to still be alive somewhere in Gaza.

Aside from the eight Germans and five U.S. nationals taken as Hamas hostages, there were also two Mexican nationals, a handful of hostages with other nationalities and the rest being Israeli.

Voices for Hostages, an organization established in Israel after the Hamas attack, appealed for more information about the Dan-Kalderon family. Desperate family members of other missing hostages also tirelessly reach out on television, radio, social media and personal contacts seeking any information about their loved ones.

Israel-Hamas conflict creates more war crimes

Hamas used the hostages to threaten Israel. Abu Ubaida, a Hamas spokesperson, announced on Oct. 9 that each Israeli strike on a Palestinian home without prior warning could be equal to the life of one Israeli hostage.

After the Hamas attack, Israel mobilized around 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade on the Gaza Strip. Several reports and eyewitnesses even saw Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones targeting residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and even a mosque.

As the death toll continues to rise, Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a complete blockade on 2.3 million people in Gaza. "No electricity, no food, no water, no gas  it's all closed."

Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch, condemned the actions of both sides and labeled them as war crimes.

"Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime." She then added: "All hostages should be safely released to their families."

Similarly, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a joint call for an immediate end to violence and the protection of civilians. Erdogan urged Israel to avoid "indiscriminately" attacking civilians and gently criticized Hamas. He urged both sides to respect the "ethics" of war.

However, the escalation in violence created more conflict as Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel after at least three of its members were killed by Israeli shelling in Lebanon. Israel, in return, reported the loss of one of its deputy commanders in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

Visit Terrorism.news for more updates on the ongoing conflict between the Hamas militant group and Israel.

Watch this video discussing the surprising large-scale attack of the Hamas militant group on Israel.

This video is from The Prisoner channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Hostages held by Hamas in Gaza will be almost impossible to rescue, warns counterterrorism expert.

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Israel WEAPONIZES food, water and electricity against 2+ million civilians in Gaza in retribution for Hamas terror attacks.

2A WORKS! Gun Owners of America says horrific situation in Israel shows why Americans were afforded the right to "weapons of war"  for SELF-DEFENSE.

Senior Hamas official Ali Baraka: Hamas began planning the attack on southern Israel two years ago.

Sources include:

TheGuardian.com

Aljazeera.com

Brighteon.com
New York lawmakers propose new bills to mitigate the negative impact of social media on minors

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Atty. Gen. Letitia James, State Sen. Andrew Gounardes and State Assemblywoman Nily Rozic have jointly announced two legislative bills designed to mitigate the negative impact of social media platforms on children under the age of 18.

"Our kids are in crisis, and the adults in the room need to step up," stated Hochul, who stressed the urgency of addressing the increasing rates of teen suicide and the surge in anxiety and depression diagnoses among young people. "It's critical we all stand together to address the youth mental health crisis." (Related: Social media use linked to TEENAGE DEPRESSION, warn mental health experts.)

James added that a report by the Surgeon General of the United States noted that "youth who spend more than three hours a day on social media are twice as likely to experience depression and anxiety."

The first bill, named the "Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act," would grant families greater control over the content that appears on their children's social media feeds. Under this legislation, families would need to opt in for the use of algorithms that track content, a feature often found to be addictive as it prioritizes content for prolonged user engagement.

In line with this bill, minors would be required parental consent to enable suggested feeds on social media apps. Additionally, parents could limit their children's access to social media and push notifications between midnight and 6 a.m. Social media companies would then receive "verifiable parental consent" to continue offering services during those hours.

Moreover, the bill mandates social media platforms to provide parents with tools to set daily usage limits for their children.

Violations of the proposed laws could result in up to $5,000 fines for each breach and parents of affected minors would be entitled to seek $5,000 in damages from the social media platforms for each incident. However, companies could rectify any claims brought by guardians.

New York proposing bill to protect children's data from Big Tech

The second bill, known as the "New York Child Data Protection Act," aims to prevent social media companies from collecting, sharing and selling personal data of minors without informed consent. For children under 13, such consent must come from a parent or guardian.

Social media companies found in violation of this proposed legislation could face civil penalties of up to $5,000 per breach and would be prohibited from using children's data and online activities to target them with personalized ads.

Justifying this proposal, State Sen. Andrew Gournades from Brooklyn pointed out that the founders and executives of Big Tech companies also aren't letting their children use social media.

"Just think about this for a minute," said Gournades. "The very founders of these social media companies don't allow their own kids to use these technologies."

Polling from the Pew Research Center also notes that more than half of Americans do not feel like they are in control of the information social media companies collect and often sell to advertisers. This could include the data of children.

Watch this video to learn more about the negative effects of social media addiction.

This video is from the HappeningsAndArt channel on Brighteon.com.

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British Education chief wants to BAN students from using phones in schools.

Study: Childhood inactivity and screen time linked to heart damage in young adults.

Parents and school officials of small Irish town unite to BAN SMARTPHONES for children as old as 13.

Big Tech and U.S. government using AI to CENSOR POSTS on social media that counter their fake narratives.

Poll: Parents most concerned about excessive use of SOCIAL MEDIA and mobile devices as kids return to school.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

CBSNews.com

Brighteon.com
"Extreme weather events fueled by climate change will continue to strain the nation's aging transmission systems, but President Biden's Investing in America agenda will ensure America's power grid can provide reliable, affordable power," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. "Today's announcement represents the largest-ever direct investment in critical grid infrastructure, supporting projects that will harden systems, improve energy reliability and affordability all while generating union jobs for highly skilled workers."

The funds are part of the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program, which seeks to enhance grid flexibility and improve the resilience of the power system against growing threats of extreme weather and climate change. Funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the DOE, the GRIP program leverages federal and private investments to ensure that communities across the nation have a reliable grid that's prepared for extreme weather while also delivering affordable, clean energy and creating robust local opportunities for economic investment and jobs.

"The clean energy transition is underway in Illinois, and ComEd is committed to advancing innovative solutions to create the grid of the future, while creating equitable economic opportunities for the communities we serve," said Gil C. Quiniones, CEO of ComEd. "The GRIP grant is a credit to the depth of our collaboration with Rockford-area partners, as we focus on investments that increase access to affordable power, cleaner technologies and sustainable jobs for the community at large. With support from the DOE, we'll take another step toward making northern Illinois a national leader for grid innovation."

ComEd is a leader in the development and deployment of advanced grid technologies, including advanced metering infrastructure (smart meters) and deployments of distribution automation technologies that rapidly heal the grid to avoid outages and speed restorations. The GRIP award brings these advancements closer to customers at the edge of the grid where new resources like solar generation and battery energy storage are proliferating, allowing ComEd to establish a benchmark in the way that these technologies will interact with the grid. ComEd's GRIP award will fund a variety of new grid technologies to improve grid resiliency and reliability, as well as workforce programming, all designed to support the clean energy transition. Specifically, ComEd will run new pilot programs designed to support growing distributed energy resources (DERs) and solar installations, and improve system response time during inclement weather.

"ComEd and the City of Rockford are excited to collaborate on another impactful project to enable electrification and decarbonization," said Thomas P. McNamara, Mayor of Rockford. "In addition to improving power quality needs in our area and supporting the expansion and development of new businesses within the city, we look forward to continued collaboration with ComEd to maximize the project's benefits with expanded community education and local workforce development for our residents."

To support the growth of the clean energy sector in Illinois, this federal funding will help stand up new job training programs, with a focus on recruitment from traditionally underrepresented groups. Specifically, the GRIP award will enable a new 12-week paid workforce readiness program for 17- to 19-year-old students that focuses on providing hands-on experiences to educate students on the careers and skills required within the utility industry. These and other workforce initiatives will be launched in collaboration with Rockford-area institutions, including: Region 1 Planning Council, Rockford Area Economic Development Council, Rockford Chamber of Commerce, The Workforce Connection, YWCA of Northwestern Illinois, Jeremiah Development, Luther Center and the Boys and Girls Club of Rockford.

"The GRIP award and support from ComEd will create an unprecedented opportunity for our Rockford communities as we prepare for a clean energy economy," said Region 1 Planning Executive Director Michael Dunn. "In partnership with ComEd, we will support critical investments that bring new jobs, expand new technologies and make our region more attractive to those who live and do business here."

These new investments build on a longstanding collaboration between ComEd and Rockford, including advancements made as part of the Community of the Future (CoF) program, aimed at developing advanced energy technologies to enhance sustainability and resiliency across Rockford and the region. These programs include the ComEd solar Give-A-Ray program and numerous workforce and training partnerships in the region housed at the ComEd Rockford Training Center.

Implementation of the GRIP award in Rockford is expected to get underway in the 3rd quarter of 2024 pending final negotiations with the DOE. To learn more, visit the Grid Deployment Office's website.

ComEd is one of two Exelon utility companies to be awarded this competitive funding, with PECO also receiving $100 million to support reliability and resiliency in the greater Philadelphia region.

ComEd is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NASDAQ: EXC), a Fortune 250 energy company with approximately 10 million electricity and natural gas customers - the largest number of customers in the U.S. ComEd powers the lives of more than 4 million customers across northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state's population. For more information visit ComEd.com, and connect with the company on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
Reuters journalist killed by Israeli missile fire in Lebanon while covering Israel-Hamas war

A Reuters journalist was killed by an Israeli missile strike while covering the war between Israel and Hamas at the border between Lebanon and Israel near the village of Alma al-Shaab.

Issam Abdallah worked for the news agency as a videographer and was on the ground serving as part of a crew providing a live video signal. He was reportedly killed by an Israeli artillery strike, and six others who were with him were injured.

The Israel Defense Force has said it is looking into the incident, while Reuters is urgently seeking more information, working with authorities in the region, and supporting Issams family and colleagues. The IDF admitted to responding with artillery fire after Hezbollah terrorists fired a missile into Israel from Lebanon. Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said it was a tragic incident, adding that were very sorry for his death.

A pair of Reuters journalists, along with a cameraman and reporter for Al-Jazeera, were also injured. Agence France-Presse, the French international news agency, said a photographer and video journalist working for them were also injured.

A close friend of Issam and international producer for Vice News, Lama Al-Arian, told Democracy Nows Amy Goodman: He was in a group, in a press scrum, in a group of journalists, who were standing right in front of the Israeli border, clearly marked as press, you know, wearing their jackets, wearing their helmets and doing just live positions. They werent embedded with any sort of group. They were just there, you know, to tell the story of what was happening in the south.

She added that Issam was very safety-conscious and did not take a lot of risks. She said he told a friend he was concerned about safety along the border, however, and was worried that if something happened to him, nobody would name his killer. She believes that he died immediately.

Just hours before the news of his death, he posted a video on X showing loud bangs as the area came under heavy shelling.

Abdallah worked for the Beirut branch of Reuters for 16 years, covering a range of conflicts including the Ukraine war. He was 37 years old and is survived by his mother, a sister and two brothers.

The editor-in-chief of Reuters, Alessandra Galloni, has called for a prompt and transparent investigation into his death with clear evidence and explanation.

She said: Reporting on world events with accuracy, integrity, independence and freedom from bias is core to what we stand for at Reuters, and it is critically important for our journalists to be able to do so safely.

Tensions rising at border between Lebanon and Israel

Tensions are flaring in Lebanon, and the U.S. has raised its travel alert to the country to do not travel in the wake of artillery, missile and rocket exchanges between Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and Israel.

The IDF has been evacuating communities near Israels border with Lebanon in anticipation of a potential escalation as Hezbollah militants continue to target Israelis. Hezbollah is believed to possess a significant number of long-range rockets that are capable of striking deep into Israel.

The IDF has called the evacuation a precaution to "reduce harm to civilians and enable the IDF freedom of action if it is required." However, many residents report that numerous families had already left the area on their own due to safety concerns, and headed south. Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Monday in a confrontation with Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants who had crossed over the Lebanese border.

Sources for this article include:

NYTimes.com

DemocracyNow.org

CNN.com

BBC.com
Syria now firing missiles on Golan Heights as U.S. provides surging support for Israeli operation in cleansing Gaza of all Palestinians

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has confirmed that the Syrian Army just fired missiles at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday evening, raising the risk of a broader regional or even global conflict emerging out of all this.

Given the earlier exchange of fire in northern Lebanon between Israel and positions believed to be held by Hezbollah, it is almost expected that the war will only escalate more and more from here on out.

The missile strike came within an hour following fake president Joe Biden delivering a speech confirming that the United States will now begin "surging" the sending of defense aid to Israel.

A senior defense official at the Pentagon confirmed that the U.S. is, in fact, "surging support" to Israel in response to the "brutal new tactics" that Israel says Hamas used to penetrate the country's world-class Iron Dome and other defenses.

Boeing confirmed all this as well, revealing that many countries are now initiating evacuation efforts for their citizens living in or visiting Tel Aviv and other places around Israel.

(Related: "Squad" member Rashida Tlaib is blaming Israeli apartheid for the recent Hamas attack in Israel.)

Why is Israel allowed to protect and secure its border but America can't?

Earlier, the Israeli army ordered citizens to evacuate the Metula settlement, which sits along the northern border of Israel with Lebanon.

"In response to the launches identified from Lebanese territory toward Israeli territory, IDF soldiers are currently responding with artillery fire," regional sources reported about the matter.

The IDF claims it intercepted several of the missiles, while many others mostly landed in open fields. There was a death, though, of a senior Israeli officer who was killed in a confrontation with militants on the frontier.

Israeli troops and aircraft reportedly killed two "terrorist infiltrators" who were caught crossing into Israeli territory. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad ended up claiming the two as its members.

All in all, at least three militants from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement ended up dead, and things have since subsided somewhat. The tension that is building up on all fronts could change that, though.

"What's happening here seems to be a kind of contained tension," commented Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem. "Lebanon is not yet a war zone. However, it's an area of operation. But it seems it's also a space for both sides to exchange messages."

Though Iran vehemently denies any involvement in the Hamas attacks, the Western finance media has been spreading rumors about such to the point that many Iranians now fear that the Netanyahu regime could soon start targeting sites inside Iran.

"Iran's supreme leader has strongly rejected any involvement in the Hamas movement's surprise attack on Israel," reads a regional report about the Iranian regime's softening of rhetoric as it pertains to Hamas and Israel.

"The public maneuvering, which involved Ayatollah Ali Khamenei strikingly repeating his rejection of an Iranian role three times in a 90-second span, follows controversial claims in U.S. media that Tehran helped plan the Oct. 7 blitz."

A high-ranking Iranian source told the same regional source on the condition of anonymity that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran's position could be the result of "him seeing the direction of the Israeli public diplomacy campaign."

In other words, Iran knows it is in Israel's crosshairs and probably wants to wash its hands clean of the entire thing.

The same high-ranking source added that Khamenei's comments rejecting a possible impending Israeli attack are more "pre-emptive" as opposed to reactive.

"I've been told for 35 years now that it is immoral and wrong to protect the American border," one commenter wrote about this whole situation. "Why is Israel's sacrosanct?"

The latest news about the escalating situation in the Middle East can be found at Prophecy.news.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

NaturalNews.com
Trump gains 9-POINT LEAD over Biden in Pennsylvania poll

Former President Donald Trump is enjoying a nine-point lead over incumbent President Joe Biden, according to the results of a recent poll.

The poll conducted by Emerson College surveyed 430 registered voters in Pennsylvania between Oct. 1 and Oct. 4. It found that 45 percent of respondents in the Keystone State favor Trump, while only 36 percent favor Biden. Eleven percent of respondents prefer a third candidate, while eight percent remain undecided.

Trump is very much favored among independent voters, with 44 percent supporting the real estate mogul-turned-president compared to Biden's 14 percent. Another 42 percent of independent voters remain undecided or express support for another candidate. (Related: Mainstream media DISMAYED by poll result showing Trump leading Biden by 9 points in hypothetical head-to-head match-up.)

Notably, this result reflects a shift among Pennsylvania voters since the 2020 elections. That year, 43 percent of respondents had cast their ballots for Biden while 42 percent had supported Trump.

The poll highlighted Biden's approval rating in the Keystone State. Only 31 percent of registered voters hold a favorable view of his performance, while 51 percent disapprove, resulting in a net approval rating of -20. An additional 18 percent of respondents have neutral feelings or don't have an opinion regarding the president's performance.

The survey also probed Trump and Biden supporters on their loyalty to their respective candidates. Among Trump supporters, exactly half of the respondents say there's nothing the former president could do or say in the coming months to change their support for him in the 2024 presidential race. Meanwhile, 22 percent say some actions or statements by Trump could alter their allegiance and 28 percent are undecided.

On the other hand, among Biden supporters, 53 percent say they would remain steadfast in their support regardless of Biden's future actions or statements, while 17 percent say some actions or statements by the president could make him lose their support. Additionally, 30 percent of Biden supporters are uncertain.

Poll: Most Michiganders no longer looking forward to 2024 Trump-Biden rematch

Over at the Great Lakes State, a poll that surveyed Michigan residents found that more than half of Democratic-leaning voters there disapprove of a potential rematch between Trump and Biden on the 2024 ballot.

A Michigan Poll commissioned by the Marketing Resource Group (MRG) and conducted from Oct. 2 to Oct. 8 revealed this finding. It found that 84 percent of Democrats are not interested in the rematch, compared to the 43 percent of Republicans anticipating the showdown.

Of the Democrats polled by MRG, 79 percent say they back Biden's presidential bid. Meanwhile, 85 percent of Republicans surveyed say they back the former president's return to the White House.

The poll further indicated that, if a rematch between Trump and Biden were to take place, the former president currently enjoys a seven-point lead in Michigan, with 42 percent of respondents stating they would support him. Meanwhile, only 35 percent confirm their allegiance to Biden.

"If the rematch takes place, it will be unique and considered like two incumbents running against each other. Both have saturated name [identification and] records to defend having served in the same office, and voters have strong opinions one way or another about their candidate choice," said Jenell Leonard, owner of MRG.

"The waning support for Biden from his base should be concerning to his party. It conveys they no longer have faith in their candidate; they lack the confidence that he can win re-election. This is a candidate problem, not a party problem. Democrats do have a bench of options and should seriously reconsider a change at the top of their ticket."

Visit Trump.news for more news related to the former president and his campaign.

Watch Owen Shroyer of InfoWars outlining some reasons why Biden's approval rating is dismal.

This video is from the InfoWars channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Poll: 55% of independents find Trumps indictment politically motivated  because IT IS.

CNN Poll: Joe Bidens favorability rating drops to lowest point yet amid bribery allegations.

Poll: Most voters see Biden as a POOR LEADER who cannot be trusted.

RFK Jr. tied with Biden in primary poll, 20% of Democrats say they'd vote for Kennedy or Trump over Biden.

NOTHING NEW HERE: Poll shows 52% of Americans DISAPPROVE of Biden.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

MRGMI.com

Brighteon.com
4.5 million years after its reign, the fossils of the largest crocodile ever discovered said to be the "last crocodile in Europe," were discovered in an excavation site in Spain.

"Last Crocodile in Europe" from 4.5 Million Years Ago

Researchers have unearthed around 4.5-million-year-old animal fossils in southern Spain, including the possible remnants of the "last European crocodile." The Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) made these discoveries during September excavations at the "Baza-1 site" in Granada province. The site, found in 1996, saw systematic excavation begin in 2000 and 2001. Over 2,000 fossils were recovered from a modest 320-square-foot area, mostly from extinct animals.

Last-known crocodile in Europe lived in Spain 4.5 million years ago, researchers say https://t.co/QgpIrIfhAr  Live Science (@LiveScience) October 18, 2023

Antoni Canals, IPHES, Rovira i Virgili University, Sergio Ros-Montoya, University of Malaga, and Bienvenido Martinez Navarro, IPHES, lead the research. The Baza site's age, approximately 4.5 million years, is a rarity in Europe and is known for its exceptional density of extinct fauna and flora.

500 Fossils Unearthed

Paleontologists have found over 500 well-preserved fossils of large and small vertebrates, approximately 4.5 million years old. Among the remains are mastodons, rhinoceroses, two horse species, various bovids, deer, pigs, large carnivores, and turtles. Sediment analysis also unveiled small mammal remains like rodents, rabbits, shrews, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and abundant wood and plant remnants.

Only African Crocodile in European Fossil Records

The team made a fascinating discovery at Baza-1: the first crocodile tooth found at the site. This tooth belongs to a crocodile species of African origin and marks a unique find in the European fossil record from this era. It suggests that this species may have been the last crocodile to inhabit the continent.

The crocodile is believed to have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula by crossing an arm of the sea just before the Mediterranean dried up during the Messinian salinity crisis, around 6 million years ago. This geological event isolated the Mediterranean from the Atlantic and resulted in highly saline conditions unsuitable for life. The crisis eventually ended with the Zanclean flood, which refilled the Mediterranean basin and reconnected it to the Atlantic.

Also Read: Florida Alligator Brooke Gets CT Scan with Help of Six Vets, Strappy Board Following Ear Infection Symptoms

Dried Up Ancient Mediterranean

The Baza-1 site holds remarkable significance as the most comprehensive fossil continental record for post-Messinian times in Europe. During the Messinian salinity crisis, the Mediterranean desiccated, enabling passage between northern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Notably, the discovery of the crocodile tooth at Baza establishes the presence of crocodiles on this site during an unprecedented chronological window.

These crocodiles ventured into the Iberian Peninsula around 6.1-6.2 million years ago, extending their European presence well beyond the previously known limit of 5.0 million years ago.

Researchers aim to employ the fossil findings from Baza-1 to reconstruct the ancient environment. So far, evidence suggests a tropical/subtropical climate with high temperatures, abundant rainfall, and an ecosystem featuring extensive forests and open areas inhabited by herbivores, such as three-toed horses.

Related Article: 4 Critically Endangered Gharial Crocodile Hatchlings Emerging From Fort Worth Zoo Nursery Excite Officials in Groundbreaking Conservation Success
Officials have confirmed that illegal trafficking in Thailand has become so lucrative, reaching US$20 billion worth.

Illegal Trafficking at US$20 Billion

Pol Col Wanpichit Wattanasakmonta, an anti-wildlife trafficking officer, stresses the essential need for a harmonious balance between humanity and nature. He emphasizes that safeguarding wildlife is just one facet; they aim to inspire global commitment to preserving natural resources and the environment, fostering a sustainable world. Wattanasakmonta envisions coexisting with nature.

Nevertheless, his daily duties as the superintendent of Sub-division 6 within the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division revolve around apprehending wrongdoers in a $20 billion illegal industry, ranking as the fourth most profitable global crime, following drugs, humans, and arms.

Thailand, The Trading Hub That Went Astray

Thailand, housing 10% of the world's animal species, was once a major hub for wildlife trade as a source, destination, and transit point. Thankfully, the country has moved away from the era of farms housing tigers, bears, and crocodiles, and openly selling endangered species like tiger and leopard skins in places like Chatuchak market.

In 2019, the Wildlife Conservation and Protection Act was enacted to protect non-native species and increase traffickers' potential jail terms to 20 years. Notably, the Supreme Court sentenced Vietnamese trafficker kingpin Boonchai Bach to five years in prison in 2022. Additionally, on September 19, Malaysian Teo Boon Ching was given an 18-month prison sentence in the US for conspiring to traffic rhinoceros horns worth millions, after his extradition from Thailand.

Widespread Wildlife Trafficking

Despite efforts to combat wildlife trafficking, the issue persists in Thailand. An alarming incident occurred on October 4 when a rat and an otter escaped from a carry-on bag on a flight from Suvarnabhumi to Taipei. This bag also contained 20 Burmese star tortoises, a snake, a prairie dog, and two black giant squirrels, revealing the extent of smuggling.

This cruel trade is a grave concern for those passionate about animal welfare, species preservation, and the potential for zoonotic diseases, such as the one believed to have caused COVID-19.

In recent years, authorities have confiscated protected and "reserved" animals from smugglers, including exotic birds, leopard cubs, macaques, and pangolins. Pangolins, sought after for their meat and scales in traditional Chinese medicine, were once abundant in Thailand but are now predominantly captured in Indonesia and transported live by ship to Myanmar, often crossing the Thai border. From there, they are rapidly transported to China via Laos.

Also Read: Dead Snakes, Dried Seahorses, Other 'Traditional Food' Smuggled From Vietnam Seized by US Customs

Macaque Monkeys for Laboratories in China

Macaque monkey smuggling is widespread, primarily originating from northern Thailand, destined for Chinese laboratories. Authorities avoid naming specific countries to prevent offense. Monkeys are channeled through neighboring nations before reaching a third country for experiments.

While some progress has been made against criminal gangs in the trade, it won't cease until demand decreases. Wattanasakmonta emphasized the lack of awareness about wildlife trafficking in certain countries, unlike Thailand, where some still view hunting as a way of life. The battle against trafficking hinges on reducing product demand and raising awareness about its risks, consequences, and penalties.

Related Article: 4000 Pangolins Died for Scales Worth $1.4M Seized in Thailand, Supposed to be Sold in China
A Bachman's warbler, the rarest songbird in the US, hasn't been sighted in about 60 years. Without any other confirmed sightings, officials have now been classified as "extinct."

Bachman's Warbler: Rarest Bird in the US

The Bachman's warbler, once one of North America's rarest songbirds, migrated through Florida and was last seen in Cuba in 1988. Regrettably, the US Fish and Wildlife Service now deems it likely extinct. This designation extends to 21 species, including the Mariana fruit bat of Guam, a Texas fish, and nine southeastern mussels, marking their impending demise.

Characterized by its distinct bright yellow face and curved beak, the Bachman's warbler belonged to the wood warbler family, known for its high-pitched, buzzy "zeep" call. Scant information is available about its history and habitat. Only a few images and one preserved carcass in the Florida Museum of Natural History exist. John James Audubon commissioned an illustration of this bird and named it after its discoverer, John Bachman.

Audubon described the warbler as lively and agile, catching insects mid-air like a Flycatcher. During migration, they traversed Florida in spring along the Gulf Coast before wintering in Cuba. Florida's strategic location makes it a central hub for countless migratory bird species, drawing millions annually, according to Julie Wraithmell, the executive director of Audubon Florida.

Decline of the Population

The Bachman's warbler thrived in lowland flood plains, notably the Everglades in Florida. The last confirmed nest sighting was in 1937. Human development and the suppression of vital wildfires led to habitat loss, causing a gradual decline in their population prior to conservation efforts.

This emphasizes the importance of early species preservation, as recovery is costlier and more challenging once significant impacts occur. Floridians should prioritize wise land-use decisions and protect vital natural resources for the survival of at-risk species.

Officially Declared Extinct

Bachman's warblers have been an exceedingly rare sight for over a century, making Monday's announcement expected yet undeniably disheartening. Julie Wraithmell expressed sadness at Florida's loss of this unique species, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging its absence.

Noah Greenwald, from the Center for Biological Diversity, explained that these warblers thrived in North Carolina until the early 1900s, but clear-cut logging and lighthouse collisions devastated their habitats and populations. The bird was declared endangered in 1967, despite no US sightings since 1962, suggesting its likely extinction even before the Endangered Species Act.

Efforts to locate Bachman's warblers dwindled over the years, with extensive surveys from 1975 to 1979 yielding no signs of the species. Although reliable sightings were reported in Congaree National Park, South Carolina, in 2001, exhaustive searches failed to confirm their presence. Greenwald believed that if they still existed, they would have been sighted by now.

Also Read: "Last Crocodile in Europe" - Fossils of Largest Ever Crocodile Unearthed 4.5 Million Years Later

One of The 21 Officially Extinct

The US Fish and Wildlife Service bases its designation of extinction on rigorous examinations of the best available scientific inquiry for each of the delisted species, according to a news release, even though the 21 species delisted on that day were probably extinct by the 1970s or 1980s.

The statement, according to Greenwald, should serve as a "wake-up call."

According to Greenwald, everyone should be concerned about how humanity is ultimately destroying the web of life that underpins their entire existence.

Related Article: 'Lord God Bird' Official Extinction on Hold as Fuzzy Pictures Resemble Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
In an area in California, where the raccoon population was low, a volunteer found a blonde raccoon in a trash can close to a lake.

Blonde Raccoon in a Trash Can

Earlier in October, Dana Berry and the other Trash Falcons made their recurring sweep of the wildlife refuge, clearing it of loose shopping carts, toys, and tape recorders.

The Trash Falcons are a group of volunteers that meet every Sunday morning in Adams Point to collect trash and debris from the 3.4-mile lagoon.

Berry was about to start emptying his load into one cardboard garbage can when he heard growling coming from the bottom of the container.

A baby raccoon with leucism, a rare pigmentation condition that causes white coloration and spots in animals and is related to albinism, was discovered when the man glanced inside.

Although it's not known how many of these raccoons reside beside the lake, earlier sightings from 2018 indicated that at least one family is present.

A group of white raccoons was sighted by the lagoon in 2021, and as recently as last month, some of them were even seen fleeing with someone's leftover burrito.

Where the family of this specific infant raccoon is located is still unknown.

First Raccoon Rescue

Berry reported that after carefully picking the raccoon up, he was tempted to summon some of the other Falcons but decided against it because he knew the poor animal must be afraid.

To release the baby raccoon from its cardboard prison, he delicately tipped the garbage container.

The blonde raccoon groans, darts outside, climbs a neighboring tree and then vanishes into the undergrowth.

Trash Falcons co-founder Richard Shirk claimed that nothing of that size had ever occurred before. Out of their 190 missions, they have saved baby turtles stuck on the opposite side of the lake, but this is the first time volunteers have discovered a trapped baby raccoon and released it back into the wild.

Also Read: White Peacock: Geting to Know These Rare Pets with Unique Genetic Mutation

Leucism in Raccoons

It's quite uncommon to come across a "blonde" raccoon in the wild, according to Hope Swinimer, the founder of Hope for Wildlife, a rescue facility with headquarters in Nova Scotia.

She's seen leucism in squirrels, minks, skunks, and even ravens, and the organization has taken in around a dozen raccoons with it over the years.

When one arrives, Swinimer remarked, it's always a thrilling day because it's so uncommon to witness.

Normally, she advises letting a leucistic raccoon alone if it appears to be in good health. But if the animal appears ill, a medical examination may be necessary.

The poor little raccoon may have spent some time in the trash bin since, as Swinimer noted, he appears very depressed.

A senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, Tiffany Yap, said it's an exciting chance to learn more about the complex ecosystem of the Oakland lagoon.

Yap said it's a good reminder that people do coexist with nature.

Related Article: Rare Albino Dolphin Calf Seen Off-Coast Africa
Tropical Storm Norma has already developed into a hurricane in the Eastern Pacific after undergoing explosive intensification.

Weather experts said that Norma is seen to make landfall in Mexico.

Norma's Weather Track

The National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center said that at 3:00 PM MDT (2100 UTC), the center of Hurricane Norma was located near latitude 15.6 North, longitude 108.0 West.

Norma is seen to be moving toward the north near 8 mph (13 km/h).

Meteorologists said that a northward to north-northwestward motion at a similar forward speed is expected during the next few days.

Meanwhile, maximum sustained winds have increased to near 80 mph (130 km/h) with higher gusts.

Weather experts said that the continued rapid strengthening is forecast through tonight, and Norma could become a major hurricane on Thursday.

They noted that Norma's gradual weakening is forecast on Friday and Saturday.

Furthermore, hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 25 miles (35 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 140 miles (220 km).

The estimated minimum central pressure is 984 mb (29.06 inches).

There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

Norma is seen to continue its rapid intensification this afternoon. Moreover, intense inner-core convection has resulted in a ring of very cold cloud tops surrounding the center of the cyclone, and a ragged eye has emerged in recent visible images of Norma.

The NHC said that there is still greater than normal uncertainty in Norma's track and intensity forecasts for the weather disturbance later this week and this weekend while it approaches the Baja California peninsula and western Mexico.

Despite that, there is an increasing threat of wind and rainfall impacts to southern portions of Baja California Sur by Saturday, and watches could be required there tonight or on Thursday.

Meanwhile, weather experts said that officials in Baja California Sur should monitor the progress of Norma and that watches could be required for portions of the area tonight or on Thursday.

At present, the swells generated by Norma are affecting portions of the coast of southwestern Mexico, and will spread northward along the coast of western Mexico and toward Baja California Sur during the next couple of days.

Meteorologists said that these swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.

Read Also: Tropical Storm Lidia Expected to Intensify into Hurricane, Threatens Mexico With Rough Surf

Effects In The US

According to weather experts, some moisture as well as energy from Norma will survive the trip over the mountains in northern Mexico and then reach the US.

They explained that a dip in the jet stream, which will develop in the western US next week, will help to scoop up the energy and moisture from the tropical system across the South Central states.

The rainfall amounts of this high magnitude could be significantly beneficial in easing drought conditions gripping the region.

Officials said that the large tracts of the central US have been experiencing abnormally dry conditions to the most extreme drought conditions, the United States Drought Monitor has said.

Related Article: Tropical Storm Norma Could Transform Into Hurricane; Might Make Landfall Over Mexico

Related Video:
Insects are among the most diverse and abundant life forms on Earth, but they are also often the subject of destructive research methods that harm or kill them.

A team of international researchers, led by Senior Researcher Emeritus Gabor L. Lovei from the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus University, has called for a change in the way insects are studied.

They have published a paper titled "The need for a (non-destructive) method revolution in entomology" in the journal Biological Conservation, where they highlight the benefits and challenges of using non-lethal methods to study insects.

Why non-destructive methods are needed

The researchers argued that traditional methods of insect research, such as collecting, killing, and dissecting specimens, are not only unethical and harmful to biodiversity, but also limit our understanding of insect behavior, life cycles, interactions, and ecosystem contributions.

They point out that many insect species are difficult to identify based on their morphology alone, and that killing them prevents further studies on their genetics, physiology, or ecology.

Non-destructive methods, on the other hand, allow researchers to observe and analyze insects in their natural environment without harming them.

These methods include advanced imaging techniques, such as cameras and microscopes, molecular biology techniques, such as DNA barcoding and metabarcoding, and data analysis techniques, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence.

By combining these methods with modern computational techniques, huge amounts of data can be collected and processed, revealing patterns and insights that would otherwise be impossible to obtain.

The researchers also emphasize that non-destructive methods have several advantages over destructive ones.

They allow us to preserve insect samples for later studies, which can be useful for taxonomic revisions, genetic analyses, or environmental monitoring.

They also reduce the impact of research on insect populations and habitats, which can help conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Moreover, they are more ethical and respectful towards nature, which can foster a positive attitude towards insects among researchers and the public.

Also Read: The Important Role of Insects in the Decay and Decomposition of Corpses and Carcasses

How to implement non-destructive methods in entomology

The researchers acknowledge that non-destructive methods are not without challenges and limitations.

They require specialized equipment, skills, and infrastructure, which may not be available or affordable for all researchers or institutions.

They also require careful planning, design, and validation of experiments, as well as standardization and sharing of protocols and data.

They may also face ethical and legal issues regarding the collection, storage, and use of biological samples and information.

To overcome these challenges and promote a non-destructive methodological change in entomology, the researchers suggest several actions and recommendations.

They called for more research and development of technologies that can support non-destructive methods, such as portable devices, wireless sensors, or drones.

They also urged for more collaboration and communication among entomologists and other disciplines, such as computer scientists, engineers, or ethicists.

According to the researchers, education and training on non-destructive methods for students and researchers should be advocated for, as well as more outreach and engagement with the public and policymakers.

The researchers hoped that their paper will spark a movement toward a gentler approach to insect research.

They believe that this approach has the potential to further our understanding of arthropods and their role in the ecosystem while causing less damage to them.

By changing our approach to the study of insects, they said, we can contribute to a more sustainable future for our planet and its many living organisms.

Related article: Venezuelan Pitcher Plants Use Wettable Hairs to Trap Insects
More than a hundred species of wildlife found on every continent are contaminated with highly hazardous flame retardants, and the pollution is likely to be responsible for population decreases in some species.

The harmful substances have been found in everything from sea urchins to bobcats to Arctic foxes, and at dangerously high levels in endangered species like red pandas, chimps, and killer whales.

Interactive Map of Contaminated Animals

Green Science Policy Institute experts demonstrated how flame retardants damage endangered species by compiling hundreds of published scientific studies into a map.

The study looked at nearly 20 years of flame retardant research and includes an interactive map that shows the area and type of animal that was contaminated. It highlights the extent of flame retardant pollution and the problems it creates.

Flame retardants identified in wildlife include both phased-out chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and newer replacement chemicals such as chlorinated paraffins and organophosphate flame retardants.

Despite being linked to liver, thyroid, and kidney cancer in experimental animals, chlorinated paraffins are nevertheless widely utilized in consumer products, with over one million tons produced each year.

Similarly, the usage of organophosphate flame retardants is increasing, despite the fact that even low amounts can damage children's IQ, attention, and memory. Lydia Jahl, the paper's primary author, said she expected widespread contamination but was "blown away by the sheer number of studies finding harmful levels of all kinds of flame retardants everywhere."

"It's heartbreaking that human advancement doesn't take health impacts into account for ourselves and for wildlife," she said. "The people who pollute are not the most impacted - it's fenceline communities, turtles, dolphins, foxes and butterflies."

Read Also: Pollutants and Other Environmental Toxins are Worsening Obesity Rates

Flame Retardants Threaten Population

Flame retardants accumulate in the marine and terrestrial food chains, with marine mammals and birds of prey having the highest levels.

PCB levels in killer whales, for example, have been related to poorer calf survival rates and weaker immune systems. Flame retardants have wreaked havoc on orca pods in Greenland, the Strait of Gibraltar, and Hawaii.

According to scientists, PCB pollution might wipe out half of the world's killer whale populations during the next century. Despite the fact that PCBs have been prohibited since the 1970s.

"Killer whales shouldn't have to swim in a sea of flame retardants. The science is clear that these chemicals harm their development-as well as that of our children," said Arlene Blum, executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute.

Flame retardants are also extremely mobile, traveling large distances through water and air. High quantities were discovered in chimpanzees in a protected Ugandan national park deep in Africa's interior, far from a flame-retardant manufacturing or dumping location.

Environmental health advocates are especially frustrated because flame retardants have typically been determined to be ineffective in most applications. Blum stressed the need to update the ineffective flammability standards to stop these toxics from entering the environment and affecting wild animals as well as humans.

Related Article: Pollutants Leading to Developmental Defects in UK River Birds

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"This is a monumental achievement and a proud day for offshore wind in the United States that proves this industry is real and demonstrates Avangrid's steadfast commitment to helping the Northeast region meet its clean energy and climate goals," said Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra. "While this is a landmark for this first-in-the-nation project and the industry, we remain focused on the important work ahead to continue the successful installation campaign of these massive turbines and deliver the first power to Massachusetts homes and businesses this year."

"This complete turbine is a monument to the hard work and belief in our construction and project teams, and countless partners in our neighboring communities," said Tim Evans, Partner and Head of North America for CIP. "Vineyard Wind is the future of American offshore wind, and it's a future full of clean, sustainable energy and tremendous potential for job creation and reducing carbon pollution. Offshore wind continues to be a cornerstone in our investment strategy, with the U.S. market playing a central role."

The project will consist of 62 wind turbines to generate 806 Megawatts, enough to power more than 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts.

"Having the first offshore wind turbine in the water for the first commercial offshore wind farm in the US is an important symbolic milestone for our company, our customers, and our industry," said Jan Kjaersgaard, CEO GE Vernova Offshore Wind. "It shows that our teams are making tangible progress on delivering on the significant potential of offshore wind. We are particularly proud to be using our Haliade-X 13 MW turbine to support Vineyard Wind in this endeavor and look forward to continuing to work together with them and all of our partners to bring this historic project to life."

"The successful assembly of the first Wind Turbine Generator represents an important project milestone and another historic first for our port," said New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell. "It further demonstrates New Bedford's capacity to support the staging of major wind projects."

"The completion of the first generator is a milestone for Vineyard Wind, as the project continues to press onwards towards the completion of the country's first commercial offshore wind farm, which will bring power from the wind directly into homes around Massachusetts," said Senate President Karen E. Spilka. "It's wonderful to see this progress happening right in our own backyard, and I'm eager to see this project continue to move forward."

"With the completion of Vineyard Wind's first turbine, we are witnessing the country's wind energy future come to fruition right off our shores," said State Senator Julian Cyr. "This impressive feat means we are on the edge of significant clean energy production for Massachusetts residents and the new job opportunities and economic growth that it brings to our region. Islanders and Cape Codders should be immensely proud to lead the nation in stemming the climate crisis."

"To see the fully constructed Wind Turbine Generator is to realize the promise of the Offshore Wind industry - clean, green jobs; new green energy to combat the climate crisis and reduce rates for consumers; and the successful collaboration between our public, private, and Labor partners," said State Representative Antonio F.D. Cabral. "The City of New Bedford continues to secure its legacy in this latest historic achievement as a site that fosters innovation, collaboration, and vision for a green, equitable, and sustainable future for all residents throughout the Northeast. To witness what had begun as a conversation many years ago materialize as a fully assembled wind turbine is truly remarkable and I commend all the partners, particularly our local tradespeople, who delivered on this promise."

"With the completion of the first wind turbine generator we have taken another definitive step towards a Commonwealth free of fossil fuels," said State Representative Christopher Markey. "The turbine is not only a symbol of green energy but a symbol of economic opportunity. It stands as an example and a promise of continued economic growth in our region."

"Today's historic milestone is about firsts: the first completed turbine of the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States," said State Representative Jeffrey N. Roy (D-Franklin), House Chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy. "And it all started with the foresight of now-Speaker Mariano and the House to see the incredible potential of the offshore wind industry to combat climate change, drive economic growth, and generate clean, affordable energy. I applaud Vineyard Wind and the Commonwealth's many partners in industry and labor who have worked tirelessly to transform this vision into reality."

"Nation-leading offshore wind policy has led to the first utility-scale wind farm off the coast of our district bringing with it clean energy and good-paying year-round jobs," said State Representative Dylan Fernandes. "This turbine represents years of hard work and also reminds us of the important work ahead to combat global warming and provide a livable planet for future generations."

From the outset of this project, Vineyard Wind recognized the importance of building and supporting a workforce of local, highly skilled and diverse tradespeople. The valuable collaboration with union leadership on this project is a prime example of how this new industry can be a responsive member of the communities it serves, ensuring accessible and family-sustaining careers.

Vineyard Wind began offshore construction in late 2022, achieved steel-in-the-water in June, and completed the nation's first offshore substation in July. Construction flows through the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. In July 2021, Vineyard Wind signed the first Project Labor Agreement for an offshore wind project in the United States, which outlined the creation of 500 union jobs though the project.

An 806-megawatt project located 15 miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Vineyard Wind will generate electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, create 3,600 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) job years, save customers $1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation, and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the road annually.

About Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners

Founded in 2012, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners P/S (CIP) today is the world's largest dedicated fund manager within greenfield renewable energy investments and a global leader in offshore wind. The funds managed by CIP focuses on investments in offshore and onshore wind, solar PV, biomass and energy-from-waste, transmission and distribution, reserve capacity, storage, advanced bioenergy, and Power-to-X. CIP manages ten funds and has to date raised approximately EUR 26 billion for investments in energy and associated infrastructure from more than 150 international institutional investors. CIP has approximately 400 employees and 12 offices around the world. For more information, visit www.cip.com

About Avangrid: Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR) aspires to be the leading sustainable energy company in the United States. Headquartered in Orange, CT with approximately $41 billion in assets and operations in 24 U.S. states, Avangrid has two primary lines of business: networks and renewables. Through its networks business, Avangrid owns and operates eight electric and natural gas utilities, serving more than 3.3 million customers in New York and New England. Through its renewables business, Avangrid owns and operates a portfolio of renewable energy generation facilities across the United States. Avangrid employs more than 7,500 people and has been recognized by JUST Capital in 2021, 2022 and 2023 as one of the JUST 100 companies - a ranking of America's best corporate citizens. In 2023, Avangrid ranked first within the utility sector for its commitment to the environment. The company supports the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals and was named among the World's Most Ethical Companies in 2023 for the fifth consecutive year by the Ethisphere Institute. Avangrid is a member of the group of companies controlled by Iberdrola, S.A. For more information, visit www.avangrid.com.
Manaus, the largest city in Brazil's Amazonas state, has been shrouded in a hazardous cloud of smoke from forest fires. The forested capital has been engulfed in a murky brown cloud, resembling China at its most polluted.

The city of one million inhabitants, encircled by a grove of trees, usually enjoys blue skies. However, an extremely dry season, exacerbated by El Nino and human-caused global warming, has jeopardized the city's self-image, the well-being of its citizens, and the Amazon basin's survival prospects.

Worst Air Quality in the World

Fires in the Amazon have formed a blanket of gray smoke above the capital of the northern state of Amazonas. According to the World Air Quality Index, the city's air quality is among the worst in the world.

There are so many fires blazing in the surrounding tinder-dry forest that air-quality monitors recorded 387 micrograms of pollutants per cubic, compared to 122 in Brazil's economic hub of Sao Paulo. The only city in the world that scored lower was a Thai industrial center.

"This smoke is hurting us. People don't know what they are doing by burning the forest, and many animals are dying," said Maria Luiza Reis, a 72-year-old Manaus resident.

Health officials have recommended that citizens minimize exposure as much as possible.

Those exposed to smoke face "significant risks, primarily respiratory diseases," according to Marcio Garcia, director of the government's public health emergencies section.

Data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said Amazonas had the worst October in terms of fires in the last 25 years.

The INPE recorded 2,770 fire occurrences this month, a 154 percent increase over the same period in 2022.

The government announced the deployment of two helicopters and an extra 149 firefighters to supplement the almost equal number already fighting the fires in the region.

Marina Silva, the Environment Minister, blamed the fires on "criminals" who set them to clear the forest for farmland.

"There is no natural fire in the Amazon," Silva said in a news conference.

Read Also: Deforestation, Degradation Turns 26% of Amazon Rainforest to Grassland, Report Reveals

Brazil Hit Hard By Drought

Although more droughts and fires were forecast in El Nino years like this, local firefighting agencies were unprepared and under-equipped. Jane Crespo, the environmental secretary of Maues, a community 155 miles (250 kilometers) from Manaus, said some localities lack enough water to put out fires.

Many sections of the Amazon are only accessible by river. Some villages have been shut off as their levels have dropped, creating fears of a humanitarian tragedy. Other places can only be reached by small boats, making transportation more expensive.

The rainforest is approaching irreparable collapse, according to Philip Fearnside, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Amazonian Research, as dry seasons prolong and more days of intense heat and no rain occur.

"Repeated fires can destroy the forest entirely. In addition to tipping points in terms of temperature and dry-season length, there is also a tipping point from the loss of forest beyond a certain limit, which is also believed to be near at hand," he said.

Related Article: Brazil Amazon States Suffer From Dry, Drought Conditions Affecting Residents, Rainforest

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Two cold-chain freight trains carrying fruits and vegetables leave southwest China's Yunnan province for Laos and Vietnam respectively on October 16. (Photo: VNA)

The two maiden train trips, which began from Yanhe Station of Yuxi city, Yunnan, are expected to reach the Laos capital, Vientiane, and Vietnam's Lao Cai after about a day's trip, Chinas Xinhua News Agency reported.

Currently, one trip is scheduled daily from Kunming of Yunnan to Vientiane for the China-Laos international cold-chain freight train service, while one trip a week service is scheduled between Kunming and Lao Cai.

The transport frequency of the services will be adjusted according to customer needs in the future, said the service operator, China Railway Kunming Bureau Group Co., Ltd./.
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AI-generating malware, deep fake identity spoofing, and state-sponsored ransomware are just a few of the latest methods that attackers are using to bypass traditional cybersecurity tools. Ritesh Agrawal, CEO of cybersecurity startup Airgap Networks, noticed that many of the attacks that compromise enterprise networks fail to penetrate telco and service provider networks.

Even though theyre deploying the same routers, switches, and firewalls, theres something fundamentally different about telco networks that shields them from many threats to enterprise LANs, Argawal said. Agrawal has 20 years of experience with cybersecurity, enterprise networking, and cloud computing, most of that time spent with Juniper Networks focusing on telco and large enterprise clients.

I learned that the fundamental difference in service provider, and especially telco subscriber, networks is that one user does not affect other users because they are in a zero-trust environment. I can text you or Zoom with you, but my phone cannot talk to your phone on a network level, Argawal noted.

His insights about the different security profile of telco versus enterprise networks led Argawal and several of his Juniper colleagues to found Airgap Networks in 2019. Since their launch, the startup has raised seed and Series A funding, developed a ransomware kill switch, and attracted several on-the-record customers, including Dropbox and Skyline Enterprises.

Airgap recently received more than $4 million in follow-on funding to its Series A round, which brings its total funding to $23 million. Storm Ventures is the lead investor. Other investors include Cervin, Engineering Capital, Sorenson Ventures, and individual investors.

Airgap's kill switch is designed to stop ransomware with a single click

According to Argawal, nothing illustrates the divide between enterprise and telco networks like ransomware. Whereas telco networks are segmented in a way that makes it difficult for malware to spread from device to device, enterprises tend to be caught flat-footed when ransomware hits, with technicians running around data centers pulling cables to try to isolate infected machines. Meanwhile, as enterprises continue to address the problem with outdated tools and manual methods, attackers are getting more sophisticated, leveraging AI and machine learning, which pushes the cost of ransomware attacks higher.

According to a report from Cybersecurity Ventures, by 2031 a ransomware attack will hit every 2 seconds, and, in total, ransomware will cost victims $265 billion each year. The recent ransomware attack on MGM Resorts International illustrates just how damaging these attacks can be. Attackers penetrated MGMs networks through a simple phishing call to a help desk, and once their ransomware spread, a range of business-critical systems were shut down, from ATMs to casino gaming machines to hotel keycard systems. The attack continued to disrupt operations for at least 10 days.

Airgap Networks has developed a ransomware kill switch, a one-click button in the Airgap management dashboard that blocks all lateral device-to-device communications, while also blocking network-level communications among workstations and applications.

As an organizations incident response team begins to counter the attack, they can bring machines and critical systems that have been vetted and confirmed as uncompromised back online incrementally. Once the ransomware has been fully eliminated, one click restores normal network policies and operations.

Airgaps zero-trust platform relies on microsegmentation

The foundation of Airgap Networks cloud-based cybersecurity service is its Zero Trust Firewall (ZTF), which is designed to protect the enterprise network core and mission-critical assets. The basic idea, as the startups name implies, is to virtually airgap critical infrastructure and devices in software through what the startup calls agentless microsegmentation.

The trouble with traditional LAN architectures is that enterprise endpoints are typically grouped into unrestricted enterprise VLANs, where they are free to communicate with one another. Enterprises keep ports open on various networked devices to enable free communications between endpoints and servers for business-critical traffic.

Unfortunately, permitting free and open network-level communications creates massive vulnerabilities. Every unrestricted open port increases the enterprises attack surface, and lateral device-to-device communications makes it easy for malware to spread quickly throughout the organization. The security gaps in the typical enterprise LAN are understood by cybercriminals, who exploit open network communications to stage successful attacks.

To address those issues, Airgaps Zero Trust Isolation technology blocks all unauthorized lateral movement within the LAN. Airgap microsegmentation wraps a policy-based security perimeter around each workload that defines which other workloads it can communicate with and how.

Airgap also prevents any lateral scanning attempts. If an intruder breaches the perimeter security, exploits a misconfiguration, or tricks an insider via social engineering, the attacker will gain only limited, restricted access.

Airgap ZTF extends SSO/MFA authentication to a range of critical assets that are often poorly protected, including SCADA, ICS, OT, IoT, and legacy devices. It fully segments every endpoint, authenticates machine-to-machine communications, and provides AI- and ML-driven threat detection.

To improve its ability to discover and manage connected devices, Airgap acquired NetSpyGlass, a network and asset intelligence solution provider, in June 2023. Because todays enterprise networks are highly dynamic, discovering and visibility tools often miss many connected assets. Every acquisition, addition of a new campus or branch, or even just the moving of equipment between facilities creates changes that escape notice. Thus, many enterprises have no idea what is connected to and where everything is on their networks.

NetSpyGlass capabilities are integrated into the Airgap ZTF, giving it better visibility into core networks with diverse topologies. The greater the accuracy of asset discovery in these systems, the shorter the response time, said Agrawal. The integration also adds the ability to deliver detailed insights into device status, attributes, and interactions, helping administrators pinpoint risky devices.

To provide advanced warning of threats to critical infrastructure, Airgap has also developed an AI-powered threat detection and response tool, ThreatGPT. This tool uses a combination of graph databases and GPT-3 models to deliver cybersecurity insights to IT teams. ThreatGPT integrates contextual information, such as user identity and device type, for accurate detection and fewer false positives. It also includes a natural-language interface, so administrators can ask questions and gain recommendations through plain English queries.

A networking company disguised as a security company

Argawal contends that the reason enterprises continue to struggle with security gaps in enterprise networks, year after year, is because LANs rely on outdated technologies. The LAN environment for enterprises is 30 or 40 years out of date, Argawal said. VLANs were invented in 1984.

While zero trust and microsegmentation are their value propositions today, these are only two steps on Airgaps long-term roadmap. As the company grows, Airgaps roadmap puts it on a path to grow beyond security and add networking capabilities, as well. Were a networking company disguised as a security company, Argawal said. Our goal is to own and innovate the enterprise LAN, which represents a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity.

This roadmap will eventually put Airgap Networks on a collision course with a few large incumbents. Today, Airgap competes with a range of cybersecurity companies, from traditional firewall vendors to zero-trust providers to access control companies. However, if the company achieves its goal of rearchitecting the enterprise LAN, it will eventually go head-to-head with the likes of Cisco and Juniper.

Airgap Networks at a glance

Year founded: 2019

Funding: $23 million from Storm Ventures, Cervin, Engineering Capital, Sorenson Ventures, and individual investors

Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.

CEO: Ritesh Agrawal

What they do: Provide a Zero Trust Firewall (ZTF) for critical infrastructure

Competitors include: Authentic8, BetterCloud, Duo Security, Elisity, Okta, Mesh Security, Xage Security

Named customers: Dropbox, KCAS, Tillys, and Skyline Enterprises
Telecom giant Nokia has announced it will be cutting up to 14,000 jobs, a decision it blamed on the slowing demand for 5G equipment.

On Thursday, the company reported that its third-quarter net sales declined by 20% year-on-year, with profit over the same period dropping by 69%. Nokia said that as a result, it will be implementing cost-cutting measures to try and save between $842 million and $1.2 billion by 2026, eliminating $422 million worth of costs in 2024 and a further $316 in 2025.

The most difficult business decisions to make are the ones that impact our people. We have immensely talented employees at Nokia and we will support everyone that is affected by this process, said President and CEO Pekka Lundmark in a statement. Resetting the cost base is a necessary step to adjust to market uncertainty and to secure our long-term profitability and competitiveness. We remain confident about opportunities ahead of us.

A Nokia spokesperson said the company was now beginning the process of consultation on initial reductions, declining to comment on which job functions would be impacted by the layoffs, or whether the layoffs would affect Nokias global workforce or employees in specific geographic regions.

The timing and detail of final reductions will be decided only after careful consideration and will depend on the evolution of end market demand, the spokesperson said.

Nokia is not the only telecoms company to have announced layoffs this year. The companys biggest rival Ericsson laid off 8,500 employees in February and this week announced it had seen a fall in sales and that it expected the uncertainty affecting its business to persist into 2024. In May, BT Group announced plans to cut 55,000 jobs, the same month Vodafone said it would be cutting 11,000 positions.

5G technology faces adoption challenges

While private 5G/LTE networks for the enterprise are becoming increasingly common, several headwinds exist for the technology, which could impact adoption rates over the next two years, a report from market research firm IDC published in July noted.

It outlined three factors that had slowed the growth of private cellular: slower-than-expected availability of the latest 5G chipsets, difficulties with integrating private cellular into existing network infrastructure, and the way in which private cellular is sold.

For the market to scale faster globally, and for vendors to capture more profits, we foresee the need for a traditional enterprise channel to develop whereby a larger portion of the equipment is pushed to market via distributors and value-added resellers, the report said.
The data was revealed by Eric Broussard, Amazon Vice-President Worldwide Global Selling & International Seller Services, at a recent conference held in Hanoi.

Specifically, from September 2022 to September 2023, Vietnamese sellers on Amazon successfully marketed and distributed 17 million products to customers globally. The export value of sellers on Amazon increased by 50%, contributing to the countrys export turnover. The number of Vietnamese selling partners through Amazon increased by 40%.

Eric Broussard, Amazon Vice-President Worldwide Global Selling & International Seller Services, highly appreciates the Vietnamese selling community. (Photo: hanoimoi.vn)

According to Amazon Global Selling, the categories seeing the most impressive business growth on Amazon's e-commerce platform are: Home, kitchen, health and personal care, apparel and beauty. Among them, the beauty and functional food industries are witnessing strong growth.

Vietnam is an emerging part of the global e-commerce supply chain. We applaud Vietnams manufacturing strength, startup spirit and fast digital transformation. Thats why we are expanding our presence in Vietnam and will continue boosting Vietnamese enterprises success, said Broussard.

Lai Viet Anh, Deputy General Director of the Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency (iDEA) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, shared that e-commerce has changed the way businesses interact with other businesses and their customers. E-commerce also helps businesses overcome barriers in international trade, making it easier to expand their business to other markets, thereby creating motivation for the growth of exports and trade. The government pays close attention to facilitating and fostering the use of e-commerce.

Tran Phuong Nga, CEO of Thien Long Group, expressed her expectation that this groups participation in global sales through Amazon from 2023 will be a strategic step to reach international consumers and create a foothold in the global market for Vietnams national stationery brand.

At the event, Amazon also introduced a range of new and improved tools and programs (including Fee Waiver, JITA, Brand Tailored Promotion, and upgraded SEND) to accelerate cross-border e-commerce and empower local businesses through every stage of their selling journey on Amazon./.
By Express News Service

KOLKATA: Owners of premium cars with prices ranging between Rs 60 lakh and Rs 1.15 crore have become a headache for the cash-strapped West Bengal government as they are reluctant to clear road tax dues.

According to records available with the transport department, road tax for 1,931 high-end vehicles to the tune of Rs 70 crore has been lying unpaid as the owners show no interest to comply with the rule-book despite repeated reminders. The list of defaulters includes actors, reputed doctors, entrepreneurs and lawyers with brands such as Land Rover, Range Rover, BMW, Audi, Porsche and Jaguar.

Sources in the transport department said Nabanna, the state secretariat, had recently sought the names of owners of premium luxury vehicles who have not paid road tax for long. Such owners are riding their vehicles without paying road tax for the past five to 10 years. Owners of normal vehicles are found to be more law-abiding than these rich people. But now, we have decided to initiate a special drive to recover the huge dues of road tax, said an officer of the transport department.

Citing an example, an official at Nabanna said a vehicle owned by a popular actress from the Bengali film industry was intercepted at the Ruby crossing on EM Bypass one month ago. A total of Rs 12 lakh is due from her under the head of road tax. She was given several reminders. We confiscated the vehicle which has been lying at the transport departments Kasba office. The owner did not bother to clear her dues as she has other cars to ride, said the officer.

An inspector of the motor vehicles department said the traffic police and officers of the transport department hesitate to intercept premium vehicles. But defaulters will not be allowed to take this advantage anymore. The state transport authorities will send notices to all the defaulters and after issuing three such notices, stern action will be taken. We will use the legal provisions of the West Bengal Public Demand Recovery Act to get the dues from the defaulters, said another officer of the transport department.

The officer also said the state government is planning to make it mandatory that a buyer will have to pay road tax for 15 years at the time of buying a premium car. If the owners of luxury premium cars do not clear the dues, we will have no other option left other than collecting road taxes for 15 years, he added.

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KOLKATA: Owners of premium cars with prices ranging between Rs 60 lakh and Rs 1.15 crore have become a headache for the cash-strapped West Bengal government as they are reluctant to clear road tax dues. According to records available with the transport department, road tax for 1,931 high-end vehicles to the tune of Rs 70 crore has been lying unpaid as the owners show no interest to comply with the rule-book despite repeated reminders. The list of defaulters includes actors, reputed doctors, entrepreneurs and lawyers with brands such as Land Rover, Range Rover, BMW, Audi, Porsche and Jaguar. Sources in the transport department said Nabanna, the state secretariat, had recently sought the names of owners of premium luxury vehicles who have not paid road tax for long. Such owners are riding their vehicles without paying road tax for the past five to 10 years. Owners of normal vehicles are found to be more law-abiding than these rich people. But now, we have decided to initiate a special drive to recover the huge dues of road tax, said an officer of the transport department.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Citing an example, an official at Nabanna said a vehicle owned by a popular actress from the Bengali film industry was intercepted at the Ruby crossing on EM Bypass one month ago. A total of Rs 12 lakh is due from her under the head of road tax. She was given several reminders. We confiscated the vehicle which has been lying at the transport departments Kasba office. The owner did not bother to clear her dues as she has other cars to ride, said the officer. An inspector of the motor vehicles department said the traffic police and officers of the transport department hesitate to intercept premium vehicles. But defaulters will not be allowed to take this advantage anymore. The state transport authorities will send notices to all the defaulters and after issuing three such notices, stern action will be taken. We will use the legal provisions of the West Bengal Public Demand Recovery Act to get the dues from the defaulters, said another officer of the transport department. The officer also said the state government is planning to make it mandatory that a buyer will have to pay road tax for 15 years at the time of buying a premium car. If the owners of luxury premium cars do not clear the dues, we will have no other option left other than collecting road taxes for 15 years, he added. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Online Desk

Israel has agreed to allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip while the Israeli military keeps up its airstrikes on the Palestinian territory.

More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told them to evacuate. The airstrikes continued on Thursday across the entire territory, including in areas in the south that Israel had declared as "safe zones."

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza from Egypt following a request from US President Joe Biden.

The war that began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants stormed into Israel, and Israel vowed to destroy the militant group, has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed. An Israeli military spokesperson said Thursday that the families of 206 people believed to have been captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza had been notified.

The current war has already claimed thousands of lives on both sides and the conflict is expected to escalate further.

Here are the highlights

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Israel has agreed to allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip while the Israeli military keeps up its airstrikes on the Palestinian territory. More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told them to evacuate. The airstrikes continued on Thursday across the entire territory, including in areas in the south that Israel had declared as "safe zones." The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza from Egypt following a request from US President Joe Biden.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The war that began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants stormed into Israel, and Israel vowed to destroy the militant group, has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed. An Israeli military spokesperson said Thursday that the families of 206 people believed to have been captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza had been notified. The current war has already claimed thousands of lives on both sides and the conflict is expected to escalate further. Here are the highlights Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Ejaz Kaiser By

Express News Service

RAIPUR: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma campaigning for the BJP in Chhattisgarh has alleged that Congress owing to its "politics of appeasement" didn't utter a word against Hamas attack on Israel and further talked about creating a Palestine state to let Hamas have their own country.

Sarma was addressing a public rally in Kawardha, where the lone minority Congress candidate Mohammed Akbar, a minister in Bhupesh Baghel cabinet, has filed nomination papers on Tuesday.

On the assertion of Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel that the BJP does a politics of religion, Sarma countered that his party talks about Hindus and ensure development in the state where they formed government but not engages doing politics on religious lines.

Congress doesnt think about anyone (welfare) except for appeasement. PM Narendra Modi after the Hamas attack said that India faces such terror attacks from Pakistan. Today the world is talking about Naya Bharat under Modis leadership, he claimed.

Adding a stinging reference in his speech he used figurative analogy saying, Congress has nurtured Babar and Bhupesh Baghel has cared for Akbar, and further added that the culture of the country is the culture of Hindus as he attempted to invoke the sentiments.

The Assam CM cited the election in Chhattisgarh as a 'semi-final' and exhorted the people not just to ensure victory for BJP in 2023 polls but also during 2024 elections to again make Narendra Modi as the PM.

He blamed the Congress government for allegedly enabling scope for alleged "religious conversions and love jihad" in the state. He cited Muslim girls as very beautiful with good qualities and so only Muslims should marry them and similarly the Hindu girls should marry in their community as he ruled out any definition of secularism exists in Hindu religion. Hindus are more secular, he averred.

Sarma accused the Baghel government for not keeping promises the Congress made to the people. Instead of creating jobs and employment the Congress government talked about giving unemployment allowances. In the state public service commission the candidates related to Congress leaders and the officials of the commission got selected, owing to which the youths felt cheated. The state government deprived 16 lakh poor families the houses under the PM Awas Yojana. Hindus in Congress-ruled states are living in difficulty, alleged the BJP CM and asked the people to safeguard their culture and values.

Not differing from the assertion of PM Modi, he reiterated that over 80 percent share of paddy purchased in Chhattisgarh were done by the Centre. But CM Bhupesh Baghel who didn't keep his promises instead misled the farmers taking credit for entire paddy procurement. When the Centre pays substantially, shouldn't the scheme Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana be rechristened as Narendra Modi Kisan Nyay Yojana, he said and asked the crowd "whether Ram temple (in Ayodhya) would have been a possibility, had there been Rahul Gandhi instead of Modi".

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RAIPUR: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma campaigning for the BJP in Chhattisgarh has alleged that Congress owing to its "politics of appeasement" didn't utter a word against Hamas attack on Israel and further talked about creating a Palestine state to let Hamas have their own country. Sarma was addressing a public rally in Kawardha, where the lone minority Congress candidate Mohammed Akbar, a minister in Bhupesh Baghel cabinet, has filed nomination papers on Tuesday. On the assertion of Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel that the BJP does a politics of religion, Sarma countered that his party talks about Hindus and ensure development in the state where they formed government but not engages doing politics on religious lines.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Congress doesnt think about anyone (welfare) except for appeasement. PM Narendra Modi after the Hamas attack said that India faces such terror attacks from Pakistan. Today the world is talking about Naya Bharat under Modis leadership, he claimed. Adding a stinging reference in his speech he used figurative analogy saying, Congress has nurtured Babar and Bhupesh Baghel has cared for Akbar, and further added that the culture of the country is the culture of Hindus as he attempted to invoke the sentiments. The Assam CM cited the election in Chhattisgarh as a 'semi-final' and exhorted the people not just to ensure victory for BJP in 2023 polls but also during 2024 elections to again make Narendra Modi as the PM. He blamed the Congress government for allegedly enabling scope for alleged "religious conversions and love jihad" in the state. He cited Muslim girls as very beautiful with good qualities and so only Muslims should marry them and similarly the Hindu girls should marry in their community as he ruled out any definition of secularism exists in Hindu religion. Hindus are more secular, he averred. Sarma accused the Baghel government for not keeping promises the Congress made to the people. Instead of creating jobs and employment the Congress government talked about giving unemployment allowances. In the state public service commission the candidates related to Congress leaders and the officials of the commission got selected, owing to which the youths felt cheated. The state government deprived 16 lakh poor families the houses under the PM Awas Yojana. Hindus in Congress-ruled states are living in difficulty, alleged the BJP CM and asked the people to safeguard their culture and values. Not differing from the assertion of PM Modi, he reiterated that over 80 percent share of paddy purchased in Chhattisgarh were done by the Centre. But CM Bhupesh Baghel who didn't keep his promises instead misled the farmers taking credit for entire paddy procurement. When the Centre pays substantially, shouldn't the scheme Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana be rechristened as Narendra Modi Kisan Nyay Yojana, he said and asked the crowd "whether Ram temple (in Ayodhya) would have been a possibility, had there been Rahul Gandhi instead of Modi". Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: In another jolt to beleaguered senior SP leader and former MP Azam Khan, a local court of Rampur on Wednesday sentenced him, his wife Tanzeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam Khan to seven years imprisonment each in connection with the case related to the alleged forgery of his sons birth certificate.

After the verdict, Azam Khan, his wife and son were taken into custody and sent to Rampur jail. The case of forged birth documents of Abdullah Azam dates back to January 3, 2019, when a local resident, Akash Saxena (now BJP MLA from Rampur), submitted a complaint to police alleging that Azam Khan and his wife received two birth certificates for their son which were made through fraudulent means.

The first certificate states Abdullah was born in Rampur while the other mentions Lucknow as his birthplace. The first certificate was issued on June 28, 2012 by Rampur municipality on the basis of an oath letter submitted by Tanzeen Fatima and Azam Khan.

The second one was issued on January 21, 2015, by the Lucknow municipality based on a certificate given by Mary Hospital in Lucknow. Abdullah is accused of using the first one for his passport and travels abroad, while the other for government records and for getting affiliation with Jauhar University.

They were convicted under Sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (forged document) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. Azam Khans counsel Nasir Sultan said they would file an appeal against the judgment in the higher court.

Being targeted

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed that Azam Khan and his family were being targeted to intimidate one particular section of the society. Since the BJP came to power in the state, 81 cases have been registered against Khan in Rampur on various charges, including land-grabbing, cheating and criminal trespass.

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LUCKNOW: In another jolt to beleaguered senior SP leader and former MP Azam Khan, a local court of Rampur on Wednesday sentenced him, his wife Tanzeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam Khan to seven years imprisonment each in connection with the case related to the alleged forgery of his sons birth certificate. After the verdict, Azam Khan, his wife and son were taken into custody and sent to Rampur jail. The case of forged birth documents of Abdullah Azam dates back to January 3, 2019, when a local resident, Akash Saxena (now BJP MLA from Rampur), submitted a complaint to police alleging that Azam Khan and his wife received two birth certificates for their son which were made through fraudulent means. The first certificate states Abdullah was born in Rampur while the other mentions Lucknow as his birthplace. The first certificate was issued on June 28, 2012 by Rampur municipality on the basis of an oath letter submitted by Tanzeen Fatima and Azam Khan.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The second one was issued on January 21, 2015, by the Lucknow municipality based on a certificate given by Mary Hospital in Lucknow. Abdullah is accused of using the first one for his passport and travels abroad, while the other for government records and for getting affiliation with Jauhar University. They were convicted under Sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (forged document) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. Azam Khans counsel Nasir Sultan said they would file an appeal against the judgment in the higher court. Being targeted SP chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed that Azam Khan and his family were being targeted to intimidate one particular section of the society. Since the BJP came to power in the state, 81 cases have been registered against Khan in Rampur on various charges, including land-grabbing, cheating and criminal trespass. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: In a first major breach of February 24, 2021 border ceasefire, Pakistani Rangers targeted and attacked a Border Security Forces (BSF) outpost along the International Border (IB) in Arnia sector of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring two border guards. A BSF official said the Pakistani Rangers resorted to unprovoked firing towards BSF troops in Arnia sector of border district of Samba in J&K at around 8.23 pm on Tuesday.

The Pakistani Rangers targeted the BSFs Vikram Outpost by firing from automatic weapons. The BSF men manning the border outpost retaliated befittingly, the BSF official said. He said two BSF men identified as Alok Saha and Surjeet Vishwas, both residents of West Bengal, sustained bullet injuries in the Pakistani troops firing. The injured border guards were provided medical assistance at Government Medical College Jammu.

It was the first major violation of the border ceasefire that came into effect on February 24, 2021. According to defence sources, there have been two-three minor incidents of cross border firing since February 24, 2021 without causing injuries. The border ceasefire has been holding despite BSF and army foiling infiltration attempts of militants from across the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB).

A security official said the Army and BSF men have been placed on maximum alert at both LoC and IB in Jammu and Kashmir after the Tuesday evenings unprovoked firing by Pakistani Rangers. He said that security officials have been told to give befitting response to any border ceasefire violation by the Pakistani troops and not hold back.

The border residents are living a normal life after the February 24, 2021 India-Pakistan border ceasefire pack. The border residents have even resumed farming near the border without any fear of cross-border firing and shelling. Before the February 21, 2021 border ceasefire agreement, there used to be near daily cross border firing and shelling at the LoC and IB, forcing the border residents to leave their homes and move to safer places. According to Defence ministry data, four soldiers were killed in 2021 in cross border firing and shelling before the ceasefire pact.

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SRINAGAR: In a first major breach of February 24, 2021 border ceasefire, Pakistani Rangers targeted and attacked a Border Security Forces (BSF) outpost along the International Border (IB) in Arnia sector of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring two border guards. A BSF official said the Pakistani Rangers resorted to unprovoked firing towards BSF troops in Arnia sector of border district of Samba in J&K at around 8.23 pm on Tuesday. The Pakistani Rangers targeted the BSFs Vikram Outpost by firing from automatic weapons. The BSF men manning the border outpost retaliated befittingly, the BSF official said. He said two BSF men identified as Alok Saha and Surjeet Vishwas, both residents of West Bengal, sustained bullet injuries in the Pakistani troops firing. The injured border guards were provided medical assistance at Government Medical College Jammu. It was the first major violation of the border ceasefire that came into effect on February 24, 2021. According to defence sources, there have been two-three minor incidents of cross border firing since February 24, 2021 without causing injuries. The border ceasefire has been holding despite BSF and army foiling infiltration attempts of militants from across the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB).googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); A security official said the Army and BSF men have been placed on maximum alert at both LoC and IB in Jammu and Kashmir after the Tuesday evenings unprovoked firing by Pakistani Rangers. He said that security officials have been told to give befitting response to any border ceasefire violation by the Pakistani troops and not hold back. The border residents are living a normal life after the February 24, 2021 India-Pakistan border ceasefire pack. The border residents have even resumed farming near the border without any fear of cross-border firing and shelling. Before the February 21, 2021 border ceasefire agreement, there used to be near daily cross border firing and shelling at the LoC and IB, forcing the border residents to leave their homes and move to safer places. According to Defence ministry data, four soldiers were killed in 2021 in cross border firing and shelling before the ceasefire pact. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) receives leaders of groups from Saudi Arabia

and the Persian Gulf. (Photo: VNA)

At the meetings, Chinh said that the sound development between Vietnam and Gulf countries in general and Saudi Arabia in particular is a firm foundation for the two sides businesses to expand cooperation.

The strengthening of win-win economic cooperation is one of the top priorities during this business trip to Saudi Arabia of the Vietnamese delegation, he affirmed.

The PM also asserted that Vietnam will create favourable conditions and build a safe, transparent, highly competitive business and investment environment; protect the legal and legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors; maintain national defence, security, peaceful environment, political stability, and social order and safety so that investors can feel secure.

Leaders of Zamil, Lulu, and Ajlan & Bros appreciated Vietnams business and investment environment, especially its Governments efforts to help enterprises overcome challenges and difficulties.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) receives Abdulrahman Al Zamil, Chairman of

Zamil Group. (Photo: VNA)

Abdulrahman Al Zamil, Chairman of Zamil Group which has been present in Vietnam since 1993, said that the Saudi Arabian business community is highly anticipating the Vietnamese leaders visit and has appreciated the countrys improving business and investment climate.

Shehim Kottilingal, Director of LuLu Saudi Hypermarkets, proposed the two countries consider the opening of a direct air route to facilitate the import of food and fresh vegetables and fruits from Vietnam.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives Shehim Kottilingal, Director of LuLu Saudi Hypermarkets. (Photo: VNA)

PM Chinh suggested the group continue introducing more Vietnamese products, particularly farm produce, rice, fruits, electronic products, garment and footwear, in its hypermarket chain.

Meanwhile, Ali Al-Khatib, Deputy CEO for Investment and Portfolio of Ajlan & Bros Holding which leads Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf in the garment and textile field, appreciated the Vietnamese economys dynamism and rapid development. He said that the group considers Vietnam as a priority market./.
By AFP

JERUSALEM: Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Thursday that Israel has suffered an "unspeakable horrific act of terrorism" as he became the latest Western leader to carry out a solidarity visit.

"I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you," Sunak said on his arrival for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.

Sunak said on X, the former Twitter, that Israel was "a nation in grief" and pledged his support "against the evil that is terrorism".

He follows US President Joe Biden who was in Israel on Wednesday and Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier this week. Others are expected.

READ LIVE UPDATES OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE

Before leaving, Sunak said he would be concentrating on efforts to head off a wider conflict in the region after the October 7 attacks by Hamas which left about 1,400 people dead in Israel.

He is also expected to press the case for increased humanitarian aid to be let into Gaza, where the Hamas-controlled health ministry says around 3,500 people have died in Israeli air raids since the attacks.

Britain has increased its Palestinian aid package.

Israel has said it will allow food water and medicine into the beleaguered territory from Egypt.

In parallel, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is to visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar "in the coming days", according to the government.

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JERUSALEM: Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Thursday that Israel has suffered an "unspeakable horrific act of terrorism" as he became the latest Western leader to carry out a solidarity visit. "I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you," Sunak said on his arrival for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. Sunak said on X, the former Twitter, that Israel was "a nation in grief" and pledged his support "against the evil that is terrorism".googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); He follows US President Joe Biden who was in Israel on Wednesday and Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier this week. Others are expected. READ LIVE UPDATES OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE Before leaving, Sunak said he would be concentrating on efforts to head off a wider conflict in the region after the October 7 attacks by Hamas which left about 1,400 people dead in Israel. He is also expected to press the case for increased humanitarian aid to be let into Gaza, where the Hamas-controlled health ministry says around 3,500 people have died in Israeli air raids since the attacks. Britain has increased its Palestinian aid package. Israel has said it will allow food water and medicine into the beleaguered territory from Egypt. In parallel, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is to visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar "in the coming days", according to the government. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By AFP

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled a deal to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter war-torn Gaza, where one million people have fled their homes amid withering Israeli air strikes.

After face-to-face talks in Israel and intense telephone diplomacy with Egypt, Biden said a limited number of trucks would be allowed to cross the shuttered Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza from Friday.

It would be the first international relief to enter Gaza since October 7, when Palestinian militant group Hamas launched shock raids into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 200 hostages.

Since then, Israel has besieged the Palestinian enclave, launching wave after wave of air strikes, enforcing a blockade and deploying tens of thousands of troops to the border in preparation for an expected ground assault.

The United Nations and humanitarian groups have begged for the military stranglehold on Gaza to be eased, to allow supplies of water, food, fuel and medicines to enter.

Top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths on Wednesday said the situation in Gaza was dire, with hospitals overwhelmed, more than 3,000 Gazans killed and 12,500 injured.

"The pace of death, of suffering, of destruction" he said "cannot be exaggerated."

Despite the devastation, more than 100 trucks have been queued for days on the Egyptian side of the border waiting to enter Gaza.

Israel fears that aid deliveries could be used as cover to bring in weapons, or could be diverted into the hands of Hamas -- which governs the enclave.

Israel has already hit the border crossing with multiple air strikes since this phase of the decades-old conflict began.

Egypt controls the border and fears throwing open the gates would bring tens of thousands of refugees to its territory.

READ LIVE UPDATES OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE

After what he described as "blunt" negotiations and a telephone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Biden indicated that about 20 trucks would enter Gaza to start with, with more to come if all sides agree.

"We want to get as many of the trucks out as possible," Biden said aboard Air Force One.

"If Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through... then it's going to end, because we're not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas," Biden said.

Israeli officials said the deliveries would be limited to "food, water and medicine", and that the effort was conditional on aid not being used by Hamas.

The UN's Griffiths estimated that about 100 trucks per day were needed to meet the needs in Gaza.

Fog of war

Biden had made a visit to Israel Wednesday, expressing solidarity following the Hamas attacks, trying to gauge Israel's war objectives and hoping to prevent a spillover into regional conflict.

He warned Israel to be cautious as it tries to remove the threat from Hamas.

"After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice we also made mistakes," he said.

After decades in which Israel has gradually improved ties with its neighbours, the Hamas attacks and Israel's furious response have rekindled old tensions.

Anger spiked on Wednesday, with protesters pouring onto the streets in cities from Tripoli to Tehran after a strike on Gaza's Ahli Arab hospital.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claimed 471 people had died as a result, while blaming an Israeli air strike.

Israel denied responsibility, saying an initial investigation showed the strike was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired by Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.

Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad is proscribed as a terrorist group by the United States and other Western governments.

Neither the toll nor the provenance of the strike could be immediately or independently verified.

One European intelligence agency told AFP: "There wasn't 200 or even 500 deaths, more likely between 10 and 50."

Biden said the Pentagon also believed the strike was caused by an errant Palestinian rocket.

"Our Defense Department says it's highly unlikely that it was the Israelis. It would have had a different footprint," he said, acknowledging that many around the region would still be sceptical.

"I can understand why, in this circumstance, they wouldn't believe. I can understand that," he said, insisting: "I don't say things like that unless I have faith in the source."

Eyewitness Adnan al-Naqa said that as he entered the hospital, he heard an "explosion" and "saw a massive fire."

"The entire square was on fire. There were bodies everywhere, children, women and elderly people."

In the hours following the incident, AFP reporters saw scores of bodies cloaked in bloodstained sheets and white plastic lined the floors at the nearby Al-Shifa hospital, where victims were said to have been taken.

At the Ahli Arab Hospital the day after the blast the charred husks of several vehicles littered the blackened courtyard.

The Israeli military pointed to the fire damage and the absence of a large impact crater as evidence that it was a rocket misfiring.

"When a bomb, a big bomb like the ones we use hits the ground, it creates a very big crater," Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus.

Hamas has dismissed Israel's claim of a misfiring rocket, saying its "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone."

It also slammed the United States, accusing it of being complicit in the ongoing strikes on Gaza.

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US President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled a deal to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter war-torn Gaza, where one million people have fled their homes amid withering Israeli air strikes. After face-to-face talks in Israel and intense telephone diplomacy with Egypt, Biden said a limited number of trucks would be allowed to cross the shuttered Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza from Friday. It would be the first international relief to enter Gaza since October 7, when Palestinian militant group Hamas launched shock raids into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 200 hostages.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Since then, Israel has besieged the Palestinian enclave, launching wave after wave of air strikes, enforcing a blockade and deploying tens of thousands of troops to the border in preparation for an expected ground assault. The United Nations and humanitarian groups have begged for the military stranglehold on Gaza to be eased, to allow supplies of water, food, fuel and medicines to enter. Top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths on Wednesday said the situation in Gaza was dire, with hospitals overwhelmed, more than 3,000 Gazans killed and 12,500 injured. "The pace of death, of suffering, of destruction" he said "cannot be exaggerated." Despite the devastation, more than 100 trucks have been queued for days on the Egyptian side of the border waiting to enter Gaza. Israel fears that aid deliveries could be used as cover to bring in weapons, or could be diverted into the hands of Hamas -- which governs the enclave. Israel has already hit the border crossing with multiple air strikes since this phase of the decades-old conflict began. Egypt controls the border and fears throwing open the gates would bring tens of thousands of refugees to its territory. READ LIVE UPDATES OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE After what he described as "blunt" negotiations and a telephone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Biden indicated that about 20 trucks would enter Gaza to start with, with more to come if all sides agree. "We want to get as many of the trucks out as possible," Biden said aboard Air Force One. "If Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through... then it's going to end, because we're not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas," Biden said. Israeli officials said the deliveries would be limited to "food, water and medicine", and that the effort was conditional on aid not being used by Hamas. The UN's Griffiths estimated that about 100 trucks per day were needed to meet the needs in Gaza. Fog of war Biden had made a visit to Israel Wednesday, expressing solidarity following the Hamas attacks, trying to gauge Israel's war objectives and hoping to prevent a spillover into regional conflict. He warned Israel to be cautious as it tries to remove the threat from Hamas. "After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice we also made mistakes," he said. After decades in which Israel has gradually improved ties with its neighbours, the Hamas attacks and Israel's furious response have rekindled old tensions. Anger spiked on Wednesday, with protesters pouring onto the streets in cities from Tripoli to Tehran after a strike on Gaza's Ahli Arab hospital. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claimed 471 people had died as a result, while blaming an Israeli air strike. Israel denied responsibility, saying an initial investigation showed the strike was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired by Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad is proscribed as a terrorist group by the United States and other Western governments. Neither the toll nor the provenance of the strike could be immediately or independently verified. One European intelligence agency told AFP: "There wasn't 200 or even 500 deaths, more likely between 10 and 50." Biden said the Pentagon also believed the strike was caused by an errant Palestinian rocket. "Our Defense Department says it's highly unlikely that it was the Israelis. It would have had a different footprint," he said, acknowledging that many around the region would still be sceptical. "I can understand why, in this circumstance, they wouldn't believe. I can understand that," he said, insisting: "I don't say things like that unless I have faith in the source." Eyewitness Adnan al-Naqa said that as he entered the hospital, he heard an "explosion" and "saw a massive fire." "The entire square was on fire. There were bodies everywhere, children, women and elderly people." In the hours following the incident, AFP reporters saw scores of bodies cloaked in bloodstained sheets and white plastic lined the floors at the nearby Al-Shifa hospital, where victims were said to have been taken. At the Ahli Arab Hospital the day after the blast the charred husks of several vehicles littered the blackened courtyard. The Israeli military pointed to the fire damage and the absence of a large impact crater as evidence that it was a rocket misfiring. "When a bomb, a big bomb like the ones we use hits the ground, it creates a very big crater," Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus. Hamas has dismissed Israel's claim of a misfiring rocket, saying its "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone." It also slammed the United States, accusing it of being complicit in the ongoing strikes on Gaza. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Jaison Wilson By

Express News Service

Soumya Vishwanathan

NEW DELHI: Fifteen years after television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan was shot dead in the national capital, a Delhi court on Wednesday convicted four for her murder. The court said the prosecution has duly proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the quartet committed the crime with intention to rob the deceased.

Additional Sessions Judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey at Saket Court held that Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik as guilty. The fifth accused, Ajay Sethi, was convicted for receiving stolen property.

Soumya was shot dead on September 30, 2008, while she was returning home from work in her car around 3.30 am. Police had claimed that the motive behind the killing was robbery. For long the police could not crack her case. The breakthrough came after the arrest of Ravi and Amit for their involvement in another case. It led to solving Soumyas murder.

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Soumya VishwanathanNEW DELHI: Fifteen years after television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan was shot dead in the national capital, a Delhi court on Wednesday convicted four for her murder. The court said the prosecution has duly proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the quartet committed the crime with intention to rob the deceased. Additional Sessions Judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey at Saket Court held that Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik as guilty. The fifth accused, Ajay Sethi, was convicted for receiving stolen property. Soumya was shot dead on September 30, 2008, while she was returning home from work in her car around 3.30 am. Police had claimed that the motive behind the killing was robbery. For long the police could not crack her case. The breakthrough came after the arrest of Ravi and Amit for their involvement in another case. It led to solving Soumyas murder. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By PTI

INDORE: Trans and gender-diverse persons in Madhya Pradesh feel that neither the political parties nor any candidate contesting the upcoming state assembly elections are talking about the issues related to the members of the community, especially their health and the right to live life with dignity.

Elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly will be held on November 17 with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress being the two main contenders.

Trans and gender-diverse persons complain that they are being ignored as the issues that matter to them the most are completely missing from electioneering.

Sandhya Ghavri, who belongs to the trans community, is the cleanliness ambassador of the Indore Municipal Corporation and is also working on a fellowship related to the subject of the Constitution.

The social activist, who works for protecting the interests of transgenders, said she had decided long ago that she would not seek alms for livelihood as done by many others from the community.

Talking to PTI on Thursday, Ghavri said, "The government has recognised the third gender category apart from male and female, but no party or candidate is talking about the issues of our community in the assembly elections, especially about our education, health and the right to live life with dignity."

The Madhya Pradesh government has not done anything for transgenders in the state as compared to what the governments in neighbouring Chhattisgarh and other states have done, she said.

"People from the transgender community are invited to government functions only for show-off," Ghavri alleged.

She also said that as compared to the actual population of transgenders in MP, very few people from the community possess voter ID cards.

The government data also confirms this. As per the data, there are 2.88 crore male voters and 2.72 crore female voters at present in the state, while the number of transgender voters is only 1,373, including 111 in Indore.

Suchita Tirkey Beck, Joint Director of the state government's Social Justice Department, said members of the transgender community are constantly being motivated to not only get voter ID cards but also cast their votes.

"It has often been seen that transgenders living separately from their families do not even have identity documents like Aadhaar cards. This also creates problems in making their voter ID cards. However, we help them in every possible way in getting these documents made," she said.

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INDORE: Trans and gender-diverse persons in Madhya Pradesh feel that neither the political parties nor any candidate contesting the upcoming state assembly elections are talking about the issues related to the members of the community, especially their health and the right to live life with dignity. Elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly will be held on November 17 with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress being the two main contenders. Trans and gender-diverse persons complain that they are being ignored as the issues that matter to them the most are completely missing from electioneering.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Sandhya Ghavri, who belongs to the trans community, is the cleanliness ambassador of the Indore Municipal Corporation and is also working on a fellowship related to the subject of the Constitution. The social activist, who works for protecting the interests of transgenders, said she had decided long ago that she would not seek alms for livelihood as done by many others from the community. Talking to PTI on Thursday, Ghavri said, "The government has recognised the third gender category apart from male and female, but no party or candidate is talking about the issues of our community in the assembly elections, especially about our education, health and the right to live life with dignity." The Madhya Pradesh government has not done anything for transgenders in the state as compared to what the governments in neighbouring Chhattisgarh and other states have done, she said. "People from the transgender community are invited to government functions only for show-off," Ghavri alleged. She also said that as compared to the actual population of transgenders in MP, very few people from the community possess voter ID cards. The government data also confirms this. As per the data, there are 2.88 crore male voters and 2.72 crore female voters at present in the state, while the number of transgender voters is only 1,373, including 111 in Indore. Suchita Tirkey Beck, Joint Director of the state government's Social Justice Department, said members of the transgender community are constantly being motivated to not only get voter ID cards but also cast their votes. "It has often been seen that transgenders living separately from their families do not even have identity documents like Aadhaar cards. This also creates problems in making their voter ID cards. However, we help them in every possible way in getting these documents made," she said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Yeshi Seli By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: An Indian journalist working in Doha had to flee and return to India as she faced an imminent threat of being arrested for a story that appeared on the eight Indian naval officers who have been arrested by Qatar's interior ministry since August 2022.

The journalist was working for the Doha edition of a leading South India based publication. The reporter learnt that Qatar's interior ministry was monitoring her and she would be picked up for questioning. Based on this information, the reporter and her spouse (who was also working in Doha) packed their bags and left Qatar. Qatar's interior ministry was miffed at a story that had been written on the eight naval officers and their upcoming hearing, said a source.

They are back in India but are too shaken to speak. The laws in Qatar can lead to arrests if the ministry finds any act to be contrary to their national interest. Questioning often leads to arrests and then it becomes difficult to get out, the source added.

This is the first instance of a journalist returning from Qatar over fears of being arrested.

It may be recalled that eight Indian naval veterans were picked up from their homes on August 30th 2022 by Qatars interior ministry. The eight officers are being tried under Qatari law and the seventh hearing of their case was held on October 3rd in Doha. A judgement is expected soon.

The Indian government has provided judicial assistance to the Indian veterans and consular access was granted on October 1st.

ALSO READ | After a year of incarceration, hope grows over the repatriation of Indian Navy veterans held in Qatar

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NEW DELHI: An Indian journalist working in Doha had to flee and return to India as she faced an imminent threat of being arrested for a story that appeared on the eight Indian naval officers who have been arrested by Qatar's interior ministry since August 2022. The journalist was working for the Doha edition of a leading South India based publication. The reporter learnt that Qatar's interior ministry was monitoring her and she would be picked up for questioning. Based on this information, the reporter and her spouse (who was also working in Doha) packed their bags and left Qatar. Qatar's interior ministry was miffed at a story that had been written on the eight naval officers and their upcoming hearing, said a source. They are back in India but are too shaken to speak. The laws in Qatar can lead to arrests if the ministry finds any act to be contrary to their national interest. Questioning often leads to arrests and then it becomes difficult to get out, the source added.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); This is the first instance of a journalist returning from Qatar over fears of being arrested. It may be recalled that eight Indian naval veterans were picked up from their homes on August 30th 2022 by Qatars interior ministry. The eight officers are being tried under Qatari law and the seventh hearing of their case was held on October 3rd in Doha. A judgement is expected soon. The Indian government has provided judicial assistance to the Indian veterans and consular access was granted on October 1st. ALSO READ | After a year of incarceration, hope grows over the repatriation of Indian Navy veterans held in Qatar Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Dilip Singh Kshatriya By

Express News Service

AHMEDABAD: When inaugurating the BJPs office in Surendranagar, Gujarat, BJP state president C R Patil publicly embarrassed BJP officials by demanding pending funds for the BJP office.

Patil also announced the names of past MLAs and MPs who pledged to donate funds to build the Surendra Nagar office but did not do so. Not only that, Patil also publicly questioned leaders when the remaining cash would be deposited.

He has also requested some politicians to donate additional money to build the BJP office, while on stage. The Congress took a jibe at the state BJP president, alleging that the BJP is now only working for money.

On Monday, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Patil inaugurated the Shri Kamalam office (BJP office) in Gujarats Surendra Nagar district. On this occasion, Patil addressed the workers, saying, This is where I said that the office should be built by BJP workers. A commitment of `10.50 crore was received in a single hour. Ill have to ask Jagdish Bhai how much of that commitment has been accomplished, he said.

Those who have made a commitment, pay attention, brothers, these workers and leaders believe they should be called, so finish your commitment before I call." Said Patil

Patil began by asking BJP leaders about who provided how much Money and how much was remaining till time to establish the party office on the public platform. He first grabbed the name of former Rajya Sabha MP Shankar Vegad and said, "How many rupees did you say? How much is owed, these folks are yelling for the remaining funds!"

Patil also reminded the people that whoever the BJP sends to the Rajya Sabha should offer 21 lakhs rather than 11 lakhs.

Patil congratulated former cabinet minister Kiritsinh Rana and former bank chairman Bharwad for depositing the funds on schedule, adding They had made a commitment and fulfilled it.

Patil began identifying the BJP leaders who declared donations during the construction of the Surendranagar BJP headquarters, asking Varsha Doshi, former MLA of Surendranagar, that Varsha Ben's 1 lakh has arrived, but 10 lakhs are still outstanding.

The most important factor is that Patil did not spare even Union State Minister of Ayush Dr. Munjapara Mahendra, he was also asked about the money owed from the public platform, Patil stated that "Munjapara sahib has committed something but I don't know what he intended to do?"

Manish Doshi, a Congress spokesperson, made allegations against the BJP State President, claiming that "What people knew privately about the BJP's black money, the state president said from the public stage." It definitely demonstrates that the BJP is a commission collection party."

"It is the irony of Democracy. All of this money is from various schemes; would IT or ED look into it?" Alleged Doshi

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AHMEDABAD: When inaugurating the BJPs office in Surendranagar, Gujarat, BJP state president C R Patil publicly embarrassed BJP officials by demanding pending funds for the BJP office. Patil also announced the names of past MLAs and MPs who pledged to donate funds to build the Surendra Nagar office but did not do so. Not only that, Patil also publicly questioned leaders when the remaining cash would be deposited. He has also requested some politicians to donate additional money to build the BJP office, while on stage. The Congress took a jibe at the state BJP president, alleging that the BJP is now only working for money.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); On Monday, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Patil inaugurated the Shri Kamalam office (BJP office) in Gujarats Surendra Nagar district. On this occasion, Patil addressed the workers, saying, This is where I said that the office should be built by BJP workers. A commitment of `10.50 crore was received in a single hour. Ill have to ask Jagdish Bhai how much of that commitment has been accomplished, he said. Those who have made a commitment, pay attention, brothers, these workers and leaders believe they should be called, so finish your commitment before I call." Said Patil Patil began by asking BJP leaders about who provided how much Money and how much was remaining till time to establish the party office on the public platform. He first grabbed the name of former Rajya Sabha MP Shankar Vegad and said, "How many rupees did you say? How much is owed, these folks are yelling for the remaining funds!" Patil also reminded the people that whoever the BJP sends to the Rajya Sabha should offer 21 lakhs rather than 11 lakhs. Patil congratulated former cabinet minister Kiritsinh Rana and former bank chairman Bharwad for depositing the funds on schedule, adding They had made a commitment and fulfilled it. Patil began identifying the BJP leaders who declared donations during the construction of the Surendranagar BJP headquarters, asking Varsha Doshi, former MLA of Surendranagar, that Varsha Ben's 1 lakh has arrived, but 10 lakhs are still outstanding. The most important factor is that Patil did not spare even Union State Minister of Ayush Dr. Munjapara Mahendra, he was also asked about the money owed from the public platform, Patil stated that "Munjapara sahib has committed something but I don't know what he intended to do?" Manish Doshi, a Congress spokesperson, made allegations against the BJP State President, claiming that "What people knew privately about the BJP's black money, the state president said from the public stage." It definitely demonstrates that the BJP is a commission collection party." "It is the irony of Democracy. All of this money is from various schemes; would IT or ED look into it?" Alleged Doshi Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Yeshi Seli By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI/GAZA/TEL AVIV : The explosion at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday was not done by Israel but by its foes, US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday. I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in Tel Aviv.

While firmly backing Israel in its war on Hamas, Biden also shared his concerns about the rising civilian casualties. He said Israel can draw lessons from the US campaigns after the 9/11 terror attacks. Justice must be done. But I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged... While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes, the US president added.

After the explosion at the Gaza hospital on Tuesday, Hamas officials had claimed at least 500 people died and blamed it on an Israeli air strikes. Israel Defence Forces, however, denied the claim and said their analysis showed the hospital was hit by a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second largest militant group in Gaza after Hamas. For its part, the Islamic Jihad denied any role in the attack, saying it wasnt operating from there.

Israel also released drone footage of the scene of the explosion to show that there was no impact crater from any missile or bomb. An Israeli air strike would have created a huge crater, it explained. While Hamas and Israel are blaming each other for the hospital attack, world leaders expressed horror over the turn of events. Expressing anguish over the ongoing conflict and civilian casualties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives in the hosptial blast. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured. Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible, he said in a post on X.

Humanitarian aid to Gaza after Biden push

Netanyahus office on Wednesday said Israel will allow Egypt to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. The decision was approved in light of a request from Biden, it said, adding that it will not thwart deliveries of food, water and medicine, as long as the supplies do not reach Hamas. Biden also announced $100 mn humanitarian aid in the war-torn Gaza and the West Bank

Jordan cancels peace summit after blast

Biden was supposed to travel from Israel to Jordan for a peace summit with the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. However, Jordan late on Tuesday night cancelled the summit that was to be held in Amman, over the hospital attack

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NEW DELHI/GAZA/TEL AVIV : The explosion at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday was not done by Israel but by its foes, US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday. I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in Tel Aviv. While firmly backing Israel in its war on Hamas, Biden also shared his concerns about the rising civilian casualties. He said Israel can draw lessons from the US campaigns after the 9/11 terror attacks. Justice must be done. But I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged... While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes, the US president added. After the explosion at the Gaza hospital on Tuesday, Hamas officials had claimed at least 500 people died and blamed it on an Israeli air strikes. Israel Defence Forces, however, denied the claim and said their analysis showed the hospital was hit by a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second largest militant group in Gaza after Hamas. For its part, the Islamic Jihad denied any role in the attack, saying it wasnt operating from there. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Israel also released drone footage of the scene of the explosion to show that there was no impact crater from any missile or bomb. An Israeli air strike would have created a huge crater, it explained. While Hamas and Israel are blaming each other for the hospital attack, world leaders expressed horror over the turn of events. Expressing anguish over the ongoing conflict and civilian casualties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives in the hosptial blast. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured. Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible, he said in a post on X. Humanitarian aid to Gaza after Biden push Netanyahus office on Wednesday said Israel will allow Egypt to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. The decision was approved in light of a request from Biden, it said, adding that it will not thwart deliveries of food, water and medicine, as long as the supplies do not reach Hamas. Biden also announced $100 mn humanitarian aid in the war-torn Gaza and the West Bank Jordan cancels peace summit after blast Biden was supposed to travel from Israel to Jordan for a peace summit with the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. However, Jordan late on Tuesday night cancelled the summit that was to be held in Amman, over the hospital attack Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: In a bid to further strengthen defence relations, the India-France Military Sub Committee (MSC) held discussions for two days on October 16 and 17 at the Air Force Station in New Delhi. The meetings also coincided with the inaugural India-UK 2+2 Foreign and Defence dialogue.

The discussions focused on new initiatives under the ambit of existing bilateral defence cooperation mechanism and strengthening of the ongoing defence engagements, Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday.

The 21st edition of military sub-committee engagement was conducted in a friendly, warm and cordial atmosphere, the ministry said. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the India-France Strategic Partnership. India-France Military Sub-Committee is a forum established to progress defence cooperation between both the nations through regular talks at strategic and operational levels between Integrated Defence Staff Headquarters and the Joint Staff Headquarters of French Armed Forces, the ministry said.

The meeting was co-chaired from the Indian side by Air Vice-Marshal Ashish Vohra, Assistant Chief of Integrated Staff, (Military Cooperation) at Integrated Defence Staff Headquarters, and from the French side by Major General Eric Peltier, General Officer at International Military Relations of the Joint Staff.

The inaugural India-UK 2+2 Foreign and Defence Dialogue was also held in Delhi on October 16. This was a mechanism to review all aspects of the India-UK strategic partnership. The Indian delegation was co-chaired by Piyush Srivastava, Joint Secretary Europe West, Ministry of External Affairs and Vishwesh Negi, Joint Secretary, International Cooperation, Ministry of Defence.

Strategic partnership

The defence and strategic ties between India and France have been on an upswing in the last few years. In July, India and France announced a raft of ground-breaking defence cooperation projects including the joint development of jet and helicopter engines and construction of three Scorpene submarines for the Indian Navy.The two strategic partners also expressed commitment to cooperate in the co-development and co-production of advanced defence technologies, including for the benefit of third countries.

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NEW DELHI: In a bid to further strengthen defence relations, the India-France Military Sub Committee (MSC) held discussions for two days on October 16 and 17 at the Air Force Station in New Delhi. The meetings also coincided with the inaugural India-UK 2+2 Foreign and Defence dialogue. The discussions focused on new initiatives under the ambit of existing bilateral defence cooperation mechanism and strengthening of the ongoing defence engagements, Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday. The 21st edition of military sub-committee engagement was conducted in a friendly, warm and cordial atmosphere, the ministry said. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the India-France Strategic Partnership. India-France Military Sub-Committee is a forum established to progress defence cooperation between both the nations through regular talks at strategic and operational levels between Integrated Defence Staff Headquarters and the Joint Staff Headquarters of French Armed Forces, the ministry said.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The meeting was co-chaired from the Indian side by Air Vice-Marshal Ashish Vohra, Assistant Chief of Integrated Staff, (Military Cooperation) at Integrated Defence Staff Headquarters, and from the French side by Major General Eric Peltier, General Officer at International Military Relations of the Joint Staff. The inaugural India-UK 2+2 Foreign and Defence Dialogue was also held in Delhi on October 16. This was a mechanism to review all aspects of the India-UK strategic partnership. The Indian delegation was co-chaired by Piyush Srivastava, Joint Secretary Europe West, Ministry of External Affairs and Vishwesh Negi, Joint Secretary, International Cooperation, Ministry of Defence. Strategic partnership The defence and strategic ties between India and France have been on an upswing in the last few years. In July, India and France announced a raft of ground-breaking defence cooperation projects including the joint development of jet and helicopter engines and construction of three Scorpene submarines for the Indian Navy.The two strategic partners also expressed commitment to cooperate in the co-development and co-production of advanced defence technologies, including for the benefit of third countries. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Mukesh Ranjan By

Express News Service

RANCHI: Jharkhand Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to the proposal of Abua Awas Yojna at a cost of more than Rs 16,000 crore under which, three-room houses will be made available to 8 lakh needy in the next three years.

According to Cabinet Secretary, needy and destitute will be provided three room pucca houses along with a kitchen spread over 31 square meters constructed at the cost of Rs 2 lakh per unit. The Cabinet gave its approval to a total of 29 proposals during the meeting.

A total of 8 lakh housing units will be allotted in the next three years, 2 lakh houses will be given during the current financial year 2023-24, 3.5 lakh in the second year and 2.5 lakh houses will be provided to the poor and needy in 2025-26, said the Cabinet Secretary Vandana Dadel.

Those who have not been given any benefits of the housing schemes carried out by the state and central government, households living in kuccha houses, homeless and destitute people, PVTG households, legally rescued bonded labours and the households who have lost their house in natural calamities, will be eligible to get the benefits of the scheme, she added.

Dadel informed that number will be given for each of the criteria and permanent waiting list will be provided on the basis of that. Final approval to the waiting list will be given t by the Gram Sabha, she said.

Households with physically or mentally handicaps members and those headed by the women will be given priority in the allotment of houses under the scheme. The houses will be constructed in three phases at a cost of Rs 16 thousand 320 crore, said Dadel.

In addition to that, the beneficiary will receive maximum benefits equivalent of 95 unskilled man days at the current wage rate (revised from time to time) for the construction of his house under MGNREGA for the said scheme, she added.

Calling it a historical decision, Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that those who are poor and needy who were not able to get benefits of the housing scheme carried out by either the central of state government, will be given pucca houses from its own account.

Rather, they will be given bigger house than those they were getting under Prime Minister Housing Scheme at a larger cost so that they can lead a dignified life, said the Chief Minister.

Soren further said that Jharkhand being a poor state with a significant population loving below poverty line, people here are already being provided food grains and clothes, and will be assured pucca houses making all the three basic requirements -- roti, kapda aur makaan, making available to them.

Besides that, the State Cabinet has also approved Gram Gadi Yojana under which 30 per cent of the total population  elderly, women, students, freedom fighters and children of the state will be benefited out of it and get an opportunity to travel free of cost.

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RANCHI: Jharkhand Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to the proposal of Abua Awas Yojna at a cost of more than Rs 16,000 crore under which, three-room houses will be made available to 8 lakh needy in the next three years. According to Cabinet Secretary, needy and destitute will be provided three room pucca houses along with a kitchen spread over 31 square meters constructed at the cost of Rs 2 lakh per unit. The Cabinet gave its approval to a total of 29 proposals during the meeting. A total of 8 lakh housing units will be allotted in the next three years, 2 lakh houses will be given during the current financial year 2023-24, 3.5 lakh in the second year and 2.5 lakh houses will be provided to the poor and needy in 2025-26, said the Cabinet Secretary Vandana Dadel.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Those who have not been given any benefits of the housing schemes carried out by the state and central government, households living in kuccha houses, homeless and destitute people, PVTG households, legally rescued bonded labours and the households who have lost their house in natural calamities, will be eligible to get the benefits of the scheme, she added. Dadel informed that number will be given for each of the criteria and permanent waiting list will be provided on the basis of that. Final approval to the waiting list will be given t by the Gram Sabha, she said. Households with physically or mentally handicaps members and those headed by the women will be given priority in the allotment of houses under the scheme. The houses will be constructed in three phases at a cost of Rs 16 thousand 320 crore, said Dadel. In addition to that, the beneficiary will receive maximum benefits equivalent of 95 unskilled man days at the current wage rate (revised from time to time) for the construction of his house under MGNREGA for the said scheme, she added. Calling it a historical decision, Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that those who are poor and needy who were not able to get benefits of the housing scheme carried out by either the central of state government, will be given pucca houses from its own account. Rather, they will be given bigger house than those they were getting under Prime Minister Housing Scheme at a larger cost so that they can lead a dignified life, said the Chief Minister. Soren further said that Jharkhand being a poor state with a significant population loving below poverty line, people here are already being provided food grains and clothes, and will be assured pucca houses making all the three basic requirements -- roti, kapda aur makaan, making available to them. Besides that, the State Cabinet has also approved Gram Gadi Yojana under which 30 per cent of the total population  elderly, women, students, freedom fighters and children of the state will be benefited out of it and get an opportunity to travel free of cost. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Deepa Sinha By

Online Desk

Breaking the patriarchal norms of society, a man in Jharkhand has set an example for the younger generation. Delivering a slap on the face of patriarchy, the man brought back his daughter who was tortured at her in-laws' house to her parental home, accompanied by a band playing musical instruments along with bursting crackers. It was a grand homecoming for the young woman.

Prem Gupta, a resident of Kailash Nagar Kumharatoli in Ranchi, posted the video of the wedding procession of his daughter back to her parent's house on his social account with the caption, "People marry off their daughters with great ambitions and with much pomp, but if the spouse and family turn out to be wrong or if it works, then you should bring your daughter back to your home with respect and dignity because daughters are very precious."

Prem Gupta married off his daughter Sakshi Gupta to an assistant engineer at Jharkhand Electricity Distribution Corporation, Sachin Kumar on April 28, 2022.

Soon after the marriage, she was subjected to torture by her husband. Sometimes, her husband would abuse and throw her out of the house. After a year of marriage, she learnt that her husband had already married twice. However, she tried to "save" her marriage but in vain. Eventually, she chose to walk out.

Her father welcomed his daughter's decision and brought her back with a grand procession on a happy note.

Meanwhile, Sakshi has moved a local court for divorce.

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Breaking the patriarchal norms of society, a man in Jharkhand has set an example for the younger generation. Delivering a slap on the face of patriarchy, the man brought back his daughter who was tortured at her in-laws' house to her parental home, accompanied by a band playing musical instruments along with bursting crackers. It was a grand homecoming for the young woman. Prem Gupta, a resident of Kailash Nagar Kumharatoli in Ranchi, posted the video of the wedding procession of his daughter back to her parent's house on his social account with the caption, "People marry off their daughters with great ambitions and with much pomp, but if the spouse and family turn out to be wrong or if it works, then you should bring your daughter back to your home with respect and dignity because daughters are very precious." googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Prem Gupta married off his daughter Sakshi Gupta to an assistant engineer at Jharkhand Electricity Distribution Corporation, Sachin Kumar on April 28, 2022. Soon after the marriage, she was subjected to torture by her husband. Sometimes, her husband would abuse and throw her out of the house. After a year of marriage, she learnt that her husband had already married twice. However, she tried to "save" her marriage but in vain. Eventually, she chose to walk out. Her father welcomed his daughter's decision and brought her back with a grand procession on a happy note. Meanwhile, Sakshi has moved a local court for divorce. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
On October 17, 2023, the Belt and Road CEO Conference was held in Beijing as the starter of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), which carries the theme of High-quality Belt and Road Cooperation: Together for Common Development and Prosperity.

Representatives from 367 companies/institutions of 82 countries and regions, relevant international organizations, and economic institutions, totaling over 1,200 Chinese and foreign business representatives, attended the conference. A signing ceremony was held later. A large number of pragmatic cooperation projects between China and other countries were signed, involving 68 countries and regions and multiple fields such as infrastructure, clean energy, AI, biopharmaceuticals, financial services, modern agriculture, and rail transit.

The number of projects, countries involved, and the value of contracts signed have far outperformed the previous Belt and Road CEO Conferences, fully demonstrating the fruitful results of the global business community, and their strong commitment to the Belt and Road Initiative as well as its bright prospect going forward.

Editor: JYZ
Parvez Sultan By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Left parties on Wednesday condemned the attack on a hospital in war-torn Gaza that killed hundreds of people. While the Communist Party of India (CPI) termed the incident the most inhuman and cruellest attack, the CPI-Marxist (CPM) said it was the horrendous war crime committed by the Israeli government.

CPI general secretary D Raja said Israel is continuously violating all the norms. CPI condemns the inhuman Israeli attack on al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza in the strongest terms. Israel is continuously violating all norms & the hospital massacre is the cruelest attack claiming the lives of over 500 Palestinians, including women & children. This should stop! he posted on X.

The party appeals to the international community to stand with the Palestinians in this critical time and force Israel to halt the inhumane attacks on innocent Palestinians. The party urges the Union government led by Narendra Modi to strictly adhere to the Indian stand on Palestine agreed upon at the United Nations and not to deviate from the age-old stand of supporting Palestinian cause, Raja wrote.

The CPIM said the bombing of a Gaza hospital late last night that had killed at least 500 Palestinians needs to be called out for what it is  a war crime. Stop this genocide. Brinda Karat, a member of CPIMs Polit Bureau, said that the Indian government and PM Modi must take a stand against what Israel has been doing.

Israel identifying and targeting a hospital in Gaza, killing hundreds of people, is not an act of self-defence. Lets be clear about it. It is a war crime. But what is of concern for all of us here in India is the deafening silence of our government; our own PM, who seems to be equating the act of Hamas with the rights of every people of Palestine, she said.

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NEW DELHI: The Left parties on Wednesday condemned the attack on a hospital in war-torn Gaza that killed hundreds of people. While the Communist Party of India (CPI) termed the incident the most inhuman and cruellest attack, the CPI-Marxist (CPM) said it was the horrendous war crime committed by the Israeli government. CPI general secretary D Raja said Israel is continuously violating all the norms. CPI condemns the inhuman Israeli attack on al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza in the strongest terms. Israel is continuously violating all norms & the hospital massacre is the cruelest attack claiming the lives of over 500 Palestinians, including women & children. This should stop! he posted on X. The party appeals to the international community to stand with the Palestinians in this critical time and force Israel to halt the inhumane attacks on innocent Palestinians. The party urges the Union government led by Narendra Modi to strictly adhere to the Indian stand on Palestine agreed upon at the United Nations and not to deviate from the age-old stand of supporting Palestinian cause, Raja wrote.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The CPIM said the bombing of a Gaza hospital late last night that had killed at least 500 Palestinians needs to be called out for what it is  a war crime. Stop this genocide. Brinda Karat, a member of CPIMs Polit Bureau, said that the Indian government and PM Modi must take a stand against what Israel has been doing. Israel identifying and targeting a hospital in Gaza, killing hundreds of people, is not an act of self-defence. Lets be clear about it. It is a war crime. But what is of concern for all of us here in India is the deafening silence of our government; our own PM, who seems to be equating the act of Hamas with the rights of every people of Palestine, she said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Sudhir Suryawanshi By

Express News Service

MUMBAI: A tug of war has started in the three-party alliance MahaYuti over seat-sharing for 2024 Lok Sabha election, with each partner demanding significant numbers of seats. Maharashtra has a total of 48 Lok Sabha seats. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has demanded 22 seats, while deputy chief minister Ajit Pawars NCP is seeking 11 seats. The third alliance partner BJP has 22 MPs in the current Lok Sabha.

BJP leader and Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said that no talk on seat-sharing has started with alliance partners. He said that no one has put any demand so far. We will have discussion over seat-sharing with alliance partners and whatever seats are decided that will be given to them. There is no fight and clashes over seat-sharing, Fadnavis said.

Earlier, BJP and Shiv Sena (Shinde) had held discussions on seat-sharing for Lok Sabha where Shindes Sena had demanded 22 seats as its current Shiv Sena Lok Sabha MPs are from Shiv Sena. United Shiv Sena had won the 18 Lok Sabha seats and lost four candidates by close margin, so Shiv Sena should be given a total 22 seats in Maharashtra as per our strength. Out of total 18 Lok Sabha MPs, the majority MPs are with us. It is our right to get the maximum seats. We have put our demand, now BJP has to decide, said senior Shiv Sena leader of Eknath Shinde-led faction, requesting anonymity.

A senior BJP leader said his party is the single largest party with 105 MLAs, and with their support, the party with 41 MLAs have Eknath Shinde as the chief minister, while another party with the same number of MLAs support have Ajit Pawar as deputy chief minister. If Shinde gets 22 seats, and Ajit Pawar-led NCP gets 11 seats, then how many seats are remaining for BJP? 15 seats in total 48 Lok Sabha seats? Currently, we have 22 Lok Sabha MPs and the alliance partners are asking to contest only. How is it possible? asked the BJP leader.

Only 17 seats for BJP

A senior BJP leader said his party is the single largest party with 105 MLAs. If Shinde gets 22 seats, while Ajit Pawar-led NCP gets 11 seats, then how many seats are remaining for BJP? 15 seats in total 48 Lok Sabha seats? Currently, we have 22 LS MPs and alliance partners are asking to contest only 15. How is it possible? asked the BJP leader.

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MUMBAI: A tug of war has started in the three-party alliance MahaYuti over seat-sharing for 2024 Lok Sabha election, with each partner demanding significant numbers of seats. Maharashtra has a total of 48 Lok Sabha seats. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has demanded 22 seats, while deputy chief minister Ajit Pawars NCP is seeking 11 seats. The third alliance partner BJP has 22 MPs in the current Lok Sabha. BJP leader and Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said that no talk on seat-sharing has started with alliance partners. He said that no one has put any demand so far. We will have discussion over seat-sharing with alliance partners and whatever seats are decided that will be given to them. There is no fight and clashes over seat-sharing, Fadnavis said. Earlier, BJP and Shiv Sena (Shinde) had held discussions on seat-sharing for Lok Sabha where Shindes Sena had demanded 22 seats as its current Shiv Sena Lok Sabha MPs are from Shiv Sena. United Shiv Sena had won the 18 Lok Sabha seats and lost four candidates by close margin, so Shiv Sena should be given a total 22 seats in Maharashtra as per our strength. Out of total 18 Lok Sabha MPs, the majority MPs are with us. It is our right to get the maximum seats. We have put our demand, now BJP has to decide, said senior Shiv Sena leader of Eknath Shinde-led faction, requesting anonymity.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); A senior BJP leader said his party is the single largest party with 105 MLAs, and with their support, the party with 41 MLAs have Eknath Shinde as the chief minister, while another party with the same number of MLAs support have Ajit Pawar as deputy chief minister. If Shinde gets 22 seats, and Ajit Pawar-led NCP gets 11 seats, then how many seats are remaining for BJP? 15 seats in total 48 Lok Sabha seats? Currently, we have 22 Lok Sabha MPs and the alliance partners are asking to contest only. How is it possible? asked the BJP leader. Only 17 seats for BJP A senior BJP leader said his party is the single largest party with 105 MLAs. If Shinde gets 22 seats, while Ajit Pawar-led NCP gets 11 seats, then how many seats are remaining for BJP? 15 seats in total 48 Lok Sabha seats? Currently, we have 22 LS MPs and alliance partners are asking to contest only 15. How is it possible? asked the BJP leader. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Ramashankar By

Express News Service

PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday created a flutter in political circles by admitting that he would be friends with BJP leaders throughout his life.

Nitish revealed his immense affection for BJP leaders while speaking at the convocation ceremony of Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari. President Droupadi Murmu as well as Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar also graced the occasion.

In his zest to express his affection for BJP leaders, he also took a dig at the former UPA government for not accepting his request to open a central university in Motihari. He said that it became possible only after the NDA government was formed at the centre.

"The former UPA government led by Manmohan Singh did not listen to my request but when the new government was formed in 2014, my request was accepted," he remarked.

Nitish said that the former UPA government had announced plans to open a central university in 2007. In 2009, the then-Manmohan Singh government had passed the Central Universities Act. A decision was taken to open a central university in Bihar.

Nitish said that at that time he had demanded from the central government to open the university in Motihari as Mahatma Gandhi had launched his freedom movement from there. "Bapu had also awakened the flame of education in Motihari," Nitish said.

The Bihar CM said that he repeatedly told the then central government to open a central university in Motihari but it did not agree. Nitish Kumar said that during the time of Manmohan Singh, he had met the then Union Education Minister but it did not serve any purpose.

The former Manmohan Singh government agreed to open a central university in Gaya. It was only in 2016 that the central government decided to open a central university in the name of Bapu in Motihari as work on it also started the same year.

Pointing towards BJP MP from Motihari Radha Mohan Singh and other BJP leaders present in that programme, Nitish said that all these people were his friends. He said that he would have a relationship with them as long as he was alive and advised not to worry about it.

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PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday created a flutter in political circles by admitting that he would be friends with BJP leaders throughout his life. Nitish revealed his immense affection for BJP leaders while speaking at the convocation ceremony of Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari. President Droupadi Murmu as well as Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar also graced the occasion. In his zest to express his affection for BJP leaders, he also took a dig at the former UPA government for not accepting his request to open a central university in Motihari. He said that it became possible only after the NDA government was formed at the centre.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "The former UPA government led by Manmohan Singh did not listen to my request but when the new government was formed in 2014, my request was accepted," he remarked. Nitish said that the former UPA government had announced plans to open a central university in 2007. In 2009, the then-Manmohan Singh government had passed the Central Universities Act. A decision was taken to open a central university in Bihar. Nitish said that at that time he had demanded from the central government to open the university in Motihari as Mahatma Gandhi had launched his freedom movement from there. "Bapu had also awakened the flame of education in Motihari," Nitish said. The Bihar CM said that he repeatedly told the then central government to open a central university in Motihari but it did not agree. Nitish Kumar said that during the time of Manmohan Singh, he had met the then Union Education Minister but it did not serve any purpose. The former Manmohan Singh government agreed to open a central university in Gaya. It was only in 2016 that the central government decided to open a central university in the name of Bapu in Motihari as work on it also started the same year. Pointing towards BJP MP from Motihari Radha Mohan Singh and other BJP leaders present in that programme, Nitish said that all these people were his friends. He said that he would have a relationship with them as long as he was alive and advised not to worry about it. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Associated Press

KHAN YOUNIS: Israeli airstrikes pounded locations across the Gaza Strip early Thursday, including parts of the south that Israel had declared safe zones, heightening fears among more than 2 million Palestinians trapped in the territory that nowhere was safe.

In the nearly two weeks since Israel began attacking in response to a devastating Hamas rampage in towns across southern Israel, airstrikes have relentlessly hit the densely populated territory. Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north and head to what it called safe zones in the south, strikes continued across the entire territory.

The bombardments came after Israel agreed Wednesday to allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to Gaza, the first crack in a punishing 11-day siege. Many among Gaza's 2.3 million residents have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water amid dwindling supplies.

The announcement of a plan to bring water, food and other supplies into Gaza came as fury over the blast at Gaza Citys al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

There were conflicting claims about who was behind the deadly hospital explosion. Hamas officials in Gaza blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza Citys main hospital where doctors, already facing critical supply shortages, were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, often without anaesthesia.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes, roughly half of Gazas population. Many who fled Gaza City and other places in the north after Israel told them to evacuate have crowded into U.N. schools or the homes of relatives.

Israeli strikes fell across Gaza overnight, destroying homes in both north and south.

In southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands are seeking shelter, the Hamas-led Interior Ministry reported relentless strikes on the city of Khan Younis, hitting several homes. Medical staff at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said they received at least 12 dead and 40 wounded.

ALSO READ | British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak slams 'horrific' attacks on visit to Israel

The Israeli military said it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centres. It said it hit dozens of mortar launching posts, most of them immediately after they launched shells at Israel. Palestinians have been launching barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.

Israel has said it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they may be in Gaza and accused the groups leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population.

The strikes left Palestinians feeling they were in constant danger.

The Musa family fled to the typically sleepy central town of Deir al-Balah and took shelter in a cousins three-story home near the local hospital. But at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, a series of explosions, believed to be airstrikes, rocked the building, turning the family home into a mountain of rubble that they said buried some 20 women and children.

The dead body of Hiam Musa, the sister-in-law of Associated Press photojournalist Adel Hana, was recovered from the wreckage Wednesday evening, the family said. They dont know who else is under the rubble.

It doesnt make sense, Hana said. We went to Deir al-Balah because its quiet, we thought we would be safe.

The Israeli military said it was investigating.

In northern areas that Israel warned to evacuate, airstrikes also hit three residential towers in al-Zahra, the Interior Ministry in Gaza said, as well as homes along the border with Israel. Israel has massed troops in the area and is expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people are believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas deadly incursion on Oct. 7. Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.

Violence between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has also flared in recent days amid fears the fighting could spread across the region. In the West Bank, where scores of Palestinians have been killed since the war started, Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians in the past two days, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The deal to get aid into Gaza remained fragile, as hospitals in the sealed territory say they are on the verge of collapse.

Biden said Egypts president agreed to open the Rafah crossing to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, it will end, he said. The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.

Egypt must still repair the road across the border, which was cratered by Israeli airstrikes. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the crossing, Gazas only connection to Egypt, said the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed.

Supplies will go in under the supervision of the U.N., Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and dont go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.

Relatives of some of the roughly 200 people who were taken hostage and forced back to Gaza during the attack reacted in fury to the aid announcement.

READ LIVE UPDATES OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE

Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals, said a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.

In his brief visit, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing U.S. support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies. He also announced $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

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KHAN YOUNIS: Israeli airstrikes pounded locations across the Gaza Strip early Thursday, including parts of the south that Israel had declared safe zones, heightening fears among more than 2 million Palestinians trapped in the territory that nowhere was safe. In the nearly two weeks since Israel began attacking in response to a devastating Hamas rampage in towns across southern Israel, airstrikes have relentlessly hit the densely populated territory. Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north and head to what it called safe zones in the south, strikes continued across the entire territory. The bombardments came after Israel agreed Wednesday to allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to Gaza, the first crack in a punishing 11-day siege. Many among Gaza's 2.3 million residents have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water amid dwindling supplies.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The announcement of a plan to bring water, food and other supplies into Gaza came as fury over the blast at Gaza Citys al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region. There were conflicting claims about who was behind the deadly hospital explosion. Hamas officials in Gaza blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim. Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza Citys main hospital where doctors, already facing critical supply shortages, were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, often without anaesthesia. More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes, roughly half of Gazas population. Many who fled Gaza City and other places in the north after Israel told them to evacuate have crowded into U.N. schools or the homes of relatives. Israeli strikes fell across Gaza overnight, destroying homes in both north and south. In southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands are seeking shelter, the Hamas-led Interior Ministry reported relentless strikes on the city of Khan Younis, hitting several homes. Medical staff at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said they received at least 12 dead and 40 wounded. ALSO READ | British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak slams 'horrific' attacks on visit to Israel The Israeli military said it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centres. It said it hit dozens of mortar launching posts, most of them immediately after they launched shells at Israel. Palestinians have been launching barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began. Israel has said it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they may be in Gaza and accused the groups leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population. The strikes left Palestinians feeling they were in constant danger. The Musa family fled to the typically sleepy central town of Deir al-Balah and took shelter in a cousins three-story home near the local hospital. But at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, a series of explosions, believed to be airstrikes, rocked the building, turning the family home into a mountain of rubble that they said buried some 20 women and children. The dead body of Hiam Musa, the sister-in-law of Associated Press photojournalist Adel Hana, was recovered from the wreckage Wednesday evening, the family said. They dont know who else is under the rubble. It doesnt make sense, Hana said. We went to Deir al-Balah because its quiet, we thought we would be safe. The Israeli military said it was investigating. In northern areas that Israel warned to evacuate, airstrikes also hit three residential towers in al-Zahra, the Interior Ministry in Gaza said, as well as homes along the border with Israel. Israel has massed troops in the area and is expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made. The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and more than 12,000 wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people are believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas deadly incursion on Oct. 7. Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives. Violence between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has also flared in recent days amid fears the fighting could spread across the region. In the West Bank, where scores of Palestinians have been killed since the war started, Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians in the past two days, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The deal to get aid into Gaza remained fragile, as hospitals in the sealed territory say they are on the verge of collapse. Biden said Egypts president agreed to open the Rafah crossing to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, it will end, he said. The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said. Egypt must still repair the road across the border, which was cratered by Israeli airstrikes. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the crossing, Gazas only connection to Egypt, said the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed. Supplies will go in under the supervision of the U.N., Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV. Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and dont go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators. Relatives of some of the roughly 200 people who were taken hostage and forced back to Gaza during the attack reacted in fury to the aid announcement. READ LIVE UPDATES OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals, said a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. But the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers. In his brief visit, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing U.S. support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies. He also announced $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday to offer his condolences on the loss of civilian lives in Gaza.

"I spoke with President Abbas and conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance to Palestinian people. I also shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue," said PM Modi.

India has condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel and has reiterated that the international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism,  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 19, 2023

"As regards Palestine, we have reiterated our long standing position of advocating the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine living within secure and recognized borders, side by side at peace with Israel," said Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi.

India has expressed concern at civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict.

"We also remain concerned about the humanitarian situation. We would urge the full respect and strict observance of international humanitarian law," Bagchi added.

India has been supporting Palestine and Palestinian refugees through significant contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). A total of $ 29.53 million has been contributed to UNRWA between 2002 and 2023. The Indian annual contribution to UNRWA was increased from $1.25 million to $5 million in 2018. India has pledged annual contribution of $5 million for the next two years (FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25).

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NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday to offer his condolences on the loss of civilian lives in Gaza. "I spoke with President Abbas and conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance to Palestinian people. I also shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue," said PM Modi. India has condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel and has reiterated that the international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism,  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 19, 2023 "As regards Palestine, we have reiterated our long standing position of advocating the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine living within secure and recognized borders, side by side at peace with Israel," said Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi. India has expressed concern at civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict. "We also remain concerned about the humanitarian situation. We would urge the full respect and strict observance of international humanitarian law," Bagchi added. India has been supporting Palestine and Palestinian refugees through significant contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). A total of $ 29.53 million has been contributed to UNRWA between 2002 and 2023. The Indian annual contribution to UNRWA was increased from $1.25 million to $5 million in 2018. India has pledged annual contribution of $5 million for the next two years (FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25). Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court collegium headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has recommended the names of 13 advocates as judges of different high courts.

The Collegium, also comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sanjiv Khanna, recommended the names of advocates N Unni Krishnan Nair, and Kaushik Goswami as judges of Gauhati High Court.

"On May 29, 2023, the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court in consultation with his two senior-most colleagues recommended the elevation of the above advocates as judges of that high court.

We have duly taken note of the views received from the constitutional authorities of the States of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland.

"In order to ascertain the fitness and suitability of the above-named persons for elevation to the high court, we have consulted our colleagues conversant with the affairs of the Gauhati High Court," the resolution uploaded on the apex court website said.

The collegium said for the purpose of assessing the merit and suitability of the above candidates for elevation to the high court, it has scrutinised and evaluated the material placed on record including the observations made by the Department of Justice in the file as well as the complaints, received against some of the candidates.

In another decision, the collegium has recommended the names of advocates Siddhartha Sah and Alok Mahra for appointment as Judges of the Uttarakhand High Court.

It has also recommended the names of advocates Harmeet Singh Grewal, Deepinder Singh Nalwa, Sumeet Goel, Sudeepti Sharma and Kirti Singh for appointment as judges of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana.

The collegium has also recommended the names of advocates Vinay Saraf, Vivek Jain, Ashish Shroti, and Amit Seth for appointment as Judges of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

"On November 11, 2022, the Chief Justice of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh made the above recommendation in consultation with his two senior-most colleagues.

We have duly taken note of the views of the Chief Minister and the Governor of the State of Madhya Pradesh placed in the file about the suitability or otherwise of the above candidates.

"In order to ascertain the suitability of the above advocates for elevation to the high court, we have consulted our colleague conversant with the affairs of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh," the resolution stated.

The collegium said for the purpose of assessing the merit and suitability of the above candidates for elevation to the high court, we have scrutinized and evaluated the material placed on record.

"We have also perused the observations made by the Department of Justice in the file as well as the complaints received against some of the candidates," it said.

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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court collegium headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has recommended the names of 13 advocates as judges of different high courts. The Collegium, also comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sanjiv Khanna, recommended the names of advocates N Unni Krishnan Nair, and Kaushik Goswami as judges of Gauhati High Court. "On May 29, 2023, the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court in consultation with his two senior-most colleagues recommended the elevation of the above advocates as judges of that high court.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); We have duly taken note of the views received from the constitutional authorities of the States of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland. "In order to ascertain the fitness and suitability of the above-named persons for elevation to the high court, we have consulted our colleagues conversant with the affairs of the Gauhati High Court," the resolution uploaded on the apex court website said. The collegium said for the purpose of assessing the merit and suitability of the above candidates for elevation to the high court, it has scrutinised and evaluated the material placed on record including the observations made by the Department of Justice in the file as well as the complaints, received against some of the candidates. In another decision, the collegium has recommended the names of advocates Siddhartha Sah and Alok Mahra for appointment as Judges of the Uttarakhand High Court. It has also recommended the names of advocates Harmeet Singh Grewal, Deepinder Singh Nalwa, Sumeet Goel, Sudeepti Sharma and Kirti Singh for appointment as judges of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana. The collegium has also recommended the names of advocates Vinay Saraf, Vivek Jain, Ashish Shroti, and Amit Seth for appointment as Judges of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. "On November 11, 2022, the Chief Justice of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh made the above recommendation in consultation with his two senior-most colleagues. We have duly taken note of the views of the Chief Minister and the Governor of the State of Madhya Pradesh placed in the file about the suitability or otherwise of the above candidates. "In order to ascertain the suitability of the above advocates for elevation to the high court, we have consulted our colleague conversant with the affairs of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh," the resolution stated. The collegium said for the purpose of assessing the merit and suitability of the above candidates for elevation to the high court, we have scrutinized and evaluated the material placed on record. "We have also perused the observations made by the Department of Justice in the file as well as the complaints received against some of the candidates," it said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By ANI

NEW DELHI: The face-off between BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and TMC MP Mahua Moitra over his 'Cash for Query' allegations have taken a fresh turn. The businessman, Darshan Hiranandani, who was allegedly behind the said payoffs has for the first time responded in an affidavit. Sources say the affidavit has been submitted to the Parliament Ethics committee.

In his 3-page signed affidavit Darshan Hiranandani says that he resides in Dubai and came across letters dated October 14, by Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai to the CBI and to BJP MP Nishikant Dubey where his name figured prominently. He says he has been following the events carefully.

In his affidavit the businessman admits to his friendship with the TMC MP Mahua Moitra.

"I have known Mahua since I met her at Bengal summit 2017.....Over a period of time, she has become a close personal friend of mine....However, as our interactions grew over time she asked for odds and ends which involved my time" the affidavit reads

Hiranandani then claims that the TMC MP saw attacking the Adani group as a route to fame.

"She became Lok Sabha MP in May 2019.... She was advised by her friends that shortest route to fame is by attacking Narendra Modi. She thought that the only way to attack PM Modi was by attacking Gautam Adani and his group as they both come from Gujarat" his affidavit reads.

Hiranandani then claims that Mahua Moitra did share her Parliament Login credentials with him.

"She knew that Indian Oil Corporation was getting into an arrangement with Dhamra LNG a joint venture of the Adani group..... She drafted few questions that she could raise in parliament that would have elements to embarrass the Govt and target the Adani group. She shared with me her email ID as MP, so I could send her information and she could raise the questions. I went along with her proposal" he claims in his affidavit.

Drashan Hiranandani also claims that he used the TMC MPs login credentials to pose questions on the Adani group himself.

"She also received unverified details from several sources including some claiming to be former Adani group employees.....Certain information was shared with me, based on which I continued to draft and post questions using her Parliamentary login" he says in his affidavit.

Hiranandani then claims that the TMC MP also demanded favours and gifts from him.

ALSO READ | LS panel calls BJP MP Dubey, advocate Dehadrai for statement in complaint against TMC MP Moitra

"She made frequent demands of me and asked for various favours, The demands included gifting her expensive luxury items.....travel expenses, holidays etc" he claims in his affidavit.

This latest affidavit comes even as the Ethics committee has called BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and Advocate Jain Anant Dehadrai to submit oral evidence on the charges of 'Cash for Query' made by the BJP MP.

Mahua Moitra has yet to respond to Hiranandani's affidavit but had earlier asked the Speaker to begin hearing her case after he dealt with alleged breaches of privilege of other BJP MPs. The TMC is yet to officially react to the whole controversy.

ALSO READ | Bribe for questions row: Trinamool MP Moitra sends legal notice, Adani Group expresses 'shock'

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court is scheduled to hear, on Friday, TMC MP Mahua Moitra's petition seeking directions to restrain BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, an advocate and several social media platforms and media houses from posting, circulating or publishing any fake and defamatory content against her.

The plea, which was filed on October 17, is listed for hearing before Justice Sachin Datta.

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NEW DELHI: The face-off between BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and TMC MP Mahua Moitra over his 'Cash for Query' allegations have taken a fresh turn. The businessman, Darshan Hiranandani, who was allegedly behind the said payoffs has for the first time responded in an affidavit. Sources say the affidavit has been submitted to the Parliament Ethics committee. In his 3-page signed affidavit Darshan Hiranandani says that he resides in Dubai and came across letters dated October 14, by Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai to the CBI and to BJP MP Nishikant Dubey where his name figured prominently. He says he has been following the events carefully. In his affidavit the businessman admits to his friendship with the TMC MP Mahua Moitra.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "I have known Mahua since I met her at Bengal summit 2017.....Over a period of time, she has become a close personal friend of mine....However, as our interactions grew over time she asked for odds and ends which involved my time" the affidavit reads Hiranandani then claims that the TMC MP saw attacking the Adani group as a route to fame. "She became Lok Sabha MP in May 2019.... She was advised by her friends that shortest route to fame is by attacking Narendra Modi. She thought that the only way to attack PM Modi was by attacking Gautam Adani and his group as they both come from Gujarat" his affidavit reads. Hiranandani then claims that Mahua Moitra did share her Parliament Login credentials with him. "She knew that Indian Oil Corporation was getting into an arrangement with Dhamra LNG a joint venture of the Adani group..... She drafted few questions that she could raise in parliament that would have elements to embarrass the Govt and target the Adani group. She shared with me her email ID as MP, so I could send her information and she could raise the questions. I went along with her proposal" he claims in his affidavit. Drashan Hiranandani also claims that he used the TMC MPs login credentials to pose questions on the Adani group himself. "She also received unverified details from several sources including some claiming to be former Adani group employees.....Certain information was shared with me, based on which I continued to draft and post questions using her Parliamentary login" he says in his affidavit. Hiranandani then claims that the TMC MP also demanded favours and gifts from him. ALSO READ | LS panel calls BJP MP Dubey, advocate Dehadrai for statement in complaint against TMC MP Moitra "She made frequent demands of me and asked for various favours, The demands included gifting her expensive luxury items.....travel expenses, holidays etc" he claims in his affidavit. This latest affidavit comes even as the Ethics committee has called BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and Advocate Jain Anant Dehadrai to submit oral evidence on the charges of 'Cash for Query' made by the BJP MP. Mahua Moitra has yet to respond to Hiranandani's affidavit but had earlier asked the Speaker to begin hearing her case after he dealt with alleged breaches of privilege of other BJP MPs. The TMC is yet to officially react to the whole controversy. ALSO READ | Bribe for questions row: Trinamool MP Moitra sends legal notice, Adani Group expresses 'shock' Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court is scheduled to hear, on Friday, TMC MP Mahua Moitra's petition seeking directions to restrain BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, an advocate and several social media platforms and media houses from posting, circulating or publishing any fake and defamatory content against her. The plea, which was filed on October 17, is listed for hearing before Justice Sachin Datta. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By AFP

LONDON: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will travel to Israel on Thursday before heading to other countries in the region in an effort to de-escalate the Israel-Gaza conflict, his office has said.

"The attack on Al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid a further dangerous escalation of conflict," Sunak said in a statement.

"I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort."

Sunak will stress the international community must "not let Hamas' barbaric terrorism and disregard for human life become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region", the statement said.

Expected in Israel early on Thursday morning, Sunak is due to meet his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

He is also expected to insist that humanitarian aid, which London recently announced would be increased for the Palestinians, be allowed to arrive at a time when Israel has authorised the entry of aid into Gaza from Egypt, and that Britons stranded in Gaza be allowed to leave.

We are all shocked by the scenes at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital.



Our intelligence services are rapidly analysing the evidence to independently establish the facts. pic.twitter.com/qUTVPvUoBa  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 18, 2023

Alongside the British prime minister's trip, his Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is due to visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar "in the coming days", according to Downing Street.

London has pledged its support for Israel following the bloody attacks by Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 people, and has announced that the UK's humanitarian aid to the Palestinians will be increased by a third -- an extra 10 million pounds ($12 million).

Israel is relentlessly bombing the small, crowded territory of Gaza, where more than 3,400 people have been killed, most of them Palestinian civilians, according to the local authorities.

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LONDON: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will travel to Israel on Thursday before heading to other countries in the region in an effort to de-escalate the Israel-Gaza conflict, his office has said. "The attack on Al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid a further dangerous escalation of conflict," Sunak said in a statement. "I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort."googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Sunak will stress the international community must "not let Hamas' barbaric terrorism and disregard for human life become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region", the statement said. Expected in Israel early on Thursday morning, Sunak is due to meet his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog. He is also expected to insist that humanitarian aid, which London recently announced would be increased for the Palestinians, be allowed to arrive at a time when Israel has authorised the entry of aid into Gaza from Egypt, and that Britons stranded in Gaza be allowed to leave. We are all shocked by the scenes at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Our intelligence services are rapidly analysing the evidence to independently establish the facts. pic.twitter.com/qUTVPvUoBa  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 18, 2023 Alongside the British prime minister's trip, his Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is due to visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar "in the coming days", according to Downing Street. London has pledged its support for Israel following the bloody attacks by Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 people, and has announced that the UK's humanitarian aid to the Palestinians will be increased by a third -- an extra 10 million pounds ($12 million). Israel is relentlessly bombing the small, crowded territory of Gaza, where more than 3,400 people have been killed, most of them Palestinian civilians, according to the local authorities. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Mukesh Ranjan By

Express News Service

RANCHI: Perhaps for the first time, Union Home Ministry has appreciated the measures taken by Jharkhand Police to eliminate Maoists from the state.

According to the Jharkhand Police Headquarters, as many as 745 Maoists have been arrested during 2022-23 including three Special Area Committee Members (SAC), 20 others have been gunned down and 38 hard-core Maoists have surrendered before police after getting attracted by the new surrender policy of the state government.

The Home Secretary of the Government of India has appreciated the work done by the administrative and police officials of Jharkhand towards eradicating of leftwing extremism through an all-round anti-Maoist operations being conducted by Jharkhand Police, CRPF, CoBRA and Jharkhand Jaguar, stated an official

communique from the Jharkhand Police.

According to police headquarters, for the first time in the last five years, five top hard-core Maoists were killed in the gun battle with the security forces which is a major achievement.

Maoists have been restrained in almost all regions of the state and their activity is limited to Kolhan region only. It is noteworthy that five top Maoists were killed in a police encounter in Chatra district in April this year, first such incident in recent years where five Maoists were killed simultaneously in

a police encounter, stated the official communique. This incident completely demoralized the Maoist cadres, who had come from Chakarbandha and had taken shelter in this area, it added.

Jharkhand police also released data on its achievements during the last two years saying that a total of 745 Maoists were arrested by the security forces during 2022 and 2023 which includes three Special Area Committee (SAC) members, one Regional Committee member, 10 Zonal Commanders, 16 Sub Zonal Commanders and 25 Area Commanders. 20 Maoists were also killed in the gun battle with the

security forces.

Most of the Maoists were gunned down in Chatra which included SAC members -- Gautam Paswan and Ajit Oraon, carrying a reward of Rs 25 lakh and Sub Zonal Commanders Amar Ganjhu and Ajay Yadav, carrying a reward of Rs 5 lakh (Maoists carrying a total reward of Rs 60 lakh were killed together in a police encounter).

In the year 2022-23, 38 Maoists surrendered due to the increasing crackdown by the security forces and the attractive rehabilitation and surrender policy of the state government. These include Vimal Yadav, a member of the Special Area Committee, three members of the Regional Committee, Aman Ganjhu, Duryodhan Mahato and Indal Ganjhu, four zonal commanders, nine sub-zonal commanders and 10

area commanders.

Also, a total of 26 new camps were established by the security forces in the interior areas during this period, which has increased the sense of security in these areas. The CPI Maoist organization has suffered a major blow with the arrest and surrender of top militant leaders in Parasnath hill areas (Giridih) and

Lugu Jhumra hill areas (Bokaro, Hazaribagh).

Effective action has also been taken against other militant organizations operating in the state and as a result of which, PLFI supremo Dinesh Gop alias Kuldeep was arrested through NIA. Efforts are also being made to ensure that the surrendered Maoists do not return to their organization.

Currently, the joint operation is being conducted in Kolhan jungles of West Singhbhum, considered to be the last stronghold of CPI Maoist.

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RANCHI: Perhaps for the first time, Union Home Ministry has appreciated the measures taken by Jharkhand Police to eliminate Maoists from the state. According to the Jharkhand Police Headquarters, as many as 745 Maoists have been arrested during 2022-23 including three Special Area Committee Members (SAC), 20 others have been gunned down and 38 hard-core Maoists have surrendered before police after getting attracted by the new surrender policy of the state government. The Home Secretary of the Government of India has appreciated the work done by the administrative and police officials of Jharkhand towards eradicating of leftwing extremism through an all-round anti-Maoist operations being conducted by Jharkhand Police, CRPF, CoBRA and Jharkhand Jaguar, stated an official communique from the Jharkhand Police.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); According to police headquarters, for the first time in the last five years, five top hard-core Maoists were killed in the gun battle with the security forces which is a major achievement. Maoists have been restrained in almost all regions of the state and their activity is limited to Kolhan region only. It is noteworthy that five top Maoists were killed in a police encounter in Chatra district in April this year, first such incident in recent years where five Maoists were killed simultaneously in a police encounter, stated the official communique. This incident completely demoralized the Maoist cadres, who had come from Chakarbandha and had taken shelter in this area, it added. Jharkhand police also released data on its achievements during the last two years saying that a total of 745 Maoists were arrested by the security forces during 2022 and 2023 which includes three Special Area Committee (SAC) members, one Regional Committee member, 10 Zonal Commanders, 16 Sub Zonal Commanders and 25 Area Commanders. 20 Maoists were also killed in the gun battle with the security forces. Most of the Maoists were gunned down in Chatra which included SAC members -- Gautam Paswan and Ajit Oraon, carrying a reward of Rs 25 lakh and Sub Zonal Commanders Amar Ganjhu and Ajay Yadav, carrying a reward of Rs 5 lakh (Maoists carrying a total reward of Rs 60 lakh were killed together in a police encounter). In the year 2022-23, 38 Maoists surrendered due to the increasing crackdown by the security forces and the attractive rehabilitation and surrender policy of the state government. These include Vimal Yadav, a member of the Special Area Committee, three members of the Regional Committee, Aman Ganjhu, Duryodhan Mahato and Indal Ganjhu, four zonal commanders, nine sub-zonal commanders and 10 area commanders. Also, a total of 26 new camps were established by the security forces in the interior areas during this period, which has increased the sense of security in these areas. The CPI Maoist organization has suffered a major blow with the arrest and surrender of top militant leaders in Parasnath hill areas (Giridih) and Lugu Jhumra hill areas (Bokaro, Hazaribagh). Effective action has also been taken against other militant organizations operating in the state and as a result of which, PLFI supremo Dinesh Gop alias Kuldeep was arrested through NIA. Efforts are also being made to ensure that the surrendered Maoists do not return to their organization. Currently, the joint operation is being conducted in Kolhan jungles of West Singhbhum, considered to be the last stronghold of CPI Maoist. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Preetha Nair By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi continued his criticism of the Adani business group, alleging that they artificially inflated coal import prices, resulting in higher electricity costs for the common people. He pointed to a recent Financial Times report that highlighted how Adani Group had over-invoiced coal from Indonesia.

Speaking at a press conference held at the AICC headquarters, Gandhi claimed that Adani procured coal in Indonesia at one price, but by the time it reached India, the cost had doubled. He estimated that this had cost the poorest citizens of India around Rs 12,000 crore as electricity prices surged. Gandhi expressed his concern over Prime Minister Narendra Modis silence on the matter and called for a transparent investigation to protect his credibility.

Referring to the Hindenburg report, he emphasised that the alleged financial discrepancies had risen from Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 32,000 crore. He pledged that if Congress came to power in 2024, they would initiate a thorough investigation into these allegations.

The Opposition had been demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the Hindenburg reports claims of fraud and stock manipulation by the Adani group. Gandhi criticised the Securities and Exchange Board of India for not obtaining necessary documents related to the case while commending the Financial Times for their investigative efforts.

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NEW DELHI: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi continued his criticism of the Adani business group, alleging that they artificially inflated coal import prices, resulting in higher electricity costs for the common people. He pointed to a recent Financial Times report that highlighted how Adani Group had over-invoiced coal from Indonesia. Speaking at a press conference held at the AICC headquarters, Gandhi claimed that Adani procured coal in Indonesia at one price, but by the time it reached India, the cost had doubled. He estimated that this had cost the poorest citizens of India around Rs 12,000 crore as electricity prices surged. Gandhi expressed his concern over Prime Minister Narendra Modis silence on the matter and called for a transparent investigation to protect his credibility. Referring to the Hindenburg report, he emphasised that the alleged financial discrepancies had risen from Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 32,000 crore. He pledged that if Congress came to power in 2024, they would initiate a thorough investigation into these allegations.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The Opposition had been demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the Hindenburg reports claims of fraud and stock manipulation by the Adani group. Gandhi criticised the Securities and Exchange Board of India for not obtaining necessary documents related to the case while commending the Financial Times for their investigative efforts. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Putin is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF). (Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF).

Xi said Putin has attended the BRF three times in a row, demonstrating Russia's support for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Lauding Russia as an important partner as China pursues international Belt and Road cooperation, Xi said the operation of major infrastructure projects such as the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline has brought tangible benefits to the people of both countries.

China is willing to work with Russia and other member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to promote the alignment of the BRI with the EAEU, so as to foster higher-level and deeper regional cooperation, Xi said.

China hopes that the China-Mongolia-Russia natural gas pipeline project will make substantive progress as soon as possible, he added.

It is not an expediency, but a long-term policy to develop the China-Russia relations featuring permanent good-neighborly friendship, comprehensive strategic coordination and mutually beneficial cooperation, Xi said.

China supports the Russian people in pursuing the path of national rejuvenation independently and safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests, he said, calling on the two sides to promote high-quality development of China-Russia practical cooperation and actively explore cooperation in strategic emerging industries.

The historic BRICS membership expansion shows the confidence of developing countries in promoting multipolarity in the world and greater democracy in international relations, Xi said.

Xi expressed support for Russia in hosting a successful BRICS summit in Kazan next year.

China is willing to continue to strengthen communication and coordination with Russia within the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the G20 and other multilateral frameworks, so as to play a greater role in maintaining food security, energy security and the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, and to safeguard the common interests of China and Russia as well as regional and developing countries, Xi said.

Putin said the BRI has achieved great success and has become an important international public good widely recognized by the world, expressing his confidence in greater achievements of this great cause.

The evolution of the international situation fully confirms President Xi's strategic judgment of profound changes unseen in a century, said Putin.

He said Russia is willing to strengthen communication and collaboration with China within multilateral mechanisms such as BRICS, uphold the international system based on international law, and promote the establishment of a more just and reasonable global governance system.

Russia is willing to take the opportunity of celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries next year to further promote the development of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, he added.

Xi and Putin also had in-depth exchanges of views on the Palestine-Israel situation and others.

Senior Chinese officials including Cai Qi and Wang Yi attended the event.

Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Putin is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF). (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

Editor: ZAD
Jaison Wilson By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has allowed five weeks' extension on the interim bail plea granted to former Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain on medical grounds in an ED-registered money laundering case.

The relief was given by the bench of Justices A.S. Bopanna and Bela M. Trivedi after Jain's counsel and senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi submitted that his client had undergone a spine surgery on July 21 and needed time to recover.

Representing the central agency, Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, did not oppose the submission.

Raju said, ED wanted its application seeking independent evaluation of Jain by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) or any other hospital to be heard on the next date.

Accordingly, the matter adjourned for next hearing after five weeks.

AAP senior leader Satyendra Kumar Jain was earlier granted an extension of his medical interim bail from July 10 till July 24.

On May 26, the apex court granted interim bail to the former Minister for six weeks on medical grounds, saying a citizen had a right to receive treatment of his choice in a private hospital at his own expense.

Jain had been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the case on May 30 last year and is accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him.

As per an earlier trial court order, "Jain is the conceptualizer, visualizer and executor of the entire operation and his being aided and abated by Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain (co-accused persons in the case)."

"The fact that Satyendar Kumar Jain wrote a letter to income tax authorities to adjust his demand of tax against the tax deposited by Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain shows their close complicity," as per the central agency's argument.

The order contended that "the plea of Satyendar Kumar Jain that he was not found in physical possession of any property needs to be rejected out-rightly as for the offence of money laundering the physical possession of proceeds of crime is not necessary. Similarly, the fact that shares so acquired were transferred back to Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain will also make no difference as it may again be done to conceal the proceeds of crime or projected as a untainted money."

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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has allowed five weeks' extension on the interim bail plea granted to former Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain on medical grounds in an ED-registered money laundering case. The relief was given by the bench of Justices A.S. Bopanna and Bela M. Trivedi after Jain's counsel and senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi submitted that his client had undergone a spine surgery on July 21 and needed time to recover. Representing the central agency, Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, did not oppose the submission.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Raju said, ED wanted its application seeking independent evaluation of Jain by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) or any other hospital to be heard on the next date. Accordingly, the matter adjourned for next hearing after five weeks. AAP senior leader Satyendra Kumar Jain was earlier granted an extension of his medical interim bail from July 10 till July 24. On May 26, the apex court granted interim bail to the former Minister for six weeks on medical grounds, saying a citizen had a right to receive treatment of his choice in a private hospital at his own expense. Jain had been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the case on May 30 last year and is accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him. As per an earlier trial court order, "Jain is the conceptualizer, visualizer and executor of the entire operation and his being aided and abated by Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain (co-accused persons in the case)." "The fact that Satyendar Kumar Jain wrote a letter to income tax authorities to adjust his demand of tax against the tax deposited by Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain shows their close complicity," as per the central agency's argument. The order contended that "the plea of Satyendar Kumar Jain that he was not found in physical possession of any property needs to be rejected out-rightly as for the offence of money laundering the physical possession of proceeds of crime is not necessary. Similarly, the fact that shares so acquired were transferred back to Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain will also make no difference as it may again be done to conceal the proceeds of crime or projected as a untainted money." Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Jayati Ghosh By

No government in India has been as adept in shaping the political narrative as the Modi government since 2014. This has been accomplished through a domination of most of the mainstream media, significant control over social media, ruthless intimidation and repression of dissident voices, and reliance on a web of disseminators on the ground. A critical aspect of this has been the ability to control, manipulate and suppress official data in ways that are designed to conform to the desired narrative.

This means that an aggressive attitude towards economic statisticsand indeed to all data that could force some accountabilityhas become one of the defining features of the government. As a result, a national statistical system that was once the pride of India and the envy of most developing countries is now weakened, eroded and increasingly less reliable.

On the face of it, this may seem like a contradictory, even self-defeating, strategy for any government. After all, even minimal governance requires some basic knowledge about those who are to be governedat the very least, how many people there are and where they are. Much more information is required to be effective in improving the conditions of the people: about how they live, work and earn; about disparities in income and wealth; about access to basic needs including food, health, housing, sanitation; about levels of education and skill; about ecological conditions and much more.

Indias statistical system was remarkable for a relatively poor country. Even before independence, the decennial Census exercise of the colonial government provided some basic information. From the early 1950s, Indias statisticians sought to develop methodologies for surveys that could capture consumption expenditure and employment changes and patterns, using imaginative techniques suited to an economy that was largely informal. These were periodically tweaked as gaps and anomalies were recognised. National income indicators like the gross domestic product (GDP) were developed in conformity with the UNs System of National Accounts. As economic planning developed, other official data were generated, such as input-output tables and human development indicators that also recognised different social categories. Poverty estimates were based on data generated through the consumption surveys, and other backwardness criterions based on survey data also became important for policy formulation.

But since 2014, several moves have dramatically changed the availability and reliability of such essential data. This began with the revision of the base year for estimates of national income, an exercise which occurs every few years. The change to the new base year of 2011-12 brought changes in methodology. An important change was in how industrial output is measured, shifting away from mainly using the Index of Industrial Production, which is a physical measure of output. Now company reports are used, even though that data includes a significant proportion (around a third) of dummy companies, shows very wide fluctuations and can reflect incentives for companies to misstate their returns. This led to a dramatic increase in manufacturing output that was not confirmed by other economic indicators and appears to have been designed to present the Modi government in a better light than the previous one.

Next, though the results of the Periodic Labour Force Survey of 2017-18 were available in late 2018, they were withheld from the public until after the 2019 elections, presumably because they indicated stagnant or declining employment and high rates of open unemployment. Even worse, the results of the survey on consumption expenditure for 2017-18 were withdrawn and the government simply refused to release the data. A leaked report procured by journalists indicated alarming declines in rural consumption and significant increases in rural poverty between 2011-2012 and 2017-2018. Since then, no fresh consumption survey has even been conducted, even though that is essential for assessing the extent of absolute poverty, food consumption and inequality. So there is no information on how these crucial indicators have moved after 2011-12more than a decade ago.

In the absence of essential and comparable data on poverty, the Niti Aayog has developed its own indicatoran index based on a collection of different estimates including mobile phone usage. All too predictably, this index shows a sharp decline in poverty in the country over the past decade, conforming to the preferred official narrative.

The Covid pandemic provided an excuse for the government to delay the Census that should have been conducted in 2021, even though other major infection-spreading events like assembly elections and associated rallies continued. Remarkably, there has been no attempt to conduct the Census since then and it has officially been delayed until further notice, presumably until after the next general elections. Since the last Census data relates to 2011, both the government and the public are now functioning in ignorance of the most basic data: how many people there are in the country, where, of what gender and age, and doing what.

Not only has the central government refused to conduct the national Census thus far, it is also resisting the efforts of state governments to try and fill the gap by attempting their own enumeration. The caste census, conducted by the Bihar government and now proposed in several other states, is being bitterly opposed by the central government, even though this should provide important information also on location, living and working conditions.

Other data that could shed light on the success or usefulness of government policies are also suppressed. The governments own audit of the Ganga Action Plan, for example, has simply not been released. When one of the few remaining official surveys, the National Family Health Survey for 2019-2021, revealed that open defaecation still existed despite official claims to the contrary and that the incidence of anaemia had increased among women and girls, the government response was not to consider how this can be improved, but to punish the messenger. The head of the agency that conducts the survey was suspended on vague charges, presumably as punishment. This obviously sends a signal to the person in charge of the currently ongoing survey not to publish any results that could potentially embarrass the government.

None of this suppression of data would make sense for a government interested in developing and implementing economic policies that would benefit the people, because it is hard to implement policies in such ignorance of the people for whom they are intended. This instead suggests maximum government with minimum governance: a state focused on control and the management of public perception, rather than positively changing the reality.

Jayati Ghosh

Professor of economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, US and former professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

(Views are personal.)

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No government in India has been as adept in shaping the political narrative as the Modi government since 2014. This has been accomplished through a domination of most of the mainstream media, significant control over social media, ruthless intimidation and repression of dissident voices, and reliance on a web of disseminators on the ground. A critical aspect of this has been the ability to control, manipulate and suppress official data in ways that are designed to conform to the desired narrative. This means that an aggressive attitude towards economic statisticsand indeed to all data that could force some accountabilityhas become one of the defining features of the government. As a result, a national statistical system that was once the pride of India and the envy of most developing countries is now weakened, eroded and increasingly less reliable. On the face of it, this may seem like a contradictory, even self-defeating, strategy for any government. After all, even minimal governance requires some basic knowledge about those who are to be governedat the very least, how many people there are and where they are. Much more information is required to be effective in improving the conditions of the people: about how they live, work and earn; about disparities in income and wealth; about access to basic needs including food, health, housing, sanitation; about levels of education and skill; about ecological conditions and much more.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Indias statistical system was remarkable for a relatively poor country. Even before independence, the decennial Census exercise of the colonial government provided some basic information. From the early 1950s, Indias statisticians sought to develop methodologies for surveys that could capture consumption expenditure and employment changes and patterns, using imaginative techniques suited to an economy that was largely informal. These were periodically tweaked as gaps and anomalies were recognised. National income indicators like the gross domestic product (GDP) were developed in conformity with the UNs System of National Accounts. As economic planning developed, other official data were generated, such as input-output tables and human development indicators that also recognised different social categories. Poverty estimates were based on data generated through the consumption surveys, and other backwardness criterions based on survey data also became important for policy formulation. But since 2014, several moves have dramatically changed the availability and reliability of such essential data. This began with the revision of the base year for estimates of national income, an exercise which occurs every few years. The change to the new base year of 2011-12 brought changes in methodology. An important change was in how industrial output is measured, shifting away from mainly using the Index of Industrial Production, which is a physical measure of output. Now company reports are used, even though that data includes a significant proportion (around a third) of dummy companies, shows very wide fluctuations and can reflect incentives for companies to misstate their returns. This led to a dramatic increase in manufacturing output that was not confirmed by other economic indicators and appears to have been designed to present the Modi government in a better light than the previous one. Next, though the results of the Periodic Labour Force Survey of 2017-18 were available in late 2018, they were withheld from the public until after the 2019 elections, presumably because they indicated stagnant or declining employment and high rates of open unemployment. Even worse, the results of the survey on consumption expenditure for 2017-18 were withdrawn and the government simply refused to release the data. A leaked report procured by journalists indicated alarming declines in rural consumption and significant increases in rural poverty between 2011-2012 and 2017-2018. Since then, no fresh consumption survey has even been conducted, even though that is essential for assessing the extent of absolute poverty, food consumption and inequality. So there is no information on how these crucial indicators have moved after 2011-12more than a decade ago. In the absence of essential and comparable data on poverty, the Niti Aayog has developed its own indicatoran index based on a collection of different estimates including mobile phone usage. All too predictably, this index shows a sharp decline in poverty in the country over the past decade, conforming to the preferred official narrative. The Covid pandemic provided an excuse for the government to delay the Census that should have been conducted in 2021, even though other major infection-spreading events like assembly elections and associated rallies continued. Remarkably, there has been no attempt to conduct the Census since then and it has officially been delayed until further notice, presumably until after the next general elections. Since the last Census data relates to 2011, both the government and the public are now functioning in ignorance of the most basic data: how many people there are in the country, where, of what gender and age, and doing what. Not only has the central government refused to conduct the national Census thus far, it is also resisting the efforts of state governments to try and fill the gap by attempting their own enumeration. The caste census, conducted by the Bihar government and now proposed in several other states, is being bitterly opposed by the central government, even though this should provide important information also on location, living and working conditions. Other data that could shed light on the success or usefulness of government policies are also suppressed. The governments own audit of the Ganga Action Plan, for example, has simply not been released. When one of the few remaining official surveys, the National Family Health Survey for 2019-2021, revealed that open defaecation still existed despite official claims to the contrary and that the incidence of anaemia had increased among women and girls, the government response was not to consider how this can be improved, but to punish the messenger. The head of the agency that conducts the survey was suspended on vague charges, presumably as punishment. This obviously sends a signal to the person in charge of the currently ongoing survey not to publish any results that could potentially embarrass the government. None of this suppression of data would make sense for a government interested in developing and implementing economic policies that would benefit the people, because it is hard to implement policies in such ignorance of the people for whom they are intended. This instead suggests maximum government with minimum governance: a state focused on control and the management of public perception, rather than positively changing the reality. Jayati Ghosh Professor of economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, US and former professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi (Views are personal.) Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
A case of missing children and the finding of their amputated body parts wrenched our guts in December 2006. Headlines screamed the unfolding of manic evil in the village of Nithari in Noida, Uttar Pradesh when the skeletal remains of eight children were found in a drain behind Moninder Singh Pandhers house; more body parts were found later.

Most of the remains were of poor children and young women who had gone missing from the area. Their hapless parents had filed missing complaints but there had been no headway. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the case within ten days and its search resulted in the recovery of more bones.

Almost two decades later, on Monday, the Allahabad High Court acquitted the two men at the centre of the macabre carnagethe prime accused Surinder Koli and Pandher, who had been given the death sentence by a trial court. The high courts ruling cited the shoddiness of the probe and a lack of hard evidence. The court censured the Uttar Pradesh police and the CBI.

The casual and perfunctory manner in which arrest, recovery and confession have been dealt with are most disheartening, to say the least, the court said.

The Nithari case is a classic example of how our criminal justice works. It has been seventeen years of wait for the families who watched with horror when their children went missing, and later, when their skeletal remains were found. If this was not enough of a nightmare for the parents, they now see the main suspects let off the hook.

ALSO READ | Missing complaint led Delhi cops to Nithari house

Who is to blame? The appalling handling of cases like Nithari, as well as of several other murder and rape cases, can be blamed on delayed trials, botched investigations, witnesses turning hostile while the trial drags on, and the lack of evidence and expertise.

In a criminal trial, the accused is considered innocent until proven guilty and the prosecution carries the burden of proving guilt. In such a scenario, we have an acute shortage of forensic experts and psychiatrists who can help law enforcement agencies in collecting and analysing clinching evidence from the crime scene and in strengthening the investigation to withstand legal scrutiny. It is incumbent upon the prosecution to build a water-tight case that can lead to conviction. Victims cannot be made to pay the price for botched investigations.

ALSO READ | Nithari killings: Justice denied, say victims' parents after HC order acquitting accused

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A case of missing children and the finding of their amputated body parts wrenched our guts in December 2006. Headlines screamed the unfolding of manic evil in the village of Nithari in Noida, Uttar Pradesh when the skeletal remains of eight children were found in a drain behind Moninder Singh Pandhers house; more body parts were found later. Most of the remains were of poor children and young women who had gone missing from the area. Their hapless parents had filed missing complaints but there had been no headway. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the case within ten days and its search resulted in the recovery of more bones. Almost two decades later, on Monday, the Allahabad High Court acquitted the two men at the centre of the macabre carnagethe prime accused Surinder Koli and Pandher, who had been given the death sentence by a trial court. The high courts ruling cited the shoddiness of the probe and a lack of hard evidence. The court censured the Uttar Pradesh police and the CBI.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The casual and perfunctory manner in which arrest, recovery and confession have been dealt with are most disheartening, to say the least, the court said. The Nithari case is a classic example of how our criminal justice works. It has been seventeen years of wait for the families who watched with horror when their children went missing, and later, when their skeletal remains were found. If this was not enough of a nightmare for the parents, they now see the main suspects let off the hook. ALSO READ | Missing complaint led Delhi cops to Nithari house Who is to blame? The appalling handling of cases like Nithari, as well as of several other murder and rape cases, can be blamed on delayed trials, botched investigations, witnesses turning hostile while the trial drags on, and the lack of evidence and expertise. In a criminal trial, the accused is considered innocent until proven guilty and the prosecution carries the burden of proving guilt. In such a scenario, we have an acute shortage of forensic experts and psychiatrists who can help law enforcement agencies in collecting and analysing clinching evidence from the crime scene and in strengthening the investigation to withstand legal scrutiny. It is incumbent upon the prosecution to build a water-tight case that can lead to conviction. Victims cannot be made to pay the price for botched investigations. ALSO READ | Nithari killings: Justice denied, say victims' parents after HC order acquitting accused Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Janata Dal (Secular) state president CM Ibrahim, who had raised the banner of revolt against the partys decision to forge an alliance with the BJP for the Lok Sabha polls, has been removed from the partys top post in the state.

JD(S) President and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda on Thursday dissolved the state unit headed by Ibrahim and appointed his son and former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy as the new ad-hoc president of the state unit of the regional party.

Ibrahim had openly opposed the party's decision to go with the BJP. He claimed that the original JD(S) is with him and the party would support the INDIA bloc and not the BJP-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

A note issued by the JD(S) said the decision to make changes in the party was taken by consensus during a meeting attended by Gowda, Kumaraswamy, members of the partys core committee and all its legislators.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, former Deve Gowda said Ibrahim has been removed as the party president. I have removed him (Ibrahim) and HD Kumaraswamy has been appointed as the new president, he said.

Gowda said the party units in the other states were convinced about the decision to go with the BJP. Refusing to comment on Ibrahims remarks, Gowda said many Muslim leaders are with the party and there is no need for any apprehension.

Reacting to the decision, Ibrahim said he would take his next course of action after discussing it with party workers. He accused the JD(S) president of not encouraging any Vokkaliga leaders to grow in the party. I had not expected such a decision from you (Gowda), Ibrahim said.

ALSO READ | Original JDS is with me, it will never have alliance with BJP, says Ibrahim

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BENGALURU: Janata Dal (Secular) state president CM Ibrahim, who had raised the banner of revolt against the partys decision to forge an alliance with the BJP for the Lok Sabha polls, has been removed from the partys top post in the state. JD(S) President and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda on Thursday dissolved the state unit headed by Ibrahim and appointed his son and former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy as the new ad-hoc president of the state unit of the regional party. Ibrahim had openly opposed the party's decision to go with the BJP. He claimed that the original JD(S) is with him and the party would support the INDIA bloc and not the BJP-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); A note issued by the JD(S) said the decision to make changes in the party was taken by consensus during a meeting attended by Gowda, Kumaraswamy, members of the partys core committee and all its legislators. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, former Deve Gowda said Ibrahim has been removed as the party president. I have removed him (Ibrahim) and HD Kumaraswamy has been appointed as the new president, he said. Gowda said the party units in the other states were convinced about the decision to go with the BJP. Refusing to comment on Ibrahims remarks, Gowda said many Muslim leaders are with the party and there is no need for any apprehension. Reacting to the decision, Ibrahim said he would take his next course of action after discussing it with party workers. He accused the JD(S) president of not encouraging any Vokkaliga leaders to grow in the party. I had not expected such a decision from you (Gowda), Ibrahim said. ALSO READ | Original JDS is with me, it will never have alliance with BJP, says Ibrahim Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
A Satish By

Express News Service

PALAKKAD: Palakkad native U Radha is a relieved woman. After a long wait spanning three-and-a-half decades  and dotted with hurdles big and small  the 59-year-old can finally identify as an Indian citizen. Palakkad District Collector S Chithra handed over the certificate proclaiming Radha as a citizen of India on Wednesday, 35 years after she applied for it in 1988.

Radhas parents, Govindan Nair and Sreedevi Amma, had gone to Malaysia during the pre-Independence period in search of a livelihood. Radha was born in Malaysia in 1964, K Radhakrishnan of Pudussery, Radhas husband, told TNIE. Since she was born abroad, Radha did not qualify as an Indian citizen.

Radhakrishnan said, later, Radha and her mother returned to Palakkad, while her father stayed back, he said.

Barring one year from 1980 to 1981, when Sreedevi Amma took Radha to Malaysia again, she has been living in Palakkad her entire life, said Radhakrishnan.

At the time, Radha took a Malaysian passport as getting one from India was, understandably, a tedious process. She returned in 1981. In 1985, we got married. I was employed at the Precot mill in Kanjikode at the time, said Radhakrishnan. The couple has two children, Gireedharan and Girija.

Application was pending in Palakkad, Tvm till 1997

Since Radhas passport was valid only till 1986, the couple kept renewing it at the Malaysian Consulate in Chennai every year. However in 1988, the officials there said they could no longer renew the document, Radhakrishnan said.

When we enquired at the passport office in Kozhikode, they advised us to give a renunciation certificate from the consulate stating we no longer wished to be citizens of Malaysia. We got it. In 1988, Radha applied for Indian citizenship, as she had studied at Pathripala Government HSS. However, the application remained pending at the Palakkad collectorate and in Thiruvananthapuram till 1997. It was later forwarded to New Delhi, Radhakrishnan recalled.

During the time, they reached out to the Home department multiple times and petitioned every minister, he said.

There were regular police visits to our house. Verifications followed. The village officer too visited our house for verification, as they needed an ID to establish that Ratha, the individual in the birth certificate, and Radha, the one in the school certificate, were the same person. When the application got delayed, we went to New Delhi in 2021 for follow-up, Radhakrishnan said.

The delay also prevented Radha from getting a proof of identity like the Voter ID card or Aadhaar card. That wait has now ended.

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PALAKKAD: Palakkad native U Radha is a relieved woman. After a long wait spanning three-and-a-half decades  and dotted with hurdles big and small  the 59-year-old can finally identify as an Indian citizen. Palakkad District Collector S Chithra handed over the certificate proclaiming Radha as a citizen of India on Wednesday, 35 years after she applied for it in 1988. Radhas parents, Govindan Nair and Sreedevi Amma, had gone to Malaysia during the pre-Independence period in search of a livelihood. Radha was born in Malaysia in 1964, K Radhakrishnan of Pudussery, Radhas husband, told TNIE. Since she was born abroad, Radha did not qualify as an Indian citizen. Radhakrishnan said, later, Radha and her mother returned to Palakkad, while her father stayed back, he said. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Barring one year from 1980 to 1981, when Sreedevi Amma took Radha to Malaysia again, she has been living in Palakkad her entire life, said Radhakrishnan. At the time, Radha took a Malaysian passport as getting one from India was, understandably, a tedious process. She returned in 1981. In 1985, we got married. I was employed at the Precot mill in Kanjikode at the time, said Radhakrishnan. The couple has two children, Gireedharan and Girija. Application was pending in Palakkad, Tvm till 1997 Since Radhas passport was valid only till 1986, the couple kept renewing it at the Malaysian Consulate in Chennai every year. However in 1988, the officials there said they could no longer renew the document, Radhakrishnan said. When we enquired at the passport office in Kozhikode, they advised us to give a renunciation certificate from the consulate stating we no longer wished to be citizens of Malaysia. We got it. In 1988, Radha applied for Indian citizenship, as she had studied at Pathripala Government HSS. However, the application remained pending at the Palakkad collectorate and in Thiruvananthapuram till 1997. It was later forwarded to New Delhi, Radhakrishnan recalled. During the time, they reached out to the Home department multiple times and petitioned every minister, he said. There were regular police visits to our house. Verifications followed. The village officer too visited our house for verification, as they needed an ID to establish that Ratha, the individual in the birth certificate, and Radha, the one in the school certificate, were the same person. When the application got delayed, we went to New Delhi in 2021 for follow-up, Radhakrishnan said. The delay also prevented Radha from getting a proof of identity like the Voter ID card or Aadhaar card. That wait has now ended. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By PTI

HYDERABAD: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday promised to conduct the caste census in Telangana if his party is voted to power in the state.

Addressing corner meetings on the way from Bhupalpally to Peddapalli during the Congress' ongoing 'Vijayabheri' Yatra in the state, where Assembly elections will be held on November 30, he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao of not speaking on the issue.

Rahul Gandhi said the biggest issue in the country is with regard to caste census and termed it an "X-ray" that will throw light on the condition of Dalits, tribals and OBCs, and added it will also determine how the country's funds are being distributed.

He asked the people to question Modi and KCR as to when they will conduct the caste census, and said if the Congress is voted to power in Telangana then the first work his party's government will do is to take up "X-ray" in the state.

ALSO READ | Rahul Gandhi not leader, just 'reader': K T Rama Rao

He said Congress-ruled states-Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Karnataka- have been told to conduct caste census.

"To fulfill the dreams of Telangana, caste census has to be conducted. I promise you, the Congress party will get the caste census done in Telangana," Rahul Gandhi said.

The former Congress president said he had raised the issue of caste census in Parliament.

He said that only 90 top officers/ bureaucrats run the country and only three of them belong to the OBC (Other Backward Classes) category.

"These (OBC) officers control just five per cent of the budget," he claimed.

"My question is whether the OBCs population in the country is just five per cent," he asked.

He further said today loans worth billions of rupees of industrialists have been waived off.

"Adani ji takes loans and his loans get waived off. Without asking, the loan is waived off. But bank loans of farmers, labourers, women and youth is never waived off. GST is taken from the pockets of shopkeepers and it goes into the pockets of Adani," he alleged.

"We don't want such an India. That's why the first step is an "X-ray" of the country--the caste census.

And a new chapter will be written in India's progress," he said.

According to him, "X-ray" will also ascertain how much of Telangana's money the "Chief Minister's family "looted".

Alleging that Telangana is the most corrupt state in country, Rahul Gandhi charged lakhs of crores of rupees has been snatched away from people and the Telangana model of corruption was being exported to other states.

The Congress party has fulfilled the promises it made to the people of Karnataka and similarly the promises made to the people of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh were also fulfilled, he said.

The Congress will implement its six guarantees in Telangana, he said, adding they have not come here with false promises and accused KCR of not fulfilling his electoral promises.

Rahul Gandhi said the upcoming electoral battle is between Dorala (feudal lords) Telangana and Prajala (people's) Telangana and said he felt that KCR is going to lose the elections.

"You (people) wanted that the people of Telangana should rule the state, but it has been 10 years your chief minister has gone far away from you and only one family has been ruling Telangana and it has complete control," he claimed.

He said the BRS, BJP and AIMIM attack the Congress party and reiterated his charge that BJP government at the Centre misuses central agencies against opposition leaders to scare them.

If the Telangana Chief Minister is really fighting against the BJP then why there are no cases against him and why no ED, IT and CBI inquiry happened against him, the former Congress chief asked.

"I fight against the BJP and there are twenty-four cases against me. I was disqualified from Parliament and my house was taken away. My fight is with the ideology of RSS and BJP," Rahul Gandhi said.

The BJP and the Telangana Chief Minister have joined hands, and the BRS and BJP are working together, he said and cited BRS' support to the BJP in passing bills in Parliament.

On the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM, Rahul Gandhi said the AIMIM fields its candidates where the BJP wants it to.

"You don't think that AIMIM is fighting against BJP. Wherever Congress fights elections against BJP in any part of the country, the AIMIM fields its candidates to disturb the Congress. It is the BJP which tells the AIMIM where the candidates are to be fielded. This is the truth. The BJP benefits from AIMIM and AIMIM also benefits from BJP. And the same is with BJP and BRS. And the Telangana public suffers," he added.

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HYDERABAD: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday promised to conduct the caste census in Telangana if his party is voted to power in the state. Addressing corner meetings on the way from Bhupalpally to Peddapalli during the Congress' ongoing 'Vijayabheri' Yatra in the state, where Assembly elections will be held on November 30, he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao of not speaking on the issue. Rahul Gandhi said the biggest issue in the country is with regard to caste census and termed it an "X-ray" that will throw light on the condition of Dalits, tribals and OBCs, and added it will also determine how the country's funds are being distributed.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); He asked the people to question Modi and KCR as to when they will conduct the caste census, and said if the Congress is voted to power in Telangana then the first work his party's government will do is to take up "X-ray" in the state. ALSO READ | Rahul Gandhi not leader, just 'reader': K T Rama Rao He said Congress-ruled states-Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Karnataka- have been told to conduct caste census. "To fulfill the dreams of Telangana, caste census has to be conducted. I promise you, the Congress party will get the caste census done in Telangana," Rahul Gandhi said. The former Congress president said he had raised the issue of caste census in Parliament. He said that only 90 top officers/ bureaucrats run the country and only three of them belong to the OBC (Other Backward Classes) category. "These (OBC) officers control just five per cent of the budget," he claimed. "My question is whether the OBCs population in the country is just five per cent," he asked. He further said today loans worth billions of rupees of industrialists have been waived off. "Adani ji takes loans and his loans get waived off. Without asking, the loan is waived off. But bank loans of farmers, labourers, women and youth is never waived off. GST is taken from the pockets of shopkeepers and it goes into the pockets of Adani," he alleged. "We don't want such an India. That's why the first step is an "X-ray" of the country--the caste census. And a new chapter will be written in India's progress," he said. According to him, "X-ray" will also ascertain how much of Telangana's money the "Chief Minister's family "looted". Alleging that Telangana is the most corrupt state in country, Rahul Gandhi charged lakhs of crores of rupees has been snatched away from people and the Telangana model of corruption was being exported to other states. The Congress party has fulfilled the promises it made to the people of Karnataka and similarly the promises made to the people of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh were also fulfilled, he said. The Congress will implement its six guarantees in Telangana, he said, adding they have not come here with false promises and accused KCR of not fulfilling his electoral promises. Rahul Gandhi said the upcoming electoral battle is between Dorala (feudal lords) Telangana and Prajala (people's) Telangana and said he felt that KCR is going to lose the elections. "You (people) wanted that the people of Telangana should rule the state, but it has been 10 years your chief minister has gone far away from you and only one family has been ruling Telangana and it has complete control," he claimed. He said the BRS, BJP and AIMIM attack the Congress party and reiterated his charge that BJP government at the Centre misuses central agencies against opposition leaders to scare them. If the Telangana Chief Minister is really fighting against the BJP then why there are no cases against him and why no ED, IT and CBI inquiry happened against him, the former Congress chief asked. "I fight against the BJP and there are twenty-four cases against me. I was disqualified from Parliament and my house was taken away. My fight is with the ideology of RSS and BJP," Rahul Gandhi said. The BJP and the Telangana Chief Minister have joined hands, and the BRS and BJP are working together, he said and cited BRS' support to the BJP in passing bills in Parliament. On the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM, Rahul Gandhi said the AIMIM fields its candidates where the BJP wants it to. "You don't think that AIMIM is fighting against BJP. Wherever Congress fights elections against BJP in any part of the country, the AIMIM fields its candidates to disturb the Congress. It is the BJP which tells the AIMIM where the candidates are to be fielded. This is the truth. The BJP benefits from AIMIM and AIMIM also benefits from BJP. And the same is with BJP and BRS. And the Telangana public suffers," he added. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Shruti R By

Online Desk

People dying; others in searing pain, bleeding profusely; countless people dealing with the agony of having to flee their homes... The images emerging out of Israel and Gaza in recent days have been heart-rending. Caught in the midst of this tragedy are many Indians, faced with difficult decisions to make. On the one side are their lives and livelihood, on the other are their fears making them want to head home.

Arun Varghese, a native of Kerala, has now been in Israel for three years and works as a travel agent.

These days, he is busy responding to calls for help from Indians in Israel and Palestine.

(Arun at the embassy: Helping with evacuation)

Arun is part of a group of 18 Indians helping those in need with shelter and evacuation. His group has volunteers from across states like Kerala, Andhra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat who coordinate with the Indian embassy and prioritise who should be on the flights operating under 'Operation Ajay'.

"We coordinate with the Indian embassy to help those who wish to go back. We find those people, sort them based on how critical it is. Women who are pregnant, or those who have an emergency back home and need to go, reach out to us. So, we make a list and submit it to the embassy," explains Arun.

"As you know, the first evacuation flights have already taken off. The first preference is given to pregnant ladies, students and those who are ready to go, while the last preference is for those working on a regular visa, with jobs."

ALSO READ | Malayali caregivers guard Israeli couple from raiders

Ninety percent of the Indians in Israel (said to be around 18000-strong) are employed as caregivers. Others are in technical sectors like fabrication, and there are also a lot working in Intel and other companies. "These people get the last preference," Arun says.

"Seven thousand are from Kerala and the rest from other parts of India. Central Israel is not in a critical situation. There is no war there. But in north Israel, there is tension. We have already evacuated our people there. We don't know what will happen tomorrow. If tomorrow, there is a land war, we dont know how to survive," he stresses.

Recounting his experience watching the missiles rain in, Arun says, "I was in Tel Aviv and I saw some bombing. Israel has the most advanced defence systems like the Iron Dome, but still we saw some missiles. In this situation, it's not safe to travel. But people trust us and we have promised to help them. So, we can't cheat them. Most of them are women here. We have to stand with them."

(Picture: Arun at a site that was recently bombed.)



One of them was injured. Nurse Sheeja Anand was in Ashkelon in southern Israel, 50 km from Tel Aviv. She was injured in a missile attack. Sheeja sustained injuries on her legs, hands and stomach and is under treatment. She had to undergo multiple surgeries. Sheeja was eventually shifted to a different hospital for a second surgery. Post her surgeries, she now has to undergo physiotherapy.

Arun has been visiting Sheeja and helping her with hospital paperwork and insurance. "Most Indians would like to stay here. Those who work here earn a salary of at least Rs 1 lakh and in the present situation a job like that is very difficult to get. Food, internet and electricity is there now. There is no shortage. I will also continue to support my community and people as much as I can."

The Indian who lived through an attack in a bunker

Judin Joseph, from Kerala, currently residing in Be'er Sheva in Israel, is terrified by the sound of incoming missiles and sirens. He lives close to where the tragedy unfolded on October 7.

Explaining his ordeal, he recounts, "I am currently working as a caregiver. We are all scared. Some of those I know have died. Those living continue to fight. I stay 25-30 km from where the actual war is happening. Here, rocket firings and warning sirens are continuous. We run, hide and take shelter.

"We cannot go out alone. This started from 6 am on Saturday morning last week. We don't know how long this will go on. We don't step out much. We have food, electricity etc. in our area. The border area doesn't."

"One of my friends Jijo who works nearby stays near a village near the border in a kibbutz. Hamas targeted that kibbutz a few days ago, suddenly coming to his house and firing. Jijo was in the bunker and out of sight. That day, from morning to night, he had to sit inside the bunker without food or water. From the same village, around 20-25 people have been kidnapped. Now, all of them have been taken to the Gaza border. Jijo somehow managed to escape later and got here to safety."

Judin goes on to explain the dilemma people like him are facing.

"The Indian embassy has reached out and offered to help. But most of us don't want to leave. We cannot leave the senior citizens we have been looking after here. The Israeli government also has asked us to take care of them. Most of us also don't want to come back now because we have been working for years now, have PF and other benefits. We get Rs 1-2 lakhs per month as salary. If we give that up and come home, how will be survive? We have to support our kids, wife, parents etc. back home. In India, a nurse just gets paid Rs 20-25000 per month at the most. Who will give us a job if we all come suddenly? What do we do after coming back there?" he worries.

ALSO READ | Kerala-born Israeli mourns death of innocent lives in Israel-Gaza conflict

Jijo Chacko, the friend whom Judin talked about, also does not want to go back despite all that he had to go through. He talked of the attack.

"My place is called Kibbutz Nir Oz. There are about 15-20 kibbutzims near the border area of Gaza as there is a lot of agricultural activity. You could see Gaza directly from my kibbutz. I could see the people, mosques, churches and buildings there. In between, there is a fence on the border from where Hamas broke in.

"I came to know about the attack from a friend of mine who stays 2 km from Gaza. He called me on October 7 at 7:15 am and told me there were people inside his kibbutz with guns flashing. They had broken into the house and were randomly shooting at things. They also took hostages."

He then moved on to what happened where he was.

"In my kibbutz, there are three Indians. We also had an Israeli family who lived there with three children. Militants entered and killed the children in front of the mother and shot down the father. Militants tried to open the bunker to my house but couldn't. So, they took all the gold, a TV, laptop, my passport, money, mobiles etc. I was hiding inside the bunker and did not come out.

"Of the 400 people in my kibbutz, 156 are missing right now including foreign workers. One Filipino woman was taken to Gaza. Hamas militants burnt tires and threw it inside to smoke people out," he explained.

(Picture: List of missing people from Kibbutz Nir Oz)



Jijo works as a caregiver to Ronnie Gordan Joseph, an Israeli senior citizen whose 29-year-old daughter was kidnapped by Hamas in the attack. Ronnie is a father to three. The other daughter is in El'ad while the son is in the Army.

"I cannot leave him alone now. He has not heard back from his daughter since. They took old people also to Gaza. We don't have any information if they are alive," says Jijo.

Choices could not have been any starker.

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People dying; others in searing pain, bleeding profusely; countless people dealing with the agony of having to flee their homes... The images emerging out of Israel and Gaza in recent days have been heart-rending. Caught in the midst of this tragedy are many Indians, faced with difficult decisions to make. On the one side are their lives and livelihood, on the other are their fears making them want to head home. Arun Varghese, a native of Kerala, has now been in Israel for three years and works as a travel agent. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); These days, he is busy responding to calls for help from Indians in Israel and Palestine. (Arun at the embassy: Helping with evacuation) Arun is part of a group of 18 Indians helping those in need with shelter and evacuation. His group has volunteers from across states like Kerala, Andhra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat who coordinate with the Indian embassy and prioritise who should be on the flights operating under 'Operation Ajay'. "We coordinate with the Indian embassy to help those who wish to go back. We find those people, sort them based on how critical it is. Women who are pregnant, or those who have an emergency back home and need to go, reach out to us. So, we make a list and submit it to the embassy," explains Arun. "As you know, the first evacuation flights have already taken off. The first preference is given to pregnant ladies, students and those who are ready to go, while the last preference is for those working on a regular visa, with jobs." ALSO READ | Malayali caregivers guard Israeli couple from raiders Ninety percent of the Indians in Israel (said to be around 18000-strong) are employed as caregivers. Others are in technical sectors like fabrication, and there are also a lot working in Intel and other companies. "These people get the last preference," Arun says. "Seven thousand are from Kerala and the rest from other parts of India. Central Israel is not in a critical situation. There is no war there. But in north Israel, there is tension. We have already evacuated our people there. We don't know what will happen tomorrow. If tomorrow, there is a land war, we dont know how to survive," he stresses. Recounting his experience watching the missiles rain in, Arun says, "I was in Tel Aviv and I saw some bombing. Israel has the most advanced defence systems like the Iron Dome, but still we saw some missiles. In this situation, it's not safe to travel. But people trust us and we have promised to help them. So, we can't cheat them. Most of them are women here. We have to stand with them." (Picture: Arun at a site that was recently bombed.) One of them was injured. Nurse Sheeja Anand was in Ashkelon in southern Israel, 50 km from Tel Aviv. She was injured in a missile attack. Sheeja sustained injuries on her legs, hands and stomach and is under treatment. She had to undergo multiple surgeries. Sheeja was eventually shifted to a different hospital for a second surgery. Post her surgeries, she now has to undergo physiotherapy. Arun has been visiting Sheeja and helping her with hospital paperwork and insurance. "Most Indians would like to stay here. Those who work here earn a salary of at least Rs 1 lakh and in the present situation a job like that is very difficult to get. Food, internet and electricity is there now. There is no shortage. I will also continue to support my community and people as much as I can." The Indian who lived through an attack in a bunker Judin Joseph, from Kerala, currently residing in Be'er Sheva in Israel, is terrified by the sound of incoming missiles and sirens. He lives close to where the tragedy unfolded on October 7. Explaining his ordeal, he recounts, "I am currently working as a caregiver. We are all scared. Some of those I know have died. Those living continue to fight. I stay 25-30 km from where the actual war is happening. Here, rocket firings and warning sirens are continuous. We run, hide and take shelter. "We cannot go out alone. This started from 6 am on Saturday morning last week. We don't know how long this will go on. We don't step out much. We have food, electricity etc. in our area. The border area doesn't." "One of my friends Jijo who works nearby stays near a village near the border in a kibbutz. Hamas targeted that kibbutz a few days ago, suddenly coming to his house and firing. Jijo was in the bunker and out of sight. That day, from morning to night, he had to sit inside the bunker without food or water. From the same village, around 20-25 people have been kidnapped. Now, all of them have been taken to the Gaza border. Jijo somehow managed to escape later and got here to safety." Judin goes on to explain the dilemma people like him are facing. "The Indian embassy has reached out and offered to help. But most of us don't want to leave. We cannot leave the senior citizens we have been looking after here. The Israeli government also has asked us to take care of them. Most of us also don't want to come back now because we have been working for years now, have PF and other benefits. We get Rs 1-2 lakhs per month as salary. If we give that up and come home, how will be survive? We have to support our kids, wife, parents etc. back home. In India, a nurse just gets paid Rs 20-25000 per month at the most. Who will give us a job if we all come suddenly? What do we do after coming back there?" he worries. ALSO READ | Kerala-born Israeli mourns death of innocent lives in Israel-Gaza conflict Jijo Chacko, the friend whom Judin talked about, also does not want to go back despite all that he had to go through. He talked of the attack. "My place is called Kibbutz Nir Oz. There are about 15-20 kibbutzims near the border area of Gaza as there is a lot of agricultural activity. You could see Gaza directly from my kibbutz. I could see the people, mosques, churches and buildings there. In between, there is a fence on the border from where Hamas broke in. "I came to know about the attack from a friend of mine who stays 2 km from Gaza. He called me on October 7 at 7:15 am and told me there were people inside his kibbutz with guns flashing. They had broken into the house and were randomly shooting at things. They also took hostages." He then moved on to what happened where he was. "In my kibbutz, there are three Indians. We also had an Israeli family who lived there with three children. Militants entered and killed the children in front of the mother and shot down the father. Militants tried to open the bunker to my house but couldn't. So, they took all the gold, a TV, laptop, my passport, money, mobiles etc. I was hiding inside the bunker and did not come out. "Of the 400 people in my kibbutz, 156 are missing right now including foreign workers. One Filipino woman was taken to Gaza. Hamas militants burnt tires and threw it inside to smoke people out," he explained. (Picture: List of missing people from Kibbutz Nir Oz) Jijo works as a caregiver to Ronnie Gordan Joseph, an Israeli senior citizen whose 29-year-old daughter was kidnapped by Hamas in the attack. Ronnie is a father to three. The other daughter is in El'ad while the son is in the Army. "I cannot leave him alone now. He has not heard back from his daughter since. They took old people also to Gaza. We don't have any information if they are alive," says Jijo. Choices could not have been any starker. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
The Conversation By

US President Joe Biden visited Israel to lend support to the country in the midst of an already bloody war between the Israelis and Hamas, including the bombing of a Gaza City hospital that has left hundreds dead.

Following Bidens meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, its worth looking back at American foreign policy and the profound US mismanagement of ongoing crises in the Middle East over a period of decades. It illustrates how badly American domination has served international peace and stability.

Some have argued that Hamass attack on Israel is an indication of the chaos and disorder that will follow in an emerging multipolar world, meaning one in which the US is no longer firmly in control of international affairs.

But lets look at how that US control has worked out for the Middle East in the past. The current war in Gaza is a direct product of the failure of American foreign policy. Its an argument in favour of a multipolar world, one in which the US has less influence and other powers can act as countervailing forces.

Destabilizing influence

The US has a long history of destabilizing the Middle East, a critically important region of the world. In 1953, the US and the UK engineered a coup against democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and strengthened the shah of Iran.

The Shahs hated regime fell to the Iranian revolution in 1979. The result was the Islamic Republic of Iran, a state that has bedevilled the US and its allies ever since.

In 2003, the US illegally invaded Iraq, killing more than 300,000 people, and spreading chaos across the region. The so-called War on Terror has raged on, killing millions more, directly and indirectly, for years.

The American mishandling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is another substantial failure. Given its enormous leverage over both parties, the US could have taken more neutral steps to bring about a just end to the conflict long ago. Instead, it catered to increasingly radical Israeli governments, facilitating the brutal subjugation of the Palestinians and creating the pressure cooker that has now exploded.

Pressure cooker erupts

The United Nations has called Israels occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful under international law. For many decades, Israel has built settlements in the West Bank that amount to the de facto annexation of Palestine. Israel has also annexed East Jerusalem. Today, the Israeli settler population in occupied Palestine stands at 700,000.

The settlements violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. They are the single greatest obstacle to the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The US formally opposes Israeli settlements but has done nothing to actually stop them. Instead, its provided Israel with weapons and financial support and protected Israel from facing the consequences of its violations of international law in the United Nations and other international institutions.

This protection has apparently instilled in Israel an attitude of impunity. Israel builds settlements and oppresses Palestinians; the US either helps it do so or defends Israeli actions.

In 2021, the international NGO Human Rights Watch issued a report that said Palestinian deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. Other groups like Amnesty International say Palestinians are subject to regular violence and humiliation from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Jewish settlers.

The current Israeli government encourages and protects settler violence and has expressed an intent to annex what remains of Palestine. Indeed, its push for controversial judicial reform is connected to its designs on Palestinian land.

Open-air prison

Gaza has been described as an open-air prison. For 17 years, its been under an illegal blockade that violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which bans whats known as collective punishment.

Youth unemployment is 60 per cent; 97 per cent of the water is undrinkable; child malnutrition is rife.

Had the US used its global leverage to push Israel to adhere to international law, the situation might have been avoided. Instead, it enabled Israels expansionist ambitions while undermining international law.

The former Donald Trump administration abandoned any American pretence of even-handedness in the Israel-Palestine conflict, implementing the Abraham Accords, which were designed to sidestep the Palestinian issue altogether by creating economic ties between Israel and neighbouring Arab states.

Bidens administration has doubled down on Trumps efforts by pushing the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, again sidestepping the Palestinians.

Region on edge

There is no excusing Hamass incredibly violent actions on Oct. 7. But the attack has been linked to Israeli efforts to build ties with Arab nations like Saudi Arabia. As Biden spends time in Israel, its a stark reminder that the US is no longer qualified to mediate the conflict.

As the war claims thousands of Palestinian civilians, the region is in danger of exploding. Arabs are enraged; Hezbollah may intervene. The cost of oil may spike, further damaging the fragile world economy.

China helped re-establish diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia because it gets more than 50 per cent of its oil from the Middle East and has a powerful interest in regional peace.

Even so, it apparently has no desire to insert itself into a quagmire the US helped create. Other powers that rely on Middle Eastern oil have to endure the consequences of unbalanced and inept American policy.

The United States causes and exacerbates many of the problems and conflicts that it later seeks to manage. American strength has meant the rest of the world has had to accept this reality. But the sooner a truly multi-polar world emerges, the better it will likely be for global stability  and maybe even for the rule of law.

Shaun Narine

Professor of International Relations and Political Science, St. Thomas University (Canada)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Read the original article.

Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

US President Joe Biden visited Israel to lend support to the country in the midst of an already bloody war between the Israelis and Hamas, including the bombing of a Gaza City hospital that has left hundreds dead. Following Bidens meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, its worth looking back at American foreign policy and the profound US mismanagement of ongoing crises in the Middle East over a period of decades. It illustrates how badly American domination has served international peace and stability. Some have argued that Hamass attack on Israel is an indication of the chaos and disorder that will follow in an emerging multipolar world, meaning one in which the US is no longer firmly in control of international affairs.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); But lets look at how that US control has worked out for the Middle East in the past. The current war in Gaza is a direct product of the failure of American foreign policy. Its an argument in favour of a multipolar world, one in which the US has less influence and other powers can act as countervailing forces. Destabilizing influence The US has a long history of destabilizing the Middle East, a critically important region of the world. In 1953, the US and the UK engineered a coup against democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and strengthened the shah of Iran. The Shahs hated regime fell to the Iranian revolution in 1979. The result was the Islamic Republic of Iran, a state that has bedevilled the US and its allies ever since. In 2003, the US illegally invaded Iraq, killing more than 300,000 people, and spreading chaos across the region. The so-called War on Terror has raged on, killing millions more, directly and indirectly, for years. The American mishandling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is another substantial failure. Given its enormous leverage over both parties, the US could have taken more neutral steps to bring about a just end to the conflict long ago. Instead, it catered to increasingly radical Israeli governments, facilitating the brutal subjugation of the Palestinians and creating the pressure cooker that has now exploded. Pressure cooker erupts The United Nations has called Israels occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful under international law. For many decades, Israel has built settlements in the West Bank that amount to the de facto annexation of Palestine. Israel has also annexed East Jerusalem. Today, the Israeli settler population in occupied Palestine stands at 700,000. The settlements violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. They are the single greatest obstacle to the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The US formally opposes Israeli settlements but has done nothing to actually stop them. Instead, its provided Israel with weapons and financial support and protected Israel from facing the consequences of its violations of international law in the United Nations and other international institutions. This protection has apparently instilled in Israel an attitude of impunity. Israel builds settlements and oppresses Palestinians; the US either helps it do so or defends Israeli actions. In 2021, the international NGO Human Rights Watch issued a report that said Palestinian deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. Other groups like Amnesty International say Palestinians are subject to regular violence and humiliation from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Jewish settlers. The current Israeli government encourages and protects settler violence and has expressed an intent to annex what remains of Palestine. Indeed, its push for controversial judicial reform is connected to its designs on Palestinian land. Open-air prison Gaza has been described as an open-air prison. For 17 years, its been under an illegal blockade that violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which bans whats known as collective punishment. Youth unemployment is 60 per cent; 97 per cent of the water is undrinkable; child malnutrition is rife. Had the US used its global leverage to push Israel to adhere to international law, the situation might have been avoided. Instead, it enabled Israels expansionist ambitions while undermining international law. The former Donald Trump administration abandoned any American pretence of even-handedness in the Israel-Palestine conflict, implementing the Abraham Accords, which were designed to sidestep the Palestinian issue altogether by creating economic ties between Israel and neighbouring Arab states. Bidens administration has doubled down on Trumps efforts by pushing the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, again sidestepping the Palestinians. Region on edge There is no excusing Hamass incredibly violent actions on Oct. 7. But the attack has been linked to Israeli efforts to build ties with Arab nations like Saudi Arabia. As Biden spends time in Israel, its a stark reminder that the US is no longer qualified to mediate the conflict. As the war claims thousands of Palestinian civilians, the region is in danger of exploding. Arabs are enraged; Hezbollah may intervene. The cost of oil may spike, further damaging the fragile world economy. China helped re-establish diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia because it gets more than 50 per cent of its oil from the Middle East and has a powerful interest in regional peace. Even so, it apparently has no desire to insert itself into a quagmire the US helped create. Other powers that rely on Middle Eastern oil have to endure the consequences of unbalanced and inept American policy. The United States causes and exacerbates many of the problems and conflicts that it later seeks to manage. American strength has meant the rest of the world has had to accept this reality. But the sooner a truly multi-polar world emerges, the better it will likely be for global stability  and maybe even for the rule of law. Shaun NarineProfessor of International Relations and Political Science, St. Thomas University (Canada) This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Associated Press

VATICAN CITY: Two Vatican trials are coming to a head this week and posing uncomfortable questions for the Holy See, given they both underscore Pope Francis power as an absolute monarch and the legal, financial and reputational problems that can arise when he wields it.

On Wednesday, the Vaticans former in-house auditor was in court for a hearing in his 9.3 million euro wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the Holy See. Libero Milone says Vatican police forced his resignation in 2017 under the threat of arrest after he was told Francis had lost faith in him over his zealous attempts to audit Vatican monsignors.

The Vatican secretariat of state has objected to being named as a defendant in the suit, arguing it had nothing to do with Milones hiring or resignation and that the city state's tribunal had no place getting involved.

The rationale: The pope hired Milone and then wanted him out, and the court has no right to judge his decisions.

On Thursday, the Vaticans long-running financial fraud, extortion and corruption trial resumes, with defence attorneys offering final arguments ahead of a verdict expected before the end of the year.

On their first day of closing arguments earlier this month, lawyers for the former managers of the Vatican financial watchdog agency challenged key elements of the prosecutors case by underlining that Francis had approved the key transaction at the heart of the trial and that Vatican officials merely executed his will as required.

Even Vatican News, the Holy Sees in-house media which has been sympathetic to the prosecutors case from the start, acknowledged that the defence had provided a change in perspective for the narrative of the trial.

Prosecutors have charged 10 people, including a cardinal, with a host of alleged financial crimes stemming from the secretariat of states 350 million euro investment in a London property. Prosecutors allege Vatican monsignors and brokers fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions and then extorted the Holy See for 15 million euros to cede control of the building.

Much of the London case rests on the passage of the property from one London broker to another in late 2018. Prosecutors allege the second broker, Gianluigi Torzi, hoodwinked the Vatican by manoeuvring to secure full control of the building that he only relinquished when the Vatican paid him 15 million euros.

For Vatican prosecutors, that amounted to extortion. For the defence  and a British judge who rejected Vatican requests to seize Torzis assets  it was a negotiated exit from a legally binding contract.

The two former managers of the Vaticans financial watchdog, Rene Bruelhart and Tommaso Di Ruzza, are accused of abuse of office for having not blocked the payment to Torzi, and for not having reported it all to Vatican prosecutors.

Their lawyers, however, both cited the fact that Francis himself had asked them to help the secretariat of state wrest control of the property from Torzi once the Vatican realized it didnt actually own the building.

They cited written testimony from the Vatican chief of staff, Monsignor Edgar Pena Parra, who said Vatican lawyers in Britain and Luxembourg had advised against suing Torzi since their case was so weak: The Vatican had signed contracts clearly giving him control of the building.

Pena Parra said that on the basis of such advice, the Vatican chose to negotiate a payout with Torzi because that option was considered best in terms of cost, risk, and outcome.

It also appeared to be purely aligned with the will of the superior, he said, referring to Francis.

Bruelhart attorney Filippo Dinacci said once the pope decided on that course of action, the Vatican machinery was obliged to put it into effect and that it was paradoxical for those officials to now be on trial for abuse of office.

In his closing, he cited the principle of mutual collaboration enshrined in the Holy Sees founding constitution that all Vatican institutions are called to work with a unity of intent for the good of the church, headed by the pope as supreme authority.

Di Ruzza's attorney Roberto Borgogno concurred, saying there were no grounds to fault Di Ruzza or Bruelhart for not reporting the transaction to Vatican prosecutors since the deal was authorized by the pope and they regardless fulfilled their obligations by launching their own financial intelligence-gathering investigation.

Challenging another narrative of the prosecutors' case, Di Ruzza's team also noted that the Vatican bank  hailed by prosecutors and the pope for having triggered the investigation by flagging the London deal as suspicious  actually cost the Secretariat of State some 17 million euros in excess mortgage payments. The bank had dragged its feet and ultimately rejected a loan request to extinguish the onerous mortgage on the building; a loan subsequently secured from another Vatican office.

The Vatican is the lone absolute monarchy left in Europe, with Francis wielding supreme legislative, executive and judicial power. While he delegates that power on a day-to-day basis, he is still the pope and what he says goes.

Francis had strongly supported the trial, holding it up as evidence that his financial reforms were working. After two years of hearings, prosecutors in July asked the tribunal to convict all 10 defendants, sentence them to three to 13 years in prison and confiscate 415 million euros from them to claw back some of the losses the Vatican sustained.

But after two years, the trial has also become something of a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, with unseemly revelations about Vatican vendettas, spy stories and even ransom payments to Islamic militants playing out in court and subsequent media coverage.

The defence has also raised fundamental questions about the rule of law in the city-state, since Francis secretly changed the law four times during the investigation to benefit prosecutors, and then changed it again to allow a cardinal to stand trial.

The Rev. Filippo Di Giacomo, a canon lawyer and frequent Vatican commentator for Italys state-run RAI broadcaster said the trial had indeed exposed the Vatican to reputational harm given the numerous anomalies that came to light.

He cited Francis interventions in the investigation, the frequent confusion in the courtroom about what legal codes prevailed (Italian, Vatican, canonical or ad hoc) and the role of two mysterious women who persuaded the key suspect-turned-star witness to turn on his boss.

More than what some insist on calling a trial of the century, it looks more like a 19th-century show, with mediocre performers, he told an online magazine recently.

Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

VATICAN CITY: Two Vatican trials are coming to a head this week and posing uncomfortable questions for the Holy See, given they both underscore Pope Francis power as an absolute monarch and the legal, financial and reputational problems that can arise when he wields it. On Wednesday, the Vaticans former in-house auditor was in court for a hearing in his 9.3 million euro wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the Holy See. Libero Milone says Vatican police forced his resignation in 2017 under the threat of arrest after he was told Francis had lost faith in him over his zealous attempts to audit Vatican monsignors. The Vatican secretariat of state has objected to being named as a defendant in the suit, arguing it had nothing to do with Milones hiring or resignation and that the city state's tribunal had no place getting involved.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The rationale: The pope hired Milone and then wanted him out, and the court has no right to judge his decisions. On Thursday, the Vaticans long-running financial fraud, extortion and corruption trial resumes, with defence attorneys offering final arguments ahead of a verdict expected before the end of the year. On their first day of closing arguments earlier this month, lawyers for the former managers of the Vatican financial watchdog agency challenged key elements of the prosecutors case by underlining that Francis had approved the key transaction at the heart of the trial and that Vatican officials merely executed his will as required. Even Vatican News, the Holy Sees in-house media which has been sympathetic to the prosecutors case from the start, acknowledged that the defence had provided a change in perspective for the narrative of the trial. Prosecutors have charged 10 people, including a cardinal, with a host of alleged financial crimes stemming from the secretariat of states 350 million euro investment in a London property. Prosecutors allege Vatican monsignors and brokers fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions and then extorted the Holy See for 15 million euros to cede control of the building. Much of the London case rests on the passage of the property from one London broker to another in late 2018. Prosecutors allege the second broker, Gianluigi Torzi, hoodwinked the Vatican by manoeuvring to secure full control of the building that he only relinquished when the Vatican paid him 15 million euros. For Vatican prosecutors, that amounted to extortion. For the defence  and a British judge who rejected Vatican requests to seize Torzis assets  it was a negotiated exit from a legally binding contract. The two former managers of the Vaticans financial watchdog, Rene Bruelhart and Tommaso Di Ruzza, are accused of abuse of office for having not blocked the payment to Torzi, and for not having reported it all to Vatican prosecutors. Their lawyers, however, both cited the fact that Francis himself had asked them to help the secretariat of state wrest control of the property from Torzi once the Vatican realized it didnt actually own the building. They cited written testimony from the Vatican chief of staff, Monsignor Edgar Pena Parra, who said Vatican lawyers in Britain and Luxembourg had advised against suing Torzi since their case was so weak: The Vatican had signed contracts clearly giving him control of the building. Pena Parra said that on the basis of such advice, the Vatican chose to negotiate a payout with Torzi because that option was considered best in terms of cost, risk, and outcome. It also appeared to be purely aligned with the will of the superior, he said, referring to Francis. Bruelhart attorney Filippo Dinacci said once the pope decided on that course of action, the Vatican machinery was obliged to put it into effect and that it was paradoxical for those officials to now be on trial for abuse of office. In his closing, he cited the principle of mutual collaboration enshrined in the Holy Sees founding constitution that all Vatican institutions are called to work with a unity of intent for the good of the church, headed by the pope as supreme authority. Di Ruzza's attorney Roberto Borgogno concurred, saying there were no grounds to fault Di Ruzza or Bruelhart for not reporting the transaction to Vatican prosecutors since the deal was authorized by the pope and they regardless fulfilled their obligations by launching their own financial intelligence-gathering investigation. Challenging another narrative of the prosecutors' case, Di Ruzza's team also noted that the Vatican bank  hailed by prosecutors and the pope for having triggered the investigation by flagging the London deal as suspicious  actually cost the Secretariat of State some 17 million euros in excess mortgage payments. The bank had dragged its feet and ultimately rejected a loan request to extinguish the onerous mortgage on the building; a loan subsequently secured from another Vatican office. The Vatican is the lone absolute monarchy left in Europe, with Francis wielding supreme legislative, executive and judicial power. While he delegates that power on a day-to-day basis, he is still the pope and what he says goes. Francis had strongly supported the trial, holding it up as evidence that his financial reforms were working. After two years of hearings, prosecutors in July asked the tribunal to convict all 10 defendants, sentence them to three to 13 years in prison and confiscate 415 million euros from them to claw back some of the losses the Vatican sustained. But after two years, the trial has also become something of a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, with unseemly revelations about Vatican vendettas, spy stories and even ransom payments to Islamic militants playing out in court and subsequent media coverage. The defence has also raised fundamental questions about the rule of law in the city-state, since Francis secretly changed the law four times during the investigation to benefit prosecutors, and then changed it again to allow a cardinal to stand trial. The Rev. Filippo Di Giacomo, a canon lawyer and frequent Vatican commentator for Italys state-run RAI broadcaster said the trial had indeed exposed the Vatican to reputational harm given the numerous anomalies that came to light. He cited Francis interventions in the investigation, the frequent confusion in the courtroom about what legal codes prevailed (Italian, Vatican, canonical or ad hoc) and the role of two mysterious women who persuaded the key suspect-turned-star witness to turn on his boss. More than what some insist on calling a trial of the century, it looks more like a 19th-century show, with mediocre performers, he told an online magazine recently. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By AFP

BEIRUT: The US and British embassies in Beirut on Thursday advised citizens to leave Lebanon while flights "remain available" as border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah intensify over Israel's war with Hamas. Both countries had already warned citizens against travel to Lebanon.

"We recommend that US citizens in Lebanon make appropriate arrangements to leave the country; commercial options currently remain available," a US embassy statement said.

A similar warning was issued by the British embassy which said: "If you are currently in Lebanon, we encourage you to leave now while commercial options remain available."

"British nationals should exercise caution and avoid areas where demonstrations may be held," it added.

Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions have been trading daily cross-border fire with Israel after Hamas launched a massive October 7 assault on southern Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians.

Relentless Israeli strikes on Gaza have since killed at least 3,500 people, mostly civilians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory.

On Tuesday, the US State Department raised its travel advisory for Lebanon from level three to four -- the highest level available.

It authorised non-essential embassy personnel and their families to leave their embassy citing the unpredictable security situation due to the Israel-Hamas war.

Many Arab and Western countries have already encouraged their nationals to avoid travel to Lebanon or leave, with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday urging its citizens to leave Lebanon "immediately" and Kuwait also warning against travelling there.

France, Germany, Canada and Australia have also warned against travel to Lebanon, while Spain has advised against non-essential travel.

Cross-border tensions have killed at least 21 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally, mostly combatants but also three civilians including a Reuters journalist.

At least three people have been killed on the Israeli side.

Since Tuesday, like in many Arab capitals, demonstrators have taken to the streets of Beirut and its suburbs, including near the American and French embassies, to protest against a deadly strike on a Gaza hospital.

Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

BEIRUT: The US and British embassies in Beirut on Thursday advised citizens to leave Lebanon while flights "remain available" as border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah intensify over Israel's war with Hamas. Both countries had already warned citizens against travel to Lebanon. "We recommend that US citizens in Lebanon make appropriate arrangements to leave the country; commercial options currently remain available," a US embassy statement said. A similar warning was issued by the British embassy which said: "If you are currently in Lebanon, we encourage you to leave now while commercial options remain available."googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "British nationals should exercise caution and avoid areas where demonstrations may be held," it added. Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions have been trading daily cross-border fire with Israel after Hamas launched a massive October 7 assault on southern Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Relentless Israeli strikes on Gaza have since killed at least 3,500 people, mostly civilians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory. On Tuesday, the US State Department raised its travel advisory for Lebanon from level three to four -- the highest level available. It authorised non-essential embassy personnel and their families to leave their embassy citing the unpredictable security situation due to the Israel-Hamas war. Many Arab and Western countries have already encouraged their nationals to avoid travel to Lebanon or leave, with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday urging its citizens to leave Lebanon "immediately" and Kuwait also warning against travelling there. France, Germany, Canada and Australia have also warned against travel to Lebanon, while Spain has advised against non-essential travel. Cross-border tensions have killed at least 21 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally, mostly combatants but also three civilians including a Reuters journalist. At least three people have been killed on the Israeli side. Since Tuesday, like in many Arab capitals, demonstrators have taken to the streets of Beirut and its suburbs, including near the American and French embassies, to protest against a deadly strike on a Gaza hospital. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
This photo taken on Oct. 18, 2023 shows a scene of the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.(Xinhua/Xu Bingjie)

CHENGDU, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) opened on Wednesday in Chengdu, the capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention, which is one of the most anticipated, longest-running and largest sci-fi events in the world.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world.

Chengdu has made great efforts in recent years to develop its sci-fi culture industry and establish itself as China's science fiction base. It was selected to host the 2023 WorldCon in December 2021. 

A performer interacts with a robot dog at Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, the main venue for the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Oct. 18, 2023. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

This photo taken on Oct. 18, 2023 shows an art installation at Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, the main venue for the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

People visit Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, the main venue for the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Oct. 18, 2023. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

This photo taken on Oct. 18, 2023 shows an interior view of Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, the main venue for the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Xu Bingjie)

This photo taken on Oct. 18, 2023 shows a scene of the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Xu Bingjie)

This photo taken on Oct. 18, 2023 shows a scene of the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Xu Bingjie)

Sci-fi fans pose for photos at Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, the main venue for the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Oct. 18, 2023. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

This photo taken on Oct. 18, 2023 shows a drone show during the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

Actors perform a sci-fi show during the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Oct. 18, 2023. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

Performers dance during the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Oct. 18, 2023. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

People visit the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, main venue for the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Oct. 18, 2023. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

A model presents an artwork at Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, the main venue for the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Oct. 18, 2023. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

This photo taken on Oct. 18, 2023 shows a drone show during the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

This photo taken on Oct. 18, 2023 shows a scene of the opening ceremony of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The 81st WorldCon opened here on Wednesday. Chengdu is the second city in Asia and the first in China to host the convention.

Themed "Meet the Future," Chengdu WorldCon will highlight the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the city, presenting over 200 activities, panels and salons, the Hugo Awards, and themed exhibitions occupying an area of 5,000 square meters.

Famous sci-fi writers from around the world, including Hugo Award winners Liu Cixin and Robert J. Sawyer, are attending the five-day event, sharing their knowledge of new technology and their visions of a new world. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

Editor: JYZ
By AFP

PARIS: A rocket hit a hospital in Gaza late on Tuesday. The strike killed hundreds of Palestinians, according to the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry.

While world leaders have condemned the deaths and protests have erupted in Arab countries and the wider Muslim world, Israel and Palestinian militant groups have traded blame for the strike.

CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW LIVE UPDATES ON ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

What happened?

At around 1700 GMT on Tuesday, the health ministry in Gaza said an Israeli air strike had hit the Christian-run Ahli Arab Hospital in central Gaza City.

Israel denied it was responsible, pinning the blame on a misfired rocket aimed at Israeli territory by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from near the hospital.

The Gaza health ministry said at least 471 people had been killed and more than 300 wounded, some in critical condition.

A senior European intelligence source told AFP he believed a maximum of 50 people were killed.

Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus has also disputed the Hamas-run ministry's figures, asking "where are all the bodies?"

Hamas has dismissed Israel's position, saying its "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone."

AFP correspondents saw dozens of bodies at the scene, with medics and civilians recovering bodies wrapped in white cloth, blankets or black plastic bags. Bloodstains and torched cars could be seen in the hospital courtyard.

Images of the hospital after the strike published by the Maxar satellite monitoring group show the hospital buildings mainly appeared to be intact.

ALSO READ | Palestinians in Gaza feel nowhere is safe amid unrelenting Israeli airstrikes

Maxar said their images reveal "a probable discoloured blast area in the main parking area of the hospital compound" with no "significant structural damage to the adjacent buildings."

Violence has spiralled since Hamas militants stormed across the border into southern Israel on October 7 and shot, stabbed and burnt to death more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.

At least 3,478 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched a ferocious air and artillery bombardment in retaliation, according to the health ministry.

Tens of thousands of families have sought refuge from the bombardment in and around Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals.

What do both sides say?

While Hamas said the damage came from an Israeli air strike, the Israeli army said militants from another Islamist group -- Islamic Jihad -- had caused the explosion with a misfired rocket.

"The evidence -- which we are sharing with you all -- confirms that the explosion at the hospital in Gaza was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired," military spokesman Daniel Hagari told a press conference in Tel Aviv.

He said Israel's trajectory analysis showed the rockets were fired "in close proximity to the hospital."

Speaking in a video released on Wednesday, Conricus said that footage from the site showed too little damage to nearby buildings and too small an impact crater for an Israeli strike.

"When a big bomb, like the ones we use, hits the ground it creates a very big crater," he said, adding: "Why isn't there a big crater? Because it wasn't an Israeli bomb."

ALSO READ | 'This is a massacre': Gaza takes stock after deadly hospital strike

The spokesman said the level of fire damage was instead indicative of a rocket, saying of the hospital courtyard "this is exactly what a rocket impact site in Israel looks like."

Islamic Jihad has said Israel was only trying to evade responsibility for the deaths. "We therefore affirm that the accusations put forward by the enemy are false and baseless," the group said.

Hamas said Israel "is directly responsible for this horrific massacre which was carried out... with American weapons only the occupation possesses."

Israel has also denied that the explosion was caused by its Iron Dome missile defence system, saying the system is not used to "intercept rockets inside Gaza" but prevent them from hitting Israeli territory.

How has the world reacted?

US President Joe Biden, on a trip to Israel to show solidarity, said he was "deeply saddened and outraged" by the hospital explosion and backed Israel's account. "Based on the information we've seen to date, it appears as a result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza," he said, after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.

Governments in Arab countries and the wider Muslim world have largely backed Hamas's account of the hospital deaths, expressing outrage at Israeli strikes on civilian populations.

Even countries with diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, blamed Israel for the strike. From Tehran to Tripoli, thousands have joined protests against Israel following calls for a "day of rage" across the region.

Governments in Europe have condemned the strike, but without attributing blame.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said there is "no excuse for hitting a hospital full of civilians" in Gaza, but did not apportion blame for the blast.

Russia described the strike as a "crime" and an "act of dehumanisation", calling on Israel to provide proof it was not involved.

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PARIS: A rocket hit a hospital in Gaza late on Tuesday. The strike killed hundreds of Palestinians, according to the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry. While world leaders have condemned the deaths and protests have erupted in Arab countries and the wider Muslim world, Israel and Palestinian militant groups have traded blame for the strike. CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW LIVE UPDATES ON ISRAEL-HAMAS WARgoogletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); What happened? At around 1700 GMT on Tuesday, the health ministry in Gaza said an Israeli air strike had hit the Christian-run Ahli Arab Hospital in central Gaza City. Israel denied it was responsible, pinning the blame on a misfired rocket aimed at Israeli territory by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from near the hospital. The Gaza health ministry said at least 471 people had been killed and more than 300 wounded, some in critical condition. A senior European intelligence source told AFP he believed a maximum of 50 people were killed. Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus has also disputed the Hamas-run ministry's figures, asking "where are all the bodies?" Hamas has dismissed Israel's position, saying its "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone." AFP correspondents saw dozens of bodies at the scene, with medics and civilians recovering bodies wrapped in white cloth, blankets or black plastic bags. Bloodstains and torched cars could be seen in the hospital courtyard. Images of the hospital after the strike published by the Maxar satellite monitoring group show the hospital buildings mainly appeared to be intact. ALSO READ | Palestinians in Gaza feel nowhere is safe amid unrelenting Israeli airstrikes Maxar said their images reveal "a probable discoloured blast area in the main parking area of the hospital compound" with no "significant structural damage to the adjacent buildings." Violence has spiralled since Hamas militants stormed across the border into southern Israel on October 7 and shot, stabbed and burnt to death more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials. At least 3,478 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched a ferocious air and artillery bombardment in retaliation, according to the health ministry. Tens of thousands of families have sought refuge from the bombardment in and around Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals. What do both sides say? While Hamas said the damage came from an Israeli air strike, the Israeli army said militants from another Islamist group -- Islamic Jihad -- had caused the explosion with a misfired rocket. "The evidence -- which we are sharing with you all -- confirms that the explosion at the hospital in Gaza was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired," military spokesman Daniel Hagari told a press conference in Tel Aviv. He said Israel's trajectory analysis showed the rockets were fired "in close proximity to the hospital." Speaking in a video released on Wednesday, Conricus said that footage from the site showed too little damage to nearby buildings and too small an impact crater for an Israeli strike. "When a big bomb, like the ones we use, hits the ground it creates a very big crater," he said, adding: "Why isn't there a big crater? Because it wasn't an Israeli bomb." ALSO READ | 'This is a massacre': Gaza takes stock after deadly hospital strike The spokesman said the level of fire damage was instead indicative of a rocket, saying of the hospital courtyard "this is exactly what a rocket impact site in Israel looks like." Islamic Jihad has said Israel was only trying to evade responsibility for the deaths. "We therefore affirm that the accusations put forward by the enemy are false and baseless," the group said. Hamas said Israel "is directly responsible for this horrific massacre which was carried out... with American weapons only the occupation possesses." Israel has also denied that the explosion was caused by its Iron Dome missile defence system, saying the system is not used to "intercept rockets inside Gaza" but prevent them from hitting Israeli territory. How has the world reacted? US President Joe Biden, on a trip to Israel to show solidarity, said he was "deeply saddened and outraged" by the hospital explosion and backed Israel's account. "Based on the information we've seen to date, it appears as a result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza," he said, after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. Governments in Arab countries and the wider Muslim world have largely backed Hamas's account of the hospital deaths, expressing outrage at Israeli strikes on civilian populations. Even countries with diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, blamed Israel for the strike. From Tehran to Tripoli, thousands have joined protests against Israel following calls for a "day of rage" across the region. Governments in Europe have condemned the strike, but without attributing blame. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said there is "no excuse for hitting a hospital full of civilians" in Gaza, but did not apportion blame for the blast. Russia described the strike as a "crime" and an "act of dehumanisation", calling on Israel to provide proof it was not involved. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Mumbai, October 17

V eteran actor Anupam Kher recalled watching Bollywood's Dream Girl Hema Malini shooting for her film 'Kudrat' during his college days.

While sharing glimpses from the birthday bash hosted by 'Seeta Aur Geeta' actor on his Instagram handle, he wrote in the caption, "Hema Malini ji is undoubtedly the most graceful and dignified lady in the Indian film Industry. I was in college when I first saw her shooting for #Kudrat film. I was 24 then. After getting into films I was lucky to have worked with her in some movies."

"Yesterday was her 75th birthday. She hosted a party. It was one of the most enjoyable evenings. Full of music, fun and nostalgia. And even after so many years #HemaJi has the same grace, dignity, magic and inner beauty! May God give her long, happy and healthy life. Hema ji ki jai ho! #HappyBirthdayHemaJi #Dreamgirl," he added.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyfBMs6CGME/?img_index=1

Hema Malini celebrated her birthday yesterday. She hosted a grand party, which was attended by who's who of Bollywood.

From Rekha, Anupam Kher, Jaya Bachchan to Salman Khan, Rani Mukerji, Vidya Balan, Raveena Tandon, a slew of stars marked their presence at Hema Malini's birthday celebrations in Mumbai.

For the occasion, Hema wore a stunning pink saree with statement jewellery. Her daughter Esha amped up her fashion game in a golden gown. Salman looked dapper in a black blazer that he paired with a black shirt and black jeans.

Raveena Tandon wore a shiny co-ord set. Jackie Shroff posed for paps with a plant in his hand.

Rani Mukerji arrived at the bash in a gorgeous blue saree.

Esha penned a note and shared pictures wishing her mother on her 75th birthday. She wrote, "Happy birthday mamm. Celebrating you today & forever.. a divine lady who lives life on her own terms with utmost grace & dignity.. a powerhouse.. A loving daughter & wife, compassionate mother, adorable grandmother, fantastic actor, graceful dancer, honest politician & the list can just go on & on..."

She also added, "You are a force .. blessed by your parents, loved by the nation & adored by your husband, daughters & grandchildren. There can be only one Dream girl one Hemamalini ..stay blessed, happy, healthy & strong. I love you."

In the pictures, Esha gave a peck on her mother's cheek and also hugged her.

Hema Malini is also a politician. She won the Mathura Lok Sabha seat for two consecutive terms in 2014 and 2019 on a BJP ticket. Before that, she was a member of the Rajya Sabha.

On the other hand, Kher was recently seen in the Extraction series, 'The Freelancer'. He was also in 'The Vaccine War', which was released on September 28. Kher is also all set to come with his 528th film, the Telugu drama, 'Tiger Nageswara Rao'.

'Tiger Nageswara Rao' is a period film set in the 1970s based on real incidents around a notorious and courageous thief (Ravi Teja) and the people of Stuartpuram. Written and directed by Vamsee, the film is produced by Abhishek Agarwal under the Abhishek Agarwal Arts banner and presented by Tej Narayan Agarwal.

Kher has also completed the shoot of his film 'Calorie' in Amritsar, Punjab. The film is directed by Canadian director Eisha Marjara.

Anupam Kher recalls watching Hema Malini shooting for 'Kudrat' during his college days

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I feel very blessed, grateful: Kriti Sanon on winning Best Actress National Film Award for 'Mimi'

New Delhi, October 17

A ctor Kriti Sanon was conferred with the Best Actress Award at the 69th National Film Awards here on Tuesday for her performance in the film 'Mimi'.

Kriti received the award from President Droupadi Murmu at a ceremony that took place at the Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

Kriti arrived at the ceremony along with her parents.

On winning the prestigious award, Kriti said, "Just very very overwhelmed. I feel very blessed & grateful. It is a very special moment, especially for Mimi & also my parents were here watching me. I don't think I've felt this before."

She looked beautiful at the award ceremony as she donned a pastel saree that complemented the Indian culture.

Kriti jointly won the Best Actress award with Alia Bhatt, who won it for her performance in the film 'Gangubai Kathiawadi'.

'Mimi' tells the story of a young woman named Mimi (Kriti) who agrees to become a surrogate mother for a foreign couple, hoping to use the money to fulfil her dream of becoming an actress. However, the biological parents back out when they learn that the child will be born with Down syndrome. Mimi then decides to raise the child on her own and faces several challenges and societal pressures as a single mother. Her journey as a mother and her struggle to provide for her child despite the odds is both heartwarming and inspiring.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Kriti will be next seen in the action thriller film 'Ganapath: A Hero is Born' opposite Tiger Shroff.

She also has 'The Crew' and 'Do Patti' in her kitty.

I feel very blessed, grateful: Kriti Sanon on winning Best Actress National Film Award for 'Mimi'

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Basking in 'Best Actor' glow, Kriti Sanon posts adorable pictures with Alia Bhatt, Allu Arjun from National Awards ceremony

Mumbai, October 18

O ver the moon after receiving the National Award for 'Best Actor' for her performance in the acclaimed comedy-drama 'Mimi', actor Kriti Sanon took to her Instagram handle to share pictures from the event.

At the 69th National Awards ceremony in the national capital on Tuesday, Kriti received the 'Best Actress' award from President Droupadi Murmu.

In one of the images that she shared with her fans on social media, Kriti is seen giving a warm hug to Alia Bhatt, who also won the 'Best Actor' award for her performance in the Sanjay Leela Bhansali directorial 'Gangubai Kathawadi'.

In the other images, she is seen posing with fellow honorees at the 69th National Awards, including her 'Mimi' co-star Pankaj Tripathi, producer-filmmaker Karan Johar, and 'Best Actor' winner Allu Arjun, among others.

She captioned the images as, "Happy faces sharing a proud moment together@alluarjunonline @aliaabhatt @pankajtripathi @karanjohar @shreyaghoshal @thisisdsp."

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyhrwDLLFTu/?img_index=1

Kriti's parents were also seen in attendance at the prestigious award ceremony.

She also shared happy pictures with her proud parents. In one of the images, she is seen sitting on the lap of her parents, showing off her medal and certificate.

"The feeling is not easy to describe in words...Today will be one of the most memorable days of my life! Missed vou @nupursanon 6#NationalAward #BestActress #Mimi," she wrote in her Insta post.

In another post, Kriti shared videos and pictures from the moment she went on stage to receive the award from the President.

"The BIG Moment!! Missed you #Dinoo & @laxman.utekar !! So so much," she captioned the post.

'Mimi' tells the story of a young woman who agrees to become a surrogate mother for a foreign couple, hoping to use the money to fulfil her dream of becoming an actor. However, the biological parents back out when they learn that the baby will be born with Down syndrome. Mimi then decides to raise the child on her own and faces several challenges and societal pressures as a single mother.

Her journey as a mother and her struggles to provide for her child despite the odds made for a heartwarming and inspiring story, which resonated with the audience.

In the coming months, Kriti will be seen in the action-thriller 'Ganapath: A Hero is Born' opposite Tiger Shroff. She also has 'The Crew' and 'Do Patti' in her kitty.

Basking in 'Best Actor' glow, Kriti Sanon posts adorable pictures with Alia Bhatt, Allu Arjun from National Awards ceremony

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Jackie Shroff starrer spy thriller 'Two Zero One Four' motion poster unveiled

Mumbai, October 18

A ctor Jackie Shroff is all set to come up with his upcoming spy thriller film 'Two Zero One Four.'

Taking to X, trade analyst Taran Adarsh shared, "JACKIE SHROFF: 'TWO ZERO ONE FOUR' MOTION POSTER OUT... MARCH 2024 RELEASE... Team #TwoZeroOneFour - a spy thriller - unveils the #MotionPoster... March 2024 release. Stars #JackieShroff along with #AkshayOberoi, #MukeshRishi, #ShishirSharma and #UdayTikekar... Directed by #ShravanTiwari... Produced by #SandipPatel. #SRHPFilms"

https://twitter.com/taran_adarsh/status/1714134430233845843?s=46&t=RpPIEKIpCTHPpU-bQj2oUA

'Two Zero One Four' follows Captain Khanna, a retired army officer with extensive intelligence experience, who remains sought after for critical missions. His life takes a turn when he's tasked with interrogating Firoz Masani, a prominent Pakistani terrorist. This routine task uncovers a sprawling conspiracy involving foreign secret agents.

Jackie Shroff, who plays the role of Captain Khanna in 'Two Zero One Four,' said, "Being a part of Two Zero One Four has been an exhilarating journey. It's a story that delves into the complexities of espionage, and my character is unlike any I've portrayed before. This film is a thrilling rollercoaster ride filled with suspense and action that will keep the audience on the edge of their seats."

Director Shravan Tiwari shared his thoughts on the film. "In Two Zero One Four, we aim to deliver a gripping and authentic spy thriller that not only entertains but also offers a glimpse into the high-stakes world of espionage. It's a story of courage, intrigue, and the unwavering pursuit of justice, and we can't wait to unveil it to the audience," he said.

The movie digs into the world of international espionage, where a nation rises despite all odds, a leader strives to become well-known on a global scale, and other spy agencies work together to thwart their plans.

Apart from Jackie, 'Two Zero One Four' boasts an ensemble cast that includes Akshay Oberoi, Mukesh Rishi, Shishir Sharma, and Uday Tikekar.

Directed by Shravan Tiwari and produced by Sandip Patel, this gripping spy thriller will showcase the world of international espionage and covert operations. The movie is all set to release in March 2024.

Jackie Shroff starrer spy thriller 'Two Zero One Four' motion poster unveiled

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There is always something to learn from him: Kriti Sanon on working with Amitabh Bachchan in 'Ganapath'

New Delhi, October 18

A ctor Kriti Sanon on Wednesday opened up on working with megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the upcoming action thriller film 'Ganapath: A Hero is Born'.

During a promotional event of 'Ganapath' in New Delhi, Kriti shared, "Whenever I bumps into him actually anywhere, there is always something to learn from him. Even if you watch him just talk or how he just greets people, he is so warm. You get to learn a lot from him, he is a legend. To be a part of the same film as him is a huge deal. Personally I not had scenes with him in this film, I hope in the next film I do."

Helmed by Vikas Bahl 'Ganapath: A Hero is Born' stars Tiger Shroff, Kriti Sanon and Amitabh Bachchan in the lead roles. This is the first time that Big B is working with Tiger Shroff and Kriti Sanon.

Recently the makers unveiled the official trailer of the film which received decent responses from the fans.

The trailer begins with a voiceover introducing Tiger as the 'chosen one'. The voice also says that he is a symbol of hope for people who are being oppressed. In the trailer, Tiger can be seen acting in high-octane action scenes. He is later joined by Kriti Sanon, who is an expert with nunchaku (a kind of weapon used in martial arts).

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan also marked his special appearance in the trailer.

The film is set for a worldwide release in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada on October 20.

There is always something to learn from him: Kriti Sanon on working with Amitabh Bachchan in 'Ganapath'

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Mumbai, October 18

A ctor Rani Mukerji completed 27 years in the Hindi film industry on Wednesday.

The actor had made her Bollywood debut in the film 'Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat.'

Ecstatic about her journey, Rani said, "27 years have passed and it doesn't feel like 27 years for sure! Looking back at the moment right now, I feel that I have just debuted in a film a few years back! I'm still as hungry as I was in my first film. Just to think of Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat, my first film and what I learnt in that film, is something that I will never forget. What I didn't realise as a newcomer then, was the magical world of cinema that I was getting into because I wasn't the regular wide-eyed person who wanted to join cinema. It was something more like I was asked to do, told to do. So I got into it, and I did not understand much."

She added, "Today when I look back, I'm not sure if I had not been an actor, what I would have been. I did have certain other professions in mind that I wanted to chase, like being an interior designer but I don't think I would have gotten this kind of love that I have gotten for the last 27 years from people around the world, who are my fans, who obviously have admired my work and given me so much of strength and courage through the years. I have organically made a family, beyond my own family, which I think is very precious to me. Our fans don't normally realise this but the adrenaline rush that we get when we see the love that they have for us, makes us strive harder."

Rani fondly remembered the day when Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat was released and said, "18th October 1996, when Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat released, my family and I were going through a lot then. It also takes me back to the fact that my father was having a very important heart surgery at that time and I remember him going to the theatre to watch my first film in Gaiety Galaxy. On his way back he got discharged! I remember him weeping like a child in happiness after seeing the love I received from the audience when they clapped and whistled at my dialogues! That memory is something that will never leave me ever! His enthusiasm his pride and his love for me are beyond what I can explain verbally!!. Finally, his daughter became a movie star something that he never would have imagined for me."

She further added, "When you go back 27 years, there are things that have happened that keep flashing in front of your eyes and obviously I thank Salim's uncle, Ashok Gaikwad, Shadaab Khan, my co-star Divya Dutta, Saeed Jaffrey, Asrani Ji, Gulshan Grover, Raza Murad, Mohnish Behl and so many people from the film. My DOP Anwar Siraz, the choreographers then - Nimish Bhatt, Rekha Chinni Prakash, Chinni Prakash, people who I remember from that time, were really kind to me and it felt like a family on set."

On a concluding note, Rani said, "I have to thank the audience for accepting me with my first film and giving me so much affection. For a young artiste, the love from the audience means everything to me and I was blessed to get that. I have to also thank the critics who appreciated my work in my first film! Critics shape my perception towards a film or an actor and they were also instrumental towards boosting my confidence towards my craft. The combination of validation that I got from the audience and critics made me really happy as it told me to chase my dreams with even more conviction! I am really grateful for this journey that I have had and I am extremely happy and proud that I have been at it for the last 27 years! It makes me even more excited to think what my next 27 years are going to be in cinema!"

Meanwhile, Rani has received numerous awards, including seven Filmfare Awards. Mukerji's first financial triumph came with the action picture 'Ghulam,' followed by her breakthrough with the romance 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.' Mukerji rose to prominence by appearing in commercially popular romance films such as 'Chalte Chalte,' 'Hum Tum,' 'Veer-Zaara,' and 'Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna,' as well as the comedy film 'Bunty Aur Babli.'

Rani was last seen in 'Mrs. Chatterjee VS Norway' and was lauded for her performance. Directed by Ashima Chibber, 'Mrs. Chatterjee VS Norway' talks about the life of an immigrant mother who fights against all odds to win back the custody of her children. Neena Gupta, Jim Sarbh and Bengali actor Anirban Bhattacharya played pivotal roles in the movie.

I wasn't a regular person who wanted to join cinema: Rani Mukerji as she completes 27 years in Bollywood

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In September and October 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping successively proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, or the Belt and Road initiative (BRI), which has evoked memories of the countries and regions along the route and opened up a brand-new chapter of international cooperation.

The BRI is based on the principle of broad consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits as it advocates the concept of win-win cooperation and commitment to the greater good and shared interests, and upholds the belief that all countries are equal participants, contributors and beneficiaries in economic integration and common development. Principles of the BRI have been incorporated into important documents of international organizations and mechanisms, such as the United Nations and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

This aerial photo taken on Sept. 10, 2023 shows the headquarters building of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The China-aided Africa CDC (Phase I) project was completed in January 2023, which is the first all-African CDC on the African continent with modern office and laboratory conditions and complete facilities. (Xinhua/Wang Guansen)

The principle of consultation means advocating and practicing genuine multilateralism, insisting that common challenges be handled by all humanity, respecting the differences in development levels, economic structures, legal systems and cultural traditions of various countries, emphasizing equal participation, communication and consultation, pooling ideas together without any political or economic conditions, and maximizing consensus on a voluntary basis.

The principle of co-construction means participation by all parties, aligning with the development strategies of the countries and regions concerned, exploring the development potentials and advantages of all parties, and creating new opportunities, injecting new impetus into and expanding new space for development so as to achieve complementarity and interconnected development.

The principle of sharing highlights mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, seeking the convergence of interests and the broadest common ground for cooperation among all parties, meeting the development needs of all parties and to respond to the real aspirations of the people, and sharing development opportunities among all parties to ensure that no country is left behind.

This photo taken on Sept. 20, 2022 shows the Doraleh Multi-Purpose Port, constructed by China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), in Djibouti City, capital of Djibouti. (Xinhua/Dong Jianghui)

The BRI will firmly uphold the authority and status of the United Nations, strengthen the status and effectiveness of multilateral governance platforms such as the World Trade Organization, and inject strong impetus into the existing governance mechanisms. The BRI has rolled out the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to enhance global governance, and boost cooperation in the fields of deep sea, polar regions and outer space exploration, as well as cyberspace and artificial intelligence with a view to expanding multilateralism.

Contributed by Light Blade

Editor: JYZ
With the highest goal of building a community of shared future, the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) has set up a practical platform and blazed a path for achieving this goal, which represents a beautiful vision and an important public product for improving global governance. The BRI transcends different regions, civilizations, stages of development, ideological differences, and social systems, and promotes opportunities sharing, common development and common prosperity among all countries, so as to build a community of interests, responsibility and destiny with mutual political trust, economic integration and cultural tolerance. It has become a vivid practice of building the global community of shared future.

This aerial photo taken on July 20, 2023 shows trains of Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway (HSR) parking near a train station in Bandung, Indonesia. (Xinhua/Xu Qin)

As an initiative for development, cooperation and openness, the goal of the BRI is to achieve mutual benefit and win-win results, common development and prosperity, and to build a global community of shared future. The BRI is not only for the development of China, but also for the world. The initiative is well aligned with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in terms of concepts, targets and goals. It is not only a major initiative for Chinas opening up at a higher level aimed at higher-quality development, but also one that delivers opportunities to the rest of the world. Its not only a Chinese proposal for solving global problems and promoting the modernization of all countries together, but also a more dynamic, inclusive and sustainable plan for equitable development of all countries.

The BRI is an antithesis of the law of the jungle and the hegemonic mindset, and rejects the zero-sum game concept. It transcends national boundaries, ideological differences, differences in development stages and social systems, and goes beyond geopolitical interests. It promotes win-win opening-up and cooperation, shared responsibility, and joint governance, and strives to foster a peaceful, stable environment that is conducive to development.

This aerial photo taken on Sept. 20, 2023 shows a view of the Keffi Road project in Nigeria. The Keffi Road project, contracted by the China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC), comprised the construction of the Abuja-Keffi expressway and dualization of Keffi-Akwanga-Lafia-Makurdi road in central Nigeria. Started in 2019 and completed this year, the project is facilitating local economic activities along with job opportunities and road-construction expertise. (Xinhua/Dong Jianghui)

Over the past 10 years, the BRI has focused on the fundamental issue of development, addressed the weak links and bottlenecks that constrain development, created a new engine for economic development and a new environment and space for national development, enhanced the capacity and confidence of national development, and improved peoples well-being. It strives to build a paradigm featuring benefits for all, balance, coordination, inclusiveness, win-win cooperation and common prosperity, enhance the driving force for global development, add vitality to economic globalization, and address development imbalance and promote the modernization of all countries.

The BRI has shaped peoples new understanding and imagination of the world, created a new concept and paradigm for international exchanges, made the global governance system more just and reasonable, and is leading humanity to a better future.

Contributed by Light Blade

Editor: JYZ
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After several meetings with the city, Unit 4's Shelia Boozer said Monday night, the district has submitted a revised plan for how it would use the $525,000 from Champaign's American Rescue Plan Act funding if given a second chance. That appears likely.
Israels defense minister has told ground troops to be ready to enter the Gaza Strip, though he didnt say when the invasion will start
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In the past decade, Brazil and China have fostered a robust trade partnership, reaching record-breaking figures last year.

Ranielly Veloso, jornalist of Brazilian TV Meio Norte, emphasizes the strengthening ties between Brazil and China, especially in the wake of recent political changes. Despite Brazil not yet being officially part of the Belt and Road Initiative, there exists a close-knit relationship between the two countries. Ranielly highlights that this partnership is not one-sided; its a mutually beneficial alliance where both nations gain. China gains access to crucial infrastructure areas in Brazil, while Brazil benefits from Chinese technology, experience, and profitable investments.

Stay tuned as we delve deeper into this flourishing relationship, exploring how Brazil and China are paving the way for a brighter, mutually prosperous future.

Editor: WRX
A major new study led by RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and Children's Health Ireland (CHI) has been awarded funding of 5.6M to work with babies and children in Ireland and the UK over the next five years to build a better understanding of cystic fibrosis.

Children born in the 2020s with cystic fibrosis often have more treatment options and potentially better outcomes than those born with the disease in previous decades. But there is still much we need to understand about cystic fibrosis in babies and children in this new era of care.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited disease that mainly affects the lungs and digestive system. Ireland has the highest incidence of the condition in the world: approximately 1,400 children and adults in Ireland live with the condition and typically more than 30 new cases of CF are diagnosed here each year, usually in the first few weeks of life.

The ENHANCE study - Establishing Natural History in an Advanced New CF Care Era - will be led by the CF research team at Children's Health Ireland and will be carried out at 13 paediatric (children's) CF clinic sites in Ireland and the UK.

"The ways that we can help children with CF have evolved considerably over the last 15 years, notably with new medicines becoming available, and many children will start these treatments from very early in life," says Paul McNally, Associate Professor of Paediatrics at RCSI and Consultant in Respiratory Medicine at CHI. "This means the outlook for children with CF is considerably better than it was 15 years ago, but there is much about this that we don't yet understand."

The ENHANCE study will monitor how CF complications develop in small children, and how different groups of children with CF develop features of the disease. The research will also compare children of a similar age with and without CF.

"There is so much to learn about the changes that are happening in children with CF, we are really excited about this new study," said RCSI's Paul McNally, who emphasised the importance of working closely with the CF community.

"We spent a long time working with parents of children with CF in Ireland and the UK to understand how best to design the study, as we wanted to ensure we are concentrating on the things that are most relevant to children with CF and their parents in this new era," he said. "Parents of children with CF and other representatives from the CF community will be part of the study group and help us to ensure that we stay focused on our goals".

Paul McNally will lead ENHANCE with Jane Davies, a consultant in paediatric respiratory medicine at Royal Brompton Hospital, part of Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and a Professor at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London.

"ENHANCE will be a really important study for the whole CF community," said Professor Davies. "By including children from underrepresented groups and those who cannot access some CF treatments we will get a broad and comprehensive understanding of this new era of CF in childhood. While we have made much progress as a community, more remains to be done, and it is through studies like ENHANCE that we can understand and focus on the next challenges faced by children with CF and their families."

Funding for the study was secured through an internationally reviewed competitive grant application process from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in the US ($5.9M), with a separate grant for study equipment funded by Cystic Fibrosis Trust in the UK (100,000).

Dr Lucy Allen, Director of Research and Healthcare Data at Cystic Fibrosis Trust, said: "Cystic fibrosis is a complex condition affecting many parts of the body. Although significant progress has been made in the treatment of cystic fibrosis in recent decades, we know that understanding the long term effects of CFTR modulator medicines is a top research priority for the CF community. Through our funding of the ENHANCE project we are driving significant research that will address this priority and ultimately support people with cystic fibrosis to live longer, healthier lives."
Researchers in Sweden have developed a microscale device for implantation in the eye, which presents new opportunities for cell-based treatment of diabetes and other diseases.

Aiming to encapsulate insulin-producing pancreatic cells and electronic sensors, the 3D-printed device was developed by a team from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Karolinska Institutet. The researchers reported the results of the work in the journal Advanced Materials.

The collaboration between KTH and Karolinska Institutet enables micro-organsnamely pancreatic islets or islets of Langerhansto be positioned precisely in the eye without need for sutures. It offers the possibility of cell-based therapy, for example to treat Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, using the eye as a base.

Anna Herland, senior lecturer in the Division of Bionanotechnology at SciLifeLab at KTH and the AIMES research center at KTH and Karolinska Institutet, says that the eye is ideal for this technology because it has no immune cells that react unfavorably in the first stage of implantation. Its transparency allows visual and microscopic study of what happens to the implant over time.

The eye is our only window into the body, and it's immune-privileged." Anna Herland, Senior Lecturer, Division of Bionanotechnology, SciLifeLab at KTH

The device is designed as a wedge, about 240 micrometers long, allowing the structure to be mechanically fixed at the angle between the iris and the cornea in the anterior chamber of the eye (ACE). The work demonstrates the first mechanical fixation of a device in the anterior chamber of the eye.

"We designed the medical device to hold living mini-organs in a micro-cage and introduced the use of a flap door technique to avoid the need for additional fixation," says Wouter van der Wijngaart, professor in the Division of Micro- and Nanosystems at KTH.

In tests on mice the device maintained its position in the living organism for several months, and the mini-organs quickly integrated with the host animal's blood vessels and functioned normally, Herland says.

Per-Olof Berggren, professor of experimental endocrinology at Karolinska Institutet contributed to the research with years of experience in transplanting islets of Langerhans to the anterior chamber of the eye in mice.

"The current unit is unique and will among other things form the basis for our continued work to develop an integrated microsystem for studying the function and survival of the islets of Langerhans in the anterior chamber of the eye," Berggren says. "This is also of great translational importance, as transplantation of Langerhans islands to the anterior chamber of the eye in humans is subject to clinical trials in patients with diabetes."

Herland says the technology overcomes one obstacle to the development of cell therapies, including those for diabetes. Namely, there is no need for invasive methods to monitor the graft's function and to guide care in order to ensure long-term transplant success.

"Ours is a first step towards advanced medical microdevices that can both localize and monitor the function of cell grafts," she says.

She says the design makes it possible to position mini-organs such as organoids and islets of Langerhans without limiting the supply of nutrients to the cells.

"Our design will enable future integration and use of more advanced device functions such as integrated electronics or drug release."

The research has been funded by SSF, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, ERC, Erling Persson Family Foundation and Jochnick Foundation, AIMES and Novo Nordisk Foundation.

The study's conflict of interest statement notes that Per-Olof Berggren is a partner in Biocrine AB, which is also part of the study.
Children fall broadly into four eating categories, according to new research at Aston University, and parents feed their children differently depending on those categories.

The four categories identified by Dr Abigail Pickard and the team in the School of Psychology are 'avid', 'happy', 'typical', and 'fussy'.

In the UK, around a fifth of children are overweight or living with obesity when they begin school, rising to around a third by the time they leave primary school at age 11. The team sought to identify eating behavior patterns and how these are associated with temperament, feeding practices and food insecurity, as a way to predict which children are more at risk of becoming overweight.

Typical eaters made up 44% of the children in the study, while fussy eaters accounted for 16%. But of greatest interest to the team was that around one in five young children in the study were found to show "avid eating", including greater enjoyment of food, faster eating speed, and weaker sensitivity to internal cues of 'fullness'. The behaviors that distinguish children with avid eating from those who show 'happy' eating (17.7% of children in the study), who have similarly positive responses to food, are wanting to eat (or eating more) in response to the sight, smell or taste of palatable food, and a higher level of emotional overeating. In combination, these eating behaviors can lead to overeating and subsequent weight gain.

Dr Pickard and the team, which includes academics from Aston University, Loughborough University, Kings College London and University College London (UCL), have also shown that there are significant differences in children's temperament and caregivers' feeding practices between each of the four eating behavior patterns. Children with avid eating are more likely to be active and impulsive, and their caregivers are more likely to give them food to regulate their emotions or to restrict food for health reasons. Children with avid eating were also less food secure than children who showed happy or typical eating behaviors.

Principal investigator of the project, Professor Jackie Blissett, said:

"Whilst feeding practices are key intervention targets to change children's eating behavior and child weight outcomes, there has been little evaluation of how feeding practices interact with children's food approach behaviors to predict eating behavior."

She explained that despite the knowledge of the influence of feeding practices on children's weight, current public health advice is generic and does not reflect variability in children's appetites. Parents and caregivers can be left feeling frustrated when trying to manage their child's food intake. By defining the four eating behavior profiles, this research project, which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and co-developed by Professor Claire Farrow, Dr Clare Llewellyn, Dr Moritz Herle, Professor Emma Haycraft and Dr Helen Croker will make it easier to identify the best feeding practices for each eating pattern and provide tailored, effective advice for parents.

Parents can use this research to help them understand what type of eating pattern their child presents. Then based on the child's eating profile the parent can adapt their feeding strategies to the child. For example, children in the avid eating profile may benefit more from covert restriction of food, i.e., not bringing snacks into the home or not having foods on display, to reduce the temptation to eat foods in the absence of hunger. Whereas, if a child shows fussy eating behavior it would be more beneficial for the child to have a balanced and varied selection of foods on show to promote trying foods without pressure to eat." Dr Abigail Pickard, Aston University

The team has planned further research investigating avid eating behavior and will invite the caregivers and their children into the specialist eating behavior lab at Aston University to get a better picture of what avid and typical eating behaviors look like in a real-life setting. All the findings will be integrated and the researchers will work with parents to develop feasible and helpful feeding guidelines to reduce children's intake of palatable snack foods.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, eviction moratoria prevented or delayed many people from experiencing homelessness. But now that the pandemic is over and the short-term eviction protection has ended, the number of evictions and cost of basic needs have increased. Daphne Hernandez, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Research with Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston, is studying how varying periods of eviction protection that people experienced during the pandemic is associated with psychosocial distress in the post-pandemic period as part of the Health Outcomes Post-Eviction Moratoria (HOPE-M) project.

"Eviction protections varied greatly from state to state and city to city during the pandemic," said Hernandez, principal investigator of the HOPE-M project and the Lee and Joseph Jamail Distinguished Professor in the School of Nursing. "Compared to Houston, Austin implemented a stronger local moratorium, meaning potential evictions were blocked earlier in the process. We will be recruiting participants from both cities to determine whether tenants who faced less risk of eviction then are experiencing less mental distress in the presence of ongoing disruptions now."

To conduct the study, two groups of participants will be identified. Investigators are partnering with a data science firm to identify the first group, which is based on landlord-initiated evictions and court filings for eviction proceedings in Travis and Harris counties. The second group will be recruited using the Housing Precarity Risk Model, developed by co-investigator Timothy Thomas, PhD, research director at UC Berkeley. The machine learning model will identify households that may have been the most adversely economically affected during the pandemic and whose threatened evictions were not filed with the court.

The research team will follow the participants for a year to collect data on economic hardship factors, psychosocial stressors, mental health outcomes, and sociodemographic backgrounds. Focus group interviews will be held to understand the participants' decision-making process in their efforts to avoid eviction, and how it contributes to overall psychosocial distress.

I hope that what we learn will push organizations to advocate for resources for those who are dealing with eviction. This study will also help individuals identify their risk of eviction and decision-making factors to avoid it." Daphne Hernandez, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Research with Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston

The research is funded by NIH Grant No. 1R01NR021156. Other co-investigators on the study are Wenyaw Chan, PhD, and Jack Tsai, PhD, with UTHealth Houston School of Public Health; Annalynn Galvin, PhD, RN, with Cizik School of Nursing; and Elizabeth Mueller, PhD, and Heather Way, JD, with The University of Texas at Austin. Houston-based data science consulting firm January Advisors and Philadelphia-based research and evaluation firm M. Davis and Company are also contributing to the research.
In a recent study published in Nutrients, researchers investigated whether the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) was associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms among medical students in Thailand.

Study: Is the Consumption of Added Sugar from Common Beverages Associated with the Presence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms in Thai Medical Students? Image Credit: monticello/Shutterstock.com

Background

ADHD, a highly prevalent psychiatric disorder, can significantly impact their academic performance, work performance, and daily life. The condition may continue in adulthood or develop as a late-onset type among young adults despite not meeting ADHD diagnostic criteria in childhood.

Studies have reported that medical students, particularly those consuming SSBs in high amounts, are more prone to ADHD than those with low SSB intake.

However, there is limited research concerning ADHD among adult populations, including medical students, the dose-response association between SSBs and ADHD symptoms, and practical limits to ensure healthy consumption.

About the study

In the present cross-sectional study, researchers determined the association between added sugar intake from commonly consumed beverages and ADHD symptoms among medical students.

A web-based survey was conducted between May 2022 and April 2023 for medical students of Chiang Mai University recruited by snowball and convenience sampling. The target survey population included undergraduate students attending their first to sixth academic year in 2022. ADHD symptom presence was determined based on the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) scores 3.0.

The team excluded individuals with active medical disorders, those with a prior history of mood disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorders, ADHD, and anxiety, and those who failed to complete the ASRS questionnaire.

Added sugar intake from frequently consumed beverages in Thailand was measured using the Thai Adolescence SSB Intake (THASSI) questionnaire, focusing on sweetened forms of water/drinks, carbonated beverages, coffee, energy drinks, green tea, yogurt drinks, fruit and vegetable juice, milk, soy milk, and herbal fluids.

Individuals documented the packaging type (can or bottle), beverage size, amount consumed on different occasions, and weekly consumption for all items. The total daily intake was categorized based on the American Heart Association-recommended limit of added sugar intake.

Multivariate logistic regression modeling was performed to calculate the adjusted odds ratios (aORs), adjusting for age, gender, body mass index (BMI), family history of ADHD, monthly payment, household income, paternal educational attainment, screen time, and sleeping duration.

Results

Of 1,472 medical students invited to participate in the survey, 534 (36%) responded, of which 441 eligible individuals were included. The mean participant age was 21 years, and 50% were male. Nearly 60% of the participants were from pre-clinical academic years. Among the participants, 30% (n=132) experienced ADHD symptoms.

The most common ADHD symptoms were difficulty finishing final details (49%), difficulty remembering appointments (37%), and difficulty getting things in order (34%).

SSB intake exceeding 25 grams daily elevated ADHD risk (aOR, 1.8). Similar results were obtained using the gender-specific cut-offs (aOR, 1.7).

Students experiencing ADHD reported significantly higher intake of sweetened green tea (third tertile versus first tertile aOR 1.7) and water/drinks (third tertile versus first tertile aOR 1.8) than those without ADHD symptoms. Soy milk consumption yielded similar results (above median versus below median aOR 1.8).

Individuals who developed ADHD symptoms were significantly older, academically more senior, with higher BMI, and higher screen time than those with no ADHD symptoms.

Being overweight (aOR 1.9) and having more than seven hours of screen time each day (aOR 2.0) significantly elevated ADHD symptoms risk, adjusting for SSB intake.

A probable mechanism by which sweetened beverages could enhance ADHD symptom risk is by altering bi-directional communications between the gut and brain and disrupting the gut microbial balance.

Dysbiosis increases intestinal permeability, inflammation, and the transport of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) endotoxins across cells. LPS could bind with toll-like receptors (TLRs) on the membranes of microglial cells in the brain and increase inflammatory cytokine release through nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB) stimulation. Central nervous system (CNS) inflammation could give rise to ADHD symptomatology.

Conclusions

Overall, the study findings showed that SSB intake of more than 25 grams per day may elevate ADHD symptom risk among medical students in Thailand. In particular, sweetened water/drinks, soy milk, and green tea could increase ADHD symptom risk.

The study findings support the implementation of health policies that promote healthy consumption behaviors among medical students to reduce ADHD symptoms and promote the learning and well-being of medical students.

However, further research must validate the findings, including prospective studies with larger sample sizes and diverse populations.
As the COVID-19 pandemic scattered and isolated people, researchers across Virginia Tech connected for a data-driven collaboration seeking improved drugs to fight the disease and potentially many other illnesses.

A multidisciplinary collaboration spanning several colleges at Virginia Tech resulted in a newly published study, "Data Driven Computational Design and Experimental Validation of Drugs for Accelerated Mitigation of Pandemic-like Scenarios," in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

The study focuses on using computer algorithms to generate adaptations to molecules in compounds for existing and potential medications that can improve those molecules' ability to bind to the main protease, a protein-based enzyme that breaks down complex proteins, in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

This process allows exponentially more molecular adaptations to be considered than traditional trial-and-error methods of testing drugs one by one could allow. Candidate molecule adaptations can be identified among myriad possibilities, then narrowed to a few or one that can be created in a laboratory and tested for effectiveness.

We present a novel transferable data-driven framework that can be used to accelerate the design of new small molecules and materials, with desired properties, by changing the combination of building blocks as well as decorating them with functional groups." Sanket A. Deshmukh, associate professor of chemical engineering, College of Engineering, Virginia Tech

A "functional group" is a cluster of atoms that generally retains its characteristic properties, regardless of the other atoms in the molecule.

"Interestingly, the newly designed functionalized drug not only had a better half maximal effective concentration value than its parent drug, but also several of the proposed and used antivirals including Remdesivir," Deshmukh said, referring to a measure of compound potency.

Moving through all the phases of the study would not have been possible without extensive cross-departmental collaboration.

Four Virginia Tech faculty members  Deshmukh; Anne M. Brown, associate professor with University Libraries and the Department of Biochemistry in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Andrew Lowell, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Science; and James Weger-Lucarelli, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine -; are among 13 co-authors of the published study.

Deshmukh group's expertise in developing transferable computational models and frameworks for accelerated design of drug-like small molecules and materials, and Brown's extensive computational expertise in protein structure-function relationships meshed seamlessly as a baseline for the study.

"Sanket's group had a molecular repurposing framework, and I have experience with exploiting protein targets," said Brown. "Combined with Andrew who does the synthesis, which is to make the compound, and then James doing the testing and the viral assays, we formed a fantastic collaboration."

But the faculty members stress that it was the graduate students and postdoctoral students in the laboratories who made the study possible. Nine of them are co-authors: Samrendra K. Singh, chemical engineering, Kelsie King, genetics, bioinformatics, and computational biology; Cole Gannett, chemistry; Christina Chuong, biomedical and veterinary sciences; Soumil Y. Joshi, chemical engineering; Charles Plate, chemical engineering; Parisa Farzeen, chemical engineering; Emily M. Webb, entomology; and Lakshmi Kumar Kunche, chemical engineering.

The professors said the students communicated well with one another without any prompting from their mentors. "I think one of the great things to see is the students really talking with one another and collaborating with one another as well without us having to say 'Do this,'" Deshmukh said.

Finally, the functionalized molecules were tested against live SARS-CoV-2 in a veterinary college laboratory by Weger-Lucarelli and his team.

"Initial virtual screening of the existing database identified a parent compound that was expected to inhibit the protease of SARS-CoV-2," Weger-Lucarelli said. "Then the data-driven framework altered the structure of that molecule to enhance that activity. We compared those side by side to show that this new compound that was expected to be more potent against SARS-CoV-2 than the parent compound was, in fact, more potent against SARS-CoV-2."

The process to develop and test a functionalized molecule against COVID-19 has many potential applications even beyond mitigation of COVID-19. Studies are ongoing among the team to employ the same type of research to find functionalized molecules that may be able to treat hepatitis E, dengue fever and chikungunya, the latter two being mosquito-borne illnesses.

"Another direction we're going in is that we're targeting proteases and enzymes from other viruses and trying to design other new molecules," Lowell said.

The algorithm process also has potential in non-biological uses, Sankit said. The "approach is very versatile and is being applied to functionalize and design other materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), glycomaterials, polymers, etc.," the paper states.

The assembled interdisciplinary team is planning to continue its collaborations.

"None of us could do this work without the other people in this collaboration," Weger-Lucarelli said.

"This is a great example of the synergy between going from computational prediction to chemical synthesis to testing in viruses," Brown said, "and how we at Virginia Tech are really emphasizing that interplay between these three areas and taking that to the next level to develop strong collaborative teams."
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with Prime Minister of Romania Marcel Ciolacu in Kyiv on Wednesday.

"I met with Prime Minister of Romania Marcel Ciolacu. We discussed further defense support for Ukraine from Romania and food security issues, namely the importance of developing new logistics routes for the transit of Ukrainian agricultural products through Romania," the president wrote on Telegram.

According to Zelenskyy's press service, during the meeting they also discussed Ukraine's progress on its way to the EU, in particular in implementing the recommendations of the European Commission to begin negotiations on accession to the European Union.

The President of Ukraine thanked the Romanian side for the military assistance packages that strengthened Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield, as well as for humanitarian support and assistance in the evacuation of Ukrainians from Israel to Romania.

Zelenskyy also highly appreciated the results of his recent visit to Romania, as well as the first joint meeting of the governments of the two countries in the history of Ukrainian-Romanian relations, which took place today in Kyiv.

"This is a great achievement after our agreements at the presidential level to build strategic partnership between the countries. Today we see the development of these agreements," Zelenskyy said.

The Head of State expressed confidence that Ukraine-Romania relations would be further built up. This will be facilitated by the resolution of topical issues of the bilateral agenda.

"Today, the strategic decision we have been talking about regarding the Romanian language has been made. I think this is the answer to how we will and want to work together," Zelenskyy said.

The President outlined the key priorities for further defense support of Ukraine by Romania, in particular, taking into account the need to ensure the protection of the southern region of our country and the port infrastructure of the Danube from Russian air attacks.
Oligonucleotide drugs are an emerging area of development that hold great promise for personalized treatment of rare diseases.

There are approximately 8,000 distinct rare diseases, each individually affecting fewer than one in 2,000 people. Collectively, rare diseases impact more than 300 million people globally.

Many of these diseases have a genetic factor that makes them excellent targets for personalized oligonucleotide therapies based on short sequences of nucleic acids. These are designed to regulate protein and mRNA expression to address diseases at the transcriptome level.

Friedrichs Ataxia (FRDA) is a rare genetic disease produced by a mutation in the frataxin (FXN) gene, which codes for a mitochondrial protein. In patients with FRDA, a trinucleotide repeat expansion in non-coding DNA results in the associated mRNA creating an R-loop, impeding transcription of FXN. No therapies address FRDA at the transcriptome level via the up-regulation of FXN expression.

All oligonucleotide drugs function by base-pairing with target sequences in the affected gene. For FRDA, the target sequence is the FXN repeat expansion.

Two types of oligonucleotide drugs exist: RNA interference (RNAi) and antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) therapies. ASOs operate as a single strand and frequently carry chemical modifications to improve their stability and binding affinity with the target.

RNAi drugs are based on small interfering RNA (siRNA) that operate with the cells RNA silencing machinery to modify gene expression.

Researchers have previously shown that siRNAs and ASOs may efficiently target the FXN repeat expansion and improve FXN protein expression in FRDA patient-derived fibroblasts.

MaxCyte Flow Electroporation technology is now assisting these researchers to investigate the efficacy of oligonucleotide therapies in induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells (iPSC-NPCs) from FRDA patients.

MaxCyte Flow Electroporation: A Practical Method for Oligonucleotide Drug Discovery. Image Credit: Adapted from Shen et al. 2019 doi: 10.1261/rna.071290.119 under Creative Commons license Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Aim

The study detailed in this article explored oligonucleotide activators as candidates for FRDA treatment.1

The researchers initially aimed to identify an efficient and reproducible approach for delivering synthetic oligonucleotide drug candidates into patient-derived iPSCs. An ideal solution for this was MaxCytes Flow Electroporation technology.

After introducing the oligonucleotides through highly efficient and safe ExPERT electroporation, featured experiments explored their proficiency in up-regulating FXN protein and mRNA expression.

Method

Below is a summary of the protocol used to reprogrammed and differentiated patient-derived iPSCs then transfected oligonucleotides into the resultant iPSC-NPCs to evaluate their impact on gene expression.

The method demonstrates how well-suited MaxCyte Flow Electroporation is to developing and delivering novel gene therapies.

1. Reprogramming of fibroblast cell lines to iPSCs was conducted utilizing integration-free Sendai virus transgene delivery.

2. Differentiation of the iPSCs into NPCs by inhibition of TGF-/SMAD signaling.

3. Transfection of iPSC-NPCs utilizing the MaxCyte STx instrument with preset Optimization protocols 4 and 6 and OC-100 processing assembly to produce synthetic siRNA and ASOs drug candidates. Following transfection, cells briefly recovered at 37 C and were transferred to 12- or 24-well plates.

4. Analysis of FXN protein and mRNA expression after being monitored by qRT-PCR and then western blot 24-96 hours post-transfection.

Results

Efficient electroporation and transcript knockdown

A previously recognized target gene, benchmark oligonucleotide compound (MALAT1 and anti-MALAT1), and human motor neuron cells (HMN, iXCells Biotechnologies) were employed for the primary assessment of transfection techniques.

After either Lipofectamine stem transfer reagent, MaxCyte electroporation, or gymnotic (unassisted) uptake, post transfection cell viability and knockdown of MALAT1 24 h were compared for each method.

A 1 M of the anti-MALAT1 ASO delivered by MaxCyte electroporation gave over 95% RNA knockdown in NPCs and HMNs, as displayed in Figures 1A and 1C. This is substantially better compared to gymnotic delivery or lipid transfection.

Cell viability post electroporation was demonstrated as equivalent or superior to cells that received oligo alone via gymnotic free uptake or lipid transfection, as shown in Figures 1B and 1D.

Figure 1. Electroporation for optimized cell viability and RNAi efficiency. A) Relative MALAT1 RNA levels (measured by RT-qPCR) and B) relative HMN cell viability (measured by Trypan blue staining) after transfection by either lipid transfection, gymnotic delivery or MaxCyte electroporation. C) Relative MALAT1 RNA levels in FRDA patient-derived iPSC-NPCs after transfection by MaxCyte electroporation. D) Relative cell viability was measured by Trypan blue staining. All assays performed 24h post transfection with anti-MALAT1. EP(-) is no treatment/no electroporation control. Ctrl-gap is a control oligonucleotide. Error bars represent  SD. Image Credit: Adapted from Shen et al. 2019 doi: 10.1261/rna.071290.119 under Creative Commons license Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Up-regulated frataxin expression

The expression of FXN mRNA in FRDA patient-derived iPSC-NPCs was evaluated with and without three distinct oligonucleotide activators:

BNA-2 is an ASO containing a constrained (bridged) ethyl modification on the ribose for improved binding affinity to the repeat expansion

ss-siRNA-1 is a single-stranded siRNA that utilizes the RNAi mechanism

A control named ctrl-ASO

Figure 2. Time course of FRDA activation. fxn mRNA expression in FRDA patient-derived iPSC-NPCs with ss-siRNA-1 (5 M, n = 2, optimization 4) and control oligonucleotide ctrl-ASO. Error bars represent  SD. Image Credit: Adapted from Shen et al. 2019 doi: 10.1261/rna.071290.119 under Creative Commons license Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

FXN mRNA was expressed in iPSC-NPCs from a healthy person 2.5 times more than that of FRDA patients.

MaxCyte electroporation of 5 M ss-siRNA (as displayed in Figure 2) or BNA-2 (data not shown) elevated FXN expression in FRDA patient-derived iPSC-NPCs to normal levels within 48 hours. FXN mRNA continued to be elevated until at least 96 hours post transfection.

As predicted, the activation of FXN mRNA expression led to increased protein expression. Delivered at 5 M by MaxCyte Flow Electroporation, BNA-2 and ss-siRNA-1 increased frataxin protein threefold, near the level expressed in healthy cells (as shown in Figure 3).

Figure 3. Activation of Frataxin protein expression. FRDA patient-derived NPCs (F4259) and wild-type NPCs (C7522) were electroporated using the MaxCyte STx with oligonucleotides (5 M, n = 3) and FXN protein measured 96 hr post transfection by western blot. Error bars represent SD. ** indicates P < 0.01 and *** indicates P < 0.001 relative to F4259-90% by student t-test. Image Credit: Adapted from Shen et al. 2019 doi: 10.1261/rna.071290.119 under Creative Commons license Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Enhanced potency through backbone modification

MaxCyte Flow Electroporation facilitated the assessment of a matrix of ASOs and siRNAs with distinct backbone modifications (bridged ethyl and 2-methoxyethyl) to determine the efficacy of each potential drug regarding the up-regulation of FXN mRNA.

Measurements of FXN expression were taken at several doses and half maximal effective concentration (EC50) was determined for each oligonucleotide, as shown in Table 1. The most potent (lower EC50) drugs were constrained ethyl ASOs and siRNAs.

Table 1. Synthetic oligonucleotide effect on fxn mRNA expression in FRDA patient-derived iPSC-NPCs. cET = constrained ethyl, 2-O-MOE = 2-methoxyethyl. The most potent drug from each type of backbone chemistry is highlighted. Source: Adapted from Shen et al. 2019 doi: 10.1261/rna.071290.119 under Creative Commons license Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Oligonucleotide Type Backbone Chemistry Length

(bases) EC50 (M) ss-siRNA-1 siRNA ssRNA 21 0.62  0.19 siGAA siRNA dsRNA 21 0.80  0.44 BNA-2 ASO cET 16 0.50  0.09 BNA-9 ASO cET 16 0.71  0.19 BNA-17 ASO cET 18 - M-1 ASO 2'-O-MOE 16 2.00  0.84 M-2 ASO 2'-O-MOE 16 2.18  0.99 M-3 ASO 2'-O-MOE 16 2.06  0.68 M-4 ASO 2'-O-MOE 18 1.07  0.38 M-5 ASO 2'-O-MOE 18 0.75  0.37 M-6 ASO 2'-O-MOE 18 1.74  0.63

Benefits of MaxCyte Electroporation

This research shows a unique solution for the introduction of synthetic oligonucleotide therapies into iPSC-derived cells. MaxCyte Flow Electroporation was less toxic, more efficient, and more straightforward for inexperienced users to implement to attain successful outcomes, in contrast to lipid transfection.

The researchers expect electroporation to be an invaluable tool for testing novel therapies and facilitating rapid drug development processes.

Conclusion and future applications

MaxCyte technology is assisting research into innovative gene therapies to tackle rare genetic diseases.

The research detailed in this article shows that MaxCyte Flow Electroporation is an effective and reproducible technique for testing panels of oligonucleotide drugs in patient-derived neural progenitor cells that demonstrate great promise for the up-regulation of protein and gene expression to therapeutic levels.

The results presented offer a framework for the use of Flow Electroporation as a valuable tool for the development of oligonucleotide therapies in addition to candidate screening and lead optimization strategies for genetic disorders at the transcriptome level.

References and further reading

Shen X, Beasley S, Putman JN, et al. RNA. 2019;25(9):1118-1129. doi: 10.1261/rna.071290.119. Simic. Croat Med J. 2019 Dec; 60(6): 485487. doi: 10.3325/cmj.2019.60.485

About MaxCyte, Inc.

MaxCyte is a leading commercial cell-engineering company focused on providing enabling platform technologies to advance innovative cell-based research as well as next-generation cell therapeutic discovery, development and commercialization. Over the past 20 years, we have developed and commercialized our proprietary Flow Electroporation platform, which facilitates complex engineering of a wide variety of cells.

Our ExPERT platform, which is based on our Flow Electroporation technology, has been designed to support the rapidly expanding cell therapy market and can be utilized across the continuum of the high-growth cell therapy sector, from discovery and development through commercialization of next-generation, cell-based medicines. The ExPERT family of products includes: four instruments, the ATx, STx, GTx, and VLx; a portfolio of proprietary related processing assemblies or disposables; and software protocols, all supported by a robust worldwide intellectual property portfolio.

Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all geared up to inaugurate the priority section of Indias Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) corridor on October 20.

Furthermore, the corridors will open their doors to passengers starting from October 21.

Delhi-Meerut RRTS: Ticket Price List

The National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) has just revealed the fare details for the route from Sahibabad to Duhai Depot. For Standard Class travelers, ticket prices are incredibly reasonable, ranging from just Rs 20 to Rs 50. And for those looking to add a touch of luxury to their journey, Premium Class tickets for the Rapidx trains are available for just Rs 100. Even the little ones, with a height of under 90 cm, get to travel absolutely free! The Premium Class tickets vary in price from Rs 40 to Rs 100, depending on the distance between Sahibabad and Duhai Depot.

Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs and Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, has applauded Prime Minister Modis visionary approach to launching the priority section of the Delhi-Meerut RRTS. He tweeted, From BRTS to RRTS. Rarely has the world seen such a leader who places so much importance on improving Urban Mobility for the poor and the common man.

PM Sh @narendramodi Jis focus on urban mobility:From BRTS to RRTS.Rarely has the world seen such a leader who places so much importance on improving Urban Mobility for the poor and the common man.@PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/QCoyrCVq7L Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) October 19, 2023

The priority section, which includes five stations like Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Guldhar, Duhai, and Duhai Depot, promises a smooth and rapid transit experience. The segment from Duhai to Duhai Depot is like a special bonus from the main corridor.

Ensuring a seamless and convenient ticketing experience, the NCRTC has installed Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-enabled ticket vending machines (TVMs). These TVMs allow passengers to purchase paper QR code-based tickets and recharge their National Common Mobility Card (NCMC). With various payment options available, including bank notes, bank cards, National Common Mobility Cards, and UPI, buying tickets has never been easier.

The RRTS Corridor, currently under construction, will provide a semi-high-speed regional rail service named RAPIDX. This monumental project is a joint venture between the Indian government and the states of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. The NCRTC has been entrusted with overseeing the development of Indias very first RRTS, connecting Delhi and Meerut.
Jefferies initiated coverage on Paytm with a buy rating and a target price of Rs 1,300, as it sees Indias leading payments player entering the league of large profitable fintechs globally.

Shares of One 97 Communications, which runs Paytm, were trading at Rs 943. The stock, which was one of the biggest wealth eroders last year, has so far rallied around 80% in the calendar year 2023 making it amongst the better-performing fintech stocks globally this year.

Continued momentum in credit originations and margin expansion in payments would upfront profitability ahead of market expectation, Jefferies said in its latest note. In four quarters, Paytm will enter the global list of large profitable fintechs and valuations are yet to reflect its changed profile, it said.

Jefferies said Paytm will turn profitable and be amongst the few large profitable fintechs globally that enjoy strong growth of over 30 per cent, double-digit Ebitda margins and stable profitability.

It noted that its valuations at 3.6 times estimated FY25 EV/revenue remain at a 40 per cent discount to this group. Jefferies used the DCF valuation methodology with growth assumptions of near-term 27 per cent, long-term 17 per cent and terminal 8 per cent.

In the last 2 years, Paytms revenues have jumped 3x and gross margins surged to 54% from 13%.

We expect revenue growth to remain in the fast lane (31% CAGR over FY23-26E) driven by (a) 55% CAGR in financial services revenues led by ~4x jump in credit originations, and (b) 50% CAGR in merchant subscription revenues on the back of aggressive deployment of merchant devices (~3x network expansion) as Paytm asserts its ..

The brokerage said Paytms large ESOP costs are a drag on profitability as the cost of issuance towards the large pool of ESOP-issued pre-IPO is currently making up 18% of revenues. As the period of vesting for a large part of the pool ends in 1HFY25, we expect ESOP costs to start declining from 2HFY25E. Outside of ESOP cost, employee and fixed cost as a % of revenues continue to fall due to operating leverage, it said.

Paytm has successfully arrested its cash burn, and Jefferies expects it to turn free cash flow positive in H2 and generate healthy free cash flow thereon. With continued operating leverage and declining ESOP costs, we expect Paytm to turn profitable by 3QFY25E and deliver sustained growth in accounting profits from thereon, it said.

Jefferies said Paytms lending partners remain in control of risk underwriting thresholds and given the short tenor of loans, are jointly creating a large base of credit-tested users. Delinquency trends, it said, have improved in BNPL where share of repeat users is 65 per cent.

As portfolio vintage grows, rising share of credit tested users in disbursals (from 50 per cent currently) will help control asset quality outcomes, Jefferies said.

At our valuation, we get implied EV/revenue of 4.6 times and EV/adjusted Ebitda of 37 times (Sep25). Using SOTP (for stake in associates), we arrive at a PT of Rs 1,300. Key risks are asset quality deterioration impacting credit business growth, supply pressure from PE selling and regulatory risks, it said.

Earlier in the week, Goldman Sachs had hiked its target price on Paytm to Rs 1,250, saying it expects fintech to be the most profitable company within the internet sector.
Stocks To Watch on October 19: GIFT Nifty on the NSE IX traded 21 points, or 0.11 per cent, lower at 19,572.50, signaling that Dalal Street was headed for negative start on Thursday. Heres a slew of stocks that will be in focus today for various reasons.

Q2 Results to Watch: Aarti Drugs, CoForge, Cyient, Equitas SFB, Havells India, HFCL, Hindustan Unilever, Indoco Remedies, ITC, Jindal Stainless, Mastek, Metro Brands, MphasiS, Nestle India, PVR Inox, South Indian Bank, Tata Coffee, Tata Communications, United Breweries, UltraTech Cement and Voltas are few of the prominent companies scheduled to report September quarter results today.

Travel, Hospitality: As the festival season gains momentum, there has been a surge in airfares and hotel tariffs for the upcoming Diwali week. Airfares on major routes across India surged by up to 44 per cent from previous Diwali week. Robust demand and limited capacity, aided by Go Firsts insolvency and SpiceJets financial stress, seem to be driving the extraordinary rise in fares.

Reliance Industries (RIL): HSBC Holdings has nearly doubled the size of a loan arrangement to part of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambanis business empire. The London-based bank originally provided a $73 million loan facility to a subsidiary of RIL, shortly after it acquired the Stoke Park estate in southeast England in 2021.

Bajaj Auto: Posted a 17.5 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in consolidated net profit for the September quarter of FY24 to Rs 2,020 crore, riding on the back of a 6.3 per cent rise in revenue from operations to Rs 10,838 crore. The company plans to launch six new products and upgrades in the 125 cc plus category after Diwali, Rakesh Sharma, executive director said.

Wipro: The Information technology (IT) services firm reported almost flat growth in net profit (at Rs 2,667 crore) and a marginal decline in revenue for Q2FY24 amid an uncertain global economic outlook and weak client demand. Further, Wipro forecast that its Q3 revenue might drop 3.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent sequentially on a constant currency basis.

IndusInd Bank: Reported a 22 per cent YoY growth in net profit at Rs 2,202 crore for Q2FY24, compared to Rs 1,805.28 crore in Q2FY23. Net Interest Income (NII) grew 18 per cent YoY to Rs 5,077 crore.

LTIMindtree: Consolidated net profit for Q2FY24 slipped 2.2 per cent to Rs 1,162.3 crore, compared to Rs 1,189 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. Revenue from operations, however, rose 8.2 per cent to Rs 8,905.4 crore.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance: Q2FY24 net profit was down 2.3 per cent at Rs 577.25 crore as against Rs 590.53 crore in Q2FY23. The dip was attributed to a rise in overall expenses, which offset robust growth in Gross Direct Premium Income (GDPI).

Bandhan Bank: Reported over 3- fold jump in net profit to Rs 721 crore for Q2FY24; Total income increased 18.4 per cent YoY to Rs 5,032 crore. The loan portfolio of the Kolkata-headquartered bank rose by 12.3 per cent YoY to Rs 1.08 lakh crore.

Dabur: The companys three foreign subsidiaries namely  Namaste Laboratories LLC, Dermoviva Skin Essentials Inc. and Dabur International Ltd  are facing cases in federal and state courts in the US and Canada.

IIFL Finance: Posted a 32 per cent YoY growth in its consolidated net profit to Rs 526 crore for Q2FY24. NII increased by 38 per cent YoY to Rs 1,001 crore.

UTI Asset Management Company: Net profit declined by 8 per cent YoY to Rs 183 crore. Total income was down 7 per cent at Rs 404 crore.

Bank of Baroda: After facing regulatory wrath for alleged attempts to inflate registrations for mobile application BoB World, the bank has begun action, which included suspension of employees charged for tampering with customer data.

Power Grid Corporation: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has given its approval for viability gap funding (VGF) to the state-owned firm for the construction of the Green Energy Corridor-II (GEC-II) in the Ladakh region at an estimated cost of Rs 20,773.70 crore.
Blaring sirens every few hours, missiles dropping a few kms away, running from the room to the bunker within a few seconds to make it in time, and living under constant fear of what was going to be the next is how Indian students recount their last few days in war-torn Israel before they were safely evacuated back to India.

While the sound of sirens to alert theres a missile about to be dropped was not entirely new to these students who have been there for some time and have done the drill of running to a safe shelter upon the sound of it, this time it was different, and the sense of fear much deeper.

Sravya Rao, a PhD student, pursuing research in electro-optical engineering was woken up by the sound of one such siren on October 7, the first day when the Hamas militant group attacked Israel, firing thousands of rockets towards its southern and central regions.

It was 6:30 am when a siren blowing outside woke me up and I ran to the bunker on my floor. Until then I thought this was one of those sirens, but then there was another one sometime later and as the news broke everywhere, videos of killings and militants armed with guns getting into the cities started floating around, as you see in the movies, nobody expects that to happen in real. This is when the fear and the scale of the attack struck us. My grandfather back in India was the first one to spot the news on television and told it to my parents, who then called me in panic. I had to assure them that the university was safe, as there was no other option, said Rao, who is enrolled in a university in Beersheba, southern Israel, 40 kms away from the Gaza border.

Within an hour and a half or so of the first siren, said Rao, the university told students that it was a terror attack. Not many students were there in the dorm, as the semester was to start from October 17. Nobody expected that a war would start. We thought it was just bomb shelling and would stop, but it wasnt so. Even though this was the situation, we had supplies, and the supermarket on the campus was open. It was just the larger fear that remained all the time. At that time we didnt know we would be evacuated or anything like that. Our WhatsApp group of Indian students, who also has an Indian embassy representative on it told us to fill in our information with it just in case. Then a day later we got an email informing us of the evacuation process, said Rao, who came on the first flight that brought Indians, mostly students, back on October 14.

Now back to Bangalore with her family, the research student said that shes just waiting for the violence to stop to go back while the university had postponed the semester to November 5.

While everyone here has apps sharing prior information on the bomb-shelling allowing people to move to a safe shelter, this was the first time there was infiltration with armed militants roaming about the cities, which caused the maximum damage. The attack happened on a day that marked the end of a festival while everyone was having a relaxed day.

Most of the students who got back are those pursuing research, as Israel is known for its research institutions in science and math.

Binita Ghosh, another research fellow, enrolled in a university in Tel Aviv, central Israel, said that there was a siren that woke her up after which she woke up a few others to rush to the bunkers. In Tel Aviv, you have 90 seconds to make it to the bunker. I had heard a siren only once or twice since I joined the university here last year, but this one was different. Some relatives had shared some videos of the attack with my parents, who got too scared and told me to not worry about the money, but just book the first flight home, said Ghosh, pursuing research in biology, who hails from Ranchi, Jharkhand.

But, she added, the Indian embassy here has been really helpful. They answered calls and gave even mental and emotional support till the evacuation. Even the university had Zoom sessions with us addressing our concerns, she said.

However, looking back, Ghosh said she feels sad that humans are being killed all around and even when she does go back, things will not be the same. Its hard to see a place where you have lived for over a year and made friends to be devastated in this manner. Even when institutions will open up eventually, it wont be the same, she said.

Alok Mishra, a research scientist in central Israel, who too came back on the same flight back to India, said that he knew it was kind of an attack when the siren kept on blaring continuously in the morning. It was different because there was the smell of smoke all around. One could see clouds of smoke as a rocket had landed just about a kilometre away. We keep getting information and emergency alerts of when and where the rocket fell. They even rectify the information in case of a false alarm and dont hide information at all, said Mishra, who belongs to UPs Pratapgarh.

He said that he has travelled to many European cities as well, but Israel has the best work and social culture. There people will help you even if they dont know you, be it an issue with food or anything, they will make sure you are helped. Its the saddest thing that we had to come back this way amid people dying back there. But, we look forward to going back soon, said Mishra.
The Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UPSSSC) Preliminary Eligibility Test (PET) admit card 2023 has been released today, October 19 at the official website  upsssc.gov.in. Applicants will need their roll numbers and date of birth to access their hall tickets.

The UPSSSC PET will be held on October 28 and 29 across various exam locations around the state. Candidates must carry their admit card and a valid government-issued photo ID to the exam centre as without these documents they will not be allowed to sit for the exam. Candidates must also arrive at the exam centres 30 minutes before the examination begins.

UPSSSC PET Admit Card 2023: How to download

Step 1: Go to upsssc.gov.in.

Step 2: Select the UPSSSC PET admit card 2023 link on the homepage.

Step 3: Log in to access the admit card using the registration number.

Step 4: Your UPSSSC PET Admit Card 2023 will be displayed on the screen.

Step 5: Review the details on the admit card and download it.

Step 6: Print a copy of the admit card for further use.

The UPSSSC PET admit card 2023 will include the students personal information as well as examination information including examination name, registration number, examination centre, date and time, etc.

The exam will be held offline and will feature 100 multiple-choice questions (MCQs). The exam will be held for a duration of two hours. Candidates can choose to take the test in either Hindi or English since both languages will be offered as exam mediums. For incorrect responses, 0.25 marks will be deducted.

Candidates from Uttar Pradesh who wish to apply for government jobs are required to sit for the PET test. Candidates who successfully complete the preliminary eligibility exam are awarded a PET Score/Certificate, which is valid for one year following the date of issuance. Candidates must hold a high school diploma or equivalent, a graduation degree, or be between the ages of 18 and 40 as of July 1, 2023, in order to be eligible for PET.
Senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday addressed a rally in Chhattisgarh where he asserted that the people of the poll-bound state will celebrate Diwali thrice  once on the day of the festival, second when the BJP will be elected to power on December 3, and third when the construction of Ram temple (in Ayodhya) will be completed in January, as Chhattisgarh is Lord Rams nanihal (the place of Lord Rams maternal grandparents).

Addressing a rally in Jagdalpur town of Bastar district, Shah accused the Congress of encouraging Naxalism and said incidents of Naxal violence have come down by 52 per cent in the nine-year rule of the Narendra Modi government.

He also urged people to bring the BJP to power in the state, promising that his party would make the entire state free of the Naxal menace.

He claimed that Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel turned the poll-bound state into an ATM for the Congress and the Congress rule in the state was a government of scams.

LISTEN IN:

#WATCH | Union Home Minister Amit Shah addresses election rally in Chhattisgarh's Jagdalpur"This time Chhattisgarh will celebrate Diwali thrice  once on the day of Diwali, second on 3rd December when BJP forms govt, and then in January (2024) on construction of Ram temple in pic.twitter.com/xIScW68Ny9  ANI (@ANI) October 19, 2023

Polling will be held in Chhattisgarh in two phases, with the first phase on November 7 and second on November 17, and counting of votes on December 3.

After attending a poll meet in Jagdalpur, Shah addressed another public meeting in Kondagaon where he asked Congress leader and Chhattisgarh CM Baghel about the promises made by Rahul Gandhi. He said we will reduce electricity bills to half. They said will reduce property tax has all this happened ? Amit Shah said.

Amit Shah also mentionedf the Mahadev betting app scam. What Baghel government did was liquor scam, coal scam they also did online betting scam in Mahadev app scam of Rs 5,000 crore.

Today is Shahs second visit to the Congress-ruled state after the announcement of election schedule for the 90-member assembly. The former BJP president, a key poll strategist of the party, earlier addressed an election rally in Rajnandgaon on October 16.

Both Jagdalpur and Kondagaon fall under the Naxal-affected Bastar division of the state. In the first phase, polling will be held in 20 assembly segments  Konta, Bijapur, Dantewada, Chitrakot, Jagdalpur, Bastar, Narayanpur, Kondagaon, Keshkal, Kanker, Bhanupratappur, Antagarh, Mohla-Manpur, Khujji, Dongargaon, Rajnandgaon, Dongargarh, Khairagarh, Kawardha and Pandariya.

The remaining 70 seats will be covered in the second phase. The ruling Congress has so far declared candidates for 83 out of the 90 seats.

The opposition BJP has announced its candidates for 86 seats, including all 20 going to polls in the first phase. The Congress registered a landslide victory in the 2018 polls, winning 68 of the 90 seats.

The BJP, which had ruled the state for 15 years (2003-2018), was reduced to five seats, while the JCC (J) and the BSP bagged five and two seats, respectively. The current strength of the Congress in the assembly is 71.

(with PTI inputs)
The Congress could go complain to the Election Commission of India (ECI) but women in Madhya Pradesh will receive money under the Mukhyamantri Ladli Behna Yojana from the state government on November 10, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Wednesday.

The state votes on November 17. The money will come again on November 10this time there are elections so I wont be able to give the money in the same way as earlier (signalling click of a button), but I will give it, Chouhan said in Jhabua on Wednesday, mentioning the scheme under which 1.32 crore women in the state are transferred Rs 1,250 on the 10th of every month. This month, however, the money under the scheme was transferred early, on October 4, in anticipation of the announcement of the election schedule, which happened on October 9.

They (Congress) are just jealous and worried, said Chouhan. But no one can stop the money, and it will come again on the 10th. I have kept the money aside before the model code of conduct came into effect. I will put the money in your account on November 10th. Why should I not give the money?

He warned people that if the Congress comes to power, it may stop such schemes as it had done earlier with his programmes after winning the 2018 polls.

The Congress has also promised a Rs 1,500 allowance per month for women in the state.

A BJP functionary said that since the Mukhyamantri Ladli Behna Yojana was an ongoing scheme approved by the state cabinet, a Congress challenge before the ECI regarding the next instalment payout may not stand. However, former chief minister Kamal Nath last month asked if the schemes money would be given since the election model code was coming into effect from October.
I know some of you have some complaints. But dont worry, I promise you, when Saheb becomes CM again, he will fulfill them. Fight the Congress as you would to save your izzat. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhans wife Sadhna Singh gave this assurance to a restless audience, largely consisting of women, as she inaugurated a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office in Rehti village, which falls in Sehore district. As the CM fights a strong anti-incumbency sentiment, he banks on his wife and the women of Madhya Pradesh to bail him out.

Its clear that Mamaji, as Shivraj Singh Chouhan is called, is banking on womens votes as he remains their favourite in the state. The Ladli Behna scheme with his promise of sending money directly into the accounts of women as well as providing subsidised LPG cylinders have been big hits. But as the Congress aggressively woos the female electorate, Chouhan knows this may not be enough.

The idea of an all-women party office is to use female cadres and volunteers as the main campaigners for the CM. When News18 spoke to them, one of these women said, How do you know Kamal Nath will deliver what he promised? He couldnt save his own government and you think he can save us? The others concurred.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who is facing a tough election next month, knows that he has to improve his vote margin from last time. Sadhna Singh admitted as much when she spoke to the women volunteers. Last time kami reh gayi thi votes mein, she said.

Sadhna also wants to play on the fact that many in Rehti village and Budhni municipality are unhappy at what most feel is the sidelining of Shivraj. The uncertainty over whether he would be the chief minister in case the BJP wins can be countered by a good performance and a large margin of victory to show to Delhi that he matters in MP politics. As the BJP aggressively woos the female electorate not just in Madhya Pradesh but nationwide for the 2024 general elections, Shivraj is fighting for his place in the sun by ensuring that the constituency that has stuck by him for 17 years, brings good fortune along with some luck from the women of the state.

But eyeing the result is Congresss Sankat Mochan, Vikram Mastaltelevisions Hanuman, who will take on the chief minister. I am a bhakt of the party. Sita Maiya was saved by Hanuman and Ram. The voters will be the Sankat Mochan, especially the women, who are Adi Shakti, he said. The Congress has always given importance to women. We have had Indira, Sonia, and Priyanka Gandhi.

As India prays to Ma Shakti and Durga during the Navratras, both Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Vikram Mastal are hoping for divine blessings.
Providing financial assistance to tenant farmers in Telangana is a factor that might provide an edge to the Congress in next months assembly elections. The facts that tenant farmers are not recognised by the state government and that they are deprived of welfare scheme benefits have been points of contention for a long time.

In its Vijayabheri meeting at Tukkuguda in September, the Congress announced Rs 15,000 annually for both landowning and tenant farmers. It also promised Rs 12,000 annually for agricultural labourers and a Rs 500 bonus for paddy crops. On the other hand, though the Bharat Rashtra Samithis manifesto promises an increase in the amount in the Rythu Bandhu scheme from Rs 10,000 to Rs 16,000 per year in a phased manner, it does not mention tenant farmers.

The 2011 Land Licensed Cultivators Act requires the government to identify and register actual cultivators and provide them benefits from support schemes. However, the Telangana government stopped following the Act after 2015. Tenant farmers are recognised by states like Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.

According to a report by Rythu Swarajya Vedika, a door-to-door survey that covered 7,744 farmers in 34 villages of Telangana, 36 per cent of them are tenant farmers. The projected total number of tenant farmers in Telangana is 22 lakh.

Speaking to News18, B Kondal Reddy from the organisation said: The cash support from the Rythu Bandhu scheme goes only to the land title holder directly. While the government claims that the scheme would indirectly benefit tenant farmers, only 10 tenants (0.4 per cent) said that the land owner gave the entire Rythu Bandhu money to them. Only 0.1 per cent of tenant farmers said they were given a portion of Rythu Bandhu.

Also, another initiative by the BRS government, the Dharani portal, built with an aim to digitise land records, is linked to the Rythu Bandhu scheme. This portal too recognises only landowning farmers. Such a steady stream of income from the government might make the landowners less likely to pass on the benefits to the tenant farmers.

The states BRS government has maintained that since the tenant farmers move from one land to another, it is difficult to maintain their records. A party leader also expressed scepticism about how the Congress is going to fulfill such tall promises. If we give benefits to both categories of farmers, it means that they will get money for cultivating the same piece of land, he said. Such a promise is going to put an unimaginable economic burden on the state.
U.S. President Joseph Biden will address the U.S. people regarding the wars taking place in Israel and Ukraine, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said on Wednesday.

"Tomorrow, President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukraine," she said in the statement.

The speech will be delivered from the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday at 20:00 Eastern Time (Friday, October 20, 03:00 Kyiv time).
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday downplayed his reported differences with Sachin Pilot ahead of Assembly elections and said he wants to leave the CM post but it is not leaving him and probably may not leave him in future.

However, Gehlot said that there would be something in him that the party high command had chosen him to lead the state thrice but any decision taken by the leadership going forward would be acceptable to all.

A woman once told me that god willingly you should become CM for the fourth time. So, I told her that I want to leave the CM post but this post is not leaving me, the CM said.

#WATCH | A woman once told me that god willingly you should become CM for the fourth time. So, I told her that I want to leave the CM post but this post is not leaving me, says Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot in Delhi pic.twitter.com/Nj4v3ZCxNq ANI (@ANI) October 19, 2023

Around 5.2 crore voters will decide the fate of leaders who are in the poll fray on November 25 and votes will be counted on December 3.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, the CM said there are no differences between Pilot and him. Gehlot went on to say that he is also backing the candidature of Pilot supporters and all the decisions in the party are being taken by consensus which is troubling the BJP.

Gehlot also said that his bete noire and former chief minister Vasundhara Raje should not be punished by the BJP because of him, saying it would be injustice towards her.

He was referring to his remarks on Raje when his Congress government was under threat following a rebellion in 2020. Gehlot, whose government had faced a rebellion led by his former deputy Sachin Pilot in 2020, said he has adopted the policy of forgive and forget and has moved on.

(With ANI, PTI inputs)
The Delhi High Court Thursday permitted a woman living separately from her husband and desirous of filing for divorce to terminate her 23-week pregnancy. Justice Subramonium Prasad noted the medical board of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has opined that the foetus was normal and it was safe to terminate the pregnancy.

The high court was hearing a plea by a 31-year-old woman, who said she has separated from her husband and therefore, does not want to continue with her pregnancy. The woman, represented by advocate Amit Mishra, approached the high court seeking permission to terminate her pregnancy of 23 weeks and four days, as of date, under the provisions of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act.

The court had earlier asked the AIIMS to constitute a medical board to consider whether it would be safe for the woman to end her pregnancy and to examine the condition of the foetus. The high court had impleaded the woman's husband as a party to the petition. On Thursday, the woman and her husband were present in the court.

While the woman said she does not want to live with her husband and it was tough for her to take the decision to terminate her pregnancy, the man stated he wanted to live with her and tried reconciliation but failed. The court was also informed that the woman has now filed a complaint against her husband with the crime against women cell of the city police.

It was the woman's case that she got married in May this year and in June she came to know about her pregnancy. She alleged in the plea that she was being tortured and abused verbally, physically, mentally and emotionally by her husband at her matrimonial home. The petition said her husband physically assaulted her in July and repeated it in August when she was pregnant, after which she returned to her parental home.

The high court referred to a previous judgement of the Supreme Court which said it is the prerogative of each woman to evaluate her life and arrive at the best course of action in view of the change in material circumstances. "The apex court was of the opinion that change in material circumstance may result when a woman separates from her partner and she may no longer have the financial resources to raise the child.

The apex court has included the cases of domestic violence perpetrated on a woman under Rule 3B(c) of the MTP Rules wherein a woman is permitted to terminate her pregnancy up to 24 weeks on the grounds of change of marital status during the ongoing pregnancy. The Apex Court has held that the right to reproductive autonomy is closely linked with the right to bodily autonomy, the high court noted. The high court had earlier noted that the woman has not filed any FIR against her husband complaining of physical abuse nor any petition for divorce or judicial separation from her husband.

It noted the Supreme Court has held that the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy on a woman's body as well as her mind cannot be understated and, therefore, the decision to carry the pregnancy to its full term or terminate it is firmly rooted in the right to bodily autonomy and decisional autonomy of the pregnant woman. The high court perused Section 3 of the MTP Act which provides for termination of pregnancy by registered medical practitioners.

It said this section prescribes that a pregnancy which does not exceed 20 weeks can be terminated by a registered medical practitioner if he is of the opinion that continuance of pregnancy would involve a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or grave injury to her physical or mental health or there is a substantial risk that if the child were born, it would suffer from any serious physical or mental abnormality. Rule 3(B) of the MTP Rules permits a woman to terminate her pregnancy up to 24 weeks with certain conditions.
As the Israel-Hamas war continued for the 13th day, India on Thursday said it is difficult to evacuate its citizens from Gaza in the view of current situation.

Follow LIVE Updates on Israel-Hamas War

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said there were around four Indian nationals in Gaza, where an airstrike near a hospital killed nearly 500 hundred people.

There were four people in Gaza earlier. We dont have the exact number at present. I had said earlier that there were around 12-13 people in West Bank. The situation in Gaza is difficult for any evacuation but if we get a chance, we will get them out. There are some reports that one or two of them have gotten out. But dont have confirmation yet, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a weekly press conference.

The MEA said 1,200 people have returned in five special flights including 18 Nepalese from Israel under Operation Ajay. The ministry said more special flights are being planned to bring Indian nationals from the war-hit country.

The Ministry of External Affairs had informed that there are around 18,000 Indians in Israel.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported that the death toll in Gaza since October 7 has reached 3,785, which includes 1,524 children, 1,000 women, and 120 elderly individuals. Health Minister spokesperson, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra, stated that an additional 12,493 people have been injured, which comprises 3,983 children and 3,300 women.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and conveyed his condolences on the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza.

The PM said that he reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue.

We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue, Modi wrote on X
A Delhi court on Thursday extended the judicial custody of former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia till November 22 in a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy.

The ED had arrested Sisodia in the money laundering case stemming from the CBI FIR on March 9 after questioning him in Tihar Jail. Sisodia resigned from the Delhi cabinet on February 28.

Earlier on October 17, the Supreme Court told the Enforcement Directorate that if the bribe that was allegedly paid for tweaking the Delhi excise policy is not part of a predicate offence, then it will be difficult for the federal probe agency to prove the charge of money laundering against former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.

The Delhi government implemented the policy on November 17, 2021 but scrapped it at the end of September 2022 amid allegations of corruption. Under the new policy, according to the investigating agencies, the profit margin of wholesalers was increased from 5 per cent to 12 per cent for monetary considerations.

The probe agencies have alleged that the new policy resulted in cartelisation and those ineligible for liquor licences were favoured for monetary benefits. However, the Delhi government and Sisodia have denied any wrongdoing and said the new policy would have led to an increase in the states excise revenue.
Upset with the Congress for not conceding any seat so far for the Samajwadi Party in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday hinted that the Congress could get the same treatment from his party in Uttar Pradesh.

In stinging remarks that exposed chinks in the opposition INDIA grouping, Yadav also said the Congress leadership should not allow its small leaders to comment on his party.

The SP chief said his party leaders wouldnt have picked calls from the Congress for a meeting in Madhya Pradesh had he known that the INDIA alliance was confined to the national level. I must have got confused, he told reporters in Sitapur, apparently in sarcasm.

Yadav said if the alliance was only for parliamentary elections, his party accepted it. But he threw hints that there would be problems for Congress when seat-sharing in Uttar Pradesh is discussed for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

If the alliance in UP is only for the Centre, it will be discussed at that time. And the manner in which the Samajwadi Party is treated, they will get to see the same treatment here.

On the upcoming Madhya Pradesh polls, he said, Had I known on the first day that there is no alliance at the Vidhan Sabha level, our party leaders wouldnt have gone to the meetings. We wouldnt have given them a list (of seats that the SP wanted to contest in MP), nor would we have picked their calls, he added.

The SP has so far declared its candidates on 31 seats for the November 17 elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly.

When asked why it has done so, Yadav said, If there is no alliance at the state level, we accept it and declare our party candidates. Whats wrong in what we have done? He said SP leaders gave the Congress leaders data related to the partys performance in previous Madhya Pradesh elections at the discussions that went on till 1 am.

He claimed the Congress leaders had said they were considering leaving six constituencies for SP nominees in a seat-sharing agreement in that state, but they did not concede even one.

The INDIA grouping came into being primarily to put up a united front against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

In the 2018 Madhya Pradesh elections, the SP won one seat (Bijawar in Bundelkhand region) and finished second on five, securing 1.30 per cent votes in alliance with tribal Gondwana Gantantra Party.
The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) has confirmed the presence of Nipah virus antibody in bat samples collected from Maruthonkara in the northern Kozhikode district, where the viral infection claimed the lives of two persons last month. State Health Minister Veena George said on Thursday that the ICMR had conveyed this information to the state government via email.

"We have received an email from the ICMR in this regard. They informed us that the antibody was present in the bat samples collected," she informed reporters. The minister's statement followed her visit to some government hospitals in this hill district.

An ICMR team had recently conducted a visit to the Nipah-affected areas in Kozhikode and gathered bat samples for testing. A total of six individuals were confirmed to have contracted the virus in the district last month, out of whom two succumbed to the infection.
Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Palestine, top government sources told News18 that India is in regular touch with its counterparts in West Asia and Europe for world peace.

Sources further said the Indian government is in touch with Saudi Arabia and the NSA-level talks may happen in the desert country soon.

The issue of Gaza bombardment by Palestinian military group Hamas has riled up the Israeli government, which claims thousands of its people have been killed in the strike. Moreover, Muslim and Arab countries, including Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, who side the Palestinians, have condemned the Israelis after a huge blast at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday. Israel, however, has denied being behind the bombing, and instead blamed Palestine for the horrid incident.

India, which has a considerable Muslim population, is also treading carefully amidst the ongoing war. The government, however, has maintained that it supports Israel and condemns the terror act by Hamas. We are very clear about this massacre and it is clearly by terror group Hamas. Our support to Israel will remain unconditional, sources told News18.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is regularly updated by the concerned authorities about the Israel-Hamas war, top sources stressed. His latest statement condemning the hospital attack in Gaza points to New Delhis policy of strengthening Indias ties with Israel. Deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured. Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible, PM Modi had said.

Meanwhile, world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are in Israel to demonstrate solidarity with the country reeling under the war. Biden, who is in Tel Aviv, made a speech on Wednesday, warning Israel not to make the same mistakes as the US did during the 9/11 attack. While we sought justice and got justice but we also made mistakes, Biden had said.

So far, 3,500 Palestinians have been killed and more than 11,000 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. While 1,400 Israeli are dead and nearly 200, including children, have been captured by Hamas and taken to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
It is no secret that Indias relations with Israel are very close today. But did you know that the Israeli Police force has a significant connection with Indias southern state Kerala? The state not only hosts one of Indias major centers of the Jewish population in Kochi, but it has also been stitching uniforms for the Israeli Police for the last eight years.

An apparel-making company, Maryan Apparel Private Limited, in Keralas Kannur stitches around one lakh units of uniforms for the Israeli Police, especially their shirts, per year since 2015.

According to Thomas Olickal, Managing Director (MD), Maryan Apparel, the company also makes around 50,000 shirts and jackets for the Israeli Jail Police

In a year we make up to one lakh shirts for Israeli policemen. We also make shirts and jackets for the Israeli Jail Police. About 30,000 to 50,000 shirts and jackets are sent for the jail police in a year, he said.

Maryan Apparel has its headquarters in Mumbai, but the companys uniform-making unit has been functioning in Kannur since 2008. There are about 1,500 employees involved in the stitching and making of these uniforms according to Thomas.

He told CNN News18 that last week after the war broke out, they were informed by Israel that an extra supply of uniforms would be needed.

Elaborating on the quality of the material used for the uniforms, Thomas said the fabric is imported from the US. It is a 100 percent polyester with some specifications, he said.

Apart from the police of Israel the company also makes uniforms for the police in Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines.

On how the company started this unit in Kannur, Thomas said it was CPI(M)s P Jayarajan, and CM Pinarayi Vijayan, who was the then-party state secretary, asked the company if it could start a unit in Kannur.

After the closure of Dinesh Beedi company in Kannur there were issues of unemployment here and we were asked about the possibility of a unit, he said.

Thomas said that all the staffers who are now working with the company have been trained by them.
India on Thursday said it was looking forward to engaging constructively with the incoming administration of Maldivian President-elect Mohamed Muizzu, days after he said moving the Indian military personnel out of the island nation was one of his top priorities.

In a media interview, Muizzu said he would request New Delhi to withdraw its personnel and that he hopes to see the back of the troops, if possible, in the first week itself of his presidency.

Widely seen as a pro-China leader, Muizzu is set to take charge as the Maldivian President on November 17. When asked about the Maldivian President-elects comments on evicting the Indian military personnel, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi did not give a direct reply.

Our cooperation with Maldives is based on jointly addressing shared challenges and priorities, he said. In an interview with Al Jazeera television, Muizzu said he personally raised the matter of withdrawal of the military personnel with the Indian High Commissioner to Male recently.

Bagchi said India was looking forward to constructively engaging with the incoming administration and discussing ways to enhance our relationship further. He said the assistance and platforms that India provided to the Maldives have contributed significantly in areas like peoples welfare, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and combating illegal maritime activities. Over the last five years, more than 500 medical evacuations have been carried out by our personnel, saving 523 Maldivian lives, he said.

In the same period, more than 450 multi-faceted missions have been carried out to safeguard the maritime security of Maldives. India has also been a first responder for Maldives in any disaster scenario, including most recently during Covid, Bagchi said.

Muizzu defeated incumbent President Ibrahim Solih in the presidential runoff last month. The Maldives is one of Indias key maritime neighbours in the Indian Ocean Region and the overall bilateral ties including in areas of defence and security have been on an upward trajectory in the last few years.

Solih has consistently been focusing on boosting ties with India and was pursuing an India First policy. In May, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited the Maldives during which he handed over a fast patrol vessel and a landing craft to the island nation.

In August last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Solih kick-started the India-funded Greater Male connectivity project, billed as the largest infrastructure initiative in the island nation.

Under the Greater Male Connectivity Project (GMCP) project, a 6.74 km long bridge and causeway link will be built to connect the capital city Male with adjoining islands of Villingli, Gulhifalhu and Thilafushi.

The Maldives is also one of the biggest beneficiaries of Indias Neighbourhood First policy.
Madhya Pradesh police has arrested three people, including a woman, for killing a dog at a training center in Bhopal. The accused were arrested after security footage showed two employees hanging the dog at the entry gate of the training center by pulling it by the chain around its neck from the other side. The third accused was also seen in the video, police said.

The accused are identified as Ravi Kushwaha, the operator of Alpha Dog Training Center in Bhopals Sahara Colony, and two employees  Neha Tiwari, and Tarun Das.

The CCTV video of the incident has also surfaced on social media in which the accused can be seen hanging the dog by tying a string around its neck.

Police said the accused also tried to delete the CCTV footage, which caught the horrific incident.

A complaint was registered at Misrod police station on October 12 in which one Nilesh Jaiswal, a resident of Kalapipal said that he had kept his dog for training at Alpha Dog Training Center in Sahara Colony, Bhopal for four months, Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP, Misrod) Rajneesh Kashyap said.

After four months, when Jaiswal contacted the center, he was told that his dog was sick. Later when he went to take the dog, he was told the canine passed away due to his ill health.

Jaiswal has doubts over training centers explanation and approached the police with complaint of foul play in his dogs death.

Acting on the complaint, the Misrod police investigated and checked the CCTV footage and found out that the CCTV video of the day of the incident had been deleted, the official said.

After that, the police confiscated the hard drive and found CCTV footage of the day of the incident that is of October 9. It was found that the dog had been brutally killed. The main accused were also seen in the video which include Neha Tiwari, Tarun Das and one Ravi Kushwaha, he added.

Police has registered a case against them under sections 201, 429 and 120 B of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 11 of Animal Cruelty Act against the accused.

Further investigation into the matter is underway and actions will be on the basis of facts that come to light, the officer, adding that there were also 10 to 15 more dogs at the centre and the police informed their owners, the official said.

A local NGO was also informed. If the dog owner gets late recovering the dog, then the NGO will rescue them. In case the police get more complaints, further action will be taken after a detailed investigation, he added.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting on Wednesday with Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who in turn, presented the head of state with the updated composition of his ministry's team.

"I held a meeting with the Minister of Defense of Ukraine  he presented his team and his program. The Ministry's team has been renewed," Zelenskyy said in an evening video address.

As he noted, "there are already first steps to address the issues raised by the military. Reducing bureaucracy, simplifying paperwork, all procedures, freeing up commanders' time for combat work instead of paperwork."

"There will be more digitalization and clarity in supplying the troops. There should be more readiness for feedback from the military and overcoming piled up problems," the president said.

He also thanked all employees in the state system who work for the interests of Ukraine "to ensure that the result is seen every day," Zelenskyy said.
The tough life of a woman from Maharashtras Akola began the day she decided to marry her lover. Firstly, her parents didnt approve of her relationship and soon after she eloped, she was reportedly tortured by the husband and in-laws. Her story took a massive turn when the womans circumstances and a provocation made her a criminal.

Who is This Woman & Her Lifes Struggles

According to a report in Indian Express, the woman was identified as Sanghamitra, who married Roshan Kumbhare in December 2022.

Her parents were against the relationship and she eventually eloped with Roshan and moved into their house at Mahagaon in Gadchiroli, a police officer was quoted as saying.

According to the report, she stayed there with Roshan, his parents Shankar and Vijaya, and his sister Komal.

All four, along with Varsha Urade, sister of Vijaya, were victims of the plan executed by Sanghamitra and Ramteke, who is the sister-in-law of Vijaya.

According to police, Sanghamitras marriage did not turn out to be the expected way and she allegedly faced domestic violence at the hands of her husband. Other family members ill-treated as well, police was quoted

Her in-laws would constantly taunt her while her husband assaulted her at times. When Sanghamitras father came to know about this, he died by suicide in Akola by hanging himself in April this year, police said.

This added to her trauma, the IE report further quoted police.

THE PROVOCATION & WHEN DID SHE DECIDE TO TAKE REVENGE

According to the report, Sanghamitra wanted to go home during Raksha Bandhan festival to celebrate with her family but Roshan and his parents allegedly did not allow her.

As she kept insisting, a fight broke out in the family when Roshan allegedly assaulted her, the report stated.

While Sanghamitra sat crying outside the house, her aunt-in-law Rosa Ramteke saw her and consoled her. Sanghamitra confided in her and told that she feels like killing them, an officer was quoted.

Ramteke, who had an ancestral property dispute with Roshans family, saw an opportunity and started provoking her further against them, the report stated.

Vijaya had three sisters and a brother; Ramteke is her sister-in-law. Vijayas father had a four-acre land and she was pushing for equal distribution of the property among the five siblings. However, Ramteke felt that the property should only go to her husband (the only son in the family), a senior police officer was quoted as saying.

She assured Sanghamitra that she would help her kill the family members, the officer was further quoted. Since then the two started searching for methods to kill on Google.

THE MURDER PLAN

According to Indian Express, they initially ordered a poisonous flower online to mix it in their food but they eventually dropped it because they feared getting caught.

Later they learnt that Thallium is a slow-killer and they could add it to the food of the family members, without leaving any trace behind, stated the publication.

The duo procured Thallium, in mid-September, from Telangana after and started mixing it in food. Police are yet to ascertain how they procured Thallium.

In her confession to police, Sanghamitra said that she mixed Thallium in a non-veg food item of Shankar, Vijaya and Komal, while for Roshan, she mixed it in dal (lentil).

Ramteke took the responsibility of administering Thallium to Varsha Urade, who is Vijayas sister, the report stated.

On September 20, Shankar and Vijaya complained of tingling in the limbs, severe lower back ache and head ache, as they got blackened lips and a heavy tongue.

According to IE, they were admitted to a hospital at Aheri from where they were shifted to a hospital in Chandrapur and subsequently to a private hospital in Nagpur. But before the doctors could diagnose the illness, Shankar died on September 26, while Vijaya died the next day.

While their children were recovering from the loss, health of Komal, Urade and Roshan also deteriorated. They were also admitted to hospital and died on October 8, 14 and 15 respectively, an investigator was quoted.

HOW DID POLICE ZERO DOWN ON SANGHAMITRA?

According to the report, the medical officer suspected that all of them were poisoned due to the symptoms they had. Accordingly, the Gadchiroli police started a probe and took Sanghamitra to the police station for inquiry, IE report mentioned.

We got suspicious of her role as she was the only person in that house who did not develop any symptoms, and investigator was quoted.

Sanghamitra apparently started feeling guilty when she saw Roshan in the hospital, and asked the doctors to check whether there is any poison inside him, the investigator further said.

During interrogation, the woman confessed to the crime and revealed the role of her accomplice as well. Ramteke was also taken to the police station who confessed to have mixed the poison in Urades food, the report stated.

According to the report, the police added that three other persons, including their driver, were also poisoned in a similar way and they are currently recuperating in different hospitals.
SHARDIYA NAVRATRI 2023: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday offered prayer to Goddess Skandamata on the fifth day of Navratri. Maa Skandamata is the mother of the war god Kartikeya and is depicted as riding a lion cub and holding Kartikeya in her lap. She is a symbol of strength, courage, and motherly love.

Goddess Skandmata, the symbol of motherly love, is worshipped today. It is my wish that Mother Goddess blesses all her worshipers with new consciousness and new creation PM Modi posted in Hindi on X, formerly Twitter. He also shared a video of Maa Skandamata Stuti.

The nine-day Shardiya Navratri celebrations got underway on October 15. The festival is dedicated to the worship of the goddess Durga and her various forms. Each day of Navratri is associated with a different form of the goddess and has a specific colour and significance.

ALSO READ: Navratri Day 5: Skandamata Maa Puja Vidhi, Colour, Mantras, Shubh Muhurat, Significance and Bhog

Maa Skandamata is the mother of Lord Skanda, also known as Kartikeya, who is the god of war and commander of the celestial army. She is depicted as a motherly figure holding her son, Skanda, in her lap. She is often portrayed riding a lion, and she has four arms. Her name is derived from Skanda, which means war, and Mata, which means mother. She symbolizes the protective and nurturing aspect of a mother.

ALSO READ: Happy Navratri 2023: Best Wishes, Messages, and Quotes to Share on Day 5 of Maa Skandamata

Devotees worship Maa Skandamata on the fifth day of Navratri to seek her blessings for the well-being and protection of their children. She is believed to bestow strength, wisdom, and protection upon her devotees.

MAA SKANDAMATA PUJA SAMAGRI

Performing the puja of Maa Skandamata during Navratri involves a specific set of rituals and prayers. Heres a simplified step-by-step guide on how to perform Maa Skandamata puja.

A picture or idol of Maa Skandamata.

A clean and quiet place for the puja.

A chowki or a clean cloth to place the idol or picture.

Incense sticks, a diya (lamp), and camphor for aarti.

Flowers, especially White or Grey in color.

Fresh fruits and sweets as offerings.

Red and Yellow sacred threads (kalava or mauli).

A coconut.

Some coins.

A bell.

MAA SKANDAMATA PUJA VIDHI

PREPARING THE ALTAR

Set up the chowki or a clean cloth on the altar.

Place the picture or idol of Maa Skandamata on the chowki.

INVOCATION (PRANAM MANTRA)

Begin by lighting the diya (lamp) and incense sticks.

Ring the bell to signify the beginning of the puja.

Chant the Pranam Mantra: Om Devi Skandamatayai Namah.

OFFERINGS

Offer fresh flowers to the goddess.

Offer fruits and sweets as bhog (food offering).

Place the coconut and some coins in front of the idol.

Tie the sacred threads (kalava) around your wrist.

AARTI

Perform the aarti using the lit diya (lamp) and camphor.

Sing or recite Maa Skandamata aarti or bhajans.

You can also ring the bell during the aarti.

PRAYERS AND MANTRAS

Chant the Skandamata Mantra: Om Devi Skandamatayai Namah or any other mantras dedicated to her.

You can also recite the Durga Chalisa or other relevant prayers.

MEDITATION AND REFLECTION

Spend some time in meditation or silent reflection, focusing on your devotion and seeking the blessings of Maa Skandamata.

CONCLUDING THE PUJA

Offer your gratitude to Maa Skandamata for her blessings.

Untie the sacred threads and wear them on your wrist as a symbol of protection.

Distribute the blessed prasad (fruits and sweets) to family members.

DAILY OBSERVANCE
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and expressed grief at the loss of lives in the attack at Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. He also reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue.

In a phone conversation with Abbas, Modi also shared Indias deep concern over terrorism, violence, and the deteriorating security situation in the region. He assured the Palestine Authority President that India will continue to send humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people.

Taking to X (formally Twitter), PM Modi said, Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue.

Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 19, 2023

Around 500 people were reported to have been killed on Tuesday in an explosion at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, triggering strong international condemnation. Palestinian authorities blamed Israeli air strikes for the explosion at the hospital while Israel said it was caused by a misfired rocket launched from Gaza by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

On Wednesday, PM Modi on Wednesday said that those involved in civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict should be held responsible. Deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for the speedy recovery of those injured, Modi had said on X.

Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible, he added.

(with inputs from PTI)
US Ambassador Eric Garcetti took a ride in the Delhi Metro for the first time since he assumed the charge of his office earlier this year and hailed the service as among the best in the world.

The US envoy to India travelled on the Magenta Line from RK Puram to Okhla NSIC Metro Station on Magenta Line on Tuesday. He shared a video on X, formerly Twitter, of his first metro ride, a mode of transportation for lakhs of people in the national capital.

The video begins with Garcetti saying Delhi Metro, Mera Metro and flashing ONE Delhi common mobility card.

Wow! Delhi Metro, you make traveling so easy! I had a great time riding the Delhi metro for the first time and meeting fellow passengers. A shout out to the well maintained, efficient, and green public transport system that is among the best in the world!@OfficialDMRC pic.twitter.com/viYuPAwDLw U.S. Ambassador Eric Garcetti (@USAmbIndia) October 19, 2023

In the post, the US envoy lauded Delhi Metro, saying it is well well-maintained, efficient, and green public transport system that is among the best in the world.

Wow! Delhi Metro, you make traveling so easy! I had a great time riding the Delhi metro for the first time and meeting fellow passengers. A shout out to the well maintained, efficient, and green public transport system that is among the best in the world! Garcetti posted.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) shared pictures of his metro travel on X.

His Excellency Mr. Eric M. Garcetti, Ambassador of the United States of America to India, took a ride in Delhi Metro today from RK Puram to Okhla NSIC Metro Station on Magenta Line. He also interacted with passengers during his travel & appreciated clean and efficient Metro system, the DMRC posted on X.

His Excellency Mr. Eric M. Garcetti, Ambassador of the United States of America to India, took a ride in Delhi Metro today from RK Puram to Okhla NSIC Metro Station on Magenta Line. He also interacted with passengers during his travel & appreciated clean & efficient Metro system. pic.twitter.com/I1y3uhftkg Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (@OfficialDMRC) October 18, 2023

Some of the Delhi Metro officials accompanied him when he interacted with passengers onboard the train.

Ambassador Garcetti also obliged a few passengers with selfies.
In an unfortunate incident, a 40-year-old artist collapsed on stage and died of a suspected heart attack while performing in a Ramleela in Karke village of Garhwa district in Jharkhand. The incident took place on Tuesday evening when the man, identified as Vinod Prajapati, was enacting the role of Parashuram in the play and fell unconscious.

According to Hindustan Times, Prajapati came on the stage, began his act, and then suddenly collapsed in the middle of his performance. In the video doing rounds on social media, Prajapati can be seen standing on the stage and delivering his dialogue, Dhanush kisne toda? (who broke the bow?). Soon after this, he collapsed and remained motionless. Curtains were drawn on the stage and the act ended abruptly.

Fellow artists and local people took him to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead.

Initially, visitors at Ramleela thought it to be a part his role but as he did not move, the director, crew members and the locals picked rushed to see him, Hindustan Times quoted a local as saying.

On October 16, a similar incident was reported in Gujarats Jamnagar where a 19-year-old youth died of suspected cardiac arrest while playing Garba. Identified as Vinit Kunvariya, he was an engineering student and was practising Garba in a class in the Patel Park area for a Navratri event.

Police had said that Kunvariya suddenly collapsed after completing the first round. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, from where he was referred to another medical facility where he was declared dead.

Last month, a shocking video came to the fore where another 19-year-old man died after he collapsed due to cardiac arrest while running on a treadmill in a gym in Ghaziabad. The CCTV clip of the incident that took place in Saraswati Vihar gone viral on social media, raising concerns over the importance of safety during high-intensity exercises in such facilities.

Heart illnesses have been known to afflict older people but now such issues have also seen a rise among youngsters. While the deaths of teenagers due to heart attacks is an unfortunate trend, doctors across several states had told News18 on May 23 that its important for parents and teachers to recognise, prevent, and treat these sudden events.

A sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops beating or is not beating sufficiently to maintain perfusion and life. Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is triggered by a cardiovascular cause that occurs within one hour of the onset of symptoms.
On October 7th, there was a significant escalation of conflict between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel. Hamas initiated a major attack, involving hundreds of gunmen infiltrating communities near the Gaza Strip. Tragically, this resulted in the loss of at least 1,400 lives among the Israeli population. According to the Israeli military, 199 soldiers and civilians, including women and children, are being held as hostages in Gaza.

Conversely, the Israeli military carried out numerous airstrikes against Gaza, resulting in the deaths of more than 2,700 Palestinians. Additionally, Israel imposed a complete blockade on the territory, which included restricting access to food, fuel, and other essential resources. Moreover, Israel massed its forces along the Gaza boundary, raising concerns of a potential ground operation that could result in further casualties.

Udit Mehta, Executive Vice President  Global Security Solutions, International SOS discusses how the organisation is helping on ground.

Question 1: How might the conflict develop over the coming days or weeks?

Answer: Amidst a high likelihood of Israel launching a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip in the coming days, we could expect the deployment of Israeli troops in the area in the near-term. This will likely be concurrent with continued albeit sporadic rocket attacks targeting southern and central Israel.

Additionally, there would remain an increased risk of militant attacks within Israel as well as the possibility of an escalation in conflict with Hizbullah on Israels northern border with Lebanon.

Question 2: What safety advice is being provided for people and businesses on the ground?

Answer: International SOS raised its evacuation monitor level for both Israel and the Palestinian Territories on 11 October from an advice to Standy-By to Evacuate Non-Essential Staff. With commercial air options likely to deplete, evacuation options are liable to be constrained, necessitating the need for organizations to implement an evacuation of non-essential workforce.

Additionally, for those staying back in the area, a complete avoidance of all movement within a ten-mile (16km) radius of the Gaza Strip as well as within six miles (10km) of Lebanon and Syria is recommended. It is also imperative to understand the immediate actions to take on hearing air raid warnings and remain aware of the location of the nearest air raid shelter.

Question 3: How might the conflict affect businesses in the region, particularly neighbouring countries?

Answer: As with any situation driven by conflict the risks accrue to an area wider than the core of the geographical context. More specific to the conflict in Israel, these risks are further elevated given the geo-political context of the region coupled with the unprecedented nature of the attacks and ensuring violence. There are hence likely to be far-reaching consequences in addition to the ongoing disruptions to the movement of people, supply chain of goods and ancillary risks emerging from the ongoing situation.

As such businesses operating in the region need to immediately re-assess escalation management and evacuation plans as well as review triggers for geo-political volatility. This in addition to periodic simulation exercises is a key mitigation measure.

Question 4: How is International SOS assisting clients in the region?

Answer 4: International SOS has deployed an Incident Management Team (IMT) that is coordinating support on the ground. We have thus far successfully completed more than 30 secure ground movements and are coordinating two charter flights from Tel Aviv. Our in-country capabilities also include partners that can provide secure transport services, close protection, mobile patrol services, procurement of essential food supplies and distribution. These capabilities of course remain subject to change given the highly fluid on-ground environment. We also remain capable of providing Medical Assistance through our network in Israel in addition to Emotional Support services including individual tele psychological support and counseling sessions.
With the recent National Award Ceremony which was conducted in New Delhi, Alia Bhatt and Kriti Sanon have become the talk of the town. Both the actresses are sharing the prestigious National Award in the Best Actress Category for their commendable performances in Gangubai Kathiawadi and Mimi respectively.

At the celebratory dinner, Alia Bhatt was asked about what she feels like sharing an award, with a fellow actress like Kriti Sanon. Well, Kriti is.. Genuinely when I saw her performance in Mimi.. From my heart.. This is wayyy before any National Award/anything was happening.. before she even won a Filmfare award.. I just messaged her because I thought she hit such genuine notes, not being a mother emoting and expressing all those emotions with such nuance and such sensitivity. I thought it was really really commendable. When we both found out we won.. We both called each other and said that we both were so happy for each other because we loved each others performance, she shared.

While several pictures of the two actresses from the ceremony are going viral on social media, Kriti also recently took to her Instagram stories and dropped an adorable picture in which she was seen hugging Alia. The two were all smiles as they posed for the camera.

In the caption, Kriti wrote, Aliaaaa! @aliaabhatt Our smiles say it all! Will remember our moment we shared just before getting on stage. She further revealed that the photo was clicked by Alias actor-husband Ranbir Kapoor. Ranbir did click a cute pic haan! Kriti added.

Alia also re-shared Kritis story and wrote, Congratulation mimiyesterday was so much more special cause of the moment we shared..lots of love neighbour..meet soon so Ranbir can take more pictures of us haha.

Even when the National Awards 2023 were announced in August this year, Kriti exclusively told News18 Showsha that she had called up Alia to have a hearty chat. Ive always admired Alia as an actor and she was phenomenal in Gangubai Kathiawadi. Weve both played the title role in our respective films and its a proud moment to be sharing this prestigious award with her! I called her up and both of us were just too excited, she told us.
Killers of the Flower Moon is an epic Western crime saga, rooted in a true story and woven through the unlikely romance of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), where genuine love intersects with unspeakable betrayal. With Robert De Niro and Jesse Plemons in prominent roles, the film is helmed by Academy Award winner Martin Scorsese, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Eric Roth, drawing from David Granns best-selling book.

At the turn of the 20th century, oil brought a fortune to the Osage Nation, who became some of the richest people in the world overnight. The wealth of these Native Americans immediately attracted white interlopers, who manipulated, extorted and stole as much Osage money as they could before resorting to murder.

Killers of the Flower Moon, based on a shameful episode in American history, wouldnt fit the traditional mould. Scorsese and Roths adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon started out with a different hero: Thomas Bruce White Sr., the heroic Texas Ranger and FBI agent who solved the Osage murder case.

I wanted to explore it, Scorsese recalls, To start working with Eric and see what kind of a movie we could make. But what that meant was that, from 2017 to 2020, while we were shooting The Irishman, we went through every aspect of that story from the point of view of the FBI and Tom Whites character, including some aspects of the history of the Texas Rangers. It all hinged on Tom White. We came at the story from every possible angle, with Tom White as the main character.

Credit, then, is owed to Scorsese, Roth and DiCaprio for eventually realising that a pivot was needed.

It was definitely a revelation, says actor Leonardo DiCaprio of Granns book, noting the proximity of events to the two-day 1921 Tulsa race massacre, another horrific incident of white-on-minority violence that occurred less than 30 minutes away. (Sadly, its taken a century for both injustices to become widely known.) Whereas the Tulsa massacre was an outright carpet bombing of an entire community of African Americans, this was much more Machiavellian and lasted many years. There are still repercussions of it to this day, he said.

Produced by Paramount Pictures, a Viacom18 Studios release in India, Killers Of The Flower Moon is all set to hit the theatres on October 27 this year.
Actor Joaquin Phoenix is waging an all-out war with his battalion in the second trailer of Napoleon, released on Wednesday, October 18. Against the backdrop of a blood bath and massive battle shots, Joaquin takes the center frame leading his men to trap the enemy forces from the very first frame. Launching the attack on an icy plain, the tyrant blocks all sources of his rivals retreat by showing canons thereby submerging the army into chilly water. Im not built like other men," says Joaquins Napoleon in a sharp tone just moments before annihilating enemies on another battlefield. What follows is the story of his rise to power in France in the 1790s.

Those in power only see me as a brute unfit for higher office. But I follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great and Caesar," the savage leader makes clear his intentions. The story that runs on high-octane action also explores Napoleons relationship with his wife Josephine. The brute warriors other half is played by actress Vanessa Kirby and their chemistry promises to be a crucial dynamic of the film. Joaquins Napoleon expresses disdain over the thought of being second in command. And the aftermath is his seizing power over the French territory. I will win by fire. I am destined for greatness," he laments as ballistic battle drums play in the background. A scene also sees Napoleon crowning himself the emperor after which begins his long years of diplomatic and military domination over other nations including Great Britain.

From the looks of the trailer, the movie promises to be an action-packed amalgamation of Napoleons rise backed by naval warfare, venture into the pyramids, and ballistic killing spree. Watch the latest Napoleon trailer here:

Based on a true story, the upcoming movie is helmed and bankrolled by Ridley Scott with a feature of Tahar Rahim in a supporting role. Napoleon will be released in UK theatres on November 22 before it begins streaming on Apple TV+ at a later date.

Notably, the movie marks Joaquin Phoenixs second massive appearance on the silver screen this year, following the premiere of the horror epic Beau Is Afraid in April.
The international sensation and multi-talented superstar, Jennifer Lopez, has once again set the internet on fire with a series of smoldering lingerie photos that leave little to the imagination. The photos showcasing her age-defying beauty and undeniable confidence have gone viral and are garnering attention and adoration from fans worldwide. Jennifer Lopez, known for her mesmerizing stage performances and timeless beauty, has always been a style icon.

Taking to her official Instagram handle, the actress shared the photos and wrote, Introducing my @IntimissimiOfficial THIS IS MENOW collection From Verona to Hollywood and made with love @NormanJeanRoy #linkinbio. In the photos, she exudes unparalleled allure and sensuality, as she confidently strikes various poses, displaying her stunning physique and radiant glow. The photos have captivated social media platforms, with fans as they are praising her look. Social media has been abuzz with reactions to the photos, with fans and celebrities alike showering Jennifer Lopez with praise and admiration.

Take a look here:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo)

In June this year, actress Jennifer Lopez and actor Ben Affleck, the Hollywood power couple, have made a spectacular real estate acquisition in the heart of Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. After an extensive two-year house hunt, the duo has reportedly purchased a magnificent mansion for a whopping $61 million (or Rs 494 crore). The duo tied the knot last year in July and have now secured an impressive estate nestled atop the prestigious Benedict Canyon neighborhood, as confirmed by sources including the Wall Street Journal, reported People. The property, which spans over 5.2 acres, had been on and off the market for five years before capturing the hearts of Lopez and Affleck.

Hollywoods favorite couple rekindled their romance in 2021. Following this, their love story reached new heights when they got engaged in April 2022. And as if their love couldnt get any more electrifying, the couple surprised the world by tying the knot in a spontaneous Las Vegas ceremony in July 2022. But that was just the beginning of their fairytale. Affleck and Lopez took their love to new heights once again as they celebrated their marriage in a dazzling ceremony at Afflecks sprawling home in Georgia just a month later.
On instructions from the President of Ukraine, Head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak had a phone call with National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Timothy Barrow, during which he discussed with him issues of defense and security, in particular in the Black Sea basin, the President's Office of Ukraine said on Wednesday in the evening.

"Yermak thanked the United Kingdom for its unwavering support of Ukraine, including military support. In this context, the interlocutors discussed the current situation on the frontline and the importance of bolstering the protection of Ukraine's energy infrastructure ahead of winter. They also exchanged views on strengthening security in the Black Sea against Russian terrorist attacks," the office said.

It is also reported that the interlocutors focused on the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula and preparations for the third meeting at the level of national security advisers and foreign policy advisers to the heads of state in the near future. Yermak invited Barrow to personally participate in this event.

In addition, it is reported that Yermak and Barrow also exchanged views on events in the Middle East and noted the importance of protecting civilians in combat situations.
Actor Sidharth Malhotra is currently celebrating the National Award that his film Shershaah received earlier this week. At the ceremony held in the national capital on Tuesday, October 17, the film was awarded the Special Jury Award. While Sidharth did not attend, he took to social media to express his gratitude to the audience. Now, he has revealed that his character from the film is his favourite role ever and has also given a hint about working with Kiara again.

Sidharth took to the microblogging site X, formerly known as Twitter, to hold an #AskSid session, where his fans asked him questions about his professional and personal life. One fan asked, Favorite character youve ever played? @SidMalhotra #asksid. To this, Sidharth replied, Capt. Vikram Batra .

Shershaah is based on the life of Captain Vikram Batra, a soldier who was martyred during the Kargil War after contributing significantly to Indias victory in the war. The film not only delved into Vikrams career as a soldier but also showcased his real-life romance with Dimple Cheema.

Dimples character was essayed by Kiara Advani. Interestingly, the film marked Kiara and Sidharths first cinematic collaboration and the duo fell in love on the sets of the film. They later got married on February 7, 2023. Fans have been eager in anticipation for the real-life couple to now work on another film together.

Will let you know https://t.co/NK1VNoRhME Sidharth Malhotra (@SidMalhotra) October 19, 2023

One eager fan asked, @SidMalhotra When are we going to see our #SidKiara onscreen next? #AskSid. Sidharth replied, Will let you know . Sidharths reply has left fans in a frenzy, who cannot wait for their favourite couple to reunite on screen.

Meanwhile, one fan also asked the actor if he preferred doing romantic films or action films. The said replied, Romantic action films. Sidharth will soon be seen in the film Yodha and he also has Indian Police Force coming out soon.
Akshay is undoubtedly one of the most loved actors in Bollywood. He has come a long way in showbiz with rich content driven and commercial films. Having said that, he recently shared a rare throwback memory from his first ever photoshoot.

Taking a trip down the memory lane, he also penned a heartwarming note that read, Your firsts are always special  And so is this photo, taken when I was 23my first time in front of the camera and before I could realise, it soon became my first love, all thanks to your love. #ThrowbackThursday.

Akshay Kumar made his film debut with the movie Saugandh in 1991. He then went on to star in several hit movies including Hera Pheri, Rowdy Rathore, Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Padman, Singh Is Kinng, and Rustom, among others.

Have a look at the photo :

Akshay Kumar has an interesting line-up of films at present including Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, Skyforce, Hera Pheri 3 and the untitled Soorarai Pottru remake. Whether he will be able to break the streak of flops with these upcoming movies or not, one will have to wait and see.

Akshay was last seen in Mission Raniganj with Parineeti Chopra. Mission Raniganj is inspired by a real-life incident and presents the heroic act of the late Shri Jaswant Singh Gill who led Bharats coal mine rescue mission. Singh (portrayed by Akshay Kumar) played a significant role in rescuing all the surviving miners trapped inside a flooded coal mine in Raniganj in November 1989 which is documented to be the worlds largest and successful rescue mission against all odds.
In the world of the film industry, almost every day, photos of many actors and actresses from their childhood go viral making users ponder over who they are. Be it Hrithik Roshan or Nayanthara, pictures from their past, before they came into the industry, have always attracted the attention of the masses.

Recently, a picture of an actress, who has previously worked in Bollywood has gone viral. The netizens have concluded that this picture is from the time before she started pursuing her career in acting. But, she didnt start her career with Bollywood. She had to struggle a lot before establishing herself and making her debut in Bollywood paired with Shah Rukh Khan. By now, you should know whom we are talking about.

(Extract image from the reference link)

Yes, you guessed it right. It is none other than the renowned Pakistani actress Mahirah Khan who was seen opposite Shah Rukh Khan in the 2017 release Raees. Recently, she tied the knot for the second time with Salim Karim, a businessman hailing from Pakistan.

Before starting her journey as an actress, Mahirah was studying at Californias Santa Monica College. While studying, she was also working part-time in restaurants. The lady, whos worth crores today, had once worked as the cleaner in the store of Rite Aid. As per the media reports, Mahirah is worth almost Rs 170 crore today.

It was revealed that the Pakistani actress idolised the iconic Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit during her childhood. She later admitted that after watching her in Ram Lakhan, she was determined to be an actress.

Starting her career as a VJ with MTVs Most Wanted, Mahirah made her TV as well as big screen debut in 2011. She featured in Bol, directed by Shoaib Mansoor, alongside the likes of Humaima Malik and Atif Aslam.

Although, her fame in the Indian sub-continent rose after she was roped in by Rahul Dholakia to be cast opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Raees, which remains to be the most influential film in her life.

She will be next seen in Pakistani Urdu film Neelofar, opposite Fawad Khan. This will be the third time she will be collaborating with Fawad Khan after appearing with him in films in Humsafar and The Legend of Maula Jatt.
I have CM in my name, I am a born CM and it is permanent. The other CMs are temporary. They will be former one day, but I will always be a CM, even after my death. Former Union minister CM Ibrahim has shared this statement with this reporter many times.

This is how he loves to describe himself. Chand Mahal Ibrahim, or CM Ibrahim, has been a fixture in Karnataka politics for over 46 years. The colourful, controversial leader, who is known for quick wit, pun and repartee, is once again politically homeless.

JDS supremo and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda has sacked Ibrahim from the post of the partys Karnataka state president for challenging his son HD Kumaraswamys decision to go with the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Gowda, who is known for deft handling of any crisis, at 92, has once again demonstrated his absolute control over the struggling party. He has also reminded the cadre that family always comes first.

Ibrahim has lost the chair for punching above his weight, and this is not the first time he has got the boot for saying something unpleasant in public. Since 1978, he has been swinging between Congress and Janata Parivar, not staying anywhere for long.

Upset over not being made the Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Council or Upper House, Ibrahim had quit the Congress to head the JDS in Karnataka, describing Deve Gowda as a matured leader in early 2022.

The same matured leaders immature, as Ibrahim claims, action has rendered him homeless once again in less than two years.

Knowing too well that he will get the boot if he questions the Gowda family, Ibrahim challenged HDK to go down as a martyr who sacrificed power for secularism, argue those who have known the leader over the years.

There are rumours of him returning to the Congress and of his old friend Siddaramaiah willing to embrace him again. The ruling party might use him as one of the lead speakers at its rallies and campaigns.

With no mass appeal or followers, Ibrahim could do no bodily harm to the JDS, which has shed its secular colours to go with the BJP, which it used to dub as communal.

CM Ibrahim was born in Airani village in Karnatakas Haveri district and was brought up in the steel town of Bhadravathi in Shimoga district.

A practising Muslim, Ibrahim studied Vachanas (devotional poems) of the Lingayat faith in school and often extensively quotes them to make a point. He did his primary schooling in a Lingayat Mutt. The secular, liberal atmosphere of the Lingayat Mutt has deeply influenced me. I am a practising Muslim, who firmly believes in Basava Tatva (the preaching of Basavanna, the 12th-century founder of Lingayat faith), he proudly says.

Ibrahim and controversies are inseparable. In 1978, he first entered the Karnataka Assembly as an MLA from Shivajinagar in Bengaluru. He became one of the trusted followers of the then chief minister R Gundu Rao and was made a minister in the 1980s. The loquacious Ibrahim once proudly displayed a Rolex watch at a public function, claiming it was gifted to him by a friend in the Gulf. The Opposition made a big hue and cry over it and Ibrahim had to tender his resignation to the Cabinet.

The alleged rape of a woman by one of his brothers in Bhadravathi made him unpopular and he could not return to the Assembly again.

After several run-ins with then Congress leaders S Bangarappa and M Veerappa Moily, Ibrahim defected to the Janata Dal led by HD Deve Gowda and Ramakrishna Hegde in 1994. After the party swept to power, decimating the Congress, the newly appointed chief minister Gowda made Ibrahim state president of the Janata Dal. Two years later, in 1996, he was made a Rajya Sabha member.

In a miraculous development, Gowda became the Prime Minister and Ibrahim was appointed as the Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting. It was his finest hour and Ibrahim created more controversies during his short stint at the Centre.

In 2010, Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata had alleged that a senior minister had demanded Rs 15 crore to let his company operate domestic flights in collaboration with Singapore Airlines in the 1990s. But Tata had refused to name the minister and the media speculated that it was Ibrahim, who had also held the portfolio of Civil Aviation. Ibrahim had denied the charges, demanding Tata to name the minister.

Ibrahim was instrumental in bringing the Gowda government down. His distasteful comments on then Congress president Sitaram Kesari led to a breakdown of the relationship between Gowda and Kesari. Gowda lost the premiership, but Ibrahim continued as a cabinet minister in the IK Gujral government. That is Ibrahim for you, said a former aide of Gowda.

During this period, one of his brothers was charged with an alleged rape in Bhadravathi and Ibrahim had to do a lot of contortions to save his coveted chair.

In late 2000, he returned to the Congress with his old friend Siddaramaiah, who was expelled from the JD(S). In 2013, he unsuccessfully fought the Assembly election from Bhadravathi and lost miserably. Siddaramaiah made Ibrahim an MLC and also deputy chairman of the Karnataka Planning Board.

Ibrahim, the Congresss star campaigner between 2009 and 2021, created several controversies. One of his most distasteful comments got me at least 50,000 extra votes in the 2014 parliamentary elections. He was so cheap and uncouth, Shobha Karandlaje, now a Union Minister, had once told this reporter.

Even though Ibrahim claims and many genuinely believe that he has mastered the Vachanas, some of his critics feel that he is overrated person and his knowledge of the Lingayat faith is basic.

He is a comedian, a joker. Not a serious leader, said one of his old political friends.

Compared to two of his old Congress party colleagues and contemporaries KM Ibrahim and BM Ibrahim, CM Ibrahim has done quite well for himself. But his dreams of becoming a top leader of Karnatakas Muslims remains a dream and most likely will be unfulfilled.

Irrespective of what he does, Ibrahim wont be a CM. And he knows that well.
In a blow to TMC MP Mahua Moitra, businessman Darshan Hiranandani on Thursday turned approver in the cash for query controversy and said he had paid the politician to raise questions in Parliament about Adani Group. He said the TMC leader targeted business tycoon Gautam Adani to malign and embarrass Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose impeccable reputation gave the opposition no opportunity to attack him.

He submitted a signed affidavit admitting at using Moitras parliamentary login to ask questions targeting Adani after state-owned behemoth Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) booked capacity at the Gujarat-based conglomerates Dhamra LNG import facility in Odisha and not at his firms planned facility.

Heres all you need to know about the businessman at the centre of the allegations against Moitra:

Hiranandani alleged that Moitra made frequent demands including expensive luxury items, providing support on renovation of her officially allotted bungalow in Delhi, travel expenses, holidays, etc, apart from providing secretarial and logistical help for her travels within India and to different parts of the world.

The CEO of real estate-to-energy group Hiranandani, he met Moitra at Bengal Global Business Summit in 2017 when she was an MLA. Hiranandani referred to the politician as his close personal friend in the affidavit. According to his LinkedIn profile, he is credited with founding Tez Platforms, Yotta Infrastructure Solutions, and Greenbase  Industrial & Logistics Park.

Hiranandani has an MBA and BS from Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. Darshan Hiranandani is credited with taking the groups real estate business international and diversifying in emerging sectors such as datacentres, cloud computing, energy, and industrial warehousing and logistics. A composed individual with a focused vision, he envisions meeting the countrys infrastructure requirements and contributing to its economic growth, reads the profile.

The Hiranandani Group was founded by Darshans father Niranjan Hiranandani and uncle Surendra Hiranandani. It is involved in real estate and construction projects and known for developing residential and commercial properties.

(With PTI inputs)
Taking a jibe at Assam chief minister, Sharad Pawars daughter Supriya Sule on Thursday said that Himanta Biswa Sarma and she share the same DNA but BJPs trait of disrespecting women has rubbed off on him.

Her reaction came after the Assam CM slammed Sharad Pawar for supporting Palestine in conflict with Israel and said that he thinks the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief will send his daughter and Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule to Gaza to fight for Palestine-based terror group Hamas.

Reacting to Sarmas statement, Sule said, I am surprised because Himanta Biswa Sarma has the same DNA as me. He is originally from Congress. He and I share the same Congress DNA.

The Lok Sabha MP further said, You know how the BJP is disrespectful towards women. But I had hopes from Himanta Biswa Sarma. I am surprised how this change has happened towards women and the approach, probably going into BJP is a little rubbing off on him. BJP IT cell needs to understand and hear carefully what Sharad Pawar has said. Hear his entire statement.

#WATCH | NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) MP Supriya Sule says, I am surprised because Himanta Biswa Sarma has the same DNA as me, he is originally from Congress. He & I share the same Congress DNAYou know how the BJP is disrespectful towards women. But I had hopes from Himanta pic.twitter.com/43QzKkU6Qu ANI (@ANI) October 19, 2023

The verbal duel began when Pawar, the former Maharashtra chief minister, said that the Israel-Palestine issue is serious and sensitive, and views of Muslim countries like Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates and other nations cannot be ignored.

He added that he he did not believe that the Indian government had sided 100 per cent with Israel amid its war with Hamas.

Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Nitin Gadkari teared into Pawar and termed his remark a casual view on issues relating to terror and said that the gravity of the situation necessitates a unified front against terrorism, irrespective of political affiliations or personal opinions.

On October 8, a day after Hamas launched its incursions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed solidarity with Israel and condemned terrorist attacks. Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour, Modi had said on X (formally Twitter).

On October 10, Modi told his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu that the people of India stand firmly with his country, expressing strong and unequivocal condemnation of terrorism in all its forms.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and providing humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered people, and said the perpetrators of the indiscriminate bombing on a hospital there must be held accountable. He also appealed to all sides to abandon violence and begin the process of negotiations so that the aspirations of the Palestinian people are fulfilled and the security concerns of Israel are also ensured.

In a statement, he reiterated Congress support for the rights of Palestinian people who have been living in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Their aspiration for a life of dignity, self-respect and equality in a sovereign state of their own is perfectly legitimate, Kharge said.

The indiscriminate bombing on the hospital in Gaza and residential areas resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives of innocent men, women and children is both unjustifiable and a grave humanitarian tragedy for which the perpetrators must be held accountable, Kharge said.

The Indian National Congress repeats its call for an immediate ceasefire and for humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered people of Gaza. It calls upon all sides to abandon the path of senseless violence and war and begin the process of negotiations and diplomacy so that the aspirations of the Palestinian people are fulfilled and the security concerns of Israel are also ensured, the Congress president said.

On October 8, he said the Congress had condemned the brutal attacks by Hamas on the people of Israel. Also unacceptable are the indiscriminate actions by Israels military forces in civilian areas that includes a siege of the Gaza strip and bombings in it, he said.

The Indian National Congress reiterates its long-standing support for the rights of the Palestinian people. The aspirations of the Palestinian people for a life of dignity, self-respect and equality in a sovereign state of their own is long-standing and perfectly legitimate. These aspirations have been routinely suppressed and denied. Millions of Palestinians have been dispossessed and displaced. They have lived in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, the Congress chief said.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday had said on X, The bombing of hospitals, the murder of children, the blockading of food, water and medicines to civilians.there are no words strong enough to condemn the horror that is taking place in Gaza.

As a woman, a mother, a human being, I am ashamed that the world is allowing these crimes to be committed with such impunity, she said.

Doctors hamstrung by dwindling medical supplies rushed Wednesday to save people badly wounded in a massive blast at a Gaza City hospital the day before, performing surgery  often without anaesthesia  on patients lying on floors, as Israel kept up its attacks on the besieged territory.

The Hamas militant group blamed Israel for the massive blast at the al-Ahli Hospital  saying nearly 500 died  while Israel blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants.
The repercussions of the Israel-Palestine war are starting to reverberate all over the world. This conflict has divided the world into two groups. The situation in India is no different. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on the phone and conveyed the message that India stands firmly on the side of Israel in this war. However, some organisations and parties in the country have taken the side of Palestine. Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar has also taken a stand in favour of Palestine, which has snowballed into a controversy.

Just a few days back, at an event, he told NCP (Sharad Pawar group) workers that the land where the war is going on belongs to the Palestinian people. There was encroachment and the country of Israel emerged. I dont want to go deep into it. But from Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, then Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, all had a role to play in helping Palestine. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister of our country (Narendra Modi) has sided with Israel. In doing so, they have ignored Palestine, the original owner of that land. Whatever their role may be, the NCP is very much clear on this, he said.

Sharad Pawars comments have drawn criticism from Bharatiya Janata Party leaders. Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal challenged Sharad Pawar over his remarks on social media site X.

It is very disturbing when a senior leader like @PawarSpeaks ji makes preposterous statements on Indias stand on a terror attack in Israel. The menace of terrorism has to be condemned in all forms, in any part of the world. It is a pity that a person who has been Indias Defence Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) October 18, 2023

Political analyst Abhay Deshpande has a different view on why Pawar made the statement that has triggered a controversy. Sharad Pawar with his statement on the Palestine and Israel war again reminded the central government of what stand was taken by all the Prime Ministers of India before PM Modi. Also, there is an Islamic angle involved, the way the clips of this war emerged, and right-wing parties started taking advantage of that by spreading their narrative. Hence, Pawar must have made that comment considering the communal angle, so that there are no repercussions of that war in our country, he said.

Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis also took to X to counter Pawars comments.

India has never changed its position on the Israel-Palestine dispute.However, at the same time, India has been consistently against & has always strongly opposed terrorism in any form and against anyone.When the entire world has condemned the killing of innocent people in Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) October 18, 2023

Speaking to News18, senior journalist Pratap Asbe said, Sharad Pawar has always taken a pro-Palestine stand; thats his political stance. Pawar was the first to send a group of farmers from Maharashtra to Israel to learn the modern technology of farming and how that can be implemented in the state. But since his Congress days, he had taken that stand. And talking about his statement in favour of Palestine, he has reminded this government of where our earlier Prime Ministers stood on this issue.
2023 is on track to being the hottest year on record. Heatwaves have been the norm for traditionally warm places like Asia, Middle East and Africa for decades now. But as the last few years have proven, even Scandinavian countries now have heat waves  as of August, both Canada and Greece were battling wildfires, and Italy, Spain and Portugal baked in 40 degree plus heat. For the first time, there is global consensus that heat waves should be named, just as hurricanes are.

While heat waves are an annoyance to anyone making summer travel plans, they can be downright deadly for those who work in the sun. Construction workers, farm workers, delivery boys, security guards, and even emergency staff like firemen and policemen are at greater risk of heat exhaustion, heat stroke and other heat related illnesses.

Of course, nothing beats the heat like a chilled glass of water. But with climate change, increased freshwater demands for both industry and agriculture, we may soon be heading into a period of freshwater shortages. Experts predict that by 2025 nearly two-thirds of the worlds countries will be water-stressed, i.e. demand for water will exceed supply.

For India, where 1.4 billion people live, this is a ticking time bomb. Fortunately, we have the best minds in the country working on these problems. These are young, intrepid innovators who see solutions, where most grown ups see insurmountable problems. What these innovators lack in experience, they make up for in enthusiasm.

And now, the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition is offering them the opportunity as well as and the right dose of experience through mentors to their ideas into action.

The second year of the competition, which kicked off in April this year, has gone through multiple rounds and now its down to the Top 10 teams.

Two of the Top 10 teams in the competition are working on solutions to combat rising temperatures and water shortages.

Team Jalraajs Aman Verma is an incredible young man with a dream. He is self-taught, and overcame several challenges to create his solar powered water filter, that converts seawater into potable water. Hailing from a family that makes its living through agriculture, he was inspired to find a solution for his own farm, when limits were placed on water usage due to shortages.

His solution employs several filters, and a distillation process to purify seawater to 80%. For context, existing solutions are only able to achieve a 20% filtration result. Moreover, his solution utilizes solar energy for power, making it green, cost effective and portable. Currently, his solution comes in 4 different prototypes: one for family use, one that is portable and useful when in nature, one model for commercial use, and one for disaster relief, when water supplies are compromised.

While Team Jalraaj is powered by one intrepid inventor, Team Think is powered by three young tinkerers who came together online to solve the problem of keeping farm workers cool in our hot summer sun. Team Thinks solution is a small, wearable personal cooling unit that helps users regulate their body temperature during hot and cold weather. Theyve experimented with various solutions, materials and tested their product in several conditions before settling on the one they have. Their latest prototype is likely to be priced between 1000-1500, and users can control it via the device itself, or through an app.

Of course, their mentors are thrilled. Vivek Kumar from the Embedded AI Vision and Camera team at Samsung is Team Jalraajs mentor. He expressed his confidence in Amans vision and his prototypes and is looking forward to seeing him in the Top 3. Vivek suggests that Jalraaj include other sources of power other than solar as an added plus.

Team Thinks mentor, Vipul Singla who is from Samsungs e-Commerce Sales team, is very proud of all the research that has gone into Team Thinks solution, and of the products USP  this is a personal cooling device that can adapt to cold weather by providing gentle warmth too! Vipuls only feedback is to reduce the size and weight of the product as much as possible, and that the team do their market research to identify the right target customers to enable easy marketing.

Ideas and solutions like these, and many more are waiting for you at Samsung Solve for Tomorrow. Watch the latest episode here , and visit the Solve for Tomorrow website to keep up with Top 10 teams as they progress at breakneck speed towards the grand finale!

This is a partnered post.
Google is launching a new update for Chrome that is designed to improve its autocomplete featureon both web and mobile. Now, instead of it working correctly only in the beginning of a URL, Chrome desktops address bar will get auto-completed based on any word youve previously used to search for a website.

Citing an example, Google mentioned that if you simply type flights, Chrome will autocomplete to reveal the complete Google Flights website address.

In addition, Google Chrome can now also tell if a user misspells a URL name in the address bar. According to Google, it can now detect typos and then show you suggestions based on your previously visited websites. This feature is rolling out to users across desktop, iOS, and Android.

As part of the update, Google is also bringing the ability to allow users to search for their saved bookmarksright from Chromes address bar. So, simply type the name, and Google will show you the results.

And Google will now also recommend results for websites you have never visited before. Lets say you want to search for Google Earth on Google but dont know about its website and end up typing Google Earth in the address bar, Google will look for its website and show you the recommendation.

Google notes all these changes and features would be easier to use as the company has also worked on optimizing the address bar by making it faster to respond, with a new visual layout that promotes clarity.
One Ukrainian citizen died in the Gaza Strip on Thursday night, Ambassador of Ukraine to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk said.

"Overnight, our activists confirmed the death of one Ukrainian citizen in the Gaza Strip, her personal information has also been established," Korniychuk said during a national telethon on Thursday.

He also denied information about 23 dead Ukrainian citizens, as previously reported by Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky, clarifying that in fact 18 Ukrainians died from an attack by the Hamas terrorist organization.

"We have confirmed information regarding 18 killed, not 23 ones  this information does not correspond to reality... We still remain in second place [in terms of the number of our citizens killed] after the Americans, despite the fact that not 23, but 18  this is a sad story," Korniychuk said.

He said at the moment three charter flights have already been operated, with which about 450 Ukrainian citizens were evacuated from Israel, on Thursday evening there will be a fourth, while, according to the ambassador, the demand for evacuation has started to decline. "Today there will be another evacuation flight in the evening. We already have about 80 citizens registered at this moment, in total there are 100-150 tickets... We will know more accurate information closer to the evening. The flight at 11 was set for this evening and consuls will accompany our citizens," the diplomat said.

The plane, according to Korniychuk, will fly to Romania, where evacuees will be provided with a hotel or escort to the border if necessary.

The diplomat said the situation with the evacuation of Ukrainians from the Gaza Strip is becoming more complicated. "The number of people on our evacuation list has already exceeded 300, now it is 308, but it is constantly increasing, and I think it may approach the 400 mark over the next day or two. I hope that the evacuation will begin," he said.

Korniychuk said the first vehicles with humanitarian aid have already left for the Gaza Strip, and expressed hope that Hamas "will fulfil its promise and release the foreigners."
At its annual Google for India event, Google announced that it will start assembling Pixel smartphones in India and the first smartphone from that will come with the Made in India tag will be the newly launched Pixel 8. Google has been working behind the scenes to expand its manufacturing base outside of China just like Apple and this announcement shows that Google sees India as an important market and will focus on the country for years to come.

As far as the availability, the locally manufactured Pixel 8 smartphone will hit the market in 2024. Google, however, did not comment anything officially regarding the pricing. We are very excited to announce our plan to manufacture Pixel smartphones in India. We intend to start with the Pixel 8, and will partner with international and domestic manufacturers to produce Pixel smartphones locally. We expect these devices to start to roll out in 2024, joining Indias Make in India" initiative," as Rick Osterloh says in this post.

Having said that, if you follow the pricing trends of Pixel phones, it can be safe to consider that the prices of Pixel smartphones come down drastically within 6 months of the launch. And with local manufacturing, the pricing of flagship Pixel 8 phones may become more accessible for more Indian buyers.

Keeping the pricing bit aside, another aspect is that with local manufacturing, spare parts of Google Pixel 8 smartphones can be expected to be widely available. As of now, Google has partnered with F1 for providing official customer support. But there are only 27 F1 service centres across India that cater to servicing Pixel smartphones. Things may change for the better going ahead with Google locally assembling Pixel 8 in India.

Many people have been discouraged from buying Pixel phones in India because of its limited support ecosystem and the lack of spare parts which makes the whole experience quite tedious and harrowing. But hearing Google say that India is a, priority market for Pixel smartphones" makes us believe that change is finally going to happen and it will only get people excited for the Pixel devices in the country.
OnePlus Open Launch: The stage is set for the Chinese tech giant OnePlus as the company prepares to launch its first foldable smartphone, OnePlus Open, on October 19 (today) in Mumbai, India, during the Open for Everything event. OnePlus has been teasing the features and design of its first foldable phone on social media in the past few days.

How To Watch OnePlus Open Launch Live | When And Where To Watch OnePlus Event Livestreaming

The OnePlus Open launch event will start today at 7:30 PM in Mumbai, India. Interested viewers can also watch the livestreaming of the OnePlus launch event on companys official website and YouTube channel. You can also watch here as we have also embedded the live link below.

According to the company, consumers can click the Notify Me button on OnePlus website, and stand a chance to win OnePlus Open.

OnePlus Open Price In India, Availability (Expected)

A tipster claims the price of the OnePlus Open price in India will be below how much you pay for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 in the country. The OnePlus Open price in India could be Rs 1,39,999. The foldable phone from OnePlus is expected to go on sale from October 27th in the country.

OnePlus Open Specifications (Expected)

OnePlus Open teasers hint at a Hasselblad camera setup that could have a periscope lens. It is said come with a 2K AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate. OnePlus Open is be expected to come with Qualcomms flagship Snapdragon Gen 2 chipset.

The OnePlus Open is said to feature a large circular camera module with Hasselblad-backed cameras. As per 91Mobiles, both the cover and main displays on OnePlus One will feature a punch-hole camera.

The latest foldable smartphone will ship with OxygenOS 13.1 based on Android 13. In terms of battery, the OnePlus Open will be backed by a massive 4,800mAh battery with support to 100W fast charging.

OnePluss iconic Alert Slider also makes its way to a foldable smartphone for the first time on the OnePlus Open. Several optimidations have been made to the design and architecture of the slider to ensure it fits the new compact form without losing any of its functionality.

The external size of the Alert Slider button has been increased, and its position in the middle frame has been adjusted to make it more convenient for one-handed operation.
Beneath the depths of the Red Sea, researchers made a chilling discovery that are more dangerous deep sea creatures. Scientists have unveiled a massive brine pool, which is around 100 feet in length, hiding at the oceans floor and it is capable of killing any creature that enters them. These pools are natural wonders that are scattered across the globe. This particular pool, which is spread across 107,000 square feet was unearthed during a 2020 expedition by University of Miami researchers who used a remotely operated underwater vehicle. Although it lacks oxygen, it also holds the key to understanding the origins of life on Earth and offers crucial insights into the environmental transformations taking place in this region.

According to Sam Purkis, a professor and chair of the Department of Marine Geosciences at the University of Miami, told Live Science, Our current understanding is that life originated on Earth in the deep sea, almost certainly in anoxic without oxygen conditions. Deep-sea brine pools are a great analog for the early Earth and, despite being devoid of oxygen and hypersaline, are teeming with a rich community of so-called extremophile microbes. Studying this community hence allows a glimpse into the sort of conditions where life first appeared on our planet, and might guide the search for life on other water worlds in our solar system and beyond.

While they are dangerous, researchers further expect that the unique microorganisms living in these extreme environments might produce particles that are beneficial for medical purposes. Purkis mentioned that scientists have found substances with the power to fight bacteria and cancer in tiny organisms from deep-sea brine pools.

The Red Sea has many such deep-sea brine pools, but they are usually found about 25 km away from the shore. However, in 2020, scientists found the first brine pools near the Gulf of Aqaba, closer to the coast of Saudi Arabia, in an area that was not explored before.

Meanwhile, Sam Purkis further explained that the brine pool which has no oxygen, is also called the death pool because anything that gets close to it doesnt survive. Normally, at this great depth in the ocean, there isnt much life on the seabed. However, brine pools are unique because they are packed with life. They have a lot of tiny organisms, called microbes, which provide food for various animals living around the brine pool.

Scientists used the information from these newly discovered brine pools to better understand tsunamis and earthquakes. These pools provide a history of past rainfall in the area, going back over 1,000 years, as well as records of earthquakes and tsunamis. Their research indicates that in the past 1,000 years, significant floods caused by heavy rain have occurred approximately every 25 years, while tsunamis have happened around once every century.
A British YouTuber who is currently in India is experiencing a range of popular festivals, from Ganesh Chaturthi to the India-Pakistan match and Navratri. His Instagram and YouTube profiles are filled with content showcasing his fantastic time in the country. However, amidst the festivities, a rather terrifying yet ultimately memorable incident took place during his stay in Mumbai, which ultimately had a positive outcome, all thanks to the assistance of the local police. This YouTuber, known as Phil Bland, was exploring the bustling city when he realised he had misplaced his iPhone during the Ganeshotsav. What followed was a nerve-wracking experience, which he documented using his GoPro camera, from the moment he hopped into an auto-rickshaw, where he suspected his phone went missing, to the eventual recovery facilitated by the Mumbai Police.

Bland, highly appreciative of the police force, shared his vlog on his YouTube channel @philbland. In the vlog, you can see him flagging down an auto-rickshaw after requesting the drivers assistance with his remaining cash to take him to Juhu Beach. It was there, upon his arrival at the beach, that he realized his iPhone 14 was no longer in his pocket. Without delay, he decided to report the incident to the police, who promptly offered their assistance.

They even took him back to the spot where he had boarded the auto-rickshaw. However, to the astonishment of both Bland and the online community following his journey, the police informed him that someone had turned in his phone at a police station, thanks to the word having spread about the lost device. They guided him to the relevant police station, where he was joyfully reunited with his iPhone within just two hours of losing it.

Also Read: Mumbai Police Retrieves Apple iPad Within One Hour Of Being Lost

Impressed by the dedication and integrity of both the police and the people of Mumbai, Phil expressed his gratitude by taking pictures with the officers, dubbing them the best in the world." He even sought blessings from Ganpati Bappa at the police stations pandal, displaying his sheer delight.

Heres the Entire Vlog:

Soon after, the comments section of his vlog was flooded with praise for the Mumbai Police and the honest locals who ensured that the tourists experience in the country remained positive. One user commented, I can assure you, that this would only happen in India. Salute to the Mumbai Police , the kind and friendly folks of Mumbai, and for Phil for believing."

Another praised, Mumbai police has always been in the record of positive sides. Whether its encounter of bad guys, or to find a missing girl child within an hour. Thanks for making us witnessed another mind blowing thing done by mumbai police."

Also Read: Heartwarming Video Shows Mumbai Police Helping 65-Year-Old Woman Reunite With Family

Once again, this heartwarming episode serves as a shining testament to the allure of Mumbai, underscored by the unwavering dedication and kindness of the Mumbai Police.
Pakistani politician Captain Muhammad Safdars reckless statement on nuclear weapons amid the Israel-Hamas war shows the countrys nukes are in unsafe and irresponsible hands, Indian intelligence sources told News18. Safdar, the son-in-law of deposed Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said at a Peshawar rally that Pakistans nuclear weapons are meant for the whole Muslim world.

Pakistans nuclear weapons are not meant to be kept in safe custody, but (are meant) for the whole Muslim world. We cant sit quiet at the time when major a crisis is going on in the world, Safdar said.

He claimed his father-in-law is the only political figure capable of going against Israel. Its only Nawaz Sharif who can take any daring step. He threatened India with nukes when he was the Leader of Opposition, Safdar said.

Intelligence sources in India cited Safdars statements to allege that Pakistani nukes were in unsafe and irresponsible hands.

It shows how much peace they want. They are brining matters of international security in their election rallies. He (Safdar) is a discredited entity in Pakistan and is trying to regain prominence using the Palestine cause, an official told News18. We are very clear that Pakistan nukes are unsafe and are in irresponsible hands

RELIEF FOR NAWAZ SHARIF

Meanwhile, in temporary relief to Nawaz Sharif, 73, ahead of his return to Pakistan on Saturday, the Islamabad High Court granted the former prime minister protective bail in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia corruption cases until October 24. An anti-corruption court in Pakistan also suspended his arrest warrant in the Toshakhana vehicles case.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo was convicted in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia cases and was declared a proclaimed offender in the Toshakhana vehicle case, which is pending before an accountability court in Islamabad. Sharif was on bail in these cases when he left for the UK in 2019 for medical treatment.

The respite comes just days ahead of Nawaz Sharifs arrival in Pakistan on October 21, ending about four years of self-exile in London.

Last month, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif had confirmed that his elder brother Nawaz Sharif was returning to Pakistan on October 21 to lead the partys campaign for the general election.

Nawaz stepped down as Pakistans prime minister in 2017 after he was disqualified for life from holding public office by the Supreme Court for not declaring a receivable salary. He has been living in London since 2019 after the Lahore High Court granted him four-week permission to go abroad for his treatment.

He was serving a seven-year imprisonment at Lahores Kot Lakhpat jail in the Al-Azizia Mills corruption case before he was allowed to proceed to London in 2019 on medical grounds.

In 2020, an accountability court declared Nawaz a proclaimed offender in the Toshakhana vehicles case. He is also accused of obtaining luxury cars from the treasury house by paying just 15 per cent of the price of these vehicles. Nawaz was convicted in the Al-Azizia Mills and Avenfield corruption cases in 2018.
Because of the fracture in her right leg, Karin Journo had talked herself out of going to the Tribe of Nova music festival and sold her ticket. But a week before Hamas militants turned the party into a killing ground, she bought another. The 24-year-old French-Israeli airport worker who loved to travel had learned that a bunch of her friends were going to celebrate the departure of one of them to the United States. She didnt want to miss out.

Before heading out to dance the night away, she snapped a photo of herself in her party gear  black shorts and black halter top for a joyous night of electronic music in a dusty field. Shed left her long dark hair untied and painted her nails bright red. She was clearly excited, giving a V-sign in her selfie.

And dance she did: Video shot that night showed her waving her arms to the thumping beats, though she was rooted to the spot by the gray protective boot that encased her right foot and calf all the way up to her knee. It made her easy to recognize in subsequent video footage filmed as Hamas started to launch its deadly attack.

Sheltering behind a car with a friend, her face was marked with worry. With explosions echoing in the background, she looked around anxiously in another. In a final video, she is seen sitting just outside the open door of an ambulance, wearing a brown hoodie borrowed from a friend. Two people were laid out inside the vehicle, not moving.

At 8:43 that Saturday morning she sent a text to her loved ones, according to her father, Doron Journo: To the whole family, I want to say that I love you a lot, because I am not coming home. It turned out to be her final message. After an awful wait of more than a week for news and of not knowing whether Karin was a hostage in Gaza, the family got word from the Israeli military that her remains had been found.

The military said the ambulance Karin had been sheltering beside was subsequently hit by a rocket, her sister, Meitav Journo, said by text message. They burned her, the sister wrote. The funeral for Karin Journo was held on Tuesday.
Even as its war with Palestine-based terror group Hamas entered its 13th day, Israel continues to see visits of West leaders, the latest being UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who extended support to Tel Aviv but pressed his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu to let more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Sunak is the third world leader after US President Joe Biden and Germanys Chancellor Olaf Scholz to visit Israel after the October 7 raids in which at least 1,400 died and more than 200 people were taken hostage.

Top Israel Hamas War Updates
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday urged Israel to allow fuel to be taken into the Gaza Strip, alongside the first deliveries of water, food and medicine.

We welcome Israels announcement yesterday that it will not block the entry of water, food and medicines into Gaza from Egypt. Fuel is also needed for hospital generators, ambulances and desalination plants  and we urge Israel to add fuel to the life-saving supplies allowed to enter Gaza, Tedros said.
A dentist from the US state of Florida was dismissed after he was filmed tearing down posters of Israeli hostages in Miami, according to The New York Post. Dr. Ahmed ElKoussa was caught removing banners of around 200 people kidnapped by Hamas, posted throughout Miamis trendy Brickell neighborhood.

ElKoussa asserted his innocence, saying that his intention was to quell racially charged tensions in the city amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Following the release of the footage featuring ElKoussa and his counterpart Xave Ramoul, shared by pro-Israel social media accounts, ElKoussa was promptly fired from his position at a Coral Gables dentistry the next morning.

Miami  two men were spotted removing posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas in the Brickell area.The men appear to be dentist Ahmed ElKoussa (left) and Xave Ramoul (right). pic.twitter.com/cl2Sec8WlA  StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 18, 2023

We are very sad to see this situation upon waking up, CG Smile said in a statement. Our office CG Smile is not in favor of any of the actions taken by Dr. ElKoussa. We do not support terrorist groups, actions, or supporters. He has been removed from our staff, all of our social media pages and groups.

Notably, ElKoussas social media accounts have been taken down and a Yelp page for his dentistry has been flooded with negative reviews. ElKoussa, who has since apologised for hurting the Jewish community, claims he was acting in good faith when he and his friend tore the images down. The US dentist was compelled to act after learning that a 71-year-old landlord in Illinois fatally stabbed a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy and injured his mother because of their Muslim faith.

His personal opinion was that posters from either side may potentially incite conflict and he did not want there to be any conflict escalation in his local community, Hassan Shibly, ElKoussas lead attorney told The Post. And he was concerned that those posters could potentially trigger conflict  rightfully or wrongfully, he was concerned that they would trigger and escalate conflict.

US media reports said ElKoussa initially called the police to raise his concerns with the flyers and was told to either paste his own counter posters or take down the existing ones. His intention was never to cause harm to anyone, nor did he at the time believe that doing so would do that. He was just concerned someone may see these posters and react with a hate crime and that may trigger a counter-hate crime and it just becomes endless conflict, Shibly said.
The United States has privately been urging Israel not to launch a military campaign against Hezbollah, as part of Washingtons efforts to prevent the current conflict from escalating beyond Gaza.

This report from The Times of Israel coincides with a recent phone call between Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The two ministers have been in near-daily communication since the October 7 Hamas attack. During the call, Gallant provided Austin with updates on Israels military operations in response to the terror attacks.

According to a US readout, Austin called for Lebanese Hezbollah to cease its attacks from southern Lebanon into Israel, and underscored the importance of humanitarian aid deliveries to civilians in Gaza. The Israeli newspaper said the Biden administration recognises that the Benjamin Netanyahu government must respond to the increased targeting of its northern border by Hezbollah since the Hamas attack.

However the repeated attacks by the Lebanese outfit and the fact that Israel failed to anticipate the assault by Hamas from Gaza have led to the intensification of talks on whether Israel must be the one to initiate a battle against Hezbollah to maintain the upper hand. Such discussion has left the US worried, which has been privately and publicly warning Hezbollah and Iran not to open a war on Israels northern front.

The US has reportedly cautioned Israel to be careful in its military responses to Hezbollah fire, explaining that an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) mistake in Lebanon could spark a much larger war. Hezbollah, with an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles capable of hitting virtually anywhere in Israel, is viewed as a far more formidable foe than Hamas. Several defence experts believe that opening a new front in the countrys north could change the tide of the war, with Hezbollahs military caliber far superior to that of Hamas.

Washington has reportedly indicated to Tel Aviv that if Hezbollah initiates a war against Israel, the US military will join the IDF in fighting the group, the Israeli newspaper said citing unnamed officials. Hezbollah, which like Hamas is supported by Iran, has so far been on the fence about joining the fighting between Israel and the Gaza Strips Islamic militant rulers.

Hezbollah has only fired dozens of anti-tank guided missiles, rockets, and mortars at Israeli military positions and Israeli towns since the unprecedented Hamas attack. As many as five Israeli soldiers have been killed in these exchanges. One Israeli civilian was killed in a Hezbollah attack Sunday, and two Lebanese civilians and a journalist were also reported killed by Israeli shelling.

(With agency inputs)
During a trip to Kyiv region, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy inspected the progress of housing construction for people affected by the Russian invasion in the village of Tarasivka.

According to the presidential press service, the head of state visited the Hansen Town, which is being constructed by the Wasatch Group in partnership with the charitable organization To Ukraine With Love.

The head of state, together with the founder of the Wasatch Group Dell Loy Hansen, and the director of To Ukraine With Love, Svitlana Miller, inspected several apartments and one of the finished houses.

Zelenskyy highly appreciated the project and thanked the benefactor for his support. Housing in the town will be provided temporarily free of charge to internally displaced Ukrainians who lost their homes as a result of the full-scale Russian invasion, family members of fallen defenders, war invalids, war victims, etc.
The United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Wednesday that would have called for humanitarian pauses in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants to allow humanitarian aid access to the Gaza Strip.

The vote on the Brazilian-drafted text was twice delayed in the last couple of days as the United States tries to broker aid access to Gaza. Twelve members voted in favor of the draft text on Wednesday, while Russia and Britain abstained.

We are on the ground doing the hard work of diplomacy, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the 15-member council after the vote. We believe we need to let that diplomacy play out.

US vetoes Security Council resolution that would have called for humanitarian pauses to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in GazaFavor: 12 (Albania, Brazil, China, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland,UAE)Against: 1 (US)Abstain: 2 Russia, UK pic.twitter.com/y4tiAbRMUQ  UN News (@UN_News_Centre) October 18, 2023

Yes, resolutions are important. And yes, this council must speak out. But the actions we take must be informed by the facts on the ground and support direct diplomacy efforts. That can save lives. The council needs to get this right, she said.

We are on the ground doing the hard work of diplomacy, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the 15-member council after the vote. We believe we need to let that diplomacy play out.

Yes, resolutions are important. And yes, this council must speak out. But the actions we take must be informed by the facts on the ground and support direct diplomacy efforts. That can save lives. The council needs to get this right, she said.
As desperate Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza try to find refuge under Israels relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas brutal Oct. 7 attack, some ask why neighboring Egypt and Jordan dont take them in. The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his toughest remarks yet on Wednesday, saying the current war was not just aimed at fighting Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to  migrate to Egypt. He warned this could wreck peace in the region.

Jordans King Abdullah II gave a similar message a day earlier, saying, No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt. Their refusal is rooted in fear that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries and nullify Palestinian demands for statehood. El-Sissi also said a mass exodus would risk bringing militants into Egypts Sinai Peninsula, from where they might launch attacks on Israel, endangering the two countries 40-year-old peace treaty.

Here is a look at what is motivating Egypts and Jordans stances.

A HISTORY OF DISPLACEMENT

Displacement has been a major theme of Palestinian history. In the 1948 war around Israels creation, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from what is now Israel. Palestinians refer to the event as the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe. In the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 300,000 more Palestinians fled, mostly into Jordan.

The refugees and their descendants now number nearly 6 million, most living in camps and communities in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The diaspora has spread further, with many refugees building lives in Gulf Arab countries or the West.

After fighting stopped in the 1948 war, Israel refused to allow refugees to return to their homes. Since then, Israel has rejected Palestinian demands for a return of refugees as part of a peace deal, arguing that it would threaten the countrys Jewish majority. Egypt fears history will repeat itself and a large Palestinian refugee population from Gaza will end up staying for good.

NO GUARANTEE OF RETURN

Thats in part because theres no clear scenario for how this war will end. Israel says it intends to destroy Hamas for its bloody rampage in its southern towns. But it has given no indication of what might happen afterward and who would govern Gaza. That has raised concerns that it will reoccupy the territory for a period, fueling further conflict.

The Israeli military said Palestinians who followed its order to flee northern Gaza to the strips southern half would be allowed back to their homes after the war ends. Egypt is not reassured.

El-Sissi said fighting could last for years if Israel argues it hasnt sufficiently crushed militants. He proposed that Israel house Palestinians in its Negev Desert, which neighbors the Gaza Strip, until it ends its military operations.

Israels lack of clarity regarding its intentions in Gaza and the evacuation of the population is in itself problematic, said Riccardo Fabiani, Crisis Group Internationals North Africa Project Director. This confusion fuels fears in the neighborhood.

Egypt has pushed for Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and Israel said Wednesday that it would, though it didnt say when. According to United Nations, Egypt, which is dealing with a spiraling economic crisis, already hosts some 9 million refugees and migrants, including roughly 300,000 Sudanese who arrived this year after fleeing their countrys war.

But Arab countries and many Palestinians also suspect Israel might use this opportunity to force permanent demographic changes to wreck Palestinian demands for statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which was also captured by Israel in 1967.

El-Sissi repeated warnings Wednesday that an exodus from Gaza was intended to eliminate the Palestinian cause  the most important cause of our region. He argued that if a demilitarized Palestinian state had been created long ago in negotiations, there would not be war now.

All historical precedent points to the fact that when Palestinians are forced to leave Palestinian territory, they are not allowed to return back, said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Egypt doesnt want to be complicit in ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Arab countries fears have only been stoked by the rise under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of hard-right parties that talk in positive terms about removing Palestinians. Since the Hamas attack, the rhetoric has become less restrained, with some right-wing politicians and media commentators calling for the military to raze Gaza and drive out its inhabitants. One lawmaker said Israel should carry out a new Nakba on Gaza.

WORRIES OVER HAMAS

At the same time, Egypt says a mass exodus from Gaza would bring Hamas or other Palestinian militants onto its soil. That might be destabilizing in Sinai, where Egypts military fought for years against Islamic militants and at one point accused Hamas of backing them.

Egypt has backed Israels blockade of Gaza since Hamas took over in the territory in 2007, tightly controlling the entry of materials and the passage of civilians back and forth. It also destroyed the network of tunnels under the border that Hamas and other Palestinians used to smuggle goods into Gaza. With the Sinai insurgency largely put down, Cairo does not want to have a new security problem on its hands in this problematic region, Fabiani said.

El-Sissi warned of an even more destabilizing scenario: the wrecking of Egypt and Israels 1979 peace deal. He said that with the presence of Palestinian militants, Sinai would become a base for attacks on Israel. Israel would have the right to defend itself  and would strike Egyptian territory. The peace which we have achieved would vanish from our hands, he said, all for the sake of the idea of eliminating the Palestinian cause.
Co-owner of the Russian Alfa Group Mikhail Fridman owns 7.49% of the shares of Turkcell (Turkey) through the IMTIS Holdings fund, which in turn owns 19.8% in the Turkcell structure, CEO of Lifecell LLC (the lifecell brand), a subsidiary of the Turkish mobile phone operator, Ismet Yazici said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

"The sanctioned persons indirectly, through several other companies, have a small number of shares in Turkcell - Mikhail Fridman, in fact, indirectly owns part of 7.49% through the IMTIS Holdings fund, which has a 19.8% stake in the Turkcell structure. Thus, the sanctioned persons do not have no control or influence on Turkcell, much less lifecell," Yazici said.

He emphasized that since its founding in Ukraine in 2005, lifecell has not paid dividends. "If you look at the history in Ukraine, starting from 2005, when our company was founded, we have never paid dividends, we only became profitable in 2020, and all the money earned in Ukraine was invested for the benefit of our subscribers - in expansion and improving our network. That is, no one has ever received our money - all of it was invested in the development of the Ukrainian economy," the CEO of lifecell said.

The company has not yet received a court decision to seize shares owned by sanctioned persons, Yazici clarified.

Earlier it was reported that the Shevchenkivsky District Court of Kyiv reduced the package of seized shares of PrJSC Kyivstar from 99.994654% to 47.85%, and the seized share of Lifecell LLC - from 100% to 19.8% as part of interim measures in the case opened at the end of September against Alfa Group co-owner Mikhail Fridman.
An accomplice of former Ukrainian Member of Parliament Viktor Medvedchuk, Maksym Holdarb, who had worked for his television channels and headed a banned pro-Russian party, was notified of suspicion of being involved in collaborationism and glorification of occupiers, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has said.

"The Security Service collected the evidence base on illegal activities of collaborator Maksym Holdarb, who is a former presenter of Medvedchuk's television channel and the leader of the Union of Left Forces, a political party that is banned in Ukraine," it said on the Telegram channel on Thursday.

According to the SBU, at the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, Holdarb fled from Kyiv and supported Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine in public.

"The defendant posted pro-Kremlin statements on his own Telegram and YouTube channels with a total number of subscribers of more than 140,000 users. In these materials, Holdarb distributed fake information about activities of the top military and political leadership of Ukraine and disinformed [his auditory] about the interior situation in our country," it said.

In addition, according to the SBU, the suspect published fictitious "insides" about the alleged "plans" of several European countries to "annex" the territory in the west of Ukraine. Also, Holdarb numerous times participated in TV linkups with Russian propagandists who created staged stories for the television in the temporarily occupied Crimea and the aggressor country's talk shows.

An expertise conducted at the initiative of the SBU has confirmed that the defendant committed criminal actions.

Holdarb was notified of suspicion under Part 6 of Article 111-1 (collaborationism), Parts 2, 3 of Article 436-2 (justification, recognition as legal, denial of Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine, glorification of its participants). Since the defendant is hiding from justice, a complex of measures continues to be implemented to find his location and bring his to justice for the crimes against Ukraine.

The SBU conducted the investigation under the procedural guidance of Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office.
Amazon will soon make prescription drugs fall from the sky when the e-commerce giant becomes the latest company to test drone deliveries for medications. The company said Wednesday that customers in College Station, Texas, can now get prescriptions delivered by a drone within an hour of placing their order, reports the AP . The drone, programed to fly from a delivery center with a secure pharmacy, will travel to the customer's address, descend to a height of about 13 feet, and drop a padded package. Amazon says customers will be able to choose from more than 500 medications; the list includes common treatments for conditions like the flu or pneumonia but not controlled substances.

The company's Prime Air division began testing drone deliveries of common household items last December in College Station and Lockeford, California. Amazon spokesperson Jessica Bardoulas said the company has made thousands of deliveries since launching the service. Amazon Prime already delivers some medications from the company's pharmacy inside of two days. But pharmacy Vice President John Love said that doesn't help someone with an acute illness like the flu. "What we're trying to do is figure out how can we bend the curve on speed," he said.

Amazon Pharmacy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Vin Gupta says the US health care system generally struggles with diagnosing and treating patients quickly for acute illnesses. Narrowing the window between diagnosis and treating makes many treatments more effective, he said. Amazon is not the first company to explore prescription deliveries by drone. CVS Health worked with UPS to test deliveries in 2019 in North Carolina but that program ended, a CVS rep said. Intermountain Health started providing drone deliveries of prescriptions in 2021 in the Salt Lake City area and has been expanding the program, according to Daniel Duersch, supply chain director for the health care system.

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Companies seeking to use drones for commercial purposes have faced hurdles from regulators who want to make sure things are operating safely. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had predicted a decade ago that drones would be making deliveries by 2018. Even now, Amazon is only using the technology in two markets. Amazon says its drones will fly as high as nearly 400 feet before slowly descending when they reach the customer's home. The drone will check to make sure the delivery zone is clear of pets, children, or any other obstructions before dropping the package on a delivery marker. The company said it hopes to expand the program to other markets, but it has no time frame for that.

(Read more Amazon stories.)
Predictions that the second House vote to elected a speaker would be worse for Jim Jordan than the first one turned out to be correct and some House Republicans say his chances in the third round don't look great. After failing to win Wednesday's vote, Jordan said that Republicans plan to hold the next vote at noon Thursday and that they intend to keep going "until we get a speaker," NBC News reports. To win a majority of 217, he can only lose four GOP votes, but 20 Republicans voted for somebody else on Tuesday. That rose to 22 on Wednesday even though two lawmakers who voted against him Tuesday flipped their votes.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balar, who voted for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in both rounds, tells CNN that he'll never support Jordan for speaker, predicting that he'll lose a "bigger chunk" of the conference in the third vote. Rep. Don Bacon, who supports ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, said Jordan should withdraw because he "doesn't have any path forward to 217." Rep. Steve Womack, another Jordan opponent, predicted that the third vote would be the "final straw," Politico reports.

Some of Jordan's opponents said they had faced pressure from Jordan and his allies to change their vote, making them even more determined to oppose him, the Washington Post reports. "Intimidation and threats will not change my position," said Rep. Kay Granger. Some lawmakers have discussed boosting the powers of Rep. Patrick McHenry, the interim speaker, an idea former GOP Speakers Newt Gingrich and John Boehner expressed support for on Wednesday, the AP reports. (Read more speaker of the House stories.)
President Biden plans to address the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday night about the newly declared Israel-Hamas war and the ongoing one in Ukraine, which is fighting a Russian invasion. Biden was in Israel on Wednesday, and the speech was announced by White House aides before his plane landed back in the US, Deadline reports. The address is scheduled for 8pm ET. "President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukraine," press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

The president is going to send a package to Congress that would assist Israel and Ukraine for one year. The $100 billion proposal also will have aid for Indo-Pacific countries, including Taiwan, and spending for security at the US-Mexico border, per CBS News. Biden suggested on Wednesday that he will ask Congress for "an unprecedented support package for Israel's defense," per the Hill. Some Republicans in Congress have lacked enthusiasm lately for sending Ukraine more aid without greater oversight and have objected to combining assistance to both countries. Standalone aid for Israel, on the other hand, has attracted broad support from members of both parties. (Read more President Biden stories.)
Up to 60% of Ukrainians had no contact with family doctor, did not undergo examinations during year - expert

From 30% to 60% of Ukrainians during the year did not have contact with a family doctor and did not undergo examinations, the state should develop mechanisms for reimbursing studies and analyses within the framework of the Medical Guarantee Program.

The Candidate of Medical Sciences, Master of Public Administration Serhiy Kutsevliak told the Interfax-Ukraine agency this is evidenced by the results of an analysis of monitoring data from the medical information system (MIS), as well as a survey of patients, which was conducted in one of the primary care centers in Kyiv in May-July 2023.

We analyzed how many patients have never seen their family doctor: no appointment, no referral, no prescription, no sick leave, no certificate, that is, zero activity during the year for a person who has a declaration with a family doctor. In the agricultural rural region, we saw about 30% of such patients. And in the central region, we counted up to 60% of people who have never seen a family doctor, he said.

At the same time, referring to the monitoring of MIS data for 2019-2021, Kutsevliak noted that many people simply do not turn to family doctors, which logically leads to high mortality rates, in particular from cardiovascular diseases, and high indicators of disability after heart attacks and strokes.

He said that in one of the primary medical care centers in Kyiv, a pilot project was implemented in the summer of 2023, during which the clinic conducted cardiac examinations and tests on 500 people aged 40-65 years.

They found 41% of people requiring in-depth attention and corrective therapy. Therefore, now we are talking about the formation of state policy so that the state provides a minimum set of studies for the patient, in order to provide consumables for the study, he said.

The expert noted that, according to preliminary calculations, the cost of implementing a project to monitor the health status of residents of a city with a population of about 250,000 people could be about UAH 80-90 million.

We say that the state should introduce reimbursement for examinations in order to be able to motivate and also control the family doctor. It is clear that family medicine will not be able to cope with this at the current level of payment per patient, so the state must shift its emphasis in order to have this opportunity, he said.

Kutsevliak emphasized that the implementation of projects in the direction of preventive medicine in war conditions is becoming even more urgent.

Not only does the war affect mortality, but we lose tens of thousands of people at the front, and in the rear we lose hundreds of thousands of people from undiagnosed diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to shift the focus to monitoring the health status of a particular citizen, then an increase in healthcare funding by billions will have an effect and savings of tens of billions throughout the country, he said.

He clarified that he took the initiative to develop a corresponding state program aimed at enhancing the work of the primary health care system in the direction of preventive medicine, in particular, stimulating primary care doctors to monitor the health status of patients who have declarations with them.

According to the expert, all government investments over the past 10 years have gone into stands, contrast, angiographs, CT scanners, and other equipment, but timely basic diagnostics and timely identification of risk factors leading to diseases have not occurred.

The problem of timely diagnosis to identify risk factors remains relevant. High-tech equipment such as CT scanners and angiographs cannot be used effectively without systematic mass screening of working-age residents, he said.

Kutsevliak noted that many Ukrainians face a lack of regular medical monitoring. At the same time, a shortage of doctors, especially in remote regions, as well as economic and sociocultural factors can cause delays or complete disregard for medical examinations, which becomes especially important for older people and residents of rural areas.

Today there is a problem with patients in late stages of illness. Unfortunately, the culture of check-ups and regular medical examinations is poorly developed in Ukraine. Doctors have little interest in helping to make a timely diagnosis and begin treatment. We see great prospects for development if the state pays attention to this issue and begins to direct the activities of doctors to work towards preventing diseases, he concluded.

Kutsevliak noted that the emphasis should be on efforts at the primary care stage.

Family doctors play a key role in timely diagnosis and prevention of diseases. The development of family medicine, advanced training of doctors and intensification of their interaction with patients can contribute to the early detection of risks and diseases, he said.

In addition, according to Kutsevliak, it is worth paying attention to educational programs aimed at increasing the medical literacy of the population and awareness of personal responsibility for their own health.

An informed patient will be more responsible about their health and undergo regular medical examinations. It is necessary to intensify the work of the primary medical care system and provide citizens with the necessary medical examinations for timely diagnosis. This will help reduce mortality and disability, and will also be economically beneficial for the state. Just reducing the number of strokes by even 5% will give an economic effect of at least UAH 1.5 billion per year and will save the lives and active working condition of 7,500 Ukrainian citizens. The introduction of the principle of continuous monitoring of the health status of citizens should become the basis of state policy, he said.
A Florida GameStop manager has been charged with manslaughter after, police say, he fatally shot an alleged shoplifter at the Pembroke Pines store. Police say an adult male came into the store Tuesday night and was there for about an hour before asking the manager to use a ladder to get an item that was on a high shelf at the back of the store. While the manager was doing that, police say, the customer went behind the counter to try to grab some merchandise, WSVN reports. According to the AP, the man allegedly grabbed five boxes of Pokemon collectible trading cards worth $120 a box. As he was running for the door, police say the manager (also variously described as a clerk in some media outlets), 33-year-old Derrick Guerrero, yelled at the man and then pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired at him.
UPDATE

Oct 25, 2023 4:42 PM CDT

The driver whose car struck four college students last week in Malibu, killing them, has been charged with murder. Fraser Michael Bohm faces four counts of gross vehicular manslaughter as well as four counts of murder, CBS News reports. He appeared in court on Wednesday, pleading not guilty. District Attorney George Gascon said the investigation found that Bohm "knew his actions were dangerous to human life and deliberately acted with conscious disregard for human life." He was arrested last week on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter, released on insufficient evidence, then rearrested Tuesday. Court records show his bail was set at $8 million, per Fox News.

Oct 19, 2023 12:30 AM CDT

Four Pepperdine University students standing on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, on Tuesday night were killed when a driver lost control of his BMW around 8:30pm and ran into them, police say. Seniors Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir, and Deslyn Williams were pronounced dead at the scene, NBC News reports. Two others were taken to a hospital; their current conditions have not been made public, the AP reports. The driver, 22-year-old Fraser Michael Bohm of Malibu, was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. Police say he was driving at a high rate of speed, lost control, sideswiped a few parked cars, and then crashed into a group of people who were walking.
Another apparently random attack on a New York City subway platform left a 30-year-old woman in critical condition Wednesday. She was at the 53rd Street/Fifth Avenue station around noon when a man, who witnesses say was talking to himself, suddenly pushed her against a train that was leaving the station. Her head hit the departing train and she then fell onto the tracks, the New York Times reports. Bystanders helped her get back up to the platform, and she was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition with a head injury. Investigators are seeking a suspect identified as Sabir Jones, variously reported as 39 or 45 years old, who they say is known to the New York Police Department, ABC 7 reports. He was captured on surveillance video leaving the station.
A second US journalist has been detained in Russia. Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual Russian-American citizen and Prague-based editor for Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was detained Wednesday in the southwest city of Kazan, which she was prevented from leaving months earlier. She'd traveled to Russia in May for a family emergency but was temporarily detained at Kazan's airport while trying to fly out on June 2, her employer said . "She was fined for failing to register her US passport with Russian authorities," Reuters reports. Officials confiscated both her passports. She was still awaiting the return of the documents when she was charged Wednesday with failure to register as a foreign agent. She may be the first person charged with the crime, per the New York Times .

Since 2012, Russia has required any person or organization that it perceives as receiving foreign funding to register as a foreign agent, with offenders facing a maximum penalty of five years in prison. RFE/RLwhich had links to the CIA during the Cold War, but says its involvement with the agency ended in 1972receives funding from the US government, per Reuters. Kurmasheva had been working for RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service, which caters to audiences in Russia's multiethnic Volga-Ural region. The journalist, who edited an anti-war book following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was covering ethnic minority communities in the neighboring regions of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, "where groups of people have sought greater autonomy from Moscow," per the Times.

Russian news outlet Tatar-Inform said authorities accused her of gathering information on Russia's military activities, to be shared with foreign sources, per NBC News. RFE/RL acting president Jeffrey Gedmin is calling for the immediate release of the "highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children," as is the Committee to Protect Journalists, which describes the charges against her as "spurious." Russian journalist Dmitri Kozelev calls Kurmasheva "another hostage," per the Times. She is the second US journalist detained in Russia this year. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on what the US government considers bogus espionage charges in March. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. (Read more Russia stories.)
Alex Murdaugh is now a step closer to a new murder trial. The South Carolina Court of Appeals issued a ruling Tuesday that sends his case back to circuit court to consider allegations of jury tampering by Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca "Becky" Hill, per WJCL . Murdaugh's legal team is seeking a new trial based on allegations that Hill improperly advised jurors, telling them not to believe Murdaugh's testimony, and pressured them to reach a speedy verdictby withholding smoke breaks, for example. Tuesday's ruling allows Murdaugh to suspend the appeal of his double murder conviction while the lower court determines if the allegations are credible. If they are, a new trial could be ordered.

In a filing last month, which included sworn affidavits from jurors, Murdaugh's lawyers claimed Hill, who has denied wrongdoing, tampered with the jury "to secure for herself a book deal and media appearances that would not happen in the event of a mistrial." State Attorney General Alan Wilson has requested that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigate the claims, per CNN. Murdaugh's attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, say it's "welcomed news" in a joint statement. "We intend to proceed expeditiously and will seek a full blown evidentiary hearing addressing the serious allegations pertaining to improper jury communications by the Clerk of Court," they add.

The attorneys are expected to file a motion to disqualify Judge Clifton Newman, who oversaw the double murder trial, from hearing the case, WJCL reports. The South Carolina Attorney General's Office tells CNN they will "respond through the legal process at the appropriate time." Murdaugh was convicted in March of the murders of his wife, Maggie, and adult son, Paul, on the family's 1,770-acre hunting property in Islandton, SC. Weeks later, a former neighbor and another man purchased the property for $3.9 million. The former family home and just 21 acres, not including the dog kennels where Maggie and Paul were fatally shot, are now up for sale again, with an asking price of $1.95 million, per People.

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Meanwhile, Murdaugh continues to face charges. The disbarred attorney pleaded guilty last month to 22 federal counts of financial fraud and money laundering, admitting to "stealing from money meant to provide care for a man paralyzed from the neck down in a wreck, from two sisters who were children when they lost their mother and brother in a crash, the estate of his longtime maid who died in a fall at the family home and from others," the AP reports. He is yet to be sentenced. Murdaugh also faces around 100 state charges related to alleged financial crimes. He's to stand trial on at least some of those charges in Beaufort County beginning Nov. 27, per the Post and Courier. (Read more Alex Murdaugh stories.)
As the House lurches toward a third attempt to elect a speaker in three days, Jim Jordan has urged his supporters to stop trying to intimidate lawmakers opposed to his candidacy. Several Republicans say they have faced threats and harassment after choosing other candidates in the first two rounds of voting, the BBC reports. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks said Wednesday that she had notified authorities after receiving "credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls," reports NBC News . "One thing I cannot stomach, or support, is a bully," she said.

"No American should accost another for their beliefs," Jordan said in a post on X Wednesday. "We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. It's abhorrent." Other House Republicans have said hardball tactics from Jordan allies have backfired and made them even more determined to reject the hardline conservative's speakership bid. "Intimidation and threats will not change my position," Rep. Kay Granger said Wednesday. Rep. Don Bacon told Politico on Tuesday that Jordan has been "nice, one-on-one, but his broader team has been playing hardball."

Bacon said he had been getting calls from GOP officials in Nebraskaand his wife had been receiving numerous anonymous calls and emails urging her to persuade him to back Jordan. "It's wrong that folks have no boundaries anymore," Bacon told the Washington Post on Wednesday. "We don't live in fear, but holding people accountable is needed." The Post notes that hardball tactics began before the first vote on Tuesday, with a pressure campaign that involved Fox News host Sean Hannity calling at least one wavering Republican.

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Jordan, who will have to flip at least 18 votes to be elected speaker, can ill afford more defections, but at least one supporter has threatened to change their vote because of the tactics. "If the nasty hatred and attacks against some of my colleagues continue I will be joining them in protest," Rep. George Santos said in a post on X Wednesday night. (Read more speaker of the House stories.)
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One of These 'Mannequins' Is Not Like the Others

Warsaw police nab alleged thief who robbed shopping mall after posing as dummy
Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn former President Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors. Powell, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state's anti-racketeering law, entered the plea just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial, per the AP . A judge agreed that she'll serve about six years of probationshe faced a long prison term if convicted at trialas well as pay $2,700 in restitution and have to testify truthfully against her co-defendants. Powell also must write a letter of apology "to the citizens of the state of Georgia," per the New York Times . She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of "conspiracy to commit intentional interference of election duties," the Times notes.

Powell was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Prosecutors say she also participated in an unauthorized breach of elections equipment in a rural Georgia county elections office. The acceptance of a plea deal is a remarkable about-face for a lawyer who, perhaps more than anyone else, strenuously pushed conspiracy theories about a stolen election. If prosecutors compel her to testify, she could provide insight on a news conference she participated in on behalf of Trump and his campaign shortly after the election and on a White House meeting she attended in mid-December of that year during which strategies and theories to influence the outcome of the election were discussed.

Powell was scheduled to go on trial on Monday with lawyer Kenneth Chesebro after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. Jury selection was set to start Friday. The development means that Chesebro will go on trial by himself, though prosecutors said earlier that they also planned to look into the possibility of offering him a plea deal. A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, last month pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.

(Read more Sidney Powell stories.)
As climate change intensifies extreme heat, farms are becoming less hospitable to nesting birds, a new study found. Researchers who examined data on over 150,000 nesting attempts found that birds in agricultural lands were 46% less likely to successfully raise at least one chick when it got really hot than birds in other areas, per the AP . "I don't think we expected it to be as extreme as it was," said Katherine Lauck, a PhD candidate at University of California, Davis, and lead author of the study published Thursday in the journal Science . Bird scientists have been tracking the decline of avian wildlife for years. In 2019, a comprehensive study showed that there were 3 billion fewer wild birds than in 1970. The new study represents a closer look at what might be behind the dramatic decline.

Intense commercial farming is known to harm birdsfields completely clear of trees and other natural barriers lack shelter for wildlife, and pesticides and other agricultural chemicals can hurt birds. The study concluded that species of higher conservation concern in the USthose closer to being listed as federally threatened or endangeredwere more vulnerable to extreme heat events in agricultural settings. Across the board, birds in forests were 14% more likely to achieve reproductive success in times of extreme heat. David Bird, a professor emeritus of wildlife biology at McGill University, said the study contributes to the understanding of the negative effects of intensive single crop farming.

The study "sings the praises of the need for preserving our forests," which not only protect birds from hot weather but also help protect ecosystems from global warming by absorbing carbon, he said. It also suggests that if farmers purposefully left just a little more natural space around farms with a few trees or native plantsnot necessarily changing everything about their operationsbirds could better coexist with humans, said Ken Rosenberg, a biologist with the Road to Recovery initiative. "Some of these open country birds don't really need a lot of habitat or a lot of space," he said. "They just need some."

(Read more birds stories.)
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President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the UN for the prepared Response Plan for the autumn-winter period for $435 million and noted the active participation of the UN in the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula.

He told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about this during a telephone conversation, the press service of the head of the Ukrainian state reports.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a phone call with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The Head of State thanked for the efforts of the team of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Ukraine, which prepared, inter alia, the Response Plan for the autumn-winter period for $435 million, a message posted on the official website of the President of Ukraine on Thursday says.

As reported, Zelenskyy noted the active involvement of the UN in the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula, as well as the readiness to send a representative of the Organization to the next meeting at the level of national security advisors and foreign policy advisors to the heads of state.

"We held a successful meeting of advisors in Jeddah. It is very important that the next event is no less successful and yields concrete results. For this, we need to maintain the support of the countries of the Global South. We are counting on you in this regard," the Head of State said.

As noted, the President of Ukraine informed the UN Secretary-General about the peculiarities of the functioning of the alternative "grain corridor" in the Black Sea. Zelenskyy also emphasized the importance of continuing the Ukrainian humanitarian initiative Grain from Ukraine and invited Antonio Guterres to its second summit.

The interlocutors discussed in detail the situation in the Middle East and the necessary humanitarian efforts to help the civilian population.
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Head of the Presidents Office of Ukraine Andriy Yermak has had a telephone conversation with President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola during which the parties discussed defense and security issues, in particular, the involvement of the European Parliament in the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula, the press service of the head of state reported.

On the instructions of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, head of the Presidents Office Andriy Yermak had a telephone conversation with President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, reads a message on the official website of the President of Ukraine on Thursday.

Yermak reportedly thanked the European Parliament and personally Roberta Metsola for his leadership in supporting Ukraine. The interlocutors discussed the recent approval by the European Parliament of a mandate to create a financial instrument for Ukraine, the Ukraine Facility, worth EUR 50 billion as part of amendments to the EU Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021-2027.

The decision of the European Parliament encourages other partners not to slow down in supporting Ukraine and bringing victory closer, Yermak said, as quoted by the press service.

As said in the report, Yerrmak and Metsola also discussed the current situation at the front and the importance of protecting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, in particular energy, in the face of constant terrorist attacks from Russia.

It is also reported that Yermak and Metsola paid special attention to the process of implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula. Yermak invited the European Parliament to join the third meeting at the level of national security advisers and foreign policy advisers. The involvement of the European Parliament in the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula helps expand the circle of those who support it and brings closer the holding of the Global Peace Summit with the participation of leading leaders of the Global South, said the head of the Presidents Office.

The interlocutors also exchanged views on the situation in the Middle East and noted the importance of efforts to maximize the protection of civilians in combat conditions.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

European and Bahraini partners get together to promote multilingualism as an enabler of intercultural understanding and business opportunities.

Each year, the Council of Europe and the European Union celebrate the European Day of Languages to highlight the continents linguistic and cultural richness and to raise awareness of the importance of language learning to increase intercultural understanding.

To mark this occasion, the European Union Delegation to the Kingdom of Bahrain is hosting a European Night of Languages.

Participants will practice various European languages and interact with several embassies of the EU Member States and language specialists.

The event is held in partnership with the German, French, and Italian embassies and the Greek Consulate in Bahrain.

It is supported by Alliance Francaise, the Grazia Deledda Centre for Italian Language and Culture, the Spanish and Arabic World, and the Ellinomatheia Certification Centre, with participation from the Croatian Embassy and the Beacon Private School.

Speaking ahead of the event, the EU Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain, H.E. Christophe Farnaud, said: The EU is a tapestry of cultures and languages, and we are united with Bahrain by our shared belief in the power of language learning.

In a globalised economy, language skills are essential for success, and they also enable us to connect with people from all over the world and learn from their cultures.

We are thrilled to collaborate on an enhanced journey of language learning and cultural exchange.

The European Night of Languages will be hosted at the Movenpick Hotel in Manama today, starting at 6 p.m.
The European Union has approved a decision to extend temporary protection for refugees from Ukraine until March 4, 2025, the European Commission reported.

On 27 September 2023, ministers reached a political agreement on the extension of the temporary protection until 4 March 2025. The decision was adopted on 19 October 2023, the European Commission said on its official website on Thursday.

The European Union activated the temporary protection directive on March 4, 2022. This is an EU mechanism that is deployed in exceptional circumstances of mass influx to provide collective protection for displaced people and reduce pressure on EU countries' national asylum systems.

According to the EC, only 4.1 million refugees from Ukraine are registered for temporary protection or similar schemes in the EU.
In 2018, Egypt announced they had destroyed 37 Gaza infiltration tunnels by flooding them with water and sewage.

Egypt has in the past flooded Hamas tunnels along the Gaza Strip with sea-water or sewage, and has destroyed hundreds of homes on the Egyptian side of Rafah to remove the tunnels.

The Egyptian military began cracking down on tunnels stretching from the Hamas-run coastal enclave into the restive peninsula following the countrys September 2013 coup.

The IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) has also invested extensively in locating Gaza cross-border terrorist tunnels and has destroyed 15 of them this past year, including one tunnel which stretched into both Israel and Egypts Sinai Peninsula near the Kerem Shalom crossing.

Hamas has been bringing terrorists and weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip for its attacks.

In 2018, Israel had completed 27 kilomters of its underground barrier designed to prevent tunnels from crossing into Israeli territory from Gaza. The barrier will also stretch into the Mediterranean to stave off Hamas infiltration by sea.

The anti-tunnel barrier along Israel-Gaza Strip border is an underground slurry wall constructed by Israel along the entire 40-kilometer (25 mi) length of the Israel-Gaza Strip border to prevent anti-Israel militant groups operating in the Gaza Strip, especially Hamas (which Israel, along with other countries, regards as a terrorist group), from infiltration into Israel by digging tunnels under the GazaIsrael barrier. The project includes excavation to classified depths, and the construction of thick concrete walls combined with sensors and alarm devices.

The underground anti-tunnel barrier was completed in December 2021. The project had been estimated to cost 3 billion shekels ($833 million) to 3.5 billion shekels ($1.11 billion). It is located entirely on Israeli land.

In 2020, the deepest Gaza tunnel that has been found descended to 70 meters (230 feet deep). It was in from the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces found the tunnel in October 2020 after Israels anti-tunnel barrier detected anomalous underground activity, in the first operational success for the barrier, before it was completed along the entire border with Gaza.

The soldiers said Hamas had likely worked on the tunnel for years. The anti-tunnel barrier was completed a year ago after four years of construction, meaning the two projects had apparently been going on at the same time.
The Ukrainian negotiating group, headed by Deputy Head of the Presidents Office Ihor Zhovkova, began the first round of negotiations with France on concluding a bilateral agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine.

On instructions from the President of Ukraine and the head of the Presidents Office, the first round of negotiations with the French Republic began today on concluding a bilateral agreement on security guarantees, as provided for in the Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine, the press service of the head of the Ukrainian state reports.

It is indicated that the negotiating group also included Deputy Head of the Presidents Office Roman Mashovets and First Deputy Minister of Defense Oleksandr Pavliuk.

The report notes that Ukraine has already begun bilateral negotiations with the United States, Great Britain, Canada and Japan, and France has become the fifth state with which relevant negotiations on security guarantees have been launched.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of bilateral security negotiations with France as the founding country of the European Union and NATO. We constantly feel the support of France both in the approaching victory of Ukraine and on the path of European and Euro-Atlantic integration of our state, Zhovkva noted.

It is emphasized that the start of negotiations deepens French support for Ukraine in the military and economic spheres, as well as in security.

An integral component of security guarantees is also assistance in the development of the military-industrial complex and in the economic restoration of Ukraine. Powerful sanctions and the inevitability of confiscation of the assets of the aggressor country should also be an important element in deterring aggression, the message says.

Based on the results of the negotiations, the parties agreed on a procedure for coordination on the issue of security guarantees for the near future, as well as a plan for further bilateral negotiations.
Popular cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has said that the current administration headed by President Bola Tinubu will not get eight years in power.

Gumi stated this while preaching in a video clip posted on his Facebook page.

The cleric also accused the Tinubu administration of nepotism and claimed that they have hijacked all means of money and economic power.

Gumi said: Muslims are the heads of the Ministry of Defence, of what significance is it? The real people in charge of Command and Control, those holding the guns and shooting, are we the ones? We are not the ones; they are playing us.

There is an agenda. All means of money and economic power have been hijacked by them, they are planning to deceive us for four years and get eight years. They will not, Insha Allah.

They will only come during elections like it is done to spread grains to chickens. If they spread grains to chickens, thats all.

Giving spaghetti to people is the solution, this spaghetti issue is a big deal. We are being cheated in this country and in a real mess.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakars Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, has accused President Bola Tinubu of making attempts to block the release of the details of his alleged criminal investigation by American authorities.

He made the accusation in a statement released on Thursday in Abuja.

Tinubus lawyers in the US had early in the week filed motions to appear in an ongoing freedom of information action brought against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where records that may help answer questions about Bola A. Tinubus real identity and decades-long endeavours are domiciled.

Christopher Carmichael, one of the lawyers who represented Tinubu in the recent Chicago State University (CSU) records case, filed the motion, dated October 18, 2023, stating that he was a lawyer in good standing to appear in the case in the FOIA lawsuit underway in Washington D.C.

Reacting to the development, however, Atikus aide said Tinubus constant attempts to hide details of his past were unbecoming of a man ruling over 200 million people.

He said, I think it is time for all Nigerians to express serious concern about this man named Bola A. Tinubu, if at all that is his real name.

Some members of the Tinubu family, led by Rafiu Tinubu, a former Lagos State Head of Service, claimed they dont know him. Some schools he attended denied him; he has now kept mute over the primary and secondary schools he attended, and he has refused to reveal the identity of his father and even his past.

He refused to come clean on the details of his settlement with American authorities amid his drug trafficking probe. Now, an attempt is being made to reveal the true details of an investigation, but he has gone ahead trying and block it.

His surrogates led by Mr Festus Keyamo, had said during the electioneering that the drug investigation launched against him back in 1992 was a tax related matter. So, if that is the case, why is he afraid to let the FBI release the documents?.

Atikus aide called on US authorities to see themselves as the last hope of Nigerians since most Nigerian courts had blocked all attempts to unveil Bola A. Tinubu.

He added, Tinubu has been able to deceive Nigerians by keeping his past a secret. Sadly, every attempt by well-meaning Nigerians to unveil him has been blocked by the courts. In Lagos State, where he has ruled for decades, the state has refused to honour FOI requests.

Nigerians are now looking up to US authorities to do the needful so that they can, at least, have the true information on the person who is presiding over their lives. We call on American authorities not to be persuaded to stop the release the documents.

Shaibu said back in 2007, Rafiu Tinubu, a former Lagos State Head of Service, authored a book entitled , Onijumu Wura: The Tinubu Dynasty of Kakawa, in order to unveil Tinubu.

Unfortunately, shortly after that book was launched, all the copies were miraculously mopped up. Till date, no one can find a copy of the book.

Nigerians have a right to know about the past record of their president. Unfortunately, each time an opportunity comes up for Nigerians to have his full glance, Tinubu makees attempt to block such discoveries.

We recall that when his academic records at the Chicago State University were to be released, President Tinubu said such discovery would cause him irreparable damage.

Bola A. Tinubu is, yet again, playing the stalling games with the decision of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to release documents on his past while he was in the United States.

Bola A. Tinubu must behave like a statesman and be decent enough to know that each time he comes around to frustrate a discovery about him, he embarrasses a country of over 200 million people, he said.
Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, on Wednesday, knocked the administration of President Bola Tinubu over the continued detention of the immediate past Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abdulrasheed Bawa and erstwhile Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, without trial.

Bawa, the first EFCC boss who didnt come from the ranks and files of the Nigerian police, was taken into custody by the Department of State Services on June 14 hours after the president suspended him.

The ex-CBN governor, on the other hand, was apprehended at his Lagos home on June 9.





Their prolonged detention has continued to raise questions occasioned by a number of protests by human rights groups and activists calling on the DSS to charge them in court.

Sharing the same views, Babachir disclosed in a statement issued on Wednesday that the people have a right to demand a Nigeria that guarantees freedom of speech and human rights for all.

He said, If Bola Tinubu claims he fought Abacha on the side of democracy and free speech, it is unbecoming and unacceptable that the NBC should threaten journalists under his watch.

It is indefensible to keep the EFCC Chairman and the CBN governor under arrest for extended periods of time without or before trial, just as it is also unacceptable that political parties are used to intimidate and harass citizens exercising their opinions in the public domain.
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, has cautioned resident doctors in Abuja against threatening to embark on industrial action.

Wike said he would not pay doctors who embark on strike while hes a minister, adding that hes ready to contend with them in court.

Addressing resident doctors, Wike said he would make more money when they embark on industrial action.

Make your recommendations, and we will see the ones we can do and those we cant do. Dont threaten me with a strike because I dont like it. When you go on strike, I save money; even if you come back, I wont pay; we will determine it in court.

Its not about promises but the reality on ground, I dont believe in theory, Wike said.

Recently, the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, have been on-and-off industrial actions due to the Federal Governments failure to meet its demands.

The doctors demands, among many others, include the immediate payment of the 2023 Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF), tangible steps on the upward review of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS), and payment of all salary arrears owed its members since 2015.

The doctors also want the immediate massive recruitment of clinical staff in the hospitals and the abolishment of the bureaucratic limitations to the immediate replacement of doctors and nurses who leave the system.

They also want the immediate review of hazard allowance by all the state governments as well as private tertiary health institutions where any form of residency training is done.




Rishi Sunak, British prime minister, has met with the families of those who have been taken hostage in Gaza by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.

After Hamas infiltrated Israel on October 7 from Gaza, some 1,400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, were killed. Nearly 200 people were also taken hostage.

Gaza which is controlled by the militant group, is a narrow strip of land sandwiched between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea, but with a short southern border with Egypt.

Israel had cut off essential supplies such as water, medicine and food from Gaza after the attack and vowed to annihilate the Hamas group.

However, after US President Joe Biden's visit to the Jewish nation on Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, said Israel would allow humanitarian aid to reach southern Gaza from Egypt but would intervene if any of it reached Hamas.

Netanyahu's concession came after Biden announced $100 million as humanitarian assistance in Gaza and the West Bank.

Biden said mechanisms were in place to ensure that the aid does not reach "Hamas or terrorist groups".

The US president's short visit to Israel was, however, overshadowed by a blast at a Gaza hospital, which local officials say killed 471 people  a figure contested by Israel.

Palestinian authorities said an Israeli air strike was to blame - but Israel countered the allegations, insisting that the blast was caused by a misfired rocket from Gaza.

After arriving in Israel early Thursday morning, Sunak met with families of those who had been taken hostage.

The British prime minister met Israeli President Isaac Herzog and pledged the UK's support to Israel, condemning the "horrific act of terrorism" the nation had suffered.

Sunak is set to meet Netanyahu as his trip progresses and is also expected to use the trip to press for humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Lorries providing aid will begin to reach Gaza from Friday according to the US and Egypt.
Interfax-Ukraine to host discussion 'What will autumn aggravation of internal and external political processes lead to?'

On Monday, October 23, at 12.00, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency will host a discussion entitled "What will autumn aggravation of internal and external political processes lead to?"

Participants include

political expert Kostiantyn Matviyenko; Chairman of the Board of the Penta center for applied political research Volodymyr Fesenko; political scientist, co-founder of the National Platform for Sustainability and Cohesion Oleh Sahakian (8/5a Reitarska Street).

The event will be streamed on the Interfax-Ukraine YouTube channel. Admission of journalists requires registration on the spot using editorial IDs.








Senator Umaru Al-Makura has urged Nigerians to be patient with the President Bola Tinubu-led administration, adding that the nation is already experiencing sustainable growth.





This was as he addressed journalists on Wednesday at the State House in Abuja after he met with Tinubu.





Al-Makura stated that he commended Tinubu on the hard decisions he has taken to move the country forward.





He said, I think Nigerians should be patient, Im sure sooner than later, the vision and policies of this administration will look positively on Nigerians.





The former Nasarawa State governor stated that the renewed hope agenda of the present administration will improve the situation of the country, especially in the areas of security and economic development.





While speaking on his meeting with Tinubu, the lawmaker said, I was opportune to have an audience with him. A very fruitful audience. And I seized the opportunity to congratulate him and commend his efforts for the great work hes doing and the hard decisions he has to make in order to move this country forward.





I had a very wonderful discussion with him, and given his disposition and vision towards making this country great. Ive seen the renewed hope agenda as something that will change the scheme of things for the better for this country, especially in the areas of security and economic development, and already you can start seeing how sustainable growth and sustainability are being achieved.





He added, If you look at the area of security, youll see that a lot of efforts are being made to calm the fears of Nigerians in the economic sector too and the wellbeing of Nigerians.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio says Nigerias destiny is not in the hands of the World Bank as the organisation does not understand the countrys challenges.

Akpabio spoke in Akwa Ibom on Thursday at a retreat on fiscal policy and tax reforms organised by the senate for lawmakers.

Nigeria has been a recipient of the banks programmes and loans.

I believe that our destiny is not in the hands of or the fine print of the World Bank. The bank may mean well and can be of help to us, but they have not worn our shoes and they do not know where it pinches, Akpabio said.

It is our walk not their own, so while they talk, let us walk the walk. We wear the shoes and we know where it pinches.

Every major national development was based on a road map designed by citizens of the respective countries.

Akpabio said the senate would not welcome people who whine and do not believe that the country would progress.

The senate has no place for people who whine or do not believe in the greatness of our country, he said.

The hallowed chambers of the senate are for those who believe that every setback in our country is a setup for a comeback.

Today more than ever before we must come together in optimism to toe the road map of Mr President and where we consider that changes may be appropriate, work with the executive to perfect the document.

Akpabio said the retreat would teach the lawmakers public expenditure management, fiscal policy, and tax reforms.

Fortunately, the Renewed Hope plan is strong on the economic side. It proposes a 10 percent economic growth, which experts claim is achievable, he said.
President Bola Tinubu has given the approval for the commencement of academic activities of six out of the 14 new universities established in the last days of President Muhammadu Buharis administration.

The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, made this known on Wednesday, after a closed-door meeting with President Tinubu at the State House, Abuja.

Prof Mamman stated that the initial phase will involve the launch of two universities in the field of agriculture, two as colleges of education, and two focusing on the field of medicine.

According to him: There are very many, probably about a dozen of them, if not more than a dozen or 14, thats the number and you know tertiary institutions are highly capital-intensive, they need a lot of money, especially at that take-off stage, for infrastructure, staff recruitment and all other needs.

By the time you want to start about 12, 14 institutions at once, it is a very heavy burden on the finances of government.

The minister affirmed that these institutions are strategically aligned with the key mandates and priorities of President Tinubus administration.

Dr Mamman added: Ordinarily, we would have said well review whether we should go ahead with that, but most of them are specialised institutions; colleges of education, agriculture and medicine; they are institutions that will support some of the mandates, the priority areas of this government.

We will need trained teachers, which colleges of education will provide; the same thing with agriculture. Thats why the government has not stepped down that approval; instead, the President, in his wisdom, said we should stagger their implementation on the ground of funds. Were starting with about six, two each of agriculture, colleges of education and medicine.

Some of the universities established during the said period are David Nweze Umahi Federal University of Medical Sciences, Uburu; Federal University of Transport Daura, Katsina; Shehu Shagari University of Education, Sokoto; and Admiralty University Ibusa, Delta State.

The minister mentioned that the President also approved the completion of the National Library which has been projected to be completed in 21 months as the nations depository.

On the National Library, a national monument, I briefed the President about the need to get it completed. He is happy with the proposition, he affirmed.
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has labelled Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, as Satan for receiving the Israeli Ambassador to Nigeria in his office.

The controversial cleric stated this in a video sermon of over 14 minutes posted on his official Facebook page.

Gumi in the sermon also asserted that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be stopped from serving for eight years if he does not remove Wike as FCT minister.

According to the cleric, it is dangerous to entrust Nigerias national security to the hands of Christians and Southerners.

The cleric said Muslims appointed into top security positions are only figureheads and not in charge of military command and control.

He went on to curse citizens who campaigned assiduously for the Muslim-Muslim ticket as worthless hypocrites and money-mongers who chased dollars for pleasure and worldly purposes.

Below is an excerpt of the sermon as translated from Hausa:

The Minister of the FCT is a Satanic person; I said it before when he was appointed and some people were grumbling. He has gone and brought the Israeli Ambassador, thats what someone sent and I am yet to watch it. But what is confirmed is he said they will collaborate with the Israelis on Abujas security issues. Abuja will now become an extension of Tel Aviv and when they see anyone with a beard like us, they will say it is Bin Laden and we will be killed.

Where are those that worked for the Muslim-Muslim ticket? Hypocrites and worthless people. Abuja is becoming an extension of Tel Aviv and security is the bastion of the people. Have you not heard the silence? They know what they are doing. One Miyetti Allah leader came and told me that if they come to me with a proposal of negotiation with bandits, I should not be part of it, that I should leave it alone.

It is a decoy. Muslims are the heads of the Ministry of Defence, of what significance is it? The real people in charge of Command and Control, those holding the guns and shooting, are we the ones? We are not the ones; they are playing us. There is an agenda. All means of money and economic power have been hijacked by them, they are planning to deceive us for four years and get eight years. They will not InshaAllah.

I want to tell you, there is no way Northerners doing their legitimate business will get one billion naira. Our rich people cannot get anything except those they trust. They only trust them because they are doing what they want. Anyone whose loyalty they are not sure of, they will crush him in a few months.

They will only come during elections like it is done to spread grains to chickens. If they spread grains to chickens, thats all. Giving spaghetti to people is the solution, this spaghetti issue is a big deal. We are being cheated in this country and in a real mess.

Theres one Reverend or Bishop during Buharis tenure who was saying to me that Muslims have hijacked power. I told him, Yes and I am okay, because I knew the Chief of Army Staff would not attempt to attack me. Even if he will not protect me, he will not collaborate with some people to attack me. Our own people either in the military, police or the Department of State Services (DSS) will not be used to harm me, they will also not harm you who is talking as a Christian.

I want you to know the difference. If you give them power, you give them guns, they will strive to harm you. Let me give you examples: Was Sardauna not a Premier? Who killed him? You gave them guns, Nzeogwu killed him. Who killed Murtala (Muhammed)? Dimka from the North. How did Babangida fare? He escaped by whiskers. who wanted to kill him? Gideon Orkar. You give them guns and they will kill you. Once you give them power, thats all.

Theres one Aliyu Masruhi from Tanzania, he had said this for long that theres no society that gives power without conditions. If it becomes inevitable that we will give power, we must ensure for example security is in our hands and other things and he said, do you agree? But how can you surrender power then you go and hide?

If Israelis enter this country, there will be a clandestine operation against any outspoken Islamic cleric; we have seen the signs. Why was Sheikh Jaafar killed? May his soul rest in peace, why did they kill Sheikh Albany? You can see how they are killing; theres a hit list and we have known this for long.

Why am I walking with the police? You didnt see me with police during Buharis government, despite my disagreement with them. It is because of this threat that we applied for police protection and they gave us. Even if the President doesnt like me, he has to give me police protection or else he will be held responsible for my life.

For you to understand, they will bring the MOSSAD into our country. Because of this, Tinubu should know that we know their plan, he must choose. He should remove the Minister of Abuja; if not, we will collide with him. On the day of a bath, the navel is not hidden.

Let me tell you what happened during President (Goodluck) Jonathans time. We went to a meeting one day at the DSS headquarters and met one operative who knew my police detail. One day he called us and gave us the number of a Mercedes 4matic. He said he was in the toilet and heard the arrangement of how a hit squad had been assembled to kill Sheikh Gumi.

All the killings that happened during Jonathans time in Jaji were executed by the military and not Boko Haram. Now have you not known the real Boko Haram? Can Boko Haram plant a bomb in Jaji if not them? General Shuwa was killed despite having soldiers in his house. They went and killed him. They were angry because he fought the civil war. You gave them power and they killed your leaders.

All the killings perpetrated by Israelis are nothing, but the attack carried out by Hamas is now their nightmare. If any Muslim in Nigeria has ever killed a President in this country, they will have put a ceiling on our peoples military career progression. If they attain the rank of a Captain, they will not be trusted to progress and we will concede. But how about them? They killed our leaders, not one, not two, not three. Once you give them power, they will kill, they will continue to kill our people.

After the DSS operative leaked the plot to kill me, I quickly informed the police commissioner and also posted on Facebook. He then heard them saying the operation should be called off since it was leaked. They now said the person who leaked it was inside their office. He was arrested and detained for two months and survived by chance. He came to my house after two months and explained all that transpired and how he survived by the grace of God.

One day during Ramadan fasting, I was working to use a projector, I now put the children in a car to proceed to the mosque before me. After the car left the house, we heard a bomb explosion. I asked that pictures of the scene should be taken. There was an attack by bees there, but two people were killed and they were in chains and had pistols, meaning if the bomb did not kill us, they would use the pistol to finish us. The third person coming from Ungwan Shanu was also killed by the bomb explosion.

We then continued with our study. Three people were killed. If you remember that time, I thank Governor Ramalan Yero for not stopping the Ramadan study. When I returned home, the correspondents of BBC Hausa and Voice of America met me, saying they went to the scene to get stories and capture the real Boko Haram, but troops had sealed off the scene and forced them to delete the pictures they captured. They told me we are trying to know Boko Haram and we have found Boko Haram in action and you are saying we should delete their pictures.

The dead bodies of the attackers were hurriedly evacuated in a military vehicle and made to disappear. When Daily Trust reporters came to me, I told them the story and they went to One Division Nigerian Army, and One Division Nigerian Army said they had no information that soldiers took the dead bodies of the two people. Suddenly one Muslim working in the 44 Nigerian Army Hospitals mortuary came and said the two dead bodies were indeed deposited in the mortuary, and they were Southerners from their looks.

It is the military that is carrying out these attacks; they are the ones who struck in Jaji to stop Major General MD Isa from becoming the Chief of Army Staff. They are the ones who also killed General Shuwa and all of us are targets.

I am telling you people to be wise and dont be fools because of God. These our Muslims politicians just want dollars to go on holidays, go for medical treatments and have forgotten the people. They are targeting us and that was what I was telling that pastor/bishop that if we Muslims are in power with Muslims as heads of security agencies, we will not kill you but if we give you Christians power with your infidels as heads of security agencies, they will plan to kill me and I have examples.

They killed Sardauna, they killed Tafawa Balewa and they killed Murtala. They killed our people, tell me your own that was killed. This is what I asked him. But they were making noise and shouting that Buhari was doing nepotism. I know but it has no significance because we dont do evil. However, these people will not help you but do evil, and thats why we are saying dont leave power.
Two men were killed on Wednesday night in separate shootings in Newark, authorities said.

The first shooting was reported on Dayton Street at 7:27 p.m. Officers on the scene located Rahim E. Wynn, 41, a Newark resident, who was suffering from gunshot wounds, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II said.

Wynn was later pronounced dead at University Hospital at 11:42 p.m., Stephens said.

City police then responded to another shooting at 10:04 p.m. on South Orange Avenue, where they found Kevin E. Brown, 61, of Newark, with a single gunshot wound, prosecutors said. He died at University Hospital about 40 minutes later, officials said.

Prosecutors have not commented on whether the two incidents are related. No arrests have been made in either case.

The Essex County Prosecutors Office is asking anyone with information about the shootings to call its tip line 1-877-847-7432.

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Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com.
In a game that was so tense, one of the stars vomited into a trash can during a timeout, the Las Vegas Aces became the first team to repeat as WNBA champions in 21 years by beating the New York Liberty, 70-69, in a frantic Game 4 of the Finals on Wednesday night.

Among the fans at the packed house at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn was Giants tight end Darren Waller, who is married to Aces guard Kelsey Plum. At practice on Wednesday, Waller had predicted its going to be a fight, and he was right. Plum played 40 minutes, shot 2-for-12 and scored seven points in the win.

The couple kissed on court amid the celebration.

I want to see her accomplish everything that she sets out to accomplish, Waller said. Its cool to just be there and be fan of her, be a husband and support.

With their rivalry, the Aces and Liberty have helped spark a skyrocketing interest in the league.

I could see it from a mile away, Waller said. Just from the talent thats on both teams and to see it come together, I feel like its great for the league, great for young girls that are watching. Everybody tuning in and seeing how good of a product is on the floor.

He added that the league took a step, for sure. Being able to market those two teams, like I said, they kind of built a rivalry out of it and people want to see it. Its a lot of talent on the floor, and its what people want to see.

And whats it like watching his wife play?

She probably gets nervous watching me get hit and stuff like that, he said. I dont really get that nervous watching her. I just love watching her because I see the work that she puts in [and Im] trying to be there as a supporter regardless of what the result is, but of course, I want to see her win and Ill be excited.

Waller said meeting and marrying a star athlete has also made him better.

She has helped me have a seriously detailed routine and not just doing things haphazardly, Waller said. You have a plan for everything you do that fuels your game and fuels your body and helps your precision. I didnt necessarily have that precision in the details that she had. Seeing her up close, she did things to inspire me to take things to the next level.

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A New Jersey man who formerly worked as a television reporter in Philadelphia has been arrested on child pornography charges.

Cleve Bryan was charged by police in Washington Township, Gloucester County with endangering the welfare of children by possessing child pornography, the department said in a brief statement.

Byran, of the Sewell section of Washington, was taken to the Salem County jail ahead of a first appearance in court.

Bryan spent seven years at CBS 3 in Philadelphia. His LinkedIn profile said the station employed him from 2013-2020. Earlier in his career Bryan worked at the now-defunct NBC 40 in Atlantic County.

Anyone with information is asked to call Washington Township police at 856-589-0330.

Attorney information for Bryan wasnt immediately available.

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The driver in a head-on collision that left three people dead and another person fighting for her life was driving in excess of 100 miles per hour at the time of the crash on a dangerous Jersey City road early Monday, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said Wednesday night.

Ziyang Wang, of Jersey City, is charged with three counts of second-degree reckless manslaughter, three counts of second-degree death by auto and one count of assault by auto, a fourth-degree offense. The 23-year-old was arrested by members of the Hudson County Regional Collision Investigation Unit at Jersey City Medical Center, where he will remain in custody until medically cleared, Suarez said.
Authorities are trying to locate the person responsible for shooting a man in the leg at the Roxbury Motel on Wednesday night.

The man suffered severe injuries that are not considered life-threatening after being shot shortly before 9 p.m. at the motel on Route 46, the Morris County Prosecutors Office said.

The shooter immediately fled.

An employee who answered the phone at the motel Thursday morning said the shooting took place in a guest room, but declined to comment further.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutors office declined to answer questions about the shooting when reached by NJ Advance Media.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Morris County Prosecutors Office at 973-285-6200 or Roxbury police at 973-448-2100. Tips can be submitted anonymously through Morris County Crimestoppers at 973-COP-CALL or copcall.org.

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Five New Jersey towns have agreed to fix their marriage licensing systems after a state inquiry found their websites discriminated against LGBTQ couples, New Jerseys attorney general said Thursday.

The probe found the towns  Estell Manor in Atlantic County, Fairview in Bergen County, Hanover in Morris County, Linden in Union County, and South Toms River in Ocean County  posted marriage licensing information on their websites that limited the availability of licenses to opposite-gender couples and excluded marriage license applicants with a nonbinary gender identity, according to the state Division on Civil Rights.

The towns application materials effectively limited marriage licenses to heterosexual couples, authorities said.

Four of the towns promptly resolved the issues. Hanover Township agreed to update forms on their website following a negotiated settlement. Officials there could not immediately be reached for comment.

Our laws forbid discrimination in marriage licensing and other basic government services on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, and no government here in New Jersey should stand in the way of that basic promise of equality, said Sundeep Iyer, the director of the Division on Civil Rights, in a statement.

All five towns have since agreed to update their websites to remove gender restrictive language, re-train employees and expressly state online that residents of all gender compositions can apply to marry.

Attorney General Matthew Platkin said the inquiry was part of an enforcement initiative meant to ensure New Jersey local governments were not discriminating against LGBTQ couples.

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S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com.
East Europe Foundation and the EU announce 10 winners of the Act to Support competition for the implementation of civic tech solutions

Early in October 2023, the acceleration programme of the Act to Support competition, implemented by East Europe Foundation as part of the Phoenix: Resilient Ukraine in the Time of War project with the support of the European Union, was completed. The winning civil society organisations were awarded up to 20,000 euros for the implementation of each civic tech tool. They have finalised projects of chatbots, websites, and platforms that will help communities, IDPs, and other people suffering from the war.

During a few months of the acceleration programme, the teams from 20 civil society organisations worked with mentors and core experts, attended lectures, analysed the market, studied successful solutions, refined their own concepts, and prepared for the presentation of their projects. Center42 Innovation Agency and the Happy Monday career platform became mentors and partners of the acceleration programme.

After 24 February 2022, civic tech tools became an integral part in the lives of not only Ukrainian civil society organisations, but also in every Ukrainians life. For example, thanks to a chat on a smartphone, one can learn about an air raid alarm. In another city, a chatbot can quickly report a problem to the authorities or get advice. This years Act to Support competition offered an opportunity for civil society organisations who develop civic tech solutions to gain expertise and financial support for the implementation of useful tools in a wartime, says Julia Jacoby, Sector Manager for Civil Society with the EU Delegation in Ukraine.

During the final event of the competitions acceleration programme, the qualified jury awarded the teams that develop the following projects:

 Charitable Organisation Balbek Bureau: RE:Ukraine Villages

Enhancement of the online designer , which models a layout of a house for reconstruction based on typical rural architecture of a specific region.

 Charitable Organisation Ukrainian IT Hub Foundation: MRIYA

Enhancement of the platform MRIYA to counter Russian propaganda resources, online fraudsters' accounts, etc.  NGO Autistic People Friendly: I'm speaking a communicator for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Creating an application that will eliminate communication barriers for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with the surrounding world through digitised PECS cards with the possibility of personalization.

 NGO All-Ukrainian Association of Donors of Ukraine: DonorUA for Teams

Improving the gamified tool DonorUA for Teams, which helps to create and develop the community of blood donors.

 NGO "GENERATION OF MOTHERS LADA": Chatbot "Mothers, children, emotions. Control your emotions so they don't control you"

Enhancement of the chatbot (https://t.me/lada_maternity_emotions_bot) that will help moms and children gain knowledge about the nature and characteristics of emotional states.

Development of a tool that allows representatives of local authorities to create evacuation plans for various emergency situations, provide community residents access to information, and conduct effective evacuation training at https://cityguard.info

 NGO Foundation.101: "Shelter"

Enhancing of the service for finding free housing for IDPs (https://prykhystok.gov.ua) to include the possibility of

receiving monetary compensation for homeowners who have provided shelter.

 NGO "FISCAL POLICY RESEARCH CENTER (FISCAL CENTER)": Transparent expenses for the recovery of Ukraine Development of a webportal about the costs needed and spending on the recovery of Ukraine.

 NGO Conscious Bucha Community: "Medical Intelligent Assistant (MIA)"

Development of a mobile application that will provide patient support before and after a visit to a medical facility,

providing round-the-clock support (surveys, explanations, recommendations).

 NGO Yurshtab: Lawyer in Your Smartphone

Enhancement of the chatbot providing free legal assistance on https://t.me/ua_law_help_bot.

The Act to Support competition aims to help civil society organisations become more technologically advanced

and assist in addressing various challenges during wartime. All winning projects in the competition contribute to quick access to innovative solutions and necessary information, which is significantly more challenging to ascertain without such a communication channel. These tools are designed to provide the necessary assistance quickly, with quality and convenience, Victor Liakh, President of the Eastern Europe Foundation, commented on the competitions outcome.

Background information:

The Act to Support competition is held as part of the Phoenix: Resilient Ukraine in the Time of War project implemented by East Europe Foundation with the financial support of the European Union.

East Europe Foundation (EEF) Charity is a non-profit Ukrainian organisation active since 2008. Since its inception, EEF has channelled around $40 million into projects for Ukraines socioeconomic development and local initiatives designed to develop civil society and good governance.

For more information, please write to Phoenix@eef.org.ua or call +380 (96) 7147481 to contact Olha Milianovych, Communication Coordinator of East Europe Foundation.

Additionally:

The European Union supports Ukraine in the face of the unprovoked and unjustified full-scale Russian invasion. To date, EUR 2 billion has been allocated to support Ukraine's defence through the European Peace Facility. Support is available through repurposing of ongoing projects worth a total of about EUR 140 million. Over EUR 130 million has recently been disbursed as budget support. This immediate response will be continued through the mobilisation of an additional EUR 330 million.

Over 30 000 tonnes of in-kind assistance has been provided by all EU Member States and other partners through the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. EUR 9.1 billion was raised at the 'Stand Up for Ukraine' global pledging event for humanitarian aid, support to refugees, internally displaced persons and recovery. Another EUR 6.1 billion was raised at the International Donor Conference on 5 May 2022 in Warsaw.

The EU also supports Ukraine with emergency Macro-Financial Assistance, amounting to EUR 1.2 billion.
A college in New Jersey has reached a settlement with the state that will forgive $3.4 million in student debt, following a lawsuit that alleged it falsely promised students employment in the IT sector if they enrolled in expensive training programs.

Sollers College, a for-profit institution in Piscataway, agreed to a $4.6 million settlement, with the remaining $1.2 million in funds going to a civil penalty imposed by the state, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said.

The office started investigating the school in 2020 following consumer complaints from students who paid $10,000 to $15,000 to enroll in four to six-week Information Technology programs, but said they never got the jobs they were promised. After applying to IT jobs online, the consumers would typically receive an invitation from the school to enroll in training courses and were told that they would be guaranteed employment upon completion of the program, according to the lawsuit.

The school would then charge the applicants an Income Share Agreement, in which the student pledges their future income in an upfront payment, according to the lawsuit.

New Jersey will not allow for-profit schools to deceive students with false claims and promises or subject them to unlawful financing schemes that push them into debt instead of helping them reach their career goals, Platkin said. Schools that fail to comply with laws and regulations that protect students from financial abuses and fraud will be held accountable.

The settlement will erase debt for 400 students, 60 of whom are New Jersey residents, the Office of the Attorney General said.

The investigation determined that the school and its president, Siba Padhi, violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, Regulations Governing General Advertising, federal Truth in Lending Act and the FTC Holder Rule.

Some of the misrepresentations that the school made were claims that 90% of students were placed in an IT job within three months of graduating, lying about corporate and academic partnerships and failing to disclose prepayment penalty terms, state officials said.

Students do not need to take action to qualify for debt forgiveness. As part of the agreement, the college is prohibited from issuing future Income Share Agreements and collecting debts from any previous ones and must order third-party collection agencies to cease any collection efforts from the affected students within the next ten days.

Sollers could not immediately be reached for comment.

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A real estate investor from New Jersey is accused of using his large social media following to defraud victims out of millions of dollars, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.

Cesar Humberto Pina, 45, of Franklin Lakes, allegedly collected about $17 million from dozens of investors to renovate and resell four different residential properties in New Jersey, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey.

After he flipped and sold the homes for a profit, many investors reported receiving no payment or only being paid a small portion of their initial investment, authorities said.

Pina had promised these victims returns between 20 and 45% within five months, charging documents said. Instead, he engaged in a Ponzi-like scheme, only paying back some of the investors and using funds for personal expenses, officials alleged.

Pina started accepting investments from the victims in 2017. In the years prior to the alleged scheme, he partnered with a celebrity disc jockey and radio personality to hold real estate investment seminars around the country, authorities said. Both are facing civil suits.

This helped him achieve an influencer status on social media, with hundreds of thousands of followers, according to court papers. Law enforcement has accused him of using his online presence to attract investors.

Pina was charged by complaint with one count of wire fraud. He made his initial appearance in Newark federal court on Wednesday and was released and on a $1 million bond with electronic monitoring.

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The man who sparked protests and backlash after video of his racist rant against his Mt. Laurel neighbors went viral, has pleaded guilty to fourth degree bias intimidation and second degree counts of possession with intent distribute controlled substances, the Burlington County Prosecutors office announced Wednesday.

Edward C. Mathews, 47, formerly of the Essex Place condo community of Mt. Laurel, was arrested in July 2021 after a confrontation with neighbors where he used the N-word and other racially-charged slurs. Mathews will serve an eight-year prison sentence, according to the plea agreement filed in Mt. Holly on Tuesday. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Dec. 8.

Authorities began investigating Mathews on July 2, 2021 after a resident of the community reported a harassment complaint against him. Shortly after the initial report, police were called to remove someone from the area on Coventry Way where officers witnessed Mathews hurling racial slurs at four other residents.

He was initially charged with bias intimidation and harassment. But later, video recording of the incident went viral and set off days of protests drawing large crowds to the neighborhood.

By July 5 of that year, Mathews was arrested and escorted from his home as more than 100 people protested outside. Investigators reviewed the recording of the incident and found that Mathews had spit on someone during his outburst.

The full investigation found that Mathews had engaged in a pattern of abuse and harassment on the community for years. One such incident included a feces-smeared note with threats scribbled on it left on a neighbors car. Authorities later charged Mathews with three separate sets of harassment, bias intimidation and criminal trespass before hitting him with another round of charges reaching back to 2020 a week later.

He eventually faced over a dozen charges, but pleaded guilty to four counts of bias intimidation and one count of possession of a controlled substance after he was found to have psilocybin mushrooms. The Mount Laurel Police Department conducted the investigation with assistance from the FBI.

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Matthew Enuco can be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com.
The end of Daylight Savings Time for 2023 is a little more than two weeks away.

Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023, when the clock will fall back one hour and in theory we get one extra hour of sleep and return to Standard Time.

The amount of daily daylight each day continues to decrease through the fall, which started on Sept. 23.

Oct. 28 will mark the final day that the sun sets at 6 p.m. or later until we turn ahead the clocks again on March 10, 2024, and daylight saving resumes.

The sun will set in Newark at 5:52 p.m. on Nov. 4. The following day  after Daylight Saving time concludes  sunset is more than an hour earlier at 4:50 p.m. The amount of daylight will continue to diminish each day until Dec. 21 when the winter solstice arrives. Then the length of days will begin to increase until the summer solstice on June 20, 2024.

The flip side is that the sun will rise approximately one hour earlier each morning. On Nov. 5, sunrise is 7:32 a.m. The next day the sun comes up at 6:33 a.m. While millions of people will travel home from work mostly or entirely in the dark in November, their morning commute will include more daylight.

Clocks will be turned back one hour as Daylight Saving Time ends on Nov. 5, 2023.The Associated Press

Clocks officially fall back at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November to 1 a.m.

Daylight Saving Time started on Sunday, March 12, 2023 and will end on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023  a run of 238 days. It has lasted from the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday in November since 2007.

We next turn the clocks ahead on March 10, 2024  126 days after turning them back. Daylight Saving Time in 2024 will end on Nov. 3, 2024.

When does Daylight Savings Time end in 2023. The end of Daylight Saving Time this year is when the clocks "fall back" one hour.

The concept dates back more than a century when English architect William Willett proposed the idea to change the clocks in 1907 in The Waste of Daylight. The suggestion of using daylight more efficiently can be traced to Benjamin Franklin.

While visiting in Paris in 1784, he wrote a letter to the editors of the Journal of Paris calling for a tax on every Parisian whose windows were shuttered after sunrise to encourage the economy of using sunshine instead of candles, according to Michael Downing, author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving became widespread in the U.S. when the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was passed. Back then, Daylight Saving ran from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October and states were allowed to opt out.

In 1986, Daylight Saving was changed to run from the first Sunday in April until the final Sunday in October. The most recent revision took effect in 2006 when Energy Policy Act of 2005 revised Daylight Saving from the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday in November.

Hawaii and most of Arizona do not observe Daylight Saving Time. The time change is also not observed in U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands. All of Indiana didnt begin observing Daylight Saving until 2006.

Seventeen states have enacted legislation to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. Voters in California have voted to authorize year-round Daylight Saving Time. Those changes, however, require federal approval.

In March 2022, the U.S. Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would end changing the clocks twice a year. The U.S. House of Representatives didnt take a vote on it, though.

A handful of provinces in Canada  most of Saskatchewan and Yukon have adopted permanent daylight saving as have parts of British Columbia and two communities in northwest Ontario.

About 70 countries observe Daylight Saving Time. Most of North America, Europe and parts of South America and New Zealand adhere to it, while China, Japan, India and most other countries do not.

It starts on different dates elsewhere. In Europe for example, Daylight Saving Time starts the last Sunday in March and ends the final Sunday in October.

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Watertown, NY (13601)

Today

Cloudy skies with periods of rain late. Low 46F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies with periods of rain late. Low 46F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The World Bank is ready to work with Azerbaijans newly-created Water Reserves Agency, Winston Yu, Water Practice Manager for the Europe and Central Asia Region at the World Bank, said in an exclusive interview with Trend.

I'm delighted to see the attention being given by the government to this very important topic of water. I think it represents a huge opportunity for the government to think about how they want to better regulate the resource and how to provide better services to its people, not only households, common citizens in Baku and other cities, but also farmers who receive irrigation services, he said.

The Azerbaijan Water Reserves Agency was established in March 2023 by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyevs order on improvement of water resources management.

The Agency has been set up on the basis of the Emergency Ministrys State Water Reserves Agency in order to use water resources effectively and improve irrigation practices. The assets of national water and sanitation operator Azersu and Azerbaijan Melioration and Water Management joint-stock companies has been handed over to the newly-established Azerbaijan Water Reserves Agency.

Yu thinks it remains to be seen how this new agency will evolve, grow and take on new responsibilities and new roles.

I think it represents a huge opportunity. Households, businesses and farmers need good services. And I think this is a good opportunity now to look at the roles and financial sustainability of both water and sanitation and irrigation services. The World Bank is a global institution, we have almost 300 professionals working in the water sector. So that means that we know many stories and experiences pretty similar to Azerbaijans. The challenges here are not very different than the challenges in Vietnam or countries in Africa and South Asia, and even in the US. I personally come from California, where we face droughts. I think one of the main tasks for the World Bank is to help share that global knowledge. This new institution, as it moves forward, can be staffed properly, they can have the right policies in place, have the right incentives in place. I am really hoping that we can be a good partner for the government and share those ideas and those experiences, said the WB water practice manager.

He pointed out that the World Bank is happy to develop guidelines for the new agency if the Azerbaijani government asks.

We have an ongoing technical assistance activity, within which we are undertaking a large number of analytical studies to dig a bit deeper to help the government figure out what are the priorities. As an example, we want to help the government think through the financial sustainability of this new agency, and that requires some homework on budgeting, subsidies, tariffs. Reviewing all of that, we hope we will begin to lay out a plan for the agency moving forward. But it will be the government to decide whether they want us to support them on that and be partners in this journey of this new agency, added Winston Yu.

He went on to add that the work on creating a new water management model in Azerbaijan comprises along two streams.

The first is looking at the water supply and wastewater sector and the other is the irrigation for farmers sector. In the water supply work, what we're looking at is undertaking several studies, one of which is to look at subsidies and tariffs and the whole financial arrangements. Another sub-study is to look at services, particularly, in smaller cities and rural areas where there is less concentration of people. That presents its own unique set of challenges. On the irrigation side, what we are trying to do is to develop tools that the government can use to benchmark irrigation performance. How do you know how well an irrigation system is performing? Using satellite technologies and all kinds of new modeling tools we can develop rather simple tools that the government can utilize to figure out where do we need improvements in performance, where do we need more investment and etc. These are some of the activities that we are undertaking under the current technical assistance, said the water practice manager.

Yu noted that every country, every city needs to diversify sources, but one also needs to be mindful that there are enormous opportunities for improving efficiency.

Anytime you have losses in your networks, it translates to losses of revenue, energy, public effort. In my view, the priority is to first improve the existing system. Many countries now are reusing wastewater, and feeding it back into the system. I think those are all very good ideas. The technologies have advanced to the point where I believe in the future the re-use of wastewater will be a norm, he said.

As for the institutional reforms in the water sector, Yu said first of all, he hopes that the government requests the World Banks help and sees that it has some value to bring to the conversation.

If the government requests help, the first thing I would share with them is the experiences in other countries. I would also share with them that this is a long-term effort and this requires enormous investment, not only in infrastructure, but also investment in people and investment in institutions. We have to think long term here. Presumably you want to leave a water supply system for your children and for their children, so that they can always have clean drinking water. Same with farmers. And that process takes quite a bit of time. There needs to be political commitment, and really genuine investment in people who will be running these systems. I think that's probably the most important thing. We have a very famous principle at the World Bank which reads that we don't want to just fix the pipes, we want to fix the institutions that fix the pipes. You can fix pipes easily, but you need to invest in people and the public to help ensure that these pipes are always fixed and people are getting good services, noted the WB water practice manager.

Yu thinks that in an environment where climate is changing, the public finance space is much more limited, and provision of services is becoming more and more expensive, financial sustainability is a key.

I come originally from more of the engineering and technical background. I used to think that the solution was technical, desalinization, AI, blockchain and all these things, but I'm actually more and more convinced that it is about human capacity. It is really important that we get the financing correct, so that the systems are sustainable, whatever it gets built today, will last not only your lifetime, but also your children's lifetime and their children's lifetime. We need to get the incentives right. And I think leaning towards more performance-based budgeting, and performance-based incentives is really the way to go. Unless you have proper incentives in the system, it's not going to get priorities right. Secondly, we have to make sure we separate services from regulation, the two cannot be the same. Whoever is responsible for regulating should not be the same people who are also providing a service. You know, it's hard to go further in recommendations because I think it is still early days for this institution. You need to have a proper permitting system in place. You also need to have good data, every country needs to strengthen data monitoring, and that's probably going to be a responsibility of this new agency, Yu said.

He believes it's encouraging that the government has made a conscious political decision about forming this new agency.

For me, that's the first step. Now, this is where the hard work begins and it requires a lot of conversation. From the World Bank side, we want to give the government as much knowledge as possible, both the good experiences and maybe even more importantly, the bad experiences, because there's been a lot of bad experiences and we don't want Azerbaijan to go down a failed path. Technology will only save us to an extent. You still have to invest in people. There's a lot of innovative things, but there's also some basic things that still need to be done. One of the things we're doing under the technical assistance is to help share with the government different kinds of models used in more rural parts of the country, which are often very different than Baku. You can still use performance-based approaches in more rural parts of the country. It's a bit more challenging, but it's not impossible, added Winston Yu.

The World Bank water practice manager noted that there's still room for more investment in the water sector.

From the World Bank perspective, we're ready to help the government when requested. I want to thank the new agency, and also the technical people from Azersu and Amelioration Company who've been very kind and open armed with us in discussing the issues. This technical assistance is extremely important. We thank our donor, European Union, for providing it, because it really helps to discuss with the government some big issues, and what are the emerging ideas on how to make things better. Clearly, beyond just the losses and the need to fix this problem, there's a clear institutional gap that needs to be filled. I'm hoping that this new agency will fill that gap. Time will tell and we were ready to provide the government and this new agency with our thoughts and to share the experiences worldwide, Winston Yu concluded.

---

Follow the author on X: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Police arrived at the burning house about 25 minutes after a domestic disturbance call from the mother of the three young kids who soon died inside a home on America Street. The first report of a fire came about 14 minutes after that first call.
Azerconnect, a leader in the field of ICT and high technologies in Azerbaijan, has been distinguished with the prestigious Stevie Awards in multiple categories for its projects that highlight its commitment to innovation.

The company has received recognition as the Silver Award recipient in Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion for its Inspire.Lead.Create:Women Leadership Program and in Achievement in Managing a Remote Workforce for its FLEXcellence:Hybrid Working Program, along with the Bronze Award in Best Use of Blended Learning for its Hybrid Leadership Program.

The awards were presented as part of the eighth annual Stevie Awards for Great Employers in the HR Achievement category. The Stevie Awards for Great Employers is a global recognition initiative honoring the world's top employers.

It is noteworthy that The Stevie Awards for Great Employers is dedicated to recognizing the world's best employers, alongside the distinguished human resources professionals, teams, achievements, and HR- related products and suppliers pivotal in creating and driving exceptional places to work.

Receiving two Silver and one Bronze awards for the initiatives undertaken by Azerconnect is a testament to the company's inclusive nature, showcasing its dedication to valuing employees, promoting diversity, efficiently managing remote work, and fostering professional growth and development within its workforce.

About Azerconnect

Azerconnect is the first B2B (Business to Business) company in Azerbaijan that provides various services in the dynamically developing ICT and high-tech fields. Azerconnect is part of NEQSOL Holding an international group of companies operating in various countries across the energy, telecommunications, hi-tech, and construction industries.

Significantly, Azerconnect was awarded a prestigious certificate of Top Employer 2023 in Azerbaijan by the influential Top Employer Institute recognizing its excellence in the realm of human resources across six distinct categories. The company has also been distinguished with the prestigious Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award in three different categories this year.

About Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries 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.
We are pleased to announce that SOCAR AQS has landed an agreement with Taghiyev Operating Company LLC (TOC), a subsidiary of GL LTD LLC, the first private energy company of Azerbaijan, to implement an onshore drilling project in TOCs Buzovna-Mashtaga oil field.

To conduct drilling operations in the Buzovna-Mashtaga field, SOCAR AQS uses HH 300, a stand-alone hydraulic drilling rig, manufactured by Drillmec, a global industry leader in designing and construction of drilling and work-over rigs. This state-of-the-art rig is known for its unique features to drive efficiency and ensure a high level of safety while delivering outstanding onshore drilling performance.

Samir Mollayev, General Director of SOCAR AQS, said: Onshore drilling operations are essential for Azerbaijan's energy industry and economy by contributing to additional revenues and ensuring diversification of sources. We will apply our proven expertise in onshore drilling and advanced technology to deliver this important project for all stakeholders  the client, country and SOCAR AQS.

SOCAR AQS continues to expand its operations portfolio and remains committed to maintaining the highest standards of professionalism, quality, and innovation. Understanding the changing market dynamics and the importance of adapting to technological progress, SOCAR AQS continues to offer advanced solutions to meet the demanding needs of customers.

Noteworthy, GL is the third big customer of SOCAR AQS in Azerbaijan. This new partnership will further strengthen the position of SOCAR AQS as a leading drilling and well services company in Azerbaijan, with 15 years of experience in the industry and more than 150 wells successfully drilled to date.
Thousands of Devon residents struggling with the cost of living can get extra support again this winter.

Earlier this year Devon County Council (DCC) secured 10m from the fourth round of the Governments Household Support Fund to cover the period from April 2023 until March 2024

The money comes with conditions on how it can be allocated and is to support households in most need  those that are struggling to pay for food, energy, water bills and other related essentials. It is also intended for those that may not be eligible for other government support.

So far under this fourth round of the scheme, the council has distributed over 5 million, supporting more than 38,000 households across Devon.

And now with winter approaching, DCC is working with its partners, district and city councils, and other community organisations to provide the most vulnerable residents with rapid short-term financial support to help them over the coming months.

The homeless, low income families, those who are suffering from ill health and ethnic minorities are just some of the many groups who will benefit from schemes including free school meal holiday vouchers, hardship payments, pre-payment and credit energy meter support, community grants and funding for minor energy efficiency measures.

For this coming winter, Devons district and city councils have over 2 million to offer one-off financial help to those who are struggling to pay for their food and utility costs or other household essentials. Help may also be available for unexpected or exceptional circumstances, for example, rent arrears prior to being in receipt of appropriate housing benefits.

DCC is also working with the Devon Community Foundation to provide grants to voluntary sector organisations supporting communities that dont always get the help they need. Its Food, Fuel and More grant scheme was very well received earlier this year and will re-open this winter with a further funding pot of over 260,000.

The scheme will offer large grants of up to 25,000 to organisations that support homeless people or people in temporary or insecure housing. Groups supporting households with disabled residents or those suffering ill-health which has a direct impact on household income and an ability to meet food and energy bills, are also encouraged to apply, along with organisations that support Asian, black, traveller, Gypsy, Roma and ethnic minority communities who are not accessing support through other channels. They will also be operating a small grants scheme of up to 2,000 for smaller community initiatives.

Councillor Roger Croad, cabinet member with responsibility for communities, said: For many people in Devon, a small change in their personal circumstances, or an unexpected cost out of the blue, can put them in real difficulty, and we know that there are people in our communities who will struggle to cope with paying for heating and for food again this winter.

This money will help support those most in need, and by working with our colleagues across Devons district and city councils and the community and charity sector, and sharing knowledge and expertise about the communities they work in, we can make sure it reaches the right people.

We are particularly keen to ensure that residents who dont receive other government support and might not know where to find help know about this support so that they dont slip through the net.

If youre struggling financially, for whatever reason, please take some time to look at our website and check what support you may be eligible for, and refer back to it if your circumstances change over the coming months.

The Household Support Fund is just one part of the support that councils across the county are making available to households. For more information about the range of support available, visit the website: www.devon.gov.uk/cost-of-living/
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The area of 190 hectares of the industrial park located in Azerbaijan's Aghdam has been handed over to residents, said Bashir Hajiyev, Deputy Special Representative of the President of Azerbaijan, in the territories of Karabakh Economic Region (except Shusha district) liberated from Armenian occupation, Trend reports.

He spoke during a panel discussion going on during Caspian Construction Week.

"In Aghdam Industrial Park, the main advantage is given to the production of repair and construction materials. Residents who will work here will be able to take advantage of various benefits," Hajiyev said.

Aghdam Industrial Park was established by the decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated May 28, 2021.

In general, more than 60 million manat will be invested in Aghdam Industrial Park. It is planned to create more than 700 workplaces in the industrial park. Enterprises established in Aghdam Industrial Park will make an important contribution to the development of local production, the involvement of the region's resources in economic turnover, the revival of Karabakh, and the development of the non-oil industry of Azerbaijan as a whole.

Resident status was granted to 12 business entities and non-resident status to 3 entrepreneurs in Aghdam Industrial Park in 2022.
People in North Devon are being urged to give the gift of their time to take part in the UKs biggest food donation drive.

The Tesco Food Collection is taking place in Tesco stores from November 30 to December 2, with charities the Trussell Trust and FareShare urging volunteers to sign-up to support the event.

It comes as both charities face their busiest winter yet, with more people turning to them for support. The Trussell Trust, which has the largest foodbank network in the UK, is expecting to distribute more than one million emergency food parcels between December and February, while FareShare has more than 1,500 frontline charities on its waiting list seeking food.

During the collection, customers in Barnstaple, Bideford, Braunton and Ilfracombe will be encouraged to donate long life food to support the charities in their work.

Donations for the Trussell Trust will help its network of food banks provide emergency food parcels to people who cannot afford the essentials, while donations to FareShare will get food to its network of local charities and community groups.

Tesco is calling on volunteers to help staff its store collection points to raise awareness of the impact every donation will have on people who rely on it for food.

One in five Trussell Trust food parcels now come from Tesco and its customers.

Trussell Trust chief executive Emma Revie said: This winter is going to be the toughest yet for the food banks in our network, as they will help approximately 600,000 people and provide an emergency parcel every eight seconds.

The teams in our food banks are working tirelessly to ensure everyone receives the support they need, but they cannot do it alone.

By volunteering at the Tesco Winter Food Collection, you will not only be helping to gather much-needed donations to keep your local food bank going, youll also be making a real difference to families who cannot afford the essentials in your community. If you can spare a few hours to volunteer, then please do.

George Wright, chief executive at FareShare, added: We anticipate need will keep rising as people continue to struggle to afford the essentials like food and heating this winter.

Tescos support for FareShare throughout the cost-of-living crisis and the last 11 years has been unwavering, and were incredibly grateful for their support in helping drive more donations during what will be a difficult winter for many.

Volunteers play a huge role in the success of the Tesco Food Collection each year. By giving up just three hours of your time, you can make a huge impact by helping more people understand the importance of donating food to FareShare during this increasingly difficult time.

Claire De Silva, head of community at Tesco, said: Every year our Winter Food Collection gets such an amazing response from our customers. We know that they give even more generously when we have volunteers in our stores, helping them to choose the right items that are needed, so we would urge anyone who can to please sign up and help make a difference.

People in North Devon can sign up to volunteer with FareShare at https://fareshare.org.uk/foodcollection or with the Trussell Trust at https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-involved/tesco-food-collection/volunteer
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ali Asadov met with a delegation headed by the Chairman of the Supreme Court of Turkiye Mehmet Akarca, the Cabinet of Ministers told Trend.

During the meeting, it was noted with satisfaction that the all-round successful development of ties of brotherhood and alliance between Azerbaijan and Turkiye.

The Prime Minister noted that this year is especially significant for both countries, as this year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the national leader of the Azerbaijani people, Heydar Aliyev and the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Republic of Turkiye. The importance of the participation of the chairman of the Supreme Court of Turkiye in the forthcoming international conference in Azerbaijan's Shusha dedicated to the 100th anniversary of great leader Heydar Aliyev and in the founding session of the Conference of Supreme Courts of Turkic States was emphasized.

It was noted that Azerbaijani-Turkish relations, developing comprehensively at the present stage under the leadership of leaders of the two countries, Ilham Aliyev and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have reached the peak of strategic partnership and alliance.

The sides expressed confidence that the visit of the Turkish President to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic last month will make an important contribution to the further rapid development of relations between the brotherly countries in all spheres. In this regard, importance was attached to the participation of the heads of state in the ceremony of laying the foundation of the Igdr-Nakhchivan gas pipeline, as well as the importance of the Protocol of Intentions on the Kars-Nakhchivan railroad project signed between Azerbaijan and Turkiye and the Cooperation Agreement on the construction of residential houses, elementary schools, kindergartens, and cultural centers in the Turkish province of Kahramanmarash.

Assessing the effective implementation of the decisions taken at the meetings of the Azerbaijani-Turkish Strategic Cooperation Council and the Joint Intergovernmental Commission as an important factor, Asadov said it was encouraging that the mutual trade turnover had reached a record high of 42 percent in the first nine months of the current year.

The sides expressed satisfaction with the successful development of relations between the judicial-legal systems of Azerbaijan and Turkiye.

The sides agreed that continuation of cooperation between judicial-legal bodies, both in bilateral format and within international organizations, as well as regular exchange of experience, would be useful for both countries.

The meeting also discussed the prospects of expanding cooperation in the fields of investment, energy, transportation, transit, and many other areas.
NTV News 24 is a service of Nippon Television, Japan's leading broadcasting network. This page provides a selection of today's stories in English.
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BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Azerbaijan's State Security Service is investigating radio interference that was created by Armenian illegal armed formations against aircraft, Trend reports.

During the investigation of the ongoing criminal case in the State Security Service regarding terrorist and other crimes committed by the illegal armed formations in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region, along with other special technical means at the disposal of these armed formations, disarmed as a result of local anti-terrorist measures, foreign-made electronic warfare complexes of the "Pole-21M" type were discovered, installed on the basis of "Repellent-1" trucks, as well as other electronic warfare systems installed in a makeshift manner.

The service noted that in terms of tactical and technical indicators, the "Polyus-21M" complex was used to create radio interference as well as limit signals coming from satellite navigation systems such as GPS, GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System), Galileo, Beidou, and others on objects located at a distance of up to 150 km.

"As it's known, Armenian illegal armed formations in the Karabakh region used radio interference against the navigation systems of civilian aircraft of foreign airlines and the Azerbaijan Airlines CJSC operating in the airspace of the country. This has been repeatedly reported to the international community," the service reminded.

"From 2021 on, numerous facts of intensified use of such radio interference were recorded. These facts were accompanied by disruptions in the reception of signals from global navigation satellite systems at radar stations located in the vicinity of these territories," the service said. "The disruptions were caused by obstructing the reception of signals and resulted in the loss of navigation signals on civilian aircraft flying in and around the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. This situation reduced the effectiveness of controlling civilian aircraft and could have led to a temporary loss of control over aircraft and aviation incidents."

"It was determined that the "Repellent-1 system was used for detecting and tracking the signals of communication channels and information transmission from airborne radio communication equipment at distances of up to 35 km, with the ability to determine their location, direction, and speed in space. This system also created radio interference in the operation of control and navigation systems," the service noted.

"It was also revealed that makeshift radio-electronic warfare complexes were used to restrict signals from navigation satellites such as GPS and GLONASS, as well as to create radio interference. Currently, investigative and operational measures are being carried out as part of the criminal case," the service added.

In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian, and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war], suppression of large-scale provocations in the 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 [temporarily stationed in Azerbaijan under the trilateral statement], an agreement was reached on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) to cease anti-terrorist activities of a local nature under the following conditions: the formations of the armed forces of Armenia, Armenian illegal armed formations located in Karabakh region, lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts, and completely disarm; the formations of the armed forces of Armenia leave the territory of Azerbaijan; Armenian illegal armed groups are dissolved.
The Porter County Museum also known as PoCo Muse, will lead a guided tour of Valparaisos Old City Cemetery on Saturday.

The tour is free and open to the public. Its a chance to learn more about many of the pioneer families who settled in Valpo and are buried there.

Anyone interested should meet at 2 p.m. at the cemetery gates at 403 Union St.

This is a rare opportunity to visit the oldest public cemetery in Porter County, a site that is normally not open to visitors because of past problems with vandalism, said PoCo Muse Executive Director Kevin Pazour. The cemetery is the final resting place for a virtual whos who of our community, including mayors, county sheriffs, war veterans and prominent business people. Longtime residents of the area will almost certainly be familiar with many of the people buried here.

Pazour, the Porter County Historian, will lead the tour. Hell be accompanied by Steve Mockler, a local historian and Civil War expert whos a member of the David D. Porter Camp #116 of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. He will furnish insights about the lives of Civil War soldiers buried in the ceremony.

Well be making stops at numerous gravesites to tell stories of many of the more than 900 people interred here, added Pazour. Its a mixed bag of prominent people and everyday folks, with a handful of quirky individuals thrown in. Every one of them has a tale to tell, and were determined to keep these stories alive, so that these people will not be forgotten.

The Porter County Museum at 20 Indiana Ave. in downtown Valparaiso, is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is free.

For more information, visit pocomuse.org or find the Porter County Museum on social media.
While summoning stories from his remarkable yet erratic life in music, Sly Stone admits he occasionally had to depend on the recollections of others because his own memory wasnt always reliable.

At one point in his new memoir, Stone, now 80, remembers that during the hazy excesses of his 1970s rock stardom he briefly shared a Los Angeles mansion with a baboon that had the run of the place. Hes just not sure where the primate came from.

I forgot where I got him? Stone muses. Baboon store?

His book, co-written with Ben Greenman, overflows with wit and wordplay befitting a maestro whose funkiest song with his band the Family Stone was Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)  also the title of the book.

Born Sylvester Stewart in Texas and raised in Vallejo, California, across the bay from San Francisco, he studied music composition at a junior college while working as a radio DJ, becoming known for his whimsical patter and eclectic playlists.

Stone clearly recalls his early and evolving vision of a no-barriers style of music that would meld Motown pop-soul, James Browns funk, R&B, gospel and psychedelic rock. Shortly after forming in 1966, Sly and the Family Stone produced a string of sunny hits including Everyday People, I Want To Take You Higher, Hot Fun in the Summertime and Stand! that captured the hippy spirit of the times.

Stones band included Black and white musicians while featuring women not just singing but playing instruments  a rarity at the time. A triumphant set at Woodstock and a star turn in the subsequent film of the concert made him a household name.

Rhythm, melody and lyrics carried inspiration to the people, he writes. That inspiration became a lasting influence for generations of artists including The Jackson 5, Prince and countless hip-hop acts.

Stones music took a darker and more cynical turn as drugs took hold and the dream of the 60s devolved into political assassinations, racial strife and lingering war in Vietnam. He takes readers through the agonizing recording process of his 1971 classic Theres a Riot Goin On, on which he says he sacrificed technique for feeling. The album has an anguished tone, exemplified by the volatile funk of the single Luv N Haight.

Meanwhile at concerts, fans never knew whether theyd get one of his famously ecstatic performances, or if Stone would bother showing up at all.

He espoused Black Power, but not loudly enough for Black Panthers, who accused Stone of acquiescing to white America. Meanwhile, some white people thought he was too militant. While unafraid to be political, he remained defiantly nonviolent and never shook the notion that, yes, people can all get along. We exist to coexist, he writes.

That uplifting spirit returns, if only sporadically, for 1973s Fresh, his last great album. The band splintered soon after and Stone entered a decades-long cycle of addiction, middling solo offerings, doomed tours and tax troubles.

Predictably, the memoir contains no shortage of occasionally humorous  but mostly bleak  backstage tales of debauchery and drug abuse. While on tour in his glory days Stone carried a violin case filled with cocaine. Later he said he went on PCP binges because it threw your perspective off, which I liked. Eventually he was overtaken by a dependence on crack cocaine that drained his talents, ruined relationships and led to regular stints in jail and rehab.

Arrest records were the new records, and I was hitting the charts, he writes. Court dates were my new concerts, and I was still just as good as arriving on time.

Hip-hop empresario Questlove, whose publishing imprint produced the book, writes in the introduction that Sly has lived a hundred lives, and they are all here. Fans will certainly appreciate the vivid accounts from recording studios, concert stages and star-studded parties. But readers looking for personal insights will come away disappointed. Stone is self-aware but not particularly self-reflective.

However, even during his gloomiest days, Stone said he relied on his compositions to keep the darkness out, always remaining true to the larger idea of music as a spiritual force.
Cleveland-Cliffs committed $100 million to reduce emissions at the former AK Steel plant it acquired in Dearborn, Michigan in an agreement with with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Justice Department.

The Cleveland, Ohio-based steelmaker, one of the Region's largest employers, will pay a civil penalty of $81,380 to Michigan for Clean Air Act violations and lower emissions of manganese and lead in the Detroit metropolitan area.

The steel mill's previous owner, AK Steel, reached a 2015 content decree with the EPA and Justice Department, to address visible air emissions. But the steps did not brought the steel mill into full compliance with the Clean Air Act so it was modified to require $100 million more in preventative measures.

The agreement will ensure that Cleveland-Cliffs steel manufacturing plant in Dearborn operates in compliance with federal and state air pollution requirements, said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Departments Environment and Natural Resources Division. This modification will result in better air quality for Dearborn residents around the plant, who have been disproportionately burdened by pollution.

Inhaling lead and manganese can cause deleterious health effects, including to the central nervous system, kidney function, immune, cardiovascular, reproductive and developmental systems.

The modification requires a new electrostatic precipitator to remove particulate matter from exhaust gases, regular monitoring for visible emissions and routine testing to ensure all emissions are within prescribed limits.

Cleveland-Cliffs already installed it in anticipation of the agreement.

"Cleveland-Cliffs has executed a consent decree modification that addresses historic issues at its Dearborn site that arose prior to Cleveland-Cliffs ownership in 2020. This issue began when AK Steel was the owner and operator of the Dearborn facility," the company said in a statement. "Under Cleveland-Cliffs stewardship, the company proactively worked to rebuild the pollution control devices since taking ownership of the Dearborn facility in 2020. Cleveland-Cliffs already spent more than the required $100 million for the new pollution control device at the plant. It is called an electrostatic precipitator that reduces particulate matter emissions from the site. The work was completed in March 2023."

Cleveland-Cliffs also agreed to spend $244,000 on an environmental project that will provide home air purifiers to nearby residents. The EPA said the steel mill is located within an area with environmental justice concerns.

Todays announcement shows that EPA and the Department of Justice are committed to achieving cleaner air for communities across the country, said Assistant Administrator David M. Uhlmann of the EPAs Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. The changes that Cleveland Cliffs will make at its Dearborn facility will reduce harmful air pollution and improve air quality for local residents.
CROWN POINT  A Chicago man who ambushed two residents entering a Gary apartment building in August faces multiple charges in connection with the incident, according to recently unsealed documents.

Thomas Starks, 20, was charged in September with murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery and burglary. He is accused of killing 27-year-old Kajah Wilson in an apartment off Clark Road in Gary.

Wilson and the other victim entered the apartment around 10:30 p.m. Aug. 8 when Starks immediately appeared and opened fire, firing seven bullets, documents show. The Lake County coroners office ruled Wilsons death a homicide. The other victim was shot in the hand.

Detectives wrote in a probable cause affidavit that shell casings and bullet fragments were on and around her body, indicating she had been shot from above, according to court documents.

Starks burglarized Wilsons apartment and stole packages addressed to her in the weeks before the killing while he was temporarily staying in another apartment unit, the affidavit said. Wilson had identified him in video surveillance from the building and confronted him about it, according to the affidavit.

Police documented the July 25 burglary in which several items were stolen, including an iPhone, iPad and multiple pairs of shoes. The door handle was damaged beyond repair and (the door) appeared to have been forced open, according to court documents.

Video footage shows a man and a woman committing the burglary, the affidavit said. The man was wearing a ski mask, Nike sweatshirt and purple latex gloves. He carried a weapon in his left hand, according to the affidavit.

Surveillance from the shooting shows a man wearing the same clothing, the affidavit said, and the masked man in the shooting video appears to be virtually identical to the man in the burglary video, detectives wrote.

Starks made a formal appearance Wednesday before Judge Kathleen Lang in Lake Criminal Court. His next hearing was scheduled for Dec. 6.
GARY  An attorney whose organization was involved in this year's Supreme Court case that outlawed affirmative action discussed the future of diversity in higher education at Indiana University Northwest on Wednesday.

Maya Brokziak, who serves as counsel at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit civil rights group, gave the presentation to a group of IUN students and faculty.

Brokziak gave a brief history of affirmative action, including cases regarding race-conscious college admissions programs that have previously come before the high court. She then went through the timeline and process of the most recent case: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Students for Fair Admissions, striking down affirmative action in college admissions, and prohibiting race as a factor in the process.

The plaintiffs in the case argued that race-conscious admissions programs used by Harvard University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were unconstitutional and discriminated against Asian-American applicants.

The Lawyers' Committee, Brokziak said, represented students who had applied or attended Harvard or UNC. These students, according to Brokziak, were those from groups that have been considered historically underrepresented and marginalized.

The lawyer said the organization also worked with several Asian Americans who she claims were upset they were being used for what is considered a wedge issue. In addition, Brokziak said they also worked with White students who she said understood the importance and benefits of having students of different races and backgrounds.

While the Supreme Court ruled affirmative actions as unconstitutional, Brokziak noted a part of the court's opinion which emphasized the ruling did not prohibit colleges and universities from "considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise."

She said students' perspectives make a difference in the case and encouraged student advocacy to ensure diversity in college.

"Students' voices can make a huge difference," Brokziak said.

The presentation was part of World Bioethics Day, an initiative IUN has taken part in since 2015. Annually, the university hosts an educational event based on the year's theme. This year the theme was "Protecting Future Generations".

Susan Zinner, an IUN professor who led the process of bringing World Bioethics Day to campus, said in prior years, they have hosted a speaker to discuss end-of-life issues and a student essay contest.

Zinner said it was important for students to focus on ethics and the judicial system early on since it impacts every individual.

"All of us at some point in our life are going to be impacted by these issues, by these decisions made by the courts," Zinner said.

Close Pride marchers prepare to make their way through the campus during Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Led by Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the IUN Department of Communications Patrick Johnson, pride marchers prepare to make their way through the campus during Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Sierra Vasquez sports a Pride flag following Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Led by Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the IUN Department of Communications Patrick Johnson, pride marchers walk down Broadway by the campus during Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Suzanne Green waves Pride flags following Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Led by Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the IUN Department of Communications Patrick Johnson, pride marchers walk through the campus during Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Amanda Smith, left, and Victoria Travis show off their face decorations following Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. PHOTOS: IUN holds its second annual Pride Walk Pride marchers prepare to make their way through the campus during Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Led by Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the IUN Department of Communications Patrick Johnson, pride marchers prepare to make their way through the campus during Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Sierra Vasquez sports a Pride flag following Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Led by Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the IUN Department of Communications Patrick Johnson, pride marchers walk down Broadway by the campus during Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Suzanne Green waves Pride flags following Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Led by Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the IUN Department of Communications Patrick Johnson, pride marchers walk through the campus during Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk. Amanda Smith, left, and Victoria Travis show off their face decorations following Monday's Indiana University Northwest Pride walk.
PORTAGE  With the Double Track expansion and the potential Willowcreek Road extension on the horizon, Porter County's largest city is expected to undergo more growth in the coming years. However, what that growth looks like will hinge on who voters choose come Nov. 7.

Three candidates are vying for the mayor's office in Portage. Incumbent Democrat Sue Lynch is seeking reelection. She first served as mayor for a few weeks in 2019 after former Republican Mayor James Snyder was convicted on bribery and tax obstruction charges.

She took over the city's top job by virtue of her position as city council president. Lynch was replaced at the start of March 2019 by John Cannon, who was voted in by Republican precinct officials to finish Snyder's term. Lynch then unseated Cannon during the 2019 election.

Austin Bonta became the Republican nominee for mayor after he defeated Cannon during the May primary election. Bonta is a former special education teacher, and the cofounder of SoundTide Music School. He currently serves on the city's Fire Merit Board, and previously served on the plan commission and the board of zoning appeals.

Rev. Michael Cooper is running for mayor as a Green Party candidate. He is a pastor at Portage's Metropolitan Community Church Illiana, and has been a vocal advocate for social justice and environmental protection. He launched an unsuccessful bid for city council in 2019, has served on the city's ethics commission, is a member of the NWI Medicare for All group and has served as both secretary and communications director for the Indiana Green Party.

All three candidates participated in a Tuesday debate organized by the Porter County League of Women Voters and Lakeshore Public Media. The Woodland Park Community Center was standing room only during the evening debate. Questions focused on the city's continued growth, past financial woes, public safety, environmental sustainability and more.

Throughout the debate, Lynch highlighted her robust local government experience. In addition to the mayor's office, Lynch spent 12 years on the city council, served on the Portage Utility Service Board, the Portage Township Board and is the current secretary for the Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission Executive Board. Prior to becoming mayor, Lynch was the executive director of People Against Hazardous Landfill Sites.

This election is about who is most qualified and experienced to lead our city. When I became mayor, our city was in dire financial distress and we had to borrow money to make our payroll," Lynch told the audience. "Today our city is prospering."

Lynch said she helped dig the city out of millions of dollars of debt by securing grants and eliminating unnecessary expenditures. According to Lynch's campaign website, when she took over in 2020 Portage had just $11,000 in the general fund. The city started 2023 with $1.7 million.

The first term mayor said she has improve the the city's infrastructure by upgrading the sanitary plant, paving roads and remodeling city hall. She has also worked to support the city's emergency responders, securing raises for police and fire and purchasing a new fire engine.

Bonta's campaign has focused on financial responsibility, public safety and attracting more businesses to Portage. With Portage's proximity to major highways, Lake Michigan and the National Park, Bonta said the city has the potential to become a "hub" of business. However, Bonta said the city's current business approval process has too much red tape. He said many businesses are discouraged by all of the city's requirements and end up going to surrounding communities instead.

Bringing business to the city is important because it helps grow the city's tax base, ultimately paying for essential services like police and fire, Bonta said.

The biggest issue we have in Portage is that our population is outgrowing our tax base," he said. For me, addressing the economic needs is how we finance and improve the rest of our city."

Lynch said the city's approval process is "fair" and necessary as it protects residents and other businesses. She said the city has had success bringing in new businesses. Recent additions include an Amazon data center, a Planet Fitness and a Tractor Supply Company.

Cooper said the city needs to focus on businesses that will help revitalize Portage's hospitality sector. Lake Michigan is Portage's most valuable asset and would like to see more stores and restaurants that cater to tourists visiting the National Park, he said.

Both Cooper and Bonta had a number of critiques for the city's current administration. Cooper had concerns with plans to turn the open-air pavilion near Ogden Dunes into a makerspace where people can practice woodworking, 3D printing and more.

Portage keeps spending money on Sues whims," Cooper said.

Bonta said the city is long overdue for a new strategic plan as the current one is 15 years old. If elected, he said he would hold public meetings to gather community input while updating the plan, and host quarterly town hall meetings to keep residents informed. Bonta also said the city sorely needs a Human Resources Department.

When Lynch first took office, the city did not have enough funding for an HR department. However, she said money for an HR staff person was included in the 2024 budget.

All three candidates agreed the city needs to protect its natural areas. Cooper said Portage needs to increase its greenspace. Both Bonta and Lynch said the city needs an urban forest ordinance to help maintain the city's tree canopy.

Improving the city's greenspace will require getting more money and staff for the city's underfunded Parks and Recreation Department, Lynch said.

The general election will take place Nov. 7. Porter County polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on election day. Early voting in Porter County begins Oct. 23. For more information visit porterco.org.

PHOTOS: Fourth of July parade in Portage
Indiana Department of Health Commissioner Lindsay Weaver recently addressed the states high infant mortality rate at a Franciscan Healths Prenatal Assistance Program event Innsbrook Country Club in Merrillville.

Indianas infant mortality rate is 6.75 deaths per 1,000 live births. Thats higher than the national average of 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births and the ninth worst in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Only Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Alaska, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina fare worse.

Weaver told a crowd of Franciscan medical staff focused on maternal/fetal health that the statistics on infant mortality were sobering but that the state hoped to drill down into the data to figure out where it can help most.

You cant make a difference unless you know where youre coming from, Weaver said.

About 79.3% of pregnancy-associated deaths are preventable, Weaver said. Black women and children are most at risk.

The leading cause of infant mortality in the Hoosier State is perinatal conditions that arise in pregnancy, when giving birth or soon after.

Both infant and maternal health are complicated by a variety of social and clinical factors leading to clear disparities, Weaver said. Theres no silver bullet here. It takes a lot of community resources coming together to make a difference.

Mishawaka-based Franciscan Health, which operates hospitals across Northern Indiana, has served more than 3,000 expectant women and families with infants through its Prenatal Assistance Program. It offers a range of services, such as working with paramedics and EMTs on improving maternal and infant health.

Working together, I know we can reduce the burden of infant mortality in the communities we are blessed to serve, Franciscan Health Prenatal Assistance Program Director Tristan Kirby said.

Franciscan also operates diaper pantries in Crown Point, Hammond, Michigan City and Rensselaer.

Together with our Prenatal Assistance Program and strategic partnerships, Franciscan Health continues to serve the women of Northwest Indiana in our Franciscan tradition, Franciscan Health Crown Point President and CEO Daniel McCormick said.

For more information, call 1-877-PRE-NATL.
HAMMOND  A Griffith man will spend 70 months, or a little more than five years, in prison for owning an illegal explosive device, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The release states Allen Crouse, 47, was sentenced Wednesday by Senior Judge Jon E. DeGuilio to over five years in prison, followed by two years of supervised release.

Court records indicate Crouse was charged with being a felon in possession of a destructive device in July 2021. Crouse was charged after he sold a car bomb to a confidential government informant, records state.

Crouse had ten prior felony burglary convictions, according to the news release.

"Crouse was happy to sell pipe bombs to an individual he believed would use them to blow up someones car," U.S. Attorney Caitlin Padula wrote in Crouse's sentencing memorandum. "He showed a shocking disregard for life and safety. He has a lengthy history of criminal conduct and has been seemingly undeterred by lengthy sentences in the past."

The 70-months-long sentence was born out of a plea deal, which court records show Crouse entered on July 26.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The VI Congress of Azerbaijani women is being held in Baku today, Trend reports.

The VI Congress of Azerbaijani Women, which gathered about 600 women from all regions of Azerbaijan, is being held on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of national leader Heydar Aliyev, who launched the women's movement in Azerbaijan, as well as the 25th anniversary of the first Women's Congress.

The VI Azerbaijani Women's Congress will feature discussions in 4 panels on the topics: "The main mission of great leader Heydar Aliyev: The Great Return", "Gender issues in the legal plane: current situation, upcoming issues" and "Gender aspects of socio-economic reforms. Representation of women in formal and informal employment" and "Challenges and global trends in the realization of women's rights".

The congress will also be attended by deputies, representatives of state and non-governmental organizations, foreign embassies and international organizations from all regions of Azerbaijan, prominent social and political figures, and officials from Turkiye, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

Following the discussion and proposals, a decision and an appeal by Azerbaijani women to the head of state will be made.
Nicor Gas, the utility that serves more than 2.3 million customers spread across most of the northern third of Illinois, has donated $100,000 to a south suburban nonprofit.

The Nicor Gas Foundation made the substantial donation to the Safer Foundation in South Holland, which helps recently incarcerated individuals with re-entry training, job placement and other services.

The Safer Foundation aims to rehabilitate people who were convicted of crimes by helping them find employment and become productive, law-abiding members of the community.

The grant from the Nicor Gas Foundation will help provide 125 people with re-entry training, job placement and career development.

At Nicor Gas, we are committed to advancing social justice initiatives that directly support communities heavily impacted by disproportionate levels of poverty, educational deficits and crime, said Meena Beyers, vice president of Business & Community Development at Nicor Gas.

We are proud to support organizations like the Safer Foundation that are ensuring that individuals receive a second chance while reaching financial stability to support themselves and their families, Beyers said.

The South Holland nonprofit has worked since 1972 to provide support, employment, education and advocacy to recently incarcerated people re-entering society to help them reach their true potential.

We are grateful for the generous support of the Nicor Gas Foundation, said Sodiqa Williams, senior vice president of Reentry Services at the Safer Foundation.

As we receive financial commitments like this one, our team has the ability to empower more individuals in our communities with a fresh start while working tirelessly to overcome the hurdles of the systemic legal system, just have we have done for more than 50 years, Williams said.

The Safer Foundation serves more than 5,300 clients a year. Of those, 3,200 obtain employment, according to the Safer Foundation, which is headquartered in Chicago but has locations across Chicagoland, including in South Hollard serving the south suburbs.
The nine-member Indiana delegation in the U.S. House has toed the party line in the ongoing speaker stalemate  with one exception.

U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Noblesville, opted against supporting Ohio Republican Jim Jordan's bid for House speaker Tuesday, instead casting the sole vote received by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who personally voted for Jordan.

Spartz said she voted for Massie because she resented the intimidation tactics she claimed Jordan was using in his bid to become House leader.

Instead, Spartz said House Republicans should agree on a consensus nominee before heading to the chamber floor for a speaker vote.

"Republicans are not sheep and will refuse to support him if he will try to use the same (former Speaker Kevin) McCarthy intimidation techniques on members on the floor  even if I have to run again so McCarthy and his friends have a chance to primary me," Spartz said.

But Spartz, who previously announced she would not seek reelection next year, changed her mind on Jordan Wednesday and backed his bid for speaker, even though Jordan garnered fewer total votes than he collected on Tuesday's roll call.

"I voted for Jim Jordan this time because of the bold and truthful nomination speech Rep. Tom Cole gave on the floor. But I still think we need to call back an organizational meeting to hash out our differences," Spartz said.

The six other Hoosier Republicans, including Rep. Rudy Yakym, R-Granger, who represents a portion of LaPorte County, and Rep. Jim Baird, R-Greencastle, whose district includes Northwest Indiana's Newton and Jasper counties, backed Jordan on both roll calls.

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Columbia City, who is running next year for Indiana's Republican U.S. Senate nomination, insisted Jordan is the best choice for speaker because he is "the Democrats' worst nightmare."

"Jim Jordan never backs down and neither will I in my support for him to be our next speaker of the House," Banks said.

Jordan so far has fallen well short of the majority required to be elected speaker on two attempts. The House is expected to reconvene Thursday for another shot at replacing McCarthy as chamber leader following his Oct. 3 ouster by eight Republicans.

Every Democratic House member, including Northwest Indiana Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland, and Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indianapolis, consistently has voted for New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to be speaker.

Northwest Indiana 2023 early voting sites, hours Lake County Government Center, 2293 N. Main St., Crown Point Judge Lorenzo Arredondo Justice Center, 3711 Main St., East Chicago Gary Public Library, 220 W. 5th Ave., Gary Lake County Courthouse, 232 Russell St., Hammond Hobart Police and Community Center, 705 E. 4th St., Hobart Lowell Town Hall, 501 E. Main St., Lowell Munster Town Hall, 1005 Ridge Rd., Munster Schererville Town Hall, 10 E. Joliet St., Schererville St. John Township Assessor's Office, 9157 Wicker Ave., St. John Wicker Park Social Center, 8554 Indianapolis Blvd., Highland Winfield Government Center, 10645 Randolph St., Winfield Porter County Administration Building, 155 Indiana Ave., Valparaiso North Porter County Government Complex, 3560 Willowcreek Road, Portage Valparaiso Fire Training Center, 355 Evans Ave., Valparaiso Chesterton Town Hall, 790 Broadway, Chesterton State Street Community Church, 209 State St., LaPorte LaPorte County Office Complex, 302 W. 8th St., Michigan City
Individuals facing potential incarceration for defying a court order are entitled to the same statutory protections as other criminal defendants, including the opportunity to request a mental health evaluation, according to a new ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals.

Under Indiana law, willful disobedience of a valid court order, any other legal process, or witness intimidation is known as indirect contempt of court. Violators may be punished directly by a judge with up to six months behind bars  without guilt or innocence being determined by a jury.

According to court records, Russell Finnegan, 39, an inmate at the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City, was accused of indirect contempt by Jasper Circuit Judge John Potter, sitting as a special judge in Pulaski County, after Finnegan in 2021 allegedly sent the court "vulgar, misogynistic, inappropriate and harassing correspondence" that was "in blatant disrespect of the court's authority."

Senior Judge David Chidester, a former Porter Superior Court jurist, presided over Finnegan's indirect contempt hearing, during which Finnegan's attorney informed the judge she intended to raise the defense of mental disease or defect and requested the judge appoint medical personnel to evaluate Finnegan's mental health and testify at the contempt hearing, records show.

According to court records, Chidester never ruled on Finnegan's mental disease notice and the judge instead remarked that he personally did not believe Finnegan was mentally ill based on his prior observations and interactions with Finnegan.

Chidester subsequently held a hearing on Jan. 27, 2023, finding Finnegan in indirect contempt of court and sentencing Finnegan to 170 days in the Department of Correction, records show.

According to court records, Finnegan argued in his appeal that the trial court abused its discretion by improperly denying him the evaluations contemplated by statute when a Notice of Mental Disease or Defect has been filed.

The appellate court agreed in a precedent-setting, 3-0 decision penned by Appeals Judge Terry Crone, a South Bend native.

Crone rejected the attorney general's contention that Finnegan was not entitled to a mental health evaluation because an indirect contempt proceeding is not a "trial of a criminal case," as defined by Indiana law, and instead akin to "other civil matters," such as a probation revocation hearing, where the appeals court previously has held an insanity defense was inapplicable.

Rather, Crone said indirect contempt is the same as a "trial of a criminal case" because defendants face the same array of punishments as other criminal defendants, and therefore are entitled to the same statutory protections, including the right to file notice of an insanity defense.

"The trial court here abused its discretion in failing to act upon Finnegans notice and thereby denying him the mental health evaluations required by Indiana Code," Crone said.

Crone also rejected the attorney general's assertions that any such error was harmless because Chidester was familiar with Finnegan and his mental state, and, moreover, the judge as factfinder is entitled to ignore the testimony of experts and rely on other evidence of a defendant's sanity, or lack thereof.

"Be that as it may," Crone said, "Finnegan should have had the opportunity to obtain and offer the requested expert evaluations, and it would have then been the trial courts prerogative to disregard that testimony if it was unpersuasive or inconsistent with other probative evidence."

"Under the circumstances presented, we simply cannot say with confidence that the absence of expert opinion testimony had no bearing on the outcome of this case."

The attorney general still can ask the Indiana Supreme Court to consider reviewing the Court of Appeals decision. Otherwise, the case will return to Pulaski County for further proceedings consistent with the appellate ruling.

Records show Finnegan was convicted in 2022 of criminal confinement, a level 3 felony; intimidation, a level 5 felony; and intimidation of a judicial officer, a level 5 felony, in connection with Finnegan making an unlawful "citizen's arrest" in 2018, and subsequently sending a threatening letter to Pulaski Circuit Judge Mary Welker while she was presiding over his case.

Finnegan's indirect contempt prison term is scheduled to be served following his sentences for those crimes that currently are set to run, assuming good behavior, through Feb. 21, 2034, according to the Indiana Department of Correction.

Northwest Indiana 2023 early voting sites, hours Lake County Government Center, 2293 N. Main St., Crown Point Judge Lorenzo Arredondo Justice Center, 3711 Main St., East Chicago Gary Public Library, 220 W. 5th Ave., Gary Lake County Courthouse, 232 Russell St., Hammond Hobart Police and Community Center, 705 E. 4th St., Hobart Lowell Town Hall, 501 E. Main St., Lowell Munster Town Hall, 1005 Ridge Rd., Munster Schererville Town Hall, 10 E. Joliet St., Schererville St. John Township Assessor's Office, 9157 Wicker Ave., St. John Wicker Park Social Center, 8554 Indianapolis Blvd., Highland Winfield Government Center, 10645 Randolph St., Winfield Porter County Administration Building, 155 Indiana Ave., Valparaiso North Porter County Government Complex, 3560 Willowcreek Road, Portage Valparaiso Fire Training Center, 355 Evans Ave., Valparaiso Chesterton Town Hall, 790 Broadway, Chesterton State Street Community Church, 209 State St., LaPorte LaPorte County Office Complex, 302 W. 8th St., Michigan City
The shifting coverage about a deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza highlighted the difficulties of reporting on a fast-moving war in which few journalists remain on the ground while claims fly freely on social media.

The first reports of a strike at the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City came early Tuesday afternoon Eastern time. A spokeswoman for the Gaza health ministry said an Israeli airstrike had caused the explosion, killing at least 200 people. In a televised interview, a health ministry spokesman later said the death toll exceeded 500  which the ministry later changed to hundreds.

The news changed quickly over a couple of hours. Many Western news organizations, including The New York Times, reported the Gazan claims in prominent headlines and articles. They adjusted the coverage after the Israeli military issued a statement urging caution about the Gazan allegation. The news organizations then reported the Israeli militarys assertion that the blast was the result of a failed rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed group aligned with Hamas.

On Wednesday, American officials agreed with Israel, saying early intelligence indicated that the launch did not come from Israel and instead was caused by the armed Palestinian group. Most of the coverage about the blast on Wednesday focused on the U.S. analysis.
Jump to: Todays Theme | Tricky Clues

THURSDAY PUZZLE  I have never really played a game where wagering was involved, unless you count the time I bet Sam Ezersky, the Crossword and Spelling Bee editor, that he couldnt eat an entire plateful of Halloween candy that was in the office and still be able to solve a crossword successfully. Apparently, Mr. Ezersky can tolerate sugar much better than I anticipated and I lost that one. I wouldnt even think of betting against him with regard to his caffeine intake.

In todays crossword puzzle, Colin Ernst gives us some dubious advice about making bets. Thats not even a spoiler, really, because half the fun  and I mean half  is figuring out how to place them. No pun intended. OK, maybe just a little bit intended.

Todays Theme

First and foremost: Yes, this is a rebus puzzle, and if you are solving electronically (as opposed to printically), here is guidance on how to enter more than one character in a square.

I realized that something unusual was going on when I got to the clue ___ a fool not to! at 52A. The answer was obviously ID BE, but there were only three squares. Based on the crossings at 52D and 53D, ID was written with one letter in each square and BE was squeezed into the last space.
BUSINESS

An article on Wednesday about a change in United Airlines boarding process misstated the timing of Uniteds use of the WILMA method. United stopped using it in 2017.

THURSDAY STYLES

An article last Thursday about Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, who is also a costume and production designer, referred incorrectly to Tivoli in Copenhagen. While it is one of the oldest amusement parks in the world, it is not the worlds oldest amusement park.

OPINION

Paul Krugmans column on Tuesday misstated a reason for Mike Pences criticism of Donald Trump. Mr. Pence objected to Mr. Trumps praise for Hezbollah, not for Hamas.

OBITUARIES

An obituary on Tuesday about the conflict negotiator Martti Ahtisaari misstated the year the Good Friday peace agreement, which ended three decades of insurgency in Northern Ireland, was signed. It was 1998, not 1987. And a picture caption with the obituary misspelled the name of the capital of Kosovo. It is Pristina, not Prisina.
Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska is facing criticism after he dismissed a news article about environmental concerns at his hog farms, saying that the reporter who wrote it was from Communist China.

The reporter, Yanqi Xu, 27, revealed her findings in an article published Sep. 7 by The Flatwater Free Press that detailed nitrate levels far above the legal drinking water limit at more than a dozen farms owned by Mr. Pillen, a Republican. While the farms had brought prosperity to Platte Center, a village about 60 miles northwest of Lincoln, Neb., they also may bring risk to the regions drinking water, Ms. Xu wrote.

During an interview on the Omaha radio station KFAB four days later, Mr. Pillen, who was sworn into office in January, was asked to comment on the investigation. Number one, I didnt read it and I won't, he responded. Number two, all youve got to do is look at the author, authors from Communist China  what more do you need to know?

On Wednesday evening, Ms. Xu, who has a masters degree from the University of Missouri and is pursuing a second masters degree in analytics, said in a phone interview that she was shocked and saddened by the governors comments.
Dash-camera and body-camera videos released on Wednesday show how a traffic stop in Georgia turned violent and then deadly in less than three minutes when a sheriffs deputy shot a Black man who had been wrongfully imprisoned for more than 16 years.

The man, Leonard Cure, 53, was stopped on Monday morning on Interstate 95 in Camden County, Ga., not far from the Florida state line. The Camden County Sheriffs Office said he had been driving more than 100 miles per hour in a 70 m.p.h. zone.

Footage released on Wednesday by the sheriffs office shows a deputy, whose name has not been released, stopping Mr. Cures pickup truck on the side of the highway. The deputy orders Mr. Cure to step out of the truck and put his hands on the back of the vehicle.

Mr. Cure gets out, saying he had done nothing wrong, and pulls his arm away as the deputy tries to take hold of it. The deputy tells Mr. Cure to step back or be Tased. He then pulls out his Taser, points it at Mr. Cure and, once again, orders him to step to the rear of the truck.
President Biden is expected to ask Congress in the coming days to approve about $100 billion in emergency funds to arm Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan and fortify the U.S.-Mexico border, according to multiple people familiar with the plan.

The funding request, which lawmakers expect to receive by Friday morning, would cover a full year and is aimed at insulating the security funding from the partisan spending battles that have hamstrung recent efforts to supply Ukraine with weapons and other assistance to beat back a Russian invasion.

The package is expected to include about $10 billion in mostly military assistance to help Israel, as well as around $60 billion for Ukraine, according to aides familiar with the discussions, who described the emerging proposal on the condition of anonymity because it has yet to be announced. The balance of the $100 billion is expected to be dedicated to border security and helping beef up the defenses of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region, in order to better counter threats from China.

Mr. Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks Thursday night from the Oval Office on the American response to the wars in Israel and Ukraine.

Over the last week, senior White House officials and Senate leaders signaled their intention to link aid for multiple national security objectives. The strategy reflects the growing urgency surrounding the war in Ukraine and the sudden outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas.

They are pursuing one large package of aid despite objections from Republicans in the House, where the majority of G.O.P. members enthusiastically support equipping Israel with the weapons to fight Hamas but have soured on continuing to send military assistance to Ukraine for its fight against Russian aggression.

Last month, the majority of House Republicans voted against continuing a $300 million program to train and equip Ukrainian fighters. While the measure ultimately passed with Democratic support, the vote reflected a dampening of support in the Republican Party for helping Ukraine. Some G.O.P. lawmakers argue doing so siphons money away from domestic security concerns and could put the United States closer to a direct confrontation with Russia.

Republicans in both the Senate and House have insisted that they would need concessions from Democrats to support additional funds for Ukraine, including strict immigration restrictions and border security funding. Accomplishing that became easier in recent days, after the Biden administration announced that it would revive construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

On Wednesday, some Republicans expressed cautious support for the idea of a combined national security package.

From what I know generally, Id be inclined to, presuming that the border security piece of it is real border security, Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, told reporters Wednesday.

But it is not clear how swiftly Congress might be able to pass such a bill. Legislative activity in the House has been at a standstill for more than two weeks, as Republican lawmakers struggle to elect a speaker.

In the Senate, however, leaders are promising to move quickly on the measure.

I asked Secretary Austin when he needs funding for our ongoing efforts. His answer was crystal clear: Yesterday, Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, told reporters after a classified briefing at the Capitol with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and other top defense, diplomatic and intelligence officials.

The Senate will not wait to act on such requests, Mr. Schumer added. The New York Democrat has previously said he intends to put an emergency national security spending package on the Senate floor within a couple of weeks.
The United States, marking an end to a four-year suspension of returning Venezuelan migrants home, sent its first deportation flight to Caracas on Wednesday, with 127 people on board.

Later in the day, the Biden administration announced it would lift some of the sanctions on Venezuela in the oil and gas sectors.

The deportation flight from Harlingen, Texas, and the limited sanctions relief came a day after the administration of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and the opposition announced in Barbados that they had made tentative steps toward free and fair elections.

A senior U.S. administration official said easing some of the sanctions was a result of the partial agreement signed on Tuesday. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity during a phone call with reporters on Wednesday evening.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Armenia and France continue their attempts to turn the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) into an anti-Azerbaijani platform, the Western Azerbaijan Community said, Trend reports.

"In this regard, recent statements by the Secretary General of the IOF in Yerevan are worrisome," the Western Azerbaijan Community said.

It is noted that the Secretary General speaks about the importance of preserving Armenian cultural heritage in Karabakh but does not mention the deplorable state of the cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people in Armenia, which is a manifestation of prejudice and double standards.

The Western Azerbaijan Community calls on the Secretary General of the International Organization of La Francophonie not to turn into an instrument of dirty policy by Armenia and France against Azerbaijan and to be prudent and responsible when making statements in connection with Azerbaijan.
President Biden headed home on Wednesday after a wartime trip to Israel, where he forcefully vowed that the United States would stand fast with Israel in its war against Hamas and unveiled a newly brokered deal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt.

As outrage rippled through the Arab world over a blast that killed hundreds at a hospital in Gaza, President Biden firmly backed the Israeli governments assertion that it had nothing to do with the hospital explosion. American and Israeli intelligence officials say early evidence showed the deadly explosion was caused by an errant rocket fired by Palestinian fighters.

In a speech, Mr. Biden talked emotionally about the all-consuming rage Israelis must feel after seeing 1,400 people slaughtered by Hamas terrorists in cross-border raids on Oct. 7. But then he cautioned Israelis not to be so consumed by rage that they make mistakes. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States, he said. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

It was not clear Mr. Bidens speech in Tel Aviv would dampen widespread anger over the war and the carnage on Tuesday at Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, which have prompted widespread anti-Israel protests from Tehran to Rabat, Morocco. Many civilians had taken shelter from Israels bombing campaign on the hospital grounds.
Ms. Zin has spent the days since the attacks desperately seeking information about the girls while juggling media interviews and meetings with the military official who is assigned to provide her with updates and check on her well-being. The official confirmed her daughters had been kidnapped but had no other details about them, Ms. Zin said. She has since learned that her ex-husband, his partner and her son had been killed in the attacks.

Ms. Zin is pressing for the return of her daughters, and all other hostages, by any means necessary. I demand it from my country, she said.

I am not a woman with money; I dont have property, Ms. Zin added. I have my two daughters. Thats it. Thats all I have. Its for them that I wake up in the morning. And now, I dont have my daughters.

Avichai Broduch, a 42-year-old farmer from Kibbutz Kfar Azza, is also waiting for the return of hostages: his wife, Hagar, and their three children, Ofri, 10; Yuval, 8; and Uriah, 4.

He is unsure what a ground invasion of Gaza would accomplish. It simply wont help, Mr. Broduch said, adding that it could work if it were done to restore peace.
As President Biden visited Israel on Wednesday to pledge U.S. support in its fight against Hamas, his nominee to fill the conspicuously empty American ambassadors post to the country faced Republican opposition at home.

The nomination of Jacob J. Lew, who served as Treasury secretary during the Obama administration, was announced last month but has gained urgency since Hamas attackers slaughtered at least 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7. The attacks prompted Israel to launch an intensive bombing campaign against the Gaza Strip, which is governed by Hamas.

But despite pleas from the Biden administration and leading Democrats to confirm Mr. Lew quickly, most Republican senators on the Foreign Relations Committee expressed opposition to his confirmation, arguing he was unfit for the post because of his past work on a multinational deal to curb Irans nuclear ambitions.

We need this thing filled. The problem I have is that it needs to be filled with the right person, Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the panel, said during Mr. Lews confirmation hearing Wednesday. He accused Mr. Lew of acting in what I think was a backhanded way of supporting Iran.

As Treasury secretary, Mr. Lew played a key role in negotiating and promoting a deal that eased sanctions on Irans nuclear sector in exchange for Tehrans accepting limitations on its nuclear enrichment and related activities. But Republicans charge that Mr. Lew lied to lawmakers at the time about how the deal would be implemented, particularly when it came to access to previously frozen funds to Iran, which they believe Iran used to build up terrorist proxy groups posing a threat to Israel, including Hamas.

The Republican opposition is not expected to kill Mr. Lews candidacy. Democrats  who expressed support for him  hold a majority on the panel. But it could complicate efforts to get his bid through the full Senate quickly, by forcing Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, to use time-consuming procedural maneuvers to set up a vote.

Israel has lacked a Senate-confirmed U.S. ambassador since Thomas R. Nides left the post in July. Mr. Schumer and other Democrats have warned that continuing to leave the post empty would be detrimental to the United States ability to support Israel.

Delaying him would be egregious at a time like this, Mr. Schumer said Tuesday of Mr. Lew on the floor, adding that the nominee was a ferocious ally of Israel.

Mr. Lew sought to display his pro-Israel bona fides on Wednesday, telling senators about his Jewish familys Zionist roots and listing his efforts as Treasury secretary to impose and enforce sanctions against both Hamas and Iran.

I cannot remember a time when Israels struggle for security was not at the forefront of my mind, Mr. Lew said. He added: Iran is a threat to regional stability and to Israels existence. If confirmed, I will uphold President Bidens commitment to deny Iran a nuclear weapon.

But his declarations did little to deter Republican senators.

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, accused Mr. Lew of having kept secret from Congress a license that would have allowed Iran to convert funds held at a bank in Oman into euros, and pressured banks around the world to do business with Tehran, citing the findings from a 2018 report from Republicans on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, accused Mr. Lew of acting as the Iranian governments banker by negotiating deals to release funds in exchange for American prisoners.

The massive influx of cash was ultimately a direct deposit into Irans terrorism account, Mr. Barrasso said.

Mr. Lew argued that he had adhered strictly to the terms of the deal easing nuclear-related sanctions, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action  and frustrated officials in Tehran by refusing to go any further.

They complained that my actions were what kept them from getting full access to the world financial system, he said. We did the letter of the J.C.P.O.A., nothing more.

If confirmed as ambassador, Mr. Lew will be starting at a time of heightened fears that the conflict between Israel and Hamas might engulf the region, potentially even pulling in U.S. forces.

Preventing this from becoming a multifront war is hugely important for Israel, for the region, for the world, he said. He added that bringing home the Americans thought to be hostages of Hamas would be one of his top priorities. At least 13 Americans are unaccounted for, according to the State Department, but it is unclear how many are being held hostage.

Yet Mr. Lew conceded that longer-term goals such as the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and an eventual two-state solution with the Palestinians, would probably have to wait until hostilities died down.

He also promised that he would do his utmost to ensure that civilians in Gaza receive humanitarian assistance, drawing a distinction between them and Hamas militants.

But he resisted Democrats efforts to get him to urge the Israelis to exercise restraint.

This is not the time for us to be lecturing Israel on what they need to do, Mr. Lew said, adding that Israeli officials knew they had to conduct the war in a way that is consistent with minimizing the impact on innocent civilians.
Hundreds of demonstrators descended on a congressional building in Washington on Wednesday afternoon to demand a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, resulting in an estimated 300 arrests and restricting access to Capitol Hill.

The rally was organized by two progressive Jewish groups, Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, and about 400 of their members assembled inside the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building, led by about 25 rabbis reading testimonials from Palestinians in Gaza and reciting prayers. Outside, hundreds more chanted, Cease-fire now and sang in Hebrew and English.

Demonstrations are not permitted in congressional buildings. About 300 protesters were arrested, organizers estimated, though the Capitol Police would not comment on the number beyond saying on the social media platform X that three were charged with assault on a police officer. Protesters were restrained with zip ties and led into police vans.

Linda Holtzman, a rabbi from Philadelphia, said she was protesting because of her faith, values and Jewish history, a theme other attendees echoed. Rabbi Holtzman, who said she was concerned about violence intensifying against civilians in Gaza, said that her grandmother survived the Holocaust and that she was taught to fight for all human life.

Where there is no justice, I have to be a voice for justice, she said.
The Cleveland Museum of Art on Thursday filed a court challenge seeking to block a seizure order from New York investigators who assert that one of the museums premier statues, a headless bronze valued at $20 million, had been looted from Turkey in the 1960s.

In court papers filed in Federal District Court in Ohio, the museum said that, actually, the evidence presented by the investigators from the Manhattan district attorneys office had not been compelling. The museum disputed that the larger-than-life statue, which investigators believe depicts the great Roman statesman Marcus Aurelius, was even from Turkey and suggested that it was really the torso of a philosopher, not an emperor.

Describing the investigators evidence as conjecture, the museum said in its filing: In this case, the evidence presented by the Defendant has fallen short of persuasive proof that the Philosopher is in fact a piece of stolen property belonging to the Republic of Turkiye.

The investigators had already persuaded a New York judge to authorize the seizure of the bronze that, with its flowing robes and stoic posture, has held pride of place in the Greek and Roman galleries at the museum in Cleveland since its acquisition in 1986. Turkish investigators have said they also have evidence the statue in Cleveland was looted but officials said the museum had fended off their claims, saying Turkey had provided no hard evidence of theft.
The last time Christies sold a copy of a famed 15th-century pamphlet announcing Christopher Columbuss first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean was in 1992, and it did not end well. It later emerged that the document had been stolen, and it was eventually repatriated to Italy.

That wasnt the only one. Since the early 1990s, four other examples of the Latin-translated document that came on the market were discovered to have been stolen and returned to libraries in Spain, Italy and the Vatican.

Christies tried again on Thursday, auctioning off another copy of the pamphlet for $3.9 million, including fees  more than double the auction houses estimate. Christies said that it had investigated this copy, which it said came from an anonymous private collection in Switzerland, relentlessly to ensure it was neither stolen nor forged.

That would be the first concern anybody would have, said Jay Dillon, a rare-books dealer based in New Jersey who was deeply involved in a yearslong investigation with federal law enforcement that led to the recent repatriations. He said that Christies had covered all the bases to authenticate this copy of the oft-stolen pamphlet.
This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art worlds expanded view of what art is and who can make it.

In one of the more surprising turns in his life, Toddrick Brockington, a felon for 26 years and now head of a mentoring program, will attend a gala where his portrait will be a major attraction.

The oil painting is part of the Art Show held by the nonprofit Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) at the prestigious Park Avenue Armory on Manhattans Upper East Side. The show has been held for 35 years to raise money for the 130-year-old Henry Street Settlement, a community services organization for residents of the citys Lower East Side.

The show, running Nov. 2-5, has always had an unusual uptown-downtown relationship, linking the increasingly unequal worlds within New York and in the country as a whole. This year the connection between the two worlds is underscored more than usual with paintings by Kate Capshaw, a former actress, who painted the portrait of Mr. Brockington.

A selection of 20 oil paintings in her series Unaccompanied  large portraits of young people experiencing homelessness  will also be shown at the Dale Jones Burch Neighborhood Center, a former fire station that is now part of the Henry Street Settlement. That show runs from Oct. 31 to Nov. 19.
This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art worlds expanded view of what art is and who can make it.

While still a California housewife with three young children, Barbara T. Smith began in the mid-1960s to take her own creative pursuits more seriously. Having volunteered at the Pasadena Art Museum, she was already hanging out with artists and trading artworks.

Then, she visited Gemini G.E.L., a new printmaking workshop in Los Angeles, to see if she could make a lithograph there.

But Gemini worked by inviting more established artists, so Ms. Smith took matters into her own hands. She leased a Xerox 914 photocopy machine and set up shop in the dining room of her Greene and Greene-designed home.
This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art worlds expanded view of what art is and who can make it.

Francisco da Silva was one of the first Brazilian artists of Indigenous descent to achieve international fame. In the 1960s, his paintings of fantastical storybook creatures, interlocked in animated combat and hallucinatory fields of brilliant color and pattern, grew to be wildly popular in Brazil and beyond. One even decorated the cover of the telephone book in Fortaleza where the artist  known simply as Chico  lived and established a pioneering and controversial collective studio practice.

By the time of his death in 1985 from alcoholism, Chico was destitute and dismissed by the art world, which had raised him up for his unique primitive vision only to then question the authenticity of his work. Now, a new wave of interest and scholarship is reassessing Chicos work and revisiting questions of authorship, autonomy and exoticizing that surrounded his story.

On Oct. 27, the first major solo show in New York of his work opens at the David Kordansky Gallery, with some 25 paintings and works on paper from the 1960s and early 70s. This follows a Chico presentation last year at the Independent art fair in New York by the Sao Paulo gallery Galatea, and the artists largest survey exhibition ever, Chico da Silva and the Pirambu Studio, on view this spring at the Pinacoteca de Sao Paulo and through Oct. 29 at the Pinacoteca do Ceara in Fortaleza.

As the art world begins to widen its eyes to indigeneity, said Mr. Kordansky, we want to bring widespread attention to the work and legacy of Chico da Silva who, in the most visionary manner, paved the way for a new generation of Indigenous artists starting to come up in Brazil.
This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art worlds expanded view of what art is and who can make it.

Is it ironic that the Morgan Library and Museum is opening an ambitious exhibition about money in the Middle Ages?

Maybe, maybe not. Suitable was the word that Deirdre Jackson used. She is the on-site curator of Medieval Money, Merchants, and Morality, an exhibition that follows the rise of the monetary economy in the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, long before J. Pierpont Morgan helped to cement the foundations of modern Americas financial infrastructure.

But the setting for Medieval Money, which opens on Nov. 10, does seem appropriate. After all, Morgan, who owned the mansion now occupied by the museum, assembled one of the finest collections of medieval manuscripts in North America. His holdings are at the heart of the exhibition, and Dr. Jackson said she had no doubt that Morgan was well aware of what the bankers of the Renaissance had accomplished.

Its not far-fetched to think that he was identifying with what they had done, she said. A tapestry he owned  which had once belonged to Henry VIII  was called Triumph of Avarice. Morgan hung it over a fireplace on the first floor, where it remains.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The Western Azerbaijan Community, representing Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia, strongly condemns the anti-Azerbaijani statement made by the European Union (EU) at the meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the European Council, the Community said, Trend reports.

"First of all, we emphasize that by making this shameful statement on October 18, the Day of Restoration of Azerbaijan's State Independence, the EU symbolically expressed its biased attitude towards our country and people," the Western Azerbaijan Community said.

The Community noted that the EU document is biased and discriminatory; it hinders peace and justifies the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Armenia.

"We would like to emphasize that by recognizing the right of only Karabakh Armenians to return and denying this right to Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia, the EU has openly demonstrated a discriminatory approach to Azerbaijanis on ethnic grounds.

The Western Azerbaijan Community is also concerned by the EU's demand for amnesty for "all Karabakh Armenians", despite the numerous war crimes Armenia committed during the conflict. Granting amnesty for war crimes not only violates the principles of justice and accountability, but also, by creating an atmosphere of impunity, makes sustainable peace and reconciliation in the region impossible. The EU's demand for amnesty for war crimes and crimes against humanity demonstrates the incipient racist mentality and erosion of humanistic values within the entity, as well as its lack of interest in establishing peace and justice in the region.

"Moreover, while the statement calls on Azerbaijan to protect the human rights and cultural heritage of the local population, it does not call for Armenia's responsibility with regard to the rights and cultural heritage of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia and the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. This is yet another proof of the EU's biased and anti-Azerbaijani approach," the Community noted.

The Community emphasized that while the EU's statement calls on Azerbaijan to reaffirm its commitment to Armenia's territorial integrity, Armenia itself is not called upon to do the same. Given the fact that Armenia has kept the territories of Azerbaijan under occupation for decades and the EU has turned a blind eye, with this call, the EU is actually encouraging Armenia to engage in the next military aggression against Azerbaijan.

"This statement and the position demonstrated by the EU recently have undermined its credibility and role as a partner for peace. We call on the EU to abandon its anti-Azerbaijani approach and to respect the principle of equality of people in terms of rights and dignity, as well as the principles of sovereign equality of states and the right to return Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia," the Western Azerbaijan Community added.
This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art worlds expanded view of what art is and who can make it.

In some ways, the original New Mexico Museum of Art was too much of a good thing. The building, located just off the historic Santa Fe Plaza, is a prime example of the Pueblo Revival style of architecture that defines the capital and makes it a popular destination for tourists. Covered in earthy, brown stucco, and with roof timbers protruding through its exterior walls, the 1917 structure is decorated along doorways, stairs and ceilings with intricately carved wood trim.

All of those design details were just right for the art the museum was collecting in the first half of the 20th century. The buildings local flavor enhanced the work of painters like Marsden Hartley, Georgia OKeeffe and others who became famous for capturing the nearby land, sky and people.

But art has evolved over the years. Abstraction, conceptualism, installations and video grew to become the dominant American art as the century closed, and none of it presented well in the old space. The building and all of its endearing adornments became a distraction for objects better exhibited in a windowless, white cube, said the museums director Mark A. White.
Mr. Shonibare, 61, was warm and engaging during a recent visit to his multilevel studio in the Hackney area of London. Its the city of his birth and the one to which he returned to earn his degrees in art and the honorifics that usually follow his name: he was promoted to Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2019 by Queen Elizabeth II from the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) distinction she had earlier bestowed. The RA that often accompanies his name stands for his election to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2013.

Mr. Shonibare was partially paralyzed after an illness just days after starting college. But a customized lift, as he calls it, let him roll up to a table in the studios upper office, where he sipped tea from a mug decorated with Russian dolls as he discussed his new body of work.

His desire to revisit the origins of Modernism was ignited by the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by police in Minneapolis in 2020. Mr. Shonibare found himself struck by the paradox of revulsion and reverence as he considered the zeitgeist since the George Floyd moment.

On the one hand, there is a continued disregard for Black people around the world, he said, with their existence treated like push it into the ghetto, push it into the projects. On the other, Africans and their diaspora, especially in the United States, have for the last century been driving what he termed the whole global conversation on culture.
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous nights highlights that lets you sleep  and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.

Biden in Wartime

President Joe Biden flew to Israel on Wednesday, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Jimmy Kimmel noted that White House officials say Biden prefers to meet other world leaders face to face, particularly in times of crisis  which is a nice way of saying he still doesnt know how to Zoom.
Eve Bunting, who published her first childrens book when she was 43 and wrote some 250 more over the next 50 years  retelling whimsical fables from her native Northern Ireland and gently introducing her very young readers to grown-up subjects like war, racial prejudice and homelessness  died on Oct. 1 in Santa Cruz, Calif. She was 94.

Her daughter, Christine, said her death, in a hospital, was caused by pneumonia.

Mrs. Bunting, who worked with many celebrated illustrators and won a number of prestigious awards, described herself as the modern equivalent of the shanachie, the traditional Gaelic storyteller who went from house to house regaling listeners with legends. One of those legends inspired her first book, The Two Giants, which was published in 1971 after she submitted it to a publisher on her own, without an agent.

Her trajectory as a storyteller began when she entertained her fellow students at a girls boarding school and ended when she read to the oldest of her great-grandchildren  and when she completed her final book, Alligators, Alligators, illustrated by Diane Ewen, which was published this August.
The Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the largest literary events in the world, began this week under a cloud of anger and recrimination after the cancellation of an event honoring a Palestinian author  a decision that set off a heated debate about the role of literary and cultural organizations in times of strife.

Hundreds of authors and publishers signed a letter in protest over the treatment of the Palestinian novelist Adania Shibli. Several publishing organizations from the Middle East and Asia withdrew from the fair. And during the fairs opening ceremony on Tuesday evening, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek made a speech in which he condemned the decision as scandalous, and was interrupted repeatedly by a local politician, the antisemitism commissioner of the German state of Hesse.

Im not only proud to be here, Zizek said. Im also a little bit ashamed.

The controversy erupted before the fair even began. Shibli was supposed to receive a prize at Frankfurt given to women writers from the Global South for her novel Minor Detail, which begins in 1949 during the clashes between Israeli and Arab forces. The book includes an account of the gang rape and murder of a Bedouin girl by an Israeli Army unit.

Litprom, the organization that manages the prize, announced last week that it was canceling the ceremony in Shiblis honor. (Litprom is funded by the Frankfurt Book Fair and the German government.) A panel with Shibli, who divides her time between Jerusalem and Berlin, and her German translator was also canceled.

In light of the terror against Israel, Litprom is looking for a suitable format and setting for the event after the book fair, Juergen Boos, the director of the book fair, said in a statement explaining the decision. In the same statement, Boos said that following the attacks in Israel, the fair would give Israeli and Jewish voices additional time on our stages.

Minor Detail has drawn praise from critics and prize committees, and was nominated for both the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award. Barbara Epler, the publisher of New Directions, which released an English translation of the book in 2020, said the canceled event was especially troubling because Shiblis novel is a condemnation of the endless cycle of violence in the region.

This isnt someone who condones violence in any form, she said of Shibli. Shes a voice for peace and understanding.

Others have criticized the book and its selection for the award. A German judge for the prize, Ulrich Noller, resigned from the jury this summer when the book was chosen. A literary critic at Taz, a left-leaning German newspaper, said the book portrays the State of Israel as a murder machine.

Reached by email, Shibli said that she was unable to comment because she felt truly lost for words with whats been unfolding in Palestine/Israel. In a previous statement to The New York Times, Shibli said it was alarming to see populism attempting to take its hold on literature.

Literature cannot be in the grip of one group, not when it forges an intimate link with every reader, she wrote.

In the open letter, which was signed by hundreds of writers, including the Nobel laureates Olga Tokarczuk, Abdulrazak Gurnah and Annie Ernaux, members of the literary community denounced the cancellation of Shiblis events. The Frankfurt Book Fair has a responsibility, as a major international book fair, to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down, the letter states.

Among the organizations that withdrew from the fair was the Indonesian Publishers Association, which said that siding with Israel while forgetting the suffering of the Palestinian people is like reading only one book to feel like you understand the whole world.

In an email on Thursday, the organizers of the fair emphasized that the award to Shibli was never in question, only that they had planned to postpone its presentation until after the fair.

To dispel false reports and misunderstandings that may have arisen in the past hours: Millions of innocent people in Israel and in Palestine are affected by this war, and our sympathy goes out to all of them, the organizers said in an email on Thursday. We truly hope that ways can be found to bring them out of this violence.

Of the 200,000 attendees expected at the fair, and exhibitors from nearly 100 countries, the organizers said, they had received very few withdrawals.

Daniel Simon, the publisher of Seven Stories Press and a signatory on the open letter, said that emotions were high at the opening ceremony, but the conversation seemed to have been necessary and constructive.

This kind of learning from each other, taking in what other people are saying, Simon said, this is what were here for.

The debate over the role of writers in times of conflict is likely to remain a topic throughout the fair, which runs through Sunday. This coming weekend, Salman Rushdie, the acclaimed novelist and free speech advocate who was attacked at a public event last year, will receive the fairs peace prize and give a public talk.

When asked about the current war between Israel and Hamas, and whether literature could help foster understanding, Rushdie said that while writers cannot stop a war, they can help by documenting human suffering.

What writers can do, and what they are doing, is to try and articulate the incredible pain that many people are feeling right now, Rushdie told a German news media outlet covering the fair. And to bring that to the worlds attention.

Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reporting.
Vincent Patrick, an author and screenwriter who set pins at a bowling alley, peddled Bibles door to door and helped start a mechanical engineering firm before finding critical success with his first novel, The Pope of Greenwich Village, at 44, died on Oct. 6 at his home in Manhattan. He was 88.

The cause was complications of Lewy body dementia, his son Richard said.

The son of a Bronx pool-hall owner and numbers runner, Mr. Patrick was raised in a milieu sprinkled with the grifters, hustlers and mobsters who would eventually become characters in his novels, which also included Family Business (1985) and Smoke Screen (1999).

In manner and accent, Mr. Patrick seemed like a character he might have dreamed up himself. A 1999 profile in The Los Angeles Times noted that his voice has that subterranean rumble of an accent, a sound that good character actors try to emulate when playing retired cops or tough but fair patriarchs.

The Pope of Greenwich Village, published in 1979, told the story of Charlie, the down-on-his-luck night manager of a Manhattan saloon, whose cousin Paulie sucks him and a locksmith friend into a perilous plot to crack a safe filled with what turns out to be mob money.
The U.N. and Egypt lay the groundwork for Gaza aid

The U.N. has made progress on an agreement that lays the groundwork for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Egypt, two officials said, although the details of how and when the desperately needed food and medicine would be delivered were not immediately disclosed.

Under the agreement, international observers would inspect aid trucks before they enter Gaza to satisfy a demand by Israel, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Previous reports of imminent agreements to ease the backup at Gazas border with Egypt  both for people and aid  have failed to materialize. Egypt said it would allow 20 aid trucks into the enclave, according to President Biden, but the timing is unclear. Hopes are high that the aid trucks will be able to cross into Gaza today, according to E.U. officials.

The toll: Gaza health officials said at a news conference that at least 3,785 people had been killed in the enclave since Oct. 7. The figures are believed to include casualties from the hospital explosion in Gaza City, for which Hamas and Israel blame each other. U.S. intelligence agencies estimate the blast killed between 100 and 300 people, but cautioned that their assessments could change.
The U.N. has brokered an agreement that lays the groundwork for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Egypt, officials said. Hopes are high that aid trucks will be able to cross into Gaza tomorrow, however details of how and when the desperately needed food and medicine will be delivered have yet to be disclosed.

Under the agreement, the U.N. flag would be raised at the Rafah crossing along Gazas border with Egypt to protect against attacks, and international observers would inspect aid trucks before they entered the territory to ensure they are not carrying weapons.

International pressure to secure an aid route has been growing, and previous reports of imminent agreements to ease the backup at Gazas border with Egypt  both for people and aid  have failed to materialize. Britains prime minister met with Israels president today and said that they had agreed on the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support to ordinary Palestinians in Gaza. The U.S. State Department also said that it held discussions with Israeli and Egyptian officials today in an effort to get the crossing opened soon.

Gazans, already living under a 16-year blockade by Israel and Egypt, have been increasingly desperate since Israel responded to Hamass brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attack with airstrikes and a complete siege of the enclave. Nearly half the population has been displaced.
Continuing a crackdown on cryptocurrency companies, the New York attorney general accused three major players in the digital asset industry of lying to investors and concealing losses in a $1 billion fraud scheme, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

The suit targets Gemini Trust, the exchange run by the twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss; the lender Genesis Capital; and Digital Currency Group, the parent company of Genesis.

The attorney general, Letitia James, contends in the suit that Gemini lied to investors about the dangers of Gemini Earn, a program started by Gemini and Genesis that promised investors a high rate of return  up to 8 percent  if they essentially lent their cryptocurrency to Genesis.

But Genesis struggled after the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, founded by Sam-Bankman Fried, imploded last November. It froze accounts amid a crash in digital asset values, leaving Earn investors unable to reclaim hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency.
Edward Bleier, who brought Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and other Looney Tunes characters to generations of Saturday morning TV viewers before becoming a prime mover in the rise of cable television and the transformation of Time Warner Cable into an industry giant, died on Tuesday at his home in East Hampton, N.Y. He turned 94 the day before.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Magda Bleier.

A former journalist who began his career in newspapers and radio, Mr. Bleier was an innovator who foresaw industry-changing technologies and the need for fresh content to serve the emerging cable television market. At ABC and later at Warner Bros. Television, he gained a reputation for imaginative but also practical strategic thinking that helped usher in a new television era.

From 1986 to 2000, he was president of a Warner Bros. division that developed basic cable networks such as Nickelodeon, MTV and The Movie Channel. He was credited with achieving record-breaking sales of vintage movies and older television series, shown in reruns, annually surpassing the income those productions had earned when first released.

As far back as 1961, while at ABC, Mr. Bleier saw a future for vintage Looney Tunes cartoons, animated shorts made by Warner Bros. and shown in movie theaters in the 1930s and 40s. He licensed them and then repackaged them as Saturday morning TV viewing for children. The move transformed Looney Tunes and similar cartoons into consistent profit-makers for both ABC and Warner Bros.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Azerbaijan has created all necessary conditions for the development of women in science and education and will continue to do everything possible to increase the role of women in society, Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Ali Ahmadov said, Trend reports.

He spoke at the VI Congress of Azerbaijani Women dedicated to the 100th anniversary of great leader Heydar Aliyev.

"Two main features distinguishing the VI Congress of Azerbaijani Women from others attract attention. The first is that it is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the great leader Heydar Aliyev. The second is that the Congress is being held for the first time in Azerbaijan after the full restoration of its sovereignty. This historical event gives special meaning and beauty to the event," Ahmadov noted.

According to him, family is the core of society.

"Women are the pillars of the family. And a healthy family is the source of a healthy society. It is impossible to imagine family and society without women," he said.

Ahmadov added that women have changed a lot in the last 1520 years. They are widely active in society and in state structures.
When Russian forces closed in on Kyiv at the start of their invasion last year, the staff at Zavertailo, a popular bakery in the Ukrainian capital, shut up shop and began preparing free salads for the soldiers defending the city. Supplies dwindled as fighting raged around Kyiv, and the bakerys finances collapsed as managers continued to pay staff salaries.

Business completely came to a halt, and there were no revenues expected, Anna Zavertailo, the bakerys founder, said. It took a lot of work to slowly restart the businesses.

But it paid off. This spring, Zavertailo opened a second bakery in Kyiv, spurred by growing customer demand as life in the capital gradually adjusted to wartime conditions and returned to some semblance of routine. New opportunities opened up to us, Viktoriia Kolomiiets, Zavertailos chief operating officer, said.

The bakerys expansion is part of a wider, albeit modest, economic recovery in Ukraine. Although Ukraines economic output is still considerably smaller than before the war  the economy shrank by one-third after Russias full-scale invasion last year  it will grow by an estimated 3.5 percent this year, the World Bank predicts. The expansion is driven by a pickup in domestic spending and underpinned by a steady flow of foreign financial aid.
No official numbers exist for precisely how many amateurs are making wine, said Brad Ring, publisher of WineMaker magazine, a periodical aimed at these hobbyists. But he estimated, based on sales of equipment and participation in competitions, that a half-million people are making wine in their homes in the United States and Canada.

The majority, he said, are on the West Coast, where  like Ralph Maltese, a semiretired supply-chain consultant in Santa Cruz, Calif.  they have ready access to a wide variety of wine grapes. In 2002, Mr. Maltese joined a group of a dozen or so hobbyists to form a winemaking cooperative. Together, they divided up tasks, some specializing in tasting or lab analysis. An oceanographer served as winemaker, while Mr. Maltese was the group organizer and cellar rat, a wine-industry term for those performing menial but essential tasks like topping off barrels.

Each year, they would arrange to buy a ton or so of grapes from vineyards up and down the California coast. Over time, they developed extensive contacts and would occasionally be offered free grapes.

A guy who farmed for Gallo would call and say, I got two acres of grapes Im not picking, you want it? Mr. Maltese recalled. In 2018, the group, which called itself Cave Gulch Winery after Mr. Malteses Santa Cruz neighborhood, won a best of show at the Santa Cruz County Fair for a 2016 negrette, a red grape mostly grown in southwestern France. Sadly, they disbanded last year after the winemaker died unexpectedly.
Theres a scene in Martin Scorseses Killers of the Flower Moon when the screen fills with men toiling in what looks like a lake of fire. Inky silhouettes in a red-orange void, they look like Boschian imps, but these are ordinary men in a hell of human making. Its a rightly apocalyptic image for this cruel and baroque American story of love, murder, greed and unspeakable betrayal in 1920s Indian Country, a true-crime epic that Scorsese  with grace, sorrow and sublime filmmaking clarity  has turned into a requiem for the country.

This may seem like strange territory for Scorsese, with his New York wiseguys and street corners. Yet he has always ranged wide and far in his work, from the Roman Empire in The Last Temptation of Christ to 1930s Tibet in Kundun and then home again for the 1980s and 90s of The Wolf of Wall Street. During his wanderings, Scorsese has never strayed far from Hollywood or rather its filmmaking foundations, which he has helped keep alive through his tireless advocacy for the art, though principally by doing what all great artists do: by reinvigorating and reinventing forms, and making them his own.

Throughout, Scorsese has also reminded you that there are many ways to tell stories, including about evil. This one, set largely on the Osage Reservation in northern Oklahoma, revisits a history of violence as fraught and bloody as that of the United States itself. The crimes it primarily recounts trace back to 1921 (there were earlier killings), and involved the murder of several dozen Osage (there may have been many more victims). Some were shot, others were blown up, while still others died from an enigmatic wasting illness, though were likely poisoned. The era is often referred to as the Osage Reign of Terror, an odd description that wrongly implies the Osage were somehow responsible for the horrors perpetrated on them.

Scorsese, who shares screenplay credit with Eric Roth, has given this story both scale and intimacy. This is a big, bigger-than-life movie with sweeping vistas and soaring camerawork, but one that incessantly shifts from bright, wide-open spaces to interiors as shadowy as their inhabitants. First among the richly populated cast is Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a war veteran who, when he steps off a steam locomotive and onto a crowded train platform in Fairfax, Okla., plunges into a Hobbesian churn of humanity. All around him, people are moving, shouting; some are fighting. Its exciting and disorienting, and Ernest looks at once energized and more than a little bewildered, like a child set adrift in a crowd of strangers.
Sixty five acres on the coast of North Carolina were purchased by Mamie Reels Ellisons great-grandfather in the aftermath of slavery. That land on Silver Dollar Road became a home, a place to farm and fish, and a sanctuary, stretching from its pine and gum-tree woods to a sandy beach, where the Reels family relaxed for generations.

By the 2000s, though, the Reels homestead was in jeopardy. Developers had claimed the waterfront property, and Mamies two brothers, Melvin Davis and Licurtis Reels, lost eight years in jail for refusing to vacate their houses. Directed by Raoul Peck, Silver Dollar Road adapts a 2019 ProPublica feature by Lizzie Presser into an intimate portrait of the familys forbearance in the face of dispossession.

Mamie and her niece Kim Duhon lead the familys effort to hold onto the land, but while dipping into the legal morass, Pecks film is more about sitting with the two women and their relatives, hearing out their fears and hopes as their ancestors land sits in limbo. Peck, who directed the fierce and engrossing James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro, refrains from systemic-style analysis to let the family speak for themselves about their experience.

A birthday gathering for 95-year-old Gertrude Reels sets the tone early on for the familys tight-knit circles and sense of continuity. Interviews with Mamie and Kim evoke fond memories of their childhood haven, illustrated with faded photographs; and Melvin, a fisherman with a winning flair, gives us an on-the-ground sense of the land, roaming through woods and waterways. (Peck draws on 90-odd hours of footage originally shot by Mayeta Clark for ProPublica.)
The result is a personal film that feels oddly impersonal. The tonal clutter overwhelms Keshavarzs genuinely interesting story. On the page, it might have sounded clever to have Leila hide under a gorilla mask when she bumps into her ex-wife at the grocery store. Onscreen, however, the gag feels contrived and distracting.

The script most resembles a herky-jerky one-woman show, a string of memories and cheeky, self-conscious declarations. Keshavarz has propped up her story line with refrains that dont quite coalesce. Her breakup with Elena is echoed by her description of the acrimony between Iran and America: Like any great romance, it ended in a bitter divorce, she says, an analogy she uses twice. Her father, Ali (Bijan Daneshmand), spends the movie in a hospital awaiting a heart transplant; her mother, Shireen (Niousha Noor), is deemed heartless.

Gradually, Keshavarz shifts her focus from Leila, essentially her fictional self, to Shireen as a way to re-examine her own mother, Azar Keshavarz, through adult eyes. The sequences that star Shireen are fantastic. The first segment, set in the early 1990s, charts her climb from uneducated immigrant housewife to real estate dynamo. The film also goes back to the late 60s when Shireen was a rural child bride. Were staggered by her journey to empowerment, a grueling stretch of which shows her desperate, alone and pregnant, riding a donkey. Kamand Shafieisabet, the phenomenal teenage actor who portrays young Shireen, continues to live in Iran. She deserves a global spotlight.

Keshavarz seems so awed by her mothers resilience that she only hesitantly sketches a through-line from that tale to her own. Instead, having shuffled through scores of ideas, Keshavarz ends the film saluting all women fighting to live on their own terms  a struggle raging in Iran and beyond.

The Persian Version

Rated R for language and sexual references. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters.
When a onetime private detective sits down to question a former spy and confessed performance artist, you might expect some verbal fisticuffs, a bit of bobbing and weaving or defensive prickliness. And when the interlocutor is the filmmaker Errol Morris and his subject is David Cornwell, a.k.a the sublime fabulist John le Carre (who died in 2020), those expectations only intensify.

Yet The Pigeon Tunnel, a four-day conversation Morris recorded in 2019 (and adapted from Cornwells 2016 memoir of the same name) is nothing if not smooth, Cornwells sentences as creamy and cunning on the tongue as on the page. Polished, urbane and preternaturally prepared, Cornwells sometimes mischievous demeanor forms a kind of shadow narrative, a fascinating carapace that Morriss interrogatory arrows fail to fully pierce. This drains the film of spontaneity, but pumps it full of a strangely satisfying intrigue: Who is playing whom?

Morris is a master exploiter of this kind of duality, and he sounds positively gleeful here. Returning repeatedly to the notions of deception, betrayal and performance  the movies three philosophical pillars  he coaxes Cornwell through his spectacularly unsettled childhood to his career as a young operative in the British Secret Service. A gift for artifice emerged early as he learned to emulate his upper-crust schoolmates and a social class to which he did not belong. Espionage came easily after that, his Cold War adventures spurring deep reflections on the nature of duplicity (the infamous double agent Kim Philby, he believes, was addicted to it) and fuel for the novels he would later write.
Nisha Pahujas documentary To Kill a Tiger opens with a startling image: a 13-year-old girl braids her hair in close-up as her father relates, in gutting voice-over, how she was raped by three men. Pahuja had planned to mask the girls face in post-production, but when Kiran (her pseudonym in the film) saw the footage at age 18, she chose to reveal herself in the film. Its a defiant gesture on her part, to refuse the shroud of shame.

To Kill a Tiger is a film bristling with such invigorating defiance. It follows Kiran and her parents, who live in a village in northeastern India, as they seek justice with the help of activists from Srijan Foundation, an advocacy organization. Interviews with other villagers reveal the tribalist, deeply patriarchal values that ensnare Kiran. Both men and women chastise her for her supposed irresponsibility and suggest brazenly that she marry one of her rapists to restore her honor and the villages harmony.

Kiran and her family are heroes, but this isnt a simple tale of heroism. The film lays bare the uneasy and inadequate avenues available to survivors seeking justice. Is the long ordeal that pushes the family into debt and forces Kiran to repeatedly rehash her trauma making a difference? Is a fight that pits the family against their entire community worth it? Does the imprisonment of the perpetrators offer any real succor to the victim or upend the patriarchy?

To Kill a Tiger doesnt offer any easy answers. But in staying close to Kirans father, who refuses to let his daughter bow her head, and to the girl, who speaks with hope and flinty confidence, one thing is clear: The revolution begins at home.

To Kill a Tiger

Not rated. In Hindi, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. In theaters.
The kids quarrel, go clubbing  their preferred dive seems open to punk, disco, and soul  and find romance. Caz woos Tracy, a glamorous production assistant (the future star Sophie Okonedo). Chris is courted by a dimwitted anarchist punk (Jason Durr). Complications include racist cops, the patriotic frenzy of the Jubilee and, opening the movie, a friends murder.

The moments when the film tries to build suspense are clankingly overdone, Stephen Holden wrote in a generally sympathetic New York Times review, adding that Young Soul Rebels was best when exposing the schisms in London society in scenes of the local street life, where tensions are often on the verge of erupting into violence. Still, for all the shots of a cardboard cutout of an inanely waving Queen Elizabeth, the movie pulls a few punches, the nastiness of the far-right National Front, for one, seems somewhat mitigated.

Young Soul Rebels had its premiere at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, where its queer-positive attitude and nuanced treatment of racial difference were overshadowed by three forceful Hollywood movies by Black filmmakers: Jungle Fever, Boyz N the Hood and A Rage in Harlem. As reported from Cannes, Julien criticized Jungle Fever and Boyz as sexist and homophobic and took particular issue with Jungle Fever for what he characterized as its negative view of interracial relationships. By contrast, Juliens vision of the United Kingdom intimated the idyllic, inclusive United Colors of Benetton. Rather than the no future nihilism of 1977, Young Soul Rebels reflects the promise that came with the archconservative Margaret Thatchers political demise.

If hampered by its script, Young Soul Rebels is helped by an essential good cheer and a percolating soundtrack segueing from Funkadelic to the Blackbyrds to Poly Styrene. Indeed, this may be the most upbeat movie ever to open with a sex murder and end with a fascist riot  prelude to a curtain call that has the couples sorted out and everyone dancing.

Young Soul Rebels

Opens Oct. 20, IFC Center Manhattan, ifccenter.com.
If there is one thing Representative Mike Lawler of New York wants his constituents to know these days, it is that his political party is an absolute mess.

Stuck on stupid, he branded a band of hard-right Republicans who pulled Congress to the brink of a government shutdown. He said their ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy undermined the will of the American people. As for the fight over a replacement that has ground the House to a halt for two weeks and counting?

This is the single stupidest thing Ive ever seen politically, in terms of self-sabotage, Mr. Lawler said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, just minutes after he joined 21 other Republicans and every Democrat to torpedo Representative Jim Jordan, a hard-right Ohioan, the latest candidate for speaker.

His mounting frustration, voiced in interviews with reporters in the Capitol and on networks like CNN that are typically reviled on the right, is not merely an unusual display of bluntness. It is a risky gambit by one of the Houses most endangered Republicans to insulate himself from his own party as it careens, leaderless, toward another possible shutdown.
Through a translator, a 21-year-old soldier told Ms. Hochul that he had rushed out of his military base with little thought in order to rescue civilians and evacuate those who were injured. He was shot in the left leg, he said, during a gunfight with two Hamas fighters who ambushed him as he searched for survivors at a music festival that was attacked.

Youre strong and the people who you saved may never know who you are, but I will know you saved people at their greatest time of desperation, Ms. Hochul told him, holding his hands.

The governor also met with four families of American citizens who had been taken hostage by Hamas. The meeting, at her Jerusalem hotel, was closed to the press, but at least one of Ms. Hochuls aides left the room in tears.

Among the relatives she met with was Ruby Chen, a New Yorker whose son Itay Chen, a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, was officially declared a hostage on Wednesday. Mr. Chen said his son, who was stationed near the Gaza border, sent him a text message on the day of the attacks saying his base was being fired at. That was the last he heard from him.

You wake up in the morning and you think its a nightmare, Mr. Chen said in an interview after the meeting. You have this black hole in your soul and you think, This is hell.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has addressed the participants of the 3rd Azerbaijan International Restoration, Reconstruction and Development of Karabakh Exhibition - "Rebuild Karabakh", Trend reports.

"Dear Exhibition Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I sincerely greet you on the occasion of the opening of the 3rd Azerbaijan International Exhibition for the Restoration, Reconstruction and Development of Karabakh "Rebuild Karabakh".

The experience of the past years has shown that organising exhibitions like this has been beneficial for the stimulation of socio-economic life in the liberated territories, the achievement of regional peace, and sustainable development. Undoubtedly, today's exhibition will also create significant opportunities for the implementation of future business projects.

This exhibition coincides with the centenary of the National Leader of our people, Heydar Aliyev. He rendered invaluable services to our state in establishing the territorial integrity and independent progress during all the periods, when he led Azerbaijan.

The Great Leader always envisioned a sovereign Azerbaijan only with Karabakh, and its crown jewel, Shusha. He showed special care for the economic and cultural development of these territories, and the continuous improvement of its living standards.

In Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur, beloved by the Great Leader, life is reviving with great enthusiasm. As cities, towns, and villages are being rebuilt, the original inhabitants of these lands are returning to their native homes to live in peace. The pioneering restoration and reintegration work carried out in these areas serve as an example of fruitful cooperation and partnership between the state and the private sector.

I invite the exhibition participants, as far-sighted and pioneering businesses and entrepreneurs, to take advantage of the opportunities created by our state for the innovative development of the liberated territories, and to unite their business ideas around a common goal.

I am confident that the "Rebuild Karabakh" Exhibition will provide a favorable platform for the successful implementation of beneficial initiatives in Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur, as well as for establishing new business connections. Once again, I wish all exhibition participants and visitors success in their endeavours!

Karabakh is Azerbaijan!" the address reads.
The rate of combinations ramped up in the 1990s as the city came out of an economic crisis. They were clustered in wealthier neighborhoods like the Upper East Side and the West Village in Manhattan or Park Slope in Brooklyn, which housing experts say are the exact neighborhoods, with their easy access to transit and jobs, that should be adding many new homes.

Im not trying to begrudge folks who are trying to build a larger apartment as their families grow, said Adam Brodheim, a preservationist who did the research. Im trying to bring attention to the way these actions across the entire city make a meaningful impact on our housing crisis.

On some streets, many buildings that were built a century or more ago as single-family homes and split during the 1900s into multiple units have once again become single-family homes. In the rowhouses on West 88th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue, there are about 173 units. That compares with more than 400 units on the same street in the 1950s and 1960s, according to Mr. Brodheim, who is also a member of Open New York, a nonprofit that advocates for more development.
Local resistance to building new jails in four of the five boroughs has been strong. At the same time, the citys jail population has increased to more than 6,000. The four new jails would have only about 4,200 beds.

Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, has expressed skepticism that the city would be able to meet its deadline and has called for a Plan B. He has described the plan as flawed, raising alarms among other elected officials and advocates about whether he is committed to closing the jail by the deadline

In the meantime, conditions at Rikers have grown only more dangerous. Nine people have died in custody there this year, and federal authorities are believed to be on the verge of stripping control of Rikers from New York City and placing the jail into receivership because of the violence, disorder and poor management.

We really dont want anybody else to die behind those walls, Ms. Adams, whose staff has taken to calling the new effort Lippman 2.0, said in an interview. This is completely a priority for me, just like it was for Melissa.

Both Ms. Adams and Judge Lippman, who will chair the rebooted commission, said they had spoken with Mr. Adams about it and that he was on board. City Hall did not respond to a request for comment.
For roughly two decades, Sabir Jones bounced in and out of jail on a series of serious charges involving drugs, guns, assaults and sex crimes.

Mr. Jones, 39, was plagued by homelessness, drug abuse and mental illness. He slept in Newarks Penn Station and panhandled outside, regularly having run-ins with the police.

More recently, he joined the population of emotionally disturbed people living in New York Citys subway system. And it was on a busy Midtown Manhattan platform, the authorities say, that his chronically disturbing behavior erupted in attacks on two passengers.

About noon Wednesday, Mr. Jones punched a 26-year-old student from Queens in the face, fracturing his jaw, the student said. Authorities said he then targeted a woman commuting to work and waiting for the E train in the Fifth Avenue-53rd Street station.
You write that some parents are against smaller class sizes. Thats almost unheard of. Whats going on?

A state law requires smaller classes in all grades and at all schools in New York City by 2028. In city high schools, classes would shrink to 25 students, from 34, bringing them close to class sizes in some suburban districts.

Families that want their children to attend selective public high schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science worry that their chances could decrease when there are fewer seats available.

Whatever the city does, its going to mean some transition pain for some people.

How so?

Some schools that dont have a lot of extra space will probably have to accept fewer students. Again, thats a concern at elite high schools and other specialized schools, which are heavily valued by some low-income and immigrant families as the ticket to the middle class. Any plan that effectively changes how admissions work at those schools is sure to spark some debate.

But isnt there an upside for the majority of students, who attend nonselective schools rather than selective, elite ones?
To the Editor:

Re U.S. Backs Israel, as Cause of Blast Remains Disputed and Biden Urges Caution in War on Hamas (front page, Oct. 19):

President Biden offers good advice that one hopes will be heard by all: Do not let shock, pain and rage lead to counterproductive decisions, decisions that cause unnecessary loss of innocent life and squander the worlds sympathy.

Palestinians and Israelis have each been failed by their leaders. Palestinians and Israelis have each suffered unspeakable harm.

We pray that Palestinians and Israelis and their respective leaders and all of the people who empathize with them will remember that in the midst of righteous anger, ill-conceived actions can make matters much, much worse for everyone.

Ron Boyer

Eugene, Ore.

To the Editor:

As an American Jew, I am horrified by President Bidens response to Hamass horrific murder of Israelis on Oct. 7. By providing military aid to Israel, the U.S. government is fueling the Israeli governments vastly disproportionate response, in which it has already killed more Palestinian civilians than Israeli civilians were killed by Hamas.

Mr. Biden may have urged the Israeli people not to be consumed by the rage they feel about the Hamas terror attacks, but that statement is completely contradicted by his sending the very weapons that the Israeli military is using to kill civilians.

The U.S. can stop this immoral violence, but instead is fanning the flames by providing support for the autocratic Israeli government. I am joined by many other American Jews in condemning the Israeli governments killing of thousands and threatening millions of innocent lives in the name of the Jewish people.

Miriam Shakow

Narberth, Pa.

To the Editor:

In this time of unbelievable misery and loss, it may be naive to talk about international law. But some of the participants in the current fighting in Israel (and their allies) have represented that they are trying to respect the laws of war. Since many observers may not be familiar with those laws, I write simply to report two indisputable principles.

First, the same rules of conduct apply to the aggressor and to its victims. They started it is no excuse for doing things that would otherwise be illegal.

Second, the fact that the overall objective is permissible (like self-defense) or even laudatory does not excuse using methods that result in disproportionate harm to civilians.

Applying these principles, it is a violation of the laws of war to knowingly cut off food, water, fuel and medical supplies to entire trapped localities. The harm would fall disproportionately on civilians who have even less access to whatever supplies exist than those in authority. It cannot be justified.

Lea Brilmayer

Branford, Conn.

The writer is an emeritus professor of international law at Yale University.

To the Editor:

As an American Israeli living in Israel with a son in the Israel Defense Forces, I feel that I must speak out.

It was uplifting for Israelis to hear President Bidens remarks after the attacks on Oct. 7. Israelis everywhere felt encouraged by the presidents unequivocal support, and the unambiguous message that the events of Oct. 7 constituted pure, unadulterated evil  because they truly did.

It is clear to Israelis that in carrying out these atrocities, Hamas was seeking to draw Israel into precisely the actions that Israel is now engaged in. The justification for those actions could be debated endlessly, but the world must know that Israel considers itself in existential peril. And in our hour of trial, we derive incredible strength from American support.

The objective of Israels war with Hamas is not the suffering of Gazans or Palestinians but the crippling of a murderous terrorist organization that has caused unprecedented suffering for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

David Gilmore

Holon, Israel

How to Unify, and Save, the Country
President Biden flew into multiple headwinds on his risky trip to show solidarity with Israel on Wednesday. Even before his plane landed at Ben Gurion Airport, several allied Arab leaders announced they would not see him. He won a limited agreement from Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza but secured no promises that Israel would follow his urgent request to respond to the terrorist attack by Hamas with deliberate care and concern for the preservation of civilian life, rather than rage. He offered a small aid package for residents of Gaza and the West Bank but cant do much more until Congress functions again.

Rocket and shell fire from Gaza and Lebanon resumed within two hours after his plane left Israel.

But the trip was still worth making, as much for what went unspoken as for any tangible goals that were achieved. The presidents decision to enter a war zone, in a country full of destruction and rage and the smoke of explosives, made it clear that the United States still has a vital role to play in defusing international crises and protecting democracies.

And thats especially true, given the dysfunction on display back in Washington during his visit. While Mr. Biden met with Israeli emergency workers and the families of victims of Hamas, Republicans in the House were distinguishing themselves by not electing a speaker, by not doing their jobs in passing spending bills and military aid packages and by not demonstrating that the legislative branch of government has its act together.

In the Senate, a single Republican member, seething about abortion, is preventing the promotion of hundreds of military officers at a time when American military expertise could be extremely useful around the world. Jack Lew, as strong a supporter of Israel as anyone ever nominated for the position of ambassador to that country, faced a torrent of opposition on Wednesday to his nomination from a group of Republican senators still annoyed that he helped put in effect the Obama administration deal that required Iran to limit its uranium enrichment.
Its hard to overstate the extent to which our nations absurd Jim Jordan moment encapsulates the deep dysfunction of the political right in the United States.

Theres of course all the chaos and incompetence of the Trumpist Republican Party, on display for the world to see. An extremist faction of the House deposed their own partys speaker of the House without a successor, and now  in the midst of multiplying international crises  the House is rudderless. In fact, its worse than rudderless. As I write this newsletter its in a state of utter confusion.

But theres also a deeper reality at play here, one that goes well beyond simple incompetence. The Republican base admires Jordan because it thinks he is tough. It perceives him as a man of courage and strength. He is not. Instead, he is a symbol of the way in which Trumpist Republicans have corrupted the concept of courage itself.

To understand what courage is supposed to be, I turn to a definition from C.S. Lewis: Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. Its a beautiful formulation, one that encompasses both the moral and physical realms and declares that courage is inseparable from virtue.
I think a lot of these guys play to the clicks. If you live in an echo chamber and youre only talking to people that agree with you, I think, well, you have an unrealistic view of whats going on, then.

You talked in your campaign for the House about your conservative values. Members of the Freedom Caucus see themselves as defenders of conservative values. What is your definition of a conservative, and how is it different from what that smaller segment of the Freedom Caucus is about?

I see conservatism as supporting federalism, keeping power at the local level to the maximum extent possible, peace through strength, the role of the family is the most important institution in our country, being pro-life. You want to keep violent criminals behind bars, dont let them out early, because thats how were getting the increase in violence. We believe in trying to balance the budget. I think the new brand of so-called conservatism today is more of populism, because its not really conservative in my book. Its 1930s Republicanism, which was more isolationist, didnt want to get involved in Europe at all. A lot of the things you hear today from the populist wing sound a lot like the Republicans in the 1930s, and they werent very popular. We had F.D.R. They didnt win back then, either.

[Violent crime is currently higher than it was before the pandemic but has decreased over the past year, according to the Council on Criminal Justice. Theres a longstanding debate about what causes increases in violent crime.]

There was a party called the Know-Nothing Party in the mid-19th century. You read some of those dumb comments back then. Well, some of the stuff I read today sounds parallel to that, too. Theyre convinced Ukraine has armed Hamas. Im getting all the stuff sent to me, and its just not true. But because they read it, it becomes truth, even though its on a, I would say, a very skeptical news source. If you find out that Ukraine sent weapons to Hamas, would you tell me?
I have friends who were killed and who lost children in Hamass murderous attack on Oct. 7. I have friends who were injured and killed in Gaza in the days that followed. My heart has broken, along with the people of this country and people around the world, for each and every family searching for loved ones, grieving them or trying to bring them home.

Yet despite all this, I have also witnessed glimmers of the future we could have, made real by ordinary people  Jewish and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli  who have stepped up in the face of unspeakable tragedy. In Israel, much of the military had been apparently stationed in the West Bank to protect settlers. As terrified families in the south hid from armed Hamas attackers and prayed for rescue, Arab Palestinian and Jewish doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers and emergency medical workers stood side by side and worked together to treat everyone in need of care, no matter who they were. In Gaza, doctors and health care workers have been trying to treat patients under near-constant bombardment with nowhere safe to go  not even to the hospitals themselves  and with no water, electricity or food, not to mention medical supplies.

These are ordinary people acting from the core of their humanity, despite inhumane circumstances. In this life-or-death moment, they choose life. By contrast, Mr. Netanyahu has used every day in the prime ministers office and every ounce of his power to try to convince the world that safety for Israelis must come at the expense of safety for Palestinians and to block all pathways to peace. He has sold a fairy tale about the unbeatable might of the Israeli military and his own ability to manage a violent system in which Palestinians have gone to sleep under occupation and siege and Israelis have woken up with an uncertain future. Now he is adding to the civilian death toll.

Those of us who are Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel are uniquely positioned to see through his bluster and warmongering to the failure he really is  truths that the past several days have laid bare. We see the extent to which he is willing to burn our shared homeland to the ground rather than bring about long-term solutions that will deliver safety and a good life to all of us, Palestinians and Israelis alike.

And we are also the ones who know, deep in our bones, which are made of the soil of this land, that the answer is peace. The only way we can fulfill our responsibility to the nation of our youngest ones  and to ourselves  is to recognize the nation of Palestine and the nation of Israel and to establish a State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel.
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.

Im David French. Im a columnist for The New York Times, and I write about law, politics, and armed conflict.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The best way to describe the state of Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is with just one word  chaos. There hasnt been a Speaker of the House in several days in spite of multiple crises unfolding across the globe, most notably in Israel and Ukraine. At the time of this recording, we dont have a Speaker of the House.

The Republican Party is far from united on multiple key issues. And one of those key issues is funding for Ukraine. And this has been a matter of contention, building really for months, and shows no sign of abating. And this is particularly important because the amount of money already allocated for Ukraine is being drawn down even as we speak.

The stakes really could not be higher for Ukraine. They need American aid to stay in the fight.

So the White House is looking at an aid package for both Ukraine and Israel that could run as high as $100 billion. Were talking about providing stability and funding for Ukraine and Israel in the short to medium-term. Were talking about sending a message to our enemies.

And were also talking about sending a message to our friends that the United States is still the sword and shield of liberal democracy in the world, and that you can, in fact, count on the United States of America to preserve a rules-based international order that has imperfectly succeeded in keeping great power peace for generations.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Essentially, for additional aid to pass, House Republicans have to allow a vote, because it is still the case that a majority of the House, a strong majority of the House, supports aid for Ukraine. Its definitely the case that a majority of the House supports aid for Israel. In both cases, you have majority support. But the question is, would a new speaker allow such a bill to come to the floor ultimately?

Jim Jordan, who has put himself forward as a speaker candidate, is part of the Freedom Caucus. And this is the group that has caused the most chaos in the House, and this is the group that if it gets its way, well see American support either taper off for Ukraine or stop entirely. Many House Republicans, including members of the Freedom Caucus, apply America-first analysis when theyre talking about Ukraine. For example, they will say we need to secure the border here before we fund anyone else over there.

But that analysis doesnt apply as much to Israel. Theres a couple of reasons for this. One, there is a long-standing bond between rank and file Republicans and the nation of Israel. The Evangelical base within the Republican Party is very friendly to the nation of Israel.

The other reason is that there are many people in the Republican Party who view Ukraine as one of the villains of the Trump years. There are conspiracy theories on the right that blame, for example, Ukraine for the Russia investigation. So there is a level of hostility on the part of multiple MAGA Republicans against Ukraine, and that hostility does not exist with regards to Israel.

Its also the case that there is sympathy for Vladimir Putin in parts of the right that does not exist for Hamas. So for example, prior to the Russian full-scale invasion in February of 2022, there were a number of members of the right who looked to Vladimir Putin as a kind of Christian nationalist opponent of wokeism. They saw him as a kind of masculine Christian figure opposing the weak woke West.

On one level, you would look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel and you would say theyre not quite the same or not the same in many important ways. For example, Russia is the much more powerful nation on its own compared to Ukraine, whereas Israel is far more powerful than Hamas. But the Russian attack on Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel do share something very important in common, and that is the sheer brutality of the assault.

There are so many things we dont know when the leadership of the House of Representatives is unknown. Look, what needs to happen now, quite simply  and I hate to be this blunt  is that House Republicans need to grow up. This is a key point in world history, not just American history.

There is conflict flaring in the Middle East. We dont know right now if it could spread to northern Israel and Hezbollah or even to Iran. There is an offensive unfolding  a Russian offensive unfolding in Eastern Europe. And the Republicans vacated the chair, they tossed out their House Speaker for no good reason at all.

And so here we are without a Speaker, the House crippled in its ability to do business, and the same arsonists who set the initial fire are continuing to burn the building. And theres no end in sight at the moment.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Great Leader always envisioned a sovereign Azerbaijan only with Karabakh, and its crown jewel, Shusha, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in his address to the participants of the 3rd Azerbaijan International Restoration, Reconstruction, and Development of Karabakh Exhibition - "Rebuild Karabakh", Trend reports.

"In Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur, beloved by the Great Leader, life is reviving with great enthusiasm. As cities, towns, and villages are being rebuilt, the original inhabitants of these lands are returning to their native homes to live in peace. The pioneering restoration and reintegration work carried out in these areas serve as an example of fruitful cooperation and partnership between the state and the private sector," President Ilham Aliyev said.
In 1994, the 15-year-old Liz Ianelli was sent by her parents to the Family Foundation School in Hancock, N.Y., which claimed to treat her disruptive behavior. But she said her therapy for most of the next three years consisted of daily emotional attacks by staff and fellow students, forced labor, food deprivation and other assaults. While there, she was also raped by a kitchen employee, she said. Then, as punishment for lying about it, she was bound in a blanket with duct tape and left in a boiler room for eight days.

Now Ms. Ianelli is an activist and the author of a new memoir, I See You, Survivor, which details her ordeal. But she is far from alone. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans have endured similar harms or assaults in residential boot camps, wilderness therapy and Christian and therapeutic boarding schools, which claim to vanquish teen psychological problems like drug misuse, depression and defiant behavior. Among them is Paris Hilton, who first told her story in a 2020 documentary and is now lobbying for recently introduced legislation to stop the abuse.

These childrens programs act similarly to psychiatric hospitals in that they control residents custody and communication with the outside world, but they are typically not strictly regulated. Some states exempt programs that claim to be religion-based from standards enforced on other child-caring facilities, while some states have few, if any, regulations on these programs. Because more than a dozen states allow spanking and paddling in schools, corporal punishment that would be illegal in prisons occurs in many of these programs. Evidence suggests that the punitive therapies that these facilities use are unsafe and ineffective.

Advocates estimate that around 100,000 teens are held in such programs annually, but the exact number is not known because the government does not track them. One example is the private school Hidden Lake Academy, to which the billionaire Harlan Crow paid tuition for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomass grandnephew. In a 2008 congressional hearing, a parent described how her child was subjected to attack therapy  brutal emotional assaults and public humiliation aimed at breaking down problematic personalities at the school, which was shut down in 2011 after a lawsuit helped bankrupt it. But until Ms. Hilton took up the cause, efforts to protect youth on the federal level had stalled.
One person who understood the possible connection between the language on the airwaves and the violence it spawned was Mr. Clinton, who had seen repeated examples of extreme right-wing violence during his days as governor of Arkansas. In a speech shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing, Mr. Clinton said, We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. He went on: They spread hate. They leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable  Im sure you are now seeing the reports of some things that are regularly said over the airwaves in America today. Well, people like that who want to share our freedoms must know that their bitter words can have consequences.

Then as now, from Mr. Limbaugh to Mr. Trump, the act of calling out their provocations produces the same cries of wounded innocence. In response to Mr. Clintons speech, Mr. Limbaugh denounced irresponsible attempts to categorize and demonize those who had nothing to do with this.  There is absolutely no connection between these nuts and mainstream conservatism in America today. Mr. Trump used the same dodge regarding his responsibility for the violence he fomented on Jan. 6. In his answer to the report of the House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol, he said in a post on his Truth Social website: The unselect committee did not produce a single shred of evidence that I in any way intended or wanted violence at our Capitol. The evidence does not exist because the claim is baseless and a monstrous lie.

Mr. Trump, like Mr. Limbaugh before him, uses the Constitutions broad protections for inflammatory speech as a shield against any sort of accountability. The implicit argument is that unless a criminal prosecution establishes a direct causal link between his words and the violence that follows, then there is no connection at all. But that isnt true, nor can it be. Mr. Clinton was just reflecting common sense when he said, Words can have consequences, and Mr. McVeighs story illustrates the effect that constitutionally protected words can have. But Mr. Trump never acknowledges that his words have any outcome other than those he chooses to recognize.

The temptation for President Biden and others has always been to ignore the former presidents more outrageous statements in favor of the high (or at least higher) road. But that restraint is a disservice to the public and, in all likelihood, bad politics, too. If Mr. Trump isnt called out for his encouragement of violence before it takes place, that will bolster his proclamations of innocence when the worst happens; he shouldnt have that opportunity. Mr. Trumps statements pose an immediate danger to the targets of his rage and the public at large. Its Mr. Bidens responsibility, as well as a political opportunity, to issue that warning.

Mr. Trump has never respected the norms of political behavior, and theres little reason to think gag orders will provide meaningful discipline, either. As on Jan. 6, his supporters shed traditional rules as well. The day is fast approaching when someone picks up a gun or builds a bomb and then seeks to follow through on Mr. Trumps words. If and when that happens, he will say that he did not specifically direct or cause the violence, and he will probably escape without criminal charges  but the blood will be on his hands.
When it comes to finding a new city to call home, few considerations are more important than safety  whether its from crime, dangerous weather or even a shaky economy.

To find the most and least safe places in the United States, a new study by WalletHub scored 182 cities (including at least two of the largest in each state) across three categories of metrics. The home and community safety category examined crime statistics, police and rescue workers per capita, traffic and pedestrian safety, among other data. Financial safety scored each city on employment, job security, credit ratings, savings rates and the like. And the natural disaster category considered the risk of floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hail, hurricanes and wildfires.

Drilling down to some individual metrics helps paint a clearer picture. In the home and community safety category, Irvine, Calif., was found to have the fewest assaults per capita, though its heightened risk of natural disasters dropped it to 33rd overall. On the other end of the list, Little Rock, Ark., St. Louis, Detroit, Birmingham, Ala., Kansas City, Mo., and Memphis tied for the most assaults per capita  86 times higher than in Irvine.

For natural disasters, the capital city of Dover, Del.  near the coast but tucked inland  had the lowest risk, but poor scores in home and financial safety sank it to 81st overall. Two cities in Tornado Alley, Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kan., had the highest risks for natural disasters, followed by six cities in California. The good news for Wichita is that its residents were found to have the highest rate of emergency savings.
On Monday night in Midtown Manhattan, Neil Patrick Harris, Nicky Hilton Rothschild and Michael Kors danced in their seats, as J. Harrison Ghee, the Broadway actor, sang Aretha Franklins classic Freeway of Love.

Ghees performance opened the 17th annual Golden Heart Awards, the major fall fund-raiser for Gods Love We Deliver, an organization that provides medically tailored meals to New Yorkers affected by severe illness, which was founded in 1986 during the AIDS epidemic.

I think that we have to honor, and make noise about, organizations that can cut through the noise and make a difference, said Mr. Kors, a co-chair of the event and a board member of the organization.

The evening honored the Broadway star Ben Platt for excellence in the arts and the actress Scarlett Johansson for philanthropy and activism.
Campbell Brown, Facebooks top news executive, said this month that she was leaving the company. Twitter, now known as X, removed headlines from the platform days later. The head of Instagrams Threads app, an X competitor, reiterated that his social network would not amplify news.

Even Google  the strongest partner to news organizations over the past 10 years  has become less dependable, making publishers more wary of their reliance on the search giant. The company has laid off news employees in two recent team reorganizations, and some publishers say traffic from Google has tapered off.

If it wasnt clear before, its clear now: The major online platforms are breaking up with news.

Some executives of the largest tech companies, like Adam Mosseri at Instagram, have said in no uncertain terms that hosting news on their sites can often be more trouble than it is worth because it generates polarized debates. Others, like Elon Musk, the owner of X, have expressed disdain for the mainstream press. Publishers seem resigned to the idea that traffic from the big tech companies will not return to what it once was.

Even in the long-fractious relationship between publishers and tech platforms, the latest rift stands out  and the consequences for the news industry are stark.
How much do travelers care about their rewards points?

Ed Bastian, the chief executive of Delta Air Lines, found out quickly last month when the company announced major changes to its SkyMiles program that emphasized dollars spent over actual travel and made it far more expensive to attain the highest status categories.

In a speech to the Rotary Club of Atlanta not long after the announcement, Mr. Bastian acknowledged SkyMiles members discontent and added that the changes, which werent scheduled to take place until 2025, probably went too far.

On Wednesday, Delta walked back some of those changes. In an email to SkyMiles members, Mr. Bastian recognized their displeasure and said that the airline would cut the amount travelers need to spend to reach various status levels, loosen restrictions about using Deltas Sky Club lounges and give some members a boost in status, by granting them what it calls Medallion Qualification Dollars.

Mr. Bastian noted that the airline made some difficult program decisions in an effort to address the programs surge in elite members during the pandemic and overcrowding in its airport lounges as travel rebounded.
The likelihood of this sort of event occurring is extremely rare, said Dawn Davies, the night sky program manager with the Hill Country Alliance. An amateur astronomer and a NASA eclipse ambassador, Ms. Davies is leading the alliances efforts to organize and support eclipse events in the area. Though Saturday provided a test run, she said, the group has also been relying on the experiences of towns and cities along the Oregon-to-South Carolina path of the 2017 eclipse, which really snuck up on a lot of folks.

Patricia Moore, the executive director of the Bandera County Convention and Visitors Bureau, barely waited till the moment of annularity had passed on Saturday to tell me, Now is the time to start booking accommodations for April. At the nearby Best Western, rooms for that eclipse are going for about $1,100 a night, Ms. Moore said.

In Bandera, the self-proclaimed Cowboy Capital of the World, this eclipse came with wagon rides, Old West shootout re-enactments and one outrageously long-horned bull named Redneck. In addition to the watch party at the natural history museum  where replicas of prehistoric creatures loom outside and an impressive collection of New Spain artwork is on display within  there were other events all over town. For the total eclipse, more celebrations will most likely be added, and all of them will be larger and spread out over at least three days, since April 8 falls on a Monday.

A little over an hour away in the small town of Junction, Macy Brooks, the organizer of the Texclipse Music Festival, is also planning to go bigger in April. Her event, which on Friday and Saturday offered music, a chili cook-off, roping, and songwriting, salsa and margarita competitions, will run again from April 6 to 8. Ms. Brooks wants to expand by luring more-famous music groups to the festival, adding activities like bull riding and offering a camping site with a shuttle bus. She will also be hosting Elope at the Eclipse: For a $100 fee, which does not include the marriage license, couples attending the festival can tie the knot with an ordained minister and a photographer on site.

Josh White, an owner of Arrowhead Creek, a vineyard in Stonewall, is planning for a relatively quiet event at his winery in April. Depending on staffing, it will offer 250 spots, first to its wine club members and then to the public.
Some West Coast residents were jolted awake on Thursday when they received an earthquake alert test that was sent to their mobile phones at 3:19 a.m. because of a time zone mix-up, the United States Geological Survey said.

The noisy alerts were sent to people who use MyShake, an early-warning app for earthquakes, said Robert-Michael de Groot, a spokesman for ShakeAlert, the U.S. Geological Survey system that powers the app.

Mr. de Groot did not know how many users had received the alert, but he said that the app had been downloaded 1.4 million times and that the alarm could have reached more than a million people. The app is intended for people in California, Oregon and Washington, but alerts can also be sent to other users, he said.

MyShake had planned to send a test alert Thursday to its users in California, Oregon and Washington for a fictitious earthquake in San Francisco at 10:19 a.m. Pacific time, according to its website. Instead, app users received the warning at 3:19 a.m. Pacific time, which is the same as 10:19 a.m. Coordinated Universal Time. The warning text said the alert had been sent at 10:19 a.m. U.T.C.
One of the fastest growing segments of Americas homeless population is people who live in their cars, R.V.s or other vehicles.

In many ways, its a sign of the worsening squeeze on the nations middle class. Compared with those living in tents and shelters, the so-called mobile homeless are more likely to have jobs or to be actively looking for work, a U.C.L.A. study found. Many lost their homes after being unable to afford rent or their mortgage, and had to move into their most valuable possession.

But living in a car comes with risks  of burglary, harassment and more. That has led to the creation of safe parking lots, designated places for people living in their vehicles to stay overnight. Dozens of such lots, often outside of churches, have opened across the nation in the past five years, a testament to the severity of the homelessness crisis.

Cities aim to build affordable housing, but the timeline for doing so is measured in years, Rukmini Callimachi, a housing reporter for The Times, told me. The question becomes: What do you do with the people who are right in front of you?
Mr. Jones spent years spreading lies that the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax aimed at confiscating Americans firearms. In 2018, the families of 10 victims sued him for defamation, and in trials in Texas and Connecticut they were awarded $1.4 billion in damages. As the cases went to trial, Infowars declared bankruptcy, and Mr. Jones declared personal bankruptcy late last year.

The families have been fighting him in bankruptcy court ever since.

Lawyers for the families had argued that Mr. Jones acted with willful and malicious intent in spreading lies about the families. In bankruptcy law, debts incurred through actions that are deemed willful and malicious are exempt from the protections for debtors offered through the courts.

Judge Lopez ruled in the families favor for about $1.1 billion in damages awarded to the relatives of nine victims who sued Mr. Jones in Connecticut. But he excluded $323 million in attorneys fees and costs awarded in the Connecticut lawsuit, ruling that the trial record did not clearly establish that those damages stemmed from willful and malicious actions.

Judge Lopezs ruling was more mixed in the Sandy Hook lawsuit in Texas, won by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis died in the shooting. A Texas jury had awarded the parents $49 million in damages last year. On Thursday, Judge Lopez ruled that a trial is necessary to determine whether $44 million in punitive damages, the bulk of the award, meets the willful and malicious standard.

Mr. Joness lawyers had argued that his target was the deep state, not the families, and that Mr. Jones was raising questions about the official narrative of a national tragedy, as he has for other events. So while he was reckless, his lawyer Chris Davis said, the idea that he had a willful and malicious intent is in substantial and factual dispute, and needed to be adjudicated separately in court.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The process of returning residents to Aghdam and nearby villages is planned to start in mid-2025, Special Representative of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the liberated territories (except Shusha district) within the Karabakh economic region Emin Huseynov told reporters, Trend reports.

Currently, large-scale construction work is underway in Aghdam. The foundations of three quarters have already been laid, in two of which work has begun. The foundations of more than three quarters will be laid in the near future. All this construction work will begin early next year, he emphasized.

Following the liberation of its territories from Armenian occupation in 2020, Azerbaijan initiated the long-awaited 'Great Return' program, which envisions the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their native lands.

The program covers areas that together determine the creation of conditions for the normal lives of districts, cities, villages, and every citizen.

Its implementation is carried out at the expense of Azerbaijan's own resources.

Up to date, former IDPs have returned to Lachin and Fuzuli cities, the villages of Aghali (Zangilan district), Talish (Tartar district), and Zabukh (Lachin district).
Two Malaysian men have reached agreements with military prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay to plead guilty to war crimes charges for being accessories to deadly terrorist attacks in Indonesia two decades ago.

Both men and the lead defendant in the case, Encep Nurjaman, were held for years in the C.I.A.s secret prison network and transferred to Guantanamo in 2006. They were charged in August 2021, 18 years after they were captured.

Under the deals, the cases of Mohammed Farik Bin Amin, 48, and Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, 46, have been separated from Mr. Nurjamans case.

The two men are accused of having served as money couriers and providing other support to Mr. Nurjaman, an Indonesian man who is known as Hambali, a former leader of the Southeast Asian extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
When President Biden delivers a prime-time Oval Office address on Thursday about the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it will be his third major speech on the Mideast conflict as he grapples with a fragile Democratic coalition that is closely watching how he handles the outbreak of violence.

In his remarks last week and again on Wednesday in Tel Aviv, Mr. Biden sought to put no daylight between the United States and Israel  though in his second speech, he warned the Israelis not to be consumed by their rage about the Hamas attack this month that killed more than 1,400 people. He pleaded with the Israelis not to overreact, as he said the United States did after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Bidens speech comes as his political coalition has begun to fray over the Israeli conflict. Progressives and young Democrats are demanding that he press Israel to stop its incursion on Gaza, while more centrist Democrats who make up the core of his political base were nearly unanimous in their praise of his Tel Aviv speech.

I am grateful to have @POTUS thoughtful leadership in this moment, Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri wrote on social media. As we continue working save the lives of hostages and hold Hamas accountable, I encourage him to continue using his platform to call for restraint and the protection of innocent Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland said Mr. Biden speaks for me and speaks for all of America on Israel. And Richard Haass, the former chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, called the Wednesday speech nothing less than masterful.

And while Biden campaign officials insist they arent planning to use the Israel trip as campaign fodder, Representative Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts forecast what could become the sort of contrast the presidents aides and allies make with former President Donald J. Trump should he win the Republican presidential nomination.

Joe Biden flew into a war zone to stand with Israel, Mr. Auchincloss said late Wednesday. Trump wouldnt even visit a cemetery of American war dead. (Mr. Trump, in 2018, canceled a planned trip to a French cemetery, and his aides cited the rainy weather.)

Liberal Democrats who have been critical of how Mr. Biden has tethered the White House to Israel as the Israelis carry out attacks on the Gaza Strip focused their attention Wednesday on amplifying attention on antiwar demonstrators who marched around the Capitol and renewed their calls for a cease-fire.

We cannot bomb our way to peace, wrote Representative Cori Bush of Missouri. We need a cease-fire, said Representative Andre Carson of Indiana. And several left-wing members of Congress reposted a message from Pope Francis in which he called the situation in Gaza desperate and pleaded that the weapons be silenced; let the cry for peace be heard from the poor, from the people, from the children!

Some used especially heated language: Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, speaking outside the Capitol, said, We are literally watching people commit genocide and killing a vast majority, just like this, and we still stand by and say nothing.

Some Democrats began attacking their party colleagues who are skeptical of the Israeli war effort. Representative Jerry Nadler of New York condemned the organization behind the Capitol protest, and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida told Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota that you have been training your outrage on the wrong party after Ms. Omar reiterated her call for Mr. Biden to seek a cease-fire.

Progressive activists circulated a video of Dilawar Syed, a deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration, being booed while speaking at a vigil for Wadea Al-Fayoume, the 6-year-old Palestinian boy from the Chicago suburbs who was killed in what prosecutors said was an attack motivated by hate for Muslims amid the fighting in Israel and Gaza.

Another meme circulating on left-wing social media showed a stylized Mr. Biden behind the wheel of a convertible with the caption Genocidin with Biden.

And Josh Paul, a career State Department official, announced his resignation because of the Biden administrations blind support for one side, which he said was leading to policy decisions that were shortsighted, destructive, unjust and contradictory to the very values we publicly espouse.
Never mind that the teeny, tiny font of the advice on the notecard would be awfully hard to read at the moment we thought a rocket was shooting our way. But it was the first time since I started covering the White House in 1996 that I could remember such a briefing for reporters on Air Force One, a sign of just how uncertain the trip could be.

After all, they were bringing the president and his traveling party into a country at war in broad daylight on live television. Air Force One was to land at Ben-Gurion International Airport well within range of Hamas rockets from Gaza, a place considered hazardous enough that many international airlines have stopped flying there.

Just the day before, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany had to be evacuated from his own plane at the same airport because of air raid sirens and rushed to a shelter. The reporters traveling with him? Ordered to throw themselves down on the tarmac and lie flat until the danger passed.

Just the day before that, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was similarly hustled to a shelter during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The reporters with him were scrambled out of vans and into the stairwell of a building to ride out the possible attack.
President Biden could very well go down in history as the last American president born during World War II and shaped by a view of American power nurtured in the Cold War. No other leader on the world stage today can boast that they sat in the Israeli prime ministers office 50 years ago with Golda Meir, or discussed dismantling Soviet nuclear weapons with Mikhail Gorbachev.

So perhaps it is no surprise that the twin wars in which Mr. Biden has chosen to insert the United States  defending Ukraine as it tries to repel a nuclear-armed invader, and now promising aid to Israel in wiping out the leadership of Hamas  have brought out a passion, emotion and a clarity that is usually missing from the presidents ordinarily flat and meandering speeches.

It rang out on Thursday evening, as Mr. Biden combined the two struggles in his Oval Office address, declaring that while President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Hamas represent different threats, they both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.

Throughout the speech, Mr. Biden toggled between the two crises, making the case that if America does not stand up in both conflicts the result will be more chaos and death and more destruction. That argument reflects his certainty that this is the moment he has trained for his entire political career, a point he often makes when challenged about his age.

His sense of mission explains why, at age 80, he has in the past eight months visited two countries in the midst of active wars. But at the same time he has married his public embraces with private cautions to American allies, while carefully keeping American troops out of both conflicts  so far. He seems determined to prove that for all the critiques that the United States is a divided, declining power, it remains the only nation that can mold events in a world of unpredictable mayhem.

When presidents get into their sweet spot you usually see and hear it, and in the past few weeks you have seen and heard it, said Michael Beschloss, the historian and author of Presidents of War, which traces the rocky history of Mr. Bidens predecessors as they plunged into global conflicts, avoided a few, and sometimes came to regret their choices.

Whether Mr. Biden can bring the American population along, however, is a more unsettled question than at any moment in his presidency, and was the backdrop of his Oval Office address.

Polls show that a growing number of Americans are uneasy with the role of defender of the existing order, and the existing rules, that Mr. Biden describes as the essence of America. In the generation in which he grew up, his Thursday declaration that American leadership is what holds the world together would have been uncontroversial. Today it is a central point of debate, along with his insistence that American alliances are what keep us, America, safe.

For Mr. Biden, the democratic order is at risk if the rest of the world balks at toppling Hamas and neutralizing Russia. But he is finding that a far harder case to make now than in February 2022, when Mr. Putin tried a lightning-strike attack to overthrow an imperfect democracy in Ukraine and restore the Russian empire of Peter the Great.

The initial overwhelming support for Ukraine  one of the few issues that seemed to unify Democrats and Republicans  is clearly shattering, with a growing part of the Republican Party arguing that this is not Americas fight. The slog across the Donbas, and the prospect of a long conflict in which Mr. Putin is waiting to see if America will elect former President Donald J. Trump or someone of similar antipathy to the war effort, only complicates the picture.
As much of a struggle as it was for Mr. Biden to work across party lines with Kevin McCarthy when he was speaker, a Jordan speakership would be a nightmare in the view of the presidents aides. Mr. Jordan, dubbed a legislative terrorist by former Speaker John A. Boehner, a fellow Republican, has long preferred bomb throwing to deal making and could push for Mr. Bidens impeachment, government shutdowns and other moves at odds with the White House.

Mr. Biden has resolutely refused to comment at any length about the chaos in the House, sticking by the old view that it is up to Congress to determine its own leadership, not the executive branch. Still, he has alluded to his attitude before. When Mr. Jordan jumped into the speakership race a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Biden said he would work with whoever won. Some people, I imagine, it could be easier to work with than others, he said, but whoever the speaker is, Ill try to work with.

His aides have likewise refused to be drawn into the Republican civil war. They have the majority in the House, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One on the way to Israel on Tuesday. It is for them to fix. They have to select who the speaker is going to be.

In their more sober moments, White House aides privately lament the disarray in the House because it makes it that much harder to get anything done and certainly does not augur well for the health of American democracy.

In their more partisan moments, they privately savor the spectacle that they believe their adversaries brought on themselves and richly deserve. And in their campaign mind-set, they hope that voters in next years elections remember the contrast between the president as a globe-trotting statesman and House Republicans as an out-of-control kindergarten class.
In his speech, Mr. Biden sought to confront those doubts by embracing what may become a legacy-defining moment in his presidency: the challenge of uniting the country to help people far beyond Americas borders.

Mr. Biden took his case for the new spending directly to the public less than two weeks after Hamas terrorists slaughtered more than 1,400 Israelis and just two days after an explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip killed as many as several hundred Palestinians. Mr. Biden visited Israel in a whirlwind trip on Wednesday, and in his speech, he said flatly that the hospital explosion was not done by the Israelis.

Mr. Biden used the address to remind people of the brutality of the Hamas attacks and the tragedy of civilian deaths in Gaza. But he also used the moment to remind people of the divisions that remain in the United States.

We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism, he said. We must also, without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia. And to all you hurting, those of you who are hurting, I want you to know I see you. You belong. And I want to say this to you: Youre all American.

After the speech, Mr. Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, called the father and the uncle of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American first-grader who was killed in anti-Muslim violence near Chicago. In a statement, the White House said the Bidens pledged to keep speaking out against anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate and violence.
It had to do with prejudice, she said.

Attempts by politicians to link Mideast terror groups and Mexican criminal organizations have at times gained traction over the past two decades, but no substantial evidence has surfaced to support the claim, counterterrorism and insurgency experts said. The two kinds of groups have vastly different objectives and operate in cultural and economic borderland regions that do not share remotely similar dynamics.

With apprehensions at the southern border up overall, U.S. officials this year have recorded an increase in apprehensions of people whose identities match those on the F.B.I. terrorist watch list  160 migrants in the 2023 fiscal year as of July, up from 100 the fiscal year before, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Such rolls constitute a small fraction of the millions of people seeking to cross the southern border and do not significantly measure the terror threat against the United States, terrorism and insurgency experts said. The uptick may be owing in part to the broad nature of the lists, they added, ensnaring people wanted for terrorist activities against their home countries but not aimed at the United States, as well as relatives or associates not accused of wrongdoing.

Although experts do not completely rule out the threat of a terror attack launched from the southern border, they described it as unlikely.

If Mideast terror organizations ever did plan an attack, the northern border may even be more vulnerable, said Bruce Hoffman, professor and director of the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University who specializes in terrorism studies. And such a plot would not necessarily be connected to illegal immigration, he added.

The 9/11 hijackers entered the United States on tourist, business and student visas. The last man to physically cross the border with materials for an explosive  Ahmed Ressam  was arrested in 1999 after he came in from Canada.
Even before Senator Mitt Romney of Utah announced he would not seek re-election next year, he made no secret of his disapproval of the direction of the Republican Party and former President Donald J. Trumps grip on it.

But in a new, deeply reported biography, Romney: A Reckoning, set to be released next week, Mr. Romney goes beyond his broad disdain for the party and gives his unvarnished opinion of some of his fellow Republicans.

In interviews with the books author, McKay Coppins, Mr. Romney, who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, offers frank appraisals that are rare in Washington.

Such tell-all, insider books often foster a practice known as the Washington read, in which boldfaced names immediately flip through the index to find out what damaging assessments may come to haunt them.
Just two weeks after Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election, the lawyer Sidney Powell rallied to the cause of keeping him in office during a news conference at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee.

Standing next to Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Mr. Trumps closest allies, Ms. Powell laid out a preposterous conspiracy theory. She told the world that a voting machine company called Dominion had worked with a liberal financier and Venezuelan intelligence to flip votes away from Mr. Trump to his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The baseless assertions ultimately lay at the heart of a series of federal lawsuits that Ms. Powell filed challenging Mr. Trumps defeat. And even though the Trump campaign later disavowed her, chiding her claims as unbelievable, she soon returned to Mr. Trumps orbit, taking part with him in an Oval Office meeting to discuss a brazen plan to seize the countrys voting machines and effectively rerun the election.

On Thursday, in a move that caught the former president and his advisers by surprise, Ms. Powell pleaded guilty to election interference charges in Georgia and agreed to testify against the other defendants in the case  Mr. Trump among them.
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower-court ruling that delays an effort to redraw Louisianas congressional map, prolonging a bitter clash over the representation of Black voters in the state.

The order temporarily leaves in place a Republican-drawn map that a federal judge had said diluted the power of Black voters while an appeal moves through the lower courts.

Civil rights groups had sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court abruptly canceled a scheduled hearing aimed at drafting a new map for Louisiana. That map was to include two districts in which Black voters represent a large enough share of the population to have the opportunity to select a candidate. The appeals court said that the state legislature should have more time to redraw its own map before a lower court stepped in.

The Supreme Courts order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications, and there were no public dissents.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. A total of 34,500 families (about 140,000 people) are planned to be resettled to the liberated territories of Azerbaijan by 2026, Emin Huseynov, special representative of the President of Azerbaijan in the territories liberated from Armenian occupation (except Shusha district), which are part of the Karabakh economic region, told reporters, Trend reports.

"Under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, the I State Program of Great Return was approved, in accordance with which our former IDPs have already returned and settled in their native lands in several settlements. This process continues," he emphasized.

Further, Huseynov noted that the reconstruction and construction work in Azerbaijan's Karabakh should be carried out using alternative energy sources in accordance with the most modern standards of urban planning, in more environmentally friendly ways, and in accordance with the concept of a "green" zone.
A U.S. Navy warship in the northern Red Sea on Thursday shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched from Yemen that the Pentagon said might have been headed toward Israel.

We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.

The missiles and drones were launched by pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen amid a flurry of drone attacks against American troops in Iraq and Syria over the past three days, General Ryder said. The incidents underscored the risks that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas could spiral into a wider war.

Military analysts were trying to determine who carried out the drone attacks, General Ryder said, but Iran-backed militias have in the past conducted drone and rocket attacks against the 2,500 American troops based in Iraq and the 900 troops in Syria.

Since Hamass terrorist attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, the Biden administration has rushed two aircraft carriers and additional troops to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel to deter Iran and its proxies in the region from engaging in a regional war.

Israel has responded to the Hamas attacks with airstrikes and a complete siege of Gaza, which the group controls.

Senior Biden administration officials and American commanders have expressed fears that the United States could get dragged into the conflict if the militias attacked U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.

General Ryder sought to stay on that theme on Thursday despite what he acknowledged was an uptick in drone attacks in Iraq and Syria in the past few days.

Right now, this conflict is contained between Israel and Hamas, and were going to do everything we can to ensure deterrence in the region, so that this does not become a broader conflict, General Ryder said.

Iranian officials, however, have publicly warned that new fronts against Israel could open in the region if its offensive on Gaza continued.

A deputy commander of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Gholamhossein Gheybparvar, said in a speech on Thursday that Iran-backed militia in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon  known as an axis of resistance  were ready to strike Israel if its ground forces invaded Gaza.

On Wednesday, Irans state television aired a segment detailing how such attacks could unfold.

The report opened with the countrys supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that if the war continued nobody could stop the forces of the resistance, referring to a network of militia groups across the region supported by Iran.

Houthis in Yemen from the south, Syrian and Iraqi militias from the east, and Hezbollah in Lebanon from the north would coordinate to attack Israel with missiles and drones to create a siege from every side, the report claimed. The segment said that the Houthis had missiles with a range of more than 1,200 miles.

The report said Iraqi militia groups had taken positions alongside Syrian militias near the Golan Heights, an area Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and later annexed.

Irans state television routinely broadcasts propaganda and hyperbole, and the military threats could be part of a strategy to fuel growing anxiety in the region.

At the Pentagon on Thursday, General Ryder said that any armed American response to this weeks attacks, should one occur, will come at a time and a manner of our choosing.

In March, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that a self-destructing drone of Iranian origin killed a U.S. contractor and injured another contractor and five U.S. service members in an attack on a maintenance facility on a coalition base in northeast Syria.

President Biden retaliated by ordering the Pentagon to carry out airstrikes against facilities in eastern Syria used by groups affiliated with Irans Revolutionary Guards.

The latest spate of attacks continued on Wednesday morning when U.S. and coalition forces at the Al Tanf base in southern Syria fired on two drones, destroying one, while the other slammed into the base, causing minor injuries, General Ryder said.

About 200 American troops are stationed at Al Tanf, whose main role is training Syrian militias to fight the Islamic State.

At the same time on Wednesday, alert sirens wailed at Al Asad Air Base, a sprawling installation in western Iraq. Though no drone or rocket attacks happened, a civilian contractor, whom the military did not identify, suffered a heart attack while sheltering and died soon afterward, General Ryder said.

On Wednesday, the militarys Central Command said that it had intercepted several drones in Iraq in the previous 24 hours that were menacing American military and other allied personnel in the country.

American forces attacked two drones at Al Asad, destroying one and damaging the other, resulting in minor injuries to coalition troops, the command said in a statement. Separately, in northern Iraq, the military destroyed one drone, resulting in no injuries, the command said.

There were unconfirmed reports on social media of additional drone attacks in Syria late Thursday.

Clearly, this is an uptick in terms of the types of drone activity weve seen in Iraq and Syria, General Ryder said.

Pentagon officials warned that the cruise-missile and drone attacks could augur an escalation of violence that could endanger American forces in the region and potentially draw them into a conflict.

In November 2021, American and Israeli officials said that an armed drone strike a month earlier against Al Tanf was Iranian retaliation for Israeli airstrikes in Syria.

The attack caused no casualties, but it represented the first time Iran had directed a military strike against the United States in response to an attack by Israel.
San Franciscans dont like outsiders bashing their city, but theyre also cleareyed about its biggest problems: homelessness, rampant drug use and leaders who cant seem to fix those issues.

So how does San Francisco turn its lackluster image around?

Some wealthy locals say the way forward is a brand refresh, and they are throwing their support behind a new $4 million ad campaign that will promote San Francisco as a hub of innovation and creativity.

The slogan? It All Starts Here.

Its meant to remind San Franciscans  and everyone else  that the city of cable cars, Levis jeans, the Summer of Love, Gap Inc., Uber, Harvey Milk and the Golden State Warriors still has an exciting future ahead of it.
(Sidney Powell pleaded guilty on Thursday morning to six misdemeanor counts instead of facing a criminal trial that was to begin next week. Read our latest story.)

Few defenders of Donald J. Trump promoted election fraud theories after his 2020 defeat as stridently as Sidney K. Powell. In high-profile appearances, often alongside other members of the Trump legal team, she pushed conspiracies involving Venezuela, Cuba and China, as well as George Soros, Hugo Chavez and the Clintons, while baselessly claiming that voting machines had flipped millions of votes.

But now Ms. Powell, who next week will be one of the first defendants to go to trial in the Georgia racketeering case against Mr. Trump and 17 of his allies, is claiming through her lawyer that she actually did not represent President Trump or the Trump campaign after the election.

That claim is undercut by Ms. Powells own past words, as well as those of Mr. Trump  and there is ample video evidence of her taking part in news conferences, including one where Rudolph W. Giuliani, then Mr. Trumps personal lawyer, introduced her as one of the senior lawyers representing Mr. Trump and his campaign.
A State Department official in the bureau that oversees arms transfers resigned this week in protest of the Biden administrations decision to continue sending weapons and ammunition to Israel as it lays siege to Gaza in its war with Hamas.

In his resignation letter, Josh Paul, who has been the director of congressional and public affairs for the State Departments Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for over 11 years, said the Biden administrations blind support for one side was leading to policy decisions that were shortsighted, destructive, unjust and contradictory to the very values we publicly espouse.

The response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people, he wrote, adding, I fear we are repeating the same mistakes we have made these past decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer.

In an interview, Mr. Paul said that Israels cutting off of water, food, medical care and electricity to the Gaza Strip, a region of two million people, should prompt protections in a number of longstanding federal laws intended to keep American weapons out of the hands of human rights violators. But those legal guardrails are failing, he said.
After finishing a surprising first in Argentinas presidential primaries in August, Javier Milei grabbed a microphone in front of a raucous crowd and thanked Conan, Murray, Milton, Robert and Lucas.

Who else? he said. My four-legged children.

Mr. Milei, a far-right libertarian who is the favorite in Argentinas presidential election on Sunday, would head to the countrys presidential offices, the Casa Rosada, not with a spouse and children, but with five mastiffs he has long called his children.

He is, of course, speaking figuratively. Technically speaking, however, those five dogs are not traditional offspring of any animal. They are genetic copies of Mr. Mileis former dog, also named Conan, and were created in a laboratory in upstate New York.

Mr. Mileis five cloned dogs have become objects of fascination in Argentinas presidential election and a window into his unusual candidacy. For months the national debate has revolved around his ascent, his eccentric personality and his radical economic proposals  like eliminating Argentinas central bank and replacing its currency with the U.S. dollar  to save the nation of 46 million from one of its worst financial crises in decades.
Alejandro Encinas, the Mexican governments top human rights official and head of the truth commission investigating the 2014 disappearance of 43 students, resigned Thursday, stepping away from one of the countrys worst human rights atrocities in recent history as it remained unsolved.

Mr. Encinas, the under secretary for human rights, had served in the role since December 2018, and said he was leaving government to work on the campaign of Claudia Sheinbaum, the governing partys candidate in next years presidential elections.

In a message posted on X on Thursday, Mr. Encinas thanked President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his colleagues, and said, My respect and gratitude to all the victims, families, social movements and organizations for the trust placed in my management.

A longtime friend and political ally of Mexicos president, Mr. Encinas has long been at odds with the Mexican armed forces, and has been one of the few people willing to criticize the military from inside the administration.
Chinas military has been taking increasingly dangerous actions to deter U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region, including maneuvers to intimidate American aircraft, while also bolstering its nuclear capabilities, the Pentagon said in a report released on Thursday.

The United States has recorded more coercive and risky air intercepts by the Chinese military in the past two years than in the previous decade, the Defense Department said in its annual report to Congress on Chinas military might.

At the same time, China is continuing to build up its strategic nuclear arsenal and had most likely amassed 500 nuclear warheads as of May, the Pentagon said, an increase of about 100 over last years estimate.

Risky Maneuvers

Since the fall of 2021, the Pentagon report says, the United States has recorded more than 180 intercepts of U.S. aircraft by Chinese military forces in the region.
Canada has withdrawn two-thirds of its diplomats based in India after that country said it would revoke their diplomatic immunity this Friday, further ratcheting up tension between the two countries.

India and Canada have been at increasingly bitter odds since the assertion last month by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Indian government agents had played a role in the killing in British Columbia of a Sikh separatist who was a Canadian citizen.

Melanie Joly, the Canadian foreign minister, told reporters on Thursday that India had offered no good reason for revoking the diplomats immunity, which she called a violation of international law.

Canada had been in talks with India to avert the effective expulsion. Ms. Joly declined to discuss the status of those negotiations as she condemned Indias decision as a blow to the global agreement that ensures the safety of diplomats.
As the Israel-Hamas war continues, its rising civilian death toll has raised more questions about what is allowed under the international laws that govern the waging of war. These rules are remarkably clear in some areas, as I wrote last week, and experts said they had been gravely breached by Hamas in its massacres of civilians and taking of hostages, and by Israel when it announced a complete siege of Gaza that cut off water, food and fuel to over 2 million inhabitants.

In the intervening days, two other legal issues have come to the fore: Hamass alleged use of civilians as human shields in the Gaza Strip, and Israels order on Friday that all civilians must evacuate from Northern Gaza.

War is politically and emotionally complex, and this conflict is no exception. Tuesdays blast at the Ahli Arab Hospital compound in Gaza City  which Palestinian militant groups blamed on Israel and Israel blamed on one of them  underscored the horrific human toll of modern warfare.

It remains helpful to remember, amid the sorrow and anger over the ongoing violence, that the core principles of humanitarian law are simple. Civilians must be protected. They cannot legally be targets of violence, or disproportionately harmed by it. And those obligations apply to all parties involved in the fighting, even if the other side has violated them.

Human shields are still protected civilians.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told President Biden that Hamas is perpetrating a double war crime, targeting our civilians while hiding behind their civilians.

The use of human shields is considered a war crime as well as a violation of humanitarian law.

But even if one side intentionally jeopardizes civilians in this way  either by forcing them to remain near military targets or by placing military targets in or adjacent to the same buildings as civilians  those noncombatants are still entitled to full protections under humanitarian law, experts say. That means that when attacking Hamas, Israel must still weigh the proportionality of any harm to human shields and other nearby civilians. If the harm to them is disproportionate to the military objective, the attack is illegal under international law.

Theres really only one way in which a civilian can lose that immunity from attack or their other protections become weakened, and that is direct participation in hostilities, said Janina Dill, an Oxford University professor and the co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict.

Even if Hamas uses civilian homes for military purposes, or places weapons or fighters in tunnels underneath civilian buildings, it would not necessarily be legal for Israel to attack those targets, said Avichai Mandelblit, a former chief military advocate general of the Israeli military and former attorney general.

Of course, there is the question of proportionality, he said. If you want a military gain, you have to put it side by side with the collateral damage.

Ghazi Hammad, a member of Hamass political bureau, told The Times reporter Yousur Al-Hlou by phone on Thursday that the organization does not use human shields. This is fake news, he said.

You know that Gaza is very small and densely populated, and therefore Israel considers any place to be a residential place, he added later in a WhatsApp message.

Civilian displacement: threat or warning?

Last week, on Friday morning, Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of civilians to evacuate from northern Gaza within 24 hours, apparently ahead of a planned ground invasion.

The United Nations warned that this would cause a humanitarian catastrophe, and a U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said it had strongly appealed for the order to be rescinded in order to avoid making what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.

The 24-hour deadline came and went, and Israel acknowledged more time was needed to move so many people. Still, it has continued to bombard both northern Gaza and some of the southern areas to which it had urged civilians to flee.

Gaza health officials said on Thursday that at least 3,785 people had been killed since Oct. 7, including 1,524 children, while Gazas government press office said more than a million Palestinians in the enclave had been displaced.

In statements last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Norwegian Refugee Council described the order as unlawful.

The Israeli military demand that 1.2 million civilians in northern Gaza relocate to its south within 24 hours, absent of any guarantees of safety or return, would amount to the war crime of forcible transfer, said Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement: The instructions issued by the Israeli authorities for the population of Gaza City to immediately leave their homes, coupled with the complete siege explicitly denying them food, water, and electricity, are not compatible with international humanitarian law.

The best way to understand the legal issues surrounding the evacuation order is by considering the difference between a warning about a future lawful attack and a threat, said Adil Haque, an international law expert at Rutgers University.

International humanitarian law actually requires attacking forces to warn civilians of planned attacks if possible, Haque said. A threat is very different. A threat is when you inform the civilian population that youre about to launch unlawful attacks, indiscriminate attacks, attacks that dont take precautions for civilians, disproportionate attacks.

If humanitarian warnings that help protect civilians from carefully targeted attacks are at one end of the legal spectrum, then the war crime of forced displacement, in which threats and other coercive measures are used to remove civilians from their homes and prevent them from returning, is at the other.

Dill, the Oxford professor, said that the difference between evacuation and forced transfer depended on whether the act would actually benefit the security of the civilians. So evacuating civilians into further peril, in some senses, is an indication that that exception doesnt apply, she said.

Some Gaza residents have said they fear that the order to relocate could be the start of another permanent mass displacement like the nakba of 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled their homes in present-day Israel during the war surrounding the nations establishment. But it is too soon to tell when or how they might be able to return.

Hammad, the member of Hamass political bureau, acknowledged that Hamas had encouraged civilians to reject Israels order to flee their homes. But he added that we did not put up barricades and force people to stay.

Mandelblit, the former chief military advocate general, said that the evacuation would be legal only if implemented properly.

One legal requirement was that civilians had to be allowed to return after hostilities ended, he said. The other conditions should be humanitarian corridors, telling you where you can go safely, he said. You also need to include the basic civilian humanitarian needs.

When I spoke to him on Tuesday, he said that he believed that was happening, noting a statement that day by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel had agreed to develop a plan for allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza. On Wednesday, President Biden announced that he had secured Israels commitment to allow aid into the territory.

However, no aid has yet arrived. As essential resources dwindle, Gazans have been forced to drink polluted water to survive.

Yuval Shany, an international law expert at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that he believed the order was lawful, noting that communities in Israel had also been evacuated from border areas at risk of fighting. Michael Schmitt, a professor of international law at the University of Reading, also said that he thought that the order was a lawful warning.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment.

Civilians protections remain in place even if they do not follow a lawful evacuation order. And some people simply cannot move. Dr. Muhammad Abu Salima, the director of Gaza Citys Al Shifa Hospital, the territorys largest medical complex, has said that it is impossible to evacuate the hospital despite the Israeli orders to do so, because there is nowhere in Gaza that could accept their patients in their intensive care, neonatal intensive care, and surgery units.

Theres no obligation for civilians to evacuate even if they get an evacuation order, Dill said. Not displacing themselves, not heeding these warnings, not heeding the evacuation orders doesnt affect their status and their entitlement to immunity from attack and protection at all.

Yousur Al-Hlou contributed reporting.
From certain corners of Commercial Street in East London, a busy thoroughfare that runs through the heart of where Jack the Ripper killed five women more than a century ago, the city can look like it did in 1888, with narrow alleys snaking their way between Victorian-era buildings.

Go down the street, though, and the views turn unmistakably modern: skyscrapers, glassy office buildings lit up with workers eating dinner at their desks, a Peloton store and expensive apartments.

The changed landscape and tall buildings do not deter hundreds of people on most nights from taking guided tours that follow the killers footsteps through the neighborhood known as Whitechapel. And much like the city around them, the stories theyre told in 2023 about those murders can feel at turns modern, and unchanged since 1888.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The average monthly salary for women in Azerbaijan last year made up 68.1 percent of the average monthly salary for men, while in 2015, this figure was 53.9 percent, the Chairperson of the State Committee for Family, Women, and Children Affairs Bahar Muradova said at the VI Congress of Azerbaijani Women, Trend reports.

She pointed out significant increase of the role and importance of women in the business world over the last 20 years.

"The ability of women to exercise their rights in the economy and the business environment enhances their role in strengthening the economic pillars of society. To support entrepreneurial activities, especially in small and medium-sized businesses, the Entrepreneurship Development Fund under the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan provided 140 women entrepreneurs with a total of 9.9 million manat ($5.8 million) in preferential loans from January through August 2023," Muradova added.

The VI Congress of Azerbaijani women is held today in Baku, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of great leader Heydar Aliyev, who laid the foundation of the women's movement in Azerbaijan, as well as the 25th anniversary of the first Women's Congress of independent Azerbaijan.

The congress gathered about 600 women from all regions of Azerbaijan.

The event is also attended by deputies, representatives of state and non-governmental organizations, foreign embassies and international organizations from all regions of Azerbaijan, prominent public and political figures, as well as officials from Turkiye, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

Based on the results of discussions and proposals, a decision will be made, and an appeal by Azerbaijani women to the head of state will be voiced.
Follow our live coverage for the House Speaker Vote.

Shortly after Representative Nick LaLota, a first-term Republican from New York, voted against Representative Jim Jordans bid for speaker, the threats began pouring in.

If I see your face, I will whip all the hair out of your head you scumbag, read one expletive-laden email.

The wife of Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska has begun sleeping with a loaded gun after receiving increasingly menacing anonymous calls and texts. Representative Drew Ferguson of Georgia on Thursday joined a growing cadre of holdouts against Mr. Jordans candidacy who said they had received death threats  and added that members of his family had become targets as well.

When the pressure campaigns and attacks on fellow members ramped up, it became clear to me that the House Republican conference does not need a bully as the speaker, Mr. Ferguson said in a statement explaining his vote. He told Republicans in a closed-door meeting on Thursday that the threats had prompted him to dispatch a sheriff to his daughters school.
The Russian authorities have detained an editor working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an American broadcaster funded by the United States government, on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent, the media company said on Thursday.

The editor, Alsu Kurmasheva, who holds both Russian and United States citizenship, is the second American journalist to be detained in Russia this year. In March, Russian special services detained Evan Gershkovich, a Russian correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, on espionage charges, which he and The Journal have denied. He remains in a high-security prison in Moscow awaiting trial.

Ms. Kurmashevas detention, in Kazan, a major city about 500 miles east of Moscow, is likely to further raise suspicions that the Kremlin now views American citizens on its soil as high-profile assets that can be traded for high-value Russians held in United States custody.

Another hostage has been taken, Dmitri Kozelev, a prominent Russian journalist, said in his channel on the Telegram messaging app.
American intelligence agencies have assessed that a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday killed 100 to 300 people, a more conservative estimate than that given by officials in Gaza, and that the hospital suffered light damage.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza gave the death toll as 471, revising its earlier assertion of 500 dead.

The unclassified assessment drafted by U.S. intelligence agencies on Wednesday cautioned that the casualty assessments could change.

U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the latest information, said the death toll was likely at the low end of that estimate. But even if it is revised downward further, officials emphasized that the blast had still caused a significant loss of life. U.S. officials did not say what intelligence led them to their estimated death toll.

Palestinian officials have blamed an Israeli airstrike for the blast, an assertion that was disputed by the Israel Defense Forces, which said it was caused by an errant rocket fired by the armed Palestinian faction Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Neither sides account could be independently verified.

The U.S. assessment, which concurs that Israel was not responsible for the blast at Ahli Arab hospital, highlights how much U.S. officials still do not know about the blast at the hospital, what exactly caused it and how many lives were lost there. Officials were examining the reports of relatively light damage to the hospital and adjacent structures to try to find clues about what precisely happened.

The war between Israel and Hamas has also spawned so much false or misleading information online  much of it intentional, though not all  that it is often hard to ascertain what is actually happening on the ground.

The U.S. intelligence agencies assessment that Israel was not responsible for the explosion was based on videos collected by civilians, satellite imagery, missile activity tracked by infrared sensors and other data. But intelligence officials cautioned that they do not fully understand what happened at the hospital and are continuing to collect information. The unclassified report reflects U.S. officials evolving knowledge of the events.

Israel Probably Did Not Bomb Gaza Strip Hospital, said the unclassified intelligence assessment drafted on Wednesday. We judge that Israel was not responsible for an explosion that killed hundreds of civilians yesterday [17 October] at the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip.

The unclassified documents are written in the style of the U.S. spy agencies, full of standard caveats that their understanding of events may change.

The United States has infrared sensors, which are both satellite and aircraft based, that can determine the launch sites of a variety of rockets and missiles. That technology has proved critical to the U.S. assessment, which does not lay blame for the blast on Israel.

On Wednesday, U.S. officials said the intelligence indicated that there had been a launch of a rocket or missile from Palestinian fighter positions within Gaza. But they were uncertain about how an errant Palestinian rocket could have caused so much loss of life at the hospital.

In Thursdays assessment, the intelligence agencies said they continue to work to corroborate whether the explosion was caused by a failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. The U.S. officials said that Israeli officials had intercepted communications that indicated some militants in Gaza believed the explosion was caused by an errant rocket or missile launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

U.S. intelligence agencies have reported to the White House and Congress their assessment that there was only light structural damage to the hospital following the blast, and no impact craters at the hospital. Two structures near the main hospital took minor damage to their roofs, but remained intact.

On Wednesday, U.S. officials said they were looking closely at an explosion next to the hospital in its courtyard or parking lot, to see if that was responsible for some or much of the loss of life. It is possible that a rocket hit a parking lot near the hospital where people were gathered, but American officials are trying to learn more.

A freelance videographer working for The New York Times who visited the scene the day after the explosion filmed footage showing a small impact crater. Other photos and video footage show the same, including the Israeli militarys aerial image. It is as yet unclear whether the crater is related to the explosion and if any conclusions can be drawn from it.
On one side of the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza sit more than 100 trucks packed with desperately needed food, water and medical supplies. On the other wait more than two million Gazans now scraping by on dwindling stocks of basic human necessities.

Between them stand a series of locked gates and fences topped with razor wire, and nearly a week of diplomatic wrangling that finally appears to be bearing results. Officials and aid workers on Thursday were hammering out the logistics of opening the gates, saying that a United Nations-led deal had laid the groundwork to allow trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Egypt, offering the renewed promise of relief to the besieged enclave.

Aid organizations were told that the crossing would open on Friday morning, according to an aid official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The deal, officials said, includes the U.N. flag being raised at the crossing and international observers inspecting aid trucks before they enter Gaza. The arrangement is meant to satisfy demands by Israel, which is at war with Hamas, that none of the aid reach the group that controls Gaza and that the shipments not be used to smuggle weapons.

Opening the border crossing at the Gazan city of Rafah  the sole official passage between the territory and Egypt  has taken on particular urgency with the enclave sinking into a deepening humanitarian crisis.
As Israel prepares a possible ground invasion of Gaza to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the enclave, many are now turning to see what action Hezbollah, the armed group on Israels northern border, will take. For decades, Hezbollah has been a significant force in Lebanon, wielding both political power and military strength  all while engaging in tit-for-tat skirmishes with its southern enemy, Israel.

What is going on?

Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire almost daily since Oct. 7, when Hamas mounted attacks in Israel that killed 1,400 people, according to the Israeli authorities. With Israel threatening a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, many in the region fear that the fighting with Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, could also escalate into a war involving Lebanon, too. This would leave Israel fighting on two fronts, a situation it wants to avoid.

Israels northern border has become increasingly tense: On Monday, the Israeli military said it would evacuate 28 communities near Lebanon, affecting about 10,000 people. At least three Lebanese civilians have died over the past week, including the Reuters journalist, Issam Abdallah. One Israeli civilian has been killed. A number of fighters from Hezbollah and Hamas also have been killed.

Mohamad Srour, the mayor of the Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab, has said that Israeli bombings have struck homes, ambulances and a school for people with special needs, leading to injuries. At least 3,650 civilians displaced by the fighting have so far been registered in Tyre, a Lebanese city close to the border with Israel, and in recent days, U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon have begun to shelter some civilians.
Israel told approximately one million civilians last Friday to evacuate northern Gaza to areas like Khan Younis. The line of demarcation was Wadi Gaza, a strip of wetlands that stretches latitudinally across the territory.

Khan Younis is well south of that marker, but the area has seen numerous airstrikes, even as it struggles to accommodate Gazans fleeing the north. Satellite images showed damage from airstrikes around the southern Gaza Strip that was not as extensive as in the northern part, but still significant.

Photographs taken in and around Khan Younis on Monday and Tuesday show a desperate struggle to survive in Gaza, where about half the population are children and teenagers. These images were taken before the explosion on Tuesday near the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, north of the demarcation line, which, Palestinian officials said, killed hundreds.

Many of those displaced from northern Gaza crowded into hospitals and schools in the south. Others were hosted by friends and relatives already struggling to find enough food and water for themselves.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain on Thursday began a two-day visit to Israel and the region to demonstrate British backing for the Israeli government, call for de-escalation of the conflict and press for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza.

Mr. Sunak met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, during the trip, which followed a visit by President Biden on Wednesday. The British prime minister aims to build on the commitment that the U.S. said it had secured from Israels government to allow food, water and medicine into the Gaza Strip through Egypt.

In response to the brutal attacks and hostage-taking on Oct. 7 by members of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, Israel has bombarded the impoverished enclave with airstrikes, sealed off the territory to imports of vital supplies, and told 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to evacuate south, as Israeli forces prepare for a ground invasion.

Gazas more than two million people are rapidly running out of water, food, fuel, electricity and medicine, hundreds of thousands are displaced, and many have no shelter.
Norma, once a powerful storm that brought strong winds and heavy rain to portions of Baja California Sur over the weekend, was downgraded to a tropical depression early Monday as it was forecast to move inland along the state of Sinaloa, in western Mexico, forecasters said.

Norma made landfall on Saturday as Category 1 hurricane packing 80-mile-per-hour winds in Baja California Sur in the town of Todos Santos, about 47 miles north of the resort city of Cabo San Lucas.

The storm, which had maximum winds of 35 m.p.h on Monday, was expected to move east with little change in strength before it reaches the coast. The storm will begin dissipating later in the day or overnight, the National Hurricane Center said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Women make up 52 percent of the nearly 1 million Azerbaijanis who became refugees and IDPs as a result of the first Karabakh war, Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of Azerbaijan Sabina Aliyeva said at the VI Congress of Azerbaijani Women, Trend reports.

"At the same time, out of nearly 4,000 of our compatriots missing, 267 were women. Unfortunately, despite repeated appeals, Armenia has still not provided any information about their fate. It is a fact that during all ongoing armed conflicts, wars, and natural disasters, the greatest difficulties fall on women and children as vulnerable population groups," Aliyeva added.

The VI Congress of Azerbaijani women is held today in Baku, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of great leader Heydar Aliyev, who laid the foundation of the women's movement in Azerbaijan, as well as the 25th anniversary of the first Women's Congress of independent Azerbaijan.

The congress gathered about 600 women from all regions of Azerbaijan.

The event is also attended by deputies, representatives of state and non-governmental organizations, foreign embassies and international organizations from all regions of Azerbaijan, prominent public and political figures, as well as officials from Turkiye, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

Based on the results of discussions and proposals, a decision will be made, and an appeal by Azerbaijani women to the head of state will be voiced.
Kurt Wenner, a former NASA illustrator turned professional artist, specializes in chalk-drawn three-dimensional illusions that seem carved into the pavement rather than drawn on it.

Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, Kurt Wenner attended both the Rhode Island School of Design and Art Center in Pasadena and was quickly recruited to work for NASA while studying at the Art Center. There, he was among the few highly skilled artists whose work was done solely by hand. Eventually, Kurt eft the agency and moved to Europe to study some of the worlds greatest works of art. Disappointed to find no class on the principles of classicism, the young artist came up with his own self-learning program which involved spending countless hours drawing from the magnificent art collection of the Vatican Museums and the Pantheon.

Photo: Kurt Wenner

Every morning, Kurt would draw some of the worlds most famous works of art and sell them to tourists in order to support himself. It was during this period that he discovered the world of pavement illusions. One day, on his way to the Vatican to see the paintings that had become his inspiration, Wenner passed by artists creating images with chalk on the pavement. After being invited to try his hand at it, he spent only a few months developing a new art form known as 3D pavement art.

Inspired by a wide range of subjects, Kurt Wenner creates elaborate pavement artworks that, admired from just the right angle, have an impressive depth that makes them look sculpted into the pavement. The American artist is generally regarded as the inventor of 3D pavement art and his works have mesmerized audiences in over 30 countries around the world.

Mexicos Playa del Carmen is home to a 27,000 square foot (2,500 square meters) exhibit space dedicated solely to Kurt Wenners incredible artworks.



For more impressive optical illusions, check out the paintings of Sergey Artemyev, the trompe loeil frescoes of Gonzalo Borondo, and SCAFs insane graffiti illusions.
Loren Dealy Mahler

Invariant adds Loren Dealy Mahler to its strategic communications and public affairs practice as a senior director. Dealy Mahler most recently founded and ran Dealy Mahler Strategies. She has also served as VP, corporate communications at MWW and VP, communications and external affairs at IT services and consulting company Cipherloc (now SideChannel). Earlier in her career, she was director of legislative affairs for the National Security Council and director of communications for the Department of Defenses Office of Legislative Affairs. At Invariant, she will work to expand the agencys portfolio of work across defense, national security, and cybersecurity. Working across the federal government, Capitol Hill, communications agencies, and with start-ups makes her uniquely qualified to help clients bridge the gap between corporate communications, public affairs, and government affairs, said Matthew Gallagher, head of Invariants strategic communications team in Washington, DC.

Jon Hukill

FOVNDRY, which offers public relations, marketing and creative services, brings on Jon Hukill as PR director. Hukill joins FOVNDRY from kglobal, where he was most recently a vice president, managing the agencys public relations team and specializing in public affairs campaigns for private industry, trade associations and nonprofit organizations. He was previously executive editor at Sayfie Media, a state politics digital media company. In his new post, Hukill leads FOVNDRYs PR team as well as contributing to the firms business development efforts and other agency operations. Jon is an experienced PR professional who will help take our growing public relations practice area to the next level, said FOVNDRY founder and CEO Laura Van Eperen

Rebecca Rolnick Knaack

Photo credit: Sara Knobel

Metro Public Relations, an entertainment strategic communications agency, promotes Rebecca Rolnick Knaack to senior VP of entertainment. Knaack has been with the firm since 2017 and was previously a vice president. She previously worked in the Television department at PMK*BNC in the Television and was also at The Gersh Agency. She will continue to lead Metros Television & Film division and is tasked with streamlining client experience and campaign management. She continues to be instrumental in building a highly skilled team and helping to grow our roster of TV film, and streaming clients. Elevating her is a natural step in our evolution," said Metro founder Tess Finkle and CEO Laura Michael.
All roads led to Cork's Curraheen Park on Saturday for the final of the Bar One Racing Irish Laurels, where there was one big Offaly dog of interest, against a serious field, all vying to take the title from last years winner Good Cody. The first round of one of Mullingars top events the RPGTV Fair Warrior Open 400 kicked off along with the final of the Yvonne Barry Open 600 in Shelbourne. Some tasty Offaly winners around the tracks in what was another super week of greyhound racing.



Early week racing

Another open unraced stake got underway in Enniscorthy, The Lord Unraced Stake won last year by Angry Uncle for Peter Cronin. Five heats all won in competitive time with Droopys Comrade setting the standard for Rathangan trainer Frazer Black in 28.82 by an ever increasing sixteen lengths at odds of 1/2 fav.



Friday Racing.



The two sem-finals of the Time Greyhound Nutrition A3 stake were the two feature races in a decent card in Kilkenny. Long Cascade won the first for Brian Doyle in 29.17 (10 slow) by two lengths at 5/2. The second semi went to Killinure King for Thomas Buggy in a faster 28.83 (10 slow) by one length at 1/1 fav. Limerick staged the semifinals of the Arachas Corporate Brokers LTD A1 600 stake. Newport Pier was first home in the first semi for the Mullins - Curtin syndicate in 32.47 by three lengths at 6/4 fav. The remaining heat went to Cheero one hundred of a second slower in 32.48 by three lengths also at 6/4 fav with Mathew Harte training.



Newbridge held the final of a new stake that has been going through the rounds over the last few weeks, the Bosco Gleeson Memorial A2 525 stake. The 2.3k first prize went to the form dog as Da Quiet Syd (Droopys Sydney - Saoirse Mo Croi) for the Keeping It Civil Syndicate in 28.94 by two lengths at 2/1. Two Offaly winners on the supporting card, in the first race, an S6 sprint, Aon Sceal Eile had his first career win for Geashill owners Edmund and Rebecca Garry in 17.98 by six lengths at 2/1. In an A4 race, Lady Bambi won for Edenderry trainer Timmy Slevin in 29.17 for his grandson Taylor Kearney by two lengths at 2/1.



Saturday Racing.



A sensational night of racing in Cork with ten races with impressive prizes from 30k, 10k to 2k. A huge crowd turned up on the night to watch a super nights racing with the spotlight being on the final of the Bar One Racing Irish Laurels. Six top class hounds went to traps with the focus being on Offaly dog Carrick Aldo for Edenderry owner Thomas Glynn. Sadly Carrick Aldo was never really involved in the race after missing his break finishing in a gallant fifth. The winner was a surprise 8/1 winner for for champion trainer Graham Holland as High Trend (Droopys Sydney - Beaming Smasher) stopped the clock in 28.3, by one length, with a substantial cheque of 30k going his way. Easy Razzle finished second for John Linehan and won a pot of 8k. In third place was Role Model for Owen McKenna and won a purse of 4K. In the final of the Michael (Bart) Leahy Memorial A2 stake, Holland was also to the fore here as Romeo Kingpin (Superman - Buckos Lass) won the 10k first placed prize for owner David Firminger in 28.42 by a neck at 6/4 fav. As well as the two big stakes finals Holland also provided another four winners on the night worth 2k each in what proved to be a very lucrative night for the south Tipperary trainer

In Galway, in the final of the Liam Brussels Memorial A4 stake, Heathlawn Alice (Good News - Burgess Sarah) was first back in kennels in 28.98 (10 slow) by two lengths with 1.8k going to owner Rose Kelly. One Offaly winner on the supporting card, in an ON3 unraced event, Fias Choice won for Birr owner Kevin Kelly in 29.27 (10 slow) by seven lengths.

Mullingar runs two major stakes annually, the Cesarewitch over 600 yards and the Fair Warrior over 400 yards and on Saturday the first round of the latter got underway kindly sponsored by RPGTV. Six heats all trying to get their name on the trophy won last year by Airport Flying for David Murray. Two Offaly winners in the heats, heat three went to Glenfircal for Ballinagar owner Liam Kirley in 21.43 (20 slow) by three lengths at 4/5 fav. Heat six went to So Its Rapid for Birr owner Paul Pardy with Vincent McKenna training in 21.29 (20 slow) by two lengths which was joint fastest time of the heats with Scarborough Fair for Keith Powell.

In Shelbourne Park, in the final of the Yvonne Barry Track Bookmaker Open 600, Droopys Nice One (Droopys Sydney - Droopys Dance) won the 5k first prize for Kilkenny trainer Murt Leahy in 32.22 by six lengths at 7/2. The first round of the Paddy Merriman Memorial A1 stake started this week. Now in its second year and run in honour of one of Croghans favourite sons and a great greyhound man, the greatly missed Paddy Merriman. This valuable stake was won last year by Undulation for County Down trainer Brendan Mathews. Eight heats with Whyate Bonnylad setting the fastest time for Robert Gleeson in 28.41 by three lengths at 2/1



Sunday Racing.



One Offaly winner at the matinee meeting in Mullingar, in an A3 contest, Lingrawn Buzz was first home for Moneygall owner Liam Jones in 29.53 (50 slow) by three lengths at 3/1.

At the evening meeting in Clonmel, in the final of the Burgess Bucks @ Stud ON2 unraced bitch stake, the 2.1k purse went to Good Sahara (Good Cody- Jaytee Sahara) for Maria and John Kennedy in 28.84 (10 slow) at 4/5 fav by four lengths.

Upcoming Events.

Friday, Kilkenny, final of the Time Greyhound Nutrition A3 stake. Saturday, final of the Arachas Corporate Brokers LTD A1 600 in Limerick. Second round of the Paddy Merriman Memorial A1 in Shelbourne.

Sunday: Quarter-finals of the RPGTV Fair Warrior Open 400 in Mullingar.

Tribune Offaly dog of the week.

So Its Rapid gets the nod this week for setting the joint fastest winning time of 21.29 (20 slow) in the first round of the RPGTV Fair Warrior in Mullingar on Saturday for Birr owner Paul Pardy.

Offaly Winners.

Six Offaly winners this week. Well done to all connections.
Uisce Eireann and Clean Coasts are urging the public to continue to Think Before You Flush as alarmingly a recent survey has revealed an increase in the disposal of wipes and other sanitary products down the toilet. Those aged under 35 are almost twice as likely to dispose of products down the toilet, compared to those aged over 35, and almost three times as likely compared to those over 55.

Whether labelled as 'flushable' or not, wipes should never be disposed of in toilets. With the growing popularity of year-round open water swimming, it is important to remember that our flushing habits directly affect the environment and in particular rivers and coastal areas. Making minor adjustments in our daily habits can play a crucial role in preventing sanitary waste appearing along rivers, sandy beaches, rugged shores, and hidden bays.

The campaign is also being championed by swimming and outdoor advocates who are appealing to the public to consider their habits and Think Before You Flush.

Speaking about the survey results Tom Cuddy, Uisce Eireann said: In 2018, our research showed that 36% of people living in Ireland were regularly flushing the wrong things down the toilet. Today, we are pleased to announce that this figure has significantly decreased to 24%. While this one third decrease is certainly encouraging, it is crucial to acknowledge that it represents a slight increase compared to recent years.

Uisce Eireann and Clean Coasts have been steadfast partners for the last seven years with a joint mission to drive the Think Before You Flush Campaign and reduce environmental impacts through behavioural change. Despite this progress, there remains a pressing concern as there are still too many people flushing the wrong items down the toilet impacting our natural and built environment.

Tom continued: We know the awareness is there, we are just asking people to take a moment to consider their flushing habits and put litter in the bin rather than down the toilet. The impact of removing these products from our wastewater system is immense, and they unfortunately can ultimately end up on our beautiful beaches and rivers right across the country. As Uisce Eireann continues its journey of upgrading and developing critical infrastructure to support sustainable growth and development, it is important that we continue to work together to protect and enhance our environment. Every individual's contribution counts, and by making conscientious choices about what we flush, we can collectively make a huge difference.

Speaking about the campaign, Sinead McCoy, Clean Coasts said: Our message is straightforward: only the 3 Ps  pee, poo, and paper  should find their way into the toilet bowl. All other items must be placed in the bin. By following this practice, we can significantly reduce sewer blockages, minimise the risk of home and business flooding, and mitigate the environmental pollution that poses a threat to wildlife, such as fish and birds, their natural habitats and our coastlines. A minor change in our flushing behaviour can have huge benefits for our natural surroundings  simply dispose of wipes, cotton bud sticks, and sanitary items in the bin, not down the toilet.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The process of returning Azerbaijani citizens to Shusha will start in the first quarter of next year, and this process will cover about 400 families, Aydin Karimov, special representative of the President of Azerbaijan in Shusha district, told reporters, Trend reports.

"A large-scale process of road infrastructure construction will start soon. In addition, the process of construction of social facilities is underway," he added.

The return of former IDPs to the liberated territories of Azerbaijan is carried out within the framework of the "Great Return" program.

It covers areas that together determine the creation of conditions for normal life activity in districts, cities, villages, and every citizen.

Its realization is carried out at the expense of the internal resources of Azerbaijan.
Caught On Camera: Man Crushed To Death In Bengaluru After Intense Car Chase On Busy Road

Bengaluru's Most Memed Apartment Gets A Taker, A CEO Moves In

Bengaluru

oi-Stuti Tripathi

Remember that 2BHK apartment located in Bengaluru on the bustling Indiranagar 80 feet road? It was situated right next to the Lazy Suzy cafe and directly opposite 12th main. This apartment became the center of a memefest on social media platform X (formerly twitter) back in September, thanks to a software engineer with the username @Bharath_MG.

He initially intended to rent it out but raised the rent after his listing went viral and garnered widespread attention. Now, the apartment that earned the title of the "most memed" has finally found a tenant. Mayank Kale, the co-founder and CEO of Loop Health, shared his relocation update on X, and unsurprisingly, the post quickly gained traction online.

He also shared a picture of the aesthetically pleasing flat that had been the subject of so much internet humor just a month ago. In the caption of his post, Kale wrote, "@peakbengaluru move update - I won the most memed apartment in the city."

Naturally, Kale's post caught the attention of numerous online users, who flocked to the comments section to share their amusing thoughts and questions.

@peakbengaluru move update  I won the most memed apartment in the city



credits: @LikeAStingRay pic.twitter.com/urVHa7wRtQ  Mayank Kale (@kalemayank29) October 11, 2023

One user inquired, "Congrats! What was harder, the YC interview or the one that the owner took for this house?" Another user playfully asked, "How does it feel to be God's favorite?"

A third user chimed in with, "No one's forgetting this space in a long, long time. Have a great stay in this lovely apartment."

Bengaluru Landlord's Sudden Rent Hike For 2 BHK Apartment In Indiranagar Sparks Meme Fest On X

Surprised by the apartment's existence, a fourth user questioned, "Wait, so this house actually exists?"

While some inquired about the rent, others drew comparisons to a set from a Wes Anderson film. "Looks like a set from a Wes Anderson movie. And the teapot adds to the aesthetic," remarked one person. Another user jokingly asked, "How many bitcoins did you pay as a deposit?"

Initially, the rent for this viral apartment in Bengaluru was set at Rs 45,000. However, after @Bharath_MG's listing garnered a lot of attention, it was increased to Rs 55,000. Following the post becoming the basis of a viral meme, the software engineer decided to take it down.

The whole "renting out a flat" scenario in Bengaluru has been quite bizarre, and it has sparked numerous discussions on social media. From landlords making rental decisions based on Class 12th marks to requesting LinkedIn profiles from potential renters, the city has seen its fair share of peculiar rental experiences.

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Story first published: Thursday, October 19, 2023, 16:43 [IST]
CM Ibrahim Dismissed As Karnataka JD(S) President After Publicly Contradicting Deve Gowda

Bengaluru

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Former Union Minister CM Ibrahim has been dismissed from the Janata Dal Secular (JDS) president post, party's national president and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda announced on Thursday. With CM Ibrahim's removal, HD Kumaraswamy has been appointed as the interim party president.

Under the leadership of the party's national president, HD Deve Gowda, and with the presence of former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy and core committee chairman GT Deve Gowda, a meeting was convened. This gathering comprised a 20-member core committee, a 60-member council, 19 MLAs, along with former MLAs and former MPs from the party.

Earlier, a fake press release bearing the JDS party's letterhead and purportedly issued by JDS national president HD Deve Gowda had been circulated on social media platforms. This press release falsely claimed that the state president, CM Ibrahim, had been expelled from the party, stating that his expulsion was effective immediately.

JDS Has To Be Saved: H D Deve Gowda On Alliance With The BJP

It must be noted that CM Ibrahim publicly expressed unhappiness with the JDS party's alliance with the BJP. It is reported that he has distanced himself from party engagements following Kumaraswamy's meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda in Delhi. On Monday, Ibrahim asserted that Deve Gowda was not in favor of the party's alignment with the BJP.

Chand Mahal Ibrahim was the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Civil Aviation and Tourism in the successive governments of Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral from 1996 to 1998.
After Spending Over 40 Days In Jail, YouTuber TTF Vasan Will Be Finally Out Of Prison

Two Decades Without Power, Now Lit Up In Just One Week

Will Vijay Enter TN Politics In 2026? BJP's Annamalai Says 'Democracy Is All About Choice'

Madras HC Rejects TN Minister V Senthil Balaji's Bail Plea In Money Laundering Case

Chennai

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Madras High Court on Thursday rejected TN Minister V Senthil Balaji's bail plea in money laundering case.

Balaji's earlier bail applications were dismissed by a city court. While so, stating that since Balaji was not well, he took treatment at Stanley Hospital on Monday, the present petition was filed to enlarge him on bail on considering his health condition.

When the petition came up for hearing, Additional solicitor general A R L Sundaresan, appearing for the ED sought time to file a detailed counter.

Senior counsel N R Elango, appearing for Balaji submitted the minister was yet to recover fully even after a bypass surgery and hence took treatment at the government hospital on October 9. He also submitted the medical report.

TN Minister Senthil Balaji's ED Arrest, Judicial Custody Legal: Madras HC

The judge directed the counsel for Balaji to furnish a copy of the report to the ED. Balaji was arrested on June 14 by the ED in connection with a money laundering case linked to a cash-for-jobs scam when he was the Transport Minister during an earlier AIADMK regime. Soon after his arrest, he underwent a bypass surgery at a private hospital. After treatment, the ED took him into custody and on completion of interrogation, he was sent to Judicial Custody by a local court.

The ED had filed a charge-sheet against Balaji.

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Story first published: Thursday, October 19, 2023, 11:31 [IST]
'Absence of CBI, ED Cases Against KCR Questionable': Rahul Gandhi Alleging 3-Party Nexus In Telangana

India

oi-Stuti Tripathi

In a new political challenge aimed at Telangana Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K. Chandrashekar Rao, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged that the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM are collaborating with the BJP and launching a joint attack on the Congress.

Gandhi also raised questions about KCR's silence on the matter of caste census. He stated that his party will conduct the survey if they come to power in the state. He encouraged the people of Telangana to question Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister KCR regarding the caste census survey.

The Congress leader mentioned, "We have already initiated caste census surveys in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Karnataka, and will do the same in Telangana as soon as we come to power. The caste census will reveal how much KCR's family has looted Telangana." He made these comments during a roadshow in Bhupalpally, Telangana today, 19th October.

Telangana Polls: Will BJP Revoke Controversial MLA Raja Singh's Suspension? Heres Why

Furthermore, Rahul Gandhi criticized the BJP for filing cases against opposition parties to stifle their voices but noted that there are no such cases against KCR."The absence of CBI and ED cases against Chief Minister KCR raises questions." said Gandhi as quoted by NDTV.

Gandhi criticized KCR, stating that he had distanced himself from the common people, and only his family is ruling the state. He asserted that the dream of Telangana becoming a state where the common man would govern has been shattered. He said, "But in the last ten years, your Chief Minister, KCR, has distanced himself from the people, and only his family is ruling the state. He has shattered your dream,"

Rahul Gandhi emphasized that the caste census is a critical issue in the country adding that, "It is like an x-ray that reveals the percentage of backward classes, SC, ST, and minorities, enabling equitable budget allocation."

He noted that it was a Congress-led government that fulfilled the promise of statehood for Telangana and expressed his affection for the people of Telangana. He contrasted his relationship with the people with the political relationships of KCR and Modi, emphasizing that his connection is based on love and affection.

"My relationship with the people of Telangana is one of love and affection. While KCR and Modi come to Telangana for a political relationship with you, my connection with you is based on love and affection." stated the Congress leader.

Gandhi also highlighted the issue of corruption in Telangana, claiming it has the highest corruption rate in India, which adversely affects the youth and women of the state.

Addressing the people gathered during the Congress march, he expressed optimism about the upcoming election, stating, "Looking at your enthusiasm, it seems likely that KCR is going to lose this election."

Telangana Congress Manifesto Likely To Promise 10 gms Gold To Brides, Free Internet To Students

The caste census issue has become a subject of contention between the BRS and the Congress in the lead-up to the polls.

KCR's daughter and Legislative Council member K. Kavitha had previously questioned why the Congress did not conduct a caste survey during its six decades in power. "This Congress leader started talking about the census of the Backward Classes population. When they were in power for 60 years, they did not do it. Now he says he will do something," said Kavitha in Nizamabad last week, as quoted by PTI.

She also noted that the KCR government had conducted a caste survey in 2014, which helped inform policy changes. Regarding the Samagra Kutumba Survey, its results were not disclosed to the public due to ongoing legal challenges. However, the state government claimed that they utilized the data to make policy changes.

Kavitha further praised KCR's commitment to the welfare of backward classes and suggested that Mr. Gandhi merely makes statements before elections, unlike her father, who has prioritized the welfare of backward classes.

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Story first published: Thursday, October 19, 2023, 16:21 [IST]
Two Bangladeshi Nationals Allegedly Sodomised and Assaulted in East Delhi

Two Bangladeshi nationals belonging to the LGBTIQA+ community were allegedly sodomised and assaulted by five men in east Delhi's Shakarpur area. Four accused, including a juvenile, have been apprehended.

India

-Krishna Kripa

In a shocking incident, two Bangladeshi nationals were allegedly assaulted and sodomised by five men in the Shakarpur area of east Delhi. The victims, who are part of the LGBTIQA+ community, reported this horrifying event to the police on Thursday. Four suspects have been apprehended so far; one among them is a minor.

The assault took place during the late hours of October 17 and early morning of October 18. The victims, one being a student at Delhi University and another recent arrival to Delhi, had attended Ramlila in Shakarpur. On their way back home, they encountered Abhishek - an acquaintance made through a dating app for homosexuals - accompanied by two friends.

Abhishek proposed engaging in sexual activity with both individuals. While the student declined his offer, his companion agreed to it tentatively. Consequently, all five men proceeded towards a nearby park where two additional friends joined them.

The Assault

In the park setting, Abhishek's other associates also began pressuring for physical intimacy with the Bangladeshi national which was met with refusal from both victims' end. This led to Abhishek and his four companions assaulting and sodomising them violently before leaving them behind.

Following this traumatic experience, both victims returned home and informed their friend about what transpired that night.

The Investigation Begins

A PCR call was logged at 1 am on October 18 regarding this incident leading to an FIR under section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) & section 377 (unnatural offences) being registered against those involved as per IPC guidelines.

Achin Garg - Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police East stated that given the sensitivity surrounding this case, a dedicated team of 20 police personnel was formed immediately to investigate. The victims being foreign nationals added further urgency to the matter.

Progress in Investigation

The team scanned footage from at least 50 CCTV cameras in nearby areas and gathered human intelligence about the presence of LGBTIQA+ community members in that locality. Within a span of 12 hours, they were successful in apprehending three suspects - Devashish Verma (20), Surjeet (21), and Aryan alias Golu (20) along with a minor.

The search is still underway for Abhishek who remains at large till now.

In conclusion, this incident throws light on the vulnerability faced by marginalized communities like LGBTIQA+, particularly those from foreign countries. While swift action by Delhi Police is commendable, it's crucial that such heinous crimes are prevented through increased vigilance and stringent laws protecting these communities' rights.
SP to contest on 65 of 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2024

Congress confident of forming government in MP, four other poll-bound states

Asaduddin Owaisi hits out at Rahul Gandhi for alleging that AIMIM takes money from BJP

Chhattisgarh Assembly Election: Here Are The Star Campaigners For BJP

India

oi-Prakash KL

The BJP on Wednesday released a list of 40 campaigners who will campaign for party candidates for phase 1 of the Chhattisgarh elections.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP Chief JP Nadda, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and Home Minister Amit Shah, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Home Minister Nitin Gadkari are the prominent names on the list.

The Congress-ruled state will go to polls in two phases on November 7 and November 17, and votes will be counted on December 3.

Polling will be held in 20 constituencies across 11 districts in the first phase. These include 12 constituencies in the Naxal-affected Bastar division. There are a total of 90 assembly constituencies in the state.

BJP releases a list of 40 campaigners who will campaign for party candidates for phase 1 of the Chhattisgarh elections.



PM Narendra Modi, BJP chief JP Nadda, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, HM Amit Shah and others to campaign. pic.twitter.com/7cUAM95oR7  ANI (@ANI) October 19, 2023

October 20 is the last date for filing of nominations in the first phase. Scrutiny of nominations will take place the next day, while the last date of withdrawal is October 23.

Prominent candidates who are in the fray in the first phase include former chief minister Raman Singh who is the incumbent MLA from Rajnandgaon; former state ministers Kedar Kashyap, Lata Usendi, Vikram Usendi and Mahesh Gagda, and former IAS officer Neelkanth Tekam.

In the 2018 Assembly polls, the Congress had won 17 of these 20 seats, while the BJP bagged just two, and Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) emerged victorious in one seat.
Congress Releases Second List Of 85 Candidates For MP Assembly Polls

The Congress on Thursday night announced its second list of 85 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls and replaced three of its previously declared nominees.

India

-Krishna Kripa

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday night announced its second list of 85 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls and replaced three of its previously declared nominees. With this, the Congress has declared all but one candidates for elections to the 230-member assembly scheduled for November 17. The Congress had on Sunday released its first list of 144 candidates for the state.

Replacing Candidates

The Congress replaced its candidate for the Datia assembly constituency, fielding Rajendra Bharti in place of Avadesh Nayak. He will contest against BJP candidate and Home Minister Narottam Mishra. Bharti, a former MLA, lost the last election by a slender margin. Nayaks nomination from Datia drew opposition from a section of party workers and leaders, prompting the party leadership to replace him.

The Congress also replaced its candidate for the Pichhore assembly seat, where Arvind Singh Lodhi will be the party nominee in place of Shailendra Singh. The party fielded Narmada Prasad Prajapati in place of Shekhar Chaudhary from the Gotegaon-SC assembly constituency.

Madhya Pradesh Election Prediction: Will Cong End BJP's Rule? Check Lok Poll Survey Report

Key Candidates

The party fielded Ravinder Singh Tomar from the Dimani assembly seat and he will contest against Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar. From the Gwalior assembly seat, considered the bastion of Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Congress has fielded Sunil Sharma, who had unsuccessfully contested in a bypoll against sitting MLA and minister Pradhuman Singh Tomar, a known Scindia loyalist. Pradhuman Singh Tomar had switched over to the BJP along with Scindia after the last assembly polls.

First List

In the first list for Madhya Pradesh, the party fielded former chief minister and state party chief Kamal Nath from his Chhindwara assembly constituency. Former chief minister Digvijaya Singhs son Jaivardhan Singh was fielded from the Raghogarh seat. He was a minister in the last Kamal Nath government.

2018 Assembly Polls

In the 2018 assembly polls, the Congress had won 114 seats, while the BJP got 109. However, the Congress government led by Kamal Nath fell after many MLAs under the leadership of Jyotiraditya Scindia, who later became a Union minister, joined the BJP. The BJP returned to power in March 2020 with Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister for a fresh term. The BJPs current strength in the assembly is 127.

The Congress is leaving no stone unturned to return to power in Madhya Pradesh. The party has fielded a mix of experienced and new candidates in the hope of winning the upcoming assembly elections.
EXCLUSIVE: Soumya Vishwanathans Mother Seeks Life Term For Killers, Calls For Swift Justice For Safer India

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Fifteen years ago, on September 30, 2008, a young television journalist named Soumya Vishwanathan was tragically shot dead while driving home from work in the early hours of the morning. The case remained unresolved for over a decade, leaving her family in a state of perpetual anguish. However, on a Wednesday in 2023, a Delhi court finally delivered a verdict, convicting four persons of her murder.

The police had initially claimed that the motive behind Soumya's murder was robbery. The court, however, found Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, and Ajay Kumar guilty of murder and convicted them under the provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). A fifth accused, identified as Ajay Sethi, was convicted under Section 411 of the Indian Penal Code for dishonestly receiving stolen property and under MCOCA provisions for conspiring to abet, aid, or knowingly facilitate organized crime and for receiving the proceeds of organized crime.

The court has now set October 26 as the date for sentencing, with the judge asserting that the prosecution has proven the charges against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt.

In an exclusive interview with OneIndia, Madhavi Vishwanathan, Soumya's mother, shared her thoughts on the 15-year battle for justice that her family has faced.

A 15-Year Quest for Justice

Reflecting on the moment when the judge delivered the verdict after 15 years, Madhavi expressed the immense emotional burden her family has shouldered throughout this period, saying, "It's been too long. Actually, it may be by talking about time, it may be 15 years. But for us, it has been a very, very long period. We have been having a traumatic life during this period, not knowing what the future holds or anything."

While happiness has eluded them since their daughter's loss, the verdict does offer some solace, as one group of individuals responsible for making Delhi's roads unsafe has been held accountable. Madhavi believes this judgment may serve as a deterrent to others.

Seeking Life Imprisonment for the Serial Killers

Regarding the sentencing date set for October 26, Madhavi expressed her uncertainty about the specific reasons behind this decision. She speculated that it might be related to the provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

Madhavi's unwavering demand for justice is clear when asked about her expectations for the punishment of the convicted, as she said, "We are hoping that they get life sentence. Because we are also going through a life sentence now, in the sense it's a prison of our emotions, everything for us. We are hoping they also get a life sentence."

Madhavi's further hopes that just as her family has been serving a life sentence of emotional pain, she hopes that the convicted individuals also receive a life sentence for their actions.

A Family Paralyzed by Tragedy

The toll of the 15-year-long fight for justice has been immense. Madhavi describes her family's life as having been "paralyzed" by the tragedy. Despite their attempts to maintain a facade of composure, the grief remains a constant presence. Soumya's friends have been instrumental in offering support during this trying period.

When asked about the reaction of her elder daughter, who lives in Nairobi, after hearing the verdict, Madhavi shared that her daughter had expected the verdict before her mother could even relay the message. She expressed pride in her husband's hopefulness, as her daughter had been less optimistic. Initially, her daughter contemplated returning to Delhi, but the family persuaded her otherwise, as she has a young son to care for in Nairobi.

Sources of Strength and Resilience

Madhavi further said that the strength and resilience that have sustained her family have come from family and friends, especially Soumya's friends. Madhavi noted that these friends carried a part of Soumya with them, providing comfort and a connection that has been invaluable.

Lessons and Advice

When asked if she could offer any advice or lessons to other parents facing similar circumstances, Madhavi explained that her family is simply living day-to-day. She said,''We are just living day-to-day, that's all. I don't know what happens or anything. We are dreading it. I know because they will surely go to high court. We'll have to go through this again.''

A Message for the Public

In her final message, Madhavi expressed a simple hope for the future, saying, "I hope that there are more judgments like this so that at least Delhi becomes a safer place. Not only Delhi, the whole of India, everywhere. Only thing is it should be fast. Fifteen years is too long a period. People forget the crime and relate the judgment to it. That is a problem."

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Story first published: Thursday, October 19, 2023, 10:34 [IST]
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The Baku Initiative Group (BIG) will organize an international conference themed "Neocolonialism: Human Rights Violations and Injustice" in Baku, Trend reports.

The conference will include representatives from 14 countries and maritime territories held by France under colonial control (New Caledonia, French Polynesia, French Guiana, Martinique, and Guadeloupe), as well as Corsica.

The BIG was established on July 6, 2023 by participants of the "Complete Eradication of Colonialism" conference during the meeting of ministers of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.

BIG supports the struggle for the freedom of peoples located in various regions of the world who continue to suffer from colonization in the 21st century.
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Ahead Of Polls, Centre Announces MSP Hike For Wheat, Other Rabi Crops

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Ahead of assembly polls in key wheat growing states, the government on Wednesday announced an increase in the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat by Rs 150 to Rs 2,275 per quintal for the 2024-25 marketing season.

This is the highest increase by the Narendra Modi-led government since it came to power in 2014.

A decision in this regard was taken in the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Modi.

Ahead of assembly polls in key wheat growing states, the government on Wednesday announced an increase in the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat by Rs 150 to Rs 2,275 per quintal for the 2024-25 marketing season.

Union Cabinet Approves Increased MSP For Kharif Crops

This is the highest increase by the Narendra Modi-led government since it came to power in 2014.

A decision in this regard was taken in the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Modi.

Currently, the MSP on wheat stands at Rs 2,125 per quintal for the 2023-24 marketing season (April-March).

Briefing media, I&B minister Anurag Thakur said the CCEA has approved the increase in the MSP for all mandated rabi crops for 2024-25 marketing season.

"Based on the CACP recommendation, we have increased the MSP of six rabi crops. Wheat MSP has been increased by Rs 150 per quintal," he said.

Centre's Diwali gift for farmers: MSP for six crops hiked

The support price of wheat has been increased to Rs 2,275 per quintal for 2024-25 marketing season, from Rs 2,125 per quintal in 2023-24, he added.

Wheat is the main rabi (winter) crop, sowing of which begins in October, while harvesting in April.

MSP is the minimum rate ensured to protect the interest of farmers and below this rate the grain is not purchased by the government procurement agencies.
'I Don't Want To Be CM But...': Ashok Gehlot's Creates Ripples In Rajasthan Before Polls

India

oi-Stuti Tripathi

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, in the run-up to the upcoming state legislative assembly elections, has expressed his desire to relinquish the chief minister's post on Thursday, 19th October. He stated that while he wishes to step down, the post seems to keep him in place.

Gehlot's comments about the CM post are perceived as a response to his political rival Sachin Pilot's ambitions. In 2020, Pilot openly rebelled against Gehlot, leading a faction of Congress MLAs to camp near Delhi.

During a press briefing in Delhi, Gehlot shared an incident where a female supporter expressed her desire to see him serve as Rajasthan CM for the fourth time. In response, he said, "I told her that I want to leave the Chief Minister's post, but this post is not letting me go."

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The Rajasthan CM further added, "After Sonia Gandhi ji became (Congress) president, the first decision she took was to make me the chief minister. I was not the CM candidate but she selected me as the CM...I want to leave the CM post but this post is not leaving me and it won't leave me also," as quoted by Times Now.

Gehlot also seemed to stake his claim to the top job once again, emphasizing that the Congress leadership had recognized his abilities by choosing him to lead the state three times.

His statements are of particular importance in the lead-up to the Rajasthan state assembly elections scheduled for 25th November. Despite efforts by the Congress to present a united front, many political experts believe that the Sachin Pilot issue has not been fully resolved.

Gehlot also made a controversial comment on Vasundhara Raje and emphasized that the BJP should not punish her because of him. "She should not be punished because of me. This would be injustice to her" He further also stated that candidate selection for Rajasthan elections by politcial parties should depend on winnability.

When questioned about the delay in announcing Congress candidates in Rajasthan, Gehlot explained that decisions were being made methodically, with due consideration for all opinions.

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He suggested that only the BJP was unhappy with the process, stating, "They are upset because we are not fighting. All the decisions are being made after considering everyone's opinions. I am also in talks with Sachin Pilot's supporters as well, making decisions in their favor. The decision-making process is proceeding smoothly. That's why only the BJP is not happy."

The Rajasthan legislative assembly, comprising 200 members, is scheduled for elections on 25th November, following a date change from 23rd November due to requests from state parties.

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Story first published: Thursday, October 19, 2023, 17:34 [IST]
Jagananna Chedodu Scheme: Andhra CM Releases Rs 325 Cr to 3.25 Lakh Beneficiaries

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

In a momentous development, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy reached a significant milestone by distributing a staggering sum of Rs 325.02 crore in direct aid to the bank accounts of 3,25,020 eligible beneficiaries including Rajakas, Nayee Brahmins, and Tailors under the 'Jagananna Chedodu' scheme. This groundbreaking event took place at Yemmiganur in Kurnool district today.

The YSRCP government, under the visionary leadership of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the welfare of its citizens. In total, the government has provided substantial financial assistance of Rs 1,252.51 crore to Chedodu beneficiaries, a figure that includes the latest aid injection of Rs 325.02 crore.

Addressing the vast and enthusiastic gathering at Yemmiganur, CM Jagan emphatically said, "With unwavering determination, we've made strides toward progress every single day, extending a life-changing sum of Rs 40,000 per individual to our eligible beneficiaries. Over the past four years, through the 'Jagananna Chedodu' scheme, we've instilled faith and empowerment in the hearts of Rajakas, Nayee Brahmins, and Tailors who are business owners. I implore you to witness the undeniable transformation we bring, driven by our unwavering commitment to transparency, devoid of corruption or bias."

This fresh fourth tranche of the 'Jagananna Chedodu' scheme has disbursed financial assistance as follows: Rs 180.66 crore has been allocated to 1,80,656 tailors, Rs 104.55 crore to 1,04,551 Rajakas, and Rs 39.81 crore to 39,813 Nayee Brahmins. Under this visionary program, eligible beneficiaries who own shops are entitled to receive Rs 10,000 annually. Notably, each beneficiary has received Rs 40,000 under the scheme over the course of the past four years, emphasizing the government's continued support.

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Underlining the commitment to delivering on the promises made, CM Jagan emphasized, "In line with the pledges outlined in our manifesto, we have successfully fulfilled 99 percent of our promises well before the conclusion of our term. It begs the question - why were there no transformative, life-altering initiatives undertaken within the same state and under the same budget constraints during the previous administration? Our resolute dedication to progress and positive change has reshaped our state's future."

What sets the 'Jagananna Chedodu' scheme apart is its commitment to transparency and inclusivity. The selection of eligible beneficiaries is carried out in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner. The lists of Jagananna Chedodu beneficiaries are made public at village and ward secretariats for social audit, ensuring that every eligible person benefits from this program in a saturation mode, leaving no one behind.

Unleashing a scathing attack against the previous TDP government for their plundering of public funds for personal gain, the Chief Minister stated, "From the questionable dealings of Janmabhoomi committees to the recent skill development scandal, Chandrababu's administration was marred by numerous instances of corruption. The infamous 'DPT gang' (Dochuko Panchuko Tinuko) shamelessly siphoned off public resources, indulging in egregious acts of self-enrichment. Contrasting this with our model of governance, the disparity is glaring. We are resolutely committed to transparently channeling funds directly into the accounts of our citizens, free from any taint of corruption or bias, no matter the cost."

CM Jagan further urged the people of Andhra Pradesh to turn up to the 'Jagananna Aarogya Suraksha' camps that are being held across the state. He said, "Our dedicated medical staff are meticulously sifting through every household with the Aarogya Suraksha initiative, ensuring that quality healthcare is brought right to your doorstep. We've witnessed administrations that traded the future of underprivileged students to institutions like Narayana, but we've ushered in a transformative era in education through sweeping policy reforms under Nadu-Nedu. We're resolute in our mission to provide equitable access to healthcare and education for all."

Jagananna Chedodu scheme: Eligibility List, Documents

The Jagananna Chedodu scheme is a state government welfare scheme launched for small businessmen residing in Andhra Pradesh (AP). Under this scheme, the government provides financial assistance of Rs 10,000 to the eligible beneficiaries in two equal installments of Rs 5,000 each.

Eligibility For Jagananna Chedodu Scheme

The beneficiary must be below 60 years of age.

Rajakas or dhobis (washermen) are required to have a registered establishment in their own names.

Nayee Brahmin (barbers) should possess their own registered shop.

Tailors from the BC community must have registered shops in their names.

The beneficiary must be a permanent resident of Andhra Pradesh.

The beneficiary should belong to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category and possess a white ration card.

Documents Required for Jagananna Chedodu Scheme

To avail the benefits of the Jagananna Chedodu scheme, the following documents are essential:

Aadhaar card.

Voter ID for identification.

Pan card.

Educational certificate.

Domicile certificate.

Registration number or certificate for the business establishment.

Income certificate.

Bank account details.

Implementation of Jagananna Chedodu Scheme

The government will identify and select eligible beneficiaries for the Jagananna Chedodu scheme by conducting Navasakam surveys through ward or village volunteers throughout the state. These volunteers will compile a list of qualified applicants, which will then be presented to the ward and village secretaries. A social audit will be conducted to determine the final list of beneficiaries.

The approved list of beneficiaries will be made available to the public through the ward secretariat. The financial assistance will be transferred directly to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system. In case any eligible beneficiary's name is omitted from the list, they can contact the ward secretariat for resolution.
Navratri Akhand Jyoti: Which Way To Light Akhand Jyoti For Prosperity According To Vastu? Know Shubh Muhurat

Navratri, Durga Puja In South India, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai & Trivandrum In Festive Mood

India

oi-Shrutee Sarkar

From Garba and Dandiya to worshipping Goddess Durga, Navratri brings a whole lot of joy and celebrations and while the rituals may be different in different parts of India, the devotion remains the same.

Navratri is widely celebrated in North and West of India and Durga Puja in the East including West Bengal, Assam amongst other eastern states. In the past few years, with lots of people migrating from North to South of India due to jobs etc, these celebrations have visibly increased in cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram.

In Bengaluru, there are nearly 65 Dandiya and Garba events during Navratri this year, according to Bookmyshow.com. There are more than 100 festive events during Navratri this year with one of the biggest celebrations happening in Palace Ground.

With an increasing number of Bengalis living in Bengaluru now, the city has a hundred-plus registered Durga Puja pandals and many celebrities from Kolkata come to these celebrations for performing.

Top 5 Reasons Why You Must Visit Kolkata During Durga Puja

"Managing an event of this nature with our regular demanding jobs is a herculean task. But where there is GOD, there is a way! With her blessings we are able to feed her devotees and do her puja. Yes, we do get a lot of help in terms of donations from everyone," says Arnab Chakraverty, Treasurer of Aaradhana Bengali Cultural Association in Bengaluru, who also is a senior director in a cyber security firm.

"When I came to Bengaluru in 2005, there were about ten Durga Puja, the famous ones were in Ulsoor, Jayamahal, RT Nagar, Airforce and Yelahanka, now there are countless."

The story is very similar in Hyderabad. There are nearly 50 Navratri and Durga Puja celebrations in the city and every year there is an increasing number of devotees who starts their own celebrations.

Fine star hotels are also altering and including sattvik food in their daily menu for devotees who are fasting during the Navratri days. MoMo cafe in Courtyard Marriott has prepared a 10 day Navratri special thali between October 15-24.

"The Cultural Committee Volunteers of Prestige Highfields have come together to celebrate all the festivals be it Dusserah, Ganesh Mahotsov and etc. We do celebrate for 10 days which include Chandi Homam and Nimajanam," says Nikhil Miryala, a Hyderabad-based IT professional and one of the volunteers.

"We do puja daily twice, in the morning and in the evening including kumkum puja which is more specific to South India. Apart from that, we do organize Ravan dahan, Ramlila Skit and many other Cultural performances related to the festival. While the morning puja sees a little less count of about 200, the evening puja attracts about 1000 devotees and Volunteers make sure everyone receives Prasad."

Although in a much smaller radius, Navratri and Dusserah is celebrated in parts of Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram. The South Madras Cultural Association, celebrating their 45th Durga Puja in Chennai, is creating a replica of the famous Bagbazar Durga idol of Kolkata.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Navaratri in Chennai is the creation of 'Golu' or display of dolls. Dolls of various sizes and themes in the markets of West Mambalam, Mada Streets of Mylapore, and Nanganallur are displayed that represents incidents from Hindu mythology, from Lord Krishna's birth to Rama Pattabhishekam to Dasavatharam, and are highly looked after by devotees and collectors.

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"We keep Golu (collection of dolls), invite neighbourhood ladies and give turmeric and kumkum, together we all sing Lalitha Sasramam song which creates positivity in our household during Navratri." says Gayathri M, senior IT professional based out of Chennai, who also works for one of the biggest US conglomerate.

In Thiruvananthapuram, the Navratri festival is related to Sri Padmanabha Swamy Temple. Idols of Saraswati, Durga and Muruga are brought to the Kuthira Malika palace in front of Padmanabha temple as a procession. The procession finishes at the Navratri Mandapam, in the right side of the East Gopuram of the Padmanabha Swamy Temple.

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Story first published: Thursday, October 19, 2023, 9:28 [IST]
NCP demands apology from Piyush Goyal, Himanta Biswa Sarma for their remarks on Sharad Pawar, Supriya Sule

The NCP on Thursday asked Union minister Piyush Goyal and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to publicly apologise to party leaders Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule for making crass and uncouth comments against them over the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and Indias stand on the issue.

India

-Krishna Kripa

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Thursday demanded that Union minister Piyush Goyal and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma publicly apologise to party leaders Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule for making "crass and uncouth" comments against them over the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and India's stand on the issue.

NCP's statement

The NCP's statement came hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi conveyed his condolences to President of Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas over the deaths of civilians at a hospital in Gaza and reiterated India's long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue. The PM told Abbas New Delhi will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people.

"Now that our PM Narendra Modi ji has once again officially extended his support to Palestine, Piyush Goyal and Himanta Biswa Sarma must publicly apologize to Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule for making crass and uncouth statements on them," NCP national spokesperson Clyde Crasto said. "If they do not apologize it will be considered that Piyush Goyal and Himanta Biswa Sarma think of our PM Narendra Modi in the same manner and breath as the comments they made on Sharad Pawarand Supriya Sule," he said on social media site X.

BJP leaders' remarks

BJP leaders Goyal and Sarma had slammed Pawar over his comments criticising the Centres stand on the decades-old Palestine issue in the wake of the October 7 Hamas incursions inside Israel. In a post on X, the Union minister said it is very disturbing when a senior leader like Sharad Pawar makes "preposterous" statements on India's stand on a terror attack in Israel. Sarma had also made critical comments on Sule, the daughter of Sharad Pawar, in context of the conflict in West Asia.

Pawar's comments

Pawar, a former defence minister, had said earlier this week that Modis immediate statements on the Hamas-Israel war seemed to convey a different position from the one articulated by the Ministry of External Affairs MEA. The NCP founder had also spoken about India's long-term support for Palestine cause.

India's stand on Israel-Palestine issue

A day after Hamas launched its incursions, Modi had expressed solidarity with Israel and condemned the terrorist attacks. Later, the MEA described the strikes by Hamas on Israeli cities as terror attacks, but also reaffirmed India's long-standing position, advocating negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine living side-by-side at peace with Israel.

The NCP's demand for an apology from Goyal and Sarma comes amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, which has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, including civilians. India has called for an immediate ceasefire and a return to dialogue between the two sides.
Nitish Sees 'Friend For Life' In BJP Leaders, RJD Downplays Bihar CM's Comment

India

oi-Prakash KL

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, in the presence of several dignitaries, including President Draupadi Murmu, openly declared that the strong camaraderie between him and BJP leaders will endure "as long as he is alive."

Addressing a university convocation in Motihari, Kumar, pointing towards a BJP leader from the stage, said, "All the people we have here are our friends. We are different, you are different, does it mean our friendship will end? You will remain connected to me as long as I live. We will all work together. President, we are very happy that you are here. We would like you to keep coming here. We will show you the entire Champaran once, the land of Mahatma Gandhi,"

However, Kumar's remarks have been downplayed by JDU's partner RJD and said that the Bihar Chief Minister was speaking of his personal relationships.

"Radha Mohan Singh (of BJP) was sitting in front, so he spoke about his personal relationship. There is no mention of any party. People interpreted him incorrectly," said RJD's Shakti Yadav.

Also, the BJP said it has severed all ties with Nitish Kumar and no longer has any association with him.

"As a result of the implementation of the last three agricultural road maps, the productivity of paddy, wheat and maize in the state has almost doubled. Bihar has also become a leading state in the production of mushrooms, honey, makhana (fox nuts) and fish. The launch of the fourth Agriculture Road Map is an important step towards taking this effort forward," President Murmu said.

Speculation about Nitish Kumar's in talks with the BJP gained momentum after Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad left Kumar in his speech, according to a report in Times Now. Further raising eyebrows, the JDU chief was seen exchanging pleasantries with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the recent G-20 event in New Delhi.
PM Modi Inaugurates Gujarat's First Heritage Train Amid Other Projects On His Two Day Visit

PM Modi Speaks To Palestinian Prez Abbas; Condoles Death Of Civilians At Gaza Hospital

India

oi-Prakash KL

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday had a telephone conversation with Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas to convey condolences over the loss of civilian lives in an attack on the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza.

During the phone call, PM Modi assured him that India will continue to send humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians. "Spoke to President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region," the PM said on X.

"Reiterated India's long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue," the Prime Minister added.

This was the Prime Minister's first conversation with Abbas since Hamas carried out the unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7. However, an explosion rocked the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, killing about 500 people on Tuesday.

While Palestinian authorities blamed Israeli air strikes for the explosion at the hospital, Israel claimed it was caused by a misfired rocket launched from Gaza by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

On the other hand, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, replying to a question on the attack on the hospital in Gaza, said India is for strict observance of the international humanitarian law.

"We have strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel, and we believe the international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," Bagchi said.

On the Palestine issue, he said India has been in favour of direct negotiations for having a two-state solution. "As regards Palestine, we have reiterated our long-standing position of advocating the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognized borders, side by side at peace with Israel," he said.

"We have also expressed our concern at the civilian casualties due to the ongoing conflict. We also remain concerned about the humanitarian situation," he stated.

"We would urge the full respect and strict observance of international humanitarian law," he said, replying to a question on Tuesday's attack on Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza.

When asked about providing humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, Bagchi stated that India has consistently offered its support.

"India has been supporting Palestine and Palestinian refugees through significant contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). A total of USD 29.53 million has been contributed to UNRWA between 2002 and 2023," he said.

"The Indian annual contribution to UNRWA was increased from USD 1.25 million to USD 5 million in 2018. India has pledged an annual contribution of USD 5 million for the next two years (FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25)," Bagchi said.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the conflict has resulted in over 3,300 casualties with more than 12,000 people wounded in Gaza since it began.

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Story first published: Thursday, October 19, 2023, 21:15 [IST]
Doctors In Balasore for Embalming: How And Why It Is Done?

President Droupadi Murmu Urges Doctors to Work with a Spirit of Service

President Droupadi Murmu on Thursday said doctors are the assets of the country and urged them to work with a spirit of service.

India

-Krishna Kripa

Patna: President Droupadi Murmu on Thursday addressed the first convocation of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-Patna and urged doctors to work with a spirit of service. She said that doctors are the assets of the country and must use their skills and knowledge for the service of mankind.

Doctors are the Assets of the Country

Murmu said, "Doctors who received degrees today are ready to play their significant role in the development of the country and its citizens. You should work with a spirit of service. You must remember that now you are in a noble profession and the sanctity of this profession must be protected."

Need for More Competent Physicians and Nurses

The President also highlighted the need for a large number of competent physicians and nurses to meet the health needs of the country's large population. She said, "There is a need for a large number of competent physicians and nurses to meet the health needs of the large population of the country as the doctor-patient and nurse-patient ratios are low at the national level."

AIIMS Providing Highest Quality of Treatment

Murmu appreciated AIIMS-Patna for securing the 27th position in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) - 2023. She said, "The highest quality of treatment is provided to people from all sections of society in AIIMS."

Increasing Number of Medical Colleges and Hospitals

The President noted that in the last few years, a large number of medical colleges and hospitals have been built across the country helping people get healthcare facilities nearer their homes. She said, "MBBS seats have increased by almost 100 per cent in the last seven-eight years. We must appreciate the private sector and non-government organisations for cooperating in building a healthy and developed country."

Promoting Holistic Wellness

Murmu said she was happy to note that several medical institutions like AIIMS Patna are promoting holistic wellness approaches and treating people with alternative medicines such as homoeopathy, Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani and Siddha.

More Research in Mental Health

She urged medical institutions to do more research in the field of mental health. She said, "Mental health is an important aspect of overall health and we need to focus more on it. Medical institutions should do more research in this field and develop better treatment methods."

Increasing Number of Women in Medical Profession

Expressing satisfaction at the increasing number of women in the medical profession, she said that AIIMS-Patna has tremendously moved in this direction.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Address

Speaking on the occasion, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the first AIIMS came up in Patna during Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure. He said, "I personally monitored this project right from the beginning and ensured its completion at the earliest. It started functioning in 2013 and after that whatever support and assistance were sought from the state government, we always provided that." He added that recently, the state government has provided 27 acres of land to this AIIMS for expansion.

The President's address at the first convocation of AIIMS-Patna was a reminder of the important role that doctors play in society. She urged them to work with a spirit of service and to use their skills and knowledge for the betterment of mankind. The President also highlighted the need for more research in the field of mental health and for promoting holistic wellness approaches.
Ram Temple Inauguration On Jan 22 In Ayodhya, PM Modi Says "Feel Very Blessed"

Ram Lalla Idol to be Placed on Gold-Plated Marble Throne in Ayodhya Temple

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Sadhu Strangled To Death Inside Ayodhya Temple

India

oi-Prakash KL

A sadhu was found murdered at Ayodhya's Hanumangarhi Temple. The deceased is identified as 44-year-old Ram Sahrey Das.

The sadhu was strangled to death on Wednesday evening. A deep mark was found on his neck, the police said. They suspect an insider's hand in the murder.

The cops have said that one person has been detained, while another is absconding.

A complaint has been lodged against two persons, including one Rishabh Shukla who is said to be absconding.

Ayodhya Senior Superintendent of Police Raj Karan Nayyar told PTI: "A complaint made by an aide of the deceased against two persons has been received. One of the accused persons has been detained (for interrogation), while the other is absconding."

On the other hand, mahant (chief priest) of Hanumangarhi Temple Raju Das said the deceased had been residing in Hanumangarhi since 1991.

"He was a mahant of an ashram in Hanumangarhi, where he used to impart (spiritual) education to about ten students," Das told the news agency. He has also demanded a "fair and an impartial probe" into the incident.

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Story first published: Thursday, October 19, 2023, 20:37 [IST]
Bus Driver and Conductor Arrested for Killing Helper in Sarai Kale Khan, New Delhi

A bus driver and conductor have been arrested for allegedly killing their helper near southeast Delhis Sarai Kale Khan. The incident took place in a moving chartered bus going towards Kashmiri Gates interstate bus terminus from Sarai Kale Khan.

India

-Krishna Kripa

In a shocking incident that unfolded in the moving chartered bus going towards Kashmiri Gates interstate bus terminus from Sarai Kale Khan, New Delhi, on Thursday morning, a bus driver and conductor were arrested for allegedly killing their helper. The gruesome event has sent ripples of shock and fear among the local community.

The victim was identified as Roop Singh Yadav. It was reported that his body was found in the driver's cabin lying in a pool of blood. Initially, the conductor Amit Pateria informed police that Yadav had been shot by an unidentified person while they were en route to Kashmiri Gate.

Discrepancies Lead to Arrests

Upon further inquiry into the incident with Azad Khan, the bus driver, inconsistencies were found between his statements and those made by Amit Pateria. These discrepancies raised suspicions among law enforcement officials who then decided to interrogate both individuals thoroughly.

The Truth Unveiled

During interrogation, it was revealed by them that they had brought passengers from Madhya Pradesh on October 18th and reached Sarai Kale Khan at about 7 am on October 19th. After deboarding passengers at Sarai Kale Khan, they were heading towards Kashmere gate when an argument broke out between Yadav and Amit over a minor issue.In a fit of rage following this dispute, Amit took out a pistol kept hidden in a box inside the drivers cabin and fatally shot Yadav.

Cover-up Attempt Fails

Amit along with Azad tried to cover up their crime by hiding the murder weapon near Yamuna River bank and concocting an elaborate story about Yadav's murder committed by an unknown assailant. However, their inconsistent accounts during questioning led to the truth being unveiled.

Investigation Continues

The two accused have been arrested and are now in police custody. The law enforcement authorities are continuing their investigations into this shocking incident, with further updates expected soon. They also recovered the murder weapon from the river bank as directed by Amit and Azad.

In conclusion, this gruesome incident serves as a stark reminder of how disagreements can escalate into horrific crimes. It underscores the need for conflict resolution skills and self-control among individuals to prevent such tragic incidents in the future. As justice takes its course, it is hoped that such heinous acts will serve as a deterrent for others, reinforcing that crime never pays.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Corsica was offered autonomy but refused, said Jacob Bicep, a representative of the People's Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe, at a press conference, Trend reports.

"Autonomy means that we will live under the French constitution. We do not recognize any autonomy that exists under French laws," he said.

The international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice," organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.
SGPC Passes Resolution Against Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee passed a resolution against the construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal in Punjab. The committee said that no coercive action or injustice on the issue of the waters of Punjab will be tolerated.

India

-Krishna Kripa

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) on Thursday passed a resolution against the construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal in Punjab. The resolution was passed following a meeting of the SGPC's executive committee in Amritsar.

No Coercive Action or Injustice Will Be Tolerated

SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami said that the committee will not tolerate any coercive action or injustice on the issue of the waters of Punjab. He said that the Supreme Court's recent direction to the Centre to survey the portion of land in Punjab allocated for the construction of a part of the SYL canal is a matter of concern, and that it is the duty of the state government to represent the rights and interests of its people and firmly register its stand against the SYL.

Punjab Government Did Not Present Its Stand Properly in Court

Dhami said that the current situation has arisen only because the Punjab government did not present its stand properly in the court. He said that the executive has clearly resolved that if any injustice is done on the issue of water, the SGPC will stand firmly in favour of Punjab.

Punjab Moving Towards Serious Problem of Dark Zones

Dhami said that Punjab is already moving towards the serious problem of dark zones due to the limited availability of canal water and extraction of groundwater through lakhs of tube wells. He said that most of the water from Punjab's share is being given to Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi in violation of the international riparian law.

No Compensation Given to Punjab

Dhami said that in return, no compensation was given to Punjab either in the past or present. He said that if there is any injustice done on the issue of the waters of Punjab, it will not be tolerated.

SGPC Elections to Be Held on November 8

Meanwhile, the general house session for the annual election of the SGPC president, senior vice-president, junior vice-president, general secretary and the members of the executive committee will be held on November 8 at Teja Singh Samundri Hall located in the SGPC office. Dhami said that according to the Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925, the office-bearers of the SGPC are elected annually.
IND vs BAN: After Two Big Upsets, Can Bangladesh Take Inspiration And Shock India In Pune?

New Zealand vs South Africa Live Streaming Free: How To Watch NZ vs SA World Cup 2023 Match Live On TV, Mobile

Training Aircraft Crashes in Pune, Injuring Pilot

A training aircraft belonging to a private aviation academy crashed near a village in Maharashtra's Pune district on Thursday evening, injuring the pilot who was the only one on board the plane.

India

-Krishna Kripa

A training aircraft belonging to a private aviation academy crashed near a village in Maharashtra's Pune district on Thursday evening, injuring the pilot who was the only one on board the plane, police said.

Cause of Crash Not Yet Known

Police had earlier in the day said besides the pilot, one more person was on board the plane, and after the crash, they were rushed to a nearby hospital. However, they later maintained that information gathered by them indicated besides the pilot, no one else was inside the aircraft.

The aircraft, belonging to the Redbird Flight Training Academy, crashed near Katfal village under Baramati taluka of the western Maharashtra district, said the police.

DGCA Team to Visit Crash Site

A training aircraft belonging to the Redbird institute crashed near Katfal village at around 5 pm. The pilot sustained injuries in the crash. We are verifying whether there was a co-passenger on board the plane when the incident took place, said Prabhakar More, senior inspector, Baramati police station.

The cause of the crash was not yet known. More said a team of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will visit the crash site on Friday and launch a probe into the accident.

After the DGCA team visits the site, it will be revealed what caused the crash. We have also sought some details from the academy, the police officer said.
Biden's Going To End Warning For Hamas As US, Egypt Agree On Humanitarian Aid To Gaza

Array

International

-Sathish Raman

President Joe Biden's visit to Israel comes at a critical time, as the country grapples with the aftermath of a recent attack by Hamas and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. During his visit, Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials to discuss the situation and offer support. However, if Hamas militants confiscate the aid, "it will end," Biden said.

Humanitarian Assistance to Gaza

One of the key issues addressed during the visit was the need to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. Biden announced that Israel had agreed to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza from Egypt, subject to inspections to ensure that it goes to civilians and not to Hamas militants. He also announced an additional $100 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza and the West Bank.

The Hospital Explosion

The recent explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip, which killed and injured dozens of people, was a major topic of discussion during Biden's visit. While there were conflicting claims about who was responsible for the blast, Biden stated that data from the U.S. Defense Department showed it was unlikely to have been an Israeli strike. He also expressed his deep sadness and outrage over the incident.

Support for Israel

Biden reiterated the U.S.'s firm support for Israel and its right to defend itself against attacks. He said that the U.S. would continue to work with Israel and partners in the region to prevent further tragedies and protect innocent civilians.

Sanctions on Hamas

In addition to providing humanitarian assistance and expressing support for Israel, the U.S. also announced sanctions against a group of 10 Hamas members and the organization's financial network across several countries. This move aims to disrupt Hamas's ability to carry out attacks and support its militant activities.

Regional Implications

The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has had wider implications for the region. Protests erupted in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan in response to the hospital explosion, and there are concerns that the situation could escalate further. Biden's visit to Jordan, which was scheduled to take place during his trip, was canceled due to the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.

President Joe Biden's visit to Israel highlighted the urgency of addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the need for a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. While the situation remains complex and challenging, Biden's efforts to provide assistance, offer support, and engage in diplomacy are crucial steps towards promoting stability and alleviating the suffering of the people in the region.
'Stand With You': UK PM Rishi Sunak Amid Trip To Israel As War With Hamas Rages On

International

oi-Stuti Tripathi

On Thursday, 19th October the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, arrived in Israel to express solidarity with a nation still grappling with the aftermath of a devastating attack carried out by Hamas militants on 7th October. During his visit, he engaged in discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As Israel's response to the Gaza conflict escalates, Rishi Sunak's office has announced that he will offer condolences for the loss of life in both Israel and the Palestinian enclave. Furthermore, he will advocate for de-escalation in the region.

"I am here, first and foremost, to express my unwavering support for the Israeli people. You have endured an unspeakable and horrific act of terrorism, and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you," Rishi Sunak stated to Israeli reporters upon his arrival as quoted by Reuters.

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In an early statement, Rishi Sunak emphasized that the Gaza hospital blast on Tuesday, 17th October, which resulted in a significant number of Palestinian casualties, should serve as a pivotal moment for leaders in the region and worldwide to come together and prevent further dangerous escalation of conflict. He added that Britain would take a leading role in these efforts.

Biden's 'Going To End Warning For Hamas As US, Egypt Agree On Humanitarian Aid To Gaza

Rishi Sunak will also advocate for the establishment of a pathway to facilitate the swift delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza from Egypt and to facilitate the safe evacuation of British nationals who are currently trapped in Gaza.

Amidst the deepening Israel-Hamas conflict, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that limited humanitarian aid would be permitted into Gaza from Egypt. This decision followed a reported request from US President Joe Biden during his visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, 18th October. The request came hours after an explosion in a Gazan hospital, which claimed the lives of hundreds, including women, children, and civilians.
Deportation Flights of Venezuelans Resume After Year Long Hiatus

The Biden administration has resumed deportation flights of Venezuelans from the US, marking a significant concession by the government of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro.

International

-Sathish Raman

Deportation flights of Venezuelans from the US resumed on Wednesday with a first plane of more than a hundred migrants landing back in their economically troubled country under the Biden administration's latest efforts to deal with swelling numbers of asylum-seekers.

First Deportation Flight in Years

This is the first time in years that US immigration authorities are deporting people to the South American nation, marking a significant concession by the government of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro to a longtime adversary.

The First Plane

The first plane, a Boeing 737 jet, took off from the Texas border city of Harlingen and touched down in Miami before arriving hours later outside Caracas, Venezuela's capital. The roughly 130 passengers were Venezuelan women and men who were shuttled to the plane on buses and wore wrist and ankle restraints. As they boarded, US immigration officers patted them down.

Priority for Deportation

Corey Price, an acting executive associate director for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said, "This flight to Venezuela is the first I've seen in my career of an entire charter flight of Venezuelans going back to their country. And we plan on having several more of these in the coming days and weeks."

Price said those who were prioritized for the flights include recent arrivals as well as migrants who have committed crimes in the US. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens said the passengers had illegally entered the US between ports of entry.

Multiple Deportation Flights Planned

The Biden administration said it plans to have "multiple" deportation flights a week to Venezuela, according to a US Transportation Department waiver on travel restrictions, which would place Venezuela among the top international destinations for US immigration authorities. The government employs a fleet of charter carriers known collectively as ICE Air.

Complex Social, Political, and Economic Crises in Venezuela

The deportees will find a homeland that is still in the midst of complex social, political, and economic crises. The situation has evolved since a global drop in the price of oil  Venezuela's most valuable resource  a decade ago and mismanagement by the self-proclaimed socialist government pushed the country into a downward spiral. People are grappling with constant food-price hikes and business closures, and workers try to meet their needs with a monthly minimum wage of USD 3.70 that's barely enough to buy a gallon of water.

Eligibility for Deportation

Using charter airlines though, these flights, which typically carry 135 migrants, will fly to Venezuela from unspecified airports in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security. They will be for Venezuelans who have received final removal orders, which are issued after losing an asylum bid or to those who weren't able to seek humanitarian protection.

Response to Increase in Migration

The flights are in response to an increase in migration from Venezuela that is straining immigration systems throughout the hemisphere  including in the United States," the Transportation Department said in its waiver.

US-Venezuela Diplomatic Relations

The US has struggled for years to deport people to countries with which it has strained diplomatic relations, including Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. After a hiatus of more than two years, Cuba allowed for the resumption of US deportations in April, with deportation flights there operating only about once a month.

Temporary Legal Status for Venezuelans

The restart of the deportation flights takes place just weeks after the Biden administration announced that it is granting temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans that have arrived in the US by July 31. The temporary status makes it easier for them to get work authorization and stop deportation orders. Experts and immigration attorneys are urging Venezuelans to apply to TPS to prevent their repatriation.

The resumption of deportation flights from the US to Venezuela marks a significant development in the ongoing immigration crisis. The flights are expected to continue in the coming weeks and months, and it remains to be seen how they will impact the flow of migrants from Venezuela to the United States.
A Sydney resident made a tearful plea for the release of her nephew and his family, who are among the scores of men, women and children taken hostage by Hamas.
NSW Police boat Nemesis crew to get an award for rescuing sailors from a yacht in brutal seas 1000km from Sydney a year ago.
The German chancellor told lawmakers that Germany's place was "at the side of Israel," while adding that aid had to be provided to Palestinian civilians who were "at the mercy" of Hamas' terror.
The social media giants have until October 25 to assure the European Commission they are cracking down on problematic content. It follows a similar move against Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
The House of Representatives is heading into yet another day without a speaker, and likely yet another day of votes amid Republican infighting and a failure to rally enough supporttwice overfor Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The preparatory process for the "Mustafa Kemal Ataturk-2023" joint tactical exercises dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Turkiye to be held in Azerbaijan continues, Trend reports via Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defense.

In accordance with the plan, combat aircraft worked out actions on takeoff and landing, performing difficult pilotage maneuvers at low and medium altitudes, determining the coordinates of imaginary enemys ground targets, as well as conducting aerial reconnaissance and other tasks.

During the training exercises, military pilots accurately fulfilled all the assigned tasks.
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Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat representing Pennsylvania, scolded his colleagues who have expressed support for Hamas or criticized Israel for defending itself from terrorists.
A new poll gauging the political appetite of South Africans ahead of the 2024 elections has placed the ANC's support in the vulnerable provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal at below 40%.
Eurasia Review 24 Oct 2023

This new war between Tel Aviv and Hamas puts the Palestinian question back at the heart of the debate, and the means of resolving a..
Chinese Finance Minister assures an extensive commitment from China to enhance Sri Lankas credit optimization

Posted by Editor on October 19, 2023 - 3:39 pm

Chinese Finance Minister, Liu Kun, has reaffirmed Chinas commitment to extend comprehensive support for the implementation of a medium-term and long-term program that is mutually beneficial to both parties and aimed at optimizing Sri Lankas debt.

The Chinese Finance Minister conveyed this commitment during bilateral discussions held this morning (October 19) in Beijing with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is currently on a four-day official visit to China.

Minister Liu Kun emphasized that China has a profound understanding of the economic challenges confronting Sri Lanka and commended the progress and measures Sri Lanka has taken thus far to address the on-going economic crisis.

Furthermore, he expressed Chinas unwavering commitment to providing robust support for the enhancement of the necessary infrastructure crucial for Sri Lankas development.

The Chinese Finance Minister also highlighted the in-depth discussions that transpired regarding financial interactions between Sri Lanka and China, underscoring the collaboration with international organizations closely associated with China, aimed at furnishing additional support to Sri Lanka.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe expressed his profound appreciation for Chinas consistent support as Sri Lanka endeavours to overcome economic challenges. Discussions also delved into the program designed to spur economic recovery and foster the creation of a competitive, digitally advanced and environmentally friendly economy in Sri Lanka.

In attendance during this significant meeting were Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Sabry, Presidents Senior Adviser on National Security and Chief of Staff Sagala Ratnayaka, Central Bank Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe and Presidents Private Secretary Sandra Perera.

(Presidents Media)
ProgressPlay is set to showcase its cutting-edge AI and proprietary software solutions at SiGMA Europe this November, underscoring its commitment to responsible gambling and innovation in the iGaming sector.

ProgressPlay is not just making waves but creating tsunamis in the iGaming industry. Their recent announcement regarding deploying advanced AI and proprietary software comes ahead of the SiGMA Europe event this November, where they intend to dazzle the global audience.

Recognition at the EGR B2B Awards

Earlier in the year, the company's commitment to innovation and excellence didn't go unnoticed. Several of their newly developed products gained immediate attention and were shortlisted at the esteemed EGR B2B Awards. Such recognitions highlight the company's drive to create top-tier technology for the ever-evolving gaming world.

A Focus on Player Interaction and Safety

The technology suite generating buzz is not just about flashy graphics or swift gameplay but an innovative approach to Responsible Gambling. ProgressPlay's recent creations revolve around an AI-driven flow for real-time player interaction. The system evaluates players based on various criteria, ensuring transparency and compliance, especially with UKGC regulations.

Key topics covered by the groundbreaking software include KYC, player activity, affordability levels, and a detailed audit trail, ensuring a seamless and responsible gaming experience.

Marina Nahhas Speaks Out

Marina Nahhas, the Sales Manager at ProgressPlay, shared her excitement about this new venture, emphasizing the company's pioneering role in integrating proprietary Responsible Gambling software within the iGaming sphere. The participation in SiGMA Europe is expected to boost awareness and adoption of these innovative technologies, as Nahhas believes.

A Decade of Excellence and Innovation

ProgressPlay's journey over the last ten years has cemented its position as a global leader in providing comprehensive casino content. Their proprietary full-service format, coupled with unmatched technology, empowers operators with fresh content at an unprecedented pace.

The EGR-shortlisted Responsible Gambling software embodies their commitment to player safety. The software collects comprehensive data from the initial touchpoint, categorizing client risk levels based on real-time player activity evaluations.

CEO Itai Loewenstein's Vision

ProgressPlay's CEO, Itai Loewenstein, shed light on the company's future direction, emphasizing the need to challenge industry norms and celebrate in-house talent. They aim to set a new industry standard for harm-free gambling experiences by offering real-time player evaluations. Loewenstein expressed high hopes for their upcoming showcase in Malta, expecting a positive reception similar to past events.

About ProgressPlay

A global giant in the iGaming arena, ProgressPlay offers a complete turnkey solution for white-label gaming operators. From thousands of casino games to an expansive range of sports events, the platform provides a comprehensive gaming experience. Their offices span London, Malta, and Cyprus, ensuring a broad reach and extensive services, making them a preferred partner for many in the industry.
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.





Are We the Dinosaurs of the 21st Century?

And How Our Wars Distract Us

By Tom Engelhardt

Let's admit it: We are indeed mad creatures.

This should truly have been the time of our discontent. The northern hemisphere just experienced the hottest summer in recorded history, including month by month the warmest June, July, August, and (by a country mile) September ever. Staggering heat records were set in place after place globally. Fires from Canada to Hawaii to Europe broke all records. (In fact, those Canadian summer fires are now threatening to burn straight into the winter months for the first time and I fear this phrase is going to be become all-too-boringly repetitive in history.) The southern hemisphere had a "winter" from yes! hell. In Europe, which was burning up, Greece experienced unprecedented fires and floods as well. Libya had a significant part of a major city washed away. China, too, experienced unprecedented flooding around its capital, where 1.2 million people had to be evacuated, and in Hong Kong, too. The sea ice in the Antarctic fell to the lowest levels (yes again!) in recorded history, as did sea ice in the Arctic, helping to ensure a future in which rising sea levels could flood coastal cities. And Greenland has been lending a hand to that same future, starting 2023 with temperatures unmatched in at least 1,000 years and still setting new temperature records in July. Worse yet, that's just to begin down a list that increasingly seems unending.

In certain parts of my own country, the United States, this summer was all too literally a hell on Earth and, as a New York Times piece headlined it recently, also "A Summer Preview of the Future; Floods, Fires, and Stifling Heat." (Its first line: "It felt like the opening minutes of a disaster movie.") A stunning heat wave, for instance, stretched across a drought-stricken Southwest all the way to California, while Phoenix, Arizona, hit an almost unbelievable temperature record of 54 days of 110-degree heat or higher! (Oh, wait, make that 55!)

And that, of course, was just to begin down a seemingly endless list. I haven't even mentioned disappearing mountain glaciers or the soaring temperatures of South Asia or the Middle East. (Iran hit a record heat index temperature of 158 degrees in August.) But let me stop there. It isn't hard to see that, if we humans continue to use staggering amounts of fossil fuels and so pour ever more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and the latest study indicates that they are heading in that direction at record levels the Earth, or at least life as we humans have known it on this planet, will, in the long run, almost literally go down in" what else?" flames.

No, it's not that nothing is being done. Non-carbon-producing forms of energy are indeed on the rise globally (even in an oil heartland like Texas). Still, to take one example, China, the country moving most dramatically to create ever more green power, is also burning more coal than the rest of the planet combined and still planning to up its use of that devastating source of energy. And keep in mind that, these days, the two greatest greenhouse-gas-producing nations, China and the United States (which is also cumulatively by far the greatest in history), have in recent years hardly been able to exchange a civil word, no less collaborate to try to make this planet a cooler, better place. At the moment, it seems as if they stand a far greater chance of going to war with each other (while incinerating yet more fossil fuels and so much else in the process) than allying to help save the planet as we know it.

Meanwhile, of course, the giant fossil-fuel companies have been making I know this sounds like a broken record but what can I do? record (oops, sorry!) profits. And keep in mind that, in the United States, the leaders of one of the two major political parties are wildly focused on supporting and expanding Big Oil and carbon-producing energy sources of every kind, while denying that much of anything I've described above is actually happening. Worse yet, according to the latest polls, their unofficial leader, Donald Trump, stands a rather chilling (or do I mean boiling?) chance of retaking the presidency in 2024 and controlling the government for at least four more wildly unpredictable, possibly ever more authoritarian years of carbon hell. Under the circumstances, you might indeed be able to kiss this planet goodbye.

War Is Us

And worse yet, with our increasingly dire global situation in mind, ask yourself this: How is humanity reacting to the deep dangers we now face? Are we focusing our attention on putting out the flames, so to speak? I'm afraid despite the heroic efforts of any number of young people the overall answer would have to be: Not on your life! Sadly enough, instead of facing the crisis of climate change head-on, much of humanity seems all too intent on starting fires of the kind that have defined us since time immemorial. I have in mind, of course, a different kind of planetary destruction entirely: war-making. In fact, sometimes that seems to be by far our greatest, if grimmest, skill and deepest nature.

At a moment when peace couldn't be more needed so that we could focus on our imperiled future, war (and the threat of ever more of it) seems once again to be what we're all too willing to put at the very heart of things, including of our news reports.

Consider war, in fact, our other version of burning the planet up. Once upon a time, that would simply have been a metaphor for destructive war after war after war throughout human history, but no longer. After all, as anyone who saw the hit film Oppenheimer knows, back in 1945, this country first figured out how to create a global fire that could, unlike climate change, consume our world in essentially no time flat. I'm thinking, of course, of nuclear weapons, and of the fact that their power to broil us (as well as, all too ironically, drive us into a potentially devastating nuclear winter) has only increased immeasurably with time. The weapons in nuclear arsenals now are generally vastly much more powerful than those two atomic bombs that decimated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th of that year.

Almost 80 years later, nine countries have nuclear weapons and the U.S. is planning, in the decades to come, to put up to $2 trillion into "modernizing" its own nuclear arsenal, with the Russians and Chinese following suit. Worse yet, lurking behind the most recent full-scale war on planet Earth, the one in Ukraine, has been the possibility that such weaponry could actually be used on a battlefield for the first time since 1945. I'm talking, of course, about "tactical nuclear weapons" some far more powerful than the atomic bombs that took out Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Russian president's implicit threats to use them.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Minister of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov, who is paying an official visit to Uzbekistan at the invitation of the Uzbek Defense Minister, Lieutenant General Bakhodir Kurbanov, visited the Bahouddin Naqshbandi memorial complex, Trend reports via Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defense.

After getting acquainted with the complex, Zakir Hasanov arrived at the Bukhara combined arms training range.

An official welcoming ceremony was held. The defense ministers passed along the guard of honor, and the national anthems of both countries were performed.

Defense ministers met first one on one, and then in an expanded format with the participation of delegations.

At the meeting, the sides exchanged views on the prospects for the development of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan in military, military-technical, military educational fields, the organization of regular mutual visits of experts from both countries and a number of other issues of interest.

Then there was an introduction to the activity, material and educational base of the training range. The guests watched exemplary exercises of servicemen.

The sides exchanged presents and a photo was taken.

In the end, "Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2024" was signed.
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Hundreds of thousands- to millions - of frauds, are permitted by the FBI every year (click here, click here), and U.S. banks allow the criminals to use our banks to commit crimes against us. Any frauds under $100,000 are not investigated at all by the FBI, and there are no regulations to demand that our banks stop the criminals from using our banks to commit these ongoing crimes.



Figure 1. The FBI does not invetigate crimes for us.

(Image by US government) Details DMCA



I wrote a series of Op Eds about a a massive fraud scheme committed against my wife and me while we were in Europe, but more importantly my investigation determined that internet fraud is far more prevalent and despicable than anyone would have thought. I say despicable because the victims have little recourse to fight the criminals, since our laws and our law enforcement agencies support the criminals by default, or inaction.

SPECIFIC CRIMES THAT STARTED THIS INVESTIGATION

As a 71-year-old tourist, I did not succumb to a jail threat when I did not pay a $5,000 extortion payment while on vacation in France with my 73 year-old-wife. To document this thievery, I wrote "Visit France as a Tourist-Risk Fraud and False Imprisonment in Jail-Luxury Tours France and Hotel Le Pavillon Des Lys". Spending hundreds of hours without compensation, I fought the Bank of America to retrieve tens of thousands of dollars from associated credit card frauds ("The Bank of America Steals our Money - The Bank of America's International Fraud against America").

In response to my complaints to the U.S. Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Bank of America gave back my stolen money ("The Bank of America Reacts to Freedom of the Press and the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau"). That is, illegal double charging by a French hotel was refunded, along with $23,559 in stolen credit card funds from Luxury Tours France. Although the FBI refused to act on these crimes, the CFPB acted to have my stolen money returned. My exercise of Freedom of the Press prompted the CFPB to act on my behalf to stand against these bank crimes.

These crimes were so blatant that those who defrauded me accused me of blackmail when I asked that my stolen money be returned. Their false statements can be read in the following two TripAdvisor complaints: "The Hotel Le Pavillon Des Lys Defrauds Customers", click here, and "Defrauded and Stranded in France by Luxury Tours France (Riverloire - Loire Valley Day Tours)", click here. As noted, credit card frauds from both of these companies have recently been refunded by the Bank of America.

I invested significant efforts to date to retrieve stolen funds. If the cash amount had not been so large, and I had not been threatened with jail, perhaps I would not have pursued these crimes. Similarly, most people simply accept ongoing frauds, which may not be that large in each case. However, such frauds likely cost us tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

RECENT DOCUMENTATION OF THESE CRIMES

The following new complaints were submitted to TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor has blocked these reviews, which effectively covers up crimes by these companies.

Liars and Thieves at RiverLoire - Loire Valley Day Tours I traveled with Luxury Tours France, which is part of this company (https://www.luxury-tours-france.com, www.riverloire.com), and I was threatened with jail and defrauded of tens of thousands of dollars. I have documented this fraud in a series of articles through OpEd News by Robert A. Leishear. My wife was horrified that I would be jailed for not giving in to extortion by Luxury Tours France. By filing a subsequent complaint with the U.S. Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau, more than $23,000 in stolen funds have been returned. I am still pursuing more than $3000 in cash that was stolen from wife and I through a U.S. bank wire transfer by Luxury Tours France. Luxury Tours France has even falsely claimed that all of my requests to return my stolen money are a form of blackmail. I refuse to submit to these despicable criminal acts against my family. I filed a previous review complaint against this company, but these crimes against my family continue. A Fraud Has Been Stopped by the Hotel Le Pavillon Des Lys (click here: TripAdvisor removed this trip review from their website without explanation.) The Hotel Le Pavillon Des Lys illegally double-charged my wife and I for a hotel stay. When I asked them to pay back the stolen money, they falsely accused me of blackmail. Hotel staff supported a criminal who committed fraud against my wife and me, where that criminal demanded a $5,000 extortion payment in the lobby of the Hotel Le Pavillon Des Lys, and threatened to have me jailed if I did not pay immediately. That criminal from Luxury Tours France subsequently attempted to defraud me of more than $20,000. This stolen money and the fraudulent payment to the hotel were returned after the U.S. Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau induced my credit card company to reimburse this stolen money. By supporting the thefts by Luxury Tours France, this hotel is guilty of theft as well. These comments are documented in a series of Op Eds through Op Ed News.

I also sent the following feedback to the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau.

CFPB Fraud Complaint (230715-11535286)

The Bank of America refunded the money stolen by Luxury Tours France. Bank of America would not have done so without the assistance of the CFPB, where they previously refused to pay back the stolen money on multiple occasions. At first, Bank of America only refunded the stolen money from Luxury Tours France and the Hotel Le Pavillon Des Lys, but this bank later responded to a subsequent complaint that I filed to return the stolen money from Anontech. [I provided proof that a falsified document was provided by Stripe on behalf of Anontech to the Bank of America.] Interestingly, the Bank of America claimed that they provided excellent service in this matter, where I fought them for months to obtain this stolen money as documented in a series of Op Eds ("The Bank of America Reacts to Freedom of the Press and the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau", click here). Even so, Luxury Tours France has still absconded with money stolen through a wire transfer fraud, which is outside the jurisdiction of the CFPB. There is an in-process Op Ed to discuss this criminal matter that affects many people in the U.S. ("U.S. Banks and the FBI Harbor Criminal Fraud Enterprises"). Thanks for your assistance with this criminal matter.

Additionally, I continue to correspond by email with Luxury Tours France. One such recent letter follows.

A Letter to Luxury Tours France and the Hotel Le Pavillon Des Lys - Thieves and Liars Through the the Bank of America, I filed a formal complaint to request that your fraudulent wire transfer of thousands of dollars be refunded to my wife and me. If this effort fails, I plan to file criminal and civil complaints against [a specific company representative] if he is still in the U.S. I cannot access you thieves in France through U.S. courts, where only part of the wire transfer funds was used for services rendered. The rest of those funds were stolen by Luxury Tours France.

THE U.S. BANK COVER-UP

According to Bank of America staff, other banks follow the same policies that the Bank of America uses in day-to-day business. 'Credit card frauds' are called 'billing disputes', and 'wire transfer frauds' are called 'scam acknowledgments'. By falsifying the names of these frauds, U.S. banks vastly minimize the number of criminal frauds on their records. Furthermore, U.S. banks allow criminals to freely operate, using bank accounts for criminal purposes.

Such dishonesty constitutes a massive cover-up of criminal activities, which are thereby sanctioned by those banks who falsify their records. As noted in earlier Op Eds, any frauds under $100,000 are ignored by the FBI, and banks support the criminals. That is, if a criminal tells the bank that stolen money is a legitimate charge against a customer, the criminal is always right, and the customer is always wrong. In other words, criminals who commit frauds operate with impunity in the U.S.

Additionally, illegal wire transfer frauds are condoned through policies by the FBI and U.S. banks. For example, as part of this massive fraud against my wife and by Luxury Tours France, several thousand dollars were stolen through a wire transfer from one bank to another. The money was sent, received, and withdrawn by the thieves.

Cornerstone Community Federal Credit Union refused to return the money and allows the criminals to maintain their bank account, which in turn allows the criminals to commit similar crimes using the same bank account. The FBI informed me that no actions can be taken to investigate such a crime, since there are inadequate laws to prevent criminals from using banks to commit crimes. Specifically, there are no laws to hold banks accountable when their services are used to commit crimes.

Banks should be held accountable if they allow criminals to freely perform their crimes through bank accounts!

ADDENDUM: MUCH COMPUTER HACKING IS ACCEPTED BY THE FBI

To accent the extent of computer fraud, the FBI does not even bother to investigate most computer hacking incidents. As an example, my computer was hacked several years ago. The hacker sent emails to friends and family asking for money. The hacker further claimed that my wife had been badly beaten, that she was hospitalized, and that we were both stranded in Europe due to a robbery. Fortunately, I advised friends and family that this attempted crime was hoax.

An FBI computer responded that nobody would investigate this crime, since there are too many crimes to investigate. In short, there are too many crimes, so the FBI will not investigate most fraud crimes at all.

(Article changed on Oct 23, 2023 at 11:33 AM EDT)
It's easy, even as a professional journalist for many years, to become emotional when you see innocent people, especially children, being caught up in a war of attrition and genocide streamed live and direct into your living room. And it's also easy to get angry, very angry, when you see spineless, insensitive so-called world leaders - including the president of the United States of America and his western cabal of cowardly political imbeciles - like Duracell-wound up toy robots, simply mouth off one-sided Israel's talking points in one of the worst acts of enabling violence and brutality against a defenseless people in modern times.

And even the paper-tiger, toothless United Nation cannot even find language, or the guts, to condemn the violence on both sides, but the lop-sided and disproportionate response by a belligerent and angry Israeli politician who gleefully embraced the opportunity the brutal and inhumane Hamas act has spawned. So, Israeli prime minister waxes tough and patriotic while exacting vengeance and brutal collective punishment on an entire people because of the embarrassment and shattering of the myth of invincibility that Israel (and the United States) has carefully cultivated over the past 75 years.

So, Israel has dropped 6,000 bombs in a week on the Gaza Strip indiscriminately killing, maiming and exacting a terrible human toll for Hamas's daring to attack and kill over 1,400 Israelis. And yes, as dubious as that claim is, I can conclude, NOT AGREE, that Israel does have a right to defend itself even though it's the occupying and controlling power over the Gaza Strip for the past 16 years. Self-defense yes, but war crimes no. They are not justified under any circumstances.

Oh, yes, Israel AND its United States enablers, including President Joe Biden in his capacity as Israel's PR spokesperson after being embarrassingly snubbed by Egypt, Jordan and the quisling Palestinian Authority, has been trying desperately to "control the narrative" after the fallout of the bombing of a hospital in Gaza that has already claimed the lives of over 500 innocent Palestinians.

The U.S. President has said that "the Pentagon has showed him evidence that Israel did not bomb the hospital and that it was an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group." But he's provided no proof. Maybe we'll get some photos and videos sometime later. Nobody believes him. The U.S. does not have credibility in the Middle East. Sending his military toys to the region to threaten nations that do not like Israel is also very clumsy if not stupid.

And why should anyone with half a brain take the world of a government that in 2003 showed "iron-clad evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, presented by a former U.S. Secretary of State to the United Nations, with photos, charts, props and all, that proved to be a mountainous tissue of lies, untruths and distortions? Those lies cost the murder and deaths of millions of Iraqis and the near total destruction of that country. And what about Afghanistan? That country never even threatened the United States but as the global superpower it invaded, occupied and killed thousands of innocent Afghans - for 20 long, brutal years. In fact, former president Donald Trump boasted that he dropped the "mother of all bombs" (MOAB) on that poor country.

Israel? Well, the usual playbook is to first deny, deny and deny and get their lackeys in the U.S. mainstream media to "put a human face" on the whatever tragedy or war and to trot out Israeli "military experts" with stock photos and journalists fielding powder-puff questions in the best propaganda tradition to obfuscate and further muddy the situation. It's the fog of war 101. But try as they will and no matter the unconditional embrace and support of the latest Israel massacres, truth while the first casualty of any war, many be wounded, but not dead. And you can spin and lie but this is not 1948 - its 2023 and the world is far more interconnected and information is easily available from non-traditional sources and can be easily checked and verified.

Next Page 1 | 2

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A federal appeals panel in a split ruling this week upheld the dismissal of a wrongful death suit that challenged the fatal shooting of a Tigard man by Washington County deputies in 2018.

In a 2-1 decision, the majority found that two officers split-second decision to open fire and kill Remi Sabbe after the sheriffs office rammed his pickup with an armored vehicle did not constitute excessive force. The two officers shot Sabbe after they thought they heard a gunshot and saw a rifle pointed at them, the opinion said.
The Oregon Board of Education signed off Thursday on a new framework for health and human sexuality lessons that must be taught to public school students statewide by 2025.

The state-mandated health curriculum is a perennial hot-button, surfacing as a point of contention in school board elections and in letters to the editor, given deep philosophical divides over how much  and at what age  students should be taught about sexuality, drugs and gender identity.

Sasha Grenier, the sexual health and school health specialist for the Oregon Department of Education, acknowledged Thursday that for many of the hundreds of people who commented on the standards over the past year, teaching about gender identity is especially contentious. But she said those working on the update concluded that its inclusion in Oregon standards is essential for student safety, well-being and health.

The updated standards also expand lessons on eating disorder prevention, access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, and violence and trafficking prevention. There is also a new emphasis on synthetic opioid overdose prevention and response, with education on fentanyl and fake pills starting in sixth grade. Thats in accordance with a new state mandate on opioid education passed by lawmakers this year amid concerns about the skyrocketing rates of opioid use among Oregon teens.

Oregon law allows parents to opt their children out of all classroom lessons on sexuality but permits much more limited exemptions for the broader health curriculum.

The states existing requirements, which were last revised in 2016, are already more comprehensive than those found in some other states. For example, in Texas, sex education is not a required component of health courses and school districts are required to stress abstinence as a preferred choice of behavior for anyone who is unmarried.

By contrast, Oregons standards specifically direct schools to discuss abstinence alongside sexual and reproductive choices, and they say health education should provide medically accurate information on pregnancy options.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 signed a law banning early elementary school educators from classroom discussion of either sexuality or gender identity. In Oregon, standards call for teaching kindergarteners and first graders about reproductive body parts, using medically accurate terminology. By fourth grade, students should learn about ways to treat all people with respect, including people of all genders, gender expressions and gender identities.

By sixth grade, Oregon students are to be introduced to the definitions of different sexual and romantic orientations, including heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, asexual, two-spirit and pansexual. Under the newly adopted curriculum standards, sixth graders will learn more about menstruation, including different menstrual care products and the pain that some people experience while they have their period.

Birth control education starts in seventh grade, and safe sex strategies for different forms of intercourse follow in eighth grade.

Eric Lea, a school board member from the Redmond School District in central Oregon, said via written testimony to the state board that the standards have drawn concerns from multiple members of our district staff who raised concerns about age-appropriate material. He also said he was concerned that the standards update had been conducted under-the-radar, drawing comment from health educators but not well-publicized to parents around the state.

Jenny Withycombe, the assistant director for health and adapted/physical education at Portland Public Schools, took a different stance. She told board members via written testimony that she felt the standards supported the health and well-being of youth and praised the early grade school emphasis on topics including gender expression and understanding that families can come in many different incarnations.

But Withycombe said shes concerned about state laws allowing parents to opt their children out, particularly on lessons on sexual abuse and sexually transmitted diseases.

Do we allow students parents to opt them out of math they dont like or science they do not believe in? Withycombe wrote. If a parent does not believe in climate change should we let their student opt out? Why is human sexuality special? And how do you create a safe space if you allow schools to conflate human sexuality with gender?

 Julia Silverman, jsilverman@oregonian.com, @jrlsilverman
A group of Oregon wolves could be moving south this winter to take up residency in Colorado.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has agreed to give Colorado up to 10 gray wolves as part of a program to reestablish the species in the state.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced earlier this month it has reached a one-year agreement with Oregon to relocate the wolves.

CPW will begin trapping and transporting the wolves in December  though officials arent sure how many theyll be able to catch, or how long it will take to trap them.

CPW plans to capture wolves through March of 2024, if necessary, to acquire 10 wolves, CPW spokesperson Travis Duncan told Columbia Insight in an email. That does not mean we will secure all 10 at first release or even this year.

The wolves will be trapped in northeast Oregon and will make a more than 1,000-mile journey to Colorados western slope.

Its a trip that the animals wouldnt make on their own.

Gray wolves historically lived across most of North America and can thrive in a wide range of climates. But individual wolves typically dont travel more than a hundred miles from their birthplace.

It would be extremely unusual and unlikely for a wolf to traverse the distance between Oregon and Colorado, Duncan said, but added that wolves are habitat generalists, meaning they can adapt to a wide range of climates.

And theres no guarantee the wolves will stay in Colorados western slope.

Regardless of release location, wolves will move to where they find sufficient habitat and prey, he said. As long as prey is available, wolves can use a variety of areas.

Oregon gives and takes

In 2020, Colorado voters approved the program to relocate up to 15 wolves to the state, but CPW has had difficulties in sourcing wolves.

Officials in states including Wyoming, Montana and Idaho  where ranching and hunting interests have fueled a conservative backlash to wolf reintroduction programs begun in the 1990s  have pointedly declined to assist Colorados efforts, according to Colorado NewsLine.

Duncan said CPW is pursuing agreements with other states and tribes to source more wolves. Washington, which has had success with its wolf recovery program, may offer some of its stock to Colorado.

A Washington Department of Fish Wildlife spokesperson told Columbia Insight the states wildlife commission is currently considering participating in the program but hasnt made a decision yet.

Its not uncommon for states to share species stock with one another in conservation programs, and its not the first time Oregon is involved in such a program.

Oregon has a long history of helping other states meet their conservation goals by providing animals for translocation efforts, said Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Curt Melcher in a press release. Some of our wildlife populations were also restored thanks to other states doing the same for us, including Rocky Mountain elk, bighorn sheep and Rocky Mountain goat.

The relocation isnt expected to impact Oregons own wolf recovery goals.

Kendra Chamberlain is a freelance journalist based in Eugene, Oregon, covering environment, energy and climate change. Her work has appeared in DeSmog Blog, High Country News, InvestigateWest and Ensia.

Columbia Insight, based in Hood River, Oregon, is nonprofit news site focused on environmental issues of the Columbia River Basin.
UPDATE 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023: That was fast. The trees are all reserved for 2023, according to the citys website. But you can sign up for the waitlist -- some people cancel their orders and trees may become available. And theres always 2024.

***

Want to help expand Portlands shrinking tree canopy and be part of cooling down the city and the planet? What you need is a tree or two for your yard, and Portland wants to give you those trees for free.

For the seventh year, the Portland Parks and Recreation Urban Forestry department is giving away 2,000 trees for private property on Saturdays this fall, in an effort to get more trees planted in the citys heat islands or the places most susceptible to extreme heat.

All you need to do to get one, or two, of the trees is sign up with the city by visiting portland.gov/free-yard-trees or calling 503-823-4963.

Once you register, you can pick up your tree or trees, along with mulch and a watering bucket, at one of the departments drive-through events:

Argay City Park at Northeast 141st Avenue and Failing Street, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21.

Ventura Elementary School at 145 S.E. 117th Ave., from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28.

Portland Parks and Recreation Mt Tabor Nursery at 6437 S.E. Division St. from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4.

If you live in the Bridgeton, Cully, East Columbia, Humboldt, Piedmont, Powellhurst-Gilbert or Woodlawn neighborhoods, free delivery is available and the department does offer some tree planting for people who need that help.

Remember: You must register to get trees.

While many trees are already spoken for, 125 Douglas firs and Willamette Valley ponderosa pines are still available.

 Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052; lacker@oregonian.com; @lizzzyacker

Our journalism needs your support. Please become a subscriber today at OregonLive.com/subscribe
In Oregon, possession of a small amount (less than one gram) of an illicit drug is subject to a civil fine of $100. But todays illicit drugs are so powerful that there is really no such thing as a small amount. It only takes two milligrams of fentanyl to kill an adult. A single gram of fentanyl could kill five hundred.

Such a low penalty for small amounts of street drugs enables an open market for the drug cartels, promotes opioid addiction and causes death. Fentanyl is everywhere: traces of it are found on public transportation, street drugs are laced with it and discarded foil may contain traces that could harm our kids. Overdoses are skyrocketing, and people are dying, including teens and toddlers. This small amount is killing people. And more powerful drugs are on the way.

Measure 110 has created a staggering public health emergency and biohazard. No amount of dogmatic double-downing can fix Measure 110. It is time to heed what we have learned and pass a law that rolls up the cartel welcome mat and protects us all from small amounts of lethal and addictive street drugs, including fentanyl. We must send a clear message to everyone, including the judiciary and district attorneys, that possession of any amount of these drugs is a crime  no exceptions. Sellers should go to jail or prison. As for users, they should be diverted into treatment and recovery. There is no stigma in that.

Guy C. Stephenson, Portland

To read more letters to the editor, go to oregonlive.com/opinion.
Do ghosts haunt Oregon? Theres only one way to find out.

On this weeks episode of Peak Northwest, we talk to Samantha Swindler, videographer and features reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive, who has made it her business to tour the spookiest places around the state.

Swindler talks about sleeping alone in purportedly haunted hotels, touring Old West ghost towns and researching ghost stories around the state. If spooky history is your idea of fun, this is a trip for you.

Here are some highlights from this weeks show:

Does the Lady in Blue haunt the Geiser Grand Hotel?

Hotel Condon in central Oregon is supposedly haunted.

Shaniko is a ghost town that may also be home to some actual ghosts.

Checking out the all-around spookiness of Knight Hall in Forest Grove.

Heres the full episode:

Subscribe to Peak Northwest on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

-- Jamie Hale and Vickie Connor
Dozens of Oregonians who have applied for benefits through the states new paid family and medical leave program have faced significant delays receiving their checks due to hang ups with the application process and mistaken guidance from newly-trained customer service representatives.

The delays have forced some Oregonians to dip into their savings accounts to make ends meet and left at least one family in danger of eviction.

Karen Humelbaugh, director of Paid Leave Oregon, said she is aware of fewer than 100 people who have been held up in the application process longer than expected due to its identity verification system or other snags with application forms.

It wasnt until last week  five weeks after the program launched  that officials realized that the dozens of applicants were being held up in the system for similar reasons. Due to that discovery, Humelbaugh said, a small group of workers were reassigned to focus on those applications earlier this week. She is hopeful they will be pushed through soon and people who have been waiting for money due to them will begin receiving payments by the end of next week.

Clearly, its not the customer service experience we want to provide. Its not the goal of the program, Humelbaugh said. But I also think its a testament to the careful planning and training and testing we did that the universe of folks in this situation is small.

That doesnt mitigate the impact, however, on those whose applications have been held up.

One 27-year-old Tigard resident whose daughter was born last month said his family is facing eviction and having their car repossessed because of the benefit delays. He asked to remain anonymous because he is concerned going public could harm their ability to find new housing.

The new father said he first applied for benefits shortly after the application system opened Aug. 14, hoping to get the process going early. His initial application was denied because he incorrectly applied as a caregiver to his wife instead of as a new parent. He said he applied again from the delivery room after his daughter was born Sept. 22. He speculates that the program flagged his application in the identity verification process because he had applied twice. He is also in the process of legally changing his last name to his wifes last name, which is something that can hold up the identity verification process, said Rebeka Gipson-King, a spokesperson for the Oregon Employment Department.

Nearly a month after submitting his second application, the 27-year-old has yet to receive any money. For more than two weeks, his application has been tied up in the systems identity verification process. That left him unable to pay rent on time and make a car payment, he said.

He said he called Paid Leave Oregon 24 times over a two-week period, spending more than six hours on the phone to try to get the problem resolved, to no avail.

I have a newborn. I have a rent and renters insurance thats due, a car payment thats due. I have food and formula I need to buy, he said. I cant wait any longer. This is a system thats designed to help families and take that stress off them, and its failing miserably.

Paid Leave Oregon officially began paying benefits to Oregonians on Sept. 3. The long-awaited program covers leave for the birth or adoption of a child, for serious illness or injury, for taking care of a seriously ill family member and for survivors or the parents of survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking or harassment, according to the state.

The program, originally slated to begin paying benefits in January, was delayed by eight months in 2021 due to a series of key decisions from employment department leaders and the programs failure to meet key benchmarks, an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found.

Since it officially launched in September, however, leaders have hailed the programs rollout as a success. Paid Leave Oregon has received nearly 24,000 verified applications so far and paid out nearly $28.7 million to 16,000 individuals, according to a state dashboard. The program has received an unspecified number of applications not included on the dashboard because they havent yet been verified as eligible.

But bumps along the way have caused serious headaches for some applicants.

Echo resident Jennifer Cox applied for benefits the day the program began accepting applications Aug. 14, hoping she would start receiving benefits by the time the school year started in September. Cox, a first grade teacher in the Hermiston School District, is recovering from a broken leg.

But when she went to apply, the states paid leave system didnt recognize the name of her employer, she said, so her application was denied. She worked with a customer service agent to fix that error, but her application still hadnt been approved by late September. When Cox called Paid Leave Oregon again, an agent told her the easiest thing for her to do would be to start the application process over.

That was a mistake, Humelbaugh, the programs director, admitted. She said a lack of training led customer service agents to incorrectly tell applicants with complex claims to resubmit their applications.

Submitting a second application forces applicants to start the identity verification process over from scratch and could delay their applications further, Humelbaugh acknowledged. Customer service agents were directed earlier this month to stop telling applicants with complex claims to submit new applications, she said.

Cox is still waiting to receive her benefits, but she was informed this week that the program had all the paperwork it needed and that she should soon receive the money she is owed.

Its been very stressful, Cox said. Weve had money in savings weve had to use. We have projects around the house that arent getting done.

Chuck Lukenbill, 64, has faced similar struggles trying to secure benefits on behalf of his wife, Jennifer Crull, 63, a longtime nurse who suffered a stroke Sept. 2.

He said her application was seemingly approved in September. But when her benefits hadnt come through by the end of the month, Lukenbill called Paid Leave Oregon to ask for help. Like Cox, he was told the easiest thing for him to do would be to start the application over.

A week and a half after submitting a second application, Lukenbill received a letter in the mail asking him to verify his wifes identity. The Beaver Creek resident submitted the requisite documents, but three days later he received yet another letter from the program asking for identity verification again.

Those identity safeguards are in place, Humelbaugh said, because the program has been the target of fraudsters since its launch. She is urging anyone who did not apply for benefits but receives a letter from the program requesting them to verify their identity to immediately report that application as fraudulent through the programs Frances Online portal.

Those fraud protection barriers have left applicants like Lukenbill frustrated. He said his wifes application remains tied up in the identity verification process and she still hasnt received any money. He pulled from the familys savings to pay their bills this month but is worried he will have to dip into his retirement savings account if the delays continue.

Right now, Id rather be by my wifes side taking care of her, Lukenbill said. Instead, Im spending all my time filling out forms.

 Jamie Goldberg; jgoldberg@oregonian.com; 503-221-8228; @jamiebgoldberg

Our journalism needs your support. Please become a subscriber today at OregonLive.com/subscribe
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The nations subjected to colonization are waiting for international support, said Gaston Samit, a representative of the People's Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe, at a press conference, Trend reports.

"The UN has announced that colonization must be eradicated in the coming years. We are working with the population on our land to make this process accelerate. France has positioned itself internationally as a defender of human rights. But we want to show how France really feels about the states it colonized," he said.

The international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice," organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.
Multnomah Countys program to rapidly house homeless individuals living in tents near downtown Portland fell far short of its goal, even after the county dramatically dialed back the initiatives early plans.

Outreach workers managed to move just 18 people from a large encampment in Old Town into apartments between June and the first week of October, county officials told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Wednesday.
It was announced Wednesday that Dennis Murphy, owner of Caprio Cellars in Walla Walla, Washington, has reached an agreement to acquire the ownership interest of TIAA/NUVEEN/PCP Partners and the Leonetti/Figgins Family in Seven Hills Vineyard and the SeVein Project.

With Murphy displacing TIAA/NUVEEN/PCP Partners, this transaction places these vineyard properties entirely under local ownership.

Murphy joins Marty Clubb, co-owner of LEcole No 41 in Lowden, Washington, and Norm Mckibben, the founder of Pepper Bridge Winery in Walla Walla as partners and sole owners of Seven Hills Vineyard. Bob Rupar remains as part of the ownership team at SeVein.

The SeVein Project is a collection of premium vineyards in the Walla Walla Valley, of which 170-plus acre Seven Hills Vineyard is the centerpiece. Seven Hills Vineyard, where vines were initially planted in 1980, is one of the first commercial vineyards in the Walla Walla Valley American Viticultural Area.

I am honored to be a part of, and continue, the legacy of one of the oldest and most prestigious vineyards in the Walla Walla Valley, Murphy said in a press release. I look forward to partnering with Marty Clubb, Norm McKibben and Bob Rupar in this exciting new venture as we continue to build on their successes.

Murphy is also the CEO of Hayden Homes, in Redmond, Oregon. Murphy started Caprio Cellars in the Walla Walla Valley nearly 20 years ago in order to pursue his dream of making high quality, Bordeaux inspired wines.

The negotiations for Murphy to purchase the ownership interest of TIAA/NUVEEN/PCP Partners and Gary and Chris Figgins, owners of Leonetti and Figgins Family., started in the summer of 2023 and closed on Oct. 17, 2023. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The remaining owners are eager to get started with their new partner. After nearly 30 years of a great partnership with my friends Gary and Chris Figgins/Leonetti, I am excited to add Mr. Murphy as a partner. I am confident Mr. Murphy, alongside myself and our other partners McKibben and Rupar, will continue to honor and expand our legacy for many more years to come, Clubb said.

-- Michael Alberty writes about wine for The Oregonian/OregonLive and Wine Enthusiast Magazine. He can be reached at malberty0@gmail.com. To read more of his coverage, go to oregonlive.com/wine
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. France refuses to consider the inhabitants of Martinique as a separate nation, the representative of the Martinique Freedom Party, Luc Carole, said at the press conference of the "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" international conference, organized by the Baku Initiative Group, Trend reports.

"We speak among ourselves in our mother tongue. However, France has not signed the law on regional languages. We recently passed a document that says our language will have the same status as French. But France says the only official language is French. They refuse to allow another language to be an official language," Carole added.

The "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" international conference, organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group (BIG) was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.

BIG supports the fight for freedom of nations located in different regions of the world still suffering from colonization in the 21st century.
Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday issued a call for better regulations over the use and potential mis-use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the healthcare industry
Cairo, Egypt (PANA) - With essential supplies running out in Gaza, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday appealed for humanitarian access to the besieged enclave
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libya and Turkey have agreed on a mechanism for activating the Customs Mutual Administrative Cooperation Agreement signed between the two parties in 2014
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The Libyan Prime Minister, Abdulhamid al Dbaiba, has reaffirmed his government's support for the holding of elections in accordance with fair, consensual and enforceable laws, which are not detailed to guarantee the success or exclusion of any party
Cairo, Egypt (PANA) - UN human rights chief Volker Turk on Thursday called for progress on the unfinished agenda of womens sexual and reproductive health rights at an event in Geneva to mark the 30th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)
Photo: (Photo : Majid Saeedi / Getty Images)

The recent imposing of a $30,000 fine on a Kentucky Distribution Center for its engagement in the illegal employment of minors has highlighted a concerning trend in U.S. industry labor practices.

Unsettling Discoveries at the Kentucky Distribution Center

The Hebron-located Kentucky Distribution Center, Win.IT America Inc., situated a mere 20 miles from Cincinnati, finds itself at the center of a burgeoning controversy.

Investigations by the U.S. Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division revealed that this Kentucky Distribution Center had been employing two children, ages 11 and 13, for an extended duration.

These children weren't merely employed in contravention of federal regulations; they were also assigned tasks that are considered perilous.

One young worker at the center was assigned the role of operating a forklift, an alarming duty given its categorization as hazardous for anyone under 18.

Concurrently, the other child was engaged in picking orders in the warehouse, a task restricted to individuals younger than 16.

Grave Implications for Win.IT America Inc.

In light of these findings, the $30,000 fine directed at the Kentucky Distribution Center underscores the serious ramifications of ignoring child labor regulations.

Following the federal consent judgment obtained by the Labor Department on September 8, Win.IT America Inc. is mandated to cease all forms of child labor and ensure full adherence to federal child labor laws.

Beyond the $30,000 fine, the judgment also stipulates that the company must collaborate with a third-party consultant who will oversee semi-annual compliance training for the center's management team over the next three years.

As the U.S. subsidiary of the Shanghai-based WinIT Information Technology Co., Win.IT America Inc. holds a notable international presence, with an employee base of over 700 across countries such as the U.S., Australia, Germany, and Britain.

Read Also: FDA Targets To Ban Formaldehyde in Relaxers: Risks to Black Women Highlighted

Escalating Crisis of Child Labor in the U.S.

The revelations concerning the Kentucky Distribution Center are indicative of a larger, more troubling pattern.

Juan Coria, the regional administrator of the Wage and Hour Division in Atlanta, has voiced concerns over the discernible uptick in child labor violations throughout the U.S.

He points out the onus on employers to verify the ages of their employees to ensure they aren't partaking in the illegal employment of minors. Moreover, data extracted from the fiscal year 2022 paints a grim picture.

The Labor Department identified child labor transgressions that impacted nearly 4,000 children across the nation, showing an alarming increase of over 60% in the past five years.

Backing these findings, Regional Solicitor Tremelle Howard in Atlanta emphasized the necessity for businesses to remain compliant with federal child labor guidelines, highlighting that these rules aim to furnish young workers with invaluable work experience without jeopardizing their safety or education.

The concerning revelations at the Kentucky Distribution Center, coupled with the stern $30,000 fine, ought to resonate with industries far and wide.

Upholding ethical standards, championing safety, and prioritizing the well-being of children should be at the forefront of industry practices.

Engaging in the illegal employment of minors is not just a legal infringement but also a grave ethical misdemeanor.

Industries must inspect and rectify their operations to ensure children's rights and safety are paramount.

Related Article: Mother, 10-Month-Old Daughter Tragically Targeted in Murder-for-Hire Scheme; US Navy Officer Accused
Photo: (Photo : C Perret on Unsplash)

In an incident that has left the Detroit community in deep shock and sorrow, a 4-year-old boy met a tragic end when he was fatally attacked by one, and possibly two, dogs while he was innocently playing in his backyard on a Wednesday afternoon.

The unsettling event occurred just moments before 3 p.m. in a residential area on the city's bustling west side. Cpl. Dan Donakowski, a representative of the Detroit Police Department, provided initial details to the press.

Authorities Respond: Two Dogs in Custody

With the situation being fluid and many details still emerging, authorities have taken decisive action by placing two dogs under the protective custody of Animal Control.

Donakowski remarked, "We're currently piecing together the sequence of events. While we have two dogs in custody, it's still unclear whether one or both were directly involved in this heartbreaking incident."

Preliminary findings suggest that these dogs might have ventured from a neighboring property situated behind the young victim's residence. The exact chain of events that culminated in this sorrowful incident remains a puzzle that authorities are keenly trying to solve.

Multiple local news agencies, relying on insights from police officials, have indicated that the involved dogs are likely of the pit bull breed or a mix thereof. This breed, often a subject of intense discussion and debate due to its perceived aggressive nature, is once again under the scanner following this incident.

Police Cmdr. Arnold Williams, visibly shaken, addressed the media personnel assembled at the site.

"Our primary focus is on assisting the traumatized family and the surrounding community. It's every parent's worst nightmare, and we stand with them in their hour of grief," Williams expressed.

He continued with an emotional note: "Losing a child, a soul so young and vibrant, is a trauma that words can't adequately capture. It's a depth of pain that's heart-wrenching and beyond any realm of understanding."

Read Also: 7-Year-Old Girl Dies From Brutal Dog Attack in Louisiana; Dog Owner Faces Homicide Charges

The Critical Role of Responsible Pet Ownership

Further deepening the mystery and anguish surrounding the event was the revelation that an adult was indeed present within the home when the tragedy unfolded. While details remain scant on whether this individual was an immediate witness or became aware only post-incident, it underscores the rapid and unpredictable nature of such tragic occurrences.

In the wake of this sorrowful event, Cmdr. Williams made a passionate plea to the public, especially pet owners. "Owning a pet, especially dogs, comes with a heavy mantle of responsibility," he emphasized. "It's imperative, not just as a legal mandate but as a moral duty, to ensure our pets are secure and do not pose a potential hazard to others, especially innocent children."

As this tragic incident casts a long shadow over Detroit, it brings to the forefront the critical importance of safety measures, responsible pet ownership, and community awareness. The narrative serves as a stark reminder of the unpredictable dangers that might be present even in the most familiar settings, emphasizing the need for constant vigilance.

While the Detroit Police Department continues its comprehensive investigation, promising further updates, the community is united in grief, mourning the untimely loss of a young life. Thoughts and prayers pour in, surrounding the devastated family with love and support during these challenging times.

Related Article: 2-Year-Old Boy Dies After Vicious Dog Attack in Maryland
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. France rejects dialogue with overseas territories to put an end to colonialism, Gaston Samut from the People's Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe said at a press conference dedicated to the upcoming international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" in Baku, Trend reports.

He stressed that France cares only about its own interests.

"Although French colonialism has ended in a number of countries, French influence is still visible there," Samut added.

The international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice", organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.
Newly posted for your enjoyment on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Conference Talks: Cherubim and Seraphim: Iconography in the First Jerusalem Temple, presented by John Gee

Our first stop this morning was at Colossae, which is, now, little more than a tumulus or a tell that awaits excavation. And this morning it was a muddy one. (See John and Paul, but no George or Ringo.)

We next visited Alasehir, the town known anciently (and, in fact, until it was conquered by the Ottomans in AD 1390) as Philadelphia (, i.e., [the city of him who] loves his brother). Alasehir was, in fact, perhaps one of the first ancient cities with the name Philadelphia. It was established in 189 BC by King Eumenes II of Pergamon (reigned 197160 BC). Eumenes II named the city for the love of his brother, who would eventually succeed him as Attalus II (159138 BC), whose loyalty had earned him the nickname Philadelphos, which literally means [one who] loves his brother.

Lacking an heir when he died in 133 BC, the last of the Attalid kings of Pergamon, Attalus III Philometer (loves his mother; I swear that Im not making this up), bequeathed his kingdom, including Philadelphia, to his Roman allies. Thereupon, in 129 BC, Rome established the province of Asia or Asia Minor by combining Ionia and the former Kingdom of Pergamon.

Within todays Turkiye, the city of Alasehir is famed for its dried Sultana raisins, although cultivation for the less labor-intensive fresh fruit market has grown in recent decades. Philadelphia is probably best known as one of the seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation. At Revelation 3:7-13, the church members here were challenged to hold fast and to look forward to the coming of the new Jerusalem. The citys history of earthquakes may lie behind the reference to making her church a pillar in the temple (Revelation 3:12). Philadelphia shares the distinction with Smyrna of receiving nothing but praise from the angel, or from Christ, in the Revelation of John.

In the afternoon we visited the ruins of the ancient city of Sardis, the ancient capital of the Lydian Empire and another of the seven cities of Revelation. This is the city that was berated by John for its facade of strength when, in reality, it was weak (Revelation 3:1-6).

Sardis boasts a spectacular ancient synagogue, directly adjacent to a spectacular gymnasium  an ironic and rather unexpected pairing, given the clash of synagogue and gymnasium in Judea  as well as an impressive albeit unfinishedd temple of Artemis in a beautiful nearby valley.

It also has an interesting secular history. Ill start with a king by the name of Gyges, who lived during the first half of the seventh century BC. The main source for his life is the great historian Herodotus, according to whom he was bodyguard of the previous Lydian king, Candaules, of the Heraclid dynasty, who believed his wife to be the most beautiful woman in the world. In order to prove his point, he arranged that Gyges secretly see his wife naked as she disrobed for bed. But she soon discovered what had happened, and she was so enraged by the betrayal that she confronted Gyges with the choice of either murdering her husband and making himself king or being himself put to death.

The last of the Lydian kings was Croesus, who reigned from 585 BC until he was defeated by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in either 547 BC or 546 BC. Croesus is still famous for his enormous wealth. The saying As rich as Croesus is still current; in The Simpsons, Montgomery Burns lives at the corner of Croesus and Mammon Streets.

Croesus is said to have gone to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, wondering whether he should attack the Achaemenid Empire of the Persian king Cyrus. The oracle responded that, if he went to war against the Persians, he would destroy a great empire. So he did, and he did: The empire that he destroyed was his own. Immediately after his defeat, so the story goes, he was about to commit suicide and Cyrus plucked him from the flames. Or, alternatively, Cyrus was going to burn him alive, but Croesus prayed to Apollo and a sudden storm extinguished the fire, leading Cyrus to spare him. Thereafter, as the two stood watching the Persian troops loot and pillage Sardis, Croesus pointed out to the Persian king that, since the city was no longer his but now belonged to Cyrus, they were looting and pillaging Cyruss wealth. Whereupon Cyrus put an end to the pillaging. One historical fact that seems fairly solid: The first minted coinage in the world appears to have been created under King Croesus.

Lastly, we visited the rather limited remains of the city of Thyatira (or Thyateira;), another of the seven cities of Revelation, which was famous for its dyeing facilities and which was a center of the purple cloth trade. Most of Thyatira is now buried under the modern Turkish city of Akhisar (White Castle) During one of our longer drives today, I read and briefly commented upon one of the many Western literary responses to the culture and history of the places weve been visiting: Sailing to Byzantium, by William Butler Yeats I That is no country for old men. The young In one anothers arms, birds in the trees, Those dying generationsat their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. II An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. III O sages standing in Gods holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. IV Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Tonight, were staying in Izmir, the ancient Smyrna.

Posted from Izmir, Turkiye
Professor Edwine Barasa, Deputy Executive Director, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Program has mentioned Rwanda, Ghana, Gabon and Burundi as the only four African countries with over 20 per cent coverage levels with any type of health insurance even though the overall health insurance coverage in Africa is low.



"Only four countries had coverage levels with any type of health insurance of above 20 per cent (Rwanda- 78%, Ghana- 58.2%, Gabon- 40.8% and Burundi- 22.0%", Professor Barasa disclosed.



Professor Barasa has however charged the health insurance authorities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and other Low/Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) to embrace tax funding and mandatory contributory health insurance as a sustainable and feasible mechanism for mobilising resources for the health sector.



Professor Barasa said this would help the African Continent to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and health security.



In a presentation to highlight the performance of health insurance in Africa at the maiden NHIA-WHO Regional Conference on financing UHC and health security with the theme Overcoming Financial Barriers and Providing Financial Risk Protection, Professor Barasa acknowledged that African countries were increasingly adopting mechanisms for the health sector.



He said the latest available demographic and health survey from 36 African countries as of 2021 indicated that low/middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa were increasingly turning to public contributory health insurance as a mechanism for removing financial barriers to access and extending financial risk protection to the population.



He added that exposure to media made the greatest contribution to the pro-rich distribution of health insurance coverage at 50.3 per cent, followed by socioeconomic status at 44.3 per cent and the level of education at 41.6 per cent.



He again said that only eight of the 36 countries examined had a mean level of insurance coverage with any type of health insurance of above 10 per cent; thus, health insurance coverage in sub-Saharan Africa is characterised by substantial income inequalities.



Coverage of health insurance in sub-Saharan Africa is low and pro-rich. The four countries that had health insurance levels greater than 20 per cent were all characterised by substantial funding from tax revenues. The other study countries featured predominantly voluntary mechanisms.



In a context of high informality of labour markets, sub-Saharan Africa and other low/middle-income countries should rethink the role of voluntary contributory health insurance and instead embrace tax funding as a sustainable and feasible mechanism for mobilising resources for the health sector, he stated.



Meanwhile, Dr Bernard Okoe Boye, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) touching on the history of health insurance financing in Ghana, said that the country moved from free healthcare in 1957 to the 70s and later to minimum token under the structural adjustment programme from 1970s to 83.



Dr Okoe Boye added that Ghana started to experience user fees (cash and carry) from 1983 to 1990s and it changed to cash and carry plus community health insurance from 1990 to 2003; thus, there was an Act of Parliament in 2003 to make it a national health insurance scheme.



He said the scheme which was being revised to Act 852 in 2012 was mainly financed by earmarked funds from social security and tax with enrolment being mandatory by law.



He disclosed that whereas membership coverage stood at 55 per cent of the population, the implicit benefit package covers about 95 per cent of disease conditions and the healthcare providers were contracted from public, private and faith-based sectors.



Dr Okoe Boye said Ghana was poised to attain universal health coverage with three dimensions; reducing cost sharing, including other services to the scheme and extending to the uninsured in the country.



Addressing the issue of inequalities, making it difficult to attain universal health coverage in the country, Professor Irene Akua Agyepong, Dodowa Health Research Centre of Research and Development, said there should be a strategy to ensure the remaining 45 per cent who are not enrolled into the scheme are registered to attain 100 per cent coverage since all Ghanaians contribute into it through the national health insurance levy.



About half of Ghanaians are registered in the scheme but one of the things we did which is to our credit and we should not change is that the way we are funding the scheme is through the national health insurance levy.



90 per cent of the money that pays for the scheme is from the national health insurance levy. All of us in Ghana contribute to it. If you had bought anything in the shop, you would see it in the receipt, the national health insurance levy. If all of us in Ghana are contributing to that levy, then all of us in Ghana should benefit from the national health insurance but right now only about 55 per cent have been enrolled, she said.



Professor Akua Agyepong therefore supported the need for a national dialogue to make the enrolment not voluntary but mandatory just as other schemes like the driver's license and Ghana Card almost force everyone to get it before driving or engaging in any transactions.



We need to sit down as a nation and find the way to get 100 per cent of Ghanaians enrolled on the scheme so that we are all paying the taxes and we are all benefitting from the scheme. It will help all of us because the aim is for all of us to be healthy, she insisted.

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 Electoral Commission (EC) has entreated the government to adequately fund the National Identification Authority (NIA) to fast-track the acquisition of Ghana Card for voter registration purposes.



Such a move, the EC said, would enable the country to abolish the guarantor system sooner because it said it was fraught with many challenges, susceptible to abuse, and was not the best option for the countrys quest to improve its electoral system.



At a press conference in Accra Tuesday (Oct 17), a Deputy Chairperson of the EC in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey, said the recent limited voter registration exercise brought to the fore the abuse of the guarantor system, with minors being bussed to register.



The commission abhors the encouragement of minors to register.



This is a crime.



It does not augur well for us as a nation, and we urge all citizens and stakeholders to join the commission to solve this age-long canker.



The sad fact is that these minors were bussed to registration centres by citizens who should know better, he said.



The Deputy EC Chairperson, however, gave an assurance that those who abused the guarantor system and guaranteed for more than 10 persons as stipulated by law would be dealt with in accordance with the law.



Mr Tettey stressed that the Ghana Card remained the best proof of ones citizenship as a Ghanaian and the most reliable option to sanitise the countrys electoral roll.



The use of the guarantor system is fraught with blatant abuse as witnessed in the just ended voters registration exercise.



Most countries in the sub-region, to mention but a few, Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Rwanda and Kenya, do not use the guarantor system as evidence of identification as a citizen.



If indeed, we are committed to strengthening our electoral processes then the guarantor system must be abolished sooner than later.



We call on government to fund NIA, he said.



The Deputy EC Chairperson further called on Parliament to pass the C.I. on voter registration which makes the Ghana Card the sole source document for registration to give legal backing for the ECs move to sanitise the register.



Press conference

The Press Conference, dubbed: Let the citizens know, was part of regular public engagements by the EC to inform the general public about its activities.



Yesterdays press conference was used by the EC to apprise the public of the recent limited voter registration exercise which the EC conducted at its district offices across the country.



Mr Tettey explained that the EC decided to conduct the registration exercise at its district offices and not at electoral areas because it did not factor the exercise at electoral areas in its 2023 budget and work plan.



He, therefore, denied certain reports that the EC attributed the failure to conduct the exercise in electoral areas because of Parliaments failure to approve its budget.



The EC has not stated anywhere that Parliament is to be blamed for not approving its budget, hence its decision to register voters at the District Offices.



The EC stated that, it prepared a draft C.I. for a Continuous Registration exercise in all its district offices nationwide and had the C.I. passed, the EC would have had some six (6) months to register voters at a time of their choice.



Measures

The EC said as part of efforts to ensure that every eligible voter got registered, it issued a directive to all its officers to issue chits or numbers to all applicants in the queue on or before 5 p.m. to go to the registration centres the next day to register.



The measure was to ensure that all applicants who went to the registration centres on the last day and were in a queue on or before 5 p.m. were registered a day after the deadline.



Mr Tettey said although some registration centres recorded some number of applicants in the queue, most centres had less than 50 in the queue and in some cases even zero as indicated.



The EC displayed a table that showed 36 registration centres in five districts where there were 1,397 people in the queue, with 17 centres having no person in the queue as of 5 p.m.



Changing of cards

The Deputy EC boss also announced that the commission had started replacing the ID cards of voters in the Guan District in the Oti Region.



He said the exercise started from October 3 and will end on November 2, this year, and all eligible voters are required to go to the EC s district office in Likpe.



The exercise, he said, had become necessary due to the fact that voters in the Guan District registered in the Jasikan District in 2020 and it was necessary to change their cards to reflect Guan District.



With the creation of the Guan District, their voter ID cards bearing the Jasikan District code have to be changed to reflect the code of the Guan District.



Voters in the Guan District are, therefore, entreated to go to the District office and the exhibition centres during the exhibition period with their old voter ID cards and collect the replaced ones/new ones, Mr Tettey said.

Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Bryan Acheampong has directed that the Food Systems Resilience Project Funds under MoFA be restructured to allocate 40m USD to support agricultural production in the areas that have been affected as a result of spillage from the Akosomba dam.



He made this known while addressing farmers and financial institutions at a Presidential Breakfast Meeting on Agriculture and Agribusiness Financing in Accra.



Read below his full speech





THE PLANTING FOR FOOD AND JOBS PHASE II (PFJ 2.0) PROGRAM HAS CLEAR STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND INTERVENTIONS FOR AGRICULTURE TO DELIVER FOOD SECURITY AND RESILIENCE WITHIN FIVE YEARS: DR. BRYAN ACHEAMPONG



The Minister for Food and Agriculture assured Ghanaians of the capacity of His ministry to deliver on the food security needs of the country. Dr. Bryan said this when he addressed farmers and financial institutions at a Presidential Breakfast Meeting on Agriculture and Agribusiness Financing in Accra.



The Hon. Minister indicated that Ghana can boldly say and boast that it will be food-secured and resilient in five years. He however lamented the annoying and embarrassing narratives, like importing onions and tomatoes from the Sahelian regions, He affirmed his commitment to reverse the trend as soon as possible.



The enormity of leading the charge to transform Ghanas agriculture through the new strategy has never been lost on me, right from the inception of my stewardship, he added.



He expressed positivism of the existing potential of the agriculture sector, which should easily change the fortunes of Ghana if fully tapped. They include; abundant arable land for crop production, especially the virgin valleys suitable for rice production, good soils for the production of a variety of crops, across the country, water resources for irrigation, favourable weather, and a diversity of food commodities that provide numerous avenues for job creation along the agriculture value chain, to mention a few.



The Minister also indicated how PFJ 2.0 will work as an intervention on a sound footing. According to Dr. Bryan statistics have it that, for poultry, Ghana consumes a total of 324,000 MT, and is only able to produce just about 15,000 MT, implying a woeful self-sufficiency of under 5%. In the five-year plan of PFJ 2.0, Ghana is expected to move its self-sufficiency from 5% to 7% by the end of 2023, and to 13% in 2024, and progressively attain full self-sufficiency of 110.6% by 2028. Specific steps have been taken in this regard.



In this connection, Dr. Bryan announced that, in the immediate term (October to December 2023), MoFA is supplying 4.5-million-day-old chicks, vaccines, and starter-pack feed to anchor farmers and their out-growers. This intervention will result in the production of an additional 13,200 MT of poultry meat by the end of this year, which will increase Ghanas self-sufficiency to 7%.



In 2024, the Ministry He said, will ramp the poultry sector up with support to 18 million day-old chicks, vaccines, and starter-pack feed, which will lead to the production of 42,600 MT of meat and increase our self-sufficiency to 13%. This trajectory will continue until we reach full self-sufficiency.



Plans are also advanced to revive the poultry industry this year through the rehabilitation of 300 outgrown poultry farms across the country over the next 12 months. Each of these farms can be scaled to produce 200,000 birds within each poultry cycle of 4 months.

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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Ing. Edward Ekow Obeng-Kenzo, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Engineering and Operations) of Volta River Authority (VRA), has defended the decision of the management of the Authority to have spilled the dam causing floods in nearby communities.



The Akosombo dam spillage has displaced more than 25,000 residents and destroyed properties worth millions of cedis.



The victims, who are being held in makeshift shelters, have seen the President and Vice President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as well as NADMO come to their aid.



The Ghana Armed Forces and Navy have been instrumental in the rescue mission.



Speaking in an interview with host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's morning show "Kokrokoo", the VRA Engineering boss asserted that the spillage was necessary, otherwise, it will be risking the safety of the dam.



He cited the collapse of the dam in Libya resulting in the death of thousands and explained that the water levels in the Akosombo dam were so high that the only option was to open the gates for the water to subside.



"It's a decision call that you always have to make looking at both sides of it and make sure you take that correct decision," he emphasized.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that 2.3 million Ghanaians are living with various mental health conditions.



However, although access to treatment is a basic human right, 98 per cent of people living with mental health conditions in the country do not enjoy that right.



A Component Manager at the Ghana-European Centre for Jobs, Migration and Development (GEC), Michael Kwaku Yeboah, was speaking at a public forum on mental health in Accra yesterday to mark the global commemoration of this years World Mental Health Day.



He said mental health was not all about madness but also took the form of mild, moderate and severe psychological disorders, including fear, stress anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and bipolar disorders, among others.



Mr Yeboah stressed that everyone was vulnerable to the conditions, hence the need for all citizens to become advocates for accessible and quality mental health care.



He said more awareness was needed to help dispel the myths and misconceptions surrounding mental health conditions which resulted in stigmatisation and other forms of injustice against patients.



World Mental Health Day

The day is marked every October 10 to raise awareness of the condition and garner support for mental health patients.



The forum, he said, was organised by GEC and the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ).



The burden is alarming and shows why dialogues such as these are important.



It is important that stakeholders in the country deliberate on ways to improve access to not just care but quality care, systems and facilities without discrimination and human rights violation.



I wish to appeal to all stakeholders to work harder to dispel myths, reduce stigma and eliminate discrimination related to mental health conditions, he said.



A person's mental state should not influence how they are treated.



Their human rights should not be violated, neither should they be discriminated against in their quest to access care.



"We at GIZ Ghana are working to shape a future worth living in Ghana, which is why we provide mental health and psychosocial support to our clients at the Ghanaian-European Centre for Jobs, Migration and Development," he said.



The participants



Mr Yeboah said through counselling, psychotherapy sessions, temporary accommodation and health care, GEC ensured successful reintegration for returned migrants, who suffer various mental disorders and conditions along the migration cycle.



"We also provide support for vulnerable persons, including persons with disability, unemployed youth and women," he revealed.



Mr Yeboah said since the centre was opened in December 2017, it had provided psychosocial support for about 3,436 persons, including 927 women.



He said it had also encouraged peer-to-peer counselling.



"Thus, we have built the capacity of 150 returned migrants and traditional and community leaders to enable them to counsel their peers and community members, respectively.



Violations

A Specialist Psychiatrist at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Dr Peggy Asiedu Ekremet, said people living with mental health conditions continued to face human rights violations, which she said affected them physically and socially.



She mentioned the violations to include being beaten at prayer camps in the name of casting out the demon causing what was supposed to be a health condition, being excluded from community life and being stigmatised and discriminated against.



Dr Ekremet said the Mental Health Authority (MHA) was committed to ensuring that every Ghanaian had the right to quality mental health and was executing funds to put in the right systems in every region to curb mental health issues.



She said the MHA was putting together a Crisis Management Team made up of mental health professionals in every region to attend to the emergency mental health needs of people.



She said adolescents and the youth were increasingly being affected as one out of seven had mental health issues, while one out of every five persons below the age of 19 years had a recognisable mental health condition.



She added that 50 per cent of adults with mental health conditions developed them as early as age 14.

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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The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has filed a certiorari at the Supreme Court to quash a High Court decision which approved an expedited hearing of the seizure of the former ministers money and the freezing of her bank accounts.



As a result, he has filed an application at the High Court to stay the proceedings until the final determination of the application at the Supreme Court.



Dr Isidore Tuffuor who represented the OSP in Court today (Oct 18) notified the Court about the latest application.



Petition



The High Court, presided over by Justice Edward Twum, was last Tuesday (Oct 12) expected to take the plea of Ms Dapaah in a case in which the OSP had accused her of failing to declare her assets during her time as a minier.



Aside from that, a second attempt by the OSP to freeze the assets and accounts of Ms Dapaah was also expected to be heard by the same court that day.



But the OSP petitioned that Chief Justice to remove Justice Twum, from all its cases including that of the former minister.



U-turn



When the case was called today (Oct 18), Justice Twum confirmed to Victoria Barth, lawyer for Ms Dapaah that he has been notified that the OSP had withdrawn the petition.



However, few minutes later, Justice Twum retired to his chamber.



Later, he announced that he had been informed that the petition was still pending.



Plan



Lawyers for the former minister were of the view that the introduction of the latest applications by the OSP is an orchestrated plan to flee from the hearing of the OSPs own application.



It is important to note the clearly orchestrated plan by the applicant to delay or flee the hearing of his own application which is causing injury to the respondent and infringing upon the first respondents economic right, Barth said.



But in a sharp rebuttal, Dr Tuffuor described the comments by the former ministers lawyers as an attack on the integrity and person of the Special Prosecutor.



Justice Twum has adjourned the matter to October 25, this year for the motion for stay of proceeding to be heard.







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The speed of the trial and conviction of the members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who invaded the studios of UTV and disrupted a live television programme, "must give us hope of the commitment of the Chief Justice and the judiciary," the National Media Commission (NMC) has said.



An Achimota Magistrate Court on Monday convicted and fined each of the accused persons GH2400.



The convicts were charged with conspiracy to commit crime and rioting.



Reacting to the judgment, the National Media Commission in a press statement signed by the Executive Secretary, George Sarpong said the trial and conviction was a first step towards reversing impunity against journalists in Ghana.



He said the trial was also a testament to the commitment of the Chief Justice and the judiciary to upholding press freedom.



Attached below is a copy of the full statement from NMC:



OUTCOME OF TRIAL ON ATTACK OF UTV



The National Media Commission has noted the outcome of the trial of the persons who invaded the UTV studios.



We have also noted the justifiable expression of disappointment by the GJA in what they consider as the leniency of the sentences.



While the healthy discussions continue, we plead a focus to the future.



First, there is novelty in the courage of a sitting Minister, a Member of Parliament and an active politician in reporting members of his own party to the police for invading a TV station.



This must signify a new beginning towards addressing questions of the safety of journalists. He and the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice had a choice. And they elected to exercise that in favour of media freedom. That behaviour sets a new standard by which government action must be judged into the future.



We must hold the Ministers bound by this worthy precedent and define it as the standard by which we expect all future Ministers to act.



Second, the speed of the trial must give us hope of the commitment of the Chief Justice and the judiciary.



It is also important to acknowledge the police for arresting, investigating and prosecuting the offenders. Perhaps one positive aspect of the police action that requires to be highlighted is the responsiveness and professionalism of the commander of the Tesano Police and his team.



Above all, the outrage showed by the public should indicate to us the values Ghanaians cherish in our democratic space and the level of decency required of us all.



Social progress is sometimes slow, but the positive direction it takes can give hope of the incremental gain society stands to benefit if efforts continue in that same positive direction.



As a result, we call on all who care about the safety of journalists to see the conclusion of this case as the first step towards reversing impunity.



We believe our collective commitment to the Coordinated Mechanism on the Safety of Journalists will ultimately create a safer space for the practice of journalism in Ghana.



George Sarpong

Executive Secretary

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. France's Guadeloupe thanks Azerbaijan for this initiative, the representative of the People's Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe, Jacob Bicep said during a press conference, Trend reports.

Bicep noted that another positive aspect of the Baku conference is the possibility of uniting organizations fighting against French colonialism.

"Those who are fighting have not been detained yet. However, the French security agencies are monitoring our activities because we are in contact with Azerbaijan and can already convey our voice to the UN," he said.

The "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" international conference, organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group (BIG) was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.

BIG supports the struggle for freedom of people located in various regions of the world who are still suffering from colonization in the 21st century.
NPP Constituency chairmen in the Ashanti region have petitioned their regional chairman to intervene in the choice of voting centres in their upcoming flagbearership race.



Read the petition below



From: The Constituency Chairmen of the New Patriotic Party in the Ashanti Region



To: Mr. Bernard Antwi  Boasiako,

The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party



Dear Sir,



PETITION AGAINST THE CHOICE OF VENUES FOR THE NATIONAL DELEGATES CONFERENCE



On behalf of constituency chairmen in Ashanti, l write this petition in protest to the communique from the Presidential Elections Committee detailing the respective venues for the elections during the November 4th National Delegates Conference across the country.



We find that decision highly inappropriate and call on you, our immediate superior in the party, and the others who belong to the upper echelons of our party, to intervene and have the Elections Committee reconsider its decision, as it will create grave inconveniences to delegates.



We believe that, after delegates travelling very far from their various communities and hinterlands to the voting centres, they should be hosted at venues assured of comfort. This is a delegates election, and not a national election, and for that matter, we believe we have the right to insist on measures that would be in the best interest of the various stakeholders, particularly the delegates.



As constituency chairmen in the Ashanti Region, we strongly think the Regional Leadership of the party has no hand in this decision, otherwise, we would have been consulted.



We find it rather unfortunate for the Presidential Elections Committee to have disregarded the views of constituency chairmen before deciding on voting venues in our respective constituencies.





The constituency chairmen in the Ashanti Region at this moment implore, and petition you to intervene and have the decision of the elections committee shelved and engage chairmen or constituency executives. Failure to cooperate with us may portend ill consequences during the national delegates conference, and the national secretary is to be blamed.



We are counting on your cooperation.



Kind regards,



Dominic Bosompem



Odotobiri Chairman



Cc: The President of the Republic of Ghana

The Chief of Staff

The National Executives Committee

The Ashanti Regional Executives

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Bernard Allotey Jacobs has descended heavily on the Members of Parliament, particularly representing constituencies in the Volta Region, over their reactions to President Akufo-Addo's visit to the victims of the Akosombo dam spillage.



The former NDC Central Regional Chairman, speaking on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" show Wednesday morning, noted how some of the Parliamentarians played politics with the President's inability to visit the victims while he was away in the United States, trying to make it look the President had left the people of the Region in their misery.



Allotey Jacobs stressed it wasn't the President's fault to be in the US.



"I cannot understand that the President has traveled and something happens while he is away, then people starting doing politics with it that he had travelled in spite of the Akosombo dam spillage that has caused floods because they don't vote for him...In fact, I'm holding the back of the President that everything he travelled to do is to the benefit of this country."



He also recounted how the MPs in the Volta Region slammed the President over a comment he made when he visited the victims after his return from the United States.



When these things happen and government acts, politics does not come into the matter at all. When I took the Oath of Office as President, I took the oath as president for every single individual in Ghana, all people in Ghana, all districts and whether they voted for me or not, once I have taken the oath, I am the President of all the people so Togbe, I want the people here, beginning with you, and the elders to understand that when something like this happens and Government acts, Government is acting for Ghanaians, all Ghanaians.



I came here because Ghanaians are having difficulties and are suffering, and it is my responsibility to try and help. Because, if it is a question of counting who votes for me and who doesn't vote for me, then I shouldn't be here, because you don't vote for me. But that is not my concern. And, in any event, one day you will vote for me and my party," the President said to the victims at Mepe in the Region.



To him, the Parliamentarians in the Volta Region are overstretching the issue and finding fault where there is none.



"Why should some Parliamentarians from the Volta Region be speaking against the President, Nana Akufo-Addo?", he questioned.



"Yes, it is true Volta Region is the backbone of the NDC. Volta Region is the foundational pillars of the NDC. If the NDC will win power, it largely depends on the Volta Region but people should appreciate what previous Presidents have done for the people of Volta Region and what the current government led by Nana Akufo-Addo is doing for the people of Volta Region," he told host Nana Yaw Kesseh.



Allotey cautioned the MPs to stop disrespecting the President.



"I am not happy with the comments by some of the Parliamentarians from Volta Region . . . I mean this is not the way to go. We should respect leadership...It shouldn't go to an extent of maligning the President, insulting the President. I mean giving room for some radio Presenters and others to be insulting the President. It is inappropriate. We are not leading a good way for our future generation," he fumed.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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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.
Two more New Jersey men have been arrested days after a Philadelphia police officer was killed and another officer was injured in a shooting while they confronting men breaking into a vehicle in an airport parking garage.

Alexander Batista-Polanco, 21, of Camden, and Hendrick Pena-Fernandez, 21, of Pennsauken are in custody and facing charges of murder and attempted murder, authorities announced at a press conference at Philadelphia City Hall on Wednesday. The gun used in the shooting has not been recovered, police said.

On Monday, Yobranny Martinez Fernandez, 18, of Camden, was arrested at a motel in Cherry Hill. He was extradited Wednesday to Philadelphia, authorities said.

Batista-Polanco had warrants for his arrest in New Jersey and was also sought in burglary charges in Scranton, Pennsylvania, police officials said. He was charged overnight in Scranton and will be brought to Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon.

Pena-Fernandez was arrested in Bellmawr, authorities said. Investigators showed up at a residence in Pennsauken but Pena Fernandez wasnt there. He was located a short time later.

Officer Richard Mendez, 50, was shot four times in a parking garage at Philadelphia International Airport and died of his injuries at an area hospital. Another officer, Raul Ortiz, a 20-year veteran of the force, was shot once in his arm and released from the hospital two days later.

Police said Wednesday the shots came from behind Mendez.

Authorities said the suspects fled the garage in an SUV reported stolen a week ago that was later seen at a hospital dropping off 18-year-old Jesus Herman Madera Duran, who authorities said was believed to be involved in the confrontation with the officers.

Duran had been shot in the chest, abdomen and left arm and was pronounced dead around 11:30 p.m. Thursday.

Authorities now believe everyone in the SUV has been apprehended, though additional people are expected to be charged with hindering the investigation as police looked for the suspects.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Jackie Roman contributed to this report.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com.
Wayne and Monroe County authorities have executed a search warrant at a home after human remains were discovered there Wednesday.

Officials suspect that the remains could be linked to a missing persons case dating back to 2012.

State police, detectives, and anthropologists gathered along Peet Road in Dreher Township after the remains were located buried in a backyard, WBRE/WYOU said.

The remains have yet to be identified, Fox56 reported.

Stephen C. Lepore, of Tobyhanna, was last seen or heard from in August of 2012. Law enforcement is searching the property as they believe theres a possibility the remains are Lepores.

The same month Lepore disappeared, officers were told by his housemate that a man named Brian Hewson had a number of disputes with Lepore over a $15,000 debt.

In 2015, Kip Morgan, an associate of Hewson, told authorities that Hewson shot and killed Lepore. Hewson was arrested on a bench warrant out of Monroe County in September 2023 for failure to appear in court on burglary charges.

This month, Hewson informed authorities that Lepores remains could be found at a home along Peet Road, Fox56 said.

As soon as the Monroe County District Attorneys Office was tipped off, a search warrant was obtained for the property.

We were provided specific information to come to this location to look for remains. A cadaver dog alerted to a specific area here on the property where we believed we would find remains, Monroe County District Attorneys Office Detective Craig Vanlouvender said to WBRE/WYOU.

We began to excavate the area yesterday and we located human remains, so at that point we stopped and we have anthropologists from Mercy Hurst University here excavating the site and collecting the remains at this time, Vanlouvender said to Fox56.

The unexpected discovery has rattled the community.

I made a call and found out that some missing person might be buried in a neighbors backyard, Dreher Township resident Judith Smyth-Helbig, who has lived on Peet Road for 33 years, said to WBRE/WYOU. Something like this is so unexpected and so unnerving, I can tell you now Im still shaking.
A 30-year-old woman was severely injured Wednesday after a man who police say has a history of mental illness pushed her into a moving train at a Manhattan subway station, several reports say.

Police identified the man who pushed the woman as 39-year-old Sabir Jones, whose last known address is in Maryland, the New York Post says.

The woman reportedly hit her head on a train leaving the station and then fell on the subway tracks at Fifth Avenue/53rd Street station around noon, according to the New York Post and New York Times.

Witnesses told the Post and the Times that Jones was talking to himself before he shoved the woman, but bystanders sprung into action, calling 911 and helping the woman from the tracks.

New Yorkers put up with a lot But when young people, ambitious young people, who are just trying to live their lives, are subject to random attacks, we cant put up with it, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said at a briefing.

The woman, who was listed to be in critical condition, was taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital where she underwent surgery that removed a portion of her skull, the Post says.

Jones was previously convicted in December 2022 for riding between subway cars and refusing to leave, the story says.

As of Wednesday, Jones is still wanted by police, the story says.

A total of 15 people have been pushed off New York City subway stations through Oct. 15 this year, down from 22 people during the same span last year, the Times says.

A 51-year-old man was also stabbed several times at a Bronx subway station less than a day before Jones pushed the woman, according to the Post.

Another woman was severely injured and partially paralyzed after a man pushed her head against a moving subway train in May at the Lexington Avenue/63rd Street station, according to the New York Times.

The last fatal subway pushing incident was in January 2022, when 40-year-old Michelle Go was shoved by a 61-year-old schizophrenic man. The man was charged with second-degree murder in her death but was unfit to stand trial, the Times says.

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By Rebecca Johnson, Chicago Tribune (TNS)

CHICAGO  In Chicagos Hermosa neighborhood, a modest two-story home sits on North Tripp Avenue. While typically unassuming, dozens of people lined up outside it Sunday, some in clothes featuring Mickey Mouse, waiting for a chance to peek inside the green and gray wood cottage.

Walt Disneys childhood home opened to the public for the first time this weekend as part of Chicago Architecture Centers Open House Chicago. Organizers said they hope to keep Disneys legacy alive, give insight into how the pioneer of animated cartoon films grew up, and inspire other young people in the neighborhood to pursue their dreams.

We are in an inner city of Chicago, so the understanding of dreaming and doing and achieving, because you truly never know who youre going to become. You never know who youre going to inspire, said Angel Reyes, an ambassador for the home and Miss Illinois USA 2022.

Visitors line up to enter the birthplace of Walt Disney at the corner of North Tripp Avenue and West Palmer Street in Chicago's Hermosa neighborhood on Oct. 15, 2023, during Open House Chicago. Disney was born on the home's second floor in 1901 and lived there until his family moved to Missouri in 1906. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)TNS

Elias Disney, Walts father, purchased the property at 2156 N. Tripp Ave. in 1891. The following year he got a permit to build the two-story wood cottage for $800, and Flora, Walts mother, crafted the architectural plans. In early 1893, the couple and their two sons, Herbert and Raymond, moved in. Their third son, Roy, was born soon after. In a second-floor bedroom, Walter Elias Disney was born on Dec. 5, 1901.

(Elias) was a contractor who built homes like this one, and he was the one who built this house. Flora was the one who designed it, said Rey Colon, project director of the Walt Disney Birthplace. Very progressive that both Flora and Elias names were on the deed. He didnt just have her listed as wife. She was an equal partner with him in his business ventures.

The tour began at the parlor on the first floor, the space where the family entertained. Colon said much of the original wood trim and walls were removed over the years, and that there was just one closet that had samples of the wood. He said they re-created the original rosettes and trim from one tree, which we believe is the way Elias would have wanted it done.

Theres also a colorized photo of Walt and his younger sister, Ruth, at the home in 1905 inside the parlor.

Tour guide Rich Frachey said Elias had many other jobs during his life  furniture-maker, orange farmer and even a fiddle player. Inside the parlor, Frachey said its easy for him to imagine him playing the fiddle or telling stories about the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago where he was a construction worker.

All the innovations that were debuted there, including the first Ferris wheel, Cracker Jacks, Wrigleys Juicy Fruit gum, a machine that would wash the dishes, elevators, typewriters and more, Frachey said. Did they sit in this parlor and read the book called The Wizard of Oz?

Some biographers speculate Elias stories of the fair influenced Walts creation of Disneyland and some of its popular attractions such as Tomorrowland, Frontierland and Main Street, U.S.A.

The tour then went through the familys dining room and kitchen, which included items such as a washboard, a butter churn and a rug beater. Inside what is now a closet on the first floor, Elias built a toilet, which organizers said was innovative for the time.

Upstairs, after climbing a set of steep stairs, people glimpsed at a bigger bedroom belonging to Herbert and Raymond, while Walt and Roy shared a smaller one. The home the Disney family lived in was 1,200 square feet. Later on, organizers said, additional rooms were added in the back of the home, which they now use as office space.

The Disneys moved out in 1906, relocating to Missouri. They eventually returned to Chicago in 1917 when Walt was a teenager. They lived in the North Lawndale neighborhood, and Walt attended McKinley High School.

Colon said even with Saturdays rain, more than 550 people showed up for the tour. While attendance was less on Sunday, he still expected a sizable turnout. Before they only did private tours, he said.

According to Walt Disney Birthplace, Chicago attempted to designate the property as a historical landmark in 1991, but the owner fought the designation and won. Today, the new owners are working with the city to restore the home to its 1901 state.

A 1905 picture of Walt Disney and his sister Ruth is displayed in the parlor as visitors tour the childhood home of Disney at the corner of North Tripp Avenue and West Palmer Street in Chicago's Hermosa neighborhood on Oct. 15, 2023, during Open House Chicago. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)TNS

Colon said theres been around 10 years of fundraising to get the home to its current state but more contributions are needed to fully restore and furnish it. He said its exciting to see lots of interest in the home, and they hope to organize more tours in the future.

Were still trying to figure out how, how do we go about the registration process, getting people in, how often do we do it, Colon said.

For Reyes, who was born and raised in Hermosa, the turnout was overwhelming but in a good way.

Just to see how many people are still interested in knowing the front story, when Walt began and what that looked like for him, were definitely thrilled, she said.

2023 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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An Illinois company is recalled thousands of biometric gun safes after reports that they can be opened by people with unpaired fingerprints.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Fortress Safe, of Naperville, Illinois, announced the recall on Oct. 18, 2023, of about 61,000 biometric gun safes due to a serious safety hazard and risk of death caused by a programming feature that can allow unauthorized access to the safes.

Consumers can believe they have properly programmed the biometric feature when in fact the safe remains in the default to open mode, which can allow unauthorized users, including children, to access the safe to remove hazardous contents, including firearms.

CPSC is aware of a recent lawsuit alleging a 12-year-old boy died from a firearm obtained from one of these safes. There have been 39 incidents of consumers reporting that their safes have been accessed by unpaired fingerprints.

The recalled gun safes are portable lock boxes, personal safes, pistol vaults and gun cabinets with brand names Fortress, Cabelas, Gettysburg and Legend Range & Field.

They were sold at Bass Pro Shops, Cabelas, Scheels, Sportsmans Guide, Optics Planet, Dicks Sporting Goods, Gander, Rural King, Lowes and other stores nationwide and online at Amazon and eBay from January 2019 through October 2023 for between $44 and $290.

The commission said that people that own the safes should stop using the biometric feature and remove the batteries from the safe. Only the key should be used for the recalled safes.

Owners can contact Fortress Safes to receive instructions on disabling the biometric feature and to receive a free replacement safe.

The recalled model numbers are:

Fortress portable safe with biometric lock - 11B20

Fortress personal safe with pop-up door and biometric lock - 44B10

Legend Range & Field personal safe with pop-up door and biometric lock - 44B10L

Fortress medium personal safe with biometric lock - 44B20

Fortress quick access safe with biometric lock - 55B20

Fortress large quick access safe with biometric lock - 55B30

Gettysburg large quick access safe with biometric lock - 55B30G

Cabelas four-gun safe with biometric lock - 4BGGBP

Cabelas biometric personal safe - 55B30BP

Model numbers are located above the barcode on a label located on the back of the safe and on the top right corner of the original packaging.

For more information, call 833-588-9181, between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Friday; or go to the website and click on Biometric Product Recall at the top of the page.

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By Abby Sewell, Tara Copp and Qassim Abdul-Zahra, The Associated Press

BEIRUT  Coalition forces were slightly injured in Iraq in a spate of drone attacks over the last 24 hours at U.S. bases in Iraq as regional tensions flare following the deadly bombing of a hospital in Gaza.

Two drones targeted the al Asad airbase in western Iraq used by U.S. forces and one drone targeted a base in northern Iraq, a U.S. official told the Associated Press. U.S. forces intercepted all three, destroying two but only damaging the third, which led to minor injuries among coalition forces at the western base, according to a statement Wednesday by U.S. Central Command.

The U.S. official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the attacks.

Iraqis hold a mass rally supporting the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)AP

In this moment of heightened alert, we are vigilantly monitoring the situation in Iraq and the region. U.S. forces will defend U.S. and coalition forces against any threat, Central Command said in the release.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have threatened to attack U.S. facilities there because of American support for Israel.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias, issued a statement afterward claiming responsibility for the two attacks and saying it heralds more operations against the American occupation.

The salvos came at a time of increasing tension and fears of a broader regional conflict in the wake of the latest Hamas-Israel war.

Since the beginning of the war on Oct. 7, much attention has been focused on Hezbollah, the powerful Hamas ally across Israels northern border in Lebanon, and its formidable arsenal. The group has traded so-far limited strikes with Israel on the border in recent days.

But Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have also threatened to attack U.S. facilities over American support for Israel.

Our missiles, drones, and special forces are ready to direct qualitative strikes at the American enemy in its bases and disrupt its interests if it intervenes in this battle, Ahmad Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, head of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement last Wednesday. He also threatened to launch missiles at Israeli targets.

Following Tuesday nights blast that killed hundreds at a hospital in Gaza, the group issued another statement in which it blamed the U.S. and its support for Israel for the catastrophe and called for an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq. Hamas has said the explosion in Gaza was from an Israeli airstrike, while Israel has blamed a misfired rocket by Palestinian militants.

These evil people must leave the country. Otherwise, they will taste the fire of hell in this world before the afterlife, the statement said.

A U.S. defense official, who wasnt authorized to comment to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the attack on the al-Asad military base in western Iraq.

Tashkil al-Waritheen, one of the Iranian-backed militias making up the larger group, claimed responsibility in a statement for a second drone attack, which it said had targeted the al-Harir airbase in northern Iraq. U.S. officials did not immediately comment on the claim of a second attack.

The government of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq said an intercepted drone crashed in an open area near the village of Batas.

Also on Wednesday, Iran-allied groups in Iraq announced that they had formed a joint operations room to help Hamas in its war effort.

Two officials with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, confirmed the attacks on the two bases Wednesday. They said the armed groups were on alert and prepared to join the wider battle against Israel, but that Iran had not yet given approval for them to open a new front. Leaders from some of the factions are now in Lebanon and Syria in case they get orders to proceed, one of the officials said.

Officials with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment.

Lahib Higel, a senior analyst for Iraq at the International Crisis Group, said in the short term, the Iraqi groups allied with Iran and Hamas are not likely to open a new front in the war, but that could change if the Hamas-Israel war escalates or becomes protracted.

Geographically, obviously, they are several steps removed, so theyre not going to be the first to react and are likely to serve in a supporting role, she said.

Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House, said the Iran-backed groups in Iraq are split between those that are also political parties and have a stake in the Iraqi political system and the vanguard groups that are purely militant and tend to be more tightly controlled by Iran.

The latter, he said, have been used in the past as foot sodiers in regional conflicts, including in Yemen and Syria.

This is what theyre designed to do, Mansour said. The question is more, will Iran and some of the leaders of these groups decide its in their interest to escalate?

Copp reported from Washington and Abdul-Zahra from Boston. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Salar Salim in Erbil contributed to this report.

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When they say AI is taking over jobs, theyre not kidding.

For example, a boarding prep school in the United Kingdom has named an AI robot as its principal headteacher, according to reports.

Paving the way is Cottesmore School, located in West Sussex, which collaborated with an artificial intelligence developer to design an AI robot named Abigail Bailey for the purpose of assisting the schools headmaster, Tom Rogerson.

The robot works on the same principle as ChatGPT  the AI-powered language model by Open AI  where users type questions and theyre answered by the chatbots algorithms, NDTV reported.

Abigail Bailey was developed with an abundance of knowledge in machine learning and educational management, with an ability to process huge amounts of data.

Rogerson told The Telegraph he has been getting advice from the robot on issues like how to support staff and students, further saying the robot will help draft school policies, issue instructions to staff and help children with special needs.

Sometimes having someone or something there to help you is a very calming influence. Its nice to think that someone who is unbelievably well trained is there to help you make decisions, he said to The Telegraph.

It doesnt mean you dont ever also seek counsel from humans. Of course you do, Rogerson said to the publication, emphasizing the move is in no way designed to undermine human judgment. Its just very calming and reassuring knowing that you dont have to call anybody up, bother someone, you dont have to wait around for an answer.

Being a school leader, a headmaster, is a very lonely job. Of course, we have head teachers groups, but just having somebody or something on tap that can help you in this lonely place is very reassuring, he added.

But not to worry, the robot will not replace the teachers at the school, Deccan Herald reported.

We are stepping into the future while preserving the core values of traditional education. The introduction of AI is not about replacing our dedicated educators but about augmenting their capabilities and ensuring our students receive the best education possible, Rogerson told the publication.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. A meeting between the foreign ministers in the '3+3' format will be held in Iran in the near future, a diplomatic source told Trend.

According to the information provided, Armenia also agreed to take part in the meeting.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said at a meeting with Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan that the processes in the Caucasus can be solved with the participation of local actors and neighbors in the region. The '3 + 3' format is an effective mechanism for solving regional issues.

To note, President Ilham Aliyev is the initiator of the '3 + 3' format.
The attorney for a 16-year-old accused of helping shoot down two children and a teen in Lebanon said he is going to try to get his clients case moved to juvenile court.

James Fernandez-Reyes is one of three people charged in the triple homicide that occurred May 30 on the 400 block of North Fifth Street in Lebanon. 22-year-old Alex Torres-Santos and 28-year-old Ivan Claudio-Rosero also face homicide charges in the shooting.
An Arkansas woman is behind bars after state police said she had sexual contact with a teenager in Blair County.

Troopers said Raven Burrow, of Jonesboro, Arkansas, now 28, is accused of engaging in inappropriate sexual contact with a 15-year-old boy in Sept. 2017, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Investigations first received a report from the teen in Dec. 2017, who recalled several occasions where he and Burrow had sexual intercourse inside her vehicle. Two of those encounters occurred in the parking lot of the Logan Valley Mall at 5580 Goods Lane, police said.

Police said the teen reported another occasion occurred in East Freedom, Blair County. There were also two other incidents, but he was unable to remember the locations.

Investigators said troopers also discovered text messages between the two where Burrow acknowledged the sexual contact and admitted to soliciting the teen for sex.

Burrow has a history of corruption of minor charges, police said.

According to online court records, Burrow, who was charged in the case in 2020, was arraigned in Blair County Wednesday morning.

She faces five counts each of felony involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 and five counts of statutory sexual assault, as well as one count of felony criminal use of a communication device.

Burrow is currently being held at the Blair County Prison on $50,000 bail.
A 63-year-old man was arrested after shooting and killing his familys dog Wednesday night, according to police in Lancaster County.

East Cocalico Township police department reported to residence located at the 1st block of Main St. in Denver Borough Wednesday night. Police said two family members were inside the home when the shooting occurred, both escaped injuries.

The man was arrested and transported to a hospital for evaluation, according to police.

Police said criminal charges are pending as the shooting remains an active investigation.

READ MORE:

Man found shot dead inside car along Pa. street: report

Contractor killed in fire at Pa. business: reports
Want a say in the news? Email Claudia at todayinpa@pennlive.com to have your thoughts on the stories covered here or on PennLive heard during Listening to Listeners, an original Today in Pa. segment that occurs every other Friday.

You can listen to the latest episode of Today in Pa at this link, or on any of your favorite apps including Alexa, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher. Episodes are available every weekday on PennLive. Feel free to subscribe, follow or rate Today in Pa. as you see fit!

Today in Pa. Daily Podcast | October 19, 2023

Editors note: Welcome to the world of Paranormal PA, a PennLive series that delves into Pennsylvania-grown stories of spirits (like the ghost of a murdered girl whose cries can be heard in one of Penn States libraries); cryptids (the squonk); oddities and legends (Pennsylvanias very own witch trials); and the unexplained (was this thing that flew over Kecksburg a meteor or a UFO?). Sign up here to get our Paranormal PA newsletter delivered to your inbox.

While violent crime rates are dropping  a trend seen nationwide  homicides in Philadelphia arent nearly what they were before the pandemic. Residents in the Mechanicsburg area are still being told to conserve water after a creek got contaminated. A gigantic Amazon fulfillment center is all set to open next week. And this cancer treatment is said to be more personalized.

Those are the stories we cover in the latest episode of Today in Pa., a daily weekday podcast from PennLive.com and hosted by Claudia Dimuro. Today in Pa. is dedicated to sharing the most important and interesting stories pertaining to Pennsylvania that lets you know, indeed, whats happening today in Pa.

Todays episode refers to the following articles:

If you enjoy Today in Pa., consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Amazon. Reviews help others find the show and, besides, wed like to know what you think about the program, too.

As sponsored by Renewal by Anderson of Central PA.
Taylor Swift a witch?

Most normal, functioning folks know thats not the case, but dont tell that to failed political figure Kandiss Taylor.

You may best remember Taylor from her run for Governor in Georgia last year as a MAGA candidate because she lost that one by a whopping 70 points then refused to concede  for some reason. Whatever the case, Taylor has kept a bit of a voice with podcast appearances and more than 46,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter.

She spends a lot of time posting on social media about Jim Jordan, Donald Trump, Jesus and there is, of course, something about election fraud pinned to the top of her page, too. But maybe that wasnt getting her the kind of interaction she desired though because late Wednesday night she came for Taylor Swift.

That always creates a stir.

And it is  interesting stuff.

Did you really just praise your fans for making videos with your music and casting spells (Taylor Swift), Taylor posted. What is wrong with you? I was a fan from day one and loved how much you grew in your singing ability. I love that you write your own music. My daughter has grown up dancing with me to your songs, singing at the top of our lungs, and attending your concerts.

Did you really just praise your fans for making videos with your music and casting spells @taylorswift13? What is wrong with you?

I was a fan from day one and loved how much you grew in your singing ability. I love that you write your own music. My daughter has grown up  Kandiss Taylor (@KandissTaylor) October 19, 2023

She wasnt through.

I have heard from others that attended this last tour that you had some satanic nods in your show, she continued. I didnt want to believe it. After all, I know youve claimed to over Jesus. I know you claimed to be a Christian. Now youve not only drifted and backslid. Youre celebrating witchcraft. Youre influencing innocent minds to be enticed with the dark side of spirituality. The Word of God that you once confessed is clear. It is better to tie a (millstone) around your neck than to let one of the children fall. I am so beyond disappointed. I am literally (shaking my head.

Kind of odd stuff, right? Well, guess what? Taylor wasnt through. She got stiff to bring it home.

I pray that you repent, she wrote. I pray that something pricks your heart. You have been gifted a HUGE platform. It didnt just happen. God breathed on this. He can remove HIS hand and leave you to the witchcraft and your own devices. Lets see how much Lucifer cares about you or your career. I promise. He doesnt.

Wow.

A lot to unpack there. Really just amazing that Taylor somehow put all this together.

How did the folks over on Elon Musks platform respond to the post?

Are you really that stupid? one person responded. Dont answer that. Get a real edumaction. You only write this based upon the fact that you want more followers.

Sit down Karen, another person wrote.

Im OK if you and the other women of Klanned Karenhood turn on Taylor, another responded. More tickets available for the empowered you women who flock to her shows (and maybe I can get my 17-year-old tickets if all the Wine Moms start boycotting.) BTW no real Christian judges others.

Oh my, another wrote. Kandiss. Get help.

Now this is some funny (crap) right here, another wrote.

Swift hasnt responded. She probably doesnt know who Kandiss Taylor is.

But Kandiss Taylor is now at the mercy of the Swifties on social media.
The defund the police mantra never resonated with many people in Black and Brown communities. It may have been on posters and chanted at rallies protesting police brutality, but Black and Brown communities need and appreciate good law enforcement as much as the suburbs.

Thats according to the Rev. Markel Hutchins, organizer of a nationwide project called Faith & Blue. Hes calling on faith communities in Pennsylvania and around the nation to get engaged in the program to address one of the most pressing issues of our day  the divide between communities of color and law enforcement.

The Reverend Markel Hutchins is the visionary behind MovementForward, Incorporated, the One Congregation One Precinct (OneCOP) initiative and National Faith & Blue Weekend.

Hutchins believes faith communities are in a unique position to help forge bonds of trust. Pastors, imams, rabbis are respected community leaders. Many places of worship are in communities of color and enjoy the trust of both law enforcement and the people they serve. And many faith communities realize they must get out of the pews and step into the communities around them if they are to survive.

Its hard to argue with the Rev. Hutchins when he calls on every church, synagogue, temple, and mosque to embrace the Faith and Blue initiative. The project began in 2020 as National Faith and Blue Weekend, when faith groups throughout the country were encouraged to organize events to improve police-community relations. It was in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis when tensions and outright hostility between police and Black communities were at their highest.

But any organization can hold a Faith and Blue event and are encouraged to register events on the website to join the national network.

The Civic Club of Harrisburg, 612 N. Front St. is holding a Faith and Blue community forum from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Oct 29, that the Rev. Nathaniel Gadsden will moderate. In addition to exploring ways to dispel distrust of law enforcement among communities of color in our region, the event will pay tribute to police of integrity. People are asked to register for the free event here: https://the-civic-club-of-harrisburg.ticketleap.com/faith--blue/.

Harrisburg Police Commissioner Thomas Carter talking with protesters during a Black Lives Matter Demonstration at the Capitol to protest the murder of George Floyd. May 30, 2020 | Becky Metrick

Among the law enforcement officers being honored are:

Harrisburg Police Commissioner Thomas C. Carter

Ernst (Pete) Baltimore Jr., former supervisor of the Ballistics Section, Bureau of Forensic Services, Pennsylvania State Police

U.S. District Attorney Civil Rights Coordinator Michael Butler

The Rev. Hutchins rightly notes most police officers carry out their duties to protect our communities without abusing their power. Many understand they are called to treat the people they serve with respect, including people of color. These police officers deserve to be honored for taking on a job that is both stressful and dangerous.

In some areas, churches hold special prayer services for police officers, and in other areas, there are town halls for dialogue. Earlier this month in Philadelphia, police staged a parade complete with marching bands and steppers. Officers in uniform joined the parade and invited people to a cookout and community fair.

In recent years, Rev. Hutchins says the Faith and Blue initiative has involved representatives of every major national law enforcement membership and professional organization in the United States. Every faith tradition has joined the program. And its not just one weekend, anymore. It includes activities held throughout the year. It doesnt matter when or where. It only matters that intentional efforts are being made throughout the year to diffuse tensions between police and minority communities to prevent the kind of tragedy that brought people into the streets over George Floyd.

Such efforts alone wont solve the complex problem of racism and policing, but they represent a good start to address a reality that has plagued Black and Brown communities for decades. But Rev. Hitchens is right, it does no good to just curse the darkness. Protests may bring attention to the problem, but real change occurs when people stop screaming at each other and sit down to work things out.

Faith & Blue is inviting communities of faith in Pennsylvania to do just that. We urge them to heed the call.

Joyce M. Davis is PennLives Outreach & Opinion Editor. She also is a member of the Board of Directors of The Civic Club of Harrisburg. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter @byjoycedavis.
PennLives Editorial Board will meet with candidates for Cumberland County Commissioner at noon Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, in a meeting that will be aired live on our Facebook page.

Candidates include:

Jean Foschi (D)

John Matthew Smith (D)

Kelly Neiderer (R)

Gary Eichelberger (R)

The meeting with the Cumberland County candidates is one of a series the Editorial Board is holding leading up to the Nov. 7 election.

All meetings are being streamed live to our Facebook page and posted on social media sites. It is an opportunity for candidates to engage with voters and help inform them about the major issues in the upcoming election.

In the first meeting of the series, Judges Dan McCaffery (D) and Carolyn Carluccio (R) shared their qualifications, experience, and platforms, and took questions from the Editorial Board and PennLive reporters.

Carluccio is president judge of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. She is a graduate of Widener University School of Law, and she has served as an assistant United States Attorney in the District of Delaware and Chief Deputy Solicitor of Montgomery County.

McCaffery was elected judge of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania in 2019. He is an Army veteran and West Point graduate and obtained his law degree from Temple University School of Law. McCaffery served as a judge of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and as a prosecutor.

PennLive also met on Monday with Justin Douglas, a Harrisburg pastor and candidate for Dauphin County Commissioner. He discussed his concerns over conditions at Dauphin County prison and the alarming number of deaths of people in the prison under questionable circumstances.

Douglas also raised concerns over work conditions at the Dauphin Countys Children and Youth agency. He pledged to work to increase salaries to ensure qualified employees are recruited and retained.

Incumbent commissioners George Hartwick, (D), Chad Saylor (R) and Mike Pries (R) declined the invitation to speak to voters to address questions about their records in office and to offer details on their platforms in the current campaign.

Invitations also have been issued to Judge Megan Martin and Matt Wolf, candidates from Commonwealth Court, to meet virtually at noon Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023.

Joyce M. Davis is PennLives Outreach & Opinion Editor. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter @byjoycedavis.
A bill increasing the cost of dog licenses in Pennsylvania for the first time in over a quarter century is heading to Gov. Josh Shapiros desk for enactment.

The House on Wednesday, with no debate, voted 143-60 to approve the bill that passed the Senate in June, aimed at shoring up the bureau tasked with enforcing the state dog law and strenghtening consumer protection.

The bill would raise the base license fee for dogs three months and older from $5 to $7 in the first year, to $9 in the second year and finally, to $10 by 2027, not including the $1, plus the cost of postage, fee that county treasurers charge.

It eliminates the spay and neuter discounts and sets the lifetime license fee at $49, up from $30, plus a $3 fee that goes to county treasurers for processing. Seniors and individuals with disabilities would be eligible for a $2 discount on the base license and a $16 break on the cost of a lifetime license. The measure also increases the fees kennels pay for a license.

The Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement, which relies on license fees to cover its costs, including salaries of its dog wardens who enforce the dog law, has been hobbled by financial woes for years.

According to House, the legislation is expected to generate more than $3.5 million that will help increase the number of dog wardens who inspect licensed kennels, investigate reports of unlicensed kennels and respond to dog-related complaints such as strays and dangerous dogs.

According to the state Department of Agriculture, the number of wardens shrunk from 60 to 39 over the past decade due to lack of funding to cover its basic operations and mandatory duties. Over the past five years, the department has had to rely on taxpayer funds to help support the bureaus work.

Kristen Tullo, the Pennsylvania state director at the Humane Society of the United States, said her organization is wagging its tail in excitement that the Dog Law Modernization Act finally made it over the finish line and is heading to the governors desk!

This bill will help hold perpetrators of animal cruelty accountable, and it will allow consumers to make more informed decisions about how they bring a new pet into their family, she said.

Pet shops and kennels selling dogs would have to post dog identifying information, including where the dogs breeder is located, along with their state or federal license number, documentation of vaccinations and medical treatment and any known bite history.

It also strengthens a provision in the dog law that allows the state to revoke a kennel license or refuse to issue one to anyone convicted of animal cruelty and adds bestiality to the cruelty crimes.

The agriculture department would also create a website to allow dog licenses to be purchased online. And it increases the fines for a dog law violation from a minimum of $100 for a first offense to a minimum of $500, while subsequent offenses would carry a minimum of a $1,000 fine.

This legislation will finally stabilize the Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement, which for too long has been overburdened and underfunded. It modernizes the dog licensing process and provides more support for the overwhelmed agency, while ensuring those who break the law are properly punished. said Rep. Melissa Shusterman, D-Chester County, a co-chair of the General Assemblys Animal Protection Caucus.

* This story was updated to include Kristen Tullo and Melissa Shustermans comments.

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @JanMurphy.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The aim of France is assimilation, Jean-Jacob Bicep from the People's Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe said at a press conference dedicated to the upcoming international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" in Baku, Trend reports.

Bicep noted that France, first of all, starts this policy with language.

"Our people have to speak French. Our struggle faces obstacles," he added.

The international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice", organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.
Jobs are available in Alaska, but the workforce to fill them isnt there. A report from the Association of Alaska School Boards linked it to underfunding public schools  especially guidance counselors and guidance programs.

The report noted that one in five young adults in Alaska isnt connected to school or work.

Emily Ferry, a coordinator for the Association of Alaska Schools Boards, said schools and Tribes need support for these programs.

Its not surprising when you invest less, your return on investment is not there, its not the same, she said.

She said money and support are one piece of the puzzle, but another is creating a culture around college and future planning for students.

The study identified that relationships are the key to successful programs that help students make future plans and graduate, she said.

The Alaska College and Career Guide Program was a grant-funded program that did that in Alaska, but Ferry said those supports went away after its grant ended  even though it was successful.

Janelle Vanasse is now the president of Alaska Pacific University, but when she was the principal of Bethel Regional High School, she implemented the program there.

That program itself made a difference, and I can see it and the numbers say it made a difference, she said. Thats why we work in schools to make a difference, so I hope we find a way to recreate it and reinvest in it.

She said the program had great results because it created a culture of celebration and support around any postsecondary education.

At Bethel Regional High School, only about 30% of students were college-bound before the program  below the state average at the time. But after the school brought on college counselors and near peers, former high school students who had navigated the college application process and experienced a first year at a university, that number roughly doubled.

Vanasse said sending nearly 70% to college or postsecondary opportunities was a big success, but what impressed her was that about half of those students got their degree  the state average is below 20%.

I think it could help us turn around the outmigration of our young people and it could help us grow our own educators, she said.

Lon Garrison, the executive director of the Alaska Association of School Boards, said the study shows that schools need to start making connections with students and talking about the future.

Public education cant end at the 12th grade, he said. Public education gets to the 12th grade and should open the door to the rest of your life.

He said the school boards association wants to see the state make strategic investments in education programs that address the transition from school to the workforce.

The Alaska Beacon is an independent, donor-funded news organization. Alaskabeacon.com.
The triangular 4.46 acre parcel shown above is located along one of the most heavily used sport and subsistence fishing spots on Mitkof Island.

On the north end of Blind River Rapids, a large boulder stands amidst the rushing water - long used by the public for a popular spot to sport fish for hatchery salmon.

The fishing rock is located on the banks of a parcel of land owned by the Alaska Mental Health Trust Land Office, which the state created to fund mental health care in Alaska through selling the trust's property.

On Sept. 13, the 4.46 acre parcel was put up for sale at a minimum bid of over $102 thousand.

During the Borough Assembly meeting on Oct. 16, the assembly discussed the matter of potentially exchanging borough-owned...
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. French President Emmanuel Macron called colonialism a crime ahead of the election, member of Tahitian Freedom Party Heinui Le Caill said at a press conference dedicated to the upcoming international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" in Baku, Trend reports.

Le Caill pointed out that Macron considers the actions taken by other countries as colonial crimes, but those taken by France as not.

"We have been fighting this battle for 40 years. We thank Azerbaijan for creating such conditions for us. Thanks to this initiative, we have gained access to the countries of the Non-Aligned Movement, and now our just voice can be heard even more," he added.

The international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice", organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.

The group supports the struggle for freedom of peoples located in various regions of the world still suffering from colonization in the 21st century.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Although Corsica is empowered, France can veto the decisions we make, Jean Jacques Rodriguez, member of the "Free Corsica" Party, said at the press conference of the "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" international conference, organized by the Baku Initiative Group, Trend reports.

He noted that French President Macron is being careful not to use the term "Corsican people".

"They talk about unity, equality, but they don't want to recognize us as a people," he added.

The "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" international conference, organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group (BIG) was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.

BIG supports the fight for freedom of nations located in different regions of the world still suffering from colonization in the 21st century.
I'm pretty sensitive to stem length and bar height. Once stems get longer than 40 mm I start to notice the lateral component of movement as they turn away from straight ahead, which I'm not a fan of. Too much shorter than 40 mm and the cockpit starts to feel too cramped on most bikes and I feel too far away from the front contact patch.

Seb Stott



Position: Tech Editor & dad joke purveyor

Height: 191 cm / 6'3"

Preferred bar width: 770 mm

Preferred stem length: 40 mm

Tech Editor & dad joke purveyor191 cm / 6'3"770 mm40 mm

Bar roll set so the grips have minimal upsweep. Al 40 mm stem is the sweet spot for me.

Just a touch of upsweep. That can vary between the size of bikes too though.

Handlebar dimensions might be one of a bike's key setup points that I'm most particular about. They have to be set just right and not too goofy looking in terms of shape and where the backsweep starts or they can really throw off both the timing of the steering inputs and the balance on the bike. The short and long of it is that, kooky bars can ruin the ride quality of a great bike by placing unwanted weight from your hands into the turning motion.



Matt Beer



Position: Tech Editor & dishwasher re-organizer

Height: 178 cm / 5'10"

Preferred bar width: 770 mm

Preferred stem length: 35 mm (for bikes 64* or slacker with a short offset fork)

Tech Editor & dishwasher re-organizer178 cm / 5'10"770 mm35 mm (for bikes 64* or slacker with a short offset fork)

Against popular beliefs, all carbon bars are not made equally. I tested three carbon bars back in the summer that used unusual shapes and features to provide compliance and damping (see link below). Wave goodbye to hand fatigue and arm pump; ODI Elite Pro grips are formed and cushy. Magura MT5 brakes have a ton of power that comes on early in the lever stroke, eliminating the need to pull hard on the brakes.

Trying to choose the correct setup for yourself based off what strangers on the internet prefer always seems like a strange practice. I'm happy to share my ideal cockpit configuration, but it's important to keep in mind that this is just what works for me and my dimensions. Handlebars can be trimmed, and stems come in more than one length for a reason  it's important to do some experimentation to figure out what works for you and your riding style.



Mike Kazimer



Position: Managing Tech Editor

Height: 180 cm / 5'11"

Preferred bar width: 780 mm

Preferred stem length: 40mm

Managing Tech Editor180 cm / 5'11"780 mm40mm

I consider my bar roll to be neutral to slightly forward, depending on what the sweep and rise feels like. I prefer thin grips, and run my brake levers at a 25 - 30-degree angle.

I think I'm well past the obsession with BIG bikes, and I'm glad there are plenty of bike designers who are coming to the same conclusion. That said, the fact that 2024 bikes are being released with more moderate reach numbers probably highlights that I'm late to this trend. For my cockpit, I'm also not convinced that pursuing a rearward weight bias (short stem) and dimensions that require a degree of man-handling (very wide bars).



Henry Quinney



Position: Tech-editor and sometimes video person

Height: 183cm / 6'

Preferred bar width: 770

Preferred stem length: 45 or 50mm

Tech-editor and sometimes video person183cm / 6'77045 or 50mm

I have my bars similar to Kaz, in a neutral to forward roll. I run my brake angles at different amounts depending on the brand, and what bike they're on, and go solely off feel. There is no magic number for me. I like the 42mm OneUp stem and 35mm rise bar. I've been running these bars since quite literally my first day in Canada, over so many bikes and they're still going well.

Cockpit setup is possibly my most fussed-with area of the bike, and that's saying something considering the amount of tweaking I tend to do. Part of it is the distinct change you make to a bike with a different stem or bar, part of it is the ease of access, part of it is aesthetic. At this point, I've mostly settled on a couple firm dimensions that serve as good starting points for setting a given bike up. 770 wide, 42ish out, 35ish up.



Dario DiGiulio



Position: Tech Editor & Toxic Optimist

Height: 191cm / 6' 3"

Preferred bar width: 770mm

Preferred stem length: 42-50mm

Tech Editor & Toxic Optimist191cm / 6' 3"770mm42-50mm

Face of bar rolled just so to match the head angle. Brake angle changes quite a bit depending on the bike, but is usually around 27 down from flat. These Spank stems come in 42mm lengths, which feels like the perfect length for most all-mountain bikes.

Pinkbike's tech editors get to sample many of the latest and greatest bikes every year. Obviously, that has its perks, but there are challenges too. Sometimes a bike can leave you scratching your head as to why you're not gelling with it. Often, making tweaks to the suspension, tires and cockpit can get to the route of the problem and unleash a bike's full potential. So getting the cockpit set just so from the first ride is an important step. Once you've gone through the process a few dozen times, you get a pretty good idea of what you like in a handlebar and stem.Whether our preferences offer any insights to you, dear reader, is another matter, but maybe we can spot some themes in how our testers set up their bikes. Or maybe we can just argue about whose preferences are correct in the comments.I set the handlebar roll such that there is almost no upsweep at the grips (if viewed from the side or the front I like them to be level, not pointing up at the ends). I know some people who prefer shorter stems but with the handlebars rolled very far forward (lots of upsweep) which puts their grips in about the same position relative to the steering axis.Because I'm tall, I usually like my bars higher than stock (I wrote a whole article on why this is an issue). So I often swap to a 40 mm or 50 mm rise bar such that the centre of the grips sit about 112 cm from the ground, or just under the height of the saddle at full extension.As for width, I go as narrow as I comfortably can for the tight trees of the Tweed Valley, which turns out to be 760 mm; any narrower and the bike feels too twitchy. I feel no benefit to going wider than 780 mm so I often compromise on 770 mm.I'm not too fussy about bar materials or models, but I get on well with Renthal's 40 mm rise options along with ODI Elite Pro grips.I tend to get along with bars that have a 5-degree upsweep and 8-degree backsweep. A few favorites in that column are; OneUp, Chromag, and We Are One. Renthal's family of MTB bars, which have a 7-degree backsweep are also perfectly suitable for my taste too. Any more than 8-degrees though and I find my hands rest too far behind the steering axis, which leads to the bike feel steeper than it really is and too much influence in the steering when starting a turn.My preferred bar width can change depending on the bike's reach and its purpose too. I spend the most time on enduro bikes that have a reach in the ballpark of 465 to 485. Like Seb, I find that 765-770mm wide handlebars give me enough stability without hindering maneuverability, which is ironic given our height differential.Similarly to my desired handlebar width, this is why I don't have a preferred set stem length. Each bike's head angle and dynamics can interact differently with your steering inputs. For example, I've spent a ton of time on a Santa Cruz Tallboy with a 65.5-degree head tube angle. Although I run the same width bar, I prefer a 50mm stem length to slow down the steering when entering a turn or lean.Right now, I have a set of Title's FORM 35 carbon bars with a 35mm rise on my personal ride, a Nukeproog Giga 297. Those are cut to 770mm in width and have a 9-degree backsweep. That bike has a 63.5-degree head tube angle, so I've chosen a 35mm long stem. I prefer shorter stems when bikes get this slack because I find the change in steering dynamics to be less than say a 50mm long stem.I'm also a big fan of OneUp's Carbon Bar. That one finds its way onto most bikes that come in for review because the angles and flex make me feel most at home. You can read more about the details and differences between a few of those bars mentioned in this 3-way shootout I'm 5'11, and I typically run 780mm bars with a 40mm stem on trail and enduro bikes. Lately I've been trying some 770mm bars, and while the slightly narrower width isn't hard to get used to, after all these years 780mm is still the sweet spot for me. I have big hands and ride with the edge of my palm at the very end of the bar, so the extra width puts me in a good position to deal with impacts. There are plenty of trees where I live, but none of the trails are so tight that I'd need to trim my bars to navigate them.I will go a little narrower and longer on a dedicated XC bike, somewhere in the neighborhood of 760mm for the bar with a 50mm stem (which is still fairly wide and short for the cross-country world), but overall my setup is fairly consistent between bikes.I've been gravitating towards higher rise bars the last couple of seasons, typically in the range of 35  40mm. The extra rise helps give me a more upright riding positions while climbing and descending, and I really enjoy the taller front end in steeper terrain.For stems, around 40mm is my go-to length. The Chromag Riza pictured is technically a 38mm stem, but I don't notice the 2mm difference. As for bar material, sweep, and rise, I wouldn't say I'm super picky, mainly because of how many test bikes come in over the course of the year  I'd drive myself mad if I stressed over every single dimension. That said, OneUp and Santa Cruz's bars carbon bars are nice and comfortable, and I'm also a fan of Renthal's aluminum offerings.I really enjoy shorter reaches, not least because of how they balance the bike, but also because they allow me to run a slightly longer stem. 40 is on the cusp, but anything below that isn't something I particularly enjoy. I think a 470mm reach paired with a narrower bar and 50 mm-ish stem is about right. Currently, on the 485mm reach of the Spire, I have a OneUp 42mm stem but I'd happily have a shorter reach.Similar to Seb, a slightly off-the-wall measurement I often use is the distance from the floor to the center of the grip. Ideally, I go for something around 108-109cm. Although this doesn't take into account things such as bottom bracket height and the offset that is a consequence of axle path, it does help me get things into a window from where I can tweak further.I'm running some yet-to-be-released grips from Raceface. They're big, comfortable, and soft - but more about them later, I suppose.The cockpit you see here is a go-to that I swap between a lot of different test bikes. The 31.8 Renthal bars feel comfortable and ultra-normal at this point, which make for one less variable when switching between bikes all the time. The 40mm rise is great for big bikes and really anything ridden in steeper terrain, though I'm not going to pretend I haven't run these on light-duty trail bikes. On that smaller end of the travel spectrum I tend to opt for the longer of my stem range, as 50mm extrusions seem to suit the tighter dimensions of bikes with touchy handling and an uphill bias.While I'm happy to run stems anywhere between 40 and 50mm, bar roll is something I'm more sensitive to. Though you can adapt to any setup given enough time (I used to roll by bars forward of center, like Hen and Kaz), I've settled on a method that feels repeatable and easy to tune to a given frame. Essentially, I'm trying to line the flat face plane of the bar up with the head angle of the bike, which on the Renthals results in a nearly flat top-of-grip. The photo of my POV best displays this, and tends to be my starting point when it comes to cockpit setup.Grips: always the ODI Longnecks. I used to feel similarly about the Sensus Lites, but these ODIs are the best gloveless grips I've found yet. I really don't like grips with a "correct orientation" and just want something simple and round. My hands end up at the extreme outer end of the grip, pinky on the bulge, with brakes pretty far inboard and angled a bit differently depending on the bike.
Maher Nouira is the latest winner at PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Cyprus after the Tunisian took down $25,000 No-Limit Hold'em for $180,120. Nouira agreed to an even chop with heads-up opponent Jules Dickerson as the two played for the trophy, bringing Nouira his second PokerStars Spade after taking down a 5,000 6-Handed event and EPT Prague in December 2022.

The single-day high-stakes event drew 24 runners for a prize pool of $576,240 and five places being paid. German wizard Dominik Nitsche bowed out on the money bubble ahead of the eliminations of Russia's Artur Martirosian (5th - $54,700), Canada's Sam Greenwood (4th - $67,700) and Australia's Kyle Cheong (3rd- $93,600), who picked up his first Hendon Mob-recorded cash since 2013.

$25,000 NL Hold'em IV Final Table Results

PLACE PLAYER COUNTRY PRIZE (IN USD) 1 Maher Nouira Tunisia $180,120* 2 Jules Dickerson United Kingdom $180,120* 3 Kyle Cheong Australia $93,600 4 Sam Greenwood Canada $67,700 5 Artur Martirosian Russia $54,700

*Denotes heads-up deal

Nouira, who adds to his $1 million in live earnings and further cements his position at the top of Tunisia's all-time money list, has been on quite the tear this fall. A few weeks ago at EPT Barcelona, Nouira locked up three separate six-figure scores, including a career-best score of $ 260,164 from a fifth-place finish in 10,000 EPT High Roller.

Maher Nouira

Dickerson, meanwhile, would have to settle for another runner-up finish after finishing second to Chris Brewer in the 50,000 EPT Paris 2023 Super High Roller earlier this year for 623,800.

Small Field, Fast-Paced Day

Action picked up slowly after a delayed start in the $25,000 NL Hold'em IV as a dozen players battled it out at two tables, including Adrian Mateos, Daniel Rezaei, Pedro Marques and Gha Iakobishvili.

The field grew to 24 players as registration closed after the dinner break, with Aleksejs Ponakovs, Leon Sturm, Stefan Lehner and Daniel Smiljkovic all among the players to join. Ponakovs fell on the final table bubble as he ran ace-jack into the aces of Greenwood.

In a similar hand, Pablo Brito Silva jammed ace-jack into Nouira's queens to go out in eighth place before Mikita Badziakouski fell in seventh when his sevens were beaten out by Vicente Delgado's jacks. It was then Nitsche who went out on the money bubble after being left short in a confrontation with Nouira and getting his final four blinds in against the same opponent.

Martirosian bowed out in fifth when his ace-seven was dominated by Greenwood's ace-nine, but it would be the Canadian who would fall next after losing most of his stack in a nines-versus-jacks collision with Nouira. Greenwood then couldn't win a flip with fives against the ace-ten of Cheong to miss out on another EPT high roller title.

Sam Greenwood

Cheong and Dickerson both doubled during a lengthy three-handed battle before the two collided with Cheong being the shorter stack as his king-nine was pipped by the king-ten of Dickerson. At this point, Dickerson and Nouira agreed to chop the remaining prize pool and play for the trophy as they were nearly even in chips.

The two traded a few small pots before getting to the river on a paired board as Dickerson moved all in with an oversized river bet. Nouira had trips and quickly called as Dickerson revealed a bluff to mark his elimination in second place as Nouira locked up the trophy.

Jules Dickerson

That wraps up PokerNews' coverage of $25,000 NL Hold'em IV at EPT Cyprus. Be sure to check out the EPT Cyprus live reporting portal for coverage of other events here on the Mediterranean coast.
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Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) tried to threaten his way into becoming Speaker of the House, and his plan totally backfired.

Here are some tweets House Republican no Jordan voters who all talk about threats and intimidation:

Lots of No votes talking in the last hour about threats and intimidation tactics pic.twitter.com/zIN83w3mUx  Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) October 18, 2023

Jim Jordan tried to pull a page out of Donald Trumps playbook and threaten his way to the speakership. The problem for Jordan is that he isnt running a political party that also functions as a cult. When Trump threatens House Republicans, it tends to work because he has the power to primary an incumbent and get them removed from their seat.

Rep. Jordan only has that sort of power in his imagination.

Jordan isnt qualified to be Speaker. Rep. Jordan isnt qualified to be the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Members of the House dont react well to bullying, threats, and intimidation. The best Speakers, like Nancy Pelosi, know how to manage all of the personalities in their caucus and keep them unified around common goals.

Does anyone know what the common goals are for this House Republican majority?

It seems that there are no common goals, which is why they cant find a single qualified candidate who can be agreed upon as Speaker.
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President Biden will give a big prime time speech tonight at 8 PM Eastern to discuss the U.S. response to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, White House officials said Wednesday.

The Presidents major foreign policy speech is expected to link Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in his speech.

Biden is expected to use the speech to make a public appeal for support and funding to buttress global democracy with support for Ukraine and Israel, according to CNNs reporting based on two administration officials.

He will also repeat his request funding for the Mexico/U.S. border that Congress has been ignoring, bringing the total north of $100 billion for emergency funds for the Southern U.S. border, Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, according to multiple reports.

Republicans have been, sans evidence, trying to tie Hamas terrorist attack on Israel to the Mexico border in a way to politically capitalize on the terrorist attack, and yet have previously refused to give the administration what they requested to fortify the border and are currently incapable of doing so until they elect a speaker. If Biden does ask for all of this funding together after Republicans have been making the case publicly that the border is tied to an attack in Israel, Republicans will have backed themselves into a corner. Biden is very adept at letting Republicans do just that and then using big speeches to tie the bow.

The President arrived at the White House at 12:51 AM Thursday morning from his trip to Israel, after a terrorist attack killed more than 1,300 innocent civilians, including at least 31 U.S. citizens.

Bidens speech in Israel was met with widespread praise, including from embattled far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said, Mr. President, for the people of Israel, theres only one thing better than having a true friend like you standing with Israel, and that is having you standing in Israel. Your visit here is the first visit of an American president in Israel at a time of war. It is deeply, deeply moving. It speaks to the depth of your personal commitment to Israel. It speaks to the depth of your personal commitment to the future of the Jewish people and the one and only Jewish state. So, I know I speak for all the people of Israel when I say: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for standing with Israel today, tomorrow, and always.

And on a more personal note, Diplomatic Correspondent for Haaretz Newspaper Amir Tibon shared, I just got out of a meeting with President Biden. He invited a dozen Israelis who had been impacted by the war in the most personal way, to see him. I will write more tonight, but for now what I can say is: President Biden loves Israel, loves the Israeli people, and has our back.

Yesterday, Biden announced $100 million in humanitarian funds to Gaza and the West Bank.

On his trip, Biden also addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where more than one million people have fled their homes. The President was able to secure a commitment from Egypts Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to let up to 20 trucks through the Rafah Crossing for humanitarian assistance, but Sisi would not agree to allow a lot of people out. While 20 trucks isnt a lot, its better than zero trucks. The roads need to be patched first, so the trucks might not be through until Friday. The hardened resistance to giving more speaks to the probability that this war will be ongoing and brutal.

The President has now visited two war zones, Ukraine and Israel, during his first term in office, as he continues to battle rising global autocracy and terrorism.

The growing crises around the globe are the ultimate test of this president, but also a gut-punch comparison when imagining how the former president would be handling them. Trump would be aiding Russia in its expansionist war against Ukraine by not helping Ukraine and taking out his personal grievances on Israel as he already did when he attacked Netanyahu for being caught unprepared due to a massive intelligence failure and praised Hezbollah very smart.

When the world is on fire, it helps to have a real statesman like Joe Biden at the helm. But even Biden, with all of his experience in foreign policy, is being tested in front of the world.
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Rep. Drew Ferguson said the death threats started coming into his office as soon as he flipped his vote away from Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House.

Scott Macfarlane of CBS News reported:

More threats Rep Drew Ferguson (R-GA), who defected from Jim Jordan yesterday, Shortly after casting that vote, my family and I started receiving death-threats. That is simply unacceptable, unforgivable, and will never be tolerated.  Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 19, 2023

Just asked Rep Ken Buck (R-CO) if Rep Jim Jordan could do more to tamp down the threats being issued to House GOP members by agitators  Buck said  yes he could  Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 19, 2023

It isnt just House Republicans who vote against Jordan who are getting death threats. It is also their spouses.

The wife of Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) has received death threats, according to NBC News:



The wife of Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., has received anonymous, threatening text messages this week pressuring her to persuade her husband to support Jordan.

Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., said his staffers have been cussed out in phone calls from Jordan supporters.

And Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., said he was so upset with pro-Jordan robocalls to voters in his South Florida district that he personally told Jordan to call off the attack dogs.

On Wednesday night, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, said in a statement that shed received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls after she switched her vote to another Republican in the second round of voting.

Jordan, Fox News, Newsmax, and others in conservative media could put a stop to all of this by taking a stand and telling Jordans supporters to cut it out. They wont because they are pulling from Trumps anti-democracy playbook of threats and intimidation.

Jim Jordan wont hold a third vote for Speaker, but he isnt quitting. Instead, Jordan is backing temporary Speaker Patrick McHenry to hold the post until January. In the meantime, Jordan will keep running, and the odds are that he wont denounce the death threats to his fellow Republicans.
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Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and his allies say that they are committed to staying in the Speaker race, but new reporting says that if Republicans vote again, Jordan is bleeding support and will be crushed.

CNNs Manu Raju reported:

Multiple GOP sources say that Jim Jordan is bleeding votes and is poised to lose even more Republicans if he goes through with a third ballot today. One GOP member who opposes Jordan says there are about 30 R no votes. Its unclear if Jordan goes through with the noon vote  Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 19, 2023

The News Is Not Good For Jim Jordan

Jordan has a noon ET vote scheduled for today, so while he and his allies continue to emphatically say that they will keep running to be the next Speaker of the House, Rep. Jordans opponents arent backing down and are getting stronger.

The Jordan plan is to force out all other candidates and present himself as the only option. Eventually, he assumes that Republicans will get tired of the House being shut down, and they vote for him. Rep. Jordan is also actively discouraging House Republicans from voting to empower temporary speaker Patrick McHenry so that the House can function during this crisis.

Ukraine and Israel both need aid. A deadline to avoid a government shutdown is less than a month away, and an aid package for the Southern border also needs House approval before it can be passed by the Senate and signed by President Biden.

Jim Jordan is intentionally blocking all of this because he wants to be the Speaker of the House.

Rep. Jordan is hemorrhaging support, and if this vote is held at noon ET, he will be humiliated.

Jim Jordans campaign of destruction is empowering Democrats and pushing Republicans to look for a bipartisan solution to end their chaos.
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It is being reported that Trumps former lawyer, Sidney Powell, is expected to testify against him at his Georgia RICO trial.

Video:

JUST IN: Former Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case, one day before her trial was set to start. https://t.co/sE9Xnh8bKz pic.twitter.com/APLsfSeiqY  CNN (@CNN) October 19, 2023

CNN reported:

She also is agreeing as part of this deal to testify at future trials. So Sydney Powell is lined up essentially to go to trial at the end of this week alongside one other defendant in that case, another lawyer, Ken Chesbrough. Shes not going to be going to trial now. So shes taking this plea deal.

She will not have that trial. She will also be in a situation where prosecutors will be wrecking, recommending her to avoid jail time as. Part of this deal, but its significant that not only is she avoiding the trial, not only is she putting in this guilty plea that she is very likely to become a witness against Donald Trump and the others as they go to trial in Georgia.

Almost immediately, people in the legal community began to speculate that Powells flip in Georgia would not only mean that she would testify against him in the state prosecution, but that she would also testify against the former president in Jack Smiths federal prosecution.

Sidney Powell was in the Oval Office on December 18, 2020, when the plot against the United States was discussed and launched. Powell is the first participant in that meeting who will be testifying in criminal proceedings.

Trump has escaped accountability and prosecution for decades largely because the people around him have kept quiet, but that is changing, and it means that witnesses like Sidney Powell could turn Trump into a convicted felon.
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Sidney Powell will plead guilty in the Georgia Trump RICO case, which means that Donald Trump has a massive new legal problem.

NEWS: Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell is pleading guilty in the Georgia election subversion case, one day before her trial was scheduled to begin. MORE TO COME  Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) October 19, 2023

The Kraken Might Be Flipping On Trump

Powells trial was about to begin this week. It is logical that Sidney Powell will plead guilty because all of the other high-profile defendants in the case, from Trump on down, had decided on a legal strategy to blame Sidney Powell for everything.

It is true that Powell was one of the people who put the bug in Trumps ear about overturning state election results, but she was far from the only person saying this and she did not act alone. The person who decided to attempt a coup against the United States government was Donald Trump.

Powells guilty plea will almost certainly come with a promise of cooperation with the prosecution, and that is where things could get dangerous for Donald Trump.

Sidney Powel was closely involved with the breaches of voting equipment in Georgia, Michigan, and other states. Powell had conversations with Trump and Giuliani. She can provide a lot of detail to the prosecution that Fulton County DA Fani Willis is leading.

It is too early to say that Powell has flipped on Trump. It can be accurately said that no matter what, Powells guilty plea is very bad news for the former president.
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James Renner, who was a Trump fake elector charged with multiple felonies has flipped and signed a cooperation agreement with the Michigan Attorney General.

NBC News reported:

A copy of the cooperation agreement with Renner, obtained by NBC News, shows he promised to cooperate fully with the attorney generals office on October 10, agreeing to testify at trial and key hearings if called, and provide investigators with any and all relevant documents.

The document indicates Renner promised to provide information connected to the key Dec. 14, 2020, meeting where the fake elector certificates were signed.

Specifically, Renner has agreed to provide information related to Renner being called and asked to appear at Michigan Republican Party headquarters, appearing at MIGOP Headquarters and attending a meeting for the Republican Slate, as well as Renner identifying leaders of the meeting and other attendees, signing the 2020 Republican Slate document and circumstances regarding him walking to the Capitol on December, according to the document.

Renner will provide vital information because the fake elector plot did not begin and end with the state Republican Party. The fake elector plot was being run by the Trump campaign. Just like in Georgia, Michigan AG Dana Nessel is working her way up the conspiracy chain.

It is unknown if Michigan will follow Georgia and the United States government in indicting Trump and members of his campaign.

The next big Trump-related criminal prosecution looks to be taking shape in Michigan.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Legal restrictions operate in Corsica, MP from "Free Corsica" Party Francois Benedetti said at a press conference dedicated to the upcoming international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" in Baku, Trend reports.

Benedetti said that rights and privileges in France don't apply to Corsica.

He pointed out that prisoners in France are still unable to meet their families.

"Human rights in Corsica are still ignored. Even when we had our own constitution in the past, France did not recognize it and carried out massacres," the MP added.

The international conference "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice", organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.

The group supports the struggle for freedom of peoples located in various regions of the world still suffering from colonization in the 21st century.
Aiken Standard Reporter

Erin Weeks is a reporter with the Aiken Standard. She covers education in Aiken County.

Erin is a graduate of the University of South Carolina Aiken. Her first poetry book, "Origins of My Love," was published by Bottlecap Press in 2022.

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Theres Martin Puchner, whose new book, Culture, tracks arts and culture  from the Chauvet cave dating to 35,000 B.C. to the works of Nigerian playwright and novelist Wole Soyinka  to mine contemporary topics such as cultural appropriation. Here, he fields a few of my own questions, serving as a perfect primer for his event on Nov. 9. Read moreHogan: Charleston Literary Fest Q&A with Martin Puchner, a 'Culture' vulture
Hope Reed saw stark disparities in math classes at Blythewood High School about a decade ago.

At Blythewood, a school in the suburbs of South Carolinas capital of Columbia, nearly half of the students were White. In the freshman remedial math classes, however, almost all the students were Black or Brown.

Reed, then the chair of the schools math department, intervened. She wanted to experiment with detracking, or getting rid of the different classes that separated students by level.

She started with a small test.

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In 2013, she took on leading a ninth-grade remedial class and taught nearly 50 students the regular Algebra 1 curriculum.

Youre honors students, and youre going to do honors work, she recalled telling them.

At the end of the year, about 90 percent of the students passed.

The success of that single class spurred Reed to expand the program. In 2014-15, rather than sorting ninth graders with high test scores into Algebra 1 and giving those with lower test scores remedial instruction, the school enrolled everyone into Algebra 1 classes.

That year, 90 percent of Blythewood students passed the Algebra 1 end-of-course exam, an increase from the previous years passage rate of 87 percent. The average score for Black students on the exam was 80, up two points from the year prior. Meanwhile, the average for White students was 83, an increase by less than one point from the previous year.

The experiment convinced Reed that detracking math classes could be a key component in narrowing achievement gaps between student groups.

Gaps between how minority students perform academically in comparison to their White peers have long been an issue across the country. The disparities often stem from larger structural issues  a lack of access to quality curricula, for instance, or teachers expecting students to perform poorly.
TOKYO  A faint thud intensifies as we approach a soba restaurant on the city outskirts.

While traveling in Japan, we moved around the country mostly by train or foot, but today we find ourselves inside a car. Nearing the noise, we can't help but notice all the food as we wind through narrow roads in a Toyota taxi.

Sunday strollers in the Daizawa neighborhood are holding pieces of pale plump shumai, skewered chunks of chicken and plastic containers of omu raisu, fried rice topped with a thin sheet of griddle-cooked eggs. The people puttering down Daizawas normally quiet streets purchased these bites from vendors crowded around the Kitazawa Hachiman-jinja Shrine, a Shinto structure built 500 years ago.

Amid the hustle and bustle, a boy skips down one of the closed roads with a cup of crispy snacks in the shape of thin pretzel sticks. He turns his head to the right and hands me one. Spinning his wrists, he motions for me to break it in half to split with my travel companion. Smiling as I hand over the other half, the boy jogs down the road to catch up with his parents.

As we near the soba noodle shop, Dashin Soan, a roar erupts, and a parade of people shuffle by carrying what appears to be a golden decorated float affixed to a pair of long wooden planks.

Men and women, young and old, take turns shouldering the gargantuan load, strutting shoulder-to-shoulder in the 93-degree summer heat.

A whistle sounds and the crowd responds:

Wasshoi, WASSHOI! Wasshoi, WASSHOI!"

As the first of more than a dozen processions blares by the restaurant  which serves cold and hot soba noodles made using fresh buckwheat flour in a granite grinder  one of the participants glances my way.

The young man's eyebrows raise as sweat pools on his forehead just below his dark spiked hair. He smiles, then grimaces, then yells, continuing for a few more strides before passing the weight on to another eager, exhausted companion.
GEORGETOWN  A lawsuit alleging racial discrimination by Georgetown County officials can proceed after an effort to get the case dismissed was recently rejected by a federal judge.

The lawsuit was filed Nov. 16, 2022, by the South Carolina and Georgetown County chapters of the NAACP, FourSix Development and We Do Good Work. The complaint alleges "racism and classism" motivated Georgetown County Council to deny a 2021 rezoning request for an affordable housing project. The council's vote caused "substantial and disproportionate harm to Black households in the area, according to the lawsuit.

FourSix is a Lexington-based housing developer, while We Do Good Work is a limited liability company founded by FourSix for the purpose of building the affordable housing project.

Called Porter's Landing, the denied project was a 90-unit multifamily housing development planned for 16 acres north of Georgetown near the intersection of U.S. Highway 701 and Wedgefield Road.

In January, the county filed a motion to dismiss the federal lawsuit by arguing the four plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, but U.S. District Court Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks sided with the NAACP and the developer in a Sept. 28 ruling.

The Court decided that all of our claims can proceed and were very happy with that ruling, attorney Adam Protheroe of the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center said in a prepared statement. Georgetown Countys decision to reject our clients affordable housing proposal, despite a severe shortage of this kind of housing, was misguided. It has disproportionately harmed Black families and reinforced patterns of racial segregation in the county. Local governments cannot continue to act in this way without consequences.

The plaintiffs seek compensatory damages and legal fees in the matter, "affirmative steps" to promote affordable housing in the county and approval of an application to add multifamily housing as a permitted use for the Porter's Landing site, among other items.
PAWLEYS ISLAND  Pawleys Island could be getting some additional money for beach restoration.

Mayor Brian Henry said the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism will be requesting $7 million in one-time money for areas of the Pawleys Island beach that need more sand.

The idea is to start doing this annually to make the case for the need for a dedicated state fund, Henry said at the Pawleys Island Town Council meeting Oct. 9. Hopefully thisll lead to a beach preservation fund.

Henry said previous attempts to establish a beach preservation fund at the state level have proven unsuccessful.

He said PRT previously helped Pawleys Island when the town undertook a beach renourishment project. The state provided roughly $6 million in 2019-20.

Henry is a member of the South Carolina Beach Advocates board, which is made up of various mayors and administrators in the state. Henry said he was informed by Beach Advocates Executive Director Nicole Elko of the funding coming in to PRT.

Were advocating as hard as we can," Henry said. "We said one of our strategic objectives was to secure funding for beach renourishments and any other capital projects wed want to do.  This Beach Advocates board group is another way for us to advocate through whatever means necessary to tell the state that we need money to be able to do these projects, just like we had the PRT fund us in 2019-2020.

"And so SCPRT, since the beach preservation did not go through, theyre kind of saying we want $7 million next year to fund whoever needs it, whether it be somebody needs $2 million or someone needs all $7 million.

The next Beach Advocates board meeting will be held in January.

PRT spokeswoman Sam Queen said in an email that while PRT would be supportive of a recurring funding source for beach renourishment projects, as a state agency it would take the lead from Gov. Henry McMaster and the Legislature.

Pawleys Island Town Administrator Dan Newquist said the town could also be receiving $8 million in federal funds for beach renourishment. The timeline for this is currently the spring of 2025.
GREENVILLE  Only months after he was investigated for pressuring a woman in a women's survivors program for her phone number, a Greenville Police Department officer resigned after a separate investigation found he had lied about whether he had sex in his patrol car with another employee.

The officer, Timothy Matthews, resigned in September after admitting that he took a woman to an abandoned secluded parking lot in the middle of the night and had sex with her in his patrol car, according to state police records.

Police said Matthews was inconsistent with investigators on key facts of the incident and that he colluded with the woman before his first interview to say their encounter happened in the county instead of a bar in city limits that he was assigned to keep secure.

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Just months earlier, Matthews was the subject of an anonymous complaint by a woman in the charitable organization Jasmine Road, a residential program for adult woman survivors of sex trafficking and prostitution.

A police investigation of cell phone video, vehicle location data and interviews confirmed that Matthews was on duty and in uniform when he approached the woman and got her phone number unsolicited, according to internal affairs logs from an Oct. 16 city Public Safety Citizen Review Board meeting.

Matthews also approached the woman in private for a third time at her car door and sent a text to her from his personal cell phone, according to investigation documents.

The distance between Matthews and the woman and "the authority he represented" imposed pressure on the woman to give him her phone number, investigators found.

Matthews received counseling for the incident in June, internal affairs logs show.

Mandy Learo, Jasmine Road's program director, declined to comment, citing the confidentiality and security of women involved in the program.

"He is no longer with us because we detected the pattern," Lt. Michael Austin said at the review board meeting. When asked by a board member whether the pattern was the same kind as the Jasmine Road incident, Austin nodded yes.
The South Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS) is now a certified sensory inclusive agency through training provided by KultureCity, a national non-profit drawing attention to invisible conditions. Thanks to a new partnership with KultureCity and their Sensory Inclusion Training Prog Read moreDSS Becomes First State Agency Certified in Sensory Inclusiveness
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. New Caledonia is trying to find support for itself at the initiative of Azerbaijan, the representative of the New Caledonia, Kayizi Peer said at the press conference of the "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" international conference, organized by the Baku Initiative Group, Trend reports.

"France is trying not to exclude our name from the list of colonized countries. At the initiative of Azerbaijan, we have gained access to the countries of the Non-Aligned Movement and ask for their support. Due to the fact that we did not participate in the previous referendum, we demand a second one. New Caledonia wants to enlist the support of the international community. We thank Azerbaijan for its efforts and ask for help in bringing this issue to the international community," Peer added.

The "Neocolonialism: Violation of Human Rights and Injustice" international conference, organized by the Baku Initiative Group, will be held in Baku on October 20.

The Baku Initiative Group (BIG) was established on July 6, 2023, in Baku by participants of the conference "Total Elimination of Colonialism" within the framework of the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan.

BIG supports the fight for freedom of nations located in different regions of the world still suffering from colonization in the 21st century.
Murals are a beautiful addition to any town. Many years ago, murals graced the side of several businesses, but now are just a memory, being painted over or simply vanishing over time. A new one in Kingstree has earned the Williamsburg HomeTown Image Award. Read moreMural gains Image Award for the Town of Kingstree
There are two kinds of community news editors in the world: those who do about 90 percent of their work within the four walls of an office and those who pound the pavement. Read moreWhy most of us are epic fails at public speaking
In retaliation, Israel launched missile strikes on Gaza, which have killed at least 2,778 people and wounded 9,700 others, as of Oct. 16. Nearly two-thirds of those killed have been children, per The Associated Press.

Bethune said her family members have been impacted by the ongoing war in Israel, and she told the hundreds of attendees that she and the city stand with Israel.

"Coming together today is a sign of strength, of unity, of resilience and of our community coming together to lift each other up," Bethune said. "I've always said that Myrtle Beach is a community who cares, and look around this room. This is proof of that."

When asked, Bethune addressed some negative comments that the city received from those who disagreed on social media with the city "taking a side" in the war.

"We support all of humanity," Bethune said, adding that the event was meant to promote peace.

Laura Adi, a 35-year-old Jewish woman from Myrtle Beach, attended the rally to show respect and support for her home country of Israel. Her parents are still living there, and her brother is fighting with the Israeli Defense Forces.

She said she feels heartbroken and fearful knowing that her family is caught up in the war. However, she said she is also proud of those who defend the country and of the Jewish people's resiliency.

"No matter what happens, my people will always live," Adi said.

Jewish locals like 76-year-old Sylvia Conant of Murrells Inlet view the conflict as another attempt to eradicate Jewish people. Conant also noted the rise of antisemitism across the globe in recent years.

"Those of us here who are my age remember what happened before, and we can't let that happen again," Conant said, referring to the Holocaust, when the Nazis persecuted and slaughtered more than 6 million Jews. "We have to stand together and we have to stand up against this hate."
COLUMBIA  South Carolina solicitors will now be required to give the state 10 days' advance notice before filing a motion to reduce a convicted inmates' sentence.

The move, prompted by Gov. Henry McMaster, comes in direct response to the controversial and quiet release of convicted killer Jeroid Price this year by retiring Richland County Circuit Judge Casey Manning  a disclosure that led to a near three-month manhunt by state law enforcement all the way to New York City.

In an Oct. 19 letter to the state's solicitors, McMaster said those prosecutors must notify Attorney General Alan Wilson's office 10 days in advance of filing any early release motion to ensure their legality.

South Carolina law specifically prohibits the early release of any convicted killer sentenced to the state's minimum sentence of 30 years. But Price, who received more than three decades behind bars for the murder of 22-year-old Carl Smalls more than 20 years ago, was ultimately released from prison 16 years early.

The order came following a closed-door hearing without the knowledge or input of the victim's family or the South Carolina Department of Corrections, a direct violation of state law.

The early release agreement was later voided by the state Supreme Court, which ruled the decision and the secretive manner in which it was conducted violated state law.
A Charleston County jury at times laughed and squirmed Oct. 18 during hours of gory testimony on the nuances of cockfighting, which federal prosecutors introduced as they seek a final conviction to cap off a sprawling Lowcountry cockfighting and gambling ring case.

The federal animal cruelty case ensnared seven men who prosecutors contend were the leaders of an animal fighting and gambling venture that Dorchester County sheriffs deputies busted on March 12, 2022, at the urging of an anonymous tipster.

That spring day, more than 30 men convened on a 116-acre rural property in Ridgeville to exhibit chickens to fight each other with gaffs in a makeshift outdoor arena, according to prosecutors and attendees who testified. Guests paid to enter and also placed bets on the fights.

Animal control authorities, who found dying chickens on the property piled in a blue barrel, euthanized more than 100 chickens as a result of the derby. In total, 32 people  ages 23 to 68  were charged in state court with a misdemeanor.

While six of those charged in federal court have entered guilty pleas, Roosevelt Curry is the lone holdout. The 68-year-old North Augusta man is on trial this week in downtown Charlestons federal courthouse. He is charged with exhibiting an animal for fighting, conducting an illegal gambling business and conspiracy. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison.

Currys co-defendants, who entered into plea agreements with the government, testified against him Oct. 18 in the hope that they receive a reduced prison sentence  or avoid prison altogether. U.S. District Court Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks is scheduled to sentence them next month.
It was a day Frank Larkin will never forget. In April 2017, his son Ryan F. Larkin, a Navy SEAL who was struggling following his return to civilian life, committed suicide in the basement of the familys home. Read moreCommentary: Let's take care of those who served and protected us
DARLINGTON  Seven candidates discussed how they would address issues with Darlingtons water and sewer system at an Oct. 17 candidate forum.

Darlingtons Nov. 7 general election will seat three at-large council members and the mayor.

The candidates for mayor include incumbent Curtis Boyd, Damain Prince and Scott Pruitt. Candidates for the at-large council seats include incumbents Bryant Gardner, John Milling and Howard Nettles along with challengers Angela Nikki McRavin, former mayor Gloria Cheeseboro Hines and Albert Bar B Que Sauce Johnson.

Hines and Prince did not attend the forum put on by Darlingtons League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan grassroots organization dedicated to empowering voters.

The audience packed Darlington's Grand Old Post Office.

Each candidate had three minutes to respond to a question about how they would address the city's ailing water and sewer system while keeping lower-income residents in mind. Here are the main takeaways from each candidate:

Bryant Gardner

After noting that his own bills have gone up in recent years, Gardner  an incumbent running for an at-large council seat  said the existing administration has been proactive with water and sewer repairs. Gardner said the venture has been costly but that the city has used $1 million over the last four years to match $10 million in grants which have helped improve infrastructure. He said utility bills had to increase to help shoulder the cost of improving infrastructure.

I don't want to have a higher bill, just like everyone else, he said. But I understand that I'm going to have to replace my roof, and I'm going to have to save the funds to do that.

Gardner said if the city did not raise utility bills, then the state would force the city to sell its infrastructure to purchasers who would dramatically go up on our bills at a level that we have never seen.
FLORENCE  Fred Hopkins Jr. will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing two Florence law enforcement officers and wounding five others in an October 2018 shootout that devastated this community and drew national attention.

Circuit Judge Eugene Griffith handed down the maximum punishment Oct. 19 for the two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder  two consecutive life sentences and five 30-year sentences.

More than five years after Hopkins ambushed law enforcement in a bloody gun battle, victims and their families took time in court to grieve and vent. In an emotional, three-hour-long hearing they laid out in painstaking and sometimes graphic detail the traumatic aftershocks of the violence.

"You deserve to feel the hurt. You deserve to feel the weight of our loss, our pain, our anguish," said Allison Carraway, the widow of Sgt. Terrence Carraway, who Hopkins shot and killed.

"You are evil and weak," she continued. "Over the course of the last five years, you have proven to the world that you are not even half of the man my husband was."

Nineteen people ultimately spoke in the packed courtroom.

The defense said little. Hopkins gave a thumbs up and waved to members of his family as he was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair. But he did not speak.

The sentencing, which follows 79-year-old Hopkins surprise guilty plea last week, brings to an end a case that shook Florence and drew the nation's eyes to this small city in the Pee Dee region. On Oct. 3, 2018, Hopkins  a Vietnam veteran and disbarred attorney  ambushed law enforcement as they attempted to serve a warrant related to a sexual assault investigation into Hopkins son Seth.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The delegation headed by the Secretary General of the Grand National Assembly of Turkiye Talip Uzun visited Azerbaijans Shusha on October 19 as part of a visit to Azerbaijan, the Press and Public Relations Department of the Milli Majlis (Parliament) of Azerbaijan told Trend.

The delegation was accompanied by the head of the Milli Majlis Staff Farid Hajiyev and other officials.

In addition, the members of the delegation were informed about the history of Azerbaijans Shusha, its condition during the occupation, creative work carried out in the city under the direct supervision of President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva, restoration of historical monuments in the city, future plans.

Afterward, the delegation got acquainted with an exhibition of paintings dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the great leader Heydar Aliyev.

The members of the delegation visited the Saatli Mosque and Yukhari Govhar Agha Mosque, as well as Jidir Duzu, examined the fortress walls of the city. At the Jidir Duzu, they were informed that heroic Azerbaijani soldiers climbed up the steep cliffs here and freed Shusha from the Armenian occupation at the cost of their lives and blood.

Today, Jidir Duzu, as before the occupation, is a venue for grandiose events.
FLORENCE  A new spot for Florence residents to satisfy their soul food cravings has opened in the Pee Dee Regional Airport.

Florence is the latest stop for Mitchells Soul Food, which has appeared in one form or another across the United States.

Victoria Mitchell, the owner, has followed her husband, who is in the Navy, as he moves from base-to-base. In every new home, Mitchell has opened a new version of her soul food restaurant. And in each location, shes found people who love her food.

I've been all over the world, all over the place with this food service, Mitchell said.

The restaurateur has had businesses in Virginia, Hawaii and the Carolinas.

Mitchell prided herself on creating a space for service members to sit back, relax and enjoy some good food while she was serving food on military bases.

"That's what I bring," she said. "I bring good food and a good time."

After tiring of starting over year-after-year, Mitchell pivoted to a food truck about five years ago, which served her well, she said.

Recently, she moved to Florence to be closer to family. She stumbled on the vacant restaurant space in the Pee Dee Regional Airport and decided to open a brick and mortar store again. It officially opened in September.

In some ways, the business has been in the family for decades.

Mitchells inspiration as a chef came from her mother, who hosted a Friday fish fry every week. The fish fry became a lasting family tradition.

Mitchells great-grandfather was also a cook in the army. Mitchell feels like shes following in his footsteps bouncing from base to base, cooking for service members.

Mitchell recommended the catfish, chicken and pork chops, but she said theres plenty to try for anyone coming back for a return visit.

Mitchells Soul Food is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
FLORENCE  What sets Trinity Collegiate School senior Alden Okoh-Aduako apart from other teens his age is his thirst for knowledge about the world around him, including a passion for linguistics, medicine and leading.

I like to study, I like to just learn about a bunch of different topics, like medicine is a big one, computer science, mathematics, science  its actually all things STEM, Okoh-Aduako said.

Okoh-Aduako is one of two recipients of The Post and Couriers September Academic Achiever award.

Each month, two winners  one female and one male  are chosen by a panel of five judges for their outstanding performance inside and outside of school.

Although he wanted to be an astronaut as a child, today Okoh-Aduako is torn between being a doctor like both of his parents or pursuing software engineering/app development. In the same vein, he is still unsure if he will be majoring in either pre-med or computer science in college.

Thats something that had a very big influence on me, Okoh-Aduako said. I have books on, like, anatomy at my house that I like to read through occasionally. I just find it really interesting to learn all this stuff about the human body  its just all very interesting stuff.

Touting a 5.4 GPA, Okoh-Aduako has no trouble learning, but outside of that, he enjoys playing video games and creating pixel art.

Even though Okoh-Aduako is not certain what his future holds, he does know that he wants to see more of the world.

Okoh-Aduako expressed an interest in living in Ghana someday after being inspired by a trip he took last summer with both of his parents, who were born there.

I got to see a completely new side of the world, Okoh-Aduako said. I love the environment there; its one of the things that really shocked me about that place was just the way the houses looked  there was just so much more color and vibrance to Ghana and just countries like that in general.
ANDERSON  Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis kicked off his Veterans for DeSantis campaign at Anderson University, the first stop of several on a tour of the Palmetto State.

He spent the bulk of his almost 40-minute speech talking to and about veterans, including his own military service that he contends makes him a standout candidate as the sole veteran in the race.

For Easley veteran John Schafer, the military connection comes secondary to sharing conservative views. DeSantis is the candidate for Schafer because his policies align with former President Donald Trump  but theres a lack of attitude.

He's got your same basic mindset and value set that Trump did when he was here, but he does not have Trump's baggage, Schafer said.

On the private Christian college campus, DeSantis opened his speech with a joke about a congressman entering heaven. It took him less than two minutes to address the war in Israel and his supportive stance.

They have a right to defend themselves, DeSantis said. They have a right to ensure that Israeli citizens are not butchered by terrorists like had happened on Oct. 7, and that means not only can they go in against Hamas, they have every right to eradicate Hamas off the face of this Earth.

It was his most-mentioned topic aside from military support, telling the room of 400 people that not one red cent of their tax dollars should be sent to Palestine.

He stopped short of naming former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by name, but reiterated the U.S. should not accept any refugees from Palestine.

That's not our role to be doing that, he said. Those Arab countries should take them in in the neighboring area, but I don't want to import the pathologies of the Gaza strip into the United States of America.

DeSantis and Haley have sparred from afar, with Haley telling CNN the U.S. has always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists, when responding to DeSantis comments calling all Gazans antisemitic.
COLUMBIA  South Carolinas rapid economic and population growth has brought the states energy grid to a crisis point, Speaker of the House Murrell Smith warned Statehouse colleagues, requiring the state to find ways to bring thousands of additional megawatts on board in the next decade or risk forfeiting millions of dollars in investment.

In comments to lawmakers Oct. 18, Smith  a Republican  argued the states recent boom in population and economic development has been a double-edged sword for the states utilities, straining their ability to not only provide a reliable source of electricity for existing customers but to help entice new ones to set up here.

That growth also comes amid a series of planned coal-fired power plant retirements in the Carolinas and across the Southeast, which help to provide some 27 percent of the states current generating capacity.

While some of those companies have previously committed to converting those facilities to natural gas, Smith said the bottom line is simple: Its going to take a lot more energy from as many sources as possible to keep the states economy on its current upward trajectory.

Particularly as the states power grid has begun to show strains.

Last winter, for example, Santee Cooper had to implement rolling blackouts for 12,000 customers in response to the unprecedented demand created by an Arctic blast of cold during the Christmas holiday. Company officials said it was the first time the company ever had to do so.

Another utilities executive, Keller Kissam, Dominion Energys South Carolina president, told lawmakers the utilitys lack of uninterrupted natural gas service nearly caused the state to miss out on its recently secured commitment in the Midlands by Scout Motors, which claimed the service gap could have been the poison pill to keep the automaker from coming to South Carolina. (Scout officials previously told The Post and Courier they would begin using natural gas in one specific part of the operation, with plans to electrify in the long term.)
COLUMBIA  Theres an old joke among South Carolinians that the state has an election every Tuesday. A new Statehouse bill headed for the fast track this session could change that.

A Senate Judiciary subcommittee finalized a proposal that would require municipalities across the state to hold local elections on one of three specific days in odd-numbered years  a move lawmakers say will improve turnout and citizen engagement in elections most impactful to their daily lives.

Currently, some 67 cities and towns throughout the state hold municipal elections in even-numbered years.

While one version of the bill already passed out of the full House of Representatives by a unanimous vote last winter, the version proposed by the Senate committee Oct. 18 additionally contains an amendment correcting a quirk in South Carolina law requiring incumbent municipal officials to remain in office if a candidate for that position challenges the outcome of their election.

Its not an uncommon concern.

After his 2022 victory was disputed by one of his opponents, Sumter City Councilman-elect Anthony Gibson was barred from voting for roughly nine months following the death of the previous incumbent. Gibson received approximately 10 times the votes of fellow candidate Reggie Evans, who filed the challenge.

And in the lead-up to the upcoming mayoral race in North Charleston, some observers have raised concerns the law could force outgoing Mayor Keith Summey to remain in office well past the expiration of his term due to the competitiveness of the race and the citys recent history of election challenges.

Isle of Palms Republican Sen. Chip Campsen  who drafted the amendment to close the loophole  told The Post and Courier after the Oct. 18 vote the changes cannot be finalized in time for the North Charleston mayoral election Nov. 7. He said he hoped the mere act of advancing the bill would help dissuade any candidate in the race from contesting the outcome.
ROCK HILL  A Rock Hill man could face life in federal prison after pleading guilty to shooting and killing his wife, resulting in a homicide investigation that took investigators across multiple states in 2020, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Lawrence Joseph Florentine, 56, was accused of the death of Nicole Zahnd Florentine, whom he married in 2018, officials said. The charges were interstate domestic violence resulting in death, use of a firearm during a crime of violence to cause death, obstruction of justice and use of fire during the commission of a felony.

The marriage was marred by domestic violence, according to family members and reports from the York County Sheriff's Office, federal prosecutors said. Nicole Florentine told authorities her husband abused her and had threatened to kill her. He was charged with domestic violence twice during the marriage, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Lawrence Florentine is also charged with arson for setting their home on fire on May 23, 2020. Authorities said he sent his wife video of himself intentionally starting the blaze and picking out her belongings to be set on fire. No information was available about when or where that case will be handled.

The couple then spent several days in early June 2020 travelling through the Carolinas, prosecutors said. Before the road trip, Nicole Florentine regularly communicated with her grandmother. When her grandmother stopped hearing from her, she filed a missing person report.

On June 13, 2020, a groundskeeper in Fredonia, Ky., discovered what appeared to be a makeshift shallow grave at a cemetery. Officers found the body of a partially charred woman in the grave, along with a gas can nearby. The medical examiner identified the woman as Nicole Florentine and determined her cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head.

Witnesses, surveillance camera footage and financial transactions in that part of Kentucky placed Lawrence Florentine in the area, prosecutors said. That included evidence of him purchasing a gas can.
SPARTANBURG  More than 80 craft beers from 28 breweries throughout the Carolinas will be featured at the annual Hub City Brew Fest held in downtown Spartanburg this month.

First held in 2015, the event has helped raise funds for projects in the city including building the Vic Bailey Subaru Bike Park near the city's Mary Black Foundation Rail Trail.

Event Organizer Vivian Jordan of Coalition For Active Youth said this year's event will include food trucks, live music and a silent auction. The annual Brew Fest continues to draw guests from around the Upstate each year.

"We skipped one year because of COVID and what we did one year was host Drafts at Drayton," Jordan said. "Somebody keeps stepping up to help with it. It is always a group effort. Spartanburg Brew Club stepped up to help us run it this year."

Since the brew fest was first held, the craft beer scene in Spartanburg County has grown with the addition of several breweries in the area. These have included Ciclops Cyderi and Brewery in Spartanburg, New Groove Artisan Brewery in Boiling Springs, Plankowner Brewing Company in Boiling Springs, Outside Influence Brewing in Chesnee and Holliday Brewing in Drayton.

Rudy Taylor, Spartanburg Brew Club president, said the annual event highlights the growing interest for quality craft beers in the region.

"We are super excited about getting this event back into downtown Spartanburg," Taylor said. "There will be a lot of great craft beers and everyone should have a great time."

Founded more than 10 years ago, Spartanburg Brew Club meets monthly at breweries in Spartanburg County allowing home craft brewers to hone their craft and meet with fellow brewers to develop the best next thing in the craft beer world.

New Groove co-owner Jonathan Duke is part of the brew club. Duke opened New Groove in 2017. His brewery will be among those featured at this year's brew fest downtown.
Red Hearts Foundation volunteers, driven by their passion for animal welfare, made a heartwarming visit to the Good World Animal Rescue and Protection (GWARP) shelter. Their benevolent gesture was a significant contribution to the shelters mission, as they provided essential food assistance to the furry residents.

Over the course of three years, the Red Hearts Foundation has spearheaded numerous social responsibility initiatives dedicated to safeguarding homeless animals. Ayla Agayeva from School No. 6, Sima Huseynzade from Landau School, Maryam Huseynzade from Azerbaijan British College, along with Said Aslanov, Javad Aslanov from Dunya School, and Hadida Aliyeva from School No. 6, dedicatedly joined forces as student volunteers. Together, they organized fundraisers within their educational institutions, successfully gathering donations for these vital endeavors. The funds raised were utilized to provide essential food grinding equipment to an animal shelter. In tandem with this project, negotiations were made with various restaurants and hotels to redirect surplus food to the animal shelter.

It is truly heartening to see that the driving force behind this project consists of youngsters aged 12-16. Inspired by the foundation's initiatives, these schoolchildren have eagerly embraced the call to nurture nature and protect our animal friends.

Red Hearts was established in December 2019 by employees of Kapital Bank. The organization, which currently operates as a foundation, primarily assists orphans, shelters, and people in need. On the foundation's official website, https://redhearts.az, you may learn more about the foundation's activities, existing humanitarian projects and initiatives, future plans, and other interesting details.
The White House has posted the text of President Bidens remarks in Israel here (it appears as though it was done by the other team, not  not you), here (I want you to know youre not alone), and here. Age has diminished President Bidens mental capacity to the point of embarrassment, but that cant account for the stupidity of policy promoted in terms like these. This is calculated:

The people of Gaza need food, water, medicine, shelter. Today, I asked the Israeli cabinet  who I met with for some time this morning  to agree to the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. Based on the understanding that there will be inspections and that the aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas, Israel agreed that humanitarian assistance can begin to move from Egypt to Gaza. Let me be clear: If Hamas diverts or steals the assistance, they will have demonstrated once again that they have no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people and it will end. As a practical matter, it will  it will stop the international community from being able to provide this aid.

Also calculated is this patronizing advice: I caution this: While you feel that rage, dont be consumed by it. That is offensive.

Biden revisited a golden oldie: We must keep pursuing a path so that Israel and the Palestinian people can both live safely, in security, in dignity, and in peace. For me, that means a two-state solution.

Biden had other thoughts for Israelis who have lived with terrorist organizations coming at them from Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, most sponsored and funded by the regime that must not be named, yet Biden felt compelled to patronize his audience with further deep thoughts and additional advice: The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.

Query: Who represents the Palestinians?

Biden exceeded himself on his return. He must be exhilarated. With Secretary of State Blinken warily eyeing Biden in the background, Biden went back to engage with the press on Air Force One during a refueling stop at Ramstein Air Force Base. The New York Timess Peter Baker asked Biden why the Arab world is buying the Hamas line about the explosion at the hospital in Gaza City. Hey, Peter, the New York Times might have something to do with it, but thats not what Biden said: Im not suggesting that Hamas deliberately did it. Its that old thing: Gotta learn how to shoot straight.

Yes, Mr. Hitler, you need better armaments. Yuk yuk.

Biden didnt actually seem to have heard that it was an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. Its not the first time that Hamas has launched something that didnt function very well, he added.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad  they dont represent the Palestinians either. Neither does Fatah. Etc.
Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. He is a veteran reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor for the New York Times and other publications. Cliffs most recent column is How to save Gazan lives (at FDD, where it is posted with links). Cliff has kindly given us his permission to post his column on Power Line. He writes:

Much of the media is now moving briskly on from the atrocities committed by Hamas with Tehrans assistance  the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust  to the plight of Gazans.

Why must Gazans suffer for the crimes of their leaders who happen to be designated terrorists?

The answer: They neednt.

It would require only two words by Hamas leaders to end this war. Those words are: We surrender.

Hamas leaders could emerge from the elaborate and expensive tunnels in which they are hiding. They could release their nearly 200 Israeli, American, and other hostages.

Emperor Hirohito surrendered to spare the Japanese further suffering and end a world war. To do the same would be beneath the dignity of Mohammed Deif, Hamass military commander?

Israels military operation against Hamas has been targeting infrastructure: weapons factories, munitions warehouses, command-and-control centers.

Because the north of Gaza is an active war zone crawling with Hamas fighters, Israel has advised Gazans not eager to die for Hamas and its Iranian puppeteers to head south.

Hamas has been ordering Gazans to stay put and get killed so their corpses can be used for public relations purposes.

Gazans would be even safer if theyd cross into Egypt to wait out the war. But Egypt has prohibited large numbers from entering. Hamas also has taken steps to prevent an exodus.

Israelis have long supplied Gazans with electricity. No international law obligates them to do so in wartime. At President Bidens urging, however, they have agreed to provide power to the south  for now.

But with all the foreign aid that has poured into Gaza since Israels complete withdrawal from the territory in 2005, why are Gazans still relying on Israel for electricity?

The answer: Because Hamass raison detre is killing Jews. The wellbeing of Gazans is for other to worry about. Hamas turns metal pipes imported to distribute water into missiles.

Hamass war crimes on Oct. 7  including torture, rape, and mutilation  replicate ISIS and Nazi barbarism.

Call me naive, but I expected self-proclaimed champions of the Palestinian cause to protest: Its not fair to judge all Palestinians by Hamass terrible actions!

But the Democratic Socialists of America, Black Lives Matter Grassroots, Harvard identity groups, and a Starbuckss union are among those proclaiming solidarity with the baby-killers and genocidaires, including by displaying drawings of a Hamas terrorist flying a paraglider over the international border into Israel.

I attribute that mostly to malice, but ignorance spiked with antisemitism plays a role. I have space here to relate just a few fundamental facts.

Palestine is the name the Romans gave to Judea, the land of the Jews, as a punishment for Jewish rebellion. The name derives from the Philistines, non-semitic, sea-faring people from Crete who settled in the coastal area known as Canaan in the 12th Century BCE. The Philistines became enemies of the Jews  Goliath the best known. Arab armies invaded centuries later.

Palestine was ruled by foreign empires for millennia until the founding of Israel in part of that territory  an act of decolonization.

As recently as the 1940s, the term Palestinian generally referred to Jews. Musicians in the Palestine Symphony Orchestra were Jews. Reporters writing for the Palestine Post were Jews.

The most prominent Palestinian Arab leader before Yasser Arafat, who founded the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964, was Haj Amin al-Husseini, appointed Mufti of Jerusalem by the British.

He spent much of World War II in Germany, recruiting European Muslims to the Nazi cause and broadcasting Nazi propaganda. Kill the Jews wherever you find them, he told the Arabs of the Middle East on March 1, 1944. This pleases God, history, and religion. This serves your honor. God is with you.

In 1947, the U.N. passed a resolution calling for the partition of Palestine  minus the three-quarters Britain had already constituted as a new Arab state today known as Jordan  into two more states, one Jewish and one Arab.

Palestinian Jews agreed to the plan. Palestinian Arabs and the five Arab members of the U.N. denounced the resolution and launched a war to drive the Jews into the sea.

More than one percent of the Jewish population of the fledgling State of Israel was killed in that conflict. About 700,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees. Over the years that followed, a larger number of Jews would be expelled from Arab and Muslim countries.

Today, the descendants of Arab Muslims who didnt fight or flee are Israels largest minority. They attend Israeli universities. They are doctors, scientists, lawyers, judges, and police officers. Some serve in the Israel Defense Forces.

Nowhere is it easy to be a minority, but Israeli Arabs enjoy more rights and freedoms than do Arabs in any Arab country. Israeli Muslims enjoy more rights and freedoms than do Muslims in any Muslim country.

Yet Israel is slandered as an apartheid state.

A two-state solution means two states for two peoples peacefully coexisting. Palestinian leaders in the West Bank have rejected multiple proposals.

The Hamas Charter warns that anyone signing a peace agreement that would give so much as a grain of sand in Palestine in favor of the enemies of God should have their hand cut off.

Besides, Gaza, is already a de facto Palestinian state, established following the 2005 Israeli withdrawal, one ruled by Hamas with funds, arms, training, and instruction from Irans rulers who are always happy to sacrifice Arab pawns to advance their goals of Death to Israel! and Death to America!

Why arent those concerned about the people of Gaza directing their fury toward Hamas and its patrons in Tehran who have now made any solution impossible for the foreseeable future?

The answer: Its much more exhilarating to blame the Jews.
Israeli strike kills hundreds in hospital, Palestinians say is the headline that the New York Times ran on its story reporting the errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that Hamas turned to its own use in the information war. It wasnt an Israeli air strike, it was the hospital parking lot that was hit, we dont know how many casualties were sustained, and it was Hamas that said it. However, we do know that the Times was not alone in taking the word of Palestinians or Gaza officials  i.e., Hamas, at face value regarding the incident.

The Washington Free Beacons Drew Holden now compiles a list of the media outlets that uncritically regurgitated Hamas propaganda. Holden documents the contributions of Reuters, the Times, MSNBC, CNN, Politico, Axios, the Associated Press, and the BBC. Holden flagged his story on X/Twitter. The contribution of Reuters is particularly damaging.

Few outlets have as great a reach as @Reuters, who rushed to parrot Hamas talking points to the world when the explosion happened. pic.twitter.com/XJPYDt4HyZ  Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) October 18, 2023

And also that of the Associated Press.

The one outlet who rivals their reach is @AP  who did the same thing, repeating what they had been told by Hamas. pic.twitter.com/OmUmGI1FBF  Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) October 18, 2023

I think the New York Times deserves special recognition. Say what about disinformation? All the fake news thats fit to print.

Perhaps the most egregious disinformation came from @nytimes. Not only did they rush to quote Hamas in their headline and tweet, as @HillelNeuer points out, they made it their website homepage. pic.twitter.com/DltewYUm86  Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) October 18, 2023

Truth dies in the darkness of the Washington Post.

More of the same from Washingtons paper of record, @washingtonpost. Why would anyone take Palestinian authorities  which translates to Hamas, to be clear  at their word? pic.twitter.com/yp4ukM1RNh  Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) October 18, 2023

Lets not forget the Wall Street Journal.

Look how the Wall Street Journal changed their headlines pic.twitter.com/f2nUYLXkIt  StewMama Cari- Radically Moderate (@StewMama71) October 18, 2023

Holdens story also noted the contributions of individual journalists including Washington Post reporter Evan Hill and columnist Karen Attiah. Holdens useful story here is accompanied by Thaleigha Rampersads video compilation below.

UPDATE: Were not quite done with the New York Times yet.
Ammar Campa-Najjar, the self-described Palestinian Mexican-American, was previously known as Ammar Yasser Najjar after his father, an official with the Palestinian Authority in Gaza who supposedly migrated to the United States on a student visa.

As outlined here previously, Ammar is also the grandson of Muhammad Abu Yousef al-Najjar, mastermind of the Palestinian terrorist attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. The terrorists not only killed the Israelis but mutilated weightlifter Yossef Romano. German police kept this information under wraps until 1992.

Al-Najjars grandson Ammar worked in the Obama White House and, billed by Rolling Stone as a rockstar Democratic candidate, ran for Congress, losing to Duncan Hunter in 2018 and Darrell Issa in 2020. The rockstar Democrat had never held public office or served on any community board, commission, or civic group in the city of Chula Vista, near San Diego, where he ran for mayor in 2022.

As La Prensa San Diego reported, Ammar used pre-recorded messages from 2018 and 2020, giving the impression that Obama endorsed him in the mayors race, when the former president had endorsed nobody. Yasser Najjars son, who is single, also sent out a campaign photo of himself with a woman and children captioned Ammar and his family.

As it turned out, the woman was Ammars cousin with her two children, information not revealed in the initial caption. Despite more than 700 mail-in ballots with either non-matching or missing signatures, the rockstar Democrat lost to Republican John McCann. The Palestinian Mexican-American, who says he lived in Gaza from ages 8 to 12, returning in 2001 just before 9/11, has now joined the U.S. Navy.

Today, in front of my family, friends, my grandmother in heaven and God, I stood aboard the USS Midway and swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend our nation as a commissioned United States Navy Officer, Ammar told People Magazine, citing Winston Churchill that as a reservist he was now twice the citizen.

The former Ammar Yasser Najjar claimed he first tried to join up at age 17, but as Peoples Virginia Chamlee explained, his mother refused to sign off on the decision, due to his father being away at the time. According to Robin Abcarian of the Los Angeles Times, hed always wanted to serve in the military, and even tried to enlist at 17 before his mother put a stop to it, but theres a problem here.

During a U.S.-funded war in Gaza, Ammar explained, I, my mom, stepmom and younger brothers hid in the dark corner of a cold kitchen floor as Apache helicopters and F-16s leveled surrounding buildings and carpet-bombed the town for hours. Chamlee and Abcarian didnt specify which of Ammars two mommies barred him from enlisting at 17. Neither journalist sought comment from Yasser Najjar, the Palestinian Authority official in Gaza who somehow migrated to the USA on a student visa.

The military doesnt have the luxury of getting into these cultural disputes trying to divide us, the new officer told Abcarian. Where some people have seen my heritage, my background as a liability, the Navy says those are not liabilities, they are assets. A command of the Arab language, fluent in Spanish, having lived in the Middle East, my cultural competency gives us a strategic advantage. . . My Arabic is actually more fluent than my Spanish.

Abcarian found Campa-Najjar to be somewhat guarded but accepted his contention that he was done with politics, at least for now. The columnist might check out the rockstar Democrats Wikipedia entry.

Ammar Campa-Najjar is a United States naval officer, it begins, as though he had graduated Annapolis, served for many years and commanded a destroyer. His father Yasser Najjar was an important internal critic of Palestinian hardliners and during his time in Gaza, he attempted to counteract the rising influence of Hamas. Grandfather Muhammad Abu Yousef al-Najjar has been the subject of significant controversy, and so on.

The rockstar Democrat may be prepping for another House run, or maybe Californias U.S. Senate seat up for grabs in 2024. In Congress he would doubtless perform as a kind of trans Ilhan Omar or Rashaida Tlaib, members of the Hamas-Jihad Caucus. The former Ammar Yasser Najjar also raises issues for the Navy, which has a history with Islamic terrorism.

In 1985, 13 years after Munich, Hezbollah terrorists hijacked a commercial airliner and singled out diver Robert Stethem solely because he was a member of the U.S. military. Stethem fought back and the terrorists beat the American, shot him dead, and dumped his body on the tarmac. Stethems face was so deformed he had to be identified through fingerprints and medical records. The Navy named a ship after Stethem but its not clear whether the United States ever took out his killers.

On October 12, 2000, less than a year before 9/11, terrorists bombed the USS Cole, killing 17 American sailors and wounding 40. One of the fatalities was Petty Officer First Class Kevin Rux, and 23 years later his relatives are still waiting for closure since the accused mastermind of the operation has yet to stand trial. The former Ammar Yasser Najjar, critic of U.S.-funded wars, has yet clarify his position.

The Navy security check is very thorough but the former Gaza resident whipped through in record time. He boasts that he already passed the White House background check, but leaves out a key detail. The FBI does the checking but the president makes the final call. The former Ammar Yasser Najjar was the one the former Barry Soetoro wanted. If anybody thought he was pulling strings for the Munichian candidate it would be hard to blame him.

Ammars 2018 opponent was Duncan Hunter, a former Marine who served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. His opponent had used different names to hide his familys ties to terrorism, charged Hunter. True to form, the rockstar Democrat never revealed those ties until the Israeli publication Haaretz broke the news that Grandson of Munich Massacre Terrorist Is Running for Congress.

Hunter wondered how his opponent would handle classified information involving U.S. operations in the Middle East. As the Republicans campaign materials proclaimed, Ammar Campa-Najjar was a risk we cant ignore. Voters agreed.

In 2020 the rockstar Democrat was endorsed by former president Obama, Rip Van Winkle communist Bernie Sanders, and non-Cherokee Sen. Elizabeth Warren, among others. The Democrats campaign contributions included $17,500 from board members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). A 2013 Department of Justice report states that evidence at a 2007 trial linked CAIR leaders to Hamas, a specially designated terrorist organization, and CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

Republican Darrell Issa prevailed against the rockstar Democrat, who failed to become mayor of Chula Vista. In 2023, as Scott Johnson explains, the 10/7 massacre changes everything.

Last Sunday, nearly a thousand pro-Hamas demonstrators gathered in San Diego. If the newly minted naval officer showed up, he did not speak to reporters about Hamas atrocities or his plans for 2024. As Trump likes to say, well have to see what happens. In the meantime, its all about memory against forgetting.
SALZBURG, Austria, October 19Back in August of 1990 I attended my first-ever meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Munich, West Germany, not far from my current temporary location. I was still a sluggish graduate student at the time, long past when I should have completed my dissertation, but somehow I had contrived to snag a fellowship to attend, and present a paper whose precise topic I dont now recall, except for the fact that I included a couple long paragraphs trying to draw inverse lessons from Rousseaus draft constitution for Poland, mostly to be mischievous because Rousseau doesnt really fit well with the classical liberal tradition of MPS.

Coming less than a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the sudden opening up of Eastern Europe, it was a momentous meeting, regarded by many participants who had been attending MPS meetings from the beginning in the late 1940s as one of the most significant in the Societys storied history. Friedrich Hayek, by then in his early 90s, was not able to attend, but Milton Friedman and George Stigler were both present, along with Ronald Coase and Gary Becker, who won their Nobel Prizes in economics the next two years, taking their place alongside Friedman, Hayek, and Stigler. I also made the acquaintance of Ralph Harris (Lord Harris of High Cross), Arthur Selden, Oliver and Shirley Robin Letwin, Linda Whetstone, and several other British thinkers who were central to Margaret Thatchers rise and rule. (In later MPS meetings I got to know Kenneth Minogue and Maurice Cranston, too.)

In other words, a lineup of true titans. But the speaker who stole the show was Vaclav Klaus, who had become the finance minister for Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1989 immediately after the Communists were chased out of power. Klaus was a well-known free marketeer. Among other aspects of his career, he spent a year as a graduate student in economics at Cornell University in 1969, where he likely met a young faculty member named Thomas Sowell, and also witnessed the radical left meltdown at Cornell that year.

As a government minister with actual power to help make a rapid transition to a functioning democracy and a market economy, rather than just an academic or intellectual, his remarks had special weight, and the usual low murmur of the large conference hall fell totally silent as this soft-spoken man began to speak. There was considerable uncertainty among MPS members at that moment, because no one knew how things would fall out. The question of German reunification was still a matter of great concern. Klaus offered definitive and confident direction. It was a powerful demonstration that sometimes it is the soft-spoken by thoughtful man who can command an audience most effectively.

At a remove of 33 years I do not now recall Klauss specific arguments, but I remember two dominant general points: first, there should be no compromise in sweeping away the socialism of the previous era, but second, a note of profound magnanimity, in which he said that we should not be seeking retribution against former Communist functionaries in the eastern nations. He said we should put the past behind us lest we lose focus on a brighter future. His effect on the distinguished audience was evident; his gravitas and presentation were deeply moving.

Klaus later went on to become president of the Czech Republic, and helped to manage the amicable split-off of Slovakia into its own country. He clashed often and was a rival with the other great Vaclav of the Czech freedom storyVaclav Havelbecause Havel was friendlier to social democracy welfare state measures, and opposed the privatization of state-owned companies. In later years Klaus became an outspoken critic of the centralizing and bureaucratizing tendencies of the European Union, and he remains a prominent critic of the climate change cult.

Thus it was a treat to see Klaus up close and in person again shortly after I arrived in Budapest last month. He spoke at the Danube Institutes annual Geoeconomics Conference. Now eighty-two years old and long retired from active politics, Klaus is more soft-spoken, but more ferocious in his message than ever. I scribbled away in my reporters notebook as he delivered one bracing declaration after another.

I had the opportunity to speak with him at length after he finished, where we reminisced about the 1990 MPS meeting (A very important meeting, he said), and he not only gave me a signed copy of his latest collection of essays, Brave New West: Is It Avoidable?, but also handed me the prepared text for his presentation, so I dont need to rely entirely on my notes to pass along some of his gems:

I did not expect things to disintegrate so quickly after 1990. . . I come from a small country with no geopolitical ambitions, from a country that, by joining the European Union, lost its short era of independence and sovereignty which we enjoyed after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Europe is, however, a very weak source of identity. . . [Klaus boldfaced this sentence in his prepared text, along with the others that follow below.] Let me focus my comments on the West. I fear for its fate. It seems problematic and unwarranted now. In our institute in Prague, we have just completed a small book, a collection of essays, with the title The Self-Destruction of the West. . . I repeat, it is not about the destruction of the West; it is about its self-destruction. This slow, but powerful process is not a consequence of an external shock, pressure, or threat. We are convinced it is a self-made, self-imposed, self-inflicted injury. It has not been imported from the East or the South. It has not been imposed on us from somewhere. Neither is it the outcome of a diabolical plan of a group of crazy conspirators who want to destroy the world as we know it. This process seems to be the consequence of an endogenous mechanism. It is the outcome of an evolutionary process based both on ideologies and interests (as always in human history). The Western society has been intentionally getting rid of its basic pillars which were the source of its success and prosperity in the past. Individual freedom and free markets have become disgraced. No one is defending them. Because of the strength of currently dominant ideologies, their defense is considered politically incorrect, more or less reactionary. To advocate them, as I recently tried at a major international conference, is not welcome, even though many participants congratulated mesilently, ex postfor having the courage to raise these issues. Some of us used to live in such a world for a very long time. It asked for courage and resolution to express criticism of the official ideology in the Communist era. I must say we didnt expect to return to something similar to that so quickly. . . The new ideologies of aggressive environmentalism, multiculturalism, genderism, NGOism, or in the field of economics of such a nonsense as the extreme version of post-Keynesianism called the New Monetary Theory have been promoted, heralded, and, consequently, more or less smoothly accepted as a new orthodoxy. This is beyond my comprehension. . .

Here Klaus departed from his prepared text to mention the American economist Joseph Stiglitz, whom he called my arch-enemy. Then he pivoted to the climate cult:

Today any debate with the Greens is impossible. They and their apologists in all political parties dont pay attention to arguments. The penalty when you openly disagree with them is similarnow to that we experienced in the late Communist erayou are not promoted and you dont get the government grants. . . The economy is once again overregulated, with all kinds of external standards imposed upon it. A specific role is played by ridiculous green imperatives, recently under the banner ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance). Running corporations for the benefit of shareholders is out. It doesnt mean anything but a fundamental systemic change. People still blindly believe they live in a capitalist system and a market economy. . . The managerial revolution of the 1950s has been completed, The managers and technocrats have become, to some people surprisingly, the main fighters for a non-economic way of thinking. This should not be surprising. They have totally different interests than the owners.

This last bit is clearly derivative of James Burnham, and the principal-agent problem. He closed thus:

We, who are here, instinctively feel that the world we live inand its geoeconomicsis not only strange but fundamentally wrong. We should be saying that loudly.

During the lively discussion period that followed Klaus said that what we need now is an aggressive de-subsidization of industry (especially the green energy industry). He also suggested that we make a distinction between globalizationthat is, liberalized trade that generally benefits everyoneand globalism, the ideology that sees trade flows and overseas investment as something to be politically managed by the multinational elites such as the World Economic Forum. Klaus prefers to say internationalization rather than globalization as a way of avoiding the pernicious conflation.

About Francis Fukyuamas famous end of history thesis that predicted benign classical liberalism sweeping the globe, Klaus said Fukuyama was misplaced and drunk.

Despite this sober assessment of where we are, his last word was: Optimism is an obligation, but we must be aware of what is going on.

P.S. Power Lines temporary Salzburg bureau location, Cafe Tomaselli:
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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / 1329306 B.C. Ltd (the "Company" or "ShellCo") is pleased to announce that that the board of directors of the Company (the "Board") has approved of a share consolidation (the "Consolidation") of the common shares (the "Shares") of the Company on the basis of one (1) post-Consolidation Share for every nine hundred fifty-seven thousand and one hundred (957,100) pre-Consolidation Shares, in accordance with the Company's Articles. The Consolidation will be effective on October 26, 2023.The Company will not be issuing fractional post-Consolidation Shares in connection with the Consolidation. In the event that the Consolidation results in a Shareholder holding a fraction of a post-Consolidation Share, in lieu of receiving such fractional share, such Shareholders will receive cash payment without interest (the "Cash Consideration"). The Cash Consideration shall be calculated by multiplying each pre-Consolidated Share that results in a fraction by $0.007 and shall be rounded to the nearest whole cent. As a result of the Consolidation, Shareholders will not own any fractional interests in the post-Consolidation Shares.A letter of transmittal with respect to the Consolidation will be sent by mail to registered shareholders ("Registered Shareholders") and is not to be used by beneficial holders of the pre-Consolidation Shares who are not Registered Shareholders (the "Beneficial Shareholders"). Beneficial Shareholders who hold their pre-Consolidation Shares through a broker or other intermediary and do not have pre-Consolidation Shares registered in their name will not need to complete a letter of transmittal.The Board's resolution further authorized, pursuant to Section 238(1)(g) of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) (the "BCBCA"), Registered Shareholders to exercise dissent rights in respect of the Consolidation, in the manner described in Sections 237 to 247 of the BCBCA. A Registered Shareholder wishing to dissent must send a written notice of dissent contemplated by Section 242 of the BCBCA which must be received by the Company, in the manner set out below, not later than 9:00 a.m. (Vancouver time) on October 26, 2023. All notices of dissent to the Consolidation must comply with Section 242 of the BCBCA and should be delivered by mail or hand delivery to 1329306 B.C. Ltd., Suite 3606 - 833 Seymour Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 0G4, (Attention: Sherry Siu).Effective October 26, 2023 the post-Consolidation Shares have been assigned new CUSIP/ISIN numbers: (68249Q209/CA68249Q2099).The Consolidation constitutes a "business combination" within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). In its consideration and approval of the Consolidation, the Board determined that the Consolidation will be exempt from the formal valuation and minority approval requirements of MI 61-101 on the basis of the exemptions in Sections 5.5(b) and 4.6(1)(a) of MI 61-101.Subdivision of SharesSubsequent to the completion of the Consolidation, the Board has also approved of a subdivision (67,000 for 1) of its post-Consolidation Shares ("Subdivision"). The Subdivision will be effective on October 26, 2023.As a result of the Subdivision, each shareholder of record on October 26, 2023 will receive 67,000 post-Subdivision Shares for every one post-Consolidation Share owned. Assuming no change in the number of Shares prior to the effective date of the Subdivision, the Company's outstanding Shares will increase from approximately 102 post-Consolidation Shares to approximately 6,834,000 post-Subdivision Shares. Shareholders holding pre-Subdivision Shares are not required to take any action to receive post-Subdivision Shares.There will be no change to the Company's CUSIP number.Beginning on October 26, 2023, each outstanding certificate representing pre-Subdivision Shares will be deemed for all corporate purposes after the effective time of the Subdivision to evidence ownership of the appropriate number of post-Subdivision Shares.About 1329306 B.C. Ltd.The Company is an unlisted reporting issuer and its common shares are not listed for trading on any exchange. On August 15, 2023, the Company entered into an arrangement agreement with Zodiac Gold Inc. pursuant to which Zodiac and the Company will complete a transaction that will result in the previously announced reverse takeover of the Company by the shareholders of Zodiac (the "Transaction"). Upon completion of the Transaction, the resulting company (the "Resulting Issuer") will continue to carry on the business of Zodiac and will focus on the exploration and potential development of Zodiac's Todi gold project in Liberia (previously known as the Mount Coffee project).For further information, please contact:Robin McWatt President, CEO, CFO and Director robin.mcwatt@gmail.com+1 (514) 707-0481Cautionary and Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of 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 press 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 press release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to: the Transaction and certain terms and conditions thereof; the business of Zodiac, information concerning the Todi project, the Zodiac and ShellCo financings; the proposed directors and officers of the Resulting Issuer; court, shareholder and director; and future press releases and disclosure. 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 that may cause the actual results and future events to differ mat
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The world of the blade removers market is a complex and ever-evolving landscape, shaped by consumer demands and technological advancements. In this report, we delve into the depths of this market to provide a profound and comprehensive analysis, catering to a diverse audience that includes manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and investors. Our primary goal is to empower industry stakeholders with invaluable insights to make informed decisions in a rapidly changing environment. We aim to illuminate the current status of the blade removers market while projecting its future trends.Scope and PurposeOur report is a comprehensive guide designed to equip industry stakeholders with actionable information. It covers various aspects of the blade removers market, including market dynamics, competition, growth avenues, challenges, and regional variations. This information goes beyond mere descriptions; it is intended to help stakeholders make critical decisions that can shape their strategies and endeavors in the market.Request for Sample Report:Promising Comprehensive AnalysisTo fulfill our promises, we commit to providing a comprehensive analysis that leaves no stone unturned. We pledge to unravel the factors propelling the market's growth, dissecting shifts in consumer preferences and technological breakthroughs that are driving the demand for blade removers products. Simultaneously, we acknowledge that challenges and obstacles are part of any industry landscape, and we vow to illuminate these hurdles, be it economic uncertainties or the intense competition that often characterizes such markets.Some of the major companies in the Blade Removers market are as follows: Agar Scientific, Aspen Surgical, Cancer Diagnostics, Cincinnati Surgical, DeRoyal, Fine Science Tools, Hu-Friedy, Sklar, Swann-MortonGuiding the Path ForwardOur report extends an invitation to its readers to explore its contents and sets the stage for uncovering the competitive landscape. It introduces the major players in the blade removers market and their strategies, offering insights into what makes them thrive. This insight-rich analysis is meant to guide others on their path forward  whether it's to navigate the competition more effectively or to find inspiration in successful strategies.Anticipation of InsightsRecognizing that the market is not monolithic but rather a composition of various segments, the report pledges to provide a nuanced understanding of these segments. It promises to detail their sizes, potential growth trajectories, and key trends. This targeted knowledge assists stakeholders in carving out specialized strategies and ensuring optimal resource allocation.Balancing Forces and Strategic ImplicationsBy elucidating both the driving forces and potential obstacles, the report paints a holistic picture of the market dynamics. It enables industry stakeholders to navigate the competitive landscape with a deeper understanding of the forces at play. Manufacturers can align their innovation efforts with consumer preferences and regulatory trends, thereby enhancing their market position. Investors and decision-makers can be better prepared to address economic uncertainties and supply chain vulnerabilities. Overall, this section equips readers with insights to make strategic decisions that account for both growth opportunities and challenges in the blade removers market.Exploring the Competitive LandscapeThe section dedicated to the competitive landscape of the blade removers market offers an intricate exploration of the market's key players, their strategies, and their impact on the industry. This segment aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the market's dynamics, the role of major companies, and the strategies they employ to thrive.Segment CharacteristicsThe report initiates the analysis by outlining the unique characteristics that define each segment. Whether these segments are categorized based on product types, customer demographics, use cases, or other distinguishing factors, the report provides a clear picture of how these segments are defined and differentiated.Market SizeUnderstanding the size of each market segment is crucial for gauging its significance within the overall market landscape. The report likely provides quantitative data to illustrate the market share and contribution of "Type" and "Application" segments to the entire blade removers market. This information helps stakeholders appreciate the relative importance of each segment.Growth PotentialBeyond current market size, the report delves into the growth potential of these segments. It explores factors such as emerging trends, consumer behaviors, technological advancements, and regulatory influences that could drive the future expansion of these segments. This forward-looking perspective aids stakeholders in identifying where the market's growth opportunities lie.Key TrendsThe analysis likely captures the key trends specific to each segment. Whether it's changing consumer preferences, evolving technology adoption, or shifting regulatory landscapes, the report provides insights into the forces shaping the behavior of "Type" and " Application." These trends inform stakeholders about the directions these segments might take in the coming years.Strategic InsightsThe segment analysis extends beyond descriptive data to offer strategic insights. By understanding the characteristics, potential, and trends of "Type" and "Application," industry participants can make informed decisions. Manufacturers can tailor their product development strategies to meet the demands of these segments, and marketers can create targeted campaigns to reach specific customer groups.Market Segmentation:Type: Single Use Blade Removers, Multi Use Blade RemoversApplication: Hospitals, Clinics, OthersExploring Regional DynamicsThe section dedicated to the regional analysis of the blade removers market provides a comprehensive exploration of how the market fares across different geographical areas. This analysis recognizes that markets are not homogenous and that regional variations can significantly impact market dynamics. The report delves into the intricacies of each region  North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa  to provide stakeholders with valuable insights.Closing ThoughtsIn essence, the conclusion encapsulates the report's journey. It emphasizes the report's role as a strategic tool, a navigator, and a decision-making companion in the complex world of the blade removers market. This report is more than just a document; it is a valuable resource that empowers industry stakeholders to thrive in a dynamic and ever-evolving market environment.
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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Aflac IncorporatedOriginally published on Aflac NewsroomChildhood cancer survivor Shauna Rae was diagnosed with a brain tumor at just 6 months old, and later diagnosed with pituitary dwarfism at 16 years old, both taking a physical toll on the body. But the impact went beyond that, affecting her socially, emotionally and mentally. Learn more about her story in this video, and read on to learn how you can help support children with cancer and blood disorders.There are visible and invisible challenges that come with cancer and blood disorder diagnoses and survival. Aflac is committed to helping treat the whole child across their lifespan - from active treatment into cancer survivorship. Throughout this 28-year commitment, we have raised and donated over $170 million to the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, with much of the support coming from independent sales agents and Aflac employees.But we know we can't do it alone, which is why we want you to join us in building the bridge to a brighter future for children and families facing cancer and blood disorders.Shine a lightIn honor of National Childhood Cancer Awareness and Sickle Cell Awareness Month, Aflac helped light bridges in prominent locations across the country in gold and burgundy, the colors that signify childhood cancer and sickle cell disease.Help us spread the word to your community. Share your stories of hope, resources and support to these children and their families who show incredible courage and determination every day. Add #BridgeToBrighter to your Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook posts, and for every use, Aflac pledges to donate $2 up to $1.5 million.Learn more at Aflac.com/BridgeToBrighter Aflac herein means American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus and American Family Life Assurance Company of New York.Z2301140View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Aflac Incorporated on 3 blmedia.com Contact Info:Spokesperson: Aflac IncorporatedWebsite: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/aflac-incorporatedEmail: info@3 blmedia.com SOURCE: Aflac Incorporated
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Azerbaijans Azerpost postal service company opened its branch in Khankendi, the company told Trend.

On October 15, President Ilham Aliyev raised the State Flag of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Aghdara, Khankendi, on the territory of the Sarsang reservoir, in Khojaly, Asgaran, and Khojavend. Thus, the sovereignty of Azerbaijan was fully restored in all the territories of the country.

In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war], 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 [temporarily stationed in Azerbaijan under the trilateral statement], an agreement was reached on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) to cease anti-terrorist activities of a local nature under the following conditions: the formations of the armed forces of Armenia, Armenian illegal armed formations located in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region, lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts, and completely disarm; the formations of the armed forces of Armenia leave the territory of Azerbaijan; Armenian illegal armed groups are dissolved.
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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Further to conditional acceptance received from the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange") with respect to AADirection Capital Corp.'s (the "Company's") (TSX-V: AAD.P) previously announced qualifying transaction ("Qualifying Transaction" announced February 2, 2023) with Centenario Gold Corp. ("Centenario"), Centenario has closed a subscription receipt financing of 11,703,672 subscription receipts of Centenario (the "Subscription Receipts") at a price of $0.15 per Subscription Receipt for aggregate gross proceeds of $1,755,550.80 (the "Offering"). The closing of this Offering satisfies a key financing condition precedent of the Exchange in order for the parties to close the Qualifying Transaction. The Offering proceeds are currently being held in escrow pending conversion ("Conversion") of the Subscription Receipts.Upon the satisfaction of all remaining conditions of the Exchange and the parties (the "Escrow Release Conditions") with respect to closing the Qualifying Transaction, each Subscription Receipt will automatically convert, without payment of additional consideration or further action by the holder thereof, into one Centenario unit (each, a "Unit"). Each Unit shall be comprised of one common share (each, a "Common Share") in the capital of the Company (the "Resulting Issuer") and one half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"), exercisable at $0.30 per Warrant share for a period of two (2) years from issuance.In consideration of the introduction of subscribers to the Offering, and subject to Conversion of the Subscription Receipts, Centenario will pay to certain finders (the "Finders") cash commissions of $117,148.00, being 8% of the aggregate gross proceeds raised by such Finders and 780,986 Finder's Warrants (the "Finder's Warrants"), being 8% of the aggregate number of Subscription Receipts issued under the Offering to subscribers introduced by the Finders. Each Finder's Warrant will be exercisable for $0.15 for a period of two (2) years following the date of issuance.Immediately following the Conversion of the Subscription Receipts, the parties will proceed to close the Qualifying Transaction by way of a three-cornered amalgamation wherein the subsidiary of the Company will amalgamate with Centenario, and the securities holders of Centenario will receive free-trading securities of the Company (subject to any escrow imposed requirements of the Exchange) (referred to as the "Resulting Issuer") in exchange for their Centenario securities such that Centenario will become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Resulting Issuer, and the shareholders of Centenario will acquire control of the Resulting Issuer. Accordingly, the subscribers in the Offering will end up receiving 1:1 on the same terms and conditions units of the Resulting Issuer in exchange for their Units. Finders will end up receiving finder's warrants of the Resulting Issuer 1:1 on the same terms and conditions as the Finder's Warrants.Funds received in connection with the Offering, once released from escrow concurrent with closing of the Qualifying Transaction, will be used primarily to fund the second phase program set out in the 43-101 technical report on the Eden Property which includes an initial 1,500m drill program, such program to be sufficient to complete the initial US$1,000,000 expenditure requirement required by the option agreement. The remainder of the proceeds will be used for general and operating expenses of the Resulting Issuer for a minimum of one (1) year and include a minimum of $100,000 in unallocated working capital of the Resulting Issuer.The Company anticipates the completion of the Qualifying Transaction to close shortly, and the shares of the Resulting Issuer will commence trading upon issuance of a final Exchange bulletin with respect to closing of the Qualifying Transaction.About Centenario Gold Corp.Centenario is an unlisted reporting issuer that, through its Subsidiary, holds an option to acquire a 100% interest in the Eden Property, subject to a 1% NSR. The Eden Property consists of two (2) contiguous and titled mineral concessions named El Eden and El Eden 1 covering approximately 2,489 hectares. The Eden Property is located in the Cosala mining district of southeastern Sinaloa State, Mexico, in the southwestern foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental, approximately 160 kilometres north of Mazatlan, Mexico.The Eden Property is located on the northern boundary of the Los Reyes property of Exchange listed Prime Mining Corp. Pursuant to recent news releases, Prime has provided an updated mineral resource estimate for the Los Reyes property of 1.47 million Indicated gold equivalent ounces and 0.73 million Inferred gold equivalent ounces.Centenario completed a first phase exploration program on the Eden property in late 2022. Centenario collected and received assays from both surface and underground workings that returned grades as high as 239.94 g/t Au and 1389.91 g/t Ag. Centenario also completed semi-detailed mapping over a 2.8 km portion of the Buenavista' prospect's mineralized corridor, followed by an IP/Resistivity geophysical survey and soil sampling program. Additional geophysical and soil sampling studies were completed across the La Provedora' prospect located 1.5 km further to the east.About AADirection Capital Corp.The Company is a capital pool company pursuant to the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange with a view to completing a Qualifying Transaction. Readers are referred to recent news releases and the Filing Statement of the Company with respect to a detailed description of the proposed Qualifying Transaction that the Company is expecting to complete.For further information please contact:Mary Ma, Director of the CompanyT: 604-779-0016E: maryxm@ shaw.ca Douglas Fulcher, President of CentenarioT: 604-803-5901E: dfulcher@ centenariogold.com Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur.Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in applicable forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materiall
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 22:15:28

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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Yesterday, CNH Industrial was added to 3BL's annual 100 Best Corporate Citizens ranking, recognizing outstanding environmental, social and governance (ESG) transparency and performance among the 1,000 largest U.S. public companies.Making it into the top quarter, CNH was ranked 23rd after being included in the Russell 1000 Index for the first time. In its industry category, Capital Goods, CNH was ranked 4th. This recognition reaffirms the company's commitment to sustainability for our customers, employees, shareholders, and the communities in which we live and work.The 100 Best Corporate Citizens ranking is based on 184 ESG factors in seven pillars: climate change, employee relations, environment, governance, human rights, stakeholders and society, and ESG performance. There is no fee for companies to be included in 100 Best Corporate Citizens.Using a methodology developed by 3BL, all Russell 1000 Index companies are researched by ISS ESG, the responsible investment research arm of Institutional Shareholder Services.To compile the ranking, corporate data and information is obtained from publicly available sources only, rather than questionnaires or company submissions. Companies have the option to verify data collected for the ranking at no cost. Data and information used in the 2023 edition of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens ranking was collected between July 2022 to July 2023."Achieving the transformational targets in the Paris Agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals in this decisive decade requires all companies to truly embed ESG issues into the core of their business," said Dave Armon, CEO of 3BL. "The 100 Best Corporate Citizens of 2023 are answering the call by demonstrating the societal and bottom-line value of leadership and transparency around ESG topics. They are setting ambitious goals, outlining robust strategies for achieving them, disclosing data to measure progress, and accounting for all stakeholders in business decisions." For access to the complete 100 Best Corporate Citizens of 2023 ranking and methodology visit: https://100 best.3blmedia.com/ View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from CNH Industrial on 3 blmedia.com Contact Info:Spokesperson: CNH IndustrialWebsite: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/cnh-industrialEmail: info@3 blmedia.com SOURCE: CNH Industrial
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 18:25:56

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Hagens Berman urges Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) investors who suffered substantial losses to submit your losses now.Class Period: Feb. 21, 2019 - Aug. 14, 2023Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Oct. 31, 2023Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/DFS Contact An Attorney Now: DFS@ hbsslaw.com 844-916-0895Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) Securities Fraud Class Action:The complaint alleges that Defendants made false and misleading statements and failed to disclose that: (1) DFS maintained deficient risk management and compliance procedures; (2) as a result of these deficiencies, DFS had, among other things, failed to comply with applicable student loan servicing standards, misclassified certain credit card accounts, overcharged customers, and failed to stem its ballooning credit card delinquency rate; and (3) these issues, when they became known, would subject DFS to significant financial exposure, regulatory scrutiny, and reputational harm.The truth began to emerge on July 20, 2022, when DFS announced that it was suspending its share repurchase program "because of an internal investigation into its student loan servicing practices and related compliance matters." Then, on July 19, 2023, DFS disclosed that it had misclassified certain credit card products over an approximate 15-year period as a result of an acknowledged compliance failure. DFS stated that correction of the misclassifications negatively impacted its retained earnings and certain previous interim period net income.DFS also revealed that it received a proposed consent order from the FDIC in connection with an unrelated regulatory matter.Finally, on Aug. 14, 2023, DFS announced that Roger C. Hochschild resigned from his position as CEO and President and as a member of the company's board. The same day, DFS reported a significant increase in its credit card delinquency rate."We're focused on investors' losses and are investigating whether DFS may have concealed problems with its compliance and risk management practices," said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the investigation.If you invested in Discover Financial Services and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that may assist the firm's investigation, submit your losses nowIf you'd like more information and answers to frequently asked questions about the Discover Financial Services case and our investigation, read more Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Discover Financial Services should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email DFS@ hbsslaw.com # # #About Hagens BermanHagens Berman is a global plaintiffs' rights complex litigation law firm focusing on corporate accountability through class-action law. The firm is home to a robust securities litigation practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and fraud. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com . Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.Attorney advertising.Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.Contact:Reed Kathrein, 844-916-0895SOURCE: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 23:20:09

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LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / As the world moves toward a global economy, numerous challenges and opportunities continue to impact the economic landscape. From November 27-30, 2023, thousands of prominent financial industry leaders will address these issues at the Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW).Held in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, this second-year event will explore the effects of emerging technological, economic, and sustainability phenomena on the financial arena. These recognized financial industry leaders include Leen Kawas, Ph.D. ( Propel Bio Partners' Managing General Partner), Andre Esteves (Chairman of BTG Pactual) and Seik Fikry (CEO of Chimera).Abu Dhabi Finance Week 2023 has been lauded as the pivotal finance, economic, and investment conference in the increasingly significant Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region. Under the respected auspices of His Highness Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and the Executive Council Chairman, this large-scale gathering follows an extremely successful 2022 debut event. The inaugural conference drew more than 8,000 financial industry professionals from over 100 countries.Investing in the Transition EraThe ADFW 2023 conference carries a bold "Investing in the Transition Era" theme. More than 30 distinctive events will take place during this landmark week. Three large-scale conventions will attract financial industry leaders with well-defined goals.Investments and FintechsOn November 27-28, Asset Abu Dhabi will feature a diverse cohort of global private market leaders. The world's largest investment funds will send representatives to this key regional event. These financial industry professionals will explore value-based deals involving emerging investment vehicles and changing asset classes.On November 29, Fintech Abu Dhabi marks the return of the MENA region's largest financial festival. Technology innovators will share the spotlight with software developers, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs. Collectively, these leaders will define new opportunities where finance and innovation intersect.R.A.C.E. Abu Dhabi's Multifaceted FocusOn November 30, R.A.C.E. Abu Dhabi will focus on multiple aspects of sustainable finance. Forward-focused financial institutions will be invited to help close the capital investment gap needed for the achievement of net zero. All involved will stay focused on the laudable goals of the net zero philosophy.Concurrently, the R.A.C.E. breakout conversation will focus on Regulation, Awareness, Collaboration, and Ecosystem. While awareness and collaboration are certainly key, policymakers and regulators will help to shape the financial markets' economic and regulatory ecosystem. Together, these key components will form the foundation of sustainable development.Dr. Kawas will be part of a panel discussing recent innovation in the healthcare industry and opportunities presented for investors. Financial trends, regulatory environment, global collaborations that may impact the industry's outlook.The Capital Square Hub's OpportunitiesLike the MENA region's vibrant markets, the Capital Square hub will host lively networking opportunities, investor meeting venues, and social events during ADFW's duration. Collectively, these beneficial engagements will position the global financial industry for optimal growth along with an enhanced sustainability focus.The Capital Square's Startup Campus is of equal importance. In this mutually beneficial business environment, emerging entrepreneurs will interact with key startup arena leaders. Financial institutions and venture capital representatives will discuss funding options and scale-up strategies. Emerging entrepreneurs may set their sights on achieving the much-coveted "unicorn" status.Highlighting Biotech at Abu Dhabi Finance WeekDr. Leen Kawas Propel Bio Partners' Managing General Partner. This Los Angeles-based firm seeks emerging biotechnology entrepreneurs who desire to augment their vision with financial capital and technical assistance from recognized experts.Dr. Kawas relishes the opportunity to share her biotech knowledge with Propel Bio Partners' clients. She is particularly open to discussions with women and minority biotech entrepreneurs.Prior to her Propel Bio Partners' role, Dr. Leen Kawas served as Athira Pharma, Inc.'s Chief Executive Officer. During her tenure at this Seattle-based firm, she drove the development of several promising drug candidates. Dr. Kawas also managed Athira Pharma's Initial Public Offering in 2020. Her unwavering commitment to excellence, and her inspirational leadership, garnered her multiple industry awards.Media ContactCompany: Propel Bio PartnersPerson: Propel Bio Partners InfoEmail: info@ propelbio.comWebsite: SOURCE: Propel Bio Partners
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 15:05:44

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VIRGINIA BEACH, VA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / DroneUp, a leading autonomous drone delivery company, has announced the promotion of Rishap "Rish" Malhotra as the company's Chief Growth Officer. In this newly created strategic role, Rish Malhotra will be responsible for overseeing all organic and inorganic growth initiatives, including corporate strategy, sales, marketing and corporate development. Rish's current role of SVP Corporate Development is merged into the new position. He will continue to lead M&A as part of his new mandate.Rish brings more than 20 years of experience to DroneUp, having previously served in global executive roles for renowned organizations like J Walter Thompson (WPP), Saatchi & Saatchi (Publicis) and CNBC India. With a proven ability to drive organizational growth, forge strategic partnerships, and develop innovative sales and marketing initiatives, Rish is poised to make a significant impact on DroneUp's growth trajectory."Over the course of several quarters, I have been working closely with Rish to develop our growth strategy centered on our autonomous last mile delivery ecosystem, and I couldn't be more pleased that we have found a leader in Rish who is ideally suited to now execute that strategy," said Tom Walker, CEO and Founder of DroneUp. "With an impressive track record in business growth and a deep understanding of the retail and technology industry, Rish is well-equipped to bring our affordable last mile delivery solutions to leading retailers, QSR chains and logistics partners".Since November 2021, DroneUp has been providing same day drone delivery services for Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas. Since then, the company has expanded its services to 34 "Hubs" across six-states in the US market. Currently, consumers in Virginia, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Arkansas and Utah are able to benefit from the power and innovation of drone delivery in a safe, reliable and cost effective manner. While working closely with federal and state legislations, DroneUp is continuing to develop and innovate on its next phase of growth so that more consumers and businesses across the US are able to tap into the next phase of last mile delivery."We are building a solution that is going to revolutionize last mile delivery," said Rish Malhotra, Chief Growth Officer of DroneUp. "Our latest pilot programs with leading QSRs and national convenience stores have proven that our integrated technology and ground infrastructure provides delightful delivery experience to end consumers and an impressive ROI. I am honored to lead our incredible team of strategists, marketers and sales leaders and continue collaboration with the executive team. I look forward to aggressively growing our business and helping our customers build a sustainable last mile delivery strategy and scalable programs." Malhotra holds an MBA from Mason School of Business at The College of William and Mary. He also has Bachelors of Commerce from Delhi University and Bachelors in Business Administration from Annamalai University.About DroneUpDroneUp is a pioneering autonomous drone delivery company that specializes in providing innovative and efficient solutions for last-mile delivery. DroneUp's proprietary autonomous technology is integrated with its ground infrastructure to provide affordable and scalable last-mile delivery. With a commitment to utilizing cutting-edge technology and a customer-centric approach, DroneUp is revolutionizing the way goods are transported, making delivery faster, safer, and more cost-effective.Founded in 2016, DroneUp is headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia. DroneUp provides drone delivery service in 34 locations across six states for the #1 retailer in the world, Walmart, Inc.For more information: https://www.droneup.com Media Contact:Escalate PR for DroneUpdroneup@ escalatepr.com SOURCE: DroneUp
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 13:45:27

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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Electric Royalties Ltd. (TSXV:ELEC)(OTCQB:ELECF) ("Electric Royalties" or the "Company") is pleased to announce, further to its April 20, 2023, January 19, 2023 and November 16, 2022 news releases, that it has signed a commitment letter with Gleason & Sons LLC (the "Lender") to increase the Company's existing convertible credit facility from C$5,000,000 to C$10,000,000 (the "Loan Amendment"). Gleason & Sons LLC is controlled by Stefan Gleason, a significant shareholder and Board Observer of Electric Royalties.The credit facility will be secured by: (i) a portion of the Company's existing royalty portfolio (1.5% Gross Revenue Royalty on the Penouta Mine in Spain, 0.5% Gross Revenue Royalty on the Kenbridge nickel project in Canada, the sliding scale Gross Metals Royalty on the Middle Tennessee Mine in the United States, 0.5% Gross Metal Royalty on the Authier lithium project in Canada and 1.5% Gross Revenue Royalty on the Bissett Creek graphite project in Canada); and (ii) a lien against the Company's present and future rights in additional royalties acquired using funds advanced under the credit facility, if any.The Lender has also agreed to extend the Maturity Date of the loan from January 12, 2026 to January 12, 2028. All other terms of the credit facility remain the same.Meanwhile, the Company has elected to draw down C$500,000 under the convertible credit facility (the "Drawdown") for working capital.Brendan Yurik, CEO of Electric Royalties, commented: "We once again thank our largest shareholder Stefan for his ongoing and long-term support of Electric Royalties. The additional $5 million in credit that he is providing, with a favorable term and rate, speaks to his belief in the mandate of the Company, which is to grow shareholder value by enabling the development of metal assets the world critically needs to achieve electrification and transition away from fossil fuels. Access to this credit facility means that Electric Royalties is able to continue pursuing its near-term goal of becoming cashflow positive through the acquisition of additional producing royalties, without diluting shareholders at current share prices." Stefan Gleason, Managing Director of Gleason & Sons, commented: "We are pleased to help Electric Royalties capitalize on today's especially fertile environment to acquire undervalued royalties. As a shareholder, I applaud Brendan and the Company's board for having kept overhead costs so low while continuing to execute on their business plan - and without dilutive equity financings whilst Electric Royalties' market valuation appears so far below fair value." The Credit Facility is a "related party transaction" within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Credit Facility is exempt from the valuation requirement of MI 61-101 by virtue of the exemption contained in section 5.5(b) as the Company's common shares are not listed on a specified market and from the minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 by virtue of the exemption contained in section 5.7(a) of MI 61-101 in that the fair market value of Credit Facility does not exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization.The Loan Amendment and the Drawdown are subject to completion of documentation, the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange and other customary closing conditions.About Electric Royalties Ltd.Electric Royalties is a royalty company established to take advantage of the demand for a wide range of commodities (lithium, vanadium, manganese, tin, graphite, cobalt, nickel, zinc and copper) that will benefit from the drive toward electrification of a variety of consumer products: cars, rechargeable batteries, large scale energy storage, renewable energy generation and other applications.Electric vehicle sales, battery production capacity and renewable energy generation are slated to increase significantly over the next several years and with it, the demand for these targeted commodities. This creates a unique opportunity to invest in and acquire royalties over the mines and projects that will supply the materials needed to fuel the electric revolution.Electric Royalties has a growing portfolio of 22 royalties, including two royalties that currently generate revenue. The Company is focused predominantly on acquiring royalties on advanced stage and operating projects to build a diversified portfolio located in jurisdictions with low geopolitical risk, which offers investors exposure to the clean energy transition via the underlying commodities required to rebuild the global infrastructure over the next several decades towards a decarbonized global economy.For further information, please contact:Brendan YurikCEO, Electric Royalties Ltd.Phone: (604) 3643540Email: Brendan.yurik@electricroyalties.comwww.electricroyalties.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange), nor any other regulatory body or securities exchange platform, accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information and Other Company InformationThis news release includes forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, "forward-looking information") with respect to the Company within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. This news release includes information regarding other companies and projects owned by such other companies in which the Company holds a royalty interest, based on previously disclosed public information disclosed by those companies and the Company is not responsible for the accuracy of that information, and that all information provided herein is subject to this Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information and Other Company Information. Forward looking information is typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. This information represents predictions and actual events or results may differ materially. Forward-looking information may relate to the Company's future outlook and anticipated events and may include statements regarding the financial results, future financial position, expected growth of cash flows, business strategy, budgets, projected costs, projected capital expenditures, taxes, plans, objectives, industry trends and growth opportunities of the Company and the projects in which it holds royalty interests.%
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 16:18:27

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Regions Bank works to ensure that every person in our community has access to educational resources to improve their financial lives.NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Regions Bank / By Candace Higginbotham | September 28, 2023With "Pomp and Circumstance" booming from the speakers, the processional begins. Smiling students clad in black caps and gowns walk down the aisle in single file, with an air of pride and confidence. The audience respectfully stands and there's a feeling in the room that this is, indeed, a special day.But this is no ordinary commencement exercise.These soon-to-be-graduates are celebrating a major milestone, after years of struggles and challenges."It's been a long journey and I'm grateful to be standing here today," said Karenza Beasley. "I'm healthy and sober and I'm very proud of myself." In late August, Beasley and 28 classmates graduated from the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles' Birmingham Day Reporting Center program that helps recently incarcerated individuals make a successful reentry back into their community."This is one of my favorite programs to teach. I enjoy serving as a bridge to help connect these participants to resources that could help better their lives. Keren Treme, financial wellness trainer for Regions Community AffairsIn collaboration with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, Regions Bank participates in this three-phase program that provides counseling, education training and workforce development to clients. The curriculum includes financial education instruction, which is led by Regions' Community Affairs team."This is one of my favorite programs to teach," said Keren Treme, financial wellness trainer for Regions Community Affairs. "I enjoy serving as a bridge to help connect these participants to resources that could help better their lives." Treme explained that she, with assistance from bankers and other Regions specialists, presents a five-part financial education curriculum to the group to make sure they have the tools and resources they need to make a fresh start.The classes start with money basics, like setting goals and learning to budget, then expand to identify theft and the importance of protecting your personal information. They also cover credit, including how critical it is to have good credit and how to interpret a credit report. Finally, students learn about The Road to Homeownership, a class led by a Regions mortgage officer that provides insight about how to reach what is for many the ultimate financial success - owning your own home.Feedback from the participants has been positive from the start, but Treme and the team noticed early on they had an additional opportunity."Many of the clients indicated they wanted to start their own business," Treme said. "So, we incorporated a small-business finance class into the curriculum. We bring in a Regions Small Business solutions associate to provide information about starting and growing a business. It's been a huge hit!"Officer Leah Thompson, administrator of the Birmingham Day Reporting Center, speaks highly of Regions' contributions to the program's success."We're grateful to community partners like Regions who provide instruction, guidance and sponsorship," Thompson said. "With this strong curriculum as a jump start - combined with commitment and hard work from the clients and support from their family and friends - we're working together to position these individuals for success, which is a win for our entire community." Regions participates in other reentry programs in the bank's footprint, including working with the Abe Brown Ministries in Florida and the Georgia Department of Corrections.The bank provides learning opportunities for other groups with unique needs, as well.We're grateful to community partners like Regions who provide instruction, guidance and sponsorship. Leah Thompson, administrator of the Birmingham Day Reporting CenterExpanding ReachEarlier this year, Treme collaborated with Kathy Lovell, Disability Services and Outreach Manager at Regions Bank, on a financial wellness seminar presented at the National Federation of the Blind national convention in Birmingham. The gathering is the premier event for training, support and information for the blind community and hosts people from all over the world.Treme presented two learning modules at the convention from the Regions Next Step financial wellness curriculum, Facing a Brighter Future: Building and Repairing Credit and Financial Strategies for the Future: Retirement Saving Plan. She and Lovell provided supplemental materials to attendees, which are published in braille."I'm so pleased Regions played a role in this important event for the blind community," Lovell said. "Often, the blind and low vision communities become isolated and don't have accessible tools and resources they need to make good financial decisions. Our curriculum and handouts were designed with accessibility as top of mind, and we got a lot of positive feedback from participants and organizers." Community Affairs is also expanding its financial wellness offerings in Spanish. During Financial Literacy Month in April, Treme collaborated with the Hispanic Coalition of Alabama, or HICA!, which is a community development and advocacy organization in Birmingham that champions economic equality, civic engagement and social justice for Latino families.Treme, a native Spanish speaker, along with Spanish-speaking bankers, presented a series of financial wellness seminars that included Building Financial Know-How, Smart Money Habits, The Importance of Saving and Wise Use of Credit.That program was so successful that the following month, Treme was asked to come back to HICA! and present learning modules for Small Business Month and then again in June for National Homeownership Month."We've made great progress with our efforts to enhance our various financial wellness offerings throughout our communities," said Wendi Boyen, head of Community Advocacy and Financial Wellness at Regions. "Financial literacy improves lives, and everyone deserves an opportunity for success." Besides these programs, Regions also offers financial education to homeless veterans, students with disabilities, and many other groups with unique needs. To find out more about Regions Next Step Financial Wellness, visit Regions.com View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Regions Bank on 3 blmedia.com Contact Info:Spokesperson: Regions BankWebsite: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/regions-bank Email: info@3 blmedia.com SOURCE: Regions Bank
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 21:45:34

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SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Gifa, Inc., a Nevada corporation ("GIFA," the "Company," "we," "us," and "our") (OTC PINK:GIFX).GIFA INC is pleased to announce that the Caveat Emptor has been removed by OTC Markets and the GIFA INC shares can now be tradable .'Caveat Emptor symbol remaining on the company's trading symbol was a direct result of the conduct of the previous management of FireFish and associated with the period prior to the company's acquisition of FireFish in October 2017, '' said Mr Kisa. In addition to the removal of Caveat Emptor designation, he added that the corporation has achieved success as a result of a great endeavor."The company will continue to fulfill all the obligations required by OTC Market to achieve our goals. Our current intention is to take our company further and reward our shareholders who trusted and patiently supported us through this process, " stated Mr Kisa.Mr Kisa also went on to say 'The real estate market is rapidly progressing in the country especially with foreign investors. Increasing demand for properties and lands had an impact on rising prices. Our company currently focused to the sector and continues to grow by making significant investments in real estates. Developments will be announced through our regular press releases in the future ''.ABOUT GIFA INC:GIFA, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides financial services and consultancy, brokerage, business loans, project funding, crowdfunding advice, and consultancy to individual and corporate clients. It also offers personal and professional business development and investment advice to private clients airline representation, and corporate and leisure travel services. In addition, the company provides end-to-end supply and demand chain management services engaging in controlling and coordinating supply of materials to a range of entities that are involved in producing and delivering goods and services. Further, it engages in media business comprising newspaper and Webtv; provides consultancy, advice, assistance, and support for local businesses, as well as opportunity to access international finance; and offers local businesses and individuals small loans. The company also owns real estate and generates rent and sale income. The company was formerly known as Firefish, Inc. and changed its name to GIFA, Inc. in October 2017. GIFA, Inc. was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Lefkosa, Cyprus.THIS PRESS RELEASE CONTAINS "FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS." FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS ARE STATEMENTS CONCERNING ESTIMATES, PLANS, OBJECTIVES, GOALS, STRATEGIES, EXPECTATIONS, INTENTIONS, PROJECTIONS, DEVELOPMENTS, FUTURE EVENTS, PERFORMANCE OR PRODUCTS, UNDERLYING (EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED) ASSUMPTIONS AND OTHER STATEMENTS THAT ARE OTHER THAN HISTORICAL FACTS. IN SOME CASES FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS CAN BE IDENTIFIED BY THE USE OF FORWARD-LOOKING WORDS SUCH AS "ESTIMATED," "BELIEVES," "EXPECTS," "MAY," "WILL," "SHOULD," OR "ANTICIPATES," OR THE NEGATIVE OF THESE WORDS OR OTHER VARIATIONS OF THESE WORDS OR COMPARABLE WORDS, OR BY DISCUSSIONS OF PLANS OR STRATEGY THAT INVOLVE RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES. MANAGEMENT WISHES TO CAUTION THE READER THAT THESE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, STATEMENTS REGARDING THE COMPANY AND ITS PLANS OR INTENTIONS, ESTIMATES, GOALS, COMPETITIVE TRENDS AND OTHER MATTERS THAT ARE NOT HISTORICAL FACTS ARE ONLY PREDICTIONS. NO ASSURANCES CAN BE GIVEN THAT SUCH PREDICTIONS WILL PROVE CORRECT OR THAT THE ANTICIPATED FUTURE RESULTS WILL BE ACHIEVED. ACTUAL EVENTS OR RESULTS MAY DIFFER MATERIALLY EITHER BECAUSE ONE OR MORE PREDICTIONS PROVE TO BE ERRONEOUS OR AS A RESULT OF OTHER RISKS FACING THE COMPANY. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS SHOULD BE READ IN LIGHT OF THE CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS SET FORTH HEREIN AND THOSE SET FORTH IN OUR MOST RECENT FORM 10-K, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO "THE FACTORS THAT MAY AFFECT FUTURE RESULTS" SHOWN AS ITEM 1A IN OUR FORM 10-K AND THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH AN EARLY-STAGE COMPANY THAT HAS LIMITED ASSETS AND OPERATIONS, THE COMPARATIVELY LIMITED FINANCIAL RESOURCES OF THE COMPANY, THE INTENSE COMPETITION THE COMPANY FACES FROM OTHER ESTABLISHED COMPETITORS, THE UNCERTAINTIES ARISING OUT OF THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC PARTICULARLY BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY IN THE TURKISH REPUBLIC OF NORTHERN CYPRUS AND THE LEGAL UNCERTAINTIES THAT DIRECTLY AND INDIRECTLY IMPACT DEVELOPMENT-STAGE COMPANIES. ANY ONE OR MORE OF THESE OR OTHER RISKS COULD CAUSE ACTUAL RESULTS TO DIFFER MATERIALLY FROM THE FUTURE RESULTS INDICATED, EXPRESSED, OR IMPLIED IN SUCH FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. WE UNDERTAKE NO OBLIGATION TO UPDATE OR REVISE ANY FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENT TO REFLECT EVENTS, CIRCUMSTANCES, OR NEW INFORMATION AFTER THE DATE OF THIS PRESS RELEASE OR TO REFLECT THE OCCURRENCE OF UNANTICIPATED OR OTHER SUBSEQUENT EVENTS.Contacts:Yusuf KisaDr Fazil Kucuk Boulevard, Hamitkoy JuctionHamitkoy, NicosiaMersin 10 Turkey+903926116000info@ gifainc.net SOURCE: GIFA INC
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 01:20:14

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Arizona expands travel trade and consumer strategy in Canada to increase market share and attract more visitation.Global Marketing & Sales (GMS) selected as strategic agency to elevate Arizona's tourism appeal to the Canadian market through innovative sales & marketing initiatives.PHOENIX , AZ / ACCESSWIRE / October 18, 2023 / Global Marketing & Sales (GMS), a trailblazing agency in destination marketing and branding with over a quarter-century of expertise across the Americas, has been awarded a contract by the state of Arizona to spearhead its travel industry and consumer marketing initiatives in Canada, effective October 5th, 2023.This new partnership underscores a strategic endeavor by Arizona Office of Tourism (AOT) to expand its tourism footprint, targeting an increase in market share and a surge in Canadian visitation and spending."Arizona offers an unparalleled travel experience, blending captivating landscapes, rich cultural experiences, and boundless adventures," expressed Lisa Urias, CEO for Arizona Office of Tourism. "In entrusting GMS with our vision, we anticipate that their proven track record and innovative marketing strategies will elevate Arizona's stature amongst Canadian travelers, unfurling the vast, vibrant tapestry that our state has to offer." "Arizona is a gem in the global tourism landscape, and it's an honor for GMS Canada to illuminate its wonders and create a distinctive space in the hearts and minds of Canadian travelers," commented Laura Nesteanu, Managing Director Canada for GMS. "Our seasoned team is committed to tailoring innovative, impactful strategies that resonate with the Canadian market, steering them towards the myriad experiences awaiting in Arizona. Through dynamic new alliances and proactive engagement with the travel trade, we confidently forecast a robust surge in tourism and an invigorating boost to economic development." "This newly forged partnership is received with enthusiasm, and we are grateful to Arizona Office of Tourism for choosing our organization to lead the travel trade and consumer efforts in Canada", highlighted Alex Pace, President & CEO of Global Marketing & Sales, Inc.Leveraging a robust portfolio and a storied history of curating and deploying innovative, scalable, and impactful marketing and sales strategies, GMS will utilize data-driven approaches, in-depth market insights, and engaging storytelling to captivate and inspire potential Canadian tourists.In the upcoming months, travel trade, industry partners, and consumers alike can anticipate a slew of inspiring, immersive, and informative campaigns that elevate Arizona's visibility, allure, and connectivity in the Canadian market, presenting the state as a must-visit destination that appeals to varied traveler profiles and preferences.For a deeper dive into the inspiring stories that make Arizona a captivating destination, please visit www.visitarizona.com About the Arizona Office of Tourism: The Arizona Office of Tourism works to strengthen and grow Arizona's economy through travel and tourism promotion, positioning Arizona as the leading tourism destination for domestic and international travelers. In 2021, tourism employed more than 167,000 Arizonans and contributed over $3.4 billion in tax revenue to our federal, state and local economies.About Global Marketing & Sales, Inc.Global Marketing & Sales (GMS) is the travel industry's leading marketing, sales, and public relations solution for North America & Latin America. Established in 1998, GMS offers the travel industry a turnkey solution. The unparalleled sales, public relations, marketing and operational infrastructure is designed to maximize clients' efficiency and ROI while raising the destination's regional profile and delivering a clear path to profitability. For more information visit: www.1gms.com Contact: Media Relations media@1 gms.com 647.797.3733SOURCE: Global Marketing & Sales, Inc.
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 18:26:03

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Hagens Berman urges UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) investors who suffered $250k or more in losses to submit your losses now.Class Period: Apr. 21, 2021 - Mar. 30, 2022Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Nov. 6, 2023Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/PATH Contact An Attorney Now: PATH@ hbsslaw.com 844-916-0895UiPath Inc. (PATH) Securities Fraud Class Action:The complaint alleges that UiPath made false and misleading statements and failed to disclose that it: (1) had enacted a widespread discounting program before its April 21, 2021 IPO, temporarily boosting its revenue and annualized recurring revenue ("ARR") metrics, cannibalizing future sales, eroding margins, and increasing the risk of client churn; (2) overstated its actual total addressable market ("TAM") because many companies included in UiPath's market survey did not need the type of high-cost, high-functionality automation products offered by UiPath; (3) was losing customers to Microsoft, ServiceNow, SAP, Salesforce, IBM and other established software vendors that were building automation into their own platforms; and (4) was suffering from a loss of channel sales due to strained relationships with its partners as a result of increased competition between UiPath and its partners.The truth emerged over a series of disclosures beginning on Sept. 7, 2021, when UiPath revealed an unexpected slowdown in revenues and ARR metrics and its discounting of products before the IPO. Then, on Dec. 8, 2021, UiPath revealed its growth further stalled and disclosed its third consecutive ARR decline. Finally, on Mar. 30, 2022, UiPath revealed deeply disappointing ARR and revenue guidance that indicated declining growth trends were expected to continue.In response to each of these events, the price of UiPath shares significantly declined."We're focused on investors' losses and are investigating whether UiPath may have misled investors about known trends that would adversely affect the company's growth prospects," said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the investigation.If you invested in UiPath and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that may assist the firm's investigation, submit your losses now If you'd like more information and answers to frequently asked questions about the UiPath case and our investigation, read more Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding UiPath should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email PATH@ hbsslaw.com # # #About Hagens BermanHagens Berman is a global plaintiffs' rights complex litigation law firm focusing on corporate accountability through class-action law. The firm is home to a robust securities litigation practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and fraud. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com . Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.Attorney advertising.Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.Contact:Reed Kathrein, 844-916-0895SOURCE: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The average price per barrel of Azeri Light oil was $83 in the first half of 2023, Trend reports.

This issue was reflected in the medium-term budget for 20242027" document announced by the Ministry of Finance of Azerbaijan.

The document revealed that this figure is 38.3 percent more than the price predicted at the time of the revision of the state budget and 24.3 percent less than the average price recorded for the same period last year.

The average price of a barrel of Azeri Light brand oil was $103.58 in 2022. Last year, the Azeri Light (CIF) oil price increased by 44.6 percent compared to the indicator for 2021.
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 18:31:15

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / OCTOBER 19, 2023 / Hagens Berman urges Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE) equity and bond investors who suffered substantial losses to submit your losses now.Class Period: Feb. 28, 2019 - Aug. 16, 2023Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Oct. 23, 2023Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/HE Contact An Attorney Now: HE@ hbsslaw.com 844-916-0895Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE: HE) Securities Fraud Class Action:The complaint alleges that, unknown to investors, (1) Hawaiian Electric's wildfire prevention and safety protocols and procedures were inadequate to meet the challenges for which they were ostensibly designed, and (2) accordingly, despite knowing the degree of risk that wildfires posed to Maui, the company's inadequate safety protocols and procedures placed Maui at a heightened risk of devastating wildfires.On Aug. 12, 2023 (after historic wildfires broke out in Maui, killing dozens of people and causing billions of dollars of damage), The Washington Post reported that "[b]efore the Maui wildfires, Hawaiian Electric did not have a plan - adopted widely in California and other states - to shut off power in certain lines in advance of dangerous winds." According to the Post "Hawaiian Electric was aware that a power shut-off was an effective strategy, documents show, but had not adopted it as part of its fire-mitigation plans, according to the company and two former power and energy officials interviewed by The Washington Post." Citing a former member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, the Post reported that the decision to avoid shutting off power "is reflective of the utility's struggles to bolster its aging and vulnerable infrastructure against wildfires[.]"Then, on Aug. 16, 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hawaiian Electric is in talks with restructuring firms and is exploring options to address its financial and legal challenges arising from the Maui wildfires.The next day, the WSJ reported that, while knowing of wildfire threats, Hawaiian Electric spent less than $245,000 between 2019 and 2022 on Maui wildfire-specific projects.This news drove the price of Hawaiian Electric shares and bonds sharply lower."We're focused on investors' losses and proving Hawaiian Electric misled investors about its operational safeguards necessary to comply with state safety requirements," said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the investigation.If you invested in Hawaiian Electric and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that may assist the firm's investigation, submit your losses nowIf you'd like more information and answers to frequently asked questions about the Hawaiian Electric case and our investigation, read more Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Hawaiian Electric should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email HE@ hbsslaw.com # # #About Hagens BermanHagens Berman is a global plaintiffs' rights complex litigation law firm focusing on corporate accountability through class-action law. The firm is home to a robust securities litigation practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and fraud. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com . Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.Attorney advertising.Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.Contact: Reed Kathrein, 844-916-0895SOURCE: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 22:01:29

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JACKSONVILLE, FL / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Insurance Risk Services of GA (IRSGA) reports that Tracked Machines' Automotive Robot Technology, the TowTrack & TowTrackXL, is changing several industries that include insurance, automotive, transportation and parking. This Automotive Robot Technology has already become mandated equipment that must be used in the EU and England and will soon be required by U.S. officials in the automotive, transportation and parking industries. This technology reduces the dangers that workers are faced with when having to move 8,000 lb vehicles that have no rolling abilities without possessing the keys. They do this without entering/touching the vehicle while the operator is out of harm's way, removed from the risk of physical injury that can occur from physical excursion or strain. This is a game-changer to any industry.Parking Garage Collapse Vehicles crushed by parking garage collapse In September 2023, Jacksonville WJXT NBC 4 News reported an incident involving a collapsed medical Parking Garage in Jacksonville Florida. Tracked Machines North America, Inc. set a new world record with their TowTrackXL Automotive Robot that recovered and moved 103 vehicles out of the collapsed parking garage without any human being physically present inside the parking garage and without physically touching any of the vehicles. This incident showcased the capabilities of this technology, which included strength, power, and stability control of the TowTrackXL Robot while carrying vehicles weighing more than 8,000 lbs. These vehicles included multiple Teslas, a 2022 Electric Hummer, a 2023 Rivian R1T, and a 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning. This machine completed complicated and difficult tasks that no other equipment has the ability to do, and this was completed in a short amount of time. This impressive feat was carried out by an operator controlling a TowTrackXL Robot with a remote and a DJI drone for eyes.Lower levels of hospital parking garages are reserved for hospital staff and tend to hold newer and pricier vehicles to include European all-wheel-drive and electric vehicles. These types of vehicles require special handling to prevent damage to complicated vehicle safety systems, like ABS, traction control systems, and their manufacturing with delicate metals that bend and cause catastrophic damage. Per manufacture towing procedures, wheel-lift wreckers are prohibited from being used when towing these types of vehicles.Recently, the builder of this hospital parking garage experienced another major incident with the partial collapse of a different multi-story hospital parking garage located in Atlanta Georgia. This incident resulted in over one hundred vehicles being trapped and damaged inside the parking garage. After rescue operations were completed, investigators went into the Garage to inspect and found vehicles were obstructing important areas needing inspection, requiring them to be moved before any inspections could continue. Tracked Machines North America also completed that recovery operation.The meticulous process of removing vehicles from a collapsed parking garage had to be completed without entering the garage and without possessing vehicle keys. This was a huge task for Tracked Machines to accomplish. Building inspectors would not allow anyone to enter the garage due to the risk of injury if further collapse occurred. In other locations, like New York City, parking garage collapses have been ruled as "catastrophic failures" due to the excessive weight of electric vehicles and the use of wreckers that entered the garages and exceeded the structure's weight limits. These legal issues are causing transportation insurance underwriters to change insurance coverage by placing insurance policy limitations and exemptions to commercial trucks that enter into parking structures to reduce liability exposure.Newer vehicles possessing technology advancements require special handling to prevent damage to complicated vehicle safety systems, like ABS, traction control systems, and their manufacturing with delicate metals that bend and receive catastrophic damage when proper procedures are not followed. The mission for Tracked Machines was to remove vehicles and reunite them with their owners without any vehicle damages. Jacksonville WJXT News sky-drone footage showed multiple vehicles costing over $100,000 trapped inside the collapsed garage. The TowTrack Robot went into the garage, picked up the vehicles by the wheels and then carried them out without any human entering the garage or physically touching any vehicles. This mission was accomplished and no damages were reported after vehicle inspections were made by insurance officials, resulting in a new record.The TowTrack Robots are patent-pending technology that move on caterpillar tracks and are operated by remote control. The technology allows for autonomous loading and unloading of vehicles while maintaining stability while moving an 8,000 lb vehicle. These machines are custom manufactured to order and are available in two sizes, the regular size that can lift 8,000 lb. (requires a 26,000 GVW Rollback) and the XL that can lift 17,000 lbs (requires a 33K GVW Industrial Rollback). These machines have been accepted internationally and have become required, mandated equipment in England and in some European Union countries. These parking garage recovery incidents have already caused discussions in the Insurance Industry for these machines to be required and used within the American Parking, Automotive and Transportation industries.Tracked Machines announced they are demonstrating this robot technology to the automotive industry along with other new automotive technology, "CarMoverXL", at the 2023 SEMA Show located in Las Vegas, Nevada, the first week in November 2023.Contact InformationJason Peacock Risk Assessor III jpeacock@ insuranceriskservicesga.com 770-917-2522Related VideoSOURCE: Insurance Risk Services of Georgia
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 14:02:00

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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Metallic Minerals Corp. (TSXV:MMG)(OTCQB:MMNGF) ("Metallic Minerals" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the completion of field activities at the Company's 100%-owned, 166 square kilometer Keno Silver project, adjacent to Hecla Mining in the high-grade Keno Hill silver district of Canada's Yukon Territory. The 2023 exploration program included 1,112 meters in four diamond drill holes focused on resource expansion at the Formo target, the highest-grade and largest target area to be included in an inaugural NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate for the property expected in Q4 2023. The Company also conducted additional soil geochemical sampling on open-ended earlier-stage targets for future drill campaigns.Metallic Minerals holds the second largest land position in the Keno district with claims covering the east, and parts of central and western Keno Hill, including eight high-grade, shallow past-producing deposits. Hecla Mining holds the western portion of the Keno district and has recently started production from its Keno Hill mining operations, with full production expected by year-end.Metallic Minerals President, Scott Petsel, stated: "We were very pleased to return to our Keno Silver project and complete this important new phase of exploration which focused on drilling mineralized extensions of our "resource-ready" target at Formo. With the key milestone of an inaugural resource estimate for Keno Silver on the near-term horizon, the team is already looking ahead to working from those initial deposit models to continue to add additional ounces with this and subsequent future programs. One of the major advantages the upcoming resources will have are their shallow depth which makes them amenable to low-cost bulk tonnage mining methods. The blueprint for rapid and dramatic resource growth in the Keno district, as demonstrated by prior operators, is to first identify the dominant mineralized vein structures and their orientations, then vector along trend and depth with successive drill campaigns. This tried-and-true methodology is being employed by Metallic Minerals to expand the Keno Silver project which is located within one of the world's highest grade silver producing districts." Mr. Petsel continued, "In addition to our work at the Keno Silver project, drilling continues at our La Plata copper-silver-gold-PGE project in Colorado, where we have just passed 3,000 meters of a targeted 5,000-meter drill program. The first two drill holes reached 909 meters and 1,350 meters depth, respectively, and intersected continuous porphyry style mineralization. Our target is to complete two to three more step-out, expansion drill holes from the discovery hole announced in February 2023. Core is being processed and sent to the lab for assaying with initial results expected to come in through the fall of this year. The results of this drilling will be used to calculate a new mineral resource estimate for La Plata in 2024."About the Keno Silver ProjectKeno Hill is one of the world's highest-grade silver districts, with nearly 300 million ounces ("Moz") of silver in past production and current M&I resources1,2 and featuring excellent existing infrastructure, including grid power, road access and nearby community services. In July 2022, Hecla Mining announced the acquisition of Alexco Resource Corp, which held the western portion of the district. Hecla Mining has started production at Keno Hill, which is now their highest-grade silver operation, and is expecting to be at full production by year end with a stated goal of producing 4-5 Moz of silver per year3. Metallic Minerals' Keno Silver project is adjacent and contiguous with Hecla Mining ground, covering the east, and parts of the central and western Keno silver district and includes eight high-grade, shallow past-producing mines. Prior to the Company's consolidation of the land package, very little modern exploration had been completed in these parts of the district due to fragmented, private land ownership. Metallic Minerals has advanced four targets in the district from discovery to resource definition stage with several additional targets at drill-ready status along the known historically productive trends. In addition, recent exploration has defined and expanded 12 priority multi-kilometer-scale early-stage targets for reconnaissance drilling in the under-explored parts of the district where highly elevated silver, lead and zinc in soils and high-grade rock samples have been identified.About Metallic MineralsMetallic Minerals Corp. is a leading exploration and development stage company focused on copper, silver, gold, and other critical minerals in the La Plata mining district in Colorado, and silver and gold in the high-grade Keno Hill and Klondike districts of the Yukon. Our objective is to create shareholder value through a systematic, entrepreneurial approach to making exploration discoveries, growing resources, and advancing projects toward development.The Company's 100%-owned La Plata project in southwestern Colorado hosts a porphyry copper-silver resource consisting of 1.21 billion pounds of copper and 17.6 Moz of silver4. Drilling in 2022 provided the basis for the expanded 2023 resource estimate, including the longest and highest-grade interval ever encountered at La Plata and one of the top intersections for any North American copper project in the past several years. In May 2023, the Company announced a 9.5% strategic investment by Newcrest Mining Limited (acquired by Newmont Mining in Q4 2023) to fund the current 2023 drill campaign and accelerate the overall advancement of the project. Colorado ranked 5th globally for investment attractiveness and 2nd in the USA in the Fraser Institute's 2023 Annual Survey of Mining Companies.Metallic Minerals has consolidated a 176 square kilometer land position directly adjacent to Hecla Mining's operations in the historic high-grade Keno Hill silver district of Canada's Yukon Territory, a region which has more than 300 Moz of high-grade silver in past production and current M&I resources. Hecla Mining, the largest primary silver producer in the USA and third largest in the world, is anticipating full production at its Keno Hill operations by the end of 2023. Metallic Minerals is targeting release of an inaugural mineral resource estimate on the Keno Silver project in Q4 2023, with an expansion drill program completed in September.The Company is also one of the largest holders of alluvial gold claims in the Yukon and is building a production royalty business by partnering with experienced mining operators, including Parker Schnabel of Little Flake Mining from the Discovery Channel television show, Gold Rush.All of the distr
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 13:00:25

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JING'AN, SHANGHAI / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Midea, a leading brand in smart home appliances, has debuted its latest intelligent energy management solution, the Midea Home Energy Linkage Inverter Optimization System (MHELIOS) at the Thailand industry event on Oct. 10th.Midea's MHELIOS energy management system, named after the Greek god of the Sun, is an intelligent system that links whole house electrical appliances through green energy using automation and AI learning to help users save up to 100 percent in energy costs while achieving near-zero energy consumption, all without sacrificing energy needs or comfort.What makes the MHELIOS system unique is its ease of use and connectivity for its users as all electrical appliances will be fully integrated under one roof, as well as its AI learning capabilities.MHELIOS intelligent energy management algorithm, which functions as the home's brain, can learn users' habits and intents to automatically plan for our behaviors, which will give its users a higher-quality and more convenient way of living in their own homes.With DC coupling technology and 150% PV oversizing capability, the Smart Energy Manager maximizes the use of solar energy. The modular design of the energy storage system supports a flexible capacity expansion from 5kWh to 40kWh for various application scenarios. With the backup power function, MHELIOS can quickly switch to PV energy storage in case of a grid outage and keep your life going with the 100% three-phase unbalanced output technology.MHELIOS is Midea's latest contribution to its commitment to pioneering a greener, smarter and more sustainable world. Midea remains dedicated to the development of high-energy efficiency solutions, lower carbon emissions, as well as smarter and simpler installations for its customers. The company has been dedicated to its Green Strategy to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.The Midea Group, based on 55 years' of development, has evolved into an international tech-leading company which specializes in five major businesses including Smart Home Business, Industrial Technologies, Building Technologies, Robotics &Automation, and Digital Innovation Business. Midea now has 160,000 employees globally and 40,000 employees overseas. In 2023, Midea ranked the 278th among the Global Fortune 500, 36th among Brand Finance Tech 100.CONTACT:EduraZhouzhou@ eupbusiness.conhttps://www.eupbusiness.com/ SOURCE: EUP Business
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 16:31:21

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AURP's 2023 Awards of Excellence in Innovation held at its International Conference (Oct. 16-19) at the University of Delaware STAR CampusTUCSON, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / The Nebraska Innovation Campus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has been named the 2023 "Outstanding Research Park" at the Association of University Research Parks' (AURP) 2023 International Conference (Oct. 16-19) at the University of Delaware's STAR Campus. AURP is the leading nonprofit organization representing research parks, innovation districts, tech hubs and all communities of innovation.AURP's International Conference annually brings together 200+ research park and innovation district leaders from around the world for high-impact knowledge exchange and networking with the industry's premier experts and leaders."On behalf of our dynamic and growing AURP membership, I'm delighted to extend my sincere congratulations to our 2023 Awards of Excellence winners," said Erin Koshut, AURP President and Executive Director, Cummings Research Park. "Research parks, such as Nebraska Innovation Campus, exemplify our forward-looking global community of innovation, dedicated to research, collaboration and entrepreneurship for the common good." AURP Awards Chair, Harry Brislin IV, Executive Director, USA Technology & Research Park, served as emcee and host of the evening's festivities.The Outstanding Research Park Award recognizes research parks and innovation districts and their leadership for their achievements and encourages continuous evaluation and development of best practices for the research park community.The AURP 2023 Outstanding Research Park Award recipient is Nebraska Innovation Campus (NIC). NIC, developed over the last ten years, is located on the former site of a cattle show ground and the state fairgrounds. NIC now has grown to over 570,000 square feet of office, hotel, conference center, makerspace, lab and greenhouse spaces, and is home to over 65 companies and university entities across the industry spectrum including food and agricultural technology. The NIC, over the last decade, has contributed nearly half a billion dollars in annual economic impact to the state, boasting over $100 million dollars in total cumulative employee compensation with roughly 2,000 jobs generated by NIC's investment projects and partnerships."Congratulations to all of our 2023 Awards of Excellence honorees, especially the Nebraska Innovation Campus," said Vickie Palmer, CEO of AURP. "Our 2023 awards recipients and their teams show timeless characteristics of perseverance, grit and integrity with a laser focus on fostering new discoveries. Their leadership and knowledge are absolutely vital to the work of building new communities, new places, where people can thrive personally and professionally - leveraging the power of research parks, innovation districts and tech hubs." Additional awards categories and recipients are:AURP's Leadership Award is given in recognition of a business, university or governmental leader who has made an outstanding contribution to the success and total community impact of a university research and technology park.The AURP 2023 Leadership Award recipient is Randy Woodson, PhD, Chancellor, North Carolina State University: Since becoming NC State's 14th chancellor in 2010, Chancellor Woodson's leadership has resulted in significant advancements. NC State's Centennial Campus is now home to more than 70 industry and government organizations that work alongside an equal number of academic departments and centers. Over the last five years, these partners have hired more than 2,000 NC State students and invested $120 million in university research. Key recruitments during Woodson's tenure include Eastman Chemical Company, the National Security Agency and Under Armour.AURP's Emerging Research Park Award recognizes research parks or innovation districts which have been operational for 10 or fewer years, creating an exceptional ecosystem which supports bringing technology from inception to market thereby positively impacting the sustainable growth of scalable businesses and high-wage job creation in their region.The AURP 2023 Emerging Research Park Award recipient is Wichita State University Innovation Campus: Wichita State University Innovation Campus, in 2012, sought to re-envision an underutilized section neighboring their University campus and within five years transformed over 120 acres into a bustling Innovation Campus housing 50 companies aligned with the University's mission and vision statements. Since then, Wichita State University Innovation Campus has been named finalist for the UEDA Engaged University Award of Excellence in 2022 and later selected as a winner of the EDA Build Back Better Regional Challenge.AURP's Career Achievement Award recognizes an individual who has made their research community a central focus of their career, who has achieved outstanding successes over a substantial period of time, and who has received peer recognition for advancing the concept of university research parks and innovation districts.The AURP 2023 Career Achievement Award recipient is Jane Shaab, UM BioPark Executive Director, Associate Vice President, Economic Development: Shaab - a tireless advocate and ambassador for the city of Baltimore and also AURP in her previous role on the AURP Board of Directors - has dedicated herself to building the Baltimore region's life sciences, technology and research industries, encouraging their growth for decades into becoming the city's largest cluster of life sciences companies. In her leadership roles with UM BioPark, Shaab has helped revitalize 14 acres of years-vacant downtown commercial property in Baltimore, generating over $600 million dollars in capital investment to realize development of a 470,000 square foot world-class biomedical research center.AURP's Innovation Award is given each year to the business or nonprofit institution located in a research park that has brought forward one or more proprietary products, processes or services which represent a substantial technology breakthrough or have potential for a significant positive impact on the economic, health or welfare status of a broad spectrum of humanity.The AURP 2023 Innovation Award recipient is BULB - Building an Understanding of Lab Basics - at University City Science Center: BULB is a free five-week training program that connects Philadelphians to STEM training and jobs in Philadelphia's growing life sciences industry. Created in 2020, BULB helps to develop a workforce that fits the needs of the region's companies, strengthening the STEM talent pipeline while benefiting the overall community. As part of this, BULB gi
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 16:16:52

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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / GoDaddyOriginally published on Small Business CurrentsBy Emma VaughnStarting a small business is a big step that requires knowledge, preparation and courage. But for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, there are additional obstacles to success, such as potentially facing discrimination and finding sufficient support for their venture.To gain a deeper understanding into the LGBTQIA+ entrepreneur experience, GoDaddy recently conducted a survey of 510 small business owners from all walks of life to gain insight into their perspectives on issues that impact the LGBTQIA+ community. The "Pride in Business" survey found key differences between businesses owned by members of the LGBTQIA+ community and those that are not.Before delving into the survey findings and what can be learned from them, let's begin with a refresher of what Pride means.Pride: A celebration of authenticityPride is about valuing diversity, fostering inclusion, promoting equity and creating a sense of belonging. It's an affirmation that love transcends all boundaries. Having grown up in a small town in Indiana, I know firsthand the challenges of acceptance and understanding. Now living in San Diego, I deeply appreciate the city's vibrant and supportive LGBTQIA+ community that reinforces these essential principles.To me, Pride is a celebration of authenticity, love and the freedom to express oneself, even in light of judgement and discrimination. It's a powerful reminder of the struggles and triumphs of the LGBTQIA+ community and the courage of those who paved the way for the rights and acceptance we enjoy today. And while Pride is traditionally recognized during the month of June in the U.S., at GoDaddy we celebrate Pride year-round and encourage others to participate, whether as a community member or an ally.Allyship in the workplace and beyondWhen we talk about being an ally, we emphasize the importance of standing up for those who are marginalized, even if their experiences are not directly your own. Allyship is about understanding, empathy and actively listening to the experiences of those within the LGBTQIA+ community and advocating for their rights. Being an ally involves addressing biases, educating oneself, and promoting inclusivity and acceptance. It's about uplifting others and demonstrating support, respect and genuine care.Challenges facing LGBTQIA+ EntrepreneursNow, let's address the unique challenges faced by LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs, as highlighted in GoDaddy's Pride in Business survey:Facing Discrimination- Discrimination and harassment continue to be predominant issues for LGBTQIA+ small business owners. Nearly one in three (32%) of those surveyed report encountering issues with online harassment or discrimination directed toward their business due to their LGBTQIA+ identity. Meanwhile, fewer than 20% of non-LGBTQIA+ business owners report this.Supportive networks and mentors- While often difficult to find, having a strong support network is critical for any entrepreneur, and it is especially important for LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs to find mentors who understand their unique experiences and challenges. The survey reports that 71% of LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs agree having networks and communities of support is crucial to the success of their business.Using technology- LGBTQIA+-owned businesses are more likely to sell products using social media. In cases where businesses surveyed are not using paid marketing activities, LGBTQIA+ business owners are most likely to say they don't know where to start - 41% of LGBTQIA+ business owners compared with 16% of the general community.Takeaways for LGBTQIA+ Small Business OwnersOur survey findings reveal LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs are more likely to use social media and execute paid online marketing campaigns, but often don't know where to start. Here are some tips I recommend when leveraging social media to grow your business:Know your audience- Understand who your audience is and what they like. This helps create content that resonates.Engage with your followers- Social media is a platform for engagement. Respond to comments, answer questions and build a community around your brand.Use visuals- Photos and videos perform better than text-only posts. Where able, use high-quality visuals to grab attention.Experiment with generative AI- Save time by using new AI tools and chatbots to develop compelling videos, social media copy or branded content materials.Run contests and giveaways- Increase visibility and engage followers by offering them an incentive to engage with your brand.Use hashtags- Increase post visibility with relevant hashtags.Develop paid ads- Consider using paid ads to reach a larger audience.Stay consistent- Keep posts consistent in frequency and branding to build a strong presence.Collaborate- Partner with influencers or other brands in your industry.Track performance- Use analytics to understand what's working and adjust your strategy.And lastly, remember that success on social media requires time, effort and experimentation.Supporting LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs as a consumerWhen it comes to LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs and business owners, 45% of survey respondents said community engagement was most critical to them. Here are four ways to support LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs as a consumer:Seek and purchase from LGBTQIA+ businesses- Actively seek out and purchase from businesses owned and operated by LGBTQIA+ individuals, amplifying their visibility.Use social media and online platforms- Endorse these businesses and spread the word about their products or services through social media and online platforms.Support advocacy organizations- Join or support organizations that advocate for LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs, such as StartOut or the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce.Respect diverse identities- Understand that supporting these businesses means respecting and acknowledging the diverse identities of their owners and creating an environment of inclusion and belonging.The path of entrepreneurship is filled with both challenges and opportunities. As we celebrate and honor the LGBTQIA+ community year-round, let's not only reflect on the progress made but also recognize the work that remains. By actively supporting LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs and fostering inclusion, we can make the world of small business more diverse, equitable and welcoming for all. Together, we can create a future where everyone can pursue their entrepreneurial dreams authentically and fearlessly.Emma Vaughn is a Senior Marketing Manager at GoDaddy.Pride stock image by rblfmr/ShutterstockRead the full article on Small Business CurrentsView additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from GoDaddy on 3blmedia.
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SACRAMENTO, CAL / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / River City Bank (the Bank) announced that Brian Killeen has been named Chief Financial Officer effective Oct. 18, 2023.Brian Killeen, Chief Financial Officer, River City Bank After serving as the Bank's Controller since 2007, Mr. Killeen was appointed Interim Chief Financial Officer on July 3, 2023. Prior to joining the Bank, Mr. Killeen spent seven years working for KPMG LLP in Sacramento, where he focused on performing audits of financial institutions. Mr. Killeen holds a B.S. in Business Administration, with concentrations in Accounting and Finance, from California State University, Sacramento, and is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive). Mr. Killeen will spearhead the search for a successor Controller/Deputy CFO to join the Bank's finance team."With Brian's excellent performance over many years as our Controller and his most recent time as our Interim CFO, he is absolutely the right individual to take on this important leadership role at the Bank," said Steve Fleming, the Bank's President and CEO. "I am confident his knowledge of the Bank's accounting, treasury management and financial reporting requirements combined with his commitment to the Bank's growth and success, makes him the ideal person for the CFO position." ABOUT RIVER CITY BANK:Named one of Sacramento Business Journal's "50 Fastest Growing Companies" for each of the past six years, River City Bank is a leading boutique commercial bank throughout California with assets of over $4.9 billion. River City Bank offers a comprehensive suite of banking services, including loans, deposits and cash management tools, to the business, consumer and commercial real estate sectors. With a tailored, concierge-like level of service, River City Bank redefines the banking experience and every touch point that surrounds it. River City Bank is the largest, independent, locally owned and managed bank in the Sacramento region with an office in San Francisco and a growing presence in Southern California. For additional information, please visit www.rivercitybank.com or call (916) 567-2600. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender.MEDIA CONTACT:Pamela Hansen, Vice President, Marketing Manager at pamela.hansen@rivercitybank.com or via phone at (916) 567-2622.Contact InformationPamela Hansen Vice President, Marketing Manager pamela.hansen@rivercitybank.com (916) 567-2622SOURCE: River City Bank
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$800,000 in pending orders to fulfill through the $5,000,000 Grant Award Notification (GAN) in CaliforniaSinglePoint Inc. retains minority interest in Ballistic Product America, LLC ("Ballistic")Ballistic has entered into an agreement with SinglePoint in which it Ballistic agrees to pay to SinglePoint, as a periodic royalty ("Royalty"), five percent of the gross revenue of sales of the Ballistic Barrier products by Ballistic until such amounts total $2.5 million dollarsPHOENIX, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / SinglePoint Inc., (OTCQB:SING) primarily focused on building a portfolio of renewable energy-focused companies in solar, EV charging and energy storage announces acquisition of the remaining interest of Box Pure Air LLC and a new transitional leadership team to execute and deliver on the remainder of the allocated funding available to the Company through the initial $5,000,000 Grant Award Notification through the California EANS program. Currently the Company has approximately $800,000 in approved orders pending shipment.The April 2022 acquisition of Boston Solar was a key fundamental piece of the SinglePoint energy centric strategy focused on rolling up high quality residential and small commercial solar installation companies within the fragmented solar industry. On a pro-forma basis Boston Solar grew revenues to approximately $25M in FY2022, up from approximately $17.6M in FY2021.On April 20, 2023 the Company announced shareholder and board of director approval of various strategic transactions, including exploring options to sell or pursue a spin off of Box Pure Air/BPA Solutions to existing SinglePoint shareholders. The acquisition of the remaining 49% interest in Box Pure Air, making it a 100% wholly owned subsidiary, was necessary to give the Company optionality to continue to pursue strategic options for Box Pure Air. The company will continue to reposition certain assets and non-core business designed to allow the company the flexibility to focus and capitalize on the long-term acquisition and roll up opportunities in the renewable energy and energy storage sector including commercial energy services, solar installation, and energy storage solutions for residential and small commercial customers."This transaction allows SinglePoint to direct sales efforts and capitalize on the over $121B federally allocated to enhance indoor air quality in our nation's schools. Box Pure Aire is committed to providing commercial grade products and solutions that are designed to provided and improve indoor clean air to schools. We've proactively repositioned personnel starting in Q2 with Jason Lally to accelerate sales efforts to capture the remainder of the $5M award in California designated to Box Pure Air. By mobilizing additional sales and marketing professionals and leveraging strategic partnerships, we're committed to elevating awareness and offering top-tier air purification units to classrooms across California," stated Wil Ralston, CEO of SinglePoint.Jason Lally, a California resident, has been and is actively meeting with private schools in California advocating the benefits of our portable indoor air products that were engineered and designed to foster a safer environment for students, teachers, and staff, especially those funded by the EANS II program. California remains a crucial high-growth market for Box Pure Air. Through EANS and ESSER dollars there is more than $1 Billion available for public and private schools throughout the state.In addition to Jason Lally, SinglePoint's EVP of Revenue, Chad Miles, SinglePoint's EVP of Operations are dedicated to transition of the daily business operations and contracts associated with Box Pure Air. The Company is finalizing an agreement to add a Senior Vice President ("SVP") of Business Development who will focus on increasing revenues, product offerings and solutions in order to best position the company in the event of a sale or merger. Box Pure Air provides industrial-grade high-efficiency air purification products designed for schools and commercial buildings.Highlights:- SinglePoint acquires the full interest of Box Pure Air LLC from a minority shareholder- Box Pure Air has secured a $5,000,000 Grant Award Notification (GAN) under EANS II from the California Department of Education- Box Pure Air maintains its exclusive contract with AIRBOX, a premier manufacturer of Indoor Portable Air Cleaning devicesBox Pure Air remains committed to pioneering innovative solutions for better indoor air quality, using strategic partnerships and cutting-edge technologies. The AIRBOX Air Cleaner product line epitomizes the brand's commitment to ensuring safe and healthy environments in high-traffic areas.About Box Pure Air:Box Pure Air, a subsidiary of SinglePoint Inc., is a distributor of industrial-grade air purification products. The company is dedicated to helping businesses and consumers establish a healthy ambiance. Box Pure Air stands out with its commitment to surpassing national standards for indoor air quality, adhering to CDC ventilation requirements, and utilizing HEPA certified filters combined with proven antimicrobial technologies.For more information, visit Box Pure AirAbout SinglePoint Inc. (SING)SinglePoint Inc. is a renewable energy and sustainable lifestyle company focused on providing environmentally friendly energy efficiencies and healthy living solutions. SinglePoint is initially focused on building the largest network of renewable energy solutions and modernizing the traditional solar and energy storage model. The Company is also actively exploring future growth opportunities in air purification, electric vehicle charging, solar as a subscription service, and additional energy efficiencies and appliances that enhance sustainability and a healthier life. For more information, visit the Company's website ( www.singlepoint.com) and connect on social media for the latest updates.Forward-Looking StatementsCertain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential plans and objectives of the Company, the use of proceeds, anticipated growth and future expansion, 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. Technical complications,
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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Owens CorningOriginally published in Owens Corning's 2022 Sustainability ReportAlthough Patty Hemmelgarn has only been with Owens Corning since 2021, she brings with her a wealth of experience in air quality management. Patty has focused on air quality and compliance for her whole career, including at a consulting firm working with the U.S. EPA on air quality issues, at the Ohio EPA Division of Air Pollution Control, and as the air compliance lead for two global chemical manufacturing companies. By bringing her expertise to Owens Corning and working to prevent air quality issues before they occur, Patty believes she is able to have a real impact on our environment."What I really like about Owens Corning is our commitment to sustainability and how we are working to operationalize it." On what makes Owens Corning's approach uniqueAt some other companies where I've worked, the sustainability group and the environmental group are not linked - they're two separate pieces of the organization. Also, at many other large companies, management of air emissions is wholly separate from the sustainability program. At Owens Corning, our enterprise environmental team is housed under the sustainability umbrella. That's something that sets us apart, and gives the environmental piece a bit more attention than I've seen in other organizations. It demonstrates that Owens Corning really does focus on sustainability in all aspects of the company.On the importance of operationalizing sustainabilityWe need to not only look at our how our products are manufactured, which is my role here, but how they're used by our customers. We need to make sure that air emissions are reduced in our manufacturing and in our products. Operationalizing sustainability on the air quality side involves making sure that, when changes are made to our equipment, we find solutions to reduce our air emissions or prevent them from being generated in the first place. We can also look at these as opportunities to research a better way to make every change, not just the big ones, but also those small changes we make. There are a number of little tweaks that we can do on every project at each site to reduce air emissions and overall environmental impacts.On why sustainability is central to Owens Corning's missionOur commitment to sustainability really starts with our products, which help homeowners improve their energy efficiency. So it's not just sustainability in our manufacturing locations, but also helping with the sustainability of everyone who uses our products. We have a lot of very smart, talented people who work at Owens Corning and I think we have the resources within our company to achieve our sustainability goals. Our attention is focused in the right place, and it's focused together.Read morePhoto courtesy of Patty Hemmelgarn.View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Owens Corning on 3 blmedia.com Contact Info:Spokesperson: Owens CorningWebsite: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/owens-corningEmail: info@3 blmedia.com SOURCE: Owens Corning
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Top Five Conveyor Car Wash Company Doubles State-Wide Footprint in ArkansasTHOMASTON, GA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Tidal Wave Auto Spa, one of the nation's fastest-growing express car wash companies, celebrated the opening of two, brand-new Arkansas locations on Wednesday, October 19th, in Rogers and Searcy.To celebrate these exciting additions to the Tidal Wave footprint, the company is offering seven days of free car October 19 - October 25 during their Grand Opening week. This limited-time promotion provides an opportunity for car owners in and around these communities to experience Tidal Wave's premium wash option, Graph-X4, at no cost."We're excited to double our Arkansas footprint this week," said founder and CEO Scott Blackstock. "We opened our first Arkansas location in December 2022 in Springdale and added Hot Springs to the footprint the following May. Our team is looking forward to celebrating the Rogers and Searcy Grand Openings all week long with free premium washes. Our goal is to make car care easy, efficient, and exceptional for our customers, and these new locations are built to do just that." In addition to seven days of free car washes, any new customer that joins a Clean Club unlimited wash membership plan during Rogers and Searcy's Grand Opening week will enjoy their first month of unlimited washes for $9.97. New customers can save up to $40 with this limited-time new member special, which is the perfect opportunity to experience the convenience and quality that a Clean Club membership can bring.Rogers, AR Location: 3757 W New Hope Rd, Rogers, AR 72758Grand Opening Week Hours: Monday through Sunday, 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.Searcy, AR Location: 3707 E Race Ave, Searcy, AR 72143Grand Opening Week Hours: Monday through Sunday, 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.Tidal Wave Auto Spa has earned its reputation as an industry leader, known for their cutting-edge car care technology, pristine locations, and dedication to delivering an exceptional car wash experience. The company offers single wash options and Clean Club unlimited wash memberships to fit any budget. Clean Club members can wash at any Tidal Wave location every day of the month for one convenient monthly payment - plus, save time with exclusive club member wash lanes. Tidal Wave also offers family plans for individuals and families that need to wash multiple vehicles, and fleet plans that can be customized to fit a company's unique wash needs.Tidal Wave Auto Spa currently has 197 locations operating in 23 states. The company currently has four Arkansas locations and will open a brand-new location in Jonesboro in the coming months. For more information about Tidal Wave Auto Spa, please visit https://www.tidalwaveautospa.com About Tidal Wave Auto SpaTidal Wave Auto Spa is an industry-leading conveyor car wash company founded in 1999 by Scott and Hope Blackstock in Thomaston, GA. Tidal Wave is committed to providing cutting-edge car care technology and exceptional customer service at each of their 197 locations spanning 23 states. In 2020, Tidal Wave partnered with Golden Gate Capital to facilitate their accelerated growth across the country. Tidal Wave is one of the top five conveyor car wash companies in the country and has been included in the Inc. 5000 list for America's Fastest Growing Companies since 2020. The company was recognized as a 2023 Champion of Charity Honoree by Professional Carwashing & Detailing and has raised over $3 million dollars for organizations in their communities.Contact InformationHeather Coleman Marketing Manager media@ tidalwaveautospa.com Andrea Traylor Senior Director of Digital Marketing andrea.traylor@tidalwaveautospa.com SOURCE: Tidal Wave Auto Spa
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The revocation of Azerbaijani Mugan Bank's license is not surprising, expert economist Rashad Hasanov told Trend.

He noted that Mugan Bank's risky credit policy, the presence of serious shortcomings in corporate governance and other reasons raised questions about the bank's future activities.

"According to the structure of the loan portfolio, we can see that consumer loans amounted to about 150 million manat ($88.2 million), and business loans - about 280 million manat ($164.7 million). This is not such a big figure in relation to the 22-23-billion manat ($12.9-$13.5 billion) portfolio. It does not mean a big source of funding for businesses. In this regard, I think that the withdrawal of the license from the bank will not affect the country's banking sector," the expert said.

The license of Mugan Bank was revoked on October 19, 2023, by the decision of the CBA Board dated October 18, 2023, in accordance with Articles 16.1.6, 16.1.7, 16.1.9, 16.1.18, 57, and 61. 1 of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On Banks" (the amount of total capital is less than the minimum amount established by the legislation for banks, the ratio of total capital adequacy is less than 3 percent, the bank does not carry out its current activities in a reliable and prudent manner, as well as due to inadequate internal management and control procedures of the bank).
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Top Five Conveyor Car Wash Company Opens Twelfth Texas LocationTHOMASTON, GA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Tidal Wave Auto Spa, one of the nation's fastest-growing express car wash companies, expanded their footprint in Texas this week with the opening of their brand-new Jacksonville, TX, location at 1412 S Jackson St.To celebrate the Grand Opening, the new Jacksonville location is offering seven days of free car washes from October 18 - October 25. This limited-time promotion provides an opportunity for car owners in and around these communities to experience Tidal Wave's premium wash option, Graph-X4, at no cost."We're excited about our growth in Texas," said founder and CEO Scott Blackstock. "Tidal Wave has been washing cars in the Lone Star State since 2019, and we're thrilled to bring our exceptional car wash experience to the Jacksonville community this week. Our goal is to make car care easy, efficient, and enjoyable for our customers, and our team is looking forward to providing folks in Jacksonville with top-quality service for years to come." In addition to seven days of free car washes, any new customer that joins a Clean Club unlimited wash membership plan during Jacksonville's Grand Opening week will enjoy their first month of unlimited washes for $9.97. New customers can save up to $40 with this limited-time new member special, which is the perfect opportunity to experience the convenience and quality that a Clean Club membership can bring. Clean Club memberships can be used at any Tidal Wave location, including nearby locations in Palestine and Nacogdoches.Jacksonville, TX Location: 1412 S Jackson St, Jacksonville, TX 75766Grand Opening Week Hours: Monday through Sunday, 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.Tidal Wave currently has twelve Texas locations, with plans for continued expansion throughout the state. In the coming months, the company will open new locations in Pampa, El Paso, Texarkana, Liberty, and more.Tidal Wave Auto Spa has earned its reputation as an industry leader, known for their cutting-edge car care technology, pristine locations, and dedication to delivering an exceptional car wash experience. The company offers single wash options and Clean Club unlimited wash memberships to fit any budget. Clean Club members can wash at any Tidal Wave location every day of the month for one convenient monthly payment - plus, save time with exclusive club member wash lanes. Tidal Wave also offers family plans for individuals and families that need to wash multiple vehicles, and fleet plans that can be customized to fit a company's unique wash needs.For more information about Tidal Wave Auto Spa, please visit https://www.tidalwaveautospa.com About Tidal Wave Auto SpaTidal Wave Auto Spa is an industry-leading conveyor car wash company founded in 1999 by Scott and Hope Blackstock in Thomaston, GA. Tidal Wave is committed to providing cutting-edge car care technology and exceptional customer service at each of their 196 locations spanning 23 states. In 2020, Tidal Wave partnered with Golden Gate Capital to facilitate their accelerated growth across the country. Tidal Wave is one of the top five conveyor car wash companies in the country and has been included in the Inc. 5000 list for America's Fastest Growing Companies since 2020. The company was recognized as a 2023 Champion of Charity Honoree by Professional Carwashing & Detailing and has raised over $3 million dollars for organizations in their communities.Contact InformationHeather Coleman Marketing Manager media@ tidalwaveautospa.com Andrea Traylor Senior Director of Digital Marketing andrea.traylor@tidalwaveautospa.com SOURCE: Tidal Wave Auto Spa
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 18:49:19

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The world of the tongue-and-groove pliers market is a complex and ever-evolving landscape, shaped by consumer demands and technological advancements. In this report, we delve into the depths of this market to provide a profound and comprehensive analysis, catering to a diverse audience that includes manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and investors. Our primary goal is to empower industry stakeholders with invaluable insights to make informed decisions in a rapidly changing environment. We aim to illuminate the current status of the tongue-and-groove pliers market while projecting its future trends.Scope and PurposeOur report is a comprehensive guide designed to equip industry stakeholders with actionable information. It covers various aspects of the tongue-and-groove pliers market, including market dynamics, competition, growth avenues, challenges, and regional variations. This information goes beyond mere descriptions; it is intended to help stakeholders make critical decisions that can shape their strategies and endeavors in the market.Request for Sample Report:Promising Comprehensive AnalysisTo fulfill our promises, we commit to providing a comprehensive analysis that leaves no stone unturned. We pledge to unravel the factors propelling the market's growth, dissecting shifts in consumer preferences and technological breakthroughs that are driving the demand for tongue-and-groove pliers products. Simultaneously, we acknowledge that challenges and obstacles are part of any industry landscape, and we vow to illuminate these hurdles, be it economic uncertainties or the intense competition that often characterizes such markets.Some of the major companies in the Tongue-and-groove Pliers market are as follows: Apex Tool Group, Endura Tools, Phoenix Tools, Prokit's Industries, Stanley Black & Decker, Wiha ToolsGuiding the Path ForwardOur report extends an invitation to its readers to explore its contents and sets the stage for uncovering the competitive landscape. It introduces the major players in the tongue-and-groove pliers market and their strategies, offering insights into what makes them thrive. This insight-rich analysis is meant to guide others on their path forward  whether it's to navigate the competition more effectively or to find inspiration in successful strategies.Anticipation of InsightsRecognizing that the market is not monolithic but rather a composition of various segments, the report pledges to provide a nuanced understanding of these segments. It promises to detail their sizes, potential growth trajectories, and key trends. This targeted knowledge assists stakeholders in carving out specialized strategies and ensuring optimal resource allocation.Balancing Forces and Strategic ImplicationsBy elucidating both the driving forces and potential obstacles, the report paints a holistic picture of the market dynamics. It enables industry stakeholders to navigate the competitive landscape with a deeper understanding of the forces at play. Manufacturers can align their innovation efforts with consumer preferences and regulatory trends, thereby enhancing their market position. Investors and decision-makers can be better prepared to address economic uncertainties and supply chain vulnerabilities. Overall, this section equips readers with insights to make strategic decisions that account for both growth opportunities and challenges in the tongue-and-groove pliers market.Exploring the Competitive LandscapeThe section dedicated to the competitive landscape of the tongue-and-groove pliers market offers an intricate exploration of the market's key players, their strategies, and their impact on the industry. This segment aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the market's dynamics, the role of major companies, and the strategies they employ to thrive.Segment CharacteristicsThe report initiates the analysis by outlining the unique characteristics that define each segment. Whether these segments are categorized based on product types, customer demographics, use cases, or other distinguishing factors, the report provides a clear picture of how these segments are defined and differentiated.Market SizeUnderstanding the size of each market segment is crucial for gauging its significance within the overall market landscape. The report likely provides quantitative data to illustrate the market share and contribution of "Type" and "Application" segments to the entire tongue-and-groove pliers market. This information helps stakeholders appreciate the relative importance of each segment.Growth PotentialBeyond current market size, the report delves into the growth potential of these segments. It explores factors such as emerging trends, consumer behaviors, technological advancements, and regulatory influences that could drive the future expansion of these segments. This forward-looking perspective aids stakeholders in identifying where the market's growth opportunities lie.Key TrendsThe analysis likely captures the key trends specific to each segment. Whether it's changing consumer preferences, evolving technology adoption, or shifting regulatory landscapes, the report provides insights into the forces shaping the behavior of "Type" and " Application." These trends inform stakeholders about the directions these segments might take in the coming years.Strategic InsightsThe segment analysis extends beyond descriptive data to offer strategic insights. By understanding the characteristics, potential, and trends of "Type" and "Application," industry participants can make informed decisions. Manufacturers can tailor their product development strategies to meet the demands of these segments, and marketers can create targeted campaigns to reach specific customer groups.Market Segmentation:Type: Working Pliers, Special PliersApplication: Industry, Construction, OthersExploring Regional DynamicsThe section dedicated to the regional analysis of the tongue-and-groove pliers market provides a comprehensive exploration of how the market fares across different geographical areas. This analysis recognizes that markets are not homogenous and that regional variations can significantly impact market dynamics. The report delves into the intricacies of each region  North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa  to provide stakeholders with valuable insights.Closing ThoughtsIn essence, the conclusion encapsulates the report's journey. It emphasizes the report's role as a strategic tool, a navigator, and a decision-making companion in the complex world of the tongue-and-groove pliers market. This report is more than just a document; it is a valuable resource that empowers industry stakeholders to thrive in a dynamic and ever-evolving market environment.
PR-Inside.com: 2023-10-19 15:03:55

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The poem, "Snowflake Star," is written entirely in the poet's hand.SILVER SPRING, MD / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / In its latest catalogue, Washington D.C.-based rare book firm Type Punch Matrix offers more than 70 historic books and documents from the 16th to the 21st century - including an incredibly rare manuscript poem by a teenage Sylvia Plath."Snowflake Star" by Sylvia Plath Image of the poem "Snowflake Star" handwritten by a 14-year-old Sylvia Plath.The poem, "Snowflake Star," is written entirely in the poet's hand. According to TPM co-founder Rebecca Romney, that makes it very unusual in the marketplace: "While typescripts of her poems do appear from time to time, practically all of her handwritten drafts remained with Plath's papers, which now reside almost entirely in institutions." And while the poem was written when the poet was just 14, Romney explains, "It is one of a small number of early poems in which Plath first began experimenting with images that would come to define her most famous work. We were excited to offer the poem when we first saw it because her voice was so clearly already present." Other important highlights from the catalogue include:An original program for Muhammad Ali's legendary rematch against Sonny Liston, signed as "Muhammad Ali" shortly before the bout, only a year after he took the name - and additionally signed by three other heavyweight champs present at Ali's training camp: Joe Louis, Jim Braddock, and Jersey Joe Walcott.A previously unrecorded printing of one of Martin Luther King's most important speeches: his anti-war address at The Riverside Church, delivered exactly one year to the day before his assassination.An original Yayoi Kusama's poster advertising the 1965 installation of her first ever mirror room - hand-addressed by the artist in 1965 to the Museum of Modern Art.An extravagant (and extravagantly purple) deluxe signed book from Prince, documenting the musician's legendary 21-night 2007 residency at London's O2 arena - with forty minutes of exclusive footage on the original included iPod.These items and others from the catalogue will be featured in TPM's booth (#326) at the upcoming Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair being held next week October 27th - 29th, 2023 at the Hynes Convention Center."We're proud to help steward items such as these to the next generation of collectors," said Brian Cassidy, Type Punch Matrix co-founder. "Book collecting is a conscious project to discover, preserve, and learn," Cassidy said. "It informs our modern thinking with the successes and failures of history, with stories that remind us why we work, why we want to create, and how we want to live." Link to the catalogue (PDF):About the company:Type Punch Matrix is a rare book founded by Rebecca Romney and Brian Cassidy. Romney (a "cockeyed optimist of bibliophilia" according to Variety) is the rare book expert on the HISTORY Channel's show Pawn Stars and author of the book Printer's Error. Cassidy (described by the Village Voice as "an enthusiastic, soulful young dealer") is a specialist in the Beats, counterculture, 20th-century avant-garde and outsider works, and is an authority on modern duplicating technologies. The New York Times has praised TPM for its "edgy stock that pushes the boundaries of the rare books category." The company offers an eclectic mix of landmark books alongside quirky, off-beat material: everything from classic first editions of Jane Austen, Edgar Allen Poe, and Walt Whitman; to original Patti Smith flyers once stapled to telephone poles, and the first book (1881) to describe the Venn diagram.Contact InformationRebecca Romney Co-founder info@ typepunchmatrix.com 301-589-0789Related FilesSOURCE: Type Punch Matrix
Post-tax profit at Femi Otedolas Geregu Power came in 13.3 per cent stronger for the first nine months of the year when weighed up against the figure for the same period of last year.

The gains were recorded off the back of growth across its two key revenue streams.

Fairly stronger proceeds from both the energy sold and capacity charge lent the support that saw revenue 42.9 per cent up to N55.7 billion for the electricity producer.

The company has in February welcomed FEDA, a unit of Afreximbank, as its first substantial shareholder after it went public.

Mr Otedola, previously Nigerias second-richest person and a multisector investor with interests in maritime, banking and oil & gas, holds the companys controlling stake.

What could have been a better bottom-line performance was particularly constrained by an upswing in impairment loss from the cash owed the comppany by trade debtors, having climbed nineteen times over to N3.1 billion in just twelve months.

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Setting that sum aside curbed net profit, the unaudited financials of Geregu Power published on Wednesday showed, but other vicious dampeners in some way took their toll.

An expected credit loss estimated at N168.7 million from related party receivables remains vague at best with no details or explanation about the identity of the counterparty and the nature of the transaction provided in the notes to the financial statements.

Repair and maintenance of machinery and plant gulped N1.6 billion compared to only N89 million a year ago. And foreign exchange loss, the latest nightmare of manufacturers and import-dependent businesses in Africas largest economy, took N670.5 million of revenue.

Geregu Power is on the queue of companies aspiring to buy one of the state-owned power assets at the Bureau of Public Enterprises, where the bidding process is at its last lap.

The interest expense on the bond issued to secure the power plant and the money it spent to service bank loans together more than doubled to N8.5 billion.

Profit for the period rose to N11.4 billion from N10 billion a year prior. Geregu Powers shares have yielded 128 per cent since the turn of year, trading at N339.5 per unit at 13:39 WAT in Lagos on Thursday

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The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) seems focused on restoring constitutional order in Niger since the 26 July coup that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum. At the same time, the regional bloc must ensure that other transitions progress peacefully  including in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea, which also recently experienced coups.

At the 9 July summit in Guinea-Bissaus capital, ECOWAS leaders noted the difficulties of mediation in member states undergoing political transition. They called for a reassessment of mediation efforts and appointed Beninese President Patrice Talon to lead the resumption of dialogue between ECOWAS and these countries.

In Burkina Faso and Mali, the timelines for the transitions have been slipping. By contrast, on 29 September, Guineas transition authorities re-affirmed their commitment to respect the two-year deadline agreed with ECOWAS. However, efforts to stabilise the country in the long term risk being undermined by deep-seated rifts between the transition authorities and certain stakeholders.

These tensions were visible during the protests organised by the Forces vives de la Guinee (FVG), which gathers the main political parties and civil society organisations, and has called for an inclusive transition. The protest took place on 5 September  exactly two years after the coup which saw the National Committee of Reconciliation and Development (CNRD) assume power.

The protests highlighted the lack of clarity on the implementation of the 10-point transition agreement signed in December 2022 with ECOWAS. The agreement is considered a blueprint for a return to constitutional order and long-term political stability in Guinea. In addition to abiding by the transitional timetable, the authorities promised not to participate in the upcoming elections, in accordance with the transitional charter. But the FVG still fears the timetable wont be respected.

There are several other concerns. FVG members question the usefulness and the timing of the first two points on the timetable. These are the general population and housing census, and the civil status administrative census. The former is needed to design and implement socio-economic development policies, and the latter will generate a reliable computerised civil status registry. The compilation of a new electoral register will be based on this data.

While the transitional authorities want the two censuses to be held before the electoral process starts, several political forces are calling for a revision of the existing register instead, which will take less time.

There are also divisions over the organisation of a constitutional referendum and local, legislative and presidential elections by the end of the transition in December 2024. Beyond the technical and operational difficulties of meeting this deadline, several political and civil society actors are unhappy with the idea of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation organising and overseeing the elections. They feel these processes should be run by an independent electoral commission for better transparency.

The situation is compounded by a breakdown in dialogue between the FVG and the transitional authorities, which is creating political tension. The main members of the FVG didnt partake in the 2022 dialogue, and the Prime Ministers Office supported by three facilitators and religious leaders, tried to reconcile the different positions.

The authorities also made apparent overtures by lifting the judicial supervision orders on several political leaders of the FVG and releasing leaders from the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution.

However, some of the governments actions have fuelled the perception of a regime intent on silencing all dissenting voices. Political actors cite the Court of Repression of Economic and Financial Offences as a tool for neutralising potential rivals to the governing CNRD. The court was set up in December 2021 to combat the embezzlement of public funds, corruption and money laundering, among others.

The FVG is demanding the return to Guinea of leading political figures  Sidya Toure and Cellou Dalein Diallo  who left the country and are currently based in Abidjan and Dakar respectively. It is also calling for the release of detainees held by the same court, most of whom were key figures in the Alpha Conde regime.

Finally, several stakeholders interviewed by the Institute for Security Studies noted that the authorities high budget of $600 million for the transition process was obstructing support from international partners. Some had requested a detailed breakdown to enable them to determine which aspects of the transition they could fund. Thus far, only $40 million has been mobilised by the transitional authorities. This could mean the transition misses its 24-month deadline.

ECOWAS announced that a technical committee would be sent to Conakry to assess the implementation of the framework agreement and support the drafting of a detailed budget. This is an opportunity to address key challenges and boost the transition process. The mission is important as it could lead to the timetable being adjusted.

Several stakeholders, including FVG members, have called for a revised timetable that could eliminate the census and combine the legislative and presidential elections. The next civilian leadership team would then organise local elections.

But ECOWAS is yet to confirm the dates for the technical committees trip and that of the high-level mission. This despite the organisations vital role in keeping the transition on track following the breakdown in dialogue between the authorities and a large section of the political class.

ECOWAS should step up its efforts to restore a climate of trust between the FVG and the transition authorities. Only an inclusive and consensual framework can deliver a peaceful transition in Guinea.

Paulin Maurice Toupane, Senior Researcher and Aissatou Kante, Researcher, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Office for West Africa, the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin

This article is part of a series on preventing coups in West Africa and the Sahel. Research for the article is funded by Irish Aid and the Bosch Foundation.

(This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish).

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The Ogun State Government, South-west Nigeria, has confirmed that within the last 30 days 12 persons have died of Cholera in the state.

The states Commissioner for Health, Tomi Coker, on Thursday, said the 12 fatalities were recorded out of about 246 cases recorded so far.

Mrs Coker said this on the sideline of a stakeholders engagement held at the ministry of health, in Abeokuta, the state capital.

How it started

The government had in September alerted residents of the outbreak of Cholera disease in Ijebu North Local Government Area of the state.

Cases were later reported in both Abeokuta North and Abeokuta South Local Government Areas, which are located in the capital city of the state.

Mrs Coker, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, noted that the cholera outbreak is being fuelled by high level of open defecation, poor waste management and poor water source.

She said; Unfortunately, we have a report of 246 cases and there has been at least about 12 deaths, which brings us to fatality rate of 44.6 per cent.

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This is slightly high for a state like ours because we are educated. And from what we found out thats actually promoting the cholera outbreak is the fact that there is a high level of open defecation in the state.

It started in Ijebu North Local Government Area where we have 217 cases, but now we have more reports. We have some from Abeokuta North last week. We have two reports from Abeokuta South.

Way forward

To curtail the outbreak, the commissioner said the government has commenced chlorinating wells in Ijebu North Local Government Area, the local government worst hit by the disease.

She added that her ministry is also collaborating with the Ministry of Environment and other relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to contain the spread of the disease.

The commissioner, however, advised residents of the state to avoid open defecation, construct affordable toilets and sanitary wells in their homes.

She also warned that the government may seal houses without toilets in the interest of public health.

The commissioner said: It is unfortunate that our people still engage in open defecation, unaware that fecal materials enter shallow wells, which many of them use as water sources. For instance, in Ijebu-North Local Government, we found 52 shallow wells and microbiological testing revealed that 75 per cent of these wells had evidence of fecal contamination with coliform bacteria.

We will work with our colleagues in the environment ministry to ensure sanitation, promote the use of appropriate sanitary facilities in homes, and construct sanitary wells. These wells should be well-built and less likely to be contaminated by fecal material, especially during the period of incessant rainfall and flooding, which washes fecal material into our water sources.

Cholera cases in Nigeria

In September Nigeria announced that a total of 210 new suspected cases of Cholera infections and 10 suspected deaths across eight states of the federation were recorded from 31 July to 27 August.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) disclosed this in its monthly situation report on Cholera, covering Epidemiological (EP) weeks 31 to 34.

The report shows that the suspected cases and deaths of Cholera in 2023 had decreased by 63 and 67 per cent respectively compared to what was reported at epidemiological week 34 in 2022.

The report revealed that as of 27 August, Nigeria had recorded 84 suspected deaths and 2,860 suspected cases across 25 states, representing a Case Fatality Ratio (CFR) of 2.9 per cent.

Cumulatively, the report shows that six states: Cross River (718 cases), Katsina (302 cases), Bayelsa (265 cases), Ebonyi (227 cases), Niger (136 cases) and Abia (118 cases) accounted for 62 per cent of the suspected cases in 2023.

Cholera

Cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by the Vibrio cholera bacillus.

The disease spreads through contaminated food and water, reappearing periodically in countries like Nigeria where people are unable to secure access to clean drinking water and ensure adequate sanitation.

It is a preventable and treatable epidemic-prone disease. The number of cholera cases tends to increase with the outset of the rainy season.

The risk of death from cholera is higher when treatment is delayed. It is very important to visit a health facility if anyone has watery diarrhoea and vomiting symptoms.

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A former Minister of Power, Barth Nnaji, has alleged that diesel suppliers and generator dealers are sabotaging efforts for Nigerians to enjoy regular power supply.

Mr Nnaji, a professor, made this known while featuring on a radio programme, captioned: The South East Political Roundtable by Flo FM, Umuahia on Wednesday.

The former minister said the endless breakdown of the national grid had remained a significant concern among Nigerians.

According to him, this is despite the Federal Governments claim of spending N7 trillion as direct interventions in the power sector, even after privatising the electricity generation and distribution arms of the industry since November 2013.

Mr Nnaji, who is the chairperson of Geometric Power, Aba, identified diesel suppliers and generator sellers as other obstacles for those who are into power generation business.

He said the power sector needed professionals, who understood the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry to manage it.

There are two areas when you talk of cabal in the sector  the diesel suppliers and generator users.

Nigeria is a big user of generators because of our enormous power need and those who are in the business would not want any interruption.

The diesel suppliers feel that stable power supply would destroy their business, he said.

Mr Nnaji further alleged that the power sector, just like others, had some cabal, who make gains from the problems of poor power supply.

He said: A graphic picture of how dangerous the diesel suppliers can be was experienced when we were in government, somewhere in this country, some men cut down 30KVA line to stop electricity supply to thousands of users.

Unfortunately, the diesel supplying company sponsored the operation.

Incidentally the power cable fell on one of them, who later confessed to the crime.

Nigeria has struggled with poor power supply for decades, a challenge that is estimated to cost businesses about $29 billion yearly, according to the World Bank.

The country has the lowest access to electricity globally, with about 92 million persons out of the countrys 200 million population lacking access to power, according to the Energy Progress Report 2022 released by Tracking SDG 7.

A World Bank report in 2021 also explained that 74 per cent of power users in the country are dissatisfied with the supply of electricity across the country. While 93 per cent of metered power users paid their bills regularly, 78 per cent of electricity consumers in the country received less than 12 hours of power supply daily.

Also, the lack of power supply has increased production costs for many businesses who are then forced to provide their electricity, mostly using diesel-run generators as alternative sources of electricity.

In June 2015, Nigerian manufacturers said they spent as much as N3.5 trillion annually to generate alternative power for their production operations due to the collapse of the public electricity supply.

In 2018, former President Muhammadu Buhari claimed Nigerians depend less on generators in their homes and businesses. However, analysts disagreed with the position as many Nigerians continue to suffer from the ripple effect of poor power supply.

In March, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) said insufficient power allocation to the company by generation stations was responsible for the unstable electricity supply in the region.

In June, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) said it loses N10.1 trillion annually to power crisis, just as the World Bank said that Nigeria will need about $100 billion in the next 10 years to tackle the challenges in its energy sector.

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Gunmen on Wednesday killed five persons in Ayilamo, a village in Logo Local Government of Benue.

According to Sewuese Anene, spokesman of the police command in the north-central state, the attack occurred on Tuesday night.

A few others sustained injuries, Ms Anene added.

She said that another attack occurred in the Mbachohon community in Gwer-West Local Government, but added that details in respect of that incident were not available.

Unconfirmed reports indicated that six people were killed in the Mbachohon attack.

The attacks are unfortunate; more security men are being deployed to the areas to restore peace, Anene told the News Agency of Nigeria.

(NAN)

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Suspected bandits have killed two people and kidnapped three others in Kanzanna village, Bunza Local Government Area of Kebbi State.

This was confirmed in Birnin Kebbi on Wednesday by Nafiu Abubakar, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state.

He said that the bandits attacked the village on 18 October, at about 0300hrs.

Mr Abubakar said that the Commissioner of Police, Chris Aimiono-Wane, had visited the village and sympathised with the villagers.

He said a combined team of mobile, anti-kidnapping and counterterrorism personnel has been deployed to the area.

According to him, the police officers are currently combing nearby forests, routes and suspected hideouts to track the bandits and rescue the victims.

Mr Abubakar said the CP condemned the attack and assured families of the victims that the command would get those abducted back home.

Commissioner of Police in Kebbi, CP Chris Aimiono-Wane (m) during a condolence visit to Kanzanna village in Tilli District of Bunza Local Government Area of Kebbi on Wednesday.

In their separate responses, the District Head of Tilli, Muhammadu Jabbo, Chairman of Bunza LGA, Umar Ahmed and the lawmaker for the area, Yusuf Tilli, thanked the CP for the visit.

They called on residents to assist the police and other security agencies in fishing out the perpetrators.

(NAN)

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President Bola Tinubu will attend the first retreat of the 10th National Assembly scheduled to hold from 19 to 22 October in Akwa Ibom State, South-south Nigeria.

President Tinubu will have a conversation with the lawmakers on the reformation of taxes and how to increase the internally generated revenue in all sectors.

The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, disclosed this to journalists on Wednesday after he paid a courtesy visit to Mr Tinubu at the Presidential Villa.

I came to inform the president of the first 10th Assembly retreat which is taking place tomorrow in Akwa Ibom State and also to solicit his support towards ensuring representation at the retreat and he has graciously done that.

And I told him some of the things we are going to discuss,  task reform and ways of ensuring the generation of revenue for him to work for Nigerians.

He needs to be informed that the Senate will not be available in Abuja. We are moving the Senate all the way to Akwa Ibom for the next four days, he said.

Mr Akpabio added that after the retreat, he will join the delegation of Nigeria to Angola to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) meeting.

Thereafter, I will be travelling personally to Angola to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Union. So, before he sees me, it will probably take another nine days. So, I needed to inform him, he said.

No crisis at Senate

Mr Akpabio said all senators are united and that there is no internal crisis in the upper chamber.

He said the rancour that had been reported so far since the beginning of the 10th Senate was in the interest of the country.

The Senate president assured that his leadership will ensure that rancour in the Senate will not aggravate to the point where lawmakers will be throwing chairs at each other.

In the parliament, sometimes you disagree to agree. We are all working in one accord. There is no problem at all. Even if some people disagree with some of the happenings in the Senate, still, it is only the majority decision that is going to prevail and parliament is like that.

But we will never get to the point of throwing chairs. We will never get to that point. The Senate is too mature, full of mature people. So, if we have a disagreement, we immediately go into a closed session, resolve it and come out smiling.

We are politicians, no permanent hatred but permanent interest. That interest is in the interest of the nation, to support the president, support his administration in legislation, oversights functions to succeed, in order to move the country forward and that is what we have been doing and that is what we are committed to doing, he said.

Pandemonium broke out at the plenary on Tuesday after the Chief Whip of the Senate, Ali Ndume, complained that the legislative proceedings being led by Mr Akpabio were not always in conformity with the Senate rules and regulations.

The senate president immediately interjected and ruled the chief whip out of order. The action made Mr Ndume angrily leave the Senate chamber for his office.

READ ALSO: Outrage at Senate over proceedings as senator storms out of chamber

However, the chief whip later explained in a media interview that he left the chamber to pray.

Last week, Mr Ndume and Mohammed Onawo (PDP, Nasarawa) also complained during plenary that the senate president was ambushing the upper chamber to hastily pass bills without following due process.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. One of the requirements of the Alat Free Economic Zone (FEZ) for conducting business is that companies produce products with high added value for export, Valeh Alasgarov, chairman of the board of the Alat FEZ, told reporters, Trend reports.

"Our most important requirement is that the products meet international standards. After all, 75 percent of products manufactured in Alat FEZ are exported to foreign markets," he said.

The total area of Alat FEZ is 850 hectares. Within the land plots with a total area of 297,000 square meters, there are connection points to water supply, sewerage, electricity, gas, and communication networks. The internal and external engineering and communication infrastructure have also been created here. Customs checkpoints and premises for customs inspection have been built at the main entrance to the territory.
Kano State Chief Judge, Dije Aboki, on Wednesday, granted pardon to 13 inmates from three correctional facilities.

The pardoned inmates include some from a childrens remand home in the state.

Mrs Aboki freed the inmates when she led other judges, magistrates, police prosecutors, other lawyers and court officials on a two-day visit to the correctional facilities  Goron Dutse, Kurmawa, and Children Remand Home.

The spokesperson for the states judiciary, Baba Jibo, in a statement late Wednesday, said the Chief Judges decision was backed by sections 1 and 2 of the Release From Custody (Special Provisions Act) 1977.

He said all the 13 inmates had their cases reviewed during the visit by the Chief Judge before they were set free.

He said the decision was also an effort to decongest the correctional facilities filled up by those on awaiting trials and inmates who committed minor offences.

The law permits her to consider inmates who have overstayed in the facility without their case being mentioned, those who are sick and the older person (s).

With the two-day visit, the Chief Judge of Kano State, Deji Aboki has released 13 inmates who have committed various minor offences. She also directed magistrates to grant bail to other detainees or give them an accelerated hearing, Mr Jibo said.

In the statement, Mr Jibo identified one of the freed inmates as Sabiu Miko, who narrated how he was arrested and remanded in the correctional facility in the last two years following an accusation of tricycle theft.

Mr Miko said he confessed to the crime in the police facility under duress.

Subsequently, I randomly fingered one other person I claimed to have sold the tricycle to him after the police investigators compelled me and took me out to identify my accomplice, Mr Miko said in a voice recording shared with our reporter by the judiciarys spokesperson.

He commended the chief judge for her kind gesture for freeing him from the prison.

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In a bid to woo Obidients ahead of the 11 November governorship election, Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State says Obidient Movement is a patriot crusade for good leadership in Nigeria.

Mr Uzodinma stated this on Sunday when some youths under the aegis of Imo Obidients Youths endorsed him in Owerri for the election in the state.

Obidient Movement is a patriot movement. Obidient Movement is not about any political party. Obidient Movement is about good leadership. Obidient Movement is about the future and interest of Nigeria, Mr Uzodinma told the youths.

Obidients is a popular name for supporters of Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general election.

The term Obidients was coined from the surname of the LP presidential candidate, Obi.

Obidients Movement is often used to describe the activities of the group, which have been critical of President Bola Tinubu and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Joining hands with Obidients

Governor Uzodinma, a member of the APC, is seeking reelection.

The governor, who uploaded a video clip of the endorsement on his Facebook page, told the youths that he would like to identify with them wholly and entirely.

I assure you that I will join hands with you in driving home the realisation of your aspiration to bring an Imo State that will recognise the youth population; An Imo State that will have a clear-cut direction; An Imo State that will have a development plan. The strength of Imo youths becomes the strength of Imo State, he said.

Leader of the youths, Mandela Emeka, told the governor that the youths had resolved to vote for him in the election because they found him worthy to lead the state better than other candidates taking part in the exercise.

It is not clear, for now, if the youths are members of the LP, which is fielding Athan Achonu as its governorship candidate in the election.

Theyre only strong on social media

Mr Uzodinma, in July 2022, ahead of the 2023 general elections, had mocked the LP supporters otherwise known as Obidients by describing them as a party that was only strong on social media.

This opposition that is only strong on social media with no political structure on the ground, you are listening to them? the governor said during a meeting with APC members in the state.

Although he did not mention names, the comment was apparently being directed to the LP supporters at that time.

The LP, Mr Obis party, had been criticised for being popular on social media, but lacked political structure before the 2023 elections. The party, however, pulled some surprise victories across the country, including winning the governorship election in Abia State.

Background

Mr Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, enjoyed swelling support during the 2023 elections, especially in Nigerias South-east.

Although he did not win the presidential election, his party, the LP, won several elections in the country for the first time in the history of the party.

The victories recorded by the LP across the state and some parts of Nigeria have been linked to Mr Obis effect.

In Enugu State, for instance, the LP won seven of the eight House of Representatives seats in the state. The party also won one of the two senatorial elections in the state.

During the 2023 general elections, several opposition parties mainly in the South-east, attempted to import the term obedient in their campaign messages, apparently to woo supporters of the LP.

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The House of Representatives Committee on University Education has called for salary increment for primary, secondary and university teachers.

It said the teachers should earn N250,000, N500,000 and N1 million respectively as monthly renumeration.

Chairman of the committee, Abubakar Fulata, stated this while was speaking at a One-Day National Stakeholders Workshop on the Development of a Roadmap for the Nigerian Education Sector (2023-2027), in Abuja on Thursday.

Mr Fulata said that it is important for Nigerian teachers to be more encouraged by paying them adequately to teach the children.

He also stressed the need to translate all subject textbooks into local languages so as to catch up with the world.

According to him, efforts have been made by past administrations as regards the countrys education but those efforts had not yielded the desired results.

It is a thing of concern that from decades, several efforts on policies made by successive government to resuscitate and improve the education sector and those efforts have continued to create very little progress.

All over the world, the subject of language of instruction has always been local language of those countries. If you go to the UK, education is taught in English, if you go to France, education from the basic level up to the tertiary level is taught in French.

It is in Nigeria that you teach language of instruction in English. Our problem has always been that we are teaching our children subjects they ought to have been taught in their local language.

All Mathematical, Physics, Chemistry textbook and what have you should be in our local languages. There is no way we can catch up with the world if we continue teaching our children in a foreign language.

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No primary school teacher should earn less than N250,000 in a month, no secondary school teacher should earn less than N500,000 and no university teacher should warn less than 1 million in a month.

The nation must declare a state of emergency in education. We must commit at least 25 per cent to 30 per cent of our national budget to education.

It is high time we pay them adequately so that they can teach our children, he said.

The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, said the ministry has great policies on papers but they are not meeting the needs of the people.

Mr Mamman, a professor, explained that the countrys education does not translate to the needs of the society, hence the need to critically have a roadmap that would translate to development.

He added that those roadmaps must however be implemented within the shortest timeline.

President Bola Tinubu has charged the ministry to do all it can to reposition the sector.

We have problems that has been militating the visions, missions and objectives on ground. We have great and fantastic policies but the issue is that our people are not seeing our problems addressed.

We have institutions churning out graduates who are not employable and we cannot go on like this forever.

So, in line with our Presidents mandate, we must have a roadmap to guide the implementation of how to take the sector forward.

The idea of the conference is to have a whole lot of time for implementation of our policies, he said.

He charged participants to work within limited time so that Nigerians could begin to feel the impacts of the policies made within the timelines.

He pledged to engage state governments on the ministrys crusade to move the sector forward.

In the same vein, the Minister of State for Education, Yusuf Sununu, emphasised the need to recognise gender mainstreaming in the roadmap so that Nigeria will have the benefit of a balanced education system.

Education, you would all agree is one sector of development that Nigerians have been known to speak with one voice in terms of its importance to development.

However, this recognition of its importance is yet to translate to tangible results that show that an educated person stands a better chance of living a fulfilled life.

This disconnect, between purpose and reality, could be said to be responsible for inadequate attention to the sector, wrong perceptions of the relative importance of the different forms and types of education.

Indeed, I must also say that the inability of our youths to gain employment after going through the rigors of academic may be responsible for a gradually building dis-interest in the pursuit of education, he said.

Mr Sununu, however, said this trend must be curtailed to make Nigerian education responsive to everyday realities and beneficial to the individual as well as the nation.

(NAN)

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Senior officials of Nigerias Rural Electrification Agency (REA) are enmeshed in allegations of corruption that threaten the ability of the oft-troubled agency to achieve its purpose of providing electricity to rural communities, PREMIUM TIMES can report.

At the heart of the financial scandal is a cabal that insiders say always tries to control the agencys finances and frustrate any efforts at reform by any chief executive of the agency.

Two anti-corruption agencies, the EFCC and ICPC, are currently probing the alleged embezzlement of public funds to the tune of N1.2 billion among some high-ranking officials of the agency.

Between August and September, the EFCC, ICPC and the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives, in different invitations, interrogated some top officials of the agency.

By speaking to sources and reviewing official documents, PREMIUM TIMES established that suspicious payments totalling about N1.2 billion were found to have been paid to the personal bank accounts of six officials of the agencys finance and accounts department between March and July without justification.

PREMIUM TIMES also understands that some officials in the ongoing saga have returned part of the funds to the ICPCs recovery account. At least five of the officials have been suspended, this newspaper can confirm. and an in-house disciplinary committee has been constituted by the Managing Director of the agency, Ahmad Salihijo, who demanded that anti-graft agencies investigate all officials including himself.

But the man alleged to be at the centre of this fraud, according to sources and documentary evidence reviewed, is the agencys Director of Finance and Accounts (DFA), Abubakar Sambo.

Mr Sambo reportedly colluded with other senior officials at the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) to grant the suspicious payments from the GIFMIS portal supervised by the AGFs office.

During several hearings by the internal investigation team and the anti-graft agencies, according to records reviewed by this newspaper, Mr Sambos name and that of his Personal Assistant, Usman Kwakwa, kept coming up as the one who gave directives for these payments.

While the massive N1.2 billion scandal is still being investigated, Mr Salihijo  under whom the alleged fraud was investigated internally and escalated to anti-graft agencies  and the Executive Director of Corporate Services, Olaniyi Netufo, who chaired the in-house disciplinary committee against the accused, has also been accused of wrongdoings.

The anti-graft agencies have received petitions accusing Messrs Salihijo and Netufo of violating some sections of the code of conduct, this newspaper also found.

A timeline of alleged fraud

On 15 March, Mr Sambo, the finance director, announced the appointment of 10 officials of the department as project accountants. This followed a February meeting with members of the Finance and Accounts department, during which the DFA hinted at the creation of the project accounts for the six geo-political zones of the country, according to sources.

The officials included Laure Abdullahi, Okojie Onome, Umar Karaye, Asuni Aminat, Kwakwa Usman, Pada Titus, Yahaya Bello, Yakeen Nuruddeen, Sunday Echu and Ogunjobi Folusho.

Sources at the agency say Mr Sambo also promised a favourable welfare regime for members of staff of the department even as he warned against leaking official information from the department.

Insiders told this newspaper that appointments as accountants under projects of the agency are not uncommon. What is strange in Mr Sambos appointments, they say, is that there are no named projects where these officials are to serve as accountants.

For the next couple of months, under the guise of the project accountants, six of the officials had their personal bank accounts flooded with amounts between N100 million and N300 million each, according to preliminary investigations by the EFCC and ICPC.

The officials are Laure Abdullahi, Okojie Onome, Umar Karaye, Asuni Aminat, Kwakwa Usman and Pada Titus.

The investigation by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives found the amount to be slightly higher, ranging between N160 million and N400 million to each of their accounts and totalling more than N1.8 billion within the same period, according to documents seen by the newspaper.

The documents also revealed that the funds were sent in tranches of less than N5 million naira at a time and in many instances, multiple times a day.

This, our sources say, is to circumvent the Currency Transaction Report (CTR) rule which mandates commercial banks in Nigeria to report any cash transaction exceeding N5 million for individuals and N10 million for corporate bodies as part of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act (MLPA) 2011.

Mr Sambo, the DFA did not respond to calls, texts and WhatsApp messages sent to his known telephone line requesting comments.

Officials finger DFA

By August, the top officials of the agency allegedly involved in this fraud found themselves facing multiple investigative panels and committees from in-house disciplinary committees to the EFCC, ICPC and the House of Representatives, all of them independently.

This followed a petition written against the agency to its supervising Ministry of Power and a subsequent directive by the ministry that the allegations in the petition be probed by the REA.

Later in September, the agency, through its Director of Corporate Services, Mr Netufo, issued queries to all the individuals allegedly involved in the saga. It also set up an in-house disciplinary committee chaired by Mr Netufo.

Other officials who received queries for these alleged infractions include the procurement officers at the agency.

During the sittings of the committee, all of the officials denied any wrongdoing, insisting they simply followed Mr Sambos directives.

Meanwhile, two officials of the department, Ogunjobi Folusho and Yakeen Nurudeen, both of whom received N1 million each, said they were told it was for their welfare.

They also accused Mr Kwakwa, the DFAs Personal Assistant, of collecting N300,000 cash from them, leaving them with N700,000. Both of them (who were not among the six main beneficiaries) have refunded the money to the ICPCs recovery account, documents seen by this newspaper showed.

In his response to his query, Mr Nurudeen said the DFA asked all the Finance and Accounts staff, including National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) members posted to the department, to provide their respective account numbers to Mr Kwakwa for a welfare package.

When I received the credit alert of N1 million on 19th May, 2023, I asked for the purpose from the (PA), he told me it was on the DFA instruction for staff welfare as promised. Messrs Yahaya Bello, Sunday Uche Odoma, Folusho Ogunjobi and I went to the DFA Office and thanked him for that, Mr Nuruddeen wrote in a reply to the query issued to him, a copy of which this newspaper obtained.

Three days later, (Monday, 22nd May, 2023), the PA in person of Usman Ahmed Kwakwa asked us i.e. Messrs Yahaya Bello, Sunday Uche Odoma, Folusho Ogunjobi and I to refund N300,000.00 (Three Hundred Thousand Naira only ) each in cash. Whilst others agreed and refunded cash, I insisted on transferring the said amount electronically into his bank account.

As of the time of this report, the EFCC and ICPC have not concluded their investigations while the five internally indicted officials remain suspended under Nigerian civil service rules.

Petition against Mr Netufo

As Mr Netufo oversees the internal probe of the other top officials at the REA, petitions have also been raised against him at the EFCC, ICPC, the National Assembly and the Presidency.

One of our sources alleged that the petition against Mr Netufo was sponsored by the officials being investigated for fraud; this could, however, not be ascertained.

In one of the copies of the petitions seen by PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Netufo was accused of actively running a private organisation, NECOL Nigeria Ltd, where he allegedly holds a 40 per cent share.

The petitioners said this is contrary to Section 5 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act which stipulates that a public official shall not, except he is not employed on full-time bases, engage or participate in the management or running of private business, profession or trade.

In the petition, Mr Netufo was also accused of syphoning funds from the agencys accounts through proxies, his personal accounts and the account of NECOL Nigeria Ltd where he allegedly holds a 40 per cent stake.

Mr Netufo has not responded to PREMIUM TIMES request for comments. He asked this reporter to meet him in his office last week but during a brief meeting with the reporter in his office, he said he was going for another urgent meeting. This reporter later sent the questions to Mr Netufos WhatsApp line, and although it showed that the messages were delivered, he has yet to respond to them as of the time of this report.

Petition against Mr Salihijo

Some months ago, an obscure group called the Fight Against Corruption Network (FACN), accused the MD of the REA, Mr Salihijo of awarding a N200 million project under the World Bank-assisted Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP) to En Consulting & Projects Limited, an organisation they claimed Mr Salihijo had a stake in. That allegation and other similar ones led to an investigation of the MD by the EFCC which cleared him of any wrongdoing, our sources said.

However, one other allegation against Mr Salihijo which PREMIUM TIMES has confirmed to be true is that he approves some official transactions via messaging platform, WhatsApp.

In leaked communications seen by this newspaper, Mr Salihijo authorised the DFA to make payments ranging from N500,000 to N1 million to accounts of people believed to be staff of the agency.

For instance, on 22nd June, Mr Salihijo approved the payment of N1 million to Philip Jegede; N1 million to Kehinde Edebiri on 26th June; and N500,000 to Khalifa Ashiru on 27th June.

In one particular conversation, Mr Salihijo approved the payment of N5 million naira to Mr Netufo.

Another controversy that the WhatsApp communication showed was when the embattled DFA suggested to Mr Salihijo that he wanted to give money to anti-corruption officials.

I did suggest to you sir, we should get some money from the capital before It mop up so as to service all these important schedules, including federal Auditors, Inspectors, those that are coming from Oagf to rule and close 2022 capital sir. We cannot imagine how much we may need especially for ICPC and Auditors, Mr Sambo wrote the MD on messaging app WhatsApp on 1st July.

We cannot meet this issue with our overhead of N20 million. You asked me to see EDts, which I did, but later he said that he asked you and you said it should be later. I didnt know if there was a provision somewhere to service all this appointment sir. If we do not 1 still suggest that EDts to provide a platform to utilize and make a provision quickly from the capital which we were told will be shut down by 12 midnight today. Thank you sir and waiting for your further directives.

The chat shows that the MD did not approve that request but did not scold the official either. He later told PREMIUM TIMES that he never understood what the DFA was talking about in the message.

Well, I never approved it. And I didnt even understand what he was saying to be honest, because the entire text wasnt even very understandable. So I didnt even understand what he was saying. So I never approved, he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

Mr Salihijo said the approvals he gave via WhatsApp were to hasten the process of work, adding that there is proper documentation for all the payments approved.

Sometimes due to work exigencies of work, you can make or give some instructions via WhatsApp. But every instruction is backed up by official documents, which are all available.

So, these are some times to make things happen fasterbut then everything is backed up by official documents, he said.

Speaking about the alleged N200 million contract to En Consulting, Mr Salihijo said while he was an employee of the organisation before joining the REA, he never had a stake in the organisation.

He also said contrary to the allegations, the REA did not award any contract to the company.

He said: That contract was never awarded, and I dont have any interest in En Consulting. If you look through my CV, you can see in my employment history that Ive worked there before, but I dont have any interest in the company. And REA never awarded any contract to the company. Yes, there were just negotiations, I think, that happened but the contract was never signed, and there was never work that was done.

History of a Troubled Agency

The REA, an agency established in 2006 under the Ministry of Power and saddled with the responsibility of providing Nigerians in rural communities with adequate access to electricity, is not new to controversy. The agency has repeatedly found itself riddled with controversies around corruption and power tussles.

For about two years  from 2009 to 2012 , the agency found itself in limbo following former President Umaru YarAduas attempt to scrap it over a N5 billion fraud allegedly perpetrated by some federal lawmakers and officials of the agency.

Also, the last two Managing Directors (MD) of the organisation were kicked out amidst allegations of corruption and what insiders described as an intense power play.

Kenneth Achugbu served as the agencys MD from 2012 to 2016, a tenure riddled with corruption allegations and a brief suspension from office in 2014.

In 2017, former President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Damilola Ogunbiyi as the first female head of the agency. She served from 2017 until 2019 when the then Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, fired her even though she had tendered a resignation letter months earlier. Mr Buhari would later reverse the sack and accept her resignation about a year later. Mr Mamman himself was later fired in what was described as a cabinet restructuring and is now under the EFCC radar over an alleged N22 billion fraud.

According to some officials of the agency, Ms Ogunbiyi was frustrated out of that office by a cabal that has always held sway at the agency and ensures they label false accusations against any MD that tries to reform the place.

Ms Ogunbiyi left the REA to take up a respected role at the United Nations where she currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy for All, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, and Co-Chair of UN-Energy.

In January 2020, former President Buhari approved the appointment of Mr Salihijo, a mid-level civil servant, as the MD of the agency.

Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe

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Kehinde Ugbede, once a prosperous banker, was living a life filled with dreams, until a grim diagnosis shattered her world in February 2018, just two months after her wedding.

The life of 47-year-old Mrs Ugbede took an unexpected turn when she began experiencing unusual symptoms. At first, she assumed it was due to pregnancy, with hopes of starting a family. However, a visit to Kubwa General Hospital changed her life forever when the doctor said she had Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).

Mrs Ugbede said her journey of surviving kidney disease has exposed her to the harsh reality faced by many kidney patients in Nigeria  a country where the cost of treatment is often an insurmountable burden.

Narrating her ordeal to PREMIUM TIMES, she said her search for treatment first led her to the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, where she endured two months of discomfort and suffering.

She said the conditions at the hospital were very unbearable, prompting her to explore alternative options.

I was in the same room with many other patients like those with chronic AIDs, end-stage cancer, amongst others, and I thought my end had come, she said.

A friend of mine advised me to go to Zenith Medical & Kidney Centre at Gudu, Abuja, and I have been on treatment there for the past five years.

Dialysis struggle

Dialysis is a medical procedure that serves as a treatment to temporarily or sometimes permanently take over the function of the kidney by removing waste products, toxins, or excess electrolytes from the blood, as well as removing excess water.

A typical dialysis session will be required at least two or three times a week for 3-5 hours at a designated dialysis centre.

Mrs Ugbede said she has been undergoing dialysis three times a week for the past five years.

However, this lifesaving procedure comes at a heavy financial cost. Each session of dialysis amounts to a staggering N48,600, putting immense pressure on her already strained finances.

I have been undergoing dialysis three times a week for the past five years and each session, I spend N48,600. I have to reduce it to twice a week because I can no longer keep up, she said.

Cry for help

Mrs Ugbedes journey has not been without its moments of hope. In 2019, her twin brother generously agreed to be her kidney donor, but her health was too unstable to proceed with the transplant.

She said her family poured their savings into improving her health, and the transplant had to be put on hold.

The burden of this kidney disease has weighed heavily on me and my family, both emotionally and financially, she said.

She, however, said her family cannot afford to support the kidney transplant and secure post-transplant care, which requires approximately N20 million.

She said: Any little money I see is for dialysis and I have not been able to save for the kidney transplant. About N20 million is required to carry out the kidney transplant and post-transplant care.

Please I beg all well-meaning Nigerians to come to my aid and help me carry out the kidney transplant. Any amount will be appreciated.

Kidney Disease

Chronic kidney disease is a progressive condition that reduces kidney function, that is its ability to filter waste from the blood. Kidney disease often has no symptoms in its early stages and can easily go undetected in most people until it is in its advanced stages.

In its advanced stage, an individual can develop kidney failure and require dialysis or a kidney transplant to live. At this stage, a CKD patient is said to lose 85-90 per cent of their kidney function; not enough to keep the person alive, without medical intervention.

Without the kidneys playing their vital role, substances that should otherwise be filtered, build up in the body. This makes the person severely ill.

Patients suffering from kidney diseases usually exhibit symptoms such as frequent or infrequent urination; shortness of breath, swelling in feet and ankles, muscle cramps, nausea and vomiting. Once these symptoms have been observed, there is a need for dialysis or a kidney transplant to live.

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The Ondo State House of Assembly says it will consider a political solution to its dispute with Deputy Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa if he withdraws his cases against the assembly at the courts.

Mr Aiyedatiwa filed the cases at the federal and state high courts last month after the lawmakers began proceedings for his removal from office over allegations of gross misconduct.

The development is heavily linked to a rift between Mr Aiyedatiwa and associates of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, who last month returned from a three-month medical leave in Germany.

Since his return, Mr Akeredolu has not set foot in the state, fueling concerns that he has not recovered from his ailment enough to resume governance of the state.

The new position of the lawmakers followed the intervention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) which set up a reconciliation committee on the crisis in its Ondo State chapter. The committee is headed by former Katsina governor, Aminu Masari.

The Assembly had suspended the proceedings after the Chief Judge of Ondo State, Olusegun Odusola, declined its request to set up a seven=member panel to investigate the allegations made by the lawmakers against Mr Aiyedatiwa,

Mr Odusola said his decision was informed by an order of the Federal High Court restraining him from acting on the matter pending the determination of Mr Aiyedatiwas suit before the court.

The state high court in Akure had thrown out a similar suit filed by Mr Aiyedatiwa but the deputy governor has served a notice of appeal against the ruling of the court.

The APC reconciliation committee met with the parties to the crisis in Abuja on Tuesday.

In a statement on Wednesday, the House said the parties had agreed to consider a political solution to the crisis.

At a meeting held in the APCs National Secretariat in Abuja on 17th October, 2023 at the instance of the National Chairman of the Party, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the National Reconciliation Committee set up by the Party under the Chairmanship of RT. Hon. Aminu Bello Masari, members of the APC in Ondo State House of Assembly, led by the Speaker Rt. Hon. Olamide Oladiji, and the Ondo State leadership of APC led by Engr Ade Adetimehin, all agreed that a political solution to the impeachment was possible and proper, the spokesperson of the House, Olatunji Oshati, said in the statement.

The Hon. Speaker restated that the House was only exercising its responsibility under S.188 of the 1999 Constitution, having received a petition accusing the Deputy Governor of some allegations of gross misconduct and abuse of office.

He, however, expressed the desire of the House leadership to further consult with members of the House cutting across party lines, on the political solution as proposed by the APC.

The House therefore hopes that in the same spirit of genuine wish for a political solution, the Deputy-Governor would take immediate steps to withdraw the multiple court cases he filed over the same impeachment.

This would allow the stakeholders to freely discuss the settlement proposals and prevent actions or comments over a matter that is still subjudice.

While the APC is battling to reconcile Mr Aiyedatiwa with his boss and party leaders loyal to the governor, calls have been made for the resignation of Mr Akeredolu over his continued absence in the state, despite having officially resumed duties after his return from Germany.

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party on Monday said the police barricaded its state secretariat over a protest organised by its youth wing to demand the resignation of Mr Akeredolu over his unavailability in the state.

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The police in Enugu State South-east Nigeria, have vowed to punish officers who allegedly extorted N100,000 from a traveller in the state.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported how the officers allegedly extorted the traveller, Ejike Uchenna, on Monday morning along Nsukka-Ugwogo-Enugu Road.

The victim, Mr Uchenna, in a series of posts on his X handle (formerly known as Twitter) on Monday afternoon, had narrated how the officers allegedly seized his mobile phones and forced him to pay them N100,000 for being in possession of a laptop and two SIM cards in the state.

He said the officers told him that being in possession of multiple SIM cards in Enugu State was illegal.

But an Enugu-based lawyer, Olu Omotayo told PREMIUM TIMES that there was no law in the state and Nigeria in general prohibiting residents from possessing multiple SIM cards.

Mr Omotayo, who is the president of Civil Rights Realisation and Advancement Network, said the claim by the police officers was wrong.

There is no such law in the state or country. Even if there is going to be such a law, it should have been a national law because the issue of telecommunication is regulated by the NCC. No state has the power to enact any law in that regard, the lawyer said.

Police speak

Reacting in a post on his X handle on Wednesday night, the police spokesperson in Enugu State, Daniel Ndukwe, said he had spoken with the victim and obtained actionable details of the incident.

Ive also duly informed the Enugu State police commissioner who expressed disgust over the act and has directed that the police officers involved be fished out and dealt with accordingly, said Mr Ndukwe, a deputy superintendent of police.

The police spokesperson assured that the needful will be done because acts of this nature are never condoned by the police.

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The Social Democratic Party (SDP) has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of sponsoring thugs to disrupt its rally at Ejule-Kogi in the Ofu Local Government Area of Kogi.

Faruk Adejoh-Audu, the Director, Communications, Muri/Sam SDP Gubernatorial Campaign Council, made the accusation in a statement in Lokoja.

At about 9:30 a.m., about two hours before the rally was scheduled to commence, thugs invaded the St. Matthew Primary School venue and destroyed canopies, public address systems, chairs and the podium arranged for the event.

But SDP leaders in the locality, led by Elder Obolo, Rabi Emaiku and Gambo Haruna, encouraged supporters to ignore the intimidation and still show up for the rally.

The moment supporters began trooping to the rally ground, a group led by a motorcade again, unleashed thugs, this time shooting sporadically.

Several persons were injured in the course of the mayhem, while the thugs equally destroyed several vehicles they identified as belonging to SDP supporters, he said.

He added: This is the second time that an SDP rally will be attacked by identified aides of an opposition party.

The SDP campaign director alleged that a similar attack was carried out at an SDP rally in Koton Karfe on 29 September.

APC reacts

Reacting, Kingsley Fanwo, the spokesperson for APC Campaign Council, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lokoja that the allegations were untrue as the party had no hand in the attacks.

We are not ready to join issues with SDP because doing so is glorifying them; we wont be dragged into their frivolities, gasping lies and lack of direction.

As a government, our concern and responsibility is to create an enabling environment for all to pursue their normal businesses.

We are a government and our priority is to protect all the people of Kogi irrespective of political leanings, he said.

(NAN)

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A school proprietor in Delta State, South-south Nigeria, has allegedly raped a four-year-old girl in his school.

The school, Great Leaders International School, runs preschool, pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, primary and junior secondary programmes.

The suspect has been identified as Innocent Onwuegbule. He is also the principal of the junior secondary section of the school.

A human rights activist, Harrison Gwamnishu, in a post on his Facebook page on Wednesday, said the suspect had been arrested by the police and detained at Agbor Police Area Command in the state.

How it happened

Mr Gwamnishu said the suspect allegedly took the victim inside a toilet in the school where he used scissors to cut her private part, injected an unknown substance on her buttock and then raped her.

Then, as she (the girl) reach house, the girl dey urinate blood. Her mama come check am and see say her small pikin private part don become something else, he narrated in Pidgin English.

The activist said the incident happened on 4 October at Agbor, a community in Ika South Local Government Area of the state.

He uploaded a video clip on the Facebook page which showed the victims mother corroborating his claim.

In the clip seen by PREMIUM TIMES, a woman, who introduced herself as the victims mother without mentioning her name, said she was being pressured to settle the matter with the suspect.

But I need justice because the way the matter take be now, dem dey look me like say I no get money (and) there is nobody to talk for me.

So, thats why they are doing all those things, she said in a mixture of Pidgin and English languages, apparently referring to the school authorities.

Her face was blurred in the clip to protect her identity.

In the clip, Mr Gwamnishu, the activist was heard interacting with the victim whose face was completely hidden.

The victim was heard saying that the principal cut me with scissors while both of them were inside the toilet.

The activist called on the police and the Ministry of Education in the state to intervene in the matter.

Police react

The police spokesperson in Delta State, Bright Edafe, confirmed the incident in a post on his X handle on Thursday.

Mr Edafe, a deputy superintendent of police, said the Agbor area commander told him on the telephone that the incident happened two weeks ago.

The police spokesperson added that the case was being handled by the area command. He assured that justice would prevail.

However, we should avoid settlement because these days parents especially from rural areas go behind the police and collect money from suspects, thereby making prosecution difficult, he said in the post.

The commissioner of police (in Delta State) has directed the area commander to charge this case to court. They are presently in court as we speak, Mr Edafe said in another post on the microblogging platform, minutes later.

Some video clips circulating on social media indicate that the suspect was arraigned on Thursday morning.

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 a maximum of 14-year jail term, depending on the age of the offender and the type of violence committed.

Several persons have been convicted by various courts of 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 House of Representatives has asked President Bola Tinubu to fill the vacancies in the Supreme Court by appointing 10 new justices.

The lower chamber made the call on Thursday following a motion of urgent public importance moved by Patrick Umoh (PDP, Akwa-Ibom) during plenary.

Section 230(2) of the 1999 constitution provides that The Supreme Court of Nigeria shall consist of the Chief Justice of Nigeria; and such number of Justices of the Supreme Court, not exceeding twenty-one, as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly.

In the motion, Mr Umoh informed his colleagues that the number of justices of the Supreme Court has dropped to an all-time low of 11 justices.

He said the court is already overburdened beyond its capacity due to the vacancies and urged the government to fill the vacancies.

Mr Umoh said because of the vacancies, it is almost impossible to get a hearing date at the Supreme Court.

He added that it could take a minimum of 12 months for an applicant to get a date at the court except in electoral matters.

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Supreme Courts docket is full for the year 2023 as parties cannot have hearing dates for matters filed within the year, except in election petitions, owing to a considerable volume of matters pending before the court.

The non-appointment of new justices to the Supreme Court has stalled expeditious, effective and efficient justice delivery; impeded transactions and economic development; limited citizens access to justice; put the current Justices of the court under immense mental and physical pressure; and has affected the policy-making function of the court, he said.

Speaking on the motion, the presiding officer, Deputy Speaker Ben Kalu, said it is expedient for the president to fill the vacancies.

Members voted to adopt the motion when Mr Kalu put it to vote.

The Committee on Justice was asked to ensure compliance.

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The House of Representatives has asked the federal government and other sub-national governments to ban the use of a popular children textbook, Queen Primer in schools across the country.

The lawmakers asked the federal, state and local governments to ban the book because it contains words like gay, eros and others considered to be offensive.

The call for the ban followed the adoption of a motion moved by Sulaiman Gumi (PDP, Zamfara) on Thursday during plenary.

Moving the motion, Mr Gumi said that there is a covert attempt to slip books with immoral culture into primary and secondary schools in Nigeria.

He said, Queen Primer subtly introduces terms like gay, eros, etc, that communize sexual perversion and immoral behaviours, thus exposing innocent children to terms inappropriate for their age, which is unlawful, unethical, highly immoral and antithetical to child upbringing.

The lawmaker said the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) has the statutory responsibility to vet educational material.

Mr Gumi said there is a need to instil and protect moral values in children and society at large by resisting the use of educational materials that teach or promote any form of alien behaviour which violates the laws and moral values in all educational institutions.

Speaking in support of the motion, Bello El-Rufai (APC, Kaduna) said he had to withdraw his daughter from a primary school in Abuja for using the book.

Mr El-Rufai, who claimed to speak for the young people, said there is a subtle attempt to catch young people young through the books.

There is an Act and the terms are clear. I will get personal and tell you that I moved my daughter from a school, whose name I will not mention for obvious reasons, and i found out that for nursery school, they thought it was okay for that book to be shared.

I studied in America for a long time, and one thing that kept me grounded is because of our culture. When we were there, we respected their culture and their ways. The only thing we say is when you are here, you do the same, Mr El-Rufai said.

The Deputy Speaker, Ben Kalu, who presided over the plenary session, in his contribution, said the parliament has a responsibility to protect Nigerians and future generations.

As an arm of government, we owe this nation this protection, especially this coming generation, Mr Kalu said.

In his contribution, Isaka Ibrahim (APC, Ogun), blamed the moral decadence facing the country on the forceful collection of schools from the missionaries.

We started missing it right from when schools were seized from the missionary. Moral decadence is on the high side and needs urgent intervention, he said.

Following the debate, the House resolved to urge federal, state and local governments to place a total ban on the local production, importation and use of any educational material that contains such words that teach or promote Lesbianism, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) in schools throughout the country.

It also urged the Federal Ministry of Education, the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council and the Education Research Council (ERC) to carefully vet and censor the contents of educational materials used in Nursery and Primary schools in the country and ensure that they are appropriate and devoid of any connotation of pervasive culture.

The House mandated the Committee on Basic Education to ensure compliance.

Prioritising childrens books as Nigerians grapple with insecurity, worsening economy

While Nigerians are grappling with crippling insecurity across the country and economic challenges like rising cost of living, weakened Naira and inflation, Nigerian lawmakers devoted substantial time to discussing the motion.

Also, there are millions of children out of school, and the government has not been able to address the problem of these out-of-school children estimated at over 13.5 million.

Nigerian lawmakers are often fixated on anti-LGBTQ legislation. In 2013, the two chambers passed the anti-gay legislation which says anyone convicted of getting involved in a gay relationship or entering into a same-sex marriage contract or civil union faces up to 14 years in jail.

In the last Assembly, the House also introduced a bill that sought to criminalise cross-dressing in Nigeria.

Some weeks ago, the Kano State Films and Censorship Board also confiscated over one thousand copies of Queen Primer.



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The Ondo State House of Asembly has rejected a call by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the removal of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu from office.

The PDP says the governor is violating the constitution by refusing to resign while being incapacitated by illness.

Mr Akeredolu has been secluded in his residence in Ibadan since he returned last month from a three-month medical leave in Germany.

The youth wing of the opposition party on Monday organised a protest to call on him to return to the state or resign.

The party on Thursday urged the lawmakers, who just suspended a move to remove Deputy Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa following the intervention of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to instead remove the governor.

But the House of Assembly has rejected the call, saying the PDP is incompetent to offer advice on how to govern a state.

The PDP had said due to the incapacitation of the governor, the state has been on auto-pilot.

It is no longer news that Ondo State has been on auto-pilot for nearly six months, grounding all activities of the government due to the ill health of the Governor, the spokesperson of the PDP, Kennedy Peretei, said in a statement on Thursday.

Unfortunately, rather than tell the citizens the truth, most of Akeredolus handlers have resorted to insulting the sensibilities of the people by making a public show of their ignorance. The handling of Akeredolus condition by his aides has robbed the Governor of public sympathy.

The Constitution envisaged that, it is possible for a State Governor to be ill or incapacitated as it is the case with Akeredolu now and therefore made safeguards.

Section 193(2) states expressly that the Governor of a state shall hold regular meetings with the Deputy Governor and all Commissioners of the Government of the State for the purposes of determining the general direction of policies of the state amongst other provisions.

When was the last time Akeredolu held a State Executive Council meeting?

It is not a crime to be ill, but that will not be reason an entire state must be brought to her knees.

Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) Ondo State Chapter calls on the State Assembly to invoke sections 189(1) to cause a Medical Panel to be instituted to ascertain Akeredolus medical status and do the needful in the interest of the people of the state.

Our party wishes to urge the Governors aides to stop ridiculing themselves by defending the indefensible and standing logic on its head.

But the Majority Leader of the Assembly, Oluwole Ogunmolasuyi, urged the people to ignore the PDP because it allegedly does not know the duties of a governor

He said Governor Akeredolu has been performing his duties and has not breached any aspect of the constitution.

Mr Ogunmolasuyi said the Assembly has noted ongoing developmental projects across the state, including prompt payment of salaries and clearing of backlog of salary arrears.

He said the PDP is not in position to know whether the State Executive Council was meeting or not.

The Governor is doing his duties. Everything is going on well in the state. We have met with the governor and all those that want to meet with him, Mr Ogunmolasuyi said.

If the governor is not doing what he supposed to do, we will question him. He has signed all bills brought before him. What we know is that the PDP is a dead party. They cannot stipulate the duties of a Governor.

The Federal High Court in Abuja restrained the lawmakers from removing the deputy governor, Mr Aiyedatiwa, for alleged gross misconduct.

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Mr Akeredolu has not been to the state since he arrived from his medical leave over a month ago.

His aide, Doyin Odebowale, said a lack of adequate accommodation was responsible for the governor choosing to stay in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

He said the governors residence in Alagbaka, Akure is not conducive for the government, especially with his ill health.

Mr Akeredolu, who was reelected to a second term in October 2020, has over a year left in office.

A succession struggle among his officials and associates is believed to be behind the attempt to remove Mr Aiyedatiwa whom they accused of disloyalty to the governor.

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The Nigerian Minister of State for Education, Yusuf Sununu, has stressed the need for gender mainstreaming to foster a more inclusive and balanced education sector in the country.

Mr Sununu said this on Thursday in Abuja, Nigerias Federal Capital Territory (FCT) at a one-day national stakeholders workshops on the development of a roadmap for the nations education sector.

The minister said achieving gender mainstreaming in the education sector will significantly address the growing concern for the nations development. He highlighted the urgent need for revitalising education in Nigeria.

He said: It is also important that we recognise the need for gender mainstreaming in the roadmap that would result from our interaction so that Nigeria would have the benefit of a balanced education system.

Education roadmap

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported the setting up and inauguration of an eight-man committee by the substantive education minister, Tahir Mamman, a professor, to develop a roadmap for the countrys education sector to address the identified challenges.

In his address at the forum, Mr Sununu said the importance of education for development in Nigeria is widely acknowledged, but that the recognition has not translated into tangible results that demonstrate that educated individuals have a better chance of living fulfilled lives.

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He highlighted the challenges faced by the Nigerian youth and how these challenges are interconnected with the future of education in the country.

The minister of state said: The disconnect between purpose and reality could be responsible for inadequate attention to the sector and wrong perceptions of the relative importance of the different forms and types of education.

The inability of the youths to gain employment after going through the rigours of academics may be responsible for a gradually building disinterest in the pursuit of education.

Deliverables

The Nigerian government had announced that there are set deliverables for each of the ministries, departments and agencies of the government to meet with key performance indicators to be used for their assessments beginning from 2024.

Speaking on the expectations of his ministry, Mr Sununu said the roadmap is equally pertinent, noting that it must align with the 23 deliverables assigned to the education ministry in the eight-point agenda of President Bola Tinubu.

He said the roadmap is important because of the deliverables form in the Ministerial Performance Bond, which will be signed by the ministers and the Permanent Secretary in a retreat coming up in few weeks.

Mr Sununu commended the support of the development partners, adding that we would be counting on more of such support in these times.

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Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo; former Chairman of the Governing Council of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Yemi Ogunbiyi; former Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Peter Okebukola; Vice-Chancellor of University of Ibadan (UI), Kayode Adebowale, and former Vice-Chancellor of University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, Rahman Bello, were among dignitaries who on Wednesday celebrated the legacies of Africas first Professor of Geography, Akinlawon Mabogunje.

Mr Mabogunje, father of the incumbent UNILAG Vice-Chancellor, Folasade Ogunsola, was a friend and an associate of Mr Obasanjo.

He was celebrated for what many of his old students, mentees, associates and scholars described as his huge interventions in the urbanisation drive in Africa.

To celebrate Mr Mabogunjes legacies, the dignitaries gathered on Wednesday at the Trenchard Hall of the University of Ibadan where the first memorial lecture in his honour was held.

Mr Obasanjo, whose prerecorded remark was played at the event, was also represented by Mr Okebukola, who spoke glowingly about the late scholar.

He described the Mr Mabogunje as a friend, confidante and a true compatriot who he noted gave his best in service to his community, profession and humanity at large.

Memorial lecture

A professor of Urban Management and Governance at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Faculty of Environmental Science, UNILAG, Taibat Lawanson, was the guest lecturer at the event. She spoke on the theme: Pathways to Sustainable Urbanisation in Africa: Leaning on Akin Mabogunjes Intellectual Legacy.

Ms Lawanson, whose lecture was drawn from the research legacies of the late scholar, decried the consistent failure of stakeholders to engage, adopt and implement research findings and recommendations by academics.

She highlighted some of the many milestone contributions of Mr Mabogunje especially in the development of Abuja as Nigerias Federal Capital Territory, and the Lagos Megacity, his advocacy for land reforms, poverty alleviation, community development and traditional governance as well as industrialisation, among other areas.

She said Mr Mabogunjes book on urbanisation in Nigeria remains as relevant today as it was when it was written 50 years ago.

I dare say that on the face of the earth, there is no student who has passed through a planning programme, a geography programme that has looked at the geography of the world, that has not had that recommended reading, and that is the gift that Professor Mabogunje gave to us: an opportunity for us to think about African urbanisation through a lens of Africa that is not reliant on theories from abroad, she stated

Championing African-centric urbanisation theories

The guest speaker said Mr Mabogunjes contributions to the theoretical landscape of African urbanisation is huge.

She noted that the late scholars dedication to redefining the field challenges disciplinary approaches to understanding the conventional adoption of theories primarily rooted in the global north, which she said frequently fail to capture the complexities of urbanisation in Africa.

A review of his book on Urbanisation in Africa introduces the comparative theory and sophisticated methodology, and yet stresses principles and concepts of economy, location, and specialisation, she said.

According to Ms Lawanson, Mr Mabogunje was primarily recognised as a geographer, saying his intellectual reach extended far beyond the confines of a single discipline.

He championed the importance of multidisciplinarity, urging scholars to transcend disciplinary boundaries and adopt a more holistic approach.

In Maboginjes quest to understand the intricacies of African urbanisation, he advocated mixed-methods analysis, combining historical and quantitative methodologies to gain a comprehensive understanding of the development processes, which included moving beyond economic indicators to place a central focus on the well-being and empowerment of individuals and communities, she said.

Family launches Akin Mabogunje Foundation

The event, which was graced by the management and staff of UNILAG and the universitys College of Medicine, witnessed the presentation of two books in honour of the deceased.

One of the materials presented included the Special issues of Benin Journal of Geography, Planning and Environment, as well as the Mr Mabogunjes last book titled, Egba Palimpsest.

Meanwhile, Mrs Ogunsola, who is the first child of the late professor, also presented a foundation in honour of the late patriarch of the family.

Christened Akin Mabogunje Foundation, Mrs Ogunsola said the initiative is intended to immortalise, preserve and sustain the many intellectual milestones and legacies of their father, Professor Akinlawon Ladipo Mabogunje.

About Mabogunje

Akinlawon Mabogunje died at the age of 91 on August 4, 2022, and was a prominent Nigerian geographer known for his significant contributions to the field and various leadership roles.

He was the first African to become the president of the International Geographical Union, showcasing his global recognition and influence in the field of geography.

In 1999, he achieved another historic milestone by becoming the first African to be elected as a Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences, which highlighted his remarkable contributions to the scientific community.

He authored the book Urbanisation in Nigeria in 1968, where he explored the relationship between urbanisation and state formation.

He argued in his book that urbanisation required specific conditions, including a surplus of food production, a powerful group to control that surplus and maintain peace, and a class of traders or merchants to support specialists.

Mr Mabogunje served as the Chairman of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy.

He held several key positions in various government and academic institutions, including the Western Nigerian Economic Advisory Council, Federal Public Service Review Commission, Nigerian Council for Management Development, and the National Board for Community Banks, among others.

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The Supreme Court has scheduled next Monday, 23 October, to hear three appeals challenging the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court affirming President Bola Tinubus election.

The courts registrar, Zainab Garba, on Thursday, issued the hearing notice seen by PREMIUM TIMES.

The appellants  Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, Labour Partys Peter Obi, and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM)  filed their appeals urging the Supreme Court to nullify the presidential election courts decision which upheld Mr Tinubus victory on 6 September.

A five-member panel of the presidential election court led by Haruna Tsammani had dismissed the petitioners suits on the basis that they failed to substantiate their allegations of electoral fraud against Nigerias electoral commission, INEC, and Mr Tinubu, among other claims.

Background

After weeks of filing and exchanging court papers between Atiku and Mr Tinubu, the apex court has set down the suit for hearing.

At the hearing next week, the Supreme Court will unveil a seven-member team that will adjudicate and determine the case.

In his appeal, Atikus lead lawyer, Chris Uche, anchored the suit on 35 grounds.

Mr Uche, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said the five-member panel of the presidential election court erred in their verdict.

In court filings at the Supreme Court, Mr Uche contended that the PEPCs judgement occasioned grave error and miscarriage of justice in its legal reasoning by upholding Mr Tinubus election as president.

In the document dated 18 September, Mr Uche contended that the presidential election court failed to adequately evaluate his clients evidence before reaching its conclusions.

The lawyer faulted the courts use of disparaging words against Atiku which evinced bias.

In another ground of appeal, Mr Uche told the Supreme Court that the lower courts conclusions did not represent the true picture of the grounds of his petition.

He further contended, among other issues, that the presidential election court erred in law when it failed to nullify the presidential election held on 25 February 2023 on the grounds of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022, when by evidence before the tribunal, INEC conducted the election based on grave and gross misrepresentation contrary to the principles of the Electoral Act 2022, based on the doctrine of legitimate expectation.

Meanwhile, Atiku filed fresh evidence at the Supreme Court concerning the academic records of Mr Tinubu which the former vice president obtained from Chicago State University in the United States.

Although the issue of Mr Tinubus academic records was dismissed by the presidential election court, Atiku intends to breathe fresh life into it since he obtained the documents from the US.

In September, a US court ordered the Chicago State University to release Mr Tinubus academic records to Atiku despite the presidents vehement opposition to the release of his transcripts.

Obis appeal

In Mr Obis appeal at the Supreme Court, his lawyer, Livy Uzoukwu, filed 51 grounds in challenging the presidential election courts judgement.

Mr Uzoukwu, a SAN, argued that PEPC reached the wrong conclusions.

In one of the grounds, Mr Uzoukwu told the Supreme Court that the five-member panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court led by Haruna Tsammani erred in law and thereby reached a wrong conclusion when it dismissed Mr Obis suit.

He faulted the presidential election courts evaluation of Mr Obis evidence. He said the court erroneously ruled that Mr Obis case failed to establish the polling stations where electoral malpractices took place during the February presidential election.

The lawyer also said the lower courts conclusions caused a grave miscarriage of justice when it held that Mr Obi did not identify the specific number of votes he polled at polling units where he accused INEC and Mr Tinubu of suppression of votes.

The appellants lawyer urged the Supreme Court to determine if the presidential election court did not err in law when it based its reasons on the First Schedule of the Electoral Act 2022 to expunge Mr Obis witnesses statements on oath from the courts records.

Some of Mr Obis key witnesses whom the five-member panel of the court dismissed their testimonies were a web engineer, Mpeh Ogar; and a statistician, Eric Uwadiagwu.

Mr Obi and Atiku had filed separate petitions at the PEPC accusing Nigerias electoral umpire, INEC, and Mr Tinubu of electoral malpractices. They contested Mr Tinubus qualification to stand for election and begged the PEPC to set aside the election.

But the court, in its decision, held that they failed to prove their claims of electoral fraud against INEC and the president.

APMs suit

Another political party, APM, lodged the third suit alleging improper nomination of Mr Tinubus running mate and incumbent Vice President Kashim Shettima.

In its appeal at Supreme Supreme, APMs lawyer, ChukwumaMachukwuUme, a SAN, predicated his clients suit on 10 grounds.

Mr Machukwu-Ume, a SAN, prayed the apex court to nullify the presidential election court verdict for its numerous errors in law.

He argued that sections 131 and 142 (1) of the 1991 Constitution are inextricably linked and neither can be confined as a pre-election matter, as these qualifications are conditions precedent to, for being elected into the office of President.

APMs suit was not based solely on nomination, but primarily that President Tinubu contested the presidential election without a lawful running mate.

The party added that the withdrawal of Ibrahim Kabir Masari, a place-holder and the expiry of the 14 days permissible for changing and withdrawing of dead candidates under Section 33 of the Electoral Act 2022, rendered Mr Tinubus election and return, invalid.

Mr Tinubu, INEC and other respondents in the suits have urged the apex court to dismiss the appeals for being un-meritorious.

Mr Tinubus lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, a SAN, said Atiku and Mr Obi failed to prove all their allegations at the PEPC.

He said the court was right in arriving at its decision affirming Mr Tinubus victory.

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Acting chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji, has allayed fears being expressed by some corporate organisations that the resolve of the Service to increase the countrys tax-to-GDP ratio to 18 per cent from 10.86 per cent will lead to increase in taxes.

Adedeji said such resolve would not necessarily lead to increase in taxes or introduction of new taxes as the President Bola Tinubu-led administration is determined to create a wholesome environment for businesses to flourish.

The FIRS chairman had said the agency under his leadership would in the next three years achieve an eight per cent rise in tax-to-GDP ratio to surpass Africas average of 16.5% without stifling investment or economic growth.

The plan had triggered muffled apprehensions among corporate entities that the decision could cause an increase in tax rates or introduction of new ones.

Addressing representatives of top large tax-paying companies during a get-together at Four Points by Sheraton in Lagos on Wednesday, Adedeji said, Our belief, understanding and vision as a revenue-generating agency is not to introduce any new tax as we only want to use data to improve compliance.

A statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Dare Adekanmbi, quoted the FIRS chairman as saying that the invited companies and those willing to voluntarily carry out their tax obligations have nothing to be afraid of.

The FIRS boss stated, Our plan is simple. We want to grow tax revenue and we only want to tax prosperity and not poverty. Therefore, it is not in our interest to kill the trees that bear the fruits. My first love letter to you is to appreciate what you have done. So, you dont have anything to be afraid of.

We will not collect what is not due to us. But we dont want anyone not to pay what is due to us. Fair engagement is our plan. Rest assured that the 18% tax-to-GDP target will not translate to increase in taxes.

If you have been listening to Mr Taiwo Oyedele who is the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, you will have known that part of the mandate of the committee is to reduce the number of taxes, he explained further.

According to Dr Adedeji, the purpose of the engagement with the companies is to factor their inputs into the strategic action plan being mapped out in order to address challenges hampering tax revenue collection. He lauded the invited companies for their high sense of responsibility, urging them to continue to discharge their tax obligation diligently.

He said, I must also commend your commitment to upholding high tax compliance standards and responsible corporate citizenship, which sets you apart as the top taxpayers in Nigeria. This aligns perfectly with our vision of making taxation the pivot of national development through voluntary compliance. Your respective industries play a pivotal role in generating substantial tax revenue for the government and in shaping economic and fiscal stability of the nation.

We are not unmindful of the challenges facing businesses in Nigeria with the ongoing reforms to improve economic performance. These are painful but necessary choices we must make as a nation to attain our full potential, he added.

The chairman, while responding to some of the concerns raised by representatives of the companies such as multiplicity of taxes, duplication of tax oversight on corporate entities, promised to address the issues and concerns.

Some of the companies at the event included Nestle Nigeria Plc, ExxonMobil, Shell, Guinness, Nigerian Breweries Plc, Flour Mills, Dangote Group, MTN, British American Tobacco company, First Bank, Access Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank Plc, KC Gaming Limited (Bet9ja), Airtel, Seplat, BUA Cement, Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas, NNPC Limited and others.

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The Commissioner of Police (CP) in Kogi State, Bethrand Onuoha, has ordered an investigation into the alleged clash between his officers and officers of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in the state.

The commissioner, in a statement issued by the commands spokesman, Williams Ovye-Aya in Lokoja, expressed surprise over the alleged incident.

Mr Bethrand, who condemned the incident, stated that the clash was avoidable since both personnel misunderstood themselves.

It was revealed that the operatives of NDLEA trailed the woman who turned out to be the wife of an Inspector of Police attached to Area Command Lokoja to the car where it was parked in front of Bishop Delisle College opposite the Area Command Office.

The woman was arrested and taken into the NDLEA vehicle with the intention of taking her away. But one of the police personnel on duty at the gate of the area Command Office challenged the NDLEA officials.

But unknown to him, the woman was trailed to the car and equally arrested with a package of substance suspected to be Indian hemp.

Luckily, a senior police officer intervened and brought normalcy while the woman was taken away by the NDLEA operatives without any incident.

The said police officer (an Inspector) is already in custody. He has been defaulted and an orderly room trial has commenced, the CP said.

The police commissioner reiterated the commands unwavering commitment to sustaining the level of synergy between the police and other sister security agencies in the state for optimum results.

He, however, advised all personnel of the command, especially the junior ones, to eschew over-zealousness in the course of their duty to avoid such unwanted infractions.

When contacted, the Kogi NDLEA Commander, Olusegun Adeyeye, confirmed the incident and that the said woman and substance were already in the agencys custody.

The said suspect and the substance are in our custody. Investigations have commenced to enable the law to take its cause, Mr Adeyeye said.

(NAN)

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A Correctional Service officer was on Wednesday night killed when gunmen attacked the Afokang Correctional facility in Calabar, Cross River State.

The spokesperson of the state Command of the Correctional Service, Affanga Etim, made the disclosure while speaking with reporters in Calabar on Thursday.

He, however, debunked claims that the attack was aimed at the Correctional facility.

He said the gunmen only opened fire on the joint security team at the facility and that there was no damage to the facility.

According to him, When they came, they opened fire on the security team who also responded in like manner and in the process, an Assistant Superintendent of Correction was killed.

No inmate escaped or was killed, the attackers didnt get close to the main facility.

As we speak, we have deployed more armed personnel to the facility and everything is under control.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that stray bullets hit a mother and her six-year-old daughter during the attack.

The victims, who were rushed to Naval Hospital in Calabar, were hit in the stomach and hand.

(NAN)

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Another record-breaking year for PPMD Signature Event

DALLAS, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Killian family, of Rockwall, are celebrating a record-breaking fundraising milestone with their annual Sam's Night event , to benefit Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD). The 18th annual fundraiser, held on Thursday, October 12, 2023, raised an impressive sum of over $1,400,000. This fundraising success broke their previous record from last year's event when they raised $1.1 million. Thanks to its generous supporters, Sam's Night has raised $5.6 million since its inception in 2005.

Sam's Night (originally known as Sam's Family Fun Day) was started by the Killian family after their son Sam was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (Duchenne). Duchenne is the most common fatal genetic disorder diagnosed in childhood, affecting approximately one in every 5,000 live male births.

"We continue to be amazed by the support Sam's Night has received over the years and especially this year," said Sam's dad, John Killian. "When Chris Messick helped us start Sam's Family Fun Day 18 years ago, our goal was to build awareness in our community, raise funds to support PPMD's mission, and have some fun with Sam, his friends, and their families. We could never have imagined it would become such a long-standing event that has grown to where it is now, and that growth would not have been possible without the support of our incredible family, friends, and community. We especially couldn't have done it without the help of Stacey Magee and Jennifer Bowlby!"

"We are so grateful to the Killians for the contributions they have made to this community over the years," said Pat Furlong, PPMD's Founding President & CEO. "Not only are their efforts responsible for millions of dollars being raised to support research initiatives, they have provided mentorship, comfort, and support to countless families in the community."

Sponsors of Sam's Night include Clarion Partners, Altus Group, CBRE, Chicago Title, Colliers International, Cushman & Wakefield, Ernst & Young, Houlihan Lokey, JLL, Kessler Collins, Messick Peacock & Associates, MRP Realty, PricewaterhouseCoopers, PGIM, REDA LLC, Stream Realty, Trammell Crow Company, Vinson & Elkins, Wells Fargo, and Willmeng Construction.

There's still time to contribute by visiting SamsNight.org . To learn more about Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, visit www.ParentProjectMD.org.

About Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy

Duchenne is a fatal genetic disorder that slowly robs people of their muscle strength. Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) fights every single battle necessary to end Duchenne.

We demand optimal care standards and ensure every family has access to expert healthcare providers, cutting edge treatments, and a community of support. We invest deeply in treatments for this generation of Duchenne patients and in research that will benefit future generations. Our advocacy efforts have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and won five FDA approvals.

Everything we doand everything we have done since our founding in 1994helps those with Duchenne live longer, stronger lives. We will not rest until we end Duchenne for every single person affected by the disease. Join our fight against Duchenne at EndDuchenne.org . Follow PPMD on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and YouTube .

SOURCE Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD)
Accredify wins top prize of $100,000 at the Supernova Challenge at Expand North Star

The Supernova Challenge is the biggest pitch competition in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia

DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Accredify, a Singapore-based startup and service provider for issuing verifiable documents and information, has emerged as the champion of the 2023 Supernova Challenge at Expand North Star Dubai, the world's largest startup event. The startup received the $100,000 grand prize after an intense final round of pitching against 27 global finalists from 521 entries.

Acrredify wins top prize of $100,000 at the Supernova Challenge at Expand North Star

The Supernova Challenge in partnership with the Dubai Future District Fund, is the region's biggest startup pitch competition, offering $200,000 in total cash prizes. The challenge is a key feature of Expand North Star Dubai, which hosted its biggest edition this year. It attracted over 1800+ startups from over 100 countries to explore the emerging opportunities in Dubai's dynamic, diverse and tech-driven digital economy.

Simon Gordon, Chief Commercial Officer of the winning team, said, "Supernova 2023 has been an incredible experience. It's surreal to win this challenge at Expand North Star. This region, particularly the UAE, has so many great opportunities, and we are excited about using this prize money to expand our presence here."

One of the judges at Supernova, Sharif El-Badawi, CEO of Dubai Future District Fund, commented, "It is encouraging to see a shift towards sustainable solutions that are better for the planet and its people. We witnessed several startups delivering concise yet compelling pitches that could impact our lives. The pitches we witnessed here at the Supernova Challenge are brimming with promise, unique innovations, and inspiring ideas."

An expertly curated list of categories covered the latest trends in tech, inviting startups to showcase innovations that can solve some of our most pressing challenges. These included AI Disruptor, Fintech & Ecommerce Disruptor, Blockchain & Web3 Disruptor, Mobility & Smart Cities Disruptor, Healthtech & Wellness Disruptor, Martech Disruptor, Insurtech Disruptor in partnership with MENA Insuretech, Female Founder Award in partnership with the Sharjah Businesswomen Council, Africa Fast Award presented by GITEX Africa, Asia Fast Award, India Fast Award, and the Top MENA Award. In collaboration with GITEX Impact and Future Urbanism, Expand North Star also awarded the most proficient Sustainability and ESG Disruptor.

Thirteen category winners representing the USA, India, UAE, South Korea, France, UK, Nigeria, Switzerland, China and Bangladesh took home $8,000 each in prize money, while the winner of the Female Founder Award won $10,000.

The Supernova Challenge category winners were:

Sustainability and ESG Disruptor: Zenerate from the USA, a platform providing AI-powered feasibility solutions for real estate development.

AI Disruptor: Knorish, a platform that enables hobbyists, professionals and niche experts to build, launch, market and sell online courses powered by their own knowledge and as an extension of their own brand.

Fintech and E-commerce Disruptor: Appro Technologies from the UAE, a digital platform simplifying retail banking onboarding.

Blockchain and Web3 Disruptor: Verofax from the UAE, a platform enabling real-time consumption data by offering a unique microsite per product.

Mobility and Smart Cities Disruptor: Innocel from France, a company providing clean energy solutions for a net zero future.

Healthtech and Wellness Disruptor: Skia from Korea, a digital surgery guide solution using augmented reality (AR) technology.

Martech Disruptor: Smartzer from the UK is a SaaS platform brands use to make live streams and videos interactive and shoppable to drive sales.

Female Founder Award: Matis from Switzerland , a platform empowering art market stakeholders with accessible and quantifiable tools for art authentication.

Africa Fast Award: Gifty from Nigeria, an app that helps people easily share gift lists with family and friends and avoid duplicating purchases.

Asia Fast Award: Urtopia from China, a company dedicated to revolutionizing urban transportation with its smart, sleek, and stealthy e-bikes.

India Fast Award: EyeROV from India, a marine robotics company providing underwater ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) to various industries.

Insurtech Disruptor: InsureCow from Bangladesh, a platform offering a 360 technology-powered cattle insurance and wellbeing monitoring solution.

Top MENA Award: Jalebi.io from the UAE is the world's first restaurant operating system that helps restaurants save 5% on the cost of every order served.

The Supernova Challenge featured 40 startups selected from the Expand North Star global roadshow, a series of international pitch competitions held by the Dubai World Trade Centre and DCDE to attract startups to Dubai and foster collaborations with digital ecosystems in various countries.

Expand North Star hosted by Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy (DCDE) is the powerhouse startup show of GITEX Global, organized by the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) concluded this week marking its largest-ever edition at its new Dubai Harbour venue.

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About Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC):

A global business facilitator since 1979, Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) is home to region's leading purpose-built convention and exhibition centre. DWTC provides a platform for connecting people, products, innovation and ideas from around the world through a dynamic calendar of international trade exhibitions and its own roster of sector leading mega events. As a designated free zone, complemented by award-winning commercial real estate, DWTC plays an integral role in Dubai and the region's growth story with an estimated total economic output of AED 200 Billion, attracting over 30 Million business visitors to Dubai over the past four decades.

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SOURCE Expand North Star
WASHINGTON and LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Adarga , the British AI leader in information intelligence, and Second Front Systems , the US company that fast-tracks government access to disruptive technology, today announce their strategic partnership. Together they will accelerate the deployment of Adarga's AI-driven information analysis software, Vantage , delivering vital decision advantage to the AUKUS defence ecosystem.

Adarga is a UK-based AI leader specialising in information intelligence.

This partnership with Second Front will enable Adarga to seamlessly deploy mission-critical software to UK, US and Australian defence customers across all security classifications - providing a rapid, secure route to market. This will further build on Adarga's existing deployments across the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and wider AUKUS market.

"This collaboration marks a pivotal moment, not only reinforcing Adarga's strategic expansion to the US and Australian markets, but in expanding our ecosystem of international partners to face shared dangers and better meet our collective national security goals in support of AUKUS pillar two" said Rob Bassett Cross , CEO of Adarga. "I cannot overstate the importance of closer collaboration and the forging of more intimate relationships between our world-leading tech industries and our militaries. Establishing interoperability and adoption of Adarga's cutting-edge AI software capabilities will equip each of our allied nations with the coalition capability to maintain a mutual strategic advantage in a world of increasing geo-strategic threats."

This announcement comes hot on the heels of Adarga and Second Front's participation in AUSA 2023 in Washington, D.C., the annual conference hosted by the Association of the United States Army. The event brings together more than 30,000 attendees from over 80 countries.

"Second Front is elated to be collaborating with Adarga on their continued growth in the UK and to key allies," said Tyler Sweatt , CEO of Second Front. "We are seeing an increased demand for software adoption across alliance frameworks like AUKUS and are excited that Game Warden is positioned to help accelerate that adoption."

Adarga will deploy their Vantage software product onto Game Warden, Second Front's DevSecOps platform. Game Warden is designed for accreditation compliance and enables commercial software companies to configure, secure, and deploy software to government end users in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods.

Adarga Vantage employs advanced AI to help analysts, planners and researchers explore and exploit vast quantities of internal and open-source information, presenting it in a way that can be rapidly interrogated. Supercharging research and analysis, it shoulders the cognitive burden of time-consuming, repetitive tasks related to processing, collecting and reading relevant information - allowing users to dedicate more time to delivering insightful, relevant and reliable analysis to decision-makers. It's proven to enable analysts to work over 20 x faster, using 300% more sources, by automatically extracting, synthesising, summarising and connecting information drawn from millions of sources in over 75 languages.

About Adarga

Adarga is a UK-based AI leader specialising in information intelligence. Its market-defining Vantage software enables public and private sector companies to unlock valuable and often mission-critical insight from the huge volumes of in-house and open-source information at their disposal  extracting and connecting millions of data points in context and presenting them in comprehensible formats. This enables organisations to more rapidly identify threats and opportunities, mitigate risk and gain a competitive edge.

The product is underpinned by a unique combination of natural language processing, machine learning and network science. Adarga is committed to the transparent, responsible and trustworthy development of AI.

Adarga has a dedicated Labs team which is supporting the strategic AI-readiness of defence so organisations can more readily adopt software-driven capabilities for decisive military advantage.

Follow Adarga on LinkedIn here .

About Second Front Systems

Second Front Systems (2F) fast-tracks government access to disruptive, commercially-proven software as a service (SaaS) applications for national security missions. Leading software providersranging from publicly traded defence contractors to startupsand government agencies trust 2F's Game Warden DevSecOps platform and secure cloud hosting environment to accelerate their delivery and harness the cloud revolution at scale. Founded by former U.S. Marines, this public benefit, venture-backed software company is driven by firsthand experience of the dangers outdated technology poses in combat. For more information, visit https://secondfront.com/ where you can also explore "All Quiet on the Second Front," a candid and entertaining podcast discussing defense tech, national security, and government markets hosted by the CEO of Second Front Systems, Tyler Sweatt.

SOURCE Second Front Systems
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The volume of work done on the new power plant in Azerbaijan's Mingachevir has been revealed, Trend reports.

According to Azerenerji, construction of a new power plant with a capacity of 1,280 megawatts built on the territory of Azerbaijan TPP in Mingachevir continues at a rapid pace.

Azerenerji informs that construction work at the power station, the foundation of which was laid in February this year, is carried out by specialized local companies in Azerbaijan, and Italian and Spanish design companies control the construction of the station.

According to Azerenerji, gas turbines and generators produced by Italian company Ansaldo Energia have already been loaded on the ship, sent to Azerbaijan, and will arrive in Baku port tomorrow. As of today, foundation work and the concreting of four gas turbines, generators, and boilers have been completed, and most of the work on the construction of the building for gas pumping equipment, the building of the Digital Control Center, the buildings of the transport zone, and other areas, including work on the steel structures of the station, has been completed.

The work on the modernization of circulation pumps in water cooling systems, including cooling pipelines, as well as the expansion of substations with capacities of 500 and 330 kilovolts is being carried out at a rapid pace.

It is noted that as a result of the connection of the new power plant with a capacity of 1,280 megawatts and the existing seventh and eighth units of the Azerbaijan TPP, the total capacity will amount to 1,880 megawatts. At the same time, the efficiency will increase from 18 to 56 percent. The gas used in the gas turbines of the new 1,280-megawatt power plant will turn water into steam through utilization and will make it possible to produce energy without using additional gas in the steam turbines of the 7th and 8th units of the Azerbaijan TPP. As a result of the connection, 800 million cubic meters of gas per year will be saved.

Azerenerji reports that the construction of the new station, the creation of additional generating capacities, meeting the growing demand for energy, increasing export opportunities, balancing the negative consequences of the integration of renewable energy sources into the energy system, saving natural gas in electricity generation, and opening new jobs in the region are of particular importance.
TUCSON, Ariz., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Aphorio Carter Fund Management Company, LLC ("Aphorio Carter"), the critical infrastructure and data center division of Carter Funds, announced today that it has acquired the Tucson Tech Data Center in Tucson, Arizona for $13M and is planning to spend $8M in improvements to the property. Tucson Tech Data Center is 100% net leased to TECfusions, a data center development and operations entity and energy-efficient microgrid developer and operator. The acquisition marks the fourth data center purchase for Aphorio Carter, an investment management company focused on acquiring high-growth digital and mission-critical infrastructure, data centers, switch sites, and technology-related real estate throughout the U.S.

Tucson Tech Data Center is located 80 miles southeast of Phoenix, AZ, which stands as one of the largest data center markets in the United States. In 2023, rental rates in this region have surged by 30 percent and spaces are being reserved up to two years before their availability.1 The proximity of the Tucson MSA allows operators to leverage the robustness of the Phoenix market, expanding their reach close to this pivotal data center hub.

The Tucson Tech Data Center site includes a data center building situated on 8+ acres with 133,452 square feet currently consisting of 40,792 of raised floor and +/-6.562MW of critical power. Originally built in 1989, with data center phases beginning in 2004, the property has a new 15-year absolute triple net lease with TECfusions.

"The Tucson Tech Data Center is a fantastic addition to our rapidly expanding portfolio due to its ideal location in the southwest and sustainability measures. The property's focus on sustainable data center construction, energy efficiency, and renewable power sources helps lead the data center industry toward sustainability. The demand for technology, digital storage, data transmission, and added capacity at data centers that support our digital-driven world continues to grow rapidly and we are excited about the opportunity and value this data center brings to our portfolio," said John Regan, chief investment officer of Aphorio Carter.

About Aphorio Carter

Aphorio Carter is a Carter Funds company investing in high-quality income-producing mission-critical infrastructure, data centers, switch sites, and high-growth technology-related real estate. Led by an experienced team that has acquired more than 125 data centers across the world, Aphorio Carter specializes in sourcing and managing accretive digital infrastructure real estate and implements systematic support services aimed at adding long-term value on behalf of the investment funds the company manages. Together, the principals of Aphorio Carter have a century of real estate and transaction experience in the digital infrastructure space totaling an excess of $5.3 billion in value. Aphorio Carter targets acquisitions that are net-leased to creditworthy tenants and include wholesale, enterprise, colocation, edge, switch, and cloud data center properties  the critical real estate that powers the digital age.

Media Contact:

Stacy Sheedy

Vice President, Marketing, Carter Funds

[email protected]

813-358-5982

1 CBRE. North American Data Center Trends H1 2023. https://www.cbre.com/insights/local-response/north-america-data-center-trends-h1-2023-phoenix

SOURCE Carter Funds
APRIL Group, Europe's leading wholesale insurance broker, announces the acquisition of Expat & Co, a specialist in international health insurance in Belgium.

LYON, France and PARIS, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Expat & Co is the leading independent underwriter of insurance for expatriates in Belgium and offers a platform of solutions to support its customers made up of universities, individuals and companies, including multinationals based in several European countries.

Through this acquisition, APRIL International strengthens its presence on the European continent in a high-potential market for expatriation and international mobility and enhances its portfolio of solutions and health products.

Already present in Brussels since 2018 with APRIL Belgium, which works closely with a network of several hundred brokers and leading insurance partners to design, distribute and manage provident solutions, APRIL Group is strengthening its position in the Benelux region.

Expat & Co's management will continue and accelerate the company's development with the ambition of offering ever more innovative solutions to its distributors and policyholders.

Expat & Co will benefit from APRIL International's recognised expertise in Europe and throughout the world and from the partnerships forged with market leaders - particularly in telemedicine and healthcare networks. Expat & Co will also draw on APRIL's technological and service base to simplify its customers' international healthcare experience.

Eric Maumy, Chairman of APRIL Group: "IPMI* is one of APRIL Group's historic markets: we offer international health insurance solutions worldwide to expatriate communities of all nationalities from our offices and management centres in America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. We are delighted with this new acquisition in Belgium, which represents a further step forward and confirms our ambitions to become an international champion in insurance distribution".

Isabelle Moins, CEO APRIL International for Europe: "Following our recent establishments in Dubai and Germany and targeted acquisitions over the last two years in Asia, we are continuing with Expat & Co our expansion in our core business of IPMI. Belgium is a dynamic market with great potential, thanks to its rich ecosystem of European and global organisations and companies. Expat & Co is a recognised player among expatriates and students and I look forward to working with Filip Declercq and his team to continue to develop our business".

Filip Declercq, Founder of Expat & Co: "Joining the APRIL group, which has unrivalled expertise in IPMI on five continents, opens up new prospects for us. APRIL is the ideal partner for us to continue to grow in our market for the greater benefit of our distributors and policyholders around the world. It gives us the resources to meet the challenges facing the insurance sector, such as digitalisation and regulatory changes. With APRIL, we become part of a family of 2,400 people. Expat & Co is thus moving from the start-up phase to the scale-up phase in a single step".

About APRIL Group

APRIL is the leading wholesale broker in France, with a network of 15,000 partner brokers. The group's 2,400 staff members aim to offer their customers and partners  individuals, professionals and companies  an outstanding experience, combining the best of human relationships and technology, for health and personal protection for individuals, professionals and VSEs; loan insurance; international health insurance; property and casualty niche insurance; and asset management. By 2023, APRIL aspires to become an agile, omnichannel, digital operator, a champion of customer experience and a leader in its markets, while committing to the social responsibility goals in its Oxygen programme. The APRIL Group operates in 18 countries and recorded turnover of 590m in 2022.

www.april.com

Over Expat & Co

Expat & Co is in Belgie, en bij uitbreiding Europa, gekend als de innovatieve marktleider in IPMI. Met bijzondere concepten bieden ze een ongevenaarde flexibiliteit voor mensen met een zeer afwisselend internationaal leven. Dankzij het Kameleon-concept (een polis die zich voortdurend aanpast aan de situatie van de klant, en steeds in de dubbele kosten snijdt) heeft ook de internationale klant nu de mogelijkheid op een levenslange zekerheid, ongeacht zijn sociaal statuut.

Ook op vlak van internationale studenten heeft Expat & Co voor vernieuwing in de markt gezorgd, en is daardoor in Europa uitgegroeid tot de top 3 van de verzekeraars voor universitaire Erasmus-projecten.

Expat & Co heeft zo specifieke polissen voor expats, Europese ambtenaren, uitwisselingsstudenten, au-pairs, zakenreizigers en long term reizigers (wereldreizen, digital nomads ...).

Expat & Co zet zich voortdurend in voor een goede klant- en makelaarsbeleving door snelle respons en correcte schaderegeling. Ondanks de reputatie van de verzekeringssector willen ze duidelijk maken dat ze er zijn om te betalen, niet om te weigeren.

www.expatinsurance.eu

MEDIA ENQUIRIES

APRIL

Melanie Sutter

[email protected]



Monet Agency for the APRIL group

Lison Douvegheant

[email protected]



EXPAT & Co

Filip Declercq

filip@expatinsurance.eu

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CHICAGO, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In the near future, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to revolutionize the medical diagnostics industry, offering unprecedented accuracy and efficiency in disease detection and patient care. Through the integration of machine learning algorithms and advanced imaging technologies, AI-driven diagnostic systems will enable healthcare professionals to swiftly and accurately identify a wide range of medical conditions, from cancer and cardiovascular diseases to rare genetic disorders. This transformation promises faster and more cost-effective diagnoses, reduced human error, and ultimately, improved patient outcomes. As AI continues to advance, its role in medical diagnostics will not only enhance the capabilities of healthcare providers but also make healthcare more accessible and effective for people worldwide.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medical Diagnostics Market in terms of revenue was estimated to be worth $1.3 billion in 2023 and is poised to reach $3.7 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 23.2% from 2023 to 2028 according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. Growth in this market is majorly driven by the accessibility of funding for AI-based startups, and the mounting number of cross-industry partnerships & collaborations.

However, Inadequate AI workforce and ambiguous regulatory guidelines for medical software are factors expected to restrain the market growth.

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Browse in-depth TOC on "Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medical Diagnostics Market"

401 - Tables

46 - Figures

341 - Pages

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medical Diagnostics Market Scope:

Report Coverage Details Market Revenue in 2023 $1.3 billion Estimated Value by 2028 $3.7 billion Growth Rate Poised to grow at a CAGR of 23.2% Market Size Available for 2017-2028 Forecast Period 20232028 Forecast Units Value (USD Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered Component, Application, End User, And Region Geographies Covered North America (US, and Canada), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain and the RoE), Asia Pacific (Japan, China, India, and RoAPAC), Latin America, Middle East & Africa. Report Highlights Updated financial information / product portfolio of players Key Market Opportunities Untapped emerging markets Key Market Drivers Increasing demand for AI-based solutions to reduce work pressure on radiologists

"Software segment is estimated to account for the largest share of the AI in Medical Diagnostics Market in 2023, by component"

On the basis of components, the AI in medical diagnostics market is segmented into software, hardware, and services. In 2023, the software segment is expected to hold the largest share of this market, while the software segment is estimated to grow at a higher CAGR from 2023 to 2028. Software solutions empower healthcare providers to maintain a competitive edge, even in the face of challenges such as staffing shortages and the growing volume of imaging scans.

"The In Vivo Diagnostics segment is estimated to account for the largest share of the AI in Medical Diagnostics Market in 2023, by application"

On the basis of application, AI in medical diagnostics market is divided into in vivo and in vitro diagnostics. In 2023, the in vivo diagnostics segment is expected to hold the largest share of this market. Factors such as rising adoption of AI solutions by practitioners, as these solutions aid lower human errors and advance treatment efficacy. However, the in vitro diagnostics segment is estimated to register highest CAGR during forecast period. In Vitro diagnostics is conducted mainly conducted in diagnostic laboratories, pathologies, microbiology centers, and immunology centers. However, in Vitro diagnostics has high growth potential,as it is largely untapped, especially in emerging markets.

"The Hospital segment is estimated to account for the largest share of the AI in Medical Diagnostics Market in 2023, by end user"

On the basis of end users, AI in medical diagnostics market is segmented into hospitals, diagnostic imaging centers, diagnostic laboratories, and other end users. In 2023, the hospitals segment is expected to hold the largest share of this market. Growth in this segment is driven by rising use of minimally invasive processes in hospitals to focus on quality of patient care, and the mounting adoption of advanced imaging modalities to improve workflow efficiency.

"North America to dominate the AI in medical diagnostics market in 2023"

On the basis of region, AI in medical diagnostics market has been segmented into North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. In 2023, North America is projected to account for the largest market share of this market. However, the Asia Pacific market is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The high growth rate of the Asia Pacific market can be due to expanding number of cancer patients in Asia Pacific countries and growth approaches companies implement in emerging markets.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medical Diagnostics Market Dynamics:

Drivers:

Influx of big data Growing number of cross-industry partnerships & collaborations Increasing demand for AI-based solutions to reduce work pressure on radiologists Rising government initiatives to drive AI-based technologies Availability of funding for AI-based startups

Restraints:

Reluctance among medical practitioners to adopt AI-based technologies Inadequate AI workforce and ambiguous regulatory guidelines for medical software

Opportunities:

Untapped emerging markets Growing potential of AI in imaging diagnostics for COVID-19 Increasing focus on developing human-aware AI systems

Challenge:

Budgetary constraints Unstructured healthcare data Data privacy concerns Limited interoperability for AI solutions

Key Market Players of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medical Diagnostics Industry:

Prominent players in AI in Medical Diagnostics market are Microsoft (US), NVIDIA Corporation (US), Merative (US), Intel Corporation (US), Google (US), Siemens Healthineers (Germany), GE HealthCare (US), Digital Diagnostics Inc. (US), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (US), InformAI (US), HeartFlow, Inc. (US), Enlitic, Inc. (US), icometrix (Belgium), Aidence (Netherlands), Butterfly Network, Inc. (US), Nano-X Imaging LTD. (Israel), Viz.ai, Inc (US), Quibim (Spain), Qure.ai (India), Therapixel (France), Aidoc (US), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), Lunit, Inc. (South Korea), EchoNous, Inc. (US), and Brainomix (UK).

Recent Developments:

In September 2023 , Mayo Clinic (US) and GE HealthCare (US) collaborated on research and product development programs to better equip clinicians and help diagnose and treat medical conditions.

, Mayo Clinic (US) and GE HealthCare (US) collaborated on research and product development programs to better equip clinicians and help diagnose and treat medical conditions. In January 2023 , Intel Corporation (US) launched 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Sapphire Rapids), the Intel Xeon CPU Max Series (code-named Sapphire Rapids HBM) and the Intel Data Center GPU Max Series (code-named Ponte Vecchio ), delivering a leap in data center performance, efficiency, security and new capabilities for AI, the cloud, the network and edge, and the world's most powerful supercomputers.

, Intel Corporation (US) launched 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Sapphire Rapids), the Intel Xeon CPU Max Series (code-named Sapphire Rapids HBM) and the Intel Data Center GPU Max Series (code-named ), delivering a leap in data center performance, efficiency, security and new capabilities for AI, the cloud, the network and edge, and the world's most powerful supercomputers. In October 2022 , Google Cloud (US) launched Medical Imaging Suite, a new industry solution that makes imaging healthcare data more accessible, interoperable, and useful. Google Cloud enables the development of AI for imaging to support faster, more precise diagnosis of images, increased productivity for healthcare workers, and improved care access and patient outcomes.

, Google Cloud (US) launched Medical Imaging Suite, a new industry solution that makes imaging healthcare data more accessible, interoperable, and useful. Google Cloud enables the development of AI for imaging to support faster, more precise diagnosis of images, increased productivity for healthcare workers, and improved care access and patient outcomes. In January 2022 , Siemens Healthineers ( Germany ) and Ohio State Wexner Medical Center (US) partnered to provide cutting-edge imaging and treatment technology to Ohio State patient care, research institutions, and the surrounding regions. The alliance offers cutting-edge radiation oncology and advanced imaging modalities on the Outpatient Care West Campus.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medical Diagnostics Market Advantages:

Improved Accuracy: AI systems can analyze vast amounts of medical data with precision, reducing the likelihood of human errors in diagnosis and increasing the accuracy of results.

Early Disease Detection: AI can detect diseases at an earlier stage when treatment is often more effective, potentially saving lives and reducing healthcare costs.

Efficiency: AI streamlines the diagnostic process, providing rapid results and reducing the time patients spend waiting for diagnoses, which can lead to quicker treatment and better outcomes.

Cost Reduction: AI can reduce the cost of medical diagnostics by automating tasks and increasing the efficiency of healthcare professionals, making healthcare more accessible and affordable.

Personalized Medicine: AI can analyze patient data to tailor treatment plans, taking into account individual genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors, thus enhancing the effectiveness of treatment.

Remote Diagnostics: AI enables remote diagnostics and telemedicine, improving access to healthcare in remote or underserved areas, and during global health crises like pandemics.

Data Analysis: AI can process vast amounts of data from various sources, such as medical records, images, and patient histories, to assist in complex diagnostic processes and research.

Continuous Monitoring: AI can provide real-time monitoring of patients, alerting healthcare providers to changes in health status and enabling timely interventions.

Enhanced Imaging: AI can enhance the quality of medical imaging, such as MRI and CT scans, allowing for more accurate and detailed diagnoses.

Research and Drug Discovery: AI aids in drug discovery, identifying potential compounds and accelerating the development of new treatments, ultimately advancing medical science.

Reduced Physician Workload: AI can handle routine, time-consuming tasks, allowing physicians to focus more on patient care and complex cases.

Consistency: AI systems provide consistent results, eliminating variations that can occur due to human factors and making diagnostic and treatment processes more reliable.

These advantages highlight the transformative potential of AI in the medical diagnostics market, improving patient care, increasing efficiency, and advancing the capabilities of healthcare professionals.

Related Reports:

Diagnostic Imaging Market - Global Forecasts To 2028

Ultrasound Market - Global Forecasts to 2028

Breast Imaging Market - Global Forecasts to 2028

Diagnostic Imaging Services Market - Global Forecasts to 2027

Nuclear Imaging Equipment Market - Global Forecasts to 2025

About MarketsandMarkets:

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MarketsandMarkets is a blue ocean alternative in growth consulting and program management, leveraging a man-machine offering to drive supernormal growth for progressive organizations in the B2B space. We have the widest lens on emerging technologies, making us proficient in co-creating supernormal growth for clients.

Earlier this year, we made a formal transformation into one of America's best management consulting firms as per a survey conducted by Forbes.

The B2B economy is witnessing the emergence of $25 trillion of new revenue streams that are substituting existing revenue streams in this decade alone. We work with clients on growth programs, helping them monetize this $25 trillion opportunity through our service lines - TAM Expansion, Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy to Execution, Market Share Gain, Account Enablement, and Thought Leadership Marketing.

Built on the 'GIVE Growth' principle, we work with several Forbes Global 2000 B2B companies - helping them stay relevant in a disruptive ecosystem. Our insights and strategies are molded by our industry experts, cutting-edge AI-powered Market Intelligence Cloud, and years of research. The KnowledgeStore (our Market Intelligence Cloud) integrates our research, facilitates an analysis of interconnections through a set of applications, helping clients look at the entire ecosystem and understand the revenue shifts happening in their industry.

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SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
On Sunday, The Fellowship announced:

Security Support The purchase of 1,000 flak jackets for use by security personnel Transportation and installation of several dozen portable bomb shelters along the northern border and in the Galilee region





Emergency Needs Support The transfer of $500,000 (with a matching commitment from the Israel Lottery Commission, for a total of $1 million ) to communities on the Gaza border to address immediate critical needs such as food, medication, transportation, and therapy services A grant of more than $375,000 to NETEL (Victims of Trauma from Terror Activities) to increase their support hotlines, which have seen a 6,000% jump in calls since the outbreak of the war Mobilizing of The Fellowship's Mobile Emergency Response Center, which provides an area for rescue and casualty identification teams and families to be able to rest and refresh, and be provided with food, drinks, snacks, access to electricity to charge phones, and other services Positioning Fellowship mobile units throughout the country to distribute refreshments in areas with a high concentration of security and IDF forces More than $500,000 (about $1,250 per family) will be distributed to families of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) personnel that were injured in combat





Evacuee Support Distribution of 1,600 grants of about $1,250 each to families evacuated from the southern areas hardest-hit by the conflict Distribution of 600 debit cards in the amount of $150 each to benefit families who have been evacuated from their homes Moving children who had been evacuated to Ashkelon, Israel from the Ukraine to a safer location Distribution of games and toys to families of children with special needs in Netivot





Food Distributions Distribution of prepared meals in the southern town of Netivot by local welfare offices and the IDF Homefront Command Distribution of food and prepared meals to soldiers serving on the northern border, in cooperation with the Beit Batya Soup Kitchen



"We are living through one of the worst tragedies ever to impact the state of Israel. We have witnessed a horrific attack on Israeli children, adults, the elderly  innocent people who were murdered and never had the chance to defend themselves," said Yael Eckstein, President and CEO of The Fellowship.

"This attack has impacted every Israeli and has left countless people without a safe home to return to, and without access to basic supplies like food, medication, and clothing. Since the outbreak of the war, we have been working to respond in all ways possible. The Fellowship pledges to continue to respond to this emergency quickly and effectively, by offering our full support to people in need. We pray this horrific war will end soon, so we can focus on helping people rebuild their lives."

About the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews

For 40 years, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (The Fellowship) has been leading efforts to build bridges between Christians and Jews and provide humanitarian care and lifesaving aid for Israel and the Jewish people. Through the generosity and loyalty each year of its donors, partners, and staff, The Fellowship helps over 1 million people living in poverty, has provided nearly 3,000 bomb shelters for security, and has helped 770,000 make aliyah back to their homeland, Israel. The Fellowship celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, continuing a mission to bless Israel and the Jewish people  like our world has never seen.

About Yael Eckstein

As President and CEO of The Fellowship, Yael Eckstein oversees all programs and serves as the international spokesperson for the organization. With over a decade of non-profit experience in multiple roles, Yael has the rare distinction of being a woman leading one of the world's largest religious charitable organizations. In addition to her podcast exploring the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, Nourish Your Biblical Roots. Yael also invites thought-leaders, pastors, authors, and other influencers to discuss Israel and Jewish-Christian relations on Conversations with Yael. She is the 2023 recipient of the Jerusalem Post's Humanitarian Award, and in 2020, 2021 and 2023, was named to the publication's list of 50 Most Influential Jews. Born outside of Chicago, Yael is based in Israel with her husband and their four children.

Media Contact:

Elizabeth Gartman

[email protected]

+1 312-641-8544

SOURCE International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ATSG, a leading global, tech-enabled managed services and solutions company, today announced that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named ATSG a 2023 Triple Crown Award winner. This award celebrates standout solution providers for the impressive accomplishment of being featured on three of CRN's prestigious lists.

The recipients of the CRN Triple Crown Award are recognized for their remarkable accomplishment of securing a position on three distinguished lists in the same year. These lists include the Solution Provider 500, the Fast Growth 150, and the Tech Elite 250. While each list is a noteworthy achievement, being featured on all three in a single year is a testament to exceptional service and warrants special acknowledgment from the entire channel community.

As a recipient of the Triple Crown Award, ATSG has demonstrated exceptional revenue growth and has consistently maintained and enhanced its technical skills, resulting in the highest level of service.

Anthony D'Ambrosi, Chief Executive Officer of ATSG, expressed his pride in the company's achievements: "We are honored to be named a 2023 Triple Crown Award winner by CRN for the fourth consecutive year. ATSG's steadfast commitment to delivering cutting-edge technology solutions that generate positive results and ensure an unparalleled digital experience for our valued clients remains unwavering. This accolade underscores ATSG's position as one of the most rapidly expanding, and highly revered service providers, showcasing our distinctive blend of thought leadership, commercial expertise, and operational proficiency. Our innovative Intelligent Solutions as a Service offerings consistently align with market demands, providing the outcomes that our clients and partners require."

Jennifer Follett, Vice President, U.S. Content, Executive Editor, CRN, at The Channel Company, expressed her excitement and congratulations to the top solution providers who have achieved the prestigious Triple Crown Award. "These providers have not only demonstrated exceptional revenue growth in North America but have also surpassed many other channel organizations in terms of their progress. They have successfully maintained and enhanced their technical skills, resulting in the highest level of service in the IT channel." Follett emphasized that "this award represents the pinnacle of honor, recognizing truly extraordinary solution providers who consistently exceed expectations in their contributions to the channel and the industry's future through their unwavering dedication and expertise."

This year's Triple Crown Award winners will be featured in the October 2023 issue of CRN and online at www.crn.com/triplecrown.

About ATSG

ATSG is a global managed services leader providing award-winning digital transformation services to today's dynamic enterprises. ATSG's Intelligent Solutions as a Service portfolio of Digital Workplace, Digital Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, and Customer Experience offerings are powered by the ATSGOne Intelligent Multicloud Platform. Headquartered in Manhattan, New York, ATSG is a portfolio company of RunTide Capital, a private equity firm focused on building tech-enabled growth companies.

More information on ATSG is available at www.atsg.net. Like us on LinkedIn, follow us on Twitter, or become a fan on our Facebook page.

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. www.thechannelcompany.com

Press Contact:

Elizabeth Kubycheck

[email protected]

SOURCE ATSG, Inc.
Combination of Bamboo Rose and Supply Pilot will empower active supplier engagement throughout the entire retail lifecycle, from ideation to delivery.

BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bamboo Rose, the leading collaborative product development, sourcing, and supply chain platform for global retailers announced today its acquisition of Supply Pilot of Nottingham, UK.

Supply Pilot, a leading provider of supplier engagement and collaboration software, transforms the way retailers work with their suppliers. This move extends the Bamboo Rose retail management platform with enhanced supplier collaboration capabilities, to further support supply chain visibility and foster Environmental, Social Governance (ESG) initiatives.

Bamboo Rose acquires Supply Pilot.

The combined company, which manages over $1.2T of transactions a year for thousands of products and users across hundreds of leading brands, will provide best-in-class end-to-end supplier engagement and supply chain technology. The collective platform solves critical business challenges for fashion & apparel, food & consumables, and general merchandise retailers around the world.

"Today's retail landscape is more complex than ever, requiring clear and continuous collaboration between retailers, suppliers, and vendors," said Matt Stevens, CEO of Bamboo Rose. "Supply Pilot leads the market with proactive supplier engagement and collaboration. Together, our platforms will drive unprecedented efficiency and enable sustainability. We are truly excited about the possibilities that lie ahead with Supply Pilot."

"The acquisition of Supply Pilot by Bamboo Rose is exciting news for retailers and their supply chains," said Ajay Jindal, CIO of MGF Sourcing. "With their Global Trade Management solution and vendor base, I am energized about the potential that lies ahead as a Bamboo Rose customer."

"We are delighted to join forces with Bamboo Rose to conquer complex retailer/supplier engagement pinch points. As one company, we'll offer the most extensive supplier collaboration platform in the market," said James Butcher, CEO of Supply Pilot. "We're eager to join this growing team of talented retail technologists to dramatically improve digital transformation for our global partners."

To learn more about the acquisition, please visit the Bamboo Rose news page , or meet with our industry representatives at PI Apparel Supply Chain Forum in NYC (November 28 - 29, 2023).

About Bamboo Rose

Bamboo Rose is the leading collaborative product development, sourcing, and supply chain platform for retailers and consumer brands; helping companies bring great products to market faster, more efficiently, and at higher margins. With deep vertical expertise in industries such as fashion & apparel, food & consumables, and general merchandise, Bamboo Rose empowers businesses to manage supply chain complexity with ease. https://bamboorose.com/

About Supply Pilot

Supply Pilot is an award-winning supplier collaboration platform and consultancy provider for retailers, brands, and large manufacturers. Trusted by some of the world's largest brands, Supply Pilot's clients include John Lewis, SC Johnson, Co-op, PetSmart, and Woolworths. https://www.supply-pilot.com/

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2251203/PR_Bamboo_Rose_acquires_Supply_Pilot.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1430723/Bamboo_Rose_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Bamboo Rose
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- BLUETTI, a global leader in clean energy solutions, showcased its innovative power products at the 5th Tanzania Energy Congress 2023, held in Tanzania from September 20-21.

During the conference, the esteemed Vice President of Tanzania and the Second Vice President of Zanzibar paid a special visit to the BLUETTI booth. They were particularly drawn to the P Series Home Solar System, a comprehensive solar solution for home power, and expressed their appreciation for BLUETTI's innovative products.

15

Allen Yan, BLUETTI's marketing manager for East Africa, delivered a captivating speech titled "Empowering Africa with Solar Energy." The speech addressed the challenges and opportunities that exist within the African energy landscape, emphasizing the benefits and need for renewable solar energy. He also mentioned the significant impact of BLUETTI's LAAF (Light An African Family) project on African families and unveiled the latest power solutions from BLUETTI.

The BLUETTI booth displayed an array of remarkable products, including:

P Series Home Solar System: An affordable solar power solution for homes, comprising a battery(100Wh or 200Wh ), a solar panel (55W or 75W), lights, and the necessary cables. Users can choose the right solar system based on their needs. This approach offers a sustainable alternative to traditional kerosene lamps and power sources, powering lights and small devices such as mobile phones, radios, and TVs safely and economically.

An affordable solar power solution for homes, comprising a battery(100Wh or 200Wh ), a solar panel (55W or 75W), lights, and the necessary cables. Users can choose the right solar system based on their needs. This approach offers a sustainable alternative to traditional kerosene lamps and power sources, powering lights and small devices such as mobile phones, radios, and TVs safely and economically. BLUETTI AC200MAX Power Station: An all-in-one home backup solar generator with a 2,048Wh capacity and a 2,200W output, expandable with additional battery modules. It offers multiple charging methods, ensuring a continuous and reliable power supply.

An all-in-one home backup solar generator with a 2,048Wh capacity and a 2,200W output, expandable with additional battery modules. It offers multiple charging methods, ensuring a continuous and reliable power supply. BLUETTI EB55 Outdoor Generator: A portable solar generator with a 537Wh capacity and 700W output, designed for outdoor adventures, emergencies, and daily use. It has 13 outlets for multi-task charging and accommodates various charging options.

BLUETTI's participation in the 5th Tanzania Energy Conference underscores its unwavering commitment to providing clean energy solutions that empower communities and individuals across Africa.

About BLUETTI

BLUETTI has been committed to promoting sustainability and green energy solutions since its inception. By offering eco-friendly energy storage solutions for both indoor and outdoor use, BLUETTI aims to provide exceptional experiences for our homes while also contributing to a sustainable future for our planet. This commitment to sustainable energy has helped BLUETTI expand its reach to over 100 countries and gain the trust of millions of customers worldwide.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2251821/15.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1750429/Logo.jpg
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - BMO today announced a $3 million donation to Thrive Scholars to launch the BMO Thrive Academy  Los Angeles. Thrive Scholars is a national college-to-career accelerator dedicated to supporting high-achieving students of color from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

"Our support of the new BMO Thrive Academy  Los Angeles aligns with our Purpose to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life and exemplifies our commitment to making progress for the communities we serve," said Kimberley Goode, Chief Communications and Social Impact Officer, BMO. "At BMO, we are proud to support initiatives that help create positive change and eliminate barriers to access in underserved communities across Los Angeles. We are excited to see what the young people who participate in BMO Thrive Academy  Los Angeles are going to achieve."

BMO Thrive Academy  Los Angeles students start with Summer Academy, an academically intensive program over two summers in the 11th and 12th grade where Scholars attend a daily three-hour calculus class and a three-hour college writing course for six weeks, taught by college professors on a college campus. Once in college, participants of the Thrive Academies program can access Thrive Scholars' career development program, including transformative internship and job opportunities.

BMO's support of Thrive Scholars will enable the non-profit to build upon the progress of its Diverse Talent Initiative, recruiting and supporting students at under-resourced schools so they are better prepared to excel academically in top colleges and in meaningful careers that lead to economic mobility. Additionally, BMO will partner with Thrive Scholars to develop its Career Pathways curriculum, building customized programs, company-specific training and tailored student exercises.

"We are elated to begin partnering with BMO in our mission to help give high-achieving students from underserved communities the resources they need to thrive. With BMO's generous donation, we will be able to expand our programming and outreach to serve the communities in Los Angeles that need it most more effectively," said Steve Stein, Chief Executive Officer of Thrive Scholars.

BMO is proud to grow its extensive community giving initiatives, promoting education and career opportunities in underserved communities with Thrive Scholars. This donation embodies BMO's efforts to advance inclusive economic progress in the United States through community investment. It is integral to BMO's more than $40 billion Community Benefits Plan, which is a series of commitments that address key barriers to economic inclusion by supporting and investing in communities and organizations across the United States, with over $16 billion dollars of the planned commitment targeted for California.

BMO is committed to and investing in the Los Angeles community. Last month, BMO donated $1 Million to help Homeboy Industries expand its Los Angeles Workforce Development and Training Center. In January, BMO announced a naming rights deal for BMO Stadium and a partnership with Los Angeles FC and Angel City FC.

BMO Gives. Good grows here.

Helping communities thrive by supporting the organizations that sustain them and encouraging employee giving and volunteerism is at the heart of BMO's Purpose, to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life. In 2022, the bank's social impact included more than $69 million donated to hundreds of charities and non-profit organizations across North America to help drive progress by enabling individuals to thrive and communities to prosper. BMO colleagues spent almost 50,000 hours volunteering in the community and contributed more than $26 million of donations through the bank's annual employee giving program. For more information, please visit BMO.com.

About BMO Financial Group

BMO Financial Group is the eighth largest bank in North America by assets, with total assets of $1.25 trillion as of July 31, 2023. Serving customers for 200 years and counting, BMO is a diverse team of highly engaged employees providing a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management, global markets and investment banking products and services to over 13 million customers across Canada, the United States, and in select markets globally. Driven by a single purpose, to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life, BMO is committed to driving positive change in the world, and making progress for a thriving economy, sustainable future, and inclusive society.

About Thrive Scholars

Thrive Scholars is a national nonprofit that, for 20 years, has worked hard to help first-generation, high-achieving students of color from under-resourced communities get into and graduate from top colleges. Thrive Scholars uses data to develop programming that translates to Scholar success through rigorous academic preparation and career pathways support focused on closing the opportunity gap and setting students on a path toward economic mobility.

SOURCE BMO Financial Group
Urges Others to Join the Growing Effort

NEW YORK , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A broad coalition of institutions of higher education, including public and private colleges and universities, faith-based colleges and universities, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU's) today issued a statement standing with Israel, the Palestinians who suffer under Hamas' cruel rule in Gaza and all people of moral conscience.

Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, President of Yeshiva University and convener of the coalition said that "Our statement is based on two unifying principles  Hamas is a terrorist organization and the Palestinian people are not represented by Hamas."

The parties urge presidents and chancellors of all U.S. and global colleges and universities to join the effort  by sending an e-mail directly to [email protected] .

We Stand Together with Israel Against Hamas

We are horrified and sickened by the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas. Murdering innocent civilians including babies and children, raping women and taking the elderly as hostages are not the actions of political disagreement but the actions of hate and terrorism. The basis of all universities is a pursuit of truth, and it is times like these that require moral clarity. Like the fight against ISIS, the fight against Hamas is a fight against evil. We, the presidents and chancellors of universities, colleges and higher education associations across the United States of America and the world, stand with Israel, with the Palestinians who suffer under Hamas' cruel rule in Gaza and with all people of moral conscience.

Coalition Founders (alphabetical order)

Ari Berman , President, Yeshiva University

, President, Lola W. Brabham , President, Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities

, President, Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities Terrence Chang , Chancellor, Connecticut State Colleges and Universities

, Chancellor, Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Rochelle L. Ford , President, Dillard University

, President, E. Gordon Gee , President, West Virginia University

, President, Shirley Hoogstra , President, Council for Christian Colleges, and Universities

, President, Council for Christian Colleges, and Universities John I. Jenkins , President, University of Notre Dame

, President, John B. King , Chancellor, The State University of New York ( SUNY )

, Chancellor, The ( ) Ronald D. Liebowitz , President, Brandeis University

, President, Linda Livingstone , President, Baylor University

, President, Michael L. Lomax , President, United Negro College Fund

, President, United Negro College Fund Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, Chancellor, The City University of New York

Marty Meehan , President, University of Massachusetts

SOURCE Yeshiva University
Mouth-Watering Weak Knees Hot Sauces  Smokey Strawberry, Grilled Peach and Crisp Apple

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bushwick Kitchen is elevating its distinct line of Weak Knees hot sauces with the addition of three unique flavors  habanero + smokey strawberry, scotch bonnet + grilled peach and jalapeno + crisp apple. As a company that is celebrated for its commitment to crafting unique and delicious flavors that transform ordinary dishes into extraordinary culinary experiences, this extension of the Weak Knees line allows the brand to continue to push the boundaries in the condiment and sauce categories.

Bushwick Kitchen is elevating its distinct line of Weak Knees hot sauces with the addition of three unique flavors  habanero + smokey strawberry, scotch bonnet + grilled peach and jalapeno + crisp apple.

"We are excited to introduce these new flavors to our lineup of delicious Bushwick Kitchen products," explained Daniel Doll, CEO of Bushwick Kitchen. "Our mission has always been to bring innovation and bite to every kitchen, and these fresh and flavorful hot sauce twists fit in perfectly with our offering of srirachas, maples and honeys. We look forward to seeing what people cook up!"

Each of the hot sauces are available in 5 fluid ounce bottles and retail for $12.99 on BushwickKitchen.com .

Habanero +Smokey Strawberry  This fiery sauce will have you feeling heated! Fresh strawberries and Caribbean Red habanero peppers = an addictively hot & smoky flavor that'll have you reaching for an extra dab. Perfect on ribs, eggs and pizza.

Scotch Bonnet + Grilled Peach  Feeling peachy? Sweet peaches and tart mangos are paired with flaming hot Scotch bonnet peppers for a combo that is sure to wake up your tastebuds. Great for tacos, burgers and popcorn.

Jalapeno + Crisp Apple  Apple of your eye. This mild-mannered hot sauce delivers heat and tang with a winning combo of Granny Smith apple & jalapeno for a refreshing twist on spicy. Pair with roasted veggies, fish or use as a vinaigrette

Additionally, these three new offerings will also soon be available in a gift set  perfect for foodies who want to push the boundaries of taste. Both the gift sets and individual bottles will be available along with a range of other Bushwick Kitchen products on Amazon and on Bushwick Kitchen's website .

And with the holiday season just around the corner, Bushwick Kitchen will be offering a variety of discounts to make sure there is a gift for every family member, friend and kitchen creative on your list this year. Find out more at BushwickKitchen.com or follow on Instagram @bushwick_kitchen .

About Bushwick Kitchen

Bushwick Kitchen is a sauce company that's here to serve up finger-licking, flavor-addicting sauces and condiments for every kitchen creative and foodie looking to elevate their meals or share a unique culinary gift to inspire friends and family. Bushwick Kitchen was founded in January 2014 by an entrepreneur and a culinary enthusiast with the ambitious goal of launching a business from concept to finished product in 30 days. The first product, Bees Knees Spicy Honey, was born. By the end of the first year, Bushwick Kitchen shipped over 9,000 bottles of honey  all bottled, one at a time, by hand, in Brooklyn, NY to every state in the USA and 27 countries. Since then, the line has grown to 15 lip-smacking, tongue-drooling products with our Trees Knees maples, Weak Knees sriracha and our Bees Knees honey collection.

Media contact:

Matt Kovacs

[email protected]

310-395-5050

SOURCE Bushwick Kitchen
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. A representative office of the "Shafaq (Jabrayil) Solar Limited" energy company has opened in Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

The State Tax Service under the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan said the official representative of the company is Robert Gary Jones (the date of state registration in Azerbaijan is August 2, 2023).

The company is registered at the following address: Azerbaijan, Jabrayil district, 1 Jabrayil-Minbashi road, 6th kilometer.

On June 4, 2022, the Ministry of Energy and BP signed an addendum to the agreement concluded in June 2021 in order to take the next steps for the joint implementation of the 240 MW solar power plant project in Jabrayil. The document, signed in Azerbaijan's Shusha within the framework of the Baku Energy Week, reflects the measures that need to be taken to complete joint activities on the implementation of the "Shafaq" solar power plant project.
The new research-backed guide from the global HR research and advisory firm offers suggestions for HR organizations who struggle to accurately communicate the value of their programs to senior leadership and the board.

TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - As organizations become increasingly concerned with budgets and bottom lines amid uncertain economic times, HR is facing challenges in effectively measuring the value of programs and communicating the return on investment (ROI) to key players, such as the C-suite. To help HR leaders demonstrate the value of their programs both financially and beyond financial outcomes, McLean & Company has released its new resource, Guide to Measuring the ROI of HR Programs.

The new guide from McLean & Company explains that return on investment (ROI) is part of a programs overall value on investment (VOI), with the latter including both the quantifiable, tangible outcomes within ROI along with other intangible outcomes to demonstrate the holistic impact of a program. (CNW Group/McLean & Company)

McLean & Company's new guide highlights that only 28% of organizational key players are very satisfied with the value HR provides relative to their perception of its operational and staffing costs, leaving the remaining 72% feeling less than very satisfied. Therefore, it is not surprising that 65% of respondents in the firm's 2023 HR Trends survey indicated that their HR departments were not high performing at controlling labor costs and maximizing the value of labor spend.

"The true value of an HR program exists beyond direct financial gain," says Grace Ewles, Director of HR Research & Advisory Services at McLean & Company. "Exploring the value on investment (VOI) in addition to direct financial outcomes provides a complete picture of an HR program's impact. Showcasing these benefits helps shift perceptions away from HR as a cost center by reinforcing the strategic value of HR investments for key players."

Program evaluation is a resource-intensive process that requires a methodical approach and data literacy, with many HR teams currently ill-equipped to manage these obstacles. According to the resource, measuring the value of HR programs links HR investments to organizational objectives, demonstrating how HR contributes to an organization's profitability and enabling data-driven decision making around organizational spending.

To increase satisfaction in and support for HR programs from key individuals such as senior leadership and the board, McLean & Company advises that HR needs to engage them, manage their expectations, and generate buy-in to maintain support throughout the lengthy evaluation process.

HR leaders seeking to reveal how HR contributes to overall organizational success and drives organizational objectives beyond profitability can follow McLean & Company's three-phase plan, available in the guide. The steps are outlined below:

Prepare to measure ROI. The first step guides HR leaders through the identification of HR programs that should be evaluated and their associated outcomes, metrics, and timelines. Evaluate program ROI. Step two prioritizes the measurement of the ROI of HR programs and the interpretation of the results within the larger context of the organization. Communicate and leverage ROI. The third and final step focuses on communication and sharing the ROI results within the broader program VOI with relevant individuals.

McLean & Company advises HR leaders not to underestimate the importance of fully representing the costs of a program. If costs are inaccurately represented, the time and effort dedicated to measuring the outcomes of the program are wasted. The firm also highlights that ROI is not self-sustaining and requires ongoing evaluation and iteration based on changing organizational needs and context. Intentional and continuous adjustments to HR programs maximize long-term ROI by ensuring programs continue to positively impact employees in an ever-changing environment.

To access the full guide, including a real-world example of HR program ROI evaluation and advanced analytics techniques, download the Guide to Measuring the ROI of HR Programs.

McLean & Company also offers workshops to HR professionals to support them in building programs and navigating other nuances of their roles. For more information, please visit mcleanco.com/workshops.

Media interested in connecting with McLean & Company analysts for exclusive, data-backed insights and commentary on measuring and communicating the value of HR programs, generative AI in HR, the future of work, and more can connect with Senior Communications Manager 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, McLean & Company's highly anticipated HR industry conference, is returning from November 5 to 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].

SOURCE McLean & Company
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Credit Suisse AG ("Credit Suisse") announced today that it will exercise its right to call its Credit Suisse S&P MLP Index Exchange Traded Notes (CUSIP: 22539T456) (the "ETNs"). As of today, Credit Suisse will no longer issue new units of the ETNs.

As described in the related pricing supplement (the "Pricing Supplement"), Credit Suisse, as the issuer of the ETNs, may, at its option, call all issued and outstanding units of the ETNs. Credit Suisse will exercise this right by delivering a notice of issuer optional call via the Depository Trust Company on October 19, 2023.

The call settlement date is expected to be November 8, 2023. On the call settlement date, investors will receive a cash payment per ETN in an amount equal to the call settlement amount. The call settlement amount will be determined on the call valuation date of November 3, 2023 in accordance with the terms set forth in the Pricing Supplement, and will be equal to the average of the closing indicative values of the ETNs during the call valuation period and will reflect the stub coupon amount, if any, as of each date during the call valuation period minus applicable fees. The five consecutive trading days beginning October 30, 2023 and ending on the call valuation date of November 3, 2023 will constitute the call valuation period. For more information about the call settlement amount, see "Key TermsCall Settlement Amount" in the Pricing Supplement. Credit Suisse expects that NYSE Arca will allow the ETNs to continue to trade until November 7, 2023. The coupon payment declared on October 2, 2023 is not affected by this announcement.

The Pricing Supplement can be accessed on the SEC website at www.sec.gov or by clicking on the hyperlink below.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1053092/000121390023052539/ea156988_424b2.htm

Investors who buy the ETNs at any time for an amount that is greater than the cash amount due upon call of the ETNs (including paying any premium to such cash amount) will suffer a loss on their investment. Furthermore, investors who sell the ETNs at any time for an amount that is less than the cash amount due upon call of the ETNs (including selling at any discount to such cash amount) will suffer a loss. Any loss could be significant. Investors will not receive any compensation for the loss of the investment opportunity of holding the ETNs, and investors may be unable to invest in other securities with a similar level of risk and/or that provide a similar investment opportunity as the ETNs. For more information, see "Risk Factors" in the Pricing Supplement.

None of the other listed ETNs offered by Credit Suisse are affected by this announcement. All dates referenced above are subject to change, including postponement due to certain events.

Press Contact

Vanita Sehgal, Credit Suisse, [email protected]

Credit Suisse ETNs

Telephone: +1 800 320 1225, Email: [email protected]

Copyright  2023, CREDIT SUISSE and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

SOURCE Credit Suisse AG
FARMINGTON, Conn., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Nest Collaborative is thrilled to declare its recognition as a Rising Star at the Digital Health Awards, hosted by The Digital Health Hub Foundation, and presented at the renowned HLTH global healthcare conference in Las Vegas last week. Nest Collaborative has secured the coveted Digital Healthy in the Next-Gen Telemedicine category.

Nest Collaborative takes pride in highlighting that the award serves as a testament to their dedicated team of International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs) and innovative technology. Their collective efforts work harmoniously to create a positive impact on families' lives across the nation solidifying Nest Collaborative's stance that telehealth is not solely the future but also the present of healthcare delivery.

"We are deeply honored to receive this prestigious recognition from The Digital Health Hub Foundation. This award underscores Nest Collaborative's unwavering dedication to utilizing telehealth to redefine healthcare for new families, and inspires us to continue innovating and improving healthcare services in the lactation industry," said Judith Nowlin, CEO of Nest Collaborative.

This achievement recognizes Nest Collaborative's commitment to realizing its mission of recalibrating health + care for new families via telehealth. The Digital Health Hub Foundation Awards applaud the prowess of Nest Collaborative in harnessing digital innovations to enhance healthcare services and elevate patient outcomes.

"This year's competition has been an unprecedented spectacle, featuring an astounding influx of submissions from companies across the globe. We congratulate the winners on their innovations that captivated our esteemed panel of judges. The Digital Health Hub Foundation looks forward to witnessing the lasting influence our champions will exert in the years to come," said Mark H. Goldstein, Chairman and Founder of The Digital Health Hub Foundation.

About Nest Collaborative



Nest Collaborative is the creator of the nation's first virtual lactation platform. The company's nationwide network of International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs) is available to families for same-day virtual consults, meaning more parents and their health providers have access to the help that creates successful breastfeeding journeys. Nest Collaborative has been recognized by Verywell Family as the Best Online Lactation Consultant of 2021, 2022 and 2023, beating out competitors by offering insurance-covered appointments, same-day availability, and group sessions through their offering of Latch Lounge. The company earned first place in the 2022 Yale Innovation Summit's Tech and Digital Health Pitch Contest. For more information, visit: www.nestcollaborative.com.

About Digital Health Hub Foundation

Health Hub SF LLC, doing business as the Digital Health Hub Foundation, is a 501(c)3 non-profit, supported by the healthcare venture capital community and others, whose mission is to help the world's next best innovative healthcare companies scale and grow. Founded in 2017, on the campus of UCSF in San Francisco, their 30,000 member community consists of thousands of early-to-late-stage healthcare companies and highly qualified healthcare industry providers, payors, experts, mentors, investors, clinicians and researchers who participate in the annual awards ceremony where they bring together the industry to honor and validate the best of the best and celebrate the technological advances in healthcare and the impact it has.

Media Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Nest Collaborative
BRISBANE, Australia, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Eviden, the Atos business leading in digital, cloud, big data and security, partners with Cryptsoft, the renowned supplier in the Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) market.

Cryptsoft, a distinguished supplier in the KMIP market, is set to play a crucial role in augmenting Eviden's existing encryption services, provided by the Trustway business unit. Cryptsoft's expertise in the key management field will be instrumental in assisting Eviden to navigate the complexities of the digital landscape with increased confidence and security.

As Eviden continues to leverage technology to create opportunities and provide secure solutions, the integration of Cryptsoft's products marks a significant step in enhancing their service offerings. This collaboration signifies a concerted effort to elevate the standards of data security in the digital era, fostering innovation and safeguarding critical information.

Philippe Duluc, Chief Technology Officer for Big Data and Security activities at Eviden, Atos Group, highlighted, "In our relentless pursuit of excellence and innovation, we recognize the value of integrating Cryptsoft's superior KMIP technologies into our solutions. Their products are pivotal in enhancing our capabilities, allowing us to further secure and protect valuable data assets. This collaboration with Cryptsoft is a clear indication of our dedication to offering secure and forward-thinking solutions to our clients."

Marc Briceno, VP Sales at Cryptsoft, expressed Cryptsoft's pride in this collaboration, noting, "We are delighted to be chosen by Eviden to support their mission of revolutionizing data security. Our KMIP technologies, aligned with Eviden's expertise and Trustway's cryptography capabilities, promise to foster a new era of digital security. We are committed to aiding Eviden in achieving their strategic objectives, contributing to a safer and more secure digital environment."

About Cryptsoft

Cryptsoft is a privately held Australian company that operates globally in the enterprise key management security market. Cryptsoft's Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) software development kits (SDKs) are the market's preferred OEM solutions. Cryptsoft's solutions have been selected by prominent global companies for interoperable enterprise key management and encryption technology. For more information, visit cryptsoft.com

About Eviden

Eviden is a next-gen technology leader in data-driven, trusted and sustainable digital transformation with a strong portfolio of patented technologies. With worldwide leading positions in advanced computing, security, AI, cloud and digital platforms, it provides deep expertise for all industries in more than 47 countries. Bringing together 55,000 world-class talents, Eviden expands the possibilities of data and technology across the digital continuum, now and for generations to come. Eviden is an Atos Group company with an annual revenue of c. 5 billion.

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 107,000 employees and annual revenue of c. 11 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high-performance computing the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 69 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), and listed on Euronext Paris.

The purpose of Atos is to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space.

Contact:

Magda Zdunkiewicz

***@cryptsoft.com

Photo(s):

https://www.prlog.org/12989806

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Cryptsoft Pty Ltd
SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Daewoong Pharmaceutical is thrilled to announce its participation in CPHI Worldwide 2023, one of the world's premier pharmaceutical industry exhibitions. The event is scheduled to take place from the 24th to the 26th of October at Fira Barcelona Gran Via, Spain.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical to Participates in CPHI Worldwide 2023, Showcasing Own Novel Drug in the Global Market.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical will be prominently featured at Booth 80G30, Hall 8, where the company will present its extensive portfolio of pharmaceutical products, ranging from cutting-edge research and development to finished pharmaceuticals covering various therapeutic areas, including gastroenterology, metabolic, aesthetic, immunology, pain management, autoimmune and rare diseases.

CEO Sengho Jeon expressed his excitement about the event, stating, "We are eagerly anticipating the opportunity to connect with our global partners, explore potential collaborations, and engage in ongoing discussions, with the expectation of entering into additional agreements this year. Our aim is to discuss how we can make our world healthier together, and foster new business prospects through this exhibition."

Especially, Daewoong Pharmaceutical will accelerate to build partnership with global partner for their own novel drug such as GERD treatment (ingredient: Fexuprazan) and Diabetes treatment (ingredient: Enavogliflozin). As of now, Fexuprazan has successfully completed product registration applications in a total of 12 countries, including China, Mexico, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia. Additionally, the company has entered into technology export agreements with 18 countries, including China, further solidifying its global reach. Furthermore, Enavogliflozin, Daewoong Pharmaceutical's diabetes treatment, applied for product registration in Saudi Arabia, achieving an impressive expansion into five countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based on the current beliefs and expectations of Daewoong Pharmaceutical's management. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: (1) Regulatory and governmental approvals: The approval process for pharmaceutical products is subject to extensive regulations and may involve uncertainties and delays. Any failure to obtain necessary approvals or the occurrence of delays in the approval process could adversely affect Daewoong Pharmaceutical's business and results of operations; and (2) Clinical trials: The success of Daewoong Pharmaceutical's products depends on the results of clinical trials. The results of early clinical trials may not be indicative of the results of later-stage or larger-scale clinical trials.

SOURCE Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd
Data Revenue grows at 14.4% YoY I Digital Portfolio grows +30.2% YoY

MUMBAI, India, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Tata Communications, a global digital ecosystem enabler, today announces its financial results for the quarter ended 30th September 2023. The Data business grows to INR 3,995 Crores in Q2 FY24, registering a growth of 14.4% YoY.

Highlights|Q2 FY24

Consolidated financial highlights

Consolidated revenue stood at INR 4,872 crore (USD 589.5 Mn); increasing +10% YoY.

Consolidated EBITDA came in at INR 1,015 crore ( USD 122.8 Mn ); margins at 20.8%; Underlying EBITDA Margins at 21.7%.

( ); margins at 20.8%; Underlying EBITDA Margins at 21.7%. Consolidated PAT at INR 221 Crores ( USD 26.6 Mn ).

( ). Cash CAPEX for this quarter stood at USD 71 Mn .

Consolidated Nos INR Crore QoQ Growth YoY Growth Gross Revenue 4,872 2.1 % 10 % Data Revenue 3,995 2.1 % 14.4 % EBITDA 1,015 (0.8 %) (10.1 %) EBITDA Margin 20.8 % (62) bps (465) bps PAT 221 (42.2 %) (58.5 %)

Data Services Portfolio

Data business revenues came in at INR 3,995 crore ( USD 483.3 Mn ), recording an increase of + 14.4% YoY; Underlying Data Revenue growth came in at + 10% YoY.

( ), recording an increase of + 14.4% YoY; Underlying Data Revenue growth came in at + 10% YoY. Data EBITDA stood at INR 913 crore ( USD 110.4 Mn ), down 9.3% YoY because of organic and inorganic investments.

( ), down 9.3% YoY because of organic and inorganic investments. The Core Connectivity business reported + 6.9% YoY growth in revenue.

Digital Portfolio delivered robust growth of + 30.2% YoY driven by growth across the Cloud and Next Gen Connectivity segments and integration of The Switch.

Commenting on the results, A.S. Lakshminarayanan, MD and CEO, Tata Communications, said, "We are pleased to announce a robust 14% YoY revenue growth this quarter. With the fast-tracked integration of The Switch, we are witnessing synergies being realised. Besides this, we are happy to announce the accelerated closure of the Kaleyra Inc. transaction which will enable us to create a new digital platform category - Customer Interaction Suite - in line with our ambitions. Overall, we remain confident of the long-term opportunities and will continue to invest in the product portfolio to strengthen our value proposition to enterprises."

Kabir Ahmed Shakir, Chief Financial Officer, Tata Communications said, "Our planned investments in the organic and inorganic opportunities are in line with our 'Fit to Grow' Strategy. Our focus now is on relentless execution of these investments to accelerate the value creation process."

An investor data pack providing detailed analysis of the results for the quarter ended 30th September 2023 has been uploaded on the Tata Communications website and can be accessed here.

About Tata Communications

A part of the Tata Group, Tata Communications (NSE: TATACOMM; BSE: 500483) is a global digital ecosystem enabler powering today's fast-growing digital economy in more than 190 countries and territories. Leading with trust, it enables digital transformation of enterprises globally with collaboration and connected solutions, core and next gen connectivity, cloud hosting and security solutions and media services. 300 of the Fortune 500 companies are its customers and the company connects businesses to 100% of the world's cloud giants. For more information, please visit www.tatacommunications.com

Forward-looking and cautionary statements

Forward-looking and cautionary statements Certain words and statements in this release concerning Tata Communications and its prospects, and other statements, including those relating to Tata Communications expected financial position, business strategy, the future development of Tata Communications' operations, and the general economy in India, are forward-looking statements. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, including financial, regulatory and environmental, as well as those relating to industry growth and trend projections, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of Tata Communications, or industry results, to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from such forward-looking statements include, among others, failure to increase the volume of traffic on Tata Communications' network; failure to develop new products and services that meet customer demands and generate acceptable margins; failure to successfully complete commercial testing of new technology and information systems to support new products and services, including voice transmission services; failure to stabilize or reduce the rate of price compression on certain of the company's communications services; failure to integrate strategic acquisitions and changes in government policies or regulations of India and, in particular, changes relating to the administration of Tata Communications' industry; and, in general, the economic, business and credit conditions in India. Additional factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from such forward-looking statements, many of which are not in Tata Communications' control, include, but are not limited to, those risk factors discussed in Tata Communications Limited's Annual Reports.

The Annual Reports of Tata Communications Limited are available at www.tatacommunications.com. Tata Communications is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or alter its forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Tata Communications
Seven-year agreement will provide 668 million liters of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) to replace fossil jet fuel

Will enable DHL to reduce approx. 1.7 million tonnes of CO 2 e on a lifecycle basis, equivalent to operating DHL's Americas aviation network carbon neutrally for one year

e on a lifecycle basis, equivalent to operating DHL's Americas aviation network carbon neutrally for one year Sustainable Aviation Fuel certificates (SAFc) will play a pivotal role in DHL's journey to achieve ambitious emissions targets

BONN, Germany and BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- DHL Express and World Energy, a leading SAF producer and low-carbon solutions provider, have signed a long-term strategic agreement to accelerate the decarbonization of aviation logistics through the purchase of approx. 668 million liters of Sustainable Aviation Fuel via sustainable aviation fuel certificates (SAFc). The seven-year contract, to run through 2030, is the one of the longest and largest SAFc agreements in the aviation industry to date.

The agreement is expected to reduce approx. 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the aviation fuel lifecycle  this is equivalent to handling the approximately 77,000 annual aircraft movements of DHL Express in the Americas carbon neutrally for a full year. The milestone agreement is further testament to DHL Group's ambitious Sustainability Roadmap, which includes the goal to reduce the Group's annual greenhouse gas emissions to below 29 million tonnes CO 2 e in 2030 across scopes 1, 2 and 3.

"DHL Express is firmly dedicated to pioneering a sustainable future in aviation logistics," said John Pearson, CEO DHL Express. "By partnering with World Energy and confirming this milestone agreement, we are taking another concrete leap towards minimizing our carbon footprint and contributing to a more sustainable future. We want to inspire more suppliers to accelerate industry-wide production and adoption of SAF."

"We are honored to team up with DHL on this quest to decarbonize aviation," said Gene Gebolys, World Energy CEO. "Decarbonizing the hard-to-abate sectors requires commitment across the value chain, and partnerships like the one we are launching today are key to enabling companies like DHL to meet their ambitions climate goals."

Transparency and accountability with Book & Claim

With SAFc, the fuel's environmental attributes are separated from the fuel itself using a "Book & Claim" chain of custody model. The Book &Claim approach enhances transparency and accountability of sustainable fuels by ensuring that the emission reductions associated with each credit are accurately transferred and verified by a third party. It allows DHL Express to purchase SAFc, utilize the associated emission reductions, and extend the environmental attributes to its customers through the GoGreen Plus service. SAFc delivered through Book & Claim also helps to minimize both logistical costs and emissions as the fuel does not need to be shipped around the world. This helps make SAFc the most efficient way to decarbonize aviation. All of World Energy SAFc for DHL will meet rigorous sustainability certification standards from the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB). In addition, all volumes will be traced through an independent registry to ensure traceability of claims related to SAFc. The fuel itself will be supplied to Los Angeles area airports, close to World Energy's production facility in Paramount, CA.

On the Internet: group.dhl.com/press

Follow us at: twitter.com/DHLglobal

DHL  Excellence. Simply delivered.

DHL is the leading global brand in the logistics industry. Our DHL divisions offer an unrivalled portfolio of logistics services ranging from national and international parcel delivery, e-commerce shipping and fulfillment solutions, international express, road, air and ocean transport to industrial supply chain management. With about 395,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, DHL connects people and businesses securely and reliably, enabling global sustainable trade flows. With specialized solutions for growth markets and industries including technology, life sciences and healthcare, engineering, manufacturing & energy, auto-mobility and retail, DHL is decisively positioned as "The logistics company for the world".

DHL is part of DHL Group. The Group generated revenues of more than 94 billion euros in 2022. With sustainable business practices and a commitment to society and the environment, the Group makes a positive contribution to the world. DHL Group aims to achieve net-zero emissions logistics by 2050.

About World Energy

World Energy is a low-carbon solution pioneer working with leading companies to help meet their net-zero commitments. With operations in sustainable aviation fuel, clean hydrogen, advanced biofuels, and fully transparent decarbonization services, World Energy is collaborating to confront the biggest decarbonization challenges in the hardest-to-abate sectors. For over 25 years World Energy has been at the forefront of commercializing renewable fuels and was the world's first commercial-scale sustainable aviation fuel producer. Today, World Energy is investing over $15 billion into major new projects in California, Texas, and Newfoundland to help leaders accelerate their efforts to make net-zero real. Learn more at www.worldenergy.net .

SOURCE World Energy
NEW YORK, Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Domain Name System (DNS) Tools Market is anticipated to increase by USD 1.70 billion, accelerating at a CAGR of 11.19% during the forecast period. The growth of the domain name system tools market is driven by the increasing focus on businesses' online presence and the global rise in e-commerce. As more people turn to online services, the market benefits. Additionally, organizations are using DNS tools to enhance security in the face of cyber threats as they implement online strategies. This growing use of DNS tools aligns with the expansion of online business activities, contributing to the market's growth during the forecast period. Get deeper insights into the market size, current market scenario, future growth opportunities, major growth driving factors, the latest trends, and much more. Buy full report here

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Domain Name System Tools Market 2023-2027

A major challenge for the domain name system tool market is the increasing standardization or commoditization of DNS solutions. As DNS is significant for online businesses, demand for these tools is growing. Extensive research has expanded DNS tool capabilities, leading to their integration with broader network security solutions. Over time, they are expected to become an integral part of comprehensive network security systems, which may hinder the growth of the global domain name system tools market during the forecast period.

Learn about additional key drivers, trends, and challenges available with Technavio. Read FREE Sample PDF Report Now

The domain name system tools market is segmented by Product (Managed DNS service and Standalone DNS tool), End-user (Large enterprises, and Small and medium-size enterprises), and Geography (North America, APAC, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa).

The market is expected to see substantial growth in the managed DNS service segment during the forecast period. Managed DNS services are favored for their convenience, ease of use, scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness compared to standalone DNS tools. Enterprises and industries with less specialized DNS needs often choose to outsource their DNS management to dedicated companies and service providers.

Managed DNS services are favored for their convenience, ease of use, scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness compared to standalone DNS tools. Enterprises and industries with less specialized DNS needs often choose to outsource their DNS management to dedicated companies and service providers. APAC is expected to make a substantial 37% contribution to global market growth. North America is another region that offers significant growth opportunities for companies and is a major revenue contributor in the global domain name system tools market. This is primarily due to factors such as well-established infrastructure, high internet penetration, technology adoption, and growing demand for managed DNS services across various industries in North America . The region boosts a large proportion of businesses operating online, which can be attributed to its technological and sectoral maturity, with substantial investments pouring into the sector.

North America is another region that offers significant growth opportunities for companies and is a major revenue contributor in the global domain name system tools market. This is primarily due to factors such as well-established infrastructure, high internet penetration, technology adoption, and growing demand for managed DNS services across various industries in . The region boosts a large proportion of businesses operating online, which can be attributed to its technological and sectoral maturity, with substantial investments pouring into the sector. View FREE Sample Report for insights into the contribution of all the segments and regional opportunities in the report.

Key Companies in the domain name system tools market:

Akamai Technologies Inc.

CentralNic Group PLC

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

Clarivate PLC

Cloudflare Inc.

The Corporation Service Co.

DigiCert Inc.

easyDNS Technologies Inc.

GoDaddy Inc.

HostDime Global Corp.

Microsoft Corp.

Newfold Digital Inc.

Nexcess.Net LLC

Oracle Corp.

Rackspace Technology Inc.

SolarWinds Corp.

Tencent Holdings Ltd.

Holdings Ltd. TransUnion

VeriSign Inc.

Namecheap Inc.

Related Reports:

Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) Market: The optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.51% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 76.43 million.

Web Hosting Services Market: The web hosting services market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 14.13% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 87.14 billion.

ToC:

Excustive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Historic Market Sizes

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by WRITERS

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 focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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 Legislation to Transform Organ Donation and Save Lives

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- AB 1268, a landmark legislation that promises to significantly impact organ and tissue donation in the state, was signed by Governor Newsom. AB 1268, championed by Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks), represents a crucial step forward in streamlining the organ donor registration process. This legislation makes organ and tissue donor registration more accessible and efficient for Californians. By including a checkbox on the state income tax return, individuals can now opt to become donors with ease, contributing to the growth of the California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry.

Donate Life California Advocates with Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks in front of the California State Capitol

Assemblywoman Irwin shares, "With this new law, Californians will have the chance to help save more lives through this important program. Ensuring we have a strong organ donation registry is critical for Californians and by forging this new partnership between the Franchise Tax Board and Donate Life California we hope to potentially save more lives every year by connecting more patients in need with donors."

Key Highlights of AB 1268:

Efficient Information Transfer: The Franchise Tax Board will be responsible for annually sending this information to the California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry for individuals who have chosen to become organ donors. This streamlined process will enhance the accuracy and efficiency of organ donor registrations.

The Franchise Tax Board will be responsible for annually sending this information to the California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry for individuals who have chosen to become organ donors. This streamlined process will enhance the accuracy and efficiency of organ donor registrations. Simplified Organ Donor Registration: AB 1268 will require the Franchise Tax Board to revise the California resident income tax return to include a checkbox for individual taxpayers who self-prepare their returns to elect to be an organ donor with the California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry.

"Since the creation of the Donate Life California registry, Californians have taken even greater strides to help save the lives of thousands," stated Jim Martin, Chief Executive Officer of Donate Life California. Donate Life California feels that every Californian has the power to make a difference when they sign up to be an organ, eye, and tissue donor, and AB 1268 will help to create more opportunities for donation while giving hope to over 20,000 Californians who are waiting for a life-saving organ.

Facts about donation

Over 100,000 Americans are currently waiting for an organ transplant, more than 20,000 live in California . An organ transplant is their only remaining medical option.

. An organ transplant is their only remaining medical option. Sadly, an average of 18 patients die every day while waiting, simply because the organ they needed was not donated in time.

2022 was a groundbreaking year as more than 42,800 organ transplants were performed, and the US surpassed its 1 millionth transplant.

About Donate Life California:

Donate Life California is the nonprofit, state-authorized organ, eye and tissue donor registry. As a public service, the registry assures that all personal information is kept confidential and stored in a secure database, accessible only to authorized organ and tissue recovery personnel at the time of an actual donation opportunity. The registry is administered by Donate Life California and California's four nonprofit, federally designated organ recovery organizations: Donor Network West, Lifesharing, OneLegacy and Sierra Donor Services. For more information about Donate Life California, please visit www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org or in Spanish at www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org .

Please visit Donate Life California's Stories of Hope web page to read inspiring stories about organ and tissue donors and recipients from around the state.

SOURCE Donate Life California
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The closing of Azerbaijan's Mugan Bank will not affect the banking sector, Trend reports.

The data of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) shows that the share of Mugan Bank in the assets of Azerbaijan's banking system is 1.4 percent, in the loan portfolio, 2 percent, and in the sector's liabilities, only 1.3 percent.

"The revocation of Mugan Bank's banking license does not pose any threat to the financial stability and sustainability of the banking sector," the CBA said.

The license of Mugan Bank was revoked on October 19, 2023, by the decision of the CBA Board dated October 18, 2023, in accordance with Articles 16.1.6, 16.1.7, 16.1.9, 16.1.18, 57, and 61. 1 of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On Banks" (the amount of total capital is less than the minimum amount established by the legislation for banks, the ratio of total capital adequacy is less than 3 percent, the bank does not carry out its current activities in a reliable and prudent manner, as well as due to inadequate internal management and control procedures of the bank).
Obaseki laid out his plans to nurture the film industry and make Edo state the leading creative hub in Africa

LAGOS, Nigeria, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, announced his commitment to helping filmmakers produce films capable of competing at global standards. This was done at an Industry Mixer held at Eko Hotel in Lagos, on Sunday, October 15, 2023, ahead of the second edition of the Edo State International Film Festival (ESIFF), taking place from November 30th to December 2nd, in Benin City.

LR: Ukinebo Dare (Co-chairman, Edo State International Film Festival, 2023); His Excellency, Mr. Tobias Wolfgarten (Head of Programme, Skills Development for Youth Employment, SKYE); and Mr. George Etomi (Principal Managing Partner, George Etomi & Partners)

Hosted by media personality, Osikhena Dirisu, popularly known as Osi Suave, the Industry Mixer served as an event that brought top Nollywood stars and filmmakers together in celebration of Arts, Culture, and Film. The exclusive guest list included stars such as Alibaba, Mary Njoku, Carol King, Victor Sanchez Aghahowa, Blossom Chukwujekwu, Ibrahim Suleiman, Nobert Young, Teco Benson, and more.

The Governor used this event as an avenue to disclose his plans to Nollywood's top stakeholders. According to him, "The strategy is to make sure we develop Edo as a hub for production by making it easy for producers to come and work there  make it more convenient and cost-effective. What do you need as a producer? You need talent, and to be able to manage your costs."

"When you come to Edo, we're training people across the spectrum, as cinematographers, sound engineers, and all sub-aspects of production, so that you can find somebody who is experienced and talented enough to support your work."

The Executive Director of the Edo Creative Hub, Violet Okosun, further emphasized Edo's goal to make an impact on the Nigerian film industry by nurturing local talent and providing opportunities for filmmakers in need of a platform. This mission is what birthed the first edition of ESIFF in 2022.

She said, "This initiative started in 2021 after the Edo Youth Mega Concert, where the Governor realized the creative industry in Edo State was not really being supported. This birthed the Edo Creative Hub. What we started doing was signing MOUs with external producers to come to Edo to shoot films, while also encouraging the local producers to do that".

Based on the success of last year's ESIFF edition, this 2023 edition has already attracted over 3,000 film submissions from 126 countries, with the most entries coming from Nigeria, Iran, India, the United States, and Brazil.

Actor Ibrahim Suleiman, who was unveiled as one of the ambassadors of the Festival alongside actress Victory Idahosa, spoke on the importance of film in keeping culture alive in today's society.

He said, "One of the things we need to remember is the world is no longer as delineated as it used to be. There's now a serious merging of culture. We have to do the best that we can to represent our culture in a more modern way that's easier for the rest of the world to consume".

The Governor has promised a whooping $35,000 prize money for the upcoming edition of the Edo State International Film Festival.

About Edo Creative Hub

The Edo State International film Festival is powered by the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub. The hub was Inaugurated in November 2021 by the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, in honour of the late Sir Victor Uwaifo. It boasts a multi-million-dollar recording studio to support artistes, world class editing suites for film makers as well as a 5000 capacity multi-purpose arena. The Hub stands as a key infrastructure pillar the administration has laid down in its effort to support and promote creativity in the state.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2251976/Edo_ESIFF_2023.jpg

SOURCE Edo Creative Hub
The global electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management system market growth is attributed to the increase in the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), a rise in industry preference for the use of lithium-ion batteries, and growth in the adoption of rechargeable batteries across multiple end-use industries.

WILMINGTON, Del., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Electric Two-Wheeler Lithium-ion Battery Management System Market by Vehicle Type (Pedelecs, Scooters, and Motorcycles), and Topology (Centralized, Distributed, and Modular): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20222031". According to the report, the global electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management system industry generated $0.90 billion in 2021 and is anticipated to generate $5.6 billion by 2031, witnessing a CAGR of 20.3% from 2022 to 2031.

Download Sample of Research Report Overview - https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/8260

A battery management system (BMS) is an electronic system that controls and maintains the battery pack of an electric two-wheeler. Electric two-wheelers are powered by lithium-ion batteries. The battery management system (BMS) continuously monitors a variety of battery parameters, including voltage, current flow, temperature, and charge state. The BMS actively balances the various cells in the battery pack to ensure that they are uniformly charged and discharged. This balancing process helps to improve the battery pack capacity and lifespan. The BMS also provides essential information to the vehicle's control system, allowing for accurate range estimation and efficient management of the electric powertrain.

Prime Determinants of Growth:

The global electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management system market growth is attributed to the increase in the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), a rise in industry preference for the use of lithium-ion batteries, and growth in the adoption of rechargeable batteries across multiple end-use industries. However, the rise in the overall price of products with the addition of the battery management system hinders the growth of the market. Moreover, an increase in the adoption of cloud-connected battery management systems, growth in demand for renewable energy, and rise in demand for e-bikes and e-scooters provide remarkable growth opportunities for players operating in the market.

Leading Market Players: -

Elithion Inc

Jiangsu Xinri E-Vehicle Co

Leclanche

Lithium Balance

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd

Navitas System LLC

Nuvation Energy

NXP Semiconductors

Renesas Electronics Corporation,

Shenzhen Litongwei Electronics Technology Co., Ltd

Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.

Texas Instruments Incorporated

The report provides a detailed analysis of these key players in the global electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management system market. These players have adopted strategies such as new product launches to increase their market share and maintain dominant shares in different regions. The report is valuable in highlighting business performance, operating segments, product portfolio, and strategic moves of market players to showcase the competitive scenario.

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Electric Two-Wheeler Lithium-Ion BMS Industry Report Coverage & Details:

Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 20222031 Base Year 2021 Market Size in 2021 $0.90 Billion Market Size in 2031 $5.6 Billion CAGR 20.3 % No. of Pages in Report 229 Segments Covered Vehicle Type, Topology, and Region Drivers Increase in adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) Rise in industry preference for use of lithium-ion batteries Growth in adoption of rechargeable batteries across multiple end-uses Opportunities Increase in adoption of cloud-connected battery management systems Growth in demand for e-bikes and e-scooters Restraints Increase in the overall price of the product with the addition of a battery management system



COVID-19 Scenario:

The pandemic had a negative impact on the global electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management systems market, due to worldwide lockdown, halt in manufacturing activities, and trade restrictions.

Post-pandemic, there has been a resurgence in the demand for electric vehicles, owing to greater adoption of clean energy sources, emission restrictions, and supportive government policies, thereby driving the demand for the global electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management system systems.

The modular segment to maintain leadership status during the forecast period-

Based on topology, the modular segment held the highest market share in 2021, accounting for nearly half of the global electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management system market revenue, and is estimated to maintain its leadership status during the forecast period. Owing to advantages, such as scalability based on requirement, lower maintenance cost, and noise immunity. However, the distributed segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 21.7% from 2022 to 2031. Distributed battery management system provides improved precision, owing to the presence of dedicated microcontrollers for each cell and are cheaper.

The scooters segment to maintain its leadership status during the forecast period-

Based on vehicle type, the scooter segment held the highest market share in 2021, accounting for more than two-fifths of the global electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management system market revenue, and is expected to maintain its leadership status during the forecast period. Mopeds and scooters are gaining traction in the electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management system market as they are filling a medium-trip-sized gap in micro-mobility. On the other hand, the motorcycle segment is projected to manifest the highest CAGR of 23.0% from 2022 to 2031. Electric motorcycles aid in a significant reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, carbon footprints, and noise pollution, thereby gaining popularity over internal combustion engine (ICE) powered motorcycles. In addition, companies operating in the industry are focusing on developing electric motorcycles with maximum torque and high power to cater to the growing market trend of high speed and long range.

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Asia-Pacific to maintain its dominance by 2031-

Based on region, Asia-Pacific held the highest market share in terms of revenue in 2021, accounting for more than four-fifths of the global electric two-wheeler lithium-ion battery management system market revenue, and is expected to maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. Asia-Pacific has experienced a surge in electric two-wheeler sales, driven by growing population, increasing disposable incomes, and urbanization. Moreover, the presence of rapidly emerging countries in the region is expected to significantly impact the market. LAMEA is expected to witness the fastest CAGR of 25.4% from 2022 to 2031. This is due to the surge in popularity of electric vehicles.

Similar Reports We Have on BMS Industry:

Automotive BMS Market Research Report 2023-2032

Automotive Lithium-Ion BMS Market Research Report 2023-2032

Electric Bus Lithium-Ion BMS Market Research Report 2023-2032

Battery Management System Market Research Report 2023-2032

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ENGLEWOOD, N.J., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Englewood Health has appointed two new physician leaders to oversee behavioral health and health equity.

Magdalena Spariosu, MD, has been named director of behavioral health. In this new role, Dr. Spariosu will spearhead strategic planning and clinical oversight for both inpatient and outpatient behavioral health services, with a central focus on expanding access to compassionate, patient-centered, evidence-based care across the communities served by Englewood Health.

Dr. Spariosu specializes in addiction medicine, brain injury medicine, and consultation-liaison psychiatry. Her primary clinical focus revolves around meeting the psychiatric needs of patients confronting medical and neurological comorbidities, including those dealing with conditions such as cancer, traumatic brain injury, and psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.

"I believe each person's story is valuable and deserves to be heard," says Dr. Spariosu. "I am honored to assist behavioral health patients in their journey toward healing, wholeness, and mental well-being. As director of behavioral health at Englewood Health, I look forward to applying my expertise to improve mental health throughout our communities for individuals and families through prevention, diagnosis, and treatment."

"We are delighted to welcome Dr. Spariosu as director of behavioral health," says Hillary Cohen, MD, senior vice president for medical affairs at Englewood Health. "She brings tremendous experience and outstanding clinical knowledge to evolve our program. Under her leadership, Englewood Health will build on its success and further meet the behavioral health needs of our communities."

Dr. Spariosu received her MD from Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Timisoara, Romania. She completed a psychiatry residency and was chief resident at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, and completed a consultation-liaison psychiatry fellowship at Long Island Jewish Medical Center at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, NY. She is a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and a member of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and the New Jersey Psychiatric Association. In addition to English, Dr. Spariosu is fluent in Romanian, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian.

Anita Ramsetty, MD, has been named director of health equity. In this new role, Dr. Ramsetty is responsible for shaping the health system's efforts to advance health equity. She will focus on developing programs and resources to address social determinants of health, remove barriers to care and education, and reduce health disparities across Englewood Health's patient populations and the communities it serves.

Dr. Ramsetty is board certified in internal medicine and endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism. She specializes in equity in medical education and her clinical focus comprises nutrition, lifestyle, and preventive health, especially as it relates to diabetes and heart disease.

"I found my calling in caring for underserved communities to ensure all of us have equal access to the care and resources we need to live a healthy life," says Dr. Ramsetty. "Through education, medical practice, and community engagement, we will find new ways to keep moving forward together, healthfully."

"Fostering diversity and inclusion in health care has never been a more pressing goal," says Hillary Cohen, MD, senior vice president for medical affairs at Englewood Health. "We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Ramsetty to our team. As a clinical preceptor for students and residents, she has worked extensively with at-risk groups and is consistently recognized for her leadership in diversity. Under her guidance, Englewood Health will implement targeted interventions designed to improve health outcomes and health equity for our communities."

Dr. Ramsetty received her MD from the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL, where she completed an internal medicine residency. She then completed an endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, CA. Dr. Ramsetty is a member of the American Diabetes Association and the Endocrine Society.

About Englewood Health

Englewood Health, one of New Jersey's leading hospitals and healthcare networks, delivers nationally recognized inpatient and outpatient care through its hospital and network of physician practices, urgent care centers, and imaging centers. Englewood Hospital, founded in 1890, consistently earns high marks for clinical excellence and patient safety. It is recognized as a 2022-23 Best Regional Hospital by US News & World Report, holds the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade 'A' (spring 2023), and was named a Leapfrog Top Teaching Hospital (2022). Englewood Hospital is nationally recognized for nursing excellence, earning a fifth consecutive designation by the Magnet Recognition Program in 2021. The Englewood Health Physician Networka coordinated network of more than 600 office-based and hospital-based providersoffers primary care, specialty care, and urgent care at more than 140 locations in five counties across northern New Jersey. Englewood Health's focus on health equity and population health encompasses outreach to underserved communities to enhance individual and public health, prevent disease, support lifelong wellness, reduce the burden of mental health challenges and substance use disorders, and meet the cultural, social, and holistic needs of specific populations. With its high-quality, culturally sensitive inpatient care, outpatient services, and community health and wellness programs, Englewood Health delivers a healthcare experience that puts patients at the center.

Media Contact:

Office of Communications

Englewood Health

201-894-3499

[email protected]

SOURCE Englewood Health
Leading provider of Microsoft 365 Workplace Productivity monitoring and reporting solutions is proud to announce a free application security tool that can quickly strengthen your organization's security posture.

CULVER CITY, Calif. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ENow, a trusted software company with over 19 years' experience assisting organizations across the globe, has a long-standing reputation of simplifying complex monitoring scenarios for Entra ID, Active Directory and Microsoft 365 for their clients. By fostering open dialogue with our clients, trusted partners, Microsoft MVPs, and industry thought leaders over the past two decades  this has provided ENow with knowledge based on real-life customer pain points, and a solid position for tackling Entra ID application governance challenges head on  thereby developing a solution that is beneficial for a wide range of organizations.

"We quickly realized that application governance was a huge blind spot for most organizations and that since it was such a common problem, we wanted to provide a free tool that would help organizations better understand their current state" -Jay Gundotra, CEO and technical founder of ENow.

The ENow AppGov Score is a free assessment tool that quickly quantifies your application governance state. It includes a comprehensive Application Governance Assessment report that runs over 24 different checks against your tenant and then gives you your AppGov Score.

ENow believes that our new AppGov Score and full paid solution, ENow App Governance Accelerator, will help organizations identify application security risks and quickly put in an application governance policy. We have also launched a community site will feature a blog and steady stream of high-quality content written by Microsoft security MVPs so where you can find answers and improve your application security posture. The site includes a forum where you can share recommended practices and receive constructive feedback for the community, including Microsoft security MVPs. We believe these resources will provide the tools needed to elevate identity architects to a power position where they can be proactive, vs. reactive, and able to implement a successful application governance strategy for their organization.

Do you know your AppGov Score?

www.AppGovScore.com

About ENow :

When Jay Gundotra founded ENow in 2004, the goal was simple: Transform the chaos and complexity of Microsoft service outages into a simple visual dashboard that delivers immediate actionable insights needed to quickly solve issues. Our founder's domain knowledge and firsthand experience as a Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory administrator has been the key ingredient in making the complex simple for businesses. The result is an award-winning platform that optimizes the service delivery of mission critical Microsoft collaboration and identity platforms, while increasing morale and productivity in the IT department.

As a Microsoft Partner, ENow is trusted by large enterprises around the globe, ENow manages over 550 million employees in over 130 countries and its technologies monitor over 22 billion transactions per week.

ENow specializes in optimizing the service delivery of mission-critical Microsoft collaboration and identity infrastructure. Our digital experience monitoring and analytics for Entra ID, Active Directory and Microsoft 365 transforms the way IT supports these complex services which enable organizations to improve service delivery, increase workplace productivity, and lower total cost of ownership while maintaining robust security against unauthorized access.

www.ENowsoftware.com

Contact:

Natalie Frith

(407) 712-3584

[email protected]

SOURCE ENow Software
BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2023, one of the largest international meetings of surgeons in the world, convenes in Boston next week, October 22-25. This year's Clinical Congress offers several prime opportunities for reporters, editors, and producers who cover health care and health policy beats to report on the latest information on these topics for their readers or viewers.

In addition to hundreds of general and specialty sessions and research-in-progress reports to be presented during the Scientific Forum, media events will be held during the conference on the following topics:

Better Surgical Care Through Artificial Intelligence

STOP THE BLEED Legislation in Massachusetts

The Continued Impact of Covid-19 on Cancer Care*

Fostering the Next Generation of Surgeons in Boston

*Experts can also discuss previously unpublished data related to disruptions in cancer care during the pandemic in the New England area

Further details about these events are below. Apply today for media credentials to cover these events and more.

News Briefing: Better Surgical Care Through Artificial Intelligence

Surgeons at the forefront of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve surgical care will discuss the potential uses and ability of AI to predict adverse events and prevent complications in the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative settings during a news briefing at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Room 50, at 10:00 a.m. ET on October 23. The event will feature a discussion of the application of AI in surgical practice, including in local Boston medical centers.

Members of the media are invited to attend the briefing in person  email [email protected] for more information  or watch via livestream on the ACS Media Center .

Learn more about this news briefing.

News Conference: Massachusetts STOP THE BLEED Legislation

Representatives from the ACS STOP THE BLEED program, along with Massachusetts state legislators, will host a news conference on Monday, October 23, 3:00 p.m. ET, in support of recent legislation that would expand lifesaving STOP THE BLEED kits and training throughout Massachusetts. The proposed legislation would require the placement of STOP THE BLEED kits  containing a tourniquet, gauze, gloves, and a training booklet  in public buildings across the Commonwealth.

The news conference will be held at the Massachusetts State House. Journalists planning to attend should contact Robert Tougas, [email protected]. For more information about the event, contact [email protected].

Cancer Experts Available to Discuss Continued Impact of Covid-19 on Cancer Care

Cancer researchers attending the Clinical Congress in Boston will be available to speak to reporters in person or virtually through Zoom to share recent national data on cancer trends related to the pandemic that showcase the startling effects the Covid-19 pandemic had on cancer diagnoses and what this means for cancer care in 2023 and beyond. For journalists based in the New England area, the researchers will be able to share previously unpublished data related to the New England area and how that data compares with national trends.

Interviews will be scheduled with the researchers for Tuesday, October 24, 2023, 9:00-11:00 a.m. ET. Requests outside this timeframe may also be accommodated with advanced notice. To arrange an interview with the researchers, email [email protected].

Learn more about this interview opportunity.

ACS High School Program Will Foster Next Generation of Surgeons in Boston

On Wednesday, October 25, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, the ACS will host its annual A Day with the American College of Surgeons High School Program, a unique initiative that introduces historically excluded high school students, especially those who are under-represented in medicine, to the joys of a career in medicine and surgery at a time when they are formulating future life plans. About 70 students from four local Boston-area high schools will join the program this year. Media members will be allowed to film or photograph portions of the program and interview surgeons and local Boston-area high school students as they interact with surgeons and learn more about the profession.

10:00-11:45 a.m. ET : Students and mentors will visit the exhibit hall to interact with the latest surgical technology.

: Students and mentors will visit the exhibit hall to interact with the latest surgical technology. 12:30-1:15 p.m. ET : Students and mentors will learn how to STOP THE BLEED, which teaches basic bleeding control techniques that can be used to save a life in a bleeding emergency.

Learn more about this event and obtain media credentials or email [email protected] for more information.

More information on the full Clinical Congress program can be viewed on the ACS website.

About the American College of Surgeons

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has approximately 90,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. "FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

SOURCE American College of Surgeons
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Won Life Brands  parent company of Famous Toastery, a 25+ unit better brunch franchise brand known for its "Famously Fresh" and simple-scratch menu  has been announced as a finalist for The Charlotte Business Journal's 2023 Best in Human Resources Award.

"At Won Life Brands, our commitment to excellence in human resources is unwavering," said Robert Maynard, Founder and CEO of Won Life Brands. "This recognition serves as a testament to the dedication of our incredible team and we will continue to strive for excellence and innovation in HR, making people's lives better one career at a time."

The Journal's annual award  which will be presented on Thursday, October 19, honors the vital work human resources professionals do to make companies in the Charlotte region successful. They, along with their businesses, are responsible for the positive impact on employees and the overall organization.

"Our focus is to find and develop great talent that allows us to continue to grow and scale our brands," said Schyler Houck, Vice President of Human Resources for Won Life Brands.

Won Life Brands is dedicated to developing and growing the brands they represent, which includes Charlotte's own Famous Toastery. Since making its debut in Huntersville, NC in 2005 and expanding to franchising opportunities in 2013, Famous Toastery has more than 25 locations in operation across North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The franchise has robust plans for growth with five restaurants currently in development in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as an additional location coming soon to North Carolina  where two restaurants opened earlier this year.

"Human Resources plays a pivotal role in helping any company succeed, especially as work culture and balance remain among the top priorities for employees," said Mike Sebazco, President of Famous Toastery. "Won Life Brands' commitment to HR and their employees is evident throughout the work they've done while helping Famous Toastery grow and develop."

Famous Toastery not only owns brunch, it makes it Famous: The brand believes food should be both decadent and nutritious, uncompromisingly fresh, and served to order quickly with service that is just as satisfying as the menu. With an emphasis on perfecting classic breakfast items while simultaneously injecting craveable twists to their food and cocktail menus, Famous Toastery prides itself in serving a fresh, simple-scratch made breakfast and brunch menu in a welcoming atmosphere. A perfect destination for anyone who appreciates delicious, home-style cooking, Famous Toastery's menu consists of decadent recipes expertly crafted with the freshest ingredients and, of course, 100% Grade A pure maple syrup.

The brand is committed to bringing brunch, enjoyable hospitality, and community under one roof to other markets in the country with the help of new and existing franchise owners. For more information about Famous Toastery, visit www.famoustoastery.com. To learn about franchising opportunities, please visit www.bestbreakfastfranchise.com.

ABOUT WON LIFE BRANDS

Won Life Brands is a premier growth and development company focused on delivering excellent experiences in the communities it serves. Won Life Brands operates company-owned properties and offers franchise opportunities across their brands, which include Famous Toastery, Flour Power Cooking Studios, Big Burger Spot, and Cartridge World America.

ABOUT FAMOUS TOASTERY

Charlotte, N.C. based Famous Toastery is a breakfast, brunch and lunch franchise that encourages its guests, team and franchise owners to "Be Famous" in their local community by offering "Famously Fresh" meals and a much-needed hub for friends, families and neighbors to get together in a comfortable atmosphere where "every server is your server." The brand began in 2005 before evolving into a franchise system in 2013 and growing to over 25 locations today. In 2020 and 2019, Famous Toastery placed on Restaurant Business' The Future 50, featuring the fastest-growing small chains. Famous Toastery was ranked No. 9 in the Full-Service Restaurants category of Entrepreneur Magazine's Top Food Franchises of 2019 and on Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500 Rankings in 2019 and 2022. In 2018, Famous Toastery received recognition by CNBC as a top franchise to buy, FSR Magazine as one of the Top 14 restaurant chains ready for lift-off, Inc. 5000's list of the fastest growing companies and Franchise Times' Top 200+ franchise opportunities. For more information about Famous Toastery, visit www.famoustoastery.com. To learn about franchising opportunities, please visit www.bestbreakfastfranchise.com.

SOURCE Famous Toastery
With over 20 years of experience in Asia-Pacific, CDNetworks recognizes customer pain points and emphasizes providing localized support and customized services to customers.

SAN ANTONIO, Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, Frost & Sullivan assessed the web application firewall industry and, based on its findings, recognizes CDNetworks with the 2023 Asia-Pacific Customer Value Leadership Award. The company is a leading content delivery network (CDN) and edge service provider with a strong footprint in Asia-Pacific backed by a well-established local network infrastructure. Its product portfolio includes CDN, edge computing, web performance, media delivery, enterprise applications, and cloud-delivered security services. As part of its security offering, its cloud-based web application firewall (WAF) service is delivered through its global network of over 2,800 distributed Points of Presence (PoPs), covering more than 16 Asia-Pacific countries.

2023 Asia-Pacific Web Application Firewall Customer Value Leadership Award

CDNetworks continually expands its local point of presence (PoP) to optimize back-end infrastructure and service performance, enabling it to better support an increasing number of customers in Greater China, ASEAN, Japan, and South Korea. Its application programming interface (API) security solutions integrate with WAF, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection, and bot management, resulting in a one-stop Web Applications and API Protection Solution (WAAP) that helps customers tackle a wide range of web threats. The company continues to upgrade common security features to enhance interoperability between different in-house products.

Vivien Pua, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, observed, "CDNetworks is dedicated to addressing customers' growing demands for consolidated application security solutions that offer enhanced protection against evolving web-based threats."

CDNetworks reassures customers of their application infrastructure security while allowing them to pivot their attention to core business activities. Its partnerships with major cloud service providers, technology vendors, and telecommunications companies in the region enhance the support and interoperability of its offerings. Its good knowledge of the local markets and commitment to addressing local customer demands through an in-country presence and support from local channel partners differentiate it from the competition. Its flexible pricing allows customer to evaluate the investment based on the predictable cost. To help customers smoothly implement WAF solutions to secure their applications, CDNetworks provides onboarding assistance for deployment and security rule optimization.

"CDNetworks has demonstrated a strong track record of supporting diverse customers in the region in the face of the expanded application attack surface and the evolving sophistication of web-based attacks. It serves customers with fast responses and solves their specific requirements, challenges, and pain points," added Pua. With its comprehensive application security solution, flexible and competitive pricing, local customer support, and strong overall performance, CDNetworks earns Frost & Sullivan's 2023 Asia-Pacific Customer Value Leadership Award in the web application firewall industry.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for its customers with a focus on improving the return on the investment that customers make in its services or products. The award recognizes the company's unique focus on augmenting the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer retention and customer base expansion.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in various regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analyses, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

Click here to get the full Frost & Sullivan assessment of CDNetworks' WAF solution report.

About Frost & Sullivan

For six decades, Frost & Sullivan has been world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders, and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models, and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion.

About CDNetworks

As the APAC-leading network with over 2800 global Points of Presence and more than 20 years of technology experience, CDNetworks embraces the new era of Edge and takes it to the next level by using the Edge as a service to deliver the fastest and most secure digital experiences to end users. Our diverse products and services include web performance, media delivery, cloud security, zero trust security, and colocation services  all of which are uniquely designed to spur business innovation. To learn more, visit cdnetworks.com and follow us on LinkedIn

Media Contact

CDNetworks Co. Ltd

[email protected]

www.cdnetworks.com

Contact:

Tarini Singh

P: +91-9953764546

E: [email protected]

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan
The UAE has established a Circular Economy Committee to promote investments in circularity and adopt circular economy practices

Quantum computer's calculation ability can transform multiple industries, from cybersecurity, telecommunications, and healthcare, to mobility, finance and defence

DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Last year, the UAE announced the "UAE Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative", a national drive to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, making the Emirates the first Middle East and North African nation to do so. At GITEX GLOBAL 2023, Faisal Ali Rashid, Senior Director, Energy Demand Side Management, UAE's Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, highlighted the successes in executing this mission.

GITEX GLOBAL Weighs in on Sustainability, E-government, Smart Homes and Future of Computing on Day 4

Rashid said the UAE is transitioning from a linear to a circular economy. As part of this transition, the Emirates has established a Circular Economy Committee comprising public and private sector members to promote investments in circularity and accelerate the adoption of circular economy practices.

Reimagining Public Services in the Digital Age

GITEX GLOBAL facilitates the biggest public-private partnership projects, with 250 government entities looking to collaborate on e-government and digital government initiatives. The Smart Government market was estimated to be worth nearly $30 billion in 2022, with an anticipated value of $110 billion by 2029 at a 21 percent annual growth rate.

In a session titled "Reimagining government in the digital age: Transforming public services for the future", Lord McNicol, Member of the House of Lords, UK Parliament, was joined by other panellists, including Alby Bocanegra, Founder and Former CTO of NYC, The Urban Futurist, Kristina Ishmael, Deputy Director, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education and Mikko Rusama, Former Chief Digital Officer at the City of Helsinki.

They spoke on the role of digital technologies in transforming public services for the future and emphasized the need for a proactive, data-centric approach to public service provision. The panellists highlighted the benefits of Open Data policies which allow organisations to collect data, monitor it, and make well-informed decisions on the services they provide and how they work for the citizens.

Quantum Computing Heralds new Age of Productivity

Integrating AI and quantum computing into hybrid cloud workflows is heralding a new frontier in digital transformation. Headline exhibitors at GITEX GLOBAL 2023, including IBM, Dell Technologies, Microsoft, AWS, HPE and Canadian-based startup Xanadu, say quantum computing  an area of computer science that uses qubits (quantum bits) instead of classical computing bits, delivering huge leaps in processing power  can address the world's biggest problems.

While still in development, quantum computers' mind-boggling calculation ability can transform multiple industries, from cybersecurity, telecommunications, and healthcare, to mobility, finance and defence. Boston Consulting Group, a management consultancy, estimates quantum computers could improve operating income of their users by between $450 billion and $850 billion a year by 2050.

Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President at Dell Technologies for Central Eastern Europe, Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, said to fully capitalise on this transformative technology, businesses must invest in quantum computing and empower their data. "By piloting quantum computing and integrating it strategically into their operations, businesses can stay at the forefront of technological progress and seize the unparalleled opportunities it presents in propelling innovation and advancing processes," he added.

Peter Oganesean, the Managing Director of HP Middle East, said recent advances in quantum computing, along with its increased accessibility, will have significant implications in sectors such as cybersecurity, medicine, finance, and many more. "Representing the next breakthrough in IT, this technology holds the promise of finding answers to some of our most pressing scientific challenges, such as genome profiling and finding treatments for disease at incredible speeds," he added.

Xanadu Founder and CEO Christian Weedbrook Weedbrook said that the company is working with car brands such as BMW and Volkswagen on quantum chemistry to develop the next generation of EV batteries. He estimates quantum computing will be, in the next couple of years, where ChatGPT is today in investment and interest. "It really will change the world and I am looking forward to being part of that," he stated.

To demonstrate its technical capability, Xanadu's quantum computer Borealis went head-to-head last year with Japanese Fugaku, the world's fastest supercomputer, to solve a complex mathematical formula. It would have taken Fugaku 7 million years to solve this problem. Borealis cracked the same problem in two minutes.

The Connected Home of the Future at Your Fingertip

In collaboration with etisalat by e&, Samsung introduced the Family Hub Refrigerator on the fourth day of GITEX GLOBAL. Its "View Inside" internal camera lets users view the fridge's contents via smartphones, check food item expiration dates, and purchase groceries directly from the Etisalat Smile grocery platform. Additionally, it seamlessly connects and controls smart devices in users' homes, serving as a central hub.

At the launch, Burcin Arabul, Director of the Home Appliances Division at Samsung Gulf Electronics, highlighted how the smart fridge elevates the experience for UAE families. "We are excited to partner with Etisalat for GITEX GLOBAL and launch our Family Hub refrigerator at the event. Embracing GITEX's theme of 'Imagining AI in everything,' the Family Hub showcases the future of connected homes and heralds a new era of smart connectivity," she added.

The 43rd edition of GITEX GLOBAL takes place from October 16-20, 2023, the blockbuster tech showpiece once again reaching full capacity at the Dubai World Trade Centre as it hosts more than 6,000 exhibitors. GITEX GLOBAL and Expand North Star comprise a combined 41 halls spanning 2.7 million sq. ft of exhibition space, a 40% growth year-on-year with 1,800 startups across Expand North Star and GITEX GLOBAL. The events converge the best minds and most visionary companies to scrutinise, challenge, define, and empower the digital agendas of the world.

More information is available at www.gitex.com and www.expandnorthstar.com

On social media: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Youtube

Hashtag:



#GITEXGLOBAL #Expandnorthstar



About Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC):

A global business facilitator since 1979, Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) is home to region's leading purpose-built convention and exhibition centre. DWTC provides a platform for connecting people, products, innovation and ideas from around the world through a dynamic calendar of international trade exhibitions and its own roster of sector leading mega events. As a designated free zone, complemented by award-winning commercial real estate, DWTC plays an integral role in Dubai and the region's growth story with an estimated total economic output of AED 200 Billion, attracting over 30 Million business visitors to Dubai over the past four decades.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2252205/Panelists_at_Reimagining.jpg

SOURCE GITEX Global
Sonata Software signed a multi-year contract with GCX to transform their business operations leveraging Cloud, Data and AI technologies

BENGALURU, India, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sonata Software (NSE: SONATSOFTW) (BSE: 532221), the leading Modernization Engineering company has announced that it has signed an agreement with Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), a leading network service provider powering global connectivity for new media providers, telecom carriers and enterprises. Sonata's investments in Cloud, Data and Generative AI technologies made Sonata the partner of choice for GCX as they start a multi-year business transformation of GCX's enterprise operations, systems and business intelligence systems.

GCX provides high-bandwidth connectivity and global managed network services including managed ICT, cyber security, and UCaaS solutions, to a range of blue-chip customers inclusive of hyperscalers, telecommunications operators, new media providers and enterprises throughout the world. Its 66,000 km of cables span 46 countries from North America to Asia, with a particularly strong position on the Europe-Asia and Intra-Asia routes.

"Our primary focus in this endeavor is delivering operational excellence to help GCX deliver on its strategic objectives. Our capabilities and investments in Cloud, Data and AI will be at the core to deliver the next leg of transformation for GCX," said Samir Dhir, MD and CEO at Sonata Software.

The announcement today is a foot forward in that direction to enable GCX transform their technology landscape and deliver market-leading experience to their customers.

"Sonata has been a strategic partner. We believe that the continued partnership will help us improve our operations and help invest in improving overall business performance," said Carl Grivner, CEO at GCX.

"Our partnership with Sonata continues to be a significant part of our future roadmap. Sonata continues to be an important partner in making GCX future-ready by providing strategic business and technology transformations," said Brice Evin, CFO at GCX.

About Global Cloud Xchange:

GCX Holdings Limited (Bermuda), operating as Global Cloud change (GCX), offers network services that power digital transformation for enterprises, new media providers, and telecoms carriers. GCX covers all aspects of cloud-centric connectivity from managed SD-WAN and hybrid networks, to direct Cloud connections and 100 Gps+ waves. With a pedigree going back 30+ years, GCX are experts in providing connectivity throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America via the vast GCX subsea network (the world's largest private submarine cable network), with extensions available into more than 200 countries worldwide.

To learn more about GCX, follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

About Sonata Software

In today's market, there is a unique duality in technology adoption. On one side, extreme focus on cost containment by clients, and on the other, deep motivation to modernize their Digital storefronts to attract more consumers and B2B customers.

As a leading Modernization Engineering company, we aim to deliver modernization-driven hyper-growth for our clients based on the deep differentiation we have created in Modernization Engineering, powered by our Lightening suite and 16-step Platformation playbook. In addition, we bring agility and systems thinking to accelerate time to market for our clients.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, India, Sonata has a strong global presence, including key regions US, UK, Europe, APAC, and ANZ. We are a trusted partner of world leading companies in TMT (Telecom, Media and Technology), Retail & CPG, Manufacturing, BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) and HLS (Healthcare and Lifesciences) space. Our bouquet of Modernization Engineering Services cuts across Cloud, Data, Dynamics, Contact Centers and around newer technologies like Generative AI, MS Fabric, and other modernization platforms.

For more information, please visit https://www.sonata-software.com/

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/689012/4257625/Sonata_Software_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Sonata Software
DUBLIN, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Land-based Smart Weapons Market by Product, Technology, and Region 2023-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The global land-based smart weapons market size reached US$ 4.22 Billion in 2022. Looking forward, the market is set to reach US$ 6.92 Billion by 2028, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 8.3% during 2023-2028

The global market for land-based smart weapons is being driven by several significant factors. Firstly, there is a rising prevalence of geopolitical tensions, terrorism, and political unrest, which has increased the demand for precise and accurate targeting of enemy assets. This need for precision is a key driver of the market.

Secondly, the international arms trade has seen a considerable increase, further fueling the growth of the land-based smart weapons market. Countries around the world are investing heavily in upgrading their military capabilities, contributing to the market's expansion.

North America stands as the largest market for land-based smart weapons, driven by factors such as high military expenditure, continuous technological advancements, increasing disposable income levels, and the implementation of stringent national security policies.

Land-based smart weapons are advanced military armaments designed for precise engagement of targets on land. Deployed on ground-based platforms like vehicles or stationary launchers, these weapons utilize cutting-edge guidance systems and technologies. GPS, laser designation, and other advanced guidance mechanisms ensure accurate targeting, allowing for real-time adjustments to flight paths to avoid obstacles and achieve precise hits on intended targets.

One of the significant advantages of land-based smart weapons is their ability to minimize collateral damage and reduce risks to personnel. They enhance mission effectiveness while minimizing unintended consequences. Moreover, these weapons can be cost-effective by reducing the number of munitions required to accomplish mission objectives.

Land-based smart weapons find extensive use in urban environments, where the aim is to minimize civilian casualties and infrastructure damage. Their precision and versatility make them a preferred choice for modern military operations.

Land-based Smart Weapons Market Trends:

The global market for land-based smart weapons is experiencing significant growth, primarily driven by the increasing need for precision and accuracy in targeting enemy assets, including vehicles, buildings, and individuals. This heightened demand can be attributed to the rising geopolitical tensions and political unrest witnessed across the globe.

Furthermore, the substantial increase in military expenditure by governments of various countries, aimed at upgrading existing weapon systems and ensuring military readiness, is serving as a strong catalyst for market growth. Additionally, the adoption of various technological advancements, such as the integration of GPS, artificial intelligence (AI), laser guidance systems, and advanced sensors, is enhancing the flexibility and lethality of these weapons, further boosting their adoption.

The evolving nature of modern warfare, characterized by its hybrid, asymmetric, and urbanized aspects, is fueling the demand for land-based smart weapons, as they offer effective means of minimizing collateral damage in such scenarios. Moreover, the market is benefiting from the significant rise in international arms trade and military modernization programs worldwide.

The global rise in insurgency and terrorism incidents is leading to heightened security concerns, driving the demand for advanced land-based smart weapons. Other contributing factors include rapid urbanization, increased disposable income levels, the implementation of stringent national security policies, and extensive research and development (R&D) efforts.

The report also offers a comprehensive analysis of the competitive landscape within the global land-based smart weapons market. It covers various aspects of competitive analysis, including market structure, market share held by key players, player positioning, top-performing strategies, competitive dashboard, and company evaluation quadrant.

Key Questions Answered in This Report:

How has the global land-based smart weapons market performed so far, and how will it perform in the coming years?

What are the drivers, restraints, and opportunities in the global land-based smart weapons market?

What is the impact of each driver, restraint, and opportunity on the global land-based smart weapons market?

What are the key regional markets?

Which countries represent the most attractive land-based smart weapons market?

What is the breakup of the market based on the product?

Which is the most attractive product in the land-based smart weapons market?

What is the breakup of the market based on the technology?

Which is the most attractive technology in the land-based smart weapons market?

What is the competitive structure of the global land-based smart weapons market?

Who are the key players/companies in the global land-based smart weapons market?

Competitive Landscape

Aselsan A.S. (Turkish Armed Forces Foundation)

BAE Systems plc

Israel Aerospace Industries

Lockheed Martin Corporation

MBDA Systems

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.

Raytheon Technologies Corporation

Safran SA

Key Market Segmentation:



Product Insights:

According to the report, missiles represented the largest segment.

Ammunitions

Missiles

Others

Technology Insights:

According to the report, satellite guidance accounted for the largest market share.

Satellite Guidance

Radar Guidance

Infrared Guidance

Laser Guidance

Others

Regional Insights:

North America

United States

Canada

Europe

Germany

France

United Kingdom

Italy

Spain

Russia

Others

Asia Pacific

China

Japan

India

South Korea

Australia

Indonesia

Others

Latin America

Brazil

Mexico

Others

Middle East and Africa



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/o9rx1d

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

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SOURCE Research and Markets
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Russia and Kazakhstan will jointly develop hydrocarbon deposits, including on the shelf of the Kazakh part of the Caspian Sea, official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Maria Zakharova told Trend in an exclusive interview.

Prospects for the development of trade and economic cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan

In the new geopolitical realities, Kazakhstan continues to remain one of Russias most important trading partners. The volume of bilateral trade turnover is constantly growing; in 2022, it amounted to about 2 trillion rubles; in 2023, from January through July, it was almost 1.5 trillion rubles. The potential for the development of trade and economic relations remains colossal.

Given the historically close ties between Russia and Kazakhstan, the longest border in the world, and the interconnected nature of cooperation, the Russian Federation sees broad prospects for deepening trade and economic cooperation.

Cooperation in the energy sector

Russia is one of the largest exporters of energy resources and makes a significant contribution to ensuring both global and regional energy security. We have established constructive relations with our closest neighbors and allies in Central Asia, including the Republic of Kazakhstan. In particular, the issue of gas supply in its northern and eastern regions remains relevant for this country.

Taking into account the strategic partnership with Astana, it would be logical for us to seek the help of our Kazakh friends in solving this problem. In order to ensure access to the necessary energy sources, various options for restructuring the corresponding gas transmission system are being considered.

Other formats of coordinated work with Kazakh partners are also being discussed. In general, we proceed from the fact that in the future, the needs for energy resources in Asia will only increase, and other interested countries may join our cooperation.

Through the joint efforts of the two countries, the uranium and mining industries are developing, and projects in the field of the nuclear fuel cycle and in general in the field of peaceful nuclear are being successfully implemented.

As is known, the leadership of Kazakhstan is considering the issue of building a nuclear power plant on the territory of the republic. The implementation of such an initiative will ensure the production of clean electricity, solve the problem of its shortage, satisfy the demand of the population, and, in addition, give a powerful impetus to the socio-economic development of the region and the country.

The most important international project involving the two countries is the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, most of which is supplied by Kazakhstan, which uses this route to transport a significant volume of its "black gold" exports.

There are a number of specialized economic agreements between leading Russian economic operators in the fuel and energy sector - PJSC Gazprom, LUKOIL, Tatneft, and others - with counterparties from Kazakhstan regarding the development of hydrocarbon fields, including on the shelf of the Kazakh part of the Caspian Sea, the construction of joint energy processing enterprises, etc.

Cooperation in the field of the green economy

Good prospects for intensifying cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan are seen in the green energy direction. Our states have much in common in their approaches to economic decarbonization and the energy transition.

Both Russia and Kazakhstan expect to reach zero levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2060, emphasizing the tasks of modernizing the energy and industrial infrastructure, increasing the use of alternative and renewable energy sources, and, in the transition period, natural gas.

In this regard, we could talk about joint projects in the fields of nuclear, renewable, and hydrogen energy, the gas industry, and the development of forestry and water management complexes. The relevant departments of the two countries are working on specific areas of interaction.

The two countries have established constructive cooperation in the field of environmental protection. In 2021, the regular meeting of the annual Forum of Interregional Cooperation, with the participation of heads of state, was entirely devoted to this actual topic.

Russia's cooperation with Kazakhstan envisages the implementation of relevant regional initiatives, including saving the Aral Sea, water use on the Ural and Irtysh rivers, strengthening climate resilience, and restoring biodiversity.

Transport corridors, including the North-South and Trans-Caspian International Transport Route

In terms of transport issues, the focus is on the prospects for the development of successfully functioning international trade routes, such as the North-South, which include the systematic construction of highways. Due to the multiplicity of the corresponding infrastructure, this process has a positive impact simultaneously on the economic, social, and environmental aspects of both individual regions and our states as a whole. In the future, North-South will be able to provide transit for up to 30 million tons of cargo annually.

As for third-party projects, such as, for example, the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the Russian position is clear: each country has the right to independently decide which project to join based on its own interests.

Potentially new prospects for cooperation

Russia and Kazakhstan are united by closely intertwined business and economic ties and industrial and scientific-technical cooperation.

In the medium term, joint plans include the implementation of a number of large-scale projects in the automotive, aviation, light, chemical, petrochemical, and metallurgical industries.
DUBLIN, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Polyethylene Furanoate (PEF) Market Size, Market Share, Application Analysis, Regional Outlook, Growth Trends, Key Players, Competitive Strategies and Forecasts, 2023 to 2031" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global Polyethylene Furanoate (PEF) market is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.5% by 2031. PEF is a bio-based polymer derived from plants that is 100% recyclable. It has the potential to replace conventional petroleum-based polymers like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and is considered the next-generation polyester. PEF offers better barrier and mechanical properties compared to PET.

Market Drivers:

Environmental Concerns: The growing environmental concerns related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions are driving the demand for eco-friendly and sustainable materials like PEF. Government Regulations: Stringent government regulations aimed at reducing the consumption of non-recyclable plastics are stimulating the market growth for PEF. Shift to Eco-Friendly Substitutes: There is a shifting trend towards the usage of eco-friendly substitutes for conventional plastics, further boosting the demand for PEF.

Market Challenges:

Decrease in Crude Oil Prices: The decrease in crude oil prices can hinder the growth of the PEF market, as it may affect the competitiveness of bio-based materials. Raw Material Availability: The availability of raw materials for PEF production can pose a challenge to market growth.

Regional Outlook:

Europe : Supportive government policies in Europe are contributing to market growth in the region. Asia Pacific : The Asia Pacific region is expected to be the fastest-growing market due to the expanding packaging sector in countries like Malaysia , India , Singapore , Australia , and China . North America : North America is also projected to grow significantly, driven by stringent government regulations and increasing environmental concerns.

Market Segmentation:

The global PEF market is segmented based on application into:

Bottles

Packaging Product

Fibres and fibrous webs

Films

Others

Key Players in the PEF Market:

Novamont

Avantium Technologies B.V.

Danone S.A.

Toyobo Co., Ltd.

Canon, Inc.

Alpla

Evian

The Coca-Cola Company

Key Questions Answered in the Report:

What are the key factors impacting the growth of the PEF market? Where are the key investment opportunities in terms of product segments and geographies? What is the estimated forecast and market projections up to 2031? Which segment is expected to witness the fastest CAGR during the forecast period? Which market segment holds the largest market share and why? Are low and middle-income economies investing in the PEF market? Which region is the largest market for PEF? What are the market trends and dynamics in emerging markets like Asia Pacific , Latin America , and the Middle East & Africa ? What are the key trends driving the growth of the PEF market? Who are the key competitors, and what strategies are they employing to enhance their market presence in the global PEF market?

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/i2s5f1

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



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Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Research and Markets
BEIJING, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) was held in Beijing from Tuesday to Wednesday, as the year marks the10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Leaders and representatives of countries from around the globe and international organizations have arrived in China, and Beijing is fully prepared for this major home diplomatic event.

In recent days, floral decorations, flags and banners bearing slogans for the third BRF can been seen in many parts of the capital, and some foreign guests who came for the event told the Global Times that with so much bad news about wars, conflicts and chaos elsewhere, China makes them believe that peace and development are still the mainstream of the world, and they are confident that by working together, members of the international community will eventually find solutions to the global challenges.

More world leaders arrived in Beijing on Monday. Following Kenyan President William Ruto and Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who arrived on Sunday, foreign leaders including Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and President of the Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso have arrived in Beijing for the event, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also arrived on Monday. During his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Lavrov said Russian President Vladimir Putin is very much looking forward to having a summit with President Xi Jinping in China and participating in the forum, expressing confidence over the success of the event, according to Xinhua.

The first press briefing of the Media Center of the third BRF was held at the China National Convention Center in Beijing on Monday. Officials of the International Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and other related departments were invited to brief the press and take questions from journalists of different countries, Xinhua reported.

Chinese analysts said the BRF will be a key and historic event, because the world is in turbulence and needs solutions and answers, and China, just like it has done in the past decade, will continue playing a role to guide and contribute to global development and governance when world peace and stability are facing serious challenges.

The BRI has distinguished China from traditional major powers. The BRI is a rejection of zero-sum confrontation, it is not even a "national strategy" by the traditional definition, nor a policy to serve the interests of only one country, said experts.

"In the past, many people asked what China's rise will bring to this world, and the BRI is an answer from China. The reason why more and more countries have become interested and participated in the initiative is simple: It brings benefits to everyone," said Shen Yi, an expert on international relations and professor at Fudan University.

Some Chinese netizens said the world is thread-worn and China is sewing it up, which is a vivid and accurate metaphor.

The world today needs new answers, and this is why representatives of over 140 countries and 30-plus international organizations, including state leaders, heads of international organizations, ministerial officials and representatives of the business sector, academia and nongovernmental organizations are expected to participate the forum, said experts.

High expectations

Expectations for the upcoming BRF are high, with national leaders, former foreign officials, foreign scholars and representatives from foreign business communities all looking to hear about the remarkable achievements the BRI has made in the past decade and how the cooperation platform will lead to more opportunities and benefit more people.

"The important thing is the celebration of the 10th anniversary of BRI and a presentation of all the BRI projects which are valued at over $1 trillion in investment," Michele Geraci, former undersecretary of state at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, told the Global Times.

"The forum will bring the BRI to a higher level of discussion, and really increase the image of the BRI in the eyes of many Western countries. And I also expect there will be discussions on the role of BRI in bringing peace to the world," he noted.

Mario Rendulic, President of the Chinese Southeast European Business Association, told the Global Times on Monday that the increasing number of participating countries and organizations could "lead to a more diverse range of perspectives, experience and opportunities for collaboration."

Having been to the BRF's first and second editions, Rendulic noted that the third edition is "built on the progress and experiences of the previous ones," and is thus widely anticipated to serve a platform for countries to chart the future course of BRI, with a great emphasis on quality and sustainable development.

"I'm very interested in hearing about the latest investment themes at the summit, and analyzing how [my company] can provide support," Rani Jarkas, chairman of Swiss financial group Cedrus Group, told the Global Times. Having traveled to many BRI countries and witnessed firsthand the great work Chinese investors are doing to benefit local communities, Jarkas praised BRI as "an astounding success and a major catalyst for global economic development."

The global vision and strategy for BRI development for the next stage, set to be discussed at the forum, has also come under the global spotlight.

Mansoor Nadeem Lari, CEO of the India-based Silk Route Trade and Industry Development Corp, who is a third-time participant of the forum, told the Global Times on Monday that the forum can bring greater consensus for discussion on a post-pandemic way forward and create a workable plan for cooperation among BRI participating countries, to "fast-track global economic recovery."

Abid Suleri, executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, told the Global Times that he will be paying attention to the opening ceremony and keynote speech by the Chinese leader, from which he expects to learn about the measures and initiatives for enhancing cooperation and partnership.

"In the next stage, strengthening the synergy and coordination of BRI with other regional and global initiatives will be a focal point, with a view to promoting South-South and South-North cooperation," Suleri said.

SOURCE Global Times
BEIJING, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Amid turbulence as conflicts and bloodshed continue around the globe in countries like Palestine, Israel, Ukraine and Russia, members of the international community have never stopped seeking hope and solutions to make development sustainable, and maintain or restore peace and stability, with leaders and representatives from more than 140 countries as well as 30 international organizations arriving in China to participate in the upcoming Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation to be held in Beijing from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of the forum where he will deliver a keynote speech, and later hold a welcome banquet and bilateral events for guests attending the forum, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The BRF this year will be held under the theme "High-quality Belt and Road Cooperation: Together for Common Development and Prosperity."

Kenyan President William Ruto on Sunday arrived in Beijing to attend the BRF, and Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who will also attend the forum, arrived in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, to start his trip in China, the Xinhua News Agency and CGTN reported.

China Central Television aired an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, with TASS reporting that this is an interview ahead of Putin's visit to Beijing. TASS said on Sunday that the Russian leader will visit China to attend the BRF as well as a China-Russia summit.

Great significance

"In 2008-2011, the world had just experienced the global financial crisis, and the developed economies had stagnated," Huang Renwei, executive director-general of the Fudan Institute for Belt and Road and Global Governance, told the Global Times on Sunday. "The flow of funds in the global economy as well as the mainstream of globalization had changed, so China had to search for new markets to change its old system. This was the background against which China proposed the BRI in the first place," Huang said.

Through the BRI, China used its investments, technologies and infrastructure projects to link more and more developing countries, Huang noted. "The initiative [BRI] is not just about building bridges and roads, but inevitably a phenomenon based on the changing of the world and China's economic structure."

Huang said that "the BRI is a historically significant, innovative and far-sighted move proposed by China. If the BRI hadn't been proposed 10 years ago, the recession in the global economy and market would have been severer, the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic would have been heavier."

To bring hope

Chinese analysts said the BRF will provide a thorough summary of the achievements and lessons of the past decade, and will discuss and conclude with a consensus and a significant plan about how to keep pushing the construction of the Belt and Road in the future. It seeks to improve and reform globalization and global governance, especially when world peace and development are facing serious challenges and global post-pandemic recovery is fragile.

The third BRF is the most important diplomatic event hosted by China this year, and the most significant celebration for the 10th anniversary of the proposal of BRI, said Chinese Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu on Friday.

Shen Yi, a professor of international relations at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Sunday that he hopes the upcoming BRF will be an event that "continues with the past and opens up the future."

"The world is in persistent unrest, as the ongoing Ukraine crisis and the latest Palestine-Israel conflict are bringing more uncertainties and bloodshed. After the COVID-19 pandemic, global economic growth lacks new impetus," he said.

"The BRF is expected to produce substantial outcomes, both in the form of cooperation documents, initiatives and mechanisms, and in terms of projects, funds and measures. The total number of deliverables is likely to exceed those of the previous two forums," Ma said.

"In this world of change and volatility, the BRF will showcase how the BRI, a Chinese initiative with international support, has delivered benefits to all, and present the new progress China has made in advancing major-country diplomacy on all fronts since the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. It will send a message of solidarity and win-win cooperation of countries around the globe, and add positive energy and stability to the world," Ma told the media.

Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Sunday that the joint construction of the Belt and Road is a key part of China's idea of building a global community of shared future, and in the future, China will keep invest and promote the BRI to make it a better public good for the world, so that more countries are able to benefit from it.

SOURCE Global Times
BEIJING, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday announced eight major steps China will take to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation in a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation, with guests of the event and Chinese experts acknowledging what China and its partners worldwide have accomplished in the past decade. They're also confident that the encouraging message and promises will start a new journey for another "golden decade."

The opening ceremony was attended by representatives, including heads of state, government chiefs and senior officials, from over 140 countries and 30-plus international organizations, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Analysts said the grand event has showed the influence of China and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and in the next 10 years, with continuous efforts by China and other members of the international community, the BRF is able to become the biggest and most important multilateral platform for global development and governance.

Experts said in the next step China will keep its investment but will diversify the source of funds by encouraging and attracting more funds from private capitals inside and outside China, to push for the internationalization of the yuan, and based on the current geopolitical situations, to reduce and avoid risks, and promote the projects based on characteristics of various regions in different continents, and make high-quality development better serve the interests of more countries and more people.

"Belt and Road cooperation, robust and fruitful in its first decade, is now full of dynamism and vitality. We must embark with drive and enthusiasm on the new journey toward another golden decade," Xi told the guests, including state leaders and heads of international organizations, when giving a toast at the banquet held at the Great Hall of the People on Tuesday.

Encouraging message

Among the eight major steps announced by Xi, first, China will build a multidimensional Belt and Road network. "The country will speed up high-quality development of the China-Europe Railway Express, participate in the trans-Caspian international transportation corridor, and host the China-Europe Railway Express Cooperation Forum," President Xi said.

Xi noted that China, together with other parties, will build a new logistics corridor across the Eurasian continent linked by direct railway and road transportation.

Second, China will support an open world economy, with its total trade in goods and services expected to exceed $32 trillion and $5 trillion respectively in the 2024-2028 period. Third, China will carry out practical cooperation for the BRI. The country will promote both signature projects and "small yet smart" livelihood programs, the president said.

Xi vowed more financing support for BRI projects on the basis of market and business operation, noting that the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China will each set up a 350 billion yuan ($48.75 billion) financing window, and that an additional 80 billion yuan will be injected into the Silk Road Fund.

Analysts said 350 billion yuan each plus 80 billion yuan, which would be 780 billion yuan ($106 billion), if this goal is achieved, the money will be able to afford 20 more "Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway" projects, which cost about $5.1 billion, or 2.5 "China-Pakistan Economic Corridor" projects, which is a flagship project of the BRI estimated to cost $46 billion investment in total.

Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times that the plan of financing will be able to attract more funds from private capitals around the globe, and will also promote the reform of Chinese State-owned companies, and will also further advance the internationalization of the yuan.

"The two financing windows announced by the Chinese President will play a crucial role in mobilizing more international funding for BRI projects, meanwhile offering an open, transparent way that could invite more nations into the joint construction of BRI," said Xu Liping, the director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"For instance, for some nations in the Middle East, they may have substantial funds but limited investment channels. But this can enable them to find a way to invest while also offering help for those in urgent need for the capital," Xu told the Global Times on Wednesday.

China will carry out 1,000 small-scale livelihood assistance projects, and enhance vocational education cooperation through Luban Workshops and other initiatives, Xi said during his speech, adding that more efforts will be taken to ensure the safety of BRI projects and personnel. The CEO Conference held during the forum saw the conclusion of agreements worth $97.2 billion, he said.

Liang Haiming, dean of the Hainan University Belt and Road Research Institute, told the Global Times on Wednesday that these data showed the BRI is very popular and welcomed globally, and that's why entrepreneurs from all over the world can reach deals worth $97.2 billion at the CEO conference.

On building a multidimensional Belt and Road connectivity network, Zilola Yunusova, a spokesperson of the Uzbek Embassy in China, shared some encouraging news. Yunusova told the Global Times that "Work is currently under way on a trilateral basis on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railroad construction project. The realization of this project will have a positive impact on the economic development of the republic and will be an important link in the formation of the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor - one of the key corridors of the Belt and Road."

Foreign guests are confident about China's determination and the actions that China announced for starting another "golden decade." Hon Viliame R. Gavoka, Fiji deputy prime minister and minister for tourism and civil aviation, also a guest at the opening ceremony, told the Global Times on Wednesday that "Knowing what you have accomplished in the last 10 years. I'm very confident this [the eight major steps] will also be accomplished."

High-quality development

Dennis Munene Mwaniki, executive director of the Africa Policy Institute, told the Global Times about his expectations for the future, saying that "China and African countries, including Kenya, should focus more on boosting the green silk road, health silk road, and a digital silk road," as the expert hopes the BRI can improve Africa's health system and help the continent to tap into global markets that can link the African Continental Free Trade Area with other free trade areas such as the Asia-centric Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

In response to these sorts of expectations from not only Africa but also many other regions worldwide, apart from the first three major steps covering infrastructure construction and financing, Xi announced concrete moves to boost high-quality BRI cooperation.

Fourth, China will continue to promote green development. The country will further deepen cooperation in areas such as green infrastructure, green energy and green transportation, and step up support for the BRI International Green Development Coalition. Fifth, China will continue to advance scientific and technological innovation. China will continue to implement the Belt and Road Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation Action Plan, and hold the first Belt and Road Conference on Science and Technology Exchange, noted Xi.

China will put forward the Global Initiative for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance at this year's forum. "We stand ready to increase exchanges and dialogue with other countries and jointly promote sound, orderly and secure AI development in the world," Xi said.

Sixth, China will support people-to-people exchanges, and seventh, China will promote integrity-based Belt and Road cooperation, Xi said.

Together with its cooperation partners, China will release the Achievements and Prospects of Belt and Road Integrity Building and the High-Level Principles on Belt and Road Integrity Building, and establish the Integrity and Compliance Evaluation System for Companies Involved in Belt and Road Cooperation, Xi announced. "We will also work with international organizations to carry out research and training on promoting integrity in Belt and Road cooperation," the president said.

As Belt and Road construction has transitioned to a phase of high-quality development, a greater alignment with market dynamics and international standards will be significant.

Eighth, China will strengthen institution building for international Belt and Road cooperation. China will work with its BRI partner countries to strengthen the building of multilateral cooperation platforms covering energy, taxation, finance, green development, disaster reduction, anti-corruption, think tanks, media, culture and other fields, Xi said. China will continue to host the BRF and establish a secretariat for the Forum, he said.

Future and hopes

Apart from promising future, experts warned that challenges and problems should also be noticed.

In the future, based on the situation that has emerged in recent years, including the Ukraine crisis and the renewed outbreak of the Palestine-Israel conflict, the BRI can make adjustments to deal with these challenges, Huang Renwei, executive director-general of the Fudan Institute for Belt and Road and Global Governance, told the Global Times.

Huang said the BRI can be specifically designed for different regions based on their characteristics, and increase efforts to accomplish medium-size projects that are closely related to people's livelihoods to deliver them as quickly as possible. For large projects that take longer time, the priority would be risk management and control.

Foreign leaders and guests have voiced their confidence in the BRI's future. Gyorgy Matolcsy, governor of the National Bank of Hungary, gave his opinion at a sub forum about why the BRI is successful and accepted worldwide. "First of all, it's fair and just," and for the about 150 countries that participate in the BRI, they all benefit, "so it's not just about win-win, but win, win, win, win, win."

SOURCE Global Times
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ --

Invitation for Offers

The Government of Jamaica ("Jamaica") announced today the commencement of an invitation for offers to tender for cash (the "Invitation") notes of each series listed in the table below (collectively, the "Old Notes", and each series thereof a "series" of Old Notes) such that the amount to be paid by Jamaica for the outstanding original principal amount of Old Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase by Jamaica pursuant to the Invitation (i.e., the aggregate Purchase Price (as defined below) multiplied by the applicable Amortization Factor (as defined below)) is equal to a maximum purchase price to be determined by Jamaica in its sole discretion (the "Maximum Purchase Price"). The terms and conditions of the Invitation are set forth in the material dated Thursday, October 19, 2023 (the "Invitation Material").

The Invitation is not conditioned upon any minimum participation of any series of Old Notes but is conditioned on, among other things, the pricing and closing of an international capital markets transaction in an amount and on terms and conditions acceptable to Jamaica.

The Invitation will commence on Thursday, October 19, 2023 and will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on Friday, October 27, 2023 (the "Expiration Deadline") unless extended or earlier terminated by Jamaica in its sole discretion. Old Notes may be validly withdrawn at any time at or prior to the Expiration Deadline. The settlement of validly tendered and accepted Old Notes is expected to occur on Thursday, November 2, 2023 (the "Settlement Date").

Jamaica will pay per U.S.$1,000 original principal amount of each series of Old Notes that are accepted pursuant to the Invitation, a purchase price equal to the applicable fixed price indicated in the in the rightmost column in the table below (the "Purchase Price"), multiplied by the Amortization Factor, if applicable, plus, in each case, accrued and unpaid interest on such Old Notes from the applicable last regular payment of interest to (but excluding) the Settlement Date ("Accrued Interest").

Old Notes Original Principal Amount

Outstanding (1) Principal Amount

Outstanding Reflecting

any Amortization(1) CUSIP/ISIN Purchase Price per

U.S.$1,000 Original

Principal Amount(2) 7.625% Notes due 2025

(the "7.625% 2025 Notes") U.S.$381,176,000 U.S.$254,118,603.92(3) 470160BQ4/

US470160BQ42 U.S.$1,020.00(4) 9.250% Notes due 2025

(the "9.250% 2025 Notes") U.S.$85,225,000 U.S.$85,225,000 470160AT9/

US470160AT99 U.S.$1,052.50 6.750% Notes due 2028

(the "2028 Notes") U.S.$1,421,447,000 U.S.$1,421,447,000 470160CA8/

US470160CA80 U.S.$1,015.00













(1) As of October 19, 2023. (2) In addition, holders with Old Notes accepted pursuant to the Invitation will be paid Accrued Interest on such Old Notes. (3) This amount reflects the outstanding original principal amount of the 7.625% 2025 Notes multiplied by an amortization factor of

0.66666667 (the "Amortization Factor"). (4) The amount to be paid per U.S.$1,000 Original Principal Amount of 7.625% 2025 Notes that are accepted pursuant to the Offer will be

U.S.$1,020.00 multiplied by the Amortization Factor.

If the aggregate Purchase Price for all validly tendered Old Notes, multiplied by the Amortization Factor, if applicable (the "Tendered Principal Purchase Price") would exceed the Maximum Purchase Price, Jamaica will, in its sole discretion, select one or more series of Old Notes to be prorated on the basis of the same or different proration factors. If Jamaica accepts all or a portion of a holder's Offer of Old Notes of any series, the holder will be entitled to receive for such Old Notes the applicable Purchase Price, multiplied by the Amortization Factor, if applicable, plus Accrued Interest, which will be paid on the Settlement Date, if the conditions of the Invitation are met.

Eligible holders of Old Notes must tender Old Notes by requesting that the direct participant through which the holder holds its Old Notes submit, at or prior to the Expiration Deadline, such holder's offer to tender their Old Notes (an "Offer"), by properly instructing The Depository Trust Company, Inc. ("DTC"), Euroclear Bank S.A./N.V. or Clearstream Banking Luxembourg, societe anonyme, as applicable, in accordance with the procedures and deadlines established by such clearing system. Any holder that holds Old Notes through a custodian cannot submit an Offer directly and should instead contact its custodian to instruct the direct participant to submit an Offer on its behalf. There is no letter of transmittal for the Invitation. The acceptance of any Offers forwarded to DTC after the Expiration Deadline will be in the sole discretion of Jamaica.

Jamaica reserves the right, in its sole discretion, not to accept any or all Offers, to modify the Purchase Price for any or all series of Old Notes in accordance with the terms and conditions described in the Invitation Material, or to terminate the Invitation for any reason. In the event of a termination of the Invitation before the Settlement Date, the tendered Old Notes will be returned to the holder as promptly as practicable; provided that termination of the Invitation for any series of Old Notes does not affect the Offers for other series of Old Notes.

The Invitation Material may be downloaded from website of Global Bondholder Services Corporation (the "Information and Tender Agent") at http://gbsc-usa.com/Jamaica/ or obtained from the Information and Tender Agent, Global Bondholder Services Corporation, 65 Broadway  Suite 404, New York, New York 10006 (Tel. (212) 430-3774, or toll free (855) 654-2014) Attention: Corporate Actions, or from any of the Dealer Managers.

The Dealer Managers for the Invitation are:

BofA Securities, Inc.

One Bryant Park

New York, New York 10036

United States of America

Attention: Liability Management Group

Collect: (646) 855-8988

Toll-free: (888) 292-0070 Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

388 Greenwich Street, 4th Floor

New York, New York 10013

United States of America

Attention: Liability Management Group

Collect: (212) 723-6106

Toll-free: (800) 558-3745

Questions regarding the Invitation may be directed to the Dealer Managers at the above contact information or to the Information and Tender Agent at the below contact information.

Contact information for the Information and Tender Agent:

Global Bondholder Services Corporation

Attention: Corporate Actions

65 Broadway  Suite 404

New York, NY 10006

Banks and Brokers call: +1 (212) 430-3774

Toll free: +1 (855)-654-2014

website: http://gbsc-usa.com/Jamaica/

Important Notice

The distribution of materials relating to the Invitation and the transactions contemplated thereby, may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. The Invitation is made only in those jurisdictions where it is legal to do so. The Invitation and any of the transactions contemplated thereby are void in all jurisdictions where they are prohibited. If materials relating to the Invitation or any of the transactions contemplated thereby come into your possession, you are required by Jamaica to inform yourself of and to observe all of these restrictions. The materials relating to the Invitation and the transactions contemplated thereby, including this communication, do not constitute, and may not be used in connection with, an offer or solicitation in any place where offers or solicitations are not permitted by law. If a jurisdiction requires that the Invitation be made by a licensed broker or dealer and a Dealer Manager or any affiliate of a Dealer Manager is a licensed broker or dealer in that jurisdiction, the Invitation shall be deemed to be made by the Dealer Manager or such affiliate in that jurisdiction. Beneficial owners who may lawfully participate in the Invitation in accordance with the terms thereof are referred to as "holders."

This announcement is for informational purposes only. This announcement is not an invitation for offers to tender for cash or a solicitation of invitations for offers to tender for cash any Old Notes.

The distribution of the Invitation Material in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law. Persons into whose possession the Invitation Material comes are required by Jamaica, the Dealer Managers, and the Information and Tender Agent to inform themselves about, and to observe, any such restrictions as set out in the "Jurisdictional Restrictions" section of the Invitation Material.

Jamaica

This announcement has not been and is not required to be registered with the Financial Services Commission pursuant to the Jamaican Securities Act. No purchase of any securities in connection with this Invitation can be completed in Jamaica unless the purchase is made by or through a securities dealer registered with the Financial Services Commission or an exempt dealer (being a bank). However, Jamaican law does not prevent a Jamaica resident from selling securities outside the jurisdiction.

United Kingdom

Neither the communication of this announcement, the Invitation nor any other offer material relating to the Invitation has been approved, by an authorized person for the purposes of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended, the "FSMA"). In the United Kingdom, the Invitation and any other offer material relating to the Invitation are only being distributed to and is only directed at: (a) persons outside the United Kingdom; or (b) persons who have professional experience in matters relating to investments, being investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Order; or (c) persons falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order ("high net worth companies, unincorporated associations etc.); or (d) persons to whom an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity (within the meaning of section 21 of the FSMA) may otherwise lawfully be communicated or caused to be communicated (all such other persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). Any investment or investment activity to which this Invitation or any other offer material relating to the Invitation relates is available only to relevant persons and will be engaged in only with relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on the Invitation or these other documents and/or materials or any of its or their contents.

Each intermediary must comply with the applicable laws and regulations concerning information duties vis a vis its clients in connection with the Old Notes or the Invitation.

SOURCE Government of Jamaica
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Graybar, a leading distributor of electrical, communications and data networking products and provider of related supply chain management and logistics services, has named Brad Lee as District Vice President for the company's California District.

Lee joined Graybar in 2018 and currently serves as Director, Electrical and Industrial Sales in the Phoenix District. As District Vice President, he will lead Graybar's business operations in a territory that includes all of California and part of Nevada.

"We congratulate Brad on his promotion," said Graybar Regional Vice President David Bender. "Brad brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his new assignment. He is a proven leader who is focused on achieving growth and delivering positive results for our customers. I look forward to working with him to expand our business and serve our customers in this region."

Graybar, a Fortune 500 corporation and one of the largest employee-owned companies in North America, is a leader in the distribution of high quality electrical, communications and data networking products, and specializes in related supply chain management and logistics services. Through its network of more than 325 North American distribution facilities, it stocks and sells products from thousands of manufacturers, helping its customers power, network, automate and secure their facilities with speed, intelligence and efficiency. For more information, visit www.graybar.com or call 1-800-GRAYBAR.

Media Contact:

Tim Sommer

(314) 578-7672

[email protected]

SOURCE Graybar
Ali'i Unleashed Brings a New Level of Excitement to Hawaii's Canine Community

HONOLULU, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Get ready to paw-ty at Ali'i Unleashed, Honolulu's newest dog resort! Ali'i Animal Hospital expands our services to include Hawaii's largest indoor pet playground with overnight stays, grooming, and training in one central location. Conveniently located near Ala Moana with reserved curbside drop-off and pick-up. Ali'i Unleashed can accommodate up to 200 pups per day, boasting over 10,000 square feet with dedicated sections for the various activities. It's the perfect place for dogs to exercise and socialize in a secure and climate-controlled facility, while supervised by Ali'i Animal's skilled staff and veterinarians.

Founders, Matt Malta, Resort Manager (L) & Dr. Joanna Cook, Veterinarian-Owner (R), started Alii Animal Hospital on the value of "Helping Pets Live Their Best Lives." Alii Animal Hospital opened their first facility in Kakaako on Sept. 24, 2019 as both a hospital & resort. Since their inception, Alii Animal Hospital has expanded to clinics in Kailua, Kahala, & now Alii Unleashed pet resort, providing four years of superior veterinarian care, pet boarding, daycare, training, & grooming services.

The public is welcome to visit Ali'i Unleashed for an open house on Saturday, October 21 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The event starts at 2:00 p.m. with a Hawaiian blessing, followed by guided Unleashed Tours until 3:30 p.m.

"We're thrilled to introduce Ali'i Unleashed to Hawaii's dog-loving community," said Matt Malta, Resort Director. "It's more than a playground; it's a secure haven where pet parents can confidently leave their canine companions when heading to work or on a trip. Our team is excited to welcome all dogs while providing peace of mind to their owners."

Ali'i Unleashed is an expansion and fourth location of Ali'i Animal Hospital. Founded by Dr. Joanna Cook, Ali'i Animal Hospital's Veterinarian-Owner and Matt Malta, on the value of "Helping Pets Live Their Best Lives." Ali'i Animal Hospital opened their first state-of-the-art facility in Kakaako on September 24, 2019 as both a hospital and resort. The popularity of their pet resort services in urban-dense Honolulu encouraged the opening of Ali'i Unleashed. Since their inception, Ali'i Animal Hospital has opened clinics in Kailua and Kahala, providing four years of superior veterinarian care, pet boarding, daycare, training, and grooming services.

Ali'i Unleashed is open seven days week from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., located at 1246 Hopaka Street in Honolulu, off Piikoi Street, near Kapiolani Boulevard. The facility's recreational areas provide pet parents access to live cameras for reassurance, dog training programs for all ages, sizes, and temperaments, designed to teach pups the skills needed to thrive in the different stages of their life, and roomy lodging kennels, supervised by fear-free, medically-trained staff who provide each guest with all the attention and love they need while parents are away. For more information about Ali'i Unleashed, visit www.AliiUnleashed.com.

Ali'i Animal Hospital is a full-service veterinary hospital providing unparalleled care to animals on Oahu helping them to live their best lives. Ali'i Animal's resort, called Ali'i Unleashed offers dogs superior boarding, daycare, and grooming experiences, all under the watchful eye of veterinarians and medically trained staff. Book your pet's appointment or stay with Ali'i Animal Hospital at Ali'iAnimal.com or by calling (808) 234-3441. Follow Ali'i Animal on Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date on current promotions and specials.

If you'd like to schedule an interview with Dr. Joanna Cook and Matt Malta, please contact Melissa Pampulov at (808) 792-3077 or [email protected].

SOURCE Ali'i Animal Hospital
Shared Values Forge Connection Between Top Ranked Insurance Brokerage and South Louisiana Family Business

FORT WORTH, Texas, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Higginbotham, the largest independent insurance, financial and HR services firm headquartered in Texas and one of the top firms in the country, has joined forces with Bourg Insurance, a long-term family business with deep ties to the South Louisiana community.

As Higginbotham celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, Chairman and CEO Rusty Reid credits careful, strategic growth for the company's long-term success. Under Reid's guidance, the company seeks partners with sterling reputations in their local markets and strong cultural affinities.

Higginbotham Joins Forces with Bourg Insurance, Shared Values Forge Connection Post this

"At Higginbotham, we place tremendous importance on family  which is how we view our team  and on service to our community," Reid said. "If you're looking around for a similar family- and community-oriented business partner, you have to be looking at the Bourg family in South Louisiana."

Bourg Insurance President Brad Bourg, who runs the business alongside his brother Brennan Bourg, brother-in-law Chuck Leblanc  and third brother Bert Bourg, who has long been an important part of the business but is now taking a well-earned retirement  elaborated, "Our father, Claude 'Toby' Bourg, Jr., started this company back in 1958, and our flagship office is still located in our family hometown of Donaldsonville, Louisiana. It's a matter of real pride to us that so many of our clients come from word of mouth, because they know who we are."

"They know we believe in community involvement and that we're service-oriented, which are two things that really work together," Brennan Bourg, who serves as vice president, agreed. "When you're locally conscious and active in your community, you know how to provide the personalized service that your clients deserve."

"Of course, that's what drew us to Higginbotham," said Chuck Leblanc, who also serves as vice president while running the commercial lines department and managing the Donaldsonville office. "It's that family and community culture. We were approached by plenty of other firms, but in the end, we unanimously agreed that Higginbotham was most closely aligned with our way of doing business."

The Bourg brothers  Brad, Brennan and brother-in-law Chuck  also pointed out that they are looking forward to the opportunities the collaboration with Higginbotham will provide to their clients, as well as to their team, who will be eligible to take part in a top-tier employee ownership plan.

"We've been a small business for years," Brad explained. "With Higginbotham, we'll have technology and support to move that forward, providing the same services but on a larger scale."

"Access to markets, scalability, professionalism  and of course, a great brand," Brennan agreed. "Higginbotham brings so much to the table, and we're thrilled to be adding their name alongside ours."

For Higginbotham, the partnership with Bourg Insurance fortifies our existing footprint within Louisiana and provides significant opportunity for continued growth.

"Our company has deep ties in this area, being here as long as we have," Brad explained. "With this alliance, Higginbotham gets a nice footprint throughout South Louisiana."

"And they get us," Chuck concluded. "We're not retiring! Quite the opposite. We're looking forward to the future with Higginbotham, serving our clients just as this business has for the past 65 years."

ABOUT BOURG INSURANCE

Founded in 1958 by Claude 'Toby' Bourg, Jr. and his wife Edith, Bourg Insurance is a personal and commercial property and casualty, life and health insurance agency located in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, with additional offices in Prairieville, Chauvin and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Now a Higginbotham partner agency, Bourg Insurance is run by Toby and Edith's sons, Brad and Brennan, and son-in-law Chuck Leblanc, as a family- and community-oriented business with a strong emphasis on personal lines and small to middle market companies in the real estate, restaurant and construction sectors, among others. As an agency built on relationships and personal service, Bourg Insurance has won numerous Distinguished Agency awards.

Visit bourginsurance.com for more information.

ABOUT HIGGINBOTHAM

Employee owned and customer inspired, Higginbotham is a single source solution for insurance, financial and HR services. The firm was established in 1948 and ranks by revenue as the nation's 21st largest independent insurance firm. Serving thousands of businesses and individuals through locations coast-to-coast, Higginbotham's approach to finding insurance, employee benefit and risk management solutions is more individual and less institutional. By understanding customer priorities, eliminating inefficiencies and committing to transparency, Higginbotham is a place that leads with values so value leads.

Visit higginbotham.com for more information.

SOURCE Higginbotham
COMFORT, Texas, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Singing Water Vineyards, a cherished establishment in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, proudly announces a unique event set to take place on Friday night, November 10, 2023 in honor of Veterans Day. For one exclusive evening, the doors of the historic Worth Mansion in Comfort, Texas, will swing open to host "Murder at the Mansion," a captivating murder mystery dinner organized in support of the Kauai Veteran's Council. The event aims to raise funds for the Kauai Community College's STRIVE program, providing free tuition to veterans aspiring to launch their own businesses. The mansion formerly known as The Bildarth Estate, was built in the early 1980's in the style of French mansions from the 1800's, by H. W. "Bill" Worth Jr. and his wife Darolyn. The mansion is known for its 32 white columns that surround the main house on top of Sky Line Drive.

The Historic Worth Mansion, Comfort, Texas

Guests are invited to embark on a culinary adventure featuring 'walkaround' tapas and small bites, expertly curated by some of the area's leading chefs to include Singing Water's Justin Connell, chef "Sushi Ben," and Beef Steak Kitchen + Bar Chef/Owner Matthew Cavin. The food will be thoughtfully paired with exquisite Singing Water library wines, promising a sensory delight for attendees. The evening will unfold with the talents of eight actors from the renowned Houston troupe of the Murder Mystery Co., promising an unforgettable Great Gatsby-style whodunit experience.

Andrew Ivankovich, CEO of Singing Water Vineyards, expressed his enthusiasm, saying, "This will be our third year supporting the good folks at Kauai Community College and helping veterans learn and take the leap into starting a new business venture. We're excited to partner again this year with a fun event to support our American heroes who have sacrificed so much."

Dirk Soma, Associate Professor of Kauai Community College and leader of the STRIVE program, praised the partnership, stating, "Our collaboration with Singing Water Vineyards has been amazing. Over the years, they've helped us raise enough funds to support over 24 veterans and their families attending the program through their Freedom Wine sales. We're thrilled to raise funds and plan for this summer's next cohort with Singing Water."

Tickets for this exclusive event are available for purchase at singingwater.com and are expected to sell out rapidly due to the limited engagement. Attendees can also avail of special discounts at select Comfort hotels, including the historic Giles Hotel. Singing Water Vineyards and the Kauai Veteran's Council extend their heartfelt gratitude to the Stasis Foundation for generously allowing the use of the Mansion for this charitable dinner.

About Singing Water Vineyards:

Established in 1997, Singing Water Vineyards is a family and veteran-owned winery renowned for its exceptional wines and unwavering commitment to supporting veterans, notably through its acclaimed Freedom Red Wine Blend. Situated in the picturesque Texas Hill Country, the vineyard has earned a respected position in the Texas wine industry for its dedication to quality and innovation. For more information, please visit singingwater.com.

About the STRIVE Program:

The Startup Training Resources to Inspire Veteran Entrepreneurship (STRIVE) program is a transformative initiative designed to empower veterans and military family members as entrepreneurs. Offered by Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families' (IVMF) ARSENAL of 8 national entrepreneurship programs, STRIVE leverages local networks and educational resources to nurture and advance veteran-owned businesses.

About The Kaua'i Veteran's Council:

The Kaua'i Veterans Center is a vital hub dedicated to enhancing the delivery of benefits to veterans, their families, and the dependents of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. It stands as a monument honoring their service, preserving their military heritage, and embracing their families. The center serves as a meeting place for military functions, veteran events, and family programs, welcoming the community at large.

About Kaua'i Community College:

Kauai Community College is a comprehensive institution located on the island of Kaua'i, forming a crucial part of the University of Hawai'i system. Offering 34 degree and certificate programs, the college prepares students for the workforce and further education. Additionally, Kauai CC provides non-credit courses for businesses and lifelong learning through the Office of Continuing Education. The college also offers advanced courses leading to Bachelor's and Graduate degrees through the University Center.

About Beef Steak Kitchen + Bar:

Located in Boerne Texas, Beef Steak Kitchen + Bar is dedicated to crafting unforgettable dining experiences. From succulent steaks that melt in your mouth to an extensive selection of craft beers, fine wines, and handcrafted cocktails - every meal is a celebration of flavor, tradition, and community. Visit beefsteaktx.com

Press Contact for Singing Water:

Andrew Ivankovich

CEO, Singing Water Vineyards

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (830) 457-9006

Press Contact for Kauai Community College STRIVE & Veterans Programs:

Alicia Sams

Veteran Support Counselor

Kauai Community College

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (808) 245-8317

SOURCE Singing Water Vineyards
DUBLIN, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "India Light Commercial Vehicle Market Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

India Light Commercial Vehicle Market is anticipated to grow in the upcoming years due to increasing E-commerce industry and transition towards zero emission vehicles.



One of the key forces behind economic growth is regarded to be the automotive sector. A commercial transport vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of up to 7.5 metric tonnes is referred to as a "light commercial vehicle" (LCV). Pickup trucks and vans are examples of light commercial vehicles.

India has one of the greatest car industries in the world, with domestic sales of 3.79 million units (excluding two and three wheelers) in 2022. However, because of the COVID pandemic and the nationwide lockdown in India, there has been a constant fall in sales over the previous two years.

Additionally, with the newest BS6 engine models and electric vehicles, the automotive sector is gradually accelerating its pace towards development in sales. The India light commercial vehicle market is growing because of increasing investments in technology developments in commercial vehicles.



Growing Infrastructure Development and Logistic Industry



In India, the growth of the light commercial vehicle market has been aided by the expansion of the e-commerce sector.

Additionally, several end-use industries, including the food and beverage, construction, automotive, and healthcare sectors, heavily rely on commercial trucks for both the distribution of finished goods from manufacturing facilities to retail outlets which raises the demand for commercial vehicles.

Also, the transportation of raw materials from multiple locations across India increases the demand for light commercial vehicles in the market. Furthermore, the government's increased investment in infrastructure projects also assists India's light commercial vehicle sales. Also, due to their small size and fuel efficiency, light commercial vehicles are the preferred choice for intracity transit.



Rising Operational Cost



The overall cost factor for transport vehicles, powered by gasoline, accounts for 50 to 60 percent of the freight rate. Furthermore, Geopolitical limitations and pandemics also had an impact on crude oil prices.

Escalating energy prices tend to influence the purchasing power of both large fleet owners of light commercial vehicles and individual consumers. The delivery of light commercial cars to fleet owners is also delayed because of the above factor.

Additionally, restrictive emissions and safety restrictions increased the manufacturing price of a typical vehicle. Therefore, the aforementioned factors collectively lead to a slower growth rate of light commercial vehicle sales in India.



Dealers and Distribution Network



The commercial vehicle quality and availability of the product at the point of purchase have a significant impact on sales volume.

Therefore, leading corporations are introducing a wide selection of products to keep the light commercial vehicle industry in India competitive. As a result, businesses are investing in a broad distribution network to provide manufacturers with a strong presence throughout a wide range of locations.

Moreover, this results in rising sales of light commercial vehicles in the country. Furthermore, many businesses construct a number of service facilities in the city to sustain brand acquisitions. Likewise, it is expected that the India light commercial vehicle market will expand at a significant growth rate in the next years, due to expanding networks across all tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 cities.

Market Opportunities



The market for light commercial vehicles in India has substantial potential for expansion. The demand for light commercial vehicles has increased throughout the nation due to expanding developments in all industries.

Additionally, industrialization is accelerating rapidly in several states. Significant opportunities are, therefore, anticipated to develop in the area, which will increase the sales of light commercial vehicles. Moreover, the revival of industrial, building, and infrastructural operations in India will assist the commercial vehicle market to grow in forecast years.



Recent Development

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd collaborated with the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore's (IIMB) startup hub, the Nadathur S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), to provide 9-month intensive incubation program for 26 vehicle mobility firms that had been selected from their consideration.

Tata Motors signed an agreement with Uber, one of the leading ridesharing apps, in 2023 to put 25,000 XPRES-T EVs into their premium category service.

In February 2023 , Eicher Trucks & Buses, a business subsidiary of VE Commercial Vehicles, opened a new commercial vehicle dealership, PSN Automotive Marketing Pvt Ltd., in Kalady, Kerala.

, & Buses, a business subsidiary of VE Commercial Vehicles, opened a new commercial vehicle dealership, PSN Automotive Marketing Pvt Ltd., in Kalady, Kerala. In August 2022 , one of the biggest producers of commercial vehicles in the nation, Ashok Leyland , introduced the BADA DOST i1 and i2. These vehicles have central locking, keyless entry, and anti-theft technology.

, one of the biggest producers of commercial vehicles in the nation, , introduced the BADA DOST i1 and i2. These vehicles have central locking, keyless entry, and anti-theft technology. In 2022, In an effort to further diversify its product line, Mahindra & Mahindra has introduced 14 Mahindra LCVs, six of which are new electrified versions.

Competitive Landscape



Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in India Light Commercial Vehicle Market.

Tata Motors Limited

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

Ashok Leyland Limited

VE Commercial Vehicles Limited

Maruti Suzuki India Limited

Force Motors Limited

SML Isuzu Limited

Piaggio Vehicles Private Limited

Toyota Motor Corporation

Eicher Motors

Report Scope:

Voice of Customer Analysis

Factors Influencing Purchase Decision

Brand Awareness

Brand Satisfaction Level

India Light Commercial Vehicle Market, By Vehicle Type:

Pickup Trucks

Vans

India Light Commercial Vehicle Market, Propulsion Type:

ICE Vehicles

Electric Vehicles

India Light Commercial Vehicle Market, End User:

Individual

Fleet Owner

India Light Commercial Vehicle Market, By Region:

North

South

West

East

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/bpelu9

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]



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SOURCE Research and Markets
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ --The industrial salt market size is expected to grow by USD 3.95 billion from 2022 to 2027. In addition, the growth momentum of the market will progress at a CAGR of 5.1% during the forecast period, according to Technavio. A wide range of industrial applications of industrial salt is notably driving the industrial salt market. However, factors such as Stringent government regulations regarding pollution may impede market growth. The market is segmented by Source (Rock salt and Natural brine), Application (Chemical processing, Deicing, Water treatment, 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 industrial salt market including Cargill Inc., CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd., Compass Minerals International Inc., Dev Salt Pvt. Ltd., Dominion Salt Ltd., Donald Brown Group, INEOS Group Holdings SA, Irish Salt Mining and Exploration Co. Ltd., Israel Chemicals Ltd., KS Aktiengesellschaft, MITSUI and CO. LTD., Nobian, Rio Tinto Ltd., Salins Group, Solvay SA, Sudwestdeutsche Salzwerke AG, Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd., Wacker Chemie AG, Wilson Resources Ltd., and ZOUTMAN NV. This report provides a full list of key companies, their strategies, and latest developments. Buy Now for detailed company information

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Industrial Salt Market 2023-2027

Industrial Salt Market 2023-2027: Company Analysis

Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd.: The company offers industrial salt such as magadi dry industrial salt for leather tanning, caustic, and chlorine production. 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 a FREE Sample Report.

Industrial Salt Market 2023-2027: Segmentation

Source

The rock salt segment is significant during the forecast period. The wide application in the deicing of roads, sidewalks, and others envisages the demand for the rock salt segment. Another use of rock salt includes its application in water treatment including to dissolve and purify drinking water. Also, it is used in agriculture to enhance soil drainage and as a mineral supplement in animal feed. Hence, such applications drive the growth of the rock salt segment of the industrial salt market during the forecast period.

is significant during the forecast period. The wide application in the deicing of roads, sidewalks, and others envisages the demand for the rock salt segment. Another use of rock salt includes its application in water treatment including to dissolve and purify drinking water. Also, it is used in agriculture to enhance soil drainage and as a mineral supplement in animal feed. Hence, such applications drive the growth of the rock salt segment of the industrial salt market during the forecast period. The report includes other segments such as Application (Chemical processing, Deicing, Water treatment, and Others).

Geography

APAC will contribute 47% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. Countries such as India and China drive the demand for industrial salt because of the rapid industrial development. Furthermore, China is the world's biggest salt producer. Also, India exports its excess salt production to various countries. The countries include Japan, Bangladesh , Indonesia , South Korea , North Korea , Malaysia , the United Arab Emirates , and Vietnam . Hence, owing to such factors, the industrial salt market in APAC is expected to witness growth during the forecast period.

will contribute to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. Countries such as India and drive the demand for industrial salt because of the rapid industrial development. Furthermore, China is the world's biggest salt producer. Also, India exports its excess salt production to various countries. The countries include Japan, , , , , , the , and . Hence, owing to such factors, the industrial salt market in APAC is expected to witness growth during the forecast period. The report further mentions details about other regions, which include North America, Europe , South America , and Middle East and Africa .

Learn about the contribution of each segment summarized in concise infographics and thorough descriptions. View a FREE PDF Sample Report

Related Reports:

The salts and flavored salts market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.95% between 2022 and 2027. The salts and flavored salts market size is forecast to increase by USD 8,907.19 million.

The salt market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 2.21% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 30.81 billion.

ToC:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Historic Market Sizes

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by Source

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
TROY, Mich., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Infusion Associates (IA), one of the Midwest's leading providers of medically prescribed outpatient infusion and injection therapies, today completed their first Leqembi (lecanemab-irmb) infusion treatment for a patient at their Troy, Michigan location to slow the progression of early-stage Alzheimer's disease.

After giving an accelerated approval in January, U.S. Food & Drug Administration granted traditional approval of Leqembi on July 6, 2023 as an infused (given through a needle placed in a vein) therapy for people with mild cognitive impairment or early-stage Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and other important mental functions, affecting an estimated 6.7 million Americans ages 65 and older in the United States, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

Infusion Associates' expert clinical teams have been caring for patients with chronic neurological conditions through infusion and injection treatments for over 20 years. "Although Leqembi is not a cure, the treatment gives people in the early stages of Alzheimer's a longer timeline to maintain their independence and participate in activities they love," says Lindsey Savickas, chief operating officer at Infusion Associates. "We are proud to be able to offer this innovative treatment at Infusion Associates and will continue to advocate for new therapies for our patients."

The new infusion treatment, developed by drug manufacturers Eisai and Biogen, is the first disease-modifying treatment for early-stage Alzheimer's and mild cognitive impairment to receive full regulatory approval. Patients who are prescribed Leqembi will receive it via intravenous infusions every two weeks and have regular MRI scans and physician visits to monitor for potential side effects.

IA's first Leqembi patient, Maria, shared her excitement to begin receiving the new drug, "I'm looking forward to receiving the medication; even if it's not improvement, I'm hoping the infusion helps with the stabilization of my Alzheimer's."

To be referred to receive the Leqembi infusion at any Infusion Associates location, please follow and observe the following steps:

Ask your healthcare provider to fax Infusion Associates a completed Leqembi medication order form from their website, as well as clinical notes, demographics and your insurance card to (833) 996-4888. Your healthcare provider will need to verify your enrollment in a CMS-approved Alzheimer's registry. One of IA's patient care coordinators will contact you and your referring provider to confirm receipt of the Leqembi referral. The IA team will then verify benefits, obtain any required prior authorizations, and contact you to schedule an appointment.

Visit Infusion Associates' Leqembi medication page for more information: https://infusionassociates.com/infusion-therapy/medications/leqembi/.

About Infusion Associates

Infusion Associates provides life-enhancing therapies for patients with chronic conditions, such as gastrointestinal diseases or autoimmune disorders, in a warm and comfortable environment. Current infusion centers are located in: Ann Arbor, Clinton Twp., East Lansing, Grand Haven, Grand Rapids, Grandville, Novi, Portage, Traverse City and Troy, Mich., Plymouth, Minn. and Toledo, Ohio. Infusion Associates provides both a patient- and provider-friendly service that delivers high-quality patient care while also being a low-cost provider of infusion therapy. For more information, please visit http://www.infusionassociates.com.

Contact: Betsy Lipzinski, Marketing Communications Manager

Phone: (833) 394-0600 ext. 133

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.infusionassociates.com

SOURCE Infusion Associates
DUBLIN, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Pulsed Field Ablation Market by Therapeutic Area, Product Components, Application Areas, Source of Ablation, and Key Geographical Regions: Market Share of Key Companies, Industry Trends and Global Forecasts, 2023-2035" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) market, a rapidly expanding segment within the cardiac ablation sector, is set to witness robust growth with a projected Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of approximately 40% during the forecast period of 2023-2035. This surge is driven by the demand for safer and more effective alternatives to traditional surgical procedures, especially in the treatment of cardiac rhythm-related disorders such as atrial fibrillation.

In recent years, the medical community has been actively exploring minimally invasive procedures that offer reduced pain, shorter recovery times, and improved patient outcomes. These techniques have found a niche in the vast atrial fibrillation market, where conventional treatments often come with drawbacks like extensive scarring, lengthy hospital stays, and a higher risk of complications. As a result, the spotlight has shifted towards ablation therapies, which employ energy sources to target and destroy abnormal tissues without invasive surgery. However, conventional ablation methods primarily rely on thermal energy, which can lead to tissue overheating and post-procedural pain.

Enter pulsed field ablation (PFA), a game-changing approach harnessing high-voltage electrical pulses delivered in short bursts. PFA is a non-thermal ablation process that enables precise targeting of abnormal tissues while preserving surrounding healthy cells. This innovation significantly reduces the risk of complications and discomfort post-procedure.

Atrial fibrillation, a cardiac rhythm disorder affecting millions globally, has seen a substantial rise in prevalence, with the elderly population facing a higher risk. In the United States alone, around 9% of individuals aged 65 and older are afflicted by atrial fibrillation. Europe, too, grapples with an escalating prevalence, making it a pressing public health concern. Improved detection and diagnosis, coupled with lifestyle-related risk factors, have contributed to this surge in cases.

PFA technology has shown great promise in addressing atrial fibrillation and other cardiac arrhythmias. By creating precise scars in cardiac tissue, PFA blocks irregular electrical signals, restoring normal heart rhythm. Moreover, PFA's potential extends beyond cardiology, with applications in oncology for treating solid tumors, respiratory disorders, and dermatological disorders by precisely removing skin lesions.

PFA stands out for its safety and efficacy compared to traditional thermal ablation techniques. Its tissue-selective functionality reduces risks, such as phrenic palsy and esophageal injury. Importantly, PFA utilizes apoptosis, leading to non-inflammatory responses and quicker post-procedure recovery times.

The Pulsed Field Ablation Market: Distribution by Therapeutic Area, Product Components, Application Areas, Source of Ablation, and Key Geographical Regions report for 2023-2035 provides a comprehensive overview of this rapidly evolving medical devices segment. Notably, it highlights the efforts of numerous stakeholders, including key companies leading the charge in PFA technology.

Key PFA Companies:

Abbott AccuPulse Medical Acutus Medical AngioDynamics Arga Medtech AtriAN Medical Aurigen Medical Biosense Webster Boston Scientific CathRx ElectroPhysiology Frontiers EnChannel Medical Galvanize Therapeutics Hangzhou Dinova EP Technology Kardium Medtronic Mirai Medical Pulse Biosciences Tianjin Intelligent Health Medical

Recent Developments:

9th World Congress on Cardiology and Cardiovascular Therapeutics ( July 2023 ): In July 2023 , the 9th World Congress on Cardiology and Cardiovascular Therapeutics was held in Vancouver, Canada , showcasing the latest advancements in cardiac therapies, including Pulsed Field Ablation. Pulse Biosciences Raises $65 Million ( May 2023 ): Pulse Biosciences raised an impressive $65 million in a private placement round led by Robert W. Duggan , executive chairman at Pulse Biosciences. The funds will be utilized for the development of the company's proprietary Nanosecond Pulsed Field AblationT (nsPFAT) technology for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. Medtronic Receives CE Mark Approval ( March 2023 ): Medtronic received CE mark approval for the AfferaT Mapping and Ablation System for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. The system includes Sphere-9T Catheter and AfferaT Prism-1 Mapping Software, enhancing treatment options for atrial fibrillation patients.

Key Topics Covered:

1. PREFACE

2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3. ECONOMIC AND OTHER PROJECT SPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS

4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

5. INTRODUCTION

6. PULSED FIELD ABLATION DEVICES: MARKET LANDSCAPE

7. PRODUCT COMPETITIVENESS ANALYSIS

8. PULSED FIELD ABLATION DEVICE DEVELOPERS: DETAILED COMPANY PROFILES

9. PULSED FIELD ABLATION DEVICE DEVELOPERS: TABULATED COMPANY PROFILES

10. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND INITIATIVES

11. PATENT ANALYSIS

12. GLOBAL EVENTS ANALYSIS

13. CASE STUDY: POTENTIAL PARTNERS OF PULSED FIELD ABLATION DEVICE DEVELOPERS

14. MARKET IMPACT ANALYSIS: DRIVERS, RESTRAINTS, OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

15. GLOBAL PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET

16. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET, BY GEOGRAPHY

17. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET, BY THERAPEUTIC AREA

18. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET, BY PRODUCT COMPONENTS

19. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET FOR CARDIOVASCULAR DISORDERS, BY PRODUCT COMPONENTS

20. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET FOR CARDIOVASCULAR DISORDERS, BY APPLICATION AREA

21. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET FOR CARDIOVASCULAR DISORDERS, BY SOURCE OF ABLATION

22. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET FOR CARDIOVASCULAR DISORDERS, BY GEOGRAPHY

23. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET FOR ONCOLOGICAL DISORDERS, BY GEOGRAPHY

24. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET FOR ONCOLOGICAL DISORDERS, BY PRODUCT COMPONENTS

25. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET FOR ONCOLOGICAL DISORDERS, BY TYPE OF CANCER

26. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET FOR RESPIRATORY DISORDERS, BY GEOGRAPHY

27. PULSED FIELD ABLATION MARKET FOR RESPIRATORY DISORDERS, BY PRODUCT COMPONENTS

28. PULSED FIELD ABLATION: SALES FORECAST OF LEADING PLAYERS

29. CONCLUDING REMARKS

30. APPENDIX 1: TABULATED DATA

31. APPENDIX 2: LIST OF COMPANIES AND ORGANIZATIONS

Companies Mentioned

Abbott

AccuPulse Medical

Acutus Medical

Adagio Medical

Affera

Analog Devices

AngioDynamics

APN Health

Arga Medtech

AtriAN Medical

AuriGen Medical

Biosense Webster

BioSig Technologies

BIOTRONIK

Boston Scientific

Cardiac Designs

CardioFocus

CardioNXT

Catheter Precision

CathRx

Chongqing University

University Coherex Medical (Acquired by Biosense Webster)

CoreMap

Corify Care

CRC EP

ElectroPhysiology Frontiers

EnChannel Medical

EP Map-System

FARAPULSE

Field Medical

Gala Therapeutics

Galaxy Medical

Galvanize Therapeutics

Gradient Medical

Hangzhou Dinova EP Technology

Hangzhou Ruidi Biotechnology

Innovative Health

Japan Lifeline

Kardium

Medtronic

MicroPort

Minnetronix Medical

Mirai Medical

Ningbo No. 1 Hospital

Peerbridge Health

Philips

Pulse Biosciences

RBC Medical Innovations

Remedicine

Rhythm AI

Rhythm Xience (Acquired by Acutus Medical)

Shanghai Changhai Hospita

Shanghai Xuanyu Medical Equipment

Sichuan Jinjiang Electronic Medical Device Technology-JJET

Sirona Medical

St. Paul's Hospital

Hospital Suzhou Aikemai Medical Technology

Tianjin Intelligent Health Medical

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Utrecht University

University Zhejiang Jiashi Shangyang Medical Technology

Zhouling Medical Appliances

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/9tggl9

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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SOURCE Research and Markets
PHOENIX, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Integro Wealth Advisors is partnering with Amundi Asset Management, and Insurance Professionals of Arizona to provide a complementary educational event on October 26, 2023, to assist those that are about to be or are eligible, for Medicare and Social Security.

Thomas J. Inserra, CEO & President, Integro Bank Integro Wealth Advisors

Medicare and Social Security can be pivotal components of financial or retirement plans for many Americans. These government programs provide essential financial assistance to many retirees. Medicare offers health insurance coverage, while Social Security provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits. To make informed decisions about retirement planning, it is important for many to have a good understanding of what these programs can provide, which includes their eligibility criteria, benefits, and limitations. Proper financial planning is important in optimizing your benefits and minimizing deductions to ensure those who utilize Social Security and Medicare have the income they need in retirement.

The upcoming event will cover how Social Security benefits are calculated, Social Security claiming strategies, Taxes and Social Security benefits, and the ABCs of Medicare. On hand for the event will be Wright Edler of Amundi Asset Management to speak on Social Security, Jason Checketts of Insurance Professionals of Arizona to speak on Medicare, and Francisco Tort of Integro Wealth Advisors to aid in retirement planning for those in attendance.

Everyone who attends the event will qualify for complementary financial planning from Francisco Tort.

RSVP to the event at:

https://integrobank.hubspotpagebuilder.com/medicare-event-october-26-2023

DATE: October 26th, 2023

TIME: 8:00 AM - 9:30 AM

LOCATION: Integro Bank Headquarters

16215 N 28th Ave Phoenix, AZ 85053

About Integro Wealth Advisors

Integro Wealth Advisors offer personalized, hands-on service with a focus on educating clients about financial concepts and products to aid in taking the mystery out of investing, insurance, estate conservation, and preserving wealth. Visit www.integrowealthadvisors.com to learn more.

About Integro Bank

Integro Bank is a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation based in Phoenix, Arizona (USA). Our proprietary INTEGRO360 SM consultative approach and CEO Club are designed to help small businesses grow and maximize employment. Why? Because employment lifts people up and transforms lives. Visit www.integro.bank to learn more.

Media Contact:

Brandon Price, Marketing: [email protected] or (602) 325-9431

SOURCE Integro Bank
WATCH VIDEO CLIP of Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand

DOWNLOAD PHOTO OF TINA FEY

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 9,000 people came together today to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Conference for Women, the largest conference for women in the Commonwealth.

Dame Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand, now a fellow at Harvard University, spoke about the strong but authentic and empathetic style of leadership for which she became famous.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - OCTOBER 19: Tina Fey, Writer, Comedian, Actress, Producer & Author speaks on stage during 2023 Pennsylvania Conference For Women at Pennsylvania Convention Center on October 19, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Marla Aufmuth/Getty Images for Pennsylvania Conference For Women)

She also spoke about the importance of recognizing that women should not be expected to carry all the responsibilities they do on their own.

"Instead of normalizing supermoms, we should normalize that superheroes have sidekicks. I never did anything alone, and we should stop pretending that women should," said Dame Ardern.

The Pennsylvania Conference for Women is dedicated to advancing women in the workplace and beyond, the nonpartisan, nonprofit event focused on leadership, career advancement, and personal development issues.

Comedian, writer, and producer Tina Fey also spoke about the importance of diverse perspectives in the workplace. Fey broke barriers as the first female head writer on Saturday Night Liveand recalled that sometimes her colleagues didn't get her jokes because they were men.

"A lot of the resistance to ideas that women had, sometimes it wasn't even on purpose. It was just they didn't get it. You're [we were] referring to things that they didn't yet know," Fey said. Today, she added, "the biggest thing you can do is be a proponent for diversifying the room you are in."

Chef Jose Andres, the founder of the World Central Kitchen, also spoke, emphasizing the need for action to solve big problems.

"Let's make sure that every time something happens, it's a moment for us to rise above the issue we are trying to solve," he said. He also encouraged people not to be overly tied to a plan but to be ready to adapt. "Women," he added, "are ready to adapt."

Mayor James Kenney and Olympian Gail Devers also addressed the gathering, and several dozen of the nation's top experts on workplace and personal development issues were also on hand, offering breakout sessions, mentoring, and more for attendees.

The Pennsylvania Conference for Women is presented by Bristol Myers Squibb .

The Pennsylvania Conference for Women is part of the Conferences for Women , the nation's largest network of women's conferences. Its conferences in Pennsylvania, California, Massachusetts, and Texas attract more than 50,000 people annually.

#PENNWOMEN

Twitter: @PennWomen

Facebook: Pennsylvania Conference for Women

Instagram: @pennwomen



MORE PHOTOS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST

SOURCE Pennsylvania Conference for Women
ATLANTA, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Jackson Physician Search today announced that it has been ranked No. 4 among healthcare suppliers in Modern Healthcare's 2023 Best Places to Work awards program. This marks the firm's eighth consecutive year appearing on the list and the first year it has claimed the top spot for Family Friendliest Place to Work.

Modern Healthcare partnered with the Workforce Research Group on the assessment process, which includes an extensive employee survey. While this program has evolved over the years, its mission remains the same: recognizing workplaces that empower employees to provide patients and customers the best possible care, products and services.

"Jackson Physician Search has experienced dramatic growth during the past decade and especially over the last few years. To continue providing the superior level of service that our clients and candidates have come to appreciate, we have significantly grown our team, while supporting associate career growth and wellbeing, and achieving incredibly high retention rates," shared Tony Stajduhar, president of Jackson Physician Search. "Creating a workplace culture rooted in mutual respect and appreciation is key. I have always believed that when we take great care of our people, they will take great care of each other and those we serve. I couldn't be prouder of this incredibly talented team."

As the healthcare industry continues to recover from the pandemic, the mission of the Best Places to Work program has only become more important. Healthcare leaders have proven that creating supportive workplaces for their most valuable assets, their employees, is vital.

"An uncertain economy, staffing shortages and increasing demands for flexibility and remote work opportunities are forcing every business in the industry to focus on attracting and retaining talent in unprecedented ways," said Dan Peres, president of Modern Healthcare. "The 2023 Best Places to Work winners proved the value of understanding what employees want  and need  today. The healthcare industry is going through a period of extraordinary change. Having the right people in place is more critical than ever, and the winning workplaces understand that taking care of employees is central to business success."

Jackson Physician Search was honored at the 2023 Best Places to Work Gala on September 28.

About Modern Healthcare

Modern Healthcare is the most trusted business news and information brand in the healthcare industry. Modern Healthcare empowers healthcare leaders and influencers to make timely and informed business decisions. To learn more or subscribe, go to www.modernhealthcare.com/subscribe.

About Jackson Physician Search

Jackson Physician Search is an established industry leader in physician recruitment and pioneered the recruitment methodologies standard in the industry today. The firm specializes in the permanent recruitment of physicians, physician leaders and advanced practice providers for hospitals, health systems, academic medical centers and medical groups across the United States. Headquartered in Alpharetta, Ga., the company is recognized for its track record of results built on client trust and transparency of processes and fees. Jackson Physician Search is part of the Jackson Healthcare family of companies. For more information, visit www.jacksonphysiciansearch.com.

For More Information, Contact:

Kristen Myers

Associate Vice President, Marketing

kmyers@jacksonphysiciansearch.com

SOURCE Jackson Physician Search
OUC, WEC Energy Group, and FPL take top spots in Business Customer Satisfaction Study

BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- E Source is pleased to announce the results of the E Source 2023 Business Customer Satisfaction Study. The company surveyed large business customers to discover the utility attributes they value most as well as where their utility ranks on those attributes. The survey uses a 10-point scale, where 1 is the lowest score and 10 is the highest. Among nine attributes, large business customers selected three as most important for a utility to possess:

Energy reliability

Effective emergency communications

Trustworthiness

E Source Market Research conducts the annual Business Customer Satisfaction Study to provide utilities and account representatives with direct feedback from large business customers. The survey produces an understanding of the overall satisfaction levels and identifies where improvement is essential. Over 600 large business customers participated in the 15th edition of the study, which revealed the top-ranked utilities in 2023.

Of the participating utilities, OUC earned the top spot, receiving a score of 9.50 out of 10 for overall customer satisfaction and perceived value. OUC also scored highly in providing reliable energy, being trustworthy, and effectively communicating during emergencies. In addition, the utility's account reps earned the highest scores in five of seven account rep attributes, including communicating in a professional and courteous manner and being trustworthy.

"OUC's continued dedication to providing exceptional customer service focused on both reliability and innovation is what makes us the number one partner of choice for our business customers," says Linda Ferrone, chief customer and marketing officer at OUC. "We value the trust our customers have placed in us, and we will continue to deliver on that trust with enhanced outstanding customer communication and service."

WEC Energy Group earned second place in the large business study. The utility earned high marks in trustworthiness, being easy to do business with, and effective emergency communications. WEC Energy Group earned an average score of 9.30 out of 10 for overall satisfaction and perceived value.

"This recognition speaks to our core values of providing customers safe, reliable, and affordable energy while also highlighting our commitment to customer service," says Greg Smedema, manager of key accounts at WEC Energy. "Our strong partnerships with our customers are the result of long-standing relationships built on communication and trust."

In third place, FPL scored highly in energy reliability, effective emergency communications, and trustworthiness. Large business customers gave the utility an overall satisfaction and perceived value score of 8.93 out of 10.

"At Florida Power & Light Company, we have a relentless commitment to excellence, and pride ourselves on consistently delivering exceptional customer service," says Leonard Roberts, director of major and governmental accounts at FPL. "This includes establishing trusted partnerships with our large business customers to uniquely understand what matters most so we can find even better ways to serve them year-round. While we don't serve customers for awards, we are grateful for this recognition and will always work to improve satisfaction and communication with all of our customers."

"Large business customers continue to rate reliable energy, effective emergency communications, and trustworthiness as the most important attributes a utility can possess," says Daniel Doutre, lead analyst, E Source Market Research. "We'd like to congratulate the top utilities in the large business study for their focus on these same attributes and wish them continued success into the future."

Members of the E Source Account Management Service will be able to access the complete study results, while utility participants that aren't members of this service may purchase aggregate results separately. Contact E Source to learn more.

About E Source

E Source blends industry-leading research, predictive data science, and solution services to help utilities make better decisions to support their customers, their bottom line, and our planet. With a data-first approach and a commitment to practical innovation, we use more than three decades of utility-focused experience and our unique solution set to help clients achieve their goal of becoming a Sustainable Utility. E Source is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices across the US.

SOURCE E Source Companies LLC
DUBLIN, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Latin America Elevator and Escalator Market - Size & Growth Forecast 2023-2029" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Latin America elevator and escalator market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.51% from 2022-2029.

Otis, Schindler, TK Elevator, and KONE stand out as the top four manufacturers dominating the Latin America elevator and escalator market, collectively holding a substantial share of over 64%.

The demand for intelligent elevator systems is on the rise, driven by technological innovation and a heightened focus on safety measures in buildings. Features such as sky bridges, modular construction, and cybersecurity adoption contribute to the growing interest in these advanced elevator systems.

In Chile, the pressing need for housing has led to the development of an urban housing strategy by the Housing and Urban Development Ministry (MINVU). With an estimated housing deficit of around 650,000 units, this strategy aims to address the issue by delivering 260,000 homes by March 2026, covering at least 40% of the projected demand. One of its primary goals is to restore the central role of the State in housing planning and management.

Colombia has witnessed efforts to promote sustainability in construction through initiatives like EDGE certification. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) partnered with the Colombian Chamber of Construction (CAMACOL) to facilitate the design and certification of green and zero-carbon buildings starting in 2021.

Colombia's five major commercial banks offer green financial products in the construction sector, making it one of the region's most conducive financial environments for green building investments. By the end of 2022, Colombia had 168,000 homes built with EDGE certification, with an additional 120,000 homes in progress.

3D Printing technology is emerging as a key innovation for eco-friendly and cost-effective construction in the region. However, its adoption requires a significant shift in the construction industry's standards. In 2018, a consortium called CONMAD was established to promote 3D Printing technology. Notably, the largest modular hospital in Latin America, spanning 140,000 square feet, was constructed in just 60 days in Rio de Janeiro to treat COVID-19 patients. This impressive project involved more than 500 workers and included 300 beds and 120 ICUs divided into four modules.

When it comes to equipment, the majority (79%) is imported from China, while only 1% comes from Europe, and 20% is manufactured in Colombia. While most spare parts are imported, mechanical components are primarily produced within the country.

The U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreements have facilitated the importation of road and construction equipment duty-free, along with services such as project management, bridge design, architecture, and engineering. The agreement also provides legal protections for U.S. companies, expanded access to the services market, and improved dispute settlement mechanisms.

Rising Urban Population in Metropolises and Housing Deficit to Hike Elevator Demand

Green and Yellow House' is a program initiated to build 12 million housing units, of which 384,000 were given to socially vulnerable populations, around 1.5 million in Brazil.

As of May 2023, according to Chile's Housing and Urban Development, 133,855 dwellings are being built, 74,866 have been approved, and the work is almost complete. This indicates that as of May 2023, 259,038 dwellings had been awarded a subsidy, considering the total number of completed housing solutions, those under construction, and those approved to start construction.

Argentina plans to construct nearly 300,000 homes in the next decade, particularly emphasizing commercial buildings driven by the country's tourism industry. Moreover, Argentina offers a cost advantage compared to neighboring countries like Uruguay and Brazil, where building expenses are almost double.

Increased Infrastructure Investments Due to Reduced Tax and Service Platform Authorization Directed to Surge in New Installations

In June 2023, tax incentives were announced to attract companies to invest in Mexio's business corridor, aiming to compete with the Panama Canal. These incentives include a 50% reduction in income tax for three years, with a potential 90% discount if employment goals are met. The measures also include accelerated depreciation of investments and value-added tax (VAT) exemptions. The government plans to construct ten industrial parks along the corridor, with a tender for their location launching in mid-June 2023.

During 2016-2018, when the platform gov.br service did not exist, only 21 requests to open a branch from foreign companies were registered. However, after introducing the platform, 118 authorization requests were registered, of which 92 have been authorized to open branches in Brazil. Due to this service platform, authorization to work has also been granted digitally in 3 days.

Maintenance Market Pushed Digital Seal by ABEEL

Brazilian Association of Elevator Companies (ABEEL) introduced a digital seal for elevator companies to distinguish companies based on meeting current standards, quality of products, commitment, and customer service. Through digital seal, companies can top out by getting certified by an independent consulting company, SW - inteligencia em negocios. After meeting all the requirements, companies are provided with a QR code that exhibits all the company's related information when scanned.

According to ABEEL, the modernization of elevators leads to secondary consequences (reduced maintenance costs of elevators), stabilizing the economy for condominiums. Old elevators, which require extra attention and additional costs, lead to an increase in the costs of buildings.

KEY QUESTIONS ANSWERED:

How big is the Latin American elevator and escalator market?

What will be the growth rate of the Latin America elevator and escalator market?

elevator and escalator market? What is the number of installed bases in the Latin America elevator and escalator market in 2022?

elevator and escalator market in 2022? What are the key opportunities in the Latin America elevator and escalator market?

elevator and escalator market? What are the key Latin American elevator and escalator market players?

Latin America Elevators Market

Future Outlook - Latin America Elevator Market By Volume

Latin America Escalators Market - By Segments

Latin America Escalators Market, By Volume

Latin America Escalators Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units in Thousand), 2020-2029

Latin America Elevators Market, By Type

Hydraulic and Pneumatic, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units),2020-2029

Machine Room Traction, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Machine Room Less Traction, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Others, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Latin America Elevators & Escalators Market by Carriage Type

Passenger, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Freight, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Latin America Elevators Market by Persons

2-15 Persons, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

16-24 Persons, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

25-33 Persons, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Persons and Above, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Latin America Elevators Market by End Users

Commercial, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Residential, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Industrial, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Others, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Latin America Escalators Market

Future Outlook - Latin America Escalators Market by Volume

Latin America Escalators Market - By Segments

Latin America Escalators Market, By Volume

Latin America Escalators Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Latin America Escalator Market by Type

Parallel, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Multi-parallel, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Walkway, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Crisscross, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Latin America Escalator Market by End Users

Commercial, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Public Transit, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Others, Market Size and Forecast, Volume (Units), 2020-2029

Key Vendors

Otis

KONE

Schindler

TK Elevator

Mitsubishi Electric

Fujitec

Hyundai Elevator

Other Prominent Vendors

Wittur

GMV ELEVATOR

VEGA LIFTS

Schmersal

Draka Elevator

GIOVENZANA INTERNATIONAL B.V.

ALAMEX ELEVATOR

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/25cah3

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RESTON, Va., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE:LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, was recently awarded the Strategic Climate Sustainability and Resilience Services (SCSRS) contract to lead a mission resilience-focused transformation for the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD) resource management processes.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ODASD) Energy, Installations and Environment (EI&E) envisions an optimized approach to ensure mission requirements while also driving sustainable resource management. The new Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) is intended to integrate ongoing efforts and maximize opportunities for resilient and efficient resources. The contract vehicle has a 12-month base period of performance followed by four 12-month option periods. The award holds an estimated value of $100 million if all options are exercised.

"We're honored to lead the DoD through its transition to a more sustainable future, with an unwavering commitment to advancing mission execution across all operational domains," said Grant Kim, Senior Vice President and Operations Manager at Leidos. "Leidos takes great pride in leveraging our capabilities to support global missions across government agencies and the commercial energy sector."

Under the SCSRS contract, Leidos will bring together experts in climate science, mitigation and adaptation to integrate climate resilience into the DoD's core functions to preserve and enhance mission performance. The company will also provide a pathway to understanding and reducing DoD's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This will include new insights into Scope 3 supply chain emissions across DoD's operations.

The Leidos team, which includes McKinsey & Co., ICF, and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), will serve as a strategic partner, collaborator, advisor and implementor to the DoD. The work will focus on Department climate, sustainability and resilience initiatives with science, data, and innovation. Additionally, it will focus on shaping effective communication strategies and facilitating organizational change to align with the imperatives of climate sustainability.

This award follows Leidos' Climate Data Analytics Framework (CDAF), a multi-year and multi-million dollar technology investment, which encompasses solutions for climate data storage, cataloging, stewardship, processing, analysis, visualization, delivery, and reporting.

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
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, October 19. Kazakhstan and China plan to build the third cross-border railway between the countries, Trend reports.

In this regard, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the State Committee for Development and Reform of the People's Republic of China on the joint development of cooperation on the Ayagoz-Tacheng railway construction project.

As noted by the Minister of Transport of Kazakhstan Marat Karabayev, this Memorandum involves the construction of a railway line from the Kazakh city of Ayagoz to the Chinese city of Tacheng and the construction of a specific third railway checkpoint between Kazakhstan and China.

In addition, within the framework of the memorandum, the creation of terminal facilities in the border zone are planned.

"There are now two railway checkpoints with a capacity of 28 million tons. This year we expect them to be at full capacity. Now it is necessary to develop new capacity between our country and China. Therefore, with the commissioning of the third railway checkpoint, the volume of transportation between Kazakhstan and China by rail will reach 50 million tons," he said.

In addition, an agreement between the governments of Kazakhstan and China on the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR, or Middle Corridor), including for container trains between China and Europe was signed.
RESTON, Va., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE:LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, was recently awarded a new Other Transaction prototype contract by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to provide a multi-base Electric Vehicle Charging-as-a-Service (EVCaaS) deployment for the Department of the Air Force.

"We look forward to supporting the Air Force's journey to a clean energy future," said Bill Johnson, Senior Vice President and Operations Manager at Leidos. "With this award, Leidos will leverage our expertise decarbonizing complex systems to deliver quick and resilient solutions, with minimal impact expected to the critical missions of the Air Force."

With more than 49,000 non-tactical vehicles in its fleet, the Air Force will be able to transition its fleet to zero-emissions using EVCaaS.

Through this contract, Leidos will design and implement a modern, resilient, scalable and secure power infrastructure solution. This will provide the necessary resources for the Air Force's fleet of non-tactical vehicles to be charged and ready for use at multiple installations across the continental United States.

"Leidos' innovative solution sets a new precedent for how federal organizations can leverage third party finance and commercial best practices to rapidly electrify their mission," said Tristan Bannon, Leidos' Executive Director for Renewable Energy and Climate Technologies. "Further, by integrating energy storage, this project should enhance the Air Force's non-grid-dependent installation energy resilience and serve as a learning model across the Department of Defense."

The solution will use Leidos' engineering and system integration expertise to integrate the best commercially available technology. Leidos selected ChargePoint, a leading provider of solutions for charging EVs, to support delivering these capabilities.

Leidos will also pilot an innovative above-ground EV balance of systems capability supplied by Shoals, a leading provider for eMobility solutions. This approach minimizes construction costs and schedule delays through secure and hardened above-ground raceways and power stations. The solution meets the unique efficiency and resiliency needs of each installation location. It also leverages analytics and engineering to mitigate the impact on local installation grids.

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
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. and NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Lonestar Data Holdings Inc. (Lonestar) the cutting-edge technology company at the forefront of premium lunar data storage and disaster recovery services, is delighted to announce the successful completion of a Pre-Series A funding round, which was oversubscribed, demonstrating robust investor interest in the company's vision and accomplishments.

"Customers and investors are both keying in to our market vision to provide security for Earth's critical data from the Moon." said Chris Stott, Lonestar CEO.

Imagery is Lonestar's artistic rendition of Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander. Image credit: Jason Riley, Artificial Lens for Lonestar

Lonestar Data Holdings Inc. had originally set out to raise $500,000 in its Pre-Series A round. However, following the company's victory at a prestigious tech tank event hosted at an exclusive invite-only investor gathering, the company was inundated with interest from a series of investors eager to invest. This enthusiastic response led to the round being oversubscribed with over $800,000 in funding.

The Pre-Series A round witnessed strong participation from both existing and new investors, highlighting the growing confidence in Lonestar's mission and strategic approach. Lonestar is poised to utilize these funds to further advance its pioneering work in lunar edge and data storage.

"The success of our financial round reinforces our path forward and speaks volumes of the trust and support our investors have placed in us." said Carol Goldstein, Lonestar's CFO and CAO.

This achievement follows Lonestar's earlier success in its Seed funding round, which also witnessed oversubscription. In the Seed round, the company had set out to raise $5 million but attracted investments totaling $5.225 million.

About Lonestar - Saving Earth's Data One Byte at a Time

Lonestar Data Holdings Inc. (Lonestar), headquartered in St Petersburg's Maritime and Defense Technology Hub in Florida, has been founded by a proven team of experts from the Cloud and Space verticals to pioneer a future for data at the edge for all of us as. www.lonestarlunar.com

SOURCE Lonestar Data Holdings Inc.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- MoodRx, a trailblazer in the realm of employee mental health solutions, proudly announces the launch of the MoodRx for Business, an innovative approach aimed at addressing the ever-evolving mental health needs of the contemporary workforce.

Traditional Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) have faced perennial challenges, marked by low utilization rates and a lack of personalization, hampering their effectiveness in meeting the mental health needs of employees. In stark contrast, the MoodRx for Business represents a game-changing paradigm shift, offering a precisely targeted, data-driven, and employee-centric approach to mental health support within the workplace.

MoodRx represents a paradigm shift, offering a targeted, data-driven, and employee-centric approach to mental health. Post this

Key Features and Benefits of MoodRx for Business:

Data-Driven Targeting: MoodRx leverages advanced data analytics to assess the baseline mental health status of employees, enabling employers to allocate increased levels of support to high-need individuals while providing standard preventative care to others. This approach significantly bolsters utilization and efficacy. Increased Utilization: Designed to combat the common issue of low utilization seen in traditional EAPs, MoodRx for Business strategically directs support where it is most needed, thus encouraging more employees to seek assistance when necessary. Employee Education: MoodRx supplies recommendations and a launch toolkit to ensure that employees are well-informed about the mental health benefits at their disposal. Informed employees are more likely to proactively engage in improving their overall well-being. Respect for Privacy: Employee-specific information remains strictly confidential and is never disclosed to managers or employers. Employers only receive aggregate, anonymized reports for program effectiveness monitoring, assuring individual privacy protection. Healthier Workforce: MoodRx for Business transcends the scope of addressing mental health alone; it contributes to an overall healthier workforce. Recognizing the interconnectedness of mental and physical health, it aids employers in reducing the overall cost of healthcare. User-Friendly Approach: MoodRx's solution is easily implementable for both employees and employers. Employees can begin with clinical self-assessments and request consultations with MoodRx clinicians, while employers gain access to user-friendly analytics for benefits adjustment during the fiscal year. Customization for Existing Programs: For employers with existing therapy providers, MoodRx offers an "analytics-only" option, enabling them to augment the effectiveness of their current mental health benefits.

MoodRx for Business is poised to revolutionize the landscape of employee mental health support, offering an unprecedented, personalized, and privacy-conscious solution to enhance employee well-being and productivity.

Kruti Quazi, Founder & CEO of MoodRx, expressed, "MoodRx for Business represents a monumental stride in supporting the mental health of employees. We are dedicated to delivering a solution that not only aids individuals but also fosters the well-being of organizations as a whole by enhancing the mental health profile of the entire employee body."

Quazi further emphasized, "By addressing the mental health needs of employees and promoting a healthier workforce, the MoodRx platform emerges as a significant asset for businesses striving to enhance employee well-being and productivity."

MoodRx cordially invites employers, HR, and benefits managers to explore the future of employee mental health support through MoodRx for Business Platform. For more information, please visit moodrx.com or contact moodrx.com/contact.

About MoodRx:

MoodRx stands as a leading provider of innovative mental health solutions tailored for the modern workplace. Committed to elevating employee well-being, MoodRx delivers targeted and effective support through data-driven solutions.

SOURCE MoodRx LLC
Three classes of Mosaic ABS outstanding notes totaling $143.5M upgraded to 'AAA' by Kroll Bond Rating Agency

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Mosaic , a leading fintech platform for U.S. residential solar and energy-efficient home improvements, announced today that Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) has upgraded three classes of notes collateralized by Mosaic-originated loans representing $143.5M to 'AAA' from 'AA-'. This marks the first time that bonds backed by residential solar loans have been given a 'AAA' rating.

"As the longest-tenured residential solar loan issuer, this upgrade is a testament to the strength of Mosaic's underwriting and the consistency of our performance over more than nine years," said Patrick Moore, Mosaic CEO. "This milestone for the residential solar loan market is also a critical step in the evolution of the sector, paving the way for self-sustained 'AAA' issuance in the near future."

Head of Deutsche Bank Alternative ABS Robert Sannicandro said, "Deutsche Bank was thrilled to work with Mosaic and KBRA to achieve this major vote of confidence for the sector. Achieving a 'AAA' rating puts Mosaic and solar loans into the realm of well-established ABS asset classes such as auto loans and leases, credit cards and student loans. The solar loan ABS asset class has meaningfully supported the nation's continued clean energy transition."

The 'AAA' rating upgrade illustrates that the residential solar loan market is well-positioned to deliver strong performance well into the future. Clean energy home improvements typically attract financially savvy consumers with above average credit scores and income, reducing credit risk. Residential solar is expected to show continued growth through 2027, according to the Wood Mackenzie U.S. Solar Market Insight: 2022 year-in-review report.

Since 2014, Mosaic has been originating and servicing consumer loans used for the purchase of residential solar systems. The company created the industry's first 20-year and 25-year solar loans, the first battery-only loan, and the first solar loan option with no payments for 18 months. Through nationwide solar system installer and dealer partners, Mosaic has funded over $14 billion in loans to homeowners across the United States for residential solar and sustainable home improvement. To date, the company has completed 18 securitizations, totaling more than $4.5 billion in offered securities in the ABS markets.

About Mosaic

Mosaic is an industry-leading fintech platform for sustainable home improvements. With deep, strategic partnerships and a network of thousands of contractors nationwide, we empower homeowners to unlock greater savings, resilience and value in their homes. Founded in 2010, Mosaic is a pioneer in clean energy lending and continues to provide innovative solutions for financing solar, battery storage, heat pumps and more. We doubled our funding volume in 2022 and have funded $14 billion in loans to date, helping more than 370,000 households make their homes more sustainable and save money on their utility bills. Our financing options unlock billions of dollars of capital annually into high-quality ESG assets. Join us in our vision of 100% clean energy for all at joinmosaic.com .

Financing applied for and processed through the Mosaic platform is originated by Solar Mosaic LLC or one of its lending/financing partners . Equal Housing Lender.

SOURCE Mosaic
CLEVELAND and BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- MPE Partners ("MPE" or "Morgenthaler Private Equity") announced today an investment in Mid-States Bolt & Screw Co. ("Mid-States" or the "Company"), a value-added distributor of fasteners and MRO products serving a diverse range of end markets. MPE's investment positions Mid-States for accelerated growth while supporting the Company as an industry leader, an employer of choice, and a strategic partner for its customers.

MPE partnered in the transaction with the Somers family, who founded Mid-States more than 50 years ago. Scott Somers, President of Mid-States, said, "On behalf of my family, we are excited to partner with MPE. Since my father's founding of the business over 50 years ago, Mid-States has continued to drive success through our dedication to excellent customer service. We are excited to work with the MPE team to maintain this tradition while pursuing the Company's next phase of growth."

Graham Schena, Partner at MPE, said, "We are looking forward to partnering with the Somers family and the rest of the Mid-States team to accelerate the Company's growth through continued customer service and product availability, as well as organic and inorganic geographic expansion." Nick Stender, Principal at MPE, added, "The Somers family has built Mid-States into a world-class distributor over the past several decades, and has exciting growth planned. We look forward to helping Mid-States accelerate its growth while maintaining the culture and tradition of excellence that has made the Company so successful to date."

About Mid-States

Founded in 1973, with seven branches throughout Michigan and additional branches in OH, WI, and NC, Mid-States is a value-added distributor of fasteners and MRO products serving a diverse range of end markets. In addition to its ten branches, the Company operates numerous cribs co-located in customer facilities throughout the U.S. Within its fasteners segment, the Company sells hex caps, bolts, screws, socket products, and a wide range of other fasteners. Within MRO, the Company sells safety, janitorial, electrical, material handling, and various other MRO and related products. Mid-States also provides several valued-added services including kitting, vendor-managed inventory, vending machine management, and application engineering. For more information, please visit www.midstatesbolt.com.

About MPE Partners

MPE Partners ("MPE" or "Morgenthaler Private Equity") seeks to be the preferred partner for entrepreneur- and family-owned companies. Based in Cleveland, OH, and Boston, MA, MPE invests in profitable, lower middle market companies with transaction values up to $250 million. MPE has two primary target investment areas: high-value manufacturing and commercial & industrial services. For more information, please visit www.mpepartners.com.

SOURCE MPE Partners
Making the Grad Campaign bestows top honors to accomplished scholars

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Native Forward Scholars Fund announced undergraduate student Peter Thais (Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, formerly the St. Regis Band of Mohawk Indians of New York) and graduate student Christina Thomas (Reno-Sparks Indian Colony) are this year's Students of the Year.

"The Student of the Year award celebrates exceptional scholars of Native Forward who have demonstrated their commitment to their education and leadership and service to their Tribal communities. Both Peter and Christina emanate each of these qualities and more. We are pleased to call them Native Forward scholars and to recognize them as our Students of the Year," said Native Forward Chief Executive Officer Angelique Albert (Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes).

Native Forward's Student of the Year Making the Grad campaign, launched in 2017, amplifies the stories and voices of our scholars and highlights their impressive achievements in academic excellence and commitment to community engagement. For over 50 years, Native Forward has empowered more than 22,000 students from over 500 Tribes in all 50 states by providing scholarship funding ranging from $250 to $30,000.

Peter Thais is a member of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe on the Akwesasne Indian Reservation and is pursuing a degree in Biological Engineering focusing on Ecological and Microbial Systems and a minor in Indigenous Studies at Cornell University. He is an active member of the Indigenous community at Cornell, where he is on the executive board of the Native American and Indigenous Student Program, working as an ambassador, and is the co-leader of the Indigenous Mentorship Program, which pairs first-year students with an Indigenous upper-class mentor.

Christina Dawa Kustmana Thomas is Numu (Northern Paiute), Newe (Western Shoshone), and Hopi (Tobacco Clan). She grew up on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation in Wadsworth, Nevada, and is an enrolled member of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. She is an Indigenous scholar, vocalist, dancer, cultural activist, and language warrior, and her greatest role is as a mother. Thomas graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, with a Bachelor of Arts in Music and a Minor in Biology in 2019. She is attending the University of California, Davis, as a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Native American Studies Department and earning a Designated Emphasis in Performance and Practice Studies. Thomas attained her master's in Native American Studies from UC Davis in 2021. Her practice is rooted in the Great Basin, more specifically Northern Nevada. Her primary fields of study are historical musicology and language regeneration of Numu Yadooana [Northern Paiute language]. Thomas' research amplifies Numu ways of making music history  privileging Numu knowledge, languages, and performance to Indigenize the music studies curriculum.

Native Forward Scholars Fund has delivered more funding in direct scholarship dollars to Native students in the U.S. than any other scholarship provider. The national nonprofit is committed to ensuring that every Native student who wants to pursue higher education has the resources to do so. Providing over $400 million in direct scholarships during its 53-year history, Native Forward has empowered over 22,000 scholars from more than 500 Tribes in all 50 states and contributed to over 1,700 law degrees and more than 2,200 Ph.D. degrees. Through scholarship funding and holistic support, Native Forward has increased the graduation rates of undergraduate students to 69%, compared to the national average of 41% for Native students, and has boosted the rate for graduate students to 95%. The organization's alumni are among the most influential Native leaders in the U.S., including Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange, and Dr. Cynthia Chavez Lamar, Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

Contact: Sara LaBarge

[email protected]

SOURCE Native Forward Scholars Fund
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The New York Festivals has appointed strategic marketer Jennifer Vizina to the position of NYF Health Awards Executive Director.

As Executive Director of the 2024 NYF Health Awards, Ms. Vizina will take the helm charting a visionary course for the competition's growth and development within the Healthcare & Wellness/Pharma sector. She will work closely with Scott Rose, President of NYF Advertising Awards Competitions.

"Jennifer brings top-tier talent to the NYF Health Awards. Her multitude of skills and deep knowledge of the advertising industry make her the obvious and impressive choice to lead this ever-evolving competition, saluting innovation and creativity within Healthcare advertising." - Scott Rose, President of NYF Advertising Awards Competition

"I am honored to join the distinguished team at New York Festivals. With a legacy, dating back to 1957, it's a testament to our dedication to recognizing outstanding achievements. NYF Health Awards is charting a new course to honor the most groundbreaking work in healthcare and celebrate the innovations in Healthcare and Pharma creative. I am excited to lead and guide the competition towards reaching new milestones of excellence" said Jennifer Vizina, Executive Director, New York Festivals Health Awards.

As the Executive Director of the 2024 NYF Health Awards, Ms. Vizina will assume a pivotal role, steering the course for the competition's visionary growth and development within the Healthcare & Wellness/Pharma sector. Her leadership will be closely aligned with Scott Rose, President of NYF Advertising Awards Competitions, ensuring a collaborative approach to fostering innovation and excellence in celebrating health advertising. Together, they will lead the charge in elevating the standards and recognition of outstanding work in this dynamic industry.

"New York Festivals is thrilled to welcome Jennifer to our teams. We believe her remarkable contribution to NYF's Health Awards will set a new standard of excellence. Jennifer's multi-talents stemming from her years working within advertising agencies and committed dedication make her the perfect liaison for creatives working within the healthcare space. With her leadership, we look forward to pushing the boundaries in honoring ground-breaking Healthcare and Pharma advertising," said Ellen Smyth, CEO, New York Festivals.

Ms. Vizina brings an impressive 20-year track record of outstanding accomplishments in the advertising industry to the NYF team, showcasing her diverse talents across various pivotal roles. Her expertise spans new business development, account management, strategic planning, product management, branding, and public relations.

With her extensive experience, Ms. Vizina has played a key role in driving the growth and market presence of numerous agencies and brands. Ms. Vizina has worked at top agencies in contract positions, contributing her skills in various capacities, including roles such as the New Business Development Manager and Account Director, for SS+K, Merkley+Partners, and Wasserman. In addition to these roles, over the years she has held executive leadership staff positions in best-in-class agencies such as SVP, Account Director at Grey Group, VP Group Director of Advertising at SS+K, and Account Director at FCBNY. Her versatile background and impressive career path make her a valuable addition to the 2024 NYF Health Awards team.

Throughout her career, she has harnessed her impeccable skills in collaboration with industry leaders at brands such as Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, EPA - EnergyStar, Bayer AG, Delta Air Lines, Song Airlines, Boots Health+Beauty, Wells Fargo, and AutoMart.com.

All entries submitted to the 2024 NYF Health Awards will undergo evaluation by judging panels comprised of global industry thought leaders and award-winning creative professionals specializing in healthcare advertising. Winning entries will be prominently featured in the winner's showcase on the NYF Health Awards website.

For more information on the 2024 NYF Health competition visit HERE. NYF Health will open for entries Thursday, October 26th.

Grand and Executive Jury selection for the 2023 NYF Health Awards will begin soon.

View the 2023 NYF Health Awards winning work: HERE.

About New York Festivals: New York Festivals Celebrating the World's Best Work since 1957

Advertising Awards

AME Awards

NYF Health Awards

Radio Awards

TV & Film Awards

Entries to each of the competitions are judged around the world by panels of peers in their respective industries. For more information, visit: www.newyorkfestivals.com.

SOURCE New York Festivals
The debut of MOLLI 2 offers breast cancer patients enhanced comfort, reduced stress and unmatched surgical precision

BROOKLYN, N.Y. and DEERFIELD, Ill., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County joins forces with MOLLI Surgical in a meaningful partnership, introducing breast cancer patients to the transformative MOLLI 2 System. As MOLLI Surgical forges ahead in precision surgery, this award-winning technology  now available to patients in New York  is poised to redefine the landscape of breast cancer surgery, ensuring simpler procedures and an enhanced patient experience.

The MOLLI System empowers radiologists to mark cancerous lesions using the MOLLI Marker, a sesame seed-sized localization device. Surgeons then use the MOLLI Wand and MOLLI Tablet to pinpoint these lesions, bypassing the conventional, more painful, hooked-wire marking technique.

MOLLI Surgical was founded on the principle of constant innovation and earlier this year launched MOLLI re.markable, the only tool on the market allowing surgeons and radiologists to reposition a localization marker with minimal impact or discomfort to patients. Now, we are excited to present MOLLI 2, boasting a key innovation  true 3D guidance  to enhance its top-tier technology. This unique feature guides the surgeon to the lesion with millimeter precision. This intuitive feedback streamlines the surgical process, making MOLLI 2 a reliable and precise tool that optimizes efficiency and patient outcomes.

MOLLI 2's standout attributes include:

Optimized Cosmetic Outcomes: MOLLI 2's marker  the market's smallest at 3.2 mm  enables precise localization of tiny lesions without obscuring them. The wand's 10 mm tapered tip allows for smaller incisions, promoting improved cosmetic outcomes for patients post-surgery.

MOLLI 2's marker  the market's smallest at 3.2 mm  enables precise localization of tiny lesions without obscuring them. The wand's 10 mm tapered tip allows for smaller incisions, promoting improved cosmetic outcomes for patients post-surgery. Precision Powered Surgery: MOLLI 2 sets itself apart by offering true 3D guidance in a compact and easily transportable form factor, a generation ahead of the market. MOLLI 2 empowers surgeons by showing them where they are and guiding them to where they need to go with confidence and speed. This technology enhances surgical procedures, making them more efficient and potentially reducing patient complications.

MOLLI 2 sets itself apart by offering true 3D guidance in a compact and easily transportable form factor, a generation ahead of the market. MOLLI 2 empowers surgeons by showing them where they are and guiding them to where they need to go with confidence and speed. This technology enhances surgical procedures, making them more efficient and potentially reducing patient complications. Elevated Patient Experience: MOLLI 2's wire-free approach alleviates the discomfort and anxiety tied to traditional methods. By decoupling localization from surgery, MOLLI 2 cuts down wait times and lessens pre-surgical anxiety. This is particularly useful for women who lack access to resources, such as childcare or paid medical leave, improving access to care.

"Our Comprehensive Breast Center provides fully integrated and holistic care for patients with a range of benign and malignant diseases, emphasizing an integrative, patient-focused approach," said Dr. Jaime Alberty, Director of The Comprehensive Breast Center at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County. "The adoption of the new MOLLI 2 technology featuring remarkable speed, precision and patient comfort, marks a significant advancement in patient care at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County."

Ananth Ravi, President and CEO of MOLLI Surgical, shared his enthusiasm, saying: "Our vision at MOLLI Surgical has always been to revolutionize the surgical experience. With the MOLLI 2 device, we're not just introducing technology; we're bringing hope, precision, and a renewed sense of comfort to countless patients."

With the introduction of MOLLI 2, both NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County and MOLLI Surgical demonstrate their unified commitment to enabling precision surgery made simpler, enhancing clinical efficiency, and elevating the patient and physician experience. MOLLI 2 exemplifies this dedication and promises patients at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County a more seamless and compassionate path to recovery. For more details, visit mollisurgical.com .

About MOLLI Surgical:

MOLLI Surgical started with one patient, who asked if there was a way to make her breast cancer journey better. Her voice led to the creation of our flagship wire and radiation-free technologies  MOLLI 2 and MOLLI re.markable. Our innovations are intended to replace outdated procedures to mark lesions for surgical removal through greater precision, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. We are obsessed with every detail of our design process to ensure surgeons and radiologists have the best possible tools to support an improved patient experience.

MOLLI has been recognized by TIME as one of 2022's "Best Inventions" in the Medical Care category and named to Fast Company's list of "Next Big Things in Tech," recognizing technological breakthroughs across industries that promise to transform the future. We are proud to build the advanced solutions that patients and physicians prefer. Follow us on Facebook , LinkedIn , X , and YouTube .

About NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County:

NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County is a 639-bed acute care teaching hospital located in Central Brooklyn. Among our highly specialized programs are a Level I Trauma Center, Pediatric Emergency Room, Level 3 Perinatal Center, Heart Health Center, Stroke Center, Sickle Cell Program, Behavioral Health Center, and Diabetes Education Center of Excellence. Many of our programs have received national recognition, including our cardiac, stroke and diabetes services. The hospital offers a broad array of primary and specialty care, including practices in neuroscience, orthopedics, urology and cardiology. Annually, our ambulatory care practices see well over 500,000 visits, and more than 150,000 visits in the Behavioral Health outpatient program, in addition to close to 23,000 inpatient discharges. NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County has played a major role in providing health care to vulnerable populations in Brooklyn since 1831, and is part of NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest public health care system in the nation. For more information visit nychealthandhospitals.org/locations/kings-county and stay connected on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KingsCountyHosp or Twitter at @KingsCountyHosp .

Press Contact:

Melissa Whitworth, Lightspeed PR/M

[email protected]

SOURCE MOLLI Surgical
The partnership marks the ocean exploration nonprofit's latest effort to collaborate with global entities to advance ocean protection and preservation benchmarks worldwide

NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Global ocean exploration nonprofit OceanX has signed a historic letter of cooperation with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC/UNESCO) in a monumental effort to support and encourage the implementation of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), or 'Ocean Decade'. To kick off the partnership, OceanX and IOC/UNESCO will be collaborating on a joint pavilion in the Blue Zone at COP28, the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference.

IOC UNESCO Logo

The agreement establishes a collaboration between OceanX and IOC/UNESCO on a variety of projects, including crafting international communication and outreach for the Ocean Decade, making OceanX expedition data accessible to the public, and sponsoring joint initiatives with scientific partners across the Arctic, Red Sea, Indonesia, Seychelles, and Pacific Small Island Developing States.

The Ocean Decade is a convening framework for a range of stakeholders to identify, generate, and use science research and solutions to sustainably manage marine ecosystems and connect people to the world's ocean. Launched in 2021, the initiative is spearheaded by IOC/UNESCO, the UN body mandated to advance marine science, ocean observation, tsunami early warning systems, and ocean data through international cooperation. Working in concert with OceanX and leveraging its science and media capabilities, IOC/UNESCO will advance the Ocean Decade's shared vision through 2030.

"With its multidisciplinary science approach and unparalleled media capabilities, OceanX is perfectly positioned to help grow access to global ocean data and inspire the world with the possibilities our ocean presents," said Julian Barbiere, Head of the Marine Policy and Regional Coordination Section at IOC/UNESCO and Global Coordinator of the Ocean Decade. "Through this partnership, we will generate a captivating narrative around the role of the ocean in our lives, motivating greater participation in our collective journey towards 2030."

As part of the communication effort, the partners will work on a coordinated digital and social media campaign around UN World Oceans Day to spread awareness about the world's ocean and engage scientific partners, philanthropies, industry players, and governments. The partnership will also leverage OceanX's Hollywood-caliber multimedia and videos of coral reefs, marine fauna, and marine protected areas, hosting screenings and amplifying content to key stakeholders, and the public at large. IOC/UNESCO and OceanX will also build out communication assets for and participate in major international convenings including the 2023 UN Climate Conference with a joint Blue Zone Pavilion, the 2024 Ocean Decade Conference, and regional ocean science events to advance the Ocean Decade.

"With the impact of global climate change increasingly clear, OceanX is honored to partner with IOC/UNESCO to advance the Ocean Decade," said Vincent Pieribone, co-CEO and chief science officer of OceanX. "Credible scientific research, combined with creative media and storytelling, are vital to communicating the centrality of the world's oceans to human life. This agreement signals the start of an innovative partnership that will share stunning oceanic research with the world and inspire human beings to protect their ocean."

The collaborative pavilion in the Blue Zone at COP28 will be an active space for attendees to engage in in-depth discussions about the role of science in protecting the ocean, strengthening ocean-climate action, and increasing commitment to the exploration and knowledge transfer necessary to meet the Paris Climate Accords, limit warming to 1.5C, and stabilize the Earth's climate. With curated roundtables focused on the Ocean Decade Challenges and engaging visual media demonstrating the potential of scientific exploration, the IOC/UNESCO x OceanX pavilion will be a hotspot for ocean-climate solutions.

As part of the ocean data sharing commitment, OceanX will contribute processed bathymetric data (topographic measurements of the seafloor's shape elevation), data collected from underway sensors (SST, salinity, CTD casts, meteorological data), and global tsunami-related data (imagery, footage, CTD casts, sensory deployment), among other metrics. OceanX and IOC/UNESCO also will collaborate on trainings and workshops for Ocean Decade partners, and OceanX will apply Ocean Decade goals to planned OceanX missions and geographies, the Research Vessel Initiative, and the Philanthropic Foundations dialogue.

OceanX and IOC/UNESCO share a commitment to spreading awareness of and support for the world's oceans. This partnership, which takes effect immediately, will enable both groups to use their unique skillsets and networks to advance Decade Actions and inspire a new generation to protect the ocean.

For media inquiries regarding OceanX, please contact Adriana Torres Plaza at [email protected].

For media inquiries regarding IOC/UNESCO and the Ocean Decade please contact Aya Khalil, Ocean Decade Communications and Science Outreach Manager at [email protected].

About OceanX:

OceanX is a mission to support scientists to explore the ocean and to bring it back to the world through captivating media. Uniting leading media, science, and philanthropy partners, OceanX utilizes next-gen technology, fearless science, compelling storytelling, and immersive experiences to educate, inspire, and connect the world with the ocean and build a global community deeply engaged with understanding, enjoying, and protecting our oceans. OceanX is an initiative of Dalio Philanthropies, which furthers the diverse philanthropic interests of Dalio family members. For more information, visit www.oceanx.org and follow OceanX on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , TikTok, and LinkedIn .

About the Ocean Decade:

Proclaimed in 2017 by the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) ('the Ocean Decade') seeks to stimulate ocean science and knowledge generation to reverse the decline of the state of the ocean system and catalyse new opportunities for sustainable development of this massive marine ecosystem. The vision of the Ocean Decade is 'the science we need for the ocean we want'. The Ocean Decade provides a convening framework for scientists and stakeholders from diverse sectors to develop the scientific knowledge and the partnerships needed to accelerate and harness advances in ocean science to achieve a better understanding of the ocean system, and deliver science-based solutions to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The UN General Assembly mandated UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) to coordinate the preparations and implementation of the Decade.

About the IOC/UNESCO:

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC/UNESCO) promotes international cooperation in marine sciences to improve management of the ocean, coasts and marine resources. The IOC enables its 150 Member States to work together by coordinating programmes in capacity development, ocean observations and services, ocean science and tsunami warning. The work of the IOC contributes to the mission of UNESCO to promote the advancement of science and its applications to develop knowledge and capacity, key to economic and social progress, the basis of peace and sustainable development.

Contact: Adriana Torres Plaza

Phone: 202-379-5912

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE OceanX
Oula-Mount Sinai West partnership offers patients the best of obstetrics and midwifery, with midwife-led delivery supported by leading hospital's expertise and resources

NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Oula , the modern maternity care clinic combining the best of obstetrics and midwifery care, and Mount Sinai Health System, one of New York City's largest academic medical systems, today announced the expansion of a successful partnership that began in 2021. Last month they reached 1,000 babies delivered . The expansion will include a third clinic that opens in the Fall of 2024 on 112th street in Morningside Heights, expanded clinical services, additional service lines, and a deeper clinical and financial integration between Oula and Mount Sinai. Oula brings together the best of midwifery and obstetrics to support patients throughout their pregnancy journeys, from prenatal care to postpartum support. Oula babies are delivered at Mount Sinai West by Oula midwives, with support from Mount Sinai experts in obstetrics, maternal-fetal medicine (MFM), and teams of nurses and specialists in high-risk surgical care if needed.

The Oula-Mount Sinai partnership was formed with a shared commitment to providing evidence-based and low-risk maternity care to ensure improved outcomes for patients. The results speak for themselves: with a 25% lower cesarean rate versus New York City benchmarks, a 51% better preterm rate, a 33% better low birthweight rate, all while achieving a Net Promoter Score of 94. (Metrics are sourced from Oula patient outcomes and compared to March of Dimes ' New York City Birth Benchmarks.) These superior outcomes are delivered not only for the average patient but also for historically underserved populations including patients on Medicaid.

By combining Oula's unique care model and consumer-centric clinics with Mount Sinai's evidence-based specialty and acute care expertise, the two organizations fill critical gaps in maternity care access, patient experience, and health outcomes. The partnership delivers exceptional care that contributes to an increased number of births at Mount Sinai West, and interest from new families who are seeking a patient-centric birth experience.

"According to the Listening to Mothers Survey , 74% of women say they want a less medicalized approach to birth, up from 45% in 2002. We chose Mount Sinai West as our partner because of their longstanding commitment to respecting patient autonomy and encouraging shared decision-making, both of which are pillars of midwifery care," said Adrianne Nickerson , Oula Co-Founder and CEO during this year's stage at HLTH 2023 .

"We are thrilled to continue partnering with Oula to provide exceptional care to our community. Our collaboration with Oula enables today's patients to have the best of both obstetrics and midwifery services. Through our partnership, Mount Sinai obstetricians, specialists and nurses work alongside Oula's midwives to complement and support patients' personalized care plans. This supportive care is provided in the soothing environment of our recently redesigned delivery unit, and optimizes family bonding and healing," said Dr. Holly Loudon, Chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai West and Morningside.

"We are excited to further expand access to collaborative obstetrics-midwifery care services for expectant parents on their labor and delivery journey. This partnership with Oula continues our commitment to serving a diverse patient population, delivering compassionate care during one of life's most important milestones, and optimizing the latest techniques and innovation in our medical facilities. We also know that investments in women's health lay the foundation for improving future health outcomes promoting healthier babies and parents," said Kelly Cassano, Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice and Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Operations at Mount Sinai Health System.

The partnership has proven crucial in a moment when policymakers and patients alike are turning increased attention to improving U.S. maternity care. The maternal mortality and cesarean rates in the U.S. are some of the highest in the developed world. Compared to women in other high-income countries, women in the U.S. are most likely to report emotional distress, and report less satisfaction in healthcare. According to the World Health Organization , expanding access to midwife-led maternity care is one of the most effective ways to reduce maternal mortality. Research shows that midwifery-led care leads to lower rates of preterm birth, 30-40% lower cesarean birth rates, and rates of vaginal birth after cesarean that are nearly twice as high. They also drive a 3x improvement in patient satisfaction with maternity care. With an expanding body of evidence to support the benefits of midwifery care, consumer interest is growing.

"We are excited to expand our partnership with Oula and broaden our reach to patients who want a unique birthing experience. The collaboration has optimized volume across our facilities while delivering a very positive patient experience and superior clinical outcomes. In today's challenging market, Oula offers health systems a distinct model to grow maternity services," said Jodi Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer at Mount Sinai Health System.

"We are long overdue for a care model that delivers better outcomes and patient experiences, and we're thrilled to partner with hospital systems around the country that share our vision," said Dr. Ila Dayananda, Oula Chief Medical Officer.

About Oula:

Oula is a modern maternity clinic that brings together the best of midwifery and obstetrics to deliver a personalized, evidence-based pregnancy experience so that everyone has the support they need to thrive before, during, and after birth. With our collaborative medical team, welcoming clinic, and remote care platform, we are setting a new standard for pregnancy that brings together modern medicine and human intuition. Both Co-Founders and Chief Experience Officer were pregnant during the pandemic while they raised capital and opened their first location, reaching full capacity in three months. Oula is venture-backed and has raised $22.3M to-date by investors including Chelsea Clinton's fund, Metrodora. Oula accepts insurance, including Medicaid.

About the Mount Sinai Health System:

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our timediscovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it. Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients' medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,400 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek's "The World's Best Smart Hospitals'' and by U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals'' and "Best Children's Hospitals." The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals" Honor Roll for 2023-2024.

Contact

Catherine Cuello-Fuente

[email protected]

Stacy A. Anderson

[email protected]

SOURCE Oula
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, October 19. Kazakhstan has introduced restrictions on the export of 106 types of goods to Russia, said Vice Minister of Trade and Integration of the country Kairat Torebaev, Trend reports.

"We have introduced restrictions on the export of goods intended for military purposes. That's 106 different types. Their exports are completely limited," he said.

Among the goods on which export restrictions have been introduced are spare parts for drones, special electronics, chips, etc.

Torebaev clarified that the restrictions were introduced in connection with Western sanctions. Restrictions apply to both Kazakh and foreign manufacturers.

From January through August 2023, the volume of trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Russia amounted to $17 billion. Exports to Russia amounted to $6.389 billion, and imports from Russia amounted to $10.611 billion.

At the same time, the volume of trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Russia in 2022 amounted to $26.123 billion. Kazakhstan's exports to Russia during the reporting period amounted to $8.78 billion, while imports amounted to $17.34 billion.

Kazakhstan's foreign trade turnover in 2022 amounted to $134.4 billion, and compared to 2021 in nominal terms, it increased by 32.1 percent, including exports of $84.394 billion (in nominal terms, 39.9 percent more) and imports of $50.043 billion (20.8 percent more in nominal terms).
Outlaw Leads a Novel Fragrance Frontier, Evoking the Spirit of Beloved Destinations Through Innovative Scent Pairings

SPARKS, Nev. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- "Outlawtoberfest," the latest venture by experiential scent pioneers, Outlaw, marks a paradigm shift in sensory engagement, inviting participants on a fragrant journey through America's most iconic cities. This innovative event encapsulates the ambiance of destinations, from Nashville's whiskey-infused warmth to the crisp forest trails of Seattle, through meticulously crafted scents.

Outlawtoberfest Revolutionizes Sensory Experience, Linking Iconic U.S. Cities with Signature Scents

Danielle Vincent, CEO and co-founder of Outlaw, reflects, "We're not just creating fragrances. We're pioneering a form of emotional teleportation, where a single scent serves as a passport to a distant locale. It's an adventure, a memory, and a dream intertwined."

Outlaw stands as a beacon of creativity and authenticity, transforming the fragrance landscape. The scents they craft transcend traditional boundaries, serving as aromatic homages to various American places, evoking the unique spirit and emotions associated with each.

The nationwide resonance of "Outlawtoberfest" underscores the universal craving for a sense of connection and the comfort of cherished places. This initiative showcases Outlaw's innovative spirit, spearheading a movement that acknowledges the profound link between scent, memory, and emotion.

"Scent is a beautiful storyteller, especially when recalling stories from your own life," says Vincent, her enthusiasm palpable. "Through 'Outlawtoberfest,' we're uniting individuals across states and experiences, all through the evocative power of fragrance."

Science underscores this concept, highlighting the direct pathway between scents and the brain's emotional seat. Outlaw leverages this intrinsic link, blending artistry, science, and a deep understanding of human connection. This unique approach forms the bedrock of their trailblazing scent experiences.

In its essence, "Outlawtoberfest" represents more than a collection of fragrances. It's a communal journey of the senses, an innovative celebration of American diversity, and a testament to the unifying power of shared sensory experiences.

Discover more about Outlaw's visionary scent adventures at https://liveoutlaw.com

About Outlaw

Outlaw is a modern lifestyle company that creates soap, cologne, and other body care products with scents that are inspired by real life, including leather, campfire, whiskey, clove, and freshly cut grass.

Scent research indicates that true-to-life "autobiographical" scents are powerful memory triggers, particularly in the recollection of happy memories. Danielle and Russ, the founders of Outlaw, have crafted specific scents designed to evoke confidence, happiness, and resilience.

Outlaw's products are Leaping Bunny certified cruelty-free, made with natural ingredients, and sustainably packaged. Everything Outlaw sells is backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Press Contact:

Danielle Vincent,

(775) 771-7661,

https://liveoutlaw.com

SOURCE Outlaw
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TSXV: PGZ| OTCQX: PGZFF

Proceeds to fund the 2024 exploration program and Maiden Resource for La Romana Copper-Tin discovery in Spain

VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Pan Global Resources Inc. ("Pan Global" or the "Company") (TSXV: PGZ) (OTCQX: PGZFF) announces today that due to strong demand the previously announced non-brokered private placement financing has been increased from $2 million to $6 million. (All dollar amounts in this media release refer to Canadian dollars.)

"The exceptional support from key existing and new investors places us in a strong position to advance exploration and resource delineation at our flagship Escacena Project in Southern Spain. The proceeds from this financing are expected to fund the 2024 exploration program at the multi-target Escacena project and the La Romana Maiden Resource," said Tim Moody, Pan Global President and CEO. "Drilling continues at La Romana to test the western extension of the near-surface copper-tin mineralization, with additional drill results anticipated in the coming weeks."

The Company announced on October 4, 2023, that it had arranged a non-brokered private placement financing of up to 10,000,000 units (the "Units") of securities at a price of $0.20 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $2 million (the "Offering"). Following the upsizing, the Company will now be issuing up to 30,000,000 Units for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $6 million. Each Unit will be comprised of one (1) common share and one (1) non-transferable common share purchase warrant, with each whole warrant entitling the holder to purchase one additional common share at a price of $0.30 for a period of three (3) years from closing of the Offering, subject to acceleration of the expiry date of the term. The Offering is expected to close on or about October 31, 2023 and in all other respects, the terms of the Offering are as announced on October 4, 2023.

Completion of the Placement is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The securities issued pursuant to this private placement will be subject to a four-month hold period in Canada and will be subject to U.S. resale restrictions under U.S. securities laws.

The securities to be sold in the private placement have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended ("U.S. Securities Act"), or any state or other applicable jurisdiction's securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state or other jurisdictions' securities laws. This media release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any offer, solicitation, or sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About the Escacena Project

The Escacena Project comprises a large, contiguous, 5,760-hectare land package controlled 100% by Pan Global in the east of the Iberian Pyrite Belt. Escacena is located near operating mines at Las Cruces and Riotinto and is immediately adjacent to the former Aznalcollar and Los Frailes mines where Minera Los Frailes/Grupo Mexico is in the final permitting stage with construction anticipated to start in 2024. The Escacena Project hosts the La Romana copper-tin-silver discovery and a number of other prospective targets, including Canada Honda, Bravo, Barbacena, El Pozo, Romana Norte, San Pablo, Zarcita, Hornitos, La Jarosa, and Romana Deep.

About Pan Global Resources

Pan Global Resources Inc. is actively targeting copper-rich mineral deposits, given copper's compelling supply-demand fundamentals and outlook for strong long-term prices as a critical metal for global electrification and energy transition. The Company's flagship Escacena Project is located in the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt in southern Spain, where infrastructure, mining and professional expertise, and support for copper as a Strategic Raw Material by the European Commission collectively define a tier-one jurisdiction for mining investment. The Pan Global team comprises proven talent in exploration, development, and mine operations - all of which are committed to operating safely and with utmost respect for the environment and our partnered communities.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

www.panglobalresources.com

Forward-looking statements

Statements which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. It is important to note that actual outcomes and the Company's actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information included in this media release are reasonable but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, economic, competitive, governmental, environmental, and technological factors that may affect the Company's operations, markets, products, and prices. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include the ability to complete the private placement, receipt of regulatory approvals and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis of its audited financial statements filed with the British Columbia Securities Commission. Copies of the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis of its audited financial statements may be obtained at no charge by visiting our Investors website at www.panglobalresources.com or at www.sedar.com.

The forward-looking information contained in this media release is based on information available to the Company as of the date of this media release. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update this forward-looking information.

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 Pan Global Resources Inc.
LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- PEI Global Partners ("PEI") is delighted to announce that it has been honored with the esteemed 'ESG Finance Innovation' award from IJGlobal in North America. This recognition is attributed to our role as the exclusive financial advisor in arranging a five-year, $550 million credit facility ("Project Galaxy") for Hecate Energy. The IJGlobal ESG awards are bestowed upon organizations showcasing exemplary environmental, social, and corporate governance credentials in particular projects, as well as holistic environmental and sustainable policies.

PEI structured this first-of-a-kind financing in the commercial bank market for a pure play renewables developer. The Project Galaxy financing was collateralized solely by its renewable development projects without any guarantees or other credit support. This facility will enhance Hecate's ability to monetize 5+ GW of solar, battery storage and wind development projects annually, by providing a low-cost term loan and Letters of Credit (LC) for interconnection, offtake and other project requirements. PEI demonstrated unparalleled expertise in structuring the financing and advising on the syndication to a group of more than ten lenders in the primary syndication process at highly competitive rates.

Beyond its innovative financing structure, this groundbreaking transaction makes a tremendous ESG impact by furthering decarbonization of the electric grid, and by supporting the economic development of local communities. By aligning with long-term sustainability goals and fostering the transition to cleaner energy sources, the Project Galaxy financing sets a precedent for responsible and transformative financings in the renewable energy sector.

"At PEI, we endeavor to meet the complex financing needs of our developer clients," said Kevin Phillips, Managing Partner of PEI. "We are honored to receive this award in recognition of the important role that our team has played in securing a groundbreaking financing that enables our visionary client Hecate Energy to meet its renewable development goals."

"PEI Global Partners' ingenuity and drive to deliver inventive financial solutions has been critical to Hecate Energy's continued success in deploying one of the largest pipelines of solar and energy storage assets in North America," said Chris Bullinger, CEO of Hecate Energy. "We expect the precedent established by the structure of this facility will contribute significantly to accelerating the global transition to sustainable energy."

About PEI Global Partners

PEI Global Partners Holdings LLC ("PEI") is an independent, closely held investment bank specializing in the power, energy and infrastructure sectors, with offices in New York City and Tampa. PEI advises financial sponsors, developers and corporate clients on mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, financings, private placements and other strategic transactions. In 2022, PEI closed twelve transactions and raised over $4 billion for owners and developers of renewable and thermal power. PEI conducts securities transactions through its wholly-owned broker-dealer subsidiary PEI Global Partners LLC, which is regulated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA"), the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), the New York State Department of Financial Services and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation. For more information on PEI, please visit www.peigp.com.

About Hecate Energy

Headquartered in Chicago, Hecate Energy is a top-ten developer of solar and wind generation facilities and energy storage solutions in North America. Founded in 2012 by a team of energy industry veterans with 20 years of collaboration, Hecate Energy is one of the largest stand-alone renewable energy developers in the United States today. Currently, the company has a pipeline of over 45 GW, with over 125 projects in 32 states. Over the last eight years, Hecate Energy has executed more than 36 power project transactions, totaling more than 6,500 MW of capacity.

Media Contact

Steven C. Sullivan

518-441-7272

[email protected]

SOURCE PEI Global Partners
CHICAGO, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Report "Personal Protective Equipment Market by Type (Hand & Arm Protection, Protective Clothing, Foot & Leg Protection), End-use Industry (Manufacturing, Construction, Oil & Gas, Healthcare, Transportation, Firefighting, Food), Region - Global Forecast to 2028", size was USD 54.0 billion in 2023 to USD 69.4 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 5.1% from 2023 to 2028.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to specialized clothes or equipment meant to protect individuals from various health and safety threats in the workplace or other places. Personal protective equipment is chosen based on the specific hazards in each environment and should be fitted and maintained appropriately. Employers are normally responsible for providing suitable personal protective equipment (PPE) and training employees on how to make best use of it. Workers are responsible for wearing the specified PPE as directed to maintain their safety and well-being. The proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE) is a vital component of occupational safety and risk reduction.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Personal Protective Equipment Market"

218  Tables

47  Figures

250  Pages

Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=132681971

"Hand & Arm Protection was the largest type for personal protective equipment market in 2022 in terms of value."

The personal protective equipment market is experiencing significant growth driven by many key factors. Hand & arm protection has attracted attention as a prospective type in the personal protective equipment market for several reasons. Hand and arm protection is necessary in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, construction, healthcare, oil & gas, food, transportation, firefighting, and others. Due to the variety of uses, protective gloves and sleeves are in high demand. Many industries entail actions that put the hands and arms at risk. Contact with chemicals, sharp objects, severe temperatures, and mechanical injuries are examples of potential dangers. As these industries grow, so does the demand for safety equipment.

"Manufacturing segment is estimated to be the largest end-use industry in personal protective equipment market in 2022, in terms of value."

The personal protective equipment market has been gradually expanding, with increased manufacturing and infrastructural development. Most of the countries have witnessed industrial and manufacturing growth, resulting in an increased demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect the rising workforce. This expansion has been particularly evident in emerging economies. These developments frequently require the use of specialized personal protective equipment. Manufacturing frequently employs many workers, all of them require appropriate personal protective equipment. The sheer size of the manufacturing workforce contributes to an increase in the demand for protective equipment in the manufacturing industry.

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"North America was the largest region for the personal protective equipment market in 2022, in terms of value."

The expansion of the personal protective equipment market in the North America region is primarily due to strict regulations regarding workplace safety. The North America healthcare sector is one of the largest in the world. The sector has a significant need for medical personal protective equipment (PPE), including gloves, masks, gowns, and face shields. On the other hand, Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest growing region in this market during the forecasted period. The Asia Pacific area, which includes China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asian countries, has experienced substantial economic expansion in recent decades. This expansion has resulted in greater industrialization, construction, and manufacturing activity, resulting in a significant demand for PPE to safeguard the expanding workforce.

The key market players identified in the report are Honeywell International Inc. (US), DuPont de Nemours, Inc. (US), 3M Company (US), Ansell Limited (Australia), Kimberly-Clark Corporation (US), Lakeland Industries, Inc. (US), Alpha Pro Tech, Ltd. (Canada), Sioen Industries NV (Belgium), Radians Inc. (US), and MSA Safety Inc. (US).

Browse Adjacent Market: Resins and Polymers Market Research Reports:

Related Reports:

Face Mask Market - Global Forecast to 2027

Face Shield Market - Global Forecast to 2028

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KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In recognition of Veterans Day, Pilot Company is extending its appreciation for military service members and their families by offering a complimentary meal* at over 750 participating Pilot, Flying J and One9 Fuel Network travel centers nationwide. Additionally, Pilot Company is inviting guests to round up** and raise funds to support the Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting veterans in transitioning to successful civilian careers post-military service.

Pilot Company and Call of Duty Endowment kick off roundup campaign in Pilot, Flying J and One9 Fuel Network travel centers to support careers for veterans. Pilot Company offers veterans and their families a free meal for Veterans Day.

From October 23 through November 12, 2023, visit any participating Pilot, Flying J or One9 Fuel Network travel center to round up purchases to the nearest whole dollar. Pilot Company will donate 100% of the roundup proceeds directly to the Call of Duty Endowment.** This year, the company is aiming to raise $1 million and will match donations up to $100,000 to help the Call of Duty Endowment place more than 1,600 service members and their families into successful careers. Since 2019, Pilot Company and its guests have raised over $3 million in donations for the Call of Duty Endowment, resulting in more than 5,500 veterans finding post-military careers.

"We owe our nation's veterans and their families our gratitude and are honored to offer them a free meal in our stores to celebrate Veterans Day," said Brian Ferguson, Air Force veteran and chief merchant at Pilot Company. "It's great to have organizations like the Call of Duty Endowment dedicated to helping find opportunities for veterans to lead and excel in their careers after the military. We are proud of our veterans at Pilot Company, and I am grateful to my fellow veterans for their service and sacrifice. Happy Veterans Day."

Over Veterans Day weekend, service members and their families verified through ID.me in the myRewards Plus app will receive a free meal credit valued up to $12.* The Veterans Day offer can be claimed November 10-12, 2023, through the myRewards Plus app and redeemed at participating Pilot, Flying J and One9 Fuel Network travel centers on a wide range of food and beverage options, including hot and cold deli items, popular snacks, fountain drinks, Pilot coffee and meals at participating on-site restaurants.* Any remaining balance from the one-time $12 credit will be reflected on the guest's receipt after checkout and can be used on subsequent visits during the offer period through Veterans Day weekend.*

Once verified with ID.me, service members can access exclusive deals and a year-round 10% discount on food and beverages* at participating Pilot, Flying J and One9 Fuel Network travel centers when using myRewards Plus at checkout. For more information on Pilot Company's military discount, visit pilotflyingj.com/rewards.

To learn more about Pilot Company and its giving-back initiatives, visit pilotcompany.com/about. To quickly find nearby Pilot, Flying J and One9 Fuel Network travel centers and for more great deals, download the myRewards Plus app.* More information on the Call of Duty Endowment is available at callofdutyendowment.org.

Pilot Company proudly employs veterans across its organization and encourages former and transitioning military members and their families to apply to any of their open positions by visiting jobs.pilotflyingj.com/talent-communitieshttps://jobs.pilotflyingj.com/talent-communities.

*Must use myRewards Plus app to redeem. Data rates may apply. Certain food and beverage exclusions apply. Other terms and conditions apply. (see pilotflyingj.com/rewards)

**Certain purchases (including, without limitation, fuel and fuel additives and purchases made on fleet cards or direct bill programs) are not eligible for round-up contributions.

About Pilot Company:

Pilot Travel Centers LLC ("Pilot Company") keeps North America's drivers moving as one of the leading suppliers of fuel and the largest operator of travel centers. Founded in 1958 and headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, Pilot Company has grown its network to more than 870 locations serving an average of 1.3 million guests per day and providing over 70,000 fleet customers with solutions for fuel, credit, factoring, services and rewards. Pilot Company has the third largest tanker fleet in North America with over 1,500 trucks that supply approximately 14 billion gallons of fuel per year and provide hauling and disposal services to the oil field sector. As a fuel and energy leader, Pilot Company is the largest provider of biodiesel and renewable fuels and is paving the way to the future by developing an EV charging network and low carbon fueling alternatives. Its Pilot and Flying J travel center network includes over 750 locations in 44 states and six Canadian provinces with more than 790 restaurants, 77,000 truck parking spaces, 5,500 deluxe showers, 6,300 diesel lanes and truck maintenance and tire service with Southern Tire Mart at Pilot Flying J. The One9 Fuel Network provides smaller fleets and independent professional drivers with a variety of fueling locations that offer everyday value, convenience, credit and perks. More information on locations and rewards is available in the myRewards Plus app.

Pilot Company is a majority owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. For additional information about Pilot Company, its 30,000 team members and commitment to giving back, visit www.pilotcompany.com.

SOURCE Pilot Company
CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Quaker Houghton (NYSE: KWR) today announced the following schedule and contact information for its third quarter 2023 earnings release and investor call.

Earnings Release:















Thursday, November 2, 2023 (after market close)

Visit the investor relations portion of Quaker Houghton's website at https://investors.quakerhoughton.com/



















Teleconference:















Friday, November 3, 2023, at 8:30 a.m. (ET)

Participate live by phone or listen to live audio webcast through the investor relations portion of Quaker Houghton's website at https://investors.quakerhoughton.com/



















Dial-in Number:















+1-877-269-7756 (toll-free)

+1-201-689-7817 (toll)

Please call 5-10 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the call.

No password required.



















If unable to participate live, select from one of the following replay options:



















Digital Replay:















Available through November 17, 2023

Call +1-877-660-6853 (toll free) or +1-201-612-7415 (toll)

Conference ID No. 13741689



















Archived Webcast:















Visit the investor relations portion of Quaker Houghton's website at https://investors.quakerhoughton.com/

About Quaker Houghton

Quaker Houghton is the global leader in industrial process fluids. With a presence around the world, including operations in over 25 countries, our customers include thousands of the world's most advanced and specialized steel, aluminum, automotive, aerospace, offshore, container, mining, and metalworking companies. Our high-performing, innovative and sustainable solutions are backed by best-in-class technology, deep process knowledge and customized services. With approximately 4,600 employees, including chemists, engineers and industry experts, we partner with our customers to improve their operations so they can run even more efficiently, even more effectively, whatever comes next. Quaker Houghton is headquartered in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, located near Philadelphia in the United States. Visit quakerhoughton.com to learn more.

SOURCE Quaker Houghton
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Quantstamp , a global leader in web3 security, is pleased to announce DeFi Protection, a new security product that will reimburse users for their DeFi losses.

Hacks in decentralized finance (DeFi) are a serious and recurring problem and one of the primary barriers to mainstream adoption. According to Forbes , hackers have exploited DeFi protocols nearly 500 times for over $6 billion since 2019. These hacks have been devastating to users. Quantstamp's new DeFi Protection service aims to give DeFi users peace of mind while protecting their funds.

Quantstamp is announcing DeFi Protection, a new security product that will reimburse users for their DeFi losses. Post this

DeFi Protection is a security product that checks the safety of smart contracts, alerts users to any threats, and provides 24/7 support from security auditors. Critically, the product also features a guarantee program that will reimburse DeFi Protection customers for any losses due to a gap in Quantstamp's security services.

To sign up for the service, users simply select which protocols they wish to protect, the protection duration, and the maximum reimbursement amount before paying in USDC. Aave, Compound, Curve, Lido, and Uniswap will be available at launch, with more protocols to be added in the near future. The program is powered with support from Chainproof , a regulated primary insurance carrier for smart contract and slashing risks, and Tint , its insurance technology partner.

The guarantee program is regulated by the North Carolina Department of Insurance, making it the first program to legally serve United States residents. Users will be required to undergo a KYC/AML check through Quadrata , a web3-native solution, to prove U.S. residency before purchase.

"Smart contract audits provide an important layer of security, but it's only one part of the stack. Additional measures need to be put in place to ensure the safety of user funds," said Sebastian Banescu, Head of Insurance at Quantstamp. "This is why we developed DeFi Protection to help users recover from their losses."

In addition to Quantstamp's primary business of smart contract auditing, the leading web3 security company continues to explore new ways to keep blockchain companies and their users safe.

To learn more about DeFi Protection, visit https://defiprotection.com/

About Quantstamp

Quantstamp is a global leader in blockchain security, on a mission to secure the future of web3. Founded in 2017, the team has honed their expertise through hundreds of audits and worked with some of the top projects in the industry including Maker, Compound, Polygon, Arbitrum, Sandbox, and many more. To date, Quantstamp has performed 700+ audits and secured over $200 billion in digital asset risk from hackers. In addition to providing an array of security services, Quantstamp facilitates the growth and longevity of the web3 space through strategic investments and acting as a trusted advisor to help projects scale. To learn more head to our website Quantstamp.com or follow us on Twitter @Quantstamp

SOURCE Quantstamp
NEW YORK, Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "quantum computing market by deployment (cloud and on-premise), end-user (aerospace and defense, government, IT and telecom, and others), and geography (North America, APAC, Europe, South America, and the Middle East and Africa) - Forecast and Analysis 2023-2027" 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 quantum computing market from 2022 to 2027 is USD 9.01 billion. 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

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Quantum Computing Market

The growing utilization of quantum cryptography is a key factor driving market growth. Cryptography is a technique that can be used to write or decipher codes. From a technical point of view, cryptography involves the transformation of plaintext text to ciphertext. Encryption is a technique used to convert plain text into cipher text. Furthermore, quantum computing can decrypt encrypted data into plain text in a matter of seconds, whereas classical computers might take years to do so. The length of the keys with more bits is increased to achieve this decrypting process, which provides a higher level of security. Hence, these factors are expected to drive market growth during the forecast period.

Market Challenge

The short lifecycle of supercomputers is a significant challenge restricting market growth. A supercomputer doesn't have much life left in it. It lasts just slightly less than average electronic equipment such as a home theater or an XBOX 360. Experts in the industrial sector say that it happens because, for two or three and a half to four years, supercomputers can be classified as the world's best at most. They then become useful resources for another 3 to 4 years.

Learn about additional key drivers, trends, and challenges available with Technavio. Read FREE Sample PDF Report Now

The quantum computing market has been segmented by deployment (cloud and on-premise), end-user (aerospace and defense, government, IT and telecom, and others), and geography (North America, APAC, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa).

The market share growth of the cloud segment will be significant during the forecast period. Cloud computing is a platform that enables companies to access quantum computers via cloud networks which, in turn, reduces the need for hardware and software. The low price of entry is one of the main drivers for this segment. This makes it very appealing to businesses since the buyer does not have to invest in hardware.

North America is estimated to contribute 38% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period.

View the FREE Sample Report for insights into the contribution of all the segments and regional opportunities in the report.

Key Companies in the Quantum Computing Market:

1QB Information Technologies Inc., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Anyon Systems Inc., Atos SE, D-Wave Quantum Inc., Honeywell International Inc., ID Quantique SA, International Business Machines Corp., IonQ Inc., Microsoft Corp., QC Ware, QRA Corp., Quantica Computacao, Quantinuum Ltd., Quantum Circuits Inc., Qubitekk Inc., Rigetti and Co. LLC, and Intel Corp.

Related Reports:

The silicon carbide market for semiconductor application market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 22.1% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 3,336.31 million.

The nanopatterning market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 17.74% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecasted to increase by USD 3,943.53 million.

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]

Website: www.technavio.com

SOURCE Technavio
Award-Winning Tex-Mex Concept to Make Community Debut in Spring 2024

RALEIGH, N.C., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Capital Tacos , the small-town taco shop turned nationally-acclaimed Tex-Mex restaurant franchise, is taking the taste of Tex-Mex #DoneRight to Raleigh after having secured the brand's first-ever franchise agreement for the state of North Carolina; the latest in a series of deals that have been expanding the footprint of the franchise across the country this past year.

David and Silvia Robertson are the husband-and-wife duo responsible for putting Raleigh on the map for the fan-favorite taco franchise. Combining his 25 years of sales leadership experience in the IT market with her background in the operations and quality control of various restaurant brands, both have hopes high for the role the franchise will be able to play in furthering the flavor innovation and food ingenuity for the local culinary scene.

The deal is for a single unit, though David and Silvia have each expressed an intention to introduce additional Capital Tacos locations throughout the Raleigh market in the years ahead, once the public has had the opportunity to get acquainted with the restaurant concept and its commitment to providing the best Tex-Mex known to man.

"This truly feels like a full-circle moment. Silvia and I met working in a restaurant out in Las Vegas 30 years ago, and now, we're realizing a dream and opening one together," David shared. "And doing so with a brand that values menu quality and guest experience as highly as Capital Tacos reaffirms that this shift in lifestyle is the right move to make."

Since launching its franchise program in early 2022, Capital Tacos has expanded far beyond its Tampa homebase, with brick-and-mortar restaurants open or under development in Atlanta, Charlotte, Denver, Tulsa, Nashville, New Jersey, Raleigh, and markets throughout Florida  many of which have opened just in the past few months.

"After having just debuted our first corporate-owned location in Charlotte, it's incredible to see the fervor for the franchise materialize across North Carolina so quickly," said Josh Luger, Co-founder of Capital Tacos. "Both David and Silvia will make wonderful additions to the Capital Tacos franchise community, and we can't wait to see them introduce some Tex-Mex #doneright to Raleigh in the near future."

Capital Tacos is currently seeking single-unit and multi-unit franchisees interested in new career opportunities or those looking to diversify their current portfolios.

For more information on Capital Tacos franchise opportunities, please visit https://capitaltacosfranchise.com/ .

ABOUT CAPITAL TACOS:

Capital Tacos is a nationally-ranked, fast-casual Tex-Mex restaurant franchise founded in Tampa, Florida, that currently operates, or will imminently be operating, across the states of Florida, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Oklahoma. They've been named one of America's Top 40 Hottest Fast Casual Brands and one of the 11 Taco Chains Disrupting Fast Casual Sector by QSR Magazine, a top 3 taco in the country by Business Insider/Foursquare, and the top taco restaurant in Tampa / St. Petersburg by Yelp, amongst a variety of other awards. The emerging franchise brand is known for its scratch-made, innovative, and unmatched Tex-Mex flavors, pushing the boundaries of quality and creativity that the sector has become known to provide. Capital Tacos is currently seeking qualified candidates to help further expand the franchise to select markets across the Southeast and the country more generally.

SOURCE Capital Tacos
Analysis of 596 bids to buy and offers to sell in ERCOT shows that wind is becoming relatively more valuable when compared to solar.

NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Wind PPA offers became relatively more attractive to ERCOT buyers when compared to solar PPA offers over the past two quarters, according to a new report from RenewaFi, the marketplace for ERCOT renewables. Solar offers in ERCOT became less attractive at Houston Hub, North Hub and South Hub, while wind offers became more attractive at North Hub and West Hub. The trend is likely due to expected solar saturation in Texas, as already experienced in California.

Noam Yaffe, Founder and CEO, said: "A few years ago, buyers valued ERCOT solar because there was little solar capacity in that market, and the solar generation profile correlated with high prices and high demand. Wind, in comparison, was over built and worth little, resulting in wind PPAs in the low teens. Our data suggests that those preferences have started to flip in Q2 and Q3 2023."

Comparing offer prices to RenewaFi's proprietary calculation of value, the report finds that solar offers became $0.86 less attractive on average, while wind offers became $4.46 more attractive on average.

ERCOT Solar Offers

At Houston Hub , the prices of offers decreased by $2.25 , but the value of those offers decreased even more. As a result, solar at Houston Hub became slightly less attractive to buyers and was slightly out of the money by the end of Q3.





, the prices of offers decreased by , but the value of those offers decreased even more. As a result, solar at Houston Hub became slightly less attractive to buyers and was slightly out of the money by the end of Q3. At North Hub , the prices of offers increased by $1.50 , while the value of those offers decreased. As a result, solar at North Hub became significantly less attractive to buyers and was out of the money by the end of Q3.





, the prices of offers increased by , while the value of those offers decreased. As a result, solar at North Hub became significantly less attractive to buyers and was out of the money by the end of Q3. At South Hub , prices decreased by $1.50 , which was more than the decrease in value. As a result, solar at South Hub became slightly more attractive to buyers but was still out of the money by the end of Q3.





, prices decreased by , which was more than the decrease in value. As a result, solar at South Hub became slightly more attractive to buyers but was still out of the money by the end of Q3. At West Hub, prices increased by $0.20 , while value increased more. As a result, solar at West Hub became significantly more attractive to buyers and was in the money by the end of Q3.

ERCOT Wind Offers

At North Hub , the prices of offers increased by $1.95 , but the value of those offers increased more. As a result, wind at North Hub became significantly more attractive to buyers but was still out of the money by the end of Q3.





, the prices of offers increased by , but the value of those offers increased more. As a result, wind at North Hub became significantly more attractive to buyers but was still out of the money by the end of Q3. At West Hub, prices decreased by $2.30 , while value stayed about the same. As a result, wind at West Hub became significantly more attractive to buyers and was in the money at the end of Q3.

The report, which includes 24 pages of nearly 50 charts and tables, is a product of the growing community of over 200 originators and traders on RenewaFi. These folks represent over 70 companies, including 32 investment grade firms.

The report covers what developers priced their offers at, how the market valued those offers based on RenewaFi's proprietary algorithm, and what buyers were willing to pay for those offers. There are also five deep-dive sections into solar and wind at the major ERCOT hubs.

To receive a sneak peek of the report, please complete this form. The full report is available to RenewaFi market participants only. Please schedule a demo or request access at [email protected] to learn more.

About RenewaFi

RenewaFi is the marketplace and data resource for wholesale renewables in ERCOT, helping sophisticated market participants source and evaluate offtake. Originators and traders browse, post, and counter indicative bids and offers  all anonymously. When market participants agree on terms, they can chat and eventually match to reveal their identities and pursue bilateral negotiations. Additionally, RenewaFi's pricing tool and data set of hundreds of bids and offers helps originators make better decisions by providing a clear view of what to expect from the market. Learn more at www.RenewaFi.com.

Contact

Jeremy Zelinger, Head of Strategy & Marketing

[email protected]

SOURCE RenewaFi
DALLAS, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Safe Conversations LLC, the globally recognized leader in relationship skills development and mastery, is excited to introduce its new brand identity, Quantum Connections. This rebranding initiative extends the company's identity and resonance well beyond its traditional markets to specifically include corporations around the world.

The rebranding of Safe Conversations marks a pivotal moment in the company's growth trajectory. The new name, Quantum Connections, is rooted in the neuro and quantum social sciences and speaks directly to its vision of transforming relationships on a global scale to empower a more relational and connected global civilization. The company's new tagline, "Connecting Beyond Difference," succinctly articulates its mission of teaching individuals how to talk to one another without criticism and listen without judgment to connect beyond difference. Safe Conversations will live on as the descriptive name of its proprietary dialogue methodology and supporting tools.

"With our new brand identity, our company is better positioned to connect with organizations of all sizes and scope, offering them the transformative power of our time-tested and proven Safe Conversations Dialogue Methodology and Tools." said Dennis S. Holland, CEO of Quantum Connections. "The value to these organizations will be a positive and measurable improvement in employee relationships and team performance as engagement lifts and turnover declines."

Quantum Connections is built upon the foundation established by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D., renowned relationship experts and authors of the best-selling book "Getting the Love You Want." Their groundbreaking work in Imago Therapy not only transformed hundreds of thousands of relationships throughout 65 countries but also propelled Dr. Hendrix to become one of Oprah's most invited guests during The Oprah Show's 25 season run.

"As we provided dialogue training to individuals around the world, it became evident that these skills were also needed within organizations, particularly as businesses are faced with the challenge of building connected relationships in a radically changed work environment," stated Holland. "We are committed to moving the lifework of our founders beyond the clinic and out into the world giving people the ability to navigate the complexities of human connection."

About Quantum Connections:

Quantum Connections, founded by renowned relationship experts Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D., leverages over 40 years of expertise to provide individuals and organizations with invaluable relational competency skills rooted in neuro and quantum social sciences. Serving small businesses, large corporations, global faith communities, educational institutions, and community organizations, along with individuals, couples, and families, Quantum Connections offers live and on-demand training, coaching certification, and resources to foster authentic connections through effective communication and skill development.

SOURCE Safe Conversations
Fast-Growing RIA Brings Aboard NextGen Leadership to Support Strategic Growth

of its Wealth Management Services

SageView Names Natasha Pfeiffer Chief Legal Officer

as part of Executive Leadership Team Expansion

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SageView Advisory Group ("SageView"), one of the nation's leading independent RIA firms, today announced it hired next-generation leaders Matt Cosgriff as Senior Vice President, Head of Wealth Management Advisory Services, and Sophie Benander as Vice President of Wealth Management Client Experience.

These hires support the strategic expansion of SageView's wealth management practice. Reporting to Chief Operating Officer Jorge Bernal, who joined SageView in 2022, Cosgriff and Benander provide the firm with a solid next-generation foundation to further expand upon its leadership position in institutional retirement and wealth management.

"Matt and Sophie deliver an excellent balance of experience and drive," said John Longley, CEO. "I am confident that their talent and leadership will have a significant impact on helping achieve our business goals."

Cosgriff joins SageView from BerganKDV, where he served as Director of Wealth Management, responsible for growing and managing the wealth management division, and also was a senior wealth and retirement plan advisor. Under his leadership, client assets grew from $1 billion to $2.5 billion, and the firm earned industry recognition as a top RIA to work for three consecutive years. He received a bachelor's degree in economics and finance from St. Olaf College, and he holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER (CFP) designation.

"Joining SageView allows me to marry my experience within the retirement and wealth management segments to support the firm's focus on becoming a leading provider of advisory services at the intersection of wealth management and retirement planning," Cosgriff said. "With the support of John and the entire executive team, I'm thrilled to work with this exemplary group of wealth management professionals delivering results for our clients."

Before joining SageView, Benander served as the Assistant Director of Wealth Management at Adviser Investments. During her 15 years in the industry, she has developed extensive experience in mutual funds custody and strategic planning for wealth management services. She has a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Central Florida, an MBA from Quinnipiac University and holds the Chartered Retirement Plans Specialist (CRPS) designation and the Series 65 license.

"Throughout my career, I have focused on bringing the right people and solutions together to drive business growth and client success," said Benander, who also leads the firm's Centralized Advisory Services team. "SageView's vision for its comprehensive wealth management business is clearly articulated and well supported from the very top, and there is a firm-wide focus on delivering an exceptional client experience that not only shapes financial futures but also fosters trust and collaboration."

Industry Expert Appointed Chief Legal Officer

The firm also announced it has appointed Natasha Pfeiffer as Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, where she oversees the legal and compliance departments and supports the strategic initiatives of both the institutional and private wealth management lines of business. Pfeiffer works across the organization alongside human resources, operations, finance, marketing and communications.

Longley said, "I have found that a strategic thinker in a legal executive role is absolutely critical to the success of a growth-minded firm. Natasha brings a range of legal and business experience to this position, and I look forward to working closely with her and leveraging her expertise as a key adviser for years to come."

Prior to joining SageView in 2023, Pfeiffer served as Vice President and Senior Legal Director at Goldman Sachs, supporting the high-net-worth wealth management business. Previously, she served as Assistant General Counsel at United Capital Financial Advisers and practiced employment and franchise law at Taco Bell Corp., a subsidiary of Yum Brands, Inc. Pfeiffer began her legal career at Latham & Watkins, LLP in Los Angeles, where she represented both private and public companies in a wide range of complex civil litigation. She graduated from UCLA summa cum laude and received her law degree from UCLA School of Law, where she was a Moot Court Honors recipient.

"SageView is an exceptional firm in a unique position to take full advantage of one of the largest retiring populations in history," she said. "I am excited to support the expansion of our private wealth business and look forward to supporting John and the board of directors' vision for this firm."

About SageView Advisory Group

SageView Advisory Group, LLC ("SageView") is an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission serving retirement plan sponsors and individuals throughout the United States since 1989. SageView services include consulting and investment management for plan sponsors of 401(k), 403(b), 457, defined benefit and deferred compensation plans, and comprehensive wealth management and financial planning services for individuals and families. SageView is headquartered in Newport Beach, California, and has more than 30 offices nationwide.

SageView makes recommendations based on the specific needs and circumstances of each client. Clients should consider their own investment objectives and not rely on any single article, marketing piece, fact sheet, graph, or similar material to make investment decisions. The information contained herein is intended for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. SageView does not provide legal, tax or accounting advice. Clients should obtain their own independent advisors for such services. SageView advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where SageView Advisory Group, LLC and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

For more information about SageView, visit www.sageviewadvisory.com or call (800) 814-8742.

Contact: Julie Katsnelson

800.814.8742 | [email protected]

SOURCE SageView Advisory Group
Company's Guest Give program will help provide over 1.6 million meals* to people experiencing food insecurity

DALLAS, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Salad and Go, a one-of-a-kind drive-thru concept on a mission to make fresh, nutritious food convenient and affordable for ALL, today announced it raised more than $167,000 through its September Guest Give program for Feeding America's Hunger Action Month campaign. Each September, Feeding America, the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States, hosts the annual national campaign designed to inspire people to take action and raise awareness of hunger in the United States.

Salad and Go Executive Chef Daniel Patino, volunteering at St. Marys Food Bank in Phoenix, the first food bank in the USA.

"Salad and Go is passionate about providing equitable access to high-quality, nutritious food year-round, and partnering with Feeding America was a natural fit to involve our guests in that mission," says Charlie Morrison, CEO of Salad and Go. "It's been incredible to witness how willing and invested our local community members are in joining us in the fight against hunger."

Through Salad and Go's Guest Give Program, guests had the opportunity to support Feeding America when ordering via Salad and Go at the drive-thru or online. For every $1 donated, 10 meals will be supplied by Feeding America, providing roughly 1.67 million meals to people experiencing hunger both nationally and locally in Salad and Go communities.

"We're pleased to welcome Salad and Go as a first-time supporter of Hunger Action Month, working to support local and national hunger relief efforts," said Lauren Biedron, Senior Vice President of Corporate Partnerships at Feeding America. "Nearly 34 million people across the country are experiencing food insecurity. We believe that everyone has a right to healthy food, and support from organizations like Salad and Go help make that possible."

Established in 2020, Salad and Go's Guest Give program has raised over $1M in generous guest donations, including over $350,000 in 2023 alone. During the entire month of October, the Salad and Go team will be engaged in volunteering within the communities they operate, specifically at food banks in the Feeding America network. Additionally, Salad and Go organizes several community initiatives, including a Salad Donation program which has supplied nearly 150,000 salads to help battle hunger this year, and a kids Healthy Habits outreach program which gives kids a powerful toolkit of skills for making everyday healthy choices.

For more information about Salad and Go, visit https://www.saladandgo.com.

*$1 helps provide at least 10 meals secured by Feeding America on behalf of local partner food banks.

About Salad and Go:

Salad and Go was founded on the belief that everyone deserves fresh, delicious and healthy food. Our farm-to-fork model brings recipes from our very own Michelin-star trained chef, including made-to-order salads, wraps and breakfast burritos, directly to you  all at an unheard of price point. Focused on a convenient drive-thru only model, Salad and Go operates more than 115 locations across Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Nevada and is expanding rapidly. As part of our mission, Salad and Go puts special emphasis on community outreach and philanthropic initiatives and fosters a company culture that prioritizes the wellbeing of all our team members. Our one-of-a-kind model is fundamentally changing food systems and igniting a positive, life-changing movement toward better food for all. To learn more about Salad and Go, visit https://www.saladandgo.com/.

About Feeding America:

Feeding America is committed to an America where no one is hungry. We support tens of millions of people who experience food insecurity to get the food and resources they say they need to thrive as part of a nationwide network of food banks, statewide food bank associations, food pantries and meal programs. We also invest in innovative solutions to increase equitable access to nutritious food, advocate for legislation that improves food security and work to address factors that impact food security, such as health, cost of living and employment. We partner with people experiencing food insecurity, policymakers, organizations, and supporters, united with them in a movement to end hunger. Visit www.FeedingAmerica.org to learn more.

For more information, contact:

Carly Wilhelm, 360PR+

[email protected]

732-237-4533

SOURCE Salad and Go
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The security paper market size is expected to grow by USD 7.05 billion from 2022 to 2027. In addition, the growth momentum of the market will progress at a CAGR of 6.66% during the forecast period, according to Technavio. Growing global banknote market is notably driving the security paper market. However, factors such as Rising global e-passport market may impede market growth. The market is segmented by Product (Currency note, Passport, and Others), Type (Hybrid paper, Watermark, Hologram, and Thread and UV fiber), and Geography (APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa). We provide a detailed analysis of 20 companies operating in the security paper market including Ciotola s.r.l., De La Rue PLC, DIPA Zrt, DREWSEN SPEZIALPAPIERE GmbH and Co. KG, EPL House, FEDRIGONI Spa, FNMT RCM, Gemini Graphics Pvt. Ltd., Giesecke Devrient GmbH, HG Technology Sdn Bhd, Joint Stock Co. Goznak, Pura Group, Rolland Enterprises Inc., Security Paper Mill Inc., Security Papers Ltd., Security Printing and Minting Corp. Of India Ltd., and Simpson Security Papers Inc.. This report provides a full list of key companies, their strategies, and the latest developments. Buy Now for detailed company information

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Security Paper Market 2023-2027

Security Paper Market 2023-2027: Company Analysis

Security Printing and Minting Corp. Of India Ltd.: The company offers security paper applications such as bank note papers, educational certificates, and financial documents.

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 a FREE Sample Report.

Security Paper Market 2023-2027: Segmentation

Product

The currency note segment is significant during the forecast period. Along with cash withdrawals, the provision of value-added services such as balance inquiries and checkbook queries via ATM drives the segment's growth during the forecast period. Furthermore, factors like the growth of the banking system and the number of ATMs worldwide are expected to increase the demand for currency notes. Hence, such factors fuel the growth of the currency note segment of the security paper market during the forecast period.

is significant during the forecast period. Along with cash withdrawals, the provision of value-added services such as balance inquiries and checkbook queries via ATM drives the segment's growth during the forecast period. Furthermore, factors like the growth of the banking system and the number of ATMs worldwide are expected to increase the demand for currency notes. Hence, such factors fuel the growth of the currency note segment of the security paper market during the forecast period. The market research report also mentions other segments like Type (Hybrid paper, Watermark, Hologram, and Thread and UV fiber).

Geography

By region , APAC is estimated to contribute 49% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. The growth of the security paper market in APAC can be attributed to factors such as the growing use of security papers in numerous applications, including government papers (such as passports and national ID cards), currencies, and educational credentials. Additionally, given their vast populations and active economies, countries such as China, India , Japan , and South Korea are major contributors to the expansion of the regional market.

is estimated to contribute to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. The growth of the security paper market in APAC can be attributed to factors such as the growing use of security papers in numerous applications, including government papers (such as passports and national ID cards), currencies, and educational credentials. Additionally, given their vast populations and active economies, countries such as China, , , and are major contributors to the expansion of the regional market. Other regions included in the report are North America, Europe , South America , and Middle East and Africa .

Learn about the contribution of each segment summarized in concise infographics and thorough descriptions. View a FREE PDF Sample Report

Related Reports:

The liquid sandpaper market share is expected to increase by USD 619.1 million from 2021 to 2026, and the market's growth momentum will accelerate at a CAGR of 4.89%.

The stone paper market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.97% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecast to increase by USD 1943.79 million.

ToC:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Historic Market Sizes

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by WRITERS

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 focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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
DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- His Highness Sheikh Ammar bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, Crown Prince of Ajman, and His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Finance, and Her Excellency Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Government Development and the Future, visited the Sharjah Government Pavilion at GITEX Global 2023. They were received by Sheikh Saud bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Digital Office and Chairman of the Higher Committee of the Pavilion, who briefed them on the pavilion's innovative projects and the latest technologies the Sharjah Government is investing in as part of its comprehensive and sustainable digital transformation journey.

Sharjah Government Pavilion at GITEX 2023 continues its momentum for the fourth Day

During the fourth day of the exhibition, other dignitaries, including Her Excellency Asma bin Taliah, Secretary General of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Sharjah, His Excellency Salem Ali Al Muhairi, Chairman of the Municipal Council of Sharjah; His Excellency Mohammed Hassan Khalaf, Director General of Sharjah Broadcasting Authority, His Excellency Omar Ali Al Shamsi, Director of the Sharjah Noble Quran and Sunnah Establishment; and His Excellency Khalid Al Ali, the Secretary General of the Sharjah Urban Planning Council, also visited the Sharjah Pavilion.

Cybersecurity

The fourth day of the exhibition featured the launch of the 'Sharjah Government URL-Shortening Platform' at the Sharjah Government Pavilion in Dubai World Trade Centre's Arena Hall. Developed by the Sharjah Cyber Security Center, with support from the e-Government Department, this platform leverages the official Sharjah government domain, shj.ae, to simplify the verification of official links. This initiative is designed to enhance security and combat potential fraud associated with shared links.

Additionally, as part of its commitment to advancing the emirate towards a digitally secure future, the Sharjah Cyber Security Center unveiled the 'Measuring Cyber Skills across Sharjah' project, comprising the launch of an awareness campaign inviting the participation of all the emirate's government entities. The main objective of this initiative is to gather essential data for evaluating existing cyber skills and fostering a skilled workforce, in line with Sharjah's vision of becoming one of the most digitally secure emirates in the region.

Waafi

Kalba City Municipality introduced the 'Waafi,' a customer service enhancement platform accessible through its website and the 'Smart Kalba' mobile app. Leveraging artificial intelligence, specifically ChatGPT, the platform serves as a comprehensive resource for general enquiries related to services offered on the Smart Kalba platform. It also incorporates an interactive virtual assistant powered by ChatGPT-4, simplifying users' access to free services on the Smart Kalba platform, promoting efficiency and convenience.

Workshops

During the exhibition, the pavilion hosted a series of informative workshops. Aisha Al Ali, a member of the Sharjah Youth Council, participated in a dialogue session titled 'Adapting to Technological Changes' alongside two other speakers to explore the impact of contemporary technological advancements and how to prepare for them.

Matthew Dixon, CEO, and Serhii Nikolaiev, Head of AI Development at EVAI, led a workshop titled 'Decentralised AI - The Awakening.' Dr Malek Alzewairi from PWC conducted the 'Cybersecurity in Governments and Smart Cities' workshop on the third day, emphasising essential considerations for governments in designing smart cities.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2252334/GITEX_2023.jpg

SOURCE Sharjah Government Pavilion
CHICAGO and STOCKHOLM, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sinch, a leader in powering meaningful conversations between businesses and their customers through its Customer Communications Cloud, today announced its partnership with Webex by Cisco, a leading provider of collaboration technologies powering hybrid work, to deliver Sinch Calling with Webex. This new product delivers an integrated calling and collaboration experience with advanced messaging and meeting functionalities, all unified within the Webex platform.

"Building on our mutual vision to delight the small to medium business customer, Webex is partnering with Sinch to deliver Sinch Calling with Webex," said Tony Lopresti, senior director product management for Webex. "With fully integrated Webex technology, Sinch users will experience a modern, all-in-one collaboration tool that delivers simple, flexible communications, making their businesses more productive and more secure, with any device from anywhere."

Sinch Calling with Webex offers businesses a unified communication solution, combining Sinch's voice capabilities with Webex's advanced messaging and meeting functionalities. This allows businesses to have consistent feature functionality across voice, messaging, and meetings  without needing multiple service providers. Moreover, the service is designed for optimal performance, ensuring high-definition voice and video quality, thereby enhancing customer engagement and collaboration.

"Unified communication is essential in today's business landscape, and we're committed to offering robust solutions," says Anders Lenman, vice president of enterprise products at Sinch. "Our collaboration with Webex is an important step that will provide businesses with a comprehensive, high-quality platform for all their communication needs. This integration not only enables companies to streamline their operations but also fosters value, trust, and loyalty with their customer base."

Global enterprises have long relied on Sinch for its exceptional voice and messaging services. Sinch Calling with Webex is best suited for companies needing a platform to deliver a high-quality, unified communications experience. Businesses using disparate apps for voice, messaging, and meetings often face challenges in maintaining consistent quality and feature sets. Sinch Calling with Webex eliminates these issues by providing a seamless, end-to-end communication solution within a single platform.

Contact:

Jan Ritter

Director of Marketing, Sinch Voice

E-mail: [email protected]

Ola Elmeland

Investor Relations Director

Mobile: +46 721 43 34 59

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Sinch AB
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The starch derivatives market size is expected to grow by USD 5.71 billion from 2022 to 2027. In addition, the growth momentum of the market will progress at a CAGR of 4.66% during the forecast period, according to Technavio. High demand for corn starch as a less expensive alternative is notably driving the starch derivatives market. However, factors such as constant fluctuation in raw material prices may impede market growth. The market is segmented by Raw Material (Corn, Cassava, Potato, Wheat, and Others), Type (Dry and Liquid), and Geography (North America, APAC, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa). We provide a detailed analysis of 20 companies operating in the starch derivatives market including AGRANA BEteilgungs AG, Archer Daniels Midland Co., B Food Science Co. Ltd., Beneo GmbH, Cargill Inc., Royal Avebe, Emsland Starke GmbH, Food Innovation Online Corp., Foodchem International Corp., Grain Processing Corp., Gujarat Ambuja Exports Ltd., Gulshan Polyols Ltd., Ingredion Inc., Jay Sardar Starch and Gum Consultant, Roquette Freres SA, Sanstar Bio Polymers Ltd., ShreeGluco Biotech Pvt. Ltd., Shubham Starch Chem Pvt. Ltd., Tate and Lyle PLC, and Tereos Participations. This report provides a full list of key companies, their strategies, and the latest developments. Buy Now for detailed company information

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Starch Derivatives Market 2023-2027

Starch Derivatives Market 2023-2027: Company Analysis

AGRANA BEteilgungs AG - The company offers starch derivatives products from corn, potatoes, and wheat for a range of applications such as Paper finishing, cardboard, coatings, and decorative cosmetics. 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 a FREE Sample Report.

Starch Derivatives Market 2023-2027: Segmentation

Raw Material

The corn segment is significant during the forecast period. It is predominantly used in the food and beverage sector as a thickening agent, emulsifier, film-forming agent, gelling agent, and stabilizing agent. The food industry is followed by the non-food sectors such as the paper, cosmetic, textile, mining, and consumer products industries in the end-users of corn starch derivatives segment. Corn starch is generally used for manufacturing cardboard, cartons, and corrugated boxes for packaging.

is significant during the forecast period. It is predominantly used in the food and beverage sector as a thickening agent, emulsifier, film-forming agent, gelling agent, and stabilizing agent. The food industry is followed by the non-food sectors such as the paper, cosmetic, textile, mining, and consumer products industries in the end-users of corn starch derivatives segment. Corn starch is generally used for manufacturing cardboard, cartons, and corrugated boxes for packaging. The market research report includes other segments like Type (Dry and Liquid).

Geography

North America will contribute 35% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. the demand for starch derivatives is anticipated to be moderate during the forecast period because of the mature market conditions in the region. Furthermore, Mexico is predicted to be one of the fastest-growing markets in the region. Additionally, the demand for maltodextrin in North America is also growing at a significant rate. Hence, factors such as the high demand for starch derivatives in the region are expected to drive growth in the starch derivatives market during the forecast period.

will contribute to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. the demand for starch derivatives is anticipated to be moderate during the forecast period because of the mature market conditions in the region. Furthermore, Mexico is predicted to be one of the fastest-growing markets in the region. Additionally, the demand for maltodextrin in North America is also growing at a significant rate. Hence, factors such as the high demand for starch derivatives in the region are expected to drive growth in the starch derivatives market during the forecast period. Other regions such as APAC, Europe , South America , and Middle East and Africa are mentioned in the report.

Learn about the contribution of each segment summarized in concise infographics and thorough descriptions. View a FREE PDF Sample Report

Related Reports:

The paper starch market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.63% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 8,982.41 million.

The Global Pea Starch Market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.6% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecast to increase by USD 100.32 million.

ToC:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Historic Market Sizes

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by Raw material

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
As the founding partner of Precision Strategies, an integrated strategy and marketing agency in Washington, D.C., and New York City, Cutter spearheads the integration of data-driven communications, leveraging digital marketing channels and campaign style executions to improve brand, corporate and organizational reputations, shift and change public opinion, and drive people to action.

"Beyond her proven skills as a communications strategist, Stephanie's knowledge and experience across all levels of government will assist Equality Health in elevating the value-based care dialogue nationally, at the state level, and among healthcare industry stakeholders," said Hugh Lytle, founder and chief executive officer of Equality Health. "Stephanie's strategic insights and executional acumen will be instrumental as we enter new state markets, bring culturally competent primary care to underserved communities, and support the U.S. healthcare industry's shift from volume to value."

"I've spent my career working to improve access to quality health care for all Americans," said Stephanie Cutter. "Equality Health's innovative approach to working with Medicaid providers to deliver better health outcomes and lower costs has the ability to transform our health care system and improve the health of millions of Americans. I couldn't be more excited to join the team."

In addition to serving as a founding partner at Precision, in 2020, she revolutionized political communications as the Chief Program Executive for the first-ever virtual Democratic National Convention, which garnered national praise for its innovative format and compelling content. She also served as the Executive Producer of President Biden's inauguration, which earned her an Emmy nomination.

Previously, Cutter served as a senior advisor to President Obama on his 2008 presidential campaign and in the White House, and as Deputy Campaign Manager for the Obama-Biden reelection campaign in 2012. She was also a senior advisor to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Senator John Kerry and was White House Deputy Communications Director under President Clinton.

Cutter's expertise has been recognized by Politico, which called her one of the most prominent voices and top strategists in the Democratic party. The New York Times praised her as a polished and organized strategist with favorable relationships among influential journalists. Additionally, GQ named her one of the most powerful people in Washington.

In addition to her political and consulting work, Cutter has been a co-host on CNN's Crossfire and a contributor to ABC News, regularly sharing her insights on current events. A resident of Washington, D.C., Cutter is a graduate of Smith College and Georgetown University Law Center.

About Equality Health

Equality Health is a technology-enabled primary care platform that leverages the proven capabilities of value-based payment models to transform healthcare for diverse and often marginalized populations. From predictive modeling to advanced care-tracking tools, utilizing Equality Health's proprietary software, participating primary care practices can streamline value-based administration and stay one step ahead of a patient's journey. Equality Health's care model is Medicaid-first in design, partnering with over 3,500 PCPs and 750,000 lives across AZ, TX, TN and LA. Equality Health partners with practices to close care gaps, optimize performance, increase compliance, and improve profitability. Members engage with holistic and personalized programs delivered through the lens of social and cultural needs. Equality Health is revolutionizing how care is delivered by establishing critical linkages with payers, providers, members, and community resources.

For more information about Equality Health, visit www.equalityhealth.com or follow @EqualityHealth on Facebook, @EqualityHealth on Twitter, and @EqualityHealth on LinkedIn.

Media Contact:

Mardi Larson, Amendola Communications for Equality Health, [email protected]

SOURCE Equality Health
NOVI, Mich., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Stoneridge, Inc. (NYSE: SRI) will webcast its third-quarter 2023 earnings conference call live on Thursday, November 2, 2023, at 9:00 a.m. ET with president and chief executive officer, Jim Zizelman, and chief financial officer, Matt Horvath.

The webcast can be accessed on the Webcasts & Presentations page of the Investors section of the Company's website, www.stoneridge.com.

Stoneridge, Inc., headquartered in Novi, Michigan, is a global designer and manufacturer of highly engineered electrical and electronic systems, components and modules for the automotive, commercial, off-highway and agricultural vehicle markets. Additional information about Stoneridge can be found at www.stoneridge.com.

SOURCE Stoneridge, Inc.
Trio collaborates to enhance safety, efficiency and scalability in eVTOL landing gear

SEOUL and WASHINGTON, Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Supernal, Hyundai Motor Group's (HMG) Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) company, Hyundai WIA, a global automotive and aerospace parts manufacturer and Mecaer Aviation Group, an Italy-based global aeronautical company, announced today a partnership to design and manufacture landing gear systems for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. Hyundai WIA specializes in mass manufacturing and precision machine tools, while Mecaer is experienced in designing and building aerospace-grade landing gear systems. The three partners are collaborating to improve the safety and overall performance of eVTOL vehicles by addressing weight, structural efficiency, energy absorption and electronic system integration in the landing gear design and manufacturing process.

Jaiwon Shin, president of Hyundai Motor Group and CEO of Supernal, Jae-Wook Jung, president and CEO of Hyundai WIA and Bruno Spagnolini, CEO of Mecaer, joined to formalize the three-way partnership at Seoul ADEX on Oct. 18.

"Our collaboration with Hyundai WIA and Mecaer is a testament to Supernal's commitment to innovation and the highest standards of safety, design and manufacturing for Advanced Air Mobility," said Jaiwon Shin, president of Hyundai Motor Group and CEO of Supernal. "This partnership unites our collective strengths and expertise to deliver aerospace-grade eVTOL landing gear in record time and ensure their scalability and sustainability. These types of automotive and aerospace strategic alliances are key to the growth and success of our emerging industry."

The partnership is critical to Supernal's efforts to pioneer high-scale production processes that will meet future demands of the AAM industry. The collaboration will support the business modeland streamline manufacturingby incorporating state-of-the-art materials and efficient assembly technologies.

"Hyundai WIA looks forward to leveraging our expertise from the automotive industry in large-scale parts manufacturing for the benefit of Supernal's upcoming eVTOL aircraft," said Jae-Wook Jung, president and CEO of Hyundai WIA. "We foresee significant potential to help demonstrate how cross-industry efficiencies can address enduring supply chain challenges, as well as the potential created by a new category of civil aviation."

"We are especially proud to announce our participation in this industry-leading strategic partnership and to have teamed with Supernal and Hyundai WIA to design, develop and manufacture a fully integrated wheeled landing gear for the Advanced Air Mobility company's eVTOL vehicle," said Bruno Spagnolini, CEO, Mecaer. "We are extremely appreciative of the trust Supernal has shown in the ability of the Mecaer and Hyundai WIA team to produce and innovate its landing gear system."

Supernal, Hyundai WIA and Mecaer held a signing ceremony for the partnership at the Seoul Air Show on October 18.

About Supernal

Supernal (Supernal) is a U.S.-based mobility service provider on a mission to redefine how people move, connect, and live. We are developing an Advanced Air Mobility eVTOL vehicle and working to responsibly co-create the supporting ecosystem and integrate it into existing transit options. As part of Hyundai Motor Group, we are both a new business and an established company, with plans to harness our automotive manufacturing heritage to make Advanced Air Mobility accessible to the masses. Visit www.supernal.aero for more information and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Hyundai WIA

Hyundai WIA has a storied history in the global automotive industry, producing a wide range of auto parts and precision machine tools. With an eye toward innovation and building a better future, Hyundai WIA is committed to evolving into a leading world-class corporation.

About Mecaer

Mecaer Aviation Group is a leading international provider of solutions for Aircraft Systems and Services in Helicopter, Business Aviation and General Aviation markets. To learn more, visit mecaer.com.

Contacts:

Jennifer Darland

Supernal

[email protected]

Lou Prudore

Mecaer

[email protected]

SOURCE Supernal
OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Replica Analytics Ltd., an Aetion company, and the University of Ottawa, are set to co-host the third edition of the Synthetic Data Summit at the IET London: Savoy Place on November 30, 2023, in the United Kingdom. The event will offer unique insights into the world of synthetic data generation (SDG) and its transformative potential for healthcare.

SDG involves using generative AI to create synthetic data from real data while ensuring data privacy, security, and utility. Previously held virtually, the Synthetic Data Summit 2023 is an in-person gathering for chief data officers, privacy professionals, data scientists, and healthcare insights directors interested in how this technology is addressing critical issues in healthcare data, such as data privacy, diversity and data bias, enabling more equitable clinical research, and data augmentation.

"There have been important developments in SDG in recent years, including improved data generation for complex datasets, better evaluation frameworks for privacy and utility, and growing regulatory interest and acceptance worldwide," said Khaled El Emam, SVP and GM, Replica. Dr. El Emam holds the Canada Research Chair in Medical AI at the University of Ottawa and has been developing and deploying privacy enhancing technologies for two decades. "We are proud to offer this timely and pertinent event in collaboration with our Aetion colleagues and the University of Ottawa, so that we can showcase recent developments and applications by and within the healthcare community."

The one-day Summit has many distinguished speakers including European privacy regulators, large data custodians, representatives from health systems and life sciences companies, as well as researchers from academia. A number of life sciences companies will share their experiences using synthetic data in practice on real world data and clinical trial data. And Replica partner, Aridhia, will demo a new next-generation data sharing platform. Presentations will address not only privacy but also the role of SDG in augmenting data sets, as well as mitigating bias, in data sets.

Summit participants will gain valuable insights that can make a difference in successfully deploying SDG technology, extracting real business value from it, and implementing the best methodologies around its use.

For additional details, including the full program and registration information, visit: https://replica-analytics.com/news-events/conference-synthetic-data-summit-2023/

About Replica Analytics, an Aetion company

Replica Analytics Ltd. is the premier science-based synthetic data generation technology provider to the healthcare industry. The company is a pioneer in the development of unique technologies for generating privacy-protective synthetic data that maintain the statistical properties of real-world data (RWD). The company was acquired in late 2021 by Aetion, the leading regulatory-grade real-world evidence (RWE) technology provider. Replica Synthesis is the industry's trusted synthetic data generation software, and the latest in ensuring real-world data can go the distance. Replica Synthesis provides a full suite of synthetic data generation and evaluation capabilities that can solve multiple grand challenges facing the life sciences industry, and health research in general. For more information, visit: https://replica-analytics.com/

About Aetion

Aetion Inc. is a healthcare analytics company that delivers real-world evidence for the manufacturers, purchasers, and regulators of medical treatments and technologies. The Aetion Evidence Platform analyzes data from the real world to produce transparent, rapid, and scientifically validated answers on safety, effectiveness, and value. Founded by Harvard Medical School faculty members with decades of experience in epidemiology and health outcomes research, Aetion informs healthcare's most critical decisionswhat works best, for whom, and whento guide product development, commercialization, and payment innovation. Learn more at aetion.com and follow us at @aetioninc.

Media contact: Replica Analytics: media@replica-analytics.com
Investigation Comes After Company Requests Exemption from Federal Safety Standards

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Teamsters commend the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for launching a safety investigation into General Motors' (GM) autonomous vehicle subsidiary Cruise.

The agency's investigation focuses on two recent incidents involving Cruise's autonomous vehicles (AVs) that left pedestrians injured and requiring hospital care.

"The Teamsters applaud NHTSA for investigating Cruise, a company that is putting public safety at risk," said Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien. "GM's attempt to push these vehicles onto public roads is a threat to the safety of pedestrians and motorists everywhere."

Cruise operates a fleet of nearly 600 driverless cars, and its safety problems are well documented. In San Francisco, Cruise robotaxis collided with fire trucks and were implicated in the death of a pedestrian after blocking an ambulance that was transporting a patient to the hospital. The self-driving cars impede union members on the job by getting stuck in concrete and blocking waste trucks. In Austin, residents report dangerous encounters with self-driving vehicles.

In spite of its abysmal safety record, Cruise took out a full-page ad in the New York Times claiming that "humans are terrible drivers." Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt also advocated for banning human drivers in cities. The company is also asking NHTSA to exempt its Origin modelwhich cannot be operated by a human driverfrom federal motor vehicle safety standards.

The Teamsters are urging regulators take action to address the safety and workforce impacts of AVs in California and around the country. In addition to advocacy at the state and local level, the union released a policy framework in September, Autonomous Vehicle Federal Policy Principles, which lays out steps that the federal government must take to protect motorists and workers from the growing threat of AVs.

Founded in 1903, the Teamsters Union represents 1.2 million hardworking people in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Visit Teamster.org to learn more and follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and on Facebook at Facebook.com/teamsters.

Contact:

Matt McQuaid, (202) 624-6877

[email protected]

SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters
DUBLIN, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Wind Turbine Market (by Location, Axis, Component, Application, & Region): Insights and Forecast with Potential Impact of COVID-19 (2022-2026)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global wind turbine market is poised for significant growth, with a projected value of $79.21 billion by 2023, reflecting a strong Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.97% during the forecast period. The increasing focus on renewable energy sources, particularly wind power, is contributing to the expansion of this market.

Market Segmentation:

The report segments the global wind turbine market based on several key factors:

By Location:

Onshore

Offshore

The offshore segment is expected to experience substantial growth, primarily due to advantages such as higher power output, steady wind flow, and rapid installation.

By Axis:

Horizontal Axis

Vertical Axis

Vertical wind turbines are anticipated to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period due to their efficiency in unstable and harsh conditions.

By Component:

Rotor Blade

Generator

Gearbox

Nacelle

Others

Rotor blades occupy the largest market share, driven by competition among industry players to enhance production capacity, resulting in lower prices.

By Application:

Utility

Non-Utility

The utility segment holds the majority of the market share, with large-scale wind farms connected to national transmission networks driving growth.

Geographic Coverage:

The global market is divided into five regions:

Asia Pacific

Europe

North America

Latin America

Middle East and Africa

Asia Pacific leads the global wind turbine market, with China's substantial installed capacity being a significant contributor. India is also emerging as a major player in wind power generation.

Key Growth Drivers:

Declining Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE): Advancements in technology and supply chain management have led to a significant reduction in LCOE for wind projects, making wind energy more cost-competitive. Increasing Investments: Growing investments in the wind energy sector, driven by environmental concerns and government support, are bolstering market growth. Federal and State Policy Support: Supportive policies and incentives from governments at various levels are encouraging the adoption of wind energy, further propelling the market. Wind Turbine Financing: Availability of financing options and investments in wind energy projects are contributing to the market's expansion.

Key Challenges:

High Entry Barriers: The wind turbine market presents high entry barriers, including the need for substantial capital, regulatory compliance, and technical expertise. High Maintenance: Wind turbines require maintenance to address challenges such as corrosion, erosion, and other environmental factors, which can be costly.

Key Trends:

Increasing Average Turbine Size: Larger offshore wind turbines are becoming more prevalent, offering higher energy production and efficiency. Power To X and Green Hydrogen: Integration of wind energy into Power-to-X technologies and green hydrogen production is a growing trend, expanding the application of wind power. Increasing Distance to Shore and Greater Water Depths: Offshore wind farms are moving farther from the shore and into deeper waters, tapping into new wind resources. Technological Advancements: Ongoing technological advancements are driving the efficiency and reliability of wind turbines.

The COVID-19 Impact:

The wind turbine market, like many other sectors, faced initial challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic due to supply chain disruptions and investment constraints. However, favorable government policies and increased awareness of clean energy sources led to a rebound in the latter half of the pandemic.

Analysis of Key Players:

The global wind turbine market features moderate concentration, with leading players implementing growth strategies such as mergers, acquisitions, collaborations, and agreements. Key players in the market include Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, General Electric Company (GE) (GE Renewable Energy), Vestas Wind Systems A/S, Suzlon Energy Ltd., Nordex SE, XinJiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., Ltd., Guodian Technology & Environment Group Corporation Ltd. (Guodian United Power Technology Ltd.), Shanghai Electric Group Company Ltd., Enercon GmbH, Envision Energy, Zhejiang Windey Co., Ltd., and Ming Yang Smart Energy Group Ltd.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/xmfd0y

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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SOURCE Research and Markets
"Multi-talented scientist, entrepreneur, author, and humanitarian, Dr. Christina Rahm works extensively on philanthropic causes through the Rahm Foundation."

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Multi-talented scientist, entrepreneur, author, and humanitarian, Dr. Christina Rahm has worked extensively on philanthropic initiatives through the Rahm Foundation to support local, national, and international causes, but most recently, mental health and environmental projects.

Rahm has recently joined forces with Tennessee Voices for Children, Inc. (also known as TN Voices), which was formally organized in 1990 by Tipper Gore as a statewide coalition of individuals, agencies and organizations working as a Steering Council to promote children's health, behavioral health workforce, and education.

Scientist, entrepreneur and author, Dr. Christina Rahm works extensively on philanthropic causes for The Rahm Foundation Post this

"We are so grateful to The ROOT Brands, Dr. Rahm, DRC Ventures, and the Rahm Foundation for investing in mental health through the efforts of TN Voices. We are a non-profit organization serving those who need care. Their team understands the value of making mental health care available to everyone. We have partnered to accomplish accessibility to care, workforce shortages, and prevention of mental health concerns," said Rikki Harris, CEO, TN Voices.

Additionally, Rahm is collaborating with both the Green Foundation (donating $30,000 dollars), and Captain Planet Foundation (donating $50,000) for their expansive environmental initiatives.

Rahm is also involved in philanthropic work targeting women, children, and broader peace building efforts through the UN Women for Peace Association (UNWPGA). This global nonprofit promotes 'tolerance and respect for women' with the primary goal being opportunities for access to education, freedom, and protection, along with social, cultural, and academic empowerment programs.

Rahms generosity extends even further to The Treasured Foundation which aims to improve the lives of the women and children in Korah, Ethiopia, who sadly live in small villages amongst trash dumps. The Treasured Foundation provides financial resources by offering vocational training so those living in poverty can gain financial independence. Other groups in which Dr. Rahm has supported include St. Jude, the European Women's Association, Chic Awareness, Cape Christian Fellowship, the University of South Alabama, and the African University Collaboration-Medical and Research center.

Dr. Rahm has had a remarkable career as one of the leading scientific formulators in the nutraceutical industry. Her publications also cover psychology, bioscience, and nanotechnology, just to name a few. In addition to her work as a pioneering scientist, her print work includes three books; Cure The Causes, Cure The Causes Cookbook, and recently published, Be Your Own Inspiration.

Due to her myriad successes in medical and scientific related business ventures, Dr. Rahm started the Rahm Foundation. Over the years, the nonprofit has provided support to individuals through scholarships, internships, healthcare education, mentoring programs, along with programs to support the mental and physical health of mentors, violence against women, and addiction. Through these initiatives, the foundation strives to promote upward mobility amongst marginalized populations, to better gain equal footing in both education and employment.

Known for her enthusiastic dedication to fund educational, environmental, and underprivileged projects around the world, Dr. Rahm's commitment to these various philanthropic causes demonstrates her dedication to making a lasting impact on communities across the world.

ABOUT DR. CHRISTINA RAHM: Dr. Rahm is a sought-after scientific leader, patent innovator, spokesperson, and formulator for health and nutrient wellness. She travels the world presenting, lecturing, and educating both the private and public sectors about the bold new world of nutraceuticals, wellness strategies, and environmental solutions. Author of 'Cure The Causes,' Rahm's mission is to help get to the root cause of health problems. Having traveled to over eighty-five countries in consulting roles, her proudest achievements are her expansive philanthropic initiatives and being the mother to four children. www.drchristinarahm.com

ABOUT THE RAHM FOUNDATION: Dr. Christina Rahm founded the Rahm Foundation to promote greater educational and career opportunities for women, children, and minority populations while providing a better environment and outcomes for animals. Through her foundation, she and her team are committed to building brighter futures for those who have less opportunity  one project at a time. https://www.therahmfoundation.com/

DR. CHRISTINA RAHM SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLES:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/drchristinarahm?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrChristinaRahm

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-christina-rahm-cook

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/drchristinarahm/status/1574746257586896901

SOURCE DRC Ventures
An Elevated Perfumery that Showcases Over

500 Artisan Fragrances

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Scent Room, a Los Angeles-based luxury scent and perfume retail experience, is celebrating the West Coast debut of its second retail location in the heart of Larchmont's "beauty boulevard" district. This chic and modern establishment offers a unique retail experience that allows guests to explore over 500 of the world's most exquisite and rare fragrances.

What sets The Scent Room apart from other local perfumeries is its ability to connect individuals worldwide through shared experiences and memorable fragrances. With an extensive collection of rare scents, fragrant candles, and room sprays, The Scent Room invites guests to engage in a delightful "spray and play" experience, allowing them to discover a scent wardrobe ranging from simple and subtle to expressive and bold.

This unique olfactory exploration and self-expression fosters a community of fragrance enthusiasts who share a passion for scents. Complemented by personalized service tailored to each guest's preferences, The Scent Room offers a sensorial journey through a diverse range of one-of-a-kind scents and aromatic experiences.

"Our goal is that every time someone enters our space, we provide them with an educational scent journey and make sure they leave feeling inspired," notes Sam Clark, co-founder and owner of The Scent Room. "I wanted something totally different, somewhere people could come together to share stories and feelings around scent and smell, not just a product."

Appealing to fragrance aficionados of all levels, tastes, and budgets, The Scent Room showcases a collection of over 50 carefully selected brands from independent perfume houses worldwide, each united by a collective admiration for perfumery as an art form.

Founded in 2019, The Scent Room opened its first shop in Dallas with the mission of meeting two needs: first, addressing what founder Sam Clark calls "an absence of globally-curated, hard-to-find, unique fragrances" and second, creating an inviting atmosphere where customers can immerse themselves in a world of ambient sights, sounds and smells where the staff is warm, inviting and inclusive.

"Fragrance is ultimately a display of human-honed nature. For all of recorded history, we have explored the natural world in search of things that delight our senses - from flowers to fruit, tree sap to soil," states Clark. "It takes a special kind of alchemy to forge these ingredients into something new, so I created a space that reflects the intersection of human and nature - warm wood, living plants, textured stone, brass, and dark metals."

The Scent Room offers a variety of services to help guests find their perfect scent. Whether in-store, where guests can enjoy a complimentary fragrance consultation with a trained Scent Specialist, or online, where guests can narrow their options by note, strength or profile. The Scent Room is more than just a place to buy fragrance  it's a place to connect with others while discovering your own scented self expression.

About The Scent Room

Established in 2019, The Scent Room invites guests to indulge in, engage with, and explore some of the world's most exquisite and exotic fragrances. Whether online or in-store, The Scent Room offers an expansive array of hard-to-find, exotic and unique scents from around the globe. With two locations now serving Los Angeles and Dallas, The Scent Room invites guests to explore their personal scent journey and passion for self-expression. The Scent Room L.A. is located at 142  N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004.

For more information, visit www.thescentroom.com or follow our latest news and information on our social channels:

Facebook @thescentroomla

Instagram @scentroomla

Twitter @thescentroom_

MEDIA CONTACT:

Erin Warady, Marketing,

[email protected] / 949-439-8677

SOURCE The Scent Room
The tipper body equipment market is expected to reach US$54.8B by 2033, driven by new technologies that make vehicles more efficient and productive and the growing demand for commercial vehicles in various industries.

NEWARK, Del., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Tipper Body Equipment Market by Roll-off Tipper Body, 3-Way Tipper Body, and Rear Tipper Body Types, Opportunities and Forecast 2023 - 2033

During the historical period between 2018 and 2022, the global market of tipper body equipment recorded a noteworthy CAGR of 6%. A considerable valuation of US$ 27,345.2 million was achieved in the year 2022 as a result of this expansion.

The need for such equipment is expected to increase with rapid industrialization and the rising usage of tippers for transporting different materials. So, FMI predicts the overall market could expand at a higher CAGR of 7.2% between 2023 and 2033. Following this robust growth rate, the global market value is forecasted to reach US$ 54.806.1 million by 2033, growing from US$ 29,314.1 million in 2023.

Get the Sample PDF Summary to obtain an overview of the Comprehensive Research Report. The sample is available here!

A significant factor driving the sales of tipper body equipment is the explosive rise of end-use sectors, including building, mining, and waste management. Tipper body equipment is essential to these sectors' operations because they rely heavily on effective material handling and transportation. Likewise, trash management businesses also utilize tipper body equipment for effective trash collection and disposal as the focus on eco-friendly waste management techniques is growing.

Investments in the construction and transportation infrastructure also drive the application of effective and dependable tipper body equipment worldwide. Furthermore, government-led infrastructure development projects in many emerging nations fuel the need for construction equipment, particularly tippers.

Key Takeaways from the Global Tipper Body Equipment Market Study Report by FMI

The United States dominates the global market, contributing to almost 21.4% of tipper body equipment sales in 2022. However, the regional market in the United States can be impacted by global supply chain interruptions, such as those experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

dominates the global market, contributing to almost 21.4% of tipper body equipment sales in 2022. However, the regional market in can be impacted by global supply chain interruptions, such as those experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Germany is the leading supplier of tipper body equipment for the European market, and in the year 2022, it held a global market share of 19.2%. The sales of tipper body equipment in Europe are anticipated to continue to be driven by ongoing and upcoming infrastructure development projects.

is the leading supplier of tipper body equipment for the European market, and in the year 2022, it held a global market share of 19.2%. The sales of tipper body equipment in are anticipated to continue to be driven by ongoing and upcoming infrastructure development projects. The sales of tipper body equipment in Asia Pacific could be impacted by regional disparities in economic situations, infrastructural development, and industrial expansion. To illustrate, the regional market in China is poised to grow at 8.2% until 2033, while the Indian market could exhibit only a 6.5% growth rate.

"Tipper body equipment is pivotal in construction and logistics," says Nikhil Kaitwade (Associate Vice President at Future Market Insights, Inc.). "These specialized vehicle attachments enable efficient material transport and handling, enhancing productivity and versatility in construction, mining, and waste management."

Tipper Body Equipment Market Research Report Coverage:

Attribute Details Estimated Market Size (2023) US$ 29,314.1 million Projected Market Size (2033) US$ 54,806.1 million Anticipated Growth Rate (2023 to 2033) 7.2 % Forecast Period 2023 to 2033 Historical Data Available for 2018 to 2022 Market Analysis US$ million for Value and Units for Volume Key Regions Covered North America, Latin America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia & Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa (MEA) Key Countries Covered The United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, BENELUX, The United Kingdom, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Australia & New Zealand, Turkey, South Africa, and Northern Africa. Key Market Segments Covered Tipping Type, Load Carrying Capacity, Mechanism, Frame Material, End Use, and Region Key Companies Profiled Schmitz Cargobull AG

Crysteel Manufacturing Inc

Ingimex Ltd

VFS (Southampton) Ltd.

Cantoni & C S.p.A.

BION INDUSTRIAL LLC

F.X. MEILLER Fahrzeug- u. Maschinenfabrik- GmbH & Co KG

Marrel

Hyva Global B.V Report Coverage Market forecast, brand share analysis, competition intelligence, DROT analysis, market dynamics and challenges, strategic growth initiatives

Competitive Landscape for the Tipper Body Equipment Market Players

Schmitz Cargobull, Crysteel Manufacturing, Ingimex, VFS (Southampton), Cantoni & C, BION INDUSTRIAL,, Marrel, and Hyva Global are some top players in this market. These leading players with operations in international and regional markets presently have attractive prospects that could further consolidate the market.

Unlock insights on competition benchmarking - Buy the tipper body equipment market report today!

Modernizing equipment with cutting-edge technology like telematics and sophisticated control systems may enable manufacturers to draw clients looking for increased operational effectiveness and safety. In addition to this, tipper body equipment manufacturers who value sustainability and create greener solutions are anticipated to have an advantage over their rivals.

Several new manufacturers have emerged to take advantage of the chance to provide a broad selection of tipper body equipment adapted to local industries. Moreover, advanced features paired with customizable solutions are expected to allow new market players to serve a larger consumer base.

About the Industrial Automation Division at Future Market Insights (FMI)

The industrial automation division of Future Market Insights (FMI) offers a novel approach and innovative perspective in analyzing the industrial automation domain. Comprehensive coverage of capital, portable, process, construction, industrial, and special-purpose machinery across the manufacturing sector and distinctive analysis of the installed base, consumables, replacement, and USP-feature-application matrix make us a pioneering voice in the industry. We are preferred associates with established and budding industry stakeholders and channel partners when it comes to sustaining, growing, and identifying new revenue prospects.

Get the detailed research methodology of this report, including the data collection and analysis methods used, from here!

About the Author:

Nikhil Kaitwade (Associate Vice President at Future Market Insights, Inc.) has over a decade of experience in market research and business consulting. He has successfully delivered 1500+ client assignments, predominantly in Automotive, Chemicals, Industrial Equipment, Oil & Gas, and Service industries.

His core competency circles around developing research methodology, creating a unique analysis framework, statistical data models for pricing analysis, competition mapping, and market feasibility analysis. His expertise also extends wide and beyond analysis, advising clients on identifying growth potential in established and niche market segments, investment/divestment decisions, and market entry decision-making.

Nikhil holds an MBA degree in Marketing and IT and a Graduate in Mechanical Engineering. Nikhil has authored several publications and quoted in journals like EMS Now, EPR Magazine, and EE Times.

Explore FMI's Extensive Coverage in the Industrial Automation Domain:

The global military vehicles and aircraft simulations market will be valued at US$5.9 billion in 2022. With a steady growth rate of 7.1%, it is expected to reach US$8.4 billion by 2032.

military vehicles and aircraft simulations market The global prefabricated building system market is expected to experience substantial growth, with a strong CAGR of over 6.1% between 2022 and 2032, ultimately reaching a market value exceeding US$18.5 billion by 2032.

prefabricated building system market The air sampling pump market is projected to achieve a CAGR of 3.79% throughout the forecast period from 2022 to 2032. Starting at US$47.06 million in 2022, it is expected to reach a valuation of US$68.27 million by 2032.

air sampling pump market The Microturbines Market was valued at US$55 million in 2020 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10.8% from 2022 to 2032.

Microturbines Market The hydrostatic testing market is expected to experience a year-on-year growth of 4.7% in 2022, reaching an estimated value of approximately US$582.2 million by the same year.

About Future Market Insights (FMI)

Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in Dubai and has delivery centers in the United Kingdom, the United States, and India. FMI's latest market research reports and industry analysis helps businesses navigate challenges and make critical decisions with confidence and clarity amidst breakneck competition.

Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. A team of expert-led analysts at FMI continuously tracks emerging trends and events in a broad range of industries to ensure that our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.

Contact Us

Nandini Singh Sawlani

Future Market Insights Inc.

Christiana Corporate, 200 Continental Drive,

Suite 401, Newark, Delaware - 19713, USA

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For Sales Enquiries: [email protected]

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SOURCE Future Market Insights
ATLANTA, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition opens at Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this Saturday, October 21, 2023.

RMS TITANIC, INC. (PRNewsfoto/RMS Titanic, Inc.)

E/M Group, RMS Titanic, Inc., and Carnegie Science Center are bringing a curated collection of real Titanic artifacts to audiences all over the world. The touring version of TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition allows guests to experience the real stories of real Titanic passengers and crew through authentic artifacts. These items, carefully recovered from the wreck site, have been honorably conserved and presented to the public to help educate and tell the story of the legendary Ship.

Carnegie Science Center inspires and entertains by connecting science and technology with everyday life. In addition to providing valuable scientific experiences, Carnegie Science Center engages in outreach programs that serve Pittsburgh's diverse community. Over 150 genuine artifacts will be featured, including a telegraph mechanism, delicate Saalfeld perfume vials and labels, playing cards, and exquisite passenger jewelry.

"We are excited to bring TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition to Carnegie Science Center," said Jason Brown, Henry Buhl, Jr., Director of Carnegie Science Center. "The Exhibition weaves together the realms of history, archaeology, and oceanography, perfectly aligning with our commitment to fostering scientific education and exploration."

For more information and tickets visit https://carnegiesciencecenter.org/

"E/M Group is thrilled to bring TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition back to Carnegie Science Center. We invite the community to step back in time and experience compelling human stories told through these authentic artifacts," said Gautam Chandna, Director of Business Development for E/M Group. "By preserving and presenting these objects, we honor the legacy of those on board Titanic, sharing their narratives in a way that is both educational and deeply moving. This Exhibition isn't just a display of artifacts; it's a poignant journey into the lives intertwined with a pivotal moment in history."

Visit emgroup.com for more information about Carnegie Science Center, as well as future venue openings.

For media requests, please contact: Wendy Perez ( [email protected] )

About E/M Group

Experiential Media Group 'EMG' LLC (E/M Group), located in Atlanta, GA, is a world leader in the development and display of exhibitions that educate, entertain, and inspire audiences of all ages.

About RMS Titanic, Inc.:

RMS Titanic, Inc.'s (RMST) mission is to preserve the legacy of Titanic's maiden voyage, subsequent sinking, and the memory of the passengers and crew through comprehensive educational programs, innovative exhibitions, research and recovery initiatives, wreck site imaging and analysis, and ongoing Titanic collaborations. RMST was granted salvor-in-possession rights to the wreck of Titanic and is the only company permitted by law to recover artifacts from the wreck site. RMST has recovered and conserved more than 5,500 artifacts since 1987. RMST is an affiliate of E/M Group.

SOURCE E/M Group, LLC
Water Mains Installed in 1912 "Shown the Test of Time"

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ductile Iron Pipe Research Association (DIPRA) welcomes the town of Neepawa in Manitoba, Canada, to the Century Club, which celebrates the strength and durability of cast iron water mains.

Neepawa installed the cast iron mains along its Mountain Avenue in 1912. The town is currently in the process of replacing 4-inch mains with larger pipes to aid in fire flow operations, said Operations Manager Denis Saquet. There are also original 6- and 8-inch mains still in operation today.

Sam Ghosn, M.A.SC, P.Eng- DIRPA Regional Director, Denis Saquet  Manager of Operations for the Town of Neepawa, Canada

"The original watermains from 1912 have shown the test of time," Saquet said. "We are very lucky with ground conditions and corrosion levels."

Saquet said he expects the remaining mains to last for at least 50 more years.

"Cast iron pipes have delivered clean, safe drinking water for generations, and we're excited to welcome Neepawa to the Century Club," said DIPRA President David Cole. "The fact that the pipes in Neepawa have stood up to Manitoba's winters for so long is a testament to the strength and durability of the high-quality pipe material. As the modern descendant of cast iron, ductile iron has improved on that strength and resilience to provide communities with peace of mind that their water delivery system is free from volatile chemicals and the pipes are not susceptible to cracking and leaching."

The Cast Iron Pipe Century Club was organized in 1947 to publicly recognize water utilities with Cast Iron mains that have provided service for 100 years or more. There are more than 550 water utilities in the United States and 34 water utilities in Canada that are members of DIPRA's Century Club. Many of these utilities are all still using at least some of the cast iron pipes installed underground more than 100 years ago. DIPRA also sponsors a Sesquicentennial Club, of which 25 utilities in the U.S. and four in Canada are known to have enjoyed cast iron pipelines in service for more than 150 years.

About DIPRA

Founded in 1915, the Ductile Iron Pipe Research Association (DIPRA) has served as a resource and technical advisor to the water industry. DIPRA also provides representation on standards-making committees as well as technical research on a variety of applications-based topics. While DIPRA member companies have different names and locations, they share a common commitment to produce and deliver the finest quality water and wastewater pipe material in the world, Ductile Iron Pipe, and at the greatest possible value to its purchasers.

SOURCE Ductile Iron Pipe Research Association (DIPRA)
Kidstown Dental and The College of Health Care Professions team up to meet Houston region's demand for skilled dental assisting professionals

HOUSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The College of Health Care Professions (CHCP) announced today a unique partnership with Kidstown Dental to prepare aspiring registered dental assistants through on-the-job training. Kidstown Dental will offer externships and internships to learners at three Houston CHCP campuses, allowing for the pediatric dental office to become an extension of the classroom setting. Participants will be able to gain real-world experience to prepare them to enter the workforce with an understanding of new technologies, pediatric dental hygiene and restorative care.

"This new collaboration with Kidstown Dental embodies our shared commitment to helping aspiring professionals provide unwavering excellence in patient care. We look forward to training the next generation of registered dental assistants who will carry these values forward," says Eric Bing, Chancellor & Chief Executive Officer of CHCP, "This partnership isn't merely about providing training, it's about instilling a culture of learning in real-work environments, helping our learners achieve the skills they need to contribute on their first day of work."

The partnership comes during a time in which registered dental assistants are increasingly in demand, especially as dental offices have failed to cultivate sustainable talent pipelines in the wake of the pandemic. June 2023 data from the American Dental Association indicates that 89.1% of dentists find recruiting dental assistants extremely or very challenging.

Pilot versions of this partnership, where learners are receiving hands-on experience with clinical training, have already seen successful results. In the first pilot, nine people were hired after their experience in the program, allowing for more efficient and effective placement.

"We are excited to further our partnership with CHCP, which has provided a direct pipeline of aspiring professionals with shared values," says Dr. Amy L. Luedemann, founder and lead dentist at Kidstown Dental, "This is about helping learners acquire skills they will use every day, while enabling our team to grow its base of talented professionals."

Kidstown Dental's work-based learning experiences provides training in cutting-edge dental procedures, such as no-shot laser dentistry, Nightlase and Invisalign. This enables students to acquire the most contemporary skills and proficiencies.

For more information on CHCP's nursing assistant programs and Kidstown Dental, visit https://www.chcp.edu/degrees-certificates/ and Kidstowndentist.com.

About Kidstown Dental

Kidstown Dental is a leading pediatric dental care provider, emphasizing innovative treatments and a child-friendly approach. With a firm focus on preventive care and education, they strive to provide the most positive dental experiences for children. Learn more at Kidstowndentist.com.

About CHCP

As a leader in healthcare education and training, CHCP helps students develop the skills they need to meet the demands of today's healthcare industry. Founded by physicians, CHCP is focused on healthcare education and training and its accredited programs have been developing healthcare professionals for 35 years. CHCP faculty have real-world, on-the-job experience and are committed to helping students succeed. Just as importantly, CHCP's on-campus, blended, online and hybrid program offerings give students flexible options to learn on their schedule. CHCP offers continuing education nationwide for medical imaging and emerging healthcare technologies through the Medical Technology Management Institute (MTMI). For more information, visit chcp.edu .

SOURCE College of Health Care Professions (CHCP)
Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement Filed

VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -Trilogy Metals Inc. (TSX: TMQ) (NYSE American: TMQ) ("Trilogy" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on the Ambler Access Project ("AAP")  the proposed 211-mile, industrial-use-only road from the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects ("UKMP") to the Dalton Highway that will enable the advancement of exploration and development at the Ambler Mining District, home to some of the world's richest known copper-dominant polymetallic deposits. The United States Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") has filed the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement ("SEIS") for the AAP on its website https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/57323/570 and anticipates being in the federal register on October 20, 2023.

It is envisioned that the AAP be financed and maintained by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority ("AIDEA"), and companies such as Ambler Metals LLC ("Ambler Metals"), Trilogy's 50/50 joint venture with South32 Limited (ASX, LSE, JSE: S32; ADR: SOUHY), would enter into commercial agreements to use the road and pay tolls to AIDEA and its financing partners. More information about the Ambler Access Project is available at https://ambleraccess.org.

Road Permits - Litigation and Remand

During the summer of 2020, the BLM granted permits that authorized a right-of-way across federally managed lands for AIDEA and the AAP. Shortly thereafter, a coalition of national and Alaska environmental non-government organizations ("ENGO") filed lawsuits against the federal agencies responsible for issuing the permits for the AAP. The ENGOs' main position is that due process was not carried out during the permitting of the road. In May 2022, the right-of-way permits issued to AIDEA for the AAP were suspended by the federal agencies based upon a request to remand the lawsuits. This remand request was made by the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the federal agencies and was granted by the U.S. District Court. The purpose of the remand is to allow the BLM to carry out additional supplemental work in response to the lawsuits.

The original lawsuit was filed by the Northern Alaska Environmental Center and several other environmental and conservation groups, and a subsequent separate lawsuit was filed by Tanana Chiefs Conference and several tribes.

In April 2023, several Alaska Native leaders travelled to Washington, D.C., with representatives of Ambler Metals and AIDEA to urge the fair review and timely completion of the Ambler Access Project's SEIS. There is strong support for the AAP from local residents and the Alaska delegation in Washington.

Further to Trilogy's previous update on the SEIS, provided in its news release dated October 11, 2023, the BLM has filed the draft SEIS on its website https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/57323/570 and anticipates being in the federal register on October 20, 2023. The draft SEIS is open for a 60-day public comment period, until December 19, 2023. The BLM reconfirmed they anticipate a final SEIS is expected in the first quarter of 2024, and a Record of Decision within the second quarter of 2024.

About Trilogy Metals

Trilogy Metals Inc. is a metal exploration and development company holding 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, statements relating to the permitting and construction of the AAP, the timing and benefits of the AAP, the anticipated timing of the final SEIS and Record of Decision, and the merits of the UKMP 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 whether the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority will build the AAP; the results of the additional supplemental work on the SEIS resulting from the voluntary remand; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; success of exploration activities, permitting timelines, requirements for additional capital, government regulation of mining operations, environmental risks, prices for energy inputs, labour, materials, supplies and services, uncertainties involved in the interpretation of drilling results and geological tests, unexpected cost increases 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.

SOURCE Trilogy Metals Inc.
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, October 19. Turkmenistan and the Russian Nizhny Novgorod region discussed the possibilities of expanding cooperation, Trend reports.

These issues were discussed during a visit to Nizhny Novgorod city by a delegation headed by the Consul General of Turkmenistan in Kazan Guych Garayev, during which a meeting with the leadership of the region took place.

Stressing that at the moment the interaction between Turkmenistan and the regions of Russia is developing dynamically and consistently, the parties agreed to expand cooperation.

During the discussion, it was noted that the Nizhny Novgorod region has a long history of cooperation with Turkmenistan, especially in the fields of mechanical engineering, metallurgy, energy and transport, while a common opinion was reached on the need to expand mutual activities involving industrial, infrastructural, scientific and educational potential.

Furthermore, the Russian side stressed that the field of education is one of the successful areas of cooperation between the Nizhny Novgorod region and Turkmenistan.

The Turkmen delegation, in turn, stressed the importance of expanding the spheres of cooperation, while noting that the potential for cooperation is great, especially in the educational sphere.

Turkmenistan's cooperation with the regions of Russia continues to develop actively, covering various sectors of the economy, including energy, mechanical engineering, agriculture and trade. This process contributes to the strengthening of diplomatic and economic ties, as well as promotes the exchange of experience and technology between countries, contributing to the expansion of opportunities for joint investments and projects.
CHANGZHOU, China, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- TrinaTracker, a leading smart solar tracker solution provider, has been awarded accreditation certificate from CNAS (China National Accreditation Service) for its Tracker System Test Center located in Changzhou, China.

The accreditation was given after CNAS thoroughly inspected and assessed the center's testing systems and equipment, and TrinaTracker's testing team was highly praised for its high levels of competence in conducting tests. The company's tracker test center covers many areas, including electrical, mechanical and structural. It is one of the most advanced test centers in solar tracker testing capabilities.

As a part of international accreditation multilateral recognition system, CNAS test results are recognized in more than 100 countries and by organizations such as the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and the Asia-Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC).

The TrinaTracker System Test Center, established in 2021, covers areas including functionality, performance, protection level, environmental resistance and corrosion resistance. It also does steel structure testing with disciplines in structural, mechanical and fatigue resistance. The center has also been accredited with the TMP Witness Test Lab Qualification of TUV Sud.

"CNAS accreditation provides reliable technical support for tracker product design and development. TrinaTracker will continue to improve its testing in terms of electrical, mechanical and structural capabilities to provide support for high-quality tracker products." Quan Peng, the center's head said.

About TrinaTracker:

TrinaTracker is a leading smart tracker solution provider under Trina Solar Co., Ltd. (SHA: 688599). It specializes in solar tracker development, manufacture, engineering design, installation and maintenance. With 19 years' experience in tracker business, it is the only brand with R&D and engineering centers in both Europe and Asia for module and trackers. The brand has Vanguard 1P, Vanguard 2P, and Agile three main product lines, and its smart tracker control system including SuperTrack algorithm and Trina Smart Cloud platform is verified to efficiently further increase power generation of solar plant.

TrinaTracker has multiple operation centers (China, APAC, Europe, Latin America, North America etc.) globally to provide worldwide solution and service.

Till end of 2022, TrinaTracker has delivered 9GW+ trackers globally, by more than 300 projects across 40+ countries.

SOURCE TrinaTracker
DUBLIN, Calif., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- TriNet (NYSE: TNET), a leading provider of comprehensive human resources solutions for small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), today announced that NAACP Empowerment Programs, a nonprofit division within the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization, is the latest recipient of a TriNet Foundation donation by way of the NAACP Powershift Grants from Daymond John's Black Entrepreneurs Day event.

TriNet Announces Donation to NAACP Supporting Black Business Owners and Entrepreneurs

Launched in 2021, the TriNet Foundation is a donor-advised fund of TriNet and a key component of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program. NAACP Empowerment Programs focus on empowering communities of color, with special attention to a number of areas that help Black entrepreneurs, including advocating for economic policies to assist Black entrepreneurs and workers.

"We are proud to support the work that NAACP is doing to help empower emerging and established Black entrepreneurs and communities of color," said Samantha Wellington, TriNet's Executive Vice President of Business Affairs, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary. "This partnership aligns with TriNet Foundation's philanthropic vision of improving humanity through creating, expanding and amplifying volunteerism and giving efforts to organizations that are dedicated to fostering positive change, economic development and the growth of entrepreneurism."

"The NAACP is thrilled to partner with TriNet for Black Entrepreneurs Day, aiming to broaden opportunities for Black entrepreneurs nationwide. Through our grants, we are providing the support and resources necessary to enable Black enterprises to not only thrive but also drive positive change in their respective sectors," said Yumeka Rushing, NAACP Chief Strategy Officer. "This partnership underscores the importance of supporting Black communities through investment as we shape a brighter future for all. The NAACP remains committed to fostering economic growth and sustainability for Black communities. This is what advocacy in action looks like."

TriNet is also a partner in the upcoming Black Entrepreneurs Day, the award-winning celebration of Black business aiming to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs, curated by Daymond John. Returning for its fourth year the event will take place at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem where Wellington will speak with Daymond John, the founder and CEO of FUBU and Co-Star of ABC's Shark Tank, about TriNet's commitment to SMBs, its programs that support entrepreneurial experiences, and the ways in which it is spotlighting diverse communities. Portions of TriNet's grant to the NAACP will fund multiple NAACP Powershift Grants intended to support Black entrepreneurs and small business owners seeking financial support to build their business. The event will stream for free across the Black Entrepreneurs Day Website, YouTube, Facebook, and more on Wednesday, November 1 at 7pm ET.

For more information about TriNet's Corporate Social Responsibility Program and the TriNet Foundation, visit the TriNet Foundation webpage.

About TriNet

TriNet (NYSE: TNET) provides small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) with full-service industry-specific HR solutions, providing both professional employer organization (PEO) and human resources information system (HRIS) services. TriNet offers access to human capital expertise, benefits, risk mitigation, compliance, payroll, and R&D tax credit services, all enabled by industry-leading technology. TriNet's suite of products also includes services and software-based solutions to help streamline workflows by connecting HR, benefits, employee engagement, payroll and time & attendance. Rooted in more than 30 years of supporting entrepreneurs and adapting to the ever-changing modern workplace, TriNet empowers SMBs to focus on what matters mostgrowing their business and enabling their people. For more information, visit TriNet.com or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

About NAACP

The NAACP advocates, agitates, and litigates for the civil rights due to Black America. Their legacy is built on the foundation of grassroots activism by the biggest civil rights pioneers of the 20th century and is sustained by 21st century activists. From classrooms and courtrooms to city halls and Congress, their network of members across the country works to secure the social and political power that will end race-based discrimination. That work is rooted in racial equity, civic engagement, and supportive policies and institutions for all marginalized people. They are committed to a world without racism where Black people enjoy equitable opportunities in thriving communities. For more information, please visit www.naacp.org.

SOURCE TriNet Group, Inc.
CALGARY, AB, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Vermilion Energy Inc. ("Vermilion", "We", "Our", "Us" or the "Company") (TSX: VET) (NYSE: VET) will release its 2023 third quarter operating and condensed financial results on Wednesday, November 1, 2023 after the close of North American markets. The unaudited interim financial statements and management discussion and analysis for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023 will be available on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval ("SEDAR") at www.sedar.com, on EDGAR at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml, and on Vermilion's website at www.vermilionenergy.com.

Conference Call and Webcast Details

Vermilion will discuss these results in a conference call and webcast presentation on Thursday, November 2, 2023 at 9:00 AM MST (11:00 AM EST). To participate, call 1-888-664-6383 (Canada and US Toll Free) or 1-416-764-8650 (International and Toronto Area). A recording of the conference call will be available for replay by calling 1-888-390-0541 (Canada and US Toll Free) or 1-416-764-8677 (International and Toronto Area) and using conference replay entry code 841661# from November 2, 2023 at 12:00 PM MST to November 16, 2023 at 12:00 PM MST.

To join the conference call without operator assistance, you may register and enter your phone number at https://emportal.ink/3QiV0ae to receive an instant automated call back. You may also access the webcast at https://app.webinar.net/v3ZopmxW7EQ. The webcast links, along with conference call slides, will be available on Vermilion's website at https://www.vermilionenergy.com/invest-with-us/events-presentations/ under Upcoming Events prior to the conference call.

About Vermilion

Vermilion is an international energy producer that seeks to create value through the acquisition, exploration, development and optimization of producing assets in North America, Europe and Australia. Our business model emphasizes free cash flow generation and returning capital to investors when economically warranted, augmented by value-adding acquisitions. Vermilion's operations are focused on the exploitation of light oil and liquids-rich natural gas conventional and unconventional resource plays in North America and the exploration and development of conventional natural gas and oil opportunities in Europe and Australia.

Vermilion's priorities are health and safety, the environment, and profitability, in that order. Nothing is more important to us than the safety of the public and those who work with us, and the protection of our natural surroundings. We have been recognized by leading ESG rating agencies for our transparency on and management of key environmental, social and governance issues. In addition, we emphasize strategic community investment in each of our operating areas.

Vermilion trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol VET.

SOURCE Vermilion Energy Inc.
CLEVELAND, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- VIO Med Spa and Merz Aesthetics hosted an exclusive event featuring renowned music sensation Machine Gun Kelly after the Forbes 30 Under 30 Concert & Conference on October 8th in Cleveland, Ohio. The event delivered an unforgettable experience that melded music, style, and innovation.

Featuring live artists, activations throughout the space 

Guests were immersed in an atmosphere that celebrated art and aesthetics. Machine Gun Kelly, celebrated for his talent, was at the heart of the evening, delivering an intimate experience like no other.

Esteemed sponsors, UN/DN Laqr and 27 Club Coffee, added sophistication to the gathering. Their support amplified the event's commitment to excellence.

VIO Med Spa Founder Joe Stanoszek shared his thoughts on the partnership with Merz, saying, "This collaboration embodied our shared vision of enhancing beauty, confidence, and self-expression. We aimed to create an evening that celebrated aesthetics and the artistry within us all."

Notable celebrities and personalities attended the event, including Tee Grizzley, Halsey, Justin Bibb (Mayor of Cleveland), Denzel Ward, Greg Newsome, Sherry Philips (CRO of Forbes), JP Nauseef (CEO of Jobs Ohio), and over a dozen Forbes 30 Under 30 winners.

Nathaniel Culp, Associate Director of Consumer Marketing, expressed his excitement about the event, stating, "The Merz Aesthetics and VIO Med Spa collaboration was a testament to our commitment to innovation and creativity. This event reflected our dedication to celebrating beauty and self-expression."

Merz Aesthetics and VIO Med Spa were thrilled to welcome their guests and ensure an unforgettable experience.

About VIO Med Spa

Founded in 2017 in Strongsville, Ohio, VIO Med Spa is a national, all-inclusive med spa providing the latest cutting-edge technologies and therapies offered in the wellness and aesthetics industry. VIO Med Spa is purpose driven, helping women and men of all ages to look beautiful and feel confident. VIO Med Spa's highly educated expert team of medical professionals and practitioners focus on meeting the needs of each guest by recommending products and services that are sure to get the desired results. VIO currently has 33 open locations across thirteen states, with 40+ additional locations scheduled to open by the end of 2024. For more information, visit viomedspa.com and follow the brand on Facebook and Instagram.

SOURCE VIO Med Spa
Innovative lifting technology garners global orders to continue to fuel growth and expand industry presence.

BROOMFIELD, Colo., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Vita Industrial and WOLFFKRAN, two industry leaders in construction technology and equipment, are thrilled to provide an update to their global sales agreement, initially announced two months ago. This partnership marks a significant milestone in the construction industry's quest for enhanced speed, safety, and efficiency on thousands of lifting projects worldwide.

The collaboration between Vita Industrial and WOLFFKRAN is poised to revolutionize construction practices by combining cutting-edge lifting technologies with innovative crane products. This fusion enables projects to achieve faster lifting operations, enhance efficiency through precise load placement, and minimize downtime attributed to adverse weather and environmental conditions.

WOLFFKRAN, renowned for its crane sales, crane rentals, and operation services, has been at the forefront of showcasing the capabilities of the Vita Load Navigator (VLN) technology. Beginning with the United Kingdom and expanding to other countries, the response from industry professionals and project sites has been resoundingly positive. As a result, WOLFFKRAN has confirmed the purchase of 10 units of the Vita Load Navigator (VLN) technology for immediate delivery. Such order underlines the commitment of both WOLFFKRAN and Vita Industrial to delivering state-of-the-art solutions to their crane clientele.

These initial 10 units will be integrated into WOLFFKRAN's extensive rental and sales portfolio, providing construction customers with access to the latest advancements in crane technology. Vita Industrial anticipates a surge in demand and additional orders as WOLFFKRAN continues to demonstrate the innovative capabilities of this technology in real-world applications.

Caleb Carr, the CEO of Vita Inclinata Technologies, commented on the partnership, saying, "Our collaboration with WOLFFKRAN has exceeded our expectations, and we are excited to witness the rapid adoption of Vita Load Navigator technology. Together, we are empowering construction professionals with innovative solutions that will drive industry advancements for years to come."

Similarly, Duncan Salt, CEO of WOLFFKRAN, expressed his enthusiasm for the early success of the partnership, stating, "The overwhelmingly positive response we've received underscores the transformative potential of our collaboration with Vita Industrial. We are proud to bring the Vita Load Navigator technology to our partners worldwide, enhancing their lifting operations and setting new standards for efficiency and safety."

This partnership exemplifies Vita Industrial and WOLFFKRAN's unwavering dedication to advancing the construction industry and ensuring that projects across the globe benefit from increased efficiency, improved safety, and accelerated timelines.

About Vita Inclinata

A friend's death during a rescue operationwith a helicopter close but unable to stabilize a litter due to weather and terrainwas the genesis of Vita Inclinata. Founded in 2015 as a way to solve a problem, Vita today is an advanced technology, manufacturing, and training company that creates intelligent lifting systems that enhance the safety, capability, and profitability of industrial construction lifting and search and rescue hoist operations. Vita's technology changes the narrative while saving lives, time, and money across industries, including search and rescue, military, firefighting, public safety, construction, wind energy, and oil and gas. The company is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, with offices in Washington, DC, Dubai and Silicon Valley. For more information, please visit www.vitatech.co and www.vitaindustrial.co.

About WOLFFKRAN

WOLFFKRAN is dedicated to competence in the design, construction and use of tower cranes. With its innovative technology and know-how, the company has significantly contributed to rapid developments in the field of material handling. Today, approximately 840 dedicated employees around the world ensure that the innovation process continues and that the WOLFF brand stands for a comprehensive range of trolley jib and luffing jib tower cranes. WOLFF cranes are manufactured in Heilbronn and Luckau, Germany. Branch offices across Germany and subsidiaries in Austria, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Norway, the USA, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the headquarters for international business in Zug provide full customer care. With a rental fleet of approx. 800 tower cranes, WOLFFKRAN is among the major crane providers globally. For more information, please visit www.wolffkran.com

SOURCE Vita Inclinata Technologies
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Webb Fontaine, a global technology leader company, alongside with PBS Group has secured a ground-breaking contract with the Costa Rican Ministry of Finance to implement a state-of-the art digitalized Customs Management System. This historic project is a key component of Costa Rica's Hacienda Digital initiative, supported by the World Bank, aimed to upgrade tax and customs procedures and information systems.

Webb Fontaine will lead the charge in transforming trade operations, ensuring precise Customs duty payments, and simplifying e-commerce imports, marking the biggest company's project in Central America, a vital trade hub. Costa Rica's impressive trade statistics further underscore the significance of this project.

Finance Minister Nogui Acosta underscored the transformative nature of the digital Customs system, emphasizing how it represents a pivotal departure from outdated tools. He stated, "This project will allow us to have a modern system. We are going to eliminate a system that has been integrated for more than 10 years, that has shortcomings, that has problems, and today we are going to have a world-class system [...] that will allow us, not only to provide traceability, but also to use artificial intelligence to manage imports and exports in this country."

The digital Customs system will handle a wide range of trade operations, including manifest, import and export declarations, and cargo traceability, set to be fully operational by November next year. The contract has been signed with the PBS CR-Webb Fontaine Consortium, a partnership between PBS CR and Webb Fontaine.

Alioune Ciss, CEO of Webb Fontaine Group, conveyed his deep enthusiasm, stating, "Leading this project is an honour that aligns perfectly with our mission to advance efficiency and transparency in customs duty collection. This isn't just a contract; it's a commitment to empowering Costa Rica's economic growth by streamlining and digitalizing Customs operations. We are dedicated to leveraging our cutting-edge technology, including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, to set new standards for Customs excellence.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2147638/4150314/Webb_Fontaine_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Webb Fontaine
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- WorkingNation , in partnership with the PBS station WABE in Atlanta, will present "Breaking Barriers: Embracing Disabilities in the Workforce," a TV special highlighting workers with disabilities, how technology and an evolving workplace can help them overcome obstacles, and how employers can tap this underutilized talent pool to diversify their workforces while addressing worker shortages. The special was made possible through funding provided by the Ares Charitable Foundation (the "Ares Foundation").

The hour-long special will air on WABE October 23 at 9 p.m. ET and November 18 at 6 p.m. ET, and also on WorkingNation.org.

The special will air on WABE Oct. 23, 9 p.m. ET, and Nov. 18, 6 p.m. ET, and starting Oct. 24 on WorkingNation.org. Post this

The number of people with disabilities in the workforce is increasing, but they remain employed at rates far lower than the general population. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is more than double the rate for people without, according to Department of Labor data . The CDC estimates 61 million U.S. adults live with a disability.

"WorkingNation remains committed to envisioning a future of work where all worker populations have an equal opportunity to contribute," says Art Bilger, founder and CEO of WorkingNation. "Just like everyone else, our disabled neighbors with requisite skills and experience deserve access to meaningful work, which can bring stability, pride and a sense of purpose to life. And thanks to new technologies and programs, that's increasingly possible."

Michelle Armstrong, head of philanthropy at Ares Management Corporation and executive director of the Ares Charitable Foundation, adds: "The Ares Foundation strives to accelerate economic equity and helping people successfully enter careers is critical to make that goal a reality. We believe this special will help raise awareness about the underrepresentation of people with disabilities in the workforce and hopefully inspire action that creates greater employment opportunities for them."

WABE's initial broadcast is in October, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, which celebrates contributions of workers with disabilities and focuses on making workplaces accessible and inclusive.

"Disability inclusion and accessibility are key parts of the workplace equity conversation," says Jennifer Dorian, president and CEO of WABE in Atlanta. "We are pleased to partner with WorkingNation, which has done extensive reporting about the rapidly evolving present and future of work confronting all workers and employers."

The WABE broadcast will center on conversations produced by WorkingNation and moderated by the veteran journalist Hari Sreenivasan.

The first conversation will look at accessibility and the impacts of technology. It will feature:

Taryn Mackenzie Williams , U.S. assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy,

, U.S. assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy, Hiren Shukla , global head of the Neuro-Diverse Center of Excellence at EY, and

, global head of the Neuro-Diverse Center of Excellence at EY, and Matt Ater , vice president of business development for Vispero, which provides assistive technology for the visually impaired. Ater is blind.

The second will examine the state of employment for people living with disabilities. It will feature:

Heather Dicks of Georgia Tech's EXCEL program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities,

of EXCEL program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Katie Hearn , who continued working for the Atlanta Braves despite losing her eyesight,

, who continued working for the Atlanta Braves despite losing her eyesight, Beth Keeton , executive director at Griffin-Hammis Associates, focused on alternate paths to the workforce for people with disabilities, and

, executive director at Griffin-Hammis Associates, focused on alternate paths to the workforce for people with disabilities, and Ilond Zombil Tshipau, vice president at the Bobby Dodd Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering people with differing abilities.

About WorkingNation

WorkingNation is a nonprofit media organization telling stories about the future of work and solutions to the jobs skills gap disrupting our economy. It blossomed from the realization that the nation's workers are on a collision course with technology and a changing global landscape. WorkingNation emphasizes that lifelong learning and adaptable skill sets are the cornerstones of sustainable careers, and educates employers about underutilized talent that can be trained to tackle labor shortages. Follow us on YouTube , X , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , and Threads .

WorkingNation Media Contact

Steve Delsohn

[email protected]

805-358-3318

About Ares Charitable Foundation

The Ares Charitable Foundation (the "Ares Foundation") is a 501(c)(3) qualifying organization sponsored by Ares Management Corporation ("Ares"), a leading global alternative investment manager. Established in 2020, the Ares Foundation seeks to accelerate equality of economic opportunity through grants to nonprofit organizations whose programming provides career preparation and reskilling, encourages entrepreneurship and deepens individuals' understanding of personal finance. The Ares Foundation's vision  a world in which people benefit from equitable access to knowledge, resources and opportunities so that they can achieve their full potential  reflects Ares' core values and staunch commitment to philanthropy.

About WABE

WABE is Atlanta's original, independent, non-profit source for news and local stories and the choice for NPR and PBS. Our stations deliver fact-based journalism and inclusive, engaging, cultural content that informs, inspires, reflects, and empowers the millions who call the Greater Atlanta area home. Go to www.wabe.org for additional information.

SOURCE WorkingNation
The Distribution of Headsets Will Span Across 30 Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Assisted Living and Mental Health Centers Throughout Israel

BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- XRHealth, the leading healthcare platform in Spatial computing, announces today that they are currently deploying hundreds of VR headsets in Israel to treat patients coping with anxiety, stress, and PTSD as a result of the recent Hamas attacks. The distribution of the headsets will span across 30 hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and mental health centers throughout Israel (including three Clalit hospitals).

Just 48-hours after the attacks, XRHealth mobilized to deliver the headsets to Israel to assist with the treatment and recovery of patients. XRHealth provides VR/AR therapy to patients suffering from both mental and physical conditions and can treat patients from the comfort of their home or at a healthcare facility.

The headsets in Israel will feature, XRHealth's Patient Xperience software, that aims to alleviate the burden on clinicians by providing patients with a user-friendly interface, eliminating the need for the provider's constant attention. Patient Xperience enables patients to engage in meditation, self-relaxation, stress, and anxiety relief in fifty-three different environments.

"As soon as we heard about the attacks in Israel, we wanted to make sure that as a company we were positioned to help assist the survivors of the Hamas attacks and the people of Israel through the recovery process," says Eran Orr, CEO of XRHealth. "Currently we are deploying hundreds of headsets; however, it is clear to us that the need for mental health interventions combined with the shortage of mental health clinicians in the current situation requires even more. Our goal is to deploy 10,000 VR headsets since we believe that VR can be a solution for patient mental health recovery while a provider assists them. We are actively looking for donations to support the deployment of the project in Israel."

Anyone interested in donating headsets to Israel, please contact XRHealth at [email protected].

About XRHealth

XRHealth is revolutionizing healthcare utilizing spatial computing. The company operates state-of-the-art therapeutic care Virtual Rooms, utilizing proprietary FDA and CE registered medical Extended Reality (XR) technology (virtual and augmented reality). XRHealth integrates immersive XR technology, licensed clinicians, and advanced data analytics on one platform, providing a comprehensive therapeutic care solution for patients to receive treatment from the comfort of their home. The company offers a variety of patent-pending solutions from rehabilitation services to cognitive assessment and training to pain management. XRHealth works with several world-renowned U.S. healthcare providers, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers. Founded in 2016, XRHealth is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and its R&D center is located in Tel-Aviv, Israel. For more information, visit https://www.xr.health/.

CONTACT:

DeeDee Rudenstein,

[email protected],

(267) 521-9654

SOURCE XRHealth
Will be honored at upcoming annual Summit in Healdsburg, California

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Zum today announced Ritu Narayan, Founder and CEO of Zum, has been recognized by Goldman Sachs as one of the Most Exceptional Entrepreneurs of 2023. Narayan will be honored at the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit Oct. 18-20, 2023, in Healdsburg, California.

Zum Founder and CEO Ritu Narayan at the Zum bus yard in San Francisco that services San Francisco Unified School District.

When Narayan was school-aged, her mom left the workforce to ensure her kids could get to and from school safely and reliably. Not wanting to repeat the cycle with her kids, and wanting to ensure millions of working families didn't have to choose between work and getting their kids to and from school safely, she founded Zum in 2015 to fix student transportation. An accomplished entrepreneur with 20 years of experience as a tech industry leader, Narayan has been recognized for her pioneering efforts across technology, transportation, education, sustainability and social justice and serves as a mentor to the next generation of entrepreneurs.

"For more than a decade, the Builders and Innovators Summit has brought together a diverse and talented group of entrepreneurs who are making a mark on various industries through innovation," Narayan said. "I am honored to be recognized for transforming the nation's largest mass transit system, making school bus transportation to and from school safe, reliable, tech-enabled, and sustainable for families, drivers and school districts across the U.S."

"We're delighted to recognize Ritu Narayan as one of the most exceptional entrepreneurs of 2023," said David Solomon, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. "Like everyone in this year's class, Ritu has been a visionary in her field, pushing forward innovation and redefining markets. We are excited to harness Goldman's convening power to bring together these dynamic leaders and hear their insights."

Zum has revolutionized the school transportation system  the nation's largest mass transit system  enabling students to get to and from school safely, reliably, and sustainably. Its technology provides real-time transparency to parents, drivers, and administrators; optimized routes reduce commute times; and a transition from diesel to EV bus fleets improves the health of children, drivers and communities, while delivering energy back to the grid.

Zum currently serves thousands of schools and school districts in the U.S., including Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest school district; San Francisco; Oakland; Seattle; Spokane; San Bernardino; Howard County; and Nashville.

To learn more about how Zum is working with thousands of schools across the nation to modernize student transportation, please visit Zum's website .

About Ritu Narayan

Zum Founder and CEO Ritu Narayan has raised $200M+ from Sequoia and Softbank to modernize student transportation. An accomplished entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience as a tech industry leader, Narayan has been named one of Inc.'s Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs, recognized as one of Entrepreneur's 100 Women of Influence, and received the 2023 Power of Women Award from Global Silicon Valley and Arizona State University. Prior to Zum, Narayan led teams at Oracle, Yahoo, and eBay. A Sloan Fellow and graduate of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Narayan earned her undergraduate degree in computer science at the Delhi Institute of Technology. She lives in San Carlos, California, with her husband and two children.

About Zum

Zum has reimagined student transportation, the nation's largest mass transit system. Our robust operations and integrated end-to-end cloud-based platform provides a modern student transportation service for school districts purpose-built around the needs of kids and the needs of their families. Zum provides a seamless, real-time interface for parents, drivers, schools, districts, administrators and operators to transport children safely and with increased visibility and personalized care. Always investing in the wellbeing of the communities, Zum is also the only carbon neutral student transportation provider in the nation with plans to go Net Zero with its EV transition. Learn more at www.ridezum.com .

About Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs is a leading global financial institution that delivers a broad range of financial services to a large and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world.

CONTACT:

press@ridezum.com

SOURCE Zum
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. A recent contract between Uzbekistan Railways and Skoda Group allows for charting a course towards the strategic market of Central Asian and Caucasian countries, a source at Skoda Group told Trend.

"The achievement of signing this contract confirms our commitment to meeting customer expectations in Uzbekistan. We extend our gratitude to our valued client, Uzbekistan Railways, and the competent authorities of the Republic of Uzbekistan for entrusting us with this important project," the source said.

The company stressed that this project opens endless opportunities for Skoda to enter the automotive markets of Central Asian and Caucasian countries.

"Our foray into this region promises to modernize public transportation, and we are confident that our dedication to passenger satisfaction will unlock new opportunities in the region. The cities in this dynamically developing region are not only seeking passenger trains but also other green modes of transportation, including metro systems, trams, and trolleybuses, and we will aim to deliver our vehicles across all these domains, maintaining the highest standards in quality and innovation," the company representative stated.

A Skoda representative also noted that the company aims to localize a part of the production, as a portion of vehicle assembly will take place directly in Uzbekistan.

"The localization of a significant portion of the train manufacturing process means involving the expertise and craftsmanship of local specialists, which will allow for the creation of new jobs in the country," the source concluded.

Meanwhile, Uzbekistan Railways and the Czech Skoda Group automobile company signed a contract for the supply of 30 electric trains worth 320 million euros earlier this month.

The production of four-car trains for the broad-gauge railway will begin in 2024. The cars will be partially low-floor and equipped with Wi-Fi, as well as with indoor and outdoor video surveillance systems.

Moreover, a number of documents, including a Memorandum of Understanding between the chambers of commerce of the nations, were signed within the framework of the Czech-Uzbek business forum on October 11 in the Czech Republics Prague.

The signed document is aimed at developing and strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation between the countries.
Q3 data reveals China's economic recovery gathering steam

Xinhua) 08:31, October 19, 2023

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese economy has sustained its recovery momentum with solid progress made in high-quality development in both the third quarter (Q3) and the first three quarters of this year, official data showed Wednesday.

China's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 4.9 percent year on year in Q3, and went up 1.3 percent over Q2. It grew 5.2 percent year on year in the first three quarters of 2023, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

An array of other data released Wednesday underscored the gathering of steam by the world's second-largest economy, despite lingering global and domestic headwinds, consolidating the country's confidence in being able to meet its annual GDP growth target of around 5 percent.

Consumption, a mainstay of the Chinese economy, has seen a steady expansion with an 83.2-percent contribution to GDP growth in the first three quarters of this year.

The country's retail sales of consumer goods climbed 6.8 percent year on year during the period. This indicator also recorded growth in September with a 0.9-percentage-point rise compared to August, marking the second consecutive monthly increase.

Specifically, the service sector has played a key role in boosting consumption thanks to growing contact-and-gathering-based activities after China downgraded its management of COVID-19 in January this year.

This aerial photo taken on Oct. 3, 2023 shows people visiting the Huangguoshu Waterfall in Anshun City of southwest China's Guizhou Province. (Photo by Chen Xi/Xinhua)

In the first three quarters, per capita consumption expenditure on services accounted for 46.1 percent of total per capita spending of residents, a marked year-on-year increase of 2 percentage points. A travel boom during the just-concluded Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday period further pointed to Chinese consumers' growing willingness to spend.

China's fixed-asset investment went up 3.1 percent year on year in the first nine months of this year, and rose 0.15 percent month on month in September. Investment in high-tech industries stayed robust with 11.4-percent year-on-year growth during the first three quarters.

China's property sector, considered a major economic drag, is also showing signs of recovery following a slew of supportive policies.

High-frequency data indicated a rebound in house transactions in major cities, and September credit statistics showed a month-on-month addition of over 100 billion yuan (about 13.69 billion U.S. dollars) in real estate development loans and individual mortgages.

Recently many international financial institutions, including J.P. Morgan, Citibank and ANZ Bank, have lifted China's full-year GDP growth forecast due to the growing body of optimistic data.

People visit the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 4, 2023. (Xinhua/Wu Wei)

The Trade and Development Report 2023 released by the UN Conference on Trade and Development earlier this month noted that China's economy has picked up this year and will grow more than 10 times faster than the eurozone, remaining a major contributor to global economic growth.

"We are very confident about achieving the annual economic growth target," NBS deputy head Sheng Laiyun said at Wednesday's press conference, citing the economy's recovery momentum, gradual effects of pro-growth policies and the relatively low comparison base of the last Q4.

"Economic operation has its inertia, and Q4 is expected to maintain the steady recovery trend," Sheng added.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, October 19. Iran plans to cancel the visa regime for citizens of Uzbekistan, as well as to strengthen tourism ties between the two countries, Trend reports.

The remark was made during a meeting between Uzbekistans Minister of Ecology, Environmental Protection and Climate Change Aziz Abdukhakimov and Iranian Minister of Tourism, Cultural Heritage and Crafts Ezzatollah Zarghami in Samarkand.

The Iranian minister stressed the importance of developing tourism between the countries, noting that today Iran is set to introduce a visa-free regime with Uzbekistan.

Zarghami said Iran is now considering a policy of easing visa barriers to allow for cancellation visa requirements for passport holders from 60 countries of the world.

We support the arrival of Uzbek tourists to Iran, and we believe that Iranian tourists planning a trip abroad should give priority to Uzbekistan," he said.

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi signed an agreement on the simplification of visa procedures for tourists, business and representatives and scholars in September 2022.
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Jerusalem, Oct 19 : Israel's wartime cabinet has decided that it will allow passage of basic humanitarian aid from Egypt to the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister's Office announced on Wednesday in a statement that "Israel will not obstruct humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as they consist of only food, water, and medicine for the civilians located in the southern Gaza Strip".

"Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted," it warned.

The cabinet added that passage of any humanitarian aid from Israel to Gaza would not be allowed, as long as the hostages kidnapped by Hamas were not returned, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the statement, the decision was made in response to a request from US President Joe Biden to provide essential supplies to the embattled Gaza. Biden had arrived in Israel earlier on Wednesday for a brief visit.

In addition, the cabinet said that Israel demands to allow visits by the Red Cross to the hostages.

Israel has cut Gaza's supply of electricity, water and food in the wake of Hamas' surprise attack on Israel on October 7.

Abeer Etefa, World Food Programme (WFP) regional communications lead for the Middle East and North Africa, said on Tuesday that the current stocks of food commodities in Gaza were sufficient for only two weeks, food shops had reserves for nearly five days, and there were difficulties with replenishing those shops from warehouses.

The WFP was hoping to provide lifesaving food supplies to 800,000 people both in Gaza and the West Bank, and $74 million were urgently needed to continue the operation for the next three months.

On Wednesday, Israel announced the prohibition of flying civilian drones and model aircraft throughout the country due to the security situation.

The ban, issued by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) at the Israeli Ministry of Transport and Road Safety, is intended to reduce the danger of drones' misidentifications by Israeli security forces as hostile ones during the escalation, according to the Ministry.
Beirut, Oct 19 : Lebanon's Hezbollah has said it has launched several attacks on Israeli targets with guided missiles.

In a statement, the Shia militant group said on Wednesday that it targeted three Israeli sites with missiles, including a centre for Israeli soldiers and a surveillance and reconnaissance system south of Al-Manara in northern Israel, "causing several casualties."

Hezbollah confirmed the death of one of its members, without revealing more details, Xinhua news agency reported.

In southern Lebanon, medical sources told Xinhua that two Lebanese farmers were injured in the southern village of Aitaroun by Israeli gunfire.

Additionally, the Lebanese military sources said that the Israeli army expanded its artillery shelling in southern Lebanon, resulting in damage to 14 houses in areas around Aitaroun.

Israeli media reported that in response to these attacks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retaliated with artillery fire, but no IDF casualties were reported.

The escalation on the Lebanese-Israeli border began when Hezbollah fired multiple rockets on October 8 toward Israeli military sites in support of a Hamas surprise attack against Israel. In response, the Israeli forces fired heavy artillery, targeting various areas in southeast Lebanon on the same day.

Meanwhile, peacekeepers in the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Wednesday dismissed reports suggesting an evacuation of peacekeepers from the border region.

"The UNIFIL soldiers are still in their position and have no plan to leave," UNIFIL Spokesperson Andrea Tenenti was quoted by Lebanon's National News Agency as saying.
Colombo, Oct 19 : Sri Lankan State Minister of Fisheries, Piyal Nishantha, has announced the development of a specialised investment zone in the island country's northern region, which will be tailored to the fishing industry.

The Minister told the media on Wednesday that this strategic endeavour aims to attract investments related to the fisheries sector, fostering economic growth, and generating substantial employment generation, Xinhua news agency reported.

He said a series of programmes will be held on November 19-21 with a specific focus on the Northern Province, led by the Jaffna district, to coincide with this year's World Fisheries Day.

"Within the Jaffna district, various services provided by agencies affiliated with the Ministry of Fisheries, such as mobile fishing services, issuance of fishing ID cards, registration of fishing boats and resolution of communication issues concerning fishing signals, will be the centre of attention," Nishantha said.

"Solutions will be delivered to these challenges directly within the local communities," he added.

The Minister said that a programme to provide kerosene subsidies for one-day fishing vessels is being implemented for the second time.
Shahjahanpur, Oct 19 : A government engineer and his partner in Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur have been arrested for the murder of a 65-year-old woman, who was found dead in her residence three months ago, the police said.

Rambeti, the victim, had been residing in a servant quarter within the DM compound for the past 12 years, along with her three children: daughters Pushpa and Rinki, as well as her son Mukesh Lal. They all worked as house helps in the homes of local officials in the vicinity.

On July 27, Rambeti's blood-stained body was discovered inside her house.

After the initial investigation, police did not find any evidence so the crime branch team was deployed. A complaint had been lodged against PWD assistant engineer Rakesh Kumar by his wife, alleging an extramarital affair between him and their maid, Pushpa.

Subsequently, the crime branch collaborated with a surveillance team and ascertained that Pushpa was present in the house at the time of the murder. She was then detained as a suspect and during questioning, she confessed to the crime.

Additional Superintendent of Police, Sudhir Jaiswal, said, "Pushpa was employed as a maidservant in the house of engineer Rakesh Kumar, who lived alone. His wife and seven-year-old son were living in their native village in Bulandshahr. We have gathered evidence against both accused parties and have booked them under IPC section 302 (murder). They have been arrested."
Cairo, Oct 19 : Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, agreed on the delivery of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing "in a sustainable manner," the Egyptian presidency said on Thursday in a statement.

In a phone conversation, Biden appreciated Egypt's efforts toward achieving peace and stability in the region, the statement added.

Relevant authorities in the two countries will coordinate with international humanitarian organisations under the supervision of the UN to secure the arrival of aid, it said.

The talks came hours after Biden wrapped up a visit to Tel Aviv, Xinhua news agency reported.

Earlier on Wednesday, Sisi expressed Egypt's firm support for the Palestinian people and its strong rejection of any attempt to relocate them to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

On Wednesday, Israel's wartime cabinet decided to allow basic humanitarian aid from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, a development that Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry described as "positive".

Over the last few days, tons of humanitarian aid supplies from Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Turkey and the WHO have been waiting near the Rafah crossing to be delivered to Gaza but blocked by Israeli bombardments.

On October 7, Hamas showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of clean water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities cut off.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides.
Lucknow, Oct 19 : In a shocking case of road rage, an Additional District Judge (ADJ) was dragged out of his car and assaulted him in full public view on the busy Jopling Road in Lucknow.

The incident occurred on Tuesday evening when the car of the accused grazed past the four-wheeler of ADJ Ashutosh Kumar Singh.

The police registered a case against the unidentified person on a complaint filed by the judge on Wednesday evening.

The accused, who fled in his car after attacking the judge, is yet to be identified.

Singh is special judge, POCSO, in Lucknow court.

DCP (central) Aprna Rajat Kaushik said the police are scanning the CCTV footage from the crime scene to trace the accused.

In his complaint, the ADJ said he was driving his car and his court orderly was also in the vehicle.

aI was driving past the Jopling Road around 7.40 p.m. when a car hit my vehicle on the front left door. The car came to a screeching halt a few metres ahead and a man in his late 20s stepped out of it. He came to me, caught me by my collar, hurled abuses and dragged me out of my car. He pushed me down and tried choking my throat. My orderly Gaurav intervened and saved me from him. He then got back in his car and sped away."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Iran blames Armenia for contaminating the Araz river (running along Turkiye, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran) for a long time, said Isa Bozorgzadeh, an official of Iran's Water Resources Management Company, Trend reports.

The official stressed that Iran had warned Armenia and the copper mine operator before.

He also said that Irans pressure made them build dams to store the mining waste. But the high energy costs in Armenia made the contractor break the law and dump the waste into the rivers.

Bozorgzadeh said that keeping the water quality in any part of the country and not letting waste go into rivers was a very important rule of the Ministry of Energy of Iran. So they always check everywhere in the country.

The Okchuchay and Kharchevan rivers that go through Armenias land join the Araz river. The copper-molybdenum factory and gold mine in Armenia put their waste into these rivers. So the land and water in the area are very dirty and unsafe. The Araz river is a river that crosses many countries, so it is also hurting the environment in Iran and Azerbaijan.

The pollution of the Araz river by Armenia has been a long-standing issue that has attracted international attention and intervention. The European Union, which is a signatory to the Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context, sent an observer mission to monitor the situation in Arazdayan, where a large metallurgical plant was being built by Armenia and the US near the border with Azerbaijan. The plant was expected to produce 180,000 tons of copper and molybdenum products per year, but it also posed a serious threat to the environment and health of millions of people in the region.

The EU mission reported that it saw the dismantling of the plant and its relocation to a new site after Azerbaijan and Iran protested against the project and demanded that Armenia comply with the Espoo Convention. However, this report was later deleted from the missions Twitter account and replaced by a vague statement about patrolling the area. This raised doubts about the credibility and impartiality of the EU mission and suggested that it was under pressure from Armenia to change its report and downplay the issue.

---

Follow the author on X (Twitter):@BaghishovElnur
Lucknow, Oct 19 : The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested a couple for their alleged links in Naxal activities.

According to an official release, the couple was interrogated four years ago in 2019 on the suspicion of having Naxal links, but they were not arrested due to lack of evidence.

The ATS had sent electronic devices seized from their possession to a laboratory for examination.

After obtaining the FSL report on Wednesday, the ATS arrested Brijesh Kushwaha (43), a native of Deoria in Uttar Pradesh, and his wife Prabha (38), originally from Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

In July 2019, the ATS had conducted raids in Bhopal, Kanpur, Deoria and Kushinagar after lodging an FIR against eight persons on charges of waging or attempting to wage war against the government of India.

During the raids, ATS seized electronic devices and documents and arrested Manish Srivastava and Amit Srivastava.

"However, no evidence was found against the other five accused, including Brijesh and Prabha. Electronic devices seized from them during the raids were sent to the laboratory for examination and to collect data. This month, the report on electronic devices was received from the laboratory.

"Several letters allegedly belonging to different comrades attached to CPI (Maoist) were recovered from the electronic devices of Brijesh and Prabha. In the recovered letters, 'anti-national activities' were found to be mentioned," said an officer.

The ATS also claimed to have recovered letters and literature linked to the banned People's Liberation Guerilla Army (PLA), a Maoist outfit, from the electronic devices.

Brijesh, a postgraduate, came in contact with Prabha while doing a job in Chhattisgarh and they got married in 2010.
Trooper shoots himself dead in J&K after wife commits suicide in Rajasthan. Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar, Oct 19 : A Border Security Force (BSF) trooper shot himself dead in J&K's Kupwara district after learning that his wife had committed suicide back home in Rajasthan.

Officials said that head constable, Rajendra Yadav of BSF was posted in Kupwara district of the Valley. When he learnt that his wife, Anshu Yadav had hanged herself from a fan in her house in Dheerpur village of Rajasthan on Tuesday, the BSF trooper shot himself dead with his service revolver.

Officials added that the couple had fought on the phone before the wife took the extreme step. They had been married eight months back.

"The body of the BSF trooper will reach his home on Thursday", officials said.
Seoul, Oct 19 : Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his ongoing visit to Pyongyang will mark an opportunity for "substantial results" for implementing agreements reached between their leaders, the North Korean state media said on Thursday.

Lavrov arrived at in Pyongyang on Wednesday at the invitation of North Korea's Foreign Ministry "amid the enthusiasm of friendship growing higher than ever", the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a report.

The visit is a follow-up to the rare September 13 summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as the two countries move to strengthen military ties amid speculation over their suspected arms deal, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Speaking at a reception on Wednesday evening, Lavrov said his visit would serve as a "significant occasion of bringing substantial results" for the implementation of the agreement made at the recent summit, according to the KCNA.

He added that Russia "fully supports" all of North Korea's policies adopted to defend its national interests, calling North Korea a genuine independent state "unfazed by any pressure of the US and the West".

Lavrov also thanked Pyongyang for supporting its "special military operation" in Ukraine.

Russia calls its ongoing invasion of Ukraine "special military operation".

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui expressed expectation that the "comprehensive and constructive relations" between the two countries would be expanded on a higher level during Lavrov's visit.

Lavrov and Choe are expected to discuss ways to bolster bilateral cooperation, including preparations for Putin's possible reciprocal visit to Pyongyang.
Lucknow, Oct 19 : A Class 10 pass out posing as a techie employed in an MNC used to make friends with schoolgirls on social networking sites only to exploit them later, said police on Thursday.

He has landed in the police net after he allegedly kidnapped a minor girl.

Police said Akash Gupta, 21, was traced and arrested after the father of a 16-year-old girl lodged a kidnapping case.

A team tracked the social media account of the girl and later based on electronic footprints, rescued her and nabbed the accused.

The accused had met the girl on Instagram by posing as techie and was randomly messaging her. The girl got impressed by his 'credentials' and made friends with him.

But soon after the accused began harassing the girl. He first demanded to meet her and when the girl refused, he began issuing threats of misusing her photos and videos. The victim girl's father warned the accused thrice, but it had no impact on him. On October 17 the girl went to meet him and was missing since then. She was kidnapped and raped by the accused.

SHO, Krishna Nagar, Vikram Singh, said the accused had a small catering business which was mostly run by his father and the accused used to support his father.

"He used to lure young girls and those who got swayed away in his trap were exploited," said Singh. The accused would threaten them by going viral with their photos on social media.

The police official added that the bank account of the accused was being scanned to know whether he had taken money from the victims or not.
20 rescued after giant wheel stops rotating at Navratri fair in Delhi. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Oct 19 : At least 20 people, including four children, were rescued after a giant wheel in Navratri Mela at outer North Delhi stopped working, a fire department official said on Thursday.

Sharing the details, the director of Delhi Fire Service (DFS) Atul Garg said that a rescue call was received at 11:10 p.m. on Wednesday from Subash Ramleela Maidan in Narela that more than 20 people were trapped in a giant wheel.

"Acting on the call, two fire tenders along with the rescue teams were rushed to the site.

"A total of 20 people, including four men, 12 women and four children were safely rescued from the jammed wheel swings," said Garg.

"No casualty was reported. Particulars could not be traced out," Garg added.

However, police were yet to respond to the incident.
New York, Oct 19 : A Sikh teen who was punched multiple times onboard a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bus in New York City said that he was left "angered and shaken by the attack".

The 19-year-old was riding on a shuttle bus on Sunday morning near 118th Street and Liberty Avenue in Richmond Hill when a suspect attacked and attempted to remove his turban.

"I am shaken and angered by this attack. I believe that no one should be assaulted or harassed because of how they look, and everyone should be able to go about their business in public in peace," the teen said in a statement to the US-based Sikh Coalition.

Wishing to remain anonymous, he thanked "everyone from different communities who have spoken out in support of me as well as the authorities who are taking this hate crime seriously."

The Sikh Coalition has since connected with the young man to offer legal aid and other support. It remains in contact with both the teen and the New York Police Department (NYPD) about the ongoing investigation into his attacker.

Releasing a picture, the NYPD described the suspect as "a male, 25-35 years of age, dark complexion, slim build, approximately 5'9 tall, with brown eyes and black hair".

"We don't wear that in this country," the suspect had told the victim, pointing at his turban, following which he punched the young Sikh several times and tried to remove it.

He then got off the bus and fled, the NYPD said, urging the public to help in nabbing the suspect.

"Given that this young Singh's turban was insulted and targeted during the attack, we are heartened that this incident is being investigated as a hate crime," Sikh Coalition Staff Attorney, Amreen Partap Singh Bhasin, said in a statement.

Highlighting the case of six-year-old Palestinian-American boy Wadea Al-Fayoume in Illinois, who was stabbed 26 times recently in the wake of Israel-Palestine tensions, Bhasin stated that national and international events are contributing to a climate of anxiety among our and other communities

"The fact remains that Sikhs remain disproportionately at risk for attacks like this one, as evidenced by the FBI's latest hate crime data released just this week," Bhasin said.

Releasing its annual report of hate crimes statistics in 2022 on Monday, the FBI recorded 198 cases of anti-Sikh hate crime victimisations.

Stating that religiously-motivated hate crime victimisations were at their highest with a 17 per cent increase since 2021, the FBI said that Sikhs still remain the second-most targeted group in the nation.
I-T raids were aimed at damaging my image, says BRS MLA. Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar, Oct 19 : The counter intelligence Kashmir (CIK) wing of J&K CID on Thursday raided multiple places in Kashmir in connection with a terror related crime case.

"A series of coordinated raids were conducted at multiple places as part of an extensive investigation into a terror related crime case.

"CIK assisted by other security agencies, has been actively working to dismantle the terror network and thwart any potential threat to peace and stability in Kashmir.

"CIK's actions highlight the continued dedication of security forces to ensure the safety and security of the residents.

"Further information and updates regarding Thursday's raids will be made available later," sources said.
Biden vows boosters for all, expands war to Omicron, augments plan on schools, biz, winter surge. Image Source: IANS News

Washington, Oct 19 : In an address to the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday, US President Joe Biden is set to make a case for Washington to continue funding wars in both Israel and Ukraine, according to administration officals.

The primetime address will take place the eve of the White House requesting north of $100 billion from Congress to deliver aid and resources to Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and the US border with Mexico, CNN reported.

aHeas going to make the case that the cost of inaction and the cost of walking away is much higher," one of the administration officials said

Public opinion however, has been mixed on the conflicts.

In a recent CNN poll, nearly all respondents were sympathetic with the Israeli people in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks, but there was no clear consensus on the right level of American involvement.

One-third (35 per cent) said the US is providing the right amount of assistance and another 36 per cent were unsure whether the level of American assistance is appropriate.

As part of Washington's security assistance with Israel, th Jewish nation receives roughly $4 billion annually under a 10-year memorandum of understanding.

In contrast, support to sustain aid to Ukraine has waned significantly.

An August CNN poll found 55 per cent of respondents said Congress should not pass more funding to aid Ukraine.

Nearly three-quarters of Republicans opposed more funding for Ukraine, while 62 per cent of Democrats supported it.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the White House and Congress have provided more than $75 billion in funding to Kiev.

The Biden administration in August delivered its last supplemental funding request, which encapsulates unique requests beyond traditional government programs.

The proposal requested $24.1 billion to aid Ukraine through the end of the year, but Congress failed to approve it during a process to greenlight short-term federal funding, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Sky News, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the US could afford financing two wars at once.

aAmerican(s) can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israelas military needs, and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia," Yellen was quoted as saying.
Bhopal, Oct 9 : Amid the mystery over the Congress' shifting of its five-time sitting MLA K.P. Singh from Pichhore Assembly seat to Shivpuri, the party is now under pressure to undo the damage. The Shivpuri seat was to be given to Virendra Raghuvanshi, who recently left the BJP and joined Congress.

Shivpuri seat has come into light after state Minister Yashodhara Raje Scindia announced not to contest the Assembly election due to health reasons. Ever since the political circles have been abuzz with speculation, including that she might have vacated the seat for her nephew and Union Minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia.

Amid the speculation, this Congress' decision to move Singh to Shivpuri has not only annoyed the supporters of Virendra Raghuvanshi, but also the state Congress president, Kamal Nath.

A group of Raghuvanshias supporters staged a protest at Kamal Nathas residence a day after the party announced the names of 144 candidates. In a viral video, Kamal Nath was heard saying that even he was surprised as to why K.P. Singh was shifted to Shivpuri from Picchore.

Following the resentment from the party workers, the Congress leadership has called K.P. Singh and Virendra Raghuvansi for a meeting in Delhi. Sources told IANS that the top leadership of the Congress is likely to send K.P. Singh back to Pichhore and Raghuvansi is likely to be fielded from Shivpuri seat.

Two-time BJP MLA from Kolaras Assembly seat -- Virendra Raghuwanshi joined the Congress recently and he was assured that the party would field him from Shivpuri seat. But, why K.P. Singh, who has won five consecutive Assembly elections from the Pichhore seat, was shifted to Shivpuri remained a mystery.

Decreasing victory margin for the past two-three elections may have forced the party to shift K.P. Singh shifted from Pichhore to Shivpuri. Singh, who had won in 2013 with 7,000 votes, the victory margin decreased to 2,100 in 2018.

A Gwalior-Chambal based politician told IANS that the election commission has found a large number of fake voters in many seats of Gwalior-Chambal region. At least 5,000-7,000 voters were removed from each constituency located in the bordering area of Uttar Pradesh.

In fact, the leader of opposition and Congress MLA from Lahar (Bhind seat) has then written to the Election Commission alleging that votersa were removed on the behest of the BJPas direction.
London, Oct 19 : Amid the escalation of the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will land in Tel Aviv on Thursday, making him the second world leader to visit the war-torn nation after US President Joe Biden.

According to a BBC News report, Sunak will first meet his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after his arrival, after which the British leader will travel to other regional capitals.

Ahead of his trip, Sunak said: "Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas's horrific act of terror."

The BBC also said that the Prime Minister will offer his condolences for the civilians killed in the deadly Hamas attacks, as well as press for humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly will meet leaders in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in the coming days to seek support for a peaceful resolution in Israel and Gaza.

He "will push for an agreement on humanitarian access to Gaza, and the release of British hostages held by Hamas", the BBC report said.

Sunak and Cleverly's trips follow Biden's extraordinary wartime visit to Israel on Wednesday which came a day after the deadly explosion at a Gaza City hospital.

Biden had said the blast appeared to have been caused by a failed rocket launched by Palestinian militants, supporting Israel's account of the incident, the BBC reported.

But Palestinian officials said an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital.

At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Sunak said that British intelligence services were working to establish who was behind the blast, telling MPs not to "rush to judgment".

In a later statement, he said: "The attack on Al-Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict.

"I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. An article has been published in the Russian 'Kommersant' newspaper, which focuses on the deepening crisis in relations between Russia and Armenia, Trend reports.

The article notes that relations between Moscow and Yerevan continue to deteriorate.

"In the absence of direct contacts between the leaders of the two countries, the parties are arguing at a distance. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan criticized the Russian side in the European Parliament. He also slammed the Collective Security Treaty Organization, in a veiled form, Russia, as well as the Russian peacemakers in Karabakh. Moscow called the behavior of the Armenian leader 'irresponsible and provocative'," the article said.

The author of the article emphasized that Russia's relations with this country, which is a member of both the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), are now experiencing perhaps the worst period in the entire existence of independent Armenia.

"The crisis in Russian-Armenian relations is not new. Nikol Pashinyan has been criticizing Moscow and the CSTO quite harshly for a long time. In early September, he called Armenia's dependence on Russia and the organization created on its initiative in terms of security a mistake," the article said.

The author noted that one of the reasons for the deterioration of relations is the ratification and subsequent signing by Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturian of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"Moscow, before Armenia carried out the necessary legislative procedures, indicated that the Rome Statute would spoil bilateral relations. However, Yerevan still signed it. Now Armenia is obliged to comply with the instructions of the ICC, which, issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova. Also, Yerevan is considering shutting down Russian TV channels. In addition, Nikol Pashinyan prefers to travel to the West, rather than to Russia and allied countries. In the West he criticizes Russia," the article said.

The author, regarding Armenia's aspirations to get closer to the West, noted that Armenia and the EU do not have such close relations.

"The parties signed an agreement on a comprehensive and expanded partnership. At the same time, Armenia is in a unique situation. It is a member of the EAEU and the CSTO. However, Nikol Pashinyan insistently demonstrates that he is ready to move to a different level of relations with the EU. At the same time, it is unknown how he intends to deal with the alliances where Armenia is a member together with Russia," the article said.
All emergency cops quit in US city after viral video incident. Image Source: IANS News

New York, Oct 19 : The New York Police Department (NYPD) has enhanced security measures as rallies over the raging conflict between Israel and Hamas continue in the city.

"We are currently in a heightened threat environment and tensions have been rising since ...October 7th," the NYPD said in a statement on Wednesday, referring to the day the Hamas launched its massive surprise assault on Israel.

"The NYPD is doing everything we can do to forestall future violence in our city. However, we know the ongoing events overseas may resonate with individuals domestically and that is hard to anticipate," Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.

"The NYPD asks all New Yorkers to remain vigilant and reminds everyone if they see something to say something. For these reasons, the NYPD is continuing with our Citywide all-out deployment and all in-service training will continue to be postponed until further notice," it added.

A pro-Palestinian rally was held outside the City University of New York Graduate Center in Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon.

The demonstration was met with about 10 counter-protesters who carried Israeli flags.

There was no violence, but many screamed and made verbal provocations.

No arrests have been made.

Several tense protests have been held in New York City since the conflict started.

New York City is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel, with about 2 million Jewish people living in the city and its surrounding areas.
Jerusalem, Oct 19 : As the raging conflict between Israel and the Hamas continued for the 13th day on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said that hundreds of infrastructures linked to the Palestinian militant group have been destroyed since the beginning of the war on October 7.

In a post on X, the IDF said it "continues to attack all the time throughout the Gaza Strip", the BBC reported.

The military also said that it destroyed "anti-tank missile launch sites, tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructures, operational headquarters and other headquarters".

It further alleged that "over ten terrorists were also eliminated".

Regarding the tensions simmering on the Israel-Lebanon border, the IDF said in the last 24 hours, several anti-tank missiles were fired from the neighbouring country.

It said in a separate post on X, it said that "9 launches crossed from Lebanon into Israel" and there were "4 interceptions by the IDF Aerial Defense Array".

"Our forces responded to these hostilities by returning fire to the origin of the strikes; thwarting a terrorist cell using an IDF UAV; (and) striking Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure using tank fire."

Speaking to CNN on Thursday, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus acknowledged that there has been a "significant escalation" by the Hezbollah in its skirmishes with Israel in recent days.

"Hezbollah has fired numerous anti-tank missiles from Lebanon into Israel, targeting both military and civilian positions and inflicting casualties on both groups," Conricus said, adding that the Iran-backed militant group also made attempts to infiltrate Israel, but were thwarted by the IDF.

"What some Hezbollah is doing now is dragging Lebanon into a conflict that it has no business to be in, and it surely won't benefit from," the spokesperson told CNN.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it conducted six attacks on Israeli military posts all along the Lebanese border on Wednesday using guided missiles, machine guns and 57-mm mortars.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The audiences will be in for a visual treat this week, as the streaming platforms are all set to release a bunch of titles ranging from coming of age show to crime thriller which will definitely enthral the viewers.

In this week's OTT spectacle, IANS will steer you through the boundless sea of streaming options.

From Dulquer Salmaan starrer 'King of Kotha', to Gulshan Devaiah and Drashti Dhamias 'Duranga' season 2, here is a list of five titles on various OTT platforms that have caught the attention of IANS this week.

Duranga 2: 'Duranga' is an official adaptation of the Korean show, 'Flower of Evil'. New mysteries brew and come to light as the characters of Gulshan Devaiah and Amit Sadh are engaged in an epic showdown to reclaim their identities in the new season.

The second season of the show will see the return of Gulshan, Drashti Dhami, Amit Sadh, Barkha Sen Gupta, Rajesh Khattar reprising their respective roles.

Spanning across eight episodes, 'Duranga S2' will premiere on October 24 on ZEE5.

Aspirants 2: The super hit streaming show 'Aspirants', which stars Naveen Kasturia, Shivankit Singh Parihar, Abhilash Thapliyal, Sunny Hinduja and Namita Dubey, is returning with its second season. It will follow the journey of its characters -- Abhilash, Guri and Sandeep as they navigate life through love, career, ambition and dreams, only difference: the stakes will be much higher this time around. It showcases the journey of characters who meet during their preparations for UPSC but choose different paths of life as it throws oddballs at them.

Created by The Viral Fever (TVF), the engaging drama is directed by Apoorv Singh Karki. It will drop on Prime Video on October 25.

King of Kotha: Dulquer Salmaan-starrer period gangster action thriller film is directed by Abhilash Joshiy. It was released on August 24 in theatres. It is a story of organised crime, gangster thrills, drama, romance, and revenge.

The story revolves around Kannan, also known as Kannan bhai, who rules the town with his gang and illegal activities. A righteous circle inspector, Shahul Hassan, arrives and confronts Kannan, leading to his humiliation.

Seeking unconventional revenge, Shahul resurrects Raju, a once-notorious criminal who once ruled Kotha alongside Kannan.

Touted as a mammoth release, the movie also stars other notable names like Shabeer Kallarakkal, Prasanna, Gokul Suresh, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Nyla Usha, Chemban Vinod Jose, Shammi Thilakan, Saran, Shanthi Krishna, and Anikha Surendran. It will stream in Hindi on Disney+Hotstar, from October 20.

Werewolf by Night in Color: 'Werewolf by Night' is an American television special directed by Michael Giacchino and written by Heather Quinn and Peter Cameron for the streaming service Disney+, based on the Marvel Comics featuring the character of the same name. It stars Gael Garcia Bernal as Jack Russell, Laura Donnelly as Elsa Bloodstone, and Harriet Sansom Harris as Verussa. It follows a secret group of monster hunters as they compete for a powerful relic while going up against a dangerous monster. It will stream on Disney + from October 20.

Dark Hole: 'Dark Hole' is an enthralling Korean sci-fi action thriller drama that immerses survivors in a life-or-death struggle against mutants created by dark smoke emerging from a sinkhole. Detective Lee Hwa Sun (Kim Ok Bin), tormented by the unsolved murder of her husband, works in the regional investigation unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

Her life takes a dramatic turn when her husband's murderer reaches out to her, leading her to the eerie city of Mujishi. Shrouded in a disconcerting dark fog emanating from a deep sinkhole, the city's residents have undergone grotesque mutations. With the help of Yoo Tae Han (Lee Joon Hyuk), a former detective and native of Mujishi, Hwa Sun must rescue the city, expose her husband's killer, and confront overwhelming odds.

It will stream in Hindi on MX Player from October 25.
Pune, Oct 19 : The Pune Police have swooped on two locations in Nashik and arrested two women associates of the drug don, Lalit Patil who was arrested by Mumbai Police from a place near Chennai, officials said here on Thursday.

The women were nabbed from their homes on the night of Wednesday-Thursday and then brought to Pune, where they will be produced before a Magistrate Court for remand this afternoon.

They are identified as Pragya Kamble and Archana Nikam, and Patil is said to have kept his ill-earned wealth in safe custody with them in cash, silver and gold jewellery.

The Pune Policeas feat came even as it faced flak for the alleged aescapea of Patil from the Sassoon Hospital here on October 2 and was on the run in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for 15 days before landing in the Mumbai Policeas net early on Wednesday.

A police officer told mediapersons that as per the preliminary information, the two Nashik-based women, described as his agirlfriendsa, were in constant touch with Patil during his cross-country drive dodging Mumbai and Pune police teams hot on his pursuit.

While on the run for two weeks, Patil, a widower, spent a day with Archana Nikam, and then took Rs 25 lakh cash from both the women for his on-road expenses.

Later, he zoomed from Pune to Nashik to Dhule to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar via the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway, then entered into Surat in south Gujarat, from there to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

En route, Patil, sent to Mumbai Police custody tillOctober 23, was helped by a network of his narcotics mafia contacts, and the police said they will track and probe them in the case which has triggered a huge political row in the state.
Toronto, Oct 19 : A judge in Canada has dismissed a challenge by a Sikh law student, who had sued the Edmonton city in Alberta and law society in the province over mandatory oath to the monarchy last year.

Prabjot Singh Wirring, an articling student and a baptised Sikh, had said in his lawsuit that swearing a mandatory oath to the monarch would contradict his religious beliefs, according to CBC News.

According to the provincial legislation in Alberta, lawyers are required to swear an oath to "be faithful and bear true allegiance" to the reigning monarch, their heirs and successors.

Wirring said he made an absolute oath and submitted himself to Akal Purakh -- the divine being in the Sikh faith -- and cannot make a similar allegiance to another entity or sovereign.

"For me, it's a fundamental part of who I am as a person. The requirement to take that oath of allegiance would require me to renege on the vows and the oath that I've already made and (do) a lot of damage to who I am as a person and to my identity," Wirring had told CBC News earlier.

The time when Wirring filed a lawsuit, the oath was to Queen Elizabeth II and as such she was referenced throughout the decision, which was heard in Court of Queen's Bench.

At the core of the decision, which was given on Monday, was the nature of the oath -- whether it was to the Queen herself or symbolic of Canada's constitutional monarchy.

In her ruling, Justice Barbara Johnston said: "I have found that the Oath of Allegiance is properly characterised as an oath to uphold and maintain the rule of law and the Canadian constitutional system.

"Any reference to the Queen in the Oath of Allegiance is as a symbol of these values, and not to the Queen as a political or religious entity."

The law society took no position.

It had said in a statement last year that the issue is for the province, because any change must be legislated.

Johnston also dismissed an application from Alberta to strike the case with the argument it had already been resolved.

Thirty-two Alberta law professors sent an open letter last year to the then-justice minister urging to amend legislation and make the oath optional, as is the case in other jurisdictions like Ontario and British Columbia.
Bhupalapally : , Oct 19 (IANS) Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president, A. Revanth Reddy on Thursday promised that if voted to power in next month's Assembly polls, the party will resolve all the problems of employees of the state-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL).

Addressing Singareni workers here, he blamed the state's ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) for their problems.

He alleged that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has forgotten the sacrifices made by Singareni employees for the formation of Telangana state.

Revanth Reddy said the BRS had agreed for the privatisation of Singareni mines by the Centre.

"The BRS supported the mines bill in Parliament," he said, while slamming the state government for continuing one officer as the chairman and Managing Director for a long time.

He also questioned the delay in conducting the elections of Singareni employees' union and promised that the elections will be conducted once the Congress comes to power in Telangana.

He recalled that Singareni employees actively participated in the Telangana movement.

"You had kept aside everything to participate in the movement. If you had not taken part in the mass strike, Telangana state would not have become a reality," he said.

The Congress leader said BRS failed to solve the problems of Singareni employees despite being in power and claiming to be on the side of employees.

Revanth Reddy appealed to Singareni employees to support Congress candidate Gandra Satyanarayana from Bhupalapally constituency.

The TPCC chief was in Bhupalpally as part of Vijayabheri Yatra in which Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is participating.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notices to Delhi Police on the petitions filed by NewsClick founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha and Human Resources head Amit Chakraborty, challenging their police custody in the case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The bench comprising Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice P.K. Mishra heard the pleas and issued notices returnable in three weeks.

The case will be listed for further hearing on October 30.

It is alleged that the news portal received money for running pro-China propaganda.

Last week, the Delhi High Court dismissed pleas by Purkayastha and Chakraborty and upheld the police remand. Both of them have been in Judicial custody since October 10.

On October 3, the Delhi Police arrested the duo after multiple raids, including at NewsClick office, and residences of editors and reporters of the news portal.

Purkayastha reached the apex court on Monday after his petitions were dismissed by the high court. Appearing for the accused, senior advocate Kapil Sibal in a special leave petition submitted before a bench comprising CJI D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra had requested an urgent listing, saying that the editor was 70-year-old.
Ayodhya, Oct 19 : A Naga Sadhu was stabbed to death in an ashram located in the Hanuman Garhi temple complex under the Ram Janmabhoomi police station in Ayodhya district on Thursday.

According to the police, deep marks caused by sharp weapons were visible on his neck, chest and back.

It is also suspected that he was first strangulated with a thin wire and then stabbed with a knife.

A forensic team led by SSP Rajkaran Nair, SP City Madhuban Singh, CO Bikapur Dr Rajesh Tiwari reached the spot and started investigation on getting information about the murder.

The deceased sadhu was identified as Durbal Das (44), a disciple of Ram Sahare Das who was also associated with Basantia Patti.

According to reports, Durbal Das lived in the third room of the innermost part of the ashram.

Two disciples also lived with him.

After the incident, a disciple named Rishabh Shukla was found absconding from the spot while the other Govind Das has been detained by the police.

According to information, Shukla started living with the deceased sadhu 15 days ago and he used to cook food.

At the same time, CCTV was installed in all the rooms but someone had switched it off.

Police have found some footage in which the person who switched off the CCTV has been captured.

The police have taken the footage and hard disk into their custody.

SP Rajkaran Nair said that the body has been sent for post-mortem.

Four teams have been deployed to solve the case.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The Income Tax Department conducted search at premises, plants related to textile company Trident Limited which commenced on October 17.

There is no other information available with the company at this point of time, the company said in a filing.

Trident said it has been consistently complying with the provisions of the SEBI (LODR) Regulations, 2015 and making requisite disclosures in a timely manner and will continue to do so in accordance with the applicable regulations.

"The entire IT assets of all the senior officials including the undersigned are under the control of Income Tax Department since yesterday for scrutiny, and we are immediately filing this disclosure upon obtaining the necessary approvals from the Income Tax Department officials to access the IT asset of the undersigned for the said filing. Hence it may be please taken note that the delay in filing this disclosure is purely by virtue of the Law. We reiterate that Trident Limited is an ethical and law-abiding Company and it follows the best corporate governance practices. We are extending our full cooperation to the officials of the Income Tax Department in this regard", Trident said.

Once the search by the Income Tax Department concludes, the company will promptly update the Stock Exchanges in case of any material information/ event, it added.

The officials of the company are fully cooperating with the Income Tax Department and are responding to the queries raised by them.

(Sanjeev Sharma can be reached at Sanjeev.s@ians.in)
Tel Aviv, Oct 19 : Amid the escalation in the raging Israel-Hamas conflict, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak landed in Tel Aviv on Thursday, making him the second world leader to visit the war-torn nation after US President Joe Biden.

In a post on X, Sunak said: "I am in Israel, a nation in grief. I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism.Today, and always."

According to a BBC News report, Sunak will first meet his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after his arrival, after which the British leader will travel to other regional capitals.

Ahead of his trip, he had said: "Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas's horrific act of terror."

The BBC also said that the Prime Minister will offer his condolences for the civilians killed in the deadly Hamas attacks, as well as press for humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly will meet leaders in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in the coming days to seek support for a peaceful resolution in Israel and Gaza.

He "will push for an agreement on humanitarian access to Gaza, and the release of British hostages held by Hamas", the BBC report said.

Sunak and Cleverly's trips follow Biden's extraordinary wartime visit to Israel on Wednesday which came a day after the deadly explosion at a Gaza City hospital.

Biden had said the blast appeared to have been caused by a failed rocket launched by Palestinian militants, supporting Israel's account of the incident, the BBC reported.

But Palestinian officials said an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital.

At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Sunak said that British intelligence services were working to establish who was behind the blast, telling MPs not to "rush to judgment".

In a later statement, he said: "The attack on Al-Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict.

"I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has arrived in Israel, Trend reports.

He is scheduled to meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and has plans to visit other regional capital cities.

The prime minister stated before his trip, "Every civilian death is a tragedy, and too many lives have been lost due to Hamas's horrific act of terror".

Meanwhile, his visit follows US President Biden's trip just the day before. Other top US official have also paid visits to Israel, including US State Secretary Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

A combined attack was carried out on Israel on the morning of October 7. From the beginning, a massive rocket attack began from the territory of the Gaza Strip, followed by the penetration of militants by land, water, and air.

The attacks by Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 and injured over 3,300 people.

The IDF declared a state of readiness for war after a massive rocket attack from the Gaza Strip. Moreover, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a mass gathering of reservists. The Israeli Army's operation against Hamas goes by the codename "Swords of Iron".
Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 19 : The Kerala government's GST department on Thursday refused to answer an RTI query whether IT firm Exalogic -- owned by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan -- has paid GST on a payment received for rendering services to a Kochi-based mining company.

For the past few months, the issue has been raging both inside and outside the Assembly after a media report, quoting an Income Tax department official, claimed that Veenaas firm had received Rs 1.72 crore from CMRL - a mining company.

Trouble started for Vijayan when the issue was taken up by first-time Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnaden.

He questioned if Veena Vijayan had received the money as alms as neither she nor her company did any work for CMRL at all. The Congress leader further pointed out that it's not just from one company but her firm had collected money from other firms as well.

Kuzhalnaden then handed over a letter to State Finance Minister K.N.Balagopal regarding this and asked him to take a look into the GST payments made by her IT firm.

Based on this letter, an RTI query was raised to which the answer was denied terming it "personal" details.

Kuzhalanaden reacted by terming the denial "strange" and "totally" wrong.

"After this issue surfaced, all the departments have only one agenda and that's to cover up the 'wrong doings' of a particular family. But this will not continue for long as soon the skeletons will tumble out of the cupboard," said Kuzhalnaden.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The Union Coal Ministry has achieved a record transportation of 500 million tonnes during the first half of the current fiscal.

Out of this, 400 million tonnes have been dispatched for the power sector, while the overall coal dispatch is likely to touch 1 billion tonnes this fiscal, according to official sources.

It is to be noted that out of 500 million tonnes of coal dispatch, 416.57 million tonnes dispatch was for the power sector and 84.77 million tonnes was for the non-regulatory sector.

The growth of coal transport to power sector year to year is 7.27 per cent and growth to non-regulated sector year to year is 38.02 per cent.

Last year as on March 31, 2023, 893.19 million tonnes of coal was despatched Coal India Ltd (CIL), Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) and captive and commercial mines all have contributed to this historical achievement of the coal ministry, the sources added.
Panaji, Oct 18 : Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday urged the teaching fraternity to make students capable of facing challenges by guiding them towards their successful careers.

Sawant made the remarks after inaugurating 'Vidya Samiksha Kendra' (VSK), wherein he said that Goa is second state after Gujarat to establish this centre.

"We need to make students capable of facing challenges. Politicians can't do it. Who can do it ? Those who are working in this field. Implementation of policies and monitoring can be done by you (teaching fraternity and officers)," he said.

He emphasised the pivotal role teacher's play in shaping the young generation and guiding the students towards their successful careers.

"Revolution in the education field will take place with the launching of this Kendra. Many had questions in their mind about this Kendra when I announced it in the budget session. They thought it would be just an announcement and nothing would come in reality. It is the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring changes, innovation and technology in the education field, through which progress can be achieved," he said.

He said that the 'Control and Command' center of VSK will monitor students, teachers and schools.

"Now 'monitor mechanism' has been established. Students across the state will be monitored. This centre will give inputs for the improvement of teachers and students," he said, adding that continuing learning for teachers is also very important, so they can teach well.

Sawant said that remedial classes for students are also important so they can benefit from it.

"Since last four years, changes have been brought in the education system," he said.

According to him, by introducing this concept of Vidya Samiksha Kendra government can monitor students and teachers from one centre.

"We can track how students study and how teachers teach in the class," Sawant said, adding that even monthly report cards can be provided for any class.
Bhupalpally : , Oct 19 (IANS) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday promised that once voted to power in Telangana, the party will undertake a caste census in the state.

Addressing corner meetings during Vijayabheri Yatra in Bhupalpally district on Thursday, he described caste census as the biggest issue in the country and questioned the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on the issue.

Rahul Gandhi, who was campaigning in Telangana for the second day, said the caste census will be like an X-ray which will determine if the population of backward classes is only five per cent in the country. "OBCs have control of only five per cent of India's budget. I want to ask if the OBC population in the country is only five per cent," he asked.

The Congress leader said the party has already ordered caste census in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Karnataka. "If our party comes to power in Telangana, the first thing we will do here will be Telangana's X-ray," he said and promised that Congress will provide a government of the poor, farmers and workers.

Rahul Gandhi said that the 'X-ray' will also reveal how much money of people of Telangana was looted by the family of the Chief Minister.

The Congress MP alleged that there is rule of only one family in Telangana. He also stated that Telangana has the highest corruption among all states in the country. He remarked that the Telangana model of corruption is being exported to other states.

He said during the movement for Telangana state people had hoped that the new state would usher in people's rule but after formation of the state Chief Minister distanced himself from people. "You had the dream of people's rule but you found one family ruling you," he said.

He said if CM KCR was really fighting against the BJP, why there was no inquiry by CBI, ED or any other central agency against him.

"BJP intimidates opposition with cases. Since I fight the BJP, they booked 24 cases against me. They cancelled my Lok Sabha membership and snatched my house. It makes no difference to me. My fight is an ideological fight against the BJP and the RSS," he said.

Stating that the next month's assembly election is a fight between 'raja' and 'praja', he predicted that BRS will be defeated in the next month's elections.

He reiterated that BRS, BJP and AIMIM are together. He alleged that BRS extended support to the BJP in Parliament on all issues.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The Supreme Court extended former Delhi Minister Satyendra Jain's bail in an alleged money laundering case till November 6.

In its October 10 order, the apex court extended the interim bail granted to Jain till the next hearing on November 6. In May, Jain was granted interim bail on medical grounds for six weeks but with various conditions, including a bar on talking with the media and leaving Delhi without permission.

"List the matter on 06th November, 2023 at 03:00 p.m before the Bench comprising Honable Mr. Justice A.S. Bopanna and Honable Ms. Justice Bela M. Trivedi. In the meanwhile, the interim bail, granted earlier, is extended till the next date of hearing i.e. 06th November, 2023."

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had submitted before the court that Jain can be treated in custody as well.

Earlier, the apex court had extended bail granted to Jain on medical grounds till October 8. Jain had undergone surgery on July 21.

The AAP leader had moved the top court seeking bail in money laundering cases by the ED, challenging the Delhi High Court order dismissing his bail plea.

InApril, the Delhi High Court dismissed the bail plea of Jain stating that the applicant is an influential person and can tamper with evidence.
Lucknow, Oct 19 : The Uttar Pradesh government will establish 'Digital Doctor Clinics' in rural regions to improve healthcare services in rural and remote areas of the state.

These 'Digital Doctor Clinics' will function like primary health centres, where not only consultation of doctors will be available through online video conferences, but also medications along with laboratory facilities.

Currently, this Digital Doctor Clinic is part of a pilot project and will be opened soon in a total of 20 centres in Lucknow and Bulandshahr. After this, it will be expanded across the entire state.

According to the government spokesman, the state government is undertaking this initiative through private investments. The government aims to improve healthcare in remote rural areas so that people can receive medical advice, medications, and pathology testing at concessional rates for serious illnesses.

The Yogi government has signed an MoU of Rs 350 crore with Obdu Group for this project. The Obdu Group will establish this project even before the Ground Breaking Ceremony.

According to the founder and CEO of the Obdu Group, Sanjai Kumar, five doctors have been hired for this, while 10 other doctors are being lined up.

The CEO also mentioned that they are in talks with some other investors regarding the startup, and their goal is to scale this MoU up to a size of Rs 1,000 crore.

A Digital Doctor Clinic is a primary health centre that combines both telemedicine branches (consultation centre and specialty centre).

It is designed to improve rural healthcare by providing not only online video conferencing but also a qualified health care assistant who will take care of the patient and facilitate communication between the doctor and the patient.

Using blockchain and artificial intelligence technology, the best MBBS doctors will reach patients in villages and remote rural areas through technology, and will provide the right treatment and necessary medicines.

During treatment in Digital Doctor Clinic, all types of medicines will be made available to the patients at very low rates inside the clinic itself.

Additionally, blood test will be done in just 3 to 5 minutes on consultation by doctors costing only Rs 30 to 40. This test includes various fever profiles like malaria, dengue, chikungunya, liver function, jaundice, sugar, and more.

Furthermore, keeping the income of people in rural and remote areas in mind, selected Digital Doctor Clinics will also offer ultrasound services, which will cost between Rs 200 to 300.

Each Digital Doctor Clinic will have a health care assistant who will help patients log in to the digital doctor clinic using their mobile phones. After that, based on the patient's illness, they will connect the patient to the best MBBS doctor through an online video conference.

Necessary tests will also be conducted in 3 to 5 minutes as per the consultation and the results will be shared with the doctors using AI. This will help the doctors accurately diagnose the patient's illness and suggest the necessary medications.
Tel Aviv, Oct 19 : Visiting British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday reiterated that the UK stands with Israel and condemed the unprecedented October 7 Hamas attack on the Jewish nation as an "unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism".

Sunak made the remarks while addressing reporters outside the airport in Tel Aviv. He is the third world leader to visit the war-torn nation after US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday made day-long trips on Tuesday.

"I'm very much looking forward to my meetings later with the Prime Mnister and President and I very much hope they'll be productive meetings," the BBC quoted Sunak as saying.

Shortly after his arrival, he said in a post on X: "I am in Israel, a nation in grief. I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism.Today, and always."

In a separate post, Sunak added: "To have a child taken from you is a parentas worst nightmare.This morning I heard from families going through this unbearable agony.

"Working with our partners, weare determined to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists."

According to the Israeli military, the Hamas has taken some 203 people as hostages since the conflict erupted.

Sunak will meet his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and President Issac Herzog in Jerusalem later in the afternoon.

A BBC report also said that he will offer his condolences for the civilians killed in the deadly Hamas attacks, as well as press for humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza as soon as possible.

Sunak's trip comes two days after the deadly bombing of the Al Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, which killed hundreds of people, including children and healthcare workers.

After his visit was announced on Wednesday night, the Prime Minister had said that "every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas's horrific act of terror".

"The attack on Al Ahli hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict. I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort," he added.
Bengaluru, Oct 19 : The Karnataka High Court's dismissal of DyCM D.K. Shivakumar's petition seeking quashing of CBI proceedings against him in the disproportionate assets case on Thursday, has created a stir in the state politics.

While the opposition BJP has welcomed the decision, JD(S) maintained that there is no connection with its earlier statement of Shivakumar going back to prison and the present court order.

Former DyCM K.S. Eshwarappa of the BJP stated in Shivamogga on Thursday proclaimed that he will give it in writing that Shivakumar will land up in prison once again.

"Shivakumar has come out on bail after imprisonment in this matter. The CBI is probing the disproportionate assets case against him. He will land up in prison again. I can give it in writing," Eshwarappa stated.

"Shivakumar is carrying out politics of obstinacy. In the raids, Rs 100 crore illegal money has been found. Is it wrong for the BJP to ask for a probe? We have yet not declared that you (Shivakumar) are a thief," he stated.

BJP MLA Mahesh Tenginakayi stated that he welcomed the order of the High Court. Let the CBI begin the probe and prove charges against Shivakumar. The truth will always win. If Shivalkumar had done wrong he would face consequences, he said.

A large amount of money was recovered from Shivakumar and the allegation was big. Let the CBI take the case to a logical end, he stated.

Former CM H.D. Kumaraswamy maintained that there is no connection with his statement of Shivakumar landing up in the Tihar jail and the courtas verdict.

"Shivakumar had stated that he will compel us to move away from Ramanagara to native Hassan district. I had stated that we will go back to Hassan and he will go to Tihar jail. The court had given the order on the report by the CBI. The court had also given a three month's deadline. Let's see what happens," he stated.

Former BJP national general secretary C.T. Ravi quoted a proverb in Kannada that one who makes a mistake will eventually have to face consequences.

"The one who is guilty should be punished. The honest must not be troubled. The scam has to come out one or the other day. The proverbs are not formed just like that from ages. No one is above the law. Myself, the CM, DyCM, PM no one gets preferred treatment before the law. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar had stated that all are equal before the law. In our country, the attitude of doing anything and getting away will not work," he stated.

In a setback to the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka D.K. Shivakumar, who is also State President of Congress party, the High Court had rejected his petition seeking quashing of the CBI proceedings against him.

The court had also lifted the stay order issued on the CBI probe against him.

A bench headed by Justice K. Natarajan had directed the CBI to complete the probe in three months.

The development is considered as a serious setback to DyCM Shivakumar who has been aggressively taking on the opposition parties BJP and JD (S) in the state. The CBI had filed a criminal case under the Sections of 13 (2) and 13 (1)E of the Prevention of Corruption Act alleging that Shivakumar had amassed assets disproportionate to his income between 2018 and 2023.

Shivakumar had appealed against the case in the High Court.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks during an election rally in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Tiancong/IANS). Image Source: IANS News

Brasilia, Oct 19 : A Brazilian congressional probe has recommended that former President Jair Bolsonaro should be indicted on charges of instigating the riots on January 8 when thousands of his radical supporters stormed key state buildings in the capital city.

"The facts reported here exhaustively demonstrate that Jair Messias Bolsonaro, then occupying the position of president of the republic, was the intellectual and moral author of the attacks perpetrated against the institutions that culminated on January 8, 2023," the probe report said.

The 1,300-page report, approved by a vote of 20 to 11, will be sent to the Public Prosecutor's Office for consideration, reports Xinhua news agency.

Bolsonaro stands accused of conspiracy to commit a crime; attempting to violently abolish the democratic rule of law; attempting to overthrow a legitimately constituted government, and attempting to prevent the free exercise of political rights.

Another 60 people have been accused of crimes in the report, including eight army generals.

On January 8, Bolsonaro supporters -- wearing shirts in the colours of Brazil's flag yellow and green -- invaded and vandalised Parliament, headquarters of the federal government and the Federal Supreme Court.

The police had to resort to firing tear gas when the demonstrators wrapped in the national flag surrounded the presidential palace.

According to the report, Bolsonaro "fueled violence among the Brazilian population during several events in the run-up to the 2022 elections" and undermined the electoral process.

In June, the former President was barred from running for office for eight years after he was found guilty of abusing power and misusing public media during the 2022 election campaign.

The case stemmed from a meeting Bolsonaro held with foreign ambassadors in July 2022, in which he spread false information about Brazilas electoral system.

The meeting was livestreamed by official television channels and on YouTube.

YouTube took down the livestream of the event for not complying with its fake news policy.

In the October 2022 presidential election, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was banned from standing for office after being convicted in a fraud case, received more than 60 million votes, or 50.89 per cent of the ballots, surpassing Bolsonaro's 58 million votes, or 49.11 per cent.

This was the smallest margin in a runoff election in Brazil's history.
Families seek help after 9 go missing in attempt to enter US illegally, Gujarat HC responds. Image Source: IANS News

Ahmedabad, Oct 19 : Gujarat High Court on Thursday sentenced four police officials to undergo a 14-day jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 each for their involvement in flogging of several Muslim men in Kheda over a year ago.

However, acting on a plea from the defense, the court suspended the execution of the sentence for three months, allowing the convicts time to appeal.

Upon directing a detailed inquiry, the High Court initiated contempt proceedings against four police officials identified as A.V. Parmar, D.B. Kumavat, Laxmansinh Kanaksinh Dabhi, and Rajubhai Dabhi.

The court's final judgment necessitates that the convicted police officials report to the judicial registrar of the Gujarat High Court within a ten-day period following the receipt of the order.

The sentence, as aforementioned, is presently stayed for a period of three months to allow for an appeal.

Justice Supehia, in a parting comment, expressed the court's dismay, noting its reluctance in having to incarcerate law enforcement officers.

A division bench comprising Justices A.S. Supehia and Gita Gopi denounced the act as "inhumane" and a stark violation of human rights.

In their judgment, the justices emphasised on the inherent right to life and dignity, even when one is under arrest.

Drawing upon the words of Mother Teresa, the bench observed that human rights aren't a governmental privilege but an innate human entitlement.

They further opined that the police officers had blatantly disregarded the human rights of the complainants, behaving as though they had a sanctioned prerogative to do so.

They further cautioned that those entrusted with upholding law and order mustn't compromise civil liberties. The case stems from an incident on October 3, 2022, where a sizable crowd allegedly disrupted a religious event at Undhela village.

Subsequent to this, videos emerged showcasing police officers publicly beating several men, an act that drew widespread condemnation.

Five victims, alleging excessive police force and illegal detention, petitioned the Gujarat High Court, referencing a landmark Supreme Court judgment that outlines guidelines for police conduct during arrests and detentions.

They further sought compensation for the infringement of their rights.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : In a fillip to the 'Make in India' initiative, Google on Thursday said it aims to start manufacturing/assembling Pixel smartphones in the country and the first 'India-made' batch will reach the consumers next year, as the tech giant announced several localised AI features to expand digital commerce and access to citizen-centric information services and solutions.

At the flagship 'Google for India 2023' event here, the company said India is a priority market for Pixel smartphones and first of their India-made devices are expected to roll out in 2024.

"When we set out with our hardware business, we committed to building and investing for the long run, and our plan to manufacture in India is an early step in the long journey of expanding our device production capacity and helping meet the country's growing demand for Pixel smartphones," said Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President of Devices & Services.

"We look forward to sharing more details in the coming months, and can't wait to bring the magic of Pixel smartphones to more people across the nation," he added.

The company is partnering with international and domestic manufacturers in India to produce Pixel smartphones locally.

Google has grown its Pixel service network across the nation. In partnership with F1 Info Solutions, the company now has 28 service centres in 27 cities, and will continue to expand coverage to more locations and cities in the months ahead.

The company brought all-new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro smartphones with next-gen AI capabilities, and Pixel Watch 2 in India earlier this month. Late last month, PC and printer major HP announced a collaboration with Google to manufacture its Chromebooks in India.

Sanjay Gupta, Country Head and Vice President, Google India, said the company is joining leading Indian firms across banking and finance, cyber safety organizations, and supporting national efforts like Bhashini and The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).

"We have introduced new visual and local capabilities to our generative AI-powered experience in Search in India," said Gupta.

Google Pay is collaborating with its partners in the financial ecosystem such as banks and NBFCs to create products that are aimed at addressing the credit gap in India.

Just this last year, the value processed through UPI was a staggering Rs 167 lakh crore.

"Google Pay is proud to have played a role in this success, and we remain committed to working with RBI, NPCI, the government and our financial ecosystem partners toward more milestones," the tech giant noted.

Google Cloud also partnered with Axis My India to build an inclusive and multilingual super-app called "a", that aims to grow people's awareness, accessibility, and utilization of government social welfare schemes, basic day-to-day amenities, employment opportunities, and healthcare benefits.

"Axis My India's extensive reach and expertise affords us an unprecedented opportunity to bring information equity between rural and urban India through our platform," said Pradeep Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, Axis My India.

Earlier this year, Google Cloud and ONDC announced the launch of the open-sourced solutions enabling buyers and sellers to onboard seamlessly onto the ONDC Network.

"This partnership is being expanded to enable Farmer Producer Organisations, or FPOs, to sell their produce online, thereby giving farmers greater channels for revenue," Gupta added.

With Google's genAI and cutting-edge tools, "we are poised to provide a boost to India's farmers, enabling them to seamlessly navigate the digital commerce landscape, enhancing their visibility, and accelerating their path to success," added T Koshy, MD and CEO at ONDC.

Google users will also be able to book metro tickets through the Maps app, as a result of its partnership with ONDC.

Google Cloud is also collaborating with Bhashini within the IT Ministry to launch a Center of Excellence on Generative AI and Language Inclusivity.

"As part of this initiative, we aim to equip more than 1 million professionals and students with generative AI knowledge and skills so they can thrive in this new AI era," Gupta informed.

Google has also launched 'DigiKavach' to combat online financial fraud at scale.

"Towards this goal, we are proud to collaborate with The Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) and onboard them as a priority flagger, as part of our consistent efforts to combat predatory digital lending apps on Play Store in India," the company noted.

The company is also making Search Generative Experience more visual and local, by bringing images and videos into many overviews.

In 2022, businesses globally unlocked $17.8 billion in economic activity using Google's AI-powered products and services.
Jerusalem, Oct 19 : The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has notified the families of 203 hostages in Gaza who were taken captive after the October 7 Hamas attack, the military said on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the military could not be certain about the total number of hostages altough it had varying degrees of confidence in its assessment, reports CNN.

"The families of 203 abductees were notified. Of them, some are in high probability and others on medium or low probability," he said, stressing that the number was not final.

Hagari further said that the military had also notified the families of 306 soldiers who have been killed since the massive Hamas assault.

Thursday's announcement came only days after a Hamas official had claimed that there were 200 to 250 Israeli hostages in Gaza.

In a televised address on Monday, Abu Obaida, spokesperson of the Hamas's military wing Al-Qassam Brigades, said while the militant group was holding 200 hostages, "the rest are captured by other resistance factions in the Gaza Strip", reports Xinhua news agency.

He said that they could not determine the exact number of hostages in the besieged enclave due to constant Israeli bombardment.

Obaida had further noted that foreigners were not prisoners in Gaza, and they will be released when "the opportunity arises on the ground".

He asserted that the Al-Qassam is "committed" to protecting them. but warned that any foreign national serving with the Israeli military will be considered a "direct enemy".

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz had announced that two hostages captured by the Hamas were found dead.

In a post on X, he said: "We are devastated to announce that Noya and her grandmother Carmela's bodies were discovered yesterday.Thank you to all of you who shared her story to help us bring her home. Our hearts are broken."

The victims were identified as 80-year-old Carmela Dan and her granddaughter Noya (12). They were taken prisoner in Kibbutz Nir Oz, the BBC reported.

The Minister however, did not mention where the bodies were found.

Last week, Hamas released the first video of one of the hostages -- Mia Schem, a 21-year-old French-Israeli woman.

In the video, Schem said she was injured and had been taken into Gaza. She begged to be returned home to her family.
Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 19 : Kerala Police on Thursday arrested a former lady manager of the Cooperative Bank in Trissur district of Kerala.

The former manager has been identified as Preetha Haridas of Thiruvalla Urban Cooperative Bank. A complaint was registered against her by Vijayalekshmi Mohan and her daughter on October 2022, when they had come to encash their fixed deposit of Rs 6.70 lakhs. They were taken aback after knowing that the cash has already been encashed.

Mohan had lodged a complaint with the police. However, after finding there was no investigation going on in the case as the bank was allegedly controlled by the CPI-M who was pressurising the police.

Mohan then approached the High Court and also the Registrar of Cooperative Societies.

The bank manger sensing trouble approached the High Court seeking anticipatory bail. However, the Court denied bail and asked her to appear before the police on the October 17. She failed to do so and the police on Thursday morning took her into custody while she was on the move.

Incidentally, this arrest comes on the day when the youth wing of the CPI-M, DYFI is on a statewide protest against ED raids in cases related to cooperative banks and CPI-M leaders including a former minister A.C. Moideen.

Former party legislator M.K. Kannan is also under the scanner of the ED. The central agency has already arrested four including a CPI-M councilor.
Mumbai, Oct 19 : The star cast of the show 'Pyaar Ka Pehla Naam Radha Mohan', Shabir Ahluwalia, Neeharika Roy and Sambhabana Mohanty travelled to Maldives for an on-location shooting, for an upcoming sequence, and it's like a working vacation for them.

'Pyaar Ka Pehla Naam Radha Mohan' is a mature romantic drama based in modern-day Vrindavan, and has emerged as an audience favourite since its launch. With an engaging storyline and strong characters such as Mohan (Shabir), Radha (Neeharika), and Damini (Sambhabana), the show has kept the viewers on the edge of their seats.

In the recent episodes, viewers witnessed how Damini is planning to kill Gungun (Reeza Chaudhary) and making attempts to ruin Mohan's reputation in the society. In the upcoming episodes, audiences will have the chance to see Mohan secure a contract for the prestigious International Book Festival, paving the way for an exciting journey to the Maldives for both Radha and Mohan as they compete in the event.

To capture this thrilling storyline authentically, the show's cast and crew travelled to the Maldives for shooting. While the shoot is in full swing, the leads - Shabir, Neeharika, and Sambhabana - are making the most of it by exploring the stunning surroundings.

They visited tourist spots, basked in the sun on beautiful beaches, and enjoyed the turquoise waters. During their free time, they've strolled through local markets, savouring local cuisine whenever possible.

Talking about the same, Shabir said: "We're currently shooting in the stunning Maldives for an exciting segment in the show. I'm thrilled to be here; it's an amazing place to unwind and enjoy water activities."

"Despite our busy shooting schedule, Neeharika, Sambhabana, and I are making time to explore nearby attractions. We're having a blast, and I'm confident the audience will love the intense drama we're capturing here," he added.

Neeharika is also thrilled to be in the Maldives.

"When I found out that our upcoming show sequence would take us to these stunning islands, I was beyond excited. Before even arriving here, I had researched all the places I wanted to explore during my free time, and now I'm simply following my planned itinerary. Our accommodation is in a gorgeous property, and being here, I can wholeheartedly recommend that everyone should consider visiting the Maldives at least once in their lifetime," she shared.

Sambhabana expressed her excitement and said coming to Maldives for work is like cherry on cake.

"I love work trips; they are always very refreshing. In the last one and a half years, this is our second work trip and I feel this change is really very rejuvenating. Shabir, Neeharika and I are having loads of fun here, along with shooting for the show. I have planned to take lots of souvenirs for the rest of the cast who could not travel for the shoot here, in fact, I have been given a list by them to shop, I just hope I get enough time for it," she said.

While Shabir, Neeharika, and Sambhabana are having a gala time in Maldives, it will be interesting for the viewers to witness how will Radha and Mohan win the International Book Festival. Or will Damini ruin their chance to win the competition.

The show airs on Zee TV.
Chennai, Oct 19 : The Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed the bail plea of jailed Tamil Nadu minister without portfolio, Senthil Balaji.

The minister, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on June 14 in a money laundering case, had applied for the bail solely on health grounds.

But Justice G. Jayachandran refused to grant bail to the minister even on medical grounds after accepting the contention by the ED that he was an influential person and that there was every possibility of him tampering with evidence and influencing witnessing if he was allowed bail.

The judge also took into consideration the plea by Additional Solicitor General A.R.L. Sundaresan and Special Public Prosecutor N. Ramesh who appeared for the ED.

They pointed out that Senthil Balaji was a minister in the state cabinet even after four months of incarceration and this itself was clear evidence that he was highly influential.

Justice Jayachandran also agreed with the ED that Senthil Balajias brother V. Ashok Kumar, who is absconding following his involvement in an attack on Income Tax officials during a raid at the Ministeras residence in Karur, were also clear indicators that he may cause harm to the prosecution.
Kolkata, Oct 19 : After a week's gap, a coal mine of Eastern Coalfield Limited (ECL), a wholly subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL), on Thursday witnessed another incident of land subsidence at Andal in West Bengal's West Burdwan district.

Three individuals, including a superintendent of ECL, were critically injured and were admitted to a local hospital where they are currently undergoing treatment.

The event of land subsidence took place at ECLas North Jambad Colliery at Andal. Three persons injured have been identified as the ECL supervisor Saddam Mohanti and mine workers Manoj Kumar Bhuniya and Asusthoh Maji.

Following the incident, the coal mine workers and the local people protested near the mine. They alleged that the three persons remained trapped for quite some time and the authorities did not act promptly in rescuing them and taking them to the hospital.

They alleged there were frequent events of land subsidence-related accidents in the ECL mines just because of the lackadaisical approach of the authorities as regards to safety.

On October 12, three persons were killed following a similar incident of land subsidence at ECLas Naraynkuri Mine at Raniganj also in West Burdwan district. Although officially, the local police quoted the death figure at three, the local BJP legislator Agnimitra Paul claimed the figure to be at least seven.
AMMAN, May 25, 2019 (Xinhua) -- Jordan's King Abdullah II (C) reviews the Royal Guard of Honor during the ceremony of the 73rd anniversary of the Independence of Jordan in Amman, Jordan, May 25, 2019. (Xinhua/Mohammad Abu Ghosh/IANS). Image Source: IANS News

Amman, Oct 19 : After a four-way summit between the US, Jordan, Palestine and Egypt was cancelled in the wake of the Gaza hospital bombing, Jordan's King Abdullah II on Thursday embarked on a visit to Cairo where he will meet President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and discuss the raging Israel-Hamas conflict, an official statement said.

"His Majesty King Abdullah II departs on a short visit to Cairo, during which His Majesty will meet with Egypt President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to discuss means of ending the Israeli aggression on Gaza," CNN quoted Jordan's Royal Court as saying in a social media post.

The monarch was set to welcome US President Joe Biden to Amman on Wednesday, along with other Arab leaders.

But Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority canceled the planned meeting with Biden less than 24 hours before he was set to arrive for the four-way summit.

The cancelation followed a blast in Gaza City's Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.

While Palestinian officials accused Israel of hitting the hospital with an airstrike, Israel laid out evidence that it said shows a misfire by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast.

While speaking in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Biden supported Israel's explanation, citing US intelligence, CNN reported.

A spokesperson for the National Security Council later said that analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information suggested that Israel was "not responsible".
New Delhi, Oct 19 : On October 19, the fifth Russian-Chinese Energy Business Forum (RCEBF) was opened in Beijing.

This event has been taking place every year since 2018 in accordance with agreements between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Forum is held under the auspices of the Russian Presidential Commission for Fuel and Energy Complex Development Strategy and Environmental Safety and the National Energy Administration of the Peopleas Republic of China, co-organized by Rosneft and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

The Forum opening ceremony was attended by Ding Xuexiang, First Vice Premier of the Peopleas Republic of China, Igor Sechin, Executive Secretary of the Presidential Commission for Strategic Development of the Fuel and Energy Sector and Environmental Security, Chief Executive Officer of Rosneft, Aleksandr Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, and Dai Houliang, Chairman of the Board of Directors of China National Petroleum Corporation.

Igor Sechin, Chief Executive Officer of Rosneft, made a speech in which he noted that Forum is attended by representatives of more than 100 Russian and Chinese companies from the energy and related industries, which account for more than 45 per cent of the trade volume between Russia and China.

Cooperation between Russia and China is strengthening in all areas. The total trade turnover between the countries over the past five years has grown to 660 billion dollars, Igor Sechin noted. Just in the first 9 months of 2023, the trade turnover between China and Russia grew by almost 30 per cent year-on-year and amounted to $176.4 billion. According to Sechin, there is every reason to believe that the trade turnover between the countries will exceed the target of $200 billion as early as this year.

We see how new regional markets are being formed and alternative trade routes are being set up, Rosneft CEO noted. Igor Sechin stressed that the countries are steadily moving towards modernisation, strengthening of national security and achievement of self-sufficiency in the area of technology.

In Russiaas aTurn to the Easta, the Chinese destination plays a key role, and the trade and economic ties between Russia and China are a pillar of stability and growth, Sechin stated.

China has been Russiaas largest trade partner for over a decade. In turn, this year Russia has moved up to the fourth place among the countries that are Chinaas main foreign trade partners.

Sechin also touched upon the topic of energy security. He emphasized that Russia is one of the few countries giving priority to investments in new energy projects.

With the worldas investments in exploration and production shrinking, the Vostok Oil Project, worldas largest greenfield project in North Siberia with a resource base of 6.5 billion tons of oil is probably the largest project in the world that can have a stabilizing effect on the hydrocarbon market. These large-scale investment projects enable us to actively promote the Northern Sea Route, the shortest sea route to our customers in Asia, head of Rosneft said.

Sechin concluded that Russian-Chinese relations have the nature of a comprehensive strategic partnership and have always been built on the principles of trust, respect and consideration of each otheras interests. He expressed confidence that the cooperation between Russia and China has a huge potential, and that the countries are in the very beginning of the realisation of this potential.
New York, Oct 19 : Artificial intelligence (AI) based foundations models such as Meta's Llama 2 and OpenAI's GPT-4 are low on transparency, according to a global report on Thursday.

The Foundation Model Transparency Index created by a group of eight AI researchers from Stanford University, MIT Media Lab, and Princeton University, tracked 10 most popular AI models who disclosed information about their work and how people use their systems.

The report showed that "no major foundation model developer is close to providing adequate transparency, revealing a fundamental lack of transparency in the AI industry".

Among the models it tested, Meta's Llama 2 (54 per cent) scored the highest, closely followed by BloomZ (53 per cent) and then OpenAI's GPT-4 (48 per cent).

Other models evaluated include Stability's Stable Diffusion (47 per cent), Google's PaLM 2 (40 per cent), Anthropic's Claude (36 per cent), Command from Cohere (34 per cent), AI21 Labs' Jurassic 2 (25 per cent), Inflection-1 (21 per cent) from Inflection, and Amazon's Titan (12 per cent).

"While the societal impact of these models is rising, transparency is on the decline. If this trend continues, foundation models could become just as opaque as social media platforms and other previous technologies, replicating their failure modes," the researchers said.

The report defined transparency based on 100 indicators for information about how the models are built, how they work, and how people use them. The researchers assessed these companies on the basis of their most salient and capable foundation model and systematically gathered information made publicly available by the developer as of September 15.

For each developer, two researchers scored the 100 indicators, assessing whether the developer satisfied the indicator on the basis of public information.

The initial scores were shared with leaders at each company, encouraging them to contest scores they disagreed with.

Although the mean score was just 37 per cent, 82 of the indicators were satisfied by at least one developer. This means that developers can significantly improve transparency by adopting best practices from their competitors, the researchers said.

"This provides a snapshot of transparency across the AI ecosystem. All developers have significant room for improvement that we will aim to track in the future versions of the Index," the researchers noted.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : A wanted member of Mewat-based gang, involved in 64 cases in Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, was arrested by the special cell, a Delhi Police officer said on Thursday.

According to the police officer, the arrested gangster was involved in 64 cases including that of murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, armed robbery/dacoity, extortion, snatching, assault on police teams, ATM breakings, Arms Act, MCOC Act.

Police have also recovered one semi-automatic pistol of .32 bore with four live cartridges from the possession of the accused Nadeem a.k.a Kallu. He was also declared a proclaimed offender in a case of firing on a police team of New Usmanpur police station.

According to police, on Tuesday, specific information was received that Kallu would come to the second Pusta Road in Sonia Vihar.

"Acting on the tip-off, a trap was laid and Kallu apprehended," said the Special Commissioner of Police (special cell) HGS Dhaliwal.

The Special CP further said that Nadeem was also wanted in six criminal cases, including two ATM breakings and stealing cash amounting to Rs 40 lakh in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka in the first week of this month.

"The accused and other members of this gang are so desperate that they don't hesitate to open fire on the police if there is a slightest resistance. The accused and his associates opened fire on police teams on four occasions in the areas Tilak Marg, Nand Nagri, New Usmanpur, and Bawana," said Dhaliwal.

Nadeem has been indulging in crime in Delhi/NCR for the last 21 years. "He has disclosed that he was not appearing in the courts in Delhi in various pending trial cases and that the concerned courts have initiated proceedings to declare him a proclaimed offender in more than five criminal cases," said Dhaliwal.

"He has also divulged that he was arrested by PS Yavat (Pune) police in the month of August 2023 in a case of vehicle theft, but he provided his wrong name and address to the Pune police. He also succeeded in getting bail in this case," the officer added.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. The US plans to send two Iron Dome missile defense batteries to Israel, US and Israeli officials said, Trend reports.

According to some reports, the United States previously purchased these batteries from Israel.

The Israeli source noted that these weapons will be operated by the Israeli military, not the United States.

A combined attack was carried out on Israel on October 7. From the beginning, a massive rocket attack began from the territory of the Gaza Strip, followed by the penetration of militants by land, water, and air.

Israel declared a state of war after a massive rocket attack from the Gaza Strip. Moreover, Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a mass gathering of reservists.
Isha Sharma: Shooting for 'Pashminna' in Kashmir added extra layer of motivation to deliver scenes to best of my abilities. Image Source: IANS News

Mumbai, Oct 19 : Actress Isha Sharma, who is set to play the titular role in the upcoming drama 'Pashminna-Dhaage Mohobbat Ke', shared how shooting for the show in the breathtaking location of Kashmir Valley was like a dream come true, adding that every aspect of the experience felt entirely fresh and exhilarating.

The show presents a mesmerising love story set and shot in the magical valley of Kashmir.

In this captivating narrative, Isha steps into the shoes of Pashminna, a vibrant and spirited young girl who believes in the idea of love and dreams of experiencing a unique love story for herself.

Born in Kashmir, Pashminna is filled with enthusiasm, positivity, and a warm smile, and she helps her mother, Preeti (Gauri Pradhan), run a houseboat business for tourists visiting Kashmir.

Isha candidly shared her portrayal of Pashminna, offering insights into the character's unique qualities and the captivating journey that lies ahead for the audience.

Talking about the shooting in the beautiful Kashmir Valley, Isha said: "Pashminna, being my first foray into television, shooting in such a breathtaking location feels like a dream come true. It adds an extra layer of motivation to deliver my scenes to the best of my abilities."

"The stunning backdrop of Kashmir enhances the realism of our storytelling, aligning perfectly with the essence of our show. We aim to bring our viewers an authentic and immersive experience, and the picturesque setting contributes significantly to achieving that goal," she said.

The actress further said: "This is my debut show, and every aspect of this experience feels entirely fresh and exhilarating. I must credit the makers as it's an intricate process of weaving together various facets of the story, maintaining continuity, and discovering such an exceptional script."

"It sometimes feels like I'm living in a dream. It's a journey that's pushing my limits and allowing me to explore uncharted territories, and I'm loving every moment of it," shared Isha.

If she finds similarities with her character Pashmina, Isha replied: "This character mirrors so much of my own personality. Like Pashminna, I'm a fun loving person who loves to dream. However, I also pride myself on being polite and composed, much like her."

"Another commonality between Pashminna and me is the belief in Lord Shiva. I'm putting in tremendous effort to bring my character in 'Pashminna' to life, to bring joy and satisfaction to the audience through my performance," she commented.

The actress said she found an instant connection with her character.

"Much like her, I'm a desi girl at heart who stands strong in the face of adversity. My family is at the core of my values, and I take immense joy in supporting and caring for them," said Isha.

The show boasts a talented ensemble cast that includes Isha Sharma, Nishant Malkani, Hiten and Gauri Tejwani.

It will air on Sony SAB from October 25.
Bengaluru, Oct 19 : Kedar Upadhye has been appointed as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Biocon Biologics while current CFO, M.B. Chinappa will take on a strategic finance role at Biocon Group. These leadership changes will be effective October 31, stated an official release on Thursday.

M.B. Chinappa has served as CFO of Biocon Biologics since his appointment in January 2020 and has played an integral role in developing business strategy and enabling profitable growth. He has helped secure over $500 million in Private Equity investment and was instrumental in the company's recent $3 billion+ acquisition of Viatris' global biosimilars business in 2022 and its strategic vaccines partnership with the Serum Institute of India.

A Biocon veteran, Chinappa joined the Biocon Group in 1999 as a key member of the Finance Leadership Team where he was part of several strategic initiatives including Biocon Limited's successful IPO in 2004.

Subsequently, he moved to Biocon's research services subsidiary, Syngene, as the CFO in 2008 where he played a significant role in driving business strategy and growth and oversaw a successful public listing in 2015. He joined Biocon Biologics as the CFO in 2020 and has been instrumental in setting up the finance function and driving several strategic initiatives at the company.

Given Chinappa's deep understanding and experience at each of the Group Companies' businesses during his 24-year tenure with Biocon Group, he will be moving to a strategic finance role and will work with Peter Bains, the recently appointed Group CEO, Biocon Limited.

Shreehas Tambe, CEO and Managing Director, Biocon Biologics Ltd, said "I would like to thank Chinappa for his immense contribution to Biocon Biologics over the past 3 years and to the Biocon Group for more than two decades. He has successfully built a strong foundation of fiscal prudence, financial governance and risk management. Chinappa has played an invaluable role in the multi-billion-dollar acquisition of Viatris' global biosimilars business and set up the organisation for success.

"I am delighted to welcome Kedar to Biocon Biologics. He joins us at an inflection point in our journey to become a leading global biosimilars company as we look to consolidate and unlock value in the acquired business. I am confident that he will build further on the strong foundation and with his expertise and experience work closely with all stakeholders to drive growth and deliver on our business goals."

Peter Bains, Group CEO, Biocon Limited, said "I look forward to working closely with Chinappa in his new role as we look to identify and leverage synergies across the Biocon Group and create further value for all stakeholders. Having worked at all Group Companies, he is uniquely positioned for this role."

Kedar Upadhye will be joining Biocon Biologics as CFO on October 31, 2023. He brings with him over 23 years of experience in senior global leadership roles spanning Corporate Finance, Strategy, Accounting, FP&A, Business Finance, Governance and Investor Relations at leading Pharma, Energy and FMCG players such as Cipla, Dr. Reddy's, PepsiCo, and Thermax.

Kedar Upadhye, the newly appointed CFO, Biocon Biologics Ltd, said "I would like to thank the Board of Directors and Leadership Team of Biocon Biologics for placing their trust in me and I am extremely excited to join the company at an important point in its growth trajectory. I look forward to working with the Biocon Biologics team in an enriching journey to build a global biosimilars business which delivers strong, sustainable and profitable growth."
Colombo, Oct 19 : Following arrival of Indian Navy's combat ship Airavat at Colombo harbour, Indian Navy's Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), reached Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) base Katunayake on Thursday.

A day after the arrival of Shardul-class Landing Ship Tank in Colombo, the ALH has arrived for the training of SLAF Pilots and Sri Lanka Navy ships for shipborne helicopter operations on Thursday.

"The training is planned to familiarise SLAF Pilots to the ALH and provide co-pilot experience. Further, the training team is also scheduled to undertake extensive Deck Landing Practice onboard Sri Lanka Navy Ship during the period," Indian High Commission in Colombo stated.

The training deployment is in line with the capacity building initiative of the Government of India amongst its neighbours as part of "Neighbourhood First Policy". The engagement would also foster closer interoperability and seamless conduct of coordinated Maritime Operations, Indian Diplomatic mission explained.

The deployment of the indigenous ALH helicopter in Sri Lanka was undertaken from March 23-31 2022 for the training of SLAF pilots for co-pilot experience during deck landings and Landing training for SLN personnel which is a niche capability to achieve.

"The high level of understanding and coordination between the Armed Forces of the two countries further cement the close relations achieved through millennia old friendly ties between the two neighbours," the High Court stated.
Washington, Oct 19 : A US Congressional panel has announced a bipartisan scrutiny into top investment firm Sequoia Capital's investments in China.

The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mike Gallagher (R-WI) which also has Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi as a ranking member, has sent a letter to Sequoia Capital following its announcement to split from Sequoia Capital China.

"Splitting off its China business  is a step in the right direction. However Sequoia Capital China's significant US dollar investments in People's Republic of China (PRC) entities have included certain investments that contributed to the CCP's human rights abuses, the PRC's military modernisation, and its overall efforts to undermine U.S. technological leadership," the letter read.

The letter, addressed to Sequoia Capital Managing Partner Roelof Botha and Don Vieira, Global Chief Policy Officer at Sequoia Capital, said that it writes to request information about Sequoia's investments in artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and semiconductor companies in the People's Republic of China (PRC), "and to better understand Sequoia Capital's announcement that it would split from Sequoia Capital China by March 2024".

By splitting off its China business, "it appears likely that Sequoia will reduce the flow of American technological and managerial expertise from US-based venture capital funds (VCs) to such PRC-based companies, which is a step in the right direction".

"However, additional questions remain regarding how the split may affect flows of US capital and flows of technological know-how from US companies to foreign venture funds," the letter further said.

Sequoia announced in June that it would be splitting into three pieces: Sequoia Capital in the US and Europe, Peak XV Partners in India and Southeast Asia, and HongShan in China (formerly Sequoia Capital China).

The letter from the committee asked Sequoia to list all companies it has invested in that are based or have significant operations in China, along with details like ownership, Chinese government interest, decision-making processes and so on.

It also asks for more information on the reported 50 per cent of Sequoia Capital China partners who are based in the US and how they have invested. "Lastly, it asks how Sequoia would respond if the US put one of Sequoia's portfolio companies on a sanctions or trade restriction list," reports TechCrunch.

Sequoia Capital China had already significantly scaled back its capital deployment in the country before it split from its US mothership, the report mentioned.

--IANS

na/vd
Bengaluru, Oct 19 : Hours after Karnataka High Court quashed his petition seeking dismissal of CBI proceedings against him in a disproportionate assets case here, DyCM D.K. Shivakumar on Thursday said the the judiciary and his list of properties will expose BJP's conspiracy against him.

While interacting with reporters at the Bengaluru airport, Shivakumar said the probe agency has claimed that it has completed 90 per cent of the investigation.

"My wife, family members and me will have to explain about the properties owned by us. Strangely, without calling us and inquiring, how could they finish 90 per cent of the probe I fail to understand," he stated.

"We had filed an appeal in the court that the FIR lodged by the CBI in this regard is wrong. The case was handed over to the CBI with ill intention during the tenure of former CM B.S. Yediyurappa government," he stated.

Shivakumar further expressed his complete faith on the courts. "I will give suitable answers at an appropriate time. Whatever may be the cause, I will face the investigation within the legal frame work," he added.

Earlier in the day, the High Court rejected the state Congress chief's petition seeking quashing of the CBI proceedings against him.

It also lifted the stay order issued on the CBI probe against him.

A bench headed by Justice K. Natarajan directed the CBI to complete the probe in three months.

The development is considered to be a serious setback to Shivakumar who has been aggressively taking on the opposition parties BJP and JD(S) in the state.

The CBI had filed a criminal case under the Sections of 13 (2) and 13 (1)E of the Prevention of Corruption Act alleging that Shivakumar had amassed assets disproportionate to his income between 2018 and 2023.

Shivakumar had appealed against the case in the high court.

The high court had earlier issued a stay on the case and extended the stay order many times.

According to sources, the CBI will now move to the court seeking cancellation of bail of Shivakumar.

Former CM H.D. Kumaraswamy and BJP State President Nalin Kumar Kateel had stated that Shivakumar would land up in Tihar Jail once again.

Shivakumar had replied that Kumarswamy and Kateel are not judges to send him to the prison. The Congress party had maintained that Shivakumaras family had been tortured every day.

--IANSmka/shb
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Two Bangladeshi nationals, from LGBT community, were allegedly forced to have unnatural sex by five individuals in a park in east Delhi, an officer said on Thursday, adding that they have arrested three men in connection with the incident.

According to the police, on Wednesday at around 1 a.m., a call was received at the police control room regarding rape involving Bangladeshi nationals in Shakar Pur police station.

In response to the call, a police team was dispatched to the scene, and during the initial investigation, it was revealed that 22-year-old individual, Roni (name changed), a resident of Shakarpur and a Bangladeshi national, was living with a 27-year-old individual named Boni (name changed).

"Roni's friend, Joni, came to Delhi from Bangladesh for travel and was residing with them. All of them are from the LGBT community," said the additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (east), Achin Garg.

On Tuesday, Roni and Joni had gone to see a Ram Lila performance at School Block Shakarpur.

At around 11:30 p.m., as they were returning home, Roni encountered his old friend Raj (name changed), whom he had met through a gay dating app.

"Raj" was accompanied by two other individuals. Raj inquired about Roni's willingness, but Roni declined and informed Raj that Joni is also gay.

Both Raj and Joni agreed to pursue a relationship. They all went to a park, where Raj and Joni went to an isolated area, while the other three remained in the park. After few minutes, two more friends of Raj joined them, and all five, including Raj, assaulted Roni and Joni, and forcibly engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with them, said the officer.

Following the incident, Roni and Joni returned to their house and narrated the incident to their friend Boni, who contacted the PCR.

During the investigation, footage from CCTV cameras was reviewed, and information regarding the presence of members of the LGBT community in the area was collected through human intelligence.

"Descriptions of the suspects were obtained from the victims and matched with the information gathered through human intelligence about the LGBT community members residing in the area. After extensive efforts, results were obtained within 12 hours, leading to the apprehension and thorough interrogation of some of the suspects," said the officer.

"The identities of the accused persons have been established, and out of the five accused, three individuals, namely Devashish Verma (20), Surjeet (21), and Aryan, also known as Golu (20), have been arrested," the officer added.
Melbourne, Oct 19 : Australia's domestic intelligence chief has said that he has "no reason to dispute" Canadian PM Justin Trudeau's claim of the Indian government's role in the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June this year.

The accusations, which came last month, kicked up a diplomatic row between India and Canada with both nations expelling a diplomat each and New Delhi dismissing the claims as "absurd".

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director General Mike Burgess told ABC News channel that "it is a serious allegation" and he would have "no reason to dispute what the Canadian government said in this matter".

"There's no doubt any allegation of any country being accused of carrying out an execution of a citizen in that country, it's a serious allegation, and something that we don't do and something that nations should not do," he said.

Burgess' comments came in California where he was present for a public gathering of Five Eyes intelligence partners, which includes Australia, US, UK, Canada, and New Zealand as its members.

The intelligence chief did not confirm whether the issue was being discussed at the gathering but a national security source told ABC that Burgess was briefed on the matter before last month's G20 summit in New Delhi.

Quoting Western-allied officials, The New York Times reported last month that US intelligence agencies provided information that led Canada to hold India responsible for Nijjar's killing.

After claiming that Indian agents played a role in the murder of its citizen Nijjar on Canadian soil, Trudeau has called on India to cooperate on the investigation, and said that he shared evidence on killing with India before going public with his claims.

"Whether or not it will happen here, I wouldn't publicly speculate, I don't think that's appropriate," Burgess said when asked if Australia could be the next target for Indian agents.

"I can assure you that when we find governments interfering in our country, or planning to interfere in our country, we will deal with them effectively," he told ABC.

The Khalistan menace picked up in Australia beginning this year with close to half-a-dozen Hindu temples being attacked in quick succession, leaving the Indian community, which forms three per cent of the country's population, enraged, scared and dismayed.

In the month of January alone, between 12 to 23, three Hindu temples in Melbourne were defaced with anti-India graffiti and pro-Bhindranwale slogans by Khalistani supporters, and later, temple priests received threatening calls to raise 'Khalistan Zindabad' slogans.

Indians were attacked with sticks at the Federation Square in Melbourne during a referendum call in January this year by banned Khalistan outfit, Sikhs For Justice (SFJ).

Sikhs number over 210,000 and account for 0.8 per cent of Australia's population as of 2021, forming the country's fifth-largest and fastest-growing religious group. A small but influential number of Sikhs support the idea of Khalistan, but politically, it has found little support.
Kochi, Oct 19 : The Kerala High Court has expressed security concerns about the country's Unified Payment Interface (UPI) system, even while acknowledging the positive impact that it has had on money transactions.

"The UPI has transformed the financial spectrum in India; and in particular, the manner in which people transact money. Itas easy-to-use interface and ingrained security features, has made UPI the preferred mode of payment for millions of Indians, making it the fastest growing payments systems in the world.

"Like in many good initiatives, there are chinks in the armour a" in a manner of speaking; Charlatans commit cyber crimes and create byzantine maze of accounts, through which ill-gotten wealth is moved and parked. I am, therefore, of the firm view that, certain specific safeguards will have to be now infused into process, lest the people lose their faith in the UPI system itself, especially when it is spearheaded and recognised internationally as a vanguard initiative of India," it observed.

The court's remarks came while considering a bunch of petitions moved by people whose bank accounts were frozen by authorities after finding out that a cyber criminal had allegedly transferred money to their accounts through UPI.

The petitioners said that they are facing huge losses to their businesses after their bank accounts have been frozen.

They sought the intervention of the court as the trust of the business community in the UPI system has been affected.

But counsel for the Central government said there is an instant response system when such complaints are raised following which the state police concerned gets going and examines these accounts.

However the court said: "One fails to fathom why their bank accounts in full, should remain frozen. This is more so because, even when the sums in question may have found credit in the accounts of the petitioners, unless the investigation eventually reveals that they were complicit in the cyber crime, or had received the same being aware of it, they could never be construed to be accused."

It then ordered the respective banks of the petitioners to freeze the accounts only to the extent of the amounts mentioned in the orders issued by the police besides directed the police to inform the banks as to whether the accounts of the petitioners need to remain frozen, and if so, for how long.

It added that if the same is not done, the petitioners are free to approach the court again.
Tel Aviv, Oct 19 : Israeli tanks amassing outside Gaza ahead of a potential ground invasion have been equipped with anti-drone cages, similar to those used in the Russia-Ukraine War, media reports said.

The Washington Post shared images showing Israeli vehicles with modified coverings whose purpose is to protect soldiers inside from any explosives dropped from drones, Jerusalem Post reported.

"My assumption is that the Hamas attacks gave Israel the impetus to install the cages more widely," Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the Post.

"It was probably something they had been thinking about before since everyone is watching the war in Ukraine closely."

"An interesting question is whether these structures will become standard for armored vehicles in conflict," Cancian stated.

"The United States has not equipped its tanks with cages, but this may be a lesson armies need to learn the hard way."

Video footage from the Hamas attacks on October 7, showed how the terrorist group used drones to drop explosives on Israeli communication installations, helping to prevent a rapid response from the IDF, Jerusalem Post reported.

The drones, which appeared to be commercial drones easily available for purchase, have led to fears that this relatively simple method of attack could be adopted by other insurgent groups around the world.

The lack of response from Israeli security forces allowed Hamas to infiltrate several Gaza border communities and IDF army bases, murdering over 1,400 people.
Bhubaneswar, Oct 19 : The Special Task Force (STF) of the Odisha Crime Branch has busted a huge interstate racket of opening mule bank accounts by luring gullible persons from the remote areas of different districts of West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand, an STF official said on Thursday.

The police apprehended three members of the gang including the mastermind from Bhubaneswar on Wednesday.

The accused were identified as Jamiruddin of West Medinapur district of West Bengal, Hapizul and Jahangir of Balasore district of Odisha.

Following an intelligence input, a STF team carried out a raid and arrested Hapizul from his rented house at Rasulgarh here.

Later, the team also nabbed Jahangir and the mastermind Jamiruddin who were planning to leave for Kolkata.

The STF sleuths have seized various incriminating materials such as mobile phones, pre-activated SIM cards, bank passbooks, Aadhar cards from the possession of the accused persons.

A case has been registered by the STF under various sections of the IPC and the IT Act.

The fraudsters will be produced before the court of SDJM, Bhubaneswar.

"This racket operated mainly in the tri-junction area of Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal especially in the districts of Balasore, Mayurbhanj, East Midnapore, West Midnapore, East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Saraikela," said the STF official.

STF sources stated that this racket was headed by Jamiruddin who employed around 10-15 people as agents by paying Rs 15,000 each per month to open bank accounts.

These members later visited various interior areas of the districts located in the tri-junction area.

"They mainly targeted poor villagers/tribals and persuaded/lured them to open the bank accounts. The villagers were generally offered Rs 2000 per account for giving their documents and opening the bank accounts. However the mobile numbers linked with the bank accounts were provided by the gang members," added the official.

The accused persons later sold these mule bank accounts along with the connected mobile numbers to various rackets involved in cyber-financial, sextortion frauds and other criminals based at Kolkata and other parts of India.

They sold the accounts through social media platforms like secret WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, Telegram channel.

"They sold the mule bank accounts at the rate of Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 per account. The scammers frequently changed the bank accounts. Generally they abandoned the bank account once it reached a transaction of Rs one lakh. Sometimes the accounts got frozen even before that by the banks on the request of the police," the official stated.
A new artistic collaboration under Jaeger-LeCoultres Made of Makers programme to celebrate the design of Reverso

Continuing to expand its cultural universe, Jaeger-LeCoultre announces the latest instalment in its Made of Makers programme: a new collaboration with Brendi Wedinger, a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist recognised for her work in 3D digital arts, sculpture and floristry.

Expanding the dialogue between watchmaking and the Arts

Through a series of collaborations with artists, designers and craftsmen from disciplines outside watchmaking, Made of Makers explores and extends the dialogue that naturally exists between horology and art. The programme focuses on artists who share Jaeger-LeCoultres values of creativity, expertise and precision, with nature at its core, exploring new forms of artistic expression through different and often unexpected materials and media. Like the watchmakers of La Grande Maison, these artists and innovators have a deep respect for the past as their creative foundation and a springboard for their trailblazing work. This year, Jaeger-LeCoultre further explores the world of contemporary art with an unexpected new collaboration.

Brendi Wedinger  Jaeger-LeCoultre

A distinctive artistic vision that unites nature with technology

Based in Los Angeles, Brendi Wedinger is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer whose threedimensional, digital artworks blur the boundary between real life and fantasy. Taking inspiration from nature as her primary theme  with an emphasis on biodiversity, sustainability and renewal, and a particular love of flowers  she combines various elements to form a new and surreal visual reality that is almost tangible, occasionally abstract, often highly sculptural, and always emotionally captivating.

While the virtual world of Brendi Wedingers art and the technical tools employed to create it, appear to be the antithesis of the organic world that she portrays, a strong affinity with traditional craftsmanship underpins her creative process. Rather than using a computer programme to design the work from the outset, I always begin by using the technical tools to hand-sculpt the larger three-dimensional elements, such as the petals of a flower, and hand-draw the fine details. Once I have completed this stage, I use a lot of mathematical equations to create textures, transparency and layering effects, she explains. What drew me to the digital medium is that it gives me more tools to play with and a wider scope for experimentation, so that my work becomes a more expressive homage to nature rather than a literal representation of it.

New 3-D artworks inspired by the flora of the Vallee de Joux

For each Made of Makers collaboration, Jaeger-LeCoultre commissions an original work, inviting the artist to express a theme of interest to the Maison through their particular craft. Given Brendi Wedingers deep affinity with the natural world it was self-evident that the theme of the new work would be nature  one of Jaeger-LeCoultres core values  and flowers, specifically.

The artist at work  Jaeger-LeCoultre

Like all Made of Makers collaborators, before starting work on the commission Brendi Wedinger spent time at Jaeger-LeCoultres home in the Vallee de Joux, discovering the crafts of watchmaking and exploring the natural world that surrounds the Manufacture. She combined elements from every aspect of the visit to create her new work  a series of three surrealistic flowers.

Everything about that visit  from the wildflowers in the fields, to the incredible complexity and tiny scale of the watch components and the patience and skill of all the different craftsmen in the Manufacture  was like a romantic fantasy world, so far from the lightning-fast pace of modern life, says Brendi Wedinger. Aside from the natural beauty of the valley, I felt very inspired by the high complication watches and the unique details you find in them. I wanted the flowers to be complex and one-of-a kind, like the watches, with all of the beauty and immense detail that can be found in both.

Each of the three creations is an idealised homage to a variety of flowers found in the Vallee de Joux throughout the changing seasons, rather than a particular species that exists in nature. When people look more deeply at each work, they will see that every element is recognisable and traceable to a natural flower, but I remixed and layered the details to emphasise their surreal nature, Brendi Wedinger explains. Another important element of the commission was that the flowers should be (digitally) rendered in one of the precious metals used at Jaeger-LeCoultre, which creates a hyper-realistic illusion of the shadows and reflections created by light falling on polished gold, further amplifying the surreal effect. In creating this work, the artist has deliberately played with contrasting notions  the opposition between the organic softness of nature and the cold solidity of metal, the digital and the physical, the ephemeral and the static  adding subtle layers of tension and intrigue that heighten the emotional impact of each piece.

Reverso  Jaeger-LeCoultre

From nature to artand back to nature

In a play on botanical tradition, the flowers have each been given official Latin names with formal English counterparts. Linking them back to the Maisons history, Jaeger-LeCoultre has added an official name to each flower, which pays tribute to the Reversos year of origin. Thus, elements of poppy, alpine pasque and grass of parnassus have been combined to create Flos Montis Fluit (Flower of the Mountain Flows), known as the 1931 Golden Poppy. Poets daffodil, red hemp nettle and late spider orchid are blended to create Gemma Vallis (The Jewel of the Vallee), known as the 1931 Golden Orchid. For the third flower, water mint, pincushion flower and alpine thistle have been combined to create Rhapsodia Petalorum Alpinorum (The Rhapsody of Alpine Petals), known as the 1931 Golden Thistle.

Further blurring the lines between the real and surreal, Jaeger-LeCoultre commissioned a French plant breeder to identify a flower that closely resembles the form of the 1931 Golden Orchid and to breed a hybrid exclusively for the Maison. Named the 1931 White Orchid, it is a natural and physical representation of Brendi Wedingers art piece. The flowers  in both their physical and virtual forms  will become part of Jaeger-LeCoultres visual identity and seen in a wide variety of initiatives in the future.
Srinagar, Oct 19 : Gently stroking the vibrant canvas with a pointed paintbrush, Nowsheeba Mushtaq (18) talks about her tryst with Kashmiri paper mache. "I am a calligrapher and I want to come up with a fusion art of paper mache and calligraphy. That is why I decided to learn it," says the class 12 student from Rainawari in Srinagar.

Mushtaq has been learning the paper mache crafting technique from Hakeem Manzoor (48), an artist from Gani Doori in Alamgari Bazar area of Srinagar, who has pioneered the art's comeback by incorporating it into the interior design concepts of houses and other buildings.

Earlier, paper mache was confined to showcases as they were mostly small display items.

Once a lucrative business, paper mache became a dying art of Kashmir with the passage of time. The unprecedented floods, abrogation of Article 370, Internet blockade and the Covid-19 lockdown hit the artists who remained steadfast in their commitment to traditional methods and struggled to adapt to the new model.

Many of them were forced to shut down their workshops and look for other jobs.

However, those who understood the significance of Manzoor's work and followed his path were able to turn over the tide, besides breathing new life into the age-old craft. While making paper mache an attractive element in contemporary Kashmiri homes, they also began to attract young hands into the field.

The new entrants were provided with a free-of-cost platform where they could not only learn, but also experiment in fusion art.

Fusion patterns, new canvas

The history of paper mache in the region goes back to the 14th century, when Muslim saint Mir Syed Ali Hamadani a.k.a. Shah-e-Hamdan brought skilled artists to Kashmir from Persia.

He was also credited with the introduction of several other crafts to the region.

The shift towards the new approach began in 2007, when a customer asked Manzoor if paper mache could be done on his house ceiling.

Manzoor took it up as a challenge and drew on his 40 years of experience to come up with a scintillating creation. It proved as a window of opportunity to accord new relevance to the rich craft.

"I was the first one to introduce paper mache art in the interiors. Though my first project was in 2007, the concept got widely known only by 2010," Manzoor tells 101Reporters.

He has won the appreciation of his peers, local community and outsiders for his work.

Traditionally, artists soak newspaper, tissue paper, cardboard or old magazines for several days, before mixing it with copper sulfate, straw and cloth.

This pulpy mixture is placed on a mould and left to dry. Later, the surface is coated with glue and gypsum.

After smoothening the surface and shaping it as per the requirement, several layers of tissue papers are pasted on it. Lacquer is applied after another round of polishing.

Traditionally, artists apply organic or vegetable colours as base coat before proceeding to work on the object using their hands.

In the modern approach, the structural base for paper mache projects is either wood or medium-density fibreboard panels. Artisans opt for high quality acrylic waterproof paints nowadays. According to its practitioners, the contemporary method is more challenging than the traditional one because it requires detailed graphing, accurate scaling and perfect strokes.

While chinar trees, flowers, birds and almonds are used as motifs for traditional paper mache, the artists now follow a mixed pattern of traditional and kani prints, calligraphy and Turkish designs.

The traditional paper mache costs 2,500 to 3,000 per box. On the other hand, a paper mache panel for interiors costs Rs 700 per sq ft.

Panels come in different ranges such as 24 and 32 sq ft.

"The cost varies depending on the specific design preferences and square feet desired by the customer. More intricate designs on the panel will result in higher costs," Manzoor explains.

According to him, the time required to complete a work depends on the order. The time frame can be anything from 15 days to a month, or even longer.

In 2014, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage appointed Manzoor to take up paper mache projects on behalf of the government.

Since then, Manzoor has worked on multiple projects, including those in famous shrines of Kashmir. He has also trained 15 students on paper mache.

The works of Nasir Hussain Khan (55), who has 42 years of experience in the field, can be seen in many places of Kashmir, including Syed Dastigeer Sahib Shrine in Srinagar and Eden Resorts and Spa in Pahalgam. He also has clients in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Asked about the contemporary model, Khan tells 101Reporters that the shift was necessary.

"In order to catch up with the modern trend and to keep our traditional art alive, the need to incorporate paper mache into interiors was essential," says Khan, who has trained 20 students so far.

Many artisans have made the transition from traditional to interior paper mache designing, which has resulted in a significant increase in both sales and income. Earlier, they were making Rs 40,000 to 50,000.

Some have reported up to 50 per cent increase in sales and income after the transition. Social media has been a vital tool to extend their reach, enhance marketing efforts, establish new contacts and showcase their creative work.

What made it popular?

Unlike the traditional decorative paper mache items, interior designs resonated well with the local community when it was introduced into khatamband (Kashmir's traditional ceiling art). The new approach not only caught the attention of interior designers and homeowners, but also the youth who began to see it as an income-generating profession.

The aspiring artists attend classes and workshops of skilled interior artists because there is a potential to learn and innovate. In contrast, the older artists using traditional methods are often reluctant to use new models due to the comfort they feel with their traditional techniques. This often puts off young learners.

"I was appreciative of paper mache from my childhood itself. When I joined classes, I was introduced to the interior design element. I am now very eager to master this art and eventually set up my own workshop," beams Wasifa Kuchay (29), a student of Khan.

"Manzoor sir's paper mache creations are guiding lights for someone like me, who is still on the path of learning. His ability to blend the traditional with the modern art is truly impressive," says Falak Iqbal (21), a student of Manzoor.

Despite successfully learning paper mache interior design, only a few have managed to set up their own businesses or workshops due to the substantial financial investment required to run the craft independently.

"I learnt paper mache interior art for a long time... the government's support is necessary to sustain this fusion model," says Zahoor Ahmed (55), a former student of Manzoor who runs an interior business unit.

"The new model of paper mache has also boosted other sectors such as carpentry, contractors and interior designing," Irfan, another former student of Manzoor, tells 101Reporters.

Idrees, a student of Khan, started to learn paper mache in 2015 and interior paper mache in 2020.

"Now, I have my own interior art business. Exhibiting in Mumbai, Delhi and Surat gave my business a big boost. I receive many panel orders from across India," he says.

Customer reviews

Fayaz Ahmed (45) tells 101Reporters that investing in interior paper mache is really worth the money because of its quality and artistry.

"We as citizens can contribute a little in the preservation and promotion of our traditional art. Besides, it adds to the overall charm of my home," he says.

Zubair Bastal says choosing paper mache for interior walls can bring a unique and personal touch, giving a sense of individuality to the decor.

"It is handmade and a meaningful choice. It allows you to support local artisans," he adds.

Tariq Ahmed (48) remembers how people incorporated intricate paper mache designs on khatamband ceilings and preferred interior paper mache panels over false ceilings after the art went into innovation mode.

"The rooms in my house have seen a unique transformation. They look fresh and appealing," he adds.

Though the artists are hopeful about paper mache's income generation capacity and future, they feel dissatisfied with the government support in the form of events and exhibitions and credit card scheme.

They want the government to encourage students and provide them with platforms to display works.

They also emphasise the importance of training and nurturing customer relationships to help the art survive.

(Tufail Ganie and Fozia Baba are Jammu and Kashmir-based freelance journalists and members of 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)

--IANS

tufail-fozia/pgh
Panaji, Oct 18 : Goa Police has arrested a Russian national for allegedly possessing drugs valued at Rs 4 lakhs on Thursday.

Police said that the Anti Narcotic Cell (ANC) conducted raid at Arambol in North Goa and arrested a Russian woman with 800 grams of Charas valued at Rs 4 lakhs from her possession.

"The Anti Narcotic Cell received a tip off regarding a Russian woman of being involved in Narcotic activity at Arambol. The woman was identified as Margarita Pigina, 38, Russian national who was staying in a rented apartment at Arambol. The ANC raided her rented apartment and seized 800 grams of Charas," police said.

Police said that further investigation in the case is underway.
New Delhi : PM Modi addresses at the inauguration of the third edition of Global Maritime India Summit (GMIS) 2023 via video conferencing. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Oct 19 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that earlier governments had no vision or seriousness about skill development among the youth.

"This cost the youth dearly despite there being demand from the industrial sector and talent in the youth," he said.

During his tenure, when a separate skill development ministry was created, 1.30 crore youth benefitted from skill development programmes, he said, adding that tribal, poor, Dalit, backward class youths were the true beneficiaries.

Modi made these comments while virtually inaugurating 511 Pramod Mahajan gramin kaushalya vikas kendras in Maharashtra.

He said that the state governments should focus on designing skill development programmes in a manner which will help the country grow.

He added that state governments need to expand the scope of skill development programmes for the youth so that they can help the country become self-reliant.

The gramin kaushalya vikas kendras or rural skill development centres, named after late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, are being established across 34 rural districts of Maharashtra, an official statement said.

The agriculture sector also requires new skills for natural farming, processing, value addition, packaging and branding of farm produce, Modi said.
Bhopal, Oct 19 : A four-member of Asaam Police on Thursday arrived at the resistance of Madhya Pradesh Congress leader and November 17 Assembly polls candidate Yadvendra Singh to question him in connection with a fraud case.

The development came five days after the Congress leadership announced Yadavendra Singh a candidate from Tikamgarh seat.

Tikamgarh police said Assam Police had informed about their plan and sought the cooperation. Therefore, before the Assam Police team arrived at Singh's residence, local police personnel were deployed in the area to ensure that there was no disturbance during the operation.

Tikamgarh police said that Asaam Police came to interrogate the Congress leader in connection with a fraud case registered in Assam. The action was taken following a court order.

"We were informed about the development through a letter from a court in Assam via mail asking us to cooperate in an ongoing investigation against Yadvendra Singh," Tikamgarh Kotwali police station in-charge, Anand Raj told the press.

He further informed that the Assam Police team arrived in Tikamgarh on Thursday morning and informed the local police. It questioned the Congress leader and his family for hours.

According to Assam Police official Uttam Dhule, the matter was recently reported and the investigation is still ongoing.

"A case was registered by the CID in Assam in connection with this matter and we were here to question the Congress leader after securing a warrant from the court. The investigation in the case is ongoing. The case was registered under IPC sections 120B, 225, 356, 257, 259, 260, 406, 417, 419, 420, 463, 465, 466, 468, 471, 472, 474 and 506. The case is not very old, it was registered only recently," Dhule told the press.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji on Thursday moved the Supreme Court against an order passed by the Madras High Court refusing to grant him bail on medical grounds in connection with the alleged cash-for-jobs scam.

On October 19, a bench of Justice G. Jayachandran of the High Court refused to release the DMK leader on bail accepting the contention raised by Enforcement Directorate (ED) that Balaji is an influential person who could tamper evidence and influence witnesses if released from custody.

The anti-money laundering agency, which had arrested Balaji on June 14 this year, contended that retention of the accused as a minister in the state cabinet without any portfolio clearly indicates that he is highly influential.

The special leave petition filed before the apex court said that during the custody period, Balaji underwent a major by-pass surgery in June this year at Chennaias Cauvery Hospital and is still under medication.

"Despite the medications that are being taken under the care of Puzhal Prison Hospital, his recovery is very slow and still suffering from chest discomfort, pain and discomfort on the left leg (surgical side). He was advised by the doctors not to sit or stand for a long time. A numbness is occurring in the legs of the petitioner often, which requires further treatment," said the plea filed through advocate Misha Rastogi.

The petition said that the High Court erroneously dismissed the bail petition filed by Balaji under section 439 of Cr.P.C read with 45(1) of PML (Prevention of Money Laundering) Act.

Before his arrest by central sleuths, Balaji was in charge of Power and Excise Departments in Tamil Nadu government. The ED has charged that the minister and his accomplices had taken money from gullible job seekers and promised them jobs in the state transport department during his tenure as the Transport Minister from 2011 to 2016 in the then AIADMK government.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (MLA) Manish Sisodia on Thursday received permission from a Delhi court to carry out various development projects in Patparganj using MLA funds.

Right after the court's approval, letters were sent to all the relevant departments, ensuring that development work in Patparganj commence promptly.

Several development projects are in the pipeline, including road reconstruction, construction of pipelines and streets in various areas, and the installation of benches in residential societies and parks within the legislative assembly constituency.

Under the Chief Minister's Road Reconstruction Scheme, Sisodia has requested the Urban Development Minister for the reconstruction of all the damaged roads in Tarang, Priyadarshini Apartments, and AMS Apartments in Patparganj.

Along with this, he has also demanded the construction of new pipelines and streets in Mandawali, Chandar Vihar, Fazalpur Extension, School Block, Unchepar, and West Vinod Nagar D-Block.

The letter addressed to the relevant department, states that the roads and pipelines in the colonies are in very poor condition, and they get submerged during the rainy season, they are uneven and there are no drainage pipelines for rainwater in the entire colony.

"Currently, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has completed the work of laying sewer and water supply lines and most of the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) are in contact with this office for the construction of roads and pipelines.

"Therefore, the development work in these colonies should be completed immediately before the monsoon season so that the problems of the residents in the area can be reduced," the letter states.

Sisodia has also requested the installation of 200+ benches, considering the convenience of people in all 52 residential societies of the legislative assembly, including 28 parks in his constituency.

On the demand of the people in the legislative assembly, Sisodia has requested the relevant department officials to prepare badminton courts in Manas Apartments, Nirmaan Apartments, Aakash Darshan Apartments, Navkunj Apartments, and Aakash Bharati Apartments.

In addition, he has asked for the installation of two boom barriers in Pocket-F, Mayur Vihar Phase-2 from a security perspective.

In his letter, Sisodia urged all the relevant departments and officials to expedite these development projects and provide information on the matter promptly.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday filed a supplementary charge sheet in the Special Court, Ahmedabad against jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi in a case involving the seizure of around 39 kg heroin by the Gujarat Police.

According to the statement issued by the NIA, the charge sheet has been filed under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with section 66C of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

"Additionally, relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, along with various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, have been invoked in the charge sheet," it said.

This case initially began with the Ahmedabad Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) when it was registered on September 15, 2022.

"Subsequently, the NIA took charge of the case, re-registering it on August 20 this year. The investigation in this case remains open," it added.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday spoke to President of Palestine Authority, Mahmoud Abbas and conveyed his condolences over the killing of 470 people in the bombing of a hospital in Gaza.

Modi also told Abbas that India will continue to send humanitarian aid to Palestine, while reiterating its long standing position on the Israel-Palestine issue, that of having direct negotiations on establishing a two-state solution.

"Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated India's long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue," Modi posted on X.

Earlier referring to the hospital bombing in Gaza, external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said, "We have also expressed our concern at the civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation. We would urge strict observance of international humanitarian law."

While the Hamas group has blamed Israel for the hospital's bombing, Tel Aviv has put the blame on the group.
Islamabad, Oct 19 : United States officials halted communications with Pakistani counterparts after former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan's cipher fiasco, a senior diplomat has revealed, as per the media reports.

Imran Khan, on March 27 last year, had brandished a piece of paper during a public rally and portrayed it as a copy of a cipher in his speech, alleging that the US wanted him out of power.

The revelation about the US officials' communications halt was made by Faisal Tirmzi, who was the Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dealing with US-related matters, Geo News reported.

He told the details to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) as the body conducted interviews of relevant officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Prime Ministeras Office to probe the cipher case.

"The US had halted communications with us. The US asked Pakistan in writing to share the purported cipher being shown by the then PM," Tirmizi, now serving as the Ambassador of Pakistan to the UAE, said.

The US officials told Pakistani counterparts that they would not hold candid discussions with them if secret conversations were made part of the public discourse, Geo News reported.

The Foreign Office then issued an advisory to then prime minister Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, telling them about the repercussions of using diplomatic cables for political gains, Tirmizi said.

Imran is currently in jail for 'leaking the contents' of the diplomatic cable after a case was registered against him on August 18 under the Official Secrets Act 1923.

The former Pakistan prime minister's Principal Secretary Azam Khan also told FIA officials that the ex-premier wanted the military's help to foil the no-confidence bid against him.

The former Principal Secretary said Imran Khan called a meeting on March 28 (a day after showing the letter) and asked then Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood to read the contents of the cipher.

"I think he (Imran Khan) wanted to pressurise the military's top leadership. The former prime minister wanted the military to help him foiling the no-confidence bid," Azam said, Geo News reported.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The NIA has arrested another accused in connection with the June 21 Kwakta bomb blast case that left three people injured, an officer from the central agency said on Thursday.

The accused was identified as Md. Islauddin Khan.

According to an NIA officer, its investigations revealed the involvement of Md. Islauddin in the bomb blast that took place on June 21 in an IED laden Scorpio vehicle parked over a bridge located in the area of Phougakchao Ikhai Awang Leikai and Kwakta along Tiddim road in Bishnupur District, Manipur.

Three persons were injured and the bridge and nearby houses were damaged as a result of the blast.

Khan was produced before the jurisdictional Court at Imphal whereupon the Court remanded the accused to NIA custody for seven days.

On Monday in an Intelligence-based joint operation with the Assam Police, the agency had arrested Mohd Noor Hussain from Silchar in Assam.
Every year, Muslims around the world celebrate the birthday of Prophet Mohammed, the Messenger of Allah sent to confirm the essential teachings of monotheism. Born on the 12th day of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal in the year 570, of the Gregorian calendar, Prophet Mohammeds day of birth is an opportunity for many people to praise his good manners, his sacred mission and get to commemorate his existence.

The Prophets birthday, also known as Mawlid Nabawi, is a public holiday in Morocco. During the day, several people organize large street parades, donate food, read out poems and seize the moment to visit their friends and family members. It is also a joyful celebration for children who receive treats, buy new clothes and get to have a day off from school.

Officially, an annual event is held every year and hosted by King Mohammed VI at Hassan II mosque in Casablanca. During the ceremony, verses from the Holy Quran are recited and prophetic praise and liturgic music are played.

However, although some people see the Prophet of Islam's birthday as an event worthy of praise, others view the celebrations of birthdays as contradictory to Islamic law. Moreover, while Sunni Muslims agree on celebrating the Mawlid on the 12th of every Rabi al-awwal, Shia Muslims mark it on the 17th of the same month. Meanwhile, other countries ban the Prophet birthdays celebration, such as Saudi Arabia.

The Mawlid is contradictory to Islamic law

Speaking to Yabiladi, Abderrahim Ghazali, a Salafi preacher indicated that the Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him) had never celebrated his birthday nor his companions (Sahaba) had done this. Even during the three centuries that followed the Prophets death no one celebrated that day.

More than that, none of the Muslim caliphs who ruled during those three first centuries of Islam celebrated the birth of the Prophet. No one loves the Prophet more than Abu Bakr, Omar, Othmane, Ali, his companions and family who lived with him.

Ghazali explained that commemorating the Prophets birthday became a celebration through the years adding that Muslims have only two dates to celebrate : Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr.

To justify his point of view, the Salafi preacher indicated that historians believe that Prophet Mohammed was born on a Monday in the Year of the Elephant (Known as Amu l-Fil) circa 570 AD. Some people believe he was born on the 12th of Rabi' al-Awwal while others think his birthday is on the 8th or the 10th of the same month. But since the accurate date of his birth is unclear the celebration takes place on the 12th, the same day he passed away. To put in other words, Ghazali sees the celebration of this anniversary as a heresy.

Celebrating the Prophet's birthday as a way of expressing love

As opposed to Abderrahim Ghazali, Abdellah Kadira, head of the local scientific council in Rabat told Yabiladi that celebrating the Prophets birthday is not an invented thing, it is supported by the Holy Quran. He said that the Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him) used to fast every Monday to mark the day he was born in.

We celebrate the day the Messenger of God was, and that is in itself a joyful occasion. According to Kadira, the commemoration began in the fifth century of the Hijra calendar (i.e. the eleventh century according to the Gregorian calendar) and it is an opportunity for Mohammeds nation to gather, study his biography and defend his ethics.

There are two holidays known in the Quran and Sunnah. Those who love the Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him) are free to celebrate his birth and feel happy about such a date.

Those who refuse to celebrate the Prophets birthday are the same ones who claim that cars, trains and airplanes shouldnt be used because the Prophet did not, he said.

He concluded by pointing out that the Higher Scientific Council will celebrate the holiday by helping families in need by providing clothes for their children in an initiative entitled For the love of the Prophet.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Congress on Thursday said that the bombings at the Gaza Hospital and residential areas as "unjustifiable and grave humanitarian tragedy" for which the perpetrators must be "held accountable".

In a statement, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, who is also the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said, his party repeats its call for an immediate ceasefire and for humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered people of Gaza and urged all sides to abandon the path of "senseless violence and war" and begin the process of negotiations and diplomacy so that the aspirations of the Palestinian people are fulfilled and the security concerns of Israel are also ensured.

He said that the indiscriminate bombing on the hospital in Gaza and residential areas resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives of innocent men, women and children is both "unjustifiable and a grave humanitarian tragedy for which the perpetrators must be held accountable".

He said that on October 8, the Congress had condemned the brutal attacks by Hamas on the people of Israel.

"Also unacceptable are the indiscriminate actions by Israel's military forces in civilian areas, that includes a siege of the Gaza Strip and bombings in it," Kharge said.

"The Congress reiterates its long-standing support for the rights of the Palestinian people. The aspirations of the Palestinian people for a life of dignity, self-respect and equality in a sovereign state of their own is long-standing and perfectly legitimate. These aspirations have been routinely suppressed and denied. Millions of Palestinians have been dispossessed and displaced. They have lived in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation," the Congress leader said.

The October 8 statement had not gone well with a section of the party leaders. Many had suggested that the party has not unequivocally pledged its support to the Palestinian people, which echoes Congress' original stand.

In its resolution during the Congress Working Committee on October 9, the Congress has said: "Finally, the CWC expresses its dismay and anguish on the war that has broken out in the Middle East where over a thousand people have been killed in the last two days.

"The CWC reiterates its long-standing support for the rights of the Palestinian people to land, self-government and to live with dignity and respect. The CWC calls for an immediate cease-fire and for negotiations to begin on all outstanding issues, including the imperative issues that have given rise to the present conflict," it added.

--IANS

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'Yet to decide on pulling out from NDA despite pressure': Mizoram CM. Image Source: IANS News

Aizawl, Oct 19 : A multi-corner contest would be held in November 7 elections to the 40-member Mizoram assembly elections with two local parties -- the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) and the opposition Zoram People's Movement (ZPM), likely to play a key role in government formation.

The Congress, which ruled the mountainous state for many years alternatively since it became statehood in 1987 and was in power till 2018, when it was ousted by the MNF, would field candidates in all 40 seats.

The grand old party won only five seats in 2018 assembly polls. The BJP, which has a lone member in the outgoing assembly, has decided to put up candidates in 23 seats.

The MNF and the ZPM already announced their candidates for all the 40 seats.

Except the Congress there is no pre-poll alliance with any party. Though the MNF is a partner of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), the two parties officially have no alliance in the Christian dominated state.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is the convener of NEDA.

The Congress has recently formed 'Mizoram Secular Alliance' (MSA) with two local parties --- People's Conference (PC) and Zoram Nationalist Party (ZNP).

State unit Congress President Lalsawta said that the MSA was formed to unitedly fight against the BJP.

The People's Conference, which was founded by Padma Shri award winner late Brig T. Sailo, and ZNP are not fielding any candidates and the two parties would support the Congress nominees.

Anticipating that a fractured mandate is likely to emerge in the next monthas poll, Mizoram state BJP President Vanlalhmuaka said that the party has no problem to forge a post-poll alliance with any other like minded parties except the Congress. Vanlalhmuaka will fight the election from Dampa assembly constituency.

The saffron party had contested 39 seats in the 2018 elections and secured 8.50 per cent votes and one seat, opening its account for the first time in the Christian majority state though 33 of its candidates forfeited their deposits.

In 2013, all 17 BJP candidates forfeited their deposits.

The party's lone legislator Buddha Dhan Chakma, who was elected to the state assembly from Tuichawng constituency, however, will not contest this time.

Four defectors from the ruling MNF found places in the BJP candidate list, announced on Wednesday.

Former Speaker Lalrinliana Sailo and former Minister K. Beichhua would contest from Mamit and Siaha constituencies respectively while former MNF advisor T. Lalenthanga would contest from West Tuipui seat and former Chief Executive Member of Chakma Autonomous District Council Durjya Dhan Chakma, has been fielded in the Chakma tribal majority Tuichawng constituency.

All the four MNF leaders earlier this month joined the BJP, quieting their party.

Of the 23 BJP candidates, four are women a" Judy Zohmingliani (Tuivawl), F. Lalremsangi (Aizawl South-1), K. Vanlalruati (Serchhip), and R. Lalbiaktluangi (Lunglei West). Lalremsangi is the spokesperson of the BJP's Mizoram state unit.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also announced candidates for four seats in Aizawl district.

Another newly formed party, the Lalpa Chhiahlawh Intelkhawm (Association of God's servants), headed by a retired pastor, announced that it would contest at least 18 seats.

State Presidents of most of the political parties a" Chief Minister Zoramthanga (MNF), Lalsawta (Congress), Lalduhoma (ZPM), Vanlalhmuaka (BJP) are contesting this election. Though the political parties are at loggerheads in the next monthas poll battle, they unitedly and separately urged the Election Commission to reschedule the vote counting day in Mizoram, where the counting of votes will take place on December 3 (Sunday).

These parties, along with state's largest NGO Young Mizo Association (YMA) and Church bodies have urged the poll panel to change the date of vote counting (December 3) as Sunday is a sacred day for Christians, and the entire day is devoted to church services across the state.

According to the 2011 census, around 87 per cent of Mizoram population is Christian.

The Election Commission is yet to respond to the demand of change of the counting date.

After considering the representations from various political parties and social organisations for changing the polling date in Rajasthan in view of large scale wedding and social engagements on that day (November 23), the Election Commission changed the date of polling to November 25.

The EC on October 9 announced the assembly election schedule for five states -- Mizoram, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Chhattisgarh.

The votes would be counted on December 3.

(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at sujit.c@ians.in)
Vijay Deverakonda isn't one to be messed with in 'Family Star' teaser. Image Source: IANS News

Hyderabad, Oct 19 : Telugu superstar Vijay Deverakonda's new film 'Family Star' has released its first teaser.

A glimpse into the film, the bottom line of the teaser is that Vijay is someone who is not to be messed with.

The Vijay's character is shown as a loving father and responsible person. He is shown dropping his kids to the school bus, cooking, and also buying groceries. The simple day of every common man, things suddenly take an amusing turn when he is sitting inside a restaurant.

While sitting inside what appears to be some kind of a criminal ring, a man who looks like the boss of some gang begins lecturing him about masculinity acting all high and mighty, telling him that all that he does is not the sign of masculinity.

Then getting up, Vijay mockingly smiles at the man and then sarcastically remarks: "Oh! So taking kids to school is not manly? Okay. Buying groceries and cooking isn't manly? Okay. Then will bending an iron prove my masculinity?"

Going in the front, there are a bunch of rods present as the site looks to be somewhat like a construction site. Putting his foot at the rod, Vijay then holds the rod and proceeds to begin bending it.

Then kicking the rod with his foot, the 'Taxiwaala' and 'Meeku Maathrame Cheptha' actor takes the rod in his hand in style, and then bends it with his hands.

A man later comes to attack him, and Vijay bashes his head against the ridge of a broken brick wall, instantly killing him. Looking at him as if somewhat mildly inconvenienced, he takes his tongue out wondering: "Oh man! Shouldn't really have done that."

As everyone looks astounded, the actor smilingly and mockingly says to the onlookers: "Oh I'm really sorry boss. You see I forgot to buy coconut, so I instead bashed his hand on the brick."

The end shot also gives a glimpse of actress Mrunal Thakur, who plays the role of Vijay's wife in the film.

A black comedy-action-family film 'Family Star' is by Parasuram Petla and will release in theatres in 2024.
Gurugram, Oct 19 : A 32-year-old woman has been arrested along with two of her accomplices for allegedly duping 11 people from Delhi, Gurugram and Noida through a dating app police said.

The city police nabbed Surbhi alias Sakshi alias Payal, a resident of Chawri Bazar, Delhi and his male friends Sushil, a resident of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Vishal of Chawdi Bazaar in Delhi.

The suspect woman (an MBA holder) and Sushil were arrested on October 13 from Chawri Bazar while the third accused was arrested on October 15 from Sector-29 Gurugram. Later they were taken on police remand.

According to the police, the accused trio were arrested after receiving a complaint from a man, a resident of Gurugram, who alleged that on October 1, he met a woman who introduced herself as Sakshi alias Payal through a dating app.

On the same day, the woman called the complainant to meet him at Dockyard Bar Sector-47, Gurugram and both of them (complainant and accused woman) took liquor from there and went to the complainant's house.

The girl sent the complainant to the kitchen on the pretext of getting ice and from behind she mixed intoxicants in his liquor. After drinking, the complainant became unconscious and the accused woman stole a gold chain, mobile phone and Rs 10,000 in cash from his house and withdrew Rs 1 lakh from his HDFC Bank Debit Card, Rs 1, 22,000 from Axis Bank Credit card and Rs 56,000 from the Citybank card.

The effect of the intoxicant was so great that he (complainant) regained consciousness on October 3 and the effect of that intoxicant remained for several days, police said.

Based on the complaint, a case under relevant sections of the IPC was registered at the Sector-29 police station on October 10.

During investigations, police nabbed the woman along with her accomplice.

During police custody, the culprit disclosed that in October they had duped 11 people via a dating app of Rs 13.95 lakh.

"The woman along with her associate used to meet victims through dating apps at parking lots of clubs, hotels and on some pretext she mixed intoxicants in their liquor after consuming this, the victims became unconscious and the accused stole cash, gold chain, mobile phone and ATM cards. The suspects have duped 11 people of Delhi and NCR with the same modus operandi," Dr Kavita, ACP (east) said.

The police have also recovered 15 bank cards, Rs 1.60 lakh, two laptops, three mobile phones and one gold chain from their possession.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Japanese investment giant SoftBank's venture capital fund SVF Growth is reportedly set to sell 1.1 per cent stake in food delivery platform Zomato for around Rs 1,024 crore.

The sale via a bulk deal is likely to see the offer price at Rs 109.4-Rs 111.65 per share, reports CNBC TV18, citing sources.

Zomato or SoftBank did not officially comment on the upcoming bulk deal.

Zomato's shares on BSE closed 1.6 per cent lower at Rs 111.40 per share on Thursday.

In August, SoftBank had sold a partial stake in Zomato through bulk deals at Rs 947 crore.

The Japanese investment giant, which had sold nearly 10 crore shares in Zomato, amounting to an 1.17 per cent of the companyas equity, is planning to fully exit the online food delivery platform.

SoftBank bought Zomato stake in June last year for around Rs 71 per share.

For the company, Zomato is just an investment on which the company has made significant profits.

Another foreign institutional investor, Tiger Global Management, offloaded its entire shareholding of 1.44 per cent in Zomato in August. The deal earned Tiger Global a total of Rs 1,123.85 crore.
Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 19 : In what's billed as a first of its kind, Kerala is to organise a investor meet in the tourism sector, it was announced on Thursday.

Tourism Minister P.A.Mohammed Riyas said the investor meet will be held here on November 16.

"Tourism sector is a highly promising area for Kerala, whose full investment potential is yet to be tapped effectively. The investors meet will make major strides in that direction," he said.

Ahead of it, he said they have identified the thrust areas and locations that need more investments and will be unveiled before the investors and other stakeholders from India and abroad. He said the event will be attended by around 350 investors.
Gandhinagar, Oct 19 : In an operation aimed at eradicating human trafficking under the guise of spa services and hotels, the Gujarat Police undertook simultaneous raids on 851 establishments across the state, following a directive from the Minister of State for Home, Harsh Sanghavi.

The large-scale operation, initiated on October 18, resulted in 103 FIRs filed against 152 individuals, leading to the arrest of 105 suspects.

Moreover, the authorities have initiated proceedings to cancel the licenses of 27 spa centers and hotels associated with these illicit activities, the officials said.

Earlier, on October 17, Sanghvi had organised a video conference with senior police officers across the state, emphasising a coordinated effort to counter illegal spa operations and human trafficking.

In a notable operation in Vadodara, the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, along with the Zone 2 Local Crime Branch, executed a raid on Old Padra Road. Four women were rescued, and legal actions were initiated against two spa operators for violating regulations.

Surat witnessed meticulously planned operations based on tip-offs about illegal activities within spas, resulting in over 50 cases registered in just one day.

Rajkot's police units, conducting joint raids on city spas, have sent a clear message to spa managers about intensified monitoring. Sources said that the authorities plan to sustain the heightened vigilance with continuous operations.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said that his bete noire and former chief minister and BJP leader Vasundhara Raje should not be punished by the saffron party because of him, as it would be "injustice" to her.

The chief minister made the remarks at a press conference at the party headquarters here while answering a question about the BJP delaying the name of the CM nominee for Rajasthan. Gehlot said, "It is the BJP's internal matter. She (Vasundhara Raje) should not be punished due to me. This would be injustice to her."

While referring to the 2020 rebellion by his deputy Sachin Pilot, Gehlot mentioned the Vasundhara episode. "I remember an incident where then Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was abroad for bypass surgery and his Speaker in Rajasthan spoke of toppling the government which I opposed as state Congress chief. I even told then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao that this would not be correct. Recently, when my government was in crisis, an MLA close to Raje met me and said she also holds the same opinion that duly elected governments shouldn't be toppled, and this is all I said in Dholpur," Gehlot said defending Raje who has been increasingly sidelined in the BJP amid signals of her closeness to Gehlot.

Raje was in the eye of a storm recently when Gehlot said at a Dholpur rally that she had helped save his government. He also sounded a note of caution to Pilot on the latter's CM ambitions and said, "In the Congress it is best not to be a CM candidate because the one who is the candidate never becomes CM. We will accept what the high command decides and I have been trusted by the Gandhis. There must be some reason for that," the Rajasthan CM said. The Congress is yet to announce its Rajasthan candidates, with Gehlot saying all decisions will be taken by consensus.

Polling for the 200 member Rajasthan assembly has been rescheduled to November 25 and counting of votes will take place on December 3.
Bhubaneswar, Oct 19 : In a landmark judgment, the special POCSO court, Sundargarh district in Odisha on Thursday awarded death sentence to a 47-year-old person for rape and murder of a four-year-old girl.

The convict has been identified as Sanjeeb Kerketta of Sundargarh town.

Sundargarh Special POCSO Court judge Mahendra Kumar Sutradhar convicted Kerketta under sections 450,366,376(2) (i), 376(A), 302, 201, of IPC and section 6 of POCSO Act.

Kerketta has also been directed to deposit Rs 39,000 as fine.

Sources said that the victim was sleeping in her house when the accused kidnapped her on October 21, 2016. The victim's mother chased the accused for some distance but failed to rescue her daughter.

She later lodged a missing report at the Sundargarh town police station the next day. The body of the victim was recovered from an abandoned house nearby her house on October 24, 2016.

The police later found that Kerketta strangled the victim to death after raping her in the abandoned house. Police arrested Kerketta from his hideout October 27, 2017.

"Police had earlier recovered the wallet and ID card of the Kerketta near the victim's body. Police during investigation also ascertained that the accused had criminal antecedent. The court after examining the statements of as many as 35 witnesses and other evidences awarded the convict the death sentence," Special Public Prosecutor, Debasish Mishra said.

--IANS

gyan/dan
Chennai, Oct 19 : Tamil Nadu Police on Thursday slapped Goonda Act on three persons who had allegedly morphed photographs of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) women workers and published them online.

The police said that the suspects are M. Vasanthakumar 29, K. Dinesh alias Dinesh Kumar, 28, and T. Ravi, 40 of Veeracholpauram in Kallakurichi district.

The trio were already arrested on September 21 and lodged in judicial custody at the Cuddalore Central prison.

The police reached the prison and served them with the notice of Goonda Act slapped on them.

Kallakurichi Police Superintendent, N. Mohanraj and District Collector, Sravan Kumar Jatavath had ordered their detention under Goonda Act.

--IANS

aal/vd
An adult diaper caused quite a stir on board an airplane flying from Panama City to Tampa, Florida, USA. After an hour-long flight, the crew and passengers of the Copa Airlines flight were forced to return to the departure point to investigate the bomb threat.

ADVERTISIMENT

One of the passengers reported a suspicious object in one of the airplane's toilets, suggesting that it could be a bomb. The details of the incident were described in The New York Post.

After receiving information about a possible explosive device, the plane made an emergency landing in Panama City. There, it was diverted to an isolated area, after which all 144 passengers were evacuated and a team of explosives experts thoroughly examined the aircraft.

Airport security conducted a comprehensive inspection of the plane and found that the suspected bomb was actually an adult diaper that had been simply wrapped in a black bag.

ADVERTISIMENT

The press service of the Panamanian National Police wrote on its page on X (a social network formerly known as Twitter): "After being notified of a foreign object on board the plane, the special forces activated the emergency protocol, and during the inspection it turned out to be a disposable adult diaper."

Jose Castro, head of the airport's security team, also commented on the incident. He said that the "suspicious object" was taken to a secure runway, where it was thoroughly examined by police dog handlers and special forces, who found out that it was a regular diaper.

Earlier, OBOZ.UA wrote that in September this year, a plane with Verka Serdyuchka and her entire crew on board made an emergency landing in Connecticut. Find out what happened in our article.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Congress on Thursday again targeted at the Google owned YouTube platform for putting a warning tagline on Rahul Gandhi's and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's speeches made in Telangana.

Congress accused YouTube of playing into the hands of the ruling dispensation in India which has been desperately trying to block the messaging from the Opposition.

"Only a few days ago, the Washington Post revealed how social media platforms including YouTube were playing into the hands of the ruling dispensation in India. The article had also mentioned that the messages of the Opposition were being suppressed," Congress General Secretary (Communication) Jairam Ramesh wrote on X.

Slamming the YouTube, the Congress leader said that today the YouTube India has vindicated what the Washington Post wrote and what were already our "genuine apprehensions".

"By putting a warning tagline on Rahul Gandhi's and Priyanka Gandhi's speeches, made in Telangana yesterday, that the content 'may contain suicide or self-harm topics', YouTube has proved beyond any doubt that it is playing into the hands of India's ruling dispensation which has been desperately trying to block the messaging from the Opposition," the Rajya Sabha MP said.

The Congress leader asked, "Will Google, which owns YouTube, explain what is 'suicidal or self-harming' in their speeches? Will now raising issues that matter to the people be censored?"

" We have written to them in the past and we will keep raising our voice in the future for a level-playing field and an unbiased approach from global social media companiesa critical necessity today for free and fair elections in India and all over the world," Ramesh said, while attaching a screengrab of the warning put by the YouTube on the video of the Gandhi siblings Telangana's speech.

The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties had written to Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai saying they are culpable of abetting social disharmony and inciting communal hatred in India.

It also alleged algorithmic moderation and suppression of Opposition leaders content on their platform while promoting ruling party (BJP) content.

INDIA parties also warned the two companies that in view of the upcoming national elections in 2024, it should consider these facts "seriously" and ensure immediately that Meta's and Alphabet's operations "in India remain neutral" and are not used wittingly or unwittingly to cause social unrest or distort India's much cherished democratic ideals.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : In a massive crackdown against organised cyber financial crimes, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday carried out searches at 76 locations across the country and seized several digital devices under Operation Chakra II.

A CBI official here said that the agency sleuths carried out searches at 76 locations in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

"We have seized several digital devices including lapotps, hard disks, sim cards, server images. We have also busted nine call centres," he said.

The official said that the action is in the wake of five cases it registered.

The official said that out of five, in three cases, one complaint was from Microsoft, while another one is from Amazon as some people masquediring as claiming to be from the technical support team duped them.

He also said that there was another case of Crypto Ponzi Scehme, in which input was given by FIU Indian team.

"The Indians were targeted and over Rs 100 crore fraud was committed with them," he said.

The official said that the action is based on the complaint to fight against transnational organized Cyber Crime Networks under Operation Chakra-II, with an aim to combat and dismantle infrastructure of organised cyber-enabled financial crimes in India. This operation was conducted in collaboration with national and international agencies, alongside private sector giants.

Giving the breakup of the seizures, the official said that the agency has confiscated 32 mobile phones, 48 laptops or hard disks, images of two servers, 33 SIM cards, and pen drives and numerous bank account freezed.

The CBI also seized a dump of 15 email accounts, illuminating the intricate web of deceit spun by the accused, they said.

The official said that two instances of International Tech Support Fraud Scam came to light.

"The accused, operating nine call centers across 5 states or UTs, systematically preyed on foreign nationals, masquerading as Technical Support Representatives," the CBI said.

"The CBI's relentless pursuit of justice ensures that those responsible for this reprehensible act will face the full force of the law," the agency said.

Based on evidence gathered during Operation Chakra-II, law enforcement agencies internationally are being notified of the details of identified victims, shell companies, identified money mules, identified proceeds of crime, details of co-accused or support elements for comprehensive action to dismantle these criminal networks.

The official said that the CBI is working closely in the spirit of international police cooperation with its international counterparts, including Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US, Cyber crime Directorate and IFCACC of INTERPOL, the National Crime Agency (NCA) in the UK, Singapore Police Force and BKA of Germany to notify further leads.
Patna, Oct 19 : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for sanctioning the Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari.

"I will respect him (Modi) till he is alive," the Chief Minister said while addressing the convocation ceremony of Mahatma Gandhi Central University in presence of President Draupadi Murmu.

"In 2007, UPA II had taken the decision of having a central university in states of the country and asked for the lands. They again passed an act in 2009 for the same. We had requested them to make one central university in Champaran and another in Gaya. We also told them that Mahatma Gandhi had also visited the place. But they didn't sanction it. I told them that Congress is forgetting Mahatma Gandhi," the Chief Minister said.

He said that in 2014 Modi took the decision to build a central university in Motihari. "I thank him for fulfilling his promise," Kumar said.

"I will respect him until I am alive. Our prestige is connected with Champaran. Modi sanctioned it in 2014 and its construction started in 2016. They (BJP leaders) are my friends and our friendship would not end," Kumar said.

Speculations about Nitish Kumar changing his political goal post again from Mahagathbandhan towards NDA are ripe in the state.
Jaipur, Oct 19 : The 'Bhoomi Pujan' and foundation laying programme of a ropeway project here by a state Cabinet Minister on Thursday triggered a row after the Election Commission stopped a state Cabinet Minister Mahesh Joshi from attending the programme citing the Model Code of Conduct.

The Election Commission officials also removed the foundation stone plaque with the name of the minister written on it.

Amid the row, five priests of major temples together laid the foundation of the ropeway, and all that time Mahesh Joshi stayed outside the gate.

Later, taking a dig at the opposition, Joshi said that "there are people in one party who do not do anything themselves".

"If someone else starts doing it, they try to stop him," he said.

A large number of people of Hawa Mahal assembly constituency gathered below the Garh Ganesh temple during the programme. As soon as the Election Commission got information, the officials of the poll panel arrived to stop the programme.

An Election Commission official Kirti Singh Nirvan said: "The manner in which the advertisement appeared in the newspaper is a violation of the code of conduct. No political foundation stone laying program can be held after the implementation of the code of conduct. This was a political program so efforts were made to stop it. If any event is private then there is no problem in that."

Later, speaking about the foundation laying programme Minister Mahesh Joshi said: I want to congratulate all the Ganesh devotees of Jaipur. People who could not climb to such a height for some reason since years will now be also able to get the facility of darshan."
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Mission Save Constitution, an organisation dedicated to promoting awareness of constitutional rights, has approached the Delhi High Court seeking permission to hold a public meeting at Ramlila Ground later this month.

The move comes after the Delhi police revoked their initial consent, citing concerns over the event's "communal" nature.

Petitioner, Mission Save Constitution (MSC), had initially received approval for the gathering, scheduled for October 29, after a series of meetings and clearances with Delhi Police officials. However, the deputy commissioner of police (DCP) of Central Delhi district unilaterally and arbitrarily revoked this permission.

The organisation's objective for the event is to initiate a series of gatherings focused on strengthening various marginalised communities, beginning with minority communities and extending to groups like SC, ST, and OBC. These meetings aim to give a voice to all oppressed sections of society.

The petition seeks the court's intervention to set aside the DCP's October 16 letter and to grant permission for the event on October 29.

The DCP's letter, which cancelled the previous permission, mentioned that the event's theme had been misrepresented, and social media posts indicated a communal agenda.

It raised concerns about the potential for communal tensions during the festive season and in a sensitive location like Old Delhi.

The petitioner had argued that the reasons provided for the cancellation of permission are unfounded and unreasonable.

MSC, led by advocate Mehmood Pracha as its national convenor, aims to educate the public about their constitutional rights and improve the well-being of marginalised communities by utilising constitutional and legal provisions.

Justice Subramonium Prasad has listed the case for hearing on October 20.

--IANS

spr/dan
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The Delhi High Court on Thursday directed aviation watchdog, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), to file a response to the question whether the Ministry of Corporate Affairs' notification exempting aviation leases from moratorium under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, is applicable to cash-strapped Go First airline.

The court's directions came during the hearing of a case involving aircraft and engine lessors of the grounded airline Go First, who were contesting against the DGCA not de-registering their aircraft.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma requested an extension to seek clarity from the government regarding the applicability of the notification in the Go First case.

However, senior advocates Amit Sibal and Dayan Krishnan for lessors, opposed the request saying that the government's stance is already clear as aviation leases are exempt from the moratorium.

On the other hand, senior advocates Neeraj Kishan Kaul and Ramji Srinivasan informed the court of their intention to address the merits of the case, emphasising that they have several other issues to cover.

They urged the court to hear them, considering that the lessors had already presented their case on the merits for over a month.

However, after hearing the arguments, the court opted to proceed with the case and has listed the matter for hearing next on November 3 when the airlineas Resolution Professional (RP) is expected to commence his arguments.

On May 26, aircraft lessors - Pembroke Aircraft Leasing 11 Ltd, SMBC Aviation Capital Ltd, Accipiter Investments Aircraft 2 Ltd and EOS Aviation 12 (Ireland) Ltd - had moved the high court seeking deregistration of their planes by the DGCA, so that they could take them back from the airline.

The airline, its representatives, and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT)-appointed Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) were restricted by the court from removing, replacing or taking out any part or components, or records of the 30 aircraft without taking prior written approval from lessor of the particular aeroplane.

The low-cost airline first stopped flying on May 3 and is undergoing voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings before the NCLT.

On lessorsa petitions seeking deregistration of their aircraft, the DGCA had told the high court that it was due to a technical glitch on its portal that the applications of several aircraft lessors were shown as arejecteda. It had said it was not processing such requests after a moratorium on financial obligations and transfer of assets of the crisis-hit airline post insolvency resolution proceedings.

At this, the court had asked the DGCA's counsel Anjana Gosain as to why different responses were sent to different lessors on repossession requests.

Gosain had apprised the court that when lessors send deregistration requests to the regulator, it is done in five working days and that in this case, no application has been rejected. "There was a glitch in the portal due to which it showed that the applications have been rejected," she had said.

Earlier, the lessors had said it is "illegitimate" of the DGCA to deny deregistration. The lessors' contention is that Go First has no right to use their aircraft as the leases concerning them have been terminated.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal on May 22 upheld the insolvency proceedings against Go First in a setback to efforts of its lessors to repossess their aircraft. Upholding the NCLT's May 10 order, the appeals tribunal disposed of the lessors' petition and asked them to file an appeal before the NCLT.

The airline had approached the NCLT "due to the ever-increasing number of failing engines supplied by Pratt & Whitney's International Aero Engines, which has resulted in Go First (airline brand) having to ground 25 aircraft (equivalent to approximately 50 per cent of its Airbus A320neo aircraft fleet) as of May 1, 2023".

--IANS

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Dhaka, Oct 13 : After violent calls by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and mobilisation of its armed cadre, a multi-pronged plan has been set in motion to oust the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power in Bangladesh, intelligence officials said on Thursday.

They said that in last few months, several BNP leaders have publicly threatened to re-stage 1975-type massacre to oust the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power, showing that terrorism is a template used by the BNP.

They said that several top BNP leaders, including Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, have frequently called on the party workers to hit the streets and grab power by force.

Hundreds of BNP cadres who were allegedly involved in arson attacks are evading arrest which also shows the nexus between acting BNP chairman Tarique Rahman and the militants.

From 2001 to 2006, Bangladesh witnessed attacks on its minority communities. "Unleashing BNP cadres on the streets to attack law enforcers or orchestrate grenade attack on shopping malls or staging attacks on Puja Pandals have again become the possible targets," the intelligence officials said.

Described as a "symbol of violent politics" by former US Ambassador to Bangladesh, Tarique holds a reputation of nurturing close ties with militants.

In an interview to India Today on 23 February 2023, retired Deputy Director General of India's Defence Intelligence Agency, Major General Gaganjit Singh said that a huge consignment of weapons -- 10 trucks full of arms -- was seized at Bangladesh's Chittagong in April 2004. It was meant for the United Liberation Front of Asom and a few other rebel groups in India's northeast to destablise Bangladesh.

Singh said that the arms supply was done through the alliance between the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Tarique's another handpicked loyalist, Lutfuzzaman Babar, who had served as state Minister for Home between 2001 and 2006 is now facing trial for having links with militants.

Tarique has also exposed his support for the dreaded militant Bangla Bhai. "Lutfozzaman Babar never helped to control the militant outfits. In fact, he asked for all the police and administrative support in organising a vigilante militant group called JMB led by extremist Bangla Bhai in the northern districts," the then IGP Nur Mohammad, said during an interview in June 2007.

Intelligence sources have said that another possible plan is to re-stage October 28 like arson on the streets in the country. In 2006, BNP-Jamaat workers, brandishing firearms and sticks, attacked Awami League (AL) activists on the streets of the capital, triggering deadly clashes which resulted in loss of several lives.

AL central leader Aminul Islam said that there is an emerging rift within the BNP with many leaders now in open rebellion against the party leadership.

"It is one of the reasons, the Tarique loyalists in BNP, have shifted focus on flaring-up the violence in the streets," Islam said.

DC Media and Spokesperson of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Faruk Hussain told IANS, "We will surely do our job to ensure people find the city safe and will also thwart any attempt to derail the public safety."

However, a year-long campaign by BNP to oust the government with their movement has clearly failed to garner public support.

--IANS

sumi/dan
Jaipur, Oct 19 : Congress leader and former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot on Thursday said that he welcomed all proposals from the winning contenders with an open heart.

"Some people were accused of indiscipline in the party. But, I welcomed all proposals from the winning contenders with an open heart. Even if someone had insulted Sonia Gandhi at that time, still I said: Whoever is in the party's interest should get the ticket. I did not oppose even a single contender and there could be no greater proof of love than this," he told media persons in Kandoli town of Dausa district.

His reference was to the "rebellion" by some party lawmakers in September last year.

Pilot was in Kandoli on Thursday evening to take stock of preparations for Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi's meeting which will be held on Friday here.

Asked about the CM Ashok Gehlot remembering the Manesar issue, when Pilot and his supporters has mounted their "rebellion" in 2020, he said: "The Chief Minister has said that the love and affection between us has become an example."

On Congress' CM face, he said: "When elections are held in any state of the country, there is collective leadership and after the elections, the Congress high command decides the leader of the house. Congress has also made it clear that they will contest the elections together. After the elections, the MLAs and the high command will decide who will become the CM in 2023."

Questioned on CMas statement in the press conference held in Delhi when Gehlot said that he wanted to leave the post of CM, but it is not leaving him and will not leave him too, he said: "I am not aware of this conference. But, who sits on which post and when is decided by the Congress leadership.

"Congress President (Mallikarjun Kharge), Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi will decide which leader will work on which post in the government or organisation. Whatever decision the party leadership takes, it will be accepted by everyone."

"In 2018, I was the President of the State Congress. All the party leaders worked hard together and formed the government. Even today all the leaders are contesting elections together. There is a lot of nervousness within the BJP regarding this. There is mutual conflict and tussle," he said.

"BJP has distributed only 40 tickets, but 80 fights have taken place. This makes it clear that a lot is going on internally in BJP. I do not want to comment on it, but the Congress is going to contest the elections completely united. All the leaders have discussed and selected the candidates in a positive atmosphere, the list will also be revealed very soon," he added.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The Supreme Court has granted bail to a person accused of posting offending and abusive social media posts against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his late mother.

A bench of Justices A.S. Boppana and M.M. Sundresh noted that the petitioner, Afsalbhai Kasambhai Lakhani, who allegedly created the "Gujarat Trast Bhajpa Mast" Facebook page, had later expressed regret for his actions.

"However he should restrain himself from putting any such posts on social media in future either directly or in an anonymous manner," said the bench, while ordering his release on bail on Wednesday.

It clarified that if there is any violation of conditions, the state of Gujarat may approach the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of the bail.

Earlier in June this year, a bench of Justice Nirzar S Desai of the High Court had dismissed the bail filed by the accused saying that if such person is granted bail, there are all the chances that he may commit such offence once again by using another name and by creating fake IDs.

It had noted that the alleged posts not only contain derogatory and insulting remarks against the Prime Minister but also against his late mother.

"One can understand that a person may have like or dislike against any person but it does not mean that he may start using derogatory and abusive language for the Hon'ble Prime Minister of the country and his late mother," it had said.

The Additional Public Prosecutor stated that the accused had created 18 different Facebook pages through his two different mobile phones and also made international calls to Pakistan and other countries and also received phone calls from other neighboring countries.

The complainant Devubhai Khaminandbhai said that the Facebook posts were such that they could affect communal harmony, create enmity between two communities, and create an unrest in the society. In December last year, an FIR was registered with Sikka Police Station in Jamnagar district of Gujarat for offences under Sections 120 (B), 153 (A), 283 (2) (A), 294 (B), 295 (A), 298, 469, 500, 501 and 505 (2) of Indian Penal Code and under section 67 of the Information Technology Act.
Washington, Oct 19 : The US State Department has issued a "worldwide caution security alert" for all its citizens overseas, citing the potential for attacks, the media reported.

"Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against US citizens and interests, the Department of State advises US citizens overseas to exercise increased caution," the advisory warned.

It means US citizens should stay alert in tourist spots and sign up to receive information and alerts, the BBC reported.

A US State Department official has resigned from the agency over the Joe Biden administration's approach to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, CNN reported.

Josh Paul, who said he has worked in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for more than 11 years, said in his LinkedIn post that he resigned "due to a policy disagreement concerning our continued lethal assistance to Israel".

"Let me be clear," Paul wrote.

"Hamas' attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy.

"But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people a" and is not in the long term American interest."
Ukrainian TV presenter and model Dasha Astafieva has amazed her fans with a change in her look. The artist appeared in a restrained, stylish suit and glasses, whereas previously she was used to being seen in revealing looks or sportswear.

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Fans praised her for choosing a bold outfit and noted that this style suits her very well in the comments under the Instagram post (to see the photo, scroll to the bottom of the page).

Wearing a business outfit, Astafieva attended an event dedicated to the War Diaries: Unheard Voices of Ukrainian Children project. Other Ukrainian show business stars attended the event too.

The model appeared in a black suit with wide pants that were slightly cropped. The star wore massive high-platform boots with high socks. By the way, OBOZ.UA wrote about how to wear this trend in style.

Astafieva emphasized her waist with a wide belt. The star complemented her formal look with glasses, which is very unusual for her usual style, and also styled her hair on the side. A red bag with white spots and a hedgehog became a bright accent. Her uniform was also unusual.

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Ukrainians praised Dasha Astafieva's outfit in the comments. Her followers are used to seeing the artist in simple looks without makeup or with curly hair. The star skillfully mixed these photos with glamorous and candid photoshoots. Her subscribers were not used to seeing the model in business looks.

"Stylish," "You look incredible," "Stylish," "How beautiful," "Dasha, that's the style," "Beautiful," "Very beautiful and stylish," they wrote in the comments.

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As OBOZ.UA wrote, during the full-scale war, Dasha Astafieva combined her posing skills and humor, surprising her fans by publishing a post about Russian President Vladimir Putin. The star was holding a "newspaper" with the headline "Putin was poisoned."

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Kolkata, Oct 19 : The Calcutta High Court on Thursday gave fresh permission to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to immediately conduct a voice sample test of Sujay Krishna Bhadra, a prime accused in the multi-crore cash-for school job case in West Bengal.

This the second time that the Calcutta High Court has given permission to the central agency to conduct the voice sample test of Bhadra, who is currently at state-run SSKM Medical College & Hospital in south Kolkata for the last two months since his bypass surgery in August this year.

The court had first given permission to ED to conduct the voice-sample test of Bhadra in July, when the central agency presented at the court an audio clip where Bhadra was reportedly giving instruction to someone to erase data from his mobile number.

However, the voice sampling could not be done then as Bhadra got admitted to hospital complaining of chest ailments following which his bypass surgery was done.

ED's counsel Abhijit Bhadra said that the voice sample test has become imperative now following the High Courtas direction to wind up the investigation process in the school job case by December 31, 2023.

"So we made a fresh appeal to the Calcutta High Court to immediately conduct the voice sample test of Bhadra, which the court has granted," he added. Since the last two days ED had been enquiring from SSKM. authorities from the current health updates of Bhadra.

The central agency sleuths are also questioning the authorities of Presidency Central Correctional Home to find out the reasons that prompted them to shift Bhadra from prison hospital to SSKM. earlier this year.
New Delhi, Oct 19 : Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday condemned the killings of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza as he called for bringing an end to the cycle of violence between Israel and Palestine.

In a post on X, he said: "The killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children in Gaza and the collective punishment of millions of people by cutting off their food, water and electricity are crimes against humanity".

Condemning the terror attack by Hamas on Israel, the Congress leader said: "Hamas' killing of innocent Israelis and taking of hostages is a crime and must also be condemned.

aThe cycle of violence between Israel and Palestine must be brought to an end," he added.

His remarks came as the death toll in the ongoing Hamas-Israel conflict neared 5,000, with thousands of others injured and displaced as a result of the violence which continued for the 13th day on Thursday.

--IANS

aks/vd
New Delhi, Oct 19 : The Delhi High Court on Thursday permitted a woman to terminate her 23-week pregnancy, noting that the medical board of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has said that the foetus was normal and it was safe to take the step.

Justice Subramonium Prasadas order came in a plea by a 31-year-old woman, who sought to terminate the pregnancy after deciding to divorce her husband.

The judge had, on Monday, directed the AIIMS to establish a medical board to assess the woman's request, stressing the necessity for an evaluation by a Medical Board to determine whether it was safe for the woman to undergo pregnancy termination by a registered medical practitioner.

The woman got married in June and found that she was carrying a single intrauterine pregnancy after a month.

Besides directing AIIMS, the court had directed the woman's husband to be included as a party to the case and issued a notice to him. The woman alleged that she had been subjected to verbal, physical, mental, and emotional abuse by her husband since the early stages of their marriage. She reported two instances of physical assault, the first in July and the second in August when she was three months pregnant.

Since August, she has been residing in her parental home and has expressed a desire to terminate her pregnancy.

While the court granted relief to the woman, it noted that she had not filed a police report against her husband for the alleged physical abuse, nor had she initiated a petition for divorce or judicial separation.

However, the court referred to a Supreme Court decision that affirms a woman's prerogative to assess her life and choose the best course of action, particularly in the context of changing circumstances.

The order cited the potential for material changes when a woman separates from her partner, which may affect her ability to raise a child.

The court also referenced domestic violence cases under Rule 3B(c) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Rules, which allows a woman to terminate her pregnancy up to 24 weeks due to a change in marital status.
Delhi Metro, you make travelling so easy: US envoy to India. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Oct 19 : US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti on Thursday was all praise for Delhi Metro after taking a ride on the rapid transit system, describing it as among the best in the world.

Sharing a video on 'X', Garcetti said he had a great time riding the Delhi Metro and meeting fellow passengers.

"Wow! Delhi Metro, you make traveling so easy! I had a great time riding the Delhi metro for the first time and meeting fellow passengers. A shout out to the well maintained, efficient, and green public transport system that is among the best in the world!" Garcetti posted.

He was also seen interacting with passengers on the Delhi Metro.

The US Ambassador was also seen showing the 'Smart Card' used for travelling in Delhi Metro to the camera.
Washington, Oct 19 : US President Joe Biden has literally emerged as the 'father figure' to Israel as millions idolise him after his 7-hour visit, the first ever war-time one of an American president, even overshadowing the popularity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden made a Zoom call for about 15 minutes last night with families of Americans taken hostage by Hamas evoking a strong bonding with the Israelis who now idolise him as their father figure.

When a White House aide started to end the session, Biden wouldn't have it, according to one of the family members on the call.

"The president actually looked at him and said: 'Last time I checked I'm the president of the United States. And this meeting will end when I say it ends,'" The President reportedly said per Ruby Chen of Israel, the father of Itay Chen, a 19-year-old member of the Israel Defense Forces and a dual US-Israeli citizen who is among those missing.

"He actually wanted to hear from every single one of us," USA Today quoted Chen as saying.

That moment became unforgettable for many Israelis as Biden's sudden shift from a political figure to father figure, as his commitment to Israel often came under scrutiny by Conservative critics inside and outside the Jewish state. Right now, Biden is arguably the world's leading champion of Israel outside the Middle East, USA Today said.

Biden's actions and words since the October 7 Hamas attack, climaxed by a sudden dramatic visit on Wednesday to Israel, has come under praise even from many of Biden's biggest skeptics in Israel as he has demonstrated very strongly he stands with Israel promising"unprecedented" military assistance.

"Israelis were hungry for a father figure that will hug them and show empathy. And the president has done that in such a way that really touched every Israeli," said Nimrod Novik, a former foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and now a fellow with the Israel Policy Forum.

Israelis last week displayed a billboard off a highway in Tel Aviv stating, "Thank you, Mr. President," next to Biden's image. A billboard welcomed Biden to Israel during his visit Wednesday. The praise showering Biden in Israel comes as its own leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has seen his support in his country plummet in the wake of the Hamas attack and Israel's military response, USA Today pointed out.
Karimnagar : , Oct 19 (IANS) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday predicted that there will be a Congress wave in Telangana and the party will storm to power.

Addressing a series of meetings as part of Vijaybheri Yatra in the state, he exuded confidence that Congress will sweep the Assembly elections scheduled to be held next month.

"Write it down. The Congress is coming to power in Telangana," he said and reiterated that after coming to power, it will undertake a caste census in the state.

He assured the people that he would always be available for Telangana.

"Whenever Telangana needs Rahul Gandhi, he will be here. Your soldier is sitting in Delhi and he will come whenever you need me," he said.

Addressing public meetings and corner meetings in Bhupalapally, Peddapally and Karimnagar districts, he said his relationship with Telangana was not political but that of family and love just like the bonding Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had with the state.

The Congress MP recalled that it was Sonia Gandhi who carved out Telangana despite knowing that this could result in a political loss for the Congress. He said she did this for the sake of the poor, farmers and workers of Telangana.

Rahul Gandhi alleged that during the last 10 years Chief Minister KCR shattered the dreams of people of Telangana. He said the Assembly elections will be a battle between 'Dorala Telangana and Prajala Telangana' (feudals' Telangana and people's Telangana).

"KCR and his family members control all key departments relating to land, sand and liquor. Your Chief Minister acts like a king and not as Chief Minister," he said.

He alleged that KCR escalated the cost of Kaleshewram project to over one lakh crore rupees and snatched people's lands.

"This project benefited only big contractors who are friends of KCR," he said.

The Congress MP alleged that the BRS government also snatched lands in the name of Dharani portal by changing the land records and slammed KCR for failing to fulfill the promise to give lands to Dalits and tribals.

He said people did not get double bed-room houses while loans of farmers were not waived. He also alleged that the Rythu Bandhu scheme benefited only big landlords.

Rahul Gandhi, who earlier interacted with the employees of state-owned Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL), assured them that the Congress will not allow its privatisation.

He assured the employees that Congress will protect them.

Alleging that the BJP government at the Centre was going for large-scale privatisation, he said that his party opposes this and it would work to protect employees.

Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi said he made false promises to people like depositing Rs 15 lakh in bank account of every citizen. He also referred to Modi's promise of rooting out black money through demonetisation. He claimed that unlike Modi and KCR, he does not tell lies.

"I have not come to tell lies. I can't tell lies to my family members," he said while reiterating six guarantees announced by the party for Telangana.

The Congress leader said people can go and see how Congress fulfilled its promises in Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh.

Describing caste census as the main issue in the country, he said once the party comes to power in Telangana, it will order caste census. He said if Congress comes to power in Delhi, a similar exercise will be undertaken as this will show the real power of OBCs.

Reiterating the allegation that KCR is hand in glove with BJP, he said this was proved by the fact that there are no cases against KCR. "The entire country knows if there is one man who confronts BJP, fights BJP it is Rahul Gandhi. This is not a political fight for me. This is the fight of DNA. They booked 25 cases against me. Whenever they get a chance they book a case because they know Rahul Gandhi can never compromise with them and he can only fight against their ideology," he said and asked how many cases Modi booked against KCR.

--IANS

ms/vd
Patna, Oct 20 : In wake of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar's remarks on Thursday that his friendship with PM Narendra Modi and BJP leaders would persist, ruling ally RJD said that his statement had been misinterpreted for political ends.

RJD leader and spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav said: "The way he said it was about his personal friendship with BJP leaders. Radha Mohan Singh was present in the venue and Nitish Kumar was addressing him. His statement was wrongly interpreted.

"I want to ask the leaders of BJP to not cook Khayali Pulav. Nothing will happen here. They have not done anything in the last 10 years. Price rise of every essential is rocketing high and they have no control over it. People will ask what they have done."

Meanwhile, BJP state President Samrat Chaudhary said: "We have no personal enmity with Nitish Kumar. We are against his policies."

At an event in Motihari, Nitish Kumar said that he has a deep friendship with the leaders of BJP and it would remain till the end of his life. "I respect him (Narendra Modi) until I am alive. I told him to make a central university in Champaran. Mahatma Gandhi came here and did lots of things. Our prestige is connected with east and west Champaran. He had sanctioned the central university in 2014 and the construction was started in 2016. They are my friends and our friendship would not end. My relation with you (Narendra Modi) would remain until I would be alive," he said.
Washington, Oct 20 : US President Joe Biden announced a massive humanitarian aid to war-torn Paslestine during his seven hour first ever visit by an American President to Tel Aviv, hailed as a humanitarian breakthrough but hurdles remain in reaching the aid to Palestinians in dire need.

He will address the Congress on Thursday announcing the quantum of aid and seeking the House approval.

Biden told reporters on Air-Force One on Wednesday while on his return from Tel Aviv that up to 20 trucks of aid from Egypt would be allowed into the besieged enclave in Gaza, once potholes along the road and damage from Israeli airstrikes were repaired.

Humanitarian officials however warned that a host of issues have yet to be resolved before the lives of the besieged inhabitants of Gaza are improved, media reports said.

President Biden said Egypt would allow up to 20 trucks with aid through the Rafah border crossing into Gaza.

Meanwhile, US and Israeli officials said the Gaza hospital strike appeared to come from a failed rocket launch by a terrorist group in Gaza.

More than 100 aid trucks were lined up Thursday in the Egyptian city of al-Arish, waiting for a greenlight to cross into Gaza.

But on the other side of the border, Palestinians said they struggled to understand why the initial deliveries would be so small -- or how they would actually reach people.

Speaking aboard Airforce One as he departed Israel, Biden told reporters that US was cautious about any diversion of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in need at Gaza by the Hamas militants.

"If Hamas diverts or steals the assistance, they will have demonstrated once again that they have no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people," Biden said.

"As a practical matter, it will stop the international community from being able to provide this aid."
BNP threatens Hindu festival on Oct 28 as it threatens to seize power. Image Source: IANS News

Dhaka, Oct 20 : Bangladesh's opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, announcing the plans to oust Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has said that the party could seize power rather than participating in polls, and even made threats against the minority community.

He made the remarks in front of their central office in Naya Paltan area of Dhaka on Wednesday evening

Alamgir also said that the BNP is waiting to grab power in the final victory, led by party's acting leader Tarique Rehman, in another programme organised bythe Ziaur Rahman Foundation .

aFight on the streets... weare ready to face ita," Alamgir chanted to hundreds of people vowing to upstage the Hasina led government.

"After Durga Puja, the biggest festival of Hindu community, on October 28 (the day of Laxmi Puja), we will gather at the capital and will wage our movement, none can stop us," he said.

The rally ended with the slogan "Take Back Bangladesh", indicating the intent of grabbing power without election and introduced by Tarique Rahman, from London. Rahman, son of former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, has been convicted in a number of cases including money laundering and colluding with ULFA and Lashkar-e-Taiba militants, smuggling in arms and ammunition and the grenade attack to assassinate Hasina colluding with militants, to "punish India".

The minority community leaders and political observers said, this is an open threat, evoking grim memories of a wave of attacks by the BNP-Jamaat men unleashed in the past.

Amid a series of these chilling threats, BNP leaders seem determined on a "sinister plot" to carry out large-scale violent attacks to derail the electoral process as Tareq announced.

Several thousand Jamaat-e-Islami activists, alongside members of a number of outlawed radical outfits, have already rushed into the capital from the grassroot area, a police official, seeking anonymity, told IANS.

He said that those hooligans are staying mainly on hotels and messes particularly in Uttara area to avoid detection of law enforcers and had ties with militants like Ruhul Kuddus Taulkder Dulu, Khairul Kabir Khokon, Abul Khaiyer Bhuiya, Sahabuddin Sabu, Shahid Uddin Anny assigned to oversee the operation, as per intelligence reports.

In recent times, Tarique Rahman's threats spark concerns from minority community leaders and human rights activists who found the call a clear indication of resorting to violence instead of fighting the battle of ballots.
New Delhi, Oct 20 : A helper on a bus from Madhya Pradesh was shot dead by the conductor in the national capital on Thursday, an official said.

Police said that they have arrested the accused conductor, identified as Amit Pateria, hailing from Chhatarpur district in Madhya Pradesh.

Azad Khan, the bus driver, a resident of Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior, was apprehended for attempting to dispose of the crime weapon, a country-made pistol.

According to police, on Thursday, the Sunlight Colony police station received a distress call from the police control room regarding the murder of a bus helper.

Responding to the call, a police team swiftly arrived at the scene, where the caller, Amit, and Azad stated that their helper, Roop Singh Yadav, had been fatally shot while they were en route from Sarai Kale Khan to Kashmere Gate in a bus.

"They also displayed the body of Yadav, found in the driver's cabin of the bus, lying in a pool of blood," said the official.

During the course of the investigation, it became apparent that both men were frequently altering their accounts of the incident.

Upon thorough interrogation, they disclosed that they had picked up passengers in the bus from Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, on Wednesday and reached Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi at around 6:50 a.m. on Thursday. "Subsequently, after disembarking the passengers and heading toward Kashmere Gate, Delhi, the conductor, Amit Pateria, retrieved a country-made pistol from the driver's cabin and shot Roop Singh Yadav, who ultimately succumbed to his bullet wound and passed away," the official added.

The driver and Amit then proceeded to the Yamuna Khadar area, where they concealed the aforementioned pistol and made a PCR call. "Consequently, a case under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered. During the investigation and following the confession, the pistol used in the crime was recovered from the Yamuna Khadar area at the direction of both accused," he said.
The president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), Stanislav Pozdnyakov, has said that his organization's main goal is to prepare for a return to international sport at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, USA. Fans reacted sharply to the official's words, suspecting that he knew the future of Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin.

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"Our goal is to take a leading position among the participants of the 2028 Olympics. Let me emphasize that our goal is not participation, but victory. I am absolutely sure that the sanctions will be lifted by then and the situation will change. It is already changing," Pozdnyakov said in a commentary to the R-Sport propaganda news agency.

Readers of the Sports.ru portal did not like statement by the head of the ROC. They advised him not to make such far-reaching plans and also suggested that Putin would soon cease to be president of the Russian Federation.

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"Does he know something about this old rat in the bunker?", "Maybe Pozdnyakov himself will be out of ROC by that time, and he is making plans for as long as 5 years,", "If the dictator is finally taken down, then anything is possible", "It seems to me that he does not believe in the success of the SMO", "Does he know something?" they write in the comments, laughing.

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To recap, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended the ROC's membership in the organization due to the illegal inclusion of the councils of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions of Ukraine in its membership.

As OBOZ.UA previously reported, four-time Olympian Alexander Tikhonov called Russia too kind after the ROC's expulsion from the IOC.

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New Delhi, Oct 20 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met the Gig Workers Association and assured them that the government stands with the common people at every step.

"We will create robust laws to provide social security to gig workers, but it may take some time," the Chief Minister said.

Kejriwal instructed Minister Atishi to ascertain whether gig workers fall under the Construction Workers Welfare Board.

"If the Central government issues clarification that gig workers also fall under the Construction Workers Welfare Board, then there won't be a need for separate legislation," he said.

Kejriwal further said that state governments have a "significant amount of funds under the Construction Workers Welfare Board, which often remains underutilized".

The association sought separate laws to provide job security, ESIC, PF, and other benefits for gig workers in app-based companies. Kejriwal assured them that the government would consider their demands within the ambit of policies solemnly.
The United States has imposed sanctions on a group of individuals and companies associated with Iran's development of ballistic missiles and drones. This happened against the backdrop of the end of the UN missile embargo against Iran.

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This was reported by the FT on Wednesday, October 18. This is an international network that facilitated Iran's military programs.

As noted, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on companies based in Iran, China, Hong Kong, and Venezuela. In total, these are 11 people, eight organizations, and one ship.

The reason for the new economic entities is the alleged support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Ministry of Defense, and the armed forces' logistics in the production of missiles and drones.

The sanctions targeted Iranian equipment manufacturing firms and their directors, a Hong Kong-based distributor of electronic components, several Iranian officials, including Defense Attache to Venezuela Jaber Reykhani, and the PARNIA ship, which was used to export defense supplies.

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The document states that the US Treasury Department, in coordination with the State Department, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Justice, has issued new guidelines for private industry on the purchase of Iranian missiles.

They clarify the responsibility for such actions and the associated risks of new US sanctions and other restrictions.

U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Combating Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said that "Iran's reckless choice to continue to proliferate destructive UAVs and other weapons is prolonging numerous conflicts in regions around the world."

As reported by OBOZ.UA, the US State Department earlier said that the United States has the means to continue to put pressure on Iran after the end of the month of restrictions on the purchase and sale of missiles and UAVs. This will happen in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution.

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The Russian tourist visited Turkish cities on the Mediterranean coast - Kash, Kalkan, Fethiye, Bodrum - and was disappointed with the trip. "Is that it, Turkey is no longer for Russians?" the citizen of the terrorist country was indignant, saying that the resort is now focused on guests from Europe.

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In Turkey, it is almost impossible for Russians to exchange rubles for liras, and exchange offices will only laugh at them. It is also impossible to check into a hotel through Russian accommodation booking services. The angry vacationer from the aggressor state complained about these and other inconveniences to the propaganda media.

Thus, the Russian woman talked to some Turks who host vacationers. They said that the country has recently been popular among Europeans, so the tourism business is focused on them, not on Russians, as it was before.

"The whole service seems to be reoriented to Europeans, and there is a lot of European cuisine in restaurants. When we tried to change cash in Bodrum from rubles to lira, almost all the exchangers laughed at us, saying, 'who needs your rubles here' - it was even offensive to hear that. We still managed to exchange money, though at a rate twice as high, and only in one place. But we made our point," the tourist complained.

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The Russian woman also encountered problems when booking a hotel room through the Russian service Ostrovok. After pressing the "book" button, the payment did not go through, but instead a message appeared saying that she had to wait 10 minutes while the availability of rooms was allegedly being checked.

"I decided to speed up the process, because nothing happened after the promised 10 minutes, so I arrived at the reception, showed the administrator the message, and he said: "We don't know about any Ostrovok, we only have Booking." Then we sat in the hotel lobby for several hours, and the Ostrovok support never sent anything, but it turns out that communications are not established," said the disgruntled lady.

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The Russian woman was also unable to attend excursions because they were all in English.

This is not the first time that Russians have complained about their vacation in Turkey. One of the Russian tourists in Istanbul was insulted by a taxi driver, who called Russians "horrible subhumans" and threatened the police. Read more in our article.

Earlier, OBOZ.UA wrote that Russian tourists in Europe resort to shameful pranks - pretending to be Ukrainian refugees to get free food, clothes, money or any other assistance.

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Russian troops in the temporarily occupied cities of Ukraine are stealing satellite TV sets from the local population. For this purpose, they have even created "commissions" and sent "police officers" on raids.

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This was reported by the Center for National Resistance on Wednesday, October 18. They emphasized that in this way the enemy is making another attempt to block the access of the Ukrainian people to the truth.

The occupiers want to further block the occupied territories with information and plunge the locals into the swamp of Russian propaganda.

"In the temporarily occupied territories, the enemy is stealing satellite TV sets from the local population. The occupation administrations have created "commissions" that, accompanied by Russian police officers, conduct raids on the TOT (temporarily occupied territories)," the statement said.

At the same time, the Russians provide Ukrainians with equipment for broadcasting the "Russian World" package (receiver, satellite dish and converter), which includes propaganda channels. There is no fee for consuming Russian lies.

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As OBOZ.UA reported earlier, the Center for National Resistance said that the occupiers, who temporarily control part of Zaporizhzhia region, are ready to hire even school teachers to help them. In some cases, they distribute summonses to military commissariats through the so-called directors of educational institutions, whom they themselves appointed to this "position".

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
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Heartland Fall Forum, the joint trade show that the Midwest Independent Booksellers and Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Associations have partnered on for more than a decade, kicked off with an awards celebration on October 18 in Detroits enormous Marriott Hotel at the Renaissance Center. Isaac Fitzgerald, who emceed the event for the fourth year, set the tone for the gatheringand perhaps for the entire conferenceby calling the hundreds of booksellers packed in a hotel ballroom champions, congratulating them for making it through another year of fighting so tirelessly for the written word.

So many people help make a book happen, but it is you, the independent bookseller, who guides those books to the readers who need them most, Fitzgerald said, despite such obstacles as book bans; the site that shall not be named; algorithmswhich can never replace you, no matter how hard they try; rising rents; supply chain issues; and that one customer who forgets the title, but they know the cover is blueno, green! It came out at some point in the last hundred years. Urging booksellers not to lose sight that there is the joy, the knowledge, the community, the service in bookselling, Fitzgerald described bookselling as a calling, and thanked the assembled booksellers for keeping the faith.

After the book awards segment of the program, Source Books co-owner Alyson Jones Turner introduced her mother and business partner, Janet Webster Jones, this years Voice of the Heartland recipient, who received three standing ovations before she even uttered a word. Jones, who previously worked as an educator for the Detroit Public Schools system, has been a bookseller for almost 35 years, launching her career in 1989 with popups at church bazaars, fairs, and other community events before moving into a standalone bricks-and-mortar store in 2013.

Citing her background as a speech therapist, Jones noted that the Heartland region encompasses 13 states, representing one third of the 50 states of the United States of America. Our voices spread across a lot of territory. Our voices have a lot to do and many ways to do it. She urged her fellow booksellers to keep books available to all who seek knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Doing so, she said, is our collective voice and our sacred mission as booksellers. Concluding her remarks, Jones urged her audience to join together to create literary citizens.

Following a reception featuring 22 authors signing copies of their books in a glass-walled space overlooking the Detroit River and Windsor, Ontario, across the Canadian border, the party moved almost three miles north to the Midtown area, to Third Man Records. The store and manufacturing facility, located around the corner from Source Booksellers, is owned by musician Jack White (of the White Stripes fame), who engaged in a conversation about the processes of creating music and writing books with author and music critic Hanif Abdurraqib and Ben Barnwell, a journalist and Third Man records executive.

Late on Wednesday, GLIBA executive director Larry Law wrote in an email to PW that he had been  excited and anxious as the show opened, but Isaac knocked it out of the park. The award winners were thoughtful and seeing Janet Jones win the Voice of the Heartland was a career highlight. Law added, To end the night with Jack White, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Ben Blackwell at Third Man Records was literally one of coolest events I have ever been a part of. And I am so proud it took place here in the Midwest.

There are 547 attendees total at Heartland this year, up approximately 30% from last years 410 total attendance at Heartland in Saint Louis, and 114 of this years attendees are first-timers. Carrie Obry, the executive director of MIBA, announced that next year's conference will take place in Milwaukee, October 79. This year's Heartland Fall Forum runs through Friday afternoon.
Tracy Fisher is a partner and head of the international rights team at William Morris Endeavour (WME). She is the literary agent for Quentin Tarantino, Tom Clancy, Joy Fielding, Curtis Sittenfeld, Mohsin Hamid, Yaa Gyasi, Julia Phillips, Chloe Benjamin, Jean Kwok, Jean Korelitz, and Jeannette Walls, among others. Over the last five years, WME books have debuted on the New York Times bestseller list 353 times, and 37 of those titles have hit the #1 spot. Every year WME closes more than 1,000 publishing deals in more than 50 languages. Sophia Stewart caught up with Fisher before the fair.

What books are you reading right now?

Im reading a lot. Just the tip of the iceberg: The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes. Its the new thriller from the author of I Am Pilgrim. Its been 10 years in the making and its absolutely brilliant. Im also enjoying immensely The Little Book of Aliens by astrophysicist Adam Frank. Its a comprehensive, witty, and wildly entertaining look at our search for extraterrestrial life.

Whats one of your favorite books that most people dont know?

A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley. It was his debut novel, published more than 50 years ago. Kelley is a fascinating author who lived an incredible life; he sadly passed away in 2017. His works have started to be rediscovered internationally, but many of my American friends have not read him. Yet!

Whats a big book you read recently that surprised you in a good way? In a bad way?

In a good way (but this really wasnt a surprise!), Emma Clines The Guest. I would never talk on the record about a big book that surprised me in a bad way!

What are some trends to watch out for in international literature?

Author travel and live events are back in full force and its really exhilarating. Weve seen a meaningful uptick in international invitations for our authors and colleagues. Mohsin Hamid attended the Frankfurt Book Fair last year, as a guest of his German publisher DuMont. At this years Frankfurt, Jeannette Wallsauthor of The Glass Castle and Hang the Moonwill be a guest of Hoffmann und Campe. Emma Straub visited Italy for This Time Tomorrow. Sloane Crosley went to Australia. Curtis Sittenfeld, Cecilia Rabbess, Jean Kwok, Bob Odenkirk, Kiley Reid, Dani Shapiro, and Emma Torsz all visited London for their publications. Simon Winchester just spent three weeks on his book tour in China. Its incredibly rewarding and meaningful for our authors to have these direct connections with their international publishers and readers.

What are some trends in American literature your international book business friends and contacts are most excited about? What are some theyre tired of?

I always hear from international publishers that they are hunting for the classic, sprawling Great American novel. Theres certainly been an uptick in commercial fiction of all kinds, especially if they are escapist, funny, and fresh. Ive also heard a few times that some international editors are very much over dystopian near-future novels however fully developed their worlds might be. The present is terrifying enough.

Who are the hot new agents and editors to watch at this years fair, both in the U.S. and abroad?

We have a number of rising stars at WME. Heres my shameless plug for every one of my colleaguesI have a number of fantastic new colleagues at WME. Theres Hellie Ogden in our London office, Alyssa Reuben and Angeline Rodriguez in New York. If you dont know them already, you absolutely should! Regarding editors, there are literally hundreds of talented young international editors WME works with so thats kind of impossible to answer! But definitely keep an eye on Ulrike Von Stenglin, publisher and CEO of new German publishing house Gutkind Verlag. Shes a force.
As was discussed at the Frankfurt Rights Meeting Webinar last month, the law is usually reactive at best to questions of new technology. At times it can feel like enquiring as to the traffic restrictions on Mars. Theres an unavoidable but frustrating time lag as relevant rules and precedents emerge. Thats still true with artificial intelligence, but an extensive amount of work is currently being undertaken to chart an applicable regulatory landscape, with a renewed zeal to try and address the challenges that AI presents.

Its renewed, because while there has been regulatory interest for many yearsthe EU set up an experts group in 2018there has been a marked uptick in activity in 2023. Key European legislation is the AI Act, currently being finalized in Brussels, that seeks to regulate AI systems by tiers of risk from outright bans on the unacceptable to codes of conduct where concerns are lower. Other territories may follow suit as lawmakers globally consider moves away from self-regulation and soft law initiatives.

There remains a concern that over, or premature, regulation risks stifling innovation, driving beneficial commercial activity to other jurisdictions. Its reminiscent of the emergence of e-commerce 20 years ago. Some territories rushed to regulate with new rules only to have to revisit those as technology shifted. Crucially, AI law is emerging against a backdrop of re-evaluation of that earlier regulation, in particular as to the scope of responsibilities for platforms and intermediaries.

Which leads to the effect on creative content and rights, which has obviously been at the heart of the publishing sectors concerns in reaction to the impact of generative AI. Those have been reflected in recent additions to the draft AI Act with transparency and disclosure obligations for AI inputs plus ongoing obligations in respect of AI outputs introducing some degree of specific content regulation. Whether they are realistic protections for rightsholders to identify and opt-out of AI data sets will emerge in the coming months.

Of course, as other speakers on the Webinar acknowledged, AI systemsfor all their current limitations and deficiencies whether legal, ethical, or artistic (mediocrity was one descriptor applied to the latter)are already being used by some authors and publishers. As with digitization and text and data mining before them, they provide an opportunity, or at least a potential tool to adopt. As such, supporting not replacing human creativity, even if only used to better enable, say, discoverability or anti-piracy.

So, the publishing sector will need to operate within, as well as seek protection from, any new rules and regulation. As we wait, some self-help is necessary:

First, because the legal landscape is still emerging now is the time to engage with industry bodies, governments, and regulators not just in consultation and lobbying efforts but, as we noted on the Webinar, wider sector communication;

Also, any creative business or activity from individual creator to international publishing house needs an active policy or at least a stance on AIjust as for defamation, privacy, or IT security;

Even if that policy or stance is a prohibitionand many want to stay well clear, especially of generative AIthat needs to be communicated and reflected in documentation including contracts and relevant licensing terms;

Where AI systems are being used, the basis of that use needs to be fully understoodfrom recording the role and scope of reliance to due diligence on how system T&Cs deal with rights and liabilities;

Since there are still so many unanswered rights questions AI content will need ring-fencing. Anyone who has managed open-source software or Creative Commons content will already have experience of that.

The bottom line may be that technical solutions are needed to manage this technologyand to back-up any new law which does emerge. Could it still be as Charles Clark famously said at Frankfurt in the 1990s: The answer to the machine is in the machine?

Duncan Calow is partner at DLA Piper.
Today, I see Korean books on so many global publishers lists and their popularity continues to grow. But when I sold my first Korean book in 2005, little did I know that this was the beginning of new era for global literature and Korean literature. Before then, no one ever heard about Korean books. Most English-language publishers had no Korean books on their lists. Now, everyone does! How could anyone ever predict the phenomenon called Hallyu and Koreas cultural soft power, and how it would change and dominate the world? Literary websites, social media, critics, and booksellers see fine sales for a wide variety of books. For some examples, see the article 22 Must-Read Korean Novels in English by Willow Heath on the website Books and Bao.

Then there came the film Parasite, and the television phenomena Squid Game and Pachinko, based, of course, on the book by Min Jee Lee. Together, their success shed more light on Korean literature and helped K-authors. Now Netflix has invested millions in Korea and seemingly every Hollywood producer is in partnership with a Korean film company.

While there have been many literary success stories, that jumbo-size, mainstream, big-money novel from Korea has remained elusive. Yes, there has been BTSs Behind the Story, but the bands global celebrity and fanbase is responsible for its success, not necessarily its literary merit.

My Moby Dick

My agencys directive is to find new authors, many never published before. And, so after nearly 15 years of working with established Korean authors, I needed to expand and grow. I was excited to bring the western style of agenting to Korean writers, who could benefit from firsthand face-to-face relationships with their editors. And I was also after my Moby Dick! So far, the Korean novels published in English have become modest bestsellers or sell fine for small companies. But, as of yet, there has been no Korean J.K. Rowling or John Grisham or Gillian Flynn in terms of sales and hype. I was determined to find that biggest jewel in that diamond mine.

Thats when I met Sue Park. She shared my vision and joined me in a new Korean adventure. I was energized and re-invigorated by her youthful exuberance and unflappable persistence. And so we launched a new literary agency, the Charm Agency, which is based in Korea and seeks out and represents unpublished, new Korean writers. Sues brilliant, insightful, and deep knowledge of Korean literature along with her understanding of western publishing business makes her a maverick in the Korean publishing business. I think the future of Korean literature lies in the hands of Korean young, independent-minded authors, and author-centric literary agents and new publishers. Young professionals like Sue Park.

Young new wave

The young new wave of Korean publishing people is changing the industry for the better. They are entrepreneurial, globally minded, free-thinking, and make decisions for themselves. And they are learning how to patiently and meticulously grow, build, and plan careers for authors, so they can have a success akin to that of Stieg Larssons The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo! The franchising of authors is minutes away for Korean writers.

Charm Agencys first sale was the rights for A Twist of Fate by Se-ah Chang, a feminist thriller, acquired by Jenny Chen for world English rights on behalf of Bantam Ballantine Dell. Could this be the Korean Moby Dick I had been looking for? Maybe. Memory Care, a speculative crossover about memory manipulation by Bora Jin, is another title I have high hopes for and is on offer at Frankfurt. And Charm Agency is building and growing a list of never-before known Korean writers we think have the potential to have breakout, blockbuster careers.

Sue and I talk to many young Korean publishers, editors, writers, and translators and encourage them to do their own thing! We hope the seed we planted will sprout many other Korean-based author-centric literary agencies and help empower Korean writers and new publishers to recognize their worth. I recall a conversation I had with a young Korean agent who had been working for a famous big agency and I was trying to convince him about the significant power he held in his hands. He cried, Barbara, we are only a shrimp between two whales! (the whales being China and Japan). I shouted back, You dont understand, Korea is a WHALE now!

Barbara J. Zitwer is the owner of the Barbara J. Zitwer Agency in New York City and co-founder of the Charm Agency in Seoul.
With geopolitics still looming large, the Frankfurt Book Fair professional program got down to business on October 19, including during a pair of panels addressing two key concerns for the publishing industry: the rise of AI and environmental sustainability.

In one panel, agents and publishers acknowledged the need to protect the future of creativity, but took a generally positive view of what AI technology might offer. Moderated by Thomas Cox, managing director of Arq Works, a company that offers software solutions for the publishing industry (and has recently integrated AI into its content management and discovery tools), the panel suggested that fears over AI's misuse should not deter the book business from exploring the opportunities the new technology offers.

AI will have a profound transformative effect on all of us," Cox said, adding that because AI excels at routine, predictable tasks, it could release people from having to do them, leaving us more time to spend to spend on being creative. In five years, he predicted, we would all have constructive AI companions. Still, Cox urged companies to put policies in place for the handling of AI, so that employees have a clear understanding of its implications.

Nadim Sadek, founder and CEO at Shimmr AI, concurred, predicting that AI could release humans to be more human. Sadek described a few ways in which publishing might embrace AI: for instance, in his application, it could generate advertising for a book and efficiently place it with media outlets, potentially making it easier and more efficient to promote a wider range of titles, both backlist and frontlist. Sadek also said that he believes there has been a shift in society with Gen Z, suggesting that they may possess a much different understanding of how to use technology to find the information they need and to make decisions based on it.

Pontas Literary & Film Agency literary agent and founder Anna Soler-Pont considered the real-world implications for authors and literary agents, noting that some of her clients were very worried about AI. But she said that she feels positive about it, pointing out that, 30 years ago, people were afraid of the technology that we now consider to be routine.

In terms of guardrails, Soler-Pont said that the rise of AI has prompted new contract clauses, particularly concerning audio and translation (for example, translation of a work of art must be done by a human). She added that she is not inclined to sell audio rights unless the audiobook will be recorded by a human voice, rather than a synthetic one.

Soler-Pont acknowledged feeling caught between wanting to protect art and wanting to promote technology, conceding that some big companies were willing to generate AI novels with pen names and that those titles might well find audiences. But she also noted that AI, and our perceptions of it, are ever-evolving: although her authors may not want audiobooks or AI translations of their works now, in the future, they may change their minds. Meanwhile, AI has already introduced one new job, she noted: correcting AI translations.

Christoph Blasi, professor of book studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, pointed out that such crucial roles as gatekeeping and copyediting could be both challenged and supported by AI systems. He noted that publishing tasks for which AI could be especially useful include generating metadata, marketing copy, and classification.

But Blasi also asserted that at least two crucial publishing roles were likely to be AI-resistant: finding and commissioning content, and deciding how to make that content available. He cited publisher Michael Bhaskar, who once described publishing as filtering, framing, amplification. That is, picking what to publish, considering how to present it, and getting it out into the world.

At the same time, Blasi also expressed concern that AI would also increase the production of booksmeaning that readers will likely be spread more thinly, potentially leading to less of a community around certain books.

Sustainable?

In another panel, Porter Anderson, editor-in-chief at Publishing Perspectives, was joined by Sherri Aldis, director at the UN Regional Information Center for Western Europe, and Rachel Martin, global director of sustainability at Elsevier, for a discussion about the challenges of environmental sustainability in the book business.

Both Aldis and Martin said that the aim was to get people talking about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which all 193 UN states committed to in 2015. While Aldis said she is "cautiously optimistic" that the goals could be met by the target date of 2030, she conceded that the world is not on track: only 15% of targets have been reached, she said.

But the publishing industry has expressed "wonderful enthusiasm" for the goals, Aldis noted, pointing out an obvious main reason for the lag in achievement: money. Such issues as geopolitical tensions and the Covid-19 pandemic have had an impact, she said, noting that international financing models also need to be reformed.

Martin discussed the SDG Publishers Compact (Sustainable Development Goals), which offers 10 concrete steps that publishers can use to be more sustainable in their businesses. She feels that, as an industry, publishing's "purposefulness" can be harnessed, and she urged publishers to sign on to the compact, to put it on their websites, and to communicate about it with their staff and othersperhaps even by putting an SDG logo on cataloguesas a sign that publishers are willing to take that first step. She acknowledged, however, that for smaller and medium sized publishers especially, it can be hard to influence other parts of the supply chain.

Martin also illustrated one way she has worked out to determine the carbon impact of one book: first, take the impact of the author's writing (heating, electricity); then paper; then printing; then distribution and retail; and, finally, end of use, when a book is incinerated or recycled. Martin said that she has developed a tool for companies to track their own carbon footprints (which can be found on the International Publishers Association's sustainable development dashboard), but that employees in organizations need to figure out, and rally around, their own personal carbon footprint analyses.

Making these changes, Martin suggested, can not only help save the planet, but save moneya point she said should be raised with finance directors, who can "smooth the wheels" and make big decisions that can improve sustainability at publishers. And authors, she suggested, should also be aware of their power: they can write about sustainability, and they can demand sustainability efforts from those who publish their books.
During his visit to Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared his desire to deepen economic and political ties with China, but his trip apparently failed to influence China's reluctance to establish the level of relations desired by the Kremlin or to provide military support to Russia. At the same time, Russia receives civilian drones from China that can be used on the battlefield in Ukraine.

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This is stated in a report by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) on October 18. According to analysts, Putin in China the day before declared his desire to deepen ties with Beijing, but in fact did not announce any practical changes at the international forum "One Belt, One Road".

The dictator said that close coordination of Russian and Chinese foreign policy is especially necessary in the "current difficult conditions" and emphasized the importance of Russian-Chinese cooperation in multilateral formats, including the One Belt, One Road initiative, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

Putin also said that economic cooperation between Russia and China is an integral part of strengthening Russia's economic, technological, and financial sovereignty.

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At the same time, he did not emphasize security cooperation, possibly because of China's restraint on the unlimited partnership that Russia wants to establish, ISW noted.

Putin also held bilateral talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the minutes of the meeting available to the Kremlin also emphasize the economic ties between Russia and China, the report said.

At the same time, analysts noted that Putin apparently did not achieve any particular results with his trip.

"Putin's visit to China and meeting with Xi Jinping do not seem to have led to any significant changes in China's reluctance to establish the level of bilateral relations desired by the Kremlin or to any breakthroughs in the degree of Chinese military support for Russia," the report says.

At the same time, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on October 18 that almost all Russian civilian dual-purpose drones come from China and that the Russian government aims to increase domestic drone production to 41% by 2025.

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"ISW has previously observed reports that China frequently exports dual-use equipment to Russia, including civilian drones that Russian troops may use on the battlefield in Ukraine," the analysts said.

As reported by OBOZ.UA:

- Putin arrived in China on the morning of October 17 to participate in an economic forum and met with the country's leader Xi Jinping. This was his second foreign visit since he was put on the wanted list by The Hague. According to experts, it only underscores China's economic and diplomatic support for Russia amid its war against Ukraine.

- Before Putin's speech at the opening of the One Belt, One Road forum, several European officials demonstratively walked out of the room.

- The Chinese president arrived in China with his suitcases. Russia's propagandists hinted that "not a single trip" of Putin's is complete without these "special suitcases."

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- In China, Putin made a series of cynical statements. The dictator "praised" the West for wanting to end the war diplomatically and "advised" Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow.

- He also called the "special operation" a war and called on the United States to "take away ATACMS and come to the tea party."

Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Graduate student Michael Smith presents to students working in advanced semiconductors packaging at the Chiminski Family Collaborative Research Hub. Purdue announced the Institute of Advanced System Integration and Packaging, renewing focus on essential areas of semiconductor chip manufacturing. (Purdue University photo/Kelsey Lefever)

Purdue collaborates with Cadence, imec, SRC, Osaka University to bolster rapid technology development in U.S.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Purdue University is working toward the future in microelectronic product development with the creation of the Institute for Advanced System Integration and Packaging (ASIP) to enable faster designing and building of microelectronic systems.

The new institute, announced Wednesday (Oct. 18), highlights Purdues established research in system integration and puts new focus on advanced packaging at the university. Chip packaging ensures the functionality and reliability of a system, as multiple chips are connected electrically. Advanced packaging aims to revolutionize packaging by enabling complex functionality while reducing cost.

Additional Information

Today, the U.S. only has 3% of the global packaging capability, but advanced packaging presents the U.S. with new opportunities. ASIP is the latest chapter of leadership for Purdue as the semiconductor industry seeks new ways to advance system performance and reshore packaging, said Mark Lundstrom, Purdues chief semiconductor officer. Purdue will lead the charge with a foundation of strong partners and a growing list of future collaborators.

ASIP will draw on the strengths of Purdue to accelerate microelectronic system integration and technology development while producing the high-tech workforce needed, said Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb. Strong partnerships with companies, research organizations and other universities will help establish Indiana as a major center of innovation in this critical technology. We look forward to working with ASIP to bring national and international microelectronics companies to Indiana.

Purdue is working with Cadence Design Systems, one of its many U.S. and global semiconductor partners, to establish ASIP. Cadence is a leader in electronic systems design, with more than 30 years of computational software expertise to support and bolster the system design goals of ASIP.

Purdue University is a nationally recognized leader in academic excellence and microelectronics workforce development, said Tom Beckley, senior vice president and general manager in the Custom IC & PCB Group at Cadence. We are excited to collaborate with Purdue to ensure that the next generation of advanced package engineers are equipped to design complex heterogeneous 3D-ICs while addressing multiphysics analysis challenges including power, thermal integrity, signal integrity, electromagnetics and mechanical stress. It is critical that graduating engineers are highly familiar with industry-leading commercial tools, thereby providing students, their future employers and the U.S. competitive advantage.

Ganesh Subbarayan, ASIP director and Purdues James G. Dwyer Professor of Mechanical Engineering, said the institutes creation will build a foundation for advanced packaging and system integration that has been neglected for too long. That makes ASIP a valuable contributor to the U.S. microelectronics industry moving forward.

System integration and advanced packaging are huge opportunities for Purdue and a big priority for the nation right now, Subbarayan said. With ASIP, we envision designing a chip system from the beginning, envisioning a system to consist of multiple chips that are interconnected and with an advanced material that avoids having to put everything on a single chip.

Subbarayan also is co-director of the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC)-funded Center for Heterogenous Integration Research in Packaging (CHIRP). He said the university is one of a few with a strong focus on packaging, with four centers researching various aspects.

Very few universities have established educational programs in packaging, which is an area of such critical need, Subbarayan said. We have developed a unique educational curriculum for semiconductors at Purdue, including packaging.

SRC, a consortium of the top global semiconductor companies and the leading sponsor of microelectronics-related research in U.S. academia, will partner with Purdue in the ASIP institute along with imec, a premier research center for lab-to-fab semiconductor and advanced packaging research, and Osaka University, Japans premier research university for 3D integration and advanced packaging.

SRC is a major sponsor of research and workforce development efforts at Purdue University through its funding of CHIRP as well as CBRIC, COCOSYS and NEW LIMITS centers, said Todd Younkin, SRC president and CEO. We look forward to partnering with the ASIP institute as we broaden and deepen our engagement with Purdue University.

Dave Henshall, SRC vice president of business development, said, The formation of ASIP is very timely. Purdue researchers have played a leadership role in developing the SRC MAPT road map for the nation, and we look forward to building upon that in ways that will energize advanced packaging design and manufacturing in the U.S.

We applaud the establishment of the Institute for Advanced System Integration and Packaging, said Luc Van den hove, president and CEO of imec. To cope with the increasing functionality of future systems, advanced packaging solutions such as 3D integration have become indispensable. To realize these complex systems, in-depth understanding and knowledge of advanced packaging is key, including access to modeling and simulation. With our long track record in advanced R&D on semiconductor and system integration and packaging and our mission to drive the semiconductor industry forward by collaborating with the entire value chain, we look forward to partnering with ASIP to build up the necessary knowledge. An initiative like ASIP is important to enabling the CHIPS Act and propelling the semiconductor industry forward.

Purdue and Osaka University are natural partners with their leading research roles in the area of advanced packaging, said Katsuaki Suganuma, director of the Flexible 3D Integration Laboratory at Osaka University. Our research strengths are complementary. We are actively engaged in creating collaborative opportunities between companies of our two countries to secure the global supply chain.

ASIP tackles two aspects of chip production that have become integral parts of the industry.

System integration focuses on the design activity that precedes chip fabrication, looking at ways to avoid putting everything on a single chip by creating a system that interconnects multiple smaller chips, or chiplets. Future applications will require novel system integration solutions to achieve performance, power and cost trade-offs while ensuring efficiency.

Advanced packaging addresses the escalating cost of building chips by putting several chiplets as close together as possible to achieve the function of a single larger chip. This research includes looking at reducing heat production by design, heat removal strategies, ensuring fail-free functioning, and enabling sustainable manufacturing.

The need for chips in areas from computing, mobile communications and vehicles to defense and biological applications requires future advanced system integration and packaging like that represented by Purdues research.

Purdue is a national leader in microelectronics materials, devices, chip design, tool development, manufacturing, packaging and sustainability, spanning the semiconductor ecosystem in software and hardware with long-standing faculty excellence.

Strategic initiatives in semiconductors, such as the first comprehensive Semiconductor Degrees Program, which was announced before the CHIPS and Science Act passed in 2022, are intended to prepare a next-generation workforce for industry. Economic development and research collaboration followed as well, including from Skywater, MediaTek and Belgium-based imec.

As part of the Purdue Computes initiative, Purdues growing semiconductor innovation ecosystem includes $49 million in new facilities and tools for the Birck Nanotechnology Center, which will also be accessible by Ivy Tech Community College, Indianas statewide community college and a local partner with Purdue in developing next-level workforce and brain gain strategies for Indiana.

The Indiana-led proposal Silicon Crossroads was announced Sept. 20 by the U.S. Department of Defense as one of eight Microelectronics Commons Hubs selected out of over 80 proposals across the country. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane), in Indiana will manage the program. Purdue will collaborate with many consortium members in the coming years.

Purdue announced in September the creation of Purdue@Crane, a permanent Purdue presence for national security research collaboration with NSWC Crane, including participation in the WestGate Foundry with companies such as Everspin Technologies and NHanced Semiconductors.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research institution with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top 4 in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, with 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdues main campus has frozen tuition 12 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap, including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the new Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, and Purdue Computes, at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.

Writer/Media contact: Brian Huchel, bhuchel@purdue.edu

Sources: Mark Lundstrom, lundstro@purdue.edu

Ganesh Subbarayan, ganeshs@purdue.edu
For the second day in a row, explosions have been heard in the temporarily occupied Crimea, the origin of which the local "authorities" do not explain or hide behind "air defense work." On the morning of October 19, residents of Sevastopol complained about the next "pops".

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It is noted that loud sounds were heard in the city center. This is reported by the publication "Krym.Realii" in the Telegram channel.

According to eyewitnesses, it was loud in Sevastopol around 06:56 on Thursday. The sounds were allegedly similar to launches from rocket launchers.

It is noteworthy that the occupation "authorities", against the background of explosions on the peninsula a few days ago, reported that the Black Sea Fleet exercises were taking place in Crimea, during which "the military were training to use anti-submarine mortars". However, it has been confirmed that the "bavovna" in several parts of the peninsula was connected, among other things, with the destruction of several Russian vessels by Ukrainian naval drones.

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On the morning of Wednesday, October 18, Crimeans complained of explosions in the vicinity of the Yevpatorian cape and Sevastopol. By the evening, Sevastopol was noisy again, and thick smoke rose into the sky above the city. However, neither on October 18 nor on October 19 did the Russian-appointed "authorities" of the city announce any "bombing" exercises.

It should be noted that naval bombs are designed to destroy submarines and attacking torpedoes.

As reported by OBOZ.UA, a fresh satellite image of the barriers at the entrance to Sevastopol Bay in the temporarily occupied Crimea was published online. The photo shows that the protective barrier set up by the Russians has already been breached.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Jubilee class No. 45596 Bahamas is set to visit Manchester this Saturday (21st October) as it hauls The Mancunian from London Euston.

Departing London Euston at 07:12, the locomotive will pass through Harrow and Wealdstone (07:28), Watford Junction (07:34), Tring (07:56), Milton Keynes Central (08:18), Northampton (08:43), Rugby (09:23), Nuneaton (10:24), Stafford (11:12), Macclesfield (12:30), Stockport (12:46) and Manchester Piccadilly at 13:11.

After time in Manchester, 45596 Bahamas will depart Manchester Victoria at 16:13, and will pass through Manchester Oxford Road (16:28), Manchester Piccaddilly (16:31), Wilmslow (16:55), Crewe (17:26), Stafford (18:16) and Nuneaton (19:30) before coming to a stand just outside Rugby.

Here, 45596 Bahamas will come off the train and will return to Southall on its own (you can track that movement by clicking here).

WCRC diesels will take over the train and will head back through the outbound stations of Rugby (20:26), Northampton (20:55), Milton Keymes Central (21:21), Tring (21:48), Watford Junction (22:11) and London Euston at 22:40.

If you would like to track the train on Saturday, you can view timetables here.

Would you like to know if Bahamas is due to pass through your local station? As a RailAdvent Plus member you can do just that with out Station News And Tours page!

If you do go out and see 45596, why not sign up to LocoStop. This is our railway community, and allows you to share your photos from your adventures! Click here to sign up.

As always, please respect the dangers of the railway. Please do not trespass on the railway to see this iconic locomotive  stay to public access spots.
Property details:

1.25 ACRES IN POLK CITYPOLK COUNTY, FLORIDA High bid wins! Cash sale!NEAR ORLANDO, FL ABOUT THE PROPERTY:Parcel Number: 25-25-05-000000-013160Off Commonwealth Ave NPolk City, FL 33868 Polk CountySize: 1.25 AcreUtilities - Not to lotProperty Type: Vacant ResidentialTaxes: Approx $50/yearHOA: NoneDocument Fee $299 Payment/Terms: Payment accepted via Zelle, Venmo, cashiers check, or wire transfer. We do not take Paypal, as they will no longer allow real estate transaction payments thru them. Pay...

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Kinetic Content / Reality TV World

By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 10/18/2023



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

alum Elizabeth Bice has revealed that her estranged husband Jamie Thompson 's announcement of their split caught her totally off-guard.On the : Kickoff Special for the new season set in Denver, Elizabeth joined host Kevin Frazier onstage and updated fans about how she and Jamie are divorcing and their relationship has gotten "ugly." As Reality TV World reported this past summer, Jamie filed for divorce from Elizabeth on June 23, just two months after dropping the bombshell via social media that Elizabeth had left him and they were separating.Elizabeth, who wed Jamie on 's ninth season in 2019, explained to Kevin how Jamie's actions during their marriage were unforgivable and she never felt like she was enough for her husband, whom she alleged was critical, demanding and verbally abusive to her.One aspect of the pair's breakup that apparently crushed Elizabeth was Jamie's choice to publicly announce their relationship status without consulting her first."He totally blindsided me!" Elizabeth told Kevin on the Kickoff Special, which aired Wednesday night on Lifetime.In April, Jamie announced how the couple had been separated for one month already via Instagram, and then in late June, he posted about how he officially filed for divorce from his stranger spouse.Elizabeth claimed she and Jamie were not on the same page about these public disclosures at all."I was sitting down having brunch with my best friend for her [April] birthday, and all of a sudden, my phone just starts going off and my friends are like, 'Oh my god, are you okay?'" Elizabeth recalled."And I was like, 'What are you talking about? I'm at lunch.' And Jamie totally blindsided me. I was not emotionally ready to handle the emails, the DMs, the texts, the calls. I was just trying to enjoy my beautiful Saturday morning."Elizabeth added, "I did not agree with him to go announce this on social media. I did not."Back in late April, Jamie admitted he wasn't sure if Elizabeth was going to be angry at him for speaking about their separation publicly, without her input or blessing."I don't know. I'm really trying to do this in a tactful way. I don't want to say anything bad about her. I'm not here to bash Beth and drag her out behind the woodshed, so to speak, as we say in the South," Jamie noted.Jamie said that prior to his April 22 separation announcement, he and Beth had talked about potentially going public with the news of their breakup in a united fashion."If we could've worked together to address this publicly, we probably could've worked together to work on our marriage," the alum said.Jamie was clearly slamming Elizabeth for her desire to leave him and have space from him.But Jamie -- who confessed to having said mean things "out of anger and frustration" -- insisted at the time he still loved Beth "a lot" and cared for her "tremendously.""We just can't seem to get to the point where we can have enough healthy conversation to start discussing what this looks like going forward," the alum said."Initially, I wanted her to be here and work on things together when she left. I thought this was going to be a three or four-day thing... It hurts. It's not what I want."Jamie suggested that it didn't make sense for him to keep reaching out to somebody who didn't want to be contacted.In May, Elizabeth broke her silence and told her Instagram followers in a Q&A session that she wasn't in the best place to talk about her relationship."I'm not ignoring [your messages]," Elizabeth wrote one month after Jamie's breakup announcement. "[I'm] just not [quite] ready to open up. But I appreciate you supporting the journey."Elizabeth subsequently took to Instagram in mid-June with a video titled, "Let's talk Separation." Elizabeth wrote in the caption, "Okay, it's time to address this moment happening in my life... I think you all deserve some honesty. I am healing and finding my new path and really appreciate all of the love and support. It means the world to me!!!! Xxoo Beth."Elizabeth began the video by "getting the elephant out of the room" for her fans."I know everyone wants me to talk about my separation right now... And I don't want to gatekeep what's going on. Everyone who follows me has pretty much followed me because I was on the show where I married a stranger, and I totally welcome that. Welcome to my life! I'm not upset my relationship is in the public eye," Elizabeth said.The alum reasoned, however, "But come to find out, I'm a real human and I have these real emotions, and I'm just not ready to talk about some things in public yet. There are a lot of emotions that come with getting out of a long-term relationship, and when that time comes, I will talk about those.""But I can't even form sentences right now," she admitted, "because I can't even put my emotions together."Elizabeth proceeded to reveal that she was having an extremely difficult time post-split from Jamie."I still cry in the middle of the night right now, guys, okay?!" the alum confessed."So that being said, I totally respect everyone's comments and concerns, and I love you for that -- I do. Just give me a little bit of time... because I can't!"But Elizabeth assured her fans that she'd get to the point of sharing eventually, adding, "So stick around and watch the show."When Jamie filed for divorce from Elizabeth in late June, he shared on Instagram, "I did something I thought I would never have to do. Here I am, sitting in front of the Denver courthouse."Alongside a selfie of himself looking glum, Jamie continued, "After months of deliberation with Beth, we were just unable to find common ground. I had really hoped to resolve this, but it feels like we have reached the point of no return. So, I made the decision to go ahead and file for divorce for the sake of my own mental health and wellbeing."Jamie called filing for divorce "one of the hardest things" he's had to do "in a very long time."The alum continued in his post, "It saddens me a lot to be at this point. I was never sure if I would get married. But, I sure didn't want to get divorced either (even if it was an arranged marriage courtesy of Hollywood)."Jamie previously admitted in a Q&A session with his Instagram followers that he had "made a lot of mistakes" in the relationship but he wasn't willing to accept all the blame for the falling out with his wife."I also haven't felt like I've had any reciprocation back of, like, how to fix this and how to move forward. So she's been gone for four weeks. I think at this point, it's better for me to focus on myself and trying to become a better version of myself, honestly. That's all I can say," Jamie explained earlier this year.In terms of what happened or what went wrong, Jamie surprisingly disclosed, "Nothing. It's basically death by a thousand paper cuts, at this point.""I think the winter was really hard on us here in Colorado and we weren't ready for all that," Jamie elaborated. "And being stuck inside with sub-freezing temperatures daily and snow on the ground for weeks at a time -- and we're both active... people.""So I think we just pushed each other's buttons, honestly. And five months of doing that straight, here we are today."Jamie told his followers, "I say things I shouldn't say and I get more angry than I should get sometimes, but I've got to go take care of myself now... I've got to control myself. It's like Mental Health 101 -- focus on yourself, love yourself first before you try to love somebody else. So that's where I'm at today."Jamie also admitted that he and his wife felt "pressure" to create "an image of happiness" on social media, even though their relationship had been struggling for months."To me, that's not real. We took a lot of heat coming off the show. We were our most authentic selves, our most raw selves on that show, and I just want to be honest... A lot of people are invested in our life, and I feel like I owe you guys an explanation," Jamie said.When asked why he couldn't work on himself while continuing his marriage -- given the couple had made a vow to support and love each other through sickness and in health -- Jamie said he and Elizabeth weren't growing and evolving together as spouses.Jamie, however, insisted he would need to take some time before he's ready to begin dating again."I'm good on the dating streets. I think for me, right now, I just want to take some time to work on myself. Dating is not going to solve anything. Finding that perfect someone is not going to make life great all of a sudden," Jamie reasoned."It kind of sucks because I'm 39-years-old and I would like a family at some point, and I was hoping that was going to be possible with Beth. But I don't know after all this."He concluded, "If I'm 45 having my first kid, or 50, you know, medicine is great these days. What are you going to do?"Jamie also acknowledged he and Elizabeth probably "should've been going to therapy" together and that they had swept a lot of their fights under the rug -- which resurfaced and worsened later on.Jamie admitted he definitely "lost" himself trying to please Beth in their marriage."I started putting my hobbies, my goals, my own personal stuff aside trying to focus on this relationship, and that's just a piece of advice -- don't lose yourself. Be true to yourself. Know yourself," Jamie told his followers.He also said they got in "way over their heads" with moving around the country for Jamie's job -- including stops in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, North Carolina, and then Colorado.Jamie and Beth's split came as a surprise to fans given they had just celebrated their four-year anniversary in early April."I think we were both struggling to make each other happy... Why were we relying on each other to make our own selves happy vs. just being happy on our own?" Jamie noted.Elizabeth and Jamie chose to stay together on 's ninth season, which was based in Charlotte, NC, and aired in 2019.Back in May 2021, Elizabeth and Jamie talked about having kids together on a : Countdown to Decision Day special that aired on Lifetime."Are we waiting? What are we doing, babe?" Jamie asked Beth on the show."Speaking of babies," Elizabeth began, "Jamie and I are actually thinking to start towards the end of the year now. So, like, it's in the conversation... I am going to be a cool mom!"Elizabeth and Jamie hit it off right away when they met at the altar as strangers on four years ago.Elizabeth and Jamie were crazy about each other, as well as sexually attracted to one another, but their passion and tempers often resulted in volatile disputes.Elizabeth sometimes got overly emotional over things that bothered her, and she once flipped over her living room table during a disagreement. Jamie, on the other hand, sometimes used his words as weapons and complained about their lack of physical intimacy. He even called Elizabeth "a materialistic c-nt" at one point.However, with the help of the 's experts, Elizabeth and Jamie managed to get through every rough patch and effectively communicate, resulting in what they thought would be a happy and long-lasting marriage.Both spouses recognized by "Decision Day" that they didn't want to live without the other.Interested in more news? Join our Married at First Sight Facebook Group or click here to view our newspage!And click here for more updates on former cast members and info on where they are now!
Russia claimed that on October 17-18, company units of two Ukrainian marine infantry brigades stormed across the Dnipro River to the left bank of the Kherson region. The propagandists expressed clear concern over the continued activity of the Ukrainian Defense Forces there and presented it as part of a potentially larger operation.

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This is stated in a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Experts analyzed the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area, but at the same time suggested that it is not a question of creating a large bridgehead for advancement.

The analysts refer to footage published on October 18 that showed Ukrainian forces advancing north of Pishchanivka (14 km east of Kherson and 3 km from the Dnipro River) and to Poyma (11 km east of the city and 4 km from the river).

A prominent Russian blogger claimed that two Ukrainian "assault groups" landed on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River and broke through the initial Russian defenses, temporarily occupying the entire Poima and positions on the northern outskirts of Pishchanivka on the afternoon of October 17.

He later claimed that Russian troops had pushed Ukrainian forces back from these positions toward the Dnipro River. According to him, as of noon on October 18, a "Ukrainian subversive group" continued to operate in Pishchanivka.

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The propagandist also suggested that the Russian Armed Forces were holding only positions on the southern outskirts of the settlement. The Russian Ministry of Defense also recognized the Ukrainian Armed Forces' operations, claiming that the occupiers "stopped four Ukrainian subversive groups" near Pidstepne (16 km east of Kherson) and Poima. Another prominent Russian blogger added that Ukrainian troops occupied Poima on the night of October 17-18.

Against this backdrop, Russian sources expressed clear concern about ongoing Ukrainian activity in the Kherson region. They characterized the attacks as an attempt by Ukraine to expand its "bridgehead" on the left bank of the Dnipro River and the initial stages of a larger offensive across the river.

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Even Russian dictator Putin called the Ukrainian activity in the Kherson region "another counteroffensive" and continued his typical rhetoric, claiming that all Ukrainian offensives are "unsuccessful."

At the same time, the propagandist, who became the basis for many of the published data on the situation on the border between the temporarily occupied and liberated parts of Kherson region, began expressing concern about the Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro River in early 2023, and in late September, he strengthened his warnings. It responded to the news of the Ukrainian army's attack on the night of October 17-18 by accusing the Russian Defense Ministry of not taking seriously the threat of Ukrainian forces crossing the border.

ISW analysts suggest that Russia's fears about the ability of Russian troops to repel a possible Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro may be partly due to the state of the Russian grouping of forces on the left bank. The occupation command has pulled relatively more elite units from the Kherson sector to Zaporizhzhia in recent months, as it likely views Kherson as a quiet sector and the current composition of forces in the area as less combat-ready.

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On October 17, Natalia Humeniuk, a representative of the Operational Command "South," stated that the Russian Armed Forces continue to redeploy trained units from Kherson to Zaporizhzhia and the eastern direction. It is possible that the occupiers have recently redeployed units of the 41st Combined Arms Army and the 810th Separate Marine Brigade (Russian Black Sea Fleet) to Kherson region, but it is unclear where they are deployed. Ukrainian counteroffensive operations reportedly resulted in the Russian 810th Marine Corps being incapacitated as of September 22.

The ISW said it does not speculate on the scale and prospects of current Ukrainian activities on the eastern coast of Kherson region, but at the same time does not assess that the Armed Forces have created a bridgehead there that would be suitable for further maneuver of significant mechanized forces at this time.

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"It is worth noting, however, that well-known and generally reliable Russian sources discuss Ukrainian activity on the eastern bank of the Kherson River as being more extensive than previously documented tactical raids by Ukrainian forces across the river. ISW will continue to closely monitor the area and assess terrain control and Russian responses in accordance with its ongoing policy of not predicting Ukraine's actions," the analysts stated.

As reported by OBOZ.UA, for their part, the guerrillas of the Atesh movement inform that the occupiers have begun preparing for fighting in the Kherson region. For this purpose, the invaders are moving not only equipment but also command posts.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
The cast of Our Flag Means Death recently greeted their loud and proud fans at New York Comic Con, but because of the ongoing Screen Actors Guild strike, could not specifically discuss the 17th-century pirate comedy that brought them all together.

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"It's important to find a place to take yourself away from the real world on occasion because the real world is [expletive] right now and there's no denying that," star Rhys Darby recently told the crowd at the Jacob k. Javits Convention Center.

"All of these people here love fantasy worlds. That's why we're here and it is healthy and it's great and it's fun," he said.

"In those worlds, we can all be the same and we can all love each other and use kindness. I think it is the most important thing to create those fantasy worlds and keep believing in them. One day, the real world will be there. Let's hope it happens in our lifetime"

Airing Thursdays on Max, Our Flag Means Death is a critically acclaimed celebration of LGBTQ+ romance, starring Darby as Stede Bonnet, an 18th-century aristocrat who gives up his luxe life and family for a career in piracy and, along the way, falls in love with buccaneer Blackbeard (the show's executive producer, Taika Watiti).

Bonnet also attempts to civilize his crew of scalawags by encouraging members to explore their artistic sides and open up about their feelings while he pays them salaries so they aren't dependent on plundering to survive.

Loosely inspired by real events, the series co-stars Nathan Foad, Vico Ortiz, Kristian Nairn, Con O'Neill, Matt Maher, Samba Schutte, Samson Kayo, Ewen Bremner and Nat Faxon.

The show quickly amassed an online community that enthusiastically offers theories on plot lines and shares artwork and recipes related to characters, jokes and scenes its members love.

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Darby, Foad, Ortiz, Nairn, O'Neill and Maher took the stage together at ComicCon, discussing topics such as who in their friend group was the most outdoorsy (Ortiz), most likely to talk someone's ear off (Foad) and most likely to order the most expensive things on the menu (Nairn), in keeping with the rules of the SAG strike.

They all agreed that their pal Nat Faxon, who wasn't present, was the most spontaneous.

"He really lives his life," Foad said.

Ortiz agreed, noting they would ask Faxon where he went and he would have a bunch of great new stories to tell.

"I was like, 'Wow, you just woke up today and decided to do a bunch of stuff!'" Ortiz said.

"He'd make the most of his time in New Zealand, which we didn't go to for any particular reason," Maher said, alluding to the country where the show is filmed without actually mentioning the title.

"It's so weird. We just picked a beautiful country. It's a massive coincidence, considering the 18-hour flight."

Feigning surprise that his friends were in his native country, Darby joked, "What a missed opportunity! We could have done something. Imagine what we could have made. The talent in this room!

"I guess, one day, when we get a better deal, when someone sorts his [expletive] out and pays for rights, then maybe you'll get some people who can put something together and talk about it," Darby said. "To their fandom!"

Darby then picked up a microphone and improvised a little rap.

"Life! What's happening with life? Wow! There's so much strife. I don't know what to do here now. Why can't we just all get along with the show? Why can't we talk about the show? I don't know!" he sang.

Foad quipped that the cast thought they did a good job of avoiding verboten subjects during the panel, but admitted they could end up in the back of a police car for the things they said.

Max released a behind-the-scenes featurette Tuesday with remarks Darby made about the show before the strike shut down most film and TV productions, and prohibited actors from talking about their past, current or upcoming work.

"We are used to pulling something together out of nothing and multi-tasking. Less numbers and more jobs, but get it done quicker than other crews," Darby said of his fellow New Zealanders. "The whole thing is a massive Kiwi effort and that makes me really proud."

Showrunner David Jenkins added, "Having these critical crew available and local, who know where all the secret places are in Auckland to go and source everything you need for a pirate's republic or an underground bar is so amazing."
Public wants say in camping rules to deal with homeless
As I do not belong to any of the communities involved, I find it extremely important to educate myself on the entirety of the conflict and try to understand the complexities the best I can. As allies, we should sympathize with all innocent Israeli and Palestinian citizens that face violence despite their own actions. To fully understand their struggles, its important to start by learning about the history of the conflict and lend support to those who need it.
On the night of October 19, Ukrainian defenders shot down six Russian Shahed kamikaze drones in the sky over different regions. In total, the enemy launched six air targets.

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This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The details and consequences of the attack are still being clarified.

It is currently known that the occupiers launched six Shahed-136/131 attack UAVs. Air defense forces neutralized three kamikaze drones.

Reports in Telegram channels also show that the enemy shelled Mykolaiv at night. According to Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych, at least three apartment buildings had their windows smashed by the enemy.

"No damage has been reported in the private sector so far. Fortunately, residents were not injured," he said.

As reported by OBOZ.UA, on the night of October 17, Russian troops fired six Shaheds, an X-59 guided missile and two S-300s at Ukraine. Air defense forces shot down the Kh-59 and all six drones in the south.

Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
The government on Thursday tweaked curbs on imports of laptops and computers as it allowed importers to bring in shipments of IT hardware from overseas on a mere 'authorisation' upon detailing quantity and value.

Photograph: Issei Kato/Reuters

The new 'import management system' is aimed at monitoring shipments of laptops, tablets and computers into the country without hurting market supply or creating a cumbersome licensing regime.

The announcement is likely to provide relief to companies in the IT hardware segment in India as they had flagged concerns over the imposition of a strict licensing regime for importers.

Leading electronic brands that are sold in the market include HCL, Samsung, Dell, LG Electronics, Acer, Apple, Lenovo and HP.

Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Santosh Kumar Saranagi told reporters here that the new licensing or import authorisation/management system, which will come into operation with immediate effect, is primarily aimed at monitoring imports of these products to ensure that they are coming from "trusted" sources.

While seeking the authorisation, an importer will have to provide an import item summary and details of past import, export, and turnover.

Subject to certain conditions, the government will not reject any import requests and will use the data for monitoring the inbound shipments of these goods.

After taking into account the concerns of stakeholders of the sector, some "tweaking" in the policy has been made, and an end-to-end online system was launched for importers, Saranagi said.

Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) S Krishnan said this system will "provide us with the kind of data and information (that) we need to make sure that we have a completely trusted digital system in this country".

On August 3, the government announced import curbs and then suddenly deferred the decision on August 4, stating that the licensing regime will kick in from November 1 following concerns raised by the industry.

An official said that the new online system is simple as compared to a cumbersome license regime.

The importers are allowed to apply for multiple authorisations and those authorisations would be valid up to September 30, 2024.

The authorisations will be issued for any number of consignments for imports till September next year.

About post-September 2024 scenario, Krishnan said the government will study the data, interact with the industry, and then decide on ways to move forward.

"The intent is not to cause any kind of inconvenience or difficulty, impose any needless restriction on any of the players involved," the MeiTY secretary said, adding the goal is to promote manufacturing of more and more electronic hardware in the country.

Electronics will become the largest manufacturing sector not just in India but the whole world and India needs to have a significant presence in the sector and these measures will help in achieving that overall goal, he added.

"The idea is to give certainty for next year or so.

"We are just launching the system, studying it over a fairly extended period based on whatever data that we are able to get (and) based on the kind of interaction we have with stakeholders, further measures will be taken," the secretary said.

Sarangi said that with this import management system, the government will have clear data about specific products coming from different sources and then they can monitor it in consultation with the stakeholders.

The system, DGFT said, will ensure that it will be faceless and contactless, and there will be no hassles for importers to fill in their details.

The new license regime is applicable to laptops, personal computers (including tablet computers), microcomputers, large or mainframe computers, and certain data processing machines to ensure India's trusted supply chain.

He added that companies in the "denied entity list" will not get the authorisations.

Such a list includes firms which have not fulfilled or defaulted export obligations by availing benefits of schemes like advance authorisation and Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) or having DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence) cases against them.

Sarangi said that though an online system has been put in place, these IT hardware products are still "under the restricted" category and "there is no change in that".

When asked if the new system would lead to an increase in prices of these goods, Krishnan said that they do not expect supply to be constrained in any manner to push the prices up.

"Supply will continue both from domestic and imported sources and we believe, as domestic production (will increase), overall supply will increase and prices will either stay where they are or they will come down," he said.

The secretary also said that many applications have come under PLI and they are currently under appraisal and within one-two months, the process will be completed.

When asked whether the government will withdraw the August notification, the DGFT said it will not be withdrawn, and a clarification has been issued to give effect to the new online authorisation system for these imports.

The DGFT has provided several exemptions to different entities.

In a notification, it said these IT hardware products manufactured in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) can be imported into domestic tariff areas (outside SEZs) without any import authorisation on payment of applicable duties, if any.

Private companies importing these goods for supply to central and state government agencies or undertakings or for defence purposes are also exempted from seeking this permission for imports.

Besides, SEZ units, export-oriented units, Electronics Hardware Technology Park (EHTP), Software Technology Park, and Bio-Technology Park are not required to obtain a "restricted import authorisation" for the import of these IT hardware.

The restrictions are also not applicable to imports under baggage rules, and import of one laptop, tablet, personal computer or ultra-small form factor computer, including those purchased from e-commerce portals through post or courier, is also exempted.

After the issuance of an import authorisation, the quantity as mentioned on a valid authorisation may also be amended at any point, subject to the overall value of the import remaining unchanged.

In August, the government imposed import restrictions on laptops, computers (including tablet computers), microcomputers, large or mainframe computers, and certain data processing machines.

These five categories of goods will be covered under the import management system and the authorisation will be required for the purpose of custom clearance and will be issued in end to end online format.

India imported these goods worth $8.7 billion in 2022-23 against $10.3 billion in 2021-22 and $7.1 billion in 2020-21.

The country imported personal computers, including laptops, worth $5.33 billion in 2022-23 compared to $7.37 billion in 2021-22.

The main countries from where these goods were imported in the last fiscal include China ($5.11 billion), Singapore ($1.4 billion), Hong Kong ($807 million), the US ($344.7 million), Malaysia ($324.8 million), Taiwan ($272.5 million), the Netherlands ($132.8 million) and Vietnam ($126 million).

In May, the government approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme 2.0 for IT Hardware with a budgetary outlay of Rs 17,000 crore.

In February 2021, the scheme was approved for IT hardware, covering the production of laptops, tablets, All-in-One PCs and servers with an outlay of Rs 7,350 crore.
Commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal is set to attend a two-day meeting from October 23 at the World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters in Geneva, that would focus on finding solutions and giving the necessary political push for at least some crucial global trade issues.

Photograph: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters

Next weeks meeting comes ahead of the WTOs 13th ministerial conference (MC13), scheduled in Abu Dhabi in February 2024.

It will see participation of senior government officials from all WTO member nations.

Indias top priority will be to pitch for an agreement on a permanent solution on public stockholding for food security purposes.

Another key area of focus will be on WTO reforms, government officials said.

The senior officials meeting will provide an opportunity to take stock of where we are and identify the challenges, gaps and opportunities.

She (WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala) called on capital-based government officials to come to Geneva not with well-known positions, but with realistic expectation of what is truly doable for MC13, said a WTO statement released in July.

Priorities

India, along with a group of developing nations, wants to seek a permanent solution on public stockholding, with more enhanced terms, compared to the 2013 Bali peace clause to safeguard millions of the hunger-stricken people.

While the proposal has received support from around 80 developing member nations at the WTO, other members such as the European Union (EU) and Brazil have linked the peace clause to conditions on export performance and value of agricultural production, officials said.

A permanent solution is crucial since WTO member nations have been raising questions over Indias minimum support price (MSP) programme for food grains, particularly rice, since the subsidy has breached the suggested limit under the trade norms thrice.

India has invoked the peace clause under WTO norms to protect its food procurement programme against any action from member nations in case the limit is breached.

Another focus area pertains to WTO reforms.

The previous ministerial conferences outcome document had committed to work towards necessary WTO reforms, while reaffirming the foundational principles of the global trade body and promised to revive the dispute settlement body by 2024.

Separately, India had submitted a proposal  30 for 30  in May, towards improving the functioning of various WTO committees.

The 30 reform areas or changes, which India has proposed, are with respect to the completion of 30 years of functioning of the WTO on December 24, 2024.

While deliberations on the larger WTO reform agenda are ongoing, these suggested incremental changes could be implemented quickly, as developing a common understanding on these would be easy, considering the nature of these suggestions for enhancing the operational efficiency of the organisation, India had said in its submission.
The communication was clear, transparent and worded in a manner that did not induce any fear in the minds of the people, asserts A K Bhattacharya.

IMAGE: People exchange their Rs 2000 currency note at a bank following the RBI's decision to withdraw its circulation, in New Delhi, May 23, 2023. Photograph: Sanjay Sharma/ANI Photo

On May 19, 2023, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced its decision to withdraw from circulation all currency notes of Rs 2,000 denomination.

The RBI circular advised the public that these high-denomination currency notes could be exchanged or deposited with banks before the end of September 30, 2023, a deadline that was subsequently extended by a week.

This was an announcement that immediately brought back memories of the 2016 demonetisation, which caused hardships and disruption to ordinary people, companies, and traders.

Long queues of customers formed outside banks as they waited to exchange the annulled currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations.

Understandably, therefore, there were serious concerns in May 2023 about the potential disruption the operation to withdraw the Rs 2,000 currency notes could cause over the following 20 weeks.

There were also questions about whether a bigger announcement on their legal tender status would be made after the deadline for withdrawal had ended.

Last week marked the end of the deadline for getting the currency notes of Rs 2,000 denomination exchanged or deposited with banks.

Over 96 per cent of the total value of these notes has already been either exchanged or deposited with banks.

What's more, over 87 per cent of these currency notes have been deposited with banks and not exchanged.

There were no long queues outside banks. There was hardly any disruption to trade or industry.

What contributed to this smooth operation? Are there any lessons to be drawn?

To be sure, the demonetisation announced on November 8, 2016, is not strictly comparable with the decision taken on May 19, 2023.

In 2016, the currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations lost their legal tender status from midnight on November 8.

In 2023, the legal tender status of the Rs 2,000 currency notes remains intact even now after the deadline for withdrawal has ended.

More importantly, the currency notes to be annulled in 2016 accounted for over 86 per cent of the currency with the public, while the May 2023 exercise implied that less than 11 per cent of the currency with the public had to be withdrawn.

Also, the sheer magnitude of the two operations was significantly different.

The 2016 exercise required the exchange of over 21 billion currency notes (17 billion notes of Rs 500 denomination and 6 billion of Rs 1,000 denomination), while in 2023, only about 1.78 billion notes had to be exchanged or deposited with banks.

Yet, there are similarities between the two operations, and it appears that the current RBI management has drawn important lessons from the disruptive and problematic consequences of the way demonetisation of 2016 was implemented.

The smooth withdrawal of over 96 per cent of the Rs 2,000 denomination notes from circulation is testimony to that.

What are the features of the 2023 scheme that made a big difference?

One, the communication was clear, transparent and worded in a manner that did not induce any fear in the minds of the people.

The messaging between the RBI and commercial banks was effectively handled so that implementation of the policy did not suffer.

The messaging of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2016 was also clear and transparent, but it appeared to be aimed at triggering fear that the exercise would flush out black money from those who may have stashed it in their suitcases, hinting thereby that those in possession of such notes in large numbers could be probed by the tax authorities.

Even the RBI's communication with the banks, let alone with people, was not smooth, creating uncertainty and apprehension, which was made worse by frequent changes in the way demonetisation was to be implemented.

In addition, there was the inconvenience of immediate curbs on the usage of the demonetised notes for all transactions except a few.

In contrast, the 2023 decision imposed no curbs on the usage of the Rs 2,000 currency notes.

What also helped was the RBI's explanation of how these notes were introduced in November 2016 to meet the immediate currency requirement of the economy after the withdrawal of the legal tender status of all Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 bank notes in circulation at that time.

After achieving that objective and ensuring adequate availability of currency notes in other denominations, the printing of Rs 2,000 notes was stopped in 2018-19.

Since most of these notes, according to the RBI, were issued before March 2017 and had completed their estimated lifespan, the decision to withdraw them was taken in pursuance of its "Clean Note Policy".

Mind you, not many people were convinced by the "Clean Note Policy" argument.

Yet, the panic, if any, was subdued, because there were no immediate curbs on their usage and the deadline for exchange or deposit with banks was about 140 days.

Compare this with the 52 days given for exchanging the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes in 2016, with very limited scope for spending them.

And most importantly, the banking system had to deal with the exchange or deposit of only 1.78 billion currency notes in 2023 over a period of 140 days, while the task was to deal with 21 billion currency notes in 2016 over about 52 days.

There is another reason for the smooth operation of the 2023 scheme.

In the last few years, the digital payment network in the country through the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, has spread rapidly, a process expedited to a great degree by the demonetisation of 2016.

It made the task of pulling out the currency notes of Rs 2,000 denomination significantly easier.

In October 2016, the number of UPI transactions, on 26 banks associated with the system, was just about 100,000, valued at Rs 48 crore.

By May 2023, the number of banks connected to UPI had increased to 445, with the volume of transactions rising to 9.4 billion, valued at about Rs 15 trillion.

Clearly, the rapid spread of the mobile-based UPI network has minimised any possible disruptions that could have been caused by the withdrawal of currency notes in 2023.

The RBI's communication strategy in 2023, however, raised questions with respect to one of the reasons cited for its action.

It argued that the Rs 2,000 notes were to be withdrawn as they were not commonly used for transactions.

This is not borne out by the experience of traders, small businesses, and the public.

Indeed, now that the Rs 2,000 notes have been withdrawn, the pressure on lower-denomination currency notes has increased, causing avoidable inconvenience.

This has also given rise to a view that the actual reason for withdrawing the Rs 2,000 notes has not yet been revealed.

Whatever may be its actual objective, the RBI's implementation of its decision was helped by the spread of digital payments, a more effective communication policy, and, of course, the less onerous task of managing the withdrawal when compared to the huge number of currency notes to be handled in 2016.

Perhaps, having as RBI governor a person who in a different capacity had helped manage the challenges of implementing demonetisation in 2016 has its own merits.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
Will a caste census make tens of millions desert Mr Modi?, asks Shekhar Gupta.

IMAGE: Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Prime Minister Narendra D Modi on the campaign trail in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, October 2, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo

Narendra D Modi's challengers, whether divided, united, fortified, or turbocharged, cannot dream of defeating him next year unless they have that one big idea.

If the INDIA alliance thinks a nationwide Bihar-style caste census is the next big idea, I'd give it a reality check: What Bihar thinks today, Bihar used to think the day before yesterday.

The Bihar social justice movement had succeeded in placing political power at the feet of the subaltern classes by 1990.

It hasn't progressed since then, and never even endeavoured to take the next steps towards larger economic empowerment, widening opportunities, and improving the lives of its people.

This Bihar model would be a very sad and tired offering to India.

It worked in Bihar, and given that all subaltern forces are together against the Bharatiya Janata Party again, it may dent Mr Modi's prospects, but only in Bihar, where the BJP won only 17 seats by itself in 2019. How much further can you reduce that?

To be fair, to defeat Mr Modi with this strategy, you don't need to paint the entire country in the colours of Bihar.

You only need to do so in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and maybe Haryana and Uttarakhand.

A close look at the caste breakup and traditional loyalties in any of these states will tell you that if this census is the revolution you were waiting for, it will not cross the borders of the state where it originated in 1967.

Why must you rely on my views, arguments or even biases if smart people are already calling it a revolution, and Rahul Gandhi has also endorsed the late Kanshi Ram's original idea: Jiski jitni sankhya bhaari, uski utni hissedaari -- to each a share according to their population or, in short, proportionate representation.

Now, let's look at some facts from the 2019 elections and see where we go from there.

In 2019, the Modi-Shah BJP had secured more than 50 per cent of the vote in 224 Lok Sabha seats.

That leaves them just 49 shy of a clear majority. Irrespective of which side you are on, you'd see the degree of difficulty in turning that strong a tide.

A state-wise breakdown of these 224 will make the challenge look even tougher.

The BJP got more than 50 per cent of the vote in half of all the seats in Uttar Pradesh, the state whose caste breakup, opportunities and Muslim percentage are most similar to Bihar's. That's 40 seats out of 80.

In Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka, the other major states Mr Modi relies on, this number was 23, 25, 26 and 22 seats, respectively.

This adds up to 136 seats out of 188 with more than 50 per cent. Is a caste census the idea that will make so many tens of millions desert Mr Modi?

IMAGE: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, left interacts with State Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav in Patna. Photograph: ANI Photo

The degree of difficulty for Mr Modi's challengers lies in three key facts:

One, that he sweeps these states so comprehensively both in seats and percentage terms that it becomes nearly impossible to beat him.

It is almost like Steve Waugh's Australians in their prime, who scored so much in their first innings and so quickly that the match was over already.

Second, unlike the Congress post-1989, he is no innocent when it comes to playing the backward class/caste card, pitching himself in front as an OBC.

The third is that subaltern caste+Muslim politics works only as long as you can win an election with just over 30 per cent of the votes or thereabouts, as used to be the case in the Hindi heartland.

If the other side is beginning with 50 per cent plus now, it is a steep mountain to climb.

And you need better hauling power, hooks, footholds, and ropes than a caste census, a stirring but outdated Kanshi Ram war cry.

It is nobody's case that Kanshi Ram wasn't a genius or a political visionary.

It is just that he was a phenomenon for his time. The Backward and Scheduled Castes' and minorities' need for political empowerment was desperate.

It made an incredible and lasting impact. It transformed our politics, and we can say that some of the objectives have already been achieved.

India has an OBC Prime Minister and a tribal President, and three of the Congress's four chief ministers are OBCs.

You can't assess the prospects of a return to this wave without examining why so many of these "other castes" voters moved to Mr Modi's BJP.

It is widely believed -- and I share that belief with so many exit polls confirming it with data -- that the upper castes are the most secure vote bank in India at this point, and the BJP has it.

One good thing the Bihar "census" has done, however, is to demonstrate how small this vote bank is.

If you add all the Hindu upper castes counted in Bihar, the total comes to just about 12 per cent of the population.

IMAGE: Modi along with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National President JP Nadda during the BJP Central Election Committee meeting on the Rajasthan elections at the party headquarters, in New Delhi, October 01, 2023. Photograph: Ayush Sharma/ANI Photo

Let's take this argument further and say the upper castes make up 15 per cent. The BJP's total vote share in the 2019 election was a little over 37 per cent.

So where did the remaining 22 per cent come from? Or further, that 50-plus percentage in 224 seats?

Those numbers were achieved only because the middle- and lower-caste Hindus walked out of the Mandal-Kanshi Ram trenches and voted for Mr Modi.

Can the Opposition bring them back now with the promise of a caste census, and a proportionate share of the spoils?

And if so, which spoils? Since Bihar is the epicentre of the idea, what does that state have to offer its voters, whatever their caste

It has no jobs in the government, no spare cash to launch new schemes, no industry, no services sector, not even a growing state-funded education sector where jobs could be found.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav is fond of promising reservations in the private sector.

A great idea. But where and what is the private sector in Bihar? Unless you are talking about bootlegging.

A caste census is an important, useful, and necessary idea, and one whose time has come.

My limited argument is that it isn't a killer political idea it is made out to be.

It doesn't have enough attraction to win back the voters that caste-based parties lost to the BJP.

And it would consolidate the BJP's upper-caste vote further.

It's been nearly four decades since Mandal and Kanshi Ram rose. India has changed phenomenally since then, mostly for the better.

The contribution of those ideas in enlarging India's talent base can be seen everywhere.

This success has also empowered the new generations of the same social classes to aspire to more than a mere peon or clerk's job.

A caste census can help the government design better, fairer policies.

But its oomph will be way weaker in this era of aspiration than it was in that epoch of grievance.

Does it mean the Opposition has no answer to Mr Modi? That most certainly isn't my case. It is just that you need something bigger, more distinctive, positive, and optimistic.

Or, in marketing terms, something that creates real brand/product distinction.

The ideas Rahul Gandhi propounded, Bharat Jodo and Mohabbat ki Dukaan, checked some of these boxes.

Why he is now jumping from that more virtuous boat to a tired old idea, is intriguing.

Why go from interesting new ideas that make you a clear ideological and political counter to the incumbent, and lapse back into what we might describe as the unbearable laziness of political ideas?

By special arrangement with The Print

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
'This decision to go with the BJP is Kumaraswamy's individual decision and not a party decision.'

IMAGE: Janata Dal-Secular leader H D Kumaraswamy joins the Bharatiya Janata Party protest over the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu in Bengaluru, September 27, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo

Janata Dal-Secular state president and former Union civil aviation minister Chand Mahal Ibrahim says there is no question of him quitting the party as he is the real JD-S.

He was reacting to JD-S leader and former Karnataka chief minister of H D Kumaraswamy announcing an election tie-up with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Kumaraswamy is JD-S patriarch and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's son.

'I appeal to Deve Gowda, who is 92, to not take a wrong step. He was made prime minister of India because of his secular credentials,' Ibrahim stated last week.

"Muslims ensured Kumaraswamy's victory, therefore Amit Shah called him for alliance. Had he lost the election, who would have called him for an alliance? Nobody would have called him," Ibrahim tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.

Why are you going against H D Kumaraswamy's decision to join hands with the BJP and be a part of National Democratic Alliance?

This decision to go with the BJP is Kumaraswamy's individual decision and not a party decision. Therefore, I am against this decision and opposing the move.

Did he speak to you or any other party leader before deciding to join hands with the BJP?

No, he did not speak to any leader and even if he has, I personally have no idea about it.

You had an alliance with the BJP earlier in Karnataka so if you are doing it again, what is the harm?

Today no leader of the JD-S wants an alliance with the BJP. We have conveyed this to Deve Gowdaji.

What did he say?

He has not spoken and we are waiting for his response on this matter.

Are you hopeful then that your alliance with the BJP won't happen?

We are surely hopeful that an alliance with the BJP will not happen in Karnataka.

Today there are two major forces gearing up for the 2024 elections. The NDA, and the INDIA alliance. Don't you feel your party won't be able to take on their might in the 2024 general election alone?

If Deve Gowdaji agrees, then we will discuss this issue otherwise we do not want to support the NDA. We may support the INDIA alliance.

Don't you feel it won't be easy for any party or alliance like INDIA to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2024 elections?

I have a lot of respect for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Personally, we are not against him, but on principles we are against him.

On what principles are you against him?

We are not only against the BJP on secularism, but also the fact that Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar has given a Constitution which they are diluting.

For example, they removed the word secularism and socialism from the new book on the Constitution. Why are they doing it? What is the meaning of that?

You are against the BJP on only these two issues, secularism and socialism?

There are other issues too, like the Non Aligned Movement.

India used to spearhead all countries which used to take a neutral stance on global politics. Today what is happening to the Non Aligned Movement?

We do not take such a stance.

Besides that, we also have targeted (attacks) on Dalits, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians in India. We cannot accept these things and join hands with the BJP.

Are you hopeful things will change?

If the country has to progress things will change for sure and if not, then things will not change. It is all in Gods hand now and we are standing on our principles and doing politics.

H D Kumaraswamy has said he is not dependent on Muslim votes alone to win elections, taunting you indirectly.

Kumaraswamy got 20,000 Muslim votes (from Channapatna constituency) and he won only because of that in the Karnataka assembly elections. Had he not got Muslim votes, he would have lost the elections.

Muslims ensured Kumaraswamy's victory, therefore Amit Shah called him for alliance. Had he lost the election, who would have called him for an alliance? Nobody would have called him.

What is the political compulsion for him then? Is he scared of ED, CBI, Income Tax like so many opposition leaders who signed on with the BJP?

It is better you put this question to him as to what are his compulsions to join the BJP rather than asking me.

I am sure he must have had a word from you since you are a senior leader of your party?

No, he never spoke to me about his decision to go with the BJP. It was his personal decision.

Are you hopeful that most of the JD-S will be with you?

I hope so. Let us see what happens next.

Are you heading for a split then if Kumaraswamy insists on joining hands with the BJP?

Only time will give this answer.
'Given the current dispensation, I have no hope for the legislature passing a law in favour of the LGBTQ community.'

IMAGE: Members of the LGBTQIA+ community are clearly stunned as they follow the live hearing of the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage on their smartphones in the courtyard of India's apex court, October 17, 2023. Photograph: Amit Sharma/ANI Photo

Nguvu Change Leader Sandhya Honawar, who has been advocating the causes of gender rights, LGBTQ rights, and adoption rights for same-sex couples, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com that the LGBTQ community is heartbroken by the Supreme Court judgments on same-sex marriages.

How do you read the Supreme Court judgment that has now lobbed the ball into Parliament's court so far as deciding same sex marriages are concerned?

There are two reactions. One, I am completely heartbroken for the LGBTQ community.

Second, not surprised because many of us who are allies of the LGBTQ community, when we discuss it, we were saying, Chandrachud (Chief Justice of India Dr Dhananjay Yeshwant Chandrachud) will make sure that it will go ahead (same-sex marriages will be made legal).

And I said, 'You are living in a fool's paradise'. I had anticipated that this was going to happen. Our judges and judiciary don't have the guts, except for Chandrachud and maybe the other gentleman, (Justice Sanjiv Kishan Kaul).

While I had anticipated it (that the judgment will not legalise same-sex marriage), I had already said to some of my friends that 'Nahi hoga (The Supreme Court will not legalise same-sex marriage). And they said, 'Hoga', because everybody's hopes had gone up.

Initially, just because Chandrachud was in, everybody was already celebrating. And then towards the end, we realised that three to two, it's gone the other way.

It took a fight of more than two decades to decriminalise homosexuality. So, fighting to get legal status for same-sex marriage could take another 40-50 years. That's what I feel.

Why are you so pessimistic? Don't you see any positive outcome of this judgment?

Well, there are positives in this judgment for individuals. At least the transgenders now have got some recognition. They will be allowed to enter into legal marriages now. That's a positive sign.

But the crux of the matter is that they have passed the buck to the legislature. Given the current dispensation, I have no hope for the legislature passing a law in favour of the LGBTQ community. They may not even bother to take it up for a debate or discussion.

Forget passing (a law to legalise same-sex marriage)... that is, like, long way away. Will they (Parliament) even raise the issue? Does it (the discrimination against the LGBTQ community in exercise of their fundamental rights) even bother them? Does it even matter to them?

The Supreme Court has stated that this is not an elite phenomena...

What is the use of only two judges making such sensible statements? What stopped the other three? Don't they know the history of India? Don't they know that this (same-sex relationships) is so common in Indian culture?

The attitude is almost at least we gave them decriminalisation of homosexuality. I was hearing the judgment and I felt that the judgment was saying, 'Be happy with what we have already given to you. We recognise the LGBT community now. Why are you asking for more?'

How will the lives of the LGBT community change after this judgment?

This has thrown them back to where they were. But I'm sure that quite a few of the groups -- and there are many groups within the (LGBTQ) community -- will probably continue to fight the good fight and create awareness.

As a group, as a collective, the LGBT community are exactly where they were in the beginning. In fact, it is worse after the hopes having been raised; now (after the judgment) we are literally thrown into the bottom of the abyss again.

So what will change? I don't see anything changing. In fact, for some time, there'll be a lot of gloom. From morning, I've been receiving calls from my LGBTQ community friends saying, 'What the hell?'

I am saying this because the CJI was seen as a very communicative judge. Over the months, he's been quoted in the media and he has been making positive statements. But we forget that he is not the only one. There were others.

We tend to get carried away; we thought that something positive will come out of it. Maybe not marriage, but at least (the Supreme Court will accept) recognition of a civil union. This is what the LGBTQ community thought.

Either a civil union or (the hope was that the Supreme Court will) put something under the Special Marriages Act. Give us a way out somewhere.

Maybe you don't have the guts to go all the way and say it's a marriage like any other union of two people, but at least under civil union, at least under the Special Marriages Act, but even that hasn't happened.
Days after an explosion at a hospital in Gaza killed around 500 people, India on Thursday called for strict observance of the international humanitarian law as it expressed concern over the civilian casualties in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

IMAGE: A person stands at the site where a girl was killed in Israeli strikes on a house in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 19, 2023. Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, referring to Hamas's multi-pronged attack on Israeli cities on October 7, said the international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

He said around 1,200 Indians and 18 Nepali nationals have come back to India in five flights from Tel Aviv under 'Operation Ajay' and that the government was monitoring the situation and has decided accordingly on facilitating the return of more people.

"We have strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel, and we believe the international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," Bagchi said.

On the Palestine issue he said 'we India has been in favour of direct negotiations for having a two-state solution'.

"As regards Palestine, we have reiterated our long standing position of advocating the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognized borders, side by side at peace with Israel," he said.

"We have also expressed our concern at the civilian casualties due to the ongoing conflict. We also remain concerned about the humanitarian situation," Bagchi said.

"We would urge the full respect and strict observance of international humanitarian law," he said, replying to a question on Tuesday's attack on Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza.

Around 500 people were reported to have been killed on Tuesday in the explosion on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, triggering strong international condemnation.

Palestinian authorities blamed Israeli air strikes for the explosion at the hospital while Israel said it was caused by a misfired rocket launched from Gaza by militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expressed shock at the loss of lives in the attack on the Gaza hospital and that those involved in civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict should be held responsible.

'Deeply shocked at the tragic loss of lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for speedy recovery of those injured,' Modi said on X.

'Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible,' he said.

To a question on humanitarian assistance to Palestinian people, Bagchi said India has been supporting them.

"India has been supporting Palestine and Palestinian refugees through significant contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). A total of $29.53 million has been contributed to UNRWA between 2002 and 2023," he said.

"The Indian annual contribution to UNRWA was increased from $1.25 million to $5 million in 2018. India has pledged an annual contribution of $5 million for the next two years (FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25)," Bagchi said.

The latest conflict has been triggered by the unprecedented and multi-pronged attacks against Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza since October 7.

Israel has launched a massive counter offensive in Gaza to avenge the attacks.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 3,300 people have been killed and over 12,000 wounded in Gaza since the conflict began.

Around 1,400 people in Israel have been killed and 3,800 injured in the deadly attack by militant group Hamas since October 7. Around 200 others were abducted by Hamas.

Answering a question, Bagchi said there has been no report of any Indian casualty and that an Indian woman, who has sustained injuries, is recovering well.

A care-giver from Kerala had sustained injuries in the attacks by Hamas.

The sudden escalation in hostilities between Israel and Palestine has triggered global concerns.

Leading powers like Germany, the United States, France and the United Kingdom emphasised the importance of preventing the situation from further escalation.

US President Joe Biden has already visited Israel, showing solidarity with the Israeli people. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also paid a visit to Israel.
All India Congress Committee general secretary K C Venugopal has strongly criticised the Union Government's stand on the Israel-Hamas conflict, terming it as "highly disappointing".

IMAGE: People gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses in the central Gaza Strip, October 18, 2023. Photograph: Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa/Reuters

He said India's approach on the conflict used to be different from the very beginning.

India used to extend support to the Palestinian cause and advocate for their rights, the Congress leader said in a Facebook post in Malayalam.

However, when it comes to any aggression or counter-aggression, India used to strongly condemn it, he said.

"Unfortunately, the current Indian stance is not sufficient to put an end to the war," the Rajya Sabha MP said.

He urged the Union Government to express its views on the matter with dignity and respect, just as in the past.

The senior Congress leader condemned the loss of lives of common people in the war and the attack on a hospital in Gaza that killed over 500 Palestinians.

"When women and children, who are innocent and helpless, are caught in the crossfire, how can India stand by without a strong stance against it?

"The Indian government's stance on the Israel-Palestine issue is highly disappointing," the Congress leader said.

He said that regardless of whether it is Israel or Palestine, both are bound by international humanitarian laws.

Venugopal said the atrocities committed by Hamas against women, children and vulnerable civilians in Israel cannot be justified under any circumstances.

But it is also essential to scrutinise the historical background that led them to such circumstances, he added.

The Congress MP said it is surprising that some countries are supporting the "brutal attack that Israel is unleashing to completely wipe out Gaza" and urged India not to stand behind it.

Venugopal said the horrific consequences of this war demand immediate attention from the international community, and India must lead efforts to bring peace and provide relief to the affected.

"This is the mature and dignified stance that the world expects from India", he added.

The Congress leader's statement came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed shock over the tragic loss of lives in an attack on a hospital in Gaza.

The Prime Minister had said civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict were a matter of serious concern and those involved should be held responsible.

According to media reports, the Hamas group said a massive explosion at the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza killed hundreds of people Tuesday.

Hamas attributed the blast to an Israeli air strike, but the Israeli military said it was not involved and the explosion was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.

Hostilities between Israel and Hamas began after armed Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack on Israel by land, air, and sea on October 7.

Since the start of hostilities, as many as 2,778 Palestinians have been killed.

Media reports have cited official Israeli sources as saying that at least 1,400 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel.
A Varanasi court on Thursday reserved till October 21 its order on a plea seeking inclusion of the Gyanvapi mosque's 'wazookhana' in the ongoing Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) survey of the mosque complex.

IMAGE: Gyanvapi mosque complex in Varanasi. Photograph: ANI Photo

At present, the 'wazookhana' (a small reservoir for Muslim devotees to perform ritual ablutions), where a structure claimed by Hindu litigants to be a 'Shivling' exists, is not part of the survey by the ASI due to a Supreme Court order protecting that spot in the complex.

The plea was filed by Rakhi Singh, one of the petitioners in Varanasi's Gyanvapi-Shringar Gauri case, in the district court.

"While completing the hearing today (on Thursday) on the petition, District Judge AK Vishvesh reserved its order till October 21," District Government Counsel Rajesh Mishra said.

Meanwhile, in a related case, District Judge Vishvesh ordered to move the hearing of a 'transfer' plea, seeking handing over of keys of a basement at the Gyanvapi complex to the Varanasi district magistrate, to his court from the court of civil judge (senior division).

Earlier, during the hearing in the wazookhana case, Hindu side's advocate Madan Mohan Yadav said it was argued that without the survey of wazookhana, the truth of Gyanvapi complex cannot be revealed.

The mosque management committee, while presenting its objection to the argument, told the court that the area of the wazookhana was sealed on the orders of the Supreme Court and alleged that Hindu side made such a demand to put this matter on hold.

Therefore, this demand of the Hindu side should not be accepted, the mosque committee said.

The ASI is carrying out a scientific survey of the Gyanvapi mosque complex, next to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple here, to determine whether the 17th-century mosque was constructed over a pre-existing temple.

The ASI survey began in July after the Allahabad high court upheld a Varanasi district court order and ruled that the step is 'necessary in the interest of justice' and will benefit both the Hindu and Muslim sides.

The mosque committee had also moved the Supreme Court against the high court's order.

The apex court had on August 4 refused to stay the high court's order on the ASI survey.

In its order, the apex court, however, asked the ASI not to carry out any invasive act during the survey.

The ASI has been granted till November 6 to complete the survey of the mosque complex.

Meanwhile, District Government Counsel Mishra said that a petition regarding handing over of keys of a basement at the Gyanvapi mosque complex to the Varanasi district magistrate was filed in the court of Civil Judge (Senior Division) Nitesh Kumar Sinha in September.

"A plea to transfer the hearing of this case to the court of the district judge was filed later on the grounds that all the cases related to Gyanvapi are being heard there. District Judge A K Vishvesh today ordered that the matter will now be heard in his court," Mishra said.
As a 'ground offensive' of the besieged Gaza Strip loomed, hundreds of Israeli tanks were deployed near the border in south Israel on Thursday, waiting for the all-clear from the country's political establishment and the military top brass.

IMAGE: A formation of Israeli tanks and other military are positioned near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel on October 19, 2023. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters

Israeli tanks and troops mounted on armoured vehicles were deployed in the region, seeming to suggest that a ground assault on Hamas in their backyard, Gaza, could begin any time soon.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said four rockets of nine launched from Lebanese territory were intercepted, adding that several anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon towards Israeli forces.

The IDF added that in response to the attacks, Israeli forces targeted the site in Lebanon from where rockets were fired into Israel and also struck at Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure using tank fire.

The Israeli forces also claimed to have thwarted and dismantled a terrorist cell using a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) of the IDF.

As Israel gears up for an all-out ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, one of the biggest challenges they face is Hamas' extensive underground tunnel network in the area.

Several experts have warned that in the event of a ground offensive, Israel will lose the clear advantage it has over Hamas in terms of firepower, as it will have to fight the enemy on its terrain.

The densely populated area with a network of tunnels is likely to pose a security challenge for the IDF as it prepares for a ground assault.

An Israel Defence Forces spokesperson on Wednesday said they were striking parts of the tunnel network, but it won't be an easy battle.

Earlier, during a joint press briefing with US President Joe Biden, Netanyahu said the crimes that the Hamas terrorists perpetrated on civilians in Israel included rape, burning, kidnapping, and targeting small children, adding that the death toll from the Hamas terror attacks stood at 1,400 and was likely to mount.

"October 7 is another day that will live in infamy," said Netanyahu.

He reiterated President Biden's statement that 'Hamas is worse than ISIS'.

He added, "On Oct 7 Hamas murdered 1400 Israelis in a single day....October 7th, is another day that will live in infamy. Mr President, you rightly said that Hamas is worse than ISIS. The civilised world must unite to defeat Hamas."

Additionally, The United States deployed two carrier strike groups, each consisting of an aircraft carrier, its planes, and several escort warships, which appeared to have deterred Hezbollah from attacking Israel in a major war, The New York Times reported.

According to the NYT report, quoting American officials, the US and Israeli Intelligence agencies are working to determine whether Israel's expected ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip could prompt Hezbollah to launch a large-scale military campaign against Israel from Lebanon.

The US-based daily reported that the officials have assessed that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah does not want an all-out war with Israel, for fear of the damage it would do to his group and Lebanon. U.S. officials said that assessment could change as more intelligence is gathered and events unfold.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has vetoed proposals from his government of a pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah, according to American officials and others briefed on the discussions.
On the evening of Wednesday, October 18, the aggressor country Russia launched another attack with ballistic missiles. The explosions occurred in Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions, with casualties and destruction in the latter region.

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Dnipro region

Several explosions were heard in the city of Pavlohrad , Dnipro region. This was confirmed by the head of the Dnipro Regional Military Administration Serhiy Lysak.

"There are explosions in Pavlohrad. All services are in place," he wrote.

In the morning, Serhiy Lysak reported that late in the evening of October 18, the enemy launched a rocket attack on Pavlohrad. There is damage to an infrastructure facility, people are unharmed.

At night, the occupants fired at Nikopol district, twice at Marhanets community and once again at Myrove community, said the head of the regional military administration.

"In total, almost three dozen artillery shells landed on the territory of the district. Rescuers are investigating the damage they caused. We are inspecting the affected area," said Lysak.

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Earlier, the Ukrainian Air Force warned of the threat of enemy ballistic missile use in the eastern and southeastern regions. Monitoring channels reported that the type of missiles that hit Pavlohrad would be determined later, after analyzing the wreckage.

Mykolaiv region

Prior to this attack, another ballistic missile alert was issued because of the threat of ballistic missiles, during which the enemy attacked Mykolaiv region. The regional military administration reported that at 20:30 the occupiers struck the village of Stepove community. Residential buildings and an agricultural enterprise were damaged.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs informed that two people died as a result of the shelling, their bodies were removed by rescuers from the rubble of the destroyed building of a catering facility. Another person was injured.

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The Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine showed the consequences of the shelling of Mykolaiv region.

On the night of October 19, around 1:00 a.m., two more explosions occurred in Mykolaiv during an alarm, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said. According to monitoring channels, it was ballistics again.

In the morning, the head of Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration Vitaliy Kim informed that at 00:55 Mykolaiv was hit by a missile strike, which caused a fire in a disused warehouse building on the territory of one of the enterprises, and damaged apartment buildings. There were no casualties.

In addition, in the evening of October 18, the Kutsurub community came under fire, and at 20:30 the enemy launched a missile attack on the village of Stepove community, where two people were killed and one person was injured under the rubble, Kim confirmed. According to him, residential buildings, an agricultural enterprise and other civilian infrastructure were damaged.

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At about 02:40, a fire broke out on the roof of an unused one-story warehouse building in the same village due to falling debris from the Shahed, causing no casualties.

As reported by OBOZ.UA, on the morning of October 18, Russian occupation forces struck the village of Obukhivka in the Dnipro region. As a result of the hit to the private sector, houses were destroyed, one person was killed and there are injured.

A video of the first minutes after the Russian troops' attack on the village of Obukhivka near Dnipro was posted online. The footage shows the damaged houses, with debris scattered everywhere.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
The Gujarat high court on Thursday sentenced four policemen, including an inspector, to 14 days of simple imprisonment in a case of contempt of court that stemmed from the public flogging of some minority community members at a village in Kheda district of the state in 2022.

IMAGE: A screengrab taken from the video of the incident shared on social media.

A division bench of Justices A S Supehia and Gita Gopi held the four policemen guilty of contempt of court and ordered them to spend 14 days in jail as punishment.

The bench led by Justice Supehia directed these policemen to remain present before the judicial registrar of the court within 10 days of getting the order so that they can be sent to an 'appropriate jail'.

But in a reprieve to the policemen, the high court stayed the implementation of its order for a period of three months to allow the accused to file an appeal against the judgement

These four police personnel are inspector A V Parmar, sub-inspector D B Kumavat, head constable K L Dabhi and constable R R Dabhi.

The high court had framed charges against them after they were identified and their role was specified in a report prepared by the chief judicial magistrate (CJM), Kheda, after an inquiry into the incident.

During a hearing on the sentence on Thursday, advocate Prakash Jani, appearing for the policemen, urged the court to show a lenient approach in view of the service record of these policemen.

Instead of a jail term, Jani requested the court to only impose a fine, give appropriate directions to them and keep the matter pending to see if they have complied with the court's directives.

However, the complainants' lawyer I H Syed opposed it saying 'if such an act is pardoned by way of compensation, fine or apology, it will lower the dignity of the court. It will also set the wrong precedent, because it will encourage other policemen to do such thing'.

The bench, however, rejected Jani's idea of keeping the matter pending saying the policemen had 'committed an inhuman act' by 'tying the people in their custody with a pole and then flogged them in full public view of the villagers'.

In the previous hearing, the court had framed charges against the policemen after finding them guilty under the Contempt of Courts Act for violating the Supreme Court guidelines issued in the case of D K Basu vs. State of West Bengal regarding compliance with the proper procedure before arresting any individual.

The five persons, who were allegedly flogged by the policemen, had also refused to accept monetary compensation from four policemen who were found guilty of contempt of court for the act.

During the Navratri festival celebrated in October last year, a mob comprising members of the Muslim community allegedly hurled stones at a garba event at Undhela village in Kheda district, injuring some villagers and police personnel.

Videos purportedly showing police personnel publicly flogging three of the 13 arrested accused went viral on social media.

Later, five accused, including the main complainant Jahirmiya Malek, had approached the HC claiming the police personnel involved in the act had committed contempt of court by flouting the Supreme Court's directions on making arrests.

As part of its 1996 landmark judgement, the apex court had issued a set of guidelines to be followed in all cases of arrest and detention.

A total of 13 policemen were accused in the case initially.

Later, the role of the four police personnel was specified in a report prepared by the chief judicial magistrate of Kheda after an inquiry into the incident.
The role and contribution of Mahatma Gandhi in India's freedom struggle is well documented and he was "quite a complicated being", Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Wednesday.

IMAGE: Mahatma Gandhi eats a meal before beginning one of his fasts. Photograph: Kind courtesy Wikimedia Commons

"He had actually asked for mobilisation of India's help for the war effort during the First World War," Puri said.

The minister was addressing an event organised in Delhi to release a book, titled The Reverse Swing - Colonialism to Cooperation, authored by veteran journalist and Prasar Bharati board member Ashok Tandon.

"One chapter (in the book) is on Mahatma Gandhi - an apostle of peace for Britons. We are all disciples of the Father of the Nation. His role in building India, creating a link between an elitist national movement and the masses, fusing that, (all that) is very well documented," Puri said.

"But let me tell you Mahatma himself was quite a complicated being," he said, adding, "While still in the UK, he (Gandhi) actually asked for a mobilisation of India's help for the war effort in the First World War. That's well documented."

Puri said that Gandhi's "initial life" in the UK, his education prepared him for an "English-style barrister".

"When he goes to South Africa, it is then the Gandhi that we know and the Gandhi who contributed to our national movement begins to mature," he added.

Referring to the content of the book, Puri said there is a chapter in it about how India overtook the UK to become the world's fifth largest economy.

"I think most of us relish that," he said, adding, "When we become the third largest economy and we overtake Japan and Germany, I don't think we will enjoy that much."

The Union minister said the Indo-British cooperation in the aviation sector, tele-communication, all these are relevant in understanding the dynamics of the current bilateral relationship between India and the UK.

The Indian-origin community in the UK has given shape and content to India's relationship with the UK far more than what a diaspora can do elsewhere, he said.

I hope the India-UK free trade agreement actually sees the light of the day, he said.

Participating in a panel discussion on the book, Tondon, the author, talked about a chapter on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and said many, from the Queen to the British Prime Minister, have expressed regret over the incident but they have never officially apologised for it.

"Is it something to do with the British system that when you apologised for some crime and there is a provision for (giving) compensation? he asked.
A 45-year-old Maratha quota activist allegedly committed suicide in Bandra area of Mumbai in the early hours of Thursday leaving behind a note in which he urged community members to fight for the cause, a police official said.

IMAGE: Maratha Kranti Morcha supporters protest demanding reservation, at Girgaon Chowpatty in Mumbai on October 12, 2023. Image used only for representation. Photograph: ANI Photo

Sunil Kawale, a resident of Chikangaon in Ambad tehsil of Jalna district, was found hanging from pole number 4 of a flyover between Bandra and Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in the western part of the metropolis, he said.

He hanged himself by tying himself to the electricity pole on the flyover and then jumping off, the official said.

A kin told PTI Kawale had called at around 12.45am, some time before he ended his life, but a conversation could not take place due to wind disturbance.

"I kept the phone by my side and went to sleep. When I woke up and saw Kawale's mobile status, I called back. However, the call was answered by a policeman who told me what had happened and asked me to reach Sion hospital," he said.

Kawale's son Nagesh told PTI his father committed suicide for the cause of Maratha reservation and stressed his 'martyrdom must not go in vain'.

"My father was fearless. He was fighting for Maratha reservation for the last few years. I came to know about his suicide from his mobile phone status and then we came to the (Sion) hospital," an emotional Nagesh said.

A suicide note found near his body said he was ending his life for the sake of Maratha reservation, and the white shirt Kawale was wearing also had a message making this demand, the police official informed.

In his suicide note, Kawale asked people from the community to assemble in Mumbai on October 24, adding the 'only mission' now was 'Maratha reservation first and only then elections'.

'The Maratha community will get reservation on October 24. We should gather and should focus only on Maratha reservation,' he mentioned in the note.

'If we sit on hunger strike for reservation for four-five days, nobody dies. So all should come to Mumbai on October 24,' he urged community members in the note.

As per the police, Kawale was an active member of the Maratha Kranti Morcha, which has been seeking quota for the community, and had attended all 58 rallies organised over this demand.

On being alerted, Kherwadi police arrived at the site and sent the body for post mortem at civic-run Sion hospital at around 1:30am, the official added.
Upset with the Congress for not conceding any seat so far for the Samajwadi Party in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday hinted that the Congress could get the same treatment from his party in Uttar Pradesh.

IMAGE: Akhilesh Yadav. Photograph: ANI Photo

In stinging remarks that exposed chinks in the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), Yadav also said the Congress leadership should not allow its 'small leaders' to comment on his party.

He called the Congress state president a 'chirkut' (below standard) and alleged that Congress leaders were in cahoots with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The SP chief said his party leaders wouldn't have picked calls from the Congress for a meeting in Madhya Pradesh had he known that the INDIA alliance was confined to the national level.

"I must have got confused," he told reporters in Sitapur, apparently in sarcasm.

Yadav said if the alliance was only for parliamentary elections, his party accepted it. But he threw hints that there would be problems for Congress when seat-sharing in Uttar Pradesh is discussed for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

"If the alliance in UP is only for the Centre, it will be discussed at that time. And the manner in which the Samajwadi Party is treated, they will get to see the same treatment here."

On the upcoming Madhya Pradesh polls, he said, "Had I known on the first day that there is no alliance at the Vidhan Sabha level, our party leaders wouldn't have gone to the meetings. We wouldn't have given them a list (of seats that the SP wanted to contest in MP), nor would we have picked their calls."

With two more candidates declared on Thursday, the SP has so far declared its candidates on 33 seats for the November 17 elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly.

When asked why it has done so, Yadav said, "If there is no alliance at the state level, we accept it and declare our party candidates. What's wrong in what we have done?"

He said SP leaders gave the Congress leaders data related to the party's performance in previous Madhya Pradesh elections at the discussions that went on till 1 am.

He claimed the Congress leaders had said they were considering leaving six constituencies for SP nominees in a seat-sharing agreement in that state, but they did not concede even one.

The INDIA grouping came into being primarily to put up a united front against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

In the 2018 Madhya Pradesh elections, the SP won one seat -- Bijawar in Bundelkhand region -- and finished second on five, securing 1.30 per cent votes in alliance with tribal Gondwana Gantantra Party.

When asked about Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ajay Rai's recent statement that his party would contest on all 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state and criticism of the SP for fielding a candidate for the Bageshwar assembly bypoll in Uttarakhand, Yadav said, "Which leader are you talking about. He has not 'haisiyat' (stature). He was neither present in Patna nor in Mumbai meeting (of INDIA grouping).... What does he know about INDIA alliance?"

"Ask him (Ajay Rai) why his former chief minister (of Madhya Pradesh) Kamal Nath made our people sit till 1 o'clock in the night. Why his former chief minister Digvijaya Singh held meeting with them? This means that you are fooling other parties. These are people associated with the BJP. Congress people are associated with the BJP," he said.

He said, "Had I known that Congress leaders will betray, I would not have trusted them and sent my leaders for talks with them."

Congress state president Rai, when asked about Yadav's 'chirkut' comment, said in Lucknow, "I am a simple man. He (Akhilesh) can use any word for me, no problem. I am a small Congress worker. For me, whatever words he has in his mind and whatever he says, I accept them. But with folded hands I would like to say only one thing that if you want to defeat BJP then you should support Congress in Madhya Pradesh.... Just like we supported SP in the by-election of Ghosi seat."
A United States analysis indicates that Israel was not responsible for the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds of civilians on Tuesday, the White House has said, basing its assessment on intelligence overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information.

IMAGE: Palestinians carry a casualty following Israeli strikes on houses in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip October 17, 2023. Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

The assessment by the US came on Wednesday the same day when President Joe Biden made a show of solidarity with Israel during his visit there.

The massive explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital late on Tuesday night killed 471 people and injured 314 others, the Palestinian Health Ministry has said.

The US government assesses that Israel was not responsible for an explosion that killed hundreds of civilians yesterday at the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip, White House National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

Our assessment is based on available reporting, including intelligence, missile activity, overhead imagery, and open source video and images of the incident, she said.

Israel had cut off the flow of food, fuel and water to the Gaza Strip after the attack by Hamas, in which nearly 1,400 people in Israel were killed.

Mediators have been struggling to break a deadlock over providing supplies to desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals.

There were conflicting claims of who was behind the explosion, but protests flared quickly in the region as many Arab leaders said Israel was responsible.

Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed.

Israel denied that it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller, more radical Palestinian militant group that often cooperates with Hamas in their shared struggle against Israel, has dismissed Israel's allegation.

Citing intelligence reports, Watson said some Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip believed that the explosion was likely caused by an errant rocket or missile launch carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

As the President said earlier today, the explosion appears to be the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza -- and we are continuing to work to corroborate whether it was a failed PIJ rocket, she said.

During his brief visit to Israel, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing US support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies. Upon his arrival, Biden embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and expressed concern for the suffering of Gaza's civilians.

Biden said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israel's fault, and he cautioned Israelis not to allow outrage over the deadly Hamas attack to consume them.

Biden also said that he asked "tough questions" during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

"I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. Based on what I've seen, it appears it was done by the other team, and not you," he told Netanyahu, publicly endorsing Israeli contention.

He added that there were "a lot of people out there" who weren't sure what caused the explosion at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the centre of Gaza.

Later in a post on X, Biden said he was "proud to be in Israel to honour the courage, commitment, and bravery of the Israeli people. Americans are grieving with you following last week's terror attacks."

Biden said he spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding the situation on the ground, security assistance and humanitarian needs, and information on unaccounted Americans.

"I asked tough questions as a friend of Israel. We will continue to deter any actor wanting to widen this conflict," he said in another post.

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed Wednesday after a 12-hour lull. Israeli strikes on Gaza continued, including on cities in the south that Israel had described as safe zones for civilians.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Thursday pledged to stand with Israel in its "darkest hour" and welcomed the opening of a humanitarian corridor into Gaza as he held talks with the country's top leadership during his two-day visit to the Middle East aimed at preventing further escalation of conflict in the region.

IMAGE: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Tel Aviv, October 19, 2023. Photograph: Courtesy, IsraeliPM on X

After his meetings with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sunak acknowledged the "shocking scenes" over the past day.

He pledged to stand with Israel in its "darkest hour" and welcomed the opening of a humanitarian corridor into Gaza. The British Indian leader was greeted by Netanyahu with an embrace and described each other as my friend.

"You described this as Israel's darkest hour. Well then, it's for me to say I'm proud to stand here with you in Israel's darkest hour, as your friend we will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people and we also want you to win," said Sunak, addressing a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart.

"I also want to thank your government for the support it has given to British nationals caught up in this horror, he said.

Turning to Netanyahu, he said the UK knows Israel is taking every precaution to protect civilians, which is in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas, which seek to put civilians in harm's way, as he expressed his regret at being in Israel in such "terrible circumstances".

"In the last two weeks, this country has gone through something that no country, no people, should have to endure. Least of all Israel," he noted.

Earlier, he held talks with Israel's President Herzog during which the leaders agreed on the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support to ordinary Palestinians in Gaza.

In a readout of the meeting, Downing Street said the leaders stressed the imperative need to avoid further escalation of violence in the region and agreed to continue working together to that end.

I am in Israel, a nation in grief. I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism. Today, and always, Sunak tweeted as he landed in Tel Aviv.

Sunak's visit to Israel follows that of US President Joe Biden as world leaders step up efforts to prevent the conflict with Hamas from spilling into the wider region. Sunak is next set for a visit to Saudi Arabia and will cover other major capitals in the Middle East for further talks.

"Above all, I'm here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you, he told reporters on his arrival in Israel.

In an earlier statement, the British prime minister said the attack on the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza on Tuesday should be a watershed moment for the world.

"Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas's horrific act of terror, he said.

"The attack on Al Ahli hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict. I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort," he said.

Sunak's visit comes as other European leaders also undertake similar tours of the Middle East in a show of Western unity. The US, UK, Germany, France and Italy form part of the so-called Quint, a diplomatic collective who have presented a united front over the actions of Hamas in Israel and Gaza.

His visit coincides with that of his Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who began a multi-country visit across the Middle East on Thursday night as part of efforts to help prevent the conflict from spreading across the region and to work towards a peaceful resolution. Cleverly is planning to meet senior leaders in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar over the next three days, where he will discuss coordination on efforts to avoid a spillover in violence which would devastate the wider region.

It is in no one's interests -- neither Israeli, Palestinian nor the wider Middle East -- for others to be drawn into this conflict. I am meeting counterparts from influential states in the region to push for calm and stability, facilitate humanitarian access into Gaza and work together to secure the release of hostages, said Cleverly.

The UK foreign, Commonwealth and development office (FCDO) said the trip has been planned to countries which are vital to international efforts to uphold regional stability, free hostages and allow humanitarian access to Gaza, with all three vital interlocutors in the Middle East.

The UK foreign secretary will discuss the urgent need for the Rafah crossing to open so that lifesaving aid can reach those who need it and for Hamas to release the hostages.

"The UK remains committed to mitigating the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and calling for international humanitarian law to be respected, while standing alongside the people of Israel against the terrorist group Hamas, the FCDO said.

The UK said its key focus is on pushing for an agreement on humanitarian access to Gaza, the release of British hostages and foreign nationals, and securing safe passage for British Nationals to leave Gaza.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said he wants to leave the state's top post but the post is not leaving him and probably may not leave him in future.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, he, however, said that there would be something in him that the party high command had chosen him to lead the state thrice but any decision taken by the leadership going forward would be acceptable to all.

Gehlot also said that his bete noire and former chief minister because of him, saying it would be "injustice" towards her. He was referring to his remarks on Raje when his Congress government was under threat following a rebellion in 2020.

Gehlot, whose government had faced a rebellion led by his former deputy Sachin Pilot in 2020, said he has adopted the policy of "forgive and forget" and has moved on. He asserted that he has not opposed grant of any party tickets to Pilot's supporters.

Taking strong objection to the raids by the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department against opposition leaders, he sought the prime minister's intervention to stop them immediately as the model code was in force.

He also urged the Election Commission to intervene in the matter since elections to five states had already been declared.

Asked whether there were any differences within the party on the grant of party tickets, he said there are no differences and all decisions are taken unanimously. He did not answer when the party would declare its candidates as the BJP has already issued its first list of candidates for the assembly elections in Rajasthan.

Rajasthan polls would take place on November 25 and votes would be counted on December 3.
The Israel Defence Force (IDF) on Thursday refuted claims made by the Palestinian side that Israel was behind the bomb explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza.

IMAGE: A member of the media walks at the area of Al-Ahli hospital where hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other, and where Palestinians who fled their homes were sheltering amid the ongoing conflict with Israel, in Gaza City, October 18, 2023. Photograph: Mohammed Al-Masri/Reuters

The IDF also poked holes in the claims made by Hamas that several people had been killed in the explosion.

In a video briefing, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus while reiterating the Israeli PM's statement that the Islamic Jihad was behind the explosion at the Hospital said that the preliminary analysis suggests that the "rocket" exploded in the car parking and seems like no one was killed in the incident.

While describing a video analysis, the IDF spokesperson said, "We can see that this area is quite black, this appears that there was a large fire. This is really the centre of where the rocket impacted, the impact point of the rocket. What I see here is about 15 cars that were affected by the rocket that fell, I see remains of fire, what I don't see are bodies."

The IDF also questioned claims by the Hamas controlled health ministry in Gaza that several people had been killed in the explosion.

"If five hundred people were indeed killed here or 471 which is the latest update from the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, this is just a few minutes after the fire erupted, where are all the bodies..., If so many people were killed, where are the bodies" said Lt. Col Conricus.

In his analysis the IDF spokesperson stated that pictures clicked from the explosion site showed a huge fire, but when an Israeli bomb hits a target it makes a big crater and not a fire.

"If you have been watching the news, this is exactly what a rocket impact cited Israel looks like, that's what we see when a rocket impacts Israel. We don't see Giant creators, because it's not hundreds of pounds of bombs. We see fires, we see burnt cars and burnt stuff because when rocket lands usually they ignite a fire" the IDF stated.

The massive explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital late on Tuesday night killed 471 people and injured 314 others, the Palestinian Health Ministry has said.

However, there were conflicting claims of who was behind the explosion.

Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed.

Israel denied that it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller, more radical Palestinian militant group that often cooperates with Hamas in their shared struggle against Israel, has dismissed Israel's allegation.

The United States said that its analysis indicates that Israel was not responsible for the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds of civilians on Tuesday.
'The unity among Israelis is such that the killing of the many Israelis feels like a personal loss to them.'

'They feel as if they have lost someone from their own family. The whole of Israel is sad.'

IMAGE: Indian passengers on board the special flight arranged by the Government of India from Tel Aviv to New Delhi. All Photographs: Kind courtesy Raju Guggilla

Raju Guggilla boarded a Spice Jet flight arranged by the Indian government from Israel and arrived in Delhi on Wednesday.

The cost of the ticket was borne by the Government of India. Indians returning from Tel Aviv were welcomed into the aircraft by a member of the cabin crew who was waving a paper Tricolour.

Mr Raju belongs to Telangana. He has worked as a caregiver in Akko, Israel, for 11 years.

There are approximately 5,000 people from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in Israel.

Around 18,000 Indian citizens live in Israel. Most are employed as caregivers for the elderly, the rest are in the diamond trade, IT professionals and students.

Three of Mr Raju's brothers also work as caregivers -- two in Haifa and one in Ramat Gan.

"They are all safe in Israel. I have come to India on leave for my medical checkup," Mr Raju tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih. His prior airline booking was cancelled because Air India halted operations after the Hamas attack.

"I contacted the Indian embassy through the Telangana Association and got a seat on the special flight," he says.

"There was no panic at Tel Aviv airport because people are not scared or fleeing the country. There wasn't too much rush either," adds Mr Raju.

Most of the passengers on the special flight were students, professionals who had been given permission to WFH and caregivers.

IMAGE: Raju Guggilla, standing, fourth from left, with fellow passengers at the check in counter at Tel Aviv airport.

On October 7, Mr Raju had just sat down to eat when Israel came under an unprecedented Hamas rocket attack.

"Earlier when they fired rockets, we used to hear them and take shelter, but this was a barrage. We went into the bunker inside the house."

The area where he lives with his employer did not suffer any destruction and things are normal now.

Mr Raju will return to Israel in January after spending time with his wife and children in Hyderabad.

Talking about his life in Israel, he is full of praise for his employer. "I am treated as family. Israelis are good people," he says.

Another caregiver who returned on Thursday is Kiran Kumar Sudula.

Mr Sudula works in Thaibe and belongs to Telangana's Nizamabad district. He has worked in Israel for two-and-a-half years and got the job through an agency that recruits workers for elderly Israelis.

He earns Rs 200,000 a month.

"I live with a five-member family. I have a separate room and am well looked after. I take the elderly member for walks, give him meals, medicines and take care of his wellbeing," says Mr Raju whose wife and young children live in India.

"The main reason I am there is because it pays good money. In India, I can find the same work, but will not earn as much."

Despite the conflict, he says there is no problem in the area where he lived in Israel. The shops were open though there were fewer people outside as many had been asked to WFH.

"The family I lived with hasn't suffered personally, but the unity among Israelis is such that the killing of the many Israelis feels like a personal loss to them," he says.

"They feel as if they have lost someone from their own family. The whole of Israel is sad."

"I don't know how long it will take Israel to heal."

IMAGE: Raju Guggilla, right. at Tel Aviv airport before his departure for India.

Mr Raju is confident the situation will definitely improve by January when he returns to Israel.

"Israel is a very nice country. They like Indians and treat us well," he says as you hear the chatter of children in the background.

"It reminds me of India."

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
'He is ultimately responsible for this failure, having ignored warnings from Egypt and the US about the attacks.'

IMAGE: Israeli tanks in Kibbutz Beeri, October 14, 2023. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters

It has been 12 days since Hamas carried out its terrifying attacks inside Israel, killing women and children in their beds with impunity while also kidnapping several Israelis and foreigners to hold them hostage in the Gaza Strip.

In the intervening period, events -- and the news cycle -- have moved rapidly, with much of the more recent coverage moving from discussing the attack to talking of the impact on the Israeli families who have dead or missing loved ones to the humanitarian catastrophe unleashed by Israel's retaliatory attacks on the Gaza strip.

As is always the case with a conflagration between Israel and Palestine, there is worldwide interest in what is happening, and what you make of it is depends heavily on your political and religious views.

There have been large protests across the western world, primarily in support of Palestine.

With that, there has been a concomitant uptick in anti-Semitic incidents across cities targeting the Jewish diaspora.

So, what is it like to be Jewish in the West at this time, with families and friends in Israel?

"What I wish people in the rest of the world would realise is that organisations like Hamas, backed by big money from States like Iran, want to destroy our way of life, our democracy, and our freedoms," Lital Asher-Dotan -- a cybersecurity executive and podcast host, originally from Israel, who lives in New England on the eastern seaboard of the United States -- tells Rediff.com Contributor Siddhu Warrier.

On Saturday the 7th of October, I woke up at 5 am Eastern time, about noon in Israel. By then, we were already 5 hours into the Hamas attacks on Israel.

When I woke up, I checked WhatsApp messages from my family, as I always do.

That's when I saw a message from my mother saying, "We're at war. It's not like previous times. We are being bombarded with rockets! Hamas has invaded Israel and is holding captives!"

IMAGE: Israeli border police take cover by a vehicle following the Hamas attack near Sderot, Israel, October 8, 2023. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

I was taken aback. Us Israelis are very accustomed to what one might call a low-intensity war with Gaza every couple of years; rockets rain down on Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, and there's a response.

But this was different. When we are targeted by rocket attacks, we typically have enough time to go somewhere safe -- every house built in recent times in Israel has a dedicated bomb shelter.

That is exactly what Hamas exploited this time: By sending through a barrage of rockets early in the morning on the shabbat (the Jewish day of rest from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday) when there were only limited numbers of soldiers on duty, they got people in the border villages to hide in their bomb shelters before going door to door, executing entire families.

What was most shocking to me was how videos of the brutality ended up on social media for all to see!

In addition, these kinds of attacks were supposed to be prevented by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces, the national military of the State of Israel).

I feel as though our belief that the IDF would defend our people is broken, and there is a feeling of betrayal that they didn't.

IMAGE: A rally in support of Palestinians in Mineola, New York, October 15, 2023. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

As these events unfolded in Israel, I felt that people in the West reacted to it as they always do, dismissing it as "Ah, yet another round of violence in the Middle East".

But this is different -- this was like 9/11, or the Holocaust.

However, the way people react to this is influenced by how they view the wider Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

But this goes beyond that: You can support Palestinians and their cause, but it is totally unacceptable to hyphenate what was a brutal terrorist attack.

If this kind of massacre had happened in the US or the UK, wouldn't they respond?

Ever since last weekend, I have observed an increase in anti-Semitic incidents, even in the US.

There were pro-Palestinian protestors holding up swastikas.

We live in a heavily Jewish town ourselves, but still we've had conversations at home as to whether we're safe or if that feeling of safety is just a false notion.

IMAGE: An Israeli soldier at the entrance to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Israel, October 10, 2023. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

When Friday [the 13th of October 2023] was declared a 'Global Day of Jihad' (by former Hamas leader Khaled Mashal), my children and their friends started discussing online as to whether it was safe for them to go to school.

I texted the local police department, which is already protecting certain Jewish sites such as synagogues, to ask if they could increase their presence.

That said, though, I am unsure as to how effective they can be given the strongest military in the Middle East failed to protect Jews in their homeland.

This is why we have been considering buying weapons for ourselves, and the Jewish community here is paying for private security to protect its places of worship; a lot of us feel like we can rely on nobody but ourselves to keep our families safe.

IMAGE: A Palestinian man extinguishes a fire after a house was hit by Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, October 14, 2023. Photograph: Yasser Qudih/Reuters

As for my high-schooler children who are Israeli Americans, they are being exposed to such horrific stuff on social media.

I've had to block their access to it. It is very hard for them.

They feel connected to Israel and know that their families and friends in Israel are affected.

But they're required to keep on going with their day-to-day activities here. They're having to deal with many around them not quite understanding what they're going through.

Children also see things in black and white; mine are struggling to comprehend how Israel, despite its strong army and cutting-edge surveillance technology, failed to prevent the attack.

It's shattered their world view and sense of security.

I feel so angry towards Bibi (Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister).

I have no trust left in him, and believe he should resign!

He is ultimately responsible for this failure, having ignored warnings from Egypt and the US about the attacks.

IMAGE: Lital Asher-Dotan. Photograph: Kind courtesy Lital Asher-Dotan

What I wish people in the rest of the world would realise is that organisations like Hamas, backed by big money from States like Iran, want to destroy our way of life, our democracy, and our freedoms.

They manage to brand themselves as freedom fighters -- romantic notions that appeal to the young -- but they are anything but.

Israel is at the forefront of this as a Jewish State, but these people are against every democracy.

To quote Golda Meir (the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974), 'If the Palestinians lay down their weapons, there will be peace. If the Israelis lay down their weapons, there will be a massacre.'

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
Even though Israel announced a ground operation by its military in the Gaza Strip and a real build-up of its military presence near its borders a few days ago, it seems that no one has given the order to launch an assault. The military-political situation in the Middle East region has become extremely tense, but four key factors remain the main ones for the command in Jerusalem.

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The first is US President Joe Biden. Frank Gardner, a security correspondent for the Air Force, writes about this.

"The American president supports Israel and its fight against Hamas militants but he also calls on the Netanyahu government to be restrained. The United States would like to know if Israel enters Gaza, as well as how and when it plans to leave," the author of the article noted.

The journalist named Iran as the next factor. Sanctioned Tehran finances, trains, arms, and controls a number of Shiite groups in the Middle East. The most powerful of these is Hezbollah in Lebanon, based on Israel's northern border.

"There is an indirect threat that if the IDF invades Gaza, Hezbollah could open a new front on Israel's northern border, forcing it to fight a two-front war," Gardner continues.

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The third factor is humanitarian. As the number of Palestinian refugees grows amid Israeli rocket attacks on Gaza, calls for a ceasefire are heard all around the world. However, when Israeli ground troops enter Gaza, the death toll will only increase.

It is clear that Israeli soldiers are also being killed by ambushes, snipers, and booby traps, and most of the fighting may even take place underground in kilometer-long tunnels. But the civilian population will probably bear the brunt of the casualties again," the article emphasizes.

The final factor, although far from being the least important, is the failed intelligence of the Mossad. It was their negligence and oversight that led to the massacre of civilians committed by Hamas terrorists on the morning of October 7. In the last ten days, they have been trying to make amends in every way possible by identifying the names and locations of hostages and the hideouts of Islamic militant commanders.

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"It is possible that they asked for more time to gather information so that if and when ground forces do enter Gaza, they can go directly to a specific location rather than wandering around in the ruins of northern Gaza, facing constant attacks amid growing condemnation from much of the world," the analyst concluded.

As reported by OBOZ.UA, the Israeli authorities evacuated the entire city of Sderot with a population of 30,000 located near the northern border of the Gaza Strip before the start of the ground operation.

Before that, Prime Minister Netanyahu appealed to US leader Biden, saying that Israel had no choice but to clear Gaza of Hamas terrorists. According to politicians, the time for negotiations has passed.

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Support for Taiwan is the top priority of the Biden administration, said Rosenberger.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas war will not affect arms sales between the United States and Taiwan, said the chairperson of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), as quoted by the Central News Agency, which stressed that Washington will continue to support the islands commitment to self-defense capabilities.

Focusing on U.S. support for Taiwan can be said to be the top priority of the Biden administration, said Laura Rosenberger at a roundtable discussion with the media on Oct. 19. The Biden administration will continue to work hard to deepen and expand the U.S.-Taiwan partnership, which at the same time is the U.S. Congresss top priority with bipartisan support.

Rosenbergers visit, her third to the island since she took office in March, is a show of support to Taiwan ahead of Januarys presidential elections which pundits have touted as a choice between war or peace with China. AIT is the de facto US Embassy in Taiwan. The U.S. does not support Taiwan independence and follows a one China policy guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, with a commitment to maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait.

Asked about the impact of the recent Israel-Hamas war on U.S.-Taiwan arms sales, Rosenberg said she would like to reiterate that U.S. support for Taiwan is rock-solid based on fundamental principles and cross-party consensus.

The U.S. will stand with our friends, and will continue to do so, she said.

Rosenberg pointed out that the U.S.-Taiwan partnership and the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait are enduring and long-term interests of the U.S. that will not be affected by events elsewhere in the world.

The U.S. will continue to support Taiwans commitment to self-defense capabilities, including the Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taiwan with the goods and services needed to defend itself, she added.

While Taiwan faces Beijings pressure and coercion in the Taiwan Strait, incredible opportunities to expand the relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan have also emerged, Rosenberg said.

So it's critical that the U.S. puts Taiwan high on its list of priorities.

Rosenberg met with President Tsai Ing-wen, as well as people from civil societies, business and academic sectors in the five days since she arrived on Oct. 15. In all her activities, she reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to Taiwans security, and that the U.S. will stand with its friends and continue to do so.

She highlighted the U.S. approval of a US$50 billion arms deal with Taiwan, President Joe Bidens allocation of US$345 million in military aid to the island under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, and the U.S.s military training and education efforts in Taiwan. At the same time, she said the U.S. believed that recent defense reforms in Taiwan have significantly strengthened its self-defense capacities.

Apart from that, the U.S. recently announced a Foreign Military Financing plan, which will allow Washington to provide more military aid to Taiwan, using an unprecedented new model to ensure that the U.S. continues to realize its unwavering support for Taiwan, she noted.

Translated by RFA Staff. Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn.
A copy of "Chongzhen: The hard-working emperor who brought down a dynasty." Online critics have compared the reign of the last Ming emperor to that of China's current leader Xi Jinping

Updated October 19, 2023, 5:38 p.m. ET

Authorities in China have banned a book about the last Ming dynasty emperor Chongzhen after online comments said its analysis could apply to current Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

Chongzhen: The hard-working emperor who brought down a dynasty" by late Ming dynasty expert Chen Wutong recently disappeared from online bookstores, including the website of state-run Xinhua Books, with multiple searches for the book yielding no results on major book-selling platforms this week.

Meanwhile, keyword searches for the book and its author on the social media platform Weibo yielded no results on Thursday.

Current affairs commentators said the book has likely been removed from public view after online comments drew parallels between its analysis of the fall of the 1368-1644 Ming dynasty and China's current situation under ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

Many online comments picked up on a particular line in Chen's book: "With one bad move following another, the harder he worked, the faster he brought the country to ruin."

"From the Ming Dynasty all the way to the present day," chuckled a post on the "Stupid Stuff from China" Facebook page dated Oct. 17.

"It's obvious what it's hinting at," commented one reader.

Another reader likened Xi to several emperors who were the last of their dynasties.

"Chongzhen, Daoguang, Pu Yi, Winnie [the Pooh], so many like this," the reader said, using Xis nickname Winnie the Pooh, whom he is said to resemble.

Current affairs commentator Wang Jian said the book's ban was likely down to that sentence, which resonates in people's minds.

"The book wouldn't have much of an effect on [Xi], except that it reflects what everyone is thinking," Wang said. "Xi Jinping has been going against common sense and the will of the people in recent years -- everyone has reached a consensus about that."

"[The book shows that] if someone tries to abuse their power, misfortune will befall them, so it has become a sensitive topic," he said. "It would never have been banned if it didn't speak to that social consensus and public feeling."

A copy of the book appeared on second-hand websites for 1,280 yuan (US$175), 27 times the price of a new copy. Credit: Online screenshot provided by Chen Zifei

Former Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kei, who now runs a bookshop on the democratic island of Taiwan, said any book in China that carries a potentially political message can be banned at any time.

"The top priority for the [Chinese Communist Party] regime is to maintain its grip on power," Lam, who was detained for months by state security police for selling political books to customers in mainland China, said.

"As soon as they find a book with ideological implications for the regime or its hold on power, they will list them as banned books," Lam said, citing the banning of the "Sheep Village" series of children's picture books in Hong Kong.

"The people in power make the decisions, and also determine the criteria for banning a book, which can't be rationally understood," he said.

Current affairs commentator Fang Yuan said it's common in China, where people can't express their opinions freely, for public dissatisfaction with the government to emerge indirectly, through historical references.

He said people have seemingly responded to the ban by selling used copies of the book at hugely inflated prices on second-hand book-trading platforms, which are less stringently regulated.

One copy of the book was even listed on the Confucius online second-hand bookstore for 1,280 yuan (US$175), 27 times the listed price for a new copy.

"When there's no hope of playing hard-ball, the public and civil society expresses its anger by playing a softer game, as a way to curse out the government," Fang said.

"[This book ban] shows that the situation is very sensitive and has reached a stage where everything is tense and everyone is on guard."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.

Update changes the image to the most recent edition of the book.
Derek Chu's arrest comes as former elected politicians call on Hong Kongers to boycott the 'fake election.'

Derek Chu, a former directly elected Hong Kong councilor who resigned in 2021, was arrested in Shatin on Oct. 17, 2023.

Hong Kong police have arrested a former pro-democracy member of the city's District Council and prison welfare activist -- amid calls for a boycott of forthcoming district elections, which are open to "patriots only."

Derek Chu, a 46-year-old former directly elected councilor who resigned in 2021 before being forced to take an oath of loyalty to the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, was arrested in Shatin on Tuesday on suspicion of breaching the city's mandatory pension law, police told the paper.

His arrest comes as the government moves ahead with an "election" process that will slash the number of directly elected seats on the District Council by 80%, while ensuring that almost nobody in the city's once-vibrant opposition camp will stand for election again, the result of ongoing arrests of pro-democracy figures and rule changes requiring political vetting.

"At about 12 noon, Derek Chu was taken to an office at Manulife Plaza in Kwun Tong by the police for evidence collection," the report said. "He was later taken to a food store in W Plaza in Mong Kok and Fuk Keung Industrial Building in Tai Kok Tsui for investigation."

Those locations are linked to Chu's "Migratory Bird" platform to support prisoners, which raised money via the As One online shopping platform  part of the "yellow economic circle of pro-democracy businesses"  to support his prison work.

He is currently being held by the Sham Shui Po Crime Division pending further investigation, after his home was also searched and documents confiscated, the paper reported.

Pan-democratic legislators announce their resignation from Hong Kongs Legislative Council in Hong Kong, Nov. 11, 2020. Credit: Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Chu was a member of the last directly elected District Council, which saw a landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates amid record turnout that was widely seen as a ringing public endorsement of the 2019 protest movement.

He resigned his seat along with many like-minded colleagues amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent under a national security law imposed on the city by Beijing from July 2020.

'Patriots' only

The government later changed the Legislative Council electoral rules to ensure only "patriots" loyal to Beijing could stand as candidates or hold any kind of public office, prompting record-low turnout of 30.2% in Legislative Council elections in December 2021 compared with more than 70% in the last District Council poll.

Officials then rewrote the District Council poll rules in May, citing a "disastrous" result in the 2019 election, sparking calls from overseas activists for a boycott of the forthcoming poll on Dec. 10.

"Abandon illusions, boycott this fake election," read an Oct. 16 statement on Facebook signed by dozens of former pro-democracy councilors.

"We, the last district councilors to be elected by the citizens of Hong Kong, solemnly declare that we will not recognize these so-called elections run by the Communist regime of Hong Kong, and call on all citizens of Hong Kong to boycott the election and the councilors it produces," the statement said.

It said candidates wishing to take part have to run a complex gamut of vetting from support for nomination to a slew of official recommendation letters to political background checks, "all of which runs counter to the democratic spirit," warning that anyone who makes it to the list of candidates is "purely a permitted cheerleader for the regime."

It said the government also looks set to use the "election" as an opportunity to engage in "the political brainwashing of minors."

"This so-called election will actually take place under military totalitarian rule, and can have no fairness or legitimacy," the councilors wrote.

Australia-based former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who signed the statement, said the forthcoming poll is a "huge step backwards for democracy" in Hong Kong.

"Most of the seats will be controlled by the government," Hui said. "We believe that it would be best for citizens to totally refuse to take part, to boycott [the election]."

'Huge step backwards'

Some parties in the democratic camp have said they will field candidates, though it remains to be seen if their bid for candidacy will be accepted.

The Democratic Party has said it hopes to field six candidates, and the Association of Democracy and People's Livelihood wants to field two.

Candidates celebrate after winning in the Legislative Council election in Hong Kong, December Dec. 20, 2021. The rules for the election were changed to ensure only 'patriots' loyal to Beijing could stand as candidates or hold any kind of public office. Credit: Lam Yik/Reuters

But Hui said this could send a dangerous signal about complicity with the authorities, who have told opposition parties to give up any hope of Western-style democracy in the city.

"One or two [pro-democracy candidates] might pass the test and get nominated, but this will do great harm, because it shows the people of Hong Kong that they agree with this huge step backwards for democracy," he said.

Former district councilor Sam Yip, who also signed the statement, said it was naive of pro-democracy parties to imagine it was worth contesting such elections.

"It helps to whitewash these elections, which are illegal, unfair and inconsistent with the whole concept of democracy," Yip said. "Their actions are actually ruining democracy."

'A screening process'

Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak, asked if the government is expecting turnout to fall in this year's poll, said it wasn't the most important thing.

"We should not just look at the turnout in District Council elections, [which can be] affected by many factors, such as the weather, including whether it rains that day, whether there is a typhoon in the summer, and whether the weather will be too cold," Mak said.

"The most important thing is how to find patriots who sincerely serve the community and citizens through the electoral system," she said.

Former Hong Kong Island Eastern District councilor Derek Ngai, who also resigned to avoid taking his oath, said democrats faced with the oath of loyalty requirement feared being required to pay back two years of salary if their oaths were rejected.

"If we hadn't resigned, we could have wound up getting disqualified, which ... could mean serious consequences like being asked to pay back your salary," Ngai told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.

He said the new election rules will slash the proportion of directly elected seats on the council from 100% to just 20%, with a much more grueling set of vetting processes and bureaucratic hoops for prospective candidates to jump through than in the past.

"We expected the Hong Kong government to take back control of the council, but they have set a lot of hurdles on the remaining 20% [of directly elected] seats."

"It doesn't feel like an election so much as a screening process packaged as an election," Ngai said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
Immigrants under a popular visa program say they are under threat, sometimes followed.

"I usually take an Air Tag [tracker device] with me to let trusted people know whether I'm safe," says Finn Lau, whose name appears on a wanted list of eight prominent overseas activists issued by Hong Kong's national security police.

Calls are growing for the British government to take action to protect Hong Kongers both in the United Kingdom and in their city of origin, following the arrest of 20 British visa applicants last week.

Exiled activists, some of whom have arrest warrants and bounties on their heads, have spoken out in recent interviews over ongoing violent attacks on them by supporters or agents of the Chinese state.

"It is not safe to go out in the U.K.," Finn Lau, whose name appears on a wanted list of eight prominent overseas activists issued by Hong Kong's national security police earlier this year, and who was attacked near his London home in 2020.

"I usually take an Air Tag [tracker device] with me to let trusted people know whether I'm safe," he said, adding that he also carries a strobe torch and a rape alarm as a deterrent to potential attackers.

Since Beijing imposed a national security law banning public opposition and dissent on the city, blaming "hostile foreign forces" for the protests, hundreds of thousands have left Hong Kong, at least 144,000 of them via the British National Overseas visa scheme, which offers a pathway to citizenship to holders of the British National Overseas passport.

China has hit out at the visa program as interference in its internal affairs.

Many Hong Kongers in the United Kingdom have spoken recently about threats to their personal safety and acts of violence by Beijing supporters and officials alike.

Lau called on local police forces to liaise more with local exile groups to step up measures to protect Hong Kongers.

"Police in different regions in the U.K. could hold forums or closed-door meetings to communicate with local British Hong Kong organizations, to learn about the various attacks or infiltration, including personal experiences, which would help them formulate a policy to improve Britain's serious infiltration problem," Lau said.

Targeted for withdrawing pensions

Hong Kong Watch, a London-based rights group, said the authorities are also targeting people even before they're able to leave for overseas  when they try to cash out of their pensions.

The city's Independent Commission Against Corruption said last week it had arrested 20 individuals related to Hong Kongers who were seeking to withdraw their Mandatory Pension Fund from Hong Kong, claiming they had said they were moving to mainland China.

Pro-Beijing protesters confront Hong Kong exiles at a rally in London's Chinatown, Nov. 27, 2021. Credit: RFA





It is possible that they were trying to get around an effective freeze on emigrating Hong Kongers cashing out their pension pots from the compulsory scheme, which is administered by a number of banks and insurance companies.

"This is a direct retaliatory action by the Chinese Government against the introduction of the British National Overseas Visa and other lifeboat schemes, and is a direct breach of Hong Kongs Basic Law which guarantees freedom of movement of capital in and out of the city," the group's Director of Policy and Advocacy Sam Goodman said in a statement on Oct. 13.

These arrests bring back into focus the ongoing scandal of the Hong Kong Government and Mandatory Provident Fund providers such as HSBC, Manulife, and Sun Life, denying tens of thousands of Hong Kongers access to their pension savings," Goodman said.

Former pro-democracy district councilor Daniel Kwok, who now lives in the United Kingdom, said he has been followed, and had his photo taken by unknown individuals while helping organize public activities related to Hong Kong.

He said he still feels safe there, however.

"Will our human rights-related activities or Hong Kong-related activities be monitored by the Chinese Communist Party? This is inevitable in cities in Taiwan, Japan, Europe, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom," he said.

"But for ordinary Hong Kong people who emigrate to the United Kingdom, the risk is not so high compared with for those who take part in social and political activism, so they dont need to worry too much," Kwok said. "Overall, it's relatively safe."

Ghosts

In an Oct. 17 report, The Guardian newspaper cited several emigre Hong Kongers in the country as saying that they feel unsafe, and are constantly on the watch for "ghosts"  people seeking to infiltrate their groups and activities to funnel information back to Beijing.

The Hong Kongers quoted said they felt "ignored and unprotected" by the British government.

A former 2019 protester who gave only the pseudonym Rumi told The Guardian: "I am exhausted. Ive lived with these online personal attacks for the past two years. My girlfriend left me and my family is angry about me. But I just want to tell the truth and get justice."

He said police back home are still harassing his parents, much like their questioning and raids on the homes of Hong Kong-based relatives of the eight wanted activists.

People wait outside my parents home [in Hong Kong] and watch them, sometimes even knocking on their door to threaten them. Ask your son to watch out for what he said. We know who you are and where you live, one said to them," the paper quoted him as saying.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
The bridge has been finished since 2014, but got bogged down on the North Korean side.

A man takes pictures of the New Yalu River Bridge connecting China's Dandong and North Korea's Sinuiju, from Dandong, Liaoning province, China, May 24, 2018.

China has agreed to fund the last steps of construction for the New Yalu River Bridge that would vastly improve commerce between the two countries, residents in both countries told Radio Free Asia.

Construction on the structure of the bridge, which connects the Chinese city of Dandong with North Koreas Sinuiju, was finished nine years ago, but it has not gone into service because the project has stalled on the North Korean side.

The new bridge is just downstream from the much older Sino-Korean Friendship bridge which it is intended to replace. That bridge is so old that it predates North Korea itself, having been built by the Japanese army during World War II.

The old bridge has a single rail track and a single lane for cars and trucks, and is unable to carry trucks heavier than 20 tons, but the new bridge will not enter service until new customs facilities are built on the North Korean side.

The entrance to a four-lane, USD$350-million bridge with a new customs zone is seen over the Yalu river leading to the North Korean town of Sinuiju from Dandong in China's Liaoning province, Jan. 11, 2018. Credit: Chandan Khanna/AFP

All import and export logistics between North Korea and China travel through the old Friendship Bridge which was built before liberation, a resident of North Pyongan province told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

If the new Yalu River Bridge is opened [imports and exports] will increase several times, strengthening the country's economy, he said.

The resident said that North Korea sent a formal request to China for more funding.

Earlier this month, a Pyongyang trade delegation met with Dandong city government officials to request [more] Chinese investment, he said. The request is to send customs clearance equipment to open the New Yalu River Bridge.

Still needs work

Everything is ready to go on the Chinese side, but in North Korea, it is essentially empty, although a building that is supposed to be the customs clearance office has been built.

In order for the New Yalu River Bridge to open, customs clearance facilities must be installed at the Sinuiju Customs Office, the resident said. China said last year that it would invest, but they still havent yet, so the Pyongyang delegation came forward.

Beijing originally agreed that it would pay for the entire cost of the bridge and North Korea is only trying to hold China to their word, a North Korean trade official stationed in China told RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

But China is saying that since the main structure of the New Yalu River Bridge was completed in 2014, we should bear the cost of auxiliary facilities, he said. So, construction of the road from the end of the New Yalu River Bridge to Sinuiju was delayed for several years, but began again in 2018.

The onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 delayed road construction even further, so the roads were not completed until last fall, the official said. Still, without customs clearance offices the bridge will not be opened.

However, a trade agency official informed me that early this month, the Pyongyang delegation directly actively sought to attract Chinese investment to expedite the opening of the New Yalu River Bridge, and China agreed.

Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
The move could strain USs global security strategy amid its engagements in the Ukraine and Israel conflicts.

This picture taken on October 18, 2023 and released by North Koreas official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on October 19 shows Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivering a speech at a welcome banquet in Pyongyang.

Updated Oct. 19, 2023, 5:36 a.m. ET

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his visit to Pyongyang, the Russian foreign ministry said on Thursday.

The ministry did not provide any details of the meeting, which lasted just over an hour, according to state-run TASS news agency.

Lavrov made an official visit to Pyongyang on Wednesday, vowing to intensify collective efforts between Russia and North Korea against the United States and its regional allies  a development that could further strain Washingtons global security strategy amidst its engagements in the Ukraine and Israel conflicts.

In todays intricate global political climate, dominated by the U.S.-led Western blocs pursuit of hegemony, our bond and unity is rooted in the longstanding friendly ties, said Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as cited by North Koreas state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday.

The Russian minister added that his visit marked a pivotal moment to realize tangible outcomes in fostering the deep and strategic relations between the two countries.

North Koreas foreign minister Choe Son-hui also boasted about the relations, describing it as evolving and progressing into a visionary partnership.

We voiced our optimism that the landmark agreement forged by our leaders during their visit will yield positive results, elevating our extensive and productive bilateral ties, she said.

The visit came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un paid a visit to Russias far east to meet with his counterpart Vladimir Putin last month. During the summit, they vowed to strengthen bilateral cooperation on all fronts including military cooperation. As the visit concluded, Russia hinted at a possible return visit by Putin to North Korea.

The Russian foreign ministers visit, thus, is most likely to have put Putins reciprocal visit to North Korea on the agenda.

Although KCNA did not provide specifics about the potential visit, the state media signaled that both nations are on a trajectory to deepen their cooperation.

The deepening collaboration between Russia and North Korea may present a complex challenge for the U.S. President Joe Bidens international security calculus as the U.S. remains intricately involved in delicate situations in both Ukraine and Israel.

Putin and Kim did not publicly comment on any ammunition deal last month, but the Kremlin said that it would cooperate with North Korea in sensitive areas that cant be disclosed, raising suspicions that Pyongyang may provide ammunition to Russia. Putin offered to aid Kim in perfecting his satellite technology. Transferring relevant technology may pose a threat to the international community as rocket technologies can be used for both launching satellites and missiles.

For that reason, the U.N. bans North Korea from launching a ballistic rocket, even if it claims to be a satellite launch.

In response, Seoul had slammed both Moscow and Pyongyang, warning the authoritarian leaders of consequences over their possible military cooperation and potential ammunition deal.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.

Updated with information from Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Trafficked Lao youths are seen after gaining their freedom from a Chinese-run casino in Myanmar, April 2023.

A group of 16 Laotians freed nearly two months ago from a Chinese-owned casino in Myanmar where they were forced to work for a scam ring are languishing in police detention while authorities deliberate over how to return them home, according to their relatives.

The eight men and women aged 15-22 were among 45 Laotians  mostly from Laos Luang Namtha province  trafficked last year to a place called Casino Kosai, in an isolated development near the city of Myawaddy on Myanmars eastern border with Thailand.

At the casino, they were held against their will and forced to earn money for their captors by scamming people online or by telephone. Those who refused, or who failed to meet earning quotas, were beaten and tortured, the victims and their family members told RFA Lao.

The scam rings in Myanmar are but one example of the vast networks of human trafficking that claim over 150,000 victims a year in Southeast Asia.

In recent months, the scam operators released a dozen of the detainees across the border to Thailand after their families in Laos agreed to pay a ransom. On Aug. 29, authorities in Myanmar convinced the group to release another 16 into their custody without payment.

However, 16 Laotians from the original group of 45 remain in captivity at the casino, while the 16 who were rescued by authorities in Myanmar have been stuck in police custody in Myawaddy for seven weeks, with no clear timetable on their return to Laos. At least one victim from the group at the casino is known to have been sold to another scam gang, according to her family.

RFA spoke with an anti-human trafficking official in Laos who said that the delay in repatriating the 16 was related to their illegal entry into Myanmar.

The official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said their return was also complicated by the war in Myanmar following the militarys February 2021 coup detat, their lack of passports and visas and the Lao Embassys inability to provide police with key details of their personal information.

No access

In the meantime, Lao diplomatic staff say they have not been able to meet with the 16 since they were taken into police custody and their family members want answers.

The Lao Embassy in Yangon told RFA in August that anti-human trafficking agencies in Laos, Thailand and Myanmar were coordinating to repatriate the 16. But since then, multiple attempts to contact embassy staff for comment on the groups situation have gone unanswered.

The anti-human trafficking official in Laos recently told RFA that his unit has been waiting for an answer from the Lao Embassy about what Burmese authorities told them to do to repatriate them, including how they will be sent home and who will pay for their travel.

There is nothing to worry about as all 16 were released from the casino and are safe, in the care of Burmese authorities, he said. Were just waiting for Myanmar to tell us what to do to get them home.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, told RFA that the Lao government and the United Nations need to push authorities in Myanmar to return the 16 to their families.

Its unclear what is taking the Burmese and Lao governments so long to resolve this issue, but these kids need to be returned home as soon as possible, he said. In fact, the United Nations should intervene and ask the Lao and Burmese [governments] why they remain in custody in Burma.

Robertson said the Lao Embassy is obligated to go meet with the 16 to confirm that they are Lao citizens before ensuring their safe return.

This is a priority for them  its one of their most important duties  but they arent doing anything, he said. The embassy staff need to do their jobs and the Burmese government should be assisting them. Instead, they havent pushed to meet with them and they arent responding to repeated inquiries from family members.

Others still in captivity

For the 16 Laotians still held at the Casino Kosai, their future is uncertain.

Last month, they urged the Lao government in an interview with RFA to help free them as soon as possible, saying they were fearful of how they would be treated after Burmese authorities rescued the 16 others.

Their family members also called on Lao authorities to help them at the time, expressing concern that the scam ring operators might sell them to another gang.

RFA more recently spoke with the mother of a 17-year-old girl who was among the 45 held at Casino Kosai but was sold to another scam ring in July after suffering several beatings at the hands of her captors.

The mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, told RFA that her daughter recently contacted her and said that she is now being held at a new location not far from Casino Kosai. She said her daughters new captors have demanded that she recruit 10 other Lao nationals to come work with her, but she has refused to do so.

Lao anti-human trafficking officials say there are at least 50 other Lao nationals held captive by scam rings in Myawaddy alone, along with victims from other parts of Asia.

Chinese involvement

In a sign of the scale of the issue in Myanmar, Chinese authorities last week announced that 2,349 Chinese nationals suspected of involvement in online scamming activities and telecom fraud were transferred from Burmese to Chinese custody on Oct. 14, according to a report by Chinas official Xinhua news agency.

The latest transfer brings to 4,666 the number of Chinese nationals sent back to China from Myanmar for alleged involvement in the scams in 2023 alone, according to Chinas Ministry of Public Security.

Last week, Chinese authorities issued arrest warrants for two top officials in eastern Myanmars Wa special region based on accusations that they helped orchestrate telecom scam rings staffed by human trafficking victims.

Chinese police identified the men as Chen Yanban, the minister for construction in the Wa region and a former brigade leader of the United Wa State Army, and Xiao Yanquan, the mayor of Was Mengneng county, and offered a reward of 100,000-500,000 yuan (US$13,700-$71,200) for information leading to their arrests.

The warrants follow a call this year by Beijing for Myanmars ruling junta to take action against scam operations located within its borders that it says have seriously harmed Chinese interests.

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
Families say they were targeted and tortured by the junta

Man Zar Myay Mon, a strike leader from Chaung-U, has been sentenced to a total of 21 years in prison. This photo was taken in 2019.

Two activists were sentenced to heavy prison terms after participating in anti-regime activities, sources close to the families told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.

Since the countrys 2021 military coup, the junta has imposed harsh punishments on citizens suspected of joining or financing resistance groups.

Tanintharyi resident Yin Yin Cho was sentenced to 32 years in prison for supporting the Peoples Defense Forces. Sagaing native Man Zar Myay Mon was sentenced to 11 years in prison last week for his role as a strike leader. Junta soldiers arrested both earlier on initial charges of acts of terrorism.

Yin Yin Cho, 34, is a business owner in the southern coastal regions capital of Dawei. A court found her guilty under three more counts of the countrys Counter-Terrorism Law, including acts committed against the state and acts of terrorism that result in death or injury. She was sentenced in a military court in Dawei last week, according to members of the Dawei Democracy Movement Strike Committee.

Man Zar Myay Mon, who is from Chaung-U township in Myanmars northern Sagaing region, was sentenced to 11 more years in prison on Wednesday by Monywa Prison Court, said one person close to the family. This is in addition to a 10-year sentence for incitement against the junta, bringing his total to 21 years in prison.

He will serve time for three counts under the Counter-Terrorism Law, including possession or distribution of explosives.

Yin Yin Cho has been sentenced to a total of 44 years in prison. Credit: Citizen journalist

Yin Yin Cho has been in prison since May for donating to Peoples Defense Forces, and her total sentence is 44 years after a prior charge for terrorism. This is the longest prison sentence a woman from Tanintharyi region has faced since the coup began, said one member of Dawei Democracy Movement Strike Committee, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

Yin Yin Cho was arrested at her home along with her younger brother in January this year. Their garment shop was closed soon after their arrest, the member of Daweis strike committee told RFA. She is the first who was sentenced to 40 years in prison [in Tanintharyi].

He added that on the day of her arrest, her younger brother, Thet Zaw Win, was also arrested by the police and army. The court sentenced him to 22 years in prison last week for three counts under the Counter-Terrorism Law for supporting the People's Defense Forces.

Families told RFA theyre concerned about the excessive sentences. The punishment seems long for 20-year-old Man Zar Myay Mon, who never faced any criminal charges before the coup, a source close to the family said.

The military council put out a warrant for the young mans arrest in April 2021, just two months after the coup. Troops shot and arrested him while he was fleeing from Shan Htu village in Chaung-U township on June 8.

After his arrest, he was tortured at the Monywa Interrogation Center, said a member of the Chaung-U strike committee, who did not want to be named for security reasons.

His fingers were flipped and broken during the interrogation, so his movement was not normal like before. He was shot in his thigh and injured when he was arrested, the committee member said. He was not allowed to receive full medical treatment, and the injuries did not heal in time. In other words, his health is very bad.

He added that Man Zar Myay Mon has not been allowed to meet with family, and was only recently permitted to receive food and medicine through the prison authorities.

RFA attempted to contact officials in the Naypyidaw Prisons Department by phone regarding the heavy punishment being imposed on civilians, but they did not respond at the time of publication.

The junta has sentenced several young activists nationwide to heavy prison sentences for anti-regime activities. Kyaw Thet, 27, from Mandalay regions Wundwin township and Aung Khant Oo, 28, from Magway regions Taungdwingyi township both have sentences surpassing 200 years.

As of Wednesday, there are over 19,000 political prisoners jailed across the country, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
Fijis prime minister and former coup leader has called for Pacific island nations to declare their ocean territories a zone of peace as the United States and China jostle for influence in the region.

In a speech to Australias Lowy Institute, Sitiveni Rabuka light-heartedly referred to himself as a Rambo figure because of his leadership of two coups in Fiji in the late 1980s and acknowledged some people might have questions about him becoming an apostle of peace.

The blunt-talking Rabuka said Pacific island countries are poor, aid-dependent and have carried little weight on the world stage, but control exclusive economic zones larger than North America and Europe combined, which gives them a right to be heard and recognized.

History may be calling. It might be our manifest duty, destiny  to carry banners for peace and speak out for harmony in our time and forever, he said in Canberra on Tuesday.

Rabuka is on an official visit to Australia and met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday, who said Australia would sell 14 Bushmaster armored vehicles to Fiji for the countrys use in U.N. peacekeeping missions.

On Thursday, the two countries agreed to cooperate on addressing cybersecurity threats and Fiji said it would become part of Australias e-visa pilot program.

Rabuka said he would push his peace zone idea at the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum meeting next month in the Cook Islands and hoped member nations would back it.

Rabuka, however, has been at odds with the positions of some Pacific island leaders by backing Australias plan to arm itself with nuclear-powered submarines and supporting what he called the science-based view that the release into the Pacific Ocean of treated wastewater from Japans tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant is safe.

The peace zone could contribute, he said, to addressing the complex West Papua question  the conflict between Indonesia and its Papuan provinces, where an armed independence insurgency has continued for decades  or managing tribal conflicts in neighboring Papua New Guinea with the help of Fijis U.N. peacekeepers.

These are just some of the initial thoughts. Extensive discussion and negotiations will be required with many stakeholders if the project for peace is to happen, he said.

Fiji's Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka (right) looks on as Pat Conroy, Australias Minister for International Development and the Pacific, speaks during an event at the New South Wales Waratahs rugby team headquarters in Sydney on Oct. 16, 2023. Credit: Saeed Khan/AFP





Rabuka became prime minister in December after opposition parties won a majority of votes in a national election, ending 16 years of rule by Frank Bainimarama  who first came to power in a 2006 coup  and his Fiji First Party.

Rabuka has apologized for his coups, which sought to reassert indigenous Fijian political and economic power but also unleashed violence against Indo-Fijians, who are the descendants of indentured Indian laborers brought to Fiji by the British in the late 19th century.

As part of Rabukas efforts to create a legacy that is broader than his coups, one of his governments early moves was the abolition of a Bainimarama-era media law that chilled political debate and freedom of expression.

Some of you know, I have repented, I am reborn. My past cannot be removed but I can compensate to some extent for what I have done, he said. Many years ago I became a convinced democrat.

Fijis ties with China burgeoned after Australia, New Zealand and other nations attempted to punish the Pacific island country for its 2006 coup, aiding Beijings broader push for influence in the Pacific.

Relations have cooled under Rabuka who put a police cooperation agreement with China under review. In his Lowy speech, Rabuka said Fiji continued to value its relationship with the worlds No. 2 economy even as its rivalry with the U.S. appeared to be intensifying.

Without naming any country, he said Fiji was grateful for the aid it received provided the country doesnt become entrapped by it.

Unfortunately some aid donors expect us to be compliant, to submit to their demands, so we have to be very, very careful, he said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This is not an eye for an eye anymore. This is an eye, a limb, a life, a house, a neighborhood, and a whole population-- for an eye was one of Bassem Youssefs many memorable quotes from the 2-hour special on the Piers Morgan Uncensored show on Wednesday,
Move comes after China was named to the UN Human Rights Council despite its poor record.

In a joint statement, 51 countries, including the United States, expressed deep concern to the United Nations on Wednesday over Chinese human rights violations of Uyghurs in its far-western Xinjiang region.

The move comes after China was elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council for the 2024-2026 term  despite its poor track record in protecting rights.

Members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang continue to suffer serious violations of their human rights by the authorities of the Peoples Republic of China, said the statement, which was delivered by James Kariuki, Britains U.N. ambassador.

It urged China to respond to an August 2022 report issued by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, which concluded Chinas mass detentions of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities on a large scale in Xinjiang may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.

The report found that serious human rights violations have been committed in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region amid the Chinese governments claims of countering terrorism and extremism.

The assessment cited evidence of invasive surveillance on the basis of religion and ethnicity, restrictions on cultural and religious practices, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, forced abortion and sterilization of Muslim women, enforced disappearances, family separations, and forced labor, the statement noted.

Over a year has passed since that assessment was released and yet China has not engaged in any constructive discussion of these findings, said the statement issued at the U.N.s Third Committee, which meets annually in early October to deal with human rights, humanitarian affairs and social matters.

In its recommendations, the OHCHR had called on the Chinese government to release detainees from camps and other detention facilities, issue details about the location of Uyghurs in Xinjiang who have been out of touch with relatives abroad, allow travel so families can be reunited, and investigate allegations of human rights abuses.

Strong remedial action

At the most recent session of the U.Ns Human Rights Council in September, Volker Turk, the current high commissioner for human rights, called on China to follow the recommendations of the assessment and take strong remedial action.

Maya Wang, associate director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch, said maintaining pressure on China is part of a continued effort to hold the country accountable for its actions in Xinjiang.

Suffice it to say that moving a government as abusive and powerful as Chinas takes a lot of effort and time, and that pressing the U.N. to keep prioritizing human rights in its interactions with China is part of this long and hard effort, she told Radio Free Asia.

Women walk past a propaganda slogan promoting ethnic unity in 'the new era,' in both Chinese and Uyghur languages, in Yarkand, northwestern China's Xinjiang region, July 18, 2023. Credit: Pedro Paro/AFP

The New York-based right group called on U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday to press Chinese President Xi Jinping to end crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other serious rights abuses in China, during a visit to Beijing to attend the third Belt and Road Forum on Oct. 17-18.

Since becoming secretary-general in 2017, Guterres has shown reluctance to publicly criticize the Chinese government for its severe and worsening repression, HRW said in a statement.

Growing number

Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, welcomed the joint U.N. statement, noting that a few African and South American countries have signed this years statement condemning Chinas atrocities against Uyghurs.

In 2019, there were only 20 countries that signed on to the joint statement, he said.

Despite Chinas efforts to spread disinformation to cover up it genocide against Uyghurs by increasing tourism, inviting friendly diplomats and journalists to the region, the fact that there are more countries signed on to this joint statement this time proves the complete failure of Chinas disinformation campaign, he said.

Luke de Pulford, executive director of Inter-parliamentary Alliance on China, said the latest statement should not be confused with action.

We shouldnt be fooled, he told RFA. Its good that the U.K. should be applauded for taking some symbolic action, but these statements do not achieve accountability. It shouldnt be confused and conflated with accountability.

Xinjiang regional expert Adrian Zenz agreed that writing a letter was good, but it cost you nothing, he tweeted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

You are not paying any actual price for your values, he wrote. Actions speak louder than words. Actions could include: Effective forced labor ban. Legal atrocity determination. Sanctioning higher level officials.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
The women all died during the same week in early October.

A Chinese national flag flies over an entrance to Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center in Dabancheng in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, April 23, 2021.

Three ailing Uyghur women recently released from the same prison in Chinas Xinjiang region have died within days of one another, according to sources with knowledge of the situation, who said inmates at the facility are only given access to medical treatment in extreme cases.

Two sisters in their 30s and a 75-year-old grandmother died in early October from different ailments they developed while in detention at the Baykol Womens Prison in Ghulja, a city located in the upper Ili River valley near Kazakhstan that is also known as Yining in Chinese.

The three women were jailed on charges of religious extremism, prison sources said. Such offenses deemed by Chinese authorities include Uyghurs who pray, possess a Quran or study Islam.

The sisters  Melike, 33, and Merziye, nearly 40  hailed from Ghuljas Araosteng village, a source with knowledge of the prison and an officer at the village police station told RFA Uyghur, although they were unable to provide details about their deaths.

They were each sentenced to 12 years in prison, jail officials said.

Baykol Womens Prison was built after authorities in Xinjiang began mass arrests of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in 2017, said the source who knows about the issue and, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal.

The prison houses at least 10,000 inmates from different areas of the far-western region  an exceptionally high number, the source said.

In a separate interview, a police officer confirmed that there are at least 10,000 inmates in Baykol Womens Prison and said the health of many detainees has deteriorated as a result of mandatory educational programs at the facility, particularly those who are older or have existing health issues. The officer did not elaborate on what the educational programs entailed.

Uyghurs and other Muslims detained by the Chinese government in re-education camps in 2017 and 2018 have reported that they were forced to sing political songs, learn Mandarin Chinese, and study speeches of Chinese Communist Party leaders. Some of the nearly 2 million who were held against their will were subjected to torture, rape, forced sterilization and forced labor.

China has said that the camps were vocational training centers and that they are now closed, though many Uyghurs are still being held in prisons.

Since the establishment of the Bakyol Womens Prison about six years ago, and particularly over the last year, there has been a significant decline in the health of the detainees and an increase in deaths in custody, the sources said.

When contacted by RFA, an official in charge of medical affairs at the prison confirmed that the sisters had died following their release and referred further questions about the cause of their deaths to a superior.

The higher-level official said that a elderly woman named Ayshemgul, who was serving a nine-year sentence, died of high blood pressure and cancer the same week as the sisters.

She passed away shortly after her release from prison, the official said.

The medical affairs official, who has worked at the prison for eight years, said ailing detainees are only referred to medical staff in severe cases.

About 20-30 detainees require medical attention inside or outside the prison each week, she said.

Every day I see three to five ailing inmates, she told Radio Free Asia. I receive reports, and they inform me of their pain.  I primarily treat severely ill individuals.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.
Model Ngoc Trinh had posted videos of herself riding a motorcycle in an unsafe manner.

Vietnamese model Tran Thi Ngoc Trinh is seen in the custody of the Ho Chi Minh City Police Investigation Agency on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.

Vietnamese authorities have arrested a popular lingerie model known as the Underwear Queen on charges of disturbing social order after she posted photos of herself riding a motorcycle in an unsafe manner, according to state media.

Officers from the Ho Chi Minh City Police Investigation Agency on Thursday searched the home of Tran Thi Ngoc Trinh, 34, in the citys District 7 before taking her into custody, where she admitted to violating the countrys Law on Road Traffic by driving with no hands and lying down on her motorcycle, the official Thanh Nien newspaper reported.

Police also launched legal proceedings against 36-year-old Tran Xuan Dong, who trained Ngoc Trinh how to ride motorcycles, for counterfeiting official documents and disturbing social order, the report said. He has been prohibited from leaving his residence.

According to Thanh Nien, Ngoc Trinh and Tran Xuan Dong used a high-performance motorcycle to conduct a street performance on road D15 in Ho Chi Minh Citys High-Tech Park on Oct. 6 that included dangerous actions and objectionable positions such as lying down and kneeling on the seat, riding hands-free, and placing both legs on one side of the vehicle.

Last month, the duo organized a gathering and motorcycle performance on Tran Bach Dang Road to perform similar stunts, which were filmed and posted to Ngoc Trinhs social media channels. The video went viral, generating nearly 500,000 likes, 5,000 comments, 10,000 views, and 6,000 shares as of last week.

Thanh Nien cited authorities in Ho Chi Minh City as saying that the videos had negatively affected public security, order, safety, and set the wrong example of the countrys youth.

Ngoc Trinh, from the southern coastal Tra Vinh province, won the Miss Vietnam International pageant in 2011.

She began her fashion career at the age of 16, before competing in a model contest. Famous for the risque photos she posts featuring herself in lingerie, Ngoc Trinh boasts some 6 million followers on her verified Facebook account.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
The exchanges come as Hanoi attempts to balance relationships with the U.S. and China.

Vietnams President Vo Van Thuong waves as he arrives at Beijings airport ahead of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Oct. 17, 2023.

Vietnam President Vo Van Thuongs visit to China this week for the Belt and Road Forum is the latest in a series of high-level exchanges aimed at balancing Hanois relations with Washington and Beijing amid increased competition between the two powers, according to experts.

Thuong arrived with a delegation of Vietnamese government officials on Tuesday amid reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping is planning to travel to Hanoi in the next few weeks.

Last months two-day trip to Vietnam by U.S. President Joe Biden included an announcement that Washington and Hanoi were upgrading their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership, putting Washingtons engagement with Hanoi on par with that of Beijings and Moscows.

That came amid Beijings increasingly assertive nine-dash line claims to the South China Sea, and as the U.S. seeks to diversify its global supply chains.

Container trucks are seen while waiting to cross the border at Huu Nghi border gate connecting with China, in Lang Son province, Vietnam, Feb. 20, 2020. Credit: Kham/Reuters





Vietnam continues to pursue a diplomatic policy that balances major powers influence, said Hanh Nguyen, a doctoral candidate at the Australian National University.

This policy aims to avoid creating an impression that Vietnam is taking sides in the strategic competition between China and the U.S, she said.

Chinas railway technology

Thuong is among representatives from 130 countries at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

China has already mapped out a number of projects if Vietnam were to eventually agree to take part in the Belt and Road Initiative, including railway routes from the northern provinces to Hanoi and the port city of Haiphong, a North-South high-speed railway and a North-South highway.

Vietnam has a demand for infrastructure development, and China has world-leading railway technology, Hanoi-based Vietnamese scholar Nguyen Quang A told Radio Free Asia.

If Vietnam can make use of Chinas funds and railway technology to improve Vietnams infrastructure, Vietnam should do it as its a good thing to do, he said.

A train runs on the Long Bien bridge in Hanoi on July 12, 2023. Being able to connect Vietnams railway transportation system with China also means being able to connect with Russia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe, says journalist Nguyen Pham Muoi. Credit: Nhac Nguyen/AFP





Hanoi journalist Nguyen Pham Muoi told RFA via text message that Vietnam and Chinas economies will only grow closer in the long run. Addressing the demand for connecting transportation infrastructure with China is inevitable, he said.

China is already a major investor in Vietnam, and Vietnams leadership will continue to play up the close economic ties as it attempts to reassure Beijing over the closer relations with the United States, according to Zachary Abuza, who is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University.

Xi and Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong will emphasize their fraternal party-to-party ties, an important channel of influence that Washington doesnt have, he said.

The leadership is going to great pains to signal that the upgrade in relations with the United States is not coming at the expense of China or its interests, he said.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed.
Nguyen Minh Son said he didnt believe in justice

Nguyen Minh Son, 60, is refusing to appeal his prison sentence because he does not believe in Vietnams justice system, his wife told Radio Free Asia.

Hanoi Peoples Court sentenced him to six years in prison on Sept. 29 for conducting anti-state propaganda under Article 117 of the criminal code.

He made a live-streamed video last December, standing outside the same court, reacting to the trial of fellow activist Le Trong Hung who had just been given a five-year sentence under Article 117.

During the drunken broadcast he cursed the Communist Party and revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, the countrys first leader.

Sons wife Nguyen Thi Phuoc visited him at a Hanoi police detention center on Oct. 17.

Son said he would not appeal because he knew that political trials in Vietnam were unfair and the sentence had been decided in advance, she told RFA Vietnamese.

He is steadfast, maintaining his position that he is not guilty, but only exercising his right to freedom of speech.

Under Vietnamese law people have 15 days from the date of sentencing to lodge an appeal. If they dont the sentence takes effect.

Several dissidents refused to appeal, saying they didnt believe in the justice system. Among them are journalist Pham Chi Dung, president of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam, and RFA blogger Nguyen Lan Thang, both convicted under Article 117.

Dung is serving a 15-year prison sentence, the maximum for the crime of propaganda against the state while Thang is serving a six-year prison sentence.

Sons lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan, said the six-year prison sentence for his client was extremely harsh compared to what he had done. In an interview with RFA after the trial, he said Sons behavior could have been punished more appropriately, such as with a fine.

Son participated in many protests in Hanoi between 2011 and 2018, protesting Chinas territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea, the Hanoi government cutting down ancient trees and other issues.

However, his arrest surprised many of his friends who told RFA he was not famous or a social media influencer so his actions and posts didnt have a major impact.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
In a significant expansion of dress-code enforcement, Tehran has seen the deployment of "hijab enforcers" within the grounds of Tehran University and the streets surrounding Amir Kabir University, as well as key areas in the city.

The move coincides with disciplinary actions against students, notably more than 50 female students at Tehran University who have faced reprimands and suspensions for allegedly failing to adhere to the compulsory head-scarf regulations.



The Student Guild Councils of Iran reported on November 2 that the presence of hijab enforcers had become more pronounced on the campuses of Tehran University. They noted that alongside the patrols, dozens of female students had been summoned to the disciplinary committee in the past week. They face a range of penalties from reprimands to suspensions for hijab-related infractions.



The deployment of the enforcers is seen as a step beyond the usual disciplinary-committee proceedings, with university security said to be actively involved in harassing students under the guise of enforcing dress codes.

The student councils have stressed that the university's security apparatus is not only deploying enforcers across campuses but also preventing students whose attire does not meet their standards from entering university premises.



The report highlights the increased pressure from university security and hijab enforcers on students as part of a broader effort to enforce the mandatory hijab.

The student councils have described the recent wave of summonses to the disciplinary committees as unprecedented, even surpassing the numbers seen during the height of last year's protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini. Many students have reportedly received severe penalties, predominantly for hijab violations.



In addition to first-time summonses and forced pledge signings, many students with previously suspended sentences have been informed -- without a formal committee meeting -- of the immediate enforcement of their penalties.



The newsletter at the Amir Kabir University has detailed "violent encounters" by security patrols and hijab enforcers with female students around the university. In one recent incident, security forces allegedly attacked a female student whose scarf had momentarily slipped, attempting to confiscate her student ID amid a climate of fear and intimidation.



The newsletter also reported that plainclothed hijab enforcers had been stationed around Amir Kabir University since November 1. These forces, which include military personnel and plainclothes agents, have been particularly active along Tehran's Valiasr Street, aggressively confronting women for not observing the hijab.



The escalation in hijab enforcement comes days after the death of Armita Garavand, a teenage student who died last weekend due to injuries suffered in an alleged confrontation with Tehran's morality police.

The initial deployment of "hijab enforcers" in subway stations was reported in mid-August amid rising confrontations with women refusing to comply with the mandatory hijab. Tehran's municipality is said to have hired 400 individuals as "hijab enforcers," offering a monthly salary of 120 million rials ($230).



Universities have historically been a battleground in the fight for social and political reforms in Iran.



During the Islamic Revolution of 1979, university students played a prominent role, including the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. After the clerics came to power, the authorities instigated a mass purge of Iranian universities, firing hundreds of professors and altering curriculums to promote Islamic values.



Since the revolution, university students have voiced their opposition to the clerical establishment, including during a 1999 protest against the closure of a reformist newspaper, resulting in a raid on a dormitory at Tehran University that left one student dead.



The protests against Amini's death in September 2022 led to renewed pressure against students, specifically female students who failed to comply with the hijab law.

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda
In Georgia, there are roughly 8,000 cultural heritage monuments, of which 1,000 have earned the distinction of being designated as national monuments. Among them is the 10th-century Korogho tower, bestowed with this honor by presidential decree. It is now a mound of rubble awaiting restoration. Historians, conservators, and art critics are horrified by its demise. They argue that, even if reconstruction is possible, the irreversible damage done would alter its 10th-century authenticity. The project managers claim that the tower's destruction was simply the start of its reconstruction process.

The public only became aware of this by happenstance when a photograph taken on October 8 by British photographer Peter Nasmyth revealed the destruction at Korogho, which lies adjacent to a historic church complex. Nasmyth, the founder of the National Foundation in Britain and an advocate of hiking tourism in Georgia, tells RFE/RL that during a hike in the Khada Valley with a group tasked with showcasing Georgia's important architectural monuments, he was left speechless by what he had seen. It was his daughter who first pointed to the hill, now occupied by ruins instead of the tower.

After his return to Tbilisi, Nasmyth compared the recent photo of Korogho to the one he had captured a year ago, which had been previously shared on the Internet. "This is shocking and terrible! The Khada Valley was not lacking in problems, but to destroy a monument of national importance is an unbelievable tragedy!" Nasmyth said. Perched high above the village of Midelaurta, Korogho is situated on the slope of a lofty mountain, nestled on the precipice of a rocky cliff known for its natural splendor. Next to the former tower stands the Church of the Virgin Mary. There are about 8,000 cultural heritage monuments cultural heritage monuments in Georgia, and only 1,014 of them have the status of national monuments. This designation is reserved for structures of exceptional artistic, historic, or national significance. The prestigious status was conferred upon the Korogho complex through a presidential decree.

Locals rule out the likelihood that the tower was destroyed by a tractor, bulldozer, or another type of vehicle. It is almost impossible to transport huge machinery to the church and tower due to its position atop a very steep mountain.

A week after the images were posted online, Georgia's Cultural Heritage Agency and the Ministry of Culture have yet to offer an explanation for the demolition of the Korogho tower, including details on the method employed and whether it was linked to a restoration project. According to several employees, the decision to demolish the tower was based on concerns that it posed a threat to the neighboring church. They also claim that the tower is not an authentic 10th-century structure but rather a recent, inauthentic monument constructed in the last century. In response, art critic Tamta Dolidze published photos taken in 1952 and 1993 of Korogho. The first photo shows cracks, whereas the second one only shows traces of the cracks.

"In the first photo you can see the large cracks, and in the second photo you can easily see the very fine shale inlays. If the tower were to be dismantled and rebuilt, naturally, the places of the cracks would not be preserved, nor would it be necessary to fill them with thin slate," Dolidze said. "If we call all the restored monuments inauthentic, we should raze Svetitskhoveli Cathedral and the church of Tsromi to the ground, as they are not authentic either," he explains. Dolidze traveled to the Korogho complex to see the damage for himself. In addition to the destruction of the tower, he is also very concerned about the restoration work in the church, which is being carried out with questionable methodology and quality.

As for the tower, Dolidze does not believe that it will be rebuilt correctly. "The monument no longer exists, and we must understand why such an extreme decision was made. We cannot turn back time, but it is very important that the dismantling and assembling of monuments does not become an accepted practice of rehabilitation." During the restoration work carried out in 1954, the tower was recognized as the complex's oldest building. Based on this documentation it was declared a national monument. A copy of the original documentation shows that the status of the church is assessed as "severe," while noting that the tower is the oldest building in the complex. The contract for the restoration of the church was given to Paata Kurtanidze in 2019. Kurtanidze was paid 37,700 Georgian Lari (roughly $14,000) for the undertaking. He has declined to respond to inquiries from RFE/RL.

Nana Mefarishvili, an architect and researcher, told RFE/RL that the destruction was unwarranted. "Of course, [the tower] was damaged, but there was no need for it to be dismantled in such a hasty and unprofessional manner," she said. "The monuments were one meter apart, and the worst thing that could happen was that a stone falling from the tower could hit the roof of the church," Mefarishvili added. Mefarishvili has worked on a number of important restoration projects, including the restoration of Mutso in Khevsureti. She explains that, when a building collapses, proper accounting is of the utmost importance. "When removing the stones, meticulous photo documentation as well manually drawn and numbered pieces are documented so that they can be returned to their original location. This was not done here," Mefarishvili said.

The most significant stone from Korogho depicts the church builders holding a plan of the church's construction, a highly unique scene. In addition to being a recognizable outlier for Georgian architecture and iconography, "Builders with a plan" is also unmatched worldwide. "If any illustration of medieval Georgian art is used in Western publications, one of them is the reliefs of Korogho. Ironically, the Korogho manifesto from a millennium ago -- which said that events must progress according to plan -- was broken there," wrote Irine Giviashvili, an art historian and employee of the Chubinashvili National Center on Facebook.
As fighting intensifies between Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel, Iran has been increasingly vocal about the prospect of additional firepower entering the fray to score a victory for what Tehran calls the "axis of resistance" against Israel.



The axis, refined by the Islamic republic over the last four decades, is a loose-knit network of proxies, Tehran-backed militant groups, and allied state actors who play an important role in Iran's strategy to oppose the West, Arab foes, and, primarily, Israel.



Active in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere, the network allows Iran to create chaos in enemy territory, while allowing it to maintain a position of plausible deniability.



In the case of the latest conflict involving Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza, the stronger the Israeli response and the greater the blowback by Israel's Shi'ite and Sunni enemies in the region, the better it is for Iran, experts say.



It is a strategy that dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to experts, but was honed and rebranded as the axis of resistance by the Quds Force, the elite overseas arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).



"Although a new term, axis of resistance' describes an old phenomenon: any individual or group willing to fight Iran's wars in return for funding, arms, military training, and intelligence support," Ali Alfoneh, senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told RFE/RL in written comments.

But while Iran openly positions itself as the leading voice of the network as it calls for global resistance against Israel and the West, "the Quds Force avoids micromanagement and provides the proxies with some maneuvering room," Alfoneh said.



This relative autonomy, which at times has even seen proxies and partners work against Tehran's regional interests, makes it difficult to pin blame directly on Iran.



"If there is any kind of kinetic retaliation, your proxy, your partner absorbs the retaliation, and if your adversary wants to widen the scope, they have a hard time politically connecting the dots to do that," Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told RFE/RL.

'Successful Proxy Strategy'



The October 7 assault on Israel carried out by the Sunni militant group Hamas was a case in point, with Iran lauding the attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis and triggered retaliatory Israeli strikes on Gaza that have so far killed more than 3,700 people and unleashed a devastating humanitarian crisis.



But despite Iran's longstanding support of Hamas -- which Alfoneh said is historically closer to Sunni Arab states and is for the most part funded by Qatar -- Israel and the West have not been able to directly tie the assault to Iran.



"When assessing the connective tissue between Iran and Hamas, we can't forget that the desire for Iran to disguise its own hand plays into the Islamic republic's own successful proxy strategy," Taleblu said. "The fact that some folks are having a hard time finding an immediate go order, or a very clear green light, is the success of the proxy strategy."

The axis of resistance is part of Iran's attempts to export the Twelver Jafari School of Shi'a Islam, which was named as Iran's official religion after 1979, and its kind of messianic vision for what the Middle East would look like," Taleblu explained.



"This ideology only has resonance when the Middle East is in chaos, and the Islamic republic is an expert in managing chaos," he added.



The U.S. assassination in 2020 of Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, who was seen as the architect of the axis of resistance and held great influence over its members, injected an element of chaos within the ranks of the network itself.



But while it presented challenges, it was not enough to disrupt the Quds Force or break up the axis.



"The Quds Force is a highly institutionalized military organization and the assassination of Major-General Soleimani had no impact on the performance of the organization," Alfoneh said.

The axis has continued its operations through Hamas and the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, sworn Israel enemy and Iranian proxy Lebanese Hizballah, and Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Force.

In Syria, the IRGC has deployed troops to aid government forces supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, and in Yemen Iran has championed the Huthis, which has been battling a military alliance led by Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia.



At times, some of these groups have flexed their independence from Iran and acted against Tehran's interest.



Alfoneh recalled Hizballah's kidnapping of Israeli border guards in 2006, which he said, "resulted in a devastating war that was much more problematic, since it was contrary to Iran's overall strategy of using Hizballah as a deterrent against Israel."

Major Differences



Major differences were observed between Hamas and Iran during the Syrian conflict as the Palestinian militants refused to come to the aid of Assad, a key Tehran ally.



And the political rise of some groups, including in Iraq and Hamas in Gaza, has led some to distance themselves from Iran, at least rhetorically, to retain their domestic legitimacy.



Hamas has insisted that it alone was behind its multipronged assault on Israel, and that Iran and Hizballah had no role. Hizballah has in recent days exchanged fire with Israel across the border in the biggest escalation of violence since their 2006 war. Israel has accused Hizballah of carrying out the attacks "under Iranian instruction."



The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which also has a presence in Lebanon, is also believed to have mounted a cross-border attack on Israel on October 10.

In Iraq, sources told RFE/RLs Radio Farda that Iranian officials met with the heads of pro-Iranian Shiite militias after the October 7 attack on Israel.



Radio Farda has since reported that Shiite militias in Iraq have created a joint operational headquarters aimed at supporting the operation of Palestinian militant groups against Israel.



While Iran did engage different proxies in joint operations in Syria, Alfoneh of the Arab Gulf States Institute told RFE/RL: "In general, Iran prefers to preserve a degree of compartmentalization so intelligence leaks from one proxy do not compromise the entire proxy network."

A Strategic Victory?



In turn, Israels military reaction and the United States diplomatic and military support for Israel following the Hamas assault and the threat of the involvement of other members of the axis of resistance, can be seen as a strategic victory for Iran.



"The fact that the U.S. has to send such overt conventional military hardware [to Israel] is being seen as a win in Tehran, for them to have to deter a nonstate actor like Lebanese Hizballah," said Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.



"This goes to show you how much Iran's proxies and their hybrid and conventional and asymmetric military capabilities [have grown] over the past few decades."

For its part, Hizballah claimed on October 18 that it was "thousands of times stronger" than it was during its last war with Israel, highlighting the possibility that the axis overall is more formidable in terms of firepower and recruitment than ever.



But Alfoneh said the strength of the axis, coming as Iran has called for an expanded alliance against Israel, is "not important."



"As long as the smaller and more expendable proxies such as Hamas can poke a hole in Israel's Iron Dome and demonstrate Israel's vulnerability, and as long as the more valuable proxies such as Hizballah can stay out of the war and provide Iran with an effective deterrence against Israeli bombardment of Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran is perfectly happy," Alfoneh said.



Taleblu said, despite Iran's effort to distance itself from a possible broader conflict involving its proxies and the militant groups that make up the axis of resistance, it is important to not let Tehran hide behind a shield of plausible deniability.



"It's imperative to constantly hold the patron accountable, and not just the proxy," Taleblu said. "Every time you hold only the proxy accountable, the patron will fight to live another day."

With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda
With the expiration of UN sanctions designed to thwart Iran's development of ballistic missiles, both Tehran and ally Russia have said there is nothing standing in the way of them trading such technology.

The claims have led to concerns that Moscow and Tehran could try to expand their existing arms dealing to include more advanced weaponry, know-how, and technology that could boost both Russia's war effort in Ukraine and Iran's ballistic-missile and drone programs.

But while observers do not discount the possibility that Iran could try to sell previously barred weapons -- chiefly, powerful short-range ballistic missiles -- to Russia, they express skepticism Tehran will follow through.

Among the reasons, they say, are Tehran's need to maintain its own military stockpiles amid increased conflict in the Middle East, the desire to be seen as a compliant and legitimate arms trader by the international community, and the continuation of an already existing strategy of supporting the manufacture of such weaponry in other countries, including Russia.

Hamidreza Azizi, a fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, told RFE/RL that Iran's suggestion that it is no longer subject to UN sanctions limiting its missile program is more "political, rather than technical" as it seeks to "normalize" its ability to conduct military trades and transfers.

"The actual impact of the expiry of the UN Security Council restrictions on Iran's missile program, in terms of its impact on Iran's ability to develop its missile program, is rather limited," Azizi said. "Because all these years we witnessed that, despite those restrictions being in place, Iran managed to develop not only its missile program, but also its drone program, its military capabilities, to an unprecedented level."

Azizi notes that Iran achieved this in part due to technical and scientific cooperation with other partners, mainly North Korea but also with Russia and Moscow's allies.

Iran set up a manufacturing facility for reconnaissance and combat drones in Tajikistan and Belarus is reportedly seeking to establish a factory to produce the Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drone believed to be used extensively by Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Western officials have also revealed the existence of a drone facility being built in Russia with Iran's assistance that would allow Moscow to build domestic versions of Iranian drones in huge numbers and could be in operation by early 2024.

With the expiration of the UN sanctions, which were largely regarded as toothless, Azizi says he expects Iran to stick to its policy "of considering its military capabilities as nonnegotiable" in any international negotiations while "continuing to advance its capabilities."

Iran can already boast some of the most sophisticated missiles and drones in the Middle East at a time when Tehran's support of proxies and militant groups in the region is being watched closely as archenemy Israel battles the Iranian-backed Hamas extremist organization.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Iran has widely been accused of delivering cheap but effective kamikaze drones to Moscow. While Iran denies the allegations, saying it only sold drones to Moscow before the war started, U.S. officials have repeatedly accused Tehran of supplying Shahed-136 Iranian drones that Russia has used to destroy civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. There has been evidence of Iranian drones rebranded as Russian Geran-2s being used on the battlefield.

And as the two countries have increased military-technical cooperation, Iran's Defense Ministry has routinely showcased its ballistic, cruise, anti-tank, and air-defense missile systems to Russian officials.

The sanctions, in effect since 2015 and enshrined in UN Resolution 2231, expired on October 18 as part of the moribund Iran nuclear deal with world powers known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The United States withdrew from the deal, which offered sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program, in 2018. As European signatories Britain, France, and Germany tried to keep the pact alive, Iran abandoned some of its commitments, but never withdrew from the JCPOA.

The UN sanctions, which were introduced when the Security Council approved the JCPOA, called on Iran, among other things, "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons." Under the terms, any countries wishing to engage in related trade with Iran were required to first get approval from the UN Security Council.

In separate statements as the sanctions expired, Iran and Russia were quick to claim that they would no longer be bound by the restrictions, although neither side announced any concrete plans for future cooperation regarding Iran's ballistic-missile program.

Iran's Defense Ministry, for its part, said Tehran regarded the development as an opportunity to "strengthen its defense capabilities." But Azizi said Iran now "sees itself free from restrictions to export military technology and weapons, rather than to import them."

Russia, Azizi said, is also interested in underscoring that "there are no more restrictions or special commitments that Iran needs to observe in its military-technical cooperation when it comes to missiles" so that it can also "potentially increase the potential for Iran to send missiles to Russia."

Iran's previous export of Shahed-136 drones to Russia could be explained in part because they "arguably" fell under the UN's classification of conventional weapons, according to Jeremy Binnie, Middle East defense specialist at the global intelligence company Janes.

"We have not seen any evidence of transfers of Iranian missiles to Russia so far, but it is unclear if this has been because the Iranians did not want to be seen to be so obviously violating UNSCR 2231," Binnie told RFE/RL in written comments.

Now that the UN sanctions have expired, he said, Iran "may now be more willing to overtly provide arms" to Russia, Binnie said.

As for Russia seeking Iranian missiles, Azizi said, "as Ukraine's Western allies increase the level of their military support for Ukraine, there might be a moment that the Russian leaders decide [to import Iranian missiles because] it's not going to make any difference."

Whether Iran would actually part with such weaponry is another question, particularly considering the current war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the prospect of direct Iranian involvement in that conflict.

"Another consideration for the Iranians is maintaining their own military capabilities, which would be undermined by transferring significant numbers of missiles to Russia," Binnie said. "The uncertain situation in the Middle East right now is likely to increase Iranian unwillingness to supply weapons to Russia that they feel should be retained at home or supplied to allied groups in support of its regional goals."

One solution, Binnie said, "might be to replicate what has happened with the Shahed-136s, whereby Iran supplies initial batches, then transfers the technology to Russia so it can build them locally."

He said that while Russia had a sophisticated missile production capability of its own, "the Iranians would be teaching them how to make cheaper missiles using supply chains that circumnavigate Western sanctions."

The United States and the European Union moved quickly to impose new obstacles as the UN sanctions -- intended to blunt Iran's ballistic-missile program, and by extension its possible acquisition of nuclear weapons and delivery systems -- expired.

In September, Britain, France, and Germany announced that they would maintain their existing sanctions related to Iran's controversial nuclear program, which Tehran claims is for civilian purposes only, and its development of ballistic missiles.

The United States on October 18, the same day that the UN sanctions expired, announced new sanctions targeting individuals and companies in Iran and Russia, among other countries, in an effort to penalize Iran's efforts to buy or sell technology or equipment related to its missile and drone programs.
Russia has detained Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, the second U.S. media worker to be held by Moscow this year, triggering a wave of criticism from rights groups and politicians saying the move signals new level of wartime censorship.

Kurmasheva -- a journalist with RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service based in the Czech Republic, who holds dual U.S. and Russian citizenship -- traveled to Russia for a family emergency in May.



She was temporarily detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at Kazan airport, where her U.S. and Russian passports were confiscated. She has not been able to leave Russia since as she awaited the return of her passports.



Authorities initially fined her for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities.

While still waiting for the return of her passports, Kurmasheva was detained again and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.



Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children, RFE/RL acting President Jeffrey Gedmin said in a statement.



She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately," he added. Kurmasheva lives in Prague with her husband and children.



The Russian government did not immediately comment.



Russia has been accused of detaining Americans to use as bargaining chips to exchange for Russians jailed in the United States. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested for allegedly spying -- a charge he and the newspaper vehemently deny -- in March.



Since 2012, Russia has used its so-called foreign agent laws to label and punish critics of government policies. It has also been increasingly used to shut down civil society and media groups in Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.



"The persecution of Alsu Kurmasheva is an example of the relentless crackdown on journalism and the right to freedom of expression in Russia," said Marie Struthers, Amnesty Internationals director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.



"It also marks an alarming escalation in the harassment of media professionals, as its the first time this offence has been used to directly target a journalist for their professional activities, putting her at risk of a five-year imprisonment."



The UN Human Rights Office, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the chairman of the U.S. House of Representative's Foreign Affairs Committee also called for the immediate release of Kurmasheva.



The U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports that Kurmasheva had been arrested but it had not received official notification from Russia over the matter.



"This appears to be another case of the Russian government harassing U.S. citizens," State Department spokesman Matt Miller told reporters.



U.S. Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on X, formerly Twitter, that he was "appalled" by Kurmashevas detention.



"This is sadly another example of Russias war on freedom of expression, and shows that the Putin regime is targeting Americans. I call for her immediate release, McCaul said.



The foreign agent law allows authorities to label nonprofit organizations as foreign agents if they receive funding from abroad and are engaged in political activities.



RFE/RL says the law amounts to political censorship meant to prevent journalists from performing their professional duties and is challenging the authorities' moves in Russian courts and at the European Court of Human Rights.

More than 30 RFE/RL employees have been listed as "foreign agents" by the Russian Justice Ministry in their personal capacity.



In March, a Moscow court declared the bankruptcy of RFE/RL's operations in Russia following the company's refusal to pay multiple fines totaling more than 1 billion rubles ($14 million) for noncompliance with the law.

With reporting by Reuters
Tajikistans authoritarian government has been accused of using electricity as leverage against its political opponents after officials allegedly cut off power to the family homes of several opposition figures.

At least four families -- the parents of self-exiled opposition activists -- claimed in recent days that officials have disconnected electricity lines to their homes. They say officials explicitly told them the measures were taken because of their childrens criticism of the Tajik government.

The moves come as Dushanbe intensified pressure on the relatives of the self-exiled activists after opposition supporters held a protest during President Emomali Rahmons visit to Germany last month and threw eggs at his car.



In the southern district of Farkhor, 72-year-old Oyishamo Abdulloeva says the electricians who cut the electricity lines to her house said that they were doing so on the order of officials.



I asked the electricians why they were cutting the electricity to my house even though I pay the bills regularly, Abdulloeva told RFE/RL. They said there is an order from authorities [to cut your power lines] because your son criticized the Tajik president in Germany.

Abdulloeva is the mother of Sharoffidin Gadoev, a former leader of the Group 24 opposition movement, who took part in opposition protests during Rahmons September 28-29 trip to Berlin.



Gadoev, who lives in the Netherlands, has also established the Movement for Reforms and Development of Tajikistan and co-founded the National Alliance, a coalition of opposition groups abroad.



The Berlin demonstration was organized by Group 24 and the National Alliance.

'Instructions From The Government'



Gadoevs elderly mother and dozens of other relatives of European-based activists were detained and interrogated by Tajik authorities following the protests.



My son is 38-years old and I am not responsible for what he says, Gadoevs mother told RFE/RL, speaking by phone from Farkhor.

In the neighboring Vose district, local resident Oyisha Mirzoeva, the stepmother of Group 24 leader Suhrob Zafar, said three electricians visited her house in Kaduchi village on October 12 to disconnect the power lines.



The head of the district electricity company was among them, too. I asked him if I had any debt in electricity bills as the reason they were cutting my lines, but he said no, Mirzoeva said. They told me they had instructions from the government [to cut off the power lines to my house] and that if I had any objections, I should talk to the authorities myself.

In addition Farhod Odinaev, a European-based Tajik opposition activist who took part in the Berlin protest, said his elderly mother in Tajikistan was also left without electricity.



Electricians escorted by police entered the family house in the Hisor district on the outskirts of Dushanbe on October 13 and disconnected the power lines, Odinaev, 47, claimed.



RFE/RL contacted officials for comment in each case but didnt receive any responses.

Human Rights Watch recorded at least 47 cases of Tajik police detaining the relatives of self-exiled activists following the anti-Rahmon protests in Berlin.



The detainees -- including elderly grandparents and children ranging between an 81-year-old man and a one-and-a-half-year-old child -- were apprehended without explanation and reportedly subjected to ill-treatment, threats, blackmail, and insults, the rights watchdog said in a report on October 6.



Authorities in Tajikistan, an impoverished Central Asian nation of some 10 million, show no tolerance for dissent. The government has banned all major opposition parties and forced their leaders and activists into self-exile while continuing to target them outside the country.

Dozens of opposition members who have left for Europe are wanted by Tajik officials on dubious charges usually related to terrorism and extremism.



In 2019, Gadoev accused Tajik officials of kidnapping him during a trip to Moscow and forcibly taking him to Dushanbe. He eventually returned to Europe with the help of Western countries.



Odinaev was detained in Belarus in 2019 at the request of Tajikistan and spent 43 days in jail before being released.



Group-24 founder Umarali Quvatov was shot dead in Istanbul in 2015. Quvatovs slaying drew comparisons to the killing of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, which happened just days before the Group-24 leaders murder.
The Ukrainian parliament has given initial approval to legislation that would ban religious organizations associated with Russia, a measure that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) says is aimed directly at banning it from Ukraine.

Deputies voted on October 19 to support the bill in its first reading, said Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a member of parliament, on Telegram. The measure must be backed in a second reading and approved by the president to go into force.



The UOC is a branch of Ukraines Orthodox Church that previously was under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox patriarch in Moscow. It cut ties with Moscow in May over Russias unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, but it has been accused of maintaining links with Russia.



The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said on October 19 that 68 criminal cases, including accusations of treason, had been initiated against UOC representatives since Russia's invasion.



Earlier this year, Ukrainian authorities accused UOC Metropolitan Pavlo of inciting religious enmity and denying Russias invasion of Ukraine and placed him under house arrest. He has denied the accusations.



Ukrainian authorities leveled new accusations against the UOC on October 19, saying that the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church is involved in creating private military companies in Russia for the war against Ukraine.

"According to the instructions of the Moscow Patriarch, their [private military companies] are engaged in the recruitment and combat training of mercenaries for the war against Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine said.



It said one such private military company, St. Andrew's Cross, is documented to operate out of a cathedral in St. Petersburg.



"Within the walls of the religious institution, its representatives recruit parishioners for further inclusion in the composition of the occupying groups of the Russian Federation, which are involved in the front line, the SBU said.



The bill passed by the Verkhovna Rada on October 19 would ban the activities of religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence "in a state that carries out armed aggression against Ukraine." It says a court of law would be empowered to terminate such activities.



The Ukrainian Orthodox Church said in a statement issued after the vote that the bill is essentially aimed at banning the UOC.



The draft law itself does not mention the UOC, but its origin (a decision of the National Security Council regarding the UOC), media, and political support indicate that this law will be applied to the UOC, which is actually an independent church, it said, adding that the parliament is deliberately trying to pass [the UOC] off as the Russian Orthodox Church.



The UOC also says the draft law would not comply with the Ukrainian Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights and accuses Kyiv of trying to portray its Ukrainian clergymen and believers as "agents of the Russian Federation."

The Russian Orthodox Church has staunchly backed President Vladimir Putin and Moscows invasion.

With reporting by Reuters
President Droupadi Murmu

Historic Obeisance at the Birthplace of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji

PATNA: President Droupadi Murmu paid her respects at Takht Sri Harimandar Ji Patna Sahib, a revered Sikh shrine, during her visit to Bihar. The President's visit was marked by stringent security measures, emphasizing the significance of the occasion.

President Murmu's visit to Takht Sri Harimandar Ji Patna Sahib was highlighted on her social media account with a post that read, "President Droupadi Murmu paid obeisance at Takht Sri Harimandar Ji Patna Sahib on the first day of her visit to Bihar." This visit holds immense cultural and religious importance for both the Sikh community and the nation.

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Notably, Takht Sri Patna Sahib, also known as Takht Sri Harimandar Ji Patna Sahib, holds a unique place in Sikh history. This sacred shrine is one of the five thrones (Takhts) of the Sikh religion. Built in the 18th century by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, it stands at the birthplace of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth Guru of the Sikhs. Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, a prominent figure in Sikhism, was born in Patna in 1666, and this Takht pays homage to his legacy and spiritual teachings.

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Inderjit Singh, General Secretary of Takht Sri Harimandar Ji Patna Sahib, expressed his delight at the President's visit. He stated, "It was indeed a great occasion that the President came to pray at Takht Sri Harimandar Ji Patna Sahib. We got a chance to share with them the history of this famous place."
Jagwinder Pal Singh Jagga Joins AAP

Jagga Majithia, a Prominent Figure in Majha & 2022 Congress Candidate, Officially Joins AAP

CHANDIGARH: In a significant political development, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) dealt a blow to the Congress in the Majha region as Jagwinder Pal Singh, popularly known as Jagga Majithia, crossed party lines to join AAP. Jagga Majithia, who was the Congress candidate in the 2022 assembly elections from Majitha, was formally inducted into the Aam Aadmi Party by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.

Notably, Jagwinder Pal Singh Jagga boasts a long and distinguished political career, having been associated with the Congress since 1987. He has held various positions within the party, including serving as a councilor in 1992, General Secretary of Youth Punjab Congress in 1999, and District President of Amritsar Rural in the early 2000s. His decision to contest the 2022 Punjab assembly elections on a Congress ticket underscored his significant influence and stature in the Majitha region.

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Jagga Majithia's switch to the AAP comes as part of a growing trend in Punjab, where several prominent leaders and figures are aligning themselves with AAP, ahead of the upcoming municipal elections and the next general elections.Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann formally welcomed Jagga Majithia to the AAP ranks. Mann expressed his delight in witnessing leaders like Jagga, who are committed to serving the people of Punjab, joining the party. He reiterated that the people of Punjab have shown appreciation for the AAP government's work and policies.

CM Mann emphasized that AAP's influence and presence in Punjab continue to grow steadily, thanks to leaders like Jagga Majithia and the unwavering support from the people of the state.
Fact Check Report

Viral claim of demolishing the martyrdom wall of Chote Sahibzadas is completely fake

MOHALI: A Viral Post having a picture of sikh preacher demolising a wall going viral with a heart-wrenching claim that Martydom wall of Chote Sahibzade located as Shri Fatehgarh Sahib is going to demolish. It is even being claimed that the place of Martyrdom Wall has also been vacated.

Sharing a graphic picture, Facebook page 'Sachiyaan Main Sach Sunwan' claimed that the martyrdom wall of Chote Sahibzadas at Sri Fatehgarh Sahib is being demolished.

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Rozana Spokesman in its investigation found that the viral claim of demolishing the martyrdom wall of Chote Sahibzadas is completely fake. This claim has been denied by SGPC itself.

-- Spokesman's Investigation

While starting the investigation, we first performed keyword search on this matter.

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-- SPGC refuted viral claim

We found a tweet by SGPC on X platform which refutes the claim related to this matter. On October 17, 2023, SGPC refuted this claim and wrote, "Sangat ji, the information about the Martyrdom Wall of Gurdwara Sri Fatehgarh Sahib in this post circulating on social media is false. Such posts are often made viral to defame Sikh organization SGPC. The picture shared in this post is old, which is not of Sri Fatehgarh Sahib. The martyrdom wall of the Chote Sahibzadas of Dasham Patshahji is safe and will remain safe till the living world.

During the same search, we also found an explanation video related to this matter on the official Facebook page of SGPC. In this video, the head of Shri Fatehgarh Sahib Management is seen denying the viral claim.

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Afterwards, we spoke to our Amritsar in-charge journalist Sarwan Randhawa for final confirmation. Speaking with us, Sarwan Randhawa termed the viral claim as fake and clarified that the viral claim has been refuted by SGPC as well.

Conclusion- Rozana Spokesman in its investigation found that the viral claim of demolishing the martyrdom wall of Chote Sahibzadas is completely fake. This claim has been denied by SGPC itself.




Punjab Police Action

Arrested individuals have links to a Pakistan-based terrorist, Harwinder Rinda

CHANDIGARH: In a commendable achievement, the Punjab Police have successfully dismantled a terrorist module under the alleged leadership of Parminder Pindi. The operation has resulted in the arrest of five individuals who were actively involved in the module's illicit activities, signaling a major victory for law enforcement in the region.

The Punjab Police, acting on intelligence and dedicated efforts, successfully exposed and apprehended a terrorist module that has been a cause for grave concern in the region. The module, reportedly under the control of Parminder Pindi, had been operating with secrecy and audacity, posing a significant threat to the state's security and stability.

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The depth of this criminal operation extends beyond national boundaries. The police revealed that these nefarious elements had ties to the Pakistan-based terrorist, Harwinder Rinda. DGP Gaurav Yadav shared vital insights into the operations of this dismantled terrorist module. He stated that the group was actively involved in economically destabilizing Punjab by resorting to acts of violence and intimidation, particularly in targeting liquor deals at gunpoint. Such activities not only posed a threat to economic stability but also endangered the lives and safety of those involved in the liquor trade.


Nitin Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari inspects the Delhi-Katra Express Highway and unveils India's tallest national flag.

AMRITSAR: Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, embarked on a momentous visit today, marked by spiritual reverence and infrastructural advancements. The day commenced with a heartfelt tribute at Sri Darbar Sahib, followed by an inspection of the ambitious Delhi-Katra Express Highway. In a remarkable display of national pride, the Union Minister is also set to unveil India's tallest national flag at the iconic Attari border.

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In a poignant moment of spiritual connection, Nitin Gadkari fulfilled his long-standing desire to offer obeisance at Sri Darbar Sahib. Following his visit, he expressed his hopes and aspirations for the nation. "I prayed to Guru Sahib that our fellow Indians may lead prosperous and joyful lives in the times to come. May our nation continue its journey towards progress," Minister Gadkari stated, underlining the significance of his visit to this revered Sikh shrine.

The Union Minister's visit also held an important professional aspect, as he arrived to review the ongoing developments of the Delhi-Katra Express Highway. This critical project is expected to enhance connectivity and accessibility for commuters and significantly reduce travel time between the national capital, New Delhi, and the holy town of Katra.

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One of the most iconic moments of the day is the unveiling of India's tallest national flag at the Attari border. The flag, towering at an impressive 418 feet, will be a symbol of national pride and unity. Notably, this monumental flagpole surpasses its counterpart in neighboring Pakistan by 18 feet. The Indian tricolor was previously hoisted at a height of 360 feet, while the Pakistani flag stood at 400 feet. The new 418-foot flagpole stands proudly in front of the Golden Gate and awaits the inauguration ceremony led by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. This historic event will undoubtedly fill every Indian heart with the patriotic fervor captured in the timeless anthem, 'Jhanda Uncha Rahe Hamara.'

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UK PM Rishi Sunak

Tensions Rise as Thousands Are Killed in the Ongoing Conflict

LONDON: As the Israel-Hamas conflict continues to escalate, reports have emerged suggesting that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak may visit Israel this week. However, official confirmation of this visit has not been provided as of yet.

A Downing Street spokesman has refrained from confirming the reports and stated that any announcement regarding Prime Minister Sunak's visit will follow the usual protocols. The UK government has maintained caution in addressing the situation, given the sensitivity of the ongoing crisis.

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This potential visit follows the recent visit of the UK's Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, to Israel. Cleverley's trip was undertaken to express solidarity with the Israeli people following the series of attacks by Hamas. The visit highlighted the UK's commitment to fostering diplomatic relations and understanding in the region during these challenging times.

The situation in Israel has garnered attention on the international stage, with US President Joe Biden also scheduled to visit Israel today. The presence of world leaders underscores the significance of finding a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict that has resulted in a tragic loss of lives on both sides.
Bharat Narwal

Bharat Narwal, a promising young man who ventured to US tragically loses his life in a car accident in New Jersey City

KARNAL: A Somber wave of mourning has engulfed the community of Karnal as news of a tragic road accident in America claimed the life of Bharat Narwal, a young man who had embarked on a journey of hope and dreams. On October 17, Bharat met an untimely demise when his car overturned after striking a road divider in New Jersey City, resulting in the loss of his own life and that of his companion.

Bharat Narwal's story is one of ambition and aspiration. Three years ago, he returned to India after completing his studies in Cyprus. Fuelled by the desire for a brighter future, he set his sights on the United States, making the arduous journey to America in pursuit of new opportunities.

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The path to America was not without sacrifice. Bharat's uncle, Rishipal, made a substantial financial investment by taking a loan of Rs 40 lakhs from relatives to facilitate his nephew's journey. This investment was a testament to the family's unwavering belief in Bharat's potential and a testament to the sacrifices made to secure his future.

Bharat Narwal found employment in a store in New Jersey City, where he had been working diligently for the past 8 months. Tragedy struck on the fateful night of October 17 when he, along with a Mexican friend, was en route to their respective homes after completing their work at the store. Their vehicle suddenly lost balance, colliding with a road divider and overturning, resulting in the tragic loss of both young lives.

Bharat's father, Rishipal, shared a poignant conversation he had with his son just one day before the accident. Bharat had reassured his father, saying, "Papa, don't get tensed; I will repay everyone's money soon." His employment at the store had filled him with hope, unaware that the next day would bring devastating news from America.

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Notably, Bharat Narwal was not just a young man with dreams but also the pillar of support for his family. With an elder sister already married, Bharat's parents had nurtured him with love and hopes for a better future. Tragically, when he began to find success and provide for his family, fate intervened, leaving his parents devastated.
Thursday, President Joe Biden is expected to make an important announcement regarding Washington's latest stance on the two major wars being fought in Ukraine and in the Middle East.

"President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukraine," reads a statement by the White House.

The President is scheduled to speak from the Oval Office at 8 PM ET.

He is addressing the nation hours after returning from the Middle East.

During his seven hour stay in the Israeli war zone, Biden pledged steadfast support to its strongest ally in the Middle East.

Biden's high-profile visit was over shadowed by a deadly attack on a Hospital in northern Gaza.

Israel and the Palestinians blamed each other for hundreds of fatalities and injuries caused by a rocket explosion in Al Ahli Arab Hospital Tuesday night.

In his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden expressed doubt that the attack originated from Gaza itself.

The only breakthrough achieved by Biden's visit was a deal that the United States reached with Egypt and Israel to allow the badly needed humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing.

Talking to reporters on his way back at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Biden said the Rafah border crossing will open possibly on Friday.

Biden said that during his phone call with Egyptian President El-Sisi, his counterpart agreed that up to 20 trucks will be allowed initially to go through to Gaza.

Food, water and medicines will be allowed in, but not fuel, reports said.

"But here's the deal: up to 20 trucks. This has been a very blunt negotiation I've had. And so, we want to get as many of the trucks out as possible. There's, I guess, 150 or something there. Not all of them will go the first tranche. If there's a second tranche  see how it goes."

Biden warned that if Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through, "then it's going to end, because we're not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas".

He added that Ambassador David Satterfield, the U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues, is in Cairo now, and he is going to coordinate this.

Thousands of Palestinians are waiting at the Rafah border crossing to flee Gaza ahead of the Israeli ground offensive.

Dozens of UN aid cargo are held up at the only possible corridor to enter the besieged Gaza Strip.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
10.00 a.m. (0415 GMT)

Army troops are loading blue tarpaulin sheets, medical kits and dehydrated food, water bottles, sacks of rice and blankets at a flat area that is being used as a helipad in Gorkha town.

Gorkha district was the epicenter of Saturdays magnitude 7.8 earthquake that has killed more than 4,300 people.

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With the weather clearing it seems that for now helicopters will be able to pick up the supplies and relay to smaller villages.

The weather has been erratic over the last two days  there has been some rain and cloud cover making it difficult for helicopters to land in some areas close to the epicenter.

 Katy Daigle, Gorkha, Nepal

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9.45 a.m. (0400 GMT)

A team of 37 New Zealand urban search-and-rescue experts due to leave Monday night for Kathmandu has been told at the 11th hour not to come.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said in a statement that Nepals government had informed him they had enough expertise in the country and the team was no longer required.

New Zealand has contributed 1 million New Zealand dollars ($761,000) to the relief effort following Saturdays earthquake that killed more than 4,300 people.

 Nick Perry, Wellington, New Zealand

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9.30 a.m. (0345 GMT)

Army troops are loading bags of rice and cornmeal into a storage room at the district headquarters in Gorkha, the epicenter of Saturdays massive earthquake.

District official Surya Mohan Adhikari says the supplies will be sent out later in the day to villages that need them most.

He said that in the rural areas 90 percent of the people have been affected by this calamity. They have lost their homes and livestock. They have no way of getting food.

He says it is very difficult to reach them. They are cut off by landslides on the mountain roads, and the wind and rain is making it difficult for helicopters to land.

Adhikari said they have reports of some 300 casualties, but that number is rising. Nationwide, more than 4,300 people have been killed in the magnitude 7.8 quake.

 Katy Daigle, Gorkha, Nepal

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9.00 a.m. (0315 GMT)

A Nepal police official says at least 4,352 bodies have so far been recovered after last weeks massive earthquake that struck just outside of capital Kathmandu.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Komal Singh Bam says the toll includes 1,176 bodies recovered in Sindhupalchuk district, just northeast of the capital.

He says 8,063 people have been injured in the magnitude 7.8 quake.

Another 18 people were also killed in a quake-triggered avalanche that swept the Everest base camp. In neighboring India 61 people were killed and Chinas official Xinhua News Agency reported 25 dead in Tibet.

 Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

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8.45 a.m. (0300 GMT)

A local seismologist says major aftershocks are now unlikely to occur as the 72-hour mark after Saturdays devastating earthquake approaches.

Lok Bijaya Adhikari, chief of Nepals National Seismological Center, says the number and strength of aftershocks have been receding. There have been more than 100 aftershocks since Saturdays magnitude 7.8 temblor that left more than 4,300 people confirmed dead so far. The largest of these was magnitude 6.7 on Sunday.

The ground shook Tuesday morning at 5 a.m. but measured only magnitude 4.5.

Smaller aftershocks are expected to continue for a month and Kathmandu residents could continue to feel tremors because the epicenter is close to the city.

 Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

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8.15 a.m. (0230 GMT)

Health workers fear a major health crisis among the survivors of Saturdays massive earthquake who are living in the open or in crowded tents with no access to sanitation or clean water.

Baburam Marasini, director of Nepals Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, says their main concern is making sure people get clean water.

He says we fear diseases. He says the department is asking people to take precautions such as eating with a clean spoon and not with their hands as most people here normally do.

He says people are also being asked to drink clean water. Attempts are also being made to reach rural areas quickly where a clear picture of the death toll  now more than 4,300  is still not available.

 Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

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8.15 a.m. (0230 GMT)

A government official says business owners are being asked to open their shops amid anxiety among locals about dwindling food and medical supplies in the wake of Saturdays earthquake that has left more than 4,300 people dead.

Naindra Prasad Upadhaya, an official at the Commerce and Supplies Ministry says the government has made arrangements to pick up food and supplies directly from factories and distribute them free in areas where necessary.

Water has been the big issue. There will be more tankers bringing water to the areas where people are camped out in Kathmandu and surrounding areas, he says. Food will also be sent to the rural areas on helicopters, he says.

Police are on the lookout for businesses that are overcharging to take advantage of demand and scarcity, and such people will be arrested and punished, he said.

 Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal
Physical laws  such as the laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics  codify the general behavior of varied macroscopic natural systems across space and time. In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cornell Universitys Professor Jonathan Lunine, Dr. Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution for Science and their colleagues propose that an additional, hitherto-unarticulated law is required to characterize familiar macroscopic phenomena of our complex, evolving Universe. In essence, the new law of increasing functional information states that complex natural systems evolve to states of greater patterning, diversity, and complexity. In other words, evolution is not limited to life on Earth, it also occurs in other massively complex systems, from planets and stars to atoms, minerals, and more.

This was a true collaboration between scientists and philosophers to address one of the most profound mysteries of the cosmos: why do complex systems, including life, evolve toward greater functional information over time? Professor Lunine said.

Natural laws related to forces and motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and energy, for example, were described more than 150 years ago.

The new work postulates a law of increasing functional information, which states that a system will evolve if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions.

The new law applies to systems that are formed from many different components, such as atoms, molecules or cells, that can be arranged and rearranged repeatedly, and are subject to natural processes that cause countless different arrangements to be formed  but in which only a small fraction of these configurations survive in a process called selection for function.

Regardless of whether the system is living or nonliving, when a novel configuration works well and function improves, evolution occurs.

In the case of biology, Charles Darwin equated function primarily with survival  the ability to live long enough to produce fertile offspring.

Charles Darwin eloquently articulated the way plants and animals evolve by natural selection, with many variations and traits of individuals and many different configurations, Dr. Hazen said.

We contend that Darwinian theory is just a very special, very important case within a far larger natural phenomenon.

The notion that selection for function drives evolution applies equally to stars, atoms, minerals, and many other conceptually equivalent situations where many configurations are subjected to selective pressure.

The new study expands that perspective, noting that at least three kinds of function occur in nature.

The most basic function is stability  stable arrangements of atoms or molecules are selected to continue.

Also chosen to persist are dynamic systems with ongoing supplies of energy.

The third and most interesting function according to the researchers is novelty  the tendency of evolving systems to explore new configurations that sometimes lead to startling new behaviors or characteristics, like photosynthesis.

The same sort of evolution happens in the mineral kingdom. The earliest minerals represent particularly stable arrangements of atoms. Those primordial minerals provided foundations for the next generations of minerals, which participated in lifes origins.

The evolution of life and minerals are intertwined, as life uses minerals for shells, teeth, and bones.

In the case of stars, the paper notes that just two major elements  hydrogen and helium  formed the first stars shortly after the Big Bang.

Those earliest stars used hydrogen and helium to make about 20 heavier chemical elements.

And the next generation of stars built on that diversity to produce almost 100 more elements.

The research has implications for the search for life in the cosmos, Professor Lunine said.

If increasing functionality of evolving physical and chemical systems is driven by a natural law, we might expect life to be a common outcome of planetary evolution.

In this new paper, we consider evolution in the broadest sense  change over time  which subsumes Darwinian evolution based upon the particulars of descent with modification, said Carnegie Institution for Sciences Dr. Michael Wong.

The Universe generates novel combinations of atoms, molecules, cells, etc. Those combinations that are stable and can go on to engender even more novelty will continue to evolve. This is what makes life the most striking example of evolution, but evolution is everywhere.

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Michael L. Wong et al. 2023. On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems. PNAS 120 (43): e2310223120; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2310223120
This came during a meeting with General Michael Kurilla, the head of the US Central Command, who is currently visiting Cairo.

El-Sisi stressed to Kurilla the need to shift focus towards reviving the peace path based on the solution of two states living side by side in peace and security.

The president also highlighted the danger of the conflicts security consequences, as per a statement by the Egyptian presidency.

El-Sisi underscored that it is a top priority to continue delivering humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip in a sustainable manner in light of the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the strip.

Todays meeting comes hours after El-Sisi and US President Joe Biden have reached an agreement for the sustained entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

Convoys of life-saving aid stretching for miles provided to the war-torn Gaza Strip are still being held on the Egyptian side, waiting for a safe passage, as the Palestinian side of the crossing was subject to 4 aerial bombings by the Israeli side.

Following his call with El-Sisi, Biden said around 20 aid trucks will be delivered to Gaza, noting that the process will require nearly 8 hours of coordination and expecting the aid to reach Gaza by Friday.

El-Sisi and Kurilla stressed during todays meeting their keenness to strengthen the strategic partnership and cooperation between Egypt and the US in various fields, especially military and security.

Since 7 October, Israel has put Gaza, home to 2.3 million people, under a total blockade and rained it with airstrikes, killing over 3,500 Palestinians, including more than 1,000 children, according to Palestine's Representative to the UN Riyad Mansour.

Israel has deprived the civilians of food, water, and fuel, putting Gaza at risk of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Dr. Marijata Daniel-Echols, a Program Officer with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Health within the U.S. Departments of Health & Human Services
Jamari Taylor, right, works with one of her students, Cora Vance.

Jamari Taylor has painted murals, like this one in downtown Battle Creek.

Jamari Taylor, artist and art instructor, poses with two of her students, Willow Schantz, left, and Cora Vance, right.

Jamari Taylor, artist and art instructor, sits in a studio inside First Congregational Church in downtown Battle Creek.

Jamari Taylor, right, provides feedback to one of her students, Willow Schantz.

Jamari Taylors signature at the bottom of one of her murals.

An art banner created by Taylor during "Color the Creek" was displayed at the entrance to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Mural done by Taylor on the wall of her former art tutoring office at Cute & Sassy Spa & Salon

Taylor's first mural in Battle Creek was done in 2019 at the Southwestern Michigan Urban League offices. She has done 20 murals throughout Michigan since starting her business.
Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave's On the Ground Kalamazoo series.

Emissions from Graphic Packaging are visible from the Northside of Kalamazoo.

Tyler Dancer speaking with residents about the need for accurate information regarding emissions.

Sunrise near the Graphic Packaging facility.

An Envirosuite air quality monitor located near Krom and Prouty Park on the Northside.

How did we get here?

Matt Smith, Collection Development Specialist at the Kalamazoo Public Library, demonstrates how to locate and read air quality monitors.

Kalamazoo's Graphic Packaging facility is located at 1500 Pitcher St.

Matt Smith, Collection Development Specialist at the Kalamazoo Public Library, talks with Tyler Dancer, Northside resident.

MDHHS Health Study

Tyler Dancer at Krom and Prouty Park.

Sunrise near the Graphic Packaging facility.

Tyler Dancer

By email to EGLE-AQD-PTIPublicComments@Michigan.gov. By voicemail by calling 517-284-0900. In writing to Permit Section Manager, EGLE, AQD, P.O. Box 30260, Lansing, Michigan 48909-7760.
Chris Slater, chief executive officer of Community Healing Centers.

Chris Slater in front of the Elizabeth Upjohn Community Healing Centers, the Stadium Drive office of Community Healing Centers

Coming Together Conference
Playwright Buddy Hannah

Rev. Dr. Christopher Moore, Sr. will be performing alongside Buddy Hannah in "Two in a Million: Journey of a Lifetime."

On October 16, 1995, the Million Man March was held in Washington, DC. I wasnt there. However, like so many African American men who couldnt attend the march, I stayed glued to the TV all day long and watched every segment of the march unfold in real time.The Million Man March was organized by Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. I am not a member of the Nation of Islam nor a follower of Mister Farrakhan.What then inspired me to write a stage play about the Million March? you may ask.Well, the answer to that question is not what, but rather, who  the who being, Brother Tyrone Bynum. At the time of the Million Man march, Tyrone and I had been working together on The Other Side, a local African American community newspaper he had founded and begun publishing earlier in the year. Tyrone is now a lawyer living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.Not only had we established a working relationship but also a man-to-man, brother-to-brother relationship. In other words, we had become close friends  despite our age difference, and sometimes, differences in our social and political views. And although I was unable to attend the march, Tyrone did attend.After he came back from the march he began to tell me about his experience and how it felt to be there in person. I heard the excitement in his voice and saw it still on his face. The idea of writing a play about the Million Man March may have briefly entered my mind. But I still wasnt inspired.It was not until Tyrone suggested to me  or should I say urged me to write a stage play about the march  that I began to feel more inspired to try and write what would eventually become "Two In A Million: Journey of a Lifetime." Sometimes inspiration comes from an experience you may have personally had, but it can also come from someone who had an experience you wish you may have had.My inspiration was growing. I could feel it.I may not have been fully inspired yet, but I was fascinated by the fact I was talking with someone who had been there in person. I began to spend many long hours talking with Tyrone as he described the sights and sounds of the march and how it felt to be a part of such a history-making and meaningful event as it related to African American men.He couldnt stop talking about how it felt to see all these African American men coming together from all over the country. How it felt being in the presence of close to one million African American men from every corner of the country and seeing the love and respect they were showing each other. He couldn't stop talking about it and I couldnt stop listening to him talk.You see, the Million Man March was not just about bringing African-American men together to protest. The march was about instilling a sense of personal responsibility for improving their lives and their communities. The march was about bringing about a spiritual renewal in African American men. It was about promoting African American unity and family values. The march was about bringing about a sense of respect and Brotherhood among African American men.After spending so much time talking with Tyrone and reading about the march, I had my inspiration.While most of my inspiration for writing "Two In In A Million: Journey of a Lifetime" came from Brother Tyrone Bynum, the rest came from my feelings, thoughts, and experiences as an African American man living in these United States of America.I wish I could say that after all of this, I sat down at my computer and wrote the play in one day, but that was not the case, The Million Man March was held in 1995. I didnt complete the original version of the play until 1996.Because of at least 10 years of age difference between myself and Tyrone, I thought it would be a good idea to have just two main characters in the play, a younger man and an older man. Two men from different parts of the country  one from the South and one from the North. Both have different views of older and younger African American men and how they see their communities, their issues, problems, and themselves.Bring both of these African American men together at the Million March and show how the march changed their lives and their thinking as it did for so many African American men throughout the country.Buddy Hannah's two-person play, "Two in a Million: Journey of a Lifetime," which stars Hannah himself and Rev. Dr. Christopher Moore, Sr., will be performed on Saturday, Oct. 21, at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 120 Roberson St., Kalamazoo. The performance is open to the public and admission is free. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.is a playwright, director, and actor based in Kalamazoo. He is the former longtime radio host of "Talk it Up Live," which aired on 95.5 FM The Touch. Buddy is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the Irving S. Gilmore Community Medal of Arts Awards, the Tony Griffin Golden Word Award, and the NAACP Humanitarian Award.
Politics

spotlight

Billionaire-backed group wants to overhaul City Hall

Craig Lee/The Examiner Kanishka Cheng, Executive Director of Together SF Action, speaking during a meeting on Friday, Oct. 21, 2022.

A billionaire-backed civic group is floating grand plans to do things such as curbing homelessness and cleaning up downtown by building voter demand for changing the structure of local government, possibly by giving the mayor more power and streamlining The Citys sprawling commission bureaucracy.

The group, TogetherSF Action, is mobilizing residents with an eye on a city charter overhaul, arguing that changes to San Franciscos mechanisms of government are needed to successfully tackle its seemingly intractable problems.

Our citys approach to solving problems is broken because our systems are broken, TogetherSF Action founder Kanishka Cheng told the 100 people who came to her Mission District headquarters for a recent event titled What Ever Happened to the San Francisco Dream?

Cheng, who has $3 million for political activity from famed tech venture capitalist Michael Moritz, did not mention a potential ballot measure to change the balance of power at City Hall in her speech. Instead, she broadly stressed the importance of next years general election and talked about perceived flaws in city rules that she said discourage solution-oriented actions.

Cheng said in an interview with The Examiner that her goal is for the Board of Supervisors to craft a ballot measure to put on the November 2024 ballot asking voters to approve changes to the city charter.

What those changes would be is not yet clear, but Cheng said she hopes they will reflect the findings of a think-tank report commissioned by her affiliated nonprofit, TogetherSF, which said there is overwhelming evidence that The City needs to take bold steps to emerge from its current crisis.

The report, by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College, offered many suggestions, including that The City should consider giving the mayor more power over hiring and firing key staff.

It also criticized as excessive the number  and sometimes the authority  of The Citys 130 advisory bodies, boards and commissions, which have slots for more than 1,200 appointees. For many city departments, the report noted, the mayor must hire for top jobs from a list provided by a commission.

To illustrate how the mayors authority has been diluted, the report focused on the Police Commission, which voters restructured in 2003 through a ballot measure sponsored by the Board of Supervisors.

The mayor previously appointed all commissioners, but now appoints four, while the Board of Supervisors appoints three. Significantly, the supervisors must confirm the mayors nominees, and only a majority of the supervisors can remove mayoral appointees, the report said.

Cheng told her audience that the mayor is hamstrung, while supervisors are beholden to small groups of vocal people and have no incentive to solve big, city-wide problems.

The report also suggested possibly electing some supervisors on a citywide basis in addition to from districts as a way to promote citywide thinking. And it suggested tightening relatively permissive rules for qualifying ballot measures by raising the signature threshold for citizen-initiated measures, eliminating the power of the mayor or a minority of supervisors to put measures on the ballot, and letting the mayor veto board-proposed measures.

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said he is not ready to endorse all of the ideas in TogetherSFs report, but he said he agrees there are too many commissions, and that overseeing critical functions such as policing via committee is inefficient.

If were a strong-mayor system, were a very weird strong-mayor system, he said. San Francisco is due for some charter reforms.

Former Supervisor John Avalos, however, said the idea that The Citys mayor needs more power is absolutely bogus.

I actually believe the commissions are an important thing, Avalos said. He said they give insight into the workings of government, prevent the rich from running roughshod over the less-affluent, and help hold public officials accountable.

Sara Karlinsky, research director at SPUR, an urban-planning public-policy think tank, agreed the mayors authority has ebbed over time but said the office retains some key strong mayor powers. But Karlinsky said shes glad the TogetherSF groups are pushing charter issues and that SPUR is starting its own study of the effectiveness of San Franciscos structure of government.

I appreciate how theyve identified the problem in the report, she said.

For now, Cheng  who worked as a legislative aide at the Board of Supervisors and as the mayors board liaison and director of commission affairs  is leading a multi-pronged campaign to educate and stimulate demand for organizational change.

TogetherSF, which Cheng founded in 2020, is nurturing a grassroots network, with many events such as neighborhood cleanups, food bagging and happy hours to build a healthier civic fabric. It is growing, with a staff of 15 and job openings listed on its website.

Cheng started TogetherSF Action last year to engage in political activity, which is prohibited for 501(c)(3) nonprofits such as TogetherSF. The group is in the political fray, with its own events, regular blog posts about city and school developments, and another voter guide promised for January.

Both are supported by Moritz, TogetherSFs chairman. San Franciscos drug and homeless crisis can be solved, he wrote in a February piece for The Financial Times, but that would mean changes to the mechanics of government and coordinated political will.
Private healthcare provider Spire Healthcare said on Thursday that it has bought Vita Health Group , a provider of mental and physical health services in the UK, for around 74m in cash.

Vita provides a range of NHS outpatient mental health talking therapies, musculoskeletal and dermatology services, with operational hubs in London and four regional centres in Bristol, Orpington, Oldham and Leicestershire.

Spire said that based on current performance and recent contract wins, Vita has a run-rate and forecast which will deliver 2024 revenue in excess of 100m, adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of around 10m, and capex of 2m to 3m.

Chief executive Justin Ash said: "Vita addresses two of the main reasons for long-term illness and absence from work in the UK: mental health issues and back and joint pain. This acquisition complements our existing business and aligns well with our strategy of developing new services and moving into adjacent markets.

"The addition of Vita means that we are now able to meet people's physical and mental health needs. Vita fits closely with the services we offer to corporate customers and gives us a good springboard for future growth. With its outstanding patient feedback, strong track record in winning contracts and proven management team, Vita is an excellent addition to our business and I look forward to welcoming our new colleagues to Spire."
PhonePe, a finance firm, had a strong fiscal year that ended in March 2023, with total revenue surpassing INR 2,914 Crores. This indicates an almost 77% increase in revenue over the previous fiscal year's revenue of INR 1,646 Crores. This increase in revenue was ascribed by the corporation to increased activity in money transfers, mobile recharges, and bill payments.

Furthermore, PhonePe's expansion into new product offerings and companies, such as smart speakers, rent payments, and insurance distribution, helped to drive this significant revenue increase. Notably, PhonePe has not released its net loss figures for 2022-23. During this time, PhonePe reached key milestones, including the deployment of 4.1 million smart speakers by August 2023 and a strong 50.54% market share in total payments value (TPV) for the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in March 2023. Paytm, Google Pay, and CRED compete with the company in the UPI transactions space.

Crucially, the increase in total revenue enabled PhonePes payments business to a positive adjusted EBITDA (EBITDA before factoring in ESOP costs). The standalone EBITDA for PhonePe India Pvt Ltd, which houses the payments business, was INR -1,755 Crores in FY23, compared to INR -1,612 Crores in FY22. However, when adjusted for ESOP costs, the EBITDA stood at INR 159 Crores in FY23, a significant improvement from INR -455 Crores in FY22.

While precise amounts were not provided, PhonePe stated that as part of its organizational reorganization efforts in FY23, it dispersed "substantial" Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). PhonePe raised INR 7,021 crores (about $850 million) in equity funding in FY23, valuing the company at $12 billion. This fundraising milestone is significant, especially in a climate where many firms are struggling to raise funding or are experiencing markdowns. PhonePe also made the strategic decision to relocate its headquarters from Singapore to India and concluded its separation from the Flipkart Group.
The 13th Africa Bank 4.0 Summit - West Africa, presented by ICPS an HPS company, recently took place from October 10th to 12th, 2023 at EKO Hotels and Suites in Lagos, Nigeria. The event brought together leading experts, innovators, and influencers from the banking, fintech and payments sector, setting the stage for profound discussions, insightful presentations, and the recognition of outstanding achievements.

The 13th Africa Bank 4.0 Summit  West Africa started with a preconference which was the Fintech Startup Investor Forum on October 10, 2023, with an inspiring Opening Keynote Address titled "West Africas Fintech Outlook  New Frontiers, New Opportunities" by Dr. Segun Aina, who is the President of the Africa Fintech Network. Following the keynote, Dr. Babatunde O. Obrimah, the Chief Operating Officer of the Fintech Association of Nigeria, the chairman of the day, presented a keynote on "Fintech Innovation Opportunities for the Gig Economy  The Nigerian Story."

As part of the FINTECH STARTUP INVESTOR FORUM, we had a Shark-Tank inspired session called the Rockstar Startup Pitches, where visionary entrepreneurs showcased their innovative startups to an enthusiastic audience in a rapid-pace live pitch. This segment also included an investor panel, composed of distinguished industry leaders, featuring Taiwo Kamson-Ketiku, Vice President, Investments, EchoVC Partners ; Kofoworola Agbaje Fintech Investor, Quona Capital ; Tosin Faniro-Dada, Partner, Breega ; Damilola Teidi, Head, Platform and Networks, Ventures Platform Fund ; Sylvester Kay-Adade, LP Relations, Ingressive Capital and Pawel Wodz, Chief Executive Officer, AB Microfinance Bank Nigeria.

Following the preconference, the summit kicked off on the 11th October with Chairmans Opening Remarks by Khevin Seebah, Chief Executive Officer at ICPS followed by an engaging Curtain Raiser Keynote on "Revolutionizing Consumer Banking: Advancing Financial Inclusion through Payment Innovation" by Osahon Akpata, Group Head of Consumer Payments at Ecobank Transnational Incorporated.

This keynote had set the tone for an emphatic start to an action-packed summit of payment innovation, retail banking innovation and was much more aligned with Implementing Artificial Intelligence & Data Analytics in Customer Insights and Adoption of Blockchain Technology.

The summit also featured a CEO Influencer Panel which was the headline session of the entire event, moderated by Ronald Raffensperger of Huawei, which explored the topic of "Rejuvenating Customer Success Management" in the digital age. Panelists included Khevin Seebah (ICPS), Dr. Segun Aina (Africa Fintech Network), Joshua Ukute (National Association of Microfinance Banks) and Dayo Odulate-Ademola (Branch International) and Samuel Chukwunonso Eze (OurPass).

Throughout the event, attendees were treated to exclusive presentations on a range of pertinent topics, including "Transforming Payment Convenience with Omnichannel Payments" by Gilles Reant, "Using Intelligent Automation to Build Business Efficiency and Resiliency" by Ronald Raffensperger, and "Enhancing Cross-Border Payment Innovations Provide Frictionless & Secured Payments in Africa" by Nana Yaw Owusu Banahene.

Nana Yaw Owusu Banahene at his presentation said that Finding a partner that either can provide or help you build a streamlined cross-border payments system is one of the most impactful steps African banks, fintechs, and businesses can be focused on at this moment. The AfCFTA is driving interest in intra-Africa and global Africa trade, which has only heightened the demand for more payment rails and frictionless currency exchange. It will only become more important next year, and for our part, AZA Finance is fully focused on helping banks and financial institutions address this demand.

Day 2 commenced with Chairmans Welcoming Remarks by Dr. Babatunde O. Obrimah, Chief Operating Officer at Fintech Association of Nigeria followed by Digital Leaders Panel discussing "Achieving Financial Inclusion with an Effective Data Management Game-Plan." The panel, moderated by Tolulope Omoleye-Osindero from Branch International, featured prominent panelists such as Ronald Raffensperger (Huawei), Lovelyn Iruayenama (Lotus Bank Ltd), Bill Yeboah Kyeremeh (Consolidated Bank Ghana), and Peter Daniels (Polaris Bank Limited).

Exclusive presentations on Day 2 included "Mic-Drop: Banks must deliver on Digital Experiences" by Christine Durant (ICPS), "Impact of AI on Digital Transformation" by Ronald Raffensperger, and "Behavioral Biometrics" by Mathias Schollmeyer (LexisNexis Risk Solutions).

Kevin Sheeba, CEO at ICPS believes that The West Africa region is embracing digital solutions and payment technologies with great enthusiasm. We're witnessing a paradigm shift towards cashless transactions, driven by the convenience and efficiency offered by these technologies. Furthermore, he trusts that International networks have recognized this and are encouraging projects related to tokenization that come as a bridge between traditional payments and mobile payments.

The summit concluded with a Closing Panel on "How has Blockchain Technology driven Innovation in the Fintech Sector?" featuring Mathias Schollmeyer (LexisNexis Risk Solutions), Ibukunoluwa Ayodeji (Titan Trust Bank), and moderated by Adedipe Oluwafemi (StreetCred | Raha).

The grand finale of the event was the Africa Bank 4.0 Awards (West Africa), which recognized and celebrated the outstanding achievements of various organizations, associations, and service providers in the field of financial services. The award ceremony served as a benchmark for inspiring other organizations and startups to reach their own goals.

The outstanding contributions of two remarkable institutions to the African fintech fraternity were recognized by presenting mementos to Dr. Segun Aina, the President of the Africa Fintech Network, and Dr. Babatunde Obrimah, the COO of the Fintech Association of Nigeria, for their exceptional dedication and vision in advancing the fintech landscape across the continent.

The memento was presented by none other than Mr. Khevin Seebah from ICPS.

The esteemed award winners of the Africa Bank 4.0 Awards  West Africa 2023 are:

Most Innovative Fraud Prevention and Detection Solution of the Year - LexisNexis ThreatMetrix

- LexisNexis ThreatMetrix Best Digital Lending Platform of the Year - Branch International

- Branch International Most Inspiring Microfinance Leader in West Africa - Pawel Wodz

- Pawel Wodz Most Inspiring Payments Business Leader in West Africa - Archie Hesse

- Archie Hesse Most Inspiring Microfinance Leader in Anglophone  Joshua Lucky Ukute

 Joshua Lucky Ukute Emerging Business Leader in West Africa - Retail Banking  Babafemi Oluyemi

 Babafemi Oluyemi Payment Innovator of the Year (West Africa)  Dr. Stanley Jacob

 Dr. Stanley Jacob Most Inspiring Digital Leader in Francophone - Dr. Dahoud Mouhamdy

- Dr. Dahoud Mouhamdy Best CDO of the Year (Nigeria)  Bipul Deka

 Bipul Deka Best CIO of the Year (Nigeria) - Omololu Ajayi

- Omololu Ajayi Best CTO of the Year (Nigeria) - Myke Oluwatosin Koledoye

- Myke Oluwatosin Koledoye Best Retail Banker of the Year (Anglophone) - Etuokwu Victor

- Etuokwu Victor Best CIO of the Year (West Africa) - Lanre Bamisebi

- Lanre Bamisebi Best CTO of the Year (West Africa) - Adewale I. Salami

- Adewale I. Salami Best CDO of the Year (West Africa) - Adeyemi Joel AFFOYON

- Adeyemi Joel AFFOYON Best COO of the Year (West Africa) - Dr. Tomisin Fashina

- Dr. Tomisin Fashina Best CEO of the Year (West Africa) - Dayo Odulate-Ademola

The 13th Africa Bank 4.0 Summit - West Africa was an exceptional gathering of industry leaders and visionaries, fostering insightful discussions and celebrating innovation and excellence in the financial services sector.
Maruti Suzuki's parent Suzuki Motor Corporation plans to make India its global electric car manufacturing hub, with the first batch of vehicles expected to be rolled out as early as 2025. Suzuki will start producing electric vehicles at the Gujarat plant and export them to Japan as well. The company will also consider supplying India-made EVs to partners Toyota Motor for European markets that would be sold under the Toyota brand, the report published in Japan's Nikkei newspaper.

Nikkei said Suzuki will set up a new production line for electric cars at the Gujarat plant which also produces petrol cars. The battery-powered cars that Suzuki plans to export to Japan would be small SUVs priced around 3 to 4 million yen ($20,043), Nikkei said. At present, Maruti Suzuki is lagging behind rivals such as Tata Motors, which is currently the market leader in EVs and has confirmed that it will have 10 EVs in its line-up by 2026. In contrast, Maruti has no pure electric vehicle in its portfolio. Maruti arch competitor Hyundai has also committed to launching six EVs by 2028.

However, Maruti Suzuki said earlier that it intends to launch six EVs by 2031, but there was concern among shareholders that other firms may outpace Marutis EV rollout. The company has also earlier announced it will invest around 150 billion yen (about Rs 10,445 crore) by 2026 for local manufacturing of EVs and the batteries required for them, in the Gujarat factory.
Google owned YouTube announced new ways to help viewers dive deeper into the latest news stories and support journalists in creating dynamic news content. The platform said it is introducing an immersive watch page experience for news stories on YouTube. The news watch page will pull together content from authoritative sources across video on demand, live streams, podcasts, and Shorts, allowing viewers to dive deep and explore multiple sources and angles.

All on one watch page, people will be able to find relevant long-form video, live coverage, and Shorts to quickly catch up, the company said in a statement. This feature is rolling out over time for mobile users in approximately 40 countries, with desktop and living room integration to come. YouTube said it is also launching the Shorts Innovation Programme for News an initiative to strengthen news organizations short-form video capabilities through financial grants and specialist support.
Greaves Electric Mobility (previously Ampere Electric Vehicles) has proposed to reimburse the subsidy it received under the 10,000 crore Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME India) scheme, based on to a top government official. Greaves is one of seven electric two-wheelers (e2w) manufacturers accused by the government of selling vehicles that are below the localization mandate. The company has offered to reimburse around 124.91 crore, making it the second such corporation to agree to refund the subsidies.

The government provided 450 crore recovery notices to seven firms, Hero Electric, Okinawa Autotech, Ampere EV, Revolt Motors, Benling India, Lohia Auto, and AMO Mobility, for failing to meet local sourcing requirements required by FAME India to claim incentives. These businesses were also forbidden from filing future claims under the scheme. Greaves has the greatest payables of any of these businesses. Okinawa and Hero are second and third on this list, with debts totaling more than 100 crore each.

"We are working with the government to better understand their concern, and in relation to the same, we have filed a detailed representation", Greaves Electric Mobility's Chief Executive Officer, Sanjay Behl,In August, RattanIndia-owned EV manufacturer Revolt Intellicorp paid the Centre 50.02 crores as a penalty for breaking the criteria of the FAME subsidy program, which aimed to boost local manufacturing and EV uptake. The FAME subsidy plan was pushed in order to increase EV adoption, and it has been successful in increasing the sale of cleaner fuel two-wheelers in the country. One important purpose is to encourage the production of these vehicles in the country. However, charges of non-compliance with localization standards have limited the scheme's success.

Ola Electric, Ather Energy, TVS Motor Company, and Hero MotoCorp, another set of companies that have violated FAME guidelines, have been resolving their differences with the Ministry of Heavy Industries. These companies were accused of underpricing their pricey vehicles in order to qualify for subsidies. These four have deposited a total of 129.30 crore with IFCI Ltd, a state-run non-banking financial business, in order to pass on non-existent amounts to consumers.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- If you want to binge, youre going to have to shell out a few more bucks. Netflix recently announced it will raise prices for its streaming services, and the hike goes into effect immediately.

As we deliver more value to our members, we occasionally ask them to pay a bit more, Netflix said in an earnings letter to its shareholders, which was published by USA Today. Our starting price is extremely competitive with other streamers and at $6.99 per month in the U.S., for example, its much less than the average price of a single movie ticket.

Netflix said its Basic and Premium plans will now cost $11.99 and $22.99, respectively, up from the prior $9.99 and $19.99 price points. Netflixs $6.99 ad-supported plan and $15.49 Standard plan will remain the same price.

The streaming giant is following the lead of other services: Disney+, Hulu and Peacock have also announced price increases in recent months.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  A former professional boxer charged in the murder of his daughter wanted to say something in court Wednesday as his 2019 case approaches jury trial.

Kabary Salem, 55, once dubbed the Egyptian magician, was arrested in 2020 in Kuwait and extradited to the U.S. approximately one year after the body of his 25-year-old daughter, Ola Salem, was found by a passerby in Bloomingdale Park.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Authorities allege that a 22-year-old man used a bottle to hit a rider on a MTA bus and then resisted arrest in New Springville.

Quahiem Fleming of Arlington Avenue in Mariners Harbor was arrested for the alleged attack on Oct. 1 at about 4:54 p.m. in the 2600 block of Richmond Avenue, according to the criminal complaint and police.

The attack on the man, who was a stranger to Fleming, allegedly occurred on a S44/94 bus, according to a source with knowledge of the incident.

The criminal complaint alleges that Fleming repeatedly struck a man in the head with a glass bottle, causing injuries that included lacerations, bleeding, bruising, swelling and pain.

Authorities allege that Fleming ran from police and when they caught up with him, the 22-year-old suspect allegedly tensed his body and placed his arms inside his shirt in an effort to prevent officers from handcuffing him, according to the criminal complaint.

Fleming has been charged with assault, obstructing governmental administration, criminal possession of a weapon, resisting arrest and harassment, according to the criminal complaint.

The suspect has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He is free on bail set at $10,000/$5,000 cash and is due to appear in Criminal Court on Oct. 19, according to public records.

An attorney for the suspect did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

__

OTHER STATEN ISLAND NEWS:

>> Stabbing on Staten Island sparks large police response on Wednesday afternoon

>> Man sought for questioning in connection with reported burglary of mosque on Staten Island

>> Man, 31, accused of tossing drugs out car window after leading NYPD on chase on Staten Island

>> NYPD: 2 men arrested with alleged drugs in pre-dawn raid on Staten Island

>> NYPD: Death of girl, 17, on Staten Island being investigated as homicide
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Eden II Programs, a Staten Island based organization whose mission is to support people with autism throughout their lives, has been awarded two grants aimed at workforce development from two major funding sources based off Staten Island.

New York Community Trust and The Ira DeCamp Foundation have donated a total of $225,000 to improve the recruitment of Direct Support Professional (DSP) staff members and improve internal advancement opportunities for other job titles.

The aim: To prepare those seeking jobs and work with those with disabilities when confronted with employment opportunities.

Eden II Programs has built relationships with several recruiting partners to identify potential direct support staff, including New York Center for Interpersonal Development (NYCID), College of Staten Island (CSI), Central Family Life Center, and New York City Department of Education Pathways to Graduation.

Upon recruiting and qualifying staff interested in the open positions, Eden II will provide all program participants EBT cards, mentorship, a formalized onboarding process, laptops and other equipment, and on-the-job training, in addition to tuition assistance.

Upon successful completion of the training program, Eden II Programs has relationships with organizations also seeking staff, including the Jewish Community Center (JCC), Person Centered Care Services (PCCS), On Your Mark.

Eden II will jointly address the need to recruit and train staff in a staffing crisis that also offers recruited staff a choice of career paths with several different organizations.

William Myhre, director of Human Resources for Eden II Programs, said, Workforce Development is a challenge common to all employers. Here in Staten Island, the Eden II leadership has encouraged our team to jointly work with multiple employers to develop Workforce Development programs to benefit a wide range of employers and organizations dedicated to linking people with jobs.

These two grants now permit Eden II and our multiple employer partners and linking organizations to create a pipeline of job creation and training which had not existed before.

There is currently a shortage of direct care workers, particularly Direct Support Professionals and Qualified Intellectual Disabilities Professionals (QIDPs).

DSPs provide support and services to people with disabilities of all ages, including support related to employment.

QIDPs are responsible for integrating, coordinating, and monitoring care, and frequently possess another type of healthcare degree or certification.

Recruiting new talent from several community partners creates an opportunity to diversify the workforce and offer career ladder options for experienced employees to continue growing in the field of disabilities.

Joanne Gerenser, executive director of Eden II Programs, added, A lack of trained staff creates ongoing fluctuations in the quality of services while negatively impacting programs. Staffing consistency of trained, certified DSP and QIDP team members will dramatically reduce these challenges. Eden II offers training and ongoing support for our staff and they in turn impact and serve Staten Islands most vulnerable populations.

With the funding support from both New York Community Trust and the Ira DeCamp Foundation, Eden II will be able to implement the new Bridge to Employment program. The programs overall goal is to provide direct support jobs to individuals interested in career journeys and provide high quality care for people with disabilities.

The program offers four pathways to interested recruits:

 The first pathway of the program recruits recent GED graduates (ages 17-21) of the New York City Department of Educations Pathways to Graduation Program to become skilled DSPs, with transition support and placement to full time, in-demand careers.

 The second pathway recruits from the pool of recent graduates or incumbent Eden II employees who have completed their bachelors degree to move forward and become certified QIDPs.

 The third pathway recruits displaced students from their bachelors program at our educational partner, College of Staten Island (CSI), to return to school while working for Eden II in various care positions, such as DSPs.

 The final pathway targets incumbent Eden II employees to pursue a masters degree in health sciences from another education partner, State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook. These participants would continue to work for Eden II in return for tuition reimbursement and other support.

Teresa Cirelli, director of development for Eden II Programs, also expressed her appreciation for New York Community Trust and the Ira DeCamp Foundation. Were so proud to work with both foundations to begin our collaborative Bridge to Employment program in Staten Island. Not only will our agency benefit, but well be working with several nonprofit organizations to really tackle the staffing crisis throughout the borough. Were thankful that both Foundations prioritized their support for Staten Island to help bolster workforce development.

ABOUT EDEN II PROGRAMS

Established in 1976, Eden II Programs began with just six students and one special education teacher. Today, the organization serves nearly 500 participants throughout the five boroughs and more than 100 participants on Long Island.

The mission of Eden II Programs is to support people with autism throughout their lives to achieve their full potential through service, science and passion. Eden II Programs provides a variety of services using the evidence-based principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA) to treat the delays and challenges associated with autism.

To learn more about Eden II Programs visit their website at www.eden2.org or phone 718 816-1422 X1040.

ABOUT NEW YORK COMMUNITY TRUST

The New York Community Trust connects past, present, and future generous New Yorkers with vital nonprofits. The trust is a public charity and grant making foundation dedicated to improving the lives of residents of New York City, Long Island, and Westchester.

To learn more about New York Community Trust visit their website at www.nycommunitytrust.org.

ABOUT THE IRA DECAMP FOUNDATION

The DeCamp Foundation was established in 1970 by Elizabeth DeCamp McInery in memory of her late husband, Ira W. DeCamp. Over the past 20 years, the DeCamp Foundations grant making has supported a wide array of organizations within three major program areas: community-based health, workforce development and foster care. Grants exclusively support work in the New York metropolitan area.
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The future of one of the largest takeovers in Australian history, for energy giant Origin, is perched on a knife edge. The $18.7 billion offer from Brookfield and EIG looked generous last year, but today it looks a bit miserly.

The inescapable reality is that at this price, the transaction is doomed to fail. A large enough group of shareholders  one being Origins largest, AustralianSuper  has already publicised its verdict that Brookfield needs to show us the (more) money.

The Origin board needs to extract a higher bid price.

This group of investors has enough voting grunt to kill the deal at a special shareholder meeting next month. And the stock market has delivered its own judgement, having pushed up the Origin share price 40 cents beyond the offer price.

Thus, the independent experts report from Grant Samuel released on Thursday that deemed the offer price fair and reasonable was something of a sideshow.
Supermarket giant Woolworths faces another hurdle in getting a major investment in Ballarat pet goods business PETstock over the line as the competition watchdog runs the ruler over PETstocks previous acquisitions.

In December last year, Woolworths announced its intention to acquire a 55 per cent stake in Australias second-largest pet retailer in a deal worth $586 million. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been reviewing the competition impacts of the proposal since January.

Shane Young (pictured in 2010) founded PETstock with his brother more than 30 years ago. Credit: James Davies

During the current Woolworths, PETstock merger review, market participants expressed concerns about the already significant consolidation that had occurred within specialty pet retail in recent years, said ACCC commissioner Stephen Ridgeway.

The ACCC said on Thursday that it was now seeking public feedback on an offer by PETstock to divest stores across some of the pet supplies businesses it owns, with the watchdog noting it only learnt of these acquisitions during its review of the Woolworths deal.
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Review Eating outCanberra This new award-winning restaurant is one of the most exciting places to eat in Australia, right now A new generation of talent is transforming Canberra into one of the most exciting cities to eat in Australia. (Yes, I just used exciting and Canberra in the same sentence.) Callan Boys October 20, 2023 Save Log in , register or subscribe to save recipes for later. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share

This story is part of the Good Weekend October 21 edition. See all stories .

1 / 7 The smart-casual bistro menu is crammed with comforting flavours. Rohan Thomson 2 / 7 The eclectic dining room pops with terrazzo tiles, textured banquettes and local ceramics and artwork. Rohan Thomson 3 / 7 Fish in crazy water with mussels, herbs and semi-dried tomatoes. Rohan Thomson 4 / 7 Go-to dish: Duck on the crown with rhubarb and fish-sauce caramel. Rohan Thomson 5 / 7 The kaleidoscopic glass sculpture (right). Rohan Thomson 6 / 7 Prawn omelette with coriander and chilli crunch. Rohan Thomson 7 / 7 The mandarin three times dessert. Rohan Thomson Previous Slide Next Slide Good Food hat 15.5 / 20 How we score Contemporary$$$ Canberra, youve done it again. For the past few years, the city has been home to my favourite place to drink cocktails, the slightly grungy and quietly glamorous Bar Rochford. It has the most delicious sandwich Ive eaten in recent memory (the smoked ham and almond pesto number at Sandoochie) and the nations greatest cinnamon bun at Under Bakery in Mawson. Now Such and Such is pitching for new restaurant of the year. Partners Dash Rumble and Ross McQuinn opened the smart-casual bistro with chef Malcolm Hanslow in February, opposite the Legislative Plaza in the middle of the city. The dining room pops with terrazzo tiles, a nubby-textured, boucle-fabric banquette, local ceramics, art by young Australian artists and a hand-blown glass sculpture that looks like a kaleidoscope crossed with a church organ. Its an infectiously cheerful spot. Nearby in leafy Ainslie, the trio also operates two-hatted Pilot. There, Hanslows menu zigzags with punchy ferments across a degustation that might include polenta congee dotted with bug meat, fried enoki, sweet corn and jalapeno. Such and Such is far more freewheeling with a vibe and menu sympathetic to civic workers who would just like a quick bowl of pasta on their lunch break.

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Such and Suchs cheerful interior. Rohan Thomson That pasta will likely be rigatoni with broccoli, chilli, anchovies and pistachio ($30), and its probably terrific, but Ive never ordered it and cant confirm. Ive eaten enough pasta this year to make a Sicilian blush. I have not, however, experienced anything like Hanslows bread smothered in garlic toum ($7). Flatbread dough is injected with sourdough starter to create something thats half-crumpet and half chewy Chinese scallion pancake. Its brilliant. Alongside head chef Nick Peterson, Hanslow has crafted a menu thats crammed with comforting flavours like this at every opportunity. Who wants to eat snapper crudo when its zero degrees outside? he says. Fair point. Well take the pierogi stuffed with braised oxtail, pulpy orange and confit ginger ($38) instead. Parmesan, potato matchsticks and a scarlet ragu made from sangria-marinated barbecued oxtail cover the dumplings. Its not exactly a light dish. Before the pierogis, there are fried school prawns and cashews ($18) coated in a Sri Lankan spice-mix of a slow-building heat that will likely have you reaching for the drinks list. What a fun-loving list it is, too, full of organic drops, independent producers, attractive cocktails, and snappy sub-headings, such as rock and rain for cool-climate reds of tension and drive.

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Restaurant manager Caitlin Baker is more than happy to offer tastes and recommendations. For the prawns, maybe a Dangerous Ales lager ($12). For a rich and powerful 500-gram dairy cow sirloin ($100), with mustard-forward sauce Robert, the elegant Dominio del Aguila 2020 Picaro Tinto ($110). A new generation of talent is transforming Canberra into one of the most exciting cities to eat in Australia. A dessert enticingly named mandarin three times ($20) translates to a light and tangy combination of cardamom ice-cream, mandarin marmalade, freeze-dried mandarin and mandarin oil. Beechworth Bitters gentle Orchard amaro ($15) is your friend on the side. Two dishes really stand out. First, flaky blue-eye trevalla perched in fish stock-based crazy water ($46) thats teeming with semi-dried tomatoes, mussels, soft herbs and white beans. The soup thumps with umami while keeping the individual flavour of each component in high definition. Go-to dish: Duck on the crown with rhubarb and fish-sauce caramel. Rohan Thomson

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The second is designed-to-share, dry-aged duck ($100) roasted on the crown and garnished with slow-cooked rhubarb. Its enhanced by a sticky, fish-sauce caramel mixed with duck jus and tastes like something Kylie Kwong might serve if she had trained at Le Cordon Bleu. The only blip is an under-seasoned omelette studded with fat Yamba prawns. I can deal: every kitchen has blips. What I cant say Ive ever experienced is a restaurant playlist featuring Eric Idles Beatles spoof band The Rutles rather than any actual Lennon-McCartney. Its this kind of snub of convention, plus the attention to detail, that makes me want to book another long lunch immediately. If youre visiting the bush capital for business, pleasure or Cockington Green, I can also recommend the terrific ramen at Canteen in Fyshwick; Kingstons Paris-channelling wine bar Onzieme; and the riveting Thai at Morks nearby. A new generation of talent is transforming Canberra into one of the most exciting cities to eat in Australia. Yes, I just used exciting and Canberra in the same sentence. It almost certainly wont be the last time. The low-down Vibe: Eclectic, forward-thinking bistro for all occasions Go-to dish: Duck on the crown with rhubarb and fish-sauce caramel ($100) Drinks: Approachable, versatile list with equal care given to wine, beer, cocktails, sake, spirits and amaro Cost: About $160 for two, excluding drinks

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Only 11 per cent of homeowners who applied for help after catastrophic flooding in northern NSW have received a guarantee their house will be bought by the government.

As the two-year anniversary of the disaster nears, data shows only 561 homes had been approved in the Tweed, Byron and Lismore council areas of northern NSW, from 5001 buyback applications.

Lismore was hit by two major floods at the start of 2022. Credit: Getty Images

In addition, no homes in the regions had been retrofitted or raised under a $700 million joint federal-state scheme.

The figures were obtained by the Greens through questions on notice in NSW parliament last month.

Loading

The beleaguered Resilient Homes Program was announced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and then-premier of NSW Dominic Perrottet in October 2022 following record-breaking floods in February that year.

Of the 2685 applications made in the Lismore council area for assistance under the program, 440 - or 16 per cent - had resulted in a buyback by the end of September.

About nine per cent of the 1339 applications made in the Tweed shire were approved, totalling 117 buybacks.

Four buybacks were approved in the Byron shire, less than one per cent of the 977 applications made.

AAP
Members of Sydneys Jewish community have gathered in Moore Park to plead for Australians not to forget the plight of Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas.

Supporters met on Thursday to launch the Set Them Free campaign, brandishing banners holding the names and faces of some the at least 199 people believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas terrorists.

Sydney resident Michal holds a photo of her nephew Yarden, his wife Shiri and sons Ariel and Yfir, who are among scores of Israeli citizens believed to be taken captive by Hamas militants. Credit: Nikki Short

Sydney resident Michal, who did not give her surname for security reasons, said her nephew Yarden Bibas, his wife Shiri, and their sons Ariel and Yfir were among those taken hostage.

She said she had not heard from her nephew since images were posted on social media appearing to show Hamas militants entering their family home in the southern Israeli kibbutz of Nir Oz, and urged Australians to stand with Israel, for the sake of our families.
The state body tasked with investigating the unexpected deaths of Victorians has been fined the maximum $380,000 penalty for failing to protect staff from a toxic workplace culture.

A magistrate said the offending  which led to the suicide of a Coroners Court of Victoria in-house lawyer  was so serious he would have given them a harsher penalty if he could.

Coroners Court staff attended the hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court. Credit: Justin McManus

The Coroners Court of Victoria was already on notice about the risk of suicide the workplace posed after a 2015 staff survey, and later numerous internal emails, revealed the extent of the bullying.

Magistrate Glenn Walsh, who was brought down from NSW to hear the case, said the lives of many employees had been put at risk by the failure of Court Services Victoria (CSV), which oversees the Coroners Court, to protect staff from harm.
A referendum is not only a test of courage and conviction but compromise as well. Albanese had two out of three. In the end, he and the Indigenous advocates for the Voice could not compromise with those who opposed them, even when the past century has shown that a referendum will fail without bipartisan support. They were mugged by history. The common refrain from the Voice campaign was that the proposal was a generous offer from Indigenous leaders, but this was deceptive language and voters saw through it. The proposal was not an offer  it was a request for significant change. Some of the campaigners acted, however, as if they had a magnetic power that would draw the Australian community to their cause. They had democratic politics totally confused. Voters were not going to come to them; they had to go to voters. Yes campaigners who turn on voters now will only spread doubts about whether their attitudes were flawed from the start. Some want to blame voters for being too dumb to understand the constitution, or too gullible to see through the No campaign lies, or too racist to support help for First Australians. It is a fatal mistake in any reaction to a public vote. As readers of these pages pointed out in feedback throughout the campaign, many voters just did not like the model. They did not oppose help for Indigenous Australians, but they did not want to put the Voice in the Constitution.

The defence mounted by Labor is that the government was led by what First Nations people have asked us to do and would continue to take that approach. This is tricky language and voters know it. The government was led by what some First Nations people requested. Not all. Some. As the referendum went on, it became clear that the alliance for the Voice was too narrow. Loading The strongest believers in the Voice explain this away by presenting their main opponents, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine, as pawns of white power. This is unfair and would not be accepted if said of a Yes campaigner. The Indigenous divide on the Voice was a hard fact  and reported in these pages by Lisa Visentin from Moree and Chip Le Grand from Wilcannia. Another hard fact is that the No campaign was powered by conservatives backed by elite money to defeat a progressive cause  something we have made clear  but that does not nullify the rise of Price and Mundine as voices in their own right. It is true that Dutton was a wrecker on the Voice  he did not want it, so he destroyed it. It is also true that the Coalition gained 7 million votes on a two-party basis at the last election and made him their leader. He was and is the leader of a political movement that cannot be ignored.

Loading The lesson from the Voice is not that a Yes vote is impossible  it is that a Yes vote is only possible for leaders who compromise more than they would like. This is true for Indigenous leaders as much as party leaders. As late as June this year, there was a pathway to success for recognition without the Voice, something Dutton says he supports. There was also a more challenging pathway to recognition with a legislated Voice, peeling Liberals away from Dutton. Australia might have gained a lasting outcome, albeit smaller than some wanted. Instead, all it gets is a lasting argument. Dutton bears the blame for silencing the Voice, an idea that threatened nobody and could have helped many. It is a fiction, however, to claim that he was engaged in politics and everyone else was above it. The debate was about whether Indigenous people would gain a say in federal decisions  in other words, a collective vote on their power. That made it a political exercise from the start. The tragedy is that the outcome reinforces their powerlessness. The fact that a compromise was so unthinkable for so many leads to the dismal conclusion that modern politics is too entrenched in rival camps to be capable of positive change. Many of the Australians who turned out to vote could be forgiven for turning their exasperated faces toward Canberra and asking: if you could not agree, why on earth did you waste our time?
Brussels: G7 countries will this week discuss four plans to ban Russian diamonds from their markets, laying bare differences that explain why a ban has been so difficult to agree for more than a year.

The four proposals were prepared by Belgium, India, a French jewellery industry group and the World Diamond Council and will be discussed at a technical meeting of representatives from the Group of Seven on Thursday, officials close to the talks said.

A cut diamond in a quality control unit at the Antwerp World Diamond Centre in Antwerp, Belgium. G7 nations want to curb the import of Russian stones. Credit: Bloomberg

A G7 ban would hit Russian diamond exports badly because the countries  United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy and France  account for 70 per cent of global diamond demand.

But it would also hit supply because Russia is the worlds biggest producer of rough diamonds, accounting for 30 per cent of them.
Dubai: US President Joe Biden used his eight-hour visit to Tel Aviv to broker a deal between Israel and Egypt to allow 20 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza as early as Friday. At the same time, he backed intelligence blaming a Palestinian group for a devastating hospital blast.

His visit was followed by that of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who welcomed the opening of the humanitarian corridor into Gaza and vowed to stand by Israel in its darkest hour.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrives at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on Thursday. Credit: AP

We absolutely support Israels right to defend itself in line with international law, to go after Hamas, to take back hostages, Sunak said in remarks alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. From Israel, he planned to fly to Saudi Arabia for crisis talks.

Outrage over the Tuesday explosion that claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians has reverberated around the globe, including in Australia where Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic accused Israel of collectively punishing Palestinians in its war on Hamas.
PHILIPSBURG:--- A concerning incident has come to light as a young adult 22 years old is currently held in a police cell for over 30 days due to the overcrowded Pointe Blanche Prison, raising serious concerns about potential human rights violations under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This situation underscores the immediate need for the Ministry of Justice to devise a comprehensive solution to address the issue of prisons being overcrowded, including the implementation of alternative punishments.

Officially, the guideline stipulates that an inmate should only be incarcerated for a maximum of 10 days in a police cell. The detention of young adults in police cells beyond this period due to prison overcrowding is a clear infringement upon their rights and a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment. It is imperative that individuals of all ages are treated with dignity and respect.

Furthermore, it is essential to recognize that "if you do the crime, you should do the time," but under the correct circumstances. In this case, the individual in question is an asthma patient, and the conditions in the police cells are far from the best, exacerbating the risk to their health.

Additionally, we want to highlight that despite these alarming conditions, the prosecution office and the Ministry of Justice have yet to transport the young adult to a more suitable facility. Immediate action must be taken to rectify this situation and ensure the well-being and rights of the individual are upheld.

This case highlights the pressing necessity for the Ministry of Justice to take immediate action to alleviate the crisis of the overcrowded prison. The Ministry should develop and implement measures to address overcrowding, including the exploration of alternative punishment options, such as ankle bracelet monitoring, house arrest, and mandatory police reporting, especially for (young) individuals with special medical conditions.

We call upon the Ministry of Justice and the prosecution office to uphold the principles of justice and human rights by taking swift steps to resolve this crisis and ensuring that all citizens, including young adults with specific medical needs, are not subjected to such conditions.

The Ministry is urged to explore more viable alternatives to incarceration, particularly for individuals with medical conditions, to relieve the overcrowding situation, maintaining both justice and human rights.
PHILIPSBURG:--- 42 professionals were trained in Child Safety Planning to help equip them to support and guide children and families confronted with unsafe situations. Those invited included social workers, psychologists, school counselors, the Court of Guardianship (CoG) staff, and other stakeholders who often act as first responders in suspected cases of child abuse.

The training was held by the Ministry of Justice, in collaboration with UNICEF in the Netherlands, as part of the Child Resilience and Protection Project. The main goal of the Child Safety Planning Training was to provide clear guidelines to professionals on the steps to be taken to identify, report, and follow up on suspected child abuse and neglect cases.

The CoG is the central reporting centre on child abuse (CMK, Centraal Meldpunt Kindermishandeling) on the island. This means that all reports of possible abuse, however minor, should be shared with the CoG so that this can be filed and assessed, and action can be taken if needed.

However, Kimberly Dort-Brown, Head of the Court of Guardianship, notes: It is important to realize that all professionals working with minors play a vital role in identifying and responding to suspicions of child abuse. This means that, for example, if a teacher has concerns about the safety and well-being of a child, this should first be discussed internally with the care team of the school. The social worker can talk with the parents, find out what is taking place, and work with the parents to address concerns.



When all possibilities within the school system have been exhausted, the social worker (care team) can report to CoG. The main goal of safety planning is to create a safe (parenting) situation for the child, where it is clear what concrete behavior is needed from the child, parents, and their network to keep the child safe. The partnership is an important element in safety planning. During the training, professionals were trained on how to identify the risk factors and strengths of the family and make a plan with the family that includes safety goals, resulting in agreements that all those involved take responsibility for.



This activity is part of the Child Resilience and Projection Project (CRPP), executed by the Government of Sint Maarten, and funded by the Government of the Netherlands through the Sint Maarten Trust Fund managed by the World Bank.
PHILIPSBURG:--- On October 23, 2023, the Parliament of Sint Maarten is scheduled to host a Contactplan Presidium meeting between delegations of the Parliaments of Aruba, Curacao, Sint Maarten, and Suriname.

The Contactplan is a parliamentary platform of the Parliaments of Aruba, Curacao, Sint Maarten, and the National Assembly of Suriname to discuss topics of mutual interest. The last Contactplan consultations were held in February 2019 in Suriname and has not taken place since. For that reason, the countries deemed it necessary to meet on a Presidium level to chart the way forward as it regards the Contactplan consultations.

The Presidium meeting, which consists of the Chairperson of the Parliaments and the chairpersons of the Committees for (Kingdom Relations) and International Affairs, will meet to discuss, amongst other topics, the following Contactplan consultation.

Following the Contactplan Presidium meeting, delegations from the Parliaments of Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten will meet on Tuesday, October 24, 2023, for a Tripartite meeting. The goal of this meeting is for parliamentarians of the three Dutch Caribbean Countries to discuss topics of mutual interest. During the Tripartite of February 2023 in Curacao, the delegations agreed to increase the frequency of the Tripartite consultations and that the second extra yearly consultation will take place in the month of October and will be organized by Sint Maarten this time around.

Amongst the topics to be discussed are; air traffic between the islands, the use of consensus Kingdom Laws, the Dispute Regulation, health care, tax systems, and the alleviation of poverty.

Though the discussions will take place in a closed setting, the opening addresses by the Chairpersons of the Parliaments of Sint Maarten, Aruba and Curacao scheduled for Tuesday, October 24, 2023, at 9.00 hrs. will be open to the media. A press conference is also scheduled for Tuesday at 17.00 hrs.
Lithium remains one of the most exciting markets for investors

Those who position themselves in the lithium market today could be tomorrow\-s winners.

Over the past few days up to October 19, the shares of the Australian lithium company Liontown have lost 20 percent in value. Although the share was officially suspended from trading, prices were quoted, for example, OTC (over the counter, i.e. outside the official stock exchanges). Why would something like that be good for the overall lithium market? The price drop came about because one of the largest lithium producers on earth, Albemarle, backed out of a takeover attempt. But this was hardly because Liontown\-s deposits are not good enough.

A rival came onto the scene that had bought into Liontown through the market, Hancock Prospecting. This group is part of the empire of Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, which also includes the Fortescue iron ore group. Hancock had recently increased its stake in Liontown to 19.9 percent.

Officials shared Albemarle\-s comments, \Today\-s announcement is consistent with Albemarle\-s disciplined approach to capital allocation and the company will continue to execute on its long-term growth strategy. Planned expansions to achieve volumetric growth continue to progress across the company\-s global portfolio. Albemarle\-s capital allocation priorities continue to be investing in high-yield organic and inorganic growth, maintaining its financial flexibility and investment-grade credit rating, and funding its dividends.\ That should mean the lithium market remains hot.

The big corporations, as well as automakers, are desperate for good projects. A flood of takeovers is likely to result. To fend them off, mergers are also expected to form more powerful groups in the lithium sector. In the medium term, this should pull up the share prices of companies with lithium projects. In the case of acute takeover bids, they may even jump. Therefore, those who position themselves early in promising lithium companies are likely to profit even without a direct buyout offer. These promising companies include, for example, Alpha Lithium and US Critical Metals.

Alpha Lithium  https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/alpha-lithium-corp/  is developing the Salars Tolillar and Hombre Muerto in Argentina, two high-grade lithium deposits.

In Nevada (Clayton Valley and McDermitt Caldera), Idaho and Montana, US Critical Metals  https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/us-critical-metals-corp/  is taking care of its projects. These contain lithium, rare earths and cobalt.

Current corporate information and press releases from Alpha Lithium (- https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/companies/alpha-lithium-corp/ -) and US Critical Metals (- https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/companies/us-critical-metals-corp/ -).

In accordance with A34 WpHG I would like to point out that partners, authors and employees may hold shares in the respective companies addressed and thus a possible conflict of interest exists. No guarantee for the translation into English. Only the German version of this news is valid.

Disclaimer: The information provided does not represent any form of recommendation or advice. Express reference is made to the risks in securities trading. No liability can be accepted for any damage arising from the use of this blog. I would like to point out that shares and especially warrant investments are always associated with risk. The total loss of the invested capital cannot be excluded. All information and sources are carefully researched. However, no guarantee is given for the correctness of all contents. Despite the greatest care, I expressly reserve the right to make errors, especially with regard to figures and prices. The information contained herein is taken from sources believed to be reliable, but in no way claims to be accurate or complete. Due to court decisions, the contents of linked external sites are also co-responsible (e.g. Landgericht Hamburg, in the decision of 12.05.1998  312 O 85/98), as long as there is no explicit dissociation from them. Despite careful control of the content, I do not assume liability for the content of linked external pages. The respective operators are exclusively responsible for their content. The disclaimer of Swiss Resource Capital AG also applies: https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/disclaimer/
Revolutionizing Tourism with Web3: A Landmark Partnership Between Camino Network, DCM Swiss, 1World Online, and Web3-Solutions

ZUG, SWITZERLAND, Oct 18, 2023  (ACN Newswire)  In an unprecedented-opportunity-driven move, four innovative companies in the travel and marketing sectors  Camino Network, initiated by Chain4Travel, DCM Swiss, 1World Online, and Web3-Solutions  have come together to announce a landmark partnership.

This alliance aims to harness cutting-edge technologies in reshaping the future of travel and tourism experiences and bringing new monetization options and benefits to all ecosystem participants.

We are happy to announce that:

DCM Swiss and 1World Online are becoming Validators at Camino Network.

Web3-Solutions becomes a Regional Partner of DCM: A regional partnership agreement has been signed between DCM Swiss and Web3-Solutions to start the rollout of Web3 Tours services across Austrian cities.

Technological Partnership: The parties have aligned their roadmaps for product technologies to offer groundbreaking experiences for consumers and businesses.

\Adding two stellar companies like DCM and 1World to our network is a thrilling development for us. They\-re at the forefront of innovation and are bringing a proven working combination of Web2 and Web3 experiences to the Travel sector that is so much needed for a true mass adoption\ said Pablo Costillo, Co-Founder and CTO of Camino Network.

\The use of DCM marketplace hosted content for Web3 Experiences brings a plethora of advantages to our regional clientele. It\-s exhilarating to be part of such a transformative move.\ said Julia Zolotarenko, DCM Swiss\-s Founder and CEO.

\After a decade of working on global markets, enabling engagement and native advertising, we see a truly exciting business opportunity to leverage our technologies in delivering travel content via our decentralized network, and reach out to wide audiences with Web3 offers. It\-s a privilege to collaborate in this venture.\ said Alex Fedosseev, Founder and CEO of 1World Online.

\Having an innovation-driven set of products at our disposal is becoming a game-changer for Austria\-s digital transformation and tourism industry in particular. We couldn\-t be more pleased.\ said Martin Arnsteiner, Co-Founder and CEO of Web3-Solutions.

This partnership stands poised to redefine the landscape of global and regional tourism by introducing new paradigms for customer engagement, operational efficiency, and business growth. The unique integration of blockchain, AI, and Web3 technologies ushers in a new, transformative era for the travel and tourism industry.

About

Camino Network, initiated by Chain4Travel technology, stands as a leader in blockchain technology for the travel industry. Driven by the Camino token, it offers a multi-faceted network that elevates existing business models and invents novel travel products.

DCM Swiss is a vanguard in technology, specializing in immersive Web3 experiences, from city tours to cruises. Utilizing a blend of artificial intelligence and human intelligence, their platform offers engaging and tailored content.

1World Online is an industry disruptor, focusing on the creation and streamlined delivery of innovative promotional, educational, and travel-related content to its decentralized global network of publishers.

Web3-Solutions is a regional partner focusing on digitizing tourism and related business sectors in Austria.

Contacts:

Chain4Travel:

Vincent Usbeck, VP Sales & Marketing

vincent.usbeck@chain4travel.com

+49 173 362 24 50

DCM Swiss:

Yuliia Zolotarenko, CEO

julia@dcm-swiss.com

+41 79 799 8205

1World Online:

Alex Fedosseev, CEO

alex@1worldonline.com

+1 408 717-0470

Web3-Solutions:

Margarita Slootweg, Co-founder

info@web3-tourismus.at

+43 678 781-0323
IsoEnergy announces closing of $36.6 million private placement of Subscription Receipts

IsoEnergy Ltd. (aIsoEnergya or the aCompanya) (TSXV: ISO; OTCQX: ISENF  https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/isoenergy-ltd/ ) is pleased to announce that it has completed its previously announced marketed private placement (the aOfferinga) of subscription receipts of the Company (the aSubscription Receiptsa). The Company issued 8,134,500 Subscription Receipts at a price of $4.50 per Subscription Receipt for aggregate gross proceeds to the Company of $36,605,250. The Offering was led by cornerstone investors NexGen Energy Ltd., Mega Uranium Ltd. and Energy Fuels Inc., with an upsizing of the Offering led by Sachem Cove Partners LLC, and which included the partial exercise of the Agenta?s option.

The Offering was conducted by a syndicate of agents co-led by Canaccord Genuity Corp., TD Securities Inc. and Eight Capital, and including Haywood Securities Inc., Red Cloud Securities, Cormark Securities Inc., Paradigm Capital, PI Financial Corp., Raymond James Ltd. and SCP Resource Finance LP (collectively, the aAgentsa).

Each Subscription Receipt will entitle the holder thereof to receive, for no additional consideration and without further action on part of the holder thereof, one common share of IsoEnergy, on or about the date that IsoEnergya?s previously announced share-for-share merger with Consolidated Uranium Inc. by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (Ontario) (the aArrangementa) is completed.

The net proceeds of the Offering will be used for the Arrangement, exploration and development of the Companya?s uranium assets, as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes. The net proceeds of the Offering will be held in escrow pending satisfaction of the escrow release conditions, including the satisfaction of the conditions to the closing of the Arrangement and certain other customary conditions.

Pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101  Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (aMI 61-101a), the Offering constitutes a arelated party transactiona as NexGen Energy Ltd. (aNexGena) has subscribed for Subscription Receipts. These transactions are exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101, as the fair market value of the Subscription Receipts subscribed for NexGen pursuant to the Offering does not exceed 25% of the Companya?s market capitalization.

In connection with the Offering, the Agents are entitled to a cash commission equal to 6.0% of the aggregate gross proceeds raised from the sale of Subscription Receipts (reduced to 3.0% or nil for subscriptions made by certain specified purchasers of Subscription Receipts, as agreed by the Agents and the Company). At closing of the Offering, the Agents received a cash commission of $293,257.13, representing 50% of the total cash commission payable. The balance of the Agentsa? cash commission shall be held in escrow pending satisfaction or waiver of the escrow release conditions and is payable upon satisfaction of such escrow release conditions.

The Subscription Receipts were offered by way of private placement pursuant to applicable exemptions from prospectus requirements in each of the provinces of Canada and in such other jurisdictions as may be mutually agreed between the Company and the Agents. The securities issued under the Offering are subject to a four month hold period under applicable Canadian securities laws.

The securities offered pursuant to the Offering have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the aU.S. Securities Acta) or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, United States persons absent registration or any applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws.

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 jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Qualified Person Statement

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release with respect to IsoEnergy was prepared by Dr Darryl Clark, P.Geo., IsoEnergy Vice President, Exploration, who is a aQualified Persona (as defined in NI 43-101 aA Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects). Dr Clark has verified the data disclosed. For additional information regarding the Companya?s Larocque East Project, including its quality assurance, quality control procedures and other details of the mineral resource estimate contained herein, please see the Technical Report dated effective July 8, 2022, on the Companya?s profile on SEDAR+ atA www.sedarplus.ca.

About IsoEnergy

IsoEnergy Ltd. (TSXV: ISO) (OTCQX: ISENF) is a well-funded uranium exploration and development company with a portfolio of prospective projects in the infrastructure-rich eastern Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2018, IsoEnergy discovered the high-grade Hurricane Deposit on its 100% owned Larocque East property in the eastern Athabasca Basin. The Hurricane Deposit has indicated mineral resources of 48.61 M lbs U3O8 based on 63,800 tonnes grading 34.5% U3O8 and inferred mineral resources of 2.66 M lbs U3O8 based on 54,300 tonnes grading 2.2% U3O8 (July 8, 2022). The Hurricane Deposit is 100% owned by IsoEnergy and is unencumbered from any royalties. IsoEnergy is led by a board and management team with a track record of success in uranium exploration, development, and operations. IsoEnergy was founded and is supported by the team at its major shareholder, NexGen Energy Ltd.

Tim Gabruch

Chief Executive Officer

IsoEnergy Ltd.

+1 306-261-6284

info@isoenergy.ca

www.isoenergy.ca

Investor Relations

Kin Communications

+1 604 684 6730

iso@kincommunications.com

In Europe:

Swiss Resource Capital AG

Jochen Staiger

info@resource-capital.ch

www.resource-capital.ch

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Information

The information contained herein contains aforward-looking statementsa within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and aforward-looking informationa within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. aForward-looking informationa includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including, without limitation, planned exploration activities. Generally, but not always, forward-looking information and statements can be identified by the use of words such as aplansa, aexpectsa, ais expecteda, abudgeta, ascheduleda, aestimatesa, aforecastsa, aintendsa, aanticipatesa, or abelievesa or the negative connotation thereof or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results amaya, acoulda, awoulda, amighta or awill be takena, aoccura or abe achieveda or the negative connotation thereof. These forward-looking statements or information may relate to the Offering, including, without limitation, statements with respect to the use of proceeds from the Offering; the closing of the Arrangement (including the receipt and timing of required regulatory, shareholder and court approvals, stock exchange (including the TSX Venture Exchange) and other approvals in respect thereof); and the conversion of the Subscription Receipts (and the related release of funds from the Offering from escrow to the Company).

Such forward-looking information and statements are based on numerous assumptions, including among others, that the results of planned exploration activities are as anticipated, the price of uranium, the anticipated cost of planned exploration activities, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms, that third party contractors, equipment and supplies and governmental and other approvals required to conduct the Companya?s planned exploration activities will be available on reasonable terms and in a timely manner. Although the assumptions made by the Company in providing forward-looking information or making forward-looking statements are considered reasonable by management at the time, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be accurate.

Forward-looking information and statements also involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual events or results in future periods to differ materially from any projections of future events or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking information or statements, including, among others: negative operating cash flow and dependence on third party financing, uncertainty of additional financing, no known mineral reserves or resources, the limited operating history of the Company, the influence of a large shareholder,A alternative sources of energy and uranium prices, aboriginal title and consultation issues, reliance on key management and other personnel, actual results of exploration activities being different than anticipated, changes in exploration programs based upon results, availability of third party contractors, availability of equipment and supplies, failure of equipment to operate as anticipated; accidents, effects of weather and other natural phenomena and other risks associated with the mineral exploration industry, environmental risks, changes in laws and regulations, community relations and delays in obtaining governmental or other approvals.

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information or implied by forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information.A The Company undertakes no obligation to update or reissue forward-looking information as a result of new information or events except as required by applicable securities laws.

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As the 10-day-old Israeli round-the-clock airstrikes continue to shatter thousands of lives in the Gaza Strip, and as hundreds of bodies of victims pile up on the streets and the rubble of destroyed homes, frantic survivors scramble to bury the dead in mass graves or under street pavements, or in empty lots donated by landlords.





For ten days, Israeli air fighters have continued bombing Gaza without respite, levelling entire neighbourhoods to the ground and demolishing hundreds of houses on top of their civilian residents.

Hospitals in Gaza suffer from an acute shortage of refrigerators as the number of bodies requiring refrigerated storage spaces increases dramatically.

Even the roads to the cemeteries have been destroyed due to the unrelenting bombing that has been deliberately targeting Gazas infrastructure.

At least 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.

Palestinian health officials said that they have resorted to storing the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombing in ice cream freezers as hospitals and cemeteries are falling short on space.



A Palestinian youth is stretchered away after being pulled out from under the rubble of a building following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, in the southern of Gaza Strip, on October 16, 2023.

The hospital morgue can only take 10 bodies, so we have brought in ice-cream freezers from the ice cream factories to store the huge numbers of martyrs, Dr. Yasser Ali of the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah told Reuters.

Ali noted that even with the makeshift mobile morgues, Gaza will soon run out of means to transport the bodies of the dead.

In its last report on Gaza and the West Bank, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) affirmed that there were no longer enough body bags for the dead in Gaza.

The agency also issued a statement affirming that 2,329 Palestinians were killed in the first nine days of Israeli bombardment -- an average of 259 per day, or 11 every hour -- and that the number of killed is rapidly increasing.

Meanwhile, the head of the Hamas media office, Salama Marouf, revealed that dozens of unidentified bodies were buried in a mass grave after they were killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.



Palestinian relatives wait to collect bodies wrapped in funeral shrouds with their names written for identification, at a hospital following Israeli military attacks on Rafah, in the southern of Gaza Strip on October 16, 2023.

Marouf said during a press conference that these graves had to be dug as more and more unidentified bodies accumulated in the past ten days of Israels severe aggression against the civilians in Gaza.

He added that Hamas prepared a mass grave in the emergency cemetery to bury the unidentified bodies, stressing that the Ministries of Health, Religious Endowments, and Forensic Medicine have taken all the legal measures per Islamic law.

Islamic tradition stipulates that upon death, Muslims should not delay the performance of the funeral prayer or the burial of the dead.

The head of Hamas's media office pointed out that the victims were photographed, and their distinctive signs were documented so families who might have missing persons could check on them later.

The Director General of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, Mohammed Abu Salima, told Sky News Arabia that the mortuary no longer has room to receive any new victims, given the large numbers that reach us daily in light of the continuous bombing.

Al-Shifa Medical Complex is the largest hospital in the densely populated strip, serving more than a million people inside Gaza.



Palestinians mourn over the bodies of the people killed in the Israeli bombing in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 16, 2023.

Abu Salima added: "The refrigerators for the dead are full, and there is no place to put the new martyrs, so their families bury them immediately.

Palestinians have been burying their continuously increasing number of casualties in ad hoc burial sites after it has become impossible to either reach the cemeteries or find enough plots to accommodate the ever-increasing number of bodies.

Israel has not contented itself with destroying the houses of civilians in Gaza but also cut off water, food, and electricity as part of collectively punishing Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

For ten days, the Palestinians in Gaza have remained without any means of survival, subjected to Israeli missiles that keep falling on Gaza round-the-clock, destroying hundreds of homes and leaving a million people without shelter.

A spokesperson for the interior ministry in Gaza stated that the situation has reached a critical point, with residents being compelled to consume unsafe water.

These dire conditions threaten to trigger a serious health crisis and put countless lives at risk, he said.

"The Gaza Strip is suffering from a very severe crisis in the availability of drinking water in light of the continued Israeli aggression," the spokesman emphasized, highlighting the urgent need for immediate intervention to address the escalating crisis.

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Quasars are the remarkably bright cores of active galaxies in the distant universe, they are an extreme form of what astronomers call "active galactic nuclei", or AGN for short.

An active galaxy is one in which the central supermassive black hole is consuming large amounts of matter. The infall of matter into the black hole is so great that all the material can't enter the black hole at the same time and so it forms a queue as a spiraling accretion disk.

The matter  in the form of huge clouds  falls into the disk, with the inner parts of the cloud closer to the black hole orbiting faster than the outer parts (just like planets closer to the sun orbit faster than those farther away). This creates a shear force that twists the clouds, causing them to bump into their neighbors as they move around the black hole at velocities ranging from 10% of the speed of light up to over 80% . This friction from fast-moving gas clouds generates heat, and the disk becomes so hot  millions of degrees  that it shines brightly.

Some of the material in the disk is also funneled away from the black hole in a highly luminous, magnetically collimated jet. The hot accretion disk and the jet combine to make the nucleus of the active galaxy shine so bright that it can be seen far across the universe.

Related: James Webb Space Telescope sees 1st starlight from ancient quasars in groundbreaking discovery

Quasar FAQs

Is a quasar just a black hole? Yes, a quasar is just a black hole, but not any black hole  it is a supermassive black hole that is growing rapidly by gorging on huge amounts of gas. It is this gas, in the form of a spiraling "accretion disk" around the black hole, that becomes very hot and emits all the light. The disk, along with the spin of the black hole and the magnetic fields entwined between the two, is the source of the jet that also gives quasars much of their brightness.

How are quasars formed? Quasars are formed when an event causes a huge amount of gas to pile onto the central supermassive black hole in a galaxy. Early in the history of the universe, this may have been streams of material flowing onto the galaxy via filaments in the cosmic web; later on, the gravitational tidal forces resulting from galaxy collisions and close encounters may have also caused some quasars to light up.

Has a quasar ever been seen? Yes! The closest, brightest quasar  called 3C 273  is even visible to amateur astronomers with at least an 8-inch telescope, or astro-imagers, as it shines at magnitude 12.9 in the constellation of Virgo. Quasars are so bright that they can be seen at vast distances across the universe; the most distant known quasar is seen as it appeared 13.13 billion years ago . The Hubble Space Telescope has also imaged the fainter host galaxies of quasars, so astronomers know for sure that quasars are the active cores of some galaxies.

How bright are quasars?

A selection of images from the Hubble Space Telescope showing bright quasars and, very faintly, their host galaxies. These quasars are all many billions of light years away. (Image credit: John Bahcall (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), Mike Disney (University of Wales)/NASA/ESA.)

To give some idea of the luminosity of a quasar, scientists at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London describe how the nearest quasar, 3C 272, has a luminosity of 2.5 x 1040 watts, equivalent to 25 trillion times the luminosity of our sun. Astronomers at Ohio State University put it another way, describing how quasars can shine between 10 and 100,000 times brighter than our entire Milky Way galaxy.

How large are quasars?

Despite their incredible luminosity, the power source of a quasar is relatively tiny compared to the host galaxy it resides in. Astronomers can watch a quasar's light fluctuate because since a quasar is quite small, light can cross from one side of the accretion disk to the other in a short period of time. For the smallest quasars, it can take light just a few days to cross from one side or another. In this case, this would equate to less than 1,000 astronomical units (an astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the sun, which is approximately 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers) in diameter. This would be the size of the black hole and its accretion disk. The more massive the black hole, the larger the accretion disk. The biggest might reach a couple of light-years in size.

This is a huge size in human terms, but compared to the size of a galaxy (our Milky Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years, which is about 588 quadrillion miles (946 quadrillion kilometers) in diameter a quasar is very small and yet still produces huge amounts of energy.

How do quasars form?

What causes large amounts of matter to head toward a supermassive black hole and "activate" it as a quasar?

One scenario is a galaxy merger. When two galaxies crash into one another, the disruption caused by their respective gravitational fields shifts the direction of motion of giant clouds of molecular gas in those galaxies, causing them to fall toward the black hole.

How, though, did quasars begin life in the early universe, when there seemingly hadn't been enough time to form supermassive black holes? According to physicists at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, the black holes got a head start. Supercomputer simulations show how, within just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, vast streams of cold gas were able to flow together forming a dynamically unstable cloud that collapsed under gravity to form primordial stars with tens of thousands of times the mass of the sun . If the model is correct, then these stars would have swiftly collapsed further, forming intermediate-mass black holes that acted as the seeds that grew into the supermassive black holes that power quasars.

How did quasars get their name?

Outflows from quasars come in the form of streams of ionized gas that heat the cold interstellar medium farther out in the galaxy and blows it away, often preventing it from forming stars. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/Joseph Olmsted (STScI))

Even though the AGN in a quasar is quite small, it shines brighter than the rest of its host galaxy. Because they are small, an AGN appears point-like from a distance. When quasars were first discovered in the early 1960s, they looked like stars at first glance because only the AGN was bright enough to be seen  the host galaxy of the quasars was too faint. As a result, the name "quasar" is a portmanteau of a "quasi-stellar" object.

Although they have similar-sounding names, quasars are not related to pulsars , which are spinning neutron stars.

How far away are quasars?

The Hubble Space Telescope's best image of 3C 273, which is the closest quasar to Earth at a distance of 2.3 billion light years. The quasar is so bright it completely outshines its host galaxy. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA)

The closest quasar is 2.3 billion light-years away. Many are seen when the universe was just three or four billion years old, in an era when galaxies were closer together, encounters and collisions were more frequent and there was a larger supply of gas to feed a black hole. Among the most distant quasars is one called J0313-1806 , which we see as it existed when the universe was just 670 million years old, which equates to 13.13 billion years ago.

Quasar feedback

All the radiation pouring out from a quasar can have dramatic effects on a quasar's host galaxy. Astronomers call this "feedback", and critical to the feedback effect are powerful outflows of ionized gas blown from the quasar by radiation winds that are akin to the solar wind , but many times more powerful.

The consequences of these outflows can often be contradictory . On the one hand, as they expand out into the host galaxy at large, they push molecular gas clouds together, triggering gigantic starbursts  periods of rapid star formation. On the other hand, the outflows can blow away the gas from the interstellar medium , either heating it enough that it becomes too energetic to collapse to form stars, or expelling it from the galaxy entirely, therefore starving star formation of its fuel. The effects of the outflows from quasars can have long-lasting consequences for the evolution of galaxies, often bringing their star-forming phase to a halt after a brief burst, sometimes for hundreds of millions of years, sometimes forever.

Are there other types of AGN?

There is an entire spectrum of AGN, emitting different amounts of energy. Quasars are near the extreme high end of this spectrum, but there are other types of AGN that are not quasars.

Consider that quasars are so bright because they are almost facing head-on to us. When they do face exactly head-on, and we are looking down the beam of their relativistic jet, we call them a blazar, because their jet appears much brighter and appears to be 'blazing'. One notable type of blazar is a "BL Lac" object, which is seen to vary dramatically in brightness and has a bland spectrum with few if any obvious spectral lines.

There are other types of AGN. Seyfert galaxies have an accretion disk but no bright jet and generally weaker activity than a quasar. They can be split into two different classes, which are the same type of object just seen at different angles. Seyfert Type I AGN are notable because they have two strong sets of spectral lines in their spectrum, broad and narrow, whereas Seyfert Type II AGN do not have strong broad emission lines. This is because we are seeing them from different angles: in Type I Seyferts, we are looking straight down onto the accretion disk, but in Type II we are looking more edge-on, where some of the emission is blocked by a thick torus of dust.

At the opposite extreme to quasars and blazars are LINERs, which stands for Low Ionization Nuclear Emission-line Regions. LINERS have weak AGN activity; some might not even have an accretion disk and therefore would not be true AGN.

All AGN can also divided into two camps  those that emit lots of radio waves (so-called "radio-loud galaxies") and those that do not. This division can be split across the same type of AGN  for example, some quasars are radio-loud such as 3C 273, which was first identified in the 1950s as the 273rd object in the Third Cambridge catalog of radio sources, while other quasars are radio-quiet.

Quasar expert Q&A

We spoke to Dr Vicky Fawcett of the University of Newcastle about her research studying the so-called red quasars , whose light has been reddened by cosmic dust and which also tend to have strong radio emissions.

Vicky Fawcett Research Associate Vicky Fawcett studies red quasars, whose light has been reddened by cosmic dust and which also tend to have strong radio emissions.

At what redshift do we tend to find quasars at, and where do the red quasars fit into this? We find quasars at all redshifts, although the peak quasar activity was around redshifts 2 to 3 (approximately two to three billion years after the Big Bang). We broadly expect red quasars to live alongside normal quasars, but if we do believe that red quasars are in a younger phase than blue quasars, then we might expect them to be more common, on average, in the early universe (i.e., at higher redshifts). However, there are statistical biases that come into play with red quasars, since the dust will make the light from the red quasars dimmer than a blue quasar with the same intrinsic brightness. Therefore, your observations will be biased towards brighter red quasars and so it is difficult to compare the two populations. In our work, we actually control for both the brightness and redshift of the quasars to make sure we do include these biases in our analyses.

Where does the dust that reddens the quasar light come from? The dust should initially have formed in stars. Where the dust that causes a quasar to be red is located generally depends on which model you believe. Some red quasar studies claim that the dust (what causes a quasar to be red) is due to a dusty torus-like structure that surrounds the accretion disk. In this model, a red and blue quasar are the same object which only differ depending on our line-of-sight: in a red quasar, our line-of-sight intercepts the dusty torus causing it to be red. Another model, which my results are in best agreement with, is the evolutionary model. This predicts that some event, such as a merger, funnels gas into the centre of the galaxy, causing a starburst phase and igniting a quasar. The quasar is initially obscured because of all the gas and dust surrounding the quasar (the red quasar phase), likely due to the starburst (although a large portion of dust could have come from interstellar space). Then, through outflows, the quasar blows away the surrounding dust, eventually revealing a blue, unobscured quasar.

Do we think our Milky Way was once a quasar? We think that quasars (and more generally, active galaxies) will eventually run out of fuel and become an 'inactive', typical galaxy. However, quasars are usually in massive galaxies which host massive black holes at their centre. The Milky Way has a relatively small black hole in its centre so would have been unable to produce an extremely bright quasar. Saying this, the Milky Way was likely "active" in the past due to remnant jets we can observe from the central black hole, although it would have been a much less powerful active galaxy than a quasar. Eventually (in ~2 billion years), the Milky Way will merge with our neighbouring spiral galaxy, Andromeda, and form a typical quasar, which will likely go through a red quasar phase."

Additional resources

See the selection of images of quasars and assorted AGN at the website of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Learn about the discovery of quasars in Caltech's '50 Years of Quasars' story and in this paper written by Ken Kellerman of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Bibliography

Dana Berry, NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, 'Black Hole Accretion Disc Energies', 2010, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10545/

G. Risaliti et al, 'A Rapidly Spinning Supermassive Black Hole at the Centre of NGC 1365', Nature, 27 February 2013, https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11938

Saibal Saha, Hunting for Exotic Galaxies: The Story of Quasars, Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL, 2012 https://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/~gbr/Project%20Website/styled-5/index.html

Barbara Rydon, 'Quasars', Ohio State University, February 2003, https://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/ryden.1/ast162_8/notes36.html#:~:text=Quasars%20have%20luminosities%20which%20lie,big%20galaxy%20like%20our%20own

'Introduction to Active Galaxies', The Open University, https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/introduction-active-galaxies/content-section-4.2

'Quasar Discovery Sets New Distance Record', National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 12 January 2021, https://public.nrao.edu/news/quasar-new-distance-record/

D. Michael Crenshaw, Steven B. Kraemer, Ian M. George, 'Mass Loss from the Nuclei of Active Galaxies', Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, June 2003, https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.astro.41.082801.100328

Jaejin Shin et al, 'Positive and Negative Feedback of AGN Outflows in NGC 5728', The Astrophysical Journal, 2019, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ab2e72
As an Earthling, it's easy to believe we're standing still. After all, we don't feel like we're hurtling through space. Yet we are.

So how fast exactly is Earth moving around the sun?

Some of the earliest astronomers in recorded history proposed that we live in a geocentric universe where Earth lies at the center of everything. According to them, the sun rotated around us, which caused sunrises and sunsets  the same for the movements of the moon and the planets. But even then, there were certain things that didn't exactly line up with these theories. For example, a planet would sometimes back up in the sky before resuming its forward motion.

We know now that this back-and-forth  which is called retrograde motion  happens when Earth is "catching up" with another planet in its orbit. For example, Mars orbits farther from the sun than Earth. So, at one point in the planets' respective orbits, Earth catches up to the Red Planet and passes it by. As we pass Mars by, it moves backward in the sky and then forward again after we have passed.

Related: How big is Earth?

Another reason that humans started to realize that we might not be the center of the universe came from looking at parallax, or apparent change in the position of the stars with respect to each other. For a simple example of parallax, hold up your index finger in front of your face at arm's length. Look at it with your left eye only, closing your right eye. Then close your right eye, and look at the finger with your left. The finger's apparent position changes. That's because your left and right eyes look at the finger with slightly different angles.

The same thing happens on Earth when we look at stars. It takes about 365 days for us to orbit the sun. If we look at a star (located relatively close to us) in the summer and look at it again in the winter, its apparent position in the sky changes because we are at different points in our orbit. We see the star from different vantage points. With a bit of simple calculation, using parallax we can also figure out the distance to that star.

How fast is Earth moving Q&A with an expert

We asked Simon Lock is a research fellow in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol who specializes in planetary science, astrophysics, geophysics, and geochemistry some questions about Earths motion through space.

Simon Lock Research fellow Simon Lock is a research fellow in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.

How fast is Earth's orbit around the sun? Earth orbits around the sun at a speed of 67,100 miles per hour (30 kilometers per second). That's the equivalent of traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town (or alternatively London to New York) in about 3 minutes.

Other than in its orbit, how else is Earth moving through space? As well as moving around the Sun, the Sun and Earth are orbiting around the dense center of our galaxy at some 447,000 miles per hour (200 km/s). Our galaxy, in turn, is moving relative to the other galaxies around us, and so all the mass in the universe is continuously dancing around.

How does its orbital speed compare to that of other solar system planets? How fast you need to move to keep in a circular orbit around another body is dictated by how far the two bodies are separated from each other. Planets closer to the Sun are orbiting faster than Earth, with Mercury traveling 1.6 times faster than Earth at 105,000mph(47.4km/s). At the other end of the spectrum is Neptune, which is traveling around the sun at only 18% of the speed of Earth at 12,200mph (5.4km/s).

How fast are we spinning?

Earth's spin is constant, but the speed depends on what latitude you are located at. Here's an example. The circumference (distance around the largest part of the Earth) is roughly 24,898 miles (40,070 kilometers), according to NASA. (This area is also called the equator.) If you estimate that a day is 24 hours long, you divide the circumference by the length of the day. This produces a speed at the equator of about 1,037 mph (1,670 km/h).

You won't be moving quite as fast at other latitudes, however. If we move halfway up the globe to 45 degrees in latitude (either north or south), you calculate the speed by using the cosine (a trigonometric function) of the latitude. A good scientific calculator should have a cosine function available if you don't know how to calculate it. The cosine of 45 is 0.707, so the spin speed at 45 degrees is roughly 0.707 x 1037 = 733 mph (1,180 km/h). That speed decreases more as you go farther north or south. By the time you get to the North or South poles, your spin is very slow indeed  it takes an entire day to spin in place.

Space agencies love to take advantage of Earth's spin. If they're sending humans to the International Space Station (ISS), for example, the preferred location to do so is close to the equator. That's why cargo missions to the International Space Station, for example, launch from Florida. By doing so and launching in the same direction as Earth's spin, rockets get a speed boost to help them fly into space.

How fast does Earth orbit the sun?

The raging fire of the sun is seen in great detail. Solar flares erupt from its surface and around its edges. (Image credit: Miguel Claro)

Earth's spin, of course, is not the only motion we have in space. Our orbital speed around the sun is about 67,000 mph (107,000 km/h), according to Cornell. We can calculate that with basic geometry.

First, we have to figure out how far Earth travels. Earth takes about 365 days to orbit the sun. The orbit is an ellipse, but to make the math simpler, let's say it's a circle. So, Earth's orbit is the circumference of a circle. The distance from Earth to the sun  called an astronomical unit is 92,955,807 miles (149,597,870 kilometers), according to the International Astronomers Union. That is the radius (r). The circumference of a circle is equal to 2 x  x r. So in one year, Earth travels about 584 million miles (940 million km).

Since speed is equal to the distance traveled over the time taken, Earth's speed is calculated by dividing 584 million miles (940 million km) by 365.25 days and dividing that result by 24 hours to get miles per hour or km per hour. So, Earth travels about 1.6 million miles (2.6 million km) a day, or 66,627 mph (107,226 km/h).

Related: How fast does light travel?

How do the sun and galaxy move?

The sun has an orbit of its own in the Milky Way. The sun is about 25,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy, and the Milky Way is at least 100,000 light-years across. We are thought to be about halfway out from the center, according to Stanford University. The sun and the solar system appear to be moving at 200 kilometers per second, or at an average speed of 448,000 mph (720,000 km/h). Even at this rapid speed, the solar system would take about 230 million years to travel all the way around the Milky Way.

The Milky Way, too, moves in space relative to other galaxies. In about 4 billion years, the Milky Way will collide with its nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. The two are rushing toward each other at about 70 miles per second (112 km per second).

Everything in the universe is, therefore, in motion.

What would happen if Earth stopped spinning?

There is no chance that you'll be flung off to space right now, because the Earth's gravity is so strong compared to its spinning motion. (This latter motion is called centripetal acceleration.) At its strongest point, which is at the equator, centripetal acceleration only counteracts Earth's gravity by about 0.3 percent. In other words, you don't even notice it, although you will weigh slightly less at the equator than at the poles.

NASA says the probability for Earth stopping its spin is "practically zero" for the next few billion years. Theoretically, however, if the Earth did stop moving suddenly, there would be an awful effect. The atmosphere would still be moving at the original speed of the Earth's rotation. This means that everything would be swept off of land, including people, buildings and even trees, topsoil and rocks, NASA added.

What if the process was more gradual? This is the more likely scenario over billions of years, NASA said, because the sun and the moon are tugging on Earth's spin. That would give plenty of time for humans, animals and plants to get used to the change. By the laws of physics, the slowest the Earth could slow its spin would be 1 rotation every 365 days. That situation is called "sun-synchronous" and would force one side of our planet to always face the sun, and the other side to permanently face away. By comparison: Earth's moon is already in an Earth-synchronous rotation where one side of the moon always faces us, and the other side opposite to us.

But back to the no-spin scenario for a second: There would be some other weird effects if the Earth stopped spinning completely, NASA said. For one, the magnetic field would presumably disappear because it is thought to be generated in part by a spin. We'd lose our colorful auroras, and the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth would probably disappear, too. Then Earth would be naked against the fury of the sun. Every time it sent a coronal mass ejection (charged particles) toward Earth, it would hit the surface and bathe everything in radiation. "This is a significant biohazard," NASA said.

Additional resources and reading

Bibliography

New Scientist, "How fast does Earth spin?" https://www.newscientist.com/question/fast-earth-spin/

NASA JPL, "How Fast Are You Moving When You Are Sitting Still?" 2007. https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/docs/HowFast.pdf
Senator Mark Villar Joins DTI on Price Monitoring and Quality Inspection Activity

As the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce, and Entrepreneurship, Senator Mark Villar joined one of DTI's regular price monitoring activities.

"Ngayon po ay sumama tayo sa DTI sa kanilang price at quality monitoring activity para makita kung ang mga produkto ay sumusunod sa Philippine Standards o PS Quality para sa mga locally-made na produkto at sa Import Commodity Clearance o ICC," Senator Mark said.

He joined Asec. Jean Pacheco, the Officer in Charge of DTI's Consumer Protection Group, and Neil Catajay, the Director of DTI Bureau of Philippine Standards, in inspecting the prices of construction materials, furniture, and fixtures. Some of the products they inspected are light fixtures, tiles, plywood, and appliances.

"Nakakatuwang makita na compliant ang ating mga merchants at retailers sa mga standards ng BPS (Bureau of Philippine Standards). Bukod po sa price monitoring at quality checking, atin pong nasubukan ang mga QR code na naka-attach sa price tag ng mga produkto na nagpapakita kung compliant ang mga ito sa standards," Senator Mark said.

Once scanned thru the app, these QR Code will reveal the technical details of the product which includes but are not limited to brand name, reference standard, and PS mark with license number (if applicable). Senator Mark also inspected whether the products have the PS or ICC sticker as part of BPS' compliance requirements.

"Lalo na ngayong malapit na ang holidays season, kailangan na consistent tayo sa pag-monitor ng presyo ng mga bilihin. Maliban sa mga home improvement equipment and fixtures, mahalaga rin po na ating i-monitor ang presyo ng mga pagkain at bulaklak para masigurado na patas ang presyo para sa ating mga mamimili," Senator Mark added.

Senator Mark, together with Asec. Jean, called for the public's help in reporting any merchant or vendor that is non-compliant with DTI's SRP and quality standards. For complaints, the general public can report to DTI Hotline 1384, to any social media accounts of the agency-DTI Consumer Care Pages on both Facebook and Instagram, or to their [email protected].
Thousands of people took to the streets in Palestinian and several Arab and world cities condemning Israels Tuesday massacre at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which killed more than 500 people.

Palestine



Palestinian protesters flocked to the streets in the occupied West Bank, Nablus, and Ramallah on Wednesday, blaming Israel for a bombing of the Baptist hospital in war-torn Gaza that killed more than 500 people.

Many draped in Palestinian flags and some holding Hamas banners chanted slogans against Israel and its ally, the United States.

"Free, free Palestine," they chanted.

During the demonstration, a small group of Palestinians with covered faces blocked a road and set tyres ablaze near a group of Israeli soldiers. Some threw stones, while others cobbled together Molotov cocktails.

Tunisia



Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied in Tunisia on Wednesday outside the French Embassy, condemning Western support for Israel, which they blamed for a deadly strike on a Gaza hospital.

Some protesters were waving Palestinian flags while others demanded the ambassador be expelled, accusing France of being among the Western "allies of the Zionists", AFP journalists reported.

Turkey



Large crowds in Istanbul and the Turkish capital Ankara joined demonstrations on the anti-Israel massacre in Gaza hospital.

Dozens of people, including police officers, were injured in Istanbul, authorities said Wednesday.

Sixty-three people, including 43 police officers, were hurt during the protests outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul late on Tuesday, the governor's office said.

Scuffles broke out between police and protesters when several demonstrators tried to overcome security barricades to enter the consulate building.

Police detained five people.

Egypt



Thousands of Egyptians are taking to the streets across several cities in Egypt on Wednesday in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, which has endured 12 days of Israeli bombardment.

The protesters are expressing their condemnation of the Israeli army's shelling of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which led to the tragic deaths of at least 600 Palestinian civilians.

The protesters chanted slogans condemning the Israeli occupation and held banners with messages of support for their brothers and sisters in Palestine.

Earlier on Wednesday, volunteers from the Decent Life Foundation and the National Alliance for Civil Development Work (NACDW) staged a sit-in at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing to protest the relocation of Palestinians into Sinai and Israel's refusal to allow safe passage for humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The sit-in came in response to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi's call for protest during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held at the Presidential Palace earlier on Wednesday.

Jordan



More than 5,000 Jordanians gathered outside the Israeli embassy in Amman.

Security forces blocked off roads leading to the embassy, but the demonstration looked set to swell amid a wave of anger in Jordan, home to many Palestinian refugees.

Despite strong denials from the Israeli occupation army, the Jordanian government has said Israel "bears responsibility for this grave incident".

Lebanon



Hundreds of protesters took to the streets near the US embassy in the capital, Beirut, and attempted to break through the security barriers.

But the Lebanese army fired tear gas to disperse the protesters in front of the Embassy.

Iraq



Hundreds protested in the capital, Baghdad, brandishing Palestine flags and shouting pro-Palestinian chants condemning Israels massacre in the Gaza Strip.

The Iraqi government also blamed Israeli authorities for the Baptist hospital massacre and demanded an "immediate and urgent resolution" from the UN Security Council to stop Israel's Gaza onslaught.

Iran



Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the British and French embassies in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday as regional anger grew over the deadly strike on Gaza's Baptist hospital.

"Death to France and England," protesters shouted, throwing eggs at the walls of the French embassy compound in the Iranian capital.

The gatherings ended peacefully at around 3:00 a.m. (23:30 GMT Tuesday).

Israel and the United States do not have embassies in Tehran since they do not have diplomatic relations with Iran.

Several thousand people also gathered in Palestine Square in central Tehran to voice their anger, according to an AFP photographer.

Libya



Several hundred people protested in Tripoli and other Libyan cities late Tuesday over the deadly strike on a Gaza hospital.

In Tripoli, hundreds of demonstrators of all ages, brandishing Palestinian flags and some covering their faces with Palestinian keffiyehs, crisscrossed the streets of the city centre before converging on Martyrs' Square.

They chanted slogans of support for the residents of Gaza and denounced the massacre by the "Zionist enemy".

"We give our blood and our souls for Gaza," they chanted in Tripoli and similarly in Misrata, a city 200 kilometres (120 miles) west of the capital.

Earlier, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, the prime minister of Libya's Tripoli-based internationally-recognised government, condemned the hospital strike, calling it a "despicable crime".

"Targeting medical and civilian facilities is a war crime. This aggression must stop," he said.

UN



UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "horrified by the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in a strike on a hospital in Gaza".

Guterres "strongly condemned" the strike but without attributing responsibility.

African Union



The African Union chief Moussa Faki Mahamat described the deadly Israeli hospital strike as a "war crime".

"There are no words to fully express our condemnation of Israel's bombing of a #Gaza hospital today, killing hundreds of people," Faki said on X, formerly Twitter.

Arab League



Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said "the West must stop this tragedy immediately".

"Our Arab mechanisms document war crimes, and their perpetrators will not be able to escape justice," he warned. The organisation's flags have been lowered for three days.

Brazil



Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called the strike an "unjustifiable tragedy" without attributing blame.

Lula, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, reiterated his appeal for urgent international action to protect children and civilians in the Israel-Gaza war, in a message posted on X.

China



China's foreign ministry said it is "shocked by and strongly condemns" the strike, calling for an "immediate ceasefire".

EU



European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers "there is no excuse for hitting a hospital full of civilians" and that "facts need to be established" and "all those responsible must be held accountable".

France



French President Emmanuel Macron said "nothing can justify targeting civilians" and that "humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip must be opened without delay".

Germany



German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was "horrified" by the strike and wrote on X that "a thorough investigation of the incident is imperative".

Hezbollah



Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, an ally of Hamas, called for a "day of rage" to condemn the Israeli strike, describing the hospital attack as a "massacre".

Indonesia



Indonesia said the strike "clearly violates international humanitarian law".

"Indonesia also urges the international community, especially the UN Security Council, to immediately take concrete steps to stop attacks and acts of violence in Gaza," the foreign ministry said.

Qatar



Qatar's foreign ministry called the Israeli strike "a brutal massacre" and "a heinous crime against defenceless civilians".

In a statement, the Gulf state called the explosion a "blatant violation of the provisions of international law" and a "dangerous escalation in the course of the confrontations".

Russia



President Vladimir Putin said the strike was a "tragedy" while the foreign ministry said Israel should provide satellite imagery if it was not involved.

Saudi Arabia



Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia condemned the strike as "a flagrant violation of all international laws and norms", denouncing Israel's "continuous attacks against civilians".

Spain



Spain's foreign ministry condemned "the terrible massacre... All our solidarity with the innocent civilian victims."

South Africa



South Africa said there were "no words to fully express" its condemnation of "Israel's bombing" of the hospital, describing it as a war crime and "the most blatant violation" of international humanitarian law.

The foreign ministry accused Israel of waging a "genocidal campaign against the Palestinians" and called for an immediate ceasefire.

United Arab Emirates



The United Arab Emirates, which established ties with Israel in the Abraham Accords of 2020, condemned the "Israeli" attack.

United States



President Biden said he was "outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion" and "the terrible loss of life that resulted".

He said "data" from the US defence department shows Israel is not behind the strike.

WHO



The chief of the World Health Organization warned that "The situation in #Gaza is spiralling out of control".

"We need violence on all sides to stop," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X. "Every second we wait to get medical aid in, we lose lives."

"We call... at a minimum to stop any attacks on healthcare facilities," the head of the WHO's European branch, Hans Kluge, told AFP in an interview.

ICRC



The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) condemned the strike, saying "hospitals should be sanctuaries to preserve human life, not scenes of death and destruction".

MSF



Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was "horrified by the recent bombing of the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City, which was treating patients and hosting displaced Gazans".

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He wrote: Following a call with Rolls-Royce, I gather that the security of the workforce at Bristol depends in part on the Governments commitment to continuing with these contracts and not ending or curtailing them.
Mr Tomlinson opened the trial with an attack on the media and public using this case for entertainment. But when the world is at war and the economy in the toilet, High Court tales of WAGs giving a paparazzi photographer the run around at the 2018 World Cup and barristers struggling to distinguish between different emojis can be nothing but entertaining. I dont know if they are laughing or crying, said Vardy as they picked over her messages to Ms Watt. It looks like laughing to me, said Sherborne, before being corrected by the ever-young Mr Hamer. Oh! Its crying with laughter. When, during the third day of her evidence Vardy conceded she didnt challenge her agent for leaking a story to the media, she blamed it on being distracted by Gemma Collins faceplanting on Dancing on Ice and hadnt thought again about the alleged leak. Without wanting to make fun of anyone., she said, before revealing this nugget of comedy gold. The exchanges between Vardy and Sherborne, grew increasingly fractious as the hours wore on, leading to a bizarre dispute over who has a higher celebrity ranking - her or Ant Middleton from SAS Who Dares Wins: I wouldnt say I was important, Vardy modestly concluded.
That sense of fear, isolation and anxiety, its very real. We talk about the wider impact of hate crime, we are seeing that unfold at this time. My heart really goes out to everyone. Mr Idan met Dave Rich of the Jewish Community Security Trust (CST), Iman Atta from anti-Muslim abuse monitoring group Tell Mama, plus 150 police chiefs and lawyers to discuss the crisis at the CPSs headquarters in London.
Alex Langhorn, prosecuting, said after a third interview, in which Witham was silent apart from telling police he had size seven feet, he was taken back to his cell and told officers he had been set up, the car was Davos and hed been told not to say anything.
Taki was recently given a 12-month suspended prison sentence in Switzerland for an attempted rape in 2009. His column has not appeared in the last two issues of the magazine, and it was reported he resigned from the job. Taki had been writing the column since 1977, covering his life eating in fine restaurants and mixing with society in the Swiss resort Gstaad, London, and New York. The latest Spectator, without his words in it, is out today. It has a No Life column by writer Lloyd Evans.
Mr Tugendhat told the BBC: The Prime Minister and the Government are in touch with many different people around the Middle East to make sure that were seeking to have as much leverage as we can to help British citizens caught up in this conflict in various different ways... Opening up that Rafah crossing for people to leave is the next step that we need to achieve.
During the Prime Ministers trip to the Middle East, in which he is expected to meet a number of counterparts, No 10 said he plans to press for aid to be allowed into Gaza and for those trapped in the territory to be allowed to leave the 25-mile area.
"Today, I cannot represent the Labour Party... Over the weekend, I attended a demonstration in solidarity with Palestine, and against apartheid and occupation, which Labour councillors were advised not to attend. I cannot call out the UK Government for restricting our rights to protest without standing up for the same right on this occasion."
The UK Government has not confirmed how many Britons are among the hostages held by Hamas, although at least two are known to be being kept captive, with Mr Sunak meeting with their families while in Tel Aviv.
I'm not going to be apologetic about freedom of speech... but I will stand up and say very clearly that proscribed organisations seeking to spread terror or hate in our community should be prevented from doing so and those who champion them should be arrested

Security minister Tom Tugendhat
He said: Im on benefits. Im homeless and waiting for them to do the right thing. They have the power to do the right thing but they chose to take their time.
She revealed, however, that she was determined to overcome her sorrow so she could focus on the hope that her mother Channah and brother Nav, 51, could be freed from captivity. Her words, contained in diary extracts published by the Telegraph newspaper, are the latest illustration of the trauma suffered by many families in Israel and elsewhere since the murderous attack by Hamas, a banned terrorist group in the UK, the US and other countries, which led to around 1,400 deaths in Israel.
The only matters it cautions Brits about are the missiles and drones that were launched into the UAE from Yemen in early 2022, which were followed by a Houthi arrack on civilian facilities in Abu Dhabi and further ballistic missiles, which were intercepted by their air defence forces.
"I do acknowledge that it's a very fast-moving situation and that figure may or may not change, and I know how difficult that must be for the families and the friends at home here in the UK who are grappling with incredible worry and concern about their loved ones."
"Well its for me to say Im proud to stand here with you in Israels darkest hour as your friend. We will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people, and we also want you to win.
It added: Events in Lebanon are fast-moving. The situation has potential to deteriorate quickly and with no warning. Commercial routes out of Lebanon could be severely disrupted or cancelled at short notice and roads across the country could be closed.
He will also press for the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza to be opened so that Brits trapped in Gaza can get out and humanitarian aid can get into the enclave.
We believe that our editorial guidelines serve us well, and continue to serve us well in difficult circumstances; we do periodically review them as a matter of course, and when we do so at our next planned review in the spring, we will consult and debate these issues just as we always do.
I think the BBC does focus on these things to a very large degree but we know that sometimes it doesnt get things right  as we saw recently with their code of conduct surrounding the Gary Lineker situation  so Im sure they would want to kick the tyres and ensure that anyone listening to a BBC outlet is being given the best possible information.
Parents and guardians interested in Lord Of The Flies are asked to apply by email to lotf@ninagold.co.uk with a video filmed on a phone in which the boys tell the producers, in no more than 30 seconds, what they would like to have with them if they were stranded on a remote tropical island, and why.
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Chamber of Commerce head: Port of Constanta can represent a business opportunity for American companies

The Port of Constanta can represent a business opportunity for American companies, especially in the context in which it has taken over the activity of the 6 to 7 Ukrainian ports closed due to the war, being the 4th largest in Europe, says president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CCIR) Mihai Daraban.

The CCIR President welcomed on Wednesday the official visit of a delegation from the Commercial Service of the United States of America (USA) Embassy in Romania, led by Eli Corso Phinney, Commercial Attache, visiting the National Chamber for the first time.

During this meeting, the optimal solutions for attracting new American investments in Romania were identified, as well as the ways in which the two countries can get involved in large-scale joint economic projects.

"Very recently, I returned from an economic mission I carried out in the US, and what surprised me in an extremely pleasant way was the willingness of American companies to get even more involved in the Romanian market, which is an important sign of the confidence of the American business environment in the business opportunities that our country offers," mentioned Mihai Daraban.

In his opinion, Romania's geographical position should not be overlooked, with its opening to the Black Sea and access to the Danube River, through which goods can be transported to many countries in Europe.

"In fact, during the economic mission in the US, we managed, together with the representatives of the American Romanian Business Council (AMRO), to establish some guidelines regarding a common platform for the reconstruction of Ukraine, when the conflict ends," Mihai Daraban stressed.

In turn, the Commercial Attache of the US Embassy was delighted that CCIR is a partner in several projects with the US Commercial Service in Romania, including the Select USA Program, which has been a significant success in Romania, and in the events organised on the sidelines of the Indagra agricultural fair in Bucharest.

Eli Corso Phinney said the U.S. Commercial Service is interested in a country-wide approach to identifying business opportunities for American companies. Thus, he added, we hope to participate in a series of events throughout Romania in the coming year. We will also continue to support Romania's desire to have a strong business climate and strengthen bilateral trade ties, he also mentioned.

AGERPRES
EduMin Deca welcomes Bulgarian counterpart Tsokov

Education Minister Ligia Deca on Thursday welcomed Bulgaria's Minister of Education and Science Galin Tsokov to discuss the need to increase attractiveness of teaching amid extensive educational reforms started in both countries.

"Today, I welcomed Bulgaria's Minister of Education and Science Galin Tsokov. Our discussion focused on the need to increase the attractiveness of a teaching career, especially amid extensive educational reforms started in both countries," Deca wrote in a social media post.

According to Deca, establishing working groups for exchanges of experience on topics of common interest in the field of education is only one of the steps that will lead to enhanced relations between the two countries and, above all, capitalising on them to the benefit of both systems of education.

"I am convinced that the exchange of experience is an opportunity for development and a way to learn, and I will support all efforts that bring added value to education in Romania," Deca wrote.

AGERPRES
Government: Romania to send foodstuffs and bed items to Gaza Strip

Romania will send free international assistance to the Gaza Strip, consisting of foodstuffs and bed items, the Government announces.

According to a press release sent by the Government, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, at the proposal of the Department for Emergency Situations, convened on Thursday, in a hybrid system, the National Committee for Emergency Situations (CNSU).

"Through the newly adopted decision, international assistance is granted, free of charge, for the affected civilian population in the Gaza Strip, which consists of food products and bed items, made available by the National Administration of State Reserves and Special Issues. The transport of the products will take place with the support of the Ministry of National Defense, by air, through the European humanitarian assistance, respectively of the international organizations involved", states the quoted source.

According to the annex to CNSU Decision 38/19.10.2023, Romania will send to the Gaza Strip 30 tons of canned vegetables, 10 tons of sunflower oil, 20 tons of sugar, 10 tons of rice, 20 tons of flour, 20 tons of mineral water, 500 tents, 2,000 beds, 2,000 mattresses, 2,000 blankets, 4,000 bedsheets, 2,000 pillows, 4,000 pillowcases, 2,000 sleeping bags.

AGERPRES
US ambassador Kavalec on 143 years of Romanian-American ties: Our strategic partnership is stronger than ever

US ambassador in Bucharest Kathleen Kavalec said on Thursday at Peles Castle, where she attended an event dedicated to the 143rd anniversary of Romanian-American bilateral ties, that the strategic partnership between the two countries today is stronger than ever.

She added that, as Romania's Foreign Minister Odobescu can attest to, they always have consultations on the most important issues of the moment. Romania is a trusted member of NATO, ensuring the security on NATO's south-eastern flank, she said, adding that thousands of American soldiers, men and women, are here with their Romanian colleagues as a result of the war in Ukraine bordering Romania.

At the same time, Kavalec added that Romania and the US have developed increasingly close relations: bilateral trade has tripled in the last 15 years alone; the number of American companies operating in Romania has doubled, up to almost a thousand. Romanian scientists, professors and researchers have obtained important positions at US universities, and American specialists get involved in innovation and energy independence projects here in Romania.

On her part, Custodian of the Romanian Crown, Princess Margareta, mentioned in her speech the involvement of the Romanian Royal Family in securing stability in the region.

"Since the beginning of the tragic invasion of Ukraine, Prince Radu and I had the privilege to meet President Biden and the First Lady, and know much Romania's contribution to NATO, the EU and, generally, to the security of the transatlantic world is appreciated in your country. Indeed, for the last thirty years, we have continued to promote our bilateral relations both in the USA and in Romania. And we are committed to contribute to the security and stability of the region by firmly and continuously supporting the fundamental interests of Romania and the Republic of Moldova, to which the Romanian Crown is united by strong identity ties," said Margareta.

Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu spoke about the fact that Russia remains the most important threat to Euro-Atlantic security, showing that it has already failed what it set out to do, namely to erase Ukraine from the map and erases the identity of an independent country.

She reiterated the fact that NATO is stronger than ever.

"Together we are stronger and we will respond successfully to all challenges," Odobescu concluded.

An event dedicated to the 143rd anniversary of official ties between Romania and the US, hosted by Custodian of the Romanian Crown Margareta took place on Thursday at Peles Castle.

June 14, 2023 marked the 143th year of formal diplomatic ties between Romania and the US, established under the reign of Sovereign Prince Carol I and the presidency of Rutheford B. Hayes, respectively.

AGERPRES
Ian Froeb Restaurant critic Follow Ian Froeb 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

At Idol Wolf, the showpiece restaurant in the new 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis, a penguin might be watching you eat.

These penguins lurk throughout the hotel that debuted this summer in the historic former YMCA on Locust Street. They are the mascot of 21c, the Louisville, Kentucky-based chain of boutique hotels with a sharp eye for contemporary art. Designed by the Cracking Art collective, the plastic penguins stand about waist-high and, in St. Louis, are orange.

On one visit, while I sat at Idol Wolfs gracefully curving bar, a penguin stared down at me from a mezzanine window. When I looked back later, someone  a hotel guest or employee or maybe another penguin  had turned the penguins back to the restaurant. When I left, two other penguins stood beak-to-beak in the lobby.

The St. Louis dining scene sure can use some of this large-scale whimsy to shake off its lingering post-pandemic doldrums. And as I wrote in last weeks review of nearby Levels Nigerian Cuisine, the downtown-downtown west nexus is primed for a new generation of chefs and restaurants to energize it.

If an outside operator is going to meet this moment of opportunity, it might as well be 21c. I stayed at its flagship location in downtown Louisville a year ago and was impressed with its hotel rooms, art gallery and acclaimed restaurant, Proof on Main. And to lead Idol Wolf and its casual daytime counterpart, Good Press, 21c tapped St. Louis chef Matthew Daughaday, whose career I have followed with enthusiasm from Taste by Niche to his own Reeds American Table to Juniper.

Daughaday is a nimble chef. Even before he joined the specifically Southern kitchen at Juniper, he showcased a knack for hearty, soul-nourishing fare  two of his signature dishes were bacon-fat cornbread and meatloaf  but he could also knock you out with global influences and upscale touches. Years after he left Taste and closed Reeds, I still crave his riff on barbacoa at the former and his signature focaccia with braised beef, foie-gras cream, arugula and tomato at the latter.

Daughaday needs that dexterity at Idol Wolf. He and his team must meet the expectations of one of 2023s highest-profile restaurant debuts, satisfy the demands of both restaurant diners and out-of-town hotel guests and, most crucially, tackle a cuisine that isnt a given for Daughaday himself, 21c or St. Louis.

Idol Wolf takes its inspiration from Spain, though in fairness to both Daughaday and diners, not to mention the Iberian Peninsula, I hesitate to call it a Spanish restaurant. I hesitate even though Idol Wolfs most compelling dishes are often pleasures as straightforward as its pan con tomate, a thick slice of Union Loafers bread rubbed with garlic and topped with a rustic pulp of tomato and, in my case, the briny additional bite of boquerones (marinated anchovies).

Order gambas al ajillo, and you will reach for more Union Loafers bread to soak up the sauce  silky, garlicky and brushed with sherry  in which plump Argentinean red shrimp swim. Did the beef-cheek empanadas have me yearning for that focaccia with foie-gras cream? Yes, but I was also happy in the moment with the empanadas succulent cheek meat, which needs only a dab of the accompanying red and green dipping sauces.

The menu includes the empanadas and the gambas al ajillo among its selection of a dozen tapas. The pan con tomate is one of six bocaditos, or small snackables, though the pan con tomate itself isnt especially small even without the optional additions of anchovies, Manchego cheese or jamon serrano.

Among the main courses, or raciones, you should also consider Idol Wolf a Spanish restaurant. In other words, get the seafood paella, firm kernels of bomba rice infused with the vivid color and floral flavor of saffron, with shrimp, mussels and tender rings of squid. The dish is meant to be shared and demands action on your part. First, be sure to scrape up the soccarat  the crisp crust that forms on the rice at the bottom of the pan  and mix it into the rest of the dish to add an essential depth of flavor. Second, generously sprinkle the sea salt with chile flakes and candied citrus served alongside the dish.

Beyond the seafood paella, things get cloudy. Idol Wolf serves a burger, an understandable concession to the fact that it is a hotel restaurant with a spacious, inviting bar area. The kitchen nominally dresses the patty up with Manchego cheese and a smoked-paprika aioli, but these Spanish accents hardly register  and my medium-thick patty, while juicy, had cooked beyond my requested medium-rare. A gorgeous roasted chicken lacked much spark from its promised Spanish seasonings. With perfect sides of fried fingerling potatoes and a light salad of greens and radishes, this was Idol Wolf as peak hotel restaurant, satisfying without being dynamic or distinct.

A tremendous pork chop atop an ethereal white-bean puree with turnip greens takes its inspiration from a traditional Spanish stew, but this doesnt connect on the plate. What the menu describes as a whiskey sauce touches the chop with sweetness but no character, and whatever the white beans flavor is  it sometimes tasted herbal to me, sometimes like chorizo spices, though my brain might have just been extrapolating from the description on the menu  it doesnt jibe with the pork.

Other ideas get lost between the kitchen and the dining room. Tender coins of grilled octopus lack the char of fire and the prickly heat of the promised chorizo spice. The octopus, one of the tapas, is served atop a creamy potato presse, a textural error of soft on soft. Another tapas fussily and unnecessarily deconstructs sopa de ajo, with the pungently garlicky soup served in its own bowl, while its accents of black-garlic aioli and an egg-yolk gel decorate thin slices of bread.

The misses are particularly frustrating because when an idea hits  smoky, meaty (but meatless), chorizo-spiced hen of the woods mushrooms balanced atop a delicate masa cake  you can see the sort effortless magic Daughaday brought to his previous kitchens. Idol Wolf should be more than a hotel restaurant, a place to be excited to see where the chef is leading us next, not wondering where the penguins are hiding now.

Rating Recommended  The Post-Dispatch evaluates restaurants on the following scale, lowest to highest: not recommended, recommended, highly recommended, essential. The rating reflects how the restaurant succeeds on its own terms  and how it meets a diner's good-faith expectations of quality food and hospitality  regardless of cuisine, location or cost.

How much Gambas al ajillo  $14 Hen of the woods mushroom  $16 Pork chop  $30 Seafood paella  $52

Where Idol Wolf, 21c Museum Hotel, 1528 Locust Street  More info 314-325-0360; idolwolfstl.com  Menu Upscale, Spanish-influenced fare  Hours Dinner daily

Downtown STL Restaurant Week is back. Ian Froeb asks where the deals are. After a four-year hiatus, Downtown Restaurant Week with 39 restaurants participating with various special offers. But where can diners find all the offers?
Rolan is a 2-year-old German Shepherd mix who came to the Humane Society of Missouris Macklind Avenue headquarters in late August. HSMO recommends a household with kids over 10 years old for Rolan. He is a sweet boy but can take a little bit to warm up to some people.

To adopt  Call the Macklind Avenue Headquarters at 314-951-1562, or visit hsmo.org/adopt.

Gibson is a 3-year-old white pygmy goat. He came to Longmeadow in February and loves food and treats. The Longmeadow team thinks Gibson would do best in a home with a herd of female goats, as he tends to be fairly dominant.

To adopt  Call Longmeadow Rescue Ranch in Union at 636-583-8759 to schedule an interview.

Sea Turtle is a 9-year-old pit bull terrier mix who came to the Humane Society of Missouris Maryland Heights shelter as an owner surrender in mid-September. Sea Turtle is a sweet, soft girl with so much love to give. She will need a home with no feline friends.

To adopt  Call the Best Buddy Pet Center in Maryland Heights at 314-951-1588, or visit hsmo.org/adopt.

Last weeks pets  A horse named Kia and dogs named Jimmy John and Herbie are still available for adoption.

More info  You can support these pets and others by making a donation at hsmo.org/donate.
ST. LOUIS  Companies across the U.S., including at least one in St. Louis, have for several years hired IT workers who secretly funneled their wages to North Koreas weapons programs, FBI officials in St. Louis said Wednesday.

Thousands of remote information technology workers used false identities to get contract work for U.S. companies, then sent the money they made to North Korea to help fund the countrys ballistic missile program, officials said.

The FBI would not say how many companies hired North Korean workers or exactly when the hiring began. They also would not say which St. Louis company hired the North Korean workers.

If a company has hired freelance IT workers, its more than likely theyve hired someone involved in the scheme, said Jay Greenberg, the special agent in charge of the St. Louis FBI field office.

Its not a matter of if. Its a matter of when, Greenberg said. There are thousands and thousands of these IT workers working at the behest of the North Korean government.

The U.S. has no formal diplomatic relations with North Korea, which is viewed as a hostile country. North Korea has several times in recent years tested missiles and threatened military action against the U.S.

In all, FBI officials in St. Louis said they have seized $1.5 million and 17 domain names as part of the investigation. They said Wednesday the investigation continues.

The workers discovered in the investigation were mostly based in China, and they masked their computers location, officials said. Greenberg said most of the time the workers did complete the IT work for which they were hired.

Employers need to be cautious about who they are hiring and who they are allowing to access their IT systems, said Sayler A. Fleming, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, in a news release. You may be helping to fund North Koreas weapons program or allowing hackers to steal your data or extort you down the line.

One common technique discovered in the investigation was to use hardware sent by U.S. companies to set up remote access that made it appear their device was in St. Louis instead of China, Greenberg said. They did the same in locations throughout the country.

Greenberg said IT workers also paid people to use their home Wi-Fi connections, which made it appear they were in the U.S.

He said businesses often use third-party companies to find IT workers, giving businesses a false sense of confidence in the legitimacy of these workers, because they assume background checks and other precautionary measures have been conducted.

He said sometimes the IT workers will refuse to do a video interview with a potential employer, and other times they do hop on a video call and tell them they are working from home.

(But) they would interview multiple people in a row for the job, and they would all have the exact same gear and the exact same backgrounds, Greenberg said. And they were obviously working in a corporate setting or a group setting.

The FBI published a guide on its website to help businesses avoid hiring these workers.
FLORISSANT  A man and woman are accused this week of setting up a robbery and killing a 19-year-old man at a Florissant apartment complex.

Cayrin Tabby, of Florissant, and Jainaya Times, of Jennings, are both charged with roles in the Oct. 15 death of Ja'den Patrick.

Charging documents allege that Times messaged Patrick on Instagram and lured him to meet her at the Stonebridge Townhomes on Stonebury Court in Florissant on the day of the killing. She's accused of then coordinating with Tabby, a resident of the complex, to rob Patrick, charging documents say.

Tabby is accused of shooting Patrick multiple times with a semi-automatic pistol. He remained on the run and was still evading police on Thursday, according to court documents.

Florissant police wrote in charging documents that the shooting was captured on surveillance video. Police tracked down Times through Instagram messages and she admitted to a role in the killing, court documents say.

Tabby was charged Thursday with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. His bond upon capture was set at $500,000 bond, cash only, no 10%.

Times was charged Tuesday with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the case. Second-degree murder can apply in Missouri when someone dies as a result of another felony, even if the person didn't directly cause the death. She is being held on a $250,000 bond, cash only, no 10%.
MELVILLE  Looking to shore up support among women and upstate voters, especially those from Western New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday tapped Kathleen C. Hochul, a former member of Congress from Erie County, as his running mate to take on the Republican Partys ticket this fall.

Hochul, 55, who will be formally introduced today to delegates at the Democratic Partys convention here on Long Island, has a long career of public service.

She is the first female on a statewide Democratic ticket in two generations, at a time when some womens groups are not happy that Cuomo has not been able to push Senate Republicans to support a so-called womens agenda package, including expansion of abortion rights.

In an interview with The Buffalo News, Cuomo said he was impressed by Hochuls knowledge of federal affairs, her business background, local government experience and expertise on the complexities of what he said he is trying to do to restore the Western New York economy.

She was always on the short list, Cuomo said of Democrats being considered for the No. 2 spot on the ticket. There was a lot of talent to choose from, he said, but Hochuls experience and the fact that he did not want to have an all-male ticket helped make the decision for him.

Asked when he decided, he said he did not have the final conversation with Hochul until Wednesday.

Besides geographic ticket balancing for an otherwise all-downstate slate for the partys three other statewide campaigns, Hochul offers some cover for Cuomo on a still-burning issue in many upstate communities: gun control.

In her 2012 congressional race, she was endorsed by the National Rifle Association, whose leaders have been highly critical of Cuomos SAFE Act gun control bill passed last year.

I think she helps with his support upstate and in Western New York where he was damaged a lot by the SAFE Act, said Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, a Buffalo Democrat who on Wednesday was named as the co-chairwoman of Cuomos 2014 campaign with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

Thats probably a factor in all of this, Rep. Brian Higgins, an Erie County Democrat, said of Hochuls cordial relations with gun groups that continue to fight the SAFE Act. Shes an upstate voice, including on this issue.

Cuomo dismissed that theory. She supports the SAFE Act, he said. Im not opposed to guns. Im a gun owner  I hunt. I shoot.

Democrats on Wednesday did not shy away from the SAFE Act issue, with speakers at the convention including the father of a 7-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook school massacre.

Cuomo introduced Hochul to delegates via a taped video message in advance of speeches the two will make at the convention today.

Cuomo also was also looking for a running mate he could trust  the bottom-line demand of anyone who serves in senior posts in his administration.

I think theres a chemistry between us, Cuomo said of Hochul, whom he said he did not know very well  as was the case with his outgoing lieutenant governor, Robert Duffy, before he was tapped four years ago. Part of this is personal. I spend a lot of time with this person, Cuomo said of the lieutenant governor.

I have a good feel for her and feel a natural connection with her, so I feel good about that, he said.

He noted the desire to bring more gender balance to the statewide Democratic ticket. Obviously, shes a woman and she brings that perspective to a ticket, he said.

The governor said he also was impressed by what Hochul should be able to do for him on the campaign trail. I think shes a great politician  She understands the business and how to connect with people and people connect with her, he said.

I think he already has the womens vote, she said.

The job of lieutenant governor, long associated with mere ceremonial duties, took on renewed attention in New York when David Paterson was elevated from second-in-command to governor in 2008 following the resignation of Eliot Spitzer, who became embroiled in a prostitution scandal.

Under the State Constitution, the powers of the lieutenant governor are severely limited. The occupant does automatically assume the governors office if the governor is removed from office or dies or resigns. The only specified job is serving as president of the State Senate, which means opening and closing sessions and picking who will speak on the floor  a job so mundane most lieutenant governors skip it.

The lieutenant governor traditionally has three basic assignments: dont get into political trouble, serve as cheerleader-in-chief for the governor and stand in for the governor at public events deemed less newsworthy compared to ones a governor might attend. The travel workload in such a big state is relentless, so much so that Duffy cited the long car rides  which helped worsen the pain in his ailing back  as one of the reasons for not running again.

As a lifelong upstate (resident) and someone who has lobbied for upstate in my previous career as mayor (of Rochester), I know how important it is to get upstates needs in the forefront of Albany, Duffy told The Buffalo News at the convention. Having the next lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul, coming from Western New York means a great deal because she understands the issues facing upstate, shes served in Congress, shes been in the business community, and shes been elected to local office in Erie County.

Cuomo and Hochul will face Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, and his running mate, Chemung County Sheriff Chris Moss, who is the first African-American on a statewide GOP ticket in New York.

The Astorino campaign was unimpressed by the selection of Hochul, who is currently head of government affairs for M&T Bank. Its quite fitting that Andrew Cuomo would select a special interest lobbyist with a history of outsourcing jobs as his running mate. Mr. Albany now has a partner in crime, said Jessica Proud, a spokeswoman for Astorino.

In her brief remarks on the video shown to delegates, in which she was seated next to a smiling Cuomo, Hochul said she had wanted to rejoin public service. I dont want to be on the sidelines, said Hochul. New York is on the move, but our work is far from finished, she added.

Democratic insiders for weeks have been dismissing the prospects of Hochul as lieutenant governor, with a number of them saying that she could be too independent to be Cuomos top aide.

But Peoples-Stokes said Hochul, during her brief time in Congress from the middle of 2011 through 2012, learned about political team play and working within a government structure where she is not the decision-maker. She has a level of independence that bodes well for her, the lawmaker said.

That Cuomo wants to win Western New York, after losing all eight counties in the region to Carl Paladino in 2010, is hardly a secret. He has expended enormous government energy on the area, traveling often to Buffalo and other local towns promoting what he says is a new focus by the state on helping to restore the areas economy.

Western New York is a priority, Cuomo said, pushing back against those who say his intentions are political. And Western New York should have been a priority for prior administrations going back decades.

If the Cuomo ticket wins, Hochul, the former Erie County clerk and Hamburg town councilwoman, would join an administration that is like a tiny island with room for only a handful of people, led by Cuomo, who make the major decisions. And while her reputation in Washington was as a hard-charging lawmaker, she will find her workday grow sharply longer than working for a Buffalo bank.

Still, the long-term benefits are potentially there for her. Should Hillary Clinton not run for president in 2016 and Cuomo makes a chase for the White House, Hochul  legally  would be in charge while Cuomo is out of the state. Short of that, Cuomo loyalists have floated for more than a year that he is interested in serving as only two terms as governor. If he is re-elected and if that theory is true, Hochul could be in a position to get some exposure for higher office.

Delegates on Wednesday, to no ones surprise, backed incumbents Thomas DiNapoli, the comptroller, and Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general, to the statewide ticket.

...

Kathleen C. Hochul

Age: 55

Home: Buffalo

Education: Syracuse University, Catholic University School of Law

Current position: Vice president for government relations, M&T Bank

Previous experience: Congress (2011-13); Erie County clerk (2007-11); Hamburg Town Board

Western New Yorkers on state tickets

Governor

Grover Cleveland (elected)

Democrat

1892

Buffalo

Frank W. Higgins (elected)

Republican

1904

Olean

William J. Donovan

Republican

1924

Buffalo

James Meade

Democrat

1946

Buffalo

Carl P. Paladino

Republican

2010

Buffalo

Lt. governor

William F. Sheehan (elected) Democrat 1892

Buffalo

Frank W. Higgins (elected)

Republican 1900 Olean

William J. Donovan

Republican 1922 Buffalo

Stan Lundine (elected)

Democrat 1986

Jamestown

Gregory J. Edwards

Republican 2010

Panama
JEFFERSON CITY  A campaign to raise Missouris minimum wage to $15 and ensure workers have some sick leave netted more than $400,000 in campaign contributions this week.

The infusion of cash will help Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages collect signatures to get a question on the 2024 ballot.

The proposal is the latest in a series of ballot questions that have slowly raised the states minimum wage rate over the years.

In 2018, voters increased the states minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2023.

The latest version seeks to raise the states minimum wage to $13.75 on Jan. 1, 2025 and to $15 an hour on Jan. 1, 2026. Increases in the future would be pegged to increases in the Consumer Price Index.

The question also would allow sick leave for workers or to care for a family member. The amount of time allowed would be tied to how much a person works and the size of the employer.

The push to bring the minimum to $15 an hour comes as Gov. Mike Parson acknowledged earlier this year that the post-pandemic economy has pushed wages beyond what state government could pay its own workers.

He convinced lawmakers to raise the minimum for state employees to at least $15 an hour, citing significant vacancies at state agencies because workers can earn more in the private sector.

The wage hike effort comes as Republicans who control state government continue to call for changes to the initiative petition process designed to make it harder to get hot-button issues like restoring abortion rights before voters.

Voters have a history of backing ideas that states Republican leadership has rejected or is unable to approve, including legalizing marijuana and rejecting an anti-labor right-to-work law.

During the spring legislative session, the House approved a plan that would raise the threshold to pass ballot measures from a simple majority to 57%. The Senate did not take up the final version before adjourning in May.

Most of the largesse received this week comes from two dark money groups that have helped fund Democrat-leaning initiatives in the past.

The Washington, D.C.-based Sixteen Thirty Fund contributed $225,000 Wednesday.

The entity typically supports liberal causes, but does not have to disclose its donors because it is set up as a social welfare nonprofit. It poured $5 million into the 2018 minimum wage campaign.

The Fairness Project contributed $125,000.

Since 2016, the left-leaning organization has backed successful initiatives to raise the minimum wage and expand Medicaid in at least nine states. Like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Fairness Project does not have to disclose its funders.

The political action committee raising money for Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages reported having $235,000 in its war chest as of Oct. 1 after raising little money in the prior three months.

In order to get on the ballot, organizers must collect signatures from at least 5% of the registered voters in at least six of Missouris eight congressional districts.
WASHINGTON  Hardline conservative Jim Jordan vowed to continue his floundering bid for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, after his fellow Republicans abandoned a backup plan to allow the leaderless chamber to resume business.

Jordan, who has lost two votes for speaker this week, emerged from an hourslong closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans to say he would press ahead with a third vote.

Im still running for speaker and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race, Jordan told reporters, adding that he wanted to talk to some of the more than 20 fellow Republicans who have voted against him.

It was not clear when the House would vote again on a speaker. The chamber has been at a standstill since Oct. 3, when a small group of Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speakers chair, leaving lawmakers unable to respond to eruption of war in the Middle East and a possible partial government shutdown less than a month away.

According to lawmakers in the room, Jordan had earlier suggested that Republicans vote to extend the authority of Representative Patrick McHenry, who is serving as acting speaker, effectively pausing his campaign for the gavel.

House Democrats and the White House have said they are open to that idea, but many Republicans rejected it. At this point, were not going to have any kind of other resolution on this, said Republican Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer.

The Houses leadership vacuum has prevented Congress from acting on urgent legislative business.

Democratic President Joe Biden is expected to ask Congress this week to approve as much as $60 billion for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel.

Jordan in two votes this week failed to secure the 217 votes needed to claim the speakers gavel as he has faced opposition from Democrats and more than 20 of his fellow Republicans.

He told fellow Republicans on Thursday that he would drop out of the speakers race if his opponents were unmoved after talking with him, two lawmakers said.

Republicans who have voted against him the first two times have predicted he will also fail on a third vote.

Bully as the speaker

Republicans who have voted against him have cited differences on taxes and spending and accuse him of undercutting the leadership bid of No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise last week. Others have objected to harassing phone calls and even death threats from his supporters.

One of those, Representative Drew Ferguson, said in a statement on Thursday: The House Republican Conference does not need a bully as the speaker.

The prolonged leadership battle has laid bare divisions among Republicans who control the chamber by a narrow 221-212 margin. Investors say the turmoil on Capitol Hill is also contributing to market volatility.

McCarthy was ousted after reaching a deal with Democrats on Sept. 30 to keep the government open. Hardline Republicans objected to his move to pass a bill that needed Democratic votes to get over the line.

While McCarthy was the first speaker in U.S. history to be voted out by his caucus, the last two Republicans to hold the job also left office early under pressure from the right.

Jordan has made his name in Washington as a leader of a hard-right faction that has exercised enormous influence this year, bringing Washington to the edge of default and the brink of a government shutdown in a budget-cutting drive that has had limited success so far.

His backers say he would be an effective fighter for conservative policies in a town where Democrats control the Senate and the White House.

Unlike other leaders in Congress, Jordan built his profile as an uncompromising advocate for the partys right wing, clashing with Republicans and Democrats alike.

He encouraged government shutdowns in 2013 and 2018 and was a significant player in Trumps attempts to overturn Bidens 2020 election win, according to a congressional investigation.

He is helping to lead an impeachment investigation of Biden that has so far failed to find evidence of wrongdoing by the president.

Local support

Jordans support from St. Louis-area Republicans was consistent on the first and second ballots, with Missouri Republicans Blaine Luetkemeyer, Ann Wagner, and Jason Smith and Illinois Republicans Mike Bost and Mary Miller all supporting him.

Elsewhere in Missouri, Republicans Mark Alford, Eric Burlison and Sam Graves also backed Jordan on the first two ballots.

Updated at 3:36 p.m.
JEFFERSON CITY  Two months after Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a legal brief siding with Maryland Heights-based Doe Run Resources Corp., his political action committee accepted a $50,000 contribution from Doe Runs parent company.

Baileys office on July 11 filed an amicus brief arguing that Peru, where Doe Run purchased a smelting complex in 1997, is the proper venue for a lawsuit brought by Peruvian plaintiffs, echoing the companys arguments in the case.

On Sept. 18, Baileys Liberty and Justice PAC received $50,000 from Doe Runs parent company, New York City-based Renco Group.

The case in which Bailey filed his brief accuses Doe Run and others of causing lead poisoning of children in La Oroya, a mining town in the Peruvian Andes. There were more than 1,420 plaintiffs in the lawsuit as of January, according to court documents.

Doe Run says a court in Peru should handle the case, while plaintiffs attorneys say the matter should play out in the United States.

These American companies and their American executives would rather litigate in Peru, thousands of miles from home, the plaintiffs said in an August filing.

Baileys move to back Doe Run is a break with previous Republican attorneys general Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, who both rejected Doe Runs requests to intervene in the case.

Baileys friend of the court filing came after U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry denied Doe Runs motions for summary judgment and dismissal of the case. Doe Run has appealed her January ruling to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis while the underlying case is pending in district court.

Now, attorneys for the Peruvian plaintiffs are attempting to connect the $50,000 Renco donation to Baileys brief.

In court filings Wednesday, plaintiffs attorneys asked the appeals court to toss Baileys brief or force him to amend it to include mention of the $50,000 donation.

Until (Attorney General) Baileys amicus brief supporting Rencos position in this case, Renco does not appear to have made any previous donations to him or to his campaign, the attorneys said.

Madeline Sieren, spokeswoman for the attorney generals office, on Thursday denied the legal filing and the campaign donation were related.

The amicus brief was filed on behalf of the people of the State of Missouri to protect their judicial system from abuse by foreign plaintiffs, Sieren said. Any suggestion that the attorney generals office is influenced by campaign donations is absurd, she added.

Doe Run in a statement to the Post-Dispatch challenged the newsworthiness of the donation and asserted there was extraordinary evidence of fraud in this case by employees of the plaintiffs attorneys.

Perry on Aug. 29 denied a motion for sanctions against the plaintiffs in regard to alleged conduct giving rise to a criminal investigation that is in its preliminary/preparatory stage in Peru.

She said the motion asked her to make a determination on the veracity of evidence in an ongoing investigation that Peruvian law requires to be confidential.

It is not within the purview of this Court to make such premature judgments and findings, Perry said.

$50,000 donation

Doe Run defended the $50,000 donation sent to Baileys PAC after his office filed the brief.

There is absolutely nothing improper or even newsworthy about Doe Runs parent company supporting political officials in Missouri, and its support for pro-business candidates is nothing new, said a spokesperson for Doe Run in a statement.

Attorney General Bailey took a principled position in the best interest of Missouri that has nothing to do with political donations, the company said.

Jerry Schlichter, the plaintiffs lawyer in this case, has a long history of political donations, the statement said.

What should be of greater interest to the public is the extraordinary evidence of fraud in this case being orchestrated by those employed by the plaintiffs lawyers, about which this newspaper has reported nothing.

Schlichter accused the defendants of scorched earth legal tactics.

The St. Louis University School of Public Health went to Peru to test these children before there was even a lawsuit and found some of the highest blood lead levels ever recorded in children anywhere in the world, Schlichter said in an email. We look forward to our day in court to secure justice for them.

The conflict around the $50,000 donation arose after Baileys office included a footnote in its brief to reflect federal rules of procedure, which require authors of amicus briefs to disclose whether anyone other than the authors contributed money for the briefs preparation.

The plaintiffs attorneys stated in their Wednesday brief that federal rules exempt states from having to comply with the rule.

Nonetheless, Baileys office certified that no one else had made a monetary contribution to the preparation or submission of this brief.

That statement, which was technically unnecessary, appears designed to convey compliance with funding-disclosure commitments applicable to other parties, the attorneys wrote.

The attorneys go on to argue Baileys footnote asserting no outside aid appears to be inaccurate.

They compared the $50,000 donation to Bailey to an incident the Post-Dispatch reported on in 2019 involving Baileys former boss, Gov. Mike Parson.

In December 2018, Renco gave $25,000 to Parsons Uniting Missouri PAC.

The result was similar. The month after Rencos donation, Governor Parson sent a letter to this Court urging dismissal, the plaintiffs said.

Parson followed that letter with a plea to the U.S. State Department urging then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to intervene, the Post-Dispatch reported in 2019.

The plaintiffs note that other than the checks to Parson and Bailey, Missouri Ethics Commission records show no other contributions to statewide politicians from Renco.

Renco seemingly has only ever made two donations to Missouri state politicians  and both closely coincided with the recipients intervening in this litigation to help Renco, the plaintiffs said.

Herculaneum to Peru

Doe Run is best known locally for its now-shuttered lead smelter in Herculaneum.

But in 1997, at the same time scrutiny surrounding its Herculaneum operation was building, Doe Run acquired the La Oroya smelter from the Peruvian government.

In 2007, Doe Run Peru became a separate sister company under the Renco Group.

Doe Run Peru went bankrupt two years later, and in 2017 the smelter was put up for auction by a group of creditors.

The Herculaneum smelter closed in 2013, following years of upheaval from local residents exposed to lead and tighter pollution standards by the federal government.

A St. Louis University study in 2005 found virtually all children younger than 6 in La Oroya, a town of 35,000, had lead in their blood.

In 2007, La Oroya was named one of the worlds most polluted places, according to a report issued by the Blacksmith Institute that year.

That same year, a group of the children from Peru sued in state court, alleging they were injured by emissions from the Doe Run smelter. The case was later transferred to federal court in St. Louis.

A separate case involving another group of more than 1,000 plaintiffs, as of January, is also pending in U.S. District Court in St. Louis.
JEFFERSON CITY  A St. Charles County microbiologists test results for mold in marijuana, which he has shared on social media, are drawing questions from cannabis consumers and legal threats from members of the states cannabis industry.

Kirk Hartwein, owner of Missouri Mold LLC of OFallon, has posted dozens of close-up photos of petri dishes, many covered in mold colonies, to his Facebook page this year.

The colonies represent mold spores present in one gram of cannabis flower purchased from licensed Missouri dispensaries, Hartwein said.

I test consumer products, he said. I think theres certain medicinal patients who are underserved by not having a full amount of information about what theyre buying.

But while a growing audience is taking stock of Hartweins findings, critics have questioned his results. Three legal cultivators featured on his page have sent Hartwein cease-and-desist letters in recent months.

Hartwein is standing by his tests.

Hartwein, who earned a biology degree in 1993 from Missouri State University, started his Missouri Mold business in December, according to state records. He publicizes marijuana testing services on his website.

His Facebook page highlights the state-by-state approach to regulating mold in marijuana that has taken place in the absence of federal legalization, which would allow for federal rules on mold and more research.

Hartwein noted Missouri mold testing requirements dont include limits for total mold and yeast counts like in other states such as Illinois.

Missouri requires its testing labs to screen for four types of Aspergillus mold known to cause illness in humans. The state also requires testing for certain mycotoxins produced by mold.

Tests in Missouri also fail if they show more than 2% of foreign matter such as powdery mildew, mold, mites, hair and dirt.

But there is no total yeast and mold limit, which in Illinois is set at 1,000 colony-forming units per gram.

James MacRae, a cannabis industry analyst and founder of Seattle-based Straight Line Analytics, said his ideal regulatory scheme would include random testing at the retail level, with some teeth to it.

Keep the consumer safety at the forefront for no other reason because cannabis is the least harmful recreational drug out there with respect to a harm-reduction perspective, MacRae said.

While Missouri products must undergo testing before being distributed to dispensaries, MacRae said Hartwein, buying directly from dispensaries, is testing much more like what the consumer would see.

But Dr. Andrej Spec, an associate professor of medicine at Washington University who has researched fungal infections in immunocompromised patients, called Hartweins posts unhelpful.

This is not a study, he said. None of this is scientific or connected to patient outcomes. So, this does not help.

Hartwein pushed back on Spec.

He can do his own work if he wants to, Hartwein said.

Hartwein said there were consistent patterns from brand to brand, he said. Some are routinely bad, and some are routinely good, from my quality perspective.

One of the brands mentioned on Hartweins page in June, St. Louis-based CAMP Cannabis, recently came under state investigation, apparently triggered by a whistleblower who accused the company of selling moldy weed.

Even though Spec was critical of Hartweins tests, he said he advises his patients not to smoke marijuana.

He said for patients wishing to consume marijuana, edibles are a safer route.

Fire is just not good for our lungs. And infections do happen, Spec said. I actually actively advise my patients not to ... use marijuana in the smoking form  really for anybody, but especially for the immunosuppressed.

Christina Thompson, a founding member of the group ShowMe Canna Freedom, said Hartweins results werent surprising.

The cannabis community is, you know, very picky about where we get our cannabis, Thompson said, adding there have been a lot of concerns from our community about having moldy weed.

Thompson said it didnt seem that Hartwein was doing this maliciously.

I think that it highlights a pretty specific concern that all the people in our community have about safe cannabis and safe consumption, she said.

His results at the very least warrant a second look, Thompson said. Those results didnt just come from nowhere. And either they came from bad science or they came from (expletive) weed.
Pfizer on Wednesday said it will set the U.S. price for its COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid at nearly $1,400 per five-day course when it moves to commercial sales after government stocks run out, more than double what the government currently pays for it.

The new list price, which does not include rebates and other discounts to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, is $1,390 per course, Pfizer said in an emailed statement. The U.S. government paid around $530 per course for Paxlovid it has made available to Americans at no cost.

Paxlovid, the most commonly prescribed at home treatment for COVID-19 in the U.S., will remain available for free to patients there until the end of the year, Pfizer said.

Under an agreement with the government, the drug will also stay free of charge for patients insured under the Medicare and Medicaid programs through the end of 2024, and to uninsured and underinsured patients through 2028.

In Pfizers clinical trial, Paxlovid was shown to reduce hospitalizations and death by around 90% for unvaccinated people at risk for serious disease. In another trial, Pfizer was not able to show benefit for those considered at standard risk, including vaccinated patients.

Influential U.S. drug pricing watchdog the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) said last year that its suggested price range for Paxlovid based on the benefits and value to patients was between $563 to $906 per course.

The United States purchased around 24 million courses of the oral two-drug treatment from Pfizer, and still had a large supply, but arranged to return 7.9 million courses last week. The company also slashed its full-year revenue forecast due to lower-than-expected sales of its COVID-19 products.

Under that deal, a credit for the returned Paxlovid doses will pay for the supply to Medicare, Medicaid, underinsured and uninsured patients.

Demand for the drug has fallen since last year. In 2022, patients were given around 7 million courses of the drug, according to U.S. government data. Through Oct. 1, around 3.4 million courses had been administered in 2023.

The new list price was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
KAMPALA, Uganda  Jostling for space, people jam the crowded footpaths crisscrossing a massive open market in Uganda's capital. They are mostly looking for secondhand clothing, sifting through underwear for pairs that seem new or trying on shoes despite getting pushed around in the crush.

Downtown Kampalas Owino Market has long been a go-to enclave for rich and poor people alike looking for affordable but quality-made used clothes, underscoring perceptions that Western fashion is superior to what is made at home.

Discarded by Europeans and Americans, these clothes are often purchased from wholesalers and then shipped to African countries by middlemen. It's a multimillion-dollar business, with some two-thirds of people in seven countries in East Africa having purchased at least a portion of their clothes from the secondhand clothing market, according to a 2017 U.S. Agency for International Development study, the most recent with such details.

Despite the popularity, secondhand clothes are facing increasing pushback. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a semi-authoritarian leader who has held power since 1986, declared in August that he was banning imports of used clothing, saying the items are coming from dead people.

When a white person dies, they gather their clothes and send them to Africa, Museveni said.

Trade authorities have not yet enforced the presidents order, which needs to be backed by a legal measure such as an executive order.

Other African governments also are trying to stop the shipments, saying the business amounts to dumping and undermines the growth of local textile industries. The East African Community trade bloc  consisting of Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda  has recommended banning imports of used apparel since 2016. However, member states have not enforced it at the same pace amid pressure from Washington.

In Uganda, the president's order has spread panic among traders, for whom such a ban, if implemented, would spell disaster. They hawk used clothes in scores of large open-air markets across the country of 45 million people, at roadside stands and even in shops in malls where its possible to buy secondhand clothes marketed as new.

The clothes are cheap and drop further in price as traders make room for new shipments: a pair of denim jeans can go for 20 cents, a cashmere scarf for even less.

At one of Ugandas Green Shops, a chain specializing in used clothes, apparel reseller Glen Kalungi shopped for items his customers might want: vintage pants for men and cottony tops for women.

I am a thrift shopper, he said. I usually come to these Green Shops to check out clothes because they have the best prices around town.

Kalungi likes to visit on clearance days when he can buy clothes for a fraction of a dollar. Then he sells them at a profit.

The chain, whose owners include Europeans, unveils new clothes every two weeks at its three stores. Some of the items are sourced from suppliers in countries including China and Germany, retail manager Allan Zavuga said.

How they collect the clothes, we are not aware of that, Zavuga said of their suppliers. But (the clothes) go through all the verification, the fumigation, all that, before they are shipped to Uganda. And we get all documents for that.

The Green Shops are environmentally friendly because they recycle used clothes in bulk, he said.

The association of traders in Kampala, known by the acronym KACITA, opposes a firm ban on used apparel, recommending a phased embargo that allows local clothing producers to build capacity to meet demand.

Some Ugandan apparel makers, like Winfred Arinaitwe, acknowledge that the quality of locally made fabric is often poor. Not surprisingly, many people would rather buy used clothing, she said.

"Because it lasts longer, she said. It can easily be seen.

In Owino Market, a ban on used clothes is inconceivable to many, including some who say they don't think the presidents threat was serious.

Abdulrashid Ssuuna, who tries to persuade customers in the market to stop by his brothers used clothing business, said a ban would deny him a livelihood.

Its like they want to chase us out of the country, he said of the presidents order. From these old clothes, we get what to eat. If you say we leave this business, you are saying we go into new clothes. But we cant afford to go there.

Ssuuna approaches people in Owino Market to urge them to visit the stall where his brother sells used jeans. The market is aggressively competitive, with merchants sitting behind heaps of clothes and shouting words of welcome to possible customers.

If he helps his brother sell clothing, I get something, said Ssuuna, who started this work after dropping out of high school in 2020.

The market is always full of shoppers, but business is unpredictable: Traders must try to anticipate what customers are looking for before they are lured by other sellers.

Some days are better than others, said Tadeo Walusimbi, who has been a used-clothes trader for six years. A government ban is simply untenable, he warned.

It will not work for me and for so many people, Walusimbi said.

Which countries own the most gold? Which countries own the most gold? #10. India #9. Japan #8. Switzerland #7. China #6. Russia #5. France #4. Italy #3. International Monetary Fund #2. Germany #1. United States
Missouris Republican leadership loves to tout its supposed conservative efficiency and sober guardianship of the taxpayers money. Why, then, did the Missouri Houses top Republican official, and multiple others in his caucus, recently embark on a concerted effort to steer almost $800,000 in public money to a private company to provide services already provided by the state?

And why did they do so with such determined zeal that a nonpartisan staffers job was allegedly threatened for questioning it?

And why did the FBI find the whole thing fishy enough that it sent an agent to sit in on a legislative hearing regarding the issue last month?

Well acknowledge up front that we have more questions than answers about House Speaker Dean Plochers odd (and ultimately unsuccessful) obsession with hiring a private firm to handle constituent information for lawmakers.

But whats illuminated by the murky story  and not for the first time  is the outsized and troubling role that professional lobbyists play in most of what happens in Jefferson City.

As reported by the Missouri Independent and the Post-Dispatchs Kurt Erickson in recent weeks, Plocher, a Des Peres Republican, earlier this year embarked on a months-long effort to get state government to contract with the software company Fireside for services already provided in-house.

The company provides web-based software that assists politicians in communicating with constituents. The proposed contract was for more than $775,000 over two years. This despite the fact that the state this year already revamped the in-house software available to lawmakers for that very purpose.

The effort to outsource those services included several lawmakers submitting virtually identical form letters advocating the contract to a key committee chairman. The Missouri Independent obtained a copy of the letter via the states Sunshine Law and determined that it originated with Fireside lobbyist Bardgett and Associates  a powerful Jefferson City lobbying firm whose other clients include Anheuser-Busch and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Dana Miller, the nonpartisan chief clerk of the House, reviewed the proposal and expressed concerns in a memo. She warned that moving constituent information from the internal state computer system to a web-based private vendor could leave it vulnerable to hacking, and to abuse by lawmakers who might use the data for campaign purposes.

Bottom line, this program is cost prohibitive, redundant and it is an unnecessary expense, Miller wrote. Yet, she added, lobbyists for the company were so aggressively promoting the program that it is giving me cause for concern.

Another staffer wrote that the pressure being applied to approve the contract was insanely inappropriate, adding: The House isnt for sale, and if we dont stop it here there will be (hundreds) more lined up at the door to get in as well.

Miller also alleged in an email to another Republican lawmaker that there were threats made by Speaker Plocher concerning my future employment because of her resistance to the proposed contract. She wrote that she had growing concerns of unethical and perhaps unlawful conduct, and hinted that the issue might be connected to Plochers campaign for lieutenant governor next year.

The debate reached a head at a legislative hearing last month, which an FBI agent attended. The agency hasnt commented on why it was there.

Perhaps as a result of the controversy, the proposed Fireside contract was ultimately rejected in committee. As one witness testified, Something doesnt feel right about this.

Plocher told the Missouri Independent his effort to get the contract approved was driven by a desire to identify potential efficiencies and cost-savings in government to protect taxpayer resources. Voters should demand more than that up-is-down answer before handing him the keys to a statewide office next year.
The front-page headline "Israel orders mass evacuation" (Oct. 14 print edition) should have read, "Israel warns Gazans of attack to save people's lives." The earlier brutal assault by Hamas on Israeli women, children and babies gave no such alert. The Israelis had no advance notice to protect their families.

The Gazans even have an opportunity that the Israelis didn't have: release the hundreds of people they kidnapped and there will be no bombs or invasion.

It's time that everyone, especially the Post-Dispatch, remembers that Hamas is not the Gazans, Hamas is not a military; Hamas is a terrorist organization whose sole reason for being is to kill and kidnap innocent people.

Barbara Kodner  Frontenac
Israel has every right to protect itself and to secure justice for the recent victims of the attack by Hamas. We have all heard the reports  more than 1,400 Israelis killed, 150 more taken hostage, and the cold-blooded manner in which innocent civilians were murdered. Regrettably, more will die on both sides before the fighting ends, and the long-term outcome is anyones guess.

Last month, the United States agreed to return $6 billion to Iran in exchange for the release of five imprisoned Americans. Despite the lies circulating amongst Republicans, including Missouris two senators, this money did not finance the Hamas attack. The $6 billion, resulting from the South Korean purchase of Iranian oil under an agreement arranged by the Trump administration, is currently sitting in a bank in Qatar. The U.S. has recently denied Iran access to the money.

Legally, the $6 billion belongs to Iran. However, the Iranians have backed Hamas for decades with money, training and weapons, and their fingerprints are all over this brutal assault. Therefore, under the principles of tort law, Iran owes compensation to the families of every Israeli victim.

The U.S. should immediately turn over the $6 billion to create a reparation fund. The math is simple: $6 billion will provide more than $4 million to every surviving family of Israelis killed in the attack. Of course, no amount will bring back their loved ones, but the money could provide some level of justice.

Joe Regenbogen  St. Louis County
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Covia / In partnership with IslaUrbana and local communities in Zacatlan and Ahuazotepec, Mexico, Covia's Mexico operations launched a new initiative called Schools of Rain (Escuelas de Lluvia). The primary goal of this comprehensive project was to provide access to clean water for students in elementary and middle schools. This was achieved by implementing rainwater harvesting at four schools (three in Zacatln and one in Ahuazotepec). The new system will collect more than 800,000 liters of water per year, positively impacting more than 600 students. This amount is equivalent to filling 75 water tanks and will guarantee a reliable and safe supply of water to all the students.

In addition to investing in this system, Covia also plays an important role in helping to educate students about environmental issues. The goal is to promote water conservation and provide them with the necessary tools to address water scarcity.

Octavio Salinas, Community Relations Manager at Covia Mexico explained: "Covia has a robust sustainability strategy focused on environmental stewardship and positive social impact in the communities where it operates. We hope to replicate the "Escuelas de Lluvia" model in other cities in Mexico that are experiencing problems with water scarcity."

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Covia on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Covia

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/covia

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: Covia

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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Cummins / Cummins Inc.'s global strategic program to address water security has announced two new grants with The Nature Conservancy and WaterAid to improve water quality in the Mississippi River Basin and implement water, sanitation and hygiene improvements in Nigeria.

"The resources provided by Cummins illustrate the steadfast commitment our company is making to strengthen communities through sustainable water," said Travis Meek, the global power technology leader's Corporate Responsibility Director - Environment. "These grants to The Nature Conservancy and WaterAid total almost $2.8 million and are poised to make a substantial impact to many people's lives."

Cummins' efforts to improve the Mississippi River Basin started in 2022 with a large-scale grant to The Nature Conservancy focused on Indiana and the Gulf of Mexico. By expanding resources into Minnesota near Cummins' plant in Fridley, Minnesota, the project will help improve water quality in that area by reducing nutrient and sediment pollution entering the rivers and streams within the basin. The project will enhance wetland areas that filter and store groundwater, restoring wild rice populations and increasing their abundance to support native tribes.

In total, the project will improve about 25,000 acres of farmland through conservation practices by restoring an estimated 200 wetlands and 20 acres of wild rice, enhancing one mile of river habitat, and constructing and distributing 250 soil health kits, which will be provided to agronomists, farm advisors, and influential farmers.

The initiative is expected to provide water benefits exceeding the annual water consumption at Cummins facilities in the area. These benefits will help Cummins achieve its PLANET 2050 sustainability goal of producing net water benefits that exceed its annual water use in all Cummins regions by 2030. PLANET 2050, the company's environmental sustainability strategy, establishes nine goals timed to 2030 to reduce Cummins' environmental footprint.

"Employees from our Fridley facility can volunteer to assemble soil health kits, participate in wild rice seeding in rivers and streams, remove invasive species, participate in native species plantings, and join wetland restoration opportunities," said Asit Desai, Fridley Plant Manager at Cummins. "We have over 75 employees already signed up to volunteer for events starting in early October. I'm very excited to mobilize our employees to make positive contributions toward improving and preserving our state's natural resources."

In Nigeria, Cummins Water Works' newest partner, WaterAid, envisions a world where everyone, everywhere has safe and sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene. Its mission is to transform lives by improving this access in the world's poorest communities. About 33% of people in Nigeria lack access to basic drinking water, 55% lack access to basic sanitation, and over 80% lack access to basic hygiene services.

As a result, diarrheal diseases are the second leading cause of death among children under five, killing about 150,000 children annually. Only 11% of schools, 6% of health facilities, and 4% of markets and motor parks in the country have access to basic water, sanitation, and hygiene.

"Cummins has a significant presence in Nigeria," said Ifeyinwa Alex-Anene, Project Manager for Cummins TEC: Technical Education for Communities - Cummins West Africa Ltd. "We have a long history of partnering with not-for-profit organizations to support schools, vulnerable homes, and persons across the different locations where we have a presence. By bringing water and sanitation efforts to Lagos and Abuja, we will significantly improve the lives of many people and achieve sustainable impact."

The partnership between Cummins and WaterAid will contribute to Nigeria's National Action Plan (NAP) to reverse the national state of emergency related to water, sanitation, and hygiene. This intervention will help state governments make potable water available and accessible, while promoting good hygiene practices in schools and communities. In addition, WaterAid will build capacity to operate and manage the water, sanitation and hygiene facilities after construction, sustainably addressing operations and maintenance. Collectively, these efforts are estimated to affect over 185,000 people, providing water for about 11,000, sanitation for 6,500, and hygiene for 168,000.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Cummins Inc. on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Cummins Inc.

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/cummins-inc

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: Cummins Inc.

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LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Evolve Bank & Trust ("Evolve"), a leading financial technology solutions provider, is proud to announce that its Open Banking leaders are featured speakers at Money20/20 USA in Las Vegas, Nevada, Oct. 22-25. This conference is the premier fintech gathering of the year, where the most influential leaders take center stage to engage in industry-shifting conversations.

Evolve Chairman, Scot Lenoir will be exploring the topic of "What does it really mean to adapt to Regulatory Modernization?" He will share his thoughts on working with regulators and adapting to market change. Lenoir will delve into the challenges faced by a rapidly changing landscape and the opportunities for partnership and collaboration with regulators in creating a path forward.

Evolve Vice President, Director of Fintech Compliance and BSA, AML, & OFAC Officer, Nicole Booth will be a panelist speaker on the importance of compliance protocols. The panel, "Cutting Corners on Compliance Creates Subpar Products," will focus on the importance of embracing the modernization of regulation and compliance protocols. Other panelists include industry experts from Alloy, Modern Treasury, and Klaros Group.

"Evolve Open Banking is at the forefront of innovation in the fintech space. It is important that we lead these conversations, especially on topics which are so important to the industry's current landscape," said Scot Lenoir, Chairman of Evolve.

Evolve Open Banking is a recognized leader in payments and Banking as a Service ("BaaS"). While attending Money 20/20, Evolve will be leading conversations with current and prospective clients.

About Evolve Bank & Trust:

Evolve Bank & Trust, a technology-focused financial services organization and Banking-as-a-Service ("BaaS") provider, is a best-in-class financial institution offering specialized services in Open Banking, Personal and Business Banking, Mortgage, SBA Lending, Physicians Capital, Community Funding and Trust. Evolve is recognized as a global leader in the payments industry delivering ACH, Debit/Credit Sponsorship, Card Issuance and unique technology strategies to clients around the world. Evolve has been voted a Top Workplace USA and has been named in Inc. Magazine's 5000 List of the fastest-growing private companies.

Contact Information

Thomas Holmes Jr.

SVP, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer

[email protected]

866.367.2611

SOURCE: Evolve Bank & Trust

View source version on accesswire.com:
Regions Bank works to ensure that every person in our community has access to educational resources to improve their financial lives.

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Regions Bank /

By Candace Higginbotham | September 28, 2023

With "Pomp and Circumstance" booming from the speakers, the processional begins. Smiling students clad in black caps and gowns walk down the aisle in single file, with an air of pride and confidence. The audience respectfully stands and there's a feeling in the room that this is, indeed, a special day.

But this is no ordinary commencement exercise.

These soon-to-be-graduates are celebrating a major milestone, after years of struggles and challenges.

"It's been a long journey and I'm grateful to be standing here today," said Karenza Beasley. "I'm healthy and sober and I'm very proud of myself."

In late August, Beasley and 28 classmates graduated from the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles' Birmingham Day Reporting Center program that helps recently incarcerated individuals make a successful reentry back into their community.

"This is one of my favorite programs to teach. I enjoy serving as a bridge to help connect these participants to resources that could help better their lives. Keren Treme, financial wellness trainer for Regions Community Affairs

In collaboration with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, Regions Bank participates in this three-phase program that provides counseling, education training and workforce development to clients. The curriculum includes financial education instruction, which is led by Regions' Community Affairs team.

"This is one of my favorite programs to teach," said Keren Treme, financial wellness trainer for Regions Community Affairs. "I enjoy serving as a bridge to help connect these participants to resources that could help better their lives."

Treme explained that she, with assistance from bankers and other Regions specialists, presents a five-part financial education curriculum to the group to make sure they have the tools and resources they need to make a fresh start.

The classes start with money basics, like setting goals and learning to budget, then expand to identify theft and the importance of protecting your personal information. They also cover credit, including how critical it is to have good credit and how to interpret a credit report. Finally, students learn about The Road to Homeownership, a class led by a Regions mortgage officer that provides insight about how to reach what is for many the ultimate financial success - owning your own home.

Feedback from the participants has been positive from the start, but Treme and the team noticed early on they had an additional opportunity.

"Many of the clients indicated they wanted to start their own business," Treme said. "So, we incorporated a small-business finance class into the curriculum. We bring in a Regions Small Business solutions associate to provide information about starting and growing a business. It's been a huge hit!"

Officer Leah Thompson, administrator of the Birmingham Day Reporting Center, speaks highly of Regions' contributions to the program's success.

"We're grateful to community partners like Regions who provide instruction, guidance and sponsorship," Thompson said. "With this strong curriculum as a jump start - combined with commitment and hard work from the clients and support from their family and friends - we're working together to position these individuals for success, which is a win for our entire community."

Regions participates in other reentry programs in the bank's footprint, including working with the Abe Brown Ministries in Florida and the Georgia Department of Corrections.

The bank provides learning opportunities for other groups with unique needs, as well.

We're grateful to community partners like Regions who provide instruction, guidance and sponsorship. Leah Thompson, administrator of the Birmingham Day Reporting Center

Expanding Reach

Earlier this year, Treme collaborated with Kathy Lovell, Disability Services and Outreach Manager at Regions Bank, on a financial wellness seminar presented at the National Federation of the Blind national convention in Birmingham. The gathering is the premier event for training, support and information for the blind community and hosts people from all over the world.

Treme presented two learning modules at the convention from the Regions Next Step financial wellness curriculum, Facing a Brighter Future: Building and Repairing Credit and Financial Strategies for the Future: Retirement Saving Plan. She and Lovell provided supplemental materials to attendees, which are published in braille.

"I'm so pleased Regions played a role in this important event for the blind community," Lovell said. "Often, the blind and low vision communities become isolated and don't have accessible tools and resources they need to make good financial decisions. Our curriculum and handouts were designed with accessibility as top of mind, and we got a lot of positive feedback from participants and organizers."

Community Affairs is also expanding its financial wellness offerings in Spanish. During Financial Literacy Month in April, Treme collaborated with the Hispanic Coalition of Alabama, or HICA!, which is a community development and advocacy organization in Birmingham that champions economic equality, civic engagement and social justice for Latino families.

Treme, a native Spanish speaker, along with Spanish-speaking bankers, presented a series of financial wellness seminars that included Building Financial Know-How, Smart Money Habits, The Importance of Saving and Wise Use of Credit.

That program was so successful that the following month, Treme was asked to come back to HICA! and present learning modules for Small Business Month and then again in June for National Homeownership Month.

"We've made great progress with our efforts to enhance our various financial wellness offerings throughout our communities," said Wendi Boyen, head of Community Advocacy and Financial Wellness at Regions. "Financial literacy improves lives, and everyone deserves an opportunity for success."

Besides these programs, Regions also offers financial education to homeless veterans, students with disabilities, and many other groups with unique needs. To find out more about Regions Next Step Financial Wellness, visit Regions.com.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Regions Bank on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Regions Bank

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/regions-bank

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: Regions Bank

View source version on accesswire.com:
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Informa Markets Fashion, organizer of industry leading wholesale fashion events MAGIC, COTERIE, PROJECT and SOURCING at MAGIC, releases the dates and locations for the 2024 calendar year.

MAGIC Miami launches January 8-9 for a two-day intimate experience highlighting immediate deliveries, allowing retailers to stock up at the top of the year's buying cycle, addressing the growing demand for regional presence as local retailers look to discover new brands and products. MAGIC Miami will take place in the Miami Convention Center creating a new opportunity for attendees to enjoy the destination location.

MAGIC Las Vegas, Informa Markets Fashion's keystone event, returns to Las Vegas February 13-15 at the Las Vegas Convention Center to showcase women's Fall/Winter 2024 styles, and again August 19-21, showcasing Spring/Summer 2024 brands and designers. MAGIC Las Vegas celebrates the fashion community through top educational programming and community experiences, including keynotes from industry icons, premium education tracks and both on and off-site experiences that MAGIC Las Vegas is known for.

MAGIC New York returns to the Javits Center February 20-22 and September 22-24 to showcase hundreds of new and emerging designers and the growing modern sportswear category. Thousands of retailers ranging from single specialty boutiques to big box department and chain stores attend MAGIC New York to connect and discover the latest collections for upcoming seasons.

MAGIC Nashville arrives at the Music City Center, April 3-4, showcasing a curated assortment of brands and products at price points from accessible to moderate. Over 400 brands showcase at MAGIC Nashville, filling the need for a regional event offering mid-year buying opportunities for immediates and upcoming collections. Retailers can discover southern-inspired apparel, footwear and accessories, and enjoy the Nashville lifestyle through food and music.

PROJECT Las Vegas, the contemporary marketplace representing what's new, now, and next in men's and women's apparel, footwear and accessories, returns February 13-15 and August 19-21, bringing together domestic and international buyers go to discover elevated brands, find products from culturally relevant designers and connect with likeminded industry thought leaders and fashion insiders. The bi-annual event brings together influential fashion experts, discussing current industry trends and successes in the fashion industry.

SOURCING at MAGIC Las Vegas, the premier event bringing together over 1,000 manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers from apparel, accessories and footwear manufacturing, to textiles, materials, components, supply chain and technology solutions, returns to Las Vegas February 13-15 and again August 19-21 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Education, technology and fashion entrepreneurship remain key pillars of focus for the Las Vegas events, highlighting sustainability through strategic partnerships and on-site activations. After a successful first iteration, SOURCING at MAGIC New York will return to the Javits Center in New York City for the September edition, September 22-24.

COTERIE New York, the premier bi-annual event for women's contemporary and advanced contemporary apparel, footwear, accessories and beauty will deliver a three-day experience highlighting sustainability, technology and community at the Javits Center, February 20-22 to showcase Fall/Winter 2024 styles from over 1100+ domestic and international brands gathering designers from Turkey, Greece, South Korea, Italy and more together under one roof. The September edition will arrive September 22-24. COTERIE New York attracts a wide array of domestic and international retailers in the fashion capital, incorporating community conversations, sustainability activations and key brands in many categories including outerwear, denim, eveningwear and casual-lifestyle inspired apparel on the show floor.

Registration for the first half of 2024 is open. To register, please visit: www.findfashionevents.com .

ABOUT MAGIC:

MAGIC Las Vegas is a high-energy fashion experience and home to the largest selection of trend, young contemporary, modern sportswear, footwear and accessories brands in the industry. Fusing scale with curation to foster community, drive connectivity and deliver unique experiences, MAGIC Las Vegas joins a global audience of retail buyers - from big-box to boutique - together with influencers, media, and industry thought leaders. MAGIC Las Vegas is more than just an event: it's a deeply rooted community and a place brands and retailers call home. For more information, please visit: www.magicfashionevents.com and @magicfashionevents.

ABOUT PROJECT:

Representing what's new, now, and next in men's and women's contemporary apparel, footwear and accessories, PROJECT is where domestic and international buyers go to be inspired by higher-end brands, find products from relevant mid-market labels, and connect with like minded industry thought leaders and fashion insiders. Through a fusion of community, education, media, and experiences, PROJECT propels the next season's top trends, generates global awareness, and ultimately drives commerce. For more information, please visit: www.projectfashionevents.com .

Follow for more event updates and exclusive content at @projectshow .

ABOUT SOURCING AT MAGIC:

SOURCING at MAGIC gives fashion businesses, brands and sourcing professionals the opportunity to connect and collaborate with a community of global manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers. With a strong presence among international exhibitors and attendees and deep domestic connections, SOURCING at MAGIC is a global community. With a forward-thinking approach and commitment to the evolution of the global apparel supply chain, SOURCING at MAGIC consistently provides access to emerging fashion technology, solutions, sustainable resources, educational content, networking, and extended visibility into the industry's most critical global issues. For more information, please visit: www.sourcingatmagic.com .

ABOUT COTERIE NEW YORK:

COTERIE is the premier women's contemporary to advanced contemporary apparel, footwear, and accessories platform. Connecting emerging and established brands and designers to an elite list of domestic and international retailers, influencers, and media, COTERIE's first-class events build exclusive experiences that fuel discovery, commerce, and connectivity, while inspiring upmarket trends. For more information, please visit: www.coteriefashionevents.com .

ABOUT INFORMA MARKETS FASHION:

Informa Markets Fashion, a division of Informa Markets, a subsidiary of Informa plc, (LON:INF), connects and inspires the global fashion community through online experiences, industry insights, and worldwide fashion trade events, including MAGIC, COTERIE, PROJECT, and SOURCING at MAGIC. From more effective manufacturing and supply chain opportunities to creative design inspiration and retail on the wholesale floor, Informa Markets Fashion's diverse portfolio supports the entire fashion ecosystem - fostering innovation and driving creativity year-round. For more information on upcoming events, please visit: www.findfashionevents.com.

Media Contact:

Informa Markets Fashion PR

[email protected]

SOURCE: Informa Markets Fashion

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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Metallic Minerals Corp. (TSXV:MMG)(OTCQB: MMNGF) ("Metallic Minerals" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the completion of field activities at the Company's 100%-owned, 166 square kilometer Keno Silver project, adjacent to Hecla Mining in the high-grade Keno Hill silver district of Canada's Yukon Territory. The 2023 exploration program included 1,112 meters in four diamond drill holes focused on resource expansion at the Formo target, the highest-grade and largest target area to be included in an inaugural NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate for the property expected in Q4 2023. The Company also conducted additional soil geochemical sampling on open-ended earlier-stage targets for future drill campaigns.

Metallic Minerals holds the second largest land position in the Keno district with claims covering the east, and parts of central and western Keno Hill, including eight high-grade, shallow past-producing deposits. Hecla Mining holds the western portion of the Keno district and has recently started production from its Keno Hill mining operations, with full production expected by year-end.

Metallic Minerals President, Scott Petsel, stated: "We were very pleased to return to our Keno Silver project and complete this important new phase of exploration which focused on drilling mineralized extensions of our "resource-ready" target at Formo. With the key milestone of an inaugural resource estimate for Keno Silver on the near-term horizon, the team is already looking ahead to working from those initial deposit models to continue to add additional ounces with this and subsequent future programs. One of the major advantages the upcoming resources will have are their shallow depth which makes them amenable to low-cost bulk tonnage mining methods. The blueprint for rapid and dramatic resource growth in the Keno district, as demonstrated by prior operators, is to first identify the dominant mineralized vein structures and their orientations, then vector along trend and depth with successive drill campaigns. This tried-and-true methodology is being employed by Metallic Minerals to expand the Keno Silver project which is located within one of the world's highest grade silver producing districts."

Mr. Petsel continued, "In addition to our work at the Keno Silver project, drilling continues at our La Plata copper-silver-gold-PGE project in Colorado, where we have just passed 3,000 meters of a targeted 5,000-meter drill program. The first two drill holes reached 909 meters and 1,350 meters depth, respectively, and intersected continuous porphyry style mineralization. Our target is to complete two to three more step-out, expansion drill holes from the discovery hole announced in February 2023. Core is being processed and sent to the lab for assaying with initial results expected to come in through the fall of this year. The results of this drilling will be used to calculate a new mineral resource estimate for La Plata in 2024."

About the Keno Silver Project

Keno Hill is one of the world's highest-grade silver districts, with nearly 300 million ounces ("Moz") of silver in past production and current M&I resources1,2 and featuring excellent existing infrastructure, including grid power, road access and nearby community services. In July 2022, Hecla Mining announced the acquisition of Alexco Resource Corp, which held the western portion of the district. Hecla Mining has started production at Keno Hill, which is now their highest-grade silver operation, and is expecting to be at full production by year end with a stated goal of producing 4-5 Moz of silver per year3. Metallic Minerals' Keno Silver project is adjacent and contiguous with Hecla Mining ground, covering the east, and parts of the central and western Keno silver district and includes eight high-grade, shallow past-producing mines. Prior to the Company's consolidation of the land package, very little modern exploration had been completed in these parts of the district due to fragmented, private land ownership. Metallic Minerals has advanced four targets in the district from discovery to resource definition stage with several additional targets at drill-ready status along the known historically productive trends. In addition, recent exploration has defined and expanded 12 priority multi-kilometer-scale early-stage targets for reconnaissance drilling in the under-explored parts of the district where highly elevated silver, lead and zinc in soils and high-grade rock samples have been identified.

About Metallic Minerals

Metallic Minerals Corp. is a leading exploration and development stage company focused on copper, silver, gold, and other critical minerals in the La Plata mining district in Colorado, and silver and gold in the high-grade Keno Hill and Klondike districts of the Yukon. Our objective is to create shareholder value through a systematic, entrepreneurial approach to making exploration discoveries, growing resources, and advancing projects toward development.

The Company's 100%-owned La Plata project in southwestern Colorado hosts a porphyry copper-silver resource consisting of 1.21 billion pounds of copper and 17.6 Moz of silver4. Drilling in 2022 provided the basis for the expanded 2023 resource estimate, including the longest and highest-grade interval ever encountered at La Plata and one of the top intersections for any North American copper project in the past several years. In May 2023, the Company announced a 9.5% strategic investment by Newcrest Mining Limited (acquired by Newmont Mining in Q4 2023) to fund the current 2023 drill campaign and accelerate the overall advancement of the project. Colorado ranked 5th globally for investment attractiveness and 2nd in the USA in the Fraser Institute's 2023 Annual Survey of Mining Companies.

Metallic Minerals has consolidated a 176 square kilometer land position directly adjacent to Hecla Mining's operations in the historic high-grade Keno Hill silver district of Canada's Yukon Territory, a region which has more than 300 Moz of high-grade silver in past production and current M&I resources. Hecla Mining, the largest primary silver producer in the USA and third largest in the world, is anticipating full production at its Keno Hill operations by the end of 2023. Metallic Minerals is targeting release of an inaugural mineral resource estimate on the Keno Silver project in Q4 2023, with an expansion drill program completed in September.

The Company is also one of the largest holders of alluvial gold claims in the Yukon and is building a production royalty business by partnering with experienced mining operators, including Parker Schnabel of Little Flake Mining from the Discovery Channel television show, Gold Rush.

All of the districts in which Metallic Minerals operates have seen significant mineral production and have existing infrastructure, including power and road access. The Company is led by a team with a track record of discovery and exploration success on several major precious and base metal deposits in the region, as well as having large-scale development, permitting and project financing expertise. The Metallic Minerals team has been recognized for its environmental stewardship practices and is committed to responsible and sustainable resource development.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Website: www.mmgsilver.com

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 604-629-7800

Toll Free: 1-888-570-4420

Footnotes:

Cathro, R. J., Great Mining Camps of Canada 1. The History and Geology of the Keno Hill Silver Camp, Yukon Territory. Geoscience Canada, Sept. 2006. ISSN 1911-4850. Alexco Resource Corp Technical Report, titled "NI 43-101 Technical Report on Updated Mineral Resource and Reserve Estimate of the Keno Hill Silver District" with an effective date of April 1, 2021 and issue date of May 26, 2021. See news release dated August 8, 2023: Hecla Mining Company - Hecla Reports Second Quarter 2023 Results See news release dated July 31, 2023: https://mmgsilver.com/news/2023/metallic-minerals-expands-resource-at-la-plata-copper-silver-gold-pge-project-in-southwestern-colorado-usa/

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts including, without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization, historic production, estimation of mineral resources, the realization of mineral resource estimates, interpretation of prior exploration and potential exploration results, the timing and success of exploration activities generally, the timing and results of future resource estimates, permitting time lines, metal prices and currency exchange rates, availability of capital, government regulation of exploration operations, environmental risks, reclamation, title, statements about expected results of operations, royalties, cash flows, financial position and future dividends as well as financial position, prospects, and future plans and objectives of the Company are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. Although Metallic Minerals 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, unsuccessful operations, 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 and other exploration or other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators. Readers are cautioned that mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Mineral exploration, development of mines and mining operations is an inherently risky business. Accordingly, the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on Metallic Minerals and the risks and challenges of their businesses, investors should review their annual filings that are available 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.

SOURCE: Metallic Minerals Corp.

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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Advanced Design and Manufacturing Expo Toronto (ADM Toronto) , Canada's leading conference and exhibition for the latest trends and technological innovations in the design and manufacturing industries, announces esteemed keynote presenters from NGen Canada, Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Genecis Bioindustries Inc. and the Ontario Center of Innovation.

Selected exclusive speakers will facilitate discussions on the discovery of critical industry solutions through education, to further strengthen Ontario's position as the leading manufacturing province in Canada . Session topics include snapshots of market trends in robotics and automation, investing in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, global shifts towards decarbonization and the region's status as a hub for pioneering innovation.

Large-scale investments across the country in key industrial sectors such as robotics and machine learning impact the region as a global contributor in the manufacturing supply chain in improving efficiency and growth. John Laughlin, Chief Technology Officer at NGen Canada will review the state of advanced manufacturing in Canada and discuss the outlook to future market trends in the automotive EV industry.

With recent efforts to advance both 2030 and 2050 climate goals set by the Net Zero Accelerator (NZA) initiative, companies across Canada are working progressively towards delivering emission reductions. Ontario Chamber of Commerce's President and CEO, Rocco Rossi, will present the path to transformation for Ontario's manufacturing sector and discuss where further action is needed to ensure continued competitiveness on the international stage.

Claudia Krywiak, President and CEO at Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI) will host a conversation and fireside chat with Andrew Chiappetta, Director of Fermentation at Genecis Bioindustries Inc. to explore how Canada extends beyond financial gains to embrace innovation as the catalyst for prosperity across verticals including technology, 5G, 4.0 and automotive. Krywiak will showcase OCI's programmatic support for job creation through industry focused academia.

"Ontario continues to excel as global leaders in manufacturing and is a North American cornerstone for transformative innovation and market growth," says Kayle Kvinge, Event Director, Informa Markets Engineering. "Each speaker brings unique vision to the future trajectory of manufacturing in the province, providing key knowledge on regional applications and global jurisdictions in relation to the newest emerging technologies and practices."

The event is comprised of five manufacturing areas - Design & Manufacturing (D&M), Automation Technology Expo (ATX), PACK EX, PLAST-EX and Powder & Bulk Solids.

Taking place at the Toronto Congress Centre Nov. 7-9, 2023, the comprehensive agenda caters to all five verticals through over 40 education sessions covering a range of topics from artificial intelligence, packaging and automation trends, EV supply chains and plastics sustainability.

To register to attend or view the full conference agenda, please visit www.admtoronto.com .

About Informa Markets Engineering:

Informa Markets Engineering portfolio, a subsidiary of Informa plc (LON:INF), is the leading B2B event producer, publisher, and digital media business for the world's $3-trillion advanced, technology-based manufacturing industry. Our print and electronic products deliver trusted information to the engineering market and leverage our proprietary 1.3-million-name database to connect suppliers with buyers and purchase influencers. We produce more than 50 events and conferences in a dozen countries, connecting manufacturing professionals from around the globe. The Engineering portfolio is organized by Informa, the world's leading exhibitions organizer that brings a diverse range of specialist markets to life, unlocking opportunities and helping them to thrive 365 days of the year. For more information, please visit www.informamarkets.com .

Media Contact:

Jordan Douglas

Informa Markets Engineering Public Relations

pr.ime (@) informa.com SOURCE: INFORMA MARKETS - ENGINEERING

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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Rayonier / One of the biggest threats to global forest resources is ongoing urbanization. While we conduct limited real estate development activities within a very select subset of our lands-such as our Wildlight development project north of Jacksonville, Florida, and our Heartwood development project south of Savannah, Georgia-our longstanding commitment to environmental stewardship does not change when we transition land to real estate development. The large scale and long-dated nature of our community development projects provides us the uncommon opportunity to responsibly plan and provide for conservation and other compatible land uses. We are very cognizant of the risk of environmental impact from our development activities and take specific measures to balance the advancement of local economies with the protection and preservation of the surrounding ecosystem.

Heartwood

In Heartwood, our team is collaborating with local leaders and stakeholders to embrace and preserve the area's unique low-country landscape with an emphasis on environmental stewardship. Specific sustainability policies and principles incorporated into the Heartwood community master plan include: natural system preservation, wetland and water conservation, habitat protection, and native landscape standards.

Additionally, we are committed to enhancing the civic infrastructure of the greater community with specific initiatives focused on education and health. Since 2010, we have donated roughly 308 acres to the Bryan County School District to allow for the construction of a fully integrated elementary, middle, and high school learning campus. The state-of-the-art K-12 campus is expected to be fully opened in 2025. Heartwood residents will enjoy the benefit of proximity to the campus including connected paths and trails allowing students and parents to safely walk or bike to school.

In 2022, we announced a strategic alliance with St. Joseph's/Candler Healthcare System with the objective of creating facilities and programs at Heartwood that promote better health across the region. The initiative, referred to as Be Health & Well-Being, blends access to a variety of medical services with healthy lifestyle choices and programs designed to prevent illness and improve quality of life for the entire family. As part of the initaitive, in early 2023 St. Joseph's/Candler started construction of a comprehensive health and medical campus at Heartwood that is planned to total 225,000 square feet when complete. Centrally located at the "front door" of the community, Heartwood families, employees, and students will be able to practice healthy habits just steps from their home, workplace, or school.

Also announced in 2022, Hyundai Mobis plans to invest over $900 million in an Electric Vehicle (EV) Power Electric system plant in Richmond Hill, supplying automotive manufacturers with complete cockpit and chassis modules, and bumper assemblies. At full production, the facility will have the ability to supply over 900,000 EV Power Electric systems and 450,000 Integrated Charging Control Units annually. Construction on the new facility began in early 2023, with production anticipated to commence in 2024.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HEARTWOOD.

"We aspire to build a community that promotes optimal health." -Chris Corr, Senior Vice President, Real Estate Development, and President of Raydient

Wildlight

Roughly half of our Wildlight development project north of Jacksonville, Florida, has been dedicated as a conservation habitat network (CHN). Wildlight's CHN was designed to preserve a mosaic of wetlands, surface waters, and uplands to provide for landscape connectivity and the perpetual protection of significant natural resources within the project area. The CHN contains large, connected wetland strands and approximately 80% of the project's mapped 100-year floodplain. The protection of these areas will provide a variety of habitats needed by indigenous wildlife, as well as connect major habitats allowing wildlife to move across the area with limited interference from development activity. The CHN also allows for a variety of passive and nature-oriented recreational uses that area residents can enjoy, including canoeing/kayaking, walking/hiking, and bicycle trails. We are in the process of expanding our Wildlight development, while keeping conservation as a cornerstone of the planning process. In 2022, Wildlight submitted roughly 15,000 acres for the second phase of development.

LEARN MORE ABOUT WILDLIGHT.

"Rayonier has been part of Nassau County for nearly 100 years. Our roots run very deep in this region. Our forestry mission has always been about enhancing and sustaining the region's natural resources, economic health, and quality of life. Our community development mission is the same." -Chris Corr, Senior Vice President, Real Estate Development, and President of Raydient

To learn more, view the full Rayonier 2022 Sustainability Report.

Heartwood development project south of Savannah, Georgia

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Rayonier on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Rayonier

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/rayonier

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: Rayonier

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The elevated jacket is Ren's first product to hit the market and is now available for purchase online.

SEATTLE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Reen (pronounced /rAn/ or "Rain"), a sustainable apparel company specializing in the production of luxury men's waterproof jackets, has officially launched with the release of its first product. The Reen waterproof jacket is designed to be worn regardless of the weather forecast. With an incredible design and impressive functional versatility, the jacket serves as both a great look and a sustainable outerwear selection.





Reen Jacket

Marc Undeberg, founder of Reen, wearing the Reen Jacket, a sustainable, luxury, waterproof jacket.





The Reen waterproof jacket is packed with additional features such as windproof design, large pockets, waterproof zippers, draw cords and cord locks, and arm vents. Constructed with premium Italian and Japanese fabrics, the jacket is both breathable and PFC-free (per- and poly-fluorinated chemicals).

"Reen was founded on the belief that high-quality, stylish clothing should never come at the expense of our planet," said Marc Undeberg, Reen's founder. "Sustainability is at the core of our jackets and can be considered the core of our business."

Reen is also committed to utilizing renewable packaging, as well as to ensuring that fair wages are paid at every stage of the supply chain. The growing brand also hopes to offset carbon emissions, donate a portion of proceeds to environmentally friendly causes, and offer free repairs to all customers.

Reen will be launched on Kickstarter, and the campaign will be live for 30 days. The Reen team has pledged to plant a tree for every jacket purchase.

For more information regarding Reen's launch and its unique luxury jacket, please visit: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marcundeberg/reen-sustainable-luxury-waterproof-jackets and https://www.reenwear.com/

About Reen

There are very few jackets for men that are both waterproof and elevated. Most men opt for the traditional waterproof shell, which works great but doesn't tie together an outfit.

Reen makes waterproof jackets from premium Italian and Japanese textiles that are not only waterproof but look great regardless of whether or not it is rainy. The best part? Reen is 100% committed to creating a more sustainable fashion industry.

At every turn, Reen set out to create a truly sustainable product, from renewable textiles and packaging to ensuring that fair wages are paid at every stage of the supply chain, to offsetting carbon emissions, to planting trees with every purchase, to donating a portion of proceeds to environmentally friendly causes, and finally, offering free repairs.

Contact Information

Marc Undeberg

Founder, Reen

[email protected]

206-832-9737

SOURCE: Reen

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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Cadence Design Systems

By Jonaki, Community Member

We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

I recently had two instances that led me to realize that we are impacted by differences at the workplace as well because unconscious bias exists within each of us. This bias can be due to not only differences in race, but also gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, and culture.

Cadence first recognized Juneteenth as a global company day off a few years ago to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. While I had read and seen movies based on the historical tales of slavery, that holiday was a moment of epiphany for me in many ways.

I met with some college friends a few months ago, and we were reminiscing about our experiences at various workplaces. While talking about the entry-level interviews, many of the women shared being asked about their marital plans and if they were planning to go on maternity leave anytime soon, whereas no one had asked any of the men such questions! Imagine the bias that women face from the start at companies where it is automatically assumed that they will go on leave or quit - leading to them not being selected for leadership positions as a result.

On the other side, studies have shown that organizations that have more diversity in their management teams end up with higher revenues. After all, new ideas come from diverse ways of looking at things, leading to more innovation. The fact is that people with varied experiences and backgrounds bring their unique skills to the workplace, and research shows that acceptance leads to greater trust and commitment.

DEI at Cadence

I'm proud to work at Cadence, a company that has been a leader when it comes to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). This includes celebrating heritage months, groups such as Cadencia and B.I.G., the Latinx and Black inclusion groups, respectively, as well as the Veterans, LGBTQ+, and Women's Inclusion Groups.

The Cadence Diversity in Technology Scholarship programs were created to support underrepresented groups in their pursuit of careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.

The Cadence Returnship Program encourages and provides opportunities for individuals ready to get back in the field after a break from the industry to parent, provide care, or serve in the military.

There are also initiatives such as Women at Cadence that encourage learning and mentoring opportunities for women employees through various programs. I have been selected twice for the Global Women's Mentorship Program, and I have learned a lot from each of my mentors.

Why Words Matter

As an editor, I also see how language connects people to the values of an organization, and how even the language used in our products and communications can impact mindsets, both inside and outside the organization.

The words we use and the way we use them showcase our attitudes and thoughts. Even something seemingly simple such as calling the board chair the "chairman" for example, caters to the stereotype that only men occupy these positions and strengthens gender biases. Using descriptions such as "sanity check" is similarly harmful because they are hurtful to the people who are dealing with mental health challenges or have loved ones dealing with them.

I'm doubly proud, therefore, especially as a member of the CPG Technical Communications Team, to be a part of an initiative for using inclusive language.

Making a Change

In response to changes in the industry and conversations with our customers and partners, we've formed the Words Matter Initiative, a cross-functional team focusing on the language and terminology in our materials in order to ensure our communications are respectful and reflect our DEI values. The initiative is sponsored by KT Moore, vice president of Corporate Marketing, and comprises members across various groups, roles, and geographies. In our monthly meetings, we discuss how language can help Cadence develop a culture of inclusivity and how biased language has the opposite effect.

The team focuses on researching and reviewing the language that is used in all our content - from corporate messaging and marketing, to product code and collateral, to technical communications content, to sales and facilities messaging. We look at the words for the connotations arising from various perspectives - whether they invoke violent images or are associated with bias, such as race, accessibility, or gender, among others. This could be either due to those words reinforcing stereotypes or creating a negative impact on the reader due to the historical background or connotations around them.

After several rounds of reviewing possible terms to avoid, we have published an internal website that showcases the list of words to be avoided or not used, suggests alternatives, and explains the rationale behind the changes. Going forward, we will add to and update the list as needed.

We have also partnered with Grammarly Business, a cloud-based writing assistant, which helps employees search for and use alternatives to biased language. We recently hosted a virtual fireside chat with KT and Grammarly's Global Head of People, Erica Alioto, where they shared how Grammarly's software can help foster respect and trust through inclusive communications.

One Cadence-One Team

In the end, a corporate culture that supports and fosters DEI is only possible when we understand and change our behaviors where needed and, thereafter, sustain those changes. After all, as American poet and activist Maya Angelou said, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

And Cadence president and CEO Anirudh Devgan echoes this:

"We pride ourselves on creating an environment where diversity, equity, and inclusion are celebrated and embraced. This is core to our One Cadence-One Team culture."

Thank you for reading!

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Cadence Design Systems on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Cadence Design Systems

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/cadence-design-systems

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: Cadence Design Systems

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Automotive aftermarket parts provider recognizes five additional vendor partners during its annual Partner Summit

RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (NYSE: AAP), a leading automotive aftermarket parts provider, presented its 2023 Vendor of the Year Awards during the companys annual Partner Summit, held on Monday, Oct. 16, in Raleigh, N.C. During the event, Advance honored several vendors for their partnership and performance over the past year.

The 2023 Vendor Partner of the Year Award was presented to National Refrigerants, a worldwide distributor of refrigerant products. A key partner in Advances chemicals business, National Refrigerants worked closely with Advances inventory team to provide a steady supply of refrigerant products in authorized markets across the United States while helping Advance navigate state and local regulations around the selling of refrigerant products. National Refrigerants has been a trusted and reliable vendor partner for more than five years, enabling Advance to grow its business in the AC chemicals category.

Passionate and dedicated vendor partners are a vital component of our companys success, said Jason McDonell, Advances executive vice president of merchandising, marketing and eCommerce. Their ability to consistently provide a quality product mix while collaborating on innovative strategies and solutions allows us to better serve the needs of our DIY and professional customers. On behalf of Advance, congratulations to National Refrigerants and all our award-winning vendors, and thank you to all who joined us at this years Partner Summit.

Other award winners include Amalie Oil Company, which was named Advances Superior Availability Vendor Partner of the Year. Advances supplier of FRAM motor oil and lubricants, Amalie helped Advance maintain exemplary in-stock levels and growth in multiple categories, including heavy duty motor oil. Amalies support allowed Advance to better serve customers with a greater product choice in the light duty, heavy duty and diesel motor oil categories.

Advance awarded the Together with Speed Vendor Partner of the Year Award to ITW-Global Brands in recognition of their strategic support across multiple product categories at Advance, including wiper blades, wash and wax, body repair and performance chemicals. ITWs team supported Advance through product innovation and marketing engagement while ensuring product availability to drive sales for Advance.

MotoRad was named the Excellence in Collaboration Vendor Partner of the Year. Over the course of the year, MotoRad consistently showcased outstanding fill rates, product technology innovation and creative solutions that include data-driven product recommendations. Their proactive problem-solving strategies boosted the overall efficiency and effectiveness of Advances operations, ultimately enhancing sales and customer satisfaction.

Sylvania was named the Strategic Initiative Vendor of the Year for their exceptional support of Advances lighting category. Sylvanias collaboration resulted in higher fill rates and sales growth, while also reflecting Advances cultural beliefs through a focus on team member training and other lighting category enhancements.

Legends Marketing was named Marketing Partner of the Year for their support, advocacy and growth of Advances TechNet professional repair shop network. Legends Marketing elevated the authenticity of the TechNet brand through creative solutions such as their unique video series featuring TechNet shop owners in their communities. Their work on behalf of Advance and TechNet shops resulted in a sixth consecutive year of membership and sales growth.

About Advance Auto Parts

Advance Auto Parts, Inc. is a leading automotive aftermarket parts provider that serves both professional installer and do-it-yourself customers. As of July 15, 2023, Advance operated 4,790 stores and 319 Worldpac branches primarily within the United States, with additional locations in Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The company also served 1,307 independently owned Carquest branded stores across these locations in addition to Mexico and various Caribbean islands. Additional information about Advance, including employment opportunities, customer services, and online shopping for parts, accessories and other offerings can be found at www.AdvanceAutoParts.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019327594/en/

Advance Auto Parts Contacts:

Investor Relations:

Elisabeth Eisleben

T: (919) 227-5466

E: [email protected]

Media Relations:

Darryl Carr

T: (984) 389-7207

E: [email protected]

Source: Advance Auto Parts, Inc.
Sustainability ratings leader EcoVadis places AFYREN in top 21% of all companies evaluated

Award is a validation of AFYREN's CSR commitments and performance

CLERMONT-FERRAND, France & LYON, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Regulatory News:

AFYREN (Paris: ALAFY), a greentech company that offers manufacturers bio-based, low-carbon ingredients produced using unique fermentation technology based on a completely circular model, announced today that it was awarded a silver medal by EcoVadis, one of the most recognized independent CSR assessment platforms.

In its first EcoVadis rating, AFYREN obtained a score of 61/100, placing it in the top 21% of companies out of more than 85,000 assessed worldwide, and earning it a silver medal. This recognition by a third-party organization rewards AFYREN's constant efforts to comply with best practices in terms of social and environmental responsibility, and aligns perfectly with its purpose: "We enable low-carbon, circular industry by providing biobased solutions built with our partners to benefit the environment."

EcoVadis ratings are based on international CSR standards, such as the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact, the conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and ISO 260000. These ratings provide an evidence-based analysis of performance and an actionable roadmap for continuous improvement. Each company is assessed on key issues according to its size, location and business sector.

Caroline PETIGNY, AFYREN's Chief Sustainability Officer, said: "We are proud of this very good score awarded by one of the most reputable CSR rating agencies. Our value proposition is based both on our environmental commitments, through our bio-based, low-carbon and fully circular model, and on our social commitments. We are delighted that our progress in these areas is recognized year after year by independent bodies."

About EcoVadis

EcoVadis is the world's leading platform for assessing and rating corporate sustainability performance. It offers innovative solutions for measuring, monitoring and improving the CSR practices of companies worldwide. Its main objective is to promote CSR by assessing performance using a rigorous methodology and transparent rating criteria. More than 85,000 companies in over 175 countries have been assessed by EcoVadis. The EcoVadis evaluation takes into account 21 CSR criteria divided into four fundamental themes: Social Environment, Human Rights, Ethics and Responsible Purchasing.

About AFYREN

Founded in 2012 to address manufacturers growing need to reduce the carbon footprint of their inputs and move towards more natural ingredients, AFYREN manufactures biobased products to replace petroleum-derived molecules. With its innovative, unique, and proprietary process, the French greentech company offers low-carbon, bio-based alternatives in the following sectors: human and animal nutrition, cosmetics, flavors and fragrances, and fine chemicals. By valorizing local, non-food biomass, AFYREN helps manufacturers offer more sustainable finished products while remaining competitive.

The company is pursuing an ambitious development plan to better serve its international customers. Its first plant, AFYREN NEOXY, a joint venture with Bpifrance's SPI fund, is located in France, primarily to serve the European market. In early 2023, AFYREN announced the launch of a factory project in Thailand, partnering with a world leader in the sugar industry. AFYREN is also expanding its presence on the American continent, in line with distribution agreements already signed.

By 2023, AFYREN employed more than 110 people in Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand & Carling Saint-Avold; the company invests 20% of its budget in R&D every year.

AFYREN has been listed on Euronext Growth in Paris since 2021 (ISIN code: FR0014005AC9, ticker: ALAFY).

Find out more: https://afyren.com/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018330836/en/

AFYREN

Director for ESG, Communications and Public Affairs

Caroline Petigny

[email protected]

Investor Relations

Mark Reinhard

[email protected]

NewCap

Investor Relations

Theo Martin / Mathilde Bohin

Tel: 01 44 71 94 94

[email protected]

NewCap

Media Relations

Nicolas Merigeau / Gaelle Fromaigeat

Tel: 01 44 71 94 98

[email protected]

BOGERT-MAGNIER COMMUNICATIONS

International Media relations

Bogert-Magnier Communications

James Connell

+33 6 2152 1755

[email protected]

Source: AFYREN
PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AL DIA, a Philadelphia-based Latino+ multicultural, multimedia news organization, has launched AL DIA Magazine, a membership-based digital and print publication.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231013194465/en/

(Photo: Business Wire)

The magazine focuses on the best of the American multicultural experience. It includes news analysis and summaries, op-eds, and feature articles on politics, education, leadership, and culture. It also covers news from metro Philadelphia and the Mid-Atlantic States.

The 40 to 60-page glossy magazine is written in what the company calls English+. Each article contains a QR code that enables members to access the content online in American English and Standard U.S. Spanish.

A one-year membership includes the magazine and VIP invitations to news events.

The first edition features Cherelle Parker and David Oh, two candidates vying to become Philadelphias 100th mayor.

AL DIA has evolved over its 29 years history, says publisher Hernan Guaracao. What started as a newsletter in my home, evolved into a weekly newspaper and now a magazine. Shifting U.S. demographics, increased online readership, shrinking ad budgets and the high cost of print manufacturing and distribution helped drive the change.

In addition to its magazine, and video and & podcast platforms, AL DIA News Media provides services that enhance the American multicultural experience:

AL DIA Archetypes  a national award celebration of #Latino+ multicultural leaders in six professions.

 a national award celebration of #Latino+ multicultural leaders in six professions. AL DIA Jobs/Professional Recruitment  advertising, content marketing and event marketing solutions for companies seeking to diversify their workforces and find leaders in the non-profit and educational sectors.

 advertising, content marketing and event marketing solutions for companies seeking to diversify their workforces and find leaders in the non-profit and educational sectors. AL DIA Bilingual Brand Studio  multiplatform, multilingual content marketing around business, health, education, technology, culture, politics, and money.

 multiplatform, multilingual content marketing around business, health, education, technology, culture, politics, and money. AL DIA Live  live conversations with regional and national business, cultural and political leaders. For example, Top Medical Doctors, Top Corporate Leaders in Education and STEM, 40 Under 40, Women of Merit, and Top Entrepreneurs.

 live conversations with regional and national business, cultural and political leaders. For example, Top Medical Doctors, Top Corporate Leaders in Education and STEM, 40 Under 40, Women of Merit, and Top Entrepreneurs. AL DIA Legal Announcements and regular public notices.

About AL DIA News Media

AL DIA News Media is a dynamic multi-platform news organization headquartered in Philadelphia. The family-owned, journalist-operated outlet delivers a unique brand of journalism that is engaged, informed and unapologetic. It has received numerous local, regional and national awards.

Its founder, owner, and editor-in-chief, Hernan Guaracao, is past president of the National Association of Hispanic Publications and a lifetime member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231013194465/en/

Rick Alcantara

856.217.8662

[email protected]

Source: AL DIA News Media
SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of B++ (Good) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of bbb (Good) of BIDV Insurance Corporation (BIC) (Vietnam). Additionally, AM Best has assigned the Vietnam National Scale Rating (NSR) of aaa.VN (Exceptional) to BIC. The outlooks of these Credit Ratings (ratings) are stable.

The ratings reflect BICs balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management. The ratings also factor in the neutral impact from the companys ultimate corporate parent, Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV).

BICs balance sheet strength assessment is underpinned by the strongest level of risk-adjusted capitalisation, as measured by Bests Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR). The BCAR has exhibited a decreasing trend driven by higher capital requirements from net catastrophe risk and robust business growth, but AM Best expects it to remain at the strongest level over the medium term. BIC maintains a conservative investment strategy with the bulk of investments held in cash, term deposits and fixed-income securities; however, the company maintains a concentration in term deposits held with its majority shareholder, BIDV. The company is diversifying its investment portfolio by investing in more public equities. BICs moderate use of reinsurance helps to support its underwriting capacity for large property and engineering risks, as well as to manage accumulation risks and catastrophe exposure. The reinsurance panel has good credit quality in general.

AM Best assesses BICs operating performance as adequate, with a five-year average return-on-equity ratio of 11.9% and combined ratio of 95.5% (2018-2022). The companys stable stream of interest income from term deposits and fixed-income holdings remains an important contributor to its overall earnings. BIC has significantly expanded its medical and personal accident insurances via bancassurance in recent years, which leads to higher expense ratios, but lower loss ratios.

AM Best views BICs business profile as neutral. The company reported notable growth in its bancassurance channel in recent years, thanks to strong support from its banking parent, BIDV. Its gross premiums written (GPW) reached VND 4.0 trillion in 2022, representing a 5% share of the domestic market. The majority of GPW was sourced from Vietnam with approximately 5% of GPW from Laos. The companys main lines of business are personal accident and health, motor, as well as property and engineering insurance.

BICs risk management framework and capabilities benefit from a level of technical support, expertise and oversight provided by BIDV, as well as from a strategic relationship with its minority interest shareholder, Fairfax Asia Limited.

Ratings are communicated to rated entities prior to publication. Unless stated otherwise, the ratings were not amended subsequent to that communication.

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Bests website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Bests Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Bests Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Bests Credit Ratings, Bests Performance Assessments, Bests Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Bests Ratings & Assessments.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

Copyright  2023 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019878131/en/

Ken Lau

Senior Financial Analyst

+65 6303 5025

[email protected]

Chris Lim, FCII, CFA

Associate Director, Analytics

+65 6305 5018

[email protected]

Christopher Sharkey

Associate Director, Public Relations

+1 908 882 2310

[email protected]

Al Slavin

Senior Public Relations Specialist

+1 908 882 2318

[email protected]

Source: AM Best
COLUMBIA CITY, Ind.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Since 1983, Joe Kessie has helped farmers throughout Indiana make sound financial decisions and obtain the financing they need to expand or improve their operations. Now, Kessie has joined Schrader Real estate and Auction Company as an agent.

Kessie, who lives in Winona Lake, Indiana, will work with farmers and investors buying and selling farmland. Growing up on a farm, he gained a firm appreciation of the values he learned from his family. He distinguished himself early by winning a national Future Farmers Association award in 1978 and went on to graduate from Purdue. In 2021, the American Bankers Association awarded Kessie the prestigious national Bruning Award in recognition of his significant contributions to agricultural banking.

We have known Joe for years as one of the most respected experts in farm finance in the industry, and we could not be more excited to have him as part of our team, said R.D. Schrader, president of the auction company.

Joe has established a role as a trusted adviser to farmers throughout Indiana, and as he embarks on his new role in a different aspect of the industry, he will no doubt benefit from the name recognition and reputation he has established, said Schrader.

Kessie said he is excited with his new challenge. My goal is to earn the confidence of farmers and farmland owners as a Schrader agent. I have known many of the Schrader staff for years and this seemed like a logical next step in my career.

Kessie can be reached at [email protected] or 260-609-4640.

Schrader Real Estate and Auction Company, based in Columbia City, Indiana, is a leading auctioneer of agricultural land and equipment throughout the United States and is a five-time USA Today/National Auctioneers Association Auction of the Year winner. Those seeking details on upcoming auctions, or those seeking to sell land, may visit www.schraderauction.com or call 800-451-2705.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019096091/en/

For more information:

Carl Carter

205-910-6747

Source: Schrader Real Estate and Auction Company
PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Regulatory News:

Axway Software (Paris: AXW):

Event Date Publication / Meeting 2023 Full-Year Results Wednesday, February 21, 2024 Press Release (after market closing) Virtual Analyst Conference  6.30 p.m. (UTC+1) 2023 Universal Registration Document Monday, March 25, 2024 AMF Filing & Publication 2024 1st Quarter Revenue Thursday, April 25, 2024 Press Release (before market opening) 2024 Annual General meeting Thursday, May 16, 2024 Shareholders meeting  2.30 p.m. (UTC+2) Etoile Business Center  Paris 2024 Half-Year Results Tuesday, July 23, 2024 Press Release (after market closing) Virtual Analyst Conference  6.30 p.m. (UTC+2) 2024 3rd Quarter Revenue Thursday, October 24, 2024 Press Release (before market opening)

The quiet period is 30 calendar days prior to the publication of Full-Year and Half-Year Results, and 15 calendar days prior to the publication of Quarter Revenue.

The most recent version of Axway's financial calendar is available at any time in the "Calendar" section of the Axway Investor Relations website: https://investors.axway.com/en/calendar-publications/calendar

All informations relating to Axway's Shareholders' Meetings are available in the "Shareholders Meeting" section of the Axway Investor Relations website: https://investors.axway.com/en/shareholders-and-investors/shareholders-meeting

Disclaimer

This document is a translation into English of an original French press release. It is not a binding document. In the event of a conflict in interpretation, reference should be made to the French version, which is the authentic text.

About Axway

Axway enables enterprises to securely open everything by integrating and moving data across a complex world of new and old technologies. Axways API-driven B2B integration and MFT software, refined over 20 years, complements Axway Amplify, an open API management platform that makes APIs easier to discover and reuse across multiple teams, vendors, and cloud environments. Axway has helped over 11,000 businesses unlock the full value of their existing digital ecosystems to create brilliant experiences, innovate new services, and reach new markets. Learn more at axway.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019094977/en/

Investor Relations: Arthur Carli  +33 (0)1 47 17 24 65  [email protected]

Source: Axway Software
ReadSpeakers industry-leading voice expertise leveraged by leading Italian newspaper to enhance the reader experience

MILAN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ReadSpeaker, the most trusted, independent digital voice partner for global businesses, today announced that Corriere della Sera  one of Italy's most widely read and longest running daily newspapers  has partnered with the ReadSpeaker VoiceLab for the design and development of two exclusive custom-branded digital voices, which are now available to read any online article out loud to subscribers to the Corriere della Sera.

Digital media innovators like Corriere della Sera include AI-driven digital voice as part of their brand strategy, as a way to meet evolving user needs and expectations and to grow their business.

A carefully curated reader experience, with newsreader style branded digital voice capability expands the options available to subscribers to listen to articles as they engage in their everyday activities.

The ReadSpeaker VoiceLab managed every step of the development process for the Corriere della Sera custom voices, including carrying out recordings with the voice talents, processing the recorded data, training Deep Neural Network (DNN) models on that data, and managing quality control, delivery, and all necessary quality assurance steps pre and post launch.

Building digital voices requires human voice recordings to be delivered in an extremely consistent way, prioritizing precise articulation and style. ReadSpeakers VoiceLab experts worked closely with the Corriere della Sera team throughout every stage of the process.

A key challenge in the development of the custom voices for Corriere della Sera was the need to pronounce extremely variable and often non-standard lexical and linguistic content typical of a daily newspaper. The VoiceLab team worked closely with the Corriere della Sera team to optimize the speech output for this massively broad domain. This exemplifies how essential it is to combine state-of-the-art AI-powered technology with human expertise to deliver successful results.

Corriere della Sera offers innovative reading experiences with speech-enabled articles read in Corrieres exclusive, expressive newsreader style voices designed to match the newspapers brand personality and enable hands and eyes-free media content fruition. A new service that is available now to all Corriere della Sera subscribers.

"Engaging ReadSpeaker as a strategic partner in the development of exclusive digital voices for Corriere della Sera was a decision based on the VoiceLab teams collaborative and consultative approach. They worked closely with us from the conceptual development phase all the way through to final delivery, providing a seamless blend of technical expertise and strategic guidance," said Fabio Napoli, Business Digital Director at Corriere della Sera.

"ReadSpeaker's innovative and meticulous approach to custom voice creation, which combines cutting-edge technology with a dedicated linguistic team, delivered the comprehensive solution we needed for this project. Their commitment to working in partnership with us, offering valuable consultancy at every stage, has been a significant factor in the success of this project."

"Partnering with Corriere della Sera, we witness firsthand the impact of integrating voice technology into a brand's strategy. This not only ensures a consistently engaging and distinct brand presence across various platforms, but it also enhances the user experience. At the ReadSpeaker VoiceLab, we create custom voices tailored to our clients' needs, which reflect their brand identity and offer their customers a unique audio experience. For Corriere della Sera, our custom voices are now an integral part of their innovative digital news platform, demonstrating the transformative power of voice technology in today's media landscape," said Roy Lindemann, CMO and CCO EMEA, at ReadSpeaker.

Watch the Corriere della Sera video here.

For more information, please visit www.readspeaker.com/solutions/custom-text-to-speech-tts-voices/

About ReadSpeaker:

ReadSpeaker is the most trusted independent digital voice partner for global brands, institutions, and organizations. With over 20 years experience, ReadSpeakers AI-powered text-to-speech solutions and expert assistance enhance the accessibility of digital content and enable more user-friendly and engaging interactions with technology. The companys flexible cloud and on-premise solutions bring over 115 expressive, humanlike synthetic voices in more than 40 languages to any application or device. The company consistently maintains its uncompromising commitment to data privacy and has so far speech enabled over 10,000 voice applications worldwide.

The ReadSpeaker VoiceLab works closely with brands and organizations to create Custom Branded Voices: unique, expressive, and instantly recognizable digital voices that enable on-brand CX across touchpoints.

For more information, go to readspeaker.com and follow the company on X and LinkedIn.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018593773/en/

ReadSpeaker media contact:

Gaea Vilage

[email protected]

Source: ReadSpeaker
HIAWATHA, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Crystal Group, Inc., a trusted designer and manufacturer of rugged high-performance edge compute solutions, sponsored the commissioning ceremony for the USS Hyman G. Rickover, the United States newest fast-attack, nuclear-powered submarine.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019444220/en/

Photo courtesy of the USS Hyman G. Rickover Commissioning Committee. (Photo: Business Wire)

The USS Rickover is the 22nd Virginia-class submarine commissioned by the U.S. Navy and is the second submarine honoring U.S. Navy Adm. Hyman G. Rickover who has been titled as the Father of the Nuclear Navy.

This submarine continues the legacy and dominance of undersea warfare established by the U.S. Navys nuclear-powered submarine program nearly seven decades ago.

As a reactor operation and Naval Reactor engineer, I saw firsthand the legacy of technical competence and operational excellence created by Adm. Rickover, said Chad Hutchinson, VP of Engineering at Crystal Group. That legacy lives on in this new Virginia-class submarine that bears his name.

Crystal Group supports all Virgina-class submarines with best-in-class custom rugged computing hardware designed specifically for the requirements of the U.S. Navy. The company is also proud to support this branch of the U.S. Armed Forces by providing over 20,000 Crystal Group servers, most of which are still deployed today.

Protecting the warfighter in war and peacetime is Crystal Groups mission and the USS Hyman G. Rickover enables an even more advanced competitive advantage for the U.S. Navy.

As a 28-year Navy veteran, I take a lot of pride in how Crystal Group supports the U.S. Armed Forces. That pride of workmanship extends to everyone at Crystal Group because we know that we build equipment that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines depend upon, said Greg Johnson, program manager at Crystal Group. Ensuring the safety of our warfighters and completion of the mission is what constantly drives our quality because we know that lives depend upon our equipment.

About Crystal Group, Inc.

Crystal Group, Inc. is a leading provider of high-performance, rugged compute solutions for defense, government, and industrial markets. Founded in 1987, this small, employee-owned business specializes in the design, customization, build and testing of rugged servers, embedded computers, networking devices, displays, and data storage for high reliability in harsh environments.

Their integrated solutions meet or exceed IEEE, IEC, and military standards, including MIL-STD-810, 167-1, 461, and MIL-S-901, to bring seamless, real-time artificial intelligence, autonomy and cybersecurity to demanding edge applications. All products are manufactured in the companys U.S. facility, certified to ISO 9001:2015/AS9100D standards and are backed by a five-plus-year warranty.

2023 Crystal Group, Inc. All rights reserved. All marks are property of their respective owners. Design and specifications are subject to change.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019444220/en/

Ellie Gretter

[email protected]

319.378.1636 ext. 298

Source: Crystal Group
Acquisition will position DTCC to provide global leadership in bridging best-in-class industry practices with advanced digital technology to encourage adoption of digital assets

NEW YORK & LONDON & HONG KONG & SINGAPORE & SYDNEY & ABU DHABI--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- DTCC, the premier market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Securrency Inc. (Securrency), a leading developer of institutional-grade, digital asset infrastructure. The acquisition, which is expected to close within the next several weeks, will position DTCC to provide global leadership in bridging best-in-class industry practices with advanced digital technology to encourage acceptance and adoption of digital assets.

Securrency will become a fully-owned subsidiary of DTCC and will operate under the name DTCC Digital Assets. Nadine Chakar, CEO of Securrency, will join DTCC as Managing Director, Global Head of DTCC Digital Assets, reporting to Lynn Bishop, DTCC Managing Director and Chief Information Officer. Chakar will also join the DTCC Management Committee. In addition, Dan Doney, CTO and founder of Securrency, John Hensel, COO and co-founder, and other members of the Securrency leadership team, as well as roughly 100 Securrency staff of full-time employees or contractors, will become DTCC employees.

Frank La Salla, President, CEO and Director, DTCC, said, Securrency is an important strategic acquisition that will give us the technology to drive market-wide transformation by enabling end-to-end digital lifecycle processing for tokenized assets, digital currencies and other financial instruments. By bringing together DTCCs commitment to providing market stability and our unparalleled network of financial market participants with the sophistication of the Securrency technology, we will be in a leading position to unlock the value of digital assets and help guide the industry through its digital transformation journey. We believe this next generation of financial market infrastructure will further reduce settlement times, facilitate market transparency and risk management, enhance regulatory oversight and controls, and unlock efficiency and innovation to create an improved investor experience.

By combining DTCCs digital capabilities and Securrencys technology, DTCC will fast-track development of its enterprise digital asset platform to unlock the power of institutional DeFi. DTCC will leverage the technology over time to embed digital assets within its existing products and services, develop new, regulatory-compliant blockchain-based offerings and explore use cases with the industry, including buyside asset managers, broker-dealers and custodians, to collaborate on new DTCC blockchain-based solutions.

In addition, DTCC will lead the industrys development of a robust, global digital infrastructure by licensing the Securrency technology and offering professional services. Firms will be able to leverage the technology to transform and evolve their operating models and to create innovative, new digital asset services alone or in collaboration with other market participants  similar to how WisdomTree licenses Securrencys software as part of the infrastructure for its WisdomTree Prime offering that provides tokenized assets and funds via digital wallets for retail investors and consumers.

Chakar said, As we join forces with DTCC, we are excited to bring together DTCCs infrastructure capabilities with Securrencys technology to embrace a future where the digitization of capital markets is at the forefront of innovation. These capabilities will allow DTCC to partner with the industry to build a resilient and scalable infrastructure critical to the mass adoption of digital assets. Together, we will unlock opportunities to reimagine compliance, liquidity, efficiency and interoperability in trading real-world assets on the blockchain.

DTCC also plans to provide global leadership to foster industry-wide collaboration to help avoid fragmentation with different digital technologies and standards. Securrencys technology can address this issue by acting as a DLT-agnostic harmonization layer that promotes interoperability, liquidity, transparency and security.

La Salla said, We look forward to building on our past work to drive consensus around the standards, controls and frameworks necessary to support regulatory-compliant digital asset solutions and development of the right architecture and infrastructure to ensure widespread interoperability. Were excited to welcome our new colleagues to the DTCC team and to begin collaborating as a group to strengthen market stability and resilience and drive greater efficiencies, productivity, risk mitigation and liquidity in the global financial markets.

DTCCs digital asset strategy focuses on establishing the digital infrastructure to extend its core services to the digital asset ecosystem and deliver no-touch, end-to-end processing. Its strategic priorities include:

Exploring development of digital products and services to address gaps in market infrastructure or that optimize the end-to-end lifecycle

Establishing a control framework for digital asset securities

Executing client-driven pilots aligned to the firms core capabilities and services

Advancing industry-wide dialogue on interoperability to inform future connectivity models

About DTCC

With 50 years of experience, DTCC is the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry. From 20 locations around the world, DTCC, through its subsidiaries, automates, centralizes, and standardizes the processing of financial transactions, mitigating risk, increasing transparency, enhancing performance and driving efficiency for thousands of broker/dealers, custodian banks and asset managers. Industry owned and governed, the firm innovates purposefully, simplifying the complexities of clearing, settlement, asset servicing, transaction processing, trade reporting and data services across asset classes and bringing increased security, enhanced resilience and soundness to financial markets. In 2022, DTCCs subsidiaries processed securities transactions valued at U.S. $2.5 quadrillion and its depository subsidiary provided custody and asset servicing for securities issues from over 150 countries and territories valued at U.S. $72 trillion. DTCCs Global Trade Repository service, through locally registered, licensed, or approved trade repositories, processes more than 17.5 billion messages annually. To learn more, please visit us at www.dtcc.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

About Securrency

Securrency is an institutional-grade digital asset infrastructure provider that offers groundbreaking solutions to market participants in order to facilitate the trading, settlement and servicing of digital securities and assets. Their innovative, institutional-grade product suite enables broad, secure and compliant access to financial markets to facilitate efficient settlement and increase global liquidity. Their capabilities will drive institutional adoption of blockchain technology, including tokenization and financial process automation, near-real time payment and post trade settlement, and cross-chain interoperability.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019120812/en/

Press

DTCC

Kristi Morrow

+1 617 880 6770

[email protected]

US

Eric Hazard, Vested

+1 917 765 8720

[email protected]

Europe

Ana Reynaud

+44 (0) 7866 202 656

[email protected]

Asia

Corinne Lee, DTCC

+65 6805 8033

[email protected]

Source: Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation
Late breaking results from the CUPISCO study demonstrate how molecularly guided treatment using Foundation Medicine testing positively impacted survival in patients with cancer of unknown primary origin (CUP)

New research reinforces the unique capabilities of FoundationOneLiquid CDxs ctDNA tumor fraction algorithm to further validate confidence in liquid biopsy

Study reveals genetic differences between ancestries in patients with biliary tract cancer (BTC)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Foundation Medicine, Inc., today announced that the company will present 11 abstracts demonstrating the value of high-quality biomarker tests to inform cancer care at the 2023 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Annual Meeting from October 20-24 in Madrid, Spain.

Late Breaking Results from the CUPISCO Study

In a late-breaking abstract, Foundation Medicine and Roche share results from the randomized precision oncology study, CUPISCO, designed to prospectively assess the efficacy of molecularly guided therapy for patients with unfavorable subset cancer of unknown primary (CUP). In patients with CUP, the tumor of origin is unknown, which has historically made targeted treatment challenging. As a result, there has been little progress in improving the poor outcomes for these patients. The study demonstrates how genomic profiling using Foundation Medicines FDA-approved FoundationOneCDx and FoundationOneLiquid CDx diagnostic tests positively impacted progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with CUP.

Primary analysis of efficacy and safety in CUPISCO: A randomised, global study of targeted therapy or cancer immunotherapy guided by genomic profiling vs platinum-based chemotherapy (CTX) in patients (pts) with treatment-naive, unfavourable carcinoma-of-unknown-primary-origin (CUP) (Proffered Paper Session 1, LBA16)

Highlighting Expanded Capabilities of ctDNA Tumor Fraction

Research continues to validate the power of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) tumor fraction, which is a measurement of the level of ctDNA within a liquid biopsy sample, to support the interpretation of liquid biopsy test results. Two new studies being presented by Foundation Medicine and its collaborators at ESMO highlight the differentiated ctDNA tumor fraction reporting capabilities of the companys FoundationOneLiquid CDx test. The research explores ctDNA tumor fractions correlation with metabolic tumor volume on with a PET scan, and its prognostic use in bladder cancer, respectively.

Clinical and genomic correlates of plasma circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) tumor fraction (TF) in patients with advanced NSCLC (Presentation Number 2339P)

Relationship of Tumor Fraction in Circulating Tumor DNA (ctDNA) with Prognosis in Patients with Advanced Urothelial Cancer (Presentation Number 2396P)

Demonstrating Differences in Genetic Ancestry in Biliary Tract Cancer

Molecular differences between genetic ancestries in patients with biliary tract cancer (BTC) and the impact of those differences on prognosis and treatment response are largely unknown. In a study conducted with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, researchers looked at over 10,000 cases of BTC in patients of African and European descent and identified key clinical and genomic differences.

Molecular Profiling of Biliary Tract Cancer (BTCs) in Patients of African and European ancestries (Presentation Number 113P)



The research we are presenting at this years ESMO reinforces the ever-expanding clinical utility across disease types of our high-quality tissue and blood-based tests, says Mia Levy, MD, PhD, chief medical officer at Foundation Medicine. Alongside our collaborators, were proud to share our continued progress in bringing more knowledge and cancer treatment options to the cancer community.

The following is a list of abstracts that will be presented at the meeting. To access all abstracts being presented at ESMO, please visit ESMO.org.

Follow Foundation Medicine on Twitter and LinkedIn for more updates from #ESMO23 and visit us in person at Booths 727 and 728.

Abstract # Title Collaborators Product Proffered Paper (Oral) LBA16 Saturday, October 21 10:35-10:45 a.m. Primary analysis of efficacy and safety in CUPISCO: A randomised, global study of targeted therapy or cancer immunotherapy guided by genomic profiling vs platinum-based chemotherapy (CTX) in patients (pts) with treatment-naive, unfavourable carcinoma-of-unknown-primary-origin (CUP) Oncologists from Europe, Asia and Oceania, Central lab at University Hospital of Zurich FoundationOneCDx FoundationOneLiquid CDx 1182O Sunday, October 22 9:20-9:30 a.m. Temozolomide treatment induces an MMR-dependent hypermutator phenotype in well differentiated pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors Hopital Saint-Louis AP-HP FoundationOneCDx Posters 2352P Sunday, October 22 Sex-Based Difference in Gene Alterations and Biomarkers in Anal Squamous Cell Carcinoma IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute FoundationOneCDx 771P Sunday, October 22 Genomic Characterization of Advanced Endometrial Carcinosarcoma: Identification of Potentially Actionable Targets IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori FoundationOneCDx 2339P Sunday, October 22 Clinical and genomic correlates of plasma circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) tumor fraction (TF) in patients with advanced NSCLC Institut Gustave Roussy FoundationOneLiquid CDx 113P Monday, October 23 Molecular Profiling of Biliary Tract Cancer (BTCs) in Patients of African and European ancestries MD Anderson FoundationOneCDx 738P Monday, October 23 Penile squamous cell carcinoma with high and very high tumor mutational burden: A genomic landscape and real-world clinical outcome study Upstate Medical University, University of Washington, Moffit Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, San Rafael University FoundationOneCDx 2396P Monday, October 23 Relationship of Tumor Fraction in Circulating Tumor DNA (ctDNA) with Prognosis in Patients with Advanced Urothelial Cancer Fox Chase Cancer Center, Temple University FoundationOneLiquid CDx 1946P Monday, October 23 Primary Sarcomas of the Urinary Bladder (BSar): A Genomic Landscape and Clinical Outcome Study Upstate Medical University, University of Washington, Moffit Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, San Rafael University FoundationOneCDx 2395P Monday, October 23 Micropapillary Histology (MPUC) and Extra-cellular Domain ERBB2 (ERBB2 ECD+) Mutations in Urothelial Bladder Cancer (UBC) Upstate Medical University, University of Washington, Moffit Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, San Rafael University FoundationOneCDx 2400P Monday, October 23 Frequency and Nature of Genomic Alterations (GA) in ERBB2-altered Urothelial Bladder Cancer (UBC) Upstate Medical University, University of Washington, Moffit Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, San Rafael University FoundationOneCDx

About Foundation Medicine: Your Essential Partner in Cancer Care

Foundation Medicine is a pioneer in molecular profiling for cancer, working to shape the future of clinical care and research. We collaborate with a broad range of partners across the cancer community and strive to set the standard for quality, scientific excellence, and regulatory leadership. Our deep understanding of cancer biology helps physicians make informed treatment decisions for their patients and empowers researchers to develop new medicines. Every day, we are driven to help our partners find answers and take action, enabling more people around the world to benefit from precision cancer care. For more information, please visit us on www.FoundationMedicine.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About FoundationOneCDx

FoundationOneCDx is a next-generation sequencing based in vitro diagnostic device for detection of substitutions, insertion and deletion alterations (indels), and copy number alterations (CNAs) in 324 genes and select gene rearrangements, as well as genomic signatures including microsatellite instability (MSI) and tumor mutational burden (TMB) using DNA isolated from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor tissue specimens. FoundationOne CDx is for prescription use only and is intended as a companion diagnostic to identify patients who may benefit from treatment with certain targeted therapies in accordance with their approved therapeutic product labeling. Additionally, FoundationOne CDx is intended to provide tumor mutation profiling to be used by qualified health care professionals in accordance with professional guidelines in oncology for patients with solid malignant neoplasms. Use of the test does not guarantee a patient will be matched to a treatment. A negative result does not rule out the presence of an alteration. Some patients may require a biopsy. For a full list of targeted therapies for which FoundationOne CDx is indicated as a companion diagnostic, please visit www.F1CDxLabel.com.

About FoundationOneLiquid CDx

FoundationOneLiquid CDx is a qualitative next generation sequencing based in vitro diagnostic test for prescription use only that uses targeted high throughput hybridization-based capture technology to analyze 324 genes utilizing circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) isolated from plasma derived from anti-coagulated peripheral whole blood of advanced cancer patients. The test is FDA-approved to report short variants in over 300 genes and is a companion diagnostic to identify patients who may benefit from treatment with specific therapies (listed in Table 1 of the Intended Use) in accordance with the approved therapeutic product labeling. Additional genomic findings may be reported and are not prescriptive or conclusive for labeled use of any specific therapeutic product. Use of the test does not guarantee a patient will be matched to a treatment. A negative result does not rule out the presence of an alteration. Patients who are negative for companion diagnostic mutations should be reflexed to tumor tissue testing and mutation status confirmed using an FDA-approved tumor tissue test, if feasible. For the complete label, including companion diagnostic indications and complete risk information, please visit www.F1LCDxLabel.com.

Foundation Medicine and FoundationOne are registered trademarks of Foundation Medicine, Inc.

Source: Foundation Medicine

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019586365/en/

Abigail Linehan, 781-534-3210

[email protected]

Source: Foundation Medicine
LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- H.I.G. Capital, LLC ("H.I.G."), a leading global alternative investment firm with $59 billion of capital under management, is pleased to announce that one of its affiliates has completed the acquisition of a real estate portfolio in central Madrid, Spain, comprised of three buildings totalling 20,000 sqm. The buildings will undergo an extensive renovation and transformed into a high-standard residential asset with strong environmental credentials, benefitting from consistent growth of demand for housing accommodation in Madrid.

Located in the consolidated residential area of Arturo Soria, the portfolio is currently comprised of three commercial properties, two office buildings and one hotel. All three buildings have received the approval to be converted into a residential scheme consisting of 267 units for rent and sale. The asset will have a comprehensive suite of amenities including swimming pools, gym, food courts, cinema, terraces, and roof top with dining areas.

Riccardo Dallolio, Managing Director and Head of H.I.G. Realty in Europe commented: We believe that the current residential market in Madrid benefits from strong fundamentals due to a lack of quality accommodation and high demand. This transaction demonstrates our ability to access sizeable assets in undersupplied markets with the potential of becoming a highly liquid, institutional product as the result of implementing our value-add initiatives.

Esteban Caja Samboal, Managing Director at H.I.G. Realty in Europe, added: We plan to deliver a high-quality scheme which caters to the demand from young professionals and families for new housing with luxury amenities, within an exceptionally located Madrid district. Given the strong market dynamics, we continue looking for opportunities in this sector, including converting obsolete office assets into state of the art residential properties.

About H.I.G. Capital

H.I.G. is a leading global alternative investment firm with $59 billion of capital under management.* Based in Miami, and with European offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and U.S. and Latin American offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo. H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to middle market companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/value-added approach:

H.I.G.s equity funds invest in management buyouts, recapitalizations, and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses. H.I.G.s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche, and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. also manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance. H.I.G.s real estate funds invest in value-added properties, which can benefit from improved asset management practices. H.I.G. Infrastructure focuses on making value-add and core plus investments in the infrastructure sector.

Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 400 companies worldwide. The firm's current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $52 billion. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at www.higcapital.com.

* Based on total capital raised by H.I.G. Capital and its affiliates.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019810884/en/

Riccardo Dallolio

Managing Director

[email protected]

Esteban Caja Samboal

Managing Director

[email protected]

Source: H.I.G. Capital, LLC
Press Release

October 19, 2023 SP ZUBIRI: PERPETRATORS IN LATEST HAZING DEATH SHOULD FACE FULL FORCE OF LAW Senate President Juan Miguel "Migz" Zubiri on Thursday said all individuals involved in the hazing death of a 25-year-old student of the Philippine College of Criminology in Manila should spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Zubiri called on the authorities to ensure the arrest and swift prosecution of those who took part in the initiation rites that resulted in the brutal death of Ahldryn Leary Bravante. He said the latest incident of fraternity violence was appalling as it happened barely eight months after 22-year-old John Matthew Salilig met his tragic death during the welcoming rites of the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity. At least 12 members of the same fraternity were said to be behind Bravante's death, including four who were already in police custody. "This senseless death of another young student due to barbaric fraternity tradition is not only enraging, but frustrating as well as it happened despite our efforts to put more teeth to the law against fraternity hazing," Zubiri said. The Senate chief had shepherded the passage of Republic Act No. RA 11053, or the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018, after Horacio "Atio" Castillo III, then a freshman law student at the University of Santo Tomas, was beaten to death by members of Aegis Juris fraternity in 2017. "Needless to say, the full force of the law must come down on those soulless people who killed the same person they claim to be as their brother," Zubiri said. "We should put an end to these acts of savagery. Let's ensure that those who mock our system of justice would be made to account for their misdeeds," he added.
In a powerful display of unity, students at the American University in Cairo (AUC) have taken a stand in support of the Palestinian cause, voicing outrage at the ongoing atrocities in Gaza and demanding action from the university administration.

The ground reverberated beneath the students' feet as they marched towards the Administration Building. Palestinian flags fluttered proudly in the air as a symbol of defiance and unwavering support. Clad in black, the students epitomized the unity and strength that came from a collective cause.

The sun blazed overhead as students from the American University in Cairo gathered on the campus grounds. Determination burned in their eyes, their hearts beating with a shared purpose. The war raging in Gaza had ignited a fire within them, compelling them to take action and stand in solidarity with their fellow brothers and sisters.

Chants echoed through the university with the pounding of their footsteps. "From the heart of the American University, Palestine is Arab!" they cried out, their voices filled with passion and conviction. The words echoed through the crowded campus, reaching the ears of those who dared to ignore the plight of the Gazans.

"With our soul and our blood, we will redeem you, Palestine!" The chant rose powerfully, a vow echoing from generation to generation. It was a testament to the students' determination and commitment to stand against the injustice inflicted on the people of Palestine.

As they marched, the students called out slogans that spoke to the essence of their cause. "We stand against Israel!" they proclaimed, their voices resolute. They understood that this was not just about politics or borders but about the fundamental human rights of a people suffering the consequences of an oppressive conflict.

The march continued, gaining momentum with each step. The students' voices united as they chanted, "Bomb once, bomb a hundred times, Gaza will remain Arab!"

These words echoed with defiance, affirming that no matter how many times Gaza was targeted, its spirit would endure.

Student leaders emerged, their voices filled with the passion of their convictions. They evoked both the Islamic and Arab basis for their cause, reminding everyone that this was not just a matter of political solidarity but also a deeply rooted cultural and religious connection.

A Student Body Mobilizes

The American University in Cairo bore witness to a powerful display of unity as its student body mobilized in support of the Palestinian cause. Yehia, a Computer Science student, addressed the crowd on Wednesday, expressing his profound admiration for the solidarity exhibited by their Egyptian friends. He stated, "I've seen a lot of beautiful things from the solidarity of all our Egyptian friends standing right next to us, being with us, expressing the madness we are seeing right now." Yehia emphasized the imperative of taking a firm stance, declaring, "A neutral stance is not an option." He called upon his fellow students to unite behind a shared cause and to ensure their demands were met.

Dr. Hana El-Sabea, an Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, spoke on Thursday, commending the students for their unequivocal rejection of genocide and extreme violence. She acknowledged the historical context of the conflict, asserting that the events in Palestine were not isolated but stemmed from a long history of violence and elimination. Dr El-Sabea voiced her pride in the students' unwavering dedication and pledged to support their ongoing pressure for change, stating, "We will continue to do as much as we are capable of; we will keep on pressuring for this to continue."

Malak, a political science student, explained why she participated in the protests saying Our grandfathers have not stopped fighting for Palestine, neither did our fathers, neither will we. We will not stop resisting the Zionist, apartheid occupation.

Ahmed, a Sociology major, expressed his frustration with the lack of international action, declaring, "No one from the international community or the countries in the world is taking a stand." He criticized the absence of a rightful stance against those terrorizing a land that does not belong to them, emphasizing, "This is real terrorism."

Lina, a Political Science and Economics Major, expressed her pride in participating in the protests, stating, "I felt very proud to be standing on my campus voicing my opinion very loud and clear, chanting, and trying to voice out the voices of the Palestinian students at AUC as well." She highlighted the significance of their third protest, underscoring their unwavering commitment to the Palestinian cause.

Ahmed Ayman, the Vice President of the Student Union and a Construction Engineering student, highlighted the gravity of the situation, stating, "This is something that has recurred for more than 70 years. But the thing is, this time it's a mass genocide, mass genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people." Ahmed conveyed the student union's swift action to support their brothers and sisters in Gaza, sharing, "We changed our marketing. We stopped all events and we took to the grounds of AUC Plaza to portray our perspectives and our standpoints." He condemned the university's silence, asserting that neutrality aligned with the oppressors and invaders, stating, "We condemned such an action and we condemned the university's standpoint."

Sana Fayek, the Chairperson of Representation of the Student Union and an Economics major, described the student body's initiative to show solidarity with Palestinians and protest the university's neutrality. She criticized the administration's Instagram post featuring a blank map of Palestine, asserting, "It was completely unacceptable." Sana outlined the various actions by the students, including walks of solidarity and marches with the Red Crescent. She emphasized the importance of donations and conveyed their unwavering commitment, stating, "This isn't the last thing. We're not doing this for any other cause besides standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and our Palestinian spirits."

The mobilization of the American University in Cairo's student body demonstrated their resolute dedication to the Palestinian cause. With impassioned speeches, organized protests, and unwavering determination, they united their voices to denounce violence and demand justice. Their profound impact extended beyond the confines of the university, resonating globally and serving as a testament to the power of collective action in the pursuit of justice.



Response from the University Administration

In response to the student protests and demands for a clear stance, the President of the American University in Cairo, Ahmed Dallal, issued a statement. The President, the provost, and other senior leaders attended the demonstration in Bassily Auditorium to express solidarity with the students and listen to their concerns. President Dallal acknowledged the students' outrage at the atrocities in Gaza and the devastating bombing of a hospital, stating, "I know that our students, faculty, and staff are deeply impacted by these events, some of them losing family members and loved ones." He emphasized the university's commitment to supporting affected students and providing necessary assistance.

The President announced several actions by the university in response to the situation, remarking, "We have lowered our flags to half-mast and join Egypt in mourning the loss of innocent lives in Gaza." He urged faculty members to show maximum support by accommodating students during these challenging times. President Dallal reaffirmed the university's commitment to fostering a safe space for expression, discussion, and debate, assuring students that their voices would continue to be heard on campus. He invited the students to an open and honest discussion of the historical roots of the Palestinian struggle, stressing his personal connection to the region and his deep concern for the loss of innocent lives.

However, some students expressed disappointment with the university's response. Hana, a political science student, criticized the administration for its mild and neutral support. She said the university "has only addressed the suffering of the Palestinians but has not pointed to the party responsible for causing that suffering. It has not condemned any of the actions by Israel." Hana believed that the university should have shown stronger support through concrete actions.

In a surprising turn of events, President Dallal and Provost Ehab Abdel-Rahman made an unexpected appearance during the protests on Wednesday. Sana Fayek, the Chairperson of Representation of the Student Union, recounted the moment, saying, "It was an active decision that we as the Student Union would lead the march towards the admin building so that they can hear us, but we never expected them to come down. That was the highlight of this entire week." Sana described an emergency meeting where student representatives presented their demands and engaged in negotiations with the administration.

While the response from the university administration was met with mixed reactions from the student body, the presence of President Dallal and the initiation of dialogues signalled a willingness to engage further with the students' concerns. The ongoing discussions and negotiations between student representatives and the administration hinted at a potential shift in the university's approach to the Palestinian cause, leaving room for hope and further engagement in the pursuit of justice.

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In one of largest labor cases in history, Ninth Circuit upholds NLRB decision finding ritzy hotel violated federal labor law to bust union

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Hotel Bel-Air to pay potentially tens of millions of dollars to over a hundred of its former employees.

The court upheld the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)s finding that the luxury hotel violated federal labor law when it refused to rehire 152 former employees following a temporary closure for remodeling in order to rid itself of the union, UNITE HERE Local 11, that had represented the hotels workers for decades.

The decision resolves one of the longstanding labor lawsuits in the country and one of the biggest in U.S. history in terms of damages. The hotels temporary closure occurred in 2009. When the property reopened in 2011, management refused to rehire 152 of 176 of its former employees who applied to return to work. The NLRB foundand the Ninth Circuit has now affirmedthat the hotel acted with the intent to weed out its former employees so that it would not have to recognize or bargain with the Union.

The court ordered the hotel to reinstate the affected workers with back pay and bargain with the union. Because such a large number of workers were subjected to discrimination and more than a decade has passed since they were denied the opportunity to return to their jobs, the hotels duty to pay back wages and benefit funds will likely stretch into the tens of millions of dollars. The hotel is owned by the Sultan of Brunei.

Before its reopening in October 2011, Hotel Bel-Air held a three-day job fair to interview applicants for positions, reserving the first day for its former employees. The NLRB trial judge, Lisa Ross, concluded that the hotel designed the July job fair with an objective of identifying and excluding former employee applicants and avoiding recognizing and bargaining with the Union.

The judge also noted that many of the hotels reasons for excluding former employees from consideration were bogus and preposterous, adding that the hotel engaged in blatant discriminatory treatment and devalued its former employees skills and qualifications. For example, the hotel refused to rehire one employee who had worked as a server at the hotel for 25 years because of his purported lack of minimum experience/skills for the server position and rejected another 25-year employee for unacceptable job stability.

I knew the property inside and out and worked hard so that it could be a five-star hotel, said Amanda Escobar, a former housekeeper at the Hotel Bel-Air. After dedicating 23 years to the hotel, I expected to be treated with respect. Instead, they threw me out like garbage just to get rid of our union. After more than a decade, today we are finally getting some justice. I hope the Sultan of Brunei finally decides to follow our laws.

"This is an incredible, long-overdue victory for the former workers of the Hotel Bel-Air, who were kicked out of the hotel for no other reason than the hotels desire to bust the union. These illegal and immoral practices have no place in our city, said Kurt Petersen, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11. He added: The decade-long delay demonstrates the critical need for labor law reform. But more than anything it reflects the determination of our members to never give up.

The Hotel Bel-Air and the Beverly Hills Hotel have long been subject to a boycott supported by celebrities and politicians, including Elton John and George Clooney, for Bruneis anti-gay laws enacted by the government of Brunei, which owns the hotels.

UNITE HERE Local 11 is a labor union representing over 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona who work in hotels, restaurants, universities, convention centers, and airports.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018714220/en/

PRESS INQUIRIES:

Jeremy Blasi | [email protected] | (213) 481-8530 x233

Source: UNITE HERE Local 11
LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- International SOS and Munich Re have combined their knowledge and experience of risk management and insurance to develop an integrated epidemic and pandemic risk management policy solution. Through this new partnership, International SOS, the leading health and security company, now provides health advisory services to Munich Res pandemic policyholders. The pandemic insurance and risk financing solution includes access to International SOS pandemic portal, an online repository of the latest health advice relating to pandemics, and real-time one-on-one access to International SOS health consultants.

This combined proposition puts the insured in the best shape possible to navigate the next crisis. By proactively addressing risk, and future-proofing an organisations pandemic response, organisations can contribute to an enhanced Duty of Care and ESG agenda, retaining and protecting talent, ultimately protecting business, shareholder value and reputation.

Franck Baron, Group Deputy Director, Risk Management, International SOS commented: We are delighted to have partnered with Munich Re on this combined offering for their policyholders. The solution enhances Munich Res pandemic policy, supports captives on a topic for which extensive support is often sought. This next step in our relationship with Munich Re will help protect workforces and, in turn, organisational resilience. International SOS is the market leader when it comes to protecting employees and this marks another step forward in our journey.

Mari-Lizette Malherbe, member of the Munich Re board of management said: I have great pleasure in announcing our new partnership with International SOS. The collaboration brings together the essential components of pandemic resilience; financial protection and access to health expertise to minimise a pandemic's impact and protect workforces. Climate change and population shifts are making another pandemic more likely, therefore there is a need to create more resilient organisations. This new integrated pandemic risk management solution equips the insured to confidently navigate the next pandemic crisis.

International SOSs tailored health advisory service will provide advice and guidance that is objective and neutral, based on the available scientific evidence. Advice is medically-led, enables Risk, HR and HSE professionals to communicate recommendations confidently to C-suite decision-makers and is actionable and tailored to the working environment. It taps into decades of experience working with multinationals across various regions.

Benefiting from the offering was key for both International SOS and Munich Re and therefore access to the Pandemic Portal and the Health Advisory Service can be called upon at any time. Policyholders will not need to wait for a pandemic to be declared by the World Health Organization to seek the advice and support they need.

International SOS and Munich Re formalised the partnership at the Duty of Care Summit & Awards 2023, held in Austin, Texas, USA. The event is held annually by the International SOS Foundation to honour organisations and individuals making a significant contribution to protecting the health, safety, security and wellbeing of their global workforce. Munich Re was a gold sponsor in 2023.

About the International SOS Group of Companies:

The International SOS Group of Companies is in the business of saving lives, protecting your global workforce from health and security threats. Wherever you are, we deliver customised health, security risk management and wellbeing solutions to fuel your growth and productivity. In the event of extreme weather, an epidemic or a security incident, we provide an immediate response providing peace of mind. Our innovative technology, and medical, security and logistics expertise focus on prevention, offering real-time, actionable insights and on-the-ground quality delivery. We help protect your people, your organisation's reputation, as well as support your compliance reporting needs. By partnering with us, organisations can fulfil their Duty of Care responsibilities, while empowering business resilience, continuity, and sustainability.

Founded in 1985, the International SOS Group, headquartered in London & Singapore, is trusted by 9,500 organisations, including the majority of the Fortune Global 500 as well as mid-size enterprises, governments, educational institutions, and NGOs. 13,000 multi-cultural security, medical, logistics experts stand with you to provide support & assistance from over 1,000 locations in 90 countries, 24/7, 365 days.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019559886/en/

Alexis Harding

Group Head of PR & Communications, London

[email protected]

Source: International SOS
SENECA, S.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Oconee Federal Financial Corp. (OTCQX: OFED) (the Company), the holding company for Oconee Federal Savings and Loan Association (Oconee Federal), announced today net income of $312 thousand, or $0.06 per diluted share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2023, which was less than the net income of $1.3 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2022.

September 30, 2023 Quarter End Summary:

Forty-eight consecutive quarterly dividends of $0.10 per share since the quarter ended December 2011.

Total assets were $591.9 million, a decrease of 0.6% from $595.4 million at June 30, 2023.

Total loans outstanding were $418.8 million, up from $413.0 million at June 30, 2023.

The quarter ended September 30, 2023 presented challenges for Oconee Federal. Oconee Federal, like many financial institutions, continues to face interest margin compression due to the rising rate environment. Net income declined to $312 thousand from $1.3 million when compared to the quarter ended September 30, 2022, stated Curtis T. Evatt, President and Chief Executive Officer. However, we continue to have steady growth in our loan balances. Loans increased 1.4% while deposits decreased 0.7% compared to the prior quarter balances. We believe this growth, along with our recently announced merger with Mutual Savings Bank, will position our Company to succeed as we look to the future.

Cash Dividend Declared

Total dividends paid during the quarter ended September 30, 2023 were $561 thousand. On August 8, 2023, the Board of Directors of the Company declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.10 per share of the Companys common stock payable to stockholders of record as of August 18, 2023, which was paid on August 25, 2023.

About Oconee Federal

Oconee Federal Financial Corp. (OTCQX: OFED) is the holding company of Oconee Federal Savings and Loan Association. Oconee Federal Savings and Loan Association is a federally chartered savings and loan association founded in 1924 and headquartered in Seneca, South Carolina. Oconee Federal Savings and Loan Association is a community oriented financial institution operating eight full-service branch locations in Oconee County, South Carolina, Pickens County, South Carolina, Stephens County, Georgia and Rabun County, Georgia.

For financial information, please access our investor information page on our website at www.oconeefederal.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about the Companys and the Associations industry, and managements beliefs and assumptions. Words such as anticipates, expects, intends, plans, believes, estimates and variations of such words and expressions are intended to identify fiscal year forward-looking statements. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to forecast. Therefore, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or forecast in such forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or otherwise.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019480227/en/

Investor/Media Contact:

Curtis T. Evatt

President & Chief Executive Officer

Oconee Federal Financial Corp.

864-882-2765

Source: Oconee Federal Financial Corp.
JERSEY CITY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Organon (NYSE: OGN), a global healthcare company with a focus on womens health, will release its third quarter 2023 financial results on November 2, 2023, prior to the companys webcast and conference call scheduled for 8:30 a.m. EST. Interested parties may access the live call via webcast on the Organon website at https://www.organon.com/investor-relations/events-and-presentations/. A replay of the webcast will be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of the live event on the companys website.

Institutional investors and analysts interested in participating in the call must register in advance by clicking on this link: https://conferencingportals.com/event/VfCOQYEG.

Following registration, participants will receive a confirmation email containing details on how to join the conference call, including dial-in information and a unique passcode and registrant ID. Pre-registration will allow participants to bypass an operator and be placed directly into the call.

About Organon

Organon is a global healthcare company formed to focus on improving the health of women throughout their lives. Organon offers more than 60 medicines and products in womens health in addition to a growing biosimilars business and a large franchise of established medicines across a range of therapeutic areas. Organons existing products produce strong cash flows that support investments in innovation and future growth opportunities in womens health and biosimilars. In addition, Organon is pursuing opportunities to collaborate with biopharmaceutical innovators looking to commercialize their products by leveraging its scale and presence in fast growing international markets.

Organon has a global footprint with significant scale and geographic reach, world-class commercial capabilities, and approximately 10,000 employees with headquarters located in Jersey City, New Jersey.

For more information, visit http://www.organon.com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019256069/en/

Organon Media:

Karissa Peer

(614) 314-8094



Kate Vossen

(732) 675-8448

Organon Investor:

Jennifer Halchak

(201) 275-2711



Alex Arzeno

(203) 550-3972

Source: Organon & Co.
After a decade and a half of pioneering modular and prefabricated construction and establishing large-scale container sites, Module-T has launched a new depot in Southern France. This strategic initiative strengthens their market position in France and facilitates direct preassembled land shipments across Europe.

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Module-T, a leading prefabricated container manufacturer that builds multipurpose portable cabins, has launched its first warehouse in southern France. The Turkish company aims to amplify its foothold in the French region and expedite monobloc road shipments throughout Europe through this venture.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019853947/en/

Prefabricated and modular construction manufacturer Module-T to expand into Europe from the South of France (Photo: Business Wire)

Having expanded its operations to countries including Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Greece, Malta and Iceland, Module-T exports its portable cabinsranging from prefabricated offices to schools, hospitals, changing rooms, WCs, canteens, and residencesto over 120 countries. Established a decade and a half ago, it takes pride in crafting aesthetic, robust, secure, and enduring turnkey structures for local and international clientele. With an annual output of 9,600 portable cabins and prefabricated modular containers, Module-T also specializes in designing and outfitting standalone prefabricated homes, housing bungalows and vacation residences, aiming to reach a turnover of US$ 45 million by 2025.

Module-Ts Regional Sales Executive Yigit Ozdemir commented on their new investment: We export our products to more than 120 countries by sea and land. Our new warehouse in Southern France is the perfect location to help us deploy our preassembled portable cabin shipments to Europe by road.

Positioning ahead of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics

Preparations for the 2024 Summer Olympics have begun in Paris, preparing to host the Olympics again after 100 years. Offering a diverse array of cost-effective modular construction solutions, Module-T is set to contribute to the Olympic preparations, providing living quarters, WC-shower facilities, and office containers for worker accommodations. Furthermore, the Turkish company has its sights on the North American market, planning to offer distributorships by the close of 2023.

Module-T is a premier modular container supplier and turnkey portable modular buildings. With a track record of successful projects across global marketsparticularly in Europe, Africa, and Caribbean countries its reputation is anchored in its expertise in designing, manufacturing, and installing fully-equipped prefabricated and modular buildings. These are prominently utilized on the construction sites of firms engaged in public infrastructure development, mining, and oil and gas.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019853947/en/

Yigit Ozdemir

[email protected]

Source: Module-T
Gratis Empowers Web3 Creators & Brands to Earn Portions of Processing Fees Via Claimable Art and Memberships

CINCINNATI--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Props Labs, a product & innovation studio at the intersection of digital fandom, art, design, and engagement, today announced the launch of Props Gratis  an innovative tool to help creators, builders & brands monetize their work. The Gratis 721A Smart Contract enables artists and brands to own their audience through private branded sites, and the ability to take part in protocol fees and earn tips while minting on Polygon, Ethereum, or Base.

Creator royalties represent one of the core benefits of the digital collectible phenomenon  allowing artists to generate passive income on every subsequent resale of their works. However, prominent digital art platforms are opting to no longer enforce royalty fees  eliminating the mandatory collection of resale fees for artists. While major marketplaces maintain that no longer enforcing royalty fees helps to attract buyers, creators are ultimately left bearing the burden. Such policies not only diminish the inherent value of the creators themselves, the lack of royalty revenue inhibits artists abilities to create intricate, dynamic works and operate the entirety of their businesses.

As fewer marketplaces uphold creator royalties, Props Gratis delivers a novel free-claim tool and smart contract that opens alternative pathways for creators to monetize their work through shared processing fees and allocating collected tips from collectors. In turn, Gratis allows creators and brands the flexibility to offer free claims, paid art editions, large generative collections, and memberships to engage collectors and communities free of marketplace silos.

Creators are constantly looking for tools to help them monetize their craft effectively, commented Bob Ullery, Managing Partner of Props Labs. With marketplaces reluctant to support the royalties defined in smart contracts, the need for new smart contract mechanics has never been more pressing. Props Gratis helps creators grow their brand, engage their audience, and earn a living while driving innovation."

Props Gratis offers several features that enable creators to monetize their work, including:

Free for Creators: A Gratis workspace is 100% free for creators

A Gratis workspace is 100% free for creators Earn Fees: Collectors pay a small protocol fee to the creator who gets 100%

Collectors pay a small protocol fee to the creator who gets 100% Tip Collection: Creators receive 100% of tips directly from their collectors

Creators receive 100% of tips directly from their collectors Custom Mint Sites: Creators can customize all aspects of the mint experience, including placing the mint site on their own domain or website.

Creators can customize all aspects of the mint experience, including placing the mint site on their own domain or website. Multi-Claim Pages: Creators can offer multiple mints at once across multiple blockchains including Polygon, Base, or Ethereum

Creators can offer multiple mints at once across multiple blockchains including Polygon, Base, or Ethereum Creator-Owned Contracts: Creators own the smart contract enabling them to transfer or upgrade at any point

Creators own the smart contract enabling them to transfer or upgrade at any point Realtime Sales Segments: Allows real-time data on audiences and allocation.

Allows real-time data on audiences and allocation. Friend.Tech Key Gating: Allows gating of mints based on people who own your friend.tech key

Allows gating of mints based on people who own your friend.tech key Dynamic & Interactive Tokens: Creators can set up their tokens and metadata to change over time

Creators can set up their tokens and metadata to change over time On Behalf Minting: Send contract ownership, revenue and royalties to any wallet

Weve been disheartened to see major marketplaces refuse to honor artist royalties, added David DeVore, Co-Founder of Props Labs. This would never happen in the music industry. It's only in this digital art space that royalties aren't honored. Without royalties, creators arent generating recurring revenue. Gratis simply helps artists make more money.

Creators, artists and brands interested in the Props Gratis capabilities can explore more and get early access through the Props Discord.

To learn more about Props Gratis and explore the Props ecosystem, visit: prime.props.app.

About Props Labs:

Props Labs is a pioneering force in the realm of blockchain, consistently introducing innovations that shape the future of decentralized systems and artificial intelligence. With a strong commitment to transparency, security, and scalability, the company remains at the forefront of blockchain advancements for brands such as Fox, IMAX, RSTLSS, Mattel, Boss Beauties, UTA, Creatures, and Deadfellaz.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019556911/en/

[email protected]

Source: Props Labs
TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced a new organizational structure and leadership team appointments. These changes will take effect January 1, 2024, and will support the company in its next phase of growth and development to become the leader in embedded semiconductor solutions.

1. Establishment of four technology-based product groups

Renesas is establishing a technology-based organization designed to provide more comprehensive and tailored solution offerings. This is aimed at effectively addressing the converging needs of customers and markets by leveraging our embedded processing, analog, power, and connectivity expertise to create complete solutions. The new organization will also enable the company to capitalize on the scale advantages by fostering more cross selling opportunities and broader customer coverage. As part of these changes, Renesas businesses will be restructured into four new product groups.

Analog & Connectivity

Davin Lee, currently Vice President of Advanced Analog Division, will assume the role of Senior Vice President and General Manager of Analog & Connectivity. Under Davins leadership, the group will be responsible for analog products as well as the companys vast portfolio of connectivity products.

Embedded Processing

Toshihiko Seki, currently Vice President of MCU Device Solution Division, will assume the role of Senior Vice President and General Manager of Embedded Processing. He will be responsible for Renesas entire standard catalog embedded processing products. The group is designed to accelerate the companys efforts to provide more catalog products and solutions to go deeper and broader with new and existing customers.

High Performance Computing

Vivek Bhan, who currently holds the position of Senior Vice President and Co-General Manager of High Performance Computing, Analog and Power Solutions Group, will assume the role of Senior Vice President and General Manager of High Performance Computing. He will be responsible for the companys custom and application-specific high computing products.

Power

Chris Allexandre who currently serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer (CSMO) and Head of the Global Sales and Marketing Unit will take on a new role as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Power. Chris will be responsible for overseeing Renesas power management and discrete products and executing the companys power strategies.

2. Establishment of new Software & Digitalization team and centralization of Operations, Engineering and key foundational organizations

In addition to the establishment of four product groups, Renesas has also taken steps to streamline its organizational structure by establishing new groups of functions. The new organizations will serve as centralized foundations across all lines of business to better support customers, enhance performance and add value.

Software & Digitalization

As the company aims to transform the way customers design solutions through an innovative cloud-based platform, Renesas has recently welcomed Buvna Ayyagari as Vice President of the new Software & Digitalization organization to spearhead this effort. Buvna will be responsible for driving Renesas unified vision for software and digitalization, ensuring they become a powerful differentiator for the company.



Buvna brings rich and multi-disciplinary expertise across the semiconductor industry from Applied Materials, Synopsys and Intel. She held leadership positions in Engineering, Field Applications Engineering, Marketing, Pre- and Post-sales Customer Support and drove products from definition to high volume. Buvna has experiences in leading digital transformations and has helped to build a team from the ground up to define a software platform, making her well-equipped to continue to drive Renesas excellence in software and digitalization.

Operations

Renesas is accelerating efforts to drive operational excellence to improve service, quality and profitability. Dr. Sailesh Chittipeddi, currently Executive Vice President, General Manager of Embedded Processing, Digital Power and Signal Chain Solutions Group, will take on a new role to oversee the new operations organization. This brings Renesas entire manufacturing, supply chain and procurement into a single organization chartered to lead the companys operational and strategic initiatives to provide exceptional customer experiences.

Engineering

Renesas is creating a centralized engineering organization to solidify Renesas engineering foundation, from product to test engineering. This new organization will direct the development and execution of the companys technology and product roadmaps. Takeshi Kataoka, Senior Vice President and Co-General Manager of High Performance Computing, Analog and Power Solutions Group, will newly head this Engineering organization.

Quality Assurance

Takeshi Kataoka will also oversee the Quality Assurance function as Senior Vice President and Head of Engineering and Quality Assurance. His experience and profound expertise in leading Renesas automotive semiconductor business will help the company to continue to assure supreme quality levels throughout its products and solutions.

Sales & Marketing

Bobby Matinpour, who currently serves as Vice President of Global Strategic Vertical & Regional Sales, will succeed Chris Allexandre in the role of Senior Vice President, CSMO and Head of Sales & Marketing.

These leaders in addition to leaders of each of four product groups will report directly to the CEO. This will allow them to have greater influence on Renesas strategy and execution, while enhancing accountability.

Hiroto Nitta will retire from his role of Senior Vice President of Information Technology. In addition to his current role, Nitta served multiple managerial positions at Renesas including Vice President and Deputy General Manager of Global Sales Units as well as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Manager of Broad-Based Solution Business Unit. He also served as Senior Vice President and Head of SoC Business in the IoT and Infrastructure Business. Renesas appreciates Nittas work over the past 40 years helping the company advance its product leadership and wishes him and his family all the best for the future.

As a result of the organizational changes, Roger Wendelken, who has been serving as Senior Vice President and Head of Embedded Microcontroller in the Embedded Processing, Digital Power and Signal Chain Solutions Group will leave Renesas. Roger joined Renesas in 2017 following the Intersil acquisition. He contributed to Renesas as leader of worldwide sales for the broad-based solution business. In his current position, Roger played an instrumental role in releasing the ARM-based RA microcontrollers. The company is grateful to Roger for his significant achievements at Renesas.

Andrew Cowell will retire from his role of Senior Vice President and Head of Performance Power. Since joining Renesas in 2017 from Intersil, Andrew guided the foundation in strengthening the growth and market share gains of the digital multiphase controllers and smart power stages for the infra core power businesses. Renesas thanks Andrew for his remarkable contribution and wishes him all the best for his retirement.

Hiroto Nitta, Roger Wendelken and Andrew Cowell will assist with the transition and leave Renesas by the end of the year.

About Renesas Electronics Corporation

Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) empowers a safer, smarter and more sustainable future where technology helps make our lives easier. The leading global provider of microcontrollers, Renesas combines our expertise in embedded processing, analog, power and connectivity to deliver complete semiconductor solutions. These Winning Combinations accelerate time to market for automotive, industrial, infrastructure and IoT applications, enabling billions of connected, intelligent devices that enhance the way people work and live. Learn more at renesas.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

(Remarks) All names of products or services mentioned in this press release are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Brief Biography of the Newly Appointed Leadership Team Members

Davin Lee

Mr. Lee serves as the Vice President and General Manager of the Advanced Analog Division at Renesas Electronics Corporation. He joined Renesas in August 2021 through the acquisition of Dialog Semiconductor PLC where he was the Senior Vice President of the Advanced Mixed-Signal Business.

Prior to Dialog Semiconductor, Mr. Lee held executive-level management positions at numerous semiconductor companies including Scintera Networks (CEO), Intersil (VP/GM of Power Management), Xicor (VP of Marketing), Altera and National Semiconductor.

Davin Lee holds a BSEE degree from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA degree from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Toshihiko Seki

Mr. Seki serves as the Vice President of MCU Device Solution Business Division at Renesas Electronics Corporation since January 2022. In this role, he is mainly responsible for leading the companys proprietary RL78 microcontroller (MCU) business and has been instrumental in achieving global leading market share position for the 16-bit MCU architecture category.

Mr. Seki has more than 30 years of experience in the semiconductors industry. He started his career in ASIC/memory product marketing at Hitachi, Ltd., and held various marketing management positions at Renesas, including Director of Marketing & Business operations at Renesas Electronics America.

Mr. Seki holds a bachelors degree in Liberal Arts from Sophia University, Japan.

Bobby Matinpour

Mr. Matinpour serves as the Vice President of Global Strategic Vertical & Regional Sales at Renesas Electronics Corporation since April 2022. Previously at Renesas, he was the Vice President of Timing and Standard Product Business Division since March 2019.

Prior to joining Renesas, he served as the Vice President of the High Speed Data & Clock Business Unit at Texas Instruments. A 20-year veteran of the semiconductor industry, Mr. Matinpour has a diverse and wholistic industry experience covering engineering, product marketing, operations, and sales management for a wide-range of products and solutions addressing industrial, infrastructure, consumer, and automotive markets.

Prior to joining Texas Instruments, Mr. Matinpour held various engineering and marketing management positions at National Semiconductor, Epson-Toyocom, and several semiconductor startups.

Mr. Matinpour holds a BSEE from Virginia Tech and MS and PhD EE from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Buvna Ayyagari

Ms. Ayyagari joined Renesas in August 2023 as Vice President of Software and Digitalization. In this newly created role, Ms. Ayyagari is responsible for spearheading the definition, development, and implementation of a market leading platform with industry standard customer tools.

Ms. Ayyagari brings rich and multi-disciplinary expertise across the semiconductor industry from Applied Materials (AMAT), Synopsys (IP and EDA) and Intel where she held executive and leadership positions in R&D, Product Engineering, Field Applications Engineering, Marketing, Pre- and Post-sales Customer Support and drove products from definition to high volume.

Ms. Ayyagari holds a masters degree in computer engineering from the University of South Carolina. She is the author of several publications and patents and serves on the Board of non-profit organizations.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019984568/en/

Renesas Electronics Corporation

Kyoko Okamoto

+81 3-6773-3001

[email protected]

Source: Renesas Electronics Corporation
The RibbonCash launch in Florida follows a successful return to the Southeast in Atlanta and Charlotte real estate markets

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- EasyKnock announces today that RibbonCash  Ribbons pioneering cash offer solution  has launched in select Florida markets, bringing competitive advantage to buyers and certainty to sellers.

By partnering with real estate agents and loan officers, RibbonCash enables buyers to upgrade their offers and provides certainty to home sellers during the transaction process, ultimately empowering the real estate ecosystem at large.

As Florida is now the second most valuable housing market in the U.S., we are thrilled to launch RibbonCash in the state and provide innovative solutions for homebuyers and sellers to meet the needs of the market, said Jarred Kessler, CEO of EasyKnock. We see ample opportunity to empower families in Florida with the financial flexibility and control to prosper and achieve their goals.

According to Bankrates Housing Heat Index, Florida remains atop the list of the countrys strongest seller markets. According to the index, despite price declines elsewhere in the United States, the Southeast region has held steady due to comparatively affordable prices. By bringing RibbonCash to Florida, EasyKnock aims to help make an affordable home achievable for everyday homebuyers.

Earlier in 2023, EasyKnock acquired the assets of Ribbon to kickstart EasyKnocks marketplace, bringing together a complementary suite of products and services that offer consumers alternative ways to buy and sell, finance new homes, and utilize their equity in one unified experience.

About EasyKnock

EasyKnock is the first-to-market, technology-enabled residential sale-leaseback company in the U.S. Through innovative and accessible solutions, American homeowners who sell their property to EasyKnock can remain in their homes as renters while still getting the cash they need to pursue their financial goals. Headquartered in New York City and founded in 2016, EasyKnock has team members nationwide working to help homeowners unlock their financial freedom through non-loan programs so they can pay off debts, buy their dream home, fund a venture, and more - all while maintaining the ability to stay in their homes and communities. In 2023, EasyKnock acquired the assets of Ribbon Home and continues to offer Ribbon products to customers. For more information, please visit www.easyknock.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019378406/en/

Kara Schniepp

EasyKnock

[email protected]

Source: EasyKnock
Samsung Foundry meets with customers and partners in the European market at annual event in Munich

MUNICH--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today hosted Samsung Foundry Forum (SFF) 2023 Europe and unveiled its advanced and wide ranging automotive process solutions, from the most advanced 2-nanometer process to the 8-inch legacy process.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019169162/en/

Samsung Electronics Unveils Automotive Process Strategy at Samsung Foundry Forum 2023 EU (Photo: Business Wire)

Alongside its customers and Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem (SAFE) partners, Samsung Electronics showcased the latest technological trends and its business strategy tailored to the European market.

Samsung Foundry is driving innovation in next-generation solutions to build an expanded portfolio that meets the growing needs of our automotive customers, especially as the era of electric vehicles becomes a reality, said Dr. Siyoung Choi, President and Head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics. We are strengthening our readiness to provide customers with distinguished service across a variety of solutions, including power semiconductors, microcontrollers and advanced AI chips for autonomous driving.

Since participating in IAA Mobility 2023 for the first time in September, Samsung Electronics is strengthening engagement and partnership in specialty processes for automotive customers in the European market, further solidifying its status as a leading foundry partner for the industry.

Pioneering New Applications with Industrys Most Advanced eMRAM

In order to meet the needs of the latest advancements in the automotive market, Samsung is setting out to develop the industrys first 5-nanometer eMRAM for next-generation automotive technology. eMRAM is a next-generation memory semiconductor used for automotive applications that enables high read and write speeds as well as superior heat resistance.

Since developing and mass producing the industrys first 28nm FD-SOI1 based eMRAM in 2019, Samsung Electronics has been developing 14nm for the FinFET process based on AEC-Q100 Grade 1. Samsung Foundry plans to expand its eMRAM portfolio by adding 14nm by 2024, 8nm by 2026, and 5nm by 2027.

Samsungs 8nm eMRAM shows potential to deliver a 30% increase in density and 33% increase in speed, compared to the 14nm process.

Tackling the Market with Automotive Process Solutions from Cutting-Edge to Legacy

The company announced its advanced process roadmap, highlighting its plans to complete mass production readiness for its 2nm process for automotive applications by 2026.

Samsung Electronics is also bolstering its readiness to serve customer needs by expanding its 8-inch BCD (Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) process portfolio. The BCD process combines the strengths of three different process technologies: Bipolar (B), CMOS (C), and DMOS (D) on one chip and is most commonly used in the production of power semiconductors.

Samsung Electronics plans to expand its current 130nm automotive BCD process to add 90nm by 2025. The 90nm BCD process is expected to bring a 20% decrease in chip area compared to the 130nm process.

Implementing Deep Trench Isolation (DTI) technology, which reduces the distance between each transistor to maximize the performance of power semiconductors, Samsung Foundry will be able to apply a greater voltage of 120V instead of 70V to a wider range of applications. This will enable readiness to provide a process development kit (PDK) that implements 120V to the 130nm BCD process by 2025.

Leading Beyond-Moore Innovation through Advanced Packaging Alliance

Samsung established a Multi-Die Integration (MDI) Alliance by collaborating with its SAFE partners as well as major players in memory, package substrate, and testing.

As part of an industry-wide partnership with 20 partners, Samsung is leading the development of 2.5D and 3D packaging solutions customized for all applications from automotive to high-performance computing (HPC).

Samsung Electronics hosted the annual Samsung Foundry Forum 2023 in the United States on June 27-28, in South Korea on July 4, and in Japan on October 17. The content from the forum will be available on the Samsung Semiconductor website for worldwide access to all visitors beginning November 2.

# # #

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Samsung inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, and memory, system LSI, foundry, and LED solutions. For the latest news, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at news.samsung.com.

1 Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator (FD-SOI) is a planar process technology that implements an impervious insulating film (SiO2) on top of a silicon wafer and builds transistors on top of it to minimize leakage.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019169162/en/

Ujeong Jahnke

Samsung Semiconductor Europe GmbH

Tel. +49(0)89-45578-1000

Email: [email protected]

Source: Samsung Electronics
Sales of $1,159.3 million up 5.2% from Q3 2022, organic sales up 4.7%;

Operating margin before financial services of 21.2% reflects an increase of 90 basis points;

Diluted EPS of $4.51 represents a gain from Q3 2022 of 8.9%

KENOSHA, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Snap-on Incorporated (NYSE: SNA), a leading global innovator, manufacturer and marketer of tools, equipment, diagnostics, repair information and systems solutions for professional users performing critical tasks, today announced operating results for the third quarter of 2023.

Net sales of $1,159.3 million in the third quarter of 2023 represented an increase of $56.8 million, or 5.2%, from 2022 levels, reflecting a $52.4 million, or 4.7%, organic sales gain and $4.4 million of favorable foreign currency translation.

Operating earnings before financial services for the quarter of $245.2 million compared to $223.5 million in 2022. As a percentage of net sales, operating earnings before financial services were 21.2% in the third quarter compared to 20.3% last year, reflecting an improvement of 90 basis points.

Financial services revenue in the quarter of $94.9 million compared to $87.3 million in 2022; financial services operating earnings of $69.4 million compared to $66.4 million last year.

Consolidated operating earnings for the quarter of $314.6 million, or 25.1% of revenues (net sales plus financial services revenue), compared to $289.9 million, or 24.4% of revenues, last year.

The third quarter effective income tax rate was 22.6% in 2023 and 21.6% in 2022.

Net earnings in the quarter of $243.1 million, or $4.51 per diluted share, compared to net earnings of $223.9 million, or $4.14 per diluted share, a year ago.

See Non-GAAP Measures below for a definition of, and further explanation about, organic sales.

Were encouraged by our third quarter as it reflects ongoing advancement in sales, profitability, and earnings in a continually changing environment, and it demonstrates the wide-ranging and considerable strengths that mark each of our operating segments, said Nick Pinchuk, Snap-on chairman and chief executive officer. Achieved in a period of variability, we believe our performance confirms the resilience of our markets and illustrates the diverse opportunities along our runways for growth, in both our activities within automotive repair and with those outside the garage, particularly in our businesses serving critical industries, which continue to display significant progress. At the same time, we are maintaining and fortifying our decisive advantages by leveraging our Snap-on Value Creation Processes. In that regard, we were again honored with product awards from both Motor Magazine and Professional Tool & Equipment News. Period after period, the innovations identified by our sales organizations through customer connection and developed by our engineering teams solve essential tasks, create excitement for our customers, reinforce the strength of the Snap-on brand, and help drive our unrelenting improvement. As always, I want to thank our franchisees and associates worldwide for their notable contributions, their steadfast dedication, and their unwavering confidence in our future.

Segment Results

Commercial & Industrial Group segment sales of $366.4 million in the quarter compared to $356.8 million last year, reflecting an $11.2 million, or 3.2%, organic sales gain, partially offset by $1.6 million of unfavorable foreign currency translation. The organic increase is primarily due to higher activity with customers in critical industries, partially offset by lower sales in the segments Asia Pacific operations.

Operating earnings of $58.1 million in the period, including $2.9 million of unfavorable foreign currency effects, compared to $52.3 million in 2022. The operating margin (operating earnings as a percentage of segment sales) improved 120 basis points to 15.9% in the quarter from 14.7% last year.

Snap-on Tools Group segment sales of $515.4 million in the quarter compared to $496.6 million last year, reflecting an $18.3 million, or 3.7%, organic sales increase and $0.5 million of favorable foreign currency translation. The organic gain is comprised of higher sales in both the international and U.S. operations.

Operating earnings of $113.4 million in the period, including $2.7 million of unfavorable foreign currency effects, compared to $102.2 million in 2022. The operating margin improved 140 basis points to 22.0% in the quarter from 20.6% a year ago.

Repair Systems & Information Group segment sales of $431.8 million in the quarter compared to $414.0 million last year, reflecting a $13.0 million, or 3.1%, organic sales increase and $4.8 million of favorable foreign currency translation. The organic gain includes higher sales of undercar equipment and increased sales of diagnostic and repair information products to independent repair shop owners and managers, partially offset by lower activity with OEM dealerships.

Operating earnings of $104.9 million in the period, including $0.2 million of favorable foreign currency effects, compared to $95.4 million in 2022. The operating margin improved 130 basis points to 24.3% in the quarter from 23.0% last year.

Financial Services operating earnings of $69.4 million on revenue of $94.9 million in the quarter compared to operating earnings of $66.4 million on revenue of $87.3 million a year ago. Originations of $305.2 million in the period represented an increase of $5.0 million, or 1.7%, from 2022 levels.

Corporate expenses in the third quarter of $31.2 million compared to $26.4 million last year.

Outlook

We believe that our markets and our operations possess and have demonstrated continuing and considerable resilience against the uncertainties of the current environment. For the remainder of 2023, Snap-on expects to make ongoing progress along its defined runways for coherent growth, leveraging capabilities already demonstrated in the automotive repair arena and developing and expanding its professional customer base, not only in automotive repair, but in adjacent markets, additional geographies and other areas, including extending in critical industries, where the cost and penalties for failure can be high. In pursuit of these initiatives, we project that capital expenditures in 2023 will approximate $100 million, of which $73.9 million was incurred in the first nine months of the year.

Snap-on currently anticipates that its full-year 2023 effective income tax rate will approximate 23%.

Conference Call and Webcast on October 19, 2023, at 9:00 a.m. Central Time

A discussion of this release will be webcast on Thursday, October 19, 2023, at 9:00 a.m. Central Time, and a replay will be available for at least 10 days following the call. To access the webcast, visit https://www.snapon.com/EN/Investors/Investor-Events and click on the link to the call. The slide presentation accompanying the call can be accessed under the Downloads tab in the webcast viewer, as well as on the Snap-on website at https://www.snapon.com/EN/Investors/Financial-Information/Quarterly-Earnings.

Non-GAAP Measures

References in this release to organic sales refer to sales from continuing operations calculated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (GAAP), adjusted to exclude acquisition-related sales and the impact of foreign currency translation. Management evaluates the companys sales performance based on organic sales growth, which primarily reflects growth from the companys existing businesses as a result of increased output, expanded customer base, geographic expansion, new product development and pricing changes, and excludes sales contributions from acquired operations the company did not own as of the comparable prior-year reporting period. Organic sales also exclude the effects of foreign currency translation as foreign currency translation is subject to volatility that can obscure underlying business trends. Management believes that the non-GAAP financial measure of organic sales is meaningful to investors as it provides them with useful information to aid in identifying underlying growth trends in the companys businesses and facilitates comparisons of its sales performance with prior periods.

About Snap-on

Snap-on Incorporated is a leading global innovator, manufacturer, and marketer of tools, equipment, diagnostics, repair information and systems solutions for professional users performing critical tasks including those working in vehicle repair, aerospace, the military, natural resources, and manufacturing. From its founding in 1920, Snap-on has been recognized as the mark of the serious and the outward sign of the pride and dignity working men and women take in their professions. Products and services are sold through the companys network of widely recognized franchisee vans, as well as through direct and distributor channels, under a variety of notable brands. The company also provides financing programs to facilitate the sales of its products and to support its franchise business. Snap-on, an S&P 500 company, generated sales of $4.5 billion in 2022, and is headquartered in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Forward-looking Statements

Statements in this news release that are not historical facts, including statements that (i) are in the future tense; (ii) include the words expects, anticipates, intends, approximates, or similar words that reference Snap-on or its management; (iii) are specifically identified as forward-looking; or (iv) describe Snap-ons or managements future outlook, plans, estimates, objectives or goals, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Snap-on cautions the reader that this news release may contain statements, including earnings projections, that are forward-looking in nature and were developed by management in good faith and, accordingly, are subject to risks and uncertainties regarding Snap-ons expected results that could cause (and in some cases have caused) actual results to differ materially from those described or contemplated in any forward-looking statement. Factors that may cause the companys actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements include those found in the companys reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the information under the Safe Harbor and Risk Factors headings in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, which are incorporated herein by reference. Snap-on disclaims any responsibility to update any forward-looking statement provided in this news release, except as required by law.

For additional information, please visit www.snapon.com.

SNAP-ON INCORPORATED Condensed Consolidated Statements of Earnings (Amounts in millions, except per share data) (unaudited) Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, October 1, September 30, October 1, 2023 2022 2023 2022 Net sales $ 1,159.3 $ 1,102.5 $ 3,533.6 $ 3,336.9 Cost of goods sold (581.1 ) (569.9 ) (1,762.1 ) (1,716.5 ) Gross profit 578.2 532.6 1,771.5 1,620.4 Operating expenses (333.0 ) (309.1 ) (989.5 ) (927.2 ) Operating earnings before financial services 245.2 223.5 782.0 693.2 Financial services revenue 94.9 87.3 280.9 261.4 Financial services expenses (25.5 ) (20.9 ) (78.3 ) (59.3 ) Operating earnings from financial services 69.4 66.4 202.6 202.1 Operating earnings 314.6 289.9 984.6 895.3 Interest expense (12.4 ) (11.8 ) (37.4 ) (35.1 ) Other income (expense)  net 18.0 13.1 50.0 30.7 Earnings before income taxes 320.2 291.2 997.2 890.9 Income tax expense (71.1 ) (61.7 ) (223.9 ) (201.5 ) Net earnings 249.1 229.5 773.3 689.4 Net earnings attributable to noncontrolling interests (6.0 ) (5.6 ) (17.5 ) (16.6 ) Net earnings attributable to Snap-on Inc. $ 243.1 $ 223.9 $ 755.8 $ 672.8 Net earnings per share attributable to Snap-on Inc.: Basic $ 4.60 $ 4.21 $ 14.29 $ 12.62 Diluted 4.51 4.14 14.00 12.41 Weighted-average shares outstanding: Basic 52.8 53.2 52.9 53.3 Effect of dilutive securities 1.1 0.9 1.1 0.9 Diluted 53.9 54.1 54.0 54.2

SNAP-ON INCORPORATED Supplemental Segment Information (Amounts in millions) (unaudited) Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, October 1, September 30, October 1, 2023 2022 2023 2022 Net sales: Commercial & Industrial Group $ 366.4 $ 356.8 $ 1,094.4 $ 1,056.0 Snap-on Tools Group 515.4 496.6 1,575.5 1,529.3 Repair Systems & Information Group 431.8 414.0 1,330.4 1,229.0 Segment net sales 1,313.6 1,267.4 4,000.3 3,814.3 Intersegment eliminations (154.3 ) (164.9 ) (466.7 ) (477.4 ) Total net sales 1,159.3 1,102.5 3,533.6 3,336.9 Financial Services revenue 94.9 87.3 280.9 261.4 Total revenues $ 1,254.2 $ 1,189.8 $ 3,814.5 $ 3,598.3 Operating earnings: Commercial & Industrial Group $ 58.1 $ 52.3 $ 172.0 $ 149.7 Snap-on Tools Group 113.4 102.2 382.8 342.6 Repair Systems & Information Group 104.9 95.4 319.9 282.7 Financial Services 69.4 66.4 202.6 202.1 Segment operating earnings 345.8 316.3 1,077.3 977.1 Corporate (31.2 ) (26.4 ) (92.7 ) (81.8 ) Operating earnings 314.6 289.9 984.6 895.3 Interest expense (12.4 ) (11.8 ) (37.4 ) (35.1 ) Other income (expense)  net 18.0 13.1 50.0 30.7 Earnings before income taxes $ 320.2 $ 291.2 $ 997.2 $ 890.9

SNAP-ON INCORPORATED Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (Amounts in millions) (unaudited) September 30, December 31, 2023 2022 Assets Cash and cash equivalents $ 959.3 $ 757.2 Trade and other accounts receivable  net 776.8 761.7 Finance receivables  net 597.5 562.2 Contract receivables  net 119.6 109.9 Inventories  net 1,032.9 1,033.1 Prepaid expenses and other assets 118.9 144.8 Total current assets 3,605.0 3,368.9 Property and equipment  net 524.8 512.6 Operating lease right-of-use assets 68.7 61.5 Deferred income tax assets 75.6 70.0 Long-term finance receivables  net 1,245.9 1,170.8 Long-term contract receivables  net 399.9 383.8 Goodwill 1,035.9 1,045.3 Other intangible assets  net 263.0 275.6 Pension assets 72.7 70.6 Other assets 12.8 13.7 Total assets $ 7,304.3 $ 6,972.8 Liabilities and Equity Notes payable $ 17.3 $ 17.2 Accounts payable 284.3 287.0 Accrued benefits 57.5 58.6 Accrued compensation 96.1 98.6 Franchisee deposits 76.0 73.8 Other accrued liabilities 450.7 436.4 Total current liabilities 981.9 971.6 Long-term debt 1,184.4 1,183.8 Deferred income tax liabilities 72.8 82.1 Retiree health care benefits 21.8 23.4 Pension liabilities 57.7 78.6 Operating lease liabilities 50.6 44.7 Other long-term liabilities 82.7 85.1 Total liabilities 2,451.9 2,469.3 Equity Shareholders' equity attributable to Snap-on Inc. Common stock 67.5 67.4 Additional paid-in capital 531.7 499.9 Retained earnings 6,792.3 6,296.2 Accumulated other comprehensive loss (563.3 ) (528.3 ) Treasury stock at cost (1,998.0 ) (1,853.9 ) Total shareholders' equity attributable to Snap-on Inc. 4,830.2 4,481.3 Noncontrolling interests 22.2 22.2 Total equity 4,852.4 4,503.5 Total liabilities and equity $ 7,304.3 $ 6,972.8

SNAP-ON INCORPORATED Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (Amounts in millions) (unaudited) Three Months Ended September 30, October 1, 2023 2022 Operating activities: Net earnings $ 249.1 $ 229.5 Adjustments to reconcile net earnings to net cash provided (used) by operating activities: Depreciation 17.8 17.2 Amortization of other intangible assets 6.8 7.2 Provision for losses on finance receivables 12.8 9.5 Provision for losses on non-finance receivables 6.2 4.6 Stock-based compensation expense 11.0 8.1 Deferred income tax benefit (7.3 ) (7.0 ) Gain on sales of assets (0.3 ) (0.1 ) Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Trade and other accounts receivable (7.6 ) (36.6 ) Contract receivables (25.0 ) (21.7 ) Inventories (7.6 ) (100.4 ) Prepaid expenses and other assets 16.1 (4.5 ) Accounts payable 12.6 4.4 Accruals and other liabilities 0.8 19.7 Net cash provided by operating activities 285.4 129.9 Investing activities: Additions to finance receivables (243.5 ) (234.1 ) Collections of finance receivables 208.4 195.9 Capital expenditures (25.1 ) (20.0 ) Disposals of property and equipment 0.5 0.2 Other  0.1 Net cash used by investing activities (59.7 ) (57.9 ) Financing activities: Net decrease in other short-term borrowings (0.3 ) (0.2 ) Cash dividends paid (85.6 ) (75.7 ) Purchases of treasury stock (51.8 ) (50.2 ) Proceeds from stock purchase and option plans 9.9 12.2 Other (7.5 ) (6.8 ) Net cash used by financing activities (135.3 ) (120.7 ) Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents (2.4 ) (4.9 ) Increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 88.0 (53.6 ) Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 871.3 812.9 Cash and cash equivalents at end of period $ 959.3 $ 759.3 Supplemental cash flow disclosures: Cash paid for interest $ (13.8 ) $ (13.9 ) Net cash paid for income taxes (76.8 ) (58.2 )

SNAP-ON INCORPORATED Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (Amounts in millions) (unaudited) Nine Months Ended September 30, October 1, 2023 2022 Operating activities: Net earnings $ 773.3 $ 689.4 Adjustments to reconcile net earnings to net cash provided (used) by operating activities: Depreciation 53.6 53.9 Amortization of other intangible assets 20.7 21.6 Provision for losses on finance receivables 40.7 24.9 Provision for losses on non-finance receivables 15.0 11.3 Stock-based compensation expense 31.4 25.6 Deferred income tax benefit (16.5 ) (14.1 ) Gain on sales of assets (0.6 ) (3.0 ) Changes in operating assets and liabilities, net of effects of acquisitions: Trade and other accounts receivable (38.3 ) (110.3 ) Contract receivables (27.9 ) (11.3 ) Inventories (21.0 ) (223.8 ) Prepaid expenses and other assets 30.3 (27.9 ) Accounts payable 4.3 46.5 Accruals and other liabilities (7.7 ) (18.2 ) Net cash provided by operating activities 857.3 464.6 Investing activities: Additions to finance receivables (779.8 ) (703.7 ) Collections of finance receivables 626.5 622.1 Capital expenditures (73.9 ) (61.5 ) Acquisitions of businesses, net of cash acquired  0.5 Disposals of property and equipment 1.5 4.4 Other (1.5 ) (0.1 ) Net cash used by investing activities (227.2 ) (138.3 ) Financing activities: Net increase in other short-term borrowings  2.6 Cash dividends paid (257.6 ) (227.1 ) Purchases of treasury stock (233.8 ) (132.8 ) Proceeds from stock purchase and option plans 94.5 41.4 Other (27.0 ) (23.3 ) Net cash used by financing activities (423.9 ) (339.2 ) Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents (4.1 ) (7.8 ) Increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 202.1 (20.7 ) Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of year 757.2 780.0 Cash and cash equivalents at end of period $ 959.3 $ 759.3 Supplemental cash flow disclosures: Cash paid for interest $ (36.1 ) $ (36.3 ) Net cash paid for income taxes (224.5 ) (187.4 )

Non-GAAP Supplemental Data

The following non-GAAP supplemental data is presented for informational purposes to provide readers with insight into the information used by management for assessing the operating performance of Snap-on Incorporated's ("Snap-on") non-financial services ("Operations") and Financial Services businesses.

The supplemental Operations data reflects the results of operations and financial position of Snap-on's tools, diagnostic and equipment products, software and other non-financial services operations with Financial Services presented on the equity method. The supplemental Financial Services data reflects the results of operations and financial position of Snap-on's U.S. and international financial services operations. The financing needs of Financial Services are met through intersegment borrowings and cash generated from Operations; Financial Services is charged interest expense on intersegment borrowings at market rates. Income taxes are charged to Financial Services on the basis of the specific tax attributes generated by the U.S. and international financial services businesses. Transactions between the Operations and Financial Services businesses are eliminated to arrive at the Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements.

SNAP-ON INCORPORATED Non-GAAP Supplemental Consolidating Data - Supplemental Condensed Statements of Earnings (Amounts in millions) (unaudited) Operations* Financial Services Three Months Ended Three Months Ended September 30, October 1, September 30, October 1, 2023 2022 2023 2022 Net sales $ 1,159.3 $ 1,102.5 $  $  Cost of goods sold (581.1 ) (569.9 )   Gross profit 578.2 532.6   Operating expenses (333.0 ) (309.1 )   Operating earnings before financial services 245.2 223.5   Financial services revenue   94.9 87.3 Financial services expenses   (25.5 ) (20.9 ) Operating earnings from financial services   69.4 66.4 Operating earnings 245.2 223.5 69.4 66.4 Interest expense (12.4 ) (11.7 )  (0.1 ) Intersegment interest income (expense)  net 16.1 14.7 (16.1 ) (14.7 ) Other income (expense)  net 17.9 13.0 0.1 0.1 Earnings before income taxes and equity earnings 266.8 239.5 53.4 51.7 Income tax expense (57.3 ) (48.4 ) (13.8 ) (13.3 ) Earnings before equity earnings 209.5 191.1 39.6 38.4 Financial services  net earnings attributable to Snap-on 39.6 38.4   Net earnings 249.1 229.5 39.6 38.4 Net earnings attributable to noncontrolling interests (6.0 ) (5.6 )   Net earnings attributable to Snap-on $ 243.1 $ 223.9 $ 39.6 $ 38.4 * Snap-on with Financial Services presented on the equity method.

SNAP-ON INCORPORATED Non-GAAP Supplemental Consolidating Data - Supplemental Condensed Statements of Earnings (Amounts in millions) (unaudited) Operations* Financial Services Nine Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, October 1, September 30, October 1, 2023 2022 2023 2022 Net sales $ 3,533.6 $ 3,336.9 $  $  Cost of goods sold (1,762.1 ) (1,716.5 )   Gross profit 1,771.5 1,620.4   Operating expenses (989.5 ) (927.2 )   Operating earnings before financial services 782.0 693.2   Financial services revenue   280.9 261.4 Financial services expenses   (78.3 ) (59.3 ) Operating earnings from financial services   202.6 202.1 Operating earnings 782.0 693.2 202.6 202.1 Interest expense (37.4 ) (35.0 )  (0.1 ) Intersegment interest income (expense)  net 47.9 44.5 (47.9 ) (44.5 ) Other income (expense)  net 49.8 30.5 0.2 0.2 Earnings before income taxes and equity earnings 842.3 733.2 154.9 157.7 Income tax expense (183.8 ) (160.9 ) (40.1 ) (40.6 ) Earnings before equity earnings 658.5 572.3 114.8 117.1 Financial services  net earnings attributable to Snap-on 114.8 117.1   Net earnings 773.3 689.4 114.8 117.1 Net earnings attributable to noncontrolling interests (17.5 ) (16.6 )   Net earnings attributable to Snap-on $ 755.8 $ 672.8 $ 114.8 $ 117.1 * Snap-on with Financial Services presented on the equity method.

SNAP-ON INCORPORATED Non-GAAP Supplemental Consolidating Data - Supplemental Condensed Balance Sheets (Amounts in millions) (unaudited) Operations* Financial Services September 30, December 31, September 30, December 31, 2023 2022 2023 2022 Assets Cash and cash equivalents $ 959.1 $ 757.1 $ 0.2 $ 0.1 Intersegment receivables 17.7 13.4   Trade and other accounts receivable  net 776.0 761.1 0.8 0.6 Finance receivables  net   597.5 562.2 Contract receivables  net 5.7 5.9 113.9 104.0 Inventories  net 1,032.9 1,033.1   Prepaid expenses and other assets 124.8 149.2 5.7 5.8 Total current assets 2,916.2 2,719.8 718.1 672.7 Property and equipment  net 521.9 510.7 2.9 1.9 Operating lease right-of-use assets 67.6 60.1 1.1 1.4 Investment in Financial Services 386.0 363.9   Deferred income tax assets 51.8 48.4 23.8 21.6 Intersegment long-term notes receivable 745.8 635.9   Long-term finance receivables  net   1,245.9 1,170.8 Long-term contract receivables  net 8.9 9.6 391.0 374.2 Goodwill 1,035.9 1,045.3   Other intangible assets  net 263.0 275.6   Pension assets 72.7 70.6   Other assets 28.1 27.1 0.2 0.1 Total assets $ 6,097.9 $ 5,767.0 $ 2,383.0 $ 2,242.7 Liabilities and Equity Notes payable $ 17.3 $ 17.2 $  $  Accounts payable 283.3 285.8 1.0 1.2 Intersegment payables   17.7 13.4 Accrued benefits 57.5 58.6   Accrued compensation 93.2 95.6 2.9 3.0 Franchisee deposits 76.0 73.8   Other accrued liabilities 434.4 420.8 27.9 25.8 Total current liabilities 961.7 951.8 49.5 43.4 Long-term debt and intersegment long-term debt   1,930.2 1,819.7 Deferred income tax liabilities 72.8 82.1   Retiree health care benefits 21.8 23.4   Pension liabilities 57.7 78.6   Operating lease liabilities 49.8 43.6 0.8 1.1 Other long-term liabilities 81.7 84.0 16.5 14.6 Total liabilities 1,245.5 1,263.5 1,997.0 1,878.8 Total shareholders' equity attributable to Snap-on 4,830.2 4,481.3 386.0 363.9 Noncontrolling interests 22.2 22.2   Total equity 4,852.4 4,503.5 386.0 363.9 Total liabilities and equity $ 6,097.9 $ 5,767.0 $ 2,383.0 $ 2,242.7 * Snap-on with Financial Services presented on the equity method.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019720162/en/

Investors:

Sara Verbsky

262/656-4869

Media:

Samuel Bottum

262/656-5793

Source: Snap-on Incorporated
TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Street Haven is hosting its first ever Walking Home Walkathon on October 29, 2023, from 11:30AM to 2PM. The Walking Home Walkathon is aimed at raising awareness about the pressing issue of homelessness among vulnerable and at-risk women including African refugee claimants. As the colder weather approaches, it becomes increasingly challenging for those experiencing homelessness to find a safe haven from the cold. The event will also help to raise funds to support critical resources in Street Havens shelter, housing, addiction treatment and training supports for clients. The event will involve walking through the downtown east neighbourhoods including Cabbagetown, revitalized Regent Park and the Distillery District. Several important local representatives and supporters including Jessica Bell, MPP, University-Rosedale, Kristyn Wong-Tam, MPP Toronto-Centre, and Councillor Chris Moise, Toronto-Centre will be speaking to launch the event and participating in the walk. This is an extremely important event to raise awareness on the impact that the cold will have on the homeless including the chronically homeless and the African refugee claimants who are arriving in Toronto and who will be unprepared for our cooler climate and weather, says Dr. Siu Mee Cheng, executive director.

Event Details:

Date: October 29, 2023

Registration: 11:00 AM

Opening Remarks: 11:30 AM

Walk Start Time: 12:00 PM

Route: 2.5 km or 5 km through Cabbagetown, revitalized Regent Park, and Distillery District

Conclusion: No later than 2:00 PM

Street Haven is welcoming walkers, teams and supporters to this inaugural walkathon, and more information can be found at https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/street-haven-at-the-crossroads/p2p/walkinghome/

About Street Haven:

Street Haven at the Crossroads is a Toronto-based organization dedicated to serving homeless and at-risk women. The organization provides shelter, housing, addiction treatment, and training support to empower women to rebuild their lives.

Street Haven at the Crossroads

87 Pembroke Street

Toronto, ON. M5A 2N9

T. 1(416) 967-6060

www.streethaven.org

[email protected]

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019439454/en/

Joy Edobor

Manager, Fundraising

[email protected]

416-967-6060 ext. 259

Source: Street Haven at the Crossroads
Dr. Martin Madaus and Dr. Don Kania are recognized for their significant contributions to the field of life science technology and bring over 50 years of combined experience to the Syncell team.

The new Business Strategic Advisors will use their long-standing expertise to drive the company's growth and innovation in spatial proteomics.

TAIPEI, Taiwan & LOS ALTOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Syncell, a life science technology company developing tools for next-generation proteome research, proudly announces the appointment of Dr. Martin Madaus and Dr. Don Kania as the new Business Strategic Advisors of the company. With their extensive backgrounds in the life science industry, both Dr. Madaus and Dr. Kania will guide Syncell's growth and innovation, helping the company become a major player in the spatial proteomics industry.

Dr. Madaus brings over 30 years of experience in the biotechnology, diagnostics, and pharmaceutical sectors. He is a transformative leader guiding the growth of many companies, currently serving as Chairman of Quanterix, Senior Healthcare Operating Executive of the Carlyle Group, and a Board Member of multiple high-profile biotech companies. His distinguished career includes serving as President, Chairman, and CEO of Millipore, President and CEO of Roche Diagnostics North America, and Chairman and CEO of Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics.

Dr. Madaus shared enthusiasm about his new role: Syncell is pushing the boundaries of spatial proteomics with its innovative Microscoop technology. This platform improves our ability to study the functions and interactions of proteins, which is key to understanding the underlying mechanisms of diseases and identifying new drug targets. I am excited to join Syncell as a Business Strategic Advisor and contribute to their mission to advance the field of proteomics with this novel platform."

Dr. Kania is also a seasoned leader in the field, bringing over 25 years of experience in the life science technology, biotechnology, and photonics industries. He is Chairman of Gandeeva Therapeutics and a Board Member of Intuitive Surgical, Lumicks, and several other startup companies. He is best recognized for his role as CEO and President of FEI Company, which he built to become a global leader in cryo-electron microscopy, a game-changing structural biology technology.

Dr. Kania commented: Syncells Microscoop technology will contribute to a new era of biological discoveries that could accelerate the development of potentially life-saving drugs. I am honored to be a part of the Syncell team and look forward to helping guide the company's expansion, enabling more researchers access to this groundbreaking tool.

Syncell founder and CEO, Jung-Chi Liao, expressed excitement about the appointment of the new Business Strategic Advisors, stating, "We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Martin Madaus and Dr. Don Kania to the Syncell family. Their vast experience and precision leadership in the life science technology sector will undoubtedly elevate our company to new heights, and we look forward to their invaluable contributions."

As strategic business advisors, Dr. Madaus and Dr. Kania will provide guidance and collaborate with Syncell on various aspects of its operations, including business strategy, commercialization planning, product development, and fundraising efforts.

About Syncell

Syncell is a life science technology company building products for next-generation spatial biology. Its pioneering Microscoop technology enables microscopy-guided nanoscale protein "scooping", making unbiased subcellular spatial biomarker discovery feasible for the first time. This spatial proteomics technology is applicable to a broad scope of biological problems to help understand molecular mechanisms, identify novel disease biomarkers, and reveal novel druggable targets. Learn more at www.syncell.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231015291031/en/

Jennie Wu

[email protected]

Source: Syncell
PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Regulatory News:

In response to the article published in the French daily Le Monde on October 19, 2023, Technip Energies (Paris: TE) (ISIN:NL0014559478) issues the following statement:

As of February 24, 2022, the date of the invasion of Ukraine, Technip Energies was overseeing the Arctic LNG 2 (ALNG2) project in Gydan, northern Russia. The contract, awarded in 2019, covered engineering, equipment procurement and the construction of three LNG trains.

After disclosing on 3 March 2022 that it was halting all work on new business opportunities in Russia, Technip Energies opened discussions in April 2022 with its client, project partners and suppliers with a view to the Companys exit from ALNG2, in accordance with applicable sanctions and contractual provisions.

The activities covered by sanctions were suspended as those sanctions entered into force, notably following the publication of the 5th package of European Union sanctions on April 8, 2022, which took effect in May.

Technip Energies has worked with relevant authorities and has complied with the sanctions introduced progressively by the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom. In view of the number and complexity of sanctions, the Company undertook a thorough analysis of all equipment exports, including thousands of components for the two utilities modules delivered after May 2022, to ensure that the correct customs codes were applied.

Technip Energies stated on October 20, 2022 that, in light of the projects size and inherent complexity, the exit process was expected to be completed in the first half of 2023. This commitment was fulfilled, and the Company confirmed on July 27, 2023 that it had exited the ALNG2 project.

Technip Energies has acted responsibly in its role on the ALNG2 project through strict compliance with, in order of precedence, international sanctions and its contractual obligations.

About Technip Energies

Technip Energies is a leading Engineering & Technology company for the energy transition, with leadership positions in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), hydrogen and ethylene as well as growing market positions in blue and green hydrogen, sustainable chemistry and CO2 management. The company benefits from its robust project delivery model supported by extensive technology, products and services offering.

Operating in 35 countries, our 15,000 people are fully committed to bringing our clients innovative projects to life, breaking boundaries to accelerate the energy transition for a better tomorrow.

Technip Energies is listed on Euronext Paris with American depositary receipts (ADRs). For further information: www.technipenergies.com.

Important Information for Investors and Securityholders

Forward-Looking Statement

This Press Release contains forward-looking statements that reflect Technip Energies (the Company) intentions, beliefs or current expectations and projections about the Company's future results of operations, anticipated revenues, earnings, cashflows, financial condition, liquidity, performance, prospects, anticipated growth, strategies and opportunities and the markets in which the Company operates. Forward-looking statements are often identified by the words believe, expect, anticipate, plan, intend, foresee, should, would, could, may, estimate, outlook, and similar expressions, including the negative thereof. The absence of these words, however, does not mean that the statements are not forward-looking. These forward-looking statements are based on the Companys current expectations, beliefs and assumptions concerning future developments and business conditions and their potential effect on the Company. While the Company believes that these forward-looking statements are reasonable as and when made, there can be no assurance that future developments affecting the Company will be those that the Company anticipates.

All of the Companys forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, some of which are significant or beyond the Companys control, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Companys historical experience and the Companys present expectations or projections. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

For information regarding known material factors that could cause actual results to differ from projected results, please see the Companys risk factors set forth in the Companys 2022 Annual Financial report filed on March 10, 2023, with the Dutch Authority for the Financial

Markets (AFM) and the French Autorite des Marches Financiers which include a discussion of factors that could affect the Company's future performance and the markets in which the Company operates.

Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties and speak only as of the date they are made. The Company undertakes no duty to and will not necessarily update any of the forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events, except to the extent required by applicable law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019940523/en/

Investor relations

Phil Lindsay

VP Investor Relations

Tel: +44 207 585 5051

Email: Phillip Lindsay

Media relations

Jason Hyonne

Press Relations & Social Media Lead

Tel: +33 1 47 78 22 89

Email: Jason Hyonne

Source: Technip Energies
Collaboration leverages two CDx assays from Thermo Fisher to support greater access to genomic testing for cancer patients in Japan and the United States

CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- To support emerging precision therapies and improve patient outcomes by increasing access to reliable genomic testing needed to match patients with targeted cancer treatments, Thermo Fisher Scientific today announced a companion diagnostic (CDx) partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim. Through this collaboration, the companies will work to develop CDx tests to help identify patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with specific genomic mutations.

Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers, with 2.2 million cases worldwide in 2020 and is the leading cause of cancer death in both Japani and the U.S.ii The collaboration will leverage the Oncomine Dx Express Test* on the Ion Torrent Genexus Dx System* as well as the Oncomine Dx Target Test.**

Our proven track record of co-developing CDx tests reinforces our commitment to working with leading pharma companies to ensure patients may have immediate access to these targeted therapies once approved, said Garret Hampton, president of clinical next-generation sequencing and oncology at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Boehringer Ingelheim has made a generational commitment to transforming cancer care, and were excited to be supporting their pipeline as they work to ensure the appropriate tests are available to match eligible patients with emerging targeted therapies.

Boehringer Ingelheim has the aspiration to transform the lives of people with cancer by delivering meaningful advances, with the ultimate goal of curing a range of cancers. By partnering with Thermo Fisher, Boehringer Ingelheim aims to develop multiple companion diagnostic tests to ensure that labs using a variety of testing technologies will have the ability to match eligible patients with emerging NSCLC treatments as they become available.

A recently published, real-world study in stage 4 NSCLC found that patients whose treatments were initiated before genomic insights were available experienced inferior outcomes, supporting the need for more rapid molecular testing.iii Thermo Fishers Oncomine Dx Express Test in combination with the Genexus Dx System offers a fully integrated, NGS platform that can test a patients tumor biopsy or blood specimen, returning actionable results in as little as 24 hours. The Genexus Dx System delivers a turnkey, end-to-end NGS system that requires as little as 10 minutes of hands-on time, simplifying the testing workflow and making this technology feasible for more labs.

The Oncomine Dx Target Test remains the only distributed NGS CDx kit that has received regulatory approval and is available in 18 countries worldwide for 17 targeted therapies.

*The Genexus Dx instrument and the Oncomine Dx Express Test are currently CE-IVD and only available to those countries who accept the CE-IVD mark.

**The Oncomine Dx Target Test is for In Vitro Diagnostic use

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with annual revenue over $40 billion. Our Mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. Whether our customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving complex analytical challenges, increasing productivity in their laboratories, improving patient health through diagnostics or the development and manufacture of life-changing therapies, we are here to support them. Our global team delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services through our industry-leading brands, including Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services, Patheon and PPD. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com.

i https://tlcr.amegroups.org/article/view/35680/html

ii https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/statistics/index.htm

iii https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/OP.22.00611

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019154383/en/

Media:

Catie Shaw

Phone: 442-303-2104

E-mail: [email protected]

Jessica Morris

Phone: 781-361-5782

Email: [email protected]

Source: Thermo Fisher
SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Tofu, a generative AI platform for creating hyper-personalized, omnichannel marketing campaigns at scale, today announced it has raised $5M in venture funding. Index Ventures led the round with participation from SignalFire, Stage 2 Capital and Liquid 2 Ventures.

In todays fiercely competitive B2B marketing landscape, revenue teams have struggled to find effective ways to reach their target customers. As the Tofu team spoke to over 100 enterprise CMOs, they found the biggest bottleneck to be lack of resources for creating personalized content, especially in this economic environment where teams are leaner than ever and are forced to do more with less.

Tofu solves this problem by allowing marketing teams to easily mass generate on-brand and personalized content for any channel. Tofu starts by creating a proprietary Playbook, or AI knowledge graph, for each customer. Tofu ingests the customers website and marketing/sales collateral to ensure that all generated content seamlessly aligns with their brand, messaging, and positioning. Tofu then leverages the Playbook and uses generative AI to create unlimited variations of personalized content in minutes such as emails, landing pages, blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, and an array of other content formats.

Its a clear answer to the top needs of CMOs today - in the Boston Consulting Groups recent survey of over 200 CMOs, 89% of organizations are already using or testing generative AI, with personalization (67% of respondents) and content creation (49%) being the top use cases of focus, which are the primary use cases the Tofu platform solves for today.

Today, Tofu is in beta with a handful of enterprise customers. Customers have seen significant ROI from hyper-personalization, where Tofu creates, manages, and analyzes thousands of personalized pieces of content tailored to individual accounts. Theyve further been able to optimize team resources and scale content efforts through repurposing existing content - taking an anchor piece of content and automatically generating derivative assets. For example, Tofu can take content from a case study and create a blog post, email and social media campaign to go with it.

On average, customers are seeing an impressive 230% increase in email open rates, a 300% increase in time spent on page, and a 200% boost in opportunity generation when comparing Tofu-generated content to other personalized campaign tools.

Tofu was founded by a team of B2B Marketing and AI Experts. Elaine Zelby spent 8 years building and leading marketing teams at Slack, Consensys and Capriza. Eunjoon (EJ) Cho and Honglei Liu collectively spent decades as Product and Engineering leaders at companies like Google, Facebook, Affirm, and Twitter.

Our goal is to have customers focus on their core-messaging and strategy while Tofu puts the creation and execution of campaigns on autopilot. Tofu will bring the technological leap in AI directly into enterprise workflows and super power the next generation of GTM teams, said CEO EJ Cho.

AI is a huge unlock for marketers. Reaching an audience with the right message at the right time is a Holy Grail for businesses, and Tofu is making that a reality. Tofu enables marketing teams to run more effective personalized campaigns at scale by bringing AI into the team's workflows. Weve been excited about EJ, Elaine and Honglei for a long time, and are thrilled to join them on the journey from Day 1. This fits our broader thesis in Applied AI to back great teams in software categories that are being reshaped by this new technological shift.  - Mark Goldberg, Partner @ Index Ventures

About Tofu

Tofu provides a unified platform for creating hyper-personalized, omnichannel campaigns at scale that converts leads for B2B marketing teams. Tofu leverages a companys brand guideline and segmentation (personas, industries, accounts, keywords) and uses generative AI to create unlimited variations of on-brand content for ads, emails, social, landing pages, blog posts, case studies, sales enablement, and any other content needs. Tofu then analyzes characteristics of successful campaigns to recommend tactics to increase conversion on each channel.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019167641/en/

EJ Cho ([email protected])

Source: Tofu
The Amwell Converge platform will enable DHA healthcare teams to deliver connected and seamless in-person, virtual, and automated care delivery for the Military Health System

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amwell (NYSE: AMWL), a leader in hybrid healthcare enablement, together with Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, was recently awarded a next-generation contract to provide a hybrid care technology platform designed to power the Digital First transformation of the Military Health System (MHS).

Under this task order, the Leidos Partnership for Defense Health (LPDH) will deliver Amwell Converge, a comprehensive hybrid care enablement platform designed to power the full continuum of care using digital, virtual and automated modalities, and replace the Military Health System (MHS) Video Connect solution. It will start at five initial sites followed by a phased enterprise roll-out. Also included in the contract are a broad spectrum of Amwell automated care programs that have a proven track record of helping deliver better health outcomes, including multiple behavioral health and integrated core telehealth solutions. If all options are exercised, the task order has a 22-month period of performance with a total value of up to $180 million to the LPDH.

Through our world class platform Converge, Amwell is already enabling hybrid care across the commercial marketplace. With this agreement, we are pleased to offer our unique capabilities and help improve access to quality care for the MHS community of users. We are grateful for their service, and honored to have been chosen to join Leidos in supporting the Department of Defense as it seeks to adopt and extend the benefits of hybrid care to the Military Health System, said Ido Schoenberg, M.D., chairman and CEO of Amwell.

The DHAs Digital First initiative brings new capabilities and enablement to MHS GENESIS, an advanced electronic health record (EHR) and healthcare system solution that supports military and Veteran healthcare initiatives. The Converge platform has deep integration assets and a simple yet powerful user experience that enables efficient and quality hybrid care delivery. The platform is already embedded into existing clinical workflows that care teams rely on, including those within the core EHR that powers MHS GENESIS. Together, Amwell and LPDH will enable the DHA to leverage the benefits of hybrid care, improve access to primary and behavioral health care, and ultimately improve outcomes for the MHS community.

The DHA supports national security and ensures our nations military teams are ready to deploy. Seeking to leverage innovation and best practices from the commercial sector, the DHA conducted a thorough evaluation of the Amwell solution.

We are delighted that the demonstrated scalability, flexibility, and comprehensiveness of the Amwell Converge platform, as evaluated by DHA, uniquely qualifies Amwell to support the DHAs Digital First strategies and readiness mission. We are dedicated to supporting this program with the best that Amwell offers for many years to come, said Dr. Schoenberg.

Digital First addresses DHAs goal of better outcomes, new processes, innovation and increased standardization based on evidence, said Jason McCarthy, Leidos senior vice president, Military and Veterans Health Solutions. As part of our overall MHS GENESIS effort to enhance patient experience, we, along with Amwell, are looking forward to providing near real-time, self-service support and hybrid care options for our customer and those whom they serve.

Digital First will support the entire MHS community of users, which includes 9.6 million active-duty service members, family members, retirees, and health professionals across the continuum of care. Through integrated platform solutions, Amwell and Leidos will help reduce burdens on care teams, improve the mental health and wellness of beneficiaries, help reduce healthcare costs and optimize the effective utilization of DHA's clinical resources across their global enterprise.

About Amwell

Amwell provides a leading hybrid care enablement platform in the United States and globally, connecting and enabling providers, insurers, patients, and innovators to deliver greater access to more affordable, higher quality care. Amwell believes that hybrid care delivery will transform healthcare. The company offers a single, comprehensive platform designed to support all digital health needs from urgent to acute and post-acute care, as well as chronic care management and healthy living. With nearly two decades of experience, Amwell powers the hybrid care of more than 55 health plans, which collectively represent more than 90 million covered lives, and many of the nations largest health systems, representing over 2,000 hospitals, have access to Amwell solutions. For more information, please visit https://business.amwell.com/.

2023 American Well Corporation. All rights reserved. Amwell, SilverCloud, ConvergeTM, CarepointTM and the Amwell Logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of American Well Corporation.

This press release contains forward-looking statements about us and our industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties and are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including statements regarding our future results of operations, financial condition, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as anticipate, believe, could, estimate, expect, intend, may, plan, potential, predict, project, should, will, or would, or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements represent our beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this release. These statements, and related risks, uncertainties, factors and assumptions, include, but are not limited to: weak growth and increased volatility in the telehealth market; inability to adapt to rapid technological changes; increased competition from existing and potential new participants in the healthcare industry; changes in healthcare laws, regulations or trends and our ability to operate in the heavily regulated healthcare industry; our ability to comply with federal and state privacy regulations; the significant liability that could result from a cybersecurity breach; and other factors described under Risk Factors in our most recent form 10-K filed with the SEC. These risks are not exhaustive. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Further information on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results anticipated by our forward-looking statements is included in the reports we have filed or will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings, when available, are available on the investor relations section of our website at investors.amwell.com and on the SECs website at www.sec.gov.

Notice of Ownership

All materials contained herein are the property of American Well Corporation and are copyrighted under United States law and applicable international copyright laws and treaty provisions. The materials contained herein are not work product or "work for hire" on behalf of any third party. The materials contained herein constitute the confidential information of American Well Corporation, except for specific data elements provided by third parties, which are the confidential information of such third parties. The content contained herein results from the application of American Well proprietary processes, analytical frameworks, algorithms, business methods, solution construction aids and templates, all of which are and remain the property of American Well Corporation.

Trademark Notice

All of the trademarks, service marks and logos displayed on these materials (the "Trademark(s)") are registered and unregistered trademarks of American Well Corporation or third parties who have licensed their Trademarks to American Well Corporation. Except as expressly stated in these terms and conditions, you may not reproduce, display or otherwise use any Trademark without first obtaining American Well Corporation's written permission.

2023 American Well Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Amwell Media

Angela Vogen, Head of External Communications

[email protected]

Amwell Investor

Sue Dooley, Head of Investor Relations

[email protected]

Source: Amwell
Self-administration of vaccines using the Vaxxas high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP) could reduce the need for healthcare workers to administer vaccines, expanding the rate, broadening the scope, and lowering the cost of routine and pandemic vaccination.

During a pandemic, self-administration could help to avoid populations being exposed to a given infectious disease by eliminating the need to travel to a crowded, central location such as doctors office or vaccination center for vaccination.

HD-MAP vaccines also offer the potential for distribution without a cold chain, further enhancing vaccination efficiency, broadening accessibility and lowering costs.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & BRISBANE, Australia--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Vaxxas, a clinical-stage biotechnology company commercializing a novel vaccination platform, today announced a publication in the journal Vaccine entitled Vaccine microarray patch self-administration: An innovative approach to improve pandemic and routine vaccination rates.

Vaxxas HD-MAP targets delivery of vaccines to the dense populations of immune cells in the skin, that then transport the vaccine directly to the lymph nodes (the central hubs of the immune system), potentially producing a more robust and dose-efficient immune response than vaccines injected into the muscle.

The publication outlines the potential for Vaxxas HD-MAP to enhance vaccine performance as well as increasing rates and acceptance of vaccination based on needle-free self-administration. The HD-MAP, upon which vaccines are printed and dried, also provides storage and distribution benefits due to reduced cold chain requirements generally associated with vaccines delivered by needle and syringe.

The publication discusses how Vaxxas HD-MAP technology offers an attractive alternative for vaccine delivery during a pandemic due to its ability to alleviate the strain on healthcare systems by enabling vaccine administration by lesser-trained healthcare and community workers, guardians, or individuals themselves.

As presented in the papers discussion, self-vaccination using the HD-MAP could occur in various settings including vaccination hubs with supervision, at home after purchasing at a pharmacy, or via direct distribution to in-home settings via national postal systems.

Self-administration with HD-MAPs also has the potential to increase vaccine coverage and reach, while reducing labor costs and eliminating the significant waste associated with single-use needle and syringe. Self-administering vaccines, particularly in a pandemic context, could also reduce the need for personal protective equipment (and resulting waste) such as gowns, facemasks, aprons, gloves, needles, and syringes, which are typically disposed of after a single vaccination. The waste issue is significant. For example, it is estimated that the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in overwhelming levels of medical waste, generating as much as 2.6 million tons of waste per day worldwide (Andeobu et al 2022).

Vaxxas is committed to the development and commercialization of our novel HD-MAP platform, which could deliver significant benefits by enhancing immune response and protection, as well as simplifying distribution, said David L. Hoey, President and CEO of Vaxxas. Our HD-MAP platform has the potential to simplify delivery and enable self-administration of vaccines, which could dramatically improve pandemic and routine vaccination, accelerate vaccination rates, increase vaccine acceptance, and reduce costs and waste associated with needle/syringe vaccination.

This recent publication in Vaccine provides a public health and economic context to a previously-published self-administration clinical study conducted by Vaxxas with HD-MAPs (Evaluation of the self-administration potential of high-density microarray patches to human skin: A preliminary study - Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, March 2023), which provided data validating the potential of Vaxxas high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP) to effectively deliver vaccine payloads when used by either a trained healthcare professional or self-administered by individuals with lesser or no training.

Vaxxas is advancing a robust pipeline of pre-clinical and clinical stage HD-MAP vaccine candidates and has recently concluded multiple Phase I clinical studies. The current Vaxxas pipeline targets COVID-19, seasonal and pandemic influenza, typhoid, measles and rubella, and cancer.

About HD-MAP needle-free vaccines

The Vaxxas high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP) is made up of thousands of microscopic projections attached to a small patch. On each of these solid projections sits a tiny dose of vaccine in a dried formulation. When applied to the skin, the patch delivers the respective vaccine to the abundant number of immune cells that naturally reside immediately below the skin surface.

HD-MAP vaccine delivery offers many potential benefits over more traditional ways of administering vaccines. For example, the dried form of the vaccine is more stable at higher temperatures than vaccines in liquid formulations, therefore reducing the need for cold-chain storage and distribution.

Vaxxas HD-MAPs have proven safe and tolerable in hundreds of trial participants to date, and have been shown to induce equal or greater immune responses to injected vaccines at lower doses. Compared with needle-and-syringe systems, they are also much easier to administer and are likely to have greater acceptability.

Ultimately, HD-MAP patches could enable a future in which vaccine patches could be mailed directly to peoples homes, workplaces, and schools, avoiding the delay and inconvenience of traditional needle-and-syringe vaccine scheduling and administration.

About Vaxxas

Vaxxas is a privately held biotechnology company focused on enhancing the performance of existing and next-generation vaccines with its proprietary high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP). Vaxxas is targeting initial applications in infectious diseases and oncology.

With success in several completed human clinical trials involving more than 500 participants; additional ongoing Phase I clinical studies for COVID-19 and seasonal influenza; and other vaccine studies targeting pandemic influenza, funded by the United States Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a typhoid vaccine patch study funded by the Wellcome Trust, and a measles and rubella vaccine patch program supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Vaxxas HD-MAP vaccine delivery platform is advancing rapidly toward commercialization.

Vaxxas core technology was initially developed at The University of Queensland (UQ), and the company was established as a start-up in 2011 by UQs commercialization group UniQuest. The company was founded with the completion of an initial equity financing led by OneVentures Innovation Fund I with co-investors Brandon BioCatalyst and U.S.-based HealthCare Ventures, followed by a further financing led by OneVentures with UQ joining the most recent financing.

OneVentures Innovation Fund I and Brandon BioCatalyst are supported by the Australian Governments Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) program. The IIF is an Australian Government venture capital initiative that provides investment capital and managerial expertise through licensed venture capital fund managers to investee companies. Learn more at www.one-ventures.com and www.brandoncapital.vc.

Caution

Vaxxas HD-MAP delivered vaccines are under investigation and available only for investigational uses. They are not available anywhere in the world for sale or purchase. As such, Vaxxas makes no claim that the vaccines are reliable, durable, dependable, safe, or effective, and makes no claim that it is superior to any other vaccine or vaccine delivery technology.

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Media



Vaxxas - In United States:

Kathryn Morris

The Yates Network

+1 914 204 6412

[email protected]



Vaxxas - In Australia:

Amy Miller

WE Communication

+61 3 8866 1235

+61 431 072 422

[email protected]

Source: Vaxxas
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today Western Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE: WES) (WES or the Partnership) announced that the board of directors of its general partner declared a quarterly cash distribution (Base Distribution) of $0.5750 per unit for the third quarter of 2023, or $2.30 on an annualized basis. This distribution represents a 2.2% increase compared to the second-quarters Base Distribution of $0.5625 and is consistent with prior communications regarding a distribution increase upon the close of the acquisition of Meritage Midstream Services II, LLC. WESs third-quarter 2023 Base Distribution is payable on November 13, 2023, to unitholders of record at the close of business on November 1, 2023.

The Partnership plans to report its third-quarter results after market close on Wednesday, November 1, 2023. Management will host a conference call on Thursday, November 2, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. CDT (2:00 p.m. EDT) to discuss the Partnerships quarterly results. Participants are encouraged to dial into the conference call ten to fifteen minutes before the scheduled start time to avoid any delays entering the call. The full text of the release announcing the results will be available on the Partnerships website at www.westernmidstream.com.

Third-Quarter 2023 Results

Thursday, November 2, 2023

1:00 p.m. CST (2:00 p.m. EDT)

Dial-in number: 888-770-7129

International dial-in number: 929-203-2109

Participant access code: 2187921

To participate in WESs scheduled third-quarter 2023 earnings call, refer to the above-listed dial-in number and participant access code. To access the live audio webcast of the conference call, please visit the investor relations section of the Partnerships website at www.westernmidstream.com. A replay of the conference call will also be available on the website following the call.

ABOUT WESTERN MIDSTREAM

Western Midstream Partners, LP (WES) is a Delaware master limited partnership formed to acquire, own, develop, and operate midstream assets. With midstream assets located in the Rocky Mountains, North-central Pennsylvania, Texas, and New Mexico, WES is engaged in the business of gathering, compressing, treating, processing, and transporting natural gas; gathering, stabilizing, and transporting condensate, NGLs, and crude oil; and gathering and disposing of produced water for its customers. In addition, in its capacity as a processor of natural gas, WES also buys and sells natural gas, NGLs, and condensate on behalf of itself and as an agent for its customers under certain of its contracts.

For more information about Western Midstream Partners, LP and Western Midstream Flash Feed updates, please visit www.westernmidstream.com.

This news release contains forward-looking statements. WES and its general partner believe that their expectations are based on reasonable assumptions. No assurance, however, can be given that such expectations will prove to have been correct. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the projections, anticipated results or other expectations expressed in this news release. These factors include our ability to meet distribution expectations and financial guidance; our ability to safely and efficiently operate WESs assets; the supply of, demand for, and price of oil, natural gas, NGLs, and related products or services; our ability to meet projected in-service dates for capital-growth projects; construction costs or capital expenditures exceeding estimated or budgeted costs or expenditures; and the other factors described in the Risk Factors section of WESs most-recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other public filings and press releases. WES undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Note regarding Non-United States Investors: This release is intended to be a qualified notice under Treasury Regulation Sections 1.1446-4(b) and 1.1446(f)-4. Brokers and nominees should treat one hundred percent (100.0%) of Western Midstream Partners, LPs distributions to non-U.S. investors as being attributable to income that is effectively connected with a United States trade or business. Accordingly, Western Midstream Partners, LPs distributions to non-U.S. investors are subject to federal income tax withholding at the highest applicable effective tax rate. Furthermore, one hundred percent (100.0%) of Western Midstream Partners, LPs distributions to non-U.S. investors is in excess of cumulative net income for purposes of Treasury Regulation Section 1.1446(f)-4(c)(iii). Brokers and nominees are treated as withholding agents responsible for withholding on distributions received by them on behalf of non-U.S. investors. The CUSIP number of Western Midstream Partners, LPs common units is 958669 103.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018436927/en/

WESTERN MIDSTREAM CONTACTS

Daniel Jenkins

Director, Investor Relations

[email protected]

866-512-3523

Rhianna Disch

Manager, Investor Relations

[email protected]

866-512-3523

Source: Western Midstream Partners, LP.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- In a groundbreaking collaborative effort, all six medical schools across the state of Virginia recently united to explore the use of virtual reality (VR) technology in medical education. The collaboration, still early in its efforts, aims to provide a new mode of practical training that can help medical educators combat the increasing cadaver shortage faced by medical schools across the country. Virtual reality presents an attractive solution to this problem not only because of its ability to diminish reliance on cadaver use, but also because of the enhance capabilities for distance education and increased student engagement.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019785239/en/

(Photo: Business Wire)

The consortium convened in late July on UVAs campus for a meeting of the Virginia Association of Human Anatomical Sciences (VAHAS). Along with representation from each of the medical schools, the attendees were joined by Perspectus VR, a leading education technology company that helps medical schools and hospitals to create customized, virtual reality education content and curriculum. The symposium provided a platform for these educators, technologists, and medical professionals to deliberate on the integration of virtual reality tools into medical training curricula.

Reducing Reliance on Cadavers for Anatomy Training

Traditionally, medical students have relied heavily on cadaver dissection for hands-on anatomy training. However, the availability of cadavers has declined in the last two decades, leading medical educators with options such as 2D pictures and anatomical molds to train students on anatomy. The adoption of virtual reality in anatomy training offers a sustainable and ethical solution, allowing students to explore the intricacies of the human body in a digital environment without the need for physical cadavers.

Improving Education Quality with Advanced Training Tools

The primary objective of this collective effort is to elevate the standard of medical education by incorporating cutting-edge virtual reality technology. By leveraging VR, medical schools aim to create immersive and realistic training experiences for students. This approach will enable students to practice more often and in life-like scenarios that improve practical skills and decision-making abilities.

Dr. Tod Clapp, Associate Professor of Medicine at Colorado State University, and inventor of the Perspectus software, expressed his enthusiasm for the project, stating, "Colorado State University & University of Colorados medical programs went on a similar journey only a few years ago, and today, Im proud to say that every new medical school graduate in the state of Colorado leverages Perspectus VR for their training. Were graduating doctors all over the state who have a stronger grasp on anatomy and innovative technology- both foundational and futuristic skills. It is exciting to see the Commonwealth of Virginia on the same path."

Enhancing Long-Term Capabilities for Medical Education

The global landscape has seen a rapid evolution in the field of education, with technology and distance learning becoming increasingly prevalent. While medical education has been more resistant to these changes than other higher educational programs, they too have been feeling the pressure to adapt to a more student-centric version of the traditional classroom.

Erick Miranda, COO of Perspectus and one of the meeting attendees, stated incorporating VR technology into medical education does require some flexibility and commitment by faculty. The use of pre-packaged content and simulations are non-starters however, because of how rigorous and expansive medical school curriculum is. Perspectus puts VR in the hands of the educators, allowing them to utilize advanced data visualization technology to efficiently create an unlimited amount of customized VR content.

Discussions between these parties are scheduled to continue this next spring, with the potential for virtual reality integration in time for the 2024-25 school year.

For further information on this exciting partnership and its impact on medical education, please contact: Erick Miranda at [email protected]

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019785239/en/

Erick Miranda

[email protected]

Source: Perspectus
Recognized as top-performing member engagement and education solution by managed healthcare providers

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Wolters Kluwer Health today announced that the Emmi patient engagement and education solution received a 2023 Black Book award for highest client/user satisfaction from managed care providers. The Wolters Kluwer solution received the highest satisfaction score in the Black Book client experience polls out of 15 scored vendors/products.

The Black Book award is a valuable recognition for the hard work by our customer success and support teams to managed care providers and payers, said Chris Sullivan, Vice President, Commercial Segment for Clinical Effectiveness at Wolters Kluwer Health. Emmi offers a full suite to help them educate, engage and outreach to members to drive better outcomes.

The client survey of managed care providers was conducted by Black Book Research. Solutions are measured over 18 performance areas of operational excellence.

Black Book is committed to recognizing top performers like Wolters Kluwer Health. The Emmi member engagement and education solutions stands out among others in the healthcare technology industry's most robust client satisfaction database," said Doug Brown, President of Black Book Research.

Top honors for Member Engagement and Education

Emmi is a part of the Wolters Kluwer Health award-winning suite of clinical effectiveness products which offers vetted content from medical experts that helps improve care and provides medical education content for clinicians, pharmacists, health systems, payers, patients, and members.

Emmi is powered by evidence-based content developed by experts at UpToDate, the Wolters Kluwer Health clinical decision support tool that is used by more than two million clinicians in more than 190 countries. Leveraging UpToDate content, Emmi provides empowering patient engagement content and personalized communications using resources like interactive videos. Emmi helps both providers and payers partner with patients/members to go beyond the point of care. The solution helps optimize care across the continuum to achieve better clinical, financial, and quality outcomes.

Wolters Kluwer Health provides trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions that help engage clinicians, patients, researchers and students in effective decision-making and outcomes across healthcare. The division of Wolters Kluwer supports clinical effectiveness, learning and research, clinical surveillance and compliance, as well as data solutions.

About Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer (EURONEXT: WKL) is a global leader in information, software, and services for professionals in Health, Tax and Accounting, Financial Corporate Compliance, Legal & Regulatory, and Corporate Performance & ESG. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialized technology and services.

Wolters Kluwer reported 2022 annual revenues of 5.5 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 20,900 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands.

For more information, visit www.wolterskluwer.com, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019181721/en/

Media

Andre Rebelo

Director, External Communications

Wolters Kluwer Health

+1 (781) 392-2411

[email protected]

Source: Wolters Kluwer Health
Pumpjacks are seen during sunset at the Daqing oil field in Heilongjiang province, China August 22, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer/File photo

By Laura Sanicola

(Reuters) -Oil prices settled higher on Thursday as traders remained nervous that Israel's military campaign in Gaza could escalate to a regional conflict.

Brent futures for December settled up 1%, or 88 cents, at $92.38 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures for November, which expire on Friday, settled up $1.05, or 1.2%, at $89.37 a barrel. At their session lows, both benchmarks were down more than $1 a barrel.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops gathered at the Gaza border that they would soon see the Palestinian enclave "from inside", suggesting an expected ground invasion with the aim of annihilating Hamas could be nearing.

Egyptian aid trucks moved closer to the only crossing into Gaza not controlled by Israel, but still had not passed through despite a request from U.S. President Joe Biden to allow the aid.

"We are still very much in flux and the potential to escalate, particularly from the Arab world, is an issue," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

U.S. forces in Syria brought down two drones that were targeting them, leading to some minor injuries, U.S. officials said.

Prices were supported later in the session after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the U.S. central bank would be "proceeding carefully" on future interest rate hikes, which could slow the economy and dent fuel demand.

Fed funds futures traders are pricing in a 39% probability the Fed will raise rates again by December, but only a 6% chance of a hike in November, according to the CME Groups FedWatch Tool.

Gains were limited after the U.S. issued a six-month licence authorising transactions in the energy sector of OPEC member Venezuela, whose government reached an agreement with the political opposition there to ensure fair 2024 elections.

The deal is not expected to quickly expand Venezuela's oil output but could return some foreign companies to its oilfields and provide more cash-paying customers for its crude, experts said.

Easing of U.S. oil sanctions on Venezuela is unlikely to require any policy changes by the OPEC+ producer group for now as a recovery in production is likely to be gradual, OPEC+ sources told Reuters.

On Wednesday, oil prices climbed about 2% on concerns about disruptions to global supplies after OPEC member Iran called for an oil embargo on Israel over the conflict in Gaza and after the U.S., the world's biggest oil consumer, reported a larger-than-expected inventory draw, adding to already tight supplies.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is not planning to take any immediate action on Iran's call, sources told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia had said it would keep its voluntary output cut until year end. Japan, the world's fourth-largest crude buyer, urged the Saudis and other oil producing nations to increase supplies to stabilise the global oil market which could be roiled by the conflict.

U.S. crude oil and fuel inventories dropped last week on rising demand for diesel and heating oil, according to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Distillate fuel stockpiles fell by 3.2 million barrels in the week to Oct. 13 to 113.8 million barrels, EIA data showed.

Crude inventories fell by 4.5 million barrels to 419.7 million barrels, while gasoline fell by 2.4 million barrels to 223.3 million barrels.

(Additional reporting by Katya Golubkova in Tokyo and Emily ChowEditing by Mark Potter, Kirsten Donovan and David Gregorio)
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Amwell (NYSE: AMWL), a leader in hybrid healthcare enablement, together with Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, was recently awarded a next-generation contract to provide a hybrid care technology platform designed to power the Digital First transformation of the Military Health System (MHS).

Under this task order, the Leidos Partnership for Defense Health (LPDH) will deliver Amwell Converge, a comprehensive hybrid care enablement platform designed to power the full continuum of care using digital, virtual and automated modalities, and replace the Military Health System (MHS) Video Connect solution. It will start at five initial sites followed by a phased enterprise roll-out. Also included in the contract are a broad spectrum of Amwell automated care programs that have a proven track record of helping deliver better health outcomes, including multiple behavioral health and integrated core telehealth solutions. If all options are exercised, the task order has a 22-month period of performance with a total value of up to $180 million to the LPDH.

Through our world class platform Converge, Amwell is already enabling hybrid care across the commercial marketplace. With this agreement, we are pleased to offer our unique capabilities and help improve access to quality care for the MHS community of users. We are grateful for their service, and honored to have been chosen to join Leidos in supporting the Department of Defense as it seeks to adopt and extend the benefits of hybrid care to the Military Health System, said Ido Schoenberg, M.D., chairman and CEO of Amwell.

The DHAs Digital First initiative brings new capabilities and enablement to MHS GENESIS, an advanced electronic health record (EHR) and healthcare system solution that supports military and Veteran healthcare initiatives. The Converge platform has deep integration assets and a simple yet powerful user experience that enables efficient and quality hybrid care delivery. The platform is already embedded into existing clinical workflows that care teams rely on, including those within the core EHR that powers MHS GENESIS. Together, Amwell and LPDH will enable the DHA to leverage the benefits of hybrid care, improve access to primary and behavioral health care, and ultimately improve outcomes for the MHS community.

The DHA supports national security and ensures our nations military teams are ready to deploy. Seeking to leverage innovation and best practices from the commercial sector, the DHA conducted a thorough evaluation of the Amwell solution.

We are delighted that the demonstrated scalability, flexibility, and comprehensiveness of the Amwell Converge platform, as evaluated by DHA, uniquely qualifies Amwell to support the DHAs Digital First strategies and readiness mission. We are dedicated to supporting this program with the best that Amwell offers for many years to come, said Dr. Schoenberg.

Digital First addresses DHAs goal of better outcomes, new processes, innovation and increased standardization based on evidence, said Jason McCarthy, Leidos senior vice president, Military and Veterans Health Solutions. As part of our overall MHS GENESIS effort to enhance patient experience, we, along with Amwell, are looking forward to providing near real-time, self-service support and hybrid care options for our customer and those whom they serve.

Digital First will support the entire MHS community of users, which includes 9.6 million active-duty service members, family members, retirees, and health professionals across the continuum of care. Through integrated platform solutions, Amwell and Leidos will help reduce burdens on care teams, improve the mental health and wellness of beneficiaries, help reduce healthcare costs and optimize the effective utilization of DHA's clinical resources across their global enterprise.
Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) today announced that the Phase 3 CheckMate -67T noninferiority trial evaluating the subcutaneous formulation of Opdivo (nivolumab) co-formulated with Halozymes proprietary recombinant human hyaluronidase (rHuPH20) (herein referred to as subcutaneous nivolumab) compared to intravenous (IV) Opdivo in patients with advanced or metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) who have received prior systemic therapy met its co-primary pharmacokinetics endpoints and key secondary endpoint. Subcutaneous nivolumab demonstrated noninferiority of Cavgd28 (time-averaged Opdivo serum concentration over 28 days) and Cminss (trough serum concentration at steady state) compared to IV Opdivo, the studys co-primary endpoints. Additionally, subcutaneous nivolumab showed a noninferior objective response rate (ORR) as assessed by Blinded Independent Central Review (BICR) vs. IV Opdivo, a key secondary endpoint. The safety profile of subcutaneous nivolumab was consistent with the IV formulation.

Intravenous Opdivo has helped transform the treatment of several solid tumor types over the past decade, but there remains a need for additional administration options to address treatment burden on patients and improve efficiencies in healthcare systems, said Gina Fusaro, Ph.D., vice president, global program lead, Bristol Myers Squibb. We are delighted that the results of CheckMate -67T demonstrate that subcutaneous nivolumab delivers noninferior pharmacokinetics, in addition to objective response rate and safety data consistent with IV Opdivo. We believe this new option, given as a single injection administered in less than five minutes, could transform the treatment experience for both patients and physicians.

The company will complete a full evaluation of the available CheckMate -67T trial data and work with investigators to present the results at an upcoming medical conference. The company also looks forward to discussing next steps for subcutaneous nivolumab with health authorities across multiple indications. Study follow-up is ongoing to assess additional secondary efficacy and safety endpoints.

Bristol Myers Squibb thanks the patients and investigators involved in the CheckMate -67T clinical trial.

About CheckMate -67T

CheckMate -67T is a Phase 3 randomized, open-label trial evaluating subcutaneous administration of Opdivo co-formulated with Halozymes proprietary recombinant human hyaluronidase, rHuPH20, or subcutaneous nivolumab (nivolumab and hyaluronidase) compared to intravenous (IV) Opdivo, in patients with advanced or metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) who have received prior systemic therapy. This trial presents an opportunity to potentially bring a subcutaneous formulation of Opdivo to patients. A total of 495 patients were randomized to either subcutaneous nivolumab or IV Opdivo. The co-primary endpoints of the trial are time-averaged serum concentration over 28 days (Cavgd28) and trough serum concentration at steady-state (Cminss) of subcutaneous nivolumab vs. IV Opdivo. Objective response rate (ORR) is a key secondary endpoint.
Chesapeake Utilities Corporation (NYSE: CPK) today announced that its subsidiary, Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company (ESNG), plans to invest $80 million in the Worcester Resiliency Upgrade project, a planned liquefied natural gas storage facility in Bishopville, Maryland . The proposed peaking storage facility will include five low-profile 100,000-gallon horizontal storage tanks on a 135-acre parcel adjacent to an existing industrial facility in Worcester County . The project also includes additional infrastructure in Sussex County, Delaware , and Wicomico County, Maryland , as well as upgrades to existing meter and regulator stations in Sussex County, Delaware ; Worcester County, Maryland ; and Somerset County, Maryland . ESNG will construct, own and operate all proposed facilities. The project will enable ESNG to provide critical energy service to customers during the peak winter heating season.

The $80 million capital investment is a result of the increased capacity requirements of three affiliated local distribution companies (LDCs), each of which will enter into 30-year service agreements upon completion of the project. The project also aligns with the Company's sustainability strategy, focusing on the safety and sustainability of local communities and the environment.

"Demand for natural gas continues to increase in our Delmarva service territories, where our customer additions are above national averages," said Jeff Householder , chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Strategic infrastructure investments like this one allow us to enhance service for our existing customers, meet growing demand and support future growth opportunities in our expanding areas of operation. We believe we are well positioned to serve existing and future customers."

"Chesapeake Utilities Corporation continues to expand its operations to meet the growing demand for natural gas. While doing so, the Company is committed to meeting and surpassing the expectations of its stakeholders, including investors," said Beth Cooper , executive vice president, chief financial officer, treasurer and assistant corporate secretary. "This project supports our recent capital guidance increase, which builds on our long track record of identifying and executing on strategic growth initiatives that drive future earnings growth."

The Worcester Resiliency Upgrade will enhance the natural gas supply system on the lower eastern shore of Maryland and in southern Delaware . The project will provide an alternative supply source and enhance the system's flexibility during critical peak months, reducing the risk of supply interruption and improving reliability. These improvements will help protect customers from weather-related disruptions, keeping energy prices affordable.

Over the past several years, the Company has executed significant projects to meet continuing customer growth and demand for energy in underserved regions on the Delmarva Peninsula , including infrastructure expansion on the lower eastern shore of Maryland and in southern Delaware . These projects have facilitated the availability of natural gas in Somerset County , one of three counties in Maryland previously without access to natural gas. As a result, two large energy consumers were able to transition from less sustainable heating sources to natural gas, improving their environmental emissions profiles. Most recently, to meet the ongoing demand, ESNG completed its Southern Expansion project, which included the addition of another natural gas-fired compressor unit in Sussex County at its Bridgeville, Delaware , compressor facility.

An application for the Worcester Resiliency Upgrade was filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Docket No. CP23-536-000. The project is expected to be operational before the winter heating season of 2025, pending receipt of regulatory approvals.
GeoPark Limited (NYSE: GPRK) today announces its operational update for the three-month period ended September 30, 2023.

Oil and Gas Production Back Online

GeoPark is currently producing approximately 39,000 boepd1

3Q2023 consolidated average oil and gas production of 34,778 boepd, below its potential mainly due to temporarily shut-in production in the CPO-5 block (GeoPark non-operated, 30% WI) in Colombia and in the Fell block (GeoPark operated, 100% WI) in Chile

12 rigs currently in operation (7 drilling rigs and 5 workover rigs), including 5 drilling rigs on exploration and appraisal wells

Colombia - Llanos Basin: New Exploration Success and Drilling High-Potential Prospects

Llanos 34 Block (GeoPark operated, 45% WI):

The third horizontal development well initiated testing in early October 2023 and is currently producing approximately 1,800 bopd from the Mirador formation

GeoPark has already spudded the fourth and fifth horizontal wells, which are expected to reach total depth in November 2023

The block is currently producing approximately 54,200 bopd gross (vs 53,367 bopd gross in 3Q2023)

CPO-5 Block:

The operator spudded the Halcon 1 exploration well in late September, targeting the exploration potential of the Guadalupe formation in the northern part of the CPO-5 block, close to the southern part of the Llanos 34 block, expected to reach total depth in late October 2023

In late September 2023, the operator received approval from the regulator (ANH) to resume production in the Indico 6 and Indico 7 wells2, which are currently producing 7,500-8,000 bopd gross in aggregate. These wells could potentially increase and stabilize their combined production at approximately 9,000 bopd gross before year-end, depending on reservoir performance

The block is currently producing approximately 23,800 bopd gross (vs 16,877 bopd gross in 3Q2023)

Llanos 123 Block (GeoPark operated, 50% WI-Hocol 50% WI):

The Toritos 1 exploration well reached total depth in September 2023

Logging information indicated hydrocarbon potential in the Barco (Guadalupe) and Gacheta formations

The well initiated testing activities in late September 2023 and is currently producing approximately 1,370 bopd of 14 degrees API with a 1.5% water cut from the Barco (Guadalupe) formation

The block is currently producing approximately 2,140 bopd gross (vs 626 bopd gross in 3Q2023)

Ecuador - Oriente Basin: New Exploration Success

Perico Block (GeoPark non-operated, 50% WI):

The Perico Centro 1 exploration well reached total depth in September 2023

Preliminary logging information indicated hydrocarbon potential in the U-sand formation

The well initiated testing in late September 2023 and is currently producing approximately 830 bopd of 28 degrees API with a 1% water cut

The block is currently producing approximately 2,400 bopd gross (vs 1,318 bopd gross in 3Q2023)

Returning More Value to Shareholders and Maintaining a Strong Balance Sheet

Quarterly Dividend of $0.132 per share, or $7.5 million, paid on September 7, 2023, representing an annualized dividend of approximately $30 million (or $0.52 per share), a 5% dividend yield3

Repurchased 2.2 million shares, or 4% of total shares outstanding, for $23.6 million since January 1, 2023

Cash and cash equivalents of $106 million4 as of September 30, 2023

Upcoming Catalysts

Drilling 10-12 gross wells in 4Q2023, targeting attractive conventional, short-cycle development and exploration projects

Key projects include: CPO-5 block: Currently drilling the Halcon 1 exploration well Llanos 123 block: Currently drilling the Bisbita Centro 1 exploration well Llanos 87 block (GeoPark operated, 50% WI-Hocol 50% WI): Currently drilling the Zorzal Este 1 exploration well Llanos 34 block: Currently drilling 2 additional horizontal development wells Perico block: Currently drilling the Perico Norte 4 appraisal well



GeoPark Chief Financial Officer Transition

GeoPark announced that Veronica Davila, Chief Financial Officer, will be stepping down from her role to pursue new career opportunities effective November 30, 2023. The Company has commenced a formal search process for a replacement and has appointed Ignacio Mazariegos to serve as interim Chief Financial Officer, upon Ms. Davilas departure.

Mr. Mazariegos joined GeoPark in 2010 and currently serves as Director of New Business, where he leads and supports the Companys growth and profitability through acquisitions and strategic partnerships. Mr. Mazariegos and Ms. Davila will work closely over the coming weeks to ensure a smooth transition.

Andres Ocampo, Chief Executive Officer said: On behalf of our entire team, I would like to thank Veronica for her commitment and contributions to GeoPark. Since joining the Company in 2016, Veronica has been a valuable team member, and we wish her well in her future endeavors.

Breakdown of Quarterly Production by Country

The following table shows production figures for 3Q2023, as compared to 3Q2022:

3Q2023 3Q2022 Total

(boepd) Oil

(bopd)a Gas

(mcfpd) Total

(boepd) % Chg. Colombia 31,780 31,668 672 33,338 -5% Ecuador 659 659 - 1,194 -45% Chile 1,565 172 8,361 2,425 -35% Brazil 774 11 4,578 1,439 -46% Total 34,778 32,510 13,610 38,396 -9%

a) Includes royalties and other economic rights paid in kind in Colombia for approximately 5,045 bopd in 3Q2023. No royalties were paid in kind in Ecuador, Chile or Brazil. Production in Ecuador is reported before the Governments production share of approximately 194 bopd.

Quarterly Production

(boepd) 3Q2023 2Q2023 1Q2023 4Q2022 3Q2022 Colombia 31,780 33,045 32,580 33,749 33,338 Ecuador 659 634 990 1,259 1,194 Chile 1,565 1,690 1,988 2,291 2,425 Brazil 774 1,212 1,020 1,134 1,439 Total a 34,778 36,581 36,578 38,433 38,396 Oil 32,510 33,672 33,801 35,451 34,875 Gas 2,268 2,909 2,777 2,982 3,521

a) In Colombia, production includes royalties paid in kind, and in Ecuador it is shown before the Governments production share.

Oil and Gas Production Update

Consolidated:

Oil and gas production in 3Q2023 was 34,778 boepd, down by 9% compared to 3Q2022, due to lower production in Colombia, Chile, Brazil and Ecuador. Oil represented 93% and 91% of total reported production in 3Q2023 and 3Q2022, respectively.

GeoPark is currently producing approximately 39,000 boepd5.

Colombia:

Average net oil and gas production in Colombia decreased by 5% to 31,780 boepd in 3Q2023 compared to 33,338 boepd in 3Q2022, mainly resulting from lower production in the Llanos 34 and CPO-5 blocks, partially offset by higher production in the Platanillo block (GeoPark operated, 100% WI) and to a lesser extent, new production coming on in the Llanos 123 block.

Oil and gas production in GeoParks main blocks in Colombia:

Llanos 34 block net average production decreased by 7% to 24,015 bopd (or 53,367 bopd gross) in 3Q2023 compared to 3Q2022, mainly due to the natural decline of the fields and to a lesser extent temporary local blockades that partially affected production and operations for 10 days

CPO-5 block net average production decreased by 10% to 5,063 bopd (or 16,877 bopd gross) in 3Q2023 compared to 3Q2022. Production in 3Q2023 has been below its potential due to shut-ins of the Indico 6 and Indico 7 wells, which are currently producing approximately 7,500-8,000 bopd gross in aggregate. These two wells could potentially increase and stabilize their combined production at approximately 9,000 bopd gross before year-end, depending on reservoir performance

Platanillo block average production increased by 35% to 2,027 bopd in 3Q2023 compared to 3Q2022

Llanos 123 block net average production was 313 bopd (or 626 bopd gross) in 3Q2023, reflecting partial production from the Saltador 1 exploration well that initiated testing during the quarter

Recent Activity in the Llanos Basin

Llanos 34 Block

The third horizontal development well initiated testing in early October 2023 and is currently producing approximately 1,800 bopd from the Mirador formation

GeoPark has already spudded the fourth and fifth horizontal wells, which are expected to reach total depth in November 2023

CPO-5 Block

The operator spudded the Halcon 1 exploration well in late September, targeting the exploration potential of the Guadalupe formation in the northern part of the CPO-5 block, close to the southern part of the Llanos 34 block

Preliminary activities are underway to acquire over 230 square kilometers of 3D seismic, expected to be executed in early 2024

This 3D seismic acquisition is expected to add additional exploration prospects to GeoParks organic exploration inventory

Llanos 123 Block

The Toritos 1 exploration well reached total depth in September 2023

Logging information indicated hydrocarbon potential in the Barco (Guadalupe) and Gacheta formations

Testing activities initiated in late September 2023, and the well is currently producing approximately 1,370 bopd of 14 degrees API with a 1.5% water cut from the Barco (Guadalupe) formation

The Saltador 1 exploration well, which started testing in July 2023, was the first exploration success in the Llanos 123 block and continues producing approximately 760 bopd of 16 degrees API with a 4% water cut from the Barco (Guadalupe) formation

Based on these positive results, on October 12, 2023, GeoPark spudded a new exploration well, Bisbita Centro 1, targeting an exploration prospect located 1.5 km south of the Saltador 1 well

Llanos 87 Block

GeoPark spudded the Zorzal Este 1 exploration well on October 5, 2023, and it is expected to reach total depth in early November 2023

Llanos 124 Block (GeoPark operated, 50% WI-Hocol 50% WI):

Cucarachero 1 exploration well reached total depth in August 2023

The well encountered reservoir in the Cuervo formation with no evidence of hydrocarbons

Llanos 86 and Llanos 104 Blocks (GeoPark operated, 50% WI-Hocol 50% WI):

The Llanos 86 and Llanos 104 blocks are adjacent to the eastern side of the CPO-5 block

Preliminary activities are underway to acquire over 650 square kilometers of 3D seismic, expected to be executed in early 2024

This 3D seismic acquisition is expected to add additional exploration prospects to GeoParks organic exploration inventory

Ecuador:

Average net oil production in Ecuador before the Governments share decreased 45% to 659 bopd in 3Q2023, (approximately 465 bopd after the Governments share), compared to 1,194 bopd in 3Q2022, mainly due to the natural decline of the fields.

Ecuador is currently producing approximately 2,400 bopd gross, following the successful drilling and testing of the Yin 2 and the Perico Centro 1 wells.

The Governments production share varies with oil prices and is approximately 30-40%, considering an Oriente crude oil price of $70-100 per bbl.

Recent Activity in the Perico Block

The Perico Centro 1 exploration well reached total depth in September 2023

Preliminary logging information indicated hydrocarbon potential in the U-sand formation

The well initiated testing in late September 2023 and is currently producing approximately 830 bopd of 28 degrees API with a 1% water cut

The Yin 2 well started production tests in mid-August 2023 and is currently producing approximately 740 bopd of 30 degrees API with a 1% water cut from the U-sand formation

Based on these positive results, on October 8, 2023 the operator spudded a new appraisal well, the Perico Norte 4, which is expected to reach total depth in late October 2023

Chile:

Average net production in Chile decreased 35% to 1,565 boepd in 3Q2023 compared to 2,425 boepd in 3Q2022, resulting from the natural decline of the fields, limited drilling activities and temporarily shut-in oil production due to commercial negotiations. GeoPark reached an agreement with the oil off-taker and as of August 2023 it gradually started reopening temporarily shut-in oil production of 400 bopd.

The production mix was 89% natural gas (vs 84% in 3Q2022) and 11% light oil (vs 16% in 3Q2022).

Brazil:

Average net production in the Manati field (GeoPark non-operated, 10% WI) in Brazil decreased 46% to 774 boepd in 3Q2023 compared to 1,439 boepd in 3Q2022. Production in Manati was temporarily interrupted for 24 days during 3Q2023 due to lower gas demand. Production restarted in late September 2023 and the Manati fields net production is approximately 1,550 boepd.

The production mix was 99% natural gas and 1% oil and condensate in both 3Q2023 and 3Q2022.

Other News

Notice of change of Auditor (from EY Argentina to EY Colombia)

GeoPark announced that it changed its auditors from Pistrelli, Henry Martin y Asociados S.R.L. (or EY Argentina) to Ernst & Young Audit S.A.S. (or EY Colombia), being both member firms of EY Global Limited.

EY Argentina resigned as auditor of GeoPark effective September 29, 2023, and GeoParks Board of Directors appointed EY Colombia, as the successor auditor of the Company until the next Annual General Meeting.

EY Argentinas audit reports on GeoParks consolidated financial statements as of and for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 did not contain an adverse opinion or disclaimer of opinion and were not qualified or modified as to uncertainty, audit scope, or accounting principles. In addition, there have been no reportable events or disagreements (as defined in Item 16F(a)(1) (iv) and (v) of Form 20-F) between GeoPark and EY Argentina.

Reporting Date for 3Q2023 Results Release, Conference Call and Webcast

GeoPark will report its 3Q2023 financial results on Wednesday, November 8, 2023, after the market close. In conjunction with the 3Q2023 results press release, GeoPark management will host a conference call on November 9, 2023, at 10:00 am (Eastern Daylight Time) to discuss the 3Q2023 financial results.

To listen to the call, participants can access the webcast located in the Invest with Us section of the Companys website at www.geo-park.com, or by clicking below:

https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/344411932

Interested parties may participate in the conference call by dialing the numbers provided below:

United States Participants: +1 (646) 904-5544

International Participants: +1 (833) 470-1428

Passcode: 865697

Please allow extra time prior to the call to visit the website and download any streaming media software that might be required to listen to the webcast.

An archive of the webcast replay will be made available in the Invest with Us section of the Companys website at www.geo-park.com after the conclusion of the live call.

1 Estimated average production from October 10, 2023, to October 16, 2023. 2 These two wells were drilled in late 2022 and have been shut-in following the ANH request that the operator suspend production until certain required surface facilities were completed. 3 Based on GeoParks average market capitalization from September 1 to September 29, 2023. 4 Unaudited. 5 Estimated average production from October 10, 2023, to October 16, 2023.

NOTICE

Additional information about GeoPark can be found in the Invest with Us section on the website at www.geo-park.com.

Rounding amounts and percentages: Certain amounts and percentages included in this press release have been rounded for ease of presentation. Percentages included in this press release have not in all cases been calculated on the basis of such rounded amounts, but on the basis of such amounts prior to rounding. For this reason, certain percentages in this press release may vary from those obtained by performing the same calculations on the basis of the amounts in the financial statements. Similarly, certain other amounts included in this press release may not sum due to rounding.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS RELEVANT TO FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This press release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Many of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as anticipate, believe, could, expect, should, plan, intend, will, estimate and potential, among others.

Forward-looking statements that appear in a number of places in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations, regarding various matters, including, production guidance, shareholder returns, Adjusted EBITDA, capital expenditures and free cash flow. Forward-looking statements are based on managements beliefs and assumptions, and on information currently available to the management. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements due to various factors.

Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update them in light of new information or future developments or to release publicly any revisions to these statements in order to reflect later events or circumstances, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. For a discussion of the risks facing the Company which could affect whether these forward-looking statements are realized, see filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Oil and gas production figures included in this release are stated before the effect of royalties paid in kind, consumption and losses. Annual production per day is obtained by dividing total production by 365 days.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018554166/en/

INVESTORS:



Stacy Steimel



Shareholder Value Director



T: +562 2242 9600



[email protected]







Miguel Bello



Market Access Director



T: +562 2242 9600



[email protected]







Diego Gully



Investor Relations Director



T: +55 21 99636 9658



[email protected]







MEDIA:



Communications Department



[email protected]

Source: GeoPark Limited
Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA), which is building the leading platform for cell programming and biosecurity, and the Government of Serbia today announced that they have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding ("MoU") with the intent of collaborating in support of Serbia's bioeconomy vision.

Under the planned partnership, Ginkgo and the Serbian Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation will work to establish a Startup Accelerator that leverages Ginkgo's horizontal platform and extensive expertise to create and support Serbian companies building with biology. Within this Accelerator, startups will be able to leverage Ginkgo's end-to-end R&D services to quickly progress on projects that would otherwise require substantial resources and infrastructure.

Startups and larger companies alike can take full advantage of Serbia's new BIO4 campus, the key initiative that puts Serbia on the global life sciences map as a new bioeconomy hub in Europe . The BIO4 campus initiative already gathers more than 1,000 PhD scientists from 17 scientific institutions, and the campus itself will open in 2026. BIO4 brings together the research centers of companies active in biomedicine, biotechnology, bioinformatics and biodiversity. MoUs on mutual cooperation have already been signed with the likes of AstraZeneca, BGI, Merck (known as MSD in Europe ), Pfizer, Roche, SK Biosciences, Frontier Biopharm, Swiss Rockets and Takeda, with more in the works.

Within the envisioned collaboration, companies on the BIO4 campus will have the opportunity to take advantage of incentives to access Ginkgo's platform. By offering flexible services, Ginkgo aims to be the end-to-end synthetic biology R&D partner for companies at BIO4 exploring solutions in pharmaceuticals, food and agriculture, industry, and specialty chemicals. Companies at BIO4 will have opportunities to engage Ginkgo staff and access Ginkgo expertise on site.

Further, under the MoU, Ginkgo and the Government of Serbia will also explore partnerships to develop and implement new biomonitoring capabilities in Serbia . For example, the planned partnership will support capacity-building and biomonitoring throughout Serbia's public health sector, including working to implement innovative pathogen monitoring programs at various strategic nodes, such as ports of entry and animal agricultural settings.

"BIO4, and the vibrant ecosystem coming together in Serbia , is an extraordinary community with a shared motivation to use biology to address major health, societal, and environmental challenges," said Austin Che , Co-Founder and Head of Startup Innovation at Ginkgo Bioworks. "Countries around the world are recognizing the transformative power of synthetic biology as a strategic technology and the importance of pathogen monitoring for preparedness. At Ginkgo, we are proud to be the partner of choice for these forward-looking governments and are excited to help accelerate R&D and create momentum for companies building products with biology."

Serbian Minister of Science, Technological Development and Innovations, Dr. Jelena Begovic , said, "This partnership additionally strengthens the BIO4 campus as an attractive and dense R&D site in the European landscape. Having Ginkgo, as one of the most advanced biology companies in the world, in the BIO4 ecosystem means that all other stakeholders can benefit as well. Building on Serbia's already well-regarded AI and digital engineering talents, the government recognizes economic and health benefits of the new biorevolution that is unfolding, and strongly supports the vision to become one of the European leaders in the field. On this occasion, warm invitation is extended to other companies as well, that want to accelerate their R&D efforts and benefit from the BIO4-Ginkgo partnership."
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) today hosted its Securities Analyst Meeting (SAM) at the New York Stock Exchange, where Antonio Neri, HPE president and CEO, and Jeremy Cox, senior vice president and interim CFO, provided the financial outlook for fiscal year 2024. Together with other members of the management team, they illustrated how the expansion of the software- and services-rich portions of HPEs portfolio will continue to accelerate value for shareholders over the next three years.

Neri detailed the companys winning strategy and financial progress, which has established HPE as the leading edge-to-cloud company.

With a growing addressable market, a proven strategy, and a differentiated portfolio, HPE is in a strong competitive position, said Antonio Neri, president and CEO. HPEs strategy is aligned to significant market trends around edge, hybrid cloud and AI  all of which create profitable market expansion opportunities that we expect will fuel our growth. As we unlock greater growth from these markets, our investors are poised to share in higher returns.

HPE is successfully shifting its portfolio to higher-growth, higher-margin businesses, increasing its long-term profitability potential. When combined, HPEs largest growth businesses  Intelligent Edge, HPC & AI, and the companys future Hybrid Cloud segment  are expected to exceed 50% of the companys total segment revenue by fiscal year 2026. The company is continuing to invest in these areas to increase recurring revenue and further expand margins. HPE expects to increase its total addressable market1 by nearly $100 billion over a four-year period to more than $340 billion, led by a larger market in AI.

Sustaining HPEs Momentum at the Edge and in Networking

HPEs Intelligent Edge segment is a critical part of the companys portfolio. Nearly $6 billion has been invested in the HPE Aruba Networking business since Neri became CEO in 2018. The company continues to grow its offerings in security, private 5G, and data-center networking.

On track to be a $5 billion annual business in HPEs fiscal year 2023, Intelligent Edge is primed to have the highest profitability of any HPE business segment. HPE seeks to sustain growth in this segment by gaining market share in key high-growth, margin-rich areas, ultimately accelerating shareholder value.

Scaling Leading Hybrid Cloud Offering to Become Large, Enduring Growth Engine

HPE elaborated on its forthcoming Hybrid Cloud segment, which was previously announced in September and will become operative starting on November 1, 2023. The new segment will enable greater focus, faster execution, and more efficiencies when it combines all Storage and Compute aaS offerings, inclusive of HPE GreenLake Private Cloud and Software solutions. The simplified operating model will also deliver a superior, cloud-native experience for HPEs customers and partners.

Customers are adopting HPEs market-leading offerings as the companys portfolio continues to grow, expanding beyond infrastructure into new, higher-growth markets such as infrastructure software. HPE offers one of the most differentiated customer value propositions among its competitors, including cloud providers.

This year, the company added new cloud-native offerings and capabilities to its HPE GreenLake platform. HPE GreenLake is helping to expand gross margins, with software and services comprising nearly 70% of the ARR2 mix as of the end of fiscal year 2023's third quarter. Proving a viable alternative to public cloud, HPE plans to be the worlds top provider of hybrid cloud as HPE GreenLake accelerates its growth momentum.

Capturing AI Market Growth Opportunity with Differentiated, Margin-Rich Solutions

HPE is seeing a huge demand shift in AI as customers realize the fundamental potential of the technology to deliver business transformation. The company recognizes the AI market will be driven by compute, data-intensive workloads, and the need for specialized architecture, and thus, is targeting three areas: supercomputing, AI infrastructure, and AI platform software.

HPE believes it is differentiated from its competition in the ability to capture significant value from the growing AI market through its IP, trusted expertise, and long-term sustained market leadership in supercomputing.

With strategic investments in AI, including HPEs full-stack AI-native architecture, the company anticipates profitable growth in the next fiscal year as its AI business scales.

Bringing value across HPE portfolio to customers and shareholders through Compute

HPEs strong competitive position in the Compute market produces cash flow to invest in the business and deliver capital return to shareholders. Demand for Compute includes cloud repatriation, new edge workloads, telco sector and service provider needs, and the emerging and growing call for AI-inferencing.

Gaining competitive advantage with HPE Financial Services

HPE Financial Services creates smarter IT lifecycle solutions through offerings that combine insights, financial expertise, and a deep-rooted focus on sustainable IT. The company expects higher demand from customers as they put more emphasis on finding ways to accelerate sustainability goals through HPE services and circular economy solutions.

Long-Term Financial Profile

HPE provided its long-term financial model for fiscal year 2024 through fiscal year 2026. HPE projects revenue growth of 2% to 4% in constant currency and a compounded annual growth rate for annualized revenue run-rate of 35% to 45%.

The company will continue to follow a disciplined, returns-based capital allocation framework, which balances capital returns to shareholders and share repurchases with balanced investments for growth while retaining its investment-grade credit rating.

The company also expressed its intent to target returning 65% to 75% of free cash flow to shareholders over the next three years. HPEs recent historical target return rate has been between 50% and 60%.

FY24 Outlook

HPE expects fiscal year 2024 financial results to continue the momentum from fiscal year 2023 and deliver sustainable, profitable growth. The company forecasts its revenue growth to be 2% to 4%, in constant currency, with the effects of foreign exchange expected to be a 50-to-100-basis-point headwind. GAAP operating profit growth is forecasted to be 15% to 21%, and non-GAAP operating profit growth is forecasted to be approximately 3% to 5% year-over-year. This excludes costs of approximately $0.8 billion primarily related to stock-based compensation expense, transformation costs, amortization of intangible assets, and acquisition, disposition, and other related charges.

The company expects non-GAAP other income & expense of approximately $300 million to be a net expense for the full year, excluding any contributions from H3C. The company expects a structural non-GAAP tax rate of 15% based on current tax laws.

HPE is expecting fiscal year 2024 GAAP diluted net earnings per share (EPS) of $1.83 to $2.03 and non-GAAP diluted net EPS of between $1.82 and $2.02. The non-GAAP diluted net EPS outlook excludes after-tax costs of approximately one cent per share related primarily to stock-based compensation, amortization of intangible assets, acquisition, disposition and other related charges, structural tax rate adjustment, transformation costs, and adjustments for the sale of H3C. HPE expects fiscal year 2024 free cash flow to be $1.9 billion to $2.1 billion.3

The company is targeting an 8% increase in its dividend per share for fiscal 2024.4

FY23 Expectations

HPE forecasts revenue to grow 4% to 6%, in constant currency, with the effects of foreign exchange expected to be approximately a 300-basis-point headwind for the year. Fiscal 2023 GAAP operating profit growth is to be approximately 163% and non-GAAP operating profit growth is to be approximately 4%. This excludes costs of approximately $1.1 billion primarily related to stock-based compensation, transformation costs, amortization of intangible assets, and acquisition, disposition, and other related charges. Both operating profit growth forecasts are below earlier expectations.

Fiscal year 2023 GAAP diluted net EPS is forecasted to be in the range of $1.35 to $1.39, and non-GAAP diluted net EPS is forecasted to be in the range of $2.11 and $2.15. Fiscal 2023 non-GAAP diluted net EPS excludes after-tax costs of approximately $0.76 per share primarily related to stock-based compensation expense, transformation costs, amortization of intangible assets, acquisition, disposition and other related charges, and structural tax rate adjustments. Fiscal year 2023 free cash flow is expected to be between $1.9 billion and $2.1 billion.3

Webcast Details

A recording of todays SAM webcast event, along with executives presentations and related materials, will be available on the HPE Investor Relations website at https://www.hpe.com/investor/SAM2023.

This press release contains only a summary of some of the information presented at todays event and should be read in conjunction with the management presentations and related materials made available on that website.

1 HPEs total addressable market (TAM) opportunity spans the impacts of the mega-trends we believe are shaping the IT industry, including at the edge, hybrid cloud, and artificial intelligence. For more information, please refer to the 2023 Securities Analyst Meeting presentation.

2 Annualized Revenue Run-Rate (ARR) is a financial metric used to assess the growth of the Consumption Services offerings. ARR represents the annualized revenue of all net HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform services revenue, related financial services revenue (which includes rental income from operating leases and interest income from finance leases), and software-as-a-Service, software consumption revenue, and other as-a-Service offerings, recognized during a quarter and multiplied by four. We use ARR as a performance metric. ARR should be viewed independently of net revenue and is not intended to be combined with it.

3 Hewlett Packard Enterprise provides certain guidance on a non-GAAP basis. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is unable to provide a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure without unreasonable efforts, as the Company cannot predict some elements that are included in such directly comparable GAAP financial measure. These elements could have a material impact on the Companys reported GAAP results for the guidance period.

4 Subject to HPE Board of Directors approval.
Holley Inc. (NYSE: HLLY) is implementing a new organizational design to capitalize on growth opportunities across the companys full brand and business portfolio. The strategic realignment establishes seven distinct market segments, further strengthening the companys ability to serve the classic vehicle market while also expanding its focus on aftermarket solutions for newer model vehicles.

We continue to take actions to strengthen our customer focus and maximize the value of our robust portfolio of aftermarket products and brands, said Matthew Stevenson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Holley. This new organizational design will deepen our connections with consumers in each segment, enhancing our ability to deliver the right mix of innovative products, services and aftermarket solutions that drive growth and meet emerging customer needs.

Holley is establishing dedicated segment teams focused on building the go-to-market strategy for the following seven vertical markets: Classic Truck; Modern Truck; Classic Muscle; Modern Muscle; Euro & Tesla; Asian Import; and Off-Road & UTV. Each segment team will work closely with the companys business units to develop a comprehensive portfolio of products for consumers in their respective segments.

New Product Leadership

As part of this new organization, Holley named Sean Crawford to the newly created role of Chief Product Officer. In this position, Crawford will be responsible for overseeing Holleys newly established vertical market segments, including providing leadership for product strategy, pricing, channel strategy and product data management.

Crawford joined Holley in March 2020 as Chief Marketing Officer and served in that role until this latest announcement. Prior to Holley, Crawford served as President of JE Pistons and previously worked in leadership roles at Race Winning Brands and Performance Motorsports International. He earned his bachelors and masters degrees at Concordia University in Irvine, California.

For more Holley company news, click here.
Vista Outdoor Inc. (NYSE: VSTO), the parent company of 41 renowned brands that design, manufacture and market sporting and outdoor lifestyle products to consumers around the globe, this week announced that Andy Keegan, currently Vice President and interim Chief Financial Officer of Vista Outdoor, will serve as CFO of Revelyst following Vista Outdoors planned separation of its Outdoor Products segment into a standalone public company. Keegan will continue to serve as Vice President and interim CFO of Vista Outdoor until completion of the separation.

Keegan, who has been serving as Vista Outdoors interim CFO since November 2022, is well known by investors and analysts and is highly respected across the industry. His financial leadership and expertise have been especially valuable since Vista Outdoor announced it will separate into two businesses. These assets make him the ideal candidate to lead Revelysts financial team and join the management team alongside the Outdoor Products segments recently appointed CEO, Eric Nyman.

Andy was the right person to steer Vista Outdoors financial direction over the past 10 months and hell be the right financial leader to take over as Revelyst CFO after the separation, said Nyman, CEO of Revelyst. His positive contributions to the organization are immeasurable as we separate into two standalone companies, and Andy will bring continuity and stability to Revelyst. Not only is Andy a savvy CFO, but he has assembled a team that will dial in a bright financial outlook for Revelyst.

Keegan joined Vista Outdoors predecessor Alliant Techsystems Inc. in 2012 and has more than 15 years of experience in finance, accounting and treasury. Before his current role, he was the Vice President of Treasury and Corporate FP&A from 2020 to 2022, CFO of the Ammunition Business unit from 2017 to 2020, Vice President of Corporate Accounting from 2015 to 2017 and held roles of increasing responsibility within the finance department at ATK before Vista Outdoors spinoff from ATK. He began his career with Deloitte. Keegan has undergraduate degrees in accounting and management from St. Johns University and serves on the Board of Directors of the Vista Outdoor Foundation.

Serving as interim CFO for Vista Outdoor for almost a year has prepared me to step into this new role, which I am excited to take on, said Keegan. Separating the company into two has been a tall task, but our team has been up to the challenge  just as our Revelyst finance team is now ready to guide this new venture using lessons of the past with a fresh vision for the future. From Vista Outdoor to Revelyst, our goal has been, continues to be and will remain the same: Ensure the company is well positioned to deliver sustainable and profitable growth to shareholders.
The U.S. is leveling new sanctions against entities and individuals involved in Iran's missile, unmanned aerial vehicle and conventional arms industries.

The move coincides with the expiration Wednesday of UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

"The United States will continue to take action to disrupt Iran's proliferation of UAVs and other weapons to oppressive regimes and destabilizing actors, and we encourage the international community to do the same," said Brian Nelson, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a statement.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control targets 11 individuals, eight entities and one vessel based in Iran, Hong Kong, China and Venezuela.

They have been designated as having "materially supported Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), or their subordinates in the production and proliferation of missiles and UAVs," the statement said.

Treasury officials say the action is being taken jointly with the State Department, "which is designating eight individuals and entities related to Iran's missile, conventional arms and UAV activities."
Paid press release content from Evertise Financial. The StreetInsider.com news staff was not involved in its creation.

New York, USA, October 19, 2023 Simply having a presence on various social media platforms is not enough to ensure success. To truly make the most of your social media efforts, it is essential to conduct regular social media audits and analyze the right metrics. In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the process of conducting a social media audit and utilizing the right metrics to enhance your social media strategy.

What is a Social Media Audit?

A social media auditing entails a structured assessment of your companys presence and engagements on different social media platforms. Its primary objective is to evaluate the efficiency of your existing social media approach and pinpoint opportunities for enhancement. A skillfully conducted social media audit offers valuable insights into your audience, content effectiveness, and the overall return on investment in your social media efforts.

A social media audit typically involves the following key elements:

Platform Assessment: Reviewing all the social media profiles associated with your business, including those you may not have been active on recently.

Metrics Analysis: Analyzing a range of metrics to gauge the performance of each social media platform.

Identifying Patterns: Discovering patterns in engagement, content type, posting times, and audience demographics.

Setting Goals: Defining clear and actionable goals for each platform based on your findings.

Creating an Action Plan: Developing strategies and tactics to improve your social media presence and achieve your goals.

Assessing New Platforms: Exploring the potential of new platforms to diversify your social media presence.

How to Do a Social Media Audit?

Now that you understand the basics of a social media audit, lets delve into the steps involved in conducting a comprehensive audit:

1. Start with the Basics

Begin by gathering information about all your social media profiles. This includes platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, and any other relevant platforms. Create a spreadsheet or document to record the following details for each platform:

Username or handle

URL

Number of followers or subscribers

Engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares, etc.)

Any other key performance indicators (KPIs) specific to each platform

This initial step helps you establish a comprehensive overview of your social media landscape.

2. Analyze Each Profiles Engagement

Most social media platforms offer built-in analytics features that provide valuable insights into performance. For each platform, access these analytics and record relevant data, including:

Engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares)

Demographic information about your audience

Top-performing posts

Impressions and reach

This data will give you a clearer picture of how each platform is contributing to your social media strategy and where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

3. Find the Patterns

Having gathered data on your most successful posts on each platform, the next step is to pinpoint recurring trends. Seek out shared characteristics among these high-performing posts, such as content style, intended audience, posting schedules, and multimedia components like images, videos, or infographics.

Through the examination of these trends, you can acquire valuable insights into how your audience interacts with your content. Pay attention to questions like:

Which platform generates the most website traffic?

Where is the highest level of engagement coming from?

What demographic is most engaged with specific types of content?

Understanding these patterns will help you tailor your content and posting strategy for better results.

4. Set Goals for Each Platform

After assessing the current state of your social media profiles, its time to establish clear and measurable goals for each platform. These goals should align with your overall business objectives and go beyond simply growing your follower count.

Consider setting goals related to increasing brand awareness, boosting engagement, and driving traffic to your website. Each goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Having well-defined goals will provide a roadmap for your social media strategy.

5. Make a Plan

The insights derived from your social media audit offer a valuable reservoir of information, yet its crucial to transform these findings into concrete strategies. Your strategy should delineate the necessary actions to attain your objectives.

For instance, if your aim is to boost website traffic, your strategy could encompass tactics such as:

Running targeted ad campaigns

Posting more frequently on platforms that drive traffic

Optimizing content for specific keywords

Collaborating with influencers to promote your website

Remember that a social media audit is not just about data collection; its about using that data to inform your strategy and make improvements in key social media metrics.

6. Assess New Platforms

When conducting a social media audit, be open to discovering new platform opportunities that align with your brand and target audience. Experiment with these platforms if they seem promising. Use the insights from your audit to make informed decisions about where your content can perform well and reach a wider audience. Remember to conduct social media audits regularly, preferably on a quarterly basis, to stay adaptable to changing trends and opportunities.

Social Media Audit Template

To streamline the process of conducting a social media audit, consider using a template. Templates provide structure and organization to your audit, ensuring that you cover all essential aspects. Heres a brief overview of what a social media audit template might include:

Summary and Report

An overview of your overall social media performance.

Key takeaways from the audit.

High-level insights and recommendations.

Audience Demographics

Information about your audiences age, gender, location, and interests.

Insights into the demographics of your most engaged users.

Top-Performing Posts

Analysis of the content that generated the highest engagement.

Comparison of top posts across different platforms.

Ad Campaign Performance

Evaluation of the effectiveness of any paid advertising campaigns.

Metrics related to ad reach, clicks, and conversions.

Next Steps

Actionable recommendations based on the audits findings.

A roadmap for implementing changes and improvements.

Using a template like this can help you organize your social media audit and ensure that you dont overlook any critical details.

A social media audit is crucial for businesses to enhance their online presence. It involves using specific metrics and steps to gain insights, make informed decisions, and achieve better results. Since social media is always evolving, conducting regular audits helps businesses stay adaptable and maintain a strong online presence in the ever-changing digital landscape. So, start your audit to improve your social media efforts.

Media Info:

Name: Ragy Thomas

Company Name: Sprinklr

Phone: +1 917-933-7800

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.sprinklr.com/

Address: 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 USA.
Greenwich, CT, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Belpointe PREP, LLC (NYSE American: OZ) (Belpointe OZ or the Company), the first publicly traded Qualified Opportunity Fund, is issuing this press release to address the recent market volatility in its Class A units and the unit price decline.



Management does not typically opine on market volatility or the market price of the Companys Class A units; however, in response to a number of inquiries from unitholders, the Company would like to confirm the following:

Management does not believe the recent increase in market volatility or decline in market price of Belpointe OZs (NYSE American: OZ) Class A units is attributable to any developments within the Company or its portfolio.

On May 17, 2023, the Company announced a new offering of $750 million of its Class A units with the goal of raising additional capital to better position the Company for current and future investments.

The Company has not issued any new Class A units in connection with its offering at the current unit price, nor does the Company intend to do so.

Management believes that the recent market volatility and decline in market price can be attributed to the unique characteristics of the Company as a Qualified Opportunity Fund. Most holders of the Companys Class A units acquired their units by reinvesting capital gains in order to take advantage of the Qualified Opportunity Zone tax benefits. During this economic cycle there may be fewer capital gains available for reinvestment, and, consequently, management believes this has led to lower buy-side support for the market price of Companys Class A units, as well as greater market volatility.

Chief Executive Officer, Brandon Lacoff, stated We understand and empathize with the concerns of our unitholders regarding the volatility and recent decline in the Companys Class A unit price. However, we want to emphasize that our approach is long-term, we remain encouraged by the Companys progress to date, and we are committed to our mission of facilitating investment in Qualified Opportunity Zones and delivering value to our unitholders. Lacoff added, The Company's focus on investing in attractive assets and providing investors with tax benefits through the Qualified Opportunity Zone program remains unchanged.

About Belpointe OZ

Belpointe OZ is a publicly traded qualified opportunity fund, listed on NYSE American under the symbol OZ, and focused on identifying, acquiring, developing or redeveloping and managing commercial real estate located within qualified opportunity zones throughout the United States and its territories. Visit https://investors.belpointeoz.com for more information.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may be considered forward-looking, such as statements containing estimates, projections and other forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words and phrases such as anticipate, estimate, believe, continue, could, intend, may, plan, potential, predict, seek, should, will, would, expect, objective, projection, forecast, goal, guidance, outlook, effort, target or the negative of such words and other comparable terminology. However, the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Any forward-looking statements expressing an expectation or belief as to future events is expressed in good faith and believed to be reasonable at the time such forward-looking statement is made. However, these statements are not guarantees of future events and involve risks, uncertainties and other factors beyond Belpointe OZs control. Therefore, Belpointe OZ cautions you against relying on any of these forward-looking statements. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed in any forward-looking statement. Additional information on other potential factors that could affect Belpointe OZs results and other risks and uncertainties can be found under the heading Risk Factors or other similar headings found in documents Belpointe OZ files from time to time with the SEC, including Belpointe OZs annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022. Except as required by applicable law, including federal securities laws, Belpointe OZ does not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements to conform them to actual results or revised expectations.

Investor and Media Relations Contact:

Cody H. Laidlaw

Belpointe PREP, LLC

255 Glenville Road

Greenwich, Connecticut 06831

[email protected]

203-883-1944
BOLLORE





Financial information for Q3 2023 19 October 2023

Revenue (at constant scope and exchange rates):

-7% in third-quarter 2023

-4% at the end of September 2023

Revenue for Q3 2023

At constant scope and exchange rates, the Groups revenue for the third quarter of 2023 totalled 3,196 million euros, down 7%:

Oil Logistics: 668 million euros, -32% owing to the decrease in oil product prices and the decline in volumes sold;





owing to the decrease in oil product prices and the decline in volumes sold; Communications (Vivendi): 2,425 million euros, +3% benefiting from the strong performances of Groupe Canal+ (+5%) and Havas (+6%);





benefiting from the strong performances of Groupe Canal+ (+5%) and Havas (+6%); Industry: 85 million euros, +18% thanks to the completion of a storage stationary project.





On a reported basis, revenue was down 6% (-217 million euros) compared with the third quarter 2022, with negative foreign exchange impacts (-26 million euros) and a favourable scope effect (+46 million euros).

Revenue at the end of September 2023

At constant scope and exchange rates, the Groups revenue as of September 30, 2023 was down 4% at 9,427 million euros.

On a reported basis, revenue for the first nine months of the year decreased 4%, taking into account +96 million euros in changes in scope (in particular the integration of Sicarbu acquired by Bollore Energy, as well as initial consolidations at Vivendi) and -26 million euros in foreign exchange impacts resulting from the appreciation of the euro, mainly against the pound sterling and the US dollar.

At constant scope and exchange rates, the main sectors evolved as follows compared to the first nine months of 2022:

Oil Logistics:

Bollore Energys revenue came out at 2,022 million euros, down 22% due to lower oil product prices, which had reached record levels after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and lower volumes sold.

Communications:

Revenue amounted to 7,121 million euros, up 3% at constant scope and exchange rates compared to the same period in 2022. This increase can be attributed primarily to Groupe Canal+, which posted significant growth of 3%, notably owing to the sharp increase in Studiocanal and the increase in pay television in France, and to growth at Havas (+5%), supported by the rise of all its divisions.

Industry:

Revenue from industrial activities amounted to 233 million euros (electricity storage, films, dedicated terminals and systems), down 16% compared with the first nine months of 2022.

This decrease resulted mainly from a decline in the sales of batteries and bus, as well as those of Films. However, specialized Terminals and Polyconseil posted growth.

Evolution of revenue by activity





(in millions of euros) Q3 9 months 2023 (1) 2022 (1) Reported growth Organic growth 2023 (1) 2022 (1) Reported growth Organic growth Bollore Energy 668 951 -30% -32% 2,022 2,570 -21% -22% Communications 2,425 2,366 +2% +3% 7,121 6,892 +3% +3% Industry 85 73 +16% +18% 233 279 -16% -16% Other (Agricultural assets, Holdings) 18 24 -23% -41% 52 59 -12% -42% Total 3,196 3,413 -6% -7% 9,427 9,799 -4% -4%

(1) Restated: in accordance with IFRS 5 and to ensure the comparability of results, reclassifications into discontinued operations or held for sale include:

All the Groups Transport and Logistics activities in Africa in fiscal 2022 (these activities were disposed of on December 21, 2022).

Editis for fiscal 2022 and 2023 (Editis was deconsolidated on June 21, 2023 as a result of the loss of control);

The rest of the Groups Transport and Logistics activities for fiscal 2022 and 2023 (these activities are intended to be sold since May 8, 2023).

Recent highlights and events

Communications Merger with Lagardere: on June 9, 2023, Vivendi announced that it had obtained authorisation from the European Commission to carry out its proposed merger with Lagardere Group. This authorisation is subject to the fulfilment of the two commitments proposed by Vivendi, namely the sale of 100% of the capital of Editis and the full sale of Gala magazine. Vivendi has signed an agreement with IMI to sell Editis and Prisma Media has also entered into a deed of sale for Galas business with Figaro Group. The European Commission must now approve these two buyers. The Group is confident that the merger with Lagardere will be finalised by the end of the year. It reiterates its commitment to maintaining the integrity of the Lagardere Group.



Groupe Canal+ continued to expand internationally in the third quarter, acquiring a 12% stake in the Viaplay Group, the pay-TV leader in the Nordic countries, and increasing its stake in MultiChoice Group, of which Groupe Canal+ held 32.93% as of September 30, 2023.





Bollore Logistics





On July 11, 2023, the Bollore Group signed a contract to sell 100% of Bollore Logistics to CMA CGM Group. The process of obtaining antitrust and foreign investment control clearances in the relevant jurisdictions is progressing according to the provisional timetable and should enable the final completion of the sale in the first quarter of 2024. Bollore Logistics has been restated in the Groups financial statements under IFRS5.





Change in revenue per quarter









(in millions of euros) Q1 Q2 Q3 2023 (1) 2022 organic 2022 reported (1) 2023 (1) 2022 organic 2022 reported (1) 2023 (1) 2022 organic 2022

reported (1) Bollore Energy 712 848 848 641 775 772 668 978 951 Communications 2,290 2,244 2,216 2,407 2,307 2,310 2,425 2,352 2,366 Industry 74 111 112 74 93 94 85 72 73 Other (Agricultural assets, Holdings) 15 26 14 18 32 21 18 31 24 Total 3,091 3,229 3,189 3,140 3,207 3,196 3,196 3,433 3,413

(1) Restated: in accordance with IFRS 5 and to ensure the comparability of results, reclassifications into discontinued operations or held for sale include:

All the Groups Transport and Logistics activities in Africa in fiscal 2022 (these activities were disposed of on December 21, 2022).

Editis for fiscal 2022 and 2023 (Editis was deconsolidated on June 21, 2023 as a result of the loss of control);

The rest of the Groups Transport and Logistics activities for fiscal 2022 and 2023 (these activities are intended to be sold since May 8, 2023).





All amounts are expressed in millions of euros and rounded to the nearest decimal.

As a result, the sum of the rounded amounts may differ slightly from the reported total.

Attachment




Company Appoints Elkana Amitai CPA as Company Accounting Oversight Board Auditor

Bullet Reaffirms its Legal Pursuit of Unlicensed Violators of The Companys Bitcoin ATM Intellectual Property

RENO, NV, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire - Bullet Blockchain, Inc. (BULT or the Company) (OTC: BULT), a pioneering software development and SaaS company at the forefront of blockchain technologies and Web 3.0, is pleased to announce the appointment of the Elkana Amitai CPA firm, a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) auditor, to oversee the Company's financial reporting and compliance efforts as the Company prepares for uplisting its common stock (OTC: BULT:) to the OTCQB market.

The retention of a PCAOB auditor is another strategic move that reinforces the Companys commitment to transparency, accountability, and maintaining the highest standards of corporate governance. As the company continues to expand and strengthen its presence in the blockchain and Bitcoin ATM industry, the engagement of a PCAOB auditor demonstrates the Companys dedication to upholding the highest level of financial integrity.

The Company recognizes the significance of robust financial oversight in today's dynamic business environment. By enlisting the services of the Elkana Amitai CPA firm and their experience in PCAOB accounting, the company aims to ensure that its financial statements accurately reflect its operations and strengthening financial position. This appointment underscores the Companys efforts to maintain trust among its stakeholders, including investors, shareholders, and regulatory bodies.

In addition to this important appointment, BULT is also excited to announce its plans to uplist its common stock to the OTCQB market. This transition reflects the Companys strengthening financial position, growth prospects, and commitment to providing investors with increased liquidity and transparency. The move to the OTCQB market will enable a broader audience of investors to participate in BULTs success and growth story.

The Company remains dedicated to its mission of developing innovative blockchain technologies for the Bitcoin ATM industry, and these developments signify its ongoing commitment to excellence and financial transparency. The Company looks forward to a productive partnership with the Elkana Amitai CPA firm and the opportunities that uplisting to the OTCQB market will provide to our stakeholders.

As previously announced , BULT acquired First Bitcoin Capital LLC, which owned an intellectual property portfolio consisting of the rights to two Bitcoin ATM patents. By virtue of its subsidiary First Bitcoin Capital LLC, BULTs intellectual property includes US Patent Nos. US9135787B1 Bitcoin kiosk/ATM device and system integrating enrollment protocol and method of using the same ( US9135787B1 ) and US10332205B1 Bitcoin kiosk/ATM device and system and method of using the same (US10332205B1) which are extant. The combined patents acquired by BULT are critical for Bitcoin ATM networks to operate. BULT plans to introduce several licensing programs for Bitcoin ATM manufacturers, which will include a per-transaction licensing fee, revenue share, or partner program with Bitcoin ATM owner-operators. As previously announced , BULT has retained counsel to target unlicensed Bitcoin ATM operators and manufacturers.

Bitcoin ATMs are becoming increasingly popular, as they offer a convenient way for people to access the Bitcoin market. Bitcoin ATMs allow users to conveniently buy and sell Bitcoin for cash using a free-standing kiosk similar in size to a traditional ATM machine. As the adoption of cryptocurrencies continues to rise, the future of Bitcoin ATMs in the United States appears promising. As such, BULT seeks to bring this growing industry into compliance with, and to cease violating, BULTs intellectual property.

About Bullet Blockchain

Headquartered in Reno, Nevada, Bullet Blockchain Inc.  common stock is publicly traded on the OTC Markets under the symbol (BULT)  is a diversified software development and SaaS company, specializing in blockchain technologies and Web 3.0, and though its wholly owned subsidiary, First Bitcoin Capital LLC, the owner and licensor of two Bitcoin ATM patents. BULT is committed to driving the innovations needed to shape the future of digital and blockchain-related platforms through digital technology and decentralized blockchain solutions. Management is dedicated to rapid growth and increasing the shareholders value.

Shareholders, potential investors, and others should note that we announce material events and material financial information to our shareholders and the public using our website and the social media addresses listed below, as well as in our OTC Markets disclosures, press releases, public conference calls, and webcasts. We also use social media to communicate with our email subscribers and the public about BULT, services, and other related information. It is possible that the information we post on social media could be deemed to be material information. Therefore, we encourage shareholders, the media, and others interested in BULT to review the information we post on BULTs social media channels listed below. This list may be updated from time to time.



Follow us at:

Find BULT news at http://www.BulletBlockchain.com

Follow BULT news on Twitter @BULT_stock

Follow BULT on Reddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/BULT/

Follow BULT on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BulletBlockchainInc/

Follow BULT on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/bullet-blockchain-inc

Find investor and general information at https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/BULT/profile

For investor and general information, please email [email protected]

Forward-Looking Statements:

Statements in this press release that are not statements of historical or current fact constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other unknown factors that could cause the Company's actual operating results to be materially different from any historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors, including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release, and these views could change at some point in the future. However, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. In addition to statements that explicitly describe these risks and uncertainties, readers are urged to consider statements that contain terms such as "believes," "belief," "expects," "expect," "intends," "intend," "anticipate," "anticipates," "plans," "plan," to be uncertain and forward-looking.
TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW), along with all the WIZO (Womens International Zionist Organization) global federations and affiliates, call for the immediate release of Israelis and other foreign nationals held captive by the terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza.

The inhumane slaughtering and kidnapping of hundreds of babies, children, women, men, the disabled, and the elderly is not only a clear violation of international law, but a crime against humanity as well.

CHW is calling on their partners, affiliates, and supporters to contact local government leaders and anyone of influence in your community and country to call for the immediate release of hostages.

As we watch the horrific images on social media, news outlets, and hear stories from our Israeli friends and families, like us, Im sure youre feeling hopeless and frightened. We all pray for the safety of Israel, its citizens, and the safe and unharmed return of the hundreds of hostages being held in Gaza. CHW stands in solidarity with Israel now and always, said Lisa Colt-Kotler, CHW CEO.

We must take immediate action and do everything in our power to put an end to these atrocities. Everything changed on October 7, and now we are all heartbroken by all the news. We all know someone who has been murdered or who is missing or are watching family and friends stricken by grief, said Lynn Gillman, CHW National President.

Among those being held captive are women and young girls who have been sexually violated and others who have been injured, some of them critically, as well as babies and the elderly, who need urgent medical attention and lifesaving medicines.

About Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW): Established in 1917 by visionary Jewish women, CHW (Canadian Hadassah-WIZO) is a non-political, non-partisan national network of dedicated volunteers. CHW firmly believes in the advancement of education, healthcare, and social services, transcending politics, religion, and national boundaries. To learn more about CHW, please visit www.chw.ca.

For additional information or media inquiries, please contact CHW National Office at [email protected] or 1-855-477-5964.

Source: Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW)
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ceylon Graphite Corp. (Ceylon or the Company) (TSX-V: CYL) (OTC: CYLYF) (FSE: CCY) announces that it intends to extend the exercise period for a total of 50,928,566 common share purchase warrants, all of which are exercisable at $0.15 per common share (collectively, the "Warrants").

The Warrants were issued pursuant to a private placement that closed in tranches on October 22, 2020 (the First Tranche) and October 28, 2020 (the Second Tranche). 30,163,566 Warrants were issued in the First Tranche with 500,000 Warrants having been exercised, leaving 29,663,566 First Tranche Warrants outstanding, and 21,265,000 Warrants were issued in the Second Tranche, all of which remain outstanding. The Company proposes to extend the expiry dates of these Warrants by one year, such that the new expiry date for the Warrants will be October 22, 2024 for the First Tranche Warrants and October 28, 2024 for the Second Tranche Warrants. All other terms and conditions of the Warrants remain unchanged. The Warrant extension is subject to acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Ceylon Graphite Corp.

Ceylon is a public company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, that is in the business of mining for graphite, and developing and commercializing innovative graphene and graphite applications and products. Graphite mined in Sri Lanka is known to be some of the highest grade in the world and has been confirmed to be suitable to be easily upgradable for a range of applications including the high-growth electric vehicle and battery storage markets as well as construction, healthcare and paints and coatings sectors.

Further information regarding Ceylon is available at www.ceylongraphite.com

Sasha Jacob, Chief Executive Officer and Rita Thiel, Chair of the Board of Directors

[email protected]

Corporate Communications

+1(604) 924-8695

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information:

This news release contains forward-looking information as such term is defined in applicable securities laws, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. The forward-looking information includes statements about the extension of the expiry period of the Warrants, potential value of products produced with Ceylon graphite, the quality of graphite mined by Ceylon, applications for future graphite applications, Ceylons role as a potential market leader and expectations related to development of Ceylons properties and Ceylons mining operations. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to Ceylon, including the assumption that, there are no material adverse changes effecting development and production at the M1 mine or on other properties, testing related to the performance of Ceylons vein graphite material are accurate, there will be no material adverse change in graphite and metal prices, there will be continued demand for graphite powered batteries, all necessary consents, licenses, permits and approvals will be obtained, including various Local Government Licenses. Investors are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. Risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking information include, among other things, the results of Ceylons graphite testing being inaccurate or incomplete, the market for graphite related technologies not developing as expected, failure to obtain or maintain patents and proprietary technology, loss or failure to acquire available high quality graphite, any failures to obtain or delays in obtaining required regulatory licenses, permits, approvals and consents, an inability to access financing as needed, a general economic downturn, a volatile stock price, labour strikes, political unrest, changes in the mining regulatory regime governing Ceylon, a failure to comply with environmental regulations and a weakening of market and industry reliance on high quality graphite. Ceylon cautions the reader that the above list of risk factors is not exhaustive.

Source: Ceylon Graphite Corp.
Charleston, S.C., Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- It is no secret that people are not getting along. We seem to be living in a world where the loudest voices often drown out differing points of view and make productive debate difficult. People have isolated themselves, and constructive debate has all but disappeared.

College of Charleston communication professor Michael Lee wants to help change all that.

Lee was recently named director of the College of Charleston Civil Discourse Initiative. The initiative was established to highlight the value of civility when sharing opposing ideas and how these civil conversations could help to bridge political divides.

It is a subject that Lee knows well. He has dedicated his professional life to studying, researching and teaching about arguments. This includes writing two books about political disputes, one about the rise of the conservative movement in the United States and another about enduring arguments about secession throughout United States history.

Lee says there is a crisis of community in this country. Some of that crisis is about loneliness and isolation, while another part of this crisis is about anger, hate speech and violence. He says there are ways of trying to reduce this crisis.

Colleges and universities should have a role in helping citizens get along with one another and showing the new data and social science on what effective communication practices look like, Lee says. We would like to host events, roundtables and panels to address the crisis of loneliness and community on the one hand, and anger and polarization on the other hand.

Lees goal is to bring nationally renowned journalists, writers and commentators to the College and have them present new ideas on how we can get along better in a democracy. He also wants to invite experts to discuss new research on detecting lies in media messages, hold a series of events to help increase conversations about civility and build a campus culture around civility and community from the ground up.

Lee will soon be launching a podcast called, When We Disagree. Examining memorable arguments that guests have been involved in, the show is interested in why we argue, what we argue about, how we argue and what that says about us all as individuals, our relationships and our culture.

The College of Charleston Civil Discourse Initiative is sponsored by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Attachment

Mike Robertson College of Charleston 843.953.5667 [email protected]

Source: College of Charleston
MONTREAL and SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Coveo (TSX: CVO), a market-leading platform that enables individualized, connected, and trusted digital experiences at scale with Semantic search, AI recommendations, and GenAI answering, today announced early access to Coveo Relevance Generative Answering for B2B and B2C commerce enterprises. This expands the program to give manufacturers, distributors, and retailers access to test Coveos generative answering solution at enterprise scale on their ecommerce sites. This new capability will revolutionize product and knowledge discovery with access to secure enterprise-ready generative answering for Coveo Commerce customers. General availability is expected later this year.

Coveo Relevance Generative Answering empowers customer experiences with generative AI question-answering capability by leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) on top of the leading unified indexing functionality of Coveo's platform. An enterprise-ready solution, Coveo Relevance Generative Answering is scalable, secure, traceable, and provides accurate and relevant answering from multiple sources of content. Coveo Relevance Generative Answering is a natural augmentation of Coveos AI models and can be injected to improve each touchpoint across the customer journey from early in the sales cycle to post-sales customer service.

We believe that augmenting current commerce experiences with GenAI has the potential to change the way customers shop and buy. In traditional in-store interactions, customers naturally ask product-related questions. Replicating this ease of inquiry in an online environment has been a challenge, until now, said Laurent Simoneau, President and CTO of Coveo. Were confident that our generative answering capability will provide businesses with a way to differentiate their digital storefront experience by putting their domain expertise and knowledge at the forefront. It will enable brands to share product information with customers in a more conversational way. This is a particularly important component of the go-to-market strategy for many of our B2B customers.

Were thrilled to open up our Relevance Generative Answering early access program to B2B and B2C commerce brands and use cases, said Simon Langevin, VP Product, Coveo. Our offering allows companies to incorporate generative answering into their customer-facing experiences in a way that is grounded and secure. Our customers who have rich content sources, including how to articles and technical specifications, will readily embrace this as they recognize that educating the buyer on the products they sell is a critical aspect of the purchase journey.

Coveo announced the addition of enterprise-ready generative answering to the Coveo Platform in March 2023. In June, Coveo launched its Relevance Generative Answering Design Partner Program, working with 45 customers, including Informatica, Synopsys, VMware, Xero, and Zoom. In September 2023, Coveo announced that its Relevance Generative Answering offering went live across Coveos own customer self-serve experiences. Xero, the global small business platform, also announced that in partnership with Coveo, it has implemented generative answering within Xero Central to help deliver accurate support answers faster for its millions of customers and users.

Register for the New in Coveo Commerce webinar on October 19, 2023 at 11am ET to find out more about Coveos Relevance Generative Answering offering.

For more information about Coveo Relevance Generative Answering for Commerce, please visit Coveos blog.

About Coveo

Coveo powers the digital experiences of the worlds most innovative brands serving millions of people and billions of interactions across every digital experience. After a decade of enriching our market-leading platform with forward-thinking global enterprises, we know what it takes to gain a trusted AI-experience advantage.

We strongly believe that the future is business-to-person, that experience is todays competitive front line, a make or break for every business.

For enterprises to achieve this AI-experience advantage at scale, it is imperative to have an Enterprise Spinal and composable ability to deliver AI semantic search and generative experiences at each customer and employee interaction.

Our single SaaS AI platform and robust suite of AI & GenAI models are designed to transform the total experience from CX to EX across websites, ecommerce, service, and workplace. Powering individualized, trusted, and connected experiences across every interaction to delight customers and augment employees, and drive superior business outcomes. Our platform is certified ISO 27001, HIPAA compliant, SOC2 compliant, and 99.999% SLA resilient. We are a Salesforce Summit ISV Partner, an SAP Endorsed App, and an Adobe Gold Partner.Coveo is a trademark of Coveo Solutions, Inc.Stay up to date on the latest Coveo news and content by subscribing to the Coveo blog, and following Coveo on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, forward-looking information). This forward-looking information is identified by the use of terms and phrases such as may, would, should, could, might, will, achieve, occur, expect, intend, estimate, anticipate, plan, foresee, believe, continue, target, opportunity, strategy, scheduled, outlook, forecast, projection, or prospect, the negative of these terms and similar terminology, including references to assumptions, although not all forward-looking information contains these terms and phrases. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, intentions, projections, or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent managements expectations, estimates, and projections regarding future events or circumstances.

Forward-looking information is necessarily based on a number of opinions, estimates, and assumptions that we considered appropriate and reasonable as of the date such statements are made. Although the forward-looking information contained herein is based upon what we believe are reasonable assumptions, actual results may vary from the forward-looking information contained herein. Certain assumptions made in preparing the forward-looking information contained in herein include, without limitation: our ability to capitalize on growth opportunities and implement our growth strategy; our ability to attract new customers, both domestically and internationally; the success of our efforts to expand our product portfolio and market reach; our ability to maintain successful strategic relationships with partners and other third parties; our future capital requirements; the available liquidity under our revolving credit facility; the accuracy of our estimates of market opportunity and growth forecasts; our success in identifying and evaluating, as well as financing and integrating, any acquisitions, partnerships, or joint ventures; our ability to execute on our expansion plans; and the future impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond our control, that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to macro-economic uncertainties and the risk factors described under Risk Factors in the Companys most recently filed Annual Information Form available under our profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, prospective investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information, which speaks only as of the date made.

Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. Although we have attempted to identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other risk factors not presently known to us or that we presently believe are not material that could also cause actual results or future events to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking information. You should not rely on this forward-looking information, as actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those contemplated by this forward-looking information as a result of such risks and uncertainties. Additional information will also be set forth in other public filings that we make available under our profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca from time to time. The forward-looking information provided in this press release relates only to events or information as of the date hereof, and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Except as required by law, we do not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

Highwire PRCoveo[email protected]+1 418-263-1111

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/31e3a05c-c230-4552-a51b-eac4db800bc9

Boost Every Ecommerce Experience Coveo New in Ecommerce Webinar - Boost Every Ecommerce experience

Source: Coveo Solutions Inc.
OTTAWA, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A surge of new climate policies is driving growth for clean technologies, but addressing early-stage funding gaps is critical to the success of the Canadian cleantech sector, according to Export Development Canadas (EDC) latest annual cleantech report.

As outlined in Canadian cleantech: Powering progress, 2022 saw record investment in Canadas cleantech sector at $1.2 billionthe highest recorded since 2018. Certain segments experienced higher investment volumes compared to 2021, notably energy and powerincluding nuclear fusion technologies and hydrogenwhich experienced a 33% increase in investments.

Cleantech investment has nearly quadrupled since 2018 and our analysis of a range of data has revealed that public policy is the driving force behind the momentumand a key ingredient to the sectors growth in Canada, says Stuart Bergman, EDCs chief economist and vice-president.

Challenges and opportunitiesEven with a robust startup and accelerator ecosystem, the report points out that the sector faces challenges. Primarily, inadequate levels of private sector research and development (R&D) spending, with Canada trailing its peers in total R&D investment per capita. Addressing these early-stage funding gaps is critical to the future success of the Canadian cleantech sector. Left unaddressed, this represents a missed opportunity for Canadian cleantech companies.

Additionally, Canada has experienced consistent trade deficits since 2012 in the environment and clean technologies (ECT) sector driven by its reliance on cleantech goods imports. To build back more of our share of exports and maintain competitiveness in the cleantech space, private sector investment and support is imperative, says Bergman.

On the positive front, the Canadian cleantech sector boasts a high number of small- and medium-sized companies that, with the right support, could attract the funding needed to scale and grow their operations.

Boosting Canadian competitiveness, and the success of Canadas cleantech ecosystem, means addressing the startup to scaleup support gap, and investments are needed across value chains to support nascent technologies, says Guillermo Freire, senior vice-president, Mid-Market Group, and responsible for EDCs cleantech practice.

Working together in an ecosystem approach is critical to ensuring that support is being delivered across the cleantech lifecycle, from startup to commercialization to global growth and exporting, Freire says.Support for cleantech has been a strategic priority for EDC for more than a decade and has led the organization to become one of the leading financiers of Canadas cleantech industry. Since 2012, EDC has facilitated nearly $29 billion in cleantech exports and, in 2022, provided a record $8.8 billion in business support for the sector.

From Oct. 30 to Nov. 6, EDC will host the 2023 Cleantech Export Week (CEW) themed Powering collaboration and accelerating progress. Now in its seventh year, the events will be hosted in-person in Ottawa (it will also be livestreamed), with in-person events in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

For more information about EDCs cleantech sector findings, please download the full report.Click here to register for CEW and learn more.

*Note: The cleantech report is an annual review of the global and Canadian cleantech industry produced by EDCs Economics team. The report analyzes data from leading organizations, providing expert commentary on the current status of and future potential for the Canadian cleantech sector.

About EDCExport Development Canada (EDC) is a financial Crown corporation dedicated to helping Canadian businesses make an impact at home and abroad. EDC has the financial products and knowledge Canadian companies need to confidently enter new markets, reduce financial risk and grow their business as they go from local to global. Together, EDC and Canadian companies are building a more prosperous, stronger and sustainable economy for all Canadians.

For more information and to learn how we can help your company, call us at 1-800-229-0575 or visit www.edc.ca.

Media contact:Media | Export Development Canada1-888-222-4065[email protected]

Source: Export Development Canada
GAITHERSBURG, Md., Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE: EBS) will host a conference call on Thursday, November 2, 2023, at 5:00 pm eastern time to discuss the financial results for the third quarter of 2023, recent business developments, and financial outlook for full year 2023.



Conference Call Information

Participants can access the conference call live via webcast from the Investors page of Emergents website. To participate via telephone, please register in advance at this link. Upon registration, all telephone participants will receive a confirmation email detailing how to join the conference call, including the dial-in number along with a unique passcode and registrant ID that can be used to access the call.

A replay of the call can be accessed from the Investors page of Emergents website.

About Emergent BioSolutions

At Emergent, our mission is to protect and enhance life. For 25 years, weve been at work defending people from things we hope will never happenso we are prepared just in case they ever do. We provide solutions for complex and urgent public health threats through a portfolio of vaccines and therapeutics that we develop and manufacture for governments and consumers. We also offer a range of integrated contract development and manufacturing services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers. To learn more about how we plan to protect or enhance 1 billion lives by 2030, visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

Investor Contact:

Richard S. Lindahl

Executive Vice President, CFO

[email protected]

Media Contact:

Assal Hellmer

Vice President, Communications

[email protected]
Korea's auto exports hit new highs in the first nine months of this year, reaching US$52.1 billion on the back of record-high eco-friendly car exports to North America and the EU.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Wednesday that in the January to September period, some $18 billion worth of green automobiles were exported, exceeding the total for last year, which amounted to $16.1 billion.

This year's January-September figure surpassed the $38.4 billion recorded for the same period last year, so total exports for the whole year are likely to pass last year's $54.1 billion.

Car production in September dipped slightly on-year due to partial strikes within the industry but has hovered above 300,000 cars for 13 consecutive months.

The ministry expects total production for the whole year to hit at least 4 million cars if the trend continues, a figure not seen since 2018.

On the domestic front, sales of new cars decreased 4.7 percent on-year to 133,709 in September. Sales of eco-friendly cars increased 2.3 percent to 42,621, but EV sales dropped 34 percent.

The ministry said EV sales dropped because the government's plan to expand subsidies led people to defer their purchases.
DALLAS, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Associa, the community management industrys largest company, is dedicated to helping Homeowners Associations (HOAs) and managed communities create attractive and welcoming environments that maximize resident quality of life. A knowledgeable and informed board of directors is key to a successful, well-run HOA. Use this checklist to plan and execute fall seasonal projects that will help prepare your community for the upcoming year.

Repair and Replace Worn or Deteriorated ItemsThoroughly inspect all structures, walkways, and roadways. Repair damage and seal areas where moisture might penetrate the exterior. Pay close attention to:

Roofs, windows, and doors

Foundations

Sidewalks

Conduct a Landscaping WalkthroughIt is often recommended to plant new trees, shrubs, and grass in the fall. Refresh seasonal plantings and prune trees and shrubbery. Repair irrigation systems and adjust watering schedules for cooler temperatures. In particular, make note of:

Neighborhood entrances

Medians

Greenbelts

Review Budget PlansFor many HOAs, the fiscal year is the same as the calendar year. Review expenditures, budgets and contracts before the current year ends to help create next years budget. Consult a CPA on tax return preparation and strategies. Recommended items to review:

Financial statements

Historical expense and cashflow trends

Vendor contracts

Insurance policies

Legislation compliance

Reserve funds

Plan Holiday EventsFall is a great time to build connections with residents via community activities. Families are back in town from summer trips and mild temperatures allow indoor and outdoor events. Start planning activities and send out key holiday event reminders well in advance before everyones calendar gets full. Consider events such as:

 Fall festival Concert in the park Park or trails cleanup day 5K walk/run Charitable events (coat/blanket/canned goods drive, etc.)

Remind Residents of Community Holiday RulesUpdate residents about any new or established rules that may impact their holiday celebrations. Share decorating guidelines, parking restrictions, and crowd information in a newsletter, notice, or community website. Review and share policies regarding:

 Decorating guidelines Size and timing of parties Parking restrictions Guest guidelines Noise policies

Prioritize SafetyCooler temperatures often mean harsh weather. Inspect heating systems on HOA-owned buildings. Well-maintained systems are more fuel-efficient and tend to have longer lifespans. Focus on these tasks:

Service all fire and carbon monoxide alarms

Ensure all fire extinguishers, sprinklers, and emergency lighting systems function properly

Remind residents to carry a flashlight, wear reflective clothing, and stay on sidewalks at night

These are just a few of the many projects ideally suited for Fall. Download Associas Fall Maintenance Guide for additional seasonal tips and insight.

About AssociaWith more than 275 branch offices across North America, Associa is building the future of community for more than 6.5 million residents worldwide. Our 14,000+ team members lead the industry with unrivaled education, expertise, and trailblazing innovation. For more than 44 years, Associa has brought positive impact and meaningful value to communities. To learn more, visit www.associaonline.com.

Stay ConnectedLike us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/associa Subscribe to the Blog: https://hub.associaonline.com/Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/associaJoin us on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/associa

Tom Womack Associa 214.272.4107 [email protected]

Source: Associa
TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a ranking of employment income growth in the largest 141 metropolitan areas in Canada and the United States from 2010 to 2019, only three Canadian cities rank in the top half, with TorontoCanadas largest metropolitan arearanking 102nd, so finds a new study published by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

Median employment incomes in Canadas largest cities are growing more slowly than in comparable US cities, which means Canadians are foregoing higher living standards compared to their US counterparts, said Ben Eisen, Fraser Institute senior fellow and co-author of Analysis of Changes in Median Employment Income in Large Canadian and American Metropolitan Areas, 2010-2019.

The study compares growth in median employment incomewages, salaries and commissions from paid and self-employment income (net) before taxes and government transfersin 141 large metropolitan areas in Canada and the United States with populations of more than 400,000 people from 2010 to 2019.

Out of the 14 Canadian CMAs included in the study, only three rank in the top half: St. Catharines-Niagara ranking 51st, Quebec City (52nd) and Vancouver (57th). The remaining 11 are all in the bottom half of the rankings.

Employment income in Canadas largest cityTorontowas essentially stagnant from 2010 to 2019 having increased by just 0.4 per cent. Toronto ranked 102 out of the 141 cities in the analysis.

The prosperity gap between Canadian and American metropolitan areas on this important metric widened throughout the 2010s, said Eisen.

2010-2019 Compound annual growth in employment income ($2019 Canadian) and rank

Metropolitan area Growth Rank Metropolitan Area Growth Rank St. Catharines-Niagara 1.0% 51 Toronto 0.4 102 Quebec City 1.0% 52 Oshawa 0.2 116 Vancouver 0.9% 57 Halifax 0.2 119 Montreal 0.7% 73 Winnipeg 0.1 120 Hamilton 0.6 83 Ottawa-Gatineau 0.0 129 London 0.4 97 Edmonton -0.1 133 Kitchener-Waterloo 0.4 99 Calgary -0.3 136

MEDIA CONTACT: Ben Eisen, Senior FellowFraser Institute

To arrange media interviews or for more information, please contact:Drue MacPherson, 604-688-0221 ext. 721, [email protected]

Follow the Fraser Institute on Twitter and Facebook

The Fraser Institute is an independent Canadian public policy research and educational organization with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal and ties to a global network of think-tanks in 87 countries. Its mission is to improve the quality of life for Canadians, their families and future generations by studying, measuring and broadly communicating the effects of government policies, entrepreneurship and choice on their well-being. To protect the Institutes independence, it does not accept grants from governments or contracts for research. Visit www.fraserinstitute.org

Source: Fraser Institute
Chicago, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UMIAMI, the pioneering French food tech company specializing in plant-based meat alternatives, has successfully raised $34.7 million, bringing their total funding to an impressive $107 million in just three years. To underline its growth and commitment to the American market, the Company is opening up a headquarters in Chicago, and will recruit locally.

This new funding round allows the entry of BPI France's SPI fund, renowned for its expertise in long-term support for industrialization projects, and demonstrates the strength of Umiami's development and industrialization strategy. The company has also received renewed support from its historical investors, such as Astanor Ventures, Redalpine, Newfund, Verso Capital, and French Tech Seed.

This substantial injection of capital will be instrumental in advancing UMIAMI's cutting-edge umisation process. This unique technology has disrupted plant-based meat production as it is the worlds first ever process to be able to create flawlessly, on a large scale, plant-based fillets that perfectly mimic animal meat (whole cuts): both in taste and texture, with equivalent nutritional value.

Importantly, UMIAMI's innovative approach uses under 10 ingredients and methylcellulose-free, without any texturizing agents or controversial additives, with the goal to develop the next level of clean label plant-based meat. Furthermore, UMIAMI's unique plant-based chicken fillet is able to please every palate as it can be prepared in several ways, including grilled, breaded, fried, marinated, and sauced.

UMIAMI's growth strategy is centered on three key pillars:

1/Revolutionizing Plant-Based Meat with Cutting-Edge Technology:

UMIAMI will accelerate the industrialization of its game-changing "umisation" technology, which has the potential to revolutionize the plant-based meat industry worldwide. This positions the startup at the forefront of a new generation of alternatives, providing a solution for those who want to reconcile their love for meat with concerns about climate, health, and animal welfare.

Following the success of its industrial pilot program in the Paris region, UMIAMI is poised to become a global leader in plant-based meat and fish alternatives. The launch of its new factory in Alsace allows the company to benefit from a 7,500 tons capacity with its first production line, and plans to increase the capacity of its French facility to 20,000 tons in the medium term.

2/US Market Entry

UMIAMI is gearing up to establish itself the United States, a highly developed market for plant-based meat alternatives. To deliver this strategic roadmap, UMIAMI has hired John Hatto, a seasoned CPG executive, as its new US Managing Director. With over 30 years of experience in the food and beverage industry, including leadership roles at Lamb Weston and PepsiCo, John Hatto brings a wealth of expertise to guide UMIAMI's US expansion.

UMIAMIs US headquarters will be established in Chicago, taking advantage of the city's rich food industry talent pool, central location, and dynamic culinary scene. In the coming years, UMIAMI expects to hire locally to support its growth. Their food service-first approach aligns seamlessly with Chicago's vibrant dining landscape. It plans to fill the void for delectable plant-based offerings and cater to a diverse range of outlets seeking delicious and ethical plant-based food options, from quick-service restaurants to Michelin-starred fine dining eateries.

With its recent funding success and plans to innovate and break into the US market, UMIAMI ambitions to overhaul plant-based meat globally and offer a taste experience that appeals to all palates. Taste matters, and UMIAMI aims to be a leader in clean-label plant-based meat, offering a diverse and great-tasting product portfolio that appeals to all. To achieve this, plans are underway to set up a plant in North America to add to their existing production facility in Europe, to best serve its clients needs.

3/European Expansion

The company will continue its growth in Europe, focusing on well-established plant-based markets such as Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, where it is already collaborating with chefs, some of them Michelin-starred. Already making waves in the food service and retail sectors across these countries, UMIAMI plans to unveil exciting new partnerships in early 2024.

Tristan Maurel (CEO) and Martin Habfast (Export Director), UMIAMI co-founders, said: As French innovators, we're excited to bring UMIAMI's 'umisation' technology to the American table. Our unique plant-based chicken, born in France, is set to conquer hearts and taste buds across the US.

Chicago, with its culinary diversity, is the perfect home for us as we blend French expertise with American flavor. We're on a mission to make great-tasting, sustainable food accessible to all, from diners to Michelin-starred restaurants. UMIAMI's French roots empower us, and with John Hatto leading the way, we're ready to leave our mark in the US and inspire a global shift towards sustainability.

John Hatto, General Manager, UMIAMI North America, declared: As the new General Manager for UMIAMI North America, I'm thrilled to lead the way in introducing our groundbreaking 'umisation' technology to the American palate. With a deep background in the US food industry, I recognize the incredible potential for UMIAMI to redefine taste, sustainability, and choice.

UMIAMI is here to transform how America eats, from quick service to fine dining and eventually kitchens across America. Our journey is poised to make a significant impact, and I'm excited to collaborate with our partners as we usher in a new era of plant-based food.

Main investors:

Bpifrance  SPI and French Tech Seed funds

Astanor Ventures

Redalpine

VERSO Capital

KIMA Ventures

Redalpine

Newfund

French Partners

Ibrahima Konate

About UMIAMI

Founded in 2020, UMIAMI offers alternatives to meat products to reduce the impact of livestock farming (15% of global CO2 emissions) on global warming and the effects of intensive farming on animal welfare and human health. Based in the Paris area, the company has developed an innovative process to produce plant protein-based meat, which makes it possible to create whole pieces of thick and fibrous plant meat without artificial texturizing agents. For more information: https://www.UMIAMI.com/.

Dalyce Semko Open2America, Media Relations 14038693259 [email protected]

Source: UMIAMI
Wasaga Beach, Oct. 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- "Our community's growth and prosperity depends on the quality of education we offer, and this school will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of our children and of Wasaga Beach" said Mayor Brian Smith.

WASAGA BEACH  During its October 18th Board meeting, Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board (SMCDSB) trustees approved their 2023-24 capital priorities submission, which includes a Kindergarten to Grade 12 Catholic school in the Town of Wasaga Beach. The Board ranked the project number two (2) on its Capital Priority List, which will now be reviewed by the Ministry of Education.

On behalf of the Council of Wasaga Beach, we could not be more excited about this partnership, said Mayor Smith. I would like to thank the SMCDSB, Lakehead University, Canadore College, Simcoe County and Farsight Homes for their willingness to collaborate with the Town to put forward what we consider to be a truly innovative and transformational expanded community hub for our residents that will deliver world class learning opportunities for our students. Our approach and our goal is, and always has been, about putting our children first and this certainly accomplishes that. We look forward to working with our partners and the Ministry of Education to realize this new school facility in a timely manner.

The Town and the SMCDSB have submitted a partnership proposal to create a campus adjacent to the new twin-pad arena library (TPAL) with a K-12 school that would have shared facilities with the state of the art TPAL. This will offer students a dynamic environment for education programming, a resource for research and study, and a hub for education, sport and community engagement. In addition to the K-12 school, the submission includes the creation of a first class community theatre that students will have access to during the school day, and the community in the evenings and weekends. This will fill a current facility void in the Wasaga Beach community and help support the growth of a strong arts and culture sector in Wasaga Beach.

The Town has established partnerships with Lakehead University and Canadore College and is working with both institutions on formalized agreements that would enable specialized programming through the TPAL and within shared facilities in the proposed K-12 school. This specialized programming would be targeted to skilled trade professions in childcare, construction, healthcare and hospitality fields in addition to specific programming opportunities for adult and lifelong learning. Simcoe County has provided a letter of support to bring much needed child care facilities to the community hub.

Town of Wasaga Beach CAO Andrew McNeill commented, By leveraging the TPAL, we are able to deliver an expanded range of community uses in a manner that mitigates capital costs for all parties and will help deliver a K-12 school for our community at a more affordable price for the SMCDSB. This collaboration demonstrates the power of partnerships and we believe exemplifies what the province is looking to achieve with community hub projects.

The Town of Wasaga Beach approached the SMCDSB with a partnership opportunity and we were certainly excited to develop this concept with them and submit it to the Ministry of Education for approval SMCDSB Trustee Shawn Cooper remarked.  We are always looking for innovative ways to partner with the community to deliver the best possible education to our students. We know that the Ministry of Education is also supportive of these kinds of partnerships, and we hope that we are able to secure the necessary approvals and funding to move this project forward.

Wasaga Beach is a fast-growing community. I commend the Town of Wasaga Beach and the SMCDSB for working together to develop proposals to serve the needs of local families, said Brian Saunderson, MPP for Simcoe-Grey. After a decade when the previous government closed over 600 schools across the province, our government is investing about $15 billion over ten years to build new schools, improve existing facilities, and create new child care spaces.

The SMCDSB will now present their Capital Priority List to the Ministry of Education, with funding announcements anticipated in the second quarter of 2024.

Quick Facts:

Wasaga Beach is one of the fastest growing communities in Ontario. Our current population is 25,000 residents, with projections indicating that this number will double by 2051.

Wasaga Beach is currently the largest community in Ontario without a secondary school, and notably, the only community with a population exceeding 15,000 residents that lacks a high school.

Approximately 1,000 high school-aged children are being bused daily to schools located outside our community.

SMCDSB high schools are open-access meaning any child is eligible to enroll.

Additional Resources:

Sandra Watts Town of Wasaga Beach (705) 443-9248 [email protected]

Source: Town of Wasaga Beach
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Medaro Mining Corp. (CSE: MEDA OTC:MEDAF FWB: 1ZY) (Medaro or the Company), announces through its JV partner Rock Edge Resources (Rock Edge) the results from the 2023 field program (See August 10th, 2023 news release) on the Superb Lake Property (the Project), situated in northwestern Ontario.

These analytical results confirmed the potential of the spodumene-bearing trend located on the property as described in Rock Edges news release on June 18, 2023.

The trend is defined by 4 separate exposed pegmatite outcrop 3 of which have confirmed spodumene. These 4 outcrops follow an E-W trend over 125m with apparent width ranging from 0.80m to 3.70m wide with open width as only one contact is exposed at a time. The trend stays open on both extremities with the widest outcrops disappearing in the OSullivan Lake (Figure 1).

Five samples were collected on the four outcrops of the trend with results confirming the fertility of the trend, three samples grading Li2O values over 0.80%. The five samples returned significant Tantalum values, ranging between 184 and 320ppm Ta2O5 (Table 1).

Rock Type Source Sample Type Sample Li2O (%) Ta2O5 (ppm) Pegmatite Outcrop Chip 428006 1.13 236 Pegmatite Outcrop Grab 428104 0.85 184 Pegmatite Outcrop Grab 428105 2.63 242 Pegmatite Outcrop Grab 428106 0.01 320 Pegmatite Outcrop Grab 428107 0.01 236

Table 1: Assays from the spodumene pegmatite dyke trend

The Superb Lake Property encompasses approximately 2,378 hectares in the O Sullivan Lake / Maun Lake Area of the Thunder Bay Mining District of Northwestern Ontario, Canada. Geologically, the property is situated in the eastern part of Wabigoon Subprovince of the Superior Geological Province. The Superb Lake area has historical exploration carried out since the 1950swith the discovery of lithium along the shores of Superb Lake. The discovery outcrop was reported to have a minimum outcrop exposed length of 16 m, while its exposed width varies from 2.50m to a maximum of 3.70m. In 2020, four samples collected from a spodumene rich part of the dyke returned 1.77 % to 4.03% Li2O.

Qualified Person

Afzaal Pirzada, P.Geo., 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.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Michael R. Mulberry

CEO & Director

About the Company

The Company is a lithium exploration company based in Vancouver, BC. and holds options over the Superb Lake lithium property located in Thunder Bay, Ontario; Lamotte, Darlin, Rapide, Pontax, and the CYR South lithium properties in Quebec; and Yurichson Uranium property in the Athabasca basin Saskatchewan. The Company is a party to a joint venture agreement that engages the Company in the development and commercialization of a new process to extract lithium from spodumene concentrate.

For more information, investors should review the Companys filings that are available at www.sedar.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, plans, programs, forecasts, projections, objectives, assumptions, expectations or beliefs of future performance, including statements regarding the Programs composition and the timing thereof are "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company based on information currently available to it. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those detailed from time to time in filings made by the Company with securities regulatory authorities, which may cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws.

Contact Information

[email protected]604-602-0001

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d43c4ff6-faa2-4fc9-ad75-9b8aba344263

Picture1 Picture1

Source: Medaro Mining Corp.
New York, NY, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The New York Film Academy (NYFA) is conducting a series of in-person events in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia during the week of October 23rd, 2023.

The hands-on film, media, and performing arts school will conduct information sessions, workshops, auditions, and portfolio reviews for prospective students and applicants. These events are excellent for those interested in pursuing a career in film, acting, and other related fields by gaining an inside look into the world of cinematic arts and educational offerings at NYFA. The events will be led by NYFAs Admissions Director at the Miami campus and Latin American Regional Director, Gil Enrique Matos.

In addition to information sessions, auditions, and portfolio reviews, the school will conduct a filmmaking professional workshop (no cost associated) in both cities. The workshop, entitled "Crafting Cinema: A Film Director's Primer," will be instructed by NYFAs Dean of the Los Angeles campus and professional director/producer, Dan Mackler. This workshop offers a concise yet comprehensive session that places you in the heart of the filmmaking process. Whether you're a budding filmmaker or a dedicated film enthusiast, this workshop provides a front-row seat to the art of film direction, offering valuable insights.

The workshop will be held in Bogota, Colombia on Tuesday, October 24th, 6:30 p.m. CDT and in Medellin on Friday, October 27th, 6:30 p.m. CDT. In addition to these engaging workshops, NYFA is offering auditions and portfolio reviews for prospective students. The information session, auditions, portfolio reviews, and workshops are reservation only, so for those looking to reserve a spot, please RSVP at NYFA Colombia Events.

NYFA is committed to nurturing emerging talent in filmmaking and the arts. This event is a unique opportunity to learn from industry professionals, discover educational pathways, and explore the cinematic world.

For more information about the NYFA and upcoming events, please visit www.nyfa.edu/events and RSVP at NYFA Colombia Events.

About NYFA

New York Film Academy (NYFA) is a leading film, media, and performing arts college that offers intensive undergraduate and graduate degree programs, certificates, and workshops across a multitude of areas of study in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Gold Coast (Australia), Florence (Italy), Beijing (China), and more. NYFA also offers online programs to provide unparalleled "Hands-Online" education experiences that allow aspiring storytellers across the world to access valuable industry knowledge from anywhere.

For more information, visit nyfa.edu.

Laura Bailey-Wickins New York Film Academy [email protected]

Source: New York Film Academy
ACHESON, Alberta, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- North American Construction Group Ltd. (NACG or the Company) (TSX:NOA.TO/NYSE:NOA) announced today that it will release its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2023 on Wednesday, November 1, 2023 after markets close. Following the release of its financial results, NACG will hold a conference call and webcast on Thursday, November 2, 2023, at 7:00 a.m. Mountain Time (9:00 a.m. Eastern Time).



The call can be accessed by dialing:

Toll free: 1-888-886-7786

Conference ID: 81053277

A replay will be available through December 1, 2023, by dialing:

Toll Free: 1-877-674-7070

Conference ID: 81053277

Playback Passcode: 053277

A slide deck for the webcast will be available for download the evening prior to the call and will be found on the companys website at www.nacg.ca/presentations/

The live presentation and webcast can be accessed at:

https://viavid.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1640181&tp_key=810f9fb3e6

A replay will be available until December 1, 2023, using the link provided.

About the Company

North American Construction Group Ltd. is a premier provider of heavy civil construction and mining services in Canada, the U.S. and Australia. For 70 years, NACG has provided services to the mining, resource and infrastructure construction markets.

About MacKellar Group

Established in 1966 based on humble family values MacKellar has earned an enviable reputation in the industry for performance and reliability. MacKellar specializes in heavy earthmoving equipment solutions and has a proud history of working on both mining and civil earthwork projects around Australia.

For further information, please contact:

Jason Veenstra, CPA, CA

Chief Financial Officer

North American Construction Group Ltd.

Phone: (780) 960-7171

Email: [email protected]
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Osino Resources Corp. (TSXV: OSI) (NSX:OSN) (FSE: RSR1) (OTCQX: OSIIF) ("Osino or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has closed its previously announced offering (the Offering) through the issuance of 2,770,745 common shares of the Company (the Common Shares) priced at CAD$1.00 per Common Share for gross proceeds of CAD$2,770,745.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering for exploration and development of the Twin Hills Gold Project in Namibia, and for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Cirrus Capital (Pty) Ltd. (Cirrus Capital) acts as Namibian financial advisor to the Company and was engaged to act in connection with the Offering. The capital raise by Cirrus Capital was conducted in Namibia, increasing Namibian ownership in the Company, to comply with the mining permit conditions. Cirrus Capital was paid a work fee of $20,282 USD in connection with the Offering.

In connection with the Offering, the Company filed a prospectus supplement (the Prospectus Supplement) dated October 16, 2023 to the Companys short form base shelf prospectus (the Shelf Prospectus) dated May 9, 2023 with the securities commission in British Columbia and entered into an agency agreement dated October 16, 2023 with Echelon Wealth Partners Inc. (Echelon), pursuant to which Echelon received a corporate finance fee of $100,000 USD.

The Shelf Prospectus and Prospectus Supplement are available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

About Osino Resources

Osino is a Canadian gold exploration and development company focused on the fast-tracked development of our wholly owned, Twin Hills Gold Project in central Namibia. Since its grassroots discovery by Osino in August 2019 the Company has completed more than 225,000m of drilling and has completed a suite of specialist technical studies culminating in the recently published Twin Hills Definitive Feasibility Study ("DFS") dated effective June 12, 2023. The DFS describes a technically simple and economically robust open-pit gold operation with a 13-year mine life and average annual gold production of over 169,000oz per annum.

Osino has a commanding ground position of over 8,000km2 located within Namibia's prospective Damara sedimentary mineral belt, mostly in proximity to and along strike of the producing Navachab and Otjikoto Gold Mines. The Company is actively exploring a range of gold prospects and targets along the belt by utilizing a portfolio approach geared towards discovery, targeting gold mineralization that fits the broad orogenic gold model.

Our core projects are favourably located north and north-west of Namibia's capital city Windhoek. By virtue of their location, the projects benefit significantly from Namibia's well-established infrastructure with paved highways, railway, power and water in close proximity. Namibia is mining-friendly and lauded as one of the continent's most politically and socially stable jurisdictions. Osino continues to evaluate new ground with a view to expanding our Namibian portfolio.

Further details are available on the Company's website at https://osinoresources.com/ and under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

Qualified Persons Statement

David Underwood, BSc. (Hons) is Vice President Exploration of Osino Resources Corp. and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this news release and is a registered Professional Natural Scientist with the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions (Pr. Sci. Nat. No.400323/11) and a Qualified Person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

On Behalf of The Board of DirectorsHeye Daun, President & CEO

CONTACT INFORMATIONOsino Resources Corp.Yaron Conforti, Corporate Development[email protected]+1-604-687-2038

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 press release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking InformationThis press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the Offering, including the use of proceeds from the Offering, the Company's future plans or prospects of the Company, including prospects for economic recoverability of mineral resources. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to business, market and economic risks, uncertainties and contingencies that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Other factors which could materially affect such forward-looking information are described in the risk factors in the Company's most recent prospectus supplement dated October 16, 2023, which is available on the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The Company does not undertake to update any forward- looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

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 press release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the Offering, including the timing, potential completion and use of proceeds from the Offering, the Company's future plans or prospects of the Company, including prospects for economic recoverability of mineral resources. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to business, market and economic risks, uncertainties and contingencies that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements, including without limitation, the ability of the Company to satisfy the conditions to closing, including obtaining the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange on a timely basis and that the Offering may not be completed on the terms and timeline indicated. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Other factors which could materially affect such forward-looking information are described in the risk factors in the Company's most recent annual management's discussion and analysis which is available on the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The Company does not undertake to update any forward- looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

Source: Osino Resources Corp.
Pictured above: New PATTISON Outdoor digital display options at the Dundas TTC Station in Toronto, ON.

TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dundas has gone digital!

Fifteen new digital wall displays plus 12 new network LCD video screens showcase PATTISON Outdoors and the TTCs dedication to a digital advertising future in Torontos subway system.

Dundas is one of the most popular subway stations for advertisers in the TTC. Connecting to the Eaton Centre, Dundas Square, Yonge Street downtown and Toronto Metropolitan University, Dundas Station appeals to brands that want to connect with a young, diverse audience and fashion shoppers.

The centrepiece of these new displays are two stunning 6 x 20 1.5mm pixel pitch LED Canvas walls centrally located along the north and southbound platforms. Twelve 75-inch Digital Vertical units are strategically located along the platforms and in the pedestrian underpass, while a single 6 x 10 1.5mm pixel Digital Video wall is perfectly placed in the pedestrian underpass directly visible through glass doors to the Eaton Centre. Weekly impressions will be between 400,000  500,000 conservatively to start, increasing through the busy Fall period.

These standout screens will display mesmerizing full motion video and have PATTISONs patented smartAD technology that offers contextual messaging capabilities to audiences awaiting their next train. In addition, PATTISON is excited to augment the viewing experience through 3D capabilities where the creative possibilities are endless. Advertising can also be purchased programmatically to give advertisers more flexibility in their campaign planning.

Dundas Station advertising takeovers allows brands to purchase all the static poster and vinyl advertising placements available; today, these campaigns will be enhanced with 30 seconds of blocked time on the digital wall displays to own and engage with the audience.

Dundas joins Union Station where brands can exercise their creativity with full motion video combined with custom large-format vinyl executions.

PATTISON is committed to providing premium products in premium spaces like the TTC, said Steve McGregor, President of PATTISON Outdoor. This new offering of digital products will give advertisers new opportunities to use their imagination to connect with commuters.

PATTISONs move to these new dynamic displays will expand advertising opportunities on the TTC, said TTC CEO Rick Leary. Making our stations more visually appealing and brighter is one of the ways we are modernizing the TTC.

The rollout of digital displays will continue throughout the subway system over the next two years. Next stop, later this fall: Queen Station.

About PATTISON Outdoor Advertising:

PATTISON Outdoor Advertising, a division of The Jim Pattison Group, is Canadas largest Out-of-Home advertising company. PATTISON Outdoor helps brands and businesses harness the power of Out-of-Home advertising by providing the most comprehensive range of products, markets, insights and customer support services. With its roots reaching back to 1908, PATTISON has been providing innovative solutions for Out-of-Home advertising opportunities with products ranging from traditional billboards and posters to transit, digital, airports, residential, office, and street furniture. PATTISON is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario and includes over 25 sales offices across the country providing advertisers unmatched reach and coverage with products available in nearly 200 markets coast to coast. PATTISON Outdoor Advertising is the exclusive supplier for advertising on the Toronto Transit Commissions (TTC) transit system.

www.pattisonoutdoor.comwww.linkedin.com/pattisonoutdoorwww.facebook.com/PattisonOutdoorAdvertisingwww.instagram.com/pattisonoutdoorwww.twitter.com/pattisonoutdoorwww.youtube.com/PattisonOOHwww.vimeo.com/pattisonoutdoor

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9461ecae-49e0-4be8-84a9-791fa2f4ac62

For more information, please contact: Steve Mcgregor President PATTISON Outdoor Advertising Email: [email protected] Phone: 905-282-6804

PATTISON OUTDOOR Revamps Dundas Station with New Digital Displays New PATTISON Outdoor digital display options at the Dundas TTC Station in Toronto, ON.

Source: PATTISON Outdoor Advertising LP
October 19, 2023

Sustainability roadmap addresses opportunities to reduce carbon emissions in patient throughput, technology use, and use of consumables

Amsterdam, the Netherlands  Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced the completion of a comprehensive hospital-wide analysis of Tampere Heart Hospital  Tampere University Hospitals (Finland) environmental sustainability, including a deep assessment of the interventional cardiology space and evaluation of its carbon footprint. The results of the analysis have been translated into a joint action plan that will help Heart Hospital accelerate its decarbonization efforts in line with Finlands world-leading commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2035.

Sustainability is an integral part of Tampere Heart Hospital strategy. We are aware that hospitals generate a significant amount of waste daily and consume a lot of energy. We want to contribute to the development of environmental responsibility in healthcare, said Pasi Lehto CEO and Chief Medical Officer at Heart Hospital.

We want to ascertain where we are now and how we can further accelerate our transition towards net zero, said Aki Haukilahti, CFO at Tampere Heart Hospital. Our long-standing relationship with Philips and their industry leadership in driving sustainable healthcare made them a natural partner to help audit our emissions and develop a roadmap for the future.

Part of an existing 15-year strategic managed services agreement between Heart Hospital and Philips, the analysis involved a detailed lifecycle assessment of the hospitals medical equipment, supply chain, and clinical operations. The analysis provided a baseline carbon footprint for Tampere Heart Hospitals interventional cardiology service and facilitated the identification of opportunities to enhance patient throughput and equipment utilization to reduce future emissions. Top findings included optimization of the hospitals patient care pathways to improve efficiency and materials use, and opportunities for reducing inbound airfreight, reducing waste and improving waste separation.

At Philips, we are committed to driving systemic change towards more sustainable and equitable patient care. Through our healthcare technology and expertise, we can help healthcare providers to support their patients with as little impact on the environment as possible, said Robert Metzke, Global Head of Sustainability at Philips. This valuable and informative analysis with Tampere Heart Hospital, a pioneering and leading global cardiac care provider, will help achieve our shared goal of taking care of patients and the planet at the same time.

In addition to a detailed analysis of carbon emissions associated with the hospitals medical equipment and supply chain, Philips analysis of the hospitals current emissions also encompasses clinical operations in key patient care pathways.

This sustainability program with Tampere Heart Hospital follows similar analyses conducted by Philips earlier in 2023 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, USA) and the private biomedical research and clinical care provider Champalimaud Foundation (Lisbon, Portugal), aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of their diagnostic imaging.

Globally, healthcare systems have a significant climate footprint and make a major contribution to the climate crisis [1]. Building on decades of experience reducing energy consumption, waste, and materials and substance usage, Philips has operated globally carbon-neutral since 2020, embedding EcoDesign principles and circular business models into its innovation processes and ways of working . The company offers a range of health technologies and innovations that help reduce healthcare providers impact on the environment. For example, its Philips Spectral CT 7500 uses 62.5% less energy [2], and the Philips MR  Ingenia Ambition 1.5T , which uses a breakthrough design where the magnetic components are completely sealed and only need seven liters of helium over its lifetime compared to roughly 1,500 liters with other Philips systems [3]. Additionally, with Philips MR SmartSpeed , the Ingenia Ambition 1.5T uses up to 53% less power per patient scan [3].

Read more here on how Philips is partnering with hospitals around the world to drive sustainable healthcare.

[1] https://noharm-global.org/sites/default/files/documents-files/5961/HealthCaresClimateFootprint_092319.pdf

[2] When compared to an equivalent CT model of one of the industry leaders

[3] Applicable to Ambition S. Philips SmartSpeed power consumption versus Philips SENSE based scanning. Based on COCIR and in-house simulated environment. Results can vary based on site conditions.

For further information, please contact:

Joost Maltha

Philips Global Press Office

Tel: +31 6 10 55 8116

Email: [email protected]

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and well-being through meaningful innovation. Philips patient- and people-centric innovation leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver personal health solutions for consumers and professional health solutions for healthcare providers and their patients in the hospital and the home. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, ultrasound, image-guided therapy, monitoring and enterprise informatics, as well as in personal health. Philips generated 2022 sales of EUR 17.8 billion and employs approximately 71,500 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter .

Attachment
Autumn rain will continue until early Friday morning, which will bring the mercury down below zero, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration.

An unstable atmospheric trough has brought thunderstorms to most regions starting with northern Gyeonggi Province in the early morning Thursday. The rain will move gradually from central to southern parts.

It will let up temporarily in the evening on Thursday in the capital region, only to return at night as another trough passes through Korea and continue until Friday morning.

Up to 30 mm of rain is expected for the capital region, Gangwon and Jeolla provinces, up to 40 mm in the Chungcheong and Gyeongsang provinces, and up to 20  on Jeju Island.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Tuesday, Oct. 24, Administrator Isabel Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the voice in President Bidens cabinet for Americas 33 million small businesses, will join cosponsors Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) and American Express (AMEX) in bringing ChallengeHER  a government contracting education initiative to help women-owned small businesses gain access to federal contracts and encourage participation in the SBAs Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contracting program  to Silver Spring, Md.

In July, the SBA announced the Biden-Harris Administration exceeded its small business federal contracting goal for FY22, awarding 26.5% of federal contract dollars to small businesses  a historic level amounting to $162.9 billion. Alongside a pledge to encourage more investment in WOSBs, the agency also noted that WOSBs received more than $26 billion in federal contracts for the fourth straight year.

The ChallengeHER events provide networking and matchmaking opportunities between women-owned businesses and government contractors. The events also provide world-class programming and training, facilitated by subject matter experts, on entering and navigating the public sector supply chain. These sessions are offered in person and online in a virtual environment. ChallengeHER is free for all registrants.

MEDIA RSVP: Specific location information will be provided upon successful RSVP HERE.

Tuesday, October 24  Silver Spring, Md.

ChallengeHER Silver Spring

WHO: SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. EDT; Administrator Guzman speaking at 12 p.m.

WHERE: Location details sent upon RSVP to this link.

###

About the U.S. Small Business Administration The U.S. Small Business Administration makes the American dream of business ownership a reality. As the only go-to resource and voice for small businesses backed by the strength of the federal government, the SBA empowers entrepreneurs and small business owners with the resources and support they need to start, grow or expand their businesses or recover from a declared disaster. It delivers services through an extensive network of SBA field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations. To learn more, visit sba.gov.

Disclaimer: Cosponsorship Authorization # 23-13-C.

SBAs participation in this cosponsored activity is not an endorsement of the views, opinions, products or services of any cosponsor or other person or entity. All SBA programs and services are extended to the public on a nondiscriminatory basis.

Tiffani Clements U.S. Small Business Administration [email protected]

Source: U.S. Small Business Administration
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Special Operations Association of America (SOAA)s Executive Director, David Cook, has sent a letter to Secretaries Blinken and Austin applauding the improvements to coordination and assistance the US government between them and NGOs operating in Israel.

After the lessons learned from the Afghanistan withdrawal and the ongoing needs in Ukraine, I applaud both Departments two-way communication and coordination with the NGOs on the ground, writes David Cook. I want to also acknowledge and applaud the public-private-partnerships that have led to securing the safety of American citizens and allies. We must leverage a whole-of-society approach to secure the safety of Americans abroad and eradicate terrorist threats faced by our closest allies around the world. We stand ready and vigilant to assist, as always.

Read the full letter to Secretaries Blinken and Austin here.

About Special Operations Association of America: We advocate for all past, present, and future members of the Special Operations community and their families. Fighting for those who fight for us to ensure the mission success and lethality of those that bear the greater burden. SOAA is a 501c19 Veterans Non-Profit organization, registered with the IRS.

Media Contact:Steve Patterson[email protected]301.602.3704

Source: Special Operations Association of America
SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Viralgen Vector Core (Viralgen) is pleased to welcome back their previous Executive Vice President of Commercial Development and Manufacturing, Andy Holt, into the newly created position of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). In this role, Holt will lead Viralgen's commercial strategy towards achieving market-leading growth and customer centric solutions in gene therapy manufacturing.

Holt brings more than 15 years of experience in cell and gene therapy into his new role. His most recent position was CCO of Ncardia and Cellistic, affiliated companies leveraging deep experience in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to accelerate drug discovery and allogeneic cell therapy development. Prior to his first role with Viralgen, Holt held business development and management positions at MilliporeSigma (Merck KGaA) and Lonza.

"Viralgen has always worked hard to place the customer at the center of its business," said Jimmy Vanhove, CEO of Viralgen, "and having Andy return to the team to lead an evolving commercial organization, which includes Business Development, Marketing, and Project Management, is an exciting next step for us as we continue to fulfill our mission of producing revolutionary medicines on behalf of the customers and patients we serve."

"It's a privilege to return to Viralgen at an exciting time in our growth", says Holt. "We believe our team and capabilities lead the industry in meeting the manufacturing needs of gene therapy developers for uncompromising quality, agility, and cost effectiveness. Continuing to innovate, both in business and science, will enable us to remain a partner of choice, and this is an incredible opportunity that I am looking forward to supporting."

About Viralgen Vector Core

Viralgen is a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) founded in 2017 and exists as an independently operated subsidiary of AskBio, which is wholly owned and independently operated as a subsidiary of Bayer AG. As a leading manufacturer of cGMP certified AAV, Viralgen offers the Pro10 based suspension manufacturing platform, a technology licensed from AskBio and developed by Chief Technical Officer Josh Grieger, PhD, and co-founder R. Jude Samulski, PhD, at University of North Carolina. It has been demonstrated that Pro10 increases scalability, performance, and yield of AAV therapies1 at Viralgen and previous partners of AskBio. Located in Spain, in the Gipuzkoa Science and Technology Park, Viralgen produces AAV gene therapy treatments for pharmaceutical and biotech companies with the aim of accelerating the delivery of new treatments that can improve patients' lives

The company's clinical facilities have four cGMP manufacturing suites, with 250-liter and 500-liter bioreactors. In 2020, Viralgen expanded within the Scientific Park by constructing a new building for large-scale commercial manufacturing. The new state-of-the-art space includes three additional cGMP suites with a manufacturing capacity of >2,000 liters each, as well as a suite dedicated to fully automated fill and finish operations. The new facility has received the cGMP certification by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS) as part of the EMA network. For more information, visit viralgenvc.com.

References:

1 Mol Ther. 2016 Feb;24(2):287-297. doi: 10.1038/mt.2015.187. Epub 2015 Oct 6.

For more information and interviews, please contact:

Priscilla Assumpcao

[email protected]
London, United Kingdom--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - BeNFT, a leading web3 e-learning platform, has rebranded as BeAI. The rebrand is part of a shift toward AI solutions within the e-learning and customer service industry. BeAI is launching two flagship products as part of the rebrand, LearnAI and ChatAI, highlighting BeAI's strength as an AI solutions provider.





BeNFT has rebranded as BeAI, bringing with it new AI solutions and tools.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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The rebrand comes as the importance of AI and machine learning in the education and customer service sector becomes more apparent.

Bridging the team's expertise from the BeNFT project to BeAI has been a smooth transition. The team's aptitude in web3, tech, AI, and management has been directly applied to building BeAI's e-learning platform and conversational AI customer service assistant.

BeAI's LearnAI Platform

The LearnAI platform is an AI-powered e-learning platform being deployed at a time when the potential of this technology to improve how we study and upskill in the virtual classroom is unraveling.

The platform uses an AI-enhanced course creator tool to personalize courses to the needs of learner profiles to a degree of accuracy that isn't possible without BeAI's machine-learning tools. Educational content creators are invited to leverage LearnAI to improve their current courses and create learning experiences that offer an unprecedented level of personalization and effectiveness.

BeAI's venture into e-learning has resulted in the team creating a platform that offers a personal learning experience designed to adapt to the rapidly changing needs of the modern labor market.

"The BeNFT rebrand to BeAI gives me and the team the opportunity to take full advantage of our AI and machine learning capabilities. We expect to continue building our AI portfolio following the full launch of LearnAI and ChatAI as we strive to play a leading role in the AI revolution," said Guillermo Gharib, CEO and Founder of BeAI.

BeAI's ChatAI Solution

ChatAI is a conversational AI customer service platform that can be integrated into any website by companies operating in even the most niche markets. The conversational AI uses BeAI's machine learning features to create a customer service experience far beyond the standard question/answer systems we've grown accustomed to with generic chatbot assistants.

ChatAI uses natural language processing (NLP) to break down and understand a user's query. The result is a natural conversation operated by an AI that doesn't just pick up keywords and respond with predetermined answers.

Delving deeper into ChatAI reveals a complex AI system capable of understanding a company and its customer base. The machine learning systems analyze data about a website and its customers. It then generates reports that provide insights into market patterns that can be used to improve a company's products and services.

BeAI is leading the way in the AI-based customer service revolution with ChatAI. While doing the standard tasks we've come to expect from chatbots, it will offer human-like interactions through NLP, accurately answer even nuanced questions, and provide companies with insights through data analysis.

BeAI and the Future

BeAI is staking its claim in the AI revolution. LearnAI and ChatAI are just the beginning of BeAI's plans as part of the rebrand to fully utilize the team's AI and machine learning capabilities to roll out new AI solutions and services.

Employers looking to revolutionize their employee learning journey with the use of AI, can contact BeAI via the website.

Learners can gain more insights on BeAI by joining the community on Telegram, X, and Discord.

Media Contact:

Liam Quinlan-Stamp

[email protected]

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184552
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Casa Minerals Inc. (TSXV: CASA) (OTC Pink: CASXF) (FSE: 0CM) (the "Company" or "Casa") is pleased to announce that it has received a Special Land Use Permit for its Congress Gold Mine project located near the town of Congress in the Martinez Mining District of Yavapai County, Arizona. Casa is the owner of a 90% interest in the Congress Gold Mine property.

The Company's subsidiary Casa Gold (USA) LLC received the Special Land Use Permit for Split Estate Mining Exploration from the Arizona State Land Department. The permit is valid for 5 years.

Casa Minerals Inc.'s president & CEO stated: "We are very excited to have the permit in our hand to continue exploration and drilling at the Congress Gold Mine project including the Shiraz Lode claims which opens additional opportunities for our shareholders. This is an area of great exploration potential that was outlined by Malartic Hygrade Gold Mines, one of the last operators."

The permit is subject the regular provisions, such as conformity to law, indemnity, insurance, environmental matters etc.

About the Congress Mine

The Congress mine is a shear zone hosted gold-silver deposit: low sulphide gold quartz veins occupy complex structural zones in coarse-grained gneissic granodiorite and pegmatite of Precambrian age. Gold values occur in association with fine-grained pyrite and, frequently, other sulphide minerals.

Most historic production was from the Congress and Niagara veins that are exposed on surface over more than 1060 m (3,500 ft) and 365 m (1200 ft). Both veins trend northwesterly and dip moderately to the north and were variously mined to several hundred metres from surface. Several other gold-bearing veins are referred to in archival documents but have not been investigated.

About Casa Minerals Inc.

The Company is engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties located in Canada and the USA. Casa owns ninety percent (90%) interest in the Congress gold mine (Arizona, USA). This historic high-grade gold producing mine has not been explored nor been in production since 1992. Additionally, the Company owns a one hundred percent (100%) interest in the polymetallic Pitman and Keaper properties (BC, Canada) and has an option to acquire a seventy-five percent (75%) interest in the Arsenault VMS Property (BC, Canada).

On Behalf of Board of Directors

Farshad Shirvani, M.Sc. Geology

President and CEO

For more information, please contact:

Casa Minerals Inc.

Farshad Shirvani, President & CEO

Phone: (604) 678-9587

Email: [email protected]

https://www.casaminerals.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.

Certain of the statements made and information contained herein may constitute "forward-looking information." In particular references to the private placement and future work programs or expectations on the quality or results of such work programs are subject to risks associated with operations on the property, exploration activity generally, equipment limitations and availability, as well as other risks that we may not be currently aware of. Accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184549
Zurich, Switzerland--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Freename and CleanDNS forge a strategic alliance to combat Web3 name abuses, offering enhanced support for registries and registrars in response to the growing Web3 adoption.

Enhancing Web3 DNS for a Safer Internet. Freename and CleanDNS comprise teams of cybersecurity and domain name specialists who have identified the urgent necessity for a structured and adaptable system to combat name abuse in the Web3 era. As malicious actors in the Web3 landscape constantly refine their abusive strategies, it has become imperative for decentralized domain registries and registrars to efficiently detect, monitor, and report such abuses.

CleanDNS and Freename present the Whitepaper on Web3 Domain Names Abuses at the ICANN78 Annual General Meeting. In anticipation of the ICANN78 Annual General Meeting to be held in Hamburg, Germany, CleanDNS and Freename introduce a newly published White Paper titled 'Addressing, Evidencing, and Mitigation of Harms in Web3.0.' It delves into the intricate realm of Web3.0, offering insights and solutions for addressing, evidencing, and mitigating the evolving challenges faced by the Web3 sector. The document's three sections provide a well-rounded understanding of how to tackle these threats effectively, highlighting the need for collaborative efforts in ensuring a secure and resilient Web3.0 landscape.

Revolutionizing Web3 Security: CleanDNS and Freename's Collaborative Data Partnership. Freename collaborates with CleanDNS by providing multi-chain data insights within the Web3 landscape. This partnership enables CleanDNS to access comprehensive and diverse information from various blockchain networks, enhancing their ability to detect and mitigate domain name abuses effectively. By leveraging Freename's expertise in navigating the intricacies of the Web3 ecosystem across multiple chains, CleanDNS can better address the evolving challenges posed by malicious actors within this decentralized domain space, ultimately contributing to a safer and more secure Web3 environment.

Davide Vicini, CEO of Freename: "The collaboration with CleanDNS underscores our dedication to empowering Web3 domain stakeholders with valuable insights and tools to navigate this dynamic landscape. Together, we aim to set new standards in addressing and mitigating emerging threats within the Web3 ecosystem."

Jeffrey Bedser, CEO of CleanDNS: "At CleanDNS, we are committed to providing innovative solutions that reduce potential harms in the Web3 space. Our partnership with Freename represents a pivotal step in fighting name abuses and fostering a safer online environment."

About Freename:

Freename is the leading Web3 TLDs and Domains platform where users can register and mint their own Web3 TLDs and Domains. Everyone can also get Royalties and become a Registrar. Furthermore, on Freename, users can trademark their Web3 TLDs and Domains to protect their own Web3 Identity worldwide.

About CleanDNS:

CleanDNS's affordable online harm mitigation solution simplifies abuse management, ensures contractual compliance, removes bad actors, and roots out online harms for good. By facilitating early detection of harms, CleanDNS assists with detecting sources of abuse to disrupt, shut down, and prevent further spread.

CleanDNS was developed by a team of cybersecurity and investigative professionals who recognized the critical need for a systemized, customizable process to mitigate and manage online harms and DNS abuse. With an affordable, actionable approach to rooting out online harms and streamlining abuse management, CleanDNS is on a mission to clean up the Internet for good.

Zrich, Switzerland

Mattia Martone

[email protected]

Jeffrey Bedser

[email protected]

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184436
North Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Lion One Metals Limited (TSXV: LIO) (OTCQX: LOMLF) (ASX: LLO) ("Lion One" or the "Company") is pleased to report significant new high-grade gold results from ongoing infill and grade control drilling at its 100% owned Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project in Fiji.

Assay results are presented here for infill and grade control drilling completed in the Zone 2 area of Tuvatu, focusing primarily on the Murau lode system. Mining of the Murau lode system has commenced and grade control drilling is being conducted in advance of further mining in this area. Infill drilling is being conducted to target the up-dip and down-dip extensions of the Murau lodes. The results reported here represent material that is scheduled to be mined in Q4 2023 and throughout 2024.

Lion One Chairman and CEO Walter Berukoff commented: "After celebrating our first gold pour at Tuvatu on October 10th, we now turn our focus back to grade control and infill drilling. These drill programs continue to yield positive results and to strengthen our understanding of the mineralization at Tuvatu. We are pleased to present yet another batch of high-grade results from the Zone 2 area of Tuvatu, an area which will serve to feed our brand-new mill in the mid-to-near term future."

Highlights of Zone 2 drilling (3.0 g/t cutoff):

84.96 g/t Au over 1.2 m (TGC-0092, from 4.5 m depth)

(TGC-0092, from 4.5 m depth) 20.69 g/t Au over 4.2 m (including 40.22 g/t Au over 0.9 m) (TUDDH-677, from 76.5 m depth)

(including 40.22 g/t Au over 0.9 m) (TUDDH-677, from 76.5 m depth) 13.60 g/t Au over 5.1 m (including 98.87 g/t Au over 0.3 m) TUDDH-663, from 89.1 m depth)

(including 98.87 g/t Au over 0.3 m) TUDDH-663, from 89.1 m depth) 13.22 g/t Au over 5.1 m (including 50.54 g/t Au over 0.3 m) (TGC-0085, from 56.5 m depth)

(including 50.54 g/t Au over 0.3 m) (TGC-0085, from 56.5 m depth) 15.64 g/t Au over 3.9 m (including 23.48 g/t Au over 1.2 m) (TUDDH-680, from 140.9 m depth)

(including 23.48 g/t Au over 1.2 m) (TUDDH-680, from 140.9 m depth) 38.26 g/t Au over 1.5 m (including 41.99 g/t Au over 0.6 m) (TUDDH-663, from 177.3 m depth)

(including 41.99 g/t Au over 0.6 m) (TUDDH-663, from 177.3 m depth) 34.77 g/t Au over 0.9 m (including 35.67 g/t Au over 0.3 m) (TUDDH-680, from 146.6 m depth)

(including 35.67 g/t Au over 0.3 m) (TUDDH-680, from 146.6 m depth) 31.25 g/t Au over 1.2 m (TUDDH-680, from 148.7 m depth)

(TUDDH-680, from 148.7 m depth) 15.12 g/t Au over 2.1 m (including 22.42 g/t Au over 1.2 m) (TUDDH-678, from 135.3 m depth)

(including 22.42 g/t Au over 1.2 m) (TUDDH-678, from 135.3 m depth) 13.61 g/t Au over 2.1 m (including 42.48 g/t Au over 0.6 m) (TUDDH-666, from 184.6 m depth)

(including 42.48 g/t Au over 0.6 m) (TUDDH-666, from 184.6 m depth) 11.19 g/t Au over 2.4 m (including 30.75 g/t Au over 0.6 m) (TGC-0090, from 45.3 m depth)

(including 30.75 g/t Au over 0.6 m) (TGC-0090, from 45.3 m depth) 9.26 g/t Au over 2.7 m (including 13.11 g/t Au over 0.9 m) (TGC-0089, from 48.8 m depth)

(including 13.11 g/t Au over 0.9 m) (TGC-0089, from 48.8 m depth) 82.33 g/t Au over 0.3 m (TGC-0092, from 28.2 m depth)





Figure 1. Location of Zone 2 Grade Control and Infill Drillholes.Plan view of Tuvatu showing the Zone 2 grade control and infill drillholes included in this news release in relation to the mineralized lodes at Tuvatu. Drillholes are shown in black, mineralized lodes in grey, and underground developments in red.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2178/184530_7a7b2314041049c6_001full.jpg

Table 1. Highlights of composited grade control and infill drill results in the Zone 2 area. Composites are calculated using a 3 g/t Au cutoff with maximum internal dilution intervals of 1 m at

Hole ID From To Interval (m) Au (g/t) TGC-0092 4.5 5.7 1.2 84.96 TUDDH-677 76.5 80.7 4.2 20.69 including 78.3 80.7 2.4 32.81 which includes 78.3 79.2 0.9 40.22 and 79.2 79.8 0.6 13.08 and 79.8 80.7 0.9 38.56 TUDDH-663 89.1 94.2 5.1 13.6 including 89.1 90.6 1.5 35.51 which includes 89.1 89.4 0.3 13.99 and 89.4 89.7 0.3 40.56 and 89.7 90 0.3 12.09 and 90 90.3 0.3 12.03 and 90.3 90.6 0.3 98.87 and also including 93.6 94.2 0.6 15.25 TGC-0085 56.5 61.6 5.1 13.22 including 57.1 57.7 0.6 35.68 and 58.6 59.5 0.9 20.89 and 60.1 60.4 0.3 50.54 TUDDH-680 140.9 144.8 3.9 15.64 including 140.9 142.1 1.2 21.38 and 143.6 144.8 1.2 23.48 TUDDH-663 177.3 178.8 1.5 38.26 including 177.3 178.2 0.9 35.78 and 178.2 178.8 0.6 41.99 TUDDH-680 146.6 147.5 0.9 34.77 including 146.6 147.2 0.6 34.33 and 147.2 147.5 0.3 35.67 TUDDH-680 148.7 149.9 1.2 31.25 TUDDH-678 135.3 137.4 2.1 15.12 including 136.2 137.4 1.2 24.63 TUDDH-666 184.6 186.7 2.1 13.61 including 186.1 186.7 0.6 42.48 TGC-0090 45.3 47.7 2.4 11.19 including 47.1 47.7 0.6 30.75 which includes 47.1 47.4 0.3 25.52 and 47.4 47.7 0.3 35.89 TGC-0089 48.8 51.5 2.7 9.26 including 48.8 49.7 0.9 13.11 and 50.6 51.5 0.9 10.21 TGC-0092 28.2 28.5 0.3 82.33 TUDDH-663 169.2 171.6 2.4 7.96 including 170.1 171.3 1.2 11.92 which includes 170.7 171.3 0.6 15.55 TGC-0095 60.3 60.6 0.3 62.38

Murau Lodes

The Murau lodes are located within the Zone 2 area of Tuvatu, along the upper portion of the western decline in the northwest part of the deposit. The Zone 2 area encompasses a number of distinct lode systems, including the URW1, URA1, and Murau lode systems. The Zone 2 area was the first to commence mining at Tuvatu and mining is ongoing in all three of these lode systems.

The current round of infill and grade control drilling in the Zone 2 area is focused on the Murau lode system, which is modelled as a series of stacked relatively flat lying lodes that strike approximately east-west and dip moderately to the south. The portion of the Murau lode system that is currently targeted for mining consists of a vertical extent of 55 m, an east-west strike length of 110 m, and a down-dip extension of 100 m.





Figure 2. Murau Lode System.Oblique section of the Murau lode system in relation to the infill and grade control drillholes reported here. View is to the ESE and slightly down dip along the Murau lodes. The stacked nature of the Murau lodes is visible in the image. Grade control drilling is focused on near-term mining whereas infill drilling is focused on the up-dip and down-dip extensions of the lodes.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2178/184530_7a7b2314041049c6_002full.jpg

A total of 10 infill and 11 grade control drillholes are included in this release. The infill drill program was conducted from surface and was designed to target the up-dip and down-dip extension of the Murau lodes on approximately 20 m centers. The goal of the program is to provide an increased understanding of the system's mineralization and geometry in these areas. The grade control drill program was conducted from underground on 5-10 m centers and was designed to provide much higher resolution of the Murau lode system in advance of mine development and extraction. The location of high-grade intercepts is shown in Figure 3 while examples of Murau lode mineralization are shown in Figure 4. The Zone 2 infill and grade control drill programs are ongoing. Previous drill results from the Zone 2 area can be seen in the news releases dated September 14, 2023, June 14, 2023, and April 25, 2023.





Figure 3. Location of High-Grade Intercepts from Zone 2 Infill and Grade Control Drilling, 3.0 g/t Au cutoff.Oblique section view of the Murau lode system highlighting the high-grade intercepts from the Zone 2 infill and grade control drill program in the Murau system. View is to the ESE and slightly down dip along the Murau lodes. Downhole composite intervals with grades between 3 and 10 g/t Au are shown in orange, intervals with grades between 10 and 30 g/t Au are shown in red, and intervals over 30 g/t Au are shown in purple. Select high-grade intervals are identified. Grades shown are gold grades in g/t.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2178/184530_7a7b2314041049c6_003full.jpg





Figure 4. Example Mineralization from Zone 2 Infill and Grade Control Drilling. Top left: Monzonite-hosted quartz vein with coarse grained pyrite and honey-sphalerite (TUDDH-678, 136.3 m). Top right: Vuggy chalcedony-pyrite veinlet with well-developed alteration selvage (TUDDH-667, 156.3 m). Bottom left: Vuggy quartz vein with coarse-grained pyrite and honey sphalerite within a 5.1 m zone of 13.22 g/t Au (TGC-0085, 60.2 m). Bottom right: Monzonite-hosted quartz-pyrite-sphalerite vein (TUDDH-661, 131.7 m). Core diameter is 4.76 cm in each photo.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2178/184530_7a7b2314041049c6_004full.jpg

About Tuvatu

The Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project is located on the island of Viti Levu in Fiji. The January 2018 mineral resource for Tuvatu as disclosed in the technical report "Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Tuvatu Gold Project, Republic of Fiji", dated September 25, 2020, and prepared by Mining Associates Pty Ltd of Brisbane Qld, comprises 1,007,000 tonnes indicated at 8.50 g/t Au (274,600 oz. Au) and 1,325,000 tonnes inferred at 9.0 g/t Au (384,000 oz. Au) at a cut-off grade of 3.0 g/t Au. The technical report is available on the Lion One website at www.liononemetals.com and on the SEDAR website at www.sedarplus.ca.

Qualified Person

In accordance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43- 101"), Sergio Cattalani, P.Geo, Senior Vice President Exploration, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has reviewed and is responsible for the technical and scientific content of this news release.

QAQC Procedures

Lion One adheres to rigorous QAQC procedures above and beyond basic regulatory guidelines in conducting its sampling, drilling, testing, and analyses. The Company utilizes its own fleet of diamond drill rigs, using PQ, HQ and NQ sized drill core rods. Drill core is logged and split by Lion One personnel on site. Samples are delivered to and analyzed at the Company's geochemical and metallurgical laboratory in Fiji. Duplicates of all samples with grades above 0.5 g/t Au are both re-assayed at Lion One's lab and delivered to ALS Global Laboratories in Australia (ALS) for check assay determinations. All samples for all high-grade intercepts are sent to ALS for check assays. All samples are pulverized to 85% passing through 75 microns. Gold analysis is carried out using fire assay with an AA finish. Samples that have returned grades greater than 10.00 g/t Au are then re-analyzed by gravimetric method. For samples that return greater than 0.50 g/t Au, repeat fire assay runs are carried out and repeated until a result is obtained that is within 10% of the original fire assay run. Lion One's laboratory can also assay for a range of 71 other elements through Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES), but currently focuses on a suite of 9 important pathfinder elements. All duplicate anomalous samples are sent to ALS labs in Townsville QLD and are analyzed by the same methods (Au-AA26, and Au-GRA22 where applicable). ALS also analyses 33 pathfinder elements by HF-HNO3-HClO4 acid digestion, HCl leach and ICP-AES (method ME-ICP61).

About Lion One Metals Limited

Lion One's flagship asset is 100% owned, fully permitted high grade Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project, located on the island of Viti Levu in Fiji. Lion One envisions a low-cost high-grade underground gold mining operation at Tuvatu coupled with exciting exploration upside inside its tenements covering the entire Navilawa Caldera, an underexplored yet highly prospective 7km diameter alkaline gold system. Lion One's CEO Walter Berukoff leads an experienced team of explorers and mine builders and has owned or operated over 20 mines in 7 countries. As the founder and former CEO of Miramar Mines, Northern Orion, and La Mancha Resources, Walter is credited with building over $3 billion of value for shareholders.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of

Lion One Metals Limited

"Walter Berukoff", Chairman and CEO

Contact Investor Relations

Toll Free (North America) Tel: 1-855-805-1250

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.liononemetals.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release

This press release may contain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward-looking information. Generally, forward-looking information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "proposed", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or by the use of words or phrases which state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, or might occur or be achieved. This forward-looking information reflects Lion One Metals Limited's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to Lion One Metals Limited and on assumptions Lion One Metals Limited believes are reasonable. These assumptions include, but are not limited to, the actual results of exploration projects being equivalent to or better than estimated results in technical reports, assessment reports, and other geological reports or prior exploration results. Forward-Looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Lion One Metals Limited or its subsidiaries to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors may include, but are not limited to: the stage development of Lion One Metals Limited, general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; the actual results of current research and development or operational activities; competition; uncertainty as to patent applications and intellectual property rights; product liability and lack of insurance; delay or failure to receive board or regulatory approvals; changes in legislation, including environmental legislation, affecting mining, timing and availability of external financing on acceptable terms; not realizing on the potential benefits of technology; conclusions of economic evaluations; and lack of qualified, skilled labour or loss of key individuals. Although Lion One Metals Limited 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. Lion One Metals Limited does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Appendix 1: Full Drill Results and Collar Information

Table 2. Composited results from grade control and infill drillholes in the Zone 2 area (grade >3.0 g/t Au)

Hole ID From To Interval (m) Au (g/t) TGC-0085 45.7 46.6 0.9 3.3 TGC-0085 47.5 48.7 1.2 4.69 TGC-0085 50.5 51.7 1.2 4.7 TGC-0085 54.4 54.7 0.3 15.23 TGC-0085 56.5 61.6 5.1 13.22 including 57.1 57.7 0.6 35.68 and 58.6 59.5 0.9 20.89 and 60.1 60.4 0.3 50.54 TGC-0087 23.4 24 0.6 10.82 including 23.7 24 0.3 14.44 TGC-0087 39.6 40.8 1.2 3.12 TGC-0087 49.8 50.1 0.3 3.72 TGC-0089 38.7 39.6 0.9 3.49 TGC-0089 41.6 41.9 0.3 12.45 TGC-0089 44.6 45.5 0.9 6.26 TGC-0089 48.8 51.5 2.7 9.26 including 48.8 49.7 0.9 13.11 and 50.6 51.5 0.9 10.21 TGC-0090 0 0.9 0.9 3.86 TGC-0090 34.8 35.4 0.6 6.74 TGC-0090 45.3 47.7 2.4 11.19 including 47.1 47.7 0.6 30.75 which includes 47.1 47.4 0.3 25.52 and 47.4 47.7 0.3 35.89 TGC-0091 27 27.3 0.3 7.94 TGC-0091 33.6 34.2 0.6 5.59 TGC-0091 44.1 44.4 0.3 14.89 TGC-0092 4.5 5.7 1.2 84.96 TGC-0092 28.2 28.5 0.3 82.33 TGC-0092 39 39.6 0.6 11.7 including 39.3 39.6 0.3 15.64 TGC-0092 42.6 43.5 0.9 5.18 TGC-0094 12.2 13.1 0.9 5.11 TGC-0094 49.1 50.3 1.2 15.29 TGC-0095 39 40.2 1.2 13.7 including 39.3 39.6 0.3 20.22 and 39.9 40.2 0.3 30.52 TGC-0095 42.6 43.5 0.9 15.49 TGC-0095 54.9 55.2 0.3 6.72 TGC-0095 60.3 60.6 0.3 62.38 TGC-0100 8.4 9.3 0.9 3.64 TGC-0100 48.6 48.9 0.3 35.93 TGC-0100 60.9 61.2 0.3 9.85 TGC-0100 68.4 68.7 0.3 15.02 TGC-0100 72.9 73.5 0.6 5.3 TUDDH-661 118.9 120.1 1.2 3.03 TUDDH-661 131.5 132.1 0.6 7.09 including 131.5 131.8 0.3 10.38 TUDDH-663 50.7 51.3 0.6 4.01 TUDDH-663 89.1 94.2 5.1 13.6 including 89.1 90.6 1.5 35.51 which includes 89.1 89.4 0.3 13.99 and 89.4 89.7 0.3 40.56 and 89.7 90 0.3 12.09 and 90 90.3 0.3 12.03 and 90.3 90.6 0.3 98.87 and also including 93.6 94.2 0.6 15.25 TUDDH-663 101.1 102 0.9 10.98 TUDDH-663 154.5 154.8 0.3 16.89 TUDDH-663 159.9 160.2 0.3 3.43 TUDDH-663 162 162.3 0.3 8.37 TUDDH-663 164.7 165 0.3 15.64 TUDDH-663 169.2 171.6 2.4 7.96 including 170.1 171.3 1.2 11.92 which includes 170.7 171.3 0.6 15.55 TUDDH-663 173.1 175.5 2.4 3.87 TUDDH-663 177.3 178.8 1.5 38.26 including 177.3 178.2 0.9 35.78 and 178.2 178.8 0.6 41.99 TUDDH-664 73.7 74.3 0.6 3.07 TUDDH-664 76.7 77.3 0.6 20.79 TUDDH-664 121.8 122.7 0.9 18.99 TUDDH-664 124.5 126 1.5 8.17 including 125.4 126 0.6 11.44 TUDDH-666 101.8 102.1 0.3 3.55 TUDDH-666 167.5 170.2 2.7 6.65 including 169.3 170.2 0.9 13.33 which includes 169.3 169.6 0.3 27.99 TUDDH-666 184.6 186.7 2.1 13.61 including 186.1 186.7 0.6 42.48 TUDDH-666 193.3 193.9 0.6 4.73 TUDDH-667 153.1 154.9 1.8 9.99 including 153.7 154.9 1.2 11.87 which includes 153.7 154 0.3 29.47 TUDDH-667 156.1 156.4 0.3 15.89 TUDDH-670 69.4 70 0.6 25.68 TUDDH-670 74.5 75.4 0.9 4.37 TUDDH-673 87.2 87.8 0.6 20.26 TUDDH-673 150.8 151.7 0.9 15.73 TUDDH-673 157.7 158.6 0.9 3.4 TUDDH-673 162.2 162.8 0.6 12.27 TUDDH-677 69.6 70.5 0.9 4.41 TUDDH-677 76.5 80.7 4.2 20.69 including 78.3 80.7 2.4 32.81 which includes 78.3 79.2 0.9 40.22 and 79.2 79.8 0.6 13.08 and 79.8 80.7 0.9 38.56 TUDDH-677 82.2 82.8 0.6 4.35 TUDDH-678 67.4 67.7 0.3 4.14 TUDDH-678 83.4 84 0.6 19.71 including 83.7 84 0.3 35.99 TUDDH-678 135.3 137.4 2.1 15.12 including 136.2 137.4 1.2 24.63 TUDDH-678 144.6 144.9 0.3 3.13 TUDDH-680 135.5 136.7 1.2 3.6 TUDDH-680 138.8 139.7 0.9 5.91 TUDDH-680 140.9 144.8 3.9 15.64 including 140.9 142.1 1.2 21.38 and 143.6 144.8 1.2 23.48 TUDDH-680 146.6 147.5 0.9 34.77 including 146.6 147.2 0.6 34.33 and 147.2 147.5 0.3 35.67 TUDDH-680 148.7 149.9 1.2 31.25

Table 3. Collar coordinates for grade control drillholes reported in this release. Coordinates are in Fiji map grid.

Hole ID Easting Northing Elevation Azimuth Dip Depth TGC-0085 1876267 3920759 151 77.3 -62.0 81.7 TGC-0087 1876264 3920768 152 353.3 -52.3 65.6 TGC-0089 1876264 3920768 152 356.2 -67.4 65.5 TGC-0090 1876264 3920768 153 357.2 -38.6 65.7 TGC-0091 1876264 3920768 152 8.1 -46.1 71.7 TGC-0092 1876265 3920768 152 17.4 -37.1 71.6 TGC-0094 1876266 3920767 151 48.0 -79.6 60.8 TGC-0095 1876266 3920768 152 42.1 -27.6 77.1 TGC-0097 1876267 3920768 153 42.1 -8.2 80.6 TGC-0099 1876267 3920768 153 48.1 -12.4 80.2 TGC-0100 1876267 3920768 153 46.6 -19.2 76.4

Table 4. Collar coordinates for infill drillholes reported in this release. Coordinates are in Fiji map grid.

Hole ID Easting Northing Elevation Azimuth Dip Depth TUDDH-661 1876179 3920731 199 63.1 -51.2 173.7 TUDDH-663 1876178 3920730 199 61.1 -73.4 197.3 TUDDH-664 1876177 3920731 199 52.4 -59.3 185.7 TUDDH-666 1876177 3920729 199 74.1 -77.1 201.3 TUDDH-667 1876177 3920728 199 83.2 -57.8 185.9 TUDDH-670 1876259 3920803 203 54.3 -55.3 98.6 TUDDH-673 1876177 3920728 199 88.3 -64.3 194.7 TUDDH-677 1876259 3920803 203 60.3 -63.6 101.9 TUDDH-678 1876225 3920709 218 30.5 -61.0 151.4 TUDDH-680 1876225 3920709 218 34.1 -64.1 165.0

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184530
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Permex Petroleum Corporation (CSE: OIL) (OTCQB: OILCF) (FSE: 75P0) ("Permex" or the "Company") announces that the Company will be consolidating all of its issued and outstanding common shares (the "Shares") on the basis of one (1) post-consolidated Share for every four (4) pre-consolidated Shares held (the "Consolidation").

The Company's board of directors approved the Consolidation on September 13, 2023, and set October 23, 2023 as the effective date of the Consolidation. Trading of the Shares on a post-Consolidation basis on the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE"), Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the OTCQB is expected to commence on or about October 24, 2023, subject to final approval by the CSE and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The new CUSIP number for the post-Consolidation Shares will be 71422P303 and the new ISIN number will be CA71422P3034. The Company's name and stock symbols will remain unchanged following the Consolidation.

No fractional Shares will be issued as a result of the Consolidation. Any fractional Shares will be rounded either up or down to the nearest whole number of Shares. Specifically, each fractional Share remaining as a result of the Consolidation that is less than half of a Share will be cancelled and each fractional Share that is at least half of a Share will be changed to one whole Share. The exercise price and number of Shares issuable pursuant to the exercise of any outstanding securities convertible or exercisable into common shares, including options and warrants, will also be adjusted in accordance with the Consolidation ratio.

As of the date hereof, the Company has 2,206,014 Shares issued and outstanding. The Consolidation will reduce the number of outstanding Shares to approximately 551,504 Shares issued and outstanding.

The registered shareholders of the Company (the "Shareholders") will receive a letter of transmittal (each a "Letter of Transmittal") with respect to the Consolidation, with information on how to surrender share certificates or DRS statement(s) representing pre-consolidated Shares to the Company's transfer agent, TSX Trust Company ("TSX"). All Shareholders who submit a duly completed Letter of Transmittal along with their respective Share certificate(s) representing the pre-consolidated Shares to the Company's transfer agent, TSX, will receive a certificate or DRS statement(s) representing the post-consolidated Shares.

The Consolidation is intended to make the Shares more attractive to new and current investors.

About Permex Petroleum Corporation

Permex Petroleum is a uniquely positioned junior oil and gas company with assets and operations across the Permian Basin of West Texas and the Delaware Sub-Basin of New Mexico. The Company focuses on combining its low-cost development of Held by Production assets for sustainable growth with its current and future Blue-Sky projects for scale growth. The Company, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Permex Petroleum US Corporation, is a licensed operator in both states, and owns and operates on private, state and federal land. For more information, please visit www.permexpetroleum.com.

Contact Information

Permex Petroleum Corporation

Mehran Ehsan

President, Chief Executive Officer & Director

(214) 459-2782

Gregory Montgomery

Chief Financial Officer

(214) 459-2782

Or for investor relations, please contact:

Renmark Financial Communications Inc.

Steve Hosein: [email protected]

Tel.: (416) 644-2020 or (212)-812-7680

www.renmarkfinancial.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements : This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the effective date of the Consolidation, the number of Shares outstanding following the Consolidation, the treatment of fractional shares in the Consolidation, the effect of the Consolidation on the market for the Shares and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include those relating to the ability to complete the Consolidation on the effective date, the number of post-Consolidation Shares is different from the number set out herein and the treatment of fractional shares in the Consolidation is different from what is set out herein and other risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Canadian securities regulators.

You are cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. You are 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 these cautionary statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company disclaims any obligation to publicly update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date of this news release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by applicable law.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184561
Vilnius, Lithuania--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2023) - Walletto UAB is excited to announce that the Company is the official sponsor for the Payment Market Conference 2023.

Renatas Makelis, the Chief Compliance Officer at Walletto



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/9721/184540_4bd3fdc034195943_001full.jpg

On October 25th and 26th of 2023, Riga, Latvia will host the annual "Payment Market Conference" for the fifth year, organised by Vedicard Ltd. The event provides a valuable platform for stakeholders in the financial sector to engage with both local and international experts on the evolving landscape of payment methods and other financial services.

This year's conference will delve into a wide range of pertinent topics, including annual updates within the banking industry and fintech, innovations in cloud solutions, the dynamics of cryptocurrencies and digital currencies, advancements in anti-money laundering (AML) and fraud prevention, acquiring solutions, and ongoing developments in global payment systems.

On October 26, Renatas Makelis, the Chief Compliance Officer at Walletto, will draw upon his wealth of experience to discuss the topic of 'Challenges in AI-Powered Compliance.' "AI has become a widespread tool that is being developed at an exponential rate. Professionals in different fields have adopted tools such as ChatGPT for their daily use as a tool to support their skills, expand their capabilities, and optimize their performance," says Renatas Makelis. He will discuss the compliance hurdles encountered in AI projects, particularly in relation to GDPR, and offer insights into various recommended approaches.

It promises to be an informative and engaging gathering for all those involved in the financial industry.

About Walletto:

Walletto UAB is an established Lithuanian company that obtained an Electronic money institution license No. 33 by the Bank of Lithuania to provide payment financial services, card issuing and e-commerce to clients in Europe. Walletto is a direct participant of STEP2 SEPA Credit Transfer scheme with the Bank of Lithuania system CENTROlink and direct participant in SWIFT. Walletto is a Principal Member of Visa and Mastercard as Issuer and Acquirer. Cards issued by Walletto support Google Pay and Apple Pay.

About Payment Market Conference:

25 - 26 October 2023

Radisson Blu Latvija Conferences & Spa Hotel Elizabetes 55, Riga, Latvia

Event is organized by Vedicard in cooperation with EPCA.

250 participants, 20 speakers from schemes, banks, fintechs, regulatory, processors.

Contact Details:

Name: Walletto UAB

Julija Pudenko

Address: }algirio str. 92-805, Vilnius, Lithuania, LT-09303

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +370 67798574

Website: www.walletto.eu

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/184540
Paid press release content from The Financial Capital. The StreetInsider.com news staff was not involved in its creation.



Assertive Yield, the leading revenue management platform for publishers, has just released its AY Industry Insights Report for Q3'23.

The release of our latest report not only showcases our dedication to providing unparalleled benchmarking but also delivers expert industry analysis of the highest caliber. Nils Lind, the Founder & CEO of Assertive Yield, at the forefront of revenue optimization solutions, harnessing the power of AI and machine learning to empower publishers with next-gen ad revenue optimization solutions.

In the "2023 Programmatic Market Outlook - Q3 Analysis" video, also included in the Report, Nils Lind shared his insightful perspective on the emerging trends for Q4. He noted that, although Q3 fell below the five-year averages, there is a slight encouraging trend of narrowing gaps between months. Nonetheless, the outlook for Q4 remains somewhat underwhelming, particularly due to the resurgence of offline spending. Lind's expertise and insights continue to be invaluable in guiding the industry forward.

Key Highlights from the Q3'23 Industry Insights Report:

Quarter-to-Quarter Historical Data: The report presents quarter-to-quarter historical data, showing a 9% drop in the AY's Global Ad Revenue Index in 2022, compared to a 6.35% drop this year. While the decline started from a lower position, this data illustrates a changing landscape.



The report presents quarter-to-quarter historical data, showing a 9% drop in the AY's Global Ad Revenue Index in 2022, compared to a 6.35% drop this year. While the decline started from a lower position, this data illustrates a changing landscape. Trends in SSPs (Sell-Side-Platforms) and DSPs (Demand-Side Platforms): The report provides a comprehensive examination of trends in the SSPs and DSPs landscape. Notably, it highlights the rise of specialized SSPs that excel in performance and outlines emerging players.

The report provides a comprehensive examination of trends in the SSPs and DSPs landscape. Notably, it highlights the rise of specialized SSPs that excel in performance and outlines emerging players. Operational System Growth: iOS CPMs, while still lower than Android's, are steadily catching up in preparation for the impending "cookie apocalypse". Android devices, primarily using Chrome as their browser, experienced a significant 3.98% increase in CPM rates (Q3). Meanwhile, iOS devices saw approximately 5.31% in CPM rates during the same period.

iOS CPMs, while still lower than Android's, are steadily catching up in preparation for the impending "cookie apocalypse". Android devices, primarily using Chrome as their browser, experienced a significant 3.98% increase in CPM rates (Q3). Meanwhile, iOS devices saw approximately 5.31% in CPM rates during the same period. Made For Advertisement: MFA websites comprise about 15% of all ad impressions annually, leading to approximately $13 billion in media waste each year, prompting agencies and ad tech vendors to seek solutions and partnerships to combat this problem.

MFA websites comprise about 15% of all ad impressions annually, leading to approximately $13 billion in media waste each year, prompting agencies and ad tech vendors to seek solutions and partnerships to combat this problem. SSPs and Reselling : its the year of strong demand coming from SSPs outside of the known tier 1 SSPs. They explore what changes can be expected from this significant rise of SSPs - who are mainly reselling through their platforms.

: its the year of strong demand coming from SSPs outside of the known tier 1 SSPs. They explore what changes can be expected from this significant rise of SSPs - who are mainly reselling through their platforms. AI Solutions in Programmatic Landscape: The report underlines the maturation of the programmatic industry, with publishers embracing AI-based solutions for optimization. The shift towards AI header bidding solutions reflects publishers' commitment to securing a larger share of advertising revenues while providing advertisers with improved ROI in programmatic deals.

The report underlines the maturation of the programmatic industry, with publishers embracing AI-based solutions for optimization. The shift towards AI header bidding solutions reflects publishers' commitment to securing a larger share of advertising revenues while providing advertisers with improved ROI in programmatic deals. AMP's Decline: Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology is experiencing a rapid decline, with publishers focusing on generating more monetizable sessions.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology is experiencing a rapid decline, with publishers focusing on generating more monetizable sessions. Traffic Quality, More Efficiency: a significant transformation in the dynamics between SSPs, DSPs, and publishers. DSPs, including major players like DV 360, are now demanding reduced traffic and prequalification to avoid throttling or disconnection, signaling a growing trend toward optimization. How publishers are adapting to this shift can be explored further in the report.

a significant transformation in the dynamics between SSPs, DSPs, and publishers. DSPs, including major players like DV 360, are now demanding reduced traffic and prequalification to avoid throttling or disconnection, signaling a growing trend toward optimization. How publishers are adapting to this shift can be explored further in the report. The Cookie Apocalypse and Sustainability: The report delves into the impending transition away from cookies and the efforts towards a greener ad tech ecosystem. It discusses the challenges and uncertainties surrounding the shift in data sources and the impact of privacy regulations on CPMs.

Assertive Yield is a leading revenue management platform for publishers with access to a massive dataset comprising over 200 billion monthly impressions from publishers, SSPs, and over 250 bidders, all inclusive of more than 150 trillion data points. The report offers valuable insights and data-driven trends, serving as a resource for informed decision-making in the dynamic ad tech industry.

The company delivers cutting-edge solutions for publishers encompassing a diverse range of features, including a header bidding wrapper, dynamic flooring, bid optimization for yield management, robust reporting analytics, as well as optimization and traffic shaping capabilities.

Acting as an agnostic player in the digital advertising ecosystem, Nils shared his insights, stating, Our industry is evolving rapidly, with shifts in data privacy, sustainability, and AI optimization. We're excited to provide data-driven insights and solutions to help our partners to grow throughout this transforming landscape".

This report offers a wealth of information and insights for publishers operating in the programmatic advertising space. For a more in-depth analysis and access to the full report, please visit Assertive Yield's official website.

About the AY Programmatic Industry Insights Report

Assertive Yield operates as an agnostic player in the programmatic ecosystem, collecting anonymized data from publishers utilizing the platform. Through a simple implementation of a first-party script on web pages, they process an impressive volume of 200 billion impressions monthly from SSPs and Publishers, unlocking granular insights into the programmatic advertising landscape. Its cutting-edge technology collects, normalizes, and cleans data from all revenue streams, providing a comprehensive view of the market. While this report offers a representation of trends observed within their network of SSPs, publishers and regions, it serves as a valuable resource for industry professionals seeking data beyond individual publisher experiences.

About Assertive Yield

Assertive Yield,. For more information visit: https://www.assertiveyield.com/

Assertive Yield, a leading revenue management platform for publishers, has published its latest Industry Insights Report for the third quarter of 2023. With access to a massive dataset comprising over 200 billion monthly impressions from publishers, SSPs, and over 250 bidders, all inclusive of more than 150 trillion data points, this report offers analysis of the ever-changing programmatic landscape. It delivers valuable insights and data-driven trends, serving as a resource for informed decision-making in the dynamic ad tech industry.



Contact Info:

Name: Katia Moura

Email: Send Email

Organization: Assertive Yield

Website: https://www.assertiveyield.com/



Release ID: 89110343

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International condemnation is growing of the Chinese government's forcible repatriation of North Korean defectors.

In a joint statement in Geneva on Tuesday, 18 UN human rights experts, including the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Elizabeth Salmon, called for the halt of forcible repatriation.

"We are alarmed by reports we have received that China has forcibly repatriated hundreds of escapees from [North Korea], the vast majority of whom are women," they said.

They were forcibly repatriated "despite appeals repeatedly made by multiple international human rights bodies to refrain from doing so," the statement adds. It expresses fears that the Chinese government could forcibly repatriate hundreds more who reportedly remain in detention in China.

The UN experts called on North Korea to "comply with its international legal obligations in respect to all citizens returning to the country, including the absolute prohibition on torture and enforced disappearance, the prohibition of arbitrary detention, and fair trial guarantees."
Adelaide, Australia & North Carolina, USA, Oct 19, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - - Avance Clinical, the Australian and North American market-leading CRO for biotechs, was asked to present their GlobalReady drug development solution to more than 45 Korean biotechs and pharmaceutical companies in Seoul, Korea last week as part of a special symposium at KoNECT Korea Conference.

Avance Clinical's Korean CRO partner Dt & SanoMedics initiated the Global Clinical Trial Strategy Symposium and invited Avance Clinical to co-host.

The Avance Clinical team, including CEO Yvonne Lungershausen, and Vice President, Commercial Business Development, Liahna Toy discussed drug development options including conducting clinical trials across South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States to support fast tracking clinical trial development programs.

Yvonne Lungershausen said Avance Clinical offers two critical solutions for biotechs.

"Avance Clinical in Australia can maximise the 43.5% rebate on clinical trial spend, and in the United States can provide high quality trials following the FDA pathway. Both approaches were received as attractive propositions for biotechs wanting to maximise their data captured and conserve funding," she said.

"Our Avance Clinical teams in Australia and the United States offer world-class quality data and cultural alignment for Korean biotech clients designed to make their drug development programs seamless and successful."

"Avance Clinical's study data is accepted by all the main regulatory authorities including the MFDS and FDA; and conversely the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia recognises data generated in Korea."

Yvonne Lungershausen thanked Korean CRO partner Dt & SanoMedics for arranging the Global Clinical Trial Strategy Symposium.

"This was an impressive group of biopharma companies and we are extremely excited to be part of their clinical program as they expand to the United States."

"Thank you to Chairman of the Dt&C group, Charles Park and Yujin Lee, Vice-President of Dt & SanoMedics, and the entire team for welcoming and hosting Avance Clinical in South Korea."

Dt & SanoMedics VP Yujin Lee said the partnership with Avance Clinical has been further strengthened with the team providing valuable international drug development strategies for the Korean biotech community.

"We are pleased to introduce the Avance Clinical team because we know they stand for quality. Importantly, they have the experience and track-record especially in the United States which is where most biotechs will be conducting their later phase trials."

"We believe this has been an important visit which has enabled us to enhance our partnership and actively help Korean companies enter the US and Australian pharmaceutical markets," she said.

About Avance Clinical

Avance Clinical is a full-service CRO for biotechs with a proven track-record for delivering clinical excellence in Australia, New Zealand, and North America. As the largest premium full-service CRO in Australia and North America, Avance Clinical specializes in delivering top-tier clinical trials that yield globally accepted data.

Award-winning CRO for Biotechs

Avance Clinical has been recognised for the fourth consecutive year by Frost & Sullivan in 2023, being awarded the Best Practices Customer Value Leadership for Biotech's award, for its continuous exceptional performance.

Pre-clinical through to Phase I and Beyond

Avance Clinical offers pre-clinical consultancy services with their experienced ClinicReady team right through to Phase I and beyond clinical services leveraging significant Government incentive rebates of up to 43.5% and rapid start-up regulatory processes that are available in Australia and highly qualified sites and networks within the United States. With experience across more than 110 therapeutic indications, Avance Clinical can deliver world-class, high-quality, internationally accepted data suitable for FDA and EMA review.

Technology

Avance Clinical uses state-of-the-art technology and gold-standard systems across all functional areas to provide clients with the most effective processes. Medidata, Oracle, Zelta, Veeva and Medrio are just some of Avance Clinical's technology partners.

www.avancecro.com

Media Contact:

Avance Clinical

Kate Thompson

[email protected]

Copyright 2023 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds and contest-winner, Leon Valley Elementary School, unveil their collaborative community project.

BURLINGTON, ON , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds is dedicated to creating healthier, more equitable communities with its innovative natural playgrounds and parks. With decades of research and projects to prove the power of nature to transform communities, they launched a contest encouraging schools and childcare centers to apply to win an 'OutClass' outdoor classroom.

The winner of this contest, Leon Valley Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas , will proudly unveil their new outdoor classroom on October 26, 2023 .

A leader in the development of outdoor learning environments, Bienenstock Natural Playground's mandate is to improve the experiences of kids in playgrounds and to design and install equitable, low-barrier, and accessible playscapes. This contest was an extension of their demonstrated commitment to their mandate.

Collaborating with the school principal, and other key partners in the Leon Valley School community, the outdoor classroom promises to enhance the learning and development of children for years to come.

Leon Valley won the contest in a random draw consisting of other equity-deserving organizations. When the school's STEM teacher learned of the contest, she applied immediately. With 75% of families in the community identified as low-income and large class sizes, the resources for improving the quality of their school environment were limited. Moreover, the school community is 85% Hispanic, representing a traditionally underserved population.

"Winning this contest is a much-needed boost for our school community," says Jessica Ruiz , Principal of Leon Valley Elementary School. "Partnering with Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds to create something that truly addresses our community's needs has energized and inspired all of us. We're excited to see the improved learning outcomes and health benefits for our students and their families."

Working closely with the school administration, the STEM Lab teacher and Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds chose an area with an existing tree canopy for the outdoor 'classroom'. The space is designed to face away from the school building, helping children to fully immerse themselves in the sensory-rich space. Students, staff, and members of the Bienenstock team will plant trees at the October 26 th event, adding to the existing canopy.

"For me, this outdoor classroom project is a labor of love, offering an incredible opportunity for our community and its kids who might not have had this chance otherwise," says Jenna Hudon , STEM Lab teacher, Leon Valley Elementary School. "My goal is to ensure that every child has abundant access to it."

Carefully crafted and incorporating authentic materials found in nature, the sensory-rich design will provide children an opportunity to transform the way they learn and play.

"We are excited to create authentic, natural gathering and learning spaces within this deserving community," says John El-Rehab , CEO, Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds. "This project will serve as a space for Leon Valley students to learn, play, and thrive. By connecting children to nature, we're helping them to tap into their own potential and encouraging them to become part of the solution to reversing climate change."

Bienenstock hopes that the unveiling of the Leon Valley Elementary School project will encourage other schools and childcare centers to apply for the contest which launches again on October 26 th. By empowering communities to be part of the solution for positive, inclusive change, this contest is set to nurture future generations that value and thrive in nature.

About Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds

Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds was founded on the principle that children and communities thrive when they play together in rich, natural, beautiful spaces that reflect their cultural and natural heritage. Now with over 3000 projects in 5 countries and offices in Canada and the US, Bienenstock is recognized as the leader in authentic, sensory-rich, living playspaces for children. BNP has received numerous awards and accolades for their innovative parks and playgrounds, and their deep understanding of child development, universal accessibility, risky play, and environmental sustainability. Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds Inc. now serves communities through several brands; NaturesInstruments.com (components), OutdoorClassrooms.com (OutClass), OutdoorBlackboards.com, and BienenstockPlaygrounds.com .

About Northside Independent School District

Established in 1949 by the consolidation of 12 rural school districts, Northside today is 355 square miles of urban landscape, suburban communities, and rural Texas hill country. As South Texas ' largest school system, Northside is the " Destination District " for thousands of families wanting a high-quality school system.

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SOURCE Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds
BAKU, Azerbaijan and GREENVILLE, S.C. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ACL Airshop, a technology enabled global market leader in air cargo equipment and logistics services, is pleased to be a Gold Sponsor for the Caspian Air Cargo Summit 2023 in Baku, Azerbaijan on October 23-25 . ACL Airshop, with over 190 airlines as clients, has air cargo ULD leasing, servicing, manufacturing, repairs, and specialized ULD logistics services delivered through over 55 of the world's Top 100 cargo hub airports on six continents. ACL Airshop, with 40 years of growth, continues steady advances for growth in all dimensions, dominating short-term ULD leasing solutions while also building a substantial portfolio of long-term ULD fleet management contracts. The company has made first-in-market investments in award-winning new logistics and tracking technologies such as Bluetooth Smart Trackers and FindMyULDtm. Headquartered in South Carolina USA and with its largest international office in Amsterdam NL, the company emphasizes its high-performance culture as a distinct competitive advantage which is very hard to replicate by others.

ACL Airshop is making steady technology investments toward their ultimate goal: The "Uberization" of air cargo ULDs.

Organizers of the symposium describe this 9th Caspian Air Cargo Summit as the largest and most comprehensive aviation event in the region, bringing international air cargo market leaders to Baku . This year's focus will be on the Europe - Asia trade lane, innovation in logistics, e-commerce, cargo aircraft, sustainability in the supply chain, business opportunities in Azerbaijan , and global market outlook. ACL Airshop's CEO will be a Summit speaker, including in his talk "What do we mean when we say 'Uberization?" Plus demonstration of the FindMyULD tm free app during the symposium.

ACL Airshop is steadily expanding as a leading edge innovative service partner for airlines, winning accolades for its complete "Digital Suite" with customer-facing technologies aimed at the "Uberization" of ULDs in global air cargo. The Company's trademarked FindMyULD tm app is designed to enhance every data requirement end-to-end in air cargo transactions, across the worldwide ecosystem of the air cargo industry. From location and status accuracy to barcoding, "ULD Control" logistics, and Bluetooth scanning and tracking, FindMyULD tm aggregates all of ACL Airshop's ULD management services in one seamless tool. The app is free, in the palm of your hand.

Steve Townes , CEO of ACL Airshop and Maurice van Terheijden , Managing Director EMEA for ACL Airshop, said: "We will be at the Caspian Summit to meet with many of our airlines clients. We will further explain our technological advances with our sophisticated Digital Suite. We are proud to be returning as a Caspian Cargo Summit sponsor (again), and honored to present our worldwide capabilities to clients and industry partners at this important conference. "

More information: www.aclairshop.com, and http://www.caspianaircargosummit.com/

See ACL Airshop's Digital Suite Introduction Video: https://vimeo.com/857095192

Forward Looking Statements: The Company from time to time may discuss forward-looking information. Except for factual historical information, all forward looking statements are estimates by the Company's management and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that are beyond the Company's control and may cause actual results to differ materially from management's expectations.

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SOURCE ACL Airshop
Purpose-built to drive innovation and collaboration, Alexandria's world-class campus is anchored by Nurix Therapeutics, a leader in targeted protein modulation that is leveraging its powerful platform to treat cancer and other challenging diseases

PASADENA, Calif. and HOUSTON , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), the first, preeminent, longest-tenured and pioneering owner, operator and developer of collaborative life science, agtech and advanced technology mega campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, today celebrates the grand opening of the Alexandria Center for Advanced Technologies at The Woodlands , a one-of-a-kind, amenity-rich multi-tenant campus at 8800 Technology Forest Place in the heart of the Greater Houston life science cluster. The campus is home to the first purpose-built, cost-effective Class A laboratory infrastructure in The Woodlands in Greater Houston , and the grand opening event marks a historic milestone in the company's development of a first-of-its-kind commercial life science ecosystem within this emerging innovation hub. Alexandria's proven cluster model, informed by Harvard Business Professor Michael E. Porter's cluster theory, consists of the four critical drivers needed to create a thriving life science cluster: location, innovation, talent and capital. Leveraging its nearly three-decade track record of life science ecosystem building and cluster development, the company is bringing its best-in-class commercial Labspace real estate together with trailblazing scientific innovation, a growing STEM talent pool and strategic risk capital in The Woodlands , a world-class location that benefits from a tax-free jurisdiction, low crime rates and a cost-of-living advantage relative to major cities. Alexandria is convening industry leaders and innovators this afternoon at the new Alexandria Center for Advanced Technologies at The Woodlands to commemorate the occasion.

Intentionally designed to ignite collaboration and advance human health, the inspiring campus features move-in-ready laboratory space and adjacent nontechnical space, as well as vital laboratory support services. The campus's first building is a 123,392 RSF LEED Gold Core & Shell and Fitwel-certified redevelopment project anchored by San Francisco -based Nurix Therapeutics, a longtime Alexandria tenant. Nurix is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leading the field of protein modulation to treat cancer and other challenging diseases, and its expansion to Texas enables the company to enhance its discovery and development efforts on a broad pipeline of proprietary and partnered programs in oncology and autoimmune/inflammatory diseases. Alexandria has activated and enhanced the Alexandria Center for Advanced Technologies campus with an unparalleled suite of amenities, which include modern conference and event space, an expansive courtyard and event lawn, a wellness and fitness center and on-site pickleball courts. The new campus is conveniently located in proximity to leading academic medical centers and the George Bush Intercontinental Airport . The site can accommodate development to expand the campus.

"We have had an outstanding strategic relationship with Alexandria since 2014 and approached them to support our expansion to Texas ," said Arthur T. Sands , MD, PhD, president and chief executive officer of Nurix. " The Woodlands offers us a business-friendly, entrepreneurial environment that is critical to our growth. Alexandria's thoughtfully designed new campus provides us with state-of-the-art laboratory space and dynamic amenities that are key to helping us attract and retain top talent as we work to change the future of medicine through an exciting new modality of treating disease: targeted protein modulation."

"We are honored to expand our strategic relationship with Nurix and welcome them as the anchor tenant at our world-class advanced technology campus in The Woodlands . This purpose-built campus will be unmatched in the region in providing move-in-ready and cost-effective laboratories to drive forward novel therapeutic innovation in a safe work-play-live environment," said Joel S. Marcus , executive chairman and founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments. "Our efforts in The Woodlands are much like when we entered New York City , where commercial life science was very limited before we opened our flagship Alexandria Center for Life Science  NYC in 2010. We are similarly committed to developing a commercial life science presence in The Woodlands . Steve Jobs once said, 'the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology,' and his prediction has come to fruition. Here in The Woodlands , this important convergence will drive opportunities to accelerate the development of new medicines to benefit patients."

As part of Alexandria's strategic efforts to nurture and drive this nascent life science ecosystem forward, the company is extending the Alexandria Seed Capital Platform to The Woodlands . Led by Alexandria Venture Investments, the national platform brings together leaders from across the life science community to catalyze early-stage investment in cutting-edge life science companies across its clusters. Jenna Foger , senior vice president  co-lead of science and technology at Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments, said, "Our expansion into Greater Houston , and The Woodlands in particular, creates a unique opportunity to help bolster the ecosystem's startup community. Through our leading strategic venture investment and seed capital platforms, we will engage local scientists and entrepreneurs to identify new technologies and companies for seed- and early-stage investment and introduce those that are most promising to our unparalleled network of biopharmaceutical industry experts and venture advisors to accelerate innovation in The Woodlands ."

About Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), an S&P 500 company, is a best-in-class, mission-driven life science REIT making a positive and lasting impact on the world. As the pioneer of the life science real estate niche since our founding in 1994, Alexandria is the preeminent and longest-tenured owner, operator and developer of collaborative life science, agtech and advanced technology mega campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, including Greater Boston , the San Francisco Bay Area , New York City , San Diego , Seattle , Maryland and Research Triangle. Alexandria has a total market capitalization of $30.6 billion and an asset base in North America of 74.9 million SF as of June 30, 2023 , which includes 41.1 million RSF of operating properties and 5.3 million RSF of Class A/A+ properties undergoing construction, 9.4 million RSF of near-term and intermediate-term development and redevelopment projects and 19.1 million SF of future development projects. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A/A+ properties clustered in life science, agtech and advanced technology mega campuses that provide our innovative tenants with highly dynamic and collaborative environments that enhance their ability to successfully recruit and retain world-class talent and inspire productivity, efficiency, creativity and success. Alexandria also provides strategic capital to transformative life science, agrifoodtech, climate innovation and technology companies through our venture capital platform. We believe our unique business model and diligent underwriting ensure a high-quality and diverse tenant base that results in higher occupancy levels, longer lease terms, higher rental income, higher returns and greater long-term asset value. For more information on Alexandria , please visit www.are.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the potential benefits relating to the location of The Woodlands ; the potential impact of The Woodlands on the discovery and development of medicines and treatments, the workforce of Alexandria's tenants and benefits to patients; the likelihood of continued investments and developments by Alexandria in Greater Houston , strategic efforts by Alexandria in the life science sector and Alexandria's relationship with its tenants; and the ability of Alexandria and Alexandria Venture Investments to bring together industry leaders to catalyze investments in the life science sector, identify new technologies and companies and accelerate innovation in The Woodlands . These forward-looking statements are based on Alexandria's present intent, beliefs or expectations, but forward-looking statements are not guaranteed to occur and may not occur. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in or implied by Alexandria's forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including, without limitation, the risks and uncertainties detailed in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and Alexandria assumes no obligation to update this information. For more discussion relating to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in Alexandria's forward-looking statements, and risks and uncertainties to Alexandria's business in general, please refer to Alexandria's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.

CONTACT: Sara Kabakoff , Senior Vice President  Chief Content Officer, (626) 788-5578, [email protected]

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SOURCE Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.
BEIJING , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- This is a report from China Daily:

As the Chinese bank with the longest history and highest level of globalized operations, Bank of China has offered strong support for the development of the Belt and Road Initiative.

BOC is a participant, an implementer and also a beneficiary of the initiative. It has played its role in bridging China and other countries and regions involved in the initiative through sustainably growing its operations in participating countries.

One of BOC's commitments to the initiative is ensuring the circulation of capital through expanding and improving its financial network in countries and regions involved.

In September, BOC's branch bank in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia , became operational, marking the bank's operations now cover 64 countries and regions overseas, including 44 countries and regions involved in BRI. BOC is now the leading Chinese bank in terms of the number of such countries and regions it serves.

BOC is also committed to assisting the facilitation of trade and investment in those countries and region, promoting the cooperation in the use of currencies of China and those countries and regions for settlements.

Among Chinese banks, it was the first to release the cross-border renminbi index and offshore renminbi index. It has promoted settlement in renminbi in 13 countries and regions worldwide, with an annual settlement volume surpassing 700 trillion yuan ( $95.2 trillion ).

Through its financial services, BOC has offered crucial support for the construction of key projects in countries and regions involved in the BRI to benefit local economies and residents.

BOC has granted credit to more than 1,000 projects in those countries and regions, with a combined amount surpassing $290 billion .

The landmark projects that have received BOC's financial support include the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway in Indonesia , the China-Laos Railway, the port of Chancay in Peru and the Bukhara wind power facility in Uzbekistan  which is the largest single-plant wind power generating project in Central Asia .

BOC is also the leading Chinese financial institution in helping businesses in countries and regions involved in BRI raise funds through issuing Panda Bonds, in terms of market share. Panda Bonds are reminbi-denominated debts sold by overseas issuers in China .

Over the past years, BOC has made many "firsts" in this market, including helping Poland to issue Europe's first Panda Bond in China and assisting Hungary in issuing the first sovereign Panda Bond targeting BRI cooperation.

In addition, the bank has organized a total of 113 business matchmaking events to date to facilitate trade, investment and technological cooperation for companies in China and in other countries and regions involved in BRI.

Another focus of BOC to serve the initiative is promoting international production capacity cooperation.

To date, China has established production capacity cooperation mechanisms with more than 40 countries. BOC has offered services including payment settlements, project financing, equity investment and financial leasing for these cooperative mechanisms.

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SOURCE China Daily
As conventional solar technology reaches its fundamental limits, Cosmos gains speed with 10x faster process development of perovskite silicon tandem technology through the company's Mobius AI platform

SINGAPORE , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cosmos Innovation, an AI-first company building next-generation perovskite silicon tandem (PST) solar cell technology, today announced raising $19.7 million in total funding. The funding will support the company's fundamentally different approach to developing perovskite silicon tandem solar cell technology.

The funding coincides with Cosmos Innovation's unveiling of Mobius, the industry's pioneering AI recipe optimization platform. Mobius has been demonstrated across various sectors, including solar, silicon carbide, advanced data center chips and advanced packaging. This platform fuels Cosmos Innovation's ambitious endeavor: construction of the world's first self-learning fab in the solar and semiconductor space.

Cosmos Innovation is reinventing the historically manual, trial-and-error-based development process for semiconductors by using AI to optimize and speed up the experimental design, test and iterate loop. The company is on the forefront of using AI to build disruptively better physical, science-based technologies. Cosmos Innovation plans to build the world's first self-learning fab in this space and expects its approach to yield best-in-class performance for perovskite silicon tandem solar cells.

The Series A round was led by Xora Innovation, an early-stage, deep-tech investment platform of Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore . Other investors joining the round include Innovation Endeavors, which led the seed round; Two Sigma Ventures; DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis; noted MIT professor Tomaso Poggio , a founder of computational neuroscience; Richard Socher , leading natural language processing (NLP) researcher, CEO of You.com and managing partner at AIX Ventures; and Western Technology Investments, one of the leading venture debt funds in Silicon Valley .

The Next Generation of Solar Brought to Market with AI

Perovskite silicon tandem has gained solar industry attention because it has the potential to surpass the performance of pure silicon, the industry standard today. However, there are fundamental challenges to overcome to bring this novel design to market. Namely, the multilayer architecture leads to innumerable variations of possible design, making it time consuming and expensive to achieve the optimal "recipe" for peak cell efficiency and stability. Cosmos Innovation is applying Mobius to unlock the full potential of perovskite silicon tandem technology. With the use of advanced AI, Cosmos Innovation aims to develop the world's most cost-effective, high-efficiency solar cells.

Cosmos Innovation is already seeing remarkable results from the Mobius platform. The company has demonstrated a 10x acceleration in process recipe development time and step-function improvements in target performance metrics with leading semiconductor companies. Mobius can discover a combination of materials, processes and architectures that yields the most efficient solar cells in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods.

"Mainstream silicon solar technology is reaching its technological limits. Our innovative AI process optimization platform enables us to accelerate the once-in-a-lifetime platform shift to perovskite silicon tandem technology in the solar industry," said Vijay Chandrasekhar , CEO and co-founder, Cosmos Innovation. "Our use of AI-driven experimental design will enable Cosmos Innovation to arrive at the optimal solution with far fewer experiments. This approach will enable us to build highly efficient, cost-effective solar cells in a much shorter time, which is key to meeting the ambitious net zero targets being set around the world."

Experts at the Intersection of AI, Semiconductors and Solar

Founded in 2022, Cosmos Innovation is bringing together leading experts in AI, semiconductors and solar to give the company a distinct market advantage. Founders Vijay Chandrasekhar and Joel Li , the company's CTO, have academic and professional careers at the intersection of these three fields, each with deep expertise leading specialized engineering teams at major research institutes.

Prior to Cosmos Innovation, Chandrasekhar led the AI effort at the Institute for Infocomm Research at the Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), where he managed a portfolio of more than 50 AI projects across over 10 domains with a key focus on semiconductors. Li was the former group head at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore, where he led the development of an award-winning PV manufacturing technology. He also served as an AI team lead at A*STAR, where he led the development and deployment of AI solutions for Tier-1 manufacturers and R&D institutes in the semiconductor, material and chemical domains.

Supporting Quotes

Joel Li , CTO and Co-Founder, Cosmos Innovation

"Cosmos Innovation has proven AI technology to tackle the combinatorial explosion problem that semiconductor and solar cell process optimization faces. Our proprietary AI system, Mobius, has shown it can accelerate process optimization by up to 10x. It does this by intelligently proposing the next set of materials and process conditions to run. We believe that Mobius will help us solve the last-mile challenges of perovskite silicon tandem solar cells and accelerate its commercialization."

Phil Inagaki , Managing Director, Xora Innovation

"Cosmos Innovation has assembled some of the world's leading minds in AI, semiconductor manufacturing and solar to create Mobius  the first AI platform that enables self-learning fabrication of complex semiconductor devices. The application of Mobius to perovskite silicon tandem solar cells promises to deliver more cost-effective, reliable and efficient modules on an accelerated timeline. Cosmos Innovation exemplifies the technical and market expertise emerging from the Singapore R&D ecosystem and Xora is excited to support this home-grown, deep-tech company that's poised to transform the global market for sustainable solar energy."

Dror Berman , Founding Partner, Innovation Endeavors

"AI is transforming the way science gets done. Cosmos Innovation is at the forefront of AI innovation for the solar and semiconductor industries, driving a radically different approach for process recipe development. Cosmos Innovation is at the confluence of the company's proven AI capabilities and the massive trillion-dollar opportunity emerging from silicon solar technology reaching its fundamental limits."

Colin Beirne, Partner, Two Sigma Ventures

"The beauty of AI is its ability to positively surprise us - to reach for solutions that elude our human brains because of our biology and conditioning. AI thrives in situations of complexity and large parameter spaces - like semiconductor development. Cosmos Innovation is harnessing these capabilities, and building a tremendous team of experts, with a goal of reaching new heights in perovskite silicon tandem solar cell efficiency. We're incredibly excited to support them on this valuable mission."

Resources

About Cosmos Innovation

Cosmos Innovation is revolutionizing the approach to solar and semiconductor process development. Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in its Mobius platform, the company is speeding up recipe development of perovskite silicon tandem technology by 10x to yield the most efficient solar cells, in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods. Founded by Vijay Chandrasekhar and Joel Li , Cosmos Innovation is led, advised and supported by some of the top minds at the intersection of AI, solar, semiconductors and deep tech. The company has raised funding from investors that include Xora Innovation, an early-stage, deep-tech investment platform of Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore ; Innovation Endeavors; Two Sigma Ventures; DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis; noted MIT professor Tomaso Poggio , a founder of computational neuroscience; Richard Socher , leading natural language processing (NLP) researcher; and Western Technology Investments, one of the leading venture debt funds in Silicon Valley . For more information, visit cosmosinnovation.com.

About Xora Innovation

Xora Innovation is an early-stage deep tech investing platform of Temasek that is headquartered in Singapore . It invests in disruptive, world-changing ventures forged by ambitious founders and powered by compelling scientific breakthroughs. For more information on Xora Innovation, please visit xora.vc .

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SOURCE Cosmos
FARMINGTON, Conn. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Nest Collaborative is thrilled to declare its recognition as a Rising Star at the Digital Health Awards, hosted by The Digital Health Hub Foundation, and presented at the renowned HLTH global healthcare conference in Las Vegas last week. Nest Collaborative has secured the coveted Digital Healthy in the Next-Gen Telemedicine category.

Nest Collaborative takes pride in highlighting that the award serves as a testament to their dedicated team of International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs) and innovative technology. Their collective efforts work harmoniously to create a positive impact on families' lives across the nation solidifying Nest Collaborative's stance that telehealth is not solely the future but also the present of healthcare delivery.

"We are deeply honored to receive this prestigious recognition from The Digital Health Hub Foundation. This award underscores Nest Collaborative's unwavering dedication to utilizing telehealth to redefine healthcare for new families, and inspires us to continue innovating and improving healthcare services in the lactation industry," said Judith Nowlin , CEO of Nest Collaborative.

This achievement recognizes Nest Collaborative's commitment to realizing its mission of recalibrating health + care for new families via telehealth. The Digital Health Hub Foundation Awards applaud the prowess of Nest Collaborative in harnessing digital innovations to enhance healthcare services and elevate patient outcomes.

"This year's competition has been an unprecedented spectacle, featuring an astounding influx of submissions from companies across the globe. We congratulate the winners on their innovations that captivated our esteemed panel of judges. The Digital Health Hub Foundation looks forward to witnessing the lasting influence our champions will exert in the years to come," said Mark H. Goldstein , Chairman and Founder of The Digital Health Hub Foundation.

About Nest Collaborative



Nest Collaborative is the creator of the nation's first virtual lactation platform. The company's nationwide network of International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs) is available to families for same-day virtual consults, meaning more parents and their health providers have access to the help that creates successful breastfeeding journeys. Nest Collaborative has been recognized by Verywell Family as the Best Online Lactation Consultant of 2021, 2022 and 2023, beating out competitors by offering insurance-covered appointments, same-day availability, and group sessions through their offering of Latch Lounge. The company earned first place in the 2022 Yale Innovation Summit's Tech and Digital Health Pitch Contest. For more information, visit: www.nestcollaborative.com.

About Digital Health Hub Foundation

Health Hub SF LLC, doing business as the Digital Health Hub Foundation, is a 501(c)3 non-profit, supported by the healthcare venture capital community and others, whose mission is to help the world's next best innovative healthcare companies scale and grow. Founded in 2017, on the campus of UCSF in San Francisco , their 30,000 member community consists of thousands of early-to-late-stage healthcare companies and highly qualified healthcare industry providers, payors, experts, mentors, investors, clinicians and researchers who participate in the annual awards ceremony where they bring together the industry to honor and validate the best of the best and celebrate the technological advances in healthcare and the impact it has.

Media Contact: [email protected]

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SOURCE Nest Collaborative
Heart Health Leaders Joel Kahn , MD, FACC and Joel Fuhrman , MD, Unite to Offer Insight, Guidance, and Innovative Techniques to Combat Heart Disease

Key Takeaways:

The Reversing Heart Disease Naturally Summit 2.0 , presented by DrTalks , offers actionable guidance on how to detect and manage heart disease. Seasoned cardiologist Joel Kahn , MD, FACC , and renowned nutrition expert Joel Fuhrman , MD , are hosting this summit with a panel of dozens of healthcare professionals. This free online summit is an opportunity for everyone to gain invaluable insights and be part of a community dedicated to safeguarding heart health.

CARLSBAD, Calif. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- DrTalks , a leading health education platform, proudly announces the Reversing Heart Disease Naturally Summit 2.0 . Taking place from March 12 to 18, 2024 , this informative, virtual event will address the global concern of heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.

About the Summit:

The summit will be a beacon of hope and knowledge, offering participants practical approaches to detect early silent heart disease and reverse its effects before it leads to stroke, heart attack, or death.

The summit hosts are "America's Healthy Heart Doc," Joel Kahn , MD, FACC , and internationally recognized nutrition expert Joel Fuhrman , MD . Your hosts for the Reversing Heart Disease Naturally Summit 2.0 aim to:

Guide attendees through effective methods to manage and avoid heart-related problems

Bust myths surrounding heart disease care

Equip attendees with the knowledge and tools to work with their care team to prevent or reverse heart disease.

The Reversing Heart Disease Naturally Summit 2.0 is an open invitation to anyone keen on safeguarding their heart health. As DrTalks continues to bring forward transformative events like these, it invites everyone to join this global initiative. Together, as a community, we can make strides in understanding, preventing, and reversing heart disease.

For more information and to register for the summit, please visit: https://drtalks.com/reversing-heart-disease-summit-2024/pre-summit/ .

About the Hosts :

As the founder of the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity, Dr. Kahn's mission is clear: to help individuals lead a life unburdened by heart disease. With an extensive background in the field, his goal is to illuminate the path to early detection and to inspire a commitment to natural heart disease prevention and reversal.

Parallelly, Dr. Fuhrman , a seven-time New York Times best-selling author, has dedicated over three decades to demonstrating the power of nutrition in reversing diseases, including heart disease. His work resonates with the message that sustainable weight loss and disease reversal are attainable through intelligent nutrition and effective health care.

About DrTalks :

DrTalks , headquartered in Carlsbad, California , is at the vanguard of health education. Their ultimate goal is to empower 1 billion people worldwide. By providing exclusive access to the most sought-after leaders in health, wellness, and medicine, DrTalks aims to enact significant positive change in lives across the globe. To dive deeper into the world of DrTalks, please visit our newsroom at https://drtalks.com/newsroom/ .

Media Contact:

Daniel Chantigian, MS

Senior Content Writer

[email protected]

+1 (507) 244-0107

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SOURCE DrTalks
ERS Genomics Limited ('ERS') completes licensing agreement with Syngene International, India's leading Contract Research, Development and Manufacturing Organization

Syngene gains access to ERS Genomics' foundational CRISPR/Cas9 patent portfolio, ushering in a new era of technical innovation in India for its global partners.

DUBLIN , Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ERS Genomics, co-founded by Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier , a recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her pioneering work on CRISPR/Cas9, provides access to the definitive patent portfolio for this groundbreaking technology.

Syngene International Limited, an integrated research, development and manufacturing services company, is poised to leverage the immense potential of CRISPR/Cas9 in various scientific disciplines, including drug discovery, biotechnology, and genomics on behalf of its clients.

Eric Rhodes , CEO of ERS Genomics, expressed his enthusiasm, stating, "We are delighted to partner with Syngene, a global leader in research development and manufacturing services, to empower their scientific endeavours with the transformative capabilities of CRISPR/Cas9. This collaboration promises to unlock new frontiers in genomics research and therapeutic development."

Mahesh Bhalgat , Chief Operating Officer, Syngene International Limited, said, "Syngene is committed to delivering innovative solutions to our partners worldwide. Our agreement with ERS Genomics underscores this commitment, as we gain access to the most advanced CRISPR/Cas9 technology available. This partnership aligns perfectly with our mission to partner with clients to accelerate scientific discovery and support the development of life-changing therapies."

The collaboration between ERS Genomics and Syngene marks a significant addition to India's scientific and commercial landscape and reinforces the nation's growing influence in the global biotechnology and life sciences sector. Both organizations are focused on driving scientific progress and bringing transformative innovations to the forefront of research and development.

About ERS Genomics

ERS Genomics is a biotechnology company based in Dublin, Ireland . The company was formed to provide broad access to the foundational CRISPR/Cas9 intellectual property held by Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier . Non-exclusive licenses are available for research and sale of products and services across multiple fields including research tools, kits, reagents; discovery of novel targets for therapeutic intervention; cell lines for discovery and screening of novel drug candidates; GMP production of healthcare products; companion animal and livestock health; production of industrial materials such as enzymes, biofuels and chemicals; and synthetic biology. ERS holds over 100 patents worldwide.

For additional information, please visit www.ersgenomics.com

Media contact: Dara O'Donnell - dara.odonnell@ersgenomics.com

Janani.Kalyanakrishnan@syngeneintl.com

[email protected]

About Syngene

Syngene International Ltd. (BSE: 539268, NSE: SYNGENE, ISIN: INE398R01022) is an integrated research, development, and manufacturing services company serving the global pharmaceutical, biotechnology, nutrition, animal health, consumer goods, and specialty chemical sectors. Syngene's more than 6000 scientists offer both skills and the capacity to deliver great science, robust data security, and quality manufacturing, at speed, to improve time-to-market and lower the cost of innovation. With a combination of dedicated research facilities for Amgen, Baxter, and Bristol-Myers Squibb as well as 2 Mn sq. ft of specialist discovery, development and manufacturing facilities, Syngene works with biotech companies pursuing leading-edge science as well as multinationals, including GSK, Zoetis and Merck KGaA. For more details, visit www.syngeneintl.com. For the Company's latest Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) report, visit https://esgreport.syngeneintl.com/.

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SOURCE ERS Genomics
BOSTON , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2023, one of the largest international meetings of surgeons in the world, convenes in Boston next week, October 22-25 . This year's Clinical Congress offers several prime opportunities for reporters, editors, and producers who cover health care and health policy beats to report on the latest information on these topics for their readers or viewers.

In addition to hundreds of general and specialty sessions and research-in-progress reports to be presented during the Scientific Forum, media events will be held during the conference on the following topics:

Better Surgical Care Through Artificial Intelligence

STOP THE BLEED Legislation in Massachusetts

The Continued Impact of Covid-19 on Cancer Care*

Fostering the Next Generation of Surgeons in Boston

*Experts can also discuss previously unpublished data related to disruptions in cancer care during the pandemic in the New England area

Further details about these events are below. Apply today for media credentials to cover these events and more.

News Briefing: Better Surgical Care Through Artificial Intelligence

Surgeons at the forefront of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve surgical care will discuss the potential uses and ability of AI to predict adverse events and prevent complications in the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative settings during a news briefing at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Room 50 , at 10:00 a.m. ET on October 23 . The event will feature a discussion of the application of AI in surgical practice, including in local Boston medical centers.

Members of the media are invited to attend the briefing in person  email [email protected] for more information  or watch via livestream on the ACS Media Center .

Learn more about this news briefing.

News Conference: Massachusetts STOP THE BLEED Legislation

Representatives from the ACS STOP THE BLEED program, along with Massachusetts state legislators, will host a news conference on Monday, October 23 , 3:00 p.m. ET , in support of recent legislation that would expand lifesaving STOP THE BLEED kits and training throughout Massachusetts . The proposed legislation would require the placement of STOP THE BLEED kits  containing a tourniquet, gauze, gloves, and a training booklet  in public buildings across the Commonwealth.

The news conference will be held at the Massachusetts State House . Journalists planning to attend should contact Robert Tougas, [email protected]. For more information about the event, contact [email protected].

Cancer Experts Available to Discuss Continued Impact of Covid-19 on Cancer Care

Cancer researchers attending the Clinical Congress in Boston will be available to speak to reporters in person or virtually through Zoom to share recent national data on cancer trends related to the pandemic that showcase the startling effects the Covid-19 pandemic had on cancer diagnoses and what this means for cancer care in 2023 and beyond. For journalists based in the New England area, the researchers will be able to share previously unpublished data related to the New England area and how that data compares with national trends.

Interviews will be scheduled with the researchers for Tuesday, October 24, 2023 , 9:00-11:00 a.m. ET . Requests outside this timeframe may also be accommodated with advanced notice. To arrange an interview with the researchers, email [email protected].

Learn more about this interview opportunity.

ACS High School Program Will Foster Next Generation of Surgeons in Boston

On Wednesday, October 25 , at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, the ACS will host its annual A Day with the American College of Surgeons High School Program, a unique initiative that introduces historically excluded high school students, especially those who are under-represented in medicine, to the joys of a career in medicine and surgery at a time when they are formulating future life plans. About 70 students from four local Boston -area high schools will join the program this year. Media members will be allowed to film or photograph portions of the program and interview surgeons and local Boston -area high school students as they interact with surgeons and learn more about the profession.

10:00-11:45 a.m. ET : Students and mentors will visit the exhibit hall to interact with the latest surgical technology.

: Students and mentors will visit the exhibit hall to interact with the latest surgical technology. 12:30-1:15 p.m. ET : Students and mentors will learn how to STOP THE BLEED, which teaches basic bleeding control techniques that can be used to save a life in a bleeding emergency.

Learn more about this event and obtain media credentials or email [email protected] for more information.

More information on the full Clinical Congress program can be viewed on the ACS website.

About the American College of Surgeons

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has approximately 90,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. "FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

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SOURCE American College of Surgeons
The notoriously derelict Sewoon district in downtown Seoul is set to get a full makeover.

Home to Korea's first-ever mixed-use apartment complex, the area became a mecca for electronic appliances but went into a rapid decline when shinier malls opened in Yongsan in the late 1980s and is today a dismal collection of cheap electronics shops and slumlike housing.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon envisions rebuilding part of the dilapidated area into a forest of 30 to 40-story high-risers surrounded by yet another urban green zone three times the size of Gwanghwamun Plaza.

Some 29,000 sq.m near Euljiro subway stations are slated for redevelopment into a shiny new city-within-the-city.

The mayor came up with the redevelopment plan after visiting Tokyo's Marunouchi business district, a swanky, ultra-prestigious business area near the Imperial Palace.
FirstElement Fuel, world leader in hydrogen refueling solutions, opens its latest high-capacity retail station, begins commissioning a multi-use Heavy Duty Truck Station near the Port of Oakland and breaks ground on a new station in Redwood City, CA.

IRVINE, Calif. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- FirstElement Fuel Inc. ("FEF" or the "Company") today announced the public opening of a new high-capacity retail hydrogen station in Oakland, CA , expanding its True Zero hydrogen network to 41 fully public, retail locations. The new hydrogen station, which uses FEF's proprietary design, has 4 dispensers capable of simultaneously providing H70 standard fills with a capacity of 1600 kilograms per day (or the equivalent of refueling 450 hydrogen-powered cars per day) making it the highest-performing retail hydrogen station in the world. The Oakland station represents the ninth such high-output station installed and operated by FEF.

"Hydrogen transportation will play a huge role in fighting against Global Warming," said FEF CEO Joel Ewanick

FEF overcame many challenges to develop, permit, and open the station, which was partly funded by California Energy Commission (the "CEC") grant monies, in a Disadvantaged Community (DAC). It is an important goal for both FEF and the CEC to facilitate investments in hydrogen refueling stations across diverse communities and provide access to hydrogen refueling to people of all economic backgrounds.

FEF is also commissioning its multi-use heavy-duty truck hydrogen station near the Port of Oakland (the " Oakland Multi-Use Station ") and breaking ground on a new retail hydrogen station in Redwood City, CA.

"The world faces many challenges today, but we are staying focused and disciplined about achieving our mission to accelerate access to hydrogen refueling," said Joel Ewanick , Founder and CEO of FEF. "And that's because hydrogen-fueled transportation will ultimately play a huge role in fighting against the single biggest challenge the world faces, Global Warming."

Once operational, the Oakland Multi-Use Station , which also uses FEF's proprietary design, will be the largest heavy-duty hydrogen refueling truck station in the world with the capability to handle heavy-duty, medium-duty, and light-duty hydrogen-powered vehicles. The station is part of a public and private partnership in which Hyundai Motor Company will supply 30 XCIENT Fuel Cell trucks, the largest deployment of Class 8 hydrogen-powered vehicles in the U.S. The project, titled NorCAL ZERO was jointly funded by the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and is being managed by the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE). FEF has designed the station, which is nearing completion, with a unique architecture that will yield 18,000 kilograms per day capacity (enough to fill as many as 200 heavy-duty trucks and 400 light-duty vehicles a day) and make it the first station in the world to deploy fast-fill components and protocols capable of filling a truck with 80 kilograms of hydrogen in under 10 minutes.

FEF's latest retail station to break ground is in Redwood City, CA , and is supported in part by grant funding from the California Energy Commission. The Redwood City station will add a new refueling location with 4 dispensers to California's hydrogen refueling network and become FEF's 42nd hydrogen station

About FirstElement Fuel Inc.

FirstElement Fuel Inc. (FEF or the "Company") is a California-based company established in 2013 to provide safe, reliable, retail hydrogen to customers of hydrogen-powered vehicles. The Company is the world leader in hydrogen refueling station solutions, with facilities in Irvine , Santa Ana , and Livermore, CA. FEF has 41 retail light-duty stations throughout California and is developing a network of stations to serve Heavy Duty Trucks powered by hydrogen, starting with the world's first high-flow refueling station in Oakland, CA as part of a joint project with the California Air Resources Board and the California Energy Commission. Over the past 10 years since FEF's founding, the Company has partnered with public organizations including the California Energy Commission, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District , and the Sacramento Municipal Air Quality Management District which have also provided funding. Private partnerships have included those with Mitsui & Co, Air Water Inc., Honda Motor Company, Toyota Motor Corporation, MUFG, the Japan Bank of International Cooperation, Nikisso Company, and Air Liquide., all of which have provided funds to FEF in pursuit of the vision of a zero-emissions transportation future.

Learn about FirstElement Fuel Inc. at FirstElementFuel.com

Learn about our True Zero Network at truezero.com

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SOURCE FirstElement Fuel
The UAE has established a Circular Economy Committee to promote investments in circularity and adopt circular economy practices

Quantum computer's calculation ability can transform multiple industries, from cybersecurity, telecommunications, and healthcare, to mobility, finance and defence

DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Last year, the UAE announced the " UAE Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative", a national drive to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, making the Emirates the first Middle East and North African nation to do so. At GITEX GLOBAL 2023, Faisal Ali Rashid , Senior Director, Energy Demand Side Management, UAE's Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, highlighted the successes in executing this mission.

Rashid said the UAE is transitioning from a linear to a circular economy. As part of this transition, the Emirates has established a Circular Economy Committee comprising public and private sector members to promote investments in circularity and accelerate the adoption of circular economy practices.

Reimagining Public Services in the Digital Age

GITEX GLOBAL facilitates the biggest public-private partnership projects, with 250 government entities looking to collaborate on e-government and digital government initiatives. The Smart Government market was estimated to be worth nearly $30 billion in 2022, with an anticipated value of $110 billion by 2029 at a 21 percent annual growth rate.

In a session titled "Reimagining government in the digital age: Transforming public services for the future", Lord McNicol , Member of the House of Lords, UK Parliament, was joined by other panellists, including Alby Bocanegra , Founder and Former CTO of NYC, The Urban Futurist, Kristina Ishmael , Deputy Director, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education and Mikko Rusama, Former Chief Digital Officer at the City of Helsinki .

They spoke on the role of digital technologies in transforming public services for the future and emphasized the need for a proactive, data-centric approach to public service provision. The panellists highlighted the benefits of Open Data policies which allow organisations to collect data, monitor it, and make well-informed decisions on the services they provide and how they work for the citizens.

Quantum Computing Heralds new Age of Productivity

Integrating AI and quantum computing into hybrid cloud workflows is heralding a new frontier in digital transformation. Headline exhibitors at GITEX GLOBAL 2023, including IBM, Dell Technologies, Microsoft, AWS, HPE and Canadian-based startup Xanadu, say quantum computing  an area of computer science that uses qubits (quantum bits) instead of classical computing bits, delivering huge leaps in processing power  can address the world's biggest problems.

While still in development, quantum computers' mind-boggling calculation ability can transform multiple industries, from cybersecurity, telecommunications, and healthcare, to mobility, finance and defence. Boston Consulting Group, a management consultancy, estimates quantum computers could improve operating income of their users by between $450 billion and $850 billion a year by 2050.

Mohammed Amin , Senior Vice President at Dell Technologies for Central Eastern Europe , Middle East , Turkey , and Africa , said to fully capitalise on this transformative technology, businesses must invest in quantum computing and empower their data. "By piloting quantum computing and integrating it strategically into their operations, businesses can stay at the forefront of technological progress and seize the unparalleled opportunities it presents in propelling innovation and advancing processes," he added.

Peter Oganesean, the Managing Director of HP Middle East, said recent advances in quantum computing, along with its increased accessibility, will have significant implications in sectors such as cybersecurity, medicine, finance, and many more. "Representing the next breakthrough in IT, this technology holds the promise of finding answers to some of our most pressing scientific challenges, such as genome profiling and finding treatments for disease at incredible speeds," he added.

Xanadu Founder and CEO Christian Weedbrook Weedbrook said that the company is working with car brands such as BMW and Volkswagen on quantum chemistry to develop the next generation of EV batteries. He estimates quantum computing will be, in the next couple of years, where ChatGPT is today in investment and interest. "It really will change the world and I am looking forward to being part of that," he stated.

To demonstrate its technical capability, Xanadu's quantum computer Borealis went head-to-head last year with Japanese Fugaku, the world's fastest supercomputer, to solve a complex mathematical formula. It would have taken Fugaku 7 million years to solve this problem. Borealis cracked the same problem in two minutes.

The Connected Home of the Future at Your Fingertip

In collaboration with etisalat by e&, Samsung introduced the Family Hub Refrigerator on the fourth day of GITEX GLOBAL. Its "View Inside" internal camera lets users view the fridge's contents via smartphones, check food item expiration dates, and purchase groceries directly from the Etisalat Smile grocery platform. Additionally, it seamlessly connects and controls smart devices in users' homes, serving as a central hub.

At the launch, Burcin Arabul , Director of the Home Appliances Division at Samsung Gulf Electronics, highlighted how the smart fridge elevates the experience for UAE families. "We are excited to partner with Etisalat for GITEX GLOBAL and launch our Family Hub refrigerator at the event. Embracing GITEX's theme of 'Imagining AI in everything,' the Family Hub showcases the future of connected homes and heralds a new era of smart connectivity," she added.

The 43rd edition of GITEX GLOBAL takes place from October 16-20, 2023 , the blockbuster tech showpiece once again reaching full capacity at the Dubai World Trade Centre as it hosts more than 6,000 exhibitors. GITEX GLOBAL and Expand North Star comprise a combined 41 halls spanning 2.7 million sq. ft of exhibition space, a 40% growth year-on-year with 1,800 startups across Expand North Star and GITEX GLOBAL. The events converge the best minds and most visionary companies to scrutinise, challenge, define, and empower the digital agendas of the world.

More information is available at www.gitex.com and www.expandnorthstar.com

On social media: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Youtube

Hashtag:



#GITEXGLOBAL #Expandnorthstar



About Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC):

A global business facilitator since 1979, Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) is home to region's leading purpose-built convention and exhibition centre. DWTC provides a platform for connecting people, products, innovation and ideas from around the world through a dynamic calendar of international trade exhibitions and its own roster of sector leading mega events. As a designated free zone, complemented by award-winning commercial real estate, DWTC plays an integral role in Dubai and the region's growth story with an estimated total economic output of AED 200 Billion, attracting over 30 Million business visitors to Dubai over the past four decades.

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SOURCE GITEX Global
Integration of Demographics Data Enables Funders to Measure Progress Toward Equitable Grantmaking

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- GivingData, a leading provider of grants management software to family and independent foundations, announced that it has collaborated with Candid to provide grantmakers with access to their nonprofit partner's demographic information in real-time. The partnership with Demographics via Candid helps funders set benchmarks related to their grantmaking to diverse and BIPOC-led and -serving organizations, while at the same time helping grantseekers cut down on duplicate information requests.

"In a time when equitable grantmaking is a growing priority for funders, GivingData's partnership with Candid helps foundation leaders gain greater insight into their funding patterns and the progress they're making towards equity," said Eric Jones , GivingData's Senior Director of Product Management. "We're honored to be partnering with Candid on an initiative designed to make demographic data readily available to grantmakers that are seeking to advance equitable funding practices."

GivingData is one of the first GMS providers to have fully integrated Demographics via Candid into all three of its subscription tiers at no additional cost. Foundations currently using GivingData now have immediate access to their grantees' Candid nonprofit profiles, which include demographic data contributed by the organization. Grantmakers can also add a preview of applicants' profiles to applications or report forms submitted through GivingData. When an organization's Candid profile needs updating, the applicant can directly access Candid via a link in the application.

"Candid's collaboration with GivingData provides funders with direct, free access to nonprofit demographic information," said Aleda Gagarin , Candid's Vice President of Influence. "Our joint efforts serve to encourage common data standards and data sharing as a public good, while reducing time-consuming requests on nonprofits to provide demographic information in a variety of formats and ways."

GivingData and Candid are hosting a webinar on November 14, 2023 to provide more details about the integration and share a story from a GivingData client about their journey through demographic data collection. Registration opens on October 24th at this link.

About GivingData

GivingData is a software company with a vision to transform how grantmaking foundations manage grants, knowledge, and relationships. Its customers include family and independent foundations that provide funding to nonprofit organizations and NGOs across the social impact sector at the regional, national, and global levels.

About Candid

Candid is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides the most comprehensive data and insights about the social sector. Every year, millions of nonprofits spend trillions of dollars around the world. Candid finds out where that money comes from, where it goes, and why it matters. Candid was formed in 2019 when GuideStar and Foundation Center merged. Candid combined GuideStar's tools on nonprofits and Foundation Center's tools on foundations with new resources to offer more comprehensive, real-time information about the social sector. Find out more at candid.org and on LinkedIn and Instagram .

CONTACT: Casey DeSain , [email protected]

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SOURCE GivingData
ST. LOUIS , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Graybar, a leading distributor of electrical, communications and data networking products and provider of related supply chain management and logistics services, has named Brad Lee as District Vice President for the company's California District .

Lee joined Graybar in 2018 and currently serves as Director, Electrical and Industrial Sales in the Phoenix District . As District Vice President, he will lead Graybar's business operations in a territory that includes all of California and part of Nevada .

"We congratulate Brad on his promotion," said Graybar Regional Vice President David Bender . "Brad brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his new assignment. He is a proven leader who is focused on achieving growth and delivering positive results for our customers. I look forward to working with him to expand our business and serve our customers in this region."

Graybar, a Fortune 500 corporation and one of the largest employee-owned companies in North America , is a leader in the distribution of high quality electrical, communications and data networking products, and specializes in related supply chain management and logistics services. Through its network of more than 325 North American distribution facilities, it stocks and sells products from thousands of manufacturers, helping its customers power, network, automate and secure their facilities with speed, intelligence and efficiency. For more information, visit www.graybar.com or call 1-800-GRAYBAR.

Media Contact:

Tim Sommer

(314) 578-7672

[email protected]

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SOURCE Graybar
BEIJING , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held in Beijing on October 17 and 18. In a recent program filmed by S&T Daily, themed Youth on Tech, four distinguished young experts shared their BRI experiences and insights with audiences.

TCM thrives within BRI

The ancient Silk Road , the historically renowned global trade route, also served as a conduit for the dissemination of Chinese traditional medicine (TCM). Today, as global interest in holistic healthcare grows, TCM exchanges and collaboration have emerged as a cornerstone of the BRI.

Han Man, deputy chief physician of the Guang'anmen Hospital in Beijing , shared her experience as a lecturer in the Talented Young Scientist Program (TYSP) launched by China's Ministry of Science and Technology. She introduced TCM and Tibetan medicine to international researchers involved in TYSP.

Han called TCM, a traditional medicine with thousands of years of history, not only a medium of cultural exchange, but also a highly practical medical discipline.

She said the TCM exchanges and cooperation perfectly illustrate the meaning of the BRI  that brings mutual benefit among countries, mutual understanding among people, and mutual learning among civilizations. "The BRI provides us a fantastic exchange platform to deepen the understanding among young scientists," she said.

Naser Golsanami, an Iranian professor at Shandong University of Science and Technology, showed keen interest when Han talked about Sanfutie, a kind of medicated patch. It showed that though TCM originated in China , its relevance extends far beyond, reflecting the cultural and ancestral wisdom of the country.

BRI catalyses rice research innovation

Many BRI partner countries are developing countries with a large agricultural population and a high proportion of agricultural GDP. Therefore, they seek opportunities of agricultural development from the BRI.

Zhu Qian , an assistant researcher at the Rice Research Institute of Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences in east China , has been working on enhancing grain yield and cultivating rice strains tailored to diverse climates since graduation.

The challenge posed by global warming has made it necessary to take innovative approaches to rice cultivation. Since rice planting generally needs a lot of water, Zhu and her team bred a type of drought-tolerant rice that requires less water. It can be planted in tropical areas and also reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Zhu, drawing on her experience of working with a Bangladeshi partner in BRI projects, underscored the importance of understanding the local preferences for rice: what kind of taste, aroma and texture they prefer, in addition to the environmental and labor factors. This kind of approach will ensure that the rice varieties grown are tailored to specific communities.

For example, Chinese people generally prefer soft rice but Bangladeshis prefer hard rice. "This tells me what kind of rice I can breed for them," she said.

BRI projects cover more than food security aspects. Mohamed Salem from Egypt , a visiting professor at Chongqing Technology and Business University, said "BRI offers us research projects, facilities, and cooperative opportunities with different countries. And through its projects, we can offer a good future to all connected people."

Cross-cultural cooperation provides new perspectives

Golsanami and Salem came to China from different countries. Through their BRI experiences, they recognize the unique perspectives of people from diverse backgrounds in solving scientific problems, which promotes scientific research.

Golsanami said working on BRI projects has transformed him and other researchers like him into contributors to international cooperation. "This is different from working alone with your team in a research organization or in a university," he added.

Salem emphasized the commonalities and distinctions in the histories and cultures of China and Egypt . He views the BRI as a way to build a global community of shared future, propelling research projects that transcend borders.

Living in China , Golsanami has deep insights into Chinese culture. He said an old Chinese saying has given him a deep understanding of how the Chinese nation think of the world, and what their values and beliefs are, namely, "Appreciate the culture/values of others as you do your own, and the world will become a harmonious whole." Everybody cherishes their own culture/values, and if we respect and treasure other's culture/values, the world will become harmonious, he said.

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SOURCE Science and Technology Daily
COMFORT, Texas , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Singing Water Vineyards, a cherished establishment in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, proudly announces a unique event set to take place on Friday night, November 10, 2023 in honor of Veterans Day . For one exclusive evening, the doors of the historic Worth Mansion in Comfort, Texas , will swing open to host "Murder at the Mansion," a captivating murder mystery dinner organized in support of the Kauai Veteran's Council. The event aims to raise funds for the Kauai Community College's STRIVE program, providing free tuition to veterans aspiring to launch their own businesses. The mansion formerly known as The Bildarth Estate , was built in the early 1980's in the style of French mansions from the 1800's, by H. W. "Bill" Worth Jr . and his wife Darolyn. The mansion is known for its 32 white columns that surround the main house on top of Sky Line Drive .

Guests are invited to embark on a culinary adventure featuring 'walkaround' tapas and small bites, expertly curated by some of the area's leading chefs to include Singing Water's Justin Connell , chef "Sushi Ben," and Beef Steak Kitchen + Bar Chef/Owner Matthew Cavin . The food will be thoughtfully paired with exquisite Singing Water library wines, promising a sensory delight for attendees. The evening will unfold with the talents of eight actors from the renowned Houston troupe of the Murder Mystery Co., promising an unforgettable Great Gatsby-style whodunit experience.

Andrew Ivankovich , CEO of Singing Water Vineyards, expressed his enthusiasm, saying, "This will be our third year supporting the good folks at Kauai Community College and helping veterans learn and take the leap into starting a new business venture. We're excited to partner again this year with a fun event to support our American heroes who have sacrificed so much."

Dirk Soma , Associate Professor of Kauai Community College and leader of the STRIVE program, praised the partnership, stating, "Our collaboration with Singing Water Vineyards has been amazing. Over the years, they've helped us raise enough funds to support over 24 veterans and their families attending the program through their Freedom Wine sales. We're thrilled to raise funds and plan for this summer's next cohort with Singing Water."

Tickets for this exclusive event are available for purchase at singingwater.com and are expected to sell out rapidly due to the limited engagement. Attendees can also avail of special discounts at select Comfort hotels, including the historic Giles Hotel. Singing Water Vineyards and the Kauai Veteran's Council extend their heartfelt gratitude to the Stasis Foundation for generously allowing the use of the Mansion for this charitable dinner.

About Singing Water Vineyards:

Established in 1997, Singing Water Vineyards is a family and veteran-owned winery renowned for its exceptional wines and unwavering commitment to supporting veterans, notably through its acclaimed Freedom Red Wine Blend . Situated in the picturesque Texas Hill Country, the vineyard has earned a respected position in the Texas wine industry for its dedication to quality and innovation. For more information, please visit singingwater.com.

About the STRIVE Program:

The Startup Training Resources to Inspire Veteran Entrepreneurship (STRIVE) program is a transformative initiative designed to empower veterans and military family members as entrepreneurs. Offered by Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families' (IVMF) ARSENAL of 8 national entrepreneurship programs, STRIVE leverages local networks and educational resources to nurture and advance veteran-owned businesses.

About The Kaua'i Veteran's Council:

The Kaua'i Veterans Center is a vital hub dedicated to enhancing the delivery of benefits to veterans, their families, and the dependents of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. It stands as a monument honoring their service, preserving their military heritage, and embracing their families. The center serves as a meeting place for military functions, veteran events, and family programs, welcoming the community at large.

About Kaua'i Community College:

Kauai Community College is a comprehensive institution located on the island of Kaua'i, forming a crucial part of the University of Hawai'i system. Offering 34 degree and certificate programs, the college prepares students for the workforce and further education. Additionally, Kauai CC provides non-credit courses for businesses and lifelong learning through the Office of Continuing Education. The college also offers advanced courses leading to Bachelor's and Graduate degrees through the University Center.

About Beef Steak Kitchen + Bar:

Located in Boerne Texas , Beef Steak Kitchen + Bar is dedicated to crafting unforgettable dining experiences. From succulent steaks that melt in your mouth to an extensive selection of craft beers, fine wines, and handcrafted cocktails - every meal is a celebration of flavor, tradition, and community. Visit beefsteaktx.com

Press Contact for Singing Water:

Andrew Ivankovich

CEO, Singing Water Vineyards

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (830) 457-9006

Press Contact for Kauai Community College STRIVE & Veterans Programs:

Alicia Sams

Veteran Support Counselor

Kauai Community College

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (808) 245-8317

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SOURCE Singing Water Vineyards
$100 million investment in Ste. Genevieve (Missouri) plant expansion will increase finished cement production capacity by more than 600,000 metric tons to meet strong construction industry demands

investment in Ste. plant expansion will increase finished cement production capacity by more than 600,000 metric tons to meet strong construction industry demands Capital improvements at North America's largest cement-producing facility will reduce net CO2 emissions, increase circularity and accelerate decarbonization across the built environment

largest cement-producing facility will reduce net CO2 emissions, increase circularity and accelerate decarbonization across the built environment Construction begins in 2024 and will be completed in late 2025

CHICAGO , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In support of its commitment to sustainably supply the nation's growing construction industry, Holcim US today announced an approximate $100 million investment in its Ste. Genevieve Cement Plant the largest cement-producing facility in North America and one of the most technologically advanced and environmentally efficient facilities in the world. The expansion will increase production capacity by more than 600,000 metric tons of cement while reducing net CO2 emissions, increasing circularity and accelerating decarbonization across the built environment.

"With an emphasis on achieving the highest levels of environmental performance and operational efficiency, Ste. Genevieve has been the leader in US cement manufacturing since it was built in 2009," said Toufic Tabbara , North America region head. "This investment will ensure we maintain that leadership in supporting the sustainable growth of our nation's infrastructure and residential construction while accelerating net carbon reduction across the built environment."

Located in the heart of the Midwest, the Ste. Genevieve plant is the flagship of the Holcim US cement system. The plant operates the largest single-kiln line in the world and is equipped with sophisticated emissions controls, fully automated quality control laboratories, and barge and rail facilities serving markets throughout the Mississippi River Basin .

The capital investment will expand the plant's current state-of-the-art production and logistics capabilities. The installation of a fifth vertical cement grinding mill will enhance processing and allow cement production capacity to increase while reducing net CO2 emissions by more than 400,000 tons per year.

This action further underscores Holcim's commitment to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Better Climate Challenge to reduce specific net CO2 emissions in the US by at least 25 percent by 2033. The Better Climate Challenge is intended to drive real-world action that reduces carbon emissions and saves energy.

The addition of a new mineral component addition system will further reduce clinker factor and increase circularity by adding fly ash or other mineral components to cement produced. Planned logistic improvements include an expansion of the plant's current rail-loadout capabilities to better serve growing markets in the upper Midwest.

With permits and government approvals in hand, the new fast-track expansion project at the Ste. Genevieve Cement Plant begins construction in 2024 and will be completed in late 2025.

About Holcim

Holcim is a global leader in innovative and sustainable building solutions. Driven by its purpose to build progress for people and the planet, its 60,000 employees are on a mission to decarbonize building, while improving living standards for all. The company empowers its customers across all regions to build better with less, with its broad range of low-carbon and circular solutions, from ECOPact to ECOPlanet . With its innovative systems, from Elevate's roofing to PRB's insulation, Holcim makes buildings more sustainable in use, driving energy efficiency and green retrofitting. With sustainability at the core of its strategy, Holcim is becoming a net-zero company with 1.5C targets validated by SBTi.

In the United States , Holcim US includes nearly 350 sites in 43 states and employs 7,000 people. Our customers rely on us to help them design and build better communities with innovative solutions that deliver structural integrity and eco-efficiency. To learn more, visit holcim.us .

Contact

Jocelyn Gerst

[email protected]

Lynn Safranek

Lynn.Safranek@holcim.com

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SOURCE Holcim
Hyundai Mobis participates Japan Mobility Show starting from October 26 th to November 5 th to expand Japanese market

Plans to secure new business opportunities with Japanese automakers showcasing strategic products, including electrification, IVI, ADAS, and lamps

Hyundai Mobis poise to strengthen global presence via active participation in global mobility events, following CES (USA) and IAA ( Germany ).

SEOUL, South Korea and TOKYO , Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Mobis (KRX: 012330) is making its first appearance at the Japan Mobility Show, previously known as Tokyo Motor Show, aiming to secure new orders from local automakers. Hyundai Mobis anticipates creation of new business opportunities through aggressive sales strategy, in response to the changing environment in the Japanese automotive market, which is in the midst of a transition from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles to future mobility solutions like electrification and autonomous driving.

Hyundai Mobis announced on the 19th that it will participate in ' Japan Mobility Show' which will be held in Tokyo, Japan from October 26 th to November 5 th, showcasing the company's strategic products such as electrification, IVI (In-Vehicle Infotainment System), and ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). This marks the first time that Hyundai Mobis is participating in mobility-related events held in Japan , including the former Tokyo Motor Show.

Hyundai Mobis plans to run its exhibition with a focus on 'private booths' at this year's show to concentrate its efforts on creating new business opportunities. The exhibition venue will also be catered to accommodate pre-invited customer meetings. During the exhibition, Hyundai Mobis will discuss business cooperation plans with key Japanese automakers, including Toyota, Renault Nissan Mitsubishi, and Honda.

While this is the first time for Hyundai Mobis to be participating in a mobility-related event in Japan , the company has supplied products like lamps, chassis, and IVI products to local Japanese automakers in the past. In particular, in the first half of last year, Hyundai Mobis expanded its dedicated local customer organization and recruited two executives with automotive industry expertise to oversee business operations and orders within Japan . These experts have accumulated extensive experience and built networks in the Japanese automotive and component manufacturing industry, having worked in the field for nearly 40 years. The recruitment of these two professionals demonstrates how Hyundai Mobis has been building a strategic foundation to secure new business opportunities in Japan .

In addition, the recent shift towards future mobility in Japan , exemplified by electrification, autonomous driving, and IVI, is being viewed as an auspicious opportunity for Korean automotive suppliers to sign with new business prospects. Hyundai Mobis intends to target Japanese automakers by offering customized solutions that combine core technologies in the field of future mobility with their existing expertise in component production.

Starting with CES in the United States at the beginning of the year, Hyundai Mobis has been actively participating in major mobility events globally, including the IAA in Germany , the Detroit Auto Show in the United States , and now the Japan Mobility Show, in a concerted effort to strengthen its overseas market expansion and order acquisition. Hyundai Mobis recently achieved a significant success by securing a large-scale order with Volkswagen for core electrification components, further signaling a positive outlook towards achieving this year's overseas sales target of 5.36 billion dollars .

Media Contact

Jihyun Han: [email protected]

Myong Sun Song : [email protected]

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SOURCE Hyundai Mobis
LIMASSOL, Cyprus , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The iFOREX Group is a leading global financial group with over 25 years of industry experience. Its European branch, iFOREX Europe , has all the tools to support private trading with 1-on-1 private training in multiple languages, guides & tutorials, and a $5,000 demo account. Also, it has other features on its app to help traders trade on the current market.

A spokesperson for iCFD LTD, which operates iFOREX Europe , said: "iFOREX has the tools of the trade, literally, for people looking to do private trading online. We are happy to help our clients' trading experience with our private training, guides, and demo account. We are also immensely proud of the various tools on our trading app to make any trade as clear and concise as possible."

iFOREX Europe clients have over 750 CFD financial instruments available: forex, commodities, indices, cryptocurrencies, shares, & ETFs. To navigate the countless instruments to trade, traders on the iFOREX Europe platform have access to several tools to help them. Traders get a 1-on-1 private training in the language of their choosing, guides available for free on our website, and a $5,000 demo account for practice before investing their money.

iFOREX also has various tools integrated into its platform, the same tools on computer and mobile devices. It includes event calendar to follow news that will affect instruments and to update your trades accordingly. On top of it, there are trading insights to update the traders on market trends, a daily opportunity about a forecasted instrument, and more. Other tools are in place to minimize risk, such as placing upper and lower limits on trade value, overnight trading, and balance protection.

"The iFOREX Europe platform has great tools to make private trading approachable and scalable. It has the same features for the mobile version and the desktop version. The clients start with an onboarding process with the 1-on-1 trading and a demo account. Also, they can access guides and tutorials seamlessly as they trade from anytime, anywhere, with full control over their account," the spokesperson added.

After over 25 years, the iFOREX Group has established itself as a industry leader in the fintech industry for its technological innovation, client-oriented dedication, building trader trust, and striving for excellence.

iFOREX Europe is operated by iCFD Ltd.which is licensed and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/iforex-europe-offers-a-comprehensive-package-of-trading-tools-301962150.html

SOURCE iFOREX
The Saras-3D interactive 3D educational platform features 3D videos and 3D model learning tools for students in grades 9-12 who are studying Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Mathematics.

MIAMI , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, we are pleased to announce an exciting joint venture between IQH3D and SARAS-3D, two pioneers in the field of 3D technology and education. By combining the engaging features of the Saras-3D interactive educational platform with IQH3D's innovative SKYY, Glasses-Free 3D tablet, this partnership creates a new immersive environment for students to explore, learn, and fully understand complex science and mathematics concepts. The SKYY Tablet that usually retails for $649 , will be available on https://iqh3d.com/store/ for a discounted rate of $499 , this includes a 1-year subscription to the Saras-3D platform, with access to all 4 subject areas.

inspire a love for science and mathematics, foster critical thinking skills, and enhance overall academic performance.

Through their partnership with SARAS-3D, IQH3D is offering students in the US and Canada an engaging and transformative 3D learning experience without the requirement of wearing special glasses. The Saras-3D interactive 3D educational platform features 3D videos and 3D model learning tools for students in grades 9-12 who are studying Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Mathematics.

"By combining Saras-3D's exceptional educational content with our state-of-the-art SKYY Android Tablet, we aim to empower students with the tools they need to excel in their academic journey," said Loyal Haylett , CEO of IQH3D. "We are proud to support this joint venture and believe it will revolutionize education by making it accessible, engaging, and interactive. SKYY is the limit."

With a commitment to inclusivity, the platform will be available in multiple languages, customizable to fit any curriculum. Vijay Albuquerque CEO of Saras-3D, expressed his excitement about this collaboration, stating

"Our vision has always been to provide students with a dynamic and immersive learning experience. By partnering with IQH3D, we can now take this vision to new heights, reaching students around the world," Vijay Albuquerque CEO Saras-3D.

IQH3D, a leader in providing innovative 3D technology solutions, will play a vital role in this collaboration by offering the IQH3D SKYY tablet at a competitive price. The SKYY tablet has been specifically designed to complement the Saras-3D platform, ensuring a seamless integration of content and technology. Additionally, IQH3D will provide comprehensive technical support to both educators and students, ensuring a positive learning experience.

This partnership is expected to have a profound impact on the education landscape, empowering students, and educators alike to deepen learning with the innovative new tool of Glasses-Free 3D. By merging the expertise of Saras-3D and IQH3D, the joint venture aims to inspire a love for science and mathematics, foster critical thinking skills, and enhance overall academic performance. School administrators, principals, educators, and parents are encouraged to reach out to IQH3D for more information and to organize a free demo at [email protected].

About IQH3D

IQH3D is an innovative Glasses-Free 3D company specializing in providing cutting-edge 3D technology.

About Saras-3D

Saras-3D is a leading educational platform committed to transforming the way students learn science and mathematics. With a comprehensive range of interactive content, Saras-3D provides an immersive learning experience tailored to fit various curricula.

IQ-Haylett and IQH3D are registered trademarks of IQ-Haylett LLC in the United States and other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Follow us on Instagram @IQH3D and Facebook @officialiqh3d for updates.

Website: https://iqh3d.com/

Email: [email protected]

For business inquiries contact

USA

David Ross +1 305 403-9900

[email protected]

Canada

Mathias Fuchs +1 416 671 0223

[email protected]

Media Contact

Anita Baker +1 786 477 0353

[email protected]

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SOURCE IQH3D
A summer vacation changed Candela Sanchos life. After studying physics in Madrid, getting additional training in Barcelona and Toronto and spending six years at the University of Utrecht, she traveled with friends to northern Italy in 2018. Upon returning home to Spain, she found out about the collapse on August 14 of the Ponte Morandi in Genoa, which they had crossed themselves just a few days before. Sancho wondered what had gone wrong to cause the collapse of a section of the viaduct, which killed 43 people.

With their knowledge and some help from technology, she and her friends believed they could help prevent these types of accidents in the future. It was the seed of Detektia, a start-up that uses satellite sensors and proprietary technology to measure, down to the millimeter, how the ground and the buildings that sit on it deform over time. Last year they invoiced 70,000 ($73,800) and this year they plan to double that figure after going through several incubators and maturing their product.

Two of those friends had completed a doctorate in satellite data at the Topography and Geomatics Laboratory of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. In the end, it was about bringing that experience to the market. We were born as a spin off of the university, explains Sancho, 41, who founded Detektia  she owns 40%  together with Alfredo Fernandez, 45, who owns 30% of the company, as well as Adrian Garcia, 32. There are also two teachers in the project: Ruben Martinez, 64, and Miguel Marchamalo, 48. They are technical profiles specialized in cartography, physics, aeronautics and forestry engineering. The company now employs six people.

The basis for Detektia is satellite image technology, called InSAR, which measures the speed at which a surface or infrastructure moves. This data is collected by sensors that travel aboard most satellites that have orbited the Earth since the 1990s and which periodically gather data at an altitude of about 700 kilometers (434 miles). What they do is not the same as taking photographs, it is more complex. They use electromagnetic waves that are sent to Earth and bounce back, varying if something has changed location. We can convert this gap into movement and quantify it, says Sancho, who highlights that access to the data from some of these satellites is free  in the case of the public ones  and, in other cases, such as commercial ones, it requires payment.

The company has developed a technology to process this data based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, with which it produces situation reports, launches early warnings to avoid disasters such as Genoa, or make future predictions thanks to their own algorithms. Detektia is already working on projects in Spain, Colombia and Mexico in all phases of an infrastructures life: design, construction, operation and maintenance of infrastructure that includes dams, tunnels, embankments and ports.

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Global Marketing and Tech Agency Recognized for Excellence in Transforming Brands through Innovative Marketing Automation Solutions

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Moving Minds, a Florida -based marketing and technology agency known for its prowess in transforming brands and businesses, has been named one of the "Top 10 Marketing Automation Service Companies" in the United States by MarTech Outlook magazine. This highly coveted honor highlights Moving Minds' exceptional capabilities in the implementation of cutting-edge marketing automation solutions.

MarTech Outlook's comprehensive assessment of U.S. marketing automation solution providers recognizes Moving Minds based on the agency's performance and outstanding results, particularly its ability to develop dynamic campaigns utilizing data-driven insights to unleash the full potential of brands.

Moving Minds' strategic consulting and implementation support have positioned it as a trusted partner for companies seeking to maximize their marketing automation and e-mail marketing initiatives as well as:

Scale demand generation





Automate prospect and customer engagement





Accelerate the adoption of new MarTech solutions and realize time-to-value (TTV)





solutions and realize time-to-value (TTV) Improve the utilization of a company's existing marketing automation tools

"We are thrilled to be named by MarTech Outlook as one of the "Top 10 Marketing Automation Service Companies" in the United States ," said Lou Hughes , CEO of Moving Minds. "This recognition is a testament to our track record of helping clients scale their growth and optimize their MarTech stacks."

Headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida , Moving Minds also provides Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) services for venture capital- and private equity-backed companies. Called 'Growth as a Managed Service,' Moving Minds enables businesses to get to market smarter and faster with fractional marketing services, a more affordable alternative to the cost of building large internal marketing departments.

The recognition by MarTech Outlook magazine emphasizes Moving Minds' outstanding reputation for providing a comprehensive suite of marketing automation services, including contact targeting, e-mail design, sales sequences, content development, digital advertising, landing page design and CRM integration.

About Moving Minds

Moving Minds is a global marketing and technology agency that uplifts brands and businesses through innovative marketing automation solutions. Moving Minds empowers clients to traverse the digital landscape and achieve remarkable results. The agency's services include demand generation, marketing automation optimization, digital marketing and Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) services. To learn more about Moving Minds, call (800) 420-7206 or visit https://movingminds.io.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Lou Hughes

CEO

Moving Minds

(800) 420-7026

[email protected]

www.movingminds.io

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SOURCE Moving Minds
With Onymos, the University can now quickly and securely scan and enter data from its student body, which is comprised of nearly 50,000 thousand students, through a simple and secure application

SAN FRANCISCO , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Onymos , developer of the world's first Features-as-a-Service platform, today announced its newest customer, the University of Cincinnati. The goal of this partnership was to enable the University of Cincinnati to create an innovative new tool that will enable the rapid, accurate, and secure conversion, validation, and entry of healthcare data from thousands of students. This will ultimately provide the university's healthcare staff with even more time to focus on student health and wellness rather than paperwork.

In recent years, studies have reported that physicians spend at least 35 percent of their time documenting patient data, while nurses spend around 10 percent of their time on the same activity. Additionally, manual data entry is known to generate errors that can go unnoticed in healthcare data and record systems.

"We currently have nearly 50,000 students across 14 colleges, and many of those students are just starting their freshman year," said Josette Riep , Assistant Vice President of Integrated Data, Engineering & Application Services at the University of Cincinnati. "We were able to develop an application in Salesforce to manage the process more efficiently. Onymos DocKnow was a key component of the system by providing the ability to OCR and conduct an initial tier of validation."

Through the Onymos Features-as-a-Service platform , the University of Cincinnati accessed Onymos' DocKnow Feature in combination with an enterprise implementation of Salesforce to build an innovative application that facilitates the secure, precise, and expedited conversion, validation, and input of student healthcare information in 8-12 seconds. The application leverages DocKnow's machine learning-powered optical character recognition (OCR) functionality to scan and digitize document data  which includes immunization forms  straight from a smartphone.

"What interested us in Onymos DocKnow is the ability to streamline and automate our processes as part of our digital transformation journey," said Bharath Prabhakaran , Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at the University of Cincinnati. "Incorporating high-quality software and tools into our own applications enables a better experience for our staff and students."

"We specifically created our DocKnow Feature to meet the exact data transcription, validation and entry needs of higher education institutions and healthcare entities. Today, these organizations require technologies that will not only enable them to accelerate these processes but to ensure they are accurate and secure," said Shiva Nathan , Founder and CEO of Onymos. "We are honored to have the opportunity to work with the University of Cincinnati to develop their application through our Features-as-a-Service platform."

The Onymos Features-as-a-Service platform is a pro-code platform that enables companies and organizations  such as education institutions, retailers, and medical device manufacturers  to achieve unmatched speed, quality, and value in their web, mobile, and IoT application development and innovation. It has over 20 foundational app features, including DocKnow, Login, Edge, Notifications, and more. These features can be easily added to new or existing applications and include security, multiple framework support, assistance with compliance requirements, the underlying logic that runs on the device, the server-side functions and integrations that process and store data in the cloud, and continuous updates.

For more information on Onymos, its Features-as-a-Service platform, DocKnow, or how it can help your education institution, visit Onymos.com .

About the University of Cincinnati

Founded in 1819, the University of Cincinnati is leading urban, public universities into a new era of innovation and impact. As the global founder of cooperative education, UC remains a world-class leader in experience-based learning. U.S. News & World Report ranks UC's co-op/internship program Top 5 in the country. The university boasts 200+ years of history as a research pioneer, with a culture strongly emphasizing collaboration. UC is a Research 1 Institution (Carnegie Classification) and the National Science Foundation places UC at No. 33 among America's public research universities. Learn more at uc.edu.

About Onymos

Onymos is the developer of the world's first Features-as-a-Service platform. Our more than 20 foundational app features enable enterprises to build innovative and differentiated apps with unmatched speed, quality, and value. Onymos is trusted by top brands, including Albertsons, CVS, and Walmart. For more information, visit Onymos.com , and join the conversation on LinkedIn and X (Twitter) .

Media Contact

Maggie Markert

Zer0 to 5ive for Onymos

mmarkert@0to5.com

(484) 574-1855

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SOURCE Onymos
Oula-Mount Sinai West partnership offers patients the best of obstetrics and midwifery, with midwife-led delivery supported by leading hospital's expertise and resources

NEW YORK , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Oula , the modern maternity care clinic combining the best of obstetrics and midwifery care, and Mount Sinai Health System, one of New York City's largest academic medical systems, today announced the expansion of a successful partnership that began in 2021. Last month they reached 1,000 babies delivered . The expansion will include a third clinic that opens in the Fall of 2024 on 112th street in Morningside Heights , expanded clinical services, additional service lines, and a deeper clinical and financial integration between Oula and Mount Sinai. Oula brings together the best of midwifery and obstetrics to support patients throughout their pregnancy journeys, from prenatal care to postpartum support. Oula babies are delivered at Mount Sinai West by Oula midwives, with support from Mount Sinai experts in obstetrics, maternal-fetal medicine (MFM), and teams of nurses and specialists in high-risk surgical care if needed.

The Oula-Mount Sinai partnership was formed with a shared commitment to providing evidence-based and low-risk maternity care to ensure improved outcomes for patients. The results speak for themselves: with a 25% lower cesarean rate versus New York City benchmarks, a 51% better preterm rate, a 33% better low birthweight rate, all while achieving a Net Promoter Score of 94. (Metrics are sourced from Oula patient outcomes and compared to March of Dimes ' New York City Birth Benchmarks.) These superior outcomes are delivered not only for the average patient but also for historically underserved populations including patients on Medicaid.

By combining Oula's unique care model and consumer-centric clinics with Mount Sinai's evidence-based specialty and acute care expertise, the two organizations fill critical gaps in maternity care access, patient experience, and health outcomes. The partnership delivers exceptional care that contributes to an increased number of births at Mount Sinai West, and interest from new families who are seeking a patient-centric birth experience.

"According to the Listening to Mothers Survey , 74% of women say they want a less medicalized approach to birth, up from 45% in 2002. We chose Mount Sinai West as our partner because of their longstanding commitment to respecting patient autonomy and encouraging shared decision-making, both of which are pillars of midwifery care," said Adrianne Nickerson , Oula Co-Founder and CEO during this year's stage at HLTH 2023 .

"We are thrilled to continue partnering with Oula to provide exceptional care to our community. Our collaboration with Oula enables today's patients to have the best of both obstetrics and midwifery services. Through our partnership, Mount Sinai obstetricians, specialists and nurses work alongside Oula's midwives to complement and support patients' personalized care plans. This supportive care is provided in the soothing environment of our recently redesigned delivery unit, and optimizes family bonding and healing," said Dr. Holly Loudon , Chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai West and Morningside.

"We are excited to further expand access to collaborative obstetrics-midwifery care services for expectant parents on their labor and delivery journey. This partnership with Oula continues our commitment to serving a diverse patient population, delivering compassionate care during one of life's most important milestones, and optimizing the latest techniques and innovation in our medical facilities. We also know that investments in women's health lay the foundation for improving future health outcomes promoting healthier babies and parents," said Kelly Cassano , Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice and Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Operations at Mount Sinai Health System.

The partnership has proven crucial in a moment when policymakers and patients alike are turning increased attention to improving U.S. maternity care. The maternal mortality and cesarean rates in the U.S. are some of the highest in the developed world. Compared to women in other high-income countries, women in the U.S. are most likely to report emotional distress, and report less satisfaction in healthcare. According to the World Health Organization , expanding access to midwife-led maternity care is one of the most effective ways to reduce maternal mortality. Research shows that midwifery-led care leads to lower rates of preterm birth, 30-40% lower cesarean birth rates, and rates of vaginal birth after cesarean that are nearly twice as high. They also drive a 3x improvement in patient satisfaction with maternity care. With an expanding body of evidence to support the benefits of midwifery care, consumer interest is growing.

"We are excited to expand our partnership with Oula and broaden our reach to patients who want a unique birthing experience. The collaboration has optimized volume across our facilities while delivering a very positive patient experience and superior clinical outcomes. In today's challenging market, Oula offers health systems a distinct model to grow maternity services," said Jodi Cohen , Chief Strategy Officer at Mount Sinai Health System.

"We are long overdue for a care model that delivers better outcomes and patient experiences, and we're thrilled to partner with hospital systems around the country that share our vision," said Dr. Ila Dayananda , Oula Chief Medical Officer.

About Oula:

Oula is a modern maternity clinic that brings together the best of midwifery and obstetrics to deliver a personalized, evidence-based pregnancy experience so that everyone has the support they need to thrive before, during, and after birth. With our collaborative medical team, welcoming clinic, and remote care platform, we are setting a new standard for pregnancy that brings together modern medicine and human intuition. Both Co-Founders and Chief Experience Officer were pregnant during the pandemic while they raised capital and opened their first location, reaching full capacity in three months. Oula is venture-backed and has raised $22.3M to-date by investors including Chelsea Clinton's fund, Metrodora. Oula accepts insurance, including Medicaid.

About the Mount Sinai Health System:

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our timediscovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it. Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients' medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,400 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City , Westchester , Long Island , and Florida ; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek's "The World's Best Smart Hospitals'' and by U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals'' and "Best Children's Hospitals." The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals" Honor Roll for 2023-2024.

Contact

Catherine Cuello-Fuente

[email protected]

Stacy A. Anderson

[email protected]

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oula-announces-third-clinic-and-expanded-partnership-with-mount-sinai-health-system-to-provide-wider-access-to-collaborative-maternity-care-301961519.html

SOURCE Oula
"Our partnership with Neutronpay allows our Contributors to easily convert and transfer their earnings in Bitcoin," said Premise CEO Maury Blackman . "Premise remains the unique go-to organization for our customers to gather public data almost instantly from local citizens from around the globe."

SAN FRANCISCO , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Premise, a leading platform for virtually instantaneous public data gathering, affording economic opportunities to its local "contributors" using their smart phones, today announced its partnership with Neutronpay, a premier digital payment platform specializing in Bitcoin and Lightning Network solutions.

With Neutronpay's enabling technology, Premise has launched the "Crypto Direct Cash-out" feature, a new payment method that enables our paid global users or "Contributors, who sign up on a publicly available app, to easily convert and transfer their earnings in Bitcoin.

With this new feature, we're further simplifying the process for Contributors to enter the crypto economy with just their engagement, no initial financial investment required. By participating on our platform, Contributors can effortlessly convert their earnings into Bitcoin and transfer the asset to a supported crypto wallet. This new payment method is a step toward making financial options more inclusive and user-friendly in today's global monetary landscape.

"Our partnership with Neutronpay allows our Contributors to easily convert and transfer their earnings in Bitcoin," said Premise CEO and President, Maury Blackman . "Premise remains the unique go-to organization to gather public data virtually instantly for our customers from local citizens from around the globe."

"Our collaboration with Neutronpay exemplifies our commitment to empowering our Contributors with the choice of which monetary system they wish to engage with, including being paid in their own local currencies, enabling them to take control of their financial future," Blackman continued. "Premise continues to be a company that furthers international understanding at a crucial time in world history  by allowing quick access to what local people think and feel, wherever they live in the world."

Since the introduction of the Crypto Direct Cashout feature, Premise has observed a remarkable adoption among our most active users. A significant 26% of Premise's power users, those who completed approximately 50 tasks in the month leading up to the launch, have utilized this feature for cashing out, compared to 13% of the broader user base. This early success reflects the positive reaction of Premise's our global community of Contributors in over 140 countries around the globe. It has also encouraged users to explore blockchain technology and the crypto economy. We're committed to continually enhancing this feature to empower our Contributors in the modern financial ecosystem.

About Premise

Premise is an on-demand insights company. Its technology mobilizes communities of global smartphone users to source actionable data in real-time, cost-effectively, with the visibility needed. In more than 140 countries and 37 languages, Premise finds Data for Every Decision. To know more, please visit www.premise.com .

About Neutronpay

Neutronpay is a prominent Lightning Network service provider leading the way in payment innovation. They offer lightning-fast, borderless transactions for businesses and individuals worldwide. Their comprehensive product suite includes a mobile app and a developer-friendly API, ensuring that users ranging from local startups to multinational enterprises can effortlessly integrate Neutronpay's solutions. As a gateway to the Bitcoin circular economy, Neutronpay is reshaping the future of transactions. Discover more about their next-gen payment solutions at www.neutronpay.com .

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SOURCE Premise
America's Favorite Hoagie Destination Inks 20 New Franchise Agreements, Debuts Massachusetts and Accelerates Growth with "Prosper with Primo" Fee Reduction Program

WESTVILLE, N.J. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- PrimoHoagies , the beloved hoagie chain recently named America's #1 sandwich shop , announced today the signing of 20 new franchise agreements. The deals confirmed plans for new development of locations across the eastern and midwestern parts of the U.S. , including the brand's first-ever agreements signed in Massachusetts .

PrimoHoagies is expanding with:

Eight locations across the metro- Detroit region;

region; Three locations across the Springfield, Mass. region;

region; Three locations in Rochester, N.Y. ;

; Three locations in Pittsburgh ;

; Two locations in Mine Hill, N.J. ;

; And one location in Jamison, Pa.

The first of these new locations is set to open its doors by May 2024 .

"PrimoHoagies is on a mission to redefine the sandwich experience across the United States ," said Nicholas Papanier Jr ., owner and CEO of PrimoHoagies. "As we venture into new markets and deepen our roots in existing ones, we're not just offering sandwiches; we're inviting passionate entrepreneurs to join us in this exciting journey. Together, we'll continue to raise the bar and set new standards."

These recent new agreements underscore the accelerated growth happening for PrimoHoagies, which now boasts more than 100 locations open, with around 115 expected to be open by the end of 2023. In pursuit of the ambitious expansion goals, aiming to surpass 300 locations in the next few years, PrimoHoagies proudly introduced "Prosper with Primo." This dynamic franchise fee reduction program, active until November 30 , exemplifies the brand's dedication to reinvesting in owners who share in the brand's vision and success. The program offers to slash the initial franchise fee by 50 percent, along with opportunities for more significant discounts, including royalty abatement for deals of three units or larger.

"Becoming a PrimoHoagies franchisee was an easy decision for me - the brand's dedication to quality and investment back into its owners is unmatched," said Brandon Perozzi , a PrimoHoagies owner for more than 10 years in Cinnaminson and Collingswood, New Jersey . "I'm thrilled to be a part of bringing this exceptional hoagie experience to new communities and contributing to PrimoHoagies' continued success."

The brand currently has 70 locations in development across 10 states. As PrimoHoagies continues to grow, the brand is actively seeking prospective franchisees across 25 states in the eastern, midwestern and southern United States . The brand is putting an extra emphasis on markets within Texas , Florida and Colorado .

For further details about PrimoHoagies and to explore how you can benefit from the "Prosper with Primo" special offer, as well as information on joining the PrimoHoagies network, please visit ownaprimo.com .

To learn more about PrimoHoagies or to find a location near you, visit primohoagies.com .

About PrimoHoagies

Established in 1992 in South Philadelphia , PrimoHoagies is a renowned specialty sandwich and sub shop celebrated for its authentic, mouthwatering hoagies. Crafting flavorful masterpieces using the finest Thumann's meats and cheeses, stacked generously on award-winning seeded bread, PrimoHoagies' diverse menu caters to all preferences. With franchise locations spanning across Pennsylvania , Colorado , Delaware , Florida , Maryland , New Jersey , North Carolina , South Carolina and Texas , PrimoHoagies has become the go-to destination for sandwich enthusiasts. Discover the essence of PrimoHoagies at primohoagies.com and explore franchise opportunities at ownaprimo.com , as PrimoHoagies continues its legacy of curating exceptional sandwiches that embody PrimoHoagies heritage and bridge communities together.

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SOURCE PrimoHoagies
The Partnership Leverages Queuing Technology to Improve Customer Service in Texas Office

VALENCIA, Calif. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Qtrac , a world-leading provider of virtual queue management and appointment scheduling systems , and Strategic Communications , a value-added reseller that serves government accounts, today announced a partnership with Hidalgo County, Texas , that provides virtual queuing solutions to the newly built Vital Records Department office in order to support a better experience for citizens who visit the location.

"Qtrac is easy to use for customers and makes their interactions with the office more seamless and convenient."

The busy office  which issues records including marriage licenses and birth and death certificates  services hundreds of visitors each day. The county evaluated a variety of queuing solutions with the goal of delivering great customer service. In particular, they wanted a technology that would:

Provide staff with a quick and easy way to serve customers and meet their needs.

Have the ability to measure the service delivery of every agent employed at the office.

Allow customers to make appointments.

Enable a survey to collect customer experience data directly after service delivery.

It soon became clear that Qtrac was the best choice to meet these criteria.

"Qtrac is easy to use for customers and makes their interactions with the office more seamless and convenient," said Steve Covate , Vice President of Sales at Qtrac. "On the back end, the county is able to collect valuable data that enables them to improve employee performance, address customer concerns, and ensure that visitors are having an excellent customer experience."

Strategic Communications teamed up with Qtrac to make this partnership a reality. Hidalgo County required a contract vehicle to avoid delays in gaining approvals to purchase outside their contracting protocol. As an OMNIA contract holder, Strategic Communications served that role.

"Qtrac has proven to be an exceptional partner, consistently delivering outstanding service," said Nathan Doherty , Cloud Account Executive at Strategic Communications. "Together, we've brought transformative solutions to Hidalgo County ."

To learn more about Qtrac's solutions for government agencies and other public sector organizations, visit https://qtrac.com/public-sector/ .

ABOUT QTRAC

Qtrac provides virtual queue management systems to companies of all sizes and across many different industries around the world. Its virtual queuing technology enhances the customer experience by focusing on the way people interact with businesses in order to eliminate lines, increase sales and improve service. Qtrac helps organizations improve their operations by improving the customer journey. More information is available at qtrac.com .

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SOURCE Qtrac
Italy -based global network provider to expand international opportunities in connectivity ecosystem

BOSTON , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Connectbase , The Industry Cloud for Connectivity, welcomes Retelit , the leading Italy -based global fiber provider and data center network, to The Connected World platform. Retelit is leveraging Connectbase's award-winning connectivity buying and selling platform, The Connected World, to promote its global network to new audiences worldwide.

Retelit has chosen Connectbase due to Connectbase's advanced platform and well-developed buying ecosystem. The partnership will allow Retelit to streamline the way that current customers procure network assets from the provider, as well as open up new international selling opportunities.

"As Connectbase expands our footprint globally, we are excited to have Retelit  such a well-known and well-respected European brand  join us as an ecosystem partner," said Ben Edmond , Founder and CEO of Connectbase. "Their advanced global network offers a wealth of new opportunities to buyers within The Connected World and will help improve Retelit's business efficiency, practically overnight."

Retelit is the largest Italian player in the telco industry focused on the B2B market: the Group owns more than 30 data centers in Italy and boasts the most interconnected and greenest telco hub in the country, Avalon Campus. Moreover, with 43,000 km of terrestrial fiber optic cable routes, the participation in the AAE-1 and capabilities in landing infrastructure projects, Retelit's coverage reaches 16,000 sites in Italy .

"The partnership with Connectbase will allow us to promote our extensive network to a wider global community, maximize market penetration, and also complements our advanced MEF automation platform already in place," said Jorge Alvarez , CEO of Retelit Group. "The partnership confirms our objective to improve customer experience and quality of the delivery."

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/ .

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SOURCE Connectbase
DUBLIN , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As the Seoul Defense Dialogue 2023 convenes under the theme of "Cooperation and Solidarity for Freedom, Peace, and Prosperity," the world's attention turns to matters of global security and international cooperation. In line with this pivotal event, we are thrilled to introduce the "International Defense Briefing" has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering - a cutting-edge monthly-updated information service that offers unparalleled insights into the intricate web of international defense budgets, arms imports, and weapons markets for over 130 countries.



The three-day Seoul Defense Dialogue 2023 is set to welcome 800 high-level security officials and civil experts from 56 countries, all gathering to address crucial issues, including responses to North Korea's escalating nuclear threats, the pursuit of a free, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region, and the imperative for regional and global cooperation in a new security environment. At the heart of these discussions lies the need for timely, accurate, and comprehensive information on defense-related matters, precisely what the "International Defense Briefing" provides.

The "International Defense Briefing" offers a treasure trove of insights, ensuring business entrepreneurs and managers stay well-informed and prepared in today's ever-evolving global security landscape. Each meticulously crafted country report within the service delivers essential details, such as government structures, key factors impacting defense postures, major weapons inventories, and the crucial financial aspects, including defense budgets and expenditures. The reports even dive into the realm of Foreign Military Sales (FMS) from the United States , a vital aspect of the international defense ecosystem.

What truly sets the "International Defense Briefing" apart is its forward-looking approach. Alongside detailed historical data, the service provides forecasts of defense budgets and major equipment acquisitions, giving business leaders and strategists the foresight they need to make informed decisions. Each forecast comes complete with a comprehensive analysis, providing a deep understanding of the reasoning behind these predictions, ultimately aiding in the formulation of effective strategies and policies.

In a world marked by geopolitical tensions and rapidly changing security dynamics, the importance of maritime security in the Indo-Pacific cannot be overstated. It is one of the key topics of discussion at the Seoul Defense Dialogue 2023, and the "International Defense Briefing" has a dedicated special session addressing this very issue. The service equips subscribers with invaluable insights into the challenges and opportunities in this region, empowering them to navigate the maritime security landscape with confidence.

The global defense industry's outlook is another subject of significant interest, as discussed at the Dialogue. The service keeps business entrepreneurs and managers ahead of the curve with in-depth coverage of this topic. With the incorporation of artificial intelligence into combat becoming increasingly prevalent, understanding its implications is crucial. The "International Defense Briefing" offers expert insights into this transformative technology and its potential impact on the global defense landscape.

Additionally, the service touches on the historic 1950-53 Korean War's armistice, as it commemorates its 70th anniversary this year. The "International Defense Briefing" provides context and analysis on the ongoing significance of this milestone, ensuring subscribers are well-versed in the historical factors shaping current international relations.

In conclusion, as the world comes together to discuss the critical issues of our time at the Seoul Defense Dialogue 2023, the "International Defense Briefing" stands as an indispensable resource for business entrepreneurs and managers seeking to navigate the complex and ever-changing realm of international defense. With its comprehensive country reports, detailed forecasts, and expert analysis, it empowers leaders to make informed decisions and seize opportunities in the global defense marketplace. Don't miss out on this invaluable tool  subscribe to the "International Defense Briefing" today and stay ahead in the world of international defense.

For more information and subscription details, please visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/zhceut

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:

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SOURCE Research and Markets
DUBAI, UAE , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- His Highness Sheikh Ammar bin Humaid Al Nuaimi , Crown Prince of Ajman , and His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum , Deputy Ruler of Dubai , Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Finance, and Her Excellency Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Government Development and the Future, visited the Sharjah Government Pavilion at GITEX Global 2023. They were received by Sheikh Saud bin Sultan Al Qasimi , Director of Sharjah Digital Office and Chairman of the Higher Committee of the Pavilion , who briefed them on the pavilion's innovative projects and the latest technologies the Sharjah Government is investing in as part of its comprehensive and sustainable digital transformation journey.

During the fourth day of the exhibition, other dignitaries, including Her Excellency Asma bin Taliah , Secretary General of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Sharjah, His Excellency Salem Ali Al Muhairi , Chairman of the Municipal Council of Sharjah; His Excellency Mohammed Hassan Khalaf , Director General of Sharjah Broadcasting Authority, His Excellency Omar Ali Al Shamsi , Director of the Sharjah Noble Quran and Sunnah Establishment; and His Excellency Khalid Al Ali , the Secretary General of the Sharjah Urban Planning Council, also visited the Sharjah Pavilion .

Cybersecurity

The fourth day of the exhibition featured the launch of the 'Sharjah Government URL-Shortening Platform' at the Sharjah Government Pavilion in Dubai World Trade Centre's Arena Hall. Developed by the Sharjah Cyber Security Center, with support from the e-Government Department, this platform leverages the official Sharjah government domain, shj.ae, to simplify the verification of official links. This initiative is designed to enhance security and combat potential fraud associated with shared links.

Additionally, as part of its commitment to advancing the emirate towards a digitally secure future, the Sharjah Cyber Security Center unveiled the 'Measuring Cyber Skills across Sharjah ' project, comprising the launch of an awareness campaign inviting the participation of all the emirate's government entities. The main objective of this initiative is to gather essential data for evaluating existing cyber skills and fostering a skilled workforce, in line with Sharjah's vision of becoming one of the most digitally secure emirates in the region.

Waafi

Kalba City Municipality introduced the 'Waafi,' a customer service enhancement platform accessible through its website and the 'Smart Kalba' mobile app. Leveraging artificial intelligence, specifically ChatGPT, the platform serves as a comprehensive resource for general enquiries related to services offered on the Smart Kalba platform. It also incorporates an interactive virtual assistant powered by ChatGPT-4, simplifying users' access to free services on the Smart Kalba platform, promoting efficiency and convenience.

Workshops

During the exhibition, the pavilion hosted a series of informative workshops. Aisha Al Ali , a member of the Sharjah Youth Council, participated in a dialogue session titled 'Adapting to Technological Changes' alongside two other speakers to explore the impact of contemporary technological advancements and how to prepare for them.

Matthew Dixon , CEO, and Serhii Nikolaiev , Head of AI Development at EVAI, led a workshop titled 'Decentralised AI - The Awakening.' Dr Malek Alzewairi from PWC conducted the 'Cybersecurity in Governments and Smart Cities' workshop on the third day, emphasising essential considerations for governments in designing smart cities.

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Cardiovascular portfolio companies to be highlighted in a live case, clinical data presentations, and Shark Tank Innovation Competition

CAMPBELL, Calif. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Shifamed LLC, a highly specialized medical innovation hub, and its portfolio companies will be showcasing their latest cardiovascular solutions during the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) annual meeting in San Francisco , October 23-26 .

"Shifamed has built an ecosystem where we design and develop next-generation medical products that aim to improve clinical standards and positively impact patients' lives," said Amr Salahieh , President & CEO, Shifamed. "We are thrilled to have the opportunity to highlight the tremendous progress our cardiovascular portfolio companies have made through product use in a live case, key data presentations, panel participation and a Shark Tank presentation at this year's TCT conference."

Key Sessions of Interest include:

Monday, Oct. 23 :

12:20 PM : A Differentiated Approach Delivering Targeted Thrombectomy for VTE  Clot Burden or Hemodynamics? (Akura Medical) during the Shark Tank Innovation Competition at the MedTech Innovation Forum

Presenter: Murali Srivathsa , President & CEO, Akura Medical





: A Differentiated Approach Delivering Targeted Thrombectomy for VTE  Clot Burden or Hemodynamics? (Akura Medical) during the at the Presenter: , President & CEO, Akura Medical 3:30 PM : Patterns of Use in Temporary MCS: Balancing Clinical Needs, Evidence, and Cost during the MedTech Innovation Forum

Discussant: Nitin Salunke , President & CEO, Supira Medical

Tuesday, Oct. 24 :

9:30 AM : 10-Year Anniversary of Early Feasibility ProgramMajor Accomplishments and a Reflective Scorecard during the FDA Town Hall

Guest Discussant: Amr Salahieh , President & CEO, Shifamed





: 10-Year Anniversary of Early Feasibility ProgramMajor Accomplishments and a Reflective Scorecard during the Guest Discussant: , President & CEO, Shifamed 11:45 AM : Live Case: Heart Institute  Complex Coronary PCI with MCS, InCor, Univ of Sao Paulo Medical School during the Coronary Artery Disease II Live Case Session (showcasing the Supira System)

Live Case Operators: Dr. Alexandre Abizaid , Dr. Fabio S. Brito Jr ., Dr. Carlos Campos , Dr. Azeem Latib and Dr. Gagan Singh

Live Case Moderator: Dr. Azeem Latib

Wednesday, Oct. 25 :

9:08 AM : Results from the Early Human Experience with the Supira Percutaneous Ventricular Assist Device (Supira Medical) during the Featured Technological Trends -Percutaneous Mechanical Circulatory Support (pMCS) session

Presenter: Dr. Azeem Latib

Thursday, Oct. 26 :

10 AM : Pre-Clinical Results with A Chronically-Adjustable and Pressure Sensing Interatrial Shunt (Adona Medical) during the Featured Technological Trends - Pressure and Volume Management session

Presenter: Dr. Paul Sorajja

In addition, Akura Medical will showcase its differentiated approach to thrombectomy for venous thromboembolism and Supira Medical will highlight its low-profile, high continuous flow percutaneous ventricular assist device (pVAD) at booth #2137.

The Akura Medical System is for Investigational Use only and is not for sale in the U.S. or outside the U.S.

The Supira System is for Investigational Use only and is not for sale in the U.S. or outside the U.S.

The Adona Medical System is in preclinical phase and is not approved for sale or use in the U.S. or outside the U.S.

About Shifamed, LLC.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Amr Salahieh , Shifamed is a highly specialized medical innovation hub focused on developing solutions that accelerate time to market, reduce risk, increase impact, and forge a path toward a world where patients are able to lead longer, healthier lives. To learn more about Shifamed, please visit www.shifamed.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Jennie Kim

SPRIG Consulting LLC

[email protected]

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SOURCE Shifamed, LLC
Iranian Narges Mohammadi, 51, who won the Nobel Peace Prize on October 6, knows what her 16-year-old twins, Kiana and Ali, look like now thanks to cell phones, videos and photos. It has been eight years since she has seen her children in person and 19 months since the human rights advocate has even been allowed to hear their voices on the phone in Tehrans Evin Prison, where she is serving a prison sentence of over 10 years. Mohammadi has spent the past 12 years in and out of prison. In that time, her husband, Taghi Rahmani, 64, has been her voice in the West; he, too, spent 14 years in the Iranian regimes prisons. This newspaper spoke with Rahmani on October 9 in a video call from Paris, where he lives in exile with his children. In our conversation, he emphasized how this Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his wifes struggle will also serve to boost the Women, Life and Freedom movement. That was the slogan of the protests against the Iranian regime on September 16, 2022, set off by the death in police custody of Mahsa Yina Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been arrested three days earlier for wearing the mandatory veil incorrectly.

Question: How did your wife react when she heard that she had won the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Narges [Mohammadi] found out that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize on Friday [October 6] and she [reacted with] great joy. Her father told her on the phone and another prisoners husband told her, but also, curiously, she found out through a government TV channel, which often criticizes Narges and other opponents. When the West gives an award like this to a dissident, the regime always says that human rights are being politicized and that is their version They dont threaten you directly by saying we are going to increase your sentence because you have won this award, or something like that, but there is a veiled threat.

Q. Do you have any hope that shell be released, as the president of the Nobel Committee requested?

A. In a letter, forty prisoners who are imprisoned with her have asked that she be released, but the important thing  and thats the joy that this prize represents  has nothing to do with whether Narges is released or not. The important thing is that the whole world will know about her struggle now. The award adds a lot of strength to her demand for freedoms, for the respect of human rights, now. The important thing is that the world will pay more attention to what is happening in Iran. This award is a boost to Nargess struggle.

Q. Has the award been a setback for the Iranian regime?

A. Of course it has, but that is a consequence, not the motivation or the objective of the Nobel Prize. This prize hurts the Islamic Republic because there has been a revolution in Iran, a movement in which over 500 people have lost their lives [according to Iranian human rights organizations], many others have lost their eyes [protesters were blinded in one or both eyes by security force gunfire] and over 20,000 have been arrested. Narges is a symbol of all that. This award recognizes her sacrifice, what she has done for over 25 years and how she has supported this movement [the protests] from jail, but it is also an award for the protesters.

Narges Mohammadi, the winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, in an undated photo. REIHANE TARAVATI (Middle East Images / AFP)

Q. What has Iranian societys reaction to her Nobel Prize been like?

A. So far, peoples reaction has been good. Even Farah Diba [the widow of Irans last Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi] congratulated Narges. The only ones who havent congratulated her are the small group of Iranians who support the Islamic Republic. Apart from the Iranian regime and the monarchists [supporters of the reinstatement of the Pahlevi dynasty] and the exception of Farah Diba, all the opposition groups have considered this Nobel Prize to be well-deserved. For example, Narges has been congratulated by the teachers and other workers unions. That is relevant, because these people are inside Iran and have the capacity to mobilize a lot of people. The ones who matter are those who are inside, those groups have the power to get people out on the streets.

Q. What is the situation in Iran like today?

A. Iranians are still protesting; women are protesting; on social media, everybody is protesting. When even the countrys reformists, who are part of the system, are happy with Narges receiving the Nobel Prize, that means that discontent with the regime continues and is widespread. And in that way, we have already won. It is true that any revolution has ups and downs, and now we are at a lower point. Iranians continue with their civil disobedience against the regime, as seen with the women who take off their mandatory hijab. The movement is still going on, but it is going on underground. When we have all the countrys strong unions showing that discontent and they have a lot of people behind them, we see the support that these protests continue to have. Thats why, for us, the congratulatory wishes for Nargess Nobel that came from inside the prison, from the imprisoned union leaders or from the unions, are the ones that matter. For a country to rise up, it has to rise up from within. The West will come after that.

Q. The protests in Iran dont have a leader.

A. Opposition leadership has to be accepted within the country [a reference to the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran, an attempt by part of the Iranian diaspora to rally the opposition last February that fell apart soon after], and that has not happened. Moreover, the protests in Iran are a new model of revolution with which we are not familiar. We also dont know exactly what is going on in Iran. We would only know if there was a referendum on the regime. There, we would see the Islamic Republics support or lack thereof.

Q. The Islamic Republic is increasing its repression of those who disobey the veil law.

A. Actually, it is no longer like it was in Iran years ago, when if you missed a few strands of your headscarf, the morality police would immediately arrive and rebuke you. Now, they are so desperate that there have been policemen who tell women to at least put a string [or] a small cloth on their heads, whatever, so they can argue that these Iranian women are obeying the [regimes] rules and the mandatory hijab law. Two years ago [before the demonstrations], 75% of Iranian women no longer agreed with the mandatory hijab. I have two sisters, one wears it and the other doesnt, but even the one who does [wear a hijab] doesnt agree with it being compulsory. The veil is a symbol of domination. This protest movement is so important that even some ayatollahs who support the regime do not agree with forcing women to wear the headscarf.

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ROTTERDAM, Netherlands , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its ongoing global expansion, Shipsy, a global SaaS leader in logistics management, announces its new Innovation Center in the Netherlands . This strategic move comes on the heels of a major partnership with one of Germany's largest logistics companies, and a European retail giant, solidifying Shipsy's position as a key player in the European logistics technology landscape.

With 220+ enterprise customers worldwide, Shipsy has become synonymous with innovation, efficiency, and seamless logistics operations, serving an impressive array of clients, including Fortune 100 companies, logistics service providers, retailers, and manufacturers.

The Netherlands , a hub for technology innovation and logistics, was an obvious choice for Shipsy's European expansion. With a dedicated local team, Shipsy aims to offer tailor-made and responsive support for its rapidly growing European customer base.

The new center arrives at a transformative time in European logistics, marked by e-commerce booms, sustainability goals, and evolving regulations. Shipsy's solutions are geared to address these challenges head-on.

"Shipsy is heavily investing in AI in logistics. Our AI-driven software platform is designed to empower businesses to enhance customer experiences, optimize logistics costs, and automate operations with unparalleled precision. In addition, we are also helping businesses in Europe resolve pressing issues in logistics, like enabling rapid network expansion and reducing CO 2 e emissions," says Soham Chokshi , CEO and Co-founder of Shipsy. Shipsy is also actively seeking new partnerships within the logistics ecosystem to broaden its impact.

With a global talent pool of 280+ employees across 7 countries, Shipsy powers over 150 Million parcel movement, and tracks 650,000+ containers monthly. Shipsy also has contributed to the reduction of over 1 billion miles traveled, and saved 800+ KT of CO2e emissions.

As Shipsy sets sail on this exciting new chapter, the company remains steadfast in its mission to revolutionize the logistics sector globally. With innovation, customer satisfaction, and seamless operations at its core, Shipsy continues to shape the future of logistics, one shipment at a time.

About Shipsy:

Shipsy is a leading logistics Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, revolutionizing the way businesses manage their logistics operations. With a focus on innovation, efficiency, and customer satisfaction, Shipsy's cutting-edge solutions empower businesses to optimize costs, enhance customer experiences, and automate operations seamlessly. Shipsy is shaping the future of logistics through AI-powered technology-driven solutions. To learn more, please visit www.shipsy.io .

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2251904/Shipsy_Amsterdam.jpg

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SOURCE Shipsy
Clark Public Utilities, Pedernales Electric Cooperative, and WEC Energy Group earn top marks in Business Customer Satisfaction Study

BOULDER, Colo. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- E Source is excited to announce the results of the E Source 2023 Business Customer Satisfaction Study. The company surveyed small and midsize business (SMB) customers to discover the utility attributes they value most, as well as where their utility ranks on those attributes. The survey uses a 10-point scale, where 1 is the lowest score and 10 is the highest. Among nine attributes, SMB customers selected three as most important for a utility to possess:

Energy reliability

Trustworthiness

Effective emergency communications

E Source Market Research conducts the annual Business Customer Satisfaction Study to provide utilities and account representatives with direct feedback from SMB customers. The survey produces an understanding of the overall satisfaction levels and identifies where improvement is essential. Over 1,400 SMB customers participated in the ninth edition of the study, which revealed the top-ranked utilities in 2023.

Of the participating utilities, Clark Public Utilities earned the top spot by receiving a score of 8.85 out of 10 for overall customer satisfaction and perceived value. Clark Public Utilities also scored highest for all utility and business customer representative attributes in the study.

"Small businesses are the economic engines of our community, and we work hard to give them the service and support they need to thrive," says Debbie DePetris, energy services manager at Clark Public Utilities. "Customer service is at the heart of what we do at Clark Public Utilities, and we want all our customers of every size to know we're here for them."

Pedernales Electric Cooperative earned second place in the SMB study with a total score of 8.34 out of 10 for overall satisfaction and perceived value. The utility scored highly for providing reliable energy, being trustworthy, and being easy to do business with.

In third place, WEC Energy Group earned high marks in providing reliable energy, effective emergency communications, and being trustworthy. SMB customers gave the utility an overall satisfaction and perceived value score of 7.35 out of 10.

"Congratulations to the top utilities in the small and midsize business study for understanding their customers unique situations and energy needs," says Daniel Doutre , lead analyst, E Source Market Research. "Given their large numbers of SMBs, it's admirable that these utilities continue to develop their abilities to better serve these customers."

Members of the E Source Account Management Service will be able to access the complete study results, and utility participants that aren't members of this service may purchase aggregate results separately. Contact E Source to learn more.

About E Source

E Source blends industry-leading research, predictive data science, and solution services to help utilities make better decisions to support their customers, their bottom line, and our planet. With a data-first approach and a commitment to practical innovation, we use more than three decades of utility-focused experience and our unique solution set to help clients achieve their goal of becoming a Sustainable Utility. E Source is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado , with offices across the US.

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SOURCE E Source Companies LLC
CALGARY, AB , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Strathcona Resources Ltd. ("Strathcona" or the "Company") (TSX: SCR) will release its third quarter 2023 financial and operating results prior to the opening of markets on November 14, 2023 . Strathcona will host a conference call on November 14, 2023 , starting at 9:00AM MT ( 11:00AM ET ), to review the Company's third quarter 2023 results.

Date: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 Time: 11:00AM ET ( 9:00AM MT ) URL Entry: To join without operator assistance, register here up to 15 minutes before the start time. Enter your name and phone number to receive an automated call-back. Telephone Entry: Alternatively, you can join with operator assistance by dialing 1 (888) 390-0605 (North American Toll Free) and quote conference ID 256954. Webcast Link: https://app.webinar.net/Y34lWwL1ORD

For those unable to participate in the conference call at the scheduled time, a recording of the conference call will be available for seven days following the call and can be accessed by dialing 1 (888) 390-0541 and entering the conference number 256954.

About Strathcona

Strathcona Resources is one of North America 's fastest growing oil and gas producers with operations focused on thermal oil, enhanced oil recovery and liquids-rich natural gas. Strathcona is built on an innovative approach to growth achieved through the consolidation and development of long-life oil and gas assets. Strathcona's common shares (symbol SCR) are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

For more information about Strathcona Resources, visit www.strathconaresources.com.

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SOURCE Strathcona Resources Ltd.
MISSISSAUGA, ON and KIRKLAND, QC , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sumitomo Pharma Canada, Inc. and Pfizer Canada today announced that Health Canada has granted a Notice of Compliance (NOC) for MYFEMBREE (Relugolix, estradiol and norethindrone acetate tablets) for the management of moderate to severe pain associated with endometriosis in pre-menopausal women on October 17, 2023 . On September 22, 2023 , Health Canada also approved MYFEMBREE for the management of heavy menstrual bleeding associated with uterine fibroids in pre-menopausal women. This combination therapy oral treatment is taken once daily and provides a new option for women to manage their symptoms related to endometriosis and uterine fibroids.

"Health Canada's approval of MYFEMBREE across the uterine fibroid and endometriosis indications marks a significant milestone in our commitment to women's health," said Lisa Mullett , General Manager, Sumitomo Pharma Canada, Inc. "These are multi-faceted and complex chronic conditions, and we are proud to make new treatment options available to women in Canada ."

"MYFEMBREE's approval is a testament to the shared commitment between our two companies to support women's health," added Andrea Mueller , Primary Care Portfolio Lead at Pfizer Canada. "We are proud to help women manage their health at all stages of their lives."

This approval is based on several comprehensive Phase 3 studies, including the LIBERTY 1 and LIBERTY 2 trials for uterine fibroids and the SPIRIT 1 and SPIRIT 2 trials for endometriosis.

"Uterine fibroids and endometriosis are very common conditions affecting millions of Canadians. Endometriosis, in particular, can be a very challenging and complex condition to treat, often resulting in years of delay to diagnosis, said Dr. Sony Sukhbir Singh, Professor and Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, at the University of Ottawa. "These conditions can cause debilitating symptoms such as pain and bleeding, impacting daily life and overall well-being for many girls, women and gender diverse individuals."

Following this approval Pfizer Canada will lead commercialization efforts of MYFEMBREE in the uterine fibroid and endometriosis indications. In partnership with Sumitomo Pharma in Canada , Pfizer Canada is currently assessing the timeline of availability for MYFEMBREE and are committed to bringing supply of this medicine to Canadians as quickly as possible.

About Uterine Fibroids

Uterine fibroids are the most common benign tumors in women of reproductive age.1 Uterine fibroids may be underdiagnosed due to several factors. Roughly 50 to 80% of women may have asymptomatic fibroids, meaning they don't experience noticeable symptoms. Additionally, some women with fibroid-related symptoms, such as heavy menstrual bleeding and pain, might not seek medical attention because they consider these issues to be a normal part of their menstrual cycles. Furthermore, healthcare providers may sometimes dismiss these symptoms as normal, contributing to the underestimation of uterine fibroid prevalence in Canadian women. 2,3,4,5

About Endometriosis

Endometriosis is a chronic disease characterized by growth of endometrial-like tissue outside the uterus.6 This growth of endometriotic tissue relies on estrogen, a hormone crucial for regulating the female reproductive system.7 Endometriosis mainly affects women of reproductive age, occurring between their first menstrual period and menopause, when estrogen levels decline.8 In Canada , 7.0% of women aged 18-48 have endometriosis, with an average diagnosis age of 27.9. Most Canadian women experience symptoms before diagnosis with an average delay of 5.4 years in diagnosis.9 Symptoms include menstrual pain, pelvic pain, and pain during sex, with 60% reporting moderate to severe pain. 6,9,10 Endometriosis can impact fertility, quality of life, and work productivity.11

About MYFEMBREE

MYFEMBREE (relugolix 40 mg, estradiol 1 mg, and norethindrone acetate 0.5 mg) has received a dual indication approval, making it the first Health Canada-approved oral treatment to manage uterine fibroids and endometriosis. MYFEMBREE was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of heavy menstrual bleeding associated with uterine fibroids in May 2021 and for the management of moderate to severe pain associated with endometriosis in August 2022 .

About Sumitomo Pharma

Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd. is a global pharmaceutical company based in Japan with key operations in the U.S. (Sumitomo Pharma America, Inc.), Canada (Sumitomo Pharma Canada, Inc.) and Europe (Sumitomo Pharma Switzerland GmbH) focused on addressing patient needs in psychiatry & neurology, oncology, urology, women's health, rare disease, and cell & gene therapies. With several marketed products in the U.S. , Canada , and Europe , a diverse pipeline of early- to late-stage assets, and in-house advanced technology capabilities, we aim to accelerate discovery, research, and development to bring novel therapies to patients sooner. For more information, please visit https://www.us.sumitomo-pharma.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Pfizer Canada

Pfizer Canada ULC is the Canadian operation of Pfizer Inc., one of the world's leading biopharmaceutical companies. Our diversified healthcare portfolio includes some of the world's best known and most prescribed medicines and vaccines. We apply science and our global resources to improve the health and well-being of Canadians at every stage of life. Our commitment is reflected in everything we do, from our disease awareness initiatives to our community partnerships. To learn more about Pfizer Canada, visit pfizer.ca or you can follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

1 BMC Public Health, Global, regional, and national time trends in incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability for uterine fibroids, 19902019: an age-period-cohort analysis for the global burden of disease 2019 study, https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-15765-x, Accessed August 22, 2023

2 Laberge PY, Vilos GA, Vilos AG, Janiszewski PM. Burden of symptomatic uterine fibroids in Canadian women: a cohort study. Curr Med Res Opin . 2016;32(1):165-75. doi:10.1185/03007995.2015.1107534

3 Bukulmez O, Doody KJ. Clinical features of myomas. Obstet Gynecol Clin North Am. Mar 2006 ;33(1):69-84. doi:10.1016/j.ogc.2005.12.002

4 Stovall DW. Clinical symptomatology of uterine leiomyomas. Clin Obstet Gynecol. Jun 2001 ;44(2):364-71. doi:10.1097/00003081-200106000-00022

5 Zimmermann A, Bernuit D, Gerlinger C, Schaefers M, Geppert K. Prevalence, symptoms and management of uterine fibroids: an international internet-based survey of 21,746 women. BMC Women's Health. Mar 26 2012 ;12:6.

6 Zondervan, K.T., et al., Endometriosis. Nat Rev Dis Primers, 2018. 4(1): p. 9.

7 Ahn, S.H., et al., Pathophysiology and immune dysfunction in endometriosis. BioMed research international, 2015. 2015.

8 Stratton , P. and K.J. Berkley , Chronic pelvic pain and endometriosis: translational evidence of the relationship and implications. Hum Reprod Update, 2011. 17(3): p. 327-46.

9 Singh, S., et al., Prevalence, symptomatic burden, and diagnosis of endometriosis in Canada : cross-sectional survey of 30 000 women. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada, 2020. 42(7): p. 829-838.

10 Becker, K., et al., Real world data on symptomology and diagnostic approaches of 27,840 women living with endometriosis. Scientific Reports, 2021. 11(1): p. 1-9.

11 Macer, M.L. and H.S. Taylor , Endometriosis and infertility: a review of the pathogenesis and treatment of endometriosis-associated infertility. Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics, 2012. 39(4): p. 535-549.

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SOURCE Sumitomo Pharma America
OTTAWA, ON , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Replica Analytics Ltd., an Aetion company, and the University of Ottawa, are set to co-host the third edition of the Synthetic Data Summit at the IET London: Savoy Place on November 30, 2023 , in the United Kingdom . The event will offer unique insights into the world of synthetic data generation (SDG) and its transformative potential for healthcare.

SDG involves using generative AI to create synthetic data from real data while ensuring data privacy, security, and utility. Previously held virtually, the Synthetic Data Summit 2023 is an in-person gathering for chief data officers, privacy professionals, data scientists, and healthcare insights directors interested in how this technology is addressing critical issues in healthcare data, such as data privacy, diversity and data bias, enabling more equitable clinical research, and data augmentation.

"There have been important developments in SDG in recent years, including improved data generation for complex datasets, better evaluation frameworks for privacy and utility, and growing regulatory interest and acceptance worldwide," said Khaled El Emam , SVP and GM, Replica. Dr. El Emam holds the Canada Research Chair in Medical AI at the University of Ottawa and has been developing and deploying privacy enhancing technologies for two decades. "We are proud to offer this timely and pertinent event in collaboration with our Aetion colleagues and the University of Ottawa, so that we can showcase recent developments and applications by and within the healthcare community."

The one-day Summit has many distinguished speakers including European privacy regulators, large data custodians, representatives from health systems and life sciences companies, as well as researchers from academia. A number of life sciences companies will share their experiences using synthetic data in practice on real world data and clinical trial data. And Replica partner, Aridhia, will demo a new next-generation data sharing platform. Presentations will address not only privacy but also the role of SDG in augmenting data sets, as well as mitigating bias, in data sets.

Summit participants will gain valuable insights that can make a difference in successfully deploying SDG technology, extracting real business value from it, and implementing the best methodologies around its use.

For additional details, including the full program and registration information, visit: https://replica-analytics.com/news-events/conference-synthetic-data-summit-2023/

About Replica Analytics, an Aetion company

Replica Analytics Ltd. is the premier science-based synthetic data generation technology provider to the healthcare industry. The company is a pioneer in the development of unique technologies for generating privacy-protective synthetic data that maintain the statistical properties of real-world data (RWD). The company was acquired in late 2021 by Aetion, the leading regulatory-grade real-world evidence (RWE) technology provider. Replica Synthesis is the industry's trusted synthetic data generation software, and the latest in ensuring real-world data can go the distance. Replica Synthesis provides a full suite of synthetic data generation and evaluation capabilities that can solve multiple grand challenges facing the life sciences industry, and health research in general. For more information, visit: https://replica-analytics.com/

About Aetion

Aetion Inc. is a healthcare analytics company that delivers real-world evidence for the manufacturers, purchasers, and regulators of medical treatments and technologies. The Aetion Evidence Platform analyzes data from the real world to produce transparent, rapid, and scientifically validated answers on safety, effectiveness, and value. Founded by Harvard Medical School faculty members with decades of experience in epidemiology and health outcomes research, Aetion informs healthcare's most critical decisionswhat works best, for whom, and whento guide product development, commercialization, and payment innovation. Learn more at aetion.com and follow us at @aetioninc.

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SOURCE Replica Analytics
FREDERICK, Md. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Texcell- North America, a prominent name in the field of custom cell culture and virology biosafety testing, announced the retirement of its esteemed founder and CEO, Jeff Schubert , effective as of October 5, 2023 .

Jeff Schubert founded the company in 1991 alongside his wife, Tracy Staley . Beginning as Cell Trends, Inc., they started as a custom cell culture entity. Under Jeff and Tracy's leadership, the company evolved to offer GLP viral clearance testing services. In December 2010 , Cell Trends was acquired by the French company, Texcell Group, leading to the company re-branding as Texcell- North America. The subsequent years saw significant growth and service expansions, leading to a relocation to Frederick, Maryland in 2012. In June 2023 , the site quadrupled its operational space with the addition of a new state-of-the-art viral clearance facility.

Eric Henriet , Chairman of the Board for Texcell- North America, expressed his gratitude for Jeff's decades of work with the company. "Jeff's remarkable vision and leadership have been integral to Texcell's growth and success. Both he and Tracy have made invaluable contributions, and we are deeply appreciative of their service."

Jeff Schubert and Tracy Staley spent a large portion of their lives together in Middletown, Maryland , and are taking the opportunity to embark on a new journey together. Recently, they purchased a residence by Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire and have invested as partial owners of the Bucking Bull Bourbon company, based in Texas .

Stepping into Jeff's formidable shoes is Alysia Birkholz , PhD, the newly appointed CEO for the North America branch of the Texcell Group. Dr. Birkholz has been with Texcell- North America for over six years, having formerly worked as COO and Deputy CEO. Commenting on the transition, Dr. Birkholz said, "Jeff and Tracy have been pillars of this organization. We are profoundly grateful for their contributions and wish them a splendid and adventurous future."

About Texcell

Texcell is a globally recognized contract research organization, offering services like viral testing, viral clearance, bioassays, in vivo testing, and GMP cell banking for various project types including R&D, GLP, and GMP.

With a robust team of 140 professionals spread across locations in France , the US, Germany , China , and Japan , Texcell caters to a global clientele. Building on its consistent growth, Texcell is set to launch two new laboratories in the US and China in 2023.

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SOURCE Texcell
Philippines Air Force crews will operate these new C-130J-30s, set to deliver in 2026

MARIETTA, Ga. , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Republic of the Philippines Department of National Defense announced the acquisition of three new C-130J-30 Super Hercules tactical airlifters from Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) through a Direct Commercial Sale. In choosing the C-130J, the Philippines joins 21 other nations that rely on the Super Hercules to support tactical airlift mission requirements.

The tactical mission profile requires a proven aircraft that delivers known operational results and capabilities when operating in challenging environmental and geographic conditions. The C-130J-30 provides these attributes and more to the Philippine Air Force (PAF), which will operate these new Super Hercules. All three aircraft are scheduled to deliver in 2026.

The Philippines is a long-standing C-130 operator, receiving its first Hercules in the early 1970s. The PAF currently operates a mixed fleet of legacy C-130s to support critical humanitarian, military and natural disaster relief missions throughout the Indo-Pacific region. PAF crews will operate the C-130J-30, the stretch version of the C-130J that offers an additional 15 feet (5 meters) of cargo space. The Super Hercules' increased power, range, integration, space and capability will support PAF crews in meeting complex and evolving tactical mission requirements.

"Philippine Air Force crews have long demonstrated what the C-130 is designed to do: go everywhere  in any condition  to deliver hope and help where it's needed most," said Rod McLean , vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's Air Mobility & Maritime Missions line of business. "It is an honor to continue serving the Philippines with the most advanced and capable C-130 ever produced. The Super Hercules provides the Philippine Air Force with unmatched interoperability and capability, supporting challenging mission requirements across the Pacific region."

With its new C-130J fleet, the Philippines is part of a global network of Super Hercules operators and offers the PAF unmatched commonality among allied partners, access to a robust international support community, an active supply chain, an innovative block upgrade program and training opportunities with other C-130J operators across the world.

The PAF's existing knowledge of the Hercules aircraft and existing infrastructure also offers a seamless transition between airframes as compared to introducing an entirely new aircraft variant into a fleet, which requires significant time and investment that can prolong fleet readiness.

The C-130J Super Hercules is the proven standard in tactical airlift, providing a unique mix of versatility and performance to complete any mission, anytime, anywhere. To date, 26 operators in 22 nations are part of the C-130J global fleet. Lockheed Martin has delivered more than 525 C-130J Super Hercules in 10 mission variants.

For more information, visit www.lockheedmartin.com/c130.

About Lockheed Martin

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland , Lockheed Martin Corporation is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 116,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

Please follow www.lockheedmartin.com and @LMNews on X for the latest announcements and news across the corporation.

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SOURCE Lockheed Martin Aeronautics
Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement Filed

VANCOUVER, BC , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -Trilogy Metals Inc. (TSX: TMQ) (NYSE American: TMQ) ("Trilogy" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on the Ambler Access Project ("AAP")  the proposed 211-mile, industrial-use-only road from the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects ("UKMP") to the Dalton Highway that will enable the advancement of exploration and development at the Ambler Mining District , home to some of the world's richest known copper-dominant polymetallic deposits. The United States Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") has filed the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement ("SEIS") for the AAP on its website https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/57323/570 and anticipates being in the federal register on October 20, 2023 .

It is envisioned that the AAP be financed and maintained by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority ("AIDEA"), and companies such as Ambler Metals LLC ("Ambler Metals"), Trilogy's 50/50 joint venture with South32 Limited (ASX, LSE, JSE: S32; ADR: SOUHY), would enter into commercial agreements to use the road and pay tolls to AIDEA and its financing partners. More information about the Ambler Access Project is available at https://ambleraccess.org.

Road Permits - Litigation and Remand

During the summer of 2020, the BLM granted permits that authorized a right-of-way across federally managed lands for AIDEA and the AAP. Shortly thereafter, a coalition of national and Alaska environmental non-government organizations ("ENGO") filed lawsuits against the federal agencies responsible for issuing the permits for the AAP. The ENGOs' main position is that due process was not carried out during the permitting of the road. In May 2022 , the right-of-way permits issued to AIDEA for the AAP were suspended by the federal agencies based upon a request to remand the lawsuits. This remand request was made by the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the federal agencies and was granted by the U.S. District Court. The purpose of the remand is to allow the BLM to carry out additional supplemental work in response to the lawsuits.

The original lawsuit was filed by the Northern Alaska Environmental Center and several other environmental and conservation groups, and a subsequent separate lawsuit was filed by Tanana Chiefs Conference and several tribes.

In April 2023 , several Alaska Native leaders travelled to Washington, D.C. , with representatives of Ambler Metals and AIDEA to urge the fair review and timely completion of the Ambler Access Project's SEIS. There is strong support for the AAP from local residents and the Alaska delegation in Washington .

Further to Trilogy's previous update on the SEIS, provided in its news release dated October 11, 2023 , the BLM has filed the draft SEIS on its website https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/57323/570 and anticipates being in the federal register on October 20, 2023 . The draft SEIS is open for a 60-day public comment period, until December 19, 2023 . The BLM reconfirmed they anticipate a final SEIS is expected in the first quarter of 2024, and a Record of Decision within the second quarter of 2024.

About Trilogy Metals

Trilogy Metals Inc. is a metal exploration and development company holding 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, statements relating to the permitting and construction of the AAP, the timing and benefits of the AAP, the anticipated timing of the final SEIS and Record of Decision, and the merits of the UKMP 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 whether the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority will build the AAP; the results of the additional supplemental work on the SEIS resulting from the voluntary remand; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; success of exploration activities, permitting timelines, requirements for additional capital, government regulation of mining operations, environmental risks, prices for energy inputs, labour, materials, supplies and services, uncertainties involved in the interpretation of drilling results and geological tests, unexpected cost increases 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.

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SOURCE Trilogy Metals Inc.
NEW YORK , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- TZP Growth Equity, a fund within the broader TZP Group ("TZP"), a multi-strategy private equity firm, announced today its investment in Finzly, Inc. ("Finzly" or the "Company"), a provider of modular banking and payments technology infrastructure for financial institutions.

Founded by Booshan Rengachari in 2012 and headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina , Finzly empowers banks, fintechs, and businesses to rapidly adapt to changing market demands. Finzly's modern, cloud-based, and open API operating system serves as a parallel platform to a bank's core, enabling banks to focus on creating customer centric experiences.

"We are investing in Finzly due to its innovative approach to creating flexible payments and banking solutions. Their technology aligns with our vision of supporting companies that contribute to the evolution of the banking and financial sector," said Shamit Mehta , TZP Partner. "Finzly stands out from the competition through its unique platform that allows for the seamless integration of various banking services through its modern architecture. Their commitment to utilizing cutting edge technology lowers the total cost of ownership and positions them as a true forward-thinking partner to their customers."

"TZP brings a wealth of experience, a broad network within the financial industry, and a strong track record of supporting growing firms in realizing their potential," said Finzly founder and CEO, Booshan Rengachari. "Their strategic guidance, along with financial backing will help accelerate Finzly's growth trajectory and enhance its market position. The Finzly team is very excited to partner with TZP Group for this next chapter in the company's journey."

Shamit Mehta led the transaction for TZP with support from George Philipose . Goodwin Procter LLP and McGuireWoods, LLP provided legal counsel to TZP and the Company, respectively. Shamit Mehta will join the board as part of the transaction.

About Finzly

Finzly empowers the banks of the future, along with fintechs and businesses, to seamlessly offer and access financial services in an open, connected, embedded and real-time ecosystem. At the core of this infrastructure is FinzlyOS, a modern, cloud-based, API-enabled operating system that serves as a parallel platform to a bank's core. With a wide range of turnkey banking solutions, including a multi-rail payment hub, foreign exchange, trade finance, compliance, and commercial banking experience components, Finzly enables the creation of programmable banks while also providing a Banking-as-a-Service platform to fintech partners and corporate customers via a single API connection to all payment networks. In a recent milestone, Finzly announced the world's first API to access the FedNow service, solidifying its position as a pioneer in the banking technology space. Learn more about Finzly's game-changing solutions by visiting http://www.finzly.com.

About TZP

TZP Group, a multi-strategy private equity firm managing approximately $2 billion across its family of funds, is focused on control, growth equity, and structured capital investments in technology, business services, and consumer companies. Founded in 2007, TZP targets companies with solid historical performance and sustainable value propositions and aims to be a "Partner of Choice" for business owners and management teams. TZP seeks to invest primarily in closely held, private companies in which the owners desire to retain a significant stake and partner with an investor with complementary operating and financial skills to accelerate company growth, increase profitability, and maximize the value of their retained stake. TZP leverages its investment professionals' operating and investment experience to provide strategic and operational guidance and is dedicated to long-term value creation. For more information, please visit www.tzpgroup.com.

For more media inquiries please contact:

Dan Gaspar , Partner, TZP Group | [email protected]

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SOURCE TZP Group
The Distribution of Headsets Will Span Across 30 Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Assisted Living and Mental Health Centers Throughout Israel

BOSTON , Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- XRHealth, the leading healthcare platform in Spatial computing, announces today that they are currently deploying hundreds of VR headsets in Israel to treat patients coping with anxiety, stress, and PTSD as a result of the recent Hamas attacks. The distribution of the headsets will span across 30 hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and mental health centers throughout Israel (including three Clalit hospitals).

Just 48-hours after the attacks, XRHealth mobilized to deliver the headsets to Israel to assist with the treatment and recovery of patients. XRHealth provides VR/AR therapy to patients suffering from both mental and physical conditions and can treat patients from the comfort of their home or at a healthcare facility.

The headsets in Israel will feature, XRHealth's Patient Xperience software, that aims to alleviate the burden on clinicians by providing patients with a user-friendly interface, eliminating the need for the provider's constant attention. Patient Xperience enables patients to engage in meditation, self-relaxation, stress, and anxiety relief in fifty-three different environments.

"As soon as we heard about the attacks in Israel , we wanted to make sure that as a company we were positioned to help assist the survivors of the Hamas attacks and the people of Israel through the recovery process," says Eran Orr , CEO of XRHealth. "Currently we are deploying hundreds of headsets; however, it is clear to us that the need for mental health interventions combined with the shortage of mental health clinicians in the current situation requires even more. Our goal is to deploy 10,000 VR headsets since we believe that VR can be a solution for patient mental health recovery while a provider assists them. We are actively looking for donations to support the deployment of the project in Israel ."

Anyone interested in donating headsets to Israel , please contact XRHealth at [email protected].

About XRHealth

XRHealth is revolutionizing healthcare utilizing spatial computing. The company operates state-of-the-art therapeutic care Virtual Rooms, utilizing proprietary FDA and CE registered medical Extended Reality (XR) technology (virtual and augmented reality). XRHealth integrates immersive XR technology, licensed clinicians, and advanced data analytics on one platform, providing a comprehensive therapeutic care solution for patients to receive treatment from the comfort of their home. The company offers a variety of patent-pending solutions from rehabilitation services to cognitive assessment and training to pain management. XRHealth works with several world-renowned U.S. healthcare providers, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers. Founded in 2016, XRHealth is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and its R&D center is located in Tel-Aviv, Israel. For more information, visit https://www.xr.health/.

CONTACT:

DeeDee Rudenstein ,

[email protected],

(267) 521-9654

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SOURCE XRHealth
The Parliament of Georgia was unable to remove the President from office through impeachment where 86 deputies supported the impeachment of President Salome Zourabichvili, with one deputy voting against it. The President can only be considered removed from office if this decision is supported by at least two-thirds of the full composition of the parliament, which amounts to 100 deputies.Before the vote, Georgian Dream Chair Irakli Kobakhidze stated that they wouldn't be able to gather the necessary votes for impeachment; however, his main objective was to elicit a reaction.The United National Movement declared a boycott of the impeachment session.The Georgian Dream initiated the impeachment procedure against the President "on the grounds of a constitutional violation," stemming from President Zourabichvili's visits to European capitals without government permission.The Russian occupation forces illegally detained two Georgian citizens near the occupied villages of Ghromi and Balaani in Akhalgori, as reported by the State Security Service of Georgia.According to the agency, the State Security Service activated the 'hotline' operated by the European Union Monitoring Mission upon receiving the information. Another instance of illegal detention was swiftly reported to the co-chairs of the international discussions in Geneva and international partners."All existing mechanisms have been activated to secure the prompt release of illegally detained Georgian citizens. Responsibility for all destructive actions in the occupied territories of Georgia and along the occupation line rests with the occupying power," reads the State Security Service statement.
Wounded Palestinians in a corridor of Al Shifa hospital on Tuesday. Abed Khaled (AP)

Both Hamas and Israel have been accused of violating international law during the conflict unleashed by the formers surprise attack on the Jewish state on Oct. 7. The UN says it is gathering evidence of war crimes on both sides. Attacks like the one on the Al Ahli al Arabi hospital in Gaza on Tuesday test international law. Enforcing the law in the heat of conflict is difficult, but there are so-called rules of war, which in theory regulate the behavior of the warring parties. Most importantly, they protect the civilian population, which international humanitarian law says should never be a target of war or used as safeguards (human shields) by one of the parties to prevent an enemy attack.

According to local authorities, the attack on the Al Ahli al Arabi hospital in Gaza violates international law. The facility was full of patients as well as people taking shelter from Israeli shelling. Both sides accuse each other of responsibility for the attack: Hamas blames Israel, and Israel claims that the explosion was the result of a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch.

Accountability for war crimes perpetrators is often elusive, which has led to the establishment of special tribunals such as those in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. Just three days after Hamass October 7 attack on Israel, the UN Human Rights Council announced that one of its independent commissions of inquiry had already gathered clear evidence of war crimes perpetrated by both sides. The forced displacement of civilians (as a result of Israel ordering the inhabitants to north Gaza to evacuate), their relocation to the south of the Gaza Strip and the denial of basic supplies (electricity, water, food) for Gazan civilians are also under investigation.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002 and is based in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the only body authorized to prosecute war crimes, international crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. The ICC recognized Palestine as a member state in 2015. Israel, like the United States, China, Russia and Egypt, is not part of it, so they do not recognize its jurisdiction or abide by its judgments. Former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said this week that the total blockade of Gaza is a crime against humanity and genocide; as such, the ICC could investigate it.

What are the rules of war?

The rules of armed conflict obey a set of internationally recognized laws and resolutions, including the United Nations Charter, which prohibits wars of aggression but grants countries the right to defend themselves. Conduct on the battlefield is governed by international humanitarian laws, including the Geneva Conventions, which were written after World War II. Almost all nations signed them.

Agreed to in 1949 in the Swiss city, the four conventions establish that civilians, injured parties and prisoners must be treated humanely in wartime. They prohibit murder, torture, hostage-taking and humiliating and degrading treatment and require combatants to treat the opposing sides sick and wounded.

The rules apply to both wars between nations and asymmetrical conflicts, in which one of the parties is not a state, as in the war between Israel and Hamas.

What is a war crime?

A key document in the law of war is Article Eight of the Rome Statute, the founding of the International Criminal Court, which is based on the 1949 Geneva Conventions and defines war crimes as intentional attacks on civilians, civilian settlements or humanitarian workers, destruction of property when not militarily necessary, sexual violence and unlawful deportation.

Intentionally attacking civilians and civilian targets without a necessary military reason for doing so is a war crime, explains David Crane, the chief prosecutor of the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone, quoted by the AP. And that is a standard that both sides must meet under international law.

The legal concept of a war crime is separate from the concepts of crimes against humanity or genocide. While war crimes are limited to conflicts that occur internally or between two states, the latter two can also be committed in times of peace.

Are all attacks on civilians considered war crimes?

This is a controversial question. Classifying a military act as a war crime during a conflict depends on whether or not it was justified. Thus, the bombing of a school or a residential building cannot be classified as a war crime if it is considered militarily necessary. But what about Tuesdays bombing of a hospital, such as the one attacked  intentionally or accidentally, according to different reports and version sresulting in hundreds of deaths? According to most experts, it is impossible to bomb Gaza, one of the worlds most densely populated areas, without killing some of the 2.2 million civilians living there. In such circumstances, determining an attacks intended target is key to establishing whether a war crime has been committed.

What principles should govern the use of force?

The fundamental guiding principle is proportionality, which prohibits parties from responding to an attack with excessive violence. The distinction requires that members of the military constantly try to differentiate between civilians and combatants. In addition, the so-called precautionary principle calls for doing everything possible to avoid harming civilians, and the principle of distinction calls for clearly distinguishing between targets (in short, excluding civilians).

Does the order to evacuate Gaza violate international law?

According to some experts, Israels order last Friday for the inhabitants of northern Gaza to move to the south of the Gaza Strip is simply a precaution  a warning to avoid harm  but most human rights groups, as well as the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), believe it does violate international humanitarian law.

A warning to flee when there is no safe place to flee and no safe way to move is not an effective warning, the NGO Human Rights Watch criticized Friday. The Israeli military should issue warnings to civilians in Gaza before an attack if doing so would actually allow them to leave for a safer area.

The most critical observers claim that this is an attempt at forced displacement bordering on ethnic cleansing, akin to the one that occurred in the Balkans in the 1990s.

Has Hamas committed war crimes?

According to Israel, Hamass coordinated attacks on towns and cities have killed 1,400 people; in addition, 199 hostages were taken to Gaza and their whereabouts are unknown. According to the Geneva Conventions, civilians should never be taken hostage. If that is done, the action can be considered a war crime, says Jeanne Sulzer, a lawyer for Amnesty International France. Other experts also include the intentional massacre of civilians, such as the ones perpetrated at the music festival and on kibbutzim.

Has Israel committed war crimes?

Most consider Israels bombardment of Gaza, the order to evacuate the north Gaza Strip and the deprivation of basic supplies to be collective punishment of the areas two million inhabitants. The International Committee of the Red Cross has stated that the evacuation order, coupled with a complete siege that explicitly denies them [civilians] food, water and electricity, is not compatible with international humanitarian law.

The Israeli military claims that it abides by international law and is only attacking legitimate military targets in its attempt to eradicate Hamas militiamen, whom it believes are hiding among the civilian population. Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using munitions containing white phosphorus. That substance is not banned, but its use in densely populated areas is widely condemned. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) denies using it.

How are war crimes investigated?

A United Nations Commission of Inquiry is already gathering evidence of war crimes committed by all parties. This evidence could be added to an ongoing ICC investigation into the situation in the Palestinian territories. The ICC can prosecute officials of a country for human rights violations and order compensation for victims, but it does not have a police force to execute arrest warrants; instead, it relies on the police in countries that recognize ICC jurisdiction (Israel does not).

Can victims claim compensation?

While the ICC is the only permanent international tribunal established to prosecute war crimes, other courts, such as the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, can prosecute cases of alleged war crimes. Domestic courts in Israel and other countries may also do so. Under U.S. law, American victims could seek to bring claims for compensation against Hamas in U.S. courts. French and dual French-Israeli victims of Hamas attacks have already filed claims in court in France.

Violations of international law can also lead to sanctions, such as those imposed on Russia by the United States, the European Union and other countries for its invasion of Ukraine. In exceptional cases, the UN Security Council can approve UN military intervention, although it can be blocked by the veto of any of its five permanent members, including the United States, Israels traditional ally.

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People, believed to be asylum seekers, arrive to be housed on the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge at Portland Port, Portland near Weymouth in Britain, October 19, 2023. REUTERS/Toby Melville

PORTLAND, England (Reuters) - Britain began returning asylum seekers to a barge on its southern coast on Thursday, two months after it was forced to remove them within a few days of boarding because Legionella bacteria was found in the vessel's water supply.

The government, which wants to cut the 8 million pound ($9.7 million) daily bill of housing migrants in hotels while their asylum claims are processed, said its health, fire and water checks on the barge had been satisfactory.

The water contamination episode was an embarrassment for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has made cracking down on illegal migration a major priority ahead of a national election expected next year.

As part of its plan to deter people from arriving illegally in Britain, the government is moving migrants on to disused military sites and barges like the grey, three-story Bibby Stockholm in Portland which can house around 500 people in more than 200 bedrooms.

"The number of people on board will increase gradually with more arrivals in the coming days and months, as part of a carefully structured, phased approach," a spokesperson from Britain's interior ministry, the Home Office, said.

Critics have called the barge inhumane and compared it to a prison ship.

"By using accommodation like barges and barracks, the government is stripping asylum seekers of their liberty," Steve Smith, chief executive of refugee charity Care4Calais, said in a statement.

London's High Court refused to give the go-ahead to a legal challenge against housing people on the barge earlier this month.

($1 = 0.8236 pounds)

(Reporting by Toby Melville, Writing by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar)
FILE PHOTO: Gavin Newsom, governor of the State of California, speaks at the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 2, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

(Reuters) - California governor Gavin Newsom will visit China next week to discuss climate cooperation, promote bilateral economic development and tourism and encourage cultural exchanges, his office said in a statement on Thursday.

The week-long trip will include visits to Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Guangdong, the statement said.

"California and China hold the keys to solving the climate crisis," Newsom said. "As two of the world's largest economies, our partnership is essential to delivering climate action for our communities and beyond."

Newsom is expected to sign a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Guangdong province on climate issues, and he will also meet with regional leaders to discuss the shift towards electric vehicles and public transport. He will also sign additional MOUs in Beijing aimed at advancing climate cooperation between the two sides.

California has played a major role in maintaining climate ties between China and the United States, the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters.

During the presidency of Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement and all but shut down climate talks, leaders in California continued to meet with Chinese counterparts, including climate envoy Xie Zhenhua.

In 2019, California also set up the California-China Climate Institute, led by former governor Jerry Brown and partnered with Beijing's Tsinghua University, to conduct joint research on climate policies and solutions.

Newsom also signed an MOU with China's environment ministry last year to strengthen cooperation.

China and the United States relaunched top-level bilateral climate talks earlier this year after a hiatus triggered by the visit of former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the democratically governed island that China claims.

China climate envoy Xie and his U.S. counterpart John Kerry met in Beijing in July and have held several rounds of talks since in a bid to map out areas of agreement ahead of the COP28 climate talks in Dubai starting at the end of November.

(Reporting by David Stanway in Singapore; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
FILE PHOTO: Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Keith Rowley at the Canada-CARICOM Summit in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada October 18, 2023. REUTERS/Blair Gable/File Photo

(Reuters) - Canada and the Caribbean's Caricom regional bloc on Thursday announced the launch of a "strategic partnership" encompassing closer bilateral ties on trade, development, finance, environment, healthcare and security.

"We can benefit tremendously from being with Canada," Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley said at closing remarks with Canada's Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, adding that the benefits are "not only in dollars and cents".

Rowley said Caricom could benefit from Canada's support in international forums and marketplaces, "influencing decisions which affect us," including what he called "arbitrary" decisions made in disrespect of Caribbean interests.

Caribbean small island states, many of which have high debt loads and are disproportionately affected by climate change, have called for easier access to international financing and for rich nations to follow up on pledges to fund climate change mitigation.

Trudeau said a visit was planned later this month regarding a Haitian political consensus on the deployment of a U.N.-ratified force, requested by Haiti's unelected leader a year ago, as violent gangs extend their control driving a humanitarian crisis that has pushed 200,000 from their homes.

"There has to be a willingness, clearly expressed and articulated by the Haitian political class that this is the right thing to do," Trudeau said.

This comes a day after a leading member of Haiti's democratic transition council was kidnapped, a common occurrence as local gangs amass large sums through ransom demands.

Canada has sanctioned 28 people in Haiti, many members of Haiti's political and business elite who have slammed the sanctions as lacking in evidence.

The United Sanctions earlier on Thursday renewed its sanctions regime against Haiti, which currently counts just one person, as Chinese and Haitian representatives urged faster action.

(Reporting by Sarah Morland; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
FILE PHOTO: Ships and warehouses containing grains and sugar are seen at TIPLAM (Integrator Port Terminal Luiz Antonio Mesquita) from VLI Multimodal S.A. at Santos port, in Santos, Brazil May 25, 2023. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli/File Photo

By Marcelo Teixeira

(Reuters) - Brazil's commodities export hubs are strained with record volumes of soy, corn and sugar to be moved at a time of the year when rains start to increase in southern ports, according to traders, analysts and shipping data.

Exporters are reporting delays in coffee shipments due to a tight availability of trucks and containers, while loading waiting times for vessels have jumped, resulting in additional costs for traders and delays for the commodities to reach destinations.

Brazil ports have been dealing with high volumes this year, but rains in the south, the largest ever delivery of sugar on the expiration of the October contract in New York and the diversion of cargoes from northern ports to Santos port as a drought cut the Amazon River's water levels added pressure to the system.

"We are having trouble with container availability," the chief trader of a large coffee exporter said on condition of anonymity, adding that the situation slowed exports in September.

He said the sugar industry is using a lot more containers, reducing availability.

Raw sugar is usually shipped in bulk, while refined sugar uses containers.

According to shipping data provider Datamar, container use for sugar exports jumped 86% in the year through August versus the previous year, while the number of containers used for coffee fell 5%.

For bulk carriers, the wait to load cargoes jumped.

Shipping agency Williams said the waiting time at CLI, a main sugar terminal in Santos, rose to 33 days on Wednesday from 17 days in September.

ING analysts said some sugar shipments scheduled to depart Brazil in October will likely be pushed to November.

"We hear some vessels are delayed even 25-27 days," said sugar industry consultants CovrigAnalytics in a note on Thursday.

The line-up of vessels to load sugar in Brazil rose nearly 40% in the last week to around 4.2 million metric tons, 25% more than at the same time last year. About 90 vessels are available at the ports to load sugar.

Buyers are already expecting delays, said a director at one of the largest sugar exporters in Brazil. "But if it starts to rain much, it can get complicated."

The forecast is for only light rains in the coming days at Santos, with heavier downpours expected from Oct. 28.

(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira in New York; Editing by Jamie Freed and Richard Chang)
A general view of the site of the derailment of a train carrying hazardous waste in East Palestine, Ohio, U.S., February 23, 2023. REUTERS/Alan Freed/File Photo

(Reuters) - - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday ordered Norfolk Southern Corp to carry out additional cleanup in East Palestine, Ohio, following the Feb. 3 derailment of a company-operated freight train.

The EPA said it also ordered Norfolk Southern to conduct additional investigations into oily sheen, or film, on water and sediments in two creeks in East Palestine.

"Work done under this order will determine if more cleanup is necessary to ensure any potential long-term impacts are addressed," the EPA said in a statement.

Ohio carried out a controlled release of hazardous chemicals at the site on Feb. 6, three days after the train derailed near the border of Ohio and Pennsylvania, causing a massive fire.

According to the EPA, the investigation of oily sheen will cover a stretch of about five miles, encompassing impacted sections of the two creeks, the Sulphur Run and the Leslie Run.

"Through this order, Norfolk Southern will take a thorough look at the waterways to ensure there are no lasting impacts from the derailment," EPA Regional Administrator Debra Shore said.

The EPA said cleanup of the creek will also involve several culverts, spanning roughly 1,200 feet to remove impacted sediment in Sulphur Run downstream of the derailment site.

Norfolk Southern said the order "formalizes the continuation of work that has been ongoing since the derailment under a different regulatory scheme. Norfolk Southern remains cooperative, working with EPA and Ohio EPA at the site, and will continue to address derailment-related impacts in the waterways of Sulphur and Leslie Runs."

In February, EPA issued a Superfund unilateral administrative order, compelling Norfolk Southern to eliminate spilled materials and contaminated soil from the location of train derailment.

(Reporting by Sherin Elizabeth Varghese and Rahul Paswan in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler)
The picture provided by The Finnish Border Guard shows Finnish Border Guard's offshore patrol vessel Turva guarding on October 11, 2023 at sea near the place where damaged Balticconnector gas pipeline is pinpointed at the Gulf of Finland. Lehtikuva/FINNIS

By Andrius Sytas and Marie Mannes

VILNIUS/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Estonia said on Thursday it would probe the damage on a Baltic Sea telecoms cable connecting the country to Sweden as part of its ongoing investigation about the rupture caused on another telecoms cable, connecting Tallinn with Helsinki.

On Oct.8 a gas pipeline and telecoms cable connecting Finland and Estonia were broken, in what Finnish investigators believe may have been deliberate sabotage. Helsinki is investigating the pipeline incident, while Tallinn is probing the cable incident.

On Tuesday, Sweden said a third link had been damaged at roughly the same time as the other two.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for the Estonian Prosecutor General said the Baltic country's probe would be expanded to include both telecoms cable incidents, in a move showing a potential link between the two was being considered.

"The circumstances of damage to the communications cables between Estonia-Finland and Estonia-Sweden are similar," the spokesperson told Reuters.

HUMAN ACTION?

The Swedish government has been informed by Estonia that the damage to the telecommunication cable linking the two countries had resulted from "outside physical impact", daily Aftonbladet reported, citing Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson.

A Swedish naval vessel, submarine rescue ship Belos, had been sent to the area and Jonson told the newspaper he expected the Swedish military to provide an initial preliminary analysis of the investigation at the site within 24 hours.

"We can't rule out anything at this stage," Jonson was quoted as saying.

The Swedish defence minister's and Estonian Prosecutor General's staff did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests to confirm the comments.

The Prosecutor General spokesman said earlier on Thursday they have not yet determined whether the damage to this cable "was caused by human actions".

CHECKING VESSELS

Separately, Finnish police said they had completed their crime scene investigation into the damage on the pipeline, without giving further details.

On the same day Estonia said it surveyed the extent of the damage to the Estonia-Finland telecom cable, and will soon have more information about its nature and causes.

"We are working on different investigative versions and will continue to check all important circumstances, including data related to the vessels that were in the area at the time of the events", the Prosecutor General spokesman said.

The most recently reported incident, on the Sweden-Estonia cable, occurred in the afternoon of Oct. 7, an executive at Arelion, the owner and operator of the cable, told Reuters.

Mattias Fridstrom, Arelion's manager in charge of security discussions with authorities, declined to give an exact time, citing the ongoing investigation.

He said traffic was quickly restored as the cable was only partially cut, adding a ship was waiting for good weather to sail to the site and conduct repairs.

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius and Marie Mannes and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; editing by Gwladys Fouche and Jonathan Oatis)
FILE PHOTO: El Al Israel Airlines planes are seen on the tarmac at Ben Gurion International airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel March 10, 2020. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo

By Carolyn Cohn, Noor Zainab Hussain and Steven Scheer

LONDON (Reuters) - Aviation war insurers have given notice to cancel cover for some airlines domiciled in Israel and Lebanon because of the conflict in the region, with some cancellations already taking effect, three industry sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Aviation war insurers based in Europe, the United States and the Lloyd's of London market can issue a 7-day notice of cancellation or other changes to terms and conditions in the event of a major conflict they feel will make the long-term insurance risk too great.

Insurers for Israeli flag carrier El Al Airlines, Israir and Arkia have previously said they can issue such notices due to the war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. Israeli airlines have now received the notices, two sources told Reuters, without naming the airlines.

"War underwriters' appetite for continuing to cover these risks for no additional reward differs and some are now looking to withdraw cover, especially given the news the Israeli government has provided a backstop to cover flights," said Bruce Carman, chief underwriting officer at Hive Underwriters.

Israeli's parliamentary finance committee last week approved a plan to provide a state guarantee of $6 billion to cover insurance against war risks to Israeli airlines.

Spokespeople for Israeli airlines El Al and Arkia did not directly respond to questions from Reuters about whether insurers had served notice but said the government was providing all necessary coverage for them to continue operations safely.

A spokesperson for Israir said it had not been served notice by its insurers, but did not provide additional details. A spokesperson for Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Israeli carriers have continued to fly while most foreign airlines have cancelled flights to Tel Aviv, expanding flights to bring back those travelling abroad and those called up to reserve service for the military.

Airlines normally take out two types of policy - an "all risks" policy which covers both regular damage to the hull and passenger liability, and a "war" policy to cover war or terror-related losses to the aircraft.

"Certain underwriters have not allowed or not provided insurance for war risk and other allied perils insurance for some operators," Garrett Hanrahan, Marsh's Global Aviation Leader, told Reuters.

"These operators did not have operational experience flying into Israel and not under conditions where there is a conflict taking place," he added.

Another of the insurers' biggest concerns is for aircraft stuck on the ground in conflict zones. Middle East Airlines this week said it will keep 5 of its 24 airplanes in Turkey, following rocket, missile and artillery exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah.

Airlines based outside Israel and Lebanon are not suffering from cancellations to their cover for the region but are facing other restrictions, two industry sources said.

"Insurers want regular updates - each airline has a different risk profile and therefore different risk mitigation strategies," said a spokesperson for insurance buyers' association Airmic's aviation group.

The airlines are not yet facing additional premiums for their scheduled flights, the sources said.

But they may be required to leave their aircraft on the ground at airports in Tel Aviv or Beirut for no more than three hours, for example, or to avoid refuelling stops at those airports, two sources added.

"If for whatever reason they (aircrafts) are delayed, they need to be communicating with underwriters," Hanrahan said.

Special flights to evacuate people from Israel would require a "material change" to an airline's policy and airlines are facing additional premium of between 0.05% and 0.1% of the value of the aircraft for those flights, one broking source said.

There could be up to 20 insurers on one policy and it may be hard to get them all to agree to cover a flight, sources said.

Norwegian Air cancelled a planned evacuation flight last week due to lack of insurance to fly via Tel Aviv, but later scheduled a new flight from Eilat in southern Israel.

(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn, editing by Sinead Cruise and David Evans)
FILE PHOTO: The logo for Canadian mining company Teck Resources Limited is displayed above their booth at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 7, 2023. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File P

By Divya Rajagopal and Neha Arora

TORONTO (Reuters) -Japan's JFE Steel Corp is in talks to buy a stake in the metallurgical coal business of Canada's Teck Resources, two people aware of the development told Reuters, adding to the list of suitors that also includes miner Glencore.

Major steelmakers are seeking to diversify their supplies of coking coal due to sanctions on Russia, one of the leading producers.

The previously unreported talks between JFE and Teck have been ongoing since September, another source said. The sources declined to be identified as they are not authorized to speak publicly.

"We will continue to consider the acquisition of interests in coking coal, but we cannot answer individual questions," a spokesperson for Tokyo-based JFE Steel said in an email. JFE is one of Japan's largest steelmakers.

Teck said it does not comment on speculation and referred to its earlier statement that the company is engaging with various counterparties regarding the steelmaking coal business.

The talks are early and may not result in a deal, one of the sources added. It was unclear what stake JFE was seeking or what price it was offering.

There are only handful of steelmaking coal producers in the world, with the biggest in Australia, Canada and Russia.

Japan's Nippon Steel has previously said it was looking to buy a 10% stake in Teck's coal business for C$1.15 billion, valuing the overall business at about C$11.5 billion, with an option of increasing its stake to 17.5%.

Teck has been considering splitting its coal and copper businesses since March, but shareholders voted down its original proposal. In April, Teck rebuffed a $22.5 billion unsolicited takeover offer for the entire company from Swiss mining and trading firm Glencore.

Glencore has said it will consider buying the coal business for about $8.5 billion.

Teck shares were trading down 0.6%, while the benchmark Toronto share index was down 0.1%.

JFE Steel holds 15% equity in India's JSW Steel, which was also exploring an investment in Teck's coal business. But Reuters reported in September the process had slowed down due to India-Canada diplomatic tensions.

Earlier this month, Teck CEO Jonathan Price said the company had received multiple suggestions from investors on how to separate its coal and metals businesses and he was hoping to make a decision on the split by the end of this year. Price said the company had two options -- a 100% sale of the coal business for cash or a partial sale of the coal business, with proceeds going to growing the copper business.

(Reporting by Divya Rajagopal and Neha AroraEditing by Denny Thomas, Nick Zieminski and Rod Nickel)
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) -Israeli forces raided and carried out an air strike in a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing at least 12 people, Palestinian officials said, and Israel's police said an officer was killed during the raid.

The Israeli military said the strike, a rare use of air power in the West Bank, targeted a group of Palestinians "that posed a threat to the soldiers in the area". It said it had arrested 10 Palestinians during the raid.

The Palestinian Authority's official news agency WAFA said dozens of Palestinians were wounded during the clashes in the Nur Shams refugee camp, adjacent the central city of Tulkarm near the territory's border with Israel.

West Bank violence has surged since Israel began bombarding Gaza in retaliation for an Oct. 7 Hamas rampage in Israeli towns that killed at least 1,400.

Since Oct. 7, Israeli troops have killed more than 70 Palestinians and arrested more than 800 in the West Bank, according to Palestinian officials.

The military said it carried out Thursday's raid in Nur Shams "to apprehend wanted suspects, destroy terror infrastructure, and confiscate weapons."

Israel's police said a reserve service member who was part of an undercover unit was killed during the raid. It did not provide details.

WAFA reported that seven of the dead had been transported to hospital, while the five others were in a mosque inside the camp.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta; Writing by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Alex Richardson and Alistair Bell)
Venezuelan journalist Roland Carreno of the opposition party Popular Will is being greeted by family members and colleagues after he was released from prison, in Caracas, Venezuela October 19, 2023. REUTERS/Luis Gonzalo Perez

By Mayela Armas and Vivian Sequera

CARACAS (Reuters) -Five people jailed in Venezuela, including well-known opposition figures, have been released, the opposition said around midnight on Thursday, following a deal with the government of President Nicolas Maduro and Washington's demand that certain prisoners be freed.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Wednesday broadly eased Trump-era sanctions on the Venezuelan oil and gas industry in response to an election deal between the Venezuelan government and opposition.

Washington has given Maduro until the end of November to begin lifting bans on opposition presidential candidates and start releasing political prisoners and "wrongfully detained" Americans, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.

Venezuela's government did not immediately confirm a list of names posted on social media by Gerardo Blyde, the opposition's head negotiator in the talks with the government.

"Antony Blinken and his advisor Juan Gonzalez, when they signalled what they signalled, express a huge ignorance about how the legal order in the Bolivarian Republic (of Venezuela) works," Jorge Rodriguez, the head of Venezuela's team at the opposition talks, said on state television on Thursday, though he did not specify which Blinken comment he was referring to.

Journalist Roland Carreno of the opposition party Popular Will, who had been held in prison, former legislator Juan Requesens of the Justice First party, who was kept under house arrest, and three others were released in the middle of the night, Blyde said.

Blyde posted a picture of himself with Carreno, which he said was taken in the capital Caracas.

Maduro's government and the opposition reached an agreement on Tuesday for the 2024 presidential election to be internationally monitored and held in the second half of the year.

But the deal stopped short of agreeing to reinstate opposition candidates who have been barred from public office - including Maria Corina Machado, the front-runner in a Sunday primary where the opposition is set to choose its candidate.

A senior State Department official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday the U.S. would be prepared to reverse sanctions relief measures unless Maduro lifts the bans and frees wrongfully detained Americans.

Three U.S. citizens are still wrongfully detained in Venezuela, United States Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols said on Thursday.

The three men are Eyvin Hernandez, Jerrel Kenemore and Joseph Ryan Cristella, Nichols said.

Hernandez, a Los Angeles public defender, and Kenemore, a Texas computer programmer, were arrested within days of each other in early 2022. They have been held since then on charges of illegally entering Venezuela from Colombia.

Cristella was taken into custody in September 2022 after crossing the border from Colombia.

The families of all three have denied they were involved in any wrongdoing.

The eased sanctions mean Venezuela will be able to engage in contracts with international energy firms and that U.S. and European companies will have more access to Venezuelan crude and natural gas, Nichols added.

The U.S. is not considering a change in its diplomatic relations with Venezuela until that country's democratic transition is more advanced, Nichols added.

A U.S. State Department official said on Wednesday he expects movement in the near term on releases of wrongfully detained Americans.

For years the opposition has urged the government to free over 200 people that human rights organization Foro Penal considers political prisoners.

Several recent legal moves - including the conviction of six protesters on conspiracy charges - were seen by the opposition and civil rights groups as an effort to scare potential activists ahead of the election.

Carreno was on trial on charges of conspiracy and financing terrorism while Requesens was under investigation for the explosion of two drones at a 2018 event attended by Maduro.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas, Vivian Sequera, Matt Spetalnick and Marianna Parraga; Writing by Natalia Siniawski and Julia Symmes Cobb; editing by Inti Landauro, Deborah Kyvrikosaios, Barbara Lewis, Jonathan Oatis, Richard Chang and Rod Nickel)
The al-Ahli hospital in Gaza after having been hit by an airstrike Tuesday. MOHAMMED SABER (EFE)

The tragedy of Tuesday nights explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City has caused an extreme twist in the war that the Israeli army has been waging against militias in the Gaza Strip since the surprise Hamas attack launched against Israel on October 7. Israeli military spokesmen have blamed Islamic Jihad for the launching of a rocket that struck the hospital, killing at least 500 people according to initial estimates by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which later lowered the figure slightly: a spokesman for the ministry put the toll at 471. Some analysts believe that the final number of victims will be considerably lower. To this end, they have provided videos of the explosion, audio recordings among Palestinian militiamen, as well as graphics and visual analysis. On the same day as the explosion at the hospital, Israel had bombed a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) school in the Al Maghazi refugee camp, killing six civilians.

00:58 Footage of the strike on the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. The al-Ahli hospital was hit by an as-yet unidentified projectile on Tuesday night.

What happened on Tuesday?

After 8 p.m. local time, Al Jazeera began to report on a devastating attack on the al-Ahli Hospital in the Gazan capital. Within minutes, Health Ministry officials in the Gaza Strip, which has been controlled by Hamas since 2007, cited the death toll over 500 and added that several hundred more people remained trapped under rubble. This information was reported by international agencies after 8:30 p.m., quoting Al Jazeera as a source. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the ministry said that the number of people killed in the attack on the hospital had risen to 471.

Live images of the strike broadcast on Al Jazeera.

What was Israels response?

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a version of events that contradicted that of the Gazan authorities at 10:36 p.m. An analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit. Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza, the IDF said in a statement a few hours after the attack on its official X account.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined in this discourse at 11:28 p.m. on his personal X profile: The entire world should know: It was barbaric terrorists in Gaza that attacked the hospital in Gaza, and not the IDF. Those who brutally murdered our children also murder their own children.

On Wednesday morning, Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli army, gave a press conference in which he reiterated the same version as Tuesday night, providing a series of images that he said would prove that the cause of the explosion was a Palestinian rocket and not an Israeli one. The investigation confirmed that there was no IDF fire from the land, sea or air that hit the hospital, Hagari said. The spokesman based this on analysis of the absence of structural damage to the hospital buildings and the lack of impact craters consistent with an airstrike.

Most of this damage would have been done due to the propellant, not just the warhead, added Hagari, who also accused Hamas of inflating the number of deaths and injuries caused by the blast. The spokesman has also distributed audio of an allegedly recorded conversation between Hamas members, in which they acknowledge that the massacre was caused by an Islamic Jihad missile. The authenticity of this audio, however, could not be verified.

What has the United States said?

U.S. President Joe Biden, who visited Israel on Wednesday, said during a press conference with Netanyahu: Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But theres a lot of people out there who are not sure. So weve got to overcome a lot of things. Hours later Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, stated that based on the data available to her at the time, Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza. Washington reached this initial assessment based on intelligence, missile activity, and open source video and images of the incident. Watson, however, said that the U.S. is still gathering information about what happened.

What has Islamic Jihad said?

Islamic Jihad, which Israel and the U.S. appear to blame for the launch, on Wednesday rejected its responsibility and accused Israel, according to news agency EFE. The Islamist movement, the second-largest in Gaza after Hamas, accused the government of Benjamin Netanyahu of lies and of trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.

The accusations promoted by the enemy are baseless, Islamic Jihad said in a statement, adding that the group does not use places of worship or public facilities, especially hospitals, as military centers or weapons stores.

The group has pointed to the presence of reporters, eyewitnesses and videos filmed at the time of the bombing as evidence that would support its version. It also referred to the weight of the explosive head, the angle of the bombs fall and the magnitude of the destruction that took place in the hospital compound. According to the Islamist group, this constitutes documented evidence confirming it was an aerial bombardment from a fighter plane.

Images of a church located inside the al-Ahli hospital compound on Wednesday (left) and in 2021. Reuters / Google Maps

What information do the images provide?

The BBCs video verification service, BBC Verify, has analyzed some of the videos circulating on social networks. A 20-second video was, according to the British public television service, the first significant visual evidence of the incident. It shows the whistling of a shell and, immediately afterwards, an explosion and a huge fire. Footage broadcast by Al Jazeera at 6:59 p.m. local time shows a bright light rising over the Gaza sky. Some commentators quoted by the BBC suggest it is a rocket that appears to explode or disintegrate. The images show a flash in the distance, followed by a much larger explosion. Other social media images appear to show the same explosion from different angles and distances.

BBC Verify says the findings are inconclusive in determining the cause of the explosion or whether it was an Israeli or Palestinian projectile. Some weapons experts consulted by the BBC consider that the images of the explosion are not consistent with what you would expect from a typical Israeli air strike with a large munition. The BBC quotes J. Andres Gannon, assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, who maintains that the evidence looks like the explosion was caused by a failed rocket section hitting the car park and causing a fuel and propellant fire.

Israel maintains that if the incident had been caused by one of its attacks, it would have generated a large crater. The images that the BBC has so far only show one about a meter wide, but it says it is looking for additional images. As yet, no images of the remains of a projectile have been discovered, which would make it easier to determine its origin.

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GAZA (Reuters) - At least 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and 12,493 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct.7, the health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday.

Of the total death toll, 1,524 were children and 1,000 were women, ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra told a press conference.

Al-Qudra added that 44 health workers had been killed in Gaza while four hospitals were out of service and 14 basic healthcare services had stopped functioning.

"There are no medicine stocks in any of the hospitals in Gaza," Al-Qudra added, calling on the international community to expedite the delivery of aid to Gaza.

(Reporting by Nayera Abdallah in Dubai; Writing by Tala Ramadan; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Gareth Jones)
FILE PHOTO: Guatemala's Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras speaks during a meeting with the Nominating Committee for the election of the Attorney General, as part of the process for the appointment to the attorney general position, for which she is se

By Sofia Menchu

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala's attorney general, a steadfast opponent of President-elect Bernardo Arevalo, has crafted a complex strategy to weaken his mandate or prevent him from taking office, according to five sources with knowledge of the prosecutor's thinking.

Guatemala is in the throes of a political crisis that has seen historic demonstrations paralyze Central America's most populous country, forcing the cancellation of flights.

At the center is Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras, who protesters blame for attempting to prevent Arevalo from taking office on Jan. 14. She faces international condemnation, including from the United States.

Anti-graft campaigner Arevalo won a shock landslide victory in August but has received a backlash from the political establishment.

Porras faces loud calls to resign, including from Arevalo who accuses her of an attempted coup, but the prosecutor is instead pushing forward with a multi-pronged strategy to block him, according to the sources who have participated in strategy meetings.

"She continues to have the support of the outgoing president Alejandro Giammattei and the conservative elite and they are going to do everything to ensure Arevalo does not take office," one of the sources said.

To be sure, Porras' investigations into Arevalo and his Semilla party have not so far succeeded and courts have blocked earlier attempts to suspend Semilla.

But Porras's continued push has clouded the government transition and could lead her to pursue an arrest warrant against Arevalo when a court order blocking a previous Semilla suspension request expires Oct. 31, sources said.

Porras, in a statement through her spokesperson, said she has always acted in strict compliance with the law.

Porras aims to inject confusion by discrediting the vote and suspending Semilla, the sources said.

One of three legal cases she aims to pursue seeks to prove the electoral tribunal (TSE) purchased vote-counting software known as TREP at an elevated price, possible grounds to accuse election officials of fraud, sources said.

Porras also plans to discredit the voting data capture system that displays preliminary results by comparing the information to manually-recorded data, the sources said.

Any discrepancies could call election results into question.

Another Porras tack, the sources said, is using alleged examples of false voter signatures registered to Semilla to suspend the party.

Prosecutors raided Semilla's headquarters as well as the TSE in September, seizing documents from both.

Arevalo has previously said his election win cannot be overturned.

International condemnation of Porras has been strong. Luis Almagro, head of the Organization of American States (OAS), has said the actions of the attorney general's office had set "a shameful example."

The U.S. State Department has since 2021 included Porras on a list of corrupt and undemocratic actors.

Outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei has said he cannot by law ask Porras to resign, despite growing public pressure.

"The attorney general is not going to resign from her position," Porras' spokesperson added.

Arevalo's allies insist arresting him is impossible because his election victory grants him immunity.

"Those scenarios have no legal basis," said Jose Carlos Sanabria, a recently-elected Semilla congressman.

Blocking Arevalo from taking office would throw Guatemala into deeper turmoil, said Tamara Taraciuk, Rule of Law program director at the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank.

Protesters have occupied the headquarters of the public prosecutors office and shut down some main thoroughfares.

Blockades began peacefully - with participants staging dances and yoga classes - but turned violent in recent days. One person was killed in the clashes with armed groups Monday. Many blockades have since been lifted.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu, writing by Cassandra Garrison; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Rod Nickel)
By Harold Isaac and Sarah Morland

PORT-AU-RPINCE (Reuters) - Haitian gangs run schools, clinics and foundations in place of an increasingly absent government, even as their criminal rackets help gang leaders amass funds and afford luxury homes with swimming pools in the hemisphere's poorest country.

That was one of the findings of a comprehensive United Nations report published on Wednesday.

"Gangs are getting stronger, richer, better armed and more autonomous," according to a 156-page report from a U.N. experts panel. It pointed to lucrative arms trafficking largely from the United States that provides gangsters with deadly arsenals.

The panel blasted an "ineffectual" U.N. arms embargo and noted that few countries respond to requests to trace seized firearms.

Gangs have consolidated, coalescing in the capital around the G9 and G-Pep alliances, while fighting escalates in key northern farmlands.

The report concluded that gangs frequently use rape to terrorize and extort victims, demand money and control food supplies. They're also blamed for carrying out indiscriminate killings and hundreds of kidnappings, demanding ransoms as high as $500,000 for foreigners and prominent figures.

Leaders have used social foundations to project positive images. They use social media to flaunt luxury lifestyles, but also to instill terror with videos of torture and mutilations, according to the report.

Haiti's under-funded national police are "grossly understaffed" as well as "ill-equipped and ill-trained."

Since April, a vigilante self-defense movement known as Bwa Kale has executed hundreds of suspected gang members, and the report also blames the movement for committing crimes and morphing into new gangs.

The Caribbean nation's gangs have significantly expanded their influence in recent years, driving mass-migration and internal displacements while plunging millions into severe hunger.

The U.N. has recently ratified deploying an international force to support Haiti's police at the government's request, but few countries have committed personnel and it has yet to materialize.

(Reporting by Harold Isaac in Port-au-Prince and Sarah Morland in Mexico City; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Sandra Maler)
Paul McGinnity, research scientist of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) observes a fishing boat unloading the catch of the day for a morning auction at Hisanohama Port Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023 in Iwaki, northeastern Japan. Eugene Hoshiko/Po

BEIJING (Reuters) - China believes the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should play a constructive role and shoulder responsibility to monitor Japan's water discharge from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Mao Ning, ministry spokesperson, made the remarks when asked why China is participating in an IAEA-led survey in Japan analysing fish landed in Fukushima prefecture following the discahrge.

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Former Central African Republic militia leader Maxime Jeoffroy Eli Mokom Gawaka attends the International Criminal Court hearings to determine the exact charges it will bring against him, in The Hague, Netherlands, August 22, 2023. REUTERS/Piroschka van d

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has withdrawn charges against a former militia leader from the Central African Republic (CAR) as there were no prospects of conviction, the prosecutor's office said on Thursday.

Prosecutors had earlier said that Maxime Mokom, a former national coordinator of so-called anti-balaka militias, played a key role in a plan to violently target the Muslim civilian population in 2013 and 2014.

"Having considered the totality of the evidence in the Mokom case and in light of changed circumstances regarding the availability of witnesses, there are no longer any reasonable prospects of conviction at trial even if the charges were confirmed," the prosecutor's office said.

At a hearing in August, Mokom said he had played no part in any of the violent attacks on Muslim civilians in 2013 and 2014 that prosecutors wanted to charge him with.

He told the court he was a refugee stuck in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo for most of the period referenced in the charges, while the prosecutors said he coordinated the deployment of militias and oversaw attacks.

CAR has been mired in violence since a coalition of mostly northern and predominantly Muslim rebels known as Seleka, or "Alliance" in the Sango language, seized power in March 2013.

Their dominance gave rise to the opposing anti-balaka Christian militias.The ICC has been investigating the violence in CAR since May 2014. There are two ongoing trials before the court involving two other anti-balaka leaders and one Seleka leader.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Deborah Kyvrikosaios)
FILE PHOTO: A participant stands near a logo of IMF at the International Monetary Fund - World Bank Annual Meeting 2018 in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, October 12, 2018. REUTERS/Johannes P. Christo/File Photo

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has room to absorb additional expenditure towards subsidies and rural unemployment programme without raising its fiscal deficit target from 5.9% set for the current financial year, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, which faces elections in key states this year and national polls in 2024, has been under pressure to create jobs and help farmers, which may lead to higher than planned expenditure for the year.

"The central government is likely to meet its 5.9% deficit target for FY23-24," said Krishna Srinivasan, IMF's director for the Asia and Pacific department.

Earlier, this month, India hiked the cooking gas subsidy for low income households to 300 rupees per cylinder from 200 rupees announced in August.

This could add to the 3.74 trillion rupees of subsidies for food, fertiliser and fuel planned for the current fiscal year, and with elections on the horizon more such measures are expected.

"There's some pressure on expenditure with higher than budgeted expenditure expense some areas  subsidies, higher MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) expenses. At this stage, we see room in the budget to absorb these unexpected increases," Srinivasan said.

Earlier this month, IMF raised its growth forecast for Asia's third-largest economy to 6.3% from 6.1%, reflecting stronger-than-expected consumption.

(Reporting by Jaspreet Kalra; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
FILE PHOTO: Members of the Israeli Defense Forces stand guard, following a deadly infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, southern Israel, October 18, 2023. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura/File Photo

By Doron Berti and Miro Maman

EILAT, Israel (Reuters) - The date Oct. 7 will be forever etched in Israeli history, marking the day Hamas gunmen rampaged through southern communities, killing 1,400 people, in the country's deadliest attack since its founding in 1948.

Now, many Israelis are getting the date tattooed on their bodies to commemorate the dead and missing, and bear witness to the collective tragedy.

"It was a very difficult date for the whole state of Israel, including for those who weren't in the affected areas," said tattoo artist Roey Benezri-Levy, who works in the seaside resort of Eilat, far from where Hamas attacked.

"Some people choose to tattoo images that remind them of their home, the family, or the people kidnapped, in one way or another," he said. "Many of them write the date, October 7. We all understand what that means."

University student Gal Nishman got a tattoo on his back in black and blue ink combining a Star of David with the numerals 7/10.

"The truth is I don't know anyone who was murdered, fortunately ... but the tattoo for me is a symbol," he said. "On one side (the tattoo) is dark, representing those who were captured. On the other, there is blue, the Star of David, Israel, (showing) that we're here to win."

Benezri-Levy said clients had found solace in the experience. "Many folks told me it lifted a heavy weight off their hearts. It brought out feelings I haven't felt before. It gave me a lot of strength, a lot of hope," he said.

Another tattoo artist, Sheli Eliel, has also been busy since the attacks in her studio in Magan Michael, some 400 km (250 miles) north of Eilat, on the Mediterranean coast.

"It's therapeutic," she said. "I never asked questions before, but during the tattooing, the stories come out, they share them and cry. It is quite amazing," she said.

Among those seeking to commemorate recent events was Hadas Karmazin, a resident from the south, close to the border of the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, who has been evacuated from her home as Israeli forces gather ahead of a possible invasion.

She had three stars inked close to her heart to represent her three sons, two of whom are in combat units while the third is set to enlist this month.

She also had a large lotus flower tattooed on her forearm, saying it represented Israeli residents of the south. "It grows with glory and flourishes even in murky water, especially in murky water," she said. "Despite everything I will return home."

(Writing by Crispian Balmer and Nuha Sharaf)
U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), currently the top contender in the race to be the next Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is pursued by reporters prior to a second round of voting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., October 18, 2023. REUTERS/

(Reuters) - Outspoken U.S. Republican Jim Jordan will not hold a third ballot to be speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and will instead back empowering interim speaker Patrick McHenry, the Washington Post and Punchbowl said on Thursday.

Jordan declined to comment ahead of a meeting of Republicans.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren, editing by Ismail Shakil)
FILE PHOTO: People take part in a protest against the Islamic regime of Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, in Berlin, Germany, December 10, 2022. REUTERS/Michele Tantussi/File Photo

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union parliament awarded its annual Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Iranian woman Mahsa Amini who died in police custody last year and the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in Iran, it said on Thursday.

"On 16 September we marked one year since the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini in Iran. The European Parliament proudly stands with the brave and defiant who continue to fight for equality, dignity and freedom in Iran," EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola said in a statement.

"By choosing them as laureates...this House remembers their struggle and continues to honour all those who have paid the ultimate price for liberty."

Amini, 22, born in Iran's western province of Kurdistan, died in morality police custody in September last year after being arrested for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic's mandatory dress code.

While Amini's family said she had been killed by blows to her head and limbs, the authorities said she had died due to existing medical problems.

Her death sparked months of protests that spiralled into some of the worst political turmoil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Under the banner "Woman, Life, Freedom", Iranian citizens have been protesting against laws obliging women to cover their hair and wear loose fitting clothing.

Iranian security forces have continued their crackdown on dissent and briefly detained Amini's father on the anniversary of her death.

(Reporting by Julia Payne)
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's government said on Wednesday it concluded a review of alleged labor rights violations of pilots at Mexico City-based cargo airline Mas Air, following a request by the United States under a North American trade accord.

Mexican authorities uncovered actions that may go against local labor law and constitute a denial of the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining, though actions to remedy the situation have already been implemented, Mexico's government said in a statement.

In August, the U.S. asked Mexico to review whether rights of pilots at the small cargo airline were being infringed upon.

Among the actions taken by Mexican authorities to remedy the irregularities found in the review are informing pilots of their rights and reinstating one pilot previously fired, the statement added.

U.S. trade officials have launched more than 10 labor rights complaints against facilities in Mexico since the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade pact took effect in 2020.

(Reporting by Raul Cortes Fernandez and Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Anthony Esposito)
The far-right party led by Javier Milei intends to take back significant social rights achieved in Argentina if it comes to power. The most recent on the list is a mothers right to receive child support from the father. Parents must cover the expenses of a childs need  such as food, education, health, housing and clothing, among others  until they reach the age of majority. But Lilia Lemoine, a lawmaker candidate for Mileis Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) party, says that, if elected, she will put forward a law that offers fathers the option to renounce their parental rights and the obligation to pay child support. The proposal has been unanimously criticized by Argentinas other political parties.

It doesnt seem fair to me that a man has to take financial responsibility for a child until they are 18 when he didnt want to have them, Lemoine said in a radio interview on Tuesday. The bill that she plans to present gives women two weeks to notify the father that they are pregnant : The woman, when she finds out that she is pregnant, has 15 days to notify the father and the father can decide if he is going to be responsible for the child or not.

Lemoine  who was Mileis makeup artist before being placed on the electoral list  defended the initiative by resorting to an urban legend. She said that some women poke holes in condoms before having sex in order to get pregnant and reel a guy in.

She also had no qualms about describing women who have abortions as murderers, even though abortion has been legal in Argentina since 2020. Since women have the privilege of killing their children and giving up being mothers, why do men by law have to keep a child because the woman perhaps told them: Yes, yes, come [ejaculate] inside, Im on the pill or she punctures the condom, Lemoine argued.

Many women do these things to reel a guy in and take advantage of him when hes in the heat of the moment, my grandmother told me about it, added Lemoine, who is a social media influencer and cosplay figure. When asked about cases where men dont use protection, Lemoine said that this qualified as rape. If the man is not using protection and the woman realizes, then it is rape. She files a complaint and takes the morning after pill.

Lemoines comments have been met with a torrent of criticism, both from political parties and from organizations that defend womens rights.

The government described the bill announced by Lemoine as nonsense and recalled that parents have a legal obligation to care for and support their underage children.

Former governor of Buenos Aires province, Maria Eugenia Vidal, from the opposition alliance Juntos por Cambio (Together for Change), pointed out that Mileis party also supported the sale of organs and the free use of weapons, arguing that the latest measure was further proof that they represented backwards freedom.

Nathalia Gonzalez, a former deputy from the Socialist Workers Party, added: The only freedom these people defend is to deepen the oppression of women.

Argentinas official statistics agency (Indec) publishes a parenting cost guide that establishes the monthly cost of goods, services and care for each child. According to the latest report, that cost is around 100,000 pesos (almost $100) per month.

Around 1.6 million women in Argentina are the sole providers for three million children, Ayelen Mazzina, the Minister of Women, Gender and Diversity, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Half of these boys and girls do not receive child support from their fathers, Mazzina warned. In the province of Buenos Aires, for which Lemoine is a candidate, the percentage of child support debtors is close to 70%.

Argentinas feminist women took to the streets last month to protest against Milei and his policies. In the lead up to the presidential elections, which will take place on Sunday, leading figures have called on the public to make sure Milei does not get into to power. The hard right presidential candidate denies there is a gender wage gap  which according to official data is 27.7%  and says that if elected he will repeal the law legalizing abortion and the law that makes it mandatory for schools to provide comprehensive sex education  two measures that have changed the lives of women in Argentina.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) -NATO is stepping up patrols in the Baltic Sea following recent damage to undersea infrastructure in the region, the transatlantic military alliance said on Thursday.

"The increased measures include additional surveillance and reconnaissance flights, including with maritime patrol aircraft, NATO AWACS planes, and drones. A fleet of four NATO minehunters is also being dispatched to the area," NATO said in a statement.

The move followed announcements by authorities of damage to a Baltic Sea telecom cable connecting Sweden and Estonia and to a Finnish-Estonian pipeline and cable at around the same time earlier this month.

Officials from the countries involved have said they have yet to reach firm conclusions on who caused the damage or whether it was accidental or deliberate.

"We continue to monitor the situation closely, and we remain in close contact with our Allies Estonia and Finland, and our partner Sweden," said NATO spokesperson Dylan White.

"NATO will continue to adapt its maritime posture in the Baltic Sea and will take all necessary steps to keep Allies safe."

The buildup illustrates that NATO allies are vigilant and ready for action, Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said.

"The decision does not mean that there is an increased military threat. Instead, it shows that relations between Allies are strong and NATO as a whole sees the protection of critical infrastructure as an important issue," he added.

Two of the four minehunters are expected to visit Tallinn on Friday.

NATO, the European Union and national governments have made protection of undersea pipelines and cables a high priority since explosions in September 2022 ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea and cut Europe's supply of Russian gas.

Investigators have said those blasts were an act of sabotage but have not yet decided who was responsible.

(Reporting by Andrew Gray in Brussels and Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Ed Osmond)
FILE PHOTO: Pro-Israel demonstrators protest in Times Square on the second day of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Manhattan in New York City, U.S., October 8, 2023. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File Photo

By Jonathan Allen and Gabriella Borter

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in New York City's Times Square on Thursday to demand the release of hostages taken by Hamas, as President Joe Biden faces mounting pressure to leverage every diplomatic tool to secure the freedom of American captives.

Billboards showed the faces of people believed to be held hostage, including babies and elderly people, as the crowd chanted, "Bring them home."

Speakers at the rally included Ronan and Orna Neutra, whose 22-year-old son, Omer, is thought to be held captive. They described him as a natural leader and avid athlete who captained the basketball, volleyball and soccer teams at his school.

The grandson of Holocaust survivors, Omer Neutra postponed his college plans to move to Israel, where he joined the Israel Defense Forces. The night before the attacks, Neutra spoke with his parents by phone, telling them he was looking forward to a quiet weekend after a month spent patrolling the border, his father recounted.

"We are heartbroken. We are worried," his mother said. "But we are focused and resolute in doing everything within our power to bring Omer back."

U.S. officials have said Hamas is holding some 200 people hostage after the Palestinian group's Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel, when militants killed about 1,400 Israelis.

While there is no official list of Americans in captivity, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch, told reporters on Wednesday that 10 of the hostages were American.

"It is the highest priority here. We want those people out," Risch said.

Thursday's protest in Times Square was organized by the nonprofit Israeli American Council, which represents Israeli Americans in the U.S.

Speakers, including U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, the first Jewish Senate majority leader in history, vowed to stand with Israel and fight back against Hamas.

"We no longer can be the Jews trembling in the shadows," actor and activist Yuval David, a dual Israeli and American citizen, told the crowd. "We know what happened to us then, and we know what is happening to us now."

Americans across the U.S. are taking to the streets on a near-daily basis to protest on behalf of Israel or the Palestinian people, with bitter divisions re-emerging over the decades-long conflict in the Middle East.

A pro-Palestinian rally was planned for Friday outside the main branch of New York City's public library to call for a ceasefire. On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters demanding a ceasefire were arrested while occupying the rotunda of the Cannon House office building at the U.S. Capitol.

"Ceasefire is the only way for the deaths to stop. Ceasefire is the only way to bring hostages home," organizers of Friday's New York rally said on their event page.

Biden visited Israel this week to reiterate his support and urge the country's leaders to avert a humanitarian disaster as it prepares a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip.

His administration must walk a fine line. The task of securing the hostages' release may require negotiating assistance from countries in the region, including Qatar, that have no diplomatic ties with Israel.

Rachel Goldberg, the mother of 23-year-old hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual Israeli and U.S. citizen, said the last messages she had received from her son were sent on the morning of Oct. 7, when he wrote, "I love you guys. I'm sorry." She said police confirmed the last signal from her son's phone showed it in Gaza that morning.

"I don't know that he's alive, I don't know that he made it," Goldberg said in an interview in Jerusalem.

U.S. officials have not released names of the Americans believed to be held hostage. But media reports have identified several missing people with American citizenship, including Goldberg-Polin; a 66-year-old nurse, Adrienne Neta; 35-year-old Sagui Dekel-Chen, a father of two with a baby on the way; and Itay Chen, who serves in the Israel Defense Force.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Gabriella Borter in Washington; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Gabriella Borter and Joseph Ax; Editing by Frank McGurty, Jonathan Oatis and Deepa Babington)
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Nubank, a Brazilian FinTech startup, is pictured at the bank's headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil June 19, 2018. Picture taken June 19, 2018. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo

By Valentine Hilaire

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Brazilian fintech Nubank's Mexico arm has requested a banking license from local regulators, the unit's top executive said on Thursday, describing it as a bid to broaden product offering.

A banking license would allow Nubank to offer "diverse kinds of investments," including shares in Mexico's main stock index, the company said in a statement to Reuters.

Other opportunities stemming from a banking license include handling direct deposits of salaries for customers and setting higher deposit limits, Nubank Mexico head Ivan Canales said in an interview.

Canales did not provide a timeline for obtaining the license in what is Nubank's second-biggest market after Brazil.

The company expects to continue expanding its business while seeking the license, Canales noted.

He added that his team is analyzing entering the remittances market, which moved more than $41 billion in the first eight months of this year, although no concrete plans have been announced.

Funding for Nubank's expansion plans will come from parent company Nu Holdings and deposits made by their customers, said Canales.

The fintech launched savings accounts in May and has since signed up more than 1.3 million people, with deposits exceeding 1.5 billion Mexican pesos ($82.2 million), according to company data from the close of the second quarter.

Asked about the fintech's management of capital, Canales said Nubank would have a capital ratio of about 40% in Mexico if it was measured against entities with a banking licence, significantly above the minimum 10% required.

The digital bank's Mexican arm, known as Nu Mexico, is hoping the new license will help it become its customers preferred bank, mirroring Brazil, where nearly 60% of customers use Nubank as their main financial service provider.

($1 = 18.2580 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Varun H K)
By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran character actor Burt Young, best known and Oscar nominated for his role as the brother-in-law and meat-cutting friend to Sylvester Stallone's prize-fighting protagonist in the "Rocky" films has died at age 83, his manager said on Wednesday.

Young's death on Oct. 8 in Los Angeles, first reported by the New York Times on Wednesday citing the actor's daughter, Anne Morea Steingieser, was confirmed to Reuters by his Los Angeles-based manager Lynda Bensky.

Born Gerald Tommaso DeLouise in New York City's Queens borough, the burly performer served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1950s and later studied at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. He went on to build a career playing mostly tough-guy and Italian-American characters on television and film.

He was best remembered for his role in the original 1976 "Rocky" film, playing Paulie Pennino, the alcoholic butcher and pal to Stallone's lead character, Rocky Balboa, who made punching slaps of meat in the storage locker where Paulie worked part of his regular training routine as an aspiring boxer.

The role of Paulie, who was also the brother of Rocky's painfully shy love interest and soon-to-be wife, Adrian (she marries Balboa in "Rocky II"), earned Young an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.

The original "Rocky," a motion picture sensation, amassed a total of 10 Oscar nominations and won three awards, including the prize for best picture, for its portrait of a small-time Philadelphia club boxer who gets an unlikely crack at the world heavyweight title.

Young reprised the Paulie role in all six of the original "Rocky" sequels.

Other film credits include "Chinatown," "The Pope of Greenwich Village" and "Once Upon a Time in America." He also made numerous guest appearances on television on such series as "M*A*S*H," "The Rockford Files," "Baretta" and "Law & Order."

In later years, Young made a name as painter, whose works were displayed in galleries around the world.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles)
FILE PHOTO: Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif gestures as he boards a Lahore-bound flight due for departure, at Abu Dhabi International Airport, UAE July 13, 2018. REUTERS/Drazen Gorgic/File Photo

By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -A Pakistan court on Thursday barred authorities from arresting a former three-time prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, upon his expected return home on Saturday from four years in self-imposed exile, his lawyer said.

Lawyer Azam Nazeer Tarar told reporters that Sharif had been granted protective bail, under which authorities could not arrest him until he himself appears before a court on Oct. 24, adding that Sharif would address a rally in the city of Lahore upon his return.

Sharif's younger brother, Shehbaz Sharif, was prime minister from 2022 until this year, when his government was replaced by a caretaker administration upon the dissolution of parliament in advance of a general election due early next year.

The younger Sharif welcomed the court's decision.

"He was implicated in absurd cases and subjected to mistreatment," Shehbaz Sharif said on the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.

"Any fair hearing would have established his innocence."

Nawaz Sharif was in 2018 convicted on corruption charges, which he denied, in two cases and sentenced to a total of 14 years in prison.

A court allowed him to travel to London for medical treatment in 2019 under a rare surety bond, under which he undertook to return after treatment. Later, he was declared an absconder after failing to return.

The veteran politician has said he was ousted as prime minister in 2017 by leaders of the powerful military and the judiciary after he fell out with the generals.

The military, which has ruled Pakistan for extended periods since independence in 1947 and retains significant influence, even over civilian government, denies that.

Tarar said Sharif would follow up appeals against his convictions, which have been pending since he left, in the hope of overturning them and campaigning for the general election.

Upon his return on Saturday, he would address a rally in his old stronghold of Lahore, Tarar said.

"It is everyone's constitutional rights to freely do political activities," Tarar said.

Sharif's party has said he would like to contest a seat in the general election but that would depend on the court over-turning his convictions.

Groomed by the military when he entered politics in the late 1970s, Sharif fell out with then army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, during a second stint as prime minister and was ousted in a 1999 coup.

Musharraf ruled for nearly a decade when Pakistan, which supported the U.S.-led "war on terror", was rocked by Islamist militant violence. Sharif returned to Pakistan and to politics in 2007.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Robert Birsel)
FILE PHOTO: A company logo is seen at a Pfizer office in Puurs, Belgium, December 2, 2022. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/File Photo

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer gained unconditional EU antitrust approval on Thursday for its proposed $43 billion acquisition of cancer drug maker Seagen.

Pfizer announced the deal in March, its largest purchase in a string of recent acquisitions thanks to a once-in-a-lifetime cash windfall from its COVID-19 vaccine and treatment.

The European Commission said the deal would not significantly reduce competition in the 27-country European Union nor would it have a negative impact on prices.

"The proposed merger would not raise competition concerns," the EU antitrust watchdog said in a statement.

Washington-based Seagen is a pioneer of antibody-drug conjugates, which work like "guided missiles" designed to destroy cancer while sparing healthy cells.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee)
FILE PHOTO: Military vehicles of U.S. soldiers are seen at the al-Asad air base in Anbar province, Iraq, January 13, 2020. REUTERS/John Davison/File Photo

ANBAR, Iraq (Reuters) -Drones and rockets targeted two military bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq on Thursday, sources and officials said, the latest in a series of attacks after Iraqi militants warned Washington against intervening to support Israel against Hamas in Gaza.

Rockets and drones were fired at Ain al-Asad air base, which hosts U.S. and other international forces in western Iraq, and multiple blasts were heard inside the base, two security sources said.

The Iraqi military said it closed the area around the base and started a search operation. It was not clear yet whether the attacks caused casualties or damage, said the sources.

Rockets hit another military base hosting U.S. forces near Baghdad's international airport, Iraqi police said on Thursday, without providing further details.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said two rockets had been fired at U.S. forces at the airport. One was intercepted and the other hit an empty storage facility and there were no casualties, the official added.

The latest attacks take to four in the past 24 hours targeting Iraqi military bases that hosts U.S. forces in Iraq.

Last week, Iraqi armed groups aligned with Iran threatened to target U.S. interests with missiles and drones if Washington intervened to support Israel against Hamas in Gaza following the deadly incursions by Hamas militants that killed 1,400 people.

U.S. military forces in Iraq were targeted on Wednesday in two separate drone attacks, with one causing minor injuries to a small number of troops even though the U.S. military managed to intercept the armed drone.

The United States has 2,500 troops in Iraq, and 900 more in neighbouring Syria, on a mission to advise and assist local forces in combating Islamic State, which in 2014 seized swathes of territory in both countries.

Ain al-Asad air base is located in the western Anbar province.

(Reporting by Kamal Ayash and Idrees Ali; Writing by Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Daniel Wallis and Lincoln Feast.)
(Reuters) -Russia scrambled two Su-27 fighter jets on Thursday to prevent three British military planes from entering Russian airspace over the Black Sea, the Russian defence ministry said.

It said the Russian fighters were sent to intercept "three air targets" approaching the border, and identified them as an RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft and two Typhoon fighter planes.

"As the Russian fighters approached, the foreign military aircraft turned away from the state border of the Russian Federation," the statement said.

It was not clear how close the planes had come to each other.

The Black Sea has become an increasingly important theatre in the war between Russia and Ukraine, now nearing the end of its 20th month. President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he had ordered Russian planes armed with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to patrol over the Black Sea.

Russia has previously reported a number of incidents in which its fighter jets were scrambled to intercept military planes from Norway, another NATO member, over the Barents Sea.

(Reporting by Reuters;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alex Richardson)
Migrants wait to disembark from a Spanish coast guard vessel, in the port of Arguineguin, on the island of Gran Canaria, Spain, October 19, 2023. REUTERS/Borja Suarez

By Borja Suarez

ARGUINEGUIN, Spain (Reuters) - Spain is readying a 50 million euro ($52.86 million) aid package to help the Canary Islands cope with an "extraordinary migration flow", Spain's acting Migration Minister said on Thursday.

The aid will also support more than 4,000 unaccompanied children and teenagers under the care of local authorities.

Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 15 of this year, the islands in the Atlantic have received 23,537 migrants, an 80% increase from the same period last year, according to official data.

Since October began, around 4,000 migrants are reaching the Canaries each week.

If that pace continues, the archipelago which lies around 100 kilometres (60 miles) off Africa's west coast could exceed a record set in 2006, when almost 32,000 migrants reach the islands.

On Thursday, 59 migrants - including 11 women and a baby - were taken to Arguineguin port in Gran Canaria after being rescued from a dinghy, a Reuters witness reported.

They were among more than 200 people who on Thursday reached the islands, after 800 were rescued the previous day, according to the emergency services.

During a visit to El Hierro, the westernmost and tiniest island, Migration Minister Jose Luis Escriva said the situation was "unprecedented", and that El Hierro in particular was experiencing an "extraordinary flow".

Escriva said the government pledged that there will be no more than 6,000 migrants in the Canary islands at any given time, with additional arrivals being transferred to the mainland.

"When we have lower arrivals, migrants stay on average a month and a half in the islands. Now with an average weekly arrivals of 4,000 (migrants), the average stay is a week and a half," he said.

The Atlantic migration route to the Canary Islands, typically used by sub-Saharan African migrants trying to reach Spain, is one of the world's deadliest. At least 559 people - including 22 children - died in 2022 in attempts to reach the Canary Islands, according to data from the U.N.'s International Organisation for Migration.

($1 = 0.9459 euros)

(Writing by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Aislin Laing and Josie Kao)
FILE PHOTO: Chinese and Taiwanese flags are seen in this illustration, August 6, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's defence ministry said that it had detected 13 Chinese air force planes entering Taiwan's air defence zone on Thursday morning, including fighter jets and drones, accompanying Chinese warships carrying out "combat patrols" and drills.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has repeatedly complained over the past four years of Chinese military activity around the island.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Kim Coghill)
The spiral of war unleashed by the barbaric Hamas attack against Israel on October 7 is for the moment confined to a conflict between the Israeli state and militia groups in the Gaza Strip. But the nature of the conflict and the response of Benjamin Netanyahus government, which has provoked a wave of indignation over measures such as cutting off Gazas supply of water, food, medicine and electricity  incompatible with the principles of international humanitarian law  are fueling a fire that is in serious danger of spreading. The whole region is on the brink of falling into the abyss, warned Jordans King Abdullah on Tuesday, ahead of the explosion that hit a hospital in Gaza causing hundreds of deaths and further inflaming tension.

The possible avenues for regional escalation are clear. The main one is the entry into the conflict of Hezbollah, a Lebanese party-militia with far greater military strength than Hamas and with close ties to Iran. The link between southern Lebanon and Tehran encompasses other points of risk such as the militias present in Syria and Iraq, which include members of Hezbollah itself, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and extremist groups with recruits from Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Other consequences are, of course, the outbreak of violent protests in the West Bank, with the possible destabilization of the Palestinian National Authority, as well as a renewed momentum of terrorist actions. For the nations of the Arab world, which have long been moving towards a normalization of relations with Israel, the risk is not military, but the boiling over of citizen anger that may be part of the calculations of other actors.

The following is a brief assessment of the military capabilities of four key players in this context: the two protagonists of the conflict  Hamas and Israel  the most likely path of expansion  Hezbollah  and its primary supporter Iran, emboldened by an increasingly explicit axis of confrontation with the West, with Russia in the lead and China in the rearguard.

Israel

Israel is the overwhelming military power in the Gaza conflict, with a clear advantage over its adversaries in terms of capabilities. Its annual defense spending is almost four times that of Iran, and is incomparable with the limited resources available to Hamas or Hezbollah.

Since its foundation, the State of Israel has had the firm backing of the United States, which supports it with military aid amounting to around $3.8 billion a year. Washingtons support has military derivatives of huge importance: an air force with high quality combat aircraft such as the F-35 and a world-leading anti-missile defense system known as the Iron Dome.

A history marked by conflict is also reflected not only in the enormous combat experience of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but also in a society with a considerable degree of training to take up arms and an enormous willingness to close ranks against Hamas.

The ultimate foundation of Israeli military superiority is, however, nuclear arms. Israeli authorities neither confirm nor deny that it is in their arsenal, but analysts agree that it is. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that Israel has around 90 nuclear warheads.

All this does not mean that Israel does not have its limitations, or that it does not face very serious risks in the current conflict. The Hamas attack, as was the case with the Yom Kippur War in 1973, caught Israel completely by surprise, demonstrating failures in its intelligence-gathering capabilities. The prospect of having to manage two fronts at once  Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon  represents a major challenge, all the more so if accompanied by an outbreak of violence in the West Bank and eventual skirmishes from Syria.

Hamas

The militia group has limited capabilities but combined with a willingness to act in violation of the basic rules of the laws of war, they are sufficient to inflict serious damage on Israel in offensive actions and certainly also in a defensive operation in the event of an invasion.

The attack on October 7 demonstrated Hamass ability to evade Israels surveillance and meticulously prepare a large-scale offensive without being detected, or quickly repelled. Experts also point to the considerable defensive capability Hamas will have if Israel decides to invade the Strip. The IDF has good quality main battle tanks  some 400 domestically produced Merkava IVs  but urban fighting always offers advantages to the defenders, especially in a territory as dense as Gaza, where Hamas has been preparing constantly over time for such a prospect, with vast tunnel networks and other logistical preparations. With anti-tank weapons at their disposal and with adequate positioning at strategic points, the militias potential should not be underestimated.

Naturally, everything concerning Hamass means is shrouded in mystery and there is no precise data. According to estimates by the International Institute for Strategic Studies published in 2022, Hamas had some 15,000 to 20,000 militiamen grouped in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Before the current hostilities, it had a large arsenal of low-grade rockets. Now it is difficult to say how many it may have left after a dozen days of attacks on Israel.

Other groups also operate in the Strip, such as Islamic Jihad, accused by Israel of firing the rocket that hit the al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday, while the Gazan authorities accuse the Jewish State. In any case, even with the addition of other militia groups, Hamass military strength is meager.

Hezbollah

The Lebanese Shiite militia is sometimes defined as Hamass big brother: it has more men, a better arsenal and great strategic depth thanks to the corridor of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Its main asset lies in its missile arsenal. Like Hamas, there is no transparency or verified data on its extent. According to Alma, an Israeli research center, Hezbollah has a few hundred high-precision missiles, some 5,000 missiles with a range of more than 200 kilometers (125 miles), with the Fateh-110 capable of reaching some 300 kilometers (187 miles), around 65,000 projectiles including rockets with a range of up to 45 kilometers (28 miles) and shorter-range missiles, in addition to 2,000 drones. There are other estimates of Hezbollahs arsenal, some of which raise its available missile count to 150,000.

Even if that is not the case, Hezbollahs capability is large enough to represent a serious threat. During the 2006 war, which lasted 34 days, Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets at Israel, from a pre-hostility arsenal of some 15,000, according to Israeli estimates. It is better prepared now than it was then.

In terms of members, estimates range from the 25,000 militiamen cited by the specialized magazine Janes in 2017 to the 100,000 declared by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah himself in 2021, a figure experts consider to be exaggerated. Hezbollahs intense participation in the Syrian war on the side of Bashar al-Assad has led to huge casualties in recent years, but it has also allowed the militia to develop combat experience that is always a valuable element for any armed group.

Iran

Israels great adversary in the shadows. After the peace agreements with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, and the ongoing process of normalization of relations with other Arab countries, Tehran represents the main challenge to the State of Israel. Although a direct confrontation is much less likely than the involvement of Hezbollah or militias present in Syria, Iran must be taken into account as a supporter of these groups and as a strategic reference.

The Iranian Armed Forces have significant assets. Its missile program has developed considerably, and it has long-range devices capable of striking Israel. In addition, it has developed an effective drone industry, capable of producing enough to divert some of its production to other countries, such as Russia, and effective enough to hit Saudi oil facilities a few years ago.

Its air force, though, is clearly inferior to Israels, with a largely obsolete fighter fleet consisting of Russian MiG or Sukhoi models of limited quality.

Although it has not been involved in an all-out conflict since the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), its Revolutionary Guard has experience through regional projection, contacts and action in other conflicts. This experience, its productive capacity, its experience in the clandestine supply of materials and in strategic advice or training, is the key element of Irans involvement in the absence of a direct confrontation.

The background element is, of course, the nuclear perspective. The collapse of the nuclear pact from which the Donald Trump administration withdrew has led to an acceleration of uranium enrichment activities and a softening of international controls. It is well-known that Iran has the capacity to reach the level of enrichment needed to arm a bomb and to produce the necessary amount quickly. On the other hand, its operational capacity to manufacture such a projectile is unknown and remains a subject on which experts disagree.

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CARACAS (Reuters) - Three U.S. citizens are wrongfully detained in Venezuela, United States Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols said on Thursday, offering a confirmation of the figure as the U.S. is seeking the release of jailed Americans and Venezuelan opposition figures.

Changes to sanctions against Venezuela announced this week by the United States mean the South American country will be able to engage in contracts with international energy companies and that U.S. and European companies will have more access to Venezuelan gas, Nichols added.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas and Julia Symmes Cobb)
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Keith Rowley at the Canada-CARICOM Summit in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada October 18, 2023. REUTERS/Blair Gable

By Sarah Morland

(Reuters) - Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Keith Rowley urged Canada on Thursday to help Caribbean countries reinforce their security by helping with coastal patrols as the region deals with worsening gun violence.

Rowley spoke at a summit in Ottawa where leaders from Canada and Caricom bloc Caribbean nations are expected to discuss climate change, economic development, migration, security and the conflict in Haiti.

"We have a worsening violent crime situation," said Rowley. "We are regarding it as a public health issue. There are few diseases killing as many in Caricom as arms and ammunition."

Rowley told a security session attended by his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau that more cooperation between Canada and Caricom would be beneficial, and specified the need for better coastal patrols.

"It may very well be that in conversation with your people, we might be able to find some assistance in that," he said.

Rowley described an "explosion" in the use of illegal firearms, including assault rifles, contributing to the violent killings of around 50 people per day across the region.

Rowley said he had stressed the ease with which U.S.-made firearms are entering the Caribbean with U.S. representatives, and urged Canada to help by assisting with access to small coastal patrol crafts, cyber-security and police training.

Trudeau pledged training for police in Haiti as they battle armed gangs estimated to control large parts of the country, as well as funding for equipment and vaccines.

Earlier this month, the United Nations Security Council approved an international force requested by Haiti's unelected government last year in a bid to help local police restore order. The force would be based on voluntary contributions.

After Kenya offered to lead the force, its parliament temporarily suspended deployments. As security conditions have worsened, many Haitians have left the country while over 200,000 have become internally displaced.

(Reporting by Sarah Morland; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Richard Chang)
View of the entrance of the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands November 21, 2018. Picture taken November 21, 2018. REUTERS/Eva Plevier/File Photo

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch court on Thursday sentenced a man to two months in jail for projecting a message by laser onto the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam that suggested Frank's diary was a forgery or that she had not written it.

The court convicted Robert Wilson, a 42-year-old Canadian who lives in Poland, of projecting the message which it called "a form of Holocaust-denial that is extremely grieving to victims and their relatives".

The words projected onto the building on the evening of Feb 6, 2023, referred to Frank as "the inventor of the ballpoint pen", a reference to debunked conspiracy theories about her diary.

"Considering the important symbolical meaning of Anne Frank's diary for the remembrance of the Holocaust, this statement can be seen as a form of Holocaust-denial," the district court of Amsterdam said.

Frank, who was Jewish, wrote her diary from July 1942 to August 1944 while in hiding with her family in a cramped secret space above a canal-side warehouse. The museum where the message was projected is now located at the spot.

Frank and her family were captured by Nazis and she died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, aged 15. Her diary is one of the most important documents to have emerged from the Holocaust.

Wilson already spent three months in a Dutch jail awaiting his verdict and was released earlier this month. He will not have to return to jail as his sentence is shorter than the time he has already served.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
FILE PHOTO: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese along with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong smile during the 43rd ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, September 6, 2023. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/Pool/File Photo

By David Brunnstrom and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican failure to pick a new House speaker that has handcuffed the U.S. Congress is spilling over into the diplomatic arena, potentially taking the gloss off a state visit next week by the leader of Australia, a key U.S. ally.

Many members of Congress want Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to be accorded the honor of addressing a joint meeting of the House of Representatives and Senate when he visits Washington, but without a House leader, he cannot come because there is no one to invite him.

"The speaker impasse doesn't help matters. ... It requires joint chambers to host that," Representative Joe Courtney, a co-chair of the House Friends of Australia caucus, told Reuters.

Australia is longtime U.S. ally seen as particularly important in efforts to push back against China's growing might, and Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, lamented the chaos.

"Australia is one of our most important allies and their prime minister cannot be invited to address a joint meeting of Congress," he said. "It's vital to hear from him on our critical alliance in the Indo-Pacific and on implementation of our AUKUS partnership. But we are still in chaos and unable to accomplish even this simple thing."

Addresses to joint meetings of Congress are generally reserved for the closest U.S. allies, or major world figures, sometimes controversially.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the last such address, in June, preceded by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in April and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in December.

Albanese is due in Washington for a four-day visit from Monday until Thursday, and Courtney said discussions envisioned him visiting Capitol Hill on Wednesday or Thursday.

Albanese's office did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.

Analysts say the Washington visit comes at a delicate time for Albanese, who will be seeking a boost after defeat last week in a referendum on indigenous rights.

A central focus for his talks with Biden will be the AUKUS security pact to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, the biggest defense project in Australia's history, and one that remains controversial domestically given its massive cost running into hundreds of billions of dollars.

The trilateral project, which also involves Britain, faces hurdles from U.S. export controls that could slow its implementation, to the frustration of British and Australian officials, and the congressional impasse could hold up proposed legislation aimed at easing such restrictions.

Albanese told Australia's parliament on Thursday his visit would focus "on building an alliance for the future" and "progressing our AUKUS pact is critical to that."

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Patreica Zengerle; Addtional reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney)
FILE PHOTO: A police officer stands in front of a damaged building, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Avdiivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine October 17, 2023. REUTERS/Yevhen Titov/File Photo

(Corrects spelling of Avdiivka in headline)

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian troops are facing a new Russian onslaught in the largely destroyed eastern city of Avdiivka, while making some progress on their counteroffensive in the southern theatre, senior military officials said on Thursday.

General Valery Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's commander-in-chief, posted a video on Telegram in which he appeared to be conferring with officers in Avdiivka and in Kupiansk, a town further north where Russian forces have intensified attacks in recent weeks.

"The enemy is not relenting in attempts to break through our defences and surround (Avdiivka)," Zaluzhniy wrote in a commentary attached to the video.

"The enemy is actively bringing in assault units and large amounts of armoured equipment and using aircraft and artillery."

Oleksandr Shtupun, spokesperson for the southern group of Ukrainian forces, told national television there was constant pressure on Avdiivka, about 20 km (12 miles) west of the Russian-held city of Donetsk.

"They regrouped and launched new assaults there," he said.

Russian forces subjected Avdiivka to fierce attacks last week, but the shelling had tapered off in the last few days.

Avdiivka has become a watchword for Ukrainian resistance. The town, known for its large coking plant, held out in 2014 against Russian-backed separatists who secured swathes of eastern Ukraine and it.

And like Bakhmut to the northeast, captured by Russian forces in May, it has endured months of attacks since Russia's full-scale February 2022 invasion. Officials say some 1,600 residents remain from a pre-war population of 32,000.

Kupiansk was recaptured by Ukrainian troops late last year in a lighting advance through the country's northeast, but Russian forces have stepped up attacks in a bid to retake it.

Zaluzhniy said Ukrainian forces around Kupiansk were "maintaining their defence in the most difficult of conditions".

Russia's accounts of the fighting said its forces had destroyed a command point near Avdiivka and repelled 11 Ukrainian attacks near Kupiansk.

Spokesperson Shtupun said Ukrainian troops engaged in the country's four-month-old counteroffensive had made a degree of headway in the southern theatre, where they are trying to advance to the Sea of Azov to sever a land bridge linking Russian positions in the east and south.

He said troops had advanced 400 metres (a quarter mile) to the southwest of the village of Verbove in Zaporizhzhia region.

Verbove is a few kilometres east of Robotyne, a village recaptured by Ukraine last month in the southward drive.

The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank and non-profit research group, said Ukrainian forces appeared to have broken through on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in the southern Kherson region. Kyiv did not comment on the report.

When Ukrainian troops retook parts of Kherson region last year, Russian forces abandoned its biggest city, also called Kherson. They now shell the city from the opposite bank.

(This story has been refiled to correct the spelling of Avdiivka in the headline)

(Reporting by Olena Harmash and Ronald Popeski; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Lincoln Feast)
FILE PHOTO: Farmers operate tractors while sowing sunflower seeds and fertilizing a field in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict near Starobesheve in the Donetsk region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, May 19, 2023. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko/File photo

By Pavel Polityuk

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian grain and oilseeds crop sector losses could exceed $3.2 billion in 2023 due to the high cost of logistics as well as fuel and fertiliser price hikes, which threaten to reduce sown areas in the next and coming years, farmers unions said on Thursday.

Ukraine is one of the leading global producers and exporters of food and its agrarian sector has been traditionally profitable. Ukrainian authorities and farmers did not report financial results in 2022.

Before the Russian invasion, Ukraine shipped the bulk of its exports through deep-water ports in the Black Sea, which have been fully or partially blocked since February 2022.

Limited export opportunities, now centred on the small ports of the Danube River and the railway to Eastern Europe, have multiplied the logistics component and consequently reduced the price traders can offer farmers.

The port closures have also led to a sharp rise in the price of imported fuel, seeds, fertilisers and spare parts for agricultural machinery.

The Agrarian Council, Ukraine's largest agribusiness group, said the cost of wheat production in 2023 was about $146 a metric ton, with an average selling price of $102. Farmers spend $149 to grow maize and they can sell it for $94.

The Council said that in 2023, even sunflower and rapeseed production would be unprofitable and only soybeans would give some profit to farmers.

Producers said the large losses have already led to reduced plantings for the 2024 crop.

"We planned to sow 2,000 hectares of winter wheat, but sowed only 1,000 hectares," said Ruslan Holub, director of the "Tak" farm, which has more than 10,000 hectares in central and southern Ukraine.

"Farmers will determine the area they can sow based primarily on their financial capacity," said Oleh Khomenko, the head of Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, a business association.

Farmers unions declined to forecast the area to be sown for the 2024 wheat harvest, while the Ukrainian agriculture ministry is still keeping its winter wheat sowing forecast at around 4.4 million hectares.

Not only financial difficulties, but also the unfavourable weather may significantly reduce the sowing area this autumn. Ukraine is a traditional grower of winter wheat, barley and rapeseed.

State weather forecasters said this week that prolonged absence of rain across most Ukrainian regions had created unfavourable conditions both for the ongoing sowing of winter crops and for the plants already sown.

They said the worst situation in terms of soil moisture was in the Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Kharkiv regions where up to 20 cm of upper soil layers were completely dry.

Farmers have sown 3.02 million hectares of winter wheat as of Oct. 16, 2023 compared with 2.5 million hectares at the same date a year ago, agriculture ministry data showed.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk. Editing by Jane Merriman)
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on "Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Thursday that the Justice Department is monitoring an increase in reported threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities in the United States tied to Israels war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The entire Justice Department remains vigilant in our efforts to identify and respond to hate crimes, threats of violence, or related incidents, with particular attention to threats to faith communities, Garland said in prepared remarks at a news conference in Jacksonville, Florida.

Garland said that last week he had directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. attorneys' offices to work with state and local law enforcement agencies to respond to threats, and urged federal prosecutors to be in contact with faith and community leaders.

Garland plans to meet later on Thursday with law enforcement officials in Miami, home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the United States.

The Oct. 7 cross-border terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel and Israels subsequent bombing of the Hamas-controlled enclave of Gaza have sparked tensions around the world, including in the United States.

The FBI said on Monday it was investigating the stabbing death of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Muslim boy, in Illinois as a hate crime. A suspect has already been charged with state crimes, and authorities said the boy and his mother were targeted because they were Palestinian Americans.

U.S. authorities on Tuesday charged a North Carolina man for allegedly sending a threatening message to a Jewish organization. Even before the current war, the Anti-Defamation League reported a record number of antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2022.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egyptian NGOs for Palestinians, wait for the reopening of the Rafah crossing at the Egyptian side, to enter Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, Egypt Octo

By Phil Stewart and Aidan Lewis

CAIRO (Reuters) - The top U.S. general overseeing American troops in the Middle East made an unannounced trip to Egypt for talks on Thursday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi that focused on the Israel-Hamas war and how to get aid to the Gaza Strip.

Egypt's Sinai peninsula adjoins the Gaza Strip and its Rafah border crossing is the sole route for aid to enter Gaza directly from outside Israel. It is also the only exit that does not lead to Israeli territory.

More than 100 trucks were waiting close to the crossing on the Egyptian side on Thursday, though it was not expected that aid would enter before Friday, Egyptian security sources said. More aid is being held in the Egyptian city of Al Arish, about 45 km (28 miles) from Rafah.

A statement from Sisi's office said the talks with U.S. Army General Michael "Erik" Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, included in particular "the developments in the Gaza Strip".

"The president outlined Egypt's efforts for de-escalation, stressing the importance of the international community's concerted efforts to contain the crisis and stop its escalation in dangerous directions," the statement said.

The meeting in Cairo, where Kurilla also met Egypt's Defence Minister Mohamed Zaki, came as Washington and Egypt have been pushing for a deal with Israel to get aid deliveries to Gaza.

Sisi's office said delivering aid in a "sustainable manner" was a top priority given deteriorating humanitarian conditions.

Aid has been piling up on the Egyptian side after Israeli bombardments in reaction to the attacks by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7 made the Rafah crossing inoperable, though work was expected on Thursday to repair roads to send aid across.

The Rafah crossing has become a focal point in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas as a humanitarian crisis unfolds and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians head to south Gaza from the enclave's north to escape Israeli bombing.

Egypt has been alarmed at the idea that Israel's unprecedented bombardment and siege of Gaza could force its residents southwards, and has said it will not allow any new mass displacement of Palestinians.

Most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents depended on aid before the current conflict started on Oct. 7, and about 100 trucks daily were providing humanitarian relief to the enclave, according to the United Nations.

In a sign of its concerns, Sisi on Wednesday said Egyptians in their millions would reject the forced displacement of Palestinians into Sinai, adding that any such move would turn the Egyptian peninsula into a base for attacks against Israel.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart, Aidan Lewis; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
FILE PHOTO: Illegal high-capacity magazines and an assault rifle along with multiple guns, ammunition are seen in this Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) photo in Long Beach, California, U.S., released on August 21, 2019. Courtesy LBPD/Handout via REUT

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday declared a California law banning assault weapons unconstitutional, saying the prohibition enacted in 1989 against semi-automatic weapons could not stand under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that expanded gun rights.

San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez ruled in a challenge to the law brought by gun rights groups and others that it deprived law-abiding people of semiautomatic firearms like the AR-15 in violation of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms."

Benitez issued an injunction blocking the law, but put that on hold for 10 days so the state could appeal. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said in a statement that he would appeal, calling the judge's decision "dangerous and misguided."

"Weapons of war have no place on California's streets," Bonta said.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court last year struck down New York state's limits on carrying concealed handguns outside the home. In that decision, called New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, the Supreme Court established a new legal test for firearms restrictions, saying they must be "consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation" to pass muster.

Benitez in his decision wrote that there were "no founding era dead ringers or historical twins" for California's assault weapons ban, and that the state could point to no historical laws before it adopted its ban that restricted rifles as they advanced technologically.

California in 1989 became the first U.S. state to ban assault weapons, acting in the wake of a school shooting that killed five children.

The legal challenge was brought by several California residents who wanted to own firearms like the AR-15 as well as by gun rights groups including the Firearms Policy Coalition, the California Gun Rights Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation.

Benitez, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush, said California's decision to ban assault weapons "creates the extreme policy that a handful of criminals can dictate the conduct and infringe on the freedom of law-abiding citizens."

The judge similarly declared the law unconstitutional in 2021. But the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year vacated his order and directed Benitez to review the matter further after the Supreme Court's ruling.

Benitez last month also declared California's ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition unconstitutional for similar reasons. The 9th Circuit last week allowed the law to remain in effect while the state appeals.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Will Dunham and Alexia Garamfalvi)
Last night I witnessed something unimaginable, horrible I have no words to describe it, says Saeb Alzard, 27. It was much scarier than hell. I never imagined I would see all that, the dead, the wounded, he describes over the phone. He is talking about the attack on Tuesday night against the al-Ahli al Arab Hospital in Gaza, where 471 people died, according to the Gaza Strips health authorities. Alzard was caring for his injured mother at Shifa hospital when the blast took place at the citys other medical center, located about two miles from where he was.

Alzard supports his story of horror in the video he recorded after he arrived at the scene. In disbelief, he narrates loudly in English and Arabic the scenes he finds in the midst of the chaos, the flames, the emergency services, the ambulances, the health workers trying to bring some order and the trail of corpses everywhere. Please pray for us!, I cant believe what is happening!, Look, this is a child... without a head!, he is heard saying behind the screen of his cellphone.

With this attack, the combined death toll between both sides is already more than 4,700, mostly civilians, since the crisis broke out on October 7. That day, Hamas attacked Israeli territory in an unprecedented raid by land, sea and air. The response came immediately in the form of unrelenting airstrikes by Israel, which is preventing the press from accessing a territory that it keeps sealed off. Those killed in the hospital included hundreds of people seeking refuge in a place they considered safe. This is the deadliest attack that has occurred so far in the current escalation of violence. Although Hamas blames Israel for the attack, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu attributes the impact of the projectile to an errant rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad.

Surrounded by dozens of corpses, some of children, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British-Palestinian doctor, appeared at the doors of the hospital. He said that he had arrived that Tuesday morning from the Shifa hospital due to the overload of patients at al-Ahli al Arab Hospital. After performing surgeries all day, he decided to spend the night there. The explosion, according to his testimony, caused the ceiling of the operating rooms to cave in. When he stepped outside, he came across dozens of bodies piled up, some of dead children, others still moving. There were also amputees and human remains scattered all over the place, said Abu Sitta, who introduced himself as a worker for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), although this humanitarian organization told EL PAIS that, at this time, it does not have any active projects in Gaza, so that he was acting on his own behalf.

01:56 Scenes at Al Alhi hospital following the blast. Images recorded by Saeb Alzard, a witness who arrived at Al Ahli al Arabi hospital after the blast.

That hospital, according to the United Nations, was one of 20 in northern Gaza that Israel had given the order to evacuate, but it has been impossible given the current insecurity, the critical condition of many patients and the lack of ambulances, personnel, bed capacity and alternative shelters for the displaced, according to sources from the World Health Organization (WHO). Before the explosion in the al-Ahli al Arab Hospital, that agency had already documented 57 attacks against health centers in Gaza, with damage to 26 hospitals and other infrastructure and a total of 16 dead workers.

Furthermore, a major humanitarian crisis now looms for the more than two million inhabitants of this territory. On Wednesday, the Israeli government agreed to allow aid (food, water and medicine) to enter in a limited and controlled manner through the southern border of the strip from Egypt, at the request of the United States, whose president, Joe Biden, visited Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

The bombing of the health center signals a new twist in the escalation that has taken place since October 7. Both parties are trying to prove that it was the other side. The president of the United States, Joe Biden, attributed the explosion to a failed rocket from a terrorist group, according to data from his own Department of Defense. The Israeli army also accuses Palestinian armed groups of using the local population as human shields and of carrying out military activities around residential buildings and hospitals.

Meanwhile, popular outrage is growing, especially in the Arab world. The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which brings together Christian churches and is the owner of the attacked hospital, issued a statement in which it did not point fingers at anyone but did talk about the brutal attack on our al-Ahli Anglican Episcopal Church hospital in Gaza during the Israeli airstrikes there.

Gaza is on the brink of collapse due to a lack of water, food, electricity, fuel and medicine. The situation in Gaza is getting out of control. Every second we wait to receive medical help, lives are lost, denounced the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that two-thirds of primary care centers in the Gaza Strip remain closed.

Saeb Alzards father was seriously injured in one of the airstrikes on October 13, and died after three days in the intensive care unit (ICU). The family home, located in an apartment block in Gaza City, was destroyed. His mothers leg was injured, but not seriously, says Alzard, but she still needs hospital care. He says that since the attack he has had hearing problems. It is a miracle that only my father died. They are bombing every minute.

The family now lives in an uncles house, but they refuse to flee towards southern Gaza. No, no, no he responds bluntly. I dont think thats the solution. We cannot. We have nothing and nobody [in southern Gaza]. Furthermore, [the Israelis] have no right to kick us out of our house. They have no right to make us emigrants again. We want to stay here and be united. Even under the bombs I think we are going to stay, says a defiant Alzar, who studied engineering in Turkey, where he lived between 2015 and 2022, returned to Gaza and now makes a living teaching English and Turkish in a private center.

Daily life, he adds, depends not only on avoiding the constant bombs, but also on accessing basic supplies. He says that they do not have running water  that is the worst part and our great challenge  and that they have only one hour of light a day. We are just surviving, he concludes. With about 5,500 inhabitants per square kilometer, Gaza has one of the highest population densities in the world. Of its 2.2 million inhabitants, two thirds have refugee status.
FILE PHOTO: Iranian flag with stock graph and an oil pump jack miniature model are seen in this illustration taken October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. senators from both parties are readying legislation to help the federal government enforce oil sanctions on Iran, the office of Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican, told Reuters on Thursday.

Ernst is spear-heading the bill slated for release on Monday to create a $150 million Iranian sanctions enforcement fund for the Department of Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) office, with a priority on Iranian petroleum sanctions. The bill will be co-led by Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat.

The Homeland investigative office has conducted probes that led to the seizure of two cargoes of Iranian oil since its enforcement program was activated in 2019. Such actions come with high upfront costs, which have not always been fully available.

U.S. lawmakers are debating several pieces of legislation to pressure Iran after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas that killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Hamas has long been backed by Iran, but Tehran has denied any involvement in the attacks.

The latest seizure by the Justice Department in April was a cargo carried by the Suez Rajan tanker. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had been trying to send the nearly 1 million barrels of Iranian oil to China, in violation of U.S. sanctions.

"Right now, we are witnessing the chaos Iran-backed Hamas is inflicting on Israel and the world, funded by the IRGCs illicit oil sales," Ernst said through a spokesperson.

"Instead of allowing Irans illegal actions to continue, Im working to cut the red tape and equip HSI, and its proven record of enforcing sanctions, with the support and resources it needs to go after and stop Tehran," Ernst's statement added.

As Iran's oil exports jumped this year despite U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program, Ernst and Blumenthal have urged the Biden administration to enable the Homeland investigative office to help seize shipments. Iran says the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Iran also has its own leverage over oil shipping. About a fifth of the world's supply of seaborne petroleum passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint between Iran and Oman, according to data from analytics firm Vortexa.

In May, Iran seized two oil tankers in Gulf waters, part of a series of seizures or attacks on commercial vessels since 2019.

Under the current law, 75% of funds from U.S. oil seizures go to the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terror Fund. The additional 25% would go to the enforcement fund, which would be capped at $500 million, and additional funds would help pay down the national debt.

Blumenthal said the proposed measure "will establish dedicated resources to go after illicit Iranian oil," help to undermine Tehran's influence, and provide money to the Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
FILE PHOTO: A U.S army soldier stands with his weapon at a military base in the Makhmour area near Mosul during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, October 18, 2016. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani/File Photo

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. troops have been repeatedly attacked in Iraq and Syria in recent days, U.S. officials said on Thursday, as Washington is on heightened alert for activity by Iran-backed groups with regional tensions soaring during the Israel-Hamas war.

President Joe Biden has sent naval power to the Middle East in the past two weeks, including two aircraft carriers, other warships and about 2,000 Marines.

There has been an uptick in attacks on U.S. forces since the conflict in Israel broke out on Oct. 7 when Palestinian militants from Hamas attacked southern Israel. On Wednesday, a drone hit U.S. forces in Syria resulting in minor injuries, while another one was brought down.

During a false alarm at Al-Asad airbase in Iraq, a civilian contractor died from a cardiac arrest.

Earlier this week, U.S. forces thwarted multiple drones targeting troops in Iraq. On Thursday, drones and rockets targeted the Ain al-Asad air base, which hosts U.S. and other international forces in western Iraq, and multiple blasts were heard inside the base.

Rockets hit another military base hosting U.S. forces near Baghdad's international airport, Iraqi police said on Thursday, without providing further details.

"While I'm not going to forecast any potential responses to these attacks, I will say that we will take all necessary actions to defend U.S. and coalition forces against any threat," Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters on Thursday.

"Any response, should one occur, will come at a time in a manner of our choosing," Ryder said.

A U.S. Navy warship traveling near Yemen on Thursday intercepted missiles and several drones that were launched by what Ryder said was the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, though it appeared that the projectiles were potentially heading in the direction of Israel.

LINK TO ISRAEL-HAMAS CONFLICT?

Israel has called up a record 360,000 reservists and has been bombarding the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip nonstop following Hamas's Oct. 7 assault, which killed about 1,400 people, mostly civilians.

At least 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and 12,493 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza, the health ministry in Gaza said.

But Ryder said he did not see a link between the rise in attacks and the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

"At this point, again, the information that we have does not show a direct connection to the Hamas attacks on October 7," he said.

The United States has 2,500 troops in Iraq, and 900 more in neighboring Syria, on a mission to advise and assist local forces in combating Islamic State, which in 2014 seized swathes of territory in both countries.

In Iraq, tension over the war in Gaza had already been high. Its top Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, last week condemned Israel and called on the world to stand up to the "terrible brutality" in besieged Gaza.

Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful armed faction with close ties to Iran, accused the United States of supporting Israel in "killing innocent people" and said it should leave Iraq.

In past years, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq regularly targeted U.S. forces in Iraq and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad with rockets. Such attacks had abated under a truce in place since last year, and Iraq has had a period of relative calm.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; editing by Grant McCool)
UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 6-K

Report of Foreign Private Issuer

Pursuant to Rule 13a-16 or 15d-16 of

the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

For the quarter ended September 30, 2023

Commission File Number 001-32945

WNS (HOLDINGS) LIMITED

(Translation of Registrants name into English)

Gate 4, Godrej & Boyce Complex

Pirojshanagar, Vikhroli (W)

Mumbai 400 079, India

+91-22-6826-2100

(Address of principal executive office)

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant files or will file annual reports under cover Form 20-F or Form 40-F.
An Air Force B-52H Stratofortress assigned to the 96th Bomb Squadron out of Barksdale Air Force Base, La., sits on the flightline at Cheongju International Airport, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)

CHEONGJU, South Korea  Maintaining the U.S.-South Korea military alliance cannot be achieved unless troops are routinely training with their counterparts, said the squadron commander of an American bomber that made a rare landing on the Korean Peninsula this week.

Air Force Lt. Col. Vanessa Wilcox, commander of the 96th Bomb Squadron out of Barksdale Air Force Base, La., spoke to reporters at Cheongju International Airport, about 60 miles south of Seoul, on Thursday, two days after the B-52H Stratofortress touched down there.

The American bomber  the first to land on the peninsula in at least 30 years  flew to South Korea to perform flyovers during Seouls Aerospace and Defense Exhibition, a biennial convention hosted by the Ministry of National Defense.

The B-52H flew alongside at least four South Korean F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters during one of the two flyovers, which Wilcox described as a momentous occasion.

The opportunity to work and integrate with our [South Korean] partners cannot [be] possibly achieved unless being here on the ground, she said. It really provides a totally different opportunity that we would not have.

Wilcox declined to say if there were nuclear or conventional weapons aboard the aircraft but confirmed the bomber is capable of carrying nuclear weapons. She also declined to say where the bomber came from but said it flew 19 hours from the United States without stopping.

U.S. airmen patrol a B-52H Stratofortress assigned to the 96th Bomb Squadron out of Barksdale Air Force Base, La., at Cheongju International Airport, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)

Capt. Sabin Park, a B-52 pilot for the squadron, told reporters it was amazing to see that cooperation between the two air forces. Park said he was part of a crew overseeing the B-52Hs arrival and will fly the bomber sometime before the exhibition ends on Sunday.

I think there was a lot of work and coordination and it was really helpful to see that it all worked out in making history, he said.

Neither Wilcox nor Park would comment on a Wednesday report from the Yonhap News Agency that said the bomber would take part in aerial drills with South Korean and Japanese fighters jets in the coming days.

Earlier on Thursday, the chairman of South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Kim Seung-kyum, stopped by the airport to inspect the B-52H.

Kim said Washington and Seouls policy of demonstrating peace through strength will continue and the allies are prepared to overwhelmingly and decisively respond to a North Korean nuclear attack, according to a news release from the Ministry of National Defense.

North Koreas Supreme Peoples Assembly on Sept. 27 voted unanimously to amend its constitution to increase production of nuclear weapons, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. The vote came one year after Pyongyang called its nuclear weapons program irreversible.
Air Force Master Sgt. Tunisia Miles takes a selfie with golden retrievers Ellie, front, and Emma inside the passenger terminal at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on Oct. 18, 2023. The dogs are widely followed on social media, where their owners, Kevin and Katie Bubolz, post training tips and clips of the dogs. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany  U.S. service members waiting for a military flight to Kuwait on Wednesday received a surprise visit from two TikTok stars, who greeted them with wagging tails and an occasional kiss.

Spunky golden retrievers Ellie and Emma stopped by the USO center at the Ramstein Air Base passenger terminal with owners Kevin and Katie Bubolz.

More than 6 million people follow the couple and their dogs at Golden Retriever Life, where the Bubolzes post dog training tips and advice as well as comical clips of Ellie and Emma.

It was awesome, said Master Sgt. Tunisia Miles, en route from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., who grabbed a selfie with the dogs. They were the cutest.

The couple and the dogs are on their first overseas trip together as part of a mission to spread smiles. Theyve visited several European cities and USO centers in Poland and Germany.

Emma is all smiles while visiting with U.S. service members at the USO center inside the passenger terminal at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on Oct. 18, 2023. Emma and her older sister, Ellie, both social media stars, have been visiting U.S. troops in Poland and Germany. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes) Ellie, a 7-year-old golden retriever and therapy dog, knows how to hug, a trick she practiced while getting a selfie with Beatriz Fracalosi, a USO center operations specialist and Air Force spouse on Oct. 18, 2023, at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes) Katie Bubolz introduces her golden retrievers, Ellie, foreground, and Emma to U.S. service members at the USO center inside the passenger terminal at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on Oct. 18, 2023. Katie and her husband, Keith, a former Army helicopter pilot, are taking the popular dogs on their first international trip to meet U.S. troops in Poland and Germany. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes) Ellie appears content with receiving lots of attention from U.S. service members during a visit to Poland earlier this month. Ellie and Emma, both golden retrievers with a wide social media following, are on their first international trip touring U.S. bases in Germany and Poland. (Kevin and Katie Bubolz) Ellie gives Kevin Bubolz an unprompted high-five for a treat inside the USO center at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on Oct. 18, 2023. Bubolz and his wife, Katie, are visiting U.S. service members in Poland and Germany as part of their first international trip with Ellie and Emma, who have millions of social media followers. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)

Planned stops Thursday at the USO centers in Landstuhl and at Rhine Ordnance Barracks are their last military visits, Kevin Bubolz said.

A former Army helicopter pilot who served nearly eight years in the military, Bubolz said including the USO on their five-week European tour with Ellie and Emma is just our way of giving back.

While deployed to Afghanistan in 2014, Bubolzs unit was accompanied by a chaplains service dog, a black Lab named Zac. The dog brought comfort to the soldiers, helped reduce loneliness and even flew with them while wearing specialized hearing protection, Bubolz said.

The experience inspired him to get Ellie and train her as a therapy dog for schools, hospitals and nursing homes. During the pandemic, when that volunteer work was shut down, the couple pivoted to social media and added Emma to the family.

One of the more popular videos shows Ellie engaging in a taste tournament, where Bubolz instructs her to lick pairs of different foods before telling her to take one. It turns out mango is one of her favorite foods and she chooses it over a piece of meat. The clip has drawn more than 12.7 million views on TikTok.

The couples latest social media content highlights their European travels. The dogs are shown with U.S. soldiers in Poland, where they showed service members some of their tricks, joined a game of ping pong and received lots of hugs.

Weve seen a lot of smiles from people all over the world, lots of military service members, which has been quite fun to see the impact that these two can have, Bubolz said.
The USS Mount Whitney steams alongside the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford in the Mediterranean Sea, Oct. 3, 2023. Mount Whitney departed its port in Gaeta, Italy, Oct. 18, to join other U.S. ships, including the Ford, in the eastern Mediterranean, the Navy said in a statement. (Tajh Payne/U.S. Navy)

STUTTGART, Germany  A Navy command and control ship departed its southern Italy base to support U.S. military operations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where thousands of Marines also are sailing, as U.S. military operations build up in response to the Israel-Hamas war.

USS Mount Whitney departed Gaeta, Italy, on Wednesday, the Naples-based 6th Fleet said in a statement. The ship is part of a rapidly expanding fleet in the region, where the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group is already positioned and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier group is headed on a mission to deter the possibility of a wider conflict.

The Mount Whitney provides added flexibility to the military because it ensures command and control missions can be carried out in international waters, not just ashore.

The ship executed that role in 2011 as the U.S. command hub during the bombardment of Libya, which led to the ouster of strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

Still, the Pentagon has emphasized that the role of the growing military presence in the eastern Mediterranean is about preventing escalation of the war between Israel and Hamas rather than participating in it.

The range of military assets shows our seriousness and commitment to deterrence, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Tuesday.

The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which consists of about 2,000 Marines and sailors, also has left the Gulf of Oman, where it had been operating. That force includes a mix of infantry, aviation and logistics components.

Positioned at sea, the 26th MEU is equipped to execute amphibious missions, respond to crisis and engage in limited contingency operations across a spectrum of military scenarios, Singh said.

The Marines plan to link up with the Navys two assigned carrier strike groups.

The Air Force also has deployed additional squadrons of F-15, F-16 and A-10 fighter aircraft to the Middle East.

They include about 400 airmen from the RAF Lakenheath, England-based 48th Fighter Wing and 494th Fighter Squadron, which had plans to deploy prior to the Israel-Hamas war.

More forces could soon be headed to the region. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin put about 2,000 personnel and a range of units on heightened readiness should events require a rapid deployment to the Middle East.
At Nirvana Indian Restaurant & Curry House in Yokosuka, Japan, the flavors are not just good; theyre an unforgettable journey that will make you come back for more. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)

A hidden gem nestled in the heart of Yokosuka city beckons the adventurous foodie.

Nirvana Indian Restaurant & Curry House, an enchanting blend of Indian and Nepali cuisine, serves arguably the best-tasting dishes of their variety in town with service that makes every visit feel like a warm embrace from afar.

The moment you step into Nirvana, your senses are in for a treat. Spices dance on your palate, and each bite tells a story of tradition. The flavors are not just good; theyre an unforgettable journey that will make you come back for more.

The menu is a treasure chest of Indian classics. The tomato-based chicken tikka masala is a creamy dish with succulent chicken; and other classics will set your taste buds on fire. Nirvana crafts these dishes with precision and authenticity that you can taste in every bite.

But what sets Nirvana apart is its tantalizing Nepali cuisine. Your first bite of momos  tender dumplings filled with savory goodness  will be a flavor explosion you wont forget. The lamb sekuwa, marinated in a blend of herbs and spices before hitting the grill, is a mouthwatering masterpiece.

In a world that can sometimes feel rushed and impersonal, Nirvanas service is a breath of fresh air. The staff here doesnt just take your order; they ensure you are well taken care of, are ready to answer questions and offer recommendations with genuine enthusiasm. The teams warmth and hospitality make you feel like an honored guest in their home.

To make your dinner even better, Nirvana offers a selection of cocktails that perfectly complement the bold flavors of its cuisine. The mango lassi martini fuses the traditional Indian yogurt drink with a modern twist.

Nirvana Indian Restaurant & Curry House isnt just a place to fill your belly, its a tasty adventure that comes alive after hours. Foodie expert or newbie, Nirvana guarantees amazing flavors and service thatll make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

Nirvana Indian Restaurant & Curry House, an enchanting blend of Indian and Nepali cuisine, serves arguably the best-tasting dishes of their variety in Yokosuka, Japan. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)

Nirvana Indian Restaurant & Curry House

Location: 2-23 B1 Odaki-cho, Yokosuka city, Kanagawa 238-0008

Hours: Open daily, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Prices: Most dishes cost between 1,000 yen and 1,600 yen, about $7 to $11.

Dress: Casual

Directions: A short walk from Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, or Yokosuka-chuo Station.

Information: 046-821-5227
Wood Works Kawagoe in Kawagoe, Japan, puts you to work making your own set of chopsticks. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)

A unique experience in Kawagoe, a city whose Edo Period past already qualifies it for a weekend visit, will leave you with a personalized souvenir of Japan that you can use every day.

Wood Works Kawagoe on Kanetsuki-dori, a popular street of shops and restaurants, puts you to work making your own set of chopsticks.

The staff offers a kind welcome and guides visitors to the back of the small shop, where a wide choice of raw materials is available along with a description of each type of wood.

Creating a pair of personalized chopsticks starts with wood selection at Wood Works Kawagoe in Kawagoe, Japan. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)

After you choose your wood, you will be guided to a seat and shown how to carve the chopsticks. There are two molds that match numbers inscribed on the wood to be shaved into eating utensils.

After each side of your chopsticks are shaved to fit their molds, youll use sandpaper to round them off into a smooth finish.

Now youre ready for the final step. The chopsticks are dipped into an edible oil and then dried. Put your dried chopsticks in a plastic holder and your journey is complete.

Visitors to Wood Works Kawagoe make their own chopsticks at the shop in Kawagoe, Japan. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)

This activity takes no more than 30 minutes. Instructions on maintaining your chopsticks comes with the holder. Every part of this experience is satisfying.

When you are done, sample some of the many small food stands on Kanetsuki-dori, many of which are sweet potato-based.

Tools for making chopsticks at Wood Works Kawagoe in Kawagoe, Japan. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)

On the QT

Directions: 1-4-3 Saiwaicho, Kawagoe, Saitama 350-0063. Diagonally across from the Bell of Time tower.

Times: Open 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Last entry is 5 p.m.

Costs: 1,650 yen per person, plus cost of wood, which is between 2,000 yen and 5,000 yen.

Food: No food at the shop, but plenty of stalls and restaurants on nearby Kanetsuki-dori.

Information: Online: karakimokkou.com; Instagram: @karakimokkou_
The purpose is not to ban all glitter but replace plastic glitter with more environmentally friendly glitter that does not pollute our oceans. Thats how the European Commission justifies the end of glitter sales as weve known them until now. The EU Regulation 2023/2066, titled Restriction of microplastics intentionally added to products, was approved on September 25 and went into effect on October 17 to restrict synthetic polymer microparticles on their own or intentionally added to mixtures. The measure doesnt mean that sparkles will be gone forever. The ban only applies to non-biodegradable, insoluble plastic. Biodegradable, soluble, natural or inorganic glitter is not considered microplastics and can continue being sold.

For now, decorative and craft glitter, and glitter included in toys and textiles, can no longer be sold. It must be substituted for biodegradable alternatives without microplastics. In the cosmetics industry, researchers have been looking for sparkles without contaminating particles for a while now. There has been a lot of progress in the glitter field, and today we can have those qualities in biodegradable products, said Diane Kendal from Rabanne in a recent interview with EL PAIS beauty and fashion supplement. Some cosmetic products that include traditional glitter have a moratorium on their sale, what the European Commission calls the transitional period, in a section that specifies that loose plastic glitter used as a cosmetic product, as well as cosmetics containing glitter (or other microplastics) are granted specific transitional periods under paragraph 6 and can continue being sold until, 16 October 2027 included, for rinse-off cosmetics; 16 October 2029 included, for leave-on cosmetics; 16 October 2035 included, for make-up, lip, and nail cosmetics. The Commission emphasized that, in any case, from 17 October 2031 until 16 October 2035, in order to continue to be sold, make-up, lip, and nail products need to bear a label indicating they contain microplastics.

After presenting this regulation to restrict microplastics last September, the Commission explained that it was an urgent measure, given that an estimated 42,000 tonnes of microplastics intentionally added to products are released in the EU each year. These particles often contaminate the seas and oceans (Greenpeace estimates that between 21% and 54% of all microplastic particles in the world are found in the Mediterranean basin) and even end up in food. The new rules will prevent the release of approximately half a million tonnes of microplastics into the environment, the Commission said in September. Avoiding the presence of these synthetic elements in food is one of the organizations priorities: Once in the environment, microplastics do not biodegrade and cannot be eliminated. They accumulate in animals, including fish and shellfish, and, therefore, humans also consume them through food () Their continuous release contributes to the permanent contamination of our ecosystems and food chains.

Most of the glitter that has been marketed to date is created with a combination of aluminum and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a material resistant to biodegradation. As explained by Today Glitter, a bioglitter company born in Miami, the product was invented the American rancher and machinist Henry Ruschmann, who in 1934 designed a machine that combined a paper shredder and a wood shredder to grind plastic into glitter. With the beginning of the end of the sale of plastic glitter marked by the European Commission, a 70% reduction in microplastic emissions is expected, which in the next 20 years would be equivalent to avoiding the emission into the environment of approximately half a million tons of these products, the Garrigues law firm explains on its website.

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The Xiang Yang Hong 18, a Chinese research vessel, steams through Japan's exclusive economic zone, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. (Japan coast guard)

Tokyo lodged diplomatic protests with Beijing this week after a Chinese research vessel was spotted in its exclusive economic zone near disputed islets in the East China Sea.

The ship, Xiang Yang Hong 18, was found just after 8 a.m. Wednesday by a Japan coast guard patrol boat about 80 miles northeast of Taisho Island, one of the Senkakus, a coast guard spokesman said by phone Thursday.

It appeared to be conducting a survey and had extended a wire-like object from its stern underwater, he said.

Foreign vessels are free to pass through a countrys exclusive economic zone but permission is required to conduct maritime research, according to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

It is unacceptable to implement research activities without Japans consent, the same spokesman said in an emailed statement Thursday. Some government officials in Japan speak to the media on condition of anonymity as a requirement of their employment.

After the ship was spotted, Japans coast guard demanded the crew to cease and desist by radio, the spokesman said. Its crew initially ignored calls to leave the area but departed at 8:48 a.m. Thursday.

Japans Foreign Affairs Ministry lodged complaints with the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo and with the Chinese government in Beijing on Wednesday, a ministry spokesman said by phone Thursday. He called the situation regrettable.

The Senkakus, a string of five uninhabited islands and three rocks 105 miles east of Taiwan, are administered by Japan but claimed by both Taiwan and China.

A Chinese research ship last entered Japans exclusive economic zone in June 2022, the spokesman said.
Images and video newly released by the Defense Department capture a Chinese fighter jet in the course of conducting a coercive and risky intercept June 23, 2022, against a U.S. asset in the South China Sea, including by approaching a distance of just 40 feet before repeatedly flying above and below the U.S. aircraft and flashing its weapons. After the U.S. operator radioed the Chinese fighter jet, the Chinese pilot responded using explicit language, including an expletive. (Defense Department)

WASHINGTON  China is ramping up production of nuclear weapons, increasing pressure on Taiwan and becoming more distrustful of other nations, the Pentagon revealed Thursday in its annual report on the strength of the Chinese military.

This report illustrates the importance of meeting the pacing challenge presented by [Chinas] increasingly capable military, the Defense Department said in an executive summary of the report, formally known as the Military and Security Developments Involving the Peoples Republic of China. As China seeks to achieve national rejuvenation by its centenary in 2049, Chinese Communist Party leaders view a modern, capable and world-class military as essential to overcoming what Beijing sees as an increasingly turbulent international environment.

The Pentagon report, which studies developments in China in 2022 and 2023, states some of the top concerns involve Chinese efforts to expand its national power, strengthen its nuclear weapons, deepen a no limits partnership with Russia and resist direct communications with the U.S. military. The report outlines various destabilizing moves China has made recently in the Indo-Pacific region, a vast portion of the world that includes three dozen countries and the Pacific and Indian oceans.

In 2022, [China] adopted more dangerous, coercive and provocative actions in the Indo-Pacific, according to a Defense Department fact sheet on the report. For example, between the fall of 2021 and fall of 2023, the United States documented more than 180 instances of [Chinese] coercive and risky air intercepts against U.S. aircraft in the region.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon released dozens of images and videos documenting some of those incidents, which included Chinese fighter jets flying dangerously close to U.S. planes. Some Chinese aircraft got so close that the pilots are clearly seen in the images.

Part of Chinas recent destabilizing moves in the Indo-Pacific, the report states, involve ratcheting up pressure against Taiwan, an island that Beijing considers a breakaway territory. Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, have repeatedly stated a desire to unify with Taiwan, a move that U.S. officials believe would almost certainly require a military invasion. Throughout 2022, Chinas military increased provocative actions in and around the Taiwan Strait, including ballistic missile overflights across the island, sending more Chinese aircraft into Taiwanese airspace and simulating large-scale blockade and firepower strike operations, according to the report.

Images newly released by the Defense Department capture a Chinese fighter jet while conducting a coercive and risky intercept on June 8, 2022, against a U.S. asset in the East China Sea. Over the course of five hours, four Chinese aircraft conducted this intercept, including by approaching within 40 feet and taking pictures of the U.S. plane. (Defense Department )

The report also includes concerns by U.S. military commanders that China might be eyeing the late 2020s as a time to try and unify with Taiwan. The Chinese government is aiming to finish modernizing its military by 2027, which could make it a more credible military tool for Taiwan unification efforts.

At the 20th Party Congress in 2022, Xi Jinping repeated  that China seeks peaceful unification with Taiwan but would never renounce the use of force as an option, the fact sheet states.

Many of Chinas destabilizing efforts are based on a belief in Beijing that much of the international community is working to isolate and suppress the communist country.

Beginning [in] late 2022, Beijing launched a diplomatic charm offensive targeting European countries in an apparent effort to improve perceptions of Beijing following years of wolf warrior diplomacy and COVID isolation, according to the reports summary. In March 2023, Xi Jinping told [Chinese] delegates  that Western countries led by the United States have implemented comprehensive containment, encirclement and suppression against us, bringing unprecedented severe challenges to our countrys development.

That distrust has led China to avoid direct communication with the U.S. military, the report states. Beijings military largely denied, canceled and ignored attempted bilateral military engagements in 2022 and 2023 and other U.S. requests for communication at multiple levels. A senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Wednesday that the Chinese spy balloon that floated across the entire United States earlier this year is a great example of why such communication is important.

The key takeaway from the entire incident, from my perspective, is that it really highlighted the critical need for open and consistent military-to-military communication at all levels, the official said. We did not have it during that incident, because [China] declined some of the requests we put forward.

The Chinese balloon was spotted in late January near U.S. airspace in Alaska, and it continued on a southward path that later took it into Canada and again into U.S. airspace in northern Idaho in early February. Not wanting to shoot the large airship down over populated areas, U.S. officials waited for the balloon to leave the East Coast off South Carolina, and an F-22 fighter jet shot it down on Feb. 4.

U.S. officials said during the ordeal that the balloon was about 200 feet tall and carried a payload beneath it that was roughly the size of three school buses that contained surveillance materials. The incident spurred new concerns about the lengths China was willing to go to spy on the United States.

We did take some precautions to minimize what intelligence the balloon could collect, the senior defense official said. Its pretty clear, I think, that a lot of these high-altitude systems are  intended to support [Chinese military] requirements.

Another concern raised by the Pentagon report is an apparent increase in Chinas production of nuclear warheads. Beijing had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads by mid-2023 and is on pace to have more than 1,000 by the end of the 2020s, according to the Pentagon.

It does put them on track to exceed previous projections, the senior defense official said. This obviously raises a lot of concerns for us. What we would really like to see is for them to be more transparent about their nuclear buildup and also to see some greater willingness on their part to discuss these strategic stability and risk reduction issues with us.

Other findings in the China military power report:
Students head to Zama Middle High School on the first day of classes at Camp Zama, Japan, Aug. 21, 2023. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan  A loss of health care options for Defense Department civilians at U.S. military bases in Japan is prompting some teachers to resign, retire or relocate, according to the DOD school system and the teachers union.

Since last year, DOD civilians, including educators with Department of Defense Education Activity, have voiced a range of concerns about health care after military hospitals and clinics shifted from service-based commands to the Defense Health Agency.

Hundreds of people affected by the change complained to Pentagon officials during a series of town hall meetings throughout Japan in late January and early February. Many questioned whether a loss of on-base care would lead to staffing issues.

Now, at least a portion of DODEAs nearly 3,000 employees in Japan are looking for a way out.

The health care situation for DOD civilians in Japan has been a contributing factor for some employee resignations, retirements and relocations, DODEA spokeswoman Miranda Ferguson told Stars and Stripes in a Sept. 19 email. DODEA ensures prospective employees are aware of limited access to military medical and dental treatment facilities in Japan.

Ferguson could not specify how many exiting teachers cited health care as a reason, as employees are not required to provide the agency with this information during the offboarding process.

However, she described the situation as a serious issue for civilian employees and DODEA.

The Federal Education Association  the Washington, D.C.-based teachers union that represents DODEA employees  indicated the problem may be pervasive.

We are hearing that a majority of our members in Japan are planning to retire or seek employment elsewhere because of the lack of on-base health care, FEA spokesman Gary Hritz said by email Oct. 11.

FEA represents more than 600 DODEA employees in Japan, and the departure of a significant percentage would drastically undermine the quality of education students receive on base, Hritz said.

FEA educators, who are a key piece of the fabric of military quality of life and who provide unique and essential support to the students and community, need quality and readily accessible health care, he added.

A woman asks a question about civilians' access to health care during a town hall meeting at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Feb. 1, 2023. (Stars and Stripes)

Space-available only

Military health care facilities began transitioning in 2018 from individual service commands, such as the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, to DHA administration. DHA, under federal law, is obligated to prioritize active-duty service members and their families.

Military hospitals will provide care for anyone not covered by the militarys Tricare Prime medical plan, including DOD civilians, contractors and their families, on a space-available basis.

DOD civilians are encouraged to find health care providers off base in Japan. Many have done so, but others complain of large upfront payments, a language barrier and the ability of Japanese providers to turn patients away, which has resulted in death.

As part of the transition, DHA audited facilities like Naval Hospital Yokosuka, where it found not enough appointment times were available for service members and their families.

About 4,000 of the 27,000 people attached to the base are not covered by any Tricare program, the hospitals executive officer at the time, Navy Capt. Jenny Burkett, told a town hall audience at Yokosuka in September 2022.

The Japan Civilian Medical Forum, a grassroots advocacy group, says DOD civilians and their families in Japan number more than 10,000.

We werent able to provide care to the people that we were tasked to care for, so we had to prioritize those people, Burkett said at the town hall. And that left civilians feeling that they werent getting health care.

Over the next several months, civilians faced additional uncertainty.

DHA on Jan. 1 limited chronic care at base hospitals to Tricare Prime beneficiaries. DOD civilians, however, were limited to space-available appointments only for sudden onset or acute issues. Chronic problems  diabetes, for instance  had to be treated off base. By March 3, DHA reversed that decision.

Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Heck, formerly the DHA Indo-Pacific region director, wrote a memo instructing military hospitals to use standard processes to maximize the number of patients seen.

Advocates hailed the change as a win, but it left civilians unable to secure timely and reliable health care.

U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa at Camp Foster is pictured on June 9, 2023. (Stars and Stripes)

Tough it out

To better understand the situation, Stars and Stripes contacted numerous DODEA educators, most of whom declined to comment. Two teachers agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal and medical privacy concerns.

A teacher at Yokota Middle School said shes been unable to reliably secure specialist health care since the changes took effect.

I have found that Yokota Air Base has tried very hard to work with us, and Ive been able to get in there for minor things and to continue my prescriptions  thats not my major concern at this point, she said by phone Sept. 1.

My major concern is emergency care and specialist care, she said. I would like to be able to see a cardiologist or another specialist, and thats proven more difficult and more expensive.

For an educator at Yokosukas Nile C. Kinnick High School, the major issue has been securing basic care outside of emergency visits.

Weve gotten emergency care when we needed it, but I tend to use it sparingly because I know people have been turned away by the ER, she said by phone Sept. 1. Theyre being told, Thats not an emergency; you need to go see your primary care physician. Well, we dont have one.

The Yokosuka teacher said she and her family have been left to just tough it out when faced with non-life-threatening injury or illness and that they hadnt had a physical in years.

Id say that currently theres a lot of lip service to appointments being available on a Space-A basis, but logistically its as difficult as it can possibly be, she said.

Teachers are usually in class when same-day, space-available appointments are announced. At Yokosuka, for example, the hospital typically advertises them at 9:30 a.m.

We cant call till later, and frequently, there just arent any available appointments, the teacher said.

DHA is committed to maximizing space-available care at military hospitals and thus far has made more appointments available at a number of facilities and expanded hours of operations, spokeswoman Whitney Trimble said by email Sept. 21.

Trimble said DHA recognizes that every member of our military community is vital to mission success and that the organization is working to improve appointment availability.

DHA also recognizes that DODEA teachers are a critical part of the military community, but DOD civilians are being encouraged to work with their respective human resource representatives or health insurance companies to find information and alternative options, she said.

It may be too little, too late for some. The Yokosuka teacher, for example, is planning to leave.

Ive already been looking; Im looking to move to DODEA schools in the States, she said. When I get the call, Ill go. I dont care where it is, Im not being picky. We need to leave.
President of the Peoples Republic of China Xi Jinping meets with President of Russia Vladimir Putin at the official welcoming ceremony in the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow. (Presidential Executive Office of Russia/Wikimedia Commons)

President Xi Jinpings signature infrastructure gambit was supposed to connect Asia, Africa and Europe through a network of railroads and trade deals, cementing Chinas global influence. A decade on, its run into a diplomatic wall at the European border.

The lack of European leaders at this weeks Belt and Road Forum in Beijing pointed to growing skepticism among Western democracies about what Xi once described as a project of the century. Instead of making friends and scoring political points across Europe, the Chinese leader appears to have reformed the initiative as a club for emerging economies known as the Global South that can challenge the US-led world order.

Seven EU nations  Austria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Hungary  sent their chiefs to the forum in 2019, the last time the event was held. Four years later, only Hungarys Viktor Orban made the trip to Beijing. Italy, the sole Group of Seven member, has told China it plans to drop out of the investment pact entirely.

This summit is the manifestation that BRI has turned into a Global South initiative, instead of a global initiative, said Moritz Rudolf, a China scholar at Yale Law School.

Putins Presence

Europe is still very much in business with China: Beijing was the largest partner for EU imports of goods last year, and the third largest for exports. But the political costs of mingling too closely with Xi were evident in the Chinese capital this week  especially given the onstage presence of Vladimir Putin, Xis diplomatic ally. The Russian president has an active arrest warrant with the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

One EU diplomat who spoke to Bloomberg News cited Putins presence at the forum as a main reason the blocs institutions are banned from participating. The person requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on such issues.

His very appearance is a challenge to Europe and North America, said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, of Putins attendance.

Its not just the EU that balked at traveling to Beijing for the event. Just 22 heads of state or government attended the forum, compared to 36 in 2019 and 29 in 2017, according to a Bloomberg News review of attendees.

Notable absences included the likes of Switzerland, which isnt part of the EU but whose president in 2019 attended and signed a memorandum of understanding with China on trade and investment. Singapores prime minister also passed on this years event after going last time, with the Southeast Asian nation sending its acting head of transport instead.

In Japans case, no senior officials from the current government went this year, after then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a special envoy in 2019. The 2023 event was attended by Yukio Hatoyama, a former prime minister who left office in 2010.

Maintaining appeal

The smaller guest list doesnt mean Belt and Road is without influence. The forum maintained its appeal among some developing countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa. Some in Europe are still keen to partner with Beijing, too: Serbian

President Aleksandar Vucic flew in for the gathering, where his nation inked a free trade deal with China.

Belt and Road Initiative has brought a lot of good to our country, Vucic wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of him and Xi in Beijing. Im proud of our friendship. Serbia has been an EU candidate for years, though is not a member.

In lieu of touting the number of world leaders, China highlighted the sheer amount of attendees. Representatives from more than 140 countries joined the two days of conferences, according to the official state-run Xinhua News Agency, which heralded that support as being able to bolster Beijings image as a champion of the developing world.

The massive American campaign to derail the BRI has clearly failed, said Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at National University of Singapores Asia Research Institute and a former Singaporean diplomat. From many developing countries point of view, the Chinese come and provide  very quietly  the results.

Beijings economic clout within the developing world has grown tremendously over the years, after the US pulled back from lending to developing nations during Latin Americas debt crisis in the 1980s. The Asian giant is now the largest official creditor to some poor and developing economies  a status that has at times led to tension with the West, as China and private bond holders have resisted using guidelines established by sovereign creditors.

Participation in Belt and Road can show that China is very much still able to make inroads in the Global South, creating welcome partnerships at a time when the nation is experiencing an economic slowdown at home.

If nothing else, the BRI anniversary displays the extraordinary convening power of China, said Richard McGregor, senior fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute, who noted the sharp decline in Belt and Road lending compared to its early years.

Still, the size of the meeting obscures the fact that the old BRI is all but dead.

West versus Rrest

Those who attended the forum didnt seem bothered by the shifting makeup of the event. For some companies and organizations seeking to profit from Chinese investment, the alternative world order pitched by Xi and Putin promised a space for opportunity that may be unthinkable elsewhere.

We seek more investments, and we hope during our visit we will meet the private sector and other sectors here in China, said Alhaj Nooruddin Azizi, the minister of industry and commerce for the Taliban government of Afghanistan. He attended the forums opening ceremony at the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday.

He said his government wanted to prioritize investment from China in agriculture, mining and energy. The Taliban is struggling for international recognition as no country  including China  recognizes it as the legitimate government of the country after returning to power in 2021 following the US withdrawal. Aid that made up the bulk of the countrys finances has dried up, and the US has frozen $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank.

Others pointed to Chinas ability to lead in railway construction and development as a major draw, particularly for smaller economies with limited access to major ports.

Sometimes the enemy isnt just war. Sometimes poverty is also a great enemy, said Jacob Hlangabeza Hara, the minister of transport and public works in landlocked Malawi. Every alternative that comes on the table to make sure that we improve the livelihood of our communities and our population. Thats what counts.
A defense volunteer stands in the village of Langza, where, according to accounts, the head of a decapitated 30-year-old Kuki named David Thiek was found earlier this year. (Arko Datto/Washington Post)

CHURACHANDPUR, India - During times of civil unrest and political turmoil, authorities around the world frequently cut access to the internet to control their populations and throttle the flow of information. The militaries in Sudan and Myanmar pulled the plug when they carried out armed coups in 2021. Iran flipped the switch when protesters flooded the streets following the death a year ago of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody.

But the country that most frequently deploys the tactic is not an authoritarian state such as Russia or China, digital rights groups say.

It is India.

Between 2016 and this May, India accounted for more than half of all the shutdowns recorded worldwide by an international coalition of more than 300 digital rights groups led by Access Now, a nonprofit. On more than 680 occasions during that period, state and local officials in India issued legal orders requiring the countrys handful of telecommunication companies to suspend mobile data transmission from cell towers and freeze wired broadband connections.

Indian officials argue that the measure is necessary to prevent the spread of online rumors and contain unrest. But by enforcing a digital blackout, critics say, the government can stifle dissent, cover up abuses and stymie independent reporting that challenges official accounts during times of conflict. The tactic can also exact a drastic, far-reaching economic toll, disrupting commerce, work and education.

In a report last year about the global use of blackouts, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that the practice infringes on basic rights of expression and may do more harm than good during times of upheaval. The inability to access tools to document and rapidly report abuses seems to contribute to further violence, including atrocities, the U.N. agency said. Some shutdowns may even be implemented with the deliberate intent of covering up human rights violations.

Since May, when ethnic bloodshed erupted in Manipur state, in northeast India, the state government controlled by Prime Minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has enforced a draconian internet ban affecting the states 3 million people - one of the longest recorded shutdowns in the world - as violence between two ethnic groups spread from village to village, leaving more than 200 dead.

In three visits to the remote, lushly forested state bordering Myanmar, Washington Post journalists saw how severing the internet - considered a modern necessity, almost a basic right by many - upended daily lives and livelihoods practically overnight. Countless workers found themselves out on the street, and hospitals, with online payment systems suspended, struggled to keep operating.

Moreover, the internet shutdown shaped the Manipur conflict in profound ways. It allowed the BJP state government - and the states ethnic Meitei majority who control it - to dominate the public narrative about the turmoil. It impeded efforts by dissenters among the Kuki ethnic minority to spread their message and disseminate photo and video evidence of human rights abuses. And it effectively kept the roiling conflict, a stark challenge to the BJPs leadership, behind a veil of invisibility.

While local governments ruled by opposition parties in India also frequently block the internet, the Manipur example highlights a wider pattern in an India governed over the past decade by Modis BJP. To maintain their grip on political power and advance their Hindu nationalist agenda, Modi and his ideological allies have often used their control of technology and social media to stifle dissent, promote divisive propaganda - or, in the case of Manipur, pull the digital plug altogether.

After a viral video emerged online in July of Kuki women being groped and paraded naked in a Meitei village, drawing international attention and concern about sexual violence in the Manipur conflict, several BJP leaders, including the states chief minister, N. Biren Singh, voiced frustration that the video had surfaced and alleged in media interviews that it had been intentionally leaked from Manipur to hurt them politically. The chief ministers office and spokespeople for the Manipur state government declined multiple interview requests for this article.

To pierce the information veil, Kuki activists this year mounted a digital resistance.

Some secretly connected internet cables from an adjacent state to a college campus, where they huddled to spread word of their peoples plight. Others pursued old-school, shoe-leather journalism, forming teams to visit refugee camps and document allegations of war crimes, and collected evidence by transferring videos via Bluetooth or USB drives. Still others drove hours to the border, where they tapped into the faint cellphone signal to download independent commentary about the conflict.

On a Sunday morning in early July, one of these activists stood in a crowd and she listened intently to dozens of exhausted Kuki villagers recounting a terrifying tale.

Before sunrise that day, the displaced Kukis said, an armed mob of Meiteis had appeared, setting fire to their homes in the nearby foothills. Then the villagers made a stunning allegation: A 30-year-old Kuki named David Thiek was decapitated, his limbs sawed off and his head placed on a bamboo spike.

The activist - a former call center manager with a bubbly laugh and quiet intensity named Jhmar - belonged to the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF), a pro-Kuki organization, as a volunteer in its media cell. Her job, she said, was to find and confirm reports about atrocities, then spread the word to the outside world, a challenge given the internet ban. But here, a nugget of firsthand information had found its way to her. (Jhmar recounted the episode on the condition that she be identified only by her tribal name, fearing government retribution.)

She immediately hopped on a motorbike and rode off into the hills. b

Since 2020, India has been the leader in ordering internet shutdowns, far outpacing Iran and Myanmar, in second and third spots, respectively, according to Access Now. Indian government officials can issue blocking orders that cover relatively small districts or encompass vast states with millions of people. The blackouts tend to last for a few days, though theyre often renewed, and some stretch on for months.

Two months ago, a shutdown was imposed in Haryana state, ostensibly to control riots, and a blackout in March, affecting 27 million people, was enforced in Punjab state during efforts to catch fugitives. In February, the internet was blocked in 11 cities in Rajasthan state to prevent cheating during exams.

The longest recorded instance came in August 2019, when the Modi government revoked the semiautonomous status of the northern Jammu and Kashmir region and brought this restive Muslim-majority area directly under New Delhis control, sparking protests and an Indian army crackdown that included waves of detentions. The government cut phone lines and shut down high-speed internet for 18 months to curb what officials called the spread of disinformation from Pakistan.

But with the flow of information severed and journalists unable to work, it took weeks for allegations to surface that the Indian army had tortured detainees, among them minors, said Anuradha Bhasin, the executive editor of the Kashmir Times who is now a fellow at Stanford University.

Seven million people in Kashmir and Muslim-majority areas of Jammu were completely pushed behind an iron curtain, said Bhasin. Shutting down critical reporting was one of the intended consequences.

After Bhasin challenged the internet shutdown in court, the Indian Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the tactic should be used only for a limited time and only if absolutely essential, adding that the justification must be publicized. But authorities often ignore the courts recommendations, say Indian civil rights lawyers. The clampdown begins

The unrest in Manipur began on April 27. Kuki activists called for a general strike against the land policies of the states chief minister that day, and the demonstration turned violent.

Tensions had been brewing for months between the Kukis, a Christian hill tribe, and Meiteis, the politically and economically dominant valley dwellers who mostly practice Hinduism. Kukis have long accused Meiteis of coveting land in the hills reserved under the Indian constitution for tribal peoples, and those fears sharpened this spring when the states top court backed a Meitei demand that it also be granted official tribal status.

At first, the state government ordered an internet blackout around Churachandpur, a city that forms the heart of Manipurs Kuki population. But mayhem erupted anyway. On May 3, mob violence spread statewide, leading to two days of killing, rape and arson. While both sides were targeted, most victims were Kuki, according to the U.N. human rights office. Roaming death squads killed anyone they could find of the other ethnicity. Up to 60,000 people were displaced.

The state ordered telecom providers to kill the internet, and a digital darkness fell over Manipur. The resistance began. Getting the word out

For Ginza Vualzong, a gregarious leader in the pro-Kuki ITLF who heads its media cell, the first task was tracking down a local technician who quietly dealt in special phone lines - an internet bootlegger. After weeks of negotiations, an eye-watering payment exceeding $1,000 and a flick of a router switch one day in late May, Vualzong turned the media cell office in Churachandpur into an oasis of WiFi, with slow, finicky, but unfettered internet piped in from a neighboring state.

To counter stories in newspapers and carried by television stations under the BJP governments sway, one volunteer assembled a news bulletin every day and distributed hard copies to curious readers who queued up for them. Another team visited hospitals and camps for displaced people to document war crime allegations and uploaded oral histories to YouTube.

What were fighting is a narrative war, said Vualzong, who described most of his day-to-day work as firefighting against government propaganda.

As the conflict raged, the Indian government prohibited foreign journalists from visiting Manipur. In the Indian media, it was mostly English-language newspapers with relatively few readers and small, online-only news outlets that closely covered both sides of the conflict.

But with its secret internet line, the media cell managed to score small victories. In July, Jhmar and her team facilitated an interview with a Kuki woman who was beaten nearly to death by a mob with a writer for the popular Instagram page Humans of Bombay - an Indian account inspired by Humans of New York with 3 million followers.

The post got 21,000 likes. It was nothing like making the front page of a national newspaper. But their people were starved of any outside attention, Jhmar said: Every channel, be it small or big, is important for us right now. Return to a dark age

As the media cell huddled daily near its office hotspot, life outside changed dramatically for millions of people plunged into an earlier technological era.

At the Raj Medicity in Imphal, Manipurs capital, hospital director Vijayraj Haobijam, 29, ticked off his mounting difficulties.

Without internet access, he couldnt receive timely reimbursements from the national health insurance program or digital payments from patients. His employees were working on half-salary.

Even the covid lockdowns were not so difficult because that was not a war, he said. We had internet.

On the boulevards of Imphal, the stately former seat of the Meitei monarchy, long lines snaked out from ATMs, because the demand for cash skyrocketed after Indias digital payments system suddenly became unavailable. The back streets were devoid of the food and package delivery boys ubiquitous even in small Indian towns, because the e-commerce companies paused local services. The offices that provide the white-collar jobs so many Indians aspire to were shuttered overnight.

Grunting and sweating outside a water packaging plant in Churachandpur, Janet Lalthiengzo, 27, wrapped a dozen bottles and heaved the package onto a truck - a job she never imagined shed be doing after graduating from college and working for a company doing search engine optimization. But with the internet severed, Lalthiengzo found herself packing water bottles for $3 a day, a third of what she once made.

Even if I get paid less, I have to work, said Lalthiengzo.

On a recent evening, three Kukis gathered on a grassy hilltop bathed in moonlight. Locals knew it was possible to pick up a faint cellphone signal, but no one knew if it came from the neighboring state of Mizoram or Myanmar.

Siamkhanlal, 51, yelped with delight as 46 messages came flooding into his WhatsApp at once. He needed to download pay slips for his church group. People came to the hill for all kinds of reasons, he explained: to do homework, make payments or download the latest information about the fighting.

Another villager, O.K. Luna, wasnt so lucky. He wanted a glimpse of his daughter Margaret, who had flown that morning to Italy to resume her job on a cruise liner. He clutched a phone in each hand, cajoling them to connect. He gave up after more than 90 minutes. The veil briefly lifts

On May 4 - the second and, by most accounts, worst day of fighting - came a defining moment of the Manipur conflict.

A 26-second video showing dozens of Meitei men that day molesting two naked Kuki women, grabbing their genitals as they were paraded down a narrow concrete road and into dry paddy fields. There, relatives of the Kuki women alleged, they were raped off-camera.

For two and a half months, the video never surfaced. No arrests were made, no headlines created. But finally, the video made its way to social media. Instantly, it had an impact.

A body of U.N. human rights experts expressed alarm about what was happening on the ground. Modi, who had stayed away from Manipur and remained quiet about the conflict since it erupted, broke his silence after 78 days, telling the Indian people that what has happened to these daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven. The wheels of justice finally began to churn.

Seven men were detained within days and handed to the federal investigative agency.

In a country where national politics is often driven by spectacle and social media outrage, capturing and sharing visuals is the only time you are getting a response from those in power, said Sevanti Ninan, a longtime media critic. Manipur has long been invisible partly because of the mainland attitude to that state. The internet shutdown makes it further invisible. Hoaxes and rumors

But on the Meitei side, the emergence of the video fueled bewilderment and frustration.

Along the rain-soaked rice paddies of Pechi village, near where the video was shot, Meiteis wondered why they were denied internet when they too were regularly assaulted.

Two fuming Meitei women, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to address an incident that they said unfairly tarnished their village name, stopped sowing rice to vent. The attack on the Kuki women, they said, was in revenge for a rumored attack on Meitei girls.

Yet the narrative is one-sided against us, said one of the women. Without internet, we cannot get photos and videos of what happened to our people.

Khuraijam Athouba, the spokesperson of the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity, the top civilian group representing Meitei interests in the conflict, said the internet shutdown was making the conflict worse by fueling hoaxes and rumors.

Even Meiteis detested it, he said.

People make more assumptions, Athouba said, because they are not getting the right information, at the right time.

Compiling the evidence

As soon as she heard news of David Thieks July 2 death, Jhmar rushed on a motorbike to Saikot village, where Thieks family were seeking refuge after fleeing their home in Langza, 20 miles away.

Details were still trickling in about the pre-dawn attack on Langza. As waves of refugees arrived throughout the day, they brought more photos and videos that created, piece by piece, a fuller, terrifying account of destruction and savagery.

Videos showed Kuki volunteers rummaging through rubble, searching for Thieks remains. They gathered his charred bones and placed them on a traditional stole spread on the ground. One photo showed the blood-streaked bamboo fence where his head had been mounted.

Jhmar used Nearby Share, a Bluetooth file-sharing app, to gather every photo and video she could from Thieks friends, family and witnesses. For a week, she worked with her media cell colleagues to put together a memorial video. The group released it on their YouTube channel on July 13. The only consolation

On July 24, Jhmar scored another small win. A team from CNN-News 18, a national TV network, caught wind of Thieks killing, and Jhmar brought the crew to interview his family. But after that, outside attention fizzled out again.

On Sept. 2, the Editors Guild of India, a professional group of journalists that had visited Manipur on a fact-finding mission, released a report saying the internet ban had impeded the work of journalists, who were forced to rely almost entirely on the narrative of the state government and produced shoddy, one-sided reporting.

Two days later, the Manipur government filed a criminal case against the editors association for promoting enmity between different groups.

Mobile internet was briefly restored on Sept. 23, and disturbing photos immediately surfaced on social media, this time showing the corpses of two young Meiteis allegedly killed by Kukis. Authorities arrested the suspected killers before severing the internet again on Sept. 26.

In Churachandpur, Jhmar fell into a gloom. She felt she hadnt done enough to spread word about the violence. How could she, given Manipurs internet outage that began in early May?

Jhmar said her only consolation was that Thieks slaying had been documented, saved for a day of reckoning when the digital darkness lifts.

The only thing we can do, she said, is keep bringing out the stories as much as we can so that the world knows. Shih reported from New Delhi. Anu Narayanswamy in Washington contributed to this report.
This video screenshot shows a white orb recorded by a Navy fighter jet pilot in 2021. The identity of the object remains unresolved. (All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office)

A growing number of commercial pilots are contributing sightings of so-called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, to the federal governments annual report that tracks such objects, according to the latest unclassified version released Tuesday.

The report  a collaboration between the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence  includes UAP sightings from Aug. 31, 2022, to April 30, 2023, as well as any not included in earlier reports.

Most reports still reflect a bias towards restricted military airspace, a result of reporting from military personnel and sensors present in such areas, the report states. This bias has been lessened by reporting from commercial pilots showing a more diverse geographic distribution of UAP sightings across the United States.

Most sightings are over U.S. airspace and littoral waters, however, because of U.S.-centric collection bias, the report states.

The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which leads the Defense Departments efforts in tracking such sightings, received 291 UAP reports during the reporting period, 17 of which had occurred between 2019 and 2022 but had not been previously reported.

The latest report brings the total number of UAPs cited in the annual reports to 801.

While none of the sightings in the new report were associated with adverse health effects or injuries, many reports from military witnesses do present potential safety of flight concerns, and there are some cases where reported UAP have potentially exhibited one or more concerning performance characteristics such as high-speed travel or unusual maneuverability.

None of the reported UAPs, however, maneuvered to an unsafe proximity to civil or military aircraft, positioned themselves in flight paths, or otherwise posed a direct threat to the flight safety of the observing aircraft.

The 15-page report does not include any details or narratives of particular sightings.

Congress has shown mounting interest in tracking and investigating such unidentified phenomena, which have long been referred to as UFOs, or unidentified flying objects, by the public.

In July, two Navy veterans who claimed to have seen UAPs testified before the House Oversight Committee that they believed such objects were a threat to national security.

Former Navy F-18 pilot Ryan Graves said such sightings are grossly underreported.

Parts of our government are more aware about UAP than they let on, but excessive classification processes keep crucial information hidden, he testified.

Former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch testified at the same hearing that the federal government has for decades actively worked to conceal physical evidence of UFOs, including crash sites that contained non-human biologics.

No credible evidence of alien beings or objects that defy the known laws of physics have been found, Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April.

Time and time again, UAPs are resolved into something already explainable, he said.
The explosion in a hospital in the Gaza Strip  with its sinister toll of deaths and injuries and for which the Israeli army and the Islamist militias operating in the Palestinian territory, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are blaming each other  highlights the situation of total helplessness experienced by the Palestinian civilian population, who are no longer safe even in the places they use as a shelter. Diplomatic action must put an end to the innocent deaths in Gaza, instead of contributing to the increase in casualties and an extended confrontation in the region of incalculable consequences. The same urgency must apply to the release of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas.

While two million people in Gaza  trapped and subjected to an unacceptable siege, and who could have a minimum of respite if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus commitment to allow the passage of aid from Egypt finally materializes  await the announced ground invasion, we are witnessing a multiplication of visits to Israel by the Wests heavyweights, who have expressed their solidarity after the savage attack on October 7 and ratified Israels right to self-defense. But they have also underlined their concern for the Palestinian civilian population who, along with the Israelis who were murdered and those being held hostage by Hamas, are the innocent victims of this escalation.

The arrival in Israel of the German Chancellor, social democrat Olaf Scholz, and of the president of the United States, the democrat Joe Biden, within just hours of one another is very significant. The former on Tuesday ratified Germanys support for Israel, but pointed out that the situation of Gazas civilians cannot be met with indifferent, insisting on the need to urgently provide them with food, water and electricity. Biden struck a different tone that was more resounding in its defense of Israel and its right to exist, but he also advocated in Tel Aviv for providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza population and announced modest  though very significant in this war context  economic aid for Gaza and the West Bank. The fact that two important allies of Israel, especially the very fundamental United States, have underscored this aspect in the presence of Netanyahu shows the depth of a disaster that is deepening by the hour.

It is urgent to move from words to actions. This is a crucial moment in which international diplomacy must act without delay to avoid a totally irreversible tragedy in Gaza, prevent an uncontrolled escalation in the region and confront a situation that has been poisoning the Middle East and the global political discussion for more than half a century. In this sense, it is very important that Biden supported the existence of two states as a final political solution, which is what the international community has been defending since the partition of historic Palestine. But it has not been effectively fulfilled.

Given the importance of the moment, we must regret the lack of coordination shown by the European Union, which was revealed above all with President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyens visit to Israel. She adopted a role that should fall to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, who unequivocally condemned the Hamas attack and recalled Israels duty to respect humanitarian law from the start.

In the short term, the visits by Scholz and Biden  Britains Rishi Sunak may be the third to join  have taken place before the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, which will presumably not occur while these visits are taking place. Every hour gained before the situation worsens translates into lives saved, but in order for hope not to turn into agony, fuel and electricity supply must be restored and humanitarian aid must reach the Gaza Strip.
A march of Fatah party supporters in the city center of Nablus, West Bank, on Tuesday. The march was initiated by Fatah, but Hamas flags (in green) also appeared in the crowd. (Lorenzo Tugnoli/The Washington Post)

NABLUS, West Bank  News of the deadly strike on Gaza Citys al-Ahli hospital rippled through the crowd in Nablus, where Fatah party supporters were marching late Tuesday in solidarity with Gaza. A voice from a loudspeaker called for a day of rage.

Within hours, protests erupted across the West Bank. Demonstrators and armed men clashed with Israeli soldiers and security forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority, resented by many here as complicit in the Israeli occupation. Scenes of carnage from Gaza have led to deepening anger at the Western-backed authority and increased local support for its longtime rival, Hamas.

The militant groups Oct. 7 rampage across southern Israel, which killed at least 1,400 people, and the intensifying war in Gaza have united Palestinians across political and geographical lines  leaving their leaders in the West Bank struggling to maintain control and contain calls for violent resistance.

We are all Palestinians, said a 30-year-old man on the sidelines of Tuesdays march in Nablus, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect his safety. We are fighting two governments, Israel and the [Palestinian] Authority.

Protesters at the march chanted, We will die for you, Gaza and in support of Hamass military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. A few openly waved Hamas flags and wore the groups signature green attire  a previously unthinkable show of support on Fatahs home turf.

On Wednesday, protesters clashed again with Israeli and Palestinian security forces in cities across the West Bank, including Jenin, Nablus and Hebron. Israeli forces responded with live fire, tear gas and stun grenades. At least two Palestinians were killed in a town outside Ramallah.

Palestinian officials were quick to label Tuesdays hospital strike an Israeli massacre, though Israeli officials blamed the blast on an errant rocket from Palestinian militants. Current U.S. intelligence has found that Israel was not responsible, a White House National Security Council spokesperson told The Washington Post on Wednesday.

But those findings will carry little weight here. More than 3,000 Gazans have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since Oct. 7, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

Over the same period, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 60 Palestinians in the West Bank and injured more than 1,300, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Israel has also locked down parts of the West Bank, closing roads and putting up checkpoints to prevent Palestinians from moving between towns and cities.

More than 440 Palestinians have been arrested by the Israeli military, which says about half of them are affiliated with Hamas, and settler violence is surging.

In response to the hospital strike, 88-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmood Abbas cut short a visit to Amman, Jordan, where he was supposed to meet Wednesday with President Biden, and returned to Ramallah, the authoritys de facto capital.

In a statement, Abbas said the explosion was a heinous war crime and called on the international community to intervene in Gaza. We will not allow a new Nakba in the 21st century, Abbas said, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians following Israels creation in 1948.

But Palestinians have criticized Abbas for what they see as his muted presence over the past 10 days  as Washington and the authoritys other Western backers have rallied around Israel.

For years theyve been saying, We are supporting the Palestinians, we want a two-state solution, an independent viable Palestinian state, and now I think the mask went down, said Ayman Shakaa, who leads a community center in Nablus.

Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in 1967. Under the Oslo accords, brokered by President Bill Clinton in 1993, those territories were meant to form a Palestinian state. But the U.S.-led peace process has been dormant for years. Israeli settlements in the West Bank have expanded. Members of Israels current government, the most far-right in its history, have called openly for annexation.

Since 2007, when Hamas violently ousted the Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip, Abbas has cracked down on supporters of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group in Gaza, as well as on his own critics. Long-promised elections have never been held. Despair has deepened in the impoverished refugee camps that still dot the West Bank.

Over the past two years, camps in Nablus, Jenin and elsewhere have become incubators for a new generation of armed groups that have carried out deadly attacks against Israeli soldiers, settlers and civilians. Israel has responded with massive military raids across the West Bank, making 2023 the deadliest year for Palestinians here since the end of the second intifada in 2005.

Its time to unite, said Shakaa, who said Abbas must adapt to the new reality, or lose all semblance of authority. Even [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu was able to create a new coalition. We shouldnt keep the same political situation as before.

Its clear we are going towards the darkest moment in our modern history, he added. Its very hard not to tell a young man not to do something stupid.

In a narrow, rundown alley in Nabluss tightly packed Balata refugee camp, Zoufi, the commander of a local unit of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades  listed by Israel as a terrorist group  sat Tuesday on a faded couch surrounded by other fighters and teenage attendants, some with M16 rifles.

The worst is yet to come, said the 38-year-old militant, a father of three, speaking on the condition he be identified by his childhood nickname to protect his security. Zoufi said he awoke on Oct. 7 to the news of Hamass rampage and asked his wife to slap him to make sure he wasnt dreaming. Then he laughed with joy.

Zoufis groups, and others like it, have been relatively quiet so far. But he says the calm wont last: We are a part of this war.

Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad have sleeping cells across the West Bank, he said, observing and preparing, waiting for the Israeli army in the West Bank to become overstretched.

Israel will pay the price, he said, and the price will come from here.

Zoufi is affiliated with Fatah but opposes the Palestinian Authoritys nonviolent approach. He founded his militant cell last year. Balata is home to some 30,000 people and has no proper police force. The same is true in other camps in Nablus and Jenin and throughout the northern West Bank. In these communities, the militants are the ones in charge.

When the people go out [to the streets], the PA will have no control, he said. They are not taking the lead. So, if they dont back the resistance, it will be their end.

Ibrahim Badrasawi, a 53-year-old trader in the nearby Askar refugee camp, said he felt an uprising had already begun. He was injured by Israeli fire during the second intifada in the early 2000s and was in and out of Israeli jails for years.

The resistance [to the Israeli occupation] is everywhere, he said. But the PA is holding the middle of the stick, trying to retain power while not supporting Hamas.

The center cant hold for much longer, he said.

If Israel will do a stupid thing like the ground invasion, war will break out not only in the West Bank and inside Israel but also around the Arab world, he said. We want liberation, not bloodshed. . . . I hope it will stop before it comes to that.

Mohamed Hamdan, the secretary general of Fatah in Nablus, defended Abbas and his efforts to revive peace negotiations. He said the authority was doing its best to maintain order and rein in weapons on the street. But the international community had betrayed the Palestinians, he said.

We see our children dying before us in Gaza, he said. We see Israeli settler violence ... and violations against al-Aqsa Mosque, for which Hamas rose up.

This time felt different for him, too, he said, and he was not sure the anger could be contained. We see people want open clashes with the Israeli occupation. He continued, The people are approaching the end.

Sufian Taha in Ramallah contributed to this report.
Al-Tanf garrison in southeast Syria, where U.S. troops are based, was a target of drone attacks on Oct. 19, 2023, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a report. (Noga Ami-rav/Stars and Stripes)

WASHINGTON  Drone attacks targeted American troops in the Middle East for the second day in a row Thursday, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press.

One drone was shot down, but another caused minor injuries, said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter before an official announcement about the incident.

The attacks follow similar drone strikes over the past few days against U.S. and coalition bases in Iraq amid simmering anger in the region after an explosion at a Gaza hospital killed hundreds of people.

The al-Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria is at a sensitive juncture often used by Iranian-backed militants to ferry weapons to Hezbollah.

In its report on the al-Tanf attack, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Iran-backed militants launched three one-way attack drones in an early morning strike on the al-Tanf garrison. The report did not specify the group responsible.

The attacks resulted in no injuries, and the drones were shot down, the Syrian opposition group based in Britain said.

Iranian-backed militias are said to be planning attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East under the slogan of Revenge for Gaza, the report said.

Syrian opposition activists also said Thursday a drone attack was conducted on an oil facility in eastern Syria that houses American troops.

Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet, said three drones with explosives struck the Conoco gas field in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq.

The reports followed two attacks Wednesday aimed at U.S. troops in western Iraq that used one-way attack drones, which are cheap unmanned aircraft with explosive payloads.

U.S. troops at al Asad Air Base were attacked by drones early Wednesday morning, with air defenses destroying one and damaging the other, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Another drone was destroyed in an attack in northern Iraq the same day, U.S. defense officials said.

The two attacks left an unknown number of U.S. and coalition forces with minor injuries, CENTCOM said.

An Iranian-backed militia in Iraq said Wednesday it had launched a drone attack on al-Harir air base in Irbil province in northern Iraq, The Associated Press reported.

About 900 American service members are in Syria as part of joint efforts with Kurdish fighters to prevent an ISIS resurgence, the military said earlier this year.

Roughly 2,500 troops are deployed to Iraq, where they officially act in an advisory role. The U.S. combat mission there ended in 2021.

The Pentagon said its deployment of troops and military hardware to the Middle East are part of efforts to deter militant groups from escalating the conflict into a wider war.

Stars and Stripes reporter J.P. Lawrence and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The USS Carney, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, transits the Suez Canal on Oct. 18, 2023. Carney is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations to help ensure maritime security and stability in the Middle East region. (Aaron Lau/US Navy)

WASHINGTON  A U.S. warship shot down multiple rockets and drones in the Middle East on Thursday that were fired from Yemen and possibly targeted Israel, the Pentagon said.

The crew of the guided missile destroyer USS Carney, operating in the northern Red Sea, earlier today shot down three land-attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces in Yemen, said Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagons top spokesman.

The USS Carney, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, is armed with several guns, missiles and torpedoes and is part of the militarys Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, a program that provides defense against short- and intermediate-range missiles.

Ryder said ship commanders are trained to take such action when a threat is imminent, but he did say why the Carney engaged the Houthi missiles and drones.

We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially toward targets in Israel, he said, adding no Americans or civilians on the ground were hurt. Our defensive response was one we would have taken for any similar threat in the region.

The Houthis in Yemen are a rebel group supported by Iran. Since 2014, they have been involved in a civil war with the government in Yemen, which is located on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula and borders Saudi Arabia to the south. It borders the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The Carneys actions on Thursday came amid spiking violence and attacks in the Middle East in the two weeks since Hamas militants launched a surprise assault against Israel on Oct. 7 killing more than 1,000 Israelis.

Ryder said U.S. military officials are investigating the rockets and drones fired from Yemen  as well as drone attacks this week against U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria  as individual incidents rather than as part of the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

I dont want to allow my imagination to fill in the gaps, he said. It is important to separate these attacks from the current situation [in Israel and Gaza].  We are, of course, going to take all that seriously, but we are also not going to overreact.

A soldier inspects a mortar at the al-Tanf garrison in Syria in August 2022. (Tenzing Sherpa/US Army)

The drone attacks against the U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday and Thursday caused some minor injuries to some American and coalition troops. The al-Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria was targeted in one of the attacks and the al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq in the other. Both locations have been targeted previously by enemy drones.

However, Ryder did say a U.S. defense contractor at the al-Asad base died Wednesday while scrambling for cover during an alert warning of a possible incoming threat. Neither the contractor nor his company were identified.

The drone strikes against the U.S. bases and the rocket fire from Yemen come as the United States provides aid to Israel in its fight against Hamas, a militant group that the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization. The Pentagon has said it has moved numerous assets in recent days to the region, mainly to deter other countries or groups from escalating the conflict.

The Pentagon said Thursday that new aid is expected to arrive in Israel on nearly a daily basis. More U.S. aircraft and ships are being dispatched to the region, Ryder said. The USS Mount Whitney, a naval command and control ship, departed from Italy on Wednesday for the Eastern Mediterranean and will join two aircraft carrier strike groups there.

The USS Mount Whitney, a Blue Ridge-class command ship, steams alongside the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford while an MH-60S Sea Hawk performs a flyby in the Mediterranean Sea on Oct. 3, 2023. (Tajh Payne/US Navy)

The Pentagon also said other ships are also in the region, including the USS Mesa Verde, USS Carter Hall and USS Bataan. The Mesa Verde is an amphibious transport ship, the Carter Hall is a dock landing ship, and the Bataan is an amphibious assault ship.

We are going to continue to do what we need to do to deter a conflict and ensure regional stability, Ryder said.

Earlier this week, military officials said 2,000 U.S. troops would soon receive pre-deployment orders for the Middle East. Ryder said Thursday that some of the units have been selected for that deployment should President Joe Biden decide to send more troops.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., speaks to reporters Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Stephanie Scarbrough/AP)

WASHINGTON  The military and other federal agencies need to better address a perception by young adults that service in the armed forces puts their lives on hold, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said Wednesday during a hearing about resources for troops transitioning to civilian life.

We need to be sharing the message about the incredible honor it is to serve. Im a veteran who took my time in service in the U.S. Navy, training to be a pilot, and then I was a combat pilot, Kelly said at a joint hearing of the Senate Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees.

Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot and NASA astronaut and now a member of the Armed Services committee, said there needs to be greater focus about training opportunities in military service and the assistance available for retiring and separating service members trying to connect with jobs, health care and resources in their local communities.

The senator said findings from an Army survey on military service showed nearly 25% of young adults polled believed enlisting would put their professional lives on hold.

This could not be further from the truth, Kelly said, referring to his own military training followed by college education in engineering that put him on a trajectory to become an astronaut.

A successful transition to civilian life requires a lot of time and support, he said. Thinking about professional development early in their military careers is critical. Those conversations need to begin early on to set them up for success.

Most of the hearing focused on transition assistance programs administered or delivered by the departments of Labor, Defense and Veterans Affairs. Senators heard about opportunities and challenges connecting departing and retiring service members with jobs, internships and careers, among other services.

Speakers at the hearing  some of whom are military veterans or work with veterans  said active-duty troops and veterans often are not fully aware of the resources or how they can help.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who is a member of the Veterans Affairs committee, said she has heard from veterans raising concerns about the quality of resources.

They hand me a VA book and say all I need to know is in there was among the comments that Blackburn said she has received.

Ryan Gallucci, executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, testified Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, before senators about the importance of successful transitions to civilian life for departing and retiring service members. (Screenshot from hearing)

A solid transition sets up veterans for success, Ryan Gallucci, who directs the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Washington, D.C., told lawmakers. Gallucci is the first post-9/11 veteran to hold that position, according to the VFW.

Gallucci said service members who have problems transitioning from military to civilian life might experience devastating consequences, such as unemployment, food insecurity and homelessness.

While transition assistance programs include a range of services, from skills assessments to apprenticeships, Gallucci and others testifying Wednesday said programs are not fully utilized.

Blue Star Families, an advocacy group founded by military spouses to empower military and veteran families, is another resource highlighted. The organization provides support, events and other resources at the local level for active-duty service members and veterans.

Tom Porter, vice president for government affairs at Blue Star Families, said programs that extend to marital support will help veterans and their families deal more effectively with the transition to civilian life.

A Government Accountability Office report in 2022 found only 30% of active-duty service members participated in transition assistance programs in the year prior to leaving the military, as required under law.

Kevin ONeil, an Air Force veteran, is a success story.

He testified about his own transition from the military to civilian life. ONeil began thinking about and planning his career after realizing that his peers were not preparing for their futures outside the service, he said.

Hearing them talk about their own uncertainties led ONeil to consider his own future and plan for it.

I started thinking about the path that I would take following my military career, said ONeil, a policy associate with the American Legion.
Educational exposure of ideas, assumptions or hypotheses, based on proven facts" (which need not be strictly current affairs) Value in judgments are excluded, and the text comes close to an opinion article, without judging or making forecasts , just formulating hypotheses, giving motivated explanations and bringing together a variety of data

There is an Israeli political tragedy that morally surpasses the devastating accumulation of human tragedies that a war signifies. And this is that the one who should exercise the right and fulfill the obligation to defend his country from those who have attacked it, is precisely the one who has stubbornly sown the seeds for these attacks to occur and at the same time is responsible for the fact that his army and secret services were neither warned nor prepared to prevent them. It is an unbearable irony, inside and outside Israel, that it is precisely Benjamin Netanyahu who receives the condolences and unconditional solidarity of Joe Biden, the president who has most quickly and tightly closed ranks with Israel in the face of a danger that could threaten the very existence of the Zionist State.

Netanyahu is the person most responsible for the destruction of the Oslo Accords and for the death  already declared by many  of the two-state project, one Israeli and one Palestinian, mutually recognized and living in peace and security. He was a step away from culminating his project  which Iran assumed the task of obstructing  of turning the Palestinian cause into an irrelevant local issue with the diplomatic recognition of Saudi Arabia, which contains the two holiest Islamic sites, and with it of almost the entire Arab and Muslim world.

He did not see what was coming on October 7 because he lacked military intelligence, but also strategic vision. And, to make matters worse, he has only been able to confront it with the visceral strategy of revenge that applies collective punishment to the Palestinians. This serves only military objectives with contempt for the civilian population, demands carte blanche from his allies, does not bow to any criticism or scrutiny and  what Palestinians fear the most  draws up a map like the one he already displayed before the United Nations, that of Greater Israel, brazenly encouraged by his political allies, supremacist settlers and the ultra-Orthodox fundamentalists, ready to ignite another front through squatting in the West Bank and the desecrations of the Al Aqsa mosque.

This annexationist map, which subverts all international legality, is a strategy of war. And of a scorching and endless war. Only sleepwalking politicians, like the leaders who encouraged the First European War, as characterized by historian Christopher Clark in his book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, can fuel this escalation, which started with the Hamas massacre, but has its deep and ancient roots in 75 years of the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. No one will wake them up with the shouting of the conventional left, nor the wavering hand of international justice that never reaches the region. On the contrary, they will spur an Israel under attack to close ranks around its indisputable right to exist, powerfully affirmed by the lingering and sinister shadow of the Holocaust.

Joe Biden and Antony Blinken are trying everything, in a move as far-reaching as it is risky. The method is familiar: the friend is supported in public and pressured in private, even at the cost of enormous indignation on the other side. To join the de-escalation, to end the siege, to bring in humanitarian aid, to offer guarantees that there will be no new occupation of Gaza and that no one will be forced into another exile from their Palestinian lands. And later, because dialogue will be reopened with the Palestinians to make peace and give them a full state of their own. Of course, Hamas must not continue to rule in Gaza, to send its missiles and commandos to murder Jews and to play a relevant political role in the region. That is what must be ended by force of arms. That is the right and the obligation to defend oneself, not a revenge that evolves into collective punishment and feeds the spiral of an infinite and increasingly dangerous war.

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Malcolm Champagne, 102, receives applause from audience after Air Force Brig. Gen. Dean Sniegowski officially awarded the World War II veteran a long-delayed Purple Heart medal during a Sept. 15, 2023, ceremony in Portland, Ore. (Michael Winter/Department of Veterans Affairs)

A survivor of Black Thursday raid  one of the costliest American missions of World War II  has belatedly received medals that he earned 80 years ago jumping from his burning B-17 bomber and being taken prisoner by German forces for the rest of the war.

We lost 60 B-17s that day  thats 600 men, recalled Malcolm Champagne, 102. Of those 600 men, 300 survived. Im one of those 300.

Champagne recalled the Oct. 14, 1943, attack on the ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt, Germany, during a ceremony last month at a senior living center in Portland, Ore.

Along with friends and family were guests from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Brig. Gen. Dean Sniegowski of 8th Air Force, the modern descendent of the bomber command with which Champagne, a lieutenant at the time, served as a navigator during World War II.

Sniegowski was on hand to officially award Champagne with medals that were lost in the post-war shuffle.

Its not every day you get to right a wrong and recognize a hero, he said. Today we award the Purple Heart to United States Army Air Corps 1st Lt. Malcolm Mac Champagne.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Dean Sniegowski, left, pins a Purple Heart on Malcolm Champagne, 102, for wounds received as B-17 navigator during a 1943 bombing raid over Germany, during a Sept. 15, 2023, ceremony. (Michael Winter/Department of Veterans Affairs)

Sniegowskis choice of words underscored Champagnes eagerness to get into World War II.

A native of Glens Falls, N.Y., Champagne was 20 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and the United States entered World War II.

The country is in trouble, I need to go, Champagne recalled telling his parents when he enlisted.

Commissioned an officer in December 1942, his was the last class of aviators who graduated into what was then the Army Air Corps.

By the time Champagne arrived in early 1943 in England, he was in the Army Air Force assigned to the 326th Bomb Squadron, 92nd Bomb Group.

Lt. Malcolm Champagne was a 22-year-old B-17 navigator in 1943 when his bomber was shot down in the Black Thursday raid on Schweinfurt, Germany. Champagne, now 102, received long-overdue medals during a ceremony in September in Portland, Ore. (Malcolm Champagne)

The tide of the war in Europe was turning  American and British troops had invaded North Africa, followed by Sicily and Italy. Italy had officially surrendered on Sept. 3, though German troops held much of the northern part of the country. Soviet Union troops were pushing back German forces from Stalingrad in Russia.

But France and much of Western Europe was still under German occupation. To strike back, British and U.S. air forces kept up a round-the-clock bombing campaign.

Escort fighters of the time had a limited range of about 220 miles, allowing them to reach western Germany from England. After that, the bombers would fly on alone. British aircraft flew at night in area bombing missions. The Americans preferred precision daylight bombing to hit key targets.

Champagne was an old-timer by the fall of 1943, with 15 missions flown. The 8th Army Air Force had already hit Schweinfurt once  ball bearings were a crucial component in reducing metal friction in tanks, planes, and war machinery.

For the second raid, 291 American bombers took off from southeastern England, with P-47 escort fighters going as far as Aachen, a city in the western part of Germany. It was another 200 miles to Schweinfurt.

The Allied bombers would first have to withstand an attack from a wave of German fighter aircraft and then near the targets anti-aircraft artillery.

Champagnes B-17 Flying Fortress bomber was ripped apart from the fighters and artillery flak, destroying the high-altitude oxygen system that was their only way to breathe at 20,000 feet. Champagne jumped from the plane with other surviving crew members. Those who made it to the ground were captured by German soldiers.

Allied commanders hailed the mission as a success  1,122 bombs dropped, 141 had landed in the factory area and 88 were direct hits  impressive numbers in an era of free-falling iron bombs.

But the cost was high. The Army Air Force reported 61 of the 291 bombers were shot down, 17 made it back to England but were total losses, and 121 required repairs that would keep them out of action for varying periods.

Of the estimated 3,000 pilots and crew that left for Schweinfurt, 600 were killed, wounded or missing in action. It was later learned about 300 had been taken prisoner by the Germans. The 20% casualty rate was double what U.S. planners had considered an acceptable loss.

Schweinfurt would be the last time U.S. bombers would venture so far into Germany until the new long-range P-51 Mustang escort fighters arrived in large numbers the next year.

The strategy that led to the Black Thursday raid continues to be studied. The American Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force has a presentation and discussion on the raid on Oct. 19 in Savannah, Ga. It will be posted online for later viewing.

An Army Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses and pathfinder of the U.S. 8th Air Force, 306th Bomb Group in flight during a mission in World War II. (U.S. Air Force)

Champagne spent more than two years in Luft Stalag III, south of Berlin. The camps population had swelled to 7,500 Americans, 2,500 British, and 1,000 from other Allied forces by April 1945. In the closing days of the war, it was liberated by Soviet troops.

During the long months in captivity and the sometimes chaotic, long journey back to American lines, then home, Champagne had lost most of his personal possessions. In that time, the medals that he earned were lost in a tidal wave of paperwork for the troops returning from war.

In March 2023, Army veteran Fatima Safi was early in her new role as former prisoner of war advocate for the VAs Portland Health Care System. She met Champagnes family and asked if there was anything she could do to help them.

Could you get him his Purple Heart? his son Ned asked.

Getting approvals for Purple Hearts can be notoriously slow and lead to rejections because of lost paperwork, including up to 18 million records of Army and Air Force service members destroyed in a 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in Missouri. The destroyed documents covered about 80% of those who served in the Army between 1912 and 1959.

But Champagnes capture and injuries made his case clear cut. The Army approved the Purple Heart, and the POW Medal, African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with one Bronze Service Star, World War II Victory Medal, and U.S. Army Air Force Navigator Wings.

Safi worked with military and VA officials for a special presentation in Portland on Sept. 15, POW-MIA Day.

For Safi, it is a chance to recall those who endured enemy captivity and came home, along with those who were missing in Americas wars and conflicts.

Its a day when our country expresses eternal gratitude, she said.
Gda Dunne said "there was a lot of blood" and it was "impossible to tell where it was coming from".

Josef Puska (inset) has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Offaly schoolteacher Ashling Murphy

A GARDA and a colleague attempted CPR and chest compressions to Ashling Murphy for ten to 15 minutes after they arrived at the Grand Canal in Tullamore, a jury has heard.

Garda Tom Dunne said that he noticed the girl had a necklace with "Ashling" on it around her neck, and that there was "so much blood".

Jozef Puska (33), with an address at Lynally Grove in Tullamore, Co Offaly, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ashling Murphy at Cappincur, Tullamore on January 12, 2022.

In his evidence, Gda Dunne told the Central Criminal Court he was in the public office of Tullamore Garda Station when he received a phone call from a man who sounded very distressed.

Gda Dunne said the man told him there was a body in the ditch between Boland's Lock and Digby Bridge.

Gda Dunne said it didn't sound like the man knew much about what had happened, but from his panic it was obvious that something serious had happened.

Gda Dunne said he went straight to the scene. He put on disposable gloves and went to the ditch where he observed a female, lying on her back.

He checked for a pulse, and he started doing CPR and chest compressions.

Gda Dunne said "there was a lot of blood" and it was "impossible to tell where it was coming from".

He said he and his colleague continued doing for CPR 10 or 15 minutes.

Gda Dunne said the paramedics arrived, and he, a paramedic and another garda lifted the female out of the ditch.

Gda Dunne said a defibrillator was applied to the body but there were no signs of life.

He said that when the female was brought up to the tarmac he could see puncture wounds under her neck.

Gda Dunne said he could see a mobile phone in her jacket pocket, and she was wearing a necklace with "Ashling" on it.

This morning, the Central Criminal Court also heard from Emma Doyle.

She said she went to her parents house on January 12, 2002, and went for a walk with her dog along the canal around 3pm.

Ms Doyle said her dog doesn't like other dogs so she went onto the grass track of the canal, towards Tullamore.

She let her dog off the lead, and she then saw a woman in the distance, and a man on a bike.

Ms Doyle said they were close, and she wasn't sure if they were together or not, but as they came closer to her the cyclist then went past the lady.

Ms Doyle said that as the cyclist went past her "we said hello".

Asked by prosecution counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor SC to describe the cyclist and bike, Ms Doyle said the bike was neon green at the front, and the male was wearing a black tracksuit top. He had sallow skin, dark stubble, a tight crew cut and "striking eyes", "unusual eyes".

Ms Doyle also said "I didn't think he was Irish".

She said she walked back to her parents' house, and was in the sitting room when she heard voices outside.

She saw Aoife Marron, and opened the window, and saw Jenna Stack as well.

Ms Doyle said the women appeared shocked, as though they were upset about something.

She said they told her a "girl had been attacked down the canal line".

Ms Doyle asked the women "is she ok?, and she told the jury that the women said "she's ok. The men are with her".

Ms Doyle gave evidence that Ms Marron said to Ms Stack "how did you see that".

And Ms Doyle said Ms Stack told her that she "saw the bike and saw the legs kicking up and down".

Ms Doyle said Ms Stack also told them that she shouted at the man that she was ringing the gardai.

Ms Doyle said Ms Stack said the man told her to "f*ck off".

The trial continues before Mr Justice Tony Hunt and a jury of nine men and three women.
Mr King said staff used to stack rubbish bags in the passageway leading to exit one

Inquest witnesses have given evidence that they saw exit doors chained and locked at the Stardust nightclub on the night of the fatal fire, with one former employee saying that exits were always locked by chains and padlocks.

Trevor King, who was 17 at the time, yesterday told the jury in the Dublin District Coroners Court that the practice of locking the doors was taking place up to two years before the night the blaze swept through the Stardust in the early hours of February 14, 1981, leaving 48 young people dead.

In his original statement, which was read into the record by the court registrar, Mr King said that after he saw flames over the partitioned-off section of the Stardust, he and his friend went into the passageway to exit three and there were ten or 15 fellows ahead of him.

I heard someone say, Jesus Christ, the doors are locked, said Mr King. He said people ran at the door and it burst open, and when they got outside there was a van backed up to the steps.

The crowd stopped for a couple of seconds as we were all jammed in. A couple of fellows climbed over the railing and I got over too, he said.

I heard people trying to break out of the gents toilet. I saw the small panels breaking and I heard them kicking at the steel panel which was over the windows. They were not able to break through it, said Mr King.

He said that he and his friend tried to kick in the toilet windows but were unable to do so.

Mr King further gave evidence that he used to work in the Stardust, where he said staff used to stack rubbish bags in the passageway leading to exit one.

The exit was always locked by means of a chain and a padlock. The exits were always locked by chains and padlocks. I think it was to keep people from getting in for nothing, he said.

He confirmed to a member of the coroners legal team, Gemma McLoughlin-Burke BL, that when he worked in the main bar, the keys to the doors were kept in a cardboard box at the bar.

The barman would give you the key. You left the bags in the corridor, and then the next day you would dump them. He would give you the key and say make sure you lock the door when you come back through, said Mr King.

He said he could not say if he had ever seen the doors locked when patrons were inside. He told Ms McLoughlin-Burke that he had heard of the practice of draping chains and locks over the doors to make it look that they were locked but said that he did not personally see this happening. He also said he did not ever see anyone getting in for free through the exit doors.

In response to questioning by Michael OHiggins SC, representing a number of the families of the deceased, Mr King said he was told by the head barman to lock exit one after disposing of the bags. He was asked by Mr OHiggins if all of the exits were kept locked with chains and padlocks.

As far as Im aware. Some of them you couldnt see, but there were some you could see plainly. I didnt go up to check, they appeared to be locked. The chain would be wrapped around the two panic bars. As far as I was aware, it went on the whole night, he said.

Mr OHiggins said the inquest had heard some evidence that this practice of locking the doors only started weeks before the fire, to which Mr King replied: Certainly not.

In response to questions from Des Fahy KC, representing a number of the families, Mr King confirmed that he had given evidence to the tribunal in 1981 that exit doors were being chained and locked in the Stardust during cabaret nights. He said that this was taking place between 18 months and two years before the fire.

The jury also heard evidence from Martina Doyle, who said that she saw a chain and lock on an exit door on the night. In her original statement, Ms Doyle said the chain was wrapped around both panic bars with a lock dangling from the chain.

I am positive that these doors were locked by this chain and lock, she said.

She said that after she got outside when the fire started, there was a blue van parked with its back towards the door she left through. She said there was a metal handrail on the left, and she could not get past as the van was parked there and she was not able to squeeze past.

I was not able to get out sideways or even squeeze between the van and the rail, she said, adding that a friend lifted her over the rail.

And the jury also heard the evidence of Martina Monaghan, who, in her original statement, said she heard people shouting: We cant get the door open.

I saw flames everywhere in the area that had been partitioned off. The lights went out and everywhere was black smoke. I saw lumps of the ceiling coming down in balls of fire and falling on top of people, everybody was screaming, Ms Monaghan said.

She said she was pushed by the crowd towards exit three and somebody pushed a chair across her leg, knocking her to the ground.

Everybody was crossing over the chair and my left leg was stuck under the chair, she said. Ms Monaghan said her sister pulled her out from under the chair and she was pushed towards exit three, but she heard someone shouting: Its locked.

Ms Monaghan told Ms McLoughlin-Burke that she saw something like a hologram of fire that she could see spread across the ceiling tiles. She confirmed that it looked as if pieces of white foam on fire were falling from the ceiling.

She said she could hear people screaming that the door was locked. She said that when she got out of exit three, there was a van blocking one side of the door.

The inquest continues on Thursday in the Pillar Room of the Rotunda Hospital.
Judge Codd was addressing the jurors this morning before they were sent out to begin deliberations.

THE allegations against a well known entertainer accused of sexual activity with an underage schoolgirl are a case of one persons word against the other, a judge has said.

Judge Pauline Codd told the jury in the celebrity's trial that they "only have the word of the complainant" that the sexual acts happened, as there was no corroborating evidence.

It was a case of I said, he said and the jurors had to decide on the truth and reliability of the alleged victims testimony, she said.

Judge Codd was addressing the jurors this morning before they were sent out to begin deliberations.

The trial of the celebrity (40) who is accused of defilement of a child under 17 - the legal age of consent - was in its final stages at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today.

The accused, who cannot be identified, denies having oral sex with the girl three times in 2010, when he was 27 and she was 16.

He maintains the incidents never happened, with a second line of defence that he had an "honest belief" that she was over 17 at the time.

This morning, Judge Codd finished delivering her charge to the jury - giving them directions on how to apply the law to the facts of the case.

The judge said their verdict would come down very much to the credibility of the witnesses in the case and your assessment of their credibility.

Its very much a case of I said, he said it did or didnt happen, the judge said.

She told the jurors they must not be concerned about the consequences of their decision. If they found the accused not guilty, he would have nothing further to answer to, while if they found him guilty, he would be dealt with by the judge on a later date.

The judge told the jurors to be dispassionate and apply their common sense.

She said in the event that they found the sexual activity alleged by the complainant did take place, the jury then had to consider what the accused honestly believed about her age at the time.

She said the prosecution did not have to prove that element and it was up to the accused to demonstrate a reasonable doubt and that he believed the complainants true age to be over 17 at the time.

The jury then had to look at the evidence to see if there was a reasonable doubt or if the prosecution had rebutted or dispelled it. If it had not, they must acquit.

She said there was no evidence beyond the word of the complainant of what allegedly happened. This might not be surprising because such events usually occur in a private place. There was no CCTV evidence and no independent witnesses who saw the alleged activity.

Although there was no independent evidence to support what the complainant said, a jury was perfectly entitled to convict without corroboration if they were satisfied with the truth and reliability of her testimony beyond reasonable doubt and that all the elements of the alleged offences had been made out.

It was up to the jury to decide what weight to give to the absence of corroboration, the judge said.

She said there were gaps in the evidence, some arising from the 13-year delay in the case.

For example, the complainant had no text messages to corroborate her version of when she told the accused her real age, the judge said.

The jury had to consider if the gaps in evidence caused a reasonable doubt.

If you have such a reasonable doubt, you must acquit, she said.

The jury was sent out at 11.06 am to begin deliberating.

During the trial, the complainant accepted she initially lied to the accused that she was 18 after they first met at the Oxegen music festival that year, but alleged she revealed she was 16 by text before they began a sexual relationship.

She alleged she gave him oral sex once in a stairwell at his Dublin workplace in late August 2010 and twice at his home in the city on dates including December 14 that year.

The accused insists he never had any sexual contact with the girl until she was 18.

He said she only revealed her real age after her 17th birthday, in January 2011, and that was the only time he took her to his workplace.

He denied that anything sexual happened between them there, or that they were ever in the stairwell. He said she was never at his home at all.
Victim says She caught me by the hair and dragged me  There were clumps of my hair embedded in the ditch  Its the fear of whats next...

A middle-aged woman who intimidated her neighbour in court  after an unprovoked assault on her  has denied making a gun-like gesture at her head.

Patricia ODonovan, (54) from Church Hill, Passage West, Cork, was given a two-month suspended sentence for intimidating her neighbour Fiona Murphy (60) in a courthouse minutes after the victim had given evidence against her in an assault case in 2021.

Ms Murphy told Cork District Court earlier this month that moments after the 2021 case, ODonovan stood in front of her and threatened her before making a gun gesture with two fingers saying, You are dead.

ODonovan denied assaulting Ms Murphy when she spoke to our reporter Alan Sherry

ODonovan denied making the gun gesture or threatening to kill Ms Murphy and the court convicted her of the lesser charge of intimidating a witness in a court case at Cork District Court on October 26, 2021.

Ms Murphy  who had previously been targeted by ODonovan in an unprovoked attack when she tore clumps out of her hair and threw her on the ground  told the Sunday World this week that she remains in fear of her neighbour and is terrified every time she walks past her house.

Its the fear of whats next. Id be fearful she would harm me in some way or put my window in or hurt my dog, she said.

However, when approached by our reporter, ODonovan told the Sunday World that she poses no threat to her neighbour.

Oh God no, no, no, no, no, she told us. I never threatened her anyway.

ODonovan then made outrageous comments about gardai which we are not going to repeat.

She admitted to us that she did accost Ms Murphy in court and made disparaging remarks after the 2021 assault case.

I called her an alcoholic, she said.

Ms Murphy had been in court on the day, giving evidence against ODonovan who attacked her outside her home in Passage West on December 22, 2019.

ODonovan was convicted of that attack and bound to keep the peace for two years.

ODonovan speaks to our reporter Alan Sherry

Ms Murphy told us this week that ODonovan, who she had known and had been on friendly terms with before the 2019 assault, attacked her for no reason.

She said she heard a commotion outside her home that night and went out to see what was happening. ODonovan was there with another person and Ms Murphy asked her what was going on when she attacked her.

I went out and said Trisha whats all the commotion?

Thats how everything started.

She caught me by the hair and dragged me. I was in my pyjamas.

I was thrown around the road. I was all marked up. There were clumps of my hair taken out and they were still embedded in the ditch when the gardai came out days later.

It was vicious. I was all marked on the side of my face, my shoulder my hip  all the one side. It was quite visible, to my face especially. Here at Christmas I was very upset trying to put on a brave face for my kids and my grandkids.

She said after the incident ODonovan looked back up the road and laughed at her.

After she went to gardai over that incident, ODonovan accosted her at the local Aldi supermarket.

ODonovan denied assaulting Ms Murphy when she spoke to our reporter Alan Sherry

She came in and caught my trolley and pushed me and called me every name under the sun. Alcoholic is her favourite one. Yes, I like my few drinks but Im alcohol free for the last year-and-a-half.

ODonovan told us this week that she did approach Ms Murphy outside Aldi.

I had gone up to her in Aldi and asked her why she was lying because she said I assaulted her one time years back. It never happened, you know.

Despite her claims that the previous assault never happened Cork District Court found that she had carried out the assault.

I dont want to get into it, ODonovan told us. Id prefer nothing else to be written about me. I have two grandchildren to look after. Its upsetting for me.

However, Ms Murphy said: I guarantee you this will not stop. There will be a mutter every time I pass and a comment. When I go out and get to the corner at the bottom of the road I take a deep breath and go right. There have been numerous occasions she has come out. I just want to go to the feckin shop.

ODonovan got a two-month suspended sentence for intimidating Ms Murphy but it was suspended on condition she keeps the peace and be of good behaviour for two years.
Brendan McDermott and his former girlfriend appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court after Gardai swooped on their home and found 4,450 worth of ecstasy tablets

A pig farmer who set up an 'amateur' drug-dealing business on the side has avoided going to jail.

Brendan McDermott and his former girlfriend appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court in Co Donegal after Gardai swooped on their home and found 4,450 worth of ecstasy tablets.

Detective Garda Jason Conroy told the court that as well as the drugs, they also found weighing scales and zip-lock bags in the house at Donagh Park, Carndonagh March 17, 2021.

McDermott, 38, had pleaded guilty to possession of the drugs for sale and supply while Danielle McDaid, 37, admitted being in possession of the drugs.

Detective Conroy said yellow tablets were found in plastic bags at various locations throughout the house with a total of 445 tablets being recovered.

When analysed by Forensic Science Ireland, the tablets were identified as MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine) or ecstasy.

A quantity of cocaine was also found on two plates in one of the bedrooms in the house.

When questioned by Gardai, McDermott said he owned the drugs and that he was selling them to mates for a couple of euro each.

Danielle McDaid arrived back in the house while Gardai were there and when Gardai found the drugs she said they were obviously to sell.

The court was told that when McDaid was being questioned by Gardai she said "This is the part were I'm supposed to say nothing."

McDermott was arrested and taken to Buncrana Garda Stations where he made full admissions saying he was going to sell them to mates for 2 each.

He was surprised when told the street value of the drug with Gardai placing a 10 value on each tablet saying "Jesus, that's a bit much."

McDermott has 14 previous convictions for various offences including public order, dangerous driving, drink-driving and having no insurance but none for drugs while McDaid only had two previous convictions for road traffic offences.

Barrister for McDermott, Mr Peter Nolan, stressed that no money had been found at the property and that his client had only commenced selling the drugs to mates.

He said McDermott was a pig farmer and father-of-two who now lived at home and was also a carer for his mother and father who were in their 80s.

Mr Nolan said his client took full responsibility for his actions which he undertook to supplement his income by selling a few tablets which he described as a "entirely naive approach" saying McDermott now realises the "stupidity of his actions."

He asked Judge John Aylmer to be as lenient as possible given his client's early plea and cooperation.

Barrister for McDid, Mr Ciaran O'Rourke, said his client is not involved in drugs, does not take them and had cooperated fully with Gardai.

Mr O'Rourke said that McDermott had been asked in interview if McDaid was involved and he said the drugs were his and that he had asked her to hide them.

He added that his client is 37 and the situation was that she was asked to hide a packet of drugs by a person she was in an intimate relationship with at the time.

He said she now recognised the harm of drugs to society and to her family but stressed she had entered an early plea, was fully cooperative and urged the court to take a non-custodial option with Ms McDaid.

Passing sentence on McDermott, Judge Aylmer said the offence was a serious one albeit on the lower end of the scale saying he foolishly decided to supplement his income by selling a few tablets for a fraction of their value.

Before mitigation he said the offence merited a prison sentence of 18 months.

In mitigation, he said McDermott has cooperated fully, was remorseful and that this will have been a considerable fright for him and that he now realises his stupidity.

He reduced the sentence to one of 12 months but because this was his first conviction for drugs offences he took the view that he should replace this with 240 hours of community service adding that McDermott should consider himself very lucky.

"If I ever see him before this court again on such an offence I will have no hesitation in imposing a custodial sentence," warned the Judge.

Turning to McDaid, he also placed this at the lower end of the scale noting she was not before the court for the sale or supply of drugs.

He said she was clearly aware of her right to remain silent but nevertheless cooperated and gave a full account of her involvement.

He noted she had no previous offences for drugs and her only previous convictions were for minor road traffic matters adding she had also shown remorse and was apologetic.

He said that although she was suitable for community service, he felt the matter would be more appropriately disposed of by way of a fine.

He fined mum-of-three McDaid 500 and allowed her six months to pay.
OReilly bludgeoned his wife Rachel to death at their home in Naul, north Co Dublin, on October 4, 2004.

Former Detective Inspector Pat Marry has described murderer Joe OReilly as anything but a mastermind as he recalled how he was jailed over the horrific killing of Rachel Callaly almost two decades ago.

OReilly bludgeoned his wife Rachel to death at their home in Naul, north Co Dublin, on October 4, 2004.

He was handed a mandatory life sentence in 2007 after a jury at the Central Criminal Court returned a unanimous guilty verdict.

In the latest episode of the Real Lives Untold podcast, investigator Pat Marry told hosts Trina and Sarah OConnor how the crime scene was staged to look like burglary gone wrong, but gardai working on the case soon realised something more sinister was afoot.

Joe OReilly

Ive been to thousands of burglaries. I know what a crime scene is like. I knew when I visited the scene myself that someone hated her because she was so badly beaten, he explained.

It was vicious. Not only had they beaten her, but they had come back and beaten her again. We could tell by the blood splattering on the wall that there was blood on top of blood, which is a sign that she was hit and the blood began to dry, and then there was blood on top of that.

You could see it was hate. It wasnt a burglar; burglars dont do that. Burglars dont want any confrontation at all and if they are confronted, theyll get out as quickly as they can. Theyre not going to stand around and beat someone. They just dont do it.

Marry said that there were some tell-tale signs that OReilly was the killer, from his unusual body language on The Late Late Show with Rachels mum Rose Callaly to his interactions with police during the investigation.

He recalled how the 51-year-old was acting strangely at the crime scene after detectives arrived to his home.

Rachel Callaly

I wandered out and Joe was on his own, which I thought was unusual because wed gotten the Callaly family out of the house and the ambulance had arrived, Marry said.

They were all down with the ambulance and the crew were putting tinfoil wraps around them for the shock, but Joe was standing on his own away from them. I thought he would have been down sympathising or asking what happened.

I thought that was very strange but I went out and shook hands with him. I said wed be investigating this and needed his phone number as wed be speaking to him later on.

He gave me his phone number, which I thought was his phone number but it was actually Rachels phone number. Now, why he did that, I dont know. It was strange carry-on... It wasnt sitting right with me.

He was trying to distance himself. I said it to him that night but he said, I thought you were looking for Rachels number. Why would I be looking for a dead womans phone number?

Marry said that he visited OReilly at his mothers house in Co Louth that night, where he was asked if Rachel had been having an affair.

He said, No, no, neither of us were having affairs. But then it clicked it with me that thats not what I asked him. I was clued in and banked that bit of information.

He said, The company where I work, I sacked two fellas and it could have been revenge for being sacked. He gave me their names.

Then I asked, Are you sure she wasnt having an affair? Were you having an affair? and he said, No, I wasnt having an affair. Typical psycho  he looked straight at you and I kept looking at him. I wasnt happy with his answer.

OReilly later admitted that he had been having an affair with Nikki Pelley. Marry said that Rachel had found out the infidelity after her young son told her that hed met his dads new girlfriend.

Rachel, the night before she was murdered, had a big row with Joe and gave him an ultimatum. She told him to clean up his act or she was out. That was the catalyst of it all. He was going to get rid of her one way or another.

A lot of these murderers arent masterminds, theyre anything but, but they all have a trend. People say theyre psychopathic, which they probably are.

But what I would say, from my dealing with these people, they do have an ego thats bigger than themselves. Its often their undoing because they look at the police or people of authority like theyre above them or smarter than them. Its a big mistake to look down on the police and think that they're not smart.

OReilly has never admitted to killing his wife, but Marry told Real Lives Untold listeners that he once came close.

The nearest he came to admitting it was when we were interviewing him in Drogheda Station and Rose (Callaly) wanted to see him. We toyed around with this idea of letting her into the interview room to see him.

Things were a lot looser then in terms of custody of people, but we let her into the interview room and she told us that he wouldnt admit anything, but when she was leaving, she had her hand on the door and he said, Rose. Im very sorry.

She said that she knew he was apologising for what he did, but that was it.
Humanity is facing the worst bird flu crisis on record. Since the diseases resurgence in the 2020-2021 season, at least 250 million poultry have been culled around the world to nip outbreaks in the bud, according to data from epidemiologist Vijay Dhanasekaran of the University of Hong Kong. The figures are unprecedented: during this period, over 100,000 wild birds of 400 different species have died, with the disease making worrisome jumps to mammals, such as the one observed at an American mink fur farm in Galicia, Spain, and the massive deaths of sea lions on the beaches of Peru. The new avian influenza virus subtype is everywhere. Dhanasekarans team has investigated the pathogens evolution. On Wednesday, he warned that the epicenter of the crisis has shifted from Asia to Europe and Africa. Experts are bracing for the imminent onset of the typical November outbreaks caused by the arrival of migratory birds from the Arctic.

The current viruss lineage was detected in geese in Chinas Canton province in 1996. Avian influenza viruses have two characteristic proteins on their surface: hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). There are 18 types of H and 11 types of N, with a multitude of possible combinations. The Guangdong Goose virus was an H5N1 that could be transmitted rapidly among poultry, causing a hemorrhagic disease with a very high mortality rate of over 40%.

Two different subtypes of influenza can coincide in the same cell of an animal, giving rise to a phenomenon called genetic reassortment, which generates a third subtype, a mixture of the previous ones. Dhanasekarans group has detected key episodes in the viruss evolution. In 2016, a particularly virulent strain of H5N8 originated in ducks in China. In 2020, a subtype of H5N8 classified as 2.3.4.4b emerged in African poultry. In 2021, the H5N1 2.3.4.4b subtype emerged through genetic reassortment in wild birds in Europe; since November of that year, it has caused unprecedented outbreaks in wild animals on five continents, according to Dhanasekarans study in the journal Nature.

The shift of the epicenter of these highly pathogenic viruses to new regions has increased the chances of them infecting a wider range of animals, including mammals, epidemiologist Dhanasekaran warns. The avian flu virus has already been detected in seals, foxes, raccoons, cougars, lynxes and bears, among other species. Exceptionally, humans have also been infected, as in the case of a 9-year-old girl who nearly died after living with sick chickens in a village in Ecuador in late 2022. Repeated infections in mammals, and in humans, increase the chances of the virus adapting, increasing the likelihood of a pandemic, Dhanasekaran warns.

The team analyzed the genomes of 10,000 viruses and investigated outbreaks recorded by the World Organization for Animal Health and the United Nations since 2005. The authors note that the viruss ubiquity in wild birds has accelerated the speed of the pathogens spread and multiplied the risk of genetic reassortment. There is a perpetual threat of the virus jumping to humans. This is mainly due to the viruss ability to evolve rapidly. It can acquire mutations that help it better attach to receptors on human cells, or it can acquire the ability to transmit via aerosols, Dhanasekaran explains. The biggest concern is the genetic reassortment of an H5 [bird] virus with human influenza viruses, which is what happened in previous pandemics, such as the ones in 1957 and 1968.

Ornithologist Victor Gamarra notes that the current panzootic  the animal equivalent of a pandemic  has affected hundreds of thousands of wild birds around the world. The first case of H5N1 in Peru was detected in a pelican on November 13, 2022. The outbreak spread quickly along the coast and by mid-March at least 100,000 wild birds  belonging to 24 species, some of which are endangered  had been found dead, as Gamarras team described in a recent study. The pathogen killed 20% of the pelicans in Perus protected marine areas. The ornithologist emphasizes that the total numbers are much higher, because his estimates do not include what happened outside protected areas, where half a million birds could have died.

The virus has spread throughout South America. And its no longer just birds, but thousands and thousands of dead sea lions from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic, laments Gamarra, a researcher at the Natural History Museum of the National University of San Agustin in Arequipa, Peru. The situation could become even worse when the new bird migration begins soon. A recombination of the virus could occur, and we could possibly be talking about a second wave in South America, he warns. This virus spreads fairly quickly, so studies like Dhanasekarans may become outdated. Thats this viruss major threat: we are not prepared to be able to counteract how fast it [spreads].

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Shocking people have to put up with this.

A Sinn Fein TD has lashed criminals in Limerick for their shocking crimes, after a car was burned out in his district overnight.

Maurice Quinlivan, who represents Limerick City and parts of Tipperary posted an image of the blazing inferno this morning on social media.

Local criminals had set the vehicle alight and left it to burn in a park, in view of families starting their day.

This car just been burned out this morning - shocking for local people to have to put up with this, Mr Quinlivan wrote.

The Ballynanty native said he had been in touch with authorities and highlighted the effect these images have on young people.

Ive been in touch with An Gardai Siochana and Ive rang Limerick Council to get the car removed.

Maurice Quinlivan

Shocking thing for locals to have to witness especially as kids were on the way to school.

We need the return of community gardai and a much better garda visibility across the city, Mr Quinlivan concluded.

Earlier this year, gardai in Limerick warned of an increase in the theft of certain types of cars in the city.

It is reported that joy riders and thieves are targeting second hand Japanese imports as these vehicles are not required to fit an immobiliser.

These devices provide extra security to a motor by rendering the car useless without a fob.

It was reported there has been a rise in the theft of Mazda Demios, Toyota Aqua and Toyota Vitz models over the Summer.

It is recommended by gardai that when buying a car, ask the car dealer if the car has an immobiliser fitted, something which can also be done retrospectively.
Gardai and Revenue made the massive drug discovery on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

A man in his thirties has been charged over a cannabis haul seized in Dublin by gardai this week.

Gardai uncovered 400,000 cannabis between Tuesday and Wednesday in the Dublin 24 area as part of a joint raid conducted by Revenues Customs Service, the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB) and the Clondalkin District Drugs Unit.

A second man, also in his thirties, has been released without charge and a file will be prepared for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

A statement from the press office this afternoon stated: Gardai are continuing to investigate the seizure of approximately 400,000 of suspected cannabis herb during the course of an intelligence-led operation on Tuesday, October 17, 2023.

As a result of ongoing investigations into this seizure, a number of jointly coordinated follow-up searches were conducted on Wednesday, October 18, 2023 in the Dublin 24 area, where approximately 350,000 of suspected cocaine was seized.

A man in his 30s who was arrested as part of this investigation has been charged in relation to both drug seizures and is expected to appear before the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin at 4:30pm today, Thursday, October 2023.

The second man arrested as part of this investigation (also in his 30s) has been released without charge and a file will be prepared for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
That is actually heartbreaking. I really hope you get back on your feet soon

A popular Dublin coffee shop has taken to social media to share the distressing images of its badly damaged premises after it was attacked overnight.

The Hyper Goat Coffee cafe shared images on Instagram of its outlet on Thomas Street with its front window smashed.

They have also written: Some bad news this morning our shop on Thomas st has been broken into smashed and wrecked everything and took all cash and the till.

Unfortunately we will be closed until further notice apologies to all our customers.

We will get back open asap. Thanks the Hypergoat team

They added that their Blanchardstown location is open as normal.

People have taken to the comments section to express their sympathies.

One wrote: That is actually heartbreaking. I really hope you get back on your feet soon , sending positive vibes your way.

Another added: Sorry to hear. Can't seem to have anything good without someone trying to ruin it. Hopefully you find your feet again soon and get back up and running.

Gut wrenching, said another. let us know if we can help in anyway. Well be in for a coffee and a bowl when yous open back up.

Gardai said they were investigating an incident of burglary at a business premises on Thomas Street, Dublin 8, which occurred in the early hours of this morning, Thursday, October 19.

A sum of money was taken during the course of the incident, gardai said.  =There are no arrests at this time. Investigations are ongoing.
He pretended to faint and slumped himself down on the floor.

A European conman has been going around restaurants in Spain, eating large meals and then faking heart attacks to avoid paying the bill.

The man known as Aidas J., a Lithuanian who lives on the Mediterranean, scammed 20 restaurants in Alicante before he was jailed last month.

Spanish press have dubbed the bald grifter as Gastrojeta.

During his performances, he would reportedly fall to the floor and clutch his chest in pretend agony.

'It was very theatrical, he pretended to faint and slumped himself down on the floor,' the manager of El Buen Comer, one of the eateries the conman scammed, told reporters.

We sent his photo around to all the restaurants to try and stop him from striking again, he added.

Aidas J in action

Aidas would demand medical attention for his fake heart problems and was only found out when he tried his routine twice in the same restaurant.

El Periodico newspaper reported: The last arrest of the Lithuanian diner was made in Alicante. The National Police was alerted around 6pm to appear at a restaurant on Calle Mayor where a customer did not want to pay the bill.

When agents from the Response Operational Group (GOR) of the Central District Police Station arrived, they found the diner lying on the table, then the ground, as he usually does to simulate an illness with the aim of being evacuated by ambulance.

Aidas J arrest (Policia Nacionale)

It was further reported that the Lithuanian swindler would order large amounts of whiskey, lobster and salad before his act began.

The only periods in which Alicante hoteliers have been able to work calmly without the threat of the "gastrojeta" have been when he was sent to prison previously in February and June, Spanish media reported.

It has been further reported that Aidas J ran up bills amounting to 766 and would wear designer clothes to give off the impression of being rich.

Moses Domeneche of El Buen Comer restaurant further explained that before his arrest, the conman ordered "seafood paella for one" and a whiskey, "which he drank in one gulp," before repeating the order.

The Policia Nacionale officers who have been arresting the Lithuanian stated that he always smiles when he was being busted and that they suspected he was always happy to spend a few nights in the prison cells.
John 'Winky' Watson was jailed for six years in November 2021 for his part in an operation which ferried cocaine across the Pennines from Liverpool

The gang used helicopters to ferry the drugs across the UK

A UK drug boss who amassed a huge 972,000 (1,116,200) fortune by flooding the streets of Teesside with cocaine has been ordered to pay back just 244.80 (280).

John 'Winky' Watson was jailed for six years, in November 2021, for his part in an operation which ferried cocaine across the Pennines from Liverpool.

The multi-million pound global drugs conspiracy was busted when Cleveland Police arrested Watson and his associates as part of Operation Spoonbill which investigated four gangs based in Liverpool, Norton, Stockton and Guisborough.

A court has heard how investigations found that he had benefited from his drugs trade by 972,110.37.

However, it was concluded that he only had "realisable assets" of 244.80, which is what he will now have to pay back.

Teeside Live reports that the court heard that the profit figure was reached by "valuing the drugs contained in the conspiracy".

The gang used helicopters to ferry the drugs across the UK

Henry Hughes, mitigating for Watson, confirmed that his client, of Moorgate in Eston, can pay the sum within the required 14 days.

Recorder Andrew Sutcliffe KC said: "Given this is the agreed figure, I've no reason to question it" before he made an order for Watson to pay the 244.80.

It had earlier been revealed how six helicopter flights, which contained a combined total of just under 500kgs of cocaine with an estimated wholesale value of 17.25m, were linked to Lance Kennedy, from Birkenhead.

The Merseyside drug lord who is currently in prison, had planned to expand his operations in the North-East wher there was already a high level of Class A drug use and ready customer base.

Kennedy also targeted smaller Tees towns, such as the market town of Guisborough and Thornaby.

Kennedy and his associates hired Dutch pilots to transport their cocaine to the UK across the English channel.

They would then fly to airfields in south east England, including Wycombe and Redhill while Kennedy's UK-based gang members would then rent holiday homes, in one case for months at a time, beneath those flightpaths.

The helicopters would land at these secluded countryside spots, unload, and return to complete the scheduled journey minutes later.

They managed to avoid suspicion from those monitoring radar as they would not deviate from the flightpath they were booked onto.

At just 32-years-of-age, Kennedy received one of the longest jail sentences ever handed to a Merseyside drug trafficker after masterminding a plot that saw half a tonne of cocaine flown into England. It was so pure that his conspiracy could have been worth around 350m.

He was apprehended by Ukrainian border officials while attempting to cross a river into Ukraine from Moldova. He was subsequently returned to Moldova and then extradited to the UK, where he was jailed for 18 years and four months.

John Watson is currently serving a six year sentence at HMP Haverigg in Cumbria.
Storm Babet dumped over a month's worth of rain in less than 24 hours

Car stranded after road collapses in Co Cork during Storm Babet

Dramatic footage of a car that has almost been swept away in a raging torrent of water has emerged in the aftermath of Storm Babet.

The videoclip that has gone viral on social media shows the red car on its side in a sinkhole that has opened up on a road, apparently in Co Cork.

Under the road a river is seen gushing out into adjoining fields.

It is just the latest image to capture some of the devastation caused by the storm that devastated business premises, residential properties and utilities in east and west Cork.

The scene in Midleton

According to Independet.ie, some roads are expected to remain closed for at least another 24 hours as safety inspections are conducted after the floods caused landslides, undermined roads and damaged utilities.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is expected to visit flood-hit communities in Cork today to assure traders and residents that support funding will be provided by the Government.

Midleton is now demanding priority action on a flood defence plan after being hit for a second time in a decade by heavy flooding.

Storm Babet dumped over a month's worth of rain in less than 24 hours - swamping drainage systems.

Shocking images show the ground floor of Midleton Hospital flooded, while boats, tractors and emergency personnel worked tirelessly to transport residents from the worst affected areas in the town to the outskirts.

An assessment will be made today on whether patients in Midleton Community Hospital need to be transferred.

Cars across the town were almost fully submerged by the waters, while toddlers at one preschool were trapped for a time, as were a group of workers behind the Bank of Ireland.

Members of the Defence Forces and the Civil Defence were deployed to the town on Wednesday afternoon to assist with the extreme flooding.

Parts of the south received over 100m of rainfall in less than 36 hours - with fields, streams and rivers already sodden from recent heavy rainfall unable to handle the deluge.

GAA pitches were utilised as emergency flood zones as council crews worked throughout the night to protect properties and save lives.

Flooding in Midleton

It is estimated that over 100 properties were flooded in Midleton alone.

In one case, a man risked chest high flood waters to save his pet dog.

Cork city witnessed heavy flooding in low-lying parts of the city centre including South Terrace, North Quays and other areas.

Serious flooding was also witnessed in Glanmire, Riverstown, Whitegate, Rathcormac, Glandore, Ringaskiddy, Carrigaline, Rosscarbery, Clonakilty, Raffeen, Halfway and Castletownbere.

Met Eireann warned that further rainfall is likely over the coming days with local authorities convening emergency meetings of Severe Weather Assessment teams to determine the threat over the coming days.

Flooding at Sarsfields GAA Club in Glanmire, Co Cork, during Storm Babet

It was the greatest level of flood-related property damage seen in Cork since 2009 when the River Lee broke its banks and caused over 100 million worth of damage including forcing the evacuation of a city hospital and closing one of the city's main water treatment centres.

Today will bring a mix of bright spells and showers as Met Eireann predicts a mild day following Storm Babet.

Co Kerry will be put under a Status Yellow rain warning however, with the forecaster advising of heavy downpours with further accumulations of water.

Tanaiste Micheal Martin said he was deeply concerned by the images of Midleton devastated by flooding from Storm Babet.

My thoughts are with those affected by the floods across Cork and Waterford. The Humanitarian Assistance Scheme is available to provide support to those whose homes are damaged from the flooding, he added.
Mr Varadkar told Newstalk Breakfast this morning that Irish people have a particular sympathy towards the Palestinians

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said we need to be very careful about our own sympathies and prejudices as he expressed huge sympathy for the Palestinian people.

Mr Varadkar told Newstalk Breakfast this morning that Irish people have a particular sympathy towards the Palestinians.

"They've been horribly treated now for 75 years and denied self-determination and denied their own state, he said.

"I think Irish people, given our own history, have a particular sympathy towards Palestinians.

"We have to be careful about what we believe here, because this is a war.

"Israel will not necessarily tell the truth or the whole truth and nor will Hamas."

However, he refused to criticise President Michael D Higgins who had been accused of meddling in Middle East conflict by Newstalks Shane Coleman.

"I think the President is above politics, and I've a very good relationship with the President," Mr Varadkar said.

"I'm not going to criticise him in any way.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had faced criticism from within and outside the EU for not explicitly calling on Israel to adhere to international law as it responds to the deadliest attack it has suffered since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

President Higgins, speaking to reporters in Rome as the World Food Forum opened, said that the EU need[s] a better performance in relation to European diplomacy after the head of the commission made statements in support of Israel without consultation of European states.

I dont know where the source of those decisions was. I dont know where the legitimation for it was and I dont know where the authority for it is and I dont think it was helpful, the president said.

"It may not have been meant to have malevolent consequences but certainly we need a better performance in relation to European Union diplomacy and practice.

Ms von der Leyen said Israel has the right to defend itself, and then said: I know that how Israel responds will show that it is a democracy.

This was reportedly not what had been agreed by EU diplomats beforehand and did not explicitly call for Israel to follow international humanitarian law.

The Irish President then said that Ms von der Leyen was not speaking for Ireland nor the opinions of the Taoiseach or the Tanaiste, who have made statements saying they believe Israel is in breach of international law due to its response to the Hamas attack on Israel that saw more than 1,200 Israeli civilians killed.

"What one is seeing in this is a thoughtless and even reckless set of actions and I dont think its helpful, President Higgins said.

Its one thing, when we look at historic breaches of international law, that is incredibly bad, but to actually announce in advance that youre going to break international law, and that you announce it again and again, and that you do so on an innocent population.

I have thought about it and I think that it really reduces all that code that was there from the Second World War through the Geneva Conventions about the protection of civilians, it reduces it to tatters, President Higgins said.

"One has to bear in mind how important it is to retain and insist on the veracity and the cogency of international law.
The RTE 2fm presenter purchased her first home for a reported 490,000 late last year.

Doireann Garrihys boyfriend Mark Mehigan marked his final day in south Dublin as he moved into her new home.

The RTE 2fm presenter purchased her first home for a reported 490,000 late last year.

The three-bedroom semi-detached property sits just around the corner from her family home in Castleknock and was described as a blank canvas for the new owner when it was listed online.

Her boyfriend, comedian Mark Mehigan, had been based in an apartment in Dun Laoghaire but appears to have packed his bags to join Doireann in her new digs.

Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, he shared a video of himself taking his other halfs dog Bertie out for a walk along the harbour in the pouring rain.

Pathetic fallacy on the last day in Dun Laoghaire (we get it Mark, youre moving), he wrote.

Bertie was less enthusiastic about the final stroll.

The couple had previously hinted that theyd moved in together while Doireanns new house was being renovated.

During the first episode of the Doireann and Friends podcast, Doireann welcomed her beau as a guest and spoke about how their relationship came to be.

They told listeners that Doireann had slid into Marks DMs first. Mark explained: You launched a smiley face into my DMs. I immediately screenshotted it. Of course, a famous girl comes into your DMs.

The Foxrock man then joked that he shared the message on his Instagram Close Friends, which prompted his other half to ask who had seen the DM.

Doing a hilarious impression of Doireann, he said: Like brilliant. Oh you're a misogynist now. You're a foul pig.

"We're sleeping in separate beds now. We can't, it's a one-bedroom apartment we live in.

After letting the scoop about their living arrangements slip as part of the joke, Mark confirmed: She's moved in with me.
The Fifty Shades of Grey actor popped into Doorsteps on the Lisburn Road in south Belfast.

Jamie Dornan paid a visit to a Belfast cafe that was one of his favourites as a teenager yesterday.

The Fifty Shades of Grey actor popped into Doorsteps on the Lisburn Road in south Belfast on Wednesday and posed for a photo with some staff members.

The business first opened its doors in 1992 and was referenced by Jamie in his Financial Times 'Guide to Belfast' last year.

In the article, he said: "Doorsteps has long been an institution (the clue is in the name)  it used to keep me and my mates alive."

Taking to Instagram, the Doorsteps team shared a selfie with Dornan inside the cafe as they gushed about the surprise visit.

Amazing to have our long-time favourite customer Jamie Dornan in Doorsteps today, they wrote.

"Jamie mentioned us last year in his guide to Belfast for the Financial Times, he said Doorsteps 'kept me and my mates alive' during his school years.

Grateful to have his continued support and do what we do best, make amazing sandwiches.

The post received dozens of comments, leading the cafe to launch a competition in Dornans honour.

Social media users can be in with the chance to win the Holywood mans favourite sandwich, The Doorstepper, by liking and sharing the post.

Speaking previously to Belfast Live ahead of Doorsteps' 30th anniversary, manager Amy McGlinchey said the team were "ecstatic" to get a shoutout from Jamie in his Financial Times guide.

She said: "Being here as long as we are, the staff probably working in here now probably wouldn't remember him coming in because he did when he was in school but for a big actor like that to compare our sandwiches to those in London, who you'd think would have big upscale offerings, was brilliant.

"We were all bizz."
The national president of the Mongols Motorcycle Club has been sentenced to seven months jail after he lit a fire in his prison cell as a form of protest.

Jim David Thacker, 33, was sentenced in the Auckland District Court on Wednesday, with the extra months to be served concurrently on top of his already long prison spell.

In August, Thacker was jailed for 22 years and four months when he appeared in the High Court in Hamilton.

The gang leader was jailed on 53 charges including possession of methamphetamine for supply, supplying methamphetamine, possession of prohibited firearms, discharging firearms with reckless disregard, money laundering, and participation in an organised criminal group.

On Wednesday, Thacker pleaded guilty to one charge of arson after lighting a fire on the night of April 22, 2021.

The gang leader was alone in his cell around 9:30pm, when he started the fire in the corner of the room, according to Judge Simon Lance.

Prison officers noticed the smell and saw the smoke through an observation point, he said.

A fire extinguisher was used, and the incident was over fairly quickly.

When deciding on the length of sentence, Judge Lance took into consideration the guilty plea, the mental health impact caused by solitary imprisonment and the fact that the fire was started more as a way of protest than a desire to hurt anybody or cause significant property damage.

To me, this seemed pretty low end.

The fire caused minimal damage, but Lance recognised the Crowns argument that there was still a risk that the fire could have spread and damaged neighbouring cells, which were occupied.

There was a large police presence at the sentencing on Wednesday, with several officers outside the courtroom and many inside for security purposes.

Thacker was deported to New Zealand from Australia - where he had lived since he was 4-years-old in August 2018, under the controversial 501 legislation.

He had come to the attention of Australian police through, among other things, a peripheral role in the notorious 2013 gang riot in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast.

He had previously told the court his mental health was suffering and that he wanted more phone calls with family.

That request was refused.

-Stuff.
For decades, electing the speaker of the House of Representatives had been a formality, almost procedural. The party that held the majority in the chamber would meet, vote among its candidates, and close ranks with the preferred one. However, the far-right wing of the Republican Party broke with that tradition in January when it elected Kevin McCarthy as speaker, continued to disrespect it last week by not accepting the nomination of Steve Scalise, and now, it is tasting its own medicine. Moderate Republicans have stood up to what several party congressmen have called a coup and rejected for a second day giving the speakership to hardliner Jim Jordan, a Trump loyalist.

As a state wrestling champion in his native Ohio, Jordan racked up an impressive record of 156 wins to just one loss while in high school. As a candidate for speaker of the House of Representatives, he already has two defeats to his name. On the second ballot, he again fell short of the 217 votes he needed to be elected speaker. On Tuesday he obtained 200 votes from within his party; a day later  199. A total of 22 members of his party turned their backs on him. Once again, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries won the most votes (212), but still fell short of reaching the necessary majority.

To overcome the legislative impasse caused by the absence of a speaker, Democrats have proposed granting limited powers to Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, who took the speakers gavel when McCarthy was ousted. The initiative could be voted on as early as Wednesday. The idea is that the House could resume functioning even without a permanent Speaker. With this, the House could avert a looming federal government shutdown next month when a stopgap measure approved a few weeks ago expires. The chamber could also approve an aid package for Ukraine and Israel that President Joe Biden plans to request as soon as it is feasible.

Jordan, 59, has encountered pushback from moderate Republicans who oppose his election on a variety of grounds. Some represent districts with a centrist constituency, where Biden won in the 2020 election, and believe electing a Trump-allied election denier could make them lose their seats in the 2024 elections. Others, primarily from the House Budget Committee, see in Jordan an enemy of government spending, even when it is to deal with emergencies and natural disasters. Some simply refuse to elect a congressman who was singled out by the committee investigating the assault on the U.S. Capitol for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurgence. Jordan defended Trumps efforts to overturn Bidens victory in the 2020 election.

Moderate Republicans have been pressured by their hard-right colleagues and conservative media to kowtow to the Trumpist candidate, who has not signed a single bill in Congress in his more than 16 years as a legislator. He has been more an agent of chaos than a consensus-builder. Former Republican House Speaker John Boener went so far as to call him a legislative terrorist.

Jordan has garnered less support from his party, in fact, than McCarthy had to remain as speaker. Some members of Congress are proposing that the motion to vacate the speakership  used to dethrone McCarthy  be reformed, so a handful of House Republicans can never again force a speaker out without a majority to elect a replacement.

The conservative-leaning The Wall Street Journal criticized that attitude in an editorial that must have made the ears of Matt Gaetz, the congressman behind McCarthys ouster, ring: What kind of an idiot mutineer takes over the man-of-war, tosses the captain overboard, and then spends two weeks pulling ropes at random, hoping like hell that the thing will somehow drift ashore before the supplies run out?

The legislative gridlock caused by the speaker debacle is further complicated by the fact that the Senate has a Democratic majority of 51 to 49, while the House of Representatives, where there are two vacancies, is dominated by the Republicans (221 to 212). For the approval of any law, including budgetary ones, a majority is needed in both, which forces negotiations, cessions and compromises, just the opposite of Jim Jordans record, who prefers to fight, just as he did when he was a student.

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Since 1986, some 37 years ago, Almunecar-La Herradura has been twinned to Khan Younis, a city in the south-western part of the Gaza Strip.

The city, which lies four kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea, is now overcome with uncertainty due to the Israeli offensive following the Hamas bombing and surprise attack a week ago. Khan Younis has several Palestinian refugee camps, the most important being the Al Amal camp, home to thousands of refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. About 200,000 inhabitants live there.

To find out why Almunecar is twinned a city 3,530 kilometres away, we have to go back three decades. According to Antonio Olid, former councillor for culture at Almunecar Town Hall, between 1983 and 1987 the council commissioned the Granada sculptor Miguel Moreno to create a statue of Abd al-Rahman I, a statue which can be found on the lower part of the San Cristobal rock, next to the Caletilla, opposite the old Hotel Sexi.

The unveiling of the statue coincided with a series of Hispano-Arabic meetings organised in collaboration with the provincial Diputacion government. At these annual meetings, usually proposed by the League of Arab States, Almunecar-La Herradura was twinned with an Arab town. Almunecar has forged closer ties with Kelibia (Tunisia), Chinguetti (Mauritania) and Larache (Morocco) thanks to this. At a Red Crescent meeting, a humanitarian movement promoted by the Red Cross worldwide based on support for international conventions, it was proposed to twin the town. Yasser Arafat, a member of the Arab League and former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), proposed the initiative. Arafat's brother, Fathi, was Arab president of the Red Cross at the time.

Founded in 1945, the Arab League's initial objectives were to ensure that the other Arab states still colonised by European countries became independent, and that the Jewish minority in the British Mandate of Palestine did not establish an independent state (Israel). Hence the Arab League proposed the alliance with Almunecar.

The twinning between Almunecar and Khan Yunis came into effect on 8 October 1986 with its confirmation in the full council session, a procedure during which the Town Hall secretary had to ask for help - they did not know how to write the town's name in the minutes of the session. Almunecar also has a street, near the health centre, named in memory of this event.

Twinning, while not an obligation, is a concept whereby towns or cities in different geographical and political areas are paired together to promote human contact and cultural links.

Solidarity with brothers

Almunecar United for the People has called for "solidarity" with Khan Younis. "Our municipality must stand in solidarity with our neighbours in our sister town of Khan Younis" and "we ask that the town council publicly condemn the war crimes committed against the defenceless civilian population in our sister town."

Francisco Fernandez also wanted to point out " that people under occupation have the right to resist, as has been the case for the Palestinian people for seventy-five years".

"Israel has launched massive air strikes on civilians and in these attacks on the weekend, the Israeli army killed dozens of civilians, including babies, in the village of Khan Younis, twinned with Almunecar," he added.

According to the left-wing party, "the Israeli occupation has imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip since 2007, creating a humanitarian crisis. Gaza is a small territory in which 2.4 million people are crammed together and has already been declared uninhabitable by the United Nations due to the lack of access to basic resources to survive."

Sources close to the government have stated that they will not comment on this conflict and that they do not maintain relations with the Palestinian city.
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United Airlines' decision to maintain the flight direct between Malaga and New York next summer has been welcomed by representatives of the tourism sector in the province. Local and regional authorities, hotel employers and travel agencies have all agreed this is great news for the Costa del Sol.

The Junta de Andalucia's regional tourism minister, Arturo Bernal, expressed his satisfaction with the decision of the airline company, though he stressed that he awaits the official statement from United Airlines. However, given that sales operations are already under way, Bernal said that he is confident that after another good summer, the airline has decided to maintain this flight next year. He has stated that flight consolidation is doubly important considering the high competitiveness of airlines due to the shortage of aircraft. Therefore, it is doubly key that Malaga is bet on for the second year.

Bernal highlighted the potential of Andalucia in this market and pointed out that the number of North Americans staying in hotels in the region, with an average stay of five days, was 371,000 in the first six months, when last year there were 450,000, which equates to an increase of 33%.

The regional tourism minister also stressed the growth margin that airlines have in this market. United Airlines has moved 17,000 passengers in this first season, which means that the room for improvement is very great. This is the main argument and we value it in terms of opportunity to expand the business.

Connections to other US airports such as Miami or Atlanta called for

Likewise, the president of Turismo Costa del Sol, Francisco Salado, has indicated that is great news at a time of uncertainties such as the two wars or the rise in prices He said that the consolidation of this flight will also have a important effect in the work we are doing to expand direct connections from Malaga to other US airports such as Miami or Atlanta.

The tourism councillor at Malaga city hall, Jacobo Florido, said that we are delighted with the consolidation of the flight. He added that we hope that in future years the period of this route can be extended.

Hoteliers and travel agencies delighted

On the part of businesses, both hoteliers and travel agencies have agreed on the importance of this direct connection with New York and on the impact that the arrival of tourists has on the Costa del Sol who, in addition to staying for longer than the average duration, also spend more than the average. The Association of Hotel Entrepreneurs of the Costa del Sol (Aehcos) said: We are delighted with this announcement. The association expressed their desire that the route be expanded to include a flight with Miami. The consolidation of United Airlines in Malaga repeating this summer's schedule is very good because it reinforces the destiny and the possibility that other US companies consider this type of operation, Aehcos said.

The president of the Association of Travel Agencies of the Costa del Sol, Sergio Garcia, said that the news was something we expected thanks to the good level of occupation they have had this year. He added: Obviously we celebrate the decision to keep the flight and we want them to expand to other US cities like Miami or Chicago.
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What does a JCB digger have to do with a megayacht? Well, apparently nothing... if it weren't for the fact that the businessman behind the former is wealthy enough to buy (and maintain) the latter. On Wednesday, the Virginian, owned by Lord Bamford, chairman of the British multinational corporation JCB - manufacturer of construction and agricultural equipment - sailed into Malaga and docked at the city's marina for luxury craft.

The Virginian is 62 metres long and was built in 1991, but remodelled in 2012. It can accommodate 12 passengers in six luxurious cabins, with a crew of 18 professionals, according to data available on the Superyacht Fanwebsite. The stop, of which the purpose has not been disclosed, is expected to be for a short stay.

The W, also recently arrived at the Port of Malaga. Salvador Salas

The luxury vessel is powered by two diesel engines giving it a top speed of 15 knots and a cruising speed of 12 knots; with a range of more than 3,500 nautical miles, allowing it to sail long distances. It is valued at around 50 million dollars. On some specialised charter websites, it is listed as available for charter, at a staggering price of around 240,000 euros per week.

W Yacht

It's all about industry tycoons this week in the Port of Malaga. Right next to the Virginian is the W, another 58-metre luxury yacht owned by David MacNeil, an American businessman who is the founder and CEO of WeatherTech, a manufacturer of indoor and outdoor protection products for homes, cars, electronics, pets, machinery, etc.

The W, formerly known as Larissa, was built in 2013 and refurbished in 2019, according to the same sources. During this work, she was fitted with her distinctive metallic silver hull. It can accommodate ten passengers, and has a crew of 13 professionals. It has a top speed of 16 knots and a cruising speed of 14 knots, with a range of more than 4,000 nautical miles. It is also listed as available for yacht charters.
The EU needs to prepare to become significantly larger in the future. EU enlargement has jumped to the top of the agenda recently and will likely result in fundamental changes to the Union. Debate about how the EU needs to be reshaped for the future is well underway, says Anna Stellinger, Deputy Director General and Head of International and EU affairs at Swedish Enterprise.

Discussions on EU enlargement gained fresh momentum following Russias invasion of Ukraine, and the prospect of a larger EU came even closer after the EU summit in Granada, Spain at the beginning of October, when several countries expressed support for an enlarged EU in the future. The issue was also recently raised by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in her latest State of the Union address in September, in which she said that the EU must take in countries that are knocking at the door. Furthermore, in the wake of Russias war, several big countries have moved in a more expansionist direction. So, everything points to the fact that the EU will grow.

Theres a central discussion about the future of the EU right now.

That is the message from Anna Stellinger, Deputy Director General and Head of International and EU affairs.

Its quite clear that the EU will grow in the coming years and therefore needs to fundamentally change. The question is not if, but when and how, Stellinger tells Swedish business news service Tidningen Naringslivet.

In the past, several big-hitting EU countries have expressed doubts about allowing more countries into the bloc, but due to the war in Ukraine, the issue has taken on new urgency. Several countries, including France led by President Macron, have now adjusted their stance on enlargement, paving the way for change.

Countries that may be in line for admission include Ukraine and several countries in the Balkans. However, in order for the EU to grow, candidate countries need to implement reforms and the EU needs to reform itself.

Theres a central discussion about the future of the EU right now, says Stellinger, and continues:

Were talking about several years into the future, but the war in Ukraine has brought things to a head. The world has changed so much that letting Ukraine and other countries in has become so much more important. The geopolitical outlook is extremely uncertain, and we need to build a strong EU and wider region. In the long term, there will be somewhere between 30 and 35 countries in the EU.

Major changes

EU enlargement will entail major changes for the Union in, for example, decision making to ensure that the bloc functions properly. This is part of the far-reaching future debate that has now gained momentum. Today, unanimity among all member states is required on certain issues, while majority decisions are sufficient on others, and it is likely that majority decision making will become more common.

The more members we have, the more difficult it will be to reach unanimity, so member states are actively discussing in which areas they would be willing to relinquish unanimity.

For Sweden, there are several areas  taxation, for example  on which it may be more difficult to agree that a majority decision will suffice. On other issues, such as in foreign affairs, it could be relatively uncomplicated for us, Stellinger believes.

For example, it hasnt been entirely straightforward for the EU to agree on sanctions against Russia. Progress has been possible  weve agreed a total of 11 sanctions packages  but there have been difficulties when individual countries have tried to block sanctions packages for more or less legitimate reasons.

Changes to how the institutions function, decision making, and the EU budget will be necessary. And its precisely these kinds of questions that EU countries are starting to seriously discuss now.

Different membership levels

According to Stellinger, as the number of members increases it is likely that there will be renewed discussion about different levels of EU membership. One potential option is having an inner core of member states and different outer rings of membership, in which different countries are involved and decide on different issues.

In a sense, this already exists. Not all member states are in Schengen, and neither are all states in the euro, so we already have a multi-speed Europe. But now we can expect this issue to come into sharper focus. Because if there are to be 30 to 35 countries in the EU, not all states will be able to participate in everything  some will have to move forward faster or deepen co-operation. Co-operation on the single currency is a good example of this, but there are others.

For Sweden, the current discussions mean that it is more important than ever to actively participate and influence the EUs development in the direction we want. Stellinger cites the single market, competitiveness, and that the EU invests in a budget for growth as key issues for Sweden to pursue.

We must understand that we need to fully engage in shaping the future European Union. Its our single most important market, our immediate neighbourhood, and our most important political context. So, we cant wait for proposals to be put on the table and to which we then react to, we have to actively engage in the discussions that are taking place now.

Stellinger adds:

Its also in this context that we have to discuss European policy at home in Sweden. In the nascent Euro-debate that weve seen emerge recently, we need to understand that the EU is likely to look different - if or when we decide to adopt the euro. This is several years ahead, and a multi-speed Europe may already be well developed.

The future of the EU needs to be discussed before the European Parliament elections next spring, especially in a country like Sweden, says Stellinger.

What role Sweden wants to have in the EU is an excellent topic for a European debate in Sweden in the run-up to the EU elections. What do the various candidates and parties think about how the EU should develop and what should our role be? In other words, the debate about the future of the EU is not only a question for Brussels, Berlin and Paris  its also a vital issue in Sweden.
CCTV: The Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was successfully held from 17 to 18 October and received great international attention. Can you give us more details about the Forum?



Mao Ning: Thank you for closely following the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.



This BRF was attended by over 10,000 registered representatives from 151 countries and 41 international organizations. The scale of participation has once again showcased the tremendous appeal and global influence of Belt and Road cooperation. As Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the press conference yesterday, the BRF is a conference of unity, of win-win outcome and of development. It is another important milestone in the process of Belt and Road cooperation.



The clearest message from this Forum is unity, cooperation, openness and win-win outcome. Amid great transformations unseen in a century, Belt and Road cooperation will always bring stability and positive energy to the world.



The most important consensus of this Forum is to usher in a new stage of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. As the BRI enters a new stage, it will definitely create more opportunities and bring more good news for the world.



The most ambitious vision of this Forum is to realize global modernization through joint efforts. President Xi Jinping proposed for the first time that global modernization should be pursued through the joint efforts of all countries to enhance peaceful development and mutually beneficial cooperation and bring prosperity to all, setting the direction for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.



The defining feature of this Forum is that it is action-oriented, efficient and pragmatic. During this Forum, 458 outcomes have been reached, far exceeding the number of the last Forum. These tangible cooperation outcomes will certainly provide sustained impetus for global growth and common development across the world.



The success of this Forum proves once again that China has followed the right direction in advancing Belt and Road cooperation, that BRI partners have shown firm commitment to participation, and that high-quality Belt and Road cooperation enjoys bright prospects. Standing at a new historical starting point, we look forward to working with all parties to embark on a new journey of Belt and Road cooperation and usher in a better future of joint progress toward global modernization.



CCTV: On October 18, the UN Security Council voted on a draft resolution proposed by Brazil on the Palestinian question. Twelve countries, including China voted in favor of the draft resolution, but as the US used its veto power, the resolution was not adopted. What is Chinas comment?



Mao Ning: Chinas Permanent Representative to the UN has explained Chinas position at length after the vote. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues to escalate, causing widespread civilian casualties and humanitarian crisis and a severe blow to the regions peace and stability. China supports the Security Council in playing a responsible role and all efforts aimed to deescalate the situation and restore peace, and welcomes any initiative that helps protect civilians and ease the humanitarian crisis. For several days running, the Security Council has been engaged in in-depth discussions on the draft of a resolution on the Palestinian question and building up consensus. The overwhelming majority of countries, the Arab countries in particular, support the Security Council in taking action as soon as possible. China is deeply disappointed at the US blocking the Security Council resolution. As tensions continue to escalate, the Security Council needs to listen to the call from the many Arab countries and the Palestinian people, and live up to its duty and play its role in bringing about a ceasefire, protecting civilians and averting an even worse humanitarian disaster.



TASS: President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin had fairly long talks, during which the two heads of state exchanged views on the Palestinian-Israeli situation. Could the foreign ministry share more information on this part of the talks? How does China view its coordination with Russia on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?



Mao Ning: There is a readout on President Xis talks with President Putin and you may refer to that. I can tell you that the talks between the two heads of state were candid, friendly and deep-going. The two sides exchanged views on bilateral relations, practical cooperation, Belt and Road cooperation, multilateral coordination and the Palestinian-Israeli situation. Both sides agreed to pursue high-quality cooperation, forge stronger synergy between the Belt and Road cooperation and the Eurasian Economic Union and continue to step up communication and coordination within the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the G20 and other multilateral frameworks and add new dimensions to our cooperation.



Al Jazeera: During President Bidens visit to Israel, the US and Israel jointly proposed the relocation of people in Gaza to Egypt, but Egypt explicitly opposed it. What is Chinas comment on this proposal?



Mao Ning: We believe that the pressing priority is for all parties concerned to stop fighting as soon as possible, earnestly abide by the international humanitarian law, do their utmost to protect civilians and prevent a wider humanitarian disaster. The international community, especially non-regional major countries with influence, should play their role in this regard. We appreciate Egypts active mediation efforts and its coordination work to ease the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.



Hubei Media Group: The UK and some Western countries have raised concern over Xinjiang-related issues at the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly. Meanwhile, over 100 countries voiced support at the committee for Chinas position in various ways and expressed opposition to interference in Chinas internal affairs under the pretext of human rights. Whats Chinas comment?



Mao Ning: On October 17, at the Third Committee of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Pakistan delivered a joint statement on behalf of over 70 countries. They pointed out that issues related to Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Xizang are Chinas internal affairs. They spoke against the politicization of human rights issues, the application of double standards and interference in Chinas internal affairs in the name of human rights. Many other countries expressed support for China by making statements either individually or collectively. A total of over 100 member states spoke up for justice and voiced support for China at the UN. The attempt of a handful of Western countries to hold back and contain China under the pretext of human rights was thwarted once again.



In a world fraught with crises and challenges, solidarity and cooperation matter more than ever. The UK and a handful of Western countries, based on disinformation and driven by the Cold War mentality, have put themselves on the opposite side of the international community by inciting confrontation at multilateral fora. These countries do not acknowledge their own human rights woes such as persistent systemic racism and racial discrimination and violation of migrants rights. They have yet to show the slightest repentance over grave human rights violations during the era of colonialism and its vestiges, nor have they offered any sincere apologies or compensation. The international community has raised concern over and over on this. We urge the UK to face squarely and address its own human rights issues and stop politicizing or instrumentalizing human rights issues.



We Chinese have every confidence in the path we have chosen and take great pride in the achievements we have made. We will stay firmly committed to our chosen path and set course. China has been elected Member of the Human Rights Council for the 2024-2026 term. We will continue to uphold the common values of all humanity, actively participate in global human rights governance, and promote the sound development of the international human rights cause.



RIA Novosti: When addressing the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Northern Sea Route will soon open to traffic and invited other countries to participate in the development of the project. Whats Chinas comment? Is China willing to cooperate with Russia in the framework of the Northern Sea Route?



Mao Ning: Id refer you to competent authorities for the specifics. As a principle, China stands ready to have Arctic cooperation with Russia as well as cooperation in other areas under the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.



KBS: Recently US President Joe Biden visited Israel and the US government indicated it will try to play the role of an arbitrator. What is Chinas comment on the US role as an arbitrator in light of the current conflict?



Mao Ning: In dealing with international and regional hotspot issues, major countries need to be objective and just, exercise calm and restraint and lead by example in abiding by international law. We hope that the US can play a constructive role and bring issues back to the track of political settlement.



Al Jazeera: Following the attack on a hospital in Gaza, Israel is creating an even greater humanitarian disaster in Gaza. What is Chinas attitude towards the Israeli government in response to what Israel has done?



Mao Ning: China is shocked by and strongly condemns the attack on the hospital in Gaza, which has caused massive casualties. We mourn for the victims and extend sympathies to the injured. China calls for an immediate ceasefire and cessation of hostilities, fulfillment of obligations under the international humanitarian law and every possible effort to protect civilians and avert an even worse humanitarian disaster.



Reuters: It was reported that a Japanese national employed by Astellas Pharma, who was detained in Beijing in March, was officially arrested for suspicion of espionage. Can you confirm this and provide more information on the espionage charge?



Mao Ning: We have shared information about the case before. Relevant Chinese authorities adopted compulsory measures in accordance with the criminal procedure law against the Japanese citizen suspected of engaging in espionage activities. China is a country under the rule of law. We will handle the case in accordance with law and protect the lawful rights and interests of the person concerned. For more specifics, Id refer you to competent Chinese authorities.



The Paper: US California Governor Gavin Newsoms spokesperson announced that the Governor will visit China next week. Whats Chinas comment?



Mao Ning: China welcomes Governor Gavin Newsom and his delegation to China and hopes that the visit will produce good results and bolster Californias exchanges and cooperation with China. China encourages interactions between Chinese and Americans from all walks of life and supports sub-national efforts of expanding exchanges and cooperation in such fields as economy and trade, science and technology, education, culture and youth, so as to bring more benefits to the two peoples and inject more positive energy for the China-US relations.



AFP: Zhai Jun, Special Envoy of the Chinese Government on the Middle East Issue, is scheduled to visit the Middle East this week. Do you have any details on his visit?



Mao Ning: Thank you for your interest in the visit by Special Envoy Zhai Jun. We will release information in a timely manner. I believe it wont be long before more details become available.



Reuters: Chinese experts are currently participating in an IAEA-led survey in Japan analyzing fish that landed in Fukushima following the release of water from the nuclear plant. Since China has been sharply critical of the IAEAs support of Japans decision to release the water, why do Chinese experts continue to take part in these IAEA missions?



Mao Ning: Chinas opposition to Japans dumping the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean is consistent and clear. It has been almost two months since Japan started the ocean discharge. The international community demands for an international monitoring arrangement that will stay effective for the long haul and ensure substantive participation of Japans neighboring countries and other stakeholders. We believe that the IAEA should play its due role and work constructively for this and step up to its responsibility of providing rigorous supervision on Japans ocean discharge. Japan should work in full coordination and avoid irreversible damage caused by the ocean discharge.

Reuters: Why was there no leaders roundtable and joint communique after this years Belt and Road Form, unlike in previous years?



Mao Ning: China has issued a Chairs Statement on the forum, which you may refer to.



AFP: US Department of the Treasury announced yesterday that it will sanction 11 individuals, eight entities, and one vessel that are enabling Irans ballistic missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programs, including companies and individuals based in Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, China. What is your response?



Mao Ning: We continue to strongly oppose the USs illegal unilateral sanctions. We will firmly protect the lawful rights and interests of Chinese businesses and citizens.
It was over in the blink of an eye. U.S. President Joe Biden returned to Washington after spending less than eight hours in Tel Aviv, where he gave a fiery speech in support of Israel. The trip was intended to be Bidens effort to prevent the conflict from escalating and to moderate Israels reaction to the Hamas attacks. But the bombing of the al-Ahli Al Arab Hospital in Gaza put a stop to those plans. Bidens unwavering support for Israel, Washingtons initial assessment that the Palestinian militia Islamic Jihad was responsible for the attack and the cancellation of the Jordan summit with Arab leaders threatens to add further fuel to the unrest, and may also take a toll on the president at home.

This Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Biden plans to give a televised speech about the conflict in the Near East and the war in Ukraine, as announced by his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.

Biden had staked a lot on the trip. His goal was to hone his credentials as an empathetic mediator, who was respected by all parties. And to defend his policy in the region, in which he has tried to facilitate the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and to thaw ties with Iran. Biden has invested years of work and diplomacy in this policy, but it now threatens to fall apart.

Rather than appearing as the conciliatory mediator, through his enthusiastic words of support for Israel and his photos with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  which were not balanced by photo ops with Arab leaders  he now risks being identified with the military campaign that Israel is preparing to launch in Gaza. This campaign is feared to take a deadly toll on the Palestinian people, and the Arab world is already condemning the move, especially after the explosion at the Gaza hospital on Tuesday. The Netanyahu government says a rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militia was responsible for the attack. Arab countries believe it was due to a missile fired by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Biden to Israel: You are not alone

Before leaving Tel Aviv, Biden repeatedly stressed that Israel counted on the support of the U.S. You are not alone. You are not alone. As long as the United States stands  and we will stand forever  we will not let you ever be alone, he said in a passionate speech, in which he also highlighted the need to protect human lives on both sides. The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas, he stressed.

Biden believed that his clear support for Israel would help him influence the Netanyahu government and extract concessions from it. The two leaders did agree to one of the U.S. presidents main demands. Israel agreed that humanitarian assistance can begin to move from Egypt to Gaza, said Biden in his public remarks. More than a hundred containers of humanitarian aid were waiting at the Rafah border crossing connecting Gaza with Egypt, which is the only crossing not controlled by Israel. The aid could not enter Gaza until the Netanyahu government gave the green light.

On his return route to Washington, Biden planned to speak by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to discuss this humanitarian assistance, ways to minimize the suffering of civilians in Gaza and how to prevent the crisis from deepening and spreading.

But his attempts to pressure Israel to restrain its response to the Hamas attacks and his contacts with Arab leaders do not appear to have eased tensions in the region, where protest demonstrations continued. The U.S. veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid to Gaza has only fueled resentment.

Anger and frustration

Bidens strong support for Israel has contributed to the heightened anger and frustration in the region. As we have seen in the protests of the last 24 hours, that anger is palpable and will only grow as long as the United States continues to block a ceasefire or even a humanitarian pause at the U.N., said Professor Osamah Khalil, from Syracuse University, in an email. It is the responsibility of President Biden and Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken to take steps toward a diplomatic solution that prevents a broader regional conflict and further loss of innocent life.

The fury in Arab countries threatens to derail the U.S.s flagship project in the region: the normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Representatives from Saudi Arabia indicated that talks on that topic have been suspended.

Washingtons support for Israel also raises complications for Biden on the domestic front, as the U.S. prepares to enter the campaign for next years presidential elections. So far, both Democrats and Republicans back support for Israel. A poll published last weekend by CNN indicated that 96% of voters feel some level of sympathy for Israel in the face of the Hamas attacks. More than 70% declared they felt a lot. Regarding the Palestinian population, 82% felt sympathy, but only 41% felt a lot.

Another poll, carried out by Quinnipiac, estimates that 85% of voters are concerned about the possibility of the conflict worsening, while 76% believe that supporting Israel is of benefit to U.S. national security.

But Bidens plans to ask Congress to approve billions of dollars in military aid to Israel could spark fierce debates among lawmakers; a minority among the Republican opposition already rejects assistance to Ukraine. Biden has announced $100 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza.

Support for the governments positions could change if the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to worsen or the number of Palestinian deaths increases as a result of Israeli attacks. Some critics have begun to voice their opposition, including lawmakers from the most progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Among young people, unconditional support for Israel is lower than among older voters: 51% of the under-34 population are opposed to sending weapons to Israel.

These differences of opinion were evident during protests at several universities, such as Columbia in New York, where there were clashes between the supporters of each side. On Wednesday, 300 people were arrested after breaking into the Capitol in a demonstration called by Jewish groups in favor of the Palestinians.

The U.S. State Department also received a call from Warren David, the president of Arab America, who warned of the demonization of Palestinians in Gaza and of Arabs in general that has really escalated hatred against that community, according to Politico.

Last weekend, in the state of Illinois, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy was stabbed to death by his landlord, who yelled you Muslims must die as he also tried to choke the childs mother.

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Chick-fil-A has reached a $4.4 million settlement over its delivery fees, an agreement that could mean some customers could be in line for a payment.

The settlement is related to a class action lawsuit filed in Georgia that claimed the restaurant chain advertised free or low-cost delivery but then raised the food prices only on delivery orders, TopClassActions.com reported.

Chick-fil-A secretly marks up food prices for delivery orders by a hefty 25-30%, the complaint alleged, per TheTakeOut.com. In other words, the identical order of a 30-count chicken nuggets costs approximately $5-6 more when ordered for delivery than when ordered via the same mobile app for pickup, or when ordered in-store.

The suit also claimed Chick-fil-A failed to inform customers of the markup.

While not admitting fault, Chick-fil-A has reached an agreement that will set aside $1.45 million in cash and $2.95 million in gift cards. The chain has also agreed to add disclosure notices on its app and website stating that product prices may be higher for delivery orders.

Customers who are potentially eligible for a refund will be notified by email through the settlement administrator with class members expected to receive a $29.95 payment or a $29.95 gift card. Those amounts could be lowered, however, depending on the final number included in the settlement.

There will also be a notice on Chick-fil-As website for potential class members that will require a name, email address, phone number and certification the person is eligible to participate.

The form is not yet live but you can check back here for more information.
Cheers and Frasier star Kelsey Grammer is set to serve his beer at another Central New York event next week.

Grammer will give guests the chance to sample and buy different beers from his Upstate New York-based Faith American Brewing Company on Thursday, Oct. 26, at the Upstate Tavern at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona. Guests will be able to meet and mingle with Grammer during the event from 6-8 p.m.

No reservations are required; attendees must be 21 or older.

The event almost immediately follows an appearance by Grammer at Moes Tavern, a pop-up bar inspired by The Simpsons, at 16 Stone Brewpub in Utica. Grammer, who voiced Sideshow Bob on the animated TV series, will pour his Faith American Ale from 3-5 p.m. Thursday; tickets are required.

Grammer, 68, is an Emmy-winning actor best known for his role as Dr. Frasier Crane on Cheers and Frasier. A Frasier revival series recently launched on Paramount+, showing the character moving back to Boston (but not visiting the bar where everyone knows your name); fans can watch the first episode for free on YouTube.

His acting credits also include Transformers: Age of Extinction, Down Periscope, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Last Tycoon, The Expendables 3, Anastasia, Toy Story 2, and 30 Rock. Hes next set to appear in the TV series Paper Empire with Denise Richards, Robert Davi, and Helena Mattsson.

Grammer launched his own beer brand, Faith American, in 2018. The golden Belgian ale is brewed under contract for Grammers company at Frog Alley Brewing Co, in Schenectady, and Grammer also opened his own Faith American Brewing Co. taproom in the Catskills village of Margaretville.

According to a press release, the Turning Stone event will include opportunities to sample and purchase a variety of Faith American beers including Faith American Ale, Faith American Calico Man IPA, Faith American Blue Hazy and Faith American Calico Midnight.
A former model from Upstate New York may turn her wild life story into a streaming TV series, according to a new report.

Georgia Durante, an East Rochester native who first rose to fame as the Kodak girl in the 1960s, told the Democrat & Chronicle that Sony Pictures Television has optioned her 1998 memoir, The Company She Keeps, for a multi-episode series. Writers are working on the project to potentially be sold to Netflix, Amazon Prime or a similar platform.

The book chronicles her life beginning as a teen model, including being one of Eastman Kodaks first models to wear a bikini instead of a one-piece swimsuit, appearing on billboards and ads nationwide at age 17. She eventually got the attention of Rochester mafia, including Salvatore Sammy G Gingello, and connected with the Gambino crime family in New York City. She also had a history of stealing cars as a teenager and her skills led to becoming a getaway driver for the mob known as Georgie-Girl.

I would wait around the corner for these guys, Id drop them off, wait around the corner  and they were actually robbing places, but they never told me, Durante told NPR in 2014. One day, they came out with their guns out and I heard sirens... It was intense. It was very intense. I got in pretty deep.

In her book, she also describes an abusive marriage with mob-connected Joe Lamendola and fleeing with her 7-year-old daughter to California, where she sought to start over as a stunt driver for commercials and Hollywood productions. She once even worked as a stunt driver for supermodel Cindy Crawford in a Pepsi commercial, according to the D&C.

Thats a lot of life to pack into a film adaptation, so Durante thinks a series makes more sense.

No one could take my whole life and cram it into two hours, Durante told the Rochester newspaper. What are you going to keep out? Where does the arc go?

Other details, including a potential director, cast or release date, have not been announced.

Durante will return to Rochester for a talk and book signing Oct. 23 at Red Fedeles Brook House, according to the Democrat & Chronicle. The event is hosted by Rochester Mob Wars author Blair T. Kenny and will also feature Gina Gingello, the daughter of Salvatore Gingello, and her book about her father, Sammy G: The Untold Story of My Father.

For more information about Durante, visit her website georgiadurante.com.
Syracuse, NY  Leaders from seven hospitals across Central New York and the Mohawk Valley are promising a crackdown on violence committed by visitors and patients inside their facilities.

St. Josephs Health, Crouse Health and Upstate Medical are among the institutions vowing a zero tolerance policy for visitors who make threats or harm workers. Any violent acts by visitors or family members will lead to an immediate removal from the hospital. Hospitals promised to seek criminal charges whenever available.
A group of people crosses the Rio Grande, the natural border between the United States and Mexico, on October 6. ADREES LATIF (REUTERS)

There is a new path to the United States for Ecuadorians. The Joe Biden administration on Wednesday announced a program that benefits citizens from one of the countries that has experienced the highest rates of emigration to the U.S. in recent months. The Department of Homeland Security announced a family reunification parole process that facilitates legal immigration for family members of Ecuadorians who are permanently established in the United States. The aim is to stop the pace of irregular crossings, which in 2023 reached the highest levels in four years.

Establishing this process for certain Ecuadorian nationals will ensure more families can access lawful pathways rather than placing themselves at the mercy of smugglers to make the dangerous journey, said Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, on Wednesday. Those who do not avail themselves of family reunification parole or other lawful, safe, and orderly pathways and attempt to enter the United States unlawfully will continue to face tough consequences.

Mayorkas and the Biden administration have come under fire after recently announcing that they had given the green light to continue building Donald Trumps wall along the border with Mexico.

Beneficiaries of the new program could include certain children and siblings of U.S. citizens and certain spouses and children of lawful permanent residents. Individuals allowed into U.S. territory under this process will be considered for parole for up to three years and will be eligible to request employment authorization while they wait for their immigrant visa to become available. When their immigrant visa becomes available, they may apply to become a lawful permanent resident, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

The Biden administration has built tailored programs for immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Colombia and Central American countries. But this is the first time that the executive has made one aimed at the nationals of Ecuador, a country that has recently suffered a security crisis made worse by the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

In the first 11 months of fiscal year 2023, which began in October 2022, border authorities detained nearly 99,000 Ecuadorians, according to Customs and Border Control. This is up 312% from fiscal year 2022.

In January 2023, Ecuadorians were the main group of detained irregular immigrants. The flow began to increase in late 2022. Between October and December of last year, some 35,500 Ecuadorians made the journey north, according to immigration authorities. In November alone, 12,000 arrests were made, a figure almost 20 times higher than in the same period of 2021.

Most of those Ecuadorians flew to Nicaragua or Mexico, countries that did not request special visas from citizens of that country. Mexican authorities, however, imposed a special visa in September 2021 in a decision that sought to slow the pace. The year 2021 ended with 97,000 arrests of Ecuadorians who crossed the border.

President Biden received the Ecuadorian president, Guillermo Lasso, at the White House last December. Biden took advantage of the meeting to announce a $13.5 million investment in development funds and agreed on greater cooperation on matters of security and against drug trafficking gangs that have triggered several episodes of violence in local prisons, leading to more than 400 victims.

At that meeting, Lasso spoke about regional commitments to achieve an orderly migration. The president was one of the leaders who signed the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection. Ecuador has granted Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelan citizens, so that they will not be deported. The United States, on the other hand, has opened immigrant processing centers in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala and there were negotiations with Quito to establish one more in Ecuador, but it did not materialize.
Albany, N.Y.  A rural Upstate New York judge who pulled a gun on a Black man in court and later bragged about it has been removed from his position by the states highest court.

Robert Putorti, a justice of both the Whitehall Town and Village courts, was removed effective immediately Thursday morning. The state Court of Appeals ordered the removal that was recommended by state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

He had served as a justice since 2014 for the small community, located about an hour and a half north of Albany.
Watertown, N.Y. -- Officials in Watertown said the city has run out of water Thursday afternoon following a major water main break affecting the city and surrounding towns.

More than 45,000 people live in the area impacted by the water shortage.

New York state is sending emergency water to the area, Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a news release.

A water line from the citys treatment plant appeared to have broken overnight Wednesday, according to the Watertown Daily Times, cutting one of two connections to the citys two reservoirs.

The now-depleted reservoirs supply water to Leray, Pamelia, Champion, Fort Drum, the city and town of Watertown, according to the city website.

The emergency had forced the city school district to send students home early Thursday before noon, according to the district website. Samaritan Health, which runs the areas major hospital, closed some facilities Thursday and cancelled various surgical and outpatient procedures for Thursday and Friday.

Watertown officials had urged residents and business to refrain from any unnecessary water use, and for those who still had water to boil it for one minute before using it.

Staff writer Jon Moss covers breaking news, crime and public safety. He can be reached at jmoss@syracuse.com or @mossjon7.
Syracuse, N.Y.  After winning the Democratic Party primary for the 15th District seat in the Onondaga County Legislature, Democrat Maurice Mo Brown is now running against Mo Moodie, who is running on an independent line.

Brown, whos worked on several political campaigns in the Syracuse area in recent years, has the financial and enrollment advantage in a district that includes parts of the University, Valley and Strathmore neighborhoods in Syracuse. Nearly two-thirds of voters in the district are Democrats.

Moodie has raised just $1,500 and spent almost that much, according to campaign finance reports. He has about $60 as of the more recent campaign filings.

Brown has raised more than $42,000 and spent about $30,000, an unusually high amount for a county legislator race, according to Dustin Czarny, the countys Democratic Election Commissioner. Brown has about $10,000 in his campaign account.

Much of Browns campaign contributions came in small amounts from supporters during the Democratic Party primaries earlier this year. Brown challenged former City Councilor Tim Rudd, who was the Democrats designated candidate. Brown beat Rudd 1,096 votes to 628 votes.

Some of Browns highest donations are $2,000 from Anthony Malevenda, who ran unsuccessfully for county executive in 2019; $1,000 from the Civil Service Employees Association; $1,000 from Friends of Sunny Aslam; and another $1,000 from the Upstate Progressive PAC.

The current 15th District legislator is Bill Kinne, whos most recently held the seat since 2020. This year, Kinne, a Democrat, is challenging Republican Ryan McMahon for Onondaga County executive.

County legislators serve two-year terms. Next years salary will be $37,619, according to the proposed county 2024 budget.

Election Day is Nov. 7. Early voting starts on Oct. 28 and ends on Nov. 5.

Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard asked each candidate questions about their goals as county lawmakers. Their answers have been edited lightly for clarity and space.

Maurice Mo Brown

Age: 31

Address: The university neighborhood in Syracuse

Political party endorsements and ballot lines: Democratic and Working Families parties

Experience: Working on a masters degree in higher education from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Worked on several local, state and national campaigns. Military veteran.

What is the biggest problem facing Onondaga County and how will you tackle it?

I think the biggest problem facing Onondaga County is our county executive. I think that our countys priorities are misaligned. The biggest example was the budget, where if you look at the most recent budget, you can see that the executive understands there are problems in our community where he addresses childcare and he addresses the lead. But, if you look theres only, I wanna say, $2.5 million allocated for lead remediation. But then theres $13 million for a marina and Onondaga Lake Park.

Its just that our priorities are not our people. Until we start prioritizing our people, were gonna keep leading the nation in these horrible poverty statistics, because we arent doing anything to address it. I understand that you have to spur new growth. You need revenue, but people need help. Were coming out of a global pandemic, and we arent prioritizing our people. I think that until we do that, until we put our people first were going to stay behind. And hes the main one leading it.

What action should the Legislature take involving the fatal shooting of two teens by Deputy John Rosello?

Loss of life is terrible. I am very fed up with these officer involved shootings. Im 31, so Ive lived through Mike Brown, Ive lived through Walter Scott, Eric Garner, George Floyd, etc. and it gets frustrating that this pattern is not seeming to stop. Its definitely bigger than Onondaga County. However, there are things we can do in Onondaga County to move toward the right direction.

One of the things that needs to happen right away is the sheriffs office needs to improve their body-worn camera policy. As the sheriff mentioned in the press conference, there was nothing requiring that the officer turn the camera on. I think something should. So thats something quick.

But another thing we can do is establish a citizens review board. So in the city of Syracuse, theres a Citizens Review Board for Syracuse police officers. There needs to be some version of that for the county. Just so that citizens feel the officers are accountable to them, which they are. They work for us, they work for me. Im going to work for citizens as well. But citizens need some kind of protection. They need to feel heard when their complaints go forth. So thats one thing we can do. And then bigger picture, we need to have some big conversations about what policing looks like in our community. And until we do that, until we evolve into a more community policing model, these things are going to continue to happen.

Name one thing the county could do to improve efforts to keep children safe from lead poisoning?

Theres a bunch of things the county could do. For starters, we can prioritize it in our budget. I say it all the time, but budgets are priority documents. If you show me a familys budget, if you show me a schools budget, if you show me a corporations budget, I can tell you that entitys priorities, and we are not prioritizing our families. I think that we need an eight-figure investment into lead remediation. Concealing the paint, replacing doors that are affected.

We need to not necessarily increase testing, but increase the follow up after the testing has happened. So a lot of times the testing will happen, families will be notified, and then it kind of stops right there. Those families need resources. Theres just so much that needs to happen as far as that but the simplest answer is we need to prioritize lead remediation. We need to prioritize housing that is lead safe until we start getting to the root causes of these things. As long as were reactionary, as long as were waiting for the kids to get led to act, were going to stay behind. We got to get in front of it.

Mo Moodie

Age: 42

Address: The Valley neighborhood, Syracuse

Political party endorsements and ballot lines: People First Party

Experience: Works in tech sales at Toast, a sales and management system company in the restaurant tech industry. Hes a former New York Police Department officer. This is Moodies first time running for political office.

What is the biggest problem facing Onondaga County and how will you tackle it?

Were a very lucrative and financially sound and stable county.

So one of the things that I would love to bring is going to be the TCI initiative, which is the Tax Credit Initiative. Its going to be setting up milestones as the county continues to be lucrative, then you as the resident, as a homeowner, dont have to pay property tax.

You, as a business owner within Onondaga County, doesnt have to pay those taxes when we hit these milestones. Lets say if you own a house, and you have to pay $2,000 for the year. The county hits our milestone, because we have the aquarium and we have the zoo, and we have all our tourism thats bringing all the sales tax, and Destiny Mall is constantly pumping in more money. Then, we will say we can give you a $500 tax credit for this year. And you only have to pay $1,500 (in property taxes). That will help keep more money in peoples pockets because we all are hurting currently.

What action should the Legislature take involving the fatal shooting of two teens by Deputy John Rosello?

Its a very upsetting and unfortunate situation in general. To have young individuals have their lives cut short is unfortunate. The other unfortunate situation is that police officers are also human beings, and they have families and they have life as well.

Where we have this gray issue is that we have a lack of video footage, which would have been provided by body cameras. But to be completely transparent, from a county legislators point of view, the policies and things that happen within the sheriffs department are solely under the jurisdiction of the sheriff, who is currently an elected Democrat. So, even if I say to him, This is my idea that what you should be doing related to this scenario so that it never happens again, he can say respectfully, Mr. Moodie, county legislator from District 15, go fly a kite. And theres very little that I can do outside of putting economic financial pressure onto the sheriffs department. But putting financial economic pressure on the sheriffs department is only going to exacerbate the current situation that were at.

The last thing I want to do is take away money from law enforcement, because we need more officers to show up. In that scenario, in that situation, I would love to see a couple more people on scene. But we all know, no fault of the department, there is a lack of police officers, period. In general, it doesnt mean just here in Syracuse. You look at any law enforcement across the United States, theyre all hurting, looking and needing people And this is a great opportunity, I would say from a county legislators point of view, to help recruitment issues and efforts to get sound people and officers into the department.

Name one thing the county could do to improve efforts to keep children safe from lead poisoning?

The issue, which I feel that is slightly overlooked, is about water pipes. You have the water service pipe that connects to your house and it typically runs from like the middle of the street, under into your house. Some of these pipes are from the 1900s, basically the pipe becomes really rocky and crumbly and hard and it just scrapes and captures anything that gets stuck into it. So if one of these homes, and we all live in Syracuse, if youre dont turn on the hot water during a cold day, your pipes freeze, now you have a blockage of ice. And you had these original lead pipes.

So now youre saying well, why are we still having such a high rate of lead poisoning going on? When you do the lead removal, also look at that surface water supply pipe thats coming from the city, thats coming from the municipality. Thats not necessarily on your radar to be replaced. So, if you really want to combat that, we need to help that.

Editors note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the district. It has been corrected.
Tel Aviv, Israel  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul arrived Israel on Wednesday and met with victims of the deadly Oct. 7 assault and families of hostages as part of a trip intended to show support for the country during its war with Hamas.

The Democratic governor landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport around 5:40 p.m. with a group of state police officers and top aides, according to a pool report. She was met at the airport by Israels ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog.

Hochul received a security briefing then traveled about 30 minutes away to meet with families.

Today I saw pain, hurt, and mourning  but I also saw the incredible strength of the Jewish people, Hochul said in a message posted on X, formerly Twitter.

She is seen in an online video meeting and embracing volunteers at a food pantry, where the governor helped pack and drop off boxes for people who have had to move because of the conflict. Hochul said it was extraordinary to see how Israelis are showing up for one another in a time of crisis.

From there, Hochul was scheduled to be taken to Jerusalem, where she was expected stay for the night.

Hochul said her trip is meant to be a gesture of solidarity and support for Israel. New York is home to the largest Jewish population of any U.S. city, according to the American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University.

A nonprofit organization is funding travel costs for Hochul and her staff, and the state is covering the costs for her security detail, a spokesperson for Hochul said on Wednesday.

There is a deep, direct connection between New York state and Israel that has always been there, a bond steeled over decades, Hochul said. And its easy to go when the sun is shining and everything is fine.

The community feels, in Israel and in New York, that my going during these times will be the most significant symbol of their importance to us than anything else we could do, she said.

The war that began Oct. 7 has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured in the past 11 days.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, and at least 199 others, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli authorities

The start of Hochuls visit comes a day after a massive blast at a Gaza City hospital killed hundreds of people.

Hochul has said she wanted to ensure Israel has the resources to protect their citizens, while also allowing Gazan civilians to get the humanitarian assistance they need, as long as it would not benefit Hamas.

It is still my strong position that Israel must defend itself against terrorism, or else terrorism will know no boundaries, and we have seen what terrorism looks and feels like in our own city streets, she said during a press briefing Tuesday.

A spokesperson for Hochul said Wednesday that they dont have an exact number on how many New Yorkers are stuck in either Israel or Palestine because of the conflict.
JERUSALEM (AP)  The New York governors father died overnight while she was visiting wartime Israel, with the governor slipping a note grieving her loss into Jerusalems Western Wall holy site on Thursday.

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul learned of her 87-year-old father John Courtneys sudden death from a brain hemorrhage in Florida as she embarked on the second day of a trip to show support for Israel during its war with Hamas.

At the Western Wall, Hochul appeared to wipe away a tear before placing a handwritten note with prayers for Israel and for her father into a crack in the limestone wall.

Hochul told reporters she spoke to her father from the airport just before she departed for Israel earlier this week, a small smile peeking through as she recalled how he still talked in his gruff Irish way.

He said, Im proud of you, Dolly, but keep your goddamn head down, Hochul said.

The governors sojourn comes as the Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for a bloody cross-border massacre by Hamas militants in southern Israel almost two weeks ago.

Gazas Health Ministry said Thursday that 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded since the outbreak of the war.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed and roughly 200 others were abducted and taken into Gaza by Hamas.

Hochul met with Israeli families displaced by the conflict, and heard painful stories from families of American citizens taken hostage by Hamas and from Israelis who have been wounded during the fighting. She also held meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israels ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, reiterating New Yorks solidarity with Israel.

As the state with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, New York and Israel share a bond that will never be broken, Hochul posted on X, formally Twitter.

A nonprofit organization is funding travel costs for Hochul and her staff, and the state is covering the costs for her security detail, according to the governors office.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, flew to Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that offered support for the Israeli people and urged the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israeli airstrikes have pounded locations across the besieged Gaza Strip, including parts of the south that Israel had declared as safe zones. The attacks on Thursday have heightened fears among more than 2 million Palestinians trapped in the territory that nowhere was safe. More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory.
KYODO NEWS - Oct 19, 2023 - 15:58 | All, Japan

An Osprey tilt-rotor plane of the Ground Self-Defense Force arrived in Okinawa on Thursday for joint drills with U.S. forces, marking the first flight of one of the Japanese aircraft to the southern island prefecture, amid China's growing military assertiveness.

The arrival of the aircraft came despite an Okinawa prefectural government request to the Defense Ministry not to use the airport in Ishigaki Island due to safety concerns over the U.S.-made Ospreys, which take off and land like helicopters but cruise like planes.

"It is very regrettable that it landed in disregard of the prefecture's request," said Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki.

The aircraft, belonging to the GSDF's V-22 Osprey fleet based at Camp Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, landed on Ishigaki to prepare for the joint drills scheduled next Tuesday, according to Okinawa authorities.

The drills form part of the Resolute Dragon large-scale training exercise of the U.S. Marines and the GSDF from last Saturday through Oct. 31 simulating the defense of remote islands amid Beijing's intensified military activity in the East China Sea.

The Osprey is expected to take part in training for the transportation of wounded people from Okinawa to GSDF camps in southwestern Japan.

Ospreys have been involved in a series of serious accidents and mishaps both in Japan and abroad. In 2016 an MV-22, the variant used by the U.S. Marine Corps, crash-landed off Okinawa, with crashes also occurring in Australia in 2017 and August this year, killing three crew members on both occasions.

Since July 2020, GSDF Ospreys have been temporarily deployed at the Kisarazu camp with a deadline of July 2025, by when the government aims to relocate the fleet to the southwestern prefecture of Saga.

U.S. forces in Japan commenced deployment of six MV-22s at U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa in 2012. There are currently 24 MV-22s stationed at the Futenma base and six CV-22s at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo.

Related coverage:

Land minister sues Okinawa gov. over U.S. base landfill plan

Okinawa rejects central gov't order over U.S. base landfill work

Taiwan unveils 1st indigenous submarine amid cross-strait tensions
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Re: Trip to Kodaikanal Day 2:



We started around 8 a.m. in the morning and the plan was to visit Poombarai and Mannavanur villages which were 20 and 35 kms from our hotel respectively. They share a common route and for Mannavanur youll have to take an early diversion. We also had Poondi on our list but couldn't make it because of time constraints.



Some of the picturesque views en route to Poombarai.













The mesmerizing view of Poombarai village.









We decided not to visit Poombarai since we were running out of time and the villagers there told us that the roads were not that good. Next, the trip towards Mannavanur started.



It was around 1 p.m. when we reached Mannavanur and we visited the rabbit farm and lake. The grasslands surrounding the lake is yet another famous shooting spot in Kodaikanal and at the entrance they have even have a list of the movies that were shot there.



Mannavanur Lake





Rabbit farm. Look at those cute little rabbit kittens!









Sheep grazing in those grasslands was a sight to behold.





The lake has a zipline wherein you can cross the lake from one end to another and come back by a coracle. Unfortunately, none of us were allowed to go because it was only for people weighing less than 70 kgs.



We spent a lot of time there and decided to visit the Rose Garden next. It was 5 p.m. by the time we reached there.









Had a stroll and clicked some nice pictures. Some of the flowers clicked there:













Had our dinner in The Royal Tibet (the food was so good) and returned to the hotel around 9 p.m. End of Day 2.



Day 3:



Had breakfast at Astoria veg restaurant - one of the must visit eateries in Kodaikanal. We reached around 7.30 a.m. and it was partially full and by the time we finished our breakfast and left it was overcrowded.



Our next stop was Kurinji Andavar temple, and we had a very good darshan.





Decided to do some shopping before leaving, and we marched towards the lake area. We skipped Bryant Park and Lake since they were super crowded and also it was a Sunday. Kodaikanal shopping is always incomplete without those homemade chocolates - we bought a considerable amount of them.









The small eateries near the lake sell this delicious hot chocolate - you must definitely try it when you visit there. I thought that they were going to mix some cocoa powder in milk and give it to us. But what they do is they melt the chocolate bars in milk and give it in a cup along with a slice of bread. Just dip it and put it in your mouth. It tasted heavenly.





After some shopping we reached the hotel, packed our bags and started the return journey towards Madurai around 12 p.m. As mentioned earlier, we stopped for the Manjalar dam view for a few minutes and the view was excellent! What a pleasure it was, to drive on these roads! They were well laid.









Bye bye Kodaikanal!





We had lunch at Eden Garden restaurant at Batlagundu - would rate it okayish, and we reached Madurai around 4.30 p.m. Took some rest and departed for Chennai at 8 p.m.



Finally. about the performance of the vehicles - the Gixxer didnt break a sweat and it was a pleasure to drive on the hills. The i20 felt slightly underpowered at times (only during uphill drive when it had four people with full boot containing luggage of six people, especially in the third gear). The Gixxer returned around 32kmpl and it required a refill during the return near Madurai and the MID indicated fuel efficiency of the i20 for the entire trip of ~340kms was 14.3 kmpl. There were no tolls encountered during the entire trip.







Concluding this travelogue with some random clicks





















See you guys soon in yet another memorable trip! We started around 8 a.m. in the morning and the plan was to visitandvillages which were 20 and 35 kms from our hotel respectively. They share a common route and for Mannavanur youll have to take an early diversion. We also hadon our list but couldn't make it because of time constraints.Some of the picturesque views en route to Poombarai.The mesmerizing view of Poombarai village.We decided not to visit Poombarai since we were running out of time and the villagers there told us that the roads were not that good. Next, the trip towards Mannavanur started.It was around 1 p.m. when we reached Mannavanur and we visited the rabbit farm and lake. The grasslands surrounding the lake is yet another famous shooting spot in Kodaikanal and at the entrance they have even have a list of the movies that were shot there.. Look at those cute little rabbit kittens!Sheep grazing in those grasslands was a sight to behold.The lake has a zipline wherein you can cross the lake from one end to another and come back by a coracle. Unfortunately, none of us were allowed to go because it was only for people weighing less than 70 kgs.We spent a lot of time there and decided to visit thenext. It was 5 p.m. by the time we reached there.Had a stroll and clicked some nice pictures. Some of the flowers clicked there:Had our dinner in(the food was so good) and returned to the hotel around 9 p.m. End of Day 2.Had breakfast at- one of the must visit eateries in Kodaikanal. We reached around 7.30 a.m. and it was partially full and by the time we finished our breakfast and left it was overcrowded.Our next stop was, and we had a very good darshan.Decided to do some shopping before leaving, and we marched towards the lake area. We skippedandsince they were super crowded and also it was a Sunday. Kodaikanal shopping is always incomplete without those homemade chocolates - we bought a considerable amount of them.The small eateries near the lake sell this delicious hot chocolate - you must definitely try it when you visit there. I thought that they were going to mix some cocoa powder in milk and give it to us. But what they do is they melt the chocolate bars in milk and give it in a cup along with a slice of bread. Just dip it and put it in your mouth. It tasted heavenly.After some shopping we reached the hotel, packed our bags and started the return journey towards Madurai around 12 p.m. As mentioned earlier, we stopped for thefor a few minutes and the view was excellent! What a pleasure it was, to drive on these roads! They were well laid.Bye bye Kodaikanal!We had lunch at Eden Garden restaurant at Batlagundu - would rate it okayish, and we reached Madurai around 4.30 p.m. Took some rest and departed for Chennai at 8 p.m.Finally. about the performance of the vehicles - the Gixxer didnt break a sweat and it was a pleasure to drive on the hills. The i20 felt slightly underpowered at times (only during uphill drive when it had four people with full boot containing luggage of six people, especially in the third gear). The Gixxer returned around 32kmpl and it required a refill during the return near Madurai and the MID indicated fuel efficiency of the i20 for the entire trip of ~340kms was 14.3 kmpl. There were no tolls encountered during the entire trip.Concluding this travelogue with some random clicksSee you guys soon in yet another memorable trip! Last edited by s25 : 18th October 2023 at 13:13 .
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Amazon will relaunch its delivery drones in the UK next year, the shopping giant has confirmed. The company said it will begin using the unmanned, airborne vehicles for distributing goods from some of its same-day delivery sites  one of which will be in the UK.No location has yet been revealed. Its part of the expansion of the drones within the retail side of the business, which will also be rolled out in Italy and a third state in the US, on top of California and Texas, where the drones already operate. Sky News

Amazon is experimenting with a humanoid robot as the technology company increasingly seeks to automate its warehouses. It has started testing Digit, a two-legged robot that can grasp and lift items, at facilities this week. The device is first being used to shift empty tote boxes. The companys ambitious drive to integrate robotics across its sprawling operation has sparked fears about the effect on its workforce of almost 1.5 million humans. Tye Brady, the chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, claimed that  although it will render some jobs redundant  the deployment of robots would create new ones. The Guardian

A ChatGPT-style AI assistant, developed by Microsoft and embedded into its office apps, will become available to all from 1 November, following trials. Microsoft 365 Copilot can summarise meetings held in Teams for anyone who chooses not to attend. It can also draft emails, create word documents, spreadsheet graphs, and Powerpoint presentations in moments. Microsoft says it hopes the tool will eliminate drudgery but some worry tech like this will replace workers. There are also concerns it could leave businesses dangerously reliant on AI-powered assistance. BBC



Electric car maker Teslas profits took a dive in the third quarter, according to an earnings call on Wednesday in which the companys chief Elon Musk blamed staff working from home for being detached from reality. Teslas profits in Q3 of 2023 have plunged by over 40 per cent compared to the gains it made in the same period last year after the company slashed its car prices by around 25 per cent in an attempt to compete with other EV makers. The EV manufacturer reported a net profit of about $1.9bn for the time between July through September, a 44 percent drop from the $3.3bn in the same three-month period last year. Independent

WhatsApp users with two accounts will soon be able to switch between them on a single phone. Writing on Facebook today, CEO of WhatsApp owner Meta Mark Zuckerberg announced the new feature enabling two accounts to be logged in at once. Switch between two accounts on WhatsApp  soon youll be able to have two WhatsApp accounts on one phone within the app, he said Until now, users with more than one account, such as a personal WhatsApp and work profile, have needed to use two phones. Metro

After a wave of user feedback, Fitbit is detailing some improvements it plans to make to its redesigned mobile app. According to a Fitbit blog post, the company states that Steps streak will soon make a return to the app. If this is unfamiliar, its because this feature was previously only available for iOS users. However, after the outcry, Fitbit will return the feature and introduce it for the first time to Android owners. This should help getting those steps in feel a little more rewarding  and the ones youve already tallied will be taken into account, too. Android Central

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While navigating challenges in their respective markets, HP and Qualcomm have demonstrated a sustained commitment to innovation as a strategy for long-term growth.

While navigating challenges in their respective markets, HP and Qualcomm have demonstrated a sustained commitment to innovation as a strategy for long-term growth.

HP and Qualcomm, like much of the tech industry, currently find themselves in the doldrums for distinct reasons.

HP, a stalwart in the PC and printer market, has continued to adapt to the shifting tech landscape. With the Covid-driven heyday of increased PC sales over, the decline  or at least stabilizing  of traditional personal computing, increased competition, and a slow industry pivot toward innovative solutions and new usage models have hampered its growth.

Though interesting, the companys foray into 3D printing and enterprise services has yet to yield significant dividends, leaving shareholders skeptical. On the other hand, Qualcomm, a leader in mobile chipsets, faces its own set of challenges.

The smartphone market has flattened, and its ARM-based silicon solutions in the laptop space havent shown dramatic appeal yet to many users. Expressly, the maturation of the smartphone market and increased competition from rivals have limited its growth prospects.

Both companies must navigate rapidly changing technology trends, such as the rise of 5G and the internet of things (IoT), to regain their footing. Innovation, diversification, and effective cost management will be crucial for their resurgence in the tech industry.

Despite these challenges, neither HP nor Qualcomm have taken their foot off the innovation gas pedal. Tempting as that might be from an opex savings standpoint, the last few weeks have showcased important announcements that underscore each companys collective belief that innovation is the best way to mitigate the general markets sluggishness and lethargy.

HPs Live Better, Work Happier and Dream Bigger Mantra

The most attention-grabbing announcement made by HP recently wasnt the introduction of a portable all-in-one computer. The companys 2024 plan was presented during the HP Imagine 2023 conference, showcasing several exciting new projects and products, some of which are already available for presale.

HP President and CEO Enrique Lores and several other HP officials kicked off the event. The business unveiled new devices and video creation peripherals, customer care solutions, and plans for AI integration with enterprise- and consumer-grade laptops and desktops, providing an overview of the companys product and strategic direction for 2024.

Spectre Fold Wow Factor

The audience at Imagine 2023 was given a tour of the most recent HP accessories and equipment and information on impending releases by Alex Cho, president of personal systems and solutions.

Cho presented the HP Spectre Fold, which has a 17-inch screen and can be used as a tablet, laptop, or desktop. While others, notably Lenovo, have jumped into the foldable screen laptop space, the Spectre Fold has a few things up its sleeve.

With its low-profile keyboard and small size, it appears to be a typical 2-in-1 laptop at first glance. However, the keyboard can be removed to show the other half of the primary display, transforming the device into an all-in-one 17 desktop. Pre-orders for the Spectre Foldable PC are underway, with a starting price of $4,999.

The HP Spectre Foldable PC in extended screen mode (Image Credit: HP)

Envy Move Portable All-in-One PC

Cho also unveiled the HP Envy Move, a deceptively mobile all-in-one computer. It has a 23.8-inch display, an integrated handle, a 4-hour battery life, and a storage pocket at the back for the full-size keyboard that comes with it, which also has an integrated touchpad.

HP Envy Move 23.8-inch All-in-One PC (Images Credit: HP)

A 13th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of storage will be used as core configurable elements of the new HP Envy Move.

With a starting price of $899, the Envy Move is also now available for pre-order.

HP Targets Video Content Professionals

Cho then outlined the most recent products offered by HPs gaming peripheral division, HyperX.

The business intends to enter the video content creation market with the Vision S webcam and Audio Mixer interface, despite being best known for its headsets, mouse, and keyboards.

The 8MP Sony Starvix IMX415 sensor in the Vision S allows for up to 4K resolution at 30 frames per second or up to 60 frames per second at 1080p HD. It also has a magnetic privacy cover and an aluminum body for durability and spy-proofing. Established video streamers, podcasters, and other content producers were consulted on the HyperX Audio Mixer interface design.

Aside from its appeal to more prosumer-style users, beginners wishing to improve their video content may also benefit from these solutions.

Users may create unique equalizer settings for various devices in addition to their master audio because it can connect to XLR or USB microphones and 3.5mm audio input.

Poly Acquisition Paying Dividends

Cho concluded his presentation by discussing HPs work with Poly to develop webcams, headsets, and speakers for business conferencing and collaboration.

Next up was Dave Shull, HPs president of Workforce Solutions, who spoke about hybrid work solutions like HPs first-ever refurbished device resale program and AI-assisted workflow tools that can do everything from compiling complicated strings of code and calculations for data scientists to creating bulleted notes from any work meetings you might miss.

Next year, HP will make its groundbreaking new software platform, HP AI Studio, available to data scientists and other AI professionals to speed up and scale the development of AI models.

HP also unveiled a new AI workstation solution that makes creating and altering personal AI models and programs easier. Thanks to a partnership with Nvidia, HP says it will be the first company to market with dedicated enterprise workstation solutions utilizing the Nvidia AI Enterprise software platform in the coming months.

Finally, HPs most recent range of corporate printers, including the HP SitePrint, was unveiled by Tuan Tran, president of image and printing solutions, as he wrapped up the Imagine 2023 conference. A productivity-enhancing robotic construction printer called SitePrint is intended to paint construction layout blueprints on-site swiftly and precisely, minimizing the possibility of mistakes or delays.

The company collaborated with Leica Geosystems, Topcon, and Trimble for the SitePrint robot to be compatible with current survey tools and navigation systems. Tran clarified that the SitePrint would first go on sale in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland on Nov. 1. However, no release date or introductory pricing for the United States was given.

Qualcomm Gears Up AR/VR/MR Silicon Solutions

While much of the industry talk since June of this year has focused on Apples reveal of its Vision Pro solution, Qualcomm clearly sees an opportunity for those customers outside of the Apple ecosystem, and the chipmaker wants to take advantage of the price umbrella that will be created when Vision Pro becomes available.

Recently, Qualcomm unveiled its newest AR/VR/MR ingredient solutions. The company hopes to provide manufacturers with an expansive and powerful platform for developing comparable solutions in light of the impending emergence of new AR/VR platforms, which has been validated by the announcement of Apples Vision Pro.

New mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR) products will be made possible by the new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 and the AR Gen 1. With the latest generation, Qualcomm is concentrating on making it possible for OEMs to create more affordable, small, and light devices without needing a large battery pack.

OEMs will have an excellent opportunity to experiment with the new platforms in this market, as a considerable segment of users will be put off by Vision Pros $3,500 price point.

In my view, the more intriguing of the two is the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR Gen 2 CPU. With 2.5 times more GPU performance than its predecessor, it enables mixed reality and virtual reality devices. Supporting up to 10 cameras and sensors and boasting an 8x improvement in AI performance for handling tasks, it also incorporates the latest Spectra ISP and can accommodate two 3K screens.

Most importantly, these attributes make it a compelling competitor to the Apple Vision Pro.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 platform is designed to power thin mixed reality smart glasses. Additionally, it allows for the performance of visual searches and real-time translation, as well as direct recording and live broadcasting from the glasses.

Its interesting to note that Meta helped develop both systems, which will soon appear in the recently announced products from Meta.

For instance, the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 Platform will power the upcoming Meta Quest 3. The new Ray-Ban Meta Smart eyewear will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 platform.

By 2024, additional OEMs are expected to use this platform to create their own devices.

Closing Thoughts on Long-Term Strategies

One shouldnt expect these solutions to completely or immediately turbocharge the slowing businesses that HP and Qualcomm participate in, such as the PC and smartphone categories.

These solutions should be considered strategic as theyre setting the stage for long-term growth once overall vitality returns to the general technology markets.

For example, the HP Spectre Fold epitomizes HPs innovation DNA by pushing the boundaries of laptop design and showcasing HPs commitment to redefining user experiences. Its flexible, foldable OLED display seamlessly transitions between laptop and tablet modes, offering versatility and convenience.

This bold departure from conventional laptop design underscores HPs willingness to embrace emerging technologies, delivering novel solutions that cater to evolving consumer needs.

The Spectre Fold demonstrates HPs dedication to pushing new frontiers and creating products that inspire and amaze users.

My recent interview with Stacy Wolff, HPs Global Head of Design and Sustainability, provides some color on what the company hopes to achieve with the new products announced at the Imagine 2023 event:

Similarly, the Qualcomm XR2 Gen 2 platform is a big deal for the MR and VR markets, as it is poised to make these technologies more enticing for mainstream users, something that has yet to happen.

Its advanced processing power, improved graphics capabilities, and enhanced AI integration enable more immersive and lifelike experiences, and its lower power consumption and better thermal efficiency result in longer-lasting, comfortable wear.

Additionally, support for 5G connectivity  where Qualcomm is the market leader  ensures seamless, high-quality content streaming. Qualcomms innovation sets the stage for AR and VR solutions to become more accessible and captivating for a broader audience, foreshadowing a new era of mainstream adoption.

HP and Qualcomm have some heavy lifting to do concerning these highlighted announcements. For example, HP Spectre Fold has the potential to implement some attractive new usage models, and the companys strong relationship with Microsoft will help educate the market.

However, since many PC OEMs will ultimately offer comparable types of products, the risk of usage model balkanization in Windows may confuse users and hamper traction.

As for Qualcomm, the most significant risk in the AR/VR space is that the developer community doesnt rise to the occasion with compelling new applications that have always been a strength for Apple in the smartphone and tablet space.

Qualcomms play here will undoubtedly involve the likes of Google. Still, it will be up to one or two significant OEMs (perhaps Samsung) with industry heft to lure developers to deliver compelling applications that exploit the power of Qualcomms silicon.

While there is little HP and Qualcomm can do to shorten the broader macroeconomic malaise the global technology space finds itself in, both companies are investing in the future and laying the groundwork for a general market turnaround that will pay dividends over the next 12-24 months.

HP and Qualcomm are playing the long game, but kudos to both companies for not playing it safe.
In context: It's been a few years since the FCC began requiring telecom providers to implement the STIR/SHAKEN robocall mitigation framework. Most major carriers have either fully or partially implemented the protocol or have built an acceptable alternative and submitted that plan to the FCC. However, some providers seem to be thumbing their noses at the regulator by sending in nonsensical or blank mitigation plans.

On Tuesday, the FCC referred 20 cell phone carriers to its Enforcement Bureau for filing "deficient" robocall mitigation plans. More than three years ago, the FCC mandated that telecom companies implement STIR/SHAKEN or submit an alternative robocall mitigation strategy lest they find themselves blocked in the US. Most of them submitted plans by September or October of 2021 or earlier.

After reviewing the submissions, the FCC found several lacking the information required in its order. The Commission then sent boilerplate warnings to the deficient carriers in January and February 2022 to resubmit their mitigation plans.

"The FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau contacted the Company on February 18, 2022, to inform it that its robocall mitigation program attachment contained with its certification may have been uploaded in error because it did not satisfy the Commission's rules requiring it to describe its robocall mitigation efforts."

Some of the 20 carriers contacted submitted a blank page as their plan. Many others returned ridiculous entries as if to mock the FCC. For example, National Cloud Communications attached "a 'Windows Printer Test Page' that was unrelated to robocall mitigation."

Route 66 Broadband just returned an otherwise blank page signed by its CEO saying, "I, Timothy P Terral, CEO of Route 66 Broadband, I [sic] declare (or certify, verify, or state) under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on 9/28/2021."

Other examples of crazy mitigation plans include an unrelated letter from Harvard Business Services, a 'Taxpayer Profile' on a Pakistani government website, the 2017 public notice of the FCC's "net neutrality" repeal, a promotional document titled "Viettel Solutions: Making Smart Cities Vision a Reality," a .png image of the company's logo, and another .png of "an indiscernible object."

Yesterday, the FCC's Enforcement Bureau issued further warnings to the companies, informing them they have 14 days (October 30 deadline) to "show cause" why the FCC should not remove them from the robocall mitigation database. Other carriers would be forced to block traffic from the offending telecoms if removed from the list.

"Removal from the database would require all intermediate providers and terminating voice service providers to cease carrying the companies' traffic, these companies' customers would be blocked, and no traffic originated by these companies would reach the called party," said the Commission.

It is unclear why it took the FCC this long to enact enforcement measures. It has been aware of the delinquent carriers since at least two years ago, and initial warnings went out 20 months ago. Of course, we are dealing with a government bureaucracy, so maybe it shouldn't be all that surprising.

Image credit: Victor Bonomi
What just happened? Intel's recently released 14th-generation Core processors are mostly a minor upgrade over their predecessors. Still, overclockers have proved that their performance gains are enough to set a new world record for desktop CPU frequency. A processor has only passed 9 GHz once before.

Mere days after the Raptor Lake Refresh launch, overclockers have used the lineup's flagship processor to set a new clock frequency world record. The team behind the project plans to push the CPU's limit a bit further.

Jon "Elmor" Sandstrom from ElmorLabs collaborated with Asus ROG to overclock an Intel Core i9-14900KF to an unprecedented 9.04 GHz, 50 percent beyond its standard 6 GHz boost clock. The effort took several attempts, and properly validating the results on the recordkeeping site CPU-Z presented a separate challenge.

While extreme overclocking is popularly associated with liquid nitrogen cooling, Elmor and Asus instead utilized liquid helium. The team nearly ran out before successfully confirming the new world record on CPU-Z.

Also read: Intel Core i9-14900K, i7-14700K and i5-14600K Review

Although the final validated result was 9,043.92 MHz, Skatterbencher, who collaborated on the project, claims they reached 9.1 GHz, but technical issues prevented the higher number from becoming official. The team will likely soon make future attempts to post a legitimate 9.1 GHz record.

According to Skatterbencher's history of CPU overclocking, the world record race stagnated for around a decade before Elmor began breaking new boundaries with recent Intel processors. An AMD FX-8350 achieved 8,793.33 MHz in 2012  a record that stood until Elmor hit 8,812.85 MHz with an i9-13900K last October. He broke the 9 GHz barrier that December on the same CPU before slightly edging out his record on the Raptor Lake Refresh chip this week.

Intel launched the 14th-generation chips on Tuesday at the same price as the previous lineup, dispelling rumors of a hike. True to their name, the Raptor Lake Refresh processors are a refinement of Raptor Lake with estimated single-digit performance uplifts.

Users unwilling to give up their LGA 1700 socket motherboards could see the new CPUs as a relatively affordable upgrade. Upcoming generations like Arrow Lake and the laptop-focused Meteor Lake will require new systems, significantly overhauling Intel's design scheme and feature set with a chiplet-based orientation and integrated AI hardware. The company expects to release the two lineups in 2024.
What just happened? Just because you know something bad is coming doesn't make its confirmation any less disappointing. Reports that Netflix has been planning another price hike have now been confirmed after the company announced it was raising the cost of some plans in the US, UK, and France.

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal wrote that Netflix was planning to raise its prices once again. The streamer implemented its last hike in January 2022, though it did stop offering the Basic $9.99 ad-free plan to new and returning customers in July, meaning the cheapest commercial-free tier for newbies went up to $15.49 per month.

Starting today, Netflix is raising the price of both the Basic and Premium plans in the US, UK, and France. Those members still on the Basic plan will start paying $11.99, marking a $2 increase, while the Premium tier jumps from $19.99 to $22.99. UK subs will now pay 7.99 and 17.99 for Basic and Premium, respectively, while French prices are 10.99 and 19.99.

The prices of Netflix's $6.99 ad-supported plan and the $15.49 Standard tier remain unchanged.

The latest increase means that Netflix's Premium tier has increased 91.7% since 2015, when it was just $11.99.

"As we deliver more value to our members, we occasionally ask them to pay a bit more," Netflix wrote in its letter to shareholders. "Our starting price is extremely competitive with other streamers and at $6.99 per month in the US, for example, it's much less than the average price of a single movie ticket."

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters would not comment on when the company might raise the prices of the ad-supported and Standard plans. He said the timing will fit into the company's "philosophy" of "occasionally" raising prices to continue delivering better content.

Some had predicted that Netflix's password-sharing crackdown would result in a mass exodus of subscribers, but the streamer says the move has been "exceeding" expectations. It added 8.76 million new subs over the past few months, pushing its worldwide total to 247.15 million.

"The cancel reaction continues to be low, exceeding our expectations, and borrower households converting into full paying memberships are demonstrating healthy retention. As a result, we're revenue positive in every region when accounting for additional spinoff accounts and extra members, churn and changes to our plan mix," Netflix stated.

Netflix's ad-supported plan has also been a huge success, with membership increasing almost 70% from the previous quarter. It's also the tier that 30% of new signups opt for in the 12 countries that offer it.

Netflix reported that the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes had resulted in about $1 billion in "lower-than-planned cash content spend" during the last quarter, but the company still generated revenue of $8.5 billion, up 8% year-on-year.

It'll certainly be interesting to see how many people leave Netflix permanently following this latest price rise. It has plenty of enticing content coming up, but perhaps more people will start canceling their subscriptions and rejoining temporarily when new seasons of shows like Stranger Things and One Piece arrive.
KYODO NEWS - Oct 19, 2023 - 22:25 | World, All, Japan

Chinese authorities have formally arrested a Japanese businessman detained earlier this year on suspicion of espionage, the Japanese government said Thursday, despite its repeated calls to release him.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a press conference that the government confirmed the arrest in mid-October of the man in his 50s, saying Tokyo will continue to urge Beijing to release him as soon as possible by working "at various levels."

The man is an employee of Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma Inc. and has been detained by Chinese authorities in Beijing since March. China told Japan last month the man had been placed in criminal detention -- a step leading to official arrest.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a press conference, "We will handle the case in accordance with law and protect the lawful rights and interests of the person concerned."

An Astellas Pharma official told Kyodo News the company will "continue to deal appropriately with the situation through the (Japanese) Foreign Ministry."

The arrest comes as relations between the two Asian neighbors remain strained following the start in late August of Japan's discharge of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea.

The Japanese citizen, who formerly served as a senior official of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China, was detained just before his scheduled return to Japan. The specific details of how he may have violated the counterespionage law and criminal code in China remain unknown.

On July 1, a revised counterespionage law took effect in China, broadening the scope of what constitutes spying activities. As the definition of national security remains unclear, the legislation has raised fears among expatriate and foreign business communities.

The news of the Astellas employee's formal arrest disappointed some Japanese participants at a two-day forum on bilateral relations held in Beijing through Friday.

Yasushi Kudo, head of Japanese nonprofit think tank Genron NPO, urged China to explain the reason for the arrest, saying fears are spreading among Japanese nationals living in China. The entity is a co-organizer of the event attended by experts of the two countries.

A Japanese researcher who took part in the forum expected that the number of visitors from Japan to China will further drop due to the incident, while a senior Japanese banker said the amended counterespionage law has had "a major negative impact" on the business sector's efforts to deepen exchanges with China.

Since China's counterespionage law first came into force in November 2014, 17 Japanese citizens including the Astellas employee have been detained for alleged involvement in spying activities. Five are still being held, according to the Japanese government.

Related coverage:

China to soon decide whether to arrest Japanese national over spying

China steps up scrutiny of Japanese after Fukushima water decision

Japan business leaders to make 1st China visit after COVID in January
Recap: The "Five Eyes" alliance comprises intelligence agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US. Born out of informal secret meetings during World War II, today the alliance is considered one of the most comprehensive known espionage-sharing initiatives in history.

Intelligence agencies belonging to the Five Eyes circle are worried about China, and they are now officially expressing their concern in public. Representatives from the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand took part in a recent summit hosted by the Hoover Institution think tank at Stanford University, joining a heated discussion hosted by former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The summit was about emerging threats against innovation and security, and FBI director Christopher Wray said that nothing is more dangerous to innovation and security than China. According to Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Director-General Mike Burgess, Beijing's government is engaged in the "most sustained, scaled, and sophisticated theft" of intellectual property and "acquisition" of expertise in human history.

China is involved in an "unprecedented" IP theft effort, Wray remarked, which is challenging to fight both in "scale and breadth." The country's hacking program is bigger than the efforts made by every other nation combined.

Beijing's hacking effort includes both traditional nation-state spies and other, "non-traditional" agents, the FBI director said, which work as business insiders and exploit "seemingly innocuous joint ventures investments" to steal innovative tech from the West. China can use all those tools deployed in tandem, at a scale the likes of which "the world has never seen," Wray stated.

The Five Eyes intelligence alliance is worried about China's threat against innovative technologies such as quantum computing, robotics, biotech, and of course artificial intelligence. AI is a significant concern among the allied spy agencies, as it can be used (and abused) to write malicious code, sophisticated spear-phishing attacks, and to create fake content for effective disinformation campaigns.

China is already taking advantage of generative AI algorithms to create deepfake audio and images, Wray said, and is actively trying to spy on companies involved in the development of these technologies. MI5 (UK) director General Ken McCallum said that people currently working on cutting-edge innovations should consider national security as one of their priorities. Because you might not be interested in geopolitics, but geopolitics is "certainly interested in you."
Bottom line: Nokia has announced plans to slash as many as 14,000 jobs and after looking at its latest quarterly results, the motive is clear. The Finnish telecommunications company's third quarter report revealed a 20 percent dip in net sales year over year, from 6.24 billion euros down to 4.98 billion euros. Profit, meanwhile, fell 69 percent to 133 million euros, down from 428 million euros during the same period a year earlier.

Nokia said its goal with the restructuring is to lower its cost base by between 800 million euros and 1.2 billion euros by the end of 2026, representing a 10-15 percent reduction in personal expenses. At least 400 million euros in savings will be realized in 2024 alone, we're told, followed by an additional 300 million euros in 2025. That would leave another 100 million euros to 500 million euros to be squeezed out in 2026.

To get there, Nokia will have to say goodbye to thousands of employees. The program is expected to bring Nokia's global headcount down to between 72,000 and 77,000 employees from the 86,000 it has today. The company expects most of the savings  and thus, cuts  to involve the mobile networks, cloud and network services, and corporate divisions.

In Q3, Nokia saw net sales dip 19 percent as 5G implementation in India leveled out, negating a previously enjoyed offset to the ongoing downturn in North America.

Nokia isn't the first to speak out about the disappointment of 5G. In August, SK Telecom argued that 5G didn't quite live up to the hype and that the 5G rollout thus far has fallen short of the technological revolution we were initially promised.

Back in February, rival telecom player Ericsson said it would be cutting 8,500 jobs as part of a similar cost-cutting measure. In its third quarter report earlier this week, Ericsson also saw sales and profit slide compared to the year-ago period.

Shares in Nokia are down just over five percent on the news as of this writing.

Image credit: Raunak Jha
A new study has found that AI chatbots present in the world today can learn a lot about a person, and they could also learn about personal information and profile the user by simply engaging in a conversation with it. Despite the conversation having no special indications about who a person is or what they do in life, the AI can still learn about various personal information.

It was also found in the study that this phenomenon among AI chatbots is hard to prevent, something that scammers or threat actors may be able to take advantage of.

AI Chatbots Can Profile, Learn About Personal Info

(Photo : Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Wired detailed a new research from ETH Zurich which recently presented its study, claiming that AI chatbots have the capabilities to learn about personal information and can profile a person they are talking to. By only having normal conversations with AI-powered chatbots, it can learn a lot about a person, including their race, occupation, and location, among many other data.

The study, led by Dr. Martin Vechev, claimed that through this capability, learning about one's personal information is hard to prevent.

According to Vechev, it remains unclear how this problem can be fixed in the present, already a problematic capability of the AI.

Read Also: ChatGPT Users Can Now Access Up-to-Date Information Through New Internet-Browsing Feature

Scammers May Take Advantage of This

The researchers from Zurich claimed that it tested the AI chatbots from OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Antrophic, already alerting each other about this looming problem. Vechev and the researchers also claimed that this capability to learn personal information may be something that scammers may use to "harvest" sensitive data from the chatbots and create profiles of various individuals.

AI Chatbots and its Training

One of the key ways for AIs and chatbots to get smart and be advanced as people see them today is through machine learning via different models, including the famous large language models (LLM). It is widely known that OpenAI's LLM for ChatGPT is the GPT-4, now the most advanced in the industry, offering the latest data available, particularly with its capabilities to access the internet.

In a previous study, researchers were able to see its progression in various fields, and in one particular focus, ChatGPT was found to give better medical advice regarding depression compared to real doctors.

Apart from OpenAI, other AI chatbots also have their version of the training, centering on their massive access to data and the internet to gather information for their offers.

The recent study which found AI chatbots' capabilities to create a profile of a person in various conversations, even when only talking about mundane things or asking it to do something is hard to prevent, suggests the research. While for now, this finding has not yet been exploited by scammers on a large scale, the future might be different if they got ahold of these personal information.

Related Article: How to Stay Safe and Protected From AI Text Fraud: Effective Ways to Spot It [2023]

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A newly developed Robotic Prosthetic Leg by North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina improves amputees' movement to the point that it returns the subject to instinctively use natural movements and muscles similar to abled individuals, as reported by Interesting Engineering.

The press release for the study states that the newest development, developed using a previous study, uses electromyographic (EMG) sensors that allow amputees, specifically those with below-the-knee amputation on one leg, to use the invention with greater ease as well as "naturally and intuitively."

(Photo : MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)

Bionic limbs produced by M Robotics on display during the Amazon Re:MARS conference on robotics and artificial intelligence at the Aria Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 5, 2019.

Specifically, the report states that with the help of the EMG sensors placed on the amputees' calf, the subjects could tell the robotic prosthetic ankle's artificial muscles which to contract and to what extent by sensing which muscles on the calf were flexed.

Co-author of the Study, Helen Huang, stated the study discovered this clinically significant finding by focusing on a "surprisingly complicated" concept of "postural stability."

Aaron Fleming, co-author of the study, praised the invention's versatility by stating that the "study participants were significantly more stable when using the robotic prototype," adding that participants were "less likely to stumble or fall."

New vs. Current Amputee Postural Stability

Huang explained why the study's prototype allowed for a more "natural" movement by stating that able-bodied individuals' postural stability often begins at the ankle. People who have lost a lower limb typically have to make up for their loss of ankle control. The study concluded that an EMG-responsive robotic ankle enables users to revert to their natural response to maintain stability.

Through the tests, the researchers concluded that their findings allowed amputees to possibly no longer compensate for the absence of one's limbs by strengthening other intact joints. Something that conventional therapeutic interventions have done. Instead, the study's prototype can be a substitute and "actively assist postural stability."

The study tested ten overall participants, five amputee participants, and five able-bodied participants, all middle-aged males. All recruited lower-limb amputees had to wear their prostheses at least 12 hours a day as a limitation set by the study. Before any tests were done, the participants reportedly were allowed to practice with the prototype to ensure familiarity.

Read Also: High School Students Help their Differently Abled Classmate by 3D-Printing a Robotic Hand

Data Gathering

Results are drawn from a variety of tasks. First were the amputee participants being examined "using their daily, [non-EMG-enabled prosthetic] and, on a separate day, using the dEMG-controlled prosthetic ankle," while able-bodied participants were examined just for a day.

Tasks done to understand the prosthesis's postural stability for both amputees and able-bodied participants were "expected perturbations" that test participants through "applied disturbances to participants via the arms" through a push and pull motion.

The next test was a "voluntary postural sway task" that saw the participants swaying "as far forward and backward as possible while keeping their feet flat on the ground for 25 consecutive sways."

Lastly, full-body motion capture and an instrumented split-belt treadmill tracked the participants' joint kinematics (motion between two joints) and kinetics (the force needed to change motion).

Huang stated that larger tests for the study are underway to " demonstrate the effects of the technology and identify which individuals may benefit most."

The study is 'Neural Prosthesis Control Restores Near-Normative Neuromechanics in Standing Postural Control.'

Related Article: This 3D-Printed Soft Robotic Gripper Can Operate Without Electronics - How Does It Work?

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The Google Wallet has recently updated the supported state IDs that it can keep digitally, adding three new states in the United States including Arizona, Colorado, and Georgia. This means that Driver's Licenses and other forms of state IDs may now be stored on the Google Wallet app via Android, now having four areas in the US that owners may use for the digital experience.

Google Wallet Adds Arizona, Colorado, Georgia State IDs

(Photo : Google)

Google has recently announced that it is adding three new states that would support the digitalization of its official state IDs, including Arizona, Colorado, and Georgia for all valid identification cards. The service now features four states supporting its service, including Maryland, which was the first availability of the service for all digital ID needs.

There are several requirements needed for the Google Wallet to store the ID, and the most important is having one's smartphone updated to Android 8 or higher for this to work.

Moreover, Bluetooth and Nearby devices must be turned on, and Google advises adding a screen lock to the smartphone. Google Wallet can store US Driver's Licenses and State IDs from these regions.

Read Also: Google Is Testing New Homepage Design Similar to News-Focused Interfaces of Rivals Bing, Yahoo

How to Use Google Wallet to Store Your Digital IDs?

First, users need to search the app via the Google Play Store or scan the QR via the Wallet's website to download it.

Next, launch the app select "Add to Wallet" and tap "Select ID Card." Select your state from the four mentioned above to add to the app, prompting the scanning and verification process. It would require the physical ID, a brief video verification, and Google sending the ID to the state for further authentication.

Once verified, the Wallet app would notify the user that their ID is added to the digital records in their phone.

Digital IDs on Android and iOS

Back in 2022, the Mountain View giant rebranded its Google Pay to the new "Google Wallet" app that can store digital IDs on Android smartphones, with eligibility requirements for users in their OS versions. Alongside this, Google allowed the integration and storing of digital IDs to the Android smartphone via the app, including student IDs, Driver's License, and more.

Apple is also not one to lag behind Google as the company centered on the Apple Wallet app on the iOS platform to also keep a digital copy of one's plastic cards, particularly with Driver's Licenses and Student IDs.

Both services have been looking to expand on partner states that would accept digital IDs for identification and verification processes in various entry points like the TSA in airports or simply providing it to police or stores.

Being able to store digital IDs would reduce the need to bring one's physical wallet and the cards inside it with them at all times, as the smartphone alone could present this where it is needed. Google Wallet now adds three states where their state IDs may be stored digitally via Android, with a total of four areas where the service would be applicable to meet their needs.

Related Article: Google Accessibility Features Now Live for Maps, Search, and Assistant

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AI company Anthropic has been sued by music publishers Universal Music, ABKCO, and Concord Publishing over alleged copyright infringement of their songs.

According to Reuters, this lawsuit filed in Tennessee federal court on Wednesday appeared to be the first against Anthropic and its first case over song lyrics.

The publishers accused Anthropic of using an "innumerable" amount of copyrighted song lyrics to train its chatbot Claude and posting the lyrics in its prompted answers without permission. The lawsuit claimed this was a "clear violation against well-established copyright laws."

By unlawfully copying and disseminating vast amounts of copyrighted works, the AI startup funded by tech giants Google and Amazon allegedly violated these laws on a "systematic and widespread basis."

The publishers claimed that Anthropic used lyrics from more than 500 songs to train its chatbot, which includes "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys, "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, "Halo" by Beyonce, and "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars.

The publishers are reportedly seeking potentially tens of millions of dollars in damages from Anthropic and an order to stop the alleged infringement.

(Photo : Photo by THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images)

A picture taken on February 8, 2019 in Paris shows a smartphone and its earphones as an audio podcast is being played. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)

Anthropic's 'Unlawful Exploitation'

Anthropic's "unlawful exploitation" was explained in the lawsuit through various instances. Universal Music and its co-plaintiffs noted that the AI company keeps the origins of the content used to train its AI a secret.

According to the lawsuit, Anthropic only provided limited information, saying that its "Claude models are trained on a proprietary mix of publicly available information from the Internet, datasets that [they] license from third party businesses, and data that our users affirmatively share or that crowd workers provide," and that the text on which Claude 2 was trained continued through early 2023 and is 90% English.

Because Anthropic was allegedly aware that it was duplicating copyrighted information without permission from the copyright owners, the company reportedly refused to be transparent, not sharing the materials it used to teach Claude.

Another instance claimed in the lawsuit was how the company's AI model responds with evidently exact or nearly exact copies of the publishers' copyrighted lyrics when prompted by users.

Anthropic also allegedly failed to indicate that it will take any actions to remove copyrighted content, even though it "cleans" the text it ingests to eliminate offensive language and other elements it wants to exclude from its training corpus.

Anthropic's AI model has also been claimed to be capable of creating lyrics for new songs using lyrics from existing copyrighted songs. In some instances, bits of a copyrighted work may be combined with portions of another copyrighted piece, thus "inconsistent" and damaging to its intended form.

Read Also: Radio Host Sues OpenAI After ChatGPT' Hallucinates' Legal Information

Universal Music and Co-Plaintiffs on AI

It was stated in the lawsuit that the music publishers viewed AI positively. They clarified that the companies "embrace innovation and recognize the great promise of AI when used ethically and responsibly."

However, they said that "Anthropic violates these principles" as it failed to "abide by well-established copyright laws, just as countless other technology companies regularly do."

"As a result of Anthropic's mass copying and ingestion of Publishers' song lyrics, Anthropic's AI models generate identical or nearly identical copies of those lyrics, in clear violation of Publishers' copyrights," the music publishers noted.

Related Article: Google Facing Lawsuit Alleging Data Theft, Copyright Violations for AI Development

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A new sustainable tourism destination in Saudi Arabia's Gulf of Aqaba features three eco-friendly hotels designed to blend with the natural surroundings. Visitors can enjoy adventure, wellness, and exploration in the valley.

(Photo : NEOM Official YouTube Channel)

A captivating new destination, Leyja is a stunning natural valley carved into towering mountains. It will be home to three luxurious boutique hotels which encompass concepts of Adventure, Oasis and Wellness.

Unveiling Leyja

A pristine region located in the picturesque Gulf of Aqaba in northwest Saudi Arabia called Leyja is set to unveil itself as a new sustainable tourism destination. Led by the Board of Directors of NEOM, Interesting Engineering reported that this initiative boasts three thoughtfully designed hotels that harmonize with the stunning natural surroundings.

Tourists visiting Leyja can look forward to a diverse range of activities, from thrilling adventures to serene wellness retreats, allowing them to immerse themselves in the valley's unique offerings.

This development goes beyond providing comfortable accommodations; it includes upscale dining options, modern restaurants, rooftop infinity pools, guided wadi walks, picturesque hiking trails, and opportunities for mountain biking and rock climbing, ensuring a comprehensive and unforgettable visitor experience.

Aligning with Saudi Vision to 2030

The company is committed to aligning with Saudi Vision 2030, aiming to create a robust and sustainable tourism sector.

NEOM's vision extends to dedicating the vast majority of its land in various destinations and cities as nature reserves.

In Leyja, an impressive 95 percent of the area will be meticulously preserved for the environment, utilizing innovative and eco-friendly construction methods to seamlessly integrate the development into the natural surroundings.

In line with this approach, the statement emphasized that the three hotels in Leyja have been thoughtfully designed by world-renowned architects to harmonize with the adjacent natural landscape, operate sustainably, and deliver unique experiences.

The properties in the region are set to provide a total of 120 boutique rooms and suites, evenly distributed with 40 units in each hotel.

Tailoring Properties for Unique Adventures

In Leyja, each of these three properties has been tailored to provide unique adventures. One is designed for active enthusiasts, featuring a deconstructed structure that ingeniously ascends the wadi walls in a stair-like fashion. This setup allows guests easy access to rock climbing and other high-energy activities in the vicinity.

The second property, located at the heart of the valley, features a staircase leading from the Canyon, ensuring convenient access for guests eager to explore the stunning surroundings. Lastly, the third property stands as a wellness retreat, with a focus on promoting longevity.

As per Cision, its high-tech, reflective facade mirrors the breathtaking beauty of the valley walls. What sets it apart is its design, which permits the wadi's natural passage through the center of the property, offering an entirely unique and interactive experience for visitors.

Also Read: Carbon Footprint Caused By Global Tourism Is Harmful For The Environment, 4 Times Higher Than Previous Estimates



While the region is still in its developmental stages, it does not specify an exact opening date. Once Leyja is inaugurated, Skift reported that it will not only immerse tourists in the natural beauty and activities that the region offers but also provide a diverse range of high-quality experiences within the properties.

These will include gourmet dining experiences from renowned chefs, wellness facilities, and rooftop infinity pools at all three hotels. Leyja promises a blend of natural splendor and luxurious amenities, ensuring a memorable and holistic travel experience for all who visit.

Related Article: Steven Garcia: Pioneering Innovation and Sustainability in the Production Experience and Tourism Industry



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NASA's Parker Solar Probe has achieved a remarkable milestone, securing its position as the fastest human-made object on record. This comes after it has made a record-breaking speed as it gets a gravitational assist from Venus to tumble closer to the sun's blazing hot surface.

On September 27, the probe soared at an astonishing 394,736 mph (635,266 km/h) in close proximity to the sun's surface, facilitated by a gravitational boost from a near encounter with Venus on August 21.

New Pinnacle in Human Engineering

This velocity eclipsed its previous record in November 2021, marking a new pinnacle in human engineering. Alongside this feat, the probe also established a fresh distance record, approaching within an unprecedented 4.51 million miles (7.26 million km) of the solar surface - an orbit closer than any spacecraft has ventured before, according to NASA.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe completed its 17th close approach to the sun on September 27, breaking its own distance record by skimming just 4.51 million miles (7.26 million kilometers) from the solar surface.

After benefiting from a gravity-assist flyby of Venus on August 21, the Parker Solar Probe achieved its close approach, known as perihelion, at 7:28 p.m. EDT.

During this phase, the probe traveled at an astonishing speed of 394,736 miles per hour (635,266 kilometers per hour) in orbit around the sun, setting yet another record.

This marked the midpoint of the probe's 17th solar encounter, which commenced on September 22 and will extend until October 3. NASA noted that the spacecraft entered this encounter in optimal condition, with all systems functioning within normal parameters.

On October 1, the Parker Solar Probe relayed a continuous stream of telemetry, providing status updates to mission operators at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, where the spacecraft was both conceived and constructed.

From October 4 to 19, the probe will transmit a bunch of scientific data from the encounter. This dataset will predominantly encompass the characteristics, composition, and dynamics of the solar wind as it emanates from the sun, destined for analysis back on Earth.

Read Also: A Sunspot With the Size of Four Earths Ejects 10 Million Degree Solar Flare, Causes Radio Blackout over the Pacific

One of the Most Powerful CMEs

In recent news, the probe also achieved a significant milestone on September 5, when it navigated through one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever documented.

CMEs are colossal eruptions from the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, and play a pivotal role in shaping space weather, which can pose threats to satellites, disrupt communication and navigation systems, and even disrupt terrestrial power grids.

NASA noted that understanding the dynamics of CMEs with interplanetary dust could significantly enhance the accuracy of predictions about their transit from the Sun to Earth and when they might impact our planet.

Guillermo Stenborg, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, emphasized the significance of this observation, saying, "These interactions between CMEs and dust were theorized two decades ago, but had not been observed until Parker Solar Probe viewed a CME act like a vacuum cleaner, clearing the dust out of its path."

Related Article: 'Portrait of the Sun:' World's Most Powerful Solar Telescope Snaps The Face of the Sun in Crisp Detail

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General Motors, Honda, and Cruise have announced plans to launch a robotaxi service in Japan in early 2026 through a new joint venture.

The service will reportedly start in central Tokyo with dozens of custom-designed Cruise Origins, later expanding to 500 such vehicles. The companies envision extending the service area beyond central Tokyo.

GM-Cruise-Honda Partnership For Robotaxi Service in Japan

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt highlighted the societal demand for secure and accessible transportation in Japan - a need that autonomous vehicles can effectively address.

Given Japan's status as one of the world's largest potential markets for autonomous ride-hailing vehicles, he also emphasized the substantial business potential, particularly in densely populated urban areas.

Cruise Origin, a product of collaboration between Cruise, GM, and Honda, promises a unique mobility experience for customers in Japan. This specially crafted autonomous vehicle accommodates up to six passengers in comfortable campfire-style seating.

GM will manufacture approximately 500 Origins at the Factory ZERO Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant in Michigan for the launch. In a press statement, GM's Chair and CEO, Mary Barra, affirmed the company's dedication to shaping the future of transportation.

She noted the autonomous vehicles' significant advantages, from enhanced safety to increased accessibility. Barra said the partnership with Cruise and Honda leverages GM's expertise in advanced software and hardware to facilitate global mobility.

"The benefits of AVs - from safety to accessibility - are too profound to ignore and through this important partnership with Cruise and Honda, we're bringing forward innovation that leverages our expertise in cutting-edge software and hardware to help more people around the world get where they need to go," Barra noted.

Read Also: General Motors, Google Cloud Expand Partnership to Bring AI Tech Into Millions of Automaker's Vehicles

GM-Cruise-Honda Partnership to Address Shortage of Drivers in Japan

The new venture is set to collaborate with various stakeholders, including national and local governments and transportation service providers in Japan.

The partnership aims to address the shortage of drivers in Japan and provide a safer, more accessible mode of transportation. Honda's Global CEO, Toshihiro Mibe, cited their mission to create the "joy and freedom of mobility."

Through the driverless ride service in partnership with Cruise and GM, Mibe noted that the company envisions customers in Japan encountering a new dimension of mobility, enhancing the quality of their travel experiences.

"This will be a major step toward the realization of an advanced mobility society. Providing this service in central Tokyo where the traffic environment is complex will be a great challenge, however, by working jointly with Cruise and GM, Honda will exert further efforts to make it a reality," Mibe said.

Subject to government approvals, preliminary testing is scheduled to be initiated next year, followed by the commencement of commercial operations in central Tokyo by early 2026. The three companies target establishing the joint venture in the first half of 2024, pending regulatory approval.

Related Article: Ford to Still Feature Apple CarPlay as GM, Tesla Favors Android Auto or Own Infotainment Connections

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As Google Chrome celebrates its 15th anniversary and a fresh Material You redesign, it brings a bundle of exciting updates to the address bar, offering an enhanced browsing experience for its users.

These upgrades, which range from smarter autocompletion to typo fixes and improved layout, aim to make your online navigation smoother and more efficient.

Popular Site Suggestions

Perhaps the most noticeable and potentially controversial upgrade is the introduction of popular site suggestions.

Even if you have never visited a specific website or mistakenly typed a URL, Chrome will now suggest relevant sites right from the address bar.

Android Authority notes that whether this feature becomes a handy tool for users or an avenue for advertising remains to be seen. However, it is already available for both desktop and mobile users to try out.

Smarter Autocomplete

One of the most critical improvements to the Chrome address bar is smarter autocompletion. This new version does not just complete URLs that you have previously entered but also considers words you have used to search for websites.

For instance, if you have searched for "flights" before, typing "flights" again will autocomplete the URL for Google Flights. This feature was initially available but has now evolved to be more accurate and convenient. Initially, it is rolling out to desktop users.

Automatic Typo Correction

No more fretting about those pesky typos when entering a website's URL. Google Chrome is now equipped to automatically detect and correct any typos you make in the address bar.

This feature ensures that you reach your desired destination without having to clear the URL or start over.

It is available on desktop and mobile, including Android and iOS, making your browsing experience smoother and less frustrating.

Read Also: YouTube Introduces Dedicated News Watch Experience Page to Tackle Misinformation

Bookmark Folder Searching

For those users who have diligently organized their bookmarks into folders, Chrome now allows you to search within these folders directly from the address bar.

All you need to do is include the folder name in your search query, and Chrome will present suggestions from that specific collection. This feature is especially beneficial for users with extensive bookmark collections.

Improved Layout and Responsiveness

The Chrome address bar's layout has received a facelift to make it more visually appealing and easier to read.

It now boasts a rounder, more responsive design, ensuring that you wait less for results as you type. These changes aim to provide a more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing browsing experience.

How to Get the Updates

To access these exciting updates, make sure you are using the latest version of Google Chrome.

On mobile, you can update the browser through your app store.

On the desktop, simply click the three-dot menu, select "Settings," and then "About Chrome." The browser will automatically download the update and prompt you to restart.

Stay posted here at Tech Times.

Related Article: Google Launches New Chrome Updates to Improve Web Search

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KYODO NEWS - Oct 19, 2023 - 20:34 | All, World, Japan

South Korea has proposed holding a foreign ministerial meeting with Japan and China late next month and Tokyo is positive about the plan, diplomatic sources said Thursday, a move that could pave the way for a trilateral summit that has not been held since 2019.

The envisioned three-way talks, currently sought around Nov. 26 in the South Korean port city of Busan, comes on the back of a thaw in the ties between Tokyo and Seoul that had deteriorated over wartime compensation issues.

Final arrangements will be made for the gathering, expected to be attended by Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Chinese and South Korean counterparts, Wang Yi and Park Jin, taking into consideration Beijing's response and the latest international situations.

Usually, a leaders' meeting between the three countries follows working-level discussions and foreign ministerial talks.

The three governments' senior officials agreed in late September to hold a summit at an early date and a foreign ministerial meeting in Busan in November.

The three East Asian nations had agreed in 2008 to hold trilateral summits on an annual basis, but such a meeting has not been held since December 2019 in China. South Korea is currently the rotating chair of the trilateral framework.

The hiatus coincided with the increasingly souring Japan-South Korea relationship and the coronavirus pandemic. But the bilateral ties have been rapidly improving after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took office last year, proposed a solution to the thorny dispute over wartime labor compensation in March this year.

While ties between Tokyo and Beijing have recently been strained over the release of treated radioactive wastewater from Japan's disaster-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant, Japan has been underscoring the importance of the trilateral dialogue.

Kamikawa, who became foreign minister in mid-September, said during a media interview earlier this month that the three nations "share a great responsibility for the peace and prosperity of the region."

The trilateral dialogue is a "venue for discussion on the direction of cooperation," she said.

If the foreign ministerial talks realize, Kamikawa may also have bilateral meetings separately with Wang and Park, according to the sources.

Related coverage:

Japan PM Kishida seeks dialogue with China on opposing nuclear weapons use

China imported no seafood from Japan in Sept. over Fukushima water release

GSDF Osprey arrives in Okinawa for 1st time amid China military rise
The European Union (EU) has called Meta and TikTok to account for their efforts to prevent unlawful content and false information during the Israel-Hamas war.



The European Commission, the executive body of the 27-nation EU, has officially sent requests to these social media goliaths under the recently passed Digital Services Act (DSA). These new digital laws, which took effect in August, are intended to purge internet platforms of dangerous and unlawful information.



The emphasis of the European Commission's investigation is on the steps that Meta and TikTok have taken to reduce the spread and amplification of hate speech, terrorist and violent material, and misinformation on their respective online platforms.

Fighting Misinformation About the Israel-Hamas War

The DSA's effectiveness has been put to the test by the Israel-Hamas war, which has produced an abundance of images and films documenting the ongoing hostilities. User-generated material on digital media platforms often promotes false narratives, spreading misinformation.



The digital enforcer for the EU, Thierry Breton, has already sent letters of caution to Meta, TikTok, and YouTube. The letters particularly asked that the platforms be ready to confront the possible possibility of live broadcasts of Hamas executions given the serious hazards posed by the Israel-Hamas conflict.



"In our exchanges with the platforms, we have specifically asked them to prepare for the risk of live broadcasts of executions by Hamasan imminent risk from which we must protect our citizensand we are seeking assurances that the platforms are well prepared for such possibilities," Breton remarked during a speech on Wednesday, as quoted by AP News.



The European Commission has specified two deadlines for Meta and TikTok as part of the DSA process.

Read Also: Elon Musk's X Launches 'Not a Bot' Test: $1 Fee for New Users in the Philippines, New Zealand



By October 25, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, must reply to the commission's crisis response request. Additionally, by November 8th, the two firms must respond with information on preserving electoral integrity. Furthermore, TikTok must explain how it safeguards children online by the November deadline.



Both tech companies must prove that they have responded to the European Commission's concerns in a timely, diligent, and neutral manner, according to the BBC.

Social Media Firms See Paid Subscription as a Remedy to Fight Misinformation Spread

Breton made it clear at the earlier request for further information from these social media companies that Meta must show a commitment to take prompt, careful, and impartial steps. Later, he emphasized that TikTok has a special responsibility to protect kids and teenagers from violent content and terrorist propaganda.



In response to the EU's request, TikTok said they would produce their first DSA transparency report the following week. Additional details on their ongoing efforts to guarantee the security of their European user group will be included in this report.



The European Commission's strict measures aim to guarantee that social media giants operate responsibly and in accordance with EU online regulations. As they manage the shifting legislative landscape, several businesses, like Meta, are now considering providing paid versions of their services within the European Union, as per a VOA report.

Last Monday, the European Commission formally requested information from Elon Musk's social media network, formerly known as Twitter, per the DSA.



TechTimes previously reported that X (formerly Twitter) CEO Linda Yaccarino has informed the EU that the Elon Musk-owned company had deleted hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts and removed or appropriately tagged thousands of pieces of content connected to the militant group's recent brutal attack on Israel that sparked the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Related Article: US Broadens Export Controls Targeting Chip Transfers to China

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Telegram, a widely utilized messaging service, has a security flaw that might expose a user's IP address when adding a hacker to contacts or taking a call from them, according to a cybersecurity expert.



Security researcher Denis Simonov, known as n0a, discovered this Telegram vulnerability and created a program to illustrate it. By connecting Simonov to a recently created Telegram account, TechCrunch stated in its report that it was able to instantly retrieve the computer's IP address used for the experiment, validating Simonov's findings on the Telegram security flaw.



With 700 million users worldwide, Telegram has established a reputation as a secure messaging service. However, several cybersecurity experts have warned that it may not be as secure as Signal or other end-to-end encrypted apps.

Telegram Users Are At Risk

Telegram has always revealed users' IP addresses during audio talks, but new or less tech-savvy users may not be aware of it. While Telegram places a strong emphasis on security and privacy, according to Denis Simonov of the cybersecurity company T.Hunter, users must be aware of the subtleties of how voice conversations work on Telegram to be secure.



"An unprepared person can easily reveal his IP address to his interlocutor if he does not know about it," Simonov said, as quoted by TechCrunch.



Telegram by default uses a peer-to-peer connection between callers to improve audio quality and decrease latency, which is the cause of this IP address leak. This direct connection needs both callers to know each other's IP addresses, unlike other chat apps. Additionally, calls from individuals who are not in your contact list are sent to obfuscated IP addresses via Telegram's servers.

Read Also: AI Chatbots Can Infer User's Personal Data Based on What They Type: Study



Security and data privacy problems have already plagued Telegram in the past. Due to "national security concerns" and claims of data leaks, the messaging app was blocked temporarily in Iraq at the ISP level in August, as reported by CPO Magazine. Following a response by Telegram to the Ministry of Communications, this restriction was removed after around one week of suspension.

How To Be Safe on Telegram

According to experts, to stop Telegram IP address leakage, users must go to the app's settings, select Privacy and Security, and then choose "Never" from the Peer-to-Peer option.



There's also another way Telegram users can prevent exposing their IP address by using a virtual private network (VPN) that conceals the information, but this kind of action may be illegal in some regions.



Several top-notch VPN alternatives are available for Android, but if the goal is to hide your IP address when using Telegram, these apps may not be necessary. An Android Police article recommends a technique of setting up a Telegram proxy server but, unlike most VPN providers, this comes at no cost.



Follow these steps to set up a Telegram proxy server:



Start the Telegram app. Tap the menu icon in the upper-left corner. Select "Settings" Simply choose "Data and Storage."Locate "Proxy settings" by scrolling down. Then select "Add Proxy."

Related Article: Russia & China-Linked Hackers Exploiting WinRAR Vulnerability, Google Warns

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Wireless connectivity is about to shift again with the release of WiFi 7. Approximately four years after WiFi 6 and two years after WiFi 6E, respectively, this milestone denotes a substantial advancement in wireless technology.

With the groundwork laid by its predecessors, WiFi 7 will offer a major internet speed boost. Utilizing the 6GHz band, which WiFi 6E first enabled and offers enough space for data transmission, is a crucial component of this improvement. Firstpost reported that WiFi 7 has the cutting-edge capability to speed up data transmission rates, lessen interference, and cut down on network latency.



The compatibility of WiFi 7 with previous devices is a remarkable feature that relieves worries about the need to update existing equipment. This backward compatibility makes switching to WiFi 7-compatible devices easy, demonstrating the benefits of this newest standard.



With a standard WiFi 7 laptop being able to theoretically achieve a high speed of approximately 5.8 GB/s, WiFi 7 is expected to give much quicker speeds. The channel bandwidth, which controls the capacity for data transmission, is the main factor in this speed increase.

With WiFi 7, the maximum channel bandwidth is doubled to 320 MHz, a significant improvement over the 160 MHz offered by WiFi 5, 6, and 6E routers. More effective data transmission is made possible by this extended channel, which is only supported in the 6 GHz range.

Enhanced Connectivity for Smart Homes

Multi-Link Operation (MLO), another feature of WiFi 7, makes it possible to combine multiple bands into a single connection. This makes it possible to combine numerous connections, which might result in rates of up to 1.7 GB/s.

Read Also: WHO Stresses Transparency, Regulation in AI Health Technologies

With the help of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), WiFi 7 is anticipated to improve the dependability of networked smart home devices. WiFi 7 offers more reliable data transfer even in the face of interference by making optimal use of carrier waves.



However, OFDMA is incompatible with older devices. For the benefits of increased smart home connectivity to be fully realized, a complete switch to WiFi 7-compatible devices is required.

Future Considerations and Applications

Beyond speed and smart home enhancements, WiFi 7 offers several benefits, such as reliable mesh networks and less network latency due to the use of MLO and OFDMA.



WiFi 7 routers are available; however, limited device support and incomplete adoption may make the present not the best time to make a purchase. To ensure compliance and affordability, it is advised to wait until the WiFi Alliance certifies routers and the standard is finalized, per The Verge.



The entire potential of this cutting-edge wireless standard will become clear when WiFi 7 spreads and device support rises, ushering in a new age of high-speed wireless networking.



In a related update, Lumen Technologies this week introduced a Wi-Fi 7-capable device, set to be available soon for Quantum Fiber customers, making it the first internet service provider to offer an in-house-developed Wi-Fi 7 device.

According to Telecompetitor, Lumen's Wi-Fi 7 device supports coordinated MU-MIMO (CMU-MIMO), allowing for enhanced connectivity for applications including virtual reality, industrial usage, 8K video, and online gaming. Wi-Fi 6 only had eight antennae.

Maxine Moreau, Lumen's president of mass markets, says this is a big step toward offering the fastest, most reliable, and most secure Wi-Fi service. In the next months, the gadget's features, pricing, and availability will be revealed.

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KYODO NEWS - Oct 19, 2023 - 18:55 | World, All, Japan

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called for dialogue with China as he seeks to find common ground in opposing the threat and use of nuclear weapons in a message to a forum on Sino-Japanese relations that began Thursday in Beijing, organizers said.

Kishida said during a banquet on Wednesday evening for those taking part in the forum that international cooperation is needed to prevent the use of nuclear weapons by nations that seek to "change the status quo by force," noting that Beijing, a nuclear power, has an "important responsibility to ensure peace and prosperity" in Asia.

The annual forum, which is the first in-person meeting to be held in four years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, saw key political and business figures as well as experts from Japan and China discuss issues such as politics, economy and security.

Concerns have been growing that Russia might use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine.

On the bilateral relationship, which has come under further strain following the release of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan that began in late August, Kishida stressed the importance of dialogue despite the difficulties, adding that private-sector conversations are vital.

Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa echoed the premier's views in a video message to the forum on Thursday, calling for "candid" dialogue between the two countries to address issues of concern.

The forum through Friday is being held ahead of the 45th anniversary next Monday, which will mark the enactment of a bilateral treaty of peace and friendship.

China's top diplomat Wang Yi said in an online message to the forum that bilateral relations are in a "severe condition," and urged the two Asian neighbors to "go back to the original intent" of the treaty, which calls for both sides not to pursue regional hegemony and mutual non-interference in each other's domestic affairs.

"Peace, friendship, and cooperation is the only option" for the two Asian nations, Wang added.

The top diplomat reiterated Beijing's opposition to the Fukushima water discharge, saying that it "poses a threat to the global marine environment," and warned against any interference by Japan in issues surrounding Taiwan, a self-ruled democratic island that Communist-ruled China regards as its territory.

At a session later in the day, Seiji Kihara, a former deputy chief Cabinet secretary and a close aide to Kishida, called for more exchanges between the Japanese prime minister and Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying they have only met in-person on one occasion and held phone talks just once since the Kishida took office in October 2021.

There is "too little" communication between the leaders, said Kihara, who attended the forum virtually. "We need repeated dialogues all the more because there are challenges" in bilateral relations, he added.

Jia Qingguo, professor at Peking University's School of International Studies, agreed on the importance of dialogue between the two major Asian powers and called for "boycotting extreme moves" such as online hate speech by those holding negative feelings toward the neighboring country.

Former Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua pointed out it is important to promote dialogue at various levels and in different areas to lay the groundwork for the summit talks, calling for meetings between political parties, parliamentarians, defense officials and business leaders.

A statement will be issued on Friday by the annual forum, which began in 2005, after the two-day sessions. Panelists who attended the meeting in person included former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and former president of the Asian Development Bank Takehiko Nakao.

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KYODO NEWS - Oct 19, 2023 - 21:58 | World, All

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Thursday for regular security talks involving North Korea and China as he expressed concern during his visit to Pyongyang over increased defense cooperation among the United States, South Korea and Japan, according to Russian media reports.

Lavrov met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for one hour, Tass news agency said without elaborating. The Russian top diplomat's two-day visit to Pyongyang followed talks between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East on Sept. 13.

Lavrov told reporters in North Korea that Moscow and Pyongyang are wary about increased military activity by Washington, Seoul and Tokyo around the Korean Peninsula, noting the United States is moving its strategic infrastructure including nuclear-armed ones to South Korea, according to the reports.

He also held talks with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui on Thursday and said at the outset of the meeting that bilateral relations have reached "a qualitatively new, strategic level" following the Putin-Kim summit, according to the speech released by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

During their talks, Lavrov and Choe agreed to "resist the hegemonic aspirations of the United States that may escalate the situation in the Asia-Pacific region," Tass said.

They discussed "pressing issues of bilateral relations" to follow up on agreements reached at the summit meeting last month, including efforts to increase bilateral trade in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the news agency said.

Lavrov invited Choe to visit Moscow at her convenience and a plan for exchanges between the two countries' foreign ministers for the next two years was signed, Tass added.

The United States alleges North Korea has recently delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia for its war on Ukraine, although Moscow has denied the claim. Pyongyang is believed to expect military and economic assistance from Russia in return.

At a welcome reception Wednesday, Lavrov said Moscow deeply values Pyongyang's "unwavering and principled support" for Russia over its Ukraine war, the Russian ministry said.

The Russian minister also hailed North Korea for "remaining unfazed by any pressure of the U.S. and the West," and expressed Moscow's support for Pyongyang's policies to defend its sovereignty and interests, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

Choe said in her speech at the reception that friendly relations between North Korea and Russia are "now further developing into an unbreakable comradely relationship and into a future-oriented eternal" one, KCNA said.

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KYODO NEWS - Oct 19, 2023 - 13:08 | World, All, 3/11 Fukushima

China imported virtually no seafood from Japan last month, according to official data, as Beijing continues a total ban on marine products from its neighbor in response to the discharge of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The trade data released Wednesday by Chinese customs showed no value for Japanese marine products in September. But deducting the figure for January-August Japanese seafood imports from that for January-September showed a value of about 60,000 yuan ($8,200), or a 99.98 percent fall from 361 million yuan last September.

In August, imports dived 67.6 percent from the previous year. China has banned all seafood imports from Japan since the Fukushima water discharge began in late August.

Japanese seafood has been replaced by domestic marine products in China or imports from other countries, dealing a blow to the Japanese fisheries industry.

Japan has urged China to lift the seafood import ban, saying the treated water has been discharged in line with global safety standards.
KYODO NEWS - Oct 19, 2023 - 08:12 | All, World

The United States will "forever" stand with Israel, President Joe Biden said Wednesday, as the Jewish state's war with the Hamas militant group rages in the Gaza Strip.

After holding talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country's war cabinet in Tel Aviv, Biden also underscored that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people and the vast majority of them are not associated with the group.

"The Palestinian people are suffering greatly as well," Biden said, adding that Israel has accepted his request to allow humanitarian assistance to flow into Gaza from Egypt.

Biden later spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi by phone and told reporters that he has agreed to open a border crossing to allow in about 20 trucks with humanitarian aid.

The White House said the two presidents agreed "on the need to preserve stability in the Middle East, prevent escalation of the conflict, and set the circumstances for a durable, permanent peace in the region."

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden will make a speech Thursday night from the Oval Office on his administration's response to "Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukraine."

Before leaving Tel Aviv, Biden said the deaths of civilians in a massive explosion on Tuesday at a Gaza hospital appear to be "the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group" in the area, based on the information he has seen. The remarks buttressed Israel's claim that it is not responsible for the tragedy.

His short trip took place after Israel and Hamas started blaming each other for the deadly blast, leading to a further escalation in the war and a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a densely-populated area along the Mediterranean Sea northeast of the Sinai Peninsula.

The area, ruled by Hamas, is now under retaliatory Israeli airstrikes as civilians struggle to cope with a lack of electricity, water and other essentials.

Israel has persistently said the explosion was caused by a failed rocket launch by Islamic Jihad, a smaller and more radical Hamas-aligned armed group. Hamas said the hospital was hit by an Israeli airstrike.

White House officials, in part relying on information provided by the U.S. Defense Department, have started to indicate that Israel was not behind the blast.

"While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion," White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The primary purpose of Biden's visit was to reaffirm U.S. support for Israel's security following the sudden attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7.

"I come to Israel with a single message: You are not alone. You are not alone," Biden said at the outset of his public remarks to wrap up his visit. "As long as the United States stands -- and we will stand forever -- we will not let you ever be alone."

"While it may not feel that way today, Israel must again be a safe place for the Jewish people. And I promise you: We're going to do everything in our power to make sure that it will be," he added.

Biden said he will ask the U.S. Congress this week for an "unprecedented support package" for Israel's defense.

At the same time, he announced $100 million in new aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Amid fears that the war could turn into a wider conflict, Biden was initially planning to also visit Jordan for talks with Arab leaders.

But hours before his departure on Tuesday from Washington to Tel Aviv, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pulled out of scheduled four-way talks in the wake of the hospital explosion, which triggered a wave of angry protests across the Middle East.

Biden cut his trip short due to the cancellation of the talks, which also would have involved Jordan's King Abdullah and the Egyptian president.

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Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, leaves the offices of the Speaker of the House as Republicans try to elect him, a top Donald Trump ally, to be the new House speaker, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
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From the sugar cane fields of the St. Louis Planting Company in Plaquemine to the Cora Texas Manufacturing Company in White Castle the process of refining sugar in the state has Louisiana as America's top state for sugar production last year producing more than 2 million tons of raw sugar.

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The Guinea Forest States refers to a region in West Africa with lush and dense tropical and montane rainforests in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, and Ghana.

A world of life unfolds in the heart of the Guinea Forest, where the rainforest's breath runs deep and lush. The Guinea Forest region in West Africa is primarily characterized by tropical rainforests, specifically classified as Tropical Moist Forests. These rainforests are part of the broader Upper Guinean Forests ecoregion and are known for their lush and diverse vegetation, high rainfall, and year-round warm and humid climate.

Montane rainforests in the Guinea Forest region refer to rainforest ecosystems situated at higher elevations within the mountainous terrain of this area. These montane rainforests share some similarities with lowland rainforests but exhibit unique characteristics due to their higher altitude. Montane rainforests within the Guinea Forest region can be found in various mountain ranges, including parts of the Nimba Range and the Shevaroy Hills.

The Guinea Forest States

Guinea, located in West Africa, is home to a significant portion of the Guinea Forest region. The country's southeastern region features dense rainforests and shares borders with Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote d'Ivoire, all of which are part of the Guinea Forest States. Guinea Forest is not specifically derived from the name Guinea as a country or region. Instead, it is named after the broader geographical region known as Guinea in West Africa.

Sierra Leone, situated to the southwest of Guinea, has portions of the Guinea Forest within its borders, particularly in the eastern and southern regions. These forests are rich in biodiversity and have been the focus of conservation efforts. Also, Sierra Leone has been trying to boost its oil palm production and exports in recent years. The Bassa people are one of the largest ethnic groups in Liberia, with a significant population in Sierra Leone.

To the south of Sierra Leone lies Liberia, another country with a share of the Guinea Forest. Liberia's forests are important habitats for diverse wildlife, including endemic species. Rubber is a major agricultural export for Liberia. The country has rubber plantations that produce natural rubber latex, an essential commodity. The Kran people primarily inhabit the western part of Liberia, particularly in Grand Gedeh County and surrounding areas.

Cote d'Ivoire occupies a substantial portion of the Guinea Forest region. The country's southwestern and western areas are characterized by dense rainforests, and it is known for its rich biodiversity and cultural diversity. Cote d'Ivoire consistently ranks as the world's largest cocoa producer, contributing a significant portion of the global cocoa supply. The Krou ethnic group includes several subgroups, such as the Bete, Dida, and We; Krou communities often have a strong connection to the land and the forests, relying on agriculture for their sustenance.

Ghana, located east of Cote d'Ivoire, has regions with rainforests that are part of the Guinea Forest States. The country's forests are vital for conservation and have been designated protected areas. Ghana is one of the world's top cocoa-producing countries and typically ranks second after Cote d'Ivoire in global cocoa production.
Senior investors at one of Qantas biggest shareholders are members of the airlines exclusive Chairmans Lounge, usually reserved for high-profile figures and executives of publicly listed companies.

Pendal Groups head of equities, Crispin Murray, and the fund managers lead Qantas analyst, Sondal Bensan, are members of the invitation-only lounge. Pendal, which is now owned by Perpetual, has been one of Qantas biggest shareholders since 2013 and the airlines stock is now worth about 4 per cent of its total Australian holdings.

The Chairmans Lounge perks have raised concerns about Qantas influence over its members. Credit: AFR

Government regulators, High Court judges and politicians have come under fire recently over their memberships to the elite lounge, following a report by The Australian Financial Reviews Rear Window column, which revealed Prime Minister Anthony Albaneses 23-year-old son Nathan had been issued a membership.

The initial report sparked concerns about the airlines influence over swaths of sectors that govern it, and prompted notable figures, including Australian Competition and Consumer Commission boss Gina Cass-Gottlieb and Australian Securities and Investments Commission chair Joseph Longo to declare their memberships.
By Azernews

Abbas Ganbay

Aydin Karimov, Special Representative of the President of Azerbaijan in Shusha district, announced the start of construction of a new road network in Shusha, Azerbaijan, Azernews reports.

According to Karimov, the process of naming 85 city streets has already been completed.

The new road network will include water, sewerage, and household waste collection infrastructure. All existing water, gas, and electricity lines in the entire city will be laid under the ground and sidewalks, and the streets will be completely rebuilt according to the Special Representative.

The new highway connecting Shusha with Fuzuli International Airport is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2024, according to Karimov. The 101.5-kilometer road will include many tunnels and passages and will facilitate the construction of fast communications.

Construction of the new road to Shusha has begun from the village of Ahmadbayli in the Fuzuli district and will be laid to Shusha through the city of Fuzuli, the villages of Taghaverdi and Dashalty. The road will be six-lane - three lanes in each direction, with the main part being four-lane. Two lanes will be service lanes and are intended for the movement of trucks and special equipment. The overall completion of the road is expected to take a year and a half.

The new road is not related to the previously functioning Aghdam-Khankandi-Shusha road AZN 50 mln ($29.4 mln) has been allocated from the reserve fund of the President of Azerbaijan for the design and construction of the Ahmadbayli-Fuzuli-Shusha highway.

Thanks to the Ahmadbayli-Fuzuli-Shusha highway, the distance from Baku to the city of Shusha will be reduced to 345 km.

Construction of the Fuzuli-Shusha highway is planned to be completed by the end of this or the beginning of next year.
KYODO NEWS - Oct 19, 2023 - 12:30 | All, Japan

Japan's trade deficit in the first half of fiscal 2023 declined 75.1 percent to 2.72 trillion yen ($18 billion), as imported energy costs fell after surging amid Russia's war in Ukraine and a tumbling yen, while exports grew to a record high, government data showed Thursday.

The resource-scarce nation was in the red for the fifth straight year on a first-half basis, with the outlook for export growth increasingly uncertain amid weakening demand in China and aggressive monetary tightening in the United States and Europe.

Imports came to 52.96 trillion yen, down 12.4 percent, as the value of crude oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal all declined. Exports stood at a record 50.24 trillion yen, up 1.4 percent, helped by robust auto shipments to the United States, the Finance Ministry said in a preliminary report.

The Israel-Hamas war has heightened tensions in the oil-producing Middle East, leaving financial markets on edge over geopolitical risks.

As most of Japan's crude oil imports come from the region, analysts say higher prices, coupled with the yen's persistent weakness, may mean bigger trade deficits for the nation in the coming months.

Japan registered a massive 10.91 trillion deficit in the April-September period of 2022, the highest since comparable data became available in 1979, underscoring the vulnerability of a nation heavily reliant on imports to meet its domestic energy needs.

"U.S. economic growth remains solid for now. The economy may be headed for a soft landing but growth of Japan's export to the United States will likely slow sooner or later. And there is China, whose outlook is far from optimistic because of real estate problems," said Yuichi Kodama, chief economist at Meiji Yasuda Research Institute.

"For Japan's trade data, how energy prices will move (amid the Middle East tensions) is an important factor to watch at a time when we can't expect a reversal of yen weakness as U.S. interest rates will remain elevated," Kodama added.

Auto exports reached a record level, buoyed by robust U.S. demand as chip shortages that had forced automakers to cut output eased.

Japan's exports to the United States grew 10.6 percent to a record 10.08 trillion yen, while imports fell 6.0 percent to 5.59 trillion yen, translating into a 4.49 trillion yen surplus.

Japan's trade deficit with China continued to expand, hitting 2.87 trillion yen as exports fell more than imports, in a worrying development as the latter's recovery from the COVID-19 fallout has been lackluster and real estate woes persist.

Exports declined 8.2 percent to 8.91 trillion yen, compared with imports that dropped 6.2 percent to 11.77 trillion yen.

With Asia, including China, Japan's trade surplus shrank by 23.4 percent to 989.74 billion yen, and its deficit with the European Union more than halved from a year earlier to 401.44 billion yen.

In September alone, Japan eked out a 62.44 billion yen trade surplus as exports grew for the first time in three months.

Car shipments to the United States and Europe propelled overall exports to a record high of 9.20 trillion yen, up 4.3 percent. Imports dropped 16.3 percent to 9.14 trillion yen.

Food exports to China tumbled 58.0 percent, partly reflecting its ban on seafood imports from Japan following the release of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. No further breakdowns were released.

Japan ran a 955.07 billion yen trade surplus with the United States but recorded a deficit with China of 570.96 billion yen for the 30th straight month of red ink, the data showed.

Japan's economy has received a boost from export growth in recent quarters, with a revival of inbound tourism also lending support.

In the six months to September, the dollar was 5.6 percent higher against the yen, as the Bank of Japan has stuck with ultralow rates while the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates to tame inflation.

A weak yen increases import costs, a major factor accelerating Japan's inflation for over a year.

"Given recent rises in crude oil prices and the yen's depreciation, Japan will likely remain in the red for some time," said Kota Suzuki, an economist at Daiwa Securities.

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One fashion week after the next, we are tokenised and then treated badly and hardly ever booked by the industry afterwards, said Nyaluak Leth, 26, who has been a model for nine years and worked with major brands. You begin to question why you even bother. The casting of models at events like Melbourne Fashion Week and Australian Fashion Week, is managed by exhibiting brands not the festival organisers themselves. This masthead does not suggest that the organisers of Melbourne Fashion Week or Australian Fashion Week engage in the specific practices mentioned in this article. Jeffrey Kissubi is one of the models taking part in a boycott of this years Melbourne Fashion Week. Credit: Justin McManus Leth has recently relocated to the UK because she says black models, in particular South Sudanese models, are celebrated and valued. Sometimes pay is as low as $220 to walk the runway [during an Australian fashion week]. Youre doing 10-12 hour days, and you have hair and make-up artists who dont even know how to do your hair.

So you do your own hair and make-up, and then sometimes I end up braiding another African models hair and trying to comfort her because no one else will or can style her. Im just done, were not asking for much, just basic respect, she said. Australian Fashion Week [in Sydney] and Melbourne Fashion Week are when brands hire plenty of black models, Malek said. Its the only time they hire black models in numbers, and honestly, its because we are the cheapest at this time. Its good PR for them. It looks like wow, these campaigns are really inclusive, but the next week and the next month, we have no work, and they go back to whitewashing fashion. Many of the models spoke to this masthead about the ongoing lack of basic inclusive practices, such as having make-up and hair services to cater for dark skin and African hair. One hairdresser [at a previous event] asked me How do you feel about a buzz cut? she also said something about it being less maintenance and more manageable. As if a white model would ever be expected to get a buzz cut on the spot before going out on the catwalk, Malek said. The City of Melbourne said that they had engaged specialist hair stylists and make-up artists who were highly experienced in working with textured hair and darker skin tones.

Another African-Australian model who doesnt want to be named said the box-ticking was blatant. I was backstage for a show [at a fashion week], and on the wall were photos of all the models  I was looking for my photo, and I couldnt find it, and then I turned to my right and my headshot was on another wall and on top of my photo were the words inclusion and diversity. Just me, separated from the rest, she said. I felt awful, I felt like an outcast, and I felt like everyone else was looking at me as though we know the only reason youre here, she said. Melbourne-based Kissubi is the sole man to join the boycott, alongside the 12 female models. Ive walked five fashion weeks  I have it easier than black female models for sure, but its still not easy or enjoyable for me, he said. We have to work 10 times harder and put up with a lot of racism and are expected to keep quiet about it.

Jeffreys experiences include a photographer at a recent campaign shoot using the N-word in front of him and make-up artists who still dont stock shades for black skin. He says he is no longer prepared to walk the runway for Australian brands until he sees diverse staff behind the scenes and black models regularly included in prominent advertising campaigns. I dont want to speak out, but I have to, or nothing will change. Well probably stop getting booked because we spoke out, he said. Model Nyaluak Leth. Credit: Getty Images Two of the models said they have evidence of getting paid significantly less than white models, despite doing the same job and having the same experience. I am always paid less  I know that for a fact. I always compare with non-black models, we trust each other, and we talk about what we get paid. It has varied from $1000 to $5000 less for the exact same shoot or show, a 24-year-old Sudanese model said.

One Melbourne-based black model who does not wish to be named for fear of career backlash told this masthead that her agent accidentally emailed a white models payslip after the two were featured in a shoot together. She [the agent] definitely sent it to me by accident, and I could see that the white model got paid $15,000 more than me. We have the same experience, did the exact same work and even have pretty much the same social media following. I just felt so disgusted, she said. The model didnt feel comfortable pressing the issue with her agent for fear of being branded a troublemaker or ungrateful and not getting future work. This masthead has seen the two payslips. The models all cited the fashion and modelling industrys lack of diversity across talent agencies, fashion houses, photographers, hair and make-up artists and event companies as compounding the problems. When it comes to who is the caster making decisions  its always a panel of white people, sometimes four, five or even six white people, Jeffrey said.

Nyaluak Leth said in her almost decade-long career, shes never had a black or another person of colour as a booker or agent to represent her. International brands generally do better than Australian brands; we could learn from them. Here we are still told by agencies black models dont take off here because its not the Australian look that appeals to the public to sell products. she said. Loading Nylow Ajing believes the Australian fashion industry would benefit commercially if it genuinely embraced diverse talent. Its why Australia is so far behind international markets both creatively and strategically; its just all so white at every level, she said.

In 2015, Adelaide-based talent agent Juach Cyer launched Rin Models, focusing on dark-skinned models. He signed modelling superstar Adut Akech. Cyer credits much of his agencys success to signing Australian models to major agencies in Europe and the US. Dark-skinned models absolutely have an important role in fashion and are in demand, and my agency is growing, he said. As a black talent agent, he says he mentors countless black models whether he represents them or not. I get calls at all hours, after shows, the models crying and traumatised, and its becoming a real mental health problem for the industry. This is about safety, he said. He said that he supports the model boycott and understands why some are too frightened to reveal their names and faces.

The fact they have to worry about speaking out, despite this being a common experience for models of colour  does that not highlight the extent of the problems in the industry? It answers itself, he said. Most of the models boycotting say they will return to fashion week if they see real changes. I will only walk future fashion weeks if there are diverse people who are designers and decision-makers and part of the artistic process, Leth said. Leila Naja Hibri, CEO of the Australian Fashion Council, the peak body for the Australian fashion industry, said: The Australian fashion industry is uniquely placed to actively engage in equitable, diverse and inclusive responsible practice. The Australian Fashion Council is not involved in the running of fashion weeks or brand marketing events, but we do require all AFC Members to abide by our code of conduct. This stipulates that we do not tolerate any form of discrimination or inappropriate conduct towards others based on gender, race, or national or ethnic origin.  The City of Melbourne said that MFW program celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and diverse cultures and pointed at a number of initiatives aimed at First Nations designers and models. Australian Fashion Week were approached for comment.
Loading MYC member Kitty OSullivan, who has led the internal push against offensive boat names, told us that she and her supporters were frustrated that the matter had still not been settled. If this was a racist or homophobic reference, it would be dealt with in a heartbeat but because its about women, were supposed to just accept it, she said. DIGGING DEEP The closure of a large business never fails to evoke a round of  mostly meaningless  hand-wringing from politicians.

Bob Katter is getting into the mining game. Credit: John Shakespeare But far north Queensland maverick independent Bob Katters reaction to the end, announced this week, of Swiss multinational Glencores large-scale copper operation in Mount Isa, is typically outside the box. Bobs going to go into the mining business himself. Loading Hot on the heels of Glencores announcement, the Member for Kennedy updated his official register of interests  in which he consistently states his wifes share holdings and real estate dealings are none of his business  with a rallying cry for the region. I intend to take up old mining tenements discovered by myself prior to going into parliament and involve myself in other mining activities, but there are no specifics at this stage, Katter wrote.

It is essential for myself and everyone else to put their shoulder to the wheel. My very extensive knowledge from when I was mining copper myself, such knowledge I still have, and I must disclose that there would be a benefit for myself. And whod begrudge the man a little benefit for getting down and dirty  potentially  in a one-man industry rescue mission? LUCKY VIEW CBD tries to avoid drooling over real estate listings, but the former gold mining executive Michael Folie  a bit of a fixture in the business pages back in the 90s  is putting something special on the Brighton market. OK, its huge, gorgeous and designed by noted Victorian  the era, not the state  architect John Russell Brown, in the late 1800s and was home for a while to one of the children of Sir Thoms Bent, the famously, well, bent, 22nd premier of Victoria. Oh, and you wont get change out of $10 million.

Loading But none of that is what we like about Kiora. Its got a tower up top, where you can soar above all the surrounding properties, looking right out over the bay. Folie, whos still on the board of the Institute of Public Affairs, tells us its pretty special. Now, we can see why a Brighton real estate agent wouldnt emphasise this as a unique selling point, but that means that the lucky purchaser shouldnt be tempted - as some locals of the exclusive suburb have before - to risk fines of more than $130,000 by going down to Beach Road and destroy trees in order to enhance their propertys views. You know who you are TICKETS PLEASE

The ratbag conservative activists at Turning Point Australia thought theyd pulled off a major coup when they announced that, Donald Trump Jr, would be touring. Its all been a bit of a debacle since then. Don Jr was meant to initially come in July, but pulled out at the last minute over what organisers said was a late visa issuing. That prompted Immigration Minister Clare ONeil to hit back at Trump, calling him a giant baby and rejecting claims he hadnt gotten a visa. The big event was rescheduled for September, only for the organisers to postpone again to December, citing a conflict. Currently, Turning Points website for the Trump tour is still being updated. Donald Trump Jr Credit: Bloomberg All that changing around has been tough for local Trumpheads. One punter who shelled out nearly $700 for two VIP meet and greet tickets to Don Jrs initial Brisbane show told CBD he was yet to receive a refund, despite Turning Point promising to give back the cash, in emails seen by this column.

In an email, Turning Points man Joel Jammal said the hold-up was caused by external ticket agencies. We have had several complaints from ticketholders that ticketing agencies are being slow in refunding tickets, and we are doing our best to investigate each case, he said. Loading We have given each request an undertaking that their case will be dealt with and are holding the ticketing agencies to account on each case. Our disgruntled Trumper remains unsatisfied about it all.
Transport Minister Mark Bailey denies the Queensland government is retreating from the treaty process.

Not at all, 100 per cent committed to it, Bailey said on Friday of Labors bid to continue the reconciliation process with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Nothing has changed whatsoever.

His comments came after Liberal National Party David Crisafulli on Thursday withdrew his support for the Path to Treaty and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declared it would need bipartisan support to succeed.

She (the premier) was simply stating something that has been known for a long time, Bailey said.

Crisafulli said he had listened to Queenslanders on the issues and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was very pig-headed in not listening to the warning bells ringing about the Voice to Parliament proposal.

- AAP
Jim Pavlidis Credit: .

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Catherine Xie (Comment, 19/10) has highlighted a core frustration for most Australians  the inability of industry and government services in this country to provide the most fundamental of services  a human being to speak to in an organisation when a problem requires resolution. The use of technology and robot responses to minimise interaction with customers is unacceptable. Call centre non-responses or ludicrous waiting times have become the standard and are the subject of widespread commentary and criticism within the community.

The reputation of Centrelink in this regard is deplorable  rightly or wrongly. If the frustration and anger eventually triggers an individual act of physical violence by a desperate person towards a person or people in a non-communicating organisation, that organisation will scratch its head and ask: Why did that happen? Governments remain silent about this issue  they are among the major offenders. Its time  to answer the phone, promptly.

Brian Kidd, Mt Waverley

Patience as a survival skill

Catherine Xies experiences in attempting to access Centrelink certainly hit a nerve. Lots of music in the 1300 telephone wait queue, calls arbitrarily being shut down, but if your patience is eventually rewarded by being asked (auto teleprompter) to identify the issue of concern by pushing a certain number on your keypad, it generally results in curt advice to go access their website and the call is terminated. (No wonder there is a Reddit site to share work-arounds to try to get to talk to a real person.) After so many calls from the same phone number, that phone is banned from any further access for the day.

My experience is that if the client gives up trying to contact the 1300 phone number from home and finds their way into a Centrelink office, reception will ask if the 1300 number has been called. Obviously, the answer is yes, but with all the issues documented by Ms Xie its unlikely that they will have had voice-to-voice contact. No worries, as reception will invite the client to sit in the waiting room and try that number again. Its amazing that this time the clients request recorded on the 1300 number answering service results in a call back within five minutes, which is of course before an officer has to meet face to face with the client. Most efficient.

Without wanting to start a run on Centrelink offices, if you do present in person, its disappointing that if you have a well-dressed support person you are treated with a little bit more courtesy.

There is a positive note. The office staff are mostly well intentioned, caring and sharing people, but often inexperienced and overrun despite the attempt by management to encourage clients to use the automated web and phone services. Management (and maybe politicians) should be forced to access their sick leave, annual leave entitlements and various travel and living away from home allowances via the Centrelink system. This would surely result in an improvement in the receptiveness of the system.

Name and address supplied

Giving up when its Centrelink

I really feel for Catherine Xie. A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from my electricity provider, telling me that I might be eligible for a considerable discount on my bill. My hopes soared until I realised that this involved going through Centrelink, and at that point I gave up. Im fortunate to be in a position to do this. Students and many others reliant on Centrelink payments are in a diabolical position and Im glad this has once again been highlighted.

Juliet Flesch, Kew
A private school in inner Melbourne has applied for an exemption to the Equal Opportunity Act to enrol more girls, saying if its not granted it could end up a boys school.

Wesley College, an independent co-educational school, currently operates under an exemption, granted in 2018, which expires in mid-December.

Kate Evans and daughter Riley, who attends Wesley College. Credit: Joe Armao

In the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal on Thursday the school asked for a five-year extension, with principal Nick Evans saying that without it, Wesley would not be a co-educational school in the sense we understand it.

We believe true education requires a balance between the genders. As a result, if we werent given the exemption, we would be overwhelmed by boys, he told the hearing.
Under clear blue skies, it should have been a perfect day for a skydive  but moments after taking off from the Barwon Heads Airport, the passengers knew something wasnt right.

As soon as the Cessna 208 Caravan left the runway on Friday morning, it veered slightly left  then came crashing down on its belly on the grassy banks of Lake Connewarre, just meters from the waters edge.

There were 17 people onboard including the pilot.

One of the passengers was state Labor MP for Frankston Paul Edbrooke  an experienced skydiver.
For the most part, state MPs steered clear of the Voice to parliament debate, and none more so than those whose positions were at odds with the people they represent. As it turns out, that was quite a lot of them.

Though it may have been a national referendum, the failure of the Voice at a federal level means it now becomes an issue for the states. In NSW, the referendum result has prompted Premier Chris Minns to go back to the table on the NSW treaty process after the majority of the state voted No. In Victoria, Premier Jacinta Allan says the weekends result would not hinder treaty negotiations with the First Peoples Assembly.

Jacinta Allan and John Pesutto.

Its an issue that isnt set to go away any time soon for Allan or Opposition Leader John Pesutto, one that comes at a time when the government is considering the recommendations of the Yoorrook Justice Commision, which has called for Indigenous-led criminal justice and child protection systems.

While Allans public position remains unchanged, there is no doubt the Voice result will affect her governments response to the 46 recommendations.
DUBLIN, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AEye, Inc. , a global leader in adaptive, high-performance lidar solutions, today announced that it has received the coveted Reuters Automotive DRIVE Honours Award, an annual award for automotive excellence. AEyes 4Sight Intelligent Sensing Platform received the Innovation prize, given to 5 companies that have developed an innovative product offering that is accelerating the automotive industry. AEye is joined in the award by Hyundai, Nio, Lucid, and Polestar.

The competitive process looked at innovation in technology, supply chain, and partnerships, and elicited hundreds of entries from across the globe. The judging panel  made up of automotive specialists  awarded AEye high points across all key areas, including vision, impact, and scalability.

According to the judges, AEyes 4Sight Intelligent Sensing Platform is a critical enabling technology for the next generation of vehicles. Their platform and technology is high-performing, scalable, and flexible. Based on the broad and superior performance, this seems to be well aligned with the needs of the industry today and for the next several years.

AEyes 4Sight Intelligent Sensing Platform employs a software-definable lidar with adaptable and updateable software to enhance advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) capabilities, enabling next gen safety features and software revenue opportunities. The 4Sight reference designs are differentiated technically by their range, resolution, reliability, and reconfigurability, and are licensed to global Tier 1 automotive suppliers for high volume manufacturing. The business model is designed to enable AEye to focus on developing industry-leading technology and designing modular reference designs built on a software-definable platform, while AEyes Tier 1 automotive partners configure, industrialize, and manufacture those products to meet each OEMs specific requirements.

Were honored to be recognized by Reuters Automotive and its distinguished panel of judges as an industry leader driving automotive innovation, said Matt Fisch, CEO of AEye. The movement toward electrification, autonomy, and service-based business models dramatically increases the industrys reliance on software architectures to deliver on the promise of enhanced safety features and functionality, as well as new revenue streams. It also requires sensing solutions that are flexible enough to learn over time. AEyes 4Sight Intelligent Sensing Platform reduces time-to-market for new features and allows OEMs to continuously improve upon or introduce features and functionality across all vehicle models through software upgrades, allowing them to deliver a future-proofed ADAS roadmap.

Today, AEye is focused on development, validation, and industrialization of Continentals HRL-131 Long Range Lidar product, built on the 4Sight platform. The product is being incorporated into Continentals existing full stack ADAS sensing portfolio to enhance safety systems in a wide variety of driving environments. Continental can scale production using their global production footprint, as one of the worlds leading suppliers of autonomous and advanced driver assistance systems. Over time, AEyes business model enables the company to work with additional Tier 1s to scale even more broadly.

For more on AEyes Innovation award, visit the Reuters DRIVE Honours summary here.

About AEye

AEyes unique software-defined lidar solution enables advanced driver-assistance, vehicle autonomy, smart infrastructure, and logistics applications that save lives and propel the future of transportation and mobility. AEyes 4Sight Intelligent Sensing Platform, with its adaptive sensor-based operating system, focuses on what matters most: delivering faster, more accurate, and reliable information. AEyes 4Sight products, built on this platform, are ideal for dynamic applications which require precise measurement imaging to ensure safety and performance. AEye has a global presence through its offices in Germany, Korea, and the United States.
KYODO NEWS - Oct 19, 2023 - 21:06 | All, World, Japan

Japan and Australia agreed Thursday that Australian troops will participate in large-scale joint command post drills between the Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military for the first time ever, the Defense Ministry said.

During their talks in Tokyo, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and his Australian counterpart Richard Marles, with an eye on China's growing clout in the region, pledged to boost trilateral security cooperation with the United States, the ministry said.

The Australian Defense Force is set to join two planned Japan-U.S. command post exercises, "Yama Sakura" from late November and "Keen Edge" in February, according to the ministry.

The participation of Australia is "vitally important in terms of reinforcing the command and control function among the Japanese, Australian and U.S. forces," Kihara told reporters after the meeting.

The defense chiefs also welcomed an announcement earlier in the day on a deal of a joint laser technology development project between the Australian Defense Department and Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

The project, involving Mitsubishi Electric's wholly owned subsidiary in Australia, is intended to help the Australian military enhance its surveillance and other capabilities.

The meeting between Japanese and Australia defense chiefs comes as the two countries, which are close allies of the United States, have been deepening their security partnership in recent years, as Beijing's military assertiveness has increased, particularly in the East and South China seas.

In August, the Japan-Australia Reciprocal Access Agreement took effect, enabling quicker dispatch of defense personnel between the two nations and easing restrictions on the transport of weapons and supplies for joint drills and disaster relief operations.

Kihara, known as a pro-Taiwan lawmaker, held a meeting with Marles, who doubles as the Australian deputy prime minister, for the first time as defense minister since he assumed the position in a Cabinet revamp in September.

Japan and Australia had originally arranged "two-plus-two" security talks involving their foreign and defense ministers in Tokyo on Friday but put them off due to the escalating conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, government sources said.

The two countries are part of the Quad framework, along with the United States and India, aimed at strengthening cooperation in various fields such as the economy. The group has gained traction as a counterweight to China, particularly at a time of intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry.

Related coverage:

GSDF Osprey arrives in Okinawa for 1st time amid China military rise

U.S. B-52 strategic bomber to land in South Korea amid North Korea threat

ASEAN holds first-ever joint military exercises in Indonesia
BUSINESS WIRE

TROY, Mich.--()--Consumers are not comfortable with the testing and deployment of robotaxison their city streets, according to the inaugural J.D. Power U.S. Robotaxi Experience Study,released today. The study provides the first consumer feedback from robotaxi riders and those who have interacted with robotaxis (non-riders) in their community. Findings show that only 27% of non-riders are comfortable sharing the road with robotaxis and just 20% of all consumers nationally are comfortable with AV technology being tested on streets and highways near them.

However, robotaxi riderswho are new-tech adoptersare critical ambassadors for AV technology, as most tend to tout a positive experience. Consumer confidence in AV technology is fragile and positive first-hand experiences tend to build consumer trust. Among riders, 47% gained trust during a ride and 51% maintained their already high level of trust in the technology during a ride. It is notable that only 2% of riders lost trust in robotaxi capability during a ride experience.

These positive firsthand experiences can help educate other consumers, providing balance to news coverage that often focuses solely on the negative aspects of AVs. While many non-riders express concern for their safety and lack of trust in the technology as reasons they have not yet ridden in an AV, 81% express a desire to hear about others experiences before they ride in one.

Automated vehicle technology is built on the promise of alleviating distracted driving, impaired driving and collisions attributed to human error, said Kathleen Rizk, senior director of user experience benchmarking and technology at J.D. Power. However, the benefits result from consumer acceptance, which is why its imperative to ensure these first deployments are flawlessnot only for the riders but also especially for those who are not early adopters, including non-riders who are experiencing AVs in their community and those learning from a distance through social media and other news outlets.

Following are some key findings of the inaugural study:

Inquisitive consumers drive initial robotaxi usage: As with most new technologies, consumer interest in robotaxi usage is garnered by general curiosity (40%) and recommendations from a friend or colleague (37%). However, for the service to thrive and to establish repeat ridership, it must be viewed as more than a novelty since few riders utilize the service to multi-task (25%); avoid parking (22%); or dont have the ability to drive short distances (e.g., intoxicated/under the influence of controlled substance) (18%).

Robotaxi riders critical needs not being met by current services: The four attributes that consumers perceive as important to consideration of using a robotaxi also have the lowest levels of satisfaction. They are cost to ride; service area coverage; accessibility for disabled passengers; and customer support during the ride. Improving performance of these key metrics is imperative for long-term adoption.

Most riders dont think robotaxis drive better than humans: Despite the marketing hype of AVs making roads safer, nearly 60% of both riders and non-riders say they dont think a robotaxi drives any better than a human. Those who say they think a robotaxi drives better associate it with obeying traffic laws, while those who say a robotaxi drives worse than a human mention abrupt and unnecessary stopping, as well as causing collisions/incidents.

The U.S. Robotaxi Experience Study is based on responses from 408 consumers residing in Phoenix and San Francisco where robotaxi companies (e.g., Waymo, Cruise) are testing and deploying vehicles. To qualify, respondents had to ride in a fully automated, self-driving robotaxi or see a fully automated, self-driving robotaxi. These two groups of participants are classified as riders and non-riders, respectively. The study was fielded in July 2023.

About J.D. Power

J.D. Power is a global leader in consumer insights, advisory services and data and analytics. A pioneer in the use of big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic modeling capabilities to understand consumer behavior, J.D. Power has been delivering incisive industry intelligence on customer interactions with brands and products for more than 50 years. The world's leading businesses across major industries rely on J.D. Power to guide their customer-facing strategies.

J.D. Power has offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. To learn more about the companys business offerings, visit JDPower.com/business. The J.D. Power auto shopping tool can be found at JDPower.com.

About J.D. Power and Advertising/Promotional Rules www.jdpower.com/business/about-us/press-release-info

1 A robotaxi is defined as a fully automated, self-driving vehicle used exclusively for ride-hailing service.
Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meets with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Mirziyoyev is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Huning on Wednesday met with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Wang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, noted that the two countries share similar development philosophies and are good partners on the path toward modernization.

China is willing to work with Uzbekistan to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, uphold mutual support, solidarity and trust, and promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, Wang said.

Mirziyoyev said his visit to China this time has yielded fruitful results, further enhanced mutual trust between Uzbekistan and China, and expanded mutually beneficial cooperation.

Attaching great importance to the eight major steps that China will take to support the joint pursuit of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, Mirziyoyev said Uzbekistan will meticulously carry out research, collaborate with China to implement these steps and further promote innovative development and common prosperity. 

Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meets with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Mirziyoyev is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)
Uganda Peoples' Defense Forces (UPDF) army patrol the site of an attack on two foreign tourists and a Ugandan guide near the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese district, Uganda, Oct. 18, 2023.

Two foreign tourists and a Ugandan guide were killed Tuesday evening after their safari vehicle was attacked in the Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda, police said.(Photo by Nicholas Kajoba/Xinhua)

KAMPALA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Two foreign tourists and a Ugandan guide were killed Tuesday evening after their safari vehicle was attacked in the Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda, police said.

"We have registered a cowardly terrorist attack on two foreign tourists and a Ugandan in Queen Elizabeth National Park. The three were killed, and their safari vehicle burnt," the Uganda Police Force said in a statement.

The police blamed the attack on Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels from the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

"Our joint forces responded immediately upon receiving the information and are aggressively pursuing the suspected ADF rebels. We express our deepest condolences to the families of the victims," the statement added.

Bashir Hangi, the communications manager of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, which manages the country's national parks, told Xinhua by telephone that they had not been able to identify the victims because their documents were burnt.

Last Friday, ADF rebels burned a civilian's truck trailer and killed at least one occupant in a road ambush in Kasese, about two km from the border with the DRC.

In June, ADF rebels attacked a school in Kasese killing more than 40 people.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Sunday warned of possible retaliatory attacks by ADF rebels following military air strikes on their camps in eastern DRC.

Ugandan troops, together with their DRC counterparts, have been jointly fighting the rebel group since November 2022. 

This photo taken on Oct. 18, 2023 shows the wreckage of a burnt safari vehicle at the site of an attack on two foreign tourists and a Ugandan guide near the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese district, Uganda.

Two foreign tourists and a Ugandan guide were killed Tuesday evening after their safari vehicle was attacked in the Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda, police said.(Photo by Nicholas Kajoba/Xinhua)
MACAO, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Three exhibitions opened concurrently on Thursday in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), aiming to power the growth of Macao's key industries and contribute to China's "dual circulation" economic development pattern.

The 1st China-Portuguese-Speaking Countries (PSCs) Economic and Trade Expo (Macao) (C-PLPEX), the 28th Macao International Trade and Investment Fair (MIF) and the Macao Franchise Expo 2023 (MFE) will run until Sunday.

Taking up a total area of 37,000 square meters, the three exhibitions have attracted over 1,200 exhibitors from 14 countries and regions to attend the offline events, more than 260 of which come from PSCs, hitting an all-time high with respect to the number of exhibitors and brands, according to the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute.

The exhibitors specialize in a wide array of industries, including comprehensive health care, high-tech, modern finance, cultural creation, integrated tourism, commerce and retail, food manufacturing, cross-border e-commerce and energy conservation.

Fan Shijie, representative of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce to the event, promised support to encourage joint participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), raise the level of trade and investment to foster new drivers of economic growth, and leverage the role of Macao as a platform linking China and PSCs to elevate their cooperation to a new level.

Lei Wai Nong, secretary for economy and finance of the Macao SAR government, said Macao will actively seize major opportunities brought about by the construction of the BRI, play a better role as a bridge between China and PSCs in the country's new economic development pattern of "dual circulation," and establish a new pattern of synergetic industrial development between Macao and the Guangdong-Macao In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, neighboring Zhuhai city.

Over 60 activities will be held during the exhibitions, in the form of themed business matching sessions, conferences, forums, promotion conferences, new product launches, multi-venue events and community tours. 
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- UN humanitarians said on Wednesday they are in a race against the advancing Afghanistan winter to aid victims of three earthquakes, which forced people to sleep outside.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said temperatures during the night have already begun to dip. In addition to people whose homes were destroyed, many Afghans, including those in Herat City, are sleeping outside out of fear that their homes will collapse with additional aftershocks.

"We and our partners continue to support the response but much more needs to be done," the office said.

The International Organization for Migration, the UN Refugee Agency, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and their humanitarian partners delivered emergency shelter kits, tents and other supplies, OCHA said. UNICEF and its partners continue water delivery and latrine building.

"Since Oct. 7, the World Food Programme provided more than 520 tons of food assistance to affected areas," the humanitarians said. "Health partners are providing primary health care, mental health support."

They also provided trauma, baby and dignity kits while health facilities were deployed to affected areas.

The first earthquakes hitting western Afghanistan on Oct. 7 and Oct. 11 claimed 1,480 lives and injured 1,950 people, and satellite imagery indicates 289 villages impacted, OCHA reported on Monday. Another 30 new villages were hit by the Oct. 15 quake, with assessments continuing.

The office said its Earthquake Response Plan requires approximately 93.6 million U.S. dollars to support 114,000 earthquake-affected people. 


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Li Xi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, meets with Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei)

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Senior Chinese official Li Xi on Thursday met with Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Mongolia is an important country for Belt and Road cooperation, and the two countries have advanced mutually beneficial and fruitful cooperation, said Li, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

China will work with Mongolia to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and push for new development of bilateral relations, Li said.

China also stands ready to deepen anti-corruption cooperation with Mongolia and jointly promote integrity-based Belt and Road cooperation, he added.

Khurelsukh said Mongolia is willing to strengthen the synergy between the two countries' development strategies and deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries. 

Li Xi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, meets with Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei)
SANAA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council Chairman Rashad Al-Alimi met on Thursday with the UN envoy for Yemen in Saudi Arabia to discuss the progress of UN peace mediation efforts to end the years-long civil war with the Houthi rebels.

The discussions "focused on next steps to facilitate an agreement on measures to improve living conditions in Yemen, a nationwide ceasefire, and an inclusive intra-Yemeni political process," the envoy's office said in a statement.

"Yemen is going through a critical juncture that still has the potential of bringing Yemenis closer to the just peace," the statement quoted UN Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg as saying.

According to the statement, Grundberg also met with the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Al Budaiwi, Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohamed Al Jaber, and ambassadors from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council during his visit to Riyadh.

Grundberg discussed with them the need for continued Security Council consensus in support of an inclusive political solution in Yemen.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the Saudi-backed Yemeni government out of the capital, Sanaa.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 4 million, and pushed the country to the brink of starvation. 
State to develop Dr Ambedkar Sanskrutik Bhavan at Ambazari





Staff Reporter

Maharashtra Government is firm on its decision of cancelling the work of private project at Ambazari. Instead, it will itself develop Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Sanskrutik Bhavan at the same place. I have personally come here to request Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Sanskrutik Kriti Samiti to withdraw the agitation, announced Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra. On Wednesday he visited the site where the agitation was going on for the last 272 days. After his announcement, the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Sanskrutik Bhavan Kriti Samiti has suspended its agitation. The Samiti was agitating to press the demand of developing Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Sanskrutik Bhavan at Ambazari.

The representatives from Kriti Samiti, Saroj Aglawe, Dr Saroj Dange, Sugandha Khandekar, Jyoti Awale, Pushpa Bouddha, Sushma Kalamkar, Takshshila Waghdhare, Usha Bouddha, Kishor Gajbhiye, ex-Administrative Officer and the officers Amitesh Kumar, Commissioner of Police; Dr Vipin Itankar, District Collector were present. State Government has already decided to cancel the private project. To remove loophole in the cancellation of the project, an opinion will be sought from State Advocate General. A written order will be issued through District Collector. It will be given to Samiti, Fadnavis made it clear.
4 convicted for journalist Soumyas murder





NEW DELHI :

A DELHI court on Wednesday convicted four people for the murder of television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan, who was shot dead 15 years ago while she was returning home from work. Additional Sessions Judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey also convicted Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ajay Kumar under provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). Fifth accused Ajay Sethi was convicted under Indian Penal Code section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) and under MCOCA provisions for conspiring to abet, aid or knowingly facilitate organised crime and for receiving the proceeds of organised crime.

The judge said the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt the charges against the accused and listed the matter for sentencing on October 26. Vishwanathan was shot dead on September 30, 2008, while she was returning home from work in her car around 3:30 am. Police had claimed that the motive behind the killing was robbery. Five people were arrested for the murder and they have been in custody since March 2009. The recovery of the weapon used in IT executive Jigisha Ghoshs killing had led to the cracking of Vishwanathans murder case, police said. After Malik moved the Delhi High Court in 2019 for a speedy trial, it sought a report from the trial court, asking why the trial had not concluded even though the chargesheet was filed nine-and-a-half years ago. The trial court had informed the high court that the delay was primarily due to the non-presence of prosecution witnesses and the time taken for the appointment of a special public prosecutor. The trial court had given the death penalty to Kapoor and Shukla and sentenced Malik to a life term in the Jigisha Ghosh murder case in August 2016.
500 Killed in Gaza hospital blast Israel denies hand, blames misfired militant rocket





KHAN YOUNIS (Gaza Strip) :

DOCTORS in Gaza City faced with dwindling medical supplies performed surgery on hospital floors, often without anaesthesia, in a desperate bid to save badly wounded victims of a massive blast that killed civilians sheltering in a nearby hospital amid Israeli bombings and a blockade of the territory. The Hamas militant group blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants. At least 500 people were killed, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. Rage at the hospital carnage spread through the Middle East as US President Joe Biden landed in Israel in hopes of stopping a spread of the war, which started after Hamas militants attacked towns and cities across southern Israel October 7. Biden embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his arrival and later said the blast appeared not to be Israels fault. Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, he told Netanyahu in remarks in front of the media. Shortly before Bidens arrival, Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed after a 12-hour lull. Israeli strikes on Gaza also continued on Wednesday, including on cities in south Gaza that Israel had described as safe zones for Palestinian civilians. After the hospital blast, Jordan cancelled a meeting between Biden, Jordans King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. Biden will now visit only Israel, a White House official said. The war between Israel and Hamas was pushing the region to the brink, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told state-run television. The Israeli military held a briefing on Wednesday morning laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital. It was not firing in the area, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm.

Daniel Hagari said. Instead, Hagari said, Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage fired by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery at that time of the blast, around 6.59 pm. Independent video showed one of the rockets in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said. The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rockets warhead and its unspent propellant, he said. The Israeli military also released a recording they said was between two Hamas militants discussing the blast, during which the speakers say it was believed to be an Islamic Jihad misfire and that the shrapnel appeared to be from IJ weapons, not Israels. Hagari said Israelis Intelligence would be shared with US and British officials. He also questioned the death toll provided by Gazas Hamas-led Health Ministry. Since the war began, roughly 450 rockets fired at Israel by militant groups had landed in Gaza, the military said. Hamas called Tuesdays hospital blast a horrific massacre, saying it was caused by an Israeli strike. Islamic Jihad dismissed Israels claims, accusing Israel of trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed. The group pointed to Israels order that al-Ahli be evacuated and reports of a previous strike at the hospital as proof that the hospital was an Israeli target.

It also said the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bombs fall and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israel. The blast left gruesome scenes. Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a plastic surgeon working at al-Ahli, said he heard a loud explosion and the ceiling of his operating room collapsed. The wounded started stumbling toward us, he wrote in an account posted to Facebook. He saw hundreds of dead and severely wounded people. I put a tourniquet on the thigh of a man who had his leg blown off and then went to tend to a man with a penetrating neck injury. Video that The Associated Press confirmed was from the hospital showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children, as fire engulfed the building. The grass was strewn with blankets, school backpacks and other belongings. On Wednesday morning the blast scene was littered with charred cars and the ground was blackened by debris. Hospital director Suhaila Tarazi said the aftermath of the blast was unlike anything I have ever seen or could ever imagine. Our hospital is a place of love and reconciliation, she said.

We are all losers in this war. And it must end. Ambulances and private cars rushed some 350 casualties to Gaza Citys main hospital, al-Shifa, which was already overwhelmed with wounded from other strikes, said its director, Mohammed Abu Selmia. Doctors there resorted to performing surgery on floors and in the halls, mostly without anesthesia. We need equipment, we need medicine, we need beds, we need anaesthesia, we need everything, Abu Selmia said. He warned that fuel for the hospitals generators would run out within hours, forcing a complete shutdown, unless supplies enter the Gaza Strip.
Accused in Rs 300 cr drug case who escaped from Pune hospital arrested





MUMBAI,

LALIT Patil, a drug case accused who had escaped from a Government hospital in Pune on October 2 has been arrested near Bengaluru, city police said on Wednesday. Patil (37), wanted in a Rs 300 crore mephedrone seizure case among others, was nabbed from a hotel on Tuesday night by a team of Sakinaka police station in Mumbai, a senior official said. He was on Wednesday produced before a magistrate in suburban Andheri which remanded him in police custody till October 23 in the same mephedrone seizure case. Talking to Marathi news channel ABP Majha here while being taken for a medical check-up, Patil claimed that he had not run away from Punes Sassoon General Hospital. I was made to run....I will tell who all were involved, he said while being escorted out by police. As per Pune police, Patil escaped from the Government-run hospital on October 2 when he was taken for X-ray imaging. Arrested in 2022 in a drug case at Chakan in Pune district, he was lodged in Punes Yerawada prison, and admitted to the Sassoon hospital for the last three months.

The Sakinaka police in Mumbai had on October 6 said that they had seized 151 kg of mephedrone worth Rs 300 crore and arrested several persons from different cities during an operation that lasted two months. A drug manufacturing unit located in Nashik district was also busted during the probe. Patil is the 15th person to be arrested in this case, police said. Seeking his custody, police told the magistrates court that other accused arrested in the case had named him, and the police were also probing the money trail.

Patils arrest will expose huge drug nexus in State: Fadnavis: THE arrest of Lalit Patil, an accused in the seizure of mephedrone worth nearly Rs 300 crore, will soon be followed by a major revelation over his drug nexus in Maharashtra, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Wednesday. The senior BJP leader was speaking to reporters in Pune after the Mumbai police said they had arrested Patil near Bengaluru. With his arrest, a huge drug nexus will be unearthed, he claimed. A major revelation will soon come out in connection with Lalit Patil and his drug nexus in the state. Those who are currently loosely talking about the states affairs will be shut completely, he said.
CAIRO, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, agreed on the delivery of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing "in a sustainable manner," the Egyptian presidency said in an overnight statement Thursday.

In a phone conversation, Biden appreciated Egypt's efforts toward achieving peace and stability in the region, said the statement.

Relevant authorities in the two countries will coordinate with international humanitarian organizations under the supervision of the United Nations to secure the arrival of aid, it said.

The talks came hours after Biden wrapped up a visit to Tel Aviv.

Earlier on Wednesday, Sisi expressed Egypt's firm support for the Palestinian people and its strong rejection of any attempt to relocate them to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

On the same day, Israel's wartime cabinet decided to allow basic humanitarian aid from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, a development that Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry described as "positive."

Over the last few days, tons of humanitarian aid supplies from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye and the World Health Organization have been waiting near the Rafah crossing to be delivered to Gaza but blocked by Israeli bombardments.

On Oct. 7, Hamas showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of clean water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities cut off.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. 
BCLL PULLS BRAKE Withdraws services of 56 buses on certain routes, passengers worried





Staff Reporter

As the city bus service from Bhopal to Mandideep and Bilkisganj is stopped, passengers are worried about the transportation. Both routes were out of municipal corporation (25 km) area. Following the orders of High Court, Bhopal City Link Limited (BCLL) has withdrawn its services on these routes from Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, many passengers were seen on road waiting for the bus. Even many passengers complaint on helpline number after not sighting the buses on road. Bus operators and officials involved in the BCLL bus service are discussing their further strategy to get a stay from the court. In its verdict, Jabalpur High Court has ordered not to ply city (metro) buses being operational under Amrit Yojana outside the municipal limits. The High Court cancelled the order of the state government, in which permission was given to operate city buses within a radius of 25 kilometers outside the municipal limits. The court said in its order that the scheme under which the said order was issued has not been gazetted. Gazette notification of the scheme is necessary under Section 99 of the Motor Vehicle Act. The High Court has issued orders to all the municipal corporations including Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur, where city buses operate.

According to schedule, 46 buses were being run from Gandhi Nagar to Chirayu Hospital and Mandideep while 12 buses were running for Bilkisganj. Now, BCLL has withdrawn its bus service on these routes that has affected around 40,000 passengers. Bus schedule for Mandideep will be commuting till Misrod urban area while buses scheduled for Bilkisganj will be running till Nilbad only. These buses would not be moving to Ratibad. There are many routes in city including Mandideep where large number of local passengers travel everyday via bus. Around 40 people including students, working people for industries, plants, service class etc travel for Mandideep from Bhopal every day. On Tuesday evening, these buses asked passengers to board off at the border of municipal corporation area which was a surprise for the passengers. Buses that were earlier commuting from Gandhi Nagar to Mandideep is now commuting from Gandhi Nagar to Samardha only. However, this has raised the importance of local city buses run by private operators. Taking advantage of the situation, private buses are now charging additional amount from passengers. For travelling from MP Nagar to Mandideep, people were charged only Rs 30 per passenger.

Now local buses are charging Rs 45 per passenger. There are 368 buses on 24 routes of Bhopal city. On an average 1.5 lakh people every day travel in city buses and maximum fare on all routes for a passenger is Rs 45. Two years back on August 24, 2021, Government declared to run buses in 25 km of area out of Bhopal city. Then collector Avinash Lavania appealed for gazette notification to choose routes like Kanhasaiya, Hinautia, Bagroda, Ratibad, Sukhi Sewania, Phanda, Parwalia, Eitkhedi, Acharpura, Nayapura, Badjhiri, etc. But gazette notification could not be released by the concerned ministry.
Big announcements of Congress





Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said that the Congress Government in Chhattisgarh has made three big announcements, including procurement of 20 quintal paddy and highlighted the governments commitment to welfare and progress, while speaking to media in Capital. In response to a question regarding the Vachan manifesto released by the Madhya Pradesh Congress, Baghel announced three key initiatives. Firstly, the State Government will procure 20 quintals of paddy, demonstrating its support for the agricultural community. Additionally, Baghel stated, We will provide houses to 17 lakh families, whether the Government of India supports this initiative or not. Notably, 7.5 lakh individuals have already received housing installments, and Priyanka Gandhi has pledged to extend this benefit to an additional 10 lakh people. Furthermore, Baghel confirmed the commencement of a caste census, a move aimed at enhancing social inclusivity.

Taking a dig at BJPs response to these announcements, Baghel remarked, But BJP is silent because it knows that it is not going to come to power. He also humorously referenced the visits of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who often arrives accompanied by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), suggesting that Shahs visits are consistently associated with the ED. Responding to former Chief Minister Dr Raman Singhs request to reschedule the election date due to a festival, Baghel emphasised that the Election Commission should address such concerns. Regarding the Congress partys complaint filed with the Chief Electoral Officer of Chhattisgarh against Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Baghel confirmed the submission of a memorandum alleging inflammatory statements while underscoring the significance of responsible behavior, especially for a Home Minister, and noted that such actions could provoke sentiments and lead to complaints.

To another query, Baghel criticised the BJPs approach to the assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, asserting that the party is not seriously contending. He pointed out that Dr Raman Singhs influence within the BJP was indicative of Aman Singhs involvement, who is associated with Adani. Baghel raised concerns about Adanis interest in Chhattisgarhs mineral resources. When questioned about Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarmas visit to Chhattisgarh, Baghel made a pointed remark, suggesting that Sarma should prioritise his duties as a Hindu by symbolically shaving his head before engaging in discussions.
Fake birth certificate 7-yr jail to Azam, wife, son





RAMPUR (UP) :

A COURT here on Wednesday convicted Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, his wife Tazeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam in a 2019 fake birth certificate case, and awarded them a seven-year jail term. After the court verdict, the trio was taken into judicial custody and will be sent to the jail from the court itself, said Arun Parkash Saxena, a former District Government Counsel, who represented the prosecution. MP-MLA court magistrate Shobit Bansal awarded the three the maximum seven-year sentence. Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav reacted strongly to the news, saying his party latter was being harassed because he follows a different religion. Everyone knows he (Azam Khan) is being harassed because he built a university and comes from a different religion, Yadav told reporters in Kannauj. A video of the statement was shared by the Samajwadi Party on its X handle. Azam Khan is being attacked like this continuously. He is being treated like this under a big conspiracy. BJP leaders and some officials brought from outside have been conspiring against him since day one, Yadav added.

The FIR in the case was lodged by BJP MLA Akash Saxena at the Ganj police station in Rampur on January 3, 2019. It was alleged that Khan and his wife helped their son obtain two fake birth certificates: one from Lucknow and another from Rampur. According to the chargesheet, in the certificate issued by the Rampur municipality, Abdullah Azams date of birth was mentioned as January 1, 1993. The other certificate showed he was born in Lucknow on September 30, 1990. Abullah Azam, who won from the Suar constituency in the 2022 Assembly election on a SP ticket, was already convicted by a Moradabad court in a 2008 case of wrongful restraint and assault on a public servant to deter him. Two days after being convicted and awarded a two-year jail term in February this year, Abdullah Azam was disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly.

He went to the High Court, seeking a stay of the conviction which was refused. Under the provisions of Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951, anyone sentenced to imprisonment of two years or more shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction and remain disqualified for another six years after serving time in jail. Azam Khan was disqualified from the legislative assembly last year after a court sentenced him to three years in jail in a 2019 hate speech case. The veteran politician won the Rampur Sadar assembly seat in the 2022 state assembly polls for a record 10th time. He then gave up the Rampur parliamentary seat, which he won in 2019. Azam Khan is a prominent minority leader of the state is credited with establishing the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur.
NFSC proposes fire museum at Civil Lines old campus





By Sagar Mohod

National Fire Service College (NFSC) is exploring the prospect of establishing a Fire Museum in the city to detail the evolution of the fire-fighting system in the country. The authorities have identified the old campus of the college at pristine Civil Lines locality for this. The plan is in its primary stage. NFSC is going to appoint a consultant to get comprehensive idea on how to go about executing the project. The consultant will plan and also lay out a roadmap for the college authorities. The museum will house the old fire-fighting system, starting with evolution of fire services in the country, depicting its history, and also have various items on display. As the old Fire Service College building is listed as heritage structure, the authorities decided to convert the same into a museum, hoping to achieve both -- the conservation of structure and narrating to the citizens the way fire fighting operations have evolved over the years, Dinkar Mhaski, Administrative Officer, NFSC, told The Hitavada. Mhaski said, the old campus has an area of 3.75 acres and the two-storey building would first need heavy repairs to strengthen it. The college will hire the service of Structural Engineers to get the possibilities in the building assessed and suggest modalities needed. Only after the structure is certified fit, the establishing of fire museum would be taken up. A part of the building is leaning, and it would need reinforcement, he added.

According to Mhaski, there are already two well established fire museums in the country, one at Kolkata and another at Ahemdabad, and both are quite advanced ones. Given the space constraint at NFSC, the primary idea would be to showcase old equipment which would evoke the interest of people. The museum would add to the charm of the old Fire Service College and provide citizens with interesting compilation of equipment and tools used in fire-fighting. Along with old equipment, the latest models, advanced ladders and tools could also be housed in this museum. The note-sheet for the consultant reads that he would have to suggest how the history of the organisation should be depicted, how to design the internal layout, the interiors, other special requirements and, most of all, the estimated cost of the project. The consultant would have to provide a spreadsheet of how to execute the project. The museum would also house artefacts.

NFSC was established in 1956 and is one of the allied organisations of Disaster Management Division under the functioning of Director General (Fire Services, Civil Defence & Home Guards), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of lndia. The aim is to provide training to the fire officers of the country in advanced techniques of fire-fighting and rescue and create uniformity across fire service organisations in the country and their management. It was the only college in the country providing the BE (Fire Engineering) course when it began.
Non-gazetted rly staff to get bonus equivalent to 78 days wages





NEW DELHI,

RAILWAY employees will receive a bonus equivalent to their 78 days salaries, a move that will benefit more than 11.07 lakh non-gazetted staff of the national transporter, the Government announced on Wednesday. The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved a Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB), equivalent to 78 days wages, for the financial year 2022-23 for all eligible non-gazetted railway employees, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said here. The decision will benefit track maintainers, loco pilots, train managers (guards), station masters, supervisors, technicians, technician helpers, pointsmen, ministerial staff and other Group C staff, excluding the RPF and RPSF personnel. The payment of the bonus is expected to cost the exchequer Rs 1,968.87 crore, Thakur said.

In recognition of an excellent performance by the railway staff, the Union Government has approved the payment of a PLB of Rs 1,968.87 crore to 11,07,346 railway employees. The performance of the railways in the year 2022-2023 was very good. The railways loaded a record cargo of 1,509 million tonnes and carried nearly 6.5 billion (650 crore) passengers, an official statement said. It added that among the factors that contributed to the record performance are an improvement in the infrastructure due to the infusion of capital expenditure by the Government in the railways, efficiency in operations and better technology. The payment of the PLB will act as an incentive to motivate the railway employees for working towards further improvement in their performance, the statement said.

Rs 20,774 crore for Ladakh-Kaithal power transmission line approved

THE Government on Wednesday approved setting up of a Rs 20,773.70 crore-transmission line for evacuation of solar power from a 13 GW renewable energy project in Ladakh to Kaithal in Haryana. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his Independence Day Speech, had announced setting up of a 7.5 GW solar park in Ladakh. After extensive field survey, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) prepared a plan to set up 13 GW renewable energy generation capacity along with 12 GWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in Pang, Ladakh, an official release said. For evacuating the huge quantum of power, it will be necessary to create an inter-State transmission infrastructure. Information & Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the project on Green Energy Corridor (GEC) Phase-II  Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS) for the 13 GW renewable energy project in Ladakh.

The project is targeted to be set up by financial year 2029-30 with a total estimated cost of Rs 20,773.70 crore and 40 per cent central financial assistance estimated at Rs 8,309.48 crore. The project is expected to be awarded by March 2025, sources said. The transmission line for evacuating the power will pass through Himachal Pradesh and Punjab up to Kaithal in Haryana where it will be integrated with the national grid. An interconnection is also planned from the project in Leh to existing Ladakh grid so as to ensure reliable power supply to the Ladakh. It will also be connected to Leh-Alusteng-Srinagar line to provide power to Jammu & Kashmir. The project will entail setting up of 713 km transmission lines (including 480 km HVDC line) and 5 GW capacity of HVDC terminal each at Pang (Ladakh) and Kaithal (Haryana), the release said. The project will contribute to achieving the target of 500 GW of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuels by year 2030, it added.

Further, the project will generate large direct and indirect employment opportunities for both skilled and unskilled personnel in power and other related sectors, especially in Ladakh region. This project is in addition to Intra-State Transmission System Green Energy Corridor Phase-II (InSTS GEC-II), which is already under implementation in the states of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh for grid integration and power evacuation of approximately 20 GW. According to the sources, the setting up of the transmission line poses major challenges as the work involves construction at altitude of up to 4,700 metre above mean sea level and ambient temperatures below -35 degree celsius, low air density and very low atmospheric oxygen levels.
TOXIC TALE





Gadchiroli Correspondent

In a sensational incident at Mahagaon in Aheri taluka, two women of a family poisoned and killed as many as five of their own kin with a heavy metal-based poison. While one claimed she was tired of harassment from in-laws, the other said she wanted to save her ancestral property which made them eliminate the family members over a period of 20 days. Police arrested the accused daughter-in-law and sister-in-law on Wednesday morning. They were produced before court, which sent the two to police custody remand of 10 days. The family members had died with symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting, bodyache and cardio respiratory failure. While three of them had died in a hospital in Nagpur, 2 others passed away while undergoing treatment in Chandrapur. The deceased have been identified as Shankar Kumbhare, his wife Vijaya, daughter Komal Dahagaokar, son Roshan and Vijayas sister Ananda alias Varsha Urade. The arrested accused have been identified as Sanghamitra Kumbhare, wife of deceased Roshan Kumbhare, and Roza Ramteke, Vijayas brothers wife. At some point, Sanghamitra and Roza hit a common ground and allegedly decided to execute their nefarious plan.

Roshan and accused Sanghamitra had a love marriage against her parents wishes. Her father had committed suicide because of this. She allegedly held a grudge and told police that her in-laws and husband would often taunt her. On the other hand, Roza was upset as Vijaya was demanding share in her (Vijayas) fathers property. As per details, on September 9 last, Shankar Kumbhare and his wife Vijaya fell ill all of a sudden after which they were admitted to a hospital in Aheri and later shifted to Chandrapur. However, Shankar died on September 26 and Vijaya too breathed her last the next day. Even as the family was coming to terms with the deaths, the couples daughter Komal Dahagaokar, who stayed in Gadaheri, their son Roshan Kumbhare as well as Vijayas sister Ananda Urade, who stayed in Mul, also fell ill and all were admitted in different hospitals. One after the other, all three also died on different dates - Komal on October 8, Ananda on October 14 and Roshan on October 15. Meanwhile, Kumbhare couples elder sonSagar, who stays in Delhi, had come down to Chandrapur to meet the ailing parents. When he returned to Delhi he too fell ill and had to be hospitalised.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Jean-Pierre Raffarin, special representative of French President Emmanuel Macron and former French prime minister, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan)

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday met with Jean-Pierre Raffarin, special representative of French President Emmanuel Macron and former French prime minister, in Beijing.

Facing an international landscape marked by change and disorder, China and France, both independent major countries, have the ability and responsibility to jointly promote international solidarity and cooperation, said Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

More than 10,000 representatives from 151 countries and 41 international organizations gathered in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. This once again demonstrates the great appeal and global influence of Belt and Road cooperation and shows that seeking development, cooperation and win-win results is an irresistible trend of the times, Wang said.

China is willing to strengthen strategic communication with France, jointly safeguard multilateralism, and oppose bloc confrontation, so as to provide more stability and certainty for the world and contribute to peace, development and prosperity, he said.

As Belt and Road cooperation enters a new stage of high-quality development, China welcomes the French side to continue its active participation and is willing to work with France to explore more third-party market cooperation, Wang said.

Taking the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, the China-France Year of Culture and Tourism and the Paris Olympics next year as opportunities, the two sides should carry forward traditional friendship, expand all-round cooperation, and consolidate public support and the social foundation of bilateral relations, Wang said.

Raffarin, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, emphasized that jointly building the Belt and Road is particularly important for promoting development and cooperation at a time of intensifying geopolitical situations.

France attaches great importance to this important initiative and is willing to work with China to continue to implement joint projects such as those with trilateral cooperation, Raffarin said.

The two sides also exchanged views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and expressed concern over the escalation of tensions. The two sides are willing to maintain communication on promoting a ceasefire and restoring peace. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Jean-Pierre Raffarin, special representative of French President Emmanuel Macron and former French prime minister, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan)
Utz Brands (NYSE:UTZ  Get Free Report) had its price objective cut by analysts at Bank of America from $20.00 to $13.00 in a research report issued on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a neutral rating on the stock. Bank of Americas price target would indicate a potential upside of 10.73% from the companys previous close.

Several other research analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada began coverage on Utz Brands in a report on Tuesday, September 26th. They issued an outperform rating and a $17.00 price target on the stock. Barclays dropped their price target on Utz Brands from $17.00 to $16.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 12th. TD Cowen began coverage on Utz Brands in a report on Wednesday, September 13th. They issued an outperform rating and a $18.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Piper Sandler dropped their price target on Utz Brands from $22.00 to $17.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Monday, October 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $17.14.

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Utz Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:UTZ opened at $11.74 on Tuesday. Utz Brands has a 12 month low of $11.17 and a 12 month high of $19.15. The stock has a market cap of $1.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 1,174.00, a PEG ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 0.85. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $14.06 and its 200 day moving average price is $15.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 1.82 and a quick ratio of 1.24.

Utz Brands (NYSE:UTZ  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 10th. The company reported $0.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.13. The company had revenue of $362.90 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $360.59 million. Utz Brands had a return on equity of 5.77% and a net margin of 0.05%. The firms revenue was up 3.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.13 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Utz Brands will post 0.56 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Utz Brands

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of UTZ. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Utz Brands by 7.7% during the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 10,808 shares of the companys stock valued at $160,000 after acquiring an additional 769 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its holdings in shares of Utz Brands by 8.9% during the 1st quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 342,939 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,069,000 after acquiring an additional 28,011 shares in the last quarter. AlphaCrest Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Utz Brands by 11.5% during the 1st quarter. AlphaCrest Capital Management LLC now owns 26,660 shares of the companys stock valued at $394,000 after acquiring an additional 2,739 shares in the last quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Utz Brands by 58.5% during the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 36,012 shares of the companys stock valued at $532,000 after acquiring an additional 13,291 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rhumbline Advisers grew its holdings in shares of Utz Brands by 9.4% during the 1st quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 58,172 shares of the companys stock valued at $860,000 after acquiring an additional 5,014 shares in the last quarter. 49.01% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Utz Brands

(Get Free Report)

Utz Brands, Inc operates as a snack food manufacturing company. It offers a range of salty snacks, including potato chips, kettle chips, tortilla chips, pretzels, cheese snacks, pork skins, pub/party mixes, salsa and queso, ready-to-eat popcorn, veggies, and other snacks under the Utz, Zapp's, ON THE BORDER, Golden Flake, Good Health, Boulder Canyon, Hawaiian, TGI Fridays, TORTIYAHS!, and other brand names.

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Laman Ismayilova

President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Ersin Tatar has visited the International Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation.

Recalling that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was granted observer status in the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) within the Samarkand Summit held last November, President Ersin Tatar hailed the rich history of Turkic world, including its culture, literature and music, Azernews reports.

He emphasized that Northern Cyprus and its people are a part of the Turkic world, President Ersin Tatar expressed his hope that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus will soon be among the countries cooperating with the International Turkish Culture and Heritage Foundation.

Speaking about the friendship and brotherhood between the Turkic states, the foundation president Gunay Afandiyeva noted common roots, traditions, language, folklore, and religion, which create a solid foundation for the joint future of the Turkic world.

Gunay Afandiyeva also informed President Ersin Tatar about the foundation's large-scale activities and international projects aimed at protecting the centuries-old cultural heritage of the Turkic world and passing it on to future generations.

The sides discussed the issues of mutual interest and prospects for future cooperation.

Initiated in 2012, the Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation focuses on the preservation of the Turkic heritage in member countries as well as conducting projects in collaboration with partners in third nations.

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.
SHANGHAI, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai's municipal government has released its latest action plan to boost infrastructure construction between 2023 and 2026, with computing power and high-speed communication network among the key priorities.

At a press conference held on Thursday, the municipal government said the city now has 88,000 5G base stations and is working to build an optical fiber network with a communication capacity of more than 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) and develop 5G-Advanced technologies by the end of 2026.

It is hoped that the new round of new infrastructure policies will help to expand effective investment and promote Shanghai's digital transformation, the government said.

According to the action plan, Shanghai's new infrastructure construction work will be carried out in five key fields: the communication network, computing power, new data, innovation facilities and terminals.

Speaking at the press conference, Gu Jun, head of the municipal development and reform commission, said the new action plan focuses on the development trends of technologies such as intelligent computing power, large models, data elements, blockchain and robots, while according with eco-friendly and low-carbon energy conservation requirements.

Currently, 37.2 percent of Shanghai's mobile phone base stations are 5G base stations, and there are 13.8 5G base stations across the city per square kilometer, both ranking first in China. 
The seat of former Minister of Social Services, Information and Broadcasting Obie Wilchcombe was draped in black with a wreath, as members of Parliament paid him tribute. TORRELL GLINTON
Prime Minister Philip Davis (left) with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the Canada-CARICOM Summit in Canada on Monday.
YANGON, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Two people were killed in a firework explosion in eastern Myanmar's Shan State, an official from the Fire Services Department of Langkho told Xinhua on Thursday.

The blast occurred around 8:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday in Langkho township.

A man started a motorcycle sidecar, which leaked oil, causing the engine to heat up. Meanwhile, the sidecar, loaded with fireworks, caught fire and resulted in an explosion.

Due to the explosion, the man who started the motorcycle and a woman who stood near the motorcycle died on the spot, and no other was injured, the official said. 
That release could not be found.
There is a serious concern over rampant practice of open defecation in Oyo Stat with 54 percent of people in the state with over 8 million population engaging in the practice, according to National Bureau of Statistics.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) called on government at all levels in Nigeria to take practical and pragmatic steps to end open defecation as Nigeria overtakes India to become number one in the world in terms of open defecation practice.

At a media dialogue in Ibadan organised by United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) with the theme "Eliminating Open Defecation in South West" on Tuesday, Oyo State Commissioner of information, Prince Dotun Oyelade disclosed that perpetrators of Open Defecation in the state would be prosecuted henceforth.

He said the state ministry information is intensifying efforts on public enlightenment to sensitise residents to desist from open defecation practice.

Oyelade said Oyo State Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde has directed the state ministry of Justice to prosecute perpetrators of Open Defecation in the state.

Oyelade said "Oyo state is ready to end the menace of open defecation in our state with the support of UNICEF. The governor has mandated that billboards with messages warning and discouraging people from open defecation practice and the penalties for perpetrators should be in strategic places across the state.

"The State Ministry of justice has been mandated by Governor Seyi Makinde to ensure that those who perpetrate open defecation practice in Oyo State are brough to book. They would be charged and brough to book. These are some of the steps we are taking to ensure that our collaboration with UNICEF is brough to fruition", Oyelade said.

UNICEF Water Sanitation and Hygiene Specialist, Monday Johnson calle on Governors of other South West states to put mesures in place to end open defecation in their respective states.

Johnson said UNICEF is supporting Oyo State Government to end open defecation in the state before 2028.

He expressed worry that Nigeria might not be able to end open defecation in the country by 2025 going the the implementation pace, saying that it might take up till 2046 to achieve goal.

Johnson said "The overall vision of UNICEF Nigeria's WASH programme is to support Government to ensure that by 2027, more Nigerians, especially those in vulnerable situations, realize their rights to safely managed drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene services through improved access to affordable, sustainable and climate-resilient, safely managed water, sanitation, and hygiene services."

He called on government to increase investments and targeted funding to efforts aimed at ending open defecation in the country.
The National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) in partnership with the Lagos Business School (LBS) planned to drive research on data, diaspora investment and capacity building that will enhance businesses and economic growth.

The partnership was announced yesterday in Lagos, the President of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), Idorenyen Enang, noted that the marketing industry contributes largely to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, adding that the entire estate that marketing as a profession is sitting on is huge.

Enang explained that the cardinal points of the partnership is driving research to present data that the country can evaluate and bring meaningful insights into not just the profession, but also the country and businesses.

He said, We are setting up what you would call NIMN diaspora and we are already putting a framework together. Its about how our members and also marketers of Nigerian origin and African origin who are in the diaspora, will be able to find a way to impact those back home."

The Chief Marketing Officer at LBS/Pan Atlantic University (PAU), Nsima Ogedi-Alakwe, also disclosed that this partnership would transform marketing. According to her, those who have left the country are gaining knowledge and transferring it to Nigeria, which she said is also drawing foreign partnership and investment into the country in the area of trade, collaboration, skills development and education.
The Independent Hajj Reporters (IHR), a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) that monitors and reports on Hajj and Umrah activities, has congratulated the newly appointed Chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Alhaji Jalal Arabi, on his appointment to head the Hajj regulatory body in Nigeria.

IHR, in a statement on Thursday signed by its National Coordinator, Malam Ibrahim Mohammed, also commended the immediate past board of NAHCON headed by Barrister Zikirullah Kunle Hassan for services rendered to Nigerian pilgrims despite challenges.

As a seasoned civil servant, the new NAHCON helmsman comes onboard with a technocratic experience which we believe will come to bear as he assumes duty.

We also note that the new chairman is coming into office at the right time with a timeline of activities regarding Hajj 2024, just picking up.

"We urge that he hits the ground running by continuing where the last board stopped by ensuring prompt registration of intending pilgrims and engagement of capable service providers for Hajj 2024, IHR said.

Furthermore, we urged the new Chairman to immediately mobilise needed tools to launch a massive public enlightenment to educate 2024 intending pilgrims on the short time available for registration for the 2024 hajj pilgrimage with emphasis on states to queue in for maximum reach.

The CSO also added that as a retired Permanent Secretary in the Federal Civil Service, it expects the new NAHCON Chairman to put in place a comprehensive and sustainable Hajj policy that focuses on efficient service delivery for Nigerian pilgrims and see to its implementation at every stage.

IHR, while commending the immediate past board of the commission for doing well despite numerous challenges, particularly paid tribute to the Zikirullah Kunle Hassan board for the take-off of the Hajj Savings Scheme and the Hajj Institute of Nigeria.

The CSO stressed that while we wish the incoming CEO a successful tenure of office, we call on him to work in harmony with the State Pilgrims Boards and Agencies as well as Tour Operators to see to the successful registration of pilgrims and the implementation of the Road Map to Hajj 2024, as encapsulated in the programmes and policies being implemented by the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah towards Hajj 2024.

Signed

Ibrahim Muhammed

National Coordinator

Independent Hajj Reporters

19th October, 2024.


President Bola Tinubu has expressed profound sadness concerning the demise of Mubasheer Olabode Agusto, who served as an Adviser (Budget Matters) to President Olusegun Obasanjo during his second term in office.

The President extends his heartfelt condolences to the Agusto family and their friends who are mourning in the wake of his passage into glory.

As an accountant with exceptional talent, Mr. Bode Agusto served at various times as a former Assistant Vice President of Citibank Nigeria; a Partner in PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PwC); Non-Executive Director of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) and the Shell Nigeria Pension Fund; in addition to his service as a Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The President acknowledges Bodes unparalleled contributions to the financial world, as well as the public and private sectors of Nigeria.

Emphasizing Bodes pursuit of sustainable economic growth in the public service, President Tinubu notes that the distinguished Chartered Accountant continued to share his wealth of knowledge even when faced with serious medical challenges.

"Even in the face of formidable health challenges, Bode continued to generously share his time and wealth of knowledge on economics and business strategy. He was consistently eager to contribute to the growth of the Nigerian economy. His impact will resonate through generations, and I pray that God grants his soul eternal rest," President Tinubu said.

Chief Ajuri Ngelale

Special Adviser to the President

(Media & Publicity)

October 19, 2023


SEOUL, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday for an official visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) at the invitation of the DPRK Foreign Ministry.

Speaking at a reception Wednesday evening, DPRK Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui underscored the mutual support and close cooperation between the two countries, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

Choe expressed her expectation that based on the "historic agreement" reached by the two heads of state, the DPRK and Russia would use Lavrov's visit to expand their comprehensive and constructive relations on a higher level.

Lavrov said that the recent meeting between the two heads of state has shown the will of the two countries to develop their bilateral relations into comprehensive strategic ties in line with the interests of their peoples.

His visit aims to achieve tangible results in terms of implementing the agreement reached by the two leaders, the Russian foreign minister said.

Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the DPRK visited Russia and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September. 
Analysis report to cover impact of Phuket airport development

PHUKET: The Phuket office of the Airports of Thailand (AOT) had a meeting this morning (Oct 19) to study the potential environmental and community impact of proposed development plans for Phuket airport.

constructionenvironmenttourismtransportlandpollutionwildlife

By The Phuket News

Thursday 19 October 2023 02:59 PM

The meeting, held at the Proud Phuket Hotel near Naiyang Beach and led by Chief Administrative Officer of the Phuket Provincial Office (Palad) Somprat Prabsongkhram, specifically sought feedback from the general public on the impact of Phase 2 of the Phuket Airport Development Project.

Also present at the meeting was Monchai Tanode, General Manager of Phuket International Airport, representatives from government and private sector entities, community leaders and selected representatives from local community clubs and associations.

Mr Somprat explained that the AOT is fully aware of the importance of studying and preparing environmental impact assessment reports and that a consultancy has been hired to carry out a thorough analysis report of the findings.

One of the aspects of this process was todays meeting to provide an opportunity for representatives of local communities to air any concerns they may have.

Such concerns would be factored into the report to ensure appropriate measures are implemented to minimise any significant impact and subsequent inconvenience, something required by law Mr Somprat explained. All environmental concerns would be equally considered, he said.

Todays meeting was, in essence, an opportunity for the authorities to listen to stakeholders from the local community to ensure they are heard and appropriate action is taken, Mr Somprat added.

The information shared and discussed will be used to determine the scope and guidelines for the environmental impact assessment report to ensure maximum benefit to the people of Phuket Province, he concluded.
Budget airlines set for struggle amid fierce competition

BANGKOK: New low-cost carriers in Southeast Asia may find it more difficult to survive as dominant players could engage in a dumping strategy to protect their market share, while seat resumption for airlines could take 10 years for a full recovery.

tourismtransport

By Bangkok Post

Thursday 19 October 2023 03:16 PM

Aircraft operated by local low-cost carriers Thai AirAsia and Thai Lion Air are parked at Don Mueang airport in Bangkok. Photo: Pattarapong Chatpattarasill

Patee Sarasin, chief executive of Really Cool Airlines and former chief executive of Nok Air, said after the airline obtained an air operation licence in the third quarter of this year, it is now applying for an air operating certificate (AOC), which it expects to receive in January 2024.

After receiving the AOC, the company should be ready to start operating full-service charter flights from March to May 2024, with destinations including Tokyo, Nagoya, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai, before moving to scheduled flights from the third quarter, reports the Bangkok Post.

Mr Patee said two Airbus A330-300 planes will be used in the first quarter, targeting a utilisation rate of 13 hours per day for each aircraft.

The company wants to expand the fleet to four jets by the end of 2024.

He said Really Cools products and services stand apart from low-cost carriers as competition in this segment is not feasible for a new airline.

Existing players could pursue a price dumping strategy to cripple newcomers, relying on their more extensive networks, said Mr Patee.

As proof of the risk, he pointed out that last week the Malaysian budget carrier MYAirline suddenly suspended operations because of financial issues.

Mr Patee said while post-pandemic airfares have increased as seat capacity remains limited amid soaring demand, the low-cost segment still remains sensitive to price.

Large airlines that can regularly slash prices to protect their market share could gain an advantage, he said.

Mr Patee says the new airline plans to fly two Airbus A330-300 aircrafts in the first quarter.

Such a strategy affects smaller players that cannot afford to lower airfares, especially when high operations costs push up prices beyond levels in 2019, said Mr Patee.

He said the opportunities Really Cool Airlines is targeting are with long-haul services.

These routes consume more fuel and incur high costs, but with an appropriate hedging strategy, the airline should be able to manage operational costs, said Mr Patee.

While we obtain an AOC, the airline has completed other tasks and are 80-90% ready to fly, he said.

We already recruited pilots and will select 180 cabin crew by the end of this month after receiving 1,000 applications.

Mr Patee said the airline should recognise an operating profit within 18 months, which is faster than would normally be expected, attributed to ticket prices rising significantly since the pandemic.

By 2026, the airline plans to fly long-haul flights to Europe, which would make it the second carrier after Thai Airways to serve those routes.

He said the model set by two new Japanese airlines should be monitored: Air Japan, under the ownership of ANA, and Zipair, owned by Japan Airlines.

Utilising a unique strategy compared with other low-cost carriers and with high travel demand for Japan, those two airlines could offer low fares in the beginning, then raise them at a later stage, said Mr Patee.

New airlines have to differentiate themselves to survive, he said.

Though some industry analysts predict a full aviation recovery can occur in a few years, Mr Patee said seat capacity would take 10 years to match pre-pandemic levels because of insufficient maintenance facilities and delayed delivery of new aircraft, a lack of manpower, and airlines large debts.

Moreover, unanticipated external incidents could disrupt growth, such as conflicts in Israel and Ukraine that are ongoing, he said.

Based on my experience with Nok Air, it took five consecutive years to develop a steady profit until we could list the company on the stock exchange in 2013, said Mr Patee.

It wont be easy for airlines during this time to recover from the pandemic as the impact was greater than any crisis in the past.
Government backs UK plans for English study cooperation

BANGKOK: Thailand has accepted the United Kingdoms proposed programmes to foster cooperation in English studies for Thai teachers and students in Thailand.

COVID-19

By Bangkok Post

Thursday 19 October 2023 09:24 AM

Photo: Bangkok Post

Education Minister Pol Gen Permpoon Chidchob met UK Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific Anne-Marie Trevelyan yesterday (Oct 18) and discussed educational cooperation in English studies for Thai teachers and students in Thailand.

British ambassador, Mark Gooding, also attended the discussion at the Ministry of Education, reports the Bangkok Post.

Pol Gen Permpoon said he was thankful that the British government has offered aid to develop the online-learning platform for Thai students, allowing them to get access to English classes and online databases worldwide.

He added that Thailand still has a lot of students from underprivileged backgrounds.

After receiving assistance from the British government to improve English classes, students and teachers are provided much more equal access to education.

Pol Gen Permpoon added that he is willing to study the advice and lessons learned on the practicality of online and on-site learning in Britain.

An exchange of knowledge on curriculum and textbooks would contribute to improvement in English classes in Thailand.

Ms Trevelyan said that Britain was pleased to share its experiences during the pandemic, where online learning was met with difficulties.

Various parties in Britain then worked jointly with many sectors to improve and digitise school lessons as well as to train school personnel to work online.

Given that the education minister is paying attention to English study in Thailand, Ms Trevelyan said that the British government was willing to support the programmes.
New Phuket Governor meets the consuls

PHUKET: After just over two weeks in office as the new Governor of Phuket, Sophon Suwannarat yesterday (Oct 18) met with Phuket consuls and honorary consuls from 27 countries to discuss issues focussing on the safety of tourists.

tourismSafetypolice

By The Phuket News

Thursday 19 October 2023 09:32 AM

Among those present for the meeting, held at Phuket Provincial Hall, were Phuket Provincial Police Commander Pol Maj Gen Sermphan Sirikong; Samerjit Limlikit, head Phuket Provincial Temporary Passport Office (under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs); and Thaneth Tantipiriyakit, President of the Phuket Tourist Association.

The first order of business was to welcome three representatives to their positions as honorary consuls: Somboon Jirayus as honorary consul for Sweden; Sasit Thavornwongwongse as honorary consul for Brazil; and Nutthaphong Phathakiatpaisan, honorary consul for Mongolia.

According to an official report of the meeting, the key issue discussed was safety and security measures for foreigners in Phuket and building confidence for tourists and foreigners in Phuket.

Governor Sophon said that the government had given importance to Phuket province and pointed out that new Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin had already visited the island twice. The government will push for income generation from tourism aimed to open the door to receive tourists by providing convenience, he said.

A crackdown to prevent exploitation of tourists was underway and enhanced security measures were being rolled out to create confidence and impress tourists in terms of life and property, he added.

Important principles of tourist care is to create safety convenience and attraction, with integration from all sectors, Gov Sophon said.

Tourist areas are to be organised, including providing various facilities to support tourists of every group, every country, every nationality. In preparing to take care of safety for important tourists, intelligent AI will be pushed in public health. Accidents and road safety is a policy that must be pushed to happen as soon as possible, he added, according to the official report.

Pol Maj Gen Sermphan said that the Phuket Provincial Police had security measures in place at Phuket International Airport and the Phuket Check Point at Tha Chatchai, and at various piers and beach areas, which are important tourist attractions, he said.

Readiness has been prepared at every point to take care of the safety of tourists. In addition, in order to build confidence for tourists, the Phuket Provincial Police have launched a crackdown on crime. We have also conducted incident-response training simulations, such as at the Central shopping mall, Jungceylon and at Boat Lagoon Pier, and so on, he added.

Maj Gen Sermphan further said that the Phuket Provincial Police had also held a meeting with car and motorbike rental operators and spoken with honorary consuls from many countries to promote the concept that tourists are to follow important laws, knowing that the laws will be enforced. Wear a helmet, dont drink and drive, strictly follow traffic rules, he said.

Phuket Provincial Police had also overseen the creation of a network of women volunteer security personnel, the official report said, without any further details.

CCTV cameras and drones were being used for traffic management by being linked to the 191 emergency reporting center at Phuket Provincial Police headquarters, which also linked its feeds and information reports with the Royal Thai Navy Third Area Command at Cape Panwa, the official report said.

All of these measures will be able to build confidence in safety in taking care of tourists who will travel to Phuket province, the official report concluded.
Online scams run rife

PHUKET: The Phuket office of the Public Relations Department (PR Phuket) has shared a warning of a scam trying to dupe people by tricking them into thinking they are making a donation to the Red Cross Society of Thailand, while the Phuket office of the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA Phuket) has posted a warning of scammers targetting people on the island.

crimetechnologypolice

By The Phuket News

Thursday 19 October 2023 12:28 PM

A screenshot from the chat with the scammer who claimed to be an officer at Phuket City Police Station. Image: via Phuket Info Center

An scammer claiming to be an officer at Phuket City Police Station. Image: via Phuket Info Center

An scammer claiming to be an officer at Phuket City Police Station. Image: via Phuket Info Center

An image from the warning by PEA Phuket. Image: PEA Phuket

An image from the warning by PEA Phuket. Image: PEA Phuket

An image from the warning by PEA Phuket. Image: PEA Phuket

An image from the warning by PEA Phuket. Image: PEA Phuket

An image from the warning by PEA Phuket. Image: PEA Phuket

An image from the warning by PEA Phuket. Image: PEA Phuket

Currently, there is a group of criminals who have set up a Line OpenChat group to recruit members into the group named Group donates funds for charity to create income and allows people to donate money to receive commissions and compete for prizes by falsely claiming the account name Thai Red Cross Society to receive donations, the Thai Red Cross said in its warning.

The Thai Red Cross Society would like to inform you that it has no policy to accept donations in this manner. Therefore, we would like to warn people to be careful and never be fooled!!! the warning added.

If you would like to donate money to the Thai Red Cross Society. Must be an account in the name of the organisation Thai Red Cross Income Procurement Office only. If the account is in the name of a person, Mr. Mrs. Miss is a scammer and the Thai Red Cross Society has no involvement at all, the national charity said.

If you see any such abnormalities You can report information to Revenue Generation Office, Thai Red Cross Society, Tel. 0 2256 4440-3, the warning concluded.

Meanwhile, PEA Phuket on Tuesday issued a warning of a scam operation targetting people on the island.

Most recently today (Oct. 17, 2023), someone was injured from transferring money to an impersonator, PEA Phuket said in a post on its official Facebook page.

The impersonator claimed to be an official of the Provincial Electricity Authority and said the PEA wanted to install power backup equipment and check the quality of electricity use in the victims area.

The victim explained to officers at PEA Phuket that the call centre gang had called the victims office and asked for the victims phone number. Pretending to be an official of the PEA, the victim was then invited to talk via the Line application.

The victim sent information and documents, and was finally tricked into transferring money. After that, no action was taken. Later, the victim checked with the PEA, and discovered the scam.

At present, documents and evidence have been prepared to file a complaint [with police], PEA Phuket.

Screenshots were provided by the victim to substantiate the report.

The Provincial Electricity Authority has no policy to for people to transfer money or for any transactions where it is required to enter the employee account number, PEA Phuket reported.

For more information, please contact call center 1129 or at Electricity Authority offices nationwide, the warning concluded.

Meanwhile, Phuket Info Center yesterday posted a photo of an alleged scammer who impersonated being a police officer stationed at Phuket City Police Station (Mueang Phuket Police Station).

The scam was reminiscent of a scheme last year that saw a Phuket expat of 36 years being duped out of thousands of baht after he was threatened with 10 years in jail for receiving illicit funds.

PR Phuket yesterday shared a warning against online scammers issued by the Comptroller Generals Department, under the Ministry of Finance.

Dont be fooled by scammers pretending to be executives from the Comptroller Generals Department, said the warning.

Special warning was given if people were contacted by officers who call or send an SMS to proceed with further communication.

Other warnings included the claims by fake officers to update payroll or asking people to download various applications, or if they asked to be added as friends through the Line app or asked people to click on links sent.

Never give out personal information, warning strongly emphasised.

The Comptroller Generals Department has no policy to call government officials, pensioners, or the public or send any SMS to take any action whatsoever, the warning noted.

People who believed they had been scammed by fake Comptroller Generals Department officials were asked to call 02-2706400.
Patient info-sharing platform to support medical tourism push

PHUKET: Prince of Songkla University, in collaboration with Suranaree University of Technology in Nakhon Ratchasima and the Fintechinno Group based in Bangkok have announced the launch of a mobile app and digital platform through which local residents and tourists will be able to share medical records and information securely by using Blockchain.

Health

By The Phuket News

Thursday 19 October 2023 04:05 PM

The announcement of the digital platform came at the Andaman Dental Congress 2023 at the Duangjitt Resort and Spa Hotel in Patong yesterday (Oct 18).

The platform, based on Fintechinnos 24HOS (24x7 Digital Hospital) platform, is expected to enhance the development of innovation zones and raise tourism to a higher value, said Assoc Prof Dr Chitchanok Leethanakul, Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry at Prince of Songkla University.

Specifically, the platform is hoped to enhance the development of nine medical innovation and health promotion zones, tourism innovation zones in 12 high value areas, seven green industrial zones and 28 carbon neutral areas, he said.

Chaowalit Chaengchai, Fintechinnos Managing Director, said the digital platform included 24HOSs mobile application ThaiHN for use as a personal health record iIn electronic format.

It supports the access and exchange of health information via smart phones of both Thai people and foreign tourists with security using Blockchain technology, Mr Chaowalit said.

This supports the expansion of health, beauty and wellness businesses in order to promote the industry In terms of health tourism or medical tourism for the Health & Wellness Hub that will develop in many areas in Thailand, he said.

Working closely with the Prince of Songkla University will support the development of health tourism businesses in the southern provinces, and working closely with Suranaree University of Technology will support the development of medical tourism businesses in the northeastern provinces, he added.

The medical tourism development in the South and the NOrtheast will be supported by the Ronitron group of companies, of which Suphakin Somsri, Chairman of the Executive Board of Ronitron Co Ltd, was present at the announcement yesterday.

Assoc Prof Dr Chitchanok said, Prince of Songkla University is responding to the governments policy in using digital technology to develop education, especially for the Andaman International Health Center project. The Prince of Songkla University has received budget approval from the government.

Therefore, Fintechinno will help further develop a technology system for use in services that will be able to meet the needs of local residents and tourists who come to Phuket in order to provide comprehensive health care that is modern and accessible to the public, and especially respond to the needs of tourists coming to the Phuket area who place confidence in the quality and efficient dental service system.

The use of technology in dentistry will result in speed and precision in treatment. In addition, Prince of Songkla University will be a centre for training those who want learn and train in dentistry, he added.

DENTAL CONGRESS

Phuket Vice Governor Amnuay Pinsuwan presided over the opening of the Andaman Dental Congress 2023 academic conference being held at the Duangjitt resort.

Some 300 experts in the field of dentistry from many countries and from throughout Thailand are attending the congress. The three-day conference, this year marking the 40th anniversary of the congress, will conclude tomorrow (Oct 20).

Under the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) plan for 2017-2036, Prince of Songkla University is preparing to open a Digital Dental Center at its Phuket campus by June 2024, Vice Governor Amnuay said.
Police seek scam gang linked to girls suicide

NAKHON SI THAMMARAT: Police are preparing to seek arrest warrants for members of a scam gang believed to have driven a 19-year-old student to hang herself after they duped her into paying for an iPhone 13 that she never received.

suicidecrimepolice

By Bangkok Post

Thursday 19 October 2023 01:19 PM

Flowers are displayed at the funeral for a teenage girl who took her life in Nakhon Si Thammarat after paying for a mobile phone that was never delivered. Photo: Nujaree Rakrun

A police investigation found the Mathayom 6 (Grade 12) student had contacted the Hannah mobile phone shop via Facebook to say she wanted to a buy a phone.

However, checks found the shop did not exist and the website gave a fake address in Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai, reports the Bangkok Post.

The gang deceived the girl, who lived in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat, into paying for an iPhone 13 and made her issue a downpayment and pay for other expenses in instalments.

The girl ended up paying a total of B18,500. The money was transferred to the phantom shop via a bank account held under the name of Dokkaew Kaewjerm. The account has since been frozen.

The victim was also tricked into transferring an additional B2,000 as a guarantee payment.

According to the police, the girl realised she was being cheated after having sent the last payment and not receiving a phone. She tried in vain to contact the vendor via a Line chat group, only to find she had been blocked.

Fearing she would be reprimanded by her family for borrowing money from two school friends to buy a device the family could not afford, she was overwhelmed with stress.

In her final chat message with her friends, she complained about the stress she was dealing with. When the teens messages suddenly stopped, her friends suspected something was amiss and alerted her family.

The girl hanged herself at her home in tambon Koh Thuad of Pak Phanang district in Nakhon Si Thammarat on Monday (Oct 16).

Koh Thuad police transferred the case to the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) after the victims parents filed a complaint with the police online on Tuesday, said Pol Lt Gen Worawat Watnakhonbancha, the CCIB chief.

CCIB Division 5 officers are tracing the girls remittances to the vendor, as well as the bogus shops Facebook page and IP address, Pol Lt Gen Worawat said.

Police expect the suspects will be rounded up within two days. Evidence has already been gathered to issue arrest warrants.

Pol Maj Gen Charin Kopatta, the Division 5 commander, said the gang ran four mule bank accounts, one in Chaiyaphum and the rest in Chiang Rai.

The girls money transfers went to Chiang Rai, from where they would have been sent to a bank in border town of Tachileik in Myanmar, police said.

Ms Dokkaew, who owns the mule account that received the girls payments, denied any link to the gang when she was interviewed by police in Chaiyaphum.

She claimed she had no idea her personal data including her citizenship ID card had been used to open the account.

In Nakhon Sawan, the 27-year-old owner of a phone shop called Family filed a complaint with local police yesterday after learning the scam gang had used the shops logo on their web page.

If you or anyone you know is in need of emotional support and counselling, please contact the Samaritans of Thailand at their 24-hour hotline 02-113-6789 (English & Thai) or the Thai Mental Health Hotline at 1323 (Thai).
Tha Reua, Jong Ong Shrines join street processions

PHUKET: The streets of Phuket Town today (Oct 19) saw mah song and devotees from Tha Reau Shrine and the Jong Ong Shrine hold their street processions as part of this years Phuket Vegetarian Festival.

Chineseculture

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Thursday 19 October 2023 10:42 AM

Loud firecrackers marked the occasion as many people turned out to witness the processions pass by.

The street procession for the Tha Ruea Shrine, located just south of the Heroines Monument, began closer to Phuket Town, near the Mission Hospital Phuket on Thepkrasattri Rd.

The procession, featuring both male men and women mah song, made its way to the shrine at Saphan Hin, where more rituals and ceremonies to honour the Nine Emperor Gods were held.

Arriving at Saphan Hin before the Tha Ruea Shrine procession were devotees and mah song from the Jong Ong Shrine, located in front of Vachira Phuket Hospital on Yaowarat Rd in Phuket Town.

After completing the rituals at Saphan Hin, the mah song and devotees made their way back to their respective shrines.

Today marked the fifth day of the Phuket Vegetarian Festival, and the fourth day of street processions. In total eight shrines are to hold their street processions today. Six of those street processions were completed this morning.

The Seng Leng Tong Shrine in Muang Mai will hold its procession at 3pm today, while the Sapam Shrine will hold its street procession at 6:45pm this evening. As usual, expect traffic delays in those areas while the street processions are being held.

The street processions continue tomorrow with the Gim Su Ong Shrine in Baan Don starting their procession at 6:30am.

The Cherng Talay Shrine procession will begin at 7am, as will the procession for the Bang Liao Shrine (Bang Neow Shrine) in Phuket Town.

The Tai Houd Tong Shrine at Surin Beach will hold its street procession at 5:15pm.

For a full list of all the street processions to be held during the Phuket Vegetarian Festival, click here.

Meanwhile, the fire-walking rituals for the festival begin at three Chinese shrines across the island tonight, as follows:

Sam Sian Tong Shrine (Chalong) - 8pm

Tai Houd Tong Shrine (Surin Beach) - 8:15pm

Bang Koo Shrine (Koh Kaew) - 8:45pm

Fire walking and bridge crossing rituals will continue at more shrines each night through to Monday night (Oct 23), which is the last night of the nine-day festival.

For the full list of locations and times of the fire walking and bridge crossing rituals, see the schedule in the image gallery above, or open the schedule below in a new tab and click to enlarge.
TEHRAN, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- A top Iranian military official has urged regional countries to stop the United States from transferring arms and equipment to Israel from its bases in the Middle East, the official news agency IRNA reported on Thursday.

Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Baqeri made the remarks in a phone call with Qatar's Defense Minister Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah, the IRNA reported, without disclosing the exact date of the phone call.

Baqeri warned if the Israeli side continues its "brutalities," any reaction will be possible from "resistance groups."

In another phone call with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Baqeri expressed grave concern over the continuation of the widespread violations against civilians in Gaza, the IRNA reported.

Shoigu said Russia's position on the need for a cease-fire and preventing harm to civilians was clear and regretted that some Western countries blocked Russia's initiative to end the crisis in the UN Security Council.

The latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza, began on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched a rare surprise attack on southern Israel close to the border with Gaza. Israel retaliated with airstrikes and a blockade that cut off water, electricity, fuel and other supplies to Gaza.

The conflict has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. 
UK police charge Greta Thunberg after climate protest arrest

LONDON: UK police charged Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg with a public order offence yesterday (Oct 18), following her detention at a protest outside an annual gathering of energy industry figures in London.

constructionenvironmentnatural-resourcespolicepollution

By AFP

Thursday 19 October 2023 09:58 AM

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is arrested outside the InterContinental London Park Lane during the Oily Money Out demonstration organised by Fossil Free London and Greenpeace on the sidelines of the opening day of the Energy Intelligence Forum 2023 in London on Tuesday (Oct 17). Photo: AFP

The 20-year-old activist - a key face of the movement to fight climate change - was among 26 people charged by the capitals Metropolitan Police, after she was held at Tuesdays demonstration.

Thunberg was charged with failing to comply with a condition imposed under Britains Public Order Act dealing with public assemblies. She was released on bail and is due back in court on Nov 15.

Thunberg was on Tuesday taken away by two police officers and put into the back of a police van outside the Energy Intelligence Forum, after she had joined a mass protest there.

Several hundred protesters had gathered outside the InterContinental London Park Lane hotel during the Oily Money Out demonstration, organised by pressure groups Fossil Free London and Greenpeace, blocking all entrances to the venue.

Prior to her arrest, Thunberg had criticised closed door agreements struck between politicians and representatives of the oil and gas industry.

London police said they imposed conditions to prevent disruption to the public after officers arrived at the protest, which were then breached and prompted the arrests.

The protesters were asked to move from the road onto the pavement, which would enable them to continue with their demonstration without breaching the conditions, a police statement said.

Thunberg, who started the so-called School Strike for Climate movement as a teenager, was fined by a court in Sweden earlier this month.

It followed the court convicting her for having resisted arrest during a July protest that blocked traffic.

Unacceptable

Climate protesters, meanwhile, staged a demonstration outside the offices of Total Energies UK in London yesterday.

Josie, an organiser with Fossil Free London, told AFP the company was funding the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and that their CEO had been at the meeting of energy industry figures where Thunberg was detained.

She said he had been meeting with bankers, politicians and other oil execs to decide how they can build new fossil fuel infrastructure.

We think this is unacceptable in a time of climate emergency and were determined to stop EACOP, said the activist who did not give her full name.

Another activist, Lauren MacDonald, from the Stop Rosebank group which campaigns against oil and gas production in Britains largest undeveloped field, joined around 100 protesters outside the forum.

There could not be any new oil and gas projects if were going to have a safe livable future, she said.

Britain last month authorised oil and gas production in the Rosebank field in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland.

Norwegian oil and gas producer Equinor and Ithaca Energy, a subsidiary of Israeli group Delek, will together invest US$3.8 billion in developing the Rosebank field.

Commenting on the decision, Equinor CEO Anders Opedal said it had been a difficult decision.

I spent a lot of time thinking about it. But in the end, I think this is the right decision for the UK and for Equinor, he told the forum.
KIEV, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine and Romania signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to boost their cooperation in the defense industry, the Ukrainian Ministry of Strategic Industries said in a statement on Thursday.

The document was signed by Ukrainian Strategic Industries Minister Oleksandr Kamyshin and Stefan-Radu Oprea, minister for business environment, trade and entrepreneurship of Romania.

The MoU is aimed at enhancing Ukraine's defense capabilities and developing Romania's defense industry.

Oprea said that Bucharest supports more collaboration between Ukrainian and Romanian defense industry companies.

"We are sure that the further attraction of investments will increase the competitiveness, efficiency and innovative potential of the technological and industrial base," Oprea said.

Ukraine and Romania signed an intergovernmental agreement on military-technical cooperation in September 2020. 
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RIYADH, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) introduced on Thursday its first-ever dollar-denominated Islamic bonds called sukuk.

The total amount of the sukuk is 3.5 billion U.S. dollars, with 2.25 billion dollars set to mature in 2028 and 1.25 billion dollars in 2033, the PIF said in a statement.

"The sukuk issuance was more than seven times oversubscribed, with orders exceeding 25 billion U.S. dollars, reflecting investor confidence in PIF," said the statement.

These sukuk certificates will be listed on the London Stock Exchange, and the PIF will use the money raised from this issuance for its general corporate needs, said the statement.

This sukuk issuance is part of PIF's new international trust certificate program and fits into its larger plan to raise capital over the medium term. 
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), probing the alleged West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam made a surprise visit to the SSKM Hospital, where Sujay Krishna Bhadra, an accused in the scam, has been undergoing treatment for the past two months. They enquired about his health.

A three-member team of the central investigating agency reached SSKM Hospitals cardiology department and verified all medical records in connection with treatment. They also talked to the cardiologists attending to him and MSVP Dr PK Roy and wanted to know about how many days Mr Bhadra still requires to stay at the hospital for treatment.

They also sought clarifications on what kind of exact health problems Mr Bhadra still has.

Its also learnt that the ED plans to shift him to any central government-run hospi- tal like the ESIC Medical College Hospital in Joka.

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Mr Bhadra alias Kalighater Kaku fell ill within a few days after his arrest by the inves- tigating agency and he was rushed to the SSKM Hospital for treatment. Doctors attending to him at the government hospital advised him for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

The ED members felt that the investigations were getting hampered because of Mr Bhadras long stay at SSKM Hospital. The agency could not also collect voice samples of Mr Bhadra who was earlier allegedly reluctant to cooperate with the investigating officials in this regard.

The ED moved the high court requesting its intervention on the matter. The court later, in its directive, asked Mr Bhadra to give his voice sample to the investigating agency for investigations.

The agency has already submitted a 7,000-page supplementary chargesheet against Mr Bhadra more than a couple of months ago before the Special (CBI)-I Court.
The West Bengal government would pay money to 21.75 lakh job card holders in the state if the central government does not release funds lying unpaid under the MGNREGA scheme by 30 June in 2024.

Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool Congress MP from Diamond Harbour and partys national general secretary, assured this on Thursday afternoon while addressing a rally held at Vidyanagar Multipurpose School ground at Satgachia in the Bishnupur area of South 24-Parganas.

The Centre is bound to release the funds and as a result of which, 21.75 lakh unemployed people in Bengal are not getting wages despite doing work under the MGNREGA scheme. We will wait for another six months till 30 June, 2024. Our government will pay the wages if the Centre does not release funds. The amount will be credited in the bank accounts of the job card-holders under the scheme, Mr Banerjee said.

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We have already given a deadline to the central government demanding payment of the dues by 31 October. Otherwise, we will intensify our movement against the Centre so that it releases the amount, the general secretary of the Trinamool Congress said.

I have already staged dharna in Delhi demanding central government funds under MGNREGA and Awas Yojana schemes. The Union minister of state for rural development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti fled through the backdoor when we staged a sit-in programme at her office in Delhi. Here in Kolkata, we staged a march to Raj Bhavan programme for five days on the same issue. Finally, the Governor was forced to meet us at Raj Bhavan and assured to take up the issue with the centre, he said.

I wont surrender before Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, rather I would continue the protest against the Central for its reluctant attitude to pay funds. They are also sitting idle on Awas Yojana though we have already sent a list of 11.36 lakh people, who require funds under the scheme, he alleged.

They are engaging central agencies, a section of the judiciary and media against me because I am raising my voices against them. But they cant resist my fight for legitimate rights of people of Bengal, he said.

Mr Banerjee distributed clothes among villagers in his constituency during the rally.
On Thursday, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) dealt the Congress a serious blow in the Majha area. Jagwinder Pal Singh, also known as Jagga Majitha, a prominent Majha personality and the Congresss candidate for the Majitha assembly elections in 2022, joined the Aam Aadmi Party. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann formally welcomed and inducted him into the party.

Since 1987, Jagwinder Pal Singh Jagga has worked for the Congress, and in 1992, he was elected as a councillor. In 1999, he held the position of general secretary for the Youth Punjab Congress. In the early 2000s, he was also appointed district president of Amritsar rural. On a Congress ticket, he ran in the Punjab assembly elections of 2022. Having been in politics for almost thirty years, he has a strong grasp and a lot of power in Majitha.

Big leaders and well-known individuals are shifting their support to the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab ahead of the states municipal corporation elections and the general elections that will take place the following year. Following Jagga Majithas official AAP welcome, Chief Minister Mann stated that Punjabs citizens are delighted with the AAP governments operations and policies. He declared that the AAP welcomes politicians who wish to serve the people of Punjab and that we are working hard to advance the state in all areas. Mann continued, saying that the party is growing stronger every day across the nation. We have a record majority administration in Punjab, but more members are joining us every day.

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Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) President and Lok Sabha MP from Nagaur Hanuman Beniwal, who broke his ties with the NDA during farmers agitation on the Delhi border, on Thursday said he was trying to form a third front with AAP, BSP, CPI-M and Bhartiya Tribal Party (BTP) in the next months assembly polls in Rajasthan.

The third front will not have any alliance with either the ruling Congress or the Opposition BJP as they were always against farmers, the poor, Dalits, women and the youths, busy minting money through corruption, Beniwal, who is on Satta Sankalp Yatra with an aim to change the government, told The Statesman from Sikar-Neemka Thana region.

If the third front does not emerge, the RLP would contest on all 200 assembly seats, Beniwal said, adding, I will also contest this election from the Nagaur district, and if allowed by the party workers from another seat in the state.

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The RLP, which had garnered 2.40 per cent of votes (8,56,038 votes) in the assembly elections 2018, prefers to give tickets to youth.

Claiming an overwhelming response for his Satta Sankalp Yatra for change of government, Beniwal said he had held about 60 meetings since September 28 which began from Salasar Balaji Temple in Churu and would continue for one more week.

When asked why he would like to shift to state politics from national politics, he said, There is a lot of scope and work for public welfare. In Lok Sabha, all 24 BJP MPs never tried to raise any real issue and it was me who was actively taking up matters from Rajasthan. BJP MPs have been working under Modis guidance, nothing else.

On the Women Reservation Bill, he asked, When will he (Modiji) implement it? The NDA Government should give an exact date and answer why they have put a rider of fresh census and delimitation of the constituencies.

Blasting the Gehlot Governments failure on law and order front, conducting fair competitive examinations, womens safety, jobs to youth, non-payment or crop loan waiver to farmers and their suicides, Beniwal predicted the next government would not be formed without the support of third front parties or Independents?

It is pertinent to mention that since the 2003 elections, no third front of small parties could get voters support. A small group of political fronts like Samajik Nayay Manch led by Devi Singh Bhati (who now joined BJP again), National People Party (NPP) led by Kirorilal Meena (now in BJP), Bharat Vahini Party led by BJP rebel G S Tiwari (who is now BJP RS MP) tried their luck but miserably failed even to secure their own seat in the previous assembly polls since 2003.
As many as 63 medicines were added to the list of free medicines provided to poor patients at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here, the hospital said on Thursday.

With the latest addition, the poor can now avail 359 medicines (from the earlier 296 medicines) free of cost at the premier hospital.

In a significant move aimed at enhancing healthcare accessibility and affordability for the poor, AIIMS Delhi is pleased to announce an update to the list of medicines available free to the patients. The competent authority has recently made the decision to expand the list of medicines available at pharmacy from existing 296 to 359 medicines. Sixty-three medicines were added to the existing list, AIIMS said in a statement.

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Among the medicines added are palbociclib, dasatinib, methotrexate, trimazet, magesterol acetate and leucovorin. In addition to that, regular insulin will also be available free of charge.

Talking about the initiative, AIIMS Director M Srinivas said, This will benefit countless poor people.

Rima Dada, professor in charge, media cell said, The pharmacy has been a beacon of hope for poor patients who require medications but face economic constraints. This initiative aligns perfectly with the governments mission to make quality healthcare accessible to all.
The Shiv Sena, led by Uddhav Thackeray, suffered a huge setback as Meenatai Kamle, the head of the partys womens wing, joined the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena group in front of the chief minister of Maharashtra.

A hard-core Shiv Sainik, Meenatai Kambli was associated with the party since Bal Thackeray launched it. She took an active part in the movements led by Bala Saheb. Bala Saheb bestowed upon her the title of Veerangana, or Ranragini of Maharashtra, for the creation of a sizable network of female Shiv Sainiks in Mumbai.

Meenatai was friendly with both Bal Thackeray and his spouse. Meenatai also got along well with Uddhav and his wife, Rashmi Thackeray, after Bala Saheb passed away. She used to plan public events for Rashmi Thackeray, but Meenatai and many other female Shiv Sainiks were not happy with the arrival of Sushma Andhare, an ordinary party worker, in the forefront because she had previously adopted an anti-Shiv Sena and anti-Hindu attitude.

Sushma took on the majority of the partys duties rather than Meenatai, who has now finally joined Shindes side, viewing it as the real Shiv Sena.

On the other hand, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Eknath Shinde, announced on Wednesday that members of the Mahayuti, or grand coalition, will now concentrate on securing 45 of the states 48 Lok Sabha seats in the general elections that are scheduled for next year. The Shiv Sena, under the leadership of CM Shinde, the ruling BJP, and the NCP (Ajit Pawar group) make up Mahayuti in the state.

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The Kerala governments GST Department has refused to answer an RTI query related to the company of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayans daughter T Veena.

The department is silent on whether the IT firm, Exalogic, owned by T Veena, paid GST on the amount received from the mining company, CMRL, for rendering services to them. It cited its obligation to protect the privacy of certain individuals as a reason to not reply to the query.

In its reply to the RTI query, the department said according to Section 8(1) (e) of the RTI Act, it cannot transfer any information as it is under an obligation to protect the privacy of an individual.

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The New Delhi bench of the Income Tax Interim Settlement Board (ITISB) has found that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayans daughter T Veena received Rs 1.72 crore from Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL) for consultancy services that were never provided.

Reports said Veena and her firm, Exalogic Solutions, had entered into an agreement with the private company to provide IT, marketing consultancy, and software services to the latter. However, no services were provided, as the income tax investigation found.

The company told the Income Tax Department that the money was, however, paid in monthly instalments as per the contract. The Income Tax Disputes Redressal Board found that a nexus with a prominent person was behind the transaction.

Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan had earlier alleged that Veena did not pay the tax on Rs 1.72 lakh received from CMRL. If the tax had been paid, its records should be released, he said.

Responding to the RTI reply from the GST Department, Mathew Kuzhalnadan said the departments response was very strange.

The Congress MLA further said that when he first raised questions regarding the GST transaction, AK Balan claimed that he would produce the documents related to the payment of tax the very next day, but he has not yet produced it.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) charged gangster Lawrence Bishnoi on Thursday in connection with the Gujarat Polices recovery of almost 39 kg of heroin.

In addition to the provisions of the Information Technology Act, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 465 (forgery), and 471 (fraud), the agency has also filed the supplementary charge sheet in a special court.

On September 15, 2022, the Ahmedabad Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) first filed a formal complaint (FIR) in this case.

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On August 20, 2023, the case was again registered after the NIA assumed charge of it. The NIA spokeswoman stated that the inquiry into this matter is still ongoing.

A Pakistani fishing boat was intercepted by the Gujarat ATS and the Indian Coast Guard on September 14, 2018, in the Kutch districts Jakhau harbour. About 40 kilogrammes of heroin valued at over Rs 200 crore was found on board. On board the yacht, known as Al Tayyasa, six Pakistani nationals were also taken into custody.

Further inquiries disclosed that the heroin shipment was intended to be driven to northern areas like Punjab and Delhi, aided by two residents of Delhi named Sartaj Malik and Jaggi Singh, also known as Virpal Singh, who were to accept the illegal goods. Their arrest followed.

During the eight-day interrogation process, it was discovered that while incarcerated, drug traffickers Meeraz Rehmani and Ani Chief Obinna, also known as Chief, were operating the racket.

Rehmani was detained at Obinna in Amritsar and a prison in Kapurthala. It is said that Bishnoi was ordering both of them to do their jobs.
Akhilesh Yadav, the chief of the Samajwadi Party (SP), stated on Thursday that the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), the opposition, was only at the national level. This came a few days after he had asked the Congress to clarify if the alliance also existed at the state level.

We now know that the alliance only exists in Delhi at the [national] level. Alright, lets discuss Delhi when the moment is right. Weeks before five states are scheduled to hold elections next month, he told reporters, We went ahead and began declaring candidates for those [Madhya Pradesh] elections now that we have accepted that the alliance does not apply to state elections.

He said that SP leaders would not have gone to Congress with a list for seat sharing if he had known there would be no INDIA alliance at the state level.

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Attending a Sitapur-related SP event on Tuesday, Yadav declared that his party would run for all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the national elections of 2024.

For the Madhya Pradesh elections, the SP has selected 31 candidates. The partys Madhya Pradesh poll chief, Vyasji Gond, declared that they will make an effort to field candidates for each of the 230 seats.

The goal of the SPs national expansion has been to reach beyond Uttar Pradesh. It has been a regional party ever since it was founded in 1992. When the SP won seven of the 161 seats it ran for in Madhya Pradesh in 2003, it had its greatest success outside of Uttar Pradesh. It ran for 52 seats in the 2018 assembly elections and won one. Since then, the lone MP has switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in power.

As the Congress lacks a base of support in Madhya Pradesh, Ajay Rai, the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress, asked the SP on Tuesday to fully support the Congress. Its thought that the SP requested 12 seats.

In September, INDIA constituents decided to run together in the 2024 elections as far as possible and said that state seat-sharing agreements will be started right away and completed as soon as possible in a collaborative spirit of give-and-take.

The election dates for Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and Mizoram are November 730, with results announced on December 3. Before the elections of 2024, this will be the final significant election. In addition, this is the first round of assembly votes since the formation of the INDIA alliance by 26 opposition parties in July to contest the BJP.
India on Thursday expressed serious concern over the civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas and the humanitarian situation in the region while calling for the strict observance of the international humanitarian law.

You would have seen the comments, the tweets as well as statements from the Prime Ministerwe have strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel. The international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. As regards palestine, we have reiterated our long-standing position of advocating the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognised borders, side by side at peace with israel, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a media briefing.

Responding to a question, the spokesperson said India has been supporting Palestine and Palestinian refugees through significant contributions to the UN relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). A total of $29.53 million has been contributed to UNRWA between 2002-2023. The Indian annual contribution to UNRWA was increased from $1.25 million to $5 million in 2018. India has pledged an annual contribution of $5 million for the next two years, he added.

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The spokespersons remarks came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed shock over the massive loss of lives in the blast at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday and said those responsible for the incident must be held accountable.

Giving details about operation Ajay to bring back Indians from Israel, he said so far nearly 1200 people have been flown back from the Jewish nation, including 18 Nepalese nationals. We are closely monitoring the situation (in the region) we will plan more flights depending on the demand, he added.

The spokesperson said there were four Indians in Gaza but the situation was not conducive for an evacuation at the moment. On whether there was any Indian casualty in the conflict, he said there was no report to this effect. One woman was injured and her condition was now stated to be stable.
GUANGZHOU, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The 134th session of the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, is providing more exhibition areas for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner countries, appealing to surging overseas buyers.

Guangdong Xinbao Electrical Appliances Holdings Co., Ltd. is targeting more opportunities from international BRI cooperation this year than it has in previous sessions, for which it has added a specific exhibition area.

"Overseas buyers from BRI partner countries have significantly increased," said Zhang Yifei, overseas project director of the company. Zhang expects that over 500 overseas buyers will come to negotiate, with approximately half coming from BRI partner countries.

Xinbao is displaying nearly 600 new products, including robotic vacuum cleaners and intelligent trash bins, making its exhibit this year the largest in the company's more than 30 years of participating in the fair, according to Zhang.

The latest session of the Canton Fair, which opened on Oct. 15 and will run until Nov. 4, has also set a new scale record. The total exhibition area has expanded to 1.55 million square meters, an increase of 50,000 square meters compared to the session prior. There is a total of 74,000 booths, with 28,533 exhibiting companies.

The data shows that buyers from BRI partner countries have actively participated in the fair, with the proportion of relevant attendees increasing from 50.4 percent to 58.1 percent over the past decade. As of Wednesday afternoon, a total of 98,000 overseas buyers have joined the event, with significant growth from BRI partner countries.

In addition to reaching deals with many companies from BRI partner countries at the fair, Xinbao is also actively expanding its overseas production bases. The company's factory in Indonesia has already started production, and it is expected to achieve sales in excess of 1 billion yuan (about 136.8 million U.S. dollars) by the end of the year.

The Canton Fair has become an important platform for companies to explore the Belt and Road markets.

As one of the first Chinese manufacturers to "go global," Chinese home appliances manufacturer Galanz Group has supplied products and services to nearly 200 countries and regions, with about a third of export sales coming from BRI partner countries.

Russia is one of the most populous markets for Galanz, and was among its earliest. By leveraging a full industrial chain and local-team operations, Galanz has increased its microwave oven, dishwasher, refrigerator and other home appliance market shares in the Russian market.

As early as 2004, Orbus & Teksan, a company specializing in portable energy storage systems in Turkiye, began participating in the Canton Fair and has now grown to become the largest of its kind in Turkiye.

"Through the Canton Fair, we have found many long-term cooperative suppliers. A significant part of the company's achievements today should be attributed to the Canton Fair," said Sukru Ozdamar, the company's CEO.

With the platforms brought by the Canton Fair, many BRI partner countries have purchased high-quality and cost-effective products from China and opened sales channels for their own specialty products in the country, achieving win-win results.

Of this year's exhibitors, 650 are from 43 countries and regions other than China, with BRI partner countries accounting for 60 percent. Turkiye has organized 125 companies to participate, covering industries such as consumer electronics, hardware tools, building materials, furniture, household items and food.

Altinboga Gas Equipments, a valve manufacturing company from Turkiye, is a frequent exhibitor at the fair. This year, it has brought more than 85 categories of products to exhibit.

"The Canton Fair is the largest exhibition event for us, where we can negotiate with buyers from all over the world," said Hakan Yaylali, foreign trade manager, noting that 10 years ago, the company met a buyer from Chile at the fair and signed its largest order of the year.

For Solex International (Thailand) Co., Ltd., its small booth of less than 10 square meters does not detract from its attractiveness at the Canton Fair.

The client contact book of Thanyaluk Pitisettakarn, manager of the company's foreign trade department, was filled with business cards from nearly 200 overseas buyers in just three days, many of whom expressed their willingness to cooperate further.

The Canton Fair provides a platform to showcase foreign companies and products to global buyers, and China makes great contributions by sharing this important market opportunity with the world, she said. 
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday while pointing towards a BJP leader from the stage said All the people we have here, are our friends. You will remain connected to me as long as I live.

Nitish was speaking at the convocation ceremony of Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari.

All the people we have here are our friends. We are different, you are different, does it mean our friendship will end? You will remain connected to me as long as I live. We will all work together. President, we are very happy that you are here. We would like you to keep coming here. We will show you the entire Champaran once, the land of Mahatma Gandhi, Nitish Kumar said.

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The RJD, an ally of Nitish Kumar, however played down the comments saying the Bihar Chief Minister was speaking of his personal relationships.

Radha Mohan Singh (of BJP) was sitting in front, so he spoke about his personal relationship. There is no mention of any party. People interpreted him incorrectly said RJDs Shakti Yadav.

The BJP also distanced itself from the comments and said it has no connection any more with Nitish Kumar.

Nitish Kumar has left, we have asked him to leave. BJP clearly believes that we are together in development but there is a fight on principles. Amit Shah has said that he has no connection with Nitish Kumar said Saket Choudhary the state BJP chief.

President Droupadi Murmu and Governor Rajendra Vishwanath were also present on the stage. Today is the second day of President Murmus visit to Bihar.

President Droupadi Murmu had on Wednesday inaugurated the states fourth agriculture road map aimed at enhancing agriculture production in Patna. In her address, she stated that agriculture is an important part of the folk culture of Bihar and the basis of its economy.

While launching the Krishi road map President Murmu said that farmers of Bihar are known for adopting new experiments in farming noting that a Nobel laureate economist had called the farmers of Nalanda greater than scientists.

As a result of the implementation of the last three agricultural road maps, the productivity of paddy, wheat and maize in the state has almost doubled. Bihar has also become a leading state in the production of mushrooms, honey, makhana (fox nuts) and fish. The launch of the fourth Agriculture Road Map is an important step towards taking this effort forward, President Murmu said.

The President urged farmers of Bihar to take advantage of the rising demand for organic products.
The evacuation of Indians stranded in war-torn Gaza Strip is difficult under the current circumstances and attempts to get them out will be made at the first opportunity, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said on Thursday.

Addressing a media briefing, Bagchi said, The situation in Gaza is difficult for any evacuation but if we get a chance, we will get them out.

Bagchi informed that there are four Indians currently stranded in Gaza and one is in the West Bank. So far, he said that there are no reports of any Indian casualty in the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel or the subsequent war in Gaza.

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However, according to the Israeli Embassy in India, three Indians are missing since the October 7 attack. An Indian caregiver in south Israels Ashkelon sustained injuries in Hamas attack on Sabbath. She was reportedly on a video call with her husband when Hamas pounded Israel with rocket barrages.

More than 1,400 people, including foreign nationals, children, women and soldiers, were killed in the brutal attack as nearly 2,500 Hamas militants invaded the country under the cover of rocket barrages.

They rampaged through Israeli borders towns and communities and brutally murdered civilians in the deadliest attack Israel has faced in its history of 75 years. The Gaza Strip-based Palestinian militants also kidnapped some 203 people.

In response, Israel declared a war against Hamas and vowed to wipe the Palestinian militant outfit from the Earth. More than 3,700 people have died in Israeli bombardment of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip since October 7.

Israel has also blocked water, fuel, food and electricity supply to the blockaded region and warned Gazan civilians to flee their homes in North ahead of a full-scale and coordinated ground, air and sea assault.
On Friday Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Uttar Pradesh will inaugurate morning the priority section of the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut regional rapid transit system corridor at Sahibabad RapidX Station.

As part of the launch event, PM Modi will also flag off the RapidX train connecting Sahibabad to Duhai Depot.

The 17 km priority section of the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor that will be inaugurated, will connect Sahibabad to Duhai Depot with stations at Ghaziabad, Guldhar and Duhai on the way. The foundation stone for the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor was laid by the Prime Minister on March 8, 2019.

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After the launch event, Prime Minister Modi will preside over a public programme in Sahibabad where he will address the gathering on the occasion of the launch of the rapid transport system.

With a design speed of 180 Kmph, the regional rapid transit system is a transformational initiative, that is designed to provide high-speed trains for intercity commuting every 15 minutes, which can go up to a frequency of every 5 minutes as per the requirement, an official release said.

A total of eight RRTS corridors have been identified to be developed in the national capital region, out of which three corridors have been prioritised to be implemented in Phase-I including Delhi  Ghaziabad  Meerut Corridor; Delhi  Gurugram  SNB  Alwar Corridor; and Delhi  Panipat Corridor.

The Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut route is being developed at a cost of more than Rs 30,000 crore, and will connect Delhi to Meerut in less than an hour of travel time going through the urban centres of Ghaziabad, Muradnagar, and Modinagar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday spoke to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas and conveyed his condolences over the loss of civilian lives in the blast at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday. He also reiterated Indias long-standing position on the Israel-Palestine issue.

Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated Indias long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue, the PM wrote on X later.

Mr Modi yesterday expressed deep shock over the attack and said those involved in the incident should be held responsible.

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Earlier today, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India was deeply concerned over the civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas and the humanitarian situation in the region and called for the strict observance of the international humanitarian law.

You would have seen the comments, the tweets as well as statements from the Prime Ministerwe have strongly condemned the horrific terrorist attack on Israel. The international community must stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. As regards Palestine, we have reiterated our long-standing position of advocating the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognised borders, side by side at peace with Israel, he said at a media briefing.

Responding to a question, the spokesperson said India has been supporting Palestine and Palestinian refugees through significant contributions to the UN relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). A total of $29.53 million has been contributed to UNRWA between 2002-2023. The Indian annual contribution to UNRWA was increased from $1.25 million to $5 million in 2018. India has pledged an annual contribution of $5 million for the next two years, he added.

Giving details about operation Ajay to bring back Indians from Israel, he said so far nearly 1200 people have been flown back from the Jewish nation, including 18 Nepalese nationals. We are closely monitoring the situation (in the region) we will plan more flights depending on the demand, he added.

The spokesperson said there were four Indians in Gaza but the situation was not conducive for an evacuation at the moment. On whether there was any Indian casualty in the conflict, he said there was no report to this effect. One woman was injured and her condition was now stated to be stable.
Union Minister of Women and Child Development and Minority Affairs Smriti Irani said on Thursday that Rahul Gandhi is the political master of the Congress party while she is only a political karyakarta of the BJP.

At the Manorama News Conclave 2023 in Kochi, responding to a question posed to her during an interactive session by Malayalam actress Renjini, as to whether she could contest against Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad constituency in the state, the minister said, Rahul Gandhi is the political master of the Congress party, and Im a political karyakarta of BJP.

She said there is a huge difference between a political master and a political worker.

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Speaking on the contradictions among the Opposition parties, Smriti Irani said the divide among the Opposition parties in the country was a lot more pronounced today despite them forming the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) to take on the BJP.

She asked how Mamata Banerjee could forge an alliance with the Left in West Bengal. Can you honestly accept that she can see the Left eye-to-eye in West Bengal and forge a partnership with them? Do you think the lady, who is the CM now, who was dragged by her hair outside the secretariat, will forget the personal humiliation? If you look at the amalgamation of these political forces, the fissures and fractures among them are more than obvious, Smriti said.

She said the Congress had no plan to implement the womens reservation bill. The Congress has never had the intention to pass the womens reservation bill, she claimed.

In her inaugural speech, Smriti said the IMF had revised the Indian growth story from 6.1 to 6.3 per cent in the forthcoming year.

The RBIs insistence that it would be 6.5 per cent speaks volumes on the Indian prospect. From the year 2027, India will become the third largest economy for sure, she added.
Former Prime Minister and JD(S) national President H.D. Deve Gowda on Thursday dissolved the partys State Executive Committee and appointed his son, former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy as the partys ad hoc president in a tactful move to remove C.M. Ibrahim who had raised the banner of revolt.

State President Ibrahim has been sacked. The committee headed by Ibrahim is dissolved. This is not an expulsion. With respect he has been vacated from the post, Deve Gowda declared.

Earlier, Ibrahim had declared rebellion challenging the decision of JD(S) to go with the BJP in the state. Ibrahim further warned Deve Gowda not to join hands with the BJP and declared his support for the Congress. He also stated that the defeat of the BJP-NDA should be ensured, and that he cant be expelled as he was the state President of the party.

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Ibrahims open rebellion had proved to be a big setback for JD(S). However, Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy downplayed the development and stated that everything will be clear soon. Sources said that the situation seemed to be complex as Ibrahim, backed by the Congress, would approach the court in case of his expulsion, stated sources. The development indicated a split in the JD(S) party.

However, Deve Gowda in what seemed to be a master stroke convened a core committee meeting and dissolved the executive committee of the party which included the post of state president giving no room for legal proceedings.

Addressing media persons, Deve Gowda stated, We had convened a meeting and taken a final decision as per the rules and consultation of various wings of the party. It has been decided to make former CM H.D. Kumaraswamy as the State President along with being a leader of the JD(S) legislature party.

Until the next elections, Kumaraswamy will continue as the state President. Senior leader Tippe Swamy had been declared as the state Secretary. The other office-bearers will have to be chosen and this will be done with the consultations, Deve Gowda stated.

I will not discuss the statements given by the past state president of the party. It is six months after the elections. I am aware of his remarks. Many MLAs, former MLAs have discussed the matter. Ibrahim had stated his opinion. There are instances of similar developments in Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu states. We were forced to make an alliance with the BJP. The Kerala Unit had also given its consent for the alliance, Deve Gowda explained.

There is no dearth of leaders of minority communities. The politics in the nation is in a different mode. There is no need to be concerned, he said.

He also maintained that all three top posts in the JD(S) party were held by Vokkaligas. But, national leaders have identified the strength of Kumaraswamy.

Talking to the media, Kumaraswamy stated, the decision had been taken by18 MLAs and 30 district presidents. They had given power to Deve Gowda to take the call. I will hold a meeting after the VijayaDashami festival and organise the party. If Ibrahim wants to talk, he is welcome even now. The Congress does not have any morality to talk about family politics, he maintained.
One of my childhood friends works in Bahrain. He recently gave me a call. He was particularly apprehensive about the continuing Israel-Hamas conflict. Reasonably so, as he worries that the momentum may gradually spread to other countries, especially those in the Middle East, and cause a tremendous tremor. And a lot of other economic, industrial, strategic, and geopolitical problems might be linked to it to escalate the conflict. This is what transpired during World War II.

The likelihood that Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Turkey, and some other nations may soon become embroiled in this ongoing conflict in one way or another is already sufficiently high. In any event, the US is already involved. Additionally, given that the majority of nations in the world have chosen sides, the situation could get worse. Didnt Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, predict a long and difficult war on October 9?

Incidentally, the current conflict broke out just one day after the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War, which was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. And a lot of people are noticing startling parallels between the current situation and the Yom Kippur War. On Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday that fell on the tenth day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan that year, the Arab coalition collectively launched a surprise attack against Israel, starting the war.

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It had broad ramifications. The early successes in the 1973 conflict gave the Arab world a psychological sense of justification. Other repercussions of the war linger today. The Yom Kippur War is referred to by Abraham Rabinovich, author of The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East, as both the greatest military victory Israel has ever had and the most traumatic event in Israels history. Israel suf- fered a sense of security loss following the Yom Kippur War that it has never fully recovered from.

According to Boaz Atzili, a political scientist at American Universitys School of International Service, it broke Israels image of invincibility and made Israel more humble. And these subse- quently paved the path for the Israel- Palestine peace process. Will this present conflict yield significance similar to the Yom Kippur War?

The 1973 war marked a shift in Israels domestic politics, too. Prime Minister Golda Meir of the Labour Party resigned after the Yom Kippur War, and a right-wing government, controlled by Likud (the party presently led by the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), was elected for the first time. Can Israeli politics, which appear to be in a state of stagnation, undergo a tectonic change as a result of this ongoing war? Will Netanyahus political future, which otherwise seems bleak, be improved by this long and difficult war?

Or is it the other way around, perhaps? This time, as the price for his prime ministership, Netanyahu had granted the right-wing extremist members of his coalition partners important positions. The three extreme parties in the coalition at the time were characterised as collectively reflecting a racist, Jewish supremacist, anti-Arab, and homophobic view by American Middle East analyst, author, and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Aaron David Miller. Instead, will they benefit politically from this war?

From a larger perspective, the stability of the entire region has been tee- tering for a while. King Abdullah II of Jordan famously said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in 2010 that Jerusalem is a time bomb that I fear is just waiting to go off. And as one might imagine, by Jerusalem, he might have meant the conflict involving the entire region. So, in any event, there was a ticking time bomb there.

And it was generally known to everyone in the world. Overall, there was sufficient time for the worlds powerful countries and their leaders to attempt mediating a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, bring about the two-state solution, and permanently defuse the time bomb. A two-state solution to the Israeli- Palestinian issue, which envisaged an independent state of Palestine living alongside the state of Israel west of the Jordan River, was first proposed 86 years ago, but the border between the two states is still up for debate and negotiation. Despite some attempts, overall a startling degree of reluctance was shown in mediating the negotitions.

Seventy-five years have passed since independent Israel was established. It has also been fifty years since the Yom Kippur War. In fact, a total of six significant Arab-Israeli wars involving Israeli forces and various Arab forces took place in 1948-1949, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, and 2006, and two Intifadas occurred during 1987-1993 and 2000-2005. And it was clearly known around the world that some terrorist groups were seizing power in some places. However, millions of people remained confined in the largest open-air prison in the world, in a hopelessly helpless situation.

The best approach to combating terrorism was to introduce democracy. But, overall, the world continued to stay blind to one of the most severe global problems, pretending as though the deadly status quo between Israel and Palestine would last forever as a peaceful arrangement. Unfortu- nately, some of the powerful global leaders did not even stop there. When UNESCO decided to accept Palestine as a full member in 2011, the US shut off funding to UNSECO in retaliation. It was Barack Obamas America.

Subsequently, Donald Trumps America and its ally Israel officially quit UNESCO on the grounds that it promotes an anti-Israel bias. Thus, it was across political regimes. And in December 2017, Trump announced that the American embassy would be relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and formally recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. These undoubtedly didnt even contribute to the sta- tus quo in Israel-Palestine relations. Then, Netanyahus coalition of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties didnt help the situation either. The UN, however, insisted that a two-state solution should be pursued, but history has repeatedly shown that the UN lacks both teeth and claws, which is again clear during the ongoing conflict.

Indeed, Israel has recently gotten closer to some Arab nations. First, it was through the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020, the bilateral agreements on normalising Israels relations with the UAE and Bahrain that were mediated by the US. The US initiative to establish a normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia has gained momentum in recent months.

The Saudi-Israeli agreement would fundamentally alter Middle Eastern geopolitics, for sure. Of course, normalising relations with Saudi Arabia would be advantageous for Israel, and Saudi Arabia would gain from a stronger alliance with the US in several crucial areas. But this agreement may also have significant ramifications for the Palestinian national movements future as well as Chinas involvement in the Middle East in general, as many observers perceive. Was the attack by Hamas on Israel intended to under- mine the potential normalisation agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel?

Whatever the case, the situation in the Middle East is extremely com- plex. The misery is being experienced by the millions of ordinary people in Gaza and Israel. Perhaps one of the greatest humanitarian calamities of the twenty-first century is developing. We desperately need urgent solutions. And like my friend in Bahrain, lets cross our fingers in the hope that its not the time bomb explosion with its full devastating potential. Weve already experienced the pandemic of the century; we dont want to see a world war in our lifetime.

(The writer is Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.)
The Supreme Courts verdict declining to legalise same-sex marriage has evoked mixed reactions. The unanimous ruling left the LGBTQ community disheartened, while many proponents of their rights view the court battle as a step towards evolution of Indian society. Five years ago, the same court had made headlines by decriminalising gay sex, marking a significant milestone in recognising LGBTQ rights. While many hoped that this was a precursor to further reforms, Tuesdays verdict highlights complexities within Indias legal landscape. The courts reasoning for leaving the decision on legalising same-sex marriage to Parliament rests on the principle that the legislature is the appropriate forum to address the contentious issue.

This approach, while rooted in constitutional principles, raises questions about the judiciarys role in safeguarding fundamental rights. It is this role that many believed the court should have embraced, as it often has in the past, to advance LGBTQ rights. However, the court ruled that the right to marry was not a fundamental right, which would appear a somewhat narrow view. Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who headed the bench, acknowledged the diverse opinions surrounding same-sex marriage. This diversity of thought is characteristic of any democratic society. By accepting that any decision on legalising same-sex marriage is the domain of Parliament, the judges stayed away from accusations of legislating from the bench.

However, the disheartened petitioners and their larger movement know that the political arena has historically moved slowly in addressing LGBTQ rights. The governments argument that same-sex marriage is incompatible with the traditional Indian family struc- ture of a husband, a wife, and children is a viewpoint held by many in the country. The courts decision does not directly challenge this notion. This has led some to argue that the court missed an opportunity to make a clear statement against discrimination.

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The courts choice to establish a panel, suggested by the government, to address the human concerns of same-sex couples could be seen as a constructive step. However, it might not be sufficient to address the broader issues at hand. While the panel is tasked with considering issues like access to joint bank accounts and pensions, these are just fragments of the broader spectrum of rights that should be extended to same-sex couples. The immediate aftermath of the verdict was marked by members of the LGBTQ community leaving the court in tears. The disappointment is evident, as many had expected a more assertive stance from the judiciary.

This ruling also highlights the broader context of LGBTQ rights in Asia, where con- servative values often dominate. While the 2018 decision striking down the ban on gay sex was a step in the right direction, it is clear that there is still a long road ahead. In Asia, only Taiwan and Nepal currently allow same-sex marriage, underscoring the challenge activists face in pushing for legal recognition. The debate on this issue will undoubtedly continue and it is now up to the government and Parliament to consider the call for equal rights and legal recognition for all couples, regardless of their sexual orientation.
China is about to celebrate ten years of its infrastructure building Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ~ a symbol of its rise as a global power and a defining feature of its foreign policy which it touts as its gift to the world ~ it claims to have created more than 420,000 lakh jobs and lifted 40 million people out of poverty. Critics mainly in the Western democracies point that those were mostly Chinese jobs and Chinese people lifted out of poverty at the cost of poorer nations and its gift to the world is actually a curse of crippling debt into which it irrevocably entrapped those nations.

There is enough evidence that Chinas infrastructure building in poorer countries only meant financing doomed infrastructure projects in strategic areas in those countries using Chinese materials, Chinese machinery, Chinese labour and Chinese managers so that all the loan monies flow back to China only, very little of it is aid. The projects are so unprofitable from the beginning that they would never generate enough revenue to pay off the Chinese debt, forcing the debtor countries to swap their debts by giving China ownership in the assets created through long-term lease to serve its strategic interests in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Hambantota port in which China obtained a 99-year lease in 2017 is the poster child of this strategy, but that is not the only one.

In 2005, the West still considered China as a friend they could work with to their advantage and an integral part of the global supply chain that served them. Chinese atrocities upon Xinjiangs Muslim population were largely unknown and its sweeping National Security Law (2020) imposed on Hong Kong stripping its citizens of all their democratic rights was still years away. The West ignored the steady erosion of human rights in China and its stifling of protests in Tibet.

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As many as 18 of the EUs 27 members have signed up to the BRI, one of them was Greece. The global meltdown of 2008 badly singed the Greek economy, and the Chinese state-owned shipping giant Cosco signed a lease agreement in respect of two container piers at Piraeus, the countrys main port south of Athens. When the Greek economy went into a freefall by 2016, Cosco seized the opportunity to acquire a majority 51 per cent stake in the entire facility, giving a Chinese firm control over a European port for the first time in history ~ its stake would be increased to 66 percent by 2021.

Piraeus became the BRIs Dragon Head in Europe; under Chinese control, its container handling capacity has expanded fourfold by 2023, and it is ranked 40th among the largest container ports worldwide, up from 93rd in 2016. Now, of course, the West considers China as a rival and the only G-7 nation to have signed the BRI, Italy, has declared its intention of pulling out of it.

Mr Xi Jinping hailed BRI, initially termed as One Belt One Road, putting China at its centre in an attempt to revive the ancient Chinese Silk Road that connected China to the rest of the world though the Pamir mountains, as the project of the century.

More than 150 countries covering three-fourths of the worlds population and more than half of its GDP, spanning different continents from Brazil to Kenya to Laos have joined the BRI. China has loaned over a trillion dollars to them for their infrastructure of railways, roads and other infrastructure ~ many of these have been built too.

In the process, these countries debt to GDP ratios have become unsustainable ~ especially their debt to China have soared much beyond their capacity to repay. These loans are not the low-interest loans that the IMF and other multilateral development banks provide to help the developing countries tide over their economic crises. Interest on IMF loans is typically around 2 per cent, compared to 5 per cent for Chinese loans. The Chinese loans are negotiated bilaterally on commercial terms, couched in extreme secrecy, outside public knowledge and skewed heavily in favour of China. The projects have mostly brought disappointing returns, making it hard for the indebted countries not only to service their debts, but also to secure financing for their future infraprojects.

Inability to repay their debts gives China the leverage for interfering in their domestic and foreign policies compromising sovereignty. This was perhaps the Chinese design from the beginning, and they are now fully exploiting it. This is happening not only in Sri Lanka, but in Argentina, Kenya, Malaysia, Montenegro, Pakistan, Tanzania, and many other countries. In the process, Chinese companies and the Chinese construction sector have been kept afloat, away from bankruptcy.

Being unable to generate the expected returns, the projects could hardly contribute to growth in their host countries. Pakistans 60 billion-dollar CPEC (only half has so far materialised) is a glaring example. In many countries, they are increasingly facing protests from the local indigenous communities ~ their land has been taken for the projects and livelihoods threatened, as in Pakistans fisherman communities in Gwadar.

The CPEC aimed to link Xinjiang to Gwadar in Baluchistan over 1,500 kms of difficult mountainous terrains to give China an alternative route for its energy imports bypassing the Malacca Strait, a choke point that could be throttled by the USA in the event of a conflict.

Gwadar has been managed by China since 2013, but it could not be an Asian Piraeus because of militant violence and Pakistans political strife. All it did was to raise Pakistans debt ratio by 15 per cent of GDP on account of CPEC alone, forcing it to seek an IMF bailout. Pakistans total debt ratio was 93 per cent, as of June 2023.

No region is more strategically important to China than South East Asia, and in 2021 China finished building a $6 billion, 422 km rail line connecting the Chinese city of Kunming with Vientiane, the capital of Laos, through mountainous terrain, half of it through tunnels, reducing the travel time only to 3.5 hours.

The Global Times ran a headline, US dropped bombs in Laos, China builds railways. But its debt ratio rose to 84 per cent of GDP, about half of it owed to China. Laos is one of the poorest countries in Asia, and its heavy debt servicing charges have resulted in neglect of critical needs like education and health. China has allowed Laos to defer the debt payments, but not a haircut. It is now working to extend the railway, and its influence, to much richer Thailand for selling Chinese goods. Montenegro built a highway connecting its Adriatic port of Bar with Serbia through Chinese loans, resulting in its debt ratio soaring from 59 per cent of GDP to 89 per cent in 2019.

Poor quality of Chinese construction has also plagued many projects. In a Foreign Affairs article, Chinas Road to Ruin, Michael Bennon and Francis Fukuyama called China a predatory lender and a rapacious and unbending creditor that is forcing these countries to seek IMF financing for repaying their Chinese loans.

IMF has already given such bailout loans to many countries Sri Lanka ($1.5 billion in 2016, ($2.9 billion in 2023), Argentina ($57 billion in 2018 and $44 billion in 2022), Ethiopia ($2.9 billion in 2019), Pakistan ($6 billion in 2019 and $3 billion in 2023), Ecuador ($6.5 billion in 2020), Kenya ($2.3 billion in 2021), Suriname ($688 million in 2021), Zambia ($1.3 billion in 2022), and Bangladesh ($3.3 billion in 2023).

Shortfalls in the revenue projected for these projects have to be met by the governments in some cases as per terms of the loans like in Montenegro, Zambia and Sri Lanka, forcing them to raise additional taxes to foot the bills for failed projects. These contingent liabilities are hidden from the public and other creditors, the books of accounts also do not reflect them, suppressing the actual liabilities of governments and saddling them with the risk of a future crisis and years of low growth. Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt last year, and Pakistan barely managed to avert a default, thanks to the IMF loan it got at the last moment.

A 2021- study in the Journal of International Economics estimated that almost half of Chinas loans to the developing world are hidden, or undisclosed. Transparency does not exist in the Chinese lexicon. To ensure that a country has enough forex to repay the loan, the IMF requires all other creditors to take a haircut, or forgive a part of their existing loans to the distressed country seeking IMF bailouts. This has been a standard practice agreed to by the Paris Club of western lenders. But Sri Lanka is yet to get the second tranche of $330 million from the IMF because China is refusing to take any haircut.

In the case of Zambia which owed most of its foreign debt to China, it joined other creditors to restructure the debt owed in June 2023, but still did not agree to a haircut. Instead, only the interest payment was reduced which will be again ratcheted back if the economy improves ~ a terrible incentive for a low-income country to grow. Resentment of the debt laden countries, especially in Africa which has become what The Economist calls a financial quagmire for China, has forced China to soften its strategy a little and to provide its own bailout loans estimated at $185 billion to debtor countries between 2016 and 2021, though the terms are veiled in opacity. But credits have become better targeted to focus on small but beautiful projects with higher standards and better returns, as Mr Xi Jinping had ordained.

There is also talk about a digital silk road through telecom and cloud computing, using Chinese technology. The West genuinely is worried due to security concerns and is barring Chinese tech companies. The celebration of the 10th anniversary, unlike in 10 years ago, will have the usual fanfare without the splendour ~ no Western country will perhaps attend unlike in 2013. This time, its highlight will be the presence of Mr Vladimir Putin. But it sends a clear message that BRI is going to stay.

China and the rest of the world are struggling hard to recover from the pandemic and energy crisis precipitated by the Ukraine War, and enthusiasm for BRI is waning. Poor countries still badly need infrastructure financing. If the West doesnt help, they will fall back upon China. To prevent that, the plan should be much larger than the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor proposed at the recently concluded G-20 summit in New Delhi.

(The writer is a commentator, author and academic. Views expressed are personal)
With the release of the OnePlus Open, the already expanding market for foldable phones is poised to rise once again. To showcase its competitors, OnePlus had an event today, October 19. Every detail of the OnePlus Open, including its expected price and comparison to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold, unveiled at the event, which started at 7.30 p.m. Right now, those two gadgets are the best options for a foldable big-screen phone that opens up like a book; however, the OnePlus Open, with its comparable design, is prepared to challenge both phones.

Since OnePlus announced at the Mobile World Congress in the spring that it will launch its first foldable phone in the second part of the year, we have been aware of the OnePlus Open. More information regarding the Open has since surfaced, some from OnePlus itself and others from leakers claiming to have inside knowledge about the companys first-ever foldable device. Today, OnePlus is demonstrating the significance of the Indian market to its business by unveiling its latest foldable device in Mumbai.

Green and black are the two colors available for the new foldable. The Oppo Find N3, which is identical to it, was introduced in Singapore earlier today. The 16GB+512GB model costs SGD 2,399, or around Rs 1,45,400.

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India will be among the countries in which the OnePlus Open will be available. The most recent OnePlus Open has a 6.31-inch AMOLED screen with a dynamic 10-120Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 2484 x 1116 pixels. This screen also has an impressive 20:9 aspect ratio and a maximum brightness of 2,800 nits. When the device expands, a 7.82 display with a dynamic refresh rate ranging from 1Hz to 120Hz and a resolution of 24402268 pixels is visible.

The foldable devices internal components include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 512GB of storage. The OnePlus Opens camera system is branded under the Hasselblad name. It has a 32MP camera on the cover screen and an inside 20MP selfie camera. A 64MP zoom camera with 3x optical zoom and 6x hybrid zoom capabilities, a 48MP sensor with a 14mm ultrawide lens, and a 48MP Sony sensor with improved light sensitivity are all located on the rear.

Pre-orders for the OnePlus Open, which has a single 16GB+512GB version, are open today, and it costs Rs 1,39,999. Theres also interest-free EMIs for up to 12 months and a Rs 8,000 trade-in bonus on a few devices. Additionally, ICICI Bank and OneCard customers are eligible for an instant bank discount of Rs 5,000. On October 27, 2023, the sale will begin.
WUHAN, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Wang Dawei, former vice governor of northeast China's Liaoning Province and former police chief of Liaoning, on Thursday stood trial at a court in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, on a charge of accepting bribes.

According to the prosecution filed by the people's procuratorate of Xiangyang, Wang took advantage of his various positions in the provinces of Heilongjiang and Liaoning between 2008 and 2022 to seek profits for others regarding matters including business operation, case handling and job promotion.

In return, Wang accepted money and valuables worth 555 million yuan (about 77.3 million U.S. dollars), according to prosecutors.

Wang pleaded guilty and expressed remorse at the court.

A verdict will be announced in due course. 
A delegation of Congress leaders, led by Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Assembly Debabrata Saikia, has sought Assam Governor Gulab Chand Katarias intervention to end the ruling BJPs political vengeance against the Opposition leaders in the state.

The Congress leaders met the Governor at the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday evening and handed him a memorandum alleging that the states current administration, led by Himanta Biswa Sarma, was strangulating the democratic tradition of opposing parties constructively criticising the ruling party.

They said that the state government was employing administrative machinery under various pretexts to gag any opposing voices and target the opposition leaders.

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According to the memorandum, The success of democracy depends to a great extent on the constructive role of opposition parties which checks the autocratic tendencies of the ruling party. It critically examines the rules and policies of the government and raises voice on wrong policies.

The main duty of the opposition party is to criticise the policies of the government and therefore, in a democracy, opposition must be given the space to make the government responsible and accountable to the public, it further said.

Urging the governor to take action to ensure that the Constitutions democratic ideals are maintained, the team requested for an environment in which the opposition parties may freely carry out their democratic duties.

MLAs Wazed Ali, Jakir Hussain Sikdar, Nurul Huda, Abdul Batin Khandakar, and Asif Md. Nazar in addition to Lok Sabha MP Abdul Khaleque also formed a part of the delegation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday said that Hamas are the new Nazis and urged continuous support from UK PM Rishi Sunak in their long war against Hamas.

In a joint statement with Sunak, who arrived in Tel Aviv earlier today, Netanyahu said, this is a long war and well need your continuous support. Therell be ups and downs and difficulties. The people here are united We need that unity across the board and continuous support.

Netanyahu thanked Sunak for standing behind Israel in its difficult hour and termed his wartime visit to the country a strong statement of support.

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Sunak is the latest western leader to visit Israel after US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier this week.

The British prime minister told Netanyahu that UK absolutely supports Israels right to defend itself and wants it to win this war.

We will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people. And we also want you to win, Sunak told Netanyahu in a televised joint statement.

The UK further added that he knows Israel is taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas which seek to put civilians in harms way.

He said that Palestinian people are also the victims of Hamas and welcomed Israels decision to allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza. Sunak also mourned the deaths of nearly 470 Gazans in the al-Ahli hospital bombing, that Israel claims, was a result of an errant militant missile.

The Israeli military and Hamas are locked in a deadly war in Gaza following the brutal October 7 attack by Hamas militants in which more than 1,400 people, including Israeli children, women, soldiers and more than 175 foreign nationals, were killed.

In response, Israel declared a war against Hamas and blocked water, food, fuel and electricity supply to the Gaza Strip. More than 3,700 people, mostly Hamas militants, have died in Israeli air strikes since October 7.
The humanitarian aid to Gaza via Egypt is expected to begin as soon as Friday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi reached an agreement.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and American President Joe Biden have agreed on the sustainable delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip via the Rafah terminal, Egyptian presidential spokesperson Ahmed Fahmy said in a statement, without specifying a date.

The development comes a day after Netanyahu announced Israel will not stop humanitarian aid reaching Gaza. He also assured visiting US President Joe Biden that Israel will do everything possible to ensure Gaza civilians stay out of harms way in their was against Hamas in the blockaded region.

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Earlier on Wednesday, Biden arrived in Israel in an extraordinary war time visit. He met Netanyahu and issued a statement backing Israel in their war against Hamas terrorists

Biden said that during the meeting, the two leaders agreed on allowing 20 aid trucks waiting on the Egyptian side of Rafah border crossing to enter Gaza.

He, however, said that the aid will stop with immediate effects if it didnt go to civilians and instead reaches Hamas militants.

if Hamas confiscates it, doesnt let it get through  then its going to end, a white House Spokesperson quoted Biden as saying. He also confirmed the aid trucks will start moving Friday at the earliest.

Israel has declared a war against Hamas and blocked all entry of food, water, medicine and fuel to Gaza following the brutal October 7 attack by Palestinian outfits militants.

Around 2,500 hundred Hamas militants invaded Israeli territory by land, air and sea and rampaged through border towns killing some 1,400 people and seizing at least 199 hostages, including children, women and foreign nationals.

The US president also backed Israel and blamed Gazan militants for the deadly al-Ahli hospital bombing in which more more than 470 people were killed. Biden said that from the evidence he has seen, it appeared the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza city was not bombed by Israel but the other party.

Based on what Ive seen it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But theres a lot of people out there who are not sure, so weve got to overcome a lot of things, he declared.

Hamas and Palestinian authorities have blamed Israel for the hospital bombing but Israeli military denied the allegations and released purported evidence to claim the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was behind the attack.

Israel shared an audio conversation in which, the military claimed, militants can be heard discussing an errant rocket that landed on the hospital.

According to Israeli claim, PIJ militants were firing rockets towards Israel from a cemetery behind the hospital. One of their rockets misfired and landed in the hospital premises, killing scores of civilians.
Israel-Hamas war latest update: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Thursday landed in Tel Aviv in a show of support for Israel amid fears of escalation. The visit comes a day after US President Joe Bidens as world leaders rush to Israel to prevent the war against Hamas spiraling into a bigger Middle East conflict.

I am in Israel, a nation in grief, the British prime minister said on social media soon after landing in Tel Aviv. I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism. Today and always.

Sunak further said that he is looking forward to meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.

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I am in Israel, a nation in grief. I grieve with you and stand with you against the evil that is terrorism. Today, and always.  pic.twitter.com/DTcvkkLqdT  Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 19, 2023

Before Sunak, Binde and Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz made an extraordinary wartime visit to Israel and expressed their unwavering support to the Jewish state in their war against Palestinian militant group Hamas following the deadly October 7 attack.

While most western countries have supported Israel, they have also expressed concerns over the humanitarian crisis that have arisen out of the war. The British PM is also expected to visit a number of other regional capitals during his Israel visit.

Israel has declared a war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and blocked water, food, fuel and electricity supply to the blockaded region in response to the Oct 7 attack.

Nearly 2,500 Hamas militants invaded Israel under the cover of massive rocket barrages and rampaged through border communities and a music festival, killing some 1,400 people. The militants have also kidnapped more than 200 people, including children, women and foreign nationals.
President Biden wraps up his visit to wartime Israel with a warning against being 'consumed' by rage

President Joe Biden swept into wartime Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that offered support for the Israeli people and produced a deal to get limited humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt, potentially by the end of the week
FILE - In this July 2, 2021 file photo, a United Airlines jetliner taxis down a runway for take off from Denver International Airport in Denver. United Airlines reports earnings on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023.
Have an interesting bit of news youd like to see mentioned in the Along the Way column? Email it to Natasha Connolly at news@thesunchronicle.com.
CAIRO, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Wednesday that the Egyptian government and Egyptian Red Crescent will supervise the delivery of aid to the besieged Gaza Strip in coordination with the United Nations.

"Cairo's goal is to accelerate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip," Shoukry was quoted by Alarabiya News as saying.

Over the past few days, tons of aid supplies from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, and the World Health Organization have arrived at the Rafah border crossing, waiting for access to the Palestinian coastal enclave from the Egyptian side.

Earlier on Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi expressed Egypt's firm support for the Palestinian people and a strong rejection of any attempts to relocate them to Egypt's adjacent Sinai Peninsula.

On the same day, Israel's wartime cabinet decided to allow basic humanitarian aid from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, which Shoukry described as "a positive development."

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Oct. 7 showered Israel with thousands of rockets in a rare surprise attack, to which Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza and punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, as it entered the 12th day, has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. 
A roadside memorial for Alexa Bartell, age 20, who was killed by a rock thrown at her vehicle on April 19, 2023 stands on April 28, in Broomfield, Colo. Three teenagers charged with her murder are set to appear in court Wednesday, Oct. 18, for an evidentiary hearing to determine if their case should go to trial.
FILE - Nebraska Gov.-elect Jim Pillen answers a question while taking part in a panel discussion during a Republican Governors Association conference, Nov. 16, 2022, in Orlando, Fla. Pillen is facing backlash after comments he made about the Chinese nationality of Flatwater Free Press reporter Yanqi Xu whose story cited environmental concerns at farms owned by the governor. In a column posted Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, Flatwater Free Press Executive Director Matt Wynn wrote that the governor's comments infuriated him as an employer and saddened him as a believer in democracy and a free press.
In this handout frame released by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva pose for a photo during a work break at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic, Wednesday, March 6, 2013. A Russian-American journalist working for a U.S. government-funded media company has been detained in Russia and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent. Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva is the second U.S. journalist to be detained in Russia this year. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested for alleged spying in March.
COLOMBO, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- One person was killed and 18 others injured when a bus veered off a road and fell down a precipice on Thursday in the North Western Province of Sri Lanka, said the police.

Police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa said the rainy weather contributed to the accident.

The province has seen heavy rains for the past few days, and drivers must be mindful that the roads are wet and highly slippery, Thalduwa said.

Road crashes are common in Sri Lanka especially when it's raining.

The country's meteorology department has warned of rainy weather in the coming days.

Some 19,740 road accidents were reported in Sri Lanka last year with 2,485 people killed, according to the police. 
China strongly condemns Canadian airspace violations

08:35, October 19, 2023 By Jiang Chenglong ( Chinadaily.com.cn

Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense. [Photo/mod.gov.cn]

China strongly condemned the Canadian side after seriously undermining China's sovereignty and national security by sending a CP-140 warplane into the territorial air over the Chiwei Islet multiple times, a defense spokesman said on Wednesday evening.

Senior Colonel Wu Qian, the spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, made the remarks in response to the actions and comments made by the Canadian military.

On Monday, the Canadian military officials claimed that a Canadian surveillance plane was intercepted by a Chinese warplane while conducting a mission in international airspace near China. The Canadian Defense Minister called China's behavior unacceptable, dangerous and reckless.

Wu said that, recently, a CP-140 aircraft from the Canadian air force repeatedly intruded into the airspace of China's Chiwei Islet, approached the East China's coastal area and entered the Taiwan Strait for reconnaissance and nuisance.

He said, in accordance with Chinese laws and relevant international rules, the Chinese air force implemented control measures including identification, tracking and surveillance, and expulsion after warning, noting that the response by China was completely reasonable, legal and professional.

Chiwei Islet is an island affiliated to China's Diaoyu Islands in East China Sea.

"The hype made by Canada has ignored the facts and aims in an attempt to confuse international public opinion," Wu said, stressing that "the Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islets are China's inherent territory".

"What the Canadian side has done seriously violated China's sovereignty and threatened China's national security, and is highly dangerous and vile, and extremely likely to lead to misunderstanding and miscalculation," said the spokesman.

"The Chinese side strongly condemns the Canadian actions and has lodged solemn representations with the them."

The official warned sternly the Canadian side to be cautious in words and deeds, strictly manage the actions of front-line troops, immediately stop any provocative actions and earnestly avoid further escalation of the situation.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
Ignoring the right of Azerbaijanis to return to Armenia and demanding amnesty for war criminals by the EU increases tensions in the region, the Western Azerbaijan Community stated, Azernews reports.

"We, as the Western Azerbaijan Community representing Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia, strongly condemn the anti-Azerbaijani statement made by the European Union (EU) on 18 October 2023 at the meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

First of all, we stress that by making this shameful statement on 18 October, the Day of Restoration of Azerbaijan's State Independence, the EU symbolically expressed its biased attitude towards our country and people.

We would like to emphasize that by applying the right of return only to Garabagh Armenians and denying this right to Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia, the EU has clearly demonstrated its discrimination against Azerbaijanis on ethnic grounds.

Furthermore, despite the numerous war crimes committed during the conflict, we are deeply concerned by the EU's demand for an amnesty for "all Garabagh Armenians". Granting amnesty for war crimes not only violates the principles of justice and accountability but also makes sustainable peace and reconciliation in the region impossible by creating an atmosphere of impunity.

The EU's demand for amnesty for war crimes and crimes against humanity shows the growth of a racist mentality and the erosion of humanistic values in this institution, as well as its lack of interest in establishing peace and justice in the region.

Moreover, while the statement calls on Azerbaijan to protect the human rights and cultural heritage of the local population, it does not call for Armenia's responsibility with regard to the rights and cultural heritage of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia and the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. This is further evidence of the EU's biased and anti-Azerbaijani approach.

Finally, while the statement calls on Azerbaijan to reaffirm Armenia's commitment to territorial integrity, Armenia is not called upon to do the same. Given the fact that Armenia has occupied Azerbaijani territories for decades and the EU has turned a blind eye, with this call the EU is actually encouraging Armenia to engage in the next military aggression against Azerbaijan.

This statement and the position demonstrated by the EU recently have undermined its credibility and role as a partner for peace. We call on the EU to abandon its anti-Azerbaijani approach and respect the principles of human equality in terms of rights and dignity, as well as the principles of sovereign equality of states and the right of return of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia," emphasized in the Community's statement.
JERUSALEM, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Visiting British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged Thursday British support for Israel amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, Sunak said he stands with Israel as a "friend" and hopes Israel to "win the war."

For his part, Netanyahu said Israel needed "continual support" for "a long war."

The British prime minister also held a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, during which he urged humanitarian aid to Gaza while stressing support for Israel.

"Palestinians are victims of what Hamas has done. It's important that we continue to provide humanitarian access," he said.

Sunak's visit to Israel follows trips made by U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and several other Western leaders earlier this week.

The latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza, began on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched a rare surprise attack on southern Israel close to the border with Gaza. Israel retaliated with airstrikes and a blockade that cut off water, electricity, fuel and other supplies to Gaza.

The conflict has killed more than 4,000 people on both sides. 
Days after the Reserve Bank of India banned Bank of Baroda from onboarding any new customers on its 'bob World' mobile application, the state-owned lender seems to have initiated action against several employees across various zones.

Under Section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, the central bank, on October 10, directed Bank of Baroda to immediately suspend onboarding of new customers on the app citing "certain material supervisory concerns" observed in the manner of onboarding.

A few months ago, a news network had exposed how accounts with the bank that didn't have any mobile number were linked with random phone numbers, in what appeared to be an attempt to rapidly boost registrations on the app

It is understood that the country's second largest public sector lender initiated an inquiry into the issue and has suspended several employees across various zones following an internal audit. Questions sent to Bank of Baroda on Wednesday on this action initiated remained unanswered till the filing of this report.

One report stated that the action had been taken against employees in the Baroda circle of the lender in Gujarat. Another stated that some employees had also been suspended in Bhopal in MP and Rajasthan.

In its response to the Reserve Bank directive, Bank of Baroda had said it had already carried out corrective measures to address the concerns of the regulator. "We have initiated further steps to plug any remaining gaps identified and we will work closely with the RBI to address their concerns at the earliest to their satisfaction," the bank had said.

The bank has tried to reassure customers that there won't be any disruption of services on the 'bob World' app and that its mobile banking application was fully secure with robust security controls and features.

Nevertheless, analysts say the ban may impact the bank's ability to sustain healthy business growth in the short-term at least. According to analysts at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, Bank of Baroda had 53 million app downloads and 30 million activated users as of March 2023.

According to the analysts, as much as 98 per cent of the savings accounts and 91 per cent of current account acquisitions were done through digital channels. Also, 58 per cent of fixed deposits and 42 per cent of recurring deposits were also booked digitally.

The number was similarly high on the lending front; 67-68 per cent of home and auto loans, for instance, were sourced digitally. Even 89 per cent of the personal loans were sourced digitally, they aid.

"While there may not be any near-term asset quality implications of this ban, given the rising mix of digital sourcing and the higher cross-sell rate that the bank has been focusing on via bob World, this ban can affect the growth trajectory in the retail product segments over the near-term," the Motilal Oswal analysts said.

How long will this ban on onboarding new customers last may well depend on the corrective action that Bank of Baroda carries out and if and when the RBI is convinced that the problem has been effectively addressed.

In December 2020, RBI had asked HDFC Bank to stop all launches of its digital business generating activities and suspend sourcing of new credit card customers after repeated outages in its internet and mobile banking channels. The country's largest private sector lender had got a partial relief when the embargo on sourcing new credit cards was lifted in August 2021. The restrictions on new digital business generating activities were lifted only in March 2022.

As of October 19, 2023, Bank of Baroda's shares have declined 4.20 per cent, since the RBI directive was issued on October 10. The benchmark BSE Sensex index has fallen around 0.7 per cent in the same period.
Homegrown FMCG major Dabur on Wednesday said its three foreign subsidiaries are facing cases in federal and state courts in the US and Canada.

The three Dabur India subsidiaries facing cases are Namaste Laboratories LLC, Dermoviva Skin Essentials Inc. and Dabur International Ltd, according to a regulatory filing.



As per the filing, certain consumers in the hair relaxer product industry have alleged that some industry players/defendants sold and/or manufactured hair relaxer products that contain certain chemicals and that the use of the hair relaxer product has caused ovarian cancer, uterine cancer and other health issues.



"Cases have been filed in both federal and state courts in the United States and Canada. The federal cases were consolidated as a Multi-District Litigation, also referred to as MDL, before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois," it said.



Currently, there are approximately 5,400 cases in the MDL, which named Namaste, Dermoviva and DINTL as defendants, along with certain other industry players, it added.



"The cases are in the pleadings and early discovery phases of litigation, which means the parties are challenging the adequacy of the plaintiffs' complaints and, in some cases, exchanging requests for information and documents. There are various motions pending as well," it added.



"At this stage of the litigation, any financial implication due to settlement or verdict outcome cannot be determined," it added.



However, the company said defence costs for the litigation are expected to breach the materiality threshold in the near future. Currently, cases are in the pleadings and early discovery phases of litigation.

"There are various motions pending as well. Since we are in the initial stage of litigation, any final quantum of claim amount is neither probable nor estimable," it said.


In a shot in the arm for Prime Minister Narendra Modis plans to make India an electronics manufacturing hub, Google, on Thursday, announced that it will start manufacturing its phones in India. Google follows an illustrious list of global smartphone brands, from Samsung to Apple, to kick-start assembling its marquee phones in the country.

The first set of Make in India Google Pixel phones, the latest 8 and 8 Pro models, will hit the market as early as next year.

When we set out with our hardware business, we committed to building and investing for the long run, and our plan to manufacture in India is an early step in the long journey of expanding our device production capacity and helping meet the countrys growing demand for Pixel smartphones, said Rick Osterloh, Googles senior vice president (devices & services).

It is good for Google, and it is good for India, said Union IT & Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

Alphabets Google had been reportedly in talks with local manufacturers like Lava, Dixon and Bharat FIH as well as suppliers to assemble its Pixel smartphones in the country, as part of a move to decouple from China, a prevailing sentiment amongst Western giants since Covid. This is similar to what rival Apple did, by announcing a one billion dollar local manufacturing plan in South India a few years ago  many of its latest iPhone 15 models out in global markets now sport the Assembled in India tag.

Google's move gained strength back in the summer, following the visit of Alphabet chief Sundar Pichai to India, where he discussed the matter with Vaishnaw. The companies being considered as Googles local partners have all qualified for the PLI (production-linked incentive) schemes largesse.

The Google Pixel smartphone, in fact, started its journey in India, but could not face up to the intense competition from the Made in China brands then present in the market. In fact, since then, the trajectory has been mixed, with only some more affordable Pixel models being made available in the country in between, with the Pixel flagship missing from Googles hardware lineup. However, that has changed very much now, considering the big splash it seems to be making with the latest Pixel 8 series, launched globally as well as in India at the same time earlier this month.

The Indian government was also keen on attracting more local manufacturing, part of an ambitious Atmanirbhar Bharat and PLI scheme whereby the country sought to reduce its dependency on imports in crucial sectors, as well as earn precious foreign exchange. From negligible numbers a decade back, mobile manufacturing is today a $44 billion market for India, with exports of $11 billion.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday welcomed Telugu actor Jr NTR to its 'Actors Branch'. The RRR actor joins the prestigious group that includes Marsha Stephanie Blake, Ke Huy Quan, Kerry Condon and Rosa Salazar.

Through their nuanced expressions, compelling gestures, and authentic portrayals, they bridge the gap between fiction and reality, allowing us to see ourselves in the struggles, joys, and triumphs of the characters they bring to life, the Academy said in an Instagram post.

Jr NTR's induction into the new 'member class of actors' has fans excited and they took to social media to congratulate the actor. The Telugu actor, who has delivered many hits, received national attention with his role in RRR.

Directed by S.S. Rajamouli, the multilingual period drama revolved around two freedom fighters, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, essayed by Ram Charan and Jr NTR respectively. The film which was widely appreciated by the international audience also brought home an Oscar for Best Original Song. 'Naatu Naatu', composed by M.M. Keeravani, had gone viral with many trying to emulate the dance steps of Ram Charan and Jr NTR.

On the workfront, Jr NTR will next be seen in Devara 1, an action drama written and directed by Koratala Siva.
JD(S) patriarch H.D. Deve Gowda, on Thursday, removed C.M. Ibrahim from the post of state president by dissolving the state working committee and appointed his son and former Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, as the ad-hoc president.

The dissolution of the state unit follows Ibrahim's open revolt against the party for choosing to support the NDA ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

An emergency meeting of the JD(S) legislature party and senior leaders convened by Gowda at JP Bhavan in Bengaluru, unanimously decided to remove Ibrahim from the post. However, the former prime minister, during the press meet, clarified that Ibrahim had only been removed from the post but not expelled from the party.

"The decision to join hands with the BJP was only to strengthen the party," Gowda asserted.

Earlier this week, Ibrahim held a meeting of his supporters and declared that the JD(S), under his leadership, would support the INDIA (alliance) and would oppose the party decision to support the NDA. Ibrahim, who opposed the JD(S)-BJP alliance, also claimed that JD(S) did not belong to one family and he was heading the "original JD(S)"

While the party leaders and workers were visibly upset over Ibrahim openly attacking the party and Kumaraswamy, the party leadership, mindful of the party's minority support base abstained from taking disciplinary action against him.

Responding to his shocking ouster from the party post, the former minister who quit Congress to join the JD(S) (in March 2022), alleged that Deve Gowda had once again proved that JD(S) was his family property and serves the interest of only his family and son.

"Deve Gowda did not treat me well after I quit as Congress MLC and joined the JD(S). He chose Saravana for the MLC post and did not give me the Rajya Sabha seat too. I campaigned hard for the party and his son in this assembly elections. This is the reward he gives me. He does not allow any other Vokkaliga leader to grow," said Ibrahim, who also claimed that the party did not follow the right procedure to remove him from the post.

"I will meet the party legislators to discuss the issue and also hold meetings with party units in each district. I insist I am still heading the real JD(S) that is a secular party," asserted Ibrahim.
The Congress party has called for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian assistance to Gaza where at least 500 people were killed in an explosion at a hospital amid the raging war between Israel forces and Hamas.

Party president Mallikarjun Kharge issued a statement on Thursday in which he termed the hospital bombing a grave humanitarian tragedy and said the perpetrators must be held accountable.

The indiscriminate bombing on the hospital in Gaza and residential areas resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives of innocent men, women and children is unjustifiable and a grave humanitarian tragedy for which the perpetrators must be held accountable, the statement said.

While noting that the Congress party had on October 9 condemned the brutal attacks of Hamas on Israel, Kharge said the Israeli militarys indiscriminate actions in civilian areas are also unacceptable.

Kharge reiterated the Congress partys long-standing support for the rights of the Palestinian people and said their aspirations for a life of dignity, self-respect and equality in a sovereign state are perfectly legitimate.

These aspirations have been routinely suppressed and denied. Millions of Palestinians have been dispossessed and displaced. They have lived in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, Kharge said.

The Congress calls for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered people of Gaza, Kharge said.

It calls upon all sides to abandon the path of senseless violence and war and begin the process of negotiations and diplomacy so that the aspirations of the Palestinian people are fulfilled and the security concerns of Israel are also ensured, he said.
GAZA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The first shelter camp for displaced Palestinians was set up by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the battered enclave on Thursday.

Established at the UNRWA industrial training station in the heart of Gaza, the shelter camp has become a temporary home for numerous families who have been forced to seek refuge as a result of the Israeli military campaign that has been going on since Oct. 7.

Some displaced locals told Xinhua that they were informed by the UNRWA that they would receive shelters to live in soon.

People in various places in the coastal enclave have spoken to Xinhua about the dire conditions at their new dwelling place with minimal aid and an absence of proper health facilities.

Families found themselves lying on the ground amidst mounting piles of garbage. According to UNRWA reports, over 1 million people -- almost half the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced amid evacuation warnings from the Israeli army.

The Ministry of Public Works and Housing said at least 4,821 residential buildings, encompassing 12,845 housing units, have been completely demolished in the Israeli strikes.

Meanwhile, the number of Palestinian fatalities has exceeded 3,785, with over 13,000 individuals sustaining injuries since Oct. 7, said the health ministry in Gaza.

The latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza, began on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched a rare surprise attack on southern Israel close to the border with Gaza. Israel retaliated with airstrikes and a blockade that cut off water, electricity, fuel, and other supplies to Gaza. 
October 7 changed the history for Israel, with most number of its citizens killed after the Holocaust. Ten days later, the bombing of a hospital in Gaza marked a shift for the Arab world.

Jordans decision to cancel the summit with US President Joe Biden was a message. On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, expressing concern over the deteriorating security situation in the region.

Shared our deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. Reiterated India's long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue, Modi said on X.

This is the first time the two leaders spoke since Israel declared a war on Hamas and started bombing Gaza.

Earlier, following the attack on the Gaza hospital, Modi had tweeted: "Civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict are a matter of serious and continuing concern. Those involved should be held responsible.

Unlike Biden who firmly threw his weight behind Israel saying it was the other team that carried out the hospital bombing, India has chosen to point no fingersa stance that is likely not to upset Israel and not lose friends within the Arab countries.

The reach out to the Islamic world has been one of the biggest planks of the Modi diplomatic doctrine. With the outrage mounting in the Arab world against Israel, the South Block has chosen to read the smoke signals.

It is also political for a domestic audience. The Congress had chosen to speak for the Palestinian cause while condemning terrorism, with party leader Priyanka Gandhi declaring her anguish as a mother and as a woman after the bombing of the Gaza hospital. This has forced the BJP to ensure they keep a balance at home, too, while being tough on terror.

India was among the first countries to declare solidarity with Israel after Hamas launched an attack on its citizens. India has also been the only voice in the global south that did not choose to go down the de-escalation route. As a country that has waged a battle against terrorism, India has takenespecially under the Modi governmenta very hard stand on terror.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has had a long standing bromance with Prime Minister Modi, had spoken to him after the attack.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi at a media briefing on Thursday condemned the attack on Israel and called for the international community to stand together in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

As regards Palestine, we have reiterated our long standing position of advocating the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine living within secure and recognized borders, side by side at peace with Israel, Bagchi said.

Does this mean that the ground is shifting? India so far, even under Modi who has openly embraced Israel, always chosen balance between the two countries. If Modi was the first Prime Minister to go to Israel, he was also the first Prime Minister to visit the occupied territory of Palestine. It will be a tight rope walk from now onwards.
In a huge setback to Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra amid the cash for query row, business tycoon Darshan Hiranandani admitted that he had used Moitras parliamentary login to ask questions targeting Gautam Adani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Moitra is in the middle of a political storm after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey accused her of taking bribes from Hiranandani, the CEO of Hiranandani Group, to ask questions in parliament against the Adani Group. Moitra, however, hit back, filing a defamation suit against Dubey in the Delhi High Court.

In a signed affidavit, Hiranandani said he had used Moitras login to ask questions after state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) booked capacity at Adanis Dhamra LNG import facility in Odisha and not at his firm's planned facility.

Hiranandani further said Moitra had made frequent demands, including "expensive luxury items, providing support on renovation of her officially allotted bungalow in Delhi, travel expenses, holidays, etc, apart from providing secretarial and logistical help for her travels within India and to different parts of the world", reported PTI which claimed to have reviewed the affidavit.

The new revelations came even as the Lok Sabha ethics committee is set to hear the complaint filed by Dubey and lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai against Moitra, on October 26.

Dubey had also written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, accusing Moitra of breach of parliamentary privilege and demanding her immediate suspension from house.

Dubeys allegations had sparked off a political row, with the opposition parties terming it as an attempt of the ruling BJP to defame them. The Hiranandani Group, too, had dismissed Dubeys allegations, saying they were not in the business of politics.

In his affidavit, Hiranandani said he met Moitra at Bengal Global Business Summit in 2017 when she was an MLA.

Over the years, she became a "close personal friend" whom he had expected to use for getting business in states ruled by opposition parties, Hiranandani said.

"Moitra was very ambitious and wanted to make a name for herself at the national level. She was advised by her friends and advisors that the shortest possible route to fame is by personally attacking Modi, Hiranandani said in his affidavit.

He said since Modi enjoyed an impeccable reputation, Moitra thought that the only way to attack the prime minister was by attacking Gautam Adani and his group as both were contemporaries and they belong to the same state of Gujarat.

"She shared with me her email ID as Member of Parliament, so that I could send her information, and she could raise the questions in the Parliament. I went along with her proposal," he claimed.

Following the impressive response she received after raising the first set of questions, Hiranandani said, Moitra shared her Parliament login and password with him so that he could post the questions directly on her behalf when required.

HC to hear Moitra's plea on Friday

The court will hear on Friday Moitra's petition seeking directions to restrain Dubey, Dehadrai and several social media platforms and media houses from posting, circulating or publishing any fake and defamatory content against her.

The plea, which was filed on October 17, is listed for hearing before Justice Sachin Datta.
The appointment of former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das as the Odisha governor comes with multiple messages within and outside the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In 2014, after Narendra Modis massive victory in Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won states like Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand where elections were held a few months later. The party under Amit Shah conducted a bold experiment as it picked up chief ministers from non-dominant castes Devendra Fadnavis, a Brahmin, Manohar Lal Khattar, a Punjabi and Raghubar Das, a non-tribal.

This choice was against the conventional wisdom, but BJPs move paid it huge dividends as it cemented the support of non-dominant castes in these states.

Nine years later, the BJP has undone a part of this strategy. By appointing Raghubar Das as the Odisha governor, the BJP rules him out of the race in the elections next year.

The move also means that the BJP is likely to bet its chances on tribal leader Babulal Marandi who had returned to the party fold in 2020. He is now the state party president. The partys central leadership has given a clear sign to Marandi to spearhead the campaign before the 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly elections.

Sixty-eight-year-old Raghubar Das transfer to gubernatorial post is apparently also a signal to several satraps that party is in process of promoting other leaders in the state.

The current round of elections in five states may also hasten the process of bringing in new leadership in the states. This is evident as the party has already given tickets to several MPs in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The BJP has been doing course correction since its loss in Karnataka. The party had earlier changed its chief ministers in several states to give chance to more leaders as it happened in Gujarat, Karnataka and Assam. The party has made winnability its main criteria.
A caste survey will be conducted in Telangana if the Congress comes to power in the state in the upcoming assembly elections, party leader Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday.

Taking a swipe at the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), Rahul said a caste survey would reveal how much Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Raos family had looted the state.

"We have already initiated caste surveys in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Karnataka and will do the same in Telangana as soon as we come to power. The caste census will reveal how much KCR's family has looted Telangana," the Congress leader said, addressing a rally in Bhupalpally.

Telangana goes to polls on November 30 and the counting of votes will take place on December 3.

In the 2018 assembly elections, BRS won 88 out of the 119 seats with a vote share of 47.4 per cent. Congress managed to win only 19 seats with a vote share of 28.7 per cent.

Rahul, who is on a three-day visit to the state, claimed that the caste census is the most pressing issue in India right now.

"When PM Modi and CM KCR (as Rao is popularly known) give their speeches, the people of Telangana should question them about when they intend to conduct the caste census survey," he said while reiterating his claim that such an exercise is an X-ray of the country as it reveals the percentage of backward castes, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and minorities, enabling equitable budget allocation.

Congress has been campaigning for a nation-wide caste census as it seeks to corner the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) on October 9 adopted a resolution promising a nation-wide caste census as part of the decadal census, if it comes to power at the Centre.

Addressing the rally, Rahul further targeted the chief minister, saying the KCR government is the most corrupt in the country.

"When you dreamed about Telangana state, you thought people's rule would happen in the state. But it is now evident that the rule of one family is happening in Telangana. The whole control of Telangana state is in the hands of one family and corruption in the state is the highest in the country," said the Congress leader.
The wheels of justice turn slow but grind fine they say. I am not too sure. Fifteen years ago, a 25-year-old young journalist Soumya Vishwanathan was shot dead from point black range in her car while driving home from work in Delhi. Brimming with passion, a gleam in her eyes for life itself, at 25, Soumya would have been in her 40s today with thin silver lines on her hair just like me.

She would have won accolades and done her parents proud today, but all we have is a verdict that seems to be justice at last for many.

But is it really?

I worked with Soumya in CNN-IBN. We instantly clicked thanks to her affable, soft spoken, amiable temperament and many other similarities thanks to our home state. She would often calm me down during those stressful newsroom hours. We often travelled back home from our shifts together. She would often drop me at the nearest station. Just like all of us in our batch who worked together in IBN, Soumya wanted to make it big in her career. She had her dreams. The gleam in her eyes is something that stayed with me when we had a final get-together in Connaught Place in December 2007, before I decided to move to Kochi.

We spoke a couple of times after that but we couldnt meet. The next I saw her, it was just her photos splashed all over TV. I was in THE WEEK newsroom when I saw the news. Her photo splashed all over channels, I tried frantically to reach out to my friends back in Delhi to find out. It was the same car that I had travelled in. Is it our Soumya, I asked a friend. Why would she be shot? The numerous questions that were being asked clouded my head with grief.

Days, months, years, passed. Investigations went off-track and sometimes even came to a dead end. But the grief lingered all along. I never mustered the courage to visit Soumyas parents. I had never met them, but I could feel their pain every time I saw them on television pleading, waiting, and hoping for justice. I would often visit her FB profile to see her, go back to our office outing photos to reminisce the good times spent together.

Soumya, I wish you had not taken an evening shift that day. I wish you had not travelled alone that day. I just wish you were here to walk through this journey like us, to be here with us, with your parents and make them proud.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar's statement on the Israel-Palestine conflict, wherein he hit out at the Prime Minister for showing solidarity with Israel over the Hamas attack, has triggered a war of words between BJP leaders and the opposition bloc.

Pawar on Wednesday said it was unfortunate that the Prime Minister neglected the real issue as former prime ministers of India stood firmly with Palestine. "The entire land is of Palestine and Israel encroached on their land. That place, land and houses, everything was of Palestine and later Israel took over it. Israel is an outsider and the land is originally of Palestine," Pawar had said while addressing a gathering of party workers in Mumbai.



BJP leader and Assam chief minister Himanta Sarma triggered a controversy when he took a jibe at Pawar for his statement, saying "Sharad Pawar will send Supriya (Sule) madam to Gaza to fight for Hamas."



Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis followed suit when he targeted Pawar, saying that Pawar should strongly condemn terrorism and shun vote-bank politics. In a post on social media platform X, Fadnavis said, "India has never changed its position on the Israel-Palestine dispute. However, at the same time, India has been consistently against and has always strongly opposed terrorism in any form and against anyone. When the entire world has condemned the killing of innocent people in Israel and India did the same, Shri Sharad Pawar ji should also speak in the same language against terrorism," he said.



He also invoked past terror attacks in Mumbai. "Mumbai has suffered a lot due to the terror attacks. Especially during the 26/11, Mumbai had lost many citizens, he said.



Other BJP leaders like Piyush Goyal too condemned Pawar's stance on the issue, alleging a "casual approach towards terror" despite being a former defence minister and chief minister.



However, Sule herself reacted to Sarma's comments, saying she was surprised. "I am surprised because Himanta Biswa Sarma has the same DNA as me, he is originally from Congress. He and I share the same Congress DNA. You know how the BJP is disrespectful towards women. But I had hopes from Himanta Biswa Sarma. I am surprised how this change has happened towards women and the approach, probably going into BJP is a little rubbing off on him," Sule reacted.



She added that the BJP IT cell needs to understand and hear carefully what Sharad Pawar has said. "Hear his entire statement," she added.



Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and MP Sanjay Raut too hit out at Sarma, stating Sarma's "party was no less than Hamas." "The party he (Assam CM) belongs to is no less than Hamas, it is misusing the central agencies, and destroying the Opposition. He should first read and understand history. He is a part of BJP and should know former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayees stand on Palestine-Israel," Raut told ANI on Thursday.



NCP (Sharad Pawar Faction) leader Jitendra Awhad too said Sarma had "hatred in mind" and had no clue about international politics. "I don't think people like Himanta Biswa Sarma need to be taken seriously -those who have hatred in mind and those who do not know what international politics is all about. Because Palestine is connected to Muslims and Muslim hatred should be brought to India is the only plan they have in their mind. This war is being used as a polarization in India," he added.


Israel's ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, has said that his country welcomes any help from India to free civilians held hostage by Hamas. We were moved by the first reaction from Prime Minister Narendra Modi that came on the same afternoon, Gilon said referring to Modi's expression of solidarity soon after the Hamas's attack on Israel.

Israel confirmed on Thursday that at least 203 peopleboth Israelis and foreign nationalsare being held hostage in Gaza after the Hamas attack on October 7. Revising the number from the earlier 155, Israeli military said earlier this week that the families of the hostages have been informed.

Speaking to the Indian Express about India's support, Gilon said: We have got a show of support from all levels hereofficials, ministers, civil society, and even people on social media. Gilon said that many countries are trying to put pressure on the Hamas to secure the release of civilians held hostage. Gilon said Israel would welcome any help from India for release of the hostages.

He added: India has a special place in the world. If India is able to speak to people who have influence over them, we would welcome that.

Pinning the blame of the Gaza hospital attack on Hamas, Gilon said, we are very sorry that while trying to kill Israeli children the Hamas killed their own children too.

Gilon's comments come as US President Joe Biden, who arrived in Israel on Wednesday, also reiterated his support for Tel Aviv. Biden said that he had seen evidence that suggested that the other team, not Israel, was behind the hospital attack.

Gilon said that the Iran connection in the Hamas incursion is clear and there are concerns that Iran is trying to unleash Hezbollah to open up a second front.

As the war escalates, and the Israeli Defence Force mulls a full-scale ground invasion, Israel had called for evacuation of over 2 million Gazans and ordered them to move towards the south of the Gaza Strip.
Egypt will reopen its border crossing with the Gaza Strip to allow aid to reach war-torn Gaza Strip, said the US. This comes as US President Joe Biden held talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi by phone late on Wednesday, during his visit to Israel.

Biden told reporters that Sisi agreed to open the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza to allow about 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave. Israel had withheld aid to Gaza following the Hamas attack and subsequent air strikes 12 days ago.



The President said that Egypt would repair the road across the border that was hit by Israeli rockets. He, however, warned that "if Hamas confiscates it, doesnt let it get through  then its going to end".



The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are reportedly waiting ator near the Rafah crossing.



Biden added that people will not be able to evacuate Gaza through Rafah after Egypt expressed concerns over refugees from Gaza.



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the decision was approved after a request from Biden. It said Israel will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don't go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators.



Meanwhile, the President doubled down on his insistence that Israel was not responsible for the rocket attack on Gaza hospital. The incident had inflamed anger across the Middle East, upending Biden's tour.



Biden had earlier said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israel's fault, and he cautioned Israelis not to allow outrage over the deadly Hamas attack to consume them.



"Israel has been badly victimised, but it should explore the opportunity to relieve the suffering of people in Gaza who have nowhere to go," US President Joe Biden said following his trip to Israel.



"Look, Israel has been badly victimised. But the truth is that if they have an opportunity to relieve the suffering of people who have nowhere to go, it's what they should do. And if they don't, they'll be held accountable in ways that may be unfair," Biden told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way back from Israel on Wednesday.



"And my point to everyone is, look, if you have an opportunity to alleviate the pain, you should do it, period. And if you don't, you're going to lose credibility worldwide. And I think everyone understands that," Biden said after he spent several hours in Israel in the aftermath of the terrorist strike from Hamas.


Amid the Israel-Palestine conflict intensifying, United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrived in Israel and held talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sunak said that Israel has lived through the "spectre of violence and terrorism for everyday of its existence". Sunak's visit comes after US's Joe Biden visited Israel on Wednesday.

UK extended its unequivocal support to Israel and said that Israelites has the right to defend itself in line with international law. Israel has the right to go after Hamas...Israel is taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas which seek to put civilians in harms way.

Sunak also stressed the need for humanitarian aid in talks with Israeli President.

"Palestinians are victims of what Hamas has done. It's important that we continue to provide humanitarian access," said UK PM.

PM Sunak expressed his personal condolences for the horrific loss of life in Israel as a result of Hamas's terrorism.

While speaking in Tel Aviv, Sunak told Netanyahu that Britain "will stand with you in solidarity, we stand with your people. And we also want you to win."

"The prime minister and President Herzog agreed on the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support to ordinary Palestinians in Gaza who are also suffering. The prime minister welcomed yesterdays announcement that Israel would not stop aid from entering Gaza. He expressed his sincere hope that further progress could be made on delivering crucial food, water and medicine, the statement of the meeting was readout by a Downing Street spokesperson.

Meanwhile, aid agencies and charity workers have been stressing the need for stepping up the humanitarian crisis in the region. Severe public health crisis is looming Israel. Health experts has raised concern over infectious diseases and diarrhoeal infection spreading among citizens in Gaza.

"Faced with this impossible situation, many Gazan families are resorting to non-drinking water sources, such as agricultural wells. This puts them at imminent risk of dehydration and even an outbreak of infectious diseases such as cholera. Such an epidemic, if it happens, would make this serious crisis an even bigger problem," said Chiara Saccardi, officer for the Middle East at Action Against Hunger.

Also, Gazans recounted the horrors of the war since the Hamas attack. Rafat Al-Nakhala, who had sought shelter in south of Gaza, said it was the brutal attack he has seen so far.

"Im over 70 years old, Ive lived through several wars, its never been like this, it has never been this brutal, no religion and no conscience. Thank God. We only have hope in God, not in any Arab or Muslim country or anyone in the world, except for God," Nakhala was quoted by Guardian.

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts are still ongoing to end the Israel-Hamas war. King Abdullah II of Jordan is on his way to Egypt to discuss ways to end "the Israeli aggression on Gaza".

Meanwhile, German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, slammed Russia's president Vladimir Putin for lamenting the fate of civilians in the Israel-Hamas conflict while his army wages war in Ukraine.

"It makes me more than furious to hear the Russian president repeatedly warning that there could be civilian casualties from an armed conflict. It doesnt get more cynical than that," Scholz told German Parliament on Thursday.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 3,700 people have died so far since the Hamas attack.
The Israeli airstrikes killed Jamila al-Shanti, the first woman in Hamas political bureau, said Hamas-affiliated media in Gaza. al-Shanti was the widow of Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi and the first woman elected to the terror groups political bureau in 2021. She was 68.

Israeli media reported the news, quoting a post on X by a Palestinian activist. "The martyrdom of my dear friend, Jamila Al-Shanti, a member of the political bureau of the Hamas movement in Gaza... (To God we belong and to Him we shall return)," the post read. The reports give no details on the location of the strike, saying only that it occurred at dawn.

Al-Shanti's husband Rantisi was killed in 2004 by an Israeli airstrike during the Second Intifada. During her election in 2021, Al-Shanti was quoted by the Palestinian Al-Aqsa TV channel as saying that the presence of women in the Hamas leadership shall prove to be a valuable contribution to the movements future.



    ( )         (    )  #_ pic.twitter.com/Gk9OTZpuC8      (@M_alrantisi1979) October 19, 2023

"As a (Palestinian) womens movement, we havent been officially in the Hamas political bureau before, but we have participated in the organization and in decision making during the preceding period," al-Shanti told the media organisation.

She made her foray into Hamas leadership in 2006 after being elected as a member of the Legislative Council for the "Change and Reform" bloc, affiliated with the Hamas movement.



Rafat Abu Hilal



The IDF airstrikes on Wednesday night also killed the head of the military wing of Gazas Popular Resistance Committees terror group, reported The Times of Israel. The Israeli fighter jets carried out an airstrike on the southern Gaza city of Rafah following information received from the Shin Bet, killing Rafat Abu Hilal. The Popular Resistance Committees is the third largest terror faction in the Strip after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The IDF also claimed to have destroyed hundreds of Hamas sites in the last 24 hours, including anti-tank missile launch sites, tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure, and various command centers.

Hezbollah targets

Israel has also struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including a military observation post from which a guided anti-tank missile was fired toward the northern town of Rosh Hanikra on Wednesday. The Israel Defense Forces adds that the strikes were carried out in response to shooting incidents at Israel over the past day.


BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on Thursday met with President of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies Arthur Lira in Beijing.

Han said that the China-Brazil comprehensive strategic partnership has maintained healthy and stable development, bringing tangible benefits to the two peoples.

China will work with Brazil to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, deepen political mutual trust, promote the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, expand people-to-people exchanges, step up coordination on international issues and safeguard common interests, Han said, adding that China is ready to work with other countries including Brazil to build a community with a shared future for humanity.

Lira said that it is the common aspiration of all sectors of Brazilian society to strengthen relations with China and Brazil's Chamber of Deputies will contribute to friendly cooperation between the two countries. 
Ahead of launching the ground attack, Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant has told Israeli troops that they will soon see the Palestinian territoty "from the inside".

"You see Gaza now from a distance, you will soon see it from inside. The command will come," said Gallant.

Amid the rising tensions, Germany's foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock is on her way to the Middle East for the second time since the Hamas attack on October 7. United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Israel on Thursday and extended his support to the nation.

She is also set to visit Jordan and Lebanon. Last week, Germany visited Israel and Egypt. Baerbock accused Hamas militant group for using civilian population of the Gaza as 'human shields'. It is important to me to make clear to Palestinians that we also recognise their suffering, she said.

While Jordans foreign minister on Thursday said that the country fears the worst yet to come in Gaza war with no signs of de-escalation. In remarks at a press conference with his German counterpart, Ayman Safadi said the war would have "catastrophic repercussions" and urged "protecting the region from the danger of its expansion".

Meanwhile, the relentless airstrikes are ongoing in Gaza. Amid scare of a public health crisis, people are struggling to meet their ends due to lack of water.

The Gaza Health Ministry said that over 3,700 Palestinians have been killed and around 12,000 were injured in the ongoing attacks.

According to Israeli military spokesperson, around 206 people are believed to be captured by Hamas and taken to Gaza.

Medical supplies ready for delivery to Gaza

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that around five truckloads of medical supplies are ready at the Egypt's border crossing. Once the crossing opens on Friday, the supplies could be delivered to the hospitals and medical centres.

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday that WHO was working with Egypt and Palestine Red Crescent Societies, and that our trucks are loaded and ready to go through the Rafah crossing from Egypt.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will fly to Israel on Thursday as part of his Middle East trip, which will also cover Egypt, Turkey and Qatar over the next three days. He will be accompanied by British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

Sunak will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, according to his office. The statement added that he would also condemn Hamass "horrific act of terror" and express condolences for the "terrible loss of life in Israel and Gaza in the last two weeks as a result of Hamas brutal terrorist attacks".



The British Prime Minister is also expected to announce the increase of the UKs humanitarian aid to the Palestinians by an extra 10 million pounds ($12 million). Sunak will also visit "a number of other regional capitals," Downing Street said, without providing details.



While Sunak is in Israel, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly will be in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps met his US counterpart Lloyd Austin in Washington on Wednesday "to coordinate our response to the crisis," the statement added.



It said the three countries were "vital to international efforts to uphold regional stability, free hostages and allow humanitarian access to Gaza". Cleverly will meet with senior leaders there to discuss efforts to prevent the conflict from spreading, the urgent need to open the Rafah crossing with Egypt to let aid reach those who need it and for Hamas to release hostages.



This comes as Sunak's office announced on Wednesday that at least seven British nationals have been killed and at least nine are missing since the attack on Israel, Sunak's spokesperson said earlier on Wednesday.



"I can sadly confirm that at least seven British nationals have been tragically killed," the spokesperson told reporters. "A further nine British nationals are missing, some of whom are feared to be among the dead."

The Prime Minister added that the British intelligence services are analysing evidence to independently establish the facts about Tuesday's deadly blast at a Gaza hospital. "We should not rush to judgements before we have all the facts," Sunak told lawmakers. "Our intelligence services have been rapidly analysing the evidence to independently establish the facts. We are not in a position at this point to say more than that," he added.
An editor for US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague was detained in the Russia. Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was held after visiting her family in Russian city of Kazaan.

She was arrested on Wednesday for failing to register as a foreign agent. The offence carries a jail term up to five years.

Kurmasheva is the second US journalist to be held in Russia this year.

Earlier, Wall Street Moscow journalist Evan Gershkovich, 31, was arrested in March under the charges of espionage. Moscow court had rejected his appeal and had ordered to remain in detention. The United States government had strongly denied the charges and said that he was being held to be traded for Russian citizens in the custody of the US or its allies.

Alsu Kurmasheva, who holds both US and Russian citizenship, works for RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir service. Kurmasheva lives in Czech Republic and had travelled to Kazan in late May for a family emergency. She was detained in the airport while waiting for the return flight. Her Russian and American passports were confiscated.

Reportedly, Kurmasheva's work frequently focused on issues facing ethnic minorities of central Russia.

What does a foreign agent mean?

Foreign agent carries Cold War connotations of espionage in Russia. The label is widely used against organisations, journalists, activists and even writers deemed in engaging in political activity with foreign support.

Under the Russian law, people or organisations receiving funding from abroad can be declared as foreign agents.

Reacting to the detention, RFE/RL acting president Jeffrey Gedmin said Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife and a mother of two children.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also condemned the detention and sought immediate release of the journalist.

A number of journalists and Kremlin critics have been labelled "foreign agents", including Nobel Peace Prize-winner Dmitry Muratov, reported BBC. In September last year, Ivan Safronov, who worked for Kommersant and Vedomosti was sentenced to 22 years in jail on treason charges.




I couldnt believe my eyes! The sight that lay before me this past Wednesday was simply unbelievable! It was at a time when the entire country was still in upheaval. The eis tzara plaguing Eretz Yisrael was clear to all. It was (and is) nothing like anything we have ever before encountered in our lifetime. Every time there was an azaka, a siren, we jumped. We were nervous and on edge

It was several hours before THE test was about to begin, and I was in one of the testing centers as were tens of avreichim getting in just one more chazara before the test. They were learning diligently, some with Gemaras open in front of them and others with large volumes of Shulchan Aruch

Suddenly, the plaintive wail of the siren was heard. That meant that within a very short period of time, everyone had to evacuate to a safe room until the all-clear would be heard. I watched the avreichim get up, calmly and quickly, grasping their Gemaras and Shulchan Aruchs in their hands. Quickly, without panic, they made their way to a safe place. The second they got there they once again opened their sefarim. In seconds, they were completely immersed in learning until the all-clear signal was sounded.

I realized that lomdei Dirshu of this caliber who are about to be tested on half of Shas, yes, HALF of Shas, at ONCE, are in a different zone. Lomdei Dirshu who are about to take a test on Kinyan Halacha, on half a years worth of in-depth limud of Shulchan Aruch, are different. They live on an elevated plane.

Those were the words of senior Dirshu hanhala member, Rabbi Avigdor Bernstein, who passionately expressed the inspiration and chizuk that he himself derived when observing the latest Dirshu bi-yearly, post bein hazemanim test, where lomdim are tested on large amounts of material.

Indeed, our brethren in Eretz Yisrael are undergoing a tremendously difficult period, when the barbarism of the neighboring bnei Yishmael has been revealed in the most horrific way. The country is at war. That is why lomdei Torah throughout Eretz Yisrael refuse to leave their front. They have their task to help win the war and that is utilizing the power, the koach haTorah to help Klal Yisrael. Lomdei Dirshu have shown this past week their steely reserve to persevere no matter what obstacles are put in their place.

The test that they took this past week was the Dirshu cumulative Kinyan Shas test on the half of Shas learned thus far in the cycle of the Daf HaYomi. The Kinyan Shas program is a cumulative testing program in which nearly 1,000 avreichim throughout the world were tested from Masechta Brachos until the end of Masechta Gitten, approximately half of Shas. It is a grueling three-hour test that covers questions on every masechta learned thus far.

May Hashem continue to protect His Nation and especially those living in Eretz Yisroel.




A judge warned Donald Trump and others at his New York civil fraud trial to keep their voices down Wednesday after the former president threw up his hands in frustration and spoke aloud to his lawyers while a witness was testifying against him.

Judge Arthur Engoron made the admonition after Trump conferred animatedly with his lawyers at the defense table during real estate appraiser Doug Larsons second day of testimony at the Manhattan trial.

State lawyer Kevin Wallace asked Engoron to ask the defense to stop commenting during the witness testimony, adding that the exhortations were audible on the witness side of the room. The judge then asked everyone to keep their voices down, particularly if its meant to influence the testimony.

The 2024 Republican frontrunner was in court for a second straight day Wednesday, watching the trial that threatens to upend his real estate empire and his wealthy businessman image. He attended the first three days, but skipped last week. On Tuesday, he left during an afternoon break to give a deposition in an unrelated lawsuit.

In a pretrial decision last month, Engoron ruled that Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, committed years of fraud by exaggerating his asset values and net worth on annual financial statements used to make deals and get better terms on loans and insurance.

As punishment, Engoron ordered that a court-appointed receiver take control of some Trump companies, putting the future oversight of Trump Tower and other marquee properties in question, but an appeals court has blocked that for now.

Trump didnt talk about the case on his way into court past TV cameras Wednesday, saving his usual vitriol about New York Attorney General Letitia James lawsuit for a morning break.

Inside the courtroom, which is closed to cameras, Trump grew irritated as Larson testified. Trumps lawyers were seeking to undercut the states claims that his top corporate deputies played games to inflate the values of his properties and pad his bottom line.

In a series of questions, Trump lawyer Lazaro Fields sought to establish that Larson had, at one point, undershot the projected 2015 value of a Trump-owned Wall Street office building by $114 million. Larson said the values were not wrong  its what we knew at the time.

Trump threw up his hands during the exchange.

On Tuesday, Larson testified that he never consulted with or gave permission for the Trump Organizations former controller, Jeffrey McConney, to cite him as an outside expert in the valuation spreadsheets he used to create Trumps financial statements.

Fields on Wednesday accused Larson of lying, pointing to a decade-old email exchange between McConney and the appraiser.

That touched off an angry back-and-forth between the defense and state sides, with Trump lawyer Christopher Kise suggesting that Larson could risk perjuring himself and needed to be advised about his rights against self-incrimination. State lawyer Colleen Faherty called Kises comments witness intimidation.

After Larson was escorted out of the courtroom, Kise insisted that he was trying to protect the witness rights, while state lawyer Kevin Wallace complained that the defense was mounting a performance for the media. Ultimately, Engoron allowed Larson to return and answer the question with no legal warning. Larson said he didnt recall the email.

Asked again whether he understood that McConney had asked for his input in order to carry out valuations, a weary Larson said: Thats what it appears.

Trump railed about that exchange during a court break.

See whats happened? The government lied. They just lie. They didnt reveal all of the information that they had, Trump said. They didnt reveal all the evidence that made me totally innocent of anything that they say.

After Larson, state lawyers called Jack Weisselberg, the son of former longtime Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg. The son arranged financing for Trump while an executive at Ladder Capital.

Trumps civil trial involves six claims in James lawsuit that werent resolved in Engorons pretrial ruling, including allegations of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. Engoron will decide the case, not a jury, because state law doesnt allow one in this type of lawsuit.

Wednesdays dust-up was just the latest clash between Engoron and Trump.

After Trump maligned a key court staffer on social media on the trials second day, the judge, a Democrat, issued a limited gag order barring parties in the case from smearing members of his staff. Last year, Engoron held Trump in contempt and fined him $110,000 for being slow to respond to a subpoena from James office.

Trump on Tuesday said outside court that he had grown to like and respect Engoron, but that he believed Democrats were pushing him around like a pinball. Its a very unfair situation that they put me in, Trump said.

(AP)




The chief suspect in Natalee Holloways 2005 disappearance in Aruba admitted he killed her and disposed of her remains, and has agreed to plead guilty to charges he tried to extort money from the teens mother years later, a U.S. judge said Wednesday,

The disclosure came during a plea and sentencing hearing for Joran van der Sloot, 36, in a federal courtroom in Alabama  just a few miles from the Birmingham suburb where Holloway used to live.

You changed the course of our lives and you turned them upside down, her mother Beth Holloway said in court, standing a few feet from van der Sloot. You are a killer.

Van der Sloot is not charged in Holloways death. The Dutch citizen was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison for extortion and wire fraud, but as part of his plea agreement, that sentence will run concurrently with his sentence in Peru, where hes serving a 28-year prison sentence for killing Stephany Flores in 2010.

U.S. Judge Anna Manasco said she considered van der Sloots confession to Holloways murder and the destruction of her remains as part of the sentencing decision.

You have brutally murdered, in separate instances years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances, the judge said.

Holloway went missing during a high school graduation trip with classmates. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot. He was questioned in the disappearance but was never prosecuted. A judge declared Holloway dead, but her body has never been found.

Manasco said the plea deal required van der Sloot to provide all the information he knew about Natalie Holloways disappearance.

The case has captivated the publics attention for nearly two decades, spawning extensive news coverage, books, movies and podcasts. A heavy media presence assembled outside the federal courthouse nearly three hours before the hearing.

Holloways family has long sought answers about her disappearance. Van der Sloot gave different accounts over the years of that night in Aruba. Federal investigators in the Alabama case said van der Sloot gave a false location of Holloways body during a recorded 2010 FBI sting that captured the extortion attempt.

Prosecutors in the Alabama case said van der Sloot asked for $250,000 from Beth Holloway to reveal the location of her daughters remains. Van der Sloot agreed to accept $25,000 to disclose the location, and asked for the other $225,000 once the remains were recovered, prosecutors said. Van der Sloot said Holloway was buried in the gravel under the foundation of a house, but later admitted that was untrue, FBI Agent William K. Bryan wrote in a 2010 sworn statement filed in the case.

Van der Sloot moved from Aruba to Peru before he could be arrested in the extortion case.

The government of Peru agreed to temporarily extradite van der Sloot so he could face trial on the extortion charge in the United States. U.S. authorities agreed to return him to Peruvian custody after his case is concluded, according to a resolution published in Perus federal register.

The wheels of justice have finally begun to turn for our family, Beth Holloway said in June after van der Sloot arrived in Alabama. It has been a very long and painful journey.

(AP)




The Palace of Versailles and three airports in cities across France were evacuated for security reasons and temporarily closed Wednesday, the latest in a spate of evacuations in the past five days around France.

The former royal chateau of Versailles apologized to visitors for forcing them to evacuate from the sumptuous 17th-century palace for security reasons. The tourist attraction said on X, formerly Twitter, that it reopened hours later after checks. It was the third time since the weekend that the palace had to evacuate visitors.

Meanwhile three airports in the cities of Lyon, Toulouse and Lille received emailed threats Wednesday, police said, without elaborating on the nature of the threats. The airports all reopened to passengers and staff after security checks.

The evacuations were the latest in a series around France that included another popular tourist attraction, the Louvre Museum in Paris. They followed the killing of a teacher in the northern city of Arras on Friday by a suspected Islamist extremist. The threats have so far proved false.

The Louvre Museum and the Chateau of Versailles were both evacuated Saturday, and the former royal palace was again evacuated Tuesday.

Government spokesman Olivier Veran said that the multiple security alerts and evacuations must not grip France with fear.

This is what the terrorists are waiting for, to terrorize us  We can be vigilant and I prefer to speak about a vigilant society, Veran said in answer to a question after the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Vigilance, yes. Fear, no, he added. And even less so terror, and not psychosis.

Security alerts are evaluated on a case by case basis in coordination with the police, he added.

The prefecture for the Lyon region reminded the public that communicating false information can lead to prison and a heavy fine.

In the Riviera city of Nice, an abandoned piece of luggage also briefly disrupted operations at the airport.

The high school in Arras, where the teacher was murdered by a former student suspected to be an Islamist terrorist, was evacuated on Monday after a security alert, ahead of a moment of silence in schools across France.

It was not clear whether the spate of security threats was linked to the fatal stabbing of the teacher or whether France might be a victim of fallout from the war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

France has heightened its threat alert level, allowing authorities to add 7,000 soldiers to the 3,000 already in French streets. They are tasked with guarding Jewish places of worship, schools, train stations and other sensitive areas.

The anti-terrorism prosecutor said on Tuesday that the suspect declared his allegiance to the so-called Islamic State group before the fatal stabbing.

(AP)




Deportation flights of Venezuelans from the U.S. resumed Wednesday with a first plane of more than a hundred migrants landing back in their economically troubled country under the Biden administrations latest attempts to deal with swelling numbers of asylum-seekers.

This is the first time in years that U.S. immigration authorities are deporting people to the South American nation, marking a significant concession by the government of Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro to a longtime adversary.

The first plane, a Boeing 737 jet, took off from the Texas border city of Harlingen and touched down in Miami before arriving hours later outside Caracas, Venezuelas capital. The roughly 130 passengers were Venezuelan women and men who were shuttled to the plane on buses, and wore wrist and ankle restraints. As they boarded, U.S. immigration officers patted them down.

Bidens administration said it plans to have multiple deportation flights a week to Venezuela, according to a U.S. Transportation Department waiver on travel restrictions, which would place Venezuela among the top international destinations for U.S. immigration authorities.

Restarted flights to Venezuela come after the countrys government and opposition agreed to work on electoral conditions that are expected to trigger relief from U.S. energy sanctions on the Maduro government.

This flight to Venezuela is the first Ive seen in my career of an entire charter flight of Venezuelans going back to their country. And we plan on having several more of these in the coming days and weeks, said Corey Price, an acting executive associate director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Price said those who were prioritized for the flights include recent arrivals as well as migrants who have committed crimes in the U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens said the passengers had illegally entered the U.S. between ports of entry.

The deportees will find a homeland that is still in the midst of complex social, political and economic crises.

The situation has evolved since a global drop in the price of oil  Venezuelas most valuable resource  a decade ago and mismanagement by the self-proclaimed socialist government pushed the country into a downward spiral. People are grappling with constant food-price hikes and business closures, and workers try to meet their needs with a monthly minimum wage of $3.70 thats barely enough to buy a gallon of water.

The U.S. government employs a fleet of charter carriers known collectively as ICE Air. Using charter airlines though, these flights, which typically carry 135 migrants, will fly to Venezuela from unspecified airports in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security. They will be for Venezuelans who have received final removal orders, which are issued after losing an asylum bid or to those who werent able to seek humanitarian protection.

The flights are in response to an increase in migration from Venezuela that is straining immigration systems throughout the hemisphere  including in the United States, the Transportation Department said in its waiver.

The U.S. has struggled for years to deport people to countries with which it has strained diplomatic relations, including Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. After a hiatus of more than two years, Cuba allowed for the resumption of U.S. deportations in April, with deportation flights there operating only about once a month.

The U.S. government hopes the recent threat of deportation will be enough to make Venezuelans reconsider trying to enter the United States illegally  and opt instead for the online appointment system to make asylum claims or attempt other legal paths. But it has not deterred many people from continuing to migrate.

Venezuelan migration to the U.S. tapered off a year ago when the Biden administration agreed to allow Venezuelans to enter the country if they applied online with a financial sponsor who also arrived at the airport. More than 61,000 Venezuelans came on that route since last October.

The restart of the deportation flights takes places just weeks after the Biden administration announced that it is granting temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans that have arrived in the U.S. by July 31.

The temporary status makes it easier for them to get work authorization and stop deportation orders.

Experts and immigration attorneys are urging Venezuelans to apply to TPS to prevent their repatriation.

Venezuelans who have not applied for TPS and have deportation orders could be affected, said Rachel Leon, an immigration attorney in Florida. Those who are eligible for TPS should apply as soon as possible to avoid facing deportation.

At the same time, Mexico agreed to let in some Venezuelans who were deported from the U.S. after crossing the border illegally, recognizing that Venezuela wouldnt.

The lull was short-lived. In August, Venezuelans were arrested more than 22,000 times on charges of crossing the border illegally, fourth behind people migrating from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. Many head to New York, Chicago and other major U.S. cities, overwhelming shelters and temporary housing there.

(AP)
BAGHDAD, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- An Iraqi Shiite militia claimed on Thursday responsibility for launching drone and rocket attacks on two U.S. military bases in eastern Syria.

An armed group calling itself "The Islamic Resistance in Iraq" claimed in two online statements that its fighters launched three booby-trapped drones on Thursday morning at the al-Tanf military base near Syria's borders with Iraq and Jordan. Its fighters also fired rockets on another U.S. military base in the Conoco gas field in Syria's eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

According to the statements, the authenticity of which could not be independently verified, the attacks hit their targets. They did not provide further details.

On Wednesday, an unidentified armed group calling itself Tashkil al-Waritheen claimed responsibility for a booby-trapped drone attack on Harir airbase outside Erbil, the capital city of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, without causing casualties.

A U.S. military statement confirmed the attack on the Harir airbase and said that U.S. forces destroyed the drone, which failed to cause any injury or damage.

According to the statement, three drones were launched Wednesday on Ayn al-Asad airbase in Anbar province in western Iraq, which resulted in "minor injuries to coalition forces." The U.S. forces destroyed one drone and damaged another, without mentioning the third one. 




Coalition forces were slightly injured in Iraq in a spate of drone attacks over the last 24 hours at U.S. bases in Iraq as regional tensions flare following the deadly bombing of a hospital in Gaza.

Two drones targeted a base in western Iraq used by U.S. forces and one drone targeted a base in northern Iraq. U.S. forces intercepted all three, destroying two but only damaging the third, which led to minor injuries among coalition forces at the western base, according to a statement Wednesday by U.S. Central Command.

In this moment of heightened alert, we are vigilantly monitoring the situation in Iraq and the region. U.S. forces will defend U.S. and coalition forces against any threat, Central Command said in the release.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have threatened to attack U.S. facilities there because of American support for Israel.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias, issued a statement afterward claiming responsibility for the two attacks and saying it heralds more operations against the American occupation.

The salvos came at a time of increasing tension and fears of a broader regional conflict in the wake of the latest Hamas-Israel war.

Since the beginning of the war on Oct. 7, much attention has been focused on Hezbollah, the powerful Hamas ally across Israels northern border in Lebanon, and its formidable arsenal. The group has traded so-far limited strikes with Israel on the border in recent days.

But Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have also threatened to attack U.S. facilities over American support for Israel.

Our missiles, drones, and special forces are ready to direct qualitative strikes at the American enemy in its bases and disrupt its interests if it intervenes in this battle, Ahmad Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, head of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement last Wednesday. He also threatened to launch missiles at Israeli targets.

Following Tuesday nights blast that killed hundreds at a hospital in Gaza, the group issued another statement in which it blamed the U.S. and its support for Israel for the catastrophe and called for an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq. Hamas has said the explosion in Gaza was from an Israeli airstrike, while Israel has blamed a misfired rocket by Palestinian militants.

These evil people must leave the country. Otherwise, they will taste the fire of hell in this world before the afterlife, the statement said.

A U.S. defense official, who wasnt authorized to comment to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the attack on the al-Asad military base in western Iraq.

Tashkil al-Waritheen, one of the Iranian-backed militias making up the larger group, claimed responsibility in a statement for a second drone attack, which it said had targeted the al-Harir airbase in northern Iraq. U.S. officials did not immediately comment on the claim of a second attack.

The government of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq said an intercepted drone crashed in an open area near the village of Batas.

Also on Wednesday, Iran-allied groups in Iraq announced that they had formed a joint operations room to help Hamas in its war effort.

Two officials with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, confirmed the attacks on the two bases Wednesday. They said the armed groups were on alert and prepared to join the wider battle against Israel, but that Iran had not yet given approval for them to open a new front. Leaders from some of the factions are now in Lebanon and Syria in case they get orders to proceed, one of the officials said.

Officials with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment.

Lahib Higel, a senior analyst for Iraq at the International Crisis Group, said in the short term, the Iraqi groups allied with Iran and Hamas are not likely to open a new front in the war, but that could change if the Hamas-Israel war escalates or becomes protracted.

Geographically, obviously, they are several steps removed, so theyre not going to be the first to react and are likely to serve in a supporting role, she said.

Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House, said the Iran-backed groups in Iraq are split between those that are also political parties and have a stake in the Iraqi political system and the vanguard groups that are purely militant and tend to be more tightly controlled by Iran.

The latter, he said, have been used in the past as foot sodiers in regional conflicts, including in Yemen and Syria.

This is what theyre designed to do, Mansour said. The question is more, will Iran and some of the leaders of these groups decide its in their interest to escalate?

(AP)




The Biden administration on Wednesday announced $3.5 billion for 58 projects across the country to strengthen electric grid resilience as extreme weather events such as the deadly Maui and California wildfires continue to strain the nations aging transmission systems.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said it was the largest federal investment ever in grid infrastructure, supporting projects that will harden electric systems and improve energy reliability and affordability. The federal spending, combined with money promised by private partners, could result in up to $8 billion in investments nationally to upgrade the grid, Granholm said.

The grid, as it currently sits, is not is not equipped to handle all the new demand and withstand natural disasters and extreme weather worsened by climate change, Granholm said at a news conference Wednesday. We need it to be bigger, we need it to be stronger, we need it to be smarter to bring a range of renewable energy projects online and meet the Biden administrations goal of reaching 100% clean electricity by 2035, she said.

Projects funded by the federal Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program will increase the flexibility, efficiency and reliability of electric power systems, with a particular focus on spurring solar, wind, and other renewable energy, Granholm said. The projects also are aimed at fixing problems that may contribute to wildfires and other disasters and will improve reliability by deploying innovative approaches to electricity transmission, storage and distribution, she and other officials said.

Projects to be funded include $249 million each for rural areas in Georgia and Louisiana and $250 million for a Native American tribe in Oregon.

The largest grant, $464 million, will go to improve five transmission projects across seven Midwestern states, from Iowa to North Dakota. The money includes $95 million previously announced for Hawaii in the wake of devastating wildfires this summer, and $150 million to PacifiCorp to upgrade the grid and boost wildfire mitigation in California, Oregon, Utah and other states.

Our outdated grid has been in need of an update for a long, long time, said Mitch Landrieu, a White House senior adviser who coordinates implementation of the 2021 infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden.

The grid is especially vulnerable to the increasing impacts of the climate crisis, Landrieu added. Older equipment can overload during extreme heat and cold when power is needed most. And its more likely to fail when communities are washed out by historic floods and decimated by stronger storms.

The nations existing power grids are not built to handle the growing energy demand, a fact that is complicated by the intermittent nature of renewables, since energy isnt generated when the sun doesnt shine or the wind isnt blowing.

As we sadly saw in California, aging electricity infrastructure can cause catastrophic loss of life, property, natural areas and forest fires, said Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a San Francisco-based group that publicizes climate solutions.

The projects announced Wednesday are exactly the kind of thing that we should be doing: promoting renewables, better storage and better electrical grids for a better, greener, more resilient future, Foley said.

In Georgia, the states environmental finance authority and companies that supports Georgias electric cooperatives will team up on a project to upgrade the grid, including investments in battery storage, local microgrids, grid reliability and new transmission lines. The project will focus on remote, historically underinvested communities, Granholm said, including rural Locust Grove, Georgia, where she visited Wednesday as part of the grant rollout.

In Louisiana, two projects will focus on helping disadvantaged communities withstand extreme weather and develop microgrids to work with local utilities and back up existing assets. Entergy New Orleans also will enhance the local grids resilience to severe weather, including hardening existing transmission lines and distribution systems to reduce outage frequency and duration.

CPS Energy in San Antonio will receive $30 million for a resiliency program, and Minnesota-based Xcel Energy will receive $100 million for projects in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota and Wisconsin to mitigate wildfire risk, including thousands of fire-resistant poles. Texas has faced repeated challenges, from sweltering heat this summer to a winter blackout in 2021 that knocked out power to millions of customers and resulted in hundreds of deaths.

In Michigan, Consumers Energy will get $100 million to strengthen electric systems in disadvantaged communities where outages are more frequent, including northern Michigan and the Flint and Grand Rapids areas. DTE Energy, meanwhile, will receive $23 million for adaptive microgrids in the Detroit area to enhance reliability and reduce outages.

In Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation will work with Portland General Electric to upgrade transmission capacity and improve service east of the Cascade Mountains, including the reservation.

(AP)




President Joe Bidens nominee to be ambassador to Israel told senators Wednesday that he would ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself and would work with the U.S. ally to end the attacks by Hamas if he were confirmed.

Jacob Lew, a treasury secretary under President Barack Obama, promised to coordinate with the international community and address the humanitarian crisis facing civilians in Gaza amid Israeli military strikes. His hearing came as Biden visited Israel to reinforce U.S. support and try to ease tensions in the latest war with Hamas.

At this moment, there is no greater mission than to be asked to strengthen the ties between the United States and the State of Israel and to work toward peace in a region that has known so much war and destruction, Lew said in his opening statement.

The Senate is moving quickly to confirm Lew, who was nominated by Biden last month after Tom Nides left as ambassador in July. Democrats say Lews wealth of government experience  he also was chief of staff to Obama and White House budget director under Obama and President Bill Clinton  makes him the right person to fill the post at a a critical moment in the two countries relationship.

Hamas has started a war, said Sen. Ben Cardin, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as he began the hearing. Given the dangerous state of emergency that Israel faces, the United States needs a confirmed U.S. ambassador in Jerusalem.

Cardin, D-Md., has said Lew, who goes by Jack, is an outstanding, qualified person and that it is urgent to have a confirmed ambassador to help Israel as it navigates the new war, works to release hostages held by Hamas and deals with increasing concerns about tensions on the northern border with Hezbollah. Cardin said it is also important to keep normalization talks alive that could improve diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab countries in the region.

Several Republicans on the committee said they had concerns about Lew, and their opposition could slow his nomination. The committee is expected to vote next week and move it to the full Senate.

The Republicans criticized Lew for his role in the Obama White House when it negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015, among other foreign policy moves. The deal with Iran  the chief sponsor of Hamas  was later scuttled by former President Donald Trump. Biden has sought to resurrect the pact, which would provide Tehran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for the country agreeing to roll back its nuclear program.

Lew indicated that he believes that further talks on the issue should be on hold, at least for now. I dont think this is the moment to be negotiating with Iran, he said.

Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the committee, was among those with concerns.

Not only will you need to support Israel as it responds to these attacks, but also as it contends with the enduring, and indeed existential, Iranian threat, which I think is an underlying and foundational issue here, Risch told Lew. I have reservations about your ability to do that.

Lew defended his work in the Obama White House and called Iran an evil, malign government.

I want to be clear  Iran is a threat to regional stability and to Israels existence, Lew said. If confirmed, I will uphold President Bidens warning to anyone in the region who might try to take advantage of the current crisis: dont.

Lew expressed sympathy for the civilians on both sides who have been injured or killed in the fighting. It must end, Lew said, but it has to end with Israels security being guaranteed.

Lew, who is Jewish, said he cannot remember a time in his life when Israels struggle for security was not at the forefront of my mind.

His pledge to get Israel what it needs comes as the White House has told lawmakers that it is considering a request of between $90 billion and $100 billion for the wars in Israel and Ukraine and for Taiwan as it faces threats from China, according to four people familiar with the conversations. The request to Congress would cover a year, according to another person familiar with the Biden administrations expected request. The people requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and because the funding request is not final.

The White House could make a formal request for the foreign war aid as soon as this week. Though there is near-unanimous support for Israel in Congress, a $100 billion package, if that is what the Democratic administration requests, could face major obstacles because some Republicans have balked at linking the money for Israel with the war in Ukraine. Also, the House has been in chaos since Republicans unexpectedly ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., two weeks ago and is for now unable to pass legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that the Senate must act as a steady, bipartisan force.

At this moment of crisis in Israel, and of chaos in the House of Representatives, the Senate must step into the breach and stand firmly together to get emergency military and humanitarian aid to Israel, said Schumer, D-N.Y.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has also strongly supported linking aid for the two countries and Taiwan but said it would have to come with additional measures to help control immigration at the U.S. border. McConnell would not say whether he supported Lews confirmation.

(AP)




The U.S. on Wednesday imposed sanctions on a group of people and firms based in Iran, China, Hong Kong and Venezuela, tied to the development of Irans ballistic missile and drone programs.

The penalties come as the United Nations restrictions on Iran missile-related activities under a Security Council Resolution are set to expire, as well as the E.U. restrictions on Irans ability to obtain nuclear and conventional arms.

Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 11 people, eight entities, and one vessel for having allegedly supported Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics in their production and proliferation of missiles and drones.

Included in the sanctions are Iran-based equipment firms and their directors, a Hong Kong-based distributor of electronic components several Iranian officials including the Defense Attache in Venezuela, Jaber Reihani and the general cargo vessel PARNIA, which has been used for defense cargo exports.

Despite the pending expiration of the U.N. resolution, the United States is committed to countering Irans procurement, development, and proliferation of missiles, drones and other military weapons, according to a Treasury statement.

Brian Nelson, Treasurys under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence said Irans reckless choice to continue its proliferation of destructive UAVs and other weapons prolongs numerous conflicts in regions around the world. A UAV is an unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly known as a drone.

The U.S. will continue to take action to disrupt Irans proliferation of UAVs and other weapons to oppressive regimes and destabilizing actors, and we encourage the international community to do the same.

Among other things, the sanctions deny the people and firms access to any property or financial assets held in the U.S. and prevent U.S. companies and citizens from doing business with them.

President Joe Bidens administration maintains that Iran is providing Russia with drones and materials to build a drone manufacturing plant east of Moscow as President Vladimir Putins government invades Ukraine.

We are against the war in Ukraine, President Raisi said in June as he met with media executives on the sidelines of the worlds premier global conference, the high-level leaders meeting at the U.N. General Assembly.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran remain high, despite the release of five American detainees from Iran in September in exchange for the release of nearly $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets.

(AP)




A Pentagon report on Chinas military power says Beijing is exceeding previous projections of how quickly it is building up its nuclear weapons arsenal and is almost certainly learning lessons from Russias war in Ukraine about what a conflict over Taiwan might look like.

The report released Thursday also warns that China may be pursuing a new intercontinental missile system using conventional arms that, if fielded, would allow Beijing to threaten conventional strikes against targets in the continental United States, Hawaii and Alaska.

The China report comes a month before an expected meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden on the sidelines of next months Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.

The annual report, required by Congress, is one way the Pentagon measures the growing military capabilities of China, which the U.S. government sees as its key threat in the region and Americas primary long-term security challenge.

But after Hamass Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the U.S. has been forced again to focus on the Middle East, instead of its widely promoted pivot to the Pacific to counter Chinas growth. The U.S. is rushing weapons to Israel while continuing to support and deliver munitions to Ukraine in its 20-month struggle to repel Russias invasion.

Still, the Pentagons national defense strategy is shaped around China remaining the greatest security challenge for the U.S., and that the threat from Beijing will determine how the U.S. military is equipped and shaped for the future.

The Pentagon report builds on the militarys warning last year that China was expanding its nuclear force much faster than U.S. officials had predicted, highlighting a broad and accelerating buildup of military muscle designed to enable Beijing to match or surpass U.S. global power by midcentury.

Last years report warned that Beijing was rapidly modernizing its nuclear force and was on track to nearly quadruple the number of warheads it has to 1,500 by 2035. The United States has 3,750 active nuclear warheads.

The 2023 report finds that Beijing is on pace to field more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, continuing a rapid modernization aimed at meeting Xis goal of having a world class military by 2049.

After the previous report, China accused the U.S. of ratcheting up tensions and Beijing said it was still committed to a no first use policy on nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon has seen no indication that China is moving away from that policy but assesses there may be some circumstances where China might judge that it does not apply, a senior U.S. defense said without providing details. The official briefed reporters Wednesday on condition of anonymity before the reports release.

The U.S. does not adhere to a no first use policy and says nuclear weapons would be used only in extreme circumstances.

The report said China is intensifying military, diplomatic and economic pressure not only on Taiwan but also toward all its regional neighbors to push back against what its sees as U.S. efforts to contain its rise. The pressure against Taipei includes ballistic missile overflights, increased warplane incursions into its international defense zone and a large-scale military exercise last August that encircled Taiwan.

Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its control, by force if necessary. Xi has given his military until 2027 to develop the military capability to retake the self-ruled island democracy that the Communist Party claims as its own territory.

The U.S. has committed billions of dollars in military weapons to Taiwan to build up its defenses and help it rebuff any potential attack.

But China also has devoted billions to its military. According to its public budget numbers, Chinas military spending for 2023 rose 7.2% to 1.58 trillion yuan, or $216 billion in U.S. dollars, outpacing its economic growth. U.S. officials say the actual figure may be much higher. Beijing says it implements a defensive military policy to protect the countrys interests.

The report also noted that China has increased its harassment of U.S. warplanes flying in international airspace in the region and recorded more than 180 instances where Chinese aircraft aggressively intercepted U.S. military flights.

The report focuses on Chinas activities in 2022, but does look at the U.S. overflight of Chinas spy balloon and how a lack of communication between the two militaries increased the risk of escalation. It does not include the latest war between Israel and Hamas, but it found that Beijing is using what it learned from the Russia-Ukraine war. China, it said, is working toward industrial and economic self-reliance after seeing the impact of Western sanctions against Moscow.

Russias invasion of Ukraine presented a major, unexpected challenge for China, the report said, forcing it to measure its relationship and material support to Russia against the reputational or economic costs it could incur that would impede its overall goal of rising as a national power.

(AP)




Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that the Hamas attack on Israel would have never happened if he were still president.

The attack on Israel  if I were president, Israel would not have been attacked, Trump told reporters outside a New York courtroom. He was there to attend his ongoing business fraud trial.

It was viciously attacked; it would not have been attacked, he continued. Ukraine would not have been attacked.

Asked whether he would visit Israel, Trump paused for a moment, and say he may go, but I believe in letting them to do what they have to do, they have to straighten it out.

He then reiterated that the Hamas attack would have never happened under his watch, adding that even the Democrats admit that.




When Rashida Tlaib wants to see an anti-Semite, all she has to do is look in the mirror. On Wednesday, Tlaib continued to spew her contention that the IDF bombed a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, despite a mountain of evidence showing that 1) the IDF didnt bomb it, 2) the rocket was almost certainly fired by terrorists, and 3) the rocket didnt even do the damage Hamas claimed it did.

Tlaib accused the Biden administration of funding a genocide, weeping bitter crocodile tears as she addressed a crowd of protesters at the Capitol who were calling for a ceasefire.

Thats whats been really painful  just continue to watch people think its okay to bomb a hospital where children. You know, whats so hard sometimes is watching those videos and the people telling the kids, Dont cry. But like, let them cry! And theyre shaking, and somebody  you know this  they keep telling them not to cry in Arabic. They can cry, I can cry, we all can cry. If were not crying, something is wrong, Tlaib said.

Of course Tlaib said not a word about 1300 innocent civilians slaughtered in cold blood just because they were Jews, not a word about the nearly 200 Jews being held captive by Hamas terrorists, and not a word about the decapitation and abduction of babies, burning people alive, torture, and assaults that Hamas carried out.

Tlaib was the first to echo Hamass assertion that Israel targeted the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. However, video evidence and a U.S. National Security Council assessment indicate that the damage and fatalities resulted from a rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Hamas claimed the blast killed 500 people  a very dubious number, given photographic evidence that the rocket struck a parking lot, leaving little more than a 11 crater and damaging a few nearby vehicles.

Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that, Tlaib wrote on X on Tuesday.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)




Florida Governor Ron DeSantis voiced strong objections to President Joe Bidens recent announcement to allocate $100 million in humanitarian assistance to Gaza and the West Bank. This announcement came during Bidens trip to Israel.

DeSantis expressed concerns that the funds might not reach the Gazan citizens who are in dire need. We know Hamas is going to commandeer that money and use it to advance terrorism, DeSantis said in a video statement, further emphasizing, I say no U.S. tax dollars to the Gaza Strip.

Highlighting another concern, DeSantis mentioned that Hamas is currently holding American hostages in Gaza. He called on his Republican peers, especially those seeking the partys presidential nomination, to support his stance.

In defense of his decision, Biden clarified that the money aims to support more than 1 million displaced and conflict-affected Palestinians, addressing urgent needs in Gaza, such as food, water, shelter, and medical care.

TRUMP: Biden is sending $100 million to the Palestinians? I think right now its totally inappropriate. [] Hes over in Israel and hes giving money to the Palestinians. I think its very inappropriate.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)




Hamas terrorists likely fired North Korean weapons during their Oct. 7 assault on Israel, a militant video and weapons seized by Israel show, despite Pyongyangs denials that it sells arms to the terror group.

The video was analyzed by two experts on North Korean arms. Along with an Associated Press analysis of weapons captured on the battlefield and South Korean military intelligence, the video indicates that Hamas used the F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon that fighters typically use against armored vehicles.

The evidence shines a light on the murky world of the illicit arms shipments that sanction-battered North Korea uses as a way to fund its arms programs.

Rocket-propelled grenade launchers fire a single warhead and can be quickly reloaded, making them valuable weapons for guerrilla forces in running skirmishes with heavy vehicles. The F-7 has been documented in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, a weapons expert who works as the director of the consultancy Armament Research Services.

North Korea has long supported Palestinian terror groups, and North Korean arms have previously been documented amongst interdicted supplies, Jenzen-Jones told The Associated Press.

Hamas has published images of their training that show fighters with a weapon with a rocket-propelled grenade with a distinctive red stripe across its warhead, and other design elements matching the F-7, said Matt Schroeder, a senior researcher with Small Arms Survey who wrote a guide to Pyongyangs light weapons.

It is not a surprise to see North Korean weapons with Hamas, Schroeder said.

The North Korean F-7 resembles the more widely distributed Soviet-era RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade, with a few noticeable differences.

A militant video examined by the AP shows one terrorist carrying the F-7. Weapons seized by the Israeli military and shown to journalists also included that red stripe and other design elements matching the F-7.

In a background briefing with journalists Tuesday, South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff specifically identified the F-7 as one of the North Korean weapons it believed Hamas used in the attack. The Israeli military declined to answer questions from the AP about the origin and the manufacturer of those rocket-propelled grenades, saying the ongoing war with Hamas prevented it from responding.

North Koreas mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP. However, Pyongyang last week through its state-run KCNA news agency dismissed claims that Hamas used its weapons as a groundless and false rumor orchestrated by the United States.

Hamas propaganda videos and photos previously have shown its fighters with North Koreas Bulsae guided anti-tank missile. Jenzen-Jones said he believed, based on imagery of the weapons wielded by Hamas terrorists, that they also used North Koreas Type 58 self-loading rifle, a variant of the Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Iran also has modeled some of its ballistic missiles after North Korean variants.

Irans mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials in Iran long have supported Hamas and have praised their assault on Israel.

In December 2009, Thai authorities grounded a North Korean cargo plane reportedly carrying 35 tons of conventional arms, including rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, as it made a refueling stop at a Bangkok airport. Thai officials then said the weapons were headed to Iran. The United States later said in 2012 the shipments interdicted by the Thais had been bound for Hamas.

North Korea also faces Western suspicions that it supplies ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia to support of its war on Ukraine. The White House said last week that North Korea recently delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

(AP)




Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday took responsibility for the difficult incidents that occurred on October 7th in the Hamas assault of southern Israel.

Speaking to the press at an IDF post near the Gazan border, Gallant said: Im responsible for the defense establishment. I was also responsible for the difficult incidents of the past two weeks and Im responsible for bringing us to victory.

The battle will be a long one  we will be precise and deadly  there will be a price but we will continue until we fully complete the mission.

(YWN Israel Desk  Jerusalem)
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with President of the Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with President of the Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Describing the Republic of the Congo as an active participant and important partner in the Belt and Road cooperation, Xi said that friendly cooperation between the two countries has yielded tangible results.

Xi said that China is willing to explore and foster new areas of cooperation such as the digital economy and green development with the Republic of the Congo, and promote their comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation to new heights.

Xi said that China supports the Republic of the Congo in maintaining national independence, opposing foreign interference, and playing a greater role in international and regional affairs.

Sassou Nguesso said that the Belt and Road Initiative is a great project that offers the world a new model of inclusive development.

He said that China is a major contributor to global economic growth. The Republic of the Congo looks forward to strengthening practical cooperation with China in areas such as infrastructure and green energy, and maintaining close communication and coordination within frameworks including the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

The Republic of the Congo actively supports the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative proposed by Xi, Sassou Nguesso noted, saying that they are conducive to upholding multilateralism and international fairness and justice.

Senior Chinese officials Cai Qi and Wang Yi attended the meeting. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with President of the Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)




Governor Kathy Hochul of New York on Thursday visited the national headquarters of United Hatzalah in Jerusalem while on a solidarity visit to Israel.

The President and Founder of United Hatzlah Eli Beer, along with CEO Eli Pollak and VP of Operations Dovie Maisel, gave the Governor an overview of the activities of the hundreds of volunteers who were in the conflict zones from the onset of the war and left everything behind to enter the inferno and save lives under fire, long before the full scale of the disaster was known.

Beer also told the Governor about the dedicated volunteers who were injured in the southern battle zones and the loss of two beloved volunteers, one Jewish and one Arab, who were murdered while attempting to assist the injured under fire.

During the visit, the CEO of United Hatzalah introduced the Governor to two volunteers who had been in the Gaza periphery from the early stages of the conflict and saved several dozens of civilians and soldiers by administering initial treatment in the field while under fire. The Governor heard the heroic stories of the volunteers activities and was deeply moved.

Subsequently, the Governor toured the organizations Dispatch and Command Center, which manages over 2,000 emergency calls daily, coordinating the activities of 7,000 volunteers across the country. She gained insight into the advanced technologies used by the Center and its operational procedures.

Governor Hochul expressed her appreciation at the end of the visit and said: This extraordinary organization is literally saving lives by the second, during times of routine and emergency by utilizing cutting-edge technologies to ensure swift response to those in need. This is particularly crucial during these challenging times of war in Israel. I came here today with profound gratitude for these remarkable volunteers and I want to thank them for their lifesaving efforts.

President and Founder of United Hatzalah, Eli Beer, stated, I was honored to host the Governor, a true friend of ours, who visited Israel to convey support and solidarity after the horrific crimes committed against our people. Despite her many responsibilities, she took the time to witness the extraordinary work of our thousands of volunteers during times of routine and emergency. This is a great honor for us, and we are deeply grateful for her strong support for United Hatzalah and the State of Israel. I also want to convey our gratitude for our friends and supporters in New York and around the world.




In a (not so shocking) new update, a European intelligence official has contradicted the initial death toll reported by Gazas health ministry (aka Hamas terrorists) in the aftermath of the explosion at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital. Contrary to the initial reports of hundreds of casualties, the official suggests that the actual number of fatalities lies within the range of 10 to 50 individuals.

According to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence information released to the public, the explosion at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was caused by a misfired rocket associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Meanwhile, anti-Semite Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib continues to peddle the blood libel that Israel killed 500 people in a hospital.

Her sidekick, anti-Semite Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has since deleted her tweets and backtracked on the fake claims.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)




Amidst its usual role as a hub of support and rehabilitation for people with disabilities, the Shalva National Center in Jerusalem has taken on a distinct and vital purpose over the past week  it has transformed into the Shalva National Crisis Response Center.

As the conflict unfolded, on October 7, hundreds of evacuees from the southern border towns of Israel began arriving at Shalva, seeking safety and refuge. These evacuees, comprising men, women, and children of all ages, had endured incredibly traumatic days, surrounded by the threat of conflict, taking shelter in fear for their lives.

Upon their arrival at the Shalva National Crisis Response Center, evacuees were greeted by dedicated staff members and volunteers. Finally, they could find some solace and relief, knowing they were out of immediate danger.

In the coming weeks, Shalva expects to receive an additional 1,000 evacuees from various parts of Israel. Beyond providing basic necessities like food, clothing, and personal hygiene items, Shalva is committed to offering enhanced security, rehabilitation services, and crucial social and emotional support. These services are designed to help evacuees begin the process of healing from the recent trauma theyve experienced.

The Shalva Center was officially designated as a National Emergency and Response Center by the Home Front, and its unique features make it exceptionally prepared for such a role. The building incorporates a steel and cement-based core that extends both horizontally and vertically throughout its structure, ensuring that bomb shelters and safe rooms are easily accessible from any point within the building.

Yochanan Samuels, Shalvas CEO, emphasized the organizations commitment to the safety and well-being of all seeking refuge.

Rabbi Levy, one of the evacuees, eloquently described his experience, stating that it was upon arriving at Shalva that he truly felt the tension dissipate, no longer needing to be on constant guard. He expressed his relief, saying, I dont have to be on guard duty anymore. Its really amazing, Am Yisrael Chai!

How can YOU help? One way to make an impact is by donating to support the basic needs of Israelis displaced by the ongoing conflict.

To contribute to this vital cause, you can donate HERE.

Please support our emergency efforts to ensure the safety and well-being of Israels most vulnerable during these extremely challenging times.
It was another bleak day for the airlines as tensions mounted in the Middle East.

Shares in Easyjet, Wizz Air and British Airways owner IAG have fallen sharply in the wake of the attack by terrorist group Hamas on Israel this month.

They fell yet again yesterday amid fears over the fallout from the hospital blast in Gaza.

The sector was also hit by a string of downgrades from City analysts. Investment bank Citi warned that pricing will lose momentum in short-haul flights.

Citi downgraded its target price on IAG by 20p and reduced its rating on Wizz to sell from neutral. At the same time, broker Peel Hunt cut Easyjets target price by 110p.

All this as the price of Brent crude climbed to as high as $93 a barrel, potentially driving up the cost of fuel.

Descent: Shares in Easyjet, Wizz Air and British Airways owner IAG have fallen sharply in the wake of the attack by terrorist group Hamas on Israel this month

Wizz sank 4.8 per cent, or 820.5p, to 1615.5p while Easyjet dropped 4.1 per cent, or 16p, to 374.6p and IAG slipped 3.1 per cent, or 4.5p, to 141.5p.

The FTSE 100 fell 1.1 per cent, or 87.21 points, to 7588 and the FTSE 250 was down 1.6 per cent, or 286 points, to 17403.46. Whitbread rose to the top of blue-chip index as it cashed in on strong demand for Premier Inn hotel rooms.

Profits jumped 44 per cent to 391million in the six months to the end of August. The British hotel group also hiked its interim dividend by 40 per cent to 34.1p a share and launched a 300million share buyback, as the stock rose 1.3 per cent, or 43p, to 3366p.

AstraZeneca sank into the red following disappointing data from its lung cancer drug trial. Shares fell 5.8 per cent, or 658p, to 10,612p.

Antofagasta maintained its copper production forecasts of 640,000 to 670,000 tonnes for this year following a strong third quarter.

The mining giant also expects to produce as much as 710,000 tonnes in 2024. But this is less than the 714,000 tonnes pencilled in by analysts. Shares dipped 2.9 per cent, or 40.5p, to 1354p.

Stock Watch - Gama Aviation Gama Aviation flew higher after the air services company agreed to sell one of its businesses for 108million. The group bought Jet East, a US aircraft maintenance provider, for 9.8million in 2021. That is on the verge of being sold to West Star Aviation, owned by the US private equity firm The Sterling Group. Shareholders will vote on whether to approve the deal on November 3. It estimated that the net proceeds will be around 82million. Shares surged 68.6 per cent, or 36p, to 88.5p.

Hochschild Mining rose 2.2 per cent, or 1.85p, to 86.75p after the gold and silver explorer remained on track to meet its production targets this year and said it was on the verge of completing a project in Brazil on time and on budget.

Investor fears over further downgrades at Marshalls were eased after the landscaping group insisted financial targets will be met this year despite a tough third quarter, where revenue fell 9pc in the three months to the end of September. It gained 3.7 per cent, or 7.4p, to 205.4p.

Warehouse developer Segro reported strong demand for its giant sheds and industrial properties.

It has projects that could bring in an extra 84million under construction or due to start shortly.

But it added that investment activity remains subdued, particularly in the UK. Shares fell 2.3 per cent, or 17p, to 718p.

Online travel agent Hostelworld raked in record revenues in the first nine months of this year amid strong demand.

Revenue surged 38 per cent to 65.21million while the number of bookings soared 43 per cent to 5million.

Its annual profit is now expected to be between 15million and 15.6million. It rose 1.3 per cent, or 1.5p, to 119.5p.

Bodycote, the heat treatment firm, hired Jim Fairbairn as its boss. The 54-year-old, who has led the test and measurement specialist Megger Group since 2017, will take over in next May. Shares slid 3.8 per cent, or 22p, to 578.5p.

Fund manager Jupiter clawed back some losses a day after it hit a record low as clients pulled out 1billion of funds in the three months to the end of September. Shares rose 0.8 per cent, or 0.65p, to 78.1p.

Data software company Cirata  formerly known as Wandisco  fell 11 per cent, or 6.4p, to 52p after a slight dip in bookings in the quarter to September 30. It has aimed to move on from an accounting scandal earlier this year.
The new Beckham documentary has attracted Netflixs biggest audience of the year in the UK.

The four-part show where David and Victoria Beckham open up about their lives, had 3.8m viewers in the week ending October 8.

This made it the streaming giants most watched in Britain since Harry & Meghan in December 2022, which had nearly 4.5m viewers.

Streaming hit: Beckham, a four-part show where David and Victoria (pictured) open up about their lives, amassed 3.8m viewers in the week ending October 8

Beckham also beat figures for other Netflix favourites including the new season of Sex Education, released last month.

The figures come as Netflix has looked at adding more older shows. Because of the actor strikes hitting Hollywood, rivals have done licensing deals with Netflix to stream their shows.

This year Warner Bros Discoverys HBO network has licensed old hits such as Six Feet Under and Band of Brothers. NBC Universal has also reached a deal with Netflix to stream legal drama Suits.

Netflix said it was confident its new advertising-supported, cheaper option will be a multibillion-dollar revenue stream. It costs 4.99 a month in the UK.
US tech giant Nvidia has said it will work with iPhone maker Foxconn to build artificial intelligence factories as the new tech continues to explode in popularity.

Nvidia, whose value has more than tripled in a year to around 900billion, said it was the beginning of a computing revolution.

Co-founder and chief Jensen Huang said his chip firm would work with Foxconn to train autonomous vehicles, robotics platforms and large language models.

Tech leader: Nvidia - which has seen its value more than triple in the past year to around 900bn - has played a key role in the growing popularity of AI

Nvidias success has come from computer games, with its powerful chips used to run the likes of Call Of Duty  but it has played a key role in the growing popularity of AI, providing chips to Microsoft.

And when OpenAI released ChatGPT last year it contained more than 20,000 graphics processors made by Nvidia.

Foxconn  best known for working with Apple to build iPhones in China  has been on a mission to grow its business beyond electronics.

The planned tie-up comes as the US tightens restrictions on exports of AI chips to China, to make it harder for Chinese firms to get cutting-edge technologies.

Analysts at Citigroup say restrictions will make it harder for Nvidia to sell to China.

Nvidia has previously said that as much as 25 per cent of its data centre chip revenues come from China.
Two of Britain's biggest online trading platforms reported solid asset and customer growth, despite choppy markets and weak investor sentiment.

AJ Bell client numbers increased by over 50,000 to 476,532 during the 12 months ending September, with around two-thirds of this growth coming from its direct-to-consumer segment.

The Manchester-based group's assets under administration in its platforms business rose 11 per cent to a record 70.9billion thanks to strong asset flows and positive market fluctuations of 4 per cent.

Bigger team: Online trading platform AJ Bell reported that client numbers grew by more than 50,000 to 476,532 in the 12 months ending September

In its investments division, net inflows climbed by about 600million to 1.65billion, while managed assets jumped by 68 per cent to 4.7billion.

Michael Summersgill, chief executive at AJ Bell, attributed the jump in assets to interest in the firm's 'straightforward and low-cost investment range'.

He added: 'The long-term growth drivers of the investment platform market remain strong, and we look forward to announcing the annual results for what has been another successful year.'

AJ Bell shares increased by 3.5 per cent to 263.2p on Thursday morning, making them the top riser on the FTSE 250 Index.

Hargreaves Lansdown also saw customer and asset growth, but momentum has moderated amid a weaker trading environment.

The group said 8,000 customers joined the platform in the three months ending September, compared to 17,000 during the equivalent period last year.

Strong result: Hargreaves Lansdown revaled revenue expanded by 13 per cent to 183.8million for the three months ending September due to the increase in net interest margin

Its said new clients were tending to invest in self-invested personal pensions and cash savings products, such as short-dated bonds and money market funds.

Bristol-based Hargreaves also revealed that share dealing volumes on its platform averaged 634,000 per month, a decline of 66,000 from the previous year.

Yet overall revenue still expanded by 13 per cent to 183.8million due to an increase in net interest margin offsetting the impact of a slowdown in share trading.

Dan Olley, CEO of Hargreaves, said: 'We continue to see net client growth and positive net new business despite the macroeconomic backdrop and its ongoing impact on investor confidence and client behaviour.'

Hargreaves Lansdown shares were among Thursday morning's top fallers, slumping 5.3 per cent to 6.98 by 9:30am.

Both AJ Bell and Hargreaves were major lockdown-era winners as Britons stuck at home poured some of their extra savings into the stock market.

Many of them were young people trying retail investing for the first time rather than the typical customer base of these companies - wealthier and near retirement age.

The end of Covid-related restrictions and cost-of-living pressures has led to growth slowing down as households struggling with soaring food and energy bills lack enough money to put aside for investment.
Rentokil Initial shares tumbled on Thursday morning after the company warned its performance in North America would miss annual forecasts.

The Crawley-based pest control group revealed organic turnover across the region, its largest market, increased by just 2.2 per cent in the third quarter, compared to 9.5 per cent growth in Europe.

Trading was impacted by its US products wholesale distribution arm experiencing lower orders for chemical products used in pest control, as well as turf and ornamental end markets.

Forecast: Given current market uncertainty, Rentokil expects its full-year performance in North America will be 'marginally below' prior anticipations

Although the firm's organic revenues in North America still grew, demand from residential customers was not as strong due to the more challenging economic environment.

Given current market uncertainty, Rentokil expects its full-year performance on the continent will be 'marginally below' prior anticipations, with the adjusted operating margin expected to be 18.5 to 19 per cent.

Following this update, the group's share price slumped by 19.75 per cent to 477.3p, making it the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 Index.

Rentokil also revealed on Thursday that the number of enquiries related to bedbugs in the UK had risen by almost a third between January and September.

'Anecdotally from technicians, we are seeing a significant increase in interest (in the UK),' a spokesperson for Rentokil said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Bedbugs, small and flat oval insects about the size of an apple pip, feed on the blood of humans and animals and are a significant problem in many parts of the world as they easily spread and are difficult to treat.

High levels of hygiene, deep cleaning and the use of do-it-yourself bedbug sprays will help kill some bedbugs, although professional treatment is often needed to successfully treat an infestation, according to Rentokil.

The company believes it will achieve 'good growth' during the remainder of 2023 because of its broad portfolio and robust first-half performance.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the international extermination market has significantly expanded amid rising concerns about the risks posed by viruses and diseases.

Climate change has been another growth driver as hotter weather creates more suitable conditions for insects to thrive.

Twelve months ago, Rentokil finalised the $6.7billion purchase of Terminix, thereby becoming the world's biggest pest control provider.

Rentokil has bought hundreds of firms in recent years as part of its growth strategy, including 31 in the first nine months of this year, but the Terminix deal was one of its biggest ever.

Recent acquisitions helped drive its sales 59.9 per cent higher at constant exchange rates to 1.4billion in the last quarter.

Andy Ransom, chief executive of Rentokil, said: 'The group delivered a good overall performance in the third quarter. We have a proven, effective strategy to deliver organic growth, focused on strong customer relationships and service quality.

'In addition, the portfolio effect of our global business operating in multiple markets enables us to weather regional headwinds.'
Labour's Lord Clive Hollick will chair the inquiry into Britain's regulators

A House of Lords inquiry is set to investigate the relationship between the Government and UK regulators amid independence and accountability concerns.

The cross-party Industry and Regulators Committee, chaired by former media mogul Lord Hollick, is calling for evidence ahead of a probe into some of the country's most powerful regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority, Ofwat and Ofgem.

Other watchdogs facing the committee's spotlight include The Pensions Regulator, the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority and the Office for Students.

Lord Hollick said the Committee has already 'conducted scrutiny' of certain regulators and plans to 'shine a light on the UK regulatory ecosystem and how effective it is'.

There are 90 regulators across the UK, not including local authorities, according to the Department for Business and Trade.

UK regulators cover a wide range of sectors and activities, and have a range of different powers and responsibilities.

In some cases, for example, they have been given a specific job to do by parliament, and while many are funded by the taxpayer others are not.

The Industry and Regulators Committee's inquiry will focus on regulators classed as public bodies with a statutory role established by parliament.

A number of British regulators have faced significant criticism over recent years, taking the blame for industry failures happening under their watch.

Hollick is the former CEO of United Business Media until April 2005, later trying to buy ITV when employed by private equity firm KKR

The FCA, for example, has been scolded by critics for perceived failures in consumer protection, particularly with regard to high-profile cases like the collapse of the Woodford Equity Income fund in 2019 and high rates of fraud.

Meanwhile Ofwat has been criticised for allowing water companies to pollute beyond compliant levels, while amassing huge debt piles, and Ofgem has been pilloried for its oversight of the energy market after multiple firms collapsed in the wake of soaring prices.

The areas the Industry and Regulators Committee is seeking evidence on include the balance between the responsibilities of regulators and those of the Government, as well as the skills and expertise of regulators, and comparisons with international equivalents.

Lord Hollick said: 'A common area of concern arising from all these inquiries is the relationship between the regulator and the Government, and the level of independence and accountability regulators have.

'Many regulators are public bodies funded by the taxpayer and have significant powers; it is therefore vital that they are scrutinised and held to account.

'This short, cross-cutting inquiry will shine a light on the UK regulatory ecosystem and how effective it is.'
I am in the process of buying a leasehold flat, and have discovered various covenants that concern me.

For example, it says I must have carpets. This is a problem as I hate carpets and was planning to install engineered wood flooring when I move in. A separate clause says I 'cannot cut or maim the walls, floors, timbers, stanchions or girders in the flat' without the freeholders permission.

It also says I 'can't sublet the flat without first seeking permission from the freeholder.' Does this mean I can't occasionally Airbnb my home when I am away? That seems absurd. I essentially feel like I'll be renting again.

The lease also says 'not to carry on or permit to be carried on any trade or business' at the property. I'm a part-time physiotherapist and was planning to do some work from home. Does this mean I'll be in breach of my lease if I do so?

Lease fear: Our reader wants to know if the clauses within their lease are enforceable and whether they can be changed

It also says I can't keep any animals in the property without written consent from the landlord. I have a little chihuahua - does this mean I'll have to choose between him and this flat unless the freeholder permits me to keep him?

To cap off this long list of lunacy. It says no musical instruments can be played at the property between the hours of 10pm and 10am. I have a piano that I very much intend to continue playing.

My solicitor isn't being very helpful on this. Are these clauses within the lease actually enforceable, and can I ask for them to be changed before I sign? Via email

Ed Magnus of This is Money replies: When buying leasehold homes, buyers often the worry about the lease length, escalating ground rents and expensive service charges.

What is often overlooked is the potential covenants that they will have to abide by.

All leases, whether old or new, will come with such obligations. Some are for the freeholder to adhere to and others are for the leaseholder.

What is included in these rules differs lease by lease, and it does sound like you have a few covenants which could be cause for concern.

To get a sense of what is reasonable, and whether there is any room for negotiation, we spoke to Paula Higgins, co-founder of the HomeOwners Alliance, Mike Hansom, a consultant in property litigation at BLB Solicitors, and Olivia Egdell-Page, partner and head of the property department at Joseph A Jones & Co solicitors.

Same deal: It is likely that the leaseholders of other properties will be subject to the same or similar covenants as those within your lease

What should this buyer do?

Paula Higgins replies: It's the conveyancer's job to read and interpret the exact wording of the lease, so you should continue to actively engage your conveyancer.

As you have discovered, purchasing a leasehold property is more complicated legally. You are paying your conveyancer for a service and you should chase to get that service or else consider switching solicitors.

Missed issues and mistakes could be very costly and cause headaches for years to come. But your conveyancer won't be able to advise you on what would happen if you break the terms of your lease as this is dependent on the freeholders actions.

Paula Higgins, co-founder of HomeOwners Alliance says that this might not be the right property for our reader and perhaps leasehold properties in general

Leaseholders do need to abide by the terms of their lease, yes. Not having carpets, for example, will be a breach of the lease and your neighbour may rightly complain if you have made it difficult for them to live in their property in peace because they can hear every step you take.

The same thinking applies to playing musical instruments outside of those stated times.

The restriction on trade and business is also a common historic clause albeit usually set out to ensure that a property isn't transformed to a busy shop or office where strangers come and go and to the detriment of the street and neighbouring properties.

The same thing goes for subletting, as generally your freeholder and your neighbours may not welcome temporary guests who do not care about the property.

Essentially though, it sounds like this might not be the right property for you and perhaps you should avoid leasehold properties in general. It is fairly standard to have to get freeholder permission for major internal construction works in order to ensure that you don't do any structural damage to the building.

If you are still keen to purchase the property, you may wish to say the sale is subject to a deed of variation for some of the clauses like keeping a pet and working from home.

But you will be at risk of losing the property, as this will substantially delay the transaction as your seller will need to get the freeholders agreement.

Are the covenants to be strictly abided by?

Mike Hansom replies: The objective of many of these restictions in leases is to achieve a harmonious living environment.

That is because, unfortunately, it is rarely enough to rely on individuals' common sense alone.

The covenants in the lease appear prescriptive because they must be clear to be enforceable.

No chihuahuas: The lease says they can't keep any animals in the property without written consent from the landlord

It may feel like an imposition, but perhaps consider it from the point of view of a neighbour keeping you awake at night, walking around on their wood flooring, playing a musical instrument, or allowing their dog to bark.

Flat living comes with limited restrictions on your freedoms for the benefit of everyone in the block. For that reason, flat living is not for everyone.

Olivia Egdell-Page adds: We do often see covenants relating to carpeting and home working, for example, which are a little dated and may not be enforced in the context of modern living arrangements. However, there are some more significant issues here that you do need to resolve.

In particular, your comments regarding use of the flat as an Airbnb need to be considered carefully by your solicitor, as this may be caught by both the restriction on subletting and also the use for trade or business purposes.

The increased traffic and disruption of short term letting may also impact the other tenants which increases the likelihood of complaints to the landlord, and the potential for enforcement too.

Can the buyer amend the covenants?

Mike Hansom replies: Agreeing an amendment to the lease terms is highly unlikely.

In doing so, the landlord would breach their obligation to everyone else to ensure identical lease terms.

I am afraid you will have to accept the restrictions against playing musical instruments, keeping pets, structural alterations, and operating a business - including letting on Airbnb and receiving physiotherapy patients.

Incidentally, an office worker simply working from home is less likely to breach such a covenant.

Olivia Egdell-Page adds: You have identified a number of covenants which will, in your view, affect your enjoyment of the property and I would therefore recommend that you enquire whether the landlord would agree to enter into a deed of variation to either remove or amend the problematic covenants.

This is at their discretion, however their position should be established before contracts are exchanged.

Carepts must stay: But our reader hates carpets and was planning to install wood flooring

What will happen if they break the lease covenants?

Mike Hansom replies: Sometimes, landlords turn a blind eye to certain breaches, or nobody complains so they do not find out.

For example, it is quite common for leaseholders to lay wood flooring without consent.

However, when you come to sell, you can expect your buyer's solicitor to ask whether you obtained consent.

Depending on the seriousness of the breach, you may scare away your buyer because they inherit your liability. And if the landlord discovers the breach, you could be the subject of costly legal action.

You should instruct your conveyancer to ask whether consent will be granted for your chihuahua and wood flooring installation. But even if given, you must be prepared for the withdrawal of that consent if, for example, the neighbours complain.

No piano: The lease says no musical instruments can be played at the property between the hours of 10pm and 10am, in case of annoyance to other owners

Likewise, your conveyancer should enquire whether the landlord takes a softer approach to subletting. The aim of this term may be to avoid Airbnb or HMO type lettings, which tend to be more disruptive to neighbours than families. The clause here is a little onerous, but still enforceable.

Whether the landlord will enforce the covenants will depend on the circumstances and how zealous they are.

Beware, because landlords have many enforcement options, the most serious being forfeiture, where the landlord terminates your lease, and you lose your flat outright. To top it all, you must also pay the landlord's costs!

What would you advise?

Olivia Egdell-Page replies: The enforcement of restrictive covenants is a complex area, but broadly speaking, such covenants are enforceable where it can be determined that the party with the benefit of these provisions retains an interest in the property in question.

This is clearly the case in the context of a 'landlord' and 'tenant' relationship, as exists here, and so these covenants are likely to be enforceable.

No Airbnb: The lease says they can't sublet the flat without first seeking permission

Certainly, they should be scrutinised and treated as such in your position as a prospective purchaser.

Where the leases have been correctly drafted, in a building with a number of flats, it is likely that the 'tenants' of other properties will be subject to the same or similar covenants as those within your lease.

There is often also provision for the landlord to enforce these covenants in the event of breach, so you must ensure that you are entirely satisfied that the covenants affecting the property will not prejudice your intended use following completion.

Ultimately, your solicitor's role is to advise you as to the terms of the lease, so as to allow you to make a decision as to whether you wish to accept the provisions and proceed with your purchase.

If you do not feel these covenants are workable, my recommendation would be to request a deed of variation. If this is not agreed, you must carefully consider whether this is the right property for you.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- China was shocked and disappointed at the Security Council's failure to adopt a resolution that would have called for humanitarian pauses in Gaza, said Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, on Wednesday.

A Russian-drafted resolution was put to vote on Monday night. It focused on the humanitarian concerns of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called for an immediate cease-fire to protect civilians. The draft was supported and co-sponsored by many Arab countries. However, certain countries chose to vote against it. They said that they wanted more time to seek consensus on the basis of the draft resolution tabled by Brazil, noted Zhang.

Brazil and many other council members showed a constructive attitude and agreed to postpone the voting for 24 hours, and again till Wednesday. In the past 40 hours, those countries have neither commented on nor expressed opposition to the Brazilian draft, making people believe that the council would be able to adopt a resolution. The final result is unbelievable, he said.

The situation on the ground in Gaza is quickly escalating. Notably, Tuesday's airstrike on Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths. The council, therefore, must take swift and strong actions, he said.

China believes that although the Brazilian draft still had room for improvement, it in general reflected the common appeal of the international community and could represent the initial steps by the Security Council to establish a cease-fire. And it might be the only text on which the council could reach consensus under the current circumstances, he said.

"Certain countries talked about the importance for the council to take the right actions. However, the way they voted only makes us question their willingness to let the council take any actions and their sincerity to find a solution to the problem," said Zhang.

In the final analysis, the council cannot stand still. The current situation in Gaza is escalating. More and more civilians are paying the price. The council should heed the just call of the Arab countries and the Palestinian people, and fulfill its obligations and play its due role in promoting a cease-fire, protecting civilians, and avoiding a greater humanitarian disaster, he said. 
West Bancorporation Inc. lessened its position in shares of Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEARCA:VWO  Free Report) by 10.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,055 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after selling 681 shares during the quarter. West Bancorporation Inc.s holdings in Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF were worth $246,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Provence Wealth Management Group raised its holdings in shares of Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF by 2.0% in the second quarter. Provence Wealth Management Group now owns 12,001 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $488,000 after acquiring an additional 240 shares during the last quarter. Thomasville National Bank raised its stake in Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF by 3.6% in the 1st quarter. Thomasville National Bank now owns 7,120 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $288,000 after purchasing an additional 250 shares during the last quarter. Atlas Brown Inc. lifted its holdings in Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF by 5.0% in the 1st quarter. Atlas Brown Inc. now owns 5,563 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $225,000 after purchasing an additional 263 shares in the last quarter. Arbor Trust Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF by 1.0% during the 1st quarter. Arbor Trust Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 27,335 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $1,104,000 after purchasing an additional 280 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Phillips Financial Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF by 0.9% during the first quarter. Phillips Financial Management LLC now owns 33,244 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $1,343,000 after buying an additional 283 shares in the last quarter.

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Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF Price Performance

VWO traded down $0.49 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $38.65. The companys stock had a trading volume of 789,013 shares, compared to its average volume of 9,949,131. Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF has a twelve month low of $34.88 and a twelve month high of $43.22. The stock has a market cap of $69.18 billion, a PE ratio of 10.00 and a beta of 0.69. The firms 50 day moving average price is $39.96 and its 200-day moving average price is $40.45.

Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF Profile

The Fund seeks to track the performance of the FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index, that measures the return of stocks issued by companies located in emerging market countries.

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StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of China Green Agriculture (NYSE:CGA  Free Report) in a research note published on Sunday. The firm issued a sell rating on the basic materials companys stock.

China Green Agriculture Stock Performance

NYSE CGA opened at $2.02 on Friday. The businesss 50 day moving average price is $2.24 and its 200-day moving average price is $2.81. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a current ratio of 2.76 and a quick ratio of 2.04. China Green Agriculture has a fifty-two week low of $1.61 and a fifty-two week high of $6.20.

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Institutional Trading of China Green Agriculture

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP acquired a new stake in shares of China Green Agriculture during the first quarter worth $115,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC increased its holdings in China Green Agriculture by 67.8% in the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 19,051 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $192,000 after buying an additional 7,700 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Susquehanna International Group LLP acquired a new position in China Green Agriculture in the first quarter valued at approximately $175,000. 0.74% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About China Green Agriculture

China Green Agriculture, Inc, through its subsidiaries, engages in the research, development, production, and sale of various fertilizers and agricultural products in the People's Republic of China. The company operates through three segments: Jinong (Fertilizer Production); Gufeng (Fertilizer Production); and Yuxing (Agricultural Products Production).

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StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of American Shared Hospital Services (NYSEAMERICAN:AMS  Free Report) in a research report sent to investors on Sunday morning. The firm issued a hold rating on the stock.

American Shared Hospital Services Price Performance

Shares of AMS opened at $2.42 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 2.97 and a current ratio of 2.97. The company has a market capitalization of $15.10 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.20 and a beta of 0.70. American Shared Hospital Services has a fifty-two week low of $2.33 and a fifty-two week high of $3.75. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $2.61 and a 200-day simple moving average of $2.85.

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American Shared Hospital Services (NYSEAMERICAN:AMS  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, August 14th. The company reported $0.07 EPS for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $5.57 million during the quarter. American Shared Hospital Services had a net margin of 3.14% and a return on equity of 4.74%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On American Shared Hospital Services

American Shared Hospital Services Company Profile

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of AMS. Renaissance Technologies LLC lifted its position in shares of American Shared Hospital Services by 26.3% during the 3rd quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 19,321 shares of the companys stock valued at $50,000 after acquiring an additional 4,021 shares during the period. Canton Hathaway LLC lifted its position in shares of American Shared Hospital Services by 50.0% during the 1st quarter. Canton Hathaway LLC now owns 30,000 shares of the companys stock valued at $84,000 after acquiring an additional 10,000 shares during the period. Citadel Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of American Shared Hospital Services by 140.0% during the 2nd quarter. Citadel Advisors LLC now owns 33,223 shares of the companys stock valued at $85,000 after acquiring an additional 19,381 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of American Shared Hospital Services by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 158,681 shares of the companys stock valued at $465,000 after acquiring an additional 5,899 shares during the period. Finally, CI Private Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in shares of American Shared Hospital Services during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $470,000. 17.54% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

(Get Free Report)

American Shared Hospital Services provides radiosurgery and radiation therapy equipment to health care providers. The company offers radiosurgery equipment for the Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery, a non-invasive procedure to treat malignant and benign brain tumors, and arteriovenous malformations, as well as for trigeminal neuralgia.

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StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Golden Minerals (NYSE:AUMN  Free Report) in a report published on Sunday morning. The firm issued a hold rating on the stock.

Other analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. Fundamental Research set a $11.36 target price on Golden Minerals and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 22nd. HC Wainwright dropped their price objective on Golden Minerals from $13.80 to $9.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, July 21st.

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View Our Latest Report on AUMN

Golden Minerals Stock Performance

Golden Minerals stock opened at $1.35 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $11.61 million, a PE ratio of -0.79 and a beta of 0.84. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $4.10. Golden Minerals has a 1 year low of $0.60 and a 1 year high of $8.04.

Golden Minerals (NYSE:AUMN  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, August 9th. The company reported ($0.21) earnings per share for the quarter. Golden Minerals had a negative return on equity of 178.78% and a negative net margin of 60.55%. The firm had revenue of $4.97 million during the quarter. On average, research analysts predict that Golden Minerals will post -0.01 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Golden Minerals

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Millennium Management LLC lifted its holdings in Golden Minerals by 275.2% in the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 148,408 shares of the companys stock valued at $53,000 after acquiring an additional 108,858 shares during the period. Virtu Financial LLC increased its holdings in shares of Golden Minerals by 264.2% during the 1st quarter. Virtu Financial LLC now owns 153,867 shares of the companys stock valued at $77,000 after purchasing an additional 111,616 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Golden Minerals by 62.4% in the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 255,615 shares of the companys stock valued at $128,000 after purchasing an additional 98,236 shares during the period. Citadel Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Golden Minerals by 126.3% during the third quarter. Citadel Advisors LLC now owns 274,079 shares of the companys stock worth $71,000 after buying an additional 152,974 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its position in Golden Minerals by 49.5% during the third quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 341,788 shares of the companys stock valued at $88,000 after buying an additional 113,100 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 62.24% of the companys stock.

About Golden Minerals

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Golden Minerals Company, a precious metals exploration company explores for mineral properties. It explores for gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, and other minerals. The company holds a 100% interest in the Rodeo gold mine situated in Durango State, Mexico; and a 100% interest in the Velardena and Chicago gold-silver mining properties and associated oxide and sulfide processing plants located in the State of Durango, Mexico.

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Leerink Partnrs reissued their market perform rating on shares of Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW  Free Report) in a research note issued to investors on Monday morning, PriceTargets.com reports. Leerink Partnrs also issued estimates for Edwards Lifesciences Q3 2023 earnings at $0.61 EPS, Q4 2023 earnings at $0.70 EPS, FY2023 earnings at $2.58 EPS, Q1 2024 earnings at $0.69 EPS, Q2 2024 earnings at $0.71 EPS, Q3 2024 earnings at $0.71 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $0.79 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $2.91 EPS, FY2025 earnings at $3.18 EPS, FY2026 earnings at $3.58 EPS and FY2027 earnings at $4.01 EPS.

Several other analysts have also recently weighed in on the stock. Oppenheimer raised shares of Edwards Lifesciences from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $90.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 26th. SVB Leerink began coverage on shares of Edwards Lifesciences in a research report on Monday. They issued a market perform rating and a $75.00 price objective on the stock. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $101.00 to $105.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 19th. Mizuho boosted their price target on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $95.00 to $102.00 in a research report on Monday, July 17th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $103.00 to $107.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $90.71.

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Edwards Lifesciences Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of NYSE:EW opened at $69.71 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $42.38 billion, a PE ratio of 30.85, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.05. Edwards Lifesciences has a 1 year low of $67.13 and a 1 year high of $94.87. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $73.88 and a 200 day moving average price of $82.53. The company has a current ratio of 3.15, a quick ratio of 2.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09.

Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The medical research company reported $0.66 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.65 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $1.53 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.51 billion. Edwards Lifesciences had a net margin of 24.56% and a return on equity of 25.43%. The businesss revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.63 EPS. Analysts expect that Edwards Lifesciences will post 2.55 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Edwards Lifesciences

In other Edwards Lifesciences news, CFO Scott B. Ullem sold 7,255 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.35, for a total value of $611,959.25. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 19,248 shares in the company, valued at $1,623,568.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Edwards Lifesciences news, CFO Scott B. Ullem sold 7,255 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.35, for a total value of $611,959.25. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 19,248 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,623,568.80. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Michael A. Mussallem sold 29,350 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.87, for a total transaction of $2,344,184.50. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 54,252 shares in the company, valued at $4,333,107.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 184,359 shares of company stock worth $13,817,172. 1.29% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Edwards Lifesciences

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich grew its position in Edwards Lifesciences by 98,836.3% during the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 759,315,387 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $71,626,220,000 after purchasing an additional 758,547,908 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in Edwards Lifesciences by 0.4% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,053,304 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $2,551,938,000 after purchasing an additional 108,102 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors grew its position in Edwards Lifesciences by 4.9% during the 2nd quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 27,015,032 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $2,548,023,000 after purchasing an additional 1,255,926 shares during the last quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. grew its position in Edwards Lifesciences by 0.3% during the 2nd quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 20,512,235 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,934,919,000 after purchasing an additional 66,763 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in Edwards Lifesciences by 3.8% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 15,850,055 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,311,275,000 after purchasing an additional 578,319 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.25% of the companys stock.

Edwards Lifesciences Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

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.

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Bank of America cut shares of Boise Cascade (NYSE:BCC  Free Report) from a neutral rating to an underperform rating in a report published on Monday morning, Briefing.com reports. They currently have $111.00 target price on the construction companys stock.

Other research analysts have also issued reports about the company. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Boise Cascade from $90.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a market perform rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Truist Financial boosted their target price on Boise Cascade from $100.00 to $129.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on Boise Cascade from $96.00 to $108.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com initiated coverage on Boise Cascade in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Boise Cascade currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $112.20.

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Boise Cascade Stock Down 2.0 %

NYSE:BCC opened at $93.48 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.39, a current ratio of 3.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.42 and a beta of 1.56. Boise Cascade has a twelve month low of $59.32 and a twelve month high of $112.58. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $103.11 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $88.74.

Boise Cascade (NYSE:BCC  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The construction company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $2.54 by $1.13. The business had revenue of $1.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.71 billion. Boise Cascade had a return on equity of 27.77% and a net margin of 8.12%. The firms revenue was down 20.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $5.49 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Boise Cascade will post 11.8 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Boise Cascade Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 15th. Investors of record on Friday, September 1st were paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 31st. This is an increase from Boise Cascades previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.86%. Boise Cascades payout ratio is 5.49%.

Insider Activity at Boise Cascade

In other news, Director Sue Ying Taylor sold 300 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Friday, August 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $104.92, for a total transaction of $31,476.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 9,642 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,011,638.64. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, SVP Jill Twedt sold 2,500 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.97, for a total transaction of $264,925.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 33,812 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,583,057.64. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Sue Ying Taylor sold 300 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Friday, August 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $104.92, for a total value of $31,476.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,642 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,011,638.64. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 18,968 shares of company stock worth $2,045,908 in the last ninety days. 0.89% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Boise Cascade

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of BCC. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Boise Cascade during the 2nd quarter worth $78,175,000. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Boise Cascade during the 4th quarter worth $35,996,000. Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Boise Cascade by 703.1% during the 2nd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 411,935 shares of the construction companys stock worth $37,218,000 after buying an additional 360,644 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. lifted its position in shares of Boise Cascade by 10,958.4% during the 2nd quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 263,300 shares of the construction companys stock worth $23,789,000 after buying an additional 260,919 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of Boise Cascade by 56.2% during the 1st quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 616,555 shares of the construction companys stock worth $38,997,000 after buying an additional 221,931 shares during the last quarter. 91.75% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Boise Cascade Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Boise Cascade Company engages in manufacture of wood products and distribution of building materials in the United States and Canada. It operates through two segments, Wood Products and Building Materials Distribution. The Wood Products segment manufactures laminated veneer lumber and laminated beams used in headers and beams; I-joists for residential and commercial flooring and roofing systems, and other structural applications; structural, appearance, and industrial plywood panels; and ponderosa pine lumber products.

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Duality Advisers LP lifted its position in Cushman & Wakefield plc (NYSE:CWK  Free Report) by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 162,658 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 2,901 shares during the period. Duality Advisers LPs holdings in Cushman & Wakefield were worth $1,331,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its stake in Cushman & Wakefield by 108.3% in the first quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 2,500 shares of the companys stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 1,300 shares during the period. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. lifted its stake in Cushman & Wakefield by 3,128.2% in the first quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 2,292 shares of the companys stock worth $46,000 after acquiring an additional 2,221 shares during the period. Dark Forest Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in Cushman & Wakefield in the first quarter worth $62,000. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted its stake in Cushman & Wakefield by 47.5% in the second quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 8,861 shares of the companys stock worth $72,000 after acquiring an additional 2,852 shares during the period. Finally, KBC Group NV purchased a new position in Cushman & Wakefield during the second quarter valued at $94,000. Institutional investors own 90.47% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have commented on CWK. Citigroup reissued a neutral rating and set a $10.50 price objective on shares of Cushman & Wakefield in a research report on Monday, September 18th. Raymond James lowered their price objective on Cushman & Wakefield from $18.00 to $12.00 and set a strong-buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 4th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $10.50.

Cushman & Wakefield Trading Down 4.9 %

CWK opened at $7.22 on Thursday. Cushman & Wakefield plc has a 1 year low of $6.64 and a 1 year high of $15.63. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $8.32 and a 200-day moving average price of $8.73. The company has a quick ratio of 1.24, a current ratio of 1.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.99.

Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE:CWK  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 31st. The company reported $0.22 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.21 by $0.01. Cushman & Wakefield had a positive return on equity of 15.14% and a negative net margin of 0.18%. The company had revenue of $2.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.64 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.63 EPS. Cushman & Wakefields revenue for the quarter was down 7.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Cushman & Wakefield plc will post 0.84 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cushman & Wakefield Profile

(Free Report)

Cushman & Wakefield plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides commercial real estate services under the Cushman & Wakefield brand in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company operates through Americas; Europe, Middle East, and Africa; and Asia Pacific segments.

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Duality Advisers LP purchased a new stake in Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE:WSM  Free Report) during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund purchased 8,592 shares of the specialty retailers stock, valued at approximately $1,075,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. SFE Investment Counsel boosted its stake in shares of Williams-Sonoma by 7.6% in the second quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 32,903 shares of the specialty retailers stock valued at $4,117,000 after buying an additional 2,331 shares in the last quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Williams-Sonoma in the first quarter valued at approximately $203,000. LPL Financial LLC boosted its stake in shares of Williams-Sonoma by 26.2% in the first quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 30,954 shares of the specialty retailers stock valued at $3,766,000 after buying an additional 6,424 shares in the last quarter. MAI Capital Management boosted its stake in shares of Williams-Sonoma by 12.5% in the first quarter. MAI Capital Management now owns 2,892 shares of the specialty retailers stock valued at $352,000 after buying an additional 321 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Carolina Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Williams-Sonoma in the first quarter valued at approximately $3,429,000. 99.76% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Insider Buying and Selling at Williams-Sonoma

In other Williams-Sonoma news, CEO Marta Benson sold 10,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $140.68, for a total transaction of $1,406,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 54,238 shares of the companys stock, valued at $7,630,201.84. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Williams-Sonoma news, CEO Laura Alber sold 100,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.00, for a total transaction of $15,000,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 565,835 shares of the companys stock, valued at $84,875,250. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Marta Benson sold 10,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $140.68, for a total value of $1,406,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 54,238 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $7,630,201.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.60% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Williams-Sonoma Trading Down 1.9 %

Williams-Sonoma stock opened at $160.28 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.08, a PEG ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.55. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $145.94 and a 200 day moving average price of $131.12. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. has a 52 week low of $109.22 and a 52 week high of $164.47.

Williams-Sonoma (NYSE:WSM  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 23rd. The specialty retailer reported $3.12 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.71 by $0.41. The firm had revenue of $1.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.96 billion. Williams-Sonoma had a return on equity of 64.43% and a net margin of 11.68%. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 12.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.87 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Williams-Sonoma, Inc. will post 13.98 EPS for the current year.

Williams-Sonoma Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 20th will be given a dividend of $0.90 per share. This represents a $3.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.25%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 19th. Williams-Sonomas dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.88%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on WSM shares. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Williams-Sonoma from $143.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, August 24th. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on Williams-Sonoma from $155.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, August 24th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on Williams-Sonoma from $103.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a sell rating in a report on Thursday, August 24th. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on Williams-Sonoma from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock an in-line rating in a report on Friday, September 8th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price objective on Williams-Sonoma from $123.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $141.11.

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Williams-Sonoma Profile

(Free Report)

Williams-Sonoma, Inc operates as an omni-channel specialty retailer of various products for home. It offers cooking, dining, and entertaining products, such as cookware, tools, electrics, cutlery, tabletop and bar, outdoor, furniture, and a library of cookbooks under the Williams Sonoma Home brand, as well as home furnishings and decorative accessories under the Williams Sonoma lifestyle brand; and furniture, bedding, lighting, rugs, table essentials, and decorative accessories under the Pottery Barn brand.

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Duality Advisers LP trimmed its stake in shares of Huntsman Co. (NYSE:HUN  Free Report) by 73.0% during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 41,551 shares of the basic materials companys stock after selling 112,078 shares during the quarter. Duality Advisers LPs holdings in Huntsman were worth $1,123,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. American Century Companies Inc. increased its position in shares of Huntsman by 33.6% during the 1st quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 27,472 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $1,030,000 after purchasing an additional 6,907 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Huntsman by 42.3% during the 1st quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 13,414 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,986 shares during the period. MetLife Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Huntsman during the 1st quarter valued at $155,000. BlackRock Inc. increased its position in shares of Huntsman by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 12,672,792 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $475,358,000 after purchasing an additional 47,739 shares during the period. Finally, Great West Life Assurance Co. Can increased its position in shares of Huntsman by 9.0% during the 1st quarter. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can now owns 14,250 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $565,000 after purchasing an additional 1,173 shares during the period. 83.44% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Huntsman Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:HUN opened at $23.52 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 2.14, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.41. Huntsman Co. has a 1 year low of $22.72 and a 1 year high of $33.46. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $25.56 and a 200 day simple moving average of $26.27. The firm has a market cap of $4.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.49 and a beta of 1.18.

Huntsman Announces Dividend

Huntsman ( NYSE:HUN Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.30 by ($0.08). Huntsman had a return on equity of 5.75% and a net margin of 2.64%. The firm had revenue of $1.60 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.70 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.28 earnings per share. Huntsmans revenue was down 26.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Huntsman Co. will post 0.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 15th were issued a dividend of $0.2375 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. This represents a $0.95 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.04%. Huntsmans dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 98.96%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on Huntsman from $29.00 to $25.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, September 28th. StockNews.com started coverage on Huntsman in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. Bank of America raised Huntsman from an underperform rating to a buy rating and set a $27.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Citigroup reduced their price objective on Huntsman from $30.00 to $26.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 21st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on Huntsman from $26.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $28.45.

Read Our Latest Research Report on HUN

About Huntsman

(Free Report)

Huntsman Corporation manufactures and sells diversified organic chemical products worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Polyurethanes, Performance Products, and Advanced Materials. The Polyurethanes segment offers polyurethane chemicals, including methyl diphenyl diisocyanate, polyether and polyester polyols, and thermoplastic polyurethane.

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Tobam purchased a new stake in shares of TransUnion (NYSE:TRU  Free Report) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund purchased 793 shares of the business services providers stock, valued at approximately $62,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Fifth Third Bancorp grew its position in TransUnion by 1,629.2% during the second quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 415 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 391 shares during the period. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. acquired a new position in shares of TransUnion during the first quarter worth about $49,000. First Horizon Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in shares of TransUnion by 166.3% during the first quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 474 shares of the business services providers stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 296 shares in the last quarter. KB Financial Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of TransUnion by 86.5% during the first quarter. KB Financial Partners LLC now owns 485 shares of the business services providers stock worth $50,000 after purchasing an additional 225 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CVA Family Office LLC lifted its stake in shares of TransUnion by 58.2% during the first quarter. CVA Family Office LLC now owns 530 shares of the business services providers stock worth $33,000 after purchasing an additional 195 shares in the last quarter.

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Insider Activity

In other news, insider Steven M. Chaouki sold 949 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $77.03, for a total transaction of $73,101.47. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 60,472 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,658,158.16. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, insider Steven M. Chaouki sold 1,276 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.43, for a total value of $91,144.68. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 56,860 shares in the company, valued at $4,061,509.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Steven M. Chaouki sold 949 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $77.03, for a total value of $73,101.47. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 60,472 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,658,158.16. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 6,689 shares of company stock worth $518,181. Insiders own 0.22% of the companys stock.

TransUnion Stock Performance

TRU opened at $64.25 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $12.42 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 53.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.20, a current ratio of 1.51 and a quick ratio of 1.51. TransUnion has a 1-year low of $50.32 and a 1-year high of $82.75. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $75.72 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $73.40.

TransUnion (NYSE:TRU  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 25th. The business services provider reported $0.86 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.83 by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $968.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $957.64 million. TransUnion had a return on equity of 13.59% and a net margin of 6.19%. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 2.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.89 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that TransUnion will post 3.22 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TransUnion Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 7th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, August 23rd were given a dividend of $0.105 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, August 22nd. This represents a $0.42 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.65%. TransUnions dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 35.00%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have commented on TRU shares. StockNews.com started coverage on TransUnion in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price objective on TransUnion from $84.00 to $92.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, July 25th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on TransUnion from $86.00 to $98.00 in a report on Monday, July 10th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and issued a $97.00 price objective on shares of TransUnion in a report on Monday, October 2nd. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on TransUnion from $67.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Tuesday, July 25th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, TransUnion presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $84.38.

View Our Latest Stock Report on TransUnion

TransUnion Profile

(Free Report)

TransUnion operates as a global consumer credit reporting agency that provides risk and information solutions. The company operates in three segments: U.S. Markets, International, and Consumer Interactive. The U.S. Markets segment provides consumer reports, actionable insights, and analytic services to businesses, which uses its services to acquire new customers; assess consumer ability to pay for services; identify cross-selling opportunities; measure and manage debt portfolio risk; collect debt; verify consumer identities; and mitigate fraud risk.

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BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- China's home prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities were generally stable in September, with first-tier cities seeing home prices basically unchanged, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Thursday.

New home prices in China's four first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, were flat month on month in September, following a month-on-month decline of 0.2 percent in August, according to the NBS.

On a year-on-year basis, new home prices in the first-tier cities rose 0.7 percent last month.

However, new home prices in more than half of 70 surveyed cities, which include the four first-tier cities, maintained a downward trend in September. The data showed that 45 cities reported year-on-year drops in new home prices last month, up from 44 in August.

The data also revealed that prices of new homes in 31 second-tier cities and 35 third-tier cities edged down 0.3 percent in September compared to August. 
Tobam lowered its holdings in shares of Rollins, Inc. (NYSE:ROL  Free Report) by 63.2% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,389 shares of the business services providers stock after selling 2,386 shares during the period. Tobams holdings in Rollins were worth $59,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Inspire Investing LLC grew its stake in Rollins by 217.5% during the second quarter. Inspire Investing LLC now owns 31,677 shares of the business services providers stock worth $1,357,000 after purchasing an additional 21,699 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. grew its stake in Rollins by 13.3% in the second quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 122,488 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $5,246,000 after acquiring an additional 14,416 shares during the period. KBC Group NV acquired a new stake in Rollins in the second quarter valued at approximately $9,300,000. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd grew its stake in Rollins by 251.9% in the second quarter. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd now owns 37,810 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $1,619,000 after acquiring an additional 27,065 shares during the period. Finally, Welch & Forbes LLC acquired a new stake in Rollins in the second quarter valued at approximately $2,986,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 38.98% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ROL has been the subject of a number of research reports. StockNews.com began coverage on Rollins in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Bank of America began coverage on Rollins in a report on Wednesday, July 5th. They issued a buy rating and a $49.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada restated an outperform rating and issued a $52.00 target price on shares of Rollins in a report on Monday, August 14th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $46.57.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Rollins news, CEO Jerry Jr. Gahlhoff sold 7,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $38.00, for a total value of $266,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 225,091 shares of the companys stock, valued at $8,553,458. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other Rollins news, CEO Jerry Jr. Gahlhoff sold 7,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $38.00, for a total value of $266,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 225,091 shares of the companys stock, valued at $8,553,458. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Paul Russell Hardin bought 5,560 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 12th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $36.00 per share, with a total value of $200,160.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 7,927 shares of the companys stock, valued at $285,372. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Company insiders own 4.70% of the companys stock.

Rollins Stock Performance

Shares of Rollins stock opened at $35.92 on Thursday. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $38.00 and its 200 day simple moving average is $40.12. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.67. Rollins, Inc. has a 12 month low of $34.29 and a 12 month high of $45.04. The company has a current ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25.

Rollins (NYSE:ROL  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The business services provider reported $0.23 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts consensus estimates of $0.23. The business had revenue of $820.75 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $804.93 million. Rollins had a return on equity of 31.00% and a net margin of 13.60%. Rollinss quarterly revenue was up 14.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.20 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Rollins, Inc. will post 0.86 EPS for the current year.

Rollins Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 10th were issued a dividend of $0.13 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, August 9th. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.45%. Rollinss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 65.82%.

Rollins Profile

(Free Report)

Rollins, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides pest and wildlife control services to residential and commercial customers in the United States and internationally. The company offers pest control services to residential properties protecting from common pests, including rodents, insects, and wildlife.

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Meritage Portfolio Management grew its stake in shares of British American Tobacco p.l.c. (NYSE:BTI  Free Report) by 4.9% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 127,687 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 5,965 shares during the quarter. Meritage Portfolio Managements holdings in British American Tobacco were worth $4,239,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Sanctuary Wealth Management L.L.C. acquired a new position in shares of British American Tobacco during the 4th quarter worth approximately $27,000. Almanack Investment Partners LLC. bought a new position in shares of British American Tobacco during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC bought a new position in shares of British American Tobacco during the 1st quarter worth approximately $28,000. Ahrens Investment Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of British American Tobacco during the 1st quarter worth approximately $30,000. Finally, CENTRAL TRUST Co boosted its stake in shares of British American Tobacco by 170.8% during the 3rd quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co now owns 864 shares of the companys stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 545 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 7.56% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently commented on BTI. Argus downgraded British American Tobacco from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Friday, September 1st. StockNews.com initiated coverage on British American Tobacco in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Finally, Citigroup initiated coverage on British American Tobacco in a research note on Monday, September 25th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold.

British American Tobacco Price Performance

BTI opened at $30.30 on Thursday. British American Tobacco p.l.c. has a 52-week low of $29.60 and a 52-week high of $42.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 0.93 and a quick ratio of 0.58. The businesss fifty day moving average is $32.12 and its 200-day moving average is $33.29.

British American Tobacco Profile

(Free Report)

British American Tobacco p.l.c. engages in the provision of tobacco and nicotine products to consumers worldwide. It offers vapour, tobacco heating, and modern oral nicotine products; combustible cigarettes; and traditional oral products, such as snus and moist snuff. The company offers its products under the Vuse, glo, Velo, Grizzly, Kodiak, Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, Rothmans, Camel, Natural American Spirit, Newport, Vogue, Viceroy, Kool, Peter Stuyvesant, Craven A, State Express 555 and Shuang Xi brands.

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Meritage Portfolio Management boosted its stake in shares of Canadian Natural Resources Limited (NYSE:CNQ  Free Report) (TSE:CNQ) by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 88,162 shares of the oil and gas producers stock after buying an additional 3,588 shares during the quarter. Meritage Portfolio Managements holdings in Canadian Natural Resources were worth $4,960,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Dividend Assets Capital LLC boosted its holdings in Canadian Natural Resources by 39.7% during the 2nd quarter. Dividend Assets Capital LLC now owns 109,497 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $6,160,000 after acquiring an additional 31,111 shares during the period. Tower View Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in Canadian Natural Resources by 26.8% in the 2nd quarter. Tower View Wealth Management LLC now owns 71,045 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $3,997,000 after buying an additional 15,025 shares during the period. Inspire Investing LLC purchased a new stake in Canadian Natural Resources in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $601,000. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd lifted its holdings in Canadian Natural Resources by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd now owns 57,670 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $3,242,000 after buying an additional 2,298 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC lifted its holdings in Canadian Natural Resources by 4.5% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 17,476 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $983,000 after buying an additional 756 shares during the period. 73.88% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. CIBC increased their price objective on Canadian Natural Resources from $90.00 to $93.00 and gave the stock an outperformer rating in a report on Tuesday, August 29th. National Bank Financial lowered Canadian Natural Resources from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating in a research report on Friday, August 4th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Canadian Natural Resources from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Friday, August 4th. UBS Group initiated coverage on Canadian Natural Resources in a research report on Wednesday, July 12th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on Canadian Natural Resources from $84.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Monday, August 28th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $89.56.

Canadian Natural Resources Stock Down 0.3 %

CNQ stock opened at $66.89 on Thursday. Canadian Natural Resources Limited has a twelve month low of $48.81 and a twelve month high of $67.70. The company has a quick ratio of 0.47, a current ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25. The firm has a market cap of $72.76 billion, a PE ratio of 13.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 11.27 and a beta of 1.55. The business has a 50 day moving average of $63.51 and a 200 day moving average of $59.58.

Canadian Natural Resources (NYSE:CNQ  Get Free Report) (TSE:CNQ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 3rd. The oil and gas producer reported $0.85 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.88 by ($0.03). Canadian Natural Resources had a net margin of 18.14% and a return on equity of 22.86%. The company had revenue of $5.87 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.44 billion. On average, research analysts forecast that Canadian Natural Resources Limited will post 5.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Canadian Natural Resources Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 5th. Investors of record on Friday, September 15th were given a dividend of $0.6744 per share. This represents a $2.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. This is a positive change from Canadian Natural Resourcess previous quarterly dividend of $0.66. Canadian Natural Resourcess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 52.46%.

Canadian Natural Resources Profile

(Free Report)

Canadian Natural Resources Limited acquires, explores for, develops, produces, markets, and sells crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs). The company offers light and medium crude oil, primary heavy crude oil, Pelican Lake heavy crude oil, bitumen (thermal oil), and synthetic crude oil (SCO).

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1834 Investment Advisors Co. lessened its stake in SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF (NYSEARCA:PSK  Free Report) by 31.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 6,870 shares of the companys stock after selling 3,134 shares during the quarter. 1834 Investment Advisors Co.s holdings in SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF were worth $230,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in PSK. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its stake in shares of SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF by 7.1% in the 1st quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 51,996 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,018,000 after buying an additional 3,431 shares during the period. Synovus Financial Corp boosted its stake in shares of SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF by 9.1% in the 1st quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 43,284 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,686,000 after buying an additional 3,605 shares during the period. Dakota Wealth Management lifted its stake in SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF by 20.8% during the first quarter. Dakota Wealth Management now owns 5,722 shares of the companys stock worth $223,000 after purchasing an additional 985 shares during the last quarter. Worth Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF during the first quarter worth approximately $144,000. Finally, Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF by 1.7% during the first quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 26,917 shares of the companys stock worth $1,167,000 after purchasing an additional 457 shares during the last quarter.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Royal Bank of Canada restated a sector perform rating and set a $26.00 target price on shares of SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF in a research note on Thursday, October 12th.

SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF Price Performance

NYSEARCA:PSK opened at $30.53 on Thursday. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $32.29 and its 200-day simple moving average is $33.04. SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF has a 12-month low of $30.38 and a 12-month high of $37.06.

About SPDR ICE Preferred Securities ETF

(Free Report)

SPDR Wells Fargo Preferred Stock ETF (the Fund) seeks to replicate the total return of the Wells Fargo Hybrid and Preferred Securities Aggregate Index (the Index). The Index is a modified market capitalization weighted index designed to measure the performance of non-convertible preferred stock and securities that are functionally equivalent to preferred stock, including, but not limited to, depositary preferred securities, perpetual subordinated debt and certain securities issued by banks and other financial institutions that are eligible for capital treatment with respect to such instruments akin to that received for issuance of straight preferred stock.

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1834 Investment Advisors Co. lowered its position in Newmont Co. (NYSE:NEM  Free Report) by 6.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 6,442 shares of the basic materials companys stock after selling 440 shares during the period. 1834 Investment Advisors Co.s holdings in Newmont were worth $275,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Compass Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Newmont in the 4th quarter worth $25,000. Householder Group Estate & Retirement Specialist LLC purchased a new stake in Newmont in the 1st quarter worth $26,000. Sittner & Nelson LLC lifted its stake in Newmont by 177.5% in the 1st quarter. Sittner & Nelson LLC now owns 555 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 355 shares in the last quarter. WealthPlan Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in Newmont in the 2nd quarter worth $112,000. Finally, Caldwell Sutter Capital Inc. purchased a new stake in Newmont in the 1st quarter worth $30,000. Institutional investors own 79.53% of the companys stock.

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Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO Robert D. Atkinson sold 5,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.47, for a total transaction of $200,585.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 70,751 shares in the company, valued at $2,580,288.97. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CEO Thomas Ronald Palmer sold 11,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $42.16, for a total transaction of $463,760.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 267,039 shares in the company, valued at $11,258,364.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, COO Robert D. Atkinson sold 5,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.47, for a total transaction of $200,585.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 70,751 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,580,288.97. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 44,366 shares of company stock worth $1,738,008 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the companys stock.

Newmont Price Performance

Shares of NEM stock opened at $39.92 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a quick ratio of 1.87 and a current ratio of 2.28. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $38.85 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $42.58. Newmont Co. has a one year low of $34.81 and a one year high of $60.08.

Newmont (NYSE:NEM  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 20th. The basic materials company reported $0.33 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.39 by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $2.68 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. Newmont had a positive return on equity of 5.74% and a negative net margin of 6.77%. Newmonts revenue was down 12.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.46 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Newmont Co. will post 1.96 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have commented on NEM shares. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on shares of Newmont from $44.00 to $38.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 4th. UBS Group decreased their price target on shares of Newmont from $53.00 to $42.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, August 29th. Raymond James decreased their target price on shares of Newmont from $62.00 to $61.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, September 7th. TD Securities decreased their target price on shares of Newmont from $59.00 to $55.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 24th. Finally, StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Newmont in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $56.82.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Newmont

About Newmont

(Free Report)

Newmont Corporation engages in the production and exploration of gold. It also explores for copper, silver, zinc, and lead. The company has operations and/or assets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Peru, Suriname, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and Ghana. As of December 31, 2022, it had proven and probable gold reserves of 96.1 million ounces and land position of 61,500 square kilometers.

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Brighton Jones LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS  Free Report) by 10.1% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,517 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 414 shares during the quarter. Brighton Jones LLCs holdings in Novartis were worth $456,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the business. Sage Rhino Capital LLC increased its stake in shares of Novartis by 3.9% during the 2nd quarter. Sage Rhino Capital LLC now owns 7,190 shares of the companys stock worth $726,000 after purchasing an additional 267 shares during the last quarter. Mutual Advisors LLC grew its stake in Novartis by 35.0% in the 2nd quarter. Mutual Advisors LLC now owns 12,471 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,258,000 after buying an additional 3,232 shares during the last quarter. F M Investments LLC acquired a new position in Novartis in the 2nd quarter valued at $207,000. Fort Pitt Capital Group LLC grew its stake in Novartis by 11.8% in the 2nd quarter. Fort Pitt Capital Group LLC now owns 27,985 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,824,000 after buying an additional 2,960 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Key Financial Inc grew its stake in Novartis by 3.5% in the 2nd quarter. Key Financial Inc now owns 2,959 shares of the companys stock valued at $299,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 7.00% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently issued reports on NVS. HSBC began coverage on shares of Novartis in a research note on Friday, July 14th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Novartis from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating in a research note on Monday, September 25th. Finally, StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Novartis in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a strong-buy rating for the company. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $82.33.

Novartis Price Performance

Shares of Novartis stock opened at $96.09 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 0.79. Novartis AG has a fifty-two week low of $75.38 and a fifty-two week high of $105.61. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $100.53 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $100.43. The company has a market cap of $203.67 billion, a PE ratio of 26.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.71 and a beta of 0.53.

Novartis (NYSE:NVS  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 19th. The company reported $1.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.68 by $0.15. The firm had revenue of $13.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.32 million. Novartis had a net margin of 14.76% and a return on equity of 25.12%. The businesss revenue was up 6.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.56 EPS. Analysts expect that Novartis AG will post 6.85 EPS for the current year.

Novartis Company Profile

(Free Report)

Novartis AG researches, develops, manufactures, and markets healthcare products in Switzerland and internationally. The company offers prescription medicines for patients and physicians. It focuses on therapeutic areas, such as cardiovascular, renal and metabolic, immunology, neuroscience, and oncology, as well as ophthalmology and hematology.

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BlackRock Income and Growth Investment Trust plc (LON:BRIG  Get Free Report) fell 1.1% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as GBX 176 ($2.15) and last traded at GBX 181 ($2.21). 5,424 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 15% from the average session volume of 4,735 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 183 ($2.24).

BlackRock Income and Growth Investment Trust Stock Performance

The company has a current ratio of 0.46, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.87. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is GBX 182.02 and its 200-day simple moving average is GBX 185.81. The stock has a market cap of 38.45 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 1,206.67 and a beta of 0.66.

BlackRock Income and Growth Investment Trust Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

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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Ally Financial (NYSE:ALLY  Get Free Report) had its price target decreased by analysts at Citigroup from $37.00 to $35.00 in a report issued on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a buy rating on the financial services providers stock. Citigroups price target suggests a potential upside of 36.56% from the companys current price.

ALLY has been the subject of a number of other reports. Piper Sandler increased their target price on shares of Ally Financial from $30.00 to $31.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Friday, September 29th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their target price on shares of Ally Financial from $47.00 to $45.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 20th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on Ally Financial from $22.00 to $24.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a research report on Friday, July 21st. Stephens reiterated an equal weight rating and set a $32.00 price target on shares of Ally Financial in a report on Thursday, August 31st. Finally, StockNews.com began coverage on Ally Financial in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $30.91.

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Read Our Latest Analysis on ALLY

Ally Financial Price Performance

Shares of Ally Financial stock opened at $25.63 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.92, a current ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.80. The firm has a market cap of $7.73 billion, a PE ratio of 7.00 and a beta of 1.34. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $26.90 and a 200 day moving average price of $27.09. Ally Financial has a twelve month low of $21.58 and a twelve month high of $35.78.

Ally Financial (NYSE:ALLY  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, October 18th. The financial services provider reported $0.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.80 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.97 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.06 billion. Ally Financial had a net margin of 14.59% and a return on equity of 12.34%. The companys revenue for the quarter was down 2.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.12 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Ally Financial will post 3.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ally Financial

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Roundview Capital LLC purchased a new stake in Ally Financial in the 1st quarter valued at $242,000. Cetera Advisor Networks LLC acquired a new position in Ally Financial in the 1st quarter valued at about $214,000. D.A. Davidson & CO. purchased a new stake in Ally Financial during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $261,000. MetLife Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in Ally Financial during the 1st quarter worth approximately $294,000. Finally, Rhumbline Advisers grew its stake in shares of Ally Financial by 1.4% in the 1st quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 291,312 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $12,666,000 after purchasing an additional 4,099 shares during the last quarter. 86.04% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Ally Financial Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Ally Financial Inc, a digital financial-services company, provides various digital financial products and services to consumer, commercial, and corporate customers primarily in the United States and Canada. It operates through Automotive Finance Operations, Insurance Operations, Mortgage Finance Operations, and Corporate Finance Operations segments.

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SharkNinja (NYSE:SN  Get Free Report) and AB Electrolux (publ) (OTCMKTS:ELUXY  Get Free Report) are both mid-cap consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, profitability, valuation and risk.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares SharkNinja and AB Electrolux (publ)s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

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Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio SharkNinja $3.72 billion 1.61 $232.35 million N/A N/A AB Electrolux (publ) $13.38 billion 0.21 -$130.81 million ($2.60) -7.67

SharkNinja has higher earnings, but lower revenue than AB Electrolux (publ).

Profitability

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets SharkNinja N/A N/A N/A AB Electrolux (publ) -2.74% -21.17% -2.92%

Analyst Recommendations

This table compares SharkNinja and AB Electrolux (publ)s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for SharkNinja and AB Electrolux (publ), as reported by MarketBeat.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score SharkNinja 0 0 1 0 3.00 AB Electrolux (publ) 0 3 2 0 2.40

Summary

SharkNinja beats AB Electrolux (publ) on 6 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About SharkNinja

(Get Free Report)

SharkNinja, Inc., a product design and technology company, engages in the provision of various solutions for consumers worldwide. It offers cleaning appliances, including corded and cordless vacuums, as well as other floorcare products; cooking and beverage appliances, such as air fryers, multi-cookers, outdoor and countertop grills and ovens, coffee systems, cookware, cutlery, kettles, toasters, and bakeware products; food preparation appliances comprising blenders, food processors, ice cream makers, and juicers; and beauty appliances, home environment products, and garment care products. The company sells its products through retailers, online and offline, and distributors. SharkNinja, Inc. was incorporated in 2017 and is headquartered in Needham, Massachusetts.

About AB Electrolux (publ)

(Get Free Report)

AB Electrolux (publ), together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells household appliances in Europe, North America, Latin America, the Asia/Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. The company offers various appliances, such as refrigerators, freezers, cookers, dryers, washing machines, dishwashers, room air-conditioners, microwave ovens, floor-care products, vacuum cleaners, water heaters, heat pumps, and other small domestic appliances, as well as consumables and accessories. It also provides hobs, ovens, and hoods; and tumble dryers. The company offers its products under the Electrolux, AEG, and Frigidaire brands through retailers, buying groups, and independent stores. AB Electrolux (publ) was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.

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Agricultural Bank of China (OTCMKTS:ACGBF  Get Free Report) and HSBC (NYSE:HSBC  Get Free Report) are both financial services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings and profitability.

Dividends

Agricultural Bank of China pays an annual dividend of $0.18 per share and has a dividend yield of 47.5%. HSBC pays an annual dividend of $1.98 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.0%. Agricultural Bank of China pays out 32.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. HSBC pays out 33.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. HSBC has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Agricultural Bank of China is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

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Profitability

This table compares Agricultural Bank of China and HSBCs net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Agricultural Bank of China N/A N/A N/A HSBC 26.43% 12.19% 0.78%

Earnings & Valuation

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Agricultural Bank of China N/A N/A N/A $0.56 0.67 HSBC $74.18 billion 2.14 $16.04 billion $5.93 6.69

This table compares Agricultural Bank of China and HSBCs top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

HSBC has higher revenue and earnings than Agricultural Bank of China. Agricultural Bank of China is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than HSBC, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Agricultural Bank of China and HSBC, as provided by MarketBeat.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Agricultural Bank of China 1 0 1 0 2.00 HSBC 1 3 6 0 2.50

HSBC has a consensus price target of $291.50, indicating a potential upside of 634.90%. Given HSBCs stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe HSBC is more favorable than Agricultural Bank of China.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

2.0% of Agricultural Bank of China shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 1.5% of HSBC shares are held by institutional investors. 0.0% of HSBC shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

HSBC beats Agricultural Bank of China on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Agricultural Bank of China

(Get Free Report)

Agricultural Bank of China Limited provides banking products and services. The company operates through Corporate Banking, Personal Banking, and Treasury Operations segments. It offers demand, personal call, foreign currency call, time or demand optional, foreign exchange call, foreign exchange time, savings, agreed term, and negotiated deposit accounts, as well as certificates of deposit; and loans, including housing, consumer, business, fixed asset, working capital, real estate, and entrusted syndicated loans, as well as trade finances, guarantees and commitments, and loans with custody of export rebates accounts. The company also provides credit card, debit card, payment and settlement, private banking, cash management, investment banking, custody, financial market, and financial institution services, as well as trading and wealth management services; and personal fund collection and automatic transfer services. In addition, it offers agro-related personal and corporate banking products and services; telephone, mobile, self-service, television, and SMS banking services; financial leasing services; fund management services; asset custodian services; and insurance and reinsurance related products and services. The company operates domestic branches, including specialized institutions, training institutes, tier-1 branches, tier-2 branches, tier-1 sub-branches, foundation-level branch outlets and other establishments; overseas branches in Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, New York, Dubai International Financial Centre, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Sydney, Luxemburg, Dubai, London, Macao, and Hanoi; and overseas representative offices in Vancouver, Taipei, Sao Paulo, and Dushanbe. Agricultural Bank of China Limited was founded in 1951 and is based in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.

About HSBC

(Get Free Report)

HSBC Holdings plc provides banking and financial services worldwide. The company operates through Wealth and Personal Banking, Commercial Banking, and Global Banking and Markets segments. The Wealth and Personal Banking segment offers retail banking and wealth products, including current and savings accounts, mortgages and personal loans, credit and debit cards, and local and international payment services; and wealth management services comprising insurance and investment products, global asset management services, investment management, and private wealth solutions. This segment serves personal banking and high net worth individuals. The Commercial Banking segment provides credit and lending, treasury management, payment, cash management, commercial insurance, and investment services; commercial cards; international trade and receivables finance services; foreign exchange products; capital raising services on debt and equity markets; and advisory services. It serves small and medium sized enterprises, mid-market enterprises, and corporates. The Global Banking and Markets segment offers financing, advisory, and transaction services; and credit, rates, foreign exchange, equities, money markets, and securities services; and engages in principal investment activities. It serves government, corporate and institutional clients, and private investors. HSBC Holdings plc was founded in 1865 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

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BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday sent a congratulatory letter to the fifth China-Russia Energy Business Forum.

Xi said that thanks to the joint efforts of China and Russia over the years, energy cooperation between the two countries has formed a pattern of all-round, wide-ranging, in-depth and high-level cooperation. This serves as a good example of China-Russia practical cooperation based on equality and mutual benefit. It has also played a positive role in ensuring energy security and sustainable development for the two countries and the world at large.

Looking ahead, China is ready to work with Russia to build a high-level energy cooperation partnership, continuously enhance the resilience of the energy industry chain and supply chain, and make greater contributions to the long-term, healthy, stable and sustainable development of the global energy market and the building of a global partnership for clean energy cooperation.

On the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin also sent a congratulatory letter to the forum. 
Meritage Portfolio Management cut its stake in SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:SHM  Free Report) by 3.3% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 53,177 shares of the companys stock after selling 1,792 shares during the period. Meritage Portfolio Management owned approximately 0.06% of SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF worth $2,502,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Trust Co. of Vermont bought a new stake in shares of SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $27,000. Old North State Trust LLC acquired a new stake in SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF during the first quarter worth $43,000. Bessemer Group Inc. bought a new stake in SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF in the 1st quarter valued at $79,000. Evensky & Katz LLC bought a new stake in SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF in the 2nd quarter valued at $125,000. Finally, Sentinus LLC acquired a new position in shares of SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF in the 1st quarter valued at $283,000. 95.97% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF stock opened at $46.23 on Thursday. The firms 50-day simple moving average is $46.59 and its 200-day simple moving average is $46.89. SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF has a twelve month low of $45.97 and a twelve month high of $47.76.

SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF Company Profile

SPDR Nuveen Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF (the Fund), formerly SPDR Nuveen Barclays Capital Short Term Municipal Bond ETF, correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the Barclays Capital Managed Money Municipal Short Term Index (the Index). The Fund uses a passive management strategy designed to track the Index.

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Ausdal Financial Partners Inc. raised its holdings in Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO  Free Report) by 2.4% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 26,760 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 626 shares during the quarter. Ausdal Financial Partners Inc.s holdings in Altria Group were worth $1,212,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of MO. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P acquired a new position in shares of Altria Group during the 1st quarter worth about $25,000. Northwest Bank & Trust Co acquired a new position in Altria Group during the second quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Ellevest Inc. increased its stake in Altria Group by 346.7% in the first quarter. Ellevest Inc. now owns 670 shares of the companys stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 520 shares in the last quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC raised its holdings in Altria Group by 153.8% in the first quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 731 shares of the companys stock worth $33,000 after purchasing an additional 443 shares during the period. Finally, Meeder Asset Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Altria Group during the first quarter worth $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 58.94% of the companys stock.

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Altria Group Stock Performance

NYSE:MO opened at $43.11 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $76.50 billion, a PE ratio of 11.31, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.59. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $43.11 and a 200 day simple moving average of $44.51. Altria Group, Inc. has a 52-week low of $40.91 and a 52-week high of $51.57.

Altria Group Increases Dividend

Altria Group ( NYSE:MO Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The company reported $1.31 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $1.31. The company had revenue of $5.44 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $5.43 billion. Altria Group had a net margin of 27.40% and a negative return on equity of 225.61%. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 1.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.26 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Altria Group, Inc. will post 4.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 10th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 15th were given a dividend of $0.98 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. This is a boost from Altria Groups previous quarterly dividend of $0.94. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 9.09%. Altria Groups payout ratio is 102.89%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently commented on the stock. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Altria Group from $46.50 to $45.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. UBS Group dropped their price target on Altria Group from $40.40 to $39.20 and set a sell rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 6th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Altria Group from $55.00 to $56.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday, October 13th. Bank of America dropped their target price on shares of Altria Group from $49.00 to $47.00 in a report on Monday, October 9th. Finally, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Altria Group in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $47.46.

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Altria Group Profile

(Free Report)

Altria Group, Inc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company provides cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; cigars and pipe tobacco principally under the Black & Mild brand; moist smokeless tobacco products and snus products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands; and on! oral nicotine pouches.

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Ausdal Financial Partners Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO  Free Report) by 2.4% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 26,760 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 626 shares during the period. Ausdal Financial Partners Inc.s holdings in Altria Group were worth $1,212,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Berkeley Capital Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Altria Group by 9.9% in the 1st quarter. Berkeley Capital Partners LLC now owns 21,535 shares of the companys stock valued at $961,000 after purchasing an additional 1,941 shares during the period. MV Capital Management Inc. lifted its stake in Altria Group by 440.5% in the first quarter. MV Capital Management Inc. now owns 4,789 shares of the companys stock valued at $214,000 after buying an additional 3,903 shares during the period. Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. boosted its holdings in Altria Group by 7.0% during the first quarter. Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. now owns 9,136 shares of the companys stock worth $408,000 after buying an additional 601 shares during the last quarter. Avion Wealth grew its position in shares of Altria Group by 17.7% during the 2nd quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 1,886 shares of the companys stock worth $84,000 after buying an additional 283 shares during the period. Finally, Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. increased its stake in shares of Altria Group by 2.1% in the 1st quarter. Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. now owns 12,906 shares of the companys stock valued at $576,000 after acquiring an additional 270 shares during the last quarter. 58.94% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Bank of America reduced their price objective on shares of Altria Group from $49.00 to $47.00 in a research note on Monday, October 9th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on shares of Altria Group from $55.00 to $56.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, October 13th. Citigroup dropped their price objective on Altria Group from $46.50 to $45.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. StockNews.com began coverage on Altria Group in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Finally, UBS Group dropped their price target on Altria Group from $40.40 to $39.20 and set a sell rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 6th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $47.46.

Altria Group Price Performance

MO opened at $43.11 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $76.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.31, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.59. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $43.11 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $44.51. Altria Group, Inc. has a 1 year low of $40.91 and a 1 year high of $51.57.

Altria Group (NYSE:MO  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The company reported $1.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts consensus estimates of $1.31. Altria Group had a negative return on equity of 225.61% and a net margin of 27.40%. The business had revenue of $5.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.43 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.26 EPS. Altria Groups revenue for the quarter was up 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Altria Group, Inc. will post 4.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Altria Group Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 10th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 15th were given a $0.98 dividend. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.09%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. This is a positive change from Altria Groups previous quarterly dividend of $0.94. Altria Groups payout ratio is currently 102.89%.

Altria Group Profile

(Free Report)

Altria Group, Inc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company provides cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; cigars and pipe tobacco principally under the Black & Mild brand; moist smokeless tobacco products and snus products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands; and on! oral nicotine pouches.

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Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. raised its stake in Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS  Free Report) by 545.8% during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,485,887 shares of the financial services providers stock after buying an additional 1,255,811 shares during the quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc.s holdings in Barclays were worth $11,887,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. BOKF NA purchased a new position in shares of Barclays in the first quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Altshuler Shaham Ltd raised its holdings in Barclays by 100.0% during the first quarter. Altshuler Shaham Ltd now owns 4,000 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 2,000 shares in the last quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC grew its position in Barclays by 236.5% in the 1st quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 4,109 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 2,888 shares during the last quarter. Sage Mountain Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Barclays in the 1st quarter valued at $80,000. Finally, Valeo Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Barclays during the 1st quarter worth $85,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 3.39% of the companys stock.

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Barclays Trading Down 3.2 %

NYSE BCS opened at $7.35 on Thursday. Barclays PLC has a 12 month low of $6.38 and a 12 month high of $9.44. The company has a 50-day moving average of $7.58 and a 200-day moving average of $7.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.28, a current ratio of 1.35 and a quick ratio of 1.35. The company has a market cap of $28.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.25, a P/E/G ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 1.35.

Barclays Increases Dividend

Barclays ( NYSE:BCS Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 27th. The financial services provider reported $0.43 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.45 by ($0.02). Barclays had a net margin of 22.39% and a return on equity of 8.09%. The company had revenue of $7.87 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.42 billion. As a group, equities analysts predict that Barclays PLC will post 1.55 earnings per share for the current year.

The company also recently announced a semi-annual dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 11th were issued a dividend of $0.1398 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 10th. This represents a dividend yield of 4.7%. This is a boost from Barclayss previous semi-annual dividend of $0.10. Barclayss payout ratio is presently 15.03%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Barclays from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 26th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Barclays from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 8th. BCS cut their target price on shares of Barclays from GBX 210 ($2.57) to GBX 190 ($2.32) in a research note on Thursday, July 6th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Barclays from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Friday, October 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $206.67.

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Barclays Company Profile

(Free Report)

Barclays PLC provides various financial services in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The company operates through two segments, Barclays UK and Barclays International divisions. It offers financial services, such as retail banking, credit cards, wholesale banking, investment banking, wealth management, and investment management services.

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International Game Technology (NYSE:IGT  Get Free Report) had its price target cut by analysts at Susquehanna from $54.00 to $50.00 in a note issued to investors on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a positive rating on the stock. Susquehannas price objective would suggest a potential upside of 69.49% from the stocks previous close.

A number of other brokerages have also weighed in on IGT. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on shares of International Game Technology from $32.00 to $38.00 in a report on Monday, June 26th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on International Game Technology in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a buy rating on the stock. Finally, Truist Financial reaffirmed a buy rating and issued a $37.00 price target on shares of International Game Technology in a report on Friday, September 15th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and an average price target of $44.50.

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Read Our Latest Analysis on International Game Technology

International Game Technology Price Performance

Shares of IGT traded down $0.47 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $29.50. 34,194 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,203,866. The company has a market cap of $5.87 billion, a PE ratio of 22.35 and a beta of 1.95. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $31.17 and a two-hundred day moving average of $29.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.95, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a current ratio of 1.16. International Game Technology has a 52-week low of $18.02 and a 52-week high of $33.99.

International Game Technology (NYSE:IGT  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 1st. The company reported $0.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.11. International Game Technology had a return on equity of 27.29% and a net margin of 6.30%. The business had revenue of $1.06 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.03 billion. On average, equities analysts predict that International Game Technology will post 1.78 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Meridian Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of International Game Technology by 21.4% during the 3rd quarter. Meridian Wealth Management LLC now owns 15,040 shares of the companys stock worth $456,000 after acquiring an additional 2,650 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC acquired a new stake in shares of International Game Technology during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $164,000. Ritholtz Wealth Management increased its stake in International Game Technology by 29.0% during the third quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management now owns 43,544 shares of the companys stock worth $1,320,000 after acquiring an additional 9,786 shares during the last quarter. CWM LLC increased its position in shares of International Game Technology by 166.5% during the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 898 shares of the companys stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 561 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Comerica Bank acquired a new position in International Game Technology during the second quarter worth $88,540,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 44.33% of the companys stock.

About International Game Technology

(Get Free Report)

International Game Technology PLC operates and provides gaming technology products and services in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean. It operates in three segments: Global Lottery, Global Gaming, and Digital & Betting. The company designs, sells, operates, and leases a suite of point-of-sale machines that reconciles lottery funds between the retailer and lottery authority; provides online lottery transaction processing systems; produces instant ticket games; and offers printing services, such as instant ticket marketing plans and graphic design, programming, packaging, shipping, and delivery services, as well as iLottery solutions and services.

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BlackRock Science and Technology Trust (NYSE:BST  Get Free Report) was the target of a large increase in short interest in September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 82,100 shares, an increase of 6.2% from the September 15th total of 77,300 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 92,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.9 days.

Insider Transactions at BlackRock Science and Technology Trust

In other news, Portfolio Manager Tony Kim sold 6,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $31.69, for a total value of $190,140.00. Following the transaction, the portfolio manager now directly owns 7,250 shares of the companys stock, valued at $229,752.50. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link.

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Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackRock Science and Technology Trust

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Wedbush Securities Inc. raised its stake in BlackRock Science and Technology Trust by 85.7% during the first quarter. Wedbush Securities Inc. now owns 181,804 shares of the companys stock worth $5,880,000 after acquiring an additional 83,892 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of BlackRock Science and Technology Trust by 15.1% in the first quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 562,704 shares of the companys stock valued at $18,198,000 after acquiring an additional 73,976 shares in the last quarter. Royal Bank of Canada boosted its holdings in BlackRock Science and Technology Trust by 24.7% during the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 347,405 shares of the companys stock worth $15,033,000 after buying an additional 68,837 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its position in shares of BlackRock Science and Technology Trust by 15.9% in the first quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 496,766 shares of the companys stock worth $16,051,000 after buying an additional 68,262 shares during the period. Finally, Sowell Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in BlackRock Science and Technology Trust during the second quarter worth $2,296,000.

BlackRock Science and Technology Trust Stock Performance

BlackRock Science and Technology Trust Announces Dividend

NYSE:BST opened at $31.17 on Thursday. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $32.29 and its 200 day moving average price is $32.79. BlackRock Science and Technology Trust has a 52-week low of $27.90 and a 52-week high of $35.38.

The business also recently declared a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 31st. Stockholders of record on Monday, October 16th will be issued a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 13th. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.62%.

BlackRock Science and Technology Trust Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

BlackRock Science and Technology Trust is a closed ended equity mutual fund launched by BlackRock, Inc The fund is managed by BlackRock Advisors, LLC. It invests directly and indirectly through derivative such as options in public equity markets of countries across the globe. The fund seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating across the science and technology sector.

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Peabody Energy Co. (NYSE:BTU  Get Free Report) saw a large increase in short interest in September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 16,840,000 shares, an increase of 5.4% from the September 15th total of 15,980,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 3,010,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 5.6 days.

Peabody Energy Stock Down 0.9 %

Shares of NYSE BTU opened at $25.54 on Thursday. The firms 50 day moving average price is $23.40 and its 200 day moving average price is $22.52. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.82 and a current ratio of 2.17. The firm has a market cap of $3.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 2.81 and a beta of 1.00. Peabody Energy has a 1 year low of $17.71 and a 1 year high of $32.89.

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Peabody Energy (NYSE:BTU  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The coal producer reported $1.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.54 by ($0.38). The company had revenue of $1.27 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.29 billion. Peabody Energy had a return on equity of 35.81% and a net margin of 25.97%. Peabody Energys quarterly revenue was down 4.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.67 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Peabody Energy will post 4.87 earnings per share for the current year.

Peabody Energy Dividend Announcement

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, August 30th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 10th were given a dividend of $0.075 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, August 9th. This represents a $0.30 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.17%. Peabody Energys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 3.30%.

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. B. Riley lifted their price objective on shares of Peabody Energy from $25.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, September 27th. TheStreet upgraded shares of Peabody Energy from a c rating to a b- rating in a research report on Thursday, July 27th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on shares of Peabody Energy from $27.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, October 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $31.50.

Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Peabody Energy

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Peabody Energy

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in BTU. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Peabody Energy during the 1st quarter valued at about $202,000. Raymond James & Associates acquired a new position in shares of Peabody Energy in the first quarter valued at $289,000. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Peabody Energy by 93.7% during the first quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 29,535 shares of the coal producers stock valued at $724,000 after acquiring an additional 14,285 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Peabody Energy during the first quarter valued at about $1,206,000. Finally, MetLife Investment Management LLC grew its position in Peabody Energy by 54.4% in the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 47,644 shares of the coal producers stock valued at $1,169,000 after acquiring an additional 16,787 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.33% of the companys stock.

About Peabody Energy

(Get Free Report)

Peabody Energy Corporation engages in coal mining business in the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, India, Brazil, Belgium, Chile, France, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, South Korea, and internationally. The company operates through Seaborne Thermal Mining, Seaborne Metallurgical Mining, Powder River Basin Mining, and Other U.S.

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Wakefield Asset Management LLLP grew its position in Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC) by 8.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 21,457 shares of the financial services providers stock after purchasing an additional 1,676 shares during the period. Wakefield Asset Management LLLPs holdings in Bank of America were worth $616,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Alaska Permanent Fund Corp purchased a new stake in Bank of America in the second quarter worth about $2,287,000. Ten Capital Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Bank of America by 816.7% in the 2nd quarter. Ten Capital Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 10,285 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $295,000 after purchasing an additional 9,163 shares during the period. Hudock Inc. grew its stake in Bank of America by 3.5% during the second quarter. Hudock Inc. now owns 13,999 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $402,000 after acquiring an additional 476 shares in the last quarter. West Bancorporation Inc. increased its stake in Bank of America by 17.6% in the 2nd quarter. West Bancorporation Inc. now owns 10,709 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $307,000 after acquiring an additional 1,599 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Alpha DNA Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Bank of America by 145.5% in the 2nd quarter. Alpha DNA Investment Management LLC now owns 74,656 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $2,142,000 after buying an additional 44,245 shares during the last quarter. 68.06% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

BAC has been the subject of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Bank of America in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and set a $35.00 price objective on shares of Bank of America in a research note on Tuesday, September 12th. Evercore ISI cut their price target on shares of Bank of America from $35.00 to $33.00 in a report on Thursday, October 5th. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on Bank of America from $28.00 to $27.50 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 15th. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on shares of Bank of America from $48.00 to $49.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $35.37.

Insider Activity at Bank of America

In other news, insider James P. Demare sold 75,000 shares of Bank of America stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $31.53, for a total value of $2,364,750.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 185,108 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,836,455.24. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.27% of the companys stock.

Bank of America Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE BAC traded up $0.18 during trading on Thursday, reaching $27.49. The stock had a trading volume of 4,150,940 shares, compared to its average volume of 48,847,328. The firms 50 day moving average price is $28.21 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $28.83. Bank of America Co. has a one year low of $25.47 and a one year high of $38.60. The stock has a market cap of $218.45 billion, a PE ratio of 7.65, a P/E/G ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.83.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 17th. The financial services provider reported $0.90 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.83 by $0.07. Bank of America had a return on equity of 12.08% and a net margin of 18.69%. The company had revenue of $25.20 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $25.13 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.81 earnings per share. Bank of Americas quarterly revenue was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Bank of America Co. will post 3.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bank of America Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 1st will be given a dividend of $0.24 per share. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.49%. Bank of Americas dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 26.89%.

About Bank of America

(Free Report)

Bank of America Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides banking and financial products and services for individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments worldwide. Its Consumer Banking segment offers traditional and money market savings accounts, certificates of deposit and IRAs, noninterest-and interest-bearing checking accounts, and investment accounts and products; and credit and debit cards, residential mortgages, and home equity loans, as well as direct and indirect loans, such as automotive, recreational vehicle, and consumer personal loans.

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Retirement Systems of Alabama lessened its holdings in Lockheed Martin Co. (NYSE:LMT  Free Report) by 23.7% in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 51,226 shares of the aerospace companys stock after selling 15,933 shares during the quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabamas holdings in Lockheed Martin were worth $23,583,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of LMT. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Lockheed Martin by 81,305.4% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 1,907,328 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $927,896,000 after buying an additional 1,904,985 shares during the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Lockheed Martin by 197.7% in the first quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,495,056 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $253,332,000 after buying an additional 992,835 shares in the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC raised its position in Lockheed Martin by 586.8% during the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 369,500 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $163,097,000 after purchasing an additional 315,700 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Lockheed Martin by 5.3% during the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,256,069 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $2,320,030,000 after buying an additional 264,665 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC boosted its position in Lockheed Martin by 3.4% during the 1st quarter. FMR LLC now owns 7,497,698 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $3,544,387,000 after acquiring an additional 244,251 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 74.26% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on LMT shares. Citigroup dropped their target price on Lockheed Martin from $555.00 to $540.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Lockheed Martin in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft assumed coverage on shares of Lockheed Martin in a research report on Wednesday, September 27th. They issued a hold rating and a $435.00 price objective on the stock. Susquehanna decreased their target price on shares of Lockheed Martin from $575.00 to $550.00 and set a positive rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 19th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of Lockheed Martin from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating and set a $440.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, September 18th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $485.69.

Lockheed Martin Price Performance

Shares of NYSE LMT opened at $446.51 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $112.44 billion, a PE ratio of 16.30, a P/E/G ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.86, a current ratio of 1.36 and a quick ratio of 1.16. Lockheed Martin Co. has a 1-year low of $393.77 and a 1-year high of $508.10. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $432.25 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $451.46.

Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 17th. The aerospace company reported $6.77 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $6.67 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $16.88 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.73 billion. Lockheed Martin had a return on equity of 75.46% and a net margin of 10.29%. The firms revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $6.87 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Lockheed Martin Co. will post 27.07 EPS for the current year.

Lockheed Martin Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 1st will be given a $3.15 dividend. This is an increase from Lockheed Martins previous quarterly dividend of $3.00. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 30th. This represents a $12.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.82%. Lockheed Martins payout ratio is presently 43.84%.

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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Fortitude Advisory Group L.L.C. decreased its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY  Free Report) by 5.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 3,654 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after selling 218 shares during the period. Fortitude Advisory Group L.L.C.s holdings in Bristol-Myers Squibb were worth $234,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. True Wealth Design LLC acquired a new position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb in the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Coppell Advisory Solutions Corp. acquired a new position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb in the 4th quarter worth approximately $31,000. Live Oak Investment Partners acquired a new position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb in the 4th quarter worth approximately $33,000. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 90.0% in the 1st quarter. Strengthening Families & Communities LLC now owns 475 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $656,000 after acquiring an additional 225 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Personal Financial Services lifted its holdings in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 67.8% in the 1st quarter. First Personal Financial Services now owns 495 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $34,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 74.98% of the companys stock.

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Insider Buying and Selling at Bristol-Myers Squibb

In other Bristol-Myers Squibb news, EVP Ann Powell sold 17,986 shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.25, for a total value of $1,101,642.50. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 27,868 shares in the company, valued at $1,706,915. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, EVP Ann Powell sold 17,986 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.25, for a total transaction of $1,101,642.50. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 27,868 shares in the company, valued at $1,706,915. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Robert M. Plenge sold 732 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.14, for a total transaction of $44,754.48. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 6,584 shares in the company, valued at $402,545.76. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.09% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:BMY opened at $56.85 on Thursday. The companys fifty day moving average price is $59.54 and its 200 day moving average price is $63.52. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a 12 month low of $55.69 and a 12 month high of $81.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 1.39 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The firm has a market capitalization of $118.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.12, a P/E/G ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 0.43.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $1.75 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.99 by ($0.24). Bristol-Myers Squibb had a return on equity of 50.51% and a net margin of 17.62%. The company had revenue of $11.23 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.81 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.93 earnings per share. Bristol-Myers Squibbs revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Bristol-Myers Squibb will post 7.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 6th will be paid a $0.57 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 5th. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.01%. Bristol-Myers Squibbs dividend payout ratio is presently 60.64%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BMY has been the topic of a number of research reports. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their target price on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from $78.00 to $65.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a report on Friday, July 28th. TD Cowen decreased their price target on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from $80.00 to $66.00 and set a market perform rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 15th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an overweight rating and issued a $75.00 price target on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb in a research report on Monday, October 9th. SVB Leerink reissued a market perform rating on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb in a research report on Monday, July 10th. Finally, Truist Financial reissued a buy rating and issued a $84.00 price target on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb in a research report on Friday, October 6th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $69.29.

View Our Latest Research Report on Bristol-Myers Squibb

About Bristol-Myers Squibb

(Free Report)

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells biopharmaceutical products worldwide. It offers products for hematology, oncology, cardiovascular, immunology, fibrotic, and neuroscience diseases. The company's products include Eliquis, an oral inhibitor for reduction in risk of stroke/systemic embolism in NVAF, and for the treatment of DVT/PE; Opdivo for anti-cancer indications; Pomalyst/Imnovid indicated for patients with multiple myeloma; Orencia for adult patients with active RA and psoriatic arthritis; and Sprycel for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia.

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JAKARTA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia found difficulties in evacuating its 10 citizens still trapped in the conflict-stricken zone in the Gaza Strip, the country's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said on Thursday.

The Indonesian government made evacuation efforts every day, said Marsudi during a virtual press conference. "However, because the situation is still very difficult, further evacuation cannot be carried out yet."

The ministry continues to maintain close communication with its citizens in Gaza as they stand by for any information regarding a possible escape route.

Marsudi has also discussed with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a number of her counterparts in the Middle East about the evacuation scheme.

Last week, the ministry evacuated four citizens from the West Bank who are now in safe condition in Indonesia.

According to the ministry, at least 130 Indonesian citizens are still living in the West Bank and surrounding areas. 
BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- A booby-trapped drone crashed on Wednesday near an airbase housing U.S. military experts and agencies in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, the regional Counter-Terrorism Service said in a statement.

The drone crashed and detonated at 12:18 local time (0918 GMT) in an open area near Harir airbase outside the city of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, without causing casualties, the statement said, without providing further details about who launched the drone or how it crashed.

However, an anonymous security source in Erbil told Xinhua that the air defenses of the air base shot down the drone, adding that Kurdish forces were sent to the airbase to secure the scene after the drone crash.

An unidentified armed group calling itself Tashkil al-Waritheen has claimed responsibility for the attack on Harir airbase in an online statement. However, the authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified. 
Qabil Ashirov

Sabina Aliyeva, Commissioner for Human Rights of Azerbaijan (Ombudsman), participated in the VII international scientific-practical conference on "Problems of Human Rights Protection: Sharing Positive Experiences on the Powers of Ombudsmen," Azernews reports.

At the event attended by ombudsmen of forty-seven countries, during her speech on the topic "Activity of the Azerbaijani Ombudsman in the War and Post-war Period", the Ombudsman emphasized the role of ombudsman institutions and national human rights institutions in the field of effective protection of human rights and freedoms, and gave detailed information about the activities of the Ombudsman institution of Azerbaijan in the relevant direction.

The commissioner talked about the reforms carried out for the effective protection of human rights and freedoms in Azerbaijan, and about the changes made to the Constitutional Law "On the Human Rights Commissioner (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan" regarding the expansion of her mandate in the relevant fields in accordance with the existing international standards.

Noting that the war and terrorist acts that have occurred in recent years have led to the violation of fundamental human rights and the emergence of a humanitarian crisis, the Ombudsman also spoke about the war crimes committed by Armenia in the Azerbaijani lands occupied for nearly thirty years.

Sabina Aliyeva pointed out that as a result of the Second Karabakh War, Azerbaijani lands were liberated from occupation and the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan was restored in accordance with the requirements of international law.

The ombudsman noted that monitoring was carried out for the purpose of investigating war crimes committed by Armenia both in the Patriotic War and in the post-war period, and appeals, reports and statements containing the facts of gross violations of international humanitarian law were addressed to relevant international organizations and institutions operating in the field of human rights protection.

Stating that the wars not only cause human casualties, but also cause their disappearances, the Commissioner brought to the attention of the conference participants that about 4,000 Azerbaijanis went missing in the First Karabakh War, and Armenia has not yet informed them about their fate.

Speaking about the mine terror committed by Armenia in Azerbaijans liberated territories, S. Aliyeva noted that hundreds of people have become mine victims since the Second Karabakh war as a result of the mine explosion.

In the end, S. Aliyeva expressed her hope that the relations between institutions in the field of human rights protection will be further strengthened, and that effective activities and constructive dialogue will continue.
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, the most populous state in the United States, announced on Wednesday that he will begin a weeklong trip to China next week, focusing on climate action and partnership between two of the world's largest economies.

Newsom said in a statement that he will travel throughout China and "meet key national, subnational and business partners to advance climate action, promote economic development and tourism, and encourage cultural exchange between countries to actively combat xenophobia."

The visit comes ahead of the APEC summit in San Francisco this November, and "builds on a long history of partnership between California and China, with a strong bilateral foundation built by Governors Schwarzenegger and Brown and the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, as well as the Governor when he served as Mayor of San Francisco," the statement noted.

"Our economies -- the second and fifth largest in the world -- are intertwined and have been since the earliest days of our statehood. Our people-to-people ties are long-standing and enduring," said the statement, adding that a significant percentage of Californians can trace their roots to China and the Gold State is proud to be home to the largest group of Chinese Americans -- 32 percent of Chinese immigrants to the United States live in California.

China is one of California's largest trading partners and the western U.S. state, home to around 40 million residents, attracts the biggest amount of Chinese investment, tourists and students among all U.S. states.

Newsom said in the statement that his message in China will be simple: the world's fate depends on climate action in California and China.

"California and China hold the keys to solving the climate crisis. As two of the world's largest economies, our partnership is essential to delivering climate action for our communities and beyond," said the governor, adding that "Our decades-long work together proves what we can accomplish together -- cleaning the air, accelerating the transition to electric vehicles, protecting people from extreme weather and conserving lands and oceans."

The seven-day trip includes stops in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the province of Jiangsu, according to the statement. 
Irish president Michael D Higgins will meet Pope Francis during a private audience in the pontiffs library at the Vatican on Thursday.

It is anticipated that President Higgins will discuss a number of issues of shared interest with Francis, including climate change, migration, poverty, food security, the rights of indigenous people and global peace.

Mr Higgins has previously praised the contribution that Francis has made to the debate on these issues.

It will be the fourth meeting between Mr Higgins and Francis, following previous meetings in the Vatican in 2017 and 2021 and at the Irish presidential residence Aras an Uachtarain in Dublin in 2018.

President Higgins also met Francis at the Papal Inauguration in 2013.

At their meeting, Mr Higgins will present Francis with a sculpture entitled The Expelled by renowned Irish sculptor John Behan.

The president chose to present this piece to Francis in recognition of the pontiffs work in drawing public attention to the plight of refugees and migrants across the world.

Mr Behan is one of Irelands best-known living sculptors and has a recent focus on depictions of the experiences of refugees around the world.

Following his private audience with Francis, Mr Higgins will hold a bilateral meeting with the Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Parolin.

President Higgins will then travel to Campo Santo in the Teutonic Pontifical College, where he will lay a wreath in honour of the late Monsignor Hugh OFlaherty, whose work during the Nazi occupation of Rome during the Second World War saved the lives of thousands of people.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Monsignor OFlaherty.

President Higgins will also view the exhibition Ireland and the Birth of Europe at the Irish Pontifical College in Rome. The exhibition tells the story of the role played by Irish scholars and missionaries, including Saint Columbanus and his followers, in the shaping of a shared European identity.

The events coincide with the presidents participation in the World Food Forum.
A business owner in Midleton, Co Cork, has described how water in his shop was up to his knees in just 15 minutes due to flooding from Storm Babet.

Firat Freddie Uygun is the owner of the Fresh n Freddie barbershop on Main Street in the Irish town which was severely damaged by floods.

Counties Cork and Waterford on the southern coast of the island were worst hit, with some areas still under water on Thursday morning.

The army and civil defence units supported evacuation measures in Midleton, as more than a months worth of rain fell in the space of 24 hours.

Mr Uygun said the intense rain caused his premises to flood extremely quickly.

Yesterday it was raining all day and then I was just walking around the town and I saw the autopark got flooded and I was running to let the people know, like my friends car was in that, in the autopark, and we were saving up the cars, he said.

When I came back to my shop I saw the water was rising up in the back of the shop and then straight away I went to call up to get some sandbags.

When I went back literally 20 to 15 minutes, everything happened in 15 minutes, when I went back the water was up to my knees, all of a sudden and then I saw the flooring was floating on the water.

As of Thursday morning a number of homes and business were still without electricity.

Mr Uygun said he hoped to be operational again by the weekend but that extended work would be needed to repair the flood damage.

A couple of the lads are helping me just to get rid of the flooring first, he said.

We put all the debris here on the footpath, we are waiting on the council to send the skips, which they will send eventually, hopefully.

We will just get rid of the debris and clean the shop and plan to get back in business on Saturday.

Because this part is grand I can still work, because its just a barbershop for the chairs, and keep going as long as I have electricity, which I dont at the moment.

And then by the coming weeks I will try to get the shop fixed slowly and then everything will be grand, hopefully.

Mr Uygun said his business insurance did not cover flooding for his area.

They said that we did not cover for the Midleton area. I said whats the point of paying it then, he said.

Like I have public liability insurance, tradesman insurance, I have all add-ons but it still does not cover flooding. Which is ridiculous.

Irish premier Leo Varadkar said the government will provide support through humanitarian schemes to help those impacted by flooding.

Mr Uygun said the government should arrange grants for business owners to help with the costs of damage from the storm.

They set an orange warning days before they knew it was going to happen eventually, but they did not do anything, he said.

Drains were full of mud, drains did not do their job as they should have done.
[October 19, 2023] Commonwealth Announces Future Plans to Fuel Advisor Growth in Areas of High Net Worth and M&A Tweet

Commonwealth Financial Network, a national firm dedicated to providing financial advisors with holistic, integrated business solutions, announced at its National Conference that the firm will release several product and service enhancements from now through 2024 in areas that include high net worth, mergers and acquisitions, and equity funding to support the growth and evolution of its affiliated advisors. Commonwealth leadership outlined plans during the general session of its conference held from October 11 to 14 in Aurora, Colorado. The enhancements will build out already comprehensive product portfolios in Wealth Management and Business Solutions. "We are committed to being an indispensable partner for every advisor who chooses Commonwealth no matter where they are in their journey. We listen carefully, react thoughtfully, and plan intentionally to deliver the right products with the right services at the right time," said Wayne Bloom, Commonwealth's CEO. Supporting advisors through the lifecycle of their business needs is at the core of expanding the firm's Business Solutions offerings. Advisors in the grow stage need next-gen talent and practices to acquire while those in the succession planning stage seek someone to accept a warm client handoff. Next-gen advisors are looking for firms where they can develop their careers. The two new products Business Solutions will launch are: Marketplace, a program that addresses the challenge all advisors face-finding best-fit talent. The program aggregates advisors' profiles and interests into a data-driven platform using an algorithm to arrange matches. Business Solutions then offers a curated experience-making introductions, providing deal support, and financing as needed. The capability will connect Commonwealth advisors as well as those not yet affiliated with the firm as part of a new recruiting model. Entrepreneurial Capital-launched last year-is adding options to include additional forms of funding through a minority ivestment in advisor businesses. Commonwealth will provide capital in exchange for a percentage of firm earnings on an active or passive basis.



Client demand for specialized solutions that serve unique needs are driving the next phase of Wealth Management. In this competitive environment, advisors must be creative and innovative to attract, retain, and grow client assets. Two new services Wealth Management will deliver are geared toward meeting those evolving needs:

Private Client's suite of new enhancements intends to help advisors address the complexity of high-net-worth investors. Resources will include lending solutions, legacy planning, tax management strategies, and concierge services such as bookkeeping, performance aggregation, cybersecurity, and health care. Strategic Retirement Solutions will provide additional support in 2024 so advisors can capitalize on continued growth in the defined contribution space. A bundled 401(k) solution intended to serve small and mid-sized businesses will be powered by our PlanAssist team, which takes on fiduciary services, including selecting and monitoring the plan lineup and quarterly reporting. "We want to position our advisors to succeed, and we know they rely on our talent, resources, and services to achieve the efficiency and growth acceleration that defines their success," said Karen McColl, senior vice president, wealth management. "We must constantly advance our wealth management services so we can give our advisors not only what they want, but what they need so they can deliver for their clients." About Commonwealth Financial Network Commonwealth Financial Network, Member FINRA/SIPC, a Registered Investment Adviser, provides financial advisors with holistic, integrated solutions that support business evolution, growth acceleration, and operational efficiency. J.D. Power ranks Commonwealth "#1 in Independent Advisor Satisfaction Among Financial Investment Firms, 10 Times in a Row." Privately held since 1979, the firm has headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts, and San Diego, California. Learn more about how Commonwealth partners with more than 2,100 independent financial advisors overseeing more than $242.9 billion* in assets nationwide by visiting www.commonwealth.com. Commonwealth received the highest score among independent advisors in the J.D. Power 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2018?2023 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Studies. Presented on July 5, 2023, for December 2022 to April 2023, it is based on responses from 4,183 advisors employed by or affiliated with the firms included in the study. Not indicative of the firm's future performance. Your experience may vary. Study is independently conducted, and the participating firms do not pay to participate. Use of study results in promotional materials is subject to a license fee. Visit jdpower.com/awards for more details. * As of 12/31/2022 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019961981/en/

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Chinese Vice President Han Zheng meets with representatives of the advisory board of the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Han Zheng met with representatives of the advisory board of the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing on Thursday.

Han expressed appreciation for the advisors' longstanding care and efforts in supporting China's economic and educational development.

He said that while facing global challenges, all parties need to strengthen exchanges, enhance understanding, and build greater consensus, calling on the advisors to actively play their roles in promoting cooperation between China and the world in various areas and offer advice for Chinese modernization.

The advisors, led by Apple CEO Tim Cook, spoke highly of the Chinese government's commitment to reform and opening up and expressed willingness to enhance communication with China, increase investment in China and cooperation in areas including science, technology and new energy, carry out more academic exchanges, and contribute to Chinese modernization. 

Chinese Vice President Han Zheng meets with representatives of the advisory board of the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)
[October 18, 2023] SAAS NORTH Returns to Ottawa November 15-16, 2023 Tweet

Canada's largest in-person gathering of Software as a Service startups and scaleups, SAAS NORTH is back in Ottawa at the Shaw Centre from November 15-16, 2023. The conference, which is presented by National Bank, produced by Cube Business Media Inc. and Co-founded with Kanata-based L-Spark accelerator, is expecting over 2,000 attendees and 800+ companies at the two-day event. This year for the first time, the conference is preceded by WEB3 NORTH: Bridging Web Past to Web Future: Canada's Web 3 Revolution a half day conference November 14 for Web3 entrepreneurs, VCs, investors, ecosystem players, policy makers and regulators. WEB3 NORTH and SAAS NORTH attendees can expect to experience Canada's fastest growing SaaS companies gathering, networking and growing together. Last year, almost 1800 attendees joined the conference to experience the BetaKit Keynote Stage and hundreds of investor meetings. This year, the organizers are expecting an even greater turnout. "SAAS NORTH 2023 atendees will be able to learn from founders who have been through different policy and economic climates and who found success on the other side. This kind of knowledge transfer, from founder to founder, is what the event is all about," said David Tyldesley, Co-Founder of SAAS NORTH and Cube Business Media Inc.



The full program for the conference has been released and features leaders from prominent Canadian scale-ups who will be presenting this year, including FLO, Jane App, Certn and Unbounce. To see the full program click here. The two-day conference, which is known for its scale and founder-heavy audience, will showcase exciting presentations and interactive opportunities that foster participation. This year's exciting features will include:

The Firehood Angel Camp: Savvy angel investors from The Firehood, a movement that focuses on opportunities for women in the tech industry will be onsite at this year's conference. Each of The Firehood's attending angels have pre-committed capital to be deployed at SAAS NORTH. All woman entrepreneurs registered are welcome to pitch the angels at the conference's Firehood Angel Camp, in partnership with MaRS.

Saas North Pitchfest: The 7th Annual Saas North Pitchfest is an opportunity to pitch live at SAAS NORTH in front of our audience! A winner from day one and two will be selected, culminating in an exciting grand-finale at the end of Day 2. The two winners will compete head-to-head in a dramatic winner-takes-all rapid pitch-off!

MARS Capital Corner: An intimate experience for founders to connect directly 1:1 with investors with investor matchmaking and networking opportunities tailored to each specific founder. To purchase tickets: https://saasnorth.com/register-2023/ About SAAS NORTH

SAAS NORTH is Canada's largest, in-person B2B event where Canada's fastest growing Software as a Service (SaaS) companies come to learn, network and grow. The conference was founded in 2016 by Cube Business Media Inc. and LSpark Corporation. Thousands in the SaaS ecosystem gather under one roof, allowing the entire Canadian market to cross-pollinate over the course of the two-day event, which takes place annually in Ottawa. To apply for a media pass, please click here. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018410587/en/

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[October 18, 2023] Apex IT Wins 2023 Oracle North America Cloud/Technology Partner Award for Innovation Tweet

Apex IT, a member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), is proud to announce that it has been honored with the 2023 Oracle North America Cloud/Technology Partner Award for Innovation. This recognition underscores Apex IT's commitment to helping organizations expedite significant improvements and achieve enhanced business outcomes through Oracle solutions. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018875539/en/ (Graphic: Business Wire) The 2023 Oracle Partner Awards celebrate partners who have shown exceptional innovation, entrepreneurial success, and dedication to customers across the Oracle partner ecosystem of systems integrators, technology providers, and cloud/managed service providers worldwide. Apex IT's collaboration with Oracle has been a driving force behind its ability to assist organizations in achieving tangible business results. With a proven track record of delivering successful outcomes for clients spanning corporate, public sector, and higher education sectors in the United States, India, Asia Pacific, and Europe, Apex IT provides broad support in enhancing efficiency, productivity, and profitability. Apex IT's winning submission outlined the work from its collaboration with a State government to consolidate and modernize statewide programs with Oracle Cloud applications. These efforts are enabling the state to consolidate systems and be more efficient in providinglow-income residents with energy assistance benefits such as providing ~18,000 residents annually funding to make their homes more energy efficient.



Chris Rapp, CEO of Apex IT, stated, "We are truly honored to receive the 2023 Oracle North America Cloud/Technology Partner Award for Innovation. This recognition is a testament to our pursuit of excellence and our dedication to helping organizations leverage Oracle's cutting-edge solutions to achieve their goals. At Apex IT, we believe in driving real, measurable results for our clients, and this award reaffirms our commitment to that mission." Dale Weideling, Group Vice President, North America Alliances and Channels, Oracle, stated, "Apex IT has been a long-time valued partner in the Oracle ecosystem who has continually brought innovation and success to many of Oracle's customers across a diverse set of Oracle technologies and applications. This is the 6th time Apex IT has been recognized by Oracle at a national or global level and we congratulate them on their success."

Apex IT's services encompass a wide range of client needs, including consulting, solution implementation, and ongoing guidance for sustained growth. Whether it's optimizing business processes, harnessing the power of Oracle Cloud technologies, or providing consistent support and maintenance, Apex IT is dedicated to empowering its clients to thrive in today's competitive landscape. About APEX IT Apex IT provides comprehensive support to corporate, public sector, and higher education clients as they strive to enhance their efficiency, productivity, and profitability. With a track record of successfully assisting clients worldwide, including in the United States, India, Asia Pacific, and Europe, our services encompass a wide range of needs, from strategic consulting and implementation to ongoing guidance for sustained growth. About Oracle PartnerNetwork Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) is Oracle's partner program designed to enable partners to accelerate the transition to cloud and drive superior customer business outcomes. The OPN program allows partners to engage with Oracle through track(s) aligned to how they go to market: Cloud Build for partners that provide products or services built on or integrated with Oracle Cloud; Cloud Sell for partners that resell Oracle Cloud technology; Cloud Service for partners that implement, deploy and manage Oracle Cloud Services; and License & Hardware for partners that build, service or sell Oracle software licenses or hardware products. Customers can expedite their business objectives with OPN partners who have achieved Expertise in a product family or cloud service. To learn more visit: http://www.oracle.com/partnernetwork Trademark Oracle, Java, MySQL and NetSuite are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. NetSuite was the first cloud company-ushering in the new era of cloud computing. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018875539/en/

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[October 18, 2023] Stakeholders Reach Agreements and Deliverables Towards the 10th World Water Forum 2024 Tweet

BALI, Indonesia, Oct. 18, 2023 /CNW/ -- The 2nd Stakeholders Consultation Meeting (SCM) of the 10th World Water Forum was successfully held in Bali, Indonesia on 1213 October 2023. Agreements and proposals were produced and will be finalized at the 10th World Water Forum in 2024. The meeting has brought 1,094 stakeholders from 73 countries consisting of heads of state, central government, local authorities, parliament, organizations and communities. During two days of the 2nd SCM, stakeholders developed the concept and scoped down Sub-themes, Topics, Regional Priorities of the Thematic and Regional Process. The Political Process has allowed the engagement of leaders at various levels of decision-makers from Head of States, Ministerial, Parliamentarians, Basin Authorities, to Local Authorities. Each coordinating organization for the Political process shared respective expected outcomes and tentative roadmap. In addition, cooperation agreements with regional stakeholders (Mediterraean Water Institute, Asia-Pacific Water Forum, Asia Water Council, African Minister's Council on Water) were also successfully signed, manifesting a strong commitment to embrace the regional dimensions and recognizing the different challenges and solutions in water management across the Mediterranean, Asia Pacific, Africa, and America.



The Vice President of the World Water Council (WWC) Eric Tardieu said that new subjects take more importance during the two-days discussions including the climate, water, energy, food, ecosystems and health nexus, nature-based solutions and green infrastructures, water security, ecological integrity and circular water. "We also acknowledge the need for a more holistic integration of issues and solutions such as financing for water infrastructures, water resilience and water security, justice and social inclusion in water management, stakeholder involvement and public participation in planning and also the importance of data to support evidence-based water policies and to raise awareness of the public at large," he added.

Chair Secretariat of the National Organizing Committee of the 10th World Water Forum Mohammad Zainal Fatah added, participants elaborated the issues and challenges in the framework of six thematic processes including Water Security and Prosperity, Water for Humans and Nature, Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, Governance, Cooperation, and Hydro-diplomacy, Sustainable Water Finance, and Knowledge and Innovation. "We are looking forward to a continued collaboration to ensure that the 10th World Water Forum in 2024 will produce stronger deliverables and secure political commitments for sustainable water management," he concluded. Contact Person: Secretariat of the 10th World Water Forum [email protected] Documentation: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c9sGdh8PLuI-ao9HwbZIQxTIRogg0y_H?usp=sharing View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stakeholders-reach-agreements-and-deliverables-towards-the-10th-world-water-forum-2024-301961407.html SOURCE Secretariat of the 10th World Water Forum

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[October 18, 2023] Actify to Host Program Launch Panel at MEMA Vehicle Supplier Conference Tweet

Actify, the leading provider of visualization and program management solutions for the automotive supply chain, today announced their panel session at the MEMA Annual Vehicle Supplier Conference, "Accelerating Launch Processes Out of the ICE Age." The panel will feature executives from Plante Moran, Modineer and Actify, and will be moderated by Jason Stein, host of the Cars & Culture and MEMA Automotive Insiders Podcast. "OEMs are not simply building different vehicles, they are building vehicles differently," said David Opsahl, CEO at Actify and panel participant. "The introduction of skateboard platforms and simplification initiatives are disrupting the parameters for supplier success. Fewer platforms enable rapid model development and replacement which means the whole industry must adapt to a radically faster tempo. It's a reality that forces suppliers to confront launch processes that are fragmented, outdated, and unable to respond, and we at Actify are committed to helping suppliers simplify their launch process to enable faster, more efficient execution." Actify's session, "Accelerating Launch Processes Out of the ICE Age," will feature thought leaders: Mark Barrott, principal, Plante Moran

Mike Lewandowski, VP IT, Modineer Company

David Opsahl, CEO, Actify; and moderator

Jason Stein, host, Cars & Culture on Sirius XM and MEMA Automotive Insiders



The panel will take place on November 7th at 8am at the Suburban Collection Showplace | 46100 Grand River Ave. Novi, MI 48374. To register for the conference, visit https://www.mema.org/vsc

To learn more about Actify Automotive Program Management solutions, visit https://actify.com/solutions/automotive-program-management/. About Actify Actify is the leading provider of program management and visualization solutions for the automotive supply chain. Our cloud based Actify APM suite enables business and IT leaders to transition from fragmented legacy program launch systems and processes to a single, integrated environment that is secure, adaptable, and easy to adopt. Actify visualization products deliver everyday productivity to more than 2,000 organizations, 85% of whom are involved in automotive production. Actify is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan with sales and support in 45 countries through its offices in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, and a global network of partners. For more information, please visit www.actify.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018739692/en/

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[October 19, 2023]

TZR Investment Reports Unprecedented Surge in Retail Investors Accessing Secondary Market Investments

SINGAPORE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- TZR Investment Holdings PTE LTD, a pioneer in the financial industry, is excited to announce an exceptional growth trend in retail investors seeking to access secondary market investments. This surge signifies a momentous shift in the investment landscape, highlighting the rising enthusiasm and active participation of individual investors in traditionally institutional-dominated markets.

Key Highlights:

Retail Investor Engagement: TZR Investment has observed a substantial surge in retail investors diversifying their portfolios with secondary market investments, including private equity, venture capital, and real estate.

Education and Support: TZR Investment has been pivotal in this growth trend, providing invaluable educational resources, webinars, and expert insights to empower retail investors with the knowledge needed for informed decisions in the secondary market.

Diverse Opportunities: Expanding its secondary market offerings, TR Investment now provides access to a wide range of investment opportunities that were once the domain of institutional investors.







Performance and Returns: Retail investors have reaped attractive returns from secondary market investments, thanks to TZR Investment's rigorous due diligence and investment selection processes.

Thomas Knight, Head of Institutional Trading at TZR Investment, commented, "We are thrilled to witness retail investors' increasing interest in secondary market investments. This trend reflects a broader transformation in the investment landscape, and we are committed to supporting our clients as they explore these opportunities."

About TZR Investment: TZR Investment is a leading Singapore-based investment advisory firm, asset manager, and private capital investment company. Since its establishment in 2012, TZR Investment has been at the forefront of connecting accredited investors with esteemed fund managers through innovative investment solutions and state-of-the-art fund management platforms. For more information, please visit www.tzr-investment.com

For media inquiries, please contact: Sarah Tan [email protected]

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/tzr-investment-reports-unprecedented-surge-in-retail-investors-accessing-secondary-market-investments-301961558.html

SOURCE TZR Investment
[October 19, 2023] Dynamo Marks Full Year of Expanded EMEA Presence With Exhibit at "SuperReturn Middle East 2023" in Dubai Tweet

Dynamo Executives Connect with EMEA Firms to Grow Knowledge Base, Iterate End-to-End Cloud Platform for the Alternatives Ecosystem BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Executives with alternative investment FinTech Dynamo Software will cap off the firm's first year of expanded services to the EMEA region with an exhibit at the SuperReturn Middle East 2023 Conference in Dubai. Scheduled for Oct. 30  Nov. 1, 2023, the annual private capital conference offers 400+ attendees an opportunity to connect with thought leaders in technology, venture capital, value creation, and sustainability. Existing clients and partners, as well as General Partners (GPs) and Limited Partners (LPs) looking to explore trends in fintech stacks, data analytics, and automation solutions, are encouraged to stop by the company's booth in Stand 2, situated immediately across the hall from the registration desk. Discounted SuperReturn passes are available by using Dynamo's VIP code: FKR2687DC. According to CEO Hank Boughner, the conference is a must-attend for growth-oriented firms. "SuperReturn is the Grand Central Station of the private capital marketplace," said Boughner. "Regardless of the different routes, reroutes, and detours firms take throughout the year, everyone is eager to regroup at the hub of SuperReturn. It's a proven space to level-set before embarking on the next big, and inevitably complex, journey in private capital." In addition to demonstrating emerging solutions to tech-based challenges, Dynamo executives will be prepared to share with attendees insights from the FinTech's series of Frontline Insight Reports. The most recent of these first-party research reports analyzes LP and asset allocator trends, challenges, and plans for the next 12 months.



Demand for Dynamo's end-to-end cloud-based platform has accelerated exponentially and especially in the EMEA region, which continues to see increasing alternative investment activity. As a result, says Boughner, the firm is growing substantially globally and is accelerating its product roadmap to meet the changing needs of increasingly data-driven operations. "Connecting with our clients at events like SuperReturn empowers our development teams to look ahead, anticipating what LPs and GPs are most likely to need in terms of data and automation going forward," said Boughner. "LPs are turning to alternatives for diversification and higher returns; GPs are setting up funds to meet this demand. Both need transparency and fast decision making to achieve their aims, and data is the fuel that drives those engines. The Dynamo platform just keeps getting better at delivering a performance edge fueled by rich, actionable business intelligence, and a lot of that is due to the collaborative relationships we have with our clients."

About Dynamo Software, Inc.

Dynamo gives alternatives investors a Performance Edge, empowering them to efficiently scale their firm to capitalize on the growing wave of private market opportunities. With the Dynamo Alternative Investment Platform, Limited and General Partners can now run a tightly integrated firm, putting all their data to work to accelerate operations across front, middle, and back office, unleashing teams to work smarter, and allowing leaders to make better investment decisions and scale their firm. Dynamo has a global footprint with operations across North America, EMEA, APAC, and UAE. For more information, please visit DynamoSoftware.com. Related Links: Dynamo Website

Dynamo at SuperReturn Middle East 2023

Dynamo Alternative Investments Channel Nicole Selinger

Senior PR and Media Partner

KMPR

314-805-2165

[email protected] "This release was issued through WebWire. For more information, visit http://www.webwire.com." View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dynamo-marks-full-year-of-expanded-emea-presence-with-exhibit-at-superreturn-middle-east-2023-in-dubai-301960878.html SOURCE Dynamo Software, Inc.

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[October 19, 2023] Photo exhibition in Jakarta highlights Asia's transformation Tweet

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A photo exhibition in Jakarta captures people's daily lives and profound changes across Asia in the past three years, telling stories about resilience, adaptability and indomitability that shape the vibrant continent. Jointly curated by China Daily and Asia News Network (ANN), a regional news coalition of 22 media organizations, a photo exhibition themed "Changing Asia  Working Together for a Shared Future" kicked off Wednesday at a stylish shopping mall in the southern part of Indonesia's capital city. The five-day event, which runs through Oct 22, features 111 photos selected out of more than 1,200 submissions in a pan-Asia open call that has attracted photographers from 36 countries and regions. The batch of photos chronicled a variety of meaningful scenes, from significant occasions to ordinary life moments, offering viewers a more tangible perspective on Asia's transformation. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the exibition on Wednesday, Zhou Li, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily Asia Pacific, said "Changing Asia" provides a stage that illuminates the exceptional photographers from all corners of Asia, applauding their skills and the narratives they weave through their lenses.



"This is not merely an exhibition, but a testament to the expanding reach and influence of our initiative. It is a visual narrative of our shared journey, emphasizing the fortitude and adaptability of our people amidst global adversities," Zhou added. When commenting on the event, CEO of Indonesian media Kumparan Hugo Diba said he believed that photography is still very important nowadays as it can capture the right moment and tell the complex of stories. "The exhibition promotes the power of photography and tells the story of the changing Asia, the diversity of the culture, the society," Diba said, "That's why the event is very special and good."

The photo exhibition has drawn huge attention from local residents. A photo capturing a dying bird in a lake impressed Sutadi Ng the most. "The photo is creating awareness in the community that we need to co-exist with animals. It's more like giving us an insight. Because without this photo, we don't know what is going on in the world, to the animals. Because animals cannot speak," the company manager said. Contact:

Mindy Yeung

[email protected] View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/photo-exhibition-in-jakarta-highlights-asias-transformation-301961667.html SOURCE China Daily Hong Kong

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[October 19, 2023] Egyptian Ambassador to China: BRI offers vision for the development of all countries Tweet

BEIJING, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from China.org.cn: Ten years after the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the strategic partnership between China and Egypt has flourished, yielding substantial results in practical cooperation. Assem Hanafi, the Egyptian Ambassador to China, stated, "The Belt and Road Initiative is of great significance, offering a vision for the development of not just China, but also other countries in the 21st century." Discussing the importance of the BRI to Egypt, Ambassador Hanafi remarked, "Egypt was among the countries that actively engaged in this initiative from the outset. Within this framework, Egypt has initiated numerous major projects." Major undertakings in Egypt, among them, the Suez Canal Economic Zone (TEDA Cooperation Zone), the Central Business District development in the suburbs of Cairo, the large construction project in the Mediterranean coastal city of El-Alamein, the light rail system linking Cairo and its outskirts, and the green transition and renewable energy initiatives under the sustainable development framework, have been well-received by the Egyptian populace. Ambassador Hanafi epressed appreciation for Chinese companies operating in Egypt and urged more of them to invest and start business there. "Egypt's strategic location, proximate to African, Arab, and European markets, offers a distinct advantage for Chinese investors and businesses. They can tap into the expansive Egyptian market and also leverage it as a gateway to the other markets I've mentioned."



Discussing cultural and tourism exchanges between the two countries, Ambassador Hanafi observed, "I am delighted to see an increasing number of Chinese tourists visiting Egypt and returning with fond memories. He recommended attractions such as the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, and Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada along the Red Sea coast, among others. He added, "There are now many direct flights between China and Egypt, greatly facilitating cultural and tourism exchanges between the two countries." Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1956, the relationship between China and Egypt has consistently deepened and solidified, reaching the best ever level by the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2014. Ambassador Hanafi expressed his commitment, along with his entire embassy staff, to further promote Sino-Egyptian relations and friendship.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of launch of the Belt and Road Initiative. Over the past decade, the initiative has become a significant platform for international cooperation. The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held in Beijing on October 17-18, with representatives from over 150 countries and 30-plus international organizations in attendance. Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjD0exEbJpk&t=3s View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/egyptian-ambassador-to-china-bri-offers-vision-for-the-development-of-all-countries-301961813.html

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[October 19, 2023] Zuora Partners with Sovos to Help Global Businesses Meet E-Invoicing Mandates Tweet

Zuora, Inc. (NYSE: ZUO), a leading monetization suite for modern businesses, today at Subscribed Connect Paris announced a partnership with Sovos, a global compliance technology solutions and services provider, to help global businesses meet electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) mandates directly through Zuora. As tax reform becomes more extensive around the world, numerous countries have adopted or are planning adoption of global e-invoicing mandates. But companies often struggle to comply with fast-approaching standards, as requirements vary by country and mandate timelines differ. Those that fail to meet government requirements can face regulatory fees and consequences, including potential lost revenue if they lose approval or licensure to conduct business in certain regions. Without the right solution, e-invoicing compliance often makes the invoicing process manual, and building custom connections to e-invoicing networks requires substantial IT resources and infrastructure. In partnership with Sovos, Zuora now provides a pre-integrated, automated e-invoicing solution that works directly with its recurring billing. As part of this partnership, Zuora also joins the Sovos Certified Compliance Program, an innovative program that enables transaction management platforms providers to leverage Sovos' industry-leading e-invoicing compliance portfolio through certified integrations to solve critical customer compliance requirements wherever they are. "By streamlining the process to meet e-invoicing mandates, Zuora's partnership with Sovos will enable companies to focus on global expansion and driving recurring growth," said Balaji Subramanian, Vice President, Global Partner Ecosystem at Zuora. "Now with Zuora, modern businesses can leverage critical data already available in their modern billing system to reduce complexity and meet e-invoicing mandates with one solution." The new partnership with Sovos enables Zuora customers to: Leverage an out-of-the-box solution to address local e-invoicing regulations

Meet compliance through country-specific templates, tax management reports and e-invoice archiving capabilities

Simplify operations by automatically passing billing information from Zuora to Sovos to generate e-invoices

Easily expand into new markets with a pre-integrated e-invoicing solution, and leverage Zuora's existing 40+ pre-integrated payment gateways and multi-currency support "As a strategic Sovos Certified Compliance Program partner, Zuora is the first in the transaction management category to provide its customers wth access to a global, 360 compliance solution," said Alice Katwan, President of Revenue at Sovos. "With the compliance capabilities and coverage provided through our partnership, Zuora's customers are set to meet today's international tax requirements, as well any changing regulations in the future."



In addition to the Sovos partnership, Zuora also provides out-of-the-box PEPPOL data export, which can be used to submit e-invoices through a Zuora workflow to the PEPPOL e-invoicing network. To learn more about e-invoicing through Zuora and Sovos, please visit here.

About Sovos Sovos provides businesses with the confidence needed to navigate an increasingly regulated world. Offering a modern, IT driven response to compliance, Sovos' solutions are scalable, reliable and secure and provide a great user experience. Sovos has more than 100,000 customers, including half the Fortune 500, as well as businesses of every size operating in more than 70 countries. The company's cloud-based solutions integrate with a wide variety of business applications and government compliance processes. Sovos has employees throughout the Americas and Europe and is owned by Hg and TA Associates. For more information visit http://www.sovos.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. About Zuora, Inc. Zuora provides a leading monetization suite for modern businesses across all industries, enabling companies to unlock and grow customer-centric business models. Zuora serves as an intelligent hub that monetizes and orchestrates the complete quote to cash and revenue recognition process at scale. Through its industry leading technology and expertise, Zuora helps more than 1,000 companies around the world, including BMC Software, Box, Caterpillar, General Motors, Penske Media Corporation, Schneider Electric, Siemens and Zoom nurture and monetize direct, digital customer relationships. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Zuora operates offices around the world in the Americas, EMEA and APAC. To learn more about the Zuora monetization suite, please visit www.zuora.com.  2023 Zuora, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Zuora, Subscribed, Subscription Economy, Powering the Subscription Economy, Subscription Economy Index, Zephr, and Subscription Experience Platform are trademarks or registered trademarks of Zuora, Inc. Third party trademarks mentioned above are owned by their respective companies. Nothing in this press release should be construed to the contrary, or as an approval, endorsement or sponsorship by any third parties of Zuora, Inc. or any aspect of this press release. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including but not limited to statements regarding the expected benefits and releases of the automated e-invoicing solution. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including but not limited to, risks detailed in the "Risk Factors" section of Zuora's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 1, 2023, as well as other documents that Zuora may file from time to time with the SEC. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based on current expectations as of the date of this press release and Zuora undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. To the extent that this press release also includes market data and certain other statistical information, that information is based on estimates, forecasts, projections, or similar methodologies, and is inherently subject to uncertainties, and actual events or circumstances may differ materially from events and circumstances reflected in this information. SOURCE: ZUORA FINANCIAL View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019735553/en/

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[October 19, 2023] IBM Canada makes uOttawa the home of its first university-based cybersecurity training hub for governments and businesses Tweet

The unique academia / industry partnership will offer immersive cybersecurity response training through highly realistic, simulated cyberattack and cyber threat simulations. OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ -- The University of Ottawa and IBM Canada (NYSE: IBM) today announced the official opening of the new uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range. IBM's first Cyber Range partnership on a Canadian university campus offers highly realistic cyber response training exercises to help businesses and government organizations across the country better prepare for and strengthen defences against real-world cyber threats, including how to plan, respond, manage, contain, and remediate cyberattacks. The Cyber Range training will also be integrated into undergraduate and graduate courses, while new microprograms and micro-credentials will be offered to private and public sector professionals, including industry certifications (e.g., NSE, IBM, CompTIA, and more). Bringing together some of the university's top experts from numerous fields  engineering, law, social sciences, and business  the uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range will allow for interdisciplinary research and collaboration. Canadian companies are paying nearly $7 million on average in data breach costs  the third highest in the world, according to IBM's 2023 Cost of a Data Breach Report. Incident response (IR) training such as that to be delivered through the uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range is one of the most effective ways to reduce breach costs. In fact, as set out in the report, globally, organizations saved $ 1.49 million on average in breach costs when they had a trained IR team and regularly tested plans. "Globally cyberattacks are on the rise. The new uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range will help the university enrich its curriculum and train cyber security experts with the skills and knowledge to debunk serious security breaches," said Jacques Fremont, President and Vice Chancellor at the University of Ottawa. "Our partnership with IBM Canada will also help fund innovative research in cyber safety, which will help keep governments, organizations and Canadians one step ahead of cyber threats." The uOttawa-IBM yber Range is the result of a multi-year partnership announced in 2021 with the goal of developing a more resilient cyber landscape for Canada. IBM pledged more than $21 million in-kind contributions to the University over five years to support the development and operation of the Cyber Range, while uOttawa committed to invest nearly $7 million over the same period.



"The uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range will deliver an extraordinary level of training and experience for Canadian business and government leaders as they face increasingly sophisticated security threats posed by cybercriminals," said Dave McCann, president of IBM Canada. "This partnership between IBM and the University of Ottawa is a momentous step forward in empowering organizations with the essential skills they need to defend and respond effectively to cyberattacks. In a digital landscape as vast as Canada, the uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range has the potential to be a game-changer, offering businesses across the country the experience, knowledge and expertise they need to protect and safeguard their operations." This is just the third IBM Cyber Range in the world, and IBM Canada's first university-based range. IBM operates two other Cyber Ranges located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Bangalore, India.

From Classrooms to Boardrooms: Building Better Cyber Preparedness Located within the uOttawa Cyber Hub at the University's STEM Complex, the state-of-the-art facility is designed to help build a strong security culture by guiding everyone from legal and risk, to the C-Suite and SOC leaders through a real-world cyber incident. The uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range provides a protected environment for organizations and governments to participate in scalable and customizable cyber response training exercises that can be tailored to specific security requirements or objectives. By stress testing response plans, participants can uncover potential gaps, and learn best practices based on real-world case studies. Examples of the types of challenges that can be delivered through the uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range include: Cyber War Game: In this hands-on scenario, participants uncover and investigate a cyberattack led by a cybercriminal organization targeting a fictitious corporation. The Cyber War Game tests the organization's incident response process, communication and problem solving by positioning technical and business teams in the middle of a realistic cybersecurity incident to see how they would work together to resolve it.

In this hands-on scenario, participants uncover and investigate a cyberattack led by a cybercriminal organization targeting a fictitious corporation. The Cyber War Game tests the organization's incident response process, communication and problem solving by positioning technical and business teams in the middle of a realistic cybersecurity incident to see how they would work together to resolve it. Business Response Challenge: This challenge gives participants the opportunity to collaboratively address and respond to a realistic data breach simulation across technical, legal, and public relations dimensions. In this challenge, IBM X-Force Cyber Range faculty members test and guide participants through a series of cyberattack scenarios, exposing gaps in response plans.

This challenge gives participants the opportunity to collaboratively address and respond to a realistic data breach simulation across technical, legal, and public relations dimensions. In this challenge, IBM X-Force Cyber Range faculty members test and guide participants through a series of cyberattack scenarios, exposing gaps in response plans. Inside the Mind of a Hacker: This exercise is designed to help participants understand the viewpoint of an attacker by providing a demonstration of the types of tools adversaries are using today and a look into the scope of current attacks. The session includes relevant insights from IBM Security threat intelligence to help participants stay informed and adaptive to the latest cyber threats. The unique academic/industry partnership between IBM and the University of Ottawa will help create the next generation of experts by engaging with youth, uniting the cyber community, and by attracting a diverse talent pool. About IBM Canada For more information about IBM Canada, visit: www.ibm.com/ca-en About the University of Ottawa Rooted in our bilingual and Francophone DNA, we are evolving at the intersection of many cultures. Located in Canada's capital, a gateway to the world, we possess a unique platform to respond with energy, creativity, and scale to the global challenges and opportunities our world offers. With an active focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion, we will thrive like never before. Already in this new millennium we have rocketed into the top 1% of the world's 20,000+ universities with our research reputation. We have doubled our enrolment with students from across Canada, as well as from 147 countries around the globe, choosing uOttawa. Our international influence is surging, with institutional partnerships in Europe, Asia and Africa multiplying rapidly  including membership in the U7 Alliance of world universities. Meanwhile our research and programs in Cybertech, health, science, social justice, sustainability, education, and entrepreneurship continue to impact communities across Canada and around the globe every single day. Our scientists and academicians are driving progress in ethical AI and technology development, in clean growth and innovation and in action- oriented research on aging, active and healthy living, lifelong learning, and well-being, to name but a few. At uOttawa we are driven by the urge to challenge the status quo, the will to make an impact, and the ambition to become a catalyst for change. Media Contacts: Lorraine Baldwin, IBM: [email protected] Isabelle Mailloux, University of Ottawa: [email protected] SOURCE IBM Canada

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BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- China welcomes the upcoming visit of California Governor Gavin Newsom and his delegation to China and hopes that the visit will achieve positive results, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Thursday.

According to a statement from Newsom's office, he will visit China next week. Mao told a daily news briefing that China hopes to promote exchanges and cooperation with California during the visit.

"We always encourage people from all walks of life in the two countries to have more frequent exchanges and support sub-national exchanges and cooperation in the economy, trade, science and technology, education, culture, and youth to bring more benefits to the two peoples and more positive energy to China-U.S. relations," Mao said. 
[October 19, 2023] $100,000 On-Chain Trading Competition: Bitget Wallet Showcases its Innovative Trading Spirit Tweet

VICTORIA, SEYCHELLES, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On October 16th, leading Web3 multi-chain wallet platform Bitget Wallet(previously known as BitKeep Wallet) unveiled its highly anticipated annual event: the NewDegen 2023 On-Chain Trading Competition. Featuring a substantial prize pool of 100,000 USDT, the event will kick off on October 19th, welcoming participants from all corners of the global Web3 community. Running from October 19th, 18:00 to November 18th, 18:00(UTC+8), users can participate in the challenge by downloading Bitget Wallet and registering on the official competition website. Participants are to note that only trades performed on Bitget Swap, the platform's integrated swap feature, will be considered for the event. The competition encompasses both individual and team events, where participants can showcase their on-chain trading prowess, team popularity, and trading volume. Aside from the prize pool, exclusive limited-time SBT medals are also up for grabs, making this a highly coveted and competitive event. Click here to register!

Calling all NewDegens: Experience the Thrill of On-Chain Trading! In this exciting on-chain event, Bitget Wallet embraces the theme of "NewDegen", paying homage to the bold traders within the DeFi realm who are eager to explore new projects and trading opportunities, often known as "Degens". Through this event, Bitget Wallet aspires to provide both DeFi newcomers and seasoned veterans with a firsthand experience of the allure of decentralized on-chain trading. While many associate cryptocurrency wallets solely with the storage and management of digital assets or as gateways to interact with Web3 applications, Bitget Wallet offers a fresh perspective by emphasizing asset trading and decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregation. The Bitget Wallet team firmly believes that the core value of the industry is concentrated in asset issuance and trading, as they stand as one of the most pressing user demands today and serve as a prime entry point for both platforms and users to capture value. As technology advances and the industry continues to mature further, DeFi trading is well-poised to emerge as the next big thing. Bitget Wallet predicts that an increasing number of users will gravitate towards DEXs and decentralized wallets, and the platform seeks to expedite this narrative shift by providing users with a comprehensive, seamless, and unparalleled trading experience. Positioned as Asia's largest and one of the world's leading all-in-one Web3 multi-chain wallets, Bitget Wallet has placed trading as its central focus following its comprehensive rebranding from BitKeep in August this year. Bitget Wallet is committed to providing the most user-friendly and comprehensive trading wallet experience through continuous innovation and optimizatio, ushering in a new era of wallet-based trading in the Web3 world.



Bitget Swap: Continuous Trading-Centric Innovation As a leading trading wallet, Bitget Wallet continually evolves and improves its Swap feature to provide users with the ultimate trading experience across various blockchains.

Bitget Swap, a core feature within Bitget Wallet, serves as a robust multi-chain DEX aggregator, supporting nearly 30 blockchains and aggregating liquidity from hundreds of leading DEXs and cross-chain bridges. It introduces groundbreaking features such as gas-free trading and automatic slippage adjustment, granting users pricing advantages and ensuring a seamless multi-chain trading experience. Intelligent market analysis further assists users in making well-informed trading decisions. Additionally, Bitget Swap offers diverse trading modes, including limit orders and contract leverage. Moreover, it also supports OTC functionality via its Quick Buy feature for users worldwide. Bitget Swap provides innovative swap features for over 12 million users globally, including: Liquidity Aggregation: Recognizing the critical importance of liquidity for any trading platform, Bitget Swap excels in aggregating liquidity from hundreds of DEXs and cross-chain bridges. Powered by efficient algorithms, Bitget Swap provides users with optimal pricing strategies and an extensive array of assets. Presently, the platform boasts support for nearly 100 Layer1 and Layer2 chains within six major ecosystems, encompassing a staggering portfolio of over 250,000 tokens. At the heart of Bitget Wallet's trading philosophy lies the belief that assets with fundamental economic value can be seamlessly exchanged, regardless of which network or blockchain layer they originate from. Candlestick Charts: Bitget Swap takes trading a step further by delivering an array of comprehensive trading information services. Users are well-equipped to make informed trading decisions with the help of detailed real-time candlestick chart displays, intelligent token rankings across different blockchain networks, and accurate market insights that automatically sift through at-risk tokens and contracts. This provides users with crucial information they need to discover valuable opportunities and trending projects in the market. Gas-Free Trading Experience: Bitget Wallet is the first wallet in the industry to deliver a gas-free trading experience, showcasing this innovative capability across nearly a dozen chains, spanning BNB Chain, Polygon, TRON, and even the Ethereum network. This feature ensures that users can promptly meet the required gas fees for their trades with unparalleled convenience. Moreover, Bitget Wallet also introduced the GASU subsidy token, an ingenious feature that automatically offsets gas fees within the app and provides users with a seamless and cost-effective trading experience. Automatic Slippage Adjustment: Pioneering the automatic slippage function, Bitget Swap takes into account both slippage and token burn rates to automatically configure the optimal slippage values for executing trades, facilitating a seamless and expedient trading experience for users. Anti-MEV: Bitget Swap features integrated Flashbots to bolster transaction privacy and security. The introduction of the "MEV-Share" protocol automates profit distribution to users, streamlining the process. Additionally, Bitget Swap also pays special attention to remain at the forefront of industry-wide innovation. While UniswapX recently unveiled an upcoming protocol focusing on aggregated DEX liquidity, gas-free trading, and anti-MEV features, it's worth noting that Bitget Swap had already introduced these capabilities well in advance, showcasing the platform's capabilities as an industrial trailblazer. Bitget Wallet ranks as the seventh most popular crypto hot wallet globally, according to CoinGecko. Data from DappRadar also consistently positions Bitget Swap among the top 10 DeFi projects in terms of trading volume and active users. Positive user feedback further underscores the popularity of Bitget Swap amongst the community.

"While Bitget Swap has established a leading position in the industry, we have no intention of letting it rest on its laurels," the Bitget Wallet team expressed. "Our path towards continuous innovation requires consistent effort in aggregating liquidity that remains isolated across various DEXs and protocols, and in so doing provide a comprehensive, user-friendly, and efficient Swap platform for all our users."

About Bitget Wallet Formerly known as BitKeep, Bitget Wallet stands as Asia's largest and a global frontrunner among all-in-one Web3 multi-chain wallets. We offer a comprehensive range of on-chain products and DeFi services to our users, including wallet functionality, Swap feature, NFT trading, DApp browsing, and more. With a 5-year legacy, Bitget Wallet has garnered acclaim from over 12 million users worldwide and has secured partnerships with prominent industry leaders including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Polygon, and others. This success stems from our commitment to consistently delivering secure and convenient products and services. In March 2023, Bitget, a leading crypto derivatives trading platform made a substantial $30 million investment in BitKeep, acquiring a controlling stake. Following this strategic move, BitKeep underwent a transformative and strategic brand evolution in August, officially rebranding itself as Bitget Wallet. For more information, visit: Website | Twitter | Telegram | Discord



Bitget PR Team media at bitget.com

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[October 19, 2023] Ardian innovates with pioneering semiconductor investment platform Tweet

Pioneering private equity investment platform dedicated to the semiconductor industry that will invest across the value chain focusing on Europe, with a unique approach combining Ardian's expertise and world-class semiconductor leaders. PARIS, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - Ardian, a world-leading private investment house, today announces that it is expanding into semiconductor investment with the launch of Ardian Semiconductor. This innovative platform will invest across the semiconductor value chain with a focus on Europe and will enable companies to grow into global leaders in their markets. Ardian innovates with pioneering semiconductor investment platform Semiconductor devices are pervasive in the world economy and are the critical enablers of the digital transformation and green transition of key sectors, such as data infrastructure, mobility, industrial and consumer. Following several decades of consistent mid to high single digit growth, industry analysts believe the semiconductor industry will continue to grow and reach $1 trillion by 2030, driven by predictable megatrends such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, electrification and automation of mobility and industry, or smart & connected devices. Europe is one of the most attractive regions to invest in the coming decade. European companies in the value chain are global leaders in semiconductors for the mobility and industrial end-markets that are experiencing rapid technological transformation and expected to grow the fastest. Europe also leads through its innovation ecosystems, IP, specialized equipment and materials companies, that underpin major megatrends such as the artificial intelligence revolution. Europe leverages strong foundations and attractive government incentives, including the 43 billion European Chips Act, to strengthen its leadership and benefit from an increased regionalization of the global supply chain. Ardian Semiconductor aims at becoming the partner of choice of the European semiconductor value chain, bringing innovative and flexible capital solutions, as well as strategic and operational expertise, to companies with the potential to enable megatrends leveraging their distinctive technologies. Ardian is launching the Ardian Semiconductor platform through an exclusive strategic partnership with Silian Partners, a team of highly successful senior executives from the semiconductor industry with more than 115 years of combined experience in the space, bringing unique industry relationships, straegic vision, and operational focus. Ardian and Silian Partners will work as One Team, and will bring together Ardian's proven and successful private equity capabilities and investment processes with unparalleled industry leadership and expertise.



Ardian Semiconductor is managed by Ardian France. Silian Partners assists Ardian as an industry expert. Ardian Semiconductor will be powered by a detailed analysis of technology megatrends and their implications across the semiconductor value chain. The team will work together to identify attractive opportunities, carry out expert due diligence, and work closely with entrepreneurs and management teams to define strategic roadmaps and execute.

This expansion builds on Ardian's track record of investing in attractive high-growth sectors, in addition to its flagship investment activities. "Semiconductors are everywhere and enable the world's digital transformation and green transition. As demand for semiconductors is expected to more than double over the next decade, a whole supply chain needs to scale and bring continued innovation, including countless European mid-sized companies. We're assembling a unique team with tremendous experience and track-record, and I can't enjoy more than welcoming Paul, Christophe, Helmut and Thomas. It's therefore the perfect time to launch Ardian Semiconductor, leveraging Europe's leading positions in critical segments of the semiconductor value chain. Building on Ardian's proven track record as a global private investment leader, the platform will bring innovative capital solutions to this strategic value chain at a pivotal moment, working alongside world-class industry leaders."

? Thibault Basquin ? member of the executive committee, Ardian "We are delighted to partner with Ardian, who perfectly understand the unique opportunity to address a critical need of the European semiconductor value chain and become its financial sponsor of choice. Through a bespoke strategic partnership, we bring together in One Team seasoned private equity investors, proven investment processes, and successful semiconductor leaders. Ardian is the ideal firm with the right people and culture to build this first-of-its-kind investment platform together. As we initiate dialogues with companies and entrepreneurs, we have confirmation that we enable solutions for the industry that do not exist today and that our approach will create significant value across the board."

? Paul Boudre ? SENIOR Managing director & Co-Founder of Silian Partners Silian Partners is led by: Paul Boudre , Senior Managing Director & Co-Founder, who brings c.35 years of semiconductor experience. As Chief Executive Officer of Soitec from 2015 to 2022, he successfully led the company through a restructuring and positioned it as a global leader of engineered semiconductor materials. Prior to Soitec, he held senior positions in semiconductor equipment and manufacturing with KLA, STMicroelectronics, IBM Microelectronics, Motorola Semiconductor and Atmel.

, Senior Managing Director & Co-Founder, who brings c.35 years of semiconductor experience. As Chief Executive Officer of Soitec from 2015 to 2022, he successfully led the company through a restructuring and positioned it as a global leader of engineered semiconductor materials. Prior to Soitec, he held senior positions in semiconductor equipment and manufacturing with KLA, STMicroelectronics, IBM Microelectronics, Motorola Semiconductor and Atmel. Christophe Duverne , Senior Managing Director & Co-Founder, who has been a semiconductor and electronics executive for the past c.30 years. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of Linxens from 2010 to 2020, which he founded from a corporate carve-out, and led through two successful buyout transactions sponsored by CVC, Astorg and Bain Capital, to create a global leader in smart card components manufacturing. Prior to founding Linxens, he worked for over 10 years at NXP Semiconductors where he was Senior Vice President of the Identification business unit.

, Senior Managing Director & Co-Founder, who has been a semiconductor and electronics executive for the past c.30 years. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of Linxens from 2010 to 2020, which he founded from a corporate carve-out, and led through two successful buyout transactions sponsored by CVC, Astorg and Bain Capital, to create a global leader in smart card components manufacturing. Prior to founding Linxens, he worked for over 10 years at NXP Semiconductors where he was Senior Vice President of the Identification business unit. Dr Helmut Gassel , Senior Managing Director & Co-Founder, who contributes c.30 years of semiconductor industry experience. He served as a member of Infineon's Management Board as Chief Marketing Officer from 2016 to 2022 with responsibilities encompassing marketing, sales, strategy and M&A. In this capacity, he led the 9bn acquisition and integration of Cypress Semiconductor and contributed to transform Infineon into a global top 10 semiconductor company. Prior to joining Infineon in 1995 as a semiconductor design engineer, he worked in semiconductor research at Fraunhofer Institute.

, Senior Managing Director & Co-Founder, who contributes c.30 years of semiconductor industry experience. He served as a member of Infineon's Management Board as Chief Marketing Officer from 2016 to 2022 with responsibilities encompassing marketing, sales, strategy and M&A. In this capacity, he led the 9bn acquisition and integration of Cypress Semiconductor and contributed to transform Infineon into a global top 10 semiconductor company. Prior to joining Infineon in 1995 as a semiconductor design engineer, he worked in semiconductor research at Fraunhofer Institute. Thomas Pebay-Peyroula, Managing Director & Co-Founder, who brings c.15 years of investment banking experience and has advised many European semiconductor companies on strategic, M&A and financing matters. He is joining from Rothschild & Co, and started his career with Lazard. ABOUT ARDIAN Ardian is a world-leading private investment house, managing or advising $156bn of assets on behalf of more than 1,470 clients globally. Our broad expertise, spanning Private Equity, Real Assets and Credit, enables us to offer a wide range of investment opportunities and respond flexibly to our clients' differing needs. Through Ardian Customized Solutions we create bespoke portfolios that allow institutional clients to specify the precise mix of assets they require and to gain access to funds managed by leading third-party sponsors. Private Wealth Solutions offers dedicated services and access solutions for private banks, family offices and private institutional investors worldwide. Ardian's main shareholding group is its employees and we place great emphasis on developing its people and fostering a collaborative culture based on collective intelligence. Our 1,050+ employees, spread across 16 offices in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Middle East are strongly committed to the principles of Responsible Investment and are determined to make finance a force for good in society. Our goal is to deliver excellent investment performance combined with high ethical standards and social responsibility. At Ardian we invest all of ourselves in building companies that last. ardian.com SOURCE Ardian

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[October 19, 2023] Miconex Research Shows Altered Employee Rewards Landscape in Canada Tweet

Miconex, the fintech behind the Downtown Gift Card concept transforming communities across Canada, has released research showing changing expectations of rewards and incentives for Canadian employees. Miconex research conducted with over 1,000 organizations and employees in August 2023 found that 75% of Canadian employees place work-life balance/wellbeing as their main workplace concern. 81% of employees are worried about rising costs and 92% say that organizations should support their staff with the cost of living. Interest in supporting local businesses is strong with 96% of people keen to support local for Christmas 2023. Employees believe organizations should be supporting local with their rewards and incentives, with participants calling it a 'no-brainer' for organizations whose staff work and live locally which has a positive effect on the community. 77% of Canadian employees believe that workplaces should offer Christmas rewards. 83% of employees would like to receive a gift card from work at Christmas with 76% saying a gift card would boost their motivation, for 1-3 months (52%), 4-6 months (29%) or 10-12 months (19%). 28% of Canadian employees expect their workplace to spend $26 - $50 on their Christmas reward. 56% have considered leaving their current job and 92% are more likely to want to work for an organization that offers a good benefit/reward package. From an organizational perspective, 97% of organizations said their staff needs have changed post pandemic, and 71% said their main criteria when introducing a reward was that it meets staff needs. Support for local is also key with organizations. 98% say it is a factor when planning rewards and incetives. 65% say supporting local contributes to their CSR efforts, 54% report that it allows them to take an active role in community success and 40% say support for local aligns with their values.



Downtown Gift Cards are closed-loop physical gift cards branded to specific downtown areas, uniting all types and sizes of local businesses behind one gift card. Alongside consumer sales, Downtown Gift Cards are used by organizations for rewards and incentives, locking spend in locally. Colin Munro, managing director of Miconex, said: "Employee needs in Canada continue to evolve post pandemic with organizations adapting their rewards and incentives to the changing landscape, including wellbeing, cost of living and support for local. In Canada, there is an increased understanding of the role that organizations play in creating successful downtowns. Downtown Gift Cards offer organizations a means to make a tangible investment in their community whilst catering to diverse employee needs."

https://mydowntowngiftcards.com About Miconex Miconex's objective is simple: providing communities with a tangible means to retain spend in their local area, providing essential support for local businesses of all types and sizes through its Downtown Gift Cards, Town & City Gift Cards and Mi Rewards initiatives. With Miconex, local and loyal shopping becomes not only easy for customers, but desirable, contributing to the evolution of downtowns and high streets around the world. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019240974/en/

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[October 19, 2023] Tetakawi Announces Expansion to Mazatlan with Consolidated Precision Products (CPP) as Inaugural Client Tweet

Offering Strategic Connectivity and Labor Stability, Tetakawi's Latest Expansion Fosters Operational Predictability for Foreign Manufacturers, Set to Start Operations in May 2024. TUCSON, Ariz., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Tetakawi, the largest provider of services for foreign manufacturing companies in Mexico, is thrilled to announce the upcoming expansion of a new Manufacturing Community in Mazatlan. This development complements Tetakawi's existing successful communities established in Empalme, Guaymas, Hermosillo, and Saltillo. Eduardo Saavedra, Tetakawi's EVP of Business Development, explained, "The Manufacturing Community is Tetakawi's flagship concept, perfected over the course of 36 years, that integrates industrial real estate, shelter services, and modern amenities to create an environment conducive to operational success for companies and a higher standard of living for employees. Through this model, we have enabled hundreds of foreign manufacturers to expand into Mexico, adding vitality to the local economies." Consolidated Precision Products (CPP) will be the inaugural client of the Mazatlan Manufacturing Community. Their decision to expand into this community arises from the strategic advantages Mazatlan offers, such as a skilled labor force, exceptional university and educational programs, and strong transportation systems. CPP already boasts a substantial presence in Mexico, with operations in Ensenada and Guaymas. The Mazatlan Manufacturing Community will be pivotal for CPP as they look to repair, inspect, finish, and test parts that originate in their U.S. factories.



Marc Christman, President  Titanium/Structurals at CPP, remarked, "The aerospace industry is on a rapid growth trajectory, and CPP is evolving to meet the demands of our customers. The Mazatlan Manufacturing Community with Tetakawi provides an optimal environment for our expansion." Luis Felipe Seldner III, President of Tetakawi, shared his enthusiasm for the project, emphasizing its potential to impact both foreign companies operating in Mexico and the local community. He said, "We're genuinely excited about this expansion, and I want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to CPP for their trust and partnership. Their decision to become our inaugural client speaks volumes. A special thanks as well to the local and state governments for their unwavering support. Our vision at Tetakawi is to help our clients, employees, and the communities we serve to achieve their full potential. The establishment of this new Manufacturing Community in Mazatlan emphasizes our dedication to that mission."

The Mazatlan Manufacturing Community, a 98-acre development, is projected to be operational by May 2024. Its coastal position not only provides proximity to one of Mexico's major ports but also offers significant logistics and labor advantages. About Tetakawi Since 1986, Tetakawi has been a major player in facilitating companies' expansion into Mexico, becoming the country's largest provider of shelter services. Tetakawi's innovative Manufacturing Community model has empowered hundreds of companies to launch, operate, and thrive in Mexico, thereby creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. For more information about Tetakawi and the Mazatlan Manufacturing Community, please visit our website. This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tetakawi-announces-expansion-to-mazatlan-with-consolidated-precision-products-cpp-as-inaugural-client-301961498.html SOURCE Tetakawi

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[October 19, 2023] Lemongrass Qualified to Support RISE with SAP Tweet

ATLANTA, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lemongrass today announced its qualification of Service Authorization for S/4 HANA Cloud Private Edition in support of the RISE with SAP solutions. RISE with SAP brings together what businesses need to pursue their digital transformation objectives and accelerate their move to the cloud while benefiting from the ability to begin their journey from their own unique starting point.

Lemongrass, globally recognized and awarded for its expertise in SAP on Cloud, offers advanced software-driven services, emphasizing automation to cater to the needs of Enterprise clients. Together with SAP, Lemongrass is committed to serving enterprises in their transformation journeys by providing the essential software and services for enhanced speed, flexibility, and integration. We are pleased to announce that Lemongrass has officially achieved SAP RISE certification, said Michael Rosenbloom, CEO of Lemongrass. Supporting RISE with SAP empowers businesses with integrated, intelligent capabilities to accelerate digital transformation, optimize processes, and drive sustainable growth. Not only is this a significant milestone as this certification stands at the forefront of SAP's recent innovations, but our team's commitment and proficiency in SAP have allowed us to achieve this certification in record time. This authorization further cements Lemongrasss position as a global leader, and now including S/4 HANA Cloud Private Editio certification, said Joe Coyle, Chief Strategy Officer with Lemongrass. It affords us the unique advantage of leveraging specialized SAP RISE support, ensuring that we continue to deliver unparalleled value to our clients and stakeholders. We're excited to utilize this SAP RISE certification in our journey ahead.



With a unique combination of experience, expertise and best practices designed to deliver the desired outcomes from an SAP transformation, Lemongrass designs strategies and services that enable the economics, scale and agility of hyperscale computing while unlocking business innovation and controlling the risks and uncertainties. Lemongrass Cloud Platform (LCP) enables near-zero downtime migrations to Cloud and differentiated Managed Services for SAP and its related workloads. Customers of Lemongrass span multiple verticals and geographies across the Americas, APAC and EMEA and partner with SAP, AWS, Google, Microsoft and other global technology leaders. Lemongrass is a partner in the SAP PartnerEdge program. The SAP PartnerEdge program provides the enablement tools, benefits and support to facilitate building high-quality, disruptive applications focused on specific business needs  quickly and cost-effectively.

About Lemongrass Lemongrass is a software-enabled services provider, synonymous with SAP on Cloud, focused on delivering superior, highly automated Managed Services to Enterprise customers. With a unique combination of experience, expertise and best practices designed to deliver the desired outcomes from an SAP transformation, Lemongrass engineers strategies and services that enable the economics, scale and agility of hyperscale computing while unlocking business innovation and controlling the risks and uncertainties. Lemongrass Cloud Platform (LCP) enables near zero downtime migrations to Cloud and differentiated Managed Services for SAP and its related workloads. Our customers span multiple verticals and geographies across the Americas, EMEA and APAC and we partner with AWS, SAP, Microsoft, Google and other global technology leaders. SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Contact: Kevin Wolf [email protected]



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[October 19, 2023] 42% of Hospitality Workers Likely to Consider a Career Change Tweet

NEW YORK and MANCHESTER, United Kingdom, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- While job satisfaction levels in hospitality have increased significantly over the last 12 months, according to a new report from research experts CGA by NIQ and Harri, providers of the revolutionary Frontline Employee Experience platform serving more than 35,000 restaurant and hotel locations and four million hospitality employees globally, labor shortages and high turnover remain major challenges. The exclusive Getting Retention Right: Insights to Navigating Hospitality's Top Talent Challenge report reveals that operators and managers are looking at employee satisfaction with cautious optimism. Pay is up, and well-being is a growing priority; however, more than two in five (42%) of employees are still considering a career outside of hospitality. Yet, despite rising costs and staff shortages, 62% of industry leaders feel optimistic about prospects for their business over the next 12 months, and two-thirds (67%) of respondents agree with the statement that hospitality offers a good and worthwhile career. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of employees in the sector feel satisfied in their current hospitality job rolean increase of 13 percentage points since the last survey in 2022 - and over a quarter (27%) say they have actively chosen hospitality as their career path, which is four percentage points more than 12 months ago. The numbers are a welcome sign that hospitality businesses are improving their employees experiences and may also reflect widespread increases in pay in the sector over the last 12 months, but recruitment and retention remain major challenges in hospitality. Its good to see that increasing numbers of hospitality professionals feel content and motivatedbut with two in five considering a change of career path, job satisfaction in this sector remains precarious, said Tristan Spencer, Harris SVP Sales UK. Businesses know that further improvements are needed at every step of their teams journeys, from recruitment and onboarding onwards. Investment in digital engagement solutions can help employees feel more valued and better a their jobs while substantially reducing the high costs of recruitment.



Among the potential improvements for hospitality businesses in the report are: Wellbeing : A third ( 30% ) of staff say their employer supports a good work-life balance, up from 19% a year agobut more support is still needed







: A third ( ) of staff say their employer supports a good work-life balance, up from a year agobut more support is still needed Values : More than a third of employees say they look for honesty ( 41% ), equality ( 35% ), or mutual respect ( 34% ) when searching for a job, so employers who communicate positive values can get a head start in recruitment.





: More than a third of employees say they look for honesty ( ), equality ( ), or mutual respect ( ) when searching for a job, so employers who communicate positive values can get a head start in recruitment. Technology: Only a fifth (20%) of employees currently think their business technology for staff is very advanced, and there is substantial potential to make better use of online platforms in tasks like payroll, communications and shift and holiday management.

The report is available now and offers many more actionable insights into employees experience in hospitality, plus extensive breakdowns by age and place of work. It also features interviews with HR leaders across the sector on issues including recruitment, team support and the role of technology, including Artificial Intelligence. Karl Chessell, CGA by NIQs director - hospitality operators and food, EMEA, said: High staff shortages and turnover have been a huge challenge for the hospitality sector in recent years, but our research shows businesses are making good progress on their engagement strategies. Its already paying dividends in improved satisfaction, and in time should help to bring down turnover and overcome some negative stereotypes to finally earn hospitality the reputation it deserves as a great place to build a career. CGA and Harris report Getting Retention Right: Insights to Navigating Hospitalitys Top Talent Challenge is based on a survey conducted that drew responses from more than 500 current or recent employees in hospitality. The survey captured a wide range of roles from front- to back-of-house across multiple sectors, including restaurants, pubs, bars, hotels and catering. Click here to access the full report. About CGA by NIQ

CGA by NIQ provides definitive On Premise consumer intelligence that reveals new pathways to growth for the worlds most successful food and drink brands. With more than 30 years of best-in-class research, data, and analytics, CGA by NIQ provides the Full View. CGA by NIQ works with food and beverage suppliers, consumer brand owners, wholesalers, government entities, pubs, bars, and restaurants to protect and shape the future of the On Premise experience. Using the most complete and clear understanding of measurement and insights, CGA by NIQ provides a competitive edge to guide winning strategies for On Premise businesses. NIQ was founded in 1923 and is an Advent International portfolio company. For more information, visit NIQ.com or www.cgastrategy.com . About Harri

Harri is the global leader in Frontline Employee Experience technologies. The Harri platform is built for companies that have service at the heart of their business and believe that the customer experience will never exceed the employee experience. The Harri suite of talent attraction, workforce management, employee engagement, and compliance technologies enable organizations to intelligently attract, manage, engage and retain the best talent to run and improve their business. Harri serves over 35,000 restaurant and hotel locations and four million hospitality employees globally, with emerging growth in retail and healthcare. Based in New York City, the company recently completed its Series B funding of $43 million. To learn more, visit www.harri.com .

Media Contact: Jeanne Achille The Devon Group for Harri [email protected]

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[October 19, 2023] Meet Dell's newest workstation - featuring 96 cores Tweet

New Precision powers GenAI workloads with AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO ROUND ROCK, Texas, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Here at Dell Technologies, we are big believers that the workstation industry has always been fast-paced and exciting. We've had a front row seat for more than 25 years helping creators, engineers, architects, researchers and more bring their ideas to life and make an impact on the world. Workstations have played a critical role here, viewed as a necessary tool to make the impossible possible. Now the world is buzzing with AI and generative AI (GenAI), and workstations are in the spotlight in a different way. New Dell research shows that 65 to 75 percent of organizations are already reporting quantified outcomes with GenAI initiatives.1 As a result, approximately three-fourths of organizations are identifying incremental funding to support GenAI initiatives.2 This is consistent with the interest that we're seeing with workstations. Our Dell Precision workstations are no longer just tools, they're the engines of innovation. They let companies develop and fine-tune complex GenAI models locally before deploying them at scale. As the global leader in workstations,3 our Precision portfolio caters to the diverse needs of professionals. Whether running GPU- or CPU-intensive workloads, Precision means performance, reliability, scalability and innovation. That's why we're especially excited to introduce the new Precision 7875 Tower featuring AMD Ryzen Threadripper?PRO 7000 WX-Series processors. It's Dell's most scalable and powerful AMD processor-based workstation ever.4 Built for it all

Designed for engineers, architects, creatives and product designers, the Precision 7875 Tower is a multithreaded computing workstation for demanding professional applications. Users can power it all. It supports AI initiatives with massive datasets, to graphical design and virtual reality. With up to 96 cores, the Precision 7875 Tower has the most cores of any single socket Dell Precision workstation.5 The Precision 7875 Tower is a performance powerhouse. With its high CPU core count, users can scale the device to handle large changes in workloads or demands. The workstation can support a variety of AI functions, such as model training, GenAI, machine learning and more. It is also a flexible option for a variety of high-end creative applications, including rendering, film production, design analysis, simulation, architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) visualization. Customers across industries are using Precision workstations to power creative projects. Whether you're an achitect designing an apartment complex or an animator creating for the next feature film, Dell Precision workstations provide powerful and reliable options for all types of intensive workloads.



"As an AI center on the forefront of medical innovation, we understand the critical role that technology plays. It's the unseen partner in healthcare that analyzes the vast volumes of data within our technology space that will lead us to research enhancements that can ultimately enhance patient outcomes," said Dr. Hooman Rashidi, Director of PLMI's Center for AI & Data Science at Cleveland Clinic. "Dell Precision workstations provide us with the performance and reliability we need for our AI model building and tuning needs. This is a major part of the technology backbone that's required as we help advance AI within our medical research." Packed with innovation

We are always looking to evolve our workstation design to deliver more performance. The Precision 7875 Tower introduces a taller and deeper chassis than the previous generation. The purposeful build allows for more air space to cool the processor and now a sixth PCIe slot for increased expandability options. For the first time in Precision towers, the system features an integrated Wi-Fi slot, instead of taking the space of a PCIe slot. Users have more flexibility to take advantage of the machine for their specific workload needs and environments.

With a choice of professional graphics options (up to two 48GB AMD Radeon PRO W7900 or up to two 48GB NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation GPUs), up to 56TB of storage and 2TB of DDR5 memory, and support for NVIDIA AI Enterprise, the Precision 7875 Tower features top capabilities for intensive workloads. We've also incorporated advanced reliability and security to protect confidential data. The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, self-encrypting drives and lockable chassis design with intrusion detection provide the tools to keep customer projects secure. In summary

There's no better time to innovate and expand our Precision portfolio. As we learn more about the opportunities of AI and GenAI, our workstations will remain at the forefront to meet customer needs. The Dell Precision 7875 Tower will be available globally on December 5 with prices announced closer to shipping. Check out our official press kit here for more information. Follow and stay connected with us on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. _________________________________ 1 Dell Technologies Generative AI Pulse Survey, August and September 2023, www.dell.com/GenAIPulse

2 Dell Technologies Generative AI Pulse Survey, August and September 2023, www.dell.com/GenAIPulse

3 IDC Quarterly Workstation Tracker, Q2 2023.

4 Based on internal analysis, Sept 2023.

5 Based on internal analysis, Sept 2023. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/meet-dells-newest-workstation--featuring-96-cores-301961296.html SOURCE Dell Technologies

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[October 19, 2023] FOLX Health Now In-Network with Regional and National Health Plans, Ensuring LGBTQIA+ Folks Have Improved Access to Life-Saving Health Care Tweet

The Queer and Trans Healthcare Provider Offers Virtual Primary Care, Gender-Affirming Care, Therapy and Mental Health Services BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- FOLX Health, the digital healthcare service provider designed by and for the LGBTQIA+ community, today announced that it is now an in-network healthcare provider with regional and national health plans, including Blue Shield of California, offering virtual primary care, gender-affirming care, and more. By moving to a contracted model, LGBTQIA+ individuals can use their insurance benefits to access the lifesaving, affirming primary care, gender-affirming care, and mental health care they need. "Blue Shield of California is committed to ensuring all Californians have access to high-quality health care at an affordable price," said Krishna Ramachandran, Senior Vice President of Health Transformation and Provider Adoption at Blue Shield of California. "As the nation's most populous state, with over 9% of our population identifying as LGBTQ+, our membership is asking for choice in their health care, and we are excited to expand our offerings with a holistic, virtual provider option for our members with FOLX Health." Through the collaboration, insured individuals can utilize primary care, 1:1 therapy and mental health medication management with FOLX's LGBTQIA-specialized clinicians. Additionally, current FOLX members who are in network with these insurance plans, but had previously gone outside of their benefits to gain access to FOLX's affirming providers, will now be able to significantly lower their out-out-pocket expenses. "We are thrilled to be partnering with this portfolio of health plans, offering our clinical health services to those they insure," says CEO of FOLX Health, Liana Douillet Guzman. "A FOLX Health survey found that more than 50% of LGBTQIA+ people have reported discriminatin in a healthcare setting, and even more staggering than that, 15% of trans people have actually been verbally, physically, or sexually harassed or abused in a healthcare setting. By joining these networks, we're now able to reach thousands more LGBTQIA+ patients who are in need of FOLX Health services, at a much more affordable cost."



This news comes on the heels of FOLX Health's membership model relaunch , which has been updated in order to accept insurance as a part of the membership structure. The new membership changes from a lump sum subscription package to a low-cost monthly membership fee. Now  with or without insurance  members can have access to FOLX Health care and radically expanded services (gender affirming care, sexual and reproductive health care, mental health care and more) at a new, more accessible cost and can pay for just the care they need, when they need it. To learn more about FOLX Health, visit www.folxhealth.com. ABOUT FOLX HEALTH

Launched in December 2020, FOLX Health is an LGBTQIA+ healthcare service provider built to serve the community's specific needs. The company delivers a new standard of healthcare that's built to serve LGBTQIA+ people, rather than treat them as problems to be solved. FOLX Health provides end-to-end virtual primary care, HRT, PrEP, care navigation, content and community through a diverse network of queer and trans specialized providers. In January 2021, FOLX Health established the FOLX HRT Care Fund which redistributes financial resources from allies inside and outside of the LGBTQIA+ community to support trans, nonbinary, and intersex folks to access hormone replacement therapy care through FOLX.

ABOUT BLUE SHIELD OF CALIFORNIA

Blue Shield of California strives to create a healthcare system worthy of its family and friends that is sustainably affordable. Blue Shield of California is a tax paying, nonprofit, independent member of the Blue Shield Association with more than 4.8 million members, over 7,500 employees and more than $24 billion in annual revenue. Founded in 1939 in San Francisco and now headquartered in Oakland, Blue Shield of California and its affiliates provide health, dental, vision, Medicaid and Medicare healthcare service plans in California. The company has contributed more than $97 million to Blue Shield of California Foundation in the last three years to have an impact on California communities. For more news about Blue Shield of California, please visit news.blueshieldca.com. Or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/folx-health-now-in-network-with-regional-and-national-health-plans-ensuring-lgbtqia-folks-have-improved-access-to-life-saving-health-care-301961783.html SOURCE FOLX Health

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[October 19, 2023] Armanino Launches Innovative Tax Managed Services Delivering a Holistic End-to-End Tax Solution for CFOs Tweet

Armanino LLP ("Armanino"), a top 20 national accounting and consulting firm, announces the launch of its new holistic outsourced tax solution, Tax Managed Services, to address evolving tax challenges companies face in today's business landscape, such as complex tax law, evolving regulations and manual processes. Tax Managed Services combines top-of-the-line technology, tax expertise and optimized, standard processes, shifting the burden of resourcing, workflow management, investments in technology and all processes supporting the tax function. The complexities of tax management have become increasingly demanding, particularly given the ongoing labor shortage in the accounting field that's made it difficult for many mid-market businesses to find the right in-house talent to handle increasingly complex taxes. Recognizing that so many organizations face these challenges, Armanino developed its Tax Managed Services offering as a comprehensive solution that helps clients' tax departments keep up with the pace of business without adding internal headcount or costly technology upgrades. Beginning with a full roadmap and assessment, Armanino provides each client a bespoke path designed to address current tax obligations, eliminate inefficiencies and ultimately provide long-term tax guidance that removes the stress of running a full in-house tax department. "In today's intricate tax landscape, businesses are grappling with ever-growing compliance callenges, short-staffed tax departments and outdated technology, Tax Managed Services is a forward-looking approach we've developed to help clients address all of these issues under one streamlined solution," says Matt Armanino, CEO of Armanino. "Our focus is on empowering businesses to do more with less and I'm thrilled with how we'll be able to support our clients with this new approach to the traditional tax department model."



"Our corporate tax team is always focused on investing in the most impactful solutions for the marketplace, whether specialty tax solutions like SALT and R&D credits or entirely reimagining a service model that's responsive to what today's clients need," said David Greenamyre corporate tax leader and partner at Armanino. "Tax Managed Services meet clients where they are, providing full end-to-end support with an inside out approach that combines our deep expertise with an inside view of each clients' unique business needs at every step." Leading this new endeavor is Reema Naz, CPA, Armanino's newly appointed director of Tax Managed Services. Prior to joining Armanino, Naz oversaw the inception and consecutive success of Ernst & Young's Tax Managed Services in New York, where she successfully scaled the firm's solution over the past four years. Naz will oversee client integration and success which is supported by Armanino's nearly 1,000-person team of tax experts.

"Tax Managed Services from Armanino is a completely reimagined way for businesses to get tailored, holistic tax support," says Naz. "It's about empowering clients to conquer market challenges, get ahead of evolving regulations, seize opportunities, and focus on core growth initiatives. The new Tax Managed Services offering embodies this philosophy to provide clients with a strategic partnership that will position them for long-term success and help them achieve their goals. For more details on Armanino's Tax Managed Services or to set up a consultation, please visit: www.armanino.com/services/outsourcing/tax-managed-services About Armanino LLP Armanino LLP is one of the 20 largest independent accounting and business consulting firms in the nation. A certified B Corporation, Armanino provides an integrated set of audit, tax, business management, consulting and technology solutions to companies in the U.S. and globally. The firm helps clients adapt and change in every stage of business, from startup through rapid growth to the sale of a company. Armanino emphasizes smart technology, leading a cloud revolution of financial, operational, sales and compliance tools that are transforming the way companies do business. Armanino is an independent member firm of Moore North America Inc. (MNA), which is itself a regional member of Moore Global Network Limited (MGNL), one of the world's major accounting and consulting membership organizations. All the firms associated with MNA and MGNL are independent entities, owned and managed in each location. Their membership in, or association with, MNA or MGNL should not be construed as constituting or implying any partnership between them. In addition to its core consulting and accounting practices, Armanino operates its division, AMF Media Group (amfmediagroup.com), a media and communications services agency. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019611663/en/

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[October 19, 2023] Cyemptive Technologies Continues European Expansion; Names Former Hitachi Vice President and International Business Executive Jean-Luc Cervera as Business Development Senior Consultant Tweet

Cyemptive Technologies, an award-winning provider of pre-emptive cybersecurity solutions for business and government, today announced its expansion into the French, Belgian and Italian markets, including naming former Hitachi Vice President and international business executive Jean-Luc Cervera as business development senior consultant for the region. An international expert in solutions sales with more than 35 years of experience, Cervera will be responsible for assisting Cyemptive as it enters these markets. His initial focus will be on the insurance, healthcare and industrial sectors. Cervera spent nine years at Hitachi Data Systems, where he served as Vice President, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Compute Platform and Converged Solutions Sales. At Hitachi, Cervera was responsible for the EMEA sales overlay organization which focused on working with the company's existing global sales and channel organizations to bring Hitachi servers and Converged Data Center Solutions to market. He is also a founding partner of JLC Consulting, an international consulting firm specializing in helping businesses both large and small move forward to growing their businesses to the next level. He holds a Master of Science from Aix-Marseille University. "Jean-Luc Cervera's experience in winning business model strategies and complex solution sales, including enhancing performance and profitability through innovative business models, will greatly benefit Cyemptive as it scales up its operations in the European market," said ob Pike, Cyemptive's founder and CEO.



Cervera's appointment is the second major move the company has made to expand its European operations in recent weeks, and the third to expand its overall international operations. In August, the company announced its expansion into the United Kingdom and Germany with the appointment of former NETSOL Technologies board member and senior manager at KPMG Johannes Riedl as Vice President of Cyber Solutions Europe, and in September its expansion into the Middle East and the Americas with the appointment of international business executive and cybersecurity veteran Varun Vaid as Vice President of Cyber Solutions - strategic accounts. "Cyemptive is an entity that introduces innovative technologies and approaches in the field of cybersecurity," said Cervera. "The company's technology is a game changer, and it will disrupt traditional methods of protection and defense against cyberattacks."

Cyemptive has created next generation layers of cybersecurity that are essential add-ons for businesses to achieve cyber safety. When added to the customer's existing capabilities, Cyemptive's cybersecurity solutions eliminate damage from occurring even from previously unknown attack techniques. Cyemptive's pre-emptive solutions are the only ones on the market today guaranteed to protect computing environments before damage can be inflicted. About Cyemptive Technologies Headquartered in Seattle, Wash., Cyemptive has been on a mission to make large organizations cyber safe since 2014. Today, Cyemptive's award-winning software, services and support are used by businesses and government entities worldwide. It is the winner of the Department of Homeland Security's Border Security Technology Consortium (BSTC) competition for most innovative border security-related solution in the market, as well as 10 'ASTORS' Homeland Security Awards from American Security Today at the 2022 competition alone - more than any other company in the history of the awards. The company's leadership team is comprised of executives from several of the world's most powerful technology and security organizations, including the former CIO of Microsoft and the former Chief Computer Architect for the National Security Agency. More information about Cyemptive Technologies is available at www.cyemptive.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019071854/en/

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Staff members register information for visitors during the information and communications technology (ICT) job fair opening ceremony in Kampala, capital of Uganda, Oct. 17, 2023. Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has partnered with the Ugandan government to host the second job fair in the country to boost employment among the youth in the ICT sector.(Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda/Xinhua)

KAMPALA, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has partnered with the Ugandan government to host the second job fair in the country to boost employment among the youth in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who presided over the launch of the event in the capital of Kampala Tuesday, acknowledged the importance of ICT in steering the country to greater heights and expressed a welcome for the investment and technology brought by Huawei.

"I support ICT. Electronics is a huge step for the human race, but Africa must use it in the right context to build an economy that is independent, integrated, and self-sustaining," he said.

According to Minister for ICT and National Guidance Chris Baryomunsi, the two-day event, being held under the theme of "Navigating the Digital Horizon," is expected to provide thousands of jobs and internship opportunities for the youth after a successful inaugural event in August last year.

"Uganda's demographic dividend lies in its youthful population, with over 70 percent of our citizens falling within the youth category. However, we acknowledge the challenges that our youth face, particularly when it comes to unemployment," Baryomunsi said. "It is our responsibility to provide our young people with opportunities that will not only empower them but also contribute to the growth of our country."

Xie Qiuxiang, the managing director of Huawei Technologies Uganda, said various industry partners offered more than 1,000 job opportunities in various forms last year. "Huawei offered 15 internship positions, and these 15 interns have now become our full-time employees."

"This year, we will continue to offer another 15 internship opportunities. In addition, we will also provide 500 advanced ICT technologies training quotas for free for those who register with us from this job fair and beyond," Xie added.

He also said they are currently working on the 5G network, which will enable Uganda to have the fastest speed, the lowest tariff, and the best experience in communication network in East Africa.

"Over the past few years, we have cooperated with 15 universities in Uganda to set up ICT academies. Each year, we train about 50,000 Ugandans in the most advanced ICT technologies," he said.

According to Xie, the other activities being implemented by Huawei in Uganda include organizing ICT competitions where Ugandan teams compete at the global level. The company is also engaged in providing ICT training using a DigiTruck, which is currently training women and youth with ICT skills in eastern Uganda to enable them to sell agricultural products online and apply for jobs.

"I believe that ICT technologies will make a significant contribution to Uganda's economic development and people's well-being. Together, let us build an intelligent Uganda," Xie said. 

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni speaks during the information and communications technology (ICT) job fair opening ceremony in Kampala, capital of Uganda, Oct. 17, 2023. Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has partnered with the Ugandan government to host the second job fair in the country to boost employment among the youth in the ICT sector.

(Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda/Xinhua)

Minister for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and National Guidance Chris Baryomunsi speaks during the ICT job fair opening ceremony in Kampala, capital of Uganda, Oct. 17, 2023. Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has partnered with the Ugandan government to host the second job fair in the country to boost employment among the youth in the ICT sector.

(Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda/Xinhua)
[October 19, 2023] Buzzreach, as a startup, has become the first in Japan to join the U.S.-based Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance (DTRA). Tweet

Buzzreach Inc. (Headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Takateru Inokawa), a startup company, has become the first Japanese startup to join the Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance (DTRA), a Global organization dedicated to promoting decentralized clinical research. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231011227046/en/ Willingness to Participate in Clinical Trials and Clinical Trial Information Collection pattern (Graphic: Business Wire) Buzzreach is engaged in the development of a clinical trial and clinical research platform business that leverages the power of technology to address the challenges of a 10-year-long drug development process, aiming to shorten the time required for drug approvals. Additionally, they are involved in an SNS business connecting pharmaceutical companies and patients. About DTRA DTRA is an organization based in the United States that is composed of pharmaceutical companies, regulatory authorities, patient advocacy groups, clinical research organizations, and others. Its mission is to ease the global adoption of decentralized research methods. Through DTRA, stakeholders can collaborate to accelerate the adoption of patient-centric decentralized clinical trials and research in the life sciences and healthcare sectors. About Buzzreach Founded in June 2017, Buzzreach is the only vertical startup in Japan focused on solving challenges faced by pharmaceutical companies and investigative sites in the field of new drug development (clinical trials) using the power of technology. As the only vertical startup in Japan with a focus on clinical trials, Buzzreach aims to connect pharmaceutical companies, investigative sites, and patients from clinical development to the post-market phase, with the mission of "providing more options to as many patients as possible through the power of technology." Buzzreach has raised approximately 1.8 billion JPY in funding to date, winning both the Best Award and Audience Award at G startup 1st batch hosted by Globis Capital Partners, one of Japan's leading venture capital firms. The company has also received accolades such as the Excellence Award at the Japan Healthcare Business Contest (JHeC) 2023 and inclusion in the Toyo Keizai "Great Venture 100." Purpose of Joining DTRA To create an efficient and patient-friendly environment for conducting clinical trials and specific clinical research, the adoption of decentralized clinical trials (DCT) is essential. However, the adoption rate of DCT in Japan remains low. According to a survey conducted by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association of Japan in August 2022, only 11.3% of compnies had implemented decentralized clinical trials, while 52.8% responded that they had no plans to do so. There are still many challenges to overcome.



While there are numerous high-quality services for components of DCT such as eConsent, telemedicine, and decentralized modules conducted through home visits, there is currently a lack of comprehensive infrastructure to support DCT from the perspective of investigative sites and patients. Based on a joint survey conducted by Buzzreach, BetaTrip, and PM-Link on awareness of clinical trials, in the survey of "what type of clinical trials they would recommend to their families," the module-based DCT environment ranked lower, and the only environment where they could participate in trials with their primary care physicians ranked higher in terms of convenience. Additionally, in the survey of "where they would prefer to obtain information about clinical trials," obtaining information from their existing primary care physicians or healthcare institutions with whom they have a pre-existing relationship ranked as a top choice.

As a result, it is believed that establishing an environment in which satellite sites, such as patients' regular physicians, can provide information on clinical trials and even handle certain trial procedures while considering Japan's cultural context will be a key point in promoting DCT in Japan. With these considerations in mind, Buzzreach has joined DTRA to gain an understanding of the advanced DCT environment on a global scale and to contribute to the development of a DCT environment in Japan that aligns with the country's cultural nuances. Participation in DTRA's 2023 Annual Meeting Buzzreach will participate in the DTRA 2023 Annual Meeting in Boston from November 5th to 8th as the only Japanese company, where they will host a corporate seminar. Comments from Takateru Inokawa, Co-founder CEO of Buzzreach "As a specialized startup in the industry, we are honored to be the first to join DTRA. To promote the adoption of DCT in Japan, it will be crucial to determine to what extent our 'satellite sites,' which have a strong track record in patient recruitment, can be involved in essential aspects of clinical trials in the future. We will continue to make efforts to contribute to the efficient adoption and operation of DCT by stakeholders, while leveraging our expertise and incorporating the latest technology." Company Overview Company Name: Buzzreach Inc.

CEO: Takateru Inokawa

Address: 3-19-1 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0071, Japan

Founded: June 23, 2017

Capital: 890,325,015 JPY (Including capital reserve)

Website: https://www.buzzreach.co.jp/ Industry-First Platform Connecting Patients and Clinical Trial Institutions Buzzreach offers various solutions to address challenges in clinical trials through its SaaS services: puzz : A SaaS service that solves various challenges in clinical trials and clinical research. Learn more

: A SaaS service that solves various challenges in clinical trials and clinical research. Learn more Feasibility Concierge : A system for conducting feasibility assessments and selecting investigative sites. Learn more

: A system for conducting feasibility assessments and selecting investigative sites. Learn more smt : A platform for clinical trial information disclosure and management. Learn more

: A platform for clinical trial information disclosure and management. Learn more Study Works : A system for managing clinical trial operations and projects. Learn more

: A system for managing clinical trial operations and projects. Learn more Study Concierge : A clinical trial management app for patients (participants). Learn more

: A clinical trial management app for patients (participants). Learn more VOICE : An app for collecting patient-subjective information. Learn more

: An app for collecting patient-subjective information. Learn more Miilike: A patient-focused social networking service. Learn more View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231011227046/en/

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[October 19, 2023] Celebrating 20 Years of Excellence: Intelligent Office of Rockville Secures Small Business of the Year Award Tweet

In a remarkable convergence of milestones, Intelligent Office of Rockville proves the value of small business ownership and support ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Intelligent Office of Rockville , a leading small business services and support franchise under the Empower Brands umbrella, was just named "Small Business of the Year" by the Greater Rockville Chamber of Commerce ("GRCC") . This recognition coincides with the celebration of the business's 20th anniversary, marking two decades of providing innovative solutions and support for small business owners across Rockville and beyond. The founders of Intelligent Office Rockville, Leslie Malawer Keenan, her husband Chris Keenan and their business partner, Rick Lowrie, each boast impressive corporate backgrounds. However, in the early 2000s, this dynamic triolooked to take control of their own destiny and find better work-life balance through business ownership. Intelligent Office emerged as their best fit, offering a unique and unparalleled path to success.



"As entrepreneurs ourselves, we understand the village that it takes to start and run your own business," said Leslie. "We provide innovative service offerings, maintain a customer-centric approach and understand that one size does not fit all. Our staff are personable, helpful and genuinely invested in delivering positive outcomes for the businesses we partner with. Winning this award in the year of our 20th anniversary will serve as a testament to all of their hard work." Intelligent Office's unique model pioneers small business solutions, providing a versatile range of services such as flexible office spaces, meeting rooms, personalized call answering, executive assistance and business addresses. These offerings empower small business owners to streamline their operations, project professionalism and prioritize business growth.

"Using Intelligent Office ("IO") of Rockville just made sense," said long-time IO of Rockville client and president and CEO of Real Computer Solutions, Ashot "Vinni" Mirzaians. "As a business owner, the bottom line is always the key to success. I've used an IO office since 2016, and I always wondered why I didn't do it earlier when I started my business in 1996. The overall success of having a staff cater to my business needs is amazing; mail, phone and scheduling is an invaluable service that would usually take multiple staff members to hire and maintain. The IO office does an amazing job of it all and keeps my company moving along and looking good." Intelligent Office of Rockville will host an exclusive 20th Anniversary Celebration Ceremony on October 26, featuring live music, dinner and cocktails for the brand's dedicated members, family and friends to enjoy. During the event, the organization will pay special tribute to nine Intelligent Office members who've been on board since the business's first year of operation. Representatives from GRCC and the City of Rockville will also be in attendance to present Intelligent Office with a 20 Year Citation Award. In addition, the GRCC will host an official awards ceremony on November 2 at Manor Country Club, where Intelligent Office will be formally presented with the GRCC's Small Business of the Year Award. About Intelligent Office

Intelligent Office was founded over 30 years ago to pioneer a brand new industry that provides custom-tailored, proven solutions and innovations for small business owners across the United States and Canada. With 55 locations and growing, Intelligent Office has helped businesses of all sizes run more intelligently, efficiently and profitably with virtual and physical office solutions. Service offerings include phone answering and scheduling, flexible meeting and office spaces, virtual assistance and local address services. Headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia Intelligent Office services a variety of industries including skilled trades, professional services and health services. To learn more, visit intelligentoffice.com . View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/celebrating-20-years-of-excellence-intelligent-office-of-rockville-secures-small-business-of-the-year-award-301961838.html SOURCE Intelligent Office

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[October 19, 2023] Learning or teaching online? Evolve Digital can boost your motivation and English skills Tweet

SINGAPORE, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A study in Japan showed that the online English course Evolve Digital can boost participants' motivation and progress in learning English. Evolve Digital is a fully online six-level English course that gets students speaking with confidence. Find out more: https://www.cambridge.org/cambridgeenglish/catalog/adult-courses/evolve-digital The study focussed on a group of English teachers working in junior and senior high schools in Japan. It looked at the impact Evolve Digital had on their levels of English, engagement, motivation and attitudes towards learning. 'Evove Digital had a really positive overall impact on the teachers in Japan who used the course to improve their English," explained Dr Brigita Seguis, Head of Impact Evaluation at Cambridge University Press & Assessment who led the study. She continued: 'We also saw teachers make significant gains in their speaking confidence.'



Dr Seguis thought that it was encouraging to see 51% of participants jumping up a whole CEFR level as a result of taking Evolve Digital for only seven months. Dr Seguis further explained: 'The teachers were also impressed with the flexibility of the course, and the fact that they could use Evolve Digital on its own or combined with teacher-led online classes."

The participants chose one of three options for Evolve Digital which were flexible self-study with no teacher feedback, flexible self-study with teacher feedback on speaking and writing skills and flexible self-study combined with scheduled teacher led sessions. The study found positive outcomes from all of the groups in terms of skills learnt, motivation and levels of satisfaction with the course. The study was part of a wider training programme which is the result of a collaboration between Cambridge University Press & Assessment and the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The Evolve Digital course was delivered together with Global Bridge, a Tokyo based training organisation.?? Read the full impact study here View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/learning-or-teaching-online-evolve-digital-can-boost-your-motivation-and-english-skills-301962250.html SOURCE Cambridge University Press & Assessment

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[October 19, 2023] Houston-Area Massage Envy Pays $1 Million Policy Limit Settlement to Sexual Assault Victims Tweet

A Houston-area Massage Envy has agreed to pay its maximum insurance policy limit of $1 million to two women who filed a lawsuit saying they were sexually assaulted by a male massage therapist during their appointments. Blizzard Greenberg attorneys represented the women, identified as T.G and M.D., in the lawsuit against a Massage Envy franchise in Conroe. The lawsuit includes disturbing details describing the assaults against both women during their appointments. To view a copy of the lawsuit, click here. Warning: graphic details of sexual assault. Following reports of the assaults, the Conroe Police Department arrested Jose Barajas Franco and charged him with felony sexual assault He has since bonded out of jail and the criminal case is ongoing.



The lawsuit accuses Mr. Franco of grabbing T.G.'s hands and sexually assaulting her towards the end of her appointment. Terrified, she remained frozen on the massage table until the assault ended. T.G. was later diagnosed with an incurable, lifelong sexually transmitted disease (STD) as a result of the attack. The victim's report to police led to the discovery of other women who had made complaints about Mr. Franco, including M.D. She accused Mr. Franco of inappropriately touching her in multiple areas and failing to properly use draping throughout the session, making her feel vulnerable and exposed.

During his deposition in the legal case, Massage Envy franchise owner Mack Miller claimed, "male therapists have been targets of an extraordinarily disproportionate number of lawsuits" in the industry. "The franchise owner attempted to downplay the allegations, and we did not stand for it," said trial lawyer Anna Greenberg. "These women, with no knowledge of the other's allegations, separately reported the assaults by this therapist within just a few weeks of each other. That is no coincidence; that is evidence of a predator at work." The case is T.G. and M.D. v Massage Envy and Jose Barajas Franco et al., cause number 2022-59001 in Harris County District Court. About Blizzard Greenberg, PLLC Blizzard Greenberg, PLLC, is an award-winning national trial firm with more than 40 years of experience handling complex legal issues involving pharmaceutical and personal injury cases. For more information, visit www.blizzardlaw.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019300165/en/

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[October 19, 2023] BTQ Technologies Deepens Quantum Research and Product Commercialization Expertise with the Addition of Dr. Peter Rohde Tweet

VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - BTQ Technologies Inc. (the "Company" or "BTQ") (NEO: BTQ) (OTCQX: BTQQF) (FSE: NG3), a global quantum technology company focused on securing mission critical networks, proudly announces the addition of Peter Rohde, an accomplished theoretical quantum computer scientist, to its world-class technical team. Dr. Rohde, currently an Honorary Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University, and Associate Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems, is renowned for his deep understanding of optical quantum computing, quantum networking and the economics of quantum technology. Since beginning his academic career in 2007, Dr. Rohde has contributed to advancing progress in quantum-related fields, such as quantum computing, quantum optics and cryptography. Additionally, Dr. Rohde is the lead author of the book "The Quantum Internet", published by Cambridge University Press. "While quantum advantage remains a long-term target for most, its implications for information security are relevant today," said Peter Rohde. "I am excited to work for BTQ, a company that operates at the intersection of two industries where I've spent the majority of my career: quantum computing and cryptography. I am excited to work on research where outcomes have immediate relevance as we prepare ourselves for the onset of the quantum era." "Peter Rohde's expertise and deep insights into quantum computing and cryptography are invaluable assets for BTQ. His appointment underscores our commitment to leading the quantum revolution, fortifying our stronghold in quantum research and commercialization. Together, we're not just envisioning the future of quantum technology  we're actively shaping it," said Olivier Roussy Newton, CEO of BTQ. Dr. Rohde holds a PhD in theoretical physics (quantum computation and quantum information theory) and a Bachelor of Engineering (computer systems and electrical engineering) from the University of Queensland. He is joining Prof. Gavin Brennen, BTQ's Head of Quantum Research, at the company's office located at the Quantum Terminal in Sydney and will help drive research, as well as expand BTQ's technical team in Australia. Dr. Rohde is also a frequent co-host on BTQ's " The Quantum State ," a podcast exploring the latest research and innovation in quantum computing.



About BTQ BTQ was founded by a group of post-quantum cryptographers with an interest in addressing the urgent security threat posed by large-scale universal quantum computers. With the support of leading research institutes and universities, BTQ is combining software and hardware to safeguard critical networks using unique post-quantum services and solutions.

Connect with BTQ: Website | LinkedIn ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Olivier Roussy Newton

CEO, Chairman

For further information:

E: [email protected] Bill Mitoulas

Investor Relations

T: +1.416.479.9547

E: [email protected] Neither the NEO nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration requirements is available. Forward Looking Information Certain statements herein 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 the business plans of the Company, including with respect to its research partnerships, and anticipated markets in which the Company may be listing its common shares. Forward-looking statements or information often can be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "plan" or "may" and the variations of these words are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. The Company has made numerous assumptions including among other things, assumptions about general business and economic conditions, the development of post-quantum algorithms and quantum vulnerabilities, and the quantum computing industry generally. 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 forward-looking statements or information herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements and information are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks which may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, expressed or implied, by such forward-looking statements or information. These factors include risks relating to: the availability of financing for the Company; business and economic conditions in the post-quantum and encryption computing industries generally; the speculative nature of the Company's research and development programs; the supply and demand for labour and technological post-quantum and encryption technology; unanticipated events related to regulatory and licensing matters and environmental matters; changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets; changes in laws (including regulations respecting blockchains); 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 research and development activities; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/btq-technologies-deepens-quantum-research-and-product-commercialization-expertise-with-the-addition-of-dr-peter-rohde-301962322.html SOURCE BTQ Technologies Corp.

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[October 19, 2023] Viz.ai Honored by Goldman Sachs for Entrepreneurship Tweet

Today, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is recognizing Viz.ai CEO and Co-founder Chris Mansi, MD as one of the Most Exceptional Entrepreneurs of 2023 at its Builders and Innovators Summit in Healdsburg, California. Goldman Sachs selected Dr. Mansi from multiple industries to be honored at the two-day event. Dr. Chris Mansi was inspired by a patient who underwent a successful brain surgery and yet died because the surgery came too late. Frustrated by the unnecessary delays that had cost his patient her life, he committed to finding a better way. In 2016, Dr. Mansi joined forces with Dr. David Golan to co-found Viz.ai, establishing its mission to increase access to life-saving treatments using artificial intelligence. Under Chris' leadership, Viz.ai was granted the first de novo approval by the FDA for AI computer-aided triage in 2018 and again in 2023 for cardiovascular machine learning-based notification software. Today, Viz.ai is implemented in over 1,450 hospitals covering 220 million lives and collaborates with 7 of the leading, global pharmaceutical and medical device companies to help detect disease earlier and direct patients to the right specialists. "I am honored to be recognized by Goldman Sachs for entrepreneurship alongside such esteemed, visionary leaders," saidChris Mansi. "It's a testament to the dedication and hard work of the Viz.ai team, always putting patients first as we continue to innovate on the Viz.ai platform. I'm incredibly proud of the real-world impact that we have made by transforming healthcare and partnering with major pharmaceutical and medical device companies in service of better patient outcomes."



"We're delighted to recognize Chris Mansi as one of the most exceptional entrepreneurs of 2023," said David Solomon, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. "Like everyone in this year's class, Chris has been a visionary in their field, pushing forward innovation and redefining markets. We are excited to harness Goldman's convening power to bring together these dynamic leaders and hear their insights." About Viz.ai, Inc.

Viz.ai is the pioneer in the use of AI algorithms and machine learning to increase the speed of diagnosis and care, covering more than 220 million lives across 1,450+ hospitals and health systems in the U.S. and Europe. The AI-powered Viz.ai Platform is an intelligent care coordination solution that identifies more patients with a particular disease, informs critical decisions at the point of care, and optimizes care pathways and helps improve outcomes. Backed by real-world clinical evidence, the Viz.ai Platform delivers significant value to patients, providers, and pharmaceutical and medical device companies. For more information visit viz.ai. About Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs is a leading global financial institution that delivers a broad range of financial services to a large and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019884041/en/

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[October 19, 2023] Aon: Record $50bn U.S. Severe Convective Storm Losses Drive Total Natural Catastrophe Toll in 2023 Tweet

Global SCS caused 70% of insured cat loss in first nine months LONDON, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ -- Aon plc (NYSE: AON), a leading global professional services firm, today launched its Q3 Global Catastrophe Recap report, which analyses natural hazard activity worldwide in the third quarter of 2023 and for the first nine months of the year, to help clients navigate volatility, build resilience and make better decisions. The report reveals that global insured losses from natural disaster events had reached $88 billion by the end of Q3 2023  17% higher than the 21st century annual average, and driven by notable Q3 events such as U.S. and Italian severe convective storms (SCS), and the Maui wildfire  one of the deadliest and costliest wildfires in U.S. history. Year-to-date economic losses totalled $295 billion, compared to a 21st century annual average of $310 billion. The aggregated death toll from 2023 natural catastrophe events had breached 75,000 during the same period, making 2023 the deadliest year since 2010. In Q3 alone, there were at least four individual billion-dollar insured loss events for SCS in the U.S., which will likely increase to seven events due to continued loss development. For the first time, insured losses from SCS in the U.S. surpassed $50 billion and accounted for 60% of global insured losses. The peril also resonated in Europe, which endured two individual billion-dollar SCS events, including Italy recording its first billion-dollar SCS insurance loss. Other notable natural hazard events that took place during Q3 2023 included: Widespread flooding in Beijing and several Chinese provinces in early August resulted in the costliest global economic loss event of Q3.

and several Chinese provinces in early August resulted in the costliest global economic loss event of Q3. On September 8 , a magnitude-6.8 earthquake occurred in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountain range, claiming nearly 3,000 lives, injuring more than 5,600 people, and causing significant material damage across the affected area.

, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake occurred in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountain range, claiming nearly 3,000 lives, injuring more than 5,600 people, and causing significant material damage across the affected area. The destructive flash flooding in northeastern Libya in early September damaged thousands of buildings in Derna city and ranked as the second deadliest event of the year, with more than 4,300 fatalities.

in early September damaged thousands of buildings in Derna city and ranked as the second deadliest event of the year, with more than 4,300 fatalities. Hurricane losses in the U.S. were lower than average in Q3, which is considered the peak of the Pacific and Atlantic hurricane seasons. Two notable tropical systems, Hilary and Idalia, still caused significant losses that, collectively, reached into billions of USD. Michal Lorinc, head of Aon's Catastrophe Insight, said: "Global natural catastrophes kiled many people and caused significant structural and economic damage during the first nine months of 2023. Wildfire and Severe Convective Storm were once again highly prominent, and Aon's research reveals that both are becoming increasingly costly to insurers, communities and governments. In the U.S., around 80% of SCS loss growth can be explained by exposure change  highlighting the need for insurers to understand underlying exposures in their portfolios."



Aon's research about the drivers of severe convective storm (SCS) insured losses is available here. For further information on SCS, and the forthcoming Jan. 1 reinsurance renewals, please see Aon's Ultimate Guide to the Reinsurance Renewal, available at https://aon.io/3Psc8K6. For more information about Aon's Reinsurance Solutions, please visit: https://www.aon.com/home/solutions/reinsurance.html .

About Aon

Aon plc (NYSE: AON) exists to shape decisions for the better  to protect and enrich the lives of people around the world. Our colleagues provide our clients in over 120 countries and sovereignties with advice and solutions that give them the clarity and confidence to make better decisions to protect and grow their business. Follow Aon on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Stay up-to-date at the Aon Newsroom and sign-up for News Alerts here . Aon UK Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority for the provision of regulated products and services in the UK. Registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 00210725. Registered Office: The Aon Centre, The Leadenhall Building, 122 Leadenhall Street, London EC3V 4AN. Tel: 020 7623 5500. FP #13110 has been approved until 19/10/2025, after which time the content should not be used or distributed. Media Contact

Andrew Wragg

+44 (0) 7595 217168

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[October 19, 2023] Aave DAO Launches a $1M Bug Bounty with Immunefi Tweet

Singapore, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aave DAO, the governing body that oversees the Aave Protocol, a decentralized non-custodial liquidity protocol, has launched a $1 million bug bounty hosted on Immunefi, the leading web3 bug bounty and security services platform protecting over $60 billion in combined user funds across multiple networks. Immunefi has contracted with Aave Protocol creator Aave Companies, and BGD Labs, a contributor to the protocol, as technical experts to review and qualify valid bug reports. The Aave Protocol is deployed on Ethereum and six other networks, currently with $7 billion in total value locked (TVL) across its ecosystem. The protocol provides users with the ability to earn yield on their cryptocurrency holdings or to access liquidity by borrowing assets while providing collateral. Based on an initial April 2023 proposal to the DAO by Immunefi, Aave Protocol has approved the launch of the bug bounty program to reduce potential security vulnerabilities. It features a maximum payout of up to $1 million for critical severity vulnerabilities, starting from $50,000. The remaining payouts range from $10,000 to $75,000 for high-severity vulnerabilities, $10,000 for medium-severity issues, and $1,000 for low-severity ones. Aave DAO will provide rewards to Immunefi in a combination of AAVE tokens and stablecoins. We look forward to working with Immunefi, who bring a successful track record in security services, said Emilio Frangella, Vice President of Engineering at Aave Companies. The Aave DAO recognizes the importance of continuously remaining vigilant in protecting against the evolving security environment.

We believe that a bug bounty program is a crucial component of the Aave Protocol security stack because it incentivizes security researchers to help extend the DAOs efforts to safeguad the protocol, said Ernesto Boado of BGD Labs, a contributor to the Aave ecosystem. By launching the bug bounty program with Immunefi, we ensure we have the most efficient infrastructure to run our program, as proven by its successful track record.



Were excited to support the Aave community in strengthening its ecosystem security against potential vulnerabilities, said Mitchell Amador, Founder and CEO of Immunefi. Aave Protocol is one of the most successful projects in decentralized finance. Their commitment to security has been remarkable and is reflected in the trust of its users. Immunefi has facilitated the most significant bug bounties in the software industry, with over $80 million in rewards paid out. It is the largest and most widely adopted bug bounty platform in Web3, where a massive community of leading security talent review projects blockchain and smart contract code, find and responsibly disclose vulnerabilities, and get paid for making the ecosystem safer.

Aave DAO contributors BGD Labs and Aave Companies will both support Aaves bug bounty program. The terms and conditions of the bug bounty, including eligibility criteria, can be found here: https://immunefi.com/bounty/aave/

About Immunefi

Immunefi is the leading bug bounty and security services platform for web3, which features the worlds largest bounties. Immunefi guards over $60 billion in user funds across projects like Chainlink, Wormhole, MakerDAO, TheGraph, Synthetix, and others. The company has paid out the most significant bug bounties in the software industry, amounting to over $80 million, and has pioneered the scaling web3 bug bounties standard. For more information, please visit https://immunefi.com/ About Aave Protocol Aave Protocol is a decentralized non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can participate as suppliers or borrowers in a common pool. Suppliers provide liquidity to earn a passive income, while borrowers are able to borrow in an overcollateralized (perpetually) or undercollateralized (one-block liquidity) fashion. For more information about Aave Protocol, please visit https://aave.com/ .



Jonah Michaels Communications Lead Immunefi jonah-at-immunefi.com Ernesto Boado eb-at-bgdlabs.com Claudia Ceniceros claudia-at-aave.com;

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[October 19, 2023] MasterControl Celebrates North America Customers' Achievements in 2023 Tweet

SALT LAKE CITY, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MasterControl, a provider of software solutions that enable life sciences and other regulated companies to deliver life-changing products to more people sooner, today announced the winners of the North American Masters of Excellence Awards during the annual Masters Summit, held in Salt Lake City, Utah.. These awards recognize MasterControl customers who have excelled in quality and manufacturing innovation and are leaders in their respected professions. The Quality Champion is the only individual award and this year, Kate Selzman, the Director of Quality Assurance at Alcami Corporation, was honored. Selzman has supported an exceptional culture of quality in 59 departments across 10 sites at Alcami, a contract development and manufacturing organization headquartered in North Carolina. Using MasterControl, Selzman efficiently supports client audits and regulatory inspections by quickly processing and responding to requests. Her quality leadership and system implementation strategy has helped facilitate a superior record with no critical audit and inspection findings related to the compliance, validation, and use of MasterControl across the Alcami sites in more than 1900 events since MasterControl was implemented in February of 2013. MasterControl recognized QuVa Pharma for Digital Transformation in Manufacturing. QuVa Pharma is a nationl, industry-leading, FDA registered 503B outsourcing services company that provides hospitals with essential medications in ready-to-administer injectable formats that are critical for effective patient care. At their Sugar Land, Texas facility, QuVa has completely digitized quality and manufacturing with more than 450 operators using digital production records. They have completed 43,000 electronic batch records and over 1M data captures. QuVa is positioned to harness their manufacturing data for even greater transparency, efficiency, and customer-focused process improvement.



Pine Pharmaceuticals received the Excellence in Analytics award for their work to identify defects impacting product rejection at the visual inspection phase. Using MasterControl Insights, they can identify defect trends and operators can proactively catch issues early in product development. Pine Pharmaceuticals is one of the industrys largest and most trusted 503B outsourcing facilities specializing in the preparation of high-quality, ready-to-administer compounds and repackaged products. Oncocyte, a precision diagnostics company, accepted the award for Innovation Excellence. The diagnostic solutions developed by Oncocyte provide insights into which patient management options may be most effective for oncology and transplant patients. For example, DetermaIO, a proprietary gene expression test, assesses various components of the Tumor Immune Microenvironment (TIME) and identifies patients most likely to benefit from immunotherapy. And VitaGraft, a blood-based test that quantifies the amount of donor-derived cfDNA in the transplant recipient, assesses graft damage/rejection and prevents unnecessary biopsies. These diagnostic tools are designed to provide physicians with potential life-saving information to enable precision medicine to have the greatest impact on patients.

Celebrating the outstanding work of our customers is one of my favorite events during Masters Summit, says CEO Jon Beckstrand. Each one of these organizations is leveraging technology and innovation to positively impact patient lives and MasterControl is honored to partner with these amazing companies and individuals. About MasterControl MasterControl Inc. is a leading provider of cloud-based quality and manufacturing software for life sciences and other regulated industries. For three decades, our mission has been the same as that of our customers to bring lifechanging products to more people sooner. MasterControl helps organizations digitize, automate, and connect quality and manufacturing processes. Innovative MasterControl tools have a proven track record of improving product quality, reducing cost, and accelerating time to market. Over 1,100 companies worldwide use MasterControl solutions to streamline operations, maintain compliance, easily analyze and interpret large amounts of data, and visualize business insights in real time. For more information, visit www.mastercontrol.com Media Contacts:

Jennifer Sefakis, Sr. Director PR

MasterControl

[email protected]

+1-801-560-9608



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[October 19, 2023] Joint Statement by CAGW President Tom Schatz and ITPC Executive Director Deborah Collier on the Latest Net Neutrality Proposal Tweet

Today, following the partisan vote on the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) entitled Reestablishing the Open Internet Protection at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz issued the following statement: "In a moment of regulatory whiplash, all Americans should be gravely concerned that the FCC has voted to pursue a wasteful, fruitless, and likely unconstitutional effort to re-establish and expand government control over a vibrant sector of the economy. The issue of net neutrality was resolved in December 2017, when the Restoring Internet Freedom Order was adopted at the FCC overturning the 2015 Open Internet Order (OIO). The decision was upheld by the Supreme Court in October 2019. The OIO led to reduced private sector investment and innovation and slowed down broadband deployment. Warnings that it would be the end of the internet as everyone knew it if net neutrality was repealed proved to be false. Service is cheaper, faster, more innovative, and more widespread across the country than ever before. Rather than calling it the Open Internet Protection order, it should be called the Close the Internet Order. It would be even worse than the OIO, because it would impose rate regulation, despite promises by various administration officials that they have no intent to do so. The NPRM is not only a waste of time and money but also jeopardizes America's leading position in globaltelecommunications."



CAGW Innovation and Technology Policy Center Executive Director Deborah Collier issued the following statement: "At a time when states are finalizing their Broadband Equity Adoption and Deployment (BEAD) funding applications with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to help provision broadband in their unserved communities, this proceeding will create uncertainty and disincentives for providers to participate in the program. A rulemaking of such an economic magnitude should not be kept swinging for more than a decade on the pendulum of regulatory doubt. Rather than move forward on this proceeding, the FCC should follow the direction provided by Congress.

"As noted in an October 17, 2023, letter to the FCC from members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, this proposal 'could not have come at a worse time. The country is on the cusp of closing the digital divide. We should not burden broadband providers with unnecessary regulations as they seek to deployment broadband to unserved Americans. We know from experience that broadband investment decreases when regulations increase, as we saw when the FCC last reclassified broadband in 2015. That network investment increased under the current regime undermines your argument that reclassification will 'better support the deployment of wireline and wireless infrastructure.' The letter also noted that changes should not be made to what is working well. The FCC should pay heed to what these legislators are saying. Any more changes to the classification of broadband should be made by Congress, not the FCC." Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019593478/en/

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SUVA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- More than 90,000 visitors landed in Fiji in September, according to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.

The bureau's Chief Executive Kemueli Naiqama said 90,439 visitors arrived in Fiji in September, an increase of 24.5 percent compared to a year earlier.

Of the 90,439 visitors, 89,203 came by air, while 1,236 came by sea.

Tourism Fiji, a tourism marketing arm of the Fijian government, launched a new brand campaign themed "Where Happiness Comes Naturally" to attract more foreign visitors this year.

Tourism Fiji Chief Executive Brent Hill said earlier that Fiji is a small island nation with a lot of happiness to offer, and this new brand platform showcases the rich and diverse cultures and traditions in Fiji. 
[October 19, 2023] Frontenac Partners with Prime Foods and Chan & Chan to Expand Asian Food Offerings Tweet

Frontenac today announces a new partnership with Prime Food Processing and Chan & Chan, Inc. ("CCI Prime"), an established, branded Asian food manufacturing business. Together with President and Founder Albert Chan and industry veteran Howard Eirinberg, who previously led Kronos Foods and Vienna Beef, CCI Prime plans to continue to expand offerings in the Asian cuisine category by introducing authentic dishes to mainstream retail consumers while upholding the highest quality standards and continuing to grow its strong presence within the ethnic retail channel. Albert Chan is retaining a significant ownership position and will continue to lead the company during this next phase of growth. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019184776/en/ For over 30 years, Prime Foods has been providing Asian foods to U.S. consumers, focused in the Asian grocery channel. Customers praise the brand for its authentic Cantonese flavors and premium quality. The company's dedication to innovation and authenticity has garnered a loyal customer following across the country. The Asian cuisine category is one of the fastest growing frozen food categories and one where consumers seek innovation, authenticity, and top-quality foods. CCI Prime was founded on a deep-rooted dedication to delivering authentic flavors and differentiated dishes. In preparation for continued growth, Albert, the Chan family, and the CCI Prime team have invested in a state-of-the-art facility to respond to growing demand from new and existing customers. "Albert has dedicated 30 years to building these companies from an import business to an established, reputable manufacturer, and he is now seekng a partner to help him reach a wider audience. The company and brands have developed a strong reputation in the ethnic foods channel. We believe that there is an opportunity to expand the reach of his products and bring them to many more consumers to enjoy," said Howard Eirinberg, Chairman1ST partner and food industry veteran.



"I am excited to partner with Howard and the Frontenac team as we embark on the next stage of growth for CCI Prime," said Albert Chan, Founder & President of CCI Prime. "We believe Howard's industry experience, combined with Frontenac's track record of partnering with food businesses, makes them the perfect partner for us." "Albert is an incredibly talented entrepreneur and has built an impressive business. There is demand for authentic Asian cuisine across multiple channels and we believe CCI Prime is well-positioned to meet this demand given its new facility and loyal employees. We look forward to working alongside Albert and his team to drive continued success at CCI Prime " said Betsy Williamson, a Managing Director at Frontenac.

About Frontenac Frontenac is a Chicago-based private equity firm. The firm focuses on investing in lower middle market buyout transactions in the consumer, industrial, and services industries. Frontenac works in partnership with established operating leaders, through an executive-centric approach called CEO1ST, which seeks to identify, acquire, and build market-leading companies through transformational acquisitions and operational excellence. Over the last 50+ years, Frontenac has built a franchise working with over 300 owners of mid-sized businesses as they address complex transition issues of liquidity, management enhancement, and growth planning. For more information, please visit www.frontenac.com. About Prime Foods and Chan & Chan, Inc. Based in Brooklyn, NY and Bethlehem, PA, Prime Food Processing and Chan & Chan, Inc. ("CCI Prime") is a 30+ year-old, manufacturer and importer of Chinese and Asian-style products including Chinese sausages, dumplings, and other Asian products. Prime Foods is an established brand in dumplings, bao buns, soupy pork dumplings and numerous other products. Today, products are primarily sold through specialty ethnic markets. For more information, please visit https://www.primefood-usa.com and www.chanchaninc.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019184776/en/

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[October 19, 2023] Hillsdale College Ranks First in Nearly Every Category in Recent Free Speech Survey Tweet

A recent survey on the state of freedom of speech on college campuses gave Hillsdale College the highest marks among the nation's institutions of higher education. The survey, conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and College Pulse, evaluates more than 250 colleges and universities across the country. "We have a practice here at Hillsdale College, and it has been followed as long as memory serves," says Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn. "You may assert and defend any argument you conceive, as long as you do so in a way that is civil, academic, and conducive to thought and deliberation." According to the FIRE/College Pulse, Hillsdale College ranked first in the following categories: Comfort Expressing Ideas

Opposition to Disruptive Conduct

Openness to New Ideas

Administrative Support of Free Speech

Tolerance for Conservative Speakers

Combined Tolerance for Conservative and Liberal Speakers FIRE/College Pulse ranking also notes that Hillsdale has no incidences of sanctioning student groups or faculty members and has never disinvited a speaker. "As a place of liberal learning, Hillsdale College welcomes the free expression of ideas, thoughtful inquiry, and civil debate. Since the founding of the College, natural law principles - which support rational inquiry and civil and religious liberty - have been central to the College's work, and in maintaining an atmosphere of civility coupled with academic rigor," says Christopher VanOrman, Hillsdale College provost.



Strikingly, surveyed Hillsdale students agree overwhelmingly that free speech and inquiry flourish at Hillsdale College. The survey, which consisted of 23 rating scale questions about free speech on campus, two multiple select multiple-choice questions about free speech on campus, and four multiple-choice questions about the responder, reveals Hillsdale tops the list for most enthusiastically pro-free-speech responses in 20 of the 23 rating scale questions. Rating scale questions about free speech on campus included: How comfortable would you feel expressing your views on a controversial political topic to other students during a discussion in a common campus space such as a quad, dining hall, or lounge? Hillsdale College: Very comfortable (56%) First runner-up: Very comfortable (28%) Second runner-up: Very comfortable (26%)

If a controversy over offensive speech were to occur on your campus, how likely is it that your college's administration would defend the speaker's right to express their views? Hillsdale College: Extremely likely (50%) First runner-up: Extremely likely (19%) Second runner-up: Extremely likely (18%)

How clear is it to you that your college administration protects free speech on campus? Hillsdale College: Extremely clear (48%) First runner-up: Extremely clear (24%) Second runner-up: Extremely clear (20%)

How comfortable would you feel publicly disagreeing with a professor about a controversial political topic? Hillsdale College: Very comfortable (31%) First runner-up: Very comfortable (21%) Second runner-up: Very comfortable (20%)

Dr. Arnn offers commentary on these rankings in the Wall Street Journal, saying "A college's purpose is not merely to sponsor speech. A college's purpose, through speaking and thinking -the two go together - is to teach students to think and speak better in search of knowledge."

To read Dr. Arnn's commentary in the Wall Street Journal, click here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/theres-more-to-education-than-free-speech-hillsdale-campus-civil-liberties-10424b7b 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/20231019082114/en/

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[October 19, 2023] Colby College Opens One of New England's Most Innovative Performing Arts Centers Tweet

As part of its significant commitment to investing in the arts over the last decade, Colby College is celebrating the official opening of the Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts, the largest academic project in the College's history. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019296913/en/ Photo courtesy, Colby College. Named in honor of Life Trustee Michael Gordon, an alumnus from the Class of 1966, the $95-million, 74,000-square-foot building is one of the most advanced and innovative performing arts facilities in New England and the new home for the departments of Music, Cinema Studies, and Performance, Theater, and Dance. With a unique combination of highly flexible, multipurpose performance areas and studios, the Gordon Center, which was designed for teaching, performing, and most importantly, creating, will provide transformational opportunities and experiences for Colby students and the broader community. "The Gordon Center is a stunningly beautiful facility," said Colby President David A. Greene, "but that only tells a small piece of the story. It is a technically sophisticated building that invites explorations of new artistic expression in ways that will ensure our performing arts programs flourish. It is a center of creativity that will offer all students the opportunity to engage in the creative process, push the boundaries of what they thought possible, and take that spirit of innovation into other disciplines and ultimately into their lives and work. "It is also a true community center, the capstone project of a greatly expanded arts ecosystem in Waterville that makes our city a destination for the arts and catalyzes economic development. None of this would have been possible without the generosity and vision of Michael Gordon and many others who stepped forward to further this vision. We are grateful for their leadership." Flexible, Multipurpose Spaces Designed by William Rawn Associates, Architects Inc., which has designed some of the country's most iconic performance spaces, including Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts emphatically integrates itself into the campus. As a natural bookend to the Colby Museum of Art, it embraces the south end of the Colleg and Mayflower Hill Drive, communicating that the arts are at the core of Colby. With a dramatic exterior that combines glass, limestone, and brick, it beckons students and the broader community to participate in its creative energy.



At the heart of the Gordon Center is the Olentine Forum, a unique common space and performance area connecting to the three major studios, performance hall, and arts incubator. Designed to enable everyone in the building to visually interact with the energy of creating art, it brings together the various disciplines, breaking down independent silos that are often found in performance spaces. Another key area is the 300-seat performance hall. With a unique set of acoustical options that can be customized depending on the type of performance (e.g. from a full symphony to a solo performer), it includes a large stage and an orchestra pit that can be raised to extend the stage. While the walls and ceiling of the 7,700-square-foot hall are covered in wood, the back of the hall is glass that can be dimmed and shaded as required. Additional highlights include:

Studio 1: Designed primarily for collaborative, experimental performance by all departments, the high-volume, 2,500-square-foot space has a 36-foot-high ceiling and a wall of glass. Acoustics can be tailored to the specific performance/rehearsal; there's a control booth with projection capabilities; and the space is equipped with theater rigging for attaching scenery, backgrounds, and lighting. Studio 2: With a unique level of lighting capabilities, this 2,500-square-foot black box theater space can be used for a wide range of performances and productions. It was designed with four points of entry to allow for multiple performance/audience arrangements, has a dedicated control booth and projection screen, and features a light pipe grid on the ceiling and four walls. Studio 3: The 2,500-square-foot space with a wooden sprung floor and a full wall of mirrors is ideal for movement and dance. It also includes a light pipe grid with programmable theatrical lighting, video projection capabilities, and a roll-drop scrim to cover the mirror for multiple performance/audience arrangements. "Faculty and students who've been using this building since the start of this semester are thrilled with it," said Margaret McFadden, provost and dean of faculty at Colby. "What sets it apart from other arts centers is that it was very deliberately designed to enable multidisciplinary and collaborative creative work. While each space has particular capabilities, all the performance areas were designed to be highly flexible and to foster creativity and innovation across the performing arts. I can't wait to see the exceptional work our faculty and students will create in this beautiful space." The Gordon Center also includes a 50-seat film screening room with a dedicated projection booth that's complemented by acoustically isolated video editing and recording rooms, as well as a studio production room that has a cyclorama ("cyc") wall. Other highlights are a 1,700-square-foot scene shop uniquely infused with natural light, a dedicated costume shop inviting visitors from the east entry to see the actual making of costumes, and a series of dressing rooms as well as a greenroom for pre- and post-performance use by performers. Additionally, there are 28 faculty offices and teaching studios, as well as two seminar rooms, a large classroom, and a general rehearsal room. The Gordon Center also includes a unique arts incubator, and it is home to the Lyons Arts Lab. Both are focused on facilitating and supporting new ideas, concepts, and content developed by Colby students that can ultimately be performed for and experienced by the public. Exceptional Investment in the Arts Over the past decade, Colby College has invested close to $400 million into the arts, including a major expansion of the Colby Museum's collection, the establishment of the Lunder Institute for American Art, the acquisition of an island campus previously owned by Andrew and Betsy Wyeth and the site of many of Andrew Wyeth's most beloved paintings, and the opening of three major art centers in the past three years. Besides the Gordon Center, these include the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, which opened at the end of 2022, and Greene Block + Studios, a unique arts collaborative that opened in 2021. The Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts represents the culmination of those investments and the final effort to create and coordinate a series of arts venues on campus and in downtown Waterville. "In addition to elevating the arts on campus, our goal has been to use them to help drive the economic resurgence of the area by creating an arts ecosystem that positions the city as the cultural hub of Northern New England and one of the great regional art destinations in the country," said President Greene. Dynamic Programming Designed to complement and enhance the broader arts ecosystem in the region, the Gordon Center is already attracting a wide range of nationally recognized artists and performers. Recent highlights include theater artist and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Kristina Wong, the globally recognized culinary collective Ghetto Gastro, and Grammy Award-winning Pueblo musician and storyteller Robert Mirabal. "Waterville has evolved into a dynamic arts destination with a unique set of venues and attractions that are unparalleled in Northern New England," commented Teresa McKinney, Diamond Family Director of the Arts at Colby College. "An exciting mix of programming will bring to life the amazing arts assets that the area has to offer and allow visitors to see and experience a wide range of wonderful art and artists." View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019296913/en/

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[October 19, 2023] ThermalWorks Launches Advanced Waterless Cooling System Built to Handle High-Density IT Loads While Conserving Scarce Water Resources Tweet

The fully integrated, modular system dramatically reduces energy usage and eliminates water consumption for cooling in any climate NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ThermalWorks, a subsidiary of Endeavour devoted to sustainable data infrastructure, announced the global launch of its state-of-the-art, waterless cooling system built for the fast-changing data center industry. The ultra-efficient, modular design is set to revolutionize how traditional data centers operate by significantly reducing energy usage and eliminating water consumption in cooling operations. The company has begun shipping its integrated cooling system to clients across Europe and North America. ThermalWorks is designed to handle the ever-increasing density loads that are required from Artificial Intelligence and high-performance GPU-based computing. The system supports densities of up to 70 kW per rack with air cooling and up to 200 kW per rack with plug-and-play liquid cooling integration. It offers waterless solutions that consistently outperform air- and water-cooled systems and can operate in high ambient temperatures beyond 135F. "As the digital economy expands exponentially, data centers are driving mass water consumption at a time when water scarcity is worsening worldwide," said John Costakis, Chief Executive Officer of ThermalWorks. "Our energy-efficient, waterless cooling system is designed to meet the dual challenges of climate change and advanced computing head on. ThermalWorks is a future-proof solution for a warming world." The systemenables the lowest peak and average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of any air-cooled chiller system on the market, cutting overhead energy consumption by 73% compared with the global average  even in the hottest climates. By eliminating water for cooling, ThermalWorks saves more than 385 million gallons of water each year for every 100 MW data center. This is a much-needed shift from traditional data centers that put incredible pressure on the local power grid to keep servers cool and consume billions of gallons of water each year in the U.S. alone.



ThermalWorks supports a temperature delta of 60F between supply fluid and return fluid  three times higher than traditional chillers. This allows the system to support high density liquid cooling and air cooling on the same circuit for hybrid, all-liquid and all-air data halls. The chiller features autonomous optimization logic, built-in controls, and industry-leading oil-free Danfoss Turbocor centrifugal compressors with magnetic bearings and integrated variable speed drive. The result is predictable performance, low sound levels, low-maintenance operation and a long design life. About ThermalWorks

ThermalWorks is a leading provider of advanced zero-water modular cooling systems for data centers and commercial buildings. Its hyper-efficient chillers are built to handle high-density loads and high ambient temperatures while dramatically reducing energy usage and eliminating water consumption for cooling operations. Based in New York, ThermalWorks is an Endeavour company. For more information, visit www.thermalworks.com About Endeavour Endeavour is an innovation platform purpose-built to support the reliable, rapid growth and sustainable operations of global cloud and logistics companies. It develops and scales distributed energy, water and IT infrastructure with cloud companies. For more information, visit www.endeavourii.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thermalworks-launches-advanced-waterless-cooling-system-built-to-handle-high-density-it-loads-while-conserving-scarce-water-resources-301962472.html SOURCE Endeavour Energy, LLC

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[October 19, 2023] Chubb and SentinelOne Partner to Enhance Cyber Risk Management Tweet

Chubb leverages industry-leading security solutions to help policyholders enhance cyber defenses and help protect businesses from emerging threats WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J., Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ -- 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. and Canadian 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 endoint 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. Chubb Insurance Company of Canada has offices in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver and provides its products and services through licensed insurance brokers across Canada. For additional information, visit: chubb.com/ca. 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

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[October 19, 2023] Global AI Training Dataset Market Report 2023: Market Revenue Data for 2022, Estimates for 2023, Forecasts for 2024 and 2026, & CAGR Projections through to 2028 Tweet

DUBLIN, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global AI Training Dataset Market" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The report covers a wide range of product areas and provides insights into individual product segments, including market size and revenue trends. Revenue forecasts are explained in the context of key market factors specific to each product segment, extending through 2028. Furthermore, the report conducts a thorough analysis of the competitive landscape within the global AI training dataset market, focusing on the critical dynamics that drive success. It examines essential factors such as research and development capabilities and the influence of ecosystems and partnerships. The AI training dataset market plays a pivotal role in advancing artificial intelligence and machine learning. The cornerstone of successful AI models lies in the meticulous selection and curation of training data. This process ensures the accuracy and quality of AI algorithms, highly prized for their ability to mimic human behaviors and adapt to new inputs. Effective integration of datasets is paramount, as it significantly impacts the accuracy, quality, and practicality of machine learning algorithms. The rapid proliferation of AI technology across various industries fuels the growing demand for diverse training datasets. Industries seek to replicate office environments remotely, while researchers concentrate on refining computational models and monitoring systems. AI's capacity to process vast volumes of data and identify patterns for specific tasks underscores the critical need for precise datasets, driving the expansion of the training dataset market. Various methodologies are employed to evaluate datasets. One common approach is split testing, which involves partitioning a dataset into training and testing subsets to assess how well models trained on the dataset generalize to new data. Another technique is cross-validation, which divides the dataset into multiple segments for iterative training and testing, providing a more comprehensive assessment as models learn from diverse data points. AI empowers robots to emulate human actions, learn from mistakes, and adapt to new inputs. The surge in AI technology adoption fuels the increasing demand for diverse AI datasets. Different sectors aim to create systems that can replicate office work remotely, while researchers focus on improving monitoring systems and enhancing computational models. AI-enabled machines mimic human functions by processingextensive data and identifying patterns to perform specific tasks. Crafting precise datasets is essential for training such systems, thereby propelling the global AI training dataset market's growth.



The quest for accurate training datasets intensifies as AI becomes an integral part of business processes. Real-world datasets, often complex and unstructured, significantly impact the performance of machine learning and deep learning models. Consequently, businesses increasingly rely on high-quality training datasets to effectively deploy AI solutions and maintain competitiveness in a rapidly evolving landscape. Businesses are harnessing AI to automate operations, enhance user experiences, and optimize workflows. Real-world datasets are intricate and frequently unstructured. The performance of machine learning and deep learning models hinges on factors like dataset size, composition, and relevance. The growing integration of AI underscores the urgency of AI training datasets, a necessity for businesses seeking effective AI solution implementation.

The report also includes profiles of AI training dataset manufacturers, offering valuable insights into their strategies and product offerings. Report Includes Analyses of global market trends, with historical market revenue data (sales figures) for 2022, estimates for 2023, forecasts for 2024 and 2026, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2028

In-depth information (facts and figures) pertaining to the factors influencing the market, including drivers, restraints, opportunities and industry-specific challenges)

An estimate of the current market size, a revenue forecast for companies developing AI training datasets, and a corresponding market share analysis based on type, end-use application and region

A look at the major vendors in the global market for AI training datasets, and an analysis of the industry structure with respect to company value share, M&A and venture fundings

An evaluation on the importance of ESG in the AI training dataset market, with emphasis on the practices followed by companies

An analysis of the competitive landscape, including the recent developments, financials and segmental revenues of the leading companies Company Profiles Amazon Web Services Inc.

Alegion Inc.

Appen Corp.

Cogito Tech LLC

Deep Vision Data

Globose Technology Solutions Pvt Ltd

Google LLC

Lionbridge Technologies LLC.

Microsoft Corp.

Scale AI Inc.

Samasource Impact Sourcing Inc. Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Summary and Highlights Market Outlook

Market Summary Chapter 3 Market Overview Overview

Benefits of AI Training Datasets

Types of AI Training Dataset

Training Data Evaluation Factors

Market Dynamics

Market Drivers

Market Restraints

Market Challenges

Market Opportunities

Macroeconomic Factors

Impact of Covid-19 on the AI Training Dataset Market Chapter 4 Market Breakdown by Type and by End-user Global AI Training Dataset Market by Type

Text

Image/Video

Audio

Global AI Training Dataset Market by End-user

IT/Telecom

Automotive

Healthcare

Bfsi

Retail/E-Commerce

Government

Others Chapter 5 Market Breakdown by Region Overview

North America

Europe

Asia-Pacific

Rest of the World Chapter 6 ESG Development Key ESG Issues in the AI Industry

Carbon Footprint/Environmental Impact

Electricity

Transparency and Governance

Ai Industry ESG Performance Analysis

Environmental Performance

Case Study

Concluding Remarks Chapter 7 Competitive Landscape Google LLC

Amazon Web Services Inc.

Microsoft Corp For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/og5ozt About ResearchAndMarkets.com

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[October 19, 2023] Calm Waters AI Increases Reimbursement by Average of 22.6% per E/M Chart, According to Audit Tweet

Calm Waters AI, a fully autonomous, artificial intelligence Evaluation & Management (E/M) coding application, improves reimbursement for services coded on each patient chart by an average of $17.14, or 22.6%, according to calculations audited by a nationally recognized firm. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019063938/en/ "We are thrilled to have quantified the positive financial impact that Calm Waters AI is making for providers," said Joe Ferro, President of Calm Waters AI. "When you multiply the $17.14-per-chart figure by the number of physicians in a group and the number of patient encounters in an average day, the revenue boost from accurately coded and documented charts is dramatic." For example, Ferro noted, applying this ROI calculation to a group of 10 providers seeing 20 patients per day in a five-day wee, Calm Waters AI would yield a revenue increase of $3,428 per day, $17,140 per week, and $822,720 per year (based on 48 weeks).



The ROI calculation was based on the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS). The MPFS reimbursement rates were assigned to the codes listed in a sample group of 723 charts that encompassed 17 different medical practices of varying sizes and specialties. The calculations then were audited by a third-party firm. "This is another powerful validation for our company, adding to Calm Waters AI's 97% rate of chart accuracy assessed by Mazars USA earlier," Ferro added. "We believe we are setting a new standard that offers tremendous value to medical providers."

About Calm Waters AI Calm Waters AI leverages its proprietary artificial intelligence application to save time, reduce stress, increase physician practice revenue, and standardize the process of E/M coding for physician practices and other provider organizations. The senior executives and creators of Calm Waters AI have over 100 years of combined experience in healthcare coding and compliance. Calm Waters AI, an affiliate of Montecito Medical, is currently used by some of the nation's top medical practices and health systems. It is part of Montecito Medical's platform of solutions enabling healthcare providers to increase revenue, decrease costs, and build wealth. Learn more about Calm Waters AI at www.calmwatersai.com. Learn more about Montecito Medical at www.montecitomac.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019063938/en/

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[October 19, 2023] Stoneweg US Drives 33% GRESB Score Improvement for Varia US Properties Tweet

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Stoneweg US LLC, a multifamily real estate investment and asset management firm, is pleased to announce the remarkable success of Varia US Properties AG, a Swiss publicly traded multifamily real estate fund in the 2023 Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) assessment. As the asset manager for the Varia US portfolio, Stoneweg US plays a pivotal role in guiding and supporting Varia US' sustainable practices, driving the achievement of a 33% year-over-year improvement in the firm's GRESB score. Stoneweg US played a pivotal role, driving the achievement of a 33% year-over-year improvement in the firm's GRESB score The annual GRESB assessment, shaped by the collective vision of investors and industry stakeholders, serves as a compass for measuring sustainability performance in asset investments. The rating aligns with international reporting frameworks, goals and emerging regulations, providing critical insights for the real estate industry's journey toward sustainability. In the 2023 assessment, the Varia US portfolio demonstrated significant progress across Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) dimensions when compared to its 2022 rating: Benchmark Report Score: 83/100 (2022: 64/100),

Peer Average: 79/100 (2022: 79/100)





83/100 (2022: 64/100), Peer Average: 79/100 (2022: 79/100) GRESB Model:  Management Score: 30/30 (2022: 27/30),

Benchmark Average: 27/30 (2022: 26/30)

 Performance Score: 53/70 (2022: 37/70),

Benchmark Average: 51/70 (2022: 44/70) ESG Breakdown:  Environmental: 45/62 (2022: 29/62),

Benchmark Average: 43/62 (2022: 37/62)

 Social: 18/18 (2022: 18/18),







 Governance: 20/20 (2022: 17/20),

Benchmark Average: 19/20 (2022: 18/20) Peer Comparison: Ranked fourth out of 10 (2022: eighth out of 11),

USA , Residential, Multi-Family, Listed This remarkable improvement in the GRESB assessment reflects Varia US' unwavering commitment to enhancing the quality and efficiency of its properties, subsequently reducing operating costs and elevating the market valuation of its assets over the long term. Through the efforts of its asset manager Stoneweg US, Varia US acquired and/or achieved four Green Globes sustainable building certifications and eight ENERGY STAR building performance certifications in 2022. Further enhancing their ESG efforts, Stoneweg US, representing Varia US, signed the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in spring 2023 and initiated reporting in line with its principles.

In 2023, Varia US embarked on the installation of solar projects at two of its multifamily rental communities, one in Tucson, Arizona, and one in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Additionally, the company initiated a programmatic heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system replacement pilot, introducing energy-efficient heat pump systems at multifamily rental communities located in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona. This innovative pilot program aims to blend building performance data collection with comprehensive building attribute inventory to proactively drive improvements that align with the company's environmental goals and enhance cost-effectiveness. Thomas Stanchak, Director of Sustainability at Stoneweg US, Varia US' asset manager, added: "Our 2023 assessment result is a testament to the effectiveness of our ESG strategy and the dedication of our team. We are thrilled with our improved ranking, and it propels us toward becoming leaders in sustainability." Patrick Richard, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Stoneweg US and Executive Member of the Board of Directors of Varia US, commented on the achievement: "We are immensely proud of the substantial progress reflected in our 2023 GRESB assessment compared to the previous year. This underscores our focus on data collection, the efficacy of our ESG strategy, and outcomes achieved. The remarkable result is a source of great motivation for our entire team, inspiring us to remain steadfast in our pursuit of long-term ESG goals. Our leap from the eighth position in 2022 to the fourth position in 2023 peer rankings signifies our trajectory as frontrunners." For the complete "GRESB Real Estate Benchmark Report 2023" and more insights into Varia US' ESG strategy and initiatives, please visit website at www.stonewegesg.us. To learn more about GRESB, visit www.gresb.com. About Stoneweg U.S., LLC: Located in downtown St. Petersburg, FL, Stoneweg US has a portfolio valuation of $2.1 Billion comprised of ~12,000 units. The firm leads the industry in optimizing assets through ESG considerations, climate resilience, and value-add strategies, investing in and developing sustainable communities to deliver healthy returns and elevate resident experiences. For more information, please visit www.stoneweg.us. Contact: Tara Kassal

Ascent

917-406-2162

[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stoneweg-us-drives-33-gresb-score-improvement-for-varia-us-properties-301962574.html SOURCE Stoneweg US, LLC

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[October 19, 2023] Starr Insurance Condemns Atrocities Against Israel Tweet

Maurice R. Greenberg, chairman and chief executive officer of Starr Insurance, issued the following statement about the recent attack on Israel: "Starr Insurance unequivocally condemns the brutal atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on innocent Israelis on Saturday, October 7, 2023, as well as the ongoing captivity of hostages taken. "Throughout our more than century-long history in global risk management, we have unfortunately witnessed wanton violence before but rarely with such disregard for the sanctity of human life. We must be clear-eyed in the face of such evil. The actions of Hamas must not be confused with any civilized groups' legitimate aspirations for freedom. They are a crime against humanity. "Starr stands with the State of Israel as it executes its right and duty to protect its citizens. We also stand in support of the peoples of the entire Middle East who seek freedom and opportunity free of violence, intolerance, and disregard for human dignity." About Starr Insurance Starr Insurance (or Starr) is a marketng name for the operating insurance and travel assistance companies and subsidiaries of Starr International Company, Inc. and for the investment business of C. V. Starr & Co., Inc. and its subsidiaries. Starr is a leading insurance and investment organization with a presence on six continents; through its operating insurance companies, Starr provides property, casualty, and accident and health insurance products as well as a range of specialty coverages including aviation, marine, energy and excess casualty insurance. Starr's insurance company subsidiaries domiciled in the U.S., Bermuda, China, Hong Kong, Malta, Singapore, Switzerland and U.K. each have an A.M. Best rating of "A" (Excellent). Starr's Lloyd's syndicate has a Standard & Poor's rating of "A+" (Strong).



Visit us at www.starrcompanies.com or follow us LinkedIn and Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019332486/en/

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[October 19, 2023] The Hartford Names Stephen Deane Chief Claims Officer Tweet

The Hartford has appointed Stephen Deane chief claims officer effective Nov. 6. Deane will report directly to John Kinney, head of Claims and Operations, and will be a member of The Hartford's executive leadership team. He succeeds Mary Nasenbenny, who will retire at the end of 2023. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019110059/en/ The Hartford's Chief Claims Officer Stephen Deane (Photo: Business Wire) "We are thrilled that Steve is returning to The Hartford," said Kinney. "His outstanding industry experience, established relationships at The Hartford and throughout the industry and proven record of achieving business results position him well to lead our award-winning Claims organization to even greater levels of success." Deane returns to The Hartford after three years at Liberty Mutual Insurance, where he served as executive vice president and chief claims officer, Global Risk Solutions, North America. Before joining Liberty Mutual, he gained more than 16 years of experience at The Hartford in various leadership roles, including senior vice president of Group Benefits and Workers' Compensation claims. Prior to that, he was an attorney at Robinson & Cole, LLP, and managed a claims team at Travelers. He holds a bachelor's degree from the Universty of Notre Dame and a law degree from the University of Connecticut.



Nasenbenny joined the company in 1999 as legal counsel and was named chief claims officer in 2021. Kinney added, "Mary has been a valued advisor and innovative partner. We are grateful for her many contributions to The Hartford over her 24-year tenure that have helped differentiate how we deliver for our customers. She is a patent holder of our Claims customer loyalty index process and a founding leader of our Heath Services organization, which combines the strength of our Workers' Compensation and Group Benefits offerings to deliver seamless customer experiences."

About The Hartford The Hartford is a leader in property and casualty insurance, group benefits and mutual funds. With more than 200 years of expertise, The Hartford is widely recognized for its service excellence, sustainability practices, trust and integrity. More information on the company and its financial performance is available at https://www.thehartford.com. The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., (NYSE: HIG) operates through its subsidiaries under the brand name, The Hartford, and is headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut. For additional details, please read The Hartford's legal notice. HIG-C Some of the statements in this release may be considered forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We caution investors that these forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results may differ materially. Investors should consider the important risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ. These important risks and uncertainties include those discussed in our 2022 Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Forms 10-Q, and the other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We assume no obligation to update this release, which speaks as of the date issued. From time to time, The Hartford may use its website and/or social media outlets, such as Twitter and Facebook, to disseminate material company information. Financial and other important information regarding The Hartford is routinely accessible through and posted on our website at https://ir.thehartford.com. In addition, you may automatically receive email alerts and other information about The Hartford when you enroll your email address by visiting the "Email Alerts" section at https://ir.thehartford.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019110059/en/

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Li Shulei, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, attends and delivers a speech at the 2023 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The 2023 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road was held in Beijing on Thursday with the theme of strengthening media cooperation for a brighter shared future.

Li Shulei, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, attended the forum and delivered a speech.

Representatives from more than 110 media organizations of over 70 countries and regions, as well as Chinese officials, scholars and business representatives, were present at the event, which was hosted by the People's Daily. It included a ceremony for the First Silk Road Global News Awards and panel discussions on regional cooperation for building the Belt and Road.

The participants said President Xi Jinping announced eight major steps that China will take to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, receiving a positive response from attendees at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. They said that all parties now have a deeper understanding of jointly building the Belt and Road.

The participants agreed that media organizations from all countries should work together to carry forward the Silk Road spirit, and uphold the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits. They agreed on the need to tell good stories of promoting common development and mutual benefit, of deepening regional cooperation and improving global governance, and of promoting mutual learning among civilizations and people-to-people ties. 
[October 19, 2023] Amerigroup's New Jersey Health Plan to be Renamed Wellpoint in January 2024 Tweet

Amerigroup New Jersey, Inc., a subsidiary of Elevance Health serving NJ FamilyCare/ Medicaid and Medicare enrollees, will begin rebranding as Wellpoint in January 2024 to reflect the company's evolution to support whole health. There will be no impact or changes to Wellpoint members' healthcare benefits or coverage. Members will continue to have access to their established primary care providers, specialists, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities. Also, healthcare providers who serve Wellpoint members will have continued access to tools and resources to help streamline day-to-day administrative tasks. "This rebranding is a continuation of our bold and ambitious purpose to improve the health of humanity by serving people across their entire health journey; connecting them to care, support and resources; and simplifying healthcare to make health more equitable and accessible," said Patrick Fox, MD, president of Amerigroup New Jersey. "Our local presence enables us to design our benefits and programs to fit the unique needs of New Jersey comunities. Wellpoint is a name that illustrates our dedication to being a lifetime, trusted health partner with a mission to help people live well across all life points."



Wellpoint's suite of health benefits is designed for consumers at any stage of life offering access to simple, supportive health solutions to help foster whole health. In addition, Wellpoint plans are committed to helping individuals improve their health through Healthy Reward incentives for wellness visits and added benefits such as gift cards for completing health screenings, newborn supplies for new mothers, and resources to support emotional well-being. Subject to state regulator approval, new ID cards with the Wellpoint brand will be mailed in early 2024. Members can continue using their current card to access all existing services until they receive their new card. New Jersey members who have questions can contact Member Services via the phone number on the back of their ID card.

For member and provider information and updates, please visit www.wellpoint.com. About Wellpoint Wellpoint, part of the Elevance Health family of brands, focuses on improving physical health as well as the behavioral and social drivers that impact it through a comprehensive suite of Medicare, Medicaid, and Commercial products. The Wellpoint companies offer healthcare services for consumers at any stage of life seeking to make the right care decisions and helps individuals and communities make real, positive progress with health plans that foster independence, confidence, and whole-person health. For more information, please visit www.wellpoint.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019169754/en/

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[October 19, 2023] U.S. Defense Health Agency selects Amwell and Leidos to power the Digital First initiative for the U.S. Military Health System Tweet

Amwell (NYSE: AMWL), a leader in hybrid healthcare enablement, together with Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, was recently awarded a next-generation contract to provide a hybrid care technology platform designed to power the "Digital First" transformation of the Military Health System (MHS). Under this task order, the Leidos Partnership for Defense Health (LPDH) will deliver Amwell Converge, a comprehensive hybrid care enablement platform designed to power the full continuum of care using digital, virtual and automated modalities, and replace the Military Health System (MHS) Video Connect solution. It will start at five initial sites followed by a phased enterprise roll-out. Also included in the contract are a broad spectrum of Amwell automated care programs that have a proven track record of helping deliver better health outcomes, including multiple behavioral health and integrated core telehealth solutions. If all options are exercised, the task order has a 22-month period of performance with a total value of up to $180 million to the LPDH. "Through our world class platform Converge, Amwell is already enabling hybrid care across the commercial marketplace. With this agreement, we are pleased to offer our unique capabilities and help improve access to quality care for the MHS community of users. We are grateful for their service, and honored to have been chosen to join Leidos in supporting the Department of Defense as it seeks to adopt and extend the benefits of hybrid care to the Military Health System," said Ido Schoenberg, M.D., chairman and CEO of Amwell. The DHA's Digital First initiative brings new capabilities and enablement to MHS GENESIS, an advanced electronic health record (EHR) and healthcare system solution that supports military and Veteran healthcare initiatives. The Converge platform has deep integration assets and a simple yet powerful user experience that enables efficient and quality hybrid care delivery. The platform is already embedded into existing clinical workflows that care teams rely on, including those within the core EHR that powers MHS GENESIS. Together, Amwell and LPDH will enable the DHA to leverage the benefits of hybrid care, improve access to primary and behavioral health care, and ultimately improve outcomes for the MHS community. The DHA supports national security and ensures our nation's military teams are ready to deploy. Seeking to leverage innovation and best practices from the commercial sector, the DHA conducted a thorough evaluation of the Amwell solution. "We are delighted that the demonstrated scalability, flexibility, and comprehensiveness of the Amwell Converge platform, as evaluated by DHA, uniquely qualifies Amwell to support the DHA's Digital First strategies and readiness mission. We are dedicated to supporting this program with the best that Amwell offers for many ears to come," said Dr. Schoenberg.



"Digital First addresses DHA's goal of better outcomes, new processes, innovation and increased standardization based on evidence," said Jason McCarthy, Leidos senior vice president, Military and Veterans Health Solutions. "As part of our overall MHS GENESIS effort to enhance patient experience, we, along with Amwell, are looking forward to providing near real-time, self-service support and hybrid care options for our customer and those whom they serve." Digital First will support the entire MHS community of users, which includes 9.6 million active-duty service members, family members, retirees, and health professionals across the continuum of care. Through integrated platform solutions, Amwell and Leidos will help reduce burdens on care teams, improve the mental health and wellness of beneficiaries, help reduce healthcare costs and optimize the effective utilization of DHA's clinical resources across their global enterprise.

About Amwell Amwell provides a leading hybrid care enablement platform in the United States and globally, connecting and enabling providers, insurers, patients, and innovators to deliver greater access to more affordable, higher quality care. Amwell believes that hybrid care delivery will transform healthcare. The company offers a single, comprehensive platform designed to support all digital health needs from urgent to acute and post-acute care, as well as chronic care management and healthy living. With nearly two decades of experience, Amwell powers the hybrid care of more than 55 health plans, which collectively represent more than 90 million covered lives, and many of the nation's largest health systems, representing over 2,000 hospitals, have access to Amwell solutions. For more information, please visit https://business.amwell.com/. 2023 American Well Corporation. All rights reserved. Amwell, SilverCloud, ConvergeTM, CarepointTM and the Amwell Logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of American Well Corporation. This press release contains forward-looking statements about us and our industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties and are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including statements regarding our future results of operations, financial condition, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," or "would," or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements represent our beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this release. These statements, and related risks, uncertainties, factors and assumptions, include, but are not limited to: weak growth and increased volatility in the telehealth market; inability to adapt to rapid technological changes; increased competition from existing and potential new participants in the healthcare industry; changes in healthcare laws, regulations or trends and our ability to operate in the heavily regulated healthcare industry; our ability to comply with federal and state privacy regulations; the significant liability that could result from a cybersecurity breach; and other factors described under 'Risk Factors' in our most recent form 10-K filed with the SEC. These risks are not exhaustive. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Further information on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results anticipated by our forward-looking statements is included in the reports we have filed or will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings, when available, are available on the investor relations section of our website at investors.amwell.com and on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Notice of Ownership All materials contained herein are the property of American Well Corporation and are copyrighted under United States law and applicable international copyright laws and treaty provisions. The materials contained herein are not work product or "work for hire" on behalf of any third party. The materials contained herein constitute the confidential information of American Well Corporation, except for specific data elements provided by third parties, which are the confidential information of such third parties. The content contained herein results from the application of American Well proprietary processes, analytical frameworks, algorithms, business methods, solution construction aids and templates, all of which are and remain the property of American Well Corporation. Trademark Notice All of the trademarks, service marks and logos displayed on these materials (the "Trademark(s)") are registered and unregistered trademarks of American Well Corporation or third parties who have licensed their Trademarks to American Well Corporation. Except as expressly stated in these terms and conditions, you may not reproduce, display or otherwise use any Trademark without first obtaining American Well Corporation's written permission. 2023 American Well Corporation. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019059215/en/

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[October 19, 2023] Afterpay Partners with Nift Networks to Launch Exclusive Rewards Program for 5M+ Customers Tweet

First-of-its-kind partnership with Nift, a growing performance marketing channel that helps consumers try thousands of new products and services, from music and jewelry to wine, restaurants, and more.

Since the program's inception, Afterpay has seen strong engagement from consumers, with over 40% of consumers using Nift gifts to make a first-time purchase at a product or service they hadn't tried before, generating over $3M since launch.

Afterpay customers benefit from a curated selection of gifts from 12,000+ brands like SiriusXM, HelloFresh, Scentbird, Medterra, BJs, Allbirds, and restaurants and more. BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Afterpay, one of the global leaders in "Buy Now, Pay Later" payments, is proud to announce the launch of its exclusive rewards program in partnership with Nift Networks. This collaboration aims to revolutionize the shopping experience for Afterpay customers by providing them with unparalleled opportunities to discover and try thousands of new products and services through the innovative Nift gift network. "We are always looking for ways to improve our consumer shopping experience, and our partnership with Nift does just that," said Marni Schapiro, GM Global Advertising at Afterpay. "Our partnership empowers our customers to explore and experience thousands of new products and services with convenience while staying in control of their finances." AI Collaboration Proves "Gifts Beat Ads" Through the enhanced rewards program and Nift's proprietary AI, Afterpay customers are matched with a curated selection of gifts provided by the 12,000 brands advertising on the Nift Network. These exclusive high-value gifts are designed to help customers try new products and services, creating a unique opportunity for discovery and trial. With Afterpay's flexible payment solutions, customers can easily unlock a world of possibilities while managing their finances rsponsibly.



Nift Networks is renowned for its exclusive gift network, which enables people to discover and try a wide range of products and servicesfrom music, jewelry, and wine delivery, to neighborhood restaurants and bars. Nift's 37M+ audience comes from partnerships with leading companies like Afterpay, iHeartRadio, Meetup, Mindbody, and ParkMobile, who use Nift to thank customers at key lifecycle moments. Nift's patented machine learning matches customers with gifts from local businesses and national brands such as HelloFresh, Allbirds, and Rocksbox. This curated selection of gifts is designed to facilitate trial and exploration, driving net new customer acquisition for participating advertisers. "We are thrilled to collaborate with Afterpay and empower their customers to discover and trial thousands of new products and services through our exclusive gift network," said Elery Pfeffer, Founder and CEO at Nift Networks. "With Nift, our partner's best customers can experience a diverse range of local and national businesses while providing valuable net-new customer acquisition for our participating brands. Together, we are revolutionizing how customers discover and try new products and services."

The partnership between Afterpay and Nift Networks offers an unparalleled rewards program that enhances the shopping experience for customers, while driving revenue for both brands. Since partnering, Afterpay has seen strong engagement from consumers with the product. By combining Afterpay's commitment to access and flexibility with Nift Networks' expansive gift selection, this collaboration empowers customers to embark on a journey of discovery, trial, and enjoyment. For more information about Afterpay and its payment solutions, please visit the Afterpay app. To learn more about Nift Networks and its exclusive gift network, visit business.gonift.com. About Afterpay: Afterpay is transforming the way we pay by allowing anyone to buy products immediately and pay over time - enabling simple, transparent and responsible spending. We are on a mission to power an economy in which everyone wins. Afterpay is offered by thousands of the world's favorite retailers and used by millions of active global customers. Afterpay is currently available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain, where it is known as Clearpay. Afterpay is a wholly owned subsidiary of Block, Inc. About Nift Networks: Nift is an exclusive gift network designed to help people discover and try new products and servicesfrom music, jewelry, and wine delivery, to neighborhood restaurants and bars. Nift's 37M+ audience comes from partnerships with Afterpay, iHeartRadio, Mindbody, Meetup, ParkMobile, and more, who use Nift to thank their members at key lifecycle moments. Proprietary AI matches each member with gifts from local and national brands like Rocksbox, Scentbird, Allbirds, Wine Insiders and Liquid IV which rely on Nift for net-new customer acquisition. Press Contact: VSC on behalf of Nift

[email protected] Afterpay

[email protected] "This release was issued through WebWire. For more information, visit http://www.webwire.com." View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/afterpay-partners-with-nift-networks-to-launch-exclusive-rewards-program-for-5m-customers-301962499.html SOURCE Nift Networks

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[October 19, 2023] Sweetv Unveils 2023 Halloween Crown Collection: Blending Fashion Trends with Gothic Elegance Tweet

WUHAN, China, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sweetv, the leading jewelry brand, released its highly anticipated 2023 Halloween Crown Collection today. Offering users a wide array of design options to create a distinctive Halloween look. A highlight of the collection is the new technology and process that emphasizes the use of two-tone metal accessories, adding depth and layers to each piece. The innovative incorporation of the drip oil process adds vibrant color, further enhancing the distinctive elements of the designs. Each piece in the 2023 Halloween Crown Collection exudes a unique style, featuring exclusive designs that complement consumers' personal fashion preferences. The collection boasts a wide array of options, ensuring customers can find the inspiration for their Halloween costumes among the selection of multiple designs. In terms of color selection, the collection's palette is thoughtfully curated to match the overall dark and mysterious ambiance of Halloween. Meanwhile, the actual color schemes of the key elements showcased in each individual piece have been thoughtfully incorporated. The result is a stunning contrast of clashing colors that highlight the focal points. Designer Elvin, shared his insights, stating, "By incorporating high-quality materials and intricate craftsmanship, we've seamlessly integrated the essence and thematic elements of Haloween into our crown designs. Each piece tells a captivating story and holds profound meaning. We aim to inspire our customers to craft the perfect Halloween ensemble."



The expertise of Sweetv's designers lies in the details of the 2023 Halloween Crown Collection. Every intricate symbol, from Naughty Ghost Halloween Tiara to Demon's Eye Halloween Tiara to Hellish Thorns Halloween Tiara , has been crafted to add an enchanting touch to the wearer's ensemble. The attention to detail and commitment to quality are evident in each piece, making them charming statement accessories for Halloween celebrations. For more information on the Sweetv 2023 Halloween Crown Collection, please visit our official website https://www.sweetv.com/sweetv-halloween

About Sweetv: As a jewelry brand founded in 2010, Sweetv has been engaged in offering exquisite accessories to customers around the globe. The complete Sweetv product line includes tiaras and crowns, hair accessories, wedding jewelry, and daily jewelry. Sweetv is known for its unwavering commitment to precision and craftsmanship. The 2023 Halloween Crown Collection is no exception, promising that each jewelry piece is a work of art that will beautifully adorn even the most discerning individuals. Contact US:

Official Website: https://www.sweetv.com/

Amazon Website: https://reurl.cc/Y04Y0o

Contact :

Orders & shipping: [email protected]

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Just wanted to feature this story quickly if only because the scale of the blaze has become clearer.

More to the point . . .



OUR SUBURBAN READERS REPORT CHOKING ON FUMES FROM THIS LENEXA INFERNO ALL NIGHT!!!

Here's more reporting . . .



Fortunately, no tenants were injured; one firefighter went to the hospital but was quickly released.



While they're all OK, some tenants said they don't have high hopes for retrieving their possessions.



Cellphone video shows flames shooting out of the western side of the roof, spreading upward from the attic.



"It was very surreal, very surreal," one tenant said Wednesday. "Watching the chimney fall was pretty wild and just hearing all the animals outside."

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Lenexa tenants worry about lost keepsakes after apartment fire Lenexa firefighters said a Tuesday night fire near Renner Boulevard and I-435 was the largest they've had in some time with 22 units displaced.
Over the summer we were told that this roller blade lady would save Missouri Democrats.

Now . . .

It's very clear that Red State hegemony will likely continue and our progressive pals are STILL struggling to connect with the Midwestern electorate . . . Check-it:



"Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe raised more than $500,000 for his official campaign committee in the three months ending Sept. 30. American Dream PAC, which can raise money alongside Kehoe but must use it for independent spending, took in more than $800,000.



"Kehoe, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and state Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, are seeking the GOP nomination for governor in the August 2024 primary. Incumbent Gov. Mike Parson is barred from seeking another term."



Meanwhile . . .



"Crystal Quade, the House minority leader from Springfield who entered the race in July, raised $268,000 and increased her cash on hand to $215,000. "



Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .
It was always a particular glory for me, during my three decades covering fashion in the international trenches, to know that I shared the bond of a common homeland with Linda Evangelista, one of the scenes most influential icons.

The St. Catharines-born supermodel was in a league of her own, much beloved by designers, editors and photographers for her chameleonlike ability to illuminate runways and fashion editorials. The late Karl Lagerfeld called her the Stradivarius of models, explaining, You can play her like you can play no other instrument.

The respect Evangelista commanded in the modelling world was unparalleled, but a few years back she disappeared from the spotlight after revealing that shed been disfigured by a cosmetic procedure gone wrong, leaving her both furious and ashamed. Evangelista filed a $50-million lawsuit against the company responsible, which was subsequently settled. Now, at 58, Evangelista is back  big time  starring in The Super Models, a four-part Apple TV documentary series, and as the subject of a coffee-table book with famed photographer and frequent collaborator Steven Meisel. (Evangelista is also doing two Toronto appearances this month: on Oct. 27, shell be at Holt Renfrew Bloor for a public book signing. On Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m., Evangelista and Beker will be in conversation onstage at the Bluma Appel Theatre).

These days, Evangelista is more about honesty and heart than glitz and glamour. After I announced my breast cancer diagnosis last year, I was incredibly moved when Evangelista reached out to divulge that she, too, had been through a breast cancer journey in 2018 and had a bilateral mastectomy. This summer, she called me again to share that her breast cancer had returned. Evangelista is now on a mission to raise breast cancer awareness and determined to face the future with resilience and optimism. I caught up with her recently over Zoom.

Youre quoted in the book as saying that you just wanted to make dreams  And you really did make us dream for so long.

I think I wanted to make me dream, not just make other people dream. It really is such a nice escape to go to work and be in this fairy tale and play all these different characters. Its a great escape from reality for me.

Was there ever a time that you grew weary of what you were doing, when you werent feeling inspired?

I did have to question myself around 1993, when the grunge movement rolled in. There seemed to have been a demise of the supermodel. And please, I dont call myself a supermodel, unless its a joke. I still dont really know what a supermodel is! But that was a tough period. When I was looking back on my September Vogue covers  and I have five September Vogue covers now  I noticed that one was in 93 and that was supposed to be the year of the demise! I look at all my work in that period, working with photographers like Corinne Day, Juergen Teller and David Sims  I was being featured in all the magazines. Somehow, I fit in and I dont know why. At one point, I thought maybe it was because of my body shape, because I never had a curvy womans body so I could do the waif thing  Im saying that tongue in cheek. I did question myself, but that was a great time for me because I succeeded.

You always had a such a power about you. You could portray vulnerability, yet you always exuded such confidence.

In fashion, youre always questioning yourself because its always changing. Its like this whirlwind that you get soaked up in. I dont know why I came off as confident. I am confident in my work. Maybe in real life, no. But in my work, yes. Im very confident.

I think back to the times that I would see you, running around the world and giving it your all. You were always dancing as fast as you could. Was that the kind of buzz that you got off on? Or did you ever feel like you were exhausting yourself?

It didnt seem like a lot to me. I used to ignore jet lag. That was my motto: just ignore it. Theres no way I could keep up with that pace now. But it was easy then, when I was young  you can do anything when youre young. You know, on some nights, if we were out very, very, very late, we would look fine when we got to the studio a few hours later. That wouldnt happen today.

I totally relate to that. Sometimes I look back at my life and how I buzzed around like that. And I almost feel like crying for how hard I worked myself. Like, how did I do that?

But did it feel that hard?

At the time it didnt.

Yeah, because we could handle it.

My mother was always so worried about me, saying, Dont work so hard! And Id say, Ma, worry about me when Im not working so hard, because I love what I do.

The other thing that kept you going, I mean for me, was that you just didnt know how long it would last. So you took advantage of it. Its there. Take it.

Its as though youve emerged from this cocoon, because for a while we werent seeing you out there. You were going through all kinds of stuff. But youve come out of it like this brilliant butterfly and youre soaring now. This is the most beautiful youve ever looked because you seem so sure of who you are now.

I feel more positive now and Im trying to just make the most of my life. I spent so much time in seclusion. If I had to come out, I came out for my son (Augustin, now 17, who Evangelista shares with French billionaire and Kering CEO Francois-Henri Pinault). But I feel like I wasnt living. I thought I would be judged and I probably am judged, but Ive found out most recently that theres so much love out there, and so much support, even within my industry. I felt guilt for so long because I did a beauty treatment that apparently millions of people have done. And I keep reading about plastic surgery gone wrong. But it wasnt plastic surgery! It was a tool meant to tweak your body just a little bit and make you happier. It was non-invasive and there was no downtime  supposedly no harsh side effects. I cant believe just how much it changed my life and what it did to my mind. But I made the decision that I didnt want to live like that any longer.

You were already having a difficult time.

In a routine mammogram, I found out that I had a very early stage DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) and that didnt freak me out at all. I didnt get nervous, I just did what I had to do. I did a lumpectomy and then that came back like Well, no, your margins arent clear   So I did what I had to do. I thought I would live, get it over with, get it done. It was nothing compared to some of the lung surgeries I had in my youth  I mean when you open up your chest, thats a whole different ball game. (The bilateral mastectomy) was easy for me  that didnt do a number on my head at all and, esthetically, I wasnt disturbed by it. I have a little trampoline that I rebound on and I thought, Oh my God, my life changed! I never have to wear a bra again! This is really good. It was the other issues, the abnormal, unnatural things happening to my body that really messed with my head until I decided I wasnt going to let it anymore.

What about this more recent bout of breast cancer? How did that affect you?

I went into full attack mode. Id lost one of my best friends last year and I feel like she didnt fight hard enough. I wanted to just throw everything at it, all the ammunition I have. Now I just have to pray. I think I feel pretty good.

When I announced my breast cancer diagnosis, I cant tell you how moved I was when you reached out and shared what youd gone through. And when I heard from you again this past summer, that youd had a reoccurrence, I was floored. I always look at you as this invincible powerhouse, even though I know youve had your crap to deal with in your life. But you were, for me, a shining light.

Correct me if Im wrong  But no matter how invincible you feel, theres nothing like some doses of chemo to set you straight 

(Laughs) Exactly! But it seems to me that youve maintained your positivity. What would you say these two cancer journeys taught you about yourself?

They taught me to believe in myself more. Sometimes I think I went into a trance and a you can get through this mode: just do what you have to do. And if God is testing me, OK, I have passed all the tests! Im done. Enough! I want to sit down with my mother one day and try to count the surgeries Ive had. Like that poor woman has been to every single one.

How great that youve had your mom as such a support.

When I had my son, Augie, it had to be a C-section because they were afraid for me to strain my lungs. My mom was right there. I thought the baby was supposed to come into the mothers arms first to bond, but no, no no, she grabbed him and said, Look how beautiful he is! And there was that side of me saying, Just let her have this moment after all I put that woman through  

How do you view this whole business of aging, especially within the fashion world?

I keep saying, Bring it on! I was never anti-aging. I was never afraid of wrinkles. I love wrinkles! Wrinkles are gorgeous. But I still think that you want to look good. I do things like stay out at the sun because Ive have melasma since I was 33, so thats helped me because I think age spots can make you look older, less fresh. There are tools out there, but one must be very careful about which tools and which doctors they choose, and be very aware of the fact that there (can be) consequences.

You seem to now be really looking forward.

Now, for sure. Its like Ive come back to life. Its not like Im getting a second chance; Im getting a redo. Im seeing it all differently now.

Ever get nostalgic for the old days? Or are you like Karl Lagerfeld, who was always onto the next and never wanted to look back too much?

I like laughing about the old days, but theres something about moving forward. Theres so much to look forward to.

On Oct. 27, Linda Evangelista will be at Holt Renfrew Bloor for a public book signing. On Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m., Linda Evangelista and Jeanne Beker will be in conversation onstage at the Bluma Appel Theatre, 27 Front St. E. See tolive.com for information.
Q My sister is a non-existent aunt to my three-year-old daughter and I dont have any idea why. She married about six years before me, had two children fairly quickly and is now divorced but happily with a new partner. I married but took a few years to get pregnant. Her daughter is now 11, and her son, nine. They love my daughter and always want to visit and play with her.

We get together often as family, including our parents, and our brother and his family. I see how my sister is with my brothers kids  shes not overly affectionate or doting, but shes caring, involved and present.

But shes none of the above with my daughter. She barely acknowledges her, ignores my daughters attempts to play or get her attention and shows her zero affection.

Whats the story here?

Cold Aunt

A I dont know; have you asked her? It wont be an easy conversation, and there isnt a great segue, but if you dont ask youll never know. Maybe she doesnt even realize shes acting that way, will be mortified and completely change her behaviour. On the other hand, maybe theres something deep within her that is triggered by your daughter.

Some readers might wonder why I dont suggest asking your brother or parents first. Heres why  because it will inevitably get back to your sister and shell be defensive that you went behind her back. Its not worth it and will shift the focus.

The most important element here is that your daughter NEVER thinks she in any way caused her aunt to behave as she currently does.

Q I met a girl on the first day in my geography class at high school. Weve tried to sit beside each other every class since. We giggle and enjoy the class together. I never bump into her in the halls, so I think our schedules are totally opposite. We have a project to do and were thrilled when we found out we were assigned to the same group.

Now shes asked me to sleep over on the weekend so we can work on the project together. For some reason, it made me really uncomfortable and now things are awkward between us.

How do we get back that fun friend feeling?

Geo girls

A Theres a piece of this story thats missing and I can only surmise it has to do with sexuality and sexual preference. If Im going down the wrong path, then I apologize, but it seems to me to be the missing piece.

Without more information, I can only make assumptions. Are you uncomfortable because you think the girl has a romantic interest in you, and you dont reciprocate it? If so, then decline the sleepover invitation but agree to an afternoon work session with lots of fun time.

You may be right in your gut instinct, but you could be wrong and you dont want to offend her either way.

Q Is it possible to fall back in love with someone youve fallen out of love with? My common-law wife and I are out of sync. From the minute we wake up through to nighttime, we just dont have anything to say to each other. Ive recently retired, which makes it all worse because I have nowhere to go.

Im thinking of leaving her. Thoughts?

Bored

A Imagine how she feels! Youve retired and are now home 24/7. Of course you have nothing to talk about  you dont do anything! Get yourself a hobby, volunteer, find a sport or activity and get out of the house. Try that for a month and see what happens.

If you still feel the same, go with her to a marriage counsellor before throwing in the towel.

FEEDBACK: Regarding the woman whose friend is jealous of everything (Sept. 25):

Reader: I think there is a very simple explanation. What this young woman is trying to do is be relatable to those around her through humble bragging. She is aware of her privileges and is trying to minimize them by saying she is jealous of (this, that, or the other thing). If the writer could gently confront her friend with this notion, perhaps the superficial claims of jealousy would cease.

FEEDBACK: Regarding the boyfriend who doesnt want to have sex anymore (Sept. 26):

Reader 1: There could be one other reason: the girlfriend might have really bad breath. My husband did, many years ago for a number of years. After he had surgery to remove his infected parathyroid glands, his breath was OK again.

Reader 2: What is this girl not understanding?!? Hes just not into you anymore. Its over.

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 teens have been arrested and Toronto police are searching for two more after a carjacking involving a firearm on Monday evening.

Officers responded to a reported carjacking around 8:45 p.m. on Oct. 16 after two people were allegedly involved in an altercation with four others in a residential area near Albion Road and Martin Grove Road.

According to police, the victim and a passenger were in a 2023 Hyundai Elantra when four male suspects in a dark-coloured sedan drove up closely behind them. When the victim pulled over to allow them to pass, the suspect vehicle nudged the Elantra from behind, say police.

When the victim exited their vehicle to check for damage, the four suspects  including one allegedly with a firearm  then approached that person, police say.

The suspects demanded the keys to the victims vehicle and a struggle ensued, with the suspects eventually fleeing the scene in the victims vehicle, say police. The suspect vehicle also left the scene, police added.

The victim sustained minor injuries and the passenger was uninjured.

Officers later located the four suspects. Two were arrested and another two fled on foot, say police.

Investigators allege that at the time of the arrest, one suspect was found to be in possession of a loaded firearm and the keys to the stolen vehicle.

Two Toronto teens, 14 and 16, are facing a variety of robbery, assault and firearm charges.

The two outstanding suspects are in their early teens, between five-foot-eight and five-foot-ten, and were wearing dark clothing.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-7350.


There's sad news being passed along on social media Wednesday (Oct. 18).

Esther the Wonder Pig, a Milton-area pig who gained social media clout with more than 1.5 million followers on Facebook, has died after her health declined in recent weeks, her owners said on social media.

Theres no easy way to say this, but the day we all wished would never come has arrived. Esther has passed away. She was calm and peaceful, and fell asleep with her dad Steve by her side, according to posts from the pig's social media pages. While we understand many of you will have questions, and we will have the answers for you, but we are going to take a little break to process the situation.

The post went on to say, Even though Esther is no longer physically with us, her memory and legacy will live forever. Esther is immortal, and we will continue to show the world that all animals deserve to be loved just like she was.

In 2012, Georgetown residents Steve Jenkins and Derek Walter adopted Esther, a piglet they were told was a micro pig, but instead grew to 600 pounds in just a few years.

An Inside Halton story in 2018 reported Esther's posts routinely garnered 5,000 or more likes and hundreds of comments. Esther also has a New York Times bestseller.

Esther had significant health struggles as well. She needed a large animal CT scanner in 2018 to find out what was ailing her. Using Esthers website and Facebook page, Jenkins and Walter launched a campaign to buy a large-animal CT scanner for the Ontario Veterinary College.

Within three months, Esthers followers answered the call by raising the $651,000 needed to purchase the scanner. Thats the kind of social media clout that made Esther peta2s inaugural winner of its Best Animal Influencer that year.

Thousands of social media users are expressing their condolences.

Esther was such a great pet, John Diel wrote. I loved following her adventures.
ISTANBUL, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- El Al, Israel's main airline, arranged two flights to bring Israelis back from Turkiye after Israel issued on Wednesday a travel warning for its citizens visiting Turkiye, local media reported.

Two Israeli flights left Istanbul and bounded for Tel Aviv on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Turkiye's Demiroren news agency said, showing pictures of Israelis departing from Istanbul's airport.

Israel's National Security Council raised on Wednesday the travel warning for Turkiye to the highest level of four, citing "terrorist threats against Israelis." It urged all Israelis in Turkiye to leave as soon as possible.

El Al said Wednesday it would operate special free flights for Israelis in Turkiye, adding that it would allow Israelis who traveled independently from Turkiye to Greece to fly from Athens to Israel for free.

Tens of thousands have joined protests across Turkiye since a Tuesday attack on a hospital in Gaza caused heavy casualties.

At least 471 people were killed when a rocket hit the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza on Tuesday evening, according to the Gaza-based Health Ministry. It said Israel carried out the airstrikes, while the Israeli military blamed the Islamic Jihad group for the "failed shooting" that targeted Israel.

The attack on the hospital has prompted widespread protests in Middle Eastern countries. 
The Toronto Police Service are trying to locate a teenager reported missing in Toronto.

Rihanna, 17, was last seen on Oct. 17, at about 4:20 a.m. in the area of Birchmount Road and Huntingwood Drive, police said on Thursday, Oct. 19 on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Police have described her as five-foot-six, with a thin build and shoulder-length brown hair.

Rihanna has also a tattoo of a butterfly and flowers on the right forearm, police further stated.
Police said a student was stabbed at a Scarborough high school around noon on Wednesday, Oct. 18.

According to Toronto Police Service, officers were called to Cedarbrae Collegiate Institute, located near Markham Road and Lawrence Avenue East, after receiving reports a student had been stabbed.

Police say the students injuries are considered non-life-threatening.

The suspect is described as a white male, five-foot four inches tall with blond hair and a grey hoodie. Its unclear if the suspect is also a student.




Ask any parent of small children if they know the name Oliver Jeffers and immediately their eyes light up  over the past two decades, kids (and kids at heart) have fallen in love with the Belfast-bred, New York-based kidlit superstars gentle but profound picture books that resonate with readers of all ages.

A visual artist by trade, Jeffers first burst onto the publishing scene in 2004 with his first book, How to Catch a Star, introducing the world to his painterly illustration style paired with emotive, poetic text: a winning combination that has won him acclaim and awards, and kept him on the bestseller lists ever since with winsome books such as Lost and Found, The Heart and the Bottle and The Day the Crayons Quit.

During the only Canadian date on his book tour last weekend at the Toronto Reference Library, hundreds of fans young and old turned out to hear Jeffers discuss his new book Begin Again, released earlier this month. The lineup for the post-talk book signing began even before Jeffers was finished speaking  and was long enough that it took him two and half hours to get through everyone (though the record, he pointed out, remains the time he signed books in Mexico for nine straight hours).

Dressed in a white jumpsuit and broad-brimmed hat, silver rings and linework tattoos adorning his hands, Jeffers looked the very picture of an artist  which is how he continues to define himself despite becoming one of the best-known authors (for children or otherwise) in the world. And that, he says, is partly the secret to his success.

From the very beginning, Ive always thought of myself as an artist first and foremost, Jeffers said during an interview following the event, chatty and thoughtful despite having spent hours engaging with excited fans.

Ive come to think that art is one of the only industries where the more selfish you are, the more generous you are. Because if Im making kids books, for example, if Im trying to think, Oh, I wonder what stories they want to hear? then it becomes almost safe and pandering, right? Whereas if Im just trying to satisfy my own sense of curiosity and something that I find deeply interesting, theres a selfishness to that, but it also lets people in in a way where its not calculated.

Jeffers, who got his start as a painter  and continues to work in the fine-art realm, his whimsical, enigmatic pieces going for thousands of dollars  fell into making picture books as a way of telling stories that would have an impact.

Theres no set formula, but I try to keep it as simple as possible. I mean, all good stories have a beginning, middle and end, he said. And there are some common themes: its about community and friendship, and navigating through space and stories. But not everything will work as a book; sometimes things come in as a painting or a piece of art.

Im a visual artist who uses words. Im a storyteller for sure, and theres an art of timing and delivery of the story and pacing, but that all comes out in a way that brings together both words and pictures.

Jeffers immediately recognizable style  which includes his now-signature hand-drawn lettering  has lent itself to artistic collaborations and exhibits around the world, many playing off the themes of his books and his more recent preoccupation with the big questions that haunt our planet: climate change, social justice, space exploration and more.

Begin Again, which Jeffers developed as a book for all ages despite still being in the picture-book format  splashes of vivid pinks and blues jump off each page, the short bursts of text offer plenty of food for thought  asks some big questions about the world we live in, including: Where do we go from here?

His work has always tried to make sense of the vast emotions we feel as humans  even when were very small  but becoming a parent also brought those themes into stronger focus in recent years, Jeffers said, noting he reads his own work to his kids. (Harland, eight, still gets emotional over the Earth-explainer story Here We Are, while Mari, five, knows that What Well Build is dedicated to her.)

Its changed my approach in terms of how I manage my time. I think this whole tangent from Here We Are on is the direct result of having children. And then partly its that perspective of being responsible for teaching somebody else how to be an adult. Its also then looking around and noticing that if nobody else is speaking out about these things, then whos going to?

Jeffers uses his work to explore social and political issues, including on Instagram (where he has half a million followers)  often to mixed response.

I think were in dangerous times when people can say anything online without much consequence. A lot of people will sort of lean toward the ugliest example of themselves in some ways. Right across the board, its deeply a lack of empathy and empathy is the one ingredient that tends to be sacrificed first in any kind of conflict, he said, noting that his perspective stems in part from growing up during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Youre never going to please all the people. If youre worried that somebodys going to tell you to shut up and thats enough for you to not (speak up), then maybe you dont have conviction in your own voice. I would only ever post or say something that I had truly considered. There will always be people who will absolutely despise what you do and say, but its easy to listen to the dozens of loud voices that are like that and dismiss the thousands of voices that do feel seen and heard.

Its a perceived polarization. Were not all that different; ultimately, we all want the same basic things. That should be easy to accomplish if we just get out of our own way.

From tales of little boys who help their lost penguin friend find his way home, to looking up at the stars and trying to make sense of the wonders of the cosmos, a deep sense of wonder and promise permeates all of Jeffers work.

Asked if hes an optimist, Jeffers paused to consider before answering.

It probably comes from my parents, maybe just that sense of curiosity and really thinking about what it is your priorities are. My mom was sick (with multiple sclerosis) and youd ask her every day, How are you feeling? She would answer with a smile and say, Great! and meant it, even though she was bedridden, because she got to see the sunrise one more time; she got to see her four boys walking around the face of the Earth. So if she can be happy and genuinely mean it, then why the hell cant we?

Whats giving me hope is that I see people want to change, he added. I see people recognize that its not about getting as much as you can as fast as you can as cheaply as you can.

Tabassum Siddiqui is a Toronto-based freelance arts and culture journalist
VIENTIANE, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Delegates from ASEAN police forces met in the Lao capital Vientiane, vowing to continue their fight against transnational crimes as well as strengthen the relations between ASEAN police forces, dialogue partners and observer countries.

The pledge was made at a meeting of the heads of the ASEAN Police Delegation and negotiating partners, as part of the 41st ASEANAPOL Conference held in Vientiane on Tuesday, chaired by Lao Deputy Minister of Public Security Khamking Phouilamanivong.

ASEAN police forces are seeking to enhance their partnership in the promotion of peace, security and stability, as well as to step up cooperation in tackling transnational crimes such as drug smuggling, terrorism, human trafficking and weapons trade.

Speaking at the conference, Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Security Vilay Lakhamfong said, "The 41st ASEANAPOL Conference takes place in an environment with both facilities and many challenges."

"Therefore, this conference is very important for increasing cooperation both at the regional and global levels in responding to various crimes in order to ensure the region and communities around the world enjoy peace, tranquility and stability," he said.

The participants listened to a talk on police cooperation with dialogue partners and observer countries, both bilaterally and multilaterally, concerning the prevention and combating of transnational crime.

The issue was discussed constructively and frankly in order to seek solutions to the burgeoning cross-border crime rate.

The results of the meeting will form the basis of a police cooperation plan in preventing and fighting transnational crime as well as strengthening cooperation between ASEAN member country police forces, dialogue partners and observer countries.

Delegates resolved to step up cooperation in cracking down on transnational crimes under the direction of the ASEAN Police Secretariat in Kuala Lumpur. 
In a phone call, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara discussed the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine.

The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Grateful to Japan for their steadfast support. Briefed my colleague with the battlefield updates. Discussed our urgent needs, Umerov wrote.

Additionally, the parties considered the development prospects of defense cooperation between the two countries.

The Ukrainian minister noted he would be honored to welcome Mr. Kihara in Kyiv.

A reminder that the Government of Japan will assist Ukraine with humanitarian demining efforts and the restoration of agricultural sector.
Ukraine and Romania will expand mutual military and technical cooperation.

The relevant statement was made by the Ukrainian Strategic Industries Ministry, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

On October 18, 2023, as part of the visit of the government delegation of Romania, Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine Oleksandr Kamyshin and Minister of Economy, Entrepreneurship, and Tourism of Romania Stefan-Radu Oprea signed a Memorandum of Understanding. The document addresses the support and expansion of mutual military-technical cooperation between Romania and Ukraine, the report states.

This memorandum is expected to strengthen friendly bilateral relations between Romania and Ukraine, particularly in the defense industry. Such mutually beneficial partnership provides for enhancing Ukraines defense capabilities and developing Romanias defense industry.

According to Kamyshin, increasing cooperation with the defense industries of Western countries is one of the key priorities in the development of Ukraines defense industry.

We aim to fully integrate into the NATO security space as a reliable partner, and we are pleased that countries, as important to us as Romania, support our aspirations, Kamyshin added.

Meanwhile, Oprea mentioned that the Romanian side supports the intensification and expansion of cooperation between the defense companies of the two countries. He confirmed that Romania is ready to take part in reconstruction programs as soon as the security situation allows.

A reminder that, following a joint meeting of the Government of Ukraine and the Government of Romania, which took place on October 18, 2023, seven documents were signed, establishing bilateral cooperation in different areas.

Photo: mspu.gov.ua
BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping called for greater development of China-Mongolia comprehensive strategic partnership in the new era to deliver more benefits to the two peoples.

As good brothers, good neighbors and good partners, China and Mongolia should continue to walk hand in hand, Xi said when meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh in Beijing on Thursday. 
Over the past one and a half years, Germany has welcomed many Ukrainians fleeing war, giving them access to the labor market, but now the need is obvious to accelerate the process and streamline employment for displaced persons.

Thats according to the German Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, reports Ukrinform.

Recently, more than 100,000 Ukrainians have gone through an integration course and another 100,000 will do so in the coming months, the report notes.

"Everyone who has undergone an integration course has to gain experience and further qualification as soon as possible," the ministry says, noting that this helps covering Germanys demand for qualified labor.

Minister Hubertus Heil said his office and the Federal Employment Agency were implementing a number of measures to accelerate the integration process.

The Federal Government would like to persuade large companies, temporary employment agencies and sectoral associations to undertake commitments to help asylum seekers get employed, even if they are not fluent in German.

In this regard, Heil proposed that a special government envoy be appointed for refugee integration into the labor market who would regularly report to the government on the progress in employment facilitation.

Germany has welcomed more than a million Ukrainians who fled their country after the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.

Illustrative photo
Kazakhstan has introduced a ban on export to Russia of 106 types of goods, including technology, which Russia can potentially use in the defense sector.

Thats according to the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, who reported the news on X (formerly Twitter), Ukrinform saw.

"Kazakhstan has imposed a ban on the export to Russia of 106 types of goods, including technological items that could be used for military purposes," Yermak wrote.

According to the official, these are the goods that Kazakhstan does not produce domestically, but Russia attempted to acquire Western components for weapons through re-export.

Read also: NACP initiates sanctions against Russian manufacturers of diamond mining equipment

The head of the Presidents Office recalled that the McFaul-Yermak group had been working with partners to ensure that the terrorist state can't obtain crucial components for weapon production through third countries.

According to Ukrinform, Presidential Office chief Andriy Yermak recently said experts keep finding in downed Russian Kh-101 missiles, as well as Shahed-131/136 one-way attack drones a number of foreign-made components.
The source of the information is a Yemeni site which does not have such report

Leading Russian state media, z-Telegram channels and a Bulgarian news portal are spreading information about an alleged shootout between the Ukrainian military and the Sudanese armed forces in Sudan. As a result, eight Ukrainian and 10 Sudanese soldiers allegedly died.

The conflict is reported to occur because of "Ukrainians' support for Israel's strikes on the Gaza Strip." The propagandists refer to the "Sudanese media outlet" Al-Mashhad Al-Yemeni.

This is fake. The official website of Al-Mashhad Al-Yemeni has no such report published either on October 15, when the Russian mass media began to spread this "news", or on October 14 or before.

All active hyperlinks placed on the sites of Russian resources lead simply to the homepage of Al-Mashhad Al-Yemeni, not to specific material.

Al-Mashhad Al-Yemeni is not a "Sudanese media outlet", but a Yemeni one (https://www.almashhad-alyemeni.com/section~1). This is clear even from the name.

So, Russian propagandists simply invented the news about the death of Ukrainian soldiers in Sudan and referred to a little-known Yemeni site that does not have any information about it.

The Ukrainian service members were indeed in Sudan in the spring of 2023. Then about 10 special agents of the Main Directorate of Intelligence conducted a unique special operation in the territory of Sudan, from which more than 60 Ukrainians were taken out.

Andriy Olenin
The statements made by the Russian president on the large number of civilian victims in the event if the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation continues are extremely cynical.

This was stated by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during an address to the Bundestag on Thursday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

I am more than indignant at how the Russian president warns people everywhere that the result of a military confrontation there can be a large number of civilian casualties. Nothing can really be more cynical than that, Scholz said.

At the same time, he was "very moved by how President Volodymyr Zelensky found clear words about this war and victims of violence.

"This is very important because it comes from the solidarity of those who themselves are abused from the outside and who have the right to defend and protect themselves," the Chancellor said.

He added that during the meeting of the European Council on October 26-27 in Brussels, EU leaders will consult how they can continue to support Ukraine. Currently, it is first and foremost about specific assistance throughout winter. Germany, in particular, is preparing a winter package that covers various aspects, especially what is needed to protect the country from air strikes. Scholz mentioned in this context an additional Patriot system, new IRIS-T and Gepard air defense systems and the required ammunition for them.

Read also: Opposition leader in German parliament slams Scholz for reluctance to supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine

"For us, this is about what we do for Ukraine to help them protect themselves from horrific missile attacks, from drones  from all that is targeting civilian infrastructure," said the head of the German government.

Brussels, he said, will also discuss further financial support for the Ukrainian budget.

"Our position is clear: we have to guarantee this assistance for the financial stability of the state as Europeans ... Not everything can be decided by allocating more money, there should be a change in priorities," said Scholz, who intends to raise this issue next week.

Chancellor also spoke about his recent visit to the Middle East. He became the first leader to visit Tel Aviv after the Hamas terrorist attack.
10/18/2023

By Ed Brennen

Like a lot of UML students, members of the Joy Tong Women in Business ( JTWIB ) student organization arrived on campus this fall with brand new backpacks.

In their case, 500 of them.

The business students are selling the black Swissgear backpacks, which typically retail for around $50, for $25 this year to raise funds for their organization. They are also donating a portion of the proceeds to Girls Inc. of Greater Lowell , a nonprofit that the students support.

The backpacks were donated by industrial management alum John Pulichino 67, 14 (H) and his wife, Joy Tong 14 (H), who own and operate Group III International, a Florida-based global travel goods company.

It was such a generous donation, and we are so thankful for it, says JTWIB President Sarah Curley , a senior accounting student from Salem, Massachusetts.

Image by Ed Brennen Although she never attended UML, Tong actively supports its students  particularly women in the Manning School of Business

She and Pulichino have committed more than $4 million in scholarship funds for UML business students over the past decade. Their names are on the Pulichino Tong Business Center, and the student organization is named in her honor.

But Tong wanted to do more.

Ive been able to share my know-how and mentor students, but I wanted to provide a hands-on experience for the group, she says. I want them to use this vehicle, the backpack, to learn how to start a business. I want them to develop this kind of experience before they get out in the world.

The students worked with UMLs Advancement office to set up an online donation page to handle the cash-free transactions. They sell the backpacks, which are embroidered with the organizations logo, at various locations across campus, with members volunteering to work the tables.

Image by Ed Brennen Managing everything has been a really good experience, says JTWIB Vice President Aliya Kaufman-Daniel, a senior finance and international business student from Washington, D.C. Were learning how to reach our target audience: college students.

The students sold around 30 backpacks during the first week of the semester, and they hope to reach an audience of alumni during Homecoming in early November.

While Tong hoped the students would gain practical business experience by selling the backpacks, she is happy that they also decided to donate funds to Girls Inc.

I dont have a say on that, but I want them to do it. I want them to be in charge and manage the whole fund, she says.

Image by Ed Brennen Since January, JTWIB members have been volunteering at the nonprofit on Wednesday afternoons, teaching girls ages 5 to 18 about financial literacy and introducing them to business concepts such as marketing and entrepreneurship.

Who better than us to give back to the community while teaching them things that weve learned about in college? says JTWIB Director of Community Service Nicole Wilson, a senior finance and management student from Westford, Massachusetts.

So many people at UMass Lowell do so much for us, so it feels good to give back to people that dont necessarily have that mentorship, she adds.

JTWIB members have also started a pen pal exchange with the girls this semester.

If clubs have the membership and means to do so, its really important to support something they feel passionate about, Curley says. For Joy Tong Women in Business, its showing female empowerment.
Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, attends and delivers a keynote speech at the Thematic Forum on People-to-People Connectivity of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The thematic forum on people-to-people bonds of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held on Wednesday in Beijing.

Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, delivered a keynote speech.

He noted that people-to-people bonds are an important part of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the social foundation for advancing joint Belt and Road construction.

China is willing to work with BRI partners, giving high priority to improving people's well-being, increasing people-to-people exchanges in areas such as education, science, culture, sports, tourism and health, innovating ways of cooperation and expanding cooperation areas, he said.

The thematic forum, held by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, attracted more than 300 attendees. 

The Thematic Forum on People-to-people Connectivity of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation is held in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. (Xinhua/Chen Bin)
By Azernews

Afag Huseynova

During the Patriotic War, France's comprehensive support for Armenia was openly implemented. There was even such a situation that it was not spiritually Armenia that participated in the war, but France. In a word, the world saw France as more pro-Armenian than Armenians. Unfortunately, the same situation continues. France is trying to arm Armenia in the political arena, even by inciting it to war.

"The sale of arms to Armenia is on France's agenda."

French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said this in the Senate (the upper house of the parliament) during the discussion of the country's defense budget.

"The head of state (Emmanuel Macron) has clearly defined that our agenda is the sale of defense weapons because that is what our discussions with Armenia are about," Lekornu said.

Fikret Sadigov, a well-known political scientist and diplomat, professor of the Western-Caspian University, commented on the issue for Azernews.

He said that France's first goal in intervening in the South Caucasus is to deprive Russia of all opportunities related to the region.

"I can say that the goal is clear - the goal is to distance Russia from the region, to create a new "platform" for themselves here, and to threaten Azerbaijan and Turkiye," the professor said.

At the same time, F. Sadigov touched on the issue of Armenia completely separating from Russia and becoming subordinate to the West.

"This is a very difficult issue. I can say that Armenia is so closely connected with Russia that it can be a very difficult issue, either in terms of military technology, transport, energy, and other aspects. If France wants to cooperate with Armenia in parallel and continues to supply arms to this country, this will already cause Russia's irritation. This may also lead to a new tension between Russia and France," the political scientist said.

The professor also clarified the fact that international organizations are indifferent to arming Armenia.

"There is nothing new for us. For 30 years, we have already seen tense relations with the adoption of the biased anti-Azerbaijani and unfair resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, both within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group and within the framework of international organizations. The attitude of the West towards Azerbaijan and Turkiye is very subjective. Not only is it subjective, but it is clearly an unfair position. Therefore, I think that the West will always take a neutral position on this issue.

In general, the West wants to take Armenia under its wing and create a "hotbed of tension" against Russia. Of course, Azerbaijan's victory, Azerbaijan's raising Azerbaijan's national flag in Khankendi, and the simultaneous departure of Armenians from Garabagh is an excuse for them to take a tough stance against us," F.Sadigov stressed.

The pundit also commented on the information spread by the French Minister of Defense on the social media about arming Armenia.

I think it is clear that the pro-Armenian views of France and French officials, the resolutions, and statements of the PACE inspire Armenia and put forward an idea as an excuse not to sign an agreement with Azerbaijan. At one time, in order to solve the Garabagh issue, Pashinyan suggested that it be implemented within the framework of the international mechanism. Today, we entered Garabagh, Khankendi, and raised our flag and coat of arms there. I think that now they will find a new excuse. Already today in Yerevan, ideas are being voiced that will cause obstacles to the opening of the Zangazur corridor by Azerbaijan, such as the expulsion of ethnic Armenians from there, and ethnic cleansing. Of course, they will use all this as a new excuse against us," the expert concluded.
A group of teachers and students from Laos are currently in China for an eight-day study tour. "This is my first time taking the China-Laos Railway high-speed train, and my first time to China," an excited student told Xinhua.





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UNODC and the Government of Indonesia Commit to Enhance the Treatment of Female Prisoners in accordance with the Bangkok Rules

Jakarta (Indonesia), 19 October 2023  UNODC and Indonesia's Directorate General of Corrections (DGC) conducted an assessment of the implementation of the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-Custodial Measures for Women Offenders, also known as the Bangkok Rules.



As part of the assessment, UNODC and DGC visited several women's prisons in Indonesia, namely, Jakarta Women's Prison, Surabaya Women's Detention Centre and Malang Women's Prison. During the visit, focus group discussions with corrections officers and prisoners were held to identify existing challenges in managing female prisoners and efforts to enhance the treatment to ensure that gender-specific rights and needs are fulfilled in line with the Bangkok Rules.

The assessment report and several policy recommendations were disseminated through a roundtable meeting on 28 August 2023. The roundtable meeting convened officials from various government ministries/agencies and civil society organisations. Representatives from the DGC, Directorate General of Human Rights, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Women Empowerment, all women's prisons in Indonesia, the National Commission on Violence against Women and the National Commission on Child Protection attended the event.



Some key recommendations included the development of a regulatory framework for treating female prisoners in Indonesia, developing security procedures to handle female prisoners during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum stages, and developing a pre-release preparation programme and post-release service. The assessment also identified the need to strengthen interagency cooperation in supporting female prisoners' transition and social reintegration by involving other agencies, such as the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Women Empowerment.

During the roundtable meeting, UNODC reaffirmed its commitment to continue working with the Government of Indonesia to ensure the fulfilment of gender-specific rights and needs of female prisoners and promote the use of non-custodial measures for female offenders in line with the Bangkok Rules.
MRAIJIB AL FHOOD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 19th Oct, 2023) The Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) has inaugurated the green zone at the Emirati-Jordanian refugee camp in Mraijib Al Fhood.

The inauguration was attended by Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, President and Chief Executive Officer of the UAE Independent Climate Change Accelerators (UICCA); Hamoud Abdullah Al Junaibi, Acting Secretary-General of the ERC; Mohamed Youssef Al Fahim, Deputy Secretary-General for Support Services at the ERC; Khamees Jumaa Al Nuaimi, Head of the Emirati Relief Team in Jordan, and several ERC's officials and volunteers.

The zone includes a series of environmentally friendly housing units, uniquely designed with specifications for sustainability. These units were entirely manufactured in the UAE, utilising sustainable materials, such as palm fronds and recyclable resources. First Abu Dhabi Bank, the organisation's strategic partner, supported their construction while Aramex, its logistical partner, facilitated their transportation to Jordan.

Sheikha Shamma handed over the keys to the new housing units to a group of young Syrians about to embark on their marital journey. As a symbol of hope and growth, she also planted an olive tree within the camp, signifying the start of a new phase and a sustainable journey for the camp and its facilities.

During her visit, Sheikha Shamma explored the camp's other amenities, including its cultural complex.

The children in the camp showcased their talents through folk performances while warmly welcoming Sheikha Shamma and her delegation.

Sheikha Shamma thanked the ERC for its notable contributions, which led to establishing the camp's green zone.

Al Junaibi thanked Sheikha Shamma for inaugurating the eco-friendly housing units at the camp and supporting refugees, adding that this project is part of the ERC's Year of Sustainability and coincides with the UAE's imminent hosting of COP28.

Al Junaibi explained the benefits of the housing units, such as their resilience to diverse weather conditions and their capacity to minimise heat loss, adding that the ERC is currently prioritising sustainable and innovative projects in line with the UAE's substantial commitment to sustainable development and climate action.

The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life for present and future generations while safeguarding the environment, he further added, lauding the role of its partners in supporting the vital project, most notably First Abu Dhabi Bank and Aramex.

First Abu Dhabi Bank reaffirmed its commitment to social responsibility and is actively working to help achieve sustainable humanitarian goals and projects. It also takes pride in its strategic partnership with the ERC and continues to support the UAE leadership's vision to promote the values of generosity and giving at a regional level.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Oct, 2023) An Accountability Court (AC) on Thursday suspended the perpetual arrest warrants of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N)s Quaid Muhammad Nawaz Sharif in toshakhana case and stopped the authorities from arresting him on his arrival from abroad.

The court said that the arrest warrants would be restored if the petitioner failed to appear till October 24, before it.

AC-I Judge Muhammad Bashir heard the petition filed by former prime ministers lawyer Qazi Misbah Advocate. The lawyer said that his client wanted to surrender before the court as he was arriving back on October 21.

During the hearing, the court sought the record of the case against PML-N's leader. On the query of the court, the lawyer said that Nawaz Sharif had left the country to get medical treatment, adding that his fresh medical report had also been attached with the case.

NAB prosecutor said that they had no objection to the suspension of arrest warrants of the petitioner if he wanted to surrender before the court.

On the query about former president Asif Ali Zardari, the lawyer said that he was appearing before the court through a pleader. The lawyer said so far no arrest had been made in toshakhana case, adding that he would give arguments in detail on October 24.

After hearing arguments, the court reserved the verdict on the petition and later suspended the perpetual arrest warrants of Nawaz Sharif till October 24.

It may be mentioned here that the NAB had named PML-Ns leader Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, former president Asif Ali Zardari and ex-prime minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani as accused in reference pertaining to receiving vehicles from toshakhana during the regime of PPP.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Oct, 2023) Federal Minister for Human Rights Khalil George Thursday visited the Punjab Child Protection and Welfare Bureau and commended their efforts to support children's welfare.

Chairperson Child Protection Bureau Dr Sara Ahmed briefed the minister about the measures taken for children's welfare.

She mentioned that the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau provides shelter and care to children who are orphaned, abandoned, or neglected within the province.

Sarah Ahmed mentioned that the bureau places special emphasis on their education and training, with the children receiving instruction in various skills during their stay.

She stated that the bureau ensures that even beggar children living there receive attention to their education, health, and other essential requirements, with the goal of fostering their skills and preparing them to become productive citizens.

Caretaker Minister Khalil George commended the Punjab Government's efforts in child welfare. He emphasized the importance of raising public awareness about such welfare organizations and pledged full federal-level support.
Gaza Strip, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Oct, 2023) Palestinians in the war-torn Gaza Strip desperately awaited the arrival of aid trucks promised under a deal US President Joe Biden struck with Egypt and Israel as the army struck more Hamas targets Thursday.

The Gaza war -- sparked by the bloody October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that officials said has claimed more than 1,400 lives -- has set off a wave of fury across the middle East against Israel and its Western allies.

The conflict has claimed 3,478 lives in Gaza, its Hamas-controlled health ministry said. Entire city blocks have been levelled, water, food and power have been cut off, and over one million people have been displaced.

"The pace of death, of suffering, of destruction... cannot be exaggerated," the top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths said about the crowded territory home to 2.4 million people.

There are fears of worse to come if Israel launches its anticipated ground invasion aimed at destroying Hamas and rescuing Israeli and foreign hostages, whose known number Israel on Thursday revised up to 203.

Biden, on a flying visit to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet on Wednesday, reiterated strong US support for the long-time ally but also stressed the need to address the plight of Palestinian civilians.

He said he had agreed a deal for an initial 20 trucks carrying relief good to cross the shuttered Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza, with the first deliveries expected Friday at the earliest.

"We want to get as many of the trucks out as possible," Biden said aboard Air Force One on his flight back, while warning that "if Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through... then it's going to end".

More than 100 trucks carrying aid goods have been queued for days on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, the only entry or exit point to Gaza not controlled by Israel.

Cairo has so far kept it closed, pointing to repeated Israeli strikes near the crossing and voicing fears that Israel may be hoping to permanently drive Palestinians out and into Egypt's Sinai desert.

On the Gaza side, scores of people were again waiting, desperate to flee, but careful to keep a distance of about 100 metres (300 feet) in case of new Israeli strikes.

"We're ready with our bags," said one man who only gave his name as Mohammed, 40, and who said he works for a European institution.

He said he had been waiting "for three days with my family, in a house 10 minutes away from the crossing" but had received no information so far.

Majed, 43, who said he works with a German organisation, told AFP that "I came on my own this morning and, in case the crossing opens, I'd get my wife and children -- they're ready."

The Arab world has been united in anger and condemnation of Israel since a deadly strike hit a Gaza hospital compound on Tuesday.

Both sides in the war have traded blame for the bloody carnage, but neither the provenance of the strike nor the death toll could be immediately or independently verified.

The strike left scores of bodies and charred cars at the Ahli Arab hospital compound in northern Gaza, AFP images showed.

Hamas charged that Israel hit the hospital during its massive bombing campaign and Gaza's health ministry put the death toll at 471.

Israel blamed a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket, a claim backed by Biden who said the US Defense Department had concluded that "it's highly unlikely that it was the Israelis. It would have had a different footprint".

The Israeli military has pointed to the absence of a large impact crater typical of its air strikes and said that fuel from the errant rocket had exploded.

A senior European intelligence source told AFP that he believed a maximum of 50 people were killed.

Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus has also disputed Hamas's figure of 471 dead, asking "Where are all the bodies?"

Hamas has dismissed Israel's position, saying its "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone".

It also slammed the United States, accusing it of being complicit in the ongoing strikes on Gaza.
Israel's wartime cabinet decided on Wednesday that it will allow passage of basic humanitarian aid from Egypt to the besieged Gaza Strip. #GLOBALink





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Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Oct, 2023) Nearly 30 years after the release of cult film "La Haine" -- a groundbreaking look at France's suburban ghettos -- it is returning in the form of a hip-hop stage musical.

The film's director Mathieu Kassovitz -- best known internationally as the star of tv spy series "The Bureau" -- is behind the adaptation, set to open in a Paris theatre next year.

"My PR people don't want me to call it a musical because it's a bit corny," Kassovitz told AFP with a smile.

"It's more modern than a classic musical. Hip-hop allows for a more natural approach, it makes sense to have a musical exchange that way."

He compared the show's approach to French film classics like "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" from 1964 in which "there's no explanation why people are breaking into song in the middle of a scene".

"La Haine" (Hate) won Kassovitz best director at the Cannes Film Festival when he was just 27 in 1995 and made a star of Vincent Cassel as one of a trio of friends in a poor neighbourhood outside Paris engulfed by riots over police violence.

France has twice been similarly convulsed by major unrest in its restive suburbs since the movie, the latest riots earlier this year.

Production was already well under way when a 17-year-old, identified only as Nahel, was killed in June by a police officer during a traffic stop outside Paris, sparking violent protests nationwide.

Kassovitz said Nahel's death was different to the events of the film, "but for 30 years I have been called up every month to comment on some blunder."

"These images remind everyone that it never stopped, that's why we have this poster," he said, pointing to the slogan of the play that reads "La Haine: so far nothing has changed".

The stage show will feature some 30 dancers and around 15 original songs.

Kassovitz, 56, who has been acclaimed for his performances in "Amelie" and "A Self-Made Hero", is recovering from a horrific motorcycle accident last month but said that he was "fine".

He said he wants the show to recreate the "emotion, laughter and rhythm" of the three friends at the centre of the film, which made it so popular despite its hard-hitting subject.

"We grabbed people by the collar, we took them on a journey," he said.

While Said Taghmaoui and Hubert Kounde who starred alongside Cassel at the time were lauded by critics, their careers did not take off in the same way. Taghmaoui, however, has since carved himself out a solid niche as a character actor in major Hollywood movies including "Three Kings", "John Wick 3" and "Wonder Woman".

pgr/er/cw/fg
USM Theatre Presents Doctor Faustus Opening on Oct. 26

Thu, 10/19/2023 - 02:07pm | By: Caroline Neese

The University of Southern Mississippi (USM)s Theatre program presents Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, beginning Thursday, Oct. 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the Martha R. Tatum Theatre on the Hattiesburg campus.

Dr. David Coley directs this Elizabethan cautionary tale which tells the story of a brilliant scholar whose quest for knowledge leads him into a deal with the devil.

This is one of those plays that has something for everyone, said Dr. Coley, producer and assistant professor of Theatre. It has the tragedy that people might expect, but its also frequently hilarious. It has intensely powerful personal moments but also grand spectacle. I think this is a show that will surprise most everyone who sees it.

The story follows the character of Doctor John Faustus, played by Petron Brown, a third-year MFA performance candidate, who, despite being low-born, earns a doctorate in theology. However, his insatiable craving for knowledge and power leads to Faustus being tempted by necromancy.

"Working on Doctor Faustus is probably the most enlightening experience I've had as an actor, said Brown. Never has a role challenged me this much and called for such specificity and understanding.

Brown is in great company as many celebrated actors have portrayed Doctor Faustus on stage and on screen. The play was first performed in 1604 and has since had many performances and adaptations. However, Southern Misss Theatre program presents an updated and stylized production that has been described as medieval meets fantasy.

This show is spooky, hilarious, allegorical, philosophical, supernatural, and so much more. Audiences are certainly in for a ride and will be amazed at how everyone on stage is taking the text to new heights, said Brown.

Shelby Burgess, a second-year MFA candidate in scenic design who designed the scenery, says the vision of the show was established quickly and easily.

From the get-go, the design team and the director have been absolutely in sync, says Burgess. This has been the smoothest design process I've been a part of. I'm super excited for audiences to see all the technical elements we've built into the world!

The vision comes to life on Oct. 26 with more dates through November 5, closing with a matinee at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $18 for general admission, $15 seniors, military, faculty and staff, and $8 for students. This show will most likely be enjoyed by ages 13 and up.

Purchase tickets at the Southern Miss Ticket Office.
USM Students Well-Being Focal Point of Fall Wellness Festival

Thu, 10/19/2023 - 08:34am | By: Van Arnold

Students at The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) will have an opportunity to learn more about resources available to them in a fun, relaxing atmosphere as part of the Fall Wellness Festival set for Tuesday, Oct. 24 on the Hattiesburg campus. The festival will be held from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m. at Spirit Park.

Students Counseling Services, Moffitt Health Center and Campus Recreation are co-hosting the event for the second straight year. The festivities will include food, games, music, face painting, Cash Money therapy dog, door prizes and more.

Brittany Quito, Mental Wellness Coordinator for Student Counseling Services, points out that the purpose of the festival is to give students a chance to learn about different wellness areas both on campus and in the community, but in a more informal environment.

USM departments, student organizations, and community partners are invited to share their information and resources with the student body for any area of wellness, including mental/emotional, physical, social, and financial, said Quito.

The demands on a college student can be stressful, particularly those experienced by first-year students. Quito explains that the upcoming festival is designed to alleviate some of those daily pressures.

We hope the students know that USM cares about them and their total well-being, she said. It can be a lot coming in as a first-year student and being overwhelmed with all of the wonderful resources this campus provides. We hope this festival serves as a reminder to all students that there are many great resources available to them on campus to help them grow and thrive during their time here at USM.

In the event of rain, the Grand Ballroom of the Thad Cochran Center will be the designated rain site for the festival. Email Brittany Quito for questions.
Small-business owners will have an opportunity to learn about procurement opportunities with Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Thursday, Oct. 26.

Stacey Francis will discuss the subject during a Wyoming APEX Accelerator Lunch and Learn online workshop titled Doing Business With Idaho National Laboratory from noon-1 p.m. To register, go here. Registration is free.

Wyoming APEX Accelerator, part of the Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network housed at the University of Wyoming, is the states expert in government contracting assistance.

INL is one of 17 national laboratories across the U.S. funded by the Department of Energy (DOE). The lab provides national leadership in the areas of nuclear energy, national security and sustainable energy research. INLs needs are diverse, ranging from consumables to mechanical and electrical services.

In this workshop, Francis will discuss INLs vision to build a coalition of small businesses in Wyoming to support the labs mission and the growing opportunity in the clean energy efforts in the region. Additionally, she will talk about INLs desire to bolster the supply chain to support such projects; explain what the future may look like; and discuss the steps required to do business with INL.

Francis is INLs Small Business Program manager and is responsible for targeting, shaping and retaining small businesses in support of the labs diverse mission areas. She has nearly 30 years of experience in building relationships with key stakeholders and partners. She leads small-business outreach for the lab and regularly participates in events to promote its mission and share opportunities for small businesses to engage with the lab.

Francis received the DOE Secretarial Award for Facility Management Contractor Small Business Program Manager of the Year for fiscal year 2015.

For more information, call Maureen Johnson, marketing, communication and database manager for the Wyoming SBDC Network, at (307) 343-0925 or email mjohn125@uwyo.edu.

The Wyoming SBDC Network offers business expertise to help Wyoming residents think about, launch, grow, reinvent or exit their business. The Wyoming SBDC Network is hosted by UW with state funds from the Wyoming Business Council and funded, in part, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
From left, UW students Chase Markel, Bryson Mills and Nick Wade weigh an Angus bull during UWs High Altitude Bull Test last spring at the Laramie Research and Extension Center. (Shelby Rosasco Photo)

As a high-altitude state, Wyoming runs into high-altitude problems. For many cattle ranchers, that means dealing with pulmonary hypertension, also known as high-altitude or brisket disease.

The condition most commonly affects cattle grazing at more than 5,000 feet above sea level. Multiple factors, including altitude, breed, body condition and genetics, contribute to an animals likelihood of contracting the disease and developing heart failure as a result.

Located at 7,220 feet above sea level, the University of Wyomings Laramie Research and Extension Center (LREC) is an ideal location for studying the disease.

Launching UWs Bull Test and Sale

Recognizing the need for research on the topic, faculty in UWs Department of Animal Science partnered with colleagues at LREC to launch Wyomings first High Altitude Bull Test and Sale.

Its a true collaborative effort between Dr. Scott Lake, Dr. Hannah Cunningham-Hollinger, Ben Hollinger and myself, says Shelby Rosasco, UW Extension beef specialist and assistant professor of animal science. We all four thought about it for a long time and decided to go for it.

The program, now in its second year, provides data on individual bull performance and offers a venue for producers to market bulls that have undergone pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) testing.

Rosasco and her colleagues developed the program in response to a need expressed by Wyoming cattle producers facing altitude-related mortality. But the test also provides a valuable opportunity for students to gain practical experience in the beef industry.

More specifically, students learn firsthand about bull development, selection, breeding soundness exams, PAP testing, feed efficiency, carcass ultrasounds, data management and effective marketing.

Were integrating teaching, research and extension to do as much as we can to help students and producers in our state, Rosasco says.

Not a Normal Class

In the past year, a total of 41 bulls were assessed over a period of several months, starting in January. Eight undergraduate and three graduate students were responsible for completing daily health checks, weighing the bulls and collecting data under the supervision of UW faculty and staff.

The students also developed marketing materials promoting the sale; created a sale catalog; and helped plan and execute a public field day sharing test results.

I would recommend this class to anyone looking to improve marketing skills, breeding cattle and improving their own breeding stock, says Blake Fabrizius, an animal science major from Carr, Colo., who participated in the 2023 course and consigned several bulls to the test.

This year, Rosasco and her colleagues have expanded the program to include courses in both the fall and spring semesters. Students enrolled in the fall class are building knowledge and skills related to bull growth, nutrition, reproduction and genetics. In the spring, theyll pivot to focus on bull management, data collection and marketing.

Its not a normal class, says Chase Markel, a Ph.D. student who helped design and launch the inaugural bull test and sale. You can get your baseline classes at any institution in the country, but the lessons in this class are priceless. You wont get it anywhere else.

Originally from Wheatland, Markel grew up raising and marketing bulls. He applied both practical experience and academic knowledge to help develop curriculum, recruit students and deliver lectures.

Theres not a guidebook on how to run a class like this -- that made it challenging, but also exciting, he says.

UWs inaugural High Altitude Bull Test and Sale concluded with an educational field day and private treaty sale in April. (UW Photo)

In addition to facilitating student learning, the class is designed to serve the needs of regional cattle ranchers. Producers are responsible for covering feed and testing costs; in return, they receive regular updates on their bulls performance and an opportunity to market their bulls in a live sale.

Its useful information for making my bulls better, says Jared Boardman, a rancher who participated in the inaugural bull test. I definitely felt it was valuable even if some of the information was bad news. Now, I have ideas about what to work on.

Producers and consignors participating in the 2023-24 test and sale will have access to PAP test and breeding soundness exam results; ultrasound ribeye area and fat thickness measurements; and data on individual feed intake. They also will receive feed efficiency test results, including feed to gain, residual feed intake and average daily gain.

This year, bulls will undergo a 45-day screening period before the test to assess their risk for pulmonary hypertension. Rosasco and her colleagues also have increased the length of the test to accommodate a 70-day feed efficiency assessment that meets Beef Improvement Federation guidelines.

The 2023-24 test and sale include divisions for both yearlings and 2-year-old bulls.

We are looking forward to building on the success of last years test through the addition of a feed efficiency test, additional age categories and transitioning to a live sale, Rosasco says.

Learning Opportunities for the Public

For Boardman, a graduate of UW, its not just about data collection and improving his herds genetics. He also welcomes the opportunity to support a new generation of learners.

I was a high school ag teacher, so I like the educational part, too, he says. Its a way to support UW and give back.

The educational component of the High Altitude Bull Test and Sale isnt limited to UW students. The program culminates in an annual field day at LREC, followed by the bull sale. Members of the public are encouraged to attend the free event, even if theyre not planning to participate in the sale.

The program is for the stakeholders of Wyoming in general, not just bull consignors, Markel says. Everyone is encouraged to get involved and come to the field day.

The 2024 field day, scheduled Saturday, March 9, will offer educational programming, presentation of test results and a free meal prepared by the UW Food Science Club.

To view the consignors handbook and register for the 2023-24 bull test and sale, visit https://bit.ly/UWBull_Test_Info_2023. Registration closes Friday, Oct. 20, and bulls must be delivered to LREC by Wednesday, Nov. 1.

For more information, email Rosasco at srosasco@uwyo.edu or call (307) 766-2329.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Developments over the past few days in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have amply demonstrated that an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire must be the overriding priority, said Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, on Wednesday.

As long as the war continues, more violations of international humanitarian law are inevitable. Without a comprehensive ceasefire, any amount of humanitarian assistance will be a drop in the bucket, said Zhang at an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Security Council bears the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. In the face of the continuous spread of conflict and the increasingly imminent humanitarian disaster, the Security Council has no reason to remain silent and no excuse to delay action further. China does not agree with the claim that the Security Council's actions will interfere with the ongoing diplomatic efforts. Although the draft resolutions proposed by Russia and Brazil have not been adopted, the Security Council cannot stop at this, said Zhang.

China expects all members of the Security Council to face up to their responsibilities under the UN Charter, respond to the expectations of the Palestinian and the Israeli peoples and the international community, move forward in unity, build consensus, and make binding decisions on the current crisis that will stand the test of history and conscience. China will continue to work with the international community to play a constructive role in pushing for a ceasefire and the cessation of hostilities, the protection of civilians, the prevention of a further humanitarian crisis, and the realization of a comprehensive, just, and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue, he said.

"If the current fight in Gaza is allowed to drag on, the end result will not be a complete military victory for any side, but rather most likely a catastrophe that will engulf the entire region, that will probably end the prospect for the two-state solution, plunging the Palestinian and Israeli peoples into a vicious cycle of hatred and confrontation," he noted.

Arab countries have issued a strong call for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire. The international community should heed this just call and unite all diplomatic efforts toward this goal. China welcomes any initiative that is conducive to easing the humanitarian crisis and reducing the suffering of civilians, and supports all efforts aimed at de-escalating the conflict and restoring peace, he said. "We hope that all parties concerned will maintain impartiality, actively leverage their influence on the parties concerned, promote calm and restraint, and work for the cessation of hostilities as soon as possible."

Under the current circumstances, all diplomatic efforts should work to send a unified signal. First, there are no winners in this war. Violence for violence will only lead to more serious crises. Second, any violence and attacks against civilians should be rejected. Third, international humanitarian law must be followed. Fourth, the fundamental solution to the Palestinian issue lies in the implementation of the two-state solution, said Zhang.

China, together with the United Arab Emirates and Russia, requested this emergency meeting. The attack on Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital in Gaza claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians. China is shocked by this heinous attack and strongly condemns it. The protection of civilians in armed conflict is a red line under international humanitarian law. Civilians and civilian facilities such as hospitals and schools should not and must not be targeted in military operations. The indiscriminate use of force is not acceptable. And the safety of humanitarian and medical workers must be guaranteed. China urges Israel to effectively fulfill its obligations under international humanitarian law, said Zhang.

Tragedies like the one at Al-Ahli Hospital are unfolding all the time in Gaza. As a result of the total siege imposed by Israel, the supply of water, electricity, and fuel has been cut off. Basic supplies such as food and medicine are dwindling and urgently needed. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to move south because of the emergency evacuation order issued by Israel, only to suffer from airstrikes in the south as well, he noted.

Under the current circumstances, there is no time to lose in protecting civilians, carrying out humanitarian relief, and preventing a humanitarian crisis. China calls on Israel to lift the full blockade on Gaza, retrieve the emergency evacuation order, and stop the airstrikes around the Rafah border crossing. China welcomes the international community's efforts to open a humanitarian corridor and hopes substantive progress can be made in relevant communications and arrangements as soon as possible. China appreciates the important role played by Egypt and other regional countries, said Zhang. 
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Why the U.S. is pressing China to mediate in the Israel-Hamas war.

Welcome to VOA Asia Weekly. I'm Chris Casquejo in Washington. That story is coming up, but first, making headlines:

Jordan canceled a planned summit of Middle East leaders with U.S. President Joe Biden after an explosion at a hospital in Gaza City killed at least 500 people. During his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden characterized the October 7th Hamas attack as almost beyond belief and assured continued U.S. support for Israel. He said quote an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group" in Gaza was likely to blame in the hospital tragedy while announcing $100 million in aid for Gaza and the West Bank.

China's President Xi Jinping met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other world leaders this week to discuss a revamped version of Xis signature Belt and Road investment initiative. The two leaders also discussed the Israel-Hamas war and other issues.

Indonesia's top court ruled against lowering the minimum age of presidential and vice-presidential candidates on Monday as the country prepares for its February 2024 election. The ruling includes an exception for those who have served or been elected as regional leaders, allowing them to run at a younger age. This decision could potentially pave the way for President Joko Widodo's eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run for vice president in next years election.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that Chinese citizens in Israel who wish to return home must purchase tickets for themselves on commercial flights. She advised them to fly back to China as soon as possible.

China is sending a special envoy to the Middle East to facilitate a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching has more.

Israel launched a new barrage of airstrikes on Gaza on Monday as it vowed to wipe out Hamas militant control of the narrow strip of Palestinian territory. This action took place amid a diplomatic push to deliver humanitarian assistance to civilians in the area.

China is sending a special envoy to the region, signaling its willingness to deepen its involvement in facilitating a potential cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

The United States has warned Iran and other countries to not take advantage of the conflict.

The U.S. has also urged China to use its influence in the Middle East to prevent state or non-state actors from attacking Israel and widening its war with Hamas.

China maintains a warm relationship with Iran. In March, China bridged a normalization deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The Chinese were able to pull this off because of their relationship with both sides. China also has very significant economic and natural resource interests, the long-term contract for oil with Iran, for which it has now deployed some naval assets to ensure the security of oil and gas exports. So, in both respects, both diplomatic and economic and military, all of these respects, China's role is growing.

Some U.S. officials are skeptical that China can broker a long-lasting political settlement to the decades-long IsraeliPalestinian conflict, pointing out that Iran is a historic supporter of Hamas. China has condemned actions against civilians but has not condemned Hamas explicitly.

Nike Ching, VOA News, Washington.

A senior unnamed member of South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday that Hamas attacks on Israel may have used rocket-propelled grenades and artillery shells supplied by North Korea. VOA spoke with a former U.S. diplomat, who said North Korea has always been willing to sell arms to the highest bidder. As long as the Kim dynasty rules North Korea, we are going to be faced with this prospect of conflict. And we're going to be faced with not only conventional conflict, but a nuclear conflict as well.

Visit voanews.com for the most up-to-date stories.

Im Chris Casquejo.

And now, Taylor Swift is back in the spotlight as her concert film sold 123.5 million dollars worth of tickets worldwide over the weekend.

Thanks for watching VOA Asia Weekly.
Furious protests over the bombing of a Gaza hospital continued Thursday on the streets of Jordan, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, which also has a large population of Palestinian descent. Analysts say a summit in Jordan between U.S. President Joe Biden and Arab leaders, now canceled, could have helped further cement a humanitarian corridor for Gaza.

Curtis Ryan is a Middle East specialist at Appalachian State University in the U.S. He told VOA that three days of public mourning in Jordan announced after the blast at the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza that killed hundreds and the ensuing large-scale protests in Jordan made holding a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden difficult.

Its really unfortunate that this summit isnt happening because there is such an urgency since this would have brought together Egypt, Jordan, the United States, and the Palestinian Authority not just for the humanitarian corridor, but the message that Biden would have gotten from the other three parties and especially from the Jordanian side would have been the words: cease fire. They were also concerned about the scale of the protests, he said.

Jordanian riot police pushed back thousands of protesters Wednesday near the Israeli Embassy in the capital, Amman, where several police were injured in clashes with those setting nearby property on fire. No Zionist embassy on Arab land, they shouted. Mass protests by angry Jordanians continue throughout the country.

Ryan predicts an expected Israeli ground assault in Gaza will fuel more protests.

Everybody cares about the Palestinian issue. Its the most long-standing mobilizing issue in Jordanian politics, unlike any other issue. Whats been happening on the ground to Palestinian civilians, everybody is worked up about it. Thats why we are seeing protests on such a big scale. Its going to be way worse if the [Israeli] ground invasion actually happens, he said.

Ryan and other analysts say even without the hospital blast, for which both Israel and Palestinian militants have denied responsibility, Jordanians are deeply angered by the treatment of Palestinians by Israels right-wing government and Jewish settlers, as well as by Israels extensive bombing in Gaza.

Bruce Riedel, emeritus senior fellow at Washingtons Brookings Institution, told VOA that Jordans 1994 peace treaty with Israel is unpopular and while some of the kingdoms political parties have called for severing ties, King Abdullah has rebuffed those calls and has persisted in urging and working for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

But this crisis is now becoming unprecedented in its scope and intensity that will be difficult for him to not listen to the calls for a change in Jordans status with Israel. The problem, the king understands well, is that if he changes status with Israel, it could affect the bilateral relations with the Americans. American aid to Jordan, which has to be approved by the Congress and is critical to the Jordanian economy critical to maintaining stability in the country, he said.

Analysts see Jordan as a key U.S. military ally fighting against Islamist militant extremists and a stabilizing force in the turbulent region. Riedel expressed concerns about what the future holds for Gaza.

Whos going govern Gaza when the war is over? Israel says it cant be Hamas; then who would it be? Its certainly not going to be the Palestinian Authority," he said. "Egypt doesnt want to take over Gaza. We have a real conundrum coming up here. Who is going to provide law and order and respect for the rule of law and human rights in Gaza when this war comes to an end?

With so many players involved and so much at stake for each of them, analysts have expressed concerns that the Israel-Hamas conflict has the possibility of widening in the Middle East.
U.S. President Joe Biden addressed the nation Thursday night to discuss the U.S. response to the recent Hamas attack on Israel as well as Russias war in Ukraine.

Biden visited Israel Wednesday, bringing a message of support to Israelis while also working to secure humanitarian aid for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The U.S. announced $100 million in aid for Gaza and the West Bank, and the Biden administration is expected to propose $100 billion in supplemental assistance for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and security along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"My administration was in close touch with the leadership from the first moments of this attack," Biden said Wednesday in Tel Aviv. We're going to make sure we have what you have, what you need to protect your people, to defend your nation. For decades, we've ensured Israel's qualitative military edge. And later this week, I'm going to ask the United States Congress for an unprecedented support package for Israel's defense."

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
Burkina Faso's health ministry has declared a dengue fever epidemic amid the deadliest outbreak in years. More than 200 people have died, and new cases are rising sharply.

There have been 50,478 suspected cases and 214 deaths of the mosquito-borne illness this year, the ministry said in a statement released on Wednesday, mostly in the urban centers of the capital, Ouagadougou, and Bobo Dioulasso. It said about 20% of the cases and deaths were recorded last week alone.

Dengue kills an estimated 20,000 people worldwide each year. Rates of the disease have risen eightfold since 2000, driven largely by climate change, the increased movement of people and urbanization.

The World Health Organization this month warned that the disease would become a major threat in new parts of Africa as warmer temperatures create conditions for the mosquitoes carrying the infection to spread.

Dengue is spread by infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Symptoms include fever, muscle pain, nausea and rashes. Lack of treatment or misdiagnosis, common in poverty-stricken countries such as Burkina Faso where health care is spotty, increase the chance of death.

Burkina Faso's outbreak dwarfs other African outbreaks in recent years. According to figures from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dengue killed 18 people in Burkina Faso in 2017 and 15 in 2016.

The health ministry said that it was providing free rapid diagnostic tests and had organized spraying of insecticide in public places to counter the spread.
Mingan-erdeni feels the pulse of a herdsman at his home in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Members of a "Nair" band gather in an activity room in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 15, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Mingan-erdeni (2nd L) and his fellow "Nair" band members are seen during a rehearsal in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 15, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Dorji plays music in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 15, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Dorji herds his goats on a grassland in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Members of a "Nair" band pose for group photos on a grassland in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

This photo taken on Oct. 15, 2023 shows the autumn scenery of grasslands in Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Dorji (R) carries a plate of mutton for storage with his friend in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Mingan-erdeni kisses one of his horses in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Mingan-erdeni (R) talks with a "Nair" band member at home in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Members of a "Nair" band prepare to take group photos during the intervals of performing on a grassland in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Dorji looks at his goats in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Dorji (R) and his father Mingan-erdeni play music in their courtyard in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

This aerial photo taken on Oct. 16, 2023 shows a "Nair" band performing on a grassland in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Dorji prepares to catch a goat to treat his visiting friends in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Dorji checks on his goats inside his house through a monitor in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Dorji herds horses in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Members of a "Nair" band perform on a grassland in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

This aerial photo taken on Oct. 16, 2023 shows members of the band Nair dancing in front of Dorji's yurt in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Dorji catches a goat to treat his visiting friends in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Members of a "Nair" band perform in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Dorji sorts out his horsing gear at home in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Dorji (C) and his friends move a goat out of his fold in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Dorji plays music during a "Nair" performance in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

Dorji shoots a video of a rehearsal of a "Nair" band in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 15, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Mingan-erdeni (R) and his "Nair" band members perform in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

Dorji's wife Sodtsetseg herds goats in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Oct. 16, 2023.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

This photo taken on Oct. 16, 2023 shows Dorji's Arabas cashmere goats in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Wang Kaiyan)

This aerial photo taken on Oct. 16, 2023 shows Dorji herding horses in Otog Banner of Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)

This aerial photo taken on Oct. 15, 2023 shows the autumn scenery of grasslands in Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Dorji is a 61-year-old herdsman living in Otog Banner. During the autumn season, Dorji's daily routine includes herding horses and goats. He has over 200 Arabas cashmere goats, which provide sound economic returns.

In his spare time, Dorji participates in a local cultural activity called "Nair" with his 91-year-old father, Mingan-erdeni. "Nair" dates back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and is a form of folk art that involves playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing. It has been listed as a regional intangible cultural heritage in Inner Mongolia.

Mingan-erdeni, a former rural doctor, encouraged his neighbors to form a "Nair" band in 2018. This band not only represents the preservation of the "Nair" culture but also serves as an important means to enrich the spiritual life of these senior herdsmen. Harvesting and music together make up the autumn life of Dorji and many other herdsmen in Ordos. (Xinhua/Bei He)
The World Health Organization said Thursday that five trucks full of medical supplies are ready at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, with hopes that the aid could be delivered to Palestinian hospitals as early as Friday.

"Our trucks are loaded and ready to go," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. The delivery of aid would be the first since Israel imposed a complete blockade on the Gaza Strip, following the October 7 attack by Hamas militants that killed over 1,400 Israelis.

Health authorities in the Gaza Strip said Thursday that at least 3,785 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli bombardment since the latest conflict erupted.

Border closed

While aid continues to build up on the Egyptian side of the crossing, Egypt is not allowing Palestinians to cross from Gaza into the Egyptian Sinai peninsula.

Following a meeting on Wednesday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said such an exodus of people from Gaza would jeopardize Palestinian aspirations of statehood.

"The idea of displacement of Palestinians from the [Gaza] strip to Egypt simply means that something similar will also happen with the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan. And thus the idea of the Palestinian state that we are talking about  and the international community is talking about  remains unimplementable, because the land exists, but the people do not exist, and therefore I warn of the danger of this matter," el-Sissi told reporters in Cairo.

"The idea [of] transferring Palestinian citizens from the [Gaza] strip to Sinai very simply means that we are transferring the idea of resistance, the idea of fighting from the Gaza Strip to Sinai, and thus Sinai becomes a base for launching operations against Israel. In this case, Israel will have the right to defend itself and its national security, and as part of the response, it deals with Egypt and launches strikes on Egyptian lands," the president added.

Palestinian refugees

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their land in past conflicts with Israel, with many settling in Egypt and other neighboring states. Many refugees have never been allowed to return  and the regions fear the wider implications of Palestinians being forced to flee Gaza, said analyst Chris Doyle, director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding.

"[Egypt] does not want to land up hosting hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Sinai, in a tented city  with really quite a clear agenda, certainly on the Israeli right, that that becomes the permanent solution," Doyle told VOA. "Palestinians and Egyptians are aware of this, are fearful that what happened to them in 1948 and 1967, when they fled in fear or were kicked out, will happen to them again. They're talking about a second Nakba, a catastrophe."

Cairo protests

In Cairo, as in many cities across the Arab world and beyond, thousands of people have taken to the streets to denounce Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

Mahmoud Kamel, of the Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate, helped to organize a demonstration in the Egyptian capital Wednesday.

"[We] condemn the massacre, the war crime and the genocide carried out by the Zionist forces and the IDF against the civilian, unarmed people of Gaza, occupied West Bank and Jerusalem," Kamel told Reuters.

The protests pose a risk for President el-Sissi, said analyst Doyle. "We're seeing a lot of anger right now in Egypt about what's going on. So, [Egypt] will be wary of being seen to be somehow supporting Israeli actions at this moment, even though in private they are very critical of Hamas as well," he said.

Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt's president seized power in a 2013 military coup, ousting the democratically-elected Muslim Brotherhood government.

"Let's not forget that that Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood," said Professor Yossi Mekelberg of London's Chatham House. "The more we see death among civilians, Palestinian civilians, the more people will go probably to the street. And it can really inflame the political situation in Egypt. And that's why it's actually in the Egyptian interest to mediate a cease-fire and mediate quickly."

Dialogue

While Egypt has dialogue with Hamas, Mekelberg said it is also able to talk to Israel.

"Strategically, there is great understanding between Israel and Egypt over the last 10 to 11 years. And the other side  for Israel  he is a convenient neighbor. Because what is the alternative? The Muslim Brotherhood? This is definitely not something that Israel would like. It's hard to see many other candidates to negotiate, to lead mediation between Hamas and Israel," Mekelberg told VOA.

For now, analysts say Israel does not appear ready for mediation from any regional power, as it seeks retribution and the eradication of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Greek intelligence has increased surveillance of refugee camps in the country amid radical Islamist calls for jihad in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Cheers of celebration minutes after Hamas deadly attack on Israel.  Chants of praise not from pockets of the Middle East ... but Greece.

Like many other countries, Greece has boosted security since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, elevating its level of national alert to Code 4, just shy of the highest level possible.

With tens of thousands of mainly Arab migrants residing in camps here, intelligence officials are keeping close watch fearing what they tell VOA is a radicalization of Islamist elements that could trigger terror attacks like the shooting deaths of two Swedish nationals in Brussels Monday and the stabbing death of a teacher Friday in the French town of Arras.

In both instances, the alleged killers said they were acting for the Islamic State militant group.

Politicians in Greece such as Migration and Asylum Minister Dimitris Keridis say the situation here is under control.

He says the celebration videos posted by migrants at a camp on the island of Samos were one-off, and not worrying.

But, intelligence officials say they are not taking any chances.

The say they have increased surveillance of camps here, hoping to pick up chatter on any nefarious plans.

Social media platforms that attempt to incite violence are being monitored and suspects are being watched, out of concern that dormant cells of radical Islamists could be mobilized.

The biggest concern though, according to Keridis, is that a wave of migrants caused by the Gaza crisis that could destabilize the region.

Its not just Palestinians from Gaza who could come in, he says, but also potential migrants from Egypt and Lebanon. He says both countries are already hubs for millions of people fleeing persecution in the Middle East and sub-Saharan African states such as Sudan who are seeking passage to the West.

Greece has sided with Israel in its bid to uproot Hamas, but it has also cautioned Israel to prevent a humanitarian crisis from spilling over into neighboring states and Europe  a conduit previously exploited by Islamist extremists.

Soon after a massive refugee crisis hit Greece and Europe in 2015, radical Islamists entered Europe posing as migrants.

Two were implicated in deadly attacks in France that same year. Both used forged Syrian passports to enter the country illegally and seek temporary shelter in a refugee camp.

Intelligence experts tell VOA large-scale coordinated terrorist attacks in Europe are not likely -- but instances of individuals responding to the call of violence are entirely possible.
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to reconvene Thursday and make another attempt to elect a speaker, after Republican congressman Jim Jordan, a staunch ally of former president Donald Trump, lost his second bid to claim the speakers gavel Wednesday.

Jordan, a nine-term lawmaker from the midwestern state of Ohio, won 199 votes in Wednesdays vote, well short of the 217-vote majority he needs to be elected speaker.

Twenty-two of his Republican colleagues voted for other lawmakers in the contest, an increase of two from the first round of voting on Tuesday.

Jordan also trailed Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who won the votes of all 212 Democrats, although Jeffries is highly unlikely to become speaker of the chamber, in which Republicans have a slim majority.

Jordan has not dropped his effort to become speaker and told reporters he expects another vote in the House Thursday afternoon.

Supporters of Jordan have pressured opposing lawmakers on social media to fall in line and approve the Ohio representative as speaker. One Republican congresswoman, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, reported receiving credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls after she voted against Jordan in Wednesdays vote.

Jordan later wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that no American should accost another for their beliefs.

We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together, he added. Stop. Its abhorrent."

Since Representative Kevin McCarthys ouster as speaker two weeks ago, the House has been rudderless and unable to consider any legislation, such as a spending measure to avert a partial government shutdown when current funding runs out on November 17, or a straightforward, bipartisan resolution to support Israel after the U.S. ally was attacked October 7 by Hamas militants.

Some lawmakers, including Republicans and more than a few opposition Democrats, have suggested granting temporary House Speaker Patrick McHenry additional power on a short-term basis to bring key legislation to the floor for full House votes.

Some Republicans have also raised the possibility of reinstating McCarthy, although he balked at having his name placed in nomination. He voted this week for Jordan.

Jeffries called on Republicans to reject the influence of hard-right extremists in their party and work toward a bipartisan governing coalition.

"There's only two paths: either you're going to continue to bend the knee to the most extreme members of your conference, who are not interested in governing, or you can partner with Democrats to do the business of the American people," Jeffries said Tuesday.

Jordan, a divisive figure on Capitol Hill who frequently fires barbs at Democrats, could become the third candidate this month to fail to unite the Republican Party, after McCarthy and Representative Steve Scalise.

Scalise withdrew his name from contention after he outpolled Jordan among the Republican caucus but realized he could not get the required 217-vote majority in a full House vote. With the party holding a very narrow majority in the full House, any Republican will need near-unanimous support from their own members to be elected speaker.


The blast at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday led to widespread protests across the Middle East on Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden appeared to side with Israel in blaming terrorists in Gaza for the blast. We take a look at the latest diplomatic efforts to quell the violence and ease the suffering.
Israel carried out fresh airstrikes Thursday in the Gaza Strip, as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak traveled to Israel with a message of support following a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden.

You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you," Sunak said.

Biden said after his brief visit to Tel Aviv Wednesday that he had candid discussions with Israeli leaders as they conduct military strikes that have taken more than 3,400 lives in Gaza in response to Hamas massacre of more than 1,400 Israelis on October 7.

I was very blunt with the Israelis, he told reporters aboard Air Force One. Biden said that while Israel has been badly victimized, the country has an opportunity to relieve the suffering of innocent civilians in Gaza who have nowhere to go.

He added that its what the country should do.

Biden said Egypt has agreed to open its Rafah border with Gaza to initially allow 20 trucks of aid to be received and managed by U.N. groups. He warned that if Hamas blocks or confiscates the aid, it's going to end.

Biden said the trucks would likely cross on Friday after badly damaged roads near the crossing have been repaired. Dozens more trucks are waiting to follow if the first tranche goes smoothly. He also announced $100 million in U.S. aid for Palestinians.

The humanitarian crisis has grown increasingly dire in Gaza, with Israel blocking basic necessities from reaching the territory.

Biden denied media reports that U.S. troops will join Israeli soldiers in fighting Hezbollah should the Lebanon-based militant group decide to help Hamas and initiate conflict with Israel.

He said he discussed at length with Netanyahu the prime ministers plans to invade Gaza to root out Hamas and that the two countries militaries have been weighing alternatives. But he declined to provide further details.

Biden is scheduled to address the nation Thursday night on the Israel-Hamas violence and Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Siding with Israel

Biden on Wednesday backed Israels account of who was responsible for a massive explosion at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds and prompted protests across the region.

Based on the information we've seen to date, it appears as a result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza, Biden said.

Israel said the rocket came from the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which denied responsibility.

While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

Watson added that the administration is working to corroborate whether it was a failed rocket launched by Islamic Jihad.

Biden vowed to provide Israel what it needs to defend itself but urged restraint in its retaliation.

You don't live by the rules of terrorists. You live by the rule of law. When conflict is fair, you live by the rule of law, of wars, he said.

From Tel Aviv, Biden was originally scheduled to visit Amman, Jordan, to meet King Abdullah II, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss a humanitarian response for Gazans. But the summit  and the Jordan leg of the trip  was scrapped following the Gaza hospital blast.

The explosion has ignited massive protests in cities across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, Iran, Tunisia and Turkey, where demonstrators laid the blame on Israel.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Latest developments

The death toll from an explosion at a hospital in Gaza reported to be on the lower end of 100-300 people.

Israeli defense minister tells troops to get ready for ground invasion of Gaza.

Following a visit to Israel, U.S. President Joe Biden is set to address the nation Thursday night and discuss the U.S. response to the recent Hamas attack on Israel as well as Russia's war in Ukraine.

Egypt to allow aid trucks to enter Gaza after road repair.

In Jerusalem, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Israeli President Isaac Herzog that Britain stands by Israel's right to defend itself. He also stressed the need to provide aid to Gaza's residents. "Palestinians are victims of what Hamas has done."

More than 1,400 Israelis and and more than 3,400 Palestinians have been killed.



Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday told hundreds of thousands of the country's ground troops to get ready to invade the Gaza Strip, even as its fighter jets launched new airstrikes against the Hamas-controlled territory.

Gallant met with Israeli infantry soldiers positioned on the Gaza border, telling the forces to "get organized, be ready," but did not say when the order would come for the invasion.

"Whoever sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the inside," he said. "I promise you."

Israel has amassed 300,000 or more troops along the border following Hamas's cross-border October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

Shortly after Gallant's statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a video of himself with troops near the border promising victory.

The impending ground invasion of Gaza came as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak followed U.S. President Joe Biden with a visit to Israel to demonstrate Western support for the war against Hamas militants.

"You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you," Sunak said.

Later, he told Netanyahu, "We will stand with your people. And we also want you to win."

Biden said after his brief visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday that he had candid discussions with Israeli leaders as they conduct military strikes that have taken more than 3,400 lives in Gaza, many of them civilians.

"I was very blunt with the Israelis," he told reporters aboard Air Force One. Biden said that while Israel "has been badly victimized," the country has "an opportunity to relieve the suffering" of innocent civilians in Gaza "who have nowhere to go."

He added that it's what the country "should do."

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman told VOA's Urdu Service, "The state of Israel never targets civilians intentionally. We target military targets."

But Major Doron Spielman added, "The problem is that Hamas fires rockets from the schools, next from the hospitals, next to United Nations facilities. And at times when we are targeting them, they themselves put their civilians in the way of [the] fight. All of these questions need to be directed towards Hamas. What were they thinking would happen when they attacked Israel?"

Biden said Egypt has agreed to open its Rafah border with Gaza to initially allow 20 trucks of aid to be received and managed by U.N. groups. He warned that if Hamas blocks or confiscates the aid, "it's going to end."

Biden said the trucks would likely cross on Friday after badly damaged roads near the crossing have been repaired. Dozens more trucks are waiting to follow if the first tranche goes smoothly. He also announced $100 million in U.S. aid for Palestinians.

The humanitarian crisis has grown increasingly dire in Gaza, with Israel blocking basic necessities from reaching the territory.

Biden denied media reports that U.S. troops will join Israeli soldiers in fighting Hezbollah should the Lebanon-based militant group decide to help Hamas and initiate conflict with Israel.

He said he discussed with Netanyahu the prime minister's plans to invade Gaza to root out Hamas and that the two countries' militaries have been weighing alternatives. But he declined to provide further details.

Biden is scheduled to address Americans on Thursday night on the Israel-Hamas violence and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Biden urges restraint

Biden on Wednesday backed Israel's account of who was responsible for a massive explosion at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds and prompted protests across the region.

U.S. intelligence assessed the death toll from the explosion to be between 100-300 people  with that number likely being on the lower end, and minimal structural damage done to the hospital, as first reported to CNN and confirmed by VOA.

"Based on the information we've seen to date, it appears as a result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza," Biden said.

Israel said the rocket came from the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which denied responsibility.

"While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday," National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

Watson added that the administration is working to corroborate whether it was a failed rocket launched by Islamic Jihad.

Biden vowed to provide Israel what it needs to defend itself but urged restraint in its retaliation.

"You don't live by the rules of terrorists. You live by the rule of law. When conflict is fair, you live by the rule of law, of wars," he said.

From Tel Aviv, Biden was originally scheduled to visit Amman, Jordan, to meet King Abdullah II, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss a humanitarian response for Gazans. But the summit  and the Jordan leg of the trip  was scrapped following the Gaza hospital blast.

The explosion has ignited massive protests in cities across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, Iran, Tunisia and Turkey, where demonstrators laid the blame on Israel.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters.
The latest U.S. expansion of export controls on advanced chips, including those for artificial intelligence, as well as chipmaking tools will make it difficult for China to develop in that sector, analysts say.

Emily Benson, director of the trade and technology program at the U.S. think tank CSIS, told VOA Mandarin that China should not be surprised by the rules announced this week because they are not a major departure from those proposed last October.

She said the new regulations ensure clarity about the goals of the original rules, and the chip ban was a longstanding issue.

In July, CEOs of U.S. chipmakers including Intel, Qualcomm and Nvidia met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to urge a halt to more controls on chip exports to China. That meeting came after China announced restrictions on the export of materials used to construct chips, a response to escalating efforts by Washington to curb China's technological advances.

The most recent controls, announced on Tuesday, expand export restrictions on advanced chips and go into effect in 30 days. The new controls also restrict the export of equipment and tools for chip production to other countries, including Russia and Iran, in a move designed to prevent transshipment of advanced chips to China.



The U.S. also put Moore Thread and Biren Technology, two Chinese developers of graphics processors, on Washingtons Entity List. This has the potential to bar them and 13 subsidiaries from access to things such as U.S. chip design software.

The list, published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, already includes Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies and Chinas memory chipmaker Yangtze Technologies.

The new measures close loopholes in regulations released last October and will probably be updated "at least annually," Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Monday. Reuters reported that a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said it "firmly opposes" the new restrictions. Moore Threads and Biren Technology issued statements protesting the new regulations.

Wang Shiow-wen, an assistant research fellow at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that because training large AI models requires a vast number of advanced AI chips, the latest move by Washington shows its determination to block Beijing from obtaining the necessary chips through any channel.

"I think what the United States is doing is gradually becoming more like a precise strike in military terms, meaning it is now operating this thing more delicately," she said.

Wang said China's Huaweis unexpected release in August of new mobile phones, Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro, using advanced 7-nanometer technology may have triggered the new chip controls.



Raimondo called Huaweis development "incredibly disturbing." She told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Oct. 4. We need different tools.  We need additional resources around enforcement.



"We don't want to be more restrictive than necessary," Raimondo said at a press conference on Oct. 17. "The export controls are not designed to impair China's economic growth."



But analysts say the U.S. appears to be blocking China's semiconductor industry because if China's technologies continue to develop, they may innovate and break through U.S. restrictions to develop slightly higher-end chips.

They point to two recent developments that seem beneficial to China but work against its long-term development of semiconductors.

On Oct. 13, the U.S. announced it would allow South Korea's SK Hynix and Samsung to keep receiving some coveted U.S. chipmaking tools at their Chinese plants.



On the same day, TSMC, the Taiwanese company that is the worlds largest contract manufacturer of semiconductor chips, said it expected to receive permanent authorization to continue operating a chip manufacturing factory in Nanjing.

It had previously been granted an extension to a waiver allowing it to supply U.S. chip equipment to its factories in China, according to the Taipei Times.



Chiu Chih-chang, an adjunct professor at the Department of Statistics at Tamkang University in Taiwan, said South Korean semiconductor manufacturers expanded their chip manufacturing in China more than 10 years ago, and the scale of their investment is among the worlds largest for the sector.

Chinas sluggish post-COVID economy has reduced its demand for chips and the U.S. semiconductor bans have limited the South Korean manufacturers growth in China, Chiu said.



But China's domestic chipmakers Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp. and Changxin Memory Technologies have increased their share of the domestic market, which Chiu predicts will end with a fierce price war.



Faced with decreased profits, China's semiconductor industry will be limited in what it can spend on development of new chip technologies.



Chiu said of Washington allowing U.S. tools to be used by foreign firms operating in China, "It's a strategy favoring the U.S., not a favoring [for China]."



Chiu said the U.S. has adopted different strategies to prevent China from producing advanced AI while curbing China's growing influence in traditional semiconductor manufacturing and design and both will make it more difficult for China to continue developing its semiconductors.


In a rare ruling, a federal court in Pakistan restrained authorities Thursday from arresting the convicted former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, upon his return to the country this coming weekend after four years in self-imposed exile.

A two-member panel of judges approved Sharif's appeal for protective bail until he appears before the high court in Islamabad on October 24, his lawyers told reporters in the Pakistani capital. "Meanwhile, he shall not be arrested on his arrival in Pakistan until he surrenders before this court," the ruling read.

The verdict paved the way for the former three-time prime minister to return to the country on Saturday, where his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party said that he would address a homecoming rally in his native eastern city of Lahore the same day.

Sharif was convicted of corruption charges in 2018 in two cases and sentenced collectively to 14 years in prison. He denied the allegations, claiming the powerful Pakistani military orchestrated his ouster from power in 2017 and subsequent court convictions.

In 2019, a provincial high court, in an unprecedented ruling, allowed the veteran politician to travel to London for medical treatment for four weeks, accepting his undertaking that he would return to serve his prison term. Sharif failed to come back to Pakistan and was subsequently declared an absconder.

Defense attorney Azam Nazir Tarar said Thursday that Sharif would pursue his pending appeals against his convictions, hoping they would be overturned to allow the former Pakistani leader to campaign for the general elections, which are due in late January.



"It is everyone's constitutional right to do political activities freely," said Tarar, a former Pakistani law minister and member of Sharif's party.

Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of the self-exiled former Pakistani leader, hailed Thursday's court ruling in a post on the X social media platform.

"He was implicated in absurd cases and subjected to mistreatment. Any fair hearing would have established his innocence," said the younger Sharif, who served as prime minister from 2022 until this past August.

Pakistan's military has launched several coups against elected prime ministers since the country gained independence from Britain in 1947 and ruled the country for more than three decades.

The last coup was staged by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999, which ousted Nawaz Sharif during his second stint in office, leading to a decade of military rule in Pakistan. The deposed prime minister was later convicted and sentenced to prison on controversial terrorism charges.

Sharif was later allowed to go into exile with his family at the intervention of Saudi Arabia. He returned to Pakistan in 2007 and became the prime minister in 2013 for a record third time after his party won the elections.
Russia on Friday ordered an American journalist detained for three more days on charges she failed to register as a foreign agent.

Alsu Kurmasheva holds dual American Russian citizenship and is an editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. She is the second American journalist to be arrested by Russia this year.

Kurmasheva appeared in court in Kazan, a city in central Russia, Tass, the state news agency reported. Photos published by Mediazone, an independent Russian media site, showed her wearing a coat with the hood up and a face mask as she sat in the defendants cage.

Her lawyer, Edgar Matevosyan, said she is not guilty of the charges, The Associated Press reported, citing Mediazone.

The journalist, who traveled to Russia in May for a family emergency, was briefly detained in June at an airport and her passports were confiscated.

She was arrested Wednesday, and if convicted, could face up to five years in prison.

Russia designated the U.S. Congress-funded RFE/RL a foreign agent in 2020.

The independent network refused to comply with the requirement to register as a foreign agent, saying it would be an invasion of its editorial processes and would limit the ability of the network to work.

"Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children," RFE/RL head Jeffrey Gedmin said. "She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately." RFE/RL is a sister outlet of VOA.

The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders also condemned the detention.

"CPJ is deeply concerned by the detention of U.S.-Russia journalist Alsu Kurmasheva on spurious criminal charges and calls on Russian authorities to release her immediately and drop all charges against her," Gulnoza Said, who covers Russia at the CPJ, said in a statement.

"Journalism is not a crime and Kurmasheva's detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting," Said added.

Russia's Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA's email requesting comment

Kurmasheva is the second American journalist detained by Russia. Reporter Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal has been in custody in Moscow since March.

U.S. ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy met with Gershkovich on Tuesday one week after a court denied latest appeal to release him.

In a statement, the U.S. embassy said Gershkovich "remains in good spirits despite his challenging circumstances" and said the U.S. continues to call for his release.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russia's foreign ministry said on Thursday, as the two countries forge closer ties in the face of what they see as a hostile and aggressive U.S.-led Western camp.

Russia's state-run TASS news agency reported that Lavrov's meeting with Kim had lasted over an hour but the ministry did not provide further details.

Lavrov, who arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday, earlier thanked North Korea for backing Russia's military actions in Ukraine and pledged Moscow's "complete support and solidarity" for Kim, Russia's foreign ministry said.

Lavrov's visit is seen as setting the stage for a visit by President Vladimir Putin, who has stepped up cooperation with politically isolated North Korea.

Speaking at a reception hosted by the North on Wednesday, Lavrov said Moscow strongly valued Pyongyang's "unwavering and principled support" for Russia in the Ukraine war, which it calls a "special military operation."

"Likewise, the Russian Federation extends its complete support and solidarity with the aspirations of the DPRK," Lavrov said, according to the transcript of the speech released on his ministry's website. DPRK are the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

After talks with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, Lavrov later told reporters that increased military activities by the United States and its allies Japan and South Korea were a cause for concern, Russia's state-run RIA news agency reported.

The U.S. and South Korean navies on Thursday joined those of four other countries - Canada, Belgium, New Zealand and the Philippines - for an anti-naval mine exercise off South Korea's south coast, the South Korean defence ministry said.

A U.S. B-52 bomber made a rare landing in South Korea Thursday to underline the two countries' alliance against North Korea's rising nuclear threats, South Korea's military said.

In his comments, Lavrov said North Korea, China and Russia were pursuing a policy of seeking to ease regional tensions.

North Korean state media said Lavrov's visit would mark a "significant occasion" in further consolidating relations between Pyongyang and Moscow.

Photos released by the Russian foreign ministry showed Lavrov being greeted by people holding flowers and flags of the two countries upon arrival.



Increased contacts

Lavrov's two-day visit comes a month after North Korean leader Kim made a rare trip to Russia, during which he invited Putin to Pyongyang and discussed military cooperation.

Russia's TASS news agency said Lavrov might also brief North Korean leaders on the results of Putin's visit this week to China.

A U.S. think-tank said on Tuesday that satellite images showed continued activity around a North Korean port near Russia, indicating at least six trips by sea between the two countries since late August.

The shipments between the port of Rajin and Russia's Dunai re possibly related to the transfer of North Korean munitions to Russia, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said.

Separately, a North Korean cargo-passenger ferry that had carried foreign tourists from Japan or South Korea was seen at a drydock at the same port this month, most likely for maintenance, CSIS said.

It was not clear whether the vessel would be used to supplement trade activity between Russia and North Korea, it said.

The White House said last week that North Korea had recently provided Russia with a shipment of weapons in what it called a troubling development. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Western allegations were not based on evidence.

South Korea and the United States have expressed concern about increased exchanges between Russia and the North, and the allies have stepped up military drills together with Japan in response to the threat from North Korea.

South Korea has urged Russia to comply with United Nations resolutions in its exchanges with North Korea, a South Korean foreign ministry spokesperson told a briefing on Thursday.
Representatives vote on a draft resolution during a UN Security Council meeting at the UN headquarters in New York, on Oct. 19, 2023. The UN Security Council on Thursday renewed the sanctions regime on Haiti, which includes an arms embargo, travel ban and assets freeze measures. (Loey Felipe/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua)

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Thursday renewed the sanctions regime on Haiti, which includes an arms embargo, travel ban and assets freeze measures.

Resolution 2700, which won the unanimous support of the 15-member council, extends the restrictive measures for one year from the date of the adoption of this resolution.

The resolution directs the Sanctions Committee to consider expeditiously the update of the list of individuals and entities subject to travel ban and assets freeze.

The resolution reaffirms the expansion of the arms embargo from designated individuals and entities to the whole country, except for UN entities, the UN-authorized Multinational Security Support mission, Haitian security units as well as case-by-case approval by the Sanctions Committee.

The Security Council adopted Resolution 2653 in October 2022, which established a sanctions regime on Haiti. But the arms embargo targeted only designated individuals and entities. In Resolution 2699 adopted on Oct. 2, 2023, the arms embargo was expanded to the whole country.

Resolution 2700 decides to extend the mandate of the Panel of Experts, which is tasked to assist the Sanctions Committee, for a period of 13 months from the date of the adoption of this resolution.

It requests that the Panel of Experts to provide to the Security Council an interim report by March 29, 2024, and a final report no later than Oct. 1, 2024.

It requests the UN secretary-general to conduct an assessment of progress in Haiti's security situation no later than Oct. 1, 2024. 
Thailand this week lifted emergency rule in parts of the countrys restive south, where a Muslim insurgency has claimed thousands of lives over the past two decades. Critics said the emergency measures had led to rampant human rights abuses.

The predominantly Buddhist country imposed an emergency decree over its three southernmost provinces in 2005, a year after a continuing wave of insurgent violence flared up. Ethnic Malay Muslims are in the majority in those provinces.

The decree lets security forces detain suspects without charge for up to 30 days and gives the security personnel immunity from prosecution for any actions carried out in the line of duty. It also grants the government broad powers to censor the news.

Martial law and an Internal Security Act, which also grant security forces some enhanced powers, have been imposed on southern provinces as well.

Thailand has lifted the emergency decree in 10 districts over the years. The government passed a resolution lifting the emergency decree in three more districts, one in each province, at a meeting on Monday, government spokeswoman Rudklao Intawong Suwankiri told VOA.

She said the government made the move because attacks in those areas had waned sharply over the past few years.

The data showed that the violence has ... reduced to the level where its safe enough to use the [Internal Security Act] instead of the emergency decree, Rudklao said.

The decree was reimposed on one other district where she said attacks are on the rise.

More than 7,300 people have been killed and 13,600 injured in the fighting since 2004, according to Deep South Watch, an independent research group. For the past decade, though, the number of violent incidents in the provinces has dropped steadily, from 1,850 in 2012 to 158 last year.

Rudklao said that if attacks remain low, then Deputy Prime Minister Somsak Thepsutin, who chairs an advisory panel on the emergency law, will suggest lifting the decree in several more districts next year.

He has a quite hopeful feeling that the situation would be improved to the level that at least an additional 10 districts would be able to lift, she said. But all in all, we have to look at the data.

Many locals and rights groups say the decree has done more harm than good by allowing years of abuse by police and soldiers under cover of legal immunity.

That means that even if there is abuse during detention under this law, you could never hold anyone to account. That aligns with the consistent reports of torture and ill treatment in detention in the southern border provinces, said Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong, a Thailand-based researcher for Amnesty International.

There have been many allegations that they [detainees] were subjected to torture ... both psychologically and physically. That has caused a lot of pain for the local population over the past 19 years, he told VOA.

In its 2022 report on the human rights situation in Thailand, the U.S. State Department said, Official impunity ... continued to be a problem, especially in the southernmost provinces.

Chanatip called the governments move to lift the decree in three districts a good start.

But there is much more that they have to do, he said. There is also the martial law, which allows for another seven days of detention. There is also the Internal Security Act, which grants the security forces a lot of power in the region. So, a more holistic approach to peace and to human rights in the region still requires much more action from the government.

Amnesty International and others have urged Thailand to lift all three laws across the south and stick to the civilian legal code.

Not everyone agrees. Buddhists for Peace, which promotes interfaith dialogue in southern Thailand, says the emergency decree is still popular with some Buddhists in the area.

The terrorists always attack the Thai Buddhists in southern Thailand because they think they are part of the Thai government, said Lamai Manakarn, a coordinator for the group who lives in the south.

The emergency law makes Thai Buddhists feel safe. If the government wants to cancel it, they should cancel it in some areas that dont have an emergency [dangerous] situation, she added.

For years, the government has been in sporadic and mostly fruitless negotiations with the largest of the insurgent groups, Barisan Revolusi Nasional, to end the rebellion.

Matthew Wheeler, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the latest lifting of emergency rule in a few districts likely will do little to advance the Malaysia-brokered talks.

It might have had some symbolic impact if the decree had been lifted throughout the region, signaling a fresh approach and greater concern for the protection of human rights. But given that the emergency decree had years ago been lifted in 10 districts in the three southernmost provinces, the latest easing of the decree is not likely to make much of an impression on BRN, he said in emailed comments.

Wheeler said the new administration has so far shown no sign of a change of tack in the governments approach to the insurgency, and that a policy statement it delivered to the National Assembly last month outlining its priorities made only one vague reference to seeking long-lasting security and peace for the border provinces.

BRN unilaterally suspended the negotiations in May, just ahead of national elections, to await a new administration, and has not met with the governments negotiating team since.
Coalition forces were slightly injured in Iraq in drone attacks over the last 24 hours at U.S. bases in Iraq as regional tensions flare following the deadly bombing of a hospital in Gaza.

Two drones targeted a base in western Iraq used by U.S. forces, and one drone targeted a base in northern Iraq. U.S. forces intercepted all three, destroying two but only damaging the third, which led to minor injuries among coalition forces at the western base, according to a statement Wednesday by U.S. Central Command.

"In this moment of heightened alert, we are vigilantly monitoring the situation in Iraq and the region. U.S. forces will defend U.S. and coalition forces against any threat," Central Command said in the release.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have threatened to attack U.S. facilities there because of American support for Israel.

'More operations'

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias, issued a statement afterward claiming responsibility for the attacks and saying it "heralds more operations" against the "American occupation."

The salvos came at a time of increasing tension and fears of a broader regional conflict in the wake of the latest Hamas-Israel war.

Since the beginning of the war on October 7, much attention has been focused on Hezbollah, the powerful Hamas ally across Israel's northern border in Lebanon, and its formidable arsenal. The group has traded so far limited strikes with Israel on the border in recent days.

But Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have also threatened to attack U.S. facilities over American support for Israel.

"Our missiles, drones and special forces are ready to direct qualitative strikes at the American enemy in its bases and disrupt its interests if it intervenes in this battle," Ahmad "Abu Hussein" al-Hamidawi, head of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement last Wednesday. He also threatened to launch missiles at Israeli targets.

Following Tuesday night's blast that killed hundreds at a hospital in Gaza, the group issued another statement in which it blamed the U.S. and its support for Israel for the catastrophe and called for an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq. Hamas has said the explosion in Gaza was from an Israeli airstrike, while Israel has blamed a misfired rocket by Palestinian militants.

"These evil people must leave the country. Otherwise, they will taste the fire of hell in this world before the afterlife," the statement said.

A U.S. defense official, who wasn't authorized to comment to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the attack on the al-Asad military base in western Iraq.

Tashkil al-Waritheen, one of the Iranian-backed militias making up the larger group, claimed responsibility in a statement for a second drone attack, which it said had targeted the al-Harir airbase in northern Iraq. U.S. officials did not immediately comment on the claim of that attack.

The government of the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq said an intercepted drone crashed in an open area near the village of Batas.

Joint effort claimed

Also on Wednesday, Iran-allied groups in Iraq announced that they had formed a "joint operations room" to help Hamas in its war effort.

Two officials with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, confirmed the attacks on the two bases Wednesday. They said the armed groups were on alert and prepared to join the wider battle against Israel, but that Iran had not yet given approval for them to open a new front. Leaders from some of the factions are now in Lebanon and Syria in case they get orders to proceed, one of the officials said.

Officials with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment.

Lahib Higel, a senior analyst for Iraq at the International Crisis Group, said in the short term, the Iraqi groups allied with Iran and Hamas are not likely to open a new front in the war, but that could change if the Hamas-Israel war escalates or becomes protracted.

"Geographically, obviously, they are several steps removed, so they're not going to be the first to react" and are likely to serve in a supporting role, she said.

Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, said the Iran-backed groups in Iraq are split between those that are also political parties and have a stake in the Iraqi political system and the "vanguard" groups that are purely militant and tend to be more tightly controlled by Iran.

The latter, he said, have been used in the past as foot soldiers in regional conflicts, including in Yemen and Syria.

"This is what they're designed to do," Mansour said. "The question is: Will Iran and some of the leaders of these groups decide it's in their interest to escalate?"
Officials in southern Ukraine said a Russian missile hit a residential area late Wednesday, killing at least two people.

Ukraines Interior Ministry said the missile hit a food shop in the Mykolaiv region.

Vitaliy Kim, the regional governor, said the attack happened in the village of Stepove and damaged both residential buildings and an agricultural business.

Another Russian missile strike earlier Wednesday hit a residential building in Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Wednesday that attack killed five people and injured five others.

Another Russian strike killed a woman and injured four other people in Dnipropetrovsk, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Ukraines military says Russia unleashed a wave of drone and missile strikes on four Ukrainian regions overnight but most of them were intercepted and destroyed by air defenses.

A total of 17 drones and missiles were launched against infrastructure, civilian, and military targets in Donetsk, Mykolayiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia, the military said Thursday.

Three drones and one cruise missile were shot down by Ukrainian forces, the military added.

There were no reports of casualties.

On Wednesday, officials in southern Ukraine said a Russian missile hit a residential area killing at least two people. Ukraines Interior Ministry said the missile hit a food shop in the Mykolaiv region.

Vitaliy Kim, the regional governor, said the attack happened in the village of Stepove and damaged both residential buildings and an agricultural business.

Another Russian missile strike earlier Wednesday hit a residential building in Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Wednesday that attack killed five people and injured five others.

Another Russian strike killed a woman and injured four other people in Dnipropetrovsk, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

RFE/RL contributed to this report. Some information came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Deportation flights of Venezuelans from the U.S. resumed Wednesday with a first plane of more than a hundred migrants landing back in their economically troubled country under the Biden administration's latest attempts to deal with swelling numbers of asylum-seekers.

This is the first time in years that U.S. immigration authorities are deporting people to the South American nation, marking a significant concession by the government of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro to a longtime adversary.

The first plane, a Boeing 737 jet, took off from the Texas border city of Harlingen and touched down in Miami before arriving hours later outside Caracas, Venezuela's capital. The roughly 130 passengers were Venezuelan women and men who were shuttled to the plane on buses and wore wrist and ankle restraints. As they boarded, U.S. immigration officers patted them down.

Biden's administration said it plans to have "multiple" deportation flights a week to Venezuela, according to a U.S. Transportation Department waiver on travel restrictions, which would place Venezuela among the top international destinations for U.S. immigration authorities.

The first flight came a day after the country's government and opposition agreed to work on electoral conditions, which triggered the U.S. Department of Treasury to announce some sanctions relief on Venezuela's oil, gas and gold mining sectors hours after the airplane landed at the airport in Maiquetia.

"I am glad that today, in compliance with the agreements discussed and signed between the authorities of Venezuela and the government of the United States, the first group of Venezuelans who have been repatriated have returned," Maduro said during televised remarks that also addressed electoral conditions that will affect the country's 2024 presidential election.

State television showed footage of migrants in face masks exiting the plane, getting health tests and answering questions from officials at the airport near Caracas. Maduro's government has blamed migration on economic sanctions.

Corey Price, an acting executive associate director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said those who were prioritized for the flights include recent arrivals as well as migrants who have committed crimes in the U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens said the passengers had illegally entered the U.S. between ports of entry.

"This flight to Venezuela is the first I've seen in my career of an entire charter flight of Venezuelans going back to their country. And we plan on having several more of these in the coming days and weeks," Price said.

The deportees will find a homeland that is still in the midst of complex social, political and economic crisis.

The situation has evolved since a global drop in the price of oil  Venezuela's most valuable resource  a decade ago and mismanagement by the self-proclaimed socialist government pushed the country into a downward spiral. People are grappling with constant food-price hikes and business closures, and workers try to meet their needs with a monthly minimum wage of $3.70 that's barely enough to buy a gallon of water.

Maduro's government has said it will make resources available to help deported migrants.

The U.S. government employs a fleet of charter carriers known collectively as ICE Air. Using charter airlines though, these flights, which typically carry 135 migrants, will fly to Venezuela from unspecified airports in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security. They will be for Venezuelans who have received final removal orders, which are issued after losing an asylum bid or to those who weren't able to seek humanitarian protection.

The flights are in response to "an increase in migration from Venezuela that is straining immigration systems throughout the hemisphere  including in the United States," the Transportation Department said in its waiver.

The U.S. has struggled for years to deport people to countries with which it has strained diplomatic relations, including Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. After a hiatus of more than two years, Cuba allowed for the resumption of U.S. deportations in April, with deportation flights there operating only about once a month.

The U.S. government hopes the recent threat of deportation will be enough to make Venezuelans reconsider trying to enter the United States illegally  and opt instead for the online appointment system to make asylum claims or attempt other legal paths. But it has not deterred many people from continuing to migrate.

Venezuelan migration to the U.S. tapered off a year ago when the Biden administration agreed to allow Venezuelans to enter the country if they applied online with a financial sponsor who also arrived at the airport. More than 61,000 Venezuelans came on that route since last October.

The restart of the deportation flights takes places just weeks after the Biden administration announced that it is granting temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans that have arrived in the U.S. by July 31.

The temporary status makes it easier for them to get work authorization and stop deportation orders.

Experts and immigration attorneys are urging Venezuelans to apply to TPS to prevent their repatriation.

"Venezuelans who have not applied for TPS and have deportation orders could be affected," said Rachel Leon, an immigration attorney in Florida. "Those who are eligible for TPS should apply as soon as possible to avoid facing deportation."

At the same time, Mexico agreed to let in some Venezuelans who were deported from the U.S. after crossing the border illegally, recognizing that Venezuela wouldn't.

The lull was short-lived. In August, Venezuelans were arrested more than 22,000 times on charges of crossing the border illegally, fourth behind people migrating from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. Many head to New York, Chicago and other major U.S. cities, overwhelming shelters and temporary housing there.
U.S. authorities unveiled new sanctions Wednesday on individuals and entities that allegedly support Iran's missile and drone programs, as U.N.-mandated restrictions on the country's activities lapse.

The sanctions target actors based in Iran, Hong Kong, China and Venezuela, the U.S. Treasury Department said.

"Iran's reckless choice to continue its proliferation of destructive UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and other weapons prolongs numerous conflicts in regions around the world," Brian Nelson, Treasury under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.

The announcement came as EU officials on Wednesday also said the bloc would maintain sanctions on Iran beyond the deadline of a landmark nuclear deal.

The deal agreed with world powers in 2015 was aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

The decision to keep the sanctions in place was originally announced by Britain, France, and Germany, all signatories to the pact, last month.

The Treasury Department said on Wednesday that it was sanctioning 11 individuals, eight entities and one vessel.

The people targeted have "materially supported" Iran in the production and proliferation of missiles and drones, the Treasury added.

The action was taken jointly with the State Department, which is designating eight individuals and entities.

Along with the landmark Iran nuclear deal, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution in 2015 requiring certain international restrictions, but those expired on Wednesday.

The resolution was based on an assumption that Iran would move to restore confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.

This has not happened, said a joint statement by the United States and 46 other Proliferation Security Initiative-endorsing states.

"In this context, it is imperative that all States continue to take steps to counter Iran 's destabilizing ballistic missile-related activities," the statement said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that Washington reaffirmed its "commitment to utilize every tool at our disposal to counter Iran's development, procurement, and proliferation of missiles, UAVs, and other dangerous weapons.

He added that the United States and its partners will continue raising concerns at the United Nations and "demand that Iran be held accountable for the destabilizing impacts of its proliferation."

The latest round of Treasury sanctions targeted businesses like Iran-based Fanavaran Sanat Ertebatat Company, which makes jam-resistant guidance systems, its directors, as well as Saberin Kish Company for supporting Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Others who helped procure components, such as China-based Lin Jinghe and his Hong Kong-based company Nanxigu Technology Co, were also named.

Sarmad Electronic Sepahan Company, which made components identified in drones downed by Ukrainian forces, was designated too, alongside weapons proliferation networks led by Emily Liu and others.

The sanctions restrict U.S. firms and individuals from certain transactions with blocked entities.
Chinas nuclear arsenal is growing faster than expected, according to the latest unclassified Pentagon assessment, with a senior U.S. defense official warning the Chinese military is on track to exceed previous projections.

The U.S. Defense Departments annual China Military Power Report, released Thursday, estimates the Chinese military had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads in its arsenal as of May and will have more than 1,000 warheads by 2030.

Last years report, issued in late November, estimated China had more than 400 warheads and was likely to have about 1,500 warheads in its nuclear stockpile by 2035.

U.S. officials said the new estimates are in line with their previous assessments while adding it is concerning that Beijing appears to have quickened the development of its nuclear arsenal.

They're expanding and investing in their land-, sea- and air-based nuclear delivery platforms, as well as the infrastructure that's required to support this major expansion of their nuclear forces, said a senior U.S. defense official who briefed reporters on the contents of the report on the condition of anonymity, under ground rules set by the Pentagon.

We're not trying to suggest a very large departure from where they looked to be headed in last year's report, but we are suggesting that they're on track to exceed those previous projections, the official said.

Certainly, it raises questions about what is their long-term intent here, and I think it reinforces the importance of pursuing some practical measures to try to reduce nuclear risks, the official said.

US vs Chinas nuclear infrastructure

The United States, by treaty, maintains 1,550 active warheads, but it is an aging arsenal with an aging infrastructure. Some of the U.S. warheads are 50 years old.

To keep up, the Pentagon plans to spend $750 billion over the next decade to update and replace almost every component of the U.S. arsenal.

Chinas infrastructure, in contrast, is new and expanding.

The Pentagon report assesses China is expanding the number of its nuclear delivery platforms  to be able to launch nuclear warheads from land, sea and air  while also building more infrastructure to support further expansion of its nuclear forces.

In addition, the U.S. believes China has completed construction of its intercontinental ballistic missile silo fields, which contain at least 300 silos from which it could launch warheads. The U.S. further assesses that some of the silos have been loaded with missiles.

The U.S. has 450 silos, according to research by the Federation of American Scientists, with 400 of them loaded.

China reaction

The conclusions of the Pentagons annual assessment of Chinas military strength and capabilities elicited a stern response from Beijing.

We firmly opposes [sic] the U.S. side hyping up various versions of the China threat narrative and making groundless allegations and smears towards China, said Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

China is committed to a defensive nuclear strategy, keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security and does not target any country, Liu told VOA in an email. We have honored our pledge to no first use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances and unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones.

But U.S. officials are cautious about such pledges, including on Beijings willingness to adhere to a no-first-use policy.

We haven't seen any indication that they're going to formally change that, according to the senior U.S. defense official, adding, We have seen plenty of indications that there are circumstances under which they might judge that it wouldn't apply.

Hypersonics

The Pentagon report also echoes concerns about Chinas already world-leading arsenal of hypersonic weapons.

The report warns new hypersonic weapons could soon replace some of Beijings older, short-range ballistic missiles, with their sights set on foreign military bases and fleets in the Western Pacific.

Unlike ballistic missiles, which fly at hypersonic speeds but travel along a set trajectory, hypersonic weapons are highly maneuverable despite flying at Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.

Chinas military is also developing its missile forces overall, according to the Pentagons report, and may be exploring development of conventionally armed intercontinental range missiles systems.

Such capabilities would allow the PRC [Peoples Republic of China] to threaten conventional strikes against targets in the continental United States, Hawaii and Alaska, the report said.

Beijings naval and aerial capabilities are also growing.

The China Military Power Report estimates Beijings navy now includes more than 370 ships and submarines, maintaining its position as the largest navy in the world. Chinas aviation force is likewise thought to be the largest in the world and is rapidly catching up to Western air forces in terms of capability.

Communication issues

But it is not just Chinas growing military that has U.S. officials worried. Beijings expanding arsenals and platforms have been accompanied by a more aggressive, and a sometimes coercive, military posture.

U.S. defense officials earlier warned of a sharp increase in risky Chinese military behavior, noting more than 180 incidents targeting U.S. assets in the Indo-Pacific since 2021, a number that jumps to 300 when U.S. allies and partners are included.

Making matter more tenuous, according to U.S. officials, is the Chinese militarys continued refusal to talk.

We continue to believe that it's extremely important for us to maintain open lines of military-to-military communications between the U.S. and the PRC across multiple levels, including the senior levels, said the senior U.S. defense official.

It's been unfortunate when we haven't been able to have those senior level engagements at the Shangri-La Dialogue, for instance, this year. The handshake was not a substitute for a more in-depth, substantive discussion, the official said, noting the refusal of the Chinese defense chief, Gen. Li Shangfu, to talk with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at this years dialogue.

China countered, however, that Washington bears some responsibility for the strained relations, pointing to U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan and frequent U.S. freedom of navigation operations for stoking tensions.

The U.S. side needs to show sincerity and take concrete actions to meet China halfway, so as to create conditions for the relations between the two militaries to return to the right track, the Chinese Embassys Liu told VOA.

China shortcomings

Despite Chinas growing military might, the latest Pentagon report does assess that Beijing itself believes it still faces some deficits as it tries to field a force capable of fighting and winning wars with other capable military powers, such as the U.S.

They have made pretty considerable amount of progress, the senior U.S. defense official told reporters. At the same time, I think they still have a long way to go in terms of having the level of military capability that we judge that they think that they need to advance their global security and economic interests.

Part of that comes from the fact that Chinas military has not been tested in real combat in more than 40 years, since Chinas 1979 conflict with Vietnam, nor has it been in a position to test whether it can deploy all aspects of its military might in a coordinated manner.

The senior defense official called the lack of combat experience, in particular, "one of the shortcomings that the PRC highlights in a lot of their own self assessments.

They try to address that, I think, by attempting to make their training and their exercises more realistic to more closely approximate what they refer to as a sort of real war or actual combat type conditions, the official said, in response to a question from VOA. And I think they try to address that, as well, by learning whatever lessons they can from other countries involvement and military conflicts.

They're watching very closely how Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine is unfolding, the official said.

Taiwan

The Pentagon report also highlights Chinas increased military pressure against Taiwan.

U.S. military and intelligence agencies have publicly warned that China is readying its forces to be able to take Taiwan by force by as soon as 2025.

The report notes Chinas military has practiced elements of each of its military courses of action against Taiwan during large-scale exercises in August 2022 an
The U.S. has not carried out regular deportations to Venezuela since 2019, but at an airport in Harlingen, Texas, Venezuelan men and women arrived on buses in shackles, underwent pat-downs and were escorted onto a charter plane.

The 135 Venezuelan migrants were deported from the United States on Wednesday to Caracas, Venezuela.

They were all single adults who were in ICE ERO custody, a U.S. immigration official told VOA by email on background, a method often used by U.S. authorities to share information with reporters without being identified.

The migrants remained handcuffed as they walked from the buses and boarded the plane. Once inside, the handcuffs were removed.

According to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement statement, the migrants presented their claims for relief or protection from removal before immigration judges in the immigration courts.

They went through immigration proceedings, the official told VOA, adding that some had been detained while going through the immigration system, others were placed in the Alternatives to Detention program or were ordered to check in with deportation officers at an ICE office.

Alternatives to Detention is a program that releases immigrants from border officials custody and places them into a specific monitoring program. It is geared toward vulnerable immigrants, such as unaccompanied minors, pregnant women, families with young children and nursing mothers. Those subjected to mandatory detention do not qualify for ATD, generally for reasons related to crime.

In Texas, Jason Owens, U.S. Border Patrol chief, told reporters that migrants must use legal migration routes to enter the U.S. or schedule an appointment through the CBP One app to present themselves at a legal border crossing rather than crossing illegally.

"The message is simple: If you want to come to this country, do it the right way," Owens said.

Repatriation announcement

The Biden administration announced on October 5 that it would resume deporting migrants back to Venezuela in hopes of decreasing the number of Venezuelans arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Biden officials said Venezuelan nationals who cross into the U.S. unlawfully will still be processed. But if they do not have a legal basis to remain in the country, they will be "swiftly removed" back to Venezuela.

"This comes following a decision from the authorities of Venezuela to accept back their nationals," a U.S. official said in a background call with reporters. "This also reflects a long-standing approach by the Biden-Harris administration that balances historic expansion of access  orderly, lawful pathways  with harsh consequences for those who seek to enter our border irregularly."

Dangerous journey

This is the latest effort from the administration to stem the flood of Venezuelans making the dangerous journey through the Darien Gap, Central America, and Mexico to the southern U.S. border.

According to human rights groups, the current exodus of Venezuelans is the largest migration crisis in recent Latin American history.

The United Nations reports that at least 7 million Venezuelans have left their country, a nation of nearly 29 million people, because of political instability, and they travel through countries including Peru and Colombia to get to the United States.

Venezuela also faces U.S. sanctions because of what the United States describes as repressive policies and human rights abuses.

"More than 7.7 million people have left Venezuela in search of protection and a better life," the U.N. said in August. "The majority  more than 6.5 million people  have been hosted in Latin American and Caribbean countries."

From May 1 to October 11, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has removed more than 300,000 noncitizens from various countries. In fiscal 2022, which ended October 1, ICEs Enforcement and Removal Operations removed 72,177 migrants to more than 150 countries worldwide.

In fiscal 2021, there were 89,191 removals, and 185,884 removals during fiscal 2020. The 2021 and 2022 decreases, according to ICE, were the result of a decline in apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border tied to the use of a COVID-era restriction known as Title 42, which allowed border officers to quickly expel some migrants to Mexico or their home countries. These were counted as expulsions and not removals.

Before the flight carrying the Venezuelan migrants took off, two additional flights left with migrants headed back to El Salvador and Guatemala.
Palestinians protested in the West Bank for a second day Wednesday following an attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip that officials say killed hundreds of people. Palestinian security forces used tear gas to disperse rock-throwing protesters who are venting their anger at the attack, which they blame on Israel. The protests also targeted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel denies attacking the hospital. Yan Boechat reports from Ramallah in the West Bank.
I was very blunt with the Israelis, he told reporters aboard Air Force One. Biden said that while Israel has been badly victimized, the country has an opportunity to relieve the suffering of innocent civilians in Gaza who have nowhere to go.

He added that its what the country should do.

Biden said Egypt has agreed to open its Rafah border with Gaza to initially allow 20 trucks of aid to be received and managed by U.N. groups. He warned that if Hamas blocks or confiscates the aid, it's going to end.

Biden said the trucks would likely cross on Friday after badly damaged roads near the crossing have been repaired. Dozens more trucks are waiting to follow if the first tranche goes smoothly. He also announced $100 million in U.S. aid for Palestinians.

The humanitarian crisis has grown increasingly dire in Gaza, with Israel blocking basic necessities from reaching the territory.

Biden denied media reports that U.S. troops will join Israeli soldiers in fighting Hezbollah should the Lebanon-based militant group decide to help Hamas and initiate conflict with Israel.

He said he discussed at length with Netanyahu the prime ministers plans to invade Gaza to root out Hamas and that the two countries militaries have been weighing alternatives. But he declined to provide further details.

Biden is scheduled to address the nation Thursday night on the Israel-Hamas violence and Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Siding with Israel

Biden on Wednesday backed Israels account of who was responsible for a massive explosion at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds and prompted protests across the region.

Based on the information we've seen to date, it appears as a result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza, Biden said.

Israel said the rocket came from the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which denied responsibility.

While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

Watson added that the administration is working to corroborate whether it was a failed rocket launched by Islamic Jihad.

Biden vowed to provide Israel what it needs to defend itself but urged restraint in its retaliation.

You don't live by the rules of terrorists. You live by the rule of law. When conflict is fair, you live by the rule of law, of wars, he said.

From Tel Aviv, Biden was originally scheduled to visit Amman, Jordan, to meet King Abdullah II, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss a humanitarian response for Gazans. But the summit  and the Jordan leg of the trip  was scrapped following the Gaza hospital blast.

The explosion has ignited massive protests in cities across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, Iran, Tunisia and Turkey, where demonstrators laid the blame on Israel.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Over the past decade, the rapid development of cold chain logistics has facilitated the export of Chinese fresh lychees. In 2022, Chinese lychees were exported to over 20 countries and regions. Now it takes only two to four days for lychees to reach Belt and Road partner countries.

Cherries imported from Chile and Argentina via the Maritime Silk Road have helped enrich Chinas fruit market, particularly during winter vacancy of domestic cherries. In 2022, Chinas imported cherries from Belt and Road partner countries exceeded US$2.73 billion.
Hamas blames Israel for Tuesdays devastating explosion at a Gaza hospital. Israel, however, places the blame on the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which denies the accusation. In Lebanon, few doubt Israels responsibility and protesters have been expressing their rage at the U.S. Embassy.
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davao city (88.1 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / 5-10 s : sleeping on 1st floor and felt room was shaking. confirmed shaking when hung clothes were swaying. Son sleeping on 2nd floor alerted us too the shaking... | One user found this interesting.

Mabini (57 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : Stoking the fire outside. The water barrels had water spilling over the sides! | One user found this interesting.

Lupon, Davao Oriental / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 20-30 s : I was sleeping then I woke up feeling dizzy, I thought it was me but my whole room was moving that's when I realized. I was scared at first but I prayed and thankfully it slowed down and eventually stopped. I didn't experience an aftershock afterwards.

Mati City, Davao Oriental / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating : Me and my family members woke up from the sudden shaking. The duration of earthquake was short but very intense.

davao city / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s : sleeping on 1st floor and woke up due to the shaking of the room. seen hung clothes swaying too. Don sleeping on 2nd floor alerted us too of the quake.

Ula, Davao del Sur, Davao (101.1 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) (reported through our app / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Central, Davao del Sur, Davao (89.4 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Mahayag, Davao del Sur, Davao (81.4 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Strong shaking (MMI VI) (reported through our app / Strong shaking (MMI VI)

Dasmarinas, Cavite, Calabarzon (961.6 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) (reported through our app / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Tagum city (58.4 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 30-60 s

Tagum City (59.7 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 20-30 s

Central, Davao del Sur, Davao (92.7 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / simple rolling (tilting sideways along one direction) / 1-2 minutes

Mati, Davao Oriental, Davao (58.4 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Strong shaking (MMI VI) (reported through our app / Strong shaking (MMI VI)

New Corella, Davao, Davao (58.7 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) (reported through our app / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Glan, Province of Sarangani, Soccsksargen (222.3 km SW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) (reported through our app / Light shaking (MMI IV)

MACO, DAVAO DE ORO (55.6 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) (reported through our app / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Mati / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Digos / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Bedroom / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / complex motion difficult to describe / 5-10 s : We wake up it was a strong and heavy shake.. I take look my phone it was 2:58 in the dawn

Digos / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Purok 1 Bukal Nabunturan Davao De Oro / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 30-60 s

Davao city, philippines / Weak shaking (MMI III) / very short : Got an early warning just before i felt it. The chandilier in dining room moved in circle.

Davao city, philippines / Weak shaking (MMI III) / very short : Got an early warning just before i felt it. The chandilier in dining room moved in circle.

Davao City / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating

Panabo / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / 30-60 s : Panabo City

World Palace Hotel / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Davao City / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging

Montevista, Davao de Oro / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 5-10 s

Montevista, Davao de Oro / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 5-10 s : I felt dizziness

Tagum City / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Garciaville ,, block 17 lot 14 Tagum Philippines / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : Shaking
TEHRAN, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran confirmed on Wednesday the "unconditional" end of the restrictions imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on its missile-related activities, while the United States imposed new sanctions on the same day on Tehran's missile and drone programs.

In a statement published on its website, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said, "Today, the last part of the anti-Iran restrictions, including assets freeze and financial restrictions on certain Iranian individuals and entities, imposed for years by the UNSC in the areas related to missile activities and exchange of relevant services and technologies, were terminated unconditionally."

The statement warned that any action aiming to impose sanctions or restrictions on Iran's defense interactions and cooperation is now in contradiction with the termination of the restrictions under UNSC Resolution 2231, stressing Iran's right to implement the necessary measures to safeguard its national interests.

However, on the same day, the U.S. took a series of measures to imply that Iran's missile program would remain sanctioned even after the expiration of the UNSC restrictions.

Washington on Wednesday announced new sanctions on a group of people and firms over alleged links to Iran's ballistic missile and drone programs.

Furthermore, in a statement published on its website on Tuesday, the European Council said it "decided to take the necessary steps to maintain the restrictive measures under the EU non-proliferation regime on Iran."

"The council evaluated that there are valid reasons to refrain from lifting these restrictions on Transition Day (Oct. 18, 2023), as originally foreseen under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)," it added.

On the same day, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani denounced the European Council's decision as "unilateral, illegal and politically unjustifiable."

Iran signed a nuclear deal, formally known as JCPOA, with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to put some curbs on its nuclear program in return for the removal of sanctions on the country. The U.S., however, pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its nuclear commitments under the deal.

The talks on the revival of the JCPOA began in April 2021 in Vienna, Austria. Despite several rounds of talks, no significant breakthrough has been achieved since the end of the last round in August 2022. 
Tremaine Neverson. Photo: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

Trey Songz is facing another sexual-assault claim. This time, two women are suing Songz, born Tremaine Neverson, for a 2015 incident. Per TMZ, the women allege they passed out at a party at Songzs Los Angeles house and woke up to Songz forcing himself on them. They believe they were drugged, after being forced to drink alcohol from unsealed bottles and feeling drunk from a small amount of drinking. After the women refused to shower with Songz upon waking up, they claim he yelled at them, You are little fucking girls, get the fuck out of my house. In a statement to TMZ, Songzs lawyer, Michael Freeman, criticized a California law extending the statute of limitations for sexual assault  and allowing this lawsuit to be brought forth. We look forward to vindicating Trey on the merits in court, he stated.

The lawsuit follows another from earlier this year, in which a woman accused Songz of rape from a 2016 incident. That lawsuit had been refiled after Songzs lawyers previously had it dismissed in 2022, arguing it was past the statute of limitations. Songz has also faced multiple other claims of sexual abuse and assault. In 2020, Songz addressed his sexual-assault claims on Twitter, writing, I usually stay quiet on this but I feel that in many ways the movement to fight for the women who actually have suffered harassment and abuse on various levels, has been hijacked by those who find it convenient for themselves to come up as they seek to destroy someones life.
American Horror Story Preech Season 12 Episode 5 Editors Rating 4 stars * * * *  Previous Next  Previous Episode Next Episode  Photo: Frank Ockenfels/FX/Copyright 2023, FX Networks. All rights reserved.

I would like my toddler to eat leafy greens by the handful like I see Instagram children do, but instead, I hide them in smoothies. I would like to be a person with clean hair, but this morning I waited to leave bed until my toddler was screaming, Mama, its morning, cmon already! And I would like to be a peaceful mother who indulges the slow pace of childhood, but today I bribed my toddler with rice cakes so I could start work on time. That motherhood is a series of compromises is a truism. American Horror Story: Delicate is taking the notion to a terrifying extreme: Motherhood itself can be bartered away.

Last week, Bloody Mary sold her only child for a long and fruitful reign (which, of course, did not materialize). This episode  the part one finale  we learn Mrs. Preechers grisly origin story. In 1980s New York, Preech was a promising FIT student whose talent had been scouted by Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent before she could even graduate. But when a Fleet Week fling became an unwanted pregnancy, she made a deal with the devils advocates. Shed hand over the baby and, in exchange, Preech would receive the world. The world, it turns out, was a lucrative handbag partnership with Marc Jacobs. It left Preech hideously wealthy but completely unknown (which makes me think these women really need to get more specific about their demands when making satanic money moves). Regardless, once in labor, Preech tried to renege, but the devils obstetrician  flanked by the feather-horned Satanettes weve seen so often  wouldnt allow it. And that man was  DOCTOR HILL! We saw it coming, yes.

Now, it seems, its Annas turn to play Lets Make a Deal. To protect her medically complicated pregnancy, Hill forbids Anna from attending the Golden Globes ceremony in L.A., which is just as well because she loses to that faux ditzy ageist Babette anyway. Babette is repped by Siobahn now  a fact we learn when Anna turns up to her besties office with a box of Lafayette Grand Cafe supremes. (Babette samples just the icing like Ariana Grande at a donut shop.) Its not personal, Siobahn tells Anna, who is understandably hurt to run into her rival. Its business.

But after the Globes loss, as the episode ends, Siobahn calls Anna to ask a pointed question: Do you want an Oscar as much as you want a baby? When Anna promises to do everything Siobahn says from now on, the screen cuts to black. By the next morning, Babette has suffered a freak vehicular decapitation. We saw Kim Ks sinister turn coming, yes, and we all wanted to see it.

Weve now hit the halfway point on Delicate, and the seemingly odd occurrences are finally stacking up to suggest some meaning (except Annas inexplicable zit, which shifts colors like a mood ring). The unlikely bridge between Preech and Anna turns out to be Virginia Harding, Dexs mother who has just filed a lawsuit against Dexs father contrary to her sons wishes. Shes being represented by Luther Feldman, a lawyer who helped take down Weinstein and who, I guess, is hoping survivors of satanic abuse will be his next cash cow. Even all these years later, Virginia still experiences the eerie kinds of shit that Anna has been experiencing; shes haunted  or visited  by horned witches and their tamed goats. Ivy, who seems like shes definitely #TeamLucifer, lingers around her, too.

The reason Preech finally confronts Virginia is to warn Anna and Dex about whats coming for them: vengeance. Virginias Mr. Harding may have worshiped at the altar of the Great Deceiver, but Dex, perhaps unwittingly, is responsible for the defection of one of the devils favorite disciples. Before Adelaide became another in the line of Misses Hardings, she was one of them and, according to Preech, they are poised for retribution.

Which brings us to Sonia, a person so unsettling that she even unsettles Thalias deeply unsettling Hamptons housekeeper, Nicolette. This episode, Anna decides to be the bigger person and befriend the woman she suspects to be her husbands mistress. She even invites Sonia to the house; at dinner, they lightly bond over the bland idea of harnessing pain to fuel art. But there are some peculiar moments between them, too. When Anna confides she once worried Sonia was her stalker because she was followed by someone wearing Sonias spiky emerald heels, Sonia claims she would never go anywhere near the color green. And when Anna shows Sonia a photo of her blonde doppelganger Adelaide  my less evil twin, she quips  Sonia does not bug out enough, in my opinion. Still, Sonia is nothing but supportive when it comes to Annas stalker and Annas jealousies. Maybe Im being naive, but I think Sonia Shawcross is #TeamAnna. She looks too cartoonishly high-end Hot Topic to really worship the devil.

Dr. Hill, of course, is a footman for the Prince of Darkness. And just in case we had any lingering suspicions about Siobahn, this episode employs Hamish to put them to bed. Siobahn is the one who gave him the crappy script for The Auteur and told him to put his name on it and not ask questions. Siobahn is the one who insisted he give the starring role to a burnt-out child star when the studio execs told him it would be cinematic suicide. Now, here he is with a hit movie on his hands, not to mention the fact that hes consistently taking down Satans spin doctor.

As for whats going on with Anna in Preech, it really is the same old shit. Like a good little starlet, she takes whatever potions Siobahns passing off as B12 and fails to make a connection when her hair starts falling out. She has late pregnancy symptoms like rib flares and round ligament pain even though shes only in the second trimester. Rather than get a second opinion, she continues to see Dr. Hill, who, at this point, cant be bothered to feign a bedside manner. He tells her to do more prenatal yoga and see Cora, who on top of being a nurse also just so happens to be a pelvic-floor therapist who works out of the same Brooklyn Heights condo building Anna and Dex live in.

In a terrible echo of what happened at the Hamptons hospital with Ivy, Cora (Tavi Gevinson) forcibly penetrates Anna with her fingers and keeps going even once its clear Annas in tremendous pain. But this time Anna isnt paralyzed with fear; she screams for the molestation to stop. As always, theres the eerie stuff, too: Ivy appearing and disappearing from that old photo of Adelaide and Dex that Annas obsesses over; another Summer Day voodoo doll, this one with blood coming from its head, for Anna to add to her collection in Thalias basement; the fact that Nicolette has stocked the refrigerator  AND NOT THE FREEZER!  with pints and pints of the same ice cream Anna scarfed down last week.

And then theres the possibility that Preechs warnings, whenever they reach Anna via Virginia, will have come too late. If the point is to ruin Anna and Dexs lives, then the revenge is already underway. Their marriage is crumbling. Dex doesnt believe Anna about any of it: the stalker, the dolls. He even thinks she scrawled the lipstick message on the mirror herself. Maybe for attention? For publicity?

And Anna, for her part, doesnt seem that upset by the distance between them. Whatever this force is thats tormenting her, it has coincided with this pregnancy. She doesnt need Dex to sit around a cafe and distract her from the pain of infertility with what-ifs anymore. What will we call our baby? Where will we live and how will we balance our real-estate portfolio against the expense of private education? She doesnt need the daydreams because, regardless of what Dex thinks of her, Annas got the real thing growing inside her. At least for now.
Hamills commitment to Pyms black hole of a personality is so unblinking that it almost becomes campy. Photo: Eike Schroter/Netflix

Spoilers ahead for all of The Fall of the House of Usher, including the finale.

Give Mark Hamill the chance to act like a little freak, and hell dive into it like so much green thala-siren milk. In The Fall of the House of Usher, with that gravelly voice, those expressive eyebrows, and the aggrieved aura that no one else alive has seen such nightmarish shit, Hamill is chugging away.

Since personifying the goodness of the Force as Luke Skywalker, Hamill has dotted his career with villains and weirdos. Hes voiced serial-killing doll Chucky and various animated baddies like the Joker, Skeletor, the Hobgoblin, and Studio Ghibli antagonist Muska, and appeared in all kinds of genre stuff, from vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows to Crusades-era historical drama Knightfall. Hamill continues those trends with his role as Arthur Pym, the lawyer and enforcer to Sackler-inspired family the Ushers in Mike Flanagans Edgar Allan Poe/Succession mashup. Nicknamed the Pym Reaper by the Usher children, hes Roderick and Madelines most trusted employee, the only person to know (nearly) all of the twins secrets. He is constantly hovering in corners and doorways, waiting to be called into service, and that unfailingly acquiescent yet devious posture is Ushers greatest force of narrative stability.

When Pym, tasked with finding the informant amid the Ushers, says Im on everybody in Murder in the Rue Morgue, Hamill delivers the line with a croaking confidence that makes clear no one has ever evaded his grasp; his deadpan We have all your passwords to the Usher children when they worry about being surveilled is a satisfying reminder that their money buys them nearly everything, but not privacy from this man. He exudes a level of worldliness that no one else in the Ushers orbit can really match, which is fitting given that the character (pulled from Poes only novel, 1838s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket) was, at 25 years old, part of an expedition that circumnavigated the planet. While you and I were dicking around with our petty little dramas, Roderick says to old rival Auggie, Pym was bending the planet over and taking his piece. Usher doesnt explain how Pym came to work for Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, but that backstory feels irrelevant; Hamill so effectively surrounds himself with a glowering aura of ruthlessness that it feels like hes simply always been involved with this terrible family. His outfits evoke Max von Sydows leftovers from The Exorcist crossed with the Nazis from the Indiana Jones movies  all dark overcoats, jaunty hats, high collars, and little glasses  and his face is often frozen in a beleaguered scowl. Hes not the kind of man of whom you ask questions, or with whom you attempt a personal conversation.

Usher ramps up when the kids start dying in wild ways, Roderick and Madeline scheme against each other, and cosmic force Verna shape-shifts into various entities to get her revenge against this painkiller-peddling family. As it does, Hamills Pym becomes a source of humor  an important counterbalance to the grisly gore of the series central murders  exactly because of the characters previously established malice. Hamills commitment to Pyms steadfast wickedness and his black hole of a personality is so unblinking that it almost becomes campy; his indifferent reaction to Dupins opening statement against the Usher family when theyre in court together and his look of admiration when surveying pictures of Verna with the likes of Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are useful contrasts, conveying how uninterested this man is in morality.

But unlike the Ushers, hes not in this for legacy. Hamill nails Pym as a man content with his power in the present  with the ability to push cops around, roll his eyes at the Usher children, and casually accept assassination assignments  and he breezily moves between foreboding and arch. His whole deal is being exaggerated enough to make us uncomfortable and self-aware enough to turn our discomfort into amusement. Again, remember the swaggering smirk Luke gives Rey in The Last Jedi after he slurps that green milk; Hamill knows we dont like what his character is doing, and he invites our laughter as a way of easing that tension. Pym taking an aggrandized pull of an asthma inhaler after a particularly physically demanding murder in Usher feels similar: a prop used to remind us of the characters biological needs, and therefore his humanity, only seconds after doing something inhumane.

As a source of dark comedy in Usher, Hamill is a welcome addition to Flanagans ensemble, and its a rare delight to see him act on camera given how much of his career lately has been voice work. But Hamill also delivers the seriess most quietly heartbreaking scene in finale The Raven, when Verna  the woman he thought he killed for the Ushers  comes back to life, reveals herself as Death, and asks him about himself. During this chat, Hamill strips away every braggadocious part of Pym, revealing him as a lonely man plagued by memories of the past; without having to immediately answer to the Ushers and their employer-employee hierarchy, he can pause, gather his words, look Verna in her eyes. As Pym and Verna sit across from each other, talking in suggestively vague terms about the horrors Pym partook in or saw during his transglobe expedition (abandoning people to their deaths, raping indigenous women) and what will happen to Pym after the Usher bloodline is over, Flanagan keeps Hamill and his newly cowed expression center-aligned in the frame.

When Hamill says of humanity, Were a virus, I think, thats Pym at his most honest; when he tells Verna that hes turning down a cosmic deal with her to instead play out my hand, thats Pym at his most brave; when he offers Verna a little shrug at the end of If its all the same to you, thats Pym at his most principled. In 10 or so minutes, Hamill builds Pym an entire internal world of guilt, self-condemnation, and rigidity that accentuates how impressively artificial the characters outward menace is. Pym isnt redeemed, but he is transformed, a man to be loathed turned into a man to be pitied. And the look of melancholic ecstasy on Pyms face as Verna touches his cheek in a gesture of recognition and understanding is as memorable as any of the seriess more grotesque elements, acid-rain orgy included.

I like to think he killed someone. I like to think hes eaten human flesh, Roderick says of Pym, and before that finale scene, Hamills performance is so dastardly that those imaginings dont feel impossible. Afterward, though, Hamill uncovers in Pym such depths that those actions would be regrets, not boasts; they would be memories buried, not revisited. In harnessing both the dark side and the light of the man who survived a sit-down with Death, Hamill gives The Fall of the House of Usher equilibrium.
In The Delinquents, two men rob a bank not to get rich but to free themselves of the demands of modern life. Photo: MUBI

For a brief moment early on in Argentine director Rodrigo Morenos The Delinquents, a tense, jazzy tune plays on the soundtrack as Moran (Daniel Elias) goes about methodically robbing the bank where he works, taking wads of cash out of the vault and putting them in his backpack while nobody else is around. Its a playful glimpse of the type of film Moreno could have made, a little tease that itself serves as part of the directors oddball vision. The Delinquents is being billed as a heist movie, which is not technically incorrect; it is, in fact, a film about a man who robs a bank and then coaxes a co-worker into an elaborate scheme to get away with it. But at heart, The Delinquents is about leaving an oppressive world behind and discovering the possibility of freedom in a new one. The heist itself belongs to the old world  alongside the cold spaces of the bank, the bustle of Buenos Aires, and the anxieties of modern life. The film sheds its genre trappings in its pursuit of languorous new rhythms.

The thieves here are not looking to get rich. Three and a half years in jail, or 25 at the bank? is how Moran puts it to his colleague Roman (Esteban Bigliardi), explaining why hes resorted to crime. (Many of the characters names are anagrams of each other  theres also a Ramon, a Norma, and so on  which adds to the fanciful, dreamlike nature of the picture.) Morans devious plan is quite simple: Hell confess to the robbery and get three years in prison. Roman, who wasnt even in the bank on the day of the robbery due to a doctors appointment, will hide the money in the meantime. Afterward, the two men will have just enough to not have to work for a living. The goal is not wealth; its liberty.

But is such a goal, such a world, even possible? Morenos film is really about the wait in between, about what happens as these two men bide their time. Moran finds himself enduring the worst prison has to give him, and Roman becomes gradually seduced by the idea of an existence without boundaries and responsibilities, a life lived away from the city and its grown-up demands. Led to the mountains by Morans instructions, Roman drifts into a connection with a beautiful young woman (Margarita Molfino), who lives a modest, happy life off the land. When he tries to bring her back to the city, however, Roman discovers just how bound he is to that old reality.

Clocking in at 183 minutes, The Delinquents is a movie of detours both narrative and formal. In contrast to the city, Moreno films the sequences in the mountains with documentary matter-of-factness  and yet theres something unreal, almost magical about them, like a fable that Roman has wandered into. Thats perhaps because we ourselves belong to the rat race; this country idyll might bring Roman closer to the earth and to life, but to us it feels like another planet.

This is the mystery at the heart of The Delinquents: The textures of a world which we might have known once, but to us now feels so distant, so strange and other. We might notice that the characters stand a bit more upright in this world, that they seem more confident and rejuvenated. Moran seems like such a downcast schlub at the office, where hes basically an anonymous and confined pencil-pusher. (To emphasize the sense of entrapment, Moreno films the characters scenes at the bank through the protective bars guarding the vault, as though it were an actual prison.) Later, as he himself wanders in nature, Moran gains an unlikely charisma, as if communing with a lost part of his being.

Although it seems unimpeded and unhurried by the demands of conflict and resolution, The Delinquents is never boring or tedious. This is partly due to Morenos light, humorous touch when it comes to storytelling. An investigation at the bank into the theft eventually takes on absurd dimensions  not for metaphorical reasons but just because Morans crime is itself so ridiculous. But the film also works because its structure is so loose. Eventually, we lose any sense of where we are in the ostensible story; were not biding our time until something happens. The Delinquents works its magic on us the way that the promise of freedom works on its characters. Its a vision of a life unlived  as impossible as it is intoxicating.
Photo: Penguin Random House

When the novelist Teju Cole made his American debut in 2011 with Open City, it was clear that he was one of those rare creatures: a writer fully formed. The book follows a half-Nigerian, half-German psychiatry student named Julius who takes long, lonely walks across Manhattan late at night. These peregrinations are as mental as they are physical: As one neighborhood dissolves into the next, his mind skips from classical music to Chaucer to the transatlantic slave trade to memories of his childhood in Lagos. Imagine a younger version of the wandering, ruminative narrator in the books of W.G. Sebald, except instead of the English countryside, Coles protagonist is traversing a city where the open wounds of 9/11 are still visible. And while Cole adopts Sebalds detached, melancholy affect, Julius is edgier, livelier, more worldly. The narrators of Sebalds books never hankered for Goan fish curry.

This sort of plotless, discursive writing, in which a swirl of associations and memories and ideas are held together by the centripetal force of an impeccably educated flaneur, is exceedingly difficult to pull off without sounding like a colossal bore  and Cole did pull it off, with great lyricism and sensitivity, his sentences strolling majestically through Juliuss neighborhood in Morningside Heights.

Coles long-awaited follow-up, Tremor, has a lot in common with its predecessor: Its protagonist, Tunde, meditates on art and history and reminisces about his childhood in Lagos as he rambles across time and space. But this is a far weaker book than Open City, trading the dark complexities of character for po-faced lectures and moral self-regard. The problem is not the craft, even if Tremor is not the flawlessly cut jewel that is Open City. It is, I think, a problem of politics. The central emotion of the earlier book is ambivalence. Julius is unsure whether hes Nigerian or German or even a New Yorker. He bristles at the presumption that he might have anything in common with his African brothers, while expressing an uneasy solidarity with radical Arab students who hate the United States. He is the ultimate cosmopolitan, at home everywhere and nowhere  a fluid figure perfectly suited to deciphering a globalized world riven by dislocation, terror, and economic crisis.

Tunde is also a cosmopolitan. He lives in Cambridge, teaches photography at Harvard, travels the world. But Cole is no longer interested in ambivalence. Tremor is one of the most politically unobjectionable books Ive ever read: It is hard to disagree with anything Tunde thinks and feels, making him a perfect representative of a different era, one in which the cosmopolitan ethos of haughty independence has come under suspicion and the claims of group identity have never been stronger. Whether such a figure makes for good reading is another matter.

Tremor begins on an ominous note: Tunde is taking photographs late at night in his neighborhood when a harsh voice calls out that he is on private property. Tunde, shaken by his neighbors aggressiveness, packs up his camera and walks away, his art thwarted by this invisible menace. The scene is troubling not because we believe something awful might happen to Tunde, but because it presents the books themes  the peril of being a Black body in a white space, the inability to be oneself in a racist society  so overtly. From the opening sentences, we know exactly what sort of novel were going to get.

Cole proceeds with great solemnity to fulfill those expectations. Tunde and his partner, Sadako, visit an antique store in Maine where they come across a West African headdress known as a ci wara, which prompts Tunde to catalogue the ways in which the concept of authenticity has been corrupted by museums and art dealers in the West. Tunde sees a note documenting an Indian attack on a white homestead in the 18th century, which leads him to think about how Native Americans have been turned into villains in historical narratives of white victimhood. He goes to check out a book from the Kennedy School, where a librarian rushes up and asks if she can help him in a tone he recognizes. White racism is the medium through which Tunde moves, as if it were a bad dream, the very air.

While I dont doubt the veracity of this depiction of contemporary Black life, it has specific consequences for the kind of plotless book Cole favors. All those freewheeling associations now circle the same drain to deadening effect. There is, too, an uncharacteristic obviousness to each discovery Tunde makes about the obliterative arrogance of Western culture. The arcane forays of Open City came as revelations, opening the reader up to both the wonder and the brutality of the world. Tremor feels closed off in comparison, laboring across ground that has been trod by so many fellow travelers.

For example, there is a scene in which Tunde delivers a sweeping lecture at Bostons Museum of Fine Arts on how Western museums plundered former colonies for their collections  a topic that would presumably be familiar to anyone who has read a newspaper recently. In many ways, this essayistic form is Cole at his best, weaving together a discussion of the paintings of J.M.W. Turner with riffs on avant-garde poetry to make the case that the museum is a storehouse of other peoples stolen worlds. Yet Cole presents this lecture, with its deftly delivered but wholly uncontroversial thesis, as one that would cause an educated, progressive audience discomfort and fear.

This passage inaugurates a series of pastiches that comprise the central portion of the book. The lecture borrows from J.M. Coetzees Elizabeth Costello, in which the eponymous protagonist delivers several provocative speeches to academic audiences that cause them actual discomfort (positing, say, that meat eating is an equivalent moral crime to the Holocaust). It is followed by a succession of first-person vignettes from various people from Lagos, recalling the choral narrators of Svetlana Alexievichs books about the Soviet Union. And finally Cole conjures a dreamy abstraction about Lagos that could have been taken from Italo Calvinos Invisible Cities, wherein the narrator suggests that all cities are essentially the same wherever they might be located on the worlds map.

These are also the most enjoyable sections in Tremor. The reader (and, apparently, the writer) is delighted to be released from Tundes morose musings. We are treated to rare flashes of irreverent humor, such as when one Lagosian declares, I mean theres something about Macbeth that always works well in an African context, all those witches, all that blood and struggle for power. But though these passages are told with skill and confidence, its hard not to detect a larger crisis of confidence lying behind this postmodern mimicry, as if Cole knows he cant trust Tunde to carry the book on his own.

This might be because the central tension in Tundes life is his wish to be good. He is having problems with Sadako  he is reticent, remote  but diligently works to solve them. He is a conscientious teacher, a loyal friend, an ally of the downtrodden and the oppressed. He is a kind of saint, which is not quite the same thing as a human being and the opposite of what Julius is: a monster. Toward the end of Open City (and here comes a significant spoiler), a woman accuses Julius of raping her when they were young  an incident that he has buried under his high-minded thoughts about Mahler and Barthes. The revelation comes as a genuine shock, completely altering all that has gone on before and raising the possibility that Julius thinks so much about art, history, and literature not to better engage with life but to escape it. It also has the effect of implicating the reader who has been in his thrall.

Tunde is also a character who implicates the reader, though in ways that enlarge the gap between them. There is a moment when Tunde and a research assistant have a wordless dialogue about how every time he crosses Harvard Yard, he thinks of the four men and women who were enslaved there by two presidents of Harvard in the 18th century. The suggestion is that Tunde and his acquaintance are the only two people who bother to make this silent commemoration.

In a 2014 essay for The New Yorker, Cole dwells on James Baldwins lament that he feels alienated from the stately pillars of white European culture: Rembrandt, Shakespeare, the Cathedral at Chartres. Cole makes a decisive break with him: This is where I part ways with Baldwin. I disagree not with his particular sorrow but with the self-abnegation that pinned him to it. Bach, so profoundly human, is my heritage. I am not an interloper when I look at a Rembrandt portrait. I remember loving this sentiment when I read it the first time  I still love it. It exudes the cosmopolitan spirit, the sense that nothing will remain foreign to you if you have a mind and a will and an openness.

In 2023, Cole visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for an after-hours tour of its monumental Vermeer exhibition and wrote about it for The New York Times Magazine. Here he is not so ready to claim a Dutch master as his patrimony; he is annoyed by the unreserved adulation surrounding the show and preoccupied with the evidence of colonialism, largely unnoticed by others, that is everywhere in Vermeers paintings  the wooden box most likely from Goa, the pearls harvested from the strait between India and Sri Lanka. He does seem like an interloper here, alone with the knowledge that these immortal pictures are not mere decorations or technical achievements.

Coles evolution, if thats what it is, is understandable. Racism is not something you grow out of or transcend, and its effects can become more pernicious the longer you live in this country. Also, as a Black man, Cole might have grown wary of being used by white critics to reinforce the old white-dominated order. (His material world is set in the center of white learning, Cole writes of Tunde. He is in the center of that and he flowers in it, not without some doubt, not without some shame.) And with age comes the realization that you are not a self-created individual free of your parents, your race, your country  that the key to who you are may lie in the area of darkness that precedes your birth.

Still, there is something of Baldwins self-abnegation that has crept into Coles work. At the end of Tremor, Tunde finally takes the photograph that was denied him at the beginning of the book. But what should be a moment of triumph is followed by a dizzying attack of vertigo  he has soared too high too quickly and is brought back down to earth.

The appeal of cosmopolitanism lies in its assertion of some independence from race and other markers of identity, which, no matter how overbearing, can never wholly define you. And while it would be irresponsible for anyone to forget their ancestors, I doubt that these forebears would have wanted their hardships to weigh so heavily on their sons and daughters. Cole started his career as a high-flier, and not even the most jealous ghost of the past would deny that the sky is where he belongs.
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Prime Minister of Egypt Mostafa Madbouly, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with Prime Minister of Egypt Mostafa Madbouly, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF).

Over the past decade, China and Egypt have conducted fruitful cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi said, calling on the two sides to jointly follow through on the outcomes of the third BRF.

China is willing to strengthen cooperation with Egypt in such fields as infrastructure, agricultural technology and renewable energy, expand people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, and continuously promote the development of China-Egypt comprehensive strategic partnership, he added.

Xi congratulated Egypt on being invited to join the BRICS cooperation mechanism.

China stands ready to work with Egypt to uphold genuine multilateralism and jointly safeguard international fairness and justice and the common interests of developing countries to inject more certainty and stability into the region and the world, Xi said.

Madbouly said Egypt regards China as a role model for emerging economies and developing countries.

The Belt and Road cooperation has greatly improved the level of transportation and logistics in Egypt and boosted the country's economic development, said Madbouly, noting that Egypt will continue to actively participate in the Belt and Road cooperation.

On the current situation between Palestine and Israel, Xi stressed that the top priority is to cease fire and stop war at an early date.

It is crucial to prevent the conflict from expanding or even losing control and causing a serious humanitarian crisis, Xi said.

The fundamental way out of the recurring Palestine-Israel conflict lies in implementing the "two-state solution" and establishing an independent State of Palestine, so as to realize the peaceful coexistence of Palestine and Israel, Xi said.

Xi noted that China appreciates the important role played by Egypt in de-escalating the situation and supports Egypt's efforts to open humanitarian corridors.

China is willing to enhance coordination with Egypt and Arab countries to facilitate a comprehensive, just, and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue at the earliest possible opportunity, Xi said.

Madbouly said that Egypt and Arab countries commended China for its consistent and fair stance on the Palestinian issue and look forward to China's more significant role in resolving the current crisis. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Prime Minister of Egypt Mostafa Madbouly, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)
A Longview eatery expands in a dramatic way

At first glance, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe might not readily lend themselves to dinner theater. The tales depict decomposing bodies, decapitation, torture, and disease. They conjure unsavory sites, smells, and sounds. In one story, a young man exhumes the body of his fiancee (who has been buried alive) and pulls out all of her teeth. More famously, in "The Tell-tale Heart," a mysterious narrator kills and dismembers an old man, before burying his remains under the floor-boards. Bon appetit.

But Andrea Horton and her team at Gyros Gyros, a mediterranean restaurant in Longview, are testing the assumption that Poe might be better suited for performance in a crypt than a cafe. The well-established eatery is embarking on a new double life as a performing arts venue, and will launch the new endeavor with a two-weekend run of three of Poe's terrifying tales, entitled "An Evening with Edgar Allen Poe," just in time for peak Halloween season.

In the first of these tales, the well-known "Cask of Amontillado," the vengeful Montresor invites an old friend to the catacombs beneath his home to sample a rare wine. The drunken friend agrees to the journey below, at his peril, and to his increasing dismay (for reasons I will leave to the actors to convey).

Horton's company, Magpie Productions, has transformed the restaurant's dining room into Montresor's wine cellars. Audience members will be welcomed as guests to the Montresor estate.

For actor Shelley Jacobs, it's a thrilling proposition.

"It's Poe like you've never experienced it before," she told me. "To be in the wine cellar, with actors moving among you, very intimate."

Jacobs, who relocated to the Pacific Northwest after running a theater in Salida, Colorado, will enact Poe's most famous work, "The Raven," a riveting poem about a man who goes mad after being visited by a very repetitive bird.

And Poe's lesser-known tale, "Ligeia," rounds out the program.

The transition from restaurant to immersive dinner theater was born, like so many recent career innovations, out of the covid pandemic. Like many of us, Horton and her husband and co-owner, Chris, used the lockdown as an opportunity to reassess.

"We'd been closed for two years," she said.

The Hortons acknowledged that restaurants would likely continue to struggle in the post-pandemic economy.

"We have this huge space," she remembers saying. "We should do something fun with it." Relying on the wisdom Andrea had cultivated during several years as a board member and producer with Stageworks Northwest Theatre, they decided to take a chance.

"We'll see if people are into art after the pandemic," she said.

But if Horton is at all uncertain about the future of the series, her actions reveal an admirable confidence: she's already planned an entire season of offerings. Next up, Edward Albee's "Zoo Story" in January.

An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe. Sat. Oct. 21, Sun. Oct. 22, Sat. Oct. 28, and Sun. Oct. 29. 7:30 p.m. Tickets $38-50. Available at the Gyros Gyros counter W-Th 11 a.m. - 4 p.m., or online at gyros-gyros.square.site. Located at the Bowers Building at 1138 Commerce Ave #G (in the basement), Longview.
The Oregon Department of State Lands this week reached a milestone in ensuring safe and healthy waterways statewide by removed the first hazardous vessel with newly approved funding.

The FV Tiffany, a 200-ton former fishing vessel built in 1939, became a hazard when it sank and spilled fuel into the Columbia River near Rainer in 2021. The U.S. Coast Guard responded, cleaning up the fuel and refloating the vessel. DSL began monitoring the vessel while also seeking resources for removal.

"The FV Tiffany wasn't just an eyesore," said DSL Interim Deputy Director Chris Castelli. "This ship was a vehicle for toxins going into the Columbia River."

Abandoned and derelict vessels (ADVs) like the Tiffany often contain harmful quantities of oil, lubricant, and other toxic substances in the materials used to construct the vessel.

"Some samples taken from the FV Tiffany contained high levels of PCBs and lead which pose a threat to the aquatic environment and potentially even human health," said Scott Smith, Spill Contingency Planner for Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The Tiffany is the first waterway-polluting vessel to be removed using new funding approved by the Oregon Legislature in June.

"Cleaning up vessels in the past meant using Common School Fund dollars," explained DSL Director Vicki L. Walker. "Besides shortchanging Oregon school kids, lack of dedicated resources prevented the state from being able to proactively address the ADV problem."

That changed with House Bill 5029, with the Legislature providing $18.8 million from the Monsanto settlement to begin removing vessels and developing a statewide program for long-term solutions.

Preventing vessels from becoming hazards that contaminate water, degrade habitat, damage property, and impede navigation is a priority. Oregon state officials have sought to have vessel owners pay for cleanups and will explore options for recovering expenses incurred, currently estimated to be $1.42 million for the Tiffany.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- A Brazilian congressional probe released on Tuesday recommends former President Jair Bolsonaro be indicted on charges he instigated the Jan. 8 attacks.

"The facts reported here exhaustively demonstrate that Jair Messias Bolsonaro, then occupying the position of president of the republic, was the intellectual and moral author of the attacks perpetrated against the institutions that culminated on Jan. 8, 2023," said the report.

The 1,300-page report, approved by a vote of 20 to 11, will be sent to the Public Prosecutor's Office for consideration.

Bolsonaro stands accused of conspiracy to commit a crime; attempting to violently abolish the democratic rule of law; attempting to overthrow a legitimately constituted government, and attempting to prevent the free exercise of political rights.

Another 60 people are accused of crimes in the report, including eight army generals.

On Jan. 8, Bolsonaro supporters invaded and vandalized the parliament, headquarters of the federal government and the Federal Supreme Court.

According to the report, Bolsonaro "fueled violence among the Brazilian population during several events in the run-up to the 2022 elections" and undermined the electoral process. 
Italy chosen for Prime Air service in late 2024.

Amazon will start using drones to deliver packages in Italy by the end of 2024 as the online retail giant expands its Prime Air service, the company announced on Wednesday.

The service, which will deliver packages weighing up to 2.3 kg, is to be made available to Prime members in Italy and the UK as well as a US city whose identity has yet to be revealed.

The exact locations are set to be announced in the coming months.

Prime Air will use the new MK30 drone design, which Amazon says is "quieter, smaller, and lighter" than previous drone models.

Amazon also pledges that the MK30 will be able to fly in more diverse weather conditions including "light rain, and hotter and colder temperatures".

Amazon says it is working closely with national and international regulators to develop the drone programme which has been available for less than a year in areas of California and Texas.

David Carbon, vice president of Amazon Prime Air, said the technology was "absolutely safe" and is "hundreds of times safer than driving to the store."

Pierluigi Di Palma, president of Italy's National Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC), hailed the move as being in line with "innovation of advanced air mobility in the aviation industry", adding: "Italy's experience will be an inspiration and support for safe operations in the rest of Europe."
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The US is engaged in what it terms strategic competition with China, a full-throttled campaign to prevent the worlds No. 2 economy from gaining an edge in state-of-the-art technology that could threaten both jobs and national security. On one track, President Joe Biden is using massive subsidies to support domestic industries seen as drivers of growth and innovation. Meanwhile, his administration is working to hobble Chinas efforts with trade restrictions, blacklists and investment curbs. In response, Chinese President Xi Jinping is harking back to the countrys tradition of central planning, marshaling private companies and trillions of dollars in public money to drive research and development. For Xi, who has stressed national security more than any of his predecessors, becoming self-reliant in critical tech is imperative to counter what he sees as containment as tensions with the US escalate.

1. What has the US done?

The Biden administration has pursued an industrial strategy aimed at building manufacturing capacity at home and diversifying supply chains in areas such as clean energy, electric vehicles, semiconductors and high-performance computing. At the same time, its been limiting not just advanced chips that can be exported to China but chip-making equipment and design software as well. The curbs were updated in October to close loopholes, while two promising AI chip design startups  Shanghai Biren Intelligent Technology Co. and Moore Threads Intelligent Technology Beijing Co.  were added to an entity list that essentially cuts them off from overseas chip suppliers. The US is also seeking to cut off funding: An executive order signed this year imposes limits on US investments in some Chinese semiconductor, quantum computing and artificial intelligence firms. The US has enlisted allied countries so that suppliers like ASML Holding NV in the Netherlands and Japans Nikon Corp. join its export controls. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has said the US and its allies want to maintain as large a lead as possible to ensure that technology that could tilt the military balance  is not used against us.

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2. Where does China stand technologically?

China has been rapidly evolving from an imitator to an innovator in advanced industries from supercomputers to EVs to smartphones, threatening US market share as well as national security, according to a report this year from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based think tank. It also dominates global processing of the critical minerals vital for things like solar panels and lithium batteries. China completed its own space station last year and is planning to build a lunar base. The US Defense Intelligence Agency said in March that China was in the lead in developing hypersonic weapons, which can fly fast and low and carry nuclear warheads. But its aspiration to become a true tech rival to the US faces deep challenges, chief among them its inability to produce the most sophisticated semiconductors that are the brains of modern electronics. In 2021, Chinese companies spent more than $400 billion buying chips based largely on Western technology  more than the country spent on oil. By the second half of 2023, there were signs that its domestic chip development efforts were paying off, with Huawei Technologies Co., a firm blacklisted by the US, able to produce an advanced 7-nanometer chip to power its latest smartphone.

3. Whats China done?

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The Communist Party this year has pushed private capital to collaborate on government initiatives aimed at addressing areas of weakness, such as robotics, quantum computing and chips, rather than softer internet services. It created a central technology commission to enhance oversight and gave the Ministry of Science and Technology expanded powers to help drive fundamental innovation. The party also established a national agency to police and develop data as a strategic resource. Those policies all feed into whats called the whole nation strategy. In March, then-Premier Li Keqiang described it as encouraging private capital to collaborate on major government initiatives aimed at addressing areas of weakness. For example, cities and state-owned telecommunications companies awarded contracts worth an estimated $1.4 trillion to private companies like Huawei and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology in 2020 to lay fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks, install cameras and sensors, and develop AI software. The aim was to underpin autonomous driving, automated factories  and mass surveillance. China also has several programs that collectively are disbursing trillions of dollars:

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4. Hows it going?

Until recently, the Chinese governments hefty investments had borne little fruit, with state champions including Huawei, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. struggling to advance their products under the weight of progressively tighter US sanctions. A flurry of anti-corruption probes last year that targeted people connected to the states secretive investment vehicle, known as the Big Fund, was seen as reflecting official frustration. This year, China was said to be looking at alternative ways to boost industry, such as lowering the cost of materials. Huaweis smartphone with its 7-nanometer processor  a technology that Chinese chipmakers werent known to have mastered  showed the country was edging toward self-sufficiency in semiconductors and could produce at least limited quantities of chips five years behind the cutting-edge. The new chip still lagged far behind rival products from US companies including Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc., showing China still has a way to go to catch up.

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5. Whats the outlook?

Chinas production of key electronics declined in the first quarter of 2023, a situation that is likely to worsen with the Biden administrations curbs on cutting-edge chips. In April, Xi again exhorted companies to break technological barriers, saying innovation was key to realizing high-level technological self-reliance. That speech came shortly after China opened a new front in the battle by announcing a cybersecurity review of imports from the largest US maker of memory chips, Micron Technology Inc. In May, the agency said the products have security risks and moved to ban them from critical infrastructure  in its first significant retaliation for US export controls. In July, in a further escalation, China restricted exports of two critical materials used in semiconductors  gallium and germanium. Meanwhile, leading US chipmaker Nvidia Corp. warned in October that the new US export curbs targeting its chipsets could hinder product development and cause other difficulties.

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Heat pumps, a technology that offers a more efficient way to keep homes warm in the winter, were seen as a key tool to help Europe ride out the spike in energy prices triggered by Russias 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Theyre also the target of heavy subsidies from governments looking for ways to curb planet-warming emissions and mitigate global warming. Adoption has surged: Sales of heat pumps in Europe jumped to 3 million units in 2022, almost double the figure in 2020. But many hurdles remain to their wider adoption, including concerns about cost.

1. What is a heat pump?

A heat pump is a machine that uses electricity to warm a home or other space  like a car  but doesnt work in the same way as traditional electric heaters. Put simply, they move heat around instead of creating it, which is more efficient and less energy-intensive. Some heat pumps work by heating water, which is then pumped into radiators or underfloor heating, while others blow hot air directly into the space.

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2. How do heat pumps work?

Rather than creating heat by forcing electricity through wire and making it hot, heat pumps extract heat thats already in the air, ground or water outside, transferring it to a refrigerant. This is then compressed and released to heat an indoor space. An air conditioner is a type of heat pump  it just works in reverse, extracting heat from inside a building and dumping it outside. And some heat pumps work both ways, heating or cooling depending on the weather and needs of the buildings occupants.

3. How much energy do they save?

Heat pumps are considered better than traditional electric heaters because theyre more efficient. Whereas a typical electric heater is 100% efficient  making one unit of heat for one unit of power, heat pumps offer two or three times the efficiency. The best are five times more efficient under perfect conditions. That makes heat pumps one important solution in efforts to heat the worlds buildings without burning fossil fuels. They can be used even in very low temperatures; heat pumps are used for almost a third of space heating in Sweden, for example.

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4. How much do heat pumps cost?

Some countries have pushed back ambitious installation targets amid concerns about the cost of heat pumps. Their price varies by location and whether a buyer qualifies for government discounts. In the US, the cost can vary from $3,500 to $20,000. The average installation cost is $14,000, according to a survey carried out by Carbon Switch. The government also offers incentives for installation that depend on income. In Sweden, the average cost is about $9,000 to $14,000, depending on the type of pump. In the UK, an air-source heat pump is likely to cost between 7,000 ($8,400) and 12,000, though in some cases utilities say they can match the cost of a gas boiler with the government grant factored in. The UK is offering payments of 7,500 to households looking to install them. Other countries have even more generous subsidies; the Polish government will cover as much as 90% of the cost, and until earlier this year, the Italian government offered a 110% subsidy.

5. Where are heat pumps found now?

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Tesla Inc. already uses heat pumps in all four of its current models. The company has said the technology boosts a cars range  though there have been teething problems. Heat pumps are also already in a lot of buildings; about 10% of space heating worldwide was provided by heat pumps in 2021. The fastest-growing market is China, but there is already particularly high usage in northern Europe and growth in eastern Europe, where uptake has been encouraged by concerns about reliance on Russian fossil fuels.

6. How easy are heat pumps to install?

Retrofitting a home for a heat pump does require some thought, and the steps needed depend on the type of heat pump. Air-source heat pumps have a unit outside that needs a space roughly the size of a bicycle. Installing a ground-source heat pump is more work-intensive and requires digging boreholes or trenches. Its cheaper to run, though. Inside, an air-to-water system needs a tank for hot water. Heat pumps work more efficiently if they can run at a relatively low temperature and project heat into a room from a larger surface area. They also work better if there is less heat loss from the building, so bigger radiators, underfloor heating or insulation might be necessary to ensure the home stays warm enough and costs stay low.

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7. How do heat pumps compare with air conditioning?

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Theyre more versatile. Unlike a traditional window air-conditioning unit, or central AC, reversible heat pumps (often know as air-to-air heat pumps) can both heat a space in winter and cool it in summer. This is usually better in smaller homes than larger ones, because of the challenge of installing ducts and vents in every part of the house. It also means you need a separate heat source to get hot water for washing. Some air-to-water heat pumps can also provide cooling, depending on how they are installed.

8. Do heat pumps work in very cold weather?

Yes. Some of the highest rates of heat pump adoption are in northern European countries like Norway and Sweden, where temperatures are regularly well below freezing in the winter. Heat pumps do have to work harder in colder weather to pull heat out of the air, so they lose some efficiency. But tests have found that even if temperatures are below freezing, efficiency stays above 200% - making two units of heat for one unit of power. In the coldest climates, where temperatures drop below -10C (14F), back-up heating from an electric heater or wood burner is sometimes used, but this shouldnt be necessary in places with milder winters, as long as the heat pump is working correctly and is the right size for the home.

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9. Are heat pumps noisy?

Heat pumps make a constant humming noise, but it shouldnt be a loud one. If its working properly, an air-source heat pump makes a noise of around 40 to 60 decibels, from one meter away, about the same as a refrigerator or gas boiler, though manufacturers of modern heat pumps claim even quieter levels. In some countries there are limits on how close one can be installed to a property boundary, to minimize disturbance to neighbors. A heat pump that is working really hard, for example because the outside temperature is really low, will be on the noisier end.

10. Will a heat pump save money?

Possibly, as long as it runs efficiently and electricity costs arent prohibitively high. Even though installation can be expensive upfront, running a heat pump is likely to be cheaper in the long run, as it can insulate owners from price shocks caused by volatile prices for fossil fuels. Modern units can last longer, too: the German company Vaillant, which makes both heat pumps and boilers, says its newest heat pumps last 20 to 25 years, compared to an average of 10 to 12 years for a gas boiler. People accustomed to a fossil fuel boiler might be used to pushing a thermostat up to provide a blast of heat for a couple of hours, but this drives up costs because it makes the heat pump work harder. Its more efficient to run it at a lower level for a longer period of time.

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11. How do heat pumps reduce carbon emissions?

Electricity grids are increasingly based at least partly on renewable energy, so running a heat pump is typically less carbon-intensive than burning natural gas or oil in a boiler inside your home. In fact, electric heat pumps have the potential to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by at least 500 million metric tons in 2030, according to the IEA.

 Bloomberg News looks at how Maine became the heat pump capital of the US.

 A report from the International Energy Agency on the heat pump landscape, where China is currently the biggest market for sales.

 Bloomberg Opinions Chris Bryant on how heat-pump manufacturers high profit margins could be compromised by growing global competition.

 An episode of the Bloomberg Zero podcast explores how to think about your individual carbon footprint, including emissions from home energy, eating and air travel.

 Bloomberg Green asked three design studios to develop unique ad campaigns that might overcome the branding hurdles heat pumps still have with consumers.

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Israels debt rating was put on review for downgrade at Moodys Investors Service as the violent conflict with Hamas escalates. The US is seeing stepped-up drone attacks in Iraq and Syria, the Pentagon said Thursday, while an American destroyer in the Red Sea intercepted cruise missiles and drones fired toward Israel by Houthi rebels in Yemen. The uptick in activity, which targeted US bases in Syria and Iraq, has resulted in minor injuries but prompted fresh concerns that Israels war with Hamas might ignite a wider conflict and pull in the US.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the government was planning a wartime stimulus program larger and wider than the support provided to the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, with the budget deficit possibly widening this year to 3.5% of gross domestic product

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Egypts border crossing with Gaza will open Friday, an Egyptian broadcaster reported, potentially allowing vital aid into the besieged territory and fulfilling a demand of Arab nations, the US and Europe.

Israels A1 Credit Rating Placed Under Review (12:25 a.m.)

Moodys placed Israels A1 long-term foreign-currency and local-currency issuer ratings on review, according to a Thursday statement. Previously, the credit assessors outlook for the nation was stable.

Israel has never been downgraded by any of the major ratings companies, even through conflicts and global economic crises. But its rating was already under pressure before the recent military activity, with credit assessors taking an increasingly dim view of the governments efforts to weaken the power of the judiciary. The Moodys warning follows a similar move by Fitch Ratings, which placed the nations credit score on a negative watch earlier this week.

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Biden Speaks With Zelenskiy Before Speech (12 a.m.)

Hours before he was to address the nation on Thursday night, President Joe Biden spoke with the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy. They discussed the continued US commitment to supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion, according to the White House.

Zelenskiy said on X, the former Twitter, that he thanked Biden for for the first-ever delivery of ATACMS missiles. Biden, in his speech, plans to talk about Ukraine as well as the US response to the attack on Israel by Hamas, the White House said.

Drones Target US Bases in Syria, Iraq (11:30 p.m.)

The uptick in activity, which targeted US bases in Syria and Iraq, has resulted in minor injuries but prompted fresh concerns that Israels war with Hamas may spark a bigger conflict and pull in the US. The Pentagon is also sending more forces to the region, including fighter jets.

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You have to look at these individually  were taking them seriously and responding appropriately, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Thursday. Our focus is on deterring a broader regional conflict, and right now this conflict is contained between Israel and Hamas.

Israel Plans Stimulus to Support Economy During War (7:25 p.m.)

Speaking at a briefing in Jerusalem, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said 1 billion shekels ($247 million) will be spent on a directorate that will handle the rebuilding of southern settlements as well as assistance to victims of this months attack by Hamas, a group designated as terrorists by the US and European Union. Authorities are also set to provide compensation grants to small and medium-sized businesses all across Israel for the first time during war.

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Smotrich said the government is planning a wartime stimulus program larger and wider than the support provided to the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, with the budget deficit possibly widening this year to 3.5% of gross domestic product.

Israel Tells Some Diplomats to Leave Turkey Over Security (7:10 p.m.)

Israel asked some of its diplomats in Turkey to leave the country on security grounds, according to a person familiar with the matter. The decision comes after Israel raised travel warning to Turkey to the highest level. The Israel Foreign Ministry said it wouldnt comment about the security of its diplomats.

Israel is also evacuating embassies in other Middle Eastern countries, according to public broadcaster KAN TV.

Egypt Calls for Uninterrupted Distribution of Aid to Gaza (7:06 p.m.)

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Distribution of aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should be uninterrupted and continuous, Egypts foreign minister said Thursday, saying theres no alternative to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The idea of relocating Palestinians to other countries is not an option, Sameh Shoukry said, speaking in a joint press conference with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres in Cairo. The UN chief said both Israel and Hamas must halt fighting and that, among other steps by both sides, Hamas should immediately and unconditionally release the hostages its taken.

Egypt-Gaza Border to Open Friday, Broadcaster Says (7 p.m.)

Egypts border crossing with Gaza will open Friday, according to a social media posting on X by Egyptian broadcaster Al-Qahera News.

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The Rafah border crossing is the only official entry point into Gaza that isnt controlled by Israel. Al-Qahera News, which often reflects the thinking of Egyptian authorities, cited people it didnt identify and didnt give further details.

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Germanys Top Diplomat Phones Palestinian Counterpart (6:48 pm)

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock started her two-day trip to the region by speaking by phone with her counterpart of the Palestinian Territories Riyad al-Maliki. We see the suffering of the Palestinians, Baerbock told him according to a social media post on X. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian civilian population.

Baerbock also discussed the Israel-Gaza conflict with her Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi in Amman. On Friday she plans to travel on to Israel and Lebanon.

Israels Gallant Says Troops to See Gaza From the Inside Soon (6:40 pm)

Israel has said its preparing for significant ground operations in Gaza against Hamas, the group behind the Oct. 7 attack thats designated a terrorist organization by the US and the European Union. Now, Israels defense minister reinforced that message.

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You see Gaza from far away now, but soon you will see it from the inside, Yoav Gallant told troops gathering in southern Israel, close to the border with Gaza.

Germany Calls on Citizens to Leave Lebanon, West Bank (6:20 p.m.)

The German Foreign Office urged citizens to leave Lebanon and the West Bank immediately.

A further deterioration of the situation and an expansion of the conflict cannot be ruled out, it said on its official travel and security advice website.

Missiles, Rockets Launched From Lebanon Bring Response (6 p.m.)

Iran-backed Hezbollah targeted five Israeli sites with guided missiles, according to the groups Al-Manar TV. Palestinian militant group Hamas said it fired 30 rockets from south Lebanon into Nahariya and Shlomi in north Israel, the television station said.

Israel said it responded to the source of fire after 20 launches from Lebanon, including five that fell in open areas and one that was intercepted by aerial defenses.

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Israel Receives US Cargo Plane Shipment of Armored Vehicles (5:24 pm)

Israel received an initial shipment of armored vehicles to replace those damaged during the war, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

The delivery is part of a large-scale procurement operation that will include armored ambulances, operational armored vehicles, tactical trucks and mechanical engineering equipment. Hundreds of vehicles have already been delivered, with several hundred more currently en route to Israel.

Hamas Calls for Day of Rage Protests Against Israel (2:20p.m.)

Hamas called for a Day of Rage across the Islamic world, encouraging Muslims to stage mass protests against Israel on Friday.

Last week, following a similar call by the militant group, thousands took to the streets in the Middle East and other countries for demonstrations in support of Palestinians living in Gaza.

Meta, TikTok Added to EU Illegal Content Probe (1:46 p.m.)

The European Commission sent formal requests for information to ByteDance Ltd.s TikTok and Meta Platforms Inc., further escalating EU attempts to rein in harmful content on social media a week after it asked Elon Musks X for similar answers.

The EU gave Meta and TikTok until Oct. 25 to respond about how theyre tackling election disinformation and the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech respectively, following the Hamas-Israel conflict. Xs answers were due Wednesday.

Chinas Xi Calls for Cease-Fire (1:04 p.m.)

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, his first public comments since the conflict broke out on Oct. 7.

China is willing to step up coordination with Egypt and other Arabic countries to push for a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue as soon as possible, Xi told visiting Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly in Beijing Thursday, according to a transcript from the foreign ministry.

China has been facing increasing pressure for failing to condemn Hamas, which Europe and the US have designated a terrorist group. There was also pressure on Beijing to provide assistance, especially as Xi seeks to play global peacemaker.

Biden to Address Nation on Thursday (12:15 a.m.)

Biden will deliver a speech from the Oval Office Thursday at 8 p.m. Washington time to discuss our response to Hamass terrorist attacks against Israel and Russias ongoing brutal war against Ukraine, the White House said.

Biden returned to Washington after a visit to Israel on Wednesday lasting about eight hours. He is considering a supplemental request to Congress of about $100 billion that would include defense assistance for Israel and Ukraine, along with border security funding and aid to nations in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan, according to people familiar with the matter.

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Trust in government is fading away, as is American democracy, according to reports. That worries the right and the left, for different reasons.
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen)

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who is in Beijing to attend the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

China and Cambodia have set a good example of relations between countries of different sizes based on equality and mutual benefit since they established diplomatic ties 65 years ago, Xi said, noting that the two countries' iron-clad friendship is unbreakable.

The two sides should maintain high-level strategic communication and well implement the action plan for building a China-Cambodia community with a shared future in the new era, he said.

Belt and Road cooperation has brought tangible development opportunities to Cambodia, the president said.

China stands ready to advance the synergy of the Belt and Road Initiative with Cambodia's Pentagon Strategy, ensure that the "Industrial Development Corridor" and the "Fish and Rice Corridor" are well constructed, and push for the implementation of more projects that benefit the public, he said.

China welcomes the entry of more Cambodian farm produce into its market and encourages more Chinese tourists to travel in Cambodia, Xi said.

Hun Manet expressed appreciation for China's long-time and valuable support for Cambodia, noting that Cambodia firmly pursues a friendly policy toward China and supports China's core interests.

The series of important initiatives put forward by President Xi have provided important opportunities and platforms for promoting world peace and development, and Cambodia is an active supporter of them, Hun Manet said.

Senior Chinese officials including Cai Qi and Wang Yi were present at the meeting. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)
Yes, Dolly Parton and Miley Cyruss Rainbowland, a minor song in many ways, could have been bypassed, but like the cover of Patty Griffins far superior bluesy belter Dont Let Me Die In Florida, and their modern standard version of Stevie Nicks Landslide, it was a nod to influences, inspirations and fellow travellers. Even more so, it was a nod to unity and community. To living on and living well. ROBYN ARCHER: AN AUSTRALIAN SONGBOOK

Belvoir St Theatre, October 19

Until October 29

Reviewed by JOHN SHAND



The title could have been A Bloody Australian Songbook, such is often the tone as Robyn Archer trawls the Oz annals. It makes no pretence at being an anthology of the best or most famous Australian songs, but rather is Archer taking us by the hand and pointing out rarities and marvels in assorted idioms, always with a penchant for the satirical, the political, the ribald and the feminist.

The upshot was a slightly different Archer. Whereas when she sings Brecht or Brel its as though she dons a mask, giving us studied renditions, here she was at ease in her own skin, voice and culture  a culture she variously finds hilarious, contemptible, sentimental, magical or just plain weird. A fair slice of the material was her own, beginning with I am Not Nor Will I Ever Be, a song she wrote in London in 1988, which confirms what many of us always suspected: that shes neither Crocodile Dundee nor Bazza McKenzie, nor even Germaine Greer. That set the tone for a show defined as much by what it isnt (a museum of hits or nostalgia) as what it is. The elusive thread of what it is includes Lou Bennetts glorious Jaara Nyilamum, about her birthing tree, sung in Dja Dja Wurrung, with Cameron Goodalls banjo arpeggios creating a rippling effect more likely to be found in nature than upon a stage. Andrew Ford and Ellen van Neervens Dark Cloud was as disquieting as it was beautiful, and Max Lamberts setting of Kenneth Slessors Chokers Lane is a classic of Australian musical theatre. Other composers ranged from Kate Miller-Heidke to Greg Champion, and on to Robert Davidsons potent setting of Julia Gillards misogyny speech. Theres an overdose of banal country music, making the show too long, and Archers choices have been swayed too much by lyrics over music. The latter is realised by George Butrumlis (accordion), Enio Pozzebon (keyboard) and Goodall (guitar, banjo), with all singing. Its an intimate curiosity shop, and may have liked a smaller theatre. A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC

Hayes Theatre, October 18

Until November 11

Reviewed by JOHN SHAND





Is A Little Night Music the most timeless musical ever penned? Taking their cue from the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, about couples being naughty in 1900 Sweden, its creators, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, looked at hypocrisy with forgiving amusement; as an inevitability. Then they whipped into a froth the key ingredients of flirtation, lust, sex, marriage and adultery. Sin, you see, can be so very civilised. Although this 1973 musical is often found in opera houses, director Dean Bryants Hayes Theatre production proves that, at heart, its a chamber work that, like finely engraved silver, prefers being rendered in miniature to being grandiose. A Little Night Music: No other musical comes so close to being perfect on its own terms. Credit: One could argue that Sondheims Sunday in the Park with George, say, surpasses Night Music as a work of art, but no other musical comes so close to being perfect on its own terms. Therein lies part of the timelessness, alongside the eternal nature of the foibles depicted, the effervescent wit of Wheelers book and Sondheims lyrics, the rich characterisations and the musics ageless elegance: a compendium of styles in 3/4 time. Above all, its a musical for actors, and Bryant has ensured no one in his cast muddies the taut, knotty interrelationships. His particular coup was landing Nancye Hayes  she for whom the theatres named  to play the wheelchair-bound grandmother Madame Armfeldt for the third time in her glittering career. Her performance is a masterclass in trusting the words and playing them with a restraint more usually found in big-screen close-ups.

More than anyone on the stage, she finesses her pauses to the microsecond, notably in her centrepiece, Liaisons. About the supposedly more sophisticated sensual delights that existed in her youth, it mixes world-weariness, wisdom, truth, fantasy and revisionist history, and includes the lines, Take my daughter, I taught her, I tried my best to point the way. I even named her Desiree. Desiree, an actor, is the protagonist who reignites an old flame, while already having an affair with a volatile cavalry officer whose favourite sport is duelling. Blazey Best joins the noble roster of women (from Glynis Johns to Judi Dench) to play the role and makes it her own. Singing, Isnt it rich?, the opening line of Send in the Clowns, has become as tough for an actor as saying To be or not to be, but Best shrugs aside all the baggage, and simple lets it live in all its raw candour and emotional complexity. Leon Ford splendidly plays Frederik, the slightly wet, slightly pompous lawyer whom Desiree cant relinquish, even if some of his sung pauses would benefit from Hayes microsecond instincts. Joshua Robson just manages to contain his performance as the duelling Carl-Magnus to the scale of the Hayes stage, and is an ideal foil for Ford in sparking much of the humour. Melanie Bird excels as Frederiks overwrought wife (whos a virgin 11 months into their marriage), Anne, as does Erin Clare as Carl-Magnuss infinitely more worldly and cynical spouse, who gives us that exquisite encapsulation of the human condition: Every Day a Little Death. Jeremi Campese, Kiana Daniele and Pamelia Papacosta round out the fine team of principals. The stripped-down orchestration and Jeremy Allens simple set are in harmony with Bryants conception. The jarring element is the sound. The show should be restrained vocally and graceful musically. Instead, the sound was uneven, often too loud and sometimes rather tinny. With this rectified, the otherwise outstanding production would crown a bumper year for Sondheim in Sydney.

DMAs

Enmore Theatre, October 14

Reviewed by MICHAEL BAILEY



The DMAs? Is that an awards night or something? asked a friend, after Id shared my choice of Saturday evening entertainment. The DMAs in Sydney: They know they are on to a winning formula Credit: Mushroom Creative House Clearly, Sydneys most popular rock band of the moment has some work to do before filling stadiums. But the Newtown trios songs are already there, as this euphoric and exhilarating show proved repeatedly.

All the ingredients of DMAs appeal were in the opening salvo to this sold-out theatre - the title track of Marchs fourth album, How Many Dreams? Washes of retro synthesiser swirled, begging for resolution as the band walked on and plugged in. Lifting his acoustic guitar up to his shoulder, Johnny Took introduced a rhythmic bounce for eight bars. Then lead guitarist Matt Mason peeled off a riff as sharp as the brim of his baseball cap, cueing the hired hands on drums, bass and second rhythm guitar to deliver that resolution in a major-key manner that was obvious, yet an utterly joyous synthesis of dance and rock. As the moshpit swayed and pogoed simultaneously, arguably the key ingredient in DMAs success - particularly in its last two records going top 5 in the UK - was unleashed in the form of Tommy ODells vocal.

Comparing DMAs to The Stone Roses and Oasis is as lazy as music criticism gets, and while ODell sounds nothing like Ian Brown or Liam Gallagher, the connection tonight was clear. All three have limited vocal ranges, and have rarely sung lyrics with any literal meaning. Yet they make you feel things when they sing. For instance, the words how many dreams to find out what you have lost? are nonsense on paper. But somehow, when ODells pure and urgent voice sang them tonight, they rode the music and became an affirmation, to which many of us could only punch the air in agreement. Loading The DMAs know they are on to a winning formula. So confident were they of their ability to keep lifting this audience, they played their biggest hit, Silver, and their Triple J-conquering cover, Chers Believe, in the first half of the setlist. Yet the energy in the room stayed high, goosed along by Olympias nagging riff and killer chorus, the widescreen balladry of Hello Girlfriend and In The Air, and another credible house-rock hybrid in Something We Are Overcoming. ODell and Took frequently made everybody up gestures, but we were already there.

Then there was a peak even higher when Took introduced pop star Ruel, who helped DMAs debut a catchy, soulful collaboration that felt destined for radio. Airwaves and arenas are after all the natural homes for DMAs music, as their indelible first single Delete, and then encore closers Lay Down and Everybodys Saying Thursdays The Weekend, proved rousingly tonight. Household name status, however, might require DMAs to reveal more of themselves in their songs. They soared so impressively tonight, one wondered what theyd make of things closer to ground. DMAs play a second show at Enmore Theatre on October 15.

Playing to savour rather than be dazzled by Lilya Zilberstein in Recital

Presented by Sydney Symphony Orchestra

City Recital Hall, October 16

Reviewed by PETER MCCALLUM

 Lilya Zilberstein played the opening of Schuberts first Moment Musicaux with elegant wistfulness, leaning on the peak note of the phrase just long enough to sound a note of regret. The sound she created at the piano in these gems was rounded and pearly  perfectly matched to the subtly tapered shape she brought to each idea. Occasionally, and, in the intervening minor-key episodes of the second piece, memorably so, a mood of more intense expressiveness emerged. But in general the tone was one of gentle reverence, cultivating those moments in Schubert where he conjures the essence of what it is to be musical. Lilya Zilbersteins particular virtues reside in her poetic lyricism at the piano and her distinctive tone. Credit: Andrej Grilc

The second part of the first half continued the Schubert theme, albeit not quite as the composer imagined it. It consisted of four of the transcriptions of Schuberts songs for solo piano that Franz Liszt arranged in 1838, initially to raise money for his fellow Hungarians devastated by the flooding Danube river. Liszt evokes the combination of voice and piano on a single keyboard with great imagination and some embellishment and the arrangements proved hugely popular even though most of the pianists who constituted their market would have found their difficulties forbidding. Zilbersteins particular virtues as a musician reside in her poetic lyricism at the piano and the distinctive tone of her overall musical conception. She does not create moments of thrilling excitement and daring with the virtuosity but allows the lyrical idea to guide. The Wanderer, a song of 1816, had portentous drama, and Stanchen von Shakespeare preserved coyness and charm through Liszts virtuosic elaborations. In Gretchen am Spinnrade, Zilberstein kept the whirring spinning wheel motive subdued and nagging in the background. In Rachmaninovs Thirteen Preludes Opus 32 after interval, Zilberstein again established a poetic idea with each number and it was the pieces where melody dominated that made the greatest impression. In the Prelude No. V, the left hand provided a lapping accompaniment to a top line of transparent ornateness overwrought with ornate arabesque. The Prelude VII maintained a whispering murmur in the inner parts against a piquantly pointed melody. For Prelude XII, the focus was a caressingly rich cello-like melody in the left hand with shimmering patterns of light from the right hand. The denser textures of pieces like Prelude XIII were turbulent without fierceness. This was playing to savour rather than be dazzled by.

A production built from and for love The Disappearance

Chippen Street Theatre

October 12

Until October 22

Reviewed by CASSIE TONGUE



Independent theatre in Sydney faces impossible challenges: financial pressures, especially in a cost-of-living crisis; a scarcity of venues; and the struggle to engage audiences with more entertainment options than ever before. Independent artists stretch tiny budgets to make something out of nothing  every production is hard-won, built from love and sacrifice.

Rebecca Matthews as Dr Clemm with Gordon Vignelles as Roger. Take The Disappearance, now at the Chippen Street Theatre (a 50-seat black box theatre and home of Sydney Eisteddfod). Based on both the Kin Platt 1968 novel The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear and its film adaptation, 1973s Baxter!, this play is a labour of love. Les Solomon created it 1975 and produced it as a youth theatre project in 1990. This is its first full production, which Solomon directs. The story is difficult and didactic, but deeply-felt: California-born Roger (Gordon Vignelles) hasnt had it easy. His parents (Joe Clements and Kath Gordon) are abusive, often using Rogers speech disorder as a target. Things only get worse when Roger and his motherland in Sydney. He discovers new allies in speech therapist Dr Clemm (Rebecca L Matthews) and his neighbours, a sweet model (Talia Sigsworth) and her celebrity chef partner (Andrew Lindqvist), who take Roger under their wing. But as things at home worsen, Rogers mental health deteriorates. The production is rough-edged and the script strains under the weight of the plot. It feels dated  unsurprisingly, given the first draft was written nearly 50 years ago  and theres a mismatch of tones and character work from the cast, who dont always feel part of the same world.
Tim Mathieson, the ex-partner of former prime minister Julia Gillard, has been convicted and fined $7000 after admitting to sucking the nipple of his friend while she slept and laughing at her when she confronted him the next day.

Mathieson, 66, pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday to one charge of sexual assault committed in March last year when he sucked the nipple of a neighbour who had fallen asleep on her couch.

Tim Mathieson outside court on Thursday. Credit: Jason South

Magistrate Belinda Franjic said Mathiesons offending was a serious example of sexual assault because it was carried out when the woman was in a vulnerable state.

What Im sentencing for is a woman sleeping in her own home who wakes up with a person who she trusted sucking on her breast, she told the court.
West Australian police have charged a 28-year-old man who allegedly went on the run for over 24 hours after he fled a home in Perths east after a disturbance, carrying an unlicensed firearm.

The tactical response group was deployed to a home in The Vines on Wednesday. Credit: WA Police

Blake Unkovich was located on Thursday by police at an address in Kiara and has since been charged with a string of serious offences including two counts of deprivation of liberty, threatening to kill and threatening to kill in circumstances of aggravation and two counts of intending to harm another.

He has also been charged with two attempted aggravated armed robbery charges, being armed to cause fear, two counts of possessing an unlicensed firearm, drug paraphernalia and a controlled or prescription drug.

He was refused bail will appear in the Midland Magistrates Court on Friday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dismissed a Coalition call for a royal commission into child sex abuse in Indigenous communities as a political stunt, while continuing to resist saying whether he would pursue truth and treaty for First Australians.

Several peak Indigenous groups also rejected the call, describing it as an attempt to politicise child sexual abuse and play into the basest negative perceptions of some people about Aboriginal people and communities.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said child sex abuse was a serious issue but it did not just affect one group or place. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Liberal MP Bridget Archer crossed the floor on Thursday and joined Labor in defeating Duttons call for a debate on a royal commission and an audit of spending on Indigenous programs.

The two ideas  advocated by opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman and leading No campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price  were key pillars of the Coalitions Indigenous policy as it mobilised against the Voice to parliament.
President of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik has sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on October 18, the Day of Restoration of Independence.

The letter reads:

His Excellency Mr. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Mr. President!

On behalf of people and institutions of the Republic of Srpska and my own behalf, it is my honour to convey sincere regards and best wishes on the occasion of the Day of Restoration of Independence established on 18 October 1991 when the Supreme Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan adopted the Constitutional Act On the State Independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Due to your leadership, the Republic of Azerbaijan grew and developed into a regional leader and economic power, and I am proud to say that the Republic of Srpska and the Republic of Azerbaijan share warm and friendly relations, excellent economic cooperation, full of understanding and mutual respect. In times of major tectonic geopolitical changes, and challenges in both political and economical arena, understanding and respect for internal affairs as well as foreign policy of each and every country, is of extreme importance.

With pleasure I do underline my firm belief that our bilateral cooperation in many areas and segments will mark growth and will have upward trends. I honestly do believe that our relations will develop in the years to come in a way to be of use and advantage of both of our nations. My firm intention is to further develop our friendship and support by keeping and respecting it.

Honourable President,

Your Excellency,

Allow me to reiterate expressions of deep appreciation and good wishes for your personal health and general well-being, as well as for prosperity and development of friendly people of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Milorad Dodik

President of the Republic of Srpska
NEW YORK, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The New York Police Department (NYPD) has enhanced security measures as rallies over the conflict between Israel and Hamas continue in the city.

"We are currently in a heightened threat environment and tensions have been rising since ...October 7th. The NYPD is doing everything we can do to forestall future violence in our city. However, we know the ongoing events overseas may resonate with individuals domestically and that is hard to anticipate," said NYPD in a statement on Wednesday.

"The NYPD asks all New Yorkers to remain vigilant and reminds everyone if they see something to say something. For these reasons, the NYPD is continuing with our Citywide all-out deployment and all in-service training will continue to be postponed until further notice," said the statement.

A pro-Palestinian rally was held outside the City University of New York Graduate Center in Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon. The demonstration was met with about 10 counter-protestors who carried Israeli flags. There was no violence, but many screamed and made verbal provocations. No arrests have been made.

Several tense protests have been held in New York City since the conflict started.

New York City is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel, with about 2 million Jewish people living in the city and its surrounding areas. 
How many people were in the hospital? Although it had a limited number of beds, this hospital and others in Gaza have been crammed with casualties beyond their capacity since the start of Israeli airstrikes launched in response to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. As well as handling a surge in the number of wounded, people have also sought refuge in hospital grounds all over Gaza believing them to be safe havens against strikes. Dr Fadel Naim, head of orthopaedic surgery, said about 1000 people were in Al Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday morning and more rushed there later in the day after the Israeli army warned residents in the Zeitoun neighbourhood to evacuate their homes.

Another doctor, Dr Ibrahim al-Naqa said more than 3000 people had sought refuge at the time of the strike. Gaza Healthy Ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qidra said in a statement on Wednesday that 471 Palestinians were killed and more than 314 wounded in the explosion. It appears the explosion hit people sheltering in the hospitals courtyard. A BBC reporter, Rushdi Abualouf, has been to the Al-Ahli Hospital. The BBC quoted pathologist Derrick Pounder, a founder member of Physicians for Human Rights in the UK and an expert in the field of conflict injuries, who viewed some of the images of victims with catastrophic injuries. The overall pattern of scattered injuries is what would be expected from shrapnel resulting from an explosion, he said. What happened before the strike?

Israel previously told Palestinians in the north of Gaza, including in Gaza City, to move south for their own safety. Israels military specifically told Zeitoun residents to move south on Tuesday in a message issued on social media platform X. A Kuwaiti specialised hospital in Rafah city, in the south of Gaza on the border with Egypt, said on October 16 it had received two Israeli warnings to evacuate, but its director said its staff would not leave. What details do we have about the strike?

Loading Naim said he had finished one surgery and was about to start another when he heard a huge explosion. Naqa said the blast took place at about 6.30pm, local time (2.30am AEDT, Wednesday). What damage was sustained? Footage and images obtained by Reuters from inside the hospital showed about two dozen destroyed vehicles in its grounds. They were surrounded by damaged buildings with windows blown out. Blood stains were on the walls and the ground.

After the blast, Palestinians carry belongings as they leave AL Ahli Arab hospital, which they were using as a shelter. Credit: AP What have the Palestinians said? Palestinian officials have blamed Israel. Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group that is an ally of Hamas, denied any of its rockets were involved in the blast, saying it did not have any activity in or around Gaza City at that time. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the United States was responsible, saying Washington had given Israel the cover for its aggression.

The health minister of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority blamed Israel for what he called a massacre. Loading What has Israel said? Israel has denied it was to blame and said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by Islamic Jihad. An Israeli army spokesperson said an analysis of the operational systems of the Israel Defence Forces indicated that a barrage of rockets was fired by militants in Gaza, passing close to the hospital at the time it was hit.

Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza. A military spokesperson said there was no structural damage to buildings around the hospital and no craters consistent with an airstrike. The spokesperson said Hamas had inflated the casualty numbers and said the group could not know as quickly as it claimed what caused the blast. The Israeli military said some 450 rockets fired from Gaza had fallen short and landed in the Gaza Strip in the past 11 days. What has the United States said? Biden pointed the finger of blame at Palestinian militants.

Speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said: I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. What has the Anglican Church said? Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican church, said: This is an appalling and devastating loss of innocent lives. The Ahli hospital is run by the Anglican Church. I mourn with our brothers and sisters. I renew my appeal for civilians to be protected in this devastating war. May the Lord God have mercy.

What has been the reaction in the region? The strike has inflamed Arab governments and groups in the region. Protesters took to the streets in several Arab countries denouncing what they said was an Israeli strike on the hospital. Jordans King Abdullah blamed Israel for the blast and his country cancelled a summit it was to host in Amman on Wednesday to discuss Gaza with the US president and the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders. Egypt also blamed Israel. In Lebanon, Iran-based Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006, denounced what it called Israels deadly attack and called for protests on Wednesday, Beirut time. The government declared a national day of mourning. Reuters
DAMASCUS, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Militants launched a drone attack on a U.S. military base in southeastern Syria overnight, a war monitor reported on Thursday.

Militants launched three military drones to attack the U.S. base in the al-Tanf area, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The UK-based watchdog group said the U.S. forces intercepted two drones while the third inflicted some damage on the base, though no casualties were reported.

The SOHR said the attack appears to be the work of Iran-based fighters who are deployed in eastern Syria and western Iraq, adding the militants carried out the attacks under the banner of "Revenge for Gaza." 
GAZA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Heba Mushtaha, who was from Gaza City and was supposed to welcome her first child, lost her life a few days ago due to a difficult birth amid the ongoing Israeli airstrikes.

Ahmed Mushtaha, the 36-year-old husband, has been stunned by the sudden loss of his beloved wife and the breakdown of his family.

"We escaped from our house in Gaza City and took shelter with our relatives, while at night, my wife started screaming and was about to give birth," he recalled.

"However, we were unable to transfer her to the hospital when there were Israeli bombings. The next morning, she died," the man grieved.

Many Palestinian pregnant women are suffering gravely in the besieged Gaza Strip amid the ongoing deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Hadeel Skeik gave birth to her baby long before the due date, after she was wounded by an Israeli airstrike targeting her neighborhood.

"I was scared of losing the baby as he still needed three weeks before coming to the world," the 29-year-old mother of two recalled, explaining "my baby is still in the hospital and I have to go there every day under the attacks to breastfeed him."

"I am really afraid of losing any of my kids, either the newborn or the one I have to leave inside the home for long hours a day," she said with tears on her face.

Once the newborn is discharged, the family has to relocate to Khan Younis city as Israeli attacks have wrecked their house in Gaza City.

On Oct. 7, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) launched a surprise attack on Israeli military targets and towns adjacent to the Gaza Strip, prompting extensive Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

Some 1,300 people in Israel were killed in the attacks launched by Hamas, while the death toll of Palestinians hit 3,785, according to Gaza-based Health Ministry on Thursday.

On Oct. 13, the Israeli army asked about one million Palestinian civilians to evacuate from the northern part of the besieged strip to the southern part, ahead of an expected ground offensive.

The United Nations Population Fund in Palestine revealed on Monday on the social platform X that there are about 50,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip who cannot obtain basic health services, among them, 5,500 will give birth in October.

"The turnout of pregnant women, especially from the displaced people from northern Gaza, is very large, and we are trying to provide services for those in the most serious condition," said Mohammed al-Raqab, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Nasser Governmental Hospital in Khan Yunis.

Even if the Gazan mothers-to-be are lucky enough to safely give birth to babies, they still have to face risks, panic and fear from Israeli attacks in the conflict-ravaged enclave.

The United Nations Population Fund stressed that these women "need urgent health care and protection," urging all parties to "abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law."

As trucks loaded with humanitarian aid supplies awaited at the Egyptian side of Rafah crossing to enter Gaza, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday asked infantry soldiers along the border with the Gaza Strip to get prepared for entering the Palestinian enclave. 
Allentown, PA (18103)

Today

Clear to partly cloudy and not as cold as the last few nights. .

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy and not as cold as the last few nights.
Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, meets with Mozambican Prime Minister Adriano Maleiane in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official Cai Qi met with Mozambican Prime Minister Adriano Maleiane in Beijing on Thursday.

Cai, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, said China is willing to work with Mozambique to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and continue to firmly support each other in pursuing an independent development path.

Cai said China is also willing to work with Mozambique to strengthen friendly exchanges between the two parties and two countries, and deepen cooperation in jointly building the Belt and Road.

Maleiane said Mozambique cherishes its traditional friendship with China and is firmly committed to the one-China policy. He added that Mozambique looks forward to further participating in the Belt and Road cooperation and achieving greater development. 

Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, meets with Mozambican Prime Minister Adriano Maleiane in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)  Federal regulators on Thursday approved the expansion of a natural gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest over the protest of environmental groups and top officials in West Coast states, who said it goes against the regions plans to address climate change and could pose a wildfire risk.

The project, known as GTN Xpress, aims to expand the capacity of the Gas Transmission Northwest pipeline, which runs through Idaho, Washington and Oregon, by about 150 million cubic feet (4.2 million cubic meters) of natural gas per day. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave it the green light in a vote on Thursday.

TC Energy plans to modify three compressor stations along the pipeline  in Kootenai County, Idaho; Walla Walla County, Washington; and Sherman County, Oregon. Compressor stations help maintain the pressure and flow of gas over long distances in a pipeline.

Environmental groups criticized the decision.

In a statement, Audrey Leonard, staff attorney for environmental nonprofit Columbia Riverkeeper, said it represented a rubber stamp of unnecessary fracked gas in the Northwest and accused the energy agency of failing to listen to U.S. senators, governors, state attorneys general, tribes and members of the public.

Leonard said potential spills and explosions on the pipeline, which was built in the 1960s, would not only harm the environment but also present a heightened wildfire risk in the arid regions it passes through.

An explosion of that level in eastern Washington or eastern Oregon would be catastrophic, she said.

Leonard said Columbia Riverkeeper will appeal the federal regulators decision and submit a petition for a rehearing.

The pipeline belongs to TC Energy of Calgary, Canada  the same company behind the now-abandoned Keystone XL crude oil pipeline.

The company said the project is necessary to meet consumer demand and welcomed the decision in an emailed statement.

Environmentalists and officials opposed to the project have expressed concern about TC Energys safety record. Its Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline exploded in Strasburg, Virginia, in July and its existing Keystone pipeline spilled nearly 600,000 gallons of bitumen oil in Kansas last December.

The 1,377-mile (2,216-kilometer) pipeline runs from the Canadian border through a corner of Idaho and into Washington state and Oregon, connecting with a pipeline going into California.

Oregon, along with Washington and California, have passed laws requiring utilities to transition to 100% clean electricity sources by 2040 and 2045, respectively.

Idahos Republican governor and Congress members have supported the project and said that imposing other states climate policies would be misguided."

After the vote, Washington's Democratic governor and California's Democratic attorney general condemned the decision. And the Democratic U.S. Senators from Washington and Oregon described the project as incompatible with our climate laws in a letter to the energy agency.

GTN Xpress represents a significant expansion of methane gas infrastructure at a time when California, Oregon, and Washington are moving away from fossil fuels, the senators said.

The attorneys general of the three states, citing the energy agency's draft environmental impact statement for the project, said it would result in more than 3.47 million metric tons of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions per year for at least the next three decades.

The agencys final environmental assessment issued last November revised that number downward by roughly half in calculations contested by environmental groups. This is partly because some of the projects gas would be delivered to Tourmaline, a Canadian natural gas producer. The assessment said it wasnt clear what the end use of the gas delivered to Tourmaline would be, leading it to conclude that the companys downstream emissions  those stemming from consumers  werent reasonably foreseeable.

The energy agencys chairman, Willie Phillips, reiterated its stance after Thursdays vote.

There was no evidence presented that this project would significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions, he told reporters. The commission determined that this project was needed and therefore we support its approval.

In its final assessment, the federal agency also said the compressor stations were in non-forested areas with low to moderate fire hazard and concluded the project would result in limited adverse impacts on the environment.

Most adverse environmental impacts would be temporary or short-term, the federal agency said.

The agency recommended certain steps, such as requiring the company to train its personnel and contractors on environmental mitigation measures before any construction begins.

But environmental groups say the assessment didnt adequately address the harm caused by the project, including by fracking to obtain the natural gas that flows through the pipeline.

Fracking is a technique used by the energy industry to extract oil and gas from rock by injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals. It has been criticized by climate and environment groups for increasing emissions of methane, an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas.

Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
WEST READING, Pa.  The doors remain open at the Rite Aid in West Reading amid the company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the pharmacy Angelica Rodriguez said she goes to.

"Really surprised about it considering that they have so many stores everywhere," said Rodriguez.

According to Rite Aid's plans, more than 35 stores will be closing in Pennsylvania, none of which are in Berks County.

"And I'm just glad that our area, the Rite Aids here are not closing," said Rodriguez.

But among the closings is the one on Main Street in Pennsburg, about 10 miles away from Boyertown.

"Companies that are in financial trouble for a host of reasons, they go through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy that allows them to restructure, possibly sell some of their assets and some of these are ordered by the court," said Farhad Saboori, Albright College economics professor.

"It's sort of a reflection, and Rite Aid did this because they were losing money for a number of years and they followed strategies that backfired," said Saboori.

Rite Aid said in a statement that it regularly reviews its locations to ensure it is meeting the need of customers, communities and overall business. The company said the decision to close a store is based on factors including business strategy, lease and rent and store performance.

It said it reviews every neighborhood to make sure customers have access to health services, whether it's Rite Aid or another pharmacy. The pharmacy chain said it also strives to transfer associates to other Rite Aid locations where possible.

"It's an attempt to correct mistakes, make the adjustments and be able to return back to profitability," said Saboori.
READING, Pa.  The Berks County Commissioners voted Thursday to approve the induction of four new members into the Berks County Military Hall of Fame.

Ken Lebron, Director of the Berks County Department of Veterans Affairs, noted that the commissioners established the hall of fame in 2009 to recognize the men and women from Berks County who demonstrated gallantry in combat against an American enemy of achieved significant national or international recognition during military service.

There are currently 71 members inducted into the Hall of Fame, including seven who have earned the Medal of Honor, the United States highest honor for valor in combat.

I appreciate the opportunity to come here today to honor and recognize some of our comrades in arms who have risked their lives during their military service, Lebron said.

The new inductees include:

Sergeant Landis G. Hartranft, U.S. Army, Distinguished Flying Cross Extraordinary achievement.

While serving as a tail gunner on a B17 Flying Fortress, Staff Sergeant Hartranft participated in over 30 heavy bomber operations over Germany and occupied Europe, Lebron said. During World War II, where the survival rate for just one of these missions was dangerously slim, he personally earned 220 hours of flying time.

Though he was not wounded in battle, Hartranft was tragically killed in an automobile accident in 1948 at the age of 24.

Lieutenant Irvin W. Godboldte, U.S. Army, Bronze Star for heroism in connection with military operations against a hostile force.

Godboldte led his platoon on 25 major company battalion combat operations, Lebron said.

In 1965 and again in 1966, Godboldte was wounded by detonated mines, both times ignoring his injuries and assisted with the wounded.

His outstanding display of aggressiveness, devotion to duty and personal bravery in keeping with the finest traditions of the military service, reflect great credit upon himself and the First Infantry Division in the United States Army, Lebron said.

Lieutenant Thomas G. Kopel, United States Navy, Navy Commendation with valor for achievement as a pilot

Kopel embarked on USS Constellation in 1970 where he flew the winged aircraft during a two plane attack mission in Southeast Asia, Lebron said. Despite heavy anti-aircraft fire in the area, he placed all of his bombs on target resulting in five enemy trucks destroyed and many secondary explosions and many enemy casualties. Lieutenant Kopels superb airmanship, courage and devotion to duty reflect great credit upon himself and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Colonel Donald F. Klein, United States Air Force, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, 14 Air Medals for extraordinary achievement.

Colonel Klein distinguished himself through meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the United States tactical service and leadership.

Colonel Klein was responsible for the largest war reserve material program in the Republic of Turkey, with assets exceeding $140 million, Lebron said. Colonel Klein has accomplished a lot over the course of his military career, but the best way that I can describe his service is that he was a top gun of top guns. After 48 years of service in the Air Force, he dedicated 22 more years of his life as a junior reserve officer training course instructor, where he taught in three different schools to include Muhlenberg High School.

All four inductees will be presented into the hall of Fame at the 21sth Annual Veterans Appreciation Dinner Dance, Saturday, Nov. 4 at the Wilson High School Gymnasium.

In another matter, the commissioners acknowledge Pamela Shupp Menet, the countys director of community and economic, who was named Pennsylvanias economic developer of the year by the Pennsylvania Economic Development Association.

Commissioner Christian Y. Leinbach read a certificate presented to Shupp Menet:

Pamela is a proven leader with unwavering devotion, who has pulled upon her vast experiences to allow individuals and communities to reach their fullest potential.

To be recognized by my peers across the Commonwealth has been especially meaningful, but what makes it even better is the fact that I have the opportunity and the privilege to work in my home community, and not many professionals in our field can say that, Shupp Menet said. Implementing a strategic economic development plan for Berks County is absolutely the highlight if not the premier highlight of my career and it's thanks to your belief in the process, practice and the plan that is allowing us to do that.
WEST READING, Pa. - Tower Behavioral Health (TBH) is hosting a free, safe and engaging Trunk or Treat event Thursday, October 19.

More than 40 trunks will be decorated by volunteers from Tower Behavioral Health, Reading Hospital and community partner organizations.

The frightfully fun event will be held 5 to 7 p.m. in the Tower Behavioral Health parking lot located at 201 Wellness Way in Bern Township, across from Reading Regional Airport.

The team at Tower Behavioral Health is proud to serve Berks County residents and we want to thank the community that has welcomed and supported us over the past three years, said Jenna Pacini, CEO at Tower Behavioral Health. We are excited to host them on our campus and celebrate a family friendly Halloween themed evening with our community partners.

Food for purchase, as well as some limited complementary items, will be available from Munchiez Food Truck, Philly Pretzel (Temple location) and Berks Hot Dogs
SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa.  The first flash of orange steel arrived at Dorney Park in South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, on Thursday, as teams work as fast as they can to build the Iron Menace.

"The crews have progressively gotten larger as we've moved into this process," said Ryan Eldredge, the park's public relations manager.

The Iron Menace is Dorney's first new roller coaster since Hydra in 2005, and it's the first dive coaster. It will take riders through the innards of a steel mill blast furnace, dropping them 152 feet at a 95-degree angle, with an inverted loop and speeds up to 64 miles per hour.

Fittingly, the new coaster is being manufactured by Clermont Steel Fabricators in Ohio, where Dorney's parent company, Cedar Fair Entertainment, is headquartered, and it's being delivered to the park in sections.

"We are all about the story behind the story. This rollercoaster, specifically, is supposed to be a call-back to our heritage," Eldredge said. "To watch it go from little steel plates all the way to the end where it becomes a track and then it gets painted and weatherized is really, really impressive."

Eldredge said the sections will arrive weekly. The first pieces to arrive this week will make up the entrance area, where guests will get on the Menace.

"We'll have a few more coming perhaps over the next week so we can begin to build the station, and then we'll start on the execution of the lift tail which is really the exiting part," Eldredge said. "That's were you've got the drop, that 95-degree element."

Dorney Park said everything is still on track to be ready and open for the next season. Season pass holders are expected to get more information about the opening of the Iron Menace in January.
ALLENTOWN, Pa.  The Lehigh County Board of Commissioners held a meeting of its human services committee Wednesday to hear discussion related to claims involving the county's Children and Youth Services department.

The issue stems from a recent report by Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley, claiming there's a "systemic overdiagnosis" of medical child abuse in the Lehigh Valley compared to other parts of the state.

While the report does not name specific facilities complicit in the overdiagnoses, LVHN's John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center  located at 1627 W. Chew St. in Allentown  is the only facility in the area that manages such child abuse cases.

Specifically, the report references child abuse by parents or adults suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy. MSBP is an extremely rare mental condition in which parents or adults falsely convince children they suffer from serious illnesses.

At several past board of commissioners meetings, the public comment portion has included accounts from parents who claimed they were separated from their children due to what they describe as false allegations, resulting in what some have called "medical kidnapping."

Commissioner Bob Elbich, chair of the human services committee, conducted Wednesday night's meeting. He said previously that the committee meetings will encourage additional discussion and provide a basis for "moving forward with the facts."

He also said the dialogue among committee members, board members and the public will help to "possibly develop realistic process improvements and ideas," which he said could be presented "as a work product to the full board for a decision."

"We need to settle it down to the basic facts," Elbich stated Wednesday. From there, the board can engage and build, he said.

Committee goals

Wednesday's gathering began with Elbich explaining the meeting's aims and a rationale for the convening of the committee.

Specifically, Elbich reiterated a previous statement that the committee's objective will be to "add clarity to some of the misconceptions that have been out in the public and statements that have been made, to improve on the accuracy of that."

Lehigh County committee to further discuss 'medical kidnapping' allegations The Lehigh County human services committee will hold a meeting on Oct. 18, which officials say will give members and the public an opportunity to get out the facts.

He also supported the county's first-line staff of Children and Youth Services, echoing Geoff Brace, chair of the board of commissioners, at a previous commissioners' meeting.

"They are down in the trenches," Elbich said, and often have to deal with "complex, very painful and very disturbing issues."

While dealing with these issues, workers must also work within and meet the requirements under which they must operate.

"I know I couldn't do that job," Elbich said. "I give them a ton of credit."

CPS structure

Elbich gave a presentation providing foundational knowledge of the entities involved in the Child Protective System structure. Those entities were identified as the Multidisciplinary Investigation Team, the Child Advocacy Center, and Children and Youth Services.

The MDIT follows criminal aspects of child abuse. At the same time, the CAC is an independent agency, is not a part of the county, is not statutorily required, and is funded solely by Lehigh Valley Health Network and grants. CYS is the arm that takes action regarding allegations, but it does not have a direct link to CAC, Elbich explained.

Elbich also discussed the Lehigh County Office of Children and Youth Advisory Board, of which he is a member. The body can advise and make recommendations but does not create policy.

Community input

While, on the whole, commenters appreciated the information, they suggested that practice does not always follow policies.

"The information charts show how it's supposed to work, and that may be true for some cases, (but) you've had families tell you their experiences and how it works for them," said Stacy Feeney during public comment.

Feeney has spoken at several Lehigh County Board of Commissioners meetings. She says she's one of several accused of having Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

The meeting also featured a presentation by Cathleen Palm from the Center for Children's Justice, whose mission is "to promote community responsibility so every Pennsylvania child is protected from child abuse, including sexual abuse."

"This is my life," Palm said. "What you think you create in policy does not always play out in practice."

She also encouraged looking at the other side of the issue, where children suffer in silence.

"Just as though there are situations where systems are not working as they should, there is another side," she said.

She said that 150 to 200 children die or nearly die from child abuse, and those numbers are increasing.

Palm said that data shows that "too rarely children are connected to a medical evaluation."

Lastly, Palm said that the issue was not unique to Lehigh County and raised issues about placement on registries alleging child abuse. Palm said that a mom who loses sight of her child and has no harm reported is placed on the same registry as individuals who have sexually abused children.

After hearing Palm's presentation, committee member and commissioner Dan Hartzell said, "There's nothing simple about this thing."

Assessments and reporting

Elbich identified issues he saw come up during the meeting: medical assessments and secondary assessments, custody process and registry issues.

In terms of addressing medical assessments, Elbich consulted a Department of Human Services model provided by the county solicitor's office. He said the model emphasizes "not having the child be exposed to multiple exams," which causes trauma.

"That concerned me when you try to translate it into secondary medical assessments," he said, also noting the logistical complexities.

He noted that no other Child Advocacy Center in the state requires a second medical assessment.

The notion of a secondary chart review was also discussed.

During the second public comment period, commenter Jill Triffo questioned the effectiveness of a secondary chart review if the initial assessment was based on false or inaccurate information.

"If they're not getting the correct information, they're just confirming what's on the chart," she said.

Elbich also discussed the county's internal reporting and the ability to make a report as a client of CYS. He proposed a system of checks and balances whereby another party, ideally an executive, would evaluate reports.

"As an auditor, I would consider that we discuss (that) with administration," he said.

3:32 Families allege LVHN doctor wrongfully accused them of child abuse At an emotional Lehigh County Board of Commissioners meeting, dozens of families who say they were affected by alleged "medical kidnapping" spoke out.

Elbich also said the board can work within its abilities as a legislative body if necessary.

In reference to the discussion of a secondary medical review, LVHN provided a statement to 69 News saying, We fully support strengthening the system by complying with an optional standard that is backed by the National Childrens Alliance (NCA) to implement peer review for the medical exam.

Next steps

No formal recommendations were made in the meeting. Elbich said there would be future meetings, one of which of which will be virtual and scheduled for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 15. He also encouraged individuals to reach out in writing to the board of commissioners, and that information will be incorporated.
LOWER MACUNIE TWP., Pa.  It's back to the bargaining table for Mack Trucks and its union workers.

A company spokesperson said contract negotiations resumed Thursday.

Nearly 4,000 members of the United Auto Workers union have been on strike since last Monday at plants in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida.

That's after a majority of them, including workers at the plant in Lower Macungie Township, Lehigh County, rejected a tentative deal the union had reached with Mack Trucks.

Employees said they will continue to strike until another deal is reached.
ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Authorities are investigating after a reported bomb threat at an Allentown synagogue Thursday morning.

The Allentown Police Department received a report of a bomb threat at Congregation Keneseth Israel, according to the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley.

"At that time, a funeral service had just concluded, and our community members were leaving the premises," the organization said.

The Allentown Police Department, the Allentown Fire Department, and the FBI arrived and swept the facility room by room with sniffer dogs twice as an added precaution, the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley said.

The Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley says that, as of now, authorities believe the phone call was a hoax coming from a different state, and there are no credible threats to any other facilities in the Lehigh Valley.

The organization's regional security advisor, Tim Brooks, has been in touch with the Secure Community Network, and they are diligently monitoring for any potential threats. The call does not appear related to the current war in Israel, but more details might emerge from the FBI investigation, according to the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley.

"We want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Allentown Police Department, the Allentown Fire Department, and the FBI for their immediate response to the incident. Their support is invaluable during this time," the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley said.

The organization says if people come across any additional information or have any concerns, they can reach out to Aaron Gorodzinsky at aaron@jflv.org or Tim Brooks at tbrooks@securecommunitynetwork.org.
PALMER TWP., Pa. - Coherent Corp.'s Sohail Khan sees a bright future in the Lehigh Valley and beyond for his company, but competition lurks on the other side of the globe.

He envisions growth in the market for electric vehicles and that means demand for Coherent's silicon carbide wafers. Those high-efficiency semiconductors can help electric cars go farther on a charge, easing "range anxiety," the fear that batteries will die during a long trip.

The looming issue for Coherent and other technology companies is "China Inc.," Khan said in an interview Tuesday. That term refers to how Chinese corporations, state-controlled banks and government agencies work together to promote national interests and grab market share.

Khan is Coherent's executive vice president for new ventures. He runs the company's silicon carbide business and manages the $1 billion investment two Japanese companies are making in that subsidiary.



On Oct. 10, Coherent announced investments of $500 million each from Denso Corp., a maker of auto parts, and Mitsubishi Electric, which supplies many industries. Each company gets a 12.5% stake in the silicon carbide subsidiary, with Coherent holding a controlling 75% interest. Coherent also entered into long-term supply agreements with Denso and Mitsubishi Electric.



Other companies are interested in buying a stake, Khan said, and Coherent might raise as much as another half-billion dollars.



Coherent is based in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, with a plant in Palmer Township. The company has been described as a "high-tech conglomerate" that makes lasers and optical equipment in addition to silicon carbide wafers.



What does that mean to the average person? It's all about the future, Khan said.



"This is the technology that is enabling the electrification revolution on a worldwide basis," Khan said. "This is to bring us from the old combustion engine to the new age of the electric vehicle, which will provide a much cleaner environment."



That makes this region part of the next technological revolution. Coherent's products will help corporations move toward ESG -- environmental, social and governance -- goals. Many governments and large companies have set goals for moving away from fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases they produce, which are linked to climate change.



"Palmer Township, the Lehigh Valley, the State of Pennsylvania are in the forefront of the next generation of semiconductor technology," Khan said, adding, "This is a rare and unique opportunity for the Valley."



That opportunity includes jobs at all levels.



"We need to hire a broad set of people who understand manufacturing," Khan said. "There is the chance for the community to benefit at every level."



That means hiring production workers, technicians, support staff and more who can handle the challenge of high-tech manufacturing, which Khan defined as "producing high volumes at high yields at very high quality and low cost."



He estimated that 70% to 80% of Coherent's silicon carbide output will go into electric vehicles of all sizes, four-wheelers and up.



"We are one of the leading companies in bringing this capability and technology to the marketplace," Khan said.



While there is domestic competition, he is wary of China Inc. and how that country coordinates its industrial policy. The U.S. takes more of a hands-off approach.



"We are competing on a worldwide basis. We are competing against China Inc., which provides huge support and subsidies and incentives," Khan said. "This is something the local and state and federal authorities need to understand."



Coherent has committed resources to that competition, and now, "We need the same commitment from communities and governments," Khan said.



"We are good citizens bringing capability and technology and jobs and growth to the area, but we are up against very tough competition," he said. "China Inc. has spent more than $100 billion. We are taking them on, and we will design, develop and manufacture products locally, and we should be supported in this effort at the local, state and federal level."



Vying for technology is not cheap. Coherent is among the largest users of electricity in Pennsylvania, Khan said, citing the cost of energy as an opportunity for cooperation to reduce expenses.



While not every Lehigh Valley resident may be familiar with silicon carbide or Coherent's lasers and epitaxial wafers, the company's products will make a difference in daily lives, in vehicles, for example.



"The idea and the concept of the car is changing," Khan said. "It is becoming a media center. Families want to have lots of content and the ability to communicate and enjoy the ride versus just sitting there."



Sohail Khan joined Coherent three years ago. Earlier, he held executive posts at Lucent and Agere, among other companies. Khan is a graduate of the University of Engineering in Lahore, Pakistan, with an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.



Shares in Coherent are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol COHR. At 12:35 p.m. Thursday, the share price was $32.02, giving the company a market capitalization (share price times number of shares outstanding) of $4.86 billion.



In the past 52 weeks, the shares have traded as high as $60.46 and as low as $26.29.
BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The 19th Beijing-Tokyo Forum on Thursday opened in Beijing.

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, delivered a speech via video link at the opening ceremony of the event.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sent a congratulatory message to the forum.

Noting that this year marks the 45th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Wang called for unremitting efforts to develop Sino-Japanese relations for the new era.

Wang put forward a five-point proposal for developing China-Japan relations, including honoring commitments, expanding cooperation, properly handling differences, restoring amity, and enhancing coordination.

In his message, Kishida said that Japan and China bear important responsibilities for fostering peace and prosperity in the region and the international community at large, adding that it is of extreme importance for the two sides to conduct dialogues.

Launched in 2005, the Beijing-Tokyo Forum is an annual event that serves as an important platform for interaction and exchanges between China and Japan. 
NEW PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - 18-year-old Hunter Mock's mother Kate came to the Port Carbon Magistrate's office to get copies of seven search warrants related to the deaths of Hunter and his friend 16-year-old Angelito Caraballo.

The two teens were found dead in a wooded area about a mile outside of New Philadelphia on Tuesday, Oct. 10.

"Angel's mother and I just want the answers to what happened to our children. They can't be laid to rest and their brothers and sisters and family members are scared," said Mock.

According to the unsealed search warrants, investigators are collecting a wide range of evidence to determine exactly what happened.

Two people who were allegedly with the teens at the time of their death are named in the search warrants. Both are blaming the other for shooting Mock in the head.

The documents do not talk about how Caraballo ended up with fatal puncture and laceration injuries.

Among the items named in the search warrant:

DNA swabs and pictures of the two people.

Cell phone records.

The interior of a car and its contents.

A search of two homes in the area.

Kate Mock says after she posted online that she would not stop until her son got justice, she started getting threats.

She gave us a picture of a tree with what she says is a bullet hole.

Mock says earlier this week someone shot at her. Mock says she hopes state police complete their investigation soon and that those responsible are brought to justice so healing can begin.

"Now I just want our town and our people to be able to recover, let us help them, let them be out to rest," said Mock.

State Police are not commenting on the contents of the search warrants.

No charges have been filed.
NEW PHILADELPHIA, Pa.  A close community in Schuylkill County is finding new ways to honor two young men who were found dead last week  two victims of homicide.

The teens were 16 and 18, and their bodies were discovered Tuesday, Oct. 10, in a "heavily wooded" area in New Philadelphia.

Community members say they are standing with the families of the victims, while also fearing for their own safety.

They say they want this case closed so they can feel more secure again.

The families also  and especially  want answers to have a sense of closure.

And as everyone comes together in support of those grieving, new, unsealed court documents at least give more of a timeline of what may have happened the night those boys were killed.

The tight-knit community of New Philadelphia is standing with the families of those two victims, 16-year-old Angelito Caraballo and 18-year-old Hunter Mock.

Both were found dead in the woods last week.

During Wednesday night's Halloween parade in New Philadelphia, the local fire company decorated its fire truck "in memory of Hunter" and "in memory of Angel."

Earlier Wednesday, 69 News reporter Jacci Farris spoke with Hunter Mock's mother, Kate.

"The kids at the playground called them the big brothers," Kate Mock said. "They never let anybody get bullied, never. Known for walking all the kids home from from the playground. Nobody's walking home in the dark."

Meanwhile, neighbors left their outside lights on in support and loving memory of the boys.

This as recently unsealed court documents shed new light on what may have happened, leading up to the discovery of the two teens.

The documents take into account two other people who both say they were with Mock and Caraballo the night they were killed.

The search warrants paint the picture of four friends hanging out, in an area known as "The Sanchez" on Sunday night, Oct. 8. It's a heavily wooded, old mining area where locals hang out, about a mile outside of town.

One of those two who say they were with Mock and Caraballo that night says the four of them were "talking like best friends" when the fourth person pulled out a gun, taking aim at Mock and Caraballo. All three began to run from the shooter, the person says. Caraballo could be heard yelling "stop" to the shooter, according to this account. This person also says 10-20 gunshots were heard ringing out.

Meanwhile, that fourth person says it was the other one who shot Mock in the head before admitting to attempting, unsuccessfully to shoot Caraballo.

Caraballo, according to documents was found with fatal puncture and laceration injuries, but it's not detailed how he got those.

State police are being careful about what they release, saying they want a rock-solid case, if and when they do present evidence in court.
NORRISTOWN, Pa. - Thirty-three locations across Montgomery County will serve as drop-off locations for residents to rid their homes of unwanted prescription and over-the-counter medications during Drug Take Back Day, according to a news release from the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office.

The event will take place on Saturday, Oct. 28.

The 33 participating locations are:

 Ambler Police Department, 131 Rosemary Ave., Ambler

 Cheltenham Police Department, 8230 Old York Rd., Elkins Park

 Collegeville Borough Police Department, 491 E. Main St., Collegeville

 Conshohocken Police Department, 400 Fayette St., Conshohocken

 East Norriton Township Police Department, 2501 Stanbridge St., East Norriton

 Franconia Township Police Department at Franconia Elementary School, 366 Harleysville Pike, Souderton

 Hatboro Police Department, 120 E. Montgomery Ave., Hatboro

 Lansdale Borough Police Department, 1 Vine St., Lansdale

 Limerick Township Police Department, 646 W. Ridge Pike, Limerick

 Lower Gwynedd Township Police Department, 1130 N. Bethlehem Pike, Spring House

 Lower Merion Township Police Department, 71 E. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore

 Lower Moreland Township Police Department, 640 Red Lion Road, Huntingdon

 Lower Providence Township Police Department, 100 Parklane Dr., Eagleville

 Marlborough Township Police Department, 6040 Upper Ridge Rd., Green Lane

 New Hanover Township Police Department, 2373 Hoffmansville Rd., Frederick

 Norristown Police Department, 235 E. Airy St., Norristown

 North Wales Borough Police Department at Borough Hall, 300 School St., North Wales

 Plymouth Township Police Department, 700 Belvoir Rd., Plymouth Meeting

 Pottstown Police Department, 100 E. High St., Pottstown

 Souderton Police Department, 31 W. Summit St., Souderton

 Springfield Township Police Department, 1510 Paper Mill Rd., Wyndmoor

 Upper Dublin Township Police Department, 520 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington

 Upper Gwynedd Township Police Department, 1 Parkside Place, North Wales

 Upper Merion Township Police Department, 175 W. Valley Forge Rd., King of Prussia

 Upper Perk Police Department, 88 W. 6th St., Pennsburg

 Upper Pottsgrove Township Police Department, 420 Heather Place, Pottstown

 West Conshohocken Police Department at Borough Hall, 112 Ford St., Conshohocken

 West Norriton Township Police Department, 1630 W. Marshall St., Jeffersonville

 West Pottsgrove Township Police Department, 980 Grosstown Rd., Stowe

 Whitemarsh Township Police Department, 616 E. Germantown Pike, Lafayette Hill

 Whitpain Township Police Department, 960 Wentz Rd., Blue Bell

Grocery store locations staffed by police are:

 Giant Food Store (Montgomery Township Police), 1202 Knapp Rd., North Wales

 Wegmans at Providence Town Center (Upper Providence Township Police), 600 Commerce Drive, Collegeville

The DA's office says all locations will be staffed by police officers during the four hours of the event, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Additional drop-off sites may be added.

Accepted during Drug Take Back Dayand throughout the year at permanent MedReturn boxesare prescription and over-the-counter tablets and capsules, inhalers, creams, ointments, nasal sprays, pet medicines and vaping products, according to the news release.

Needles, liquid medications, and intravenous or injectable solutions will not be accepted, the DA's office said.

If residents cant make it to Drug Take Back Day, unwanted medications can be dropped off and disposed of throughout the year at more than 50 permanent prescription drug disposal boxes, most of which are located at police departments, according to the news release.

Some of the boxes were sponsored by the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association and some by Pennsylvania American Water in an effort to help keep the water supply safe, the DA's office said.

The list of permanent, year-round drop-off locations can be found on the district attorneys website. Click on the Drug Disposal Program nav tab.

Since the Drug Take Back program began in 2010, more than 114,000 pounds of medicines have been collected and safely disposed of.
NORRISTOWN, Pa.  The Montgomery County Commissioners started their meeting Thursday with comments about the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

Kenneth Lawrence, Chair, said, Israel has the right to defend herself. I stand with Israel. I pray for the country, its citizens, the people I met when I was there, and family members of Israelis who are in the United States. I also pray for the innocent Palestinian civilians killed or trapped in this war.

Lawrence went on to ask what the war has to do with Montgomery County. He replied, While for some of us this is a far-off conflict, for many of our Jeish neighbors it is personal. They have loved ones, both family and friends, who live in Israel. They have traveled to Israel, studied in Israel, and shared major life moments in Israel.

He went on to say, Our neighbors are hurting and grieving, and they are scared. We also have Palestinian neighbors who have lost loved ones in Gaza who share the same concerns for their loved ones and their future.

In Montgomery County, he noted, both synagogues and mosques are concerned with security and whether its safe to gather together and worship.

This is wrong, Lawrence commented. Antisemitism and Islamophobia are rising here in the United States and our community. This is dangerous, this is wrong, and I stand against hate.

I dont claim to have all the answers, or any answers at all, or when to say it, Lawrence continued. I think as a society weve become to quick to post or opine rather than listen and try to understand people's pain.

Vice Chair Jamila Winder said she also wanted to condemn the terrorist attacks by Hamas. That includes the murders and kidnapping of children.

The devastation continues to unfold as this war escalates, she said. Many innocent civilians in Israel and Gaza are caught in the conflict and are suffering unspeakable harm which has created an urgent humanitarian crisis.

Winder recounted her trip to Israel in 2017 accompanied by a Jewish friend from Penn State.

Israel, a beautiful and compassionate place, welcomed me with open arms, she recalled, even though I was Christian. To see the graphic images and stories coming out of that region is truly devastating. I feel the grief and sadness for many innocent Israeli and Palestinian lives that have been lost and for all the loved ones who are in pain around the world as a result.

I stand with Israel and support their right to defend themselves and pray for a quick and peaceful end to this conflict, Winder continued. I am unequivocally against all kinds of hatred including antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Regional Energy partnership

The commissioners approved a Memorandum of Understanding to create a regional energy partnership with Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties to be known as the Sustainable Energy Project of Southeastern Pennsylvania. According to Jon Lesher, Environmental Planning Assistant Manager, it will be a self-managed portfolio of energy partners that will create economies of scale in energy selection and will be able to share costs and to access better deals than the counties could do individually.

Turnpike Exchange

In addition, the commissioners authorized the county to convey property to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission for the construction of the Lafayette Avenue Interchange in Plymouth Township.

Matt Edmond, Assistant Director of Transportation and Long-Range Planning, said that construction of the Interchange is expected to begin in 2025.

Grants to help fund three municipal projects in Lower Pottsgrove Township, Upper Dublin Township, and Whitpain Township were approved.

The commissioners also approved amendments to the collective bargaining agreements with AFSCME Local 676 and AFSCME Local 1582. AFSCME Local 676 represents employees from Domestic Relations, Juvenile Probation, and Adult Probation while AFSCME Local 1582 represents certain employees in the county row offices. According to Maureen Calder, First Assistant Solicitor, the amendments will allow certain employees salaries to be adjusted according to the determination of the recent compensation study.

Major Contracts

A Contract Amendment for Construction Management Services was awarded to Skanska USA Building of Blue Bell, Pa. for $20,480.00. The original contract provided Construction Management Services for Design of the Justice Center Project, including construction of a new justice center facility, renovation of existing court buildings, and renovation and expansion of Hancock Square (including parking). The amendment provides for construction management support for the procurement of the construction stage of the judicial swing space fit out in One Montgomery Plaza. The revised contract value is $14,631,413.

A Supplemental Reimbursement Agreement in the amount of $122,502.26 reimbursing the county for the Ridge Pike Improvement Project was approved. The agreement allows for the reimbursement to the county for final design costs. The revised reimbursement agreement amount is $3,546,102.26.

Traffic Planning & Design of Pottstown, Pa. was awarded a Contract Amendment for $108,394.81. The original contract provided for design services for the Ridge Pike Improvement Project from School Road to Belvoir Road in Plymouth Township. The amendment provides for PennDOT approval for final design services. This amendment was anticipated at the time of contract award. The revised contract value is $3,774,824.29.

In addition, Glick Fire Equipment Company of Bird in Hand, Pa. was awarded $1.25 million for an Urban Search & Rescue Vehicle. The contract provides for a custom Urban Search & Rescue apparatus to serve as the primary response vehicle for the Urban Search and Rescue Team (US&R Team).
TORONTO (AP)  Canada has recalled 41 of its diplomats from India after the Indian government said it would revoke their diplomatic immunity, the foreign minister said Thursday, in an escalation of their dispute over the slaying of a Sikh separatist in Canada.

The moves come after Canada's allegations that India may have been involved in the June killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in suburban Vancouver. India has accused Canada of harboring separatists and terrorists, but dismissed the allegation of its involvement in the killing as absurd" and has taken diplomatic steps to express its anger over the accusation.

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said Thursday that 41 of Canada's 62 diplomats in India have been removed, along with their dependents. Joly said exceptions have been made for 21 Canadian diplomats who will remain in India.

Forty-one Canadian diplomats and their 42 dependents were in danger of having their immunity stripped on an arbitrary date and this would put their personal safety at risk," Joly said. Our diplomats and their families have now left."

Joly said removing diplomatic immunity is not only unprecedented but contrary to international law, and said for that reason Canada wouldn't threaten to do the same thing with Indian diplomats.

"A unilateral revocation of the diplomatic privilege and immunity is contrary to international law and a clear violation of the Geneva Convention on diplomatic relations. Threatening to do so is unreasonable and escalatory," Joly said.

Joly said Indias decision will impact the level of services to citizens of both countries. She said Canada is pausing in-person services in Chandigarh, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Indias Ministry of External Affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had previously called for a reduction in Canadian diplomats in India, saying they outnumbered Indias staffing in Canada.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last month that there were credible allegations of Indian involvement in the slaying of Nijjar, a 45-year-old Sikh leader who was killed by masked gunmen in June in Surrey, outside Vancouver.

For years, India had said that Nijjar, a Canadian citizen born in India, had links to terrorism, an allegation Nijjar denied.

India also has canceled visas for Canadians, and Canada has not retaliated for that. India previously expelled a senior Canadian diplomat after Canada expelled a senior Indian diplomat.

Trudeau has previously appeared to try to calm the diplomatic clash, telling reporters that Canada is not looking to provoke or escalate.

The allegation of Indias involvement in the killing is based in part on surveillance of Indian diplomats in Canada, including intelligence provided by a major ally, a separate Canadian official previously told The Associated Press.

The official said that the communications involved Indian officials and diplomats in Canada and that some of the intelligence was provided by a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, which includes the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to Canada. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The latest expulsions by India have escalated tensions between the countries. Trudeau had frosty encounters with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the recent Group of 20 meeting in New Delhi, and a few days later, Canada canceled a trade mission to India planned for the fall.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with Indias foreign minister amid the simmering row. A U.S. official said the topic was raised. U.S. officials have acknowledged that the fallout from the allegations could have an impact on relations with India, but have been careful not to cast blame in the killing of Nijjar.

Nijjar, a plumber, was also a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan. A bloody decade-long Sikh insurgency shook north India in the 1970s and 1980s, until it was crushed in a government crackdown in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.

The Khalistan movement has lost much of its political power but still has supporters in the Indian state of Punjab, as well as in the sizable overseas Sikh diaspora. While the active insurgency ended years ago, the Indian government has warned repeatedly that Sikh separatists were trying to make a comeback.

Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller noted that in 2022 India was the top country for permanent residents, temporary foreign workers and international students in Canada. Miller said as a result of India's decision to remove immunity Canada's immigration department will be significantly reducing the number of Canadian employees in India. Miller said the lower staff levels will hamper the issuing of visas and permits.

Senior Canadian officials said India was firm on the number and rank of Canadian diplomats for whom it would lift diplomatic immunity. India also indicated it would cancel various permits, such as those permitting spouses to work in India and allowing the use of diplomatic plates on cars, officials said.

Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, said there would be no point in Canada retaliating over India's latest move.

The expulsions of the Canadian diplomats reveal the thin skin of the Indians; it suggests that they know they are complicit in the murder of a Canadian in Canada, Wiseman said. "They are trying to deflect attention from their lack of cooperation with Canada in the investigation of the murder.
Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continue and Israel's defense minister has told troops to be ready for a ground assault on the Palestinian territory, although he has not said when that will begin.

More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gazas population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told them to evacuate. The airstrikes early Thursday continued across the entire territory, including in areas in the south that Israel had declared as safe zones.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza from Egypt following a request from U.S. President Joe Biden.

The war that began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants stormed into Israel, and Israel vowed to destroy the militant group, has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 12,500 others have been wounded.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly in the initial attack. An Israeli military spokesperson said Thursday that the families of 203 people believed to have been captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza had been notified.

Currently:

1. Biden declares support for Israel and Ukraine is vital for US security.

2. EU demands Meta and TikTok detail efforts to curb disinformation from Israel-Hamas war.

3. Woman becomes Israeli folk hero for plying Hamas militants with snacks until rescue mission arrives.

4. Egypt and other Arab countries typically dont want to take in Palestinian refugees.

Here's what's happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:

BIDEN REFERENCES BOY'S KILLING TO DENOUNCE ANTISEMITISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA

President Joe Biden referenced the killing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois to deliver a forceful denunciation of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Biden brought up the case of Wadea Al-Fayoume during a televised nighttime address from the Oval Office. Authorities say the boy, who was Muslim, was stabbed 26 times Saturday by his landlord in response to escalating rhetoric about the Israel-Hamas war. Wadeas mother was critically wounded.

Biden said its difficult to stand by and stand silent when this happens, adding that we must without equivocation denounce antisemitism and Islamophobia.

The White House said that after the speech, Biden and his wife, Jill, spoke with Wadeas father and uncle to offer condolences along with prayers for his mothers recovery.

BIDEN CALLS FOR MORE AID FOR ISRAEL AND UKRAINE

President Joe Biden is urging support for additional U.S. aid for Ukraine and Israel, saying in a televised address from the Oval Office that American leadership is what holds the world together.

Biden spoke hours after returning to Washington from an urgent visit to Israel to show U.S. support in the wake of a deadly attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. Some 1,400 civilians were killed and roughly 200 others, including Americans, were taken to Gaza as hostages. Israel has responded with airstrikes, and 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The U.S. president argued that Israel needs help to defend itself from Hamas. He also said the U.S. must help Ukraine stop the advances of Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep other would-be aggressors from trying to take over other countries.

Biden said he will send lawmakers an urgent budget request Friday to fund U.S. national security needs. He called the request, said to carry a price tag of about $100 billion, a smart investment that will pay dividends for decades to come.

2ND GENTLEMAN DOUGLAS EMHOFF MEETS US SURVIVOR OF HAMAS ATTACK

Douglas Emhoff, the husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, met in Washington with Natalie Sanandaji, a 28-year-old American survivor of Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.

Sanandaji recounted the attack on a music festival, where some 260 people were killed, a White House official said.

Emhoff, who is Jewish and has been outspoken about and against antisemitism, spoke to Sanandaji about President Joe Biden and Harris support for Israel, providing humanitarian aid to civilians and the administrations work to combat hate of all kinds, the official said.

DEATHS AND INJURIES IN BOMBING OF HISTORIC CHURCH, GAZA AUTHORITIES SAY

BEIRUT  An explosion struck a Greek Orthodox church housing displaced Palestinians late Thursday, resulting in deaths and dozens of wounded.

Mohammed Abu Selmia, director general of Shifa Hospital, said dozens were hurt at the Church of Saint Porphyrios but could not give a precise death toll because bodies were still under the rubble.

Palestinian authorities blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike, a claim that could not be independently verified.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchy of Jerusalem issued a statement condemning the attack and said it would not abandon its religious and humanitarian duty to provide assistance.

A survivor told Qatars Al Jazeera Arabic television that there was no warning from the Israeli military beforehand.

Named after the Bishop of Gaza from 395 to 420, St. Porphyrios is located in the al-Zaytun section of Gazas Old City. Its thick limestone walls house an elaborate interior of gilded icons and ceiling paintings.

It became a mosque in the 7th century before a new church was built in the 12th century during the Crusades.

ISRAEL SAYS ALMOST 30 CHILDREN AMONG HOSTAGES TAKEN BY HAMAS

JERUSALEM  Nearly 30 of some 200 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are children, the Israeli military said.

More than 10 are over the age of 60, it said in a statement.

Authorities have no information about the location of more than 100 missing Israelis, it added.

US INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATES 100 TO 300 DIED IN HOSPITAL BLAST

WASHINGTON  An unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment delivered to Congress estimates casualties in an explosion at a Gaza City hospital on the low end of 100 to 300 deaths.

That death toll still reflects a staggering loss of life, U.S. intelligence officials said in the findings, which were seen by The Associated Press. Officials were still assessing the evidence, and the estimate may evolve.

The explosion at Gazas al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday left body parts strewn on the hospital grounds, where crowds of Palestinians had clustered in hopes of escaping Israeli airstrikes.

Officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza quickly said an Israeli airstrike had hit the hospital. Israel denied it was involved. The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

President Joe Biden and other U.S. officials already have said that U.S. intelligence officials believed the explosion was not caused by an Israeli airstrike. Thursdays findings echoed that.

The U.S. assessment noted only light structural damage to the hospital itself was evident, with no impact crater visible.

UN FORCE HELPS RECOVER 7 PEOPLE CAUGHT IN LEBANESE-ISRAELI FIGHTING; 1 DEAD

BEIRUT  The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said Lebanese troops requested assistance to bring back seven people caught in a firefight along the border with Israel. One person was killed.

The Lebanese military said the group included seven journalists, and one was also injured. It said Israeli soldiers shot at them with machine guns as they were in the outskirts of the village of Houla.

It did not identify them, but Iranian media said one was Mohsen Maghsoodi, a host on Iranian state television.

On X, formerly Twitter, Maghsoodi posted a picture of himself and two others lying low near a fence, with one of them holding a camera. He said the group was caught for five or six hours in the crossfire and their car was seriously damaged by bullets and mortars.

The six Iranian journalists were safe but one Lebanese journalist was killed, he wrote. That person has not been publicly identified, but Lebanese media said he had joined the group as a fixer.

UNIFIL said it had urged the Israeli military to suspend fire to facilitate the rescue and Israel complied, allowing Lebanese troops to mount the recovery.

ISRAELI FORCES RAID WEST BANK REFUGEE CAMP

JERUSALEM  An Israeli border police officer was killed during a military raid into a refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the police and border guard said in a joint statement.

Israeli forces killed at least seven Palestinians during the daylong raid of the Nur Shams camp, and prevented ambulances from retrieving the wounded, according to Palestinian state media.

US NAVY INTERCEPTS MISSILES HEADED NORTH FROM YEMEN

CAIRO  A U.S. Navy warship took out three missiles that were fired from Yemen and were heading north, U.S. officials said.

The officials said the USS Carney, a Navy destroyer, was in the Red Sea and intercepted the missiles. It wasnt immediately certain if they were aimed at Israel. One of the officials said the U.S. does not believe the missiles were aimed at the ship.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations not yet announced.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Last week in Yemens Sanaa, which is held by the Houthi rebels still at war with a Saudi-led coalition, demonstrators crowded the streets waving Yemeni and Palestinian flags. The rebels slogan long has been, God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse of the Jews; victory to Islam.

Last week Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the rebel groups leader, warned the United States against intervening in the Israel-Hamas conflict, saying his forces would retaliate by firing drones and missiles.

Associated Press writer Jack Jeffery in Cairo contributed.

UK LEADER ASKS CROWN PRINCE TO PREVENT SPREAD OF WAR IN REGION

LONDON  British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has met Saudi Arabias de facto ruler and encouraged him to use his influence to stop the Israel-Hamas war from spreading.

Sunaks office said the U.K. leader and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman agreed on the need to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and underscored the need to avoid any further escalation in the region.

The U.K. said Sunak encouraged the Crown Prince to use Saudis leadership in the region to support stability, both now and in the long-term.

Sunak flew to Saudi Arabia after visiting Israel on Thursday to show support after Hamas Oct. 7 attack.

CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR PLANS 1-DAY TRIP TO ISRAEL

SACRAMENTO, Calif.  California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he plans to make a one-day trip Israel to meet some of those affected by the war.

The Democratic governor will arrive Friday and depart the same day. The announcement by Newsoms office did not specify where he would go.

His office said California will send medical supplies to the region, including to the Gaza Strip.

California is home to the largest population of Arab Americans in the United States, according to the Arab American Institute, and the second largest populations of Jews, according to the American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University.

HUMANITARIAN AGENCIES PREPARE TO COORDINATE FLOW OF SUPPLIES TO GAZA

ZUWAIDA, Gaza Strip  Oxfam is working with other humanitarian agencies to provide a quick response when supplies begin flowing into Gaza.

Najla Shawa, a spokesman for Oxfam in Gaza, said theyre waiting for a cease-fire to be able to provide assistance to people who have had electricity, food and fuel supplies cut off.

This is going to be a big challenge because theres a lot to be done and we still dont have enough information about whats going to come in tomorrow, Shawa said. Authorities have said the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah could open as soon as Friday.

She said any response will take longer than usual because so many aid workers have been displaced from their homes.

The situation is extremely challenging, she said.

UN TO INSPECT AID SHIPMENTS INTO GAZA UNDER ISRAEL-EGYPT DEAL

CAIRO  A U.N. flag will be raised at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza to protect against Israeli airstrikes under a U.N.-brokered deal between Israel and Egypt to allow aid into the Palestinian territory.

An Egyptian official and a European diplomat said observers from the U.N. will also inspect trucks carrying aid before they cross.

They said the U.N will oversee the aid, along with the Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent societies, to ensure it is given to civilians and not used by Palestinian militants.

The Egyptian official said they are still negotiating with Israel over allowing fuel into Gaza, where a shortage has forced the closure of multiple hospitals.

The official and the diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

Associated Press reporter Sam Magdy in Cairo contributed.

DEFENSE MINISTER TELLS ISRAELI TROOPS TO PREPARE FOR GROUND INVASION OF GAZA

JERUSALEM  Israels defense minister has told ground troops to be ready to enter the Gaza Strip, though he is not saying when the invasion will start.

In a meeting with Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border, Yoav Gallant urged the forces to get organized, be ready for an order to move in.

Whoever sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the inside, he said. I promise you.

Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border following a bloody Oct. 7 cross-border massacre by Hamas militants.

This version has corrected that Israel says number of suspected captives is 203, not 206, as of Thursday.
A Russian-American journalist working for a U.S. government-funded media company has been detained in Russia and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, her employer said Thursday.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva is the second U.S. journalist to be detained in Russia this year. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested for alleged spying in March.

Kurmasheva, an editor with RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir service, is being held in a temporary detention center, said Tatar-Inform, a state-held news agency in the Tatarstan republic.

The Committee to Protect Journalists media rights organization called the accusations spurious, demanding that the charges be dropped and Kurmasheva released.

Tatar-Inform posted video showing Kurmasheva being marched into an administrative building accompanied by four men, two of them wearing balaclavas.

Tatar-Inform said that authorities accused Kurmasheva of collecting information about Russia's military activities in order to transmit information to foreign sources, suggesting that she received information about university teachers who were mobilized into the Russian army.

It said she faces charges of failing to register as a foreign agent in her capacity as a person collecting information on Russian military activities. and could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children, RFE/RL head Jeffrey Gedmin said. "She needs to be released, so she can return to her family immediately.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said it was aware of the reports of Kurmasheva's arrest. We have no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas, said an embassy spokesperson who did not give further details.

Kurmasheva, who lives in Prague with her family, was stopped at Kazan International Airport on June 2 after traveling to Russia for a family emergency on May 20, according to RFE/RL.

Officials at the airport confiscated Kurmasheva's U.S. and Russian passports and she was fined for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities. She was waiting for her passports to be returned when the new charge was filed on Wednesday, RFE/RL said.

At that time it was clear they did not have anything on her, so maybe it was like a matter of intimidation. And then it took them three months to decide how would they, you know, package the case against her, Galina Arapova of Russia's Mass Media Defense Center told The Associated Press.

RFE/RL was told to register by Russian authorities as a foreign agent in 2017. It has brought a case at the European Court of Human Rights challenging Russias use of foreign agent laws that resulted in the organization being fined millions of dollars.

Kurmasheva reported on ethnic minority communities in the Tatarstan and Bashkortostan republics in Russia, including projects to protect and preserve the Tatar language and culture despite increased pressure on Tatars from Russian authorities, her employer said.

Analysts have pointed out that Moscow may be using jailed Americans as bargaining chips after U.S.-Russia tensions soared when Moscow sent troops into Ukraine. At least two U.S. citizens arrested in Russia in recent years  including WNBA star Brittney Griner  have been exchanged for Russians jailed in the U.S.

Arapova said Kurmasheva's case is quite different from that of Gershkovic, the Wall Street Journal reporter, even though she holds U.S. citizenship.

She was attacked because she is a Russian journalist. Second, she belongs to a foreign media, which was already regarded as a foreign agent and with which Russian authorities had a longstanding conflict on foreign agent legislation, she said.

Journalism is not a crime, and Kurmashevas detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting, said Gulnoza Said, the Europe and Asia coordinator for New York-based CPJ.

Gershkovich has appeared in court several times since his arrest and unsuccessfully appealed his detention.

Russias Federal Security Service alleged Gershkovich, acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.

Gershkovich and The Wall Street Journal deny the allegations, and the U.S. government has declared him to be wrongfully detained. Russian authorities havent detailed any evidence to support the espionage charges. Court proceedings against him are closed, because prosecutors say details of the case are classified.
BEIRUT, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- One journalist was killed and another injured among a group of reporters trapped Thursday night in the crossfire near a military site in southern Lebanon, Lebanese military sources told Xinhua.

Seven Lebanese and Iranian journalists were caught in a shelling between Lebanon and Israel near Israel's Al-Abbad site in the vicinity of Houla, a southern Lebanese town, during their media coverage, said the sources on condition of anonymity.

One person lost his life during the incident while the others were rescued from the area after the Lebanese Armed Forces and the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) broke the siege and transferred them to a safe place, said UNIFIL Spokesperson Andrea Tenenti.

He said that upon the Lebanese military's request, "UNIFIL urged the Israeli army to cease fire to facilitate the rescue operation," adding that "the Israeli army ceased fire, which allowed the Lebanese army to remove the individuals from the area successfully."

The situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border escalated after the firing by Hezbollah on Oct. 8 of tens of rockets toward military sites in Shebaa Farms in support of the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation launched by Hamas on Oct. 7, prompting the Israeli forces to respond the same day by firing heavy artillery, targeting several areas in southeast Lebanon. 
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- UN humanitarians said on Thursday a 44-truck convoy, which had been delayed by conflict for six weeks, is delivering aid in Sudan, a country suffering from deadly fighting and a cholera outbreak.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it opened the way for the convoy to deliver supplies from the UN Refugee Agency, the World Food Programme and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) to Kordofan and Darfur. The trucks got their green light to roll out on Wednesday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported more than 1,400 suspected cases of cholera and 64 associated deaths in Sudan since the outbreak was declared late last month.

OCHA said humanitarian agencies have scaled up their response to the outbreak, coming as Sudan's healthcare system is stretched to its limits, with 70 percent of hospitals in conflict-affected states not functional. Facilities in states unaffected by conflict have been overwhelmed by an influx of people displaced by the fighting.

The humanitarians said UNICEF and WHO warned that at least 10,000 children under the age of 5 in Sudan could die by the end of this year due to rising food insecurity and health and nutrition services disruptions.

WHO said in a release on Monday that urgent action was needed to preserve Sudan's health systems, especially at community and primary healthcare levels. 
Alaska Permanent Fund Corp bought a new stake in Zoetis Inc. (NYSE:ZTS  Free Report) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 36,179 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $6,230,000.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. LPL Financial LLC raised its stake in Zoetis by 5.8% in the second quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 220,604 shares of the companys stock valued at $37,990,000 after purchasing an additional 12,160 shares in the last quarter. Brighton Jones LLC raised its stake in Zoetis by 7.2% in the second quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 2,546 shares of the companys stock valued at $438,000 after purchasing an additional 171 shares in the last quarter. Legal Advantage Investments Inc. acquired a new position in Zoetis in the second quarter valued at about $1,175,000. Dakota Wealth Management raised its stake in Zoetis by 4.6% in the second quarter. Dakota Wealth Management now owns 116,281 shares of the companys stock valued at $20,025,000 after purchasing an additional 5,101 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Courier Capital LLC raised its stake in Zoetis by 73.0% in the second quarter. Courier Capital LLC now owns 2,748 shares of the companys stock valued at $473,000 after purchasing an additional 1,160 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.47% of the companys stock.

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Insider Activity at Zoetis

In other Zoetis news, CEO Kristin C. Peck sold 13,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $179.97, for a total transaction of $2,339,610.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 56,843 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,230,034.71. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Zoetis news, CEO Kristin C. Peck sold 13,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $179.97, for a total transaction of $2,339,610.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 56,843 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,230,034.71. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Roxanne Lagano sold 923 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $179.58, for a total transaction of $165,752.34. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 24,511 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,401,685.38. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 25,930 shares of company stock worth $4,691,799 in the last quarter. 0.12% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Zoetis Stock Down 2.7 %

Shares of NYSE ZTS opened at $169.54 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $181.37 and a 200 day simple moving average of $176.80. The firm has a market cap of $78.04 billion, a PE ratio of 35.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.82 and a beta of 0.80. Zoetis Inc. has a 1 year low of $124.15 and a 1 year high of $194.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 3.50 and a quick ratio of 1.97.

Zoetis (NYSE:ZTS  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 8th. The company reported $1.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.31 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $2.18 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.16 billion. Zoetis had a net margin of 26.92% and a return on equity of 52.02%. The firms quarterly revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.20 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that Zoetis Inc. will post 5.4 EPS for the current year.

Zoetis Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 1st will be issued a $0.375 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, October 31st. This represents a $1.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.88%. Zoetiss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 31.51%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ZTS has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. StockNews.com downgraded Zoetis from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note on Sunday, October 8th. Stifel Nicolaus reissued a buy rating and set a $205.00 target price on shares of Zoetis in a research note on Tuesday, September 12th. HSBC began coverage on shares of Zoetis in a report on Wednesday, September 6th. They issued a buy rating and a $230.00 target price for the company. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on shares of Zoetis from $220.00 to $210.00 in a report on Thursday, October 5th. Finally, Argus increased their target price on shares of Zoetis from $190.00 to $201.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 19th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, Zoetis has an average rating of Buy and an average target price of $220.88.

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Zoetis Profile

(Free Report)

Zoetis Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, and commercializes animal health medicines, vaccines, and diagnostic products in the United States and internationally. It commercializes products primarily across species, including livestock, such as cattle, swine, poultry, fish, and sheep and others; and companion animals comprising dogs, cats, and horses.

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Ausdal Financial Partners Inc. cut its position in shares of Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM  Free Report) by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 11,057 shares of the companys stock after selling 247 shares during the quarter. Ausdal Financial Partners Inc.s holdings in Philip Morris International were worth $1,079,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Herold Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in Philip Morris International by 2.1% in the 1st quarter. Herold Advisors Inc. now owns 5,050 shares of the companys stock worth $491,000 after purchasing an additional 103 shares in the last quarter. LCM Capital Management Inc lifted its holdings in Philip Morris International by 4.5% in the first quarter. LCM Capital Management Inc now owns 2,428 shares of the companys stock worth $236,000 after buying an additional 105 shares during the period. Studio Investment Management LLC boosted its position in Philip Morris International by 33.8% during the 4th quarter. Studio Investment Management LLC now owns 428 shares of the companys stock valued at $43,000 after acquiring an additional 108 shares in the last quarter. Horan Securities Inc. raised its position in shares of Philip Morris International by 12.8% in the 1st quarter. Horan Securities Inc. now owns 960 shares of the companys stock worth $93,000 after acquiring an additional 109 shares in the last quarter. Finally, TimeScale Financial Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Philip Morris International by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. TimeScale Financial Inc. now owns 4,153 shares of the companys stock valued at $404,000 after purchasing an additional 111 shares during the period. 79.70% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. UBS Group decreased their price objective on Philip Morris International from $116.00 to $112.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 5th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on shares of Philip Morris International from $111.00 to $105.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 13th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Philip Morris International in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Philip Morris International from $118.00 to $113.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Monday, October 2nd. Finally, Bank of America cut their price target on Philip Morris International from $118.00 to $111.00 in a research note on Friday, September 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $109.42.

Philip Morris International Trading Down 0.2 %

Philip Morris International stock opened at $93.19 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $144.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.03, a PEG ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.71. Philip Morris International Inc. has a 12 month low of $84.44 and a 12 month high of $105.62. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $94.18 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $95.57.

Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 19th. The company reported $1.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.62 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $9.14 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.21 billion. Philip Morris International had a net margin of 11.63% and a negative return on equity of 127.84%. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 13.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.53 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Philip Morris International Inc. will post 6.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Philip Morris International Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 12th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 27th were given a dividend of $1.30 per share. This is a boost from Philip Morris Internationals previous quarterly dividend of $1.27. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, September 26th. Philip Morris Internationals payout ratio is presently 100.58%.

About Philip Morris International

(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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Ausdal Financial Partners Inc. lifted its position in shares of Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO  Free Report) by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 26,760 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 626 shares during the quarter. Ausdal Financial Partners Inc.s holdings in Altria Group were worth $1,212,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Verus Capital Partners LLC raised its holdings in Altria Group by 9.2% in the 2nd quarter. Verus Capital Partners LLC now owns 42,772 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,938,000 after buying an additional 3,601 shares during the last quarter. 1834 Investment Advisors Co. raised its stake in shares of Altria Group by 0.7% during the second quarter. 1834 Investment Advisors Co. now owns 196,023 shares of the companys stock valued at $8,880,000 after acquiring an additional 1,424 shares during the last quarter. Dakota Wealth Management lifted its holdings in shares of Altria Group by 4.1% during the second quarter. Dakota Wealth Management now owns 14,373 shares of the companys stock worth $651,000 after purchasing an additional 569 shares during the period. Courier Capital LLC grew its stake in shares of Altria Group by 219.1% in the second quarter. Courier Capital LLC now owns 16,793 shares of the companys stock worth $761,000 after purchasing an additional 11,531 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Smith Chas P & Associates PA Cpas acquired a new stake in Altria Group in the second quarter valued at $202,000. Institutional investors own 58.94% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have commented on MO. Citigroup cut their target price on Altria Group from $46.50 to $45.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on Altria Group from $55.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday, October 13th. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of Altria Group from $40.40 to $39.20 and set a sell rating for the company in a research report on Friday, October 6th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Altria Group in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a buy rating for the company. Finally, Bank of America reduced their price objective on shares of Altria Group from $49.00 to $47.00 in a research note on Monday, October 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Altria Group presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $47.46.

Altria Group Stock Performance

Shares of MO stock opened at $43.11 on Thursday. Altria Group, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $40.91 and a fifty-two week high of $51.57. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $43.11 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $44.51. The company has a market cap of $76.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.31, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.59.

Altria Group (NYSE:MO  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 1st. The company reported $1.31 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $1.31. The company had revenue of $5.44 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.43 billion. Altria Group had a net margin of 27.40% and a negative return on equity of 225.61%. Altria Groups revenue for the quarter was up 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.26 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Altria Group, Inc. will post 4.95 earnings per share for the current year.

Altria Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 10th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 15th were given a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.09%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. This is a boost from Altria Groups previous quarterly dividend of $0.94. Altria Groups dividend payout ratio is 102.89%.

Altria Group Company Profile

(Free Report)

Altria Group, Inc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company provides cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; cigars and pipe tobacco principally under the Black & Mild brand; moist smokeless tobacco products and snus products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands; and on! oral nicotine pouches.

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StockNews.com started coverage on shares of China Green Agriculture (NYSE:CGA  Free Report) in a research note issued to investors on Sunday morning. The brokerage issued a sell rating on the basic materials companys stock.

China Green Agriculture Trading Down 3.3 %

Shares of China Green Agriculture stock opened at $2.02 on Friday. China Green Agriculture has a fifty-two week low of $1.61 and a fifty-two week high of $6.20. The companys 50 day moving average price is $2.24 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $2.81. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a quick ratio of 2.04 and a current ratio of 2.76.

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Hedge Funds Weigh In On China Green Agriculture

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CGA. Susquehanna International Group LLP purchased a new position in shares of China Green Agriculture during the 1st quarter worth $175,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP purchased a new stake in China Green Agriculture in the first quarter valued at approximately $115,000. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC raised its stake in shares of China Green Agriculture by 67.8% during the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 19,051 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $192,000 after purchasing an additional 7,700 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 0.74% of the companys stock.

About China Green Agriculture

China Green Agriculture, Inc, through its subsidiaries, engages in the research, development, production, and sale of various fertilizers and agricultural products in the People's Republic of China. The company operates through three segments: Jinong (Fertilizer Production); Gufeng (Fertilizer Production); and Yuxing (Agricultural Products Production).

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Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. boosted its stake in Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO  Free Report) by 8.5% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 140,615 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 11,026 shares during the quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc.s holdings in Altria Group were worth $6,396,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Berkeley Capital Partners LLC increased its position in Altria Group by 9.9% during the 1st quarter. Berkeley Capital Partners LLC now owns 21,535 shares of the companys stock worth $961,000 after purchasing an additional 1,941 shares in the last quarter. MV Capital Management Inc. raised its position in Altria Group by 440.5% in the first quarter. MV Capital Management Inc. now owns 4,789 shares of the companys stock valued at $214,000 after purchasing an additional 3,903 shares during the period. Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. lifted its stake in shares of Altria Group by 7.0% during the first quarter. Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. now owns 9,136 shares of the companys stock worth $408,000 after purchasing an additional 601 shares in the last quarter. Avion Wealth boosted its position in shares of Altria Group by 17.7% in the second quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 1,886 shares of the companys stock worth $84,000 after buying an additional 283 shares during the period. Finally, Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Altria Group by 2.1% during the 1st quarter. Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. now owns 12,906 shares of the companys stock valued at $576,000 after buying an additional 270 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 58.94% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

MO has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Bank of America reduced their target price on shares of Altria Group from $49.00 to $47.00 in a research report on Monday, October 9th. StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Altria Group in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a buy rating on the stock. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Altria Group from $46.50 to $45.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. UBS Group lowered their target price on Altria Group from $40.40 to $39.20 and set a sell rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 6th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Altria Group from $55.00 to $56.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday, October 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $47.46.

Altria Group Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:MO opened at $43.11 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $76.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.31, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.59. Altria Group, Inc. has a 12 month low of $40.91 and a 12 month high of $51.57. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $43.11 and its 200 day moving average price is $44.51.

Altria Group (NYSE:MO  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The company reported $1.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts consensus estimates of $1.31. The firm had revenue of $5.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.43 billion. Altria Group had a negative return on equity of 225.61% and a net margin of 27.40%. Altria Groups revenue was up 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.26 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Altria Group, Inc. will post 4.95 EPS for the current year.

Altria Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 10th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 15th were given a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.09%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 14th. This is an increase from Altria Groups previous quarterly dividend of $0.94. Altria Groups dividend payout ratio is 102.89%.

Altria Group Profile

(Free Report)

Altria Group, Inc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company provides cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; cigars and pipe tobacco principally under the Black & Mild brand; moist smokeless tobacco products and snus products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands; and on! oral nicotine pouches.

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Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. cut its holdings in Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL  Free Report) by 20.1% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 146,367 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 36,903 shares during the period. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc.s holdings in Aflac were worth $10,595,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. CoreFirst Bank & Trust bought a new position in shares of Aflac in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Guardian Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Aflac in the first quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Tilia Fiduciary Partners Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Aflac by 85.1% in the second quarter. Tilia Fiduciary Partners Inc. now owns 372 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 171 shares during the last quarter. Studio Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Aflac during the 4th quarter worth $27,000. Finally, Avalon Trust Co bought a new stake in shares of Aflac during the 1st quarter worth $34,000. 66.75% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Aflac Trading Down 1.3 %

AFL stock opened at $80.35 on Thursday. Aflac Incorporated has a 1-year low of $58.92 and a 1-year high of $82.03. The company has a current ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 0.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The businesss 50 day moving average is $76.38 and its 200-day moving average is $71.27. The firm has a market cap of $47.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.74, a P/E/G ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 0.91.

Aflac Announces Dividend

Aflac ( NYSE:AFL Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 1st. The financial services provider reported $1.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.42 by $0.16. Aflac had a return on equity of 16.10% and a net margin of 24.48%. The firm had revenue of $5.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.52 billion. Equities analysts anticipate that Aflac Incorporated will post 6.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, August 23rd were given a $0.42 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, August 22nd. This represents a $1.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.09%. Aflacs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.46%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have weighed in on AFL shares. Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of Aflac from $69.00 to $76.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 9th. Truist Financial increased their target price on Aflac from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, August 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Aflac from $72.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Bank of America upped their price target on Aflac from $79.00 to $86.00 in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Aflac in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $76.36.

View Our Latest Stock Report on Aflac

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Joseph L. Moskowitz sold 500 shares of Aflac stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.47, for a total value of $38,235.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 26,598 shares in the company, valued at $2,033,949.06. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, Director Joseph L. Moskowitz sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $76.47, for a total transaction of $38,235.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 26,598 shares in the company, valued at $2,033,949.06. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO James Todd Daniels sold 3,355 shares of Aflac stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.51, for a total value of $249,981.05. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 60,274 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,491,015.74. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 30,170 shares of company stock valued at $2,289,435. 0.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Aflac

(Free Report)

Aflac Incorporated, through its subsidiaries, provides supplemental health and life insurance products. It operates in two segments, Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. The Aflac Japan segment offers cancer, medical, nursing care, work leave, GIFT, and whole and term life insurance products, as well as WAYS and child endowment plans under saving type insurance products in Japan.

Further Reading

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UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Thursday called on all countries to cut off the sources of weapons for Haitian gangs.

In October 2022, China pushed the UN Security Council for action on Haitian gangs, and the council unanimously adopted Resolution 2653, which imposed targeted sanctions. Just now, the council unanimously adopted Resolution 2700, renewing the Haiti sanctions regime for one year, said Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.

China hopes that relevant measures can be implemented in earnest and help deter gang violence, protect the Haitian people, and restore peace for Haiti, he said in an explanation of vote.

Resolution 2700 demands all countries take all necessary measures to prevent illegal flows of small arms and light weapons into Haiti, he said. "We hope that all countries, especially regional countries, will take concrete actions to implement the requirements of the resolution and cut off the sources of weapons for gangs."

The resolution requires the Sanctions Committee to consider updating the list of designations as soon as possible. This should be done without delay as the reputation and authority of the Council are at stake. One year after the adoption of Resolution 2653, the situation of only one person on the sanctions list must be changed as soon as possible, he said.

"We urge the Sanctions Committee to speed up its work, meet the requirements of the resolution, and monitor and ensure the comprehensive and effective implementation of the sanctions measures," he said.

Targeted sanctions and security support are only part of the solution. The ultimate solution lies in advancing a Haitian-led and Haitian-owned political process, said Geng.

As championed by China, Resolution 2700 once again calls on all parties in Haiti to swiftly reach the broadest possible consensus on arrangements for political transition and formulate a timetable and roadmap for holding free, fair, and credible elections, he said.

"We call on all parties and groups in Haiti to put aside their selfish interests, live up to their responsibility and commitment, proceed from the fundamental interests of the country and people, act with the highest sense of urgency, waste no time in conducting political consultations to bridge differences," he said.

Geng added that China is willing to work with the international community to help and support the Haitian people in getting out of the crisis at an early date. 
Duality Advisers LP lifted its holdings in Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY  Free Report) by 190.8% during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 13,333 shares of the technology retailers stock after acquiring an additional 8,748 shares during the quarter. Duality Advisers LPs holdings in Best Buy were worth $1,093,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. BlackRock Inc. lifted its holdings in Best Buy by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 19,612,957 shares of the technology retailers stock worth $1,535,106,000 after buying an additional 223,536 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Best Buy by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,152,129 shares of the technology retailers stock worth $803,778,000 after buying an additional 123,256 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Best Buy by 32.2% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 9,885,308 shares of the technology retailers stock worth $773,724,000 after buying an additional 2,409,006 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Best Buy by 0.7% during the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,218,968 shares of the technology retailers stock worth $329,735,000 after buying an additional 27,257 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Best Buy by 6.8% during the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,720,949 shares of the technology retailers stock worth $338,235,000 after buying an additional 236,513 shares in the last quarter. 76.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Best Buy news, Chairman Richard M. Schulze sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.24, for a total transaction of $8,524,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now owns 349,448 shares in the company, valued at approximately $29,786,947.52. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other Best Buy news, insider Todd G. Hartman sold 7,948 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $69.38, for a total transaction of $551,432.24. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 13,337 shares in the company, valued at approximately $925,321.06. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Chairman Richard M. Schulze sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.24, for a total transaction of $8,524,000.00. Following the transaction, the chairman now owns 349,448 shares of the companys stock, valued at $29,786,947.52. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 112,948 shares of company stock worth $9,431,332. Corporate insiders own 0.56% of the companys stock.

Best Buy Price Performance

BBY opened at $70.19 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.40. Best Buy Co., Inc. has a 12 month low of $61.85 and a 12 month high of $93.32. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $72.78 and a 200 day simple moving average of $75.47. The stock has a market cap of $15.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.08, a P/E/G ratio of 1.85 and a beta of 1.54.

Best Buy (NYSE:BBY  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 29th. The technology retailer reported $1.22 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.06 by $0.16. Best Buy had a net margin of 2.91% and a return on equity of 49.40%. The business had revenue of $9.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $9.52 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.54 EPS. The firms quarterly revenue was down 7.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Best Buy Co., Inc. will post 6.22 EPS for the current year.

Best Buy Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 10th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 19th were issued a dividend of $0.92 per share. This represents a $3.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.24%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 18th. Best Buys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 63.34%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have issued reports on BBY. Guggenheim reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $86.00 price objective on shares of Best Buy in a report on Wednesday, August 30th. Truist Financial dropped their target price on shares of Best Buy from $80.00 to $74.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Best Buy in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. Telsey Advisory Group upped their target price on shares of Best Buy from $78.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 30th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on shares of Best Buy from $77.00 to $79.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Best Buy presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $80.27.

Read Our Latest Analysis on BBY

Best Buy Profile

(Free Report)

Best Buy Co, Inc engages in the retail of technology products in the United States and Canada. The company operates in two segments, Domestic and International. Its stores provide computing and mobile phone products, such as desktops, notebooks, and peripherals; mobile phones comprising related mobile network carrier commissions; networking products; tablets covering e-readers; smartwatches; and consumer electronics consisting of digital imaging, health and fitness products, home theater, portable audio comprising headphones and portable speakers, and smart home products.

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Duality Advisers LP lifted its stake in shares of Cushman & Wakefield plc (NYSE:CWK  Free Report) by 1.8% during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 162,658 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 2,901 shares during the period. Duality Advisers LP owned 0.07% of Cushman & Wakefield worth $1,331,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of CWK. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its stake in Cushman & Wakefield by 108.3% during the 1st quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 2,500 shares of the companys stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 1,300 shares in the last quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. increased its stake in Cushman & Wakefield by 3,128.2% during the 1st quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 2,292 shares of the companys stock valued at $46,000 after purchasing an additional 2,221 shares in the last quarter. Dark Forest Capital Management LP bought a new stake in Cushman & Wakefield during the 1st quarter valued at $62,000. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC increased its stake in Cushman & Wakefield by 47.5% during the 2nd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 8,861 shares of the companys stock valued at $72,000 after purchasing an additional 2,852 shares in the last quarter. Finally, KBC Group NV bought a new stake in Cushman & Wakefield during the 2nd quarter valued at $94,000. Institutional investors own 90.47% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CWK has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Raymond James reduced their target price on shares of Cushman & Wakefield from $18.00 to $12.00 and set a strong-buy rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 4th. Citigroup reiterated a neutral rating and issued a $10.50 target price on shares of Cushman & Wakefield in a research note on Monday, September 18th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $10.50.

Cushman & Wakefield Stock Performance

CWK opened at $7.22 on Thursday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $8.32 and a 200 day moving average of $8.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.99, a quick ratio of 1.24 and a current ratio of 1.24. Cushman & Wakefield plc has a fifty-two week low of $6.64 and a fifty-two week high of $15.63.

Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE:CWK  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, July 31st. The company reported $0.22 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.21 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $2.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.64 billion. Cushman & Wakefield had a negative net margin of 0.18% and a positive return on equity of 15.14%. The firms revenue for the quarter was down 7.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.63 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Cushman & Wakefield plc will post 0.84 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cushman & Wakefield Profile

(Free Report)

Cushman & Wakefield plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides commercial real estate services under the Cushman & Wakefield brand in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company operates through Americas; Europe, Middle East, and Africa; and Asia Pacific segments.

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Meritage Portfolio Management increased its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY  Free Report) by 1.0% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 5,100 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the quarter. Meritage Portfolio Managements holdings in Eli Lilly and Company were worth $2,392,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in Eli Lilly and Company by 1.6% in the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 20,324,267 shares of the companys stock worth $6,979,760,000 after purchasing an additional 314,349 shares during the last quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich grew its position in Eli Lilly and Company by 533,336.4% in the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 19,059,681 shares of the companys stock worth $8,938,609,000 after purchasing an additional 19,056,108 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Eli Lilly and Company by 1.1% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,867,424 shares of the companys stock worth $5,094,159,000 after purchasing an additional 159,964 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its position in Eli Lilly and Company by 44.1% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 12,059,204 shares of the companys stock worth $4,411,740,000 after purchasing an additional 3,691,436 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in Eli Lilly and Company in the 4th quarter worth about $3,416,206,000. Institutional investors own 81.38% of the companys stock.

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Eli Lilly and Company Stock Down 0.2 %

LLY stock opened at $607.24 on Thursday. Eli Lilly and Company has a 12-month low of $309.20 and a 12-month high of $629.97. The company has a quick ratio of 0.87, a current ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.63. The company has a market cap of $576.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 84.46, a PEG ratio of 3.29 and a beta of 0.33. The company has a 50 day moving average of $562.91 and a two-hundred day moving average of $477.16.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Eli Lilly and Company ( NYSE:LLY Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 8th. The company reported $2.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.98 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $8.31 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.58 billion. Eli Lilly and Company had a net margin of 22.01% and a return on equity of 65.00%. The companys revenue was up 28.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.25 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Eli Lilly and Company will post 7.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Several research firms have recently issued reports on LLY. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $510.00 to $600.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, August 9th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $615.00 to $650.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Monday, October 9th. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated an overweight rating and issued a $630.00 price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a report on Monday, October 9th. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $500.00 to $590.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, August 9th. Finally, HSBC assumed coverage on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a report on Friday, July 14th. They issued a buy rating and a $560.00 price objective for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and nineteen have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $540.09.

View Our Latest Research Report on Eli Lilly and Company

Insider Activity

In other news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 215,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $605.44, for a total transaction of $130,169,600.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 99,768,810 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,404,028,326.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Eli Lilly and Company news, EVP Alonzo Weems sold 1,148 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $590.98, for a total value of $678,445.04. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 7,760 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,586,004.80. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 215,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $605.44, for a total transaction of $130,169,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 99,768,810 shares in the company, valued at $60,404,028,326.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 908,246 shares of company stock worth $21,078,990,577. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Eli Lilly and Company Profile

(Free Report)

Eli Lilly and Company discovers, develops, and markets human pharmaceuticals worldwide. It offers Basaglar, Humalog, Humalog Mix 75/25, Humalog U-100, Humalog U-200, Humalog Mix 50/50, insulin lispro, insulin lispro protamine, insulin lispro mix 75/25, Humulin, Humulin 70/30, Humulin N, Humulin R, and Humulin U-500 for diabetes; and Jardiance, Trajenta, and Trulicity for type 2 diabetes.

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Fortitude Advisory Group L.L.C. trimmed its position in General Electric (NYSE:GE  Free Report) by 11.1% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,445 shares of the conglomerates stock after selling 304 shares during the quarter. Fortitude Advisory Group L.L.C.s holdings in General Electric were worth $269,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Brighton Jones LLC increased its position in General Electric by 11.3% during the 2nd quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 8,231 shares of the conglomerates stock valued at $904,000 after purchasing an additional 837 shares during the period. Seven Springs Wealth Group LLC purchased a new position in General Electric during the 2nd quarter valued at $201,000. Brown Advisory Inc. increased its position in General Electric by 518.4% during the 2nd quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 822,632 shares of the conglomerates stock valued at $90,366,000 after purchasing an additional 689,599 shares during the period. Sage Rhino Capital LLC purchased a new position in General Electric during the 2nd quarter valued at $232,000. Finally, Courier Capital LLC increased its position in General Electric by 2.5% during the 2nd quarter. Courier Capital LLC now owns 8,826 shares of the conglomerates stock valued at $970,000 after purchasing an additional 212 shares during the period. 74.83% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have issued reports on GE. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of General Electric from $125.00 to $131.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 25th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on shares of General Electric in a research report on Wednesday, September 27th. They set a buy rating and a $141.00 price objective on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on shares of General Electric from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Monday, July 17th. Argus upped their target price on shares of General Electric from $112.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 26th. Finally, Oppenheimer downgraded shares of General Electric from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research report on Monday, July 31st. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $122.71.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Michael J. Holston sold 112,614 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $115.20, for a total transaction of $12,973,132.80. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 57,923 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $6,672,729.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.67% of the companys stock.

General Electric Price Performance

GE opened at $107.57 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.90 and a current ratio of 1.25. The stock has a market capitalization of $117.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.76, a P/E/G ratio of 3.63 and a beta of 1.27. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $112.38 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $107.26. General Electric has a 52-week low of $53.86 and a 52-week high of $117.96.

General Electric (NYSE:GE  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 25th. The conglomerate reported $0.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $14.76 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.78 EPS. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 18.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that General Electric will post 2.32 EPS for the current year.

General Electric Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 25th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 26th will be given a dividend of $0.08 per share. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.30%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 25th. General Electrics payout ratio is currently 3.80%.

General Electric Profile

(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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Graphic Packaging Holding (NYSE:GPK  Get Free Report) was the target of a large decline in short interest during the month of September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 12,900,000 shares, a decline of 5.8% from the September 15th total of 13,700,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 3,540,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.6 days.

Analyst Ratings Changes

GPK has been the topic of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com started coverage on Graphic Packaging in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a buy rating on the stock. 888 reissued a downgrade rating on shares of Graphic Packaging in a research report on Thursday, June 29th. Bank of America lowered Graphic Packaging from a buy rating to a neutral rating and reduced their target price for the company from $35.00 to $29.00 in a report on Monday, July 10th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered shares of Graphic Packaging from a buy rating to a hold rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $30.00 to $26.00 in a report on Thursday, June 29th. Finally, Truist Financial restated a buy rating and issued a $31.00 target price on shares of Graphic Packaging in a research note on Tuesday, September 5th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $28.00.

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Hedge Funds Weigh In On Graphic Packaging

Graphic Packaging Stock Down 1.3 %

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Arizona State Retirement System grew its holdings in shares of Graphic Packaging by 2.4% during the first quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 88,989 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $2,268,000 after buying an additional 2,127 shares during the last quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC boosted its holdings in Graphic Packaging by 17.6% during the first quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC now owns 37,949 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $967,000 after buying an additional 5,689 shares in the last quarter. Private Trust Co. NA grew its holdings in Graphic Packaging by 177.3% during the 1st quarter. Private Trust Co. NA now owns 1,109 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 709 shares in the last quarter. Tectonic Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Graphic Packaging by 6.1% during the 2nd quarter. Tectonic Advisors LLC now owns 267,643 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $6,431,000 after purchasing an additional 15,393 shares during the period. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its stake in shares of Graphic Packaging by 4,817.4% during the second quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 5,360 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $129,000 after purchasing an additional 5,251 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.67% of the companys stock.

Shares of NYSE GPK opened at $21.40 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.36, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.06. Graphic Packaging has a 12-month low of $20.57 and a 12-month high of $27.56. The stock has a market cap of $6.57 billion, a PE ratio of 9.39, a P/E/G ratio of 0.31 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a 50-day moving average of $22.09 and a 200 day moving average of $23.80.

Graphic Packaging (NYSE:GPK  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The industrial products company reported $0.66 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.73 by ($0.07). Graphic Packaging had a return on equity of 37.35% and a net margin of 7.30%. The business had revenue of $2.39 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.49 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.60 earnings per share. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 1.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Graphic Packaging will post 2.84 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Graphic Packaging Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 5th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 15th were issued a dividend of $0.10 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. This represents a $0.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.87%. Graphic Packagings dividend payout ratio is presently 17.54%.

About Graphic Packaging

(Get Free Report)

Graphic Packaging Holding Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides fiber-based packaging solutions to food, beverage, foodservice, and other consumer products companies. It operates through three segments: Paperboard Mills, Americas Paperboard Packaging, and Europe Paperboard Packaging. The company offers coated unbleached kraft (CUK), coated recycled paperboard (CRB), and solid bleached sulfate paperboard (SBS) to various paperboard packaging converters and brokers; and paperboard packaging products, such as folding cartons, cups, lids, and food containers primarily to consumer packaged goods, quick-service restaurants, and foodservice companies; and barrier packaging products that protect against moisture, hot and cold temperature, grease, oil, oxygen, sunlight, insects, and other potential product-damaging factors.

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Hilton Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Chevron Co. (NYSE:CVX  Free Report) by 6.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,573 shares of the oil and gas companys stock after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLCs holdings in Chevron were worth $248,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC increased its stake in Chevron by 247.8% in the 2nd quarter. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC now owns 3,400 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 5,700 shares during the period. NewSquare Capital LLC grew its stake in shares of Chevron by 52.3% during the 1st quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 195 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $32,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares during the period. Artemis Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Chevron during the 1st quarter worth $33,000. Worth Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Chevron during the 1st quarter worth $36,000. Finally, HBC Financial Services PLLC acquired a new position in shares of Chevron during the 1st quarter worth $37,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.87% of the companys stock.

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Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Chevron news, VP Jeff B. Gustavson sold 3,750 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.88, for a total value of $603,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 1,718 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $276,391.84. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other Chevron news, VP Jeff B. Gustavson sold 3,750 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.88, for a total value of $603,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 1,718 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $276,391.84. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Pierre R. Breber sold 25,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $164.00, for a total value of $4,100,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 6,021 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $987,444. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.18% of the companys stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on CVX. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Chevron from a neutral rating to a buy rating and upped their price target for the stock from $166.00 to $187.00 in a research note on Monday, July 31st. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Chevron in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Chevron from $209.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 4th. Sanford C. Bernstein began coverage on shares of Chevron in a research note on Tuesday. They issued a market perform rating and a $184.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Mizuho upped their target price on shares of Chevron from $209.00 to $215.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Monday, September 18th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Chevron presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $189.89.

Check Out Our Latest Report on Chevron

Chevron Price Performance

Chevron stock opened at $168.92 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 1.13 and a current ratio of 1.43. The firm has a market cap of $315.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.71, a P/E/G ratio of 0.85 and a beta of 1.14. Chevron Co. has a 52 week low of $149.74 and a 52 week high of $189.68. The businesss fifty day moving average is $164.29 and its two-hundred day moving average is $161.26.

Chevron (NYSE:CVX  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, July 28th. The oil and gas company reported $3.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.95 by $0.13. Chevron had a return on equity of 19.48% and a net margin of 13.54%. The company had revenue of $48.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $48 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $5.82 earnings per share. The businesss revenue was down 28.9% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Chevron Co. will post 13.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Chevron Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 11th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 18th were issued a dividend of $1.51 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 17th. This represents a $6.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.58%. Chevrons dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 38.30%.

About Chevron

(Free Report)

Chevron Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in the integrated energy and chemicals operations in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment is involved in the exploration, development, production, and transportation of crude oil and natural gas; liquefaction, transportation, and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas; transportation of crude oil through pipelines; and processing, transportation, storage, and marketing of natural gas, as well as a gas-to-liquids plant.

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Hilton Capital Management LLC lessened its holdings in Primo Water Co. (NYSE:PRMW  Free Report) by 21.4% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 10,571 shares of the companys stock after selling 2,878 shares during the quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLCs holdings in Primo Water were worth $133,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. BlackRock Inc. boosted its stake in Primo Water by 24.7% during the 3rd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 11,600,023 shares of the companys stock worth $145,580,000 after acquiring an additional 2,296,515 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Primo Water during the 4th quarter worth approximately $22,126,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Primo Water by 135.1% during the 1st quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC now owns 2,097,036 shares of the companys stock worth $32,190,000 after acquiring an additional 1,205,031 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its stake in Primo Water by 9.8% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 11,581,085 shares of the companys stock worth $165,030,000 after acquiring an additional 1,031,066 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legion Partners Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in Primo Water by 54.0% during the 1st quarter. Legion Partners Asset Management LLC now owns 2,393,465 shares of the companys stock worth $36,740,000 after acquiring an additional 839,150 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 83.87% of the companys stock.

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Primo Water Stock Performance

Shares of PRMW stock opened at $13.51 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $2.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.05. Primo Water Co. has a 52 week low of $12.27 and a 52 week high of $16.47. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $14.48 and a 200-day moving average of $13.94.

Primo Water Announces Dividend

Primo Water ( NYSE:PRMW Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 10th. The company reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.20 by $0.02. Primo Water had a net margin of 3.81% and a return on equity of 7.96%. The business had revenue of $593.30 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $586.22 million. On average, equities analysts forecast that Primo Water Co. will post 0.75 earnings per share for the current year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 7th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 24th were given a $0.08 dividend. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.37%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, August 23rd. Primo Waters payout ratio is currently 59.26%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

PRMW has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. TD Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Primo Water from $24.00 to $25.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, August 11th. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Primo Water in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a strong-buy rating for the company. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Primo Water from $18.00 to $20.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Friday, August 11th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $20.33.

Read Our Latest Analysis on PRMW

Primo Water Company Profile

(Free Report)

Primo Water Corporation provides pure-play water solutions for residential and commercial customers. It offers bottled water, water dispensers, purified bottled water, self-service refill drinking water, premium spring, mineral water, sparkling and flavored water, filtration equipment, and coffee. The company offers its products under the Primo, Alhambra, Crystal Rock, Mountain Valley, Deep Rock, Hinckley Springs, Crystal Springs, Kentwood Springs, Mount Olympus, Pureflo, Sierra Springs, Sparkletts, and Renu brands in the United States; Canadian Springs, Labrador Source, and Amazon Springs brands in Canada; and Decantae, Eden, Eden Springs, Chateaud'eau, and Mey Eden brands in Europe and Israel.

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Hyatt Hotels Co. (NYSE:H  Get Free Report) saw a significant growth in short interest in September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 4,530,000 shares, a growth of 6.8% from the September 15th total of 4,240,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 707,600 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 6.4 days.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently commented on the company. TheStreet downgraded Hyatt Hotels from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a report on Thursday, September 7th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of Hyatt Hotels from $132.00 to $138.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Monday. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Hyatt Hotels in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Citigroup restated a neutral rating and issued a $122.00 price objective on shares of Hyatt Hotels in a research report on Friday, June 30th. Finally, 22nd Century Group restated a reiterates rating on shares of Hyatt Hotels in a research report on Friday, June 30th. Five 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, Hyatt Hotels currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $129.22.

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Check Out Our Latest Report on H

Hyatt Hotels Price Performance

Shares of H stock opened at $105.45 on Thursday. Hyatt Hotels has a 12-month low of $84.63 and a 12-month high of $127.80. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 19.97 and a beta of 1.39. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.83. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $109.35 and a 200-day moving average of $112.77.

Hyatt Hotels (NYSE:H  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.83 by ($0.01). Hyatt Hotels had a net margin of 6.88% and a return on equity of 13.30%. The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.46 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Hyatt Hotels will post 2.49 earnings per share for the current year.

Hyatt Hotels Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 8th. Investors of record on Friday, August 25th were paid a $0.15 dividend. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 24th. Hyatt Hotelss payout ratio is presently 14.63%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Hyatt Hotels

In other Hyatt Hotels news, Director Michael A. Rocca sold 1,508 shares of Hyatt Hotels stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $113.87, for a total transaction of $171,715.96. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 18,285 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,082,112.95. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Hyatt Hotels news, Director Richard C. Tuttle bought 1,250 shares of Hyatt Hotels stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 21st. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $104.49 per share, with a total value of $130,612.50. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 35,877 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,748,787.73. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Michael A. Rocca sold 1,508 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $113.87, for a total value of $171,715.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 18,285 shares in the company, valued at $2,082,112.95. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 21.24% of the companys stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Hyatt Hotels

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. First Manhattan CO. LLC. acquired a new position in shares of Hyatt Hotels during the 1st quarter worth about $25,000. Quarry LP acquired a new position in shares of Hyatt Hotels during the 1st quarter worth about $26,000. Parallel Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Hyatt Hotels by 80.4% during the 1st quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 276 shares of the companys stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 123 shares during the last quarter. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Hyatt Hotels by 597.5% during the 3rd quarter. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC now owns 279 shares of the companys stock worth $30,000 after buying an additional 239 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UniSuper Management Pty Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Hyatt Hotels during the 2nd quarter worth about $34,000. 46.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Hyatt Hotels

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Hyatt Hotels Corporation operates as a hospitality company in the United States and internationally. It operates through Owned and Leased Hotels, Americas Management and Franchising, ASPAC Management and Franchising, EAME/SW Asia Management and Franchising, and Apple Leisure Group segments. The company manages, franchises, licenses, owns, and leases portfolio of properties, consisting of full-service hotels and resorts, select service hotels, resorts, and other properties, including timeshare, fractional, residential, vacation, and condominium units.

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StockNews.com upgraded shares of Invitae (NYSE:NVTA  Free Report) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note published on Sunday morning.

Other equities analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their price objective on shares of Invitae from $1.50 to $1.00 and set a sell rating on the stock in a report on Friday, July 21st. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of Invitae to $1.50 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, August 15th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have issued a hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $2.08.

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Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Invitae

Invitae Price Performance

Shares of Invitae stock opened at $0.61 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $0.81 and a 200 day moving average of $1.10. The firm has a market cap of $161.65 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -0.19 and a beta of 1.78. Invitae has a 1 year low of $0.60 and a 1 year high of $3.78.

Invitae (NYSE:NVTA  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 8th. The medical research company reported ($0.30) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of ($0.37) by $0.07. The business had revenue of $120.53 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $121.19 million. Invitae had a negative net margin of 161.92% and a negative return on equity of 6,100.71%. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Invitae will post -1.41 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Invitae

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of NVTA. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Invitae by 45.6% during the 1st quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 56,862 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $453,000 after acquiring an additional 17,805 shares during the period. Private Advisor Group LLC grew its position in Invitae by 9.7% in the 1st quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 32,282 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $258,000 after acquiring an additional 2,845 shares in the last quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC grew its position in shares of Invitae by 48.4% during the first quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 105,863 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $844,000 after buying an additional 34,541 shares in the last quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. grew its position in shares of Invitae by 164.4% during the first quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 53,626 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $427,000 after buying an additional 33,347 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Aviva PLC boosted its holdings in Invitae by 22.9% in the first quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 26,594 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $212,000 after purchasing an additional 4,954 shares in the last quarter. 61.28% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Invitae

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Invitae Corporation, a medical genetics company, that provides genetic information to improve healthcare of people in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company offers genetic tests in various clinical areas, including hereditary cancer, precision oncology, women's health, rare diseases, and pharmacogenomics; digital health solutions; and health data services.

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Leerink Partnrs reiterated their market perform rating on shares of Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW  Free Report) in a research note issued to investors on Monday morning, PriceTargets.com reports. Leerink Partnrs also issued estimates for Edwards Lifesciences Q3 2023 earnings at $0.61 EPS, Q4 2023 earnings at $0.70 EPS, FY2023 earnings at $2.58 EPS, Q1 2024 earnings at $0.69 EPS, Q2 2024 earnings at $0.71 EPS, Q3 2024 earnings at $0.71 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $0.79 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $2.91 EPS, FY2025 earnings at $3.18 EPS, FY2026 earnings at $3.58 EPS and FY2027 earnings at $4.01 EPS.

Several other research firms have also recently issued reports on EW. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $96.00 price target on shares of Edwards Lifesciences in a report on Thursday, August 17th. Oppenheimer raised shares of Edwards Lifesciences from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $90.00 price target for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 26th. Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $95.00 to $102.00 in a report on Monday, July 17th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price target on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $103.00 to $107.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, July 25th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Edwards Lifesciences from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $90.71.

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Read Our Latest Analysis on EW

Edwards Lifesciences Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:EW opened at $69.71 on Monday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $73.88 and a 200-day simple moving average of $82.53. Edwards Lifesciences has a one year low of $67.13 and a one year high of $94.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 2.30 and a current ratio of 3.15. The stock has a market capitalization of $42.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.85, a PEG ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.05.

Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The medical research company reported $0.66 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.65 by $0.01. Edwards Lifesciences had a net margin of 24.56% and a return on equity of 25.43%. The business had revenue of $1.53 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.51 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.63 earnings per share. The businesss revenue was up 11.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that Edwards Lifesciences will post 2.55 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Edwards Lifesciences news, CFO Scott B. Ullem sold 7,255 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction on Monday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.35, for a total value of $611,959.25. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 19,248 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,623,568.80. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Scott B. Ullem sold 7,255 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.35, for a total value of $611,959.25. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 19,248 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,623,568.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Larry L. Wood sold 8,660 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, October 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $70.00, for a total transaction of $606,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 213,794 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,965,580. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 184,359 shares of company stock worth $13,817,172. 1.29% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in EW. Advisors Asset Management Inc. raised its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 43,556 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $5,127,000 after buying an additional 117 shares during the period. Apollon Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 1.0% in the first quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC now owns 12,487 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $1,033,000 after purchasing an additional 119 shares in the last quarter. Geller Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 6.5% in the first quarter. Geller Advisors LLC now owns 1,965 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $231,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares in the last quarter. Allworth Financial LP lifted its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 2.5% in the first quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 5,015 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $415,000 after purchasing an additional 122 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rockland Trust Co. lifted its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 1.4% in the first quarter. Rockland Trust Co. now owns 8,639 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $715,000 after purchasing an additional 122 shares in the last quarter. 79.25% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Edwards Lifesciences

(Get Free Report)

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.

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UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Thursday called on the international community to help Somalia tackle various challenges.

As the political and security process in Somalia is at a critical stage, the international community must not relent in its attention and support, and must help Somalia better tackle the challenges on all fronts, said Dai Bing, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.

All efforts should be made to consolidate the achievements in the fight against terrorism, he told the Security Council.

The Somali authorities have achieved visible results in the fight against terrorism. The terrorist group al-Shabaab has recently launched frequent attacks, resulting in civilian casualties. The international community should continue to support Somalia's counter-terrorism and stabilization efforts and help the Somali security forces with training and capacity-building with a view for the latter to assume greater responsibility for security, he said.

Recently, the Somali federal government called for a pause in the drawdown of the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia. China believes that it is imperative to carry out the drawdown plan in a smooth, orderly and responsible manner on the basis of a comprehensive assessment of the security situation so as to avoid a security vacuum, he said.

Dai called for support for the political transition in Somalia, which he said is the very basis for consolidating national security and maintaining political stability.

China supports the convening of the National Consultative Council to promote political dialogue and to discuss major issues, such as elections, counter-terrorism and reconciliation, he said. "We call on all parties to continue to resolve their differences through dialogue and consultation and advance the transition process."

The Somali authorities have repeatedly called for the lifting of the arms embargo. The Security Council should respond to the concerns of the Somali side and adjust the sanctions measures in light of the security situation on the ground and create conditions conducive to the building of Somali national defense, he said. 
Meritage Portfolio Management lifted its holdings in shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA  Free Report) by 5.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 131,842 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after acquiring an additional 6,369 shares during the quarter. Meritage Portfolio Management owned approximately 0.15% of National Storage Affiliates Trust worth $4,592,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust by 5.3% during the 1st quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 4,045 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $254,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares in the last quarter. Cibc World Markets Corp grew its holdings in shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust by 1.0% during the 1st quarter. Cibc World Markets Corp now owns 27,481 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $1,148,000 after purchasing an additional 277 shares in the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp grew its holdings in shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust by 2.2% during the 1st quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 13,731 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $862,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its holdings in shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 69,882 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $2,524,000 after purchasing an additional 329 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Belpointe Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust by 29.4% during the 1st quarter. Belpointe Asset Management LLC now owns 1,509 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $63,000 after purchasing an additional 343 shares in the last quarter. 83.63% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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National Storage Affiliates Trust Price Performance

Shares of NSA opened at $31.26 on Thursday. National Storage Affiliates Trust has a 1 year low of $29.87 and a 1 year high of $44.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.78, a current ratio of 0.54 and a quick ratio of 0.54. The company has a market capitalization of $2.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.44 and a beta of 0.71. The business has a 50-day moving average of $32.74 and a 200-day moving average of $35.39.

National Storage Affiliates Trust Announces Dividend

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 15th were given a dividend of $0.56 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. This represents a $2.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.17%. National Storage Affiliates Trusts dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 215.39%.

Several analysts recently weighed in on NSA shares. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on National Storage Affiliates Trust from $42.00 to $32.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, September 21st. StockNews.com started coverage on National Storage Affiliates Trust in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. Truist Financial dropped their price objective on National Storage Affiliates Trust from $40.00 to $35.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, August 29th. Citigroup dropped their price objective on National Storage Affiliates Trust from $41.00 to $36.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 24th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus downgraded National Storage Affiliates Trust from a buy rating to a hold rating and dropped their target price for the company from $47.00 to $35.00 in a research report on Tuesday, August 8th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $37.13.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on NSA

About National Storage Affiliates Trust

(Free Report)

National Storage Affiliates Trust is a real estate investment trust headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado, focused on the ownership, operation and acquisition of self storage properties predominantly located within the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas throughout the United States. As of June 30, 2023, the Company held ownership interests in and operated 1,117 self storage properties located in 42 states and Puerto Rico with approximately 72.8 million rentable square feet.

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Meritage Portfolio Management lifted its stake in shares of Canadian Natural Resources Limited (NYSE:CNQ  Free Report) (TSE:CNQ) by 4.2% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 88,162 shares of the oil and gas producers stock after acquiring an additional 3,588 shares during the quarter. Meritage Portfolio Managements holdings in Canadian Natural Resources were worth $4,960,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership bought a new stake in Canadian Natural Resources in the first quarter worth approximately $960,796,000. National Bank of Canada FI increased its holdings in Canadian Natural Resources by 36.6% in the first quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 17,233,139 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $953,143,000 after purchasing an additional 4,618,176 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors increased its holdings in Canadian Natural Resources by 88.2% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 7,930,544 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $491,064,000 after purchasing an additional 3,716,523 shares in the last quarter. Canoe Financial LP bought a new stake in Canadian Natural Resources in the first quarter worth approximately $134,719,000. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Canadian Natural Resources by 6.2% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 40,235,475 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $2,493,796,000 after purchasing an additional 2,332,528 shares in the last quarter. 73.88% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Canadian Natural Resources Stock Down 0.3 %

CNQ stock opened at $66.89 on Thursday. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $63.51 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $59.58. The company has a current ratio of 0.70, a quick ratio of 0.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25. Canadian Natural Resources Limited has a 1-year low of $48.81 and a 1-year high of $67.70. The stock has a market cap of $72.76 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.14, a P/E/G ratio of 11.27 and a beta of 1.55.

Canadian Natural Resources Increases Dividend

Canadian Natural Resources ( NYSE:CNQ Get Free Report ) (TSE:CNQ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 3rd. The oil and gas producer reported $0.85 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.88 by ($0.03). Canadian Natural Resources had a return on equity of 22.86% and a net margin of 18.14%. The business had revenue of $5.87 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $5.44 billion. Analysts expect that Canadian Natural Resources Limited will post 5.57 EPS for the current year.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 5th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 15th were given a $0.6744 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 14th. This represents a $2.70 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.03%. This is a boost from Canadian Natural Resourcess previous quarterly dividend of $0.66. Canadian Natural Resourcess payout ratio is currently 52.46%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently commented on CNQ. UBS Group began coverage on Canadian Natural Resources in a report on Wednesday, July 12th. They set a buy rating for the company. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Canadian Natural Resources from $84.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a report on Monday, August 28th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on Canadian Natural Resources from $82.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Monday, September 18th. National Bank Financial downgraded Canadian Natural Resources from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating in a report on Friday, August 4th. Finally, StockNews.com began coverage on Canadian Natural Resources in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $89.56.

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About Canadian Natural Resources

(Free Report)

Canadian Natural Resources Limited acquires, explores for, develops, produces, markets, and sells crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs). The company offers light and medium crude oil, primary heavy crude oil, Pelican Lake heavy crude oil, bitumen (thermal oil), and synthetic crude oil (SCO).

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Meritage Portfolio Management raised its stake in Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO  Free Report) by 5.5% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 42,547 shares of the mining companys stock after buying an additional 2,219 shares during the period. Meritage Portfolio Managements holdings in Rio Tinto Group were worth $2,716,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in RIO. Allworth Financial LP increased its holdings in Rio Tinto Group by 66.8% in the second quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 397 shares of the mining companys stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 159 shares in the last quarter. Cowa LLC purchased a new position in shares of Rio Tinto Group during the 1st quarter worth approximately $26,000. Householder Group Estate & Retirement Specialist LLC purchased a new position in shares of Rio Tinto Group during the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,000. Larson Financial Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Rio Tinto Group by 297.2% during the 1st quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 433 shares of the mining companys stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 324 shares in the last quarter. Finally, First Manhattan Co. increased its stake in shares of Rio Tinto Group by 555.4% during the 4th quarter. First Manhattan Co. now owns 426 shares of the mining companys stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 361 shares in the last quarter. 10.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

RIO has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Rio Tinto Group from a neutral rating to an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 13th. UBS Group upgraded shares of Rio Tinto Group from a sell rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. Liberum Capital upgraded shares of Rio Tinto Group from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, July 6th. Argus decreased their target price on shares of Rio Tinto Group from $80.00 to $72.00 in a research report on Wednesday, June 28th. Finally, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Rio Tinto Group in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a strong-buy rating on the stock. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $72.00.

Rio Tinto Group Stock Performance

NYSE:RIO opened at $62.42 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.99. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $62.36 and its 200 day simple moving average is $63.91. Rio Tinto Group has a twelve month low of $52.25 and a twelve month high of $80.51.

Rio Tinto Group Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a semi-annual dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 21st. Investors of record on Friday, August 11th were issued a dividend of $1.77 per share. This is a positive change from Rio Tinto Groups previous semi-annual dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 10th. This represents a dividend yield of 6%.

Rio Tinto Group Company Profile

(Free Report)

Rio Tinto Group engages in exploring, mining, and processing mineral resources worldwide. The company operates through Iron Ore, Aluminium, Copper, and Minerals Segments. It offers aluminum, copper, iron ore, diamonds, gold, borates, titanium dioxide, salt, silver, molybdenum, and lithium. The company also owns and operates open pit and underground mines, refineries, smelters, and concentrator facilities, as well as power stations, research, and service facilities.

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Mutual Advisors LLC lifted its position in Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC) by 26.0% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 85,578 shares of the financial services providers stock after purchasing an additional 17,669 shares during the quarter. Mutual Advisors LLCs holdings in Bank of America were worth $2,455,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of BAC. FNY Investment Advisers LLC raised its stake in shares of Bank of America by 75.9% in the second quarter. FNY Investment Advisers LLC now owns 920 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 397 shares during the last quarter. Marquette Asset Management LLC raised its position in Bank of America by 333.2% during the second quarter. Marquette Asset Management LLC now owns 953 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 733 shares in the last quarter. Castleview Partners LLC purchased a new position in Bank of America during the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Global Trust Asset Management LLC raised its position in Bank of America by 45.7% during the second quarter. Global Trust Asset Management LLC now owns 1,036 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $30,000 after acquiring an additional 325 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ahrens Investment Partners LLC purchased a new position in Bank of America during the first quarter valued at approximately $31,000. 68.06% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on BAC. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and set a $35.00 price target on shares of Bank of America in a research report on Tuesday, September 12th. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Bank of America from $48.00 to $49.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday. Piper Sandler reduced their price target on Bank of America from $28.00 to $27.50 and set an underweight rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 15th. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on Bank of America from $35.00 to $33.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. Finally, StockNews.com started coverage on Bank of America in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $35.37.

Bank of America Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:BAC opened at $27.31 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 0.83 and a quick ratio of 0.83. The businesss 50 day moving average price is $28.21 and its 200-day moving average price is $28.83. The firm has a market capitalization of $216.98 billion, a PE ratio of 7.65, a P/E/G ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.36. Bank of America Co. has a 1 year low of $25.47 and a 1 year high of $38.60.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 17th. The financial services provider reported $0.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.83 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $25.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $25.13 billion. Bank of America had a return on equity of 12.08% and a net margin of 18.69%. The businesss revenue was up 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.81 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Bank of America Co. will post 3.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bank of America Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.24 per share. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.52%. Bank of Americas dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 26.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Bank of America news, insider James P. Demare sold 75,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $31.53, for a total transaction of $2,364,750.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 185,108 shares of the companys stock, valued at $5,836,455.24. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 0.27% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Bank of America

(Free Report)

Bank of America Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides banking and financial products and services for individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments worldwide. Its Consumer Banking segment offers traditional and money market savings accounts, certificates of deposit and IRAs, noninterest-and interest-bearing checking accounts, and investment accounts and products; and credit and debit cards, residential mortgages, and home equity loans, as well as direct and indirect loans, such as automotive, recreational vehicle, and consumer personal loans.

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Tiaa Fsb raised its stake in Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX  Free Report) by 2.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 10,552 shares of the oil and gas companys stock after purchasing an additional 262 shares during the period. Tiaa Fsbs holdings in Phillips 66 were worth $1,006,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Phillips 66 by 100,843.8% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 9,979,304 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $1,038,646,000 after buying an additional 9,969,418 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Phillips 66 during the 4th quarter valued at about $364,237,000. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in shares of Phillips 66 by 62.1% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 7,188,087 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $620,979,000 after buying an additional 2,753,700 shares during the last quarter. HRT Financial LP bought a new stake in shares of Phillips 66 during the 1st quarter valued at about $99,355,000. Finally, Morgan Stanley grew its position in shares of Phillips 66 by 16.2% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 6,961,625 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $724,566,000 after buying an additional 968,055 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.83% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have commented on the stock. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on shares of Phillips 66 from $138.00 to $134.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. Raymond James decreased their target price on shares of Phillips 66 from $133.00 to $128.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Friday, October 6th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Phillips 66 from $130.00 to $144.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, September 8th. Bank of America upped their target price on shares of Phillips 66 from $141.00 to $143.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, September 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an equal weight rating and issued a $125.00 price target on shares of Phillips 66 in a research note on Wednesday, July 19th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $128.27.

Phillips 66 Stock Up 2.1 %

PSX stock opened at $116.25 on Thursday. Phillips 66 has a 12 month low of $89.74 and a 12 month high of $125.19. The firm has a market cap of $51.76 billion, a PE ratio of 5.04, a P/E/G ratio of 0.38 and a beta of 1.33. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $116.19 and a 200 day simple moving average of $105.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 1.33 and a quick ratio of 0.90.

Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 2nd. The oil and gas company reported $3.87 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.54 by $0.33. Phillips 66 had a net margin of 6.81% and a return on equity of 26.25%. The business had revenue of $35.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $32.13 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $6.77 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Phillips 66 will post 16.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Phillips 66 Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 17th will be issued a dividend of $1.05 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 16th. This represents a $4.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.61%. Phillips 66s dividend payout ratio is currently 18.22%.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Timothy D. Roberts sold 127,578 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.68, for a total transaction of $14,885,801.04. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 77,313 shares in the company, valued at $9,020,880.84. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, EVP Timothy D. Roberts sold 127,578 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.68, for a total transaction of $14,885,801.04. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 77,313 shares in the company, valued at $9,020,880.84. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Timothy D. Roberts sold 12,970 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.41, for a total transaction of $1,613,597.70. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 80,009 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,953,919.69. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 360,648 shares of company stock worth $41,396,371 over the last 90 days. 4.57% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Phillips 66 Company Profile

(Free Report)

Phillips 66 operates as an energy manufacturing and logistics company in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, and Marketing and Specialties (M&S). The Midstream segment transports crude oil and other feedstocks; delivers refined petroleum products to market; provides terminaling and storage services for crude oil and refined petroleum products; transports, stores, fractionates, exports, and markets natural gas liquids; provides other fee-based processing services; and gathers, processes, transports, and markets natural gas.

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Retirement Systems of Alabama lessened its holdings in shares of Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX  Free Report) by 3.8% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 187,956 shares of the medical research companys stock after selling 7,353 shares during the quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama owned 0.17% of Quest Diagnostics worth $26,419,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of DGX. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund lifted its holdings in Quest Diagnostics by 8.7% during the 1st quarter. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund now owns 6,921 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $947,000 after buying an additional 556 shares during the last quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. increased its holdings in Quest Diagnostics by 97.5% in the 1st quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 7,878 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,078,000 after buying an additional 3,889 shares during the period. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS raised its stake in shares of Quest Diagnostics by 3.4% during the first quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 15,923 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $2,179,000 after acquiring an additional 525 shares in the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. boosted its holdings in Quest Diagnostics by 21.9% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 191,048 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $26,165,000 after acquiring an additional 34,364 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Aviva PLC raised its position in Quest Diagnostics by 22.1% in the 1st quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 68,068 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $9,316,000 after buying an additional 12,298 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.76% of the companys stock.

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Quest Diagnostics Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:DGX opened at $122.67 on Thursday. Quest Diagnostics Incorporated has a one year low of $119.59 and a one year high of $158.34. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $127.45 and a 200-day moving average of $134.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.92. The company has a market capitalization of $13.77 billion, a PE ratio of 17.87 and a beta of 0.96.

Quest Diagnostics Dividend Announcement

Quest Diagnostics ( NYSE:DGX Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The medical research company reported $2.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.23 by $0.07. Quest Diagnostics had a net margin of 8.37% and a return on equity of 16.32%. The company had revenue of $2.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.25 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.36 EPS. Quest Diagnosticss quarterly revenue was down 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Quest Diagnostics Incorporated will post 8.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 23rd. Investors of record on Friday, October 6th will be paid a dividend of $0.71 per share. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.32%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 5th. Quest Diagnosticss payout ratio is presently 41.34%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently commented on DGX. Morgan Stanley reissued an equal weight rating and issued a $145.00 price target on shares of Quest Diagnostics in a report on Thursday, August 3rd. Evercore ISI decreased their target price on Quest Diagnostics from $136.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 11th. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of Quest Diagnostics from $145.00 to $130.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Monday. Finally, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Quest Diagnostics in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Quest Diagnostics currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $145.45.

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Quest Diagnostics Profile

(Free Report)

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated provides diagnostic testing, information, and services in the United States and internationally. The company develops and delivers diagnostic information services, such as routine testing, non-routine and advanced clinical testing, anatomic pathology testing, and other diagnostic information services.

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Retirement Systems of Alabama lessened its holdings in AECOM (NYSE:ACM  Free Report) by 0.8% during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 318,404 shares of the construction companys stock after selling 2,428 shares during the period. Retirement Systems of Alabamas holdings in AECOM were worth $26,966,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACM. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of AECOM during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC lifted its stake in shares of AECOM by 3,000.0% in the 2nd quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC now owns 310 shares of the construction companys stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares during the period. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV grew its holdings in shares of AECOM by 80.9% in the first quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV now owns 360 shares of the construction companys stock valued at $30,000 after acquiring an additional 161 shares in the last quarter. MCF Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of AECOM during the first quarter worth $30,000. Finally, Bessemer Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of AECOM by 96.3% in the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 371 shares of the construction companys stock worth $32,000 after purchasing an additional 182 shares during the period. 84.79% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

ACM has been the topic of a number of research reports. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of AECOM in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Credit Suisse Group reduced their price objective on shares of AECOM from $101.00 to $99.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $99.14.

AECOM Price Performance

Shares of ACM opened at $79.96 on Thursday. AECOM has a 52 week low of $69.28 and a 52 week high of $92.16. The firm has a market cap of $11.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 83.29, a PEG ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 1.30. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $84.68 and a 200-day moving average of $83.89. The company has a current ratio of 1.10, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.82.

AECOM (NYSE:ACM  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 8th. The construction company reported $0.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.95 by ($0.01). AECOM had a return on equity of 19.02% and a net margin of 0.97%. The company had revenue of $3.49 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.67 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.83 EPS. AECOMs revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that AECOM will post 3.71 EPS for the current year.

AECOM Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 20th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.18 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 4th. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.90%. AECOMs dividend payout ratio is currently 75.00%.

Insider Transactions at AECOM

In related news, CEO Troy Rudd sold 78,097 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $88.33, for a total transaction of $6,898,308.01. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 185,942 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,424,256.86. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Insiders own 0.40% of the companys stock.

AECOM Profile

(Free Report)

AECOM, together with its subsidiaries, provides professional infrastructure consulting services worldwide. It operates in three segments: Americas, International, and AECOM Capital. The company offers planning, consulting, architectural and engineering design, construction and program management, and investment and development services to commercial and government clients.

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Gold Fields Limited (NYSE:GFI  Get Free Report) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest in September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 8,390,000 shares, a growth of 8.0% from the September 15th total of 7,770,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 4,240,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.0 days.

Gold Fields Price Performance

Gold Fields stock opened at $14.22 on Thursday. Gold Fields has a 1-year low of $7.28 and a 1-year high of $17.78. The companys 50-day moving average is $12.28 and its 200 day moving average is $14.01.

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Gold Fields Cuts Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a semi-annual dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 21st. Investors of record on Friday, September 8th were given a $0.1711 dividend. This represents a yield of 4%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 7th.

Institutional Trading of Gold Fields

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Captrust Financial Advisors raised its position in Gold Fields by 100.8% in the 2nd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 2,741 shares of the companys stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 1,376 shares during the period. IFP Advisors Inc grew its stake in Gold Fields by 900.0% in the 2nd quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 2,000 shares of the companys stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 1,800 shares in the last quarter. Money Concepts Capital Corp bought a new position in Gold Fields in the 4th quarter worth about $31,000. Bartlett & Co. LLC bought a new position in Gold Fields in the 3rd quarter worth about $49,000. Finally, Chiron Investment Management LLC bought a new position in Gold Fields in the 1st quarter worth about $68,000. 20.99% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on GFI. Scotiabank decreased their target price on shares of Gold Fields from $18.00 to $16.00 and set a sector perform rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 18th. Morgan Stanley cut shares of Gold Fields from an equal weight rating to an underweight rating in a research report on Wednesday. StockNews.com cut shares of Gold Fields from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report on Saturday, October 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Gold Fields from an underweight rating to a neutral rating and set a $14.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 12th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, Gold Fields presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $13.83.

Read Our Latest Research Report on Gold Fields

Gold Fields Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Gold Fields Limited operates as a gold producer with reserves and resources in Chile, South Africa, Ghana, West Africa, Australia, and Peru. The company also explores for copper deposits. It holds interests in nine operating mines, as well as gold mineral reserves and mineral resources. The company was founded in 1887 and is based in Sandton, South Africa.

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Spinnaker Trust acquired a new stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE:AJG  Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 1,000 shares of the financial services providers stock, valued at approximately $220,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of AJG. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its position in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 2.3% in the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 280,001 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $53,567,000 after purchasing an additional 6,290 shares during the period. Compagnie Lombard Odier SCmA bought a new stake in shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. during the 1st quarter worth approximately $29,000. Trust Co. of Vermont grew its position in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 52.4% in the 1st quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 1,448 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $277,000 after acquiring an additional 498 shares during the last quarter. Wrapmanager Inc. increased its stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 7.5% in the first quarter. Wrapmanager Inc. now owns 4,305 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $824,000 after purchasing an additional 302 shares during the period. Finally, Desjardins Global Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 9.6% during the first quarter. Desjardins Global Asset Management Inc. now owns 6,379 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,220,000 after purchasing an additional 559 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.15% of the companys stock.

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Insider Activity

In other news, CFO Douglas K. Howell sold 30,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $225.99, for a total value of $6,779,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 164,371 shares in the company, valued at $37,146,202.29. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. news, CFO Douglas K. Howell sold 30,000 shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $225.99, for a total transaction of $6,779,700.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 164,371 shares of the companys stock, valued at $37,146,202.29. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Walter D. Bay sold 21,800 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $232.00, for a total transaction of $5,057,600.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 44,691 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $10,368,312. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 75,688 shares of company stock worth $17,388,097 over the last three months. Insiders own 1.60% of the companys stock.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. stock opened at $234.74 on Thursday. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has a fifty-two week low of $169.01 and a fifty-two week high of $237.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a current ratio of 1.04. The company has a market cap of $50.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 0.69. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $229.39 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $217.36.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE:AJG  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The financial services provider reported $1.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.86 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $2.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.36 billion. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. had a return on equity of 18.65% and a net margin of 12.11%. The businesss revenue was up 19.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.70 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. will post 8.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 1st were paid a dividend of $0.55 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 31st. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.94%. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 42.88%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AJG has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from $237.00 to $261.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday. StockNews.com began coverage on Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Raymond James raised their price target on Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from $255.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a strong-buy rating in a research note on Monday, September 18th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from $262.00 to $266.00 in a report on Friday, October 6th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft started coverage on shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. in a report on Wednesday, October 4th. They issued a buy rating and a $277.00 price target for the company. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $242.79.

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Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Profile

(Free Report)

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co, together with its subsidiaries, provides insurance and reinsurance brokerage, consulting, and third-party property/casualty claims settlement and administration services to businesses and organizations worldwide. It operates in Brokerage and Risk Management segments. The Brokerage segment offers retail and wholesale insurance and reinsurance brokerage services; assists retail brokers and other non-affiliated brokers in the placement of specialized and hard-to-place insurance; and acts as a brokerage wholesaler, managing general agent, and managing general underwriter for distributing specialized insurance coverages to underwriting enterprises.

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Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. increased its stake in shares of Toast, Inc. (NYSE:TOST  Free Report) by 15.6% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 3,473,461 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 467,724 shares during the quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. owned 0.65% of Toast worth $78,396,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Raymond James & Associates increased its position in Toast by 115.4% during the first quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 24,946 shares of the companys stock valued at $542,000 after acquiring an additional 13,364 shares during the last quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC raised its position in Toast by 78.2% in the 1st quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 28,356 shares of the companys stock worth $616,000 after purchasing an additional 12,446 shares during the period. Citigroup Inc. bought a new stake in Toast in the first quarter worth about $438,000. Ergoteles LLC bought a new position in shares of Toast during the first quarter valued at approximately $2,427,000. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP purchased a new stake in shares of Toast in the first quarter worth approximately $33,356,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 60.29% of the companys stock.

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Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Christopher P. Comparato sold 2,444 shares of Toast stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $20.74, for a total transaction of $50,688.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 325,382 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,748,422.68. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Toast news, CEO Christopher P. Comparato sold 2,444 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $20.74, for a total value of $50,688.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 325,382 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,748,422.68. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, COO Aman Narang sold 248,509 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $20.41, for a total value of $5,072,068.69. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 1,143,549 shares in the company, valued at $23,339,835.09. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 584,235 shares of company stock valued at $11,998,019. Company insiders own 13.70% of the companys stock.

Toast Stock Performance

TOST opened at $17.81 on Thursday. The firms 50-day moving average price is $20.20 and its 200-day moving average price is $20.56. Toast, Inc. has a 52-week low of $15.77 and a 52-week high of $27.00.

Toast (NYSE:TOST  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 8th. The company reported ($0.19) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.14) by ($0.05). Toast had a negative return on equity of 34.23% and a negative net margin of 11.33%. The company had revenue of $978.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $943.06 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted ($0.11) earnings per share. The companys quarterly revenue was up 44.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that Toast, Inc. will post -0.57 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have weighed in on TOST shares. Stephens increased their target price on Toast from $22.00 to $25.00 in a research note on Wednesday, August 9th. Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on shares of Toast in a research note on Tuesday, July 11th. They issued a buy rating and a $28.00 target price on the stock. Mizuho downgraded shares of Toast from a buy rating to a neutral rating and decreased their price target for the company from $30.00 to $16.00 in a research note on Monday, October 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their target price on Toast from $26.00 to $21.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 12th. Finally, UBS Group upgraded Toast from a neutral rating to a buy rating and upped their target price for the stock from $25.00 to $30.00 in a report on Wednesday, September 6th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $24.17.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on TOST

Toast Profile

(Free Report)

Toast, Inc operates a cloud-based digital technology platform for the restaurant industry in the United States and Ireland. The company offers Toast POS, a software module that integrates payment processing with point of sale functionality; Toast Invoicing that allows restaurants to send invoices and collect payment; Toast Mobile Order & Pay, which allows guests to scan a QR code to browse the menu, order, and pay from mobile; Kitchen Display System software that connects the house with the kitchen staff; and Multi-Location Management, a tool to manage operations and configure menus across multiple locations and channels.

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YAOUNDE, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- At least one civilian was killed in an attack launched by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, overnight into Thursday in Cameroon's Far North region, according to local and security sources.

The militants attacked Goldavi locality, the sources told Xinhua on condition of anonymity, adding that one person identified as Dayagoue was killed and three others are missing.

"It is probable that they were abducted by the militants," the sources said.

Boko Haram has increased attacks on civilians and the army since the start of this year, according to security and local media reports. 
Tiaa Fsb increased its stake in shares of Laboratory Co. of America Holdings (NYSE:LH  Free Report) by 86.8% in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 4,802 shares of the medical research companys stock after purchasing an additional 2,232 shares during the period. Tiaa Fsbs holdings in Laboratory Co. of America were worth $1,159,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. BlackRock Inc. boosted its position in shares of Laboratory Co. of America by 4.2% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 11,960,111 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $2,743,888,000 after purchasing an additional 485,342 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Laboratory Co. of America by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 10,859,128 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $2,863,118,000 after buying an additional 106,063 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in Laboratory Co. of America by 0.4% in the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,701,334 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $619,740,000 after buying an additional 11,259 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Laboratory Co. of America by 1.4% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,843,051 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $421,878,000 after buying an additional 26,197 shares during the period. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC boosted its position in Laboratory Co. of America by 532.2% in the 4th quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 1,530,675 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $360,441,000 after buying an additional 1,288,574 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.37% of the companys stock.

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Laboratory Co. of America Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:LH opened at $201.75 on Thursday. The companys fifty day moving average price is $206.50 and its 200 day moving average price is $216.78. Laboratory Co. of America Holdings has a 12 month low of $172.18 and a 12 month high of $222.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 2.35 and a quick ratio of 2.12. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.76 and a beta of 1.07.

Laboratory Co. of America Announces Dividend

Laboratory Co. of America ( NYSE:LH Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The medical research company reported $3.42 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.47 by ($0.05). Laboratory Co. of America had a return on equity of 14.62% and a net margin of 5.89%. The company had revenue of $3.03 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.77 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $4.96 earnings per share. Laboratory Co. of Americas revenue was up 3.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Laboratory Co. of America Holdings will post 13.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 8th will be paid a $0.72 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 7th. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.43%. Laboratory Co. of Americas dividend payout ratio is presently 31.07%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have commented on LH. Robert W. Baird decreased their price target on shares of Laboratory Co. of America from $251.00 to $237.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Monday, September 18th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Laboratory Co. of America in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Mizuho restated a buy rating and issued a $257.00 price objective on shares of Laboratory Co. of America in a report on Friday, September 15th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Laboratory Co. of America from $285.00 to $260.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 3rd. Finally, Credit Suisse Group reduced their price objective on shares of Laboratory Co. of America from $247.41 to $231.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Laboratory Co. of America has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $244.55.

View Our Latest Research Report on Laboratory Co. of America

Insider Buying and Selling at Laboratory Co. of America

In other Laboratory Co. of America news, Director Kerrii B. Anderson sold 5,000 shares of Laboratory Co. of America stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $211.57, for a total value of $1,057,850.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 15,275 shares in the company, valued at $3,231,731.75. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.65% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Laboratory Co. of America Profile

(Free Report)

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings operates as a life sciences company that provides vital information to help doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and patients make clear and confident decisions. It operates in two segments, Labcorp Diagnostics and Labcorp Drug Development.

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding LH? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Laboratory Co. of America Holdings (NYSE:LH  Free Report).

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Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, view an exhibit in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Peng Liyuan on Wednesday morning invited the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to visit the China National Arts and Crafts Museum. [Xinhua/Ding Lin]

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua)  Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, on Wednesday morning invited the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to visit the China National Arts and Crafts Museum.

At an exhibition hall of the museum, also known as the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum, Peng and the guests viewed exquisite crafts including jade and wood carvings as well as weaving and embroidery works.

They watched inheritors of intangible cultural heritage display such skills as embroidery and filigree mosaic, and listened to children from southwest China's Guizhou Province sing the Grand Song of the Dong ethnic group.

They were also briefed on traditional Chinese opera and the art of guqin, an ancient seven-stringed zither native to China, and enjoyed performance of guqin playing, Kunqu Opera and Peking Opera.

Noting that culture is the bond that keeps BRI participating countries together for unity and cooperation, Peng said she hopes that cultural interaction will be further strengthened to carry forward traditional friendships and achieve common development.

Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, view embroidery works in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Peng Liyuan on Wednesday morning invited the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to visit the China National Arts and Crafts Museum. [Xinhua/Yin Bogu]

Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, are briefed on traditional Chinese opera in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Peng Liyuan on Wednesday morning invited the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to visit the China National Arts and Crafts Museum. [Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan]

Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, pose for a group photo with performers in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Peng Liyuan on Wednesday morning invited the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to visit the China National Arts and Crafts Museum. [Xinhua/Ding Lin]

Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, pose for a group photo at the China National Arts and Crafts Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Peng Liyuan on Wednesday morning invited the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to visit the China National Arts and Crafts Museum. [Xinhua/Ding Lin]

Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, communicate with children who sang the Grand Song of the Dong ethnic group of southwest China's Guizhou Province, in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 18, 2023. Peng Liyuan on Wednesday morning invited the spouses of foreign leaders attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to visit the China National Arts and Crafts Museum. [Xinhua/Yin Bogu]

(Source: Xinhua)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the war between Israel and Hamas after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Wednesday, October 18, in Tel Aviv.
Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia were the top trading partners of Georgia in its total external trade turnover between January and September, preliminary data from the National Statistics office of Georgia shows, Azernews reports.

Georgia's exports to Azerbaijan amounted to $632.7 million, with figures for Armenia at $601.5 million and Russia at $511.8 million, while the top markets by imports were Turkey ($1.86 billion), the United States ($1.39 billion) and Russia ($1.36 billion).

The top export items were the following:

Motor vehicles - $1.56 billion (34.0%)

Copper ores and concentrates - $438.1 million (9.5%)

Wine of fresh grapes - $193.5 million (4.2%)

The three top import commodities included:

Motor vehicles - $2.28 billion (20.2 percent of the total imports)

Petroleum and petroleum oils - $816.4 million (7.2%)

Medicaments put up in measured doses - $392.4 million (3.5%)

Overall, Georgias external trade turnover amounted to $15.91 billion between January and February - a 16.5 percent increase compared to the same period of 2022.

The value of exports rose by 12.7 percent and equalled $4.60 billion, while imports also grew by 18.2 percent and reached $11.30 billion.
KIGALI, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Information and communications technology (ICT) experts attending the Mobile World Congress 2023 (MWC2023) in the Rwandan capital of Kigali have said African countries need to strengthen and speed up efforts in the deployment of 5G networks across the continent to revolutionize industries, enhance connectivity, and drive economic growth.

The meeting, held on Oct. 17-19, brought together more than 2,500 delegates, including political leaders, government officials, experts, representatives from the United Nations and the African Union, as well as dozens of technology companies and start-ups, among others, from across Africa and the world.

"The rollout and deployment of 5G is expected to contribute to the growth of Africa by creating jobs and improving incomes. The ecosystem surrounding the 5G economy is much more powerful than any other technology that preceded it in the realm of digital communications," Amir Abdelazim, a partner expert with Detecon Consulting, said in an interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of MWC2023 on Thursday.

He added that African countries should put in significant efforts to ensure the rapid deployment of 5G networks, unlocking unprecedented opportunities for innovation and economic development on the continent. "It is remarkable to see how startups in Africa are working to find innovative solutions that can catalyze the rollout of 5G."

Elizabeth Migwalla, vice president of international government affairs for Qualcomm, told Xinhua that the 5G standard is designed to enable new services and use cases across all sectors of the economy.

"It is the capabilities of 5G that make this transformation possible. When properly deployed and used, every sector of the economy can benefit from 5G, spanning from education and health to governance and transportation in Africa," she added.

While addressing the 5G session on the sidelines of the MWC2023, Li Tao, president of Huawei Southern Africa Wireless Business, emphasized that 5G technology has substantial potential to drive economic growth in Africa.

He noted that Huawei plays a crucial role in delivering 5G technology to the African continent. "5G can stimulate and promote the 5G industry further by enhancing various aspects, such as devices, ecosystem, and network."

The momentum for 5G is growing in Africa. However, the initial focus for 5G deployment is on urban areas and industrial locations, where there is a greater need for the technology, according to Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa's latest report by Global System for Mobile Communications, a global organization that unifies the mobile ecosystem. 
Palestinian children displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip walk in a UNDP-provided tent camp in Khan Younis on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan security forces discovered a huge cache of ammunition in north Afghanistan's Jawzjan province, Ali Mohammad Wasal, an army officer in the province, said on Thursday.

Acting on a tip-off, the security forces raided a rented house and discovered a variety of munitions, including 18 pieces of rocket projectiles and thousands of bullets, the official added.

"We have discovered these munitions via intelligence sources from a rented house and the contraband includes 18 projectiles of rocket and 2,540 bullets for machine guns in Jawzjan," Wasal said.

Without giving more details, he added that the security forces won't allow anyone to keep or carry arms illegally.

Security forces also seized arms and ammunition including two pieces of AKM assault rifles in Zazai Aryub district of eastern Paktia province days ago.

The Afghan caretaker government has vowed to collect arms and ammunition from anyone outside security organs as part of efforts to stabilize law and order in the war-ravaged country. 
Supporters of the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee at Royal Mail have responded to the appeal issued by the World Socialist Web Site, Mobilise workers and youth throughout the world against the Israels genocide!.

Israels horrific bombing of the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist hospital in Gaza City, killing more than 500 medical personnel, patients and refugees, is part of a genocidal war against the Palestinians backed by all the major imperialist powers.

A post office worker walks by Royal Mail vans, at the London's latest sorting office Mount Pleasant, September 12, 2013 [AP Photo/Alastair Grant]

The global protests that have erupted in defence of the Palestinians must be urgently expanded by workers to include industrial action against the Israeli war machine and its backers in Washington and London.

On Monday, Palestinian trade unions called on their counterparts around the world to take urgent action to defend the Palestinian people:

This urgent, genocidal situation can only be prevented by a massive increase in global solidarity with the people of Palestine and that can restrain the Israeli war machine. We need you to take immediate action, wherever you are in the world, to prevent the arming of the Israeli state.

The World Socialist Web Site calls on workers throughout the world to take up their call for global and targeted industrial action. We invite workers to send information and statements for publication using the form below.

****

Paul, a victimised union rep from Royal Mail in Englands Midlands explained: What the British government is doing in backing these atrocities by Israel against the Palestinians is a disgrace. Sunak has announced an extra 10 million in aid for the Palestinian people, but this is a drop in the ocean and how will it get to them anyway? The Tory government and Labour are backing collective punishment by cutting off water, food and fuel.

This is a war crime 100 percent. How can you have a Sir [Keir Starmer] who is the leader of what is meant to be a party for workers? Labour is a Conservative Party Mark II.

Who have the Palestinians got to defend them? Britain, America and all the NATO powers are backing Israel. The government is sending the Royal Navy to support Israel and US warships. This means Gaza can be attacked from two sidesthe land and sea. Look at what they have done to Iraq, there was no Weapons of Mass Destruction. The rebuilding of the country was not by or for the people. All the contracts went to the companies and outside powers only interested in oil.

We cannot lose sight of the fact that innocent people were killed by Hamas, but the Palestinians have suffered atrocities going back to 1948.

I see this as another example of class war. Israel is a rich country. The Palestinians were driven off their land and into the corners. You see adverts Come to Israel not Come to Palestine. I still find it hard to believe that Israel is carrying out crimes against the Palestinians which are not much different from what the Jews suffered during World War II by the Nazis. Starving people, depriving them of all the necessities of lifeessentially genocide.

I agree that workers should take industrial action to prevent the arms to Israel and the military build-up. If you look at the Vietnam War, mass protests in America played a big part in the US having to pull out.

It is important to get the message over that support for the Palestinians does not equal anti-Semitism. This is not about Jews against Palestinians or Arabs. This is not about religion or nationality. We should all be able to coexist and live in peace. But you cannot have that the way the world is run today. The top one percent want to control all the wealth and 99 percent of the people.

Ian, a Royal Mail worker in the northwest of England, strongly endorsed the call by workers to intervene and bring an end to the siege of Gaza: It is totally right to call for the working class internationally to come to the defence of the Palestinians. All the accusations of anti-Semitism and racism are a ruse to prevent ordinary working class people from getting involved. The protests around the world have been more than pockets of resistance.

There is no doubt that what is happening are war crimes by Israel. They are now heavily bombing the south of Gaza where people are trying to escape. This is a major land grab to drive the Gazans into the sea, backed by all the major powers.

I first became aware of the plight of the Palestinians in the 1990s, after leaving school with poor qualifications and went straight into work. This was through the trade union movement and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign [PSC] and reading graphic novels such as Joe Saccos Palestine. But the Communication Workers Union and all the trade unions have undermined any genuine solidarity. I joined the millions who marched against the Iraq War in 2003. I thought we were on the verge of real change, but these protests lost all momentum and petered out.

The Labour Party is just as guilty of these war crimes. Starmer is part of the same political establishment. At the recent Labour Party conference, the PSC fringe meeting was told they could not speak about Israeli apartheid against Palestinians, and members have been threatened with expulsion if they march and show support for the Palestinians. People are not going to be told by a far-right Tory government who they can support and have their right to protest taken away.

When they make these accusations of anti-Semitism it is also to hide their shame. During World War II they left the ships of Jewish refugees out at sea and refused them sanctuary and then abandoned the Palestinians with the founding of Israel. There are also two million Arabs in Israel who are treated as second class citizens under the Nation State Law.

The Ukraine war against Russia has been glorified, but the NATO powers have been assimilating fascists into the Ukrainian military. The government in Israel is made up of far-right and fascistic forces who incite against Arabs. None of these are friends of the Jewish people.

I fully agree with the need for the working class to halt the war machine. Dockers should refuse to handle arms shipments, and every sector of workers should get involved. The swords should be beaten into ploughshares. I think the powers-that-be have been shaken and this is a catalyst for long overdue change.

Keith, a delivery worker at Royal Mail in London, added his voice to the call for worldwide action against the gang-up by Britain and other major powers with Israel: I strongly condemn the imperialist-backed Zionist onslaught against Gaza!

The deliberate blockade of basic resources such as water and electricity is a war crime. In a densely populated area of 2.3 million people, the prospect of more mass deaths is only a few days away. The deliberate targeting of health workers in Gaza hospitals and the murder of Gazan health personnel is an unspeakable act of barbarism.

I call on all workers, including postal workers in Britain and worldwide, to oppose this slaughter and demand that Israel and its partner in crime, the United States, end this brutal war and keep its greedy hands off the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus bombing of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, which killed nearly 500 people, provoked protests by tens of thousands of people across Turkey. Yesterday, a presidential decree declared three days of national mourning.

Protesters outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, October 18, 2023.

In Turkey, as in Palestine and in many countries of the Middle East, spontaneous mass protests erupted in over twenty citiesincluding Istanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Adana, Malatya and Diyarbakir, immediately after the Israeli massacre was reported.

The demonstrators chanted slogans against Israel and the US and expressed support for the Palestinians. While a US flag was burned in Ankara, people gathered in Adana stoned the US consulate and tried to enter the building.

During a mass protest in front of the Israeli Consulate General in Istanbul, demonstrators threw fireworks at the building and tried to enter. Police responded with tear gas and water cannons. As a result of the police onslaught, 65-year-old Eshabil Tufekci died of a heart attack.

In a statement, the Istanbul Governorship said: A group of our citizens, who gathered to protest the Israeli bombardments against the civilians in Gaza, took action to enter the consulate building and attacked our security forces, buildings and the consulate with stones, sticks, torches and fireworks.  In order to prevent irreparable damage, our security forces intervened and prevented the group from entering the consulate building.

The Islamist Felicity Party released a statement on the death of Tufekci, stating: The honorable father of Nuri Tufekci, our deputy Istanbul provincial chairman of the Felicity Party, passed away as a result of a heart attack he suffered after being affected by tear gas in front of the Istanbul Consulate [of Israel].

Several protests also took place in front of the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul last night, with over 2,000 demonstrators taking part. The protest, during which members of the Socialist Equality Group distributed the statement of the WSWS Editorial Board, was called by the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK), Confederation of Public Workers Unions (KESK) and Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB).

Moreover, health care workers protested against the Israeli massacre at Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in many cities yesterday. According to the daily Evrensel, health care workers from the SES union demonstrated at the Istanbul Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty with a banner reading Palestinian people are not alone.

Aydn Erol, the workplace representative of the union, said in a statement: Imperialism somehow approves these massacres committed by Israel by keeping silent. Turkey has not taken a step back from its bilateral agreements with Israel so far. Workers and working people have to stand together with the Palestinian people. We want to express that Israel must put an end to these massacres.

The mass protest that erupted in the eastern city of Malatya on Tuesday night was particularly significant. Thousands of people gathered in the city centre and then drove in convoys to the US Kurecik Radar Station outside the city.

The daily Cumhuriyet reported that the police and gendarmerie took extensive security measures around the base and set up barricades to prevent protesters from approaching. The security forces then attacked the demonstrators with tear gas and water cannon.

The Kurecik radar base, built in 2012 for NATO use, is operated by the US Army. The early warning radar system is reportedly designed to protect not only NATO powers but also Israel.

In 2011, then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned the government of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for establishing the base, stating: The missile defense shield is aimed at defending the Zionist regime. They dont want our missiles to land in the occupied territories (Israel) if they attack us one day. Thats why they put it there.

On Tuesday night, the six main bourgeois parties in the Turkish parliament issued a joint statement condemning the hospital massacre. They called on world parliaments, the international community and organizations to take action and initiative to stop this atrocity, but there was no attempt from the parliament to take concrete steps to limit trade or military relations with Israel.

After the bombing of Gaza hospital, President Erdogan said on X/Twitter: Attacking a hospital with women, children and innocent civilians inside is the latest example of Israels attacks, which are devoid of the most basic human values. I call on all humanity to take action to stop this unprecedented atrocity in Gaza.

In his statement yesterday, Erdogan said that with the hospital massacre, Israels attacks had reached the level of genocide. He added that Israel was responsible for the massacre, as well as those who blow the coals, i.e., the US and other imperialist powers. Erdogan once again criticised Washington for sending aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean in preparation for war against Iran.

However, Erdogans criticism of Israel and the US only underlines the hypocrisy of his own government. Despite these tensions, Erdogan and previous Turkish governments have always maintained trade and military ties with Tel Aviv as part of a comprehensive military-strategic alliance with US imperialism, despite Israels decades-long, imperialist-backed persecution of the Palestinians.

More recently, the Turkish bourgeoisie re-normalized relations with the Netanyahu government, in line with its interests in exploiting oil and gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Erdogan government, aware of the very powerful pro-Palestinian sentiments within the population, is worried that Israels genocide in Gaza, and now the massacre at Al-Ahli Hospital, could trigger both mass protests at home and a regional war.

In a statement shortly before the massacre at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan expressed his governments concern, stating: Out of this war, bigger wars could arise, but it could also lead to a historic peace. Our president [Erdogan] believes a historic peace is possible and is working for it.

The claim that Turkeya NATO member and ally of Israel, and a state which has violently oppressed its own Kurdish people for decadesis working for peace is a fraud.

The decades-long persecution of the Palestinians and the wider war unfolding in the region and throughout the world have proved that historic peace is only possible through the mass mobilization of the working class in Palestine, Israel and throughout the world to overthrow imperialism and the reactionary capitalist regimes and establish workers power. This means fighting for a united socialist Palestine as part of a Socialist Federation of the Middle East.
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmers support for Israel war crimes in Gaza has provoked an avalanche of opposition from millions of people in Britain.

Last Wednesday, Starmer told LBC Radio, Israel has the right to do everything that it can to get those hostages back safe and sound, therefore Im very clear Israel must have, does have that right to defend herself and Hamas bears responsibility. Host Nick Ferrari asked, A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power? Cutting off water? Starmer replied, I think that Israel does have that right.

British Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tells LBC radio he supports Israel's collective punishment against 2.3 million civilians in Gaza [Photo: LBC radio screenshot]

Following Israels bombing of the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist hospital on Monday, Starmer tweeted at 9.35pm that evening, The scenes of hundreds killed at the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist hospital in Gaza are absolutely devastating and cannot be justified. International law must be upheld. Hospitals and civilian lives must be protected.

Starmers pro-forma statement that did not even mention Israel, or its brutal assault, met with a torrent of hostile comments, with close to 12,000 posted in direct response, overwhelmingly supportive of the Palestinians. Comments included, Hypocrite, Resign, Crocodile tears, You encouraged it, You promoted it, You stood on the wrong side of history. You and Rishi Sunak are equally responsible, You have blood on your hands, You are a genocide and war crimes enabler. Without doubt you should be dragged to the international criminal courts and tried like a criminal.

Some of these responses were themselves retweeted multiple tens of thousands of times, with overall views of the Starmer tweet and those opposed reaching more than 6.6 million in under 24 hours.

After shedding a few crocodile tears over the hospital bombing deaths in parliament at Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday, Starmer again went along with Rishi Sunaks government declaration that there should be no rush to judgement as to who bombed the hospital, asking only if Sunak had an update on the matter.

A tweet by Starmer following PMQs made no mention of the hospital bombing, stating, In this time of grave crisis, Westminster must speak with one voice. Against terror. In support of Israels right to self-defence.

Starmers doubling down on his support for Israeli war crimes now directly threatens his leadership of the Labour Party and places the election of a Labour government next year, widely predicted just weeks ago, in question.

The immediate political fallout is devastating. Such is the crisis that Labour could soon lose control of one of its city council strongholds, Leicester, for the first time in 16 years. Labour has controlled the council of the East Midlands city, which has a population of more than 357,000, for 43 of the last 50 years. The Telegraph reported, Last week, seven of the citys Muslim councillors published a letter unequivocally distancing themselves from Sir Keirs remarks and urging him to apologise. An insider said Labours representatives were coming under huge pressure from constituents to resign the whip over the Labour leaders stance. The source said, I have never seen so much disdain from the local Muslim voting public towards the Labour Party as I have done over this week This has gone beyond difficult.

Leicester would only be the beginning. Labour has more than 6,300 Labour councilors in England, Scotland and Wales. Among the more than 500 councillors of all parties identifying as Muslim, 75 percent represent the Labour Party.

In Walsall, just 50 miles from Leicester in the West Midlands, nine Muslim councillors signed a statement October 11 declaring their opposition to the leader of the Labour Partys failure to reject Israels collective punishment of civilians in Gaza.

Labour has historically enjoyed overwhelming support among Muslims who make up a significant proportion of the UK population. The numbers identified as Muslim increased from 4.9 percent of the population (2.7 million) in the 2011 census to 6.5 percent (3.9 million) in 2021. Many live in the major towns and cities where Labours electoral support is concentrated. According to a Survation analysis, 86 percent of Muslims said they had voted Labour in the most recent General Election, in 2019.

The Telegraph reported, There are 31 constituencies held by Labour MPs with predominantly Muslim communities, of which 17 are represented by frontbenchers. MPs who could be under threat at the next election include Angela Rayner, the deputy leader and Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary. Shabana Mahmood, Lucy Powell, Liz Kendall and Jonathan Ashworth, all members of the shadow cabinet, also represent such seats.

Several Labour councillors, not all Muslims, have already resigned.

Two councillors in Oxford quit last week, denouncing Starmers horrifying rhetoric. Asima Shaikh, from Londons Finsbury Park district, also stood down. A councillor in the Ardwick district of Manchester, Amna Abdullatif quit, stating she had no choice other than to resign the Labour whip and resign from the Labour party due to Keir Starmer and a number of his senior frontbench making horrifying comments about Israel having the right to withhold fuel, water, food and electricity from the 2.2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, effectively endorsing a war crime.

Others who have quit include Gloucester City Councillor Usman Bhaimia, Jessie Hoskin who represented Cainscross on Stroud District Council, Mairead Healy from the Romsey ward at Cambridge City Council, and two Labour representatives in Nottinghamshire, Russell Whiting at Gedling Borough Council and Nadia Farhat at Nottingham City Council.

The Telegraph reported, David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, held a video call with Labour council leaders from around the UK on Monday night in an attempt to quell the rebellion. But the talks were said to have gone badly, with participants warning that Sir Keir had days to change his approach or face more resignations.

The desertion of Labour councillors is dwarfed by the scale of hostility aroused by Starmer and his fellow political criminals. In another indication of the mass opposition, thousands of Muslim councillors, imams, doctors, Kings Counsel and other professionals have signed an open letter to Starmer, noting the unwavering determination by Israel to obliterate Gaza, resulting in immense suffering and loss of life. Your public support for these actions raises concerns, including supporting international war crimes.

It adds, Your statement on the evening of 14/10/2023 [in which Starmer defended Israels move to deny water, electricity and humanitarian aid to the besieged residents of Gaza] has exacerbated these concerns, seemingly disregarding the real and grave possibility of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

It concludes, If these concerns are not adequately addressed, your position as the Leader of the Labour Party will become untenable for the Muslim community. We are deeply saddened to convey that, in such circumstances, Muslims will not vote for the Labour Party in the next General Election should you remain Leader.

Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to oppose Israeli genocide and in defence of the Palestinians, only to be denounced as supporters of terrorism and threatened with mass arrests by the Conservative government. This has only reinforced the hatred of millions towards the Tories. Now over six million people have taken an active part in a discussion of Labours war crimes, demands for Starmers political scalp and calls to break with the party described earlier by Young Labours National Executive Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic officer Lubaba Khalid as no longer a safe space for Palestinians and Muslims.

The political parties upholding capitalist rule in Britain, their hands dripping with blood, have discredited themselves irrevocably in the eyes of millions. Britain is drawing ever closer to an eruption of social opposition and radicalisation that will produce a fundamental political realignment in the working class on an anti-imperialist and socialist axis.
The Socialist Equality Party denounces the British authorities menacing detention of Craig Murray under repressive anti-terror laws. The human rights activist and former British diplomat was detained and questioned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act at Glasgow Airport on Monday.

Murray was returning from Iceland where he met with senior figures in the Julian Assange defence campaign. On Sunday, he joined a protest called by the Palestine Solidarity Committee outside the parliament in Reykjavik against Israels genocidal war on Gaza.

Craig Murray speaking at a public meeting in London in defence of Julian Assange

Murray has campaigned prominently for the freedom of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, incarcerated without charge in Londons HMP Belmarsh maximum-security prison. Assange faces imminent extradition to the United States, under the Espionage Act, for his courageous exposure of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The charges against him by the US government carry a prison term of 175 years, effectively a death sentence.

Three unnamed counter-terrorism officers interrogated 65-year-old Murray for an hour, seizing his laptop and electronic devices.

Murray told Grayzone he was questioned intensively about his political beliefs, First, they grilled me about the private Assange Campaign meeting all the questions were financial, including whether I get money for my contributions to the Campaign, if I get paid by WikiLeaks, Dont Extradite Assange, even Julians family.

He answered no to each of these questions, telling reporter Kit Klarenberg, My sources of income and where my money comes from were of particular interest to the officers.

Klarenberg was himself detained under anti-terror laws in May after he wrote articles exposing British military operations targeting Russias Kerch Bridge. The bridges bombing last October was immediately pinned on Russian armed forces, and used to ratchet-up NATOs war against Russia in the Crimea.

Grayzone reports that counter-terror officers also questioned Murray about his popular blog, demanding to know whether anyone else had access to it or could publish content on the platform, and if anyone other than himself authored any of its posts.

British authorities have targeted Murray over his vocal opposition to Israels assault on Gaza, armed and financed by the US and British governments. Officers demanded to know why Murray had attended the pro-Palestinian protest in Iceland and what the speakers on the platform had said. Murray explained he does not speak Icelandic.

On X/Twitter, Murray has exposed the complicity of the imperialist powers with Israels murderous siege. Responding to European Union President Ursula von der Leyens visit to Israel on October 13, where she denounced Hamas as a terrorist organisation, Murray wrote, You have turned up to give cover and support to genocide.

He later wrote, To be entirely plain. I have always viscerally opposed war. I have dedicated my life to conflict resolution and reconciliation. But in the coming Gaza genocide, every act of armed resistance by Hamas and Hezbollah will have my support. If that is a crime, send me back to jail.

In July 2021, Murray received an unprecedented eight-month prison sentence over jigsaw identification of witnesses in the failed sexual assault trial of former Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond. Murrays imprisonment was payback for his role in defending Assange.

On Monday, counter-terror police demanded to know whether Murray would attend future pro-Palestinian protests, to which he replied probably. He said they also asked him, how do I judge whether to share a platform with someone or not?

Murrays interrogation has an unmistakable meaning: domestic opposition to Israels war of annihilation against the Palestinians in Gazabacked to the hilt by the British government and the Labour Partyis being criminalised. His detention is part of preparations to ban protests, order mass arrests of workers and young people who oppose Israels war crimes in Gaza, and prosecute those posting and sharing information in defence of the Palestinians.

WikiLeaks editor in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson posted on X/Twitter on Tuesday, I am horrified to learn of this abuse of the Terrorism Act against a friend and #Assange supporter that I invite to Iceland to discuss the campaign to save Julian and press freedom. This is a serious issue and examples of misuse of the Terrorism Act in recent months against artists, writers, journalists and activists are piling up.

The British government is pressing into service the battery of anti-terror laws introduced after 9/11 to eviscerate democratic rights. Murray was detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act (2000). In April, British counter-terrorism officers detained and interrogated French publisher Ernest Moret for two days under the same schedule over his participation in mass protests against French President Macron. Klarenberg was detained in May, under Schedule 3, Section 4 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Act (2019).

In recent months, the British government has adopted a raft of new laws, including the Public Order Act (2023), the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022), the Online Safety Bill (2023) and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act (2023) which hand sweeping powers to the state to ban protest, suppress free speech, enforce online censorship and outlaw industrial action in essential industries.

The turn by the ruling class to naked state repression will only serve to inflame mass popular indignation, anger and protest. The global movement of the working class against austerity, dictatorship and imperialist war must be unified across national borders in the fight for world socialism. It must inscribe on its banner the demand: Free Julian Assange!
China convened the third international forum of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Beijing over the past two days as the US escalates the NATO war on Russia in Ukraine and has thrown its full support behind Israels genocidal war on the Palestinian population of Gaza. Some 130 countries sent representatives, along with various international bodies, including the United Nations.

President of China Xi Jinping, center, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, second left, attend the China-Africa Leaders' Roundtable Dialogue on the last day of the BRICS Summit in South Africa, Aug. 24, 2023. [AP Photo/Alet Pretorius]

The summit marks ten years since Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the BRI plan to expand Beijings global economic and political influence. It involves a massive injection of Chinese funds into infrastructure projects, including rail, road, energy, ports and telecommunications, linking the Eurasian landmass by roadthe Silk Road Economic Beltand by seathe Maritime Silk Road.

In particular, the BRI was aimed at countering the pivot to Asia launched by US President Barack Obama in 2011 aimed at undermining and encircling China. A decade on, the US confrontation with China has dramatically accelerated under Trump and now Biden into economic warfare and advanced preparations for military conflict.

Even as the summit was convening, the US announced a new round of bans on the sale of advanced computer chips to China aimed at crippling its hi-tech industries and the development of artificial intelligence applications.

In initiating the BRI, Beijing made an appeal to the European powers not only to develop closer economic relations with China and throughout Eurasia but, by implication, to distance themselves from Washingtons increasingly aggressive methods.

None of the major European countries, however, had significant representation at this weeks BRI forumHungarian prime minister Viktor Orban being the most prominent European figure. The European imperialist powers have all joined in the US-NATO war on Russia in a bid to share in the spoils of the conflict.

At the same time, US aggression is driving Russia, China and other countries targeted by Washington together economically and strategically. Russian President Vladimir Putin was prominent among the guests at the BRI forum on his first visit since just prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

The accelerating rise of geo-political tensions has fuelled moves by the US to decouple from Chinathe worlds largest manufacturer. As it prepares for war, the Pentagon is making sure that US supply chains for critical raw materials and components are not dependent on China, as well as ensuring it retains its superiority in weaponry.

Decoupling, or de-risking as has now become the more fashionable term, threatens to fracture the world economy into blocs akin to those that developed prior to World War II. Moreover, given the far greater global integration than in the 1930s, such processes could have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences, compounding the crisis of world capitalism.

Speaking at the BRI forum yesterday, President Xi declared: We stand against unilateral sanctions, economic coercion, decoupling and supply chain disruption. He pledged to deepen cooperation in green infrastructure, energy and transportation, and put forward global initiative for artificial intelligence (AI) governance.

Following Xis speech, the Chinese foreign ministry said Beijing would call for the UN to establish a body to regulate AI, adding, without naming the US, that it opposed the malicious obstructing of AI development in other countries.

By the end of the forum yesterday, nearly $100 billion worth of BRI projects had been announced. Their focus appears to have shifted from major construction projects towards hi-tech developments including digital finance and e-commerce. Much of the money was directed to countries in South East Asia and the Pacific as well as to the Middle East and Africa.

The BRI is just one component of Chinas strategy to counter aggressive US efforts to undermine it on every frontdiplomatically, economically and strategically.

At the August summit in South Africa of BRICSBrazil, Russia, India, China and South AfricaChina succeeded in pushing through an expansion of the group which will include Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as of the beginning of next year. Other countries such as Nigeria, Mexico, Venezuela and Vietnam could be added later.

The increase will strengthen both the economic and political weight of the grouping. Among the subjects discussed was decreasing reliance on the US dollar for trade and finance. The manner in which Washington has increasingly used the global dominance of the US dollar as a weapon against targeted countries has raised concerns among many countries, including close American allies such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Those fears were heightened when the Biden administration froze Russian central bank accounts following the invasion of Ukraine.

China has, in particular, sought to boost its relations in the Middle East, on which it is heavily dependent for energy imports. Significantly, Beijing brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and its arch regional rival, Iran, in March to resume diplomatic relations which were broken off in 2016 following the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.

Amid Israels savage onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, backed to the hilt by Washington, China has toughened its stance in line with the outpouring of opposition and protests in the Middle East and around the world.

Initially, Beijing called for restraint and an immediate end to hostilities. Foreign ministry spokespeople on several occasions declared that China condemned acts that harm civiliansequating the criminal violence of the Israeli military with that of the Palestinian uprisingand reiterated support for the bogus two-state solution.

As in the past, China sought to balance between Israel, with which it has economic and political ties, and the appearance of support for the Palestinian people, so as maintain relations with the various bourgeois Middle Eastern regimes.

Over last weekend, however, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi took a more critical approach to Israel. While stopping short of outright condemnation, he declared that Israels bombing campaign had gone beyond the scope of self-defence and that it should stop collective punishment of the people of Gaza.

No doubt his comments were pitched to the Middle Eastern delegates who were due to arrive in Beijing for the BRI forum.
Around two thousand people crowded into the gym and all around the parking lot of the Prairie Activity and Recreation Center in Plainfield on Tuesday to recognize the life and death of Wadea al-Fayoume. Fayoume was a Palestinian-American 6-year-old murdered last Saturday by his 71-year old landlord in a vicious hate crime. Wadeas mother, Hanaan Shahin, was also grievously injured in the attack. Hundreds attended the boys funeral on Monday, and many, many more were present at the vigil the next day.

A section of the audience at the vigil for Wadea al-Fayoume

The White House, Justice Department and leading Illinois Democrats have stepped in to attempt to control the narrative and obscure their partys role in the murder, as the Biden administration intensifies its support for the genocidal war on Gaza. Earlier that same day, Israel Defense Forces struck a hospital a Netanyahu government spokesperson initially took credit for, claiming it was a Hamas cell location, before deleting his post on X/Twitter.

As the horrific civilian casualties became evident, the official media and government narrative shifted to claim Hamas had struck the hospital. The siege that began in retaliation against the October 7 Gaza uprising has set off protests internationally, with millions demonstrating in recent days, including hundreds of American Jews who traveled to Washington, DC to demand an immediate ceasefire.



Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appeared at the boys funeral yesterday, and the FBI and the Department of Justices Civil Rights Division are reportedly investigating the attacks, emphasizing the influence of right-wing talk radio on Czuba.

Everything was done to attempt to silence opposition to the war and obscure what really happened to Wadea. Vigil organizers attempted to limit the views that could be expressed, warning at the beginning of the presentations, If your feelings get too big, take a break, go outside.



A representative from the White House was introduced, Dilawar Syed, the Deputy Administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration, as a prominent Muslim appointee of Biden. He said, Pres. Biden has been clear, there is no room for hate At this, the crowd could contain their disgust no longer.



Loud boos erupted and shouts of Your president has blood on his hands! and What about the fake news?

Wadeas grandfather addressed the crowd to speak about how the ideological atmosphere of total war resulted in his grandsons murder. He said, Our loss of our son, this gentleman [Czuba] was one of the best friends of the family. He loved him, brought him toys, treated him as a grandkid, but unfortunately the wrong message when it comes to certain people becomes a killing machine



Our media, our Congress, even our president. They come out and give us wrong info, wrong details, and it goes into their mind. So, this gentleman went from one of the best men to that child  and when we heard it, we couldnt believe it.

World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke with many participants, some agreeing to appear on camera and noting that to do so was an important political decision and referring to the doxxing and harassment taking place.

Six women spoke with the WSWS on condition of anonymity and explained that they left the event early when the organizer asked those who did not agree with the prohibition on politics to remain silent.



If youre emotional, step out, one young woman said. Insulting. We left! We all left. As soon as we heard were blessed to have the representative from the White House, we were gone. Were out.

One older woman described her anger and sorrow at the siege taking place: Peoples lives matter! Its not right to do this. The Jewish people tell about what Hitler did to them. Theyre doing the same things. How? How can you? Its heartbreaking.

A young woman said, Its extremely insensitive that they had a White House representative come when we all know the stance of the president.



Then an older woman added, Hes sent all these weapons to kill innocent people. People who have been fighting for seventy years for their land.

Another young woman said, There was no mention of Palestine in the vigil. There was not much mention of the war. It was kind of turned into a narrative about Plainfield, when its a much bigger issue theyre failing to address.



Yeah exactly, one of the older women said. Its not a conflict, its an occupied place. Theyre defending their land.



A young woman said, We spoke with someone who was planning to do a speech tonight, and they let us know that it was almost like they were revising it and making sure that certain things werent said. Like obviously mentioning Palestine. It feels like this was filtered.






On Wednesday, Representative Jim Jordan (Republican, Ohio) failed for the second time in two days to secure the votes required to become Speaker of the House. Jordans vote actually declined to 199 from the 200 he won on Tuesday, leaving him 18 votes shy of the 217 required to win a majority in the chamber.

As on Tuesday, all 212 House Democrats voted for Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, meaning Jordan could afford to lose only four of the 221 Republican votes in the narrowly divided chamber. In fact, the number of Republicans who voted against Jordan increased from 20 on Tuesday to 22 on Wednesday, as four who had voted for Jordan the previous day voted instead for other Republicans, more than offsetting the one Jordan voter who was absent on Tuesday and the two who flipped and moved into his camp in the latest ballot.

Jordan, a far-right ally of ex-President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Jordans bid for the speakership, vowed to continue his effort to win the post, announcing a third vote for Thursday. However, his prospects seem increasingly remote, as more House Republicans are threatening to desert his camp, warning of the political costs of extending the paralysis of the House, and therefore Congress as a whole, which cannot consider or pass legislation without a speaker.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, shakes hands with President Donald Trump as he arrives at Lima Allen County Airport, Wednesday, March 20, 2019, in Lima, Ohio. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The House has been at an impasse since October 3, when a small group of far-right Republicans led by Floridas Matt Gaetz, backed by Trump, called a motion to vacate and removed Republican California Representative Kevin McCarthy from the speakers office. This was in retaliation for McCarthys agreeing to a bipartisan deal with the Democrats to avert a government shutdown on October 1 and pass a stop-gap spending bill that keeps the federal government running until November 17.

Following McCarthys removal, Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana won majority support within the Republican Conference to succeed him, but Scalise pulled out when it became clear that members even further to the right than he would block his election in a vote on the floor of the House, at which point Jordan announced his candidacy and won the Republican nomination in an internal vote.

The very fact that Jordan, a fascistic political provocateur and co-conspirator with Trump to overturn the 2020 election, could be nominated by the GOP as House Speaker testifies to the violent and ongoing lurch of the entire political system to the right. It is one symptom of the terminal breakdown of American democracy, as US imperialism wages war against Russia over Ukraine, arms Israel in its genocidal war against the Palestinians, and prepares for war against China.

But Jordan reflects the transformation of the Republican Party as a whole into a fascistic party. The entire leadership of the GOP in the House, including McCarthy, Scalise and Jordan, voted with two-thirds of House Republicans in the early morning hours of January 7, 2021 against certifying Bidens victory in the Electoral College votehours after Trumps insurrectionists had ended their siege of the US Capitol.

Emboldened by the cowardice and duplicity of Biden and the Democratic Party, who have refused to hold Trump and his Republican co-conspirators accountable, seeking instead bipartisan unity in conducting the war against Russia, Jordan has become a dominant figure in US politics. As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he has presided over impeachment investigations into Bidens shady business relations with his son, Hunter, led investigations of federal and state prosecutors who have indicted Trump, and pursued a far-right agenda of violent attacks on immigrants, criminalization of abortion and persecution of left-wing and progressive ideas.

Jordan advocates the gutting of social programs on which tens of millions of American workers rely, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This, however, is a basic plank of the Republican agenda.

A co-founder of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, Jordan was Trumps key contact in Congress in plotting to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. He defied a subpoena to testify before the House January 6 Committee.

January 6 Committee Co-Chair Liz Cheney, the former Republican Representative from Wyoming, said earlier this month: Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for January 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives. Jim Jordan was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election.

Cassidy Hutchinson, former top aide to Trumps Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, said recently, Jim Jordan was privy to about everything, if not everything, pertaining to January 6.

None of this, however, would prevent his being elevated to the position of House Speaker, denoted in the US Constitution as the second in line to the presidency after the vice president. The focus of opposition from the Democrats and a section of House Republicans to Jordans becoming Speaker is his stated opposition, again in line with the positions of Trump, to further military aid to Ukraine.

The Democrats did nothing to oppose the ousting of McCarthy as House Speaker earlier this month because he had adapted to opposition among far-right House Republicans to US-NATO escalation of the war against Russia, refusing to include additional military aid in the continuing resolution that averted a government shutdown and backtracking on his secret agreement to pass a separate Ukraine spending bill.

As the World Socialist Web Site wrote in a statement on McCarthys removal posted on October 4, the Democrats were prepared to concede to Republican demands for more money and more brutal measures to crack down on refugees at the US/Mexican border in return for guarantees on Ukraine war funding. We wrote that the Democrats will collaborate with the domestic agenda of the Republicans in exchange for guarantees that funding for Ukraine is untouchable. The Democrats have no problems working with fascists in the Republican Party; after all, they are in an alliance with fascists in Ukraine.

And indeed, on that very day, Biden announced he had ordered the construction of a 20-mile extension of Trumps border wall along a section of the US-Mexico border.

That the same issueguaranteed funding for the escalation of the war against Russiaremains central to the ongoing crisis in the House of Representatives emerged clearly in the floor votes Monday and Tuesday on Jordans bid to become Speaker. In his remarks in support of Jordan on Wednesday, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the chair of the powerful Rules Committee, stressed the agreement between the two parties on support for Israels war on Gaza. Noticeably, however, he was silent on Ukraine.

Speaking in opposition to Jordan and in support of Jeffries, California Rep. Pete Aguilar made a point of Coles silence on Ukraine, saying: My colleague and good friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma, mentioned  supporting assistance to Israel. But what he left out was assistance to Ukraine, which Aguilar defined as a central national security objective.

This was framed, as are all of the Democrats interventions in the crisis over the House Speaker, from the standpoint of promoting moderation, compromise and bipartisanship so as to end the paralysis in Congress, avert a government shutdown when the stopgap spending bill ends on November 17, and establish a united home front in the expanding wars around the world.

Jeffries has repeatedly called on Republican moderates to unite with the Democrats in a bipartisan coalition. He has strongly hinted that the Democrats would support proposals to expand the powers of the temporary House Speaker, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a close ally of McCarthy, until January or even April in order to pass bills to fund the war in Ukraine, provide expanded military aid to Israel, step up military operations in support of Taiwan and increase funds to seal the southern border.

In particular, the Biden administration has made it clear it intends to propose a bundled package of military and border funding totaling $100 billion. Asked if Democrats would support expanding McHenrys powers to temporarily end the crisis in Congress so that legislation could be passed, Jeffries said there were informal conversations that have accelerated over the last few days. He added that McHenry was respected on our side of the aisle.
In a perverse and intimidatory campaign, sections of the Australian political and media establishment are slandering the Greens as anti-Semitic solely because they have condemned Israels bombardment of Gaza and called for it to end.

Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi speaks at Sydney rally on October 15, 2023 [Photo by Consortium News / CC BY 3.0

The denunciations have only intensified since Israel bombed the Al Ahli Arab Hospital, killing more than 500 civilians, in one of the worst war crimes of the century. That underscores the sinister and fraudulent character of the official campaign. It is not directed against anti-Semitism but is in support of Israels genocidal war, which recalls nothing so much as the horrors of the Nazi regime.

An editorial this morning in the Australian, the Murdoch medias national flagship, thundered: The Greens anti-Semitism in federal parliament must be condemned.

This was coupled with a tortured defence of the Israeli military and a repetition of its absurd lies that Palestinian rockets, not an Israeli bomb, had hit the Gaza hospital. No Palestinian group has ever possessed a bomb with the power of that which ripped through the hospital. Israel has been bombing medical and humanitarian facilities in Gaza for the past week. Its leaders have denounced Gazans as animals deserving of collective punishment.

The Australian ignored all of this, instead claiming that Israel had a stake in minimising civilian casualties lest they be used as propaganda fodder by enemies of the Zionist regime. Every aspect of the argument is obscene. Its authors are signalling that there is no crime by Israel they will not support and cover for.

The editorial went on to denounce Israels enemies in Australia, especially the Greens, whose vile anti-Semitism has surfaced since Hamas attacked Israeli civilians on October 7.

It said: Greens Tasmanian senator Nick McKim made the absurd claim that Israel was not acting in self-defence in response to Hamas.

McKim had stated: It is unconscionable that the Senate would vote to stand with Israel while innocent Palestinians are being slaughtered by the state of Israel. Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi told the Senate: Remove your colonial blinkers for one minute and have a look at the truth.

On Monday, Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition came together to pass a frothing motion in the House of Representatives, giving Israel carte blanche to proceed with its levelling of Gaza. There, and in the Senate yesterday, Greens amendments condemning the Israeli bombardment and labelling it as a war crime were voted down by overwhelming margins.

The line advanced most starkly by the Australian was set by Labors Defence Minister Richard Marles, who branded the Greens amendment on Monday as despicable.

The atmosphere being whipped up is that of a police state. Condemning Israels war crimes is being declared impermissible. Even democratically-elected parliamentary representatives are branded as enemies of Israel.

In the context of the Israeli states murderous rampage and its well-documented history of dirty tricks against political opponents, including assassinations abroad, the enemy designation has the most sinister connotations. What, exactly, is the Australian calling for? At the very least, there is a clear suggestion that the Greens should somehow be drummed out of parliament.

While the Greens may be in the immediate firing line, the more fundamental target is the massive opposition among ordinary people, who are horrified by what is being perpetrated in Gaza.

To the extent that the Greens have made statements condemning Israel, they have been a response to this groundswell of sentiment from below. Given the genocidal character of what Israel is perpetrating, perhaps the most striking feature of the Greens comments is their tepid and limited character.

The Greens, as the Australian and the political establishment know, are hardly militant anti-war activists or revolutionary opponents of the status quo. They are a centre-left party whose primary aspiration is to hold the balance of power in parliament so as to collaborate more closely with the big business Labor Party. That has included a growing support for Australian militarism under conditions in which the Labor government is playing a frontline role in US-led plans for war with China.

The accusation that the Greens and all opponents of Israel are anti-Semitic is an obscenity aimed at shutting down any criticism of Israels bombardment.

Anti-Semitism has been associated throughout the current epoch with the far-right and its attempts to crush the resistance of the working class to imperialist war and capitalist oppression. Nazism was the creation of German capitalism and its ruling elites, not the oppressed Arab and Palestinian masses.

It is hardly a leap of the imagination to suggest that if they were transported back to the 1930s, those currently cheering on the genocidal decimation of Gaza would have similarly supported the fascist slaughter of oppressed Jews. Indeed, in the context of the fraudulent war on terror and a relentless official demonisation of Muslims over the past 20 years, contemporary neo-Nazi and fascist groups combine their traditional anti-Semitism with virulent Islamophobia.

The very outlets now railing against anti-Semitism in the context of the Israeli states actions have supported the US-NATO proxy war against Russia, the ground troops of which are substantially composed of Ukrainian neo-Nazis. That was epitomised last month by the standing ovation given by the Canadian parliament to a 98-year-old Ukrainian war criminal who fought with the Waffen-SS. Anyone who has pointed to the Ukrainian states deep ties to Nazism has been slandered as a Russian stooge.

The campaign around anti-Semitism has nothing to do with defending the Jewish people or opposing prejudice against them. What could be more calculated to whip up anti-Jewish sentiment than to assert that opposing the bombing of a hospital is anti-Semitic? In fact, tens of thousands of Jewish people have taken to the streets worldwide to oppose Israels bombardment, with many pointedly demanding that their own tragic history not be exploited and misappropriated to justify another genocide.

What is underway in the pages of the Australian and elsewhere is a particularly cynical effort at political reframing. The legitimate struggle of the Palestinians against imperialist oppression and occupation is being falsely depicted as a religiously-grounded conflict between Muslims and Jews. The clear aim is to whip up a poisonous atmosphere of communalism, whatever the consequences for ordinary Jews, in order to blackguard the Palestinian struggle.

The fraudulent character of this campaign was underlined by the remarks of Ed Husic, Labors Minister for Industry and Science, in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation interview this morning.

Husic branded Israels bombing and its blockade of essential supplies to Gaza as collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Under international law, that is a war crime. He noted that Australian landmarks, such as the Opera House, were not being lit up with the Palestinian colours, as they were with the Israeli flag after the Hamas military operation.

Questioned by the interviewer, Husic insisted that his comments did not mark a deviation from the governments line of full support for Israel. He repeated the denunciations of the Palestinian uprising, branding it as terrorism.

Husics comments are nevertheless noteworthy. A senior minister has, in effect, admitted that his government is supporting unfolding war crimes.

Husic is a careerist politician who has been in the pro-war Labor Party for decades. His remarks reflect a fear of the mounting opposition and anger over the Israeli onslaught, including in his own seat in the working-class western suburbs of Sydney.

That opposition, however, will find no way forward through the Labor Party, the Greens or the political establishment as a whole. The support of the political and media set-up for Israels genocidal actions is a warning to the working class that there are no lines the Australian ruling elite will not cross, both in its support for US-led military operations, including the preparations for war with China, and in the suppression of growing domestic opposition.

Workers must oppose the vicious slander campaigns and defend all those who come under attack as part of the fight to build a powerful international mobilisation that can halt the destruction of Gaza. Above all, the situation points to the urgency of building a revolutionary movement of the working class against the capitalist order, which is tobogganing toward war and barbarism.
SYDNEY, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- A light plane crashed in the Australian state of Queensland on Thursday, with the pilot onboard confirmed dead.

Queensland Police said in a statement that the aircraft plunged into a field in Palgrave near Warwick, a rural town in the state's southeast.

"At around 12:15 p.m. local time, a transmission was received that a light plane was experiencing trouble," Acting Inspector Paula Smithard told reporters.

The pilot, who is believed to be the sole occupant of the plane at that time, did not survive the crash.

Police noted that investigators will work with officials from Recreational Aviation Australia to determine the cause of the crash.

A spokesperson from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau revealed to local media that the bureau had received notification of the crash but was not investigating, as the plane involved was a "kit-built aircraft." 
Half a million Quebec public sector workers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of an unlimited strike in response to the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) provincial governments demands for huge real wage cuts, cuts to pensions, and increased workloads. And in coming days, tens of thousands of Quebec nurses will do likewise.

The strikes votes and the hardline response of Quebec Premier Francois Legault underscore that a head-on clash between a decisive battalion of the working class and the CAQ government is fast approaching. Its outcome will be of major consequence for workers, public and private sector alike, in Quebec and across Canada.

Section of the 100,000-strong Sept. 23 demonstration of Quebec public sector workers

On Tuesday, the Common Frontan inter-union alliance that is the bargaining representative for 425,000 hospital orderlies, healthcare professionals, public school teachers, school board employees and CEGEP (junior college) personnelannounced that the rank and file have voted 95 percent in favour of authorizing an unlimited strike.

In a separate vote concluded at the end of last month, the 65,000 members of the Federation autonome de lenseignement (FAE-Autonomous Education Federation) also voted overwhelmingly to walk out indefinitely. The FAE negotiates on behalf of 65,000 primary and high school teachers, including a majority of those in the Montreal and Quebec City regions.

The provinces principal nurses union, the Federation interprofessionnelle de la sante (FIQ), has called an online referendum of its 80,000 members on Oct. 24-25 seeking authorization for an unlimited strike. According to FIQ, the referendum on an all-out strike will be the first such vote in almost a generation.

As in the past, the FIQ leadership has divided nurses from other public sector workers on the false grounds nurses are a special case and sought to cut a separate deal with a right-wing Quebec government determined to impose social spending cuts and contract concessions. On Oct. 11, in an implicit admission of the failure of this strategy, some 500 FIQ delegates voted by more than 99 percent to ask the rank and file for a strike mandate.

The avowedly pro-big business, Quebec First CAQ government has responded to the increasingly militant mood among public sector workers by doubling down on its concession demands.

In her first remarks after 100,000 Common Front members and supporters demonstrated in Montreal last month, Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel demanded the unions dramatically pare down their demands at the province-wide central bargaining tables to five or six. LeBel claimed the government would do the same and all with the aim of accelerating negotiations. In fact, this is a stratagem Quebec governments have repeatedly used to sideline workers grievances over the ruinous impact decades of austerity have had on their working conditions.

Soon after, FIQ officials revealed that while they had withdrawn many demands, the government had introduced new ones, including the abolition of overtime pay for nurses working less than a 37.5 hour workweek. The CAQ government is also insisting that to plug staffing shortages, health authorities need the flexibility to redeploy nurses at will from one institution to another, irrespective of professional experience and seniority. This will both disrupt workers lives and put patients at risk.

Legault responded to the release of the Common Front strike vote results with arrogance and lies. He claimed that the government is offering public sector workers a wage increase of 13 percent over five years, when in fact it is offering just 9 percent.

Even were Legault not misrepresenting the governments wage offer and it was proposing a general wage increase of 13 percent, this would amount to a large real terms pay cut. Between September 2020 and September 2023 prices in Quebec rose by 17.3 percent. Even before the recent price spiral, due to decades of government austerity, wages for public sector workers were significantly lower than those for private sector workers with equivalent education and experience.

We are offering a 13 percent increase, Legault told a press conference Tuesday. We think this is reasonable. We think that this respects Quebecers ability to pay.

With the full-throated support of big business, Legault, Lebel and CAQ Finance Minister Eric Girard are insisting that Canadas second most populous province has no financial room to maneuver and a full-throttle austerity drive must again be the order of the day. This under conditions where the public healthcare and education systems have been ravaged since the 1980s by round after round of cuts and further battered during the past three and a half years by the ruling elites profits-before-life COVID-19 pandemic policy. According to a study conducted for the provincial public health agency, lInstitut national de sante publique du Quebec, up to 10 percent of Quebec healthcare workers have been stricken with Long COVID. Thousands of others have been left with burnout by punishing working conditions, including forced overtime imposed by government decree.

The reality is there are ample resources to fund quality public services for all and to provide decent wages and working conditions for the workers who administer them. But those resources are being squandered to swell the fortunes of the financial elite, provide massive subsidies to big business and finance Canadian imperialisms war with Russia and preparations for war with China.

There is enormous public sympathy for the public sector workers. Under conditions where Legault and the ruling class are seeking to exploit the anger and frustration caused by the crumbling of public services to push for privatization, workers and large sections of middle-class people recognize the organic link between improving the working conditions of public sector workers and defending public health care and education.

However, the pro-capitalist trade unions are adamantly opposed to mobilizing this support by making the Quebec public sector workers struggle the spearhead of a working-class political struggle against austerity and war.

Instead they are doing everything to isolate and run the Quebec public sector workers struggle into the ground. This is as true for the union organizations that comprise the Common Frontthe FTQ, CSN, CSQ, and APTSas the FIQ and FAE.

As they have done in previous bargaining rounds, including those in 2015 and 2020, the unions are seeking to trap workers in a protracted negotiating process and multi-stage campaign of pressure tactics with the aim of dissipating worker anger and derailing their struggle.

Thus, even as the Common Front leaders hailed the 95 percent strike vote as historic, they reiterated that they view the province-wide unlimited strike mandate as a last resort, one that they would only deploy, if ever, after weeks of smaller-scale regional walkouts limited to at most 24 or 48 hours, and in the beginning likely far less.

A strike mandate is itself a pressure tactic, said CSN Vice-President Francois Enault. At 95 per cent, I hope the government pays attention to the scale (of support).

The reality is the union bureaucratswho time and again have preserved, to use their words, social peace by suppressing the class struggleare striving might and main to prevent a province-wide public sector strike for fear it could escape their political control and threaten the competitive position of Quebec and Canadian capital.

Significantly, they are either totally silent on or downplay the threat the CAQ government will criminalize a public sector strike with an emergency back-to-work law. Yet Legault has repeatedly brandished the threat of anti-strike legislation to threaten construction and other workers and supported the Trudeau government outlawing a strike by Port of Montreal longshore workers in 2021.

Meanwhile, the unions in the rest of the country are working to keep their members in the dark about the developing class confrontation in Quebec, for they are no less frightened of its implications or determined to quarantine and suppress the Quebec public sector workers struggle.

In a statement distributed in the hundreds at last months Common Front demonstration in Montreal, the Socialist Equality Party advanced a strategy for public sector workers to defeat the governments class war assault. It explained the need for workers to repudiate the union bureaucracys futile strategy of pleading to the government to see reason and its nationalist-corporatist program of social dialogue, and to take the struggle into their own hands and make it the spearhead of a working class industrial and political offensive against austerity and war. This requires the building of rank-and-file committees, independent of and in opposition to the union apparatuses.

These committees, the statement explained, will be able to mobilize the 600,000 public sector workers and the active support of all workersprovincially, nationally and across North America  (They) will elaborate worker demands, based on their real needs and not what the government claims it can afford. Demands that will be won not through futile negotiations, based on acceptance of the governments reactionary fiscal framework, but through class struggle, including the preparation of a general strike.

This requires a vast political campaign among the population to explain that the cause of public sector workers is the cause of all workers: the rejection of capitalist austerity; the abolition of anti-strike laws; the defense of public services and the working conditions of those who provide them.

Such a campaign will put public sector workers in a strong position to challenge any special legislation and mobilize the whole working class in their defense.
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.

Europe

Amazon warehouse workers strike in Italy and Germany

Workers at retail giant Amazons warehouses in Italy and Germany stopped work during the companys Prime Day promotion event.

According to PiacenzaSera, after the initial stoppage of more than 100 workers on October 11 at the warehouse in Castel San Giovanni, workers continued to walk out for an hour in each of the morning and afternoon shifts on October 17. Italian Amazon workers oppose the companys pay offer for this year, a mere 1.1 percent.

At four warehouses in Germany, Amazon workers also joined strikes called by the United Services Union (Verdi) on October 10 and 11. Verdi has called a series of short warning strikes for years, appealing to Amazon to join the same collective bargaining agreement as the rest of the retail and mail-order sector.

Early years professionals hold national strike in France against understaffing and deteriorating conditions

On Thursday, workers from creches across France joined a national strike, called by the No babies in lockers collective and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) union.

Early years professionals are calling for an increase in staffing levels, to have one caregiver per five children, while the current standard is one adult for six children.

The No babies in lockers group also called for more qualified staff to be hired, an immediate end to recruitment of staff with neither qualifications nor experience, and more continued professional training for all workers.

Protests took place in over 30 cities across France. One protesting worker told actu, We want to spend time with the child and watch over their development. Were not just here to feed them. Another added, Children are children and not file numbers.

Hundreds of migrant workers preparing Olympics in France demand regularisation

Around 500 sans papiers migrant workers in France stopped work on Tuesday and occupied many workplaces across the construction sector and other sectors preparing the Olympics in Paris next year, Le Figaro reported.

The workers are employed by subcontractors of major companies without receiving documents to allow them to apply for residency or work permits, so are exploited and underpaid, according to the CGT and National Workers Confederation-Workers Solidarity unions, which have made statements on behalf of the strikers.

Workers told the media they would continue the occupation until they received residency and work permits from their employers, and said, according to Reuters, No papers, no Olympic Games.

They are also opposed to the draft immigration bill proposed by Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, a sympathiser of the far-right Action Francaise who has made racist denunciations of halal and kosher food aisles. The bill would make it easier to deport migrants and increase the barriers to obtaining long-term permits, while creating an insecure workforce in low-paid sectors such as hospitality, cleaning and construction by introducing a one-year residence permit for jobs where there is a labour shortage.

Childcare workers in Spain hold national strike over pay and conditions

Up to 80,000 childcare workers began a one-day national strike in Spain on Thursday, called by the Workers Commissions (CCOO) union in public and private nurseries. Three more 24-hour national strikes are planned on October 25 and November 8 and 15.

Europa Press reports that a previous partial strike took place in June, to call for pay rises and secure contracts. The CCOO said pay in the sector has been frozen since September 2021, and that workers are regularly hired in September and then fired at the start of the summer in June.

Strike at Czech universities against low and unequal salaries

Academics, other university workers and students in the Czech Republic walked out on Tuesday afternoon, with the organisers estimating that thousands would join protests across the country. Protestors demanded pay rises and denounced the massive variation in salaries between universities and departments.

According to denik.cz, salaries in humanities and social science departments are less than half the average university salary, and the differences between universities were also huge. The Ministry of Education insisted that the government could not intervene as universities were responsible for setting their own pay policies.

Polish postal workers hold warning strike

Workers at the Polish state-owned postal company Poczta Polska held a two-hour warning strike on October 11, during collective bargaining negotiations. One union, quoted by Wyborcza.biz said, We are very pleased with the attitude of the thousands of employees who were ready to join or joined the warning strike.

Poczta Polska claimed it could not afford to raise monthly salaries by 800 zoty, which the unions calling the stoppage demanded. The PP Employees Trade Union said the company withheld financial information from the last eight months, Rzeczpospolita reported. According to the unions, 70 percent of Poczta Polskas 60,000 employees are paid the minimum wage.

Protesting construction workers receive severance and overtime pay after defying arrests and intimidation in Istanbul, Turkey

Six construction workers in the Atasehir municipality of Istanbul, Turkey, received the severance pay and overtime they were owed on Wednesday, after a week of protests and work stoppages.

They were working for a subcontractor to Limak Holding, which is building a bank branch in the district. Limak initially claimed no responsibility for the withheld payments, claiming it was the subcontractors responsibility, but eventually agreed to ensure they were paid.

When they picketed Limaks head office last week, the six were attacked first by private security, and then the workers and two union officials were detained by police.

Serbian teachers unions call off strike, sign non-binding protocol with government

Last week, the four unions representing school workers in Serbia called off the indefinite partial strike due to begin this Monday after signing an agreement with the government. The stoppage would have shortened all classes to 30 minutes until the government agreed to raise the salary of workers in schools to the national average.

One of the four unions involved told Nova.rs that the deal they signed was a millimetre step towards education workers demands but the maximum they could achieve. The deal was denounced by the Forum of Belgrade High Schools (FBG), which represents teachers in the capital, for postponing the key demand of raising wages until January 2025.

Since the government is discussing calling new elections in December this year, the FBG wrote in a statement that it is now futile to interpret the signed Protocol as an obligation of every subsequent Government to respect it, because the basic question we ask the big four [teachers unions] is what mechanisms it proposes in the event that a new Government not to respect what was signed.

According to Nova.rs, the protocol signed by the unions claims the governments pay rises for educators amounted to 31 percent in one year. This is not accurate, as it counts pay rises in both January 2023 and the planned increase in January 2024, so could cover a whole two-year period and leave starting pay still far below the national average salary.

Airport staff at UKs Humberside Airport strike over pay

Airport staff at Humberside Airport, England held a 24-hour strike which began on Tuesday.

The Unison union members who work as cleaners, firefighters, refuellers, security staff and in the airport travel shop are seeking an improved pay offer. Tuesdays strike is to be followed by a 48-hour stoppage beginning October 31 and a 72-hour walkout from November 14.

Strike by housing repair staff at Scottish local authority over money owed

Around 240 craft workers employed by West Lothian council in Scotland began a three-day stoppage Tuesday.

The Unite union members who work as bricklayers, electricians, joiners, plasterers and in other trades walked out after the council refused to abide by a long-standing collective agreement to pay the workers extra for carrying out additional tasks.

The workers are responsible for carrying out repairs in council houses and buildings as well as refitting houses.

Support staff at special needs school in Leicester, UK continue stoppages over pay

Around 90 UK support staff at the Ashfield Academy, Leicester for children aged four to 19 with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are continuing their strike.

The Unison union members latest action was due to end October 11. The current action will mean strikes each day apart from two dates until December 1. They voted by an 85 percent majority to continue their action over pay.

The Unison members have held stoppages since the dispute began in May 2023. The staff at the government-funded but privately run academy school include teaching assistants, administration workers and residential staff.

Their demands are for a 3,000 pay increase to bring them into line with other SEND schools run by Leicester local authority, introduction of a pay scale to align them with workers performing comparable roles and a pay supplement for staff taking on additional medical responsibilities.

Strikes by teachers at London school against academy plans

Around 50 teachers at the Connaught School for Girls in London were set to walk out for three days from Tuesday.

The National Education Union (NEU) members oppose plans for the school to be taken over by a multi-academy trust. They voted by a near 90 percent majority for the stoppages., following three days of strikes last week. A further three-day stoppage is planned for October 31.

The NEU members have been in dispute over academisation plans for two years, striking for six days in July over the same issue.

Education ancillary workers in Northern Ireland to begin work to rule over promised pay and regrading review

Workers employed by the Northern Ireland Education Authority are to begin a work to rule on October 23.

The Unite union members, who work as school assistants, caterers, cleaners and in administration and school transport are protesting the Education Authoritys failure to carry out a pay and regrading review promised last year. They voted by an over 95 percent majority for the work to rule.

The Unite union members will join GMB union members, who begin a work to rule the same day. Unison members are already carrying out a work to rule and NIPSA union members are expected to join in.

Scottish ancillary school staff vote to reject latest pay offer and hold rolling programme of strikes

Around 20,000 school ancillary staff across Scotland voted by a near 90 percent majority to reject the latest pay offer from the employers body, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla).

The Unison union members, who work as caterers, cleaners, janitors and support workers, want 15 an hour pay. They will mount rolling strikes across Scotland over the coming weeks. Unison has yet to set dates for the action.

They previously held a three-day stoppage beginning September 26 over the same issue. They were due to be joined by GMB and Unite union members, but the unions cancelled the strikes while their members voted on the offer rejected by the Unison members. The GMB and Unite union members accepted Coslas offer.

Scottish Water workers strike vote over pay and new grading system

Around 500 Scottish Water workers voted by an 89 percent majority to strike.

The Unite union members are seeking higher pay and reject a new grading system imposed on the workforce. The newly appointed CEO of Scottish Water reportedly has a 295,000 salary. No dates have been announced for stoppages.

Distillery workers at Scottish firm in strike ballot over rejected pay offer

Distillery workers employed by French-owned Chivas Brothers in Scotland are to ballot for strike action over a 6.4 percent pay offer that was rejected by the workers.

The GMB members voted by a 97 percent majority in a consultative vote for a strike ballot. Chivas produces Chivas Regal whisky and other brands, employing around 1,600 at sites across Scotland, including the Kilmalid bottling plant in Dumbarton and the Strathclyde Grain Distillery among others. Unite union members at Chivas will also ballot.

Oil platform service engineers at Scottish firm to ballot over pay offer

Around 90 workers employed by Port of Rosyth-based Oceaneering International Services Limited in Scotland are holding a ballot for strike action after rejecting a 6 percent pay offer.

The ballot of Unite union members, begun Wednesday, closes November 8. The Texas-based company provides engineering services and products to the offshore oil and gas industry.

Bus drivers at First Glasgow, Scotland ballot for strike action over pay

Around 1,000 bus drivers in Scotland working for First Glasgow (No1) and First Glasgow (No2) are balloting for strike action after rejecting an unsatisfactory pay offer.

The Unite union members want a pay rise to bring them in line with bus drivers working for First Group in other First companies across the UK. They rejected the companies offer by a 99 percent majority.

The ballot closes on November 7, and any stoppages are expected later that month. Around 150 engineers at the two companies are also in dispute over the pay offer. First Glasgow (No1) reported its latest profits at nearly 4 million, while First Glasgow (No2) reported profits of more than a third of a million. The two companies have depots at Blantyre, Caledonia, Dumbarton, Overtown and Scotstoun.

Middle East

General strike across occupied West Bank in response to Israeli onslaught of Gaza

A general strike took place across the occupied West Bank in Israel on Wednesday. It was in response to the ongoing Israeli genocidal assault on the people of Gaza, and particularly the death of 500 when the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza City was hit.

The strike led to the closure of shops, markets, universities, businesses and factories. Public transport came to a halt, and Palestinian flags across the territory flew at half-mast.

Palestinian trade unions call for arming of Israel to be stopped

In a statement issued Monday, more than 30 Palestinian trade union organisations called for an end to arming Israel.

Unions including the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, Gaza, the General Union of Municipal Workers, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers, the Medical Association-Jerusalem Centre, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, the Palestinian Postal Services Workers Union, the Palestinian General Union of Writers and the Federation of Health Professionals Syndicates called on trade unions in relevant industries to:

refuse to build weapons destined for Israel refuse to transport weapons to Israel take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israels brutal and illegal siege, especially if they have contracts with your institution [and] ressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the US, funding to it.

They made their appeal in the face of attempts to ban and silence all forms of solidarity with the Palestinian people, saying the call was made in the belief that the struggle for Palestinian justice and liberation is not only a regionally and globally determined struggle. It is a lever for the liberation of all dispossessed and exploited people of the world.

On Sunday, an Al Jazeera report highlighted the plight of Palestinians living and working in Israel being suspended from their jobs or school and university places for previous postings on social media or conversations with colleagues expressing support for Palestinians in Gaza.

International Middle East Media Centre reported last week that around 600 Gazans working in Israel were rounded up and forcibly expelled into the West Bank, leaving them isolated from their families in Gaza.

Around 4,000 Gazan workers, who had crossed into Israel with permits to work in Israel in the week before the Hamas-led insurgency into Israel, were arrested and held for questioning by Israeli authorities.

Africa

Hundreds of teachers march in Durban, South Africa to demand cost of living payments

Hundreds of schoolteachers marched to Durban City Hall, South Africa on October 13 to hand a memorandum of demands to the Department of Education.

One of the main demands of the South African Democratic Teachers Union members is a fast-tracking of staff to fill vacancies. Also, salaries are not keeping up with rising prices, with the result that staffing levels are low. Teachers also told the Citizen that schools are no longer safe, as they are seen as easy targets for attack.

Teacher Thandiwe Mkhize, who travelled 380km to join the march, works at a school near the Mozambican border. She told GroundUp, Our school conditions are not good at all. We dont even have security at the gate..

Teachers in Marit, Bushbuckridge, South Africa strike in over safety

Hundreds of South African teachers at over 50 schools in Marite, Bushbuckridge walked out on October 12 in protest at daytime robberies which threaten their safety. Workers demanded their concerns were addressed within 24 hours or they would not return to work.

One striker told Scrolla, We are scared for our lives, criminals enter school premises in daylight holding guns in front of our learners Imagine the trauma that these kids go through having to watch their teachers being harassed and robbed at gunpoint.

Several schools have had food stolen, reflecting the tense social crisis in the area. At least 10 schools remained on strike this week.

High school students protest over lack of basic amenities in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

High school students who attend Sukuma High boarding school in Mbali Township took to the streets on October 12 to protest the lack of food and electricity. Some parents joined the demonstration, as students blockaded the roads in Imbali with burning trees and furniture. Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Bhekamambo Mkhize, the School Governing Body chairperson told Scrolla, Its distressing that for two months, our children, especially those in the school residence, have been without food. Moreover, Eskom has cut off electricity due to the departments unpaid bills. He also said students were not taken to the clinic following the tear gas assault.

Public servants at South Africas State Information Technology Agency strike over pay

Workers at South Africas State Information Technology Agency (SITA) began lunchtime stoppage and picketing this week to demand a 7.5 percent pay increase.

The Public Services Association members say if the government is not forthcoming, all-out strike action will begin on Monday.

SITA, the government IT service provider for the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and the South African Police Service among others, have offered 5 percent. According to various press reports, the SASSA systems are affected and are down.

South African food workers in Ekurhuleni strike for pay increase

South African workers at Pioneer Foods at the Clayville plant in Ekurhuleni walked out for 10 days to demand an 8 percent pay increase. The company, bought for $1.7bn in 2020 by PepsiCo, is offering 6 percent.

The Agricultural Food and Allied Democratic Workers Union members are also demanding a 15 percent shift allowance, a staff shop, and medical aid for workers families. The company claims that all other plants have accepted the final pay increase.

Electricity workers in Kano, Nigeria strike over pension arrears

Electricity workers in Kano State, Nigeria walked off the job on October 16, causing a shutdown of the Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO). The action was taken in opposition to the failure to remit their pension payments for the last 72 months.

The National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) members pledged to strike until the pension funds are paid in full. Hundreds demonstrated at KEDCO headquarters against their mistreatment.

North-West Chairman of the union, Malam Ado Riruwai complained that management has been continuously victimising workers and refusing to provide basic medical care as outlined in the workers' contract, in spite of the hazards associated with their jobs.

Company representatives admitted withholding the pension payments but called on the protestors to be patient, claiming it was all the fault of previous managers. They did not say they would give back the money.

Teachers in Bayelsa State, Nigeria to strike over minimum wage and lack of promotion

Teachers in Bayelsa State, Nigeria are set to walk out over the non-payment of the N30,000 minimum wage, causing hardship and broken promises on promotions.

An executive meeting of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) called the action on October 12 after an earlier three-day warning strike failed to have any effect. The NUT has now called a 14-day ultimatum, hoping a settlement can be made before the period runs out.

Protesting Kenyan teachers tear-gassed by police

Kenyan teachers protesting about lack of security were tear-gassed by police outside the Teachers' Service Commission (TSC) headquarters in Nairobi.

One protestor shouted, Why are you denying me from entering this place? I am just presenting my response on the interdiction to the TSC bosses; do not intimidate me!

Teachers had been asking for transfers from North Eastern Kenya due to a lack of security. The TSC ordered the teachers to report to their workplaces in September despite problems there. The TSC is now threatening to withhold pay for annual leave.
President Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv. [AP Photo/Evan Vucci]

One day after Israel massacred nearly 500 men, women and children taking refuge at a hospital in Gaza, US President Joe Biden traveled to Israel, embraced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and delivered a provocative, militaristic pro-Israel speech.

The aim of Bidens trip was not only to make absolutely unequivocal his backing for Israels genocide against the Palestinians, but to signal a massive escalation of US military operations throughout the Middle East. Biden arrived as the US military was surging warships, aircraft and personnel to the region in an overt threat to Iran. There are growing indications that the United States is at a very advanced stage of its preparations for war against Iran, even as it continues to escalate NATOs war against Russia.

The entire trip was a flagrant display of contempt for global public opinion. Amid mass protests throughout the region opposing Israels genocide against the Palestinians, Biden chose to deliver the most provocative statement he possibly could, making graphic and inflammatory allegations against the Palestinians, comparing them to ISIS and calling their actions evil.

Biden spent the vast majority of his speech recounting alleged Palestinian atrocities, or praising the Israeli government, or describing how he would arm Israel. Just six lines mentioned the Palestinians, and those were focused on blaming them for being massacred by the Israelis.

He began his speech with the declaration: I come to Israel with a single message: You are not alone. ... As long as the United States stands  were going to stand by your side.

Over the past 11 days, Israel has killed 3,478 people in the Gaza Strip. In this period, there were over 136 attacks on healthcare workers and facilities throughout Palestine, the World Health Organization reported. Gazas public health system is on the brink of collapse, with food, fuel and water all running critically low.

Biden did not condemn any of the hundreds of targeted attacks on civilians, hospitals, medical workers and critical infrastructure by Israel. He did not condemn the displacement of the Palestinians from northern Gaza. He did not call for a ceasefire and he did not call for de-escalation.

His speech was a deliberate statement that Israels genocide is taking place with the support of, and at the behest of, the United States, making Biden fully culpable in the war crimes committed by the Netanyahu government.

Immediately after the trip, the Times of London reported that, in private, Biden gave Netanyahu a green light to invade Gaza.

Biden blamed the Palestinians for their own deaths, accusing Hamas of using women and children as human shields and absurdly claiming that the Palestinians blew up their own people at the Al-Ahli hospital. Hamas uses innocentsinnocent families in Gaza as human shields, putting their command centers, their weapons, their communications tunnels in residential areas, he said.

Early on Wednesday, Biden publicly told Netanyahu that the other team carried out the massacre. In his main speech, he declared, Based on the information weve seen to date, it appears the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.

This absurd claim by the US and Israeli governments has been rejected with scorn throughout the world.

Early on Wednesday, the Israeli military released a video recording and audio recording which, it claimed, proved that the hospital was hit by a rocket fired by Palestinians. The audio, purportedly of two Hamas members discussing a failed rocket launch, stated that it was fired from the cemetery immediately behind the hospital. The video showed rockets fired from several miles away. No attempt was made to explain the gaping discrepancy in the official story.

The same day, more video was released from the scene showing the extent of the damage to the hospital courtyard, which was packed with 1,000 civilians who had fled nearby bombings. The video showed damage consistent with a wave of pressure radiating from the air, compressing car roofs and causing damage over hundreds of feet, with no impact crater.

The video showed that the blast was caused by an air-burst munition, such as that available on US-provided JDAM bombs. There is no conceivable way that a malfunctioning rocket could have produced damage in that pattern.

Rather, the video showed that Israel precisely targeted the section of the hospital compound where the most people were concentrated in an unprotected area, using the methodan air burstcalculated to inflict maximum damage on soft targets, such as the men, women and children seeking refuge in the courtyard of the hospital.

It was, in other words, a deliberate act of mass murder.

In the course of his speech, Biden made an extremely revealing statement. He declared, The State of Israel was born to be a safe place for the Jewish people of the world. Thats why it was born. I have long said: If Israel didnt exist, we would have to invent it.

In 1986, Biden used the same words in a speech in the US Senate, except at that time he was less guarded. It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.

In other words, American imperialism does not care in the least about creating a safe place for the Jewish people of the world. Its aim has been to protect [US] interests in the region through the creation of a massively armed, militarized client state.

The United States is as indifferent to the fate of the Jewish people as it was in the 1930s and 1940s, when it refused visas to hundreds of thousands of Jewish families fleeing Nazi persecution. In reality, Bidens identification of the Jewish people with the actions of the Netanyahu government, which is massively despised within Israel and by Jewish people worldwide, only serves to inflame antisemitic demagogy.

Among the most ominous elements of Bidens speech is what it portends about the period to come. Biden called the October 7 incursion by Hamas into Israel as Israels 9/11. But he went further, declaring that, for a nation the size of Israel, it was like 15 9/11s.

He noted that after 9/11, we sought justice and got justice. What does it mean to say that the October 7 attacks were Israels 9/11? The United States used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to carry out the long-planned invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), which were followed by the war against Libya and the CIA-backed regime change operation in Syria. These wars combined have led to the deaths of more than one million people.

This, Biden said, was getting justice. What will it mean for Israel to get justice? The clear implication is that Israel will use the October 7 border incursion as a pretext to massively expand a war in the Middle East.

Biden then proceeded to threaten Iran: We have moved US military assets to the region, including positioning the USS Ford carrier strike group in the Eastern Mediterranean, with the USS Eisenhower on the way, to deterto defer further aggression against Israel and to prevent this conflict from spreading.

The world will know that Israel isIsrael is stronger than ever. And my message to any state or any other hostile actor thinking about attacking Israel remains the same as it was a week ago: Dont. Dont. Dont.

Immediately after Biden left the country, Israel launched a series of airstrikes targeting Syria and Lebanon, both allies of Iran. Israel, which is intent on expanding the war, is doing everything possible to provoke a military response from Tehran. Any such response would be used by the United States to put into practice long-held plans for war with Iran.

As Biden was in the air, the US media reported that he was planning to use the October 7 attack on Israel as the occasion to push through a massive $100 billion spending bill that would fund the US war in the Middle East, as well as the war in Ukraine and the military buildup in the Pacific.

The green light given by Biden for a genocide against the Palestinians by Israel must be seen in the context of the US conflict with Russia, Iran and China. The United States increasingly sees itself as engaged in a globe-spanning war for world hegemony.

The massive global outpouring of opposition to Israels massacre of the Palestinians shows the way to stop the global war plans of American imperialism. On every continent, thousands of people have demonstrated in opposition to Israels war crimes.

The international working class must take the lead in the struggle against the imperialist-backed Israeli onslaught against Gaza. The WSWS calls on workers throughout the world to take strike action to deprive Israel of all resources that can be utilized in its war. Dockworkers, airport and transport workers all over the world should refuse to handle any weapons directed toward Israel.

Workers must demand an immediate halt to the Israeli bombing of Gaza and the demobilization of all Israeli troops and their withdrawal from the border with Gaza. The siege on Gaza must be ended, and food, water, electricity, medical care and all other necessities must be made available immediately.

The International Criminal Court must initiate proceedings against Netanyahu, Scholz, Biden and all the leading figures in the US-NATO axis who are supporting the Israeli genocide against Gaza.

It is only through the intervention of masses of workers and youth throughout the world that this unfolding genocide can be stopped and those responsible be held to account.
Tens of thousands of people across Spain have taken to the streets to protest the genocidal war Israel is waging on the Palestinians of Gaza, which has already killed nearly 3,000 civilians and left 2.3 million people, half of whom are under 18, without water, fuel or electricity.

Demonstrations have taken place in Barcelona, Pamplona, Murcia, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela, Coruna, Vigo, Ourense , Zaragoza, Bilbao, Alicante, Vitoria, San Sebastian, Valencia, Seville, Valladolid and Granada.

Protesters carry Palestinian flags at Madrid, Spain demonstration in solidarity with Gaza on October 15.

The apex was the demonstration in Madrid that brought together 60,000 people on Sunday. Called by different solidarity associations with Palestine, the protest in Madrid occupied the entire center of the capital and exceeded the expectations of even its organisers. They had to delay the start of the protest given the amount of people that were accumulating en route.

There was mass participation of Arabs and Palestinians living in Spain, as well as thousands of Spanish workers and, above all, large numbers of youth. Chants could be heard like Israel murders, Europe sponsors, Netanyahu murderer of the Palestinian people, From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, and Its not a war, its a genocide.

These protests are part of mass working class protests internationally against the genocidal policies of the Israeli state, which has the full backing of Washington and its European allies, including Spain. The mass street protests contrast sharply with the media, which has almost unanimously supported Israel and denounced the Palestinian uprising as criminal.

The Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos governments prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, has backed Israel. He said, We strongly and unambiguously condemn the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel and also the deaths of Israelis, demanding the urgent release of all hostages and Israeli captives. Justifying Israels genocidal actions, Sanchez added, With the same force, we say that Israel has the right to defend itself, but always within international humanitarian law.

Sumar and Podemos made pro forma criticisms to hide the fact that their own government has provided millions in arms to the Israeli government which are now being used against the Palestinian population.

Ione Belarra, acting minister of social rights and leader of Podemos, attended the protest in Madrid on Sunday. She tweeted: Their government [in Israel] is carrying out war crimes in Gaza, with mass bombings, water and electricity shutoffs; they are not allowing humanitarian aid. Denouncing this genocide does not mean supporting Hamas, it is a democratic obligation. Silence is complicity with terror. Belarra also proposed that the Spanish government submit a petition to the International Court of Justice on Israeli war crimes.

Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz, of the Sumar electoral coalition that includes Podemos, tweeted last week, The international community cannot look the other way. The EU must demand that Israel halt the plans that are causing a massacre. She called on Spain and the EU to urgently mobilize for peace.

Belarra and Diaz know perfectly well that the European Union, which has evolved into a military alliance, dominated by Germany and France, waging war with Russia in Ukraine, is a historic defender of Israels Zionist regime and bitterly hostile to the rights of the Palestinian people. France and Germany have banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen immediately sided with Netanyahu, declaring in a press conference with him that Israel has the right and duty to defend itself.

These useless appeals throw dust in the eyes of workers and youth to hide the fact that the PSOE-Podemos government is politically implicated in the crimes against humanity in Gaza.

The two countries recently celebrated the Fifth Spain-Israel Strategic Dialogue gathering senior officials from both countries, including from their defense ministries and armies. Both governments reiterated their commitment to NATOs imperialist war on Russia. The conference discussed how Israel should consider how to expand its cooperation with the EU countries in the Ukraine conflict  There is a plenty of scope for Israel to help meet the growing demand from Spain and its EU partners for civil and military technology.

Between 2020 and 2022, Israel imported 140 million euros in weaponry from Spain. According to the Delas Center for Peace Studies, arms exports to Israel from both EU countries violate EU criteria that define the rules governing the control of exports of military technology and equipment, such as respect for the international commitments and obligations of the Member States; or respect for human rights in the country of final destination.

The report indicated that Spain buys weapons from Israel for a value much higher than what it sells. Just on anti-tank missiles produced by the Israeli company Rafael, the Spanish Ministry of Defense spent 364 million euros. Israel sells its weapons with the combat-tested mark, meaning that their use against the Palestinians gives them added value for armies like the Spanish one.

Furthermore, the Delas report points out that arms exports allow Israel to lower its production costs, as the price per unit manufactured is cheaper if large quantities of weapons are produced. This turns buyers of Israeli arms like the PSOE-Podemos government into collaborators in the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

In addition, the Ministry of Defense uses spying and communications interception services provided by Israeli companies. Among the clients, the Ministry of Defense, the CNI, the National Police Corps, the Civil Guard and various regional police forces stand out. This includes the infamous Pegasus spying software, used to spy on Catalan nationalist politicians.

Podemos and Sumar have joined in the entire Spanish political establishments policy of imperialist war abroad and war on the working class at home. Both played a leading role in the NATO war against Russia in the Ukraine, sending hundreds of millions in military aid to Ukraine. This includes rocket launchers, armoured vehicles and tanks and the training of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers on Spanish soil. Spanish weapons provided by Podemos and Sumar ended up in the hands of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

At home, this government has implemented ruthless austerity for four years, including reactionary labour and pension reforms, the murder of migrants on its borders, and has launched violent crackdowns on strikes.

The mass protests in Spain against the Gaza war are part of a developing international movement against imperialism and war that has mobilized masses of workers and youth in the United States, European countries, and across the Middle East. The critical question is unifying the struggles of workers and youth in Spain against imperialism and war with those of their class brothers and sisters internationally. Ending this bloody conflict requires the intervention of the world working class and the unity of Israeli and Palestinian workers through an uncompromising struggle for socialism.
As it intensifies operations against Russia in the Ukraine war, threatens Iran with the movement of warships into the Gulf and gives full backing to the Israeli onslaught against the Palestinian people in Gaza, the US has stepped up its high-tech war against China with the announcement by the Commerce Department of new export bans on Tuesday.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo reacts during the press conference at the Boeing Shanghai Aviation Service Co., Ltd, in Shanghai, China, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. [AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool]

The bans are a tightening of the export controls introduced last October aimed at trying to further restrict the ability of Chinese companies to continue to make advances in the crucial area of artificial intelligence (AI).

Their main target is two chips developed by Nvidia specially for the Chinese market in response to the US measures a year ago. Nvidia redesigned two of its top-of-the-range chips, central to AI development, to produce modified versions known has A800 and H800 which complied with US regulations.

These sales will now be halted, one unnamed official told the Financial Times. Another commented that in drafting the new rules the administration had taken into account how attempts were made to work around our parameters.

A Commerce Department statement said the updates were necessary to maintain the effectiveness of these controls, close loopholes, and ensure they remain durable.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the goal was to limit Chinas access to advanced semiconductors that could fuel breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and sophisticated computers.

The US is stepping up the high-tech war on national security grounds, claiming the development of AI by China can give it an edge in military technology under conditions where the US military is continually advancing its war preparations.

The bans have a wider objective as wellthe placing of constraints on the advancement of the Chinese economy, especially high-tech areas. Numerous studies and reports, going back to the Trump presidency and before, have made clear that Chinese gains in these crucial sectors are regarded as an existential threat to the global economic position of the US.

Officially, the US claims that it is not trying to hit the broader Chinese economy but is only targeting its military capabilities. This distinction is largely meaningless.

Raimondo acknowledged this in comments to reporters before the latest moves. Its difficult to draw a bright line between military and commercial technology, she said, noting there are often dual use technologies.

In devising the new bans, US officials have drawn some lessons from the experiences of the past year. When the controls were put in place last October, agreement had not been reached with Japan and the Netherlands which supply crucial components and machinery for the development and manufacture of chips. Also, it had not ensured that China was cut off from alternative suppliers.

It has announced that it will require companies to obtain a licence to sell chips to more than 40 countries where China could find intermediaries to get around the US controls.

It is also looking to extend restrictions to machines used in the manufacture of chips. One of the major firms in this area is the Dutch company ASML.

The company opposed the restrictions imposed last October and it took some months to get it to comply. Now the US is seeking to extend controls to lower grade manufacturing equipment and, according to a report in Bloomberg, has been working with the Netherlands on the issue.

ASML said the new regulations would be applicable to a limited number of fabs (chip manufacturing plants) in China but did not specify which of its machines would be affected.

The net is being cast wider and tightened. The administration added two Chinese chip startup companies and their subsidiaries to a list that mandates companies in the US to obtain a government licence before they can export to them.

The Commerce Departments Bureau of Industry and Security hardened due diligence requirements to determine whether foreign companies were taking part in the evasion of export controls. It said the framework was now default assumption of licence denial.

The new regulations will also require the companies which sell chips below the official threshold to inform the US government. This is because, as Bloomberg reported, according to a US official with a lot of money and a little jury-rigging, a whole class of slightly inferior chips could also be used for AI and supercomputing and therefore pose a national security risk.

While the White House is determined to press ahead there are conflicts and contradictions arising from its ever-tightening restrictions.

The industry trade group, the Semiconductor Industry Association, said that overly broad, unilateral controls risk harming the US semiconductor ecosystem without advancing national security as they encourage overseas customers to look elsewhere.

The president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation think tank, Robert Atkinson, said limiting the sale of chips to China risked significantly reducing competitiveness.

US firms will lose the most profitable part of their markets, significantly reducing profits that otherwise would be invested in research and development for the next generation of chips, he said.

Paul Triolo, an expert on China and technology at the Washington-based consultancy Albright Stonebridge, pointed to an issue of growing concern for the Biden administration.

US controls had massively incentivised the Chinese system  to invest in domestic capabilities. Since the initial measures, tool makers in China have become fully integrated with the foundries in a way they never had before and were taking market share.

The Chinese response to the bans has already rung alarm bells in the Biden administration.

Despite sweeping bans imposed by the Trump administration, continued under Biden, aimed at crippling it, the telecommunications giant, Huawei, launched a new upgraded phone in August.

Raimondo said the news that Huawei had developed a more advanced phone was incredibly disturbing. While it is not directly related to AI technology, the Huawei advance was undoubtedly a motivation for the latest measures because it showed a capacity to get around the US bans to a significant extent.

Besides the expression of concerns in the industry over the economic fallout of the bans, there are also fears in some more historically aware sections of the financial elites as to where US policy is heading.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Ray Dalio, the founder and long-time chief executive of the Bridgewater hedge fund, likened US-China relations to those between the US and Japan in the lead up to outbreak of war in 1941.

The reason in World War IIwar with Japanyou had the [US] cutting off of the oil and then sanctioning them, taking their payments, he said.

There was now a much similar situation. Chips [are] like oil back then.

While he did not see a war as inevitable, he saw Taiwan as a breaking point. If the US said it was in favour of an independent Taiwan that would be the equivalent of a declaration of war.
Global protests against the US-Israel war against the Palestinian people intensified Wednesday following the Tuesday bombing of the Al-Alhi Arab Hospital, in Gaza City, by the Israeli military. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 471 people were killed in the explosion and 314 others were injured. At least 28 people remain in critical condition.

While the US, Israel, and their stenographers in the Western press seek to stampede public opinion into supporting the ongoing genocide against the people of Gaza, millions of people have taken to city streets, capital buildings and embassies to demand an end to the slaughter.

In Washington D.C., daily peaceful protests have resulted in nearly 400 arrests in the last 72 hours. On October 16, approximately 1,000 demonstrators organized by two Jewish American groups, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow, demonstrated near the White House in protest of the Biden administrations continued support for Israel. Jewish and other anti-war protesters congregated at the corner of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW where they sang songs calling on President Biden to issue a ceasefire.

According to a US Secret Service spokesman, 49 people were arrested when protesters blocked the presidential entrance at the corner of 17th Street and New York Avenue33 people on suspicion of unlawful entry and another 16 for allegedly incommoding.

Led by American Jews connected with IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, todays action represents a growing wave of Jewish, progressive, and youth leaders calling on President Biden to de-escalate the conflict, restrain Israeli aggression, and ensure the safe return of Israeli civilian hostages, IfNotNow said in a statement to Newsweek.

On Wednesday, IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace organized thousands more protesters who peacefully demonstrated outside the Cannon Office Building on Capitol Hill. According to JVP, 350 protesters, including two dozen rabbis, participated in the sit-in of the building, which lasted for over four hours, while thousands more protested outside.

Protesters filled the building with deafening chants of Ceasefire now! and Not in our name!

A US Capitol Police spokesperson told NBC News Wednesday evening that close to 300 people were in police custody. According to the police, every single protester went through security checkpoints before peacefully entering the building. While the building is open to the public, protests or demonstrations are not allowed inside the building.



We warned protesters to stop demonstrating and when they did not comply we began arresting them, US Capitol Police said in a statement posted to Twitter/(X).

Over 1,000 protest in Dearborn, Michigan: I am against antisemitism. I am against Zionism.

On Wednesday evening in Dearborn, Michigan over 1,000 people attended a protest against the Israeli bombing of the hospital in Palestine. Another 400 people attended a protest in the northern suburb of West Bloomfield. The Candlelight March for Victims of the Gaza Genocide included speakers from the New Generation for Palestine, the city council of Dearborn Heights, and the Arab-American News.

The speakers in Dearborn all mentioned the children killed in the hospital bombing, as well as Wadea Al-Fayoume in Chicago, who was brutally attacked alongside his mother. The speakers condemned US funding of the massacre of Palestinians, and called out Biden as a war criminal.

Multiple attendees at the Dearborn rally spoke at length with WSWS reporters. One woman, who did not wish to be identified, explained, Israel is one committing the terrorism, not the Palestinians.



Jews used to live in [Palestine] in peace, she added. Its Holy Land that used to be Jews, Christians, Muslims ... We want it to go back to being a peaceful place for all these religions. Thats what we want, no more Zionism.

"We want Palestine to be a peaceful place. No more Zionism." Dearborn, Michigan, October 18, 2023.

Two young people who met in high school, one of whom was Palestinian, told WSWS reporters, This is the first time Im involved. I felt I had to because the culture is mostly silent. Now people have to stand up.



While he does not support Hamas, the youth said, They are striking back because Palestine has been stricken so many times. When asked what he thought of Bidens financing of the genocide in Gaza, he said, Im very disappointed. I voted for him because he was the lesser of two evils. Im done. There are Arabs who hate Jewish people, but I am against antisemitism. I am against Zionism.

I came here to support Palestinians with my blood. Everyone knows who is responsible behind this is the US government.

They are against humanity. Children have the right to live, not die for money. That money used for killing should be used for us in America. We want justice and peace. We are not calling for killing. We want it to stop. There are a lot of Jewish that are against Netanyahu. We know they are good and Netanyahu is bad. A lot of people are with us against this war and hate.

Another attendee, a high school student, said, I came here because I didnt know much about the war. Now I know and am trying to learn more about what is happening. No more parents or children should be killed, no more orphans.

Tiffany told the WSWS it was important to come to the rally in order to for everyone to stand together against this genocide.

I have friends who are Palestinian, and who have family in Gaza, Tiffany added, and even if I didnt it would still be important to show solidarity.

A worker from Dearborn said, We are against all the killing of the Palestinians. We want Israel to get out of Gaza. Stop killing all of the people. We want the Biden administration to stop supporting Israel.

In response to Biden shaking hands with Netanyahu and cynically calling the bombing a tragedy, the worker said, It should be a sad thing for Palestinians. Were the ones getting killed. People there are getting killed! Not the Israelis. Palestinians are getting massacred because of all of the bombs, the American bombs! Were here to march against it. We do not want the Biden administration to support that. And we are going to continue doing that. Its a crime against humanity and we should all be marching together. We are the people of love. Show the world truth is with us, not them. Why are you killing the kids? That is a shame!

In response to US/NATO preparation for war, another worker explained, They are trying to get more land, they want to take over all of Palestine. We are not going to let that happen. We are going to stay against this. We want everyone to march with us and support Palestine. The whole community is mad at Joe Biden.

Its a double standard. What is the difference between Palestinian and Ukrainian kids? We are all human beings. We are against killing innocent people.

Mohammed said he came to the protest because First and foremost, I am a human being and that is sufficient enough to make a stance of solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Palestine who are undergoing severe, punishing conditions that no human being should experience.



We cant stand idly by and let this happen, 75 years is long enough.

"75 years is long enough. It's very obvious this can be solved." - Dearborn, Michigan, October 18, 2023

The world is with them and the world is watching: Thousands protest in Chicago Wednesday to demand an end to Israels war on Gaza

Thousands flooded the streets of downtown Chicago late Wednesday afternoon into the evening demanding an end to the genocidal war against Palestinians being prosecuted by Israel with the support of the Biden administration.

The protest was driven by popular outrage over the Israel militarys bombing of the Al-Alhi Arab Hospital in Gaza City Tuesday, as well as the brutal murder of six-year-old Wadea al-Fayoume, a Palestinian-American, in the Chicago suburbs Saturday.

The demonstration was attended by broad sections of the population, including people of many different races, immigrant and native-born, children and the elderly. Workers attending the rally held aloft signs such as Nurses for Palestine and Teachers for Palestine.

A section of the demonstration in Chicago in support of Palestinians on October 18.

Reporters for the WSWS distributed hundreds of copies of the statement Global outrage erupts over Israeli bombing of Gaza hospital and spoke with attendees about why they were there.

Hundreds march in downtown Las Vegas: I think were no longer being shy about calling it genocide.



On Tuesday night, over 500 people of all races and ethnicities held a rally and march in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada demanding an end to the Israeli genocide and freedom for the Palestinian people. While people of all ages attended, there were many young people, with a large percentage of the protesters wearing masks in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and avoid state surveillance.

Hundreds of anti-war and pro-Palestinian protesters in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 17, 2023.

In addition to hundreds of flags and keffiyeh scarves, protesters brought homemade signs denouncing the US role in the ongoing massacre and refuting lies proffered by the US and its Zionist stooge to justify the slaughter.



The US lied about Iraq. The US lied about Syria. The US lied about Afghanistan. The US and Israel are lying about Gaza. No babies were beheaded and no women were raped. They want to justify the Genocide, read one sign. End US aid to Israel and Your tax $$$ funds apartheid read others.

Hundreds of anti-war and pro-Palestinian protesters march down popular tourist destination Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 17, 2023.

A much smaller contingentnumbering less than 150Zionists and fascists counter-protested with chants of IDF! IDF! IDF! and USA! USA! USA!

A smattering of pro-Israel/US protesters, protected by the police.



While the rally was promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America, no prominent DSA members or Democratic Party politicians deigned to come to the rally to show their support or oppose war crimes.



Refuting bogus claims of a socialist takeover of the Nevada Democratic Party two years ago by DSA-friendly press, every single major Democratic elected official in Nevada has fully backed President Biden and the Zionist state of Israel in their present ethnic cleansing campaign.



Last week, Democratic Nevada Senators Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto joined 12 other senators in penning a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanding the State Department freeze $6 billion in Iranian assets that the US had previously stolen.

The senators letter, which was also signed by so-called progressives Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Republicans Joni Erst (Iowa) and Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), and Joe Manchin (West Virginia) and Krysten Sinema (Arizona), also called on Blinken to work with the bipartisan group of senators in support of Israel.



We look forward to working with you to assist Israel in its time of need and ensure it has the resources and tools need to defend itself against Iranian-sponsored terrorism, they wrote.



While capitalist politicians are champing at the bit to provide Israel with all the money it needs to exterminate the Palestinians, Jacob, a protester at the rally, told WSWS reporters, Its upsetting for, you know, progressives, because a lot of people look to [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and others as progressives, and its not always the case. Especially when were backing up ... Its a genocide. Palestinians are not allowed to move. Legally, theyre a part of Israel. Its a region in Israel. But we allow this genocide of this marginalized group of Palestinians because theyve had to hold over from the Holocaust and justifications on that.



If progressives are there for the oppressed people, Jacob added, we have to be there for Palestine.



[Israel] is bombing the escape routes as well. Intentional or not, I believe it was 70 people that died, 70 people. I think its a war crime.

Jacob, a Las Vegas resident.

I think in the past weve been shy about calling it genocide and I think were no longer being shy about calling it genocide. Palestinians are not able to move around in what is often cited as the worlds most peaceful country, when in reality Palestinians live in the worlds largest open-air prison.



Asked what he thought about a joint strike between teachers, students and hotel workers in Clark County (Las Vegas) to demand an end to the war, Jacob responded, We are divided into our own little struggles so were not united together to fight this system that is oppressing all of us. When it comes to, are you talking about a general strike? Well, I think that would be a good start. That would be a fantastic start ... Something that has to be planned for, obviously. Yeah, thats a huge part of the struggle. Everybodys struggling with making rent, getting groceries, getting medications. Yes, a general strike would be fantastic.

Thousands in San Diego, California protest Israeli genocide: From Mexico to Palestine these walls got to go

On Sunday, some 5,000 people held a powerful demonstration at the County Administration building in San Diego, California. The role of militarized borders was not lost on the rally where signs called for an end to walls From Mexico to Palestine.

A protest in defense of Palestine held in San Diego, California, October 15, 2023. One sign reads: From Mexico to Palestine these walls got to go!!!

The mainstream media has attempted to downplay the size of Sundays rally, with outlets such as the San Diego Union Tribune claiming only 500 attended. In reality, closer to 5,000 demonstrated.

A protester at the rally, Cindy, told WSWS reporters, Our political leaders are putting different statements out that dont align with my views with what I would like to happen. Weve already been giving Israel billions of dollars for decades ... So I just wanted to come out with people who felt the same way. Even though my representatives and my senators arent taking my calls, or if its not enough, at least theyll see the protests.

The role of the media is very one-sided. They quickly started going with the narrative, like, theyre terrorists, that they are this and that, but its like, once I started hearing that term thrown around, its like, are we not going to talk about the last 75 years? Are we not going to hear about the past 15 years? Its very biased.

And then after that, you started hearing these claims of like, babies being decapitated, but there was no information. All of a sudden, even new, major news outlets right now are having to backtrack what they said, because they are now realizing it was not true. But now some already have this perception that theyre savages and terrorists and especially knowing how the US was shortly after 9/11.

Ashley spoke to the importance of social media in breaking through the propaganda and one-sided narrative of Washington:

What helped me to understand is that we are seeing a lot of people in Palestine show what is actually happening through TikTok. ... you see the innocent people, they are suffering and they are actually sharing their real stories. That is how I learned about what was happening.

Cindy added, Ive had the privilege of having really great professors when I went to San Diego State, a few of them being of Jewish heritage, and they would always make their position known. Most of them did not support the State of Israel because they were well-informed.

Mass protest in support of Palestine held in San Diego, October 15, 2023.

Im here to protest against the actions of the state of Israel. I understand that its not a reflection of all the people there, Im sure that they are also not wanting to see people be displaced or murdered. And there were actually a few testimonies, I saw men and women that had lost their families. And they said, I dont want their death to be used to further harm others.



I think thats really important and knowing that, you do not have to be an expert, but as long as you are willing to learn and reach out for verified information or people who are on the ground, that is gonna do a lot more than either being silent, or just kind of going with the narrative that you see on TV.

Thousands march in Austin, Texas: Netanyahu you cant hide, we charge you with genocide!

On Sunday, October 15, over a thousand people marched from the Texas state capitol building through the streets of Austin to protest Israels criminal war against Gaza. At the same time thousands marched through Dallas and Houston.

The protest began with a rally at the gate to the state Capitol building before participants marched down Congress Avenue. Well over a thousand people could be heard chanting Netanyahu you cant hide, we charge you with genocide, and from Palestine to Mexico, all the border walls must go. Masking was encouraged and KN-95s provided by the organizers. The rally demanded an immediate end to funding and arms shipments to Israel.

One protester carried a sign with Joe Bidens face photo-shopped over a photograph of Colin Powell wagging his infamous vial of anthrax before the UN while claiming that Iraq had obtained weapons of mass destruction, drawing a parallel between the lies used to justify the sociocide of Iraq and the now-debunked claims of Hamas decapitating babies.



The international character of the event was evident; participants were drawn from every racial, ethnic, and religious background. A member of a Filipino student group denounced US militarism and its support for the Marcos dictatorship in its former colony, emphasizing the hypocrisy of Israels claims of self-defense.

Thousands of protesters in Austin, Texas October 15, 2023.

The protest was staged against the backdrop of ongoing repression and intimidation of those who have spoken out against the genocide of the Palestinians. Three days before the protest, in an event largely unreported in the media, a group of three middle-aged men walked onto the University of Texas campus and attempted to disrupt a meeting hosted by the Palestinian Solidarity Committee of Austin.



The men harassed the student organizers while trying to enter the room. Students claim the men threw flyers at their faces and called them terrorists. One of the men shouted, next week Im in Israel, killing Arabs, motherf***ers.



As of this writing, the University of Texas administration has not taken any action to address the incident. In contrast, earlier in the week, the administration had sent out an email promising to protect Jewish students against hate, while saying nothing about the safety of Palestinian students.



When the march circled back around to the steps at the gate of the Capitol building, one member of the crowd started a chant of from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Protesters gather in front of the capital in Austin, Texas, October 15, 2023.

The organizers, however, informed him and the rest of the crowd that the event was over. As with the multi-racial protests against violence and murder by the police in 2020 and 2021, there exists a burning desire within the working class and youth to see the fight for the democratic rights of Palestinians through to the end. But the great danger is that, without a revolutionary and international leadership, that is a socialist one, this opposition will be redirected back into the dead end of racialist politics and ultimately the Democratic Party, as were the protests against police violence.

Protests against US-Backed Gaza genocide continue in New York City

Thousands of workers and youth gathered in Queens, New York City, Wednesday evening to protest the unfolding genocide in Gaza, hours after US President Joe Biden concluded discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, indicating full US backing for a ground invasion. Earlier that day, hundreds of students, faculty and staff joined a protest at the Graduate Student Center of the City College of New York (CUNY) in Manhattan.

The day before, on Tuesday, hundreds of New York University students and employees demonstrated in Washington Square Park against the US-backed genocide. All protests were accompanied by a very heavy presence of the New York City Police Department, which is known to maintain close ties to the Israeli military and police.

At the protest in Queens on Wednesday, the World Socialist Web Site spoke to a group of medical workers from the borough. One of them said, Genocide is happening right now and we see people coming together in the spaces they cansocial media, the streets, DC. It just feels like everybody is going to be rallying to save Palestinians and stop whats happening in Gaza, the escalation toward a ground invasion, calling for a ceasefire and Palestines right to be.

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Hundreds march in Cleveland, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: This has nothing to do with antisemitism, and it has everything to do with us wanting our freedoms.

About 500 people marched and rallied in downtown Cleveland this past Friday afternoon against the Israeli bombing of Gaza. Marchers carried signs that read Free Palestine, while characterizing Israel as an apartheid state carrying out genocide.

Many drew a connection between what the Nazis did to the Jews who resisted their transfer to the concentration camps and the current collective punishment being conducted by Israel with US support against the 2 million residents of Gaza.

Sobhy told WSWS reporters she came to the rally to show that Cleveland stands with Palestine.

Sobhy rejected claims by Zionists and their mouthpieces that support for Palestinian democratic rights was antisemitic, saying, This has been going on since 1948. ... This has nothing to do with antisemitism, and everything to do with us wanting our freedoms. There is no food, no oil, no nothing. And now [the Israeli government] are ordering a million people to evacuate so that they can basically carpet bomb us. It is basically genocide. That is what this is.

I have hundreds of clients that are Jewish and I treat them like they are Muslim. We do not have anything against Jews. We do have something against Zionists, but not all Jews are Zionists. That is the differencewe do not have anything against Jews. We have lived with Jews our entire lives, our neighbors are Jews and we treat them like we would treat our Muslim brothers. We are all brothers at the end of the day. We just do not agree with what they are doing to usthere are plenty of Jews that are against Zionism as well.

Asked to comment on the outrageous lies and slanders being spread on major news networks and by heads of state against Palestinians, Sobhy replied, They are spreading this false propaganda that makes us seem like we are the bad people when we are really just fighting for our lives, and now Israel is actually feeling what we have been feeling for the last 50 years.

In a protest held this past Friday in Pittsburgh, about 300 students from the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and other nearby schools marched to oppose the assault being conducted in Gaza and to demand that Israel lift the blockade.

Gaza is just a tiny strip of land, said one student who did not want to give his name for fear of retaliation. Two million people live pinned up against the sea, there is no way for them to escape. The border with Egypt is closed.

Every day, Israeli planes are dropping bombs on them and they have no water or electricity. This is collective punishment. The Israelis say that it is wrong to take hostages, but these 2 million people have been kept prisoners for decades and not allowed to live on their own land.

We are not against the Jews. It is horrible what the Nazis did to them, but that doesnt make it right for them to do the same to us.

Thousands attend vigil for Wadea al-Fayoume in Plainfield, Illinois

Around 2,000 people crowded into the gym and all around the parking lot of the Prairie Activity and Recreation Center in Plainfield on Tuesday to recognize the life and death of Wadea al-Fayoume. Fayoume was a Palestinian-American six-year-old murdered last Saturday by his 71-year old landlord in a vicious hate crime. Wadeas mother, Hanaan Shahin, was also grievously injured in the attack. Hundreds attended the boys funeral on Monday, and many, many more were present at the vigil the next day.

The White House, Justice Department and leading Illinois Democrats have stepped in to attempt to control the narrative and obscure their partys role in the murder, as the Biden administration intensifies its support for the genocidal war on Gaza. Earlier that same day, Israel Defense Forces struck a hospital. A Netanyahu government spokesperson initially took credit for the bombing, claiming it was a Hamas cell location, before deleting his post on X/Twitter.

As the horrific civilian casualties became evident, the official media and government narrative shifted to claim a Palestinian group had struck the hospital.

The siege that began in retaliation against the October 7 Gaza uprising has set off protests internationally, with millions demonstrating in recent days, including hundreds of American Jews who traveled to Washington, D.C. to demand an immediate ceasefire.



Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appeared at the boys funeral yesterday, and the FBI and the Department of Justices Civil Rights Division are reportedly investigating the attack, emphasizing the influence of right-wing talk radio on the perpetrator.

Everything was done to attempt to silence opposition to the war and obscure what really happened to Wadea. Vigil organizers attempted to limit the views that could be expressed, warning at the beginning of the presentations, If your feelings get too big, take a break, go outside.



A representative from the White House was introduced, Dilawar Syed, the deputy administrator for the US Small Business Administration, as a prominent Muslim appointee of Biden. He said, Pres. Biden has been clear, there is no room for hate.

At this, the crowd could contain its disgust no longer. Loud boos erupted and shouts of Your president has blood on his hands! and What about the fake news?

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In an interview with CNNs Abby Phillip on Monday night, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez walked back her previous token opposition to US government aid for Israeli militarism, saying that she would now vote in support of US funding of Israels Iron Dome anti-missile system. Iron Dome allows the Israel Defense Forces to conduct unlimited air strikes on Gaza without any fear of retaliation by rocket attacks from Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups.

In December 2021, Ocasio-Cortez came under attack from right-wing groups when she voted present rather than yes on a bill providing additional US aid to Israel, mainly for Iron Dome. She cited concerns about the actions of the Netanyahu government, including a missile strike that targeted journalists offices in the Gaza Strip.

Now, amid saturation bombing of Gaza in which thousands of Palestinians have been killed, including more than 1,000 children, Ocasio-Cortez is willing to support not only US military aid for Iron Dome, but also Israeli action against Hamasi.e., the ongoing campaign of mass murder throughout Gaza and the preparation of an Israeli invasion and mass displacement of the Palestinian population.

For years, Ocasio-Cortez has been the most visible representative of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) on the national stage. In 2018, she became the first DSA-backed candidate, and DSA member, to defeat an incumbent Democrat in a primary. She went on to win the heavily Democratic seat in the Bronx and Queens, New York, which she has held ever since. This year, as part of her integration into the party establishment, she was given a minor position in the party leadership in the House.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic-New York, endorsed President Joe Biden's reelection campaign in July 2023. [AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin/Susan Walsh]

The squad of DSA members or representatives linked to the DSA has now swelled to more than half a dozen, including Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush, Greg Casar and Summer Lee. Ocasio-Cortez is by far the most widely publicized, frequently interviewed by the national media, with a prominent platform for addressing issues such as the crisis in the Middle East. But particularly on foreign policy, she maintains a slavish support of American imperialism in general and the Biden administration in particular.

This was demonstrated at some length in her CNN interview Monday and not only on the question of US military aid to Israel. She hemmed and hawed on Phillips question about changing her position since 2021, finally saying that if a bill was limited to financing the Iron Dome, such aid was absolutely legitimate.

She continued, almost babbling, I have concerns about white phosphorus, I have concerns about human rights and insuring that we have humanitarian aid going through, she told Phillip. But on the sole principle of Iron Dome and defense, I absolutely think theres an openness, for sure.

Ocasio-Cortez was no more coherent but nonetheless unmistakably pro-imperialist on related questions: calling for a ceasefire in the fighting, and responding to the declaration by Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis that the US should accept no refugees from Gaza because theyre all antisemitic.

A transcript captures both aspects of the conversation:

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, when we talk about going in there, I think we should also keep in mind President Bidens statements as well about what the implications of a potential ground invasion would be. This is an inherently complex situation. I do believe that Hamas needs to be dealt with. PHILLIP: But how, I think, is what Im trying to understand. OCASIO-CORTEZ: And I think what were trying to figure out right now is that this present situation of collective punishment and indiscriminate attack is one approach. But we are seeing that the issues and the complications of that approach now, can we target them in terms of intelligence? Is there precision? What are the options available are entirely up to the administration and for Israel to examine and explore.

And moving on to Ron DeSantis:

PHILLIP: There is a lot in there, but I wonder, for you, is he touching on something that is perhaps real here? Should Arab countries be taking on the lions share of the burden to absorb what could be over a million if not more refugees from Gaza? OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think there is something to be said about the regions partners being able to support and step up Palestinians. However, that does not abdicate the United States from our historic role that we have played in the world of accepting refugees and allowing people to restart their lives here.

Two important observations must be made. First, Ocasio-Cortez cedes to President Joe Biden the decisive role in determining US policy towards Israel and Gaza. In other words, the principal representative of American imperialism must decide how far to support Israel in its attack on Gaza, and she will support him.

The congresswoman adds, I do believe that Hamas needs to be dealt with. So she accepts entirely the framework of US national security interests laid down by the military-intelligence apparatus and Wall Street.



In relation to DeSantis, Ocasio-Cortez effectively accepts the figure of one million or more refugees from Gaza offered by the CNN correspondent. She does not suggest that such a mass displacement of Palestiniansgreater numerically than the original nakba that dispersed the Palestinians in 1947-48 and made possible the establishment of the state of Israelwould itself be a war crime of monstrous proportions. The only issue is where these Palestinians should go and whether a small number will be allowed into the United States.

There is currently a bitter conflict raging within the DSA over the slowness of the groups leadership to embrace the full anti-Palestinian hysteria unleashed by the US political establishment and corporate media in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas across the border of Gaza and into southern Israel, in which as many as 1,400 Israelis and an estimated 1,500 Hamas militants were killed.

One long-time public representative of the DSA, columnist Harold Meyerson, issued a statement announcing his resignation from the group, in which he praised Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ocasio-Cortez because both explicitly and forcefully condemned Hamas.

He was responding specifically to the statement issued by Ocasio-Cortez last week in which she condemned a pro-Palestinian rally held in Times Square October 8, claiming, The bigotry and callousness expressed in Times Square on Sunday were unacceptable and harmful in this devastating moment.

Ocasio-Cortez made no reference to the fact that the Israeli military was killing Palestinians by the thousands in Gaza, allegedly in retaliation for the Hamas raid, or that the government had imposed a blockade barring the 2 million people in Gaza from access to electricity, water and food.

There is no doubt that Ocasio-Cortez has her eye on a more prominent role within the Democratic Party. If the price of that political success is to drop her previous mealy-mouthed rhetoric about sympathy for the Palestinians, she has no problem doing so, whatever the verbal contortions that now entails.

More fundamentally, the global explosion of US militarism, with the opening of war fronts that extend from Ukraine to Gaza to Iran to the South China Sea, has shut down any space for radical posturing by the pseudo-left. They must show their true colors politically, and that means lining up as supporters, cheerleaders and potential leaders of American imperialism.
A prominent Palestinian author has been censured and abused at this years Frankfurt Book Festival, the worlds largest book fair, which opened its doors on Wednesday. Adania Shibli was due to be honored October 20 with the 2023 LiBeratur Award for her novel Minor Detail (Tafsil Tanawi). The prize, established in 1987, is given out annually by the Litprom association (the Society for the Promotion of African, Asian and Latin American Literature), to female writers from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Arab-speaking world.

Last Friday, however, Litprom announced it was postponing the award ceremony due to the war started by Hamas, under which millions of people in Israel and Palestine are suffering.

Adania Shibli, 2020 [Photo by National Book Foundation / CC BY 3.0

The cowardly decision by Litprom to deny a platform to Shibli was reinforced by the director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Jurgen Boos, who lined up unequivocally behind the ultra-right Israeli regime, which is currently planning to conduct a murderous incursion into the Gaza Strip. In an official statement, Boos, on behalf of the book fair leadership, described the response by Hamas to decades of Israeli terror and oppression as a barbaric terror war against Israel.

Declaring that Terror, however, can never be allowed to win, Boos asserted that the book fair would make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair. Boos went on to state that the book fair had spontaneously decided to give Israeli and Jewish voices additional time on our stages as well. On the first day of the fair, we are collaborating with PEN Berlin to organise the event Out of Concern for Israel, which will take place in the Frankfurt Pavilion, the fairs cultural and political stage. Boos statement ended with the words, The Frankfurt Book Fair stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel. Boos has refrained from making any criticism of Litproms decision to prevent Shiblis receiving her award at this years book fair.

At the opening on Tuesday evening, philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who represented the guest country Slovenia, contradicted the bookfairs director. He called the decision to cancel the book award ceremony for Shibli a scandalous decision. Those who did not fit into the general image of diversity and inclusion would be excluded, he said. I am therefore not only proud to be here, I am also a little ashamed, added Zizek, who in his speech acknowledged Israel's right to self-defence, but also addressed the rights of the Palestinians living in Gaza. While he received applause from the vast majority of the audience, several politicians presentincluding the antisemitism commissioner of the Hessian state government Uwe Becker (CDU)left the hall.

The decision to provide Israeli authors a major platform at the book fair while denying the same right to a prominent Palestinian writer has led to a storm of protest. An open letter, signed by over 1000 authors, including Nobel prize winners Abdulrazak Gurnah, Annie Ernaux and Olga Tokarczuk, condemned the attack on Shibli. Other signatories include the American-Libyan Pulitzer winner Hisham Matar, the British-Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie, Irish author Colm Toibin and the British historian William Dalrymple.

The open letter criticises the decision by Litprom to call off the award ceremony for Shibli, asserting the Frankfurt book fair has a responsibility to create spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down.

In response to the book fair managements action, a number of Arabic-language publishing houses announced they would withdraw from this years event. In a statement on behalf of the Arab Publishers Association, Mohammad Rashad declared that his association wishes to express its deep regret for your biased and unjust stance toward the tragic events in the region, The Palestinian people have been living under the longest occupation in modern history, an occupation which has transformed into a system of apartheid that exerts maximum pressure and has made Gaza an open prison for more than 2.2 million people.

Noting that more than 1,900 Palestinians, ten percent of whom were children, had been killed by the Israeli army in just six days, Rashad concluded: We denounce any attack on a civilian from any side, but viewing the case from a single angle and accepting this injustice that the Palestinian people have been subjected to for decades is a big mistake.

Shibli's English publisher, Jacques Testard of Fitzcarraldo, also condemned the stance taken by the book fair declaring: One of the purposes of literature is to inspire understanding and dialogue between cultures. At a time of such horrific violence and gruesome suffering, the world's largest book fair has a duty to champion literary voices from Palestine and Israel.

Minor Detail, Adania Shibli

Minor Detail was shortlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The novel was also longlisted for the International Booker Prize. It was originally praised by Litprom as a rigorously composed work of art that tells of the power of borders and what violent conflicts do to and with people.

Minor Detail, which deserves its own review, treats in fictional form the true story of the rape and murder of a Bedouin girl by an Israeli army unit in 1949. The soldiers were later convicted by an Israeli court. The account of the historical events is juxtaposed to the fictional story of a Palestinian journalist from Ramallah who comes across an article about the case by an Israeli colleague. She drives to the site of the events in the Negev desert, next to the Kibbutz Nirim, where she is shot by Israeli soldiers, after failing to recognise a military barricade.

After initially receiving widespread critical acclaim, Minor Detail has come under increasing attack from pro-Israeli media and propagandists, including the German daily taz (close to the Green Party), which criticised the novel for depicting Israel soldiers as rapists and killers and Palestinians as the victims of poisoned or trigger-happy occupiers.

The campaign against Shibli and her book must be seen in light of the unprecedented measures taken by the German government, with the full support of the countrys opposition parties, to silence all opposition to the decades-long occupation of Palestine by Israel and the current manoeuvres by the regime in Tel Aviv to carry out a homicidal military offensive against Palestinians in Gaza.

Following the unanimous agreement by all parties in the German parliamentfrom the Left Party to the fascist AfDto support the Netanyahu regimes genocidal siege of Gaza, the German police and judiciary have banned pro-Palestinian protests across the country. Schools are preventing pupils from displaying any signs of solidarity with the Palestinians, while ordinary citizens, including Germans, Arabs and Jews can be arrested for peacefully demonstrating on behalf the beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza. In one recent case, a Jewish woman carrying a placard with the text As a Jew & Israeli Stop the Genocide in Gaza was arrested by police when she walked alone across a public square in the Berlin suburb of Neukolln.

The current assault on the basic democratic rights of free expression and assembly takes place against the deafening cacophony by politicians of all stripes and virtually the entire German media asserting that any opposition to the fascistic Israeli government amounts to antisemitism.

Leading politicians, with the Green Party-led foreign and culture ministries to the fore, have launched vicious campaigns in recent months against artists speaking out against Israeli oppression, including rock musician Roger Waters and artists featured in the Documenta Arts Festival. The utter hypocrisy of those in parliament detecting antisemitism everywhere has been exposed by their readiness to ally with Ukrainian fascists and to close ranks with the rabidly antisemitic AfD in order to overturn basic democratic rights and give the judiciary and police a free hand to crush oppositionnot only to the government in Tel Aviv but also to the increasingly despised government in Berlin.
PHNOM PENH, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia exported 242,304 tons of dry rubber in the first nine months of 2023, up 3.5 percent from 234,100 tons over the same period last year, said a report from the General Directorate of Rubber on Thursday.

The country earned 320.5 million U.S. dollars in revenue from exports of the commodity during the January-September period this year, down 9.8 percent from 355.6 million dollars over the same period last year, the report said.

"A ton of dry rubber averagely cost 1,323 U.S. dollars during the first nine months of 2023, about 196 dollars lower than that of the same period last year," Him Oun, director general of the General Directorate of Rubber, said in the report.

The Southeast Asian nation exports the commodity mainly to Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore and China.

The report said Cambodia has so far planted rubber trees in a total area of 404,578 hectares, in which the trees on 315,332 hectares, or 78 percent, are old enough to be tapped. 
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Four soldiers and six terrorists were killed in two separate clashes in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a military statement said on Thursday.

In the North Waziristan district, a gun battle broke out between terrorists and the troops, the military's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in the statement.

During the operation, six terrorists and three soldiers were killed, the ISPR said.

During an exchange of fire in the South Waziristan district, one more soldier was killed, the statement added. 
LISBON, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese authorities have condemned an attack that destroyed a hospital in the Gaza Strip, and expressed their condolences for the hundreds of innocent victims.

On Wednesday, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa advocated for an "independent investigation so that there is no doubt about who fired the missile," as well as urging Israel to cease its attack on the enclave.

Costa added that it is important to "support all the proposals presented by the Secretary-General of the United Nations."

It is also vital to have "a genuine ceasefire" in the conflict in that region, so that a "humanitarian corridor" can be implemented, the prime minister said.

A "just and lasting peace in the region" must involve the recognition of two autonomous states, he said.

Meanwhile, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa expressed shock at the explosion, "whether intentional or not," but refrained from taking sides. He recommended more silence and diplomacy in the face of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

President of the Portuguese Parliament Augusto Santos Silva condemned the attack on the Gaza hospital, expressing "solidarity with the victims, their families, and, in general, with the civilian population." 
Tonight on The Amazing Race, teams continue racing in Vietnam and face the hustle and bustle of a congested Vietnamese market, where they must properly set up a fish stand and deliver mattresses to a local hotel. This episode titled The Day Keeps Rockin Here in Vietnam airs Wednesday, October 18 (9:30-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS. Phil Keoghan hosts.

CBS promises the biggest season yet, with 13 teams competing for the first time ever. We will also see the return of commercial travel, no non-elimination legs, the express pass and a twist on the infamous U-Turn! Here are the teams still in contention: Jocelyn & Victor (married), Liam & Yemeri (brothers), Malaina & Andrea (best friends), Joe & Ian (engaged), Steve & Anna Leigh (father/daughter), Morgan & Lena (sisters), Ashlie & Todd (married), Robbin & Chelsea (childhood friends), Greg & John (brothers), Rob & Corey (father/son) and Joel & Garrett (best friends). See the full cast in the gallery above. Follow our live blog recap of tonights episode below.

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9:30 p.m.  Previously, on The Amazing Race! In episode 3, teams felt the strain of commercial travel and floated their way through the Mekong Delta as they were challenged between making rice paper or customizing a scooter by wrapping it in vinyl in Vietnam. Following the Roadblock and Detour, Steve & Anna Leigh leaped into first place while Liam & Yeremi hit the pit stop last. Luckily, the leg wasnt over and nobody was eliminated! Lets see how things play out as the teams continue to race through Vietnam.

9:35 p.m.  Steve & Anna Leigh have a four minute head start as they continue racing into the next leg. As they rip open their clue it has them traveling by taxi to Cafe Tu Diec for their next clue. Joel & Garrett are hot on their tail with Rob & Corey in third. Steve & Anna Leigh arrive and open their next Detour: Stand or Deliver. In Stand, teams will need to pick up slimy creatures from a distributor, carry them through the crowded market and sort them out at a stall. When theirs matches the vendor theyll receive a clue. In Deliver, teams must pick up four mattresses (weighing 66 pounds each) and weave their way through 300 yards to the West Hotel. Steve & Anna Leigh choose Stand while Joel & Garrett choose Deliver, which should give us an early idea of which Detour is faster.

10:00 p.m.  Joel & Garrett realize theyve been walking in the wrong direction and have to turn around, but time is still on their side. More teams reach the Detour and disperse between the Stand and Deliver Detours. Steve & Anna Leigh ask for their first check at the fish stand, but theyve done something wrong. Deflated, they try to figure out whats wrong. They havent noticed two boxes are in the reverse order on their stand and theyre missing a bucket of eels next to it. Over at the mattress delivery, Ashlie thinks she broke her finger, but her husband responds, Youll be fine, Ive broken my fingers all the time.

10:15 p.m.  Finally Anna Leigh realizes theyre missing a bucket of long eels. They rush to grab them and finish out this Detour, holding onto first place. Next theyll head to Ong Pagoda to make a wish. Joel & Garrett finish delivering mattresses and theyre still team #2 in this race. Later, Joe & Ian get to the mattress delivery and decide to carry two at a time, which could gain them some valuable time by making two trips instead of four. Soon they realize that strategy isnt as easy as it looks and decide to take the final two mattresses one at a time.

10:25 p.m.  Steve & Anna Leigh reach the pagoda and wish theyll finish this leg as the #1 team. They receive their next clue, instructing them to travel by taxi to Hung King Temple for their next clue. Meanwhile, Jocelyn & Victor and Liam & Yeremi have just reached the Detour, hoping to move up from the back of the pack. The next teams to finish the Detour are Joel & Garrett, Rob & Corey and Todd & Ashlie. Meanwhile, Liam & Yeremi decide to deliver mattresses. Theyre young and strong, hoping that delivering two at a time will make up as much time as possible and get them out of last place. Up in front, Steve & Anna Leigh reach the Roadblock at a temple. Who wants to play Match Maker? One member from each team must find the one and only tile (out of thousands) that matches the photo in their clue. Anna Leigh will take this one for the father/daughter duo. Once each team finds their tile and gets a thumbs up, they can reunite with their partner and run to the Pit Stop. The last team to check in will be eliminated.

10:35 p.m.  Anna Leigh thinks she hit a stroke of luck and landed right in front of her matching tile within seconds. When shes told shes incorrect, she realizes the slight difference between her tile and the others  one strand of hair. The amount of tiles around this temple is outrageous. This could take a while. Meanwhile, Morgan & Lena and Robbin & Chelsea finish their fish stands to complete the Detour, flipping spots in the lineup but remaining within seconds of each other and staying in the top half of the pack. Joel & Garrett are next to reach the Roadblock. This search for tiles could be anyones game. The race is on! As more teams arrive, who will complete this task first? Andrea & Malaina have fallen to last place as the last team to finish the Detour, but the final Roadblock is so time consuming and mentally frustrating, its anyones leg right now.

10:45 p.m.  Anna Leigh asks Chelsea if she wants to work together looking for their tiles. Without much response from Chelsea, Anna Leigh says to herself, Noted. Wont be helping her again. Moments earlier Anna Leigh believes she spotted Todds tile, but refused to tell him, so maybe this is just a bit of karma. However, Chelsea didnt need Anna Leighs help. Despite arriving much later than some of the others team, she found her tile and now Robbin & Chelsea will finish this leg in first place! As the winners of this leg they have won a trip for two to Madrid, Spain. See the full results of this leg of the race below.

11:00 p.m.  People keep proposing to work together, but it really serves no benefit to anyone. If you find one persons tile for them, they leave and finish this leg of the race. They dont stay around and help you find yours. I wouldnt help anyone either. Later, Todd finds his just seconds before Anna Leigh, but the father/daughter duo are first to the mat. Theyre teams two and three. More and more teams finish, proving this final task to be a great equalizer! Andrea & Malaina were last to arrive, but their quick scouting skills landed them in seventh place. At the back of the pack racing for their teams to survive are Lena and Victor. Lena is the first to find her tile and she and Morgan hit the mat in 10th place. Sadly, this is the end of the race for Jocelyn & Victor, who started off strong winning the first two legs of Season 35.

Leg 4 results:

1. Robbin & Chelsea

2. Steve & Anna Leigh

3. Todd & Ashlie

4. Joe & Ian

5. Rob & Corey

6. Liam & Yeremi

7. Andrea & Malaina

8. Greg & John

9. Joel & Garrett

10. Morgan & Lena

11. Jocelyn & Victor (eliminated)

Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Dont miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?

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Dr. Derrick Todd was terminated from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston

Getty A class-action lawsuit has been filed by a group of women who claim that a doctor based in Boston conducted unnecessary physical examinations that were deemed inappropriate.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed by a group of women who claim that a doctor based in Boston conducted unnecessary physical examinations for the purpose of sexually assaulting them.

The lawsuit, filed last Friday, alleges that Dr. Derrick Todd, a former rheumatologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital conducted pelvic, breast, and rectal exams solely for his sexual gratification under the pretense of delivering care to his patients. The patients involved in the lawsuit assert that this conduct constitutes sexual assault.

The lawsuit alleges that Todd "breached his duty of care when he performed inappropriate bodily examinations, practiced gynecological medicine in an unauthorized manner, and sexually assaulted patients under the auspices of providing medical care."

Speaking exclusively with PEOPLE, Andrew Meyer, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, said more than 120 women have joined the lawsuit.

All of their statements are rather incriminating regarding Dr. Todds conduct, Meyer alleges to PEOPLE. They have all repeated and alleged the same inappropriate conduct and excessive examinations.

Meyer, who filed the suit in Suffolk Superior Court, claims that because Todd was a rheumatologist, his exams should not have involved breast examinations and should not involve vaginal examinations.

Meyer says that for any vaginal or breast examination, it's mandatory to have a nurse or chaperone present.

The lawsuit claims these alleged incidents occurred over an extended period spanning several years, commencing as early as 2011 and persisting until July 2023. In a statement issued to PEOPLE, Brigham and Women's Hospital explained that it was during this period that Todd became the subject of investigation by both the hospital and the Board of Registration in Medicine. The hospital initially suspended Todd, who held the position of Chief of Clinical Rheumatology at Brigham's Faulkner Hospital.

According to the statement, the hospital terminated Todd on July 31 following an initial investigation prompted by complaints from two other physicians. The hospital also reported Todd's departure to the Department of Public Health and the Board of Registration in Medicine. In addition, all of Todd's active patients were informed that he was no longer employed, and they were given guidance on transitioning their care.

The statement also says that in September, Todd willingly entered into an agreement to halt his medical practice, underlining that this decision did not constitute an admission of wrongdoing.

We deeply regret the harm Dr. Todds actions has caused our patients and their families, Charles Morris, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer, Brigham and Womens Hospital told PEOPLE in a statement. We take our duty to care for our patients and keep them safe extremely seriously. We have, and always will, act decisively on any allegations of misconduct, as we did in this case.

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.

Prior to Fridays lawsuit, two additional legal actions were filed against the doctor. One of these cases also alleges sexual assault carried out under the guise of medical care. The other, brought by a single plaintiff, claims that during her period as Todd's patient from November to July, he engaged in sexually inappropriate remarks, compelled her to undress in front of him, and conducted unwarranted examinations involving the inappropriate touching of her breasts and genitalia.

Brigham and Women's Hospital is named as a co-defendant in all three lawsuits, alongside Charles River Medical Associates where Todd was also employed.

In a statement to PEOPLE, Charles River Medical Associates stated they had not received any complaints about Todd's inappropriate conduct from patients, staff, or other physicians throughout his tenure, including his last day on July 26th.

"We are disappointed and saddened by these disturbing allegations and recognize the courage it takes for these patients to come forward," the statement said. "Nothing is more important to Charles River Medical Associates than the health and safety of those patients who receive care at our practice."

In addition to the three lawsuits, a fourth lawsuit was filed against Todd in September by an unnamed patient. That lawsuit has been sealed, as reported by The Boston Globe.

PEOPLE was unable to reach Todd's attorney, Ingrid Martin.



The Boston Police Department, Suffolk County District Attorney, and the Board of Registration in Medicine is currently investigating the allegations, but no criminal charges have been filed against Todd.

The police, the district attorney's office and the board have not responded to PEOPLE's request for comment.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.



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Read the original article on People.
The Tallahassee-area craft beer scene  an area we define as anything within 100 miles of Tally  continues to grow and expand. And coming soon to North Florida and South Georgia are two MORE breweries that should be on your radar:

Forgotten Coast Brewing in Port St. Joe/Mexico Beach and Bandwagon Brewing in Moultrie, Ga.

Let's stay in Florida first.

In October 2023, Forgotten Coast Brewing Company announced their intentions to open in Port St. Joe on Mexico Beach. The brewery is being funded/founded by White Sands Hospitality.

Forgotten Coast Brewing

This past week, Forgotten Coast Brewing Company announced their intentions to open in Port St. Joe on Mexico Beach. The announcement didn't come out of nowhere  we'd heard this was happening a few months ago, we just didn't know when  but the news was welcome to those on the Forgotten Coast that have already embraced current craft brewery brands Oyster City in Apalachicola and Eastpoint Beer Company in Eastpoint.

There aren't a lot of details on this new brewery, which sits just on the cusp of our coverage area (PSJ is roughly 100 miles from Tallahassee), but is an intriguing new operation coming to North Florida, nonetheless. Per their Facebook page, the brewery will be located directly on the water at 4101 Highway 98 in Mexico Beach, although because the project appears to be part new construction/part renovation on a current building, the ETA is influx.

But it most definitely is already under construction  that much we know. We also know the head brewer's name is Steve Wells and that former Oyster City General Manager Clayton Mathis is serving as a consultant in helping them get launched.

Forgotten Coast Brewing is selling draft beer at three locations along the Forgotten Coast - The Gibson Inn in Apalachicola, above, The Owl and Longbill's.

Owners of Gibson Inn and Owl Cafe

The brewery is being funded/founded by White Sands Hospitality, a rather large restaurant/hotel/resort/vacation rental conglomerate that has been making big moves along the Forgotten Coast for the last decade.

In Apalachicola alone, they own The Gibson Inn, The Apalach Inn, The Taranto House, The Bowery Inn, The Owl Cafe, The Owl Tap Room, The Franklin Cafe + Parlor Bar and the former Boss Oyster location right on the water, which was destroyed by Hurricane Michael 5 years ago. It's still TBD what their plans are for the former iconic Boss Oyster location, but we have no doubt it'll be something amazing right on the waterfront as you drive into Apalach.

And in Cape San Blas, they own Longbill's Seafood Restaurant and The Smokehouse on CSB. And, now, Forgotten Coast Brewing Company.

Beer already flowing with Tallahassee connection

Here's another interesting tidbit about FCBC: They're already producing beer, which can also already be found on draft ONLY at three locations along the Forgotten Coast - The Gibson, The Owl and Longbill's. As for where they produced those first batches of beer? Well, the connection comes right back to Tallahassee.

Here's an exchange Forgotten Coast Brewing had with a commenter on Facebook:

Commenter: "Which beers are currently available? Where are you brewing the beer?"Forgotten Coast Brewing Company: "Marsh Sunset Golden Ale, First Draft IPA, Hwy 98 LoCal and Lighthouse Lager! We've partnered with Deep Brewing, out of Tallahassee, for these pilot batches."

So there ya have it! Tallahassee's own Deep Brewing is helping them out in the interim, which is always great to see when breweries collab. Nevertheless, Forgotten Coast Brewing is coming soon, so stay tuned to this column for an update at some point and be sure to follow them on social media in the meantime for more regular progress reports.

Bandwagon Brewing in Moultrie, Georgia, is planning just be open to the public by Thanksgiving, 2023.

Getting on the Georgia Bandwagon

Now, let's head to South Georgia, where Bandwagon Brewing announced their arrival months ago, but details are starting to become more flushed out every day. And they might just be open to the public by Thanksgiving if all goes according to plan!

Colquitt County, Ga. - which is home to the town of Moultrie and sits just 65 miles from Tallahassee - is about to get their first-ever craft brewery, and it's being founded and funded by a local entrepreneur from Moultrie named Harrison Isaacs.

Harrison started a group called Intrie Capital, which bills itself as a "a comprehensive investment agency specializing in real estate development, property investment, and business consulting. We purposefully re-imagine vacant land and existing structures to the highest and best use of the property. Our goal is always to achieve thoughtful function in a space while also preserving heritage and tradition where possible. We aim to truly invest in communities  not just develop them."

Harrison and co-founder Bill Kimmerly are doing just that in Colquitt County, where they have already broken ground and begun the build out of Bandwagon at 33 W. Central Ave. in Downtown Moultrie. Kimmerly, who will serve as head brewer for Bandwagon, brings an interesting background to the table, too: He's a doctoral Cellular and Molecular Biology graduate from UC Berkeley. And that basically just means Bandwagon's brewmaster is, like, really, really smart.

The town's local newspaper, The Moultrie Observer, broke the news about Bandwagon back in April and wrote this about the venture:

"The brewery is designed to accommodate future expansion, providing a sustainable foundation for the companys long-term growth plans, the press release said. Bandwagon Brewing Company plans to partner with local farmers to source ingredients for its products and work with other businesses to promote positive changes brewing in Moultrie.

We are not just building a brewery; we are building a community, Kimmerly told the publication. Ive been involved in the craft beverage field for about 20 years, and I previously owned and operated a brewery and winery in Washington state. I am excited to bring my brewing vision to Georgia.

Bandwagon already brewing

Like Forgotten Coast Brewing, Bandwagon is already producing beer. They poured in the 5th Annual TLH Beer Festival in late August and then again at the TLH Beer Society's 6th Anniversary Party just two weeks ago.

They are going to specialize in some unusual styles of beers too, including Belgian ales and cask beers.

Bill told us this week that the goal is to be open  at least partially  for Moultrie's annual Thanksgiving "Canopy Of Lights" shindig in downtown on Nov. 23. He added that at the latest, they should be fully open by the first week in December.

Amicus opens at waterworks building

That'll do it for this week! We threw a lot of brew news at you, so take it all in and start adding trips to these new local breweries to your list!

And don't forget, right here in Tallahassee, Amicus Brewing Ventures is opening this week Thursday, with a Grand Opening ribbon cutting ceremony planned for Friday!

Cheers to even MORE beer than ever before in the Tallahassee-area!

Danny Aller is the co-founder, along with Matthew Crumbaker, of the TLH Beer Society. Reach the Beer Society on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or email: tlhbeersociety@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: New breweries coming to Port St. Joe, Moultrie | Brew Bend
Actor Burt Young, best known for playing Paulie Pennino in the Rocky films, has died at the age of 83.

Young received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor in 1977 for his role as the friend and future brother-in-law of boxer Rocky, played by Sylvester Stallone .

Stallone paid tribute to Young on social media, calling him an "incredible man and artist".

He added: "I and the world will miss you very much."

Young appeared in six Rocky films with Sylvester Stallone

Born Gerald Tommaso DeLouise in Queens, New York, the Italian-American was in the US Marine Corps in the 1950s, and went on to study acting and build a career playing tough guys in TV shows and films.

The actor was remembered by Variety's Carmel Dagan as "exceptionally prolific".

"[He] was never much to look at, making him the perfect character actor - [he] had a way of taking a thug or a goon or a mug and giving him more personality, more sympathy, somehow, than the role deserved," Dagan wrote.

Young appeared in the first Rocky film in 1976 as a friend of Stallone's character, before becoming Rocky's brother-in-law in Rocky II when the fighter married his sister.

He played Paulie in all six original Rocky films but did not return in 2015 spin-off film Creed.

Rocky was his best-known work and a huge cinema hit, receiving 10 Oscar nominations and three awards in total, including best picture.

Young also appeared in Once Upon a Time in America, Last Exit to Brooklyn and Mickey Blue Eyes.

He featured in television series such as The Sopranos, Law & Order, The Rockford Files and M*A*S*H.

In his life after acting, Young made his name as a painter and exhibited his work at galleries around the world.

His death was confirmed by his manager on Wednesday.
EnergaCamerimage, the cinematography-focused film festival that will take place in Torun, Poland, Nov. 11-18, has announced three more films for its Main Competition: El Conde, Filip and Ferrari.

El Conde, helmed by Chilean director Pablo Larrain (Jackie, Spencer), is billed as a dark comedy/horror picture that imagines a parallel universe in which Chiles late fascistic dictator Augusto Pinochet is a vampire hiding away in a ruined mansion.

More from Variety

The film was lensed by Ed Lachman, the only DP to have completed a Camerimage trifecta, having collected a Golden Frog for Carol (2015), a Silver Frog for Far From Heaven 2002) and a Bronze Frog for Im Not There (2007).

Lachman was also nominated for Wonderstruck (2017) and in 2011, together with Todd Haynes, he was recognized with the Camerimage Cinematographer-Director Duo Award.

Lachman and Larrain will attend the fest to introduce the El Conde screening and participate in a Q&A.

Filip, a Polish war drama, centers on a twenty-something Jewish waiter, Filip (played by Eryk Kulm Jr.), who has learned how to survive under an assumed French identity in World War II Germany.

The film was shot by DP Micha Sobocinski, winner of the Bronze Tadpole for Father (2007) at the Camerimage Student Etudes Competition as well as in the Polish Films Competition for The Art of Loving: Story of Michalina Wislocka.

Ferrari, the latest feature foray by director Michael Mann (The Last of the Mohicans, Heat), examines the conflicted life of Italian race car driver and automobile entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari , played by Adam Driver (pictured above).

Mann created Ferraris visuals in collaboration with Oscar winning cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (Mank), for whom this will be the first nomination in Camerimages main competition. Messerschmidt will be on hand to introduce the film and speak at a Q&A.

Earlier this week, Camerimage announced that Killers of the Flower Moon, Black Lies and All of Us Strangers would also be among its Main Competition films.

In addition to the six films mentioned above, Camerimage has announced that the following three features will also be in the Main Competition: Ridley Scotts Napoleon, Warwick Thorntons The New Boy and Bradley Coopers Maestro. The screening of Napoleon at Camerimage will mark the first festival screening of the film.

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Dateline NBC is set to examine the bone-chilling case of Bethany Decker, who mysteriously vanished and never showed up. The upcoming episode, titled Bethany Vanished, will air on the network this Thursday, October 19, at 10 p.m. EST.

Virginia resident Bethany Decker went missing on January 29, 2011, hours after leaving her husbands parents home. Before disappearing, she returned to her apartment. Her then-boyfriend, Ronald Roldan, claimed he saw Decker in her apartment later that day.

However, Deckers absence went unnoticed for three weeks since her Facebook account continued to post messages. When her family realized she was missing, they found her car parked near her apartment. Despite extensive searches, no evidence of her or her unborn child was found. Decker was five months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

Deckers ex-boyfriends arrest in another case in North Carolina provided the ultimate closure. Moreover, the mystery of Deckers disappearance was ultimately solved when Roldan pleaded guilty to killing Decker.

Bethany Deckers death: Who killed the pregnant woman?

In November 2022, Roldan agreed to go on record with his account of the murder and gave a detailed version of how he killed Bethany Decker. The case was solved when one of Ronalds victims, Vickey Willoughby, told the police that he wanted to kill her. During one of their conversations, he admitted that he can make people disappear. After enduring multiple injuries, Willoughby told the police that her ex-boyfriend might have killed Decker.

As per NBC Washington, Roldan pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and noted that he pushed Decker during an argument, resulting in her fatal head injury. Afraid and panicked, he admitted to not calling 911 but instead disposed of her body in a Christmas tree disposal bag in the trash compactor at their complex.

In February 2023, Roldan was sentenced to 40 years in prison with 27.5 suspended. He is currently serving 12.5 years in prison, as per InsideNoVa. After getting released, Roldan will be under supervision for the next five years and cannot contact any member of the Decker family.

The post Dateline NBC: When Did Bethany Decker Disappear and Was She Ever Found? appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.
MADRID, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- FC Barcelona President Joan Laporta on Thursday reacted angrily to the news that he has been accused of bribery in the ongoing 'Caso Negreira' which is investigating bribes over a long period of time to Josep Maria Negreira, the former Vice-President of the Spanish referees' technical committee.

Laporta faces charges for the period 2008-2010 during his first spell as club president, while former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu are also under investigation for payments of over seven million euros to a company owned by Negreira.

"The judge's decision has no basis, and I do not agree," said Laporta in an interview on Catalan radio on Thursday.

He admitted that the charges were "expected" but insisted he was calm "because there was no bribery - much less continued bribery."

Laporta continued to insist the payments to Negreira were for his company to compile reports on referees and possible signings for Barcelona.

"They were paid for services and we have presented 629 reports in 42 CDs," he said, repeating that the club had "demonstrated services in exchange for documented payment."

"The judge wants to show that we have bought referees and fixed matches, but they will not be able to prove it because it is not true. The sentence will absolve us," he said. 
BRAINTREE  Daves Hot Chicken plans to open in Braintree on Friday.

The California-based restaurant's opening Oct. 20 at 30 Forbes Road  across the street from South Shore Plaza  marks its sixth Massachusetts location.

As an added bonus, there is free chicken on Tuesday, Oct. 24!

The restaurant will join Legal Sea Foods and Qdoba Mexican Eats at the site. Dave's replaces the Potbelly Sandwich Shop.

The opening is one of several recent restaurant openings and changes on the South Shore.

Dave's hours provide night owls with a late-night bite. It is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday.

The restaurant was founded by chef Dave Kopushyan and his friends Arman Oganesyan and Tommy and Gary Rubenyan in 2017.

Chicken tenders, sliders and cheesy fries at Dave's Hot Chicken.

More: What restaurant is moving into the location of Braintree's Lychee Bistro?

Where are the best cider doughnuts in New England? This map has over 250 options to try

As the companys website tells it, the four friends scrounged up $900 to put a tiny stand in an East Hollywood parking lot selling the tenders and sliders that remain the cornerstone of its menu.

Word of mouth and a glowing review in an area food magazine pushed the nascent venture into prominence with its signature blend of flavors that the companys website said can range from the mild to The Reaper at its hottest.

Dave's Hot Chicken has opened over 100 locations throughout the country and beyond since its founding in California six years ago.

Other Dave's locations in the state are in Boston, Chelmsford, Newton, Woburn and Framingham.

The chain has more than 120 locations across the country, with the heaviest concentrations in California (47) and Texas (18). The business also has locations in Dubai, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, along with four locations in Toronto.

In addition to Braintree, the company plans to open more than half a dozen new locations throughout the country.

The South Shore dining scene: Openings, new menus and more

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Dave's Hot Chicken in Braintree is open
What might have been a routine Fort Lauderdale commission meeting erupted into a full-blown drama described by one observer as reminiscent of a Bravo TV reality show.

With elections coming up in November 2024, bad blood is already brewing on the dais. All five seats are up, setting the stage for even more political theater as Election Day draws closer. This time, the controversy centered on a board appointment, something commissioners do all the time without a fiery debate. That was not the case this week, however.

Commissioner Warren Sturman went into battle mode Tuesday night when he heard Mayor Dean Trantalis was nominating Sturmans former political rival Jacquelyn Jackie Scott to the citys charter revision board.

Sturman grilled Trantalis, noting that Scott has taken on the role of treasurer in the mayors reelection campaign.

In the end, Scott was appointed to the board, but not without a bit of theatrics.

Commissioner Sturman raised his objection to Jackie Scotts appointment and pretended it was based on her political affiliation to my campaign, Trantalis told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The commission saw right through it. It had nothing to do with politics. It had everything to do with personality. I think its a cardinal sin to deny a commissioner the right to appoint someone.

Sturman told the Sun Sentinel he was blindsided when he found out the mayor wanted to appoint Scott to the charter revision board.

When asked whether he plans to object to any of his former political opponents being appointed to a city board, Sturman had this response: Im not going to answer that.

Scott, who joined a crowded race last year for the District 4 commission seat ultimately won by Sturman, replaces the mayors previous appointee, Ben Sorensen. Sorensen announced this week that hes running for his former commission seat in next years race and was resigning from the charter review board as required, triggering the mayors new appointment.

Sturmans argument that anyone serving as a campaign treasurer  primarily a behind-the-scenes role  should not serve on a city board prompted pointed questions from Commissioner Steve Glassman.

You want to get rid of everyone on the charter revision board whos involved in political campaigns? Glassman asked Sturman.

No, no, came Sturmans reply.

Why not? Glassman asked.

Steve, I do not have to answer to you, Sturman answered. Thats just my opinion, end of story.

But for people keeping a close eye on Fort Lauderdale politics, its likely just the beginning  especially with city elections only a year away.

All five seats are open.

And Sturman, who represents District 4, has already drawn two challengers: Sorensen, who stepped down in the middle of his term last year to run for Congress; and Ted Inserra, one of seven candidates who ran for the District 4 seat last year.

Scott, who was one of those seven candidates, told the Sun Sentinel she has no plans to run again in 2024.

A dangerous path

On Tuesday, Sturman argued that Scott should be prohibited from serving on a board because shes serving as the mayors campaign treasurer.

What Sturman never mentioned, but Glassman made sure to bring up, is the fact that lobbyist Judy Stern, a Sturman ally, is chair of the charter revision board. Glassman did not mention her by name, but referred directly to her role on the board.

Stern, a longtime lobbyist who helps run political campaigns, was the campaign adviser for Commissioner John Herbst, who won election last year.

Stern normally attends Fort Lauderdale commission meetings but was not there Tuesday night.

Glassman later described Sturmans argument that the mayor was making a political appointment to the board as hypocritical.

Thats a dangerous path were heading down to start objecting to each others nominations, Glassman said. Every appointment is a political appointment. When we get into office, who do we appoint? We appoint qualified people and they might have also helped in a campaign.

Scotts appointment narrowly won approval.

The vote was 3-2, with no votes cast by Sturman and Vice Mayor Pamela Beasley-Pittman.

Bring some popcorn

Inserra, who was watching in amusement from the audience, said he was perplexed by Sturmans argument.

Sturman was trying to say Jackie Scott shouldnt be able to serve because shes the mayors campaign treasurer, which is a stretch to me, Inserra said. He was yelling, I dont have to answer your questions. It is entertaining. Bring some popcorn. Its like watching some crazy reality show on Bravo.

Normally, the commission appoints board members without much ado.

But this time, Sturman quizzed the mayor on why he was appointing Scott to the charter review board.

Why are you adding one to charter review? Sturman asked.

Trantalis explained that the person hed appointed had resigned.

Now why did that person resign? Sturman asked.

Because hes running for City Commission, the mayor said.

Sturman then launched into his objection.

Your appointment  is the treasurer of somebody elses political campaign, he said. Im going to object to that for the same reason why (Sorensen) resigned. I think its inappropriate to have anybody involved in a campaign be on the charter review. For the exact same reason why its inappropriate for a candidate to be on the charter review. I think its highly inappropriate.

Glassman snapped back: But its OK for a registered lobbyist to chair it and constantly bash the commission and the city manager. Thats OK. You dont have an issue with that.

Not backing down

Undeterred, Sturman requested the commission remove Scotts appointment from the others that were up for approval.

The mayor asked why.

Its highly inappropriate, Sturman said. Its political.

Sturman noted that campaign forms submitted to the city clerk include two names, that of the candidate and his or her treasurer.

The mayor asked Sturman whether a political campaign consultant hired by a candidate should be denied the right to sit on a board.

Not necessarily, Sturman said. I think you have to draw the line somewhere.

Oh, the mayor said. You just dont like Jackie Scott.

Exactly, Glassman said.

Sturman objected, saying, Mayor, I take offense at that remark.

Well I take offense at what youre trying to do, the mayor said. I have an appointment. There are appointments youve made and Ive never protested them. Its your prerogative to appoint who you want.

Glassman reminded Sturman that the commission is required to follow the city charter.

Your rationale has nothing to do with our charter, Glassman said. There is nothing in our charter which prevents anyone from serving on a board or committee just because theyre involved in a campaign.

Glassman opposed removing Scotts appointment from the agenda item.

We have never ever denied any of our appointees to a board or committee or task force, he said. You want to head down this path, go right ahead. But to me, this is just not the way to go. We have all respected each others ability to appoint people to the boards, committees, task forces. This is highly irregular.

The commission voted on all board appointments but Scotts.

Glassman then introduced a new resolution appointing Scott to the charter revision board.

Herbst says he had a very good reason for voting yes  to avoid petty tit-for-tat bickering over every single board nomination going forward.

I didnt vote for her because I like her or dislike her, Herbst said of Scotts appointment. I voted for her because I think the process is important. I think its important that the commission respect the choices of individual commissioners. I dont want to introduce something thats ridiculously petty into the conversation: Im going to oppose all of your nominees because I dont like you or your appointee. Its going to bring our entire nominee process to a grinding halt.

Scott said she wasnt surprised by all the hullabaloo over her appointment, but took it in stride.

I want to focus on the charter, not on any of the politics, she said.

Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan
Roger Waters last album with Pink Floyd was released more than 40 years ago, in March 1983. Created in an atmosphere of tension and suspicion, it is also one of the bands most overlooked albums.

Below, Glenn Povey  the creator of Pink Floyd fanzine and website Brain Damage  tells you everything you need to know about "the album that ended Floyd".

Alt

1. The front cover shows a Remembrance Day poppy and selection of British Second World War medal ribbons including the Distinguished Flying Cross (white with diagonal purple stripes), The 1939-45 Star (equal stripes of dark blue, red and light blue), The Africa Star (sand with dark blue, red and light blue stripes), and the Defence Medal (orange with wide green edges bearing narrow black stripes).

2. Two versions of the track Not Now John were recorded, with one version obliterating the words fuck all that with an overdub of stuff all that for the single release to ensure radio play.

3. The word fuck occurs in the song Not Now John six times as part of the phrase, "fuck all that"; and once again near the end the song as part of the "Wheres-the-bar?" lyric, which is sung in Italian, Greek, French and finally English as, "Oi  Wheres the fucking bar, John?"

4. Collectors were quick to discover the B-Side of Not Now John: The Heros Return (Part 2), is essentially an additional verse to the song, but is absent from the album. It has never been released in any other form.

5. The Final Cut was dedicated to Waters late father Eric Fletcher Waters who was a second lieutenant of the Royal Fusiliers, who perished during the ill-fated Anzio campaign in Italy in the early part of 1944. Eric was a devout Christian and Communist Party member who had been a conscientious objector. His experiences driving an ambulance during the Blitz changed his opinions and he joined the British Army. He was killed when Roger was five months old.

6. The album opens with The Post War Dream which is identical in melody to the 1971 song Sam Stone by John Prine, about a drug-addicted Vietnam veteran.

7. David Gilmour objected so vehemently to Pink Floyd becoming a vehicle for Waters criticism of Government policy that he resigned from the production process leaving Michael Kamen and James Guthrie to the task.

8. The chorus to Your Possible Pasts was written by Waters as far back as 1968, in an unreleased song called Incarceration Of A Flower Child. It was recorded by Marianne Faithful for her album Vagabond Ways in 1999, but the lyric was first heard in the scene from The Wall feature film where Pink is huddled in a toilet cubicle babbling to himself prior to the track Stop.

9. When The Tigers Broke Free was originally recorded for the feature film The Wall, and was released as a single bearing the footnote, "taken from the album The Final Cut", although it didnt appear on the album until 2004 when it was inserted into the CD reissue.

10. The powerful tenor Saxophone on The Gunners Dream was provided by Raphael Ravenscroft who is best known for his work with Gerry Rafferty, performing the saxophone solo on Baker Street.

11. Roger Waters employed Zuccarelli Sound Labs for the album, whose holophonic acoustics enabled him to create various 360-degree sound effects. The idea of holophonics was revisited by Waters for his 1984 Pros And Cons of Hitch-Hiking solo album and a radio broadcast of his solo show from Radio City Music Hall in New York on 28 March 1985.

12. The Final Cut was recorded in eight studios across Britain, from July to December 1982 including The Billiard Room, which was quite literally the billiard room in Roger Waters house!

13. Obviously bored by his repeated vocal takes, Waters noticed co-producer Michael Kamen writing furiously on a notepad in the control room. Losing his temper, he demanded to know what Kamen was doing, only to find that hed been filling pages and pages with the words "I Must Not Fuck Sheep"! Kamen had become so traumatised by the recording that he thought it must be payback for some sort of unholy crime hed committed in a past life.

14. The albums release was accompanied by a short video film comprising four songs from the album produced by Waters and directed by his then brother-in-law Willie Christie. Waters is shown in conversation with a psychiatrist named A. Parker-Marshall (a reference to Pink Floyd The Wall film director Alan Parker and producer Alan Marshall), and Alex McAvoy, portrayed as a war veteran who appeared as the teacher in the film.

15. It is the only Pink Floyd album on which Roger Waters is credited for the writing and composition of every song. All of the lyrics are sung by Waters with the exception of Not Now John by David Gilmour. Indeed the album is subtitled A Requiem For The Post War Dream, by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd.

16. The Final Cut was originally planned as the soundtrack album to the film Pink Floyd The Wall, under the working title Spare Bricks and featuring new music and songs re-recorded for the film including When The Tigers Broke Free, Mother and What Shall We Do Now? among others.

17. The aircraft featured on the album were Tornado jets recorded by Nick Mason at their base at RAF Honington in Warwickshire, and the propeller aircraft by a friend who flew Avro Shackletons for the RAFs maritime patrol.

18. Pink Floyd have never performed live any of the tracks from The Final Cut. However Roger Waters has regularly performed the tracks The Gunners Dream, Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert, The Fletcher Memorial Home, Southampton Dock and Not Now John on his solo tours.

19. Co-producer Michael Kamen was a prolific arranger and composer having previously arranged the orchestrations for The Wall album and film soundtrack. He went on to perform with Roger Waters on his 1984 tour, his rendition of The Wall in Berlin in 1990, Pink Floyd at Knebworth in 1990 and David Gilmour in 2002. Among his other works are the orchestrations for Who Wants To Live Forever by Queen, Here Comes The Rain Again by the Eurythmics as well as the scores for many feature films including Highlander, X-Men, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the TV series Band of Brothers.

20. In Steven Kotlers Surfing, Science and the Origins of Belief (2006), the author details studies conducted by Jack Panksepp, head of affective neuroscience research at the Chicago Institute for Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch. Panksepp was researching the similarity of emotional experiences that occur while listening to music to those experienced by runners during the so-called runners high. To that end, he played dozens of records by various artists to chickens he had attached to equipment that recorded their responses. The chickens favourite? The Final Cut. Cows, meanwhile, prefer Simon & Garfunkel.)
A Florida woman was arrested after allegedly beating up her mother and stealing her car following an argument.

Last Thursday afternoon, 25-year-old Amber Scheuren-Rusnak reportedly had a heated argument with her mom in Cocoa, Florida, during which she physically assaulted her. After the altercation, Scheuren-Rusnak is accused of stealing her mothers car and striking her with it.

A witness called 911 to report the incident, and police arrived to find Scheuren-Rusnaks mother injured. She was subsequently taken to the hospital in critical but stable condition. The exact cause of their argument remains unclear.

Brevard County Sherrif's Office

Scheuren-Rusnak left the scene in her mothers car, which was later found abandoned. Brevard County Sheriffs Office officers, along with a K-9 unit, were able to track down Scheuren-Rusnak as she attempted to hide nearby.

She was taken into custody and charged with aggravated battery and carjacking, according to FOX 35 Orlando. The Cocoa Police Department also told the station that additional charges are pending as the investigation continues.

This incident marks Scheuren-Rusnaks 10th arrest since 2018 and her fourth arrest this year. Her previous charges include domestic battery, drug possession, prostitution, and battery.

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WASHINGTON (AP)  A multimillion-dollar conspiracy trial that stretched across the worlds of politics and entertainment is now touching on the tech world with arguments that a defense attorney for a Fugees rapper bungled closing arguments by using an artificial intelligence program.

Prakazrel "Pras" Michel, 51, argued that the use of the "experimental" generative AI program was one of a number of errors made by his "unqualified, unprepared and ineffectual" trial attorney before his conviction earlier this year, according to a motion for new trial his new lawyers filed this week. The company behind the program, on the other hand, said it was a tool used to help write closing statements, and a harbinger of major changes in the field.

Prakazrel "Pras" Michel, a member of the 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees, arrives at federal court for his trial in an alleged campaign finance conspiracy on April 3, 2023, in Washington.

Generative AI programs are capable of creating realistic text, images and video. They're raising tough questions about misinformation and copyright protections as well as industry calls for regulations in Congress. Programs like ChatGPT have already had ripple effects across professions like writing and education. The arguments in the Michel case could preview issues to come as the technology makes a rapid advance.

The Grammy-winning rapper's trial was touted as the first time generative AI was used in a federal trial in a news release from the startup company that designed the system. Defense attorney David Kenner, well known for his previous representation of rappers like Suge Knight and Snoop Dogg, also gave a quote calling the system a "game changer for complex litigation."

But in his last words to the jury, Kenner appeared to mix up key elements of the case and misattributed the lyric "Every single day, every time I pray, I will be missing you," to the Fugees, the 1990s hip-hop group his client co-founded, when actually it is a well-known line from a song by the rapper Diddy, then known as Puff Daddy, court documents from Michel's new attorney, Peter Zeidenberg, stated.

Kenner did not respond to a phone call and email seeking comment from The Associated Press. The company, EyeLevel.AI, said the program wasn't "experimental" but instead trained using only facts from the case, including court transcripts, not musical lyrics or anything found online. It's intended to provide fast answers to complex questions to help, not replace, human lawyers, said co-founder and COO Neil Katz.

"We think AI technology is gong to completely revolutionize the legal field by making it faster and cheaper to get complex answers to legal questions and research," Katz said.

He denied an allegation from Michel's new lawyers that Kenner appeared to have a financial interest in the program.

The case will likely be closely watched as more law firms adopt the technology, said Sharon Nelson, president of Sensei Enterprises, a digital forensics, cybersecurity and information technology firm. A substantial number of firms are using it now, and surveys indicate more than 50% of lawyers expect to within the next year, she said. "It's gone much faster than we thought," she said. "The problem is, if you don't work with it, you're going to be left behind."

Rapper Pras convicted of conspiracy, awaits sentencing

Michel was found guilty in April on all 10 counts he was charged with, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the top counts. He is free ahead of sentencing, which has not yet been set.

"At bottom, the AI program failed Kenner, and Kenner failed Michel. The closing argument was deficient, unhelpful, and a missed opportunity that prejudiced the defense," wrote Zeidenberg. His other arguments for a new trial included the jury being prejudiced by being allowed to hear references to the "crime fraud exception" and "co-conspirators."

Michel was accused of funneling money from a now-fugitive Malaysian financer through straw donors to Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, then trying to squelch a Justice Department investigation and influence an extradition case on behalf of China under the Trump administration. His trial included testimony ranging from actor Leonardo DiCaprio to former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Leonardo DiCaprio takes the stand in Fugees rapper 'Pras' Michel's money-laundering case

Kenner had argued during the trial the Grammy-winning rapper simply wanted to make money and got bad legal advice as he reinvented himself in the world of politics.

It wasn't immediately clear when a judge might rule on the motion for a new trial.

Use of generative AI in the legal profession is in the early stages, but it could see much more widespread adoption as products improve, said John Villasenor, a professor of engineering and public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. The American Bar Association does not yet have any guidelines on the use of AI in the legal profession, though there is a new task force studying the issue, a spokeswoman said.

Using it for closing arguments is complicated because of the many factors that develop over the course of a trial, he said. Generative AI, meanwhile, also sometimes produces "hallucinations," statements that initially read as if they are accurate but are not.

"A good attorney coming up with closing arguments will be mindful of basic goals of the case but also of the specific ways in which the trial has played out," he said. Even as products improve, "attorneys that use AI should make sure they very carefully fact check anything they are going to use."

Prosecutors seek to recharge Alec Baldwin in 'Rust' shooting after 'additional facts' emerge

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fugees rapper Pras requests new trial, claims AI use ruined case
Prakazrel Pras Michel has entered a motion for a new trial, claiming that his lawyer blew the closing arguments at the original hearing by relying too much on artificial intelligence to craft his final pitch.

Michel called AI experimental and said the programs use resulted in a number of errors by an unqualified, unprepared, and ineffectual trial attorney.

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Michel was convicted in April on 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the top counts.

He was accused of funneling money from a Malaysian financer through straw donors to Barack Obamas 2012 reelection campaign, then trying to stop a Justice Department investigation and influence an extradition case on behalf of China under the Trump administration.

His trial included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions . Michel is free pending sentencing and has been appearing with the Fugees in various settings in what could be the final performances for the group, as Michel potentially faces a long prison sentence.

The Grammy-winning rappers defense attorney, David Kenner, previously represented such rap figures as Suge Knight and Snoop Dogg.

In the request for a new trial, Michels new attorney accused Kenner of mixing up key elements of the case. He also misattributed the lyric Every single day, every time I pray, I will be missing you, to the Fugees, when it is a well-known line from a song by the rapper Diddy.

Kenner did not respond to a phone call and email seeking comment from The Associated Press.

At bottom, the AI program failed Kenner, and Kenner failed Michel. The closing argument was deficient, unhelpful, and a missed opportunity that prejudiced the defense, wrote Michels new attorney, Peter Zeidenberg, in his request for a new trial.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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George Clooney was among several actors who met with SAG-AFTRA leaders on Tuesday, October 17 to discuss why contract negotiations broke down on October 11.

The Oceans Eleven star, 62, spoke with guild president Fran Drescher and union national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland over Zoom, according to Deadline. Scarlett Johansson, Emma Stone, Ben Affleck and Tyler Perry also attended the meeting.

Clooney, Johansson, Stone, Affleck and Perry were extremely supportive of the union leaders who are seeking a new three-year contract for SAG-AFTRA, a source told Deadline. They had a lot of questions, some suggestions, and a lot of good feedback, another insider said.

The actors were especially interested in increased revenue sharing from The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the 4 major studio CEOs who were involved in the talks: Warner Bros. Discoverys David Zaslav, Netflixs Ted Sarandos, NBCUniversals Donna Langley and Disneys Bob Iger.

Every A-List Star Whos Been in the Oceans Franchise

Additional compensation for actors has been the focus of the SAG-AFTRA negotiations which began in June. In mid-July, the union joined the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and went on strike. The WGA strike, which began May 2, was settled on September 27.

When the 2nd set of talks in the actors strike resumed on October 2, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) was also a major issue in addition to revenue sharing,

Last week, SAG-AFTRA made a proposal on how cast members could benefit from the success of a series or film on streaming services. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers objected to the proposal, which it claimed would cost $800 million a year. AMPTP left the talks, along with the four CEOS, on October 11 and did not return.

Every Cast Reunion at the SAG-AFTRA Strike Picket Line: From This Is Us to Shameless

Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland expected negotiations to resume the next day as scheduled, however, they later received a call saying that the talks were being stopped.

The next day, October 12, the SAG-AFTRA reps sent an email to the union members, reading, We have made big, meaningful counters on our end, including completely transforming our revenue share proposal, which would cost the companies less than 57 per subscriber each year.

Celebrity Parents Bringing Their Kids to the SAG-AFTRA Picket Lines: Daniel Radcliffe and More

They have rejected our proposals and refused to counter, the email continued, adding that the 4 CEOs and the AMPTP tried to use bully tactics and the same failed strategy they tried to inflict on the WGA.

New talks between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA have not been scheduled.
George Clooney and several other top Hollywood actors offered to pay an estimated $50 million annually in increased dues in an effort to help end the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, TheWrap has learned. Their proposal also includes reversing how residuals are paid, sending payment to the lowest billed actors on a project first instead of the top billed.

Top film actors, among them Tyler Perry, Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson and Emma Stone, met on Tuesday via Zoom with union leaders including president Fran Drescher and national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. Insiders say that the proposal, which was taken back to the guilds negotiating committee, was rebuffed.

The proposal, which Clooney explained to Deadline, would see the industrys top-earning actors defraying costs to AMPTP signatories by eliminating the cap on membership dues, which is currently $1 million, and is an effort to bridge a gap in negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP.

Also in the conversation is a residual system for streaming including a formula that would make the lowest names on the call sheet, who presumably are the least wealthy, the first to be paid. Meanwhile, the top-billed actors on a given project would be the last to be paid their respective residuals.

This deal would amount to about $50 million annually, or $150 million over the course of the three-year contract. TheWrap understands that SAG-AFTRA has yet to approve or reject this offer and is expected to release a formal statement on the matter shortly.

A lot of the top earners want to be part of the solution, Clooney told Deadline. These negotiations will be ongoing, but we wanted to show that were all in this together and find ways to help close the gap on actors getting paid.

Even if Clooneys proposal gained traction, implementing it would not be so simple. Any changes to the dues structure would have to be voted on by delegates during the guilds national convention. That convention is set to be held virtually this weekend, and the submission deadline for resolutions to be voted on passed a month ago.

And while the proposal would, at least in theory, help working-class actors in keeping up with inflation and rising costs of living, a guild insider tells TheWrap that the A-listers offer would do little to address the impasses between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP, which last week said it was stepping away from negotiations.

In its statement on Oct. 11, AMPTP cited differences over a proposed revenue-sharing scheme on streaming services. Revising a previous demand of a 1% levy on all streaming revenue, the studios claimed that the guild was demanding a flat $1 per subscriber per year fee.

This was an unusual first-dollar revenue share regardless of profit or any individual contributions to the success of any show, much less a company. The money would go to the guild itself rather than individual actors on any show  and the union would decide how to distribute.

Crabtree-Ireland disputed AMPTPs claim, saying that the proposed levy by the union was 57 cents per subscriber. The guild is looking for a new compensation structure that reflects the decline in linear TV residuals that have served for years as financial support for actors and the rise in streaming as the most popular medium for watching films and TV shows, while studios are pushing back as many streaming services have yet to become profitable and are turning to price hikes and ad-based models to get there.

As rank-and-file members of the industry have made clear, they are in great economic difficulty, having not worked in months. Meanwhile, studios have been unable to properly promote their theatrical and streaming releases, since striking actors are forbidden from doing publicity for such projects. This has done damage to both conventional theatrical pre-release marketing campaigns and what should have been a vibrant awards season.

Jeremy Fuster contributed to this report.

The post George Clooney and Other A-Listers Offer $50 Million in Annual Dues in Effort to Break Strike Stalemate appeared first on TheWrap.
Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua via Getty Images

As Israeli military forces continue air strikes on Gaza in retaliation for a surprise Hamas attack earlier this month, authorities confirmed on Wednesday that Palestinians should soon be receiving international humanitarian aid.

During the October 7 attack, Hamas terrorists breached the Gaza-Israel border fence, killing 1,400 Israelis and taking 200 hostages. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces subsequently declared war, with nearly two weeks of air strikes that have since killed roughly 3,800 Palestinians in Gaza and injured 12,500 more, according to CBS on Thursday.

Destruction has been widespread across Gaza, leaving homes, hospitals, schools, and entire blocks reduced to rubble, and over one million people have been displaced. Electricity to the strip, the vast majority of which is normally supplied by Israel, has been shut off, leaving Gaza without power. Meanwhile, Israels tightened blockade of the Strip has prevented water, food, and medicine from getting in. As the International Committee of the Red Cross said on X, Families are in the streets. The infrastructure has been devastated. Hospitals are overwhelmed. The result is a humanitarian crisis the United Nations has called an unprecedented catastrophe.

On Wednesday, however, President Joe Biden confirmed while visiting Tel Aviv that his administration had reached an agreement with the Israeli government to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza through Egypt. Under the agreement, which includes inspections to be carried out at undisclosed checkpoints, Israeli officials say they will not thwart humanitarian supplies through Egypt so long as it consists only of food, water, and medicine; aid through Israel itself is still blockaded. Egyptian officials confirmed to CNN on Thursday that the Rafah border crossing, an essential aid corridor between Egypt and Gaza that has also been targeted by Israeli air strikes, is expected to reopen by Friday, October 20.

With the imminent reopening of the Rafah crossing, aid groups  either those that operate directly in Gaza, or who partner with other regional organizations to distribute funds  may now be better able to provide life-saving care to those in danger.

As the crisis in Gaza continues, many people are looking for ways to help those in the region however they can. Below, you can find a list of nine organizations providing support in the Gaza Strip and to displaced Palestinians, along with links to their donation pages. (For international groups, remember to select their Palestinian aid campaign from the menu of options if prompted.) Each one has been vetted by the Better Business Bureau and/or Charity Navigator, save for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, which is ineligible for vetting by those sites because it isn't a U.S.-based organization  but as a member of the International Red Cross, it's widely regarded as an impartial and trustworthy organization.

As a registered member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the PRCS isnt vetted in the same way other humanitarian groups often are, reporting mainly to its network administrators and the United Nations. PRCS workers perform all the duties Americans usually associate with the Red Cross, providing healthcare, social services, and emergency aid to those affected by violence and natural disasters. Its workers also maintain data on human rights violations in the region to report to international authorities.

The PCRF is another of Palestines largest medical organizations, having founded multiple pediatric cancer wards and sponsorships for orphaned children over its 30 years of work. In the midst of the most recent war, PCRF workers are assembling food packages for displaced families and recently delivered a cache of medical supplies to Al-Aqsa Hospital on October 15.

Founded in 1968, Anera is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides emergency aid to Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan through both local partnerships and its relations with U.N. agencies. Through this months war, Anera says its workers have continued to distribute thousands of hygiene kits, food packages, and hot meals on the ground in Gaza. The group is currently seeking donations to go towards more food and hygiene supplies, as well as blood bags.

A 501(c)(3) organization that supports grassroots movements for food security, civil and human rights, and anti-colonialism, Grassroots International organizers say they are sending donations to their Emergency Fund directly to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), and other Palestinian-led partner groups.

One of the worlds longest-established international humanitarian organizations, Oxfam  founded in England but now headquartered in Kenya  has a long history of support for Palestinians through its own offices in Gaza, and is currently working with other civil NGOs like the PMRS. Oxfam says its workers are currently providing hygiene kits and money for food from the few supermarkets left open; the group also said it will expand relief efforts to include water purification, food, and sanitation when it is safe to do so.

Founded in 1988, MECA is a Berkeley-headquartered nonprofit that works with Palestinian groups to provide direct financial aid. Outside the region, the group performs outreach and solidarity-building work to lobby for an end to the occupation; prior to the outbreak of war this month, MECA was also working on its Plant-a-Tree in Palestine campaign.

The situation here is so much worse than you are seeing. We never know if we will live through the night, MECA staffer Wafaa El-Derawi wrote from Gaza. Our partners and volunteers in different areas of the Gaza Strip want to support their communities, despite the danger. While they are distributing food and other supplies, I wait anxiously until I hear that they have returned home safely.

IRUSA is a Virginia-based Muslim 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to ending poverty worldwide. Contrary to what its name might imply, IRUSA operates in more than 40 countries and does not focus its efforts solely on Muslim majorities, but does provide aid including food packages to several parts of the Middle East and North Africa, including Palestine, Syria, and Iraq.

As an adult who has lived [through] tons of escalations in the last years, I feel terrified, an IRUSA worker in Gaza wrote in a statement calling for an end to the bombing. I feel this time we might not be able to survive.

A 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2016, Penny Appeal USA primarily focuses on ending poverty by providing clean water and food, plus campaigns to help care for orphaned children in need. Their work has already led to partnerships for clean water in Palestine, where they hope to deliver more water, food, and medicine, as well as mattresses and blankets.

Focusing on health and medical crises around the world, Project HOPE says they are in contact with hospitals and other medical partners in Israel, Gaza, Egypt, the West Bank, Jordan, and Lebanon to identify and coordinate Gazas emergency medical needs. They plan to provide hygiene kits, medicine, and medical equipment where its needed.

Health workers in and near the conflict are in desperate need of medicines, medical equipment, fuel, and other lifesaving supplies, Arlan Fuller, Project HOPEs Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response, said in a recent statement. We must ensure that even in the chaos of war, civilians have access to essential health care and basic needs like shelter, food, and water.

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Jimmy Kimmel called out Donald Trump for a particularly vile thing after the former president doxxed one of his legal rivals with an ominous post on his Truth Social website.

Trump this week shared a link revealing the home address of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is prosecuting the former president for financial fraud and has already received death threats as a result.

Hes such a scumbag you sometimes forget hes a dick, too, Kimmel said on Wednesday night.

Trump was in court during Wednesdays proceedings, which Kimmel found curious.

Its interesting: The only court dates Trump goes to are the ones involving money, Kimmel said. The criminal trials? Nothing!

See more in his Wednesday night monologue:
ZAGREB, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday that the temporary reintroduction of border controls at the Slovenian-Croatian border should be an exception, acknowledging that the Schengen area has a problem.

"Schengen is not finished, but it has a problem. The introduction of border controls is not a novelty, it comes about due to migration trends and assessments of increased security threats due to terrorism," Plenkovic said at a press conference.

However, the temporary reintroduction of border controls should be an exception, "a last measure" that should be subject to strict conditions, especially in terms of scope and duration, Plenkovic noted.

On Thursday, Slovenia said it will re-introduce controls at its border with Croatia on Oct. 21 for the next ten days.

Croatia joined the European Union's (EU) Schengen border-free area on Jan. 1, 2023. 
Jon Stewart is making an early exit from Apple.

The former Daily Show hosts return to the talk show space has ended prematurely as Apple has abandoned plans for an eight-episode third season of the Stewart-hosted series The Problem, sources confirm to The Hollywood Reporter.

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According to the New York Times, which first reported the news, the cancellation came after creative differences between the iPhone maker and Stewart over potential topics and guests for The Problem. The NYT reported that Stewart informed his staff Thursday that Apple pushed back on topics relating to China and artificial intelligence. Production on season three was already under way, with filming poised to begin shortly.

Apple declined to comment.

Sources tell THR that there had been tension between Apple and Stewart ahead of the shows third season return over topics featured on The Problem. Those same sources note that Apple approached Stewart and informed the host that both sides needed to be aligned regarding topics on the show. Stewart, sources say, balked at the idea of being hamstrung by Apple, which threatened to cancel the series. Stewart, sources say, wanted to have full creative control of the series and, after Apple threatened to cancel the series, told the tech company that he was walking away from the show rather than have his hands tied.

The decision to unrenew The Problem came after Apple and Stewart shifted The Problem to a weekly release for its second season after the freshman batch of episodes launched every other week in fall 2021.

Stewart signed a multiple-year pact with Apple in 2020 that included the current affairs show that became The Problem and other development projects via his Busboy Productions banner.

Stewart exec produced The Problem with showrunner Brinda Adhikari, James Dixon and former HBO CEO Richard Plepler through the latters Eden Productions. Chris McShane was co-EP, Lorrie Baranek was supervising producer and Chelsea Devantez was head writer.

During its two-season run, The Problem earned five Emmy nominations, including for talk series and writing.

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Joran van der Sloot, who has long been the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, pleaded guilty Wednesday to extorting Holloways mother, confessing in court that he killed the Alabama teen.

Van der Sloot, 36, agreed to take a polygraph test and said he'd provide details about Holloways disappearance as part of a plea deal, NBC News reported.

RELATED: Prime Suspect in Natalee Holloway's Disappearance To Share Info on Her Death in Plea Deal, Lawyer Says

The Dutch native was indicted in June 2010 on extortion and wire fraud charges to which he originally pleaded not guilty. U.S. District Court Judge Anna Manasco accepted his new plea Wednesday and sentenced him to serve 20 years, according to AL.com. He's set to serve them concurrently with his 28-year sentence in Peru for killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores in 2010.

"You changed the course of our lives and turned them upside down," Holloways mother, Beth Holloway , said in court, according to ABC News. "You are a killer. I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams."

Joran Van Der Sloot arrives in the court room

Joran Van der Sloot arrives for a hearing at the Lurigancho prison in Lima on January 13, 2012. Photo: STR/AFP via Getty Images

Holloway was 18 years old when she went missing in 2005 on a trip to Aruba with her classmates to celebrate high school graduation. She vanished after a night out with friends. Her classmates said van der Sloot was the last person seen with Holloway leaving a bar before her disappearance. She was declared legally dead in 2012 and her body has never been found.

RELATED: Suspect in Natalee Holloway Disappearance Joran van der Sloot To Fight U.S. Extradition

How did Joran van der Sloot kill Natalee Holloway?

In his confession, van der Sloot admitted that he struck Holloway in the head with a cinder block and dragged her to the ocean after she refused his sexual advances, according to local station WTVM-13, which cited a transcript of an October 3 interview.

"I smash her head in with it completely, van der Sloot said of using the cinder block. "Her face basically, you know, collapses in. Even though it's dark, I can see her face is collapsed in." He remembered thinking, I dont know what to do, after the attack. He said that he went knee-deep into the ocean, pushed her out to sea and walked home.

Beth Holloway

Beth Holloway participates in the launch of the Natalee Holloway Resource Center on June 8, 2010 in Washington, DC. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

"You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents, years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances," Manasco told van der Sloot in court, referencing both Holloway and Flores, according to AL.com.

Van der Sloots extortion and wire fraud charges stem from a 2010 attempt to sell information about the location of Holloways remains to her family in exchange for $250,000, according to an affidavit.

You knew the information you were selling was an absolute lie, Manasco said of van der Sloot's extortion attempt of Beth.

The Dutchman apologized in court to the Holloway family and his own family.

RELATED: Suspect in Natalee Holloway Disappearance Faces Extradition to U.S. on Fraud Charges

"I am not the same kind of person today as I was then, I have given my heart to Jesus Christ," he said, adding that he hopes his statements can provide closure, according to ABC News.

Today, I can tell you with certainty after 18 years, that as far as Im concerned, Natalees case is solved, Beth said outside the court while addressing the media, according to Birmingham station WBRC. It is over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughters murder. He is the killer.

Will Joran van der Sloot be charged with Natalee Holloway's murder?

Van der Sloot will not be charged with murder in the Holloway case because the statute of limitations for murder is 12 years in Aruba, according to Holloway family attorney John Q. Kelly, WTVM-13 reported.

Joran van der Sloots confession means we have finally reached the end of this never-ending nightmare, and for me, thats even better than closure, Beth said, per WBRC.
Joran van der Sloot will likely not be prosecuted for Natalee Holloway's killing because of the statute of limitations in Aruba

AP/ Kypros/Getty Natalee Holloway and Joran van der Sloot

Joran van der Sloot said he hoped to seduce Natalee Holloway when they took a walk on a beach in Aruba. Instead, he murdered her when his sexual advances were rejected, he admitted nearly two decades later in a confession, a partial transcript of which was obtained by PEOPLE.

When the 18-year-old rebuffed him, van der Sloot, then 17, smashed a cinder block over Natalees head so that her face collapsed in, he said earlier this month, providing horrifying details of the teenagers long-unsolved killing, which were reported first in PEOPLE.

I lay her down  we lay down together  in the sand and, uh, we start kissing each other, van der Sloot, now 36, claimed to his lawyer in the recorded confession, which was part of a plea agreement in a connected federal case for extortion and fraud in Alabama.

Courtesy of Beth Twitty Natalee Holloway and her mother, Beth Holloway

Related: Natalee Holloway's Mom Reveals How Joran van der Sloot Killed Her Daughter in 2005 (Exclusive)

Van der Sloot said when he tried to escalate the sexual encounter, she tells me no. She tells me she doesn't want me to  to feel her up. Uh, I insist. I keep feeling her up either way.



Unable to get him off of her, Natalee kneed him in the crotch, van der Sloot claimed.

AP/ Kypros/Getty

Subsequently, he said he kicked Natalee extremely hard in the face.

Natalee went unconscious, possibly even uh, even dead, but definitely unconscious, van der Sloot said.

Courtesy of Beth Twitty Natalee Holloway with her dad, Dave Holloway

Related: Natalee Holloway's Mother Confronts Joran van der Sloot in Court: 'You Brutally Killed Her'

Thats when he noticed a huge cinder block lying in the sand right right next to her, he said, adding: I take this and uh, yeah, I I I smash her head in with it completely. Uh, yeah, her face basically, you know, uh collapses in.

Sitting in federal detention with cinderblock walls at the time of this confession, he told Kevin L. Butler, one of his federal defenders, that the cinder block he used to kill Natalee was the exact same as those then surrounding him. (Neither Butler nor van der Sloots two other lawyers responded to PEOPLEs request for comment in time for publication.)

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.

Uhm, afterwards, van der Sloot stuttered on through his recollections of that May 30, 2005 night. I don't know what to do. 

He grabbed Natalees body and I half, uh, half pull and half walk with her into the ocean, he said, adding that he walked them into the water to about my knees and I push her off into into the into the into the sea.

Then, I get out. I I walk home.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Beth Holloway

Related: A Timeline of the Natalee Holloway Case: From Vanishing in Aruba to Suspect's Admission

The confession filled in the previously-unknown final hours of the life of the aspiring doctor who was celebrating her high school graduation on a class trip to Aruba and had last been seen leaving an island bar with van der Sloot earlier that day.

The statute of limitations for murder in Aruba is 12 years, so van der Sloot  who had previously been arrested several times in connection to Natalees disappearance but never charged  will likely not be prosecuted for her murder, despite confessing to her killing.

Natalee was legally declared dead in 2012, but her body was never found.

Related: Heres What Natalee Holloways Friend Said in 2017 About Her Final Moments Before Vanishing

Van der Sloot pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count each of extortion and wire fraud, admitting to taking about $25,000 of Beth Holloways money in 2010 on the false premise of giving the grieving mother answers to her daughters disappearance. After supposedly directing the family to her body in exchange for the funds, van der Sloot later emailed them to say his intel was worthless, prosecutors say. He took off to Peru with the money that May.

Courtesy of John Q. Kelly Natalee Holloway's parents, Dave and Beth Holloway, with Beth's lawyer (center) John Q. Kelly in court Wednesday

Standing outside the Birmingham, Ala., courthouse following the hearing, Beth said the answers van der Sloot finally provided gave her the end to this never ending nightmare, per WBRC.

In an interview with PEOPLE earlier this week, Beth's lawyer, John Q. Kelly, called Natalees killing a hands-on vicious, unprovoked execution that was seemingly an instinctive act for a man who would kill two people by age 22.

SplashNews; Karel Navarro/AP; AP Photo/Courtesy of Beth Twitty, HO Stephany Flores Ramirez, Joran van der Sloot and Natalee Holloway

Until this June, van der Sloot had been in a prison in Peru on a 28-year murder sentence in the brutal 2010 killing of Stephany Flores Ramirez, a 21-year-old student, who, he later reportedly told investigators discovered his identity as the person of interest in Natalees disappearance while sharing a hotel room together in Lima. The two fought, and van der Sloot, then 22, would later admit to beating, choking and smothering her to death  the same month he traveled to Peru with the money extorted from Natalee's mom and exactly five years to the day of Natalee's disappearance.

Peru granted the temporary surrender of van der Sloot to stand trial in Alabama before returning to Peru to finish his sentence, U.S. federal prosecutors said in a statement this summer.

Related: Joran van der Sloot Pleads Guilty to Extorting Natalee Holloway's Mother

A federal judge sentenced him Wednesday to 20 years behind bars for the financial crimes, prosecutors said in a statement, noting that the plea agreement hinged on van der Sloots full, complete, accurate, and truthful information regarding Natalee Holloways disappearance.

The American sentence will run concurrently with his Peruvian one, but if officials there release him early, he will serve the remainder of the 20 years in the U.S.

It feels victorious, Beth said, per WBRC. Like we finally transitioned from the victim to the victor.



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Even Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio needs to be told to tone it down sometimes.

The 48-year-old actor was hilariously outed this week by none other than Martin Scorsese for his purportedly excessive improvisation while filming Killers of the Flower Moon. This ultimately left DiCaprios costar  Robert De Niro himself  visibly vexed.

Scorseses anticipated crime drama regards the real-life Osage Nation murders in 1920s Oklahoma after oceans of oil were found on the land. While its the first Scorsese film to star both longtime collaborators of the acclaimed director, their acting approaches sometimes didnt mesh.

Scorsese told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that DiCaprios method was rather tedious.

Oh, endless, endless, endless! Scorsese told the outlet about DiCaprios incessant urge to discuss things and improvise in his scenes with De Niro. Then Bob didnt want to talk. Every now and then, Bob and I would look at each other and roll our eyes a little bit.

He continued: And wed tell him, You dont need that dialogue.

Scorsese made some of the most iconic films in history with De Niro, including Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and Goodfellas (1990). They reunited on The Irishman (2019), after DiCaprio had formed his own prolific working relationship with Scorsese.

DiCaprio, Scorsese and De Niro brought

DiCaprio, Scorsese and De Niro brought "Killers" to the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

Killers of the Flower Moon marks DiCaprios sixth feature with Scorsese, who cast him at 27 years old in Gangs of New York (2002). The pair later made The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013) together.

Killers marks De Niros 10th feature film collaboration with Scorsese.

It was ironically De Niro himself who first told the director about DiCaprio, as he was so impressed by the actors performance in This Boys Life (1993) that he called Scorsese to gush about him. DiCaprio also inspired Scorsese to reassess his approach to Killers.

After two years of working on the script, Leo came to me and asked, Where is the heart of this story? Scorsese told The Irish Times. I had had meetings and dinners with the Osage, and I thought, Well, theres the story.

Scorsese and screenwriter Eric Roth had already adapted David Granns 2017 book into a script, but ultimately rewrote it to shift the focus from a procedural about white FBI agents to a more truthful drama about the plight of the indigenous Osage.

Killers of the Flower Moon hits theaters Oct. 20.

Related...
October entertainment is in overload and it's homecoming at Florida State University. Strap in.

With a Light Your Legacy theme, festivities include alumni events, a street parade and the annual Homecoming Live pep rally, culminating with FSUs Oct. 21 Homecoming game against Duke at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. FAMU plays at Texas Southern at 8 p.m.

Here's a roundup of entertaining events around Tallahassee, culled from emails, the Council on Culture & Arts online listings and elsewhere.

The Gipsy Kings, a world-renowned musical ensemble known for their unique fusion of flamenco, salsa and pop will kick off the 2023-24 season of Opening NIghts with a concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20, at the Adderley Amphitheater at Cascades Park. Tickets go on sale May 19.

1. Get under the stars with the Gipsy Kings

The Gipsy Kings captured the worlds imagination 25 years ago with their self-titled debut album introducing millions of listeners to an, irresistible blend of traditional flamenco styles with Western pop and Latin rhythms. In collaboration with Visit Florida, Opening Nights brings them, along with opening act The Maharajah Flamenco Trio, to town for a show at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Adderley Amphitheater in Cascades Park.

The opening act is Tallahassee's the Maharajah Flamenco Trio, a unique nuevo flamenco group that fuses the art of flamenco with jazz, classical, and world music. Tickets are $65-$30. Visit openingnights.fsu.edu.

Local act: Flamenco beats and educational treats: Tallahassee artist finds rhythms of life

Florida State fans gather on campus to celebrate the Seminoles with the annual homecoming parade Friday, Oct. 22, 2021.

2. Catch FSU Homecoming parade and pep rally

The annual Homecoming Parade, organized by the Student Alumni Association, will begin at 2 p.m. Friday with pre-parade festival with food and games at Westcott Plaza from 12-2 p.m. The parade will head north along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, turn west along College Avenue, then south onto Copeland Street. Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Maxine Montgomery will serve as grand marshal. The parade features the Marching Chiefs, FSU cheerleaders and floats made by student organizations.

Bryce Vine, shown on July 15, 2023, in Ashwaubenon, Wis., is the headliner for FSU's Homecoming Live on Oct. 20, 2023.

Homecoming Live is a pep rally featuring multiple student-performance groups and musical artists headlined by Bryce Vine. Vine presents a genre-bending, East Coast-meets-West Coast sound. Free tickets will be available for FSU students, with general admission ticketing for the public. Doors open at 7 p.m., and performances start at 8 p.m., Tucker Center. For more information, visit homecoming.fsu.edu.

Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst of Shovels & Rope play at Thomasville Center for the Arts on Oct. 20, 2023.

3. Spend An Evening with Shovels & Rope

Shovels & Rope, the American folk duo of Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst, partners in music and life, bring a stripped down show to Thomasville, Georgia, at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20, at Thomasville Center for the Arts, 600 E. Washington St. Married for a decade, they are parents, bandmates, and creative collaborators from Charleston, South Carolina. Their latest album "Manticore," was released in 2022 and they are also curators of the High Water Festival in Charleston. The event is 18+ to enter; 21+ to drink. Presented by Backbone Booking, tickets are $33-$38. Visit eventbrite.com.

The Bruce Katz Band plays the BBC @ the Legion Oct. 20, 2023.

4. Grab the keys with Bruce Katz Band

Legendary keyboardist Bruce Katz checks into BBC @ the Legion for a show at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20, at the American Legion Hall, 229 Lake Ella Drive. Tickets are $25 advance; 30 day of show.

Katz has released 10 CDs as a leader and has appeared on nearly 70 other CDs with the likes of John Hammond, Delbert McClinton, Ronnie Earl, Butch Trucks, Duke Robillard, Little Milton, Joe Louis Walker, David Fathead Newman, and many others.

Porch Fest Apalach! returns with music in Apalachicola from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023.

5. Head to the coast for Porch Fest Apalach!

Porch Fest Apalach! brings 26 musical acts, 13 porches, and 3 stages to Apalachicola from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, in downtown Apalachicola. The grassroots roaming music festival  where porches are stages, yards are venues, and good vibes rule the day is back for the fourth year, bigger and better. Visit porchfestapalach.com/

The beloved Apalachicola Ukuliles will begin the day at 11 a.m. at Lafayette Park. More musical acts will then spread out through town, playing on porches and stages. The grand finale this year features The Intoxicators, a wildly popular surf band based out of Tallahassee, with a rollicking show, ending at 7 p.m.

Bonus event: Hot Club of Cowtown

Opening Nights rounds up the Hot Club of Cowtown at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26, at Phipps Farm. Since its beginnings in the late 1990s, the Hot Club of Cowtowns star has had a reputation for virtuosity and unforgettable live swing and Western shows. Tickets $45. Visit openingnights.fsu.edu.

Tricks and treats: A guide to spooky Halloween events and fun fall festivals in Tallahassee area

Brooke Kerger will be at Blue Tavern Oct. 29, 2023.

OTHER EVENTS

Blue Tavern: Happy hour with Jack Quine, 5-7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20, at Blue Tavern, 1206 N. Monroe St. Keyboard and vocals from a long-time Tallahassee player, followed at 8 p.m. with Connie Converse Tribute Night with Brooke Kerger and friends. 3rd Saturday Traditional Irish Session, 4-6 p.m. Saturday, followed at 8 p.m. when Jazzmatazz presents Wayne Pearcy with the High Misers Jazz Trio with Will Fulkerson (keys), Brian Hall (bass), and Michael Bakan (drums). $10 cover.

Wayne Peacy with the Heat Misers Jazz Trio play Blue Tavern at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023.

Happy hour with Mes Amis, 5-7 p.m. Tuesday, followed at 8 p.m. by Tuesday is Bluesday with Belmont & Jones. Happy hour with Kelly Goddard, 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25, followed at 8 p.m. by Open Mic Night. Happy hour with Rick Redmond, 5-7 p.m. Thursday, followed at 8 p.m. with Free Jazz Five Buck Thursday featuring the ParsonsBakanHall trio. $5 cover.

Book signing: Author Marvin Cook, 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, My Favorite Books in The Pavilions at 1410 Market Street, book signing of his first novel "Across Florida Straits," which spins a fictional story that stretches from a resort on the Caribbean shore of Cuba to Key West.

Tom & the Cats play The Corner Pocket on Apalachee Parkway on Friday, Oct., 2023.

The Corner Pocket: Tom & the Cats, 8:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20., Homecoming Dance Party, The Corner Pocket on Apalachee Parkway. $5.

Fall into Kirtan: Tom Barnum, Adam Gaffney, and Fred Thompson join Jeffji for an evening of kirtan chanting (meditative singing), mostly in English. Donations will benefit Big Bend Continuum of Care. Saturday, Oct. 21, 7 p.m. at Abundance Wellness Center, 325 John Knox Road, Building T. Details at jeffji.com.

FAMU Homecoming activities: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25, Lawson Center, standup comedian Chico Bean, known for his role in season 5 of MTVs Wild N Out, will deliver laughs at the Comedy Show. 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26, Lawson Center: Homecoming Concert features a lineup of Nardo Wick, Mariah the Scientist, and Toosii.

LeMoyne Arts: Women Among Us: Portraits of Strength, Part II, Exhibit on view, 125 N. Gadsden St. through Oct 28: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. during exhibits.

Tallahassee Senior Center: Musical duo Hot Tamale will brings their upbeat acoustic show to the main stage at the Tallahassee Senior Center, 1400 N. Monroe St., for the Annual Senior Artist Showcase Reception and Awards, 6-7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20. Refreshments and appetizers, games and door prizes.

Sarah Morrison: Local musician Sarah Morrison has just signed a record deal and has upcoming shows for "Attachment Figure," released on Oct. 13 by Ramp Local. Catch her at Real Cool Time Records on Oct. 21 and 926 Bar on Nov. 5.

926 Bar: 926 W. Tharpe St. Mon. Oct 23 - Pkew, Pkew, Pkew w/ Decent Criminal, Animal 19, Theo Butts; Tues. Oct 24 - Sunliner w/ Updog Rare Bloom, Hey Thanks!, Religious Education. Wed. Oct. 25 - mssv (Mike Baggetta, Stephen Hodges, Mike Watt) w/ Band of Names. Visit 926barandgrill.com.

Have an event coming up? Email details to limelight@tallahassee.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Top 5 things to do around Tallahassee this weekend
The New Orleans Police Department shared in a news release that the tragic incident occurred as a result of an apparent domestic dispute

WVUE FOX 8 New Orleans Photo of home

Three children in Louisiana died as a result of a house fire that was allegedly set by their father, New Orleans police said.

The New Orleans Police Department explained in a news release that the tragic incident allegedly occurred as a result of an apparent domestic dispute between the children's parents.

Related: At Least 189 Decaying Bodies Recovered from Colorado Funeral Home, Say Police

The NOPD and New Orleans Fire Department responded to the home shortly after midnight on Wednesday after the children's mother called 911. She reported that their father, Joseph Washington, Sr., 29, was threatening to burn the house down.

During the call for help, the mother told dispatchers, Hes screaming on the phone. I hear the kids screaming. Yall are just going to have to break through the door. Dont let anything happen, please," per WVUE.

While the mother was not home when the incident took place, the NOFD found two of the children  a 5-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy  upon entry to the home. According to a news release by the department, one was "found in the front room just a few feet from the front door and the other not far away, between the kitchen and front room."

Related: How DNA from 'Illicit' Affair Helped Crack Nurse's 1986 Cold Case Murder

Both children were transported to a nearby hospital by New Orleans Emergency Medical Services, where they succumbed to their injuries about an hour later. As firefighters continued to work on keeping the fire from extending to neighboring areas and continued to search the home, the third child  a 3-year-old boy  was found deceased "near the center of the dwelling." According to the NOPD, their official cause of death will be determined by a coroner.



The NOFD explained in their report that "17 NOFD apparatuses and support vehicles, carrying forty-six Fire Operations personnel, were used to bring this incident under control at 12:40 a.m."

After the NOPDs Child Abuse Unit began its investigation, Washington, Sr. was determined to be the prime suspect and was apprehended at an exit at I-610 East. The NOPD reported that Washington, Sr. attempted to escape officers by jumping off the overpass.

Following his capture, he was taken for treatment of potential injuries at a local hospital. Washington, Sr. was charged with three counts of second-degree murder, three counts of second-degree cruelty to a juvenile and one count of aggravated arson.

During a press conference, interim NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick referred to the situation as a "tragic and senseless and horrific death of three young children."

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"Collectively, we are outraged," she said. "We are disappointed. We are deeply saddened. So as a collective voice, we share the outrage of this community."



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Paris-based sales agency and production company Luxbox has sold the French distribution rights to 12 pics of the late Portuguese maestro filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira to Capricci Films, which plans to release the restored films in cinemas across France from 2024.

Expressing his pride at adding some of Oliveiras best films to its catalog, Capriccis Louis Descombes said: We had long hoped to be able to give new life to the unique, mischievous and incredibly modern work of the Portuguese filmmaker. The Bordeaux-based distributor aims to kick off the releases with Val Abraham in the spring.

More from Variety

Bringing back Oliveiras films to French cinemas wouldnt be possible without the work of the Portuguese Cinematheque which already restored Abrahams Valley and will continue the digitization and restoration of the rest of the films in 2024, including Oliveiras first film, Aniki-Bobo, said Luxbox CEO, Fiorella Moretti.

Inspired by Gustave Flauberts classic tale Madame Bovary, Abrahams Valley was given a special screening at Cannes Directors Fortnight this year, which also paid tribute to the director with its official poster featuring an image of Portuguese actress Leonor Silveira as it feted the 30th anniversary of its selection at the sidebar.

The dozen titles acquired by Capricci Films includes the prolific filmmakers 1963 docu-fiction hybrid Rite of Spring,his dark marriage comedy Past and Present (1972), romantic tragedy Doomed Love (1978) and satire The Cannibals (1988).

Luxbox acquired the titles from the catalogue of the late Portuguese filmmaker last May in a deal between Moretti and Manuel Casimiro Brandao Carvalhais de Oliveira, the legal representative of the filmmakers estate.

Born in Oporto, De Oliveira was once deemed the oldest active filmmaker in the film world. Making his first film, Labor on the Douro River, in 1931, he continued to make films for 84 years until he died in April 2015 at the age of 106.

Among his numerous awards, he received the Career Golden Lion from the 61st Venice Film Festival, the Special Lion for his body of work in the 42nd Venice Film Fest, an Honorary Golden Palm for his lifetime achievements in the 2008 Cannes Festival and the French Legion of Honor.

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Authorities later recovered a stash of weapons, drugs and explosives in the suspects home

A man is in police custody for detonating a teddy bear packed with an explosive in the parking lot of a California business.

The San Bernardino Police Department wrote in a Facebook release Tuesday that officers responded to the location after a business owner was notified by witnesses that a possible explosive device inside a large Teddy Bear  detonated at the front of the business.

EXPLOSIVE INVESTIGATION... LITERALLY! they wrote in the release. Through further investigation, Detectives reviewed surveillance footage of the incident and developed leads, which led to a search warrant.

Related: NYPD Searching for Suspect Who Pushed a Woman Into a Moving Subway Train

After searching the suspects residence, authorities discovered over 200 rounds of ammunition, a ghost gun firearm and more than a kilo of methamphetamine with packaging for sales, added the police statement.

Other items discovered included illegal fireworks, a ballistic vest and money, along with metal saws and pipes consistent with explosive devices, per the release.

All evidence was recovered by authorities and the suspect  who remains unidentified  was arrested on multiple felonies, according to the release.

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San Bernardino Police Department/Instagram

Along with the release, police shared a video of the incident accompanied by dramatic music. The footage showed the suspect walking across a parking lot and placing down the teddy bear  labeled explosive device on screen  before getting inside a white vehicle nearby.

Related: Louisiana Father Arrested After House Fire Kills His 3 Children: 'Tragic and Senseless'

San Bernardino Police Department/Instagram Surveillance footage of suspect placing down a teddy bear fill with an explosive.

A woman can then be seen walking to her car at a distance before the teddy bear explodes with smoke billowing in the parking lot. The suspect then drives away.

According to NBC 4, San Bernardino Police Department sergeant Chris Gray said the explosion took place on Sept. 14 after 12:30 p.m. on the 100 block of West Baseline Street.

Gray also identified the suspect as a male and said he was unsure of a motive, telling the outlet, You just never know what tomorrow brings.

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is among a group of Christian authors who filed a federal lawsuit targeting tech companies for training their artificial intelligence tools using their books without permission.

The suit, filed in a New York federal court, is one of a growing number that accuses tech companies of infringing on the work of writers and other creators.

Last month, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Elin Hilderbrand and other prominent fiction writers joined the Authors Guild in filing a class action lawsuit against OpenAI. In July, comedian Sarah Silverman and two other writers also sued OpenAi for copyright infringement.

Huckabees suit focuses on what The Washington Post described as an infamous collection of pirated books, known as books3 which the writers claim was included in a free collection of data sources known as the pile that was created to help small companies access more data to train their own AI.

The suit targets Meta, Microsoft and Bloomberg L.P., all of which have trained the algorithms that power their artificial intelligence tools, called large language models, using data from the web, The Post reported. EleutherAI, the nonprofit behind books3, is also named as a defendant.

Joining Huckabee, who is also host of a eponymous talk show on TBN, in the suit are Christian writers and podcasters Tish Oxenreider and Lysa TerKeurst.

While using books as part of data sets is not inherently problematic, using pirated (or stolen) books does not fairly compensate authors and publishers for their work, the suit said. , which include Huckabee, who is also host of a epynonymous talk show on TBN, and Christian writers and podcasters including Tish Oxenreider and Lysa TerKeurst, said in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, which is proposed as a class-action, seek unspecified damages and an injunction to ban the companies from continuing to use their work, The Post reported.

The post Mike Huckabee Joins Suit That Claims Microsoft, Meta Stole His Books to Train AI appeared first on TheWrap.
An Indiana woman was arrested after police uncovered a text exchange between herself and her mother they say are about an alleged plot to kill her mother's husband

An Indiana woman was arrested this week after police uncovered a text exchange between herself and her mother which they say is about an alleged plot to kill her mother's husband.

Ashley Jones, 29, was arrested on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and burglary, after allegedly confessing to "ordering ethylene glycol off the Internet" in the alleged murder plot of her mother's husband Harold Allen, Jackson County Sheriff Rick Meyer shared in a Facebook release.

On Tuesday, Jones claimed that her mother, Marsha Allen, "was the person who had placed the ethylene glycol in Harolds drink" in December 2022, per the release.

Jackson County Sheriff's Office

Jones' arrest came about after the Jackson County Sheriffs Office responded to the home of her mother when family said they couldn't get a hold of her. Marsha was found dead on Monday with no signs of violence," according to Meyer.

Related: Police Arrest Suspect in Murder of 'Sandlot' Actor's Mom After She Was Found Dead in Home

As Meyer noted, the investigation initially began on Sept. 19, following a burglary at Marshas house. At the time, the department determined that two men  Steven White and Nathaniel Kane Napier  burglarized the home "with the assistance of Marshas daughter Ashley Jones," per the release.

After seizing Marshas phone, investigators found alleged texts between Jones and her mother as they "discussed murdering Marshas husband" with poison in December 2022, per authorities.

An obituary for Harold notes that he was 52 years old when he "passed away suddenly" on Dec. 20. A mourning friend wrote on his memory wall at the time that he "spoke often and fondly of" Marsha.

"Law enforcement officers then served a search warrant at Marshas home and seized additional electronic devices in an effort to find evidence. While executing the search warrant, officers spoke with Marsha," Meyer stated in the release.

He added: "Following the interview of Marsha, officers released Marsha while officers continued their investigation."

Related: Va. Man Found Guilty of First-Degree Murder and Arson for Killing Woman He Thought Was His Ex

Less than a month after the break in, and after Marsha was found dead in her home this week, Jones confessed to officers that she ordered the poison off the internet, and claimed that her mother placed it in Harold's drink, per the release.

Jones is now listed on the inmate roster on the Jackson County Sheriff's website with the note, "Bond Pending or No Bond Required."

The office did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for additional comment on Thursday.

Meyer noted on Facebook that Jones' arrest is part of an "ongoing investigation."

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In the midst of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given the green light for Egypt to provide limited humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip. This decision comes at a time when the explosion at Gaza City's al-Ahli Hospital has sparked outrage across the Middle East.

Israel had cut off all supplies to Gaza following a series of attacks by Hamas militants in southern Israel on October 7. As a result, essential provisions have dwindled, leaving many families in Gaza with just one meal a day and access to contaminated water.

Netanyahu's office stated that this decision was made in response to a request from U.S. President Joe Biden. It emphasized that Israel would not obstruct the delivery of food, water, or medical supplies from Egypt, provided that these aid efforts are directed toward civilians in the southern region of the Gaza Strip and do not benefit Hamas militants. Notably, the statement did not address the urgent need for fuel, which is crucial for maintaining power in hospitals.

Egypt's president has also agreed to open the border crossing and permit the entry of an initial convoy of 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid. The distribution of aid is expected to commence on Friday at the earliest.

President Biden held discussions with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, on Wednesday, focusing on ongoing coordination to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and establishing mechanisms to ensure that this assistance benefits the civilian population.

President Biden stated, "If Hamas confiscates the aid or hinders its delivery, we will cease sending humanitarian aid to Hamas. That's the commitment I've made." He further noted that the initial 20 trucks are just the beginning, with approximately 150 trucks waiting to cross into Gaza. The decision to allow the remaining aid to pass through will depend on how the situation unfolds.

Israel-Hamas Conflict: 13 Days In: Latest Updates and Developments

UK PM Rishi Sunak Embarks on Diplomatic Mission to Israel

Israel Declares Humanitarian Zone in Southern Gaza: Explaining Purpose of this Corridor
Natalee was just 18 years old and a recent graduate of Mountain Brook High School in Alabama when she was killed on a school trip to Aruba in 2005

AP Natalee Holloway

Natalee Holloway would have turned 37 on Saturday.

Instead, its been nearly two decades since the 18-year-old was killed while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005. While she was legally declared dead in 2012, her body has never been found.

Natalee graduated from Mountain Brook High School, where she was a straight-A student.

Natalees high school accomplishments led to her receiving a full scholarship to the University of Alabama. She had plans to study pre-med and also hoped to rush a sorority, ABC News reported in 2005.

But, her life was cut short when she and her classmates went on a five-day graduation trip to Aruba. On May 30, 2005, the final day of her trip, Natalee did not make the flight back home to Alabama and was never seen again.

Related: What to Know About Natalee Holloway's Case After Joran van der Sloot's Confession

In a new interview with Newsmax, Natalees mother Beth Holloway says she thinks if her daughter was still alive today, she would have reached her career goal.

I think that she would be a doctor by now, Beth tells Newsmaxs Greta Van Susteren. I believe that.

Mark Wilson/Getty Beth Holloway

Beth adds she thinks Natalee would have had children and lived a great life.

This week marks the first time Beth has received answers and some form of justice in connection with her daughter's disappearance, which had been unsolved for 18 years.

On Wednesday, Joran van der Sloot admitted to killing Natalee after pleading guilty to extortion and wire fraud charges for extorting Beth in 2010. He was sentenced to 20 years.

Natalee was last seen leaving a nightclub around 1:30 a.m. with van der Sloot, then 17, and two other men. Van der Sloot was a Dutch national attending the International School of Aruba.

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Van der Sloot recently admitted to law enforcement officials that he bludgeoned Natalee with a cinder block after she declined his sexual advances, Beths lawyer, John Q. Kelly exclusively told PEOPLE. He then threw her body in the water, Natalees mother told reporters after Wednesday's hearing.

Related: Natalee Holloway's Mom Reveals How Joran van der Sloot Killed Her Daughter in 2005 (Exclusive)

However, van der Sloot likely cannot be prosecuted in Aruba since the statute of limitations for murder is 12 years.

Van der Sloot had long been considered a suspect in Natalees disappearance, and was even arrested a few times during the investigation, but never charged.

STR/AFP via Getty Joran Van der Sloot

According to a 2010 grand jury indictment previously obtained by PEOPLE, prosecutors said van der Sloot had tried to extort about $250,000 from Beth by promising to share information about the location of her daughters remains and the circumstances of her death. He took some $25,000 of the grieving mother's money, but never gave her answers.

Van der Sloots guilty plea in the extortion and wire fraud crimes on Wednesday came five months after the Peruvian government issued a decree allowing van der Sloot to be handed over to U.S. authorities to face charges in connection with the case.

Related: Joran van der Sloot Pleads Guilty to Extorting Natalee Holloway's Mother

He had been serving a 28 year prison sentence for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores Ramirez in Lima, Peru.

The American sentence will run concurrently with his Peruvian one, but if officials there release him early, he will serve the remainder of the 20 years in the U.S.



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Thalita Teixeira Padilla was walking her dog on Sept. 9 when she was struck by lightning, but her life was saved thanks to CPR

A nurse who was struck by lightning in Boston last month was released Wednesday from the hospital after being treated for 40 days, and she is now expected to make a recovery.

Massachusetts State Police said on Sept. 9 that a woman was walking her dog in Savin Hill Beach in Bostons Dorchester neighborhood when a lightning strike left her with critical injuries.

The victim, who was identified by local media outlets as Thalita Teixeira Padilla, was administered CPR by a nurse. Tracy Cronin, who lived nearby and saw Padilla on the ground from her home, NBC affiliate WBTS-CD reported. "I prayed and I hoped and I wanted an update on her so badly. And it's just amazing. Really amazing," Cronin said, per the outlet. "CPR works. It really does."

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Related: How to Avoid Getting Struck by Lightning  and What to Do If Someone Gets Hit by a Bolt

Padilla, who is a nurse herself, was taken to Boston Medical Center (BMC). According to her family, the doctor said that Padilla actually died but was resuscitated after CPR was performed on her. "She died and then, the family was correct with the fact that that nurse was next to her is just amazing because she would have died," said BMCs Dr. Tracy Dechert, per ABC affiliate WCVB-TV.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the chance of being struck by lightning is very minuscule, but the consequences of lightning strike injuries are serious, adding that there are on average 28 fatalities in the United States annually due to lightning.

Dechert also said, per WBTS-CD, that Padilla was hanging by a thread for 2-3 weeks. "You could not be sicker than she was, said Dechert. I mean, that's as sick as you can get. The fact that that nurse was next to her is amazing, because she would have died."

Related: Tx. Dad Dies, 6-Year-Old Son 'Fighting for His Life' After Being Struck by Lightning While Holding Hands

Padillas brother, Andre Teixeira, said that every day was like overcoming a battle, CBS affiliate WBZ-TV reported. "Her brain isn't working, her eyes aren't working, [and neither are] her kidneys, so every day, even though she was overcoming the odds, it was no breaks."

After forty days in treatment, Padilla was discharged Wednesday from Boston Medical to the sounds of applause and cheers from her family and hospital staff, according to reports. She was transferred to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital for the next step in her recovery.

Andre Teixeira said that her sister is using her recovery time to think about pursuing a masters degree, per WBZ-TV. "We are blessed," he said.

Related: Fla. Woman Says She 'Died' After Being Struck by Lightning While Walking Dog: 'A Lot to Process'

A GoFundMe was created for Padilla by her cousin Stephanie Teixeira, who wrote in the description: Along with praying for supernatural healing, comfort and restoration, I pray for God to provide enough to support them financially through this hard time. As of Thursday evening, the fundraiser had generated over $54,000, far exceeding its initial $25,000 goal.

The Massachusetts State Police also said that when Padilla was struck by lightning on Sept. 9 in Savin Hill Beach, her dog Bruce, who was with her, got scared and ran off. He was eventually found and reunited with his family, the department said.

PEOPLE reached out to the cousin for comment.



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Read the original article on People.
Prosecutors in New Mexico plan to re-charge actor Alec Baldwin in the 2021 fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie Rust.

Special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis said Tuesday that they will present new information in the case in front of a grand jury in November.

RELATED: Alec Baldwin May Be Charged Again in Halyna Hutchins Shooting Death After New Firearms Report

We believe that based on our lengthy and detailed investigation that it is appropriate for a grand jury in New Mexico to make a decision on whether the case should proceed, Morrissey told NBC News in a statement.

Why do prosecutors want to recharge Alec Baldwin in the fatal Rust shooting?

A source familiar with the matter told NBC that prosecutors found new evidence that they think proves Baldwin was reckless when it came to taking safety precautions on set, and that they don't believe the gun was modified or that it malfunctioned.

The actor was originally charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on October 21, 2021 while Baldwin was holding a gun during the filming of Rust. The films director, Joel Souza, was also injured.

a grab of Alec Baldwin from the Rust set holding a gun

Alec Baldwin on the set of Rust. Photo: Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office

Baldwin was holding a prop gun during rehearsal on the Western's ranch set in Santa Fe, New Mexico when a live round of ammunition shot out of the .45 Colt revolver.

Baldwins charges were dropped in April, but prosecutors maintained that the charges could be refiled at any time during the active and ongoing investigation, according to ABC News.

RELATED: Judge Approves Rust Wrongful Death Settlement after Charges Are Dropped against Alec Baldwin

"It is unfortunate that a terrible tragedy has been turned into this misguided prosecution," Baldwin's attorneys Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro said in a statement. "We will answer any charges in court."

Baldwin has stated that he did not pull the trigger of the gun that fired.

Halyna Hutchins attends the Snowbound Movie Event

Halyna Hutchins attends the Snowbound Movie Event celebrating the screening of 'Snowbound' at the 70th Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2017. Photo: Getty Images

Recent analysis on the weapon from forensic experts concluded  from their examination of the gun and the spent cartridge  that pressure had to be put on the trigger for it to have gone off, according to the Associated Press.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's Trial for the Rust Shooting Will Start in 2024

Rust head armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was also charged with involuntary manslaughter. Her trial was originally set for December, but was pushed back to February 21, 2024, due to scheduling issues for various witnesses, her attorney Jason Bowles said, according to NBC News. She has pleaded not guilty.

Despite the charges, Baldwin, who is also a producer on and co-writer of the film, continued on in the lead role until filming wrapped in Montana.

RELATED: Halyna Hutchins' Parents And Sister Sue Alec Baldwin, 'Rust' Producers

"My every effort on this film will be devoted to honoring Halynas legacy and making her proud. It is a privilege to see this through on her behalf," Souza, who continued to direct the film, said in a statement, according to USA Today.

Rust Movie Set Ap

This aerial photo shows the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, N.M., Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. Photo: AP

Hutchins widower, Matthew Hutchins, came on as an executive producer of the movie when filming picked up again. This position is one he will also fill in Rust Movie Productions' upcoming documentary about Hutchins life and work, according to the newspaper.

In an interview with NBCs TODAY in February of 2022, Matthew said the 2021 shooting incident was totally preventable and that he was angry with Baldwin for not taking responsibility.

RELATED: Alec Baldwin Formally Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter For 'Rust' Shooting Death

"The idea that the person holding the gun and causing it to discharge is not responsible is absurd to me," Hutchins said.

"But in the end, justice wont bring Halyna back but maybe the memory of her can help keep people safe and prevent something like this from ever happening again," he added.
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing The Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of copying their 2020 single Living in a Ghost Town from a pair of little-known songs, ruling that the case was clearly filed in the wrong court.

Filed in March by songwriter Sergio Garcia Fernandez (stage name Angelslang), the copyright infringement lawsuit claimed that Jagger and Richards misappropriated many of the recognizable and key protected elements from his 2006 song So Sorry as well as his 2007 tune Seed of God.

More from Billboard

But in a decision Wednesday (Oct. 18), Judge Eldon E. Fallon ruled that his Louisiana federal court lacked jurisdiction over Fernandezs case. In doing so, he pointed out that Jagger and Richards are Brits, Fernandez lives in Spain, and The Rolling Stones have only performed in New Orleans four times.

The mere fact that people in this district listen to the Rolling Stones or the alleged work does not permit this court to wield specific jurisdiction over the defendants, Judge Fallon wrote in dismissing the case.

The judge only tossed the case without prejudice  meaning Fernandez is free to re-file the lawsuit in a more appropriate location. In the lead-up to Wednesdays ruling, lawyers for The Rolling Stones argued that the case should have been filed somewhere in Europe.

In a statement to Billboard, Fernandezs lawyer said hes disappointed and stunned by the courts ruling. But he vowed to refile the lawsuit in a different venue in addition to reviewing other legal options.

Released at the peak of the COVID-19 shutdowns in April 2020, Living in a Ghost Town was the first original material released by the Stones since 2012. The song, a blues-rock tune with reggae influences accompanied by a COVID-themed video, reached No. 3 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart in May 2020.

In his lawsuit, Fernandez alleged that the new track was created by borrowing key features from his two earlier songs, including vocal melodies, chord progressions and other elements. Defendants never paid plaintiff, nor secured the authorization for the use of So Sorry and Seed of God, his lawyers wrote at the time.

How would members of the iconic band have heard those songs, which have less than 1,000 spins on Spotify? Fernandez claims he gave a demo CD to an immediate family member of Jagger.

The immediate family member  confirmed receipt  to the plaintiff via e-mail, and expressed that the musical works of the plaintiff and its style was a sound The Rolling Stones would be interested in using, Fernandezs lawyers wrote.

When the case was first filed, experts told Billboard that it was unlikely to succeed. Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist and a professor at Berklee College of Music, said the songs shared only an overall vibe  based on mid-tempo rock grooves in the key of A minor  thats been ubiquitous in rock and blues since the beginning.

The Stones didnt copy from Fernandez, because they didnt need to, Bennett said. Theyve been playing grooves like this for a very long time, as have many others.

Best of Billboard

Click here to read the full article.
Seth Meyers pointed to a fundamental problem within the House GOP and used members own words to rip the chambers future speaker.

The GOP is a fractured coalition with no discernible ideological core except that most of them want to dismantle American democracy and on top of that, the job of speaker absolutely sucks. In order to want it, youd have to be a... the Late Night host said Wednesday before flipping to a supercut of criticism from Republicans  and one Fox News host  on the House speaker chaos.

The House remains without a speaker after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) failed earlier Wednesday in his second attempt to take the post.

Earlier in his show, Meyers tossed to a clip of Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) in which the lawmaker said he voted for Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) to be the next speaker before adding that he doesnt like him and itd be the worst job in America. (Buck later said it was a joke.)

He voted for someone who doesnt want to be speaker because the job of speaker sucks, Meyers said.

Its third in line to the presidency, Republicans are treating it like its a punishment on Impractical Jokers. And at this point, why not, give the gavel to Murr and let the other jokers tell him what to do with it through an earpiece while they watch from inside a van, he said, referring to Impractical Jokers host James Murr Murray.

You can check out more in Meyers A Closer Look.

Related...
The below is an excerpt from FOOLISH: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation by Sarah Cooper.

How did a Jamaican girl grow up to be the president of the United States? Well, its a spellbinding tale that involves zero intrigue and absolutely no international espionage, unless you think TikTok is international espionage, which: valid.

My 2020 started out a little rocky but otherwise hunky-dory. I was living in a mostly windowless apartment in Brooklyn with Jeff. Jeff was working at Google, and I was working from home and contemplating going back to Google because my comedy career was going nowhere.

Like a lot of you, I had spent the better part of the last four years pretty glued to social media, rage reading and doom scrolling.

I was addicted to social media. I was addicted to Twitter. For almost four years, I had been watching everything Trump did with despair and sick fascination. And I gotta be honest, I was reeeeally starting to regret voting for the guy.

The thing that I hated most about Trump (among the actual reasons) was that he was exactly the kind of president Id be. I would be like, how could he not read his intelligence briefings? But the thing is, Ive never shown up prepared to a meeting in my life. Id get so mad he spent all morning in bed tweeting and watching TV, but I was also in bed all morning tweeting and watching TV. I love McDonalds. I heard he once had the Secret Service get him McDonalds in the middle of the night and Ive done that, too, with Uber Eats. Uber Eats was my Secret Service. I love hotels and my steak well done. We both have degrees in economics, but neither of us understands money, and weve both been photographed with toilet paper stuck to our shoe. I guess the difference is, if I was president, I would have at least made an attempt to hide all that. Maybe thats where I went wrong in life.

Dutton/The Daily Beast

When the world shut down, Jeff and I were all stuck at home, like everyone else. There were no shows or open mics, so I poured all my energy into making stuff for my first love: the internet. And a few weeks later I found my muse.

During one of his early COVID press conferences, Trump said, Were gonna form a committee. Im gonna call it a committee. And were gonna make decisions. And were gonna make decisions fairly quickly. And I hope theyre going to be the right decisions.

Dude made it sound like he invented committees. And everyone around him nodded like it made sense. It seemed like everyone supported this nonsense and maybe I was the one who was out to lunch. The whole administration was a charade. It was Gaslighting 101. No, no, it was Advanced Gaslighting. He was pulling off being president with smoke and mirrors.

I decided to lip-synch it on this new app my nephews Ryan and Tyler showed me, called TikTok. I wasnt trying to be Trump. I was trying to be the me I never got to be. The me I always wanted to be. The schmoozer. The guy who used a bunch of words but said nothing and got away with it. What a dream it would be to get away with something! Anything!

That first video was so much to fun to make but it didnt go viral. And Im the type of person who moves on quickly to the next thing. I stopped watching his press conferences. They were unbearable anyway. But on April 23rd, Jeff came out of his office and said, Sarah, you gotta see this. Trump had given a press conference a press conference that would go on to live in Lysol infamy, where he said:

We hit the body, with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just a very powerful light. And I think you said that hasnt been checked, but youre gonna test it? And then I said supposing we brought the light inside the body, which you can do, either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said youre gonna test that too, sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant knocks it out, in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that? By injection, in-side, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs so itd be interesting to check that, so that youre gonna have to use, medical doctors, right? But it sounds, it sounds interesting to me.

I had no notes. It was a perfect clip. He was so earnest. He genuinely thought what he was saying made sense. And I wanted to become this man, the man that I saw, this man who had absolutely no idea how he sounded, who clearly saw himself as deeply intelligent and thoughtful. Here he was, humbly asking people to listen to his brilliant idea.

I threw on a navy-blue blazer and got to work, in the living room, in the kitchen kneeling next to the sink, and back to the living room, just using whatever was around. I took off the blazer and put in clip-in bangs to create the version of myself that was listening to this nonsense and shot that, too. I did it all very quickly. I was rushing through it because I just wanted to get it over with dinner was almost ready. My inner monologue while doing it was not, Wow, this is hysterical, it was, Does this even make sense? Why am I doing this? No one is going to watch this.

I spent two hours on the clip, shared it on my TikTok, and then shared it on Twitter. I chose the name How to Medical because I wanted some kind of broken sentence that didnt make sense and thats just what came out. And then we ate dinner. Im pretty sure it was jambalaya. I checked Twitter and saw that the video had a few retweets and a few comments, but just as I suspected, it wasnt going to go viral. I almost deleted it. But then I went to bed.

When I woke up, the video had a million views.

Earlier that week, a couple in Detroit, who were both essential workers, lost their only daughter to COVID. She was the youngest casualty thus far. I replied to my How to Medical tweet to encourage people to donate to her family and that reply started going viral, too. The attention was exciting, but feeling like it could actually help someone was even better.

I got a call from TMZ. They wanted to interview me. I got on the Zoom. They wanted to know how the video had changed my life, I said it hadnt. The interview never aired. Jerry Seinfeld mentioned me in The New York Times, but when I told my new stand-up comedy manager, Chris Burns, he said something like, Your friends and family must be so excited.

So that was it. I went back to my unchanged life. I was going to find something else to do.

But Trump kept making these wild statements. And they were getting wilder and wilder. I didnt want to keep lip-synching, but its like he was begging for it.

It didnt take long before Id created a whole series. How to Obamagate, How to More Cases Than Anybody in the World, How to Bible, How to Lobster, How to Very Positively, How to Bunker, How to Mask, How to Empty Seat, and my piece de resistance, How to Person Woman Man Camera TV.

People always ask me how I chose the clips. Man, the clips just chose themselves. I mean, who talks about lobsters like that? Who would answer the question Are you a New Testament guy or an Old Testament guy? with Uh, probably equal? Who would brag about being able to remember person woman man camera TV in their cognitive test, and then start to forget those same five words as they went on bragging about it? Who would loudly and proudly proclaim that MAGA loves the Black people? Only this guy.

Someone called my videos an antidote to the gaslighting, and thats what it felt like for me, too. Finally, we had some proof, some hilarious proof, that his words meant nothing.

I got emails and drawings and letters from so many of you saying that I made you laugh when you didnt have anything else to laugh about. Emails like this one, shared with permission:

NAME: Candis McGovern

SUBJECT: Thank you

MESSAGE: My best friends mom died of COVID- 19 tonight. She went into the hospital 2 weeks ago with symptoms and never came out. She died alone and my best friend is grieving with her family and Im insane with grief because I lost my mom when I was a teenager. I cant even hug my friend. They couldnt hug their mom. The reason that Im telling you this is that your how to wear a mask video is the first thing that Ive laughed at when I really thought I might never laugh again. Your work is indescribably important. Thank you so much for what you do.

I felt like I had made some kind of difference. Knowing Id made someone smile when it was hard to smile made me feel proud.

Each video I made got millions of views . . . then my life did start to change.

I started getting attention from all kinds of journalists and celebrities and people Id always admired. Ben Stiller was commenting on my videos. Cher retweeted me. Halle Berry called me iconic. I went from 60,000 Twitter followers to two million. I was on Ellen. I had an interview with Lawrence ODonnell. And Nicolle Wallace. Jimmy Fallon had me on The Tonight Show. Kamala Harris wanted to do an Instagram Live with me.

And suddenly, very suddenly, like so fast itll make your head spin, and my head was spinning, I was pretty much handed the keys to Hollywood.

I signed with WME and started auditioning for high- profile projects. I got offered a series regular role on a sitcom. We sold a pilot for 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings to Netflix and Id be working with Ricky Gervais. Ricky Gervais. We sold another pilot for How to Be Successful Without Hurting Mens Feelings to CBS with Nina Tassler and Cindy Chupack. My manager texted me and said they want me to guest-host Kimmel. HOST. KIMMEL. I met with Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph and they wanted to work with me on a Netflix comedy special. I was getting a Netflix comedy special.

And then I was like, wow, Im really glad I voted for him. Just to be clear, I did not vote for him.

If this feels fast to you, it felt that way to me, too. I cant describe the imposter syndrome that engulfed me as all this was happening. It engulfs me even now. Im getting imposter syndrome writing my own memoir.

I started getting recognized on the street.

The first time I got recognized I was picking up dog poop, because when you get famous for lip-synching Donald Trump, thats the only thing that makes sense. I was walking Stella and she had just done her business like a good girl. I bent down to pick up the poop but I couldnt open the green poop bag. So I pull down my mask to lick my fingers to open the bag during a global pandemic, and as Im scooping this poop, I hear, Are you Sarah Cooper?

I look up midscoop and see this blond girl, about 12 years old, looking down at me. And Im like, Oh my god, its happening! I laughed and smiled and said, Yes, Im Sarah Cooper! And then I wanted to make conversation because Ive never been recognized before and of course I want my fans to love me, so I said, Are you on TikTok?

And she goes, No . . . my dad sends me your videos.

Cool, cool, I thought.

Cool, I said out loud.

I was so embarrassed. Id become an email forward from someones dad.

Dads love my videos. And I love dads. But I had to confront the fact that Id built my whole life on dad humor. I know what youre thinking: That was just one person (thats what you were thinking, right?), but people came up to me all the time to say their dad loved my videos. In fact, two months later I was shooting my Netflix special and Marisa Tomei came over to me and said, Sarah! Sarah! Can I get a picture with you? I was floored. I was like, Oh my god, Marisa Tomei wants a picture with me? And she said, No, its for my dad.

Over the next few years, so many people recognized me, always with kind words. People come up to me and say, I love you, or Thank you, or tell me I kept them sane during the pandemic. And, yes, sometimes they mention their dad. And usually I say that making those videos kept me sane, too. But it wasnt making them, it was seeing how happy they made other people. Thats what kept me sane.

Many, many, many months later, there was a time I became sort of embarrassed of the videos, like I didnt want to be associated with Trump. I didnt want to just be known for lip-synching. I didnt want the push notification from TMZ about my death to say, This Trump impersonator died: Click to find out how. But thats my imposter syndrome talking, trying to undermine what these videos actually meant.

These videos werent really about Trump. They were about my (our) frustration with a culture of entitlement and bullshit that valued the egos of rich (white) men over accountability.

A reporter once asked Trump if hed seen my videos and he said he hadnt but in a way that made me think he definitely had.

Excerpted from FOOLISH: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation by Sarah Cooper ( 2023 Sarah Cooper) and published by arrangement with Dutton an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

For more, listen to Sarah Cooper on The Last Laugh podcast.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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The Republican 2024 presidential candidates and their campaigns have one eye on voters -- and another on the calendar, as they face approaching deadlines to file for state primaries and caucuses.

Those include the cycle's first one, this week, in Nevada. Other early-voting nominating states like New Hampshire and South Carolina have filing cutoffs at the end of October.

Once those dates come and go, it signals that the 2024 field is largely, but not necessarily completely, set.

MORE: RFK Jr.'s switch to independent campaign draws criticism from GOP -- not Democrats

Politicians who are floated as late-breaking candidates -- including Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., or Virginia's Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin -- could theoretically still declare they are running for the White House and even, on paper, go on to win their party's nominations even if they miss the cutoff for the early primary and caucus dates, experts told ABC News.

Early polling has consistently shown that former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are likely to win the 2024 Republican and Democratic nominations, respectively, ahead of a rematch next year.

Still, polling has also consistently shown that a notable number of voters are dissatisfied with that possibility, which one expert said was a dynamic fueling the number of other presidential hopefuls.

PHOTO: 2024 Republican presidential candidates, from left, Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Senator Tim Scott and former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during a debate, Sept. 27, 2023, in Simi Valley, Calif. (Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump is running in a crowded Republican primary field against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and others while Biden faces a long shot Democratic opponent in speaker Marianne Williamson.

Independents like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West are continuing their own outside campaigns.

Experts said that missing filing deadlines or joining the 2024 presidential race after some key benchmarks pass in early voting states would make it very challenging but not impossible to earn a presidential nomination.

MORE: The latest updates on the 2024 Republican presidential primary

Success as a late-entry candidate would depend on building momentum among voters despite not campaigning and gaining traction in the early states or being able to win any of their delegates, the experts said.

"If you have a lot of popularity ... oomph you can still get the nomination, even though you missed the early primaries," said Richard Winger, a ballot access expert and political analyst.

Delegates are awarded through caucuses and primaries where voters select their preferred presidential nominee. Those delegates will then go on to technically award the nomination at the national party conventions next year.

PHOTO: People wait in line at one of a few in-person voting places during a nearly all-mail primary election, June 9, 2020, in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP)

How delegates are apportioned to candidates varies by state but, overall, a candidate must have a majority, or around 1,234 out of 2,467 delegates, to secure the Republican presidential nomination.

For Democrats, a presidential candidate needs to receive support from a majority of the pledged delegates on the first ballot: an estimated 1,886 pledged delegates out of 4,514 delegates.

Losing out on an early state's share of delegates would not, mathematically, make a huge dent in the overall amount a candidate can receive. Primaries in delegate-rich states such as California, Florida and New York will be held later into 2024 compared with the relatively small amount of delegates awarded in smaller early states like Iowa and Nevada.

But Amy K. Dacey, executive director of the Sine Institute for Policy and Politics at American University in Washington, and the CEO of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 convention, told ABC News that "it's not just the filing date" that matters for candidates.

"I think it's a momentum issue as well," Dacey said, referring to the boost in voter and media attention that traditionally accompanies the winners in Iowa, New Hampshire and on Super Tuesday, when many state primaries are held simultaneously.

White House hopefuls would "find it very hard to not be competitive and, in the immediate news cycle for those early states, to build momentum to build resources," Dacey said.

That includes campaign infrastructure and enlisting volunteers, she said.

PHOTO: Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin addresses the Economic Club of Washington's luncheon event at the Marriott Marquis, Sept. 26, 2023, in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

During a discussion in Washington last month, Youngkin evaded a steady string of questions about the possibility that he might jump into the 2024 Republican primary for president.

"To have people throw my name around and as somebody who would potentially vie for, I think, the most revered and respected office in the world is hugely humbling," he said, adding that he is focused on Virginia's 2023 legislative elections.

A former governor may also be waiting in the wings, but not for the Republican ticket: Maryland's Larry Hogan told Bloomberg News on Tuesday that he was open to running in 2024.

Hogan has previously indicated he would not seek a White House bid as a Republican but has left the door open to a third-party run. He is a national co-chair of the No Labels group that has floated the idea of a bipartisan "unity ticket" that would mix a presidential and vice presidential candidate from each major party.

MORE: DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison campaigns for Virginia Democrats, blasts Glenn Youngkin

Meanwhile Phillips, in a statement to ABC News, confirmed he spoke last week with New Hampshire Democratic leadership as he "contemplates" entering the primary there. The call was first reported by Politico.

"It was a very friendly conversation," Phillips said.

Him running in the New Hampshire primary would have more symbolic than practical value, as national Democrats decided to change their 2024 primary calendar to deprioritize New Hampshire, whose voters they believe are less representative of the country overall.

New Hampshire Democrats have resisted that scheduling move, which will likely mean Biden -- whose reelection bid is fully endorsed by the national party -- won't file to run in the state primary at all, potentially relying on write-in voters to win.

At least some of the state's delegates are also likely to be stripped away if the state's schedule doesn't change.

PHOTO: Robert Kennedy speaks at a press conference on April 1, 1968 in New York. (Santi Visalli/Getty Images)

There is some precedent for candidates joining the race without qualifying to be on the ballot in early or key states.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg formally entered the 2020 presidential race as a Democrat in late November 2019 but did not file in New Hampshire.

Former Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick also launched an unsuccessful bid that month, missing deadlines to file in Alabama and Arkansas.

An earlier example: Robert F. Kennedy, brother to slain President John F. Kennedy and who was then a U.S. senator from New York, announced his own run for president on March 16, 1968 -- four days after the New Hampshire primary.

ABC News' Chris Donovan, Rick Klein and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.

Window is closing for any surprise 2024 candidates, but they could still emerge originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
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January 1 may usher in a new year full of excitement and possibilities, but a few weeks in, that positive attitude quickly fades as the snow piles up. You start to find that snow angels arent that amusing after all, and your favorite hot cocoa would taste better if it were a pina colada and you were drinking it on a luxurious beach somewhere. As the temperatures continue to dip, you find yourself constantly staring out the window and fantasizing about going somewhere warm.

The good news is that January is a great month to travel. With the holiday rush in the rearview mirror, rates begin to drop, ushering in the ideal time to jet off to greener (and sunnier) pastures. Of course, it depends on what you're after. Lee Thompson, co-founder of global travel company Flash Pack says that for a bucket-list warm-weather trip in January, nothing beats the Serengeti. If it's about scoring an airfare deal, Becky Blaine, Newsletter Editor at The Points Guy, advises to keep an eye on flights to Hawaii as airfare drops to draw visitors back to support the economy post-Maui fire. For the best of everythingwarm temps, direct flights, beaches, culture and foodcheck out Curacao. It's more of a hidden gem (at least to Americans) in the Caribbean and a stay at the new, adults-only boutique Kura Botanica (located in a UNESCO World Heritage building!) will certainly cure your winter blues. (Check out airfare here).

So if youre dreaming of a winter getaway (or simply need some inspo to get you through the frosty month), here are 14 warm places to travel in January.

Where Is the Warmest Place in the U.S. in January?

The warmest spots in the U.S. overall in January are probably gonna be Hawaii or Puerto Rico. On the mainland, it's all about the Sun Belt region, spanning from Southern California to North Carolina, including cities like Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Las Vegas, L.A., Phoenix, San Antonio and more. Blaine warns that many warm-weather U.S. destinations end up with extended high seasons into January as people look to escape cold weather and snow. Tracking airfare to certain destinations will be a good indicator of the willingness of the destination to draw in more visitors.

10 Island Vacations You Can Take Without Leaving the Country

Jimmy Cruz/EyeEm/Getty Images

Cartagena is the epitome of a steamy escape with lots of choices at your fingertips. January delivers tropical temperatures, minimal humidity and the lowest chance of precipitation. Youll certainly appreciate the gentle breeze while walking around this picturesque port. This UNESCO-listed old town is an Insta-worthy maze of cobblestone lanes, Spanish colonial buildings with balconies covered in bougainvillea and glorious churches that dominate the tree-lined plazas. When it comes to tasty eats, find your way to a palettas, a fruity and refreshing mid-afternoon snack. You gotta try pescado frito (fried fish) with green plantains and coconut rice. For the best beaches in the area, book a day trip to the magical Islas del Rosario.

Book Flights on kayak

Luis Rossi/EyeEm/Getty Images

Aruba, the happy island 48 miles west of Curacao, welcomes hordes of repeat travelersespecially in the winter when consistently warm weather, endless sunshine and cooling trade winds sure beat the forecast in most of the U.S.and with nonstop flights out of JFK and Newark daily means Arubas famed sandy beaches and rum punch are only a direct flight away. According to travel writer Dan Koday, along with overall chill-meets-luxe vibe of the island, the water activities are a main attraction: "[Whether] its windsurfing, riding Jet Skis, snorkeling, cruising on a catamaran or scuba diving. In fact, youd be missing out if you have your PADI certification and left without exploring the many shipwrecks in Arubas waters: the Antilla, Debbie II and Jane wrecks, plus an airplane wreck site with not one but two submerged planes (they were intentionally sunk to form an artificial reef)." On land, Koday recommends renting an ATV to see the islandespecially the rugged, arid Arikok National Park. But whatever you do, he tells us, "be sure to try pastechis (local empanadas) pretty much anywhere you find them." Think: flaky pastry and gooey cheese.

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Sunshine. Highs in the low 70s. Yeah, January in Palm Springs is total perfection. The hip Sonoran Desert oasis is known for its mid-century design cred, iconic architecture and salacious tales from Tinseltowns golden age. That raises the question of where youre going to stay. Whether youre a fan of retro glamor or contemporary aesthetics, stylish hotels abound. We also love the idea of renting a fabulous house erected in the famous neighborhood Elvis and Priscilla honeymooned. Of course, a pool and jacuzzi are non-negotiables regardless of where you shack up. Round out your itinerary by doing a historical walking tour to see where the Rat Pack used to party, snapping (mandatory) pics under luscious palm trees, indulging in spa treatments, shopping for vintage treasures and communing with nature on a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park.

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Its all about sun and fun in Cancun. And it truly has activities for all types of travelersfrom hard-partying college students and bachelorette parties to honeymooners and families. In fact, PureWow Editor in Chief, Jillian Quint, brought her 5 and 7-year-olds to the all-inclusive Garza Blanca and was quite surprised by how both family-friendly and luxe it still felt: "Dare I say, it reaffirmed my commitment to family travel," she wrote on her stay. Nonetheless, youll undoubtedly spend the bulk of your trip on the beach (hello, Playa Delfines). For a dose of culture, head over to the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza and if youre on the market for some adventure, take up some whale shark snorkeling courtesy of Ocean Tours. Have a hankering for authentic Mexican food? TripAdvisor reviewers rave about El Rinconcito de Puebla and Los Caporales.

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According to Lee Thompson, co-founder of global travel company, Flash Pack, South East Asia itineraries are popular during the month of January thanks to hot temperatures. Specifically, Chiang Mai, dubbed the Rose of the North, is a continual reminder that theres more to Thailand than the islands of Phuket (though well get to that later) and Koh Samui. The capital of the ancient Lanna Kingdom charms tourists with its relaxed pace and rich culture. The city boasts hundreds of opulent Buddhist temples including the gilded Wat Phra Singh as well as lush rainforests, majestic mountains and elephant sanctuaries within driving distance. Since Chiang Mai has a slightly cooler climate than Bangkok, you can clock more sightseeing hours without sweating through your gauzy printed pants. Lets be honest, itll still feel quite balmy.

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A less touristy spot than other Caribbean locales, you might consider Curacao a hidden gem with less crowds, fewer tourist traps and lower prices. Don't worry. It's still replete with beaches, amazing food (like goat barbecue, fried conch, Antillean ice cream, bokel, and iguana soup) and opportunities to kick back and explore whether on ATVs or boat to visit the famous Blue Room cave. Tirzah Statia, Curacao native and experience curator for Curacao Tourist Board explained to PureWow editor Taryn Pire why January was a great time to visit: In Curacao, winter is still summer, with temperatures averaging between 80 and 90F [with] some rain and light winds. In fact, many find the constant wind or breeze we experience here like the cherry on the cake. Weather aside, Delta will add direct flights from Atlanta to the island in winter 2024 adding to the convenience of a winter island getaway. (Direct flights are already available from NYC, Newark, Charlotte, Miami, Toronto and Montreal). Unique in its identity amid the many more Americanized Caribbean destinations, during Pire's own visit to Curacao, she felt almost immediately in the thick of local culture, passing local watering holes and lively neighborhoods.

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Average Daily Temperature in January: highs in the 80s, lows in the low 70s to upper 50s

Recommended for: Big Five safaris, international travel, bucket-list travel

Best Hotels: Four Seasons Safari Lodge (inquire for rates), Lake Manyara Serena Safari Lodge (from $376/night), Seronera Wildlife Lodge (from $282/night)

Says Flash Pack Co-Founder Thompson: "For January, I would choose an epic, bucket-list adventure." Specifically, the travel expert is talking about a unique roaming safari in Tanzania (a group tour built of solo travelers), since dry season in the Serengeti means great viewing for the great wildebeest migration. Serengeti National Park, a World Heritage Site, teems with wildlife, including lions, leopards, cheetahs and more. Amazingly, though a safari can seem far-flung and out of reach, accommodations are available at every point. Meet ya near the lions?

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The Yucatan Peninsula shines as a hotbed of tourism thanks to Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum. But you likely havent heard of Campeche. (Thats OK, we didnt know much about it either until recently.) This less-frequented port city oozes charm and heritage. Mild weather makes January the perfect month to visit since youll want to spend time exploring the cobblestone streets, sherbet-hued colonial buildings, UNESCO-listed walled historic center and hilltop fortresses. The waterfront promenade is a lovely spot for a morning jog or a sunset stroll. Embark on an artisan, culinary and archeological tour or explore the historical artifacts in Edzna.

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From backpackers and spring breakers to honeymooners and celebs, everyone loves Phuket. Itll downright blow you away with its white sands, swaying palm trees and turquoise tides, but the stunning scenery is hardly the only draw. Thailands biggest island also has legendary nightlife, delicious local eats, Buddhist temples, fabled diving sites and hundreds of hotels. Despite its status as a full-fledged tourism darling and January being the preeminent time to visit, you can still score legit deals. At the time of this writing, a deluxe room at the Renaissance Phuket Resort & Spaan attractive oceanfront property with swish decor and stellar servicewill run you $150 per night, for example. Couples in the mood for romance will fall hard for Trisara, which woos with its Michelin-starred restaurant, plush spa and private beach. Its on the pricier side but definitely worth it for an unforgettable anniversary trip or a splurge-worthy international getaway. On the opposite end of the spectrum, hostels in the lively town of Patong start at $8.

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When asked where she'd personally travel in January, Becky Blaine, Newsletter Editor at TPG, said that for a mix of activity and relaxation, Hawaii is a great option: "There are so many airfare deals right now to draw visitors back and support the economy after the wildfires in Maui," she expands. The Big Island earns our vote as the picture-perfect place to kick off your adventures in the Aloha State. Blessed with an unimaginably diverse landscape, this tropical paradise is teeming with hiking trails, waterfalls, giant lava rocks and jaw-dropping shores in colors youve never imagined. On the southernmost tip, Papakolea Beach displays dazzling green sand as a result of a mineral called olivine. Basalt gives Punaluu Beach its black hue. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is truly unlike anywhere else on the planet. You can also swim alongside gentle manta rays with massive 16-foot wingspans. If youre into java, be sure to book a Kona coffee tour! January falls within the rainy season for Hawaii, but the upside is that everything looks so green, and the flowers are blooming. Plus, its not too humid. Rates tend to be on the higher side at the beginning of January, but by the middle of the month prices drop back down to average.

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Keep the excitement of the holidays going by escaping the frightful winter weather and trading it for sunny Costa Rica. "I think Central and South American locations can be overlooked," says Blaine. "Dont be afraid of the language barriermany resorts have English-speaking staff and offer guided tours and great recommendations to explore local culture." Plus, January is the perfect time to visit this Central American country because its just after the holiday rush and its the first month of the dry season. That means you can expect smaller crowds and picture-perfect weather when you embark on wildlife tours at the Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve, Hacienda Baru National Wildlife Refuge or the Curi Cancha Wildlife Refuge. Costa Rica is also nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea which means countless blue water beaches to just relax and unwind attry Playa Conchal or Manuel Antonio Beach to start.

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Sure, its not nearly as hot as, say, Colombia, but the cool January temperatures in Cape Verde make it so its not too cold that you dont want to go outside, and its not so hot that your afternoon adventure is ruined by your desire to get to an AC ASAP. This island off the coast of west Africa has a lot to offer for snowbirds escaping the harsh winters. And as Thompson points out, "For January, I would choose an epic, bucket-list adventure." And adventures this African spot has to offer: go on an excursion and get a different view of the Island of Sal courtesy of Zipline Cabo Verde, and those who like to keep things more grounded can still get their adrenaline pumping while on a 4WD Buggy Island Adventure.

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Known for calm waters, coral reefs teeming with marine life and most famously the spectacular beauty of Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman is the quintessential Caribbean getaway. Catching rays, snorkeling, stand-up paddle boarding in a bioluminescent bay and fishing are among the most popular pastimes. Need a break from the sun? Head over to George Town to watch the massive cruise ships dock in the port. The capital is also home to the ruins of a colonial-era fort and the Cayman Islands National Museum. Foodies wont want to pass up the return of the Cayman Cookout (January 10 to 14, 2024). Held at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman, the mouthwatering event brings together leading chefs, sommeliers and spirit aficionados from all over the world. Past headliner chefs include Emeril Lagasse, Deedee Niyomkul, Eric Ripert and Jose Andresjust to name a few.

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Nothing compares to the sweet island breeze, vivid coral reefs and soft and silky sand in the Bahamas. Specifically in Nassau, the capital, which is also one of the most popular cruise ship stops and home to the beloved The Atlantis Resort. (You know, the humungous hotel that Michael Jackson frequented, which now has a suite named after the king of pop). A seven-day trip for two people can cost as high as $3,000, but you can get day passes starting at $135 to enjoy all that the resort has to offer (including swimming with dolphins, a 30-minute lazy river and water slides, to name a few), if you decide to stay somewhere else. Then you can go into town to shop and eat with tourists and locals alike.

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10 Relaxing Vacations in the U.S. to Help You De-Stress

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PureWow's editors and writers have spent more than a decade shopping online, digging through sales and putting our home goods, beauty finds, wellness picks and more through the wringerall to help you determine which are actually worth your hard-earned cash. From our PureWow100 series (where we rank items on a 100-point scale) to our painstakingly curated lists of fashion, beauty, cooking, home and family picks, you can trust that our recommendations have been thoroughly vetted for function, aesthetics and innovation. Whether you're looking for travel-size hair dryers you can take on-the-go or womens walking shoes that wont hurt your feet, weve got you covered.
Last year, Mady Dewey participated in the brands Swim Search open casting call. She headed to the Dominican Republic with photographer Yu Tsai for the feature, where she posed in a series of photos that resulted in her being named the winner of that years competition. The honor earned her a rookie spot in the 2023 SI Swimsuit Issue.

It was at Miami Swim Week in July that Dewey had the opportunity to reflect on what it meant to win the 2022 Swim Search and how things had changed for her in the time since. She admitted that the whole experience had changed her life in so many ways, from personal to professional shifts. Perhaps most importantly, her mindset and self-perception received a boost from the experience. A lot of it is internal, she said. It has changed the way that I view myself and my confidence.

But, more than that, it has given Dewey a community that she hadnt even realized she was missing. "It has allowed me to connect with so many people who are in a professional career and havent felt like they can show that sexy side of themselves, she explained.

In addition to the positive change that winning the Swim Search produced, Deweys photoshoot in the Dominican Republic likewise resulted in incredible memories and stunning photos that will last a lifetime. Below are a few of our favorites from the trip.

Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated

Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated

Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated

Yu Tsai/Sports Illustrated

Now through Nov. 1, 100% of SI Swimsuits portion of proceeds from cover prints purchased here will be donated to the Maui Strong Fund, which is helping to support the people and places of Maui affected by the recent wildfires.

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When Emily DiDonato stepped on set for her 2020 SI Swimsuit photoshoot in Saratoga, Wyo., it was far from her first rodeo. The American model made her debut with the issue in 2013, which she followed up with three consecutive features.

Her trip to Wyoming was her fifth feature in the magazine, but her first in a handful of years. In the interim, she married her husband, Kyle Peterson, with whom she now has two children.

While on set for her feature out West, the model reflected on her journey with the issue, admitting to a lack of confidence when she first started out. But with age, I feel more confident, she remarked while on the trip.

Part of her newfound self-assurance was due in part to her adventurous mentality. I constantly try to force myself to try new things and push myself out of my comfort zone, she explained. Thats what makes life interesting.

Moreover, DiDonato expressed an understanding that honesty on her social media platformsa place for sharing her narrative and tak[ing] control of what [she] wants to say to [her] audiencehas been an important part of that journey. As she has pushed herself outside her comfort zone, DiDonato has openly shared her struggles and things she has gone through. I try to act as a role model, or to help people in that way, she said of her honesty on her platform.

In addition to her thoughtful reflections, the model posed for some incredibly beautiful and idyllic photos. Here are some of our favorites.

Ruven Afanador/Sports Illustrated

Ruven Afanador/Sports Illustrated

Ruven Afanador/Sports Illustrated

Ruven Afanador/Sports Illustrated

Ruven Afanador/Sports Illustrated

Ruven Afanador/Sports Illustrated

Ruven Afanador/Sports Illustrated

Now through Nov. 1, 100% of SI Swimsuits portion of proceeds from cover prints purchased here will be donated to the Maui Strong Fund, which is helping to support the people and places of Maui affected by the recent wildfires.

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U.S. Ambassador Denise Campbell Bauer opened the doors of the official embassy residence Hotel de Pontalba for an evening of celebrating young designers and American cotton.

A cocktail reception marked the sixth edition of the Supima Design Lab, a fashion showcase of works from newly minted design graduates in the Supima Design Competition in the U.S., finalists from last weekends Hyeres International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories, and a slate of more established young talents.

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The grand rooms of the former Rothschild residence were lined with the designs on display, while classical piano greeted guests.

Campbell Bauer took to the grand steps of the residence to speak to the crowd as everyone squeezed into the entrance for a view.

I think these are challenging times, its really, really great to have all of these good people, good positive energy, doing good things together and [to] celebrate our wonderful partnership with France and with each other, she said.

Supima president and chief executive officer Marc Lewkowitz followed, noting that all were surrounded by the beauty and talent of the guests.

We all feel for the sadness that is out there. Hopefully tonight, we can find a little bit of joy together and celebrate some of the beauty that we also have in the world, in terms of the new creative minds and the fashion and the beauty thats possible, and the fiber that makes all of this possible, he said.

Buxton Midyette, vice president of marketing and promotions, added that Supimas support for designers has always been the highest priority.

The magic that happens when you take these fabrics made with the very special Supima cotton, and you put them into such talented hands, he said, and encouraged guests to speak with the young, passionate designers.

Guests at the Supima Design Lab 2023 at Residence de lAmbassadeur des USA a Paris.

And magical it was, with guests mingling in the gilded rooms.

Lewkowitz said guests were part of the on the ongoing success of the event. He chalked it up to more than fashion. The fiber has brought us together, but its the people that weve connected with that are making this a success  that are out there, sharing the stories, sharing their creativity, telling the celebratory process of [the fiber] it starts with, he said. Its all about bringing people together, bringing creative minds together, enabling connections to be made, imagining and reimagining things in a different way in a different light.

He highlighted the climate change challenges that face the industry, particularly the seesaw of drought and flooding conditions in California, where much of the cotton is grown, and noted that Supima launched as the first fully authenticated, traceable fiber on the blockchain on July 1. Developing the technology took 12 years of work.

Its been blood, sweat and tears, a lot of investment and a few mistakes, he said. The authentication is not only fiber DNA but location-based, down to the farmer as well, which will help differentiate the fibers growing criteria in the face of upcoming EU and U.S. regulations. [Now] we have honesty in the textile world, and thats a beautiful thing.

Lewkowitz finds working with young designers particularly gratifying, in part because it is oftentimes the first exposure they have to a natural fiber as they often work with synthetics for effect. As you walk through here, you can see the reimagination of it  how can we make cotton look like a technical fabric, add crazy color to it, or make it shine? There are so many iterations of amazing technical capabilities in the pieces.

Leevi Ikaheimos design (center).

Case in point was Leevi Ikaheimo, who learned on site that he had carted away the Supima Coup de Coeur honor. This is the best way to find out  I had to ask what it meant, he said, excitedly showing off his futuristic denim design. Ikaheimo used a series of special bleaching, holographic printing, glue and foil techniques for the metallic finish, and shaped the material into voluminous, rounded edges with an urban warrior feel.

People were asking me, Is this how you see fashions future? And no, I see this as fashions present. Its for anyone who wants to have fun. Thats what my collection is all about, he said. Ikaheimo added that he hopes the shiny jeans can be produced if the treatments can be streamlined.

His work was showcased amongst the select group of finalists from the festival, including triple-crown winner Igor Dieryck, who took home the Grand Prix of the Jury Premiere Vision, the 19M Metiers dArt prize and the Public Prize from the City of Hyeres.

Other works were from Tiago Bessa, Alec Bizby, Fengyuan Dai, Petra Fagerstrom, Jung Eun Lee, Norman Mabire-Larguier and Bo Kwon Min.

Yeonghyeon Kim made the first accessory on display with a snaking body ornament that would wind up the torso of the wearer.

A handful of Paris-based international designers had unique creations on display, including Jenny Hytonen, Julie de Libran, Nix Lecourt Mansion, Niccolo Pasqualetti, Vincent Pressiat and Victor Weinsanto.

Pressiat displayed the look that closed his September Paris Fashion Week show, this time with the removable sleeves intact to differentiate the outfit from the asymmetric version he sent down the runway.

It was also his first time working with Supima, and he noted that it is difficult to find strong cotton to work with in todays market. The fabric held up to his destructive techniques, leading to the deconstructed striping on a shapely corset dress.

The lines are clean and [alternately] destroyed like the lines in your life  you have good moments and bad moments, he said of the inspiration. Pressiat was presented next to fellow wunderkind Weinsanto.

For his part, Weinsanto praised the heft of the fabric. Its just good quality, you can do anything you want. He created a white column dress with a variation of textures, including embroidery from Margo Ficatier, which took three weeks of work. Weinsanto wanted the foundational dress to be clean and simple, with the appliques showing messiness and (intentional) mistakes.

Entrants from the Supima Design Competition of U.S. graduates.

Recent graduates from U.S.-based design schools were featured in the Supima Design Competition section, with creations from winner Carla Pierini on display, alongside Sahara Clemons, Mariana Espinosa, Hee Jin Hwang, Amber Kuai, Wendy Weng, Tianze Wu and Alexander Ziemba.

Wednesdays cocktail reception is being followed by a formal dinner Thursday night at the Embassy.

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This article originally appeared on Outside

My travel companions and I had spent nearly a week in Alaska's Katmai National Park surrounded by wild coastal grizzlies with nary an issue. But on our last day in Hallo Bay, a popular bear-viewing area in the park, something was amiss. Our guide Brad Josephs, an employee of outfitter Natural Habitat Adventures, caught sight of an older bear, partially hidden in the tall sedgegrass, staring intently at our group. Josephs calmly ordered us to bunch together. He stood at the front, between us and the bear, while the other guide, Teresa Whipple, kept watch from behind. It was highly unlikely that the bear would become aggressive--attacks are extremely rare and only two people have been killed by grizzly bears in the park's history--but by grouping together, we'd look more imposing. Thankfully, it soon ambled off without issue.

I've loved bears for much of my life, but it wasn't until this five-day group trip in June 2018 that I became truly obsessed. During my time there, I was fascinated by the bears grazing, playing, and interacting with one another. We watched cubs playfully wrestle with their siblings, and saw a fully-grown pair battle each other--the ordeal looked like an episode of Wild Kingdom. Because Katmai's coastal grizzlies have never been hunted, they have no fear of humans. Food is in such abundance that we're not prey, but rather harmless curiosities, which allows them to drop their guard (at least as much as a bear can in a wild environment). Of course, they're still wild animals, and in the case of that grizzled grizzly, it was better to be safe than sorry.

The bears consumed my attention, but I also found our guides, Josephs and Whipple, fascinating. Each day, they told us where to go and what to do, both to keep us safe and give us the best opportunities for photographs. Throughout our time in the field, they softly narrated the entire experience as it happened; it was like having your own personal David Attenborough whispering in your ear. I was struck by how knowledgeable they were, and by how they seemingly knew what to do in any circumstance. It seemed that being a guide was as much about intuition as it was about training and classroom knowledge.

While I'm sure Josephs could read context cues from the old grizzly's body language, it was almost like he had a sixth sense when it came to the bears, the kind that only comes from years in the field. In the four years since, I've had multiple other grizzly encounters, but none as special as that first trip. Meeting other bear guides--like my friend, National Geographic photographer Jad Davenport--made me wonder what makes a great guide. What possesses a person to become a bear guide in the first place? What training goes into it? Did I have what it takes to become one?

With that last question in mind, I reached out to the Commercial Bear Viewing Association of British Columbia (CBVA), a group promoting safe and sustainable bear viewing on the western edges of Canada, and signed up for their level-one guide certification class, which would involve a week of classroom training and a final examination in the field. To achieve the level-two status, guides need to spend 150 more hours in the field, with level-three guides logging an additional 200 hours on top of that. A few weeks later, I was on a Zoom call with about a dozen other wannabe guides, learning about bear behavior and safety techniques.

If you met my instructor Daryl Dancer on the street, you'd never guess that the petite 65-year-old is a bear guide and general badass. Dancer is an 11-year veteran of marine search and rescue, and she has been guiding trips along the coast of British Columbia for 16 years. Still, she admits that teaching bear safety has been a learning process. Even after taking her first CBVA course, she was deathly afraid of grizzlies, a fact she kept hidden from her bosses at the guiding service at the time.

"Bears scared me because I really didnt know anything about them," Dancer said. "I became a guide because it sounded fascinating; it brought all my skill sets together - boats, outdoor education, and my nature knowledge. It was such a great opportunity, I didnt want a little anxiety to get in my way."

It wasn't long before Dancer had to face her fear while on a tracking tour with two clients to the Great Bear Rainforest in 2008. Before this trip, Dancer had only guided from the water, but now she was venturing onto land.

"The goal was to find evidence of the bear, not the bear itself," Dancer said. "I heard a loud crack nearby, and I immediately knew it was a bear. I said 'Hey bear,' and saw it stand up behind a huckleberry bush. It looked at me, and I looked at it, and it just shrugged and walked (a little further) away. We observed it for a while until it walked off. I managed to keep it together at the time and didn't let the clients see me sweat, but when I got back to the lodge, I had a mini breakdown."

Dancer realized after the encounter just how unprepared she was. So she devoured every book she could find about bears. The more she learned, the more she understood and admired the animals. She gained so much knowledge and experience over the years, CBVA asked her to become an instructor.

While the fear may be mostly gone, Dancer, who primarily guides along the coasts of Vancouver Island spends a lot of time and energy avoiding close encounters with bears--she has never even had to deploy her bear spray. With a little patience and a lot of attentiveness, she has developed an understanding, she believes, with the bears. Shes familiar with many of the individual bears in the areas she frequents and has learned their behavioral patterns. However, shes wise enough to know that these are wild animals, and could be unpredictable.

"Bears are super tolerant," Dancer says. "It's amazing that there aren't more negative encounters. But sometimes you can follow all the rules and do everything correctly, and things still go horribly wrong."

Dancer drilled this concept into us during our Zoom training sessions. Much of the early instruction was fairly basic, like how to tell the difference between brown--grizzly--and black bears and how to avoid startling a grizzly, which is what leads to most attacks. I was surprised to learn that predatory black bears are more prevalent in the wild than predatory grizzlies. After that, we moved on to hypothetical situations, with Dancer challenging us to make split-second decisions that could save our lives and the lives of potential clients in the field. We discussed actual real-life bear encounters others had experienced, breaking down what they'd done right and wrong, and discussing it all in detail.

After passing our written tests, Dancer declared us ready to go looking for actual grizzlies. Less than two weeks later, I boarded a plane in my hometown of Indianapolis, heading to British Columbia. Five of us met in the Canyon Creek Road Trailhead parking lot, less than ten miles outside the town of Golden. It was late April, and although pockets of snow could still be found at lower elevation, the mosquitoes were already out in full force, biting through my thick black hoodie. We headed up the trail for our final test and a nervous anticipation surged through the group.

As we hiked, we took in the steep slate canyon walls and the snow-capped Dogtooth mountains further in the distance. I mentally calculated the odds we'd encounter a bear. At the onset of the hike, Dancer told us the likelihood was fairly low at this time of year, but we persisted, hoping for an experience that would cement our new credentials. Visitors had spotted a grizzly in the area two days prior, and I crossed my fingers we'd come across it--from a safe distance, of course.

We looked for signs that it and other local bears had awakened from their winter hibernation--scat, paw prints, or bits of fur snagged on tree bark--but to no avail. We did find some non-grizzly scat among some grouse feathers just off the trail, which led to an impromptu ten-minute lecture about different types of animal poop from Fabien Stocco, another of the prospective guides. I was chuckling about how excited we all were to chat about feces when we heard a loud rustling about 60 yards deeper in the woods. The crashing got louder as we glimpsed a blur of brown fur racing down a pine tree. Would this be our moment? But the commotion wasn't caused by a grizzly, merely two pine martens chasing each other through the forest.

Everyone in the group had a different reason for wanting to be a bear guide. Some wanted to take clients out searching for grizzlies, while others were more focused on other outdoor pursuits and just wanted to keep themselves and potential clients out of harm's way. For example, Stocco had spent a dozen years as a wilderness guide and photographer in his native France before immigrating to Canada five years ago. He wants to guide again, with a focus on bringing at-risk kids into nature to teach them about wildlife and the surrounding ecosystems.

Tracey Osterland, a paramedic who has worked in Alberta provincial and federal parks, recalled her most hair-raising bear encounter. She was working in one of the parks and noticed a grizzly several hundred yards up a hill. Although she felt safe at that distance, she pulled out her bear spray, just in case. Suddenly, the bear bolted downhill, closing nearly the entire distance between them in just a few seconds. As she reached for her bear spray, she fumbled it. As the bear closed in, she mentally prepared herself for the worst.

"At that exact moment, the grizzly came to a complete stop," Osterand says. "It stood up, looked towards me, sniffed the air, then dropped back to all fours and relaxed. It then ignored me once again to continue grazing. It was so unconcerned about my presence, it turned its back to me so that it could nosh on some dandelions."

Osterland resolved to be better prepared for future encounters. She took the class not only for her benefit, but to share her knowledge with others, especially park visitors who may have been given wrong or even dangerous information over the years. She hopes to eventually become a bear guide during the summers, while continuing to work for the parks and as a paramedic in the off season.

The final member of our quintet, Val Pleym, wasnt even interested in bears particularly; she just felt that, as a sea kayak guide, she wanted to be prepared in case she and her clients came across one along the coast.

Although my fascination with bears runs deep, if I'm being completely honest, I was taking the bear-guiding course partially out of personal shame. In 2022, I spotted two black bear cubs in Yellowstone National Park, and stopped to take photos along with a handful of other tourists. A park ranger ambled up beside me and asked, Do you know why those cubs are up there? They're scared. They're terrified of you and all the other people out here." During guide training, I kept returning to that vivid memory. Perhaps the biggest role of a guide in the field isn't necessarily to protect people from bears, but to protect bears from people.

We completed the hike in Alberta without seeing a grizzly. But a few days later, I finally saw one. Boo, a 700-pound male brown bear, lives at a sanctuary at Kicking Horse Resort just west of Golden. With winter winding down, the sanctuary was still closed to visitors, but Boo's caretaker agreed to take Dancer and I up for our own private visit.

Boo paid us no mind for the most part, preferring to gnaw on a semi-frozen chicken carcass near the fenceline. And while I enjoyed watching Boo wiggle his back against a rub tree, I have to admit the only real charge I felt came from the electric fence surrounding his enclosure. Compared to other grizzly encounters I've had elsewhere, this felt all too tame. Josephs, who has led bear tours around the world for nearly two decades, perfectly described why.

"When people say, 'That's grizzly country,' it evokes a sense of wilderness that's missing throughout most of North America," Josephs says. Seeing a bear in a zoo or through fence wires just evoke the same thrill of seeing a grizzly in the wild.

So do I have what it takes to be a bear guide? I passed my certification with flying colors, and Dancer thinks I'd make a great guide. But I wasn't sure until I recently returned to Alaska to photograph coastal grizzlies, this time in Lake Clark National Park. Watching them interact in the meadow, I found myself able to anticipate their reactions and interpret their behavior. My instincts on when the group should bunch together on the beach or step off the trail were borne out by the actual guides. It felt as if I'd passed a self-imposed extra-credit exam.

I still have a lot to learn, of course, but that can only come from in-field experience. A friend at a guide company told me they were struggling to fill openings after COVID, as many experienced guides left the industry. While I won't be able to spend an entire summer in bear-filled meadows--as much as I love bears, I love my wife even more--I hope to fill in for other guides a few weeks here and there in conjunction with my writing assignments. Being an outdoor journalist is a great gig, but adding bear guide to my resume would be even cooler.

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Canada Goose Holdings is coming under the Wall Street microscope.

Analysts from both Wells Fargo and Cowen downgraded their recommendations for shares of the parka-maker to a more neutral stance on Thursday, citing concerns around Canada Gooses business in China and forecasts for a warmer winter.

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The stock slipped 4.4 percent to $12.16, leaving the company with a market capitalization of $1.3 billion.

With a tough macro backdrop developing in both the U.S. and China  as well as expected unfavorable weather conditions this holiday  we are moving to the sidelines, said Ike Boruchow from Wells Fargo.

Boruchow took his rating to equal weight from overweight, specifically pointing to China headwinds, a forecast calling for one of the warmest and driest winters in the last three decades and weakening brand heat.

Canada Goose, led by chairman and chief executive officer Dani Reiss, has been a standout brand in fashion for years  companding premium prices with looks that are known for their warmth and steady presence on streets in New York City, Europe and beyond.

But Boruchow said: After years of material growth in brand recognition, investors have begun to question whether Canada Goose has reached a point of saturation. While hard to call, we note data via Social Standards which illustrates underperformance in social media mentions on both an absolute and relative basis  mentions down 40-plus percent as of last quarter.

From a stock market perspective, worries about brand saturation matter even if they arent the case since they factor into investors general investment calculus.

Canada Goose has come under such scrutiny before and management has maintained that it has plenty more growth in its core business as well as newer categories, like knits.

Perhaps more tangible is weakness in China.

The brand planted its flag in China in 2018 and  like much of the rest of luxury fashion  counted on the country to be a big growth market and ran right into the disruptions of the pandemic.

Canada Gooses business in China is still very much on its way up the growth curve and chief financial officer Jonathan Sinclair told analysts in August that the Asia Pacific region had a stellar quarter with revenue increasing 52 percent year-over-year to $24.5 million.We saw broad-based growth across each of our key markets, including mainland China, where lifting of COVID-19 restrictions has led to a strong rebound in domestic spending in stores as well as in e-commerce.

Still, there are growing economic problems in the country and recently, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton stoked agita in the luxe market in particular, reporting a gain of just 1 percent in third-quarter revenues.

Oliver Chen at Cowen said: We are concerned China could get worse before it gets better following weaker results at LVMH and news flow on worsening real estate markets in the country, as well as higher savings rates and high youth unemployment. China, along with the U.S. West Coast, remain key growth markets for Canada Goose and moderation in both markets could result in a lack of near-term upside in the companys EPS.

Chen cut his rating on Canada Goose from outperform to market perform.

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For a more eco-friendly alternative to commercial laundry detergent, look to castile soap for laundry. This old-school cleaning solution is an effective way to wash your laundry without all of the added chemicals that you could find in store-bought detergents.

Why don't more people use castile soap for laundry? The idea of using a traditional soap that has to be diluted could be intimidating, but it's actually incredibly easy. Learn how to use castile soap in your laundry, as well as mistakes to avoid.







Meet the Expert

Maria Mooney is the cleaning expert at Truly Free, a non-toxic cleaning product brand.

Angela Brown is the host of the Ask a House Cleaner show.







What Is Castile Soap and What Does It Do?

Castile soap's origins go back to olive oil soaps made in Spain; now, it is a gentle soap that is made from 100% vegetable oils, rather than animal fats, which make up many commercial soaps. It is crafted into grated bar or liquid forms and made entirely from natural ingredients, including olive, almond, or coconut oil and lye.

Because it is made from natural ingredients, castile soap is seen as a gentler, greener alternative to commercial detergents.

"It's biodegradable and doesn't harm the environment like traditional laundry detergents," says Maria Mooney, the cleaning expert at Truly Free, a non-toxic cleaning product brand.

"Castile soap doesn't contain synthetic chemicals or phosphates commonly found in commercial laundry detergents and it's less harmful to aquatic ecosystems," says Angela Brown, the host of the Ask a House Cleaner YouTube show.

Even with its natural and gentle ingredients, it's still an effective cleaner that is popular to use as an alternative to store-bought laundry detergent.

Why Should You Use Castile Soap for Laundry?

Castile soap is not only eco-friendly, but it is also one of the most friendly detergent options for people who suffer from skin irritation due to allergies. It's also a gentle soap that is wonderful for washing the most delicate fabrics. You can use it for machine washing or hand-washing silk, wool, cashmere, and other fabrics that could be damaged by a harsher commercial detergent.

"Many parents prefer using castile soap for washing baby clothes due to its mild nature, which is less likely to irritate a baby's sensitive skin," Brown says.

How to Use Castile Soap

Castile soap is highly concentrated in its grated or liquid form, so it must be diluted before using it as a detergent. Use one-third to half a cup of castile soap per normal load. If a load is particularly grimy, you can add half a cup of baking soda.

You can also make a diluted mixture to keep on hand, using one part castile soap to 10 parts water and adding essential oils, if desired. Wash the load of laundry as you would normally, adding half a cup of vinegar during the rinse cycle to cut any residue.

"You might also need to use a separate fabric softener if you want your laundry to come out softer, as castile soap doesn't have the same softening properties as some commercial detergents," Brown says.

Mistakes to Avoid When Using Castile Soap for Laundry

While using castile soap for laundry is an easy process, there are a few mistakes to avoid.

Using Too Much Soap

If you are using castile soap for laundry, only use the recommended amount, which is one third to half a cup of castile soap. Using more than that amount can leave a residue behind on clothing.

Mixing Castile Soap With Vinegar

"Castile soap and vinegar have different pH levels, and mixing them together can result in a curdled or separated mixture," Mooney says. "It's best to avoid combining these two ingredients."

However, you can add half a cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle.

Not Pre-treating Stains

Castile soap may not be as effective at battling the toughest stains, so it may be necessary to treat strains with a commercial stain remover or a homemade stain remover before washing the effected items.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use castile soap in the washing machine?

Absolutely. You can use grated bar or liquid castile soap in the washing machine. It's an eco-friendly alternative to commercial detergent that won't harm your machine or your clothes.

Can you use castile soap to make laundry detergent?

A mixture of castile soap and water makes an effective laundry detergent. Use one part castile soap to 10 parts water and store in a container. You can add essential oils to give it a pleasant fragrance, however, castile soap on its own should have little fragrance.

How much castile soap do I need for a load of laundry?

For a normal load of laundry, use one third to half a cup of castile soap.

Read Next: 7 Top Types of Laundry Detergent and How to Choose

Read the original article on The Spruce.
Given its name, "the world's greatest stretch" certainly has a lot to live up to. To see whether it's deserving of this moniker, I decided to put its body-boosting benefits to the test.

My average week of movement contains a mix of high-intensity resistance workouts, lifting weights, gymnastics practice and some mobility work. I decided I would incorporate the worlds greatest stretch into my routine for seven days, for a minimum of 10 repetitions on each side.

"The world's greatest stretch has a whole host of benefits," Jess Suthard, a certified personal trainer for Goal Plans powered by MuscleFood, told me at the start of the challenge. "It can improve your core strength, help with your posture and improve mobility in your hips, ankles and spine."

I'm always on the hunt for ways to build a more mobile bodyone that moves better and aches less, so Suthard's words left me excited to try this challenge. But did this stretch deliver on its world-beating promises?

How to do the world's greatest stretch

Start in a high plank position, with your hands and toes in contact with the ground. Your hands should be directly underneath your shoulders, and your core should be tight so your legs, back and neck form a straight line. Bring your right foot forward to the outside of your right hand.

Keeping your left leg straight out behind you, drop your right elbow towards the ground in between your planted left hand and right foot. Its ok if your elbow doesnt touch the floor.

Next, reach your right hand towards the sky, opening up your chest and shoulders. You can look up to your right hand if thats comfortable.

Continue to alternate between reaching your right elbow towards the ground and your right hand towards the sky until you've done it 10 times. Then repeat this with your left side, with your right leg extended behind you.

Three benefits I experienced doing the world's greatest stretch

1. It works the whole body

Most stretches target a specific muscle or joint; the world's greatest stretch is more of an all-rounder.

"It's one of my favourite exercises, simply because it works your whole body," says Suthard.

"It can increase thoracic [mid-spine] mobility through the twist, while also stretching the lower body and encouraging flexibility in the hip, knee and ankle joints."

I definitely felt this. By letting my forward knee lean outwards a bit I enjoyed a great stretch in my hips, thighs and glutes.

The rotational element gently eased my spine awake while my chest and shoulders opened up during the extension of the arm skywards. This was definitely a full-body stretch.

2. It's a great addition to a warm-up

On the first day of this challenge, I included the world's greatest stretch in my warm-up ahead of 90 minutes of CrossFit training.

It opened up my shoulders and stretched my spine, which was perfect for some gymnastics practice. It also switched on my glutes and hamstrings so I was ready for some heavy barbell squats later in the session. Not only did this prime my body for the movements I was about to do but it also reduced my risk of injury.

3. It has benefits for everyday life too

This stretch shouldn't just be reserved for gym sessions and warm-ups.

"It can be extremely effective if you have a desk-based job and lead a sedentary lifestyle as it will help your whole body move more easily in your day-to-day life," says Suthard.

During long stints at my laptop and especially when I noticed my back was starting to ache, I'd roll out my yoga mat and do a few reps of the worlds greatest stretch.

Fit&Well fitness writer Harry Bullmore unrolled his yoga mat next to his working from home set-up to stretch during the work day

I once again enjoyed the stretch in my hips and spine, both of which can feel weak and tight after long periods sitting down. So I recommend you give this a go if you work at a desk all day.

My results

After seven days of doing the worlds greatest stretch every day, I noticed my shoulders and spine felt stronger and were able to move more freely in my workouts. That meant my body was ready to move and lift, and I felt more confident to push myself in the gym, lift heavier weights and tackle more intense workouts.

"After a week you'll find that your body will feel much looser and you will feel more flexible overall," Suthard told me.

"You'll also notice an improvement in your posture due to an increased mobility and reduced tightness in your muscles; it should improve the functionality of your muscles and joints."

So, if you're looking to improve your pre-workout routine or simply want to add a good stretch to your day, I'd definitely recommend giving the world's greatest stretch a go.

Need a new mat for you stretching routine? Our guide to the best yoga mats can help
Despite claims that brick-and-mortar retail is dead in the post-pandemic age, Mikael Kennedy, the owner and curator of fashion and rug brand King Kennedy, says its very much alive.

After being in business for 15 years, the photographer-turned-rug dealer, who is a favorite with the fashion set, has opened his first brick-and-mortar location in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles. The location is a flagship and a gallery space. Using antique rug scraps from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kennedys garments and footwear have found their niche.

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In the past, the brand has been shoppable at Nordstrom, Todd Snyders website and Mr Porter. King Kennedy has also collaborated on sourcing rugs for Burton Snowboards, Ralph Lauren, Club Monaco and more.

Freedom, chaos and a willingness to embrace the accidents are some of the values that the fashion photographer has brought to his work for brand campaigns over the years that now translate into his product design ethos.

For his rug sourcing, Kennedy looks for pieces that channel the culture and history of humanity, originating from Turkey, Iran, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Americas Navajo Nation  and he appreciates imperfections and wear.

After so many years showing this collection out of my private photo studio, as the project expanded, I wanted to open this up to the public, he said. King Kennedy will be a constantly evolving space. There are intentionally no rules to any of this  just follow the thread, see where it leads, and hopefully, its something that grows and evolves forever.

Here, Kennedy sat down with WWD to chat about the new space, the stories behind his rugs, his plans for future collaborations and product releases and more.

Mikael Kennedy

WWD: Youve been in the business for 15 years. Why did you decide to open a retail flagship now? Why a combined gallery and retail store?

Mikael Kennedy: I ran my business out of my photo studio for so long, using the rugs as props in shoots and to display for my own enjoyment. Over these last 15 years, I found myself spending more time talking to people about the rugs when they came in than I did about my photographic work. It gave me such joy to throw these pieces on the floor in front of someone, tell them everything I knew about each piece and watch their eyes widen. It just seemed like a natural progression to make it all more public-facing.

The front half of the new space is the gallery and boutique, and the back half is my studio. This creates a nice way to break up my day, to have people wander in, tell them why this all excites me and then return to my work in the back when they leave. I tell people they dont need to come in to shop but just to look around and ask questions. It doesnt always have to be a money exchange in the space, especially when theres so much to be gained from a good conversation about art.

I like the idea of King Kennedy functioning like an art gallery and starting to show contemporary artists work, as well. I have several painters and sculptors in mind whom Ive spoken to about exhibiting here and finding ways to collaborate on clothing that incorporates their work.

WWD: What is King Kennedy? How would you describe it to a consumer?

M.K.: Most of the time I just tell people Im a rug dealer. Its simple and is a good start to the story  it gets them in the door for a deeper conversation and puts me in the world that I want people to picture when we are talking. If the conversation continues, we can dive deeper into making clothing and objects out of the rugs.

This is a study of chaos and color, chaos and pattern, and what those things bring together when they interact. I dont care what the medium is. I only care about the final output, what story it tells and what it inspires in the viewer. I have a pile of painters drop cloths that Ive been collecting over the years that will eventually get turned into something. Its all the same visual language to me.

King Kennedy rugs.

WWD: How has being a former art and fashion photographer helped influence your brand?

M.K.: When I ran this business out of my photo studio, I had an old Turkish prayer rug on the wall next to an aerial photograph I had taken of a forest in northern Michigan on a job. I explain to everyone that they are the same visual language, color and texture and patterns.

When I was focusing more on photography in the past, Polaroids were a huge part of my fine art and my fashion work. They felt like little paintings to me and the rugs themselves felt like paintings. I wanted the art that I was producing to be a physical object and I wanted each piece to be truly one of a kind. The Polaroid film I used was expired, or the cameras were faulty, and I would embrace the chaos, the mistakes, the smudges and the light leaks.

Art is a very human thing and I wanted humanity to be present in all  the dirt, the grit and sometimes the blood smeared on the edges of the Polaroid. As Jackson Pollock once said, I deny the accidents  they are part of the work. I could use the same language to describe the rugs, the wear and the imperfections intentionally woven into the pieces.

Coming out of fashion directly into this gave me the language and the venue to put my brand into a context outside of just the rug world. It also made getting up and running as a brand much easier since Id been working closely with several stores and magazines over the years as a photographer. When I showed up with something entirely new such as the rugs, it wasnt that hard to introduce them to people. My community in the fashion world  specifically in menswear  has been incredibly supportive over the years as I built this brand.

WWD: Why is slow craftsmanship important to you? How is that shown throughout your designs and in your new store?

M.K.: We live in a world that seems to be rushing towards sterilization of space. I dont know what has led the charge on this, but the rise of minimalism or Apple store-ification of space over the last few years is so disheartening. It feels like a lack of perspective presented as a point of view. Its so easy to remove everything from a room, use some plywood and think youre [American minimalist artist] Donald Judd.

Theres a balance to be found between a maximalist design principle that I play around with and the starkness of space that so many people are embracing. Its not necessarily slow craftsmanship that is important to me: rather, its soulful craftsmanship. A painting can take five minutes or five years; I dont care about the time. I care about the intention that is embedded into the piece. All of this is about folk art, and what it means to us as humans. To place these pieces in someones home feels like inserting life into their space.

In my design and new store, I take things as they happen. Its about allowing for the possibilities for magic in the chaos of it all, in the way a pattern lands on a shoe once we cut the fabric  it is not controlled, it is free.

King Kennedy rugs.

WWD: What made you choose to source rugs originating from countries such as Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan  places that have preconceived notions for a Western audience? What stories about history and culture are you telling with these rugs in your brand?

M.K.: The fascination with these pieces started from a purely aesthetic place. I found an old prayer rug from the Caucasus Mountains in the collection of a rug dealer who over the years became my friend and mentor before he passed. The rug was from the 1890s. It had hand and knee marks worn into the weaving. I knew nothing about rugs at the time  where they came from, what they meant, culturally or historically. I just knew that I was holding something magical in my hands, something that held the traces of so many lives in just one object. From the patterns to the weave and the wear, I was holding a map of human history.

These rugs represent to me maps of humanity. You can trace places where cultures have come together and interacted hundreds of years ago, travel routes of generations moving across the world, sharing and adapting their art. This is the importance of art; it is the great connector of cultures and humanity. Art is an incredible way to be introduced to people and places different than our own and to open up new worlds to the viewer. It wasnt a conscious choice to choose these cultures, they just happen to be the places that for centuries have produced these pieces.

The style I found myself most drawn to is from the Caucasus Mountains region, specifically for their more geometric designs. As I got deeper into my obsession with these works of art, it led me to dive deeper into the cultures that made them and to learn as much as I could about the people and the hands that produced these works. As time has gone on in this project, I feel an immense responsibility to know what I am holding in my hands, to know what it meant to the people who made them 100 years ago, and to be respectful and protective of that legacy. I work very closely with the communities and cultures that these works of art come from to make sure that I am honoring who and where they have come from.

I have a very strict personal morality behind how we repurpose rugs regarding what gets cut and what doesnt. For example, Navajo rugs and Afghan War rugs are all off-limits to me for repurposing. Rug dealing is a global trade, and it has a legacy of storytelling in it. Theres a long history of people taking discarded and damaged carpets and turning them into objects. Its a practice that goes back hundreds of years. What I am doing now is bringing modern designs and shapes into that market. To do that without learning the history and stories of the communities who first made them would be wrong and offensive. I see a lot of younger dealers these days whitewash the history and culture of these rugs by renaming them in their stores with cute little names, like calling a rug Alice or Daphne, instead of using the correct cultural name. That drives me nuts and I try to call it out when I can.

WWD: Whats next for your brand?

M.K.: I say that I have no plan and Im just following a thread and seeing where this leads. There was never any plan for this collection to turn into a business. My mind rarely slows down so theres just a constant list Im working on. We have a new collection of brightly colored footwear, mules made from rugs, coming out in a few weeks. We try to have small drops every few months of new mules to keep things interesting.

I just finished weaving a sherpa fleece in Italy that we made some fun apparel out of that will be out in November, as well as two new rug bags that Im very excited to release in time for the holidays. I have a collaboration with Wagner Ski in Colorado coming out in December. We made four custom downhill skis using rug prints from my collection that people will love.

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You just know when its the perfect pumpkin. Kaden Chacon, 5, of Spanish Fork seems to have his eye on the perfect pumpkin as he runs through Jakers Jack-O-Lanterns pumpkin field in Springville. | Stuart Johnson, Deseret News

Dates for fall break vary among Utahs school districts, but the majority will be occurring over the next few weeks. Here are some things to do in Utah in October to get the kids out of the house and entertain the whole family.

1. Go for a scenic drive

This 20-mile drive is one of the most popular fall destinations in Utah. The Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest lights up in autumnal colors, and driving the Alpine Loop gives you a great view of the forest through American Fork Canyon and down into Provo Canyon.

Box Elder Canyon

If you take U.S. Highway 89 from Brigham City up to Logan, youll enjoy spectacular views of Box Elder Canyon. Depending on how long of a drive youd like to take, the trip through Logan Canyon up to Bear Lake is equally breathtaking.

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Emigration Canyon to Parleys Canyon

Start on Emigration Canyon Road just past This Is The Place Monument and take SR-65 to I-80 through Parleys Canyon. This route will take you through some of the prettiest scenery Utah has to offer without getting more than 20 minutes away from the city.

The 15-mile drive along the Big Cottonwood Scenic Byway takes visitors past glimpses of rock formations, forest and the creek. You can hop out and explore one of the many hiking trails along the canyon or sit back and enjoy the ride.

Just south of Big Cottonwood Canyon, Little Cottonwood offers the same scenery on a shorter route. Its about seven miles from the mouth of the canyon to Alta Ski Area, where you can stop and frolic in the fallen leaves before getting back in the car to finish the journey.

2. Take a hike

Driving through the canyons is wonderful, but sometimes you need to stretch your legs. These family-friendly hikes are all under five miles long and have great views of autumn foliage.

AllTrails describes this hike as moderately challenging, but it doesnt take long. This .9-mile out-and-back trail is near Provo and has beautiful views of Utah Valley.

This is more of a nature walk than a real hike, as its paved and is .6 miles out and back. Its right next to Timpanogos National Monument in Cedar Hills.

This 1.5-mile out-and-back hike in Big Cottonwood Canyon is great for families. You can stop when you reach the end of the trail, or you can scramble up the boulders to see the waterfall up close.

This easy, 1.6-mile loop near Park City offers incredible views of the aspen.

This loop around Silver Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon is an easy .9 miles. Part of the trail is closed, but you can still walk through other sections and enjoy the scenery.

Related

3. Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

I wouldnt recommend waiting up all night in a pumpkin patch like Linus, but these Utah farms are certainly worth a visit. After you pick your pumpkins, carve them into jack-o-lanterns or bake them into a delicious fall dessert.

This cattle ranch in Salt Lake holds a fall festival every year in September and October. While you can pick your own pumpkins without getting a ticket to the festival, admission lets you go on a hay ride, solve the Nintendo-themed corn maze, greet the animals and explore a whole host of activities including a climbing wall, zip line and archery range. Dont forget to try the apple cider donuts!

If you purchase a hayride ticket, you can go pick your own pumpkin at this patch up in Syracuse. While youre there, make sure to explore the courtyard, which includes a hay bale mountain, grain chute slide and pig races. They also have a corn maze, and if you like running for your life, get a ticket to Nightmare Acres, their haunted corn maze.

You cant harvest these pumpkins directly from the patch, but there are so many varieties available that its worth visiting. If you buy a ticket to the farms fair, you can go through the corn maze, take the tractor hay ride or go on one of the many carnival rides. The farm is located in Orem.

Pumpkin Days at Wheeler Farm is in full swing. You can visit the pumpkin patch for free, or you can get a ticket to the Pumpkin Days Maze and Play Area and watch the duck races, enjoy a wagon or cow train ride and play in the corn pit.

4. Buy farm-fresh produce and get baking

While most apple orchards stop letting you pick your own apples in late September, you can still stop by a produce stand to purchase some.

Visit stands like Burgess Orchards or Allred Orchards, or go to your local farmers market to pick out fruit. The Provo Farmers Market has two Saturdays left in 2023, and the Downtown Farmers Market in Salt Lake only has one market left.

After youve acquired seasonal produce like apples, butternut squash or pumpkin, take them home and bake them into a delicious meal or dessert.

Related

5. Visit some kid-friendly haunts

As fun as it is to visit one of Utahs many haunted houses, some of them just arent the best for children. The following promise spooky fun for people of all ages.

This free attraction started in a garage in Spanish Fork in 2003 and has now expanded into a walk-through haunted house complete with animatronics and a projection display.

The haunted house is open every night in October from 7:3010 p.m.

Little Haunts at This Is The Place

Heritage Village at This Is The Place Heritage Park gets a Halloween makeover complete with a storytelling witch and creature encounters. Little ones can trick-or-treat through the village and enjoy the parks regular activities, like pony rides and the train.

Little Haunts is held on Oct. 20, 21, 27 and 28. Tickets start at $14.95 for children ages 311.

Related

WitchFest at Gardner Village

Explore Gardner Village through the Witch Scavenger Hunt or wander through and take in the witchy displays at your own pace. The village is open MondaySaturday, 10 a.m. through 8 p.m., but stays open until 9 p.m. on Oct. 21 and 28 for Witches Night Out.

Admission to the village is free, but additional events include an escape room, the Witch Express train and a magic show.

Lore at Evermore Park

Evermore is Utahs only year-round fantasy renaissance fair, and its the perfect environment to celebrate Halloween. Visitors can complete quests, visit themed shops and watch animal or circus shows.

Children 5 and under get in for free, and tickets for children ages 611 starts at $21.
Gaby Aghionborn Gabrielle Hanoka in Alexandria, Egypt, in March 1921founded the French fashion house Chloe in 1952. She was an entrepreneur, a champion of effortless style and modern, feminine design, one whose body of work is currently on display at The Jewish Museum in New York, in an exhibition titled Mood of the Moment: Gaby Aghion and the House of Chloe. Aghion built one of the most storied fashion labels of the past 70 years and helped kick-start the careers of Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, and Phoebe Philo, all of whom have pieces on display from their time as creative directors for the brand.

As you move from room to room in the exhibition, you are able to see the evolution of Aghions pioneering vision, beginning with her origin story and ending with what the curators call the blouse room, a space showcasing various iterations of one of the houses signature piecesthe easy chicness of the blouse encapsulates Chloes dedication to making clothes that real women can and want to wear in everyday life. And while her legacy may be deeply rooted in fashion, it was always Aghions family that most genuinely fueled her creativity. Just ask her granddaughter Mikhaela Aghion, a consultant for fashion and luxury brands, who said as much during a Zoom call the day after a celebration for the opening of the exhibition, which runs through February 18.

Dario Lasagni

She would tell me to open up her closet, Aghion says of her grandmother, who passed away in 2014 and whom she refers to lovingly as Gaby. Normally, a grandmothers closet is a forbidden place for a child, especially when that closet is full of precious fabricsthere were definitely no plain, cotton garments in there. She would open up her closet and ask me, What do you feel? She would do this at home, but also when we were in boutiques. It was Gabys way, Aghion says, of teaching her by showing her, letting the girl determine her own feelings and opinions about the aesthetics, the weights of the fabrics, the silhouettes of the garments. Aghion jokes that she didnt think it was weird that she, as a nine-year-old, knew what broderie anglaise was. Id say without a doubt, that the one person in my life that created a safe and fun place to explore my femininity was my grandmother. And I realize now how modern and forward that is, but she wasnt thinking it was anything in particularshe just wanted me to explore in a playful way.

Within the Aghion family, the act of play has never been seen as frivolous or silly, but as a learning tool to fuel ones imagination and curiosity. (Aghions father is a decorated economics professor whose teaching models are often informed by aesthetic observations and mindful play.) Family time almost always revolved around exploring ones inner self, even on vacations.

Courtesy Chloe Archive, Paris

Aghion recalls one particular holiday with her brother, Gaby, and one of Gabys best friends, the Egyptian artist Celine Chalem. They were on the beach in the Mediterranean, and Chalem noticed a childrens dress-up competition was happening that day.

She ran back to the hotel where Gaby was and said so excitedly, We have to do this, Gaby! We have to enter Mikhaela in the competition! My grandmother said, Okay, yes, but just calm down, Aghion says, laughing. So they opened Celines jewelry boxwhich was all jewelry she sculpted, artist jewelryand then my grandmothers trunks and started throwing things on me, asking me how I felt about each look. In the end, Aghion remembers she wound up looking something like a Cleopatra, thats what these two Egyptian ladies wound up creating. Of course, she won the competition.

Dario Lasagni

If you look at the history of the house, as Aghion is quick to point out, so much of the beauty and allure of the Chloe design ethos revolves around this idea of play, of feminine freedom, and the notion that clothes dont need to be strict or cumbersome for the wearer to be taken seriously. For example, Aghion points to her grandmothers original T-shirt dresses, as Gaby would call themin fact, they were and are anything but simple.

A hand-painted, silk T-shirt dress isnt exactly a T-shirt, she says, smiling. I remember first seeing pictures of my grandmother wearing some of the original designs, and I realized how much they epitomize the playfulness of the brand. She notes how light the dresses are. I had the chance to wear one once, and I had the feeling ofnot of being naked, but almost feeling like physically not having anything on your body.

She adds: It felt like I was just dressed enoughI felt the spirit of that juxtaposition between extremely high luxury and the simplicity of sportswear.

Dario Lasagni

This is a balance that also seems to be top of mind for many designers as they look to spring 2024, a sense that in a chaotic, confusing, and polarized moment, women need clothes that keep us grounded yet offer us the opportunity to move about in the world, in our own ways. It is playful but not precious, and thats something that threads through the evolution of the house of Chloe and Aghions personal connection to her dear grandmother.

Chloe is still playing with codes [of dress] today, she explains. A word that is used all the time is femininity. But I love that we dont put an adjective to thatits not stiff. You can define it for yourself.

When I go to the shows and I see workwear-inspired coming right after an evening dressthat, by the way, if I wear with my sneakers I would love to wear in the afternoonthat makes me so happy, Aghion says. Its not preserving [my grandmothers work] as a heritage, as a fixed kind of archival thing. Its exploring today. Ive been talking to people about what I feel my grandmothers legacy was at Chloe and to me. It was not that she gave a single definition of femininity, but that she created a playground for all of her clients to play.



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Hailey Bieber is a bonafide beauty legend. The Rhode founder and notorious cool-girl extraordinaire always has her finger on the pulse, making her a real tastemaker and force to be reckoned with in the beauty industry. And people are definitely taking notice of every little detailfrom her haircuts to her makeup looks to her nails.

When it comes to the latter, Bieber has truly excelled. With every manicure, she seems to amplify yet another trend (think: glazed donut nails or lip gloss manis). Ahead, we break down some of Bieber's most iconic manis to date. Consider this the ultimate source of nail inspo (you're welcome).



The Glazed Donut

Ah, the chrome, metallic manicure that started it all. Futuristic and bold yet soft and dainty, the ultra-luxe, high-shine manicure quickly caught on like wildfire. Call it the manicure that inspired a million manicures, the glazed donut, or just a plain old chrome manicure. Either way, its impact can't be overstated. We're still gravitating toward this pearly sheen mani nearly a year and a half later.

Pink Velvet Nails

With this nail look, Bieber departed from her classic glazed manicure. Instead, she opted for a velvet pink manicure. The finish mimics the beloved fuzzy finish of, you guessed it, velvet fabric and has been a mani favorite for years. It's typically created using flocking powder or magnetic polishes, as it appears Bieber's nail artist did. The neutral shade and concentrated shimmer create an aura-like effect that takes the "your-nails-but-better trend" and adds a little spice.

Barbie Glazed Nails

Bieber's Barbie-pink nails are extra glossy and glazed. This iteration of her famous glazed is one of her most vibrant chrome looks to date and the perfect nod to the Barbiecore movement.

Chocolate Glazed Donut Nails

Over the last few years, Bieber has made her devotion to looking like a glistening glazed donut more than clear. And this brown manicure is yet another example. She dubbed the look chocolate glazed donut nails. Bieber's no stranger to the iridescent sheen, but the deep brown color was a serious departure from her usual pastel mainstays.

Strawberry Jello Nails

"Strawberry Girl" makeup took over TikTok this year. While promoting the launch of her Krispy Kreme x Rhode strawberry peptide lip treatment ($16), Bieber indulged in the trend with what she calls a strawberry Jello manicure. She wore true red, glossy nails that were perfectly on theme for her new launch.

Lip Gloss Nails

Bieber is no stranger to the barely-there mani. Here, she deviated from her glazed donut devotion, opting for lip gloss nails in a semi-sheer, neutral tone. Of course, she kept her go-to glossy, high-shine finish, albeit this one came with a bit less sparkle and a subtle ombre effect, starting with a muted baby pink that flowed into a nearly clear color at the tips.

Strawberry Milk Nails

Got milk? Bieber once again traded her usual glazing finish for a simpler strawberry milk-colored (read: creamy pale pink) polish with a shiny finish. With a semi-sheer, almost hazy finish, her manicure seemed to be a riff on the milk bath nail trend we've seen so many celebs rocking lately. The dainty pink hue added a coquette-ish quality to the mani.

Pearly Girly Nails

If lip gloss nails are a step down from glazed donut nails, what's a step up? Meet the pearly girly manicure, which features a chrome, semi-sheer baby pink base, glazed finish, and delicate pearl decals placed near the cuticle and on the nail tip. All three styles sit closely together on the spectrum of barely-there, your-nails-but-better manicures, but the devil really is in the details here, with each one having its own unique look and feel.

Modern Tortoiseshell Nails

Bieber's almond-shaped mani features traditional brown tortoiseshell designs on each nail. To bring the look to life at home, you will need a chocolate brown polish like Butter London's Boozy Chocolate ($18) and a caramel one like OPI's Enter The Golden Era ($14).

Mismatched Tortoiseshell Nails

While Bieber largely sticks to neutral tones and glazed finishes, she's not afraid to go bold with her manicures. Her mismatched tortoiseshell manicure is the perfect example. The alternating solid, baby-blue nails add a subtle and sweet touch to the look.

Serpent Nails

Speaking of loud-and-proud manicure moments, Bieber took things to the next level with her mismatched serpentine nails. And we're not being cavalier with the word mismatched. From the colorful serpent scales to the vibrant daisies, there are so many different designs incorporated into this unique mani.

Blobby Tie Dye Nails

Clearly, Bieber is into mismatched nails just as much as her glazed manis. This take features an eclectic mix of designs, with each finger having a different look. Some feature colorful blobs, while others have tie-dye effects. The resulting look is playful and pretty.

Lemonade Nails

Bieber paired her rosy pink makeup with bold neon yellow nails. The bright, opaque hue, dubbed lemonade nails, made for a marked departure from her usual neutrals and nudes, though she kept a similar glazed finish for good measure.

Molten Metal Nails

Bieber's proven she's not afraid to try something out of the box. And in a move more aligned with the latter, she debuted a molten-metal mani. Her neon green nails are adorned with chrome metal decals. What makes this look even better is that her polish glows in the dark.

Candy Cane Glazed Nails

Red lips and red tips are the perfect pair. Bieber's perfectly festive look features a glazed French manicure with ruby-red tips. The look is chic and fun without feeling too kitschy.

Glazed Tiffany-Blue Nails

Getty Images

Bieber channeled Audrey Hepburn at a glamorous party celebrating the reopening of Tiffany & Co's iconic 5th Avenue storecomplete with a sleek updo and strand of pearls. And, as a nod to the luxury jewelry house, she went with a Tiffany-blue manicure. Of course, Bieber added her manicure calling card, a nearly chromatic, glazed finish on top, for good measure. Want to try the look for yourself? These manicures are the perfect inspo to get you started.

Strawberry Nails

With a light pink, milky base, Bieber opted for hand-painted strawberry nail decals on her ring and middle fingers. It's an on-the-nose take on the strawberry girl trend that still feels super chic and cute.

Cherry French Nails

Cherry nail art is having a moment, and Bieber has gotten in on the trend. Her pearly French nails feature a single cherry on her ring finger. The dainty design is the perfect finishing touch.

Up Next: Hailey Bieber's 19 Best Hairstyles Prove She's the Queen of Elevated Minimalism

Read the original article on Byrdie.
APPLETON - In 2017, Nea Hahn and her husband, Pat, opened the doors to Whisk & Arrow Sugar Studio at its first location on Wisconsin Avenue.

Some years later, the Hahns are settled into their current location, 1915 N. Richmond St., and Nea Hahn is dedicating time to focus on her business, her children and bringing awareness to mental health issues through the power of her pastries.

The past year has been difficult for Hahn. She opened her second business  a restaurant called FOME Food & Company  around the same time she found out she was pregnant. The combined stressors caused her to close FOME after less than a year and left her in a dark place mentally, Hahn said.

However, Hahn tried to be transparent with her customers and followers on her social media. From her pregnancy, to the closing of FOME and any updates to Whisk & Arrow, she continues to share the humanity of business ownership and parenthood through her posts.

How Whisk & Arrow came to the Fox Valley

Born in Brazil, Hahn originally earned her degree for English with an intention to teach early childhood education. However, after moving to the U.S. and completing the pastry program at the International Culinary Center in California, Hahn moved to Appleton to start her career in baking.

She opened her first bakery in 2013 in Kimberly, under the name Molly's Cafe, but the space quickly became too cramped for the amount of customers she received.

Shortly after, in 2016, Hahn relocated to the storefront on Wisconsin Avenue in Appleton, Whisk & Arrow's first location. The name came from the Hahns' most prominent hobbies: she enjoys baking, and her husband enjoys hunting. They officially opened the doors for Whisk & Arrow at the start of 2017.

Hahn specializes in cakes, cookies, pies, macarons and many other sweet treats. Everything at Whisk & Arrow is handmade with fresh ingredients.

"Everything we make here is fresh. You can't get any closer to a homemade cake," Hahn said. "There's no preservatives or additives in anything."

The Whisk & Arrow Sugar Studio located at 1915 N. Richmond Street Thursday, October 5, 2023, in Appleton, Wis. Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

In 2020, the bakery moved to its current location on Richmond Street.

More: The Buzz: Three bakery changes on North Richmond Street in Appleton

Hahn brings a Brazilian twist to a few of her desserts, and those tend to be some of the most popular items at her shop. One of the fastest-selling treats is the carrot cake, a two-layer cake with one layer a traditional American version and the other a Brazilian variety, with more pureed carrots.

The bakery is also known for its macarons, which come in a number of flavors, and its giant, six-ounce cookies.

Whisk & Arrow offers some gluten-free options, but the bakery isn't entirely gluten-free.

In addition to sweet treats, some pre-packaged savory meals, like salads, wraps and flatbreads, are available.

In the back of the building, customers can find the coffee bar, where baristas hand-craft every drink.

A variety of elaborate shorty cakes are available at the Whisk & Arrow Sugar Studio located at 1915 N. Richmond Street Thursday, October 5, 2023, in Appleton, Wis. Clockwise from bottom left is a carrot cake, milk and cookies chocolate and vanilla cake and a SMores cake. Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

Why mental health awareness is important to small business owners

As Hahn progressed through her career as a baker, she got the idea to open a second restaurant that specialized in breakfast and lunch foods.

FOME Food & Company officially opened in November 2022, but just after she purchased the building, Hahn received news that she was pregnant and she wasn't exactly excited about it.

"I went into a deep depression for three months," Hahn said. The couple had already decided that the one child they had was enough and neither was prepared for a new baby.

Hahn said that in addition to her mental health not being well, she was physically ill throughout the pregnancy.

"That's part of the reason why we shut FOME down," Hahn said. "I don't like going to bed feeling like I'm doing a half-assed job and there was not one day that went by that I didn't feel like I was doing a half-assed job with the restaurant."

The restaurant was also not making enough to cover the bills, resulting in Hahn's decision to close the doors in July.

More: What we know about the FOME Food & Company closure: The Buzz

Samantha Fischer sets out a variety croissants to cool at the Whisk & Arrow Sugar Studio located at 1915 N. Richmond Street Thursday, October 5, 2023, in Appleton, Wis. Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

She still uses the FOME space, specifically the kitchen, to cook and create new recipes for the bakery. She also offers catering for small businesses and gatherings through the restaurant.

The stress from the pregnancy and running two business brought Hahn to a very low place mentally, she said.

"This last year has been the worst year of my adult life," Hahn said. "So since then, I have been talking more with the community about mental health problems."

Throughout her pregnancy and even after, Hahn was transparent about her mental health and feelings through posts on the Whisk & Arrow Facebook page.

Hahn said she wants to use the influence she has on social media and in the community to bring more awareness to mental health struggles, especially those felt by small business owners and mothers, like herself.

"Small business owners choose not to have a voice, choose not to talk about the uncomfortable things because of fear of backlash," Hahn said. "Sometimes I think that I shouldn't talk about things, but that's just not the way I was wired."

One of the efforts she's planning is a speaker series lead by mental health professionals, held at FOME and open to the community.

She plans to start this series in January, but still has a lot of things to work out before its launch. Further details will be posted on the Whisk & Arrow Facebook page.

In the meantime, Hahn said she's dedicated to being a more-present mother and boss. Now that her baby has been born, she's excited to be back to work at the bakery.

"I just want to catch up on things I couldn't for a year because I wasn't mentally here," Hahn said. "Right now, what my business needs is me, here, focusing on what we have to work with."

Hahn said she's also working on her work-life balance, so she can be there for her family just as much as her business.

In our new Fan Favorites series, we visit small food-forward businesses in the Fox Valley and Green Bay based on recommendations from our readers. To nominate your favorite business for consideration, contact Jelissa Burns. Be sure to include details on why it's your favorite.

Reach Jelissa Burns at 920-453-5107 or jburns1@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @burns_jelissa or on Instagram at burns_jelissa.

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Appleton's Whisk & Arrow owner uses platform to talk mental health
Following the September meeting between the Russian and North Korean leaders, relations between the two countries have ascended to a qualitatively new, strategic level, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday, Azernews reports, citing TASS.

"After the landmark summit between President [of Russia Vladimir] Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Vostochny spaceport on September 13, we can say confidently that these relations have reached a qualitatively new, strategic level," Lavrov, who is visiting North Korea, said at the beginning of talks with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui.

The Russian minister recalled that 75 years ago the former Soviet Union was the first to recognize the young Korean state after its liberation from Japans colonial domination and after that helped North Korea develop its national economy, science, culture, and education. "We will always remember the priceless contribution to the development of our relations that was made my Comrade Kim Il Jung and later by Comrade Kim Jong Il," Lavrov stressed.

The top North Korean diplomat, in turn, noted that "frequent meetings between the two countries foreign ministers, which help strengthen friendly ties, serve as a proof that North Korean-Russian bilateral relations, which have a long history of friendship, are demonstrating development dynamic, developing vigorously."

She added that her talks with her visiting Russian counterpart "will become an important stage in terms of the implementation of the agreements" reached by Kim and Putin in September.
MPWL leverages its comprehensive range of Investment Products and resources backed by a rich culture of teamwork and excellence to ensure the best PMS Products for its HNI & Ultra HNI Clients

MPWL is the only distributor in India with an Average Investment per client of 12 Crore managed by the smallest team in the industry. According to Keyur Mehta, Founder Chairman, MPWL, PMS is getting acceptable by a growing customer segment, including retail, the future for the niche service market indeed looks promising. Today, PMS has emerged as a product of choice for investors who are looking beyond mutual funds to generate long-term alpha.Apart from PMS distribution Services, MPWL offers a comprehensive range of Products to its clients, such as Alternate Investment Funds (AIF), Advisory Services, Real Estate Investments, Fixed Income Investments, Private Equity, Debt Investments, Global Investments, and Startup Investments. The company undertakes a data-driven approach backed by Robust Research Methodology to guide investors better on their risk factors.Emphasizing communication, MPWL employs dedicated Relationship Managers who con duct periodic review meetings with the clients. The firm also lends a personal touch to its client dealings through constant calls, webinars, meetings, birth day wishes & customized gifts, adds Chaitry Desai, Director, MPWL.In an industry where positive word of mouth plays a huge role in driving a firms growth, MPWL has been growing by leaps and bounds owing to the positive word of mouth of its satisfied Ultra HNI Investors and has been providing Investment Products to a diverse base of domestic, NRI, and institutional clients over the years. Being influenced by a quote of Richard Branson that says If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients, we have all of our key employees as share holders in the company says Jeevan Mehta, Chairman Emeritus & Mentor to the Board, MPWL.The firm has been organizing the Investor Conferences annually since 2017 which are designed exclusively for its HNI and Ultra HNI clients and are addressed by industry veterans and leaders. As a part of its future roadmap, the firm has further plans to incorporate AI in its service delivery to ensure fast resolutions to client queries. SEBI has made the PMS investments extremely transparent through its compliance and reporting requirements, further boosting the investors' confidence. It is also possible to come up with various fee options that vary from fully-fixed fees to fully-variable fees. Keyur signs off.
A hunter from Islamorada, Florida, kicked off the state's muzzleloader season with a bang earlier this month when he accomplished a rarely-seen feat. Twenty one-year-old Konnor Ross, who works as an inshore fishing guide, managed to bag an 8-point buck and a 16-foot Burmese python during the same morning hunt.

Ross tells F&S that he was on his way to a remote stand location inside south Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve when he spotted the giant python crossing the road. "It was 4 a.m., and I was half asleep when I saw it," Ross says. "Ive been hunting pythons for a long time, and thats the biggest one Ive ever seen."

Ross put the python in his cooler before poling his canoe out to his deer stand.

With help from a friend, he wrangled the invasive constrictor, killed it, and stashed it away in his cooler. Then he dropped his buddy off at a deer stand and continued on to his own spot in marsh.

"I parked the truck and poled my canoe back to my deer stand," he recalls. "Once the sun came up I could hear that buck sloshing through the water, walking my way."

At first, the buck was about 150 yards out, Ross says, but it kept coming in on a string. "I just sat there," he says. "When he got to within 80 yards, I put a shot on him that went right in the shoulder and out the other side. He kept coming, so I reloaded my muzzleloader and shot him again. He dropped right thereabout 30 yards from me."

Related: Florida Snake Hunter Bags 16-Foot Burmese Python Loaded with 60 Eggs

It's only the second buck that Ross has shot in five years of hunting public land in Big Cypress. He says the 2023 deer season has been unique due to unseasonably high water. "It's a tough swamp to hunt. Usually you can't canoe in during muzzleloader because the water's not high enough," he says. "This year we haven't had a cold front big enough to push the water out, so I've been sneaking up on deer in a canoe while they're trapped out on the islands."

As for the snake, Ross estimated the python's weight at approximately 120 pounds and says it measured 15 feet, 11 inches without the head. With the head on, he says, it would have measured at least 16 feet. "I think it was a big female coming off a late nest," says Ross. " They just finished a python challenge over there in that exact same WMA the month before. I was surprised to even see a snake like that out there after that."
A mysterious white organic mass washed ashore

A ghostly white lump of rotten flesh in the shape of a mermaid recently washed ashore on an island in Papua New Guinea  and experts baffled.

The strange sea creature was likely a marine mammal , but its exact origins are unclear, experts told Live Science.

The mysterious mass was discovered Sept. 20 by locals on Simberi Island  a small volcanic island with a population of around 1,000 people in the Bismarck Sea in New Ireland Province, according to a Facebook post by New Irelanders Only (NIO).

It is known as a globster  an unidentified organic mass that washes ashore. The origin of these mystery lumps is hard to pin down because much of the corpse has rotted away and most are missing body parts that have fallen off at sea. In this case, most of the creature's head and large chunks of its flesh are missing.

There is no information on the size and weight of the corpse because it was not properly measured before locals buried it, NIO representatives told Live Science. And no one collected DNA samples, which makes a proper identification almost impossible.

Related: 10 bizarre creatures that washed ashore in 2022

A mysterious white organic mass washed ashore

Experts were also unable to identify it from the images alone.

Helene Marsh , an environmental scientist at James Cook University in Australia, told Live Science it looks like a marine mammal. "After that it is anyone's guess," she added.

Sascha Hooker , a marine mammal expert at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, narrowed it down further. "It looks like a very decomposed cetacean to me," she told Live Science. Cetaceans, or whales and dolphins , are known to turn this color when their skin falls off , she added.

The most common cetaceans in the area are short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus), spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris), pantropical spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata) and sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), according to a 2021 study in the journal Pacific Science.

A mysterious white organic mass washed ashore

Erich Hoyt , a researcher at Whale and Dolphin Conservation in the U.K. and author of several books on cetaceans, agrees that the globster could be a small whale. However, he believes that it could also be a dugong , or "sea cow," that is known to graze on sea grasses in shallow waters in Papua New Guinea.

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Other experts also suggested it could be one of the pudgy marine mammals, which have previously inspired stories of mermaids. "My best estimate is that it might be a Dugong," said Jens Currie , chief scientist of the Pacific Whale Foundation in Hawaii. Based on what's left of the head, it looks too wide to be a cetacean, he added. And "the amount of blubber also indicates a marine mammal and not a shark," Currie said.

But not everyone thinks that the globster was a marine mammal.

Gavin Naylor , a marine biologist at the University of Florida who runs the International Shark Attack Files, thinks the remains could be from a large shark. Although "it is a little weird that all of the skin appears to have rotted off," he told Live Science.

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A mysterious white organic mass washed ashore

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A mysterious white organic mass washed ashore

Other shark experts disagree.

"At first, I was leaning toward a large shark, but now that I've spent a bunch of time looking at this, I am more confident it is a cetacean" due shape of the tail and location of the flippers, said Gregory Skomal , a marine biologist at the University of Boston and head of the shark program at Massachusetts Marine Fisheries. The vertebrae, which are exposed in one of the images, also look more like a whale's backbone than a shark's cartilaginous spine, he told Live Science.

Skomal also spotted what "looks like a trachea," or windpipe, hanging from the animal near where its head was. If true, this would rule out a shark.

But whatever it is, it has likely "been dead for weeks," Hoyt said.
Incidences of child labor have risen 69% since 2018 and some states are softening regulations to make it easier to hire minors for high-stakes jobs.

Getty Images/PhotoStock







US Congress Senate Bill 3051

If passed, Bill 3051 would beef up penalties for adults who hire minors illegally and allow parents to pursue civil penalties for harm done to their children at work. You can follow the progress of the bill in the Senate here.







While many may believe that the horrors of illegal and dangerous child labor practices are a thing of the past, something that happened long ago in textile mills and coal mines, the truth is child labor remains very much a part of the American experience. In light of numerous reports on the realities of child labor in 2023 and a bill introduced in the Senate that aims to increase criminal and civil penalties for hiring and harming children at work, it is important to consider the ways that parents can protect their kids and others.

Reid Maki has been working to improve child labor conditions in the United States for more than 30 years, and he knows that there is a disconnect between how we perceive the work experience of our countrys youth and the realities that many face. As the Director of Child Labor Issues and Coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), Maki has worked firsthand with dozens of families affected by illegal and dangerous child labor practices across the country.

There was some consumer polling done about 10-12 years ago by Child Rights International where they asked people about child labor and three out of four consumers thought that there were fewer than 1 million child laborers in the world, and at the time there were 152 million child laborers in the world, he says. So the perception globally was that it was a very small problem and they were way off.

Maki notes that while many didnt perceive child labor to be a problem in the US, reports show otherwise.

Were seeing some pretty scary evidence that the problem is bigger here than we thought, he adds.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports that illegal child labor has increased by as much as 69% since 2018 according to a statement in February 2023. In the last fiscal year alone, the department found 835 companies it investigated had employed more than 3,800 children in violation of labor laws.

Earlier this year, the DOL announced a historic resolution of one of the largest child labor cases in its history against Packers Sanitation Services Inc. LTD., in which the company was fined $1.5 million for illegally employing more than 102 children to clean so-called kill floor equipment like skull-splitters and bone saws. These child laborers were working the overnight shift, with several of them suffering chemical burns as a result of workplace injuries.

In a press release at the time, DOL Wage and Hour Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri said though Packers Sanitation Services systems flagged some young workers as minors, the company ignored the flags.

When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adultswho had recruited, hired, and supervised these childrentried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices, he added.

Jessica Looman, Principal Deputy Administrator, DOL Wage and Hour Division says the violation, and those like it, are part of a troubling trend.

"First jobs can provide young people with invaluable experience and skills to last a lifetime, but we have seen an increasing trend of employers nationwide exposing children to unsafe work, leading to serious injury and even fatality, she says. Thats why the department is using all its resources to combat the illegal employment of children.

As if to emphasize the pervasive nature of child labor dangers, the landmark settlements widespread publicity in early 2023 was followed by new reports of teens fatally injured in hazardous and illegal working conditions.

In June, Michael Schuls died at the age of 16 following an accident at the Wisconsin sawmill where his father was also employed. He was crushed when he attempted to unjam a wood stacking machine, according to an AP report.

Another 16-year-old, William M. Hampton, was crushed to death when he was pinned between a semi-truck and its trailer while working at a landfill. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating to determine whether his employers were in violation of state or federal employment guidelines.

Duvan Tomas Perez, was the third 16-year-old killed this summer, trapped in a conveyor belt at the Mar-Jac poultry plant where he was illegally employed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.



The DOL reported earlier this year that between October 2022 and July 2023, it conducted nearly 800 child labor investigations finding 4,474 children employed in violation of federal child labor laws. Employers in violation of labor laws were assessed more than $6.6 million in penalties.

As troubling as these numbers are, Maki notes the scope of the problem could be even worse.

Its really hard to know how extensive these issues are, he says. Its worrisome, and these [...] examples could be just the tip of the iceberg.

Finding Loopholes in Federal Guidelines



Though federal guidelines vary slightly from sector to sector and depend largely on the age of the child, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) generally allows for the employment of children as young as 14 outside the agricultural industry and allows children under the age of 16 to work up to 3-4 hours a day on a school day, and as late as 7 p.m. during the school calendar year. The FLSA also restricts the work activities of children, especially in dangerous work environments such as coal mining and manufacturing.

While child labor practices are regulated by both state and federal laws, there is often a disconnect between the two. And while laborers employment is ostensibly governed by whichever provides them with the most protections, federal or state, loopholes in child labor law abound, allowing for children to engage in technically legal but highly dangerous occupations that put them at risk for injury and/or death.

The most egregious of these loopholes is in the agricultural sectorwhich the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranks among the most hazardous industries in the country. A report by the National Center for Farmworker Health estimates that approximately 115 children die annually in agriculture-related incidents and nearly 12,000 experience non-fatal injuries. The most common causes of fatal injuries to children are: working with machinery like tractors, using motor vehicles like ATVs, and drowning.

According to the National Center for Farmworker Health, hundreds of thousands of children work in the agriculture sector in the US, many illegally or off the books. Even within legal limits, OSHA allows a variety of exceptions to normal child labor laws for children employed in the agricultural sector.

For example, while a child must be a minimum age of 14 for employment in all other sectors, a child as young as 12 can work in agriculture on a farm with written parental permission or if their parent is working on the same farm. And while children younger than 14 are prohibited from employment in all other sectors, those younger than 12 can work in agriculture if the farm is not required to pay the Federal minimum wage. When it comes to hourly restrictions, while research repeatedly shows the costly consequences of working more than 20 hours a week for teens, federal law allows children 6 years old or older to work on any farm, including during hours when school is in session, on any day, for any number of hours, and in any job.

There have been calls to strengthen child labor laws at the federal level, most notably, in April this year, Congressman Kildee (Michigan) introduced the Combating Child Labor Act. In a release at the time, his team shared that the goal of the act is to establish harsher civil and criminal penalties for violations of existing child labor laws and increase transparency for the American people about violations.

The highest penalty for routine violations is currently set at $15,138, which if the bill is passed, would increase to $150,000 while also addressing gaps in information about the scale of child labor violations nationwide through an annual report to Congress.

Children should be in school, Kildee says. Not working in dangerous factory jobs.

Changes in State Guidelines

While most states have employment laws that offer minors more protection than federal guidelines, others are attempting to loosen child labor laws with many citing labor shortages across the country.

In this year alone, New Jersey, Arkansas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, and Iowa were among the states moving to change guidelines to allow minors to seek employment without work permits, lift restrictions on hazardous work, extend working hours to 9 or 10 p.m. on school days, allow children to serve alcohol, and to permit youth employment in or around construction sites.

Maki says the bill from Iowa was one of the most egregious hes seen in his time with the CLC.

"The bill has lots of bad stuff in it. A lot of the legislators that are introducing bills like this are talking about the labor shortage they feel like their states are having. but our feeling is you just cannot balance a labor shortage on the backs of vulnerable teen workers. We think thats a misguided idea.

Who is at risk?



With the concerning number of reported workplace violations, injuries, and deaths, Maki says its important to recognize these figures only reflect those cases that are reported to governing agencieswith countless instances of child labor violations likely unreported and unmonitored.

Most notably, the population of unaccompanied minors and undocumented children is likely at a higher risk of injury or death, as they often lack the support of parental figures and adult protection, he explains.

A lot of these kids in these dangerous situations are immigrant children, and a lot are unaccompanied minors, Maki notes. We do know that in the last four years, there has been a large influx of unaccompanied minors. About 130,000 of them came in last year, and these are kids that theyre extremely vulnerable. They come here with no parental figure, just an uncle, cousin, or friends and they are desperate for money.

Maki says many of these children are so desperate for work and an income that would allow them to send money back home to their family that theyre taking any job.

I assume that these kids that are entering these meat-packing plants have no idea how horrible the conditions are, he says. So shame on the companies that are allowing it to happen.

Unfortunately, all children in the workforce can be at risk without proper supervision, education, and oversight, and often parents arent even aware of the dangers that can be present in their childs workplace.

The child in another family Maki spoke with was maimed in a workplace accident where the teen was legally employed. The injured boy lost several fingers.

Theyre not an immigrant family, Maki adds. The parents [...] had no idea that their child would be doing something dangerous. He was working in a factory but they thought hed be doing sweeping or filing. When youre in a dangerous work setting, danger has a way of finding you.

Illegal and dangerous child labor practices are pervasive throughout the country and affect both citizens and children of immigrants and migrants alike. In Maine, workplace injuries among minors have more than doubled in the past decadefrom 162 in 2012 to 365 in 2022.

Mike Roland, the Director of the Maine Bureau of Labor Standards noted earlier this summer that the state of Maine is observing a marked increase in the numbers of work permits denied, violations of child-protective labor laws, and most disturbingly, in reported injuries to minors in Maine's workplaces.

He adds that ultimately child labor violations affect everyonenot just immigrant or migrant workers. It certainly happens in Maine to people who have lived here their entire lives, he says.

Academic Delays and Lost Earning Potential

Though the length of time children work, even in non-hazardous jobs, may seem relatively unimportant, research has repeatedly shown that a 20-hour limit matters. One European study says that extended working hours that lead to loss of educational opportunities can have devastating effects on a childs future.

The negative effect of child labour is cumulative: the academic delay accumulated in the first year of labour adds to that of the following year, and so on, the study explains. In the long run, child labour affects the number of years of schooling completed only when children work more than 15-20 hours of work per week. By impeding school completion and learning performance, child labour can also have an impact on adult labour market outcomes, particularly for employment requiring academic skills.

Maki says the potential educational and economic impacts on young people are very concerning. Were very worried about the academic impact, he says. It can have lifelong consequences.

Studies repeatedly find that high school dropouts make significantly less than their peers who secure a high school diploma, while researchers have found that those who earn a college degree stand to earn more than $1 million more in lifetime earnings than their peers without a bachelors degree.

We dont want to see kids sacrificing their economic future or consigning themselves to poverty for a lifetime, Maki adds.



Injury and Death

Even if their child is working within the parameters of legal employment, parents should be aware of the dangerssome of which may lead to injury or death. One of the most surprising workplace hazards parents should be aware of is driving. According to the CDC, traffic accidents are the leading cause of fatalities among teenagers, causing the deaths of approximately 2,800 young people ages 16-19 in 2020, and the injury of about 227,000 others.

A report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics cites transportation incidents as the most frequent cause of death for all workers in 2021, with 1,982 fatal injuries, an increase of 11.5 percent from 2020. This major category accounted for 38.2 percent of all work-related fatalities for 2021.

Parents dont know one of the most common ways that teens can die is in car accidents, Maki says. So you dont want your teen taking a job where theyre being driven a lot or where they're expected to drive themselves either. That increases the likelihood of premature death significantly.

Beyond operating vehicles, children are at increased risk when they work in environments where they may be around heavy machinery or equipment.

The problem is teens are very compliant, Maki adds. Theyre desperate to please their employers because its their first job. So if an employer says, Go throw these boxes into the compactor and press the button, well, the law is that the teen can throw the boxes in the compactor, but they cant press the button because thats how people get hurt or die.

No matter where their children are working, Maki emphasizes that parents need to be involved in the decision. Parents need to be very engaged in this decision, he says. They need to talk to their kid, they need to talk to their employer, they need to make sure that theres nothing dangerous thats expected.

Maki states one obvious solution to minimizing exposure to dangerous and illegal employment for children is for employers to attract qualified adult workers to such jobs instead, which would do much to address the perceived labor shortageand research seems to support that view.

There are solutions to labor shortages including raising wages, he says. If youre trying to attract adult workers, you just need to raise wages, and a lot of firms are reluctant to do that.

When it comes to ensuring the safety of our children and making strides in reporting illegal or unsafe child labor practices, Jessica Looman says that one of our most valuable resources can be our community networks.

We hope that parents, teachers, and community members will learn the signs of illegal child labor and unsafe workplaces and report it to us when they see indicators of child labor violations in their area, she notes. We all have to work together to make sure that our children are safe, healthy, and protected from exploitation.



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The 4.5 million-year-old tooth of a crocodile unearthed in Spain.

Paleontologists in Spain have unearthed a 4.5 million-year-old tooth that likely belonged to one of the last crocodiles in Europe.

The tooth is the only crocodilian fossil excavated from a site called Baza-1 in the southern province of Granada and indicates the predator looked similar to Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus) that live in Africa today.

Baza-1 was first excavated in the early 2000s and has yielded more than 2,000 fossils, despite only covering an area of 323 square feet (30 square meters), according to a translated statement .

"The tooth we found at the site of Baza-1 corresponds to a true crocodile," said Bienvenido Martinez Navarro , a paleontologist with the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and research professor at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) who co-led the recent excavations. "We have classified it as Crocodylus because, at the moment, the only evidence of its presence at this site is this tooth, and we don't have enough anatomical resolution to be more precise," Martinez Navarro told Live Science in an email.

Related: 'They mated like mad': Low-flying helicopter sparks massive crocodile orgy in Australia

This is the most recent evidence of a crocodile ever found in the fossil record in Europe, Martinez Navarro said. Until now, fossils suggesting crocodiles roamed the continent came from earlier deposits, including from the Miocene (23 million to 5.3 million years ago) and from very early on during the Pliocene (5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago).

Crocodiles likely crossed over from Africa to Europe around 6.2 million years ago, just before the Mediterranean Sea dried up during what is known as the Messinian salinity crisis, Martinez Navarro said.

Archaeologists excavate the Baza-1 site in the province of Granada in Spain.

The Messinian salinity crisis was partly triggered by a global cooling event that locked ocean water up in glaciers and icebergs, lowering sea levels by about 230 feet (70 meters), according to the University of Maryland . This drop resulted in less water flowing from the Atlantic Ocean into the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, tectonic shifts also caused the ocean floor around the Strait of Gibraltar to rise, isolating the Mediterranean, which ultimately became disconnected from the world's oceans and dried up.

This left behind a vast expanse of salt up to 2 miles (3 kilometers) thick in some places , which scientists found buried beneath hundreds of feet of sediment in the 1970s.

"It was possible to walk from northern Africa to the Iberian Peninsula," Martinez Navarro said, adding that several species would have crossed this expanse.

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The Messinian salinity crisis lasted roughly 700,000 years and ended abruptly when a gigantic surge of water known as the Zanclean flood  triggered by evaporated water returning to the oceans and erosion of the strip of land around Gibraltar  replenished the Mediterranean Sea.

African crocodiles that found their way to modern-day Spain and Portugal likely disappeared when the climate became colder and drier during the Pliocene, Martinez Navarro said. The early Pliocene, however, was characterized by a tropical climate that supported a rich assemblage of animals  including now-extinct elephants, reptiles, amphibians and fish  whose remains were also unearthed at the site where the tooth was found.

Researchers hope the fossils unearthed at Baza-1 will help them reconstruct a critical moment in paleohistory, when species migrated from Africa to Europe, Martinez Navarro said.
Need a fright? It's time to head to California.

EyeWolf/Getty Images

The spooky season is well upon us, making it the perfect time to lean all the way into ghost stories and ghastly lore. And if youre someone whos particularly a fan of a good fright, now is the perfect time to plan a visit to California and Utah, which were just ranked as the spookiest states in America.



SmokyMountains.com, a website dedicated to the famed national park, pulled together data on the spookiest destinations from coast to coast. To discover which state could be named the spookiest of all, it parsed through each states most haunted locations, haunted houses, and Halloween stores, to then rank each one on its Halloween spirit and place them on our Spookymeter.



After tallying the numbers, it determined that the two western states were indeed the spookiest.



When it comes to all things haunted, California has a good handle on it, the findings revealed.

California ranked highly thanks to its number of Spirit Halloween stores (172) and for having the most haunted location, Alcatraz, which has, on average, 2,240,000 search results on Google. It also came in second for the highest number of haunted houses.

Jasmin Diaz/Courtesy of smokymountains.com

Utah tied for first, thanks to the allegedly haunted Union Station.

Union Station is known to be haunted by paranormal activity, the findings shared. So much so that it has 1,044,000 search results on average via Google talking about how haunted and scary this Utah location is, as well as the stories of the woman and children who roam about this old railroad station. Additionally, Utah ranked highly on the list as its home to 23 Spirit Halloween stores and nearly 30 haunted houses.

And if you really want to give yourself a scare, you can always book a night at The Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, which the results named the most haunted hotel in America, which boasts 800,000 search results on how haunted and scary it is. But maybe you can go by yourself for this one, and just tell us all about it later.

Related: 35 Most Haunted Places in the World

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Read the original article on Travel & Leisure.
One Piece Koby Garp

Netflix has bumped up the price of its services once again in the US, UK and France.

Prices in the US for the ad-free subscription jumped by $3 per month to $22.99, with the basic subscription going up by $2 to $11.99. The cost of premium in the UK goes up by 2 to 17.99, and the basic by 1 to 7.99. French viewers will need to pay an extra 2 euros for the high-end service, to euro 19.99.

It also confirmed that it will no longer be offering the basic tier to new subscribers in Australia, Germany, Spain, Japan, Mexico and Brazil from next week. Those regions will be offered the most expensive tier, or the ad-supported option. The basic tier has already been phased out for new subs in the UK, US, Italy and Canada.

One Piece has been a major hit for Netflix. Netflix

The ad-supported tier makes up 30 percent of all new subscriptions, according to Netflix.

Over the last three months Netflix said it added 8.8 million new subscribers, with the numbers boosted by the clamp down on password sharing.

One of the stand-out hits for Netflix has been the live action One Piece series, according to the company, noting that its a local story that reaches global audiences. Season 2 of that show has already been written despite the ongoing actors' strike.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against three crypto companies: Gemini Trust Company, Genesis Global Capital and its affiliates and Digital Currency Group (DCG) for allegedly defrauding investors of over $1 billion, according to a statement on Thursday.

The lawsuit also brought charges against former Genesis CEO Soichiro Michael Moro and DCGs founder and CEO Barry Silbert for trying to hide $1.1 billion in losses and defrauding investors and the public.

In statements shared with TechCrunch, DCG said "we fully intend to fight the claims," adding that the firm "always conducted its business lawfully and with integrity." The company added that it has cooperated with the attorney general in past months and was "blindsided" by the suit. Silbert called the allegations "baseless."

About 230,000 investors were affected by the three firms, the government's statement alleges. The investigation claims that Gemini lied to investors about its investment program, Gemini Earn, by calling it a low-risk investment, when it wasnt.

The lawsuit alleges that Gemini knew Genesis loans were undersecured and at one point highly concentrated with one entity, Sam Bankman-Frieds Alameda, but did not reveal this information to investors, the agency stated.

This fraud is yet another example of bad actors causing harm throughout the under-regulated cryptocurrency industry, James said in a statement.

In June 2022, one of Genesis largest borrowers, crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, defaulted on billions of dollars in loans -- and later filed for bankruptcy in July. Around that time, Genesis lost over $100 million from another borrower, Babel Finance, the NY AG stated, bringing its total losses to greater than $1.1 billion.

The allegations come at a time when Bankman-Fried, co-founder of crypto exchange FTX and crypto trading firm Alameda, is on trial for seven charges related to fraud and money laundering. After FTX and Alameda filed for bankruptcy in November, the resulting market carnage helped bring down Genesis, which filed for bankruptcy in January.

On January 12, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Genesis and cryptocurrency exchange, wallet and custodian Gemini for the unregistered offer and sale of securities to retail investors through Gemini Earn crypto asset lending program. The prosecutors said Genesis and Gemini raised billions of dollars worth of crypto assets from hundreds of thousands of investors.

The article has been updated to include statements from DCG and its CEO.
At first glance, the news about 21 species being taken off of the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Endangered Species List may sound like a good thing. After all, if a species isn't endangered, it must be in the clear! Right?

As much as I wish that were true, it's sadly the opposite. On Monday, October 16, the USFWS officially delisted 21 American animal species from the Endangered Species Act due to extinction. This is already serving as a wake-up call for climate activists, conservationists, and animal lovers alike, but there's more to this news than meets the eye.

The newly extinct species include ten species of bird, 8 species of mussel, 2 species of fish, and one species of fruit bat (AKA flying fox). More specifically, they are:

Little Mariana fruit bat (mammal  Guam)

Bachmans warbler (bird  Florida, South Carolina)

Bridled white-eye (bird  Florida)

Kauai akialoa (bird  Hawaii)

Kauai nukupuu (bird  Hawaii)

Kaua  i oo (bird  Hawaii)

Large Kauai thrush (bird  Hawaii)

Maui akepa (bird  Hawaii)

Maui nukupu  u (bird  Hawaii)

Molokai creeper (bird  Hawaii)

Po`ouli (bird  Hawaii)

San Marcos gambusia (fish  Texas)

Scioto madtom (fish  Ohio)

Flat pigtoe (mussel  Alabama, Mississippi)

Southern acornshell (mussel  Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee)

Stirrupshell (mussel  Alabama, Mississippi)

Upland combshell (mussel  Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee)

Green-blossom pearly mussel (Tennessee, Virginia)

Tubercled-blossom pearly mussel (8 states)

Turgid-blossom pearly mussel (Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee)

Yellow-blossom pearly mussel (Alabama, Tennessee)

If that list feels overwhelming, it's for a good reason. These extinctions mark significant changes in their local ecosystems, and they're likely not the last that will take place. In 2019, scientists warned the public that over 1 million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction (via CBS News). In the United States alone, over 1300 species are considered threatened or endangered by the USFWS's Endangered Species Act.

However, the abruptness of this announcement makes the process of delisting endangered species sound a lot faster than it is. A total of 23 species were submitted for consideration back in September 2021, and the move was made official over two years later. And, despite the loss of 21 vital, unique animal species, the USFWS reports that "more than 100 species of plants and animals have been delisted based on recovery." That's a beautiful silver lining!

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The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara was presented to Queen Elizabeth after she married Prince Philip in 1947.

Max Mumby / Indigo / Getty Images

After Queen Elizabeth II tied the knot with Prince Philip on November 20, 1947, her grandmother, Queen Mary, gifted her a diamond diadem, the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara. That sparkling headpiece ended up being one of the former monarchs go-to accessories that she consistently wore throughout her 70 years on the throne. Queen Camilla just paid tribute to Elizabeth by decking out her outfit with that special diadem. On October 18, 2023, Camilla and her husband, King Charles, visited the Mansion House to mark their first visit to the City of London during their coronation year. To partake in the tradition, Camilla sported the said crown.

The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara has a longstanding history with origins in the early 1890s. On July 6, 1893, Queen Mary married King George V, and she received the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara as a gift. The committee of women purchased the piece for the bride from royal jewelry house Garrard a month before the wedding after raising money for the item, according to the Court Jeweller. The original version was made of diamonds set in silver and gold and topped with 14 pearls. It also functioned as a multipurpose piece, so it could either be worn as a diadem, a coronet, or a necklace.

Related: Queen Elizabeth's Wedding Tiara Broke Just 2 Hours Before Her Walk Down the Aisle

After Mary was gifted the crown, it quickly became one of her favorites. She wore it on multiple occasions, including the Devonshire House Ball in 1897 and Georges ascension to the throne in 1910. In 1914, she decided to adjust the diadem, asking Garrad to remove the pearl toppers and instead swap them for diamonds, per The Court Jeweller. The pearls were then used in the Lovers Knot Tiara, which is one of Kate Middletons favorites. Mary also had the royal jeweler unfasten the base, so she could wear it separately as a brooch.

Tim Graham / Getty Images

When Elizabeth said I do to Philip in 1947, Mary presented her granddaughter with the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara. The headpiece, which Elizabeth called Grannys tiara, was also a staple in the former queen's wardrobe. She donned the accessory after the funeral of her father, King George VI, and on her 25th birthday in 1951, but Elizabeth then decided to add the base back to the tiara. Ever since then, Elizabeth wore the tiara in its full form. It made an appearance at many important occasions, including the landmark state visit to Ireland in 2011 and the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of D-Day in 2015, according to The Court Jeweller.

In addition to the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara, Camilla also accessorized with another one of Elizabeth's pieces when she attended the dinner on October 18, 2023. Camilla paired her attire, a long-sleeved black dress with silver embroidery by Bruce Oldfield, with Elizabeths diamond necklace and bracelet. The prime minister of the Union of South Africa Field, Marshal Jan Smut, gave Elizabeth that necklace, featuring 21 diamonds, and its matching bracelet for her 21st birthday, People reports.

Up Next: Queen Elizabeth's Priceless Wedding Gifts Are on Display at Buckingham Palace

Read the original article on Brides.
Queen Camilla arrived at a reception and dinner in honor of her and King Charles III at Mansion House in London on Wednesday, embracing her love of silver and diamonds. During the reception, King Charles participated in the Pearl Sword ceremony to mark their coronation.

Camilla wore a long-sleeve black gown with a silver embroidered foliage pattern from Bruce Oldfield couture. She accessorized the ensemble with royal jewels, including the Queen Marys Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara and Queen Elizabeth lls South African diamond necklace.

More from WWD

King Charles III and Queen Camilla

Queen Camilla wore Bruce Oldfield couture in May to the coronation of her and King Charles III. The dress she selected was a white gown with gold details to match her husbands white robes. She wore the same necklace that Queen Elizabeth II wore for her own coronation in 1953. The necklace was made by Garrard and presented to Queen Victoria in 1858.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla

I am honored to have been asked to design such an historic gown for Her Majesty. This really is the most important commission of my life. Very exciting and very special, Bruce Oldfield told WWD at the time of the coronation. I have been designing outfits for the queen for over a decade now. The coronation dress is a style and silhouette that Her Majesty likes very much and it is sophisticated and appropriate for an occasion of grandeur such as this.

The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara was purchased in 1893 by Lady Eva Greville on behalf of the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland and gifted as a wedding present to Queen Mary. In 1914, the design of the tiara was altered, and the pearls were removed. In 1947, Queen Mary gifted the tiara to her granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth II, as a wedding present. The tiara was considered one of Queen Elizabeth IIs favorites.

During the Pearl Sword ceremony, the King was presented with the sword, which he then returned, confirming the Lord Mayors authority when the monarch was not present. King Charles mother, Queen Elizabeth II, performed the ceremony in 1953 following her own coronation, and again in 1977 and 2022, to mark different jubilees.

Prior to 1641, the monarch would take the sword for the duration of their visit, but in 1641, King Charles I immediately returned it to the Lord Mayor, starting the practice that continues to this day. The tradition of surrendering the Lord Mayors sword to the monarch began in 1392 when the Lord Mayor offered his sword to King Richard II. The Pearl Sword is adorned with more than 2,600 pearls on the scabbard.

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Crooked house in Idstein ()

I must admit I was less-than-enthused when my spouse asked me if I wanted to get away for the day to this Ive never heard of it before town, Idstein. Upon arriving in the town, I realized my attitude was about to change. Idstein is roughly a ninety-minute drive from the KMC area and a half-hour drive or less than an hour public transit ride from Wiesbaden. This town is a definite must-do on the list for those into interesting architecture, great food and witch lore.

Half-Timbered Buildings: In the heart of town, a majority of the buildings are intricately decorated and beautiful half-timbered houses that date back as far as the 15th century. There are hidden faces throughout the designs, and you can make it a family challenge to see who can find the most faces. These buildings house residents, hotels, restaurants, ice cream shops, graphic designers, art galleries, shops, toy stores, wineries and more. Keep your eyes peeled for Das Schiefes Haus (Crooked House). The name says it all for this blue house with yellow window frames.

Castles and Witches: While not as well-known as the ones held in the U.S., Europe also held quite a few witch trials in the 16th and 17th centuries. Idstein found itself swept in witch-fury and between 1676 and 1677, 35 women and eight men were executed for witchcraft. Today, a plaque in their memory sits at the foot of the Hexenturm (Witchs Tower). By walking over to the Tourist Information Center, you can trade a deposit (such as your car key) for the key to the tower and make the climb in the tower yourself. If climbing up a tower isnt for you, you can simply walk around the grounds of Idstein Castle. If just reading about castle adventures is more your speed, make sure to pay a visit to the Hexenbuchladen (Witches Bookstore) a mere three-minute walk from the Hexenturm.

Great Food: We arrived in Idstein right around my tummy is rumbling for lunch-thirty, so our first task was finding food and the Taunushof Restaurant and Hotel did not disappoint. I can personally recommend the French onion soup as well as the baked Camembert cheese with cranberries, salad and toast. My spouse highly recommends the Alfredo schnitzel. Or at least I think he does; he just kept repeating, We need to make this at home between bites. For the beer connoisseurs reading this, dont worry, Idstein has you covered. The Idsteiner Brewery, Alte Feuerwache, not only has a variety of brewed in-house beers but also some amazing food. I had the Kasespatzle, and it was in the top three (of many) Kasespatzle dishes I have eaten during my time in Germany. They also featured a menu item that I have never seen in Germany before: Brizza, a pizza dish featuring a mustard and cream sauce, cheese and sausage on top of a pretzel (Brezel) crust. I also indulged in dessert which was a chocolate-lava cake dish served with vanilla ice cream and berries. All I can say is, leave room for dessert. You can also purchase beer and souvenirs to take home with you.

Whether you go for Instagram pictures of architecture, tower climbing adventures or on a foodie expedition, Idstein has something for everyone.
How to tell if kiwi is ripe so you'll get the sweetest, juiciest fruit possible.

It doesn't look like it from the fuzzy brown skin, but a kiwi is actually a berry. While originally cultivated in Eastern China, kiwis have become synonymous with New Zealand, with many New Zealanders referring to themselves as "kiwis," a name bestowed on the fruit given the resemblance to the kiwi bird.

Since a kiwi's skin doesn't indicate ripeness, it can be hard to tell when it's ready to eat. Learn how to tell when this deliciously juicy fruit is prime to prep and serve.

Related: How to Cut a Kiwi

How to Tell If Kiwi is Ripe

The first step to telling if a kiwi is ripe is by taking a look at the outside. The fussy brown skin should be free of blemishes, tears, or unevenness. A healthy kiwi is nice and round, with no soft spots or areas that are flat.

If the outside looks good, give it a squeeze. An underripe kiwi will feel stiff and firm with almost no give, like squeezing an apple. A perfectly ripe kiwi is slightly soft and has some give when you squeeze it. Use your thumb to press on the stem end at the top gently; you want some give here; if you squeeze a kiwi and it feels super soft or if your finger pokes through the skin, look out because that kiwi is way overripe.

The next step is to move on to the sniff test. Take a big whiff of your kiwi; you're looking for a sweet, fruity smell. Overripe or borderline rotten kiwi will start to smell slightly fermented or sour under the notes of sweetness. In contrast, underripe kiwis haven't had time to develop those delicious sugars, so there's not much to smell. If you take a sniff and don't smell much of anything, that's a good sign that your kiwi isn't ripe enough.

Dotdash Meredith Food Studios

Get the recipe: Easy Pavlova

What Does Kiwi Taste Like?

A perfectly ripe kiwi is juicy and has a super fruity flavor similar to some tropical fruits with a light tang. Before a kiwi is at its peak, the sugars in the fruit haven't developed yet, and the flavor tastes very vegetal and green without the syrupy sweetness a ripe kiwi provides. The texture is also much different.

If you've ever cut open a kiwi, you've seen the bright green or golden yellow flesh studded with thousands of tiny green seeds, all held together with a small, white edible core in the middle. When a kiwi is ripe, the flesh is soft, sweet, and juicy. However, when a kiwi isn't ready yet, the flesh is very firm, and the middle core can be stiff and unpleasant.

Related: Surprising Foods You Can (And Should) Eat the Skins From

How To Store Kiwis

Once your kiwis are ripe, pop them in the fridge to stop any further ripening. The temperature of the fridge will slow the spoiling process, so once your kiwis are right where you like them, make sure to refrigerate them. If they're not quite ripe yet, storing them on the counter is fine, as they will continue to ripen as they sit.

How To Use Ripe Kiwis

Now that you've found the perfectly ripe batch of kiwis, you might be wondering what to do with them. The good news is that kiwis are delicious and are perfect for eating plain. You can simply slice them up and eat the entire fruit yes, that fuzzy brown skin and all those seeds are totally edible.

Allrecipes Magazine

Get the recipe: Tomatillo-Kiwi Salsa

If you don't like the skin, an easy way to just have the flesh is to cut the kiwi in half and dig out bites with a spoon. Beyond just eating them plain, kiwis are delicious in smoothies, especially along with strawberries and other berries. Kiwis are perfect in fruit salsas and salads because of their tart flavor and unique texture.

Read the original article on All Recipes.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu recently became involved with MiLa, a Bellevue, WA-based direct-to-consumer company that ships authentic soup dumplings, chinese noodles and chef crafted sauces to doors nationwide. And while it's hardly headline-grabbing for an actor to partner up with a brand, the story of how Liu got involved with the company certainly isn't for the faint of heart.

During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week, the 34-year-old explained that his parents, working-class Chinese immigrants who emigrated with him to Canada when he was a child, came to house sit for him earlier this year. Because Liu had recently purchased and moved into the home, the cupboards were bare. Instead, he left money for them to order food from delivery apps such as Uber Eats and Postmates.

"There's really nothing in this house other than some like very basic furniture, some clothes, and like, some, um, somesome edibles and things that I consume recreationally, infrequently, to help me relax," Liu explained.

"He means weed, Guillermo," Kimmel interjected to his sidekick on the side of the stage.

However, Liu explained that because of his parents frugal, working-class background, they had never really paid for delivery "in their entire lives," and likewise didn't understand how to use the apps. So instead, Liu says that his mother resorted to "foraging around the house for things to eat."

"And she's looking and she's looking and she finds her way into my walk-in closet, where she finds what she thinks are gummy bears and trail mix with dried mushrooms inside," Liu recalled, to immediate groans from the studio audience. "She's like, 'these are snacks,' so she takes them to my dad and they start popping them like Skittles."

It doesn't take an after-school special to know what happened next, as Liu's parents proceeded to get high out of their minds. But because of the cannabis gummies, they also had the munchies, and again, there was no food in the house aside from the drugs they had already consumed. At that point, they made the decision to go to the grocery store, but neither could drive a vehicle in their state.

"And so it's nighttime, they get into my car, immediately crash it," he continued. "They crash it in my driveway into like the shrubs. They're so high at this point. They're freaking out, they don't know what else to do."

The couple recruited a neighbor to help with the car, but by the next morning, Liu says that they were still high and starving when, at that moment, the PR package from MiLa showed up at the house.

"So, I get home many days later and the car is totaled, my shrubs are wrecked, and my drugs are gone," Liu recalls. "And I looked at my parents and I'm like, 'OK, first of all, I am never leaving you unsupervised in my house ever again."

"They didn't know what had happened to them for many months after because they didn't understand the concept of hallucinogenics, and then they were like, 'Well one thing I do know for sure is you gotta get involved with that company because those dumplings were so good,'" he added. "And so I bought a piece of the company and I became their chief content officer."

Well, that's one way of getting involved with a brand. You can watch Liu recount the tale, below.
FALL RIVER  Two days before 17-year-old Antwyne Robinson allegedly shot and killed his 18-year-old romantic rival, Jovanni Perez, on Saturday, a juvenile court declared the teen a danger for violating conditions of his bail on a separate criminal case, and released the teen into to his mother's custody.

On the day of the shooting, as Perez walked out of his girlfriend's house at 253 Locust St. to his car, Robinson shot him multiple times, prosecutors said.

Robinson was arraigned as an adult in Fall River District Court on Thursday for murder. Fall River District Court Judge Franco Gobourne ordered him held without bail and revoked bail on his juvenile case, saying at this point the murder of Perez appears "planned and cold-blooded."

Antwyne Robinson, 17, of Fall River, is seen in Fall River District Court Thursday, Oct. 19. He was charged with Murder in the fatal shooting of Jovanni Perez that happened on Oct. 14 on Locust Street in Fall River.

During the 12-minute hearing, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Lopes said the juvenile case against Robinson involved the violent assault of his former girlfriend, who Perez had been currently dating and who lived at the Locust Street address.

About a dozen of Perez's family and friends attended the hearing, with some members crying. After the hearing, one of those members said the family would not speak to a reporter.

Not a random crime: Fall River fatal shooting of 18-year-old city man 'not gang-related,' says FRPD chief

Prosecutors have witness and surveillance evidence

According to Lopes, Perez was walking to his car parked on Wilbur Street from his girlfriend's home at about 12:17 p.m. Perez had parked his car away from the Locust Street apartment.

"He parked away from the apartment because he did not want it to be known he was at that location, because his car had been vandalized outside that apartment previously," said Lopes.

After Robinson shot Perez multiple times, Lopes said, the 18-year-old managed to walk back to his girlfriend's apartment, "and told his girlfriend, 'Antwyne shot me, Antwyne shot me.'"

Lopes said after Perez identified his shooter, he began to have trouble walking, talking and breathing and collapsed. His girlfriend then dialed 911. He was rushed to Charlton Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:41 p.m.

Prosecutors allege Antwyne Robinson, 17, shot and killed 18-year-old Jovanni Perez over a girlfriend outside this home at 253 Locust St., Fall River.

An independent witness that had been traveling behind the vehicle Robinson was driving, a black Mercedes with tinted windows, told police in the investigation that she saw the teen drive up to Perez as he was walking. The witness said Perez approached the driver's side of the Mercedes and heard five gunshots coming from the driver's side.

Lopes said the witness told police she then saw Perez stagger toward the Locust Street apartment building.

According to Lopes, earlier in the day, the mother of Perez's child had posted a photograph on social media of the 18-year-old vehicle in the Locust Street area, "indicating that he was there."

"It had been put out on social media for anyone to see," said Lopes.

Investigators also located several surveillance cameras in the area, including a doorbell camera at 253 Locust St.

"That surveillance video shows the defendant leaving at 11:40 a.m. He's running off camera down the road. As he's running, he's swinging his left arm and his right arm is pinned to his side and appearing to be holding something."

Multiple surveillance cameras in the area allegedly capture Robinson in the vehicle circling the block around where the shooting occurred.

Other video shows the vehicle speeding away from the scene down Durfee Street and driving erratically.

Later, police would find the Mercedes abandoned at 10 p.m. on Interstate 90 in Palmer.

Antwyne Robinson was arraigned on murder charges in Fall River District Court on Thursday.

Allegations of harassment and domestic abuse against Robinson

Lopes told the judge that the girlfriend had recently broken up with Robinson and that he had been "controlling, aggressive and physically violent with her."

"He had strangled her, grabbed her by the hair, slammed her into the wall and punched her. She detailed an incident that had occurred in September.

"She also had previously told investigators the defendant had damaged her vehicle by putting sugar in her gas tank. She told investigators the defendant had done the same thing to Mr. Perez's vehicle, which would explain why Mr. Perez had parked away from the residence," said Lopes.

Robinson had broken into her house on Oct. 1, said Lopes, poured bleach on her clothes, threatened to punch her in the face and shoot up her house. There was a warrant for his arrest, which later resulted in the dangerousness hearing on Oct. 12.

Robinson's defense attorney, Paul Lonardo-Roy, argued against holding the teen without bail, noting that his client had turned himself into authorities and was not a flight risk, partly because if he's convicted of murder, because he is a juvenile, a sentence of life without parole is off the table.

Lonardo-Roy also said that any statements made by the girlfriend were prejudicial against Robinson and that his client has a minimal juvenile record.

Gobourne acknowledged that Robinson did not have any extensive record.

"However, the charges that he does have are violent charges," said Gobourne.

Robinson is set to next appear in court on Nov. 17.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: A 17-year-old Fall River man has been arrested in deadly shooting
The AMVETS National Service Foundation helps veterans secure benefits and provides scholarships to veterans and their families.

Formed in 1944 and chartered three years later by Congress and President Harry Truman, AMVETS funds much of that work through a network of 46 thrift stores in 20 states.

The AMVETS National Service Foundation will open a new thrift store in this space in Erie, shown on Oct. 17.

The nonprofit's 47th location, and its first in northwestern Pennsylvania, is coming to Erie.

AMVETS plans to move before the end of the year into Liberty Center in a 28,000 square-foot space that was last occupied by Gordmans, a discount department store.

Gordmans, which also did business in the same space as Peebles, closed as part of the COVID-19 shutdown in March of 2020. The store, along with other Gordmans locations, reopened briefly in June of that year for a liquidation sale.

The store is expected to create about 50 full- and part-time jobs.

What do you know about AMVETS?

The AMVETS name should be familiar to many in the Erie area. After all, the 46-mile stretch of Interstate 90 that passes through Pennsylvania is named the AMVETS Memorial Highway.

The name might also ring a bell for a certain number of Erie-area residents who shop at the AMVETS store in Buffalo, said Keith Haley, director of thrift store operations for the nonprofit.

What should customers expect?

Haley said Amvets stores tend to be a favorite among thrift store shoppers.

"We don't gouge and we don't put all of our best stuff online. We are a thrift store and we remain true to our roots," he said. "We are going to price everything like we are a thrift store."

Most locations, he said, specialize in women's clothing and accessories as well as housewares. Shoppers should also expect kitchen items, furniture, books, shoes and media.

Haley said he's also a big fan of the nonprofit's mission, especially the work it does to represent veterans who might be struggling to receive benefits.

"It's really hard to navigate the VA system," he said. "You get denials with no explanation. Our staff represents veterans free of charge. They don't expect anything from that."

Sherry Bauer, leasing agent for Levin Management, which owns the shopping plaza, said the lease with AMVETS continues a string of wins for Liberty Center, where F&F Hibachi Express and the Erie Gymnastics Center opened new locations earlier this year. That's in addition to recent expansions by Tops Friendly Market and Werner Books and Coffee.

"We are also talking to a couple of other prospective tenants," Bauer said. "I think the trend is that the Liberty Center is going to be a home for a lot of valuable business partners in the community."

For now, crews working for the building's owners are busy making improvements to heating and ventilation systems, she said.

The AMVETS National Service Foundation will open a new thrift store in this space in Erie.

Haley said he would like to see the store open soon, but said the timetable will depend largely on the ability to secure permits and complete construction.

"Once we get going, it's going to take six to eight weeks to furnish this store and fill it up," he said.

Haley said he's not worried about the competition in a community that already has a number of thrift stores.

"We welcome competition," he said. "Having had a good experience in Buffalo, the next logical step was to come down to Erie. We will start in Erie and work our way towards Pittsburgh."

More: Erie's commercial fisherman prepares to open a new market near Presque Isle

More: One book at a time, Erie's Werner Books makes short trip to new, larger location

Contact Jim Martin at jmartin@timesnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: AMVETS thrift store to open in Gordmans spot in Erie's Liberty Center
Editors note: Peter Bergen is CNNs national security analyst, a vice president at New America, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, and the host of the Audible podcast In the Room With Peter Bergen, also on Apple and Spotify. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

Kobi Michael, a leading Israeli expert on Palestinian issues, says his countrys policymakers have misunderstood the aims of Hamas for the past several years. Michael also predicted that Israels military operations in Gaza might take months and that Hezbollah in Lebanon will probably avoid a full-scale war with Israel.

Peter Bergen - CNN

A senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, Michael has worked as an Israeli intelligence officer, government official and academic focused on Palestinian issues for around three decades.

Michael was an Arabic-speaking intelligence officer when he was appointed in 1994 as the first commander of the Israeli-Palestinian Security Coordination Apparatus in the Gaza Strip. Michael then served on Israels National Security Council as the head of the Palestinian Division and in a similar position as the deputy director-general in the Ministry of Strategic Affairs at the prime ministers office between 2009 and 2013.

Kobi Michael - Courtesy Kobi Michael

In a conversation Friday with Peter Bergen, he explained the likely goal of the Hamas attack and talked of how peace could ultimately be made between Israelis and Palestinians. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Peter Bergen: Who oversees Hamas military operations, and what is the role of Mohammed Deif?

Kobi Michael: Mohammed Deif is the commander of the Qassam Brigades.

Bergen: Was he in charge of this operation in Israel last weekend?

Michael: He certainly is deeply involved. Hes one of the planners, together with Marwan Issa. There is no doubt because both are senior commanders of the military establishment of Hamas.

Bergen: Can you tell us who Mohammed Deif is? What is his background?

Michael: Mohammed Deif, hes a cat, not with seven lives but with nine lives. Hes a terrorist from the first days of al Qassam Brigades in the Gaza Strip. Israel tried to target him several times, and he was injured. He lost a hand, an eye and other organs, but hes still alive.

Hes very wise, very determined and very charismatic. And hes totally dedicated and determined about his mission on earth. Hes willing to die.

Deif has almost no connections with the outside world. Hes the most influential figure in Hamas from the military point of view, and hes also influential with the political leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

But we have to understand that such an operation cannot be realized without two crucial abilities that Hamas is not capable of producing. The first is the intelligence factor, and the second ability is the technological factor. Only specific states can provide such abilities, and the only state that is capable and is willing to provide such capabilities to Hamas is Iran. And this is the reason that I do believe that Iran is deeply involved in this operation. (Irans government has praised the Hamas attack but denied that it was involved in it.)

The general strategy of Hamas  which is very similar to the broad strategy of Iran  is to launch a multifront war against Israel. And Hamas has worked in the last few years to realize this strategy  on the one hand, they kept things calm in the Gaza Strip, getting economic benefits from Israel, Qatar and Egypt to enable prosperity and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip  but all of these were an umbrella for rebuilding their military capacities and preparing themselves for the big day, which was last Saturday (October 7), unfortunately.

Bergen: Why did Hamas launch this attack now?

Michael: What was the strategic aim of such an operation, considering that they knew for sure that the price tag would be very high and they were endangering their very existence? Im sure that Hamas was sure that the shock and horror of this operation and the casualties that they would cause would be interpreted by all the Palestinians, that this was a sign from God that this was the time to open all the battlefronts and to fight Israel and this will be the end of the state of Israel. They were sure about it.

I believe this was the rationale behind this operation because we have to understand this operation was conducted by more than 2,000 terrorists from the special unit of Hamas, the Nukhba.

Do you know how long it takes to train and to prepare such a force? Now, all the Nukhba manpower is something around 3,000 to 4,000 people. (By comparison, the Israeli military, including reservists, is more than 600,000.)

This attack last weekend was not intended to release Hamas prisoners held in Israeli jails. The objective was much bigger, and I think this was to encourage the Palestinians in the West Bank and all over Israel to open other battlefronts against Israeli targets.

Hamas succeeded much more than they believed they would succeed because this was a huge catastrophe. We lost so many people. Hamas, with their brutality, became what we saw as an upgraded ISIS.

Bergen: Youre a former intelligence officer. Many people are saying this is an intelligence failure. Often policymakers say its an intelligence failure when its a policy failure because its hard for the intelligence agencies to publicly defend themselves. They work for the policymakers, and they deal in the classified realm. Was this an intelligence failure, a policy failure, or both?

Michael: This is a failure of the political echelon and the decision-makers because the decision-makers accepted the intelligence assessments about Hamas. They are responsible. They didnt ask the right questions.

But the problem is not only intelligence. The problem is also policy. I was very critical of the Israeli policy in the last three years because I thought that we were providing Hamas with a comfortable zone and with too many degrees of freedom of action that enabled them to fortify themselves, to strengthen themselves militarily and at the same time to fuel Hamas terror campaign in the West Bank.

And we enabled them to continue doing that by providing Gaza with economic benefits that would supposedly make Hamas more moderate or more pragmatic, and they would lose their motivation to attack Israel; this was a mistake. I warned about this publicly in my writing in recent years.

We have to understand that Hamas are very religious people. They are very determined, radical and extreme, and therefore, it is very hard for Western people to understand that they believe that they will be able to collapse the state of Israel. But this is what they believe.

Bergen: How does their religious view affect how they see the world?

Michael: Hamas was established as a religious and social movement and is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which originated in Egypt. This is the basic essence of Hamas. The religious ideology is the most important component of their ideology, belief and existence.

Bergen: How does Hamas impact the more secular Palestinian Authority, which controlled Gaza until 2007 before Hamas violently pushed them aside?

Michael: We have to go back to 2007 to understand that Hamas came to be the essential challenge to the Palestinian Authority because Hamas endgame is to control the entire Palestinian system, which means the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. Hamas perceives the Palestinian Authority as a collaborator with Israel and wants to undermine it. They want to collapse the Palestinian Authority, and therefore, Hamas is the most severe threat to the survival of the Palestinian Authority.

Bergen: Palestinian Islamic Jihad is reportedly part of this attack on Israel, yet we dont hear much about them. Were they part of this, and who are they?

Michael: Palestinian Islamic Jihad was established in 1982, whereas Hamas was established in 1987. But the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a pure terror organization. All the raison detre of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is to slaughter as many Jews as possible, and they dont have any political aspirations.

They are much smaller than Hamas. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad participated in this operation, and they still have an arsenal of rockets, some thousands of rockets, and they still have some thousands of terrorists that are active in the Gaza Strip. But this is a much smaller and less sophisticated organization. They dont have any other aims like Hamas because Hamas is a religious, social, political movement and terror organization at the same time. And they are the rulers of the Gaza Strip.

Bergen: You mentioned the social services Hamas provides. What are they?

Michael: Everything. They are a semi-state entity from education to garbage, energy, infrastructure, health, tax collection, industry, agriculture, everything. They have run the Gaza Strip since 2007, and they went through an institutionalization process because they knew that if they wanted to effectively rule the population, they had to use some practices of a state. They had to collect taxes. They had to provide people with education and health services.

Bergen: Hamas in Gaza now: They are well-armed. They are hiding in tunnels. They have hostages. They have human shields. Theyve had years to plan. Urban warfare is very difficult. Do you anticipate Israeli intelligence really understands Gaza well enough to conduct a successful operation?

Michael: Yes. This is a huge frustration. We have such intelligence control over the entire Gaza Strip, and how come we failed to get an early warning of the attack last weekend? We have very accurate intelligence. We know exactly where the tunnels are and where any Hamas facility is located. In a building of 15 stories, we know in each story where Hamas is sitting; there is no intelligence problem in this regard.

The problem is that to accomplish the mission of annihilating Hamas and denying all of its military capacities, we will need to have not only an air force war, but also a ground force operation, and we have to prepare it very well because Hamas is waiting for us, and they prepared traps, and they have more than a general idea of how the (Israel Defense Forces) is going to operate there. We have no illusion that the cost isnt going to be high. And we are going to have casualties, but this is the price that we have to pay if we want to remain living here in this neighborhood.

Israel follows the laws of war and international law and is trying to evacuate all the northern parts of the Gaza Strip and mainly the area of Gaza City, because this is the most crucial center of gravity of Hamas. Most of their assets are located there, and Israel doesnt intend to harm innocent people, and we dont want to have collateral damage. And therefore, we are trying to convince the population to leave because the area is saturated with Hamas assets.

The reason that Israel must bomb and demolish so many buildings is because Hamas is everywhere where their basic organizing rationale is to use their people as human shields. They do it in the most cynical and brutal manner, and they wish to have many casualties to use the international media and international tribunals in order to demonize Israel and gain empathy and support. It is the ultimate absurdity when those barbarians who do not respect any international law or norms are using these platforms to make their case. We have to clear the area and prepare the best conditions for the ground forces to enter to accomplish the mission to deal with all the underground infrastructure and to finish the job.

Bergen: How long will that take?

Michael: Itll take months.

Bergen: Do you think Hezbollah in Lebanon will stay on the sidelines during this war?

Michael: It looks like now they have an interest in staying out of a full-scale war, because Israel is on full alert in the north. And now Israel is a wounded lion. They know that the Israeli retaliation will be very aggressive if it comes to a full-scale war. I dont think that they are interested now in a full-scale war.

Bergen: So, the day after the war is over in Gaza, what does that look like for Israel? In the past, Israel has chosen to withdraw from Gaza. Do you anticipate a permanent occupation of Gaza?

Michael: No. Israel does not intend to remain in Gaza and to rule the population there. It might begin with an international mission force or an Arab mission force, and it will end with the return of the Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip. I think the Palestinian Authority cannot return immediately to the Gaza Strip. Otherwise, it will be perceived by the Palestinian constituency as a traitor, as someone who collaborated with Israel to topple Hamas. But I think that after a while and with the right preparations, it might be a reasonable model that the Palestinian Authority will return to rule the Gaza Strip.

But I think that we have to be very sober and to understand that even if the Palestinian Authority will return to the Gaza Strip, it doesnt mean that we will reach a final status agreement with the Palestinians. This is not the situation.

Bergen: Why would the Palestinians make a final deal with Israel without getting something in return, when the settlements are expanding on the West Bank?

Michael: The settlements were never the issue. Israel dismantled all the settlements in the Gaza Strip and North Samaria (in 2005).

Yasser Arafats response to the Camp David offer (brokered by US President Bill Clinton in 2000) was the Second Intifada.

Israel demonstrated twice that it is able and willing to evacuate settlements for peace. The Palestinians need to cross the Rubicon and to understand that the only way to live peacefully here in this region is to find a way to do it together with Israel and as part of the new regional architecture that will be based on the normalization process between Israel and the Arab countries with American support. And this new architecture will be able to defeat any efforts of the Iranians to be more influential or to reach hegemony in the broader Middle East.

There is a clash between the Iranian radical extreme resistance axis, which is led by Iran and is composed of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and all the other Iranian proxies all over the Middle East, and the Arab Sunni pragmatic axis, which is led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Palestinian Authority in Israel should be part of this camp, which is supported by the United States of America. If the Palestinians will be part of this camp, then we will be able to talk about peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

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US President Joe Biden has secured a deal with Egypt to deliver limited aid to Gaza to ease a humanitarian crisis amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Visiting Tel Aviv, Mr Biden said Israel had a right to hit back for the Hamas attack that triggered the fighting.

The US president said Israel had been "badly victimised", though he cautioned against being "consumed" by rage.

He also backed Israel's account that a blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday was not caused by an Israeli air strike.

Palestinian officials say the explosion at Gaza's Al-Ahli Arab Hospital killed 471 people, blaming it on Israel. The incident has further inflamed tensions across the region.

The British Broadcasting Corporation

But during a trip to Tel Aviv lasting fewer than eight hours on Wednesday, Mr Biden supported the Israeli claim that the deadly blast appeared to have been caused by a misfiring Palestinian rocket.

The American president said he was "deeply saddened and outraged" by the explosion.

Israel has pointed the finger at Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad denied any role in the blast.

The Palestinian-reported death toll has also been disputed by Israel. A foreign ministry spokesman, Lior Haiat, said on social media platform X that "several dozen people" had been "apparently killed".

While flying home, Mr Biden discussed aid for Gaza with Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi by phone.

Mr Biden told journalists that Mr Sisi had agreed to open the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza to allow about 20 lorries carrying humanitarian aid into the territory.

Egypt confirmed its president and Mr Biden had agreed to provide aid to Gaza "in a sustainable manner".

Mr Biden did not give a timeline for the border crossing opening, but White House spokesman John Kirby said it would occur in the coming days after road repairs.

The British Broadcasting Corporation

Mr Biden also said $100m (82m) in US funding would be be allocated to support Palestinian civilians.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters news agency the US president was considering asking Congress for $10bn in aid for Israel as soon as Friday.

People are desperately short of food, water, fuel, medicine and other essentials after Israel launched a blockade of the enclave 10 days ago.

Israel struck back after the Palestinian militant group Hamas killed 1,400 people in an unprecedented incursion from Gaza on 7 October.

At least 3,000 people have been killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes on Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials. More than a million Palestinians have fled their homes within Gaza - about half of the population.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Israel would not prevent supplies going from Egypt to the civilian population in southern Gaza.

More on Israel-Gaza war

However, Israel said it would not allow any aid to pass through its own territory until hostages being held by Hamas were released. Nearly 200 people have been abducted, Israel says.

Mr Biden will give a televised address to the nation from the White House on Thursday at 20:00 EDT (midnight GMT).

In his address, Mr Biden will "discuss our response to Hamas's terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukraine", White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said.

Also on Thursday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is due to visit Israel.

On the US president's high-stakes visit to Tel Aviv, he was warmly greeted by Mr Netanyahu, before the pair hosted a joint news conference.

Mr Biden likened the Hamas raid on Israel to the 9/11 attacks in the US.

"The scale may be different, but I'm sure those horrors have tapped into some kind of primal feeling in Israel, just like it did and felt in the United States," Mr Biden said. "But I caution this: while you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it.

"After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes."

Addressing the explosion at the hospital, Mr Biden told Mr Netanyahu: "Based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you."

Mr Biden was later asked by reporters what led him to conclude that Israel was not responsible, and said: "The data I was shown by my defence department."

A senior American official has told CBS, the BBC's US partner, that Washington has its own intelligence - in addition to Israel's - that includes communications intercepts and satellite photos, which give it "high confidence" Israel was not behind the strike.

The official said there were "indications" that it was an errant rocket fired by a group in Gaza.

Mr Biden had planned to travel from Israel to Jordan to meet King Abdullah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egypt's President Sisi, but that leg of the trip was called off after the hospital blast.

Jordan cancelled the meeting and condemned what it called "a great calamity and a heinous war crime".

The White House said the decision to call off that part of the visit had been "made in a mutual way".
Oct. 19 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrived in Israel on Thursday to start a two-day visit to the Middle East for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.

Speaking at the Tel Aviv airport, Sunak restated Britain's open-ended support for Israel, calling Hamas' Oct. 7 assault, an "unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism."

"Above all, I'm here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you," Sunak said.

"I'm very much looking forward to my meetings later with the prime minister and president and I very much hope they'll be productive meetings."

Ahead of the visit, which was announced only hours before his arrival, Sunak warned that following Tuesday's blast at Gaza's Al Ahli Arab Hospital that killed hundreds of Palestinians, a regional and international effort was required to avoid the Israel-Hamas war spilling over into wider hostilities.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (L) talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) in Jerusalem on Thursday. Photo by Amos ben Gershom/Israel Government Press Office/EPA-EFE

"The attack on Al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict. I will ensure the U.K. is at the forefront of this effort," Sunak said.

Sunak told Parliament on Wednesday that following meetings with his national security adviser and the chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the country's intelligence services were "rapidly analyzing the evidence to independently establish the facts" of the explosion at the hospital that killed at least 500 people.

He also pledged to continue "all efforts" to get humanitarian aid into the region.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the House that people should avoid rushing to judgment on the incident because it would stoke tensions in the Middle East and community divisions in Britain.

Cleverly was back in the region Thursday after visiting Israel last week for high-level meetings in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar to try to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict and the release of British hostages and foreign nationals, the Foreign Office said in a news release.

At least seven Britons were among the 1,400 people slain in the Hamas attack with another 10 missing, believed to be held hostage in Gaza.

The foreign secretary will also attempt to secure safe passage out of Gaza for British nationals trapped in the enclave, which has been sealed off since Oct. 7.

The British diplomatic push comes a day after U.S. President Joe Biden, in the first visit by a U.S. president when Israel was at war, achieved mixed results with a planned regional summit in Jordan sabotaged by Tuesday's hospital bombing but securing agreement to open the Gaza-Egypt border-crossing to allow in trucks carrying humanitarian aid.
(NewsNation)  Police in several states are on the lookout for a California woman who went missing during a cross-country road trip weeks ago.

Chelsea Grimm left her home in San Diego on Sept. 24, headed for a wedding in Connecticut. She was traveling with her pet bearded dragon. Three days into the trip, she met up with a friend in Phoenix, Arizona, and called her parents, Stephen and Janet, to say the drive was taking longer than she thought.

Grimm said she planned to skip the wedding and head back home to San Diego. That was the last time her parents heard from her.

She was spontaneous. She changed plans a lot, said Stephen during Mondays edition of NewsNations Banfield. This wasnt the first time she ever changed a plan, for sure.

Body found during search for missing Indiana teacher in Puerto Rico

The magnitude of this adventure  of driving across the country, was a lot for Chelsea. We gave her a bunch of options, Stephen added.

Grimm was reportedly spotted at a hotel in Seligman, Arizona, after the phone call with her parents. A witness said she seemed disoriented and was trying to use euros instead of U.S. currency.

On Sept. 28, a police officer, responding to a report of a woman acting suspiciously, found Grimm in her car at a cemetery in Williams, Arizona. Grimm told him she was working on a photography project about missing soldiers and had gotten emotional. She told the officer she planned to camp in her car that night.

Two days later on Sept. 30, a woodcutter saw Grimm camping in her SUV near Ashfork, Arizona. He said she seemed OK.

Grimms parents reported her missing on Oct. 4. The next day, hunters found Grimms SUV abandoned in the middle of a dirt road near Ashfork.

Both tires on the right side of the SUV were flat. Her cellphone, wallet, clothing and sleeping bag were not in the car, and her pet bearded dragon was also missing, according to the Coconino County Sheriffs Office.

Grimms mom, Janet, said she thinks the fact that the bearded dragon is also missing is a hopeful sign.

She would never leave an animal in the car. She just wouldnt do it, Janet said.

I also think that the chances of people recognizing Chelsea, or at least connecting the dots. If they see somebody with a bearded dragon, theyre going to take an extra look at that person. Because its unusual to be carrying around a bearded dragon, usually on her shoulder, Janet said.

Janet also pointed out a tattoo on Grimms left arm, a design of a vine with leaves on it.

Singer-songwriter missing since June found: friend

The Coconino County Sheriffs Office is asking anyone with information about the missing woman to contact them at 928-774-4523.

Stephen added that officials in states surrounding Arizona have been notified of Grimms disappearance as well, saying its possible she may have traveled a long distance from where her car was found.

Even if youre several hours away from [Arizona]  and youve seen something that you think might be any kind of tip, we would be forever grateful if thats an important clue, he said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (KFOR)  The Cherokee Nation has begun construction on a new state-of-the-art Head Start facility.

Officials say Leaders of the Cherokee Nation met on Tuesday to break ground on the new 75,000-square-foot facility in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Cherokee Nation leaders breaking ground on new Head Start facility.

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Today we are breaking ground on a building that is much needed and is going to serve the Cherokee Nation well. The men and women who work in our Head Start facilities, and their leader, Verna Thompson, have been providing first-class education and educational leadership in our Head Start program for years, Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said.

According to the Cherokee Nation, the new facility is part of the Verna D. Thompson Early Childhood Education Act, which was signed into law in 2021 by Chief Hoskin and Deputy Chief Bryan Warner. The Act allocates at least $4 million to the replacement or rehabilitation of Cherokee Nation Head Start facilities across the reservation.

It is our responsibility to construct Head Start buildings worthy of the people working in them, and worthy of the little kids who attend these facilities for their education. Investing in the education of our children has always been the Cherokee way, so Deputy Chief Warner and I will soon be going back to the Council of the Cherokee Nation and asking that they help us provide even more funding toward this cause of providing state-of-the-art Head Start facilities around the tribes reservation. added Chief Hoskin.

The two-story site was developed to replace the original Head Start center on property nearby, some of which was damaged by a recent fire. The new center is slated to have 17 classrooms and four motor-skills rooms, two of which will also be storm shelters. The design also includes staff offices, nurses rooms, conference rooms and a training room, officials say.

Rendering of new Head Start facility in Tahlequah.

Its important to invest in early education for our Cherokee children because thats how we invest in the future of our great Nation. The Verna D. Thompson Early Childhood Education Act provides young Cherokees with state-of-the-art facilities so that they can have a state-of-the-art education, Deputy Chief Bryan Warner said.

According to the tribe, more than 900 children are served through the its Head Start programs, which began in 1978. Students are taught cognitive, language, motor and social skills through the programs. Across the country, more than one million children receive services from federal Head Start programs every year.

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As a child of a single mother with four kids in the home, I can attest to the fact that it is a blessing and gift to go to a place for early childhood education, District 2 Councilor Candessa Tehee said.

Aside from the new facility in Tahlequah, work has also started on new Head Start centers in Nowata, Pryor, and in Kenwood as part of the Cherokee Nation Woody Hair Community Center project. The tribe is also planning to develop more facilities in Jay, Cherry Tree and Salina.

We know that our Creator has given each and every one of us a purpose, and that includes our children. So, lets be mindful and lets be prayerful for every single person that has played a hand in raising up these children by providing them with the educational resources and opportunities that they need and deserve. Its the spirit of gadugi, the Cherokee belief in the power of working together, that continues to lay the foundation for future generations of Cherokees to thrive. Deputy Chief Warner added.

The facility is estimated to be finished by 2025.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
In this piece, we will take a look at the 14 largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy. For more largest manganese stocks, head over to 5 Largest Manganese Mining Companies and Best Manganese Stocks To Buy.

Manganese is one of the most important elements on Earth. For years, metals and mining companies have been digging and exploring manganese from the Earth's crust. To date, millions of tons of manganese have been explored, manufactured, and sold globally. The market size of the manganese market was more than $20 billion at the end of 2021. And the sector is anticipated to grow to at least $44 billion by the end of this decade. The reason is that there is a rising demand for steel items in the construction and infrastructure sector. According to the US Geological Survey, steel is made up of manganese.

"Although the amount of manganese used to make a ton of steel is small, it is just as essential as iron to produce this fundamental building block of modern industrial societies," the survey said. The survey also explained that US domestic consumption of manganese is roughly 500,000 metric tons each year. "As much as 90 percent of manganese consumption, both in the United States and globally, is accounted for by the steel industry," the US Geological Survey added.

In terms of production, South Africa is the largest manufacturer of manganese in the world. The African nation accounts for roughly 33.5% of global manganese production. It produces 6.2 million tons of manganese per year, according to NS Energy. The worlds largest manganese firm, South32, has a huge presence in South Africa. South32 is an Australian mining company that was spun out of BHP Billiton in 2015. With a market capitalization of around $15.6 billion, the mining giant trades at the Australian Securities Exchange as well as the London Stock Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

According to data compiled by the Market Research Institute, the North American continent accounted for about $9.53 billion market share of manganese in 2021. The continent is expected to see a significant compound annual growth rate in the future.

Story continues

In Asia, the demand for manganese is growing as China, India, and Japan are the main users of manganese-related products. A lot of investments have been taking place in these countries in Asia because of rapid urbanization. As a result, the demand for manganese is expected to surge in this decade. In the construction sector, the Asian market has a prominent share because a lot of major global firms have developed their headquarters and regional hubs in Asian nations including Hong Kong and Singapore.

In Europe, the manganese demand is anticipated to grow the fastest as major automobile production companies have set up their manufacturing factories in the European continent. According to the Market Research Institute, Germany retained the largest manganese shares followed by the United Kingdom.

In terms of production, Australia is the second largest manganese producer. The country manufactures about 3 million tons of the element annually. It is said that Australia has the 4th largest manganese reserves in the world. The biggest manganese production firm, South32, is headquartered in Perth, Australia.

The Sherwin-Williams Company (NYSE:SHW), Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) and Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC) topped the list of our 14 largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy now as per hedge funds.

A report published on Aug. 30 by Benchmark Source stated that the demand for manganese-led batteries is expected to accelerate by eight-fold this decade.

Chinese cathode companies are also increasing manufacturing of lithium manganese iron phosphate as China accounts for the third largest manganese producer globally with an annual production of about 2.9 million tons of the element. Chinas manganese reserve in its Guizhou province is expected to contain at least 203 million tons of manganese ore, with a total value of over $10 billion. After China, Gabon and Brazil top the list of the five largest producers of manganese.

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14 Largest Manganese Mining Companies and Best Manganese Stocks To Buy

Photo by Dominik Vanyi on Unsplash

Our Methodology

To compile the list of the largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy, we filtered the 50 largest manganese mining companies in terms of market capitalization and then we filtered to the top 14 largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks that had market capitalizations of more than $15 billion. The stocks were ranked based on Insider Monkeys database of 910 hedge funds tracked at the end of Q2. The companies were ranked accordingly, and the top 14 largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy are listed below.

Largest Manganese Mining Companies and Best Manganese Stocks To Buy

14. South32 Limited (ASX:S32)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: N/A

Market Capitalization: $15.9 Billion

One of the largest manufacturers of manganese, Perth, Australia-based South32 Limited (ASX:S32) is a diversified metals and mining operator in Australia, Southern Africa, North America, and South America. With a market capitalization of more than $15 billion, South32 Limited (ASX:S32) is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange as well as in London and Johannesburg. South32 is one of the largest manganese companies in the world.

13. POSCO Holdings Inc. (NYSE:PKX)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 7

Market Capitalization: $28.7 Billion

The South Korea-based POSCO Holdings Inc. (NYSE:PKX) produces and sells rare Earth elements including iron, steel, and manganese. Incorporated in 1968, the firm has a strong share in the manganese market. POSCO Holdings Inc. (NYSE:PKX) posted a 20.12 trillion Korean won consolidated revenue at the end of Q2, which was up 3.8% from the prior quarter. The company is also planning to produce 50,000 tons of high purity nickel under a joint venture with China.

Insider Monkey took a look at 910 hedge funds portfolios for Q2 2023 investments and found out that 7 had a stake in POSCO Holdings Inc. (NYSE:PKX). The largest shareholder was PEAK6 Capital Management which had 40,000 shares of the Korean firm that were valued at $3 million.

12. TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 20

Market Capitalization: $157.3 Billion

TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE) is a France-based oil and energy giant that manufactures and sells fuel, natural gas, and other rare Earth elements globally. Founded 99 years ago, TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE) has a market capitalization of more than $150 billion. At the end of Q2, the firm posted revenue of $51.53 billion and EPS of $3.75 beating analysts' expectation of $2.21 per share.

Insider Monkey took a look at 910 hedge fund portfolios for Q2 2023 investments and found out that 20 had a stake in TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE). The largest shareholder was Alyeska Investment Group which had around 745,000 shares of the company that are valued at $42.9 million.

Along with The Sherwin-Williams Company (NYSE:SHW), Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX), and Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC), TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE) is one of the largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy.

11. BHP Group Limited (NYSE:BHP)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 23

Market Capitalization: $144.8 Billion

Founded in 1851, BHP Group (NYSE:BHP) is one of the oldest mining companies in the world. Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, BHP Group (NYSE:BHP) reported a whopping $13.4 billion underlying attributable profit for fiscal 2023 that ended on June 30. With a market capitalization of $144.8 billion, BHP Group (NYSE:BHP) ranks 11th in our list of largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy. One of the biggest manganese ore suppliers, the firm operates globally through Copper, Iron Ore, and Coal segments.

Out of 910 hedge funds profiled by Insider Monkey, 23 had stakes in the company. The largest shareholder was Citadel Investment Group which owned 1.8 million shares of the firm that were valued at $105.9 million.

10. Southern Copper Corporation (NYSE:SCCO)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 25

Market Capitalization: $58.3 Billion

Southern Copper Corporation (NYSE:SCCO) operates as a mining company across Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile. Founded in 1952, Southern Copper Corporation (NYSE:SCCO) has a market capitalization of $58.3 billion. Its shares are currently trading at $71 on the New York Stock Exchange. Majority of the firm's mineralization corresponds to ore skarns: silicoaluminates of calcium, iron and manganese. Southern Copper Corporation (NYSE:SCCO) ranks 10th in our list of largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy.

9. Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. (NYSE:RS)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 26

Market Capitalization: $15.6 Billion

Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. (NYSE:RS) in an Arizona-based diversified metal solutions provider which has been in the business since 1939. With a market capitalization of $15.6 billion, the firm ranks 9th in our list of largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy. It posted sales of $3.88 billion in the second quarter. Having customers of more than 125,000 with distribution of over 100,000 metal products, the firm operates globally.

Insider Monkey took a look at 910 hedge funds for their Q2 holdings and found that 26 funds had invested in Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. (NYSE:RS). Donald Yacktmans Yacktman Asset Management is the biggest investor among these with 1.2 million shares that are valued at $338.8 million.

8. Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 29

Market Capitalization: $101.7 Billion

London-based Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO) is one of the oldest mining firms globally. With a market capitalization of more than $100 billion, Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO) made a strategic investment of $10 million in Nano One, a clean technology innovator in battery materials. As one of the largest aluminum producers as well, Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO) was founded in 1873.

As of June 2023, 29 hedge funds among the 910 profiled by Insider Monkey had bought the firms shares. Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO)s largest hedge fund investor is Citadel Investment Group since it owns 993,000 shares that are worth $63.4 million.

Along with The Sherwin-Williams Company (NYSE:SHW), Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX), and Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC), Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO) is one of the largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy.

7. Vale S.A. (NYSE:VALE)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 30

Market Capitalization: $56.8 Billion

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil-based Vale S.A. (NYSE:VALE) operates as an international mining firm. Founded in 1942, Vale S.A. (NYSE:VALE) is one of the largest iron and rare Earth metals producers in the world. With a market capitalization of $56.8 billion, Vale S.A. (NYSE:VALE) has iron and manganese ore mines in Brazil. It sold some of its ores last year to J&F Investimentos for about $1.2 billion. Vale S.A. (NYSE:VALE) ranks 7th on our list of largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy. The firm also recently partnered with Manara Minerals Investment Company on accessing strategic geographies.

As of June 2023, 30 hedge funds among the 910 profiled by Insider Monkey had bought Vale S.A. (NYSE:VALE) shares. The companys largest hedge fund investor is Orbis Investment Management since it owns 15.7 million shares of the firm that have a value of about $210.5 million.

6. LyondellBasell Industries N.V. (NYSE:LYB)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 36

Market Capitalization: $30.6 Billion

Ranked 6th in our list of largest manganese mining companies and best manganese stocks to buy, Texas-based LyondellBasell Industries N.V. (NYSE:LYB) was incorporated in 2009 and operates as a chemical company in the United States, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Poland, France, Japan, China, the Netherlands, and internationally. LyondellBasell Industries N.V. (NYSE:LYB) has a market capitalization of over $30 billion and posted a second quarter EPS of $2.44 that was ahead of analysts' expectation of $2.29.

"Through multiple acquisitions, partnerships and other arrangements, we are building a comprehensive business model with powerful competitive advantages that come from new technologies," Chief Executive Peter Vanacker said during the company's Q2 earnings call.

As of June 2023, 36 hedge funds among the 910 profiled by Insider Monkey had bought LyondellBasell Industries N.V. (NYSE:LYB) shares. The largest hedge fund investor is Millennium Management since it owns 1.2 million shares of LyondellBasell Industries N.V. (NYSE:LYB) that are valued at $112 million.

Click to continue reading and see 5 Largest Manganese Mining Companies and Best Manganese Stocks To Buy.

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Disclosure: None. 14 Largest Manganese Mining Companies and Best Manganese Stocks To Buy is originally published on Insider Monkey.
A new cast of queens is drizzling into Canada's Drag Race like a river of glistening maple syrup.

Head judge and RuPaul's Drag Race alum Brooke Lynn Hytes will again return to preside over season 4 of the international spinoff, which welcomes 11 competitors into the fold.

Among the new cast members from all over Canada are a former finalist from Peppermint's Call Me Mother competition series, a reigning Miss Capital Pride pageant winner, a former guest on Brooke's talk series 1 Queen, 5 Queers, Canada's Drag Race season 2 queen Kendall Gender's drag daughter, and a transmasc who embodies a "blend of 2000s bimbo fashion," per an official description.

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' season 4 cast promo looks.

Also returning alongside Brooke are panelists Brad Goreski and Traci Melchor, who will help the Queen of the North judge the nine-episode season that will include another round of Snatch Game, a Rusical, and "new game-changing, competition twists," according to a press release.

Canada's Drag Race season 4 premieres Nov. 16 on the WOW Presents Plus subscription streaming service in the United States  the same day it debuts on Crave in Canada. See the full cast of queens (and their stunning promo looks) below.

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Aimee Yonce Shennel's promo look.

Aimee Yonce Shennel

Age: 31

Pronouns: She/her (in drag), he/him (out of drag)

Official bio: Aimee Yonce Shennel grew up in the Dominican Republic and moved to Canada in 2016. She is currently the reigning Miss Capital Pride and has won other local awards including Drag of the Year, Performance of the Year, and Fan-Favorite Drag Artist. Aimee seeks to share her drag openly because she knows making even one person smile can make a world of difference.

Quote: "I haven't met a person who has watched me, and didn't instantly fall in love with me. It's something natural. I was born with this gift."

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Aurora Matrix's promo look.

Aurora Matrix

Age: 23

Pronouns: She/they (in drag), they/them (out of drag)

Official bio: Aurora Matrix is a well-known performer in the Toronto drag scene, and is booked and busy five nights a week! Aurora has a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from York University. They appeared as a guest on Crave's, Canadian Screen Award-winning original series 1 Queen, 5 Queers.

Quote: "I'm a performer through and through. I personally don't think there's anyone in Toronto who performs like I do! Werk Diva!"

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Denim's promo look.

Denim

Age: 24

Pronouns: She/her (in drag), he/him (out of drag)

Official bio: Denim is a transmasc drag queen known for her effortless blend of 2000s bimbo fashion, and futuristic club kid aesthetic. Denim has performed with King Princess, Charli XCX, Kim Petras, Tinashe, and Caroline Polachek. Last year, Denim discovered she is neurodivergent through an autism diagnosis which has become a point of activism in her drag.

Quote: "Denim is everyone's favorite pocket-sized queen! She is a trans icon, she is a reality TV bimbo star, she is in her own galaxy, she can melt and bend into anything. Some would say it's in her jeans!"

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Kiki Coe's promo look.

Kiki Coe

Age: 35

Pronouns: She/her (in drag), he/him (out of drag)

Official bio: She is an accomplished designer, and her costumes are famously elaborate and truly unforgettable; some have previously been seen on the Canada's Drag Race runway! Kiki also works as a chef and has entered several cooking competitions, including competing on Chopped Canada . Kiki is the youngest of nine siblings.

Quote: "My drag is rich. It's seasoned. It's strong. There could be a whole tsunami and my head piece would stay on."

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Kitten Kaboodle's promo look.

Kitten Kaboodle

Age: 57

Pronouns: She/her (in drag), he/him (out of drag)

Official bio: Kitten Kaboodle was introduced to drag during high school when she snuck into a gay club when she was 15, but it wasn't until 2012 when she learned to sew that Kitten Kaboodle was officially born. Kitten is a campy '70s showgirl who loves a variety show. She is a very popular drag designer who has already made several looks for previous queens who have appeared on the main stage at Canada's Drag Race.

Quote: "I am always about being campy, but polished and elevated. Everything a little bit bigger, a little gayer, and a lot of sparkle."

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Luna DuBois' promo look.

Luna DuBois

Age: 24

Pronouns: She/her (in drag), he/him (out of drag)

Official bio: Luna DuBois is a fashion icon in Toronto with a background in fashion techniques and design, a self-taught makeup artist, and hosted drag masterclasses. Luna uses her voice to represent for the underrepresented, and works with BIPOC performers to help ensure they are treated fairly. Luna proudly represents other queer Nigerians who share her story and find inspiration through her.

Quote: "Luna DuBois is an essence. The DuBois factor. I don't fit in, I stand out and stand out only. It's the full moon experience."

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Melinda Verga's promo look.

Melinda Verga

Age: 44

Pronouns: No preference (in drag), he/him (out of drag)

Official bio: Melinda started performing drag at 37 and nothing has stopped her since. Melinda's titles include Mz. Gay Edmonton 2017 and Edmonton Drag Idol 2018, and she has performed at the top of Whistler Mountain for Jasper Pride. Melinda is passionate about mentoring young queens in the Edmonton drag scene and has produced shows highlighting Filipino and Asian cultures and underrepresented performers.

Quote: "This season I am bringing 44 years of life experiences, lessons, wisdom  oh, and ass!"

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Nearah Nuff's promo look.

Nearah Nuff

Age: 22

Pronouns: She/her (in drag), he/him (out of drag)

Official bio: Nearah Nuff is part of Calgary's infamous drag family, the Nuff family, where she holds the title of Performer with a capital P. Nearah only started doing drag three years ago. She was a competitive dancer for six years, and also holds diplomas in makeup artistry, airbrushing, and is a clinical esthetician.

Quote: "I'm a dancing diva  emphasis on diva! She's anything but a filler queen and the only thing that's bigger than her lips is her ego."

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Sisi Superstar's promo look.

Sisi Superstar

Age: 31

Pronouns: She/her (in drag), he/they (out of drag)

Official bio: Sisi Superstar is Montreal's self-proclaimed underground, hyper-pop grunge queen. She is the co-creator of Montreal's biggest alternative queer event, Unikorn Parties, and is credited by many as a major force for alternative drag in the city. Aside from her drag career, Sisi is a DJ, songwriter, professional event planner, and community organizer.

Quote: "She's spooky, she's sexy, she's Montreal's No. 1 party girl, organizer, socialite, queen of the underground nightlife, professionally messy. She's everything."

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen The Girlfriend Experience's promo look.

The Girlfriend Experience

Age: 31

Pronouns: She/her in drag and out of drag

Official bio: The Girlfriend Experience (a.k.a. Girlfriend) was born in Germany, and grew up between Vancouver with her mother and Germany with her father, and speaks fluent German. Two of the most important things to The Girlfriend Experience is living her authentic self and drag, and she documented her transition journey publicly to help anyone who is considering a similar path. Earlier this year, she began producing an all-trans drag show in Vancouver.

Quote: "I fit in 'cause I'm everybody's friend, but I stand out 'cause I'm prettier than all of them!"

Canada's Drag Race Season 4

World of Wonder 'Canada's Drag Race' queen Venus' promo look.

Venus

Age: 27

Pronouns: She/her in drag, no preference out of drag

Official bio: Venus is a well-known drag legend in Vancouver and is a member of the popular non-binary drag supergroup ENBY6. She is also a member of the Gender drag family with her drag mother, Kendall Gender from season 2 of Canada's Drag Race. Venus is a supermodel in the making. She has walked in New York Fashion Week, and has been selected to perform with Teyana Taylor, Orville Peck, and Charli XCX. As a Red River Metis two-spirit person, Venus' heart lies with her Metis family and ancestors in Manitoba, where she often visits to deepen her relationship with the land and her family's history.

Quote: "Get ready for interplanetary impact for the supernova supermodel, Venus, has finally arrived. Not only is she the hottest in all our solar system, but she also has a big surprise. So, let's have some fun, her outfits are sick, come take a ride on her rocket ship!"

Subscribe to EW's Quick Drag podcast for recaps of RuPaul's Drag Race, including reactions from the cast, special guests, and more.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  A federal judge on Thursday sentenced to prison a former Florida state legislator who catapulted to national attention for being the sponsor of a bill barring classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity that was called by its critics the Dont Say Gay bill.

Former Rep. Joe Harding (R-Williston), who plead guilty in March to one count each of wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements as part of a scheme to fraudulently obtain a $150,000 federal Covid-19 relief loan, was sentenced to four months in prison.

U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump , also sentenced Harding to two years of supervised release following his prison sentence. Court records show that Harding is scheduled to surrender to authorities on Jan. 29.

The theft of any amount of taxpayer funds is inexcusable, said Jason Coody, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Florida, in a statement. However, the defendants deceptive acts of diverting emergency financial assistance from small businesses during the pandemic is simply beyond the pale. Todays sentence both punishes the defendants criminal conduct and should serve as a significant deterrent to others who would selfishly steal from their fellow citizens to unlawfully enrich themselves.

Harding was first elected to the state House in 2020 from a north central Florida seat that includes parts of Marion County. He resigned from the Legislature last December, one day after a federal grand jury indictment against him was unsealed.

In an August sentencing memo to the judge, federal prosecutors said that Hardings contributions to his community were commendable but added that his intentional criminal acts while serving as an elected state representative signify a betrayal of the publics trust. Coody concluded that a variance from sentencing guidelines was warranted because Harding repaid the loan and confessed after he was caught but he argued that some prison time was still needed to act as a deterrence.

Authorities accused Harding of using false bank statements for two dormant small businesses to obtain loans from the Small Business Administration during the pandemic. Harding told the SBA that one of the companies, The Vak Shack, for the 12 months prior to Jan. 31, 2020, had four employees and $420,874 in revenue, while Harding Farms had two employees and $392,000 in revenue, according to authorities.

Ryan Chamberlin, a Republican from Belleview, replaced Harding in the state House after winning a five-way GOP primary and then the special election held in May.

Titled "Parental Rights in Education," the so-called Dont Say Gay bill Harding sponsored was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022. It led to national condemnation from Democrats and LGBTQ supporters and a high profile battle between the governor and the Walt Disney Co., whose CEO at the time criticized the legislation.
President Joe Bidens approach to the ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine is fueling mounting tensions at the U.S. government agency most involved in foreign policy: the State Department.

Officials told HuffPost that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his most senior advisers are overlooking widespread internal frustration. Some department staff said they feel as if Blinken and his team are uninterested in their own experts advice as they focus on supporting Israels expanding operation in Gaza, where the Palestinian militant group Hamas is based.

Theres basically a mutiny brewing within State at all levels, one State Department official said.

Since Hamas Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, fighting in the region has killed more than 4,000 people, and Israel is preparing a ground invasion of Gaza that is expected to claim tens of thousands of additional lives.

Biden and Blinken say they want to help Israel decisively defeat Hamas, but that they do not want to see suffering among ordinary Gazans or a broader regional conflict. Both have recently visited Israel, and Blinken is prioritizing an attempt to open the Gaza-Egypt border to allow humanitarian aid into the besieged region and let some civilians out.

Two officials told HuffPost that diplomats are preparing whats called a dissent cable, a document criticizing American policy that goes to the agencys leaders through a protected internal channel.

Such cables are seen within the State Department as consequential statements of serious disagreement at key historical moments. The dissent channel was established amid deep internal conflict during the Vietnam War, and diplomats have since then used it to warn that the U.S. is making dangerous and self-defeating choices abroad.

The cable would come in the wake of Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official, announcing his resignation on Wednesday. After more than a decade of working on arms deals, he said, he could not morally support the U.S.s moves to supply Israels war effort.

In the last 24 hours, Ive been getting an immense amount of outreach from colleagues... with really encouraging words of support and a lot of people saying they feel the same way and its very difficult for them, said Paul, whose departure was first reported by HuffPost.

Paul described that as surprising: My expectation was that no one would want to touch me with a 10-foot barge pole... because of the sensitivity of anything to do with Israel.

Contacted for comment for this story on Thursday, a State Department representative directed HuffPost to remarks earlier in the day from agency spokesperson Matthew Miller.

One of the strengths of this department is that we do have people with different opinions. We encourage them to make their opinions known, Miller said in those remarks. It, of course, is the president that sets policy, but we encourage everyone, even when they disagree with our policy, to let... their leadership know.

Secretary Blinken has spoken to this on a number of occasions, when hes said that he welcomes people exercising the dissent channel, he went on. He finds it useful to get conflicting voices that may differ from his opinion. He takes it seriously, and it causes him to reflect on his own thinking in terms of policymaking.

Biden and Blinken have publicly spoken of both Israels right to defend itself and their expectation that Israel will abide by all international law, Miller said.

Multiple officials said they have heard colleagues talk about quitting.

Key decisions are made at the highest level by Biden, Blinken and a handful of others. But rank-and-file State Department officials are involved in an array of other important and controversial elements of the American response to the Israeli-Palestinian violence.

On Wednesday, the U.S. mission to the United Nations  a State office  vetoed a U.N. resolution backed by many countries that condemned all violence against civilians, including by Hamas, and endorsed humanitarian aid for Gaza. State will also help administer the additional military aid for Israel and humanitarian assistance for Palestinians that Biden has authorized.

State Department staff are trying to simultaneously conduct delicate diplomacy, respond to calls from Congress to demonstrate huge support for Israel and regard for Palestinian lives, and manage global outrage over the impression that the U.S. is providing cover for excessive Israeli force.

Counterparts in Arab governments are telling State Department officials the U.S. is at risk of losing support in their region for a generation, a U.S. official told HuffPost.

Its unclear whether Blinken  who returned to Washington on Wednesday after a five-day trip across the Middle East, during which he met with officials in seven countries  understands the crisis of morale in his department.

Theres a sense within the workforce that the secretary doesnt see it or doesnt care, a State Department official said, saying that the feeling extends to high-ranking figures at the agency. And its almost certain hes not aware of just how bad the workforce dynamics are. Its really quite bad.

The negativity is surfacing in a variety of ways. One official described peers as depressed and angry about it all, while another said some staff are experiencing resignation. That official recalled a colleague in tears during a meeting over their view that U.S. policy statements emphasized support for Israel over the lives of Palestinians.

Senior State Department officials have privately discouraged the agency from using three specific phrases in public statements, HuffPost revealed last week: de-escalation/ceasefire, end to violence/bloodshed and restoring calm.

In one office, a manager told their team that they know staff with extensive international experience are unhappy with Bidens plan  particularly the sense that the U.S. will do little to ensure Israeli restraint  but they have little chance of changing it, an official present at the meeting said.

Multiple officials said they have heard colleagues talk about quitting as Paul did. One U.S. official described Pauls decision as a shock and a major loss for the department.

The severity of the language in the dissent cable, and the number of State Department officials who sign it, will offer a picture of how alarmed staffers are at Americas response to the situation in Gaza and how broad the disagreement with Bidens policy is  and could determine whether it actually inspires a change in course.

Such cables often attract dozens or even hundreds of signatures, and the dissent channel is seen as a vital way to elevate opposing views without fear of retaliation because States policies bar retaliation against those who use it.

I think it does make a difference to senior leadership, Paul said.

But the process has been under threat this year, as House Republicans have pushed to access a dissent cable prepared amid Bidens withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The efforts to obtain the Afghanistan dissent cable by Congress do make it more difficult to talk about dissent cables in general, and do make some people think twice, Paul said.

Global affairs professionals, particularly those with ties to the Muslim-majority world who worry about being targeted, have long been concerned about being seen as taking a stand on Israel-Palestine.

That anxiety has often affected policymaking, according to Sarah Harrison, a former Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security official now at the nonprofit Crisis Group.

This is an environment that has been cultivated by Democratic and Republican administrations alike, Harrison recently wrote on X. If you work in the federal government and question anything Israel does you are sidelined and silenced.

Staff across the Biden administration have told HuffPost they are experiencing a chilling effect at work. One person said there was a culture of silence around expressing their views on Israel-Palestine, and another said they felt shame at working within the U.S. government at this moment.

Some State Department staffers place particular blame for the bubbling discontent on Blinkens deputy chief of staff for policy.

Tom Sullivan  a powerful figure who is the brother of Bidens top national security adviser, Jake Sullivan  has consistently overruled the idea of greater outreach from the secretary to State Department personnel, one official said.

In high-level meetings, Tom Sullivan usually focuses on asking what Israel wantsor highlighting its needs  upsetting colleagues who feel the priority in crafting a plan for support should be on U.S. interests, a U.S. official told HuffPost.

Staffers do not feel comfortable challenging Sullivan because of his brothers rank, the official continued.

On Thursday evening, Blinken sent out an all-staff message reviewing State Department contributions to his trip. HuffPost obtained the note.

We asked a lot of you. And once again, under tremendous pressure, you delivered, the secretary wrote. I know that, for many of you, this time has not only been challenging professionally, but personally ... You are not alone. We are here for you.

Let us also be sure to sustain and expand the space for debate and dissent that makes our policies and our institution better, the message continued.

Related...
Senior U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman has ordered Marion County to expedite finding community restoration services for defendants who can no longer stay or return to the Oregon State Hospital for psychiatric treatment.

This story was updated at 5:30 p.m. Thursday to include responses from Disability Rights Oregon and the Marion County District Attorney

A federal judge reprimanded the Marion County District Attorney and the County District Court, ordering them to stop using "implausible workarounds" and comply with a previous ruling to place patients who had met stay limits at the Oregon State Hospital into community restoration programs.

Senior U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman's Tuesday order told Marion County to expedite finding community restoration services for those who cannot return to the hospital after being released.

Mosman responded after the state hospital asked him to clarify the meaning of a clause in his Second Amended Order, which states a defendant cannot have "consecutive periods of restoration," unless they are charged with a new crime after they are release from the psychiatric hospital.

Mosman said the county has acted as if their defendants take priority over others.

"So how did we get here  again  with Marion County coming up with implausible workarounds and threatening well-meaning, overworked public health workers with the draconian punishment of contempt," he said in his order.

Disability Rights Oregon, the state advocacy group who initially asked Mosman to take action, said they were shocked by Marion County's response to the judge's order.

"The law is very clear, and it appears that the county doesn't think the law applies to them, and that's concerning," said Emily Cooper, legal director of Disability Rights Oregon.

Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson disagreed, saying the meaning of Mosman's previous order was not clear. The county was trying to do what was best for a defendant from Lane County, she said.

"Nobody is trying to thwart the federal order," Clarkson told the Statesman Journal. "What we are trying to do is work within a system that is completely broken."

Marion County Commissioner Colm Willis, who has previously criticized the Mosman order, said he supports the actions of the county attorney and circuit court.

"Its unfortunate that Judge Mossman was so disrespectful of a Marion County judges attempt to keep our community safe," said Willis.

Friction between Marion County and Judge Mosman

Mosman in September 2022 set strict limits on how long aid and assist patients can stay at the state hospital. The order was intended to help get patients in and out of quicker, he and defense lawyers said, so defendants waiting for admission to the hospital could avoid spending lengthy times in county jails.

Marion County and some other counties appealed the order citing insufficient community resources to treat defendants once they are released.

"What Marion County has been trying to point out from the very beginning of this is that this isn't working," Clarkson said.

Mosman denied the appeal but later amended his order to allow counties to request longer stays for patients needing further treatment before they are able to aid their legal counsel.

If a patient cannot go to the state hospital, they must receive treatment within the community or at a residential treatment facility. Many counties say they have no option but to release the defendants because there aren't enough treatment beds available, and facilities that have beds available don't necessarily have robust treatment options.

Mosman evoked the Supremacy Clause on Marion County in September, ordering them to accept patients released from the state hospital who had reached the stay limits he established.

The day after Mosman's order, Marion County sued the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon State Hospital, saying the state has failed to fund, build and staff enough beds for individuals who need inpatient behavioral health restoration services.

Mosman's orders fix one piece of a very complex system, said Clarkson, adding the county maintains it is the state's responsibility to care for people who are too sick to aid in their own defense.

Clarkson filed a memorandum asking for reconsideration when the state hospital denied admission of the Lane County defendant that had previously been admitted for 14 months on charges there.

Marion County Circuit Court had been holding hearings resulting in orders prohibiting the release of defendants from the state hospitals in Salem and Junction City.

Judge Audrey Broyles responded to Clarkson's memo and ordered the hospital to re-admit the defendant after he was found unable to aid his lawyer in his defense.

Background on the case Judge Mosman cited Tuesday

In July 2020, a Lane County defendant was committed to the state hospital in Salem after being found unable to aid his lawyer in his defense. He escaped the state hospital in August.

In September 2021, he was charged in Lane County for different crimes, and in October was charged in Marion County for the escape. He was first arrested on the Lane County charge, and was recommitted to the state hospital in November.

After his release in January, he was arrested on the Marion County escape charges from 2021 and was ordered to be admitted again to the state hospital.

But under Mosman's order, he was not eligible to be admitted to the hospital again because the crimes of escape from the hospital and assault were not committed after his release, the judge said in his Tuesday order.

Mosman said even though there may not be enough resources to meet everyone's needs, it is important that those available are dispersed equally.

It is unlikely further psychiatric hospital care would make a difference for the defendant in the case and resources would be better used on patients who are still awaiting assessment and hospital care, he said.

Clarkson said she was frustrated with the lack of options available for the defendant, saying: "He has nowhere to be, nowhere to go. He has nothing."

The county, she said, will have to dismiss the case against him.

Mosman said in his ruling: "Many people involved in this system have come together and made significant sacrifices to make it work."

"These are serious-minded people passionate about their client's interests. Yet they have sought the greater good, and it has led to some success. They include representatives from almost every other county in Oregon. It would be nice if Marion County would join them."

Sydney Wyatt covers healthcare inequities in the Mid-Willamette Valley for the Statesman Journal. Send comments, questions, and tips to her at SWyatt@gannett.com, (503) 399-6613, or on Twitter @sydney_elise44

The Statesman Journals coverage of healthcare inequities is funded in part by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, which seeks to strengthen the cultural, social, educational, and spiritual base of the Pacific Northwest through capacity-building investments in the nonprofit sector.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Marion County ordered to follow Oregon State Hospital ruling
Las Cruces will see a familiar name on the mayoral ballot this fall  former Dona Ana County Commissioner Isabella Solis.

Solis, 64, is originally from San Angelo, Texas but moved to Las Cruces in 2006. She worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the time and was involved in recovery efforts following major flooding in Hatch.

She worked part-time at the Mesilla Valley Public Housing Authority before running for Dona Ana County Commissioner for District 4 in 2016.

Mayoral candidate Isabella Solis poses for a photo on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2023, at Dona Ana Government Building.

She ran for Las Cruces mayor in 2019 and lost to incumbent Ken Miyagishima. Several weeks later she changed party affiliations from Democratic to Republican.

In 2020, Solis was one of two county commissioners who voted not to certify the general election. Solis wanted to delay the vote so complaints against the county clerks office could be resolved. The election results were ultimately certified in a 3-2 vote.

Solis held her county seat for four years before surrendering her position to run for New Mexico State Representative in District 37. She lost to incumbent Joanne Ferrary. Solis then threw her hat into the race for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 2020. She was out of the race before the primary election.

Solis noted that Las Cruces is facing a pivotal moment in its history and she wants to be a voice for constituents.

I'm just excited about my race because I served as a county commissioner and I could see that fulfilling all my commitments brought joy to people and I want to be able to do the same thing in my community as mayor, she said.

Here is where Solis stands on several prominent issues.

Why should the people of Las Cruces elect you?

I feel like Ive proven leadership. I have worked with a budget with the county and I think that I have that background, Solis said. I just really feel like things need to change. And, I mean, I can go into the fact that in the last five years crime has not been addressed so we need to change those things.

Do you believe that the City of Las Cruces is doing enough to affect the affordable housing crisis?

She noted that the city currently has an ordinance in place to establish oversight and parameters for affordable housing projects, as well as a $6 million affordable housing bond which may be sold in February.

The challenges are there and I know that there may be a shortage but were doing what we can. I mean, I see the city doing what they can for now, Solis said. I just feel like we need to make housing affordable right now for the young people that graduate college, you know, and they want to become homeowners. We need to try to make it affordable so that they can start out with their families, I mean, and provide good quality of life for our people here.

Solis said the city needs to continue having conversations with developers and contractors in the area so everyone is on the same page.

How do we figure this out? What kind of program do we need to put in place, you know, that would help our families, she said.

What changes, if any, should be made to Las Cruces rules over cannabis and dispensary operations?

They legalized it and it was supposed to bring in just a huge amount of revenue like, you know, Colorado and other places, but Ive not seen the revenue come in, Solis said.

She noted that the industry is still fairly new to the state. However, the was adamant that cannabis remain out of reach of children.

We are still dealing with fentanyl and that is a highly (addictive) drug that is coming across the border and it has not stopped, she said. I would like to be able to establish a drug addiction task force to see how we can work with the drugs that are coming across the border.

Do you believe LCPD needs reform?

I dont think its reform that we need. I think that we need to continue to provide resources for police officers, continue to train them and equip them so they can do their job, Solis said.

She said she does not believe the issue is the department budget, but retention. Solis said she wants to work to hire more officers and keep officers working within Las Cruces Police Department.

What steps would you take to help reduce the rise in certain types of crime in our community?

What I think we need to do is to have more police presence. To me, when you have police presence, crime usually goes down, Solis said. Were dealing with a lot of homeless and mental illness and what have you, so we need to get them some help. But I would say more police presence to be able to address that.

Solis said crime numbers have doubled in the last five years, particularly in Districts 1, 2 and 4.

According to statistics reported by LCPD earlier this year, Las Cruces has seen a decrease in violent crime and a slight decrease in property crime. Auto burglary are the reports that have increased the most by nearly 50% compared to 2022. Statistics divided by city council district have not been reported.

Are there any other issues that you see affecting Las Cruces in the next few years?

I believe that if we dont address the situation with the open border, which is at a national level, were going to continue having crime and what we have now the homelessness, if we dont address it, Solis said.

She said she would like to see more law enforcement and an overall cleanup of the city. She suggested a partnership with the City of El Paso for a united effort to address this issue.

If we dont address crime and if we dont address the public safety issue and our education system, its going to be hard to bring small businesses into Las Cruces, she said. Thats why we want to be able to work on that so in the next four years we can have more of an economic growth.

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: Former county commissioner running again for mayor of Las Cruces
Former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters outside the courtroom for his civil fraud trial at the State Supreme Court building in lower Manhattan, on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times)

Few defenders of Donald Trump promoted election fraud theories after his 2020 defeat as stridently as Sidney Powell . In high-profile appearances, often alongside other members of the Trump legal team, she pushed conspiracies involving Venezuela, Cuba and China, as well as George Soros, Hugo Chavez and the Clintons, while baselessly claiming that voting machines had flipped millions of votes.

But now Powell, who next week will be one of the first defendants to go to trial in the Georgia racketeering case against Trump and 17 of his allies, is claiming through her lawyer that she actually did not represent President Trump or the Trump campaign after the election.

That claim is undercut by Powells own past words, as well as those of Trump  and there is ample video evidence of her taking part in news conferences, including one where Rudy Giuliani, then Trumps personal lawyer, introduced her as one of the senior lawyers representing Trump and his campaign.

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Most of the Georgia charges against Powell relate to her role in a data breach at an elections office in rural Coffee County, Georgia. There, on the day after the Jan. 6 riots, Trump allies copied sensitive and proprietary software used in voting machines throughout the state in a fruitless hunt for ballot fraud.

At a recent court hearing, Powells lawyer, Brian Rafferty, said that his client had nothing to do with Coffee County.

But a number of documents suggest otherwise, including a 392-page file put together by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that was obtained by The New York Times. The file, a product of the agencys investigation into the data breach, has been turned over to Georgias attorney general, Chris Carr, a Republican.

It is not clear that Carr will take any action, given that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has already brought racketeering charges against Powell, Trump and 17 others. The Fulton indictment accuses them of participating in a criminal organization with the goal of subverting Georgias election results.

Jury selection in Powells trial and that of Kenneth Chesebro, a legal architect of the plan to deploy fake electors for Trump in Georgia and other swing states, starts Monday. Powell and Chesebro demanded a speedy trial, their right under Georgia law, while Trump and most other defendants are likely to be tried much later.

Powells vow during a Fox Business Network appearance in 2020 to release the kraken, or a trove of phantom evidence proving that Trump had won, went viral after the election, though the trove never materialized. The next year, after Dominion Voting Systems sued her and a number of others for defamation, Powells lawyers argued that no reasonable person would conclude that some of her wilder statements were truly statements of fact.

That led the office of Brad Raffensperger, Georgias Republican secretary of state, to crow that The Kraken Cracks Under Pressure, and precipitated a spoof of Powell on Saturday Night Live.

Not all are convinced that her conduct veered into criminality.

You have to separate crazy theories from criminal conspiracies, said Harvey Silverglate, a Boston-area lawyer and civil liberties advocate who has a unique perspective: He is representing John Eastman, another lawyer-defendant in the case, and is a co-author of a 2019 book with Powell that looked at prosecutorial overreach.

Thats the big dividing line in this whole prosecution  what is criminal and what is wacky, or clearly erroneous or overreaching, Silverglate said.

Powell, he added, is in a tougher position than his own client, because the accusations against her go beyond the notion that she merely gave legal advice to the Trump campaign as it sought to overturn Bidens win. But Silverglate also said he didnt think prosecutors would win any convictions in the Georgia case or the three other criminal cases against Trump in New York, Florida and Washington, given how politicized the trials will be.

I think in any jurisdiction  even Washington, D.C.  you will have at least one holdout, he said.

Powell is a North Carolina native and a onetime Democrat who spent a decade as a federal prosecutor in Texas and Virginia before establishing her own defense practice.

In 2014, she wrote a book, Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice. She billed it as an expose of a department riddled with prosecutors who used strong-arm, illegal, and unethical tactics in their narcissistic pursuit of power.

Powell appeared on Trumps radar when she represented his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who in 2017 pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with Russias ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition. He later tried to withdraw the plea.

Powell, appearing on Fox News, argued that the case should never have been brought and that the FBI and prosecutors broke all the rules. Trump would go on to pardon Flynn a few weeks after losing the 2020 election.

On election night itself, Powell was at the White House watching the returns come in, according to her testimony to House investigators. When they asked what her relationship with Trump had been, she declined to answer, she said, because of attorney-client privilege.

By Nov. 14, Trump, in a tweet, specifically referred to Powell as a member of his truly great team. Powells lawyer has pointed out that she was not paid by the Trump campaign. But the Trump connection helped her raise millions of dollars for Defending the Republic, her nonprofit group that is dedicated in part to fighting election fraud.

Around that time, Powell, Flynn and other conspiracy-minded Trump supporters began meeting at a South Carolina plantation owned by Lin Wood, a well-known plaintiffs attorney. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation file, it was decided there that an Atlanta-based technology firm, SullivanStrickler, would be used to capture forensic images from voting machines across the nation to support litigation and that Powell funded SullivanStricklers efforts.

By late November, the Trump team grew exasperated with Powells wild claims and publicly cut ties. But the schism was short-lived; she would make several trips to the White House in the weeks that followed.

On Dec. 18, Powell attended a heated Oval Office meeting with Trump and Giuliani that the Georgia indictment lists as an overt act in furtherance of the election interference conspiracy. According to the Georgia indictment, they discussed seizing voting machines as well as possibly naming Powell a special counsel to investigate allegations of voter fraud, though the appointment was never made.

On Jan. 7, a number of Trump allies, along with SullivanStrickler employees, traveled to Coffee County. We scanned every freaking ballot, Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman who made the trip, recalled in a recorded phone conversation at the time. He pleaded guilty to five misdemeanors last month and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Misty Hampton, a defendant in the racketeering case who was the Coffee County elections administrator, welcomed the Trump-aligned team into the building. But the Georgia Bureau of Investigation file makes clear that the county election board did not officially approve the visit and that local officials lacked authority over the voting equipment. (Hampton, Powell and other Fulton County defendants are among the subjects of the state investigation listed in the GBI file, as is Katherine Friess, a lawyer who worked with Giuliani after the election.)

While SullivanStrickler didnt deal exclusively with Powell, a number of the firms employees have asserted that Powell was the client for its work copying the Coffee County election data, according to the GBI investigation.

The defenses stance that Sidney Powell was not aware of the Coffee County breaches is preposterous, said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, a plaintiff in civil litigation over Georgias voting security that unearthed much of what happened in Coffee County.

According to the racketeering indictment, the data copied that day included ballot images, voting equipment software and personal voter information. SullivanStrickler invoiced Powell more than $26,000 for its work, and her organization, Defending the Republic, paid the bill.

Raffensperger, the secretary of state, subsequently replaced Coffee Countys voting machines and said that the unauthorized access to the equipment had violated Georgia law.

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A call by Ethiopias prime minister for his country to regain access to the Red Sea after a 30-year hiatus has sparked fears that the issue could destabilize the Horn of Africa.

Ethiopia lost direct access to the sea in 1993 when Eritrea seceded from it after a war that lasted three decades. Eritreas port at Massawa (pictured) is the largest natural deepwater port on the Red Sea and handles goods coming from neighbors including Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last week called for a discussion about reopening access, arguing that his request was based on historical, geographical, ethnic and economic grounds. He said the lack of access was a potential source of future conflict.

Eritrea called the surprise request excessive, adding that it had perplexed all concerned observers. Somalia, which also rejected Abiys request, said the issue is not open for discussion. There is now fear that such an aggressive demand from Ethiopia might escalate into a regional war.

Know More

Ethiopia has relied on the ports of Djibouti for various imports and exports since it lost control of the strategically important sea in 1993, becoming one of Africas largest landlocked nations.

An aid-dependent nation with an expanding economy, the inability to access the Red Sea and the accumulated cost of using the Djibouti port, along with recurring conflicts, have derailed Ethiopias ambitions to become a middle-income nation by 2025.

Samuels view

This is the first time the Ethiopian prime minister has addressed lawmakers on the issue of the Red Sea without mincing words.

There is a great deal that links and unites the people of the Horn of Africa. There is no reason why  through diplomacy and consensus  its nations could not be united. The European Union has achieved this, even though it has been no easy task, said Martin Plaut, Senior Research Fellow at the University of London.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Peace has recommended practical use of the Red Sea to cater for the countrys expanding population which the federal government estimates exceeds 150 million, though official estimates suggest it stands at 120 million.

Ethiopia suspended bilateral cooperation with Eritrea in 1998 when a land dispute escalated into a full-fledged war that killed thousands and displaced millions of people. The relationship was restored in 2018 by Abiy, which earned him a Nobel Peace Prize.

The prime minister has proposed resumption of bilateral trade between the neighboring countries and extending the benefit of the Ethiopian renaissance dam electrical project with Eritrea and pursuing an open border between the nations.

Both nations fought against the forces of the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) during the two-year war which ended last November. However, with the signing of the peace agreement between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government, the relationship between Asmara and Addis Ababa has been in the downturn.

Room for Disagreement

Abdirashid Hashi, a former Somali government minister turned analyst believes Abiys words were provocative and threaten Somalias interests.

The premier needs to refrain from suggesting he can take neighbors assets. Territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Somalia are a red line and our territory is not up for negotiation, he told Semafor Africa.





The View From NAMIBIA

The African continent is no stranger to disputes over maritime lines. South Africa and Namibia have been in dispute over the Orange River which both claim as their own. There is a call from Namibia for bilateral talks to resolve the issue with South Africa, which it claims as its own based on a treaty signed in 1890.
In this article, we look at the 15 countries that provided the highest military aid to Ukraine. You can skip our detailed analysis on how foreign assistance helped Kyiv turn the tide against Russia, and head over directly to the 5 Countries that Provided the Highest Military Aid to Ukraine.

The United States sends billions of dollars in aid to beneficiaries across the world every year in pursuit of varying interests like economic, security, or humanitarian. During the start of 2022, much of the vast sums were diverted towards Americas global priorities at that time to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, fight climate change, and counter authoritarianism. However, after the Russian invasion in February that year, Ukraine has become the single largest recipient of American aid. According to the Council of Foreign Relations, this is the first time since the administration of Harry S. Truman that a European country has held the top spot.

President Bidens administration has channelled more than $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine, of which an estimated $46.6 billion has been military related. The remaining funding has been directed to address financial and humanitarian needs. The United States has also, time and again, rallied its allies to come to Ukraines help to repulse Russian aggression. The April 2022 meeting at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany was instrumental in this regard. Security officials from more than 40 countries  mainly members of the EU and NATO  attended the gathering at the American military base to pledge and coordinate support for Ukraine.

As a result, Ukraine has received more than $100 billion in military aid, as of September 2023, from 47 countries. A majority of these countries are wealthy democracies, mostly European, with the exception of Japan and South Korea from Asia. However, the contribution from the United States well exceeds that of all other donors, as it accounts for nearly half of all military aid received by Ukraine.

Story continues

Even when it comes to overall aid  financial, military, and humanitarian combined  Ukraine towers well above all other recipients of American aid. The U.S. pledged over $75 billion in all assistance to Ukraine in 2022, compared to $3.3 billion for Israel in 2021, and $1.4 billion for Afghanistan in the same year, which also turned out to be the year when Ashraf Ghanis Kabul administration collapsed to the Taliban.

Historically, several other countries and regions have benefited from American aid over the last century, but none has received as much as Ukraine. The United States spent 0.33% of its GDP on Ukraine in 2022, in contrast to 0.08% of the GDP spent on Taiwan in 1960 and Pakistan in 1962, during the formative years of both countries. 0.15% was incurred in Latin America in 1964, while 0.18% of the GDP was spent on Israel in 1979.

Impact of U.S. Military Assistance on Defense Industry

Americas military support for Ukraine has helped turn the tide in the conflict. A key weapon used to repulse Russian advances has been the HIMARS missiles made by Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT). These have allowed the Ukrainian military to strike Russias command posts and ammunition depots with precision. The Biden administration awarded a contract worth $631 million to Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) last year to manufacture new HIMARS for Kyiv. Earlier this year, the American government also announced plans to send a fleet of M1 Abrams tanks developed by General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE:GD) for a deal worth $400 million.

RTX Corporation (NYSE:RTX) is also working on a $1.2 billion contract awarded by the U.S. military to develop six NASAMS batteries for Ukraine. RTX Corporation (NYSE:RTX) is one of the largest defense contractors in the world, and won 6.1% of all defense-related contracts of the U.S. government in 2022.

Russias war in Ukraine has also forced several European countries to take measures to strengthen their own defense. Many of them are placing orders with American armament manufacturers to procure the required equipment. Germany, for instance, entered into a 10 billion dollar deal with Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) to purchase F-35 stealth fighter jets, missiles, and other weapons in December, 2022.

The Americans, on the other hand, are also providing support to their allies in the European Union to ward off the threat emanating from Moscow. In August last year, General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE:GD) received a $1.15 billion order from the U.S. government to deliver 250 M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams battle tanks to Poland. Several other European countries are also receiving similar military assistance from the United States.

All of these factors have meant a boom for the defense industry in the U.S. Four of the top five defense contractors in the world today are America-based: Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT), RTX Corporation (NYSE:RTX), The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA), and General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE:GD). You can read more on this in our article, Top 16 Defense Contractors in the World in 2023.

Methodology

We have ranked the 15 countries that provided the highest military aid to Ukraine using aid figures released by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research institute. The time period considered for our list is between January 2022 and July 2023. Countries are ranked in ascending order of military aid they have committed for Ukraine. We have also shed light on the financial and humanitarian contributions assistance made by allies of Ukraine to help defend itself against Russia.

15 Countries that Provided the Highest Military Aid to Ukraine

|Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Lets now head over to the list of the countries that provided the highest military aid to Ukraine.

15 countries that provided the highest military aid to Ukraine:

15. France

Military Aid to Ukraine: $0.59 billion

The French government has committed an estimated $1.87 billion in total aid to Ukraine, of which, some 30% has been directed towards military assistance as of July 2023. During Zelenskyys visit to Paris this year in May, the French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to give Ukraine more tanks and armored fighting vehicles.

14. Italy

Military Aid to Ukraine: $0.73 billion

The Italian government contributed 0.07% of its GDP on financial, military, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine in 2023. Italys major military delivery to Ukraine has been providing air defense systems which have proven successful in repulsing Russian attacks.

13. Slovakia

Military Aid to Ukraine: $0.74 billion

Slovakia, despite being a small nation state in terms of population, is among the biggest military donors to Ukraine, by contributing more than 0.6% of its GDP on military assistance to the country. This month in October, however, military aid to Ukraine was halted after parties that oppose such support won the elections.

12. Lithuania

Military Aid to Ukraine: $0.79 billion

Lithuania was the second highest aid provider to Ukraine in terms of aid given as a percentage of the GDP (1.36%) between January 2022 and July 2023. The government announced further military assistance for Ukraine in August this year, worth 41 million euros. The package includes rifles, cartridges, generators, and anti-drones support.

11. Czech Republic

Military Aid to Ukraine: $1.18 billion

The Czech Republic is among the countries that provided the highest military aid to Ukraine, with $1.58 billion pledged to humanitarian (25%) and military (75%) support. The country has so far sent 55 armored vehicles, 38 tanks, 13 howitzers, and 4 aircrafts to Ukraine in military assistance.

10. Finland

Military Aid to Ukraine: $1.35 billion

Finland has used many ways to assist Ukraine in its war against Russia. In addition to the $1.35 billion provided in military assistance, another $550 million has been given in humanitarian aid as well to Kyiv. The country spent a little over 0.5% of its GDP on Ukraine between January 2022 and July 2023 according to the Kiel Institute.

9. Sweden

Military Aid to Ukraine: $1.63 billion

Sweden has provided Ukraine with Archer howitzers, anti-tank weapons, and more than 50 infantry fighting vehicles which have provided a significant boost to the Ukrainian army in its fight against the Russians. The country has so far pledged 0.41% of its GDP in bilateral aid to Ukraine.

8. Canada

Military Aid to Ukraine: $1.84 billion

According to the Kiel Institute, the Canadian government has provided more than $6 billion in all aid to Ukraine, of which 63% has been financial assistance, 30% in military aid, while 7% has been directed towards humanitarian relief in the country. Canada's military donations to Ukraine has included air defense missiles, NASAMS (sourced from the US), battle tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, aircraft bombs, and numerous smaller ammunition.

7. Netherlands

Military Aid to Ukraine: $2.74 billion

The Netherlands is one of the countries that provided the highest military aid to Ukraine, spending 0.45% of its GDP on all bilateral aid to the country. In August this year, the Netherlands, in collaboration with Denmark, announced to donate 61 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. The Dutch government is also working with Denmark and the U.S. to spearhead a strong Ukrainian air force.

6. Poland

Military Aid to Ukraine: $3.32 billion

Poland has been one of the largest donors to Ukraine since the war began in February 2022. However, the country recently announced to stop transferring any weapons to Kyiv due a diplomatic row that emerged after Ukraine banned grain imports from Poland in an effort to protect local farmers.

Click to continue reading and see the 5 Countries that Provided the Highest Military Aid to Ukraine.

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Disclosure: None. 15 Countries that Provided the Highest Military Aid to Ukraine is originally published on Insider Monkey.
A Georgia sheriffs office released videos Wednesday showing a man recently exonerated over an armed robbery being shot dead by a deputy during a traffic stop. The footage posted online by Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor shows one of his deputies pulling over Leonard Curetwo months after the state of Florida apologized for imprisoning Cure for 16 years for a crime he didnt commit. The footage shows the deputy telling Cure, 53, to get out of the car and put his hands on the rear of Cures truck. I aint doing shit, Cure says. After complying, the deputy tells Cure he pulled him over because you passed me doing 100 miles per hour. Cure then ignores commands to keep his hands on the truck, prompting the deputy to fire his taser. The pair then get into a physical altercation, with Cure pushing the deputys face to force his head backward, saying: Yeah, bitch. A shot then rings out.

Read it at Associated Press

Read more at The Daily Beast.
Almost two decades after Natalee Holloway vanished in Aruba, the man long suspected in her death has confessed to killing the Alabama teen in grisly detail, court documents reveal.

But it remains unclear whether Joran van der Sloot, 36, will ever serve time for bludgeoning Holloway to death on the Caribbean island. While Arubas statute of limitations for homicide may have passed, the public prosecutors office there has not closed the door on possible legal action.

Van der Sloots confession was publicized shortly after he pleaded guilty in an Alabama federal court Wednesday to extorting and defrauding Holloways family.

He was accused of trying to sell information about the location of Holloways remains to her mother, Beth Holloway , in exchange for $250,000.

The plea deal appeared to benefit both van der Sloot and the Holloway family. Van der Sloot was sentenced to 20 years for the financial crimes, which will run simultaneously with his ongoing prison sentence in Peru  where he was convicted of killing another woman and trafficking cocaine.

And while the US does not have jurisdiction over Holloways homicide case in Aruba, her parents now have certainty as to who killed their daughter.

Its over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughters murder. He is the killer, Beth Holloway said Wednesday.

After 18 years, Natalees case is solved, she said. He gave a proffer in which he finally confessed to killing Natalee.

In a proffer, a defendant offers information they know about a crime, often as part of a plea deal.

Van der Sloot admitted to killing the teen with a cinder block on an Aruban beach after she rejected his sexual advances, according to a transcript of an interview with his attorney.

Van der Sloot said Holloway kneed him in the crotch after he tried feeling her up, and he responded by kicking her in the face and bludgeoning her with the cinder block.

He then decided to push her off into the ocean, according to the interview transcript.

Holloways body has never been found. In 2012, a judge signed an order declaring her legally dead.

Five years after Holloways death, van der Sloot killed a Peruvian woman, 21-year-old Stephany Flores, in 2010.

Van der Sloot has admitted to killing Flores and was sentenced to 28 years in prison for her death.

The young womens deaths prompted US federal Judge Anna Manasco to sentence van der Sloot to 20 years for the extortion and wire fraud charges.

I have considered your confession to the brutal murder of Natalee Holloway, Manasco said Wednesday.

You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents years apart, two beautiful women who refused your sexual advances.

Holloways homicide investigation isnt over

Van der Sloot was arrested multiple times in connection with Holloways death between 2005 and 2007. But he was released by Aruban authorities, who cited a lack of direct evidence.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for the Aruba Public Prosecutors Office did not rule out the possibility that van der Sloot could face new legal action in Aruba after he confessed to killing Holloway.

The Public Prosecutors Office will reiterate once more that the Holloway case remains an open investigation in Aruba, spokesperson Ann Angela told CNN in an email.

In light of van der Sloots confession, Aruban authorities have requested the U.S. Department of Justice for official court documents and transcripts and all documents related to the investigation, which we will review before deciding on the procedural steps to be taken.

In Aruba, the statute of limitations for homicide has been 12 years. When asked whether or why the statute of limitations might not apply to van der Sloot, the spokesperson said the question cannot be answered unequivocally.

It depends on several factors within the investigation, Angela said Thursday. Bear in mind also that we dont know yet what is in the official court documents and documents related to the investigation. Therefore there is no simple yes or no at this moment.

But Van der Sloot is scheduled to spend the next two decades behind bars in Peru.

In addition to his 28-year prison sentence for murdering Flores, van der Sloot was also convicted in 2021 of trafficking cocaine into his Peruvian prison. He was sentenced to an additional 18 years in Peru, according to a sentencing memorandum.

Because Peruvian law prohibits prison sentences from exceeding a total of 35 years (unless given a life sentence), the Defendant is currently scheduled for release from prison in Peru on or about June 10, 2045 (35 years after his original arrest in Peru), the court document states.

But Peruvian officials allowed his temporary release to the US in June to face the extortion and wire fraud charges.

Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot is driven from a Peruvian prison to be extradited to the US on June 8. - Martin Mejia/AP

Van der Sloot was expected to return to Peru to finish his murder sentence in the Flores case before returning to the US to serve time for the federal charges.

But Wednesdays plea agreement says his 20-year US federal sentence will be served concurrently with his sentence in Peru. In other words, it appears unlikely van der Sloot will return to the US to serve prison time.

18 years of mystery and misery

Holloway was visiting Aruba on a high school graduation trip when she vanished in 2005.

Natalee Holloway - Natalee Holloway Family

The 18-year-old was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two other men, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.

The three men were arrested in 2005 but were released due to insufficient evidence.

They were rearrested and charged in 2007 for involvement in the voluntary manslaughter of Natalee Holloway or causing serious bodily harm to Natalee Holloway, resulting in her death, Aruban prosecutors said at the time.

But a few weeks later, an Aruban judge ordered van der Sloots release, citing a lack of direct evidence that Holloway died from a violent crime or that van der Sloot was involved in such a crime. The Kalpoe brothers were also released.

Why van der Sloot was charged in the US

While US officials dont have jurisdiction over the criminal investigation in Aruba, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted van der Sloot for an alleged plot to sell information about Holloways remains to her family.

According to the indictment, van der Sloots scheme took place between March and May 2010.

He was indicted in June 2010 on charges of extortion and wire fraud.

In the weeks between his extortion and indictment, van der Sloot killed Flores on May 30, 2010, in his hotel room in Peru.

CNNs Julian Cummings, Jean Casarez, Kara Nelson and Michelle Watson contributed to this report.

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President Ruto has taken a series of controversial measures since he took office last year

Kenya's President William Ruto has approved controversial legislation that will see the biggest shake-up of the health sector in more than 20 years.

His plan revolves around promoting universal healthcare, and requires all workers to contribute 2.75% of their salaries towards a new health fund.

The government says it will make healthcare more affordable and accessible for poorer Kenyans.

But it has proved unpopular with many Kenyans, who see it as a new tax.

They say it is the latest in a series of measures that Mr Ruto has introduced, worsening the cost-of-living crisis, despite the fact that he won elections last year with a promise to ease the financial difficulties of families.

Some also fear that the new healthcare fund will be beset by corruption, like the existing one, meaning they are often unable to access the health services they are entitled to.

But parliament has backed Mr Ruto, passing the Social Health Insurance Bill, along with three other health bills, on Tuesday.

Currently, Kenyans pay between 150 Kenyan shillings ($1; 0.80) and 1,700 shillings monthly to a National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).

It will be replaced with a new fund, with the minimum contribution set to double and most salaried workers contributing a higher proportion of their pay.

With the new law, every Kenyan must register as a member of the Social Health Insurance Fund that replaces NHIF.

Mr Ruto says the universal health insurance will ensure that every Kenyan can go to the hospital and receive treatment without facing financial hardship.

The new laws, however, do not address what happens when individuals cannot afford contributions.

Kenya's Health Minister Susan Nakhumicha has said that the new plan is better as it "will allow Kenyans of all walks of life to contribute according to their income".

She said lower earners currently pay a higher percentage of their income than the better off.

Employers, who are required to match their employees' contributions, have opposed the 2.75% deduction as too high.

They say that it will hurt businesses and aggravate the cost-of-living crisis, which fuelled a wave of protests across Kenya earlier this year.

In June, Mr Ruto signed the Finance Act, another unpopular piece of legislation that introduced a 1.5% housing levy payable by both employers and employees, to help the government to provide affordable housing at a time when prices are so high that many urban Kenyans cannot afford to buy homes.

Some health and civil society organisations have also spoken out against the health plan, saying that the 2.75% deduction is substantial, considering the recent rise in fuel prices and living costs.

"This rate takes a lot more from distressed salaried citizens, whose incomes support large households of family and services," the Kenya Faith Based Health Services Consortium said in September.

Kenyans will be required to register to the proposed National Social Health Insurance Fund to access public health services and those who fail to enrol would be denied services.

The government will help Kenyans who cannot contribute towards the fund through a kitty of 26 billion shillings.

The new fund will replace the current NHIF, which has lost billions of taxpayer-contributed funds to corruption, denying many paying Kenyans access to healthcare.

Some Kenyans fear that the new fund will have more money, and there will be more corruption, while they will still be denied healthcare by the state.

Critics also fear that the new social healthcare body will spend most of the collected funds on administrative expenses like the current NHIF, leaving few resources for direct healthcare costs.

Additional reporting by Dorcas Wangira
The man who was shot by an officer from the Paris Police Department over the weekend tried to run over officers with his vehicle before he was shot, police allege in an arrest citation that was filed into court records.

The shooting happened Sunday evening on North Middletown Road in Bourbon County, Kentucky State Police previously said. While KSP did not confirm the suspects identity, court documents say the mans name is Dante A Ybarbo, 24, of Lexington.

Earlier in the evening police received a report of Ybarbo driving towards E. Main Street without lights at a high rate of speed, according to court documents. Ybarbo was driving a 1994 Ford F-150 pickup truck.

Officers were able to pull Ybarbo over. Court documents say he had an odor of alcohol, slurred speech and bloodshot eyes during the traffic stop.

Ybarbo refused to answer officers questions or exit his vehicle when asked to do so, according to court documents. When officers tried to take him out of the vehicle he stepped on the gas pedal and sped off, dragging an officer forward for an unknown distance in the process.

During the pursuit Ybarbo would slam on his brake in an attempt to cause the pursuing officers to wreck, court documents allege. He also hurled beer cans at the officers.

Officers eventually surrounded Ybarbo when he slowed down in a driveway, according to court documents. He responded by accelerating rapidly in reverse towards an officer who was taking cover behind a cruiser. That officer fired at least one shot at Ybarbos back windshield.

Ybarbo then sped forward towards another officer taking cover behind a cruiser. Court documents say that officer fired towards Ybarbos front windshield, striking him and ending the incident.

Ybarbo resisted arrest after he was shot, according to court documents. He was transported to Bourbon County Hospital and eventually flown to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital for treatment of his injuries.

KSP previously said Ybarbos injuries were non-life-threatening.

Ybarbo faces four counts of first-degree wanton endangerment of a police officer, two counts of first-degree assault of a police officer, two counts of first-degree criminal mischief, two counts of second-degree criminal mischief, first-degree evading police, DUI, resisting arrest and reckless driving. He was being held at the Bourbon County Detention Center on a $250,000 bond Thursday, according to jail records.

Two Bourbon County Sheriffs Offices cruisers were damaged during the incident, court documents say. Two officers uniforms were contaminated with blood.

State police are investigating the shooting, which is routine with shootings involving law enforcement agencies.
The monumental, square tomb complex of queen Meret-Neith in Abydos, Egypt.

New excavations of the ancient Egyptian queen Meret-Neith's tomb have yielded riches, suggesting she may have been Egypt's first female ruler, archaeologists say. However, some experts question whether she actually reigned.

Although Meret-Neith's tomb was discovered in 1900, recent excavations reveal that the queen's monumental grave was piled with hundreds of jars containing 5,000-year-old grape seeds  essentially, the well-preserved remnants of wine  and other grave goods fit for a royal, according to a statement . Inscriptions discovered inside the tomb, located in Abydos, in central Egypt, also indicate Meret-Neith held an important role in the treasury and served in other governmental positions around 3000 B.C.

"It most certainly is a tremendously important tomb," Ronald Leprohon , a professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Toronto who did not participate in the recent excavations, told Live Science in an email.

Meret-Neith, whose name means "beloved of the goddess Neith," was the wife of King Djet  the third king of the first dynasty of ancient Egyptian rulers , according to Leprohon  and the mother of his heir, King Den. Her tomb complex includes the graves of 41 courtiers and servants and was made with mud bricks, clay and wood over several construction phases. An earlier finding showed that the queen's name features after her son's on an inscribed list of rulers discovered in his tomb at Saqqara, followed by the title "king's mother," which suggests she ruled as regent during Den's youth, Leprohon said.

Related: What did Cleopatra, Egypt's last pharaoh, really look like?

Her regency could explain why she was buried with such pomp in the royal cemetery at Abydos, Leprohon said. "The very fact of having added her name to the list of kings shows that something highly important had to have happened with Meret-Neith," he said.

Excellently preserved grape seeds found in wine jars in the tomb of Queen Meret-Neith in Abydos.

But exactly what occurred remains a mystery, said Christiana Kohler , an archaeologist and professor of Egyptology at the University of Vienna in Austria who led the excavations at Abydos. "There is indeed a lot of debate going on among Egyptologists as the evidence is not entirely conclusive," Kohler told Live Science in an email.

Some experts believe Meret-Neith held the same powers as those granted to male kings, based on the previously discovered list of rulers and other clues. "No other queen in the early dynastic period possessed so many royal privileges," Jean-Pierre Patznick , an Egyptologist at Sorbonne University in France who was not involved in the recent excavation, wrote in the "Proceedings of the Seventh European Conference of Egyptologists" (Archaeopress Publishing, 2017). "Meret-Neith became the very first woman pharaoh of history."

Others are not so sure, arguing that women rarely reigned in ancient Egypt , especially this early on.

Ancient wine jars in the tomb of Queen Meret-Neith in Abydos during the excavation.

"Wives and daughters were not typically considered in terms of royal successions," Margaret Maitland , principal curator of ancient Mediterranean collections at National Museums Scotland, told Live Science in an email. Nevertheless, the new evidence suggests Meret-Neith had "an unusually high level of authority for a royal woman," Maitland said.

Elizabeth Carney , a professor emerita of history at Clemson University in South Carolina, agreed. "It really would be striking if you had a female king as early as the first dynasty," she told Live Science in an email.

Even if Meret-Neith did rule over Egypt 5,000 years ago, she probably wasn't considered a "pharaoh," Leprohon said. The term  meaning "great house" in ancient Egyptian  likely only came into use much later and referred to monarchs from the 18th dynasty (circa 1550 to 1295 B.C.) onward, he said.

Excavations in the tomb complex of Queen Meret-Neith in Abydos.

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"A clever suggestion from one of our colleagues is that Hatshepsut first used the term Great House to refer to the monarch because it was gender-neutral," Leprohon said. Referring to ancient Egyptian rulers that preceded Hatshepsut as "pharaohs" may therefore be anachronistic, he added.

Questions about the ancient queen's status and influence are "at the core of our ongoing research project that deals with the tomb of queen Meret-Neith at Abydos," Kohler said. "I'm almost sure that once we have completed the excavation of this huge complex, we will know more."
GLOUCESTER COURTHOUSE, Va. (WAVY)  Leaders in Gloucester County, Virginia, say meetings can sometimes get a little heated, but not like this. Video shows the county attorney being choked by a resident at an Oct. 4 town hall meeting.

This town hall meeting was for all the citizens that wanted to come out and voice their opinions, and thats just not what happened, Chris Hutson, chairman of the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors, said. It just escalated.

Deputies were called to the meeting at Page Middle School around 8:40 p.m.

Through a Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Nexstars WAVY obtained cell phone video that shows Gloucester County resident Lawrence Cohen choking Gloucester County Attorney Edwin N. Ted Wilmot.

With one hand around Wilmots throat and the other still holding onto the microphone, you can hear Cohen say, Youve had enough. Let go of me. You are attacking me. Another person intervenes and breaks it up.

It began when Cohen got his turn to speak at the meeting, asking for the finance director. He then began to ask several questions related to money.

Ms. Steele, Im trying to get a question out, Cohen said.

Mr. Cohen, Mr. Cohen, you need to stop bullying the staff, you may ask a question, one question, and thats it, Wilmot said to him.

Cohen continued to speak. A couple people approached him in attempt to take away the microphone. The county video obtained by WAVY shows that Wilmot then tried to get the microphone, thats when the choking incident happened.

Cohen was charged with assault and battery.

Citizens and social media and all kinds of other things that play into that have provided additional information outside what we have said, said County Administrator Carol Steele. And I think some of the information that has been out is not been accurate.

Steele said these meetings are for residents to be able to ask questions about the projects, where their tax dollars are going, and get the correct information out there.

I mean, it was completely unexpected, Hutson said. We had citizens there talking and asking questions and it just escalated out of control.

Steele and Hutson say following the outburst, the board has had conversations about adding more security at meetings.

It just felt like this is a town hall, but I think times have changed and we should have security at any of those meetings just as an extra precaution, Steele said. We still want to have town halls, we still want people to come out and whether they disagree or agree, we want people to voice their opinions. It just has to be done civilly.

WAVY asked Cohen if he wanted to share his side of what happened that night, but he didnt respond. Cohens next court appearance is set for Wednesday.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
SAN DIEGO  A prolific firearms trafficker was sentenced in a San Diego federal court Wednesday for his role in supplying high-powered weapons and ammunition to the Sinaloa Cartel.

According to U.S. attorney Tara McGraths office, Alfredo Lomas Navarrete was handed a 15-year prison stay after he pled guilty in April to conspiring to import cocaine, distribute cocaine, commit money laundering, and smuggle goods from the U.S.

The sentencing of Mr. Navarrete is a major milestone in federal law enforcements efforts to disrupt and dismantle illegal trafficking operations of all kinds, said Special Agent in Charge Stacey Moy of the FBI San Diego Field Office. We are proud to support our law enforcement partners in all efforts that target and take down crime organizations that threaten the citizens of the United States of America.

Unlike Texas, no large-scale truck inspections at California ports of entry

His sentencing is part of a long-running investigation targeting the Valenzuela Transnational Criminal Organization (TCO), which is one of the largest importers of cocaine and other controlled substances from South America and Mexico, the attorneys office explained.

According to court documents, the Valenzuela TCO was engaged in violent conflict with another component of the Sinaloa Cartel throughout 2020. A previous TCO leader ended up being killed, which led Valenzuela TCO to acquire large quantities of firearms and ammunition.

The attorneys office said a number of these items were sourced from within the U.S. and smuggled into Mexico through arms trafficking networks, which prompted this investigation. Agents determined Lomas Navarrete was a major firearms trafficker for the TCO.

Texas A&M, faith-based nonprofit to study water contamination in border colonias

The Venezuelan transnational criminal organization has brought death and suffering to countless people through their once prosperous criminal enterprise, said Special Agent in Charge Chad Plantz of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) San Diego. The sentencing of this firearms trafficker sends a resounding message to traffickers and criminals around the world that HSI and the law enforcement community will vehemently pursue those who seek to harm not only Americans, but humanity as a whole with their brutality and deadly drugs.

This investigation has resulted in the charging of 109 defendants and the seizure of around 2,000 kilograms of cocaine and fentanyl, over $16 million in cash, and 21,000 rounds of ammunition, officials confirmed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
Joe Martinez, a long-time Miami-Dade County commissioner who was considering a run for sheriff before his suspension from office last year on public corruption charges, will stand trial the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

The date was agreed on during a brief status hearing Thursday before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Lody Jean.

Martinez, his attorney Ben Kuehne and prosecuting Assistant State Attorney Tim VanderGiesen attended the hearing on Zoom. Martinez briefly showed his face before turning off the video, then listened to the remainder of the hearing.

Martinez, who spent 17 years as a Miami-Dade police officer before winning the first of his five commission races in 2000, is accused of accepting $15,000 from a shopkeeper in exchange for sponsoring a law that would have benefited the owner of a shopping plaza and a tenant in his West Miami-Dade district.

The legislation never passed and was never considered by commissioners. Floridas unlawful compensation law, however, says prosecutors dont need to show that the public officials exercise of influence for illegal pay was actually accomplished, only that it was attempted.

Martinez, 65, was charged with unlawful compensation and conspiracy to commit unlawful compensation.

After his August, 2022 arrest, Martinez called the allegations false, said they arose when he was out of office between 2012 and 2016 and while he worked as a consultant. He also called the case politically motivated. Martinez, a Republican whose term would have ended in 2024, was suspended by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sept. 20. The governor appointed attorney Roberto Gonzalez to replace him.

Prosecutors contend that two weeks after winning his 2016 election, Martinez was paid $5,000 by the owner of a Southwest Eighth Street supermarket that had been repeatedly fined by code enforcement for using six cargo containers to store inventory. Thats more containers than county code permits.

The state says Martinez received another check for the same amount the next month. It also contends that when the owner of the supermarket emailed Martinez to complain about the fines, Martinez texted him back, saying rest assured we are working on it.

The following March, an aide for Martinez initiated legislation that would have increased the number of cargo containers permitted on specific properties. Eight days later, prosecutors say, Martinez received yet another check for $5,000 from the same shopkeeper.

VanderGiesen told Judge Jean he expects the trial to last two to three weeks.
C-Jay Martin has had significant physical and cognitive challenges his entire life, but has generally gone about his days happily.

In recent years, though, his mother noticed that he began to have anxiety and depression, and it was severe.

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Amy Martin researched ways to help her son, who is 25, and decided that based on his abilities, she wanted to get him an emotional support animal. Further research earlier this year pointed her in one direction: a flock of chickens.

They can be social, friendly, cuddly and they're generally low maintenance, she said. She read about how chickens - which became popular emotional support animals during the pandemic - can make excellent therapy pets, as they can be calming, and they bond easily with humans. The problem, she learned, is that Bangor, Maine - where they live - doesn't allow backyard chickens.

The more she researched, the more she thought they would be good for her son, ideally providing him with a sense of purpose and companionship, she said, and their "chicken chatter" could be comforting background noise for her son, who has anophthalmia, and was born without eyes.

C-Jay is missing one-third of his brain and half of his right lung, and his heart is on the right side of his body rather than the left. He also has autism, epilepsy and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. C-Jay is a social person, his mother said, and pandemic-induced isolation took a toll on his mental health.

"He wasn't talking to people. He was just depressed and full of anxiety," Amy said.

Being around animals like chickens, she thought, could help him heal.

"He just loves animals, and he is unbelievable with them," she said.

C-Jay said he has a soft spot for all creatures, no matter how big or small.

"I don't have a favorite," he said.

Amy also learned that chickens are generally gentle, and given their small size, they would not pose a danger to her son - which was an important factor.

"Some are really cuddly," Amy said.

Her yard - which is just over a third of an acre - is well suited to having chickens, and she planned to build a coop for them.

She consulted with her son's doctor, who agreed that chickens would be a good fit for him. The doctor wrote C-Jay an emotional support animal prescription - which his mother thought would be helpful because of the city ordinance against residents keeping fowl.

The process to be granted an exception to the law was more challenging and complicated than Amy had anticipated. She first contacted city officials in the Department of Housing and Urban Development in February to ask for a reasonable accommodation to the rule - meaning she would be given an exemption and allowed to keep chickens. But she wasn't given clear answers, she said, and after several attempts to get help with the process, city officials told her to submit an application to the Bangor Board of Appeals.

"I wasn't looking to file an appeal," she said, explaining that she thought she should have been granted the reasonable accommodation, and knew an appeal would be a lengthy process. "We're not getting chickens so we can sell eggs. This is to accommodate a disability, so the process should be different."

Based on what she read on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website, she thought she could get the chickens, and then file an appeal to keep them after the fact. So, once she asked her neighbors whether they would be okay with it, and let them know she had started the appeals process, that's what she did.

In April, she got six chickens, which she found through a Facebook group called "Maine Backyard Chickens."

Amy said she immediately saw her son's mood lift, in particular when he would snuggle with them and give them seeds to snack on. He thrived on the routine of looking after them, she said.

He named them Stella, Salty, Popcorn, Cheeks, and Pepper. He is still deciding the sixth chicken's name.

"He fell in love with them," Amy said, adding that her son volunteers in the Bangor community, including at a local church, a food bank and Ronald McDonald House. "He has more of a reason to go outside. He gets very excited."

The chickens also get along well with Amy's cat, Spoofy, and rescue dog, Marley.

"[Marley] protects them like she's a chicken guard dog," Amy said.

Hoping to avoid submitting an application to the board of appeals, Amy decided to file a complaint against the city with the Maine Human Rights Commission in April, claiming Bangor was discriminating against her son by not giving him an exemption to the no-chicken rule. Following an investigation, the Maine Human Rights Commission found no evidence of discrimination.

Amy was frustrated. She decided to file a request with the Bangor Board of Appeals in August and was given a hearing date of Oct. 5.

Several people showed up to the hearing to advocate for the Martins and their chickens, including Imke Jandreau, who lives a block away.

"How on Earth did we put this family through months of agony and anxiety, wondering if they were going to keep these pets?" Jandreau said. "That's stressful for C-Jay, it's stressful for Amy, and I thought it was just unnecessary."

For the neighbors, Jandreau said, the chickens have not been a disturbance.

"Amy is really, really responsible, so I know she's keeping things appropriately stored and keeping public health in mind," Jandreau said, adding that noise hasn't been an issue, either. "If this is what he needs to thrive, let's be supportive of it."

Jeff Wallace, the director of code enforcement for the city of Bangor, also spoke at the hearing, and said that the chickens are not a public health threat. Some neighbors expressed worry that the chickens could attract rats, though Wallace said "I have no reason to believe" the chickens would create a rat issue in the neighborhood.

Since Amy got the chickens in April, Wallace said he has not received any complaints about them.

The five-member board of appeals voted unanimously to allow the Martins to keep their emotional support chickens.

"It was a resounding support," Wallace said in a phone interview with The Washington Post, adding that he thinks the media coverage and community encouragement played a role in the outcome. The story was first reported in the Bangor Daily News.

Amy said she is grateful for the outpouring of support from her neighbors, and she hopes her family's story will help set a precedent, so that others in their position have an easier time getting through the process.

"When we fight for something, we fight for everyone," she said.

Two days after the hearing, "we got our first egg," Amy said. "It's so exciting."

The chickens have helped C-Jay in all the ways Amy had hoped, she said. On difficult days, especially, "it's a good way to divert him to positivity."

C-Jay said he is thrilled he can keep his chickens - which are all female, as male chickens, which are considered roosters after one year, can be loud.

"He deserves to have his chickens," Amy said. "They help him to cope and make sense of his world."

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U.S. Capitol Police said Thursday that they arrested more than 300 protesters who held a demonstration inside a U.S. House office building in Washington D.C., over the Israel-Hamas war.

Protesters with Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow were detained on Capitol Hill while calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, a narrow strip of land bordering Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

Police reported that the protest broke out at the Cannon House Office Building just before 1:40 p.m. Wednesday and shut down roads outside the building due to the demonstration.

A group of protesters are demonstrating inside the Cannon Rotunda. Demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings. pic.twitter.com/pZHKqSpjoL  The U.S. Capitol Police (@CapitolPolice) October 18, 2023

Video shows demonstrators wearing black T-shirts reading "Jews Say Ceasefire Now" in white lettering shouting "Ceasefire now!" Other footage shows the group sitting on the Cannon Rotunda floor clapping in unison.

U.S. House and Senate office buildings are open to the public but protests are forbidden in congressional buildings.

U.S. Capitol Police arrested 305 of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who swarmed a congressional house office building on October 18, 2023 in Washington D.C. Protesters with the group, Jewish Voice for Peace, were detained on Capitol Hill while calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, protesting the Israel-Hamas war.

Gaza hospital explosion: How a deadly blast near al-Ahli center unfolded

The Cannon House arrests

Arrests took place in the Cannon Rotunda, police reported.

U.S. Capitol Police spokesman Paul Starks told USA TODAY on Thursday that police arrested 308 people on charges of crowding, obstructing, or incommoding in a forbidden area. They were ticketed and released.

U.S. Capitol Police arrested 305 of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who swarmed a congressional house office building on October 18, 2023 in Washington D.C. Protesters with the group, Jewish Voice for Peace, were detained on Capitol Hill while calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, protesting the Israel-Hamas war.

Of those arrested, three people were also charged with assault of a police officer because, Starks said, they resisted arrest.

Starks said police were not aware of any major injuries.

The rotunda was cleared by 5 p.m., police said.

BREAKING: Jews and allies from @jvplive and IfNotNow are in Congress to demand: ceasefire now.



Join us across the country: https://t.co/XOBzCwXVzS https://t.co/ayMkoOy21d  IfNotNow (@IfNotNowOrg) October 18, 2023

The war: As war in Israel, Gaza rages on, President Biden is having a moment

The war's latest death toll

On Oct. 7, a major Jewish holiday, Hamas militants stormed from the blockaded Gaza Strip into nearby Israeli towns. The attack, which killed hundreds of civilians, stunned Israel and caught its military and intelligence apparatus completely off guard.

Israel immediately launched airstrikes on Gaza, destroying entire neighborhoods and killing hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the days that have followed.

Protesters stage a demonstration in support of a cease fire against the Palestinians in Gaza at the National Mall on Oct. 18, 2023, in Washington, DC.

As of Thursday, the war's death toll surpassed 5,000, making the conflict the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. At least 199 people, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza, according to Israel.

The leader of Hamas' military wing, Mohammed Deif, said in a recorded message that the assault was in response to Israel's 16-year blockade of Gaza; Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, violence at at the Al-Aqsa Mosque  built on a contested Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount; increased attacks by settlers on Palestinians; and the expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied lands Palestinians claim for a future state.

The Hamas incursion came on Simchat Torah, a normally joyous day when Jews complete the annual cycle of reading the Torah scroll. Israel declared war the next day.

Previous Israel-Hamas wars were in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021.

Israel-Hamas war updates: Biden says Gaza to get aid by Friday; US says Israel not to blame for hospital blast.

Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, the Associated Press.

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel-Hamas war protest: More than 300 arrested on Capitol Hill
Two Rite Aid stores in Delaware are slated to close as part of the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The drugstore chain listed 154 underperforming stores due to close in a court filing Monday. Included are the stores in Chestnut Hill Plaza in Ogletown and at 3209 Kirkwood Highway in Prices Corner.

According to a company spokesperson, the Chestnut Hill Plaza store will close Oct. 26 and the Kirkwood Highway store will close Nov. 6.

This Rite Aid on Kirkwood Highway in Prices Corner will close next month as part of the drugstore chain's bankruptcy.

DIVE DEEPER: Rite Aid has filed for bankruptcy. What it means for the pharmacy chain and its customers

Among the remaining Rite Aid stores in the Newark area are the stores on New London Road, in the Park N Shop shopping center on South Main Street and at 4607 Stanton Ogletown Road.

Near the Kirkwood Highway location, the remaining locations include Midway Plaza near Limestone Road and 501 E. Basin Road.

A full list of stores can be found on Rite Aid's website.

There is also a Walgreens and CVS across East Chestnut Hill Road from the closing Ogletown Rite Aid. There is a CVS pharmacy within the Target store across from the Kirkwood Highway store, in addition to Prices Corner pharmacy and pharmacies in Acme and Walmart.

The store closures come as Rite Aid faces significant financial challenges  it expects to lose as much as $680 million in the year ending next spring  and legal trouble. The company is the subject of multiple lawsuits over opioid prescriptions, including federal allegations that the chain filled thousands of illegal prescriptions including opioids.

Rite Aid had more than 5,000 stores nationwide in the mid-2000s after purchasing the Eckerd chain. It now has around 2,000.

Its numbers in Delaware are starting to drop off, too. In 2017, there were 42 in the First State, according to the Wall Street Journal. After the closures, there will be 34 Delaware stores.

The company closed a store on Route 40 in Bear last month as part of an earlier wave of closures.

Contact Brandon Holveck at bholveck@delawareonline.com. Follow him on X @holveck_brandon.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Rite Aid in Delaware: Drugstore chain to close 2 stores
A newsroom in Nebraska said it was infuriated after the states governor dismissed a critical news article about his business because, he said, the reporter behind it was from communist China.

Gov. Jim Pillen (R) has faced fierce criticism for the comment after the reporter, Yanqi Xu, published an investigation last month for the Flatwater Free Press detailing high nitrate levels at his hog farms. Xu sifted through government records that found 16 of Pillens farms had nitrate levels five times higher than is considered safe to drink.

Pillen was asked about the article on Nebraska radio several days later, where he discounted the story and criticized Xus nationality.

No. 1, I didnt read it. And I wont, Pillen said at the time. No. 2, all you got to do is look at the author. The author is from communist China. What more do you need to know?

Xu grew up in Guangzhou, China, and studied English and journalism in Beijing. She moved to America and earned a masters degree at the University of Missouri-Columbia, later reporting at several media outlets. She has worked at Flatwater Free Press for two years, quickly becoming a key reporter  for us and for Nebraska, the website said.

Shes whip smart. Shes pit bull stubborn. Shes a courageous reporter, a remarkable reporter, Matt Wynn, the outlets executive director, wrote in a column this week. Shes remarkable, period.

Being a reporter, I never wanted to make myself the story. But this time, I thought theres more at stake than myself. I think about the community I represent, and who might find the governors comment hurtful. A thread: https://t.co/axF5goBrF5  Yanqi Xu (@yanqixu_) October 17, 2023

He added the Free Press had taken its time to respond to the governors comments as Xu is in the United States on a visa reserved for those with extraordinary ability. Wynn said he wanted to consult with immigration attorneys to avoid risking her visa status.

In an interview, Xu told The New York Times she was shocked and saddened by the governors comments.

Nebraskans deserve to know this, she told the newspaper. The comment was about me, but it was, you know  it was more than just me. I just felt that it was the right thing to do.

Thats why I contacted the governors office and business after seeing high levels of nitrate on his hog farms - nitrate easily seeps into groundwater and poses risks to drinking water. I wanted to know why, their remediation effort, and anything missing from public records  Yanqi Xu (@yanqixu_) October 17, 2023

The Asian American Journalists Association gave its unwavering support to Xu and her publication this week, noting the governors comments were part of a troubling trend in anti-Asian discrimination, xenophobia and violence in recent years.

Wynn went on to say the story would have been different if Pillen had responded to Xus reporting, but he declined all opportunities to do so.

Yanqi has been in the United States since 2017. She has lived in four states and Washington, D.C. This, she said, is the first time anyone has written her off based on her origin, Wynn went on. And it was broadcast, over the air, by the governor of Nebraska. As an employer, that infuriates me. As a believer in democracy and a free press, it saddens me.

Wynn added, As a Nebraskan, it embarrasses me.

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MISSION, Texas (Border Report)  Over 100 organizations have sent a letter asking the Biden administration to stop its plans to waive environmental laws to quickly build a border wall through Starr County in South Texas

A total of 118 groups and nonprofits have signed onto the letter sent Monday to President Joe Biden. The letter was spearheaded by the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based environmental group that opposes border wall construction.

New border wall Biden OKd for Starr County has residents up in arms

We must make clear that there is no legal requirement to waive laws that protect vulnerable border communities and wildlife in the appropriations language or elsewhere. This waiver of law has been issued at the discretion of your administration and your administration has the power to reverse it, the letter said.

On Oct. 5, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced in the Federal Register that DHS would be building 20 miles of border wall in various sections of Starr County, on the Texas-Mexico border, to deter illegal crossings in areas of high illegal entry into the United States.

In order to expedite the construction, the administration has waived 26 environmental regulations, including the Endangered Species Act; Migratory Bird Conservation Act; Safe Drinking Water Act; the National Environmental Policy Act; Clean Air Act; and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

This is the first time the Biden administration has waived environmental laws in order to put up a border barrier on the Southwest border with Mexico, and it has raised the ire of nonprofits and environmental groups nationwide.

The federal government plans to build about 20 more miles of border wall in Starr County. This section already was built in Fronton, Texas, in 2019. (Sandra Sanchez/Border Report File Photo)

We must reiterate that there is no legal requirement to waive any laws for border barrier construction. This choice was entirely discretionary. Secretary Mayorkas decision to cast aside these critical protections to rush the construction of a wall that you admit does not work,' the letter said.

The groups that signed the letter include the ACLU; Sierra Club; Earthjustice; the Texas Civil Rights Project; Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas; Haitian Bridge Alliance; Endangered Species Coalition; National Immigration Law Center; National Education Association; the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies; Wildlands Network; Voces Unidas RGV; Vets United to Stop the Wall; the Border Network for Human Rights; and Save RGV.

Starr County residents scramble to make sense of new border wall maps

We hope President Biden heeds our call to restore legal protections for clean air, clean water, Indigenous graves and endangered species, said Laiken Jordahl, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. Border communities, wildlife and Indigenous nations deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else in America. Its baffling and cruel that the administration plans to ignore these vital laws to build a destructive wall that the president admits is useless.

Jordahl says an 18-foot-tall metal border wall with a concrete base would prevent wildlife from reaching the Rio Grande and necessary drinking water, as well as destroy native habitats.

The Zapata bladderpod perennial, and prostrate milkweed are endangered plants that only live in the Rio Grande Valley and would be threatened by wall construction, Jordahl says.

Monarch butterflies can only lay their eggs on milkweed plants.

Seven segments of black lines indicate proposed new federal border wall to be built in Starr County, Texas. (CBP Graphic)

They can stop bulldozers from descending on Starr County and protect some of the best wildlife habitat left in south Texas, Jordahl said.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

Segments of border wall will be built in the western end of Starr County near Falcon Dam and through parts of Rio Grande City and the town of La Grulla, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
New York's highest court on Thursday made official the removal of an upstate judge from the bench for pulling a loaded gun on a criminal defendant approximately eight years ago, upholding a previous decision from the state's judicial oversight body.

In a unanimous opinion Thursday, a five-judge complement of the Court of Appeals wrote that Justice Robert Putorti's was a case "where the misconduct is so inexcusable that no amount of mitigation" can recover the public's trust.

Nate Riley, Putorti's attorney, said Thursday that although he disagrees with the court's opinion, "we respect the decision of the Court of Appeals and thank the members of the Court for their careful consideration of the arguments raised."

He declined to provide further comment.

NY judge who pulled gun fighting for job NY judge accused of pulling gun on Black man in courtroom may be removed from bench

What led Robert Putorti to pull a gun in court?

In 2014, Putorti took the bench over the town and village courts in Whitehall, Washington County, on New York's border with Vermont. He is not an attorney, as is common within the justice court system in many rural, upstate communities.

Around a year into his tenure there, Putorti presided over a hearing with a Black defendant. Putorti has said that the defendant, Brandon Wood, "rushed" the bench, causing him to fear for his safety.

The Court of Appeals rejected nearly all of Putorti's contentions in its ruling. The court highlighted Putorti's later admission that he had no reasonable basis to believe Wood represented a lethal threat, which is the standard for deploying one's firearm.

Did race play a role in the incident?

The court also recalled Putorti's repeated references to Wood's race, noting Putorti's explanation that these descriptors were used merely to describe" Wood factually. However, Putorti later admitted that doing so may have created the appearance of racial bias," according to the court.

NY judge in trouble over social posts Judge censured over profane Facebook posts

How did the case make it to the Court of Appeals?

The state Commission on Judicial Conduct, which investigates allegations of ethical breaches on the part of judges, had previously recommended Putorti's removal from office. That move would typically result in a judge's ouster, but Putorti took the rare step of appealing that recommendation to the Court of Appeals.

Wood previously told the USA Today Network New York that the incident in question did not happen at all as described by Putorti. Wood claims that Putorti flashed a gun from underneath his robe in a hallway adjacent to the courtroom, while Wood was handcuffed to a bench.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY judge Robert Putorti removed from bench for pulling gun on defendant
Patients operated on without anaesthetic in Gaza as WHO runs out of medicine

Patients are being operated on without anaesthetic in Gaza because supplies are so low, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, as it announced that its own warehouse of medicine in the strip is now completely empty.

Doctors are having to make impossible choices as medical supplies rapidly run out amid a total siege imposed by Israel, while despite attempts to open a humanitarian corridor with Egypt, such a measure has yet to be put in place.

The blockade, combined with the continued Israeli bombings of the 42km-long enclave, has triggered critical shortages of items including morphine, saline solution and surgical supplies, which the WHO says will run out in days.

Local and general anaesthetics across the strip are on the brink of running out completely, while blood banks only have two weeks of supply left, according to WHO officials.

Medicines for blood pressure and diabetes, seizure medications, and drugs needed for dialysis and to treat heart disease are also running critically low.

My mother-in-law keeps fainting. We cant find her cancer treatment, Sameh, a 36-year-old photographer in Gaza, told The Independent. Yesterday she fainted at the bakery while waiting for bread. I dont know what to do.

The blockade, combined with the continual Israeli bombings, has triggered critical shortages of medicine (Mohamed Al-Masri)

The warnings of failing supplies come amid concerns for those wounded in a deadly strike on a hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday night, which is thought to have killed hundreds of people including displaced children.

Gazas top medics told The Independent they were forced to perform surgery on the injured on the ground. The Independent was sent videos showing paramedics tending to the wounded in pools of blood on the floor.

Dr Medhat Abbas, director of al-Shifa, Gazas largest hospital told The Independent some of the injured are left to die to succumb to their wounds as medical teams are so overwhelmed by the casualties, particularly after the bombing of al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday night.

Surgeries are being performed in the corridors without anaesthetics. Hundreds are in the corridors of the hospitals in front of the operations rooms and in the emergency rooms on the ground . The majority are children, he said.

Mohamed Ghanem, an emergency doctor at al-Shifa, said that there is so space left in the operation rooms because of the mass casualties. He also said that doctors are trying to perform surgery in the corridors without any anaesthesia.

Dr Richard Peeperkorn, a WHO representative, said: We have no supplies or equipment left in [our] Gaza warehouse. Hospitals are relying on their last reserves of supplies, [while] health workers are having to make impossible choices to ration what little they have left in supplies, including operating without anaesthetics.

Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment are treated in a hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza (AP)

The health system is on its knees, and collapse is imminent unless aid is allowed in. I plead for water, food, fuel and medical supplies to be allowed into Gaza. The time to ring the alarm bells has run out. Gaza is crumbling right before our eyes.

The WHO team in Gaza handed over anaesthesia medication procured from the local market, but only enough to support 50 operations requiring general anaesthesia. This does not even scratch the surface of what is needed, Dr Peeperkorn added.

He said that WHO trucks packed with supplies had been waiting at the Egyptian border with Gaza for five days but had not been able to cross, as no aid corridor between Egypt and Israel had been agreed. There have been repeated reports of Israeli bombing the border area. Supplies are just sitting there. Unable to enter. And people dying inside, that can be saved, he added.Wednesday evening, after visit by US President Joe Biden, Israel has said it will not thwart deliveries of food, water or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and dont go to Hamas militants. President Biden said Egypts president agreed to open the crossing and to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, it will end, he added. The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.

On Tuesday night in Gaza a strike hit al-Ahli hospital, which was sheltering hundreds of displaced people (AP)

The other concern is a ground invasion. The Israeli military ordered an evacuation of all civilians  including from hospitals  from the north of Gaza to the south.

The WHO said it would be impossible for the wounded to be moved, and that the order may constitute the war crime of forcible transfer. It has documented 57 attacks on healthcare facilities, which have resulted in the deaths of 16 healthcare workers.

The UN has warned that clean water has run out across the strip, which is home to more than 2 million people, half of them children.

Fuel for generators powering hospitals will run out in days, and food stocks are diminishing, prompting fears that civilians will die from thirst, water-borne diseases and hunger as well as in bombings.

On Tuesday night in Gaza, a strike hit al-Ahli hospital, which was sheltering hundreds of displaced people. Gazas health ministry blamed Israel for the attack, saying that more than 470 people had been killed.

The Israeli military has vehemently rejected the allegations, and has instead blamed a failed rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israeli officials said the death toll had been inflated.
When interim Phoenix police Chief Michael Sullivan spoke to The Arizona Republic recently about where the department stands after his first year, he spoke about morale and staff shortages, but his department faces a range of challenges.

The city faces high crime, deep staff shortages, poor morale, recruitment and retention challenges, backlash from some community activists in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, more criticism about a lack of openness with the public and a wide-ranging U.S. Department of Justice investigation into civil rights abuses and excessive force.

Sullivan expects to steer the department through these challenges toward its core mission to protect the public and reduce crime.

1 year in: How is Phoenix PD doing after a year with its new chief? We asked. Here's what he said

"I want to focus on all these other things, they are important, but we exist to prevent and control crime, provide public safety and justice to victims," he said.

We took a closer look at claims by Sullivan and his department to gauge how the Phoenix Police Department is doing.

Have violent crime rates decreased in Phoenix?

Claim: According to department officials, violent crime rates have seen a decrease compared to last year and have largely to do with Operation Summer Shield and other efforts to address crime.

Data shows: Violent crime rates had been trending up for the last 12 years and murder rates hit a 15-year high in 2022. When comparing crime rates for the first six months of 2023 to 2022, the results show a 2% overall decrease in crime, with a notable 13% drop in homicide rates during the summer months. This decline is significant, considering that Phoenix traditionally experiences higher rates of violent crime and murder during that time of the year.

Context: The rest of the country and the state have been seeing a drop in crime since 2020 but Phoenix's crime rates increased in 2022. It is still too early to tell what exactly has been causing the decrease in violent crime in the last year. Experts point to a return to the norm after years of pandemic lockdown and conserted efforts to address gun crime.

Is staffing improving in the Phoenix Police Department?

Claim: The Phoenix police staffing shortage is turning a corner as leaders expect to see more hires than separations this year.

Data shows: At the start of the year, the department was missing 471 officers of the budgeted 3,125. The department expects to hire 180 officers by the end of the year, while seeing 150 leave.

Context: In the past four years, the department has lost more officers than it has hired. The ratio of officers to citizens has been decreasing since 2010. In 2022, the number of officers per citizen reached its lowest point in at least 23 years. These challenges faced by the department parallel those seen nationwide. Police hiring has been slow since 2019, with many attributing it to the increased attention on instances of police violence and the murder of George Floyd. As a response to these incidents, a movement advocating for defunding the police has emerged.

De-escalation and police shootings

Claim: Sullivan emphasized his efforts to address de-escalation in his first year. Phoenix police have drafted a new use-of-force policy and have introduced training for officers responding to people who are armed with weapons that are not guns.

Data: In the last seven years, there were, on average, about 24 shootings a year, and about 50% of them fatal. As of October, the department has had 23 police shootings, 11 of them where an officer killed a person.

Context: The department got national attention in 2018 when it became the department with the most shootings in the country. Arizona has the fifth-highest number of fatal shootings per capita in the country.

Department of Justice investigation and lawsuits

Claim: The department has been transparent about its troubles and will work with the community to alleviate any of the issues that have led to the DOJ investigation and the lawsuits about policing encampments where people without housing live.

Data: The department released a list of data it has made available to DOJ investigators: 20,000 body camera videos and shared about 80,000 documents. DOJ investigators had participated in over 200 ride-alongs and interviewed more than 100 city employees. In total, this has cost the city around $5 million.

Context: The DOJ has not hinted at when it believes it will release its findings, but interim chief Michael Sullivan promises that he will work with the department to address any issues. The city of Phoenix was placed under a court order to allow and mandate its officers to enforce nuisance laws in the homeless encampment area in downtown Phoenix known as The Zone. The city plans to appeal that order.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix police by the numbers: What to know about crime rate, hiring
A prescribed fire is planned for later this month at a popular park in Calaveras County.

Roughly 1,300 acres in Calaveras Big Trees State Park will be part of a prescribed burn starting as soon as Oct. 30, California State Parks announced Wednesday. The treatment will cover parts of the South Grove of the park just east of Arnold in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Visitors should expect closures of the South Grove Trail, Beaver Creek area, Bradley Grove Trail and the Walter W. Smith Memorial Parkway south of the Stanislaus River, as well as fire roads around the South Grove. Officials are expecting smoke to remain in the area for some time after the active firing has stopped.

California State Parks and Cal Fire have been preparing the South Grove for a prescribed burn for years, noting crews have removed material to create a controllable perimeter around the 1,300-acre area planned for the burn. Crews have also removed flammable debris surrounding the signature giant sequoias within the area.

Forest management and prescribed fire help restore and maintain a complex forest community, reduce hazardous fuel loads, improve wildlife habitat, restore nutrients to the soil, protect park infrastructure and reduce the chance of catastrophic wildfire, state parks officials said in a news release.

The timing of the burning will depend on weather and air quality conditions. State parks officials said if weather or vegetation conditions are not conducive for burning smoke dispersal, the prescribed burn could be re-scheduled. The burn is being done in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service.

Big Trees State Park is the only state park in California that protects groves of giant sequoias, state parks officials said.

To see giant sequoias elsewhere, youve got to go to a national park or a monument, said Karri Pearcey, a spokeswoman for Big Trees. Were right here. Were super easy to access, so we have a lot of really amazing giant sequoias.

An updated list of the parks closures can be found at the parks website.
SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE)  Special prosecutors on Tuesday said they are seeking to recharge actor Alec Baldwin in the 2021 deadly Rust movie-set shooting. New Mexico-based prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis intend to present the case to a grand jury within the next two months.

After extensive investigation over the past several months, additional facts have come to light that we believe show Mr. Baldwin has criminal culpability in the death of Halyna Hutchins and the shooting of Joel Souza , said Special Prosecutors Morrissey and Lewis in an email. We believe the appropriate course of action is to permit a panel of New Mexico citizens to determine from here whether Mr. Baldwin should be held over for criminal trial.

How did Alec Baldwins criminal case get so messy?

Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in October 2021. The actor was rehearsing a scene in front of a camera when a gun he was handling fired, hitting Hutchins and the films director Joel Souza. Hutchins died shortly after the shooting while Souza survived his injuries.

Baldwin was facing an involuntary manslaughter charge. In April, prosecutors officially dropped the charges against Baldwin. Hannah Gutierrez, the armorer facing criminal charges, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence. Her trial is scheduled to begin in February of 2024.

Nexstars KRQE reported earlier this month that the state was looking for evidence showing that Gutierrez may have been denied training days with Baldwin, and possibly contributing to the fatal shooting of Hutchins.

She went to production and said, I havent had enough time to train him on this weapon, I need more training days, said Special Prosecutor Kari Morrissey.

Rust Productions called a subpoena from the state burdensome, and filed a motion for a protective order on sensitive documents being released.

Prosecutors say the documents in question may confirm or disprove the claim that Gutierrez wasnt given the training with Baldwin that she requested.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
Court news

WORCESTER  A 42-year-old Rutland man pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Worcester to conspiring to access a protected computer of his former employer, a nonprofit substance use and mental health treatment provider that operates recovery centers throughout Massachusetts.

Nathan Howe pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to access a protected computer to obtain information and cause damage and one count of intentionally causing damage to a protected computer and impairing medical treatment.

U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman scheduled Howes sentencing for Jan. 17.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan OShea of the Worcester Branch Office is prosecuting the case.

Howe was indicted by a federal grand jury in April. Co-conspirator Patrick Edmonds-Morin has since pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 13.

Howe and Edmonds-Morin were employed by the nonprofit until April 2021 and October 2020, respectively, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Between September and December 2021, Howe conspired with Edmonds-Morin to access records of the nonprofits employees, listen to and view conversations between the employees, and create and deploy a computer program designed to impede the nonprofits use of the network, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

In November 2021, Howe accessed the computer network and transmitted a command that shut down the network for the nonprofits Westborough campus where individuals were receiving inpatient treatment. By shutting down the network, Howe made the nonprofit's electronic medical records system inaccessible at its sites across Massachusetts, impairing or potentially impairing the medical examination, diagnosis, treatment and care of patients, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Additionally, between July 2018 and November 2020, Howe and Edmonds-Morin conspired to commit wire fraud by obtaining cellphones from a cellphone provider that were intended for the nonprofits staff and, instead, selling the cellphones to third parties for personal profit, typically in the amounts of hundreds of dollars per phone, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Rutland man pleads guilty to wire fraud against recovery center agency
Nearly a month after he overturned Californias ban on large-capacity firearm magazines for the second time, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez doubled down on his opposition to the states assault weapons ban, declaring in an opinion that the law has no historical pedigree and it is extreme.

This marks the judges second time with the case, Miller v. Bonta. He previously struck down the states ban on assault weapons in 2021. In his decision, he likened the assault rifle to a Swiss Army Knife and called it good for both home and battle.

The case had proceeded to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which remanded it back to the district court level after the U.S. Supreme Courts Bruen decision, which established a new framework for consideration of such laws.

Benitez opened his decision by comparing the assault rifle to the Bowie knife, saying that both are dangerous, but useful.

But unlike the Bowie Knife, the United States Supreme Court has said, there is a long tradition of widespread lawful gun ownership by private individuals in this country, Benitez wrote.

The judge, known for his fiery opinions, wrote that the state was discriminating against assault rifles because of how they looked.

They have the same minimum overall length, they use the same triggers, they have the same barrels, and they can fire the same ammunition, from the same magazines, at the same rate of fire, and at the same velocities, as other rifles, he wrote.

Benitez wrote that while people have heard about mass shootings such as those in Uvalde, Texas, Parkland, Florida, or Sandy Hook, Connecticut, they do not hear of the AR-15 used in Florida by a pregnant wife and mother to defend her family from two armed, hooded, and masked home intruders.

Californias assault weapon ban takes away from its residents the choice of using an AR-15 type rifle for self-defense. Is it because modern rifles are used so frequently for crime? No, Benitez wrote.

The judge said that more is needed to justify the states ban on assault weapons than disarming some mass shooters.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called Benitez, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2004, a stone cold ideologue and a wholly owned subsidiary of the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta , who is defending the ban, issued a statement in response to the decision saying that weapons of war have no place on our streets.

This has been state law in California for decades, and we will continue to fight for our authority to keep our citizens safe from firearms that cause mass casualties, Bonta said.

He added that in the meantime, as his office appeals the judges decision, the ban remains in effect in California.

Once again, this district court issued a dangerous and misguided decision and I will work vigorously to reverse it on appeal, Bonta said.
In this article, we will take a look at the 20 best value investing YouTube channels. If you want to skip our detailed analysis, you can directly go to 5 Best Value Investing YouTube Channels.

"We're Trying Not To Look Back in That Rearview Mirror"

On September 2, Charlie Bobrinskoy, Ariel Investments vice chairman, and Tom Hainlin, Ascent Private Capital Global investment strategist, appeared in an interview on CNBC, where the two shared their insights into value stocks, municipal bonds and shed light on the current economic structure and its impact on investors. Charlie Bobrinskoy discussed the importance of investing in small and medium-sized value stocks. Bobrinskoy elaborates that it is counterproductive to view growth through what he calls a "rearview mirror." He suggests that rather than focusing on big stocks like Amazon, Apple, and Nvidia, it is important to step out and focus on what is valuable today. He further states that small to medium-sized value stocks are trading at attractive prices, and therefore, provide an opportunity to value investors.

On the other hand, Tom Hainlin shows great interest in municipal bonds. He states that the economic outlook shows positive signs of the job market and inflation rates are restoring to the Fed's target, which, according to Hianlin, is a signal to invest in high-yield municipal bonds. While Hainlin hints at the bond market signaling a "chop market," Bobrinskoy suggests that past trends have shown that stocks have consistently outperformed bonds in terms of returns. Overall, both analysts hint that the economic outlook and its impact on the stocks and bond market are uncertain and cannot be predicted accurately.

Towards the end, Bobrinskoy adds that if the economic outlook pushes the Fed to stabilize interest rates, some value sectors, including housing, auto supply, financials, and energy, would offer great returns in the future.

Story continues

Stocks That are Trading at a Bargain Right Now

Some of the prominent value stocks in the financial and energy sector include General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG), and Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO). You can also check out some of the best value stocks to buy according to Abrams Capital.

General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) is a multinational conglomerate based in the United States. The company specializes in various sectors, including aerospace, power, renewable energy, the digital industry, additive manufacturing, and venture capital. On October 16, General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) reported that GE Aerospace was awarded $4.5 million as funding from ARPA-E to build a 25kW power generation subsystem. The engine combines fuel cells with sustainable action fuel (SAF) to make flights more sustainable. The project is named FLyCLEEN (FueL CelL Embedded ENgine). General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) is trading at a discount and is offering an attractive entry point. As of October 17, the stock is trading at a trailing twelve-month PE multiple of 11.90 and has returned over 60% to investors on a year-to-date basis.

American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) is a multinational finance and insurance company based in the United States. The company currently operates in more than 80 countries. On October 17, Wells Fargo's analyst Elyse Greenspan maintained an Equal Weight rating on American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) and his price target of $64 on the stock. Over the past 12 months, 7 Wall Street Analysts have given their Buy recommendations on the stock. American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) has an average price target of $71.09, with a high forecast of $81. As of October 17, American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) is trading at $63.65 per share and an attractive PE multiple of 10x.

Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) is a multinational investment back in Canada. Founded in 1817, the company is among the leading companies in the financial sector. On August 30, Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) reported earnings for the fiscal third quarter of 2023. The company reported earnings per share (EPS) of $2.05 and a revenue of $5.85 billion during the quarter. As of October 17, Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) is trading at $82.15 and an attractive PE multiple of 11x.

Investing in stocks requires thorough knowledge of the stock market. While it is challenging to understand the financial implications of the stock market, various YouTube channels provide investors with crucial real-time information. With that, let's look at the 20 best value investing YouTube channels. You can also check out some of the best investing podcasts in 2023.

20 Best Value Investing YouTube Channels

20 Best Value Investing YouTube Channels

Our Methodology

We employed a consensus-driven approach to determine the 20 best value investing YouTube channels. We consulted 3 sources in addition to YouTube itself. These included Parent Portfolio, FeedSpot, and Beanvest.

This thorough process enabled us to curate our initial pool of 30 best value investing YouTube channels. We assessed the 20 best value investing YouTube channels based on the number of subscribers, as of October 17, sourced from YouTube. The list is in ascending order of the aforementioned metric.

20 Best Value Investing YouTube Channels

20. GuruFocus

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 17,800

With a total subscriber count of 17,800, GuruFocus is one of the best value investing YouTube channels. The channel is focused on value investors, trading news, stocks ideas, stock analysis, and updates from the best investors around the globe.

Some stocks that are currently trading at a discount right now include General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG), and Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO).

19. VI Channel

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 24,600

VI channel is a top value investing YouTube channel focusing on educating people about the concept of value investing. The channel has a total subscriber count of 24,600 as of October 17, 2023.

18. I Value Investing

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 35,700

I Value Investing is one of the best value investing YouTube channels based on our methodology. The premise of the channel is based on reviewing what successful value investors such as Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Peter Lynch have done in the past. The channel effectively breaks down the strategies employed by these investors to educate its audience.

17. Investing with Tom

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 44,700

Investing with Tom ranks among the best value investing YouTube channels, with a total subscriber count of 44,7o0 as of October 17, 2023. Tom is a value investor based in New Zealand and constantly shares insights on value investment and stocks.

16. Rational Investing with Cameron Stewart, CFA

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 61,900

Rational Investing with Cameron Stewart is among the best value investing YouTube channels. The channel led by Cameron Stewart publishes weekly stock reviews of undervalued stocks with strong cash flows. The channel posts a variety of investment related videos including recent trends and insights on value stocks and value investing strategies.

15. Michael Jay - Value Investing

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 70,800

The channel ranks among the best value investing YouTube channels with a total subscriber count of 70,800 as of October 17, 2023. The channel, led by Michael Jay, posts insights and knowledge about value investing strategies.

14. The Investor Channel

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 126,000

The Investor Channel is one of the best value investing YouTube channels with a total subscriber count of 126,000 as of October 17, 2023. The channel covers recent trends in the stock market and focuses on the technical analysis of stocks.

13. Hamish Hodder

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 126,000

Hamish Hodder is one of the best value investing YouTube channels with a subscriber count of 126,000 as of October 17, 2023. The channel periodically posts tips and strategies for value investors. Hamish Hodder also discusses and analyzes insights from Warren Buffett.

12. Everything Money

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 207,000

With a subscriber count of 207,000 as of October 17, 2023, Everything Money ranks among the best value investing YouTube channels. The channel periodically posts important insights regarding value stocks and value investing.

11. Value Investing with Sven Carlin, Ph.D.

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 226,000

Value Investing with Sven Carlin is among the best value investing YouTube channels with a total subscriber count of 226,000 as of October 17, 2023. The channel, led by Sven Carlin, posts videos containing informative insights on value stocks.

10. Learn to Invest

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 276,000

Learn to Invest is one of the leading investment education YouTube channels with a total subscriber count of 276,000 as of October 17, 2023. The channel disseminates knowledge about investing and periodically posts crucial information about value stocks and investment strategies.

9. Joseph Carlson

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 300,000

Joseph Carlson is one 0f the best value investing YouTube channels. The channel provides crucial information on how people can grow their wealth through the purchase of stocks. The channel periodically covers value stocks and insights from Warren Buffet.

8. Ben Felix

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 330,000

Ben Felix is a portfolio manager with PWL Capital Inc. and his channel is among the best value investing YouTube channels. Ben Felix often discusses value investing and stocks. The channel has a total subscriber count of 330,000 as of October 17, 2023.

7. Raghavs Value Investing

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 404,000

Raghavs Value Investing is among the best value investing YouTube channels with a total subscriber count of 404,000 as of October 17, 2023. The channel is dedicated to providing crucial insights on recent trends and updates on the stock market.

6. Aswath Damodaran

Total Subscribers as of October 17, 2023: 655,000

According to our methodology, Aswath Damodaran is among the best value investing YouTube channels. Aswath regularly posts videos on corporate finance, valuation approaches, blog post analysis, and accounting and statistics. He also regularly publishes videos on value investing and stock analyses.

Some of the top stocks to buy now according to hedge funds include General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG), and Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO).

Click to continue reading and see the 5 Best Value Investing YouTube Channels.

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Disclosure: None. 20 Best Value Investing YouTube Channels is originally published on Insider Monkey.
With the House effectively shut down, the Senate has the upper hand on Washington's two biggest issues this fall  aiding Ukraine and Israel and keeping the government open.

Even if the House GOP selects a speaker or a caretaker leader to claw out of the current chaos, its Republicans will already be in a weakened state as the White House prepares a massive, potentially $100 billion request for national security aid. Instead, Minority Leader Mitch McConnells Senate GOP looks to have the Republican sway over both that foreign money debate and the fight to avoid a shutdown.

As his last act before getting ousted, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made the Senate swallow a spending bill without Ukraine aid that his conservative members opposed. But with a Nov. 17 shutdown deadline less than a month away and Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordans speaker bid sputtering, the next confrontation over federal funding is looking very different.

Thats in large part because McConnell, after enduring public scrutiny of his health all summer, is embracing a generous aid package for Ukraine and Israel and is in harmony with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the framework of that legislation. The Senate minority leader faces real internal opposition of his own, but at the moment his anti-shutdown, pro-Ukraine position at least gives Democratic leaders a Republican they can talk to.



Its a harsh unintended consequence for the House conservatives who ejected McCarthy: The Senate minority leader who many of them abhor is, for the moment, the most influential leader in the congressional GOP.

Hes the only Republican negotiator," Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a longtime House member, said of McConnell. Welch underscored whats become obvious the longer that House Republicans fail to pick a speaker: They don't have a coherent point of view that has votes behind it.

Even some members of the fractious House GOP conference acknowledge the harsh reality theyre facing. The longer they struggle without a speaker, the more anxious they get about having the Senates fingerprints all over the next major spending fights.

The Houses leadership vacuum means that we cede our ability to do what we need to be doing to govern to the Senate, to the White House, said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a longtime appropriator who refuses to support Jordan for speaker. This House needs a little help, needs a little divine intervention right now.

Womack is among several Republicans who are now seriously debating a plan to give new powers to their acting speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). That move, its backers say, would give the House at least some say in any spending talks this month as the speaker battle drags on. Yet more authority for McHenry remains a huge unknown, since it would likely require Democratic votes.

And there are zero guarantees that the House GOP could pass any kind of spending package without Democratic support, given its four-seat majority, even if McHenry was able to bring a bill to the floor. Senators dont exactly have other options.



The House is frankly usually pretty independent and wants to do their own thing. But if they don't have a thing to do, then that creates a situation where the Senate passes something  and then they'll have no choice but to take it or leave it, said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a top McConnell deputy. Colloquially known as 'being jammed'.

The Senate also has its own problems: A stalled spending measure that they'd wanted to tackle with bipartisan buy-in, the indictment of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and an unprecedented backlog of military promotions. But the upper chamber looks positively well-oiled compared to the leaderless House.

Senate Republicans are well aware that being publicly at odds with House Republicans risks exacerbating gridlock and sparking ire on both sides of the Capitol.

Yet the alternative of doing nothing seems out of the question.

I don't think that we can afford to sit and wait here, Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said. I appreciate that. And, you know, my view is that there's a lot of work that needs to be done, and the sooner the better.

House Republicans could assert themselves on another front in the Senates dealmaking on appropriations  by conducting informal talks. Yet Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), a former appropriations chair who still wields power on the spending panel, said the all-consuming chaos is preventing the usual House-Senate backchanneling among top lawmakers.

With this turmoil going on, its hard to get time thats not already taken. So its just been extremely difficult to get together, Rogers said.

One thing thats reassuring some House Republicans: The Senate hasn't started on one critical item on Congress to-do list  the Israel aid package. The White House is expected to submit its formal request this week, which means the Senate could take it up as soon, piling new pressure on to the dysfunctional House.

For the moment, though, the Senate hasnt even managed to pass a nonbinding resolution supporting Israel.



McConnell and Schumer are approaching the House's rocky few weeks from different angles. Schumer declared on Wednesday that the next speaker will have to operate on a bipartisan basis, given the realities of a Democratic Senate and White House.

Until there is a speaker, though, Schumer said that the Senate must act as a steady, bipartisan force and said that he will not wait for the House. Its not exactly a predicament that Democratic senators wanted.

I dont want to be empowered this way, said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). Obviously, it raises the stakes for us to be functional.

McConnell endorsed a national security spending bill for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and border security this week, which Schumer praised him for by name on Wednesday. But the GOP leader has pointedly refrained from poking the House, declaring that I got my hands full in the Senate.

Indeed, McConnell will likely face plenty of his own internal opposition as he tries to chart a path forward. In particular, linking help for Ukraine with Israel funding is almost certain to split GOP senators.

It makes no sense, said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who ran against McConnell in last years leadership race. I oppose it.

Still, its not difficult to see that Senate Republicans, despite not controlling their half of Congress, may have to step into the breach to formulate the Hill GOPs position. Senate Republicans estimate that a majority of their members are interested in funding Ukraine and Israel, meaning that they could put up a strong vote for national security legislation (likely with a border security component).

That was the plan in late September, as the Senate plodded forward with a government funding bill with $6 billion in Ukraine aid  until McCarthy surprised Washington by calling up a funding bill without that money. A few days later, the former speaker was out of a job, giving senators an opening whether they like it or not.

Other than nominations, we've done very little. And we need to address this issue of money for Israel in Ukraine and Taiwan and the border, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said of the Senate agenda. While the House is getting its business together, we need to go forward.
Slow service

An Oct. 13 letter writer said a previous author may be wrong in blaming the U.S. Postal Service for mail delivery causing late fee charges on credit card bills. (6A)

I have no faith in timely mail delivery anymore and dont look forward to another price increase for slow delivery. In August, we mailed two greeting cards to our family in Hobbs, New Mexico. They were mailed from Lenexa four days before the birthday and anniversary but didnt reach our family members till 12 days after that date. We can drive there in 12 hours.

It can take four days for mail to get from Lenexa to friends in Independence and Gladstone.

The old days of Pony Express did that well.

- Gloria Pankratz, Lenexa

Students say

As Independence faces pressing issues in its education system, it is time to reconsider how we involve our youth in local and school board elections. The Vote16MO Campaign advocates a significant change that could revolutionize how we address these challenges: lowering the voting age in Missouris nonpartisan local and school board elections to 16.

A recent decision by the Independence School District to switch to a four-day school week emphasized the lack of input from the most affected individuals: students. They need a say in matters that shape their educational experience. They have consistently expressed concerns about issues from dress codes to substance addiction, which has led to tragic consequences.

The disconnection between ISD students and their school board is evident. Lowering the voting age to 16 could encourage board members to engage actively with the student body throughout the academic year, fostering partnership and accountability.

Lowering the voting age to 16 in nonpartisan school board elections would bridge the gap between students and the school district, and ensure that our education system is shaped by those who understand its challenges.

Support the Vote16MO Campaign and empower our youth. Learn more at vote16mo.org

- DJ Yearwood, Independence

Be responsible

As a devoted cardiologist, father and chair of the American Heart Association board of directors in the Kansas City area, I endorse the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas Citys proposal to update its tobacco control policy. A critical measure in this effort is the implementation of a tobacco retail license, or TRL, which I strongly support.

The TRL would ensure responsible tobacco and e-cigarette sales within our community, tracking sellers and enforcing stringent regulations to prevent underage sales. This all supports a healthier environment for future generations.

Other Kansas communities have adopted this initiative, already demonstrating substantial benefits of a TRL:

Accountability for retailers: TRLs hold retailers accountable, aiding compliance officers in enforcing tobacco sales regulations.

Reducing teen access: A TRL could significantly reduce teen access to tobacco, protecting them from lifelong health risks.

Addressing inequities: TRLs help address disparities in tobacco enforcement, ensuring equal protection for all community members.

I urge lawmakers to recognize this initiatives significance and work toward swift implementation. Lets unite as a community to shield Kansas City from tobaccos harm and create a healthier, fairer environment for all.

- Heath Wilt, Medical Director, Cardiology Service Line, AdventHealth Shawnee Mission, Merriam

Restore reason

The time has come for the Democrats to gather as many brave, principled Republicans as possible and elect Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as speaker of the House of Representatives. A crippled United States government simply will not suffice in this time of crisis.

- Anita Macek, Roeland Park
The family of the man shot by Bristol police says the 39-year-old began unraveling two weeks earlier as the first anniversary of his mothers death approached on Oct. 8.

Hes been dealing with so much since the death of his mom, Kathleen Rinn Felcman said of her nephew, Mark Rinn, who was shot repeatedly Oct. 12 after the police allege he followed two young women to the Bristol police station and proceeded to ram their car with his.

Doris Rinn vanished from her Providence home Oct. 3, 2022, only to turn up two days later barefoot and wrapped in a blanket at a cafe in New Jersey. Doris, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was hospitalized as Jane Doe and died three days later after being given a dose of psychiatric meds. She was 59.

The shooting incident has stunned family members, who learned only afterward that Mark Rinn had stopped taking his medications and was behaving strangely.

Everything seemed fine. We had no clue, said Annamarie Rinn, another aunt.

Rinn is diagnosed with schizophrenia and they learned that recently he had also been bullied at work, his brother, Chris, said.

Seeking a mental-health evaluation

The family was seeking to get Rinn a psychological evaluation while he remained in intensive care at Rhode Island Hospital. He lost his left eye, had a bullet lodged behind his nose and will undergo surgery on his left shoulder, which was also hit by a bullet.

He recently had a feeding tube removed and had eaten a popsicle, Felcman said Tuesday.

No one in the family has spoken with him or been able to see him because he remains in law-enforcement custody.

Hes probably not even aware of what he did. It would make us feel better to be able to talk to him, Felcman said.

Rinn is now being held at the Adult Correctional Institutions.

What surveillance footage shows

On Tuesday, Bristol Police Chief Kevin M. Lynch released surveillance footage of the shooting.

Mark Rinn, who grew up in Providence and lives in Rehoboth, has been charged with four counts of assault with a dangerous weapon. He was arraigned Monday at the hospital and pleaded not guilty. He has been ordered not to contact the two Roger Williams University students he encountered at Colt State Park and then followed to the station.

The bail was set at $60,000 with surety, meaning Rinn and his family would need to come up with $6,000.

'He shot to kill'

Rinns family questions the level of force used in an incident involving a person they believe was so clearly experiencing a mental-health crisis. Rinn was naked behind the wheel as he appeared to accelerate and drive at the womens vehicle, ramming it into the station, the police said.

Its not normal for someone to drive to a police station naked. Could there have been a different way around this? Why wasnt the body camera on? Felcman said.

Sgt. Paul Medeiros, who was on desk duty and did not have his body camera on, came out of the station to help the students. As Rinn continued to hit the women's car, the sergeant fired two shots at him, ending the attack, the police say.

"I can't see how the officer was in danger. I think it was an unnecessary shooting," his aunt Annamarie Rinn said. They wonder if the situation could have been de-escalated instead.

Wilmer A. Villon, Rinns father, is pointed in his views.

They used unnecessary force. Its just not right. He treated my son like an animal. He shot to kill, Villon said.

Lynch declined to comment on the familys concerns, saying via email only The Bristol Police Department will have no further comment on the Mark Rinn incident.

The case is being investigated by the Rhode Island State Police, Attorney General Peter F. Neronhas office and the Bristol police in keeping with protocol for officer-involved use-of-force incidents.

Cold case: He was wrongly accused of killing a 10-year-old. Now his lawsuit can go to trial.

'He had a nervous breakdown'

According to the family, Rinn is a sweet and kind guy who has never been in trouble with the law and has had a police officer as a roommate for years.

Hes not no criminal, Villon said. He had a nervous breakdown.

He said his son had been hospitalized at one point for depression.

He spent a lot of time with her. Hes hurt about his mother passing away, Villon said.

Felcman described her nephew this week as happy, calm and generous, adding that as a mother she felt for the two young women, who must have been very scared.

He just loved life. He never had any trouble. He was just so easy to get along with, said Felcman, who is from Rhode Island but now lives in Bethlehem, Connecticut. The family lived together at points so she knows him very well and just days earlier he made plans to visit, she said.

"This is totally out of character. It's really hard because they're treating him like a criminal and they don't know him," Annamarie Rinn said.

His brother, Chris, said the family is devastated and emphasized that Rinn is a "good person" who never used illegal drugs or drank.

"He's a responsible man who works hard and cares for everyone. This is a tragedy and a shock to everyone who knows him," Chris Rinn said.

"We have a lot of questions about why a gun had to be used," he continued.

The family extends its prayers and thoughts to the two women involved, he said.

The family is trying to secure bail money. They reached out this week to the Office of the Mental Health Advocate.

Felcman worries, too, that Rinn spoke with the police while still unstable and that those statements will ultimately be used against him.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Mark Rinn was shot by Bristol police. Now, his family has questions
The University of Cincinnati is now offering a lower tuition rate to all Kentucky residents, the university announced.

The university previously offered its metro tuition rate to students from certain counties in Indiana and Kentucky. Now, it will be provided to all Kentucky residents who enroll at UC. The metro tuition rate is $6,888 per semester for full-time students, or $13,776 per year, according to the universitys website. Its slightly higher than the in-state tuition for Ohio residents, which is $6,588 per semester for full-time students, or $13,176 per year.

The change to metro tuition rates would save Kentucky students taking 15 credit hours each semester over $7,000 per semester, or nearly $59,000 over four years, said Katie Pence, UC spokesperson. Out-of-state tuition is $14,255 per semester for full-time students, or $28,510 per year.

Jack Miner, vice provost for enrollment management at UC, said in the past two years freshman enrollment from Kentucky has increased by 30%. Miner said he hopes that the new, lower tuition for Kentucky students will continue to increase that number.

UC has made a commitment to increase access to higher education for this region, he said. As we look for opportunities to ensure that students and families have a pathway to college, that investment has to include those students throughout the Tristate.

More than 2,800 students from Kentucky are enrolled at UC this year, Miner said. Overall, UC has an enrollment of nearly 51,000 students.

Having a Research 1 university within driving distance is an incredible opportunity for high school students looking at college, Miner said. This move makes that world class education affordable.

The cost to attend UC with the metro tuition rate is now similar to the University of Kentucky, the largest public school in the state. UKs tuition and fees for in-state students is $13,212 this academic year.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport to attend the Third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

The Russian president has arrived in Beijing to meet with its leader and cement the two nations allyship.

Vladimir Putin landed in the capital on Tuesday, where he was welcomed by Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

He is set to speak as the chief guest at the third Belt and Road forum  a plan to build global infrastructure and energy networks connecting Asia with Africa and Europe.

Putin has previously praised the initiative, saying it is a platform for international cooperation, where "no one imposes anything on others."

Putin and Xi Jinping declared they had a no-limits partnership during the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022, just days before Putin sent thousands of his troops into Ukraine.The pair greeted each other as dear friends when Jinping visited Moscow in March.

Despite the West being critical of its alliance amid the war, China insists its ties do not violate international norms, and argues it has the right to collaborate with whichever country it chooses.

Putin has become increasingly isolated from the international stage since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him in March. He is accused of illegally deporting children from Ukraine.

The warrant means the courts 123 member states have to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory but China is not a member and neither is Kyrgyzstan  the only other country Putin has visited this year.

Since the start of the Ukrainian conflict, Russia has cemented its energy ties with China as a sign of their economic cooperation.

Beijing has tried to help Russia through the sanctions imposed on it by the West by making deals to pipe more Russian natural gas in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

Russia exports around two million barrels of oil per day to China, more than a third of its total crude oil exports.
Key Insights

Significant insider control over Central Global Berhad implies vested interests in company growth

The top 5 shareholders own 51% of the company

Past performance of a company along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

A look at the shareholders of Central Global Berhad (KLSE:CGB) can tell us which group is most powerful. We can see that individual insiders own the lion's share in the company with 43% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

With such a notable stake in the company, insiders would be highly incentivised to make value accretive decisions.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Central Global Berhad.

Check out our latest analysis for Central Global Berhad

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Central Global Berhad?

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.

Central Global Berhad already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Central Global Berhad, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Central Global Berhad. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the CEO Hian Chew with 26% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 12% and 7.5% of the stock.

Story continues

On looking further, we found that 51% of the shares are owned by the top 5 shareholders. In other words, these shareholders have a meaningful say in the decisions of the company.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. As far as we can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Central Global Berhad

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.

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 most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Central Global Berhad. Insiders own RM221m worth of shares in the RM509m company. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 25% 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

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 25%, of the company's shares. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Central Global Berhad (including 1 which is potentially serious) .

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
Taking care of your pets health is just as important as keeping up with your own, but like many medical expenses, we know how pricey some pet care services are.

Whether money has been tight lately or youre just looking to save a few bucks, here are some low-cost veterinary services around Delaware that will keep your pet  and your wallet  happy.

Oh, and we also threw in some resources for pet food and financial assistance.

Faithful Friends, New Castle

Faithful Friends Animal Society's new headquarters near New Castle is seen on July 26, 2023.

Faithful Friends in New Castle offers low-cost veterinary services including routine exams, vaccinations and spay/neuter - Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. by appointment only.

Animal drop-off is from 8:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m., with pickup pending recovery.

Before you stop by, Faithful Friends reminds visitors of the following:

This clinic is not for X-rays or emergency services.

This clinic is for outpatient services only; no pets stay overnight.

Dogs must be leashed and with their owner until after check-in.

Cats must be in individual carriers; no cardboard or soft-sided carriers.

All feral/unsocialized cats must be in traps.

Costs for products and services will be given at the time of service, when payment can be made by cash or credit card.

Faithful Friends Animal Society's new headquarters near New Castle is seen on July 26, 2023.

Tuesday through Thursday offerings include routine exams for $48, which can lead to related treatment steps such as vaccinations, medications and other services. If needed, vet consultation about next steps is provided.

Mouth and/or teeth infections; eye, skin and ear infections; sneezing with discharge; skin masses/growths; and arthritis in seniors are all non-urgent sick care needs that are treated.

Vaccines, diagnostic testing and treatment medications are additional costs:

Rabies vaccine for $25.

Distemper vaccine for $22.

Bordetella vaccine for $22.

Dog heartworm test (4DX) for $36.

Microchip for $35 or $25 during surgery.

Nail trim for around $20 to $30.

Cat FIV/leukemia test.

Liquid dewormer.

Heartworm prevention, dewormer and flea treatment.

Bloodwork.

Pediatric care for puppies and kittens.

Faithful Friends Animal Society's new headquarters near New Castle is seen on July 26, 2023.

Faithful Friends does not offer declawing services.

If your pet is in need of a surgical procedure, contact Faithful Friends for needs including growth removal, basic eye surgeries, soft tissue procedures and dental procedures.

Surgical consultations are $50 and performed by a vet, where an estimate of surgery costs will be given. Spay/neuter services are $70 for cats and between $160 and $240 for dogs.

Senior pets age seven and older are recommended for a physical examination and preoperative blood work to ensure they are healthy enough to undergo surgery.

If you receive public assistance through the state, you might qualify for a greatly reduced rate through the State of Delawares subsidized Fixed and Fabulous spay/neuter program.

For more information about these services, including spay/neuter of feral cats, contact Faithful Friends or visit their website.

165 Airport Rd., New Castle, (302) 792-PETS (7387); faithfulfriends.us/

Faithful Friends vaccine clinics

Faithful Friends Animal Society's new headquarters near New Castle is seen on July 26, 2023.

Vaccine clinics at faithful friends are first come, first served, so be prepared to wait in line.

Physical exams are not provided at these clinics. It is recommended that every pet have at least one yearly exam to check for any underlying health problems, so if you need to, schedule an exam appointment online.

Faithful Friends requires all dogs to be on a short leash and to be muzzled before arriving, if needed. Cats must be in individual carriers.

Vaccine clinics at Faithful Friends offer the following services:

Rabies vaccine for $25.

Distemper vaccine for $22.

Bordetella vaccine for $22.

Deworming medicine for $10.

Microchip for $30.

Faithful Friends Animal Society's new headquarters near New Castle is seen on July 26, 2023.

Payment is expected at the time of service.

Upcoming vaccine clinics provided by Faithful Friends:

Saturday, Oct. 21, from 10 a.m. to noon at 12 Germay Drive, Wilmington.

Saturday, Nov. 4, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at 165 Airport Road, New Castle.

Saturday, Nov. 18, from 10 a.m. to noon at 165 Airport Road, New Castle.

165 Airport Rd., New Castle, (302) 792-PETS (7387); faithfulfriends.us/

Brandywine Valley SPCA, New Castle

The Brandywine Valley SPCA is caring for 35 dogs seized from Lewes home Aug. 8, 2023.

Brandywine Valley SPCA in New Castle hosts wellness clinics offering full-service veterinary services at lower costs than a private practice.

BVSPCA's wellness clinic provides routine health checks, updated vaccinations, sickness management, spay/neuter services and other surgical needs. Dog and cat wellness packages, which include an exam, dewormer, a rabies vaccine and other vaccine, are also available.

Other services offered include:

Exams for $55, including an additional $5 for pets aged 1 and older that are not spayed or neutered.

Tech appointments for $30, for anal gland expression, lab-work, and returning patient vaccine boosters (rabies excluded).

Nail trims for $20 for cats and $30 for dogs. Nail trims during annual/regular visits are $15.

Recheck appointments for $30.

Sick exams for $70, including an additional $5 for pets aged 1 and older that are not spayed or neutered.

The Brandywine Valley SPCA is caring for 35 dogs seized from Lewes home Aug. 8, 2023.

Vaccines and flea, tick and heartworm treatments are available for various prices. Visit www.bvspcs.org/for-your-pet/wellness-clinic for more information.

If you are struggling to take care of your pet, BVSPCA offers grant funding for pet owners in need and pet food assistance.

BVSPCAs Pet Food Pantry provides free food for individuals struggling to feed their pets or a community cat colony.

The pantry is open at all BVSPCA shelters and operates from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.

Pick-up locations in Delaware include:

Copeland Center for Animal Welfare at 290 Churchmans Road in New Castle; (302) 516-1000.

Brandywine Valley SPCA Dover at 1757 Horsepond Road in Dover; (302) 601-7000.

Animal Rescue Center at 19022 Shingle Point Road in Georgetown; (302) 858-4202.

Eastern Shore Pet Resort at 19022 Shingle Point Road in Georgetown; (302) 777-7529.

Brandywine Valley SPCA Georgetown at 22918 Dupont Boulevard in Georgetown; (302) 858-4203.

Animeals, a partnership between BVSPCA and Delaware Meals on Wheels, provides pet food to all Delaware Meals on Wheels clients. As a complement to the service, BVSPCA provides monthly home delivery of pet food to homebound seniors.

290 Churchmans Rd., New Castle, (302) 516-1000; bvspca.org/.

Humane Animal Partners, Stanton and Wilmington

Humane Animal Partners (HAP) has locations in Stanton/Christiana and Wilmington and offers low-cost wellness services by appointment only.

Emergency or after-hours care is not provided. All critical care needs should be directed to emergency veterinary practices.

HAP Stanton/Christianas general wellness clinic is open on Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

HAP Wilmingtons general wellness clinic is open on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Both locations are closed on major holidays. Appointments can be made by phone.

HAPs wellness clinic offers physical exams for $45 and follow-up exams from $30. Exams do not include medical treatments, prescriptions or diagnostic testing; these are provided at an additional cost.

Ace enjoying a lazy moment in the pool during his time at HAP Stanton/Christiana.

Other services offered at the clinic include:

Nail trim with an exam for $12.

Nail trim tech for $20.

Expressing anal glands for $25.

Ear cleaning for $15.

Spay/neuter surgery.

Microchip for $25.

Vaccines between $20 and $25 for rabies, DHPP, RVRCP, DHPP, Lyme disease and Bordetella.

Various diagnostic work, including heartworm testing, parvo virus, Ear mite checks, a urinalysis, a skin scrape and more.

HAP also treats the following issues:

Parasites (other than heartworm).

Fleas.

Vomiting or diarrhea. If this occurs for two to three days or more, urgent attention is needed.

Upper respiratory infection.

Ear or eye infections.

Weight loss/decreased appetite.

Allergies or other skin infections.

Inappropriate urination or suspected urinary tract infections.

Small wounds.

Diabetic diagnosis.

Senior joint disease management.

Human Animal Partners vaccine clinics

HAPs vaccine clinics offer discounted services; there is no exam fee. All services are first come, first served; no appointment is required.

HAP requires owners to bring a form of identification and their pets most recent vaccine history, even if its expired.

Dogs must be on a short leash (retractable leashes are not permitted) and muzzled upon arrival if necessary, and cats must be in securely closed carriers made of hard plastic or cardboard.

Other reminders for visitors include:

Vaccinations are for cats and dogs only.

Animals as young as six weeks old may receive a distemper vaccine.

Animals must be at least 16 weeks old to receive a rabies vaccine.

If an animal has had a previous rabies vaccination, the most recent rabies certificate with a vets signature must be brought to the clinic to receive a three-year rabies vaccine.

Payment, by cash or card, is due at the time of service.

Vaccine clinics at HAP offer the following services:

Rabies vaccine for $20.

DHPP (canine distemper) vaccine for $20.

FVRCP (feline distemper) vaccine for $20.

Bordetella (kennel cough) vaccine for $20.

Microchip for $25.

General de-wormer (pyrantel pamoate). Two doses for $5, one of which is sent home to be administered as instructed.

Faithful Friends Animal Shelter Photos (July 26th, 2023)

Upcoming vaccine clinics provided by HAP:

Saturday, Oct. 21, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at HAP Stanton/Christiana.

Saturday, Nov. 11, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at HAP Wilmington.

Saturday, Dec. 9, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at HAP Wilmington.

Saturday, Dec. 16, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at HAP Rehoboth Beach.

During October, HAP is offering free pet wellness exams and vaccines to all pet owners over the age of 60. This promotion is available at the Stanton/Christiana and Wilmington locations and is made possible through the Pets for the Elderly Foundation.

To book an appointment, contact one of HAPs participating locations.

Aside from wellness and vaccine clinics, HAP has other resources to support pet retention and help owners who may be struggling financially.

HAPs Pet Food Pantry provides community members with free dog/cat food and occasional drive-through pet food pantry events. If you need free pet food, visit any of HAPs locations during regular business hours or contact dcondoluci-smith@hapde.org.

As a partner of Pets for the Elderly, HAP is the only shelter in Delaware committed to providing financial support for veterinary services for senior pet owners. If you are age 60 or older and are unable to afford a veterinary service for your pet, contact canderson@hapde.org.

Reggies Fund, named after HAP pup Reggie and started by Garret and Tatiana Copeland, is a fund to offset the costs of veterinary medical services for owners in need.

Started by Carolmarie and Matthew Brown in honor of their cat, Mooshies Fund is strictly for feline needs and helps offset the costs of veterinary services to public and free-roaming cats. Contact canderson@hapde.org to learn more.

HAP Stanton/Christiana: 455 Stanton Christiana Rd. Route 7, Newark, (302) 998-2281. HAP Wilmington 701 A St., Wilmington, (302) 571-0111; www.humaneanimalpartners.org/.

First State Animal Center and SPCA, Camden and Harrington

First State Animal Center and SPCA in Camden offers low-cost vaccine clinics in Camden and Harrington.

Dog vaccinations offered include rabies for $25, distemper combo for $25, Lyme disease for $30 and 4DX testing for $35. Cat vaccinations offered include rabies for $25, FVRCP (distemper combo) for $20 and FIV/FeLV FOR $40.

Other services offered at the vaccine clinics are $20 nail trims, $20 ear cleanings and $25 microchip.

Upcoming vaccine clinics provided by First State Animal Center:

Thursday, Nov. 2, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Harrington.

Tuesday, Nov. 21, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Camden.

Thursday, Nov. 30, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Harrington.

Tuesday, Dec. 19, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Camden.

Thursday, Dec. 28, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Harrington.

Pet pantry

First State Animal Center has a food pantry for pet owners temporarily struggling to feed their pets. This pantry is not for breeders, kennels, rescue groups or those feeding stray cats.

To receive information about the next date for their drive-thru pet food pantry, call the shelter.

How to donate

If you would like to donate to the pantry, the shelter accepts any brand of unopened dry or canned pet food, which can be placed in the drop-off bins located outside by the front door.

The center also accepts financial donations to the pet pantry by PayPal or mailed check, as well as gift cards or pet food coupons.

Items on the centers wish list include:

Adult cat food

Kitten food.

Cat treats.

Cat litter.

Adult dog food.

Puppy food.

Dog treats.

Kitten milk replacer

Puppy milk replacer.

For more information, contact info@fsac-spca.org.

Camden: 32 Shelter Circle, (302) 943-6032. Harrington Veterinary Clinic: 1000 Midway Dr., Unit 11A, Harrington, (302) 990-3170; www.fsac-spca.org/.

Dog adopted after nearly 3 years: This dog lived at a shelter for 942 days before being adopted. This is his story.

Fixed and Fabulous spay/neuter program, various locations

Through the State of Delaware, Fixed and Fabulous is a subsidized spay/neuter program that provides $20 spay/neuter services for pets of Delawareans receiving public assistance.

Participating locations can be found in each Delaware county. For a list of locations, and to apply for the program, visit www.fixedandfab.com/#home.

Emergency Animal Care

Faithful Friends Animal Shelter Photos (July 26th, 2023)

Most animal service clinics do not provide emergency care, which includes the following issues:

Seizures

Excessive bleeding, vomiting and/or diarrhea

Not eating or drinking

Difficulty breathing

Trauma, such as being hit by a car

Toxin ingestions or poisoning

Lethargic, non-responsive or collapsing pets

Faithful Friends Animal Shelter Photos (July 26th, 2023)

If your pet is struggling with these issues, or other emergencies, immediately contact an emergency vet. Emergency vet services in Delaware include:

BluePearl Pet Hospital at 106 Geoffrey Drive in Stanton; (302) 322-6933, bluepearlvet.com/hospital/christiana-de/.

Windcrest Animal Hospital at 3705 Lancaster Pike in Wilmington; (302) 998-2295, windcrestanimal.com/.

VCA Newark Animal Hospital at 1360 Marrows Road in Ogletown; (302) 737-8100, vcahospitals.com/newark.

Middletown Veterinary Hospital at 366 Warwick Road in Middletown; (302) 378-2342, bestvetyet.com/.

Delmarva Animal Emergency Center at 1282 East Lebanon Road in Dover; (302) 514-2998, www.delmarvaer.com/.

Western Sussex Animal Hospital at 16487 Sussex Highway in Bridgeville; (302) 337-3787. You can find them on Facebook.

Savannah Animal Hospital at 22818 Wescoats Road in Lewes; (302) 645-8757, www.savannahanimalhosp.com/.

Got a tip or a story idea? Contact Krys'tal Griffin at kgriffin@delawareonline.com.

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This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Where to find free pet food, low-cost animal services in Delaware
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer crossed one item off her to-do list Thursday when she signed bills to place in state law the key health care protections secured by the federal Affordable Care Act.

Whitmer called it one of her top priorities in a speech laying out her legislative agenda before lawmakers returned to Lansing from their break. "This fall, let's codify the commonsense cost-saving measures of the ACA, including protections for pre-existing conditions, so you can't be charged more for having cancer, diabetes or being pregnant," she said then, prompting applause.

Lawmakers heeded Whitmer's call and sent the legislation to her desk before the end of the year.

The package of bills passed with bipartisan support and would essentially add to state law the key pieces of former President Barack Obama's signature health care law. One bill bars insurers from denying insurance to individuals based on their gender; gender identity or expression; or sexual orientation. It would expand the current prohibition on insurers from charging different rates for the same coverage.

Others ban insurers from denying coverage to someone with a preexisting condition, allow young adults to stay on their parents' health insurance until they're 26 years old, prohibit insurers from imposing annual or lifetime caps on essential services and require coverage for certain services such as hospitalization.

The legislative package approved by Whitmer also mandates insurers provide a summary of their coverage, bar insurers from rescinding coverage and specify the level of coverage an insurer would have to offer in Michigan.

Israel-Gaza War: Michigan House stalls on addressing war in Gaza, drawing criticism from lawmakers

Whitmer's office described the legislation as a way to ensure Michigan residents can continue to count on the federal health care protections in the event Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court repeals or guts portions of the ACA.

The bulk of the package is slated to take effect after the Legislature adjourns for the year.

"Today, I am proud to sign bipartisan bills putting the cost-saving provisions of the ACA into Michigan state law and protect health care for millions of Michiganders," Whitmer said in a statement.

Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter, @clarajanehen.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Whitmer signs bills to codify Affordable Care Act into Michigan law
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Officers say Union Gap man believed he was conversing with teen about having sex
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.
Candidates running in the November election for the position of Union Gap city councilor position 6, from left: Dave Matson and Julie Schilling.
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Affordable living is a top priority for Gen Z and this young generation is shifting its focus from the bright lights and high prices of big cities to more budget-friendly options.

Check Out: The Average American Spends This Much on Rent  See How You Stack Up

Discover: 10 Affordable US Small Towns With a Great Quality of Life

As this generation desires work-life balance and financial stability, Gen Z is flocking to cities that offer both affordability and appeal.

While young Americans may not be able to afford to live in the grand cities of Los Angeles and New York, check out these five cost-effective cities that are quickly becoming popular with Gen Z.

Omaha, Nebraska

Average one-bedroom rent in Omaha: $984

While Omaha might appear to be nothing more than cornfields, it is a surprising magnet for young Americans looking to live affordably and experience all four seasons.

Omaha is a hotspot for young professionals, said Humberto Marquez, a licensed real estate broker with Awning. Why? First, the cost of living is ridiculously low. Were talking about a nice balance between urban living and not having to eat instant ramen every meal.

Plus, Omaha has a burgeoning tech scene  and cultural diversity thats blossoming. Its not all steak and buffet here anymore; theres a real sense of community and innovation. Ive worked with several Gen Z clients who were thrilled to find they could own property here without selling an arm and a kidney.

With the average one-bedroom rent in this city under $1,000, Omaha is significantly more affordable than most cities in the U.S. However, its important to note that rent growth in this city has increased by a significant 4.9% over the past 12 months.

Discover: Cities Whose Economies Are Failing vs. Cities Whose Economies Are Thriving

Boise, Idaho

Average one-bedroom rent in Boise: $1,076

Boise isnt just a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts; it also boasts a low income tax and cost of living, making it an attractive spot for Gen Zers. Young Americans dont have to sacrifice quality of life in this city due to its exciting nightlife and booming job market.

Story continues

Boise is scenic, with a river literally running through it, mountains nearby and an emphasis on sustainability, which resonates with Gen Z ideals, Marquez said. The green spaces, the love for local businesses and a surprisingly vibrant arts scene make it a magnetic spot.

Affordable? Absolutely. A little-known fact is that Boise has some of the most reasonable property prices in the Pacific Northwest. Its like youre getting Portland vibes without the Portland price tag.

The average one-bedroom rent in Boise hovers just above $1,000; in the past year, the median rent has decreased by an impressive 6.4%, placing it below the national average.

Tucson, Arizona

Average one-bedroom rent in Tucson: $1,030

Tucson is rapidly emerging as an affordable and appealing option for Gen Zers seeking a walkable city. Neighborhoods such as Armory Park and El Presidio feature vibrant architecture, and the citys green initiatives enable this environmentally conscious generation to support a local economy that aligns with their values.

A city with a college-town feel, rich cultural heritage, fantastic food  the Mexican cuisine here is to die for  and its one of the sunniest places in the U.S., Marquez said. The living costs? Way lower than youd expect for a city with such a rich tapestry of experiences. Plus, the sustainability initiatives here are through the roof. Solar energy is big, and theres a city-wide initiative to increase urban agriculture.

The average price of a one-bedroom apartment in Tucson is slightly less than that of Boise. While the cost of living is low, the rent in Tucson has increased 3.3% over the past year.

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Average one-bedroom rent in Chattanooga: $1,025

Hang gliding, bass fishing and mountain climbing are just some of the outdoor adventure opportunities Chattanooga offers in addition to its impressively low cost of living. The digital generation also will appreciate the impressive internet speeds in this city.

Nestled along the Tennessee River and surrounded by mountains, Chattanooga is a haven for those who love nature, Marquez said. But whats drawing Gen Z here? Gigabit internet  it was the first city in the Western Hemisphere to roll this out. Theres a startup scene here thats just revving up, and the affordability is mind-blowing. You get Southern charm and an entrepreneurial spirit and your wallet doesnt cry itself to sleep.

With a one-bedroom apartment costing about $1,000, Chattanoogas affordability is undeniably attractive to Gen Zers. Even better, this citys rent has increased by a mere 0.9% over the past year.

Des Moines, Iowa

Average one-bedroom rent in Des Moines: $796

The most affordable city Gen Zers are flocking to is Des Moines. Young Americans enjoy the lower housing costs and have more room in their budgets to socialize with friends and enjoy the numerous bars and breweries the city features.

Its been voted one of the best places for business and careers, Marquez said. The job market is thriving, and the city is pouring money into revitalization projects. Theres a push towards urban living, with affordable condos and apartments sprouting up downtown. The art scene is evolving, and theres a palpable buzz thats hard to ignore. Gen Zers are noticing, and theyre loving the low living costs and the high quality of life.

As a small metro area with a strong sense of community, Des Moines boasts a median rent of just $957, with rental prices down 0.4% over the past year.

Rental statistics for each city have been compiled from Apartment List.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 5 Affordable Cities Becoming Popular With Gen Z
Federal safety regulators are recalling tens of thousands of gun safes after they say a child died accessing a firearm inside of one.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Fortress Safe, the recall involves about 61,000 biometric gun safes because of a safety hazard and risk of death caused by a programming feature that, in more than three dozen instances, allowed unauthorized access to the safes.

The recalled safes, which were made in China, were imported and distributed by Xpedition LLC, dba Fortress Safe, of Naperville, Illinois.

"Consumers can believe they have properly programmed the biometric feature when in fact the safe remains in the default to open mode, which can allow unauthorized users, including children, to access the safe to remove hazardous contents, including firearms," the CPSC posted in its Thursday recall.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of about 61,000 brand name gun safes after a child died accessing it by using his unpaired fingerprint. According to the federal agency, the recall involves Biometric Gun Safes due to a serious safety hazard and risk of death caused by a programming feature that can allow unauthorized access to the safes.

One death, 39 incidents of 'unpaired' fingerprint access

So far, CPSC said, at least one death has been tied to the issue that prompted the recall.

The agency said "it is aware of a recent lawsuit" claiming a 12-year-old boy died from a firearm obtained from one of the recalled safes. The CPSC did not release additional details about the child's death.

As of Thursday, the agency said, there had been 39 incidents of consumers reporting their safes were accessed by "unpaired" fingerprints.

Drug, medical device recall: Family Dollar issues huge recall for over-the-counter drugs, medical devices in 23 states

Which gun safes are being recalled?

The CPSC reported the recalled gun safes are portable lock boxes, personal safes, pistol vaults, and gun cabinets with brand names Fortress, Cabelas, Gettysburg, and Legend Range & Field.

Nine models are being recalled:

Model #11B20: Fortress Portable Safe with Biometric Lock

Model #44B10: Fortress Personal Safe with Pop up door and Biometric Lock

Model #44B10L: Legend Range & Field Personal Safe with Pop up door and Biometric Lock

Model #44B20: Fortress Medium Personal Safe with Biometric Lock

Model #55B20: Fortress Quick Access Safe with Biometric Lock

Model #55B30: Fortress Large Quick Access Safe with Biometric Lock

Model #55B30G: Gettysburg Large Quick Access Safe with Biometric Lock

Model #4BGGBP: Cabelas 4 Gun Safe with Biometric Lock

Model #55B30BP: Cabelas Biometric Personal Safe

Story continues

Where were the recalled gun safes sold?

Safes being recalled were sold at the following stores: Bass Pro Shops, Cabelas, Scheels, Sportsmans Guide, Optics Planet, Dicks Sporting Goods, Gander, Rural King, Lowes and online at Amazon.com and Ebay.com.

Retailers sold the safes, manufactured in China, from January 2019 through this month.

The safes sold between $44 and $290, the CPSC reported.

Check car recalls here: Ford and Mercedes-Benz among nearly 250,000 vehicles recalled

How do I get a replacement gun safe?

Consumer should "immediately stop using the biometric feature, remove the batteries from the safe, and only use the key for the recalled safes being used to store firearms," the agency said.

For instructions on how to disable the biometric feature and get a free replacement safe contact Fortress Safes.

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gun safe recall: Fortress recalling products after reported death
The Arizona Western College Foundation held its second annual Schoolhouse Soiree event which combines two of its traditional events, the Celebration of Scholars and the AWC Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

This years event was particularly special for the foundation as it celebrated its own and the colleges 60th anniversary. AWC Hall of Fame members, scholarship recipients, donors and community members gathered Friday night, Oct. 6 in honor of both the college and foundations missions. The Yuma Regional Medical Center served as the nights presenting sponsor.

While AWC strives to transform lives through education and partnerships to create thriving communities, the AWC Foundation aims to support that mission by making education universally accessible through the removal of economic barriers for students across the entire region.

At a glance for 2023-2024, the foundation shared that over $340,000 was awarded to support students and AWC programs. The impact for students is more than just covering tuition; childcare, books, graduation garments, school supplies, transportation, housing and even food are among the many essentials that scholarship funds might provide for, too.

The AWC Foundation currently manages 76 endowments, 48 program funds and 150 scholarship funds. On top of that, its also managed the $1.2 million supporting the AWC Academic Librarys renovation.

The Soiree was a ticketed event that included a silent auction to help raise more funds to support AWC students. On Tuesday, Oct. 10, the AWC Foundation announced in a Facebook post that it raised $110,000 at the event, thanks to the support of sponsors, volunteers and donors. It proclaimed Cheers for 60 years! and that it is Looking forward to the next 60 years of serving our community!

To learn more about the AWC Foundation, visit https://foundation.azwestern.edu.

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When shopping for a new car, its tempting to be drawn to popular foreign brands known for their reputations for performance, luxury, value and style. However, experts advise caution with certain models that have developed notorious track records.

Discover: 6 American Cars To Stay Away From Buying

From Toyota to Tesla: Buy These 5 Affordable Cars That Will Last Long After 100,000 Miles

While a flashy exterior or badge cachet may turn heads, it is wise to look under the hood, scrutinize reliability reports and listen to the experts before making a purchase.

Prospective buyers would be prudent to steer clear of the following foreign cars that have been repeatedly criticized by industry experts and owners alike. From chronic transmission problems to exorbitant maintenance costs, these rides come with some heavy baggage that outweighs any superficial appeal. Test drives and independent inspections are strongly recommended before signing on the dotted line.

Also see six new cars to stay away from buying.

Nissan Pathfinder

This midsize SUV has faced criticism for transmission problems, especially with the continuously variable transmission (CVT). Owners have reported overheating, lack of durability and the need for expensive repairs or replacements.

Automotive expert Er. Ankit Dhadwal, founder and CEO of Mount Shine, said, Many owners complained that their CVTs overheated and werent very durable. Consumers expressed concern over the need for expensive transmission replacements or maintenance so frequently.

Check Out: 4 Luxury Cars That Will Actually Last Years

Toyota C-HR

Subcompact SUVs are often smart choices for daily driving in crowded urban areas. On the surface, the Toyota C-HR appears to offer many advantages in this vehicle class. But, according to expert assessments, the C-HR is actually one of the poorest options among subcompact SUVs currently on the market.

According to Matas Buzelis, automotive expert at carVertical, The C-HR stands out as one of the worst subcompact SUVs available. When we set aside the cars somewhat ambiguous design and focus solely on its attributes, it becomes evident that the C-HR lacks any distinct advantages. Build quality, interior space, dynamics, handling and comfort all fall short. The C-HR is, at best, a subpar option.

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Jaguar X-Type

The X-Type has been criticized for below-average reliability and costly maintenance compared to rivals like BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Owners cite more frequent mechanical issues and high labor and parts expenses.

As Dhadwal noted, The likelihood of high repair costs was one of the main justifications for exercising caution with the X-Type. The price of labor and genuine Jaguar parts may dramatically increase maintenance and repair costs.

Audi Q5 55 TFSI e

Experts noted this plug-in hybrid SUV is unnecessarily complex and expensive compared to gas-only versions of the Q5.

Buzelis said, Currently, the most affordable version of the Q5 55 TFSI e starts at around $57,000, which is approximately $11,000 more than a version with the same four-cylinder engine that offers similar performance without the added complexity.

When you pair it with a plug-in hybrid powertrain, it becomes unnecessarily complex and expensive. Furthermore, when the hybrids battery depletes, recharging is not a fast and efficient process.

Fiat 500

Though beloved for its style, the 500 has been plagued by electrical issues, including problems with lighting, power windows and infotainment. Transmission complaints and doubts about long-term durability are also common.

According to Dhadwal, Electrical components were a frequent source of Fiat 500 complaints. Some owners reported issues with the lighting, power windows, bad clutch plate, faulty fuel-injector seats and infotainment systems, which might be aggravating and expensive to remedy.

Mitsubishi Mirage

This budget subcompact is notorious for poor performance, noisy cabin, choppy ride quality and lack of features compared to the competition. Acceleration is notably underpowered.

Highway merging and passing maneuvers may feel uneasy due to the engines lack of power, Dhadwal explained. The Mirages poor performance is one of its biggest criticisms, as it has troubles with its front brakes; also, the airbags do not deploy as expected.

Nissan Juke

While the Nissan Juke has a unique design, there are some practical drawbacks to consider for long-term ownership.

According to James McNally, the managing director of Self-Drive Vehicle Hire, The Jukes design includes a sloping roofline which gives it a sporty and dynamic appearance, but this design choice reduces the available headroom for passengers in the rear seats. Taller individuals in particular may find it uncomfortable to sit in the back due to the restricted headspace.

Cargo space is also tighter than many rival SUVs.

Honda Civic (2012)

The 2012 Honda Civic is one model year thats best avoided.

According to Blake Shaw, automotive expert of the All About Wheels blog, This Civic model year is notorious for problems with interior accessories and brake systems. Quite a few owners have complained about premature tire wear, too.

Problems with the 2012 Civics interior trim peeling or cracking early in the vehicles life are frequently reported. Given this model years notoriety for various defects and lower-than-average reliability, consumers are wise to look at other options in the used car market. The 2012 Civics issues outweigh its positive attributes for most buyers.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 8 Foreign Cars To Stay Away From Buying
Mircea Rednic despre anuntul lui Mircea Lucescu: Eu nu cred nimic

Tehnicianul formatiei UTA Arad, Mircea Rednic, nu crede ca Mircea Lucescu se va retrage din activitatea de antrenor, asa cum a lasat sa se inteleaga vineri seara.Eu, care il cunosc foarte bine, nu cred. Eu cred doar ca sli-a incheiat angajamentul cu Dinamo Kiev. Poate [citeste mai departe]
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- The European data regulator has agreed to extend a ban on behavioural advertising on Facebook and Instagram to cover all 30 countries in the European Union and the European Economic Area, Norways data regulator said late on Tuesday, according to Reuters. The ban on such advertising, which targets

- Bruxellesul a anuntat joi ca a deschis o ancheta asupra retelelor de socializare Meta (Facebook, Instagram) si TikTok. De asemenea, cere detalii despre masurile pe care acestea le pun in aplicare pentru a preveni difuzarea de informatii false si continuturi ilegale in urma atacurilor Hamas asupra

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- The European Commission officially started on Wednesday an anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles, according to a notice of initiation published in the EU Official Journal, according to Politico. The probe is on the Commissions own initiative, a so-called ex-officio investigation,

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Prime Minister Viktor Orban met Chen Siqing, head of the board of directors of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the largest bank in the world, for talks in Beijing.

According to a press release from the prime ministers press office, Orban visited ICBCs headquarters and discussed high-level cooperation within the Belt and Road initiative.



At the talks, Orban highlighted ICBCs role in the development of Hungarys economy and trade, as well as in Hungary-China trade.



The prime minister informed his partner about Hungarys economic development and his governments plans to support competitive industries and Chinese companies investing in Hungary.



He encouraged additional Chinese investments in Hungary and said he counted on ICBCs cooperation.



China and Hungary are faithful partners in the Belt and Road initiative, Chen said, adding that he saw great opportunities for further cooperation in all areas.



He said his bank would promote a close tie between the Chinese initiative and Hungarys national strategy, better financial services in Hungary and in central Europe, as well as contribute to economic, trade and a pragmatic financial cooperation between China and Hungary.



ICBC has 415 branches in 49 countries worldwide, including 20 countries in Africa.



Hungary Signs Cooperation Agreement with Industrial and Commercial Bank Of China



Economic Development Minister Marton Nagy signed a cooperation agreement with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) CEO Liao Lin on Wednesday, his ministry said.



Prime Minister Viktor Orban is heading a delegation to China. He held talks with ICBC Presidet Chen Siqing ahead of Nagy and Liao signing the agreement, the statement said.



The goal of the memorandum of understanding is to further develop Hungarian-Chinese financial ties, strengthen trade ties between the two countries and promote business cooperation in the areas of investment, financing and payments, including in the field of FinTech innovations and the application of artificial intelligence, the ministry said.



The agreement highlights opportunities to finance infrastructure and green projects, as well as issues related to the establishment of Chinese companies complete supply chains in Hungary.



Hungary wants to become not only an economic meeting point between East and West for capital and cutting edge technology, but a regional financial hub too, Nagy said. The MoU affirms that the sides will work to open an ICBC branch in Hungary.



Orban Advocates Connectivity, Mutual Respect at Beijing Summit



Prime Minister Viktor Orban has talked about a decline in the Western world and Europes competitiveness, the importance of connectivity, and Hungary as a meeting point of eastern and western economies in his address at the Belt and Road Initiative summit in Beijing, his press chief said.



Orban said that the era of the Western world holding an advantage was over, with the East having gained in strength. He said the European dilemma was whether to create blocs in the global economy and compete, while acting as protectionists, or to seek the opportunities for cooperation and connectivity.



He also said that Europe had cut cooperation with Russia and this was a big step towards the development of blocs. Currently, there are efforts to go even further with discussions of decoupling and de-risking, which would result in the isolation of European and Chinese economies, he added.



Supporters of connectivity including Hungary reject the policy of creating blocs, he said. Central Europe suffered for decades from the existence of blocs which was not good, illogical and inhuman, he said.



Hungarys goal is to become the meeting point for eastern and western economies and technologies, he said. The most important eastern and western investors for the new era of technology meet in Hungary today, he added.



Szijjarto: Attempts to Sever Eastern, Western Economy Risky



Attempts to sever ties between the interdependent eastern and western economies are putting the jobs of millions at risk, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in Beijing.



Speaking at an international forum of the Belt and Road initiative, Szijjarto said one of the most important morals of the crises of past years had been that cooperation was a more successful way to handle challenges than an approach based on animosity.



He called for reviving mutual respect and against creating blocks in world politics and economy, saying Hungary and central Europe have always lost out on the latter. The joint interest would be in connectivity, he said.



Eastern and western economies are interdependent, and those who deny this probably based their stance on ideology rather than facts, he said.



Attempts to sever eastern and western economies are extremely dangerous and putting millions of jobs at risk, he said, citing Hungarys efforts to become a meeting point of the two economies.



The country is set to house manufacturing plants of all three German carmaking giants, and five of the ten largest battery manufacturers. That makes Hungary essential to Europes changing car market and guarantees economic growth, he said.



If the world was divided into blocks again, that would lead to global disaster. At the same time, if connectivity and mutual respect is fostered, then I am sure that a more peaceful, prosperous era is coming, and I think Chinas role is of critical importance, he said.
Last week, tragedy struck in Israel. The Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas brutally attacked men, women, and children in a hateful act of war. The butchering of babies, the burning of human bodies, the kidnapping, rape, beating, and murder of Israelis is despicable and shocking to the core.

This news was saddening and horrifying for us all. Israel has the right  and the responsibility  to defend itself against this aggression. The United States will stand with Israel. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Appropriations Committee, I am working with my colleagues and the administration to ensure that the United States is able to provide them with the support and resources they need to address this threat.

Both our allies and partners, but also our adversaries, are closely watching how the United States responds to the atrocious Hamas attack on Israel. Allies and partners should be encouraged to follow our actions in supporting Israel and denouncing terrorism. Adversaries must be deterred from taking advantage of this situation and further destabilizing the region.

One way allies and partners can support Israel is by withdrawing support from the Iranian regime, which gives money and resources to terrorist groups like Hamas. This week, I joined several of my Senate Republican colleagues in a letter calling on the Biden Administration to take action against Iran. We urged President Biden to immediately convene the G7 nations  which include several close allied nations  and take coordinated action to isolate Iran using severe sanctions. These sanctions restrict Irans ability to fund regional terrorist groups.

Our letter also called on the president to reverse a decision to allow Iran to access $6 billion  which had previously been frozen under sanctions  that the administration announced in August. Instead, we urged President Biden, as the leader of the free world, to lead Americas partners and allies in securing agreements from as many nations as possible to take the most severe economic and diplomatic action against Iran possible under the law.

In response to this letter, reports emerged that the White House had agreed to deny Iran further access to that $6 billion. This is a first step; however, Im introducing legislation with Senators Cotton and McConnell this week to make this policy law. We must prevent funds from flowing to a regime that bankrolls terrorist activity throughout the Middle East.

As Americans, we must come together in a bipartisan way to keep terrorism in check and stand with our ally Israel. I call on my colleagues in the Senate, as well as the administration and people across our country, to unequivocally condemn the evil acts committed by Hamas and their primary sponsor Iran. We must work together to support Israel and protect both Americans and Israelis who are being affected by the instability in the Middle East.

Thank you for participating in the democratic process. I look forward to visiting with you again next week.
Two Turkish vehicle manufacturers, Otokar and Nurol Makina, on Wednesday signed contracts with Estonia for the supply of 230 armored vehicles worth around 200 million (approximately $211 million), Azernews reports, citing Anadolu Agency.

A contract signing ceremony was held in the Estonian capital Tallinn for the 230 4X4 and 6X6 vehicles to be delivered to Estonian security forces by the Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (ECDI).

Additionally, four wheeled armoured vehicles have been purchased for the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Centre of the Estonian Rescue Board. These armoured vehicles are intended to safeguard members of the Defence Forces in combat situations, ensuring their rapid and secure deployment on the battlefield, according to a statement from the ECDI.

During the ceremony, Turkish National Defense Minister Yasar Guler and his Estonian counterpart Hanno Pevkur signed a Letter of Intent, and Haluk Gorgun, president of the Turkish Defense Industry Agency, and Magnus Valdemar Saar, director general of the ECDI signed a protocol for cooperation in the two countries' defense industries.

Later, contracts were signed between ECDI and Otokar for the supply of ARMA 6X6 armored combat vehicles, and NurolMakina for the supply of NMS (YORUK) 4X4 armored combat vehicles. Otokar Deputy General Manager Sedef Vehbi and Engin Aykol, Nurol Makinas CEO signed the contracts.

Speaking at the event, Turkish Minister Guler said the signed letter of intent will strengthen the two countries' excellent relations and allow the defense industry and companies to collaborate more.

Noting that the two countries have very good relations based on mutual respect, Guler said the 100th anniversary of bilateral relations will be celebrated in 2024.

Relations in the defense industry will bring the two countries closer, the minister said, adding The products of Turkish companies will further strengthen the Estonian army and contribute to regional security. The memorandum of intent will further develop good relations.

For his part, Estonian Defense Minister Pevkur said that following the Ukraine-Russia war, Estonia realized it did not have much time to strengthen its defense.

I am very pleased to sign this letter of intent, which will further our cooperation in the defense industry, Pevkur said.

He also added that NATO is a great military power and the latest developments in Ukraine and Israel have reaffirmed the importance of keeping this great power together.
The Black Book Captures The Imagination Of Over 20 Million Viewers Taking A Spot On Netflix's Top 10 List In 69 Countries.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In a remarkable triumph that has captured the hearts and minds of viewers worldwide, Anakle Films proudly presents The Black Book, an extraordinary cinematic experience that has forever changed the landscape of African cinema that tells a fictional story exploring the West African country's conflicted history with military dictatorship, drug trafficking, and politics, through a retired hitman's journey to seek justice. Since its premiere on Netflix this past September, The Black Book has left a mark, not only making waves worldwide but creating history as the first Nigerian film to take the position of Top 3 globally on Netflix. According to the streaming tracking website FlixPatrol, The Black Book's global appeal made it the #1 film on Netflix globally from Day 3 of its release, making it the first African title to hit such heights on the Netflix Global Daily tracker.

ACTION THRILLER MAKES NETFLIX HISTORY AS THE FIRST AFRICAN FILM TO REACH TOP THREE GLOBALLY

Directed by Editi Effiong, The Black Book details the fictional story of Paul Edima, a former military and drug cartel hitman in Nigeria who cemented his legend with an unparalleled record of assassinations, coups, abductions, and drug operations. After walking away to live a quiet life for 30 years, Edima is forced back to seek justice when his only son is killed by a gang of corrupt policemen.

"This achievement for an independent African film is nothing short of historic," The Black Book Director Editi Effiong says, "The film has been well received globally and has surpassed our expectations. This film carries deep cultural significance, portraying the struggles of the Nigerian people over the years. I am immensely proud that The Black Book has brought this narrative to life."

Within a matter of weeks following its release, The Black Book captured the imagination of over 20 million viewers and had taken a spot on Netflix's top 10 list for three consecutive weeks in 69 countries. While numerous African films have graced the platform, The Black Book stands out as a trailblazer for the African film industry.

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"The Black Book's success proves African stories, made on the continent by Africans, can stand on their merit on the global stage. Great storytelling is universal, and although the story of The Black Book is inspired by what has happened in Nigeria, the themes have resonated across the world, especially in South America and South East Asia, with South Korea being a standout case study, where the film was #1 according to Netflix official data," Effiong says, "The Black Book has shaken up how the world sees the Nigerian cinematic experience, and the results have been incredible; the Anakle Films production team has been blessed with world-class actors to bring this new Nigerian narrative to life, as well as the chance to incorporate some amazing sets and never-before-seen large-scale location shoots into the feature."

The film features an ensemble cast of Africa's most well-known actors, including Richard Mofe-Damijo, Alex Usifo, Sam Dede, Denola Grey, Shaffy Bello, and Ireti Doyle. The Black Book delves into a fictional narrative that explores the West African country's conflicted history with military dictatorship, drug trafficking, and politics through a retired hitman's journey to seek justice.

The film production brought together professionals from 6 countries, including the USA, UK, Guadeloupe, South Africa, and Nigeria, and was filmed with world-class audio-visual technology at a scale seen in Nigeria for the first time. Pre-production for The Black Book started in 2020, where the film's lead characters underwent intense training with stunt and tactical trainers to help them achieve high-level skills in martial arts and the use of weaponry. Filmed over four months across multiple sites in Nigeria [many have never been used for film production], including the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Lagos' Apapa Port, and Old Railway Compound, Kaduna. The team also constructed huge sets and sound stages, not usually seen in Nigerian cinema, to achieve some stand-out scenes.

About Anakle Films

Anakle Films is all about telling the next generation of African stories to inspire the continent to fulfill its potential. Based in Lagos, Nigeria, the Anakle Films team creates visual stories, including short films, TV/Online commercials, and documentaries. Anakle Films is also investing in infrastructure to deepen local content distribution across West Africa. Anakle Films' most recent film, The Black Book, released in September 2023, is the most successful African film ever on the Netflix platform.

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/action-thriller-makes-netflix-history-as-the-first-african-film-to-reach-top-three-globally-301961816.html

SOURCE Anakle Films
An IndiGo flight en route to Bengaluru returned to Singapore after take-off on Tuesday morning as the airline had forgotten to offload the baggage of passengers of an earlier flight.

"We acknowledge the baggage error on the part of our service partner at Singapore airport with respect to flight 6E 1006 operating from Singapore to Bengaluru, due to which the flight returned to its origin. The passengers were kept informed of the delay and served refreshments," the airline said in a statement. Some social media users complained about the incident.

Also read: Pakistan's National Carrier Faces Fuel Shortage; Cancels Multiple Flights

Tagging IndiGo, a user on X said, "Congratulations on achieving the impossible... Singapore Bengaluru flight at 5:40 am made to turn back coz you guys forgot to offload luggage from incoming flight". Another X user said there was mismanagement at Singapore airport.

"@IndiGo6E horrible mismanagement at Singapore airport!6E1006 was in the air for 1.5 hours, from SIN to BLR, landed back in Singapore bec you all mixed up baggage of various flights!!!...," the user said.
New Delhi: Actress Adah Sharma, who was last seen in the hit film 'The Kerala Story', has commenced shooting for her next project. The actress is once again teaming up with 'The Kerala Story' makers - Vipul Amrutlal Shah and Sudipto Sen. The shooting of 'Bastar' kickstarted with a mahurat puja followed by a first-day shoot at the location.

After delivering a game-changer film 'The Kerala Story', which was believed to be inspired by real story of how innocent non-Muslim girls were recruited for the Islamic State, producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah, director Sudipto Sen, and actress Adah Sharma are now gearing up for their next.

The shooting mahurat event saw the presence of Vipul Amrutlal Shah, Aashin A Shah from Sunshine Pictures, director Sudipto Sen and actress Adah Sharma. Just after the puja, Adah Sharma shot her first shot on the location.

As the shoot for the film commenced, the actress delivered her first dialogue for the film and she was seen donning military pants, a black commando t-shirt, and a commando-like bandhana. This has indeed piqued the excitement to watch the film.

Speaking of 'Bastar: The Naxal Story' is produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah and co-produced by Aashin A Shah. The film will be directed by Sudipto Sen and feature Adah Sharma as the lead.

It will be produced under the banner of Sunshine Pictures and will be made in association with Last Monk Media. The film will be released on April 5, 2024.
New Delhi: Google announced today 5 major initiatives for India under 'Google for India 2023' event in New Delhi. This was the ninth annual Google event that aimed to develop and integrate new products and developments by the tech giant. The big annoucements ranging from manufacturing pixel smartphone to expanding the reach of formal credit have aimed to boost the power of India's home-grown Digital Public Infrastructure for 'Digital India'.

Manufacturing Pixel Smartphones in India

Google announced that it plans to start manufacturing pixels - the only phones developed by Google - in India in an effort to make them more widely available across the country. It says that it will start with Pixel 8, its newly launched smartphone, from 2024 and will partner international and domestic manufacturers.

Entering into the retail loan business

Google pay will now be able to easily find and make payments for pre-approved credit lines from banks. The company said that it will be helpful for millions of underserved but eligible Indians across India to now access formal credit. Moreover, it not only aims to target only personal loan but they can also serve India's Small Businesses to access formal credit with more flexibility and convenience to meet their working capital needs.

Cloud Infrastructure for citizen-centric services

To help expand the benefits of technology to people and small businesses across India, Google Cloud announced a range of collaborations with several of the countrys key organizations. Google Cloud and Axis My India  one of the countrys leading media companies  announced the launch of an inclusive and multilingual super-app called a. Its purpose is to grow peoples awareness and access to government social welfare programs, basic day-to-day amenities, employment opportunities and healthcare benefits. This app will use Google Clouds infrastructure to help bring access to Indians across the country, whether they live in rural or urban areas.

We also announced an expanded partnership with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to help Farmer Producer Organizations more efficiently and easily sell their produce online, and a collaboration with the international arm of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to introduce real-time payment systems via UPI for easier overseas payments.

AI Integration

Google announced that it will integrate its generative AI search overview for over 100 crucial government programs around employment, housing, healthcare, farming, women's welfare and more. Moreover, it will also roll out Search features to help small businesses show up better in Search results with a more visual, relevant andeasily-filterable product feed.

Focusing on safety

Google launched Digikavach initiative to develop and implement safeguards to protect people from scams, malware and online fraud. The initiative aims to work with industry partners and committed experts to share insights and combat online financial fraud. It will study how scammers operate, and work in tandem to develop and implement countermeasures to new emerging scams.
New Delhi, October 19, 2023 - In a significant development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi engaged in a telephonic conversation with the President of the Palestinian Authority, HE Mahmoud Abbas today. During the call, Prime Minister Modi expressed his heartfelt condolences for the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza and reaffirmed India's commitment to providing humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people.

Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Shared our deep concern at the terrorism,  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 19, 2023

Prime Minister Modi took to Twitter to share the conversation with the public, stating, "Spoke to the President of the Palestinian Authority H.E. Mahmoud Abbas. Conveyed my condolences at the loss of civilian lives at the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people."

The conversation between the two leaders was marked by discussions on the ongoing turmoil in the region. Prime Minister Modi expressed deep concern regarding the increasing levels of terrorism, violence, and the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East. The conversation underscored the need for peace, stability, and security for all nations in the region.

Furthermore, Prime Minister Modi reaffirmed India's unwavering principled stance on the Israel-Palestine issue, advocating for a peaceful and negotiated resolution that respects the aspirations of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
Kashmir: The Counter Intelligence (CI) division of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) carried out a series of operations in different locations throughout the Kashmir valley. These operations were part of efforts to disrupt the terror network that had been exploiting social media for the purposes of making threats and recruiting individuals for acts of terror.

SSP CI Kashmir said  Searches at 05 locations in Districts of Kupwara, Srinagar, Anantnag and Pulwama were conducted to dismantle terror ecosystem. The searches were conducted in pursuance to search warrant obtained from the Honble Court of Special Judge Designated under NIA Act Srinagar in case FIR No. 07/2023 U/S 153-A, 505, 506 IPC, 13, 18, 18-B, 39 UAPA registered in P/S CIK Srinagar, he added.

The case pertains to a deep conspiracy hatched by terrorist organizations with their associates in Kashmir valley in conspiracy with handlers sitting across who are uploading criminal content on different Social Media platforms which are not only seditious in nature but are also spreading anti-India narrative aiming at glorifying/glamorizing terrorists and also inciting and luring gullible youths to take up arms against the sovereignty of India by joining terrorist ranks, the officer added.

During preliminary investigation it revealed that some of these individuals/entities were profiling individuals, especially those who would like to take a different and independent stand against secessionists or terrorists and who are in support of peace, order and a violence-free society, as legitimate targets of vilification and violence, the police officer said.

Adding he said, These anti-national elements are also profiling bonafide Government servants working in Kashmir and perpetually keep issuing threats, sometimes open and sometimes veiled to harm their person, reputation or properties in order to prevent them in performing their lawful duties.

During the course of preliminary investigation, it was also revealed that through these Facebook accounts, these associates of terrorist organization(s) are promoting feeling of enmity and disharmony among different religious and regional groups and provoking youth to indulge in large-scale violence and disturbance against the peace and tranquility of Kashmir, the officer said.

The searching party claimed that During the searches, incriminating material including electronic gadgets and other articles having bearing on the investigation of the case was seized and recovered. Analysis of the data would follow and leads that would emerge would become the basis for further investigation.

It is pertinent to mention here that the searches are aimed at dismantling the terror ecosystem in the valley by identifying such elements who are inimical to the peace and security of the state and aresupporting/abetting terrorism by luring gullible youth into the fold of terrorism.
The Pacific Holiday World is regarded for being India's Fastest Growing Brand in Hospitality Industry and travel firm with remarkable assistance in the year 2023 by Topnotch Foundation in Mayur Vihar-Noida on thirteenth Oct 2023.

Special Guests: Mr. Arbaaz Khan (Indian Film Entertainer and Filmmaker) Ms. Jaya Prada (Indian Film Actress and Politician), and Dr. Raghuraj Singh (Director/Work and Business Priest in Uttar Pradesh regarded the firm with their presence. 'The Pacific Holiday World' for offering wonderful sorts of help with the Neighborliness business.

Worldwide Business Pride Grants 2023 was facilitated in the harmless presence of the accompanying Visitors: Shri Arif Mohammad Khan (Legislative leader of Kerala), Shri Mahendra Nath Pandey (Association Bureau Clergyman of Weighty Ventures Govt. of India, Shri Faggan Singh Kulaste (Association Priest of Steel and Country Improvement Govt. of India), Shri Narayan Rane (Association Bureau Priest of Miniature, Little and Medium Endeavors Govt. of India), Shri Mahendra Nath Pandey (Association Bureau Pastor of Weighty Ventures), Shri Dushyant Kumar Gautam (Public General Secretary BJP) and Shri Virendra Sachdeva (President BJP Delhi State).

We at the Pacific Holiday World recognize that in a disturbing city climate, especially coordinated and simple breaks from routine are vital for food. We intend to transform into the World's most accepted cheerfulness brand in 2023 and achieve essentially more sooner rather than later.

Rehan Akhtar, who is also the administering top of "The Pacific Holiday World," has made colossal progress.

He started his job in amiability since he acknowledged that each move away should be thoroughly enjoyed to its fullest potential. Everyone should make the most of their trips and hold the choice to be content.

Mission: By regularly introducing new things, the Pacific Holiday World Social event's primary objective is to expand the assumption for living in the organization we serve all over the planet.

Because of this point of view and thought, we at this point put a high value on guaranteeing that our visitors are cheerful, which is besides reflected in our truism.

At The Pacific Holiday World, we will for the most part envision that in a very upsetting town environment, especially organized, clear chunks of time away from the routine are central for food.

We tend to trust that the genuine Indian custom of "Visitor is God," or Atithi Devotional Bhavo, contains the quintessence of friendliness. It has required us a long investment to shape our custom because of this sort of way of thinking and imagination that has pushed us to believe visitor fulfillment to be overwhelmingly significant.

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New Delhi: The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved a slew of impending decisions which will give the much needed festive boost to government employes and farmers.

Here's Looking At Major Modi Government Announcements That Will Add Double Joy To Festivities

Minimum Support Prices (MSP) For Rabi Crops For Marketing Season 2024-25

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the hike in the Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for all mandated Rabi Crops for Marketing Season 2024-25.

"Government has increased the MSP of Rabi Crops for Marketing Season 2024-25, to ensure remunerative prices to the growers for their produce. The absolute highest increase in MSP has been approved for lentil (masur) at Rs.425 per quintal followed by rapeseed & mustard at Rs.200 per quintal. For wheat and safflower, an increase of Rs.150 per quintal each has been approved. For barley and gram an increase of Rs.115 per quintal and Rs.105 per quintal respectively, has been approved," said an official release.

Dearness Allowance, Dearness Relief Hike

Cabinet has approved the release of an additional instalment of Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief due from 01.07.2023 which will benefit 48.67 lakh Central Government Employees and 67.95 lakh pensioners. The Cabinet has hiked the DA, DR by 4 percent from the existing 42 percent to 46 percent of the Basic Pay/Pension, to compensate against price rise.

"This increase is in accordance with the accepted formula, which is based on the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission. The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief would be Rs.12,857 crore per annum. This will benefit about 48.67 lakh Central Government employees and 67.95 lakh pensioners," said an official release.

Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) For Railway Employees

The Union Cabinet has approved Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) equivalent to 78 days wages for the financial year 2022-23 to all eligible non-gazetted Railway employees namely Track maintainer, Loco Pilots, Train Managers (Guards), Station Masters, Supervisors, Technicians, Technician Helpers, Pointsman, Ministerial Staff and other Group C staff (excluding RPF/RPSF personnel).

"In recognition of this excellent performance by the Railway staff, Union Government has approved payment of PLB of Rs 1968.87 crore to 11,07,346 railway employees. The performance of Railways in the year 2022-2023 was very good. Railways loaded a record cargo of 1509 Million Tonnes and carried nearly 6.5 Billion Passengers. Payment of PLB will act as an incentive to motivate the Railway employees for working towards further improvement in performance," said an official release.
HYDERABAD: In a gripping turn of events, a joint team of police and Election Commission officials intercepted a truck transporting an astounding sum of Rs 750 crore in cash in Telangana. This incident unfolded on the National Highway in Gadwal, Telangana, sending shockwaves through the law enforcement agencies actively engaged in election duty, especially with assembly polls looming in the state. After hours of suspense and speculations, it was confirmed that the substantial cash sum belonged to the Union Bank of India and was merely in transit from Kerala to Hyderabad.

Putting an end to the buzz surrounding this extraordinary incident, Telangana's chief electoral officer clarified the situation to the press. He assured that the truck, loaded with Rs 750 crore, was, in fact, part of a routine cash transfer operation. Once this was verified by the bank authorities, the police allowed the truck to resume its journey.

"The truck with Rs 750 crore in cash grabbed the spotlight for a few hours but ultimately we found out it was a straightforward chest-to-chest money transfer. Once verified, police allowed the truck to continue its journey," stated Vikas Raj, the Chief Electoral Officer.

The CEO explained that every vehicle entering the state was undergoing meticulous inspection due to the heightened vigilance of law enforcement agencies.

During a recent visit to Hyderabad, Chief Election Commissioner Rajeev Kumar had instructed state election authorities to clamp down on smuggling activities, especially via Mahbubnagar to Hyderabad from locations like Goa. The CEC also expressed concern over the relatively 'fewer' cash seizures by state police. As a response to complaints from opposition parties, the Election Commission took action, leading to the transfer of top IPS officers, four collectors, and senior officials.

With the Election Commission taking a tough stance, the police force engaged in election duty in the state is leaving no room for complacency. Suspecting possible foul play, they promptly halted the truck on the highway on Tuesday night.

Elaborating on the situation, Sanjay Kumar Jain, Telangana Police Nodal officer for the Election Commission, was quoted as saying by major news publications, "The cash-laden truck encountered a roadblock, prompting a call to Gadwal police for assistance. Our sleuths, upon inspection, discovered a huge amount. After scrutinizing documents and consulting with the bank and Reserve Bank of India, the truck, accompanied by Gadwal police, continued its journey to Hyderabad."

Amid this gripping incident, the cumulative seizures across the state have now reached a staggering Rs 165 crore. This figure includes various items such as cash, liquor, drugs, gold, and precious stones.
New Delhi: Rashida Tlaib, a United States lawmaker, made a significant statement on Wednesday. She accused President Joe Biden's administration of financially supporting the conflict between Israel and Palestine during a pro-Palestine rally on Capitol Hill. Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, referred to the funding as a "genocide" against Palestinians.

Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American, was born and raised in Detroit as the eldest of 14 siblings. She attended Detroit Public Schools and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Government from Wayne State University. She also pursued a legal education at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School.

In 2008, Rashida made history by becoming the first Muslim woman to serve in the Michigan Legislature. She was elected to represent the 6th House District in Detroit in the Michigan House of Representatives.

Currently, Rashida Tlaib serves as a Congresswoman for Michigan's 12th Congressional District, encompassing Detroit, Dearborn, Southfield, and various surrounding communities. Before her political career, she worked as an attorney, social worker, and community organizer at multiple nonprofit organizations, where she advocated for improved access to human services, education, and civil rights.

Rashida Tlaib has received several awards and recognitions throughout her career, including the Role Model award from Alternatives for Girls, the Women of Wayne Headliners award, the United Community Housing Coalition's Maryann Mahaffey Award, Zeta Phi Beta's Woman of the Year award, the Hero of the Year award from Immigrants' List, and being named one of Crain's Detroit Business "Women to Watch."
(Bloomberg) -- The probability of another sovereign debt default in Africa in the near term is practically zero, according to Citigroup Inc. economist David Cowan, who cites rebounding growth and multilateral support as the cushioning factors.

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Weve reached a point now whereby the immediate threat of default has probably receded, Cowan, a managing director and economist covering Africa at Citi Research, said in an interview with Bloomberg. I dont think anyone expects a default in the next six months.

Even as Ghana and Zambia struggled this year to restructure their debt after payment failures, investors fretted over the potential for more defaults because of tighter monetary conditions. Those fears escalated in the past three months amid surging US yields and slowing global growth. However, domestic growth and the International Monetary Funds participation in the nations fiscal recast have made a credit event unlikely, Cowan said.

There is no clear and obvious reason why we would expect a wider number of defaults across Africa in the coming years, even despite rising debt burdens in a large number of countries.

The extra yield investors demand to own sovereign dollar bonds of African governments rather than US Treasuries has jumped 175 basis points since July to 927, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. data. However, it is still lower than the 1000-plus levels  the widely accepted threshold that signified debt distress  that it had traded at until May.

The eurobond repayment burden of African countries is set to peak in the next two years with about $9 billion due, Bloomberg calculations show. Countries with big maturities due include Angola and Kenya.

Story continues

At meetings this month in Marrakech, Morocco, the IMF said it will support at least eight countries facing a funding squeeze. Ghana and Zambia have both sought emergency bailouts and are restructuring their debts, while investors are watching Kenya, Angola, Malawi and Mozambique, among other heavily-indebted countries on the continent. Some countries that have received IMF funds are Tanzania, Ghana and Ivory Coast.

These IMF programs are different from what we saw in the late 80s, early 90s, when cutting expenditure to stop default was the key goal, Cowan said. And so the drive of these programs is to increase revenue to close the fiscal deficit.

Energy Opportunity

Cowan, who partly grew up in Africa where his father installed telex machines and joined Citigroup in 2007, said the growth rebound witnessed by many of the continents nations in 2021 continues to be robust.

He said good growth paired well with evolving economic policy, and would allow debt levels to stabilize and fall. IMF forecasts point to faster growth next year: 5.3% in Kenya, 8.8% in Senegal and 4.3% in Zambia.

Commodities will form a part of this growth story, particularly gas which has been discovered in a number of regions.

We also think that exploiting existing and new mineral finds will be important. Several estimates show that Africa holds around 30% of the worlds mineral resources, Cowan said. The continent is poised to play a key role in the global green transition, with its proven reserves of cobalt, copper, lithium and nickel, he said.

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New York: The United Nations Security Council failed to adopt a resolution that would have condemned Hamas' attack on Israel and called for a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The United States exercised its veto power, preventing the resolution from passing.

The UN Vote Breakdown

Notably, 12 members of the UN Security Council voted in favour of the resolution, which was led by Brazil, while one member, the United States, voted against it. Two countries, Russia, and the United Kingdom, abstained from the vote.

Brazil's Push For Humanitarian Action

Brazil, which currently presides over the Security Council, emphasized the critical humanitarian situation on the ground. Brazil's ambassador to the Security Council, Sergio Franca Danese, expressed the urgency of the situation, stating, "Council paralysis in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe is not in the interest of the international community."

He also expressed disappointment that the Council was once again unable to adopt a resolution to address the crisis effectively.

Tensions Escalate In The Region?

The vote occurred amid escalating tensions in the region, with protests erupting in several countries following a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital that drew widespread outrage.

Why Did The US Veto The Resolution?

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield explained the United States' decision to veto the resolution, citing that it did not mention Israel's right of self-defence, which is recognized in Article 51 of the UN Charter. She argued that previous resolutions had reaffirmed this right and believed this resolution should have done the same.

Despite the veto, Greenfield stated that the US would continue to coordinate closely with all Council members on the crisis and emphasize the need to protect civilians, including members of the media, humanitarian workers, and UN officials.

The UK's Abstention

The UK's Permanent Ambassador to the United Nations, Barbara Woodward, explained her country's decision to abstain from the resolution. She stated that the text needed to be clearer on Israel's inherent right to self-defence and that it failed to address the fact that Hamas, which controls Gaza, is using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Previous Council Meetings

This was the second public meeting of the Council on the Gaza issue, with previous discussions primarily held behind closed doors.

Russian-Led Resolution Defeated

The vote on the Brazilian-led draft resolution came after a Russian-led proposal for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza was defeated on a previous occasion.

The United Nations Security Council rejected the Russian resolution, which received five votes in favour, with four nations voting against it and six nations abstaining. The resolution needed nine votes in favour to proceed.

Mounting International Pressure For Ceasefire

As the conflict continues with increasing brutality and a rising death toll on both sides, international pressure is growing for an immediate ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table to address the long-standing Israel-Palestine conflict.
NAIROBI: Javeria Siddique, the widow of Arshad Sharif, a prominent Pakistani journalist whose life was tragically cut short in Kenya last year, has initiated legal proceedings against an elite Kenyan police unit seeking justice for his wrongful murder in October 2022.

'A Case Of Mistaken Identity'

Arshad Sharif was allegedly shot dead on October 23, 2022, reportedly by officers from Kenya's General Service Unit (GSU), as stated by Pakistani authorities. The officers involved initially claimed it was a 'case of mistaken identity.' Siddique has filed a lawsuit at a Nairobi Court, holding the General Service Unit (GSU) responsible for the wrongful death of her husband.

According to the Associated Press, Siddique is seeking accountability and justice by urging Kenya's Attorney General, the National Police Service, and the Director of Public Prosecutions to "punish and prosecute the police officers who killed Arshad Sharif."

Demand For Public Apology

The lawsuit also includes a demand for a public apology, along with an acknowledgement of the facts and an acceptance of responsibility to the family of Arshad Sharif, to be issued by the Attorney General within seven days of the court's order.

'Targeted Assassination'

Siddique believes that her husband's killing was a targeted assassination, as he had been living in Kenya after receiving threats in Pakistan. She was quoted as saying, "The Kenyan government never issued any apology. They never contacted us, they never showed any kind of kindness toward us. It is really cruel for a government to be so insensitive."

Arshad Sharif, aged 50, was a vocal critic of Pakistan's former Army chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa. He fled Pakistan in July to avoid arrest for criticizing the country's powerful military and sought refuge in Kenya.

Kenyan Police's Version

Kenyan police reported that Sharif was shot and killed when he failed to stop at a roadblock on the outskirts of Nairobi. However, his family, rights groups and Pakistani investigators contended that the killing was a planned assassination orchestrated in Pakistan.

In Islamabad, police charged two Kenyan-based Pakistani businessmen, who had hosted Sharif in Kenya, with involvement in his killing. Sharif's mother has called for the Supreme Court of Pakistan to ensure the questioning of Bajwa and other former military officials whom she accused of conspiring to assassinate her son.

The news of Arshad Sharif's killing shook Pakistan, and thousands attended his funeral. His friends, family, and colleagues demanded justice for him through social media campaigns and rallies held across Pakistan to draw attention to the case.

A 592-page report by investigators issued last year concluded that the Kenyan police had issued contradictory statements following Sharif's killing. Pakistan's military denied any involvement and pledged support for investigators examining the circumstances of Sharif's death.

The General Service Unit, as described on the Kenyan police's website, is responsible for providing security to the president and strategic locations, controlling civil disturbances, and counter-terrorism efforts.
UPSSSC PET 2023: The Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UPSSSC) will release the UPSSSC PET Admit Card 2023 today, October 19 on its official website- upsssc.gov.in. All those candidates who will appear for the written exam can download the admit card by following the steps given below. As per the notice, candidates are advised to download the admit card once released. It is expected that the candidates should go through the details mentioned on the hall ticket and carry the same to the venue without fail. To download the admit card, candidates will need their registration number and password.

UPSSSC PET Admit Card 2023: Steps To Download Hall Ticket

Step 1: Visit the official website of UPSSSC at upsssc.gov.in.

Step 2: Once on the homepage, locate and click on the UPSSSC PET Admit Card 2023' link.

Step 3: Fill in the necessary details as required in the provided fields.

Step 4: After entering the details, click on the 'Submit' button.

Step 5: Your admit card will then appear on the screen.

Step 6: Review all the details on the admit card carefully.

Step 7: Proceed to download the page by clicking on the download icon or using the download option provided.

Step 8: Make sure to keep a printed hard copy of the admit card for any future requirements or reference.

UPSSSC PET 2023: Exam Date

The written examination will be conducted on October 28 and October 29, 2023 at various exam centres across the state. According to a press release on the official website, the controller of examinations had mentioned, "All the candidates related to Preliminary Eligibility Test (PET) - 2023 are hereby informed that the written examination of the relevant advertisement will be organized on October 28, 2023 (Saturday) and October 29, 2023".

UPSSSC PET 2023: Exam Pattern

During the UPSSSC PET exam, candidates will have 2 hours to complete it. The exam will contain 100 multiple-choice questions (MCQs) carrying a total of 100 marks. Importantly, there will be no negative marking for incorrect answers. Candidates who will be appearing for the exam will have to carry the admit card along with a valid photo ID proof to the examination centre. They also have to reach the exam centres 30 minutes prior to the commencement of the examination.
NEW DELHI: The ongoing Israel-Hamas war has ignited a war of words among political leaders in the country with NCP chief Sharad Pawar's statement on India's stance regarding the conflict evoking a strong response from several quarters. Taking a jibe at the veteran Maharashtra politician, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma made a controversial statement, stating, "I think Sharad Pawar will send Supriya (Sule) to Gaza to fight for Hamas," as reported by news agency ANI.

#WATCH | Delhi: On NCP chief Sharad Pawar's reported statement regarding India's stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma says, "I think Sharad Pawar will send Supriya (Sule) to Gaza to fight for the Hamas." pic.twitter.com/JrTWwIOM9T  ANI (@ANI) October 18, 2023

Union Minister and top BJP leader Piyush Goyal took to Twitter to express his dismay at Pawar's comments. He emphasized the need to condemn terrorism worldwide and highlighted Pawar's past government positions during critical security incidents. The row erupted after Pawar defended his position, stating that India has always supported the Palestinian cause. He mentioned that former Indian Prime Ministers had also "stood firmly with Palestine."

The NCP offered its viewpoint on the matter through Jayant Patil, leader of the NCP's (Sharad Pawar faction). He urged Goyal to refer to statements from the External Affairs Ministry on the Palestine issue, claiming that they provide insight into the government's decision-making.

#WATCH | On Union Minister Piyush Goyal's tweet on NCP chief Sharad Pawar, NCP leader (Sharad Pawar faction) Jayant Patil says, "As far as I know, External Affairs Ministry has made a statement on Palestine too. He should read that first. I think then he will understand what pic.twitter.com/FZoj1Xi00F October 18, 2023

It may be noted that DMK MP A Raja's recent statement on the Israel-Palestine situation stirred controversy and differing opinions.

Narayanan Thirupathy, Tamil Nadu BJP Vice President, criticized A Raja's statement, saying, "It is very sad, shocking, and shameful. I am really astonished by the way A Raja has said. Israel has been our friend for more than 70 years now. No doubt we are friendly with Palestine also," as quoted by ANI.

DMK leader TKS Elangovan offered an alternative perspective, remarking, "We had accepted Palestine when it was formed earlier... When a small country is put under pressure, naturally all non-aligned countries should support that country. I think this is what he meant..."

In response to his criticism, DMK MP A Raja defended his position, saying, "India has never supported Israel. We have supported Palestine only. Whichever country is being oppressed, we need to support that country only; that is the right thing to do. That is the policy of non-aligned countries."

It may be recalled that Prime Minister Modi reiterated his position on the Israel-Hamas war after receiving a phone call from his Israeli counterpart on October 10. PM Modi stated that the people of India stood firmly with Israel and condemned terrorism in all of its forms.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India has decided to revisit its 2022 judgment on the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the powers of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under it, despite strong objections from the government and ED. Here we delve into the key aspects of the 2022 SC ruling, the implications of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), and the ongoing debate about ECIR vs. FIR.

The 2022 SC Ruling

In July 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of stringent provisions of the PMLA, particularly Section 19, which deals with the power to arrest. The court emphasized that this section does not suffer from arbitrariness, asserting the importance of these provisions in combating money laundering and its potential threats to the country's economic stability and sovereignty. Additionally, Section 5 of the Act related to property attachment was deemed constitutionally valid.

Understanding PMLA & CrPC Sections

While Section 45 of the PMLA pertains to cognizable and non-bailable offences, Section 436A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) deals with the maximum detention period for undertrial prisoners.

ECIR vs. FIR

The Enforcement Directorate registers an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in India, which bears similarities with a First Information Report (FIR) in criminal cases. However, significant differences exist, including its limited sharing, lack of procedural requirements for magistrate presentation, and no monitoring of investigation by the magistrate.

SC's Perspective On ECIR

The Supreme Court clarified in its 2022 ruling that ECIR is an internal document of the ED, and it need not be shared with the accused. Furthermore, it is not mandatory to produce an ECIR before the magistrate. The court stated that the ED's disclosure of grounds at the time of arrest is sufficient, addressing concerns about the violation of constitutional rights.

Article 20(3) & Section 50

The court also clarified that ED officials are not police officers, and statements recorded by them under Section 50 of the Act do not infringe Article 20(3) of the Constitution, which protects against self-incrimination. The procedure under Section 50 is characterized as an inquiry, not an investigation.

Validating Sections Of PMLA

The Supreme Court affirmed the validity of various sections of the PMLA, including those related to definitions, property attachment, search and seizure, powers of arrest, reverse burden of proof, offenses triable by special courts, and bail conditions. It noted that Parliament was competent to amend these conditions, even after the court's earlier declaration of their unconstitutionality.

Friction Points

A clear interpretation is important as some argue that the voluntary provision of ECIR is arbitrary and discriminatory. However, the top court has asserted that informing the arrested person about the grounds of arrest satisfies constitutional mandates. The court also noted that ECIR may contain sensitive information that could impact the inquiry/investigation outcome.

Future Considerations

The Supreme Court left the question of amendments to the PMLA enacted through a Finance Act for examination before a larger seven-judge bench. Special courts can review relevant records when arrested individuals are produced before them, thus determining the need for continued detention in money laundering cases.

The Supreme Court's decision to revisit the 2022 PMLA ruling and the ongoing debate about ECIR vs. FIR has significant implications for the legal landscape in India, particularly in the context of combating money laundering and financial crimes.
New Delhi: 2023 is the year Kriti Sanon isn't going to forget for sure. From a promising release ahead to a National Award Win, Kriti Sanon is on a roll. That's why Delhi fans ensured that the actress recieves immense love and support.

Kriti Sanon won her first National Award on October 17. The actress shared her Best Actress award for her performance in Mimi with Alia Bhatt at the 69th National Film Awards ceremony at Vigyan Bhawan in hometown, New Delhi. Following the ceremony, Kriti Sanon stayed in the town to promote her upcoming film, Ganapath, co-starring Tiger Shroff.

Kriti Sanon, along with Tiger Shroff, promoted the film in Delhi. Following the promotional event, as she was leaving the venue, fans in huge numbers mobbed the actress to get a glimpse of her. The fans and admirers from Delhi couldn't stop themselves from cheering for the actress and tried to click with the leading actress.

Talking about Kriti Sanon, the actress has left a delible mark on the hearts of audiences since her debut film Heropanti. Since her debut, she has never looked back and paved a path to the top all by herself. The actress's journey is inspiring for everyone who aspires to dream big.

Meanwhile, on the work front, besides Ganapath, Kriti Sanon will also be seen in her maiden production, Do Patti alongside Kajol, an untitled romantic film with Shahid Kapoor, and The Crew.
Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri recently took to Twitter to praise Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the development of Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS. Talking about the development of the new rapid rail transit system, he called the Rapidx a "path-breaking initiative." Adding to it, Puri also discussed the importance of the semi-high-speed rail system in improving Urban Mobility in the region.

Sharing pictures of Rapidx trains and stations, Union Minister Puri talked about the PM's initiative to bring the concept of BRTS to Gujarat. "Now, as the PM of India, Shri Narendra Modi is pioneering another concept of RRTS to connect towns and cities in a 150 km distance. This path-breaking initiative is being launched for the first time in India and gives a run for its money to the best in the world," he said.

Also read: Delhi-Meerut RRTS: Rapidx Fares Announced Ahead Of Inauguration By PM Modi; Check Details

He added, "Now, as the PM of India, Shri Narendra Modi is pioneering another concept of RRTS to connect towns and cities in a 150 km distance. This path-breaking initiative is being launched for the first time in India and gives a run for its money to the best in the world."

PM Sh @narendramodi Jis focus on urban mobility:

From BRTS to RRTS.

Rarely has the world seen such a leader who places so much importance on improving Urban Mobility for the poor and the common man.@PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/QCoyrCVq7L October 19, 2023

The post from Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to inaugurate the 17-km-priority section of the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS on October 20. Hence, the commuters traveling between Sahibabad and Duhai Depot will be able to use the services from October 21.

The priority section section will provide connectivity to five stations on the route including Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Guldhar, Duhai, and Duhai Depot. Meanwhile, the complete 82-km long corridor of RRTS is expected to be functional by 2025. The corridor, which allows an average speed of 100 km/h, will take travelers from Delhi to Meerut in less than an hour, passing via the cities of Ghaziabad, Muradnagar, and Modinagar.
JAIPUR: As the Congress Central Election Committee continues to deliberate over names of candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Rajasthan, it has come to light that three staunch loyalists of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot may not be considered for the crucial polls. While the Congress Central Election Committee is expected to release the candidate list soon, there is uncertainty surrounding the names of three close confidants of Ashok Gehlot, which includes two senior ministers. These three individuals were widely held responsible for the Congress MLAs' boycott of a crucial legislature party meeting last year.

The central leadership is engaged in intense deliberations regarding the tickets of Khem's legislators in the Rajasthan Congress, namely Shanti Dhariwal, Mahesh Joshi, and Dharmendra Rathore. Party insiders claim that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have also expressed their displeasure over their names.

The party leadership aims to send a strong message to the rebels while also appeasing Gehlot and his arch-rival Sachin Pilot to bolster its electoral prospects. During the Congress central election committee meeting on Wednesday, there was a serious discussion over the names of Shanti Dhariwal, Mahesh Joshi, and Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation chairman Dharmendra Rathore - all close confidants of CM Ashok Gehlot. Gehlot is advocating for their retention, despite adverse reports, while the party has different considerations.

The Congress central committee has, so far, finalized close to 100 candidates, with their names currently marked as "pending." Notably, AICC secretary Dheeraj Gujjar's name is also on the pending list. Gujjar is in charge of UP and has been closely associated with the top echelons of the party. The meeting also involved discussions on the findings of the survey agencies.

While some had recommended the removal of a significant number of sitting MLAs, the recommendations to the screening panel and senior leaders were against such a move. The credibility of the survey reports was also discussed during the meeting.

The party leadership will ultimately decide the fate of these leaders, and it's likely that CM Gehlot will make a final push for their inclusion with the party brass during the CEC meeting later today.

The CM has been advocating for retaining most of the sitting MLAs, emphasizing that the Congress state government's performance relies on their support and that the corruption allegations are a ploy by the BJP-RSS against the party.

Speaking to the media recently, CM Gehlot stated, "Everything is smooth in the Congress party. People across the villages are saying that there's no anti-incumbency, and there is no wave against the government. The people in Rajasthan are welcoming all the government's schemes.'' He added that people are supporting the government.

Amid the tussle over ticket distribution in Rajasthan Congress, it has also been reported that the tickets of at least ten legislators close to the other Congress camp led by Sachin Pilot may also be cut. Out of the 19 legislators who rebelled with Sachin Pilot, around 10 legislators' tickets could be affected. Sources, however, suggested that Sachin Pilot may choose other leaders of his liking for these 10 seats.

The Rajasthan Assembly consists of 200 constituencies, and the state has historically been dominated by the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the last elections in 2018, Congress secured a victory with 101 seats. The Congress is yet to release its list of candidates, while the opposition in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has already released its first list, fielding as many as 7 MPs in the assembly polls.

The Congress is set to kick off its election campaign for the upcoming assembly election in Rajasthan on October 16 with the slogan "Kaam Kiya Dil Se, Congress Fir Se," as announced by state party president Govind Singh Dotasra.

The Election Commission of India recently changed the poll dates for Rajasthan Assembly elections from November 23 to November 25. Earlier, the Election Commission had announced the schedule for Assembly polls in Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana.

According to the Election Commission of India, voting for all 40 assembly seats in Mizoram will take place on November 7 along with the first phase of polling for 20 seats in Chhattisgarh. The remaining 70 seats in Chhattisgarh will go to polls on November 17 alongside all 230 seats in Madhya Pradesh. The 119-member Telangana Assembly will go to polls on November 30.

The counting of votes for all five states will take place on December 3.
New Delhi: In a major development, UK-based Nothing announced a partnership with Tatas Croma to sell its portfolio products in retail stores across India. Customers can purchase a slew of products at croma retail stores with several introductory offers.

Interested buyers can check this direct link to find the nearest Croma store wherever they live in India.

Nothing portfolio contains Phone 1, Phone 2, Ear (2) Black, and Ear (Stick). The brand recently launched the second-generation smartphone after getting a positive response for its first smartphone globally.



Nothing products are now available at @cromaretail stores.



To celebrate, Nothing and Croma are offering introductory offers.



Head to your nearest store now.

https://t.co/xVsjHTPhdw pic.twitter.com/IFjgQz3OHo  Nothing India (@nothingindia) October 19, 2023

The brand is known for its elegant design, top-notch features and clean environment. It has established itself as a prominent brand across the world despite being very nascent in the field in comparison to the competitors.

Earlier, Nothing opened its exclusive service center in Bengaluru to provide exceptional after-sales support. Though, the brand has over 300+ service centres that are operating around the country.
New Delhi: OnePlus launched the first foldable smartphone 'OnePlus Open' featuring a ProXDR displays, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and 67w charging in India.The foldable phone is available for pre-order from October 19 and the sale for the device will begin on October 27.

With the launch of its first foldable smartphone, OnePlus has challenged the supremacy of Samsung and Galaxy Z fold series in the new segment. Only time will tell if OnePlus can grab the large pie in the foldable segment.

OnePlus Open Vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Display

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: It features a 19.21cm (7.6-inch) main display, providing an immersive viewing experience.

OnePlus Open: The OnePlus Open boasts a ProXDR display with 2K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and peak brightness of 2800 nits. This makes it brighter and sharper. The

OnePlus Open Vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Multitasking

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 Offers Multi Window, allowing you to multitask with three windows on one screen.

OnePlus Open: Open Canvas on OxygenOS13.2 extends split-screen apps, enhancing multitasking possibilities.

OnePlus Open Vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Cameras

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Comes with an advanced camera system with 30x Space Zoom, Dual Preview, and Expert RAW capabilities.

OnePlus Open: Features a Hasselblad Camera with a 48MP Sony sensor for impressive low-light photography.

OnePlus Open Vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Battery Life

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Offers up to 73 hours of listening and up to 21 hours of watching.

OnePlus Open: Comes with a 4805mAh battery and 67W charging for fast and smooth performance.

OnePlus Open Vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Build and Durability

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Utilizes Armor Aluminum in the frame and a double rail Flex Hinge for durability.

OnePlus Open: Uses extraordinary materials, including titanium alloy and carbon fiber, making it up to 4 times stronger than surgical-grade stainless steel.

OnePlus Open Vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Price

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Prices start at 154999.00 for the 256GB/12GB variant.

OnePlus Open: Priced at 139,999 for the 16GB RAM + 512GB storage model.

OnePlus Open Vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Additional Features

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5: Supports S Pen Fold Edition (sold separately) and has a dynamic AMOLED 2X display with up to 1750 nits brightness.

OnePlus Open: Offers exchange bonuses, OnePlus Open PU Case, and benefits worth 15,000 with JioPlus 699 Postpaid plan.

In summary, both phones have their unique strengths. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 offers a larger display and S Pen support, while the OnePlus Open excels in display brightness, materials, and camera capabilities. Your choice may depend on your specific needs and preferences.
SINGAPORE, October 19, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of B++ (Good) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of "bbb" (Good) of BIDV Insurance Corporation (BIC) (Vietnam). Additionally, AM Best has assigned the Vietnam National Scale Rating (NSR) of aaa.VN (Exceptional) to BIC. The outlooks of these Credit Ratings (ratings) are stable.

The ratings reflect BICs balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management. The ratings also factor in the neutral impact from the companys ultimate corporate parent, Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV).

BICs balance sheet strength assessment is underpinned by the strongest level of risk-adjusted capitalisation, as measured by Bests Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR). The BCAR has exhibited a decreasing trend driven by higher capital requirements from net catastrophe risk and robust business growth, but AM Best expects it to remain at the strongest level over the medium term. BIC maintains a conservative investment strategy with the bulk of investments held in cash, term deposits and fixed-income securities; however, the company maintains a concentration in term deposits held with its majority shareholder, BIDV. The company is diversifying its investment portfolio by investing in more public equities. BICs moderate use of reinsurance helps to support its underwriting capacity for large property and engineering risks, as well as to manage accumulation risks and catastrophe exposure. The reinsurance panel has good credit quality in general.

AM Best assesses BICs operating performance as adequate, with a five-year average return-on-equity ratio of 11.9% and combined ratio of 95.5% (2018-2022). The companys stable stream of interest income from term deposits and fixed-income holdings remains an important contributor to its overall earnings. BIC has significantly expanded its medical and personal accident insurances via bancassurance in recent years, which leads to higher expense ratios, but lower loss ratios.

Story continues

AM Best views BICs business profile as neutral. The company reported notable growth in its bancassurance channel in recent years, thanks to strong support from its banking parent, BIDV. Its gross premiums written (GPW) reached VND 4.0 trillion in 2022, representing a 5% share of the domestic market. The majority of GPW was sourced from Vietnam with approximately 5% of GPW from Laos. The companys main lines of business are personal accident and health, motor, as well as property and engineering insurance.

BICs risk management framework and capabilities benefit from a level of technical support, expertise and oversight provided by BIDV, as well as from a strategic relationship with its minority interest shareholder, Fairfax Asia Limited.

Ratings are communicated to rated entities prior to publication. Unless stated otherwise, the ratings were not amended subsequent to that communication.

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Bests website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Bests Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Bests Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Bests Credit Ratings, Bests Performance Assessments, Bests Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Bests Ratings & Assessments.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

Copyright  2023 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019878131/en/

Contacts

Ken Lau

Senior Financial Analyst

+65 6303 5025

ken.lau@ambest.com

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Associate Director, Analytics

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TEL AVIV: As part of efforts to de-escalate tensions due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, US President Joe Biden has confirmed that Egypt has agreed to open its Rafah border to allow the "sustainable" passage of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. In a phone call, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and US President Joe Biden discussed ways to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing, the Egyptian Presidency said in a statement on Wednesday.

The talks between the two leaders focused "on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and ways to facilitate the implementation of humanitarian aid," according to the statement. "Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and American President Joe Biden have agreed on the sustainable delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip via the Rafah terminal," said presidential spokesperson Ahmed Fahmy, without specifying a date.

Egypt's statement said officials in the two nations are coordinating with international humanitarian organizations  supervised by the United Nations  to deliver aid. "Biden expresses his thanks and appreciation for the efforts of the Egyptian leadership towards achieving peace and stability in the region," the Egyptian statement said.

Talking to reporters on Air Force One, President Biden stated that Egypt's el-Sisi agreed to allow 20 trucks through the key crossing.

Earlier, I spoke with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt to deepen our coordination on urgently delivering humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza.



Together, we'll work to preserve stability in the region, prevent escalation, and set circumstances for durable peace. pic.twitter.com/boZaDitXET  President Biden (@POTUS) October 18, 2023

Biden Announces USD 100 Million Humanitarian Aid For Gaza

US President Joe Biden, during his visit to Israel, also announced humanitarian assistance for both Gaza and the West Bank worth USD 100 million following the deadly airstrike in Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital. He further said that the aid will further help over one million affected Palestinians. "Today, I'm also announcing USD 100 million in new US funding for humanitarian assistance in both Gaza and the West Bank. This will support more than one million displaced and conflict-affected Palestinians including emergency needs in Gaza," he said.

Noting the needs of people living in Gaza, Biden said, "The people of Gaza need food, water, medicine, shelter. Today, I asked the Israeli cabinet...to agree to the delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza...and the aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas."

Sharing the news on his social media 'X', Biden stated, "I just announced USD 100 million for humanitarian assistance in Gaza and the West Bank. This money will support over 1 million displaced and conflict-affected Palestinians. And we will have mechanisms in place so this aid reaches those in need - not Hamas or terrorist groups."

I just announced $100 million for humanitarian assistance in Gaza and the West Bank.



This money will support over 1 million displaced and conflict-affected Palestinians.



And we will have mechanisms in place so this aid reaches those in need  not Hamas or terrorist groups.  President Biden (@POTUS) October 18, 2023

Biden Pitches For Two-State Solution

US President Joe Biden cautioned Israelis not to be blinded by rage after suffering their deadliest-ever attack, warning that the United States made mistakes after September 11. Biden, in an address in Tel Aviv, said he supports the two-state solution in the pursuit of peace. He said the vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, he said.

US Support To Israel

Biden noted that Israel believed in the fundamental dignity of every human life, which sets us apart from the terrorists. "When conflicts flare, you live by the law of war which sets us apart from the terrorists as we believe in the fundamental dignity of every human life," he added.

Biden assured that his administration is in close touch with Israel's leadership since the first day of attack. " We are going to make sure you have what you need to protect your people, to defend your nation. For decades, we have ensured Israel's qualitative military edge," he said.

Moreover, he also assured that later this week, "I am going to ask US Congress for unprecedented support package for Israel's defence. We are going to keep Iron Dome fully supplied...We move US military assets to the region, including positioning the USS Ford carrier strike group in the Eastern Mediterranean, with USS Eisenhower on the way to deter, defer further aggression against Israel and to prevent this conflict from spreading."

Noting that the majority of Palestinians are not Hamas, US President Biden said, "Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. Hamas uses innocent, innocent families in Gaza as human shields... Palestinian people are suffering greatly as well."

Condemning the attack at the hospital in Gaza, Biden said that he was outraged and saddened by the enormous loss of lives that happened yesterday. "Based on the information we have seen today, it appears as a result of a rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza. The United States unequivocally stands for the protection of civilian life during the conflict...," he added.

Earlier in the day, Biden reassured Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the United States' unwavering support for Israel. He emphasized the commitment to stand by Israel as it defends its citizens, particularly in the face of recent terrorist attacks by Hamas.

"In the wake of Hamas appalling terror assaults, brutal, inhuman...I want you to know you are not alone," Biden emphasized.

In response, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, and said, "We saw the cost of this terrible war crime yesterday when a rocket fired by Palestinian terrorists misfired and landed on a Palestinian hospital. The entire world was rightfully outraged but this outrage should be directed not at Israel but at the terrorists."

"We have asked them (civilians) to move to safer areas. We will continue to work with you Mr President (Biden) to ensure that the minimal requirements are met and we will continue to work together to get our hostages out," he said.
TEL AVIV: A devastating explosion shook a hospital in Gaza, claiming the lives of at least 500 people this past Tuesday. This incident swiftly ignited worldwide outrage, leading to demonstrations in various Muslim-majority nations. The blame game between Israel and Palestine ensued, with US President Joe Biden condemning the act while en route to Israel. Amid the fog of war, a web of accusations, counter-accusations, competing online narratives, and rampant disinformation has deepened the confusion over who bears responsibility for the tragic hospital explosion.

Amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Israel has identified the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as a more significant threat than Hamas. This distinction is rooted in a complex web of historical, political, and strategic factors. Israel's assertion that PIJ is responsible for the Gaza hospital attack is a focal point of their stance. The Israelis argue that PIJ's close ties to Iran and more radicalized stance make it a formidable adversary. On the other hand, Palestinians argue that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is the root cause of the conflict. They see groups like PIJ as resistance movements against Israeli occupation and aggression.

The narratives and counter-narratives reflect the complexities of the conflict, making a peaceful resolution challenging to achieve.

Israel's Accusation: Islamic Jihad's 'Misfired Rocket'

According to Israeli authorities, the hospital attack was a direct result of PIJ militants using the facility for military purposes, thus transforming it into a legitimate target. This allegation is central to Israel's argument, as it seeks to justify its actions in accordance with international law. The Israeli army squarely pointed the finger at PIJ, attributing the catastrophe to a "misfired rocket." In contrast, the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry accused Israel of bombing the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist hospital. Israel's Defense Forces (IDF) supported their claim with video footage and satellite imagery, arguing that an Israeli airstrike could not have caused the deadly blast.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) issued a statement, suggesting that Israel aimed to evade its role in the tragedy by fabricating lies and laying blame on the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine.

Hamas also promptly held Israel responsible for the hospital explosion. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, often seen as the faction's overall leader, unexpectedly pointed the finger at the US, emphasizing that Washington provided a "cover for its aggression." Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey echoed these accusations against Israel.

Why Israel Cites Islamic Jihad And Not Hamas?

Israeli authorities have refuted involvement, with the Israeli Defense Forces asserting that rockets fired by Islamic Jihad militants towards Israel misfired and struck the hospital. These rockets, sources claim, were fired by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. However, due to their proximity to the hospital, it resulted in a direct hit on the medical facility, leading to a high casualty count.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry released a statement, revealing that an analysis of IDF operational systems indicated that a barrage of rockets from Gaza, fired by terrorists, passed close to the Al Ahli hospital at the time of the blast. Many civilians and injured individuals sought shelter in the hospital, contributing to the unusually high casualty count.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari emphasized that there were no air, ground, or naval attacks in the area at the time of the explosion, with Israeli radars detecting outgoing rocket fire and intercepted communications indicating that the Islamic Jihad fired the rockets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the "barbaric terrorists in Gaza" for the deaths, clarifying that the Gaza hospital attack was not the work of the IDF. Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Netanyahu, supported this stance by highlighting rocket attacks and threats from Hamas during the same period.

Russia Demands Satellite Images

Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, called on Israel to provide satellite images to substantiate its claim of non-involvement in the Gaza hospital attack.

Islamic Jihad: A Palestinian Militant Group

Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, participated in the October 7 attack on Israel from Gaza and is designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) vehemently opposes Israel's existence.

Founded in the late 1970s by Fathi Shiqaqi and Abdel-Aziz Odeh, Islamic Jihad gained support among Palestinians disillusioned with Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Shiqaqi's assassination in 1995 in Malta further fueled the group's militant stance.

Islamic Jihad is committed to destroying Israel and establishing an Islamic state covering pre-1948 British Mandate Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza. Inspired by the Iranian revolution, Shaqaqi and Awda established the group to militantly challenge Israel's existence.

The group initially operated in Gaza but later established a presence in Lebanon, where it developed close ties with Hezbollah and received arms training from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In 1981, the Egyptian government exiled PIJ to Gaza.

Islamic Jihad vs. Hamas

Islamic Jihad and Hamas are both militant groups in Gaza united in their resistance against Israel. Both receive funding from and maintain ties with Iran but function independently. While Hamas has sociopolitical functions as Gaza's governing body, Islamic Jihad is singularly focused on fighting Israel.

Iranian Influence

Iran's influence initially focused on Shia groups in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Gulf Emirates. In the late 1980s, Iran expanded its influence to Sunni-majority countries, including Palestine. Iran plays a significant role in funding Islamic Jihad, similar to its support for Hamas and Hezbollah.
Tel Aviv: In anticipation of a potential "ground offensive" in the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel has deployed hundreds of tanks near the southern border. This move awaits approval from the country's political establishment and military leadership. Israeli tanks and troops, positioned on armoured vehicles, have been mobilized in the region, signalling the potential commencement of a ground assault on Hamas in Gaza.

IDF Intercepts Rockets From Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also reported intercepting four out of nine rockets launched from Lebanese territory. Furthermore, there were reports of anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon toward Israeli forces.

In response to these attacks, Israeli forces targeted the site in Lebanon from which the rockets were launched into Israel and also struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure using tank fire. Additionally, Israeli forces claimed to have thwarted and dismantled a terrorist cell using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Israeli Bombarding In Gaza Continues

As Israeli warplanes continue their airstrikes on the Gaza Strip for the 13th consecutive day, the death toll has risen significantly. Witnesses and medical sources report that more than 40 Palestinians were killed today. Among the casualties, nine people, including seven children, lost their lives when Israeli jets struck a house in Khan Younis, south of Gaza City, according to Wafa news agency.

In the southern Gaza Strip, specifically in Rafah, over 30 Palestinians were killed, and dozens more were injured in Israeli airstrikes, as reported by witnesses. There were further reports of Israeli warplanes striking a house in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah, with possible fatalities.

Tragically, a Palestinian baby was killed, and multiple individuals were injured during an air attack in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Additionally, a child lost their life in an Israeli air raid west of Khan Younis, according to Palestinian medical sources.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have reported that they destroyed "hundreds of Hamas terrorist infrastructures" over the past day. The IDF, in a social media post on X (formerly Twitter), mentioned that they continue to conduct ongoing attacks throughout the Gaza Strip. Their targets included anti-tank missile launch sites, tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructures, operational headquarters, and other facilities used by Hamas.

Furthermore, the IDF indicated that they had targeted Hamas's infrastructure in Gaza, resulting in the destruction of numerous positions, including antitank missile launch sites, tunnel shafts, and intelligence positions. This comes as a response to the October 7 incursion into Israel, with the IDF reporting the deaths of several Palestinian fighters, including members of the armed group.

Top PRC Commander Rafat Abu Hilal Killed

In a significant development, the IDF confirmed the death of Rafat Abu Hilal, the head of the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC). The PRC is the third largest armed faction in the Gaza Strip, following Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The airstrike on Rafat Abu Hilal took place in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, based on intelligence received from the Shin Bet intelligence service.

Sirens Sound In Tel Aviv

On Wednesday evening, sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, warning of possible incoming rockets. A CNN team on the ground witnessed a "very heavy explosion" in the sky. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militant group governing the Gaza Strip, launched a barrage of rockets toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Residents of Tel Aviv were seen seeking shelter when warning sirens were activated.

The Israeli Defence Force reported rocket sirens in Tel Aviv and across the country. Hamas issued warnings for people to evacuate the city of Ashkelon in southern Israel. Throughout the conflict, Hamas has fired at least 2,200 rockets toward Israel. The Iron Dome missile defence system intercepted 162 of these rockets aimed at residential areas, while others landed in open areas, and 29 fell into the sea.

Delay In Gaza Ground Attack

As Israel prepares for an all-out ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, it faces a significant challenge in dealing with Hamas' extensive underground tunnel network. Experts have cautioned that such an offensive would diminish Israel's firepower advantage, as it would have to engage the enemy on its home turf within a densely populated area with a network of tunnels.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a joint press briefing with US President Joe Biden, accused Hamas of committing heinous acts against Israeli civilians, including rape, burning, kidnapping, and targeting small children. The death toll from Hamas terror attacks was reported to be 1,400 and expected to rise.

Prime Minister Netanyahu likened Hamas to ISIS, stating, "Hamas is worse than ISIS." He urged the civilized world to unite in defeating Hamas.

Furthermore, the United States has deployed two carrier strike groups in the region, which appears to have deterred Hezbollah from launching a major war against Israel. The US and Israeli intelligence agencies are closely monitoring the situation to assess potential risks and consequences. The US Department of Defense reiterated its full support for Israel in the ongoing conflict, ensuring that Israel has the necessary resources to defend itself.

In addition to supplying military aid to Israel, the US has increased its presence in the region to deter further aggression.
Washington, DC - October 19, 2023 - Approximately 500 individuals have been detained during a sit-in at the United States Congress in Washington, DC, organized by the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace. The protest was staged to denounce what the demonstrators referred to as "Israel's ongoing oppression of Palestinians."

Protesters Rally for Change

On Wednesday, protesters, many clad in shirts bearing the slogan "Not in our name," gathered on the floor of the congressional building. They were met by a significant police presence, and as they sat in the lobby, they unfurled a prominent banner demanding a "ceasefire." This act of dissent took place against the backdrop of escalating casualties resulting from Israel's military campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip.

HAPPENING NOW: Hundreds of American Jews are holding a sit-in at Congress  and we wont leave until Congress calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. As thousands of U.S. Jews protest outside, over 350 are inside, including two dozen rabbis, holding prayerful resistance. pic.twitter.com/H0b2ort6fa October 18, 2023

According to Jewish Voice for Peace, around 10,000 people also took to the streets of the US capital to voice their support for the cause.

Demand for Attention on US Role

In a statement, Jewish Voice for Peace asserted, "We shut down Congress to draw mass attention to the US complicity in Israel's ongoing oppression of Palestinians." The progressive Jewish organization aims to spotlight the United States' involvement in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Police Response

US law enforcement officials confirmed that they successfully cleared the congressional building of protesters by Wednesday evening. Subsequently, they began processing the arrests made during the demonstration.

This protest highlights the growing concern and activism surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict within the United States, as individuals and organizations continue to demand attention and action to address the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.
How the Russian Federation circumvents sanctions for the production of high-tech weapons?

   Author Oleksandr Liemienov StateWatch CEO

The full-scale phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war continues. During this time, the Russian Federation became a world leader among countries subject to international sanctions. However, the loopholes that allow the Russian Federation to bypass them remain and exist. Civilian technology is quickly adapting to the military needs of a terrorist state, and the long process of improving sanctions and restrictions is obviously not keeping up with these changes.

For example, metalworking machines with numerical program control (CNC machines, hereinafter  omputer numerical control machines) are necessary for high-precision milling and are currently the most demanded "civilian" equipment used by the Russian Federation for military purposes. Of course, most of this equipment is produced outside the Russian Federation and, unfortunately, despite the sanctions, Russians are actively buying it.

Russia uses any type of machine tool with the computer numerical control (CNC) in the production of weapons. This is evidenced by dozens of videos from their military factories, which literally work in three shifts.

The geography of the supply of high-tech metalworking machines is impressive in its diversity. These are units manufactured in Japan, Germany, the USA, Switzerland, South Korea, Italy, the Czech Republic and other countries. Of course, trade with these countries is somewhat more difficult, although not impossible, but you can always try to buy something similar in China.

We also do not forget that the corresponding machines are also produced in Taiwan, from where they can also be purchased through third countries. However, it is important to note that in the manufacture of these machines in China and Taiwan, parts produced in G7 countries and the modules of the computer numerical control machines (CNC) from Germany or Japan are used. And so far, only Japan has completely banned the export of machines with the computer numerical control (CNC) to Russia. This happened in April 2023.

Other G7 countries limited themselves to strengthening export controls. But such actions, as we can see, are not enough.

Russia began to import these units through other countries  China, Turkey, UAE, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. The Russians call their smuggling "parallel imports".

As part of the Trap Aggressor project, we investigated the geography and volumes of "parallel" deliveries of the computer numerical control machines (CNC). Among the countries  suppliers of aggregates worth more than 100 thousand dollars in 2023. In the USA we find China, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey, Italy.

China, Taiwan, South Korea, India, Germany, Turkey, Japan, and Italy are among the countries that supply aggregates worth more than ten thousand dollars.

In other words, Russia is re-equipping with Chinese equipment and significantly increasing the consumption of the computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools. And at the international level, something needs to be done about it. Sanctions and restrictions are not working perfectly.

From January 2021 to July 2023, Russia imported more than 15,000 the computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools with a total value of $1.42 billion. Of these, 3,160 cars cost more than $100,000 per unit.

It is interesting that Russia does not hide at all that it uses machines from the manufacturing companies of the G7 countries for the production of weapons. On the contrary, the Russian Federation is proud of this achievement.

On YouTube, we find dozens of videos from military factories (one, two, three, four, five videos) where foreign equipment is demonstrated. Some videos were filmed even in 2023.

Russian web resources, in particular the database of state contracts, store information about which companies have cooperated with military plants in the Russian Federation. However, such contracts have ceased to be published since 2018, so only previous cooperation and deliveries can be recorded online. However, it is obvious that the cooperation continues to this day.

And finally. Almost all companies in Russia related to the import or production of the computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools had experience of cooperation with military factories. Who would believe that in Putin's Russia, any business entity engaged in industrial production can refuse such departments as the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) or the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) to fulfill individual military orders?

During the research by our insiders on the OSINT analytics and data of the Ukrainian special services, additional interesting points were found. Japanese "precision" Tsugami aggregates are imported through China. Okuma aggregates with specified serial numbers are imported with hidden exporter information. In turn, Fanuc products go through Hong Kong, and Kitanura is imported through a Russian hub in Turkey (Akhmedovs Group). Modules for the computer numerical control machines (CNC) from Fanuc are available for Russian machine manufacturers as part of units from China, Taiwan, and South Korea. These aggregates were presented at the metalworking exhibition in May 2023.

Aggregates from the Hermle, Stadler Keppler, Deckel, DMG Mori manufacturing companies are sent from Germany through Turkey to the Russians.

Products are transported from the Czech Republic by the Inter Style Plus company from Kyrgyzstan, which is the official representative of the world's leading manufacturers of machine tools and components. Cooperation has been established with PHIFFNER, MORI-SAY, FERMAT, KOVOSVIT MAS, TAJMAC-ZPS and other leaders in the field of machine tool technologies.

As you can see, export-import control still leaves much to be desired. Russians still have access to purchase aggregates and parts for them from companies located within the G7 group of countries and other states that allegedly do not support Russian intervention in Ukraine.

How to get out of the vicious circle of supplying the computer numerical control machines (CNC) to Russia?

Major manufacturers of the computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools should at least be concerned about being sanctioned in the USA. Because who would believe that manufacturing companies do not know the final "consumers" of the respective products in a world where any counterparty is not far from each other.

Any written request by the USA government to a manufacturer of aggregates regarding cases of imports to Russia may make the supplier wonder: are they not helping to produce high-tech weapons for the war in Ukraine and for supplying exile countries with developed terrorist tendencies?

Moreover, secondary sanctions against dubious importers will help slow down the pace of equipment deliveries to the Russian Federation. Special attention should be paid to manufacturers of the computer numerical control machines (CNC) modules, i.e. such companies as Siemens (Germany), Heidenhain (Germany), Fanuc (Japan).

After all, it's time to launch new control methods for tracking the final "consumer", in particular, for these giant companies.

It is also advisable not to forget about the countries that help Russia with so-called double imports. In the case of importing aggregates to China, Turkey, the UAE, Hong Kong, multiple checks of final counterparties should be a mandatory element of control. At the same time, it is necessary to take additional special measures for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan  the final consumer must prove that the companies really exist and are not just written on paper. With the provision of photos and videos of the facilities, as well as copies of existing contracts with their customers and other suppliers. Finally, in this perspective, we note that special attention must be paid to the supply of spare parts for high-tech machines.

Special thanks to the OSINT researcher Levko Bidi for sharing the database for the article.

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American reported a lackluster third-quarter profit. edenpictures / Flickr

American Airlines wants investors to see the forest and not the trees when it comes to earnings.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier lagged its peers in the third quarter with an operating profit margin, excluding special items, of just 5.4%. That came despite record revenues of $13.5 billion and an operating profit, excluding special items, of $728 million. With those items, which were related to one-time payments to pilots under the new contract they ratified in August, Americans operating loss was $223 million.

Not exactly the dandy quarter Delta Air Lines and United Airlines had with double-digit profit margins.

Thats why Americans executives, when asked about the headwinds the airline faced, emphasized the many tailwinds ahead.

We do have some headwinds on salaries and benefits, American Chief Financial Officer Devon May said during the airlines third-quarter earnings call on Thursday. For one, the airline continues to negotiate a new contract with its flight attendants that it forecasts could add roughly 1 percentage point to non-fuel unit costs next year.

We have some real nice tailwinds as well into 2024, May continued.

Those tailwinds include significant growth opportunities in both premium and loyalty revenues. Resuming flights to many higher-yield small- and medium-sized markets where competitors Delta and United have shrunk. International expansion. Returning corporate travelers. And the list goes on.

Travel Outlook

American, recall, is the largest domestic U.S. airline. It will fly roughly a fifth of all domestic capacity in the country this year, according to Cirium Diio schedules. Demand in the market, however, is described as steady by American and its competitors. And by steady, they mean up slightly from 2019 levels.

A steady domestic market where there is a lot of new capacity coming online is why discounters like Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines forecast losses in the third quarter. And, that was one reason Americans profits lagged its peers during the quarter. Americans total domestic revenues fell 1.9% year-over-year to $8.6 billion.

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International demand, on the other hand, continues to drive revenue growth, American CEO Robert Isom said Thursday. International revenues increased 5.4% year-over-year to $3.8 billion in the third quarter. This is a segment that American is eager to expand but has been limited by aircraft delivery delays at both Airbus (the A321XLR) and Boeing (787s). American retired more long-haul aircraft  Airbus A330s, and Boeing 757s and 767s  during the pandemic than its competitors.

Now, those planes are arriving and American is planning growth. The airline will add a second route to Auckland, from Los Angeles, this winter, and several new destinations in Europe next summer. That expansion will help it capture more of that surging international demand, and better utilize its large, long-haul planes by finding routes for those aircraft to fly in both the winter and summer.

And managed business travel, which has been slow to come back from the pandemic, increased compared to 2022 in the third quarter, Isom said. He notably did not say by how much. Trips by travelers from these large corporates was hovering at around 80% of 2019 levels at most airlines in June.

Specific to the final quarter of the year, American forecasts a 5.5-7.5% year-over-year decrease in total unit revenues, or TRASM. The metric is a rough, but not exact, proxy for airfares. Travel demand around the Thanksgiving and year-end holidays is forecast to be steady.

Premium and Loyalty Promise

American executives were keen to emphasize the revenue  and profit  tailwinds they expect in the premium and loyalty segments. Premium revenues overall were up 6-7% year-over-year in the third quarter, and by 7% among AAdvantage loyalty program members.

The airline is making a big investment in expanding its premium offerings to capture more of these revenues. New business and premium economy seats  the latter being widely considered one of the most profitable cabins on an aircraft  will arrive with Americans first A321XLR next year and then be installed on its Boeing 777s and 787s. By Americans own count, premium seats across its fleet will increase 43% by 2026.

And, on the loyalty front, revenues increased nearly 23% year-over-year to $1.7 billion in the third quarter. However, American Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja was quick to highlight that that is roughly $400 million less than the industry leader  known to be Delta  earned despite AAdvantage being a larger program by number of members. This gap, he indicated, is something the airline plans to close.

The real thing that were seeing is the opportunity in the quarters and years ahead, Raja said of loyalty.

Get breaking travel news and exclusive hotel, airline, and tourism research and insights at Skift.com.
(Bloomberg) -- Apollo Global Management balked at a last-minute rescue of FTX after learning billions of dollars in customer funds were unaccounted for and the exchange wasnt able to provide legal justifications for the shortfall, a former top lawyer at Sam Bankman-Frieds crypto empire testified.

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Can Sun told federal court in New York that despite entreaties from Bankman-Fried, he couldnt find anything that would explain why the missing customer money had been channeled to Alameda Research, an affiliated hedge fund. Hed been asked to come up with a possible justification after a call with Apollo occurring just days before both FTX and Alameda filed for bankruptcy.

He broke the news to Bankman-Fried, FTXs co-founder, that there was no justification while they took a walk a bit later.

I was actually expecting a bigger response but it was very muted, Sun, who joined FTX as a general counsel in August 2021, said at Bankman-Frieds fraud trial. He was not surprised at all.

Apollo quickly pulled out of talks to finance FTX after learning of the exchanges financial situation. The private equity firm declined to comment on Suns testimony.

Days later, the crypto exchange imploded.

Sun revealed during his testimony that he had a non-prosecution agreement with the government. He said he didnt do anything wrong, but was involved in some transactions that in hindsight could have involved misappropriated customer funds.

The 37-year-old is the latest company insider to testify at the trial, bolstering prosecutors allegations that Bankman-Fried oversaw a massive fraud.

Bankman-Fried is facing decades in prison on charges that he directed the transfer of FTX customer money into Alameda for risky investments, political donations and expensive real estate before both companies spiraled into bankruptcy last year. Sun said Thursday that until the companys final days he was completely in the dark about the misuse of customer funds.

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Binance, Apollo

FTX was scrambling to raise capital in the days prior to its bankruptcy so that it could meet an uptick in user withdrawal requests  even asking a rival exchange, Binance Holdings Ltd. for help, a play that ultimately didnt pan out.

But according to Sun, the firm had also turned to Apollo.

Sun testified that he and another FTX executive in November 2022 got on a call with the firm, which asked for financial statements before making a decision. Sun said he later got a spreadsheet to provide to Apollo from either Bankman-Fried or someone else at FTX. The spreadsheet showed that there was a multi-billion dollar shortfall in customer funds.

Failing to safeguard users money went against everything FTX had been telling its customers and regulators about the platforms policies, Sun said.

Some customers, including hedge fund Sculptor Capital Management, had even received false promises that their assets would be safe in the event of an insolvency, he testified. Sculptor didnt return a request for comment.

Alameda Backdoor

Sun, who had previously worked at the law firm Fenwick & West, also described interactions he had with Nishad Singh, FTXs former director of engineering, around that time the company collapsed. His entire face was pale, gray, Sun recalled.

Singh also testified against the crypto mogul earlier in the trial as did former Alameda Chief Executive Officer Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, FTX co-founder and former chief technology officer. All three have pleaded guilty to criminal charges and are cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of receiving lighter sentences.

Sun said that in August or September 2022 he had learned that Alameda was exempt from a mechanism on the FTX exchange that automatically liquidated customer accounts if they didnt have enough collateral to cover trading positions. The backstop applied to everyone else that used the platform.

I was shocked, he said Thursday. It went against everything we have told regulators and our users about the relationship between FTX and Alameda.

Sun said he pushed for the special treatment to be revoked, but was told Bankman-Fried and Singh were opposed. Eventually some tweaks were agreed to: Alameda would be subject to a delayed liquidation rather than a total exemption; other large customers would get access to the same benefit; and regulators and users would be made aware of previous misrepresentations.

FTX filed for bankruptcy before any of those changes saw the light of day.

Sun said that Singh told him in November that that same mechanism exempting Alameda from liquidation also allowed the firm to draw on customer funds.

In all my conversations with Sam it has always been represented to me that customer assets were protected and segregated, Sun testified.

(Updates with additional testimony starting in 13th paragraph)

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2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Members of the U.S. Army Drill Team perform during an Army Futures Command event in 2019 celebrating its first anniversary of operating in Austin. The command's arrival in Austin has led to a growing number of companies in the area working with the military.

An Austin-based staffing and information technology services provider has won a five-year contract, worth up to $221 million, with the U.S. Army.

MKS2, which has both federal and commercial customers, announced the new contract for the Army Transition Assistance Program on Monday. The contract, which started in June, is expected to run through 2028, and the company has been awarded $43 million so far.

The program gives soldiers counseling, employment and education workshops, and seminars to help with career readiness once they transition out of the Army. Under the contract, MKS2 said it plans to provide counseling and transition planning as soldiers move into the civilian workforce.

Austin-based MKS2 was founded in 2008 and has other offices in Colorado Springs, Colo., Monterey, Calif., Portland, Maine, and Washington, D.C. The company's IT solutions are focused on cybersecurity support, enterprise applications and instructional design and training.

Aside from its latest Army contract, the company also has federal services contracts in most states, along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

In the Army contract announcement, MKS2 founder and CEO, Brendan Mullen, said the deal is a milestone for the company and shows its dedication to supporting the military. The company also has contracts with the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Navy, according to its LinkedIn profile.

Mullen said in a statement that he served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and went through the Transition Assistance Program himself and added that 36% of MKS2's workforce has also gone through a transition program.

The company's announcement said that it builds on work MKS2 has been doing to help 500,000 soldiers in more than 50 locations worldwide transition into new roles after serving, in collaboration with the Army Transition Assistance Program leadership.

The company is part of a growing hub of Austin companies that work with the Army and other military branches that have accelerated since the opening of Army Futures Command's Austin headquarters in 2018.

That command leads modernization projects for the Army, and the public-private initiative has grown its presence in the region over the past several years. Gabriel Camarillo, undersecretary of the Army, said last year during a visit to Austin that the region is key to modernizing.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin firm MKS2 wins contract for Army Transition Assistance Program
An In-depth Look at the Bank's Dividend Performance and Sustainability

Banco Santander (Brasil) SA(NYSE:BSBR) recently announced a dividend of $0.08 per share, payable on 2023-11-20, with the ex-dividend date set for 2023-10-20. 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 look into Banco Santander (Brasil) SAs dividend performance and assess its sustainability.

What Does Banco Santander (Brasil) SA Do?

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Banco Santander (Brasil) SA is part of Santander Group, a Spanish bank present also in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. The bank's operations are divided into two major divisions: Commercial Banking provides services and products to individuals and companies. The revenue from this segment is derived from the banking and financial products and services available to the account and non-account holders. Global Wholesale Banking offers a wide range of national and international tailored financial services and structured solutions for global corporate customers, comprised mostly of local and multinational corporations. The bank has operations in Brazil and internationally.

Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's Dividend Analysis

A Glimpse at Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's Dividend History

Banco Santander (Brasil) SA has maintained a consistent dividend payment record since 2009. Dividends are currently distributed on a quarterly basis. Below is a chart showing annual Dividends Per Share for tracking historical trends.

Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's Dividend Analysis

Breaking Down Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's Dividend Yield and Growth

As of today, Banco Santander (Brasil) SA currently has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 6.50% and a 12-month forward dividend yield of 6.39%. This suggests an expectation of decrease dividend payments over the next 12 months.

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Over the past three years, Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's annual dividend growth rate was 1.40%. Extended to a five-year horizon, this rate increased to 33.60% per year. And over the past decade, Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's annual dividends per share growth rate stands at an impressive 21.90%.

Based on Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's dividend yield and five-year growth rate, the 5-year yield on cost of Banco Santander (Brasil) SA stock as of today is approximately 27.67%.

Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's Dividend Analysis

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, Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's dividend payout ratio is 0.00.

Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's profitability rank, offers an understanding of the company's earnings prowess relative to its peers. GuruFocus ranks Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's profitability 4 out of 10 as of 2023-06-30, suggesting the dividend may not be sustainable. The company has reported positive net income for each of year over the past decade, further solidifying its high profitability.

Growth Metrics: The Future Outlook

To ensure the sustainability of dividends, a company must have robust growth metrics. Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's growth rank of 4 out of 10 suggests that the company has poor growth prospects and thus, the dividend may not be sustainable.

Revenue is the lifeblood of any company, and Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's revenue per share, combined with the 3-year revenue growth rate, indicates a strong revenue model. Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's revenue has increased by approximately -22.20% per year on average, a rate that underperforms than approximately 97.92% 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, Banco Santander (Brasil) SA's earnings increased by approximately -4.40% per year on average, a rate that underperforms than approximately 84.4% of global competitors.

Lastly, the company's 5-year EBITDA growth rate of 8.50%, which underperforms than approximately 49.13% of global competitors.

Next Steps

In conclusion, while Banco Santander (Brasil) SA has a strong history of dividend payments, its current growth metrics and payout ratio suggest caution for investors seeking sustainable dividends. The company's profitability rank and growth metrics indicate a potential risk in dividend sustainability. 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, generated by GuruFocus, is designed to provide general insights and is not tailored financial advice. Our commentary is rooted in historical data and analyst projections, utilizing an impartial methodology, and is not intended to serve as specific investment guidance. It does not formulate a recommendation to purchase or divest any stock and does not consider individual investment objectives or financial circumstances. Our objective is to deliver long-term, fundamental data-driven analysis. Be aware that our analysis might not incorporate the most recent, price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative information. GuruFocus holds no position in the stocks mentioned herein.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


BankUnited Inc (NYSE:BKU) reported Q3 2023 net income of $47.0 million, down from $58.0 million in Q2 2023 and $87.9 million in Q3 2022.

The company's net interest margin expanded to 2.56% from 2.47% in the preceding quarter.

Non-brokered deposits grew by $484 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2023.

The provision for credit losses was $33.0 million, driven by a less favorable economic forecast.





BankUnited Inc (NYSE:BKU) released its earnings report for the quarter ending September 30, 2023, on October 19, 2023. The company reported a decrease in net income compared to the previous quarter and the same quarter in the previous year. However, the company highlighted significant progress on key strategic priorities, including improvements in margin, funding mix, asset mix, capital, and liquidity.

Financial Performance and Highlights





For Q3 2023, BankUnited Inc (NYSE:BKU) reported a net income of $47.0 million, or $0.63 per diluted share. This is a decrease from $58.0 million, or $0.78 per diluted share, in the preceding quarter and $87.9 million, or $1.12 per diluted share, for Q3 2022. The decrease in earnings was primarily due to an increase in the provision for credit losses, driven by a less favorable economic forecast. Despite this, the company's annualized net charge-offs remained low at 0.07%.

The company's net interest margin expanded to 2.56% from 2.47% in the preceding quarter. Non-brokered deposits grew by $484 million, while total deposits grew by $274 million. The company also reported a decline in residential loans and securities, while its core C&I and commercial real estate portfolios grew by a net $147 million.

Asset Quality and Credit Losses





The provision for credit losses for Q3 2023 was $33.0 million, leading to an increase in the ACL to total loans ratio to 0.80% from 0.68% in the preceding quarter. The main driver for this increase was a less favorable economic forecast. Non-performing assets remained low, totaling $140.5 million at the end of Q3 2023, compared to $120.8 million at the end of Q2 2023.

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Capital Position and Liquidity





BankUnited Inc (NYSE:BKU) maintained a robust capital position, with CET1 increasing to 11.4% at the holding company and 13.2% at the Bank. The company also maintained ample liquidity, with total same-day available liquidity standing at $14.4 billion.

Outlook





Despite the decrease in net income, BankUnited Inc (NYSE:BKU) remains optimistic about its strategic progress and robust capital position. The company continues to prepare for a possible economic slowdown while executing on near-term strategic priorities.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


Basilea Pharmaceutica AG

New compound added to Basileas clinical pipeline; upon successful completion of preclinical profiling, start of phase 2 study planned for H1 2025

Upfront payments of USD 2 million

Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR

Allschwil, Switzerland, October 19, 2023

Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd, Allschwil (SIX: BSLN), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to meeting the needs of patients with severe bacterial and fungal infections, announced today that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement with privately owned Gravitas Therapeutics Inc. for GR-2397, a clinical-stage antifungal compound with a novel mechanism of action, targeting invasive mold infections caused by Aspergillus species.

David Veitch, Chief Executive Officer of Basilea, stated: This is the first transaction in the implementation of our strategy to expand our clinical-stage anti-infectives pipeline and to complement our portfolio of marketed products, Cresemba and Zevtera. We are looking forward to developing this asset.

Dr. Marc Engelhardt, Chief Medical Officer of Basilea, added: With GR-2397, now referred to as BAL2062, we are adding an antifungal compound to our pipeline that has already completed a clinical phase 1 study. Based on its novel mechanism of action which results in rapid fungicidal activity in vitro, BAL2062 could become a valuable treatment option against difficult-to-treat invasive mold infections. To define the optimal positioning and the most efficient clinical development path, we will initiate a focused preclinical profiling program. Upon successful completion of the preclinical profiling, we are planning to move directly into phase 2 clinical development in the first half of 2025.

BAL2062 (formerly GR-2397) is a first-in-class antifungal, derived from a natural product, and has demonstrated fungicidal activity against clinically important molds such as Aspergillus spp., including azole-resistant strains.1 Safety and tolerability have been demonstrated in a previously completed phase 1 study with single and multiple ascending intravenous (i.v.) doses.2 The drug candidate has Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP), Orphan Drug and Fast Track designation from the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for invasive aspergillosis.

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Basilea is paying USD 2 million in upfront payments. Under the asset purchase agreement with Gravitas, Basilea assumes the rights and obligations under a license agreement with Astellas Pharma Inc. who owns patents relating to BAL2062 (formerly GR-2397) and takes over an agreement with Fresh Tracks Therapeutics Inc., who previously owned the asset that was acquired by Gravitas. Upon achievement of defined milestones, Basilea will make total pre-approval milestone payments of up to USD 1.75 million and up to USD 67 million in total approval and commercialization milestone payments. In addition, Basilea will pay tiered royalties on sales starting in the low single-digit percentage range, going to the mid-single-digit percentage range.

About invasive aspergillosis

Invasive aspergillosis is a life-threatening mold infection that predominantly affects immunocompromised patients, such as patients with hematologic malignancies (blood cancer). The infection is associated with high morbidity and mortality.

About Basilea

Basilea is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company founded in 2000 and headquartered in Switzerland. We are committed to discovering, developing and commercializing innovative drugs to meet the needs of patients with severe bacterial and fungal infections. We have successfully launched two hospital brands, Cresemba for the treatment of invasive fungal infections and Zevtera for the treatment of bacterial infections. In addition, we have an R&D portfolio of anti-infective assets. Basilea is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (SIX: BSLN). Please visit basilea.com.

Disclaimer

This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements, such as "believe", "assume", "expect", "forecast", "project", "may", "could", "might", "will" or similar expressions concerning Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd, Allschwil and its business, including with respect to the progress, timing and completion of research, development and clinical studies for product candidates. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd, Allschwil to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd, Allschwil is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For further information, please contact:

Peer Nils Schroder, PhD



Head of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations

Basilea Pharmaceutica International Ltd, Allschwil

Hegenheimermattweg 167b

4123 Allschwil

Switzerland Phone +41 61 606 1102 E-mail media_relations@basilea.com

investor_relations@basilea.com

This ad hoc announcement can be downloaded from www.basilea.com.

References

K. J. Shaw. GR-2397: Review of the Novel Siderophore-like Antifungal Agent for the Treatment of Invasive Aspergillosis. Journal of Fungi (Basel) 2022 (8), 909 ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02956499: M. P. Mammen, D. Armas, F. H. Hughes et al. First-in-Human Phase 1 Study To Assess Safety, Tolerability, and Pharmacokinetics of a Novel Antifungal Drug, VL-2397, in Healthy Adults. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 2019 (63), e00969-19

Press release (PDF)




If you think President Biden doesnt care about gasoline prices, you havent been following his Venezuela policy.

Okay, hardly anybody follows US policy toward Venezuela. But it suddenly has direct implications for pump prices and for Bidens reelection odds.

With little fanfare, the Biden administration on Oct. 18 eased sanctions on Venezuelas oil sector, which should allow the beleaguered socialist nation to export more oil to the United States and to global markets. Venezuela is one of the worlds most oil-rich countries, but incompetent, repressive dictators and US sanctions have wrecked much of the industry and left it pumping a fraction of its potential.

The Biden administration says the sanctions relief is aimed at cajoling Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro into holding free-ish elections next year. The deal has a six-month shelf life and can either be extended or canceled, based on whether Maduro seems to be abiding by the terms.

But theres good reason to think the Biden administration cares about oil supplies at least as much as the prospect for democracy in Latin America. Research firm ClearView Energy Partners thinks Venezuela is one of four sources of additional oil the Biden administration has been trying to draw on to the market for the last several months. Two other sources  Iran and Saudi Arabia  may now be off the table due to the mushrooming war between Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas. The fourth source is Russian crude, via relaxed enforcement of a US-led price cap scheme that went into effect last December.

Venezuela generates about 800,000 barrels of oil per day, less than 1% of global production. A suspension of US sanctions could boost Venezuelan output by 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day, according to analyst estimates gathered by S&P Global. Much of that could end up coming to the United States to be refined into gasoline and other products.

The United States imports about 150,000 barrels of oil per day from Venezuela  a scant 1.8% of all imports and less than 1% of total consumption. If that doubled, as seems possible, Venezuela would still be a niche supplier. Yet small changes in supply can move prices up or down when the market is tight, as it is now. If nothing else, a bit more oil from Venezuela might ease upward pressure, assuming broader supply and demand trends remained stable.

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The Biden administration must think its worth the trouble to coax a bit more Venezuelan oil on to the market, since the move carries political risk. Republicans immediately bashed Biden for coddling a dictator and begging an oppressive socialist country for more oil instead of producing it at home.

The six-month time frame for the easing of Venezuela sanctions gives Biden some breathing room to reinstate them next spring, if Maduro reneges or oil prices seem comfortably under control. Its a safe bet, however, that voters care more about keeping gas prices down than elections in Venezuela, and that the new Biden policy will stand. Higher prices could risk backlash from voters everywhere, ClearView noted in an Oct. 18 analysis.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a meeting with Saint Lucia's Prime Minister Philip Joseph Pierre at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. (Matias Delacroix/AP Photo) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

As for domestic production, Biden has put new restrictions on where US fossil firms can drill. But that affects future production, not current supply. He did kill the Keystone XL pipeline that would have moved oil from Canada to the US Gulf Coast, but much of that oil gets to the United States in other ways, and Canada remains Americas top source of foreign oil, by far.

Unlike Venezuela and the majority of major oil-producing countries, US production rests with the private sector, not with the federal government. US energy firms got crushed during the COVID pandemic in 2020, and these days they prefer to lock in profits instead of investing in new wells, which risks overproduction along with plunging prices and profits. Even so, high prices are coaxing US firms to drill more, and domestic oil production is likely to hit a new record high late this year or early in 2024.

Biden hamstrung himself somewhat by drawing down the US strategic oil reserve in 2022, when gas prices hit $5 per gallon. That reserve is now at a 40-year low, leaving Biden almost no room to tap it further  especially with a Middle East war underway, which raises the risk of a genuine energy crisis.

Before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the Biden administration had been quietly easing its enforcement of sanctions on Iran, allowing the Islamic theocracy to export more oil. But it may now have to reverse that policy, given that Iran is Hamas biggest funder. There was also hope Saudi Arabia might pump more in 2024, as part of a normalization agreement with Israel. But that deal now seems indefinitely delayed, if not dead.

That has made the Biden administration more tolerant of Russian oil exports, even if Russia is selling oil above the $60 price cap the United States and other advanced democracies imposed last December. The administration says it is beefing up enforcement of the price cap, but new actions seem limited, and the group of countries enforcing the price cap has rejected calls to lower it, to further dent the oil revenues Russia needs to finance its war in Ukraine. A senior Biden administration official recently explained to Yahoo Finance that a key goal is keeping oil prices stable, and if the price cap were lower, Russia might sell less.

Biden can only do so much to control oil and gasoline prices. They could rise  perhaps by a lot  if theres a broader Middle East war that involves Iran or other major oil producers. They could also fall if global tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East unexpectedly ease and there are no fresh wars anytime soon. A recession would also bring energy prices down, if only because anxious consumers close their wallets. If theres any bottom line, its that pain at the pump will cause Biden pain at the polls  and he clearly knows it.

Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.

Click here for politics news related to business and money

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The Middle East is going to be the fastest-growing market of digital asset trading in Asia, said Alvin Kwock, co-founder of OneInfinity, who was one of the panelists at Dubai Future Blockchain Summit 2023.

Discussing "Crypto Trading & Digital Asset - Redefining Custody in Web3 World", he said: We see that investment in digital asset is going full power from the Web3 universe to the traditional investors, especially in the Middle East market, where we are seeing a lot of funds inbound and enterprise in recent months.

OneInfinity by OneDegree, the first and only licensed digital asset provider in Asia, has been taking part in the in the past four days. OneInfinity is excited to be part of Dubai's dynamic crypto market and contribute to its growth and success. It is committed to building a comprehensive ecosystem that fosters Web3 innovation while ensuring security and trust for all stakeholders.

Qualified custodian

He however stressed the importance of using a qualified custodian and highlighted the growing interest of banks in the crypto world. He as well emphasised that banks' extensive experiences in custody services provides an extra layer of trust.

The panelists, including David Lin, founder of David Lin Report; Sagar Sarbhai, Head of Business Solutions & Advisory of Fireblocks, and Dr Marwan Alzarouni, the CEO of Dubai Blockchain Center, also discussed key custody issues like balancing usability and security and the need for market education.

They highlighted the importance of addressing evolving hacker threats and focusing on technology and operational risks. Regulatory authorities like VARA in UAE will demand tools for technical controls, including live audits and ongoing reviews.

In 2022, $3.8 billion of crypto assets were stolen. Insurance, together with regulation, serve as the double-tick mechanism for investor protection. We are seeing vast demand of insurance cover for the digital asset market in Asia. In Hong Kong, vast majority of VASPs (Virtual Asset Service Providers) are getting insurance from us, in Singapore the proportion is about half, Kwock added.--TradeArabia News Service
In this issue

Japan  a new frontier for Binance? AI art sweeps NFT sales ETF buzz electrifies Bitcoin

From the Editors Desk

Dear Reader,

Its been quite the week for Binance. The worlds largest cryptocurrency exchange has been headline news on our pages for some time now. And thats no mean feat considering the Sam Bankman-Fried trial is still only a few weeks old and readers all over the world remain glued to their screens, waiting to learn the fate of cryptos most (in)famous individual.

Second on that list, arguably, is Changpang Zhao, known to most as CZ. The Binance CEO and co-founder was a one-time mentor to SBF. Something of a crypto-older-brother to the FTX founder, Zhao was there for Bankman-Fried in the early days of the collapsed exchange, becoming one of the first investors and helping FTX off the ground.

But he was also reportedly there as it all came crashing down. At one stage in November last year, when rumors of a multi-billion dollar shortfall in customer funds at FTX came to light, it appeared as though Zhao may step in to bail SBF out. But it wasnt to be. Zhao and Binance pulled out of an agreement to buy FTX at the last minute and well we all know what happened next.

For some time before Bankman-Frieds rapid fall from grace, there had been whispers that Zhao was less than impressed by the FTX bosss apparent cozying-up to U.S. regulators. Some reports even allege that he had a hand in exposing the balance sheet discrepancies that brought the curtain down on FTX. It was Zhao, after all, who contributed to the run at FTX when he said he would sell all Binances holdings in its native token FTT.

Regardless of Zhaos alleged involvement in FTXs demise, this could and should have been a triumphant moment for Binance. The exchanges main rivals are no longer part of the picture. The company continues its outward expansion into territories new  Japan in particular representing a particularly promising growth market for the brand.

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But its not exactly smooth sailing elsewhere. Binance said it will no longer register new users in the U.K. on Monday in response to the countrys new overseas promotion rules, while on Tuesday Binance.US announced it has suspended U.S. dollar withdrawals for U.S. customers. Add that to the announcement last week that Brazils regulators want to indict Zhao for running a pyramid scheme, and the picture starts to look far less rosy.

Of course, Binance remains a juggernaut. Its website claims the exchange has 150 million users worldwide, enjoying a daily transaction volume of US$65 billion. But the lay of the land has without doubt turned a little bumpy, while theres some really mountainous terrain up ahead.

Where the journey leads is yet to be decided. But knowing Binance and Zhao, its bound to be one heck of a ride.

Until the next time,

Angie Lau,

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Forkast.News

1. Japan  a new frontier for Binance?

Binances official entry into Japan signals a shift towards the Asia-Pacific, revitalizing the Japanese crypto scene and positioning the nation as a potential crypto haven amid global regulatory challenges. Image: Canva

Binance Japan started trading operations Aug. 1, launching with an impressive 34 coins on its platform. The number might be a fraction of what Binances global exchange offers, but for the Japanese crypto market, it marks a significant leap. The number places Binance Japan at the forefront of the domestic industry in terms of cryptocurrency variety.

The official arrival of Binance, the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchange, as a licensed entity in Japan, signals challenging times ahead for the multitude of smaller domestic exchanges already grappling with dwindling liquidity and an oversaturated market. As noted by Norbert Gehrke, founder of the Japan FinTech Observer newsletter, the dominance of Binance could potentially kill off many of these smaller competitors.

Binance has faced regulatory hurdles in Japan in the past. It received reprimands from the Financial Services Agency (FSA) for operating as an unlicensed online exchange in both 2018 and 2021. However, the companys strategic acquisition of the Sakura Exchange BitCoin platform last year fast-tracked its official re-entry into the country.

Binances interest in the Japanese market showcases an industry-wide pivot toward the Asia Pacific market amidst growing U.S. resistance to crypto.

Despite past frictions, the countrys pro-crypto stance  led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishidas endorsement of Web3 technologies  hints at a promising future for foreign crypto investments in the country. But some local competitors have raised concerns over Binances swift licensing process, suggesting a potential double standard.

While Binances global operations face legal scrutiny in various countries, experts like Tokyo-based fintech lawyer So Saito believe that existing Japanese regulations will safeguard local investors. As they were during the FTX collapse, Japanese assets are expected to remain secure even if Binance Global encounters challenges.

On the positive side for Binance and Japan, the entry of a global giant might just be the spark the domestic crypto industry needs to really get up and running. The market is shifting away from one-note cryptocurrency trading to the broader potentials of Web3. If developers can integrate Japans traditional strengths in areas like anime, manga, and video games, then the future seems ripe with opportunity.

The hope, as expressed by industry advocates, is that Binances presence will rejuvenate Japans crypto space, drawing in more foreign interest and innovation much like the crypto hubs of Dubai and Singapore.

Forkast.Insights | What does it mean?

The picture can look a little bleak for Binance in the West. U.S. regulation in particular and the threat of legal action there has slowed the companys momentum. It has been forced to beat a hasty retreat from Canada and a host of European jurisdictions. The business landscape is also growing increasingly complicated in the U.K. The exchange announced Monday it will no longer accept new customers in the country in compliance with local regulations.

Binance is far from alone in facing these challenges. Crypto businesses are struggling across the board. Its just that Binances size and industry heft means it inevitably attracts a lot of the ire aimed at the wider industry. And like the wider industry, its now looking for opportunities beyond Europe and the U.S.  powerhouses for both traditional finance and the digital economy  toward the Asia-Pacific region, which is emerging as something of a crypto haven.

One key region for the company is Japan. Blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis shows that while India leads the world in crypto adoption and other APAC regions such as Indonesia and Vietnam are accelerating their crypto uptake, blockchain adoption in Japan is also significant.

The nations government is never shy about promoting Japan as a regional hub for Web3, which it has positioned over the past year as a key economic growth strategy. It aims to use blockchain technologies like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to unlock hidden value in Japans graying society and address the rapid onset of regional depopulation.

But exactly how it aims to do that remains unclear. While the will is there, Japanese developers express a lack of blockchain understanding among policy-makers. There is therefore a sense that a current wave of government enthusiasm for Web3 could fizzle out without any specific strides for the industry. Which is where Binance could step in.

The exchange was able to fast-track its official arrival in Japan this August despite past run-ins with regulators. Despite the legal baggage it carries elsewhere, there is clearly a desire among policymakers and industry advocates to leverage the experience and technical knowhow that Binance brings to the table.

Could Japan emerge as a home-away-from-home for the company? The official arrival of Binance Japan has at least stirred up a lot of conversation and crypto interest in the country.

2. Art and charity over apes in NFTs

Refik Anadols AI-art NFTs bridge cutting-edge tech and cultural preservation, generating millions and benefiting the Yawanawa tribe. Source: CryptoSlam

Refik Anadols artificial intelligence (AI)-created art collection Winds of Yawanawa is currently the top non-fungible token collection on the Ethereum blockchain.

Over US$3.7 million in secondary sales of the collection have been recorded over the past seven days, marking a 446% increase since the collections unveiling last week.

Winds of Yawanawa was responsible for 11.4% of Ethereums US$32 million in total NFT sales the past week.

The highest sales within the collection include one NFT for 23 ETH (US$36.560.17), and 17 individuals sales at more than 15 ETH (over US$23,000) each.

Refik Anadols art was featured on the exterior of The Sphere, an immersive events structure in Las Vegas, during the venues opening in September.

The Museum of Modern Art welcomed Refik Anadols Unsupervised  Machine Hallucinations NFT into their permanent collection, making it the first NFT to be owned by MoMA.

Forkast.Insights | What does it mean?

Its not often that art gets a chance to take center stage in NFTs, but when a milestone such as Refik Anadols recent accomplishments arrives, it must be talked about.

For the past few weeks, Refik has represented the heart of NFTs, serving as a much needed distraction from the current 33-month low point for the NFT market. His art and its success has reminded the collective community about the roots of NFT technology, which is the provenance it preserves, and the financial opportunities it offers to artists.

While Anadols art being featured on the Las Vegas Sphere and being acquired by the Museum of Modern art are milestones for NFTs, theyre equally as important for the world of AI art. His work lives at the cutting edge of two fronts, showcasing how AI can be used as a tool to create beauty, while using technology to preserve it.

Using data from Acre Brazils Yawanawa tribes village in the Amazon rainforest, Refik painted wind speeds, direction, gusts, and temperatures onto a digital canvas with AI tools to create the iconic 1,000 edition Winds of Yawanawa collection.

The collection also highlights another important side of NFTs, one that is rarely talked about. Were accustomed to hearing about scams and manipulations across the blockchain industry, but seldom do we hear about good deeds in the NFT ecosystem. The Winds of Yawanawa collection was co-created with artists from the Yawanawa tribe, and because of that collaboration, the tribe earns royalties for each NFT sold on secondary markets.

To date the Winds of Yawanawa collection has traded for over US$9.4 million, with 10% of all sales going directly to the Yawanawa tribe. While royalties are no longer enforced on marketplaces, most art collectors happily honor artists requested royalties. In a space that witnessed a US$6.2 million generative art sale over the summer, a US$69 million Beeple NFT sale in 2021, the Art Blocks platforms US$1.4 billion in all-time sales, and now Refik Anadols milestone collection of AI art, a picture is being painted on the blockchain that may help you understand just how significant the art movement in NFTs really is.

3. Finks forecast: Golden Bitcoin era?

BlackRocks potential Bitcoin ETF signals growing institutional crypto interest, highlighting the assets responsiveness to global events and the need for due diligence in the digital age. Image: Canva

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink addressed the recent fleeting surge in Bitcoin prices during an appearance on the Fox Business broadcast on Monday, highlighting the immense global interest in cryptocurrency.

This surge was initially fueled by a rumor that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had given the green light to BlackRocks application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Fink refrained from delving into specifics but noted that the rally wasnt solely based on the rumor. He attributed the upswing to worldwide concerns about the current Israel-Palestine conflict and what he described as escalating global terrorism. He discussed the growing trend of investors moving towards safer assets, whether its treasuries, gold, or even  at a time of global disruption in traditional markets  cryptocurrencies.

The ETF rumor and spike in Bitcoin price originated from Cointelegraph, a cryptocurrency news platform. It claimed early Monday on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that the SEC had approved BlackRocks spot Bitcoin ETF application.

However, Cointelegraph later retracted the claim. In the meantime, Bitcoins value briefly spiked to nearly US$30,000 before stabilizing back to within the US$28,000 range.

In June, BlackRock lodged an application for its iShares Bitcoin Trust with the SEC. Should it gain approval, the firm plans to collaborate with Coinbase Custody as its custodian.

Despite an influx of spot Bitcoin ETF applications from various institutions, the SEC has delayed a decision on approvals. Nevertheless, Steven Schoenfeld, a prominent figure in the industry, anticipates the SEC to approve all applications in the coming three to six months.

Forkast.Insights | What does it mean?

Bitcoins latest major price swing was fueled by the industrys longing to see a spot Bitcoin ETF open for business in the worlds largest economy. It not only demonstrated investors appetite for cryptocurrencies, as noted by BlackRocks Larry Fink. It also revealed the assets responsiveness to unfolding events and hearsay.

The quick correction from Cointelegraph after the outlets mistaken ETF claim reflects the lightning-fast dissemination of information in the internet era. It fires a clear message to the financial community about the importance of due diligence in todays rapid information age.

BlackRocks flirtation with the Bitcoin ETF sphere is a sign of the times, pointing toward a growing institutional interest in digital assets. A potential alliance with platforms like Coinbase Custody, contingent on regulatory blessings, could mark the beginning of an advanced framework for further institutional forays into the crypto world.

For investors, a spot Bitcoin ETF would become another channel to legally bet on the success of digital assets. But for existing cryptocurrency industry participants, it would serve as a lifeline that brings much needed funds, liquidity and mainstream interest into the sector.

The so-called crypto winter and wider macroeconomic headwinds have hastened the demise of multiple Web3 firms. Even the strongest and the fittest companies left behind now tend to operate with a much smaller workforce and war chest. The introduction of a spot Bitcoin ETF would be a turning point.

While rejuvenating the dwindling reserves of these firms, this new financial instrument could also instill renewed confidence among stakeholders. As mainstream investors gain an easier and more regulated avenue into Bitcoin investment, the resultant inflow of capital could stabilize the volatile crypto market, fostering an environment ripe for increased growth and innovation.
According to the Report, Bitdefender Received the Highest Possible Scores in Ten Criteria, Including Malware Prevention; Network Threat Detection; Patching Remediation; Innovation; Pricing Flexibility & Transparency and More

BUCHAREST, Romania & SANTA CLARA, Calif., October 19, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bitdefender, a global cybersecurity leader, was named a Leader in the latest Forrester Research, Inc. global evaluation of endpoint security providers. The Forrester Wave: Endpoint Security, Q4 2023 report evaluated 13 vendors across 25 individual criteria including Malware Prevention, Exploit Prevention, Attack Remediation, Innovation, Adoption, Pricing Flexibility & Transparency and more.

In the report, Forrester notes, "Bitdefender differentiates with its aggressive prevention-first mindset. Bitdefender builds off its proven prevention engines to make defense of the endpoint the basis for securing users workloads." The report goes on to say, "Bitdefender has a near-relentless focus on stopping threats before they can impact the endpoint and, in the event an attack gets through, the depth of its remediation tools makes this an appealing solution for dispersed organizations."

"We believe our market differentiators are a result of sharp focus on a layered approach to endpoint security that incorporates attack prevention and protection, extended detection and response (XDR) and risk analytics," said Andrei Florescu, deputy general manager and senior vice president of products, Bitdefender Business Solutions Group. "Our distinguished position as a Leader by Forrester is for us affirmation through independent analysis that Bitdefender has developed a powerful endpoint security platform. This recognition is, in our opinion, further validation on the direction of our strategic technology road map and core portfolio value as threats continue to evolve."

Forrester defines endpoint security as the strategies, practices, and software products used to prevent malware, dangerous or malicious actions, data breaches, and all other cyberattacks that might impact an enterprises endpoints. When evaluating an endpoint security vendor, Forrester recommends several criteria organizations should look for in a provider. This includes prioritizing prevention; providing a seamless transition to endpoint detection and response (EDR) and XDR; extend the ability to do more with less, such as integrating functions such as vulnerability and patch remediation to reduce the number of tools organizations need to maintain a proper endpoint security posture.

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Forrester evaluated Bitdefender GravityZone Platform, a unified risk and security analytics platform that offers advanced endpoint protection, EDR, XDR and cloud security for physical, virtual, and multi-cloud environments. The platform delivers deep security context to detections and offers a direct path to Bitdefender Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services.

Bitdefenders highlights from the report include:

Maximum Scores in Malware and Exploit Prevention  Bitdefender GravityZone earned the highest possible score in the Malware Prevention and Exploit Prevention criteria.



Bitdefender GravityZone employs a multi-layered security strategy that includes leading-edge antimalware, advanced artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, automation and cross-endpoint correlation to prevent, detect and respond to malware and adversarial attack techniques as the threat landscape evolves.



Maximum Scores in Attack, Vulnerability, and Patching Remediation  Bitdefender achieved the highest possible scores in the Attack, Vulnerability and Patching Remediation criteria.



Bitdefender GravityZone excels at remediating detected threats, attacks in progress, and critical cybersecurity processes that harden an organizations environment such as automating the application and management of patching to ensure operating systems and software are always up to date.



Maximum Score in Network Threat Detection  Bitdefender GravityZone achieved the highest possible score in the Network Threat Detection criterion.



Bitdefender GravityZone protects data between endpoints, cloud workloads, network appliances, and IoT devices using its Network Attack Defense (NAD), an OS-independent deep packet inspection solution designed to establish a protective perimeter around all endpoints regardless of location.



Maximum Score in Innovation  Bitdefender earned the highest possible score in the criterion of Innovation.



Bitdefender is a renowned pioneer in several areas of cybersecurity and holds over 480 patents for core technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), advanced machine learning algorithms and anomaly-based detection techniques for identifying and blocking both known and unknown threats.



Maximum Scores in Adoption, Pricing Flexibility & Transparency  Bitdefender GravityZone achieved the highest possible scores in the criteria of Pricing Flexibility & Transparency and Adoption.



Bitdefender GravityZone is incredibly easy to implement, allows customers to quickly add new capabilities (including EDR and XDR), and scales across environments. Pricing is straightforward and based on an organizations immediate needs.

Leading the Way in Cybersecurity

Bitdefender continues to lead globally recognized independent technology evaluations for cybersecurity solutions and services. The company achieved the highest level of detection for all major steps for three consecutive years in the MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Enterprise Evaluation. Bitdefender excelled in AV-Comparatives Business Security Test and was recognized as a Strategic Leader in its Endpoint Prevention and Response (EPR) report. Additionally, Bitdefender GravityZone was named a 2023 Gartner Peer Insights Customers Choice for Endpoint Protection Platforms in EMEA, a prestigious recognition based on customer feedback on product capabilities, ease of use, and support from real-world deployments. Bitdefender was also named in the 2022 Gartner Hype Cycle for Endpoint Security in the categories of Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP), XDR and EDR.

For a complimentary copy of The Forrester Wave: Endpoint Security, Q4 2023 report, visit: https://businessresources.bitdefender.com/forrester-wave-endpoint-security-q4-2023

 "The Endpoint Security Landscape, Q2 2023", Forrester, March 21, 2023

About Bitdefender

Bitdefender is a cybersecurity leader delivering best-in-class threat prevention, detection, and response solutions worldwide. Guardian over millions of consumers, enterprises, and government environments, Bitdefender is one of the industrys most trusted experts for eliminating threats, protecting privacy, digital identity and data, and enabling cyber resilience. With deep investments in research and development, Bitdefender Labs discovers hundreds of new threats each minute and validates billions of threat queries daily. The company has pioneered breakthrough innovations in antimalware, IoT security, behavioral analytics, and artificial intelligence and its technology is licensed by more than 180 of the worlds most recognized technology brands. Founded in 2001, Bitdefender has customers in 170+ countries with offices around the world. For more information, visit https://www.bitdefender.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231018971601/en/

Contacts

Steve Fiore

Bitdefender

1-954-776-6262

sfiore@bitdefender.com
The credit unions, when merged, will do business as Blue Federal Credit Union

Blue and Aventa Merger

The credit unions, when merged, will do business as Blue Federal Credit Union

Cheyenne Wyoming, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a collaborative effort to enhance member financial well-being and community investment, Blue Federal Credit Union and Aventa Credit Union are thrilled to announce their joint decision to merge. The credit unions, when merged, will do business as Blue Federal Credit Union, with combined assets of more than $2.1 billion and over 153,000 members.

This parnership, rooted in shared values and a commitment to member service, is set to be finalized in early 2024, pending approval from the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and Aventas membership. By bringing the two credit unions together, all members will have access to expanded products and services, the latest digital banking technology, and best-in-class member service at 27 branch locations throughout Colorado and Wyoming, a Contact Center, and a nationwide ATM/VTM network.

"Blue Federal Credit Union warmly welcomes Aventa's members and employees as we join forces, said Stephanie Teubner, Blue Federal Credit Union's President/CEO. Our shared commitment to the well-being of our members, employees, and communities, combined with our expanded presence and robust financial standing, makes this union a seamless alignment for both institutions".

This partnership represents a significant milestone for Aventa's members, associates, and communities, said Greg Mills, Aventa Credit Union's President/CEO. We embrace Blue's commitment to being your lifelong financial champion.

For more information about Blue and the merger with Aventa, please visit blueaventa.com.

###

Blue Federal Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial institution serving eight Wyoming locations and thirteen Colorado locations, as well as members worldwide. Our purpose is to create a true cooperative connected to and inspired by the communities we serve and to help discover new pathways to realize your possibilities. To learn more about joining Blue, visit bluefcu.com/join.

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State chartered in 1957, Aventa Credit Union began as a financial cooperative supporting utility workers in Colorado Springs. Currently, Aventa serves more than 35,000 members in 9 southern Colorado counties. Aventa focuses on helping members manage personal finances, achieve short- and long-term financial goals, and improve overall financial wellness. Aventa Credit Union is committed to providing financial education services and building a brighter financial future for its members and the communities they serve.

Attachments

CONTACT: Michele Bolkovatz Blue Federal Credit Union 3074325402 mbolkovatz@bluefcu.com




Key Insights

Using the 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity, Boston Beer Company fair value estimate is US$552

Boston Beer Company's US$370 share price signals that it might be 33% undervalued

Analyst price target for SAM is US$348 which is 37% below our fair value estimate

Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM) as an investment opportunity by taking the forecast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today's value. The Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model is the tool we will apply to do this. Models like these may appear beyond the comprehension of a lay person, but they're fairly easy to follow.

Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.

View our latest analysis for Boston Beer Company

What's The Estimated Valuation?

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. In the first stage we need to estimate the cash flows to the business over the next ten years. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, so we discount the value of these future cash flows to their estimated value in today's dollars:

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10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate

2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 Levered FCF ($, Millions) US$101.2m US$152.6m US$191.5m US$230.7m US$259.9m US$284.5m US$305.3m US$322.8m US$337.9m US$351.1m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x2 Analyst x2 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 12.64% Est @ 9.49% Est @ 7.29% Est @ 5.75% Est @ 4.67% Est @ 3.91% Present Value ($, Millions) Discounted @ 6.2% US$95.3 US$135 US$160 US$182 US$193 US$199 US$201 US$200 US$197 US$193

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = US$1.8b

After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the initial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond the first stage. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield of 2.2%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 6.2%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2033  (1 + g)  (r  g) = US$351m (1 + 2.2%)  (6.2% 2.2%) = US$9.0b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= US$9.0b ( 1 + 6.2%)10= US$4.9b

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 US$6.7b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of US$370, the company appears quite good value at a 33% discount to where the stock price trades currently. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent.

dcf

The Assumptions

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. If you don't agree with these result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Boston Beer Company 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 6.2%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.800. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.

SWOT Analysis for Boston Beer Company

Strength

Currently debt free.

Weakness

No major weaknesses identified for SAM.

Opportunity

Annual earnings are forecast to grow faster than the American market.

Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%.

Threat

Annual revenue is forecast to grow slower than the American market.

Next Steps:

Whilst important, the DCF calculation is only one of many factors that you need to assess for a company. It's not possible to obtain a foolproof valuation with a DCF model. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. 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 Boston Beer Company, there are three pertinent items you should further examine:

Risks: You should be aware of the 2 warning signs for Boston Beer Company 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 SAM's future outlook? Check out our management and board analysis with insights on CEO compensation and governance factors. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered!

PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every American stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its Baron Health Care Fund third quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund declined 6.05% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter compared to a 3.88% loss for the Russell 3000 Health Care Index and a 3.27% loss for the S&P 500 Index. Year-to-date through September 30, 2023, the fund declined 1.17%, compared to a 3.83% decline for the Russell 3000 Health Care Index and a 13.07% increase for the S&P 500 Index. The combination of stock selection and active sub-industry weights drove the underperformance of the fund in the quarter. In addition, please check the funds top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.

Baron Health Care Fund highlighted stocks like Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) in the third quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) develops, manufactures, and markets medical devices. On October 18, 2023, Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) stock closed at $50.71 per share. One-month return of Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) was -5.82%, and its shares gained 26.35% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) has a market capitalization of $74.661 billion.

Baron Health Care Fund made the following comment about Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) in its Q3 2023 investor letter:

"We added to our position in Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX), a global developer, manufacturer, and marketer of medical devices that are used in a broad range of interventional medical specialties. We wrote about Boston Scientific last quarter. We believe Boston Scientific can grow revenue in the high single digits, driven by differentiated products used to treat atrial fibrillation, among others. The company held an Investor Day during the quarter at which management established financial targets for the 2024 2026 period calling for an organic sales CAGR of 8% to 10%, 150 basis points of margin expansion and strong double-digit adjusted EPS growth and improved free-cash-flow conversion. We think this growth profile makes Boston Scientific a compelling name within the large medical device universe."

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An operating room with a doctor monitoring a patient's vital signs during surgery with a medical device. Editorial photo for a financial news article. 8k. --ar 16:9

Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 69 hedge fund portfolios held Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) at the end of second quarter which was 65 in the previous quarter.

We discussed Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX) in another article and shared the list of safe haven stocks billionaires are loading up on. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2023 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

Suggested Articles:

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
SkyQuest Technology Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

SkyQuest projects that the cable assembly market will attain a value of USD 268.75 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 6.7% over the forecast period (2023-2030). The expansion of the cable assembly market is primarily propelled by the escalating demand for high-speed cable assemblies catering to various applications, including computers, servers, switches, and multiple data and communication equipment. This trend is further accentuated by consumers' heightened adoption of personal computers (PCs), laptops and widespread internet usage.

Westford, USA, Oct. 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to SkyQuest, the cable assembly market is experiencing rapid growth, fueled by the surging demand for dependable and efficient connectivity solutions across many end-use sectors. Particularly, industries such as automotive, aerospace & defense, telecommunications, and healthcare are spearheading this expansion, recognizing the vital role cable assemblies play in enabling seamless communication and operation.

Browse in-depth TOC on the "Cable Assembly Market

Pages - 157

Tables - 69

Figures  75

In the cable assembly market, advancements in technology that have led to cost reductions in batteries and substantial improvements in the efficiency of electric vehicles (EVs) have sparked a rapid surge in EV sales. This transformational shift has been particularly pronounced in several nations, including the United States, Germany, China, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.

Get a sample copy of this report:

https://www.skyquestt.com/sample-request/cable-assembly-market





Prominent Players in Cable Assembly Market

Lockheed Martin Corporation

Raytheon Technologies Corporation

L3Harris Technologies, Inc.

Thales Group

FLIR Systems, Inc.

Aselsan A.S.

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Safran S.A.

Ultra Electronics Holdings plc

Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd.

Leonardo S.p.A.

Jenoptik AG

Sagem Defense Securite

Terma A/S

Elbit Systems Ltd.

Qioptik Ltd.

Rheinmetall AG

UTC Aerospace Systems

Kollsman, Inc.

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Browse summary of the report and Complete Table of Contents (ToC):

https://www.skyquestt.com/report/cable-assembly-market

Custom Cable Assemblies Segment is Expected to Grow the Market Due to their Inherent Benefits in Weight Reduction

The global cable assembly market has seen a significant dominance of custom cable assemblies, primarily owing to their inherent space and weight reduction benefits. These tailor-made solutions cater to specific requirements and contribute to streamlined designs by optimizing spatial utilization.

The market in North America is poised for substantial expansion within the cable assembly market. This projection is underpinned by several factors that underscore the region's potential for growth. Particularly, the escalating demand for cable assemblies in the IT and telecommunications industry is a pivotal catalyst.

Automotive Segment is Expected to Dominate the Market Due to the Escalating Utilization of Copper Cable Assemblies

The cable assembly market is prominently shaped by the dominance of the automotive segment, driven by the escalating utilization of copper cable assemblies in various components of motor vehicles. This prevalence spans critical areas such as gearboxes, mirrors, and side mirrors, underscoring the integral role of cable assemblies in ensuring seamless functionality within automotive systems.

Regional markets in the Asia Pacific are poised to assert their dominance over the global cable assembly market, driven by pivotal factors. The region's burgeoning population, coupled with the rapid trajectory of urbanization and industrialization, is crucial in propelling its ascendancy.

A comprehensive analysis of the major players in the cable assembly market has been recently conducted in a report. The report encompasses various aspects, including collaborations, mergers, innovative business policies, and strategies, providing valuable insights into key trends and breakthroughs in the market. Furthermore, the report scrutinizes the market share of the top segments and presents a detailed geographic analysis. Lastly, the report highlights the major players in the industry and their endeavours to develop innovative solutions to cater to the growing demand.

Speak to Analyst for your custom requirements:

https://www.skyquestt.com/speak-with-analyst/cable-assembly-market



Key Developments in the Cable Assembly Market

Smiths Interconnect recently made a significant stride in commercial space applications by introducing the SpaceNXT QT Series, a line of flexible coaxial cable assemblies. Engineered to cater to the unique demands of space environments, this series boasts a crucial advancement: improved phase stability across a broad spectrum of temperatures typically encountered in outer space. By addressing the challenges posed by extreme temperature fluctuations, Smiths Interconnect's innovation stands to enhance the reliability and performance of coaxial cable assemblies in space-related applications.

TE Connectivity (TE) recently unveiled a game-changing high signal data connectivity development with its new multi-fiber cable assemblies. These pioneering assemblies facilitate the seamless routing of high data signal connectivity through a single cable connecting multiple units.

Key Questions Answered in Cable Assembly Market Report

What specific growth drivers are projected to impact the market during the forecast period?

List the top companies in the market and explain how they have achieved their positions of influence.

In what ways do regional trends and patterns differ within the market, and how these differences shape the market's future growth?

Related Reports in SkyQuests Library:

Global Portable Fire Extinguisher Market



Global Commercial Gensets Market



Global Flashlight Market



Global Refrigerated Display Cases Market



Global Offshore Wind Cable Market





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Key Insights

CDW Holding's estimated fair value is S$0.17 based on Dividend Discount Model

CDW Holding's S$0.19 share price indicates it is trading at similar levels as its fair value estimate

CDW Holding's peers are currently trading at a discount of 16% on average

How far off is CDW Holding Limited (SGX:BXE) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, we'll take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. We will use the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model on this occasion. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.

Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.

View our latest analysis for CDW Holding

The Model

We have to calculate the value of CDW Holding slightly differently to other stocks because it is a semiconductor company. In this approach dividends per share (DPS) are used, as free cash flow is difficult to estimate and often not reported by analysts. This often underestimates the value of a stock, but it can still be good as a comparison to competitors. We use the Gordon Growth Model, which assumes dividend will grow into perpetuity at a rate that can be sustained. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a company's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In this case we used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (2.0%). The expected dividend per share is then discounted to today's value at a cost of equity of 11%. Compared to the current share price of S$0.2, the company appears around fair value at the time of writing. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent.

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Value Per Share = Expected Dividend Per Share / (Discount Rate - Perpetual Growth Rate)

= US$0.01 / (11%  2.0%)

= S$0.2

dcf

The Assumptions

Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at CDW Holding 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 11%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.444. 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.

Next Steps:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. DCF models are not the be-all and end-all of investment valuation. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. 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. For CDW Holding, we've put together three fundamental items you should look at:

Risks: Take risks, for example - CDW Holding has 4 warning signs (and 1 which is potentially serious) we think you should know about. 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! Other Environmentally-Friendly Companies: Concerned about the environment and think consumers will buy eco-friendly products more and more? Browse through our interactive list of companies that are thinking about a greener future to discover some stocks you may not have thought of!

PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Singaporean 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.
Tacara at Weiss Ranch in Pflugerville will have 300 apartment units and resort-style amenities, plus 12,000 square feet of retail space.

The five-county Austin region continues to boom, and the Pflugerville suburb north of Austin is no exception.

Tacara at Weiss Ranch is one of the latest new developments in Pflugerville. It will have 300 apartment units and resort-style amenities, plus 12,000 square feet of retail space.

The company behind the project, Casey Development LTD, is targeting a December opening. The first residents are expected to move into their new apartments in January.

Tacara at Weiss Ranch is at East Pflugerville Parkway and Weiss Lane, overlooking Lake Pflugerville. The tract is part of the original Weiss Family homestead, which has been a staple in the community for more than 100 years.

"Poised to serve as the main focal point of the citys future growth east of (the Texas 130 toll road), this will be the first development of its kind in Pflugerville pioneering growth along this corridor," Casey Development officials said.

Casey Development is one of San Antonios leading commercial real estate development companies, with more than 3 million square feet of office, industrial, retail, multifamily and self-storage real estate developed and acquired over the past 25 years.

Tacara at Weiss Ranch should have its first residents move into their new apartments in January.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Tacara at Weiss Ranch brings apartments, retail space to Pflugerville
MONTREAL, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - Central America Nickel Inc. (the "Company" or "CAN") is pleased to announce it has been granted patents in the United States and Canada, for the extraction of scandium and vanadium using the Company's Ultrasound Assisted Extraction (UAEx). The patents are based on International Application Number PCT/CA2018/050772, Publication Number WO2018232528, titled "Recovery of scandium and vanadium values from feedstocks using ultrasound-assisted extraction". An application based on the aforementioned International application is also pending in Guatemala. Both scandium and vanadium are on the lists of minerals critical for the green transition as outlined by the governments of Canada and the United States, and crucial for their distinct potential to spur economic growth and their necessity as inputs for priority supply chains.

Central America Nickel Inc. (CNW Group/Central America Nickel Inc.)

Due to its light-weighting potential and utility in fuel cells, scandium is critical to achieving energy efficiency, and its incorporation in materials has environmental benefits across multiple industrial sectors, particularly in decarbonization of energy. Both scandium and vanadium are important minerals used in alloy production due to their physical properties such as high-tensile strength and fatigue resistance, used for a diverse range of commercial applications including railways, steel products, catalysts, defense and aerospace.

CAN is focused on the sourcing, production and processing of strategic and critical minerals, and has developed technologies for the refining of minerals into elemental form for the clean energy industries, with recovery rates of up to up to 80% vanadium and 95% scandium within one hour of processing time, using the Company's proprietary technology.

CAN's proprietary technologies and metallurgical processes employ ultrasound processing, classified as a green chemistry approach as it significantly reduces the amount of acid and reagents being used to recover metals by accelerating the recovery time, as well as by increasing mineral recovery rates. CAN's ultrasound technology, coined the Ultrasound Assisted Extraction (UAEx), is an environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional processing methods, as it reduces waste material and carbon emissions due to the process requiring less energy than traditional leaching, avoids the use of calcination and furthermore operates at ambient temperatures without conventional heat or pressure.

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Daria C. Boffito, Ing., Ph.D., Prof. Canada Research Chair in Engineering Process Intensification and Catalysis (EPIC), Polytechnique Montreal, who has been working closely with CAN with a focus on establishing UAEx to enhance metal recoveries from ore at the industrial scale, commented: "Metal production accounts for approximately 10% of global GHG emissions, making of it one of the most urgent sectors to decarbonize. Ultrasound is an innovative technology, classified as Process Intensification, which gathers a pool of innovative approaches that improves process efficiency, and opportunities for feedstock substitution, energy transition, in particular for the electrification of the chemical industry. CAN and its partners have been spearheading ultrasound-assisted technologies for critical metals extraction, reaching the same or higher recoveries as traditional high temperature, high pressure acid leaching, but at ambient conditions, in less than 1/20 the time and with less acid and chemical input."

CAN's technological processes rely on known chemistry but are augmented by the Company's UAEx which leverages ultrasound cavitation energy, resulting in reduced operating costs by eliminating the use of pressure processing. In addition, UAEx minimizes the temperature, energy requirements and processing times, as well as the use of chemical inventory or reagents by 75-90%, depending on the metal extracted. CAN's method of ultrasound extraction technology is an enabler to the entire metallurgical process, with the intent to move away from pressure leaching, and increase effectiveness across the integrated system. The UAEx process resulted in effective recoveries up to 95% nickel, cobalt, manganese, and scandium, 80% extraction of vanadium, titanium, copper, and iron, over 84% recovery of rare earths in solution, specifically 92% neodymium as well as 100% recovery of iridium, gadolinium and praseodymium. CAN's technological advancements are a result of collaborative work done with partners such as Polytechnique Montreal, Impact Global Solutions Inc., and the Coalia research center from Thetford Mines.

About The Company

Central America Nickel Inc. ("CAN") is a privately-held corporation based in Montreal, focused on the processing and purification of critical minerals and energy metals using patented and patent-pending technologies, in partnership with strategic partners. CAN has access, directly or through joint ventures, to minerals projects including nickel, cobalt, scandium, vanadium, lithium and rare earth elements located in several countries, including Guatemala, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this news release involves forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements contained herein include, but are not limited to, financings and transactions being pursued, and all such forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements included in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation. Although the Company believes that the expectations represented in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct and, accordingly, undue reliance should not be put on such forward-looking statements. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein.

SOURCE Central America Nickel Inc.

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Choice Hotels CEO Pat Pacious is ready to book a stay inside the boardroom of budget hotel rival Wyndham to conduct some due diligence.

Pacious told Yahoo Finance Live on Thursday his company's offer to buy Wyndham is strong and has the support of institutional investors on both sides.

To be sure, Choice's hostile play to buy the much larger Wyndham is shaping up to be a classic merger barnburner.

After months of discussions on a combination, which began in April according to documents, Choice went public on Tuesday with its bid to purchase Wyndham after talks broke down several weeks ago.

Choice offered $7.8 billion to buy Wyndham, or $90 a share in a mix of cash and stock. Since the announcement, Choice shares have dropped 8.9%. Wyndham has gained 7.6% to $74  well below the offer price by Choice  on uncertainty regarding a possible tie-up.

The company initially offered $80 a share in April to buy Wyndham, then lifted the price to $85 a few months later.

Choice contends $90 a share is its best and final offer.

The company says it's in contact with investment banks to fund a combination that will bring Howard Johnson and Super 8 (Wyndham, with 9,300 total locations) and Comfort and Quality Inn (Choice, 7,500 locations) under one umbrella.

Pacious says he expects executives at Wyndham to return to the negotiating table. They have not reconnected in the two days since the offer was made public, Pacious added.

Greater scale would give the combined company more than 16,800 locations worldwide, 160 million loyalty members, and $150 million in cost synergies, Choice says. The combination would allow the new entity to better compete with behemoths Marriott and Hilton for economy and business travelers.

Quality Inn hotel, a Choice Hotels brand. (Octavio Jones/REUTERS) (Octavio Jones / reuters)

While the deal makes sense on paper  and comes after Choice's successful integration of its $675 million Radisson hotel deal in 2022  Wyndham isn't interested ... at least at the current price.

"Choice's offer is underwhelming, highly conditional, and subject to significant business, regulatory and execution risk. Choice has been unwilling or unable to address our concerns," said Wyndham chairman (and former longtime CEO) Stephen Holmes in a statement.

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"While our Board would support a value-maximizing transaction, given the substantial, unmitigated embedded risks and value destruction potential presented by the proposed transaction, our Board determined it is not in the best interests of Wyndham shareholders."

Wyndham  which did not return Yahoo Finance's request for further comment  also slammed the fundamentals of Choice's business in a presentation.

The company believes it has consistently produced better revenue growth and margins than Choice Hotels, among other nuances. Moreover, Wyndham is concerned about the debt needed to fund the deal and heightened regulatory scrutiny.

Moody's came out Tuesday and said the deal may be a negative for Choice's credit rating.

"We think CHH needs to sell this deal to WHs investor base, especially its (aggressive?) synergies target (given the large equity component that WH would receive) and its ability to quickly de-lever," said JP Morgan analyst Joseph Greff in a client note.

Pacious says he is ready to dig in for a protracted fight to grab his latest prize.

Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Tips on deals, mergers, activist situations, or anything else? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.

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In line with Vision 2030 to transform Riyadh into one of the most sustainable cities in the world, the real estate industry must proactively contribute towards shaping a more human-centric, sustainable and innovative city, revealed leading real estate specialist JLL at a roundtable held recently in the capital.

This will be essential not only in long-term asset value creation, but also in future-proofing assets and in value preservation, said the expert.

In the last five years alone, sustainability efforts in the kingdoms real estate sector have advanced significantly to positively impact liveability.

Beyond building certifications, sustainability initiatives now include data capture, disclosure and benchmarking.

As a key player in driving green innovation in real estate, the kingdom has delivered on its commitment to sustainable development through key initiatives such as the Mostadam and Saaf Certification Programme, and the ambitious retrofitting of the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs building in Riyadh, it stated.

Under the theme Shaping Tomorrows Cities Today: Sustainability and Smart Cities, JLL shared insights on retrofitting strategies and technologies to revitalise existing urban infrastructure; green financing to pave the way for responsible investments in cities; and the latest trends, innovations, and best practices in creating cities that are environmentally friendly, socially inclusive, and economically viable.

Commenting on the need for smart and sustainable urban developments, Saud Alsulaimani, Country Head of KSA, said: "Today, decarbonisation of the built environment is no longer up for debate. As governments continue to push for sustainable development, real estate stakeholders are increasingly aware of the critical role they play in driving progress to shape the future of real estate in the kingdom."

"Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of mega-city construction, with over 5,200 ongoing projects worth $819 billion. From NEOMs The Line project, a $500 billion smart city powered entirely by clean energy, to The Red Sea project, a luxury regenerative tourism destination, KSA has made a mark for itself on the global stage," he stated.

"At JLL, we shape the future of real estate for a better world by focusing on sustainability to help fight against climate change and deliver long-term returns," noted Alsulaimani.

"In line with this, we are committed to supporting Saudi Arabias sustainability ambition as it focuses on not only meeting sustainability goals, but also transforming the landscape of our cities and our planet for generations to come," he added.

Highlighting the role of retrofitting to address climate change, Louise Collins, Head of Project & Development Services at JLL Middle East & Africa, said: "With a staggering 1 billion sq m of office space requiring retrofitting to align with decarbonisation targets globally, it is clear that retrofitting is imperative for a more sustainable future."

"As Saudi Arabia pledges to reach Net Zero emissions and significantly invests in renewable energy projects, retrofitting is a step in the right direction to minimise carbon emissions. Achieving Net Zero in the built environment is a complex challenge, but we have the technology, systems, and means to get there today," he stated.

"Undoubtedly, it is a collective effort; every stakeholder has a critical role to play in accelerating decarbonisation to ensure a sustainable future for generations to come," he added.

Concluding the event, Alida Saleh, Head of Sustainability at JLL for the Middle East & Africa, said: "Sustainable finance holds the key to the success of future projects in the realm of sustainability and smart cities. Investments in sustainability, through mechanisms like green sukuk and green bonds, are pivotal to realise smart cities and green building projects."

"Banks are increasing green financing options to support organisations that are decarbonising their real estate portfolio towards achieving net-zero commitments. With a strong push from the government and increasing awareness about climate change impacts, green finance is expected to grow significantly in the Mena region in the coming years," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Coldwell Banker extends partnership with St. Jude to continue the journey of hope

MADISON, N.J., Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC, a subsidiary of Anywhere Real Estate Inc. (NYSE: HOUS), proudly announces the continuation of its impactful partnership with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital into 2024. The CB Supports St. Jude partnership has exceeded expectations once again, donating an impressive $569,712 in 2023 alone. Coldwell Banker network has donated $1.6 million since the partnership was established in 2020.

CB Logo (PRNewsfoto/Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC)

The brand proudly declared its ongoing dedication to the CB Supports St. Jude partnership on stage at this year's annual Generation Blue Experience in Atlanta. Within the heart of the network, the story of David DiGregorio, an agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in Waltham, Massachusetts, shines brightly. He has once again been honored as the leading donor of the network, having also received the distinction during the first year of this partnership, exemplifying his steadfast commitment as a symbol of inspiration. DiGregorio's compassionate efforts, emblematic of our values of dedication and philanthropy, have significantly contributed to the collective impact made by the organization.

The extension of this program empowers Coldwell Banker affiliated agents to continue contributing a portion of every home sale or purchase to this noble cause. This commitment ensures that no family will bear the financial weight of treatment, travel, housing or food expenses as they fight to bring their children back home.

QUOTES:

"Being part of Coldwell Banker and contributing to St. Jude has been one of the most deeply rewarding experiences of my career. Witnessing the positive impact of our donations on the lives of these children reinforces the importance of our partnership."

David DiGregorio, agent with Coldwell Banker Realty  Waltham, Mass

"Our partnership with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital represents the essence of our network's commitment to making a difference in the lives of those in need. We are immensely proud of our agents' dedication and the collective impact we continue to make. Together, we are not just providing treatments; we are nurturing hope, embracing families and shaping a future where every child's smile outshines the darkest of days."

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David Marine, CMO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate

About Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC

Powered by its network of 100,000 affiliated sales professionals in more than 2,700 offices across 39 countries and territories, the Coldwell Banker system is a leading provider of full-service residential and commercial real estate brokerage services. The Coldwell Banker brand prides itself on its history of expertise, honesty and an empowering culture of excellence since its beginnings in 1906. The Coldwell Banker brand is committed to providing its network of affiliated sales agents with the tools and insights needed to excel in today's marketplace and is known for its bold leadership and dedication to driving the industry forward. The brand was named among the 2023 Women's Choice Award "9 out of 10 Customer Recommended Real Estate Agency." Blue is bold and the integrity and values of the Coldwell Banker brand give the Gen Blue network an unbeatable edge. Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each office is independently owned and operated. To join Coldwell Banker Real Estate and unlock the Gen Blue possibilities, please visit www.coldwellbanker.com/join.

Media Inquiries:

Athena Snow Paola Bahena Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC G&S for Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC 973.407.5590 813.838.4383 athena.snow@anywhere.re pbahena@gscommunications.com

Cision

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SOURCE Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC
Great Southern Bancorp (GSBC) reported $54.59 million in revenue for the quarter ended September 2023, representing a year-over-year decline of 10.3%. EPS of $1.33 for the same period compares to $1.46 a year ago.

The reported revenue represents a surprise of +0.20% over the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $54.48 million. With the consensus EPS estimate being $1.21, the EPS surprise was +9.92%.

While investors scrutinize revenue and earnings changes year-over-year and how they compare with Wall Street expectations to determine their next move, some key metrics always offer a more accurate picture of a company's financial health.

As these metrics influence top- and bottom-line performance, comparing them to the year-ago numbers and what analysts estimated helps investors project a stock's price performance more accurately.

Here is how Great Southern Bancorp performed in the just reported quarter in terms of the metrics most widely monitored and projected by Wall Street analysts:

Net Interest Margin : 3.4% versus 3.4% estimated by two analysts on average.

Efficiency ratio : 65.1% versus the two-analyst average estimate of 63.6%.

Total Non Interest Income : $7.85 million compared to the $7.91 million average estimate based on two analysts.

Net Interest Income: $46.74 million versus the two-analyst average estimate of $46.08 million.

View all Key Company Metrics for Great Southern Bancorp here>>>



Shares of Great Southern Bancorp have returned +0.9% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's -1.6% change. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), indicating that it could perform in line with the broader market in the near term.

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MADISON - A bottle-less water dispenser capable of saving 50,000 plastic bottles from landfills per year is your 2023 Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin.

The annual contest's co-sponsors Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and Johnson Financial Group announced Plexus Corp.'s Bevi Bottleless Water Dispenser took the top spot this year out of the more than 100 products nominated. The announcement was made during WMC's annual Business Day event in Madison. The Neenah-based company produces the Bevi in Appleton.

"This is something that every business needs, said Jim Popp, Johnson Financial Group's president and CEO, in a media release. Plexus unwavering commitment to craftsmanship and innovation is a testament to the spirit of manufacturing in Wisconsin."

Plexus Corp.'s Bevi Bottleless Water Dispenser was named the 2023 Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin on Oct. 19.

More than 5,000 companies have installed Bevi devices which aims to reduce production of plastic water bottles and reduce carbon emissions while offering users more than 40,000 different flavor combinations, according to the company's website.

The Bevi Bottleless Water Dispenser combines sustainability and innovation to vastly reduce the carbon footprint of its end-users, embodying our vision to help create the products that build a better world, said Plexus CEO Todd Kelsey in a media release. We are proud to have Bevi honored by WMC and the state of Wisconsin as the Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin.

Bevi is the eighth product to be named Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin, a program launched in 2016 to highlight the diversity of Wisconsin's $70 billion manufacturing industry. Manufacturing employs almost one in six workers in the state.

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 01: Nueske's bacon from Quality Eats on display at the 2016 New York Taste presented by Citi hosted by New York Magazine on November 1, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Brian Ach/Getty Images for New York Magazine)

The finalists: Bacon, snow blower, work boot and water dispenser

Plexus made it to the final four last week and faced some serious competition for the crown. Here are the other three finalists:

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Plexus Corp.'s Bevi Bottleless Water Dispenser was named the 2023 Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin on Oct. 19.

10 pounds of bacon: Competition sparked friendly wager between Wausau and Appleton area chambers

It just so happened that this year's final four hailed from two regions of Wisconsin: the Wausau area is home to Nueske's and Thorogood while the Fox Cities is home to Plexus and AriensCo.

Leaders at the Fox Cities Chamber and the Greater Wausau Chamber of Commerce took note and made a friendly wager over which region the winner would hail from. The Wausau Chamber will now send 10 pounds of bacon to the Fox Cities Chamber, which in turn wagered an Ocotoberfest basket.

They also joined WMC staff for a friendly "Chamber vs. Chamber" video posted to WMC's YouTube channel.

David Eckmann, president and CEO of the Greater Wausau Chamber, and Becky Bartoszek, president and CEO of the Fox Cities Chamber, took turns hyping the products from their respective regions. They both said they wanted to "keep it fun."

Eckmann wore a pair of Thorogood boots and said it's hard to beat bacon.

"Bacon!" he shouted. "It's just a great product. Nueske's is a great corporate partner to the chamber, as is Thorogood. We're all about the bacon and Nueske's is doing a fantastic job."

Bartoszek talked about using a Bevi that saved 18,000 water bottles from landfills and the built-in handwarmers on AriensCo's limited edition Sno-Thro. She also presented Eckmann with a gift basket of AriensCo and Plexus swag in a show of confidence that the Coolest Thing would come from the Fox Cities.

The first Pierce Volterra zero-emissions pumper has been placed in service with the Madison Fire Department, making it the first electric fire truck in service in North America. The truck is one of the top 8 products in the annual "Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin" contest sponsored by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

Past Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin winners include Harley engine, Uncle Mike's kringle, EV fire truck

Since 2016, WMC has crowned seven different products the Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin as part of an effort to highlight the state's $70 billion manufacturing industry.

Here are the past winners:

Thanks to our subscribers for making this coverage possible. Your support helps local journalism.

Contact Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or jbollier@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffBollier.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Appleton-made water dispenser named Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin
After about a dozen years at the helm, Costco's Craig Jelinek is stepping down from his role as chief executive.

The transition is set to take place on Jan. 1, with President and Chief Operating Officer Ron Vachris taking over as CEO. Jelinek will remain at Costco through April 2024 in an advisory role and will stand for reelection on the board in January, according to a statement from the company.

Jelinek became CEO in January 2012 and has continued his predecessor's focus on keeping prices low and employees happy within the countrys third-largest retailer.

But not everything has remained the same. Here are some of the changes ushered in during Jelineks time as CEO:

Costco's Craig Jelinek is stepping down from his role as chief executive.

Revenue growth and more warehouses

When Jelineks succession was announced, Costco had 592 warehouses in operation, 429 of which were in the United States. The companys footprint has gone up 45% since then, with 861 warehouses  including 591 in the U.S.  operating today.

Jelinek has also helped increase Costco's international presence, opening warehouses in China, Spain, France, Iceland, New Zealand and Sweden.

The company's share price has surged under Jelinek, from about $80 per share in early 2012 to over $550 today. Its share price has gone up over 25% so far this year, outperforming the benchmark S&P 500.

And revenue has more than doubled, from $99 billion in 2012 to $242.3 billion in the latest fiscal year.

Lexi DeFrank of Canal Fulton looks through clothes at Costco Wholesale in Jackson Township. Thursday, August 17, 2023.

Costco removed self-checkouts  then brought them back

Jelinek told Bloomberg Businessweek in 2013 that the company would be eliminating self-checkout in stores after experimenting with the technology, noting that he thought employees did the job better.

They are great for low-volume warehouses, but we dont want to be in the low-volume warehouse business, he said at the time.

Costco reversed its decision in 2019 and is now cracking down on checking membership cards at self-checkout lanes to prevent unauthorized card-sharing.

A new poultry complex to keep rotisserie chicken prices down

In 2019, Costco opened a $450 million poultry complex in Fremont, Nebraska, to help keep its rotisserie chicken prices at $4.99.

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In a 2019 earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said the plant can process about 2 million birds a week. The plant was estimated to save Costco about 35 cents per bird in 2015, or about $35 million annually.

Membership prices went up

Costco membership fees went up from $55 to $60 in 2017 under Jelinek, the first price hike since a $5 increase in 2011.

Membership prices are expected to jump again soon, with Galanti noting in an earnings call that its a question of when, not if. He noted that membership hikes typically take place every five to six years.

How much is Costco's annual fee? Costco membership price increase 'a question of when, not if,' CFO says

Some  but not all  food court prices went up

Certain food court items, including the chicken bake and soda, have seen price hikes in recent months, according to Insider.

But there is one item on the menu with a price that has remained unchanged since 1985: the Costco hotdog.

During an earnings call last year, Galanti said other parts of the business should help the company keep its hotdog prices stable forever. And when Jelinek was asked on CNBC last year if he would raise the food court items price from $1.50, he had a simple answer: No.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Costco CEO Craig Jelinek's retirement from role signals end of an era
NEW YORK  Donald Trumps New York fraud trial exhibited some moments of courtroom drama Wednesday, with a court employee arrested after trying to approach the former president and his lawyers on the attack against a real estate appraiser in the witness box.

After the mid-morning break, an unnamed woman came into the ceremonial courtroom in Manhattans 60 Centre St., where Trump, his sons, and top execs are on trial. Shortly after taking her seat, she got up and walked toward the defense table, attempting to communicate that she wanted to sit with Trump, a law enforcement source told the Daily News.

State Office of Court Administration spokesman Lucian Chalfen said the woman works for New Yorks court system and wanted to assist Trump. He confirmed she was arrested for disrupting a court proceeding and barred from returning to work or any court facilities pending an investigation.

None of the parties were ever in any danger, Chalfen said.

Trump didnt appear fazed by the bizarre disturbance. Asked about it afterward, he told reporters he hadnt noticed.

The Republican frontrunner for president, 77, was overheard loudly sighing during the defenses cross-exam of real estate appraiser Doug Larson, prompting Judge Arthur Engoron to call for quiet.

In a damaging day of testimony for Trump's team on Tuesday, Larson, former executive director of international real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, testified it was inaccurate and inappropriate of the Trump Org to credit him as an independent expert in evaluations of Trump assets presented in business deals.

Lawyers for Attorney General Tish James presented evidence showing ex-Trump Org controller and defendant Jeff McConney cited advice Larson gave him in breaking down questionable calculations for Trump-owned assets. But Larson, who appraised some Trump assets for lenders, denied participating in valuations with Trump execs.

On Wednesday, Trump lawyers insinuated Larson was lying, presenting correspondence between him and McConney he said he didnt remember.

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Engoron sent Larson out of the courtroom as the two sides sparred when Trump lawyer Chris Kise said he should be advised of the risks of committing perjury. Attorney general lawyers, in response, said Kise was putting on a show for the journalists in the room.

On the stand, under a grilling by Trump lawyer Lazaro Fields, an uncomfortable-looking Larson acknowledged that McConney had called him periodically to get his take on sales and market conditions but maintained he had not spoken with him about Trumps Wall Street skyscraper in 2016, as claimed.

Kise clarified later he had never accused Larson of perjury, just expressing concern, but Trump nevertheless described the correspondence as proof of his innocence.

They didnt reveal all the evidence that made me totally innocent of anything that they say, Trump said, lamenting he had to be here for this instead of on the campaign trail. This was like Perry Mason.

When Larson finished, AG lawyers called Jack Weisselberg, an exec at one of the Trump Orgs biggest lenders, Ladder Capital, and son of Allen Weisselberg  Trumps convicted ex-finance chief and co-defendant. An email presented in court showed the elder Weisselberg contacting his son directly in 2011 about securing a $65 million loan for the Trump Org. Hes expected to continue on the stand Thursday.

The AG has already won her top claim against Trump and his top associates, with Engoron finding in a pretrial ruling they engaged in persistent fraud by submitting bogus valuations exaggerating his worth on a scale of billions in business deals from 2014 through 2021.

James says the lies served to boost Trumps bottom line and reputation. The case on trial covers her remaining six claims related to insurance fraud, falsifying records, and the conspiracy underlying the fraud.

Trump and his associates deny all wrongdoing. They are appealing Engorons pretrial judgment, which also ordered them stripped of certificates they need to run a business in New York.

The former president  under two gag orders, including from Engoron sounded off outside the courtroom throughout the day about the hostile judge, James, and multiple other things. He left shortly before proceedings wrapped.

Trump is expected back next week for his former fixer Michael Cohens testimony. If it goes forward, it will see them reunite after a years-long feud precipitated by Cohens 2018 arrest for paying off Stormy Daniels, among other crimes. Cohens confessions before Congress in 2019 about Trumps business habits ignited the AGs investigation.

_______
BERLIN (Reuters) -Deutsche Bahn has agreed a deal to sell its international transport business Arriva Group to Miami-based infrastructure investor I Squared Capital, the companies said on Thursday.

The sale is expected to complete in 2024, pending approval of Deutsche Bahn's supervisory board and the German transport ministry, they said in a statement.

They did not disclose the sale price. Reuters reported last week that the sale would value Arriva, which operates red London buses and train services in the UK, at around 1.6 billion euros ($1.69 billion) including debt, citing sources familiar with the deal.

I Squared's Managing Director Mohamed El Gazzar told Reuters on Thursday that his company plans to invest 2 billion euros in Arriva to grow and electrify its fleet. It would consider complementary and "synergistic" acquisitions in Arriva's key markets including the UK, Italy and the Czech Republic, he said, adding that it is open to both small or sizeable deals of more than 1 billion euros in value.

Citigroup advised Deutsche Bahn, and I Squared was advised by Morgan Stanley and UBS.

Arriva transports 1.5 billion rail and bus passengers a year with operations across 10 countries and more than 34,000 employees, according to its website.

Deutsche Bahn, Germany's state-owned railway company, has attempted selling parts of Arriva in the past to raise cash to lower its debt and invest in its domestic infrastructure.

($1 = 0.9459 euros)

(Writing by Friederike Heine, Editing by Rachel More and Susan Fenton)
Diamond Lake Minerals, Inc.

SALT LAKE CITY, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via IBN  Diamond Lake Minerals, Inc. (OTC: DLMI) (the "Company" or "DLMI"), a leading multi-strategy operating company specializing in developing and supporting digital assets and SEC-registered security tokens, is delighted to announce a significant milestone in its journey. The Company has engaged Fruci & Associates II, PLLC as its PCAOB registered auditing firm for a comprehensive two-year audit, aligning with its strategy to enhance transparency, boost investor confidence, and support its planned uplisting to a senior national exchange.



The decision to engage Fruci & Associates underlines Diamond Lake Minerals' commitment to fostering trust and accountability within the rapidly evolving digital asset landscape. This two-year audit will serve as a critical stepping stone towards becoming a fully reporting company with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a necessary precursor to the Company's planned uplisting.

"The engagement of Fruci & Associates exemplifies our dedication to responsible and transparent financial reporting, said Brian J. Esposito, CEO of Diamond Lake Minerals, in expressing his support for this engagement. We believe that uplisting to a senior national exchange is an important step that will expand our reach and credibility, while facilitating participation with institutional investors. Fruci & Associates, with its commitment to investor protection, will be instrumental in helping us continue towards achieving our goal of ensuring the Companys financial integrity."

While this audit is a substantial development in Diamond Lake Minerals' journey, it will run concurrently with the Company's commitment to advancing its ongoing projects and initiatives. The audit is an integral part of Diamond Lake Minerals' broader strategy, focused on preparing for future growth and expansion in the digital asset and security token sector.

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Upon the successful completion of the two-year audit, Diamond Lake Minerals anticipates positioning itself as a trusted leader in the digital asset industry. The uplisting to a higher reporting tier and enhanced transparency should enable the Company to draw the interest of institutional investors, contributing to its growth and long-term success.

This announcement comes on the heels of recent additions to the Companys list of strategic advisors: Anthony Scaramucci, Larry Namer, Andrew Fromm, Brandon Fugal, Raul Leal, Michael Malik Sr., and Agnes Budzyn. Each valued strategic advisor strengthens Diamond Lake Minerals commitment to its core mission of combining traditional business values with the future of digital assets, creating a sustainable and thriving ecosystem.

About Diamond Lake Minerals, Inc.

Founded in Utah in 1954, Diamond Lake Minerals, Inc. (OTC: DLMI) is a multi-strategy operating company that specializes in the development and support of digital assets and SEC-registered security tokens. Our goal is to responsibly innovate and develop valuable traditional businesses and successfully combine them with the future of money and digital assets. Our mission is to bring back to the public markets timeless business principles that are focused on healthy sustainable growth and strong earnings that generate yields combined in a modern digital world creating value for our stakeholders. DLMI is positioning itself as an industry-agnostic leader in the digital asset and security token space.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements also may be included in other publicly available documents issued by DLMI and in oral statements made by our officers and representatives from time to time. These forward-looking statements are intended to provide management's current expectations or plans for our future operating and financial performance, based on assumptions currently believed to be valid. They can be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "goal," "seek," "believe," "project," "estimate," "expect," "strategy," "future," "likely," "may," "should," "would," "could," "will" and other words of similar meaning in connection with a discussion of future operating or financial performance.

Examples of forward-looking statements include, among others, statements relating to future sales, earnings, cash flows, results of operations, uses of cash, and other measures of financial performance. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause DLMIs actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, among others such as, but are not limited to economic conditions, changes in the laws or regulations, demand for DLMIs products and services, the effects of competition, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or represented in the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking information provided in this release should be considered with these factors in mind. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release.

Company Contact:

Gary Zlobinskiy

ir@diamondlakeminerals.com

www.diamondlakeminerals.com



Wire Service Contact:

IBN

Los Angeles, California

www.InvestorBrandNetwork.com

310.299.1717 Office

Editor@InvestorBrandNetwork.com




dcsliminky / Getty Images/iStockphoto

If youve ever embarked on the monumental task that is apartment hunting, you know there are definitely seasons when everything good either is taken or is way above your budget range. Finding a place you love takes time and research and can be stressful or downright disheartening when youre struggling to get a decent apartment.

Discover: The Average American Spends This Much on Rent  See How You Stack Up

Learn: How To Get Cash Back on Your Everyday Purchases

The good news is that its often a waiting game  you just need to know the right time in the rental market to strike the best deal.

Should you rent a house or apartment?

Dont Look During the Peak Season

The summer months are the worst time of year to rent. The demand for apartments is generally high and landlords are likely to take advantage of peak season by increasing their prices. According to the National Apartment Association, the worst time to sign a lease is between May through October.

Many growing families might look to change places over the summer when kids are out of school, making the rental market more competitive. Looking for a place in September also isnt great as you could be paying $90 to $100 extra a month on a $3,000 unit.

Downsizing for Retirement? Stay Away From These 7 Homes

Be Mindful of College Towns

In areas with universities or colleges, its best to avoid late summer as there will be a surge in demand for apartments as students, faculty and staff look for housing. Youll find this often leads to higher competition and inflated prices.

The influx of students also can make it so theres limited apartment availability, making it challenging to find decent places. Youll likely face a more stressful environment where apartments are quickly snapped up, or youll have to settle for options you dont exactly love.

Dont Search Over the Holiday Season

Apartment hunting during major holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years can be difficult because many people are busy with holiday plans and not actively looking to move. This can limit your options and slow down the process, since landlords may not want to deal with the hassle of showing apartments or managing paperwork.

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Search During Off-Peak Seasons

Rather than scour apartments looking for a great deal and coming up empty-handed, look for a rental during the off-peak seasons between the summer and late fall or between the late winter and early spring. Theres often less demand, which gives you more options and leads to snagging better deals.

Because landlords and property managers will have fewer inquiries during off-peak seasons, it will be easier scheduling viewings and having more time to thoroughly evaluate apartments before making a decision.

Another upside? During off-peak seasons, youll have less competition. This also means youll have more leverage to negotiate terms and conditions like requesting maintenance or renovations before moving in, seeking lease terms that suit you or asking for other concessions like parking spaces or utility inclusions.

Dont Forget Location Matters

The best time of year to search for an apartment will vary depending on your location and specific needs. Thats why its crucial to do your research beforehand to secure the best deal. If youre looking for a place in New York City, for example, the competition for rentals peaks in the second and third weeks of July for most neighborhoods, including Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Always Negotiate

Its safe to say, no landlord wants a vacant apartment. Even if youre not actively seeking a more budget-friendly place, you can still use this to your advantage during off-peak seasons like winter.

Landlords will often be more receptive to meeting your requests  whether its about reducing rent, repairs or other terms in the lease agreement. They might also offer incentives when theres low demand. These can range anywhere from waiving the security deposit to granting a complimentary months rent or reducing the rent for the entire duration of your lease agreement.

Be Patient

Rushing your apartment search can make you end up settling for housing that doesnt meet your needs or preferences. Taking your time, on the other hand, will allow you to find the right fit. Thats why doing your homework is essential for finding the right deal within your ideal price range.

Being overly hasty in securing a place also can lead to regret as youre more likely to overlook important details about an apartment or its neighborhood. Whereas, taking your time researching an area will help you choose the safest and most desirable option.

The bottom line: Knowing when to go apartment hunting can save you a lot of time, money and headaches; but, as with all good things, you have to be a little patient.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Dont Start Apartment Hunting During This Time of Year
ERS Genomics Limited ('ERS') completes licensing agreement with Syngene International, India's leading Contract Research, Development and Manufacturing Organization

Syngene gains access to ERS Genomics' foundational CRISPR/Cas9 patent portfolio, ushering in a new era of technical innovation in India for its global partners.

DUBLIN, Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ERS Genomics, co-founded by Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier, a recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her pioneering work on CRISPR/Cas9, provides access to the definitive patent portfolio for this groundbreaking technology.

Syngene International Limited, an integrated research, development and manufacturing services company, is poised to leverage the immense potential of CRISPR/Cas9 in various scientific disciplines, including drug discovery, biotechnology, and genomics on behalf of its clients.

Eric Rhodes, CEO of ERS Genomics, expressed his enthusiasm, stating, "We are delighted to partner with Syngene, a global leader in research development and manufacturing services, to empower their scientific endeavours with the transformative capabilities of CRISPR/Cas9. This collaboration promises to unlock new frontiers in genomics research and therapeutic development."

Mahesh Bhalgat, Chief Operating Officer, Syngene International Limited, said, "Syngene is committed to delivering innovative solutions to our partners worldwide. Our agreement with ERS Genomics underscores this commitment, as we gain access to the most advanced CRISPR/Cas9 technology available. This partnership aligns perfectly with our mission to partner with clients to accelerate scientific discovery and support the development of life-changing therapies."

The collaboration between ERS Genomics and Syngene marks a significant addition to India's scientific and commercial landscape and reinforces the nation's growing influence in the global biotechnology and life sciences sector. Both organizations are focused on driving scientific progress and bringing transformative innovations to the forefront of research and development.

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About ERS Genomics

ERS Genomics is a biotechnology company based in Dublin, Ireland. The company was formed to provide broad access to the foundational CRISPR/Cas9 intellectual property held by Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier. Non-exclusive licenses are available for research and sale of products and services across multiple fields including research tools, kits, reagents; discovery of novel targets for therapeutic intervention; cell lines for discovery and screening of novel drug candidates; GMP production of healthcare products; companion animal and livestock health; production of industrial materials such as enzymes, biofuels and chemicals; and synthetic biology. ERS holds over 100 patents worldwide.

For additional information, please visit www.ersgenomics.com

Media contact: Dara O'Donnell - dara.odonnell@ersgenomics.com

Janani.Kalyanakrishnan@syngeneintl.com

Shotorupa.Ghosh@syngeneintl.com

About Syngene

Syngene International Ltd. (BSE: 539268, NSE: SYNGENE, ISIN: INE398R01022) is an integrated research, development, and manufacturing services company serving the global pharmaceutical, biotechnology, nutrition, animal health, consumer goods, and specialty chemical sectors. Syngene's more than 6000 scientists offer both skills and the capacity to deliver great science, robust data security, and quality manufacturing, at speed, to improve time-to-market and lower the cost of innovation. With a combination of dedicated research facilities for Amgen, Baxter, and Bristol-Myers Squibb as well as 2 Mn sq. ft of specialist discovery, development and manufacturing facilities, Syngene works with biotech companies pursuing leading-edge science as well as multinationals, including GSK, Zoetis and Merck KGaA. For more details, visit www.syngeneintl.com. For the Company's latest Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) report, visit https://esgreport.syngeneintl.com/.

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Eric Rhodes, CEO ERS Genomics (PRNewsfoto/ERS Genomics)

ERS Genomics Logo (PRNewsfoto/ERS Genomics)

Cision

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SOURCE ERS Genomics
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Dublin, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Global Social Media Analytics Market (by Deployment Type, Component, & Region): Insights and Forecast with Potential Impact of COVID-19 (2022-2027)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global social media analytics market is poised for robust growth, with projections indicating it will reach a substantial value of US$9.60 billion by 2023, driven by a remarkable CAGR of 33.90%.

This market growth is underpinned by factors such as the surging popularity of mobile e-commerce, the imperative to enhance customer service, cost-effectiveness, ease of availability, increased use of text and image analysis, and the development of image analysis solutions.

Key Market Segments

By Deployment Type: The global social media analytics market is divided into two deployment types: On-Premises and Cloud. The Cloud segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the future due to its cost-effectiveness and its capacity to store data and perform analytics, thereby fueling market expansion. The growth of this segment is driven by increased storage capacity, improved internet performance, and advancements in cloud services.

By Component: The market is segmented into two components: Services and Software. The Services segment currently holds the largest share in the global social media analytics market. The increasing adoption of social media analytics across various industries, including BFSI, telecom, retail, healthcare, and more, is driving demand for social media analytics services. Meanwhile, the Solutions segment is expected to gain a larger market share during the forecast period, driven by adoption across diverse verticals, including advertising, pharmaceuticals, media, telecommunications, and more.

Geographic Coverage

The global social media analytics market spans five major regions: Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. The Asia Pacific region includes China, Japan, India, and the Rest of Asia Pacific, while North America encompasses the US, Mexico, and Canada. In Europe, the UK, Germany, Spain, and the Rest of Europe are considered, while North America leads in market share, primarily due to the high adoption of digital technologies, a rising social media user base, especially among younger demographics, and the growing adoption of Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms. Within North America, the US remains a prominent region for social media analytics, with a significant uptake of various analytical solutions and expanding social media penetration.

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Top Impacting Factors

Growth Drivers

Rising Number of Internet Users Growing Influence of Social Media Escalating Data Generation Growing Digital Advertisement Spending

Challenges

Large Number of Cybercrime Victims Lack of Standard Measures for Social Media Analytics

Trends

Rising Adoption of 5G Connections Surge in Adoption of Cloud Computing Integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with Social Media Analytics Software Growth in Data Analytic Services

Driver: Escalating Data Generation

The proliferation of data generation allows companies to gain deeper insights into consumers. These insights serve as valuable inputs for decisions, including product development, leading to market expansion and potential competitive advantages. As data generation continues to surge, driven by various media platforms, continuous content production, and the merging of content production and consumption roles, the need for social media analytics becomes essential, contributing to market growth.

Challenge: Large Number of Cybercrime Victims

Social media data, if not securely managed by companies, can become susceptible to data breaches, eroding trust and credibility among stakeholders. Cyber attackers can exploit vulnerabilities in social media analytics software to access sensitive information, steal resources, and disrupt operations. As social media analytics software is connected through smartphones, tablets, and personal computers (PCs), the risk of hacking increases, potentially hampering the growth of the social media analytics market.

Trend: Growth in Data Analytic Services

With the advancement of analytics tools, marketers can make more precise decisions, resulting in improved profitability and enhanced customer experiences. Access to big data from social media platforms facilitates opportunities through analysis tools, making patterns more discernible and enabling data-driven decision-making. The growing demand for data analytic services is pivotal to the overall social media analytics solutions, bolstering market growth.

The COVID-19 Analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a favorable impact on the global social media analytics market. During lockdowns and restrictions, social media platforms became essential for global communication. Governments, public officials, and healthcare institutions used social media platforms to disseminate information about infectious disease safety measures and pandemic updates.

Analysis of Key Players

The global social media analytics market is characterized by a diverse array of players, with key market leaders including IBM Corporation, Adobe Inc., Salesforce.com, Inc., Oracle Corporation, Alphabet Inc. (Google), Hootsuite Inc., SAS Institute, NetBase Quid, GoodData Corporation, Digimind Company, Cision Ltd. (Brandwatch Company), QualtricsXM (Clarabridge), Sprout Social, Talkwalker Inc., and Khoros LLC.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/j63wku

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood,Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./ CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900




In the run-up to COP28, Sharjah Electricity, Water, and Gas Authority (Sewa) has joined hands with Sharjah Hamriyah Independent Power Company (Shipco) and GE Vernova for the launch of commercial operations at all the three blocks at the Hamriyah Independent Power Plant (IPP).

The combined cycle facility is the most efficient gas power plant operating in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) today, helping to reduce the carbon intensity of power generated in Sharjah.

By offering a significantly higher efficiency level than previous power generation assets installed in the emirate, the three GE Vernova 9HA.01 turbines are expected to help Sewa generate an additional 1.8 gigawatts (GW) of power with up to 4 million fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per annum when compared to generating the same amount of electricity with legacy technology.

This is the equivalent of taking up to one million cars off the roads of the UAE, said Sewa in a statement.

GE Vernovas Gas Power business provided turnkey engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services and delivered three 9HA.01 gas turbines powering three H84 generators, three STF-D650 steam turbines powering three A74 generators, and three heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) for the facility.

It also plans to provide parts, repairs, and maintenance services for power generation assets at the site for about 25 years.

Sewa Chairman Saeed Sultan Al Suwaidi said: "We are committed to meeting Sharjahs growing energy needs with more reliable, affordable, and sustainable power, and to supporting the UAEs plan towards transitioning to net zero carbon emissions by 2050."

"The Hamriyah IPP is an integral part of SEWAs 2030 Roadmap and our strategy to strengthen Sharjahs grid with lower carbon power. We are delighted to have collaborated with industry-leading organizations such as Shipco and GE Vernova on this project, which is expected to help meet up to 40 percent of Sharjahs electricity needs," he added.

Shipco Chairman Omar Almulla said: The significant milestone of commercial operations of all three blocks at the Hamriyah IPP was the result of over 11 million hours of work done by more than 1,500 people from over 20 countries from across Sewa, Shipco, GE Vernova, and other stakeholders."

"Together, we are committed to adding power capacity in the UAE, while lowering the carbon intensity of electricity generated to help address the global climate challenge and keep powering growth, he added.

GE Vernova said its H-class gas turbine technology has helped deliver two world records for combined cycle efficiency. More than 140 units have been ordered to date, with the technology accumulating over 1.8 million operating hours.

Furthermore, the technology offers tremendous flexibility, ramping power output up and down quickly to help stabilize the grid as more variable renewable energy comes online. It also has the capability to burn up to 50% by volume of hydrogen when blended with natural gas, with a technology roadmap up to 100%.

Future plans include a combined cycle configuration with a post-combustion capture system aiming to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 90%, said a top GE official.

The Hamriyah IPP was a special project in many regards. From the innovative financing structure to the global workforce that executed it, including during the toughest period of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the record-setting GE Vernova H-class technology powering it  the successful commercial operation of all three blocks at the plant is testament to the strength of Sewas vision and the dedicated efforts of all involved, remarked Joseph Anis, President & CEO Europe, Middle East & Africa at GE Vernovas Gas Power business.

In 2019, GE Vernovas Financial Services business and Japans Sumitomo Corporation announced a co-development project and raised $1 billion in project financing from private and public financial institutions to support construction and operations.

On reaching financial close, the co-developers formed an equity consortium, Shipco, for the project with Shikoku Electric Power Company and Sharjah Asset Management, the investment arm of Sharjah Government, to build, own, and operate the project.

GE Vernova has played an important role in supporting the development of the energy sector in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for over 80 years, said Anis.

The companys investments in the UAE include its Jebel Ali Service Center in Dubai, which provides advanced maintenance, testing, and repairs solutions for generators and gas turbines, and has served more than 80 customers from over 35 countries, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Inovalon Holdings, Inc.

Inovalons SaaS Solutions Identify and Address Gaps in Care to Improve Quality Measurement and Risk Score Accuracy

BOWIE, Md., Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Inovalon, a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions empowering data-driven healthcare, today announced that eternalHealth, a Massachusetts-based Medicare Advantage (MA) plan, has selected Inovalons Converged solution suite to enhance its technology-driven approach to risk and quality gap identification and closure.

eternalHealth launched in 2022 to provide members with a quality, affordable, and consumer-centric experience. This October, eternalHealth will be offering MA products in six counties in Massachusetts and one in Arizona. By choosing Inovalons Converged Risk, Quality, and Outreach solutions, eternalHealth will be empowered to more quickly, effectively, and efficiently predict and resolve a more holistic set of care needs for its members through one integrated solution.

As a fast-growing Medicare Advantage plan, we understand the value of bringing risk adjustment and quality together to improve efficiency and reduce provider abrasion, said Pooja Ika, founder and CEO of eternalHealth and a member of the inaugural Forbes 30 Under 30 Local Boston class. When paired with cutting-edge technology we embrace to leverage administrative cost savings and improve stakeholder experience, we are confident that Inovalons Converged Risk and Quality analytics will help reduce costs and support a quality member experience.

With Inovalons risk and quality analytics in one integrated solution, health plans avoid otherwise duplicate data integration and operating expenses, achieve a more comprehensive view of each patient and their unique, often complex care needs, and a more integrated, efficient, and effective intervention plan. Health plans using the Converged solution suite can achieve superior clinical quality and risk score accuracy goals faster while saving up to 20% of program costs through the avoidance of duplicate, inefficient, or unnecessary operation and intervention costs.

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eternalHealth is using Inovalons Converged Risk solution to maximize risk score accuracy, Converged Quality for improved health and financial outcomes, and Converged Outreach to reduce member and physician abrasion.

We designed our Converged solution suite to be scalable and flexible so innovative health plans like eternalHealth can take advantage of an end-to-end solution that helps them prioritize high quality care and financial sustainability, said Eron Kelly, President of Inovalon. By helping eternalHealth take a converged, one-product approach, rather than relying on a patchwork of vendors, we are empowering them to make data-driven decisions that can improve their members health and financial well-being while reducing abrasion on their providers.

Inovalons Converged solution suite of integrated, pure Software-as-a-Service offerings simplify implementation, shorten the time to program impact, and help health plans avoid the need and cost of additional disparate data integrations, data security auditing processes, vendor management, and operational reporting. For more information on Inovalons Converged suite of solutions, please click here: Inovalon Payer Cloud Software.

About Inovalon

Inovalon is a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions empowering data-driven healthcare. The Inovalon ONE Platform brings together national-scale connectivity, real-time primary source data access, and advanced analytics into a sophisticated cloud-based platform empowering improved outcomes and economics across the healthcare ecosystem. The companys analytics and capabilities are used by more than 20,000 customers and are informed by the primary source data of more than 79 billion medical events across one million physicians, 654,000 clinical settings, and 375 million unique patients. For more information, visit www.inovalon.com.

About eternalHealth

Headquartered in Massachusetts, eternalHealth is a woman-owned, run and built Medicare Advantage Plan that offers HMO and PPO products in six Massachusetts counties: Bristol, Norfolk, Plymouth, Worcester, Middlesex, and Suffolk, as well as Maricopa County, Arizona for plan year 2024. eternalHealth takes a holistic approach to health and promotes wellness, fitness, healthy eating and overall healthy lifestyles to the communities they serve. eternalHealth invests in better outcomes, always putting members first and provides support and guidance that members look for in a health plan, so that they are empowered to make the right decisions to live agelessly. For more information about eternalHealths plans and services, please visit www.eternalHealth.com.

Contact:

Glen Brandow

Sr. Director, Corporate Communications, Inovalon

Glen.Brandow@inovalon.com




Forde, Oct. 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Australian open innovation ecosystem EarlyBirds is helping governments around the world better serve their citizens by identifying technologies and innovative solutions that have the potential to make a difference. For more information, visit earlybirds.io.

GovTech refers to the use of technology to improve and enhance the delivery of government services, streamline operations, and promote efficiency and transparency in the public sector. It encompasses a wide range of technologies and initiatives that aim to transform how governments interact with citizens and businesses, as well as how they manage and govern their own processes.

GovTech encompasses everything from digital services and data analytics to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, says Kris Poria, the cofounder of EarlyBirds. As public organizations strive to do good by their citizens, they are adopting innovative technological solutions that enable nations to slice through the red tape and enable rapid development of resources and opportunities.

The goal of GovTech is to modernize government operations, improve the delivery of services, increase accountability, and enhance the overall experience of citizens interacting with government agencies. Prominent GovTech initiatives across the world are often seen as a way to bridge the gap between government and technology, making public services more accessible and efficient in the digital age.

Online services such as tax filing, voter registration, and permit applications have allowed citizens to access government services and information conveniently. Open data initiatives have increased public transparency, reducing corruption and encouraging innovation. Using IoT (Internet of Things), nations have supercharged urban planning and infrastructure to make cities more efficient, sustainable, and citizen-friendly. Data analytics solutions help governments make data-driven decisions, predict trends, and allocate resources more effectively in areas like public health, law enforcement, and transportation.

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There have been several examples of GovTech in the 21st century making a measurable impact around the world. For example, Estonia, which is often cited as a pioneer in GovTech, implemented various digital initiatives, including an e-residency program that allows individuals from anywhere in the world to become digital residents of Estonia. This provides them with access to Estonian government services, such as company registration, banking, and tax filing, entirely online. It has attracted entrepreneurs and businesses from around the world, boosting the Estonian economy.

Other solutions have directly boosted the democratic process by helping citizens get their voices heard. South Korea successfully implemented online voting systems for leadership elections in political parties, public institutions, and schools, increasing voter turnout and making the election process more accessible to citizens, especially those who might have difficulty physically getting to polling stations.

The other cofounder of EarlyBirds, Jeff Penrose expands on the challenges in leveraging cutting-edge technologies by government organizations. He says, Governments are often slow to adopt newer technologies as they prefer working with mature solutions that have proven their resilience. There is also the matter of convincing several stakeholders to move their data and operations onto modern platforms as it often requires a considerable overhaul to the established way of doing things. However, these barriers can be mitigated by giving innovators a stake in the decision-making process and capitalizing on their expertise. If you are interested in making that leap, sign up to the EarlyBirds platform as an Early Adopter at https://earlybirds.io/en/early_adopter.

EarlyBirds connects organizations  innovators, early adopters, and subject matter experts  on their platform and bubbles up the best solutions that have the potential to address real-world business and technical challenges. The company has a range of solutions, such as domain maps and monitors, for government representatives looking to make investments into promising technologies that can be readily applied to make the lives of those they represent better.

For Early Adopters, the company offers the Explorer and Challenger programs. The Explorer program is for businesses who need innovation as a service to supplement existing innovation programs, or to conduct innovation projects as required. The Challenger program is designed to solve one business or technical challenge at a time and search for relevant innovators that meet the business, technical, commercial, and business risk requirements.

Entrepreneurs, startups, and researchers working on cutting-edge GovTech solutions are urged to sign up for the EarlyBirds platform as Innovators by visiting https://earlybirds.io/en/innovator.

###

For more information about EarlyBirds, contact the company here:



EarlyBirds

Mr Kris Poria and Mr Jeff Penrose

+61 401 287 060

support@earlybirds.io

FORDE SUITE 10, LEVEL 1, 26 FRANCIS FORDE BOULEVARD, FORDE, ACT 2914

CONTACT: Mr Kris Poria and Mr Jeff Penrose




An operation with sustainability at its core, Flora & Flame chose Fluence fixtures for their energy efficiency and the consistent bud quality they help create

AUSTIN, Texas, October 19, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fluence, a leading global provider of energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial cannabis and food production, announced today the results of its partnership with Oakland, California-based cannabis cultivator Flora & Flame, which has increased yields by 50%, improved bud quality and reduced cycle times with Fluences LED fixtures.

Flora & Flame is central to a new wave of cannabis cultivatorsfounded with a vision to build a more sustainable, eco-friendly business model. The company manages an all-organic, indoor vertical farm with a focus on growing cannabis that enhances quality of life and ensures consistency, clarity and purity for its customers.

After testing fixtures from more than half a dozen competitors, Flora & Flame selected Fluences SPYDR 2p and 2x fixtures, which has resulted in improved trichome quality and overall trichome percentage, increased bud density and boosted overall production by 50% compared to legacy high-pressure sodium (HPS) fixtures.

"As a business owner, youre looking for partners that match your vision, which, for us, meant a provider that could help us grow with a focus on sustainability," said Chris Castle, co-founder and chief operating officer at Flora & Flame. "After a rigorous evaluation process, it became clear that Fluence not only shares that vision but exceeds the standards for product quality, efficiency and cultivation expertise that we sought. The plant quality weve experienced since working with Fluence is unmatchedbetter yields, better look and smell, and just a better overall product."

Castles goal to implement ecologically friendly cultivation practices began well before Flora & Flames commercial launch. The company spent years testing and perfecting its innovative "living soil," an alternative planting material that relies on biological ingredients like bacteria, protozoa and worms to generate biodiversity within the soil, helping plants thrive and leading to a naturally produced, chemical-free product.

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Since day one of their partnership, Fluence has supported Flora & Flames vision, leveraging Fluences impressive network to connect the cultivator with reliable industry partners. In service of the companies shared commitment to sustainability, installing Fluences LEDs has helped the Flora & Flame team use less electricity and conserve power. Fluences award-winning rebate program, which has saved growers more than $26 million, also helped Flora & Flame collect nearly $100,000 in utility rebates.

"Growers like Flora & Flame trusting us with their groundbreaking ideas for the future of cultivation is a testament to the years weve dedicated to improving and refining our fixtures as well as our deep base of scientific knowledge," said Steve Graves, senior vice president of strategy and product at Fluence. "We will continue to work with cutting-edge growers to help the world grow smarterand more sustainably."

For more information on Fluence, visit www.fluence-led.com.

About Fluence

Fluence Bioengineering, Inc. (Fluence) creates powerful and energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial crop production and research applications. Fluence is a leading LED lighting supplier in the global cannabis market and is committed to enabling more efficient crop production with the worlds top vertical farms and greenhouse produce growers. Fluence global headquarters are in Austin, Texas, with its EMEA headquarters in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Fluence operates as a business unit within Signifys Digital Solutions division. For more information about Fluence, visit www.fluence-led.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019751084/en/

Contacts

For North America,

Callie Neatherlin

callie@redfancommunications.com

512-439-9720
Ford Motor Co. asked 150 more employees at Sterling Axle Plant not to report to work beginning Wednesday, the automaker announced.

This brings the layoff total to 418 at the Michigan facility, Ford said.

The latest layoffs are a consequence of the UAW strike against the Detroit Three automakers, which is in its fifth week. Sterling Axle Plant must reduce its production of parts that would normally be shipped to the Kentucky Truck Plant, which has workers on strike, Ford said.

"Our production system is highly interconnected, which means the UAWs targeted strike strategy has knock-on effects for facilities that are not directly targeted for a work stoppage," Ford spokesman Dan Barbossa said in a news release.

More: UAW strike hits 1 month mark as some workers grow impatient: Where things stand

By close of business Wednesday, Ford said it had about 16,600 workers striking at three factories in Michigan, Illinois and Kentucky plus 2,730 strike-related layoffs at 10 sites in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio. The targeted strikes against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Ram Trucks, Chrysler and Dodge, began Sept. 15.

On Monday, Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford urged the UAW leadership to bring an end to the strike with what he and other Ford executives have called a record UAW contract offer. Kumar Galhotra, president of Ford Blue until his promotion announced Wednesday to chief operating officer, said Oct. 12 that Ford has reached its financial limit with contract improvement. Ford CEO Jim Farley said last month that Ford's offer to the UAW has reached historic levels and that Ford was being held hostage by the UAW over issues related to battery plants.

Both Ford and the UAW have confirmed to the Detroit Free Press that contract talks are continuing.

GM and Stellantis and auto suppliers continue to make strike-related layoffs, too.

Content in this story was further edited after publishing.

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on the site formerly known as Twitter @phoebesaid.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ford Sterling Axle lays off 150 more workers due to 2023 UAW strike
The Larimer County and Weld County health departments have a three-tiered health inspection rating, with rankings of pass, reinspection required or closed. Establishments with violations of 0-49 points pass; those with 50-109 points require reinspection; and any with more than 110 points face closure.

This report is for Oct. 11-17. Full reports and total points for the Larimer County restaurants included in this story can be viewed at https://inspections.myhealthdepartment.com/larimer-county-health and https://apps.weld.gov/health/decade/.

LARIMER COUNTY

PASS

Thai Pepper, 109 E. Laurel St., Fort Collins

Cottonwood Plains Elementary, 525 Turman Drive, Fort Collins

The Mayor of Old Town, 632 S. Mason St., Fort Collins

Krazy Karls West-CSU, 751 W. Pitkin St., Fort Collins

Fort Fryery West-CSU, 751 W. Pitkin St., Fort Collins

Jims Gourmet Hot Dogs-CSU, 751 W. Pitkin St., Fort Collins

Hoppers Mini Donuts-CSU, 1281 E. Magnolia St., Fort Collins

Fort Fryery East-CSU, 751 W. Pitkin St., Fort Collins

Worldwide Hotdogs mobile-CSU, 800 W. Pitkin St., Fort Collins

Umami Mobile Eatery, 413 N. Link Lane, Fort Collins

Duff's Old Town Sausage Cart, 11 Old Town Square, Fort Collins

Kona Ice II mobile, 3512 S. Mason St., Fort Collins

Backyard Bird mobile, 4650 Signal Tree Drive, Timnath

WINDSOR

(Inspected by Weld County)

PASS

Hearth Restaurant and Pub, 205 Fourth St.

REINSPECTION REQUIRED

Cacciatore Hellers Kitchen, 301 Main St.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins, Windsor restaurant inspections: 1 requires reinspection
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit Thursday against Gemini Trust, Genesis Global Capital and Digital Currency Group (DCG), for allegedly defrauding more than 230,000 investors including at least 29,000 New York residents, of more than US$1 billion.

See related article: Weekly Market Wrap: Bitcoin falls below US$27,000 following CPI and Israeli conflict

Fast Facts

An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General claims that Gemini lied to investors about its Gemini Earn investment program, which was operated with Genesis.

The lawsuit states that Gemini marketed Gemini Earn as a low-risk investment, despite knowing that Genesis loans were undersecured and risky.

According to the filing, nearly 60% of all outstanding loans from Genesis to third parties benefited Sam Bankman-Frieds Alameda Research, the sister trading firm of the bankrupt FTX exchange.

The lawsuit also charges Genesis former Chief Executive Officer Soichiro Moro, its parent firm DCG and CEO Barry Silbert for defrauding investors by trying to conceal an over US$1.1 billion loss.

Attorney General James seeks to ban the companies from the financial investment industry in New York while seeking restitution for investors.

Genesis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York on Jan. 19, with listed liabilities between US$1 billion to US$10 billion, with over 100,000 creditors.

Genesis suspended user withdrawals on Nov. 16, 2022, after the fall of FTX. The firm said it has US$175 million of its assets locked in the bankrupt exchange.

See related article: Fake BlackRock ETF news prompts US$57 mln in Bitcoin long liquidations
Transparency Market Research

The gesture recognition market is experiencing substantial growth, driven by the increasing adoption of this technology in various industries, including consumer electronics, automotive, healthcare, and gaming.

Wilmington, Delaware, United States, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Transparency Market Research Inc. - The global gesture recognition market was estimated to have acquired US$ 8 billion in 2021. It is anticipated to register a 20.3% CAGR from 2021 to 2031 and by 2031, the market is likely to gain US$ 51.3 billion . Gesture recognition is experiencing significant growth due to the rising demand in the consumer electronics sector. This is primarily driven by some key factors.



Consumers increasingly expect gesture recognition capabilities in their smartphones. Manufacturers have incorporated this technology to enhance user experiences. Features like waving to answer calls or using hand gestures for navigation provide convenience and a competitive edge.

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Gesture recognition is increasingly integrated into car infotainment systems, allowing drivers and passengers to control music, navigation, and communication features without taking their hands off the wheel. This enhances safety and convenience, making it a compelling choice for automakers.

Global Gesture Recognition Market: Key Players



Due to the presence of some of the largest and most prominent technology firms, intense research and development efforts and a substantial flood of investment characterize the industry. Modern gesture recognition technologies and apps have been steadily making their way into the market, with the goal of enhancing human-machine communication.

Key players have used mergers and acquisitions and product portfolio diversification as primary tactics. The following companies are well-known participants in the global gesture recognition market:

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Apple Inc.

Cognitec Systems GmbH

Gesturetek

Intel Corporation

Microchip Technology Inc.

Microsoft Corporation

NVIDIA Corporation

Sony Corporation

Ultraleap Limited

Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC (Onsemi)

STMicroelectronics

Synaptics Incorporated

Vishay Intertechnology Inc.



Few of key developments by the players in this market are:

Company name Key Development Apple Inc. Apple unveiled significant software changes intended for those with disabilities in 2021.

Apple introduced SignTime as a new service in 2021.

Customers can now use American Sign Language (ASL) in the United States, British Sign Language (BSL) in the United Kingdom, or French Sign Language (LSF) in France to connect with AppleCare as well as Retail Customer Care directly from within their web browsers.

To commemorate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Apple also revealed a number of announcements, including provocative gesture controls for the Apple Watch. Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation introduced HoloLens 2, a new HoloLens device that allows doctors all over the world to collaborate. HoloLens 2 was released in 2021. Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (Sony) Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (Sony) introduced the AITRIOS service, an advanced artificial intelligence sensing platform that facilitates the timely creation and release of sensing solutions utilizing AI cameras, in 2021. ON Semiconductor ON Semiconductor unveiled a revolutionary touch/proximity sensing system that combines industry-leading performance, affordability, and simplicity in a single chip in 2017.

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Key Findings of the Market Report

The gesture recognition market is experiencing rapid expansion due to its applications in consumer electronics and automotive industries.

Gesture recognition enables touchless interaction, reducing the need for physical contact with devices.

Continuous advancements in machine learning and computer vision enhance gesture recognition accuracy and capabilities.

Gesture tech aids hands-free medical equipment operation and patient monitoring, driving adoption in the healthcare sector.

Gesture recognition plays a crucial role in the development and growth of augmented and virtual reality applications.



Market Trends for Gesture Recognition

The online and offline segments of the global gesture recognition market are categorized based on type. With a 68.3% market share in 2021, the internet segment led the global gesture recognition market. During the forecast period, this segment is anticipated to increase at a noteworthy CAGR. When comparing the benefits of online and offline gesture recognition, the former is comparatively more advantageous.

In recent years, vision-based gesture recognition (VGR) has gained significant attention in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) due to its numerous practical uses. The launch of Microsoft Kinect as a contact-less interface is one of the innovations in VGR. The Kinect has a lot of promise for use in a variety of fields, including healthcare, education, and the automobile industry.

Global Market for Gesture Recognition: Regional Outlook



Various reasons are propelling the growth of the gesture recognition market in different regions. These are:

The strong demand for consumer electronics, which represented 37.80% of the demand for gesture recognition in North America overall, contributed to a 34.2% share of the global gesture recognition market in 2021.

Gesture recognition is also becoming more widely used in Asia Pacific and Europe; in 2021, these two regions accounted for 29.10% and 22.10%, respectively, of the global market. In these regions, the gesture recognition market is experiencing rapid growth in the application segments of automotive, consumer electronics, and industrial automation.



Global Gesture Recognition Market Segmentation



Technology

Touch-based Gesture Recognition

Touchless Gesture Recognition

Type

Offline

Online

End-use Industry

Consumer Electronics

Automotive

Healthcare

Industrial

Others



Region

North America

South America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa



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About Transparency Market Research

Transparency Market Research, a global market research company registered at Wilmington, Delaware, United States, provides custom research and consulting services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insights for thousands of decision makers. Our experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools & techniques to gather and analyses information.

Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.

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VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - Golden Shield Resources Inc. (CSE: GSRI) (OTCQB: GSRFF) (FRA: 4LE0) (the "Company" or "Golden Shield") is delighted to announce initial results from the ongoing reverse circulation ("RC") drill campaign at the Company's flagship Marudi Mountain gold project located in southwestern Guyana (the "Marudi Mountain Property"). Assays from the first 39 drillholes are reported herein. The Company is pleased to also provide an update on the next stages of the RC drill program.

Leo Hathaway, Executive Chairman of Golden Shield, commented, "The RC drill rig has enabled the Company to map fresh rock geology that exists under saprolite "cover". This allows the Company to iteratively de-risk exploration targets before advancing to diamond drilling. The presence of high-grade gold in an unrecognized zone of the Marudi North prospect is an exciting step towards unlocking exploration potential on the Marudi Mountain Property."

Highlights:

39 RC drillholes (1939 m total) have been completed at the Marudi North Prospect

Select drill highlights include: MN-23-RC005: 14 m at 1.0 g/t Au from 5 m, incl. 11 m at 1.27 g/t Au MN-23-RC008: 7 m at 7.50 g/t Au from 3 m , incl. 4 m at 13.06 g/t Au MN-23-RC009: 4 m at 1.78 g/t Au from 13 m MN-23-RC010: 5 m at 1.86 g/t Au from 5 m, incl. 1 m at 7.40 g/t Au Further assays for Marudi North are currently pending.





The RC rig is currently drilling at the IP-6 prospect where 12 drillholes (779 m) have been drilled to date with additional drill holes set to be completed.





Pancake Creek will be drilled using the RC rig following the completion of the IP-6 Grid.

Figure 1: Property overview showing exploration targets. (CNW Group/Golden Shield Resources)

RC Program Overview

The goal of the RC drill campaign at the Marudi Mountain Property is to acquire an understanding of the shallow subsurface geology beneath the saprolite cover. Specifically, the Company seeks to explore the Marudi Mountain Property for the favourable gold-bearing, Ferruginous Quartzite ("FQ"), lithology that is the primary host of mineralization across the property. Drill depths currently vary between 22-79 m, with holes having an average depth of 52.5 m. The RC drill campaign is designed to have 140 drillholes completed across three prospects: Marudi North (completed), IP-6 (current), and Pancake Creek. With 51 holes of the planned 140 drillholes now drilled, Golden Shield has completed approximately 36% of the planned meters for RC drill program.

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Marudi North

A total of 39 RC drillholes, totaling 1939 m, have now been completed at the Marudi North exploration target. Previous operators recognized the existence of gold-bearing FQ unit at the Marudi North prospect; however, Golden Shield RC drilling has helped to define a large package of prospective FQ to the southwest of historical drillholes. This enlarges the current footprint of the Marudi North prospect to an approximate extent of 100 x 100 m and proves the continuity of the gold bearing horizon to the SW-of its previously known extent. Downhole geochemical data is currently being consolidated to allow for future diamond drill targeting, with the aim of progressing the prospect to the diamond drilling stage (Figure 2).

Figure 2: RC drilling grid at Marudi North showing historical and newly discovered extents of FQ, projected to surface, after preliminary RC drilling (CNW Group/Golden Shield Resources)

Initial RC drill results are encouraging, with highlights listed and summarized in Table 1. Further assays for Marudi North are currently pending.

Table 1. RC drill results received to date.

Drillhole Depth of

hole (m) Azimuth

(degrees) Dip (degrees) From To *Interval Au (g/t) MN-23-RC001 79 126 55 No Significant Intercepts MN-23-RC004 60 35 50 No Significant Intercepts MN-23-RC005 65 35 50 5.00 19.00 14.00 1.00 Incl. 7.00 18.00 11.00 1.27 MN-23-RC006 62 130 55 No Significant Intercepts MN-23-RC007 18 42 50 No Significant intercepts MN-23-RC008 51 42 50 3.00 10.00 7.00 7.50 Incl. 5.00 9.00 4.00 13.06 MN-23-RC009 52 130 50 13.00 17.00 4.00 1.79 MN-23-RC010 27 207 45 5.00 10.00 5.00 1.86 Incl. 9.00 10.00 1.00 7.40 MN-23-RC011 57 90 55 No Significant Intercepts MN-23-RC012 49 50 55 No Significant Intercepts MN-23-RC020 64 125 55 No Significant Intercepts MN-23-RC022 60 125 50 No Significant Intercepts MN-23-RC023 40 35 50 No Significant Intercepts MN-23-RC025 28 30 50 No Significant Intercepts

*There is insufficient data available to calculate true widths for these intervals. Additionally, the RC drill bit may "smear" results down the hole, although no evidence of this has been observed. Full sampling details are provided below.

IP-6

A total of 12 RC drillholes, totaling 726 m, have now been completed at the IP-6 exploration target. The drilling at IP-6 is targeting previously unrecognized exposures of the FQ host unit, that were discovered as a result of the Induced Polarization (IP) survey conducted at the Marudi Mountain Property (see the Company's news release dated August 14, 2023). Currently, no results from the first 12 drillholes have been returned. An additional 18 RC holes are expected to be completed at the exploration target to delineate the extent of the FQ unit. IP-6 is within 200 m of the Mazoa Hill deposit.

Figure 3: Overview of current drilling at the IP-6 Exploration Target (CNW Group/Golden Shield Resources)

Pancake Creek

Drilling will commence at Pancake creek with the RC drill rig following the completion of the RC drilling grid at IP-6. The Pancake Creek target has never been drilled; however, the prospect has seen extensive sampling by Golden Shield (see the Company's news release dated September 26, 2023). This area shows a high proportion of high-grade gold mineralization, with 94 of 478 grab samples returning values >1 g/t Au, and 115 of 478 grab samples grading above 0.5 g/t Au, with values as high as 28.4 g/t Au. Mineralization at Pancake Creek is hosted in the same distinctive FQ unit that hosts gold at other prospects on the Marudi Mountain Property, including Marudi North and the Mazoa Hill deposit.

Exploration Timeline and Target Overview

Golden Shield is committed to advancing the Marudi Mountain Property through iterative and focused exploration. The Company has a structured plan to advance the highest rated exploration targets to diamond drill stage. Over the past year, the 10 most advanced exploration targets have undergone extensive boots-on-the-ground exploration work including extensive sampling and mapping. Nine of the ten exploration targets have now undergone mechanical trenching. Two of the ten exploration targets have now undergone RC drilling, with RC drilling planned on additional prospects. Diamond drilling at the Mazoa Hill deposit, and additional targets is expected in Q1 2024. For the status of each individual prospect, please see Figure 4.

Figure 4: Current Status of Individual Exploration Targets on the Marudi Mountain Property. (CNW Group/Golden Shield Resources)

Quality Control/Quality Assurance ("QA/QC")

Golden Shield has commenced RC drilling at the Marudi Mountain Property as of August 2023. So far drilling has totaled 2,558 meters in 51 holes, with hole depths averaging 50 meters. Holes were drilled at dips of -45 to -60, using an air-core bit for saprolite and a hammer with a cross-over sub for hard rock with dry air (no injected water or other fluids).

Samples are collected every 1 meter and are collected on-site using a cyclone splitter, producing a 4-5 kg bulk sample, where 2-3kg is an assay sample and a 2-3 kg duplicate sample is stored and can be used for re-assay work. Coarse blank material and standard reference pulps are inserted into the sample stream on a 1-in-10 sample basis such that each 20-sample group contains one blank and one reference pulp. Every 10-meter bulk sample is weighed in order to monitor recovery. Assay samples are placed in shipping sacks for every 10 meters upon completion of each hole. Prior to shipping, all samples are maintained under the direct control and supervision of the on-site geological staff.

Upon arrival at Actlabs laboratory in Georgetown (Guyana), samples are prepared using a Fire Assay Fusion procedure and analyzed using Atomic Absorption (AA; 30 gram sample size fire assay fusion with AA finish). All QA/QC results associated with the assays reported herein are within expectation.

Qualified Persons

Leo Hathaway, P. Geo, Executive Chair of Golden Shield, and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has reviewed, verified, and approved the scientific and technical information in this news release and has verified the data underlying that scientific and technical information.

About Golden Shield

Golden Shield was founded by experienced professionals who are convinced that there are many more gold mines yet to be found in Guyana. The company is well-financed and has three wholly controlled gold projects: Marudi Mountain, Arakaka and Fish Creek. Golden Shield continues to evaluate other gold opportunities in Guyana.

Connect with Golden Shield

Email | Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | X/Twitter| YouTube |

To register for investor updates please visit https://goldenshield.ca

This news release includes certain "ForwardLooking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and "forwardlooking information" under applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target", "plan", "forecast", "may", "would", "could", "schedule" and similar words or expressions, identify forwardlooking statements or information. These forwardlooking statements or information relate to, among other things: the exploration and development of the Company's mineral projects; and release of exploration results.

Forwardlooking statements and forwardlooking information relating to any future mineral production, liquidity, enhanced value and capital markets profile of Golden Shield, future growth potential for Golden Shield and its business, and future exploration plans are based on management's reasonable assumptions, estimates, expectations, analyses and opinions, which are based on management's experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, and other factors that management believes are relevant and reasonable in the circumstances, but which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the price of gold and other metals; no escalation in the severity of the public health crises; costs of exploration and development; the estimated costs of development of exploration projects; Golden Shield's ability to operate in a safe and effective manner and its ability to obtain financing on reasonable terms.

These statements reflect Golden Shield's respective current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of other assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forwardlooking statements or forward-looking information and Golden Shield has made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. Such factors include, without limitation: the Company's dependence on one mineral project; precious metals price volatility; risks associated with the conduct of the Company's mineral exploration activities in Guyana; regulatory, consent or permitting delays; risks relating to reliance on the Company's management team and outside contractors; risks regarding mineral resources and reserves; the Company's inability to obtain insurance to cover all risks, on a commercially reasonable basis or at all; currency fluctuations; risks regarding the failure to generate sufficient cash flow from operations; risks relating to project financing and equity issuances; risks and unknowns inherent in all mining projects, including the inaccuracy of reserves and resources, metallurgical recoveries and capital and operating costs of such projects; contests over title to properties, particularly title to undeveloped properties; laws and regulations governing the environment, health and safety; the ability of the communities in which the Company operates to manage and cope with the implications of public health crises; the economic and financial implications of public health crises to the Company; operating or technical difficulties in connection with mining or development activities; employee relations, labour unrest or unavailability; the Company's interactions with surrounding communities and artisanal miners; the Company's ability to successfully integrate acquired assets; the speculative nature of exploration and development, including the risks of diminishing quantities or grades of reserves; stock market volatility; conflicts of interest among certain directors and officers; lack of liquidity for shareholders of the Company; litigation risk; ongoing military conflicts around the world; and the factors identified in the Company's public disclosure documents available on www.sedarplus.ca. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forwardlooking statements or forward-looking information. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forwardlooking statements or forward-looking information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements or information, other than as required by applicable law.

Golden Shield Resources Logo (CNW Group/Golden Shield Resources)

SOURCE Golden Shield Resources

Cision

View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2023/19/c6257.html
BELGRADE, Serbia and BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA), which is building the leading platform for cell programming and biosecurity, and the Government of Serbia today announced that they have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding ("MoU") with the intent of collaborating in support of Serbia's bioeconomy vision.

Government of Serbia and Ginkgo Bioworks Announce Bioeconomy Collaboration in BIO4 Campus (Credit: Zoran Petrovic, NITRA)

Under the planned partnership, Ginkgo and the Serbian Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation will work to establish a Startup Accelerator that leverages Ginkgo's horizontal platform and extensive expertise to create and support Serbian companies building with biology. Within this Accelerator, startups will be able to leverage Ginkgo's end-to-end R&D services to quickly progress on projects that would otherwise require substantial resources and infrastructure.

Startups and larger companies alike can take full advantage of Serbia's new BIO4 campus, the key initiative that puts Serbia on the global life sciences map as a new bioeconomy hub in Europe. The BIO4 campus initiative already gathers more than 1,000 PhD scientists from 17 scientific institutions, and the campus itself will open in 2026. BIO4 brings together the research centers of companies active in biomedicine, biotechnology, bioinformatics and biodiversity. MoUs on mutual cooperation have already been signed with the likes of AstraZeneca, BGI, Merck (known as MSD in Europe), Pfizer, Roche, SK Biosciences, Frontier Biopharm, Swiss Rockets and Takeda, with more in the works.

Within the envisioned collaboration, companies on the BIO4 campus will have the opportunity to take advantage of incentives to access Ginkgo's platform. By offering flexible services, Ginkgo aims to be the end-to-end synthetic biology R&D partner for companies at BIO4 exploring solutions in pharmaceuticals, food and agriculture, industry, and specialty chemicals. Companies at BIO4 will have opportunities to engage Ginkgo staff and access Ginkgo expertise on site.

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Further, under the MoU, Ginkgo and the Government of Serbia will also explore partnerships to develop and implement new biomonitoring capabilities in Serbia. For example, the planned partnership will support capacity-building and biomonitoring throughout Serbia's public health sector, including working to implement innovative pathogen monitoring programs at various strategic nodes, such as ports of entry and animal agricultural settings.

"BIO4, and the vibrant ecosystem coming together in Serbia, is an extraordinary community with a shared motivation to use biology to address major health, societal, and environmental challenges," said Austin Che, Co-Founder and Head of Startup Innovation at Ginkgo Bioworks. "Countries around the world are recognizing the transformative power of synthetic biology as a strategic technology and the importance of pathogen monitoring for preparedness. At Ginkgo, we are proud to be the partner of choice for these forward-looking governments and are excited to help accelerate R&D and create momentum for companies building products with biology."

Serbian Minister of Science, Technological Development and Innovations, Dr. Jelena Begovic, said, "This partnership additionally strengthens the BIO4 campus as an attractive and dense R&D site in the European landscape. Having Ginkgo, as one of the most advanced biology companies in the world, in the BIO4 ecosystem means that all other stakeholders can benefit as well. Building on Serbia's already well-regarded AI and digital engineering talents, the government recognizes economic and health benefits of the new biorevolution that is unfolding, and strongly supports the vision to become one of the European leaders in the field. On this occasion, warm invitation is extended to other companies as well, that want to accelerate their R&D efforts and benefit from the BIO4-Ginkgo partnership."

The memorandum of understanding between Ginkgo and the Government of Serbia was signed at the Biotech Future Forum, an international gathering event organized by the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) in Serbia. The Centre is part of the C4IR network, and co-founded by the World Economic Forum and the Government of Serbia.

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 .

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 and biosecurity platforms. 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.

GINKGO BIOWORKS INVESTOR CONTACT:

investors@ginkgobioworks.com

GINKGO BIOWORKS MEDIA CONTACT:

press@ginkgobioworks.com

Government of Serbia and Ginkgo Bioworks Announce Bioeconomy Collaboration in BIO4 Campus (Credit: Zoran Petrovic, NITRA)

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SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks
The Insight Partners

Green Hydrogen Market is growing at a CAGR of 46.9% from 2022 to 2030.

Pune, India, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to The Insight Partners,  Green Hydrogen Market Forecast to 2030  COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis  Technology (Alkaline Electrolysis and PEM Electrolysis), Renewable Source (Wind Energy, Solar Energy, and Others), End-use Industry (Chemical, Power, Food & Beverages, Medical, Petrochemicals, and Others), and Geography, the market size is expected to grow from US$ 4.06 billion in 2022 to US$ 88.05 billion by 2030; it is estimated to record a CAGR of 46.9% from 2022 to 2030.





Download Sample PDF Brochure at https://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPRE00029371







The establishment of large-scale green hydrogen plants attracts significant investments from both the public and private sectors. In June 2023, a group of companies announced their plan to invest US$ 79.75 in a project for the development of a hydrogen production facility and a hydrogen liquefaction facility in Queensland, Australia. The group of companies includes Iwatani Corporation (Japan), Kansai Electric Power Company (Japan), Marubeni Corporation (Japan), Keppel Infrastructure (Singapore), and Stanwell Corporation (Australia). Moreover, other countries have also announced their respective plans to produce green hydrogen to achieve their respective zero-emission targets which is another major factor likely to provide future growth opportunities for green hydrogen market players across different regions. In addition, the green hydrogen market is also likely to witness the new players coming forward to compete in such emerging markets and make their contributions towards a sustainable future.

Large-sized green hydrogen plants require dedicated infrastructure, including hydrogen production facilities, storage systems, and transportation networks. The establishment of such plants drives the requirement for a robust infrastructure that supports the distribution and utilization of green hydrogen and also contributing to the green hydrogen market growth across different regions. For instance, in June 2023, Larsen & Toubro announced its plan to set up infrastructure for the worlds largest green hydrogen plant in Saudi Arabia, which is being built by NEOM Green Hydrogen Company (NGHC). Thus, a rise in infrastructure development is expected to create a favorable environment for the adoption of green hydrogen in different sectors, which is likely to offer growth opportunities to the green hydrogen market players during the forecast period.

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Global Green Hydrogen Market Scope:

Market Size Value in USD 4.06 Billion in 2022 Market Size Value by USD 88.05 Billion by 2030 Growth rate CAGR of 46.9% from 2022 to 2030 Forecast Period 2022-2030 Base Year 2022 Segments covered Offering, Type, End-User Regional scope North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South & Central America. Country scope Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States Report coverage Revenue forecast, company ranking, competitive landscape, growth factors, and trends





Green Hydrogen Market: Competitive Landscape and Key Developments

Air Liquide and Siemens Energy, Cummins Inc., Linde Plc, NEL ASA, rsted A/S, Toshiba Energy Systems and Solutions Corporation, Uniper SE, Engie, and Air Products and Chemicals, Inc are among the key players operating in the green hydrogen market. Few of the important market initiatives and product developments from the industry are mentioned below:

In 2023, Air Liquide sold its 19% stake in the fuel cell and hydrogen production technologies provider Hydrogenics Corporation to Cummins, who owns the remaining 81% of the company. With a large portfolio of technologies, Air Liquide is more than ever committed to the development of hydrogen and the Group is a leader in developing and operating large scale electrolyzers.

In 2023, Linde announced a plan to increase its green hydrogen production capacity in Ontario, California, in response to growing demand from the mobility market. The company is expected to build, own and operate the first of several planned five-megawatt PEM (proton exchange membrane) electrolyzers to increase its hydrogen capacity.





Order a Copy of this Report at: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/buy/TIPRE00029371







Moreover, on May 30, 2030, the Indian Ministry of Power announced a complete waiver of the interstate transmission systems (ISTS) charges on offshore wind, green hydrogen, and ammonia project for 25 years. This waiver applies to projects commissioned till December 31, 2032. With the expansion of offshore wind and other renewables, the opportunities to produce and store clean hydrogen are also expected to grow in the coming years. Clean hydrogen can help nations meet energy demands in the coming years. Therefore, the production of green hydrogen from wind energy is expected to accelerate with the rise in renewable energy deployment and an upsurge in demand for clean and sustainable energy solutions. Green hydrogen can potentially contribute to decarbonizing various sectors and play a significant role in transitioning to a low-carbon economy. This is propelling the green hydrogen market growth.





Green Hydrogen Market: Industry Overview

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is actively involved in promoting research and development across various technologies aimed at achieving economically viable and net-zero-carbon pathways for hydrogen production. The primary issue faced in hydrogen production is the capital required for the process. To address this challenge, the DOE's Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office is committed to developing new technologies that can produce hydrogen at US$ 2 per kilogram by 2026 and further reduce it to US$ 1 per kilogram by 2031, all through net-zero-carbon processes. These efforts align with the Hydrogen Energy Earthshot initiative, which seeks to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% within a decade, making it available at an affordable rate of US$ 1 per kilogram. By driving these developments, the DOE aims to accelerate the adoption of hydrogen as a clean and cost-effective energy solution in the future which is expected to boost the green hydrogen market size during the near future. For instance, in January 2023, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in response to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). This initiative involves an investment of US$ 8 billion to facilitate the establishment of Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs (H2Hubs). These H2Hubs will serve as critical centers for showcasing the entire clean hydrogen value chain, encompassing production, processing, delivery, storage, and end-use applications. The overarching objective is to support the Biden Administration's ambitious targets of achieving a carbon-free electric grid by 2035 and transitioning to a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. Through this funding, the DOE aims to accelerate advancements in hydrogen technology and infrastructure, driving toward a more sustainable environment. Such initiatives are likely to catalyze the green hydrogen market size in the near future.





Go through further research published by The Insight Partners:

Hydrogen Energy Storage Market - Global Analysis and Forecast to 2030

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Stacks Market - Global Analysis and Forecast to 2030

Hydrogen Station Market - Global Analysis and Forecast to 2030





About Us:

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If you have any queries about this report or if you would like further information, please contact us:

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Charging network for NEVs extended to rural areas in SW China's Guizhou

Xinhua) 08:51, October 19, 2023

This aerial photo taken on Oct. 17, 2023 shows new energy vehicles charging at a charging area (bottom, R) in Longshan Township, Longli County of Qiannan Bouyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province. In recent years, the Guizhou Power Grid Co., Ltd of China Southern Power Grid has been working diligently to extend the charging network for new energy vehicles to the rural areas. Charging piles are now available in every township in Guizhou thanks to well orchestrated efforts to fully meet the public's demand for eco-friendly transportation in the past few years. (Xinhua/Tao Liang)

A staff member of a local public utility company instructs a resident to use a charging pile at Huiyi Village, Zhongshan District of Liupanshui City, southwest China's Guizhou Province, Sept. 22, 2023. In recent years, the Guizhou Power Grid Co., Ltd of China Southern Power Grid has been working diligently to extend the charging network for new energy vehicles to the rural areas. Charging piles are now available in every township in Guizhou thanks to well orchestrated efforts to fully meet the public's demand for eco-friendly transportation in the past few years. (Xinhua/Tao Liang)

This photo taken on Oct. 17, 2023 shows new energy vehicles charging at a charging area in Gujiao Township of Qiannan Bouyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province. In recent years, the Guizhou Power Grid Co., Ltd of China Southern Power Grid has been working diligently to extend the charging network for new energy vehicles to the rural areas. Charging piles are now available in every township in Guizhou thanks to well orchestrated efforts to fully meet the public's demand for eco-friendly transportation in the past few years. (Xinhua/Tao Liang)

A vehicle owner charges his new energy vehicle at a charging pile in Zhongshan District of Liupanshui City, southwest China's Guizhou Province, Sept. 22, 2023. In recent years, the Guizhou Power Grid Co., Ltd of China Southern Power Grid has been working diligently to extend the charging network for new energy vehicles to the rural areas. Charging piles are now available in every township in Guizhou thanks to well orchestrated efforts to fully meet the public's demand for eco-friendly transportation in the past few years. (Xinhua/Tao Liang)

This aerial photo taken on Sept. 21, 2023 shows new energy vehicles charging at a charging pile (bottom, R) in Wumeng Township of Panzhou City, southwest China's Guizhou Province. In recent years, the Guizhou Power Grid Co., Ltd of China Southern Power Grid has been working diligently to extend the charging network for new energy vehicles to the rural areas. Charging piles are now available in every township in Guizhou thanks to well orchestrated efforts to fully meet the public's demand for eco-friendly transportation in the past few years. (Xinhua/Tao Liang)

This aerial photo taken on Oct. 17, 2023 shows new energy vehicles charging at a charging pile (bottom, R) in Longshan Town of Qiannan Bouyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province. In recent years, the Guizhou Power Grid Co., Ltd of China Southern Power Grid has been working diligently to extend the charging network for new energy vehicles to the rural areas. Charging piles are now available in every township in Guizhou thanks to well orchestrated efforts to fully meet the public's demand for eco-friendly transportation in the past few years. (Xinhua/Tao Liang)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new publication listing key guiding considerations on artificial intelligence (AI) for health, which will support countries to regulate AI effectively. This will enable them to harness AIs potential, whether in treating cancer or detecting tuberculosis, while minimising the risks.

The publication emphasises the importance of establishing AI systems safety and effectiveness, rapidly making appropriate systems available to those who need them, and fostering dialogue among stakeholders, including developers, regulators, manufacturers, health workers and patients.

Artificial intelligence holds great promise for health, but also comes with serious challenges, including unethical data collection, cybersecurity threats and amplifying biases or misinformation, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. This new guidance will support countries to regulate AI effectively, to harness its potential, whether in treating cancer or detecting tuberculosis, while minimising the risks.

Six areas for regulation

In response to growing country needs to responsibly manage the rapid rise of AI health technologies, the publication outlines six areas for regulation of AI for health.

*To foster trust, the publication stresses the importance of transparency and documentation, such as through documenting the entire product lifecycle and tracking development processes.

*For risk management, issues like intended use, continuous learning, human interventions, training models and cybersecurity threats must all be comprehensively addressed, with models made as simple as possible.

*Externally validating data and being clear about the intended use of AI helps assure safety and facilitate regulation.

*A commitment to data quality, such as through rigorously evaluating systems pre-release, is vital to ensuring systems do not amplify biases and errors.

*The challenges posed by important, complex regulations  such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the US  are addressed with an emphasis on understanding the scope of jurisdiction and consent requirements, in service of privacy and data protection.

*Fostering collaboration between regulatory bodies, patients, healthcare professionals, industry representatives, and government partners, can help ensure products and services stay compliant with regulation throughout their lifecycles.

Potential of AI acknowledged

With the increasing availability of health care data and the rapid progress in analytic techniques  whether machine learning, logic-based or statistical  AI tools could transform the health sector. WHO recognises the potential of AI in enhancing health outcomes by strengthening clinical trials; improving medical diagnosis, treatment, self-care and person-centred care; and supplementing health care professionals knowledge, skills and competencies.

For example, AI could be beneficial in settings with a lack of medical specialists, e.g. in interpreting retinal scans and radiology images among many others.

However, AI technologies  including large language models  are being rapidly deployed, sometimes without a full understanding of how they may perform, which could either benefit or harm end-users, including health-care professionals and patients.

When using health data, AI systems could have access to sensitive personal information, necessitating robust legal and regulatory frameworks for safeguarding privacy, security, and integrity, which this publication aims to help set up and maintain.

Managing risks

AI systems are complex and depend not only on the code they are built with but also on the data they are trained on, which come from clinical settings and user interactions  for example. Better regulation can help manage the risks of AI amplifying biases in training data.

For example, it can be difficult for AI models to accurately represent the diversity of populations, leading to biases, inaccuracies or even failure. To help mitigate these risks, regulations can be used to ensure that the attributes  such as gender, race and ethnicity  of the people featured in the training data are reported and datasets are intentionally made representative.--TradeArabia News Service
Hackers have exploited an unpatched zero-day vulnerability in Ciscos networking software to compromise tens of thousands of devices, researchers have warned.

Cisco on Monday issued an advisory warning that a critical-rated vulnerability in IOS XE, the software that powers the company's range of networking devices, was being actively exploited by hackers. Cisco said the bug was found in the IOS XE web administration interface, which can be exploited when an affected device is exposed to the internet.

The list of devices running Cisco IOS XE software includes enterprise switches, wireless controllers, access points and industrial routers, which corporations and smaller organizations use to manage their network security.

In a separate blog post, Cisco's threat intelligence arm Talos said that as-yet-unidentified hackers have been exploiting the bug  known as a zero-day, a type of vulnerability discovered by attackers before the vendor has had time to fix it  since at least September 18. Cisco Talos said that successful exploitation grants an attacker full control of the compromised device that allows for possible subsequent unauthorized activity on the corporate victim's network.

Cisco has not yet commented on the scale of the exploitation.

However, Censys, a search engine for internet-connected devices and assets, says it had observed nearly 42,000 compromised Cisco devices as of October 18, noting a "sharp increase" in infections compared to the previous day.

In its analysis of the flaw, Censys says the majority of compromised devices are located in the United States, followed by the Philippines and Mexico. Censys said the hackers are targeting telecommunications companies that offer internet services to both households and businesses.

As a result, the primary targets of this vulnerability are not large corporations but smaller entities and individuals who are more susceptible, Censys researchers said.

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Zero patch for zero-day

Cisco has not yet released a patch for the zero-day vulnerability, which has received the maximum severity rating of 10.0. Cisco spokesperson Alyssa Martin, representing the company via a third-party agency, told TechCrunch that the company is working non-stop to provide a software fix," but declined to say when the patch would be made available.

Its not yet known how many devices are potentially vulnerable, but Cisco said in its advisory that the zero-day affected both physical and virtual devices running IOS XE software that have the HTTP or HTTPS server feature enabled. In lieu of a patch, Cisco is strongly recommending that customers disable the HTTP Server feature on all internet-facing systems.

Its also unclear who is exploiting the vulnerability. Cisco Talos said that after discovering initial exploitation of the zero-day in September, it observed activity on October 12, which it assesses was carried out by the same actor. The first cluster was possibly the actors initial attempt and testing their code, while the October activity seems to show the actor expanding their operation to include establishing persistent access via deployment of the implant, Cisco said.

Cisco warned that the as-yet-unidentified attackers also leveraged a previous vulnerability, CVE-2021-1435, which Cisco patched in 2021, to install the implant after gaining access to the device.

We have also seen devices fully patched against CVE-2021-1435 getting the implant successfully installed through an as of yet undetermined mechanism, the researchers said.

In addition to disabling the HTTP Server feature, Cisco urged administrators of potentially compromised devices to immediately search their networks for signs of compromise. CISA, the U.S. governments cybersecurity agency, is also urging federal agencies to deploy mitigations by October 20.
What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. However, after briefly looking over the numbers, we don't think Stamford Tyres (SGX:S29) 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 Stamford Tyres is:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.063 = S$8.6m  (S$233m - S$96m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to April 2023).

So, Stamford Tyres has an ROCE of 6.3%. On its own that's a low return, but compared to the average of 4.6% generated by the Retail Distributors industry, it's much better.

View our latest analysis for Stamford Tyres

roce

While the past is not representative of the future, it can be helpful to know how a company has performed historically, which is why we have this chart above. If you want to delve into the historical earnings, revenue and cash flow of Stamford Tyres, check out these free graphs here.

So How Is Stamford Tyres' ROCE Trending?

Things have been pretty stable at Stamford Tyres, with its capital employed and returns on that capital staying somewhat the same for the last five years. It's not uncommon to see this when looking at a mature and stable business that isn't re-investing its earnings because it has likely passed that phase of the business cycle. With that in mind, unless investment picks up again in the future, we wouldn't expect Stamford Tyres to be a multi-bagger going forward.

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Another thing to note, Stamford Tyres has a high ratio of current liabilities to total assets of 41%. This can bring about some risks because the company is basically operating with a rather large reliance on its suppliers or other sorts of short-term creditors. While it's not necessarily a bad thing, it can be beneficial if this ratio is lower.

The Bottom Line On Stamford Tyres' ROCE

In summary, Stamford Tyres isn't compounding its earnings but is generating stable returns on the same amount of capital employed. And in the last five years, the stock has given away 25% so the market doesn't look too hopeful on these trends strengthening any time soon. Therefore based on the analysis done in this article, we don't think Stamford Tyres has the makings of a multi-bagger.

One final note, you should learn about the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Stamford Tyres (including 1 which is significant) .

If you want to search for solid companies with great earnings, check out this free list of companies with good balance sheets and impressive returns on equity.

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.
The Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce hosted its annual Chamber Business Awards Thursday at the Hyatt Regency Savannah, recognizing coastal Georgia's economic drivers for accomplishments in growth, community engagement and environmental impact.

Some Savannah staples took home hardware, with Black-owned weekly newspaper The Savannah Tribune earning small business of the year honors.

"Being one of the oldest African American newspapers in the United States, your business has been crucial to preserving and celebrating Savannah's achievements in history," said Allyson Harvin, chair of Savannah Area Chamber Board of Directors.

Other notable Savannah groups included Michael Roberson of Savannah Sauce Company, winning entrepreneur of the year. Perry Lane Hotel took home this year's hospitality award, and Chatham Area Transit won for environmental excellence.

Bert Brantley, CEO of Savannah Area Chamber, noted Perry Lane Hotel was rated the number one hotel in the country by TripAdvisor.

CAT's environmental excellence award came in part due to its new electric vehicle microtransit program, which were made possible by a $1.2 million federal Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation Grant.

"The best is yet to come," said Faye DiMassimo, CAT's executive director.

CAT will be unveiling its new microtransit vehicle at a pop-up event on Friday Oct. 20. The showcase will take place at the Pennsylvania Avenue Resource Center.

The Dive Savannah, a nonprofit organization helping those experiencing homelessness, took home the cornerstone award, which goes to a nonprofit whose mission benefits Savannah's business community.

"You are our why, because behind the struggle of homelessness there is a resident, a visitor, and a business owner that may not being doing as well as they could, and you deserve that" said Kristy Krill, Dive Savannah founder.

The Helen V. Business Advocate Award went to Trip Tollison, CEO of Savannah Economic Development Authority. Tollison could not attend the event due to a business trip in Japan, but SEDA Chief Operating Officer Jesse Dillon accepted the award on Tollison's behalf.

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The full list of winners is below:

Small Business of the Year: The Savannah Tribune

Entrepreneur of the Year: Michael Roberson, Savannah Sauce Company, INC.

Helen V. Head Business Advocate Award: Trip Tollison, Savannah Economic Development Authority

Hospitality Business of the Year: Perry Lane Hotel

Environmental Excellence: Chatham Area Transit

Gulfstream Community Involvement: Coastal Empire Habitat for Humanity

Cornerstone: The Dive Savannah

Manufacturer of the Year: Pratt Industries

Evan Lasseter is the city and county government reporter for Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at elasseter@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah Chamber of Commerce holds awards banquet at Hyatt Regency
BOISE, Idaho, October 19, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--IDACORP, Inc. (NYSE:IDA) will report its third quarter results on Thursday, November 2, in a news release before the stock markets open. The company will hold an analyst conference call that day at 2:30 p.m. Mountain Time (4:30 p.m. Eastern Time) to discuss the third quarter 2023 earnings.

All parties interested in listening may do so through a live Webcast or by calling (855) 761-5600 for listen-only mode. The passcode for the call is 3990987. The conference call logistics are posted on the companys Website (www.idacorpinc.com) and will be included in the companys earnings news release. Slides will be included during the conference call. To access the slide deck, register for the event just prior to the call at https://www.idacorpinc.com/investor-relations/earnings-center/default.aspx. A replay of the conference call will be available on the companys website for a period of 12 months and will be available shortly after the call.

IDACORP, Inc., Boise, Idaho-based and formed in 1998, is a holding company comprised of Idaho Power Company, a regulated electric utility; IDACORP Financial, a holder of affordable housing projects and other real estate investments; and Ida-West Energy, an operator of small hydroelectric generation projects that satisfy the requirements of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978. Idaho Power began operations in 1916 and employs approximately 2,000 people to serve a 24,000 square-mile service area in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon. Idaho Power's goal of 100% clean energy by 2045 builds on its long history as a clean-energy leader providing reliable service at affordable prices. With 17 low-cost hydropower projects at the core of its diverse energy mix, Idaho Powers more than 610,000 residential, business, and agricultural customers pay among the nations lowest prices for electricity. To learn more about IDACORP or Idaho Power, visit www.idacorpinc.com or www.idahopower.com.

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View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019597758/en/

Contacts

Amy I. Shaw

Director of Investor Relations, Compliance, and Risk

Phone: (208) 388-5611

AShaw@idahopower.com
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Shares of Wipro dropped to a three-month low and weighed on other Indian IT companies on Thursday after the country's fourth-largest IT services provider forecast the slide in IT services revenue would get worse this quarter.

Shares of Wipro, which also posted an unexpected drop in revenue in the July-September quarter, fell as much as 4.3% in their steepest intraday percentage decline since mid-April. The Nifty IT index dropped 0.5%.

While the IT sector has been contending with soft demand for the past few quarters, leading to the likes of Infosys cutting its full-year forecast, analysts believe Wipro's higher exposure to consulting hurt it more than its peers.

"Given Wipro's broader presence in the discretionary areas, the conversion is a challenge as enterprises are cautious and are reprioritising expenditures," Motilal Oswal said in a note.

Wipro said it expects its IT services revenue, which is nearly all of its business, would drop 3.5% to 1.5%, on a constant currency basis, sequentially in the third quarter. That is steeper than the 0.5% sequential drop in the second quarter.

The company's shares were last down 3.3% at 394 rupees, trimming their year-to-date gain to 0.3%. In comparison, the Nifty IT index has risen nearly 10% so far this year.

($1 = 83.2500 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Varun Vyas in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
Over the last year, a good number of insiders have significantly increased their holdings in Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ:VLY). This is encouraging because it indicates that insiders are more optimistic about the company's prospects.

While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether.

Check out our latest analysis for Valley National Bancorp

Valley National Bancorp Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

In the last twelve months, the biggest single purchase by an insider was when Independent Director Jennifer Steans bought US$515k worth of shares at a price of US$10.29 per share. That means that even when the share price was higher than US$8.21 (the recent price), an insider wanted to purchase shares. Their view may have changed since then, but at least it shows they felt optimistic at the time. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. As a general rule, we feel more positive about a stock if insiders have bought shares at above current prices, because that suggests they viewed the stock as good value, even at a higher price.

Happily, we note that in the last year insiders paid US$1.2m for 111.69k shares. But they sold 6.00k shares for US$71k. In total, Valley National Bancorp 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. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Insider Ownership

Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. Insiders own 1.4% of Valley National Bancorp shares, worth about US$59m. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders.

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So What Does This Data Suggest About Valley National Bancorp Insiders?

The fact that there have been no Valley National Bancorp insider transactions recently certainly doesn't bother us. However, our analysis of transactions over the last year is heartening. Overall we don't see anything to make us think Valley National Bancorp insiders are doubting the company, and they do own shares. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Valley National Bancorp. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Valley National Bancorp you should know about.

But note: Valley National Bancorp may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions 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.
Beijing has condemned what it called a "heinous attack" on a Gaza hospital that brought the Palestinian death toll to nearly 3,500, and it warned that the region will be "engulfed" without a complete ceasefire.

Chinese ambassador Zhang Jun delivered China's statement to the UN Security Council on Wednesday as Washington voted amid the Israel-Gaza war against a United Nations resolution to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

During the Security Council's emergency briefing on Wednesday - a day after a deadly blast on Al-Ahli hospital killed hundreds of civilians and medical workers - Zhang denounced an "indiscriminate use of force" and urged Israel to "effectively fulfil its obligations under international humanitarian law". The Israeli military has denied claims it was behind the attack.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

"Developments over the past few days have amply demonstrated that an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire must be the overriding priority ... Without a comprehensive ceasefire, any amount of humanitarian assistance will be a drop in the bucket," Zhang said in a strongly worded statement to the council.

"If the current fight in Gaza is allowed to drag on, the end result will not be a complete military victory for any side, but rather most likely will be a catastrophe that will engulf the entire region, that will probably completely end the prospect for the two-state solution," Zhang said.

Aerial view of the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza after hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other, in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, October 18, 2023. Photo: Planet Labs PBC/Handout via Reuters alt=Aerial view of the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza after hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other, in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, October 18, 2023. Photo: Planet Labs PBC/Handout via Reuters>

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China's embassy in Israel has advised its nationals to leave the country or return to China as soon as possible to "avoid risks and ensure safety", especially while commercial flights are still operating.

At an earlier vote, the United States was the only country in the 15-member council to veto a Brazil-sponsored resolution to condemn all violence against civilians in the war and urge humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Russia and Britain abstained.

"Arab countries have issued a strong call for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire. The international community should heed this just call of Arab countries and the Palestinian people, and unite all diplomatic efforts towards this goal," said Zhang, who warned against plunging the Israeli and Palestinian people into "a vicious cycle of hatred and confrontation".

The conflict had been brewing for decades before Hamas' surprise attack on October 7, during which the disparity of force and casualties between Israel and Palestine widened as more Palestinian territories were occupied. According to UN numbers, between 2008 and just before the current conflict began, 6,407 Palestinians were killed compared with 308 Israelis deaths.

Zhang further suggested that Palestinians were left with few options to survive Israel's carpet bombing, stressing that "the basic needs of the people in Gaza must be ensured".

"Tens of thousands of people have been forced to move south because of the emergency evacuation order issued by Israel, only to suffer from air strikes in the south as well," Zhang said, noting Israel's total siege of water, electricity and fuel in the Gaza Strip.

Since its occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israel has controlled all water resources and water-related infrastructure. Water consumption by Israelis is at least four times that of Palestinians living in the occupied territories, according to Amnesty International.

Supplies, electricity and humanitarian aid into the Gaza strip are similarly controlled by Israel.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
(Bloomberg) -- US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman held talks by telephone to discuss their security partnership and Middle East developments.

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Earlier, President Joe Biden appealed directly to the American people to support funding for Israel and Ukraines war efforts, warning that Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose parallel threats to US democracy.

Bidens prime-time address precedes a formal White House request that Congress provide roughly $100 billion for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and the US southern border. The US is seeing stepped-up drone attacks in Iraq and Syria, the Pentagon said Thursday, while an American destroyer in the Red Sea intercepted cruise missiles and drones fired toward Israel.

The uptick in activity prompted fresh concerns that Israels war with Hamas might ignite a wider conflict and pull in the US. Oil advanced with global benchmark Brent rising above $93 a barrel, climbing for a fourth day.

US, Saudi Defense Ministers Discuss Middle East (5:40 a.m.)

Austin spoke by telephone with his Saudi counterpart about the two nations security partnership and the situation in the Middle East, according to a readout.

Austin also discussed developments in the Middle East with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad and UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed in separate calls.

Biden Casts Hamas, Russia as Parallel Threats to Democracy (4 a.m.)

Biden appealed directly to the American people to support funding for Israel and Ukraines war efforts, warning that Hamas and Putin present parallel threats to American democracy.

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Bidens prime-time speech on Thursday night preceded a formal White House request that Congress provide roughly $100 billion in resources for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and the US southern border.

I know these conflicts can seem far away, and its natural to ask why does this matter to America? So let me share with you why making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed is vital for Americas national security, Biden said. Hamas and Putin represent different threats. They share this in common: they both want to completely annihilate in neighboring democracy completely.

Oil Gains as Geopolitical Tensions Ratchet Higher (4 a.m.)

Oil advanced as geopolitical tensions ratcheted higher in the Middle East, with prices poised for a second straight weekly gain.

Global benchmark Brent rose above $93 a barrel, climbing for a fourth day. It has been pushed higher by the crisis, which was ignited by the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US and European Union.

There are concerns that the conflict will spread to other states including Iran, and could even potentially draw in the US, which has beefed up its local military presence substantially. The region supplies about a third of the worlds crude.

Israels A1 Credit Rating Placed Under Review (12:25 a.m.)

Moodys placed Israels A1 long-term foreign-currency and local-currency issuer ratings on review, according to a Thursday statement. Previously, the credit assessors outlook for the nation was stable.

Israel has never been downgraded by any of the major ratings companies, even through conflicts and global economic crises. But its rating was already under pressure before the recent military activity, with credit assessors taking an increasingly dim view of the governments efforts to weaken the power of the judiciary. The Moodys warning follows a similar move by Fitch Ratings, which placed the nations credit score on a negative watch earlier this week.

Biden Speaks With Ukraines Zelenskiy (12 a.m.)

Hours before he was to address the nation on Thursday night, President Joe Biden spoke with the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy. They discussed the continued US commitment to supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion, according to the White House.

Zelenskiy said on X, the former Twitter, that he thanked Biden for for the first-ever delivery of ATACMS missiles. Biden, in his speech, plans to talk about Ukraine as well as the US response to the attack on Israel by Hamas, the White House said.

Drones Target US Bases in Syria, Iraq (11:30 p.m.)

The uptick in activity, which targeted US bases in Syria and Iraq, has resulted in minor injuries but prompted fresh concerns that Israels war with Hamas may spark a bigger conflict and pull in the US. The Pentagon is also sending more forces to the region, including fighter jets.

You have to look at these individually  were taking them seriously and responding appropriately, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Thursday. Our focus is on deterring a broader regional conflict, and right now this conflict is contained between Israel and Hamas.

Israel Plans Stimulus to Support Economy During War (7:25 p.m.)

Speaking at a briefing in Jerusalem, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said 1 billion shekels ($247 million) will be spent on a directorate that will handle the rebuilding of southern settlements as well as assistance to victims of this months attack by Hamas, a group designated as terrorists by the US and European Union. Authorities are also set to provide compensation grants to small and medium-sized businesses all across Israel for the first time during war.

Smotrich said the government is planning a wartime stimulus program larger and wider than the support provided to the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, with the budget deficit possibly widening this year to 3.5% of gross domestic product.

Israel Tells Some Diplomats to Leave Turkey Over Security (7:10 p.m.)

Israel asked some of its diplomats in Turkey to leave the country on security grounds, according to a person familiar with the matter. The decision comes after Israel raised travel warning to Turkey to the highest level. The Israel Foreign Ministry said it wouldnt comment about the security of its diplomats.

Israel is also evacuating embassies in other Middle Eastern countries, according to public broadcaster KAN TV.

Egypt Calls for Uninterrupted Distribution of Aid to Gaza (7:06 p.m.)

Distribution of aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should be uninterrupted and continuous, Egypts foreign minister said Thursday, saying theres no alternative to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The idea of relocating Palestinians to other countries is not an option, Sameh Shoukry said, speaking in a joint press conference with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres in Cairo. The UN chief said both Israel and Hamas must halt fighting and that, among other steps by both sides, Hamas should immediately and unconditionally release the hostages its taken.

Egypt-Gaza Border to Open Friday, Broadcaster Says (7 p.m.)

Egypts border crossing with Gaza will open Friday, according to a social media posting on X by Egyptian broadcaster Al-Qahera News.

The Rafah border crossing is the only official entry point into Gaza that isnt controlled by Israel. Al-Qahera News, which often reflects the thinking of Egyptian authorities, cited people it didnt identify and didnt give further details.

Germanys Top Diplomat Phones Palestinian Counterpart (6:48 pm)

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock started her two-day trip to the region by speaking by phone with her counterpart of the Palestinian Territories Riyad al-Maliki. We see the suffering of the Palestinians, Baerbock told him according to a social media post on X. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian civilian population.

Baerbock also discussed the Israel-Gaza conflict with her Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi in Amman. On Friday she plans to travel on to Israel and Lebanon.

Israels Gallant Says Troops to See Gaza From the Inside Soon (6:40 pm)

Israel has said its preparing for significant ground operations in Gaza against Hamas, the group behind the Oct. 7 attack thats designated a terrorist organization by the US and the European Union. Now, Israels defense minister reinforced that message.

You see Gaza from far away now, but soon you will see it from the inside, Yoav Gallant told troops gathering in southern Israel, close to the border with Gaza.

Germany Calls on Citizens to Leave Lebanon, West Bank (6:20 p.m.)

The German Foreign Office urged citizens to leave Lebanon and the West Bank immediately.

A further deterioration of the situation and an expansion of the conflict cannot be ruled out, it said on its official travel and security advice website.

Missiles, Rockets Launched From Lebanon Bring Response (6 p.m.)

Iran-backed Hezbollah targeted five Israeli sites with guided missiles, according to the groups Al-Manar TV. Palestinian militant group Hamas said it fired 30 rockets from south Lebanon into Nahariya and Shlomi in north Israel, the television station said.

Israel said it responded to the source of fire after 20 launches from Lebanon, including five that fell in open areas and one that was intercepted by aerial defenses.

Israel Receives US Cargo Plane Shipment of Armored Vehicles (5:24 pm)

Israel received an initial shipment of armored vehicles to replace those damaged during the war, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

The delivery is part of a large-scale procurement operation that will include armored ambulances, operational armored vehicles, tactical trucks and mechanical engineering equipment. Hundreds of vehicles have already been delivered, with several hundred more currently en route to Israel.

Hamas Calls for Day of Rage Protests Against Israel (2:20p.m.)

Hamas called for a Day of Rage across the Islamic world, encouraging Muslims to stage mass protests against Israel on Friday.

Last week, following a similar call by the militant group, thousands took to the streets in the Middle East and other countries for demonstrations in support of Palestinians living in Gaza.

--With assistance from Janine Phakdeetham.

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Chelsea Jia Feng/Insider

Attorneys in Sam Bankman-Fried's Manhattan trial were chewed out by the judge on Wednesday.

Judge Lewis Kaplan lost his patience over two witnesses who gave useless testimony.

Kaplan was particularly frustrated that one of the witnesses had traveled from Texas to participate.

The judge presiding over Sam Bankman-Fried's trial lost his patience with lawyers on both sides in Manhattan federal court on Monday, calling the questioning of some of their witnesses a "waste" of valuable time.

The blistering comments from Judge Lewis Kaplan came after two witnesses were excused after having been on the stand for less than 45 minutes each  including both direct and cross-examination. Both witnesses gave few productive answers to questions asked of them by the government and the defense.

"We have 18 people devoting time here to this case, and it's really a crime, that part of it," Kaplan said, referring to the jury, which was not in the room at the time. "Obviously, it's a serious case. Obviously, there are all kinds of important things to be determined. But lawyers are supposed to do a little better than this. I am talking to both sides."

Prosecutors accuse Bankman-Fried of defrauding customers and investors of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, out of billions of dollars.

The first witness on Wednesday was Eliora Katz, the former in-house lobbyist for FTX US. While answering questions about company communications, Katz maintained that most of the evidence shown to her had been drafted and published before her time at the company from April to November of 2022.

"She was called essentially as a mannequin to read to the jury documents in evidence and the transcripts of videotapes in evidence, and that was a waste of her time, it was a waste of the jury's time, and it was a waste of everybody else's time," Kaplan said. "I expect different behavior from counsel."

Later in the day, the prosecution called Cory Gaddis, a records custodian at Google who flew to New York from Texas. He was also unable to answer most of the questions he was asked about specific document metadata.

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"And then we are treated to this Mr. Gaddis being hauled up here from Texas to authenticate metadata on, I believe it was five documents, maybe it's seven or eight, as to which there was no dispute at all to get them into evidence," Kaplan said.

"We're not going to do this again," he added, noting there was "fault on both sides."

Kaplan's complaints aside, Wednesday was an otherwise efficient trial day, with four witnesses taking the stand in total.

Peter Easton, an accounting professor and academic director from the University of Notre Dame, testified extensively about analyses he did on FTX's and Alameda's finances.

The day wrapped with Shamel Medrano, an investigative analyst at the US Attorney's Office who testified to various public and private social media messages from Bankman-Fried.

Read the original article on Business Insider
VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 19, 2023 /CNW/ - Klimat X Developments Inc. ("Klimat X" or the "Company") (TSXV: KLX) (FSE: Q1C) a leading provider of high-quality carbon credits sourced exclusively from afforestation and reforestation projects developed and owned by the Company and its stakeholders, is pleased to announce the completion of the second year of planting in Sierra Leone, this achievement has expanded the total area planted to 1,400 ha and enabled payments to be transferred to 170 direct smallholders in the community. The Company provides the following project update.

KLIMAT X Developments Inc. Logo (CNW Group/KLIMAT X Developments Inc.)

The Company completed the landowner lease agreements and disbursements necessary to finalize the 30-year leases required under Sierra Leone law.

The Company has now completed demarcation of more than 20,000 ha of land and transferred payments to 170 smallholders under the supervision of the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank.

All transactions were completed under the scrutiny and review of Namati, an international NGO that ensures smallholders are aware of their rights and sign leasehold contracts under conditions of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

The process is based on a comprehensive community mapping process led by the Company and resolves any land boundary disputes among landowners, village elders, chiefdom councils and paramount chiefs, confirming clear title over the land and the associated carbon. The signing ceremony and transfers were broadcast on Sierra Leone national news.

The Company continues to develop the mangrove restoration project with a further 10ha of trial plots planted from seedlings produced in their nursery. The Company has scaled the nursery capacity for mangrove planting and is prepared to plant up to 300 ha before the end of the calendar year.

The Company has also filed the Project Document (PD) for the mangrove restoration project, a critical step in advancing a project with Verra, the global carbon registry. The PD for mangrove conservation is being developed separately and continues to advance well.

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James Tansey, CEO of Klimat X Developments stated 'This milestone shows the incredible social impact our projects have on rural communities in Sierra Leone. We believe it is critical to address the drivers of deforestation and land degradation by giving local people a strong and equitable stake in the success of these projects. Our customers recognize that this approach to credit development represents the highest quality of carbon credits.'

Nieks Bezuidenhout, CEO of Rewilding Malforki, a Klimat X Delivery Partner in the region and an in-country operator for two decades commented, 'Building on almost 20 years of work in Sierra Leone, we have achieved this milestone in record time and established a model not only for the region but across Africa for a fair and scalable approach to carbon credit production.'

About Klimat X

Klimat X is an owner and operator of nature-based carbon assets that serves the growing demand for carbon credits from companies seeking to meet their Net Zero goals. The Company achieves this by investing in the exploration, restoration and management of terrestrial and marine systems that can either be protected to enhance the sequestration of greenhouse gases or restored from a degraded status to fully productive ecosystems. The Company's dedication to environmental stewardship and its robust pipeline of carbon credit projects makes it a trusted partner to the largest buyers of carbon credits in the world, in the fight against climate change. Klimat X deploys capital at risk under various arrangements (including cooperation, assignment, and production sharing agreements) with government engagement in various suitable jurisdictions around the world.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

"James Tansey"

James Tansey

Chief Executive Officer

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively "forward looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Any statements that are contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "may", "should", "anticipate", "will", "intends" "expects" and similar expressions which are intended to identify forward-looking information or statements. More particularly and without limitation, this press release contains forward looking statements and information concerning the Offering and the ongoing business of the Company. Klimat X cautions that all forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, assumptions and expectations, many of which are beyond the control of Klimat X including expectations and assumptions concerning the Company and the need for additional capital by the Company through financings, and the risk that such funds may not be raised. 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 Klimat X. 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 press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and Klimat X 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 securities law.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in any jurisdiction.

SOURCE KLIMAT X Developments Inc.

Cision

View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2023/19/c4874.html
UAE and Qatar secure spots in the global top 10, ranking 7th, and 9th respectively in the Global Electric Mobility Readiness Index (Gemrix) 2023 published by Arthur D. Little, the worlds first management consulting firm.

The report reveals significant advancements in electric vehicle (EV) readiness across the Mena region, with Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia also featuring in the global rankings. This achievement signifies the Mena region's commitment to sustainable transportation and their aim to reduce carbon emissions.

Gemrix 2023, the third edition of the study, expands its scope to include 35 markets across all continents. making it the most comprehensive electric vehicle market readiness indicator available in the industry today.

Surge in EV adoption

This expansion highlights a notable surge in global EV adoption, driven by government initiatives and consumer willingness. Particularly in the Mena region, the transition to electric vehicles is not just a trend but a strategic move aligned with broader climate action plans.

These efforts are aimed at both economic diversification and addressing environmental concerns, as the transport sector undergoes a significant shift toward sustainable energy to combat its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

In the Mena region, the push for electric vehicles (EVs) is not merely a trend but a part of broader national strategies to combat climate change and diversify economies. While Norway maintains its position as the global leader in EV readiness, China emerges as a close contender.

These efforts are aligned with global commitments to net-zero emissions, making e-mobility a strategic focus for governments and automotive executives alike.

Uniquely positioned

Joseph Salem, Partner and Travel and Transportation Practice Lead at Arthur D Little Middle East, commented: "The Mena region is uniquely positioned to contribute to the global e-mobility landscape. With varying demographics, economic conditions, and energy generation capabilities, these countries offer a rich tapestry of opportunities and challenges.

The Gemrix 2023 report sheds light on how Mena countries are not just participants but active contributors in shaping the future of electric mobility."

In the UAE, the government's focus on sustainable transportation is evident. As part of the Dubai Green Mobility Strategy 2030, Dubai aims to have approximately 42,000 electric cars on its roads by 2030.

The country has also made significant strides in charging infrastructure, boasting around 700 charging stations. Furthermore, a remarkable 82% of individuals in the UAE are willing to purchase an EV as their next vehicle.

Qatar is another Mena country making substantial progress in e-mobility. According to Qatar National Vision 2030, the country has already achieved its target of electrifying 25% of its public transit bus fleet by 2022. Financial institutions in Qatar are facilitating the adoption of EVs by offering green financing options, and approximately 74% of individuals are considering an EV for their next vehicle purchase.

Accelerated pace

Andreas Schlosser, Partner and Global Lead of the Automotive Group at Arthur D. Little, stated: "The data speaks volumes about the accelerated pace of EV adoption in the Mena region. The commitment from both governments and the private sector is not just aspirational; it is backed by actionable plans and significant investments. The high willingness among consumers to switch to electric vehicles further solidifies the region's role as a key player in the global transition to sustainable mobility."

The findings of the Gemrix 2023 report highlight the meaningful progress being made in the Mena region toward a more sustainable future in transportation. Government initiatives and collaborations between public and private sectors are effectively broadening the scope of electric vehicle infrastructure.

These efforts are aligned with global commitments to achieve net-zero emissions, making the reduction of carbon emissions a tangible goal. Advances in electric vehicle technology are also making these vehicles increasingly accessible to a wider range of consumers. As a result, the Mena region is not just adapting to the global shift toward electric mobility but is actively contributing to it, signalling a future that is both promising and sustainable.--TradeArabia News Service
Kurt Geiger could be up for auction in the coming months.

According to reports, the private equity parent company of the UK-based footwear and accessories company, Cinven, is in talks with advisers at Bank of America to explore a possible auction of the brand.

More from Footwear News

A sale process is expected to begin in the coming months, with interest anticipated from luxury goods groups and other buyout firms, Sky News reported earlier this week. Some reports have the deal valued at 400 million British pounds ($486 million based on current exchange rate).

FN has reached out to Kurt Geiger for comment.

Kurt Geiger has been a fixture in the footwear industry since 1963, when it opened its first boutique on Bond Street in London. Since then, the company has landed in the hands of many private owners across multiple decades.

According to The Guardian, the business was first sold by Mr. Geigers widow to the Spitz family in 1972 for an undisclosed sum. David Spitz, the South African-born businessman who founded Carvela shoes, then sold his retailing business and Kurt Geiger to House of Fraser, owned at the time by Mohamed Al Fayed who held onto the brand for 20 years.

In 2005, Al Fayed, who by then owned Harrods and the Paris Ritz hotel, sold Kurt Geiger to a management buyout team for 46 million pounds. The deal was backed by Barclays Private Equity and saw the venture capital firm retain a 72 percent stake in the business.

Then, in 2008, Barclays sold its stake to Graphite Capital, which held onto Kurt Geiger until 2011 when it sold the brand to The Jones Group for $350 million. And another management-led buyout came in 2014 with the help of Sycamore Partners that transpired when the former Jones Group portfolio was broken up into pieces. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Finally, Kurt Geiger found its latest home in Cinven in 2015 in a deal with Sycamore valued at $372 million. Since joined the private equity giant, Kurt Geiger has increased its overseas presence in recent years. This expansion was helped by a new $190 million funding package provided by Blazehill Capital and Wells Fargo Capital Finance UK in June to refinance its existing debt.

A new phase of expansion was heralded last month with the company opened a new 2,916-square-foot store on Londons Oxford Street. At the time of the opening, the company said it marked the first step in a major retail rollout that will see it open nine stores in North America in the coming year.

Starting this month, Kurt Geiger is slated to open three stores in Mexico with local partner El Palacio before moving across the border to the U.S., the brands largest market globally.

In April, the brand will begin its U.S. rollout, opening a 1,500-square-foot store at Aventura Mall in Miami. Kurt Geiger plans to open a second standalone unit in Florida, three in southern California, and one in New York.

The brand is already distributed in the U.S. through Nordstrom, Dillards, Bloomingdales and online. Overall, Kurt Geiger has 400 points of sale in North America.

Best of Footwear News
BOSTON & NEW YORK, October 19, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--LaVoieHealthScience (LHS), an integrated investor and public relations consulting agency focused on advancing health and science innovations, is now part of IPREX, the top independent global communications and PR network with more than 1,100 communications professionals in more than 100 markets globally.

LaVoieHealthScience (LHS) was established in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2001. Since its launch, the agency has developed a practice centered around delivering and executing strategic communication programs. These programs encompass a wide range of services, including strategy consulting, public relations, investor relations, as well as corporate, product, and marketing communications support.

The agency places particular emphasis on comprehending the details of life science markets, which include areas such as pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, mobile health, medical devices and related technology markets. Through strategic partnerships with industry-leading companies and brands, we assist with company growth, capital acquisition, and the engagement of essential customers by providing integrated communication and marketing solutions.

LHS clients are industry leaders in life sciences, and the agency has earned a notable reputation in the industry, is ranked by O'Dwyer's PR as one of the Top 25 independent healthcare PR firms in the United States. In addition, the agency has consistently secured a place among the Agency Elite Top 100 from 2020 to 2022.

President and CEO Donna LaVoie said: "We have established a dedicated team of strategic thinkers with unique expertise in the ever-evolving life science industry. Our clients increasingly require global representation across various critical stakeholders, such as investors, media, physicians, patients, payers, and partners. This need has driven our decision to expand our global reach and partner with IPREX, a global communications leader supporting some of the worlds foremost brands."

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IPREX Americas President Laura Phillips (Vehr Communications; Cincinnati, Ohio), welcomed LHS: "Our strategy in advancing and differentiating IPREX is to offer clients in-depth knowledge of industry sectors and practice skills in markets around the world, and LaVoieHealthScience brings world-class expertise to our healthcare practice. Donna and her team also add valuable experience to our investor relations and communication capabilities, and the work they have done internationally over many years ensures that they will fit perfectly with our network."

About IPREX

IPREX leverages the entrepreneurial energy, expertise, and connections of the best independent PR and communications agencies in more than 100 markets across the globe, making it the top global communications and PR network. With more than 1,100 communications professionals.

IPREX has more than 1,100 communications and PR professionals in more than 100 markets globally. The network covers six continents and 53 countries. The locations are overseen by local senior leaders who take a highly active role and interest in client success.

About LaVoieHealthScience

With roots in one of the worlds leading health and innovation markets, LHS is a strategic, integrated communications firm with a keen focus on solving complex communications challenges. The firm is staffed with specialized thinkers in health and science innovation and provides strategy consulting, investor relations and corporate communications, public relations, and marketing support to build recognition for health science innovators.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231017356694/en/

Contacts

LaVoieHealthScience

Abigail Ramsay

aramsay@lavoiehealthscience.com

+1 617-865-3940
square mile london

London has overtaken Paris to regain its crown as Europes largest stock market in a boost for the City.

The market value of stocks in London is now $2.888 trillion (2.39 trillion), compared to Pariss $2.887 trillion, according to a Bloomberg index.

It comes after the Square Mile was leapfrogged by the French capital last year as the largest centre for trading equities in Europe.

However, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has been boosted in recent months by energy giants BP and Shell, which have seen their values rise from surging oil prices.

Meanwhile, Paris has struggled amid Chinas economic slowdown, with nearly $270bn wiped off the combined market values of luxury brands such as LVMH, LOreal and Hermes since April.

It marks a rare boost for the Citys stock market which has struggled amid a prolonged deal-making drought, with several FTSE 100 companies also pledging to shift their listings to New York in recent months.

British technology firm Arm also shunned London for a bumper listing in the US.

Confidence in the London market has fallen in recent years as economic malaise and political uncertainty have pushed international investors to look elsewhere.

Despite regaining its lead on Paris, the gap between the two exchanges has narrowed significantly in the last decade.

At one point in 2014, when the pound was stronger, the market value of UK stocks was almost $2 trillion larger in dollar terms than Paris.

Brussels has also staged a raid on the Square Mile since Brexit, telling banks that they must shift staff from London to the EU if they are responsible for significant trading activity on the Continent.

Separately, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) reported on Thursday that third-quarter revenues from its equities business fell 8.6pc owing to subdued volumes in both primary and secondary markets.

However, turnover across its capital markets arm rose more than 6pc during the period.

David Schwimmer, LSEGs chief executive, said: LSEG delivered another quarter of strong, broad-based growth. Our capital markets revenues accelerated in the third quarter.

Shares in LSEG rose 1.5pc to 82 in early trading on Thursday.

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(Bloomberg) -- A system incident halted trading in hundreds of shares on the London Stock Exchange for the final 80 minutes of Thursdays session.

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The outage affected mostly smaller-cap equities, but included several high-profile names such as Asos Plc, Deliveroo Plc and Metro Bank Holdings Plc, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Stocks on the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 250 and international orderbook werent affected, London Stock Exchange Group Plc said on its website.

The halt led to very subdued trading in the impacted segments of the market, said Dominic Gauld, an equity trader at stock broker Peel Hunt.

The LSE said the affected stocks didnt go through an end-of-day auction, a particularly important event for passive investors and fund managers who benchmark the closing price. Exchange-traded funds mostly trade at the close to track final prices.

Closing prices were published 30 minutes later than usual, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Its not the first time that the UKs main stock trading venue has suffered such a glitch. In 2019, the LSE had an outage that lasted about an hour and 40 minutes. It was also hit by a one-hour trading delay in June 2018, caused by a software issue.

--With assistance from Michael Msika and William Shaw.

(Adds statement on closing auction in third paragraph)

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2023 Bloomberg L.P.
BING-JHEN HONG / Getty Images

Tesla has made headlines in recent years as much for the volatility in its stock price as for its groundbreaking innovation in the world of electric vehicles and battery storage. After posting an incredible 700% gain in 2020, Tesla rose another 50% in 2021 before falling 65% in 2022 and then popping over 100% YTD in 2023. While that means some traders have made fortunes, others have lost them, and the stock would still have to gain about 60% from current levels just to match its 2021 high.

See: 10 Stocks That Could Be the Next Apple or Amazon

Find: 3 Things You Must Do When Your Savings Reach $50,000

But Tesla is far from the only stock in this category. Other EV stocks, even those that may end up being eventual winners, have been similarly volatile Some non-EV tech stocks have also had wild runs as investors argue over their future potential. If these are the types of stocks you enjoy owning, heres a list of names that can give you the same kind of volatility and potential returns as Tesla.

Meta Platforms (FB)

YTD gain as of Oct. 16, 2023: 166.88%

Meta Platforms is one of the big winners of 2023, but its coming off a huge loss of 64.22% in 2022, meaning the stock is still well below its 2021 high. The social media company has cast its lot with the future of AI, planning on using generative AI to fuel its advertising business going forward. This AI connection is one of the reasons that investors have piled into it in 2023.

Nvidia (NVDA)

YTD gain as of Oct. 16, 2023: 215.32%

Nvidia has been a stock market darling in 2023, more than tripling in price amid a surge of enthusiasm for artificial intelligence-related stocks. Nvidia, according to the New York Times, makes 70% of the chips required for AI processes, and an even greater market share for generative AI.

The companys competitive advantage makes a case for further gains in the future, but volatility is the cost that investors have to pay. In between gains of 125.29% in 2021 and 215.32% YTD in 2023 was a painful loss of 50.31% in 2022.

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Im a Self-Made Millionaire: These Are the 6 Investments Everyone Should Make During an Economic Downturn

On Semiconductor (ON)

YTD gain as of Oct. 16, 2023: 46.98%

On Semiconductor isnt nearly as well-known as Nvidia and Meta Platforms but it mostly avoided the tech rout that dragged those companies down in 2022, dropping just 8.17%. The company sandwiched that small loss with big gains of 107.52% in 2021 and 46.98% so far in 2023, contributing to a whopping 250.42% three-year gain. That trumps even Nvidias gain of 239.07% over the same period.

The company, which provides intelligent power and sensing solutions, has its fingers in many high-growth pies, ranging from EVs and industrial automation to smart cities, charging infrastructure and robotics.

Quantumscape (QS)

YTD gain as of Oct. 16, 2023: 10.67%

In terms of its industry, Quantumscape probably has the closest ties to Tesla as any company on this list. Quantumscape builds next-gen, solid-state, lithium-metal EV batteries, focusing solely on faster charging, enhanced safety and larger energy capacity.

The mid-cap company, with a market cap of just over $3 billion, is much more of the boom-or-bust variety than the established large-caps on this list, and the stock has lost more than half its value over the past three years. Analysts have a $7.80 consensus price target on the stock, about 24% above current levels, but the truth is that the company will likely either be a home run or an also-ran in the exciting, competitive industry.

Blink Charging (BLNK)

YTD gain as of Oct. 16, 2023: -72.47%

Blink Charging is a small-cap, aggressive bet that, while having future potential, has provided nothing but disappointment to investors so far. Just ask those who bought the now-$3 stock at above $60 per share in 2021. On the surface, the stock seems like a sure winner  as the world moves to electric vehicles, more and more chargers will be needed, and that is Blinks core business.

But the company isnt profitable, and Teslas recent news that its going to open its supercharging network to non-Tesla vehicles may be a difficult obstacle for the company to overcome. All-in-all, the company is more of a speculation now, only appropriate for highly aggressive investors  but those who like Tesla may be willing to take on that kind of risk.

Global X Autonomous & Electric Vehicles ETF (DRIV)

YTD gain as of Oct. 16, 2023: 15.38%

If you want exposure to the world of EVs and autonomous driving, one way to cover all of your bases in a single investment is to buy an exchange-traded fund.

The Global X Autonomous & Electric Vehicles ETFs top 10 holdings are currently Alphabet, Nvidia, Toyota Motor, Apple, Tesla, Intel, Honeywell, Qualcomm, Microsoft and Honda Motor. Its also got the volatility that Tesla investors might enjoy, with a beta 43% greater than the S&P 500. The ETFs returns for the past four years have been 28.54%, 62.75%, 27.80% and -34.14% in 20222.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Love Investing in Tesla? Here Are 6 Other Similar Stocks You Might Like
shapecharge / Getty Images

Generations of gifted wordsmiths have dreamed about writing the next great American novel. But even the most talented scribes usually start out as starving artists, and many tap out before their ambition pays off because work, bills, kids and life get in the way as years, decades and, eventually, their artistic aspirations pass them by.

Social Security: Is the $16,728 Yearly Bonus Real?

Find Out: The Simple, Effective Way To Fortify Your Retirement Mix

But GOBankingRates spoke with two retirees who are living proof that its truly never too late  particularly when you leverage your Social Security checks as fuel for your dreams.

The following stories are from a former corporate employee and a career attorney who used their retirement benefits to will their long-held literary passions into reality.

Their post-career lives prove that  with talent, persistence and a monthly Social Security check  everyone can write the final chapter of their own stories.

The Pandemic Signals the End of One Career and the Start of Another

Michelle DeMarco is a recent retiree who began collecting Social Security benefits when she turned 67 in 2023. Like so many older workers during the COVID-19 crisis  particularly aging women  involuntary retirement became a side effect of the virus.

During the pandemic, I was downsized from my position at a Fortune 100 company, said DeMarco.

That company was MassMutual, where DeMarco served as a visual media designer working as part of a 12-person corporate communication team. She and her team used their skills to bring web pages, marketing materials, articles and social media platforms to life with visual conceptualization.

Then, as quickly as COVID-19 spread, her career was over  but DeMarco was just getting started.

Retired but Want To Work? Try These 8 Jobs for Seniors That Require Little to No Experience

Benefits Bring a Passion Project to Life

DeMarcos long service to a major company put her in a good position to delay claiming Social Security until she reached full retirement age. Not content to sit idle while she waited, she hatched a plan to pursue her long-held literary passions while her benefits matured.

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I had some money in several 401(k)s, said DeMarco. Given the circumstances and my good fortune to have excellent health and energy, I wanted to continue contributing. So, I founded an indie publishing company.

That company was llamaGoose Studios, where she serves as the founder and creative director.

A women-owned company in western New England, the studio is rooted in DeMarcos love of nature. It creates and produces high-end artisanal coloring books, which incorporate animals, insects and the natural world into their themes and imagery, all made with environmentally sustainable materials.

None of it would have been possible if she had to rely on her retirement accounts alone.

I am growing this business and thoroughly enjoying using my intelligence, creativity, and, yes, the base of my Social Security, said DeMarco.

An Attorney By Trade, a Writer at Heart

Mark Bello retired in his late 60s after practicing law for more than 40 years. A longtime civil justice advocate, Bello has spent decades leveraging his position as an attorney to promote equity and fairness in the criminal justice system and society at large.

But hes spent decades pondering another passion that he had to sideline but never stopped nurturing.

In my 30s, I handled a case I thought might make a compelling novel, but life got in the way, said Bello. My wife and I had four children, and my practice kept me quite busy.

Social Security Revives a Dream That Spent 30 Years Smoldering

Decades later, Bellos children aged into adulthood, his legal practice wound down and the hectic pace of his life lost momentum  and thats when his long-dormant dream of writing about his exciting career began gnawing at him once again.

Luckily, he had a steady source of side income to fan the flames of his passion.

After I retired, I used some of my Social Security money to fulfill that bucket list item, said Bello.

After penning the book that hed long dreamed about writing, the passion became an obsession, and Bello was working full-time once again  but this time, he was unencumbered by time, responsibility and financial obligations. The result was a tidal wave of creative output  and thanks to Social Security, he can write without caring whether his passion will pay, although it certainly has.

I wrote my first novel in 2019, he said. Since then, Ive written nine Zachary Blake legal thrillers, a cozy legal mystery and two childrens books in four years. I also have a blog and a podcast. Not bad for a retired person. Im having a ball.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Im a Retiree: This Is the Best Thing Ive Done With My Social Security Check
MetAlert Inc.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, Oct. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MetAlert, Inc. (OTC: MLRT) ("the Company"), renowned for its pioneering efforts in GPS wearable technology and its leadership in human and asset tracking and recovery systems, announced today its strategic partnership with Personal Care Products by ME" (PCPbyMe). With the signing of this memorandum of understanding, MetAlert will acquire the distribution and subscription management rights for the "ME" product line. Based in Orlando, Florida, PCPbyMe represents the forefront of innovation in personal grooming solutions tailored for men."



Partnering with MetAlert was a strategic decision driven in our commitment to ensuring a smooth launch and providing continuous, efficient product distribution and subscription management for our valued customers. As a brand that thrives on innovation and top-tier customer satisfaction, we found commonality in MetAlert's custom tailored distribution approach. Where other potential partners saw our multifaceted business model as a challenge, MetAlert viewed it as a core competency, presenting a comprehensive, turn-key solution that fits our unique needs. This collaboration marks the first step in what we hope will be an even more expansive and fruitful relationship going forward. We're confident that with MetAlert's expertise, well be well positioned to offer an unmatched customer experience," Stated Mr. Perle CEO of PCPbyMe.

"We look forward to developing this partnership with PCPbyMe and see it as another strategic move to bolster our core operations and expand our visibility into new markets. It aligns with our established proficiency in managing customer subscriptions and product fulfillment, which we regularly do for our own products and have for other companies in the past, expressed MetAlert CEO Patrick Bertagna.

As per the MOU, both companies committed to signing a definitive agreement within 90 days, whereby MetAlert will assume responsibility for the ME inventory logistics, shipping operations, and processing of the monthly subscription billing and credit card processing. This coincides with MetAlerts recent acquisition of Level 2 Security, and the buildout of its infrastructure to support the expected increase in product distribution and subscription onboarding.

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Patrick Bertagna, concluded with, "MetAlert's commitment to improving lives and enhancing safety through technological innovation remains unwavering. To that end we are also pleased to announce this new partnership with PCP by 'ME' which allows us to not only maximize our existing infrastructure but also achieve economies of scale, leading to more efficient operations and better margins. By integrating our expertise in distribution and customer subscription management, we're setting 'ME' on a path to success in a burgeoning market and MetAlert on a path to broader horizons and future opportunities that extend beyond our current offerings.

About "PCPbyMe"

Orlando, Florida, Personal Care Products by "ME" ("PCPbyMe") is not just another name in the grooming industry; we're a technology powerhouse reshaping the landscape of men's personal care. Merging innovative proprietary solutions with AI-driven techniques, we stand at the forefront of a transformation in the personal grooming sector for mena market poised to reach a staggering $76 billion by 2026. Beyond offering premium products, PCPbyMe is also a pioneer in discreet subscription services, ensuring our discerning clientele receive unparalleled hair care and coloring solutions right at their doorstep. Dive deeper into our world of precision and innovation at www.pcpbyme.com.

About MetAlert, Inc.

MetAlert (OTC: MLRT) and its subsidiaries occupy a commanding position in the design, development, manufacturing, distribution, sales, and licensing of GPS wearable technology, asset recovery services, wandering assistive technology, and health data collection and monitoring. With over two decades of industry expertise and a robust portfolio of patents, MetAlert is the go-to solution provider for consumers and patients grappling with mobility, cognitive, and spatial awareness challenges. This demographic represents approximately 2.9% of the global population. The Company delivers comprehensive global solutions encompassing logistics, hardware, software, and connectivity.

Notable achievements include the groundbreaking GPS SmartSole, a fusion of Dr. Scholl's comfort with LoJack's tracking prowess. It stands as the world's inaugural invisible wearable tracking device, designed for individuals susceptible to wandering due to Alzheimer's, dementia, autism, and traumatic brain injury. MetAlert's subscription-based model thrives on technology innovation fortified by intellectual property safeguards. The company boasts international distribution channels serving customers across 40 countries, alongside its role as a U.S. Military Government contractor. In addition to public health entities, MetAlert caters to municipalities, emergency and law enforcement agencies, private educational institutions, assisted living facilities, NGOs, senior care residences, consumers, and small enterprises. Recognizing its excess capacity within its distribution center and backend processes also presents an opportunity to expand revenue streams and diversify its operations.

Connect with Us

For all press or sales inquiries, please contact MetAlert at info@metalert.com

Social Media:

FB: https://www.facebook.com/metalertinc

IG: https://www.instagram.com/metalert/?hl=en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/metalertinc

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/metalertinc/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUlYP1WQoLdKkDzwhGkx40Q

For general information, investor relations, wholesale licensing, and consumer purchase:

MetAlert, Inc.

Tel: 213.489.3019

Email: info@metalert.com or ir@metalert.com

MetAlert

United Kingdom, London

Nelson Skip Riddle

Tel: +44 7785 364100

Email: nsriddle@metalert.com

Level 2 Security (Wholly owned subsidiary)

www.mygunalert.com

www.ifitmoves.com

Email: contactus@level2sec.com

Become a Brand Ambassador

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements. The terms and phrases expects, would, will, believes, and similar terms and phrases are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by MetAlert considering its experience and perception of current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that MetAlert believes are appropriate in the circumstances. Many factors could cause MetAlerts actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Certain risk factors that may cause actual results to differ are outlined in MetAlerts Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (which may be obtained on the SEC Website). These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not rely on MetAlerts forward-looking statements. MetAlert has no intention and undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required.

Disclaimer: MetAlert does not warrant or represent that the unauthorized use of materials drawn from this document's content will not infringe the rights of third parties who are not owned or affiliated by MetAlert. Further, MetAlert cannot be held responsible or liable for the unauthorized use of this documents content by third parties unknown to the company.




(Bloomberg) -- Netflix Inc. gained the most since January 2021 after posting its best quarter for subscriber growth in years. The company credited a strong programming slate and its crackdown on password sharing.

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The worlds top paid-streaming service said Wednesday it added 8.76 million customers in the third quarter, far exceeding analysts forecasts and boosting its overall subscriber base to 247.2 million. Netflix is raising prices for some customers in the US, UK and France, a sign of managements confidence in the future even as rival streaming services lose money.

Investors have worried that Netflix might lose customers if it forced people who were sharing accounts to buy their own subscriptions. But the crackdown has led to a surge in new customers without a major increase in cancellations. Netflix is now on track to add more than 20 million customers this year, a big jump from fewer than 9 million in 2022.

Shares of Netflix rose 15.87% to $401.12 at 10:44 a.m. in New York. They are up more than 36% this year, beating the 12% gain for the S&P 500 Index.

The successful rollout of paid sharing, which lets customers purchase additional access for friends or family, has emboldened Netflix to raise prices in some of its biggest markets. Starting Wednesday, the company is increasing the cost of its most expensive plan in the US by $3 to $23 and its basic plan by $2 to $12, while keeping two other plans the same. Its taking similar steps in the UK and France, two other large markets.

Europe, the Middle East and Africa accounted for the largest share of Netflixs growth in the third quarter. The company added almost 4 million customers in that region. The average amount Netflix makes per customers hasnt changed much in the past year.

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This quarter, Netflix predicts revenue of $8.69 billion and earnings of $2.15 a share, both slightly below Wall Street projections. The company said subscriber additions would be similar to the just-ended quarter, plus or minus a few million.

The benefits of the password crackdown will continue over the next several quarters because Netflix has been implementing the plan in stages.

Were incredibly pleased with how its been going, co-Chief Executive Officer Greg Peters said in a videotaped interview released after results came out.

Cracking down on password sharing is one of a couple major initiatives at Netflix, which is trying to revive growth after a sluggish year or two. The company also rolled out an advertising-supported version of its streaming services in 12 markets. About 30% of new customers in those markets opted for ads last quarter, the company said.

Netflix has returned to growth as many of its peers struggled to figure out their streaming operations. Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros Discovery Inc. and Paramount Global have all cut costs and fired staff to improve their financial performance. They have spent billions of dollars to fund new streaming services that can replace their declining linear TV networks. But most of the newer streaming services lose money.

On the other hand, Netflix reported third-quarter revenue and profit that exceeded Wall Street expectations. Earnings rose to $3.73 a share, beating estimates of $3.56, while revenue grew 7.8% to $8.54 billion, slightly ahead of forecasts.

The company also said profit margins would improve to at least 22% next year and have the potential to grow further in the years ahead.

Cash flow was boosted by the labor stoppage in Hollywood. Management expects $6.5 billion in free cash flow this year, up from a prior forecast of at least $5 billion. This includes about $1 billion less in spending on content due to the strikes.

But the labor stoppage has had little impact on Netflixs release schedule because many programs were already completed. The company released new seasons of the hit shows Virgin River and Heartstopper and created new hits such as the manga adaptation One Piece.

Netflixs biggest hit in the quarter wasnt an original though. Suits, a series that first aired on USA Network, was the most-watched program on streaming all summer thanks to viewing on Netflix. On Wednesday, the company also announced a deal to release animated films produced by David Ellisons Skydance Media.

Weve shown that with discipline and a focus on the long term, you can build a strong, sustainable streaming business, the company said in a letter to shareholders.

(Updates with jump in share price in first and fourth paragraph)

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2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Slide Insurance, a newcomer to the Florida home insurance industry, will assume 86,000 policies from Farmers Insurance, which announced in July that it was no longer writing home insurance policies in Florida and exiting the state.

The Farmers Insurance assumptions Slide will take on do not include auto, renter or umbrella policies, and will only impact policies set to renew in February 2024. Farmers agents will be offered appointments with Slide, allowing homeowners the possibility of staying with their insurance agent.

Farmers announced in July that the firm would stop writing new business and non-renew its existing Farmers-branded auto, home and umbrella policies in the Sunshine State. Just a month later, Farmers announced that it was laying off around 11% of its workforce, which is about 2,400 employees.

New Citizens takeout companies: These 7 Florida insurance companies OK'd for 168K Citizens takeout policies. What to know

AAA and Progressive Home have since come out and announced plans to non-renew a large number of their Florida home insurance policies. AAA said that it planned to non-renew a small number of its policies, though the company did not give specific details on the number. Progressive dropped an estimated 100,000 policies.

In August, Farmers announced that it was laying off 11% of its workforce, which consisted of about 2,400 employees.

Heres what to know about Slide Insurance and what to do if your policy was assumed.

What is Slide Insurance?

Slide Insurance was founded in 2021 and took on 147,000 Florida home insurance policies from insolvent St. Johns Insurance Co. The firm then went on to assume 91,000 policies from United Property & Casualty before it was put into receivership this year. Most recently, it was approved to assume 75,000 policies from Citizens Insurance, Floridas insurer of last resort.

Slide Insurance says that it has already grown to become one of the largest insurtech companies in the country, a term most are likely unfamiliar with. The term is the amalgamation of the words insurance and tech used to describe a company that uses technology to offer its customers more competitive prices while streamlining the customer experience.

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Dropped by your home insurance company? Dropped by your property insurance provider? A premium spike? Heres what you can do.

Who owns Slide Insurance?

Slide Insurance was founded in 2021 by Bruce Lucas, the former Heritage Insurance founder and CEO.

What is Slide Insurance financial rating?

Slide Insurance has an A or Exceptional financial stability rating from Demotech, Inc. It finalized a $100 million catastrophe bond and secured $35 million in additional capital over the summer. Slide has $65,304,864 in policyholders surplus, which is the capital and surplus of an insurance company, according to Demotech.

How long has Slide Insurance been in business?

Slide Insurance was founded in 2021.

The cost of self-insuring in Florida Florida homeowners insurance prices are skyrocketing. Is self-insuring the answer?

What states does Slide Insurance write in?

Slide Insurance only operates in the state of Florida.

What should I do if my policy is being assumed?

If you received a letter indicating that your policy is being assumed by a company, due to any number of reasons, the first thing to do is get in touch with your insurance agent. In the past, the easiest route was simply allowing your policy to be assumed. This process is typically automated for homeowners as the policy will go into effect on the date specified in the assumption letter.

Reaching out to your agent early has many benefits: They can go ahead and get quotes ready to verify if the company that assumes your policy is competitive, they can help you review your coverage and make sure the new policy fully covers you and they can give you advice on how to proceed, which could include notifying you of needed inspections and more.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: 86K Farmers Insurance policies to go to Slide Insurance. What to know
A Marysville estate on the market for $2 million includes a 4,000-foot airstrip, to the right of the house in this photo.

A Marysville home new to the market is tucked away on 33 acres miles from the nearest city.

But no worries. Buyers can simply fly home.

The property was formerly owned by Scotts Micacle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn, a pilot, who bought the home largely because it had a 4,000-foot-long airstrip and a hangar for easy commute to and from his New York home. (Hagedorn later added a second hangar.)

Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn is a former Air Force fighter pilot

"That's the nicest home with an airport in the U.S.," said Hagedorn, who sold the home a decade ago to its current owners, Jeffrey Brashares and Angie Ash.

Hagedorn said unlike many rural airstrips, which are mowed patches of field, this one was graded, with a foundation, a pitch, drainage and lighting. "It was done right," he said.

A Marysville estate with an airstrip, two plane hangars and a guest house on 33 acres has been listed for $2 million.

Visitors access the estate through a gate and a long tree-lined drive that takes them past a 1.3-acre stocked pond with a fountain. A conference center that can serve as a guest house, with a bedroom, kitchen and full bath, sits along the entrance drive.

"Its almost magical when youre pulling up," said Kaeli Getz, an agent with Red 1 Realty's Brighter Homes Group who is listing the home for $2 million. "Youre sitting on more than 30 acres. You have not only the guest house, but the pond with the fountain. ... It's beautiful."

More: Dublin couple prepare to leave land that's been in the family two centuries

The two-story main house, in a brick Colonial style, includes four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms and 8,469 square feet.

The entrance to a Marysville home new to the market serves as a gallery for the current owner's clock collection.

The first floor includes a primary bedroom, living room, dining room and kitchen, most featuring detailed woodwork and built-ins. A loft at the top of the stairs leads to the remaining bedrooms. A finished basement includes another full bath.

A brick terrace and two trellises, one covering a hot tub, can be found in the back of the home. A three-car garage with a walk-up second floor occupies one wing of the home.

Finally, behind the home sit the two attached plane hangars, 50 x 96 feet and 54 x 96 feet, each with its own concrete apron to the grass airstrip. The hangars are now used to store the current owners' car collection.

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Two airplane hangars have direct access to an airstrip behind a newly listed Marysville home.

"This is a perfect place to have your hobbies at home with you," Getz said. "The convenience to fly home and have a conference center/guest house on the property along with two air plane hangars is extraordinary."

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Marysville home listed for $2 million comes with airstrip and hangars
Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the largest industrial company in the UAE outside oil and gas, has appointed women as utility operators for the first time in the companys more than four-decade-old history.

The move is part of EGAs commitment to promote gender diversity at all levels of its business. By 2026, EGAs goal is that 15% of all positions at the company held by women. EGA aims to increase the proportion of supervisory roles held by women to 25% by 2025, from around 20% today.

Utility operators are frontline non-supervisory employees in EGAs industrial operations. EGA is a pioneer in recruiting women for these types of roles in the Gulf, and this required new international recruitment strategies.

470 women

EGA already has over 470 women working at all levels, including more than 160 in Operations but none at the utility operator level.

EGA has deployed significant resources to facilitate greater gender diversity, from developing new strategies for worker accommodation, to building facilities for women in other parts of the companys plants which were not originally constructed with them.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of EGA, said: Diversity drives business performance and is also good for society. We are charting new paths for women into roles throughout EGA. As we embrace this transformative approach, we align ourselves with the broader objectives of the UAE and set a benchmark for others to follow.

National Training programmes

In 2022, EGA opened National Training programmes for technical roles in industrial operations to women for the first time, with 11 young UAE National women joining during the year.

The company currently has 75 graduate trainees, 49 of them women. Graduate trainees complete 18 or 24 months of training for supervisory positions in corporate functions or in industrial operations.

EGA has appointed women to nine positions on subsidiary Boards in recent years, and is a partner of Aurora50, a UAE organisation which helps prepare women for Board-level roles.--TradeArabia News Service
(Bloomberg) -- Oil rose in another volatile session as a deal expected to bring more Venezuelan crude to the market in the months ahead did little to assuage immediate concerns that the conflict in the Middle East will reduce supplies.

Most Read from Bloomberg

West Texas Intermediate settled above $89 a barrel after swinging in a nearly $3 range on Thursday. Analysts estimate that the USs suspension of some restrictions on Venezuela, in return for plans for freer elections in the country, may enable the South American nation to pump 200,000 more barrels a day, a roughly 25% jump in output.

Still, traders are assessing how much and how quickly more Venezuelan oil could help markets, with a report saying OPEC+ doesnt expect the development to require any change in its policy. Plunging inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, now at a nine-year low, also are keeping traders on edge as the November WTI contract approaches its Friday expiry. That added to volatility in prices into settlement.

Reports of attacks related to the Israel-Hamas war  including a drone strike on an Iraqi base housing US forces  also contributed to choppiness.

Venezuelan crude is only a band-aid solution for the tightening oil market, said Ed Moya, senior markets analyst at Oanda.

The risks of a wider war in the Middle East will likely lead to extensive efforts by the West to cover any shortfalls or disruptions of crude outflows, Moya said. Venezuela wont be able to ramp up output to meaningful levels, so whatever oil-price relief we are seeing should be temporary.

Oils afternoon rally was also bolstered by a broader risk-on sentiment. Financial markets interpreted Chairman Jerome Powells comments at the Economic Club of New York to say that the Federal Reserve is finished hiking rates, a more dovish stance than earlier communicated, Vital Knowledge found Adam Crisafulli wrote in a note to clients.

Story continues

Worries of elevated interest rates and the state of the global economy had suppressed crude prices before Hamass attack on Israel.

US President Joe Biden plans an Oval Office address on the Middle East crisis on Thursday amid a drive to prevent the conflict from escalating. The speech follows a brief midweek visit to Israel to show solidarity following the attack by Hamas.

Oil has been volatile since the Oct. 7 assault on Israel by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US and European Union. An expected ground offensive by Israel into Gaza has raised concerns of a more aggressive response from Iranian-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which could embroil wider regional powers. Worries that the conflict could affect fuel flows have countered the ongoing drag from higher interest rates around the world.

Iran has appealed for an oil embargo against Israel, but Citigroup Inc. said Israels main suppliers, including Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, were unlikely to heed such a call.

Terminal users can click here for more on the Israel-Hamas War.

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2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Looking at Tribune Resources Limited's (ASX:TBR ) insider transactions over the last year, we can see that insiders were net buyers. That is, there were more number of shares purchased by insiders than there were sold.

While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether.

View our latest analysis for Tribune Resources

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Tribune Resources

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by CEO, MD & Executive Director Anthony Billis for AU$400k worth of shares, at about AU$4.00 per share. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at above the current price of AU$3.01. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. To us, it's very important to consider the price insiders pay for shares. It is encouraging to see an insider paid above the current price for shares, as it suggests they saw value, even at higher levels. Anthony Billis was the only individual insider to buy during the last year.

The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

Insider Ownership Of Tribune Resources

Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. It appears that Tribune Resources insiders own 34% of the company, worth about AU$54m. This level of insider ownership is good but just short of being particularly stand-out. It certainly does suggest a reasonable degree of alignment.

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So What Does This Data Suggest About Tribune Resources Insiders?

It doesn't really mean much that no insider has traded Tribune Resources shares in the last quarter. However, our analysis of transactions over the last year is heartening. Insiders do have a stake in Tribune Resources and their transactions don't cause us concern. While we like knowing what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Tribune Resources (of which 1 can't be ignored!) you should know about.

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.
Key Insights

Using the 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity, Black Diamond Group fair value estimate is CA$10.10

Black Diamond Group is estimated to be 36% undervalued based on current share price of CA$6.42

The CA$9.17 analyst price target for BDI is 9.3% less than our estimate of fair value

In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of Black Diamond Group Limited (TSE:BDI) by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting them to today's value. The Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model is the tool we will apply to do this. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple!

We generally believe that a company's value is the present value of all of the cash it will generate in the future. However, a DCF is just one valuation metric among many, and it is not without flaws. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.

Check out our latest analysis for Black Diamond Group

What's The Estimated Valuation?

We use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of growth rates for the company's cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a lower growth phase. To start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. 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:

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10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 Levered FCF (CA$, Millions) CA$35.5m CA$33.7m CA$37.2m CA$37.7m CA$38.2m CA$38.8m CA$39.4m CA$40.1m CA$40.8m CA$41.5m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x2 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 1.19% Est @ 1.39% Est @ 1.53% Est @ 1.63% Est @ 1.70% Est @ 1.75% Est @ 1.78% Present Value (CA$, Millions) Discounted @ 7.6% CA$33.0 CA$29.1 CA$29.9 CA$28.1 CA$26.5 CA$25.0 CA$23.7 CA$22.4 CA$21.2 CA$20.0

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = CA$259m

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 1.9%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 7.6%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2033  (1 + g)  (r  g) = CA$41m (1 + 1.9%)  (7.6% 1.9%) = CA$741m

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= CA$741m ( 1 + 7.6%)10= CA$358m

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is CA$617m. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of CA$6.4, the company appears quite good value at a 36% 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

Important 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. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Black Diamond Group as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 7.6%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.140. 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 Black Diamond Group

Strength

Earnings growth over the past year exceeded the industry.

Debt is well covered by earnings and cashflows.

Dividends are covered by earnings and cash flows.

Weakness

Earnings growth over the past year is below its 5-year average.

Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Commercial Services market.

Opportunity

Good value based on P/E ratio and estimated fair value.

Threat

Annual earnings are forecast to decline for the next 3 years.

Looking Ahead:

Whilst important, the DCF calculation is only one of many factors that you need to assess for a company. DCF models are not the be-all and end-all of investment valuation. Instead the best use for a DCF model is to test certain assumptions and theories to see if they would lead to the company being undervalued or 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. What is the reason for the share price sitting below the intrinsic value? For Black Diamond Group, we've put together three essential factors you should look at:

Risks: For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Black Diamond Group (1 is a bit concerning!) that you should be aware of before investing here. Future Earnings: How does BDI's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered!

PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Canadian 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.
By Juveria Tabassum and Emma Rumney

(Reuters) -Philip Morris International (PMI) on Thursday lowered its full-year forecast for shipment volumes of its heated tobacco products, overshadowing an increase in annual profit expectations and stronger than predicted third-quarter earnings.

The world's top tobacco company by market value has sought to counter stricter regulations and falling demand for its traditional products in some markets via a shift into smoking alternatives.

Its heated tobacco device IQOS has long been at the core of that plan, consuming the vast majority of the more than $10 billion PMI says it has invested in its transition away from cigarettes since 2008.

Heated tobacco shipment volumes would be lower than previously expected over the full-year, PMI said, citing factors including limited growth in Russia and Ukraine and "uncertainty related to inventory levels" in Europe amid incoming regulations on heated tobacco flavours.

The European Union will later this month implement a ban on flavoured heated tobacco, part of a plan to minimise tobacco use across the bloc by 2040.

PMI's shares, which are down 9% this year, fell 2% in early trade, but recovered to stand 1% down at 1411 GMT.

Chief Financial Officer Emmanuel Babeau said PMI believed any volatility due to the EU ban would be temporary.

We continue to hold the "view that this ban should not ultimately bring major disruption," he said.

However, Gaurav Jain, a director of equity research at Barclays, said it would be hard for PMI to know the full impact of the ban until after it is implemented.

PMI continued to see significant growth in its oral nicotine products like ZYN, acquired via the company's purchase of Swedish Match last year.

ZYN saw a 65.7% increase in shipment volumes to the key U.S. market alone in the quarter, with CEO Jacek Olczak saying the product had "surpassed our expectations yet again".

PMI's quarterly performance was also helped by 18% growth in heated tobacco shipment volumes and a 9% increase in cigarette pricing.

It reported third-quarter adjusted profit of $1.67 per share, surpassing its own guidance range, and raised its annual profit guidance to between $6.05 and $6.08 per share.

(Reporting by Juveria Tabassum and Emma Rumney; editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Kirsten Donovan, Jane Merriman and Susan Fenton)
Royal Philips

Tampere Heart Hospital Finland

October 19, 2023

Sustainability roadmap addresses opportunities to reduce carbon emissions in patient throughput, technology use, and use of consumables

Amsterdam, the Netherlands  Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced the completion of a comprehensive hospital-wide analysis of Tampere Heart Hospital  Tampere University Hospitals (Finland) environmental sustainability, including a deep assessment of the interventional cardiology space and evaluation of its carbon footprint. The results of the analysis have been translated into a joint action plan that will help Heart Hospital accelerate its decarbonization efforts in line with Finlands world-leading commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2035.

Sustainability is an integral part of Tampere Heart Hospital strategy. We are aware that hospitals generate a significant amount of waste daily and consume a lot of energy. We want to contribute to the development of environmental responsibility in healthcare, said Pasi Lehto CEO and Chief Medical Officer at Heart Hospital.

We want to ascertain where we are now and how we can further accelerate our transition towards net zero, said Aki Haukilahti, CFO at Tampere Heart Hospital. Our long-standing relationship with Philips and their industry leadership in driving sustainable healthcare made them a natural partner to help audit our emissions and develop a roadmap for the future.

Part of an existing 15-year strategic managed services agreement between Heart Hospital and Philips, the analysis involved a detailed lifecycle assessment of the hospitals medical equipment, supply chain, and clinical operations. The analysis provided a baseline carbon footprint for Tampere Heart Hospitals interventional cardiology service and facilitated the identification of opportunities to enhance patient throughput and equipment utilization to reduce future emissions. Top findings included optimization of the hospitals patient care pathways to improve efficiency and materials use, and opportunities for reducing inbound airfreight, reducing waste and improving waste separation.

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At Philips, we are committed to driving systemic change towards more sustainable and equitable patient care. Through our healthcare technology and expertise, we can help healthcare providers to support their patients with as little impact on the environment as possible, said Robert Metzke, Global Head of Sustainability at Philips. This valuable and informative analysis with Tampere Heart Hospital, a pioneering and leading global cardiac care provider, will help achieve our shared goal of taking care of patients and the planet at the same time.

In addition to a detailed analysis of carbon emissions associated with the hospitals medical equipment and supply chain, Philips analysis of the hospitals current emissions also encompasses clinical operations in key patient care pathways.

This sustainability program with Tampere Heart Hospital follows similar analyses conducted by Philips earlier in 2023 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, USA) and the private biomedical research and clinical care provider Champalimaud Foundation (Lisbon, Portugal), aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of their diagnostic imaging.

Globally, healthcare systems have a significant climate footprint and make a major contribution to the climate crisis [1]. Building on decades of experience reducing energy consumption, waste, and materials and substance usage, Philips has operated globally carbon-neutral since 2020, embedding EcoDesign principles and circular business models into its innovation processes and ways of working . The company offers a range of health technologies and innovations that help reduce healthcare providers impact on the environment. For example, its Philips Spectral CT 7500 uses 62.5% less energy [2], and the Philips MR  Ingenia Ambition 1.5T , which uses a breakthrough design where the magnetic components are completely sealed and only need seven liters of helium over its lifetime compared to roughly 1,500 liters with other Philips systems [3]. Additionally, with Philips MR SmartSpeed , the Ingenia Ambition 1.5T uses up to 53% less power per patient scan [3].

Read more here on how Philips is partnering with hospitals around the world to drive sustainable healthcare.

[1] https://noharm-global.org/sites/default/files/documents-files/5961/HealthCaresClimateFootprint_092319.pdf

[2] When compared to an equivalent CT model of one of the industry leaders

[3] Applicable to Ambition S. Philips SmartSpeed power consumption versus Philips SENSE based scanning. Based on COCIR and in-house simulated environment. Results can vary based on site conditions.

For further information, please contact:

Joost Maltha

Philips Global Press Office

Tel: +31 6 10 55 8116

Email: joost.maltha@philips.com

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and well-being through meaningful innovation. Philips patient- and people-centric innovation leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver personal health solutions for consumers and professional health solutions for healthcare providers and their patients in the hospital and the home. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, ultrasound, image-guided therapy, monitoring and enterprise informatics, as well as in personal health. Philips generated 2022 sales of EUR 17.8 billion and employs approximately 71,500 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter .

Attachment




By Sergio Goncalves

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal will decide on the size of the stake it will sell in flag carrier TAP once competitors present their proposals, Infrastructure Minister Joao Galamba told a parliamentary committee on Thursday.

The Portuguese government plans to sell at least 51% of TAP as part of a plan to privatise the struggling state-owned airline. It believes finding a private buyer can ensure the brand name is preserved while boosting the company's performance.

Portugal wants prospective bidders to put a value on TAP's strategic routes to the Portuguese-speaking world, including countries such as Brazil, Angola and Mozambique, Galamba told a parliamentary committee

"Before we know the concrete proposals of competitors and any future improvements to these proposals, we cannot define the exact stake (of TAP) that will be sold," Galamba said.

He said that the government will appoint financial advisors soon and plans to approve the privatisation by year-end, with the process concluding by mid-2024.

The airline's privatisation has attracted interest from Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and British Airways owner IAG.

"TAP is one of the last independent flag carriers, due to the consolidation trend in Europe, and today has the unique opportunity to choose its long-term partner," Galamba said.

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; editing by Charlie Devereux and Jonathan Oatis)
(Bloomberg) -- The founder of the protest group that interrupted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powells speech in New York on Thursday called him a climate criminal, arguing he could be doing more to regulate banks that are financing fossil fuel investments.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Jerome Powell is a climate criminal, Michael Greenberg, the founder of Climate Defiance, said in an interview after protesters took to the stage at an Economic Club of New York luncheon moments before the Fed chair was set to speak.

The Fed actually has the power to regulate these banks and significantly reduce fossil fuel financing, and yet they sit around and fiddle as the world burns, Greenberg said.

A Fed spokesperson declined to comment.

Powell was escorted out of the room as the demonstrators chanted arm in arm and held up a banner before the audience. They were then removed from the event, and Powell returned to deliver his remarks. Greenberg said they were not placed under arrest.

Read More: Powell Says Fed Proceeding Carefully, Leaves Door Open to Hike

The Fed chair outlined his thoughts on the central banks role in climate policy in a speech earlier this year, arguing it does have narrow, but important responsibilities regarding climate-related financial risks.

The public reasonably expects supervisors to require that banks understand, and appropriately manage, their material risks, including the financial risks of climate change, Powell said in the Jan. 10 speech.

But without explicit congressional legislation, it would be inappropriate for us to use our monetary policy or supervisory tools to promote a greener economy or to achieve other climate-based goals, he said.

Story continues

Read More: Thunberg Charged by Police Over London Oil Event Protest

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Key Insights

The considerable ownership by private companies in Wilmar International indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy

The top 2 shareholders own 51% of the company

Insiders have been buying lately

Every investor in Wilmar International Limited (SGX:F34) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. With 42% stake, private companies possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And following last week's 4.0% decline in share price, private companies suffered the most losses.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Wilmar International, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Wilmar International

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Wilmar 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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Wilmar International. 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 Wilmar International's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Wilmar International. The Kuok Group is currently the company's largest shareholder with 27% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 24% and 6.9% of the stock. In addition, we found that Khoon Hong Kuok, the CEO has 6.6% of the shares allocated to their name.

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To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 2 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

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 Wilmar International

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.

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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Wilmar International Limited. It is a very large company, and board members collectively own S$1.5b worth of shares (at current prices). Most would say this shows a good alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 19% stake in Wilmar International. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 42%, of the Wilmar International stock. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Public Company Ownership

We can see that public companies hold 24% of the Wilmar International shares on issue. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

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 for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 2 warning signs with Wilmar International (at least 1 which can't be ignored) , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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.
Students will work alongside world-class fashion designers to explore their creative talents & develop necessary skills to pursue a career in fashion

NORWALK, CT / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / World-class fashion designers and brands are helping to shape the next generation of cultural innovators in Norwalk, Connecticut, the home of the new RED Fashion School (RED).

RED Fashion School Opens in Norwalk, Connecticut

Opening its doors to the first enrolled class on Nov. 15, 2023, RED offers Connecticut's first recognized certificate program in Fashion Design. The second enrollment for the program begins on Jan. 2, 2024.

Over the course of 15 months, students will design, market and produce their own fashion collection, while learning the entire vertical design process - including sample room production and sales.

Students will also explore their creative talents and personal style while building the necessary skills to launch their own brand or work in a fashion house.

Among the industry-recognized design instructors is RED's Founder, Irina Simeonova, who has showcased collections at New York Fashion Week, been featured on French Fashion TV and sold her collections across the U.S. and Canada.

She also founded the New England Fashion+Design Association (NEF+DA) in 2006, an organization based in South Norwalk that offers fashion design education to children and adults - which ultimately provided the inspiration for launching RED.

"After 17+ years of working with talented design students, I saw a need for an intensive, fast-paced program focused on the skills to gain employment or transition back into the workforce quickly afterward - whether that means launching your own fashion brand or working with a major label," Simeonova said. "Our new Fashion Design Certificate Program at RED helps fill this void while providing a unique vertical education model that focuses on Research, Education and Design."

Simeonova also noted that RED's location in Norwalk plays an important role for graduates and the community alike:

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"RED is poised to elevate educational offerings within our region while injecting fresh talent and collaborative endeavors into the local community," Simeonova said. "We're empowering our graduates to stay within the area, helping to support new and existing businesses, manufacturing and cultural enrichment in Norwalk and surrounding areas."

RED is currently accepting student applications. Interested candidates who hold a high school diploma or GED, are at least 18 years of age and have an innate interest in fashion design can apply at www.redfashion.school.

About RED Fashion School

RED Fashion School (RED) is a non-profit educational institution that brings together contemporary style design education and the insights of working designers to educate the next generation of cultural leaders and innovators through its Fashion Design Certificate Program. RED offers a uniquely vertical model of education, a co-operative enterprise where students are educated through the process and practice of working with world-class designers.

Contact Information

Irina Simeonova

Founder of RED Fashion School

irina@nefda.studio

(203) 345-0030

SOURCE: RED Fashion School

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IPO Edge and the Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association hosted a fireside chat with X-energy to discuss market opportunity, their different technology, going public and more. The event featured J. Clay Sell, Chief Executive Officer of X-energy, moderated by IPO Edge Editor-in-Chief John Jannarone and Editor-at-Large Jarrett Banks in a video session lasting approximately 60 minutes including a Q&A with the audience.

Watch FULL REPLAY

Mr. Sell discussed:

What differentiates X-energys Small Modular Nuclear Reactor (SMR), the Xe-100, and its proprietary fuel, TRISO-X

Market opportunity

Why its the right time to take X-energy public and the partnership with Ares Acquisition Corp. (AAC)

Customers and strategic partners starting with Dow project

Role of SMRs in energy security

About X-Energy Reactor Company, LLC

X-energy is a leading developer of small modular nuclear reactor and fuel technology for clean energy generation that is redefining the nuclear energy industry through its development of safer and more efficient advanced small modular nuclear reactors and proprietary fuel to deliver reliable, zero-carbon and affordable energy to people around the world. X-energys simplified, modular and intrinsically safe SMR design expands applications and markets for deployment of nuclear technology and drives enhanced safety, lower cost and faster construction timelines when compared with other SMRs and conventional nuclear. For more information, visit X-energy.com or connect with us on Twitter or LinkedIn.

About Clay Sell

Mr. Sell is CEO of X-energy. He has deep professional expertise across many sectors of the international and U.S. energy industry developed through his service in senior level positions in the private sector and government.

From 2008-2018, Clay was the president of Hunt Energy Horizons, LLC, the renewable energy subsidiary of Hunt Consolidated, Inc., a multinational energy, real estate, and investment corporation controlled by the Ray L. Hunt family of Dallas.

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Previously, Clay held positions for 14 years in the U.S. government, most recently as Deputy Secretary of Energy in the George W. Bush Administration from 2005-2008  and the youngest person to hold that position. In that role, Clay served as Chief Operating Officer of the Department and emerged as one of the leading advocates for the Administrations nuclear energy policies. From 2003-2005, Clay served in the White House as a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and a Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs.

From 1999-2003, he served as the Clerk for the Senate Energy & Water Subcommittee of Appropriations under the legendary Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico. Clay began his career in Washington on the staff of future House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry of Texas from 1995-1999.

Watch previous fireside: Going Green with Small Nuclear Reactors: Chat with CEOs of X-energy, Ares Acquisition

Contact:

IPO-Edge.com

Editor@IPO-Edge.com

Twitter: @IPOEdge

Instagram: @IPOEdge
The Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) has announced that Star Charge is expanding its global operations by setting up its regional headquarters in Abu Dhabis SAVI cluster in Masdar City. The collaboration agreement with ADIO was signed on the sidelines of Gitex Global.

Star Charge is a smart energy turnkey solution provider, offering complete EV charging and energy storage hardware, software, and seamless services. The companys R&D efforts are focused on advancing new energy solutions through pivotal technologies like IoT, dynamic power distribution, and Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology.

Badr Al-Olama, Director General of Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO), said: We are proud to welcome Star Charge to Abu Dhabis SAVI cluster, which continues to attract leading global innovators, as we collaborate together within an enabling ecosystem to collectively drive the future of sustainable mobility across the world.

Bright future

Claire Wang, Star Charge GCC Country Manager, said: Our commitment to innovating EV infrastructure, combined with the constructive and influential platform offered by SAVI and Masdar City, paints a bright future for sustainable mobility in the region. This partnership will undoubtedly catalyse the growth of EV adoption and the transition to cleaner, smarter new energy ecosystem in the region.

Abu Dhabi is developing a comprehensive multi-modal cluster designed to accelerate the deployment of smart and autonomous vehicles across air, land and sea.--TradeArabia News Service
The partnership will offer a comprehensive range of cybersecurity services such as threat intelligence, vulnerability management, incident response, and managed security services, therefore, bolstering the cybersecurity landscape of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Resecurity, a California-based provider of advanced intelligence-driven cybersecurity solutions protecting Fortune 500 globally, has recently announced a partnership with Spire Solutions, the Middle East & Africa region's preferred security & data partner and leading value-added distributor.

GITEX

The partnership is aimed at addressing the growing challenges of cybersecurity and will leverage the strengths of both companies to deliver a comprehensive solution. By integrating Resecurity's innovative threat intelligence and response capabilities with Spire Solutions' proficiency in the regional market and the local threat landscape, the partnership aims to help organizations of all sizes protect themselves against the most advanced cyber threats.

"We are excited to collaborate with Spire Solutions to bring our advanced cybersecurity capabilities to a wider audience," said Gene Yoo, the CEO of Resecurity. "Every business organization just has to be a step ahead of threat actors in this present dynamic threatscape. This cannot be achieved if they do not access top-notch solutions to achieve their cybersecurity objectives."

The solutions offered by Resecurity will feature cutting-edge threat detection capabilities, advanced threat analysis and response, and a dedicated team of security experts who will be available 24/7 to offer support and guidance. Through this partnership, Spire Solutions and Resecurity will help realize this vision and contribute to a more secure digital ecosystem.

"Spire Solutions is proud to collaborate with Resecurity to offer first-class security solutions to our customers," said Sanjeev Walia, the CEO of Spire Solutions. "By leveraging Resecurity's cutting-edge threat intel and response capabilities with Spire's experience that includes consultative and fusion approach, we can boldly assure our customers of a comprehensive solution that will enable them to stay ahead of the curve."

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Resecurity's expertise enables it to assist organizations in Middle East & Africa (MEA) region in mitigating current and emerging cyber threats. Resecurity's early-warning identification of data breaches and comprehensive protection against cybersecurity risks allows organizations to develop a more secure digital environment and safeguard their sensitive data from theft and misuse.

Spire Solutions has exclusive distribution rights to some of the world's best-known solution providers (OEMs), providing organizations in MEA access to top-of-the-line cybersecurity solutions. This gives these organizations the ability to remain up-to-date with the rapidly-evolving cybersecurity landscape, enhancing their capacity to secure their digital assets.

Recently Resecurity products have been also named a Gold Winner by the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards in North America. Resecurity products and services received Gold recognition across 3 categories in highly competitive categories such as cyber threat intelligence (CTI), threat hunting, and third-party risk management (TPRM):

- GOLD WINNER for Cyber Threat Intelligence in North America: Resecurity Context Cyber Threat Intelligence Platform

- GOLD WINNER for Third Party Risk Management (TPRM) in North America: Resecurity Risk Supply Chain Risk Management Platform

- GOLD WINNER for Threat Hunting in North America: Resecurity Hunter Research & Development

Resecurity has been recognized by Frost & Sullivan as a Leader in the Cyber Threat Intelligence Market and has been included as the top Cyber Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP) Provider globally. The company has recently been highlighted in the latest Global TIP Market Report and External Risk Mitigation Platforms (ERMM) providing information about the most successful CTI and digital risk management industry players. The Frost & Sullivan report details the organization's market research, identifying trends in the market and top vendors and tools in the market.

About Spire Solutions

Spire Solutions is a prominent value-added distributor (VAD) and cybersecurity solution provider that operates in the Middle East & Africa region. The company specializes in providing effective solutions to current and future cybersecurity challenges and has secured exclusive distribution rights for some of the world's most reputable solution providers (OEMs).

Spire Solutions has earned a reputation for being the preferred security partner to CISOs and cybersecurity leaders in government organizations and businesses across the region, thanks to its unwavering commitment to customer satisfaction. To achieve this, the company engages, empowers, and enables its channel partners using a range of partnership models and rewards programs. Spire Solutions' partner ecosystem includes system integrators, resellers, MSPs, MSSPs, and consulting firms.

At the heart of Spire Solutions is a thriving multinational community of highly skilled technical experts, solution architects, and business professionals. The company takes pride in this diverse and talented workforce, whose collective goal is to enhance the regional cybersecurity landscape by providing the very best solutions and services. This commitment to excellence is what sets Spire Solutions apart in a highly competitive and dynamic industry.

For more information on the partnership between Resecurity and Spire Solutions, please visit www.spiresolutions.com.

About Resecurity

Resecurity is a cybersecurity firm that offers a comprehensive platform for endpoint protection, risk management, and cyber threat intelligence. Their data-driven intelligence solutions are widely regarded as best-of-breed, and they are known for providing early warning identification of data breaches as well as comprehensive protection against cybersecurity risks. Founded in 2016, Resecurity has gained global recognition as one of the world's most innovative cybersecurity companies, dedicated to empowering organizations to defend against even the most sophisticated cyber threats. Recently, the company was recognized as one of the top 10 fastest-growing private cybersecurity companies in Los Angeles, California by Inc. Magazine. Security is an official member of several organizations, including Infragard, AFCEA, NDIA, SIA, FS-ISAC, and the American Chamber of Commerce in Saudi Arabia (AmChamKSA).

For more information on the partnership between Resecurity and Spire Solutions, please visit www.resecurity.com.

GITEX2

Cision

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SOURCE Resecurity Inc.
Finding a business that has the potential to grow substantially is not easy, but it is possible if we look at a few key financial metrics. One common approach is to try and find a company with returns on capital employed (ROCE) that are increasing, in conjunction with a growing 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 Baby Bunting Group (ASX:BBN), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on Baby Bunting Group is:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.095 = AU$24m  (AU$344m - AU$92m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to July 2023).

So, Baby Bunting Group has an ROCE of 9.5%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Specialty Retail industry average of 19%.

View our latest analysis for Baby Bunting Group

roce

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Baby Bunting Group compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

How Are Returns Trending?

In terms of Baby Bunting Group's historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. Around five years ago the returns on capital were 13%, but since then they've fallen to 9.5%. 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.

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The Bottom Line

To conclude, we've found that Baby Bunting Group is reinvesting in the business, but returns have been falling. Additionally, the stock's total return to shareholders over the last five years has been flat, which isn't too surprising. All in all, the inherent trends aren't typical of multi-baggers, so if that's what you're after, we think you might have more luck elsewhere.

Baby Bunting Group does have some risks though, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Baby Bunting Group that you might be interested in.

For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.

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.
From Russia to the Middle East: Why China cant afford another big conflict

Editors Note: Sign up for CNNs Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the countrys rise and how it impacts the world.

Beijing is once again trying to have it both ways.

It has spent over a year tiptoeing over Russias war in Ukraine. The Asian superpower has refused to condemn the invasion and instead provided much-needed diplomatic and economic support for Moscow.

Now, as Israels war against Palestinian militant group Hamas threatens to spiral into a broader conflict that could shatter stability in the Middle East, China has called for a ceasefire while criticizing Israels actions. It has also noticeably not condemned Hamas for carrying out what has been called the worst single day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, while voicing its support for a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel.

The stance is in keeping with Chinas decades-long support for Palestinian statehood, but also underscores sharp divisions between China and the United States, which has staunchly backed Israels right to retaliate against Hamas. It also highlights Chinas deep economic interests in both Russia and the Middle East, which it wants to safeguard at all cost.

The worlds second largest economy depends on Russia and the Middle East for much of its energy needs. They are also an important part of Beijings Belt and Road initiative: an ambitious yet controversial undertaking to boost connectivity and trade across the world with Chinese money and know-how in infrastructure development.

Both these factors will continue to play a huge role in how Beijing responds to the geopolitical fault lines, analysts said.

China has also been eager to highlight, through whatever means, solidarity with major oil-producing nations and limit any fallout that could further destabilize the origin, disrupt oil supplies and drive up energy prices, said Eswar Prasad, a professor at Cornell University and a former head of the IMFs China division.

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Hello, old friend

China is the worlds largest oil importer and buys 71% of its oil consumption from foreign countries.

It has boosted oil purchases from Russia since the latters invasion of Ukraine, as refiners cashed in on discounted supplies amid Western sanctions on Moscow. Russia is now Chinas biggest supplier of crude oil, ahead of Saudi Arabia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping shake hands during a meeting in Beijing on October 18. - Sergei Guneyev/AFP/Getty Images

Xi welcomed Russias diplomatically isolated leader Vladimir Putin to Beijing this week. Putin, called an old friend by Xi during their meetings, was a guest of honor at a summit marking the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, of which Russia is a big participant.

According to a study by Shanghais Fudan University, after Pakistan, Russia has received the highest amount of energy investments between 2013 and 2021 from China under the initiative.

Both China and Russia  who have ramped up their shared rhetoric about the need to reshape a world order they see as led by the United States  have called for a ceasefire and criticized Israels actions, with Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi last weekend saying they have gone beyond the scope of self-defense.

Both countries cultivate close ties with Iran and consider US involvement in regional affairs to be one of the reasons behind instability in the Middle East, said Jean-Loup Samaan, senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore.

Hamas and Iran are longtime allies, but Tehran, which has commended the Islamist groups Oct 7 operation that killed some 1,400 people in Israel, has denied involvement. Meanwhile, anti-Israel protests have broken out across the Middle East following a deadly hospital blast in Gaza and days of airstrikes by Israeli fighter jets that have killed nearly 3,500 people.

Its unclear who is responsible for the blast. Israel has laid out evidence that it said shows a misfire by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast, and US President Joe Biden on Wednesday backed that explanation, citing US intelligence. Islamic Jihad has denied responsibility.

Oil, oil, oil

The region plays a key economic role in Chinas growth. The Middle East contributes more than half of the countrys oil imports or a little more than one third of the countrys total oil consumption.

For every three barrels of crude oil that China consumes, more than one comes from the Middle East, Chinas national oil and gas producer said in March.

Saudi Arabia has long been Chinas largest crude supplier, accounting for 17% of its oil imports in 2022, before being overtaken by Russia in the first two months of this year, according to Chinese customs.

The gas trade is strong as well. Qatar is Chinas second largest supplier of liquified natural gas, making up a quarter of the countrys imports. Last year, LNG imports from the Middle East nation soared 75% from a year earlier, Chinese customs statistics showed.

China has also forged closer economic ties with Iran, which has been sanctioned by the United States since 2018 for its nuclear ambitions and military aggression.

Chinese purchases of sanctioned Iranian oil reached 1.2 million barrels per day in the first half of September, just shy of Augusts record, according to recent data from tanker tracking firm Vortexa.

Energy security has become a key priority for China, which is facing significant economic challenges. Xi has emphasized the importance of energy supply and security as crucial for national development.

Over the last year, Beijing has increased its energy investment in the Middle East. In April, China Petroleum & Chemical Co (Sinopec), the worlds largest oil refining and gas conglomerate, bought a stake in a Qatari gas field, marking Chinas first equity investment in the Gulf states gas production.

Last November, QatarEnergy signed a 27-year supply agreement with Sinopec for 4 million metric tons of LNG every year, according to the Chinese refiner.

The Middle East is also a cornerstone in the Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese investment in Arab and Middle Eastern countries rose by 360% in 2021 compared to 2020, according to a study by Fudan University published last year. Chinas engagement in construction projects in the region rose by 116% during the same period.

Stability needed

If the war between Israel and Hamas engulfs other nations, it could hurt China badly, analysts said.

China and the US share maintaining regional stability as a strategic goal, said Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow with the Middle East program at Chatham House, a global think tank based in London.

Regional conflagration means long instability and long instability means no business for China in the Middle East, he added.

Of course, China doesnt want to see its economic interests bleed.

On Saturday, Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone, according to both sides.

Blinken discussed the importance of maintaining stability in the region and discouraging other parties from entering the conflict, a statement from the US Department of State said.

China called for the convening of an international peace conference as soon as possible, a statement from Wangs ministry said.

Chinas economic interests in the region are primarily focused on energy supplies from the Gulf and to a lesser extent, business deals made in several countries in the field of digital connectivity and infrastructures, said Samaan.

Those interests would get hurt if the conflict escalates with Iran and challenges the stability of maritime waters in the Persian Gulf, he said.

In a sense, they [China] actually gain from the US involvement.

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(Bloomberg) -- Russia doesnt currently have plans to ease remaining restrictions on diesel exports, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, indicating that there wont be additional relief for the tight fuel market.

Most Read from Bloomberg

There are no decisions yet, Novak told Bloomberg News in Beijing. But if there are any problems, they will be considered by the Energy Ministry.

While Russia  the worlds top seaborne supplier of diesel-type fuel  lifted a ban on most exports in early October, some restrictions remained in place.

The government allowed the exports on condition that all major Russian fuel producers keep at least 50% of their diesel output for the domestic market. Also, diesel exports are possible provided that the fuel is delivered to the Russian ports by pipeline. Diesel supplies via railways remain banned.

The initial ban, which helped to tame surging domestic prices for the road fuel, roiled global diesel markets. It came as OPEC+ output cuts reduced flows to refiners, which were struggling to make enough diesel just as demand ramps up before the northern winter.

The Russian ban on diesel exports lasted for just over two weeks, with Moscow opting to remove most of the restrictions to avoid overstocking of fuel inventories.

The Russian government is continuing discussions on how to finance higher subsidies for domestic supplies of diesel and gasoline, according to Novak. The issue is being considered, he said, adding that a decision is expected in the near future.

Russia plans to fully restore downstream payments to the nations refiners from October after halving them last month. Any decisions to the subsidy formula should be neutral to the budget, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov said at the end of September, according to Interfax.

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Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian appeals court has imposed interim measures against Credit Suisse and ruled that funds totalling $20.9 million held by the Swiss bank in Russia may be seized, court filings published on Thursday showed.

Credit Suisse declined to comment.

Kaluga-based Russian lender Gazenergobank won its appeal on Oct. 16 against an earlier decision by Moscow's arbitration court, which had opted not to grant interim measures, the filings showed.

The court said funds equivalent to 10.1 million euros ($10.65 million) and $10.25 million held by Bank Credit Suisse (Moscow) should be seized.

The court also ordered the seizure of almost 100% of shares in Bank Credit Suisse (Moscow) and Credit Suisse Securities (Moscow) and prohibited the Swiss lender from disposing of shares in those entities not covered by the seizure of funds.

In August, a Moscow court banned Credit Suisse and its parent UBS from disposing of shares in their Russian subsidiaries after a request from Zenit Bank, which is concerned about losing out if they exit Russia.

UBS swallowed up its stricken rival Credit Suisse earlier this year.

Laws introduced after Russia despatched troops to Ukraine in February last year have made presidential approval necessary for foreign banks to cut ties with their local business. ($1 = 0.9482 euros)

(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya and Alexander Marrow; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Chelsea Jia Feng/Insider

A top attorney for FTX testified Thursday in the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried.

Can Sun said he was "shocked" by a $7 billion hole in FTX, while Sam Bankman-Fried was unsurprised.

SBF asked for possible "legal justifications" for using customer money, but Sun said there were none.

FTX's corporate attorney testified in court against his former boss, Sam Bankman-Fried, in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, sharing details about the company's bankruptcy in November 2022.

Can Sun said he was appalled to learn that Alameda Research, FTX's hedge fund sister company, had special privileges over all other customers on the crypto exchange and that the companies, both owned by Bankman-Fried, had co-mingled funds taken from customers without their consent.

"I was shocked," testified Sun, who traveled from Japan to take the stand. "I consistently told our investors that FTX and Alameda are two fully independent and separate companies."

Prosecutors have charged Bankman-Fried with seven financial crimes related to defrauding investors and customers. Several former members of his executive team have pleaded guilty to financial crimes and testified against Bankman-Fried at his trial.

Sun said on November 7, 2022  four days before FTX declared bankruptcy  Bankman-Fried had a call with a potential investor who raised questions about FTX's finances, and Bankman-Fried asked Sun to "come up with legal justifications" for FTX using customer funds.

Prior to Bankman-Fried's call with the investor, he pulled Sun aside to go for a walk, Sun said. Sun told the jury he explained there were no justifications for FTX using customer funds without their expressed consent, only theoretical arguments that weren't supported by facts.

"Yep, yep" Bankman-Fried replied, according to Sun's testimony. "Got it."

"I was actually expecting a bigger response, but it was very muted," Sun added of his former boss. "He was not surprised at all."

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Shortly before his walk with Bankman-Fried, Sun also observed a panicky Nishad Singh in the Bahamas office. Singh, FTX's former engineering director, pleaded guilty to financial crimes earlier this year and testified last week that the bankruptcy left him "suicidal."

"Nishad was sitting there. His entire face was pale and gray," Sun testified. "It looked like his soul had been plucked from him."

Singh asked Sun about his "personal exposure" regarding loans he received from Alameda, admitting that he learned of the hole in FTX's finances months earlier. Sun testified that Singh told him Bankman-Fried was unfazed when he confronted the CEO about the hole.

Bankman-Fried told Singh something to the effect of: "It is what it is. There's nothing to do but grow the company and fill the hole," Sun testified.

Read the original article on Business Insider
(Bloomberg) -- The rollback of American sanctions on Venezuelan oil could rob Chinese buyers of one of their cheapest sources of crude.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Venezuelas Merey crude is currently being delivered to China at a discount of as much as $20 a barrel compared to Brent, according to traders. Thats cheaper than sanctioned Iranian oil, which is available at a discount of about $13. Other comparable grades, such as Canadas Cold Lake, trade around parity to the international price.

Although the adjustment will take time, its likely that the easing of restrictions will lead to the return of customers in India and the US, which were big buyers from Venezuela before sanctions were implemented, the traders said. More competition for Venezuelan barrels should raise prices, including for Merey, the most popular grade among Chinas independent refiners.

China is the worlds biggest oil importer and its purchases have boomed this year as the country has emerged from the pandemic. At the same time, its been able to keep a lid on prices by skirting or ignoring international sanctions on producers like Venezuela, Iran and Russia by taking their crude at discounted rates.

The independent refiners, known as teapots, clustered mostly in Shandong province have been among the most resilient buyers of Venezuelan oil since sanctions were imposed in 2019. The Merey variety is highly sulfurous and dense, and widely used for tarmac on roads.

If their refining margins get squeezed, teapots may choose to lower operating rates, traders said.

Read More: Traders Suspect Venezuela Oil in China as Bitumen Flows Soar

But even if Venezuelan supplies become too costly for the teapots, Chinas oil majors could still step in. PetroChina Co.s new mega refinery in Jieyang, for example, was originally designed to process Venezuelan crude.

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The US has suspended sanctions on a variety of Venezuelan enterprises, including its oil industry, as the Biden administration looks to reward President Nicolas Maduros embrace of democratic processes. While thats likely to expand the customer base for the South American nations crude, it could also lift supply, which would moderate any price increases.

Venezuelan production could jump by as much as 25%, according to analysts, which would offer some relief to global oil markets that have tightened after major producers led by Saudi Arabia and Russia curbed supply.

(Updates with comment on refining margins in sixth paragraph)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Can Sun, former FTX general counsel, took the stand on Thursday to testify on behalf of the prosecutions case against Sam Bankman-Fried. Sun has a non-prosecution agreement in exchange for his cooperation.

The Yale law school grad joined FTX at the end of August 2021 and stayed until early November 2022 shortly after the crypto exchange collapsed. Before going in-house at the exchange, Sun worked for Fenwick & West, where he also advised FTX as outside counsel.

Once in-house, Suns role consisted of various legal functions, like obtaining regulatory licenses for the exchange and dealing with how FTX treated customer assets  or so he thought, he testified. Bankman-Fried had allegedly told him that FTX customer deposits were unequivocally safeguarded, segregated and protected.

When asked by prosecutors whether he ever approved FTXs use of customer assets, Sun replied, no, absolutely not and said he was told the customer funds were held in a separate account that didnt include FTXs own proprietary funds, and he was not aware Alameda was getting FTX customer deposits.

In all my conversations with Sam, it was always said that customer assets were safeguarded, segregated and protected, Sun said.

During Suns testimony, prosecutors highlighted the terms of service, which did not permit the exchange to touch customer funds. (Sun testified he had worked on the TOS but that it was largely finished by the time he joined.) One provision stated that none of the digital assets in your accounts are the property of, or shall or may be loaned to FTX trading; there was another that said customers control the digital assets held in your account.

Bankman-Fried wore a gray suit that bunched up on his shoulders and neck as he sat. He spent most of the day typing on his laptop or passing notes to his legal team. His parents sat in the same bench theyve occupied since the start of trial.

When the terms of service were brought up in evidence, Bankman-Frieds mother, Barbara Fried, looked up the ceiling, took notes, looked at the monitor and then back at her son on rotation. She also put her head in her hands and pressed her thumb to her temple, rubbed her eyes a few times, and looked back at Bankman-Fried during the prosecutions testimony.

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Sun learned in August or September 2022 that Alameda was not exempt from auto liquidation, which allowed the trading firm to go infinitely negative, on FTXs platform. I was shocked  [it] went against everything we told regulators and users. He added that he was told that Alamedas liquidation exemption had never been triggered  which other witnesses like FTX co-founder Gary Wang have testified to not be true. Regardless, Sun asked for it to be removed, and he was told that Bankman-Fried and Nishad Singh, head of FTX engineering, said no.

Instead, Sun testified that he got the related parties to agree that it would be made clear to users and regulators that the Alamedas privileges would be changed to delayed liquid mechanisms. It was approved by FTXs legal team, but it never made it through the business side at the time of FTXs collapse in November, Sun said.

During cross-examination, Sun said he thought about resigning over the situation, but he didnt know at the time that it was the same mechanism Alameda used to take FTX funds.

Documenting loans

During Suns time at FTX, he was also responsible for documenting loans for FTX. There were over 30 loans he documented where Alameda loaned money to Bankman-Fried, Wang and Singh. He testified that he thought Alameda would make personal loans to the three individuals and inject funds into FTX for capital. I had no idea customer funds were being used, Sun said.

Sun created a spreadsheet that kept track of the more than 30 loans made to Bankman-Fried, Wang and Singh; the loans totaled over $2.17 billion. If they were not on my spreadsheet, I was not aware of them, Sun said.

Sun also received a personal loan of $2.3 million as part of a management incentive program to get him to move to the Bahamas from Hong Kong, shortly after he joined the company. He also got a bonus of $3.5 million in January 2022, about five months after joining FTX.

November talks with Apollo

On November 7, 2022, four days before FTX filed for bankruptcy, Sun joined a call with Apollo Global Management, Ramnik Arora of FTX Ventures and others in an attempt to raise capital from the firm and help solve the liquidity problem that FTX had for customer withdrawals.

After an initial call, Apollo asked for FTXs financial statements and Sun and related parties shared them. I was shocked because it showed FTX was short $7 billion.

Sun said he asked questions about how it was calculated  he said the spreadsheet was messy  and he did not get straight responses, but instead just vague answers from Singh and Bankman-Fried. Looking back at that moment, Sun recalls Bankman-Fried was there typing away on his laptop, barely speaking. While Singh was pale and gray and looked like his soul [was] plucked away from him, Sun said.

After sharing the numbers with Apollo, Bankman-Fried told Sun that the firm asked for legal justification for missing funds and allegedly asked Sun to come up with one. Sun proposed three theoretical arguments, but there were no legal justifications for funds missing.

Sun testified he went on a walk that night with Bankman-Fried around an apartment at the luxury resort, The Albany, where many FTX employees lived. During that conversation, Sun told Bankman-Fried that none of the theoretical arguments would justify why the FTX funds were missing; Sun testified that SBF replied yup, yup and got it.

During a conversation with Singh later that night, Sun said the former engineer disclosed to him that Alamedas no liquidation method was how the firm withdrew the billions of dollars in customer deposits.

Sun resigned from the company the next day.
Robert Way / Shutterstock.com

The old advice live below your means takes on a whole new meaning when it comes from a self-made millionaire. But thats exactly what 28-year-old Lucy Guo advises people to do.

How To Go From Broke in Your 40s to Millionaire in Your 50s: 8 Late Start Retirement Tips

Learn: How To Get Cash Back on Your Everyday Purchases

Her trajectory is more than impressive: Guo has amassed a million-dollar fortune from her successful career as an entrepreneur and tech developer. By the age of 23 in 2017, she was named one of the 30 Under 30 In Enterprise Tech by Forbes.

Living frugally and making millions comes naturally to the co-founder of Scale AI, a billion-dollar tech startup that delivers high-quality training data for artificial intelligence applications. Growing up in a frugal household helped Guo understand the value of living modestly. In an interview with Fortune, she described her childhood selling Pokemon cards before learning how to make money on the internet.

My parents were incredibly frugal growing up, she said. Id be kicked outside if I complained about it being too cold in the house. We saved on heating costs, bought very cheap clothes and licked the plate clean because they said other children werent so lucky to get food.

She carried this money mindset into adulthood, saying she tried to live as cheaply as possible until she made her first $10 million. Guo also noted that as people earn more money, they tend to increase their cost of lifestyle, ultimately lowering their savings. Instead, she recommends saving more than you spend, investing and taking advantage of compound interest over time.

Heres more money advice from the wealthy entrepreneur.

Also see seven things Bill Gates wont waste money on.

Shes Not Above Eating Fast Food

The millionaire says shes just as content eating McDonalds as she is dining at a Michelin-starred restaurant. And she is far from alone in her approach as some of the richest billionaires in the world still eat at the golden arches.

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Legendary investor Warren Buffett once described how he ate a McDonalds breakfast every day and it never cost more than $3.17. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was also spotted eating a grab-and-go McDonalds meal in Rome during his honeymoon.

Im a Self-Made Millionaire: These Are the 6 Investments Everyone Should Make During an Economic Downturn

She Used a Buddy Pass for Free Flights

A buddy pass is essentially a standby ticket where you are using a friend or family members ticket benefits. It means you can get on a flight if there are empty or available seats. According to Guo, this kind of arrangement was much cheaper than confirmed tickets.

I was eating for free, because I would just book a cancellable ticket on Southwest and then go through airport security, go to the AmEx lounge, eat and go back.

She Purchased Cost-Effective Real Estate

I got a place that was only around $70,000 or $75,000 in Las Vegas, right next to the airport, Guo said. I could just ride a skateboard and get there in five minutes.

Living frugally by investing in cheap real estate can be a great way to invest while not having to dish out major upfront costs. While it can be a wise financial move, it should also align with your long-term goals and expectations.

When asked for her advice on how to make your first million, Guo said she sees big potential in real estate. She recommends investing in cheap properties in Las Vegas that you can Airbnb for income year round, also noting that the compounding value of real estate will essentially help you build wealth.

She Reduced Her Spending to Nearly $0 Per Month

While Guos approach may seem extreme, some of the worlds richest people reportedly choose to live frugally.

For example, billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, founder of Grupo Carso, has lived in the same six-bedroom house for more than 40 years. Hes considered by far the richest man in Mexico, but he forgoes luxuries like private jets and yachts and still drives an old Mercedes-Benz. In the same vein, Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, still flies economy and often rides the bus.

Shes Purposeful About Her Purchases

When asked about the most expensive thing she has splurged on, Guo named her home, but with a caveat.

I dont really view that as a purchase, because if I sold it, Id make a few million right now  even today, she said. Thats a pretty good, quick turnaround on my investment. I consider my home a long-term investment; its a piece of art and has already gone up in value.

What we can learn from Guos approach? Purchasing investments such as stocks, real estate, bonds or other financial assets offers greater advantage than spending money on things like fancy cars or items that will only collect dust with time.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Self-Made Millionaire Lucy Guo: 5 Ways I Live Frugally
(Bloomberg) -- A US congressional committee is targeting Sequoia Capital after starting investigations into several other venture capital firms for their investment in Chinese technology companies.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The House Select Committee on China is seeking information about Sequoias investments into artificial intelligence, semiconductor and quantum computing companies in the Asian country, as well as its recently announced split into three firms. In the split, Sequoia China was rebranded as HongShan.

The lawmakers asked Sequoia and Sequoia Capital China to provide information about each company it had backed based in the country, or with significant operations there, that was engaged in certain technologies. The letter also requested information on dollar amounts, business expertise provided to the companies, investment criteria and the names of Chinese-government investors.

Weve received the letter, are reviewing it and will respond, a spokesperson for US-based Sequoia Capital said in a statement. Since inception, each entity operating under the Sequoia brand has been independently owned, had separate investment teams, managed their own funds, and made independent investment decisions. As announced in June, we will move to completely independent partnerships and become distinct firms with separate brands no later than March 31, 2024.

A spokesperson for HongShan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

The committees move is a setback for Sequoia, which announced its formal split from Sequoia China before an executive order that placed some restrictions on China investing by US entities. Analysts said that acting ahead of the order could defuse the potential of harsher actions, such as an order to divest from existing investments in China. Thats even though the order itself was less strict than some anticipated.

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In contrast to the Executive Order, the letter is a warning to all investors that the Select Committee is carefully scrutinizing past investments in addition to establishing a process to prevent certain future investments, said H.K. Park, a managing director at Crumpton Global, which has been advising clients on compliance.

The letter called out investments in startups Eversec Technology Co., 4Paradigm, DJI, DeepGlint and ByteDance  alleging they are Sequoia Capital Chinas problematic publicly known partnerships. The lawmakers also claimed the firm made as many as 40 investments in Chinese semiconductor companies since 2020.

Sequoia is not the only VC firm being targeted by the House Select Committee on China, which has launched an investigation into GGV Capital, GSR Ventures, Walden International and Qualcomm Ventures. The committee is also working on a report about US-China policy that will focus in large part on US business activity in the country.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration stepped up efforts to keep advanced chips out of China, a campaign that includes restricting the sale of processors designed specifically for the Chinese market.

(Updates with context starting in the sixth paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Tankers International, the worlds largest shipping pool for Very large crude carriers (VLCCs), has announced that two VLCCs have joined the VLCC pool, with an additional vessel due imminently.

One VLCC, owned and operated by Kuwait Oil Tanker Company (KOTC), a subsidiary of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), has joined the VLCC pool, while another vessel from KPC is expected to join later this month.

Meanwhile, existing pool partner Transportation Recovery Fund (TRF) has added another vessel - the Eco Seas - to the specialist VLCC Scrubber Pool. This brings the total fleet size to 66.

With ownership in 39 ships across the product, crude, LPG, and bunker segments, KPC is a top 10 oil major with a substantial footprint in the Middle East. It will now be able to access support towards compliance with existing and future regulations and unlock efficiencies and commercial advantage through Tankers Internationals pool. KPC will also benefit from enhanced charter party terms, market intelligence and a collaborative approach to data insights via Tankers Internationals independent and transparent management service.

KPCs vessels are a significant addition to our pools efficient, and diversified fleet, and reflect the ambitions of the pool, said Charlie Grey, CEO of Tankers International. Adding KPC to the pool provides our partners access to KPCs cargo base, as well as adding another layer of data and insights into the oil markets in the region.

KPC commented: We have set ourselves the target to be a world leader in marine transport, and becoming a member of the Tankers International VLCC pool will further enable us to achieve this. The pool offers a great depth of market information and knowledge-sharing opportunities amongst gold standard owners, and we are looking forward to collaborating with the other partners.

TRF joined the Tankers International VLCC pool in June 2023 with the addition of TRF Horten. The second vessel from TRF of the Eco Seas (DWT 299,998 MT / Built 2018), will reduce the average age for the scrubber pool, enabling Tankers International to offer modern, higher-performing vessels to the industry.

Grey continued: TRFs addition to the pool only improves Tankers Internationals ability to offer top-quality vessels to the industry. Were proud that our professionalism and experience are reflected in their vote of confidence, and the pool will benefit from younger tonnage with better earnings distributed across the members.

Michael Aasland, CEO of TRF Ship Management, said: Since our first addition to the pool, we have been impressed with the team at Tankers Internationals determination to deliver value. We have achieved strong financial returns in the near term, leading us to add another vessel to the pool.--OGN/ TradeArabia News Service
By John Jannarone

Perhaps Glass Lewis knows multiplication better than more prominent proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services.

Medical supplies behemoth Danaher Corp. is making a move to acquire Abcam plc (ABCM) for $24 a share in cold hard cash. Trouble is, the company continues to say it may be worth quite a bit more.

In a letter exclusive to CorpGov, shareholder Headwaters Capital Management, LLC points out that Abcam just this month posted profit projections significantly higher than those used by Danaher in its takeover documents. Meanwhile, prominent proxy advisor (who helps big investors decide on votes), backed Washington, D.C.-based Danahers offer to owners of Abcam.

Whats the problem? Using Danahers mulitple at the mid-point of ABCMs 2024 guidance results in a $37 a share price for Abcam.

Even a rookie investor should see that the offer, while definitive, appears to undervalue the companys own assessment. There are plenty of reasons why such a maneuver might occur.

Take The London Times, which points out that Alan Hirzel, chief executive, and Michael Baldock, finance chief, are on course to receive $19.2 million and $9.6 million respectively from an incentive scheme if shareholders accept the $5.7 billion bid. The larger question, according to investors interviewed by CorpGov, may be  is a proxy advisor concerned that if it doesnt back a deal, the stock could fall?

Headwaters Capital argues that there is an opportunity for continued profit growth. While Abcam has outlined the opportunity for significant margin improvement in 2024, Headwaters Capital believes there is an opportunity for even greater margin improvement beyond 2024. Comparable company margins combined with DHRs projecton for significant cost synergies imply that Abcams 2024 targets are easily achievable over tme and that additonal financial improvement can be achieved beyond 2024, the letter says.

In a nod to protection on the downside, Headwaters argues the company doesnt need a big backer to stay afloat.

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ABCM will be in a net cash positon by the end of 2023 providing the Company an opportunity to pursue share repurchases should the share price remain depressed. Headwaters Capital reiterates that this is a downside scenario analysis of the short-term value for ABCM and does not reflect Headwaters Capitals view of the long-term intrinsic value of ABCM, the letter says.

One of the companys co-founders, Cambridge scientist Jonathan Milner, has also voiced opposition to the deal. Milner, who served Abcam as CEO from 1999 to 2014 and later as deputy chairman from 2015 to 2020, has said the offer falls significantly short of Abcams inherent worth.

Subodh Mishrah, Global Head of Communications at ISS, declined to comment to CorpGov.

The full Headaaters letter can be read here.

Contact:

CorpGov.com

Editor@CorpGov.com

The post She Blinded Me with Science  ISS Makes Schoolboy Error on Abcam Deal appeared first on CorpGov.
FILE PHOTO: A Shein logo is pictured at the company's office in the central business district of Singapore

By Andre Romani

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Chinese online fast-fashion retailer Shein plans to start shipping the products it makes in Brazil to other markets in Latin America in 2026, its Brazilian production director Fabiana Magalhaes said.

The firm started manufacturing clothes in Brazil earlier this year, its first production center outside China. It aims to have 85% of its sales in Brazil, including sales by vendors on Shein's marketplace, produced locally by 2026.

"The idea is that by 2026 Brazil will be ready to serve Latin America," Magalhaes told reporters on Wednesday at an event at Shein's Sao Paulo office.

"We've already been doing some internal studies to make these exports happen," she added.

She did not specify which Latin American countries Shein could ship products to from Brazil.

Shein, founded by Chinese entrepreneur Chris Xu, has grown into one of the world's largest online fashion marketplaces since its 2008 launch in Nanjing and sells products in more than 150 countries.

Brazil is one of its five main markets and the largest in Latin America, the company said.

In April, Shein announced investments of 750 million reais ($148 million) over the next few years in Brazil to establish a network of manufacturers.

To date 336 partnerships have been signed, of which 213 are producing clothes across 12 Brazilian states, according to the company.

Initially, the company will focus on manufacturing products that allow it to maintain competitive prices in the country, a goal Shein reiterated on Wednesday, such as jeans and knitwear.

Other segments, such as shirts, should be tested, while a third group, such as winter clothes, are more difficult to produce locally, she said.

In addition to Brazil, the company started manufacturing in Turkey this year and plans to build a factory in Mexico.

($1 = 5.0593 reais)

(Reporting by Andre Romani; Writing by Peter Frontini; Editing by Sonali Paul)
The News

Six months after a panic that killed four of them and threatened others, regional banks still arent in the clear  and their problems are coming for giant lenders.

Third-quarter results today show that a slow-moving earnings crisis has replaced the acute liquidity woes of the spring, as smaller banks pay up for deposits without seeing the benefits from higher rates enjoyed by giant banks, which are sitting on $11 trillion of deposits that are earning a relative pittance and being lent out at increasingly higher rates.

Profits fell 48% at Ohio-based KeyBank, 31% at North Carolina-based Truist, and 32% at Rhode Island-based Citizens. JPMorgan and Bank of America both reported double-digit increases last week.

The troubles at smaller banks are likely coming for their bigger rivals, whose numbers are still good but trending bad. Deposits are shrinking, defaults on those loans are rising, and demand for new ones is slower but still growing.

In other words, banks are living in a pleasant limbo  one that even their CEOs know wont last. Its unsustainable, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said yesterday. Speaking for his own bank and its rivals, he said: Weve overachieved.

In his own call with investors, JPMorgans Jamie Dimon called the current moment the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades.

Coming down the pike are tougher capital rules that would require big banks to hold $170 billion in extra capital as a cushion against losses. That will come from hoarding profits, rather than sharing them with investors through stock buybacks and dividends.

Were going to be a little bit more cautious and wait until we have a little bit more clarity around the capital rules before we plow ahead with buybacks, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said on Tuesday.

Lizs view

This was entirely predictable. The financial lifeline that regulators threw to troubled regional banks in March ensured that most of them would survive, but doomed them to years of zombie status. At the time, I wrote that it would leave them far less profitable, almost ensuring they will eventually need to be sold to giants.

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Thats a problem because the climate in Washington isnt warm to mergers. They think smaller is better, in the banking world in particular, Gary Cohn told me earlier this month at Semafors inaugural business summit.

But banks, particularly the midsized ones that teetered this spring, are going to limp along and almost certainly one of them is going to run out of capital. Regulators can either allow the natural order of things  bigger, stronger firms acquiring smaller, weaker ones  or they can broker those same deals over an emergency weekend.

The View From Sherrod Brown

The U.S. Senate Banking Chair ramped up his quest to hold big banks feet to the fire, arguing they hold too much power and scheduling the third hearing with CEOs for December. The last one was held before the spring crisis.

Wall Street megabanks continue to make record profits and to reward corporations that raise prices on Americans, he said.

Notable
Starbucks has sued Starbucks Workers United for trademark infringement - AP

Starbucks and the trade union representing its US workers have sued each other in a dispute over a pro-Palestinian social media post.

The worlds biggest coffee chain has claimed its reputation has been damaged after Starbucks Workers United tweeted its support for Palestine just days after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

The union last week shared a post on Twitter which read Solidarity with Palestine, above an image of a Hamas-operated bulldozer tearing down a fence on the border between Gaza and Israel, during the attacks on October 7.

The cafe-chain has now sued Starbucks Workers United for trademark infringement, demanding that the union change its name and stop using a circular green logo, according to a legal complaint filed in Iowa on Wednesday.

Starbucks said: As the violence against the innocent in the region continues, some people are mistakenly tying these remarks to us, because Workers United and its affiliates and members continue to use our name, logo and intellectual property.

Starbucks Workers United, which represents more than 9,000 employees across the US, countersued the coffee company on Wednesday for allegedly defaming the union by suggesting that it supports terrorism and violence.

It also seeks the federal courts permission to continue using Starbucks name and similar green logo, according to legal documents filed in Pennsylvania.

The now-deleted tweet shared with Starbucks Workers Uniteds nearly 100,000 followers on Twitter was posted without official authorisation, the union has said.

However, Starbucks said it received more than 1,000 complaints over the social media post, while angry, hurt customers have confronted employees in stores and sent graphic and violent messages to customer support service workers.

The Seattle-based company also claimed that vandals spray painted the Stars of David and a swastika on the windows of a Starbucks branch in Rhode Island.

In a message shared with employees last week, Starbucks said: To be clear: We unequivocally condemn these acts of terrorism, hate and violence, and disagree with the statements and views expressed by Workers United and its members.

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According to the cafe-chain, the union last week rejected requests to issue an immediate correction.

In a letter sent to the company, Starbucks Workers Uniteds president, Lynne Fox, said in response: Starbucks is seeking to exploit the ongoing tragedy in the Middle East to bolster the companys anti-union campaign.

Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United were contacted for comment.

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hocus-focus / Getty Images

The criminal trial of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, started on Oct. 14, following the implosion of the firm  an implosion which caused billions of dollars in losses to investors. SBF is facing seven federal charges. FTX, which was regarded as one of the most respected and innovative companies in the crypto industry, according to its bankruptcy filing, filed (along with its more than 130 subsidiaries) for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 14, 2022.

See: ChatGPT Was Given $20K To Invest In Stocks and Crypto  Heres How It Made $2,000 in a Month

Find: 3 Things You Must Do When Your Savings Reach $50,000

The companys demise has had enormous ripple effects on the crypto industry, decreasing confidence in the space and making investors shy away from crypto assets.

One year ago it looked like SBF was on top of the world, assistant U.S. Attorney Thane Rehn said in his opening remarks, Axios reported. He had wealth, power and influence  all of it was built on lies.

If youre still trading crypto, experts are now advising how you should go about it, offering some tips for safely navigating the space in the aftermath of the FTX incident.

Understand Centralized vs. Decentralized Exchanges, Holding Hard Crypto Wallets

FTXs demise reignited the DeFi (decentralized finance) versus CeFi (centralized finance) crypto debate, with many experts arguing that DeFi is better at providing transparency and auditability, especially given news that other CeFi lenders  Celsius and Voyager  also went bust.

One lesson from the FTX collapse is that there is a big difference between centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges, said Thomas Hogan, economist for the American Institute for Economic Research.

Centralized exchanges are just traditional financial companies that trade crypto assets, and in turn, they can fail from taking too much risk or even from defrauding their investors as FTX did, he said.

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In contrast, decentralized exchanges built on blockchain technology can be built to be fully transparent, fully backed by reserves, and allow zero leverage, he added.

A key point that the FTX implosion drove home is the importance of using centralized exchanges only in the most necessary cases, experts suggest.

If youre a trader, then this would mean keeping most of your capital in self-custodied wallets and then use only a fraction of that capital to trade on centralized exchanges. Traders can also use decentralized exchanges entirely, which would greatly minimize the risks associated with centralized systems, said Markus Levin, co-founder of XYO Network.

So, in short, only trade on centralized systems what youre willing to lose. Keep the rest secured on your hard wallet. I should add that there are still risks with decentralized exchanges, such as hacks, so its important to be cautious when engaging with those.

Also: 8 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest In for 2023

Choosing Proof-of-Reserves (PoR)

One solution is PoR-independent audits conducted by a third party seeking to ensure that a custodian holds the assets it claims to on behalf of its clients, as Kraken explains on its website.

PoR is designed to offer users a clear view of the financial health of custodial institutions by reconciling the balance between their on-chain reserves and user liabilities. It works on a simple equation: Proof of Reserves + Proof of Liability = Proof of Solvency, said David Waugh, business development and communications specialist at Coinbits.

This mechanism offers a two-fold advantage: It assures users of the platforms solvency where they entrust their assets, and it acts as a self-regulatory measure, reducing the need for heavier regulatory interventions, per Waugh.

He added that some of the major cryptocurrency exchanges, such as BitMEX and Kraken, have taken proactive measures by conducting PoR assessments, which has set a precedent for others to follow. Coinbase implicitly does a PoR by being a publicly traded company, he said.

More About Cold Storage

One of the lessons stemming from the FTX debacle is the importance of cold storage, as gestured to above.

Cold storage  or hard wallets that are generally offline  might be somewhat of a hassle, said Bob Ras, co-creator of Sologenic.

But its safer to hold your crypto like this, especially since the industry is so young and still getting its footing, including when it comes to regulation and situations like that which happened with FTX. Remember, crypto is still a very young industry, so its better to play it safe, added Ras.

Beware Marketing and Branding Campaigns

Some experts also argue that part of the reason why so many people and organizations lost money with FTX is because they believed the branding narrative SBF had built for himself.

I think people just considered him to be a once-in-a-lifetime sort of genius and, thus, they put all their crypto on FTX, said Brian D. Evans, CEO and founder of BDE Ventures.

Phillip Shoemaker, executive director of Identity.com, added that SBF was very charismatic with venture capital people, and VCs just ate it up, but the problem is that these VCs had terrible BS-detecting radar.

After all, SBF wasnt just charismatic  he was selling snake oil. He actually didnt know how to build a corporation or, like, the importance of separating key assets, he said.

Conduct Due Diligence Before Investing in Crypto

One of the issues, said Shoemaker, is that theres no system that looks at crypto companies and determines whether they are doing things by the book or not.

We need a Moodys for crypto  that is, auditors who look into the backgrounds of the founders and the viability of their business models, he added.

While many have been pushing for strong regulation of the crypto space, in the meantime, many experts recommend investors evaluate cryptocurrencies based on their merits.

Do your due diligence, and dont buy into unsubstantiated hype. There are a number of quality blockchain projects out there. Invest in projects that have strong fundamentals. Thats always the best approach, said Richard Gardner, CEO at Modulus.

Another key aspect of conducting due diligence is to read the terms and conditions.

They are a pain, but they are there for a reason. Look at the terms and conditions and ask, what can they do with my crypto if they become insolvent, said Christopher Alexander, chief analytics officer of Pioneer Development Group. Think from the worst case scenario, not the I buy a McLaren and wear head-to-toe Louis Vuitton scenario. The massive returns blind people to risk.

Dont Put All Investments in the Same Exchange

Another recommendation from experts is to try to spread your assets across several exchanges.

I think that going forward, a lot of traders and fund managers will be extra wary of placing all their capital on one single exchange, said Evans. I suspect theyll increasingly distribute those funds across a wider variety of platforms both centralized and generalized, so as to minimize the risk of being exposed to either bad actors or poorly run platforms.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Still Trading Crypto? 5 Top Tips From Experts Who Saw FTX Collapse Coming
Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn is in support marijuana legalization. The company launched its Hawthorne Gardening Co. division in 2014 to cater to the marijuana industry, but it has struggled to become profitable.

Early this week, Jim Hagedorn, CEO of Scotts Miracle-Gro, showed visitors around the company's hemp center in Marysville, a series of grow rooms featuring a meticulous variety of plants, lights, humidity and soil conditions offering a controlled experiment to determine ideal conditions for the crop.

The center, which Scotts opened less than a year ago, also represents a larger national economic experiment: Can the U.S. marijuana industry become profitable?

Despite marijuana sales growing nationally, the industry has largely struggled to make a dime.

"So many people have been destroyed in this business," said Hagedorn, who has watched Scott's stock plunge nearly 80% since early 2021, in part because of the struggles of its Hawthorne marijuana division.

The research and development lab at Scotts Miracle-Gro company tests lighting and other products sold through the Hawthorne Gardening Co. division that caters to the marijuana industry.

Companies in the industry, such as Scotts, are hoping for help from Ohioans when they vote on Issue 2, which would legalize recreational marijuana for adults. Early voting is underway across the state for the Nov. 7 election.

Marijuana industry struggles despite state legalization

Such state moves have not, however, helped in the past.

Since the start of 2021, 12 states have approved recreational marijuana use. During the same period, the New Cannabis Ventures American fund, which tracks publicly-traded marijuana companies, plunged from more than $100 a share to about $15 a share.

The largest company on the index, Curaleaf Holdings, illustrates the challenge throughout the industry: During its most recent quarter, the company's sales rose to $338.6 million but its losses climbed to $71.2 million.

"Everybody's so abused in the space," Hagedorn said. "We are all wrecked, as far as value."

More: Who's behind Ohio Issue 2? Marijuana businesses that will benefit from it

Hagedorn and other industry leaders believe the salvation of the industry ultimately lies with federal, not state, legalization. However, they nonetheless believe legalization in states such as Ohio can help the industry.

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"The benefit to this is the creation of jobs that never existed," said Kate Nelson, executive vice president of the Midwest and New England regions of Acreage Holdings, which operates marijuana cultivation, processing and dispensary facilities in Ohio and several other states.

"Theres so much opportunity to grow and develop careers," added Nelson, who is based near Middlefield in northeast Ohio. "This would be a positive for so many different industries in Ohio."

Scotts Miracle-Gro company launched its Hawthorne Gardening Co. division in 2014 to cater to the marijuana industry.

More than 6,500 workers are employed in Ohio's medical marijuana industry, and thousands more are employed by companies such as Scotts, producing equipment and more used in the industry.

"The industry employs thousands of workers, employed by medical operators, processors, testing labs, cultivators, dispensaries," said Tom Haren, a spokesperson for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the group supporting recreational marijuana for adult use in Ohio.

"These are good-paying jobs," he said. "So from an economic standpoint, Issue 2 will generate hundreds of millions in new tax revenue, but it will also generate thousands of jobs within the industry and in general economic development throughout the state  vacant businesses being turned into use, construction trade jobs, and other ancillary businesses like security companies, packaging and labeling businesses."

Ohio's recreational pot market could top $2 billion

In Ohio, sales of marijuana products rose steadily from early 2019, when Ohioans could first buy it, climbing to $4 million a week in plant material by March 2021, according to the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program. Since then, sales have grown at a much slower pace, reaching $5.1 million a week for the week of Sept. 30, the most recent week reported.

Nationally, marijuana sales have also grown, from $20 billion a year in 2020 to an estimated $32 billion this year, according to the Brightfield Group, a Chicago company that tracks the industry.

Brightfield estimates the U.S. marijuana industry will grow to $51 billion in 2028. In Ohio, if Issue 2 is approved, Brightfield estimates the market will reach $1.3 billion in 2026 and $2.2 billion in 2028.

"A lot of analysts have been seeing the downturn the past three or four years in the stocks and say, 'Wow, this market is screwed,' but the industry continues to grow," said Madeline Scanlon, Brightfield's cannabis insights manager. "Operators are making slim margins, or they arent making money, but if you look at market size, its been blowing up, especially in the Midwest."

More: Marijuana and the workplace: Will legalization in Ohio increase accidents or not?

Black market drives down prices

Experts cite several reasons companies struggle to profit while the industry grows, including oversupply.

"In Ohio, a lot of companies grew very quickly, and there was a lot of inventory, and youve seen prices come down significantly," Nelson said.

Michigan, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2018, saw prices decline dramatically in 2022, leading to struggles for the state's cannabis businesses.

Adding to price pressure is competition from cheaper, illegal sources.

"The illicit market is unique to cannabis," Scanlon said.

"The cannabis consumer needs to change their habits from illicit to legal," Scanlon added. "Instead of calling a number and having something delivered, they have to go into a store, show an I.D. and buy something from behind a case that they cant test, and costs significantly more than they would pay for an illegal service."

But the biggest obstacles are due to marijuana being illegal federally, which presents two huge problems: industry members are denied access to conventional banking, and businesses in the industry must pay taxes but cannot deduct expenses (under section 280E of the federal tax code).

"280E is brutal for anyone who works in cannabis and makes it almost impossible for anyone in the industry to become profitable," Nelson said.

In addition, she said, "raising capital is a huge problem" without access to banking.

Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn supports recreational marijuana legalization in Ohio that would be permitted under Issue 2. The company launched its Hawthorne Gardening Co. division in 2014 to cater to the marijuana industry.

Scotts Miracle-Gro feels the pinch

Few Ohio companies have felt the impact of growing pains in the cannabis industry more than Scotts.

The company dove into the industry in 2014 with the launch of Hawthorne, which makes products for the industry, including grow lights, trays and nutrients. At the time, Hagedorn saw Hawthorne as providing a growth engine for Scotts, and fully expected marijuana to be legal nationally in three to five years.

But after a rise in sales, Hawthorne has tanked.

For the most recent nine months, Scotts sold $317.6 million of Hawthorne products, down from $547.7 million in the same period a year earlier.

Hagedorn believes Hawthorne will become profitable "this year, no doubt," but he now has second thoughts about getting into the industry and supports spinning the company off from Scotts.

"It's been a poor investment for us, to be sure, for all kinds of reasons," he said.

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker

Get more political analysis by listening to the Ohio Politics Explained podcast

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Marijuana industry hopes Ohio's Issue 2 can boost bottom line
Albert H. Teich / Shutterstock.com

Were in Q4, which means its time to conduct a maintenance checkup on your retirement saving strategy.

This tip comes courtesy of money expert Suze Orman, who recommends prioritizing becoming debt-free and saving as much money as possible to reach your financial goals in retirement. At the start of 2023, Orman blogged about the top six items everyone needs to cross off their retirement to-do list. If you havent checked off this list, theres still time to wrap it up before the year ends.

Take care of these six retirement must-dos in 2023.

See: Robert Kiyosaki Shares 7 Steps To Reach Your Financial Goals

Related: The Simple, Effective Way To Fortify Your Retirement Mix

1. Contribute Enough to Your 401(k) To Get the Maximum Match

According to Orman, one in four savers do not contribute enough to qualify for the biggest possible matching contribution from their employer.

Theres a simple way to fix this issue, especially if you recently changed jobs and relied on your plan to choose the right starting contribution rate. Orman recommends reaching out to HR and asking what your contribution rate needs to be to qualify for the maximum match. Once you know this rate, you can make the switch.

Suze Orman: 3 Things You Must Do If You Receive an Inheritance

2. Boost Your 401(k) Contribution Rate By 1%

It is common savings advice to save at least 10% of your gross income for retirement. If you have been consistently doing this, Orman recommends bumping up to saving at least 15%.

Take a moment to boost your contribution rate by 1% in 2023. Those who commit to increasing their contribution rate by 1% each year will easily be able to reach the 15% target rate.

3. Put Half of a Raise Towards Retirement

All of your wants, like taking a vacation or buying a fancy new car, can wait. If you received a raise this year, Orman said to put half of it towards boosting your retirement savings.

4. Use a Roth 401(k)

Some employers offer their employees the option to contribute to a traditional 401(k) or Roth 401(k). Orman recommends taking the Roth 401(k) option.

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What if its not an option? The post on Ormans blog reads you should contribute enough to the traditional 401(k) to qualify for the max matching contribution. Then, open a Roth IRA and max out contributions each year into that account.

5. Save Money in a Roth IRA

What if your employer doesnt offer a 401(k)? Orman recommends opening a Roth IRA and maxing out your contributions into it each year.

Unsure about the funds or ETFs you should invest in? The post on Ormans blog reads a smart core holding is a U.S. total market stock index fund or ETF.

6. Review Your Stocks and Bonds

Some 401(k) plans offer automated rebalancing, but this is not true of all plans.

Before 2023 ends, Orman said to check your mix of stocks and bonds and make sure its where you want it to be. Keep in mind you dont need to worry about any tax bills when you buy and/or sell shares of funds you own inside your 401(k).

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Suze Orman: 6 Retirement Must-Dos in 2023
BANGKOK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In a significant step towards fortifying economic partnerships, the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Japan's Wakayama Prefecture, focusing on increasing investment opportunities, extending support to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), and fostering the exchange of policy information between Thailand and Wakayama prefecture.

Thailand BOI and Japans Wakayama Prefecture joined hands in a historic MOU signing ceremony to strengthen bonds for investment opportunities and SME support. From left to right: Wakayama Prefecture Governor Kishimoto Shuhei, Ambassador of Japan to Thailand Nashida Kazuya, and BOI's Deputy Secretary General Wirat Tatsaringkansakul.

Over the past decade, the Thailand BOI has been instrumental in approving more than 4,000 projects from Japan, with a staggering investment value exceeding 1.5 trillion Thai Baht, or approximately 6 trillion Japanese Yen. Presently, the collaboration between Wakayama and Thailand boasts 12 companies from the Prefecture who have invested in Thailand. Notably, eight projects from five companies, with a combined investment value of 530 million Baht, have received investment promotion from the BOI. These projects span across a variety of sectors, including manufacturing of metal parts, plastic products, electronic equipment, clothing and software development.

Mr. Wirat Tatsaringkansakul, Deputy Secretary General of the BOI, expressed, "Japanese investment has consistently played a pivotal role in propelling Thailand's economic growth and industry development."

In addition to the MOU signing ceremony, Mr. Kishimoto Shuhei, Governor of Wakayama Prefecture, led a delegation of Japanese entrepreneurs from Wakayama to participate in the BOI's investment promotion activities. These activities included a seminar on Thailand's investment policy and incentives, a trade exhibition, and business matching.

"Ten businesses from Wakayama participating in the exhibition are all SMEs, but they excel in niche areas with advanced technology. Additionally, we have representatives from the manufacturing and food industries," Governor Kishimoto Shuhei emphasized.

He continued, "We hope the MOU will not only facilitate investments from Thailand but will also encourage investment in the hotel industry from Thailand, given the significance of tourism in Wakayama."

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With approximately 6,000 Japanese companies currently operating in Thailand, primarily in manufacturing, trade, and services, this collaboration takes on heightened significance. H.E. Mr. Nashida Kazuya, Ambassador of Japan to Thailand, as the guest of honor who witnessed the MOU signing, said this year marks the 50th commemorative year of ASEAN-Japan relations. The MOU will further strengthen the relations between Thailand and Japan, underlining the commitment to long-term cooperation, economic growth, and technological advancement.

He further noted, "Wakayama boasts a well-developed metal and steel manufacturing industry, a thriving chemical industry, and other advanced industrial clusters. The MOU signed today will further bolster Thailand's ambitions to develop its high-tech industries."

For more information, please contact:

Thailand Board of Investment

Tel. +66 (0) 2553 8111

Website: www.boi.go.th

YouTube: Think Asia, Invest Thailand

Cision

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SOURCE Thailand Board of Investment (BOI)
One simple way to benefit from the stock market is to buy an index fund. But if you choose individual stocks with prowess, you can make superior returns. Just take a look at A2B Australia Limited (ASX:A2B), which is up 47%, over three years, soundly beating the market return of 12% (not including dividends).

Let's take a look at the underlying fundamentals over the longer term, and see if they've been consistent with shareholders returns.

See our latest analysis for A2B Australia

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

During three years of share price growth, A2B Australia moved from a loss to profitability. That would generally be considered a positive, so we'd expect the share price to be up.

The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

This free interactive report on A2B Australia's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further.

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, A2B Australia's TSR for the last 3 years was 52%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that A2B Australia shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 43% over the last year. And that does include the dividend. Notably the five-year annualised TSR loss of 3% per year compares very unfavourably with the recent share price performance. The long term loss makes us cautious, but the short term TSR gain certainly hints at a brighter future. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for A2B Australia (of which 1 shouldn't be ignored!) you should know about.

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If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Australian 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.
Trex Company, Inc. (NYSE:TREX) shareholders might be concerned after seeing the share price drop 16% in the last quarter. On the bright side the returns have been quite good over the last half decade. Its return of 90% has certainly bested the market return!

In light of the stock dropping 5.9% in the past week, we want to investigate the longer term story, and see if fundamentals have been the driver of the company's positive five-year return.

View our latest analysis for Trex Company

While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

Over half a decade, Trex Company managed to grow its earnings per share at 5.5% a year. This EPS growth is lower than the 14% average annual increase in the share price. So it's fair to assume the market has a higher opinion of the business than it did five years ago. And that's hardly shocking given the track record of growth.

The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here..

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Trex Company shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 30% over one year. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 14% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Trex Company you should know about.

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Of course Trex Company 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.
Amazon Saudi Arabia has launched a 'Saudi Made' storefront on Amazon.sa, featuring thousands of local products certified by the Made in Saudi (MIS) programme.

Aligning with the kingdoms Vision 2030, the dedicated storefront promotes locally manufactured products to millions of Amazon customers, accelerating the development of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia.

The launch was announced following the signing of a Co-operation Agreement between Eng Abdulrahman Althukair, CEO of Saudi Exports Development Authority and Abdo Chlala, Country Manager, Amazon Saudi Arabia, in the presence of Bandar bin Ibrahim Alkhorayef, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, Saudi Arabia.

Signing ceremony

The signing ceremony was held at the Made in Saudi Exhibition 2023, an annual event that aims to bring Saudi products closer to consumers and businesses.

Amazons new Saudi Made store is a curation of thousands of locally manufactured products across a range of categories including health and personal care, grocery, home care, baby care, and beauty, offering a wide selection to customers. The store encourages shoppers to support local businesses and makes it easier for customers to find, explore, and purchase local products from across the kingdom.

Althukair said: Our Made in Saudi programme is much more than a certification; it places local businesses at the heart of a collaborative community. The programme plays a key role in promoting Saudi products under one unified, trusted brand, while helping them expand their reach and increase their competitiveness on the global stage.

Encouraging more brands

Our partnership with Amazon bolsters our commitment to enabling more brands to expand their local manufacturing, while positioning Saudi products and services as the preferred choice for domestic and international consumers.

Thousands of local businesses have been endorsed by the MIS programmes logo and certification, representing quality and authenticity. These businesses now have the opportunity to reach Amazon customers around the world through the recently launched Global Registration Programme on Amazon.sa. The programme makes it easier and more seamless than ever for local businesses to sell on Amazon stores globally.

Abdo Chlala, Country Manager, Amazon Saudi Arabia, said: Today, we are very proud to be launching our dedicated Saudi Made store on Amazon.sa in partnership with the Made in Saudi programme, supporting sellers of all sizes, including SMBs, within the Kingdom and further contributing to the countrys path towards a thriving digital economy.

Local sellers

The store supports these local sellers as they expand their operations online, while endorsing thousands of local products and showcasing some of the nations most interesting and unique items for customers to discover. Launching the Saudi Made store is the first step towards a long-term partnership with Saudi Exports that reiterates our commitment to invest in local businesses and SMBs, providing them with the tools and services they need to succeed.

Since the launch of Amazon.sa in 2020, the company has continued to invest in Saudi Arabia, launching services and tools to support local businesses.

The company has been coordinating with Monshaat, Saudi Arabias General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises, to empower this segment of the economy, with an aim to host 40,000 Saudi sellers by 2025 on Amazon.sa. Saudi sellers can take advantage of the Amazon Seller Mobile App to conduct business with more speed, ease and flexibility.

Local selling partners can also select from a wide range of shipping options suited to their business needs and goals, including Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), where Amazon stores, packs, and ships products to customers, allowing businesses to reach customers faster and more efficiently.-- TradeArabia News Service
Tristel (LON:TSTL) Full Year 2023 Results

Key Financial Results

Revenue: UK36.0m (up 16% from FY 2022).

Net income: UK4.46m (up 352% from FY 2022).

Profit margin: 12% (up from 3.2% in FY 2022). The increase in margin was driven by higher revenue.

EPS: UK0.094 (up from UK0.021 in FY 2022).

All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period

Tristel Revenues and Earnings Beat Expectations

Revenue exceeded analyst estimates by 3.9%. Earnings per share (EPS) also surpassed analyst estimates by 26%.

The primary driver behind last 12 months revenue was the Hospital Medical Device Decontamination segment contributing a total revenue of UK30.8m (86% of total revenue). The largest operating expense was General & Administrative costs, amounting to UK21.0m (85% of total expenses). Explore how TSTL's revenue and expenses shape its earnings.

Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 11% p.a. on average during the next 3 years, compared to a 6.3% growth forecast for the Medical Equipment industry in the United Kingdom.

Performance of the British Medical Equipment industry.

The company's shares are up 4.0% from a week ago.

Risk Analysis

Before we wrap up, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Tristel 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.
Embattled Austin real estate developer StoryBuilt has put more than two dozen properties up for sale, including Clementine at 5107 Menchaca Road.

Struggling Austin real estate developer StoryBuilt may have used funds it raised for certain projects and funneled the money toward other projects.

That's according to a report from court-appointed receiver Stapleton Group, which said in a filing that StoryBuilt did not follow "typical accounting practices."

StoryBuilt, one of Austins most active urban developers, agreed to enter a voluntary receivership in July as it said it was addressing deep financial issues.

Los Angeles-based Stapleton Group shared its recent findings in a status report filed in a Travis County civil court.

Austin-based StoryBuilt's headquarters at 900 S. First St. pictured here on Aug. 9, 2023.

In July, StoryBuilt sent a letter to shareholders announcing a major reorganization, which included the departure of top leaders and laying off workers.

On Oct. 9, StoryBuilt said it was putting 28 commercial and residential properties up for sale. The properties owned by StoryBuilt and its joint venture partners span 17 projects in Austin, five in Seattle, three in Dallas and three in Denver.

Here is the latest on StoryBuilt, which was founded in 2001 as PSW Real Estate

"Funds invested for specific projects may have instead been utilized for different projects, to pay PSW fees in excess of agreed upon, or for other expenses," Stapleton Group said in its report. "Thus, some entities benefitted and some suffered financially disproportionately in relation to that specific entities economic performance. This comingling of assets and liabilities will be the subject of the Receivers forensic accounting analysis, which is ongoing.

The receiver plans to use proceeds from the sale of StoryBuilt's assets to pay secured debt obligations and expenses until the forensic analysis is complete, according to the court filing.

In a court hearing, Mike Bergthold said he had met in person with the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Texas State Securities Board regarding StoryBuilt. Bergthold declined a request by the Statesman on Wednesday to comment further.

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The back story on StoryBuilt

The firm specializes in infill projects, building mixed-use developments with apartments, condos, town homes and single-family homes as well as shops, restaurants and retail space.

In Austin, StoryBuilt has been a driving force behind the latest wave of development on South First Street along Bouldin Creek. The corridor has seen a surge of growth in recent years with the arrival of restaurants, boutiques, food trucks and high-end housing.

On July 31, the company agreed to enter receivership as it addressed deep financial issues. A receivership is a court-appointed tool that can assist creditors in recovering funds in default and can help troubled companies avoid bankruptcy.

More: Former StoryBuilt executives and employees launch new marketing and sales firm

The receivership came after a previous letter StoryBuilt sent to shareholders announcing a major reorganization, which included the departure of top executives and furloughing most of its staff. In the weeks that followed, the firm laid off dozens of employees, many of whom are now seeking back pay and other financial compensation from StoryBuilt.

In the letter, StoryBuilt co-founder and former CEO Anthony Siela said: "As you are aware, StoryBuilt has recently struggled with focused growth, reporting/financial controls and liquidity. This has materially affected our performance as a business and our partners."

Austin-based developer StoryBuilt has put 28 properties up for sale, including Frank South in the 900 block of South First Street. The town home and single-family home development has six homes under construction, one lot and three pads.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin developer StoryBuilt may have misused funds, per court filings
(Bloomberg) -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. projected revenue ahead of estimates and predicted the worst could soon be over for the chip industry, bolstering a growing view that tech demand could recover from its post-Covid funk going into 2024.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The primary chipmaker to Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc. projected sales of $18.8 billion to $19.6 billion this quarter and capital spending of $32 billion for 2023, both ahead of analysts expectations. While capex figure marked the lower end of a previous range, it surpassed the $30.5 billion estimated.

Chief Executive Officer C. C. Wei said the company was counting on the chip market hitting bottom very soon, after more than a year of post-Covid malaise. But he stopped short of calling a strong rebound because of uncertainty around China, the worlds largest computing arena, which is grappling with economic turbulence and growing US sanctions on its tech sector.

ASML Holding NV, a major supplier of chipmaking gear to TSMC, gained as much as 4.2% in Europe. Chip firms have over the past year worked through inventories built up during the Covid-era, when rolling lockdowns around the world forced millions online and ignited a surge in datacenter construction.

We see early signs of demand stabilization in the PC and smartphone markets. Those two are the biggest segments for TSMCs business, Wei told analysts on a conference call. We want to say that 2024 will have very healthy growth, Wei added, though he emphasized it was too early to call a strong rebound.

TSMCs Control Over Its Destiny Is Slipping Away: Tim Culpan

TSMC is also counting on a sustained boom in demand for chips to train AI services sparked by the advent of ChatGPT. Companies from the US to China are rushing to build artificial intelligence tools, which require the sort of high-end chips that the Taiwanese company dominates. It posted better-than-expected net income in the third quarter of NT$211 billion ($6.5 billion).

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TSMC is showing strong demand for its 3nm node from the likes of Apple, Nvidia and Intel, Asymmetric Advisors analyst Amir Anvarzadeh said in a brief note after the numbers. Solid margins and first real nod by the management that AI is starting to impact its utilization rates.

For now, demand for semiconductors overall remains uncertain following a Covid-era boom in internet activity that fueled a surge in datacenter construction.

Washingtons constraints on China could reduce manufacturing orders to TSMC from US chip designers such as Nvidia for certain AI chips in the medium to long term, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Charles Shum.

A day before TSMCs report, ASML reported a big drop in order bookings for the September quarter. TSMC is one of ASMLs biggest customers and its slower spending was reflected in ASMLs results.

The Taiwanese company also makes iPhone chips, and demand for consumer gadgets has been affected by the downturn. Apples new iPhone 15 is selling far worse in China than its predecessor, reflecting stubbornly weak consumption as well as the rise of rivals like Huawei Technologies Co.

Still, supply chain bellwether Murata Manufacturing Co. said this week the global smartphone market has bottomed out and will resume growth this year.

Longer term, TSMC is spending heavily on chip plants around the world. Executives said its $40 billion Arizona site was on track to start production in 2025s first half, while a Japanese plant is slated to begin mass output in late 2024.

Read more: Apples IPhones Off to Sluggish Start in China, Study Shows

--With assistance from Debby Wu, Gao Yuan and Betty Hou.

(Updates with comments on a market bottom from the first paragraph)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Viralgen Vector Core welcomes back Andy Holt in new role as Chief Commercial Officer

SAN SEBASTIAN, SPAIN / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2023 / Viralgen Vector Core (Viralgen) is pleased to welcome back their previous Executive Vice President of Commercial Development and Manufacturing, Andy Holt, into the newly created position of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). In this role, Holt will lead Viralgen's commercial strategy towards achieving market-leading growth and customer centric solutions in gene therapy manufacturing.

Holt brings more than 15 years of experience in cell and gene therapy into his new role. His most recent position was CCO of Ncardia and Cellistic, affiliated companies leveraging deep experience in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to accelerate drug discovery and allogeneic cell therapy development. Prior to his first role with Viralgen, Holt held business development and management positions at MilliporeSigma (Merck KGaA) and Lonza.





"Viralgen has always worked hard to place the customer at the center of its business," said Jimmy Vanhove, CEO of Viralgen, "and having Andy return to the team to lead an evolving commercial organization, which includes Business Development, Marketing, and Project Management, is an exciting next step for us as we continue to fulfill our mission of producing revolutionary medicines on behalf of the customers and patients we serve."





"It's a privilege to return to Viralgen at an exciting time in our growth", says Holt. "We believe our team and capabilities lead the industry in meeting the manufacturing needs of gene therapy developers for uncompromising quality, agility, and cost effectiveness. Continuing to innovate, both in business and science, will enable us to remain a partner of choice, and this is an incredible opportunity that I am looking forward to supporting."

About Viralgen Vector Core

Viralgen is a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) founded in 2017 and exists as an independently operated subsidiary of AskBio, which is wholly owned and independently operated as a subsidiary of Bayer AG. As a leading manufacturer of cGMP certified AAV, Viralgen offers the Pro10 based suspension manufacturing platform, a technology licensed from AskBio and developed by Chief Technical Officer Josh Grieger, PhD, and co-founder R. Jude Samulski, PhD, at University of North Carolina. It has been demonstrated that Pro10 increases scalability, performance, and yield of AAV therapies1 at Viralgen and previous partners of AskBio. Located in Spain, in the Gipuzkoa Science and Technology Park, Viralgen produces AAV gene therapy treatments for pharmaceutical and biotech companies with the aim of accelerating the delivery of new treatments that can improve patients' lives.

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The company's clinical facilities have four cGMP manufacturing suites, with 250-liter and 500-liter bioreactors. In 2020, Viralgen expanded within the Scientific Park by constructing a new building for large-scale commercial manufacturing. The new state-of-the-art space includes three additional cGMP suites with a manufacturing capacity of >2,000 liters each, as well as a suite dedicated to fully automated fill and finish operations. The new facility has received the cGMP certification by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS) as part of the EMA network. For more information, visit viralgenvc.com.

References:

1 Mol Ther. 2016 Feb;24(2):287-297. doi: 10.1038/mt.2015.187. Epub 2015 Oct 6.

For more information and interviews, please contact:

Priscilla Assumpcao

comunicacion@sg-branding.com

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SOURCE: Viralgen Commercial Therapeutic





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Some say volatility, rather than debt, is the best way to think about risk as an investor, but Warren Buffett famously said that 'Volatility is far from synonymous with risk.' It's only natural to consider a company's balance sheet when you examine how risky it is, since debt is often involved when a business collapses. We can see that The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) does use debt in its business. But the more important question is: how much risk is that debt creating?

Why Does Debt Bring Risk?

Debt and other liabilities become risky for a business when it cannot easily fulfill those obligations, either with free cash flow or by raising capital at an attractive price. Part and parcel of capitalism is the process of 'creative destruction' where failed businesses are mercilessly liquidated by their bankers. However, a more common (but still painful) scenario is that it has to raise new equity capital at a low price, thus permanently diluting shareholders. By replacing dilution, though, debt can be an extremely good tool for businesses that need capital to invest in growth at high rates of return. When we think about a company's use of debt, we first look at cash and debt together.

See our latest analysis for Walt Disney

How Much Debt Does Walt Disney Carry?

The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that Walt Disney had debt of US$47.2b at the end of July 2023, a reduction from US$51.6b over a year. However, it does have US$11.5b in cash offsetting this, leading to net debt of about US$35.7b.

How Strong Is Walt Disney's Balance Sheet?

We can see from the most recent balance sheet that Walt Disney had liabilities of US$28.2b falling due within a year, and liabilities of US$64.6b due beyond that. On the other hand, it had cash of US$11.5b and US$13.1b worth of receivables due within a year. So its liabilities outweigh the sum of its cash and (near-term) receivables by US$68.3b.

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Walt Disney has a very large market capitalization of US$154.9b, so it could very likely raise cash to ameliorate its balance sheet, if the need arose. However, it is still worthwhile taking a close look at its ability to pay off debt.

In order to size up a company's debt relative to its earnings, we calculate its net debt divided by its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) divided by its interest expense (its interest cover). The advantage of this approach is that we take into account both the absolute quantum of debt (with net debt to EBITDA) and the actual interest expenses associated with that debt (with its interest cover ratio).

Walt Disney has a debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.7 and its EBIT covered its interest expense 4.9 times. Taken together this implies that, while we wouldn't want to see debt levels rise, we think it can handle its current leverage. One way Walt Disney could vanquish its debt would be if it stops borrowing more but continues to grow EBIT at around 14%, as it did over the last year. There's no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. But it is future earnings, more than anything, that will determine Walt Disney's ability to maintain a healthy balance sheet going forward. So if you're focused on the future you can check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.

But our final consideration is also important, because a company cannot pay debt with paper profits; it needs cold hard cash. So we clearly need to look at whether that EBIT is leading to corresponding free cash flow. Looking at the most recent three years, Walt Disney recorded free cash flow of 32% of its EBIT, which is weaker than we'd expect. That's not great, when it comes to paying down debt.

Our View

Neither Walt Disney's ability to convert EBIT to free cash flow nor its net debt to EBITDA gave us confidence in its ability to take on more debt. But we do take some comfort from its EBIT growth rate. Looking at all the angles mentioned above, it does seem to us that Walt Disney is a somewhat risky investment as a result of its debt. That's not necessarily a bad thing, since leverage can boost returns on equity, but it is something to be aware of. When analysing debt levels, the balance sheet is the obvious place to start. However, not all investment risk resides within the balance sheet - far from it. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Walt Disney that you should be aware of before investing here.

When all is said and done, sometimes its easier to focus on companies that don't even need debt. Readers can access a list of growth stocks with zero net debt 100% free, right now.

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.
At age 93, legendary investor Warren Buffett has amassed more than an impressive investment portfolio; he's also a treasure trove of life wisdom.

While he's most famous for his uncanny ability to pick stocks and evaluate companies, his sagacity extends beyond the financial realm. Known as the Oracle of Omaha, Buffett offers insights that delve into the essence of life and human relationships, particularly when it comes to the nuanced subject of love. In a telling exchange with students, Buffett provides what may be considered his most invaluable asset yet  his perspective on love as the ultimate measure of success in life.

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In a talk with Georgia Tech students, Buffett was asked to reflect on his greatest successes and failures. His answer was unexpectedly distant from his financial exploits. He stated, "When you get to my age, you'll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you."

Expanding on this, he acknowledged that he knows people who have amassed fortunes yet are essentially bankrupt in the realm of love. "I know people who have a lot of money ... but the truth is that nobody in the world loves them ... that's the ultimate test of how you have lived your life."

Buffett didn't just stop at identifying the problem; he also offered a solution. "The trouble with love is that you can't buy it. The only way to get love is to be lovable. The more you give love away, the more you get."

These lines encapsulate Buffett's philosophy on love, highlighting its reciprocity. For him, love is an investment where the principal currency is not money but qualities like kindness, understanding and generosity.

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Dont Miss: Get equity and front row seats to the startups and small businesses you love  for as little as $100.

These philosophies on love are reflected in various aspects of Buffett's life, including his marriages. His relationship with his late first wife, Susan Thompson Buffett, had a foundation of mutual respect and love, even sustaining a friendship after their separation. His second marriage to Astrid Menks in 2006 has been described as grounded in a similar framework of genuine affection and shared values.

The billionaire's philanthropic efforts, notably his significant commitments to charitable organizations through the Giving Pledge, can also be seen as an extension of his philosophy on love. By pledging to give away the vast majority of his wealth, Buffett practices what he preaches  the idea that "the more you give love away, the more you get."

Buffett famously plans to give his children "enough money so that they would feel they could do anything but not so much that they could do nothing." It's a form of love that empowers rather than stifles.

Just as he believes that "the more you give love away, the more you get," investing in the right startups offers the opportunity for exponential returns, both financially and socially. When investors put their capital into startups  whether they focus on healthcare innovations, sustainable housing solutions or groundbreaking artificial intelligence  they're doing more than backing a vision. They're investing in the potential to change lives, perhaps even the fabric of society itself.

The most valuable investments are those that make the world a better place and in which the return is measured not in dollars and cents but in the enduring currency of love and positive change. Just as Buffett invests in companies with long-term value, anyone can invest in relationships and opportunities that have the potential to uplift and transform. That may be the ultimate test of a life well lived.

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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 On Life's Ultimate Test: 'When You Get To My Age, You'll Really Measure Your Success By How Many Of The People You Want To Have Love You Actually Do Love You'  Some Of The Richest People Find 'Nobody In The World Loves Them' originally appeared on Benzinga.com

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 2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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Warren Buffett is a big name in the investing world. With a net worth of $114.2 billion, people listen when he talks. From picking small companies to not sweating it when your stock drops, heres Buffetts advice for investing $10,000 if you want to get rich.

Discover: 10 Stocks That Could Be the Next Apple or Amazon

Find Out: 3 Things You Must Do When Your Savings Reach $50,000

Get Started Early

First and foremost, Buffett recommends getting started early when it comes to investing to take advantage of the power of compound interest. He describes the power of compound interest as building a little snowball and rolling it down a very long hill. As the snowball rolls down the hill, it collects more and more snow until it becomes a huge snowball.

At an annual shareholders meeting, when someone asked him how they could make billions of dollars, Buffett said, The trick is to have a very long hill, which means either starting very young or living to be very old.

Im a Self-Made Millionaire: Here Are 5 Stocks Im Never Selling

Invest in Small Companies

Buffett recommends investing in small companies. Large investors  like Buffett  and funds tend to place focus on larger companies, which means small business stocks will have less competition, allowing someone with $10,000 to find some hidden gems.

Nevertheless, Buffett said the only way to multiply your money is to buy into good businesses by buying pieces of them  aka stocks  at attractive prices.

Buffett said if he was just getting out of school and had $10,000 to invest, hed begin by looking at companies that have names that start with A and continue down the list, focusing on smaller companies to find the ones he wanted to invest in.

Dont Worry About Your Stock Going Down

If youre going to do dumb things because your stock goes down, then you shouldnt own stock at all, said Buffett in an interview with CNBC. Dumb things, he clarified, are selling your stock just because the price goes down.

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Buffett said that its inevitable that your stock will go down sometime, so why worry about it. The point is to buy something you like, at a price you like, and then hold it for 20 years, he said.

Buffett said you shouldnt look at your stocks day to day. If you bought a farm or an apartment house, you wouldnt get a quote on it every day or every week or every month, he said. So its a terrible mistake to think of stocks as something that bob up and down and that you should pay attention to those bobs up and down.

Additional Expert Advice for Investing $10,000 To Get Rich

Robert R. Johnson, Ph.D., CFA, CAIA, professor of finance at Heider College of Business, Creighton University, said, The best investment strategy for most investors is to Keep it Simple, Stupid (KISS). People should invest in a low-fee, diversified equity index fund and continue to invest consistently whether the market is up, down or sideways.

Dollar-cost averaging into an index mutual fund or ETF is a terrific lifelong strategy. Dollar-cost averaging is a simple technique that entails investing a fixed amount of money in the same fund or stock at regular intervals over a long period of time. For the vast majority of investors, the KISS mantra  keep it simple, stupid  should guide their investment philosophy.

Regarding Buffett, Johnson said, Warren Buffett has created an empire by investing in boring, staid enterprises like Sees Candies, Dairy Queen and Nebraska Furniture Mart. These may not be sexy companies, but they perform well

Consistency and patience are the virtues associated with accumulating wealth over the long run. Jeff Bezos once asked Warren Buffett: You are the second richest man in the world and yet you have the simplest investment thesis. How come others didnt follow this? To which Warren Buffett responded: Because no one wants to get rich slowly. What Buffett is referring to here is his philosophy of investing in good companies and staying invested for the long-run, letting compounding work its magic.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Warren Buffett Reveals How To Invest $10,000 If You Want To Get Rich
Webster Financial Corp (NYSE:WBS) reported Q3 2023 earnings per share (EPS) of $1.28, adjusted EPS of $1.55.

The company's net income available to common stockholders was $222.3 million.

Revenue for the quarter stood at $677.5 million.

Webster Financial Corp (NYSE:WBS) reported a return on average assets of 1.23 percent and a net interest margin of 3.49 percent.





Webster Financial Corp (NYSE:WBS) released its earnings report for the third quarter of 2023 on October 19, 2023. The company reported net income available to common stockholders of $222.3 million, or $1.28 per diluted share, compared to $229.8 million, or $1.31 per diluted share, for the same quarter in 2022. The results include $61.6 million pre-tax ($45.1 million after tax), or $0.271 per diluted share, of charges related to the merger with Sterling Bancorp on January 31, 2022. Excluding these charges, adjusted earnings per diluted share would have been $1.551.

Financial Highlights





Webster Financial Corp (NYSE:WBS) reported revenue of $677.5 million for the third quarter of 2023. The period end loans and leases balance stood at $50.1 billion, down $1.5 billion or 3.0 percent from the prior quarter. The period end deposits balance was $60.3 billion, up $1.6 billion or 2.7 percent from the prior quarter. The company's provision for credit losses totaled $36.5 million.

The company's return on average assets was 1.23 percent, with an adjusted figure of 1.48 percent. The return on average tangible common equity was 17.51 percent, with an adjusted figure of 20.96 percent. The net interest margin was 3.49 percent, up 14 basis points from the prior quarter. The common equity tier 1 ratio stood at 11.15 percent.

Commentary





"Our results this quarter illustrate the strength of Webster, both in terms of our earnings power and sound risk and operating profile," said John R. Ciulla, president and chief executive officer. "During the quarter we completed our core systems conversion which marks a significant milestone in the completion of our integration. We continue to be well positioned for the current operating environment."

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Business Performance





Webster Financial Corp (NYSE:WBS) reported that its Commercial Banking segment had $40.3 billion in loans and leases and $19.4 billion in deposits. The HSA Bank division had $12.3 billion in total footings comprising $8.2 billion in deposits and $4.1 billion in assets under administration through linked investment accounts. The Consumer Banking segment had $9.8 billion in loans and $23.6 billion in deposits.

The company's net interest income was $587.1 million compared to $551.0 million in the third quarter of 2022. The provision for credit losses was $36.5 million in the quarter, reflecting a $6.5 million increase in the allowance for credit losses on loans and leases from the prior quarter. Total non-interest income was $90.4 million compared to $113.6 million, a decrease of $23.2 million.

Webster Financial Corp (NYSE:WBS) is a leading commercial bank in the Northeast that provides a wide range of digital and traditional financial solutions across three differentiated lines of business: Commercial Banking, Consumer Banking and its HSA Bank division.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


Its two years out from the COVID lockdowns, and some patterns are becoming clear. One that was not anticipated was a surge in reshoring of basic industries. The pandemic era highlighted vulnerabilities in our supply chain, and the government responded with a push to bring manufacturing back onto US shores.

That push has included federal subsidies and incentives, but the motive remains simple: to reduce our dependence on foreign suppliers for everyday goods. The incentives have not been evenly applied, however, and some industries are benefiting more than others.

Scott Wren, the global market strategist at Wells Fargo, has taken notice of this trend and remarked, Our favorable rating on the Industrials sector reflects our belief that increased infrastructure and reshoring spending is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

With this in mind, we used the TipRanks database to pinpoint two industrial stocks that have earned Buy ratings from Wells Fargo analysts, each with the potential for an upside of at least 40% going into next year. Lets dive in.

Chart Industries

In recent years, clean and green have become watchwords for the energy industry. Theres a growing awareness that many of our basic economic activities are damaging the environment and that changes are needed to reduce pollution emissions and waste, as well as to clean up old messes. Chart Industries, the first company on our list, operates in the clean energy sector, offering a portfolio of cryogenic products used throughout the liquid gas supply chain, from upfront engineering to routine service and maintenance, and ongoing repair.

With a history tracing back to 1859, Chart Industries has established itself as a global leader in providing cryogenic and heat transfer technology essential for the storage and transport of liquefied gases. Leveraging this expertise, Chart has carved out a solid niche in the LNG (liquefied natural gas) economy, known as the cleanest of the fossil fuels.

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Earlier this year, Chart further expanded its capabilities by completing the acquisition of Howden. Howden is a global provider of air and gas handling products and services and is now a subsidiary of Chart. The acquisition transaction was valued at $4.4 billion.

Charts performance in the second quarter of 2023 marked the companys first full financial quarter after the acquisition. The total sales revenue reached a company record of $908.1 million, reflecting a growth of more than 10% year-over-year, albeit falling short of the forecast by $64.27 million. The firms non-GAAP earnings figure, reported as an EPS of $1.19, exceeded expectations by 28 cents.

This performance, and the companys expansion, formed the core of Roger Reads take on Chart. The 5-star analyst, covering the company for Wells Fargo, explained his stance: The completion of the Howden acquisition, LNG exposure, participation in the Energy Transition/Energy Security, and deleveraging initiatives support a return to historical valuation and a positive outlook. Additional divestitures could support a further strengthening of the balance sheet Longer term, we think GTLS remains one of the more interesting and attractive opportunities to participate in the twin opportunities of Energy Security and the Energy Transition.

These comments supports Reads Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating on the stock, and his price target, set at $226, implies the shares will gain 41% heading into next year. (To watch Reads track record, click here)

Overall, Chart Industries gets a Strong Buy rating from the analyst consensus, based on 9 recent analyst reviews, which include 7 Buys and 2 Holds. With a trading price of $159.87 and an average target price of $202.63, GTLS boasts a potential gain of ~27%. for the year ahead. (See GTLS stock forecast)

ON Semiconductor (ON)

Next up is ON Semiconductor, a mid-sized player in the semiconductor chip industry  and when you think that a mid-sized chip maker has a near-$40 billion market cap, that gives an indication of just how big the chip industry is. ON makes a wide range of silicon semiconductor chips but specializes in chips for automotive, industrial, medical, aerospace, and 5G applications.

While many chip makers are fabless, that is, they design the chips and make the prototypes while farming out the production lines to specialized factories, ON Semiconductor works at both the design and manufacturing sides of the business. The company has 40-plus design centers operating in 19 countries, along with 19 manufacturing facilities in 9 countries. The Arizona-based firm has been active in protecting its intellectual property through the patent process and generated $8.3 billion in total revenues last year, for 24% year-over-year growth.

In its most recent quarterly report for 2Q23, the company beat the analyst forecasts. Total revenue reached nearly $2.1 billion, remaining relatively flat year-over-year and surpassing estimates by $74 million. At the bottom line, the non-GAAP EPS of $1.33 was down by one cent from the year-ago value of $1.34, but it exceeded expectations by 12 cents. In an important breakdown, the companys revenues from chip sales to the automotive sector increased by 35% y/y, exceeding $1 billion.

ONs performance, particularly its hefty increase in automotive sector sales, caught the attention of Well Fargos 5-star analyst, Gary Mobley, who wrote of the company, We continue to believe in the automotive semiconductor cyclical & secular theses. To put it succinctly, we believe the automotive semiconductor opportunity for ON cant be ignored (note: ON derives ~50% of revs from auto today & potentially 55% by FY24). We continue to favor ON shares based on: 1) compelling valuation (20.0x NG EPS); 2) mgmts contd focus on re-aligning resources toward auto/industrial end mkts; 3) execution on a fab lite footprint; and 4) SiC optionality ($1.0B in FY23 rev)

Looking forward, Mobley rates ON an Overweight (i.e. Buy), and his $130 price target implies a one-year upside potential of 45%. (To watch Mobleys track record, click here)

Overall, ON shares get a Moderate Buy rating from the Streets consensus, based on 23 recent reviews that include 15 Buys and 8 Holds. The shares are trading for $89.59 and their $118.55 average target price indicates room for 32% appreciation in the coming year. (See ON stock forecast)

To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
Future Point of View CEO Hart Brown's slide image of Call Annie, an AI avatar app he demonstrated at the recent Commercial Real Estate Summit at the University of Central Oklahoma.

EDMOND  Get ready for AI co-workers, digital twins in the workplace and "smart everything"  meaning every device, most humans and everything else is tied together via the internet.

It will be reality sooner than later, said Hart Brown, CEO of Future Point of View, a technology strategy firm in Edmond. He talked about artificial intelligence in business as a keynote speaker at the recent Commercial Real Estate Summit at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Brown looked beyond the real estate business in explaining what is and what's to come from the "biggest driver" in technology "and not like anything we've ever seen."

His talk was timely, and maybe tardy, for people in real estate and other kinds of business, said summit organizer David Chapman, a developer, real estate agent, professor of real estate at UCO and chairman of the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission.

"The subject of AI is one that is literally sneaking up on people and they seem to think it doesnt apply to them," Chapman said. "This seems to be the case with most of us in real estate. The fact is it is already shaping the industry, right before our eyes."

Expert: Jobs market is pushing adoption of artificial intelligence

Brown said artificial intelligence is booming partly because of low unemployment and employers' needs. AI was hardly known outside of tech circles and science fiction until the debut last year of OpenAI's ChatGPT, a generative AI that can create text, graphics, images and videos almost instantaneously.

Hybrid work and the power shift from employers to employees threw some fuel on the AI fire, he said, noting that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 2022 people spent 7.9 hours a day working at work, on average, but just 5.6 hours a day working from home.

AI is a solution for making up lost productivity, he said. It won't be hard. Already, there are about a billion AI-connected devices on the planet compared with 3.2 billion employed, he said, and by next year, the globe will have more AI devices than people.

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Like Call Annie, an AI avatar app he introduced on a big screen for a conversation. "She" is so like a human in interaction with actual human beings on a video call that "people don't want to hang up" on her," Brown said. "They think it's rude."

Artificial intelligence: a snowball effect leading to a domino effect

AI Artificial Intelligence and conversational chatbots businesses digital technology interact with applications, including customer service, sales and marketing and big data virtual screen.

Digital employment of avatars like Annie, and AI doing work tasks behind the scenes as Mercy's hospitals and clinics just introduced, are creating a snowball effect that is leading to a domino effect, said Brown, who is Future Point of View's security and risk practice lead.

"What will happen to everything else?"

He pointed to the advent of tractors replacing draft animals on farms. The turning point was just after World War II. The number of farms started to plummet even as farm production increased, and those who clung to the old ways disappeared into farm consolidation.

"Will we need the same numbers of businesses we have today? Expect significant consolidation," Brown said. "If I don't need so many employees, I don't need to meet employee demands. The more AI comes into play, the more power shifts to the employer."

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Brown looked ahead just seven years.

Artificial intelligence, which can respond, as it evolves into AGI, artificial general intelligence, which can learn, connected to quantum computing, projected to be commercialized by 2027, and combined with 6G wireless technology, expected by 2030, will lead to computing speed "250 million times faster than the fastest computer (now) on the planet," Brown said.

Weak governance "over this thing" is worrisome, he acknowledged. Human need to be in control of AI, he said, noting that earlier this year an open letter from scientists cautioned the world, asking for a pause in research  presumably the one published by the Future of Life Institute.

Others, though, advised "moving as fast as we can," he said.

RELATED: What role could artificial intelligence play in Oklahoma government? What experts say

In real estate, the most "hyperconnected" space will be the most valuable

Businessman touching the brain working of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Automation, Predictive analytics, Customer service AI-powered chatbot, analyze customer data, business and technology

For commercial property, Brown said, it will all mean "massive change" no matter how many people work at work. For example, For example, he said, 5G wireless tech requires 10 square feet of space per device; 6G needs just 1 square foot.

Such "hyperconnected" space, ready to be used and experienced both physically and digitally at the same time, will fetch more return per square foot whether for sale or for lease, he said.

Aside from the characteristics of property itself, AI already is changing real estate as a business "right before our eyes," Chapman said. "I think we will see the most significant change in appraisal, mortgage, brokerage and title work.

"Anything that is dependent upon any events that happened in the past, such as transactions, are suspects to be used in AI applications. The very nature of an appraisal uses previous transactions to forecast values. AI looks back very efficiently and interpolates, or forecasts the future, pretty accurately."

He added, "Also, research and planning is being impacted for marketing purposes to cut costs and expedite customer sales with brokerages. It will be used in mortgage the same, only to predict risk in loan portfolios and even down to individuals."

RELATED: What you get when you ask AI, ChatGPT, a chatbot, about real estate in Oklahoma City

Is AI advancing too far, too fast?

Chapman said he wasn't particularly worried about AI advancing too much too fast.

"I tell my students, and anyone that will listen, 'It is never as good as you think it is, and it is never as bad as you think it is.' I think this applies to AI. It will be used to make tasks more efficient, but in the end we are humans and struggle with implementing technology," he said.

He added, "At the end of the day, I am very excited with the technology that is coming with AI and the possibility for it to solve many societal problems in medical, homelessness, and affordable/attainable housing. I guess I am reserved when it comes to the value we will receive, but I am certainly not afraid of any destruction that it will cause."

Sign Up: Weekly newsletter Real Estate with Richard Mize

Hart Brown, CEO of Future Point of View, a technology strategy firm based in Edmond, talks about artificial intelligence as a keynote speaker at the recent Commercial Real Estate Summit at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Senior Business Writer Richard Mize has covered housing, construction, commercial real estate and related topics for the newspaper and Oklahoman.com since 1999. Contact him at rmize@oklahoman.com. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Real Estate with Richard Mize. You can support Richard's work, and that of his colleagues, by purchasing a digital subscription to The Oklahoman. Right now, you can get 6 months of subscriber-only access for $1.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: The future of AI: Digital twins, smart everything coming to workplace
Visit California, a nonprofit organisation that works to further develop tourism in California, has announced the Middle East relaunch of the Visit California STAR Online Training Program to establish the US state as a premier travel destination among trade professionals in the GCC and Middle East.

The STAR program is a dynamic platform designed to enhance sales and amplify agents' understanding of the diverse range of California experiences. Through comprehensive training and interactive sales components, this programme empowers Middle East agents, enabling them to effectively market and sell new and exciting travel products that they can tailor specifically to their clienteles needs.

After undertaking a number of training modules, travel agents will attain certification as a California STAR expert and be provided with complimentary access to amazing copyright free destination images, promotional videos and access to both invaluable industry insights and a local supplier contact database.

The online training programme has already been introduced to a number of Middle East travel and airline partners in the GCC with excellent reviews. The ability to download themed holiday itineraries and use the Visit California Road Trip Republic online tool to create tailored road trip itineraries have been exceptionally highly praised.

In the coming months, Visit California is also looking for key industry players as partners to promote new California travel product.

The focus will encompass a wide array of unique Californian experiences, including relaxed luxury exclusivity, nature experiences, Native Californian experiences, culinary experiences (including Californias Michelin Starred restaurants and farm-to-table gourmet experiences, Classic Car Fairs, and exhilarating road trips.

According to Glenn Johnston, Managing Director Middle East, Visit California: The California STAR program equips agents with essential training, interactive sales tools, and marketing resources, transforming them into expert brand ambassadors capable of delivering unforgettable vacations for their potential clients.

"We firmly believe that this program will not only enrich travellers' experiences but also significantly contribute to the growth of Visit California holiday packages and revenues for travel agents. It is really an excellent resource that all travel trade professionals will love, even if just for its directory.

The training content on California Star features an intuitive layout, categorising modules into essential and specialised topics. Advisors are motivated by earning gold, silver, and bronze stars as they progress through the training. The CA STAR App (available for iOS and Android) provides easy access to the programme and information from anywhere in the Middle East.

By June 2024, 100 professional travel agents are expected to graduate as certified California Star travel experts.  TradeArabia News Service
Officials from the Fremont Public Schools district announced in a press release that 15 students at Fremont High School (FHS) had, scored among the top business students nationwide on rigorous exams to test their business knowledge.

According to the press release, the exams are part of Fremont High Schools High School of Business program, which was described as a, national accelerated business administration program of MBA Research and Curriculum Center.

More than 6,000 students from across the United States took part in the program during the 2022-23 academic school year.

The FHS students who received top scores were: Austin Cash; Adilynn Brown; Katie Proskovec; Logan Williams; Joel Navarro Valenzuela; Grace Pluth; Leila Pruitt; Colson Hazen; Taylor Hutchison; Madelyn Buck; Grant Kiefer; Charles Richmond; Natalie Stinemates; Logan Williams; and Rylie Freeman.

Students who are in the High School of Business program complete, real, hands-on business projects through a series of six courses.

The program also includes observational internships, opportunities to earn college credit, and local oversight via a steering team of college faculty, business professionals, and school personnel, officials stated in the press release.

The High School of Business is a program of the MBA Research and Curriculum Center, a non-profit organization described as specializing in educational research and the development of business and marketing curriculum for high schools and colleges across the nation.

The accelerated program is designed for college-bound students with an interest in business administration careers, such as marketing, finance, entrepreneurship, or management. For more information about the national organization, visit MBAResearch.org/HSB. Locally, contact Matthew Burg, 402-727-3050.
The landscaping rock that killed Alexa Bartell was launched from a truck which was barreling toward her at 80 mph, it was revealed in court Wednesday.

One of three teens accused in her death said that the impact sounded like a rail gun going off, according to the arrest affidavit.

Each of the three teenaged suspects accused in Bartells death were bound over for trial by 1st Judicial District Judge Christopher Zenisek after a five-hour preliminary hearing in Jefferson County Court Wednesday.

Zachary Kwak, Nicholas Mitch Karol-Chik and Joseph Koenig, who were all 18 at the time of the incident, face 13 charges including one count each of first-degree murder with extreme indifference in the death of Bartell.

They also face six charges each of attempted murder with extreme indifference and six counts of second-degree assault for six other victims who also were struck by landscaping rocks the night of April 19.

Karol-Chik and Koenig face two extra counts of attempted murder and assault for an earlier bizarre incident involving a concrete statue head that was hurled at an oncoming vehicle in Arvada.

Bartell was driving northbound in the 10600 block of Indiana Street at about 10:40 p.m. on April 19 when a large landscaping rock was thrown into the windshield of her yellow Chevy Spark, making a huge hole. It hit her in the head, and still had enough steam to blast out of the back window, before it finally hit the ground some distance from the car, testified Jefferson County Sheriff investigator Daniel Manka.

The courtroom was filled with Bartells friends and family, many of whom kept Kleenex handy and wiped away tears as they listened to the grim testimony of how the 20-year-old died on a remote two-lane highway as she drove home.

Some shook their heads at the cruelty which was revealed in the courtroom by Manka, who was questioned by prosecutor Katharine Decker.

Manka described the trio as being excited to see what happened after they struck Bartells vehicle.

Manka testified that after the direct hit on Bartells car one of the suspects exclaimed We have to go back! and Koenig responded with holy s--- in a high-pitched character voice.

The truck made a U-turn and drove back at around 50 mph to the area where Kwak, Manka said, took a photo of Bartells car for memorys sake, which he later deleted from his phone.

Bartells girlfriend, Jenna Griggs, told police that the two were on the phone and that Bartell abruptly stopped talking at 10:40 pm. Sensing something was wrong, Griggs tracked Bartells phone signal to her car, which had traveled down an embankment before it blew through a fence and came to a stop.

Each defendant has a set of two attorneys but they are being tried at the same time, making for a crowded courtroom.

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During redirect, it appeared that the lawyers were distancing their clients from one another and throwing doubt on their roles in the incident in an attempt to assign blame for Bartells death.

Kwaks attorney, Emily Boehme, said that he had only met Koenig and Karol-Chik a week before the incident and that he felt sick the day after it happened. But Decker countered that Kwak was posting prom and snowboarding photos on social media in the following days.

None of the suspects admitted to throwing rocks at cars that night, attorneys for both sides noted throughout the hearing.

Investigator Manka admitted that he could not pinpoint, specifically, who threw which rock at which victim.

But that may not make a difference at trial.

Defense attorney and former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman said that in the end, it wont matter who did what, because if you help commit a violent crime with others, you are culpable for the assaults and murders that result.

Most of the victims did not realize what was happening to them until after the fact, the hearing revealed. But one of them, Max Mueller, will likely be an important trial witness because he noticed important details.

Mueller told investigators he saw the trucks headlights flash before the rock was thrown, according to testimony in court Wednesday. He said there were at least two people inside, one of them standing on the passenger seat. During interviews, he said that the rock would have hit him in the head if it werent for a camera that deflected it downward. The rock ended up on Muellers lap, Manka said.

Other victims were not as focused before the rocks impact, some figuring that the oncoming object was just debris and one who thought it was a bird. Besides Bartells death, victims suffered from cuts from shattering glass, according to testimony during Wednesdays hearing.

Just three weeks earlier, prosecutors said, Karol-Chik and Koenig threw a statue head at a family who was traveling at 82nd Avenue and Alkire Street in Arvada, adding another victim, Christopher Bryan, which increased the total victim count to eight.

Investigators did not find out about the Arvada incident until they started interviewing the suspects and connecting the dots with cellphone data, surveillance video and information from the black box of Karol-Chiks truck.

In interviews after he was arrested April 25, Karol-Chik said that he and Koenig been on 10 other rock-throwing sprees between February and the fatal trip April 19.

Koenig also was arrested the night of April 25 and Kwak was taken in at 2 a.m. on the 26th. All of them at first denied any involvement in the rock-throwing, but eventually admitted to being in the truck that night. Karol-Chik said that he felt a hint of guilt and Kwak said that he was in the back seat and only passing rocks to the other two in front.

The suspects, each in handcuffs chained to their waists and sporting fresh haircuts, did not appear to make eye contact with one another during Wednesdays hearing. None of them showed emotion when Zenisek determined enough evidence existed to send the cases to trial.

Each of them had a set of parents in courtroom supporting them.

Zenisek opted not to set an arraignment date at request of defense attorneys, who are hoping to sever the cases so that all three arent tried together. He set a motion hearing for Dec. 12.
The 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office announced Thursday that the police shooting of Jose Aponte on March 13 was justified, according to a multi-agency investigation.

The district attorney's press release announced the findings of a Deadly Force investigation Team tasked with investigating the incident under the Colorado statute requiring a multi-agency review of all officer-involved shootings.

Aponte, 52, was shot three times nonfatally by officers during a domestic violence call at the 1000 block of North Foote Avenue in Colorado Springs. According to the release, Aponte refused to comply with officers' commands and raised a "metal object" that was later discovered to be a flashlight during the confrontation, leading Officer Pierre Gutierrez to fire at Aponte.

The confrontation came after Animal Law Enforcement and Colorado Springs Police Department officers carried out a warrant for a dangerous dog located at an address on North Foote on March 11, killing the dog after it bit an officer, according to the release.

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Two calls to 911 on March 12 by a neighbor led police back to the residence, where Aponte was allegedly in violation of a protection order and had multiple outstanding felony warrants. The release says officers made two attempts to find Aponte in his mother's home on Fonte Street, making contact with him the second time in a crawlspace hidden by a "cubby hole in the wall" of the residence.

The release said that Aponte "hid at least one hand" during his interaction with police when discovered, and that he told police that he would "show them his hand" in a "sarcastic tone." The release said that Aponte threatened officers, saying "You killed my dog and now you are going to have to kill me." Officers shocked Aponte with a Taser, at which point his left hand came up with a "chrome object," according to the release.

Officer Gutierrez fired three shots, striking Aponte. Officers then administered medical aid to Aponte, the release said.

The release concludes that Gutierrez was justified in the shooting since Aponte presented an "immediate threat to officers and potentially others in the vicinity" due to the presence of a metal object in Aponte's hand. The release also says that officers exhausted avenues to end the encounter nonviolently, including telling Aponte to show his hands 19 times.

Previous Gazette reporting on Aponte revealed that he was charged with second-degree assault and violating a protection order from the incidents on March 12. Aponte has a criminal history dating back to 1989 and was wanted on dangerous-dog warrants at the time of his arrest.
Officers with the Colorado Springs Police Department's Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) arrested 41-year-old Jason Corbett on multiple drug charges near the Tejon Street Bridge on Wednesday.

Officers recovered a backpack containing 44.95 grams of multiple controlled substances, including fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, mushrooms and heroin they said Corbett dropped at the scene. Police said the backpack also contained $3,125 in cash.

A search of court documents indicates that Corbett has been arrested for possession and distribution of a controlled substance, as well as for a warrant for a previous charge of distribution of a controlled substance.

Corbett has two prior drug convictions for marijuana and one prior domestic violence conviction, the documents show.

The arrest came after HOT officers confronted a group of people for camping and trespassing on Colorado Department of Transportation property in Dorchester Park. Police said the officers were informed during the course of their investigation that a drug dealer was operating near the bridge, where they shortly after made contact with Corbett. Corbett ran but was apprehended "without incident" on Tejon Street, police said.
Three students were taken to the hospital from a Colorado Springs middle school Thursday morning after allegedly vaping highly-concentrated marijuana, according to District 11 spokesperson Devra Ashby.

The Colorado Springs Fire Department, Police Department and personnel from American Medical Response were at Sabin Middle School after complaints from eight students of a high heart rate after vaping a marijuana product, Ashby said.

The fire and police departments confirmed their involvement just before noon.

Three of the eight students were taken to a nearby hospital, while the remaining five were treated at the school, according to Ashby.

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Late in the morning, district officials were in the process of contacting the parents of the students. Ashby said responding to the students' needs was the school's first priority.

It's unknown if the substance was vaped before or after classes had begun Thursday.

D-11 has a zero-tolerance policy on nicotine and vape use and products. Disciplinary measures can include exclusion from extracurricular activities among other things and repeated violations may result in suspension from school. In accordance with state law, no student shall be expelled solely for tobacco use, according to D-11 documentation.
Colorado College is celebrating a national recognition for its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

For the first time, the college received Insight Into Diversity magazines annual Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award. Colorado College will feature in the magazines November/December 2023 issue, according to a new release. CC is one of two institutions in Colorado to receive the award this year and one of 102 American colleges and universities in total.

Insight Into Diversity highlighted CCs robust antiracism, diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and noted a number of recent accomplishments in that area. CC became the first college in the country to make an antiracism commitment in 2019, launched the Stroud Scholars program to create academic pathways for high-promise and underrepresented high school students, began a transfer program for students in states with anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) legislation and issued a statewide pledge to offer varying levels of support for families making less than $250,000 a year, among other notable initiatives.

We are honored to be recognized with this prestigious award, the only one of its kind in the country, Colorado College President L. Song Richardson said in the release. At a time when we are seeing a problematic rolling back of important civil rights gains, preparing our students to create a more equitable and just society will take continued courage and commitment. Im proud of our students, staff, faculty, and (anti-DEI) leadership team for their dedication to this important work.

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The HEED Award uses a comprehensive and rigorous application that inquires about recruitment and retention of students and employees, leadership support for diversity efforts, campus culture, climate and demographics. About 9.5% of CC students are first generation, 13.1% are Pell Grant-eligible, and 26% have a disability.

CC also highlighted its expanding Butler Center, named in honor of one of the earliest Black alumni and serving as the student center for DEI. The center in September added the Queer and Trans Collective, which offers resources and community for the LGBTQ+ campus community.

We take a detailed approach to reviewing each application in deciding who will be named a HEED Award recipient, Insight Into Diversity Publisher Lenore Pearlstein said in the release. Our standards are high, and we look for institutions where diversity and inclusion are woven into the work being done every day across their campus.
Pikes Peak State College is increasing its concurrent enrollment opportunities and support services for Colorado Springs Hispanic and Latino high school students through a two-year pilot program, the college announced in a news release Tuesday. The college is eyeing a designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution from the U.S. Department of Education.

The program is a joint effort alongside Peak Education, an organization supporting low-income students with the college admission process. PPSC will hire a full-time concurrent enrollment navigator, who will train with Peak Education and play a vital role in implementing initiatives and fostering connections with students and families with Spanish fluency and a bicultural background.

The two partners will also create an implementation committee to support new students through academic progress monitoring, mentorship and access to Peak Education programming. Peak Education has a 100% on-time graduation rate and more than 90% enrollment in post-secondary options rate, according to the release.

The signing of this agreement signifies a significant step towards fostering educational opportunities and success for students in Colorado Springs, PPSC President Lance Bolton stated in a news release. Were eager to embark on this 2-year pilot program and contribute to the advancement of higher education in the region.

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Focus is on 10 target schools across five local school districts: Academy School District 20, Colorado Springs School District 11, Harrison School District 2, School District 49 and Widefield School District 3. Target schools have not yet been finalized, and the program will make efforts to support students at other schools as resources allow.

Concurrent enrollment can greatly improve postsecondary completion but typically students in lower- income communities see less opportunities for it. For this reason, we aim to make concurrent enrollment options more accessible, Peak Education CEO Carlos Jimenez said in the release.

Goals include increasing new Hispanic and Latino concurrent enrollment by at least 50 high school students across target schools, helping students complete a semester of concurrent enrollment with a grade of B or better, reducing gaps in concurrent enrollment rates among Hispanic and Latino students and increasing awareness of concurrent enrollment opportunities.
Gov. Jared Polis' $3.1 billion mandate to upgrade energy efficiency in large buildings took effect Sunday, a move a Pikes Peak regional building official said this week could "significantly impact" El Paso County and the state of Colorado.

Civil penalties of up to $5,000 per month for buildings not in compliance with Air Quality Control Commission Rule 28 also went into effect Sunday.

Critics said the rule is unprecedented, and, in some cases, may be unachievable. Some also argued the authority the state is exercising to come up with and implement the rule exceeds constitutional norms.

State commissioners maintained passing the rule is both necessary and mandated by the enabling statute, House Bill 21-1286, which imposes reductions in energy use of 7% by 2026 and 20% by 2030 below 2021 levels. The law's authors said buildings represent a "significant source of greenhouse gas pollution" in Colorado.

"We're doing this because there's been a certain failure on the national level, and, I think, maybe that's the way this country's going," Commissioner Jon Slutsky said at a recent hearing.

"The states have to chip in and take care of this business and other business. So, I came into this hearing with the idea that we were going to take care of building emissions. And, as long as we take care of our legislative mandate, if we do more, that's all right. I'm on board with that," Slutsky added.

Environmental attorney Paul Seby, who represents the Colorado's Apartment Association, the Apartment Association of Metropolitan Denver and the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department, argued the state has not shown that the standards are feasible.

"The burden has not been met by the (Air Pollution Control Division) to show that performance standards are achievable," he said.

Pikes Peak Regional Building Department building official Roger Lovell said even the department's main building at 2880 International Circle in Colorado Springs, which was LEED Silver certified in 2005, doesn't meet the strict "energy use intensity" regulations. The LEED certification is a worldwide green building rating system.

In 2003 construction started on the building that was "a model of efficiency" and which exceeded minimum energy requirements at the time, Lovell said. In the years since its construction, officials have made several energy upgrades like installing a solar array and upgrading all building lighting to LED lighting, he said.

"Theoretically we shouldn't have a problem meeting the regulations. But the reality is, even with the building being LEED certified, it still doesn't meet the energy use intensity regulations, which is frustrating," Lovell said.

He added the regulations could "significantly impact" El Paso County and all of Colorado, but did not speculate what the anticipated cost would be to upgrade the building or what the path to compliance could look like.

Pikes Peak Regional Building Department's main building "is already highly energy efficient, so it's geared to meet those targets. But other, older buildings that the county may have could be significantly more difficult" to bring into compliance, he said.

Building owners and management companies said what the rule really amounts to is a mandatory electrification requirement. Critics also said renovations that meet the initial 7% reduction by 2026, just 26 months away, may be impossible to achieve due to planning, permitting and supply-chain issues.

The Polis administration has argued electrification mandates will "save people money."

Tim Walsh, CEO of Confluence Companies, which builds and manages multi-family housing up and down the Front Range of Colorado, disagreed.

"We are already constraining the production of natural gas, which is driving up the cost of producing that electricity. So, what he said is completely hypocritical," Walsh said. "He's going to make harder and harder for a low wage earner to afford to live in Colorado and pay their utility bills."

A serious obstacle to the mandate is the supply chain, specifically for the kind of equipment building owners would need to procure to meet standards, according to Walsh.

"Can you imagine the equipment doesn't exist in the marketplace to do that?" Walsh previously told The Denver Gazette. "I mean you'd have to upgrade electrical panels, upgrade transformers, and then just purchasing the actual heat pump or electric hot water heater or electrical equipment. Some items are (on an) 18-month lead right now. So, I mean, the industry wouldn't be able to respond to that requirement."

Under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Roadmap, building owners face a 100% carbon-free Colorado mandate by 2050.

Other critics said the governor's plan, even if it achieves its goal, is futile, particularly if other parts of the world, notably China, continue with current emission levels.

Jake Fogleman, an energy policy analyst at the Denver-based Independence Institute, cited a report from the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina, which claimed that every day it takes China only eight minutes to "dwarf Colorado's daily carbon emissions."

"Here's another interesting statistic," Fogleman told The Denver Gazette. "We're burning more coal today globally for power production than we ever have. It's going up, not going down, and all that pollution is going up into the air in Third World countries. So, what we do in Colorado won't even move the needle on reducing greenhouse gases, but it will be a huge economic impact to our citizens here."

Supporters said such an argument, if embraced, would mean doing nothing to combat emissions. They also argued that the transition away from fossil energy is good for people's health and the environment, and that, ultimately, it would mean using a more sustainable and cheaper source of power.

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Meanwhile, the Colorado Energy Office disputed the claim the regulation effectively amounts to building electrification.

"The BPS rules will not force any building owners to electrify their buildings," said Ari Rosenblum, spokesperson for the Colorado Energy Office in an email reply to questions from The Denver Gazette, referring to building performance standards. "Building owners have multiple pathways to comply with the BPS, which allows building owners to determine the most cost-effective path, given their unique circumstances."

Walsh, the developer, called the "multiple pathways" claim by the energy office a sham, arguing the the true intent of the regulation is forced electrification, the ultimate goal of which is to eliminate the use of natural gas.

"Everybody seems to be just in this collective illusion that if we switched to electricity, somehow the cost is going to go down and we're going to save the environment," he said. "We're going to be disproportionately hurting the hardest working Coloradans and the lowest wage earners by implementing this rule."

Walsh also said dwellers in older buildings will end up paying for upgrades  from windows or insulation to central boiler hot water heating electrification to swapping gas appliances for electric  one way or another, and that it's likely many would be evicted during renovations.

Walsh added that major reconstruction to replace existing gas infrastructure with electric will trigger asbestos abatement requirements, and all of the tenants of those buildings will be required to vacate their apartments.

Rosenblum countered that the rule offers flexibility.

"Building owners can also request target and timeline adjustments, if needed," Rosenblum said. "With this built-in flexibility, it is simply not the case that buildings will need to evict residents and conduct major renovations to meet BPS targets."

Rosenblum also pointed to help that's coming to some building owners.

"The state is taking advantage of all available opportunities to maximize the savings from the BPS for owners of multifamily housing buildings in low-income communities," Rosenblum said.

"Some of the cost will be covered by applicable programs that building owners/managers apply to. Not all of the cost will be passed onto tenants. Even then, in terms of overall spending, the benefits of implementing this rule are far greater than the cost."

Rosenblum said the state is looking at options to provide tenants with temporary housing in "rare cases where tenants need to vacate a building to address health and safety concerns as a part of an energy improvement."

Will Toor, director of the Colorado Energy Office, said adequate safety measures exist in the regulation for those who can prove it's neither possible nor economically feasible to meet them.

A state economic impact earlier report said the direct cost to large building owners for capital expenditures, reporting, and management is $3.1 billion  expenses that will be incurred by the 20% energy reduction deadline set for 2030.

The report said building owners will see savings of $4.6 billion in electricity costs and $577 million for natural gas, totaling $5.1 billion by 2050. The report also cited $1.24 billion in savings from the social cost of eliminating 26 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent gasses.

"Building owners might pass on some or all of the cost of implementing this rule to their tenants, which may lead to higher rents," the report said.

Seby, the attorney, warned that the fines building owners face are substantial: For failing to submit the annual greenhouse gas benchmarking data, the fine is up to $500 for a first violation and up to $2,000 for each subsequent violation.

It's far worse if the building owner can't make the building compliant, or just refuses to do so, according to Seby.

In a joint email statement from the energy office and the governor's office, Rosenblum said, "For the performance standards, a building owner would be considered non-compliant if they fail to meet their established 2026 or 2030 target by the required deadline for each year they must comply with the target. Continued failure to achieve the standards or demonstrate progress in doing so may be subject to additional civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation by the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division, which will be determined on a case-by-case basis through the enforcement process, including court injunctions that could prohibit the owner from using the building until it's brought into compliance."

All civil penalties, fees, gifts, grants, donations, and legislatively appropriated funds go into a climate change mitigation and adaption fund available only to the energy office "for the purpose of financing and administering the building performance program."

"The Legislature has been busy the last two years totally reversing our state's entire history and custom and practice on home rule through building codes and on these kind of greenhouse gas things," Seby said. "The Legislature totally quietly dismantled any home rule considerations."

"It's an egregious delegation of the legislature's authority with no statutory bounds to it. They're not an agency, so they're not subject to all of the legal requirements and sideboards that other agencies have to follow," Seby added.

"The governor declared war on average, normal Coloradans going about their lives, and people who own buildings better watch out because they're all of a sudden blacklisted greenhouse gas emitters. This is a gross expansion of government authority, off the books, off of the normal constitutional separation of powers."

The Gazette's Breeanna Jent contributed to this report.
Colorado Springs Fire Chief Randy Royal on Thursday was recognized as the state's Chief of the Year for 2023, according to a news release from the department.

The Colorado State Fire Chiefs and the states Division of Fire Prevention and Control named Royal the 2023 George Mazzotti Fire Chief of the Year at the Fire Leadership Challenge in Keystone, the release stated.

The annual award honors an individuals positive contributions to leadership, innovation, professional development, integrity, service to the public, and contributions to the Colorado Fire Service as a whole, according to the DFPC website.

A member of the Colorado Springs Fire Department since 1987, Royal has worked in emergency services for 42 years  28 as a paramedic  and served in a variety of leadership positions within CSFD before being sworn in as fire chief in 2021.

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Royal has dedicated much of his career to bolstering emergency services in Colorado Springs. He has been instrumental in the development of several department programs, including the Tactical Emergency Medical Program and the early Hazmat and Tox-Medic Programs. Royal also spearheaded the departments COVID-19 pandemic task force and was involved in firefighting efforts against some of the region's most catastrophic blazes, including the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires, officials said.

Royals latest honor joins a host of awards and decorations he has earned throughout his career, including two Medals of Distinguished Service and the Firefighter of the Year Award.
A master plan has been unveiled for the expansion of the Abha International Airport, embodying an architectural identity that reflects the heritage of the Asir region, Saudi Arabia, where it is located.

His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs, announced the launch of the master plan that aims to transform the Asir region into a prominent landmark in the kingdom.

Under the new master plan, the terminal area will be expanded to 65,000 sq m from 10,500 sq m in its first phase, which is scheduled to be completed by 2028.

The expansion includes the construction of passenger boarding bridges, self-service facilities for streamlined travel procedures, and high-capacity parking facilities.

The design of the new airport will reflect the architectural identity of the Asir region and showcase Saudi culture. It will facilitate a distinctive travel experience and ensure seamless services for travellers.

The airport's capacity will increase to over 13 million passengers annually, a tenfold increase from the current 1.5 million capacity. It will also handle more than 90,000 flights per year, a significant increase from the current 30,000 flights. Additionally, the new airport will feature 20 gates, along with 41 check-in counters with seven new self-service check-in.

The new Abha airport is expected to contribute to developing the Asir region as an attractive tourist destination, and help the region meet its development goals that aligns with Saudi Vision 2030 by increasing air connectivity to 250 destinations and transporting 330 million passengers.  TradeArabia News Service
Around 2,000 U.S. soldiers are poised to be deployed nearly 7,000 miles from home toward Israel, preparing for possible defense tactics in its war against Hamas.

But some Americans are already on the front lines, battling in the war that has so far taken the lives of more than 4,000 people in the region.

When 25-year-old Denver native Elazar Fleischmann learned of the first Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, he knew he had to act, his family said. A former member of the Israeli army for three years, Fleischmann headed toward war within a couple of days of the conflict.

In joining the war, Fleischmann left his wife, 25-year-old Eliora Walles Fleischmann, and six-month-old daughter Ayla Wilma Fleischmann behind in Denver.

He didnt act begrudgingly, though, his wife said. His family stands behind his decision.

He is following what he believes to be the truth, Fleischmann said of her husband. Were not left behind; were standing behind him.

A family built across the world

Fleischmann met her husband in elementary school in Denver. He went home his first day and told his parents that he was going to marry Eliora  a story his family still teases him about.

The two kept in touch throughout childhood. When both were in Israel for Aliyah  the immigration of Jews back to Israel  they began falling in love. They went on to spend four years in Israel between 2018 and 2022. Eliora Fleischmann worked as a doula, helping deliver newborns. Elazar Fleischmann served three years in the army.

We really wanted to integrate into Israel  learning the language, getting jobs there, everything. We were very committed to being there. That was important to us, Eliora Fleischmann said.

The duo returned home to Denver to start a family in 2022. They brought Ayla into the world in the spring of 2023, just five months before Elazar Fleischmann went back to Israel  this time, to fight in a war.

Weve discussed many times that you should live a life that you are proud of and that your children would be proud of you living, Eliora Fleischmann said. I tell my daughter that one day when shes bigger, shell be so proud of her dad. Thats why he had to go. We had to show our daughter that we stand up for what we believe in.

Sleepless nights

Elazar Fleischmann is currently in northern Israel working as a medic for Paratrooper Unit 202. He is defending the northern border from attacks by Hezbollah, a terrorist group based in Lebanon.

The husband and wife communicate as frequently as possible, calling each other when time and service permits.

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Eliora Fleischmann asked Elazar if he was sleeping. He responded, I cant explain to you what its like to be shot at and hear bullets whizzing by your head. ... You hear explosions, you drop to the ground. You dont sleep.

Fleischmann said shes not sleeping as well, either.

I have a six-month-old baby, so I dont sleep so well anyway, she joked.

Eliora Fleischmanns mission at home is also crucial. When her husband arrived in Israel, the only tourniquet he had was the one he brought from home. Eliora Fleischmann said the lack of medical equipment in Israel is troubling.

To help, Eliora and her friend have been working with local U.S. veterans to put together medical kits to send over, shipping them out with soldiers heading to the area. Theyve sent more than $3,000 worth of medical equipment so far  a mission she doesnt plan on stopping.

From dusk to dawn, Im looking at my phone and talking to people to see how I can help soldiers and the families affected, she said.

Eliora also looks to bring organization branches to Denver that will help with families of soldiers in Israel and the soldiers themselves once they return.

Your prayers matter more

While Eliora Fleischmanns two fundraisers have raised over $12,000 for her family and $5,000 for medical equipment, she noted that the care from the community has been the biggest help.

Your monetary contributions matter, but your prayers matter more, she said. The awareness and the care are the most important. My husband said it really lifts the morale of the soldiers to know so many people care.

She spoke highly of the local community  both Jewish and non-Jewish  showing support and love during this troubled times.

That support eases but cannot lift the burden of having her husband, and father of her child, away at war. Eliora feels the terrifying gravity of the situation, and she finds solace in her husbands determination.

I find a source of comfort knowing that he wont be the first, or last, person leaving his family to fight for something he believes in, she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Pikes Peak Library District patrons are borrowing electronic materials in steadily increasing numbers and have reached a major usage milestone faster than ever before, according to district officials.

When a cardholder borrowed "Eyes of Prey," by John Sandford, on Sept. 6, PPLD reached 2 million digital checkouts for 2023  the earliest the library system has ever reached that mark. The previous record occurred Sept. 30, 2022.

It used to be the 1 million mark that was celebrated, said Jenny Pierce, PPLDs director of collection management. But that started to change a few years ago. The format continues to grow; even libraries with more modest collections than ours are hitting the 1 million mark now.

Since PPLD adopted the OverDrive electronic checkout platform in 2005, digital materials format have seen a steady increase in popularity. In 2020, the library system hit the 2 million e-checkout mark for the first time.

According to Krista Meier, selection librarian and OverDrive administrator, that was hardly a coincidence.

The first year we hit 2 million was 2020, which made sense, because for part of that year, the library buildings were closed to the public because of COVID, Meier said.

The pandemic pushed some people to try e-books who had been resistant before, because that was the only way they could get them, Pierce said.

Libraries are open to the public again, but even as consumers went back to borrowing physical materials, the number of electronic checkouts did not decrease.

Weve had people say that they never thought they would use an e-book, but that they like them now that theyve tried them, Pierce said. We still check out more physical materials  books, CDs and DVDs  than electronic materials. But its getting close.

The increase in digital borrowing is part of a nationwide phenomenon as Americans spread their book consumption over several different formats. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, while print books remain the preferred reading format, about 30% of Americans reported reading at least one e-book in 2021.

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The portability of e-books has contributed to their popularity; a person can carry hundreds of novels around in a 2-pound tablet.

Stephen King alone has probably shifted a lot of people to e-reading, because his books are so massive, Pierce joked.

The simplicity of the checkout process is another selling point: with just a few keystrokes, a library cardholder can borrow a book without having to leave the house.

Theyre super convenient for people, not just because they dont have to go anywhere to get them, but theres an accessibility factor with e-materials that people find appealing, Pierce said. People with vision problems can enlarge or change the font. They can adjust the lightness or darkness.

Audiobook consumption is also on the rise, almost equaling e-books in popularity, PPLD officials said.

People are learning that they can do other things while they listen to a book  driving, jogging or even doing chores around the house, Meier said.

Another contributing factor in the increase in e-checkouts is the growing partnership between PPLD and area school districts. In 2019, the library system launched the PowerPass program, a virtual library card that has given tens of thousands of Pikes Peak area students access to PPLDs growing array of digital materials and services.

Patrons choice of reading format does not seem to be determined by age, Pierce said.

You might think that younger people are the ones who mostly use e-materials, but my parents are in their 70s, and they pretty much just use their tablets now, she said. And I have friends who are younger than I am, who prefer print books.

The increased availability  and usage  of electronic materials doesnt seem to affect the number of readers who still prefer the tactile experience of holding a book and turning pages, officials said. Additionally, parents with fond memories of being read to while sitting in a parents lap still want to pass that experience on to their own children.

People still like the experience of bringing their kids to the library and letting them browse the childrens section, and even grabbing a book or two for themselves, Pierce said. I dont think thats going away any time soon.
The Manitou Springs Police Department is asking for the public's assistance in locating a missing, at-risk person from Louisiana, according to a Thursday morning department announcement.

On Oct. 18, police located an abandoned vehicle believed to be driven by 23-year-old Corbin Debautte, who was reported missing in Slidell, Louisiana on Oct. 10.

Officers with the MSPD searched the area near where the vehicle was discovered, but were unable to locate Debautte or any other evidence of his whereabouts, according to the release.

Standing approximately 5 foot 9 inches, and weighing 129 pounds, Debautte was last seen near the 400 block of Pawnee Avenue heading toward Red Mountain.

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Police said Debautte is not believed to be a danger to anyone but himself. Both the Slidell Police Department and his family are looking to be assured of his well-being, according to officials.

According to the release, the MSPD alongside the El Paso County Search and Rescue will continue to search the area Friday.

Authorities are asking anyone with information regarding Debautte's location to contact law enforcement, and to be prepared to provide a location and clothing description.
Three days after a train derailment spilled coal and mangled rail cars onto Interstate 25 north of Pueblo, Gov. Jared Polis and officials celebrated reopened lanes and a step toward commuter normalcy Wednesday.

Shortly after Polis toured the site of the derailment and announced that I-25 southbound lanes would reopen to traffic Wednesday afternoon, the Colorado Department of Transportation confirmed the reopening around 2:15 p.m.

Polis said the northbound lanes should reopen to traffic by Thursday afternoon.

Numerous Colorado Department of Transportation crews and construction vehicles lined I-25 approaching the since-collapsed bridge from both sides of the roadway  a cleanup operation in motion. Smoke, dust and smells of food trucks on the scene filled the air .

Debris from the train cars and displaced coal being carried by the freight has since been cleared  a gaping hole over I-25 is what remains from the derailment and bridge collapse that sent 30 of the 124-car train spilling off the side of the bridge and over the freeway Sunday afternoon, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

A truck driver was trapped in the crash and died on the scene. The Pueblo County Coroner's Office later identified him Lafollette Henderson, 60, of Compton, Calif.

The freeway has been closed across all lanes of traffic between mile markers 110 and 101 while clean-up crews and investigators worked on the scene. Detours around the road closure had created delays of up to two hours for some drivers.

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Describing I-25 as one of the most "important arteries," of roadways for both commuters and the general transportation of goods, Gov. Polis emphasized Wednesday morning his gratitude for both CDOT crews and NTSB investigators for working alongside each other to reopen roadways as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Polis said an additional closure is expected in roughly two weeks to finalize bridge repairs and restoration.

The NTSB said that upon initial inspection a damaged piece of rail just before the bridge led to the derailment, which in turn led to the damage to the bridge.

Although questions circulated regarding previous inspections and the health of the bridge prior to its collapse, Polis repeatedly stressed that officials carried "no reason to believe the bridge played any role in the incident," at hand, adding an official investigation report would be available in the upcoming weeks.

Though the investigation is still ongoing, it remains clear that investments in rail are needed now more than ever and Colorado has been working for months to take advantage of historic safety and rail funding from the federal government," Polis said, according to Gazette news partner KKTV.

CDOT spokesperson Matt Inzeo said the department had conducted an inspection of its own in 2022, however, the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railways holds primary responsibility for the bridge and repairs.

Inzeo said BNSF will be responsible for repairing the bridge, which is anticipated to begin in two weeks. A representative from BNSF was unavailable for comment at the time of the announcement.

It remains unclear when the bridge and train track may also be operational again.
Jazeera Airways, Kuwaits leading low-cost carrier, has increased its Kuwait  Colombo flight frequency to daily.

Jazeera Airways initially launched operations from Kuwait to Colombo in 2021, with two weekly flights catering to the large expat Sri Lankan community as well as tourists.

By operating direct flights to Colombo and back, Jazeera Airways provides passengers from Kuwait with a convenient and affordable option to visit Sri Lanka. Tourists from the Middle East, Russia and CIS can also connect to Colombo via Kuwait with a smooth and comfortable layover at the Jazeera Terminal 5.

Rohit Ramachandran, Chief Executive Officer, Jazeera Airways, said: We are pleased to increase the frequency of Jazeera Airways flights to Colombo. This move to daily flights not only reflects our dedication to fostering seamless travel but also underscores our commitment to strengthening the ties between Kuwait and Sri Lanka, facilitating both business and leisure travelers in their journeys between the two vibrant nations.

Jazeera serves a network of 64 destinations across the Middle East, South and Central Asia, Africa and Europe, also making it a good choice for connecting to beyond destinations from Sri Lanka. - TradeArabia News Service
The Colorado Economic Development Commission approved an incentive package worth up to $23.1 million aimed at recruiting a wind turbine company to Pueblo for its next production hub. It could mean more than 2,300 new jobs to the area.

Commissioners voted unanimously on Thursday to offer the company up to $18.5 million in Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits and $4.6 million from its strategic fund  which offers cash incentives to companies weighing Colorado against other states.

The wind turbine company is looking at multiple states.

Were just excited about this project, said Jeff Shaw, CEO of the Pueblo Economic Development Corporation, at the Commissions meeting Thursday.

The Pueblo Economic Development Corporation, the city of Pueblo, Pueblo County and the Pueblo Urban Enterprise Zone are expected to provide at least $16.5 million in local incentives, abatements and grants, according to an EDC memo. Shaw clarified local incentives would likely exceed $20 million because the estimate provided to the EDC was based on a lower job creation estimate.

The company is a global leader in wind turbine blade production, according to the Commissions summary. It specializes in blade development, manufacturing, service and logistics. It operates production facilities near major wind energy markets, more than 10 production facilities and several technology hubs on four continents. As is routine for incentive projects, the EDC is tight-lipped about providing further details that could identify the company.

Incentive packages approved by the EDC, part of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, are meant to attract companies considering Colorado among other states as future sites for operation. The company discussed on Thursday is also eyeing Texas and North Dakota.

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The company would operate a blade manufacturing facility in Pueblo for an anticipated 20 years, if not longer.

The new plant would bring an estimated 2,308 new jobs to the area with an average annual wage of $59,601. That is 117% of the average annual wage in Pueblo County, according to the EDC. None of the companys 610 employees currently work in Colorado.

The company  using the code name Project Danish  would build a warehouse, an administrative building, two workshops used in blade production and a training facility for employees. The project would also involve construction of a waste management system for waste produced at the plant.

The tax credit incentives would be contingent on the creation of 2,308 new jobs offering a minimum wage of $50,921, the average annual wage in Pueblo County, or the average wage of whichever county the company chose if it moved somewhere in Colorado other than Pueblo.

The Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit program provides tax credits to businesses considering multi-state expansion or relocation projects to expand, or locate, in Colorado. If a company does not create the number of jobs or the level of wages agreed on in the incentive package, it does not receive the credit.

The strategic fund incentives would be contingent on the creation of 1,154 new full-time positions with an annual age of $56,013, which is 110% of the countys annual wage. The cash incentive equates to $4,000 for each job created over a five-year period.

Commissioners praised the project as an impressive opportunity for Pueblo before unanimously approving the incentive deal.
Labor unions for grocers, health care workers, automakers, and actors and writers are visible and vocal when negotiating contracts. Why not a union for homeless people?

Thats the thought of the Colorado Springs Homeless Union, a grassroots movement that started a few weeks ago by a group of people who live on the streets on the citys west side.

They're tight-knit and more of a community than homeless people who live in other parts of the city, said Amy Goldsbury, whos lacked housing for three and a half years after leaving a 24-year relationship she said was not suitable for her.

Shes been on a housing list for that long and said she just got word she won a voucher in the lottery for a Section 8 unit funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Goldsbury said she cant wait to live indoors again.

My name got drawn, she said, smiling. In a week or so, theyll look for a place for me.

But she'll keep advocating for those who live outside. Among the needs: more public restrooms and trash cans.

Its difficult to find places to wash your hands, use the restroom or dispose of trash, Goldsbury said. When there is no choice, there is no dignity.

The group also wants Colorado Springs police to stop ticketing them for what seems like every little thing. Its harassment, said Goldsbury.

The police need sympathy training, she said.

On the west side, the homeless community tries to police itself, she said. They also are calling for diverse shelter options, other than the two Christian-based ones in town.

You get kicked out for bringing in food or having a nightmare  its punitive like jail, Goldsbury said.

Theyre preparing to voice a list of desires to Colorado Springs City Council at Mondays town hall on the proposed 2024 city budget, where theyll get three minutes to have their say alongside other members of the public.

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Homeless people have addressed City Council from time to time, but such an organized effort that involves speakers practicing this week is not common.

Too often in our community, we hear dehumanizing and disparaging comments about our neighbors experiencing homelessness, but we rarely hear directly from this marginalized community, said Kristy Milligan, CEO of Westside CARES. The consortium of churches provides services for low-income and homeless people on Colorado Springs west side.

At Westside CARES, we know that the only way to solve the complex challenge of homelessness is to integrate the voices, hearts and minds of those most impacted: people with lived experience, she said.

We love the idea of a collective voice comprised of unique individuals pursuing the vision of a home for every heartbeat.

Thats the motto of the local union, Goldsbury said, that every heartbeat deserves a home or at least better conditions.

In other cities, homeless unions have effectively negotiated policies and practices that benefit the overall health and safety of the community, Milligan noted.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, homeless people in Kansas City started a union and got results by picketing, Goldsbury said. They got motel vouchers, so we thought, OK, maybe we can do this.

Milligan said she hopes the Colorado Springs Homeless Union can usher in similar changes so our community can see (every) person as whole and holy, because they are.

Goldsbury wants others to experience what she does, even if just for a day.

I wish people could know what its like to wake up with nothing, what its like to know how humiliating it is to be houseless.

Goldsbury often can be spotted holding a sign that reads, A few fruits short of a cake, which she says improves response to panhandling.

Its like this is my job now, she said, adding that she used to drive trucks for a living.

Shes known as the godmother of the west side, watching out for others and treating people like family.

Mainly we want to be seen as humans, not as animals as the stigma has been, Goldsbury said.
David is an award-winning Senior Investigative Reporter at The Gazette and has worked in Colorado for more than two decades. He has been a journalist since 1982 and has also worked in New York, St. Louis, and Detroit.
Several Philomath-based artists and their guests will open the doors to their studios yet again for the Philomath Open Studios Tour, now in its 18th year.

Between noon and 5 p.m. the last two Saturdays and Sundays of October, visitors can begin anywhere on the 11-stop tour, visiting art studios, viewing art and speaking with artists about their creative processes. One of the studios will be located at Lumos Winery.

A Place to Sleep - episode 3: Corvallis Do unhoused people know where to go in Corvallis? Well, the city has outlined where they shouldn't be: near creeks, rivers, wetlands, sidewalks or within 20 feet of trees.

For the tour, artists from out of town partner up with local artists in their studios and together they welcome art lovers and enthusiasts who come from around Philomath.

This year, more than 24 artists, including students from West Albany and Philomath high schools, will be part of the event.

Debby Sundbaum-Sommers said people were really glad to be back seeing art and being outdoors last year, after the studio tour returned following a coronavirus pandemic-induced hiatus.

Sundbaum-Sommers is one of a community of artists who put on the tours every year. Raised on the Oregon Coast, she moved to Corvallis in the early 1970s to attend Oregon State University, where she graduated with a degree in printmaking.

Her work involves the monotype printmaking process, and the themes she explores are often inspired by nature.

Sundbaum-Sommers will host the Corvallis-based ceramics artist Rebecca Arthur in her home studio. For her, the interactions with guests remain a highlight of the event.

"I really enjoy explaining what I do with my printmaking," Sundbaum-Sommers said on a call.

While many art lovers are familiar with paintings and ceramics, a lot of people dont understand the different kinds of printmaking, she said.

She doesnt demonstrate the printmaking process on the tours  it can be messy with the oil-based inks involved. But she loves to share what the process entails, and answer questions posed by guests who visit the studio about her raw materials, equipment and process.

She's also curious about the guests who come, and loves to enquire about why they come to the event.

These kinds of interactions, she said, are what she enjoys the most about the event.

"To me thats a real fun part of the process," she said.

Participating artists show work in very diverse media. Visitors will visit studios and see various kinds of painting, pottery, textile making, photography, pencil drawing, jewelry, mosaic, glass and woodwork, among other media.

The artist lineup for this year includes Rebecca Arthur, Phil Coleman, Jennifer Deily, Dale Donovan, Brian Egan, Gale Everett, Debi Friedlander, Mark Gillespie, Anthony Gordon, Babette Grunwald, Jeff Gunn, Kristin Hager, Linda Herd, Carol Houk, Mack Howard, Ann Lahr, Jean Lawrence, Julia Lont, Emma Marliave, Kate McGee, Kris Mitchell, Lyn Radosevich, Debby Sundbaum-Sommers, Leslie Tejada, Steve Terhune and Justin Wolford.

Guests can find a map of the studio locations and artist information by visiting the event website.

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On ground, distinctive yellow signs with the "POST" hand symbol will also keep guests on track throughout the route.

"The POST tour is an opportunity to take a break from the busy-ness of life and immerse yourself in beauty and innovation," Sundbaum-Sommers said.

If you go:

WHAT: Philomath Open Studios Tour.

WHEN: Noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Oct. 21-22 and 28-29

WHERE: Twelve studios including Lumos Winery. Map can be found on www.philomathopenstudios.com Entry is free; artwork will be for sale at various studios.

Editor's note: This article has been edited to correct a quote attribution.
Global tourism leaders have set down a clear vision for the long-term transformation of the sector at the 25th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), which is now underway in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Delegations from 117 countries, including 70 ministerial level representatives, have convened at the meeting of UNWTO. The meeting will run till October 20.

UNWTO data indicates that global tourism is on track to reach up to 95% of pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year.

Earlier, UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili published his wide-landmark goal for the sector  "The Journey to 2030: A Vision for a Sector Transformed" that set out clear priorities for the sector in the year ahead and action plans for achieving them.

A key part of the First Plenary Session was the report of the Secretary-General to members, setting out the organisation's achievements since the previous General Assembly, held in Madrid, Spain (December, 2021).

The report focused on his five core priorities for the sector, both over the last two years and for the two years to come:

Scale up innovation and digital transformation

Invest in people with a focus on human capital, education and jobs

Boost investments, financing and entrepreneurship

Foster sustainable and green transition across tourism

Enhance competitiveness and resilience, through statistics, market intelligence, and product development.

The report to members also highlighted UNWTO's heightened relevance and visibility, including as part of the wider United Nations system.

For the third consecutive General Assembly, UNWTO celebrated its growing size. In Samarkand, Belize was welcomed as the organisation's newest member state, taking the total to 160. The Assembly was given an overview of advanced plans to further expand membership, including several countries it has been in long-term talks with.  TradeArabia News Service
Many people probably believe that polio has been eradicated for decades, but John Ockenfels and Peter Teahan flew around the world to extinguish that falsehood.

Ockenfels and Teahan planned an orchestrated a flight around the world in a 1977 Cessna T210M in the hopes of raising $10,000 to fight polio. They've done a little better than that, raising approximately $1.5 million with help from the Gates Foundation's two-to-one match of any funds raised.

"This flight has gotten to be so much bigger than what John and I ever imagined it would be," Teahan said. "We were just going to fly around the world and try to raise 10,000 bucks."

All the donations have been given to the Rotary Foundation Polio Plus program. Ockenfels estimates the trip cost them around $100,000 of their own money.

The two, hailing from Robbins and Swisher, Iowa, flew into Mason City in the Cessna on Monday to fundraise and give a presentation about the trip, dubbed "The Flight to End Polio" to a crowd mostly filled with Rotarians in the Doug Rozendaal Hangar.

According to the CDC there were 859 reported cases of polio worldwide last year, up from 698 in 2021. The first case in 10 years occurred in the U.S. last year, and the first case in four years occurred in the U.K.

The flight left from Cedar Rapids on May 5 and returned 90 days later on July 30. The pair made stops everywhere from Brisbane, Australia, to Goose Bay Canada. The flight made 39 landings in 21 countries. More than 180 hours of flight time was logged as well.

Teahan, who has been a pilot since 1972, said the dream started three years ago. He'd flown to and in other countries before, but nothing on this scale. He talked to his wife about making the trip, but she would only agree to it if he found a co-pilot to go with him. She told him he better find someone just as crazy as himself. Enter Ockenfels.

Ockenfels, 71, is Teahan's cousin by marriage and also a pilot. He was skeptical to begin with.

"I said it's impossible," Teahan said. "You can't get fuel; on small airplanes it's too big of a jump. But we said if we're going to do our dream then we need to do the southern route."

The "southern route" was historically popular for aviators of the 20th century and takes flyers through Western Europe, the Middle East, India, Australia and Hawaii. The pair logged more than 25,000 miles on the trip.

Teahan, 70, planned to take off in 2020, but COVID-19 derailed that plan. Finally, he and Ockenfels got the go-ahead this spring. That did give the pilots more time to do something not just good for the flight, but good for themselves.

"I lost 70 pounds and John lost 50 pounds," Teahan said. "That was one way we could carry more fuel."

According to Ockenfels, the two became the 701st and 702nd pilots to fly around the world in a light aircraft. Fewer than 270 of them are still living. He compared that to around 4,000 people who have summited Mt. Everest and the 500 people who have been to space.

They are now in Phase Three of the project, which has included 24 fundraisers. Phase One was planning and Phase Two was the actual flight.

The trip wasn't without its setbacks. Teahan became terribly sick in India and was hospitalized for three days. On another stop they were unable to obtain fuel for a couple of days, and they thought they might have to ditch the plane on their way to Hawaii due to a fuel miscalculation.

They emphasized that they don't hope polio will be eradicated, they believe polio with be eradicated. Ockenfels gave advice as to how to make that happen.

"Part of it is to get your kids vaccinated for polio," Ockenfels said. "We know it works, We're at 99.9% to the point of eradicating it forever."

Donations can be made at flighttoendpolio.com.
A $13-an-hour nursing assistant initially charged with murder in the death of an assisted living resident has pleaded guilty to a greatly reduced charge of dependent adult abuse.

Catherine Forkpa, 32, pled guilty to the charge on Oct. 6, three months after her superiors at Bondurants Courtyard Estates at Hawthorne Crossing gave sworn testimony  now sealed from public view  indicating they failed to respond to several hours worth of phone alerts about door alarms sounding inside the facility.

The alerts were triggered by a resident with dementia, 77-year-old Lynne Stewart, leaving her room and, hours later, wandering outside in sub-zero temperatures. Stewart was found outdoors the next morning and was declared dead a short time later.

Forkpa was initially charged with second-degree murder, a charge that carries a penalty of up to 50 years in prison. The dependent adult abuse charge carries a penalty that ranges from a fine of $855 to two years in prison and an $8,540 fine.

Polk County prosecutors have agreed to recommend a deferred judgment in the case with two years of supervised probation. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 7.

State inspectors reports indicate Stewart walked out of her room at Courtyard Estates at about 4:32 p.m., triggering a series of alarms at the facility. At about 9:40 p.m., an alarm on an exit door in the facility was triggered, indicating someone may have left the building. According to police, surveillance video showed that in the hours that followed, Forkpa walked around the facility for hours without checking on Stewart or resetting the alarms.

Shortly after 6 a.m. on Jan. 22, workers found Stewart outside, on the ground, with parts of her body covered in ice. Forkpa, who had worked at Courtyard Estates for seven months as a certified nursing assistant, was fired. Four other employees were given written warnings for their failure to respond to door alarms, according to state records.

Testimony in case sealed by Polk County judge

Forkpas criminal trial was rescheduled several times. In July, prosecutors sought another continuance, telling the court that after completing depositions in the case they wanted to conduct further investigation into issues that arose.

Written copies of two depositions in the case were made public on Iowa Courts Online shortly after a hearing Friday morning. Later that same day, the clerks office posted a judges order restricting public access to those documents and the records are now considered sealed.

The newly sealed records indicate one of the individuals who gave deposition testimony was Dwala Marie Lehman, the executive director of Courtyard Estates at the time of Stewarts death.

In her testimony, Lehman acknowledged the alarm on the door to Stewarts room was triggered at 4:32 p.m. on Jan. 20, but wasnt deactivated until 7:15 a.m. the next day  17 hours later  around the time Stewarts body was found.

State inspection records indicate that screenshots of Lehmans phone indicate that by 9:44 p.m. Lehman was receiving phone alerts about a separate alarm on the buildings exit door, and that she continued to receive those alerts every five minutes through the night while she slept.

Lehman testified she couldnt recall whether she contacted the staff at Courtyard Estates to have them check on Stewart after the alarms were triggered.

Would you agree that when somebody  a resident, a geriatric patient  walks out of your facility and freezes to death, that thats a pretty, thats a pretty significant event, right? public defender Matthew Sheeley, who represented Forkpa, asked.

Yes, Lehman replied.

And the events of that day  what you did the day before and what you did the day that this unfortunate event occurred  those events are pretty significant and youd kind of remember what was happening during those days, right? Sheeley asked.

I would, Lehman said.

Im just going to ask you, Sheeley continued, is it possible you saw these notifications and you ignored them?

No, Lehman replied.

Sheeley pointed out that police and state-inspection reports suggest Stewarts door was in alarm mode for 17 hours and that during that time Lehman appeared to have made no effort to respond to it or have others look into the situation.

Im asking you, having heard that now, whether its possible that you failed or neglected to contact the staff about the alarm to Lynnes door? Sheeley asked.

Its possible, Lehman said.

In her testimony, Lehman also acknowledged that Forkpa didnt come on duty until 10:18 p.m. on Jan. 20, and that by then the alarm on Stewarts door had been sounding for almost six hours.

So theres a six-hour window where all of these other staff members that were working the shift prior to her didnt do anything to correct the alarm, Sheeley observed. Is that a fair statement?

Yes, Lehman replied.

Lehman initially testified her responsibility in the matter was limited to ensuring that the staff had the tools to do their jobs, which led to more direct questioning from Sheeley.

Its apparent that your subordinates were not fulfilling their responsibilities, Sheeley said. Because had they done that, the alarm to her door would have been corrected almost immediately, right?

Correct, Lehman said.

Do you think its acceptable for an alarm to be in alarm mode for six hours without anybody checking on it?

No, Lehman replied.

Lehman testified that in the wake of Stewarts death, state licensing officials hadnt sanctioned her in any way and had not, to her knowledge, fielded any complaints about her conduct in the matter. She testified that she now works at for Accura Health Care at a Knoxville care facility.

There were a lot of people that were ignoring things

The sealed records also indicate that Courtyard Estates former health care coordinator, Jamie Haub, gave sworn, pre-trial testimony in the case. In her deposition, Haub testified that Stewarts death had been a traumatic experience for her. It was awful, she testified.

Haub said she was the on-call nurse at the time of Stewarts death and she acknowledged telling state inspectors that while she was at home that night she received continuous alerts on her phone about the door alarms and failed to respond because she was with her family and, later, went to bed.

If the alarm continues to trip and you see this on your phone, and you dont respond to it  I mean, if nobody on-site is dealing with this, whats the remedy? Sheeley asked. What do you guys do?

Usually if we see that alarm is going off, we do monitor the phone, Haub testified. We just dont sit and stare at (the phone) all the time  We do call and let the staff know or check in and see whats going on.

Obvious question is, if you check your phone, if the alarms were tripping at 4:32 and you were getting these alerts every 10 minutes, you would have been receiving these alerts all the way up until 9:30 if you checked your phone, right?

Yes, Haub replied.

Did you see these alerts? Sheeley asked.

I believe I saw the ones for Lynnes room, yes, Haub replied. I did not see the one for the exit door The exit door would be very concerning. It was negative 9 degrees out.

It sure sounds like that there were a lot of people that were ignoring things, Sheeley said. Is that fair?

Yes, Haub replied.

The door alarm was constantly going off. By your own admission, you ignored it, right?

That is correct, Haub said.

Would you agree that Ms. Lehman ignored things, too?

I would agree with that, yes, Haub replied.

Court records indicate no charges have been filed against Haub or Lehman in connection with Stewarts death.
DES MOINES  It is now less than three months until the Iowa caucuses, and according to polling, Donald Trump's lead over the GOP field remains stubbornly high.

Despite the best efforts of his opponents with millions spent in advertising and ground game, Trump's support in polls has not fallen below 45% since September.

At events over the past few days, I asked Trump's supporters why they think none of the candidates have been able to make major inroads among Iowa's Republican voters.

Gary Leffler, a Trump supporter and Polk County Republican Central Committee member, said he thought Trump had a baseline of support around 50%. That means, despite the efforts of other candidates, they're fighting for around 50% of the pie as well, making it difficult for any single candidate to challenge Trump.

This can also be seen in polling: No non-Trump candidate has registered more than 25% of support in polls since July, and when one candidate starts to gain traction, it usually comes at the expense of another, while Trump has kept fairly steady.

Leffler also said Trump created an energy that was unmatched by other candidates. He said Trump's rallies were "like a rock concert."

"You'll see something that you may never again see in your lifetime, to have that kind of a leadership," Leffler said. "And just the way he responds with the people and connects with the people. That's DeSantis' problem. He says all the right things, but he doesn't connect with people."

But Carl Cleveland, a voter from Sioux City and a Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis supporter, said he thinks Trump's support on the ground is not as high as the polls suggest.

"Trump is not showing off crowds like he was before because he's not getting them," Cleveland said. "And he's going on the border states ... my feeling is, he's not going to win Iowa."

While many indicators, from polls to fundraising, suggest Trump has a dominant lead, one thing I think is worth considering is how well Trump's support in polls will translate to support on caucus night.

For many who aren't deeply engaged in the primary, Trump is a default choice. He's the recognizable name and still the de-facto leader of the party. If they get a call, they may say they're going to caucus and that they'll vote for Trump.

But a caucus is more involved than an election, and it requires some time commitment and research to even know where you should go to participate. It's not a certainty that those poll respondents will actually go out and caucus.

At Trump's small-scale "commit to caucus" events in Iowa, his campaign surrogates have explained how to find caucus locations, walked attendees through what happens at a caucus and encouraged people to bring friends when they caucus on Jan. 15.

It's not a tactic unique to the Trump campaign, but I think it illustrates that they are trying to be certain they have their support locked down as Trump's opponents are pouring money, people and time into Iowa.

Gaza refugees split candidates

Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have gotten into a spat over support, or rather, lack thereof, for refugees from Gaza as Israel's retaliation to a Hamas terror attack has displaced more than 1 million people in northern Gaza.

DeSantis made headlines on Saturday saying that he would reject refugees from the war-torn Gaza Strip. He argued that though Gaza residents do not all support Hamas, "they're all antisemitic" and want to abolish Israel.

Responding to those comments, Haley said that half of Gaza opposes Hamas and that the U.S. "has always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists."

While Haley never said the U.S. should take in refugees from Gaza, DeSantis seized on those comments, saying to NBC News that Haley "would import people  that's been her position."

Haley's campaign hit back and said Haley "has always opposed settling Middle East refugees" in the U.S., arguing that other Arab countries should take refugees.

Never Back Down, the Super PAC associated with DeSantis, on Tuesday dropped an ad claiming Haley flip-flopped on her support for refugees. The ad clips Haley's confirmation hearing from 2017, in which she says South Carolina "always welcomed the refugee program."

But in the original hearing, Haley immediately followed that by saying her position changed when it came to refugees from Syria. According to local reporting at the time, Haley briefly supported a faith group's efforts to resettle refugees from Syria in 2015, but she reversed her position that year after a terrorist bombing in Paris because of vetting concerns.

Trump and South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott have also said they would reject refugees from Gaza.

It's not surprising these candidates are going after each other on this issue, as Haley has been making a play for DeSantis's second-place spot in Iowa and nationally. And, there is not much daylight between the candidates' views on Israel, so creating some friction may not be a bad strategy.

What I'm reading

Organizing is key to the Iowa Caucuses. Who has the ground game to take on Trump? (Brianne Pfannenstiel, Des Moines Register): An in-depth look into the organizing ground games in Iowa for Trump, DeSantis, Haley and other GOP presidential candidates.

What Republican presidential candidates are saying about the Israel-Hamas war (Jeongyoon Han, NPR): This is a great summary of what each candidate has said and the positions they've taken as war between Israel and Hamas has unfolded.

Photos: Former President Donald Trump speaks at Commit to Caucus event in Waterloo Trump 2 Trump 11
Xi, Putin hold talks, demonstrate 'high level' of strategic coordination

08:52, October 19, 2023 By Chen Qingqing and Yin Yeping ( Global Times

Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Wednesday on the sidelines of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), and during the meeting, Xi said China is willing to deepen cooperation with Russia and jointly safeguard global justice and fairness and contribute to global development.

Xi extended his welcome to Putin for attending the BRF, calling him an "old friend," as over the past decade since 2013, Xi has met with Putin 42 times, establishing a strong working relationship and deep friendship.

Xi said Putin has attended the BRF three times in a row, demonstrating Russia's support for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

A major significance of Putin's visit to China is the demonstration of the high level of strategic coordination between Russia and China, and especially given the current international landscape and challenges that Russia has been facing, there is a need for the two sides to enhance coordination at both bilateral and international levels to counter the West's unreasonable containment and suppression, Chinese experts said.

Unlike the bloc confrontation driven by the West, the partnership between China and Russia is an open cooperation for mutual benefits, which eyes peaceful and common development, which is not the so-called alliance hyped by Western public opinion, experts said, noting that in a changing international landscape, the West-led power politics has led Global South countries to seek solidarity for mutual support.

China supports the Russian people in pursuing the path of national rejuvenation independently and safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests, he said, calling on the two sides to promote high-quality development of China-Russia practical cooperation and actively explore cooperation in strategic emerging industries.

"Under the international landscape, apparently, Russia has a more positive attitude in developing relations with China," Zhang Hong, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

China-Russia relations have been continuously developing as the two heads of state share many similar understandings about bilateral relations and the geopolitical landscape, including the importance of a secure and stable environment among neighboring regions and the need to push the global order in a democratic and fair direction, Zhang said.

Xi pointed out that not long ago, BRICS countries had achieved a historic expansion, demonstrating the confidence of developing countries in promoting a multipolar world and the democratization of international relations.

China is willing to continue to strengthen communication and collaboration with Russia in multilateral frameworks such as the UN, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, G20 and so on, playing a bigger role in ensuring food and energy security, and the stability of global industrial and supply chains, thereby protecting the common interests of China, Russia and other developing countries, Xi said.

The two heads of state also exchanged in-depth views on the situation in Israel and Palestine.

China has been successfully implementing the Belt and Road Initiative, and Russia welcomes that success, Putin said in an address to a plenary session of the third BRF, TASS reported.

Given the Eurasian Economic Union, Russia maintains very close ties with Central Asia, and its support for the BRI is of immense significance, Cui Heng, an assistant research fellow from the Center for Russian Studies of East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"The reason Russia chose to support the BRI is that over the past decade, Russia has reaped dividends from its development. The cooperation between the two countries is not merely based on mutual strategic needs, nor is it a short-term measure for convenience," Cui said, noting that Russia, in reality, is already enjoying the dividends from BRI development.

China is willing to work with Russia and other member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to promote the alignment of the BRI with the EAEU, so as to foster higher-level and deeper regional cooperation, Xi said. China hopes that the China-Mongolia-Russia natural gas pipeline project will make substantive progress as soon as possible, he added.

"We are happy that our president keeps it this way and makes our friendship and partnership more deeper, more wider, and more stronger," Arkady Korostelev, CEO of Moscow-based logistics company the Far Eastern Shipping Company, told the Global Times at the forum on Wednesday.

The Russian business representative said their main market is China and they are happy to meet more international partners here under this initiative. "We are a leading container operator in Russia. And one of our main business partners is Chinese ports. We work with more than eight Chinese ports here and have a very big forecast for future ties with them," he said.

Besides the pragmatic cooperation that China and Russia have already achieved, which includes areas like energy and interconnected projects, the two countries are collaborating on issues related to the fate of humanity, some experts said, including aiding refugees, addressing the global security deficit and the global development deficit.

"As the Western powers led by the US have been inactive in assuming more responsibility for maintaining global security and development, emerging nations like China and Russia must shoulder more such responsibility," Cui said.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
Abu Dhabi-based Fairmont Bab Al Bahr has appointed Firas Sharrouf as its new General Manager. With a career spanning over two decades in the hospitality industry, Firas is known for his outstanding leadership skills and a thorough understanding of the dynamics of the luxury hospitality sector.

Sharrouf's hospitality journey began in Beirut, Lebanon, where he honed his skills in junior managerial roles before establishing an international career in Dubai, UAE.

Notably, his roles with renowned hotel chains such as Jumeirah Group, Shangri-La, and Address Hotels demonstrated his commitment to delivering excellence in upscale properties, solidifying his reputation as a distinguished industry leader.

At Accor Group, Sharrouf excelled as Director of Operations and later as the Interim General Manager at Fairmont Marina Hotel and Residences, showcasing his adept project management skills and strategic prowess.

His recent role as General Manager at Sofitel Abu Dhabi Corniche further emphasized his dedication to enhancing guest experiences and achieving operational excellence.

With his extensive global insights, Sharrouf said that he eagerly looks forward to contributing to the continued success of Fairmont Bab Al Bahr, leveraging his comprehensive knowledge of the Fairmont brand and the nuances of the Abu Dhabi market.

Under his guidance, Fairmont Bab Al Bahr said that it is poised to uphold its legacy of excellence, providing guests with exceptional experiences, and maintaining its status as a premier luxury destination in the Abu Dhabi region.
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Mithra was the ancient Persian god of light, truth, and victory. The worship of Mithra spread with the Persian Empire eastward into India and westward into Asia. Later, when the Roman Empire expanded westward into lands that the Persians had once ruled, the Mithra cult began to gain followers among Roman soldiers. During the second and third centuries CE, Mithraism was the dominant religion of Rome and spread to every corner of the empire.



There are several reasons for the success of Mithraism among the Romans. The established state religion of Rome had lost much of its power to inspire true reverence; Mithraism, like several other Eastern cults, had the appeal of novelty, antiquity, and exoticism. In addition, Mithra was worshipped as a special patron of soldiers, and his cult brought stability to the lives of the many imperial soldiers serving far from their native lands. Also, Mithraism was consistent with absolute loyalty to the emperor, and many of the emperors seem to have encouraged Mithra worship for that reason.



Mithraism was supplanted in the fourth century by Christianity. Again, there are various reasons for this transition. Mithraism was above all a religion of soldiers; in fact, it seems to have been all male. There were goddess cults, compatible with Mithraism, to which many wives and daughters of Mithraists adhered, but there were no activities in which whole families were united. This was a very different situation from that of Christianity, in which mothers could instruct sons and fathers daughters, and everyone could pray together. Moreover, Mithraism was a mystery religion; the ceremonies were similar in some respects to those of Christianity, but only people who had gone through secret initiation rites were allowed to participate. Christianity differed here too: priests underwent a special ordination ceremony, but initiation into the church by baptism was available even to children, and the doctrines and rituals of Christianity were never concealed from the faithful.



1. The author's primary purpose is to



A. detail the history of the spread of Mithraism in the ancient world

B. explain the rise and decline of Mithraism in ancient Rome

C. summarize the religious history of the Roman Empire

D. argue for the superiority of Christianity to Mithraism

E. describe the religious ceremonies of Mithraism





2. The author mentions all of the following as reasons for the rise of Mithraism in the Roman Empire during the second century EXCEPT:



A. Mithraism had not previously been widespread among the Romans.

B. The Persians had long been worshipping Mithra.

C. Mithraism was well-suited to soldiers, who were numerous.

D. Roman emperors had practical reasons for encouraging Mithraism.

E. Mithraism had some points of similarity to Christianity.





3. The passage provides evidence that supports which of the following assertions?



A. Mithraism became more prevalent in the Roman Empire than it did in India.

B. Romans began to worship Mithra after the Persians had ceased to do so.

C. Women did not participate in the rites of Mithra.

D. In the fourth century, all Mithraists converted to Christianity.

E. Mithraism is no longer practiced today. A. detail the history of the spread of Mithraism in the ancient worldB. explain the rise and decline of Mithraism in ancient RomeC. summarize the religious history of the Roman EmpireD. argue for the superiority of Christianity to MithraismE. describe the religious ceremonies of MithraismA. Mithraism had not previously been widespread among the Romans.B. The Persians had long been worshipping Mithra.C. Mithraism was well-suited to soldiers, who were numerous.D. Roman emperors had practical reasons for encouraging Mithraism.E. Mithraism had some points of similarity to Christianity.A. Mithraism became more prevalent in the Roman Empire than it did in India.B. Romans began to worship Mithra after the Persians had ceased to do so.C. Women did not participate in the rites of Mithra.D. In the fourth century, all Mithraists converted to Christianity.E. Mithraism is no longer practiced today.
Hundreds of people came to the Southern Virginia Regional Housing Summit on Tuesday to learn about new housing development opportunities in the region.

The event, held at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research, attracted at least 200 to 300 developers, builders, bank representatives, architects, local government officials and others connected to the housing industry.

Housing has become a key component to economic development for companies ability to attract and retain employees to their facility, Corrie T. Bobe, Danvilles director of economic development and tourism, said during an interview at the event. Were holding this housing summit again this year to share the opportunities available not only throughout the city of Danville, but throughout the entire Southern Virginia region.

The summit included officials from Danville and Martinsville, as well as Pittsylvania, Henry, Halifax and Patrick counties. The event was sponsored by 31 businesses and other organizations.

Developers, analysts, local government officials and others involved in housing and economic development spoke about projects underway and available properties in their localities.

Last years housing summit at the Institute included the results of an analysis from The Danter Co., which found Danvilles housing supply was low due to lack of new-home construction over the last several years.

Danville needs more than 1,000 additional homes to meet demand generated by nearly 4,000 jobs expected to come to the Dan River Region through 2023, the housing demand study found.

Since that August 2022 summit, several new housing projects are underway, including The View at Franklin, an apartment complex that will include 243 units.

Another is Westend Estates, a housing development expansion that will feature 83 houses.

The 2022 Housing Summit generated interest and ideas as developers approached the city in the months following to visit Danville and see available property, Danville Housing and Development Division Director Susan McCulloch said in a prepared statement earlier this month.

More than 1,200 new units are in different phases in Danville, from preplanning to construction, she said.

This years summit is important because it highlights what parcels are open for development, McCulloch said during an interview at the event Tuesday.

Were working at a regional level to showcase our area and to show developers and other people interested within the construction industry whats available, she said. We all are here together and talking about our parcels or areas needing development. This is a great opportunity to really work together to bring more housing here.

More than 5,300 new jobs have been announced in the Southern Virginia region since 2017, Bobe pointed out.

With those new jobs comes added demand for housing availability in the market, Bobe said.

Officials hope the presentation of available properties will encourage additional housing development, she said.

Weve got to make sure were doing everything we can to provide housing across the city, said Chasta White, housing and development redevelopment specialist with the city of Danville. Everyone here has a common goal to provide housing, not just for Danville, but Southern Virginia. We want to show what the city is working on on a larger scale.

McCulloch, during her presentation, highlighted properties available for development in Danville, as well as incentives for developers and those seeking housing.

Emily Ragsdale, community development director for Pittsylvania County, presented industrial parks and projects in the county, including the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill (which is owned by the county and Danville through the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority), Cane Creek Centre Industrial Park and Hurt Industrial Park.

The Mount Hermon area also has roughly 35,000 acres of vacant land, Ragsdale said.

We continue to see a lot of growth, Ragsdale told attendees. It is a very desirable place to live.

Also, the county continues to expand its water-and-sewer network, she said.

As for developments in Danville, there is an $8 million project in the old Coin-Ops building downtown to develop 22 high-end apartments, with average rent to be about $1,300 per month, said Rory Dowling, principal with 1st & Main Development, a real estate development and consulting firm.

The historic structure was built in 1883, Dowling said.

Eleven of the units will be for those earning 80% of the area median income or less, Dowling said.

Im 50% done with construction, so its a very active site, Dowling said of the project.

He said he hopes to offer units there by April 1, 2024.

He has other projects in Danville, as well, including a $12 million to $15 million Monument-Berryman project including a mix of 60 apartments, with 20% of the units to be for those earning 80% of the area median income, and 30 town homes ranging from $250,000 t0 $350,000.

The city of Danville has focused on getting that area developed over the last 12 years, Dowling said.

Dowling also mentioned the Stewart Street apartment complex, a 188-unit development including one-, two- and three-bedroom units across 10 three-story buildings.

It will include a clubhouse, pool and dog park, with apartments starting from $1,250 per month.

He hopes construction will begin on the $45 million project in the first quarter of 2024.
Davenport Energy Inc. recently awarded $20,000 in ExxonMobil education grants to schools in Virginia and North Carolina.

The ExxonMobil Educational Alliance Program provides Exxon and Mobil retailers an opportunity to invest in the future of communities through educational grants to neighborhood schools.

Every year, ExxonMobil awards Educational Alliance grants to K-12 institutions across the country. Since 2000, the company has committed over $40 million to the grant program.

Its part of our ongoing effort to support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education within the communities we serve, said a spokesman for ExxonMobil.

Davenport Energy, an ExxonMobil branded distributor, secured education grants totaling $20,000 on behalf of its Exxon and Mobil gasoline stations and convenience stores.

Pittsylvania County schools receiving grants include Chatham High School, Dan River High School, Gretna High School, Tunstall High School, Chatham Middle School, Dan River Middle School, Twin Springs Elementary School and Southside Elementary School.

Danville schools receiving grants include George Washington High School, Westover Christian Academy and Sacred Heart School.

Headquartered in Chatham, Davenport Energy supplies gasoline and diesel fuel to more than 275 convenience stores, gas stations, and trucking centers in Virginia, North Carolina and West Virginia.

Davenport Energy also delivers propane and heating oil to more than 35,000 customers throughout the region.
Four students at Armstrong High School in Richmond ingested edibles believed to contain THC on Thursday morning, and one was taken to the hospital as a precaution, according to Richmond Public Schools.

A Richmond Police Department school resource officer found the four students "in medical distress" on the East Highland Park campus at about 11:39 a.m., according to police.

The students told police they had ingested cannabis. First responders treated the students on scene for non-life threatening conditions. One student was transported to the hospital "as a precaution," according to the school system.

Police said the investigation is ongoing, and urged anyone with information about the incident to contact Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000.
Weeks after anonymous White supremacists and antisemites Zoomed into a Charlottesville City Council meeting  making racist remarks, spreading conspiracy theories and calling for a race war  council has decided to suspend virtual public comment.

While the public will be able to continue attending meetings virtually, anyone who wishes to speak will have to do so in person.

We struggled for a while in trying to figure out what we could constitutionally do and concluded there was not really a good answer, Mayor Lloyd Snook told The Daily Progress on Wednesday. Do we listen to everybody as theyre ranting, knowing that if they were there in person, they probably wouldnt do it but feel free to do it anonymously online, while still having a distinct impact on the people listening?

One day after council voted 4-0 to suspend remote public comment, with councilor Leah Puryear absent, Council Member Brian Pinkston called the decision a judgement call.

On one hand, we obviously value peoples input and desire to participate remotely and wed love to continue to do that, but at same time, Ill call it taking care of the community and protecting those from behavior thats not just offensive but deeply hurtful, he told The Daily Progress.

The decision is a result of an Oct. 2 council meeting during which White supremacists hijacked public comment, turning their cameras off and using fake names to Zoom in and celebrate Adolf Hitler, use racist slurs and call for outright genocide. The flood of remarks seemed, at least in part, spurred by the city's decision to lift the curfew at Market Street Park after police were accused of mistreating the homeless population that resides there  a story which had been circulating in national right-wing media ahead of the meeting. Those allegations were later called "unfounded" by Police Chief Michael Kochis and the city plans to reinstate the curfew to coincide with the availability of more beds for the unhoused.

The people in attendance on the evening of Oct. 2 were clearly shocked: Gasps could be heard and several demanded the speakers be cut off.

Council was clearly caught off guard by the remarks, as members questioned whether the virtual public comments were protected by the First Amendment, as the very first racist speaker of the evening claimed.

Councilor Michael Payne later told The Daily Progress hed never seen a flood of virtual verbal comments like that.

Snook eventually looked to city attorney Jacob Stroman for guidance on how to proceed; Stroman gave Council the OK to cut off the speaker.

The gross insult to community members was unacceptable, even under the broadest interpretation of the First Amendment, Stroman said to Snook.

The incident forced council to wrestle with questions of free speech in real time.

I think it was practically impossible for the mayor in that very moment to figure out, OK, this piece of speech is protected, this part is not, Pinkston said.

A repeat of the incident, he continued, could open the city up to a lawsuit.

Council considered technological alternatives to ending virtual public comment, such as having Zoom speakers relegated to a waiting room before providing comment. But according to Pinkston, they were told the city currently doesn't have that ability. Even then, the city would not have an adequate vetting process to guarantee no ill-intentioned speakers would slip through the cracks.

It would prevent Zoom bombing, but it wouldnt prevent people from lying, Pinkston said.

If someone said something that is deeply offensive and violates free speech protections, he added, council would need to cut them off before theyve already created havoc.

There also did not appear to be a simple legal solution.

A lot of other suggestions folks had made simply werent going to work, Snook said. Some people said, Ban all racist speech. We cant do that. A federal district court judge told us that in 2016.

Snook was referring to Draego v. Charlottesville, a court case that ruled in favor of Joe Draego, who made Islamophobic remarks during public comment at a 2016 City Council meeting.

Draego had told council that Muslim immigrants posed a risk to Charlottesvilles safety and that their holy text instructed them to kill the sodomites and those who allow themselves to be sodomized.

He went on to call Muslims monstrous maniacs who perpetrate horrible crimes, leading then-Mayor Mike Signer to call for a vote to have Draegos speaking time cut short. Signer cited the councils group defamation rule, which disallowed speech that disparaged an entire group or race.

Draego ultimately had to be removed from the meeting by two police officers.

Months later, he filed a lawsuit against the city, which argued that the group defamation rule was unconstitutional.

Judge Norman Moon agreed, ruling it violated the First and 14th amendments.

The central question in this case is: Can a local government  consistent with the Constitution  open a forum for citizens to address their elected representatives on whatever subject they believe merits attention, yet then ban speech it deems to be a defamatory attack on groups? Moon wrote in his decision. Here, the answer is no.

Snook said that while council can regulate the time, place and manner of speech, it cannot prevent people from disparaging groups of people.

We could say you cannot use the N-word, but we cannot say you cant speak poorly of Black people, he explained. The fact is disruptive and upsetting speech is still protected speech under the U.S. Constitution.

By eliminating virtual public comment, the city is also eliminating the need for council to make in-the-moment First Amendment decisions.

We decided we survived without Zoom calls for more than 100 years and we can survive without them for another 100 years, Snook said.
Rani, a 27-year-old Asian elephant at the St. Louis Zoo, has died.

The elephant died around 4 p.m. on Friday. Zoo officials announced her death Monday afternoon, saying that a loose dog may have been indirectly responsible.

We are absolutely devastated, St. Louis Zoo director Michael Macek said in a statement. We ask for the communitys thoughts and support during this difficult time.

The zoos pathologist discovered that Rani had preexisting problems with her heart, though whether they contributed to her death is not yet known. The zoo is still conducting tests.

The immediate cause of death may be related to a small, unleashed dog that was running around in a non-public area near the Elephant Barn. Rani was indoors eating dinner at the time and did not see the dog.

But an elephant that was outside did see the dog and became agitated. While members of the Elephant Care team tried to catch the dog, others moved the elephant indoors, zoo officials said.

Inside the barn, other elephants began to vocalize, and Rani became agitated by their distress. She too began to vocalize and turn in a circle before collapsing.

Members of the zoos Elephant Care and Animal Health teams immediately tried to revive her but were not successful.

After her death, current and past members of the Elephant Care Team spent time with Rani to say goodbye.

The other elephants, who also were given time with Rani, calmed down quickly and are doing well, zoo officials said.

Rani was 5 when she and her mother, Ellie, came to the St. Louis Zoo in 2001 from another accredited zoo with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums.

Eight Asian elephants remain at the St. Louis Zoo, including six from three generations of the same family. Among them is Jade, 16, who is Ranis daughter, and Ellie, 52.

Rani was a special member of this elephant family group, Katie Pilgram-Kloppe, zoological manager of the Rivers Edge habitat at the zoo, said in a statement.

While growing up here in St. Louis, she got to learn from her own mom, Ellie, on how to be an amazing mother herself, Pilgram-Kloppe said.

Fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants still exist in the wild, scattered in discrete habitats across 13 countries. With threats from poachers killing them for their ivory, skin and meat, and human civilization encroaching on the space where they roam, their future survival as a species is uncertain.

The St. Louis Zoo runs the Center for Asian Elephant Conservation as a way to forestall or prevent their extinction. The center aims to preserve the species both in the wild and in zoos around the world.

But animal rights activists argue that elephants do not belong in zoos. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says that elephants needs  such as walking dozens of miles every day for their joint health  cannot be met in zoo exhibits.

Some zoos agree. The Toronto Zoo and the San Francisco Zoo have phased out their elephant programs. Both sent their elephants to animal sanctuaries in the United States that have much more space for large animals to roam.

The St. Louis Zoo, among others, says that its breeding programs are helping to preserve the species. Three elephants currently at the zoo  Maliha, Jade and Priya  were born there.

The median life expectancy for female Asian elephants under human care is 47 years, according to the zoo.
Professionals from across the United States will converge on downtown Greensboro for The Basics Learning Network Annual Conference on October 23rd and 24th. Attendees represent a diverse array of non-profit and government agencies, many of whom are dedicated to addressing the needs of young children and families. All participants are from communities that are uniting behind The Basics 5 Principles as a universal language of caregiving for children 0-5 years old, a crucial period when 90% of brain growth occurs.

The event will be headlined by prominent early childhood scholars and subject matter experts, including Brenda Jones Harden, PhD, and David Willis, MD, FAAP. Harden, professor of child and family welfare at the Columbia School of Social Work and Board President at Zero to Three, will address the importance of socio ecological saturation. Dr. Willis, Senior Fellow with the Center for the Study of Social Policy, will discuss how The Basics aligns with a growing national movement to promote Early Relational Health between caregivers and young children.

This marks the first time The Basics Learning Network has convened outside of its birthplace Boston. We are looking forward to exchanging ideas with colleagues from other communities face-to-face after an extended hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Ron Ferguson, president and CEO of The Basics, Inc. and the visionary behind The Basics movement, who founded the initiative while Faculty Director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University. There is nothing quite like the synergy that arises from being with people from lots of different places, to act on our mission of helping families across whole communities support learning and brain development, beginning at birth.

Guilford County has been a Basics community since 2019 thanks to the collaborative efforts of The Cemala Foundation and Ready for School, Ready for Life. We firmly believe that every child deserves a strong start in life, but not every child starts from the same starting line, emphasized Charrise Hart, Ready Ready CEO. The Basics strive to level the playing field for children by raising caregiver awareness about how simple, everyday interactions such as talking and reading with your children, can make a measurable difference in brain development, particularly for those 0-5 years old. We understand that nurturing healthy brain development in these crucial early years lays the foundation for success in both school and life.

About The Basics

The Basics Strategy is a public health approach that raises awareness about early childhood development and builds capacity throughout the community for engaging families around The Basics Principles, five science-based parenting and caregiving tenets. These practices support social, emotional, and cognitive development of children from birth to age five. For more information about The Basics Strategy, visit www.TheBasics.org.

About Ready for School, Ready for Life

Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) is a nonprofit organization working to create a connected, innovative system of care for Guilford Countys youngest children and their families. Learn more at www.GetReadyGuilford.org.
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has announced its list of Best Tourism Villages 2023. The accolade recognises villages that are leading in nurturing rural areas and preserving landscapes, cultural diversity, local values, and culinary traditions. The villages were named at the UNWTO General Assembly (October 16-20) that is underway in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

In this third edition, 54 villages from all regions were selected from almost 260 applications. A further 20 villages have joined the Upgrade Programme, and all 74 villages are now part of the UNWTO Best Tourism Villages Network.

"Tourism can be a powerful force for inclusivity, empowering local communities and distributing benefits across regions," emphasizes UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili. "This initiative acknowledges villages that have harnessed tourism as a catalyst for their development and well-being."

A global network of local communities

Launched in 2021, the Best Tourism Villages by UNWTO initiative is part of the UNWTO Tourism for Rural Development Programme. The programme works to foster development and inclusion in rural areas, combat depopulation, advance innovation and value chain integration through tourism and encourage sustainable practices.

As in previous editions, the villages are evaluated under nine key areas:

Cultural and Natural Resources

Promotion and Conservation of Cultural Resources

Economic Sustainability

Social Sustainability

Environmental Sustainability

Tourism Development and Value Chain Integration

Governance and Prioritization of Tourism

Infrastructure and Connectivity

Health, Safety, and Security

The initiative comprises three pillars

Best Tourism Villages by UNWTO: Recognises outstanding rural tourism destinations with accredited cultural and natural assets, a commitment to preserving community-based values, and a clear commitment to innovation and sustainability across economic, social, and environmental dimensions.

Best Tourism Villages by UNWTO Upgrade Programme: Supports villages on their journey to meet recognition criteria, helping in areas identified as gaps during evaluation.

The Best Tourism Villages Network: a space for exchanging experiences and good practices, learning, and opportunities among its members, and it is open to contributions of experts and public and private sector partners engaged in the promotion of tourism as a driver for rural development.

The network enlarges every year and aims at becoming the largest global rural network: with the announcement today of these 74 new members, 190 villages are now part of this unique network. - TradeArabia News Service
GREENSBORO  An online petition is calling for the immediate suspension or discontinuation of UNCGs academic portfolio review process aimed at identifying programs for elimination.

We are not opposed to change, but we are opposed to this flawed process and the unnecessary elimination of programs, the petition states, citing data that has caused faculty to further lose confidence in the process.

UNCGs chapter of the American Association of University Professors has a link to the petition on its website, lists programs under threat of elimination and addresses frequently asked questions. The chapter planned to distribute the information at a faculty senate forum Wednesday afternoon and confirmed the petition had at least 3,000 signatures.

A university spokeswoman said Wednesday that UNCG has not made any decisions regarding the removal of academic programs.

According to UNCGs website, deans and their teams will be tasked with making recommendations for program discontinuation to the provost in January 2024.

Unfortunately, a small group of faculty are misleading their students and now the public concerning our academic portfolio review, said Kimberly Osborne, UNCGs interim vice chancellor for strategic communications. Its best practice for higher education institutions to periodically review their academic programs to ensure they have the right mix to meet student needs, to ensure sufficient support of programs and to remain competitive.

Osborne said another reason UNCG is reviewing its academic portfolio has to to do with enrollment numbers and losses since the pandemic. The state has also changed how it funds UNC System schools.

The new state funding formula dramatically reduced funds for masters and doctoral education in non-STEM disciplines, which has had a negative effect on UNCGs budget, said Osborne, explaining that the university anticipates ongoing enrollment challenges amid a more competitive higher education market.

UNCG graduate students concerned about how the new funding formula may impact tuition, fees and potential program cuts have scheduled a march today at 3:30 p.m., starting at the steps of Jackson Library.

The UNCG Association of Retired Faculty also will be collaborating with UNCG graduate students to hold a teach-in about the issue on Oct. 26, between noon and 2 p.m., in the Alumni House.

Lisa Levenstein, director of the womens and gender studies program at UNCG, said she is concerned about the future of academic programs that serve many first-generation college students. Shes also worried about the livelihood of faculty members who may be affected by program cuts.

We believe everyone deserves to have a full education, she said.

According to the petition, an independent report contends the universitys initial claims of the financial necessity of closing departments and eliminating programs  which kickstarted the academic portfolio review process in the 2022-23 academic year  no longer exist.

UNCG is in solid financial condition and has more flexible reserves than most state universities of its kind, according to the petition.

Chancellor Frank Gilliam said in a written message to students Wednesday that he wanted to address misinformation circulating about academic programs. He assured students that they would be able to finish their studies at UNCG in their chosen major.

Any changes to the universitys academic offerings will be decided in early 2024 and will take years to implement, Gilliam wrote.

Osborne said the reviewing of academic programs is important for UNCG to remain fiscally responsible and to position the university strategically for the next decade:

Our goal is to offer excellent academic programs that provide a pathway for students to earn their degrees and launch careers right here in North Carolina.
A knowledgeable sparring partner for patient communication roleplay

The chatbots liberal approach to facts can even work in favour of medical education, for example in medical consultation training, Moons suggested: Nowadays, communication skills are often conveyed to students via role-play. Setting up ChatGPT as a would-be patient could make these lessons more efficient, less time-consuming, and easier to embrace for more introverted students.

While this already works reasonably well with existing AI models, the expert shared his vision for taking the concept even further: A specialized chatbot imbued with the knowledge of the relevant textbooks and materials for a given course. This AI could not only play the part of the patient to be consulted, but also immediately answer the students questions, possibly even providing them with the relevant literature to enhance their learning experience. This is really something that should not be too difficult to train, Moons concluded with an appeal to the developers, and Im sure that this would be a great asset for health education.





Profile:

Philip Moons is Professor of Healthcare and Nursing Science at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at KU Leuven University, Belgium. He is also visiting professor at the Institute of Health and Care Sciences of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and honorary professor at the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Prof Moons is the editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.





References:
Montana Highway Patrol training exercises in Boulder on Wednesday resulted in tear gas and pepper spray wafting over Boulder Elementary third and fourth grade students on the school playground, causing some of them to complain of irritated eyes.

In a message to parents sent Wednesday afternoon, school Superintendent and Principal Doug Richards said "(t)oday during afternoon recess, the students and the adults out doing recess duty heard several loud 'bangs.' Shortly after that, both students and adults started to complain of a funny smell while some stated complaining of it hurting to breath and their eyes and nose hurt."

The message states the children were quickly moved inside.

An administrator reportedly "made some calls" and discovered MHP troopers were conducting the training behind Jefferson High School and "forgot to call the Elementary School to warn us."

Richards said staff was able to get the students off the playground and had them wash their faces immediately. Some also blew their noses and were offered milk if their throats were irritating them. He said two nurses were already at the school that day. He said no students required treatment beyond that at the school.

Richards said in a telephone interview Wednesday evening he talked to the MHP sergeant conducting the training, who was appalled and apologized. Richards said the exercise took place far away from the campus, and estimated it to be several blocks away. He said in his message to parents that the MHP has "assured me they will make sure and contact us for any future trainings."

"It was just one of those very bizarre things that you don't expect to happen but it did," he told the Independent Record.

MHP spokesman Sgt. Jay Nelson issued a statement shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday.

"While conducting routine outdoor training exercises with riot control agents today, troopers were informed some students at a nearby school may have been affected and immediately stopped the training," the statement reads. "As has been done in the past, the wind direction and distance are taken into account before proceeding and the sheriff's office and the nearest school, Jefferson High School, are notified. This is the first report we have received of an issue that may be related to this training. The area where the training took place is about 1,800 feet from the elementary school, well beyond the area that the materials would typically reach. The Montana Highway Patrol appreciates our ongoing partnership with Boulder residents and will take measures to mitigate and minimize possible future disruptions to the community."

The MHP moved its headquarters to Boulder from Helena in 2021 to the campus that once housed the Montana Developmental Center.
Montana Highway Patrol training exercises in Boulder on Wednesday resulted in tear gas and pepper spray wafting over Boulder Elementary third and fourth grade students on the school playground, causing some of them to complain of irritated eyes.

In a message to parents sent Wednesday afternoon, school Superintendent and Principal Doug Richards said "(t)oday during afternoon recess, the students and the adults out doing recess duty heard several loud 'bangs.' Shortly after that, both students and adults started to complain of a funny smell while some started complaining of it hurting to breathe and their eyes and nose hurt."

The message states the children were quickly moved inside.

An administrator reportedly "made some calls" and discovered MHP troopers were conducting the training behind Jefferson High School and "forgot to call the Elementary School to warn us."

Richards said staff was able to get the students off the playground and had them wash their faces immediately. Some also blew their noses and were offered milk if their throats were irritating them. He said two nurses were already at the school that day. He said no students required treatment beyond that at the school.

Richards said in a telephone interview Wednesday evening he talked to the MHP sergeant conducting the training, who was appalled and apologized. Richards said the exercise took place far away from the campus, and estimated it to be several blocks away. He said in his message to parents that the MHP has "assured me they will make sure and contact us for any future trainings."

"It was just one of those very bizarre things that you don't expect to happen but it did," he told the Independent Record.

MHP spokesman Sgt. Jay Nelson issued a statement shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday.

"While conducting routine outdoor training exercises with riot control agents today, troopers were informed some students at a nearby school may have been affected and immediately stopped the training," the statement reads. "As has been done in the past, the wind direction and distance are taken into account before proceeding and the sheriff's office and the nearest school, Jefferson High School, are notified.

"This is the first report we have received of an issue that may be related to this training. The area where the training took place is about 1,800 feet from the elementary school, well beyond the area that the materials would typically reach," Nelson said. "The Montana Highway Patrol appreciates our ongoing partnership with Boulder residents and will take measures to mitigate and minimize possible future disruptions to the community."

The MHP moved its headquarters to Boulder from Helena in 2021 to the campus that once housed the Montana Developmental Center.

Update: Richards said Friday that 37 third- and fourth-graders were the most affected. He said 12 of them were sent to the nurse specifically for milk because of sore throats, but the nurse saw more than 12 students.

He said there were about 75 kids outside at the time, including first and second grade students.

Richards said he has spent quite a bit of time in the aftermath checking in with the families of those 37 kids.

"Most parents were understanding," he said.

He said he has also had several conversations with the MHP.

Richards said he had gone to the school's board earlier to ask about establishing a safety committee.

"We have our first meeting soon and (we) scheduled it way before any of this happened," he said. "I have a few more volunteers for the safety committee."
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help a former Helena resident who suffered third-degree burns when a food truck exploded.

Jordan Glosser was injured Aug. 1 when she was preparing for the grand opening of the Clydesdale Outpost food truck in Whitefish and an explosion occurred within the vehicle, her sister Jessie Schneider, who sponsored the page, said. Glosser suffered third-degree burns over 38% of her body.

She was treated in the Anschutz Medical Burn Center in Denver, but has returned to Montana, according the GoFundMe page.

She will be seeing a local doctor for continued care and traveling back to Denver every few months for treatments, Schneider wrote on Oct. 14.

As of Wednesday morning, $51,810 has been raised toward the $100,000 goal.

The 30-year-old Glosser, born and raised in Helena and daughter of John and Kim Glosser, is described on the GoFundMe page as a chef, a protector of children and a lover of all animals. She is a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a dog-mama and a wonderful friend.

Glosser is now staying with her parents, Glosser said.

Schneider said in a telephone interview Wednesday that her sisters recovery has been a series of ups and downs.

Its been kind of a roller coaster, honestly, she said. Some days are better and some days are just awful.

She said Jordan had been using a feeding tube for a long time, has been on a high dose of painkillers and has had some difficulty coming off those.

Schneider said Glossers main focus now is regaining mobility and function with physical therapy.

She still has a lot of challenges which range from not being able to regulate her body temperature, pain and irritation of the skin during healing, muscle weakness and fatigue, Schneider wrote.

She said at this point doctors believe there will be a recovery with no long-term impacts. They expect the use of her hands will improve.

Several groups in the Whitefish and Helena areas have done some fundraising for her.

Its been super overwhelming, honestly, Schneider said. I was surprised to see how eager people were and how generous they were.

Its nice as a sibling and family member to see her embraced, she said.

Visit the GoFundMe page at https://bit.ly/3M9T0OS.
Homeschooling in Montana rose along with the COVID-19 pandemic, but has declined since families felt safer sending their children back to public school.

Enrollment reports provided by the Office of Public Instruction show that homeschool enrollment jumped from 5,815 during the 2019-20 school year to 9,868 for 2020-21, an increase of about 70% the largest in state history.

In the following 2021-22 school year though, overall homeschool enrollment dropped about 25%, which was the largest year-to-year decrease in statewide homeschool enrollment since the 1990s.

Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen said OPI does not have data on whether the pandemic directly caused the increase, but she thinks it was the biggest factor.

I believe parents looked for alternatives because of congregating in a public school system, Arntzen said. At its highest in 2020, homeschool enrollment only constituted about 6% of school-age students.

Arntzen also said she believes many parents who pulled their children out of public school in the pandemic returned them to public school once they felt safer the year after, which could account for the large decrease in homeschooling by 2022.

Federal funding for private and home schools during the pandemic could have also pushed parents to try homeschooling, Arntzen said. In 2021, Montana received over $25 million in COVID-19 relief funds for nonpublic schools.

K-8 homeschool enrollment changed the most in the last few years. During the 2020-21 school year, there was an 84% increase in K-8 homeschoolers. The year after, the number dropped by about 30%. For homeschooled high school students, the pandemic saw a 25% increase, followed by a 5.7% decrease.

Arntzen said she thinks there was a smaller increase in high school homeschooling because parents may have wanted to rely on public schools to help their child learn advanced subjects, listing calculus as an example.

Homeschool enrollment has been  and still is  a small fraction compared to Montana public school enrollment. In the 2022-23 school year, the most recent data available, homeschool enrollment was 7,716, and public school enrollment was 150,573.

Except for when it temporarily increased during the pandemic, homeschool enrollment in Montana has stayed between about 1% and 5% for the past few decades.
The longest-serving member of the Hickory City Council is looking to extend his tenure in the only competitive race on the ballot this year in Hickory.

Councilman Danny Seaver has served on council since 1998. He is facing Daria Jackson, a Sherrill Furniture employee and member of the Community Appearance Commission and Community Relations Council, in the race for the Ward 3 seat.

Seaver and Jackson both responded to questionnaires asking about their qualifications, priorities if elected and their views on a recent police chase in which a Hickory officer struck and killed a mother and son.

Ward 1 Councilman Tony Wood, Ward 2 Councilman Charlotte Williams and Ward 4 Councilman Anthony Freeman are running unopposed.

Wood and Williams are running for reelection. Freeman was appointed to the council in February to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Councilman David Williams. Freeman is asking voters to allow him to serve out Williams unexpired term through 2025.

The unopposed candidates also submitted responses about what they are looking to accomplish once reelected or elected.

All Hickory council races are nonpartisan. Early voting runs from Oct. 19 to Nov. 4 at the Catawba County Library in Newton and the Highland Recreation Center in Hickory. Election Day is Nov. 7. All Hickory residents are allowed to vote for all the ward seats.

Ward 3 Candidates







Daria Jackson Background Age: 46 Occupation: Sherrill Furniture employee Education: Associate degree in liberal arts from Catawba Valley Community College Current/previous elected or appointed office: Community Appearance Commission, Community Relations Council Campaign social media: Daria Jackson for city council ward 3 on Facebook

Daria Jackson

Why should voters in Hickory elect you over your opponent to serve in this council seat?

I feel my opponent is out of touch. Hes been in a position for 30 years.

While hes a great guy  he does great for the Kiwanis Club and if you got a child he might pay for your jerseys  but hes out of touch with my generation and a whole group of people.

He even admitted himself that theres areas of his ward that he dont even visit so he doesnt know whats going on. You need to visit every inch of your ward at least once or twice a month.

What would you like to accomplish in the next four years if elected?

I would like to give a voice to some people who never get a voice. when (what) I find is no one sitting on city council right now has to deal with a everyday job.

Theyre not in fear of being evicted. Theyre not in fear of anything that the regular everyday Joe deals with.

I work a 6:30-to-3 job at Sherrill Furniture. I get to hear the complaints from people saying that its too expensive to live here in Hickory. Theyre moving to Newton while we have current members on city council celebrating statistics that were taken two years ago saying that Hickory was the cheapest place to live. LIES.

The Hickory Police Department has received criticism over a recent police chase in which an officer hit and killed a mother and son. How do you see your role as a council member when it comes to ensuring departments of the city government are accountable, transparent and responsive to resident concerns in situations like this?

First and foremost I would like to say I have the most respect for our police department. They do everything they can to keep us safe.

But with that being said, I feel that there should never be a pursuit unless you know that someone is on their way to kill someone. Its not worth endangering lives unless they are a murderer and you know it for sure. Not for a tag that is not and was not worth someones life.

Danny W. Seaver







Danny Seaver Background Age: 68 Occupation: Retired teacher Education: BS Education, Mathematics, Physics, Statistics, Religion  Appalachian State University, 1976; MA Exceptional Children Education  Lenoir-Rhyne University, 1987; AP Certification Statistics  University of Georgia, 2007 Current/previous elected or appointed office: Hickory City Council, 1998  present; Hickory Public Schools Board of Education, 1989-1997 Candidate social media/contact Facebook: Danny Seaver facebook.com/danny.seaver.79) Email: dwseaver@aol.com Phone: 828-322-5155

Why should voters in Hickory elect you over your opponent to serve in this council seat?

My record of service reveals a lifetime commitment from my early years.

I served as an assistant in a cub scout pack as a boy, scout den chief, senior patrol leader in Boy Scouts, and Eagle Scout, National Educational Development Award 1970, valedictorian at The Patterson School 1972.

I joined Big Brothers/Big Sisters 1973-1976 instead of a fraternity and was student coordinator 1974-1976 at Appalachian State University.

I have served in the Hickory and Bethlehem Lions Clubs 1989  present working to help folks with vision and hearing impairments and other areas in the community. I also served as president eight terms and received Melvin Jones, Woolard and Stickley Fellowships.

I served as a teacher (1976  2010) and Key Club advisor (1981  2010) at West Caldwell and Hickory high schools. I was nominated by the state in 1990 and again in 1991 for a Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science teaching for NC.

I was awarded Outstanding Key Club faculty advisor in 1997, Honorary Membership in 1999 and Lifetime Achievement in 2007 in the Carolinas District for Distinguished Service.

I still serve the Key Club at Hickory High as a Kiwanis advisor. I have served in the Hickory Kiwanis 23 years, with Hixon and Hyatt Fellowships, as former president, member of Kiwanis International Foundation and the Hickory Kiwanis Foundation.

I have also served with the Western Piedmont Sister Cities Association for 23 years, serving as current vice chair. I have served on The Patterson School Board of Trustees over 20 years, seven as chair. I am currently serving my 12th year on The Patterson School Foundation.

I try to live by the Key Club Motto: Caring  Our Way of Life with core values of: Leadership, Character-building, Inclusiveness, and Caring.

What would you like to accomplish in the next four years if elected?

Advocating for children and families, completing the bond projects, managing the growth we are experiencing and more affordable housing.

The Hickory Police Department has received criticism over a recent police chase in which an officer hit and killed a mother and son. How do you see your role as a council member when it comes to ensuring departments of the city government are accountable, transparent and responsive to resident concerns in situations like this?

I must rely upon the professionalism and recommendation of the chief of police and city manager using the results of the investigation to do what must be done to ensure this type of accident never happens again and to recommend what the results will show in the officers performance and duty.

In the council-manager form of government, the manager does the hiring and firing and everything else. The council can only hire and fire the city manager and city attorney. We can make suggestions, but the manager would have the final say.

Tony Wood







Tony Wood Background Age: 54 Occupation: Executive recruiter  Anthony, Paige & Blake, Inc. Education: Appalachian State University, bachelors degree, business. Current/previous elected or appointed office: Hickory City Council Ward 1  4 years; Hickory Parks & Recreation Commission  6 years, chair for 3 years Candidate contact Phone: 828-267-0799 Email: twood@hickorync.gov

What are you hoping to accomplish in your upcoming term?

Hickory is invigorated and enjoying manageable growth, and it is critical that we continue to attract residents and businesses to maintain a tax base that supports the breadth of high quality, core services that Hickorys residents enjoy.

Additionally, during my next term of service, I want to continue to be readily available and responsive to the citizens of Hickory while working with members of council and city staff to:

Ensure that Hickory is an equitable community where citizens have opportunities to reach their potential.

Continue to create a safe, livable community that offers ample green space and is pedestrian friendly.

Continue to create a community that attracts homebuilders who will supply quality housing that meets the needs of people at various economic levels and stages of life.

Work with Catawba County Economic Development Corporation and other regional partners to attract businesses that diversify Hickorys tax base and create employment opportunities that raise the standard of living for Hickorys residents.

Consistently evaluate Hickorys land use planning to ensure that it remains responsive to market demands while protecting Hickorys quality of life and abundant natural resources.

Work with city staff to make the city of Hickory an employer-of-choice and attract high-caliber talent to the organization

Rev. Dr. Anthony Freeman







Anthony Freeman Background Age: 46 Occupation: Senior pastor of Clinton Tabernacle A.M.E Zion Church Education: Associate in Applied Science from Briarwood Jr. College; Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice from Johnson C. Smith University; Master of Divinity from Hood Theological Seminary; Doctorate in Ministry from Hood Theological Seminary Current/previous elected or appointed office: Appointed to city council February 2023 Candidate Contact Email: drajfreeman35@gmail.com Phone: 828-323-7412

What are you hoping to accomplish in your upcoming term?

As the newly appointed city councilman for Ward 4, I am fully dedicated to making positive and meaningful changes within our community. My goal is to represent the voice and interests of the residents and work towards creating a healthier safer, and more prosperous ward for all. In my upcoming term, I hope to accomplish the following:

Public Safety: Ensuring the safety and security of all residents is essential. I will work closely with law enforcement agencies to implement community policing initiatives that foster positive relationships between officers and residents. Continuing to work with the chief of police, who has been doing a wonderful job in supporting crime prevention programs to make our neighborhoods safer and more inviting for families and individuals.

Community Engagement: As a city councilman, I believe it is crucial to actively engage and involve residents in decision-making processes. I will continue to attend meetings and community forums to listen to their concerns, ideas, and suggestions. By fostering open communication and collaboration, we can build a stronger sense of community and address the specific needs and desires of Ward 4 residents.

Affordable Housing: Housing affordability is an issue affecting many individuals and families in our community. I will advocate for the development of affordable housing projects and work towards promoting the City and JRN who have enlisted the help of the Western Piedmont Council of Governments (WPCOG) to complete the income verification to ensure home buyers are at or below 80% Area Median Income. I will continue to promote the WPCOG and NC Housing Finance Agency (HFA) Community Partners Loan Pool fund to help home buyers obtain down payment assistance to make their home loans more affordable. Homes have been selling within the $155k to $170k price range. Anyone interested in applying for these homes should contact the WPCOG at 828-322-9191 or visit www.wpcog.org. The locations of these homes are between Third Street Placel SW and Third Street Court SW (just off Eighth Avenue Drive SW. By addressing the housing needs of our residents, we can create a more inclusive and vibrant ward.

In conclusion, my upcoming term as city councilman for Ward 4 presents an opportunity to tackle important issues, foster community engagement and create a better future for all residents. By focusing on these key areas, I am confident that we can build a stronger, safer and more prosperous Ward 4 that we can all be proud to call home.

Charlotte Williams







Charlotte Williams Background Age: 62 Occupation: Retired Lenoir-Rhyne University professor/associate dean Education: Bachelor of social work, University of Illinois Champagne/Urbana; Master of Social Work, University of Chicago Current/previous elected or appointed office: Hickory City Council, 2018-present; Hickory City School Board  Vice Chair, 2008-2016 Candidate contact Email: ccwilliams2468@gmail.com Phone: 828-302-3205

What are you hoping to accomplish in your upcoming term?

I have been so humbled and honored to serve as a city council member over this last term. It has been exciting being a part of how Hickory is developing into a wonderful destination to work, live and play!

The bond referendum was the impetus for our trail system  City Walk, Riverwalk, Aviation Walk, the Ridgeview Walk, the arts district development and the downtown renovation. In addition, our Trivium Corporate Park has led to growing our tax base and providing well paid jobs for our residents.

I would like to be a part of this continued vision and effort to enhance the quality of life for everyone in Hickory.
Rep. Patrick McHenry has served nearly two decades in Congress but he's getting more attention now than ever before.

The Lincoln County Republican, who turns 48 on Sunday, has served as the temporary speaker since Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of the job early this month.

As Congressional Republicans struggle to elect a speaker, there has been talk of enabling McHenry to exercise greater authority.

Here are five things to know about the man serving as the nations first speaker pro tempore.

What did Patrick McHenry do before he was elected to Congress?

McHenry served in the N.C. House of Representatives prior to running for Congress. He was elected to the state house in 2002 at the age of 27.

When was Patrick McHenry first elected to the U.S. House?

McHenry was elected to the U.S. House in 2004. At the time he took office, 29-year-old McHenry was the youngest member of Congress.

Though McHenry has won by comfortable margins in the primaries and general elections since then, his first campaign was a nail-biter.

McHenry finished 3,500 votes behind Catawba County Sheriff David Huffman in the Republican primary. He then defeated Huffman by margin of 85 votes in the runoff before going on to easily win the seat in the general election.

What type of Republican is Patrick McHenry?

As a representative of a deeply Republican district, McHenry has often touted his conservative credentials, including support for tax cuts and gun rights and opposition to abortion.

He has also voiced support for former President Donald Trump and was an ally of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

McHenry voted to certify the results of the 2020 election.

He also said he did not believe there was systemic fraud in the 2020 election.

I dont believe that there is a significant enough amount of fraud to tip the election in these key states, especially when you look at Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin in particular as three major states, McHenry said at that time.

He gave some insight into how he sees his role during a 2019 town hall in Hickory.

When asked to comment on controversial comments from then-President Trump, McHenry said: Ive got a job to do to change public policy. Im a legislator. Im not a commentator.

He went on to say: So I get to work with people that I disagree with and Ive got to come to terms with and that is separate and aside from  the political debate that happens on TV and social media, but thats the world I operate in.

McHenry reiterated that point during a visit to Hickory in May 2022, when, without naming names, he criticized the theatricality of some politicians.

There are teenagers that are making millions of dollars being a YouTube star from their parents basement, McHenry said. Go do that. But lets actually let public policy be shaped by people that want to shape public policy.

Why is Patrick McHenry speaker pro tempore?

Following the 9/11 attacks, Congress established a procedure by which the Speaker of the House would designate a successor to take over in the event the speaker was killed or otherwise unable to perform their duties, according to the Associated Press.

McHenry was at the top of McCarthys list, becoming the first speaker pro tempore in history following McCarthys ouster on Oct. 3.

Has Patrick McHenry always worn bow ties?

Though he has become well-known for his repertoire of bow ties, photos from McHenrys first campaign and early years in Congress show him wearing more traditional long ties.
Sentences Handed Down In District Court The office of District Attorney Mark Pratt recently prosecuted felony criminal cases in the 66th Judicial District Court of Hill County. The following Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) convictions are for September 2023:



Victor Thomas Horton, possession of methamphetamine under one gram, 15 months state jail; bail jumping and failure to appear, two years prison



Daniel Ray Holmes, assault of a pregnant person, 15 years prison



Jonathan Michael Terry, driving while intoxicated - third or more, six years prison



Justin Felix Gomez, evading arrest/detention with a previous conviction, 15 months state jail; bail jumping and failure to appear for a felony, two years prison.



For the complete story, see the Thursday, October 19, edition of The Reporter Newspaper.


Todays political climate seems to feature one surprise after another. Congress shocked the country late last month by voting in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion to avert a government shutdown that had been considered all but guaranteed. Another jolt came three days later when the House voted for the first time in American history to remove its speaker  all because he allowed the shutdown to be averted!

But even as shocking headlines seem to become the norm, important bipartisan policy work is quietly, gradually advancing. The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) has continued its efforts in 2023 to enact policies that position dairy farmers to fulfill their goal of becoming greenhouse gas neutral or better by 2050. A cornerstone of this goal is feed management to reduce enteric methane emissions, which can comprise as much as one-third of a dairy farms greenhouse gas footprint.

To make successful feed management a reality, NMPF is pursuing a two-step strategy. The first is securing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of animal feed additives that can reduce enteric emissions. The second is using United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs to get these innovative animal feed ingredients into enterprising producers hands. This year has been marked by critical progress on both steps.

In June, the Senate HELP Committee passed the Innovative FEED Act by a bipartisan of 19 votes to 2 votes. This important bill, led by Senators Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) would provide clear direction for the FDA to review promising animal feed ingredients in a safe but expeditious manner, getting them to market faster than animal drugs to help U.S. dairy farmers remain competitive globally. NMPF is working closely with partners in agriculture and conservation to enact this bill into law this year.

Then, just last month, USDA formally recognized feed management as a climate-smart conservation practice, better positioning dairy farmers to seek conservation support for voluntary uptake of animal feed ingredients. In that spirit, several NMPF members and partners have applied for Regional Conservation Partnership Program funding for the 2023 fiscal year to support dairy farmers who want to be on the front end of the rapid uptake of new feed additives.

Dairy farmers have long been environmental stewards who adapt to new technologies and opportunities. Important progress made on feed management this year, on Capitol Hill and at USDA, is setting the stage for continued innovation on the dairy farm for many years to come.

To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com.

(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2023

October 16, 2023
First Presbyterian screening The River

Native Alabaman and filmmaker Carolyn Crowders friends in the American West were skeptical when she told them about young ministers who challenged the culturally racist brainwashing she had absorbed when she was a teenager.

After 40 years away, she moved back to the South. She set out to learn what led white Southern Presbyterian ministers during the Jim Crow era to realize that segregation was immoral, and how they learned to be allies to the Black people leading the Civil Rights movement.

Her effort began as a small oral history project but grew into a feature-length documentary film, At the River: A Memoir of Struggle and Grace in the Segregated South.

First Presbyterian Church of Concord will show the film at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 24, in its Davis Hall, 65 Church St. N.E. Crowder will lead a discussion afterward, and refreshments will be served. Admission is free and open to the public. Reservations arent necessary.

Preparing the film, Crowder traveled throughout the Southeast, interviewing 60 Presbyterian ministers and their family members and compiling more than 100 hours of material.

Most of them had never told their stories in public, and in many cases their grown children did not even know what they had been through, she wrote in her artist statement. These men were modest and unpretentious about their strong stands during those hard times.

At the Rivers music consists mostly of familiar Scottish, English and Welsh songs from the 1600s to 1800s  beloved hymns that the ministers and Crowder grew up singing.

For information about At the River, visit www.carolyncrowder.com. For information about the screening, call First Presbyterian Church at 704-788-2100.

Salvation Army Womens Auxiliary meeting

The Salvation Army Womens Auxiliary will hold its general meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 24. The meeting will be held at The Salvation Army of Cabarrus County headquarters at 216 Patterson Ave., SE, Concord.

Socializing and refreshments begin at 9:30 a.m. prior to the meeting at 10. Deputy Claudette Camille of the Cabarrus County Sheriffs Office will be speaking on personal safety issues, an important topic especially as the holiday season approaches.

There will be pre-owned books available for sale, with proceeds to be used to buy new books for the Christmas Angel Tree project. The Salvation Army Womens Auxiliary functions as a fund raising and volunteer service group in support of The Salvation Armys programs and activities in the community.

70th Cold Springs barbecue/Brunswick stew

The 70th annual Cold Springs Global Methodist Church barbecue/Brunswick stew event will be held Saturday, Oct. 28, starting at 9 a.m.

The barbecue and Brunswick stew will be carry-outs only.

Poplar Tent Presbyterian fall festival

The fall festival at Poplar Tent Presbyterian Church, 6841 Poplar Tent Road, will be held Sunday, Oct. 29.

The festival is free to the community from 5-7 p.m. There will be a trunk-or-treat, live music, food truck, face painting, corn hole, games and more.

Prayers of Israel and Gaza

The Commons, a community prayer space in Concord, invites you to join a time of prayer for Israel and Gaza, at 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 29.

The prayer session will be in their space at 75 Church St. N, Concord. at First Presbyterian.

For more information visit: www.thecommonsprayerroom.com

Barbecue chicken dinner

New Gilead Reformed Church will have a barbecue chicken dinner fundraiser from 11 a.m. until sold out on Saturday, Oct. 21.

It will be dine in or carryout. The church is at 2400 Old Salisbury-Concord Road, Concord.

A plate includes: half a barbecue chicken, beans, slaw, roll, chips, drink and dessert for $11. A whole chicken is $9 and a quart of slaw is $5.

Soup and sandwich sale

Mt. Mitchell UMC is having a soup and sandwich sale on Saturday, Oct. 28, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The church is at 6001 Old Salisbury-Concord Road, Kannapolis.

Halloween supper

A Halloween supper will be provided by Mt. Mitchell UMC for the trick or treaters families from 4-6 p.m. on Oct. 31, at Yost Park beside the church.

The church is at 6001 Old Salisbury-Concord Road, Kannapolis.

Trunk-or-treat and cookout at Calvary Lutheran

Calvary Lutheran Church is hosting its trunk-or-treat and cookout on Saturday, Oct. 28, at 4 p.m. It is trick-or-treating in a fun, safe environment from 4-5 p.m.

Afterward enjoy a hot dog supper and outdoor games until 6 p.m. Free event. You can also enter your vehicle to give out treats.

To sign up please visit: Trunk or Treat Vehicle Signup: Calvary Trunk or Treat Vehicle Signup (signupgenius.com). The church is located at 950 Bradley St., Concord.

Caregiver Support Group via Zoom

Calvary Lutheran Churchs Caregiver Support Group is meeting Monday, Oct. 30, at 7:30 p.m.

This Caregiver Support Group meets monthly via Zoom. All are welcome. For the Zoom link please check the Calvary Lutheran Church Facebook page or website http://www.clconcord.org, or contact the church office at 704-782-6923.

The Poplar Tent Barbecue

Poplar Tent's 76th Bar-B-Que will be Thursday, Nov. 2, at Poplar Tent Presbyterian Church at 6841 Poplar Tent Road.

The event features wood smoked, pit cooked pork barbeque. Plates include barbecue, Brunswick stew and slaw. Also available are BBQ sandwiches, pounds of BBQ, pints of stew, slaw and BBQ sauce.

Quilt show, bake sale and auction

A quilt show, bake sale and silent auction will be held at Epworth UMC, 1030 Burrage Road, NE, Concord, on Saturday, Nov. 4, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The event features new and historic-pieced quilts, quilting material for sale, silent auction items and cash-and-carry baked goods.

The quilt show is sponsored by members of the Epworth United Women in Faith. If you want to display a quilt, call Jewell Parker at 704-918-7250.

Scribner leads Women's Conference

A Womens Conference lead by Dr. Tricia Scribner will be held at Second Presbyterian Church on Saturday, Nov. 4, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The conference is based on Scribners book, Under the Wing. The church is located at 1578 Dale Earnhardt Blvd., Kannapolis.

Ham and chicken dinner

Friendship United Methodist Church is having a Ham and Chicken Dinner on Saturday, Nov. 4, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. T

ake out or drive by. Individual plates are $10 and combo plates are $12. Includes potato salad, green beans, slaw, dessert and bread.

The church is located at 4695 Mt. Pleasant Road S. Concord or call 704-786-3335.

The Bulb Market: Fresh produce and more

The Bulb Market at Grace Lutheran Church is open every Friday from 3-4 p.m. with fresh produce for the community.

Cabarrus Rowan Community Health Center will be offering primary care and basic health screenings on-site at the church on the second Friday of each month. Grace Lutheran is at 58 Chestnut Drive, Concord.

A summer of fitness

Revelation Fitness is at Grace Lutheran Church on Mondays this summer from 6-7 p.m.

Led by Revelation Wellness certified instructors Stephanie Flowe and Rebecca Hoover, Revelation Fitness combines tabata, drumstick cardio and circuit work with the word of God to create an atmosphere of acceptance and community, moving our bodies in joy, not perfection.

Ages 10 and older, of all fitness levels, are welcome. Bring water, hand weights, drumsticks and a mat (all are available if needed). There is no cost, but donations to Grace Lutheran Church health ministry are accepted.

For more information, call Rebecca Hoover, faith community nurse, at 980-721-4321. Grace Lutheran is at 58 Chestnut Drive, Concord.

Griefshare support group

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.

Surviving the Holidays program

Pitts Baptist Church, 140 Pitts School Road, NW, Concord will be hosting a GriefShare Surviving the Holidays event on Tuesday, Nov. 14, from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

The holiday season can be especially painful after the loss of a loved one. Please join us for this encouraging seminar. For more information, call Linda Bounds at 704-793-8155.

Sportscenter weekly Bible study

Join Calvary Lutheran Church for their Sportscenter Weekly Bible Study. Pastor Debbie Frye hosts a weekly bible study every Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. at the Sportscenter, 233 Country Club Drive, NE, Concord.

Centering Prayer weekly via Zoom

This Centering Prayer Group meets every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. via Zoom. All are welcome. For the Zoom link please check the Calvary Lutheran Church Facebook page or website http://www.clconcord.org, or contact the church office at 704-782-6923.

Food give away

A Thanksgiving food give a way will be held Saturday, Nov. 18, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Free fruits, vegetables and turkey. Pick up sites: Grace Lutheran Church, 88 Chestnut Drive, SW, Concord, www.glconcordnc.org; and Zion Hill ANE Zion Church, 86 Skipwith St., SW, Concord, www.zionhillamez.com.
SALISBURY  Catawba College received a gift of $500,000 to support the colleges history department. It is the largest gift the department has received.

The gift provides additional scholarship funding for students majoring or minoring in history and also supports faculty development. This support allows the faculty to explore expanded class offerings in the department.

This generous gift is going to help us keep working with more great students who love history, said Dr. Anne Marie Martin, chair of Catawbas history department. We have a passion for history, and this gives us the opportunity to share it. History helps us understand connections and influences, patterns, and culture, what happened and why, and that applies to what we see taking place around us today. In so many places, subjects like history are being devalued, and were so appreciative that is not the case at Catawba.

About Catawba College

Founded in 1851, Catawba College is a four-year, private, liberal arts college in Salisbury. Ranked as one of the best regional colleges in the South, The College offers more than 70 academic programs and three graduate programs offering students the ability to combine and cross majors. Close faculty mentorships and numerous experiential learning options create opportunities for Catawba College graduates to exceed their own expectations and find their vocation.

Additional information is available at catawba.edu.
All Peoples Church of Jesus Christ

Worship at 11 a.m. Sunday at American Legion Post 172. Pastor: Prophet Roland Jordan delivers the message.

Ann Street United Methodist Church

335 Ann St., Concord. Pastor: Rev. Randy L. Wall. In person and Facebook Live worship at 11 a.m. Sermon: Whats Right with the Church: Owners Manual. Scripture: I Timothy 3:14-4:5.

Bethpage United Methodist Church

109 Fellowship Ave. at West C St., Kannapolis. 704-932-5296. Pastor: Rev. McKenzie Sefa. Christian Education at 9 a.m. Worship at 10 a.m.

Bogers Chapel United Methodist Church

1775 Flowes Store Road East, Concord. Pastor: Pastor Eric Shaver. 9 a.m. Sunday school. 10 a.m. Worship Service (In person or Facebook). Sermon Title: Getting Close To the Finish Line. Open Reading: For When You Need a Little Hope passage from The Live We Actually Live by Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie. Childrens Sermon: Mark Jadlocki. Scripture Reading: I Thessalonians 1:1-10.

Calvary Lutheran Church

950 Bradley St., Concord. 704-782-6923. Pastor: Rev. Debbie Frye. Outdoor in-person worship at 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. (Traditional Worship with Childrens Church). Coffee/Cookie Social 9:30-11 a.m. Sunday School for all ages at 9:45 a.m. Childrens Area and Nursery available at all times. All services live-streamed and available anytime on the Calvary Lutheran Concord YouTube channel  easy access through our website http://www.clconcord.org or church app Calvary Lutheran Church  NC. All are welcome.

Center United Methodist Church

1119 Union St. S, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Brian Crady. Sunday School for In Betweens and young adults at 9 a.m. Worship at 10 a.m. Nursery is provided during the worship service. Website is www.centerumcconcord.org. Look forward to you joining us for our service! Sermon: Thorny Soil and Fruitless. Scripture: Mark 4:3-9, 18-19.

Cold Springs Global Methodist Church

2550 Cold Springs Road, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Cliff Wall. Worship at 10 a.m. on Sundays. Visit online at https://youtube.com/@coldspringschurchconcord.

Crossroads Church

220 George W. Liles Parkway, Concord. Pastor: Lowell McNaney. Live worship streamed on Facebook, Crossroads Concord Church app or mycrossroads.co website at 9:30 a.m. and 11:11 a.m.

Crown Pointe Baptist Church

703 Tennessee St., Kannapolis. Pastor: Rev. Doug Crawley. Sunday school at 9 a.m. Worship at 10 a.m. in the sanctuary, or view online at our Facebook page.

Eastside Missionary Baptist Church

199 Elgin Drive, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Stephen Burrow. In person services: Sunday school 9:30 a.m. Worship services 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Recorded worship services and other information at EastsideMissionaryBaptist.org. You will be welcomed. Practice social distancing.

Epworth United Methodist Church

1030 Burrage Road, NE, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Dennis Marshall. Sunday school at 9 a.m., followed by worship at 10 a.m. We welcome all to join us in person, or you may livestream or watch the recorded service at our website at www.epworthnc.com.

Forest Hill United Methodist Church

265 Union St., N., Concord. Senior Pastor: Rev. Mandy Jones. Associate Pastor: Rev. Wes Judy. We are open for in-person worship. Contemporary worship, 9 a.m. Sunday School/small groups, 10 a.m. Traditional worship, 11 a.m. Both the contemporary and the traditional worship services will also be live-streamed at foresthillumc.org or facebook.com/foresthillumc, in case you dont feel like being here in person.

Harmony United Methodist Church

101 White St., NW, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Thad Brown. Sunday school is at 10 a.m. followed by our worship service in the sanctuary at 11 a.m. Today we celebrate our 117th homecoming service. We welcome to our pulpit Pastor Tina Thompson, from Memorial United Methodist Church in Kannapolis. Pastor Thompson is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ronnie Overcash, members of Harmony. Sermon: The Feast of the Trumpets. Scripture: Exodus 19:5, 11, and 13b (NIV). We welcome you to join us in worship! Following the service will be a covered-dish meal. Service is live on Facebook.com/HarmonyUnitedMethodistChurch and we welcome all who are unable to join us in person to worship with us online. For more information, you can call the pastors phone 704-791-2883 or the churchs phone at 704-782-8237.

Jackson Park United Methodist Church

715 Mable Ave., Kannapolis. Pastor Laurie Knoespel. Adult Sunday school 9:30 a.m. Worship at 10:30 a.m. Nursery will be provided during worship service.

Kirkwood Presbyterian Church

900 Klondale Ave., Kannapolis. Pastor: Rev. Dennis B. Craft. Worship at 11 a.m. in church sanctuary on Sundays. No mask restrictions.

McGill Baptist Church

5300 Poplar Tent Road, Concord, in-person services. Pastor: Rev. Steve Ayers. McGill will stream a worship service Sunday at 10 a.m. on www.facebook.com/mcgillbaptistchurch/ and on YouTube. The services will be live and also available on recording afterwards. Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost. Sermon: God or Caesar? Scripture: Isaiah 45:1-7; I Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22.

Midway United Methodist Church

108 Bethpage Road, Kannapolis. Pastor: Rev. Craig Allen. Come join us on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. for Sunday school and 10:30 a.m. for worship. Our service is also livestreamed on the web at midwayunitedmethodistchurch.org or facebook.com/midwayUMC. Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost. Sermon: Seeing Beyond Ourselves. First Reading: Psalm 99. Second Reading: Exodus 33:12-23. Suggested Hymns: TFWS 2074, Shout to the Lord, UMH 64, Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty.

Mt. Mitchell United Methodist Church

6001 Old Salisbury-Concord Road, Kannapolis. Pastor: Joel Locklear. Sunday school at 9:45 a.m. (adult and childrens classes.) Worship at 11 a.m. in person or Facebook. Sermon: Changed. Scripture: Luke 28-43.

Multiply Church Concord

150 Warren C. Coleman Blvd., N, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Douglas Witherup. 8:30 a.m. service held at 280 Concord Parkway, S., Suite 15, Concord. Services at 150 Warren C Coleman Blvd., N., are worship and sermon at 9:30 a.m. and worship and sermon at 11:15 a.m.

New Gilead Reformed Church, ECO

2400 Old Salisbury-Concord Road. 9:40 a.m., adult Bible study. 10 a.m., Sunday school. 11 a.m., worship in the sanctuary, also live on Facebook.

Oak Grove Baptist Church

200 Sims Parkway, Harrisburg. Pastor: Rev. Franklin D. Watkins. 10 a.m. in-person worship service. Also available on Facebook Live and YouTube Live. Sermon: Empty is NOT the End! by Rev. Sheldon Davis. Scripture: Acts 16:22-35.

Second Presbyterian Church

1578 Dale Earnhardt Blvd., Kannapolis. Pastor Sue Black, minister. Rev. Aaron Price, assistant pastor. Sunday school at 10 a.m. Worship at 11 a.m. Sermon: The Belt of Truth. Scripture: Ephesians 4:20-32.

St. Johns Reformed Church

901 N. Main St., Kannapolis. Pastor: Rev. Chris King. Sunday school for all ages, 9:30 a.m. Worship service, 10:30 a.m. Website, www.ourstjohns.org. Email/phone, ourstjohns@gmail.com / 704-932-3656. Sermon: Blessing the Children. Scripture: Matthew 19:13-15.

Trinity United Church of Christ

38 Church St., Concord. Pastor: Rev. Nathan King. Worship at 11 a.m., in person or Facebook live. Website: commachurch.com. Youre invited!
GUEST OPINION: The world has been shaken by geopolitical tensions, disruptions in global markets, and the rapid proliferation of emerging technologies, making security risks a paramount concern for governments worldwide.

At the beginning of this year, the Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil warned the Australian healthcare system to brace for more cyberattacks as it became the main target for cybercriminals, as attackers sought to obtain citizens personal data. According to a report by Bloomberg, ONeil said the question is, are we tackling the cybersecurity threat with an energy level commensurate to which were being attacked? And I would say that were not there at the moment.

This warning highlighted the high level of risk on the Australian healthcare sector, which stores vast amounts of information on individuals across the country. This is not only an attractive and lucrative target for cybercriminals seeking to exploit this data, but it is also a significant risk point for the government, businesses and individuals.

While it comes as no surprise that this sector is a prime target for criminals, healthcare IT professionals must now recognise and prioritise data security, or risk facing monetary and reputational losses.

The landscape

Emerging technologies and innovation offer significant opportunities for businesses, providing tools to enhance customer service, operations and overall business prospects. However, alongside these advantages, they also introduce substantial risks, often necessitating the handling of vast amounts of data for effective operation.

The healthcare sectors ecosystem, in conjunction with the adoption of new technologies, presents an extremely attractive opportunity for cybercriminals. Collaborative work is indispensable in healthcare, involving multiple entities that access, process, collect and store health information. As the digital realm has evolved, this information is primarily stored and accessed digitally, thereby expanding the potential attack surface. Absolute Softwares research shows that nearly 20% (18%) of devices deployed across healthcare organisations have more than 500 instances of sensitive data stored on them.

Innovation in healthcare technology has resulted in a proliferation of digital devices, and larger organisations may have thousands of these devices connected to their networks, each serving as a potential entry point for attackers. While not all medical devices hold valuable data, they provide a convenient gateway into a network, and it is not uncommon for cybercriminals to exploit this vulnerability. Those who operate these devices are often too preoccupied to stay abreast of cyber security education, typically leaving the responsibility of safeguarding the entire network in the hands of the IT department.

This risk was exemplified in a recent report by Rapid7, which assessed the security implications stemming from the improper decommissioning of infusion pumps, emphasising the critical importance of securing networks, applications, and devices. The report's researcher examined more than a dozen devices purchased in the secondary market and discovered that each one exhibited issues capable of compromising the networks of their former organisations, including exposure of Wi-Fi PSK access credentials.

Cyber hygiene

Cyber hygiene around end points must now assume top priority within the healthcare sector. This entails ensuring that devices remain up to date and security protocols are regularly refreshed. It also includes the continuous monitoring of access to guarantee that only authorised personnel have exposure to sensitive data.

Breach incidents often occur due to inadequate updates, creating vulnerabilities in systems and applications that, in turn, can be exploited for unauthorised access. Given the multitude of devices spread across different departments and locations, patching and maintaining up to date systems is no simple feat. This is illustrated in Absolutes research, which shows healthcare organisations are 57 days behind on patching Windows 10 devices. The complexity arises from variations in devices, operating system versions, and combinations of applications installed on these devices, all of which pose significant challenges.

Additionally, a crucial aspect of healthcare security entails ensuring secure access to systems while maintaining constant vigilance. Records should undergo routine checks and monitoring, enabling security teams to identify suspicious activities promptly. However, managing the tasks across the multitude of devices can be time-consuming without the aid of appropriate technology.

Zero-trust technologies

As the healthcare sector emerges as an enticing target for cybercriminals, it is imperative to incorporate technology that supports security teams into comprehensive security strategies. This not only alleviates the burden on IT teams, but also ensures ongoing compliance across all departments.

Mere cleanup after the damage is done is insufficient; instead, resilient infrastructure must be embedded, capable of swiftly detecting threats and deploying self-healing mechanisms to rectify critical security controls, even off-network.

Incorporating zero-trust technology provides visibility, control and self-healing capabilities across endpoints, reducing the vulnerability to attacks and offering tools for automated responses in case of intrusion. This technology enables the automatic tracking of devices and continuous monitoring of applications to maintain the health of each endpoint. Enhanced visibility and control enable the constant assessment of risks, ultimately safeguarding the data of both organisations and patients. When a threat is detected, self-healing technologies can apply necessary updates and repair critical controls, minimising the need for manual intervention.

In a world where cyber threats loom large, the risks faced by the healthcare sector, and numerous other sectors, should not be underestimated. However, with the right technologies in place, these risks can be significantly reduced. Considering the detrimental impact an attack can have on an organisation and its patients, the implementation of robust cyber strategies to maintain up to date and secure devices should not be an afterthought. It must be a top business priority.
Australian-listed Macquarie Technology Group (ASX: MAQ) Head of Private Cloud, Jonathan Staff, has called on Australian enterprises and technology providers to do more to lay down the right foundations on which to build AI, warning that cutting corners will come with major risks down the line.

Speaking at the Future of Tech, Innovation and Work Conference in Sydney, the technology expert told Australian business leaders from the nations leading enterprises that they need to approach their AI strategy with a holistic, long-term lens.

Australian businesses are scrambling to figure out how they can leverage AI and make sure they stay ahead of the competition. But in this mad rush to the finish line, were seeing lots of companies fail to invest in the right foundations needed to scale in the future, said Staff.

AI is a huge investment, and there is a lot at stake. It is expensive to lift and shift these operations once theyre set up, so getting it right from the get-go is so important.

Jonathan Staff highlighted the challenges of securing the right infrastructure to maximise efficiency, a key priority for Macquarie Data Centres and a factor many overlook when embarking on their AI journey.

In response to AIs greater demands for power, cooling and specialised technology, the data centre company is focusing on providing the high-density environments required for AI.

Macquarie Technology has recently revealed plans to supercharge its next and largest facility, IC3 Super West, which is being purpose built for the AI era, noting that the Sydney-based data centre will offer AI-ready environments and be flexible enough to accommodate technologies such as advanced GPUs and liquid cooling - and Macquarie Data Centres recently secured a 41 per cent increase in power to IC3 Super West, bringing the total load of its Macquarie Park Campus to 63 megawatts (MW).

Staff called upon the industry to prepare themselves for Australias AI-driven future and think about how they can adapt to capitalise on the opportunities. However, he also stressed that it needs to be done in a way that is compliant with current and future data regulations.

Macquarie Technology says Australias Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security, Clare O'Neil, has made clear the Governments intentions to make Australia the world's most cyber-secure nation by 2030, indicating that regulations around AI and data sovereignty will tighten in the future.

AI is currently the wild west, but you can expect regulations around sovereignty and data compliance will still apply. Australian businesses, especially those deemed as critical infrastructure under the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) Act, need to consider the benefits of choosing sovereign partners that have the right certifications and policies in place to ensure compliance now and into the future.

Reflecting on the companys 23 years in the technology and digital infrastructure industries, Staff spoke about the importance of staying ahead of technology megatrends.

Macquarie Data Centres has invested time and effort in understanding what is needed to build the highly specialised environments for these AI workloads. Our Macquarie Park Data Centre Campus has been optimised to support AI.

The industry veteran also stressed the importance of making sure new AI tools are properly integrated into a company's existing systems.

Organisations need to think carefully about how the AI is going to talk to your existing systems. If you build a new AI tool as a siloed project, and it takes off, then youre going to have huge problems, and probably huge costs, trying to retrofit it and incorporate it into pre-existing systems.

We need to lay the right foundations to make sure everything is connected now, and that all the systems will provide enough runway to scale and grow quickly in the future, Staff concluded.
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Jack Lew, President Biden's nominee to become the next U.S. ambassador to Israel, faced strident opposition from Republican senators during a Wednesday hearing on his nomination, as Democrats insisted the administration's effort to contain the eruption of deadly violence there and in the Gaza Strip demands a speedy confirmation.

A former treasury secretary under President Barack Obama, Lew has attracted criticism from within the GOP for his defense of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Israel's right-wing government and many Republicans vehemently opposed, and related efforts by Obama to de-escalate the long-volatile relationship between Washington and Tehran.

Lew's hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee coincided with a high-stakes appearance by Biden in Israel as furor grips the Middle East and threatens to worsen the violence. Wednesday's proceedings opened with a plea from Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the chairman, who evoked the ghastly images that emerged of Hamas militants brutalizing Israeli civilians and soldiers in the group's stunning cross-border attack on Oct. 7. "Now," Cardin said, "is not the time to play political games."

Moments later, Sen. James E. Risch (Idaho), the committee's top Republican, detailed his "reservations" about Lew's potential appointment as ambassador. He cited a 2018 opinion piece by Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, who served in the George W. Bush administration, that implied that Lew lied to Congress years ago about the Obama-era Iran negotiations. "It's important we get the right person in this position," Risch said, adding later that "holding hands with Iran under the table doesn't work for me."

Other committee Republicans, including Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Mitt Romney (Utah) complained about Lew's suitability for the high-profile post, also referencing his past statements on Iran. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) said in an interview earlier this week that confirming Lew as ambassador would be "a slap in the face to Israel."

Lew hit back against the accusations, saying that he had implemented the letter of the nuclear deal but nothing more.

"We negotiated with Iran to have them roll back their nuclear program, in exchange for which they would get access to money that was their money that we had frozen. All we did was facilitate that transaction," he said. "My team went around the world, telling banks all over the world: 'We did not lift the sanctions on terrorism. We did not lift the sanctions on human rights violations. We did not lift the sanctions on regional destabilization. Be careful.' And Iran thought that kept them from getting what they thought they should get."

The landmark nuclear deal restricted Iran's enrichment of uranium in exchange for the loosening of U.S. sanctions. Tehran exceeded the deal's limits on the quantity and quality of its enriched uranium production after President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement.

At the time of the 2015 negotiations, Lew defended the deal publicly to pro-Israel audiences in the United States, where he was once heckled. And because the Treasury Department is charged with implementing sanctions policies, he presided over the loosening of the restrictions on Iran. The deal unlocked foreign investment in Iran and eased financing for the government. Backers encouraged that investment as part of ensuring that the agreement functioned as it was envisioned.

Lew, 68, who even before his term as treasury secretary served in the top echelon of the Obama and Clinton presidencies, is an unusually senior appointment for the role. He was Obama's chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget, a role he also filled for President Bill Clinton, when the federal government last ran a budget surplus. Under Obama, he was also a deputy secretary of state.

An Orthodox Jew, Lew also has long-standing connections to the American Jewish community. He has long backed a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, a position he reiterated in his opening remarks Wednesday.

While Lew and some Democrats nodded to international concerns about the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where a humanitarian crisis is rapidly unfolding as Israeli forces wage a ferocious response to the Hamas attack, there was relatively little acknowledgment of Israel's role in the mounting death toll.

Rather, much of the questioning centered on the Obama-era Iran deal, Lew's statements about Iran, Israel's right to attack Hamas, and whether Lew was sufficiently supportive of Israel.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), recently stripped of the committee's chairmanship after being charged in an alleged corruption scheme, pressed Lew on the depth of his commitment to defending Israel.

"At the U.N., Israel is constantly vilified," Menendez said. "It is constantly made the central focus when other countries of the world who have significant human rights violations go untouched." Menendez faces federal charges of acting as a foreign agent for Egypt, an authoritarian regime that has used violence to repress political opposition and minority groups.

"I will be an advocate for doing the things the United States should do to protect Israel, including at the U.N.," Lew told Menendez.

Lew sought to reassure senators of his bona fides. He was raised in a Zionist household, he said, referring to the Jewish nationalist movement that galvanized support and migration for the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.

"This is not the time for us to be lecturing Israel on what they have to do to establish the security that they have a responsibility to provide," Lew said. "I think they know they have to do it in a way that is consistent with minimizing the impact on innocent civilians," he added. But previous U.S. wars have demonstrated that "it is very, very hard for there not to be collateral damage."

Two Democratic senators raised concerns about the fate of Palestinian civilians in Israel's military action in Gaza. But they spoke near the end of the hearing, after most of the other senators and much of the audience had departed.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said that in June he visited the Kfar Azza kibbutz, one of the communities Hamas attacked earlier this month. He said he was horrified by the scale of the atrocities committed there.

"So yes, Israel not only has a right but it does have responsibility to defend itself and to go after Hamas," Van Hollen said. "I think you would also agree, I just want to make sure as you take on this position, you agree that it's both in America's interest and Israel's interest that the war be prosecuted in accordance with international law and the rules of war."



(COMMENT, BELOW)




The city reported Friday afternoon that a boil order is in effect along both side of Charleston Avenue between First and Sixth streets for the next 24 hours due to the water main break, which has been repaired.
ATLANTA  Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors.

Powell, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state's anti-racketeering law, entered the plea just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.

As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

Powell, 68, was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Prosecutors say she also participated in an unauthorized breach of elections equipment in a rural Georgia county elections office.

The plea deal makes Powell the most prominent known person to be working with prosecutors investigating Trump's efforts to overturn the election. Her cooperation in the case and participation in strategy talks threaten to expose the former president and offer insight on what he was saying and doing in the critical period after the election.

Above all, the guilty plea is a remarkable about-face for a lawyer who, perhaps more than anyone else, strenuously pushed baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen election in the face of extensive evidence to the contrary. She also has important knowledge about high-profile events, including a news conference she participated in on behalf of Trump and his campaign shortly after the election and on a White House meeting she attended in mid-December of 2020 in which prosecutors say ways to influence the outcome of the election were discussed.

John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, called Powell's plea a "significant win" for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

"This is somebody who was at ground zero of these allegations and a lawyer who is pleading guilty," he said. "This is very significant."

Fishwick also said Powell's plea is helpful to Jack Smith, the Justice Department's special counsel.

Powell is referenced, though not by name, as one of six unindicted co-conspirators in Smith's federal case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the election. That indictment notes how Trump had privately acknowledged to others that Powell's unfounded claims of election fraud were "crazy," yet nonetheless he promoted and embraced a lawsuit that Powell filed against the state of Georgia that included what prosecutors said were "far-fetched" and baseless assertions.

Barry Coburn, a Washington-based lawyer for Powell, declined to comment Thursday.

Powell gained notoriety for threatening in a Fox Business interview in November 2020 to "release the Kraken," invoking a mythical sea monster when talking about a lawsuit she planned to file to challenge the results of the presidential election. Similar suits she filed in several states were promptly dismissed.

She was about to go on trial on with lawyer Kenneth Chesebro after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. Jury selection was still set to begin Friday for Chesebro to go on trial by himself, though prosecutors said earlier that they also planned to look into the possibility of offering him a plea deal.

Jury selection was set to start Friday. Chesebro's attorneys didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment Thursday on whether he would also accept a plea deal.

A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, last month pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.

Steve Sadow, the lead attorney for Trump in the Georgia case, expressed confidence that Powell's plea wouldn't hurt his own client's case.

"Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy," he said.

Prosecutors allege that Powell conspired with Hall and others to access election equipment without authorization and hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to Coffee County, in south Georgia, to copy software and data from voting machines and computers there. The indictment says a person who is not named sent an email to a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County to an unidentified lawyer associated with Powell and the Trump campaign.

Trial dates have not been set for the 16 remaining defendants, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a Trump lawyer, and Mark Meadows, who was the Trump White House's chief of staff.

Willis has faced some criticism over her wide-ranging indictment and use of the state's anti-racketeering law to charge so many defendants. Some people had speculated that, if her case did not go well, it could undermine Smith's case, Fishwick said.

"This certainly shows that at least, as of today, it's not undermining it. In fact, it's strengthening his case," Fishwick said.

A look at the 19 people charged in the Georgia indictment connected to Trump's election scheme Key people in the Georgia election fraud case Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani John Eastman Mark Meadows Sidney Powell Kenneth Chesebro Prosecutors have said Chesebro, an attorney, worked with Republicans in numerous swing states Trump lost, including Georgia, in the weeks after the November 2020 election at the direction of Trumps campaign. Chesebro worked on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the states duly elected and qualified electors. Jeffrey Clark Jenna Ellis Ray Smith A Georgia-based lawyer, Smith was involved in multiple lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. He also gathered witnesses to provide testimony before Georgia legislative subcommittee hearings held in December 2020 on alleged issues with the states election. Robert Cheeley A Georgia lawyer, Cheeley presented video clips to legislators of election workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta and alleged the workers were counting votes twice or sometimes three times. He spoke to the lawmakers after Giuliani. Michael Roman A former White House aide who served as the director of Trumps election day operations, Roman was involved in efforts to put forth a set of fake electors after the 2020 election. David Shafer Shawn Still He was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the states duly elected and qualified electors. Still was the finance chairman for the state GOP in 2020 and served as a Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention that year. He was elected to the Georgia state Senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlantas suburbs. Stephen Cliffgard Lee Prosecutors say Cliffgard Lee, a pastor, worked with others to try to pressure Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter after Trump and his allies falsely accused them of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase during the vote count. Lee allegedly knocked on Freemans door, frightening her and causing her to call 911 three times, prosecutors said in a court filing last year. Harrison William Prescott Floyd Also known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, he served as director of Black Voices for Trump, and is accused of recruiting Lee to arrange a meeting with Freeman and Chicago-based publicist Trevian Kutti. Trevian C. Kutti Prosecutors allege Kutti, a publicist, claimed to have high-level law enforcement connections. They say Freeman met with Kutti at a police precinct, where she brought Floyd into the conversation on a speakerphone. Prosecutors say Kutti presented herself as someone who could help Freeman but then pressured her to falsely confess to election fraud. Cathy Latham Scott Graham Hall An Atlanta-area bail bondsman, Hall was allegedly involved in commandeering voting information that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems from Coffee County, a small south Georgia jurisdiction. Also charged in the scheme were Powell, Latham and former county elections supervisor Misty Hampton. Misty Hampton She was the elections director in Coffee County. Hampton was present in the county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, when a computer forensics team copied software and data from the countys election equipment. She also allowed two other men who had been active in efforts to question the 2020 election results to access the elections office later that month and to spend hours inside with the equipment. Read the Trump indictment in Georgia Your browser does not support the iframe HTML tag. Try viewing this in a modern browser like Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer 9 or later.
DECATUR  Reese Peese is out in the wilds of Decatur somewhere, and his desperate owner fears the African serval cat is going to freeze through all of his nine lives before someone can save him.

The escaped exotic pet dashed out of the open front door of Christopher Solomons apartment off Mound Road on the citys northeast side two weeks ago and remains stubbornly gone now that fall is fading towards winter.

What are his chances? Realistically, if he doesnt get found within a month, zero, said Solomon, 27.

And that is not because of any lack of ability to adapt to his surroundings. Its just that he is a cat from Africa and he cant handle this cold. I actually read they are not supposed to experience temperatures under 68 degrees and he could already have hypothermia and/or pneumonia or some cold-related issues going on.

Of an elongated, almost cartoonish appearance with giant ears and dappled gingerish coat splashed with big dark spots and a dab of white on his face, Reese Peese is hard to miss. And there have been sightings of the 20-pound critter but, with an ability to hit speeds close to 40 mph, he can relocate in a hurry.

Solomon bought him from a specialist supplier in West Virginia and had only had him two weeks before he vanished like the Cheshire Cat. Solomon is worried recent publicity about the escapee, whose story has gone international, might make his pet seem like some dangerous panther and cause fearful folk to do him harm.

He said the reality is that Reese Peese is a pussycat and just a great pet who is a joy to be around. Solomon said he had considered renaming him Shaka Zulu, in honor of the warring founder of the Zulu empire, but has to admit Reese Peese  the name he came with  suits him better.

And even if the wayward feline is found, his chances of coming home again look slight. Decatur city ordinances forbid the ownership of wild animals and servals are not recognized here as pets.

Solomon says that is a mistake and he is currently seeking legal advice on how to proceed if Reese Peese ever comes in from the cold.

Ive been a cat person my entire life and always dreamed of having an exotic one, he added. I miss my Reese Peese.
CHICAGO  Thousands of people demonstrated Wednesday in Chicagos Federal Plaza and in front of the Israeli Consulate in support of Palestinians who are dying in the intensifying clash in the Middle East.

Wednesdays gathering was the third protest in a week organized by Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine in support of the Palestinian cause. The demonstrations have drawn thousands to the Loop to condemn mounting fatalities in the war between Israel and Hamas, a terrorist group, and call for Palestinian sovereignty.

On Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said more than 500 died at a Gaza City hospital in a strike that Israel blamed on Hamas misfiring a rocket while Hamas attributed the blast to the Israelis.

Before the blast, about 2,800 Palestinians had been reported killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. An additional 1,200 people are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said. An Oct. 7 attack by Hamas left about 1,400 Israelis dead and almost 200 taken hostage.

One million people have been displaced in about 10 days, according to the United Nations.

Tammy Abughnaim, 32, stood near Alexander Calders Flamingo sculpture in her work scrubs. Abughnaim, a doctor, attended the rally to condemn Tuesdays deaths at the hospital. Her sign read hospitals are not targets.

Life is sacred, and as a physician I spend all of my time trying to save lives, she said. There has to be a limit to what youre able to condone.

Abughnaim said she had been planning to travel to Gaza to assist with medical training through the nonprofit MedGlobal before violence broke out. We had to scrap that trip, she said. So this is intensely personal to me right now.

Another woman who asked to only be identified by her first name, Raya, attended the rally with her mother and a collection of signs. One of them read stop murdering children.

You have dead children, orphaned children and parents without children anymore (in Gaza), she said, her voice catching. Im here for the children.

Raya, 30 and her mother Rena, 60, said they have family in Gaza. Every time we call them they say so far, we are still alive, Rena said.

Lynn Pollack, 71, and Lynne Kavin, 56, stood together with a sign that said Jews say stop genocide of Palestinians. Both organize with the activist organization Jewish Voice for Peace, which identifies itself as anti-Zionist and has called for a cease-fire in the Middle East.

Pollack and Kavin said they felt it was important to attend the rally because of the huge role American Jews have in the conflict.

Its American Jews who are enabling this to go on, Pollack said. We have to show the world that Israel doesnt represent every Jew; the Israeli government doesnt speak for us.

The pair had attended the two previous protests by Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, and they plan to continue attending until it stops, Pollack said.

Rally organizers and guest speakers took turns at the microphone to call for an end to U.S. military aid to the Israeli government and mourn the dead before the crowd set off toward the Israeli consulate.

The crowd spanned three blocks and marched north on Dearborn before turning onto Madison, eventually reaching the Israeli Consulate at 500 W. Madison St.

As the crowd screamed in front of the Accenture Tower, three men and four women paused at Madison and Canal streets to pray. Droves of Palestinian flags fluttered behind the prayer groups as diners in a nearby restaurant looked on.

As night fell and the protest continued in front of the consulate, other groups took turns praying on the sidewalk. Their chants mingled with the beating drums, clapping and demonstrators shouts of from the river, to the sea, Palestine will be free.
CHICAGO  In Chicagos Hermosa neighborhood, a modest two-story home sits on North Tripp Avenue. While typically unassuming, dozens of people lined up outside it Sunday, some in clothes featuring Mickey Mouse, waiting for a chance to peek inside the green and gray wood cottage.

Walt Disneys childhood home opened to the public for the first time over the weekend as part of Chicago Architecture Centers Open House Chicago. Organizers said they hope to keep Disneys legacy alive, give insight into how the pioneer of animated cartoon films grew up, and inspire other young people in the neighborhood to pursue their dreams.

We are in an inner city of Chicago, so the understanding of dreaming and doing and achieving, because you truly never know who youre going to become. You never know who youre going to inspire, said Angel Reyes, an ambassador for the home and Miss Illinois USA 2022.

Elias Disney, Walts father, purchased the property at 2156 N. Tripp Ave. in 1891. The following year he got a permit to build the two-story wood cottage for $800, and Flora, Walts mother, crafted the architectural plans. In early 1893, the couple and their two sons, Herbert and Raymond, moved in. Their third son, Roy, was born soon after. In a second-floor bedroom, Walter Elias Disney was born on Dec. 5, 1901.

(Elias) was a contractor who built homes like this one, and he was the one who built this house. Flora was the one who designed it, said Rey Colon, project director of the Walt Disney Birthplace. Very progressive that both Flora and Elias names were on the deed. He didnt just have her listed as wife. She was an equal partner with him in his business ventures.

The tour began at the parlor on the first floor, the space where the family entertained. Colon said much of the original wood trim and walls were removed over the years, and that there was just one closet that had samples of the wood. He said they re-created the original rosettes and trim from one tree, which we believe is the way Elias would have wanted it done.

Theres also a colorized photo of Walt and his younger sister, Ruth, at the home in 1905 inside the parlor.

Tour guide Rich Frachey said Elias had many other jobs during his life  furniture-maker, orange farmer and even a fiddle player. Inside the parlor, Frachey said its easy for him to imagine him playing the fiddle or telling stories about the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago where he was a construction worker.

All the innovations that were debuted there, including the first Ferris wheel, Cracker Jacks, Wrigleys Juicy Fruit gum, a machine that would wash the dishes, elevators, typewriters and more, Frachey said. Did they sit in this parlor and read the book called The Wizard of Oz?

Some biographers speculate Elias stories of the fair influenced Walts creation of Disneyland and some of its popular attractions such as Tomorrowland, Frontierland and Main Street, U.S.A.

The tour then went through the familys dining room and kitchen, which included items such as a washboard, a butter churn and a rug beater. Inside what is now a closet on the first floor, Elias built a toilet, which organizers said was innovative for the time.

Upstairs, after climbing a set of steep stairs, people glimpsed at a bigger bedroom belonging to Herbert and Raymond, while Walt and Roy shared a smaller one. The home the Disney family lived in was 1,200 square feet. Later on, organizers said, additional rooms were added in the back of the home, which they now use as office space.

The Disneys moved out in 1906, relocating to Missouri. They eventually returned to Chicago in 1917 when Walt was a teenager. They lived in the North Lawndale neighborhood, and Walt attended McKinley High School.

Colon said even with Saturdays rain, more than 550 people showed up for the tour. While attendance was less on Sunday, he still expected a sizable turnout. Before they only did private tours, he said.

According to Walt Disney Birthplace, Chicago attempted to designate the property as a historical landmark in 1991, but the owner fought the designation and won. Today, the new owners are working with the city to restore the home to its 1901 state.

Colon said theres been around 10 years of fundraising to get the home to its current state but more contributions are needed to fully restore and furnish it. He said its exciting to see lots of interest in the home, and they hope to organize more tours in the future.

Were still trying to figure out how, how do we go about the registration process, getting people in, how often do we do it, Colon said.

For Reyes, who was born and raised in Hermosa, the turnout was overwhelming but in a good way.

Just to see how many people are still interested in knowing the front story, when Walt began and what that looked like for him, were definitely thrilled, she said.

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
The blueprints laid out on a table on the floor of Joel Coliseum caught Emma Rowes eye.

Shes interested in a career in interior design.

Donovan Sutton was drawn to a demonstration of someone bending electrical conduits.

His future may include engineering, science and biology or video game design.

Russell Greer examined a drone that the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office brought to the coliseum.

He likes machines, and the noise they make.

A collaboration between Greater Winston-Salem Inc. and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, and paid for with $55,000 from federal COVID-19-relief funds, the World of Work was a two-day event designed to get the school districts 7,000 eighth- and 10th-graders thinking about their career paths and what resources are available to help set them on their way.

Blum Construction sponsored the event.

Dozens of potential employers, representing construction, health sciences, public service and energy, among others, set up booths at the coliseum on Tuesday and Wednesday, and talked with students about the skills they would need to be, say, a plumber or paramedic.

The school district also had booths showcasing all the career and technical education offerings at its schools.

Students who complete a career pathway can earn certifications that are recognized by employers in their chosen fields. Such certifications can help them land a job immediately after graduation, or in the case of Kevin Martinez, once he turns 18.

Kevin, a senior at Kennedy High School, takes electrical classes at the Career Center.

Once I got into the classes, I got job offers, said Kevin, who started out in masonry before figuring out that he had a knack for electricity.

Kevin was at a Career Center booth on Wednesday with his teacher, Bill Guraleczka, who leads the electrical trade program at the Career Center.

Kevin showed a few passing students, including Donovan, how to bend an electrical conduit.

Donovan, a student at Paisley, wearing insulating gloves, struggled at first but soon mastered it.

My parents are pushing me to think of my future, he said. Ill be out of high school soon, so my goal is to plan.

Kimberly Forbes hopes thousands of other students will adopt that kind of mindset after experiencing the World of Work.

The director of the school districts Career and Technical Education Department, Forbes brought the World of Work to the local school district after doing a similar event for Guilford County Schools.

The idea is to expose them to different career pathways. They havent had a complete understanding of what we offer, Forbes said. Theres a disconnect from middle school to high school. Theyre wondering, Where am I going? What should I take? I dont understand. 

Students who went to the event took career inventories last week to help them figure out what careers sound interesting to them.

What the students learn at the event will hopefully help them when they register for next years classes, Forbes said.

Many of the employers at the event stayed at the coliseum from 3 to 6 p.m., for a job fair that was open to high school seniors and others in the community.

Jim Hutton, who owns Sutton Brothers Heating, Cooling and Plumbing with his brother, Jack, said its important for students to see career opportunities and employers to connect with potential employees at a time when some industries are experiencing a job shortage.

We have more licensed plumbers exiting than entering, Hutton said. This is a profession that is not going to go away. Things break and for someone who wants to make it a career, you can do this in Winston-Salem or New York City.

PHOTOS: World of Work career fair for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County students
Linda Combs, who served as state controller from 2014 to 2022 and as a top executive for several federal agencies, died Thursday shortly after suffering a catastrophic aneurysm.

Combs death was disclosed in a Facebook posting by Dave Combs, her husband of 54 years. He indicated the aneurysm occurred Wednesday morning.

I am totally heartbroken, as I know that those of you who knew and loved her as well, Dave Combs wrote.

The controller is charged with keeping the states books, monitoring cash flow and managing state payroll.

Combs, who lived in Winston-Salem, spent much of her life as a public servant, first for 15 years with various U.S. cabinet-level agency during the Reagan, Bush senior and Bush junior administrations.

Her final federal role was serving two years as controller of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget from 2005 to 2007 in the George W. Bush administration.

Altogether, Combs is the lone woman to have confirmed by the U.S. Senate for five different federal agency management positions.

Combs was credited with the following accomplishments: reduced audit completion time from five months to 1 months from the end of fiscal year for the entire federal government, the first time in history; reduced improper federal government payments by $9 billion; and disposed of $4.5 billion of unneeded real property.

Combs also served as chief financial officer at the Environmental Protection Agency and held assistant secretary or equivalent chief operating officer positions at the departments of Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs and Education. In the process, she served three presidents and was confirmed by Congress five times for her various posts.

State controller

After retiring in 2007 to her Winston-Salem residence, Combs received a call in March 2014 from Gov. Pat McCrory that she said she could not turn down.

David McCoy announced in March 2014 his plans to retire as state controller, citing unspecified health issues.

At that time, the state controllers office was sorting out the tax-revenue stream following tax cuts and changes passed by the General Assembly in 2013.

Combs took the reins May 1, 2014, filling out the rest of McCoys seven-year term, with the General Assembly confirming her appointment in June 2014.

Combs said in a May 2014 profile in the Journal that she chose to become state controller because I think its an opportunity to once again bring a fresh perspective to challenges and opportunities we have here in North Carolina.

For me, there is no greater calling than to serve my own state and our people.

Combs served more than eight years as state controller before retiring on June 30, 2022.

One of her more high-profile cases involved her effort to halt the Democratic-requested transfer of between $785 million and $1.75 billion of the state treasury amid a Leandro school-funding legal dispute.

Those efforts were praised by Senate Republican legislative leaders who have fought in court to prevent that funding transfer in a case that has lasted more than 28 years.

The 1997 decision by the N.C. Supreme Court ruled that the state had an obligation to providing every child with a basic education.

Republican legislative leaders have argued that only the legislature can approve or disapprove such funding requests.

In 2021, Combs secured from the N.C. Court of Appeals a block on the latest Superior Court order to release the funding. The appellate court ruled that the state controller could not move the money without legislative approval.

Background

Combs was a native of Caldwell County. She earned undergraduate and masters degrees from Appalachian State University and a doctorate from Virginia Tech. She is a graduate of the Program for Senior Managers at Harvard University.

In her intermittent times in the private sector, Combs helped found three companies and took their products to worldwide distribution.

She also has held management positions in the financial services sector, including with legacy Wachovia Corp. as operations officer and manager from 1979 to 1982.

Combs relied on a sense of humor and upbeat attitude that some may find unusual in an accountant.

When asked about she chose to call Winston-Salem home, she said in the May 2014 profile that youll hear me use two words often: integrity and accountability.

When I think of Winston-Salem, I think of the countless family members, friends and others who live and breathe those traits as well.

I cherish the people in Winston-Salem who inspired me, so I work every day to inspire others and to find a way to give back and to serve others.

Reactions

Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement that we appreciate Linda Combs public service to the people of North Carolina.

Dale Folwell, the Republican state treasurer and fellow Winston-Salem resident, praised Combs for dedicating her life to public service at the local, state and federal levels.

Her last public position as only the sixth state controller in the modern era was and is one of the most important jobs in state government, Folwell said.

She always advocated for the invisible, including during her service on the Winston-Salem/Forsyth Board of Education, as an education advisor to Gov. James Martin, and through administrative and board positions at Appalachian State University Foundation, Wake Forest University and Gardner-Webb University.

Folwell also noted that Combs was a woman of varied interests, including music.

She was owner with her husband of Combs Music Co., an independent record company and music catalog in Winston-Salem.

During tense and volatile times, Dr. Combs was the calm one in the room, Folwell said. I mourn her loss, not only as a professional, but as a fellow Winstonian.

Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, said she and Combs were good friends beyond their political ties.

"The Combs family has lost a loved one, the great state of North Carolina has lost a treasure, and for me I have lost a friend," Krawiec said.

"She truly impacted us all with her dedication and perseverance. When she was nominated as our state controller, I had the honor of introducing her before the Senate.

"I cherished our friendship, and I will miss her very much. My thoughts and prayers are with her family during this difficult time."

Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth, said Linda Combs played an advisory role in the run-up to Lambeth's first campaign for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools board.

"It was Linda that I reached out to early on when I was interested in just thinking about running for the school board," Lambeth said.

"Then, more recently, I worked with her here in Raleigh as the controller. She was committed to protecting the state's resources and was always looking for ways to improve her department."

Lambeth referred to Combs as "a voice of reason who always put others first, but lived life to the fullest.

"If she asked for something, she asked for it with great passion. She never lost her cool and remained calm even in difficult even confrontational budget negotiations.

"She loved her family and she will certainly be missed."
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.

Lancaster County to be owner of Lincoln convention center

That shiny new convention center in Lincoln's future -- wherever and whenever that might be -- will be owned by Lancaster County.

That was the first order of business for Assemble Lincoln -- a group made up of local, state and federal policymakers, business leaders and community members -- which was formed in September with the sole aim of bringing a convention center to Lincoln.

Next on Assemble Lincoln's agenda is selecting a consultant, which could happen in the next two weeks. But, naming a governing body to serve as the fiscal agent to essentially run the convention center was a big step for Assemble Lincoln.

LPD identifies man accused of assault

Lincoln police identified the suspect who allegedly used a knife to attack an officer early Tuesday morning as 27-year-old Simon Kafka.

Kafka, who was shot by an officer during a confrontation on a bus in northeast Lincoln, was still being treated at a local hospital for his injuries as of Wednesday. Once released from the hospital, he will be transported to the Lancaster County jail, where he will be booked on suspicion of first-degree assault on an officer.

The officers involved had not been identified, but the department said it intends to release their names at a later time.

The officer who was cut on the neck was released from the hospital Tuesday afternoon.

Rod Wave opens tour at PBA

And, Rod Wave has the No. 1 album in the country and hes coming to Lincoln tonight to start his 35-city tour that takes its name from the hit record  Nostalgia.

Nostalgia is the Florida-born trap-soul rappers third consecutive album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, following 2021s Soul Fly and 2022s Beautiful Mind.

The 18-song Nostalgia is Waves most introspective album yet, exploring themes of love and loss. It logged the equivalent of 137,000 album units and another 88,000 units in the second week after its release.

Hell take Pinnacle Bank Arenas stage at around 8 p.m.

Thats it for Thursday, Oct. 19. Stay in the know with Lincolns longest-standing news source at JournalStar.com., well see you back here tomorrow.

Review of police shootings in Lincoln since 2013 1. Douglas DaMoude, May 30, 2014 2. Tyson Hubbard, March 5, 2015 3. Tareik Artis, Sept. 22, 2015 4. Zachary Grigsby, Nov. 29, 2015 5. Germichael Kennedy, June 26, 2016 6. Thomas Sailors, Jan. 5, 2018 7. Christopher Brennauer, Dec. 29, 2018 8. Joseph Francis Cimino, Oct. 8, 2019 9. Hailey Stainbrook and Christian Alexander, Feb. 20, 2021 10. German Pedraza, Nov. 24, 2021 11. Chace Abney, May 1, 2023 12. Stephen Kafka, Oct. 17,2023
The family of a Lincoln teenager hit while crossing South Cotner Boulevard near A Street has sued the city of Lincoln over what they allege is negligent design, maintenance and layout of the intersection.

On April 18, 2022, Hazel Thaut, then 18, was left with "catastrophic, life-altering injuries" after being struck by a pickup, according to the lawsuit filed in Lancaster County District Court.

Attorney Adam Prochaska said Thaut was left with a traumatic brain injury, two collapsed lungs, multiple broken bones and lost a kidney as a result of being struck at around 8 that night while attempting to cross South Cotner on her bike in a marked crosswalk with a walk signal.

"The citys negligent design, layout, and maintenance of the intersection resulted in the city instructing Hazel to cross the street and the Lincoln driver to turn into the crosswalk without yielding to Hazel at the exact same time, Prochaska said in the lawsuit filed by Thaut and her parents, Cristina Thaut and Larry Bearking.

A driver of a Chevy Colorado pickup told police he had a green arrow and was turning left from A Street to head south on Cotner when the cyclist suddenly appeared at the last second and he struck her, according to the accident report.

Lincoln police didn't cite the Lincoln man because they had found no violation. It was dusk, and police said the bike didn't have lights.

The driver who struck her also isn't named in the lawsuit.

Prochaska said the problem was the design of the 40-year-old traffic light, which had a green light for westbound traffic on A Street turning left, effectively signaling they had the right of way, rather than a flashing yellow arrow that would encourage drivers to yield to pedestrians or oncoming traffic.

At the same time, pedestrians crossing Cotner are signaled it's OK to cross.

The attorney said the city was required by Nebraska law to remove the traffic light, but didn't, "placing pedestrians like Hazel directly in harms way every time a driver turned left onto South Cotner Boulevard from A Street."

Earlier this year, the family filed a tort claim, but the city had not made a final decision on the claim as of last week, so they withdrew the claim and sued.

Prochaska pointed to a Nebraska law that requires all traffic lights to conform to the manual on uniform traffic control devices. He said the intersection doesn't conform to guidance within it regarding steady circular green signals that could create an unexpected crossing of pathways of moving vehicles or pedestrians.

He said the city was negligent for failing to remove the circular green light controlling the left-turn lane on A Street, which remains in use today.

Thaut's family is seeking more than $553,000 in medical expenses, plus damages for her pain and suffering.

The City Attorney's Office hasn't yet filed an answer to the complaint in court and declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

According to the city's website, a project is planned on A Street from 40th to 56th streets that would, among other things, add a center turn lane on the east side of the intersection from 40th to 48th, reconstruct pedestrian ramps and study the feasibility of roundabouts in the area or the potential closure of 50th Street.

The project is tentatively planned to start in 2027 and has been in the city's long-term plan since 2019.

Top Journal Star photos for October 2023
A Lincoln mother is seeking a protection order against Lancaster County's chief deputy sheriff, who hit and hospitalized her 9-year-old daughter as she rode her bike in northwest Lincoln in May, according to a court filing Wednesday.

A district court judge set a hearing on her request later this month when both sides can appear.

And on Thursday, Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said there was an internal investigation into the allegation made by Tiarrah Moton, who already has filed a civil lawsuit against Chief Deputy Ben Houchin in connection to the crash.

In the request for a protection order filed Wednesday, Moton said she and her family had no interaction with Houchin, who is a neighbor, prior to May 10.

"Then after the accident, the issues slowly got worse," she said.

Moton said after she filed the lawsuit, Houchin started to record and have stare-downs with her and family members "when prior to it he never did."

She said she thinks he's trying to intimidate her family or get them to react or talk with him and her children are afraid to be outside.

"I'm tired of quietly living in fear of this man," Moton wrote. "I just want it to stop so my kids can be normal again."

She said on Oct. 1, Houchin recorded her and her children, then gestured like "what?" to her. She said she reported the interaction to the Lincoln Police Department.

Then, she said, on Tuesday he and a friend sat in a vehicle at the edge of her driveway for about 10 minutes, until she walked outside. She said he got out of the backseat, stared at her and walked up to his home two houses away.

While officers were sent out on both calls, a Lincoln police spokeswoman said she had no additional information about them.

In a suit filed in June, her attorney, Vince Powers, accused Houchin of driving his Dodge Ram pickup truck too fast for conditions the evening he crashed into 9-year-old Janiece Moton in the Highlands neighborhood in northwest Lincoln.

The injured girl was hospitalized for five days with a skull fracture, a brain bleed and other injuries.

Houchin, who was off duty and driving his personal truck, told investigators he had been driving around 20 mph (under the 25 mph speed limit) when he struck her. She was not wearing a helmet, according to the crash report.

In May, Houchin declined to comment on the crash itself, saying he wanted to keep his response to the incident "personal" and not conflate it with his role as chief deputy sheriff.

The chief deputy told police he had looked down for a "split second" to change his radio station and the girl came out of nowhere.

There are no stop signs on either side of the three-way intersection.

Nine days after the crash, the Police Department said Houchin would not face criminal charges for his role in the collision.

Following the crash, Sheriff Terry Wagner said the early information from the sheriff's office's internal investigation into the crash suggested Houchin had not violated any agency policies. The sheriff said he stopped at the scene, rendered aid and had cooperated with police.

Houchin didn't return a message seeking comment on the protection order request.

Most dangerous cities in Nebraska Dangerous Cities in Nebraska 6. South Sioux City 5. Scottsbluff 4. North Platte 3. Lincoln 2. Grand Island 1. Omaha A note about the numbers
A crash near Bennet at the intersection of Nebraska 43 and Saltillo Road on Wednesday evening left four people injured, including two Lincoln Police Department officers.

At about 7:20 p.m., a car failed to stop at a stop sign and hit a truck, which caused one of the vehicles to become disabled in the middle of the road. Two off-duty Lincoln police officers pulled over to help those involved in the crash when another car approached, hit the disabled vehicle and pushed it into the officers.

The driver of the car involved in the initial crash was airlifted to a local hospital with head and rib injuries that were not considered life-threatening. They are expected to be cited for the stop sign violation, according to Sheriff Terry Wagner. The driver of the truck complained of pain but did not require medical treatment.

The driver who hit the disabled vehicle was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

LPD Officer Brent Lovett was taken to the hospital with severe head and abdominal injuries. Officer Kate Schwenke was also taken to the hospital but was later released.

Both officers have almost eight years of experience with the LPD. Officer Lovett is on the Southeast team and had recently received the Mayors Award of Excellence. Officer Schwenke is a member of the LPD SWAT Team.

"This will undoubtedly be a lengthy recovery for Officer Lovett," Acting Police Chief Michon Morrow said in a news conference Thursday.

"Our philosophy is mission first and people always," she said. "Both of them embodied that philosophy here."

Alcohol or drugs are not suspected to be involved in the incident, Wagner said.

Top Journal Star photos for October 2023
The Douglas County Sheriff's Office identified two 16-year-olds who were killed in a crash in far northern Douglas County on Oct. 8.

Three other teenagers were injured in the crash on North River Drive near the Washington County line between Hummel Park and Neale Woods. First responders were called to the scene at 8:52 a.m., and found a vehicle in a ditch fully consumed in flames, according to the Sheriff's Office.

The vehicle, a Kia sedan, appeared to have been heading northbound toward Washington County on North River Drive when the driver lost control, exited the road on the west side and struck a tree head-on.

The driver, 16-year-old Ray Htoo, and a passenger in the vehicle, 16-year-old Eh Ywa Htoo, were both killed.

A 17-year-old female passenger of the vehicle and a 13-year-old male passenger of the vehicle both sustained serious injuries, the release said. An additional 13-year-old male passenger sustained moderate injuries.

The Kia was confirmed as stolen from Omaha on the same date as the crash, the release said.

Top Journal Star photos for October 2023
Valley County Sheriff Casey Hurlburt is accused of providing false information in an insurance claim after a vehicle crash.

Hurlburt filed a claim in January regarding a crash that involved a 2004 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, according to a criminal complaint. The complaint accused Hurlburt of stating in his claim that the crash occurred on Oct. 11, 2022, instead of the actual date of the accident, March 23, 2022, in order to receive full coverage of the repair costs. Hurlburt obtained full coverage on the vehicle in April of 2022 from State Farm Insurance.

State troopers arrested Hurlburt on Tuesday on suspicion of fraudulent insurance acts, a felony. The Nebraska State Patrol said the arrest came on the heels of a months-long investigation.

The sheriff is scheduled to make his initial court appearance next Wednesday in Valley County, the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office said Wednesday. The office said an arrest affidavit in the case is sealed.

Hurlburt was taken to Hall County Jail on Tuesday. He was not listed as an inmate on Wednesday.

Nebraska State Patrol spokesman Cody Thomas said Hurlburt was arrested at the State Patrol office in Grand Island, which is why he was lodged in Hall County.
Nebraska's congressmen remained split Wednesday as Rep. Jim Jordan, a hardline Republican from Ohio, lost his second bid for House speaker, leaving the chamber leaderless for another day.

Jordan, an ultraconservative and the co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus who has nonetheless won the support of the majority of mainstream House Republicans, ultimately won fewer votes from his own caucus Wednesday than he did the day before.

Thats disappointing to see that happen, said Rep. Mike Flood, who represents Nebraska's 1st Congressional District and who has twice voted to support Jordan's candidacy for the speakership.

There are days I wonder if Jesus Christ could get 217 votes in the Republican conference," Flood told the Journal Star on Wednesday. "Its a difficult place to do business.

Twenty-two Republicans cast votes Wednesday for 10 alternative candidates  including some vote-getters who aren't members of Congress  blocking Jordan's path to the gavel and leaving the House unable to conduct legislative business as war breaks out in the Middle East.

Among the holdouts is Rep. Don Bacon, who serves Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District  the state's most competitive  and who has emerged as one of Jordan's most vocal GOP opponents.

"I believe hes done," Bacon told CNN following Wednesday's vote. "He needs to withdraw from this. Hes gonna lose more votes tomorrow. I know it. He doesn't have any pathway forward to 217 (votes)."

Bacon cast his vote for Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the embattled former House speaker who saw his tenure as the chamber's leader end earlier this month after eight House Republicans joined with Democrats to oust him.

Rep. Adrian Smith, who has represented Nebraska's 3rd Congressional District since 2007, voted for Jordan in each of the Ohio hardliner's first two bids for the speakership.

Wednesday's vote  which saw 199 Republican House members support Jordan, two fewer than Tuesday  left the chamber in a stalemate that underscored the deep divisions inside the GOP caucus that led the House to the predicament it's in now.

"What happened here  we had eight of our Republicans get together with all of the Democrats and forcibly remove the speaker from the dais," Flood said in a phone interview Wednesday, referring to McCarthy's ouster.

"I disagreed with that," he continued. "I think it was reckless. I think it was bad for the country. I think it was bad for the House as an institution. But we find ourselves post that decision."

The aftermath of McCarthy's removal has left Flood  who has billed himself as a bipartisan dealmaker  supporting Jordan, who is supported by the furthest-right members of his caucus and who was among 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

If I came into this Republican conference and held that vote against every single one of my colleagues, there wouldnt be much left of a conference to have," said Flood, whose congressional district includes Lincoln.

The Norfolk native pointed to Jordan's "team-building skills" and the respect Flood said he has from "people across every ideological spectrum inside" the GOP as he explained his support for the Ohio firebrand.

When you nominate a nominee, I stick by that nominee. And that nominee right now is Jim Jordan," Flood said, noting that he'd voted for McCarthy 15 times before he was finally elected speaker in January.

Jordan's hardline nature has proved more problematic for Bacon, who already finds himself in an expensive reelection campaign that will likely pit the retired airman against Democratic challenger Tony Vargas, a state senator whom Bacon edged by about 6,000 votes last November. President Joe Biden took home 56.4% of the vote in the 2nd District in 2020.

Bacon's continued opposition to Jordan has put him in the crosshairs of the GOP's rightmost wing, including the Sarpy County Republican Party, which said in a statement Tuesday that Bacon had "not only disappointed his conservative base but also missed an opportunity to support a candidate who shared the values and priorities of his constituents."

In its own statement Monday, the Nebraska GOP announced it "enthusiastically support(ed)" Flood's and Smith's endorsement of Jordan.

"We need a man like Congressman Jordan who will not cave to the endless corporate welfare and social welfare demands," the party said in the statement, which did not mention Bacon or his opposition to Jordan's candidacy.

Bacon said his opposition has made him and his family a target of harassment.

He shared an anonymous text message his wife received warning her husband to back Jordan, predicting Bacon "will not hold any political office ever again" if he did not support the hardliner.

Weve got to do better in our country," Bacon said. "We can debate politics and still not treat each other terribly and wrongfully. We should be able to be respectful in our debate.

Both Bacon and Flood indicated Wednesday they would support taking action to empower Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, the North Carolina Republican who has been serving as temporary speaker, to conduct legislative business on the House floor.

That option seemed to gain traction Wednesday as wars are raged both in Israel and Ukraine and as the government inched closer to a shutdown, which could come in November if Congress fails to reach another spending agreement.

Bacon suggested he would support McHenry for the speakership outright, though described his colleague as "reluctant" to fill the role.

Flood, though, cast such move as a stopgap measure  one his party might have to resort to as crises mount outside a paralyzed House.

"If that idea were acceptable to enough people in the conference, I think it would be a reasonable step to ensure that we have a working, operating and functioning House of Representatives," he said.

Top Journal Star photos for October 2023
TOWN OF BURLINGTON  Ambulance service for the towns 6,500 residents is switching to the privately owned Curtis Ambulance Service.

Town officials announced a deal with Milwaukee-based Curtis Ambulance to succeed the City of Burlington, after the city terminated its agreement with the town.

Curtis Ambulance, also known as Medix Ambulance, will begin serving the Town of Burlington effective Jan. 1.

Curtis Ambulance officials estimated the contract cost at $419,000 a year.

Town Administrator Rachel Naber said Curtis Ambulance already has a presence in the area and will provide timely services to all areas of the town.

With this new partnership, town residents will have a dedicated ambulance staffed by highly trained and certified professionals, she said.

The town had been paying $16,050 a year to the City of Burlington, but the city, Naber said, was seeking changes that would have increased the towns expenses to approximately $400,000  about the same as the contract with Curtis Ambulance.

The City of Burlington announced Sept. 25 that it was terminating service to the town because of disagreement about the cost. Details of the contractual negotiations have not been disclosed.

The city had been handling the towns ambulance calls since 2020, and before that through the now-defunct volunteer Burlington Rescue Squad.

Medix Ambulance, which was acquired by Curtis Ambulance, was the backup paramedic provider for the Burlington Rescue Squad. The operation still has a central station and maintenance hub at 642 Kane St. in Burlington.

Curtis Ambulance CEO James Baker said the established presence in Burlington will make it seamless for the company to respond to emergency medical calls in the town.

We can service all of the parts of the town very easily and conveniently, Baker said.

Baker said he anticipates getting about 400 calls for service annually in the Town of Burlington.

With a history dating back to the 1850s, Curtis Ambulance describes itself as Americas oldest private ambulance provider. The company is active in Milwaukee and Madison, and is known as Medix Ambulance in the Racine and Kenosha area.

Baker said his firm has a fleet of about 24 ambulances, with both paramedics and emergency medical technicians on staff. The company also has contracts in the City of Delavan and the Town of Richmond, and assists with special events such as the Country Thunder music festival.

In Racine County, the Town of Dover contracted with Curtis Ambulance for about 12 years before the Kansasville Fire & Rescue Department last year upgraded its emergency medical services.

Kansasville Fire Chief Ron Molnar had high praise for Curtis, saying that the private ambulance crews rose to any occasion as needed.

Curtis Universal was a valuable emergency response partner, Molnar said.

Baker said his staff has experience and expertise.

We bring a lot to the table, he said.
CALEDONIA  A dispute involving a homeowners association has boiled over into a court battle pitting neighbors against one another, with thousands of dollars at stake.

About a dozen residents of the Crestview Park subdivision have filed suit against William Van Offeren accusing him of fabricating the organization and installing himself as president so he could collect money.

Van Offeren has filed liens against several Crestview Park homeowners, alleging that they owe membership dues, sometimes thousands of dollars, that must be paid before they can sell or refinance their homes.

Its a mess, homeowner Michelle Struck said.

Van Offeren denies the accusations and said that without the association, the Crestview Park neighborhood would deteriorate and property values would decline.

I am the acting caretaker, he said. Millions of dollars in property value are at risk.

The suit was filed Oct. 10 in Racine County Circuit Court before Circuit Judge Mark Nielsen. No hearing date has been set.

Crestview Park, which was developed in the 1970s, includes about 290 homes along Six Mile Road near the lakefront north of Wind Point. The property includes private park space and other common areas in need of regular maintenance.

The neighborhood had a homeowners association until 2010 when Crestview Park Association Inc. was dissolved.

According to the lawsuit, Van Offeren moved into the subdivision and attempted to create a new association, but did so without incorporating properly or seeking input from other residents.

Van Offeren has sought $75 a year from homeowners, and in some cases accused them of being delinquent by thousands of dollars, the suit states. In the name of Crestview Park Homeowners Association, he filed liens this summer against 25 homeowners alleging past-due assessments.

Liens are legal claims on property owners that must be resolved before the property can be sold or transferred.

The largest claim asserted by the homeowners association totals $13,400 against one Crestview Park resident. Combined, the liens total about $70,000.

The suit filed in response alleges that Van Offeren filed the wrong type of liens, and that he has no legal standing to demand money from his neighbors.

Van Offeren knew or should have known at the time of filing that that the contents, or any part of, the liens are false, a sham or frivolous, the suit states.

The homeowners seek a judges action removing the liens and awarding each affected homeowner $1,000 in damages for slander of title.

Van Offeren said he has not seen the lawsuit yet, but he would consult with an attorney to determine if his liens invoked the wrong law or if his association lacks the authority to collect dues from homeowners.

He said he has followed the system of previous association leadership to maintain the park space and other common areas of the subdivision. If collecting dues is not permitted, he said, it means neighborhood improvements have been funded improperly for decades.

If the park association fails, then there is no clear path to success, he said.

Homeowner Joshua Dohse, another participant in the suit, said he has asked Van Offeren about the validity of the homeowners association.

Dohse said Van Offeren has not offered an explanation or disclosed how the money from homeowners is spent.

I could not believe how unlawful and how ridiculous it was, he said. I dont just give random people my hard-earned money.

Struck said she and others paid Van Offeren when the dues were only $35 a year, but balked when they reached $75.

You get bills in the mail, and you just assume its legitimate, she said. But it literally looks like this guy is just running a scam.
Halloween can be a time for sunny outings to area pumpkin patches  but it can also mean seeking out terrors after dark.

If youre up for being scared, check out these Kenosha/Racine area attractions:

Dr. Destructions Haunted Forest

 The resident ghoul at the Jerry Smith Farm, who has been scaring folks in the cornfields and inside haunted buses and other structures for decades, is back with an all-new spooky attraction, which is already scaring visitors this season.

Special events: At 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, Wisconsin Horror Personality Doctor Ivan Cryptosis will be hosting trivia. Also on Saturday, at 7 p.m., local music artist She Controls Me will perform. Sunday at 5:30 p.m., DJ Graves hits the stage for our Gothic Rave Industrial Dance Night, Dr. Destruction said. Note: Events on The Haunted Manor Stage are free.

Open daily through Oct. 30. Admission is $15. The Jerry Smith Farm is located on Highway L (18th Street) just west of Green Bay Road in Somers. Note: The Haunted Manor has its own entrance and is not in the wristband area that requires an additional fee. This haunted attraction is NOT open on Oct. 31. For more details, go to jerrysmithfarm.com.

Haunted House at Kemper Center

 The Kemper Center plays host to a new set of creepy creatures each year, from mortuaries to freak shows.

The haunted house operates in partnership with the Kenosha County Teen Task Force of the Concerned Citizens Coalition. The group aims to encourage healthy lifestyles for Kenosha youth and families, coordinate prevention efforts and provide alternative activities to local youth. This haunted house is a service/learning project for the teens in the organization that raises funds each year for the Kemper Center.

Open 7 to 11 p.m. on two more Saturdays (Oct. 21 and 28). Note: Kiddie tours (with the lights on) are 6 to 7 p.m. At Kemper, 6501 Third Ave. The Haunted House entrance is located in the Faulkner Building around the back (east side) of Kemper Center. Snacks and drinks are available for purchase as you wait to enter the haunted house.

Soul Reapers Haunted House at the Kenosha County Fairgrounds

 This haunted attraction in Wilmot is a truly terrifying haunted house, according to the ghouls who inhabit the space! Soul Reapers are described as the scariest, most ruthless monsters of hell. The queen has summoned them to devour your pathetic souls! Hearing your screams brings the Soul Reapers great satisfaction. Will you accept the challenge?! (Yikes!)

Opens at 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Oct. 20-21 and 27-28, plus two Sundays: Oct. 22 and 29. For more details and to purchase tickets in advance, go to soulreapershaunt.com.

Abandoned Haunted Houses

 The Abandoned Haunted House Complex, at 2825 Southeast Frontage Road in Mount Pleasant, offers four haunted experiences, including two haunted houses. The attraction features the Ambush and Hysteria haunted houses, the outdoor Stalker Haunted House and ax throwing. Bonus: Be in line at 6:45 p.m. to witness The Rising as the monsters and creatures make their way to the haunted houses for the night.

Abandoned opens at 6:30 Fridays and Saturdays, through Nov. 4. Note: The ticket booth closes at 11 p.m., but haunted houses will remain open until the line ends. Blackout Nights for Hysteria Haunted House are Nov. 3-4. Each group will get an LED candle and make their way through the pitch black maze. For tickets and more details, go to abandonedhauntedhouse.com.

Dungeon of Doom

 Located just south of Kenosha County in Zion, Ill., this first-rate attraction scares the crowds who come to 600 29th St. in Zion, Ill. Its one of the largest haunted houses in the U.S. and is celebrating its 27th season. If youre feeling brave after making it through the haunted house alive, you can opt for the Buried Dead or Alive experience.

Opens at 7 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 31. For more details and ticket information, go to dungeonofdoom.com. Note: Blackout Nights, with tours in total darkness, are Nov. 3-4. Want a Nightmare Before Christmas? The haunted house is open Dec. 15-16 for Sub-Thermal Nightmare.
If it wants to survive, Israel surely must annihilate Hamas, this ever more venomous, maniacal Islamic group of terrorists misruling a next-door neighbor, Gaza. But should Hamass proud, strong, enabling boss Iran also be a target with the United States participating in its demise as a world hazard on its way to nuclear weaponry? Even with Hamas gone for good, an untethered Iran would still have Hezbollah to boss around and the means of forging new Hamas-style, Palestinian invaders with civilization the final loser.

Yes, it was absolutely horrendous, the Hamas invasion of Israel with thousands of missiles launched as an introduction of massacre intentions. The assault was not for the purpose of combat with largely missing Israeli soldiers as much as for the joyful torture of civilians, including the rape of young women, the killing of children while their parents watched and even cutting off the heads of babies. There was also the taking of hostages Hamas is now threatening to kill If Israel continues to fight back.

These unexpected, cleverly skilled barbarians killed the most Jews assassinated since the Holocaust after inexplicably being able to cross a border supposed to be uncrossable thanks to U.S.-Israeli coordination. Conducted on an Israeli holy day, the invasion was the first inside Israel since the Yom Kippur War a half century ago and was clearly part of the frequently stated antisemitic dream of killing all 9 million Israelis while acquiring their land. The invaders swept through Israeli towns inflicting horror, pain and death and then taking some survivors to Gaza, people Hamas says it will kill if Israel keeps fighting its way into Gaza.

It might seem ironic, but all of this inhumane outburst seems to have happened in part because of an excellent Donald Trump policy, something worthy of a Nobel Prize. He and his coordinators managed to persuade a number of Arab countries in the Middle East to form peace accords  the Abraham Accords  as virtual allies of Israel while also benefitting more from trade. The participants have altered the Middle East balance of power by helping themselves as much as Israel was helped by increased protection and fewer threats. Still, there was the tricky question of what formidable, sizeable, oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a past enemy of Iran, was going to do.

Saudi Arabia worked closely with the United States in oil and military trade under Trump while not caring much for President Joe Bidens doing endless, billions of dollars-worth of favors for Iran. Lately, however, there were hints that Saudi Arabia might join the Abraham Accords. Iran, which went from limping under Trump to racing fast under Biden, has been more than a little upset. It is the major anti-Israel power in the Middle East, very, very close to obtaining nuclear weaponry and would be set back if Saudi Arabia made that move. According to an excellent Wall Street Journal account superior to publicized U.S. intelligence, Iran used money and demands to get Hamas to jump in where it did not particularly want to go.

The war, in fact, does seem to have caused Saudi Arabia to be less likely to make the pro-Israel move, although recent Israeli internal divisiveness, apparently seen by Iran as another advantage, has quickly disappeared.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had upset large portions of the population in wanting to limit supreme court authority, but national unity and enthusiastic support of Netanyahu became the immediate way of things with the Hamas invasion.

Biden is standing strongly behind Israel but has given no indication of ceasing his appeasing approach to Iran. He should do as much immediately and definitively
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.

Vote

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BROKEN BOW  Author John Hunt wanted to feature the Nebraska Sandhills in a book and decided on a fictional account of a young man from the big city who rides the highways of the area on a bicycle.

The book is about Jack Harris, a fictitious boy from Chicago who grew up in the city, Hunt said. On his 13th birthday his mother gave him a journal written by a man from the Sandhills of Nebraska. He wanted to explore this land where this journal was written. When he turned 19, he loaded his bicycle on a Greyhound bus and hopped on with a backpack and some essentials.

Jack rides the bus to northeastern Nebraska and starts his trip at Norfolk.

Book it Secrets of the Sandhill, by John Hunt, 338 pages, published in March 2023. For more information about the author, the novel or to read his blog, visit SecretsOfTheSandhills.com.

He started riding on the Cowboy Trail and headed west, Hunt continued. As he continued west, he would stop and ask for Farley Hayes, the man who wrote the journal, so he could meet the author. In his search, he eventually made it on to Highway 20 and went as far west as Rushville, which is the northern boundary of the Sandhills.

Hunt wanted to explain the area where he lives in Broken Bow, part of the Sandhills, so he wrote Secrets of the Sandhills, published in March. The 338-page books sells for $15.

Hunt, a life-long Nebraskan, studied construction technology at Central Community College in Hastings and then went on to study at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. At UNK he enrolled in some writing courses that inspired his longing to document the world around him.

Although the author learned about the Sandhills on foot, he decided on having his main character traverse the area by bicycle.

I chose a bicycle because I learned about the Sandhills on foot while guiding deer hunters, he said. Ive actually walked more than a thousand miles of the Sandhills. When you get out of your vehicle and start walking in the sand, you start noticing things that you would never see inside of a vehicle.

Hunt estimates the perimeter of the Sandhills to be more than 700 miles.

For a kid on foot, walking that far just doesnt make sense, he said. So I chose a bicycle. On a bicycle you slow down and you can actually smell the smells, you can feel the air; youre going slowly enough that you can actually see your surroundings, way more than you can in a vehicle. I tried to slow the process down enough to where Jack could learn things that he wouldnt be learning if he was just traveling in a car or a pickup or a bus.

Hunt said the sand of the Sandhills always intrigued him.

I first started experiencing the Sandhills in my early 20s, he said. I would make trips up there and go camping and fishing. Theres something about the sand  and Im not exactly sure what it is about it. Its not dirty, its not dusty. The grasses and the marshes give off a pristine smell and feel to it. The only man made things that youll come across are the occasional power line or the fences. Theres nothing else there except the lakes and streams.

Once Hunt began guiding hunters, he found that it took about four days for visitors to change their perspective about the area.

The Sandhills have a real calming effect on people, he said. The reason I picked Chicago for Jacks home is that I took a group of guys from Chicago hunting. When they first arrived, they were wound up like eight-day clocks. By day four of walking the Sandhills, they were about as relaxed as they could be. They started talking and opening up and it was like they had whole different personalities by the end of four days walking the sand.

To get a better feel for his main character, Hunt traveled to Chicago and walked the streets of the city to compare it to life in the Sandhills.

For his writing style, Hunt took inspiration from humorist and outdoor writer Patrick McManus (1933-2018). As a teenager, Hunt eagerly awaited the next issue of Outdoor Life, Field and Stream and other magazines that featured the work of McManus.

Hes probably the guy I styled my writing voice after, Hunt said. I just loved his style and his clarity and his sense of humor. I grew up a lot like he did; I lived on a farm and enjoyed the outdoors. We have a lot in common. I actually contacted him on Facebook before he passed away. I thanked him for all of his books and he was very appreciative of it.
OMAHA As a youth in 1940s Omaha, James Dorrance used to mow the rolling hills of Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Now, 72 years after his death from starvation in a Korean War POW camp, the long-lost remains of the Army sergeant first class are at rest beneath Forest Lawns green grass.

This is a day of gratitude and rejoicing, said the Rev. Jeff Hicks of Florence Christian Church, at a memorial service that preceded the burial Wednesday morning. Its been a long journey. But, finally, hes home.

Since shortly after the Korean War, Dorrances unidentified remains lay in a grave marked unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

The were disinterred in 2019 as part of a project by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) to exhume and identify 652 sets of unknown remains from the Korean War at its lab in Hawaii. (The agency also has a lab in Nebraska, at Offutt Air Force Base.)

DNA comparison with living family members as well as dental records and chest radiographs allowed anthropologists to identify a set of remains labeled X-14402 as Dorrances, according to a DPAA press release.

I really never thought it would happen in my lifetime, said Ted Kostkan, 88, of Omaha, who is Dorrances nephew.

Born Jan. 11, 1931, Dorrance was the last of seven children born to James W. and Elizabeth Dorrance. He was seven years younger than his next-youngest sibling. Hicks called him a bonus baby.

Although separated by a generation, Kostkan said he and Dorrance were just three years apart in age and grew up together near 42nd Street and Camden Avenue.

That made us awful close, he said.

The two hunted and fished together, roller-skated and rode motorbikes.

It was the Depression, Kostkan said. We went around the neighborhood and sold corn. You earned a living any way you could.

Both of them worked at Forest Lawn, where Kostkans grandfather was a caretaker.

We were chased out sometimes, doing things we werent supposed to, Kostkan said. I have some fond memories.

They were too young to serve in World War II, but Dorrance enlisted in the Army as soon as he turned 18 in January 1949.

He was a skilled woodworker but accidentally cut off two fingers while working a power saw at Fort Lewis, Washington, Kostkan said.

That could have earned him an exemption from combat duty when war broke out in Korea on June 25, 1950, and his unit the 2nd Infantry Divisions 82nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery-Automatic Weapons Battalion  was sent to help battle the North Korean communist forces under the United Nations banner.

He said, No, I joined to serve my country, Kostkan said, and deployed with the 82nd. He left behind a wife, Mariana, in Omaha, who gave birth to a son, James W. Dorrance, just a week after he deployed.

By November 1950, U.S. and allied units had routed the North Koreans and pushed northward to within 60 miles of the border with China.

Then late that month, 300,000 Chinese surged south in a surprise counterattack. His 82nd battalion was surrounded, and dozens of soldiers were killed or taken prisoner on Dec. 1, 1950, in the Battle of Kunu-ri.

Dorrance was among those captured by the Chinese and marched through snow and cold to POW Camp No. 5.

His family in Omaha was informed that he was missing. Only after the 1953 truce that ended the war, when surviving prisoners from the camp came home, did the Dorrance family learn that Jim had died of malnutrition and pneumonia on March 17, 1951  three months after his capture, and two months after his 20th birthday.

Instead of being able to hold his newborn son, Jim starved to death in a prison camp, Hicks said in his memorial tribute. Jims nephew (Kostkan) was forced to grieve for his best friend while he was still in high school.

After the war, Hicks said, North Korea returned the bodies of hundreds of U.S. service members who died in its territory. Those that couldnt be identified were buried in Hawaii until they were disinterred in 2019.

Dorrances father died in 1960 and his mother in 1971. His last two sisters lived until 2015  long enough to give DNA samples for the identification effort, but not long enough to see him home.

Jims father and mother were buried with a gaping hole in their hearts, Hicks said.

Mariana remarried and left Omaha with her son. Kostkan said the rest of the family lost touch with them.

He said James W. Dorrance, now 73, is still living. The Army contacted him, Kostkan said, but Dorrance didnt want to participate in the homecoming.

Kostkan said it was a bit of a shock when he learned in May that his uncle had been identified. The reality hit home Monday night, when Dorrances coffin arrived at Eppley Airfield on an American Airlines jet.

I got so shaky, I could hardly stand up, he said.

Dorrance was buried near his sisters Wednesday, saluted with a rifle volley and the rendering of taps as U.S. and South Korean flags fluttered nearby. A lieutenant from the Nebraska Army National Guard knelt and presented Kostkan with the folded flag from Dorrances casket.

I felt it kind of like a pit in my stomach, he said.

Still, he had no regrets about what Hicks called an occasion of honor, respect and decorum.

Its a long time coming, Kostkan said. Im glad hes home.

Photos: Korean War soldier buried in Omaha 72 years after his death
Valley County Sheriff Casey Hurlburt is accused of providing false information in an insurance claim after a vehicle crash.

Hurlburt filed a claim in January regarding a crash that involved a 2004 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, according to a criminal complaint. The complaint accused Hurlburt of stating in his claim that the crash occurred on Oct. 11, 2022, instead of the actual date of the accident, March 23, 2022, in order to receive full coverage of the repair costs. Hurlburt obtained full coverage on the vehicle in April of 2022 from State Farm Insurance.

State troopers arrested Hurlburt on Tuesday on suspicion of fraudulent insurance acts, a felony. The Nebraska State Patrol said the arrest came on the heels of a months-long investigation.

The sheriff is scheduled to make his initial court appearance next Wednesday in Valley County, the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office said Wednesday. The office said an arrest affidavit in the case is sealed.

Hurlburt was taken to Hall County Jail on Tuesday. He was not listed as an inmate on Wednesday.

Nebraska State Patrol spokesman Cody Thomas said Hurlburt was arrested at the State Patrol office in Grand Island, which is why he was lodged in Hall County.

The Valley County seat is Ord, located about 64 miles northwest of Grand Island.
Professor Eldon C. Hirsch, affectionately known as Mike, Papa, and Dad, was called home to be with his Savior on Monday, October 16, 2023.

A memorial service is scheduled for Tuesday, October 24, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. at the Luther Preparatory Schools Chapel with Rev. Josh Martin officiating. Visitation for family and friends will be held at the chapel from 11:00 a.m. to noon. The service will be streamed on Tuesday, October 24, 2023 at 1:00 p.m. at the following website: https://www.lps.wels.net/apps/pages/specialservices. A burial will take place at Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Winona, MN at a future date.

Those wishing to offer memorials may direct them to the Luther Preparatory School Music Department or Martin Luther College. Hafemeister Funeral Home and Cremation Service of Watertown is serving the family. Online condolences can be made at www.hafemeisterfh.com.

Professor Eldon Clarke Hirsch was born on October 2, 1931, in Merna, NE, to Arthur and Hulda (nee Nitz) Hirsch. He was raised on a rural beef and crop farm without running water and attended a quaint country grade school.

After graduating from Merna High School, he pursued his education at Dr. Martin Luther College in New Ulm, MN, where he met his future wife, Gwendolyn Gwen Rauschke. The two were wed on May 31, 1956, in Norfolk, NE.

Eldon completed his Bachelors degree at Wayne State and later earned his Masters degree in Fine Arts from Minnesota State, Mankato.

Professor Hirschs teaching journey began in Norfolk, at St. Pauls Lutheran School where he spent 11 years teaching various subjects to grades 3-8. In 1964 he received a Call to Martin Luther Academy and moved to New Ulm, MN to head the high schools Music Department.

In 1979, MLA relocated to Prairie du Chien, WI to become Martin Luther Prep School. Eldon and his family moved and he continued to teach music and aid with the transition and relocation of a new school. After dedicating 15 years to MLPS in Prairie du Chien, Eldon and Gwen moved to Watertown where Eldon taught for two years in the Music Department at Luther Prep School.

After 45 years in the Teaching Ministry, Eldon retired and he and Gwen moved to Winona, MN sharing 23 enriching years together there.

In his retirement, Eldon cherished hands-on activities. He often spent hours in his woodworking shop, crafting furniture for family members, hope chests for his granddaughters, and various toys. He was also passionate about glasswork and stained glass creations.

Eldon penned a book primarily for his family, aptly titled, Dad, You Should Write That Down. . . and So I Did.

In his earlier days, he was drawn to photography, even building darkrooms in several of his residences.

Eldons legacy lives on through his loving wife of 67 years, Gwen Hirsch; their children: Kris (Kurt) Swogger of Winona, MN, Kathy (Norv) Kock of Manitowoc, Philip (Kristi) Hirsch of Manhattan, KS, Paul (Jodi) Hirsch of Norfolk, NE; and daughter-in-law, Yvonda Hirsch of Jefferson; 21 grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren, with 4 more great-grandchildren expected; along with numerous nieces, nephews, and friends. He was preceded in death by his son, Mark Hirsch; great-granddaughter, Grace Swogger; parents; sister, Lorraine (Herb) GSchwind; and brothers: Harlan (Eileen) Hirsch and Loren (Chard) Hirsch.
SPARTA  A Sparta clergyman has been charged in Monroe County Circuit Court for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman after a religious revival.

Forty-six-year-old Travis Raymond Becknell faces a felony count of sexual exploitation by a therapist/member of clergy and a misdemeanor count of fourth-degree sexual assault.

According to the criminal complaint, a woman told police she attended a religious revival conducted by New Hope Fellowship Church, where Becknell was a pastor. She told police during a Jan. 14 interview that she attended an evening service Jan. 29, 2021, and that Becknell invited to her to his residence that night. She said Becknell offered her a glass of wine before he caressed and stroked her hands.

The woman told police Becknell again invited her to his residence after a Jan. 30 evening revival. She said they both consumed a glass of wine before Becknell pulled her close to him. She said they were together for two or three hours and that Becknell began to touch my body in multiple ways. She said Becknell didnt ask for consent and that she felt like my brain was frozen.

The woman said that Becknell didnt stop until hearing someone walking in the upstairs of the house.

The woman told police that prior to the incident, Becknell made inappropriate sexual references during the counseling sessions. She also said Becknell sent her text references of a sexual nature. When asked by police why she waited two years to report the incidents, she said that Becknell had exhibited the same behavior toward other women in church and that she wanted it to stop.

The complaint lists multiple text messages Becknell sent to the woman that lauded her appearance and expressed sexual desire. One message called her captivating, and another says I have desired you! Youre a very beautiful and truly sexy woman.

Police met with Becknell Feb. 3. He told police he knew the woman but said he never counseled her because she didnt need it. He acknowledged hugging the woman and sharing alcohol with her but denied touching her sexually.

A website for the church lists Becknell as founding & lead pastor.

Becknells initial court appearance is set for Oct. 30.
A bomb threat at a Winona residence Sunday evening was determined to be part of a scam, according to Winona police officials.

The Winona Police Department received a report at 6:41 p.m. that an individual, who was not home at the time, had received a text message from an unknown number that if they opened the front or back doors of their home on the 1000 block of Marian Street, a bomb would go off.

The unknown messenger said the bomb would be defused if the resident paid 5,000 bitcoin  worth over $140 million.

The residents teenage son was home at the time of the text messages.

Officers reported to the residence and were able to safely evacuate the teenager.

Police searched the home and determined the threats were not credible.
The tax levy will be dropping for property owners in the Big Foot Union High School District.

Meeting in the lecture hall at Big Foot Union High School on Oct. 16, district electors approved a $9,291,439 total all-funds tax levy for next year, down 4.00% from the current $9,678,397 district tax levy.

The new $9,291,439 levy includes a $6,781,168 general fund levy, a $1,425,000 levy for referendum debt service, a $155,671 levy for non-referendum debt service, and a $929,600 levy for the community service fund.

The Big Foot Union High School District serves the villages of Fontana, Sharon and Walworth, the towns of Sharon and Walworth, and portions of the towns of Delavan and Linn.

With an all-funds tax levy down 4.00% and a concurrent 15.2% rise in estimated district valuation from $3,717,232,263 in 2022 to $4,282,223,363 in 2023, Big Foots district mill rate per $1,000 in real and personal property valuation will fall 16.54% from the current $2.60 to $2.17.

Since rising 2.97% from $3.37 per $1,000 in both 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 to a high of $3.47 per $1,000 in 2015-2016, mill rates have been decreasing in the Big Foot Union High School, falling 0.29% to $3.46 in 2016-2017, 2.02% to $3.39 in 2017-2018; 7.37% to $3.14 in 2018-2019,2.87% to $3.05 in 2019-2020, 1.31% to $3.01 in 2020-2021, 1.66% to $2.96 in 2021-2022, 12.16% to $2.60 in 2022-2023 and 16.54% to $2.17 in 2023-2024.

Estimated 2023 property valuations in the Big Foot Union High School District are as follows: Town of Delavan, $174,885,320; Town of Linn, $1,230,715,764; Town of Sharon, $79,893,600; Town of Walworth, $333,511,308; Village of Fontana, $2,002,722,200; Village of Sharon, $97,792,500; and Village of Walworth, $362,702,500.

Were really excited that our mill rate is dropping to $2.17 from $2.60 last year, as promised to our community, without going to referendum..., said Big Foot District Administrator Doug Parker, who noted that the district has been negotiating the fine financial line of being fiscally responsible while also meeting the needs of our students.

In other news at the 2023 district annual meeting, electors approved salaries and reimbursement rates for the Board of Education, setting a $1,500 annual salary per board member and an up to $175 reimbursement per board member for travel and expenses related to the performance of their duties.

In financial reports to electors for the district fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, the following ending fund balances were reported:

Fund 10, General Fund  $3,562,759, down from $3,679,913.

Fund 21, Special Projects  $146,782, up from $69,246.

Fund 39, Debt Service  $106,369, down from $117,576.

Fund 46, Capital Projects  $777,898, up from $458,483.

Fund 50, Food Service  $81,281, up from $63,039.

Fund 73, Employee Benefit Trust Fund  $618,026, up from $200,229.

Fund 80, Community Service  $194,925, up from $155,582.

The next district annual meeting was set for Monday, Oct. 21, 7 p.m., in the library media center at Big Foot Union High School, 401 Devils Lane in Walworth.

Members of the Big Foot Union High School Board of Education are President Edward Hayden (term expiring 2025), Vice President James Brost (term expiring 2024), Clerk Jane Palmer (term expiring 2024), Member Margaret Labus (term expiring 2026) and Member Kristi Reierson-McWayne (term expiring 2026).

Ten photos from the Big Foot/Williams Bay soccer game against Evansville Carlos Martinez Elliot Vail Ethan Rurey Hudson Torrez Hudson Torrez Joey DeLeon Mike Alfano Ulises Martinez Yeison Santos Yeison Santos
This article appears in the October 20, 2023 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

April 27, 1994

The Oasis Plan: Development Is the Key to Peace in the Middle East

[Print version of this article]

Editors Note: This speech and the discussion session that followed it were first published in EIR, Vol. 21, No. 21, May 20, 1994, pages 21-27.

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EIRNS/Rachel Douglas

Mr. LaRouche gave this speech, on his proposal for an Oasis Plan of Middle East development, to the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow on April 27, 1994. He was in Russia with his wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, for a six-day visit, at the invitation of Russian scientific circles. Subheads have been added.

Ill give an outline of my background in this area and then focus upon one particular topic, which is a very narrow part of the total Asian picture: the question of Middle East peace, focused upon cooperation at present, however unstable, between Shimon Peres on the Israeli side, and Yasser Arafat on the side of the Palestinians. And there are some other Arab countries, naturally, interested in this.

Relevant parts of my experience bearing on this are two. First, after returning from the Second World War with a very strong impression of my postwar experiences in India, I ran into a book which angered me very much, a book called Cybernetics, by Prof. Norbert Wiener, which became famous in later years....

From 1945 through 1963, the world had been dominated by the idea of postwar reconstruction based on scientific and technological progress, but from 1968 on, after the counter-cultural revolution among youth, the result was that we no longer as nations accepted the idea of the right of developing nations to scientific and technological progress. So the period from the First Development Decade and the aborted Second Development Decade, as announced by U Thant in his famous Second Development Decade proposal at the U.N.that was over.

At the same time, there was a destruction of all traditional family and related values within the United States, North America, and western Europe.

As an economist, I had known at the time that if the policies of that period were continued, the international Bretton Woods system in its existing form would cease to exist, would collapseas it did, over the period 1967 through 1971. Because of my somewhat unique success in forecasting the nature of this collapse, I achieved a certain influence; and I faced then the question of the passage of the world from less than two decades of postwar reconstruction, to what have become today three decades of post-reconstruction deconstruction.

If that policy of deconstruction continues, if the policies of the past 30 years continue, then I would say there is no chance for any part of the planet. There will be a general collapse into barbarism.

As a result of that, some friends of mine and I started some publications and set up an intelligence organization project. People became specialists in various parts of the world and specialists in various subjects; and, through publications which are the result of that effort, I have been involved in most parts of the world over the past 25 years.

One of my primary concerns was with the crossroads of civilization, the Middle East, which additionally, for geographic and other related reasons, has been the crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean regions historically, for thousands of years, since at least the time of that ancient civilization we sometimes call Harappa.

For special reasons, I became concerned with the injustice suffered by the Arab people in consequence of British operations in setting up Israel.

In April 1975, in the course of a visit to Iraq for the annual Baath Party session, I proposed to various Arabs who were there, that they consider a new approach to the Israeli-Arab conflict. The idea was not entirely original; there were brief precedents in Israel for this. There were certain Arabs who had confidence in it, particularly after they discovered, in the middle of that meeting, that the Lebanese civil war had broken out. This had been a subject of some debate. At the time, I insisted that it was about to break out; they said no, and when it did, we had some very serious discussions.

What I proposedand I had ready acceptance from certain circles in Israel and among some Palestinians and other Arabswas the following thesis. I stated that the efforts to find a political solution to the Middle East conflict would not succeed under any circumstances, because we had extreme bitterness which could not be settled at the political bargaining table. Before we could have a political solution, we had to have an economic self-interest by both parties in a political solution.

Some Israelis, of the type you would associate today with Shimon Peres, agreed. By early 1976, there was a very significant effort to bring this to success; but because of a very radical shift in politics in Israel at that time, our efforts failed. We tried to revive this again with some sympathy from certain circles in the United States in the later 1978 Carter period. But that failed because forces inside Israel at the time wished it to fail.

There was a brief effort to revive that on the Israeli side, as well as ours, when Shimon Peres was prime minister of Israel. What I believe were some very useful plans were brought to agreement; but we were cut off because of the change in government.

The plan, as you know, has been revived recently on the initiative of Shimon Peres in negotiations with Yasser Arafat. It could succeed; though it is very much in jeopardy.

Water and Nuclear Power

The typical axes of the proposal were two things: water and nuclear power. One of the key problems there, of course, is the shortage of water. One cannot meet the indices of water consumption for a modern population, for both the Palestinian and Israeli populations, under present conditions. There is a conflict over water because the Israelis have, frankly, been using their conquests to take water from everybody. Its one of the conflicts with Syria on the Golan Heights issue. It involves, in Lebanon, the Litani River, and things of that sort.

If you look at the aquifers in the region, there is not enough water available for the total populationnot for modern life. Therefore a political division of the water as it exists, would be no solution.

When we were negotiating with the Peres government in Israel in the early 1980s, they came up with a plan which was called the Canal-Tunnel Plan, to bring seawater from the Mediterranean, through Beersheba, and to cut a tunnel in the mountains, into the Dead Sea, which would be partly, in their view, a power-generating project, which would stabilize the aquifers in the vicinity of the Dead Sea.

I suggested that that was not adequate; it was good, but not adequate. We focused on the Gaza area as a key area to look at, in terms of shaping a possible policy. We found the Israelis had done all the paperwork and planning necessary for the development of infrastructure in that region. My friends made an effort to involve some Japanese interests in actually constructing the project and financing it according to these plans.

My particular version of it came in two parts. Of course, the Jordanians and the Palestinians were very interested in that version of the plan, which was to make another cut from the Gulf of Aqaba toward the Dead Sea, which would be largely a Jordanian project, to link the two canals by a cross-canal.

My point was to increase the size of the canals adequately to permit a large-scale desalination project along the banks of the canal. Our concern also was that, since this required nuclear energy, to avoid the problems of nuclear proliferation.

As you may know, back some years ago, at the German nuclear research center at Julich, a new type of high-temperature reactor was developed, which is sometimes called the Pebble Reactor. It is a fully designed system. It has never been installed due to economic and political reasons. It is the type of reactor which I would recommend to the attention of certain Russian circles as well. It was developed under the direction of a group headed by Professor Schulten of the Julich Center. At that time, initially Brown Boveri was to be the contractor to build these types of reactors.

My view was to build a series of 300 megawatt electricity plants and put them in blocks of four, to build what was called, in the 1950s, nuplexes.

Although the cost of producing fresh water from salt water by nuclear energy is high, the availability of usable fresh water is such a bottleneck in the region, and fresh water is at such a cost in the region, that the high cost of fresh water or brackish water produced by nuclear desalination or nuclear-assisted desalination, would be perfectly acceptable economically. You could in fact build up a supply of water by such methods which would be the equivalent of a new, added river in the region, which would mean the possibility of creating new cities and recapturing the desert for industry and agriculture. As Im sure you know, there were plans in Egypt along similar lines which were aborted on orders of international financial institutions.

I merely cite this as an illustration of what can be done. We have the technology available and obviously, in the unused potential of Russias scientific-military-aerospace research capabilities, there is a capability from this nation, if there were some credit available, to participate in assisting in such projects, for this case or other cases where development would become the key to peace.

The Way Out of the Current Crisis

In conclusion, let me state what the issue is, I believe, here.

The issue with the present countercultural trends in economy is obvious; but I can assure you that within a relatively short period of time, the existing global financial and monetary system will collapse. It is finished; it is unstable. What has been seen in the past six weeks on international financial markets is only an advance rumble of much larger financial disruptions to come.

So, soon those problems will the music of the past. The question will be: how to keep economies going despite the collapse. And policies to accomplish that, I think, are the only important policies.

In this case, I propose we drop the sociological or often-accepted sociological view of negotiations and grand politics. I propose that not only the material but the psychological effect of development upon the state of the individual mind is the key to peaceful development of this planet in the coming period. We have been worse than a failure. For example I know intimately most of the countries of Central and South America; and I can assure you that in those countries, those sociological methods have been proven to be worse than nothing.

To me, the key is the fact that man is not an animal. If humanity were an animal, it would be in the same category as the higher primate species, which means that the human population would never have exceeded, in the past 2-3 million years, more than 10 million individuals at any one time on this planet. Man has already shown, many centuries ago, that he can increase willfully the potential population density, that is, the power of man over nature, which no animal can do. We reached the level of several hundred millions during a period of the Roman Empire and afterward. The productive power of man has increased most greatly in the past 600 years than in the millions of years of human existence prior to that time. The secret of it is that we have developed science as a tool of human development. No longer does 95% or more of the population labor in the brutality of rural lifeor if they do, they need not, if we use modern technologies.

We have elevated man by making possible a society which required an education in ideas. The cruelest thing I have seen on this planet, is to see a human being, and looking into their eyes, expecting to find humanity reflected there, to find a person instead who has been bestialized. The essential thing is what we used to hear and accept up until the mid-1960s. Im sure all of us who were adults then, or who were growing up in that period, would think about justice for the developing nations, and providing them access to technology to solve their problems.

The tendency now, is to look at those faces and say, The problem is, there are too many people.

I would suggest that if we do not change our policy to foster in the individual a sense of his identity as a human being, through access to scientific and other creativity, that we shall bring barbarism upon ourselves.
This article appears in the October 20, 2023 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Nineteenth International Peace Coalition Meeting

A Powerful Voice Is Needed To Save Mankind

[Print version of this article]

The hatred that is now erupting and escalating must be replaced by love for the other.

Oct. 14On Friday, October 13, the nineteenth meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) was convened in the midst of an escalating strategic crisis so perilous as to drive even the most passionate optimist into a state of pessimism. Yet this is precisely the reason why Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and leader of the Schiller Institute, initiated the IPC in June of this year.

With 50 years of guidance from her late husband and mentor, the great American statesman and physical economist Lyndon LaRouche, she was able to foresee that the rapid disintegration of the trans-Atlantic financial system would cause the financial oligarchy of the collective West to go for a strategic showdown with Russia and China, potentially leading to thermonuclear war: Thus the necessity of creating the IPC with the intention of bringing together all advocates for peace from around the world as a unified voice powerful enough to save Mankind.

In order to facilitate rapid expansion of the IPC and create what Helga Zepp-LaRouche had characterized as a big splash, a new format for the meeting was utilized to great effect: Rather than a private invitation-only event, the meeting was public; open to any and all. This resulted in over 200 people from all parts of the globe joining in the discussion process. Anastasia Battle of the Schiller Institute, international coordinator of the IPC, and moderator of the meeting, set the tone for the three-hour discussion:

Not everybody here agrees with one another. So were going to be able to talk through all these problems that are happening in the world; our intention is to create true peace on the planet. And thats the utmost, number one, priority.

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EIRNS/James Rea Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Indeed, not everyone did agree on this or that particular issue. But what everyone did agree on was the danger of the strategic crisis and the immediate urgency of developing solutions to bring about peace.

The event was divided into two parts: The first, opening remarks by a panel of distinguished speakers; the second, a broader discussion, open to all, of the strategic crisis and peace proposals. Although the Ukraine war crisis has in no way diminished, most of the discussion focused on the potential for recent events in Israel to spark a major conflagration throughout the whole of Southwest Asia (Middle East) possibly escalating to nuclear war. The discussion generated two major peace initiatives, highlighted below.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche was the first panelist to speak, beginning with a strategic overview of ongoing events, primarily in Southwest Asia, but also Ukrainewhat she characterized as a double powder kegwarning that the situation has the potential to go completely out of control. She then went on to present her thoughts as to what the role of the IPC should be regarding this crisis:

What we have been trying to do from the very beginning of this discussion process, by trying to put together an international peace coalition, was to unite all peace groups with the idea that we have to put all differences aside! We can discuss the issues which divide us later, because the threat to world peace is so enormously big.

Therefore, the demand [for the IPC] to start to seriously discuss how we can arrive at a New International Security and Development Architecture modeled on the Peace of Westphalia, which came to the conclusion that any peace must take into account the interest of the other  that the hatred which is now erupting and escalating must be replaced by love for the other, and as unlikely as that sounds under the present circumstances, it is nevertheless the only way out of this situation.

Mrs. LaRouche then, with the intention of creating the basis for an elevated discussion period, introduced the philosophical principles of mind necessary for thinking through and developing solutions to the current crisis:

The situation therefore is not hopeless. But it does require an effort by all of us to get people to think differently. We must stop thinking about the other as an animal, as an enemy, as a hateful person, as a demon, and replace that with respect for the human dignity of everybody; especially to start thinking in a way to find always the Higher One, in this case the One Humanity which unites us all before the differences and things which separate us. Therefore, the thinking of Nicholas of Cusa, of the coincidentia oppositorum: that the human mind is the only area where you can synthesize that higher magnitude, that higher order where you can overcome geopolitical conflicts of all kinds.

Ray McGovern, a retired CIA analyst, peace activist, and cofounder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) followed Mrs. LaRouche. Mr. McGovern began his remarks, in reference to the horrific situation in Israel, by stating that the first principle in First Aid is that you must stop the bleeding. Given that Secretary of State Tony Blinken wont do ithes a wastewe have to do it!

What Mr. McGovern introduced at this point, which became the basis of a peace initiative highly supported by Mrs. LaRouche and others, was to put pressure on the United Nations to enforce its own resolution, the 1967 UN Resolution 242, passed unanimously in the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli War (Six-Day War), which demanded, among other things, the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from recently occupied territories.

He also recommended people read a March 3, 2008 article in Vanity Fair by David Rose titled The Gaza Bombshell, documenting the role that Victoria Nuland, Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney played during the George W. Bush administration in creating Hamas to counter the Fatah political party as a way to divide the Palestinian people. He ended by commending the IPC as a group where people can speak openly and freely on how to stop the bleeding.

Other panelists included Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana; Col. Richard Black (ret.), former Virginia State Senator; Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett, a strategic affairs analyst; and Ruben Dario Guzzetti, an international affairs expert from Argentina. Each panelist presented his own unique perspective on the strategic crisis.

Diane Sare, independent LaRouche candidate for U.S. Senator from New York, concluded the opening panel with remarks characterizing the current unfolding strategic crisis as the end of an epoch, driven by the collapse of the hyper-inflated two quadrillion dollar financial bubble of derivatives obligations, which can no longer be sustained. The Anglo-Dutch imperialists threatened by this collapse are like King Canute trying to stop the waves from coming in and, like Zeus, prepared to unleash all hell to stop it, she said.

According to Mrs. Sare, two crucial events have recently occurred creating an opportunity to bring about a shift away from the current dying system to an entirely new strategic and economic architecture: One, is the status of the Ukraine war. NATO is not winning and cannot win in Ukraine; it is a massive defeat. Two, is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.s breaking from the Democratic Party and running for President as an independent. This exposes the corruption and weakness of the Democratic National Committee, which believed it was all-powerful and could control the election process.

In this period of turmoil, our actions, our words, our policies have far more power than we might imagine, giving us the potential to reorganize the entire system. Mrs. Sare concluded by emphasizing the importance of the 10th point of Helga Zepp-LaRouches Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture:

[T]he innate goodness and perfectibility of humanity has to be our guiding star, our axiomatic assumption as we move to get Mankind out of this seemingly dark age into the new era which is already in large part underway by the majority of the people on this planet.

Solutions to the Crisis

The IPC was initiated by Helga Zepp-LaRouche to facilitate a process of discussion and deliberation among participants for the purpose of generating creative solutions to end the danger of thermonuclear war and bring about a durable, lasting peace for all nations and all peoples. Over the course of the meeting, with more than a dozen people from various parts of the world voicing their concerns and ideas, two very important peace initiatives emerged that will be acted upon in the immediate period ahead.

The first initiative came in response to a question from an African on how to convince certain parties to the war, such as the United States, to come to the negotiating table. In her answer Mrs. LaRouche passionately advocated for the IPC to put out a statement demanding a New Security and Development Architecturethe only proposal in her view currently on the table capable of resolving the economic and strategic crises threatening civilization. If powerful voices, including those of the IPC and nations of the Global South, were in unison to demand negotiations based on this proposal, the potential would be created to get the United States and other nations to the negotiating table.

She cited as an example the four years of negotiations leading up to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended 150 years of religious wars in Europe, where people realized that if they did not negotiate an end to the war no one would be able to enjoy the victory because theyd all be dead. Today we face a similar situation with the Ukraine and Israeli conflicts which both have the potential to trigger a thermonuclear war.

Mrs. LaRouche further suggested that the IPC promote a series of discussions globally on her proposal for a New Security and Development Architecturein universities, think tanks and other venues, including an international conferenceas an initiative for powerful minds to deliberate on the question of whether or not human beings are capable of self-government for the purpose of guaranteeing the long-term survival of the species.

Ray McGovern put forward the second initiative, alluded to above. He addressed directly the immediate dire situation in Israel, with the Israeli Defense Forces ready to launch a ground invasion of Gazawhich would result in genocide against the Palestinians. According to McGovern, to prevent this you need a tourniquet, not a bandage; you need to stop the bleeding and stop the awful prospect of what happens when genocide begins.

So how is this to be accomplished? Because the United States is no longer the powerful force it once wasunable to force its will on the rest of the worldRussia, China, the BRICS-Plus and other nations of the Global South should use the UN General Assembly as a mechanism to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 242 to prevent the bloodbath that would accompany genocide.

Mrs. LaRouche wholeheartedly welcomed this initiative. She suggested that an online petition in support of Resolution 242 be created and that members of the IPC launch a mobilization to take the Resolution to all the elected officials of their respective nations for endorsement and demand that the United Nations finally enforce the Resolution to prevent the genocide of the Palestinian people. This should be combined with endorsement of a recent statement from Brazil and China demanding an international peace conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Economic Development Is the Key to Peace

In her closing remarks, Mrs. LaRouche came back to the necessity of a New Development and Security Architecture to address the needs of all people:

For those of you who have read [the proposal], it does have this whole idea of a new financial and credit system, economic development, uplifting poverty, a health system in every country, universal education in every country. That is what the Middle East needs most. Because the plight of the Palestinians, especially in Gaza but also the West Bank [as well as] Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq; all these countries are suffering from an unbelievable poverty!

She described Lyndon LaRouches 1975 economic development plan for Southwest Asia called The Oasis Plan [see elsewhere in this issueed.] based on the idea that peace between the Arabs and the Israelis could only happen if there was joint economic development for all. She recounted how her husband had warned in 1993 that the Oslo Accords would only function if immediate measures were taken to improve the economic conditions of the people through developmentmeasures sabotaged by the World Bank, causing the Accords to fail. She ended by reemphasizing the urgency of her proposal for a New Security and Development Architecture as a viable pathway to peace through economic development.

It can be stated emphatically that the public IPC meeting format did in fact create a big splash, with a major increase from prior weeks in the number of people participating. Mrs. LaRouche made clear, however, that this process of increasing the size of the IPC must accelerate; That we really keep expanding, expanding, expanding. She urged everybody to recruit more organizations and people in the immediate days and weeks ahead because the IPC must become so powerful that nobody can ignore our voice.
This article appears in the October 20, 2023 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this article]

LaRouche Organizers Rally To End Ukraine War Funding

Oct. 14The LaRouche movement held targeted demonstrations last week with the aim of breaking the hold of the war party following the shakeup by the removal of U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Organizers handed out the Schiller Institute leaflet, No More Money for Arms in Ukraine! No World War with Russia or China! which is being circulated internationally.

The main demonstration was held in Washington, D.C. over October 1112. Organizers set up outside the Longworth Building on Capitol Hill, allowing interactions with numerous officials and even a few Congress members. They held a large banner which read: LaRouche to Congress: No More Funds to Ukraine; No World War III with Russia. Other signs read: NATO Destroys, BRICS Builds; and Stop the War; Stop the Funding; Start the Peace Talks. A bullhorn amplified their presence, as they addressed passersby up and down the entire block. One organizer even recited the beginning of George Washingtons famous Farewell Address warning of the pitfalls of party politics.

Interspersed with the demonstration, organizers held over a dozen meetings with various Congressional offices, as well as many more drop-in and impromptu meetings. Organizers reported wide-open interest from many of the offices, with a growing sense that there needs to be an off-ramp to the disastrous war in Ukraine, and noted most were happy to hear our message.

At the same time, the LaRouche movement in Mexico held a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, distributing the same Schiller Institute statement. They held various signs and a long banner reading No to World War with Russia and China. Organizers also focused on the growing BRICS dynamic which shows the way for peace in the world. One sign in particular pointed this out for the embattled case of Argentina. It read: Lets Go Argentina, Continue with the BRICS!
U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel on Wednesday after the October 7 attack by the militant group Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people.

In addition to talks with Israeli leaders, Biden had planned to visit Jordan. But, that part of his plan was canceled after an explosion killed hundreds of people at a hospital in Gaza.

Since the attack by Hamas on civilians earlier this month, Israel has answered with air strikes and other attacks.

Hamas fighters said Israel was to blame for the blast that they said killed about 500 people. Israels defense force responded, saying the explosion came from an off-target rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Before the explosion, Biden was supposed to speak with King Abdullah II of Jordan, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss humanitarian aid for Gazans.

Israel has promised a full ground invasion of Gaza and asked that Palestinians living in the northern part of the territory evacuate to the south. About 600,000 people so far have followed the order.

About 3,000 Palestinians have died during Israels operations, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

Biden said he was given information from U.S. military experts that made him believe the hospital explosion was not from an Israeli weapon. While in Israel, he said he was sad to see what happened to the hospital, but it appears it was done by the other team, not you.

Islamic Jihad says it was not responsible for the explosion.

Biden said he understands that many people watching the conflict from afar might not believe him.

He told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Americans are grieving, and worried about how difficult it will be for Israel to respond to the attack.

The Biden administration said Wednesday that Biden spoke with King Abdullah II and chose to postpone his travel to Jordan.

As Biden was in Israel, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a humanitarian cease-fire that would permit Hamas to release Israeli hostages. In addition, the U.N. would like Israel to re-open its borders with Gaza to permit food and water to enter.

The U.S. president said he was concerned that food and other aid would not reach the Palestinian people who need it the most.

If Hamas diverts or steals the assistance, they will have demonstrated once again that they have no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people, Biden said.

He said the U.S. approved $100 million in aid if it could be delivered to the neediest people.

Netanyahu said Bidens visit was deeply moving. Biden said the U.S. would continue to support Israel but also work to prevent more tragedy to innocent civilians.

UN Concerns

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations is Riyad Mansour. He said the meeting with Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian leaders would only happen if Biden were to negotiate a cease-fire.

Israel is being criticized for cutting off electricity and restricting entry to Gaza. European Council President Charles Michel called Israels tactic not in line with international law.

Im Dan Friedell.

Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report by VOAs Patsy Widakuswara and wire services.

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Words in This Story

evacuate v. to leave or be moved from an area because of a threat or because it is unsafe

grieve v. the show great sadness because of an event especially in public

divert v. to take in a different direction that planned

We want to hear from you. What do you think the outcome will be of the conflict between Israel and Hamas?
A court in the United States is hearing evidence in a case against search engine provider Google. The government accuses the company of using illegal methods to crush business competitors.

The U.S. Department of Justice is leading the case against Google in a court in Washington, D.C.

The trial could change the way Google is permitted to do business in the future. The case is one of the biggest antitrust trials in American history. Antitrust is a term relating to laws designed to prevent illegal competition.

If the trial judge rules in favor of the government, the resulting punishment could lead to new online search possibilities for individual users and businesses.

Google's search engine earned a huge market share by helping people quickly connect to the wealth of information available on the internet. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed the search technology in the late 1990s.

The Justice Department argues that Google has an unfair advantage in the market because its search engine is the default choice on the worlds most popular smartphones and web browsers.

Witnesses from device makers, service providers and Google recently testified about one way the companys search engine is able to remain the default choice. They said the company pays an estimated $10 billion yearly to phone makers and other businesses in exchange for the default position.

In opening arguments, Justice Department lawyer Kenneth Dintzer said, "This case is about the future of the internet and whether Google will ever face meaningful competition in search."

Google has denied accusations that it uses unlawful methods to keep its huge market share. It says its search engine is wildly popular across the world because it offers users a high level of quality. Google lawyers have also argued that any users not happy with its search services can easily change to competitors.

But industry experts point out that many users choose to keep Google as the default so they do not have to take additional steps to change it. Research has shown that because of this ease, very few people change the default setting of Google.

The chief executives from two privacy-centered search engines, DuckDuckGo and Neeva, have argued that the default system favors Google and hurts their businesses. Neeva closed its operations earlier this year.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also testified that Google has established a strong hold over users over the years. You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth and you search on Google, Nadella said. He added that the only way to break this dependence is to remove Google as the default choice.

To solve this problem, industry experts say the judge may order a requirement for smartphones and web browsers to present a series of search engines to users during the setup process. This is already being done in Europe. But research shows that so far, most European users are still choosing to go with Google.

Florian Schaub is a professor of information at the University of Michigan who has studied peoples online behavior. He says the fairest result in the trial would be a total ban on default agreements between technology companies.

Schaub spoke to the Associated Press.

He said the current search environment is being shaped by the big companies that control the space. He added, What the government can do is inject some neutralism into this and give consumers some actual choices.

Earlier this month, a Justice Department lawyer accused Google in court of using unfair methods to push up internet advertising prices. The government argues that Google now controls the digital tool that nearly every major website publisher uses to sell ads on their websites.

The Justice Department accuses Google of using unfair methods to control online auctions that connect buyers and sellers of online advertising. By making small changes to the auction system, Google can drive ad prices up to make more money, government lawyers say.

Advertisers and website publishers have long criticized Google's ad business as being too complex and secretive.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Quiz - How Google's Antitrust Trial Could Change the Internet Search Market Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

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Words in This Story

default  n. what exists or happens if no changes are made

testify  v. to make a declaration under oath for the purpose of establishing a fact (as in a court)

consumer  n. someone who buys goods or services

auction  n. a sale in which things are sold to the person offering the most money
Wine made by ancient methods is gaining new fans.

Wine is an alcoholic drink made from fruit like grapes.

Natural wine uses methods that reduce processing and harmful effects on the Earth. Research company IWSR Drinks Market Analysis found that people in the U.S. are seeking natural wine in increasing numbers. At the same time, the number of wine buyers has been dropping since 2015.

Natural and other Earth-friendly wines made up less than one percent of sales in 2021. But demand for those wines was rising faster than other kinds on the whole, reported Drizly, an online site for ordering and shipping wine and other alcohol.

Most natural wines are made with organic grapes collected by hand. Organic growers do not use poisonous chemicals to stop or control insects or unwanted plant growth.

To make wine, the grapes need to be crushed. Some wine producers crush grapes by foot like people of ancient times. Afterwards, the crushed grapes ferment naturally. Manufacturers do not add water, yeast or other substances.

There are exceptions. Some natural winemakers add sulfites, a chemical produced naturally in grapes. Extra sulfites can help preserve, or keep, the wine. And some winemakers clear the final liquid of any small pieces that could make it look cloudy.

The result is wines that are earthy and less predictable than many of the wines created by bigger producers.

The first time you taste it, you can tell its alive, said John Keller. He is the owner and winemaker at Neu Cellars in Northern Michigan.

But selling natural wine processes can be difficult. Natural wine has no set definition in the U.S. It is not easy to find, since most natural wines do not identify as such on their labels.

Natural just sounds good, but conventional wine is pretty natural too, said Anita Oberholster. She is a professor in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis. If the idea of natural wine is going to grow, we should do research on it and define it.

Keller of Neu Cellars has a degree in biochemistry. He started out working for a big winemaker in California. But he left because he was not happy about all the chemical mixes it used. These include gelatin, oak dust, and eggs.

However, some say the line between natural and conventional wines is very narrow.

Many products added to wine, like yeast, are natural products, Oberholster said. And many conventional wines are made without adding anything.

Some in the industry would like to establish rules for producing natural wine. Frances wine industry took such action in 2020, enacting requirements that winemakers must meet to identify their wines as natural.

Some manufacturers argue that rules can make wine making more costly. Keller uses organic grapes but he says he cannot support the cost of repeated inspections for approval as an organic wine.

Anthony Zhang is the co-founder and CEO of Vinovest, a wine investment company. He sees another problem.

Vinovest says some wine companies are profiting from the lack of rules. They use labeling content like imagery that suggests their wine making is natural when they are not, he argues.

That can mislead buyers who often will pay higher prices for wines made by smaller producers that use natural methods.

However, buyers may have more information on wine bottles soon. Starting in December, wines sold in the European Union will have to identify on their labeling all the substances each product contains.

Oberholster expects the U.S. to pass similar measures as well in the next few years.

Im Gregory Stachel.

Dee-Ann Durbin and Haven Daley reported this story for The Associated Press. Gregory Stachel adapted the story for VOA Learning English.

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Words in This Story

ferment  v. to go through a chemical change that results in the production of alcohol

conventional  adj. common and ordinary

label  adj. a piece of paper or cloth that is attached to something to identify or describe that thing
Jennifer Byrne owns a heating and air conditioning repair company in the American city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Air conditioning, or AC equipment, cools the air in a home. To do this, the equipment uses a gas called a refrigerant.

While working on AC equipment in a house, Byrne puts gas from the equipment into a special container.

The gas is known by an industrial name: R-410A. Scientists say it traps 2,088 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

Because chemical refrigerants capture heat, some people say they need to be replaced with something else. Some scientists are worried that the release of methane, carbon dioxide, and other gases is making the atmosphere warmer.

The Clean Air Act bars businesses from releasing refrigerants into the air on purpose. Some companies are trying to find replacement gases that trap less heat, which might work almost as well.

Leaking AC equipment in homes is one way the gases get into the atmosphere. Cars are another source of these pollutants, said Eckhard Groll. He is an expert in refrigeration and head of mechanical engineering at Purdue University in the state of Indiana.

He said AC units in cars can leak. He said that, on average, about 25 percent of refrigerant from all cars leak out every year. There are more than 200 million gasoline cars in the U.S. alone, Groll said. Using those numbers, Groll said he estimates about 45 million kilograms of refrigerant is leaking into the atmosphere each year.

Supermarkets are the second-largest source of leaks. Long pipes carry refrigerant to coolers that store food. Danielle Wright is head of the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council, a nonprofit group based in Mill Valley, California. It supports cleaner methods of cooling.

Wright said the average supermarket leaks about 25 percent of its refrigerant each year. That number is based on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report from 2005.

She criticized supermarkets, saying its cheaper to leak the refrigerant than to build a leak-proof system.

Limiting leaks is important because the refrigerant can be reused. Many businesses recycle refrigerant gas. One such company, A-Gas, was founded in Britain in 1993. The company has several centers in the U.S.

Refrigerants can be used many times over and can last for 30 years, said Mike Armstrong, President of A-Gas in the Americas. The company takes in refrigerants and containers from around the U.S. and other countries. It processes the gas to be sold and used again. He said his business is doing well.

This industry is probably going to increase four to five times in the next couple years, Armstrong said.

The chemical industry is also looking for a chemical to replace R-410A. Some researchers have suggested carbon dioxide itself as a possibility. But Groll of Purdue University said that carbon dioxide has to be under high pressure to work as a refrigerant. Completely different equipment would be necessary.

Christopher Cappa teaches environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis. He said carbon dioxide would be useful if were pulling it out of the atmosphere. But he added, if were producing it just as a refrigerant, that wouldnt be necessarily nearly as good.

Refrigeration easier to clean than air conditioning

Wright of the Sustainable Refrigeration Council supports the use of carbon dioxide. This is kind of a low-hanging fruit, its a known technology and its market ready, she said.

However, she said that reducing leaks from air conditioners is more difficult. She said chemical and equipment manufacturers and existing building rules have slowed the growth of new refrigerants in the U.S.

But one manufacturer, Trane Technologies, said it has been working hard on different choices. Trane says it has a refrigerant that is 78 percent less damaging to the environment than the current one. The company says it will start using it in its equipment beginning in 2024.

And at Harvard University, researchers are working to develop a solid refrigerant instead of a gas. Jarad Mason, an assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, is working on the project.

He said he is hopeful about using solid materials because they could be used in both large buildings and normal homes.

Demands for heating and cooling are only going to increase, he said. He added that researchers must find ways of cooling that do not harm the environment and are not costly.

Im Andrew Smith. And I'm Jill Robbins.

Isabella OMalley wrote this story for the Associated Press. Andrew Smith adapted it for VOA Learning English.

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Words in This Story

source n. where something comes from

cheaper comp. adj. less costly than something else

recycle v. to take something that has been used before, reprocess it, then use it again as if it were new
A Hong Kong man who was shot by police during pro-democracy protests in 2019 was sentenced yesterday to 47 months in prison on charges of rioting, assaulting a police officer and perverting the course of justice.

Tsang Chi-kin was the first known victim of police gunfire during the months-long protests beginning in June 2019.

Tsang was charged with rioting and assaulting police. But after he was released on bail, he failed to appear in court. In October 2020, he tried to seek asylum at the U.S. Consulate but was turned away.

He hid in various locations in the city with assistance from members of a YouTube channel that was critical of the Hong Kong government, and then attempted unsuccessfully to flee by boat to Taiwan. He was recaught by police in July 2022.

Deputy District Judge Ada Yim said the sentencing had to reflect the courts determination to safeguard public order. She said Tsang was well-prepared for his acts as shown by the gear he was carrying, including the metal rod, and that he ignored a police warning.

Tsang, 22, appeared calm as the sentence was delivered. Yim said he had written in a mitigation letter that he regretted his acts.
On 18 October 2023, the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation opens in Beijing with representatives from more than 140 countries and over 30 international organizations participating in this grand event. In the opening ceremony, Chinese President Xi Jinping reviewed the 10-year great journey of Belt and Road cooperation, summarized its remarkable achievements and experiences, and solemnly outlined eight major measures to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, kicking off a new chapter of Belt and Road cooperation in the coming golden decade.

Belt and Road cooperation is a magnificent symphony of history and reality. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), rooted in history, answers questions raised by reality. In the history, our ancestors created a land Silk Road connecting Asia, Europe and Africa, and opened a maritime Silk Road linking the East and the West, beginning a new phase of friendly exchanges among peoples, and shaping the Silk Road spirit characterized by peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit. In 2013, President Xi Jinping unveiled the BRI, and reinvigorated the ancient silk routes in the new era. At present, the world is undergoing major changes unseen in a century. Economic globalization is facing counter-currents, and the world economy is facing the risk of recession. About 90% of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are derailed, and nearly one-third of the goals have stagnated or even regressed. The worlds attention is focused on Beijing, expecting China to lead the way. At this critical moment, President Xi Jinping, in his keynote speech, declared that China will take eight major measures, including building a multidimensional belt and road connectivity network, supporting an open world economy, carrying out practical cooperation to support high-quality Belt and Road construction, promoting green development, advancing scientific and technological innovation, supporting people-to-people exchanges, promoting integrity-based Belt and Road cooperation and strengthening institutional building for international Belt and Road cooperation, thus injecting strong impetus into high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and world modernization.

Belt and Road cooperation is perfect synergy of concepts and practice. It excels in both ideas and real results. The BRI is in alignment with the concept of a global community of shared future, and has been welcomed by the international community both as a public good and a cooperation platform, and achieved solid results. More than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations have signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with China, establishing over 3,000 cooperation projects, driving nearly a trillion U.S. dollars in investment and recording fruitful achievements in physical, institutional and people-to-people connectivity: a large number of signature projects and small yet smart people-centered programs have been launched; cooperation on the Health Silk Road, Green Silk Road, Digital Silk Road and Innovation Silk Road has made steady progress; over 20 specialized multilateral cooperation platforms have been established; people-to-people exchanges and connectivity have been deepened. Important guiding principles for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation have been laid down, which include the principle of planning together, building together, and benefiting together, the philosophy of open, green and clean cooperation, and the goal of pursuing high-standard, people-centered and sustainable cooperation. All these flourishing achievements have composed a soul-inspiring symphony in the new era.

Belt and Road cooperation benefits both China and the world. The BRI, proposed by China, belongs to the whole world. Under the guidance of the BRI, China is opening its door even wider to the world, with its inland regions turning from fullbacks into forwards, and coastal regions scaling new heights in their opening-up. Chinas market has become even more closely integrated with the global arket. The BRI has injected new impetus into the global economy, created new opportunities for global development, and improved development capacity and peoples well-being of the stakeholders. Researches show that thanks to the BRI, trade costs for the world would decline by 1.8 percent, trade is estimated to grow by between 2.8 and 9.7 percent among participating countries and between 1.7 and 6.2 percent for the world, and global real income is expected to increase by 0.7 to 2.9 percent. By 2030, BRI transport projects could help lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and 32 million people out of moderate poverty. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lauded that the BRI has brought hope and progress for billions of people in the world.

Ten years is just the prologue. Facing changes that are consequential to the world, to our times, and to history, the BRI, setting sail again from a new historical point, will definitely open a new window of opportunity for China and the world with higher-quality and higher-level development, and make peoples wish for a happy life come true at a faster pace.

*Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China in the Macau Special Administrative Region
President Joe Biden vowed to show the world that the U.S. stands in solidarity with Israelis during his visit there yesterday, and offered an assessment that the deadly explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital apparently was not carried out by the Israeli military.

Based on what Ive seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting. But he said there were a lot of people out there who werent sure what caused the blast, which sparked protests throughout the Middle East.

Biden didnt offer details on why he believed the Israelis were not responsible for the blast, and the White House did not immediately explain his assessment.

The entire world was rightfully outraged but this outrage should be directed not at Israel but at the terrorists, Netanyahu said during a subsequent meeting with Biden and Israels war cabinet.

Biden had been scheduled to visit Jordan to meet with Arab leaders after the stop in Israel, but the summit was called off after the hospital explosion. And his remarks spoke both of the horrors the Israelis had endured, but also the growing humanitarian crisis for Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

He told Netanyahu he was deeply saddened and outraged by the hospital explosion. He stressed that Hamas does not represent all the Palestinian people. and it has brought them only suffering.

Biden spoke of the need to find ways of encouraging life-saving capacity to help the Palestinians who are innocent, caught in the middle of this.

But he also said Hamas had slaughtered Israelis in the Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,400 people. Biden described at length the horror of the killing of innocent Israelis, including children.

Americans are grieving, they really are, Biden said. Americans are worried.

I want you to know youre not alone. We will continue to have Israels back as you work to defend your people, Biden said during the larger meeting with Netanyahu and Israeli officials. Well continue to work with you and partners across the region to prevent more tragedy to innocent civilians.

Netanyahu thanked Biden for coming to Israel, telling him the visit was deeply, deeply moving.

I know I speak for all the people of Israel when I say thank you Mr. President, thank you for standing with Israel today, tomorrow and always.

Netanyahu said Biden had rightly drawn a clear line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism, saying Israel was united in its resolve to defeat Hamas.

The civilized world must unite to defeat Hamas, he said.

Biden also planned to meet Israeli first responders and the families of victims and those being held hostage by Hamas. Netanyahu met Biden at Ben Gurion International Airport and the two embraced. It was almost exactly a month ago that they sat together at the United Nations General Assembly, where Netanyahu marveled that a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia seemed within reach.

The possibility of improved relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors appears to be dimming; Israel has been preparing for a potential ground invasion of Gaza in response to Hamas attacks.

Roughly 2,800 Palestinians have been reported killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. Another 1,200 people are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

Those numbers predate the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday. No clear cause has been established for the blast.

Protests swept through the region after the blast at the hospital, which had been treating wounded Palestinians and sheltering many more who were seeking a refuge from the fighting.

Hundreds of Palestinians flooded the streets of major West Bank cities including Ramallah. More people joined protests that erupted in Beirut, Lebanon and Amman, Jordan, where an angry crowd gathered outside the Israeli Embassy.

Outrage scuttled Bidens plans to visit Jordan, where King Abdullah II was to host meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. But Abbas withdrew in protest, and the summit was subsequently canceled outright.

Ayman Safadi, Jordans foreign minister, told a state-run television network that the war is pushing the region to the brink.

Jordan declared three days of mourning after the hospital explosion and Safadi said the summit was canceled after speaking with all leaders. He said they had wanted the meeting to produce an end to the war, which seems unlikely now, and to give Palestinians the respect they deserve. Kirby said Biden understood the move was part of a mutual decision to call off the Jordan portion of his trip. He said Biden would speak to the Arab leaders by phone as he returned to Washington.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, said Tuesday that Biden was capable of telling Israel, Enough is enough.

You have to stop this carnage against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Let this stop. Let humanitarian assistance take place, he said. Do not displace two million Palestinians and push them in the direction of Jordan and then lets begin a political horizon. AAMER MADHANI & COLLEEN LONG, TEL AVIV, MDT/AP
China vigorously protested yesterday the U.S. Commerce Departments latest update of export controls to prevent exports to China of advanced computer chips and the equipment to make them.

The revisions to the U.S. rules were announced yesterday, roughly a year after the export controls were first launched to counter the use of the chips for military applications that include the development of hypersonic missiles and artificial intelligence.

Chinas Commerce Ministry said the controls were improper and urged that Washington lift them as soon as possible.

It said that since the semiconductor industry is highly globalized, the restrictions on chips used for artificial intelligence and other advanced applications were hindering normal trade and economic activities. They violate international trade rules and seriously threaten the stability of industrial supply chains, it said according to a transcript of a briefing on the ministrys website.

U.S. semiconductor companies have suffered huge losses and semiconductor companies in other countries have also been affected, it said.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said Beijing would take all necessary measures to safeguard its rights and interests, without giving any details.

In a call with reporters, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the restrictions are meant to protect technologies with clear national security or human rights implications.

The vast majority of semiconductors will remain unrestricted. But when we identify national security or human rights threats, we will act decisively and in concert with our allies, she said.

The updates stemmed from consulting with industry and conducting technological analyses. There will now be a gray zone that will be monitored for chips that could still be used for military aims even if they might not meet the thresholds for trade limitations.

Chip exports to companies headquartered in Macao or anywhere under a U.S. arms embargo can also be restricted to prevent countries of concern from circumventing the controls and providing chips to China.

The updates also introduce new requirements that make it harder for China to manufacture advanced chips in other countries. The list of manufacturing equipment that falls under the export controls also was expanded, among other changes.

Chinas leaders view the design and manufacturing of high-level semiconductors as essential for its economic and geopolitical goals. Raimondo has said the limits on these chips are not designed to impair Chinas economic growth.

In an August meeting, Raimondo and her Chinese counterparts agreed to exchange information about the export controls. But a senior administration official, insisting on anonymity to discuss the policy, said the U.S. government did not discuss with China the parameters of the revised export controls.

Chinese officials are scheduled to attend a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco in November.

President Joe Biden has suggested he could meet on the sidelines of the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, though a meeting has yet to be confirmed. The two leaders met last year following the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, shortly after the export controls were announced. MDT/AP
A man who has allegedly appropriated foreign currency equivalent to MOP7 million during his work for an illegal currency exchange group was arrested, the Judiciary Police reported.

The police disclosed that three months ago, a man started operating an illegal currency exchange in Macau, according to a report by local media Macao Daily News. He allegedly hired two mainland residents to receive funds in Macau. The funds were said to have been delivered to Macau from mainland China by parallel traders in multiple deliveries, with small amounts each time.

During the early hours on Monday, the purported business operator attempted to smuggle USD600,000 and EUR250,000 into Macau via the Border Gate checkpoint. The parallel traders were told to deliver the money to a shop rented by the operator. Two so-called employees were there to receive the funds, and one of them was subsequently arrested.

The arrested individual is surnamed Huang and is approximately 40 years old. Huang had overstayed in Macau for nearly a month and did not possess a valid working pass in Macau.

Around 8 a.m. the same day, the other purported employee contacted the purported boss and asked if Huang had been given permission to take all the funds. Failing to reach Huang, the purported business operator contacted the police.

At 3:45 p.m. on the same day, the PJ arrested Huang in a foot spa in the NAPE/ZAPE District. They found USD10,000 and RMB18,600 on Huang, who denied the allegations.

After preliminary investigations, the police charged Huang with a crime related to the abuse of trust. Huang was delivered to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) for further investigation on Tuesday.

The investigations continued as the police continued tracing the funds to the purported employees, in an attempt to recover the remainder of the funds and determine if there were any other individuals involved in the case.

It was revealed that the purported business operator hired the two men for HKD10,000 per month. The purported operator faces allegations of improper employment and retaining illegal entrants. The police are also investigating the business operations of the leased shop.

In another case, the PJ arrested a man at large who had been sentenced to jail by a court of law for a sexual offence against a person incapable of resistance. He has been incarcerated in the prison in Coloane.

The Court of First Instance issued an arrest warrant to the PJ last week, demanding the arrest of a convicted man who was at large after committing a sexual offence. The man was sentenced to 4.5 years in jail by the court.

Police inspectors located the man hiding in a shop in the Toi-San District, only briefly venturing out late at night for grocery shopping.

After following him for days, the police intercepted the man on Oct. 15 and took him to the police headquarters for investigation. Upon confirming the mans identity, the police delivered him to the prison.
The leaders of Russia and China met yesterday in Beijing and called for close foreign policy coordination.

At their morning meeting, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin discussed trade and the 10th anniversary of Xis trademark Belt and Road Initiative that has built highways, ports and power plants across Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere.

The policy has left many states deep in debt to Chinese banks, and the attempt to pump new life into it comes at a time when Chinas own economy has slowed considerably due to huge overinvestment in real estate.

In the current difficult conditions, close foreign policy coordination is especially required, Putin said in his opening remarks.

So, in terms of bilateral relations, we are moving forward very confidently, he said, noting that bilateral trade was on track to surpass a record $200 billion this year.

China is a key customer for Russian oil and gas, providing Moscow with an economic lifeline in the face of punishing Western sanctions imposed over its campaign against Ukraine.

Just weeks before Russias invasion of Ukraine last February, Putin met with Xi in Beijing and the sides signed an agreement pledging a no-limits relationship. Beijings attempts to present itself as a neutral peace broker in Russias war on Ukraine have been widely dismissed by the international community. MDT/AP
The University of St Joseph (USJ) will host two public lectures next week on intangible cultural heritage and the study of the Chinese language, the university announced yesterday in a statement.

Held in English from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., Oct. 24 at the Don Bosco Auditorium of the university, the first lecture is titled Documenting Intangible Cultural Heritage via VR Tour: Hungry Ghosts (Yulan) Festival Celebrations in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Professor Selina Ching Chan will discuss the documentation of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and explore how it can be achieved through events such as festivals and by reflecting on the authorized heritage discourse.

Chan serves as Academic Vice-President and Professor of Sociology at Hong Kong Shue Yan University.

She notes that existing documentation of ICH, through dances, martial arts performances and craftsmanship, has focused on tangible aspects, such as physical features, conveyed through a variety of techniques, positions, rotations, forces, and joint angles.

She argues that despite the widespread use of digital technology in ICH preservation, which may be used to capture intangible aspects by emphasizing the accuracy of postures and skills, it has disregarded the fluidic nature of ICH and overshadowed the multiple and complex meanings inherent in it. She contends that the documentation of ICH should highlight its dynamic features, and individual agency in creating new practices, as well as its communal aspect.

In another lecture also held in English from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. the following day at the same venue, Dr. Ana Cristina Alves will delve into the relationship between contemporary Sinograms and Chinese tradition.

Through the analysis of some of the most commonly used characters in contemporary Chinese thought, she will discuss the ideological mainstream based on the philosophical tradition of the country.

Alves received a PhD in Philosophy of History, Culture and Religion from the University of Lisbon in 2005. She coordinates the Educational and Chinese-Portuguese translation activities at Macau Scientific and Cultural Center in Lisbon. AL
Chinese President Xi Jinping promised foreign companies greater access to Chinas huge market and more than $100 billion in new financing for other developing economies as he opened the third forum yesterday on his signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

Xis initiative has built power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world and deepened Chinas ties with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Mideast.

At the forums opening ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, Xi promised that two Chinese-backed development banks  the China Development Bank and the ExportImport Bank of China  will each set up 350 billion yuan ($47.9 billion) financing windows.

An additional 80 billion yuan ($11 billion) will be invested in Beijings Silk Road Fund to support BRI projects.

We will comprehensively remove restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, Xi said. He said China would further open up cross-border trade and investment in services and expand market access for digital products and carry out reforms of state-owned enterprises and in sectors such as the digital economy, intellectual property rights and government procurement.

The pledges of hefty support from Beijing come at a time when Chinas economy has slowed and foreign investment has plunged.

Xi alluded to efforts by the United States and its allies to reduce their reliance on Chinese manufacturing and supply chains amid heightened competition and diplomatic frictions and reiterated promises that Beijing would create a fairer environment for foreign firms.

We do not engage in ideological confrontation, geopolitical games nor clique political confrontation, Xi said. We oppose unilateral sanctions, economic coercion and the decoupling and severance of chains, a reference to moves elsewhere to diversify industrial supply chains.

Reiterating Chinese complaints that such moves are meant to limit Chinas growth, Xi said that viewing others development as a threat or taking economic interdependence as a risk will not make ones own life better or speed up ones development.

China can only do well when the world is doing well, he said. When China does well, the world will get even better.

Representatives from more than 130 mostly developing countries are attending the forum, including at least 20 heads of state and government. Russian President Vladimir Putin is attending, reflecting Chinas economic and diplomatic support for Moscow amid the isolation brought by its war in Ukraine.

Also in attendance are the presidents of Indonesia, Argentina, Kazakstan, Sri Lanka, Kenya among other countries, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Most Western European countries and U.S. allies sent lower level or former officials to the forum.

Guterres highlighted the BRIs potential to bring development to neglected areas while stressing the need for projects to be environmentally sustainable. He said the initiative could help drive the transition away from reliance on fossil fuels.

Developing countries will need massive support for a fair, equitable and just energy transition toward renewables while providing affordable electricity to all, Guterres said.

He also called for an immediate, humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine war.

With the BRI, China has become a major financer of development projects on a par with the World Bank. The Chinese government says the initiative has launched more than 3,000 projects and galvanized nearly $1 trillion in investment.

People-centered projects

According to Xi, the initiative now aims to become smaller and greener after a decade of big projects that boosted trade but left big debts and raised environmental concerns.

During his keynote address, President Xi emphasized that Belt and Road cooperation has evolved from mere outlines to tangible projects, including numerous signature initiatives and innovative people-centered programs.

He laid out essential guiding principles for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, emphasizing the ideals of collaborative planning, construction, and mutual benefit, as well as the values of openness, environmental responsibility, and sustainability.

The Belt and Road Initiative, which spans across land, sea, sky, and the digital realm, has revitalized the ancient Silk Road in the modern era.

Notably, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the Belt and Road became a crucial lifeline. President Xi underscored that the Belt and Road Initiative represents a collective effort for global development.

It transcends differences in civilizations, cultures, social systems, and development stages, forging new paths for international exchange and cooperation, Xi concluded. MDT/Agencies